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

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Fri May 28 07:57:32 PDT 2004


Yes, she says in the abstract she's for free speech, but when the revolution is at stake, the gulag is okay. Everyone likes free speech in the abstract-- the world divides on whether you believe in it when it's Nazis, Commies or terorists or whoever you don't like speaking.

-- Nathan

----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Brown" <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 10:43 AM Subject: Lawyers Should be Indicted (Re: [lbo-talk] Doug Henwood

Gee, counselor, why did you leave out the rest of what she said, the whole truth, so to speak.

Charles

http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_6_54/ai_94142091/pg_ 3

Lynne Stewart, continued from where Nathan quoted her below:

On the other hand, I do believe in a free marketplace of ideas. I have a big problem with government repressing that kind of exchange...I must say, I talk out of both sides of my mouth, but I have a sense that if I was the Queen of the World, or Head of the Politburo, I would somehow have a meeting of the minds to urge that we must protect but, on the other hand, we must open up. That's really what you would have hoped America had been. Now it seems that the defense of imperialism is what guides foreign and domestic policy, and that everything else is swept aside.

I was asked once when I spoke, what did I think the social compact was between the American people and its government. I said, "To me, the social compact is a six-pack and a television set." As long as Americans have that, they're not too concerned. And that is a terrible tradeoff, a very sad tradeoff.

^^^^^^

From: "Nathan Newman"

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.

Nathan Newman

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