Editorial: The way it was/is

When all is said and done, we are all citizens of a world in crisis. The universe of human suffering is everybody's universe. Moreover, it may well be that the solution of one problem has implications for the solution of another. This being so, there is a role for citizens to play in the solution of different problems that converge and impinge upon their personal situation. All of which means that if there is not a part for the civil rights movements to play in the peace struggle, there is certainly a part of Negroes to play, by joining peace groups all around the country.
What's more, many Negroes do take a deep and genuine interest in the problems of war and peace, and are trying to find some ground on which they can make a contribution. As I travel across the country, speaking before religious, liberal, civil rights, trade union, and campus groups, I am invariably asked by a large number of Negroes what they can do for peace. On such occasions, I always advise them to become members of peace organizations. When young Negro boys come up to me and say they are conscientiously opposed to the war, I advise them to contact the War Resisters League, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, or the American Friends Service Committee.
Of course I am aware that there is not going to be a tremendous onrush of Negroes into the peace movement. The immediate problems of Negroes' lives in America are so vast as to allow them very little time or energy to focus upon international crises. What is still crucial in the thinking and experiences of Negroes in our society is that even in some of the most liberal cities they have a hard time finding a job, living in a decent neighborhood, sending their children to quality integrated schools, or even getting a taxi. We have also got to realize that politically Negroes have carried a greater national burden for the past ten years. Almost all of the progressive developments during this period have been the result of Negroes' marching in the streets, demonstrating for equal treatment under the law. Negroes helped end McCarthyism on U.S. campuses because the freedom struggle attracted and awakened the best moral instincts of our college youth. An American ecumenical movement came into being primarily because the religious conscience had to respond to the struggle for human rights in our country. Therefore, one must be careful, while examining the extent of Negro involvement in causes beyond civil rights, not to demand that they ought, with equal ardor, to be catalysts in the struggle for social and human rights at home and the quest for peace abroad.

-- From Time On Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, pp. 148-149, "Guns, Bread, and Butter" (1967; collection edited by Devon W. Carbado and Donald Weise)

Rustin wrote the above 40 years ago. How much has changed? The vernacular has changed. Some people use "African-American," some people use "Black American." What's really changed? When Rustin's speaking of the problems for African-Americans (our term of choice, Betty prefers "Black Americans") in 1967 and you go through that list today, how much has changed?

And in the last two weeks, when some voices have chosen to describe today's peace movement as a "White" movement, do they show any of Rustin's understanding about what can make some people less able to participate? No. And they don't worry about rendering invisible those people of color who already are in the peace movement and making strong efforts.

Some speak of the peace movement during Vietnam and repeatedly note the draft and say the draft, fear of being drafted, that invasive physical, et al, is why the student movement came to life but are you getting that from reading Rustin above?

Or are you getting the reality that the peace movement piggy-backed on years and years of struggle where civil disobedience was utilized repeatedly?

Dave Lindorff got slammed at The Daily Toilet Scrubber. It was hard to decide whether to laugh or wince at the comments. Cindy Sheehan was the focus. The others might well have not existed. The commentators hate Cindy Sheehan. They say Cindy Sheehan just wanted attention. That was a mass protest and they're only focused on Sheehan. Who has the screwed up priorities -- Sheehan or them?

A number of comments explained that civil disobedience was just not the thing to do. It's just not to be done! There are other ways, they insisted. And if you read and read you'd find no other "way" to garner change except by voting.

As they hurled their abuse at Cindy Sheehan, they rendered everyone else taking part invisible. They also got off shots at Lindorff for daring to comment on what Rosa Parks might think of the whole thing. How dare he, wrote a few, use Rosa Parks' name! Didn't he know the woman was dead!!!!

It was as though you were suddenly at GOP convention and the word had just come down that The Great Satan himself, Ronnie RayGun, had passed away and no one must speak his name!

Here's reality. We honor those who have come before by citing them. We honor them by tying them into the events of today. Dave Lindorff wrote nothing insulting about Rosa Parks. He held her up as the hero she remains. But, playing like Bill O'Reilly, they invent some mock outrage over some perceived offense and start screaming like crazy.

One misguided soul felt comfortable enough to offer, "Civil disobedience alone cannot change things. It requires people of reason speaking truth to power also. On the flip side people of reason speaking truth to power can change things without the need for civil disobedience." "Talk, talk, talk. Talk around the block," as Joni Mitchell sings in "Tax Free." Oh come let us praise the Great Orators of Our Modern Age . . . apparently. Talk without action will change . . . nothing. A. Philip Randolph is deceased. He died in 1979 so if the Toilet Scrubbers don't mind too much, we'll note him and note that FDR did not decide to desegregate the US military because of talk. He made the decision because Randolph told him he'd be leading a march to DC with over 10,000 African-Americans. The threat of that march is what forced FDR to issue Executive Order 8802. Not talk. In 1948, a similar threat by Randolph would force Harry Truman's hand with Executive Order 9981. Toilet Scrubbers may not be familiar with those acts because they don't fit the Cookie Cokie Roberts spin that WWII came along and life was just peaches and creams for African-Americans as a result.

As uninformed as The Toilet Scrubbers are, we also find it really curious how AfterDowningStreet suddenly has Cindy Sheehan exclusives and near exclusives. That's not an insult to David Swanson or to his site. That is noting that there was a time when Sheehan's writing showed up everywhere. Suddenly, it seems a number of sites now pass.

If it's that Sheehan's a candidate, if they're worried about some unknown equal time provision, might we point out that every House member is up for re-election in 2008 and that hasn't stopped them from posting their writings (usually their speeches).

Cindy Sheehan's 'crime' appears to be two-fold. She won't be satisfied with the notion that voting changes everything and she's not willing to take the hint that says, "Drop out of the race!" Silly Cindy Sheehan, apparently, for ever thinking that in a Democracy anyone could run for office.

She, like us, must have missed the Executive Order by the Bully Boy declaring democracy a spectator sport. Fortunately, there are so many Toilet Scrubbers determined to 'enlighten' us.

Cindy Sheehan declared her candidacy officially Thursday. She is running for the US House of Representatives from California's Eighth District.



Apparently that's a crime.

There's not a morning I begin without
A thousand questions running through my mind,
That I don't try to find the reason and the logic
In the world that God designed.
The reason why
a bird was given wings,
If not to fly and praise the sky
With every song it sings.
What's right or wrong,
Where I belong
Within the scheme of things...
And why have eyes that see
And arms that reach
Unless you're meant to know
There's something more?
If not to hunger for the meaning of it all,
Then tell me what a soul is for?
Why have the wings
Unless you're meant to fly?
And tell me please, why have a mind
If not to question why?
And tell me where-
Where is it written what it is
I'm meant to be, that I can't dare
To have the chance to pick the fruit of every tree,
Or have my share of every sweet-imagined possibility?
Just tell me where, tell me where?

-- "Where Is It Written?" lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, music by Michel Legrand, sung by Barbra Streisand on the Yentl soundtrack



Where is it written? Not in the Constitution but apparently at The Daily Toliet Scrubber.