The Dilemma Of Dissent

It seems that everything old is new again. Some folks on the left are up in arms about Code Pink's tactics, er...stunts, concern trolling about how this will lose us allies, prolong our wars and economic crisese, and rend the very fabric of space-time itself. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate a little, but it is always interesting to me how people will tut-tut about methods of dissent (whilst always saying, "I defend your right to do so," ala "I'm no racist, but...") yet rarely offering solutions of their own nor leading by example with action.

I suppose it's fitting to hear such gadflies and armchair quarterbacks leading up to the Day of Mobilization which occurs on the 42nd anniversary of Dr King's Beyond Vietnam speech.  Rather that "losing focus" or somehow diluting our message and movement, we're trying to explicitly tie together in people's minds what is already intrinsically linked in reality: war and socio-economic justice.

Time magazine said a couple weeks after King's broke his silence at the Riverside Church:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched across First Avenue to deliver a statement accusing the U.S. of violating the world organization's Charter to U.N. Under Secretary Ralph Bunche [pictured with MLK at the UN in 1964]. "I saw you crossing the street," said Bunche in greeting King. "It was a shorter walk than we had in Selma, Martin."

Bunche's remark echoed the concern that many Americans felt in seeing King diverting his attention from the civil rights movement to the antiwar campaign. In a speech two weeks ago, he called the U.S. "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" and com pared its use of new weapons in Viet Nam to Nazi medical experiments. Bunche and the N.A.A.C.P. had already criticized King's shift as a "serious tactical mistake." The Urban League's Whitney Young warned that "limited resources and personnel should not be diverted into other channels."

Bayard Rustin, who organized the successful March on Washington, voiced a disappointment felt by many Negroes. "There is not going to be a tremendous rush of Negroes into the peace movement," said Rustin. In fact, many Negroes have found service in Viet Nam valuable in proving their courage—a quantity whose fierce abundance has never before been tapped in American armed combat quite so effectively.

Long the nation's most respected advocate of Negro advancement, King—a Nobel Peace Prizewinner—had held himself aloof from such demagogic "Black Power" advocates as S.N.C.C.'s Stokely Carmichael and CORE's Floyd McKissick. Indeed, King once vowed never to stand on the same platform with Carmichael as long as he spouted an anti-white line. By joining the Spring Mobilization, King reneged on that vow —and possibly on the entire cause of nonviolent Negro advancement.
...
Many left-wing Americans—including Senior Socialist Norman Thomas—refused to throw in with King, Carmichael & Co. Because the pitch of their protest made it seem that Hanoi was innocent of any aggressive role in the war, even the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy refused to take part, though SANE Co-Chairman Dr. Benjamin Spock spoke at the New York demonstration.

None of the non-participants challenged the right of dissent—simply the fact that this particular protest seemed based on a double standard that assumed Washington's guilt and Hanoi's innocence. Despite the marchers' pacific plea—"Make War on Poverty, Not People"—the sad fact of the "Spring Mobilization" was that it might only serve to prolong the war in Viet Nam. The ultimate accomplishment of the marchers who so gaily painted one another with psychedelic designs and marched down Madison Avenue in the cause of "love, not war," may be to encourage Hanoi in the belief that the country is divided and therefore to reject some future U.S. peace initiative. For those who oppose the Viet Nam war, that is the dilemma of dissent in the U.S. today.

[As an aside, the FBI got an advance preview of King's speech.  Spying on dissenters hasn't changed, either.]

I suggest that people criticizing Code Pink or any nonviolent activists look within first and consider what they should be doing before telling other people who are, in fact, acting, should or should not do.  Otherwise they are caught on the dilemma of impotence.

ntodd

Comments

[Diane]

Rather that "losing focus" or somehow diluting our message and movement, we're trying to explicitly tie together in people's minds what is already intrinsically linked in reality: war and socio-economic justice.

Amen to that!

Crossing that street is as essential today as it was for Dr. King 42 years ago.

[Elayne Riggs]

I'm not sure all the "you're not helping" critiques are from people who aren't doing things of their own, Todd. On the other hand, do you really have to have the solution of how to do something better in order to criticize the way someone's going about something? That seems inherently unfair in terms of constructive dialogue.

[NTodd]

I'm not sure all the "you're not helping" critiques are from people who aren't doing things of their own, Todd.

I'm pretty sure. Typically when I ask what they're doing they'll respond with, "you don't know what I'm doing!" or "I don't have to tell you!"

On the other hand, do you really have to have the solution of how to do something better in order to criticize the way someone's going about something?

It would be more helpful than being all upset about people who are trying things.

That seems inherently unfair in terms of constructive dialogue.

Oh, no more "unfair" than critiquing action without getting out of the chair.

[srcfo]

I'm not sure all the "you're not helping" critiques are from people who aren't doing things of their own...

that's interesting, because it doesn't appears that is their intent. and, if it is, why aren't people phrasing their criticism as, "when we do X, we get much better press, better effect", i wonder?

[Karin]

I confess, they are sometimes a bit theatrical for my taste, but some of that guerrilla theatre really works. Like Desiree with the red hand paint, who could forget that? And I totally admire them for going to Gaza. That is no joke.