Thanks

I remember when I met Dave Dellinger. It was May 1971—a few weeks after hundreds of antiwar actions around the country, including the militant Mayday civil disobedience in Washington, DC and an unprecedented, more traditional, all day sit-in of 5,000 at the federal building in Boston, Massachusetts. 

I had been active for about a year as a staff member of the Boston People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice (BPCPJ), which organized the Boston sit-in. Three of us were chosen to represent BPCPJ at a national steering committee meeting in Washington. Because PCPJ was a multi-issue coalition to “end the war and address human needs in the U.S.,” it included antiwar, religious, welfare rights, the Communist Party, and the Weatherpeople. Needless to say, national meetings could be cantankerous affairs with ideologies and personalities determining preferred tactics, which could be miles apart.  

New to the movement, I thought it was all about stopping a war; as well as a chance to feel good about myself because I was doing something positive. But it seemed there were these different ideologies and something called “having an analysis.” Nobody would tell me what that was or why this analysis was needed, but I interpreted it to mean don’t speak up if you haven’t got it. 

Dellinger was there, in the middle of this, enjoying the debate, respectful of all, but firm in his convictions, which seemed based less on ideology and more on humane principles—peace, justice, compassion, community, and solidarity. Actually, he was what I thought someone in the movement for peace and justice would be like—a nice human being, sensitive to hypocrisy, with a sense of humor, not judgmental, never confusing style with substance, keeping an eye on principles and not getting bogged down in tactics, behavior, or personalities. Dellinger seemed to radiate what activist Lee Siu Hin writes about in this issue—“love and hope.” 

His attitude was partly why I stayed active. Eventually, I got an “analysis” of sorts, but for me it still came down to finding opportunities—however fleeting—where I could bring some humanity into the world. More than that, it meant finding a place where I could express the best part of me: love, not hate; solidarity, not stepping on people; action, not passive indifference; commitment, not apathy; community, not isolation. I guess that’s why I never identified with one special issue over another (feminism, classism, racism, etc.). They all seemed connected and part of the humanity that Dellinger was able to maintain throughout his long life. 

Looking back, there have been many reasons to give up. Even with recent hopeful signs from the World Social Forums, as well as the anti-corporate globalization movement, it is difficult to hold on to our principles and humanity when the world is falling apart all around us. 

All these years of organizing and we get Bush and company, war without end, and the USA PATRIOT Act. 

Recently, on the evening news, the co-anchor cheerily told Bostonians that they could expect something new on the subway: random searches. She could have been giving the weather report; the tone was the same. 

Then there was the nauseating coverage of a week of “mourning” for Ronald Reagan, scripted like one of his badly acted movies. Even when reporters and commentators actually mentioned some of the more venal things that happened during his Administration, they managed to chuckle fondly over Reagan’s “humanity.” Here was one of the least popular (contrary to the media spin) and most morally reprehensible presidents in U.S. history (which is saying a lot), and he is celebrated in death like no other president since Kennedy was assassinated—maybe since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Watching TV pundits blather on about the beauty of Reagan’s “America” (mixing images of religious crosses with monuments to “democracy”) was almost too much to take, especially when compared with Dellinger’s life and work. 

Through the years there have been more personal disappointments. How do we keep going when our humanity gets lost in analysis debates, compromises, attacks on our personalities, humiliations, manipulations, co-optations, and other day-to-day indignities? How do we watch much of the left either replicate the same corporate hierarchies it once criticized or get bogged down in competing hierarchies of oppressions or focus on a single issue while losing sight of others—or all of the above? 

 In April I attended the March for Women’s Lives. On the one hand, it was an incredible event. Its size alone made it successful—over a million people—a kind of tribute to the early women’s movement that fought valiantly for reproductive rights. The size, in part, reflected what a handful of organizations with large, dues paying memberships and years of hard work can do. The main message was presented clearly: “Bush’s policies continue to be a threat to women’s reproductive rights and his re-election would put him in position to pick at least one Supreme Court justice, if not more.” The website was easy to follow and helpful. There was exemplary diversity among the speakers and the organizing groups, if not in the crowd, which was mostly white, mostly women, mostly middle class; with little visible presence from people of color or from labor.