Giving Thanks for Progressive Activists

by Hillary Rettig and OPOL

Bleeding heart.

Tree hugger.

Feminazi.

Commie sympathizer.

Traitor.

Demonizing progressives and progressive activists has long been a favored tactic of the Right.  This is not just because, despite their unending blather about “freedom” and “liberty,” many conservatives fear individual expression and bow down to hierarchy and the status quo; it’s also a tactic that Berkeley cognitive linguist George Lakoff says is consciously designed to drive a wedge between progressives and the masses of voters who are their natural constituency:  

“Conservatives need…a significant percentage of the poor and middle class to vote against their economic interests. . . . Their method for achieving this has been cultural civil war . . . pitting Americans with strict father morality (called conservatives) against Americans with nurturant parent morality (the hated liberals), who are portrayed as threatening the way of life and the cultural, religious, and personal identities of conservatives.”  

George Lakoff – Don’t Think of an Elephant!

Joan Baez ~ Oh Freedom – Turn Me Around

Demonizing activists is also a great way to quell dissent. Bucking the status quo is hard enough on a good day, but it gets harder when activists are widely viewed as freaks, losers and traitors. I (Hillary) constantly see people deny their own activism when I’m out speaking about my book, The Lifelong Activist. “I don’t know that I’m an activist,” someone will say, hesitantly, despite a clear personal history of activism. The message is that, “those other wild-eyed freaks may be activists, but I’m normal – and therefore not an activist.”

Combine the demonization with the actual suppression of dissent currently going on in this country, and you wind up with a passive citizenry that may object to the status quo, but has a hard time motivating itself to do something about it. This is one answer to the plaintive question recently posed by TomDispatch’s Tom Engelhardt where have all the war protests gone? In other words, given the massive unpopularity of the Iraq war, why don’t we have protests as big, and a protest culture as vibrant, as during the Vietnam War?   There are many reasons, of course, including the fact that there’s no draft, but the Right’s demonization of progressive activism and activists is surely one.

And speaking of rightwing distortions, I read today of a high school in Florida where a peace club is being mocked by, among other things, signs saying, ‘If peace is the answer it must be a stupid question.”  How pathetic.  My response is that if peace is NOT universally recognized as the answer this must be one stupid planet.  In view of all the good people who gave so much to push us forward it is heart-rending to see us being driven backwards by those too thoughtless and cruel to know better.

Nancy Pelosi versus the Truth About Progressive Activism

All this is why it was so shameful to hear a Democrat – House speaker Nancy Pelosi, no less – speak disparagingly about activists camping out in the street in front of her house to persuade her to defund the Iraq war and begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney. “I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things – Buddhas?…If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have ‘Impeach Bush’ across their chest, it’s the First Amendment,” Pelosi groused to the Washington Post.[10/10/07]  Later she added, “They are advocates. We are leaders.”

Those familiar with the current “capitulation congress” might dispute that last characterization, but let’s leave that point aside, along with Pelosi’s disparagement of both the First Amendment and citizens to whom she is supposedly answerable as a public servant. Let’s address instead her use of “advocate” as a pejorative. Not only is she doing the Right’s dirty work when she does that, but she’s dead wrong. The “advocates,” in this and every case, are the true leaders. Progressive advocates and activists have always led the world in creating those values that make life worth living, including freedom, equality, justice and health.

Here are some activists who have changed our world for the better.

Would Pelosi refer disparagingly to their “advocacy?”

Some Activists

The founding fathers and mothers of this country were activists.

So were the abolitionists and suffragettes.

So, too, was this guy.

And this guy.

And this one.

And these two.

In Burma activists are sacrificing their lives for democracy, freedom and justice.  Sneer at that Pelosi.  With ‘support’ like her’s, this is what it is likely to come to in this country as well.

Pelosi owes them all an apology – and the profoundest respect.

Give Thanks for Progressive Activists

This Thanksgiving, let’s all give thanks for the progressive activists who have fought against often incredible odds to give us a better world, and continue to do so. Then, go out and do some progressive activism and BE PROUD OF IT. Fly your activist flag proudly, and encourage others to do the same.  Remember that progressive activists are, quite simply, the most precious resource in the world, and that if we all just do a bit more activism, and encourage others to do the same, we can create an enormous amount of social progress.  

Let us be mindful of their sacrifices, and of the blessings they have brought us through their courage to stand up for what is right.  There is always someone willing to beat you down for that in this society – if not kill you outright.  We owe a profound debt of gratitude to all those who have placed themselves at terrible risk so that we might all be free.

At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by human love. Always decide, “I will combat it with human love.” If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world.

Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is nothing like it.

~ Dostoyevsky – The Brothers Karamazov

Some links for activists:

Buhdydharma’s Short and Sweet Online Action Guide

Impeach Bush

Amnesty International

American Civil Liberties Union

Greenpeace

Human Rights Watch

Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Common Sense for Drug Policy

National Coalition on Homeless Veterans

Southern Poverty Law Center

Prison Reform Links at the November Coalition

United for Peace & Justice

And now your Thanksgiving bonus video, A Tribute to Native Americans featuring Johnny Cash:

Hillary Rettig is author of The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way (Lantern Books, 2006).  Read SusanG’s review of her book here: Hillary Rettig’s “The Lifelong Activist” and visit Hillary’s Website here:  Life Long Activist

OPOL  is…OPOL.