From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:ucbesvax!turner Newsgroups: net.college Title: Flame, Anyone? - (nf) Article-I.D.: ucbcad.702 Posted: Thu Feb 24 03:53:07 1983 Received: Fri Feb 25 03:02:44 1983 #N:ucbesvax:2900008:000:3863 ucbesvax!turner Feb 24 03:17:00 1983 There's a misinterpretation going on here that I don't feel responsible for: it is not the demonstrators who were seeking a forum (which you mistakenly equate with press coverage.) Rather, the demonstrators were protesting the LACK of free speech in those countries for which Kirkpatrick is a professional apologist. I have taken pains to point this out repeatedly. Certainly, this protest is getting press coverage. Whether the demonstrator's cause has been damaged remains to be seen. A personal anecdote: The group staging this protest (Students Against Intervention in El Salvador - or SAINTES, drolly enough) had, in 1980, invited representatives from the main aboveground resistance movement in El Salvador to give a presentation on recent developments in that country. There was a short film and short speech. The short speech was about a massacre on the border of Honduras and El Salvador, where Honduran troops had, in cooperation with the Salvadoran forces in pursuit, blocked a group of refugees, and cornered them at a bend on a river bank. This group of refugees consisted mostly of older men, women and children. Salvadoran troops opened fire on them after they had been safely moved into a convenient position. Upon hearing rumors of this incident, representatives of church and human rights organizations went to investigate. They couldn't see the bodies for the vultures. The death toll was around 600. I heard this story in the fall of 1980. This was at least four months after it had happened. It was another FIVE months after this presentation before it reached the papers in my area. And then it was treated rather lightly, and disappeared. In the meantime, visiting home for Christmas, I told my father what I had learned. He was deeply shocked. He asked, "But... why haven't we heard about this?" This was still several months before the story reached the papers in dilute form. And I gave him the only answer I could think of, given the timely exposure of this incident everywhere else in the world (except the U.S. and El Salvador.) I told him, "We have a controlled press in this country." My father is a conservative man, who would normally have objected to this statement. This time, however, he was too confused. He felt hurt that his ears had somehow been judged too sensitive for certain kinds of news. He had no response. Do you see the point I'm trying to make? Perhaps it IS "boorish" to shout down a U.N. Ambassador. Maybe being so vocal in this way does harm to the cause of truth. Perhaps shrill screams are of no avail against injustice. But please exercise your imagination to this extent: think of shrill screams against injustice all around you on a river bank in Central America, while machine-gun bullets shred you and your family into meat for birds. Hey, this is real! This is the Fascism that Americans feel so morally superior about having defeated in World War II. American tax dollars feed it. American corporations make money on it. American politicians get elected on platforms of keeping it alive as a bulwark against International Terrorism. And American newspapers cover it up. So I've had it with "freedom of speech" snobs. Heckling (and snappy come-backs to hecklers) is a well-honed part of the political process in places like England. Only Ivy League prima donnas get all miffed when someone tries to make them look silly. Smart people with something to say can defend themselves. And if Jeane Kirkpatrick can't? Draw your own conclusions. Shrilly, Arrogantly, Irrationally, Stupidly and Boorishly Yours in Ignorance of Basic Human Rights, Michael Turner