A Sad Affair Of The State
By John Foxworthy

It is my opinion that we Americans are wholly intolerant of our God-given civil rights. And, in a country built on such liberties as speech, religion and fair trial, it confounds me to see these rights systematically stripped away from us by the very people who should be embracing and defending them ... the media.

Luckily, in the same country it's your right to disagree with me, so let's keep an open mind here. Advertising dollars drive our allegedly impartial press and controversy attracts an audience. Image dictates content and content either attracts or deflects advertisers. Responsibility in reporting has largely gone the way of kerosene street lamps and the Dodo Bird. It's a vicious circle of truth that corrodes the very fiber of ethics on which the American media was woven by one of our forefathers, Ben Franklin.

Such is the case with online social commentator, Travis Gruber. His blog at howtokillpeople.com recently came under fire by a self-proclaimed investigative reporter for the Contra Costa Times by the name of Thomas Peele. Normally, as an investigative journalist myself, I would applaud an effort to uncover and report on an issue that may pose a danger to public safety or National securty and admittedly the web address "howtokillpeople.com" does seem to be one of those issues ... but let's not judge a book by its cover.

Gruber's blog is chock-full of editorials and reviews that could be construed as inflammatory in nature. He takes hard-core pokes at public officers, pop culture, ethnic groups and politics using profane remarks and twisted satire. So, why is his site so controversial? Because Travis Gruber is a Senior Airman in the California National Guard. His post as chauffeur to Major Gen. William Wade, the Guard's commanding officer, grants him access to many high ranking military and elected officials. In this, a post 9/11 America may feel the site warrants some concern; however, how far and at what cost to our civil liberties should we really take this ride?

Currently, Travis Gruber is on paid administrative leave while the DOD conducts an investigation into his blog. Of course, military decisions are also sometimes based on public opinions. Unfortunately, not the important ones. Nevertheless, Travis is not a high ranking public official. He didn't torture prisoners of war for photo opps, he's never committed heinous serial crimes and he's always held his military post with the most honorable regards. For the most part he's nobody, yet somehow his life hangs in the balance of a nasty PR crossfire that has the potential to destroy his future.

I want to clear the air right now by stating this story is not about Travis Gruber, his site or the potential for his online remarks to create an anarchistic revolution throughout the masses; rather the extent of the media's responsibility and its power to sway public opinion with a few well-placed jabs. Should we allow the press to create a modern-day Pariah out of a regular, everyday guy just because his opinions don't flow with the norm ... who also happens to be a military serviceman? Do we advocate mediocre reporting because it plays on our fear that someone in this country thinks differently than we do? Can we truly flush a promising career down the proverbial toilet in the wake of our own intolerance?

I say "NO," and ultimately it becomes an issue of responsibility and responsible reporting. It also calls into question what constitutes our 1st Amendment right to free speech, the cornerstone that built today's media, and where exactly to draw the line when it comes to sensationalism in the press.

In 1919, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote to the United States Supreme Court, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic," and while Thomas Peele's article may not create a stampede in the streets of our major metropolises, it has spawned a viral rift along every major media outlet in the country based solely on its title.

This in and of itself is a breech of the privilege afforded the press by the bill of rights. More so is the one-sided laziness Peele exhibits in his reporting. His article states adamantly that howtokillpeople.com "...advocates mass violence" and its content "should be a red flag to anyone in the security business," yet nowhere on the site was I able to find any evidence of the advocacy of mass violence nor anything leading me to believe our country's security had been compromised.

These are just two of the blatantly false statements Thomas Peele made in his article. He also wrote that it was, "...a crime under military law for a soldier, including an enlisted member of the National Guard, to use 'contemptuous words' against public officials, including governors and members of Congress;" likely an inate attempt to site Uniform Code Of Military Justice (UCMJ) Article 88, which specifically states:

"Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."

Some of Gruber's defamatory statements would fit directly under that code, were he a commissioned officer. So if this misinformation is allowed to make the media as fact, what else are we missing? JFK? Roswell? The moon landing? Did we really find WMDs in Iraq?

I could point out many other inconsistencies in Thomas Peele's article, including the fact that Gruber denigrates African-Americans, Jews, Asians, women, gays and people with physical handicaps. We see this same material on TV shows like "The Simpsons," "South Park," "Mind Of Mencia" and hundreds of other programs readily available for public viewing and/or listening via our public airwaves.

Might I reiterate that Thomas Peele claims to be an investigative reporter? Several of his pieces are targeted towards the U.S. military and are minorly defamatory in nature; however, he hides behind the guise of a "reporter," therefore neutralizing any possible retribution for his incomprehensive dribble ... of course, protected by the 1st Amendment.

Peele never claimed to make any attempts in his article to contact Gruber, his family, his co-workers or his friends; however, he did claim that he tried on several occasions to contact Gruber directly when I called him at the Contra Costa Times. He refused to make a comment on the record, after which he referred me to the paper's Executive Editor, Kevin Keane.

Keane stated that the Times ..."stands by the article as is," and denied any allegations the story was the result of a sloppy, one-sided, copy/paste investigation. He wouldn't comment on Peele's credentials as a journalist, but did accusingly tell me that, "[Thomas Peele] is a paid journalist for Contra Costa Times and that's all you need to know. There doesn't need to be any background on the reporter because you're making it about Thomas Peele vs. Travis Gruber, and the facts stand as they are."

Keane also denied the article as an attempt to pull a failing newspaper out of the red.

Might I also lend credence to the overwhelming amount of support in favor of Travis Gruber and howtokillpeople.com? The comments on Contra Costa Times' web site are a landslide vote for his freedoms as a citizen AND as a Guardsman.

My final thought is this: If we succumb to the opinions suggested to us by the media, then we as a people become subservient to a mass hysteria of distrust, oversensitivity and the psychology that we all need to be governed by fashion. This isn't where we came from, so why is it where we're going?

READ THE THOMAS PEELE ARTICLE AND RELATED COMMENTS