A PATRIOT DIRGE: Politics is Local

The Neighborhood Terrorist
Hiding behind Badges
Words that Burn

In the tradition of Tom Paine, Jean Paul Marat and the Anarchists of Chicago, every movement has its pamphleteers and the Independence Movement had Roy Jones whose regular column appeared under the name of The Advocate. Everywhere a community activist center was established, its hub was a printing operation that turned out a weekly rag, featuring local issues and commentaries on national and international affairs, as well as posters and handouts for special events.

In a former age, the printing press was considered a weapon and it often fulfilled expectations. When a pamphleteer was accused of libel or treason, the publisher and printer were first in line of retribution. The press itself was a large cumbersome and expensive piece of machinery that could not readily be replaced if an angry mob was inspired by the local authorities or a competing interest to destroy it.

With the advent of the computer age, the press was no longer necessary. Now the danger was less from an angry mob than it was from the web. A skilled hacker in a remote location could take down an entire operation.

In Chicago, a city renowned for corruption and brutal repression of civil dissent, the Independent Center was established in the poverty-stricken neighborhood on the west side where once the Freedom Movement of Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel and Bernard LaFayette centered its campaign to end slums and segregated housing in the city. In the days of the civil rights movement, they went to battle with a duplicitous Mayor Richard Daley who condescended in public while privately opposing their efforts and despising their leaders for the threat they posed to established order.

The Center was an abandoned storefront with glass doors and windows on the front where people on the street looked in to find volunteers shuffling papers, working on computers and counseling citizens in a flurry of activity. Organized chaos was the order of the day. There were two large desks, a couch and upholstered chairs around a large coffee table stacked with pamphlets, magazines and newspapers. The walls were covered with bookshelves filled with books. In the back there was an expansive room that housed the printing operation, a conference table and a podium with a few dozen folding chairs.

It was Friday evening and several volunteers were setting up chairs, putting up posters and laying out books and materials in preparation for a guest of honor. Roy Jones was coming to Chicago. He was virtually unknown to the greater community but within the circles surrounding the Center he was respected as the author of The Advocate.

He was coming to observe their operation, offer advice and encouragement, address their concerns and talk politics. He had other contacts as well but this was his official business. The movement was already becoming restless and discontent with the rightward course of the Democratic nominee. The older activists had seen it all before and were neither surprised nor shaken by it. Democrat or Republican, a candidate tacked to the base during the primaries and worked back to center as soon as he secured the nomination. The younger activists however were disturbed by how stark and dramatic the transformation was from progressive antiwar to hawkish moderate.

Roy found it disturbing as well but he had a job to do. The message from the Independent Movement was clear: The movement needed Obama more than Obama needed the movement. There would come a time to rise up in protest if he failed to uphold their fundamental principles but that time had not yet come.

Strictly speaking it was not a right-center-left paradigm that described Obama’s transformation. His backing of the FISA compromise allowing unwarranted surveillance on American citizens with minimal judicial oversight and immunity for the telecom corporations that allowed it was a betrayal of the libertarian right. His perceived backtracking on the war and foreign policy aggression, caving to the interests of the Israeli lobby among others, was neither a right nor left issue. There was nothing in either philosophy that justified acts of military aggression in violation of international law unless you considered it a massive unfunded government expenditure, in which case it was another betrayal of the fiscal conservative philosophy.

Moreover, if you considered where the majority of Americans stood on the issues then the center was where media described as the left: Complete withdrawal from Iraq on a timely basis, no more wars of aggression or wars for oil, an end to the policies of Free Trade and corporate deregulation, proportionate taxation on the elite to pay for health care and infrastructure, taxes on the oil companies to pay for alternative fuels, on and on.

Roy went through the list if only to demonstrate he understood their frustration; he in fact lived with it. His audience, a dedicated group of hardened local activists, a mixture of the old style radicals with worn jeans, unruly styles and ragged edges and a new younger appearing activist with more conventional styles, were attentive and respectful but doubt was written on their faces. More than half had supported Obama from early on in the campaign but now there were only a few left and they were quiet in their support.

He made the case that Obama was playing into their hands if they were smart. If not, they would play into Obama’s. He was a far shrewder politician than he had been credited. The opposition had chosen to portray him as a typical liberal. They had handed him the crown of the most liberal Senator in Washington. It was an assertion that was absurd with the likes of Bernie Sanders, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Russ Feingold in the Senate. So Obama countered by using such issues as FISA reform, gun control, free trade and an aggressive posture toward Israel’s enemies in the Middle East to belittle the assertion.

Given Obama’s strategy, attacks from the left worked to his advantage. It was up to the movement to show restraint. It was to their advantage to encourage the whisper campaign that he doesn’t mean it. He is only doing what he has to do to win. He will end the war: Hang on to that. He will lead an energy revolution: Hang on to that. He will end corporate dominance of the political process.

It was to their advantage to criticize, yes, but always with a reminder that his opponent is far worse on every issue and the alternatives are as yet nothing more than symbolic protests.

He opened the floor to discussion and the attacks came like gunfire from an automatic weapon. How can I tell people what I don’t believe without sacrificing my own integrity? Obama is just another politician. He threw us under the bus faster than Reverend Wright! Somebody tell me how he’s better than McCain! He’s the same old sell out! He won’t end the war! He won’t end the occupation! He’ll expand the war to Iran and Syria or let Israel do it for us! The corporations own him! How can he change anything?

"Slow down!" he answered. "I understand your complaints. At another time and place, I’d be standing beside you yelling at me! Just slow down and take it one step at a time: First, McCain is worse than Obama. He has one reason and one reason only for wanting to be president: To prosecute the war on terror. He believes we should have won in Vietnam and he wants his revenge. He has triangulated on every issue from abortion and torture to campaign finance and immigration. He will say anything to anyone if he believes it will allow him to get hold of the nuclear trigger. And if there’s anyone here who doesn’t believe he will use it, stand up and explain it to me."

There was a silence that allowed a cold reality to set in. These were people who had always fought back at the notion of a lesser evil but there was no denying that Obama was by far the lesser of these evils. McCain was universally despised and feared.

"Second," Roy continued, "this is not unexpected. We all knew Obama would cave on any number of issues. We knew he was a part of the system and therefore could not be a part of the change we need. The only surprise is how swiftly he accomplished it. What does that mean? It means he wants us to come after him. He wants us to prove to the American electorate that he is not one of us. He is not a radical. He is not a socialist. He is not a dangerous American with extreme beliefs.

"Let’s not give him what he wants. Let’s go along. I’m not asking any of you to lie or deceive or mislead people in any way. Tell the truth but let that truth be Obama’s time has come. We can’t win the White House – not this time – but we can build a movement. You want to vote for Nader, fine. Ask him to open up his financing. Ask him why he never ran for an office he could win. A Senator or Governor Nader would have been a viable candidate. Jesse Ventura did it. Why not Nader? You want to vote for McKinney or Bill Barr, fine. Go work for them. Go with our blessings. We’ve been down that road before and we ain’t going there no more.

"It’s simple: You work for the Independent Movement, you work for Obama. When the time comes and he knows it will, we break from him and we take a lot of his supporters with us."

A dark cloud lifted and everyone in the room remembered what it was that led them to join the movement. They were tired of the symbolic gestures, the hard fought campaigns to reach a threshold of five percent of the electorate, fighting windmills and slaying imaginary dragons, fighting back accusations of working for the enemy and pleas of holier-than-thou innocence.

They joined the Independent Movement because they wanted to work for real change. They joined for the long term. They joined to help create a viable political organization that was unafraid of compromise and getting dirty.

It was same everywhere, a sense of betrayal, massive discontent. The central committee was working overtime to calm frayed nerves, sending representatives preaching the same message: Obama was not an end but a means to an end. Almost everywhere they received the message well. They needed to vent their outrage but in the end they moved beyond the crisis of the day.

They broke out a couple of cases of beer and sat around talking in more or less civil tones when suddenly the sound of shattered glass turned all heads to the street. When they opened the door the room began filling with smoke.

"Don’t panic!" someone yelled as she opened a rear door and they all filed into the back alley where a couple of dark figures moved to a waiting vehicle and sped away.

They were lucky as it turned out. They had only recently cleared out the back room enough to clear the way for the rear exit. A week earlier they would have been trapped.

The police arrived an hour later and filled out a report with little interest. Even though almost all of them were locals, they were regarded as outsiders and they were on their own.

When Roy reported to Seattle he learned that similar events had taken place in five cities on the same evening. No one was seriously hurt. Clearly, someone was sending a message and security measures would have to be taken.

The following day stories appeared below the fold in each of the local papers, detailing the event and quoting local officials questioning the nature of the organization. "This kind of radical group attracts terrorist types and often leads to violence," they said. It was an orchestrated effort to discredit them with local and national connections.

The Movement counterattacked with press conferences explaining their grassroots commitment to democratic change and detailing the public services they had aided or provided without taxpayer support. They emphasized their abhorrence of violence and asked only that the local police force provide the same kind of protection that anyone else in the community received.

In the short run, the attack backfired. Volunteers came in by the dozens, offering assistance and contributions. Retired and off-duty police officers even offered to provide security. The movement was building community support.

The question remained: Who was behind it and what were their motives?