The Badger Herald: Opinion: Strange news an ill omen

Opinion

Strange news an ill omen

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Also by Kate Flick:

Protect environment locally (December 3, 2004)
Considering e-waste disposal (November 19, 2004)
Alternative participation (November 15, 2004)
Environment on the back burner (November 5, 2004)
Strange news an ill omen (October 29, 2004)

Friday, October 29, 2004 12:00 a.m.

3 Vote 0 Votes

Perusing the local Channel3000 online news source, I found an article titled “Cheney — Americans Should Feel Safer with Bush in Office” that was reporting on the vice president’s recent visit to Milwaukee. The title speaks for itself, but here’s a brief recap: we should reelect Bush because we should feel safer with him in office.

Unfortunately, some people didn’t see things quite this way. So, they came armed with their freedom of speech and a few signs that said, “Got milk? Wisconsin won’t.” This accounting, though, seems far from interesting — run of the mill, in fact. And rightly so.

As Wisconsin has been encompassed within the swing-state project — with each party vying to scrap all the prospective voters to its respective side — Wisconsinites have become entrenched within the battlefield of political jockeying, propaganda, and media coverage. All of this is old hat, however.

What makes this pretty usual news story highly unusual is the sentence at the end of the article: “No arrests were made.” Considering U.S. media’s normal proclivity to swarm toward reporting on violence and other such negative “sexy” stuff that piques people’s curiosity, it is indeed far from the ordinary that this article decided to include a postscript-like appendage that marked the usually un-noteworthy event of there being zero arrests at a political rally.

Are the norms of media coverage transforming from tendencies of reporting “bad” stuff to a more benign and positive outlook? Hardly. That same day Channel3000 also extolled an American offensive in Iraq.

Instead, it is the very nature of the political events in this democracy that are changing. It seems that at Bush/Cheney rallies it is no longer newsworthy when people are arrested, but when they are not.

This fundamental transformation epitomizes the gradual assault on civil liberties that Americans have experienced during this administration’s tenure. This change is blanketed within a context of fear, justified by terror, and often disguised by euphemisms like the Patriot Act. But it is present, insidiously creeping into Americans’ everyday lives.

On the most basic level, that citizens cannot go to the president’s rallies freely expressing their opinions without being ostracized or arrested or that they are sometimes made to pledge their allegiance to his party in order to get in, marks a change in attitude that undermines the open political process, our fundamental freedom of speech, crucial alleyways of information and the basic modes of democratic participation.

This ebbing of liberties that removes power from individual citizens as participants is not limited to one or two incidences, but a host of policies that the Bush administration has imposed on U.S. citizens — enough, in fact, for U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman to compile an 81-page investigatory report that affirms the sweeping secrecy in the Bush administration.

It highlights a series of laws implemented by the Bush’s administration which have shielded more and more information from public view, restricted Congress’s right to access information, and expanded the executive branch’s authority to operate in secret.

In times of war, some confidentiality is required. However, we have seen major shifts that encroach too greatly upon our liberties. Indeed, our freedoms and rights on which this country was founded have been gradually entombed so that we are losing the foundations of our freedom to speak, our freedom to know and our freedom to participate in the government process.

Instead, we are expected to blindly acquiesce and feel a sense of safety supposedly emanating from this secretive and restricting administration.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety are not deserving of either liberty or safety.” The American people deserve full liberty, so don’t be seduced into a complacency that allows the executive power to inhibit the freedoms of the people.

As Nov. 2 rolls around, four options seem to emerge. And here’s my admittedly biased take on the issue. One, keep the status quo and allow the pattern of diminishing liberties — proclaimed “an unprecedented assault on the laws which make our government open and accountable” by Rep. Waxman — to continue.

Two, vote for a third-party or other independent candidate. While this may be an advantageous idea in the local election in Madison, the inflexibility inherent in the winner-take-all structure of our government’s election process fundamentally means that at a national election level, a vote for a third party is trading an achievable “better” for an infeasible ideal.

Three, vote for no one. But since we live in a country that gives us the opportunity to vote, take advantage of this right — especially since this race is so neck and neck in the stretch that it’s too close to call.

Four, vote for Kerry. Even if he’s not perfect, he, at the very least, offers a changing of the guard that will better ensure America’s civil liberties and freedoms. Don’t let the very fabric of our society, our freedom, fall passively into a postscript of life.

Kate Flick (kflick@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in sociology.

3 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | October 29, 2004 9:21 AM | Reply

I've written in to the Badger Herald before and made detailed arguments to a lot of the nonsense written here. Hark! At no point in her article does she point to any specific provisions of the Patriot Act. Library records? Someone call George Orwell. Extended wiretapping? Quite misrepresenting. But as far as extended arguments, I've had this one before, today I refrain. November 2nd, you will all lose. That's what matters. The American people have never been cowaered into either giving up their liberties or giving into the enemy. The record proves Bush has not allowed either happen.

In closing, I had an acquaintance tell me, "I wouldn't vote for Bush if my life depended on it." I replied, "I already know."

Anonymous | October 29, 2004 10:39 AM | Reply

What was the point to your response?

Lame quip at the end also.

Anonymous | October 31, 2004 10:08 PM | Reply

Cheney is your classic example of projecting your own inadequacies on to others. "John Kerry will say or do anything to get elected." Look in the mirror, Dick. There has been no nastier person in the V-P chair in the media age. His nasty behavior does not equate to safety for our nation -- it's hot air out of his overblown ass, that denigrates this entire process. The U.S. will be safer when that douchebag is back in the private sector ripping off the defense dept of our hard-earned tax dollars. Ironic, isn't it?