Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and Stifling of Democracy
by Lewis Lapham
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Description
"Dissent is democracy. Democracy is in trouble. Never before, Lewis Lapham argues, have voices of protest been so locked out of the mainstream conversation, so marginalized and muted by a government that recklessly disregards civil liberties, and by an ever more concentrated and profit-driven media in which the safe and the salable sweep all uncomfortable truths from view." "In the midst of the "war on terror"--Which makes the hunt for Communists in the 1950s look, in its clarity of aim and show more purpose, like the Normandy landings on D-Day - we face a crisis a democracy as serious as any in our history. The Bush administration makes no secret of its contempt for a cowed and largely silenced electorate, and without bothering to conceal its purpose the government coordinates "not the defense of the American citizenry against a foreign enemy but the protection of the American plutocracy from the American democracy."" "Gag Rule is a call to action in defense of one of our most important liberties, the right to raise our voices in dissent and have those voices heard."--Jacket. show lessTags
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2004
- People/Characters
- Judge Learned Hand; Archibald MacLeish; William McKinley
- Important places
- West Virginia, USA; Pennsylvania, USA; Covington, Kentucky, USA
- Dedication
- Andrew
- First words
- As a director of the U.S. government's ministry of propaganda during World War II, Archibald MacLeish knew that dissent seldom walks onstage to the sound of warm and welcoming applause.
- Quotations
- The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is too sure that it is right.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)To the extent that a democratic society gives its citizens the chance to speak in their own voices and listens to what they have to say, it gives itself the chance not only of discovering its multiple glories and triumphs but also of surviving its multiple follies and crimes.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- Politics and Government, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 323.4430973 — Society, Government, and Culture Political science Civil Rights & Liberties/ Human Rights The state and the individual Liberty Freedom of speech
- LCC
- JC599 .U5 .L33 — Political Science Political theory Political theory. The state. Theories of the state Purpose, functions, and relations of the state
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 198
- Popularity
- 163,903
- Rating
- (3.58)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 3
