Maintaining Innocence- and Truth

Sunday night 60 Minutes ran a story about people being released from prison after many years because they have finally been proven innocent. It was a story from Texas and an iconic prosecutor in Dallas named Henry Wade. It has been found that evidence was withheld from the defense, for example, which would have probably proven the defendant's innocence.

One of the people they mentioned and interviewed was released after 27 years in prison- from age 28 - 55. All those lost years and lost opportunities. It boggles the imagination. Throughout that entire time he maintained that he was absolutely not guilty.

What amazed me was that he was up for parole a number of times in that 27 years and he was always refused. Why? Because, they said, he obviously had not come to terms with what he had done. He always maintained his innocence, even when finally saying he was guilty would have gotten him parole.

He was asked why he maintained innocence when he could have been free. He answered, "I didn't do it. A man has to stand up for something."

Yes, and truth is worth standing up for.

MmmHmmmZmmmm

Here from Yahoo! News is an item that bears repeating:

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - U.S. free-speech advocates on Tuesday gave their annual "muzzle" awards to violators including police who charged a woman for swearing at her overflowing toilet, and a motor vehicles department that deemed a "GETOSAMA" license plate offensive.

Perhaps in the long run the most visible of our civil rights that get challenged most is Free Speech. Free Speech is often stpoped in order that someone else isn't offended. Or it may be that someone has a major disagreement with someone else's opinion. And then again it may be n attempt to control or impose morality.

The two cases cited are two good examples. Someone may be offended. Someone may be hurt psychologically. Someone is acting outside "the norm." Let's stop them. Of course one of the problems with such types of actions is that things get all mixed up in political correctness. Hate speech, for example, is hate speech whether it is aimed at some oppressed minority or the oppressing majority. Where do you draw the line? And is "hate speech" truly beyond the pale of being allowed through freedom of speech?

That's is where it becomes a really tough question. Is it still free to advocate the overthrow of free speech? Or are we afraid that if too many people start advocating an end to free speech for hateful reasons, will we then begin to lose all such freedom if too many people go for it?

Is free speech really that unpopular? In reality that greatest threat to free speech is the will of the majority, especially when that majority is afraid or being incited to fear against some immoral or hateful other. In fact, as time has shown more times than we care to admit, that is when most of our civil rights are most in danger.

But there was another award also given. This was for being, well, consistetly inconsistent:

And it gave a "Lifetime Muzzle" to the Federal Communications Commission for years of applying what it said were inconsistent or arbitrary standards of indecency on the airwaves.

The center noted that the FCC had ruled in 2001 that "fleeting expletives" would not be deemed indecent but then three years later judged that both the 'f-word' and the 's-word' met its definitions of indecency.

The FCC. The master at muzzling. I just hope that the FCC isn't put in charge of any Homeland Security anytime soon. Then we might truly be in trouble.

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::UPDATE:: After finishing the above I came across another story from a different sector on Yahoo!News. The American Family Association is back in the news. This time they are asking the Marriott Hotel chain to "to stop giving hotel guests the option of ordering pay-per-view movies with strong sexual content." No comment about a boycott of Marriott mentioned.

Yes, this is more in keeping with American ways of doing things- protest and boycott. And they are not asking the government to step in with some legislation. Which in the end may not therefore be "muzzling" free speech as much as perhaps making people aware of options that they can make choices from. I'm not sure I agree with it, but at least it isn't the government stepping in.

Yet.

1776- Passion Revisited
We went to the Guthrie Theater on Thursday evening for the last of the past season's shows. It was the Tony Award winning musical, 1776. I had never seen the musical and had only a vague remembrance of the movie. The movie didn't particularly impress me, but that was a LONG time ago (35 years!) Or maybe my memory has faded - or- most likely this is one of those musicals that needs to be seen as a stage musical.

My wife and I were blown away. Wow! It may even be more relevant today than it was then. Here were a few things that struck us:

• We saw this the evening after all the hoopla with the Senate etc. Here's one of John Adams' opening lines:

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!

Hmmm!

• Two moments of spontaneous applause from the audience at the following comments:

John Adams: This is a revolution, dammit! We're going to have to offend SOMEbody!
Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Those who would give up some of their liberty in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

• Having read several of the books on Adams and the other Revolutionary Founding Fathers we were both amazed at how close to reality (for a musical) this was. It rightly portrayed the tough times they had.

• Nor did they cover-up the "slavery compromise" that took Jefferson's strong stand against it out of the Declaration in order to get the whole thing passed. But neither did they let the "north" off easy with the powerfully frightening song on Molasses to Rum:

  Molasses to rum to slaves, oh what a beautiful waltz
  You dance with us, we dance with you
  Molasses and rum and slaves

But perhaps what struck me the most was John Adams. Here was a true pioneer visionary who never shut up about it. He was obnoxious, challenging, loud, self-righteous- and right. He was committed to it and was more of its architect than just about anybody else. Yet he would probably have been forgotten behind Jefferson, Franklin, Hancock, and Washington had he not been elected the 2nd President.

To watch it happen, even if it was a musical, was a great event. Thanks again to the Guthrie for a truly remarkable production.

If It Isn't Sufficient Anymore?
Here was a paragraph in the NYT last week that hit me hard:

“The old categories no longer apply,” Mr. Schäuble said in an interview with the magazine Der Spiegel. “We have to clarify whether our constitutional state is sufficient for confronting the new threats.”
--Link

It is a quote from Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's top security official. He is speaking in the midst of a debate going on within Germany about what the new terrorist threats mean and how to prepare for them. Look again at the second sentence:

whether our constitutional state is sufficient...

Actually these words came as he was giving suggestions about what could be done to lessen threats. He feels that

Germany should consider detaining potential terrorists and sanctioning the killing of terrorist leaders abroad.

Mr. Schäuble, a conservative politician who is the country’s interior minister, also said that the police should be allowed to conduct clandestine searches of private computers by way of the Internet, a practice now forbidden.

--Link

My first reaction was "Thank goodness they are having the debate before they lose their rights." But my thinking then went toward the deeper philosophical-political issues, the whole process, and threat, and what it could mean to what we have understood in the West as freedom and democracy.

If a constitutional democracy cannot maintain its democracy and freedoms when faced with such a threat, democracy is far more fragile than we would have believed. If democracy and our constitutional government can only survive when there are no threats like Al-Qaeda, then why have so many died protecting it? That, for me, was the scariest thought. Somehow or another I believe that a free democratic country that will always protects the rights of its citizens can survive. Will there be those who utilize the "system" for their own ill-conceived ends? Of course. Politicians have done that for years. So have businesses and criminals. It has to work or we have been built on a lie. And I for one do not believe we have been built on a lie.

The lie comes when we think we should have to give up some of our basic rights and freedoms because someone is threatening us. The lie comes when we think that the government has the "right" to do whatever is necessary to protect us- even take away our basic rights. I fear that we might someday we may be looking at a document called the Constitution and shake our heads in sadness as we say that we had to ignore it to save it.

Kind of like that village in Vietnam that had to be destroyed to save it.

That is not freedom at work. That is not the constitution that we rightly hold so high. I know, I know. If I'm not doing anything wrong why should I be afraid? Well, it all depends on who makes the list of what's right and wrong. Those who made it to Nixon's enemies list were simply upholding democracy and expressing their opinions freely. That did not make them enemies of the state. The line is much too thin- vanishingly thin at times- between having freedom and having it taken away.

I hope that next year's election will include some honest and in-depth debate on this issue. There is a great deal at stake- not the least of which is 225+ years of people fighting and dying to keep us free.

This One's Scary-
Maybe
Just read this quote from last week and any good American should be up in arms....

Bob Lowe, associate deputy director of the Minnesota School Boards Association, said school boards may control off-campus behavior of their employees.

"In the end, it always comes down to whether or not the behavior of that individual has a direct impact on how they're able to perform their work," he said.
--Star-Tribune

It's from last week in a story in the Star-Tribune about a "campus supervisor" at a metro area high school who is being disciplined because he acts as a support and counselor for students outside of school. They can just up and fire him...

As an "at-will" employee of the Prior Lake-Savage school district, [he] could be fired "for any reason other than discrimination," according to Roslyn Wade of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

According to the worker himeself, what he is doing is religious support and counseling. It happens to be conservative in its approach and relies on some of the more conservative views on issues such as sex, homosexuality, etc.

Now I do not pretend to accept what he is telling the students. But on the surface I fear a problem arising here, especially in areas where a person lives, works, and perhaps even goes to church in the same community. Like say a teacher or campus supervisior who sees kids outside of school or even at their church. Like say an employee who helps chaperone events at their local church where local school students may attend. Like say a youth minister who supplements his part-time income by driving a school bus on a route where some of his youth group lives.

Hmmmm. Sounds kind of difficult to me. Sounds like control of personal life. I can see a "conservative" school board firing a "liberal" worker just as easily as a "liberal" school board can fire a "conservative" worker. Or, probably more to the point in most instances, a school board that is afraid of any negative parental reaction on any non-school issue firing a worker who may go a little too far over the edge - even in their off-school hours.

But there are always two sides. Last evening the school board fired the worker. Nowthey are also free to talk about some of the things that apparently led up to the firing...

"This is not about constitutional rights relating to freedom of speech or religion," a spokesperson said, "nor is it an attempt to unfairly restrict employee behavior outside of the workplace."

[The] statement detailed a progressive set of disciplinary actions against [the worker] while the district received complaints about him talking to students on campus about their sexual orientation. The district also warned him about maintaining appropriate boundaries with students and the need to separate the role of a supervisor for students and the role of a friend.

He was given a written reprimand in August, then a three-day suspension in January.

In May, [the worker] was placed on unpaid administrative leave after a student complained to a teacher that the student heard [the worker] tell another student at the high school that today was "National Pick-On Lesbians Day."
--Star-Tribune

With that reading things do begin to look a little differently. There does appear to be a blurring of edges and boundaries that are not approrpiate. The worker, of course, says he was not in the wrong and everyone will see that when he gets his day in court since he is now suing the school district.

But the original quote from the Minnesota School Boards Association at the top of this post still stands out as scary. I would guess that the spokesperson spoke too quickly in response to too little information about this case. He wanted to make sure he supported the local school board in what he said so he made a much too broad response, in my opinion, and has raised some of the issues I talked about above. Even if this situation turns out to be about on-campus behavior, as it probably will, since most school boards are savvy enough to know what they can and can't do, the bigger issue better not get lost.

Off-campus behavior may have an impact on a job, but it better be a really good reason or someone will end up using that power inappropriately.

The Poet's Obligation
For no apparent reason the following stanza from a Pablo Neruda poem popped up at me the other day.

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

The poet's obligation- the writer's obligation- is to open prison doors that we may find ourselves in. It is what writer's do- tell the truth from their perspective that allows us all to wake up, see what may very well be happening.

Poets do it in such powerful ways because they work so carefully at crafting words into unique kinds of sentences. Their sentences have a special rhythm that is difficult in prose. As such we have to pay attention. We have to allow ourselves to be caught up in the words and their flow. You can't skim poetry like you can prose. You miss so much.

I wish I could be more of a poet. I use words in prose more easily than poetry. But I am grateful- and humbled- to be able to do some small portion of what poets and writers are called to do.

Neruda continues:

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying "How can I reach the sea?"
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.
--Link