Thursday, June 27, 2024

Activist Diary #2: Life as an Activist
June 25, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Image by Peter Bohmer, in Greece



“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its mighty waters.” Frederick Douglass

I have been an activist for reform and revolutionary transformation since 1967. For me, being an activist has meant directly involving myself in activities groups, and organizations in order to change policies at a local and national level and to raise consciousness about the causes, consequences and solutions to poverty and the inequality of income and wealth, police brutality and repression, U.S. militarism and intervention in other countries, climate justice, for quality health care and housing for all, and for reproductive rights. This in addition to solidarity with liberation struggles and ending capitalism and ending capitalist alienation, exploitation, and oppression. Being anti-racist has also been central to my theory and practice since the 1960’s, strongly influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Freedom Movement and in the 1970’s, the Chicano and American Indian Movement (AIM).

Here are five key moments, examples from the 1960’s in furthering my lifelong commitment to activism for a better world.

Vietnam Summer, 1967

This was my first organizing experience although I had attended a few anti-Vietnam war and civil rights demonstrations and SDS meetings before. We first educated ourselves at the Vietnam Sumer office in Boston about the history of Vietnam and French and U.S. colonialism there. I remember then going door to door and asking people if they were willing to discuss the Vietnam War. In 1967, most people who answered the door supported the war and thought opposing the US war against Vietnam as being disloyal to US troops (this changed substantially after the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam). If people were interested in talking with us and possibly opposing the US role, we asked them to invite their neighbors and we presented a slide show about the war followed by a discussion. We then asked the people if they opposed the Vietnam war to actively show their opposition in a way that they decided on. Common was a visit with the assembled group to their Congressperson’s office to express their opposition to the US war against Vietnam. We stayed in touch with them.

I was shy at first and would only go door to door with a more experienced organizer, but I increasingly found my voice. It has never left. One of the key organizers, Mike Ferber, suggested I read two books, The Political Economy of Growth by Paul Baran and Monopoly Capital by Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran. These books changed my life as I was by this time although not earlier, ready to integrate their analysis into my very being. Both books showed the limits of reform, the irrationality of capitalism, and how much of the wealth in the U.S. and Western Europe came from extracting the surplus (wealth) from what we called the Third World and now call the Global South. Having a political economic analysis has been one reason for my continued activism. Anger at injustice and excitement are not enough. I also saw first-hand how people can change but we have to go out to meet them, not expect them to come to our events.

March on the Pentagon, 1967

In October 1967, there was a large, well over a hundred thousand people protesting the Vietnam War in a march from Washington DC to the Pentagon. Just before 5 PM when our permit ended, civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory asked if we were going to be just 9-5 protesters and what was more important the law or justice. I was very moved. Since then, I have always prioritized justice over what is legal. Everyone I had come with, we were from Boston, returned to DC then where we were staying. I decided to stay at the Pentagon as did 10,000 others. It was the demonstration where protesters, mainly women, put flowers on the bayonets of the military police (MP) guarding the Pentagon and tried to talk to the soldiers; almost all refused. I was inspired by the community that formed among us resisters: welcoming, sharing food and stories. Many had driven east from the recently completed, “Stop the Draft Week” in Oakland, CA. Many of us burned our draft cards.

At about 9 PM, the last camera left, the British BBC. After that the military police turned violent, beating people with their bayonets on the grass by the Pentagon. A few of us, a small minority fought back. What also affected me was that James Reston, the major NY Times reporter and friend of the powerful and wealthy wrote, shortly thereafter on the front page of the NY Times that the demonstrators had turned violent. I had seen the opposite and when I found out that Reston had been in Denver the day of the march although his article implied, he was at the Pentagon. My belief in the objectivity of the New York Times was forever shattered. I continue to read the NEW York Times but since than always critically.

Noam Chomsky, 1968

In spring, 1968, I took a class at MIT where I was a graduate student in economics with Noam Chomsky and Louis Kampf, “Intellectuals and Social Change”. It furthered my transition to becoming a lifelong radical left activist. By radical I mean going to the root of then problem, which I consider to be capitalism, and seeing fundamental change coming primarily from the bottom up.

Noam Chomsky has been a big influence in my life. I have learned so much from Noam Chomsky, much more than in this paragraph. I learned that building strong and growing social movements and protests in the streets are more important in changing policy, such as ending the Vietnam war, than trying to convince politicians through arguments and lobbying, or electing liberal politicians. I also learned that claims of expertise and saying we should unquestionably accept the so-called experts are used to justify policies such as carrying out the Vietnam War in order to silence dissenting voices and to delegitimize grass roots movements. Similarly, the term, national interest, or the assertion, “this war serves the national interest” is usually used to disguise the interests of the capitalist class. The interests of working people diverge from those with economic power. Thank you, Noam!

Chicago, 1968

Another formative event was the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago. I had planned to go but was working with a group, Mothers for Adequate Welfare, a branch of the National Welfare Rights Organization. We were demanding a guaranteed income of $6500 for a family of four (about $40,000 in today’s prices). This was an early form of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). I hadn’t finished writing my report to the Boston City Council at the time the buses were leaving from Boston to Chicago so I couldn’t go. I remember watching the convention every night that August at a bar in Brattleboro, Vermont. I was enraged each night at the beatings of protesters by the Chicago Police under the orders of Mayor Richard Daley and of the nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a Democrat who had publicly supported the Vietnam war. This reinforced my perspective that ending the war was not going to come from within the Democratic Party even though the majority of the country now opposed it.

I realized that anger and rage at injustice are important and necessary fuel for long-term activism, although hopefully our anger is primarily directed at structures of oppression and those with economic and political power—and not at someone who has cut us off driving. Continuing anger at injustice is an important factor in my continuing activism up to and including the present. Today my central focus is directed towards ending U.S. support for Israel, and in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli War and Israeli Occupation. As I write this on May 11, 2024, the growing and inspiring student movement in solidarity with Palestine and against U.S. and university complicity with Israel and U.S support for Israel, reminds me of 1968, e.g., the Columbia University uprising, and the upcoming Democratic Party Convention in Chicago that plans to nominate another pro war President, Biden. I expect massive protests at the 2024 Chicago Democratic Party Convention this August although hope that US support for Israel stops by then and that there is a permanent cease fire. The global movement in support of Palestine although not yet sufficient to change U.S. and especially, Israeli policy is so important.

Anti-Imperialist Coalition in Boston, 1969

I was active in the fall of 1969 in an anti-imperialist coalition in Boston, The November Action Coalition (NAC) Our focus was ending the direct support of MIT for the US military in Vietnam, i.e., developing weapons systems for them. We blocked the entrance to one of the main MIT weapons labs, The Instrumentation Lab, until the police forced us away from the entrance, their clubs swinging.

One of the member groups of NAC was the Boston Black Panther Party (BPP) which I respected and learned from. Impressive to me was their free breakfast program in Roxbury and their organizing of low-income Black youth. The murder of 21-year-old leader of the Chicago BPP, Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969, affected me more than any of the many assassinations in the 1960’s. The willingness of the US government to kill revolutionaries especially Black leaders had become even more apparent. I remember being depressed and not being able to get out of bed for a few days after Fred Hampton’s brutal murder by the state and thinking because I was white, I was somewhat safer. I thought about the level of my commitment to transforming the U.S. Reflecting deeply on his assassination furthered my commitment to ending racial capitalism even if it meant serious risks.

It has made anti-racism and solidarity with people of color and movements, then called, Third World people, inside and outside of the United States, central to my theory and associated practice. So has solidarity with societies such as Cuba defending themselves from the U.S. war and blockade against them. Fred Hampton Presente!

Another group within the November Action Coalition (NAC), whose theory and practice have influenced me in a major way was Bread and Roses, a socialist women’s liberation organization. Bread and Roses differentiated itself from left organizations who claimed a women’s organization or women’s caucus was unnecessary or divisive, and from other women’s groups that claimed women could not work with men. Within NAC, Bread and Roses won their demands to be able to caucus at any time which would temporarily halt the meeting, and that all the leadership committees such as the steering, tactics, and media committees be at least one-half women. Bread and Roses challenged sexism within NAC and in the society. They were socialist and feminist, an anti-imperialist women’s group both within NAC and beyond. Bread and Roses was autonomous rather than separatist. The concept of autonomy together with principled unity, e.g., working against all forms of oppression in a group with the goal of unity, are a central part of my perspective and organizing.

Conclusion

Our activism makes a difference; we usually win less than what we demand but nevertheless the gains matter. Those who concede will never admit that raising the social cost to them of continuing oppressive policies was the cause of their conceding, but this is often the case. By social cost, I mean that the cost, not mainly in dollars, but loss of legitimacy of the elites and the growth of anti-capitalist movements, causes them to concede, at least partially. This is because the social cost of not conceding begins to threaten their rule. An example is the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa from 1976 to the early 1990’s, where those in power in South Africa increasingly feared not only losing their political power but also their economic power if they didn’t release ANC leaders including Nelson Mandela from prison and concede to elections where the Black population could vote, i.e., universal suffrage. I was active in the anti-apartheid movement in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and especially in Pittsburgh from 1984 to 1987 with a strong multi-racial group, Pittsburghers Against Apartheid. We contributed to the end of apartheid, an important victory led by the people and movements inside South Africa although structural racism continues there and whites still have most of the economic power in a very unequal capitalist economy.

I have continued to be active from 1967 to the present and will continue to be so. I advocate for a participatory socialist society. Check out the group Real Utopia, realutopia.org, that I am a member of. I am anti-capitalist but equally important for me and necessary and desirable is to be for a liberatory and ecological socialist alternative on a global level.

Although I have suffered some serious repression, it has not been a sacrifice to be an activist. Most of my closest friends are people I have been active in the struggle with. We have accomplished some real gains although they are never permanent as we can see in the current growth of authoritarian, racist, patriarchal, anti LGBT, anti-environmental and anti-immigrant movements, and political parties such as the Republican Party and similar authoritarian anti-immigrant parities globally. Being involved and active in the struggle for societal liberation has kept me young in spirit. I can look myself better in the mirror, and it has given my life more meaning.

Free Palestine!

Si se puede!

Peter Bohmer is a member of Real Utopia, Economics for Everyone (E4E), and Palestine Action of South Sound (PASS). He is Faculty Emeritus in Political Economy at The Evergreen State College.


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Peter BohmerWebsite

Peter Bohmer has been an activist in movements for radical social change since 1967, which have included anti-racist organizing and solidarity movements with the people of Vietnam, Southern Africa, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Palestine and Central America. For his activism and teaching, he was targeted by the FBI. He was a member of the faculty at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA from 1987 to 2021 where he taught political economy. He believes alternatives to capitalism are desirable and possible. Peter is the proud parent of a daughter and three sons.

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