Colorado State University, In Fort Collins September 21, David McSwane, the editor-in-chief of The Rocky Mountain Collegian, might lose his job for printing “F**K Bush” on the Collegian’s opinion page last week.
So this week’s nominee for the Joseph Goebbels in journalism goes to the student body at Col. State, which expressed a majority feeling that while they felt McSwane’s right to free speech should be protected, many of them felt as though he misused it.
Imagine that happening 30 years ago. In a university. So the final nail in the coffin of freedom is being hammered in by some sort of righteous indignation about something that, well … let’s just say McSwane wasn’t the first person to think or say that particular little expletive regarding our president.
I guess we should expect that from a generation that has been told to shut up, get good grades, Dad will fix everything, and if you need money, use your Visa.
Last weeks reference to Country Joe and the Fish in this very blog seems to have more relevance than anybody could have predicted. Country Joe went to the same school as Mario Savio. And the “Fish Cheer” was a direct result of Mario Savio’s Free Speech Movement. Mario’s dead now. He’d weep if he were alive. Or maybe he’d just climb back up on the Sproul Hall steps and yell "F**k Bush!"