Remembering the March on Washington

As we look back today on the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s landmark “I Have a Dream” speech, PBS is airing the documentary The March.  It’s viewable online at http://video.pbs.org/video/2365069476/.

Chilling Effects

The Soldier Formerly Known as Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in the WikiLeaks scandal.  Meanwhile, Julian Assange remains at bay in the Ecuadoran embassy in London and Edward Snowden has found temporary refuge in Russia.

The years since 9/11 have not been good for government transparency.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with public acquiescence in any official measures purported to fight terrorism, have emboldened American officialdom to act with a secretive heavy-handedness unseen since the dark hours of the Cold War.  Manning should thank her lucky stars she wasn’t convicted of the charge of aiding the enemy.  Judging from the comments seen on various news sites, Manning would have been put up against a wall and shot if the court of public opinion had had jurisdiction. 

Manning’s real crime, as with those of Assange and Snowden, was that she embarrassed the powers that be.  It’s that simple; the emperor does not like to be told he’s naked when he’s convinced himself he’s clad in the finest robes.  Footage of U.S. helicopters lobbing Hellfire missiles into residential neighborhoods undermines the claim we’re fighting for freedom from terror.  The government’s aggressive pursuit of whistleblowers, past and present, notorious and obscure, has created a chilling effect on dissent.

A crucial point no one excoriating Manning, Snowden, and Assange can substantiate is whether any U.S. or coalition military personnel were directly harmed as a result of the WikiLeaks revelations.  The combat videos have undermined the military's image, to be sure.  The many thousands of diplomatic cables address mainly mundane affairs, with the occasional embarrassing observation or admission.  But the true threat is to the classification regime itself.  Official secrecy creates its own incentive to hide even innocuous information from the citizenry, not to mention the ability to cover up possible war crimes.  Secrecy permits us to go about our lives blithely unaware of the brutal deeds routinely carried out in our name.  It lets us believe our hands are clean.

Manning seems to elicit a rage in people which Assange, Snowden, and the myriad other players in the WikiLeaks drama do not seem to inspire.  The reader comments I’ve seen on Yahoo!, Reuters, AP, et al., leavened as they are with the sadly inevitable homophobic slurs and prison rape jokes, leads me to conclude that the real animus springs more from the transgressiveness of Manning’s persona than his misdeeds.  The underlying logic runs like this: No wonder she’s a traitor to her country, she’s a traitor to the masculine military ethos, to the very ideal of masculinity.  It calls to mind the “Commies and queers” witch hunts of the McCarthy era, when homosexuality was considered both figuratively and literally subversive.

This single aspect of the Manning case reveals an ugly truth of American culture.  We are a society of playground bullies.  The strong pick on and exploit the weak.  Manning is the kid whose lunch money was stolen, whose ass was lashed by snapping towels in the high school locker room, who has gone throughout her life forced to submerge her very identity under the crushing weight of heteronormativity.  A lifetime of having to choke down one’s rage every day takes its toll.  It is exceedingly difficult to feel loyalty to an order which denies you your basic humanity.

No matter—It won’t be long before Chelsea Manning fades from public memory.  Our collective amnesia will permit us to preserve our belief in our national virtue.  It will be easy to forget because America is populated with consumers rather than citizens.  We readily, perhaps too eagerly conflate abstractions such as “freedom” and “democracy” with material placebos.  Forced feedings at Guantanamo?  Unarmed villagers massacred?  No worries; the people in charge know what is right and it’s not up to us to question them.  Besides, we’ve got the latest SUV in the garage, the house’s value has gone up over the past year, and the kids each have a brand new iPhone 5.  All is well and right with the world.

God bless America!

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

In Memory of the Wheatland Hop Field Riot - August 3, 1913

Today marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Wheatland Hop Field Riot. 

The uprising stemmed from the brutal working conditions imposed upon itinerant farm workers harvesting hops at the Durst Ranch in Wheatland, California.  An influx of job seekers, whose numbers far exceeded the number of positions available, drove down the already slender going wage.  The workers who were taken on, many of them women and young children, performed heavy physical labor for 12 hour days in triple digit heat.  Despite the temperature, Durst did not provide water to the workers but instead sold them an acidic beverage to slake their thirst.  Shade and adequate toilet facilities were also lacking.

Facing a strike over low pay and poor treatment, Ralph Durst called in the Yuba County district attorney and sheriff’s deputies to quell the unrest.  The inevitable confrontation led to the sheriff’s contingent firing into the crowd after it resisted their attempt to arrest Industrial Workers of the World organizer Richard “Blackie” Ford, who was addressing the strikers.  At least one worker in the crowd fired back.  When the smoke cleared, four people lay dead: the DA, a sheriff’s deputy, and two workers.  Scores of other people were injured.

As so often happened during the labor struggles of the era, California Governor Hiram Johnson called in the National Guard to restore order for the bosses.  Ultimately, Ford, fellow organizer Herman Suhr, and a number of the other laborers present were apprehended and questioned.  Many of them were beaten or otherwise abused during the interrogations.  One suspect killed himself in his jail cell.

In the end, Ford, Suhr, and two others were bound over for trial on second-degree murder charges in the death of the district attorney.  Ford and Suhr were ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.   When Ford was paroled in 1924, he was promptly indicted for the death of the sheriff’s deputy only to be acquitted at trial.  Soon thereafter, Suhr was pardoned and set free.  

Let us not forget the workers killed and wounded that day, nor should we forget the IWW organizers Herman Suhr and Blackie Ford who were unjustly imprisoned for their efforts on behalf of labor rights.  An injury to one is an injury to all, then and now.

Solidarity forever.

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar