Lawyers Should be Indicted (Re: [lbo-talk] Doug Henwood profile

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu May 27 12:55:33 PDT 2004


Nathan Newman wrote:


>By the way, I have to admit I lost most of my sympathy for Stewart and her
>worries about "police state tactics" after her interview with MONTHLY REVIEW
>where she said:
>http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_6_54/ai_94142091/pg_2
>
>"I don't have any problem with Mao or Stalin or the Vietnamese leaders or
>certainly Fidel locking up people they see as dangerous. Because so often,
>dissidence has been used by the greater powers to undermine a people's
>revolution. The CIA pays a thousand people and cuts them loose, and they
>will undermine any revolution in the name of freedom of speech."
>
>It's hard to make an icon of free speech out of someone who supports gulags
>for other dissidents around the world.

I don't like this either (from the same interview):


>SD: It's a little frightening that left-wing political prisoners are
>conflated in the government's eyes with right-wing Moslem
>fundamentalists.
>
>LS: I don't think it's quite fair to say right-wing, because they
>are basically forces of national liberation. And I think that we, as
>persons who are committed to the liberation of oppressed people,
>should fasten on the need for self-determination,

But whether we like her or agree with her isn't the point. The point is that the government is trying to make it very hard for any lawyer to take up the defense of people it accuses of "terrorism." And it makes sense that they'd pick on someone that it's easy to dislike.

Doug



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