Lest our government destroy our own First Amendment rights

Many of us watched the attack on free speech that took place over the last several years at Vassar College. An African American freshman was expelled and an entire student group, Students for Justice in Palestine, was stripped of its status as a campus organization. First, President Hill accused the group of lacking "curtesy on campus" and creating fear in Jewish students by talking about the plight of the Palestinians. Then came the Zionist placed articles in the media - "Hatred on the Hudson" in the "Daily News," and "Majoring in Anti-Semitism at Vassar" in the "Wall Street Journal." Finally, President Hill, pressured by pro-Zionist alumni , condemned a lecture by visiting Rutgers professor, Dr. Jasbir Puar. Unfortunately, the criticism was based on second hand reports of what the professor had actually said about Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians. Hundreds of academics across the country immediately signed a petition defending Dr. Puar's right for free speech on campus. President Hill's attack was particularly egregious since Jewish Studies Program faculty at Vassar had sponsored the Puar lecture.

When the student government passed a resolution last spring advocating for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, President Hill threatened to withhold funding for all student groups on campus. While Hill resigned a few months later, the battle for free speech on campus continues. 

Governor Cuomo's recent executive oder brings this fight closer to home. Indicating that any criticism of Israel is by definition anti-Semitism, he plans to defund all groups in the state that support boycott, divestment and sanctions. The order also establishes a vaguely defined "blacklist" of supposed anti-Semitic groups advocating BDS. Citizens of New York State haven't seen this type of government sponsored blacklisting since the McCarthy era.

No country should escape responsibility for human rights abuses. Invasions and occupations of other peoples have always been wrapped in the flags of nationalism, patriotism, and religion. We as free citizens of a democracy must always defend our rights to criticize such human rights abusers and apartheid states, lest our government destroy our own First Amendment rights for free speech and expression.

In the Mid Hudson Valley, the fight to preserve free speech starts with WoodstockFreeSpeech.org. Please sign the petition guaranteeing citizens the right to boycott racism and injustice wherever they rear their ugly heads. 

Fred Nagel

Each generation has had to demand their right to be heard

Historically, empires have viewed the rest of the world through a very narrow lens. Other lands are seen as opportunities to rob or enslave. In late empire, the treatment of foreign subjects becomes the norm for abuses of its own citizenry. 

With 800 US bases overseas, America can be viewed as the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Its endless wars abroad has brought home a particularly vicious form of racism along with all the high tech weaponry to create havoc in a divided society. 

America's colony, Israel, is a perfect example. It's intense racism directed at its Palestinian minority gets defended by our Congress, setting an example for this country. Racism is OK if it targets a particular religious group or skin color; that's the way the empire works.

So it is no surprise that Governor Cuomo's recent executive order forbids groups or businesses to boycott Israeli products. Boycotts, part of many human rights campaigns, have always been viewed as threats by the elites. Outlawing the right to boycott is really the first step to criminalizing any speech that the empire deems offensive. What would happen if the majority of US citizens really demanded human rights in the rest of the world? Who could the empire assassinate with drones, or torture in hidden prisons? What countries could the empire invade and occupy, killing millions in the process? And how could it possibly protect its colony, Israel, with its sixty five year history of ethnic cleansing and genocide? 

The right of citizens to boycott is protected by our First Amendment and by various Supreme Court decisions on political speech. But that is clearly not enough to stop our governor from trampling on our rights. One town, Woodstock, is fighting back by considering a resolution that limits Governor Cuomo's executive order. 

You can do your part by signing the Town of Woodstock's resolution at www.woodstockfreespeech.org, and then by attending some of the events being planned. The resolution will be introduced at the July 19 town board meeting, and a panel discussion will be presented the following Friday, July 22, starting at 7 PM in the Woodstock Town Hall. 

Standing up for freedom of expression has never been easy, and each generation has had to demand their right to be heard. Now, it's our turn to ensure that the state does not destroy our First Amendment rights.

Fred Nagel

The basic racism in our political system

The Woodstock Town Board is discussing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions issue that is confronting state governments around the country. The right to express moral outrage at economic and social injustices has never been more under attack than it is today, when the NYS legislature and Governor are attempting to outlaw BDS.

How different this effort is to the use of boycott and divestment by state officials to pressure Swiss banks to do the right thing in 1997. A collaborative effort by NYC Comptroller Alan Hevesi, NY Comptroller Carl McCall, and the World Jewish Congress pressured Swiss banks to pay much more in Holocaust reparations. Hevesi was also the head of the US Comptroller's Association, with $30 trillion in pension investments. Soon officials from many states threatened to withdraw funds, leading to a settlement of $1.25 billion from Swiss banks that profited from genocide.

Now the NY State Legislature wants to criminalize the very same economic pressure to do the right thing for millions of Palestinians living under brutal Israeli occupation. Where did all the moral indignation go? Is the suffering of Palestinians somehow less compelling than the suffering of others? Instead of using pension funds as a moral weapon against racism and injustice, our legislature and governor are criminalizing such boycott and divestment, making it illegal for institutions or NGO's funded by the state to implement any form of BDS. 

This is a free speech issue, and a moral issue that explores the basic racism in our political system.

Fred Nagel

Letter to the Editor

By now I imagine many of your readers have caught the stream of information relating to the WoodstockFreeSpeech.org campaign. The campaign is a response to Governor Cuomo's Executive Order 157 which penalizes, and intends to blacklist,  institutions which engage in first amendment protected activities. Not only is this act illegal, it breeches a trust that is established between elected officials and civil society: that elected officials uphold their oath to office and protect the citizens they've been elected to serve. Rather, what has taken place is some not-well understood subservience to a foreign government which undermines the Bill of Rights and usurps the US and NYS Constitutions.

This subservience is being investigated in a Freedom of Information Act request by a number of legal and justice groups. Perhaps this FOIA request will shed light on the motivation for the Governor putting a foreign nation's security above our right to speak freely and act according to our sense of justice by engaging in politically motivated academic, cultural and economic boycotts of a country which engages in systemic gross human rights violations. 

Aside from the sad human tragedy of a belligerent occupier unable to see their brothers as sisters in humanity and aside from the grotesque distortions about culture, identity, victim and perpetrator sewn via the military industrial media academic complex, the core issue here is self determination – the principles of which evolved as part of our human intellectual, philosophical and moral dialectic leading to the establishment of democratic institutions and the conventions on international human rights law. 

To know, to think, and to feel the injustices that our brothers and sisters under military occupation are suffering is both mind blowing and spirit shattering. To know that our government is the primary support of the violence and oppression is intolerable. To see the Governor of NY state acting apparently at the behest of a foreign nation to undermine our rights is egregious if not treasonous.

Such actions require a greater and opposing force to restore our most basic rights: that the Governor should rescind his executive order (in the very least). To that end, WoodstockFreeSpeech.org will continue with it's public events around the issue; the next event (see website ) will be a World Cafe style community dialog about the Free Speech Resolution this Friday at the Woodstock Town Hall. 

Adam Roufberg

Identities

Towns, like individuals, live in the sea of history and have identities that are defined over time. Towns, like individuals, are complex entities that function on many levels: physical, emotional, political, environmental, moral, spiritual, intellectual, to name just a few.

In fact, towns and individuals are not separate entities; rather they interact, intersect, and co-create as people come to identify with where they live, shape it, and are, in turn, shaped by their towns. Why do we feel we belong in some places and not in others? What are the attributes of towns and of ourselves that make us proud when we identify as inhabitants of a particular place?

When our family moved to Woodstock in the 1980s, we moved to a town defined by the 1969 Woodstock Concert and its symbol of a dove perched on a guitar. We were drawn to Woodstock from New York City by sentiments of peace and love, acceptance of diversity, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. Also, historically, Woodstock had been known as the Colony of the Arts. We were happy to say that those identities suited us well, and we were proud to say we were from Woodstock.

Today, we feel that those essential characteristics are not so apt, that they are mostly relics from the past and that we, as Woodstockers, need to invest ourselves in new or different identities of which we can be proud. One of those possible new identities is that of an engaged and well-informed citizenry, who are actively engaged in protecting their basic freedoms, as guaranteed by our Constitution.

When attempts are made to limit those freedoms, as Governor Cuomo did when he issued his June 5 Executive Order #157, it is up to us and our town to speak up and let our voices be heard. Let’s make Woodstock into a town where free speech is sacrosanct. Let’s make Woodstock into a town known for its love of free expression and its willingness to stand up against any and all government encroachments of our constitutional rights. This is an identity that we can be proud of and one that speaks of the very best in us.

Identities can’t be assumed as easily as putting on a new hat or coat; they aren’t mere masks, but are outward expressions of our beliefs. They must be earned over time by constant nourishment and reaffirmation. You can be part of fueling this new identity by getting involved with the Woodstock Free Speech movement. Please attend a meeting of the Woodstock Town Board (76 Comeau Drive), on Tuesday, July 19, when Jay Wenk will introduce a Free Speech Resolution. You can read the resolution and sign our petition at http://www.woodstockfreespeech.org/.

Nic Abramson

Helaine Meisler

Shady, NY

Then they came for me

Why Free Speech Now?

Normally I think about free speech about as often as I think about the air I breathe. It's in the background; I take it for granted. And it's only then, when I'm in the smog of Los Angeles or hiking at an altitude where the air is thinner do I become aware of the lack of oxygen. Sometimes, it is only when you are deprived of something that you remember how vital that thing is, that you once took for granted, to your well being...and sometimes to your very existence. And so it is with free speech.

My political sympathies generally align with the powerless, the less fortunate and oppressed members of human society, whose voices are less heard and less often represented. I am a supporter of justice for the Palestinian People, and I participate in their call for a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign against Israel. So, I was personally affected when Governor Cuomo issued an executive order that put limitations on the constitutionally protected right to boycott Israel. All of a sudden, I was faced with the fact that there wasn't as much oxygen in the atmosphere, that my right to non-violently express my opinions was being limited by my government, whose own Bill of Rights protects my right to freely express those opinions.

And then, as I thought about this, and realized that it's not just BDS that's at stake, but my freedom to exercise my First Amendment rights, did I remember the 1946 statement of Martin Niemoller, a German Lutheran pastor:

          First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -
          Because I was not a Socialist
          Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -
          Because I was not a Trade Unionists
          Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -
          Because I was not a Jew

          Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
In this dangerous time, when our rights are under attack, when minorities are imperiled, when we live in constant fear and that fear is unnecessarily flamed by our "leaders," now is the time, this present moment, for citizens to speak up – to defend our rights and the rights of others. The Woodstock Free Speech (WFS) Campaign is a movement that encourages each of us to stand up against unconstitutional attacks on our First Amendment Right of Free Speech.

Please sign a petition at http://woodstockfreespeech.org/ and join in asking the Woodstock Town Board to adopt a Resolution that affirms our First Amendment Rights.

Nic Abramson   

The Woodstock Free Speech Campaign

The town of Woodstock office building on

the Comeau property, (Photo by Tony Adamis)

Dear Editor:

The Woodstock Free Speech Campaign seeks to have the Woodstock Town Board pass a resolution that states that the right to boycott, as a component of constitutionally protected free speech, is important enough to the town of Woodstock and its inhabitants that we are willing to take a stand against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s unilateral executive order that withholds state funding from organizations that promote boycotts against Israel for its human rights abuses of Palestinians.

Why should this campaign be important enough for Woodstockers and others to support? Why is it important for citizens to stop any and all encroachments on our First Amendment rights?

Free speech and the nonviolent expression of our views, whether popular or not, are the bedrock of our democracy. When the First Amendment rights of any one of us are limited or denied, can the denial of others be far behind? It’s the canary in the coal mine. It’s our early warning system. And if we ignore these first encroachments, then we are on a slippery slope.

In the next few months, there will be town educational and organizing events. Residents may sign a petition at www.woodstockfreespeech.org and share it with friends and neighbors.

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Nic Abramson

Shady, N.Y.