Sometimes, the most civil act is to be disobedient. We are living in those times now. Non-Violent Civil Disobedience (NVCD) is central to our country and retaining our freedoms, and to our movements to reverse global warming, restore a livable future, and build a better world.
Whether it’s protecting reproductive rights, protesting a pipeline, a coal train, genocide in Gaza, fighting for a world where we all belong, restoring clean air and water for everyone, or many other critical life-affirming issues, the basic right to protest, and dissent, is under severe attack.
The Koch Brothers, and their American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) started moving anti-dissent legislation at the state level six years ago. Sadly, some unions got on-board. That’s right, they got on board with the same Koch Brothers who have promoted anti-labor legislation across the country. Their anti-dissent legislative initiative makes protest a crime with large financial penalties and prison sentences. What’s worse is that in some states labor carved out exemptions for themselves. Labor can protest, but no-one else can. And these same Koch Brothers have sponsored state legislative initiatives in Georgia and other states that would make it illegal for state or local governments to provide subsidies to companies that honor card check recognition when workers seek to organize. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that we — labor, climate, and environmental organizations — are at war with the right wing. We need to begin treating it that way.
The right to protest is not issue-specific. You may disagree with pipeline fighters, or people protesting genocide in Gaza, but their right to do so is sacrosanct. In America it is never, ever, unpatriotic to question anything our government says or does. And when the actions of government and corporations are so disagreeable that they imperil people and planet, it is our solemn duty to dissent and protest. Non-violent civil disobedience is a time-honored way to challenge the powers that be and the decisions they make.
In the hysteria that followed the horrific attacks on our soil on September 11, 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft said that anyone who questions anything the government does is aiding and abetting terrorism. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy replied saying “Well, Attorney General Ashcroft has the same first amendment rights as the rest of us.” Those rights are under attack, and we must fight back.
When it comes to global warming, our international institutions have failed us, our national institutions have failed us, and our state and local institutions have failed us. By institutions I mean our governments, and the institutions they create. I mean the religious organizations, labor organizations, and other civic institutions. We all have to stand up, sit down, get arrested, go to jail, if that’s what it takes. Rosa Parks did it. Cesar Chavez did it. Dorothy Day did it. Doctor King and Ghandi did it, Nelson Mandela, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Mother Jones, and many others, did it. So can you.
Protecting dissent is central to everything we stand for at the Labor Network for Sustainability when we say “full spectrum sustainability.” That means climate justice, environmental justice and economic and social justice and freedom for all people.
We are at a juncture that I never thought we’d be at. Our struggle was to build a working-class movement, fight racism, capitalism, misogyny, white supremacism, income-inequality. But here we all are, trying to wrestle control of this country from the fools promoting authoritarianism, dictatorship, fascism, and hatred. But we still have to do all those other things. Even if the Democratic Party prevails in November, as I hope they will, we will still have to fight, protest, and engage in non-violent civil disobedience to build a world where everyone belongs, and a world that is habitable for our children and grandchildren.
“Freedom doesn’t come like a bird on a wing. It doesn’t come down like the summer rain. Freedom is a hard won thing. You’ve got to work for it, fight for it, day and night for it. And every generation’s got to win it again.” Pass it on.