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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, MAR 5–11  
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_ If This Be Treason (in 1774), War Is Such an Ugly Word (1919), U.S.
Thumbs Nose at International Law (1984), International Women's Day!
(1914), Joe McCarthy's Dam Cracks (1954), Whose Streets? Our Streets!
(1969), Big Win for Miners' Health (1969) _

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_IF THIS BE TREASON, MAKE THE MOST OF IT_

250 YEARS AGO, on March 5, 1774, 37-year-old John Hancock stood in
Boston and delivered an incendiary speech about the Boston Massacre,
which had taken place nearby exactly four years earlier. A decade
earlier, hardly anyone in Britain's North American colonies harbored
revolutionary thoughts, but in in the space of less than six years the
colonists' antagonism toward the mother country had become intense, in
part because of the ham-handed oppressive violence of the occupying
Redcoats and in part due to fiery speeches, such as those of Hancock
and Sam Adams. Hancock spared no effort to rile the crowd up, telling
them that "the troops of George the Third have crossed the wide
Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of TRAITORS in
trampling on the rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects in
America . . . . to conquer and enslave his subjects in America." His
speech stopped short of being a call to arms, but only just. In just
13 months the shooting war that ended in Britain's defeat had begun.
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_WAR IS SUCH AN UGLY WORD_

105 YEARS AGO, on March 6, 1919, Germany started a linguistic trend
that would make George Orwell -- the inventor of "doublethink" --
proud. Up until 1919, every nation's military apparatus was called by
a name that made clear its function, which was to make war. Germany
had Deutches Heer ("German Army") which was under the command of the
Minister of War. Virtually every other nation called its army what it
was, and called the relevant ministry the ministry (or department) of
War. But under the Treaty of Versailles, defeated Germany was not
allowed to have a military force with the ability to start a war, so
on this day it rebranded the army as the Reichswehr ("Reich Defense")
which was under the direction of the Ministry of Armed Forces. In 1947
both the United States and France replaced the war department with the
defense department; in 1964 the process was complete when the United
Kingdom did the same.  Orwell did even better in "1984"; wars were
conducted by the Ministry of Peace.
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_U.S THUMBS NOSE AT INTERNATIONAL LAW_

40 YEARS AGO, on March 7, 1984, agents of the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency in a CIA-owned helicopter fired machine guns in an
attempt to kill Nicaraguan soldiers who were protecting the port of
San Juan del Sur from an attack by Contra speedboats. Firefights
between Contra terrorists and Nicaraguan troops were an almost daily
occurrence in the Reagan administration's 11-year-long attempt to
overthrow the elected, left-wing Nicaraguan government, but shots
fired at Nicaraguan troops by U.S. government personnel were
relatively unusual. For the most part, the war against the Sandinista
government was paid for by U.S. taxpayers, but almost all of the
actual shooting was done by U.S.-supplied and -trained foreign
mercenaries.

The March 7 attack, because it was conducted by U.S. personnel, was
one of the violations of international law identified by the
International Court of Justice in its final 1986 decision that the
U.S. owed Nicaragua millions of dollars for damages for which the U.S.
was directly responsible. The court's ruling that the U.S. was a
violator of international law because it had used force against
Nicaragua when the two countries were at peace could not be
overturned, but it could be, and was, ignored by the U.S., which used
its veto power on the UN Security Council in October 1986 to prevent
the UN from requiring it to pay Nicaragua for the damage its illegal
activities had caused.
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_MARCH 8 IS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!_

110 YEARS AGO, on March 8, 1914, for the first time International
Women's Day was celebrated on this date. IWD is an official holiday in
at least 28 countries, almost all of which are in eastern Europe, Asia
and Africa.  The only nation in Western Europe or in the Western
Hemisphere that marks it officially is Cuba. Not only is IWD not an
official national holiday in the U.S., the U.S., which has three
national holidays honoring individual men (four if you count
Christmas), it has none honoring a woman.
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_THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR JOE MCCARTHY _

70 YEARS AGO, on March 9, 1954, legendary newscaster Edward R.
Murrow's weekly television program, "See It Now" was a highly
critical, 30-minute dissection of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's ongoing
4-year career as an anti-communist witch-hunter. Murrow closed the
show with this cutting monologue. 

"No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that
congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate
before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting
is a very fine one, and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped
over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the
public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of
Communism. 

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always
that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence
and due process of law. We will not walk in fear of one of another. We
will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. If we dig deep in
our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended
from fearful men—not from men who feared to write, to speak, to
associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. 

"This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep
silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our
history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is
no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities.
As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We
proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom,
wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend
freedom abroad by deserting it at home. 

"The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm
and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort
to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't
create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it—and rather
successfully. Cassius was right: 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in
our stars, but in ourselves.'"

Murrow's detailed critique was like the first crack in a dam. Less
than 10 months later, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy for
actions reflecting badly on the dignity and integrity of the Senate.
For the entire fascinating episode of See It Now:
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_WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!_

55 YEARS AGO, on March 10, 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the
First Amendment requires government officials to allow demonstrations
in city streets and other public places without regard to the subject
of the protest. The ruling in Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham
(Alabama), said that government officials had the right to set
conditions for demonstrations based on the requirements of necessary
traffic flow, etc., but conditions had to be uniform, without regard
to the reason for the demonstration. As the court put it, “Even when
the use of its public streets and sidewalks is involved . . . a
municipality may not empower its licensing officials to roam
essentially at will, dispensing or withholding permission to speak,
assemble, picket, or parade, according to their own opinions regarding
the potential effect of the activity in question on the ‘welfare,’
‘decency,’ or ‘morals’ of the community.”
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_A BIG WIN FOR WEST VIRGINIA MINERS _

55 YEARS AGO, on March 11, 1969, thousands of West Virginia coal
miners won a hard-fought battle to receive medical care and financial
compensation for an epidemic of occupational disease caused by the
coal dust. On this day, West Virginia's governor signed legislation
that added the coal miners' most common occupational disease, known as
black lung, to the list of conditions covered by the state's workers'
compensation law. With black lung as a covered condition, for the
first time West Virginia coal miners would be eligible for the medical
care that black lung victims required, and they would also be eligible
to receive compensation for time lost because of black lung-related
disability. The victory was entirely due to a 9-day strike by forty
thousand miners, which culminated in a march on the state capital by
two thousand striking miners. [link removed];
 

* US History
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* 1776
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* international law
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* International Women's Day
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* McCarthy Period
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* First Amendment
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* b
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* Black Lung
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