Free speech is not free

Free speech is often lauded as an indisputable right that all human beings have, or should have. Free speech activists will have you believe that the right to spout whatever nonsense that comes to your mind is more important than access to food and clean water and shelter, and that censoring bigots because you "disagree with them" is as violent as murder.

Often cited examples of "totalitarian states" where free speech is completely banned are North Korean, China, Cuba, and Iran, where only the ruling parties may speak. Except all these countries actually have multiple, legal political parties. Parties in those countries form coalitions and have parties with larger followings than others just like in any other state.

In the United States, you have the option to vote for two parties, the Democratic party and the Republican party. In the UK you can vote Labour, Tory, or Liberal Democrat. Yes, there are other parties in the US and UK but they are de facto drowned out by the fact that the media does not promote them, which leads many people to believe that by voting for a smaller party, they are throwing away their vote.

During the controversial 2000 US presidential elections, Democrats blamed Ralph Nader's candidacy for the election's outcome (and, conveniently, not the suspicious disappearance of millions of ballots in heavily pro Democrat districts in Florida). This was dubbed the "spoiler effect" and has led members of the major parties in the US to claim that a vote for a third (usually more left wing than the Democrats) party is a vote for the Republicans. I detailed in a previous post how the Democrats have turned this into a strategy by enlisting the left wing of the party to recruit leftists. This is hardly representative of a true democracy, where voters are corralled into voting for a limited number of parties.

The media plays a large role in "free speech", with libertarian types claiming that the media has a left wing bias, and that anyone can get their message out there if they just try hard enough. The assumption that the media is leftist or even unbiased is a complete farce when you consider how political ads get on the air in the US. Those who sink more money into ads and campaigns typically win, as exemplified in Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.

Free speech, then, goes to the highest bidder. Those who can afford to spread their message usually do, and they do so to protect their own interests. One only needs to look at the entire field of advertising--the whole purpose is to create elaborate, eye-catching ads that will make people purchase their products or enlist their services.

If you'd like more information on the subject, Michael Parenti completely detonates the idea of an unbiased media in this fantastic talk:

What about free speech in daily life, though? Many argue that using so-called politically correct language is anti free speech because it restricts the individual's right to speak their mind. Thinkpiece upon thinkpiece has been written on how safe spaces and trigger warnings baby individuals and damper discourse. (Nevermind that choosing whether or not you want to be exposed to certain forms of speech is, in itself, a part of free speech. No one says that you have to listen to hate speech.) Not being allowed to use slurs violates free speech, you see, so it is very important that all bigots have a platform no matter how huge. After all, leftists have a platform too!

Except historically, that hasn't been the case. I have so many examples to use here it's almost overwhelming. Should I remind you of the infamous Red Scare? Perhaps COINTELPRO slowly assassinating and destroying the Black Panthers and other revolutionary movements in the United States is another good example of a violation of the right to organize (and to bear arms as well--in fact the strictest gun restriction law in US history was passed by none other than Ronald Reagan, supported by the National Rifle Association, as a direct response to Black Panther party members open carrying).

Perhaps I should point to Indonesia, where five hundred thousand communists were murdered by the US-backed Suharto regime? Maybe I can point to my own country, where Brazilian communists and labor activists were tortured and disappeared (including the current president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff) by the military dictatorship? How about when thirty thousand leftists were rounded into a football stadium and executed by the Pinochet regime? Where was the free speech brigade to demand a platform for these communists? Where was the outcry from the libertarians who love to scream "I may not agree with your message but I will fight to the death to protect it" when confronted? Is it because the only people who actually die for "free speech" are the dreaded communists?

The fact that today, in the United States and Europe, it is difficult for an openly communist academic or professor to maintain their positions proves that academia is not the liberal stronghold most people imagine it is. A famous example of this is Angela Davis, who was fired for being too leftist by UCLA's Board of Reagents who was recently reinstated after years of lawsuits and public outcry. There are many other examples in this book, Academic Repressions: Relections from the Academic Industrial Complex, of leftist professors being ousted from high positions in their departments or even fired.

Ultimately, is free speech even that important? Is the right to promote movies or talk about how much you hate feminists more important than having food, healthcare, shelter, dignity? The vast majority of humanity lives in abject poverty. Only forty five percent of the world has access to the internet, most of them in the world's richest continents (North America and Europe). What about the free speech of those who physically, materially, cannot get their message out? What about the free speech of those who fight for the rights of the marginalized, the hungry, the murdered? 

Should we give Germaine Greer a platform because she believes trans women are actually men? As if that isn't a belief that literally, actually, gets trans women and trans feminine people around the planet beaten and murdered? When most trans women have nowhere near the platform that a rich white cis woman like Greer has, is it truly free speech? Is it actually free in the sense that everyone has an equal voice, when the media and universities provide violent transphobes with a platform and trans women starve to death in homeless shelters, begging for a voice, demanding justice for their murdered siblings?

When two white American men beat a Latino man and claimed they were inspired by Donald Trump, should we censor Trump and lament the loss of a voice that has directly led to violence against marginalized people? It isn't as if undocumented Latinx immigrants have massive economic and political power and visibility that allows them to openly challenge a billionaire like Trump.

Even a movement like Black Lives Matters, which gathers speed every day, is still unable to stop assassinations of black people by the police, simply because they lack the institutional power that would give them the ability to do so.

These violent beliefs start as mere speech, and that speech can and does incite people to action. Those who want to counter that hate speech find it is far more difficult to get their voices out because they are typically marginalized, poorer, and less visible than the ones espousing hatred.  

Is safety more important than words, speech? Is an idea that only supports the message of the status quo and the right wing something that should be protected? Must we tell rape jokes at the detriment of survivors of sexual assault? Must we tell antiblack jokes that reinforce stereotypes that black people are inferior beings? Is your right to tell shit jokes and make asinine bigoted commentary about virtually everything more important than safety? 

This is what your precious free speech looks like.

So you might be wondering, how would I deal with the problems inherent to free speech? I say: censor it. No platform to bigots, at all. No money, no visibility, no press. Let them fade into obscurity. And if they actively incite violence and send threats, more severe actions should be taken. For example, if someone is organizing a fascist newspaper, perhaps they should receive jail time. Perhaps we should revoke the material earnings gained from fascist and otherwise bigoted hate speech. Perhaps this is a much better solution than claiming the free market of ideas will take care of things, because as I have shown, the free market very clearly prefers some ideas over others, and that those ideas have disastrous effects for many people.

And perhaps, just perhaps, there are things more important than speech that are worth pursuing. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness looks good on paper, but in practice it hasn't exactly worked out for most of us, has it?

Once again, Parenti knocks it out of the ballpark with this video:

The day after the revolution they get up they ask, "Are there civil liberties for the fascists? Are they going to be allowed to have their newspapers and their radio programs? Are they going to be able to keep all their farms?" The passion that some of our liberal feels--the day after the revolution, the passion and concern they feel for the fascists, the civil rights and the civil liberties for the fascists, who are dumping and destroying and murdering people before. Now the revolution has to be perfect, it's got to be flawless. Well that isn't my criteria. My criteria is what happens to those people who couldn't read. What happens to those babies who couldnt eat, who died of hunger. And there, that's why I support revolution. The revolution that feeds the children gets my support.

No platform for fascists. Ever.

An overview of the current situation in Brazil

Dilma Rousseff is the current president of Brazil and a member of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party, abbreviated here as PT). The PT, particularly under former president Lula, has an impressive track record on raising the poorest Brazilians out of poverty. They are progressive on international issues, recognizing the state of Palestine and accepting Syrian and Haitian refugees into the country.

President Rousseff, known almost exclusively by her first name within the country, was a true communist revolutionary. She engaged in open armed resistence during the dictatorship, including participating the kidnapping of a US ambassador. Our dictatorship distinguished itself from other US-backed Latin American military dictatorships--we specialized in torture, rather than killing. And when Dilma was caught and put on trial, she was tortured like fifty thousand other labor leaders, communists, and otherwise innocent people. She did this in the name of democracy and freedom.

Today as president, Dilma presides over an ever-growing police state that continues to arrest leftists and murder the Afro Brazilian and indigenous populations at a frightening rate. It is safe to say that the dictatorship never ended--it has simply rebranded as a populist government. The PT has failed to seriously address the crimes against humanity committed by its own government. Dilma herself has tearfully testified to the recently released truth commission report of the dictatorship's crimes, yet does not see the irony of a former victim of the regime presiding over an equally repressive government disguised as a social democracy.

The PT's popularity has plummeted, with Dilma's approval rating hovering at around nine percent at the time of this writing. While she has continued and expanded the immensely popular and successful welfare programs initiated under Lula, such as Bolsa Família, many other areas have recently received severe cuts due to austerity.

Corruption allegations have also diminished the PT's popularity considerably, though to the party's credit, more politicians (including many from the PT itself) have been prosecuted for corruption in the past eight years than at any other point in Brazil's history.

Dilma has also cracked down on dissent, particularly leading up to the World Cup. The United States has trained Brazilian police offers in various parts of the continent, training them how to deal with dissent and mass groups. And until recently, the Brazilian government contracted an Israeli security company to help violate the privacy of Brazilian citizens. Recently Congress passed a law that could potentially list protesters as terrorists, a charge which carries a 30 year sentence, the maximum permitted under Brazilian law. This bill was proposed by Dilma Rousseff herself.

There are legitimate criticisms to be made of Dilma's government, but the far right has exploited the situation. Several anti-government protests have taken place this year, which have received massive, disproportionate coverage by the right-wing media. While the left has come out in support of Dilma against charges of impeachment, the situation remains precarious. A slow coup is underway as Dilma continues to fight off impeachment charges and heavy criticism from members of parliament.

It is no longer politically viable to defend Dilma and the PT. After eight years, they have gone from a center-left party to openly collaborating with the right and enacting severe austerity measures and inviting foreign capital exploitation into the country, like campaigning for hosting the World Cup and Olympics and the slow privatization of Petrobras. I believe within my lifetime, Petrobras will be completely privatized and owned by foreign interests.

We cannot speak about Brazil and the left without talking about Petrobras. Our national oil industry has been attacked by the Dilma government and already partially privatized despite massive outcry from the public. For once, both the conservative PSDB and the PT are in agreement.

Odd that the PT was out in full force against then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the PSDB's attempts to privatize Petrobras. Odd how Lula essentially made anti-privatization part of his election campaign promises in 2002 and 2006. Odd how it was exactly Dilma, a former minister in his cabinet and a former socialist revolutionary, who was able to finally partially privatize the national oil industry, and not the conservatives.

But Petrobras will not go gentle into that good night--Petrobras workers have been on strike since September 3rd to protest this recent attempt at privatization. The fear is that the scandals surrounding Petrobras will be used as fuel to further privatize the national oil industry. It is a smokescreen--the right insists that our oil will be better off in the hands of foreign interests or oligarchs than in the hands of the government. The government is corrupt, for sure, but they can and are held accountable. Putting control of one of the largest industries on earth in the hands of the private sector would possibly be disastrous for Brazil's economy.

We as leftists must be incredibly careful about where to go next. Other left parties like PSOL have been shaky at best with aligning with working class interests and have often voted with the PT, including in favor of the law that would class protestors as terrorists. Luciana Genro, former presidential candidate and a prominent figure within the PSOL, has extended solidarity to Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president and member of the PSDB.

I believe any alliance with the right is extremely dangerous--there is no third option. We either take power or we let others rule over us. The Brazilian left is in an uncomfortable position. Dilma may very well be impeached especially after it was discovered that her administration had falsified fiscal accounts. We are currently in the deepest economic recession in 25 years with the most unpopular Brazilian president of all time at the helm of a sinking ship. It has become clear that more than ever, the left must unite and fight back against austerity and attempts to destabilize our democratically elected government.