Wednesday 12 March 2014

Free speech in the 'Land of Freedom'!

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Back in February, I happened to be watching the 'Russia Today' presenter, Abby Martin, on her RT show 'Breaking the Set'. She referred to the case of Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and anti-war campaigner, who had been hauled out of a meeting at George Washington University after staging a protest when Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, gave a speech about Internet freedom and the crackdown on free speech in Egypt. 

It seems that McGovern simply stood up at the meeting and turned his back on Clinton to display a message on his T-shirt. He was then dragged out of the meeting and can be heard saying: "This is America!" Although he only suffered minor injuries, he was later charged with 'disruptive conduct' (later dropped) and was then investigated about his personal and political activities and was then put on stop and search procedures.

Of course, that famous American writer, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), wouldn't have been surprised by any of this. He once said: "In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the prudence never to exercise either of them." So much for free speech in America.

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