or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
February 22, 2011
An Experiment in Politeness
I was raised to be polite and rational. So when engaging in my hobby of trying to get powerful U.S. institutions to correct inaccurate statements, it's hard for me to be anything but—even though, in at least 100 attempts on my part, being polite and rational has literally never worked.
But you never know! So let's try again.
Yesterday WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show had on Alec Ross, who's "Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." He has 327,000 followers on Twitter. And here he is on Facebook.
The subject of the show was "Internet Freedom and U.S. Diplomacy," and dealt in part with Hillary Clinton's speech a week ago—the speech from which Ray McGovern was forcibly ejected and bloodied for engaging in a silent protest. (He stood up and turned his back on Clinton.)
Someone called in and asked Ross to comment on this. Starting about 28:30 there was this exchange:
KOJO NNAMDI: On the case of Ray McGovern, that was brought up by several people...Ray McGovern of course was a protester, a silent protester, at a George Washington speech delivered by Secretary Clinton. Video showed him being escorted out—or in the eyes of some, being brutally roughed up.ALEC ROSS: Yes, so, he was a handful of rows away from me, and he wasn't silent. [Chuckles] You know, Hillary Clinton was trying to give a speech, and he was yelling. So, look, you know, he was a guest, and if you're going to stand there and make a lot of noise when the Secretary of State is trying to give a speech, then, you know, you're probably going to be an unwelcome guest. I will say that I didn't see him being "roughed up." I mean, I didn't see until the end there, but my point of view was that cops did exactly what they ought to do. That's their job.
You can listen to segment here:
Of course, what Alec Ross says was inaccurate. Ray McGovern was not "yelling"—he was engaging in a silent protest when the security roughly grabbed him. Now, it's true that (by my count) seven seconds after he was grabbed he did shout, "So this is America!" But the fact that you say something when you're seized by cops does not make a silent protest retroactively un-silent, and it therefore legitimate for them to haul you out. And even if he had been yelling, McGovern should not have been manhandled in the way he was.
Now, someone as polite and rational as myself assumes everyone has good intentions. It's likely Alec Ross just isn't aware of what happened—and will therefore be happy to publicly correct himself on twitter, on facebook, and (if they'll let him) on the Kojo Nnamdi Show. An apology to Ray McGovern would also be nice.
Let's see what happens.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at February 22, 2011 02:10 AMPoliteness be damned. I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but just looking at that baby-faced little cretin lying through his teeth makes me want to vomit.
Posted by: NomadUK at February 22, 2011 02:29 AMmaybe mcgovern should have said "don't taser me, man." then ross could say "and he was spouting the same old tired anti-establishment line."
Posted by: hapa at February 22, 2011 04:20 AMWhen Jonathan says someone as polite and rational as myself assumes everyone has good intentions, my response is to once again quote a Bob Dylan song:
Democracy don't rule the world,
You'd better get that in your head.
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that's better left unsaid.
I guess you could say that I'm spouting the same old tired anti-establishment line.
But seriously, is Ross intentionally lying here, or is he just doing what most people do most of the time, remembering things the way that makes sense to him, rather than the way they happened?
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish between weakness and malice.
Other times -- less hard.
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. at February 22, 2011 08:40 AMDon't get mad, get even.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at February 22, 2011 11:16 AMIt sounds like another routine day for the empire. When was the last time any of these apparatchiks gave an honest answer? At least he didn't steal anyone's credit card info.
Posted by: Edward at February 22, 2011 12:48 PMClinton needs to have her CPU. removed.
Posted by: demize! at February 22, 2011 01:53 PMWouldn't the ideal solution in the circumstances be for the police to discreetly request of Ray McGovern, "Sir, we would like to ask for you to leave. Would you comply?" And then to escort him out?
It seems to me that this is actually a very regular-occurring police-brutality issue rather than one of censorship. This is no more or less outrageous than police beating people up anywhere. The content of Hillary's speech is irrelevant; the point is that like anyone else, veteran or no, McGovern deserves to be treated with dignity during the process of having his guest status to the speech revoked. He does not, however, have a right to protest that particular speech, because it was held on the grounds of GWU, to which he was, legally speaking, invited.
Posted by: Myles at February 22, 2011 04:37 PMWhen was the last time any of these apparatchiks gave an honest answer? At least he didn't steal anyone's credit card info.
+10 pts.
Posted by: saurabh at February 22, 2011 04:55 PMWhat if one had to go to the toilet in the middle of the speach?
Posted by: Mike Meyer at February 22, 2011 06:06 PM@mike myer
If its a Hilary (or bill) speech, it think its appropriate to just leave one on the seat.
Posted by: Blackplates at February 22, 2011 06:35 PMMaybe large masses of people should start going to the toilet in the middle of HRC's speeches. We could start a trend.
Posted by: grimmy at February 22, 2011 07:13 PM"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." JFK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-violent_revolution#Peaceful_revolution
@DeanTaylor_
@wikileaks Wisconsin Governor betrays self about planting provocateurs: "Punked by Fake Koch Call"
http://ad.vu/6ymq RT @FireDogLake
his own account of what he did, and why -
Standing Up to War and Hillary Clinton
By Ray McGovern
February 23, 2011
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/022311b.html
Breaking News on MSNBC: Hillary condems the violence against protesters just speaking out for their rights.
America: Ya git the gummint ya deserve.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at February 23, 2011 03:25 PMI should have quoted Ray McGovern's opening sentence:
It was not until Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walked to the George Washington University podium last week to enthusiastic applause that I decided I had to dissociate myself from the obsequious adulation of a person responsible for so much death, suffering and destruction.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/022311b.html
"Sometimes its hard to distinguish between weakness and malice. . ."
It's also hard to decide which does more harm.
Posted by: N E at February 23, 2011 05:50 PMI posted the following on the radio show's comments page:
Alec Ross Falsely Corrects Kojo re McGovern's Arrest - McGovern was NOT yelling until AFTER he was arrested
From the Kojo Nnamdi show of February 21, 2011
KOJO NNAMDI: On the case of Ray McGovern, that was brought up by several people...Ray McGovern of course was a protester, a silent protester, at a George Washington speech delivered by Secretary Clinton. Video showed him being escorted out—or in the eyes of some, being brutally roughed up.
ALEC ROSS: Yes, so, he was a handful of rows away from me, and he wasn't silent. [Chuckles] You know, Hillary Clinton was trying to give a speech, and he was yelling. So, look, you know, he was a guest, and if you're going to stand there and make a lot of noise when the Secretary of State is trying to give a speech, then, you know, you're probably going to be an unwelcome guest. I will say that I didn't see him being "roughed up." I mean, I didn't see until the end there, but my point of view was that cops did exactly what they ought to do. That's their job.
[end of quote from show transcript]
Ross's version is contradicted by McGovern's own account:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/18/ex_cia_analyst_ray_mcgovern_beaten
So, people remember things differently. Let's go to the videotape.
The video posted at the WAMU website never SHOWS us McGovern, but the first we hear from him is when he yells "So this is America" at 2:08 elapsed time. A different video of the same event, from PBS, shows McGovern being grabbed and wrestled about before he says this. I saw this video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzPZcIzDWjg&feature=player_embedded
It's perfectly clear that Alec Ross's claim that McGovern was "mak[ing] a lot of noise when the Secretary of State is trying to give a speech" is false. Since Ross states that he was present, the contradiction between what the tape shows and what Ross says is indicative of what I would call, euphemistically, "motivated misremembering".
KOJO - has Alec Ross offered to retract his false claim about McGovern, or would he be willing to do so? Even if he doesn't, will YOU correct the record?
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. at February 24, 2011 02:31 PM
