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Little Red Book Draws Government Attention
narcolepticjim writes "An unnamed Dartmouth student was visited by Homeland Security for requesting a copy of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book for a class project." From the article: "The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/offer-listing/083 512388X/ref=dp_olp_2//102-9865629-6948961?conditio n=all
I'm not fat, just big boned...
...at least he got material for his research paper on fascism and totalitarianism.
Thanks, I'll be here all day.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Why did he have to provide his "name, address, phone number and Social Security number" ... to read a book?
Cue discussion of RMS's paper on "The Right To Read", but still. Is this just sensationalism, or does one actually have to give all one's personal information to read this?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Everyone go checkout Mao's book from your local library. If enough people do this, the FBI will have to give up on this type of spying as I don't think they can visit 100,000 people.
Well, it's not as though this kind of thing is unexpected. Once the
government is given power, it is human nature to abuse it. What I
don't understand is why people fall hook, line, and sinker, for the
same techniques throughout history over and over again.
1) Instill fear in the population somehow, by either orchestating or latching on to
a catastrophic event,
2) Tell the population that you will take care of it, blame enemies of the state,
3) Go to war, claim critics of the war are unpatriotic, out of touch, part of an "elite".
This is all classic power grab politics, and yet it happens again and again in
history.
Why do people not learn from history? It is clear that those in power have a
vested interest in having a sheeple populace. A critical thinking, well informed
electorate, is the biggest enemy to would be dictators in a democratic society.
Start with the children. I guess fear really is the mind killer. And, at the risk of
pulling a Godwin, two quotes from Hermann Goering, leader of Hitler's Luttewaffe.
"Education is dangerous - Every educated person is a future enemy"
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Finally, just a minor nit. The submitter claims the student was a "Dartmouth" student, whereas the article states that the student was from "U Mass-Dartmouth".
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
If you mean the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, you're right.
I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I free...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
To quote Will Rogers, "Be happy you don't get all the government you're paying for."
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
"Fuck you, get a warrant".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
but he had to fill out a form because he was requesting an inter-library loan. I don't know how your school works, if the loan department can psychically detect what you want to request and save you the trouble of filling at a form or whatever, but obviously his school works the old-fashioned way.
Not that this excuses the utterly retarded HomeSec nonsense, of course.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/work s/red-book/
coral
http://www.marxists.org.nyud.net:8090/reference/ar chive/mao/works/download/red-book.pdf
There are way too many US colleges that routinely violate the privacy of their students and expose them to identity theft by using their Social Security Number as a student ID number, because it's ostensibly unique and they sometimes also need it if the student's an employee or has a government loan. Fortunately neither school I attended did that, but it's extremely common. Similarly, many US states use the SSN as a driver's license number, and all of them collect the SSN in keep it in their databases. And many medical insurance companies use SSNs as a customer ID number (HIPAA's changing that a bit, but Medicare's still based on SSNs so they usually need it anyway.) And too many companies use SSNs as an employee ID. It's appalling, but get used to it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'd understand if the feds paid someone a visit after they bought - for example - large quantities of chemicals that can be used to build a bomb, or something similar, and I'd expect them to pay someone a visit who tries to buy a large number of guns and ammo for them, and similar things. That's OK.
But a *book*? And what's more, a book that contains nothing but *quotations*? It's not even the anarchist's cookbook or something - just a collection of quotes. Sure, it was Mao who wrote it, but seriously - this is no more justified than McCarthyism was. You could just as well advocate paying someone a visit for trying to obtain a copy of, say, de bello gallico (Julius Caesar was a dictator, too, and not exactly squeamish when dealing with his enemies).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
the point was not investigation, it was intimidation. That is how Totalitarian countries work.
Nevertheless, I find the details fishy:
- Why would a student have to write down a SSN for a book loan, but not have to write down the class for which he is requesting the book?
- If he *did* have to write down his class, then why would the NSA waste resources on this case?
- Why would a book by Mao be on a watch list? Surely the NSA isn't having flashbacks to the 1950's!
- Why does it seem just a little too convenient that this unnamed student is being investigated by the NSA while doing research for a class on "fascism and totalitarianism"?
- Why are none of Robert PontBriand's classes (the professor in question, according to TFA) listed as "fascism and totalitarianism"?
No doubt there are good answers to these questionsHuman being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
yes your absolutely right.
Instead of enforcing constitutionally protected freedom of speech, its better for you to choose what people can read. Your constitution doesnt really matter.
yup, there's no chance that anyone could possibly read the book and not come away a devout communist. Yup, no one has ever read the writings of such figures purely to try and figure out how they think, with the understanding that it will lack a true representation of what happened to the people.
If you choose this repression, then you are simply walking down the same path that Mao himself followed.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
War Is Peace
Freedom Is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength
(http://www.studentsfororwell.org/)
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
There's definitely a major major threat that college students reading Mao's Red Book are going to go out and start peasant revolutions - here in the US they'd need to learn to sing country music first, and then they'd find that most of the farms have been taken over by large agribusinesses like Tyson Chicken and Archer-Daniels-Midland, who've got other ways to be connected to power. I mean, sure, the Little Red Book was popular reading back in the 1960s, since the US hadn't had a Cultural Revolution and reading was still legal, but the Feds are starting to catch up with Mao.
At least they don't have to worry about anybody reading "Das Kapital" and believing Marxist economics - it's a really dull read and the economics are transparently bogus, unlike the Communist Manifesto which is at least short and enthusiastic.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
... then you must be unaware of how the patriot act allows your government to monitor all activity of people signing out books at libraries.
... be unaware, give away all your rights at the slightest startle, ... then wonder why the special police aren't letting you, an innocent person even contact your family, let alone tell you why you've been arrested.
But that's the american way
But that's just inside your borders. It's far worse if you include the atrocities your country commits outside your borders, pretending that you don't need to uphold your own values when its not US soil, and not US people, as if they are any less human than you.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Terrorism for Dummies is available at your local federal governmen't printing office.
It's called an "Army Field Manual"
They've got How-To's on everything from training insurgents, fighting a counterinsurgency battle, improvised explosives/munitions/booby traps/guns/silencers/, code breaking, psychological ops, interrogation... the list just keeps going. And that doesn't include Marine field manuals.
The U.S. Army has put into print enough information that terrorists don't need any other sources. And when I say "For Dummies" I really mean it, those field manuals are written for the lowest common denominator.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I got paid a visit for reading material that was hardly "subversive" -- it was published by the U.S. military! Read all about it here and here... I was reading the literature on a plane, to be sure, but a home visit from the feds seemed way over the top. To their credit, however, the Marshals seemed to be nice enough and they didn't seem to think I was a threat to national security, and I haven't been bothered since the visit to my house. Though I wonder whether there are now federal files on me, and whether I'm being looked at funny at the airport.
Wow, you really are a prime example, you don't even see (or at least admit too) your own repression.
Your repression is the act of trying to substitute another book in the place of what a FREE person CHOSE to read.
He was not looking for a historical perspective, he wanted to read the actual propaganda for himself.
But yes, you are right books are not harmless, they are bad bad dangerous things because they make you think. I'll see you at sunday's book burning.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Errr, gonna have to try harder. Maybe some mods on /. will blindly accept the "quotes" you send at them, but some of us like to research things before we believe them.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/caesar.htm
"Yet as popular as the quote is, it's not real. These words are not anything Julius Caesar ever wrote or said. No biographies of Caesar or histories of Rome contain these lines, and scholars who have made it their business to know everything about the man draw a blank on this quote. Likewise, Shakespeare did not stuff this soliloquy into the mouth of the title character in his play Julius Caesar, nor did any of the Bard's other characters utter it. No record of this quote has been found prior to its appearance on the Internet in late 2001."
First, what "pro-terrorist cranks" do universities "enjoy hiring"? Even Al-Arian in Florida, who is hardly in any way representative of the kinds of professors hired at most universities in the US, was acquitted of any wrongdoing. But he lost his job as a result of the controversy, and you can bet that professors likely to cause such controversy are going to be passed up by most hiring committees.
More importantly, however, can you please tell us what "dots" can possibly be "connected" to terrorism based on a professor checking out a book of quotations from a library? You make a big deal out of the fact that this guy wanted the right version of this book - as if a concern for accuracy makes one a terrorist suspect. This is ludicrous. I have no problem with the Feds monitoring purchases of large quantities of dangerous chemicals, but books? Full of quotations? By dead Chinese dictators? Come on.
As a professor who writes and teaches about war and terrorism (among other things), I often find myself checking out and buying books about terrorism, al Qaeda, and other things far more "threatening" than Mao's red book (not to mention visiting websites, etc.) My research interests have caught the attention of the feds before, but never from just checking out a book from the library. The idea that certain books are flagged simply for ideological content is a sign of significant problems in terms of academic freedom and freedom of thought generally.
The fact that a forty-year old book of vague quotations about "people's war" that is also the second most popular book in the world (second only to the Bible) is on that list just shows how surreal and absurd this war on terrorism has become.
I think you have a few bits loose :-)
-- Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate, quoted in Kornberg, "Kristallnacht and the Politics of Anti-semitism Nazi Germany"
-- Albert Fuchs, My Experiences From November 9th to 16th, 1938 (Written on November 19, 1938 on the way from Strasbourg to Paris)
Now I'm not saying the situation in contemporary America is anywhere as bad as the situation in Nazi Germany. What I am trying to point out is that beliefs like yours, that, it "can't be that bad", have consistently been disproven.
Will things become as bad here as they got in Nazi Germany? Like you, I doubt it. But it can happen here. Just ask any Japanese American who sat out WWII in an American internment camp. Hell, ask any black person over age 40 who grew up in the American South, or anyone caught up in the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s.
Was Soviet Communism a real threat in the 1950s? Definitely, just as terrorism is a real threat now. But just as in the 1950s, it's also an excuse for government excess and the curtailment of personal liberties in the name of "security".
You can't belive governemtn agents are tracking people who check out books? This has all happened before, rght here in America.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Helping the police do their duty is a responsibility of a citizen, even in, especially in, a free country.
What if their duty is to make a list of all the {Jews | Japanese-Americans | Communists | Bourgeois Capitalists | Anarchists | Muslims | Armenians | crypto-Christians | Quakers | students reading Mao} on your block?
Will you answer "Jawohl, mein Polizei, Herr Kohn in apartment 103 is one?"
It really amazes me that so many "good Christians" believe in always helping the cops. I mean, their Christ was executed, according to the law of the times, after being seized by the cops for being a troublemaking radical. You'd think they might remember that.
Sometimes, the only decent thing to do is to not help the cops.
Ihre Papiere, bitte!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
... the DHS to harass a college student working on a paper, especially when we have missing truckfulls of radioactive materials, unchecked illegal immigration linked to terrorism, and gross negligence in disaster preparedness? (cause, you know, let's not forget that FEMA is in the DHS now)
<sarcasm>I'm so comforted that a noticable portion of my paycheck gets usurped for such important security concerns.</sarcasm>
If you are a taxpaying U.S. citizen, I advise you to see how your contributions to the government are apportioned and spent.
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
Unless you're living in a void and not critically evaluating what you read, Mao's little red IS harmless.
Mao certainly caused a lot of deaths, but contrary to leaders like Stalin, Mao was more a flawed leader that screwed up badly than someone whose core ideology involved mass murder, and if you read the little red book you will see that reflected in a lot of what he is saying.
Most people reading it will find themselves agreeing with a lot of it, either because it is vague enough so as to be more or less apolitical, or because it plain makes sense. Most of those same people will probably never like Mao, nor will they they ever become apologists for what he did. Even the Chinese Communist Party readily admits that Mao had many flaws and that many of his policies should never have been carried out because they were disasterous and caused vast numbers of deaths that could have been avoided with better leadership.
But you will also likely find that many of the things in Maos little red book are things you can agree with exactly because it contains admonishions of how to act that the Chinese Communist Party really ought to be learning from.
A few examples (NOTE: There are certainly far more controversial quotes too - particularly regarding the Leninist concept of democratic centralism - I'm not trying to whitewash Mao, just to show a side most peopke don't know - for the other side, read the book):
"A proper measure of democracy should be put into effect in the army, chiefly by abolishing the feudal practice of bullying and beating and by having officers and men share weal and woe.".
And: " With regard to economic democracy, the representatives elected by the soldiers must be ensured the right to assist (but not to bypass) the company leadership in managing the company's supplies and mess."
And: "We must not be complacent over any success. We should check our complacency and constantly criticize our shortcomings, just as we should wash our faces or sweep the floor every day to remove the dirt and keep them clean."
And: "We should be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and serve the Chinese people heart and soul. . . ."
And: " Our duty is to hold ourselves responsible to the people. Every word, every act and every policy must conform to the people's interests, and if mistakes occur, they must be corrected -- that is what being responsible to the people means."
The biggest "danger" the little red book constitutes is that it might make some readers see the difference between communist ideology and what has been practiced in the name of communism in totalitarian states - the greatest bulwark against support for communist ideas today is that most people still think of countries like China, North Korea or the old Soviet Union as representative of communist ideology, rather than as dictatures that flagrantly abuse it's symbolism and phrases. How many people today consider the Inquisition representative of Christian ideas (I don't, and I'm an atheist), or for that matter consider Hitlers support for the church as proof churches are evil?
However, the Chinese Communist Party is really the organisation that should worry most about people actually reading and understanding Mao and realising just exactly how far from the goals of the Chinese revolution they have moved.
They better hope the Chinese people don't start taking to heart quotes like the ones above, or the following one, and start expecting for them to be followed:
" Every comrade must be brought to understand that the supreme test of the words and deeds of a Communist is whether they conform with the highest interests and enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of the people."
If you'd like to see for yourself what it actually says, all of Mao's little red book is available online
1. Why would a student have to write down a SSN for a book loan, but not have to write down the class for which he is requesting the book?
The UMass system when I was there asked for your SSID/student ID and the various other pieces of information, but not what class you were doing it for (you could include it as optional information). The reason is that they really don't care if you're reading it for a class, multiple related classes or for your own personal improvement.
2. If he *did* have to write down his class, then why would the [DoHS] waste resources on this case?
See 1
3. Why would a book by Mao be on a watch list?
The article mentioned that the student had been abroad for a significant amount of time; it was probably a totality of the evidence. (Note: not justifying the situation, just saying how it probably came about)
4. Why does it seem just a little too convenient that this unnamed student is being investigated by the NSA while doing research for a class on "fascism and totalitarianism"?
The course is Ideologies of Power, as has been pointed out. Fascism and totaliarianism might be part of the course or an Honors' Colloquium, which typically takes part of the course and creates a focused presentation, research paper or discussion group for an extra credit plus honors credit in the area of the course. This would also explain why a course text was not available in the UMass Library system.
5. Why are none of Robert PontBriand's classes (the professor in question, according to TFA) listed as "fascism and totalitarianism"?
See 4
Within minutes, I was hassled by a very hot and loud bitch cop (120 dB of pure bitchery and 120 pounds of hot chick). Within minutes I was surrounded by 6 cops and transit security.
During the ensuing shouting match, none was ever able to say what illegal act I had committed. I eventually gave my (cellphone) number to the bitch ;)
6 months later, a "national security division" cop of the RCMP calls me on the cellphone and wants to talk to me.
- This is a cellphone.
- Oh. Sorry. Well, call me at 555-555-5555.
Not being stupid, I make sure I don't call him from $ORKPLACE. They're the police, so they surely can find my home number in the phone directory, no? And if they check google with my name, they can find I'm a transit buff, no?
Well, I guess not. And if they are doing "national security" investigations, 6 months later is pretty fast, I guess...
What better way to learn about fascism and totalitarianism than to live under 'em, eh?
Yes, I'm feeling sardonic today.
"Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries." --Chistopher Morley, "The Haunted Bookshop"
So, to remind everyone, we have exactly one source for this, the professor, who is at best relaying the story secondhand to all of us - we do not have an eyewitness report, in that the student to whom this supposedly happened hasn't given his version to anyone else, including the paper in which this was reported. Hell, it doesn't look like the paper even bothered to contact DHS for any sort of comment.
I dunno, I really think I'd like a little more info. More than just the say-so of some professor dude, who may or may not have a vested interest in telling tales.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I believe his point was that, regardless of how the agents acted, he should have raised a much larger stink about the whole situation instead of just posting some lackadaisical story about it on an unknown blog. As the parent mentioned, he was lucky that he was even able to do that.
In 10-20 years everyone will be wondering "How the hell did we get in this crappy position to begin with?" Until that time, the uninitiated masses will just continue to ignore everything and mutter "in this day and age we just have to give up some things, I guess."
Ok, all my bullshit meters went off when I read this article. It might have happened, but I'm laying odds that it's either a hoax, or that the professor is studying to see how neo-anarchistic sites like Slashdot can uncritically accept stories about our government, or that the student successfully bullshitted the professor. Or it could be our government is actually somewhat retarded (Chairman Mao is a threat in the era of the War on Terror?) and somewhat fascist. I wouldn't be surprised either way.
...which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Random points, in no particular order:
1) It's too coincidental. It happened (or was published) a day or so after secret eavesdropping policies from the administration made front page news in the New York Times.
2) Why the hell would agents bring the book? Can you imagine NSA agents walking into a remote library (and not the local library, because he needs the extra-special "Peking" version of the world's secondly most commonly printed book) and checking out this "rare" copy of a book? *How* did they check it out? Do they keep library accounts with all the universities in the state? And, why? Just so they can wave it in his face? What did they do with it after? Just toss it in the mail? Drive it back across town or to another city to return it? It makes no sense.
3) As best as I can tell, there's no such thing as the extra-special Peking Version of the book. My fiancee is Chinese, she's never heard of it (though she dislikes Communism, and isn't an expert on it either). Google '"Peking Version" Quotations of Chairman Mao' (or Little Red Book) and you get no results. Even the name is a bit suspect since Peking is the British name for Beijing, and the communists worked to change the name on everything to Beijing (via the uniform adoption of the standardized Pinyin system). But it's an older book, so it could be legit (the Pinyin reforms didn't happen for a while during Mao's reign). But neither does "Beijing Version" get any hits. Even the 1st edition was published in a variety of places, not just Beijing, so it would be a misnomer to call it a Peking Version.
Here's quotes from the article:
'"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."'
and
"In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book."
There is a rare-ish 1st edition, but it's only two chapters shorter than the common 2nd edition, and the text isn't different in any meaningful way (I think there was a typo or two fixed.) Having the student request a rare 1st edition wouldn't make any sense since (beyond the obvious fact the English versions aren't rate), he doesn't speak Chinese, and there's no textual changes between the English versions based on the different editions (2 chapters were added for the 2nd edition, and one for the 3rd).
4) The Little Red Book IS the bloody abridged version of the multi-volume Selected Works of Chairman Mao. But in the article it states the kid wanted the 'unabridged' version (of an abridged book??), and one that was "translated directly from the original version". Heh, I didn't know the Quotations of Chairman Mao (again, 2nd most published book in the world) was so rare that most American versions were, what... translated from the original Japanese? This request of the student's is nonsensical.
5) The professor is up for tenure. Which may or may not make a lick of difference, depending on the professor. He seems cool enough, though, doing some sort of extreme history thing in Afghanistan.
http://www.brianglynwilliams.com/
6) Another quote: "The professors had bee
BUT, to play the devil's advocate . . .
Time has proven that the Department of Homeland Security, the regular milatary, and, heck, even the local police force do NOT appreciate help from citizens when dealing with "the enemy". In their perspective, you are just as much as a loose cannon as any terrorist when you show any interest in working around the official organizations.
In other words, you're unnaccountable to your actions, and therefor may actually be breaking more laws than you're upholding.
That having been said, a visit from the DHS was entirely innapropriate for this single action, and I hope they had other good reasons to put up and investigation.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
That student just got a whole lot of first hand experience in totalitarianism. The kind that you just can't get from a book or a classroom.
He even refuses to give his name now because he "fears repercussions".
You just can't get that kind of gut-level understanding without a visit from the authorities. That is one kid who will have a deeper understanding of the material now than anyone else in class.