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Rating: 
Summary: How Free is America?
Review: This book is an excellent exposition of how supposedly democratic governments suppress civil liberties. In the 1950s, at the height of McCarthyism, many communists were harshly mistreated by the American government. They were denied the basic rights that the United States constitution guaranteed them. The book's author, Sherman Labovitz, is a communist. He tells of how he and many others were arrested and tried for advocating communism as an economic system. Even though he wanted to bring about communism only by peaceful means, the government accused him of trying to start a violent revolution. Labovitz recounts how he was unfairly harrassed by the authorities. He remembers how he was arrested and initially denied the right to obtain counsel. He recreates the biased and unjust trial that he was given. One can understand the reaction of the authorities, since in the 1950s, anti-communist hysteria was the tenor of the times. Nevertheless, it is unsettling to see how easily civil liberties were rolled back. If you are a believer in the importance of America's cherished freedoms, then read this book. You don't have to be a communist to agree that McCarthyism was a subversion of the consitution. There are those who would place restraints on our civil liberties. We can't afford to naively believe that our government will continue to uphold and protect our freedoms. This, then, is the most important lesson of this book: a democracy requires vigilant defenders, even in free countries like America. Finally, this book is instructive as an analog to contemporary American society. With the war on terrorism underway, we must pay close attention to any attempt by the government to curtail basic civil liberties.
Rating:
Summary: How Free is America?
Review: This book is an excellent exposition of how supposedly democratic governments suppress civil liberties. In the 1950s, at the height of McCarthyism, many communists were harshly mistreated by the American government. They were denied the basic rights that the United States constitution guaranteed them. The book's author, Sherman Labovitz, is a communist. He tells of how he and many others were arrested and tried for advocating communism as an economic system. Even though he wanted to bring about communism only by peaceful means, the government accused him of trying to start a violent revolution. Labovitz recounts how he was unfairly harrassed by the authorities. He remembers how he was arrested and initially denied the right to obtain counsel. He recreates the biased and unjust trial that he was given. One can understand the reaction of the authorities, since in the 1950s, anti-communist hysteria was the tenor of the times. Nevertheless, it is unsettling to see how easily civil liberties were rolled back. If you are a believer in the importance of America's cherished freedoms, then read this book. You don't have to be a communist to agree that McCarthyism was a subversion of the consitution. There are those who would place restraints on our civil liberties. We can't afford to naively believe that our government will continue to uphold and protect our freedoms. This, then, is the most important lesson of this book: a democracy requires vigilant defenders, even in free countries like America. Finally, this book is instructive as an analog to contemporary American society. With the war on terrorism underway, we must pay close attention to any attempt by the government to curtail basic civil liberties.
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