This Is a Golden Age of Censorship

Fascist administrators ordered similar police crackdowns at protests at such institutions as Princeton University, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, Emerson College, Cal Poly Humboldt and Emory University, where Atlanta cops employed mace and stun guns on students as they held them down. Brutal tactics only serve to further inflame passions, a fact reconfirmed when the encampment at Columbia was immediately reassembled the next day. USC valedictorian Asna Tabassum, denied her right to deliver her commencement address because she is Muslim and supports the people of Gaza, has drawn infinitely more attention to her message because she was censored.

Not wanting to miss out on this latest McCarthyite moment, however, employers who support Israel's slaughter of Gazans are firing journalists, teachers, athletes, editors and tech workers who disagree. Far-right Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has demanded that federal workers who oppose the bloodshed be fired, while a group of pro-genocide corporate CEOs is organizing a blacklist of pro-Palestine college students to distribute to major companies so these young people won't be able to find a job after graduation. (Student activists have taken to wearing masks and scarves to avoid being doxxed by reactionary supporters of Israel's war.)

Those who resort to censorship do so because they don't have a credible message of their own. When the overwhelming majority of the American public, Democrats and Republicans alike, disapproves of Israel -- a longstanding U.S. ally -- it's clear the usual lame "if you oppose Israel, you're antisemitic" trope is no longer effective. We are no longer scared.

Like the political parties who work harder to suppress the vote for the other party than to motivate and excite their own supporters, those who have nothing affirmative to say for their own position strive to make sure those on the other side, who have a strong argument, cannot express themselves.

Censorship is a tool used by those who know they are wrong.

Censoring antiwar voices is nothing new. Columbia suspended and expelled opponents of the Vietnam War in 1968. And when the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in 2022, the U.S. government and its media mouthpieces censored Russian media outlets, boycotted Russian culture and even attacked Russian cats. But the truth about Ukraine -- its corrupt president, official romance with neo-Nazism, anti-democratic regime and low chance of success -- is coming out.

Yet optimism is the wrong response to this attempt to crush voices of conscience. Every spasm of mass censorship leaves a trail of cynicism, stifled voices, stunted careers and an ever-shrinking spectrum of expression. Remember Al Jazeera America? Phil Donahue's show on MSNBC?

They were casualties of the war on terror's Bush-era censors; we could use them now.

Again, we are losing good people with important voices.

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Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.