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‘Terrorist’ claim
is chilling threat
John M. Wylie II, Oologah Lake Leader
February 2004 Editorial Winner
Decent Americans were outraged when U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the nation’s largest teachers’ union a "terrorist organization."
They should be terrified, because this was not a poor choice of words, as apologists for the Bush Administration would have us believe. It was part of a coldly calculated effort by the President and his enforcers to completely stifle dissent against Bush policy on every issue from education o civil rights, using the guise of war and the anti-constitution nuclear weapon known as The Patriot Act.
There is no question about what happened. Paige told members of the National Governors Association during a private White House meeting Monday that, "The NEA (National Education Association) is a Terrorist Organization" because of its opposition to aspects of the President’s cherished No Child Left Behind measure.
When the remark became public and the inevitable uproar ensued, Paige gave a non-apology apology and stressed that his comments referred to NEA leaders, not rank and file teachers.
That’s the tip-off: His words were actually very carefully chosen to define dissent against the President’s education policy as "terrorist" act so the Administration can bring leaders of that dissent under the onerous terms of The Patriot Act.
The Act (Public Law 107-56) "allows investigators to use the tools that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking" against groups defined as terrorist organizations—the label Paige is applying to NEA leaders. Those tools include secret searches, covert bugging and wiretaps and secret seizure of private business records, according to a summary prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice.
It also prohibits "the harboring of terrorists." Taken literally, that would mean any school where an NEA leader taught could be targeted for engaging in criminal activity.
While demanding Paige’s removal, even the head of the Oklahoma Education Association tiptoed around the frightening peek into the planed Bush police state provided by the education Secretary’s inadvertent honesty.
"We are shocked and outraged that Secretary Paige would equate educators with terrorists," said OEA President Roy Bishop. "We are deeply offended for the victims of true terrorism—including Oklahoma’s Murrah Building bombing. It is morally repugnant to blithely equate those entrusted with our children with criminals who forever destroyed lives in terrorist attacks."
Ironically, some to the worst carnage in the Oklahoma City bombing was to the daycare center and pre-school. The bombing also killed black federal workers and civilians-another sign that Paige’s words were not merely a slip of the tongue. He is black, and as part of his hollow mea culpa he acknowledged that as a lifelong target of insensibility, his words should have been "chosen better."
In fact, they were carefully calculated to strike terror in the hearts of teachers opposed to Bush’s education policy, just as a recent and egregious abuse of the Patriot Act in Iowa was designed to terrorize leaders of anti-war protests and institutions that allow them to exercise their First Amendment rights.
It happened at Drake University in Des Moines, where federal prosecutors tried to drag anti-war activists and university officials before a grand jury to disclose details of a meeting or the campus chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, where protest strategies were discussed.
Just to make sure the message got through that Bush and Co. held all the cards, the Justice Department persuaded a federal judge to issue a gag order, prohibiting the university from discussing the subpoenas or even acknowledging their existence (Remember, the Patriot Act allows this when your friend and protector—the government—is investigating a "terrorist organization.")
The whole scheme blew sky high when The Des Moines Register and the national office of the guild—which were not covered by the gag order—blow the whistle. Drake then warned the government to back off or it would move into court to quash the subpoenas and lift the gag.
Faced with the virtual certainty that no federal judge would countenance its behavior, Bush’s Iowa storm troopers backed off and the whole sorry tale became public.
Ironically, Drake is a quite and generally conservative campus, not a hotbed of radical anti-government fervor. But it has a strong tradition of protecting free speech "without fear of reprisal," said University President David Maxwell.
Brian Terrell, a member of the Catholic Peace Ministry and a named target of the grand jury probe, was blunt about the motive for the government action: "I imagine timing to be important here, attempting to quiet dissent just as more people are questioning war and an election (is) coming up."
Others involved said there was little question that "this is part of Bush’s re-election campaign tactics" which include sending a message to political opponents that "dissent of this government is not tolerated."
Conservatives may cheer at what they see as a President putting those "lying liberals" in their place. But what if the roles were reversed, and this was an atheist President who believed churches were a "terrorist organization" standing in the way of his policies becoming part of his permanent dictatorship?
That’s why we have a First Amendment—
to ensure that no matter who is in power and what wing of the political spectrum they represent, other views can be freely expressed and debated.
"The way to stop Bush is the same way you stop any bully—you sand up to him!" said Howard Dean in a letter to us today. The former Presidential contender is right: If we don’t stand up to this bully now, we will be part of George Orwell’s nightmarish 1984 two decades late, with Big Bush in the role of Big Brother.
In a way, we should all thank Secretary Paige. He has opened the window to the Bush Administration’s soul or, more accurately, its lack of one.
How we, the people of the United States, react to this challenge will determine if we remain a democracy.
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