From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: "Totalitarianism" in Nicaragua (IV)
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 19:54:59 GMT

Since I was criticizing our local net.right-wingers a while ago, I thought
I'd offer equal treatment to this piece of leftist obfuscation.

In <1992Oct7.170819.26751@mont.cs.missouri.edu> harelb@math.cornell.edu
(misc.activism.progressive co-moderator) writes:
>From _The Washington Post_ June 7, 1986, "Nicaragua Isn't the First
>Government to Censor" by David Kairys.
>
>The recent op-ed column by the managing editor of _La Prensa_ is
>part of a flood of criticism of the Nicaraguan government for
>censorship and denial of civil liberties.  As a civil liberties
>attorney whose practice and writings are dedicated to protection
>of free expression, I do not believe the Nicaraguan record on
>civil liberties is any worse than our own record during wartime.

It is virtually an act of disinformation to post a defense of Nicaraguan
"censorship" without mentioning the closing down of _La Prensa_ and
the Catholic radio station, at that time the only major opposition media
in the country.

>Free speech is a great source of pride in the United States.
>There is probably no country with a better record of tolerance
>of dissent than contemporary America.
>
>However, we often distort our past in this regard.
>Historically, our courts have allowed government censorship and
>worse, particularly in time of war: 
[list of offenses, all a half-century old or more, deleted]

Did the U.S. ever close down every opposition newspaper and broadcast outlet,
even in wartime?

>This is not a great history of freedom or tolerance during
>wartime.  It permits us little moral ground to judge others-
>particularly a small country in whose affairs we have repeatedly
>intervened to promote the interests of dictators and rich
>landowners, and which we now subject to organized terrorism.
>
>The Nicaraguans have far more justification for censoring _La
>Prensa_ than we can claim in examples just enumerated.  After
>the revolution, the owners of _La Prensa_ changed its editorial
>policy, and three-quarters of its editorial staff left in
>protest and formed another paper.  

If the publisher of a paper changes its editrorial policy, that justifies
government censorship?

>The new _La Prensa_ got
>substantial funding from the U.S. government through the
>National Endowment for Democracy, a corporation established and
>funded by Congress.

Foreign sources of funds justify censorship?  Does that mean we can
start censoring _The Economist_?

>_La Prensa_ seeks to publish stories aimed at undermining the
>military effort and destabilizing the government.  

Sounds like Richard Nixon describing the _Washington Post_, doesn't it?
One man's subversion is another man's honest criticism.  Attempts to 
discredit the administration and oppose the war do not justify censorship.

If _La Prensa_ was revealing military secrets, censorship could be in order.
On the other hand, our courts upheld the publication of the Pentagon Papers; 
would the Sandinistas have allowed similar material to appear?

>The effects
>of false reports cannot be quickly or easily countered in
>Nicaragua.  

The situation is improved by censoring opposition newspapers, so that
only the government's point of view is available, and the government
decides what is Truth?

>The Reagan administration is applying a more stringent standard
>of tolerance to the Nicaraguans than our courts have ever
>applied to our own government.  In Nicaragua a foreign power of
>overwhelmingly superior might is mining harbors and organizing
>and financing large military incursions and random acts of
>terrorism.  

And I think the Reagan administration was an outrageous cabal of misbegotten
crypto-fascists; in what way does that justify the slightest bit of
wrongdoing by anyone else?  This is just Jeanne Kirkpatrick in reverse:
my kind of "authoritarianism" is OK, your "totalitarianism" is not...
Denial of civil rights is not made acceptable if you can prove your
adversaries do it too.  It's wrong when anybody does it, left or right.

The Reaganaut depiction of the Sandinistas as Communist devils, and the
contras as "freedom fighters", has always been pure fantasy.  There is much
that is good about the Sandinistas; if only El Barbudo would legalize private
enterprise, allow an opposition press, and call elections!  But it's no use 
whitewashing their failures, and one of those is the harrassment and
shutdown of _La Prensa_.