From The Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act

[alarimer]

By Christopher Finam

I just finished this and found it pretty interesting and frightening at the same time. I had no idea that there was so much repression of free speech during WWI for example. It was basically a crime to dissent. Also the whole history of book-banning was fascinating too. I think that things are better now, even with the Patriot Act, but we must be vigilant.

[aquart]

1. My grandfather went into hiding during the Palmer Raids.

That's all I know, except, at his funeral, the single eulogy delivered in English was only one sentence long: "When every man was betraying his friend, VelVel wouldn't."

Never forgot it.

[alarimer]

2. What they did then was eerily similar to the raid after 9/11

When they rounded up all those men, mostly of middle Eastern origin and just basically disappeared them, sometimes for years. It is like we never learned the lessons of the past.

[aquart]

3. An online friend's husband was arrested in that.

She came onto our soap opera list and said, "My husband was arrested this morning." In front of their children. But I have to add that the FBI agents were actually apologetic, saying most people weren't home. Her husband is Jordanian, but she said that the place he was taken to was full of Pakistanis, and that it cost the families between five and nine thousand dollars to bail out each arrested man.

So most of them were not "disappeared."

[alarimer]

5. No, just stuck in some kind of bureaucratic hell

When most had done nothing wrong.

I guess "disappeared" really refers to extraordinary rendition. Like that poor Canadian guy, Maher Arar (I think).

It makes my blood boil to hear of our government doing these things in the name of "national security".

[Adsos Letter]

4. Have you read "The Age of Anxiety" by Haynes Johnson?

It would probably make a good compliment to Finam's work...

My wife's grandfather belonged to the SDA church at the outset of WWI. Because Seventh-day Adventism has historically assumed a "non-combatancy" attitude towards war, he was in serious trouble when the draft came. He was willing to serve in some capacity, but he refused to carry a weapon. The "government" tossed him into a boxcar, a series of which were substituting as "jail facilities" and pretty harshly mistreated him. He refused to surrender the dictates of conscience and the "government" finally relented and allowed him to serve as an unarmed male nurse.

They then sent him to France with the 88th Infantry Division, where he served in the frontline trenches during some of the heaviest fighting of the American experience there.

He was a very gentle man. And he rarely talked about the War, and then, only in vague generalities...

[alarimer]

6. No, I'll have to put it on my list

thanks

[MountainLaurel]

7. Just bought it for my library

Thanks for the review!

[Captain Hilts]

8. FDR and ER were almost victims of the Palmer raids...

They lived across the street from him on R St. and someone tried to blow up Palmer with a bomb and nearly got FDR and ER instead. Palmer was in the back of the house and was unharmed. Windows were blown out on both sides of the street.

[David Zephyr]

9. I would like to read this because I love the Wobblies.

Atty General Palmer was a real first class jerk. Palmer and WWI and the imprisonment of Alice Paul make Wilson's presidency worthless in my eyes. Plus, he was a real racist, too.