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Freedom Of The Press
posted February 28, 2006
Freedom of the press. What does that mean? I’m talking about within the context of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Why was freedom of the press so important to those people back then?
Put yourself in their place. There would not have been an American Revolution without the press.
The only way to gather a group and continue to expand that group to the point where it’s large enough to stand up and declare its independence from the mother country and its government is to give them a reason to do it.
Without information there is no reason for the people to do anything or think anything outside the daily grind of their miserable lives as individuals just trying to get by.
It takes information to bring the people together as a group. People have a natural desire to know the news. “What’s going on?” That’s the question. It’s the responsibility of a free press to provide that answer.
Of course delivering the news is only part of it. It is also the responsibility of the press to stir up the pure mind. In my opinion, the greatest single figure of the American Revolution was the pamphleteer, Thomas Paine.
If I had to name the true father of this country, it would be him. He stirred up the pure mind with ideas and argued for complete independence from England before it became mainstream thinking. He electrified the countryside with his words that were read in the churches and town squares and sold on the street corners.
His pamphlets, his reasoning and his common sense arguments for revolution and freedom inspired George Washington to the extent that he asked Paine to write one for his soldiers. It was the first of the Crisis pamphlets, the “Winter Soldiers” speech with the line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Washington ordered it read to the army in the field.
So Washington and the other Founding Fathers went on to glory and Paine went on to die alone and destitute.
But that doesn’t change it for me. I still believe that it was Paine and the power of his pen that was the driving force that turned the people into revolutionaries and brought them together in a big bunch crying out for freedom, risking their lives and whatever fortunes they had in order to gain their independence from England.
I don’t think Paine has ever gotten the true credit he deserves, but I believe the Founding Fathers knew how important he was to the revolution, and how important the press was in general with helping to bring about the revolution and helping the people maintain their freedom once it had been achieved and victory won.
That’s why freedom of the press is listed in the First Amendment, prohibiting Congress from making any laws that would abridge that freedom or the freedom of speech.
The press was that important, not only in bringing about the revolution but in maintaining the freedoms won by the revolution, such as those other First Amendment rights prohibiting Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of it, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The thing that made Thomas Paine such a powerful force in the establishment of America was his ability to articulate the desire of the human heart to be free. His eloquence was so pure and simple, it spoke to the high and low, from the richest man in the country to the poorest dirt farmer. He stirred the hearts of men and women, the young and the old.
Besides a great mind, Paine had a great heart and great courage and a great ability to make people think and realize the simple truth that if they wanted to be free they would have to free themselves, as a group, even at the cost of their lives, by fighting the British and winning their liberty.
The man himself may have died alone and penniless and unsung but his song is still being sung. Freedom is still the song of America and it is still the hope of America. The Revolution that Paine struck a match to has never really gone out, but still burns in the individual hearts of those who are not free, both here and around the world.
The desire for freedom still burns in the hearts of those Americans who can see the rusting away and corrosion of their freedoms. It burns in the hearts of those who want more freedom and it burns in the hearts of those who have been denied their equal freedoms as human beings along with the rest.
Paine didn’t invent the idea of freedom, he articulated the common sense need for it and pointed out that there would never be a better opportunity for the people to free themselves from the bonds of England than right then, while the iron was hot.
All they had to do was put their courage to the sticking place. After all hadn’t they dug out a living and developed a sustainable economy while fighting off the Indians and the French?
Had their parents and grandparents not given them this opportunity by their sweat and blood and their willingness to fight for the land which they had wrested out of the wilderness?
Inspired by the thinking and reasoning and writings and speeches of Thomas Paine and the other revolutionary leaders and speakers, a significant number of the people came together as a group with a single vision - freedom. The rest is history.
But history is still in the making. History changes. The idea of freedom changes. The idea of freedom of speech and the press, and freedom of religion, the freedom to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances changes.
Ironically – this being a government of, for and by the people – the great, grazing masses have become corrupt and full of hypocrisy, greed, selfishness, self-righteousness and have taken plain old-fashioned dumbness to a place that the Founding Fathers could never have contemplated.
We need a Thomas Paine today to get the word out and to reason with the people and make them think and take a look around. The freedom of the press, which is to say the freedom of the watchdog and guardian of our liberties, has been seriously abridged, both from the inside and out.
That became obvious after 9/11 when the press failed to provide the proper leadership and guidance to the people. It was as if the press had given up its responsibility and joined the grazing masses. The press should have been calling for restraint and wisdom and proper conduct in the class instead of going along with the national drive for revenge - regardless of who was bombed or how many had to be killed.
It became even more obvious in the days leading up to our illegal attack on Iraq, when the press, led by the great New York Times, turned themselves into secretaries and public relations people for the government by feeding the people exactly what the government wanted fed to the great grazing masses, without question.
In fact, it is becoming more and more obvious every day that the free press is not free. How can it be free if it has given up its most important duties? To give the people the truth and nothing but the truth, no matter how hard they have to dig for it, work for it, suffer for it or risk their lives for it.
I always thought that freedom of the press and duty of the press meant the same thing. What good is freedom if you’re not going to do your duty? And what is your duty if it’s not telling the truth and speaking out for the truth.
The press is the greatest weapon in the creation of freedom and in the defense and maintenance of freedom than all the military weapons in the world combined. When doing its duty it is a great two-horned beast that cannot be withstood.
One horn is used in delivering the facts, especially about those things that people need to know, and to deliver those facts with clarity and intelligence, with no other duty except to provide the truth.
The second horn is the horn that Thomas Paine blew.
We need some Thomas Paines today. We need to get through to the great, grazing masses that we can’t be free unless we free ourselves. And the only way to free ourselves is to stop our numb-minded grazing on hypocrisy, self-righteousness, selfishness and greed.
Somehow we have to shake the people up from their sleep and make them think and realize that there are only two choices and two outcomes. The world will either come together in peace or it will go out together through war.
The same way that we have come this far in our struggle for freedom – and we are not all equally free, ask the Indian that we took the land from, ask the people of color, ask the poor people – is too slow a way for today because time is moving too quick toward nuclear war.
We can’t afford anymore of this trial and error stuff. We can’t afford to spend our time and lives and money and resources on waging illegal war around the world, while the poor continue to become poorer and the rich become richer, while the grazing herd grazes and the great power of America is in the hands of a bunch of neotards.
Freedom requires respect between both parties. Freedom requires respect, and equal respect, between all nations, not just the nations we like and can count on to help us in our pursuit of more wealth and more power, but even the nations we don’t like because of their beliefs and the type of government that the people live under, or because of their riches and resources.
We are not showing our own people equal respect and we are not showing other nations and other peoples equal respect. Don’t we realize even yet that there can be no freedom and no peace without equal respect? How can it be that that notion is so hard for the great, grazing masses to grasp?
Are the great, grazing masses so stupid as to believe that the only way to gain respect is by the sword? Is that the cud they are still chewing after all these years? Do they not understand the words of their own Bible which they claim so loudly to believe in? That those who live by the sword shall die by the sword?
It is time to replace the sword of war with the bugle of peace. That bugle is the free press. But, for some reason, it has become silent. And when it does manage a toot once in a while, it is not loud enough or often enough to grab the attention of the masses that continue to graze in ignorance even as they are herded toward the slaughter houses.
It’s time for a Thomas Paine to address the masses. It’s time for the free press to do its duty and prove that there is still such a thing as freedom of the press and that someone needs to sound a warning that the struggle for freedom has taken a turn for the worse and that the greatest threat to America and peace in the world is coming from within America itself, in the form of the great, grazing masses and their representatives, led by the powerful, religious, war-mongering, capitalists and neotards.
It’s time for the free press to start blowing its horn. It’s time for the people to realize that the American Revolution was never over and it will never be over until mutual respect and the right to freedom becomes a true thing, not only among individual Americans but for nations all over the world – including the right to be left alone to make their own choices and not to be taken over, bullied and pistol whipped into obedience by an America that has drifted off course and decided that there will be no freedom and no peace until it rules the world.
Naman Crowe
namancrowe@yahoo.com
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