As an alumna of the GW, I was extremely concerned to read in The Washington Post that a GW junior named Doug had a sign that said “Go Home You Commies” at an anti-war march on October 25th.

First, this is the type of slogan that is designed to turn off thinking (particularly critical thinking) and discourage dialogue, When I was a student at GW in the early 70s, I was offered a quality education. In addition, I received a tremendous education in anti-war organizing and in the history of resistance movements in the United States.

I hate to think how education at GW must have deteriorated to have a student carrying such a sign.

Go home? Go home where? I began my peace organizing as an anti-war activist at GW at the October, 1969, moratorium against the Vietnam War.

At that time I was home, and I am still home. My grandmother’s grandfather was a captain in the Union army, but his father was born in Scotland … is that where I should go?

I doubt that Doug knows about the history of the U.S. deportation of folks who did not agree with the government (Woodrow Wilson’s presidency). For example, Emma Goldman was deported for opposing the draft in the First World War. On December 21, 1919, Goldman, Alexander Berkman and more than 200 other foreign-born radicals were herded aboard the Buford and, accompanied by a fearsome block of nearly 100 guards, set sail for the Soviet Union. J. Edgar Hoover personally wrote the briefs and presented the case against Goldman. Hoover persuaded the courts to deny Goldman’s citizenship claims and to deport her. I learned about this in an excellent philosophy class at GW called “Anarchy.”

So, Doug do you suggest I go to Russia? I need to let you know that Russia is no longer a communist country. When I was at GW, I took an outstanding class called the “History of Russia” and I just know that the professor would have mentioned the current government’s make-up.

Doug, do you know about the McCarthy era? A whole bunch of people lost their jobs, were driven out of the entertainment industry, were “blacklisted.”

Doug, did you know that there were only a few who were actually Commies? Most of them were just critical of the government. I learned about this in the People’s University classes that were held simultaneously with my formal education at GW.

Commie? Communist? Doug, did you miss that the “evil empire” has collapsed? That communism is not really a major force in the world anymore? It is a little strange that this is still a catchword for “bad.”

Doug, do you think we were fighting communists in Iraq? Are there any commies in Iraq at all?

Doug, do you know that we have been consistently lied to?

There are no weapons of mass destruction, there is no tie to September 11, there is no Iraqi tie to al-Qaeda.

Doug, there is a tradition in this country called freedom of speech, the right to assemble – it’s in a document called the Bill of Rights (touched upon in my first year political science class at GW) …Iit says that we have the right to criticize the government and stay here. You know, we get to stay here and speak out even if we are commies. It is the American way.

-The writer is a GW alumna.