A Call for the Return of the Fairness Doctrine (Ben Franklin Would've Written this Under a Clever Pseudonym)

In 1987 The FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine, a measure in existence since the inception of the Federal Radio Commission (an FCC precursor) and throughout the entire history of the FCC until that point. The Fairness Doctrine required, well, fairness, by mandating the expression of different viewpoints on any frequency licensed by the FCC, which is all of them. Not coincidentally, Rush Limbaugh came on the air in 1988, and the talk radio industry that has sprung up without the burden of fairness is at least 90% right-wing. So since over 80% of Americans get their news from talk radio and similarly uninhibited and biased cable news stations, we currently have a very uninformed electorate in the US (Statistics in this paragraph come via the speech Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave at Brown on Oct. 20th).

In 1731 Benjamin Franklin wrote in his "Apology for Printers" that printers should "chearfully serve all contending Writers". "Printers" he wrote "naturally acquire a vast Unconcernedness as to the right or wrong Opinions contain'd in what they print; regarding it only ast the Matter of their daily labour." I interpret this to mean whoever wants to get their material printed should be able to, regardless of the printer's personal opinion. That certainly isn't happening these days (in the news networks that are analogously responsible for disseminating information), especially since the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine. Like Thomas Jefferson said: "I would rather have a strong free press and no government than a strong government and no free press."

CHARGES DROPPED!!

Yesterday the eleven of us who were arrested in Cranston at Sen. Reed's office (suggestions for catchy group nicknames currently being accepted) were arraigned at Kent County Courthouse in Warwick on QUAKER Lane. With the help of local attorneys Bob Mann and Andy Horwitz, as well as public defender Chris O'Connell we all decided to plead "not guilty" and ask for legal representation from the state as necesary. There was much discussion within the group as to the morality of pleading "not guilty" to something we intended to do all along, but based on advice from the lawyers mentioned and Dad, it seemed to me that pleading "no contest" would mean admitting that we did was a crime, and not the guided act of conscience that we intended it to be. Our enthusiastic defense team also had numerous ideas for ways we could the charges dismissed.

So, we all made our pleas and got a pre-trial date for 11/20. But, on the way out of the court room reporters from Channel 12 news and WPRO news radio asked if they could interview representatives from our group. The news guys had been there for a different stories but were intrigued by our continuing narrative. Several of our group including Noah Merrill, Rev. Lee Clasper-Torch (or Torch-Clasper as we like to call him) and Military Families Speak Out member Stephany Kern interviewed with them.

When the report was aired on the 5:30 news, it came with the message that Sen. Reed's office had dropped the trespassing charges against us! Apparently they didn't want any more press coverage than we had already got and werer unwilling to pursue the matter further. Things went from them saying the night we got arrested "Well, you guys should up and plead a 'nolo' and we'll file it" to "OK, not guilty, we just want to end this without any more harm to our image". I felt very encouraged and emboldened by the news, and am eager to pursue continued non-violent direct action on the RI political scene. I say feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, come on f/Friends it's PROTEST TIME!!

Non-violent Resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist -Martin Luther King Jr., Principles of Non-Violent Resistance

On Monday, Sept. 25, I got arrested for misdemeanor willful trespass at the office of RI senator Jack Reed, along with 10 other members of the AFSC and Military Families Speak Out. We (the 11 of us driven to bear moral witness to the Declaration of Peace inside Sen. Reed's office, including Stephany Kurn, mother of a RI soldier who died in Iraq) left the Providence AFSC office at 9 for Cranston. Reed's office is in a shopping mall, basically, in a separate bulding from most of the retailers but shared with a mortgage place and Bank of America. We got into the office a little before ten and had a meeting with the senator's chief of staff promptly, who explained that the senator appreciated our witness and support and shared our views but would not be taking action on our "petition" today. When we met with the senator himself, Reed was very courteous in answering our questions and talking about his position but didn't seem to have read the declaration or our letters, though his correspondence with him suggested he had. Mrs. Kurn asked him directly what was keeping him from doing what he thought was right, since there were thousands of our soldiers dead there and the Iraqis obviously don't want us there anymore. He said that he was doing what he thought was right, and that he was confident in his approach and would talk with us again in October after his trip to Iraq to talk with the American commanders there. Mrs. Kurn expressed pessimism after he left about the prospects of the American officers sharing accurate assessments with him due to pressure from above in the ranks and from the Pentagon.

After the senator left things moved a little more slowly for a while, as in the next 7 and a half hours were spent in the waiting room, talking quietly with one another (one of the other guys there went to the GTU in Berkeley that Starr-King [the ministry school I'd like to go to] is part of and one of the support people outside is a minister at the Bell St. UU church and an S-K grad), reading from various academic and spiritual texts, and listening to his receptionist answer the phone (it was really funny and affirming at the end of the day when the chief of staff came back and asked us to leave to hear the answering machine click on in the background and have someone leave a message in support of the DOP).

At the end of the day (5:30), they informed us they were closing up shop and we were being asked to leave. When we told the chief of staff our intention was to stay until the DOP was signed he ended up calling the police (i felt bad for him, i'm sure he wanted to go home too) and they came and milled around for a while and tried to convince us it wasn't worth getting arrested and would take up too much of Cranston PD's manpower and eventually placed us all under arrest. They tried to convince us it would be just as symbolic to have one person arrested as 11, and we later found out that Reed's national office had called to try and pressure that outcome. Once we had made it clear we were all going to get arrested they frisked us and loaded us into paddywagons to go to the courthouse/police station. Since we weren't presenting any threat and had been really nice about it they let us hang out in the courtroom instead of in the cells, so that wasn't too bad. They also brought in Burger King for everyone and since there were a bunch of vegetarians I ended up having 4 hamburgers. They took everyone's info and fingerprinted us all and then gave us citations to appear on Oct. 18 and let us go.

Some people have asked why we were trying to persuade a Democrat who's been against the war since the beginning, instead of a pro-war Republican. Our reasoning was that Sen. Reed has a lot of clout in the senate as a veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, and is already moving in the right direction. However, he has been riding the fact that he voted against the war in the first place and not taking the necessary but politically unpopular step of stating the need for a concrete timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. Our goal was to support him in taking that step either in the form of signing the DOP or sponsoring legislation that would create such a timeline. Unfortunate he decided not to do take that step when we were there, so they had to arrest us to get us to leave. Further reasons for our witness were articulated by Ingrid O'Brien in a Brown Daily Herald column.