The Washington Monthly

March 31, 2003

PART 5....Yeah, yeah, I know I said I was done, but Tapped points to this article about the need to appeal to the center if you want to make a difference:

There is a vital place for radicalism in any movement, and the direct actions that took place in front of the headquarters of Bechtel (which is in line for huge contracts to "rebuild" Iraq) and Chevron (which named an oil tanker for Condoleezza Rice) seemed wholly appropriate. But group vomiting in front of the federal building, petty vandalism, throwing rocks at cops...Such acts might get you on the news or earn you radical cred, but they marginalize the cause of peace and drive away those who might join you in it.

....At the head of the demonstration, the organizers had banners bearing a picture and a quote of Dr. King: "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today [is] my own government." I was reminded of the marchers in Selma, wearing their Sunday best, dignified in the face of brutality. Their nobility was impossible to dismiss; it shattered the stereotypes that previously allowed people to do so.

Who said this? Clara Jeffery writing in Mother Jones. I assume that even under Roger Cohn's leadership their activist liberal credibility is sufficiently well established to make them worth listening to on this point?

—Kevin Drum 2:10 PM Permalink | Trackbacks

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