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The Wall and its lessons

Posted: November 12, 2019 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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By Christopher Harper

From the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Cold War shaped most baby boomers.

Like me, almost every boomer spent some time under classroom desks in a rather idiotic drill during and after the Cuban missile crisis. Somehow being under a desk would save us!

The Vietnam War also was a reaction to the Cold War—an attempt to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. Obviously, it didn’t work.

I had the opportunity to spend time behind the Iron Curtain both before and after the fall of Communism.

What struck me most about Soviet domination before 1989 was how difficult the lives of people in Eastern Europe were under Communism.

It was difficult to find food, proper medicine, and hope.

I recall twisting my ankle in Poland. I struggled into the hospital and noticed how the shelves were empty, and the equipment was aging. The doctor told me the ankle wasn’t broken, and he didn’t have much to help me with the pain. Fortunately, a nurse found an elastic bandage to help me hobble around for the next few days.

In Bulgaria, the hotel offered lobster on the menu. One of my colleagues decided to order some. The waitress didn’t speak much English, so she came out with a shellfish that was encrusted in ice because it was caught years ago. The message, however, was clear. Perhaps my friend should order something else.

For years, my wife and I had wanted to visit what was then called Czechoslovakia. Because I was a journalist, I was unable to get a visa even though I only wanted to be a tourist. The government did not allow American journalists to visit for any reason. Fortunately, we were able to visit the Czech Republic after the end of the Soviet empire.

Although Eastern Europe has had its share of difficulties after the end of communism, the streets are brighter, the hopes are higher, and the freedoms are greater.

The lesson that every American should take away from the fall of the wall is how much better life is in Eastern Europe. All you have to do is look at the economies of Poland, Hungary, and other countries that lived behind the wall and under the boot of Soviet oppression.

Moreover, it’s critical to realize that socialist doctrines, such as government control of essential industries, never worked in the Soviet Union and its empire and won’t help the United States in the years ahead.

Forty years later: the media and the Iran hostage crisis

Posted: November 5, 2019 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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Forty years ago this week, I traveled to Iran to cover the takeover of the U.S. embassy, an event that embarrassed the United States and the administration of Jimmy Carter.

What isn’t debated on this anniversary is how badly I and the rest of the news media reported what happened.

First, the hostage-takers weren’t “students,” the moniker that still sticks today. A.J. Caschetta, a lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology, provides some interesting background.

For example, author Tim Wells interviewed most of the hostages for his oral history, 444 Days: The Hostages Remember (1985). Few called their captors “students,” using various terms: Iranians, radicals, militants, terrorists, goons, guards, knuckleheads, turkeys, and assholes.

One of the key leaders of the hostage-takers was Hossein Sheikholeslam, who convened press conferences for the legions of international journalists that flocked to Tehran. But he hadn’t been a student since the early 1970s when he attended the University of California at Berkeley. His proficiency in English also made him suitable to interrogate the hostages. Sheikholeslam “may have been trained in interrogation techniques,” wrote William Daugherty, one of only four CIA officers stationed at the embassy on November 4.

Another ringleader, Mohammad Hashemi, wasn’t a student. He spent his time with friends forming a group called “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line,” which gave orders to those who showed up to protest outside the U.S. embassy. They wore laminated photos of Khomeini around their necks and pinned to their jackets.

The hostage-takers “strictly allied with Khomeini and the new mullah establishment,” according to Mark Bowden in Guests of the Ayatollah (2006). As Bowden puts it, they “were all committed to a formal Islamic state and were allied, some of them by family, with the clerical power structure around Khomeini.”

Second, the news media didn’t understand how big the story would become. The foreign editor of Newsweek, where I worked, told me the takeover wouldn’t last more than a day or so. It went on for 444 days!

Newsweek didn’t put the story on the cover until three weeks after the takeover occurred and then only as a part of an overall analysis of the burning of the U.S. embassy in Libya, the Russian influence in the Afghanistan government, and Islamists taking over Mecca.

The U.S. television networks were so unprepared that only one ABC News radio reporter had a valid visa to get into Iran. As a result, ABC had exclusive coverage for several days, laying the groundwork for “America Held Hostage” and then Nightline.

Third, many journalists thought the religious government of Iran had to be better than the Shah. How wrong we were!

I will now say an act of contrition. I hope other reporters do the same. 

The First Amendment under attack

Posted: October 29, 2019 by chrisharper in media, Uncomfortable Truths
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The First Amendment should undergo significant changes, including jail time for hate speech and false news reports.

These findings come from a recent poll and analysis by the Campaign for Free Speech. See https://www.campaignforfreespeech.org/free-speech-under-dire-threat-polling-finds/

The organization found that 51% of Americans think the First Amendment is outdated and should be rewritten. 

The poll found that 48% believe “hate speech” should be illegal. (“Hate speech” is not defined but left up to the individual participant.) Of those, about half think the punishment for “hate speech” should include possible jail time, while the rest think it should just be a ticket and a fine. More millennials and Gen-Xers think hate speech should be made illegal—as do women, blacks, and Hispanics. The various regions in the United States think roughly the same.

The fundamental problem with regulating hate speech is who defines it? The courts have generally shied away from restricting hate speech because of that issue. The most important U.S. Supreme Court case that could be applied is Chaplinksy v. New Hampshire, a 1942 decision in which the court put forth the “fighting words” restriction on speech.

Chaplinsky was arrested for provocative statements made in the town square. While being transported to the local police station, he called the town marshal “a damned fascist and a racketeer.”

Justice Frank Murphy defined fighting words: “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting, or ‘fighting’ words, those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

But some legal scholars think the lower courts have defined fighting words in an inconsistent way, while others think the decision remains a threat to free speech.

Whatever the case, an arrest for using fighting words is a rarity. One happened a few years ago here in Philly when a local teacher got in a cop’s face and threatened him and his family.

An estimated 57% think that the government should be able to take action against newspapers and TV stations that publish content that is biased, inflammatory, or false. Only 35% disagree with the statement, with the rest undecided. Men and women poll about the same—as do various sections of the country. The only slight difference is that millennials rise to a level of 61%.

Surprisingly, in my view, the poll found that many think the government should impose jail time for those who publish fake news. A total of 56% said that journalists should only face a fine, but the other 46% said that actual jail time should be imposed on the offenders.

The implications of the poll seem obvious, but the ramifications not so much.

The poll does underline the antipathy of the public toward the media, and it comes from all age groups, geographic regions, income brackets, and races.

The media would be well served if they did not ignore the bitterness toward news organizations from just about every group.

The bitterness of losers

Posted: October 22, 2019 by chrisharper in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics
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Two of history’s most pathetic losers made the news this past weekend, mainly because of their bizarre antics.

Hillary Clinton decided to call out presidential wannabe Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian agent.

Seriously? This attack comes from someone who has managed to cover up all of her wrongdoings from Benghazi to Whitewater.

The evidence is scant, mainly an ill-informed visit to Syria and a meeting with its butcher president.

The apparent reason for Clinton’s attack goes back to 2016 when Gabbard backed Bernie Sanders and the notion that Gabbard might run as a third-party candidate—something she has vowed not to do.

In her bitterness campaign after the election, Clinton blamed a third-party candidate for her loss to Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, another loser, Mitt Romney, has jumped on the impeachment bandwagon.

In 2016, Romney denounced Trump as a “phony” and a “fraud,” and warned of the “trickle-down racism” that would accompany his election. After he won, Trump briefly considered tapping Romney as his secretary of state but decided not to do so. And in the years that have followed, the tension between the two men has gotten worse.

In an incredibly pathetic display, Romney apparently opened a Twitter account under a pseudonym: Pierre Delecto.

If Trump pulled either of these stunts, the Democrats would be adding another article to their impeachment campaign.

If two losers aren’t enough, it appears that Michael Bloomberg may be considering joining the Democrat clown show because he’s worried about Elizabeth Warren winning the nomination.

That means that Bloomberg, the old white guy who’s richer than Trump, would be 79 by the time he entered the White House in 2021.

I guess it’s not difficult to understand why this trio want to remain in the limelight, but it’s time for someone to tell each of them how bitter and silly they look.

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