March 31, 2007
"The difference between expediency and morality in politics is the difference between selling out a principle and making smaller concessions to win larger ones. The leader who shrinks from this task reveals not his purity but his lack of political sense." -- Bayard Rustin 1965, from his book 'Down the Line'
I've been to rally after rally in D.C. over the years. I live on the outskirts, and coming to Washington to take over the streets for some cause or another has always been as easy as rolling out of bed; so I've indulged. My father was a black American who found extensive work in the civil rights movement in the '50's and '60's because that was where a great deal of opportunity lay for young black men who had finished college and were looking for a position which fit their abilities outside of the mostly unwelcoming private sector. That experience led him to Selma and other hot spots where his activism was needed, and drew him to the many protests and actions held around Washington. Even when we moved out of D.C. and into the suburbs, my father would 'sneak' off and join with folks like Dick Gregory in local protests, stashing his picket signs in the garage.
I guess Earth Day observances first drew me to D.C. for something other than sightseeing, even though you couldn't miss the protests as we drove through town, like the tent city of vets in '71. I remember as a teenager, attending rallies for the ERA, abortion's rights, No Nukes, U.S. out of El Salvador and Nicaragua, and any rally I'd come across in one of the city parks. There were the 'smoke-ins' across from the White House where we'd toke and toke in front of the mounted Secret Service and police who'd lined up in front of us to prevent us hippies from storming the gates to play frisbee on the lawn and duck into the rose garden to sit in a circle and share the doobies we just nabbed from the guy in the clown suit throwing joints into the air like some far-out confetti.
We marched from one gathering in front of the White House to the Mall to hear Root Boy Slim groovin' on 'Boogie Till You Puke." I got an egg-sized knot on my forehead after hanging back in the procession and yelling, "Pigs!" at the cops herding us on ahead like cattle and setting off tear gas canisters to scatter us. Across the street I could see a man running with his children in his arms . . .
But despite the excesses of the cops, I was still having way too much fun with my political freedom. I grew up and found more serious challenges than lobbying for psychedelic freedoms, but there just weren't any massive protests in my day which carried the weight of the ones we've been compelled to take up during the Bush term.
Right from the beginning of the rumors of war with Iraq, our faithful activists organized and led us to rally against the invasion. There was a remarkable amount of premonition and intuition which launched our strident opposition to Bush's invasion. We knew his claims and justifications of terrorist threats and weapons associated with Saddam were false and a pretext to a wider war. We knew then that Bush had military ambitions which went far beyond his aborted hunt for the 9-11 suspects in Afghanistan which had nothing to do with any threat to the U.S. whatsoever. We said so, loudly, in our neighborhoods and town centers; on the street corners and in front of the halls of our democracy, as we had been taught by our fathers, mothers, and others who defended their own rights and liberties, and protested the extremes of their government before we even imagined we could or should.
We've parroted their slogans and the cadence of their past rants as we've challenged our own system from without and within. Millions of Americans have taken to the streets over the four years from the revelation of Bush's plan to invade Iraq to his present escalation of our soldier's presence and mission. Many veterans of the past protests have been drawn back into service against this generation's warmonger's military madness, and are lending their voices, their experience, and their time to stand down the present threat to world peace which has sprung, once again, from the Executive's arrogant misuse of the awesome power of our military defenses.
Our last march on Washington to end the Iraq occupation was significant in many ways, not the least of which was the degree of participation from Americans who's place of origin, ideology, income, race or nationality, age, sex, or otherwise, made no difference at all in the solidity of our message to the Bush administration and whoever is left to support their continuing occupation of Iraq. It is a clear and unambiguous call for Bush to either change course, or have his power to conduct his military muckraking in Iraq reduced to packing up our troops and equipment and bringing them home.
That call for a quick end to American military involvement in Iraq is reflected by the majority of Americans who voted in the last election for an end to the fiasco. That vote to end the occupation is reflected in our protests this weekend, held in D.C., and in several other states. Our protest will, next, spill over into the halls of our government to be acted upon, or so ignored as to trigger yet another round of protest and action from the people. The more Americans invest themselves in protest of this duplicitous, destructive Bush regime, the more they'll expect and demand a change in its course and direction.
Taking our protests to the streets is a healthy flexing of our democratic system. Our agenda is best served when it is initiated and advocated from the ground up, but, at some point, to convert those ideas into action, our agenda should be assigned to our legislators we elect to public office - the caretakers and managers of the levers of our democracy.
Baynard Rustin, a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, argued in his book, 'Strategies for Freedom', that for a movement to have a permanent and transforming imprint, it should have a legislative goal attached which will transcend the whims of the emotions of the moment. Describing a different struggle that America faced with the advancement of civil rights, he wrote that:
"Moral fervor can't maintain your movement, nor can the act of participation itself. There must be a genuine commitment to the advancement of the people. To have such a commitment is also to have a militant sense of responsibility, a recognition that actions have consequences which have a very real effect on the individual lives of those one seeks to advance."
"Far too many movements lack both a (legislative) perspective and a sense of responsibility, and they fail because of it," Ruskin wrote.
"My quarrel with the "no-win" tendency in the civil rights movement (and the reason I have so designated it) parallels my quarrel with the moderates outside the movement," Rustin wrote in his book,
Down the Line. "As the latter lack the vision or will for fundamental change, the former lack a realistic strategy for achieving it. For such a strategy they substitute militancy. But militancy is a matter of posture and volume and not of effect.
Another important point Ruskin made in reference to unity among blacks within the movement rings true for our own diverse anti-war coalitions which have massed to march together in protest, and will be advocating within the system together against the occupation. "In a pluralistic democracy," he wrote, "unity (among we who agree) is a meaningless goal. It is far more important to form alliances with other forces in society which share common needs and common goals, and which are in general agreement over the means to achieve them."
Ruskin's advice about alliances is just the lesson we need to heed as we face off against the republican opposition without the benefit of enough Democratic senators or representatives to overcome a certain filibuster or a presidential veto of any and all important legislation which intends to reverse the Bush regime's destructive course. The more alliances we can make between our legislators and republicans on ending the Iraq occupation, the more we can plant a wedge between Bush's ambitions and the resources he'll need to continue his military meddling.
That doesn't mean rolling over and compromising our principles or our positions. Many protests assume that the legislative process is the dominion of the opposition, and that compromise in the system can only mean a sacrifice of principle or belief. But, our political institutions are designed for both argument and compromise. There is little room in our democracy to dictate one view or the other. While our legislators may come to office with similar goals, like ending the Iraq occupation, they, nonetheless, come to office with a myriad of ideas and approaches to achieve those goals. Those different views and approaches must be reconciled if legislation is to move out of their respective chambers and up the legislative ladder.
If we are to effectively begin any substantial withdrawal of troops from Iraq, it will have to come in the form of some sort of compromise. For our side of that compromise to carry weight, Democrats will need time to pressure republicans on the other things they want legislatively. That won't be as transparent an effort as the resolution approach, but they can pressure the republicans by controlling the access of their initiatives and proposals with the levers of their new majority, in committee and on the floor, to get them to bend their way on Iraq.
Speaking of the struggle for civil rights in his own time, Rustin wrote that, "Confronted with a new agenda, we had to come to terms with developing new tactics. When we had absolute demands for the rights of freedom and dignity, we could insist on absolute solutions. But when you are working within the political system,you can no longer deal in absolute terms. You must be prepared to compromise, you must be prepared to make and accept concessions," he wrote.
Achieving a legislative solution which will adequately confront Bush and cause him to move away from Iraq will take time. This will also, more than likely, take even more protesting. But as long as we keep our legislative goals at the head of our protests, and form the necessary coalitions of support to advance those legislative efforts within the system, we can assume the necessary responsibility for the consequences of our actions and transform the direction of our movement from agitation to action.
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