Harp, Harp, Harp

This is a common theme of mine but I will harp yet again, its my blog. What is the best way to neutralize activists? Overwhelm them. Sunday night was a local meeting of the Human Rights Alliance. They have several issues on their plate, child and spouse abuse in the polygamist community north of here ( you don’t have a polygamist community near you?) , the local city councilor who was ousted in a right wing coup de etat, homeless and hungry people, attack of the religious right on gay issues etc..the list goes on. I ran into a comrade there who would like some help getting military recruiters away from kids who are not interested in our public schools. Monday night its on to meet with a group forming to stop the development of Big –Box stores in our community, primarily Wal Mart. Sounds simple enough. Tonight ,Tuesday, its into town for a meeting on ways to end the exclusive Coca Cola contract at our university until Coke rectifies human rights abuses. We’ve tried petitions, demonstrations, letters but need new ideas.Im thinking hunger strike. Wednesday another trip into Missoula for some discussion on how to raise awareness about movements for change in Latin America, Thursday a meeting of Trout Unlimited on how to have unlimited trout (utopian but beautiful) and Friday possibly another committee meeting where we will choose some local issue that is short term and “winnable”. My choice is the minimum wage hike but I don’t see much support. Saturday I will end all war and on the seventh day I will rest.

You might say,what neutralize, it sounds like you are tackling lots of issues. The point is, this is but a partial list, a random sample, and there are a hundred more where those came from ,just waiting in the wings. All symptoms of the same disease. We treat the fever but leave the infection. Unfortunatly, putting out all these brushfires, to change metaphores, leaves us exhausted, broke, dispirited. Burned out. Nuetralized.( not me yet, but many others)

I suggested at last nights meeting that for a direct action to be meaningful or effective, there had to be a moral equivalance between the injustice we were protesting, in this case the murder of labor rights leaders, and the action being proposed. I thought we needed an action with consequences such as civil disobedience or hunger strike, some disruption. It didnt seem to go over real well. MLK and others showed that people will be shamed and motivated to action by a display of committment, many were beat and jailed. some were killed.They didnt sign petitions or write their congressman or smash windows.

"the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice" MLK