The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent

by P. E. Moskowitz Narrated by Robin Eller

Overview

A hard-hitting expose that shines a light on the powerful conservative forces that have waged a multi-decade battle to hijack the meaning of free speech--and how we can reclaim it.

There's a critical debate taking place over one of our most treasured rights: free speech. We argue about whether it's at risk, whether college students fear it, whether neo-Nazis deserve it, and whether the government is adequately upholding it.

But as P. E. Moskowitz provocatively shows in The Case Against Free Speech, the term has been defined and redefined to suit those in power, and in recent years, it has been captured by the Right to push their agenda. What's more, our investment in the First Amendment obscures an uncomfortable truth: free speech is impossible in an unequal society where a few corporations and the ultra-wealthy bankroll political movements, millions of voters are disenfranchised, and our government routinely silences critics of racism and capitalism.

Weaving together history and reporting from Charlottesville, Skokie, Standing Rock, and the college campuses where student protests made national headlines, Moskowitz argues that these flash points reveal more about the state of our democracy than they do about who is allowed to say what.

Our current definition of free speech replicates power while dissuading dissent, but a new ideal is emerging. In this forcefully argued, necessary corrective, Moskowitz makes the case for speech as a tool--for exposing the truth, demanding equality, and fighting for all our civil liberties.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

In this audiobook Moskowitz highlights the inconsistencies, limitations, and manipulation of the contemporary American conception of free speech. The discussion is all the more enhanced by Robin Eller’s emphatic delivery. Capturing Moskowitz’s dynamic writing, Eller shifts to a more dramatic tone when Moskowitz revisits personal experiences at the Charlottesville riot in 2017 and relies on a more deliberate tone when the author engages in philosophical discourse on free speech. Taking on the contemporary and twisted definition of free speech that largely empowers the extremism of white supremacists and their ilk on the far right, Moskowitz’s counterarguments come through with a clear degree of urgency and sincerity through Eller’s tone. L.E. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

06/24/2019

In this incisive treatise, journalist Moskowitz (How to Kill a City) argues that the concept of free speech has been distorted as a cover for maintaining existing systems of power. The author examines the 2017 Charlottesville far-right “free speech rally” that escalated into a neo-Nazi parade culminating in the murder of a progressive activist. Moskowitz then analyzes recent incidents on college campuses that have inflamed the right, including the cancellation of a 2017 speaking engagement by conservative author Charles Murray after protests at Middlebury College and demonstrations at Reed College calling for a more inclusive curriculum. The term free speech, Moskowitz claims, has been co-opted by conservative activists as a means to spread their ideology to college campuses. Moskowitz recounts a long history of conservatives censoring the left while claiming their own speech rights are being violated, noting examples of jailed socialist dissidents and union members during WWII, as well as present-day campaigns of harassment orchestrated by conservative organizations against professors and students critical of Israel or right-wing causes. Moskowitz asserts that the true free speech “crisis” is that only the wealthiest (and whitest) American voices have real influence and that “massively overhauling our government” is the only way to change that. The analysis here is keen, complex, and well-organized. It probably won’t convince right-wing readers, but others will appreciate it. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

"In The Case Against Free Speech P. E. Moskowitz offers a radical and necessary intervention. Exposing liberal myths with intellectual acuity, anti-fascist commitment, and dedicated reporting, Moskowitz demands we address what current free speech discourse ignores: power. I'm delighted that this book exists."—Natasha Lennard, author of Being Numerous

"Moskowitz's provocative and deeply insightful exploration of free speech politics exposes the current controversy over free speech as a manufactured crisis that obscures deeper fault lines in our democracy. Despite its title, The Case Against Free Speech is less an indictment of speech than a call to reimagine freedom."—Laura Weinrib, author of The Taming of Free Speech: America's Civil Liberties Compromise and law professor at the University of Chicago

"When Moskowitz arrived in Charlottesville, they were expecting a free speech rally, but by the end of the day Heather Heyer lay dead, run down by a neo-Nazi. This was never simply about speech, and if we have learned anything, it's that white supremacy and fascism are not ideas to be debated but movements to be destroyed. Moskowitz surgically dissects America's free speech fetish, drawing speech into conversation with action and violence-not as ideas but as material realities. The Case Against Free Speech is the book we need for 2019 and beyond."—George Ciccariello-Maher, author of Building the Commune

"In this incisive treatise, journalist Moskowitz (How to Kill a City) argues that the concept of free speech has been distorted as a cover for maintaining existing systems of power... The analysis here is keen, complex, and well-organized."—Publishers Weekly

"A provocation for First Amendment absolutists, who may be surprised at all the hidden constraints that bind free expression."—Kirkus Reviews

"Moskowitz has posed a pretty vital question: How can you speak freely when you don't know what you're talking about in the first place?"
—The New Republic

SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

In this audiobook Moskowitz highlights the inconsistencies, limitations, and manipulation of the contemporary American conception of free speech. The discussion is all the more enhanced by Robin Eller’s emphatic delivery. Capturing Moskowitz’s dynamic writing, Eller shifts to a more dramatic tone when Moskowitz revisits personal experiences at the Charlottesville riot in 2017 and relies on a more deliberate tone when the author engages in philosophical discourse on free speech. Taking on the contemporary and twisted definition of free speech that largely empowers the extremism of white supremacists and their ilk on the far right, Moskowitz’s counterarguments come through with a clear degree of urgency and sincerity through Eller’s tone. L.E. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2019-05-26
Forget about shouting "fire" in a crowded theater—free speech, by this account, is anything but free.

As former Al Jazeera America staffer Moskowitz (How To Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood, 2017) writes, the doctrine of freedom of speech is constantly in opposition to other rights that often supersede it. For instance, if you wished to rename yourself Google as an expression of some political view or another, you would likely face down some very powerful corporate attorneys. On another score, argues the author, people like Charles Murray or Steve Bannon may widely be accounted undesirable and are therefore banned or disinvited from speaking on campuses, leading to conservative outcries about supposed censorship, but the national news such banning brings is disproportionate to the silencing of activists on the other side: "Their rights eclipse the rights of so many others in mainstream discourse: Dakota Access Pipeline protestors, or J20 defendants, or Black Lives Matter activists." The freedom of speech of the alt-right demonstrators in Charlottesville, Moskowitz urges, clearly superseded other presumably superior rights, whipping up the violence that led to the murder of a counterprotester. Indeed, the argument continues, a scenario in which many of the alt-right participants were armed was sanctioned by police while, one imagines, a similar demonstration of armed Black Lives Matter marchers would not be. As A.J. Liebling noted, just as freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns the press, true freedom of speech belongs to those who wield political power. Although the argument is sometimes diffuse, Moskowitz does valuable work in connecting dots—noting, for example, that a professor censured at Evergreen College under supposed PC censorship who became a cause célèbre was the brother of the managing director of a firm owned by Peter Thiel, "a right-wing billionaire who has helped fund lawsuits to shut down the left-leaning media site Gawker."

A provocation for First Amendment absolutists, who may be surprised at all the hidden constraints that bind free expression.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173425492
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	08/13/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos