President George W. Bush has encouraged Americans to get back to normal — living, working, traveling and spending — in the wake of Sept. 11. If Americans are to heed the president’s request, it also means that people ought to exercise our most cherished rights, especially freedom of speech.
Alas, that is not what I am hearing from a small number of Salt Lake Tribune readers. These folks do not want to read or see news stories or pictures they perceive as causing more fear, or those they disagree with, or those they believe to be “un-American.”
According to these individuals, The Tribune should not publish anything that might cause alarm — especially the concern about a viral or bacterial threat. One reader said Monday’s article headlined “Gas Masks a Hot Item Among Utah Shoppers” was proof of the continuing fear and anxiety from Sept. 11, therefore bioterrorism should not be discussed in the newspaper.
They also do not want to read Public Forum letters from anyone opposing the nation’s approaching military actions. My colleague at the San Diego Union-Tribune said she has received calls from people who do want her newspaper to cover the war protests.
Tribune readers have taken issue with news stories, commentaries, letters and editorial cartoons that they perceive to be less than glowing about the president. For them, any and all criticism of Bush is “unpatriotic.”
“Our very survival as a nation depends upon our unity and solidarity behind President Bush,” and “We need to show the world that we support our president,” are the consistent refrain in letters and phone calls.
One man phoned recently to say he had purchased several U.S. flags to give away. He said he attempted to give one to a well-known organization in Utah but the person he spoke with declined the flag. He wanted The Tribune to expose the organization as “un-American.”
Such sentiments ought to give us pause. In a Sept. 19 column for the Freedom Forum, First Amendment Advocate Paul MacMasters said: “We must remember that we have gone down this road too many times before. We have suspended freedom of speech, press and assembly during wartime and other crises, to the point of sending prominent Americans to jail for long terms for uttering unpatriotic words. And always we have looked back in wonderment that we could have been so stupid, that we could have so easily cast aside our democratic heritage.”
What should we make of the fact that a California congresswoman who voted against giving a $40 billion blank check to the Bush administration to exercise “all necessary and appropriate force” against the terrorists received so many death threats that she now has security protection? What about White House spokesman Ari Fleischer’s admonishment that Americans “need to watch what they say, watch what they do?” Fleischer was responding to comments made by Bill Maher, host of ABC’s “Politically Incorrect.” Maher said the United States was “cowardly” for launching cruise missiles from a safe distance, not the hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
I can understand individuals and groups criticizing Maher for expressing such sentiments — FedEx and Sears dropped their ads from the program. It is their right to do so. However, for the presidential press secretary to say, in essence, “shut up” — while talking about efforts to defend the “freedom” this nation stands for — ought to be a concern for all of us.
I am reminded of an often-quoted phrase attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
A Lesson in Language: Alert reader Abe Bakhsheshy caught what The Tribune should have caught in last Sunday’s full-page graphic, “Afghanistan at the Heart of Conflict,” which said languages spoken in Iran include: Persian, Turkish and Arabic. “Persian is a terminology which refers to the people of Iran and not the language spoken,” he said. “The proper word is Farsi.”
Groaner of the Week: The caption for Wednesday’s front-page photo of Afghan refugees in Pakistan said one of the women was “knitting” when the picture clearly showed that at least two were handspinning yarn. Knitting and handspinning are not synonymous. As you can imagine, this faux pas did not go over well with members of the Wasatch Woolpack Handspinners Guild.
