Fifty Years After Greensboro, Whatever Happened to the American Left?
Fifty years ago this month, history took a great leap forward. On Feb. 1, 1960, four black students from Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sat down at a segregated lunch counter in Woolworths department store in Greensboro, N.C. The chairs were for whites. Blacks had to stand and eat. A day later, the four young black men returned, with 25 more students. On Feb. 4, four white women joined them from a local college. By Feb. 7, there were 54 sit-ins throughout the South in 15 cities in nine states. By July 25, the store, part of a huge national chain and plagued by $200,000 in lost business, threw in the towel and officially desegregated the lunch counter.
Three months later, the city of Raleigh, N.C., 80 miles east of Greensboro, saw the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), seeking to widen the lunch-counter demonstrations into a broad, militant movement. SNCC's first field director was Bob Moses, who said that he was drawn by the "sullen, angry and determined look" of the protesters, qualitatively different from the "defensive, cringing" expression common to most photos of protesters in the South.
That same spring of 1960 saw the founding conference of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in Ann Arbor, Mich., the organization that later played a leading role in organizing the college-based component of the antiwar movement. In May, the House Un-American Activities Committee was scheduled to hold red-baiting hearings in San Francisco. Students from the University of California at Berkeley crossed the bay to jeer the hearings. They got blasted off the steps of City Hall by cops with power hoses, but the ridicule helped demolish the decade-long power of HUAC.
Within four short years, the Civil Rights Movement pushed Lyndon Johnson into signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By 1965, the first big demonstrations against the war were rolling into Washington. By the decade's end, there had been a convulsion in American life: a new reading of America's past, an unsparing scrutiny of the ideology of "national security" and of Empire. The secret, shameful histories of the FBI and CIA were dragged into the light of day; the role of the universities in servicing imperial wars exposed; mutinies of soldiers in Vietnam a daily occurrence; consumer capitalism under daily duress from critics like Ralph Nader. By 1975, the gay and women's movements were powerful social forces; President Nixon had been forced to resign. The left seemed poised for an assertive role in American politics for the next quarter century.
In terms of organized politics, the explosion of radical energy in the 1960s culminated in the peace candidacy of George McGovern, nominated by the Democrats in Miami in 1972. The response of the labor unions financing the party, and of the party bosses, was simply to abandon McGovern and ensure the victory of Nixon. Since that day, the party has remained immune to radical challenge. Jimmy Carter, the southern Democrat installed in the White House in 1977, embraced neoliberalism, and easily beat off a challenge by the left's supposed champion, the late Ted Kennedy. The antiwar movement, which cheered America's defeat in Vietnam, mostly sat on its hands as Carter and his National Security aide, Zbigniew Brzezinski, ramped up military spending and led America into "the new Cold War," fought in Afghanistan and Central America.
Demure under the Democrat Carter, the left did organize substantial resistance to Reagan's wars in Central America in the 1980s. It also rallied to the radical candidacy of Jesse Jackson, the first serious challenge of a black man for the presidency, a Baptist minister and political organizer who had been in Memphis with Martin Luther King when the latter was assassinated in 1968. With his Rainbow Coalition, Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination in 1984 and in 1988, with a platform that represented an anthology of progressive ideas from the 1960s. He attracted a large number of supporters, many of them from the white working class. Each time, the Democratic Party shrugged him aside and elected feeble white liberals—Mondale and Dukakis—who plummeted to defeat by Reagan and George Bush Sr.
The left's rout was consummated in the '90s by Bill Clinton, who managed to retain fairly solid left support during his two terms, despite signing two trade treaties devastating to labor, in the form of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the WTO agreements; despite the lethal embargo against Iraq and NATO's war on Yugoslavia; despite successful onslaughts on welfare programs for the poor and on constitutional freedoms.
The Bush years saw near extinction of the left's capacity for realistic political analysis. Hysteria about the consummate evil of Bush and Cheney led to a vehement insistence that any Democrat would be qualitatively better, whether it be Hillary Clinton, carrying all the neoliberal baggage of the '90s, or Barack Obama, whose prime money source was Wall Street. Of course, black America—historically the most radical of all the Democratic Party's constituencies—was almost unanimously behind Obama and will remain loyal to the end. Having easily beguiled the left in the important primary campaigns of 2008, essentially by dint of skin tone and uplift, Obama stepped into the Oval Office confident that the left would present no danger as he methodically pursues roughly the same agenda as Bush, catering to the requirements of the banks, the arms companies and the national security establishment in Washington, most notably the Israel lobby.
As Obama ramps up troop presence in Afghanistan, there is still no anti-war movement, such as there was in 2002-4 during Bush's attack on Iraq. The labor unions have been shrinking relentlessly in numbers and clout. Labor's last major victory was the UPS strike in 1997. Its foot soldiers and its money are still vital for Democratic candidates—but corporate America holds the decisive purse strings, from which a U.S. Supreme Court decision Jan. 21 has now removed almost all restraints. Labor has seen its most cherished goal in recent years vanish down the plug. This was Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) amendment to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that would help boost organizing and bargaining in the private sector. This last week, labor's hopes that they would get their champion, Craig Becker, onto the National Labor Relations Board were dashed. Becker was denied confirmation by a hostile Congress.
It would be wrong to say that the left has no heft at all today in American politics. Hillary Clinton's presidential bid crashed and burned because, in the crucial primaries in 2008, the left never forgave her for her Senate vote in support of Bush's attack on Iraq in 2003. In the midterm elections this coming fall, the Democrats could well lose both houses if the left simply says at home—the same way it did in 1994, disgusted with Clinton's first two years. But will Obama throw the left a sop, beyond a couple of populist gibes against the banks? There's scant sign of it.
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Maybe the Left left the country with all those movie stars who were going to leave if George Bush was elected. Oh, but they didn't really leave did they? Darn. Maybe the Left SHOULD leave. Then we could truly say they left.
The Left lives on self-flattering mythology. I was there. It was not long before the "nonviolent resistance" of the "Civil Rights movement" erupted into arson, sniper fire, and a sharp rise in other violent crime. The course of history in half a century has now disillusioned all but the most zealous leftists about the nobility of their cause. Something very similar happened about a half century after Lincoln's war of conquest.
Robert Moses was drawn by their "sullen, angry and determined look"?
So right from the get go, the leaders of the "non-violent" civil rights movement knew what was afoot, and what they would be unleashing.
It only took 7 years to go from effectively threatening commercial enterprises to "Burn, baby, burn !".
It only took 7 years to go from SDS custard-headedness to outright alliance with America's enemies to supporting Martin Luther King Jr.'s call for insurrection.
Perhaps Mr. Cockburn does not recall these facts ?
I'd say that the agitators of the "civil rights" movement have much to answer for.
#4: "I’d say that the agitators of the “civil rights” movement have much to answer for."
And you'd be right. One of the things they should (but never will) answer for is my very own house. From 1910, when our building (which was and still is our family residence) was built, until 1968, our store was always rented, always in demand, but it's done nothing but keep our taxes higher than they should be ever since. In the '68 orgy of hatred, which had little to do with the death of King but much to do with seizing a golden opportunity to kill whites and loot, our storefront was shattered by the mob. Have we ever received a penny in compensation? For the original damage, and for the lost rent over the decades, since we've never been able to get far enough ahead of our rapacious property taxes to afford repairs? Just asking such a question is enough to cause even center right people, their minds turned to spongecake by the diversity racketeers' constant lecturing, to move to the other side of the room.
If the left only kept itself alive, providing a way to keep otherwise useless people like Cockburn off the welfare rolls by churning out its "self-flattering mythology", that would be bad enough. But the worst part of its continued survival may be the ongoing blight it inflicts on the lives of its victims, a blight that looks as if, at least in my case, will not be lifted in my lifetime
Yes, Mr. Jacobi, the blight continues to exist for a large part of the core American population, not only for our lifetime but for our descendants for generations.
This is the problem with allying with people on the far left like Cockburn. He may say sensible things about the war and about interfering with the cultures of Third World people. But he is/was all for war and interference if it is against evil white people from the South.
I've always thought it strange that certain elements on the right will scream "racism" at people like Jared Taylor and then turn around and publish people like Cockburn.
How many errors--or are they lies--can one cram into a brief comment. First there is no alliance with Mr Cockburn, whom I met just once. We started taking his column because his syndicatemade gave us some free columns when Sam died and whe continued because it stimulates discussion, at least among those capable of thinking. I don't recall ever screaming raciism at Taylor. Why should I? He is a scientific racist. This does not disturb me. I have more than a few racist friends and according to all right thinking people I
am also a bigot. But he is also an antiChristian and a man of some guile. He has many fine qualities--intelligence and courtesy--but after some experience I concluded he does far more harm than good. Most of his associates and followers are, with one or two exceptions, people I would not like to meet again. People who would visit our website to spew their lies.
I have been enjoying Cockburn's column here only because of the responses from the readers. It does no harm unless you consider a good laugh harmful.
I happen to like Jared Taylor but like Dr Fleming, I have little use for many of the White nationalist foot soldiers. Problem is that Taylor's particular approach is not in tune with the zeitgiest, hence his site attracts emotionally unstable people who run on and on about their "Nordic souls" or something.
It is tyranny, to force a diner, employer, property owner, and individual - to associate with those he does not want to associate with.
Populism - is of the right.
Perhaps Cockburn should read Dr Fleming's article about Charlie Wilson, even if it's only to understand that leftist do-gooders need to be held accountable for the bitter fruits of their meddlesome acts. Cairo IL never recovered from forced desegregation. Neither did school systems in every major city.
Mr. Cockburn - I would suggest that you look up the SDS in the Oxford Dictionary of Terrorism. It states that after a year of being in existence, it came under the control of Maoist Intelligence. Are you not aware that the Soviet Union subsidized the anti-war movement to the tune of $1 Billion? Given that the first thing communist do when they take over it to massacre the population, do you have any remorse over being a Cambodian Holocast Collaborator? After all, isn't being against the Vietnam War akin to being an American Firster and by a sin of omission allowing the Cambodians, South Vietnamese and the Ethopians being genocided by the Reds on your head?
"he is also an antiChristian"
My impression is that Jared Taylor generally tries to maintain the peace and establish a middle ground between the Christians and the anti-Christian obsessives in his movement.
In reality one can not be neutral about Christianity. One is either for it or against it as the Good Book says. But compared to some of the overt anti-Christian obsessives that populate White Nationalism, Taylor seems more reasonable re. Christianity than they do. Unless I have missed something.
@14
I recall a few letters printed in Amren where the 'virtues' of abortions for minorities were discussed. That was when I, like Dr Fleming, realized that they do more harm than good.
#6,
Which is why I give thanks for Chronicles, where at least folks like you and I, Dr. Wilson, can testify to what really happened.
It's not simply opposition to the Vietnam War that matters; but the reason for opposition. Without this distinction, an anti-American commie liberal is no different from a man who honestly sees no benefit to America by fighting communists on other continents who did us no harm. I assume there were examples of the latter category, but I'm too young to remember whether they were lumped together with leftists opposed the Vietnam War out of sympathy with communism (people who were not America-Firsters at all). There is a difference, however. And this is an example of the trouble that results from setting up an absolute system whereby one action is always right and another is always wrong, without accounting for the disposition of the person or the circumstances surrounding the action.
#17 Mr. Ezzo,
Ah yes, distinctions. I could have used them back when all of us Viet Nam veterans were being saddled with Morley Safer's Zippo and tarred with the same brush used on the My Lai bunch. Have any of those "honest" war protesters been lumped in with their filthy confreres? Well, I, for one, do it every chance I get, just like they lumped us with Lt. Calley. I say, paraphrasing Nam's notorious though apocryphal rules of engagement: hate 'em all, let God sort them out. It was a wild time, Michael, and the truth is, our warped treatment has become part of the warp and weft of many of our lives.
I'd like to let the post end on that colorful note, but sobriety eggs me on to add that my attitude is not entirely due to my character weakness for revenge; it is in part due to my reasoned stance on the war's historical effects and meaning. In brief, I hold that the Viet Nam war, in spite of its incompetent prosecution, threw a monkey wrench into the machinery of communist expansion, and considerably speeded up the fall of the militants and the rise of the pragmatists inside the movement. I can also personally vouch for the fact that, for many young volunteers, including this one, there was a sense of obligation to fellow Catholics, who were the chief victims of the North Vietnamese communists' depredations. Those who said they saw no benefit to America in fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia may or may not have been right in the short run, but they failed, as men, and as Christians, to accept the battle offered by the greatest enemy of both America and God in our time.
As I said I was too young at the time to understand. I am sorry to have insulted you. I will shut my mouth on the subject since I have no right to comment. I ask your forgiveness. Mea maxima cupla.......
"culpa"
Michael,
I did not mean to convey that I felt you'd insulted me: your comment jogged my memory about a particular point and I gave it what I believe is a correct reply. You owe me no apology, sir; on the contrary, you gave me an opportnity to present my views which I might not otherwise have had.