Tuesday was a day for wandering about Boston, visiting some of my favorite places. The day began at 8 AM with breakfast at Peet's Café off Mount Auburn Street; then a side trip to the Cambridge City Hall to gauge the temperature of the electorate. Here I became involved in an informative discussion about the abolition of dog-racing in Massachusetts (were I registered in Massachusetts I should vote yes), the elimination of the state income tax (vote no), and a sensible marijuana policy (vote yes). After a failed attempt to check my E-mail at the Central Square Library I picked up a new shirt at the Salvation Army thrift store; took lunch at the Star supermarket; a coffee break at the Café Express Royale near the New England Conservatory; and so on.
At 4:30 I attended a Math/Physics seminar at MIT, room 2-105, an excellent lecture on the LHC accelerator. The series is organized by the distinguished mathematician, Isidore Singer. Dinner in Kendall Square at 6. Finally, at 7 PM, I headed back to the Boston Youth Hostel on Hemenway Street to watch the election returns on television.
What I want to talk about however, and that with some urgency, is the spectacle that I encountered in the large lobby which separates Buildings 1 and 2 in the main corridor (what you might call the "ordinate", or "spine" of the institute). The lobby itself was roped off, leaving enough of the corridor to allow for normal pedestrian traffic. Within the enclosed area were stationed 3 persons dressed in military uniforms. Two of them stood at attention; the 3rd walked in a slow goosestep solemnly back and forth, a rifle propped vertically on his right shoulder. Another two or three military personnel were sitting on the marble bench at the far end of the lobby.
Signs at the periphery of the barrier explained the purpose of this strange pageant. These were representatives of the POW/MIA organization, staging a 24 hour vigil to honor the American soldiers who have been, and who still are, being held as hostages by enemy nations, an unmistakable reference to Vietnam. On the signs was placed an additional request that "out of respect for the fallen", the public not try to speak to the "guards".
I can only speculate as to the level of the administration where this invasion of the MIT precincts had been authorized. I would like to think that the persons who did so didn't realize that POW/MIA is a right-wing fascist organization, for whom it is unthinkable that the United States should ever admit defeat in a war. For them the Vietnamese War never ended.
It takes little imagination to picture the quick response, at multiple levels, of the Institute community, had the administration given the go-ahead to a creation science organization, permitting the take-over of this central lobby for 24 hours so that it could promote the Biblical explanation for the origin of the species!
Yet this is even more appalling. MIT as we know, or should know, is America's biggest weapons research installation. Much of the high-tech weaponry being deployed dropped on Iraq was designed by persons working at MIT, or its co-joining Lincoln Labs, or by or MIT graduates in such neighboring concerns as Bechtel. This must be taken into account when one asks how the Institute could allow these nationalist extremists, these dangerous cranks, to command a prime location in its principal building for 24 solid hours!
It is a sad truth that the liberal arts at MIT, despite the valuable contributions of some of its departments to the humanities, serve in large part as a veneer to cover up the homely truth that MIT in its modern avatar grew, "mushroom-wise", out of the expanded weapons programs of World War Two, not the least of which being the Manhattan Project. At that time, with Compton at MIT and Conant at Harvard, there was little question that what Allen Ginsberg called the "scholars of war", or, to used Eisenhower's catch-phrase, the Military-Academic-Industrial complex, ruled the Cambridge roost. Those days are long past - or are they? MIT will remain fundamentally militarist in its ideology and purposes as long as it continues to maintain extensive connections to the military establishment.
The argument that the POW/MIA was merely exercising its right to free speech under the First Amendment is a sophistry of the highest order. Indeed, the very expression "free speech" begs the question. One cannot talk about the right to free speech independently of the context in which it is expressed. If a teacher in an elementary school class and says to his students "Niggers just aren't as good as the rest of us", he must be dismissed immediately. The exercise of freedom of speech implies that the listener has the tools and means to defend himself from lies, deceit and bad intentions. The First Amendment cannot be invoked as a defense in situations in which misinformation is fed, by persons in a position of authority, to a captive audience for whom alternative views and independent sources are inaccessible.
However, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that this pageant was simply a political gesture and nothing more. The fact that all of the participants were wearing Army and Navy uniforms is extremely serious. Military uniforms at any political demonstration are prohibited without direct authorization from the Pentagon. It is clear than the Army itself, in league with MIT, one of its biggest clients, authorized the vigil. As if driving its message home, the public was instructed that it was not allowed to communicate with the "guards" to obtain some clarification as to what they were doing there.
Granted, MIT is not elementary school. I am not nearly as upset by the existence of an organization such as POW/ MIA (whose black flag can be seen waving from every fire station and police department in Middletown , Connecticut, in defiance of state and federal laws prohibiting politically biased endorsements in government buildings), as I am by the conduct of MIT. Nor should one ignore the fact that tax-payers money (lots of it!) contributes to the support of MIT, directly or in terms of military research contracts and many other indirect ways.
Where were the much touted left-wing watch-dogs, the so-called "radical faculty" that MIT conveniently parades across the stage whenever it needs to assert its liberal credentials? Yes, well, there was myself, a well known radical "anti-faculty", or let us say "hyper-faculty" since the 1980's. Where was your famous Noam Chomsky, full-time ranter and MIT's sop to the Left? To be fair, I'm sure that many MIT faculty would have been quick to protest this display had they known about it. I can only think that they were not informed, because I still believe that enough pressure would have been brought onto the administration to cancel it. Illusions never die.
To me this was an outrage, an abuse of public trust, of taxpayer's money, a violation of First Amendment rights and, (perhaps) a last-minute push to increase the number of votes for McCain, himself at one time one of those "Missing In Action" POW's. Although it appears that to certain factions in POW/MIA is one of the demons who has obstructed the investigation into the fate of hundreds of American hostages still held in Vietnam.
Information about the POW/MIA platform can be read at: POW/MIA The murky background to this bizarre spectacle was finally illuminated for me by browsing the Internet. I soon discovered that George Bush has not only endorsed the POW/MIA platform, but was able to get a resolution through Congress that September 17 be designated as "POW/MIA recognition day"! The full text of Bush's statement can be read at: Statement
Upon reading the introductory section of Franklin's "M.I.A.: Mythmaking in America", it appears that I'd only seen the tip of the iceberg. In fact, the POW/MIA organization has won the endorsement of the federal government since 1982. I'd believed that the fire department of Middletown was filled with a bunch of extreme nationalists for allowing the POW/MIA flag to wave above its building. However it appears that it is state law in Connecticut and many other states, that fire and police departments display this flag along with the stars and stripes!
There isn't a scrap of evidence that there are any POW's still in Southeast Asia or anywhere else (perhaps there are some in Afghanistan!). H Bruce Franklin's book gives us a very thorough study of this disturbing phenomenon. He maintains that "POW/MIA" has become a new American religion, like Baptist fundamentalism, one that has poisoned relations of the US with the rest of the world, most notably in Asia.