[136] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: the Tech & Re: Conjunctivitis
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ray Jones)
Fri Apr 20 20:39:22 2001
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
From: Ray Jones <rjones@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: Aimee L Smith's message of "Fri, 20 Apr 2001 17:00:07 -0400"
Date: 20 Apr 2001 20:39:14 -0400
Message-ID: <ppwzodbt7bh.fsf@PIXIE.MIT.EDU>
Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU> writes:
> Yet, when it comes to protecting your own interests as an
> editorial board, the strict adherence becomes quite flexible. The
> article "Students Protest Advertisement By Stealing Brown
> Newspapers" in last Tuesday's Tech was written by members of one of
> the two parties in the controversy, The Brown Daily Herald (BDH)
> staff. The controversy is between the BDH and students
> participating in civil disobedience (CD) to protest the papers
> editorial choice (or lack thereof as the all-white editorial staff
> claims) to print a racist add by a wealthy hate-mongerer who is not
> even a member of the Brown community. It is very hard to get the
> view of the students who felt angered enough to resort to CD tactics
> because, surprise surprise, they refused to comment to a
> representative of the offending organization.
I'd just like to point out that the name "Civil Disobedience" is not
usually applied to theft and destruction of property. In fact,
stealing newspapers as a form of protest completely sacrifices the
moral high ground that usually accompanies civil disobedience.
Whether it's angry protesters or the government doing the damage, the
censorship is the same. I find it especially ironic that groups that
hold more fringe or minority views are so willing to squelch speech,
considering that their own speech rights are much more likely to be
targeted by the government.
Ob-mit-talk-connection: Stealing of the Tech has happened a few times
here, that I know of. I find it repugnant that a supposedly smart
group of people would resort to such idiotic tactics as theft with the
goal of suppressing *ideas*. That's one small strike (stealing) and
one giant strike (censorship) against their character.
(And I don't even particuarly like the Tech.)
Ray Jones
