>>> <Apsken writes
Regarding prosecution for "ideas" or "speech":
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not the Communist Manifesto or the IWW Preamble, but it is probably the most progressive consensus vision yet achieved by the world's people, notwithstanding that its precepts are often honored in the breach by purported adherents. Certainly it is in every respect preferable to the U.S. Bill of Rights, which is why the U.S. bourgeoisie prefers the latter. The problem is to explain why leftists do too. ____________
Charles: Hear, hear, brother counsel !!
The UN Convention on Genocide has been adopted by the U.S. as a domestic criminal statute, but they footnoted it to impute the U.S. standard on free speech ("imminent lawless action" for incitement). __________
The Universal Declaration guarantees that people shall be free from racist incitement and from incitement to genocide, as well as clothed, housed, fed, and educated. Signatory countries have pledged to enforce these rights, and in many places people have mobilized to demand enforcement, as the mass movement did in France as part of its struggle against reborn Nazism. Except for liberals and some leftists in this country, few people of good will have difficulty understanding this, or worry that tortured interpretations of its plain meaning by lawyers and professors are grounds to nullify its enforcement. ___________
Charles: Right on. Predominantly mental laborers tend to think of freedom of thought , consciousness and conscience (speech, assembly political protest, religion) as the HIGHEST right. But being determines consciousness for materialists. Freedom from genocide is a right equal if not prior to the freedom to communicate etc.
Regular folks understand this better than intellectuals. __________
In such situations, activists in struggle do not enjoy the indulgence of spinning ivory-tower alternatives for the mass movement. One must choose sides. Which side are you on? is the question. Noam Chomsky had the wrong answer.
The problem with Chuck Grimes is that he asks us to base our policies and demands on the assumption that bourgeois courts are permanent burdens, which in turn compels us to be concerned how they will interpret their precedents against us, and to forestall the worst by constructing defenses for our most dangerous enemies. That is even less worthy as a political line than reverence for the Bill of Rights. Anyone who expects some legal precedent to protect those who advocate the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the dismantling of its state hasn't sufficiently studied any period of history. That is not to say that we abstain from defending ourselves with every available weapon; we should and do put up legal defenses when necessary, despite our permanent disadvantage before the bar. But no socialist policy worthy of the name can be based on the permanence of the bourgeois state. _________
Charles: Good to see someone who thinks like me.
The same criticism of this reform (outlawing fascistic racist/genocidal incitement and speech) can be made of any reform. But revolutionaries do advocate and support reforms (changes within the existing system), only as a minimal program in relation to a maximal program for revolution. The KKK et al won't be fully curbed without revolution, yet we advocate their suppression now,just as we make other demands of the bourgeois state NOW even before the rev. That this is a contradiction is not surprising for dialecticians.
Charles Brown
Detroit