Spectator‘s
editorial “Free Speech in Practice” (Sept. 25, 2007) pridefully
congratulated the Columbia community, University President Lee
Bollinger, and its own pages for their embrace of free speech, open
debate, and not fearless approach to controversy. Yet the very same
day, World Can’t Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime staff members were
informed that Spectator had rejected our paid advertisement-one
that brings to light facts on how the U.S. is the real nuclear threat
in the world today-on the grounds that it is “too disrespectful” and
could cost Spectator advertising revenues.
The ad we submitted pierces distortions about the imminence of Iran
as a nuclear threat that are being trafficked by the Bush
administration and parroted by a pliant media as a way of creating
public opinion for a new possible war against the country (a copy of
the ad and documentation of these facts can be found at
worldcantwait.org).
Far from upholding open debate and free speech, Bollinger’s remarks
and Spectator’s refusal of our ad amount to a strict adherence to the
terms of debate and the basic assumptions being promoted by the Bush
administration. In these terms, you are either with Bush and his wars,
or with the reactionary Islamic fundamentalist forces in the world.
Bollinger accused Iran of being a state sponsor of terrorism, of
refusing to disclose its nuclear program in line with international
standards, and of fighting a proxy war against the United States in
Iraq: exactly the case President Bush is making to justify a possible
military attack on Iran. Providing a platform only for both of these
views is hardly open discourse and debate as these two poles reinforce
each other even as they appear to oppose each other-and both are
horrors for humanity. The Bush administration, with the complicity of
the Democrats, has ripped up habeas corpus, legalized torture, waged a
war in Iraq that has killed more than a million people-based on lies,
and designs on remaking the whole Middle East. This aggression is
fueling the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and all its nightmarish
consequences for women, gays, secular forces, and others.
These are not our only choices, and it is urgent that humanity be
presented with another way. But this statement doesn’t fit the
reinforcing and massively destructive global polarization that Spectator deemed too “disrespectful” and silenced when it rejected our ad.
We live in a time when students who ask hard-hitting questions to
politicians are tasered, when MoveOn’s paid political speech has been
condemned in Congressional resolutions, and when the pressures
generally to censor and self-censor are mounting. It is also a time
when an administration that has been caught lying again and again-about
WMD’s, links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush’s pledge that he would
never wire-tap without a warrant, to name just a few-is working to whip
up public opinion all over again.
This is a time when standing up for the truth, for real open debate,
and for free speech matters most. Everyone living in this country bears
responsibility for and should be losing sleep over the deaths of over a
million Iraqis. As a new potential war is being prepared, don’t we all
bear responsibility-even at the risk of advertising dollars,
reputations, and possibly more-to disseminate and act on truths that
can save lives?
The author is on the advisory board of World Can’t Wait.