Summary: A group of 8,000 stages an organized protest outside a US Miltary base in Georgia that was involved with Latin-American human rights violations 14 years ago. The US Military responds by setting up (big) loudspeakers 50 feet from where the protesters had people speaking to the crowd, and playing “patriotic” music through them. The US Military was not planning on doing this tomorrow, when the protests will have a religious theme. A small minority of the protesters did break the law by trespassing.
Possible things wrong with this picture:
[ul]
[li]If the government inhibits people from speaking at a peaceful assembly, are there first-ammendment issues? [/li][li]Is suppressing only the non-Religious protest an appropriate message for a secular military to send?[/li][li]Even if there aren’t constitutional issues involved, is it wrong for the military to suppress peaceful dissent?[/li][/ul]
You think that becuase you organize a protest I should have to listen to you? Think again. If you’re gonna picket outside my house, I’m gonna make it suck to be you as much as I possibly can.
The Army stifled nothing, except for the ability of the protestors to harass and annoy the people stationed at Fort Benning. What are they protesting, anyway? That some killers went to school there? Hey, while they’re at it, why don’t they protest the killers’ high school?
As for the religious part, I think that’s a show of respect for people who want to worship their God. But as soon as it ends, if I were in charge I’d crank the sound up again. Too bad, so sad, thanks for your opinion, it’s noted, now take a hike.
It’s not just any school, Airman. I trust you are familiar with the long, sordid history of the School of the Americas. It’s graduates have committed some of the worst abuses of human rights in 20th century history. Notorious thugs like Noriega, Galtieri, and D’Aubuisson.
Well, as for them fighting back by playing music-that doesn’t bother me.
However, I totally support the protestors and the SOAW. If I lived in the area, I would be right there with them.
(But I wouldn’t try to sneak onto the base, of course!)
No. I think that if I stage a protest, then you, as a member of the United States government, should not act like a two yeard old who is sticking his fingers into his ears and screaming “I CAN’T HEAR YOU! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! …”.
Harass and annoy? They were set up outside of the base. The worst they would have had to deal with would have been… Seeing protesters, and perhaps hearing what they were trying to say. How is that “harrasment”?
So people who want to worship god are worthy of your respect as a representative of the US government, but people who are trying to spread awareness of human rights violations aren’t? :rolleyes:
In my mind, what’s important is that the people doing the stifling were representatives of the government of the United States. These people weren’t protesting outside the house of a private citizen or on the private property of a company. They were staging a legal protest outside of a government base, and the commanders of the base responded by using a juvenile tactic that demonstrated utter contempt for the protesters and their message. They could have had a peaceful protest of their own, or made a press release refuting the charges of the protesters–but they didn’t. These are the people bringing democracy to Iraq?
The purpose of this protest seemed to be to draw attention to human rights abuses by the US Government. They were organized and peaceful. They had people trying to speak–that is, people who were trying to articulate a message.
Trying to drown the protest in blaring music doesn’t strike me as a counter-protest, it strikes me as censorship: there’s a big difference between articulating a message of your own that is contrary to another group, and preventing that other group from gettings its message out.
If they didn’t want to listen, then they didn’t have to listen. The protest was outside a large military base. If they didn’t want to hear what they were saying, they could have simply not hung out near the protesters.
Also, those people who didn’t want to listen were members of the US Government. Different standards apply to them then private citizens or companies.
So it’s OK for the government to censor an opposing view if some people already know the gist of that view?
Yes, people were able to understand the most simplistic message conveyed by the protest: “We don’t like this school.” But it’s disenguous to portray the entire point of the protest has being merely that simplistic sentence: if they had speakers who were attempting to address the crowd, they obviously felt like they had something to say above and beyond what could be conveyed by simply massing outside of a base. When the government tried to drown their speakers with music, they were attempting to prevent those speakers from being heard, and that is censorship.
It’s a pretty standard tactic of those who don’t like what’s being said. I can remember similiar tactics being used against Madeline Albright when the Clinton administration was leaning on Iraq. While I don’t particularly like the tactic no matter who is doing it I’m not all that worried about it. So long as the military personel weren’t violating any laws regarding noise I don’t see anything legally wrong.
Yes, different standards do apply. We’re not allowed to malign the President publicly, and we’re not allowed to act as a representative of the government at rallies or protests.
That does not mean that we have to listen to your bleating simply because you think we should. We are allowed to ignore you at our leisure.
Truth is, if the protestors were right outside the gate, they were on Federal property, thus falling under the jurisdiction of the Base Commander, who then had the right to do whatever he felt was necessary, including chasing people off and arresting them for trespassing. But he didn’t. All he did was authorize patriotic music to be played at the protestors outside the gate.
I’d say he was pretty lenient, especially when some of the protestors tried to sneak onto the base.
It’s funny how when a right-wing speaker comes to a college campus and the students organize a chanting protest for the purpose of drowning him or her out, the Right gets all twisted in the knickers, but when it’s the government doing the same thing (to the power of about 200) to left-wing speakers, it’s all hunky-dory…
And no, I don’t think it’s an acceptable tactic no matter which side uses it, and both sides are being hypocritical in this case, based on reactions to past incidents.
The solution to what one would consider bad speech is more speech, that is, refuting the other speakers ideas, not drowning him out.
Please explain to me how playing loud music from loudspeakers placed 50 feet from the protesters speakers, with the obvious intent of interfering with their ability to speak, is “ignoring.”
Of course not. But I don’t see censorship, that was my point.
If I knew that they had permits and everything, and then were drowned out, I would raise quite a large eyebrow. Is this the case? Or do they just go there every year, like they have been for fourteen years, and bitch?
I don’t believe so, from how the situation has been presented here.
That sounds about right, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps if I knew more about the organization of the protest.
They did indeed have a permit. This is a well-organized group, around 10,000 people were at the protest today (according to AP numbers). They even have lawyers, and, according to the latest AP report are considering a lawsuit over the music. Good for them…
The lawsuit over the music should be quite entertaining. Let’s see, the protestors got their permit from either the city or the county and ensured they were in the correct area where said permit applied. The military loudspeaker trucks (or whatever it was used to convey the music) presumably were on the federal military reservation and were employed per federal military regulation.
It states on the website link provided for info on the protest, that music was played from inside the post, nothing about being 50 feet away, hmmm lie #1. Also it staes that every year protestors sneak on to post to try and get arrested. So every year they create a huge nuisciance for the base personel, who have no ability to remove the school, and they commanders give the protestors a taste of their own medicine.
As for the lawsuit all the commander has to say is that the unit was conducting a test of its equipment.