The GOP, The Tories, and The Press

[Tom Rinaldo]

The Republican Party fashions itself as true heirs of the American Revolution, it's leaders never at a loss for patriotic imagery, but their furious efforts to silence the New York Times today puts the GOP's current image into focus, and the picture that emerges looks unmistakably Tory. Conservatives of all people know the truth of this saying: "Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them". How quickly they forget. Maybe it's not their fault, maybe the problem is with public schools that fail to teach America's proud heritage. How many history lessons are devoted nowadays to a man named Peter Zenger? After all he's been dead for centuries, and the newspaper he once published, The New York Weekly Journal, last saw print in 1751. Had contemporary authorities gotten their way The New York Weekly Journal would have shut down 16 years sooner, in 1735, had New York V. John Peter Zenger gone against the defendant.

In that case John Paul Zenger was tried for the crime of Libel, though no one disputed the truth of what his paper had published. Legal precedent then held that truth was no defense if the effectiveness of a public official was hurt by the publication of facts about him or his actions. Most American historians credit our legal and civic tradition of Freedom of the Press with the verdict of Innocent Jon Peter Zenger won in that 1735 trial.

Flash forward almost 325 years later. Today we find another New York newspaper under attack by contemporary authorities. This time it’s the New York Times, not the New York Weekly Journal. While it so happens that no one now accuses the New York Times of libel for their reporting of truth, Republican Rep. Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has denounced the New York Times coverage of the Bush Administration’s SWIFT program, which monitors the financial transactions of suspected terrorists, as "treasonous". Since Treason is punishable by death, this doesn’t strike me as progress made over the centuries. Meanwhile Republicans in Washington are falling over themselves rushing to pass resolutions that condemn the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by the media, while calling out the New York Times by name. Even though, according to June 28th’s Boston Globe, the Bush Administration has been disclosing this stuff for years:

“But a search of public records -- government documents posted on the Internet, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank examiners, and even an executive order President Bush signed in September 2001 -- describe how US authorities have openly sought new tools to track terrorist financing since 2001. That includes getting access to information about terrorist-linked wire transfers and other transactions, including those that travel through SWIFT.

``There have been public references to SWIFT before," said Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003. ``The White House is overreaching when they say a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before."
http://tinyurl.com/lwkgo


It’s all just the latest edition of “Blame The Press”, a time honored and traditional Tory game. The Bush Administration is quite unhappy with the New York Times, for daring to write about the devious ways which, in the name of National Security, Bush constantly attempts to circumvent the United States Constitution. If Bush, like Nixon, keeps an “enemies list”, no one would be surprised to find the New York Times on it. Like the New York Times, the New York Weekly Standard before it also had powerful enemies in high places, who did not take kindly to contrary voices. The enmity of then New York State Governor William Cosby toward the Weekly Standard was well known at the time, and it surprised no one when he made his move against it. The fact that Cosby failed to squash the New York Weekly Standard was an unexpected blow for freedom. Many credit that victory on the eloquence of Zenger’s defense attorney, Andrew Hamilton, who in his closing argument said in part the following:

“The question before the Court ... is not of small nor private concern, it is not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. No! It may in its consequences affect every freeman that lives under a British government on the main of America.... I make no doubt but your upright conduct this day will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow citizens; but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor you as men who have baffled the attempt of tyranny; and by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict, have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us a right -- and liberty -- both of exposing and opposing arbitrary power ... by speaking and writing truth....”
http://www.law.uh.edu/teacher/zenger/

The supposed current “crime” of the New York Times has nothing to do with aiding and abetting America’s external enemies, it has everything to do with protecting our internal liberties against those who will always proclaim that “Father knows best”, be that father King George III, President George Bush II, or Big Brother. Once upon a time our Patriots were known to proclaim “Give me Liberty or give me Death”. Today’s Republican Tories proclaim “Give up your Liberties now; less someday some terrorist somewhere does something to harm one or more of you.” That is how low our current political leaders, a Republican Administration with Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress, men and women who swore to uphold the American Constitution, have fallen from the vision of America’s founding. We had to fight against domestic Tories during the American Revolution. It seems that fight is not yet over.

On Monday November 19, 1733 a year or so before Zenger was imprisoned on Libel charges, John Peter Zenger's New York Weekly Journal had this to say. It is well worth re-reading in the current light:

"Inconveniences are rather to be endured than that we should suffer an entire and total destruction. Who would not lose a leg to save his neck? And who would not endanger his hand to guard his heart? The loss of liberty in general would soon follow the suppression of the liberty of the press; for as it is an essential branch of liberty, so perhaps it is the best preservation of the whole. Even a restraint of the press would have a fatal influence. No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves. LIBERTY and SLAVERY! how amiable is one! how odious and abominable the other! Liberty is universal redemption, joy, and happiness; but servitude is absolute reprobation and everlasting perdition in politics.

All the venal supporters of wicked ministers are aware of the great use of the liberty of the press in a limited free monarchy: They know how vain it would be to attack it openly, and therefore endeavor to puzzle the case with words, inconsistencies, and -nonsense; but if the opinion of the most numerous, unprejudiced and impartial part of mankind is an argument of truth, the liberty of the press has that as well as reason on its side."
http://tinyurl.com/nzqv7

[Jawja]

1. Great post.

Thanks. K&R. :thumbsup:

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Thanks

A post like this often just sinks at DU, not enough stuff about what is happening right now, and in fact this wasn't the piece I thought I was going to write when I first started it, but the history just sucked me in and took over.

[sweetheart]

3. inspired work

Very informative, thanks for that post.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Thank the search capacity of the Internet, half of what I wrote about

I was learning about myself while writing this. It amazes me sometimes how relevant events of centuries past still are. The basic forces stay the same. There will always be Tories to deal with.

[Auntie Bush]

4. As always...an EXCELLENT post!

[Canuckistanian]

6. Wow, great post

What an analogy for the events of today. The basic principles of press freedom have already been fought - and won.

The Bush Crime family seems to seek to turn the clock back 325 years with this so-called "scandal".

Good writing, too!

K&R.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. If I may add a little more to your excellent article

during the revolution the loyalists, many of whom lived in Boston, left the US when the Red Coats evacuated the city. Many of them moved to Canada, where to this day some remember those days.

So many of the Tories were removed from our midst.

The Founders did not foresee the rise of factions, aka parties, so when the two dominant parties of the era rose (Democrat-Republican, today's Democratic Party) and the Whig (the Conservative party) the battle was renewed... and the first excesses of the Whigs were during the Adamns Administration where once again freedom of the press was frontally attacked and the rights of the new citizens was also frontally attacked by the Alien and Sedition Acts (one that Thom Delay made a reference to one day... implying it was time to use it... and since technically it was never repealed it is still in the books.)

Now that battle was lost by the Whigs who started a historic ebb which ended with their replacement by the GOP in 1852... ironically the Grand Old Party, a name I am sure chosen out of bluster since most were disaffected Whigs, was in some ways far more progressive than the Democrats of the times, and in fact during the Civil War the Democrats did not support the battle fully... some among our current Tories, or whigs, are still using that period to say that the modern Democrats are cowards... especially among those from the southern confederacy, which is ironic to no end. But irony is usually lost on most Conservatives. That said the Civil War did see a huge battle between the President, the courts and Habeas Corpus (Congress also played a role)

the next battle was actually during WW I, but by WWII and due to the events of the Great Depression the parties have almost fully switched in some ways. Though FDR did abuse some of his powers there was nothing like what future presidents would do, in particular one man called Nixon who did have an enemies list, and of course our current leader

The only problem is that George is NOT a Tory, or a conservative... at least not in the way that Burkian thought defined conservatism. For Bush we need another term: Fascism and Radical... that said, we do have an internal fight for the future of the nation not unlike that faced by the generation that lived through the War of Independence.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. Your addition is most welcome

Thank you for that historical overview. We often forget that we are part of a thread of history. People also sometimes forget that turning points in history can turn on a very human scale, exactly like the Zenger case, like what is happening now with the attempted vilification of the free press. It is only in hindsight with the aftermath of a battle in full view, that the real scope of what was won or lost can be we measured. We indeed do now have an internal fight for the future of the nation. As Thomas Jefferson warned; "The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance".

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Indeed and when I feel despiar I remember

during the American Revolution one third of the population completely staid out of it... one third fought for independence and one third was loyal to England.

So when I completely despair I remeber, the ratios are almost the same today... the only thing that will change them is if this civil war goes hot.

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. Bump for the 4th of July n/t