cross-posted at the paper tiger
It takes a lot to flabbergast me these days. I mean is anyone really shocked by the relevation that the NSA is engaged in domestic surveillance, authorized by the Preznit, without any judicial review, not even by the secret court which generally reviews such things (apparently any kind of oversight is too much oversight for the Bush Administration, which certainly leads one to question just whom they are surveilling, and why).
Here’s what it took for me to gaze upon my computer screen in slack-jawed amazement: this story, via the invaluable Digby, about a student who was visited by agents from Homeland Security because, wait for it…
He tried to check out a copy of Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book” from a university library.
No, really.
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a “watch list,” and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
“I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book,” Professor Pontbriand said. “Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that’s what triggered the visit, as I understand it.”…
…The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country.
The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.
The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung.
In the 1950s and ’60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book.
The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a “watch list.” They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said.
Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored.
“My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think,” he said.
Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.
“I shudder to think of all the students I’ve had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that,” he said. “Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless.”
So can I just say, I am so going to Guantanamo? I mean, I have maybe four Little Red Books floating around my house, in both English and Chinese, including one featuring Mao’s then “Closest Comrade in Arms” Lin Biao’s calligraphy on the frontispiece, which I figure, given the brief tenancy of anyone occupying that particular position, has got to be some kind of collector’s item.
In fact, I’ve had one of my “Xiao Hong Shu” since high school, when my school represented “Red China” in the annual Model United Nations conference. Which, come to think of it, is probably another black mark on my permanent record.
And boy, if any of these hard-working Homeland Security agents have actually surveyed my house – I’m doomed. What would they make of the wall of books dealing with the history of the Peoples Republic of China? The Collected Works of Mao Zedong? The compilations of CCP documents? The framed Four Modernizations posters on my wall, one of the “Peoples’ Premier,” Zhou Enlai, showing his domestic side, spinning yarn in Yenan, the other of a rosey-cheeked, chubby baby holding up this, well, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, some kind of festive, lantern thingie with a nuclear atom in the center and a rocket ship on top? Not to mention my, erm, Chairman Mao piggybank.
Remind me again. Was it ultra-leftist, unreconstructed Red Guards who flew planes into the WTC?
But maybe I’ve got this whole thing wrong. Maybe owning such things isn’t the problem. Given the obsession that the Bush Administration seems to have with wanting to access library records (without the patrons’ knowledge), well, maybe it’s libraries that are the real danger here, the subterranean threat to American security.
Just remember: if library cards are terrorized, soon only terrorists will have library cards. Or something.
And our nation is already fighting library terrorism by starving the public libraries of funds. Keep the population just literate enough to read People Magazine, and keep them addled on “reality” tv, consumerism, and psychotropic medications (huh, that’s strikingly close to the dystopia on THX-1138, if you recall that movie). We academic types presumably can be contained to our little isolated islands where our writings merely gather dust and where our meetings are attended by fellow academics far away from where we could actually influence the masses.
Not that I’m cynical, of course. š
Hey, People Magazine is well-written enough to nearly qualify as revolutionary content.
US, on the other hand…
Boy it’s good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read this. Grading finals is driving me nuts as usual (yeah, I know, not much of a drive, etc.), so thanks for the laugh. š
I’m drinking Rosenblum Zinfandel, personally…
Think I’ll get a hold of that last Guinness I have at home and call it a nite. š
As they say in Gaelic, “slainte” (roughly, “to your health.”).
In proper Little Red Book spirit, I’ll hoist a glass and say “Gan Bei!” to that.
You might want to check that link to your blog. It seems to be broken.
Oops. Thanks!
No prob. I gave it a look (after I figured out what was wrong) and liked what I saw. I’ll be visiting again.
nor being accused of doing so, I do not support US policies on this or many other issues.
However, US policy is what it is, and under the circumstances, anyone using a library to check out books or in any other way cause their name and other info to be entered into the record, does so at his or her own risk.
While US does have secret laws, Washington has been very upfront about its intentions regarding library users.
Au contraire. I think we should all rush out to the library and check out “Das Kapital.” It is time to get in the faces of these fascists.
Don’t check out “Mein Kampf” though. This government will try to recruit you into their Neocon cause if they perceive that are reading that kind of stuff. Mr. Hitler would have found kindred spirits in this crowd.
This was happening waay prior to 9/11 or the PATHETIC-LOSER-ACT-
At our little bitty library in Encinitas- the librarians were PISSED-and they were not putting up with it- not one bit.
They were shredding all the records then– circa 1986!
Wow! A Chairman Mao piggybank? I am SO jealous! Best I can do in that department is a small lapel button, the size of a campaign pin. And, like you, a whole mess of books.
What most Americans don’t know is that in the late ’40s Mao wanted to be friends with the U.S. Contacts were made, but the scaredy-cats in DC opted to go with the known and corrupt quantity of Chiang’s crowd. That, and McCarthyism was getting going, though still well under the radar.
On a trip to China in the early ’80s, the group I was with learned to sing “The East is Red,” in Chinese. Not the most politically correct thing to do, given what China had recently been through. I still have the words around somewhere.
One of the people leading that group was an American who had lived in China for many years, knew Chou and Mao (if you Google his name, you’ll see lots more stuff). On a long train trip, a group gathered in his compartment while someone read from Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China about the Long March, through whose territory we were traveling.
As names were mentioned, he would say, “Oh, yes, he’s at so-and-so now.” Or, “He died X years ago.” And so on. It made very real that bit of history.
I met Sidney Rittenberg in 1979 – can’t say I remember that much about him – I met a number of these old revolutionary Westerners back then, but I didn’t really realize the significance, being pretty young at the time and not particularly educated about Chinese history. The weird thing is, in a total strange coincidence, I later met two of his kids – they are friends of a Chinese (now American) friend of mine…his book is a great read!
And yes. Barbara Tuchman wrote an essay about Chinese CCP overtures to the US called “If Chairman Mao Had Gone To Washington,” or something like that.
Who knows what might have happened? To me it’s always been telling that the worst excesses of the CCP took place when China was isolated.
Life is funny. Last I heard, all of Sidney’s kids were living in this country; for a while, they were going back and forth.
Shortly after you met him, a group of us worked with him, trying to get him to tape his recollections. It was like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall, but it did eventually result in that book.
Just pulling one book off the top of the stack–China Scapegoat: The Diplomatic Ordeal of John Carter Vincent, by Gary May (1979). Biography of an old China hand vilified as one of those who “lost China” and traitorized by McCarthy. Because of such stupidity, we lost a quarter century of contact with China, pretending that the most populous nation on the planet didn’t exist. I suspect we’ll find, in time, that similar vilifications have been applied to those with lots of pre-neocon Middle East experience. The treatment of Joe Wilson is probably only a tiny fraction of it.
Wow, Mnemosyne, how cool is it that you helped get that book out?
To clarify, I met his kids in the States, a couple of years ago. Now I’m trying to remember – I have a great memory for stupid things like song lyrics, not so great on, oh, what I had for breakfast – if it was just the one son (whose name I of course forget). Through this friend, I also met – again, totally by coincidence – someone I’d known in China that first time – he was one of the kids who was always running around the Friendship Hotel, where all the “Foreign Experts” lived. We’ve stayed in touch ever since that. Talk about a small world…
Thanks for the recommend on “China Scapegoat” – I have a, well, Homeland Security-worthy collection of Chinese history books, but I don’t think I have that one…
Well, I didn’t “help get that book out” so much as was part of a group of friends who hung out with Sid for a while, encouraging him to tape his recollections. One of the group, IIRC, helped make the contact that produced the actual co-writer. Didn’t realize until I googled earlier today that it had gone to a paperback edition, and apparently there’s an audio as well. Good for him.
The son is called Happy. I think his real name is Sidney Jr. Don’t remember his Chinese name.
I remember the Friendship Hotel. In 1978 it was one of the dreariest hostelries I’d ever seen. The Beijing Hotel, near the Square, was much more entertaining.
In another bit of small-world arcana, I’ve just realized that I’ve known two people (both dead by now) who were friends of Edgar Snow.
Mnem, you were in CHina in 1978? Do tell! Not too many of us around then – I didn’t get there until 79, but the folks I was staying with were teachers and had toured in 78 – that’s how they heard that the CHinese government was looking for Americans to teach English.
The Friendship hotel was dreary, but it was interesting. I met people from all over the world, from places like Albania, Cuba, all sorts of countries in Africa…I mean, coming from fairly middle-class Southern California, it was quite an experience. The whole expat scene back then was a trip, actually. Ah, misty, water-colored memories, etc.
Yes, Sidney Jr. sounds right…