RESERVED - Civil Liberties Necklace

Description

American civil liberties in tough times: wiretapping v privacy, censorship v free speech, national IDs v personal mobility...

None of these issues are new. The text in this necklace was recovered from a 1942 academic treatise "America at War," which included a cautionary analysis of the freedom of speech entitled "The Duty to Keep Quiet." In the middle is bravery.

Wear this as a talisman to ward off further decline of individual liberties, as a tribute to those who remain vigilant, or as an encouragement to the nation that has the stamina to persist in its quest to get it right...




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Thank you very much to B for her story!

"I work at IBM in a group that creates software for river basin management. Last year there was a request for someone to speak about our work at a meeting in Frankfurt on July 4. I was the only one of our 6-person American team who didn't feel that it was too much to ask to be away from home on July 4th (to be fair, a couple of them had vacations planned). I love my country (though emphatically not this administration and their war), but I also love traveling to Europe, especially Germany. Anyhow, I got there and found that I really did miss being away on July 4. I missed the warm, muggy weather signaling the start of real summer, the first fireflies glimmering on our lawn at dusk, and the fun of the whole town assembling for fireworks at the high school stadium. But I also missed the revolutionary theme underlying all American culture, which is just not there in Europe (Germany and England, anyway--the only places I've been in Europe). To our shame and continuing peril, the USA is a country founded on slavery. But we are also a country founded on liberation--of slaves, of women, and (hopefully soon) of gay folks. The idea that speech enslaves (eg non-inclusive language) is utterly foreign to even educated folks that I know in England. (In Germany, of course, they are more aware of the power of speech, and outlaw neo-Nazi speech.)"

Added on Nov 22, 2008

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