America’s Fire Sale: Get Some Free Speech While You Can
Two years ago, a friend emailed me: Some writers were composing an open letter to appear in Harper’s; it would address the growing threats to freedom of expression in this country. Did I want to read and possibly sign it? I read it and said to myself, This is going to be a shitstorm of biblical proportions, and wrote to my friend, “In.”
Of course I was in. I have shown up for free expression when it was a major cause of the left, and I show up for it now that it has become a cause of the right. Freedom doesn’t belong to a political party, and it’s not the tool of the powerful; it’s the tool of the powerless.
The letter came out, and in the small, bitter, vengeful worlds of journalism and publishing—we’re a fun crowd—it was a festival of freedom of expression, a gathering of like-minded antagonists, (enterprisingly), “Okay, I did not sign THE LETTER when I was asked 9 days ago because I could see in 90 seconds that it was fatuous, self-important drivel.” (It was the of tweets: )
