(Essay written circa 1995. -ed.)
For most, if not all of us, George Orwell's Animal Farm was required reading in junior high school. When I was in eighth grade the cold war had reached its precipice, thus the book was interpreted by my English instructor as an attack on communism in general and on the Soviet Union specifically. Indeed, any residual contempt still held for Russia by any American today is a result of that pure witch hunting which started promptly after World War II and is only now beginning to subside. A brief summary of Orwell's book: The animals on the farm, under the pigs' leadership, unite against a common enemy, the farmer/owner/dictator, oust him by force, and create their own society that looks out for the wellbeing of every last creature. A list of common rights are painted on the back of the barn in stark white lettering, for all to see and refer to. But the pigs become greedy, they wish to reap more than their share of the fruits of the farm, and to do so they must deny the rest of the animals' rights which were originally granted to them as inalienable. And so the pigs ultimately begin to add some fresh paint, to systematically alter, or more accurately, amend the common laws that were originally authored for the wellbeing of all. And since there was no intellectual representation amongst the beasts, the pigs were able to swiftly deny the entire farm everything with which it was once bestowed.
In the light of the encroachments upon our constitutional rights during just these past twenty years, our current lack of responsible intellectuals is plainly illustrated. Anyone who has at least been awake on a day to day basis for the past decade can attest to these encroachments. Let us recall 2 Live Crew (which is easy for us Miamians down here). Remember them, the so-called "foul-mouthed rappers"? It was suddenly determined, in the court of law, that an individual is not allowed to be obscene. (Obscene according to whom? And by what hubris does anyone define obscenity? These questions were stealthily suppressed by the media, that very bastion that should have asked them at full volume.) Luther Campbell's recordings became contraband because their content was ruled obscene by a not very faithful representation of his peers. Freedom of Speech?
Later on came George Bush's denouncing Ice-T for his song "Cop Killer." The song itself was rather self-explanatory: When a cop becomes an out-and-out murderer hiding behind a badge, that cop should have his own life taken. Since the American Justice System has publicly proven twice within a dozen years that a white cop can kill (remember MacDuffie) or plainly attempt to kill (Rodney King) a black man and receive at the utmost two years in prison, black outrage should no longer shock us, even if it still does not wake us up. The long term question being, if rappers are unjustly silenced, who is next?
I live in Miami, therefore I have a Dade County license plate on my car. One summer on my way to North Carolina, I was stopped in Port St. Lucie (roughly one hundred miles north of Miami) by a state trooper - though I was obeying all traffic laws. He didn't even bother with my driver's license or car registration. I reproduce our dialogue verbatim:
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"North Carolina," I said.
"Why?" he asked. This is when it hit me.
"Vacation," I said with some impatience.
"Are you carrying any guns or drugs?"
"Why was I pulled over?"
"Do you want to go to jail?" he rejoined. I was silent for about half a minute.
"Step out of the car." I got out. "Open the trunk."
"Do I have to?"
"If you don't, I'll arrest you here and now and take you in for questioning."
It became obvious what I was dealing with, and for one who has never had to deal with this, there is no way to even understand what it feels like. One can read about it, and see it in the movies, but without experiencing it firsthand, there's no way one can fathom the terror. Whether or not he could justifiably do what he said he would was not even a question. Since most Miamians remember what happened to MacDuffie (he was beaten to death by a group of policemen, I don't remember exactly how many but it was more than two, all were aquitted) the question was: Do I want to go to jail, or even have the living crap beaten out of me? I eventually drove away from this encounter, after this swine and then another one with a K-9 thoroughly searched my car and person, kissing my right to privacy, my constitutional protection against unwarranted search and seizure goodbye.
Of course David Koresh did not get off so easy. The Federal Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms somehow deemed it necessary to shoot their way into, essentially, someone's home, and when thwarted, set it aflame! How many people, how many children in Waco were tried, convicted, and executed without ever seeing a courtroom? It was said that Koresh was a child molester. Hell, just fry the maniac and the kids, problem solved! I remember watching the video footage. I said the same thing most Americans said: I'm tired and I gotta go to work tomorrow, how much can I fret about you?
What is happening to us? One of the main reasons this country declared its freedom over 200 years ago was to eliminate undue persecution and guarantee fair trial to anyone accused of anything. I am only twenty five years old and it seems to me (perhaps falsely) that more violations of our constitutional rights have taken place during my lifetime than all years prior combined. (Of course there are individuals who have remained openly critical of our government, e.g. Gore Vidal and his acerbic mocking of our politicians and Noam Chomsky's scrutiny of U.S. foreign policy, but...) Where is the rest of the country? Where are our countless university professors? Have they nothing to say? Or do they have more important things to do, like securing tenure? I've always found Ayn Rand's pro-capitalism philosophy as over-zealous, but when she claims "American intellectual leadership has collapsed," I have to agree with her. The people responsible for our cultural health are not protesting against blatant injustices executed by our own government. Our intellectual representatives are a bunch of sham artists.
I have always wanted to take a trip to Washington just to read our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, the actual documents that is, which are open to the public by the way. With pride I have desired to look upon these seminal works, just to read Thomas Jefferson's insistence that it is not only the People's right but our duty to question and challenge government when it becomes destructive of our Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I'm not so sure I want to undertake this endeavor now. I'm afraid I might run into some fresh ink.
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