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(Don't) Pardon Lenny Bruce by Jimmy Jazz Lenny Bruce was convicted of "word crimes" in 1964. In 2003 some people who value free speech (Margaret Cho...) have decided to circulate a petition to the current governor of New York, George Pataki, asking that Mr. Bruce be pardoned. It should be noted that Bruce has been dead since August 3rd, 1966. Also that he died of a heroin overdose, which some believe arose out the stress brought forward by this conviction. As a result of his conviction club owners would not hire him, he was not allowed to perform. In essence he was held incommunicado by the state. When we look back at this era (as looking back at the phenomenon of persecution known as McCarthyism) it is easy to project contemporary standards of justice and argue that Bruce should have had the right to say whatever he wants. Since then Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and countless others have said everything Mr. Bruce said and more. I say "more" you may substitute "worse" or "better" depending on your personal taste for comedy. It would be difficult to find anyone in our society who would say Joseph McCarthy's badgering of intellectuals in pursuit of communism wasn't out of line, even wrong. We compare his endeavors to the Salem witch-hunts; we call the blacklisting of writers and actors a crime against the first amendment. Until recently, I might have said the same thing about Roosevelt's decision to lock up Japanese citizens in concentration camps, and Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the civil war. Even Ronald Reagan thought it was wrong enough in 1988 to pay $20,000 in reparations to each survivor of camps like Manzanar in California. It is interesting that the ever-shifting state of public opinion has not come to a point where we are ready to pardon Pete Rose for "crimes against baseball." Rose's gambling addiction brought discredit to the game, in that it involved organized crime with an organized sport that prided itself on being the wholesome role model for American youth. Here it is the taint we can't stomach. Still, you can imagine a point in the future where Rose's unquestioned talent as a player trumps his desire to enjoy the game by betting on it from the inside. He didn't bet against his team, after all, he didn't throw games, so what is the real transgression? Here in the time of TWAT we have political prisoners so dangerous in custody that all rights afforded to citizens have been suspended. There are men (and some say minors) being held without charges, on secret evidence, and without access to lawyers. One justification of this "unconstitutional" behavior by the government is that Security trumps Liberty, but another more invidious excuse relates back to the Lincoln and Roosevelt examples: i.e. that this is necessary now, even if condemned as "wrong" by the future. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints has a practice of baptizing the dead, which seems harmless enough on the surface, but at its core strip-mines the soul-center of faith. Isn't the point of baptism that you accept the gospel with your own free will? Isn't the whole idea that life on earth is some kind of test to determine your eternal resting place? So I will argue that pardoning Lenny Bruce post-mortem is as stupid as baptizing the dead. We should not let today's inquisitors off the hook with the knowledge that their transgressions of human decency will be erased by the jury of tomorrow. Lenny Bruce died for freedom of speech. He spoke his mind with utter contempt for hypocrisy when it was dangerous to do so. I say we should study the life, work and subsequent death of Lenny Bruce, and as we hold McCarthy in infamy, we should hold this case as a totem against censorship of any kind (political or scatological.) As history currently records it I have Lenny in the column of the Martyrs, the ones who died for the cause. Clearing his record of the charge will reduce him to Victim. We have to remember that the prevailing law of the land was wrong, and to use that knowledge to right wrongs being committed right now. A pardon acknowledges that Bruce lived before his time, and this is the most hateful thing of all. It is to acknowledge that the ugly masses of us who let the Romans march him to the gallows were ignorant or cowed by the Herculean power of the state. Where were the petitioners then? Where are they now?
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"If Jesus had been killed
twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little
electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. ".
Lenny Bruce .............................................. |