Andy Thibault

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Law And Justice In Everyday Life
Introduction
By HOWARD ZINN

     I must confess that Andy Thibault was a student of mine decades ago. A teacher always wonders how his students have turned out. He is one of those I am most proud of.

     I hadn't heard from him in years, was vaguely aware that he was doing news reporting somewhere in Connecticut. Then he began sending me the columns he was writing, and I recognized that this was very far from run-of-the-mill journalism.

     Reading Andy Thibault reminded me of the heroes of my youth, the great muckrakers of the early 20th century. There was Lincoln Steffens, whose "Autobiography" I devoured, and whose "Shame of the Cities," published in 1904, exposed the corruption in the political leadership of Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Of this corruption, he wrote: "This is not a temporary evil, not an accidental wickedness, not a passing symptom of the youth of a people." Rather, it was inherent in the relations between big business and politics.

     There were always, of course, radicals and reformers who published their own newspapers in order to be free to say what they wanted. One thinks of William Lloyd Garrison's "The Liberator," heralding the rise of the anti-slavery movement. And, in the late 19th century, "John Swinton's Paper," in which Swinton wrote of the conditions of working people and of the struggles of labor unions. In mid-20th century, there was "I.F.Stone's
Weekly," challenging McCarthyism and the war in Vietnam.

     But I was especially admiring of journalists who worked for established newspapers and dared to tackle issues and arouse controversy outside the boundaries of editorial orthodoxy. There was the great Heywood Broun, writing for the New York "World," and defending the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti in a biting denunciation of the important people of Massachusetts who had approved their death sentence, including the governor, and the presidents of Harvard and M.I.T. He wrote: "From now on, I want to know, will the institution of learning in Cambridge which once we called Harvard be known as Hangman's House?"

     Andy Thibault's columns made me think of Heywood Broun  and his willingness to risk his job to speak his mind, passionately, eloquently.

     Like all the great journalists,  Andy does  not pretend to that spurious idea called "objectivity." Is not "objectivity" made impossible by the necessity to select a subject out of an infinite set of possibilities, and then to select those facts one considers important out of the huge array of facts that pertain to any situation? The strenuous effort to be "objective" robs the writer of his power and the reader of the opportunity to see the reporter's moral philosophy laid bare, in all its honesty.

     The veteran journalists and historians of journalism, Judith and William Serrin, have written (MUCKRAKING, The New Press, 2002): "Journalists wear disguises, and one of them is the disguise of objectivity ... All good journalists have agendas. They wish to put the crooked sheriff in jail. They wish to unveil the patent medicine fraud. They wish to free the innocent man from jail."

     Mary Heaton Vorse, after reporting on the strike of the mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, explained why she would turn from her ambition to write novels to journalism: "I could try to make other people see what I had seen, feel what I had felt. I wanted to make others as angry as I was. I wanted to see wages go up and the babies' death rate go down."

     Andy Thibault wants to stop judicial cruelty and police brutality and political hysteria which puts innocent people in prison. His writing gets its force from his profound commitment to people who are victims of injustice. He is unafraid to point to  the F.B.I, the Justice Department, ambitious district attorneys,  malevolent judges, and a craven Congress  that passes legislation destructive of the Bill of Rights.

     What you will find in these pages  is a journalistic courage rare in these times when too many columnists,  TV anchors, and talk-show hosts rush to show their support of official policy, in the mistaken notion that patriotism means blind obedience to government.

     Andy Thibault understands what true patriotism is - love of country, defense of its people, respect for the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the notion that all human beings, citizens and non-citizens, rich and poor, of whatever color and religion, have an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

     He defends free speech and the rights of the mistreated with meticulous concern for the facts, and in a style that is refreshingly open, crystal-clear, and brimming with life. His investigative skills might cause Sherlock Holmes to phone him for advice.

   Yes, I am proud that he was once my student. All of us who cherish justice should be grateful for his presence in the world.
       
     Howard Zinn is the author of numerous books including The Politics Of History and A People's History Of The United States. Even though Zinn has lived a life of direct action - including work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s and bringing back the first POWs from Vietnam -- he is still Professor emeritus of Political Science at Boston University.

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