When is it OK to speak up?

This weekend I experienced two fascinating films: Good Night, and Good Luck, & Imagining Argentina. These stories commented on the political environments in two very different parts of the world during very different times. Good Night, and Good Luck examined the role and power of television news during the McCarthy Hearings of the early 1950s. As a backdrop to a psychological thriller, the context in Imagining Argentina reflected the paranoia and abuse of a dangerous regime fueled by fear, denial, and paralysis across a powerless population.

The effect of each movie was powerful and alarming. In a scene with his boss, CBS’s Murrow revealed his motivation to go after McCarthy, a motivation that was met with support from others like Murrow, while simultaneously met with resistance from network sponsors, the government, and others in the media:

I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument. If you call it editorializing, then call it that…They’ll have equal time to defend themselves.

Such logic was ground shaking in the 1950s. I would argue that it is even more provocative today. Have we regressed? Are we allowing a free press to be free…or are our men and women in the influential corners of the press missing this motivation…or both? As Murrow showed us, one can allow another to make rebuttals without also attempting to put the two arguments on equal logical grounds. On the contrary, one can point out the logical flaws in another’s arguments if, indeed, the argument is irrational and satisfy his role of informing the public with the news matters of the time with virtue. (Imagine parallels here to areas where the today’s press has failed to accurately comment on the logical footing of two opposing arguments.)

Difficult to talk about is the abusive period serving as the background to Imagining Argentina. Between 1976 and 1983, a military regime abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered 30,000 Argentine citizens, claiming ties to leftist terrorists who were allegedly seeking to destroy the country. The most troubling aspect of this period, to me, is the slow, subtle, deceptive method in which the military and police was able to penetrate an otherwise peaceful populace. Equally troubling was the response by the people. Scenes in which people were abducted in public or in quiet neighborhoods showed the quiet fear and paralysis by onlookers and neighbors—and rightly so as any objection would surely be met with violent attacks. Having been born in 1977 in Argentina, it amazes me that this period, which was very real to my parents and their friends—though shockingly not to all of their acquaintances, as many remained in denial or even defended the government’s actions with clouded vision of logic—finds little place in my memories, photos, videos, or even stories about my early childhood. The reason is complicated. In part I suspect because the real danger resided as a backdrop to daily life, not everyday occurrences. I suspect that many were, in fact, quite afraid of the possibility arrest, but the more common effect for most of the millions was the slow realization that their protections of civil liberties were entirely missing or, at least, in great danger.

Lest you think I’m leading to some comment on the likeness with today’s concerns of Bush’s administration, allow me to redirect the point of my topic today. These two eras—the Red Scare and the Dirty War—point to one constant aspect of the implementation of power: As McCarthy used fear to further his cause in Congress and as the military used fear to justify the torture of many, many Americans and Argentines found themselves trying to enjoy their everyday lives without worrying about the slow erosion of unalienable rights—without worrying of whether they or someone close to them would one day be in the position of defending themselves without due process, valid evidence and legal representation. Without the crisis of an explicit war with an identifiable enemy on their land, they could strive for an ordinary routine through denial, or apathy, or paralysis by fear, or paralysis by realization of helplessness. And in doing so, the context in which they lived slowly morphed into a quiet civil war fought in legislation and secret surveillance.

My comment isn’t to draw a likeness between Bush’s administration and a military dictatorship or Senator McCarthy’s methods. Rather, I mean to raise a question that is relevant to all countries in all periods in time: at what point do we confront our fears in hopes to prevent current or future abuses of power? At what point do we stop becoming "paranoid?" When is it not too early to say that our government is going too far?