Sunday, February 09, 2003

The Lasting Gains of the Civil Rights Movement and the Left I was researching a piece about the pervasiveness of fear in our political culture, and came away feeling that the left has made some lasting gains that are not being eroded.   My new perspective was based on a review of some Herblock cartoons from the 1940’s and 50’s focusing on McCarthyism and the anti-communist hysteria of the time.   The cartoons are reproduced here.   I had been mulling all day about writing about how pervasive fear was in our country—fear of terrorism, fear of crime, fear of economic ruin—and how politicians exploited that fear for their own purposes.    In the present case, the terror alerts, the hysteria about releasing evidence, and the daily drumbeat about non-existent (certainly non immediate) threats from Iraq, all are being marshaled in an attempt to put a rightwing ideologue’s view of the world into play, and they may well be successful.   But so far, not many people have lost their job for opposing the war and calling Bush an idiot.  Rather than being blacklisted for leftwing sympathies, many actors and writers are bashing Bush daily—with no impact on their careers.  Poets, far from being intimidated by the war embarrassed the Administration by publicly using a white house forum to promote peace, leading to the cancellation of the event.  In this case, the Whitehouse suffered more than the poets.   So—what are the lasting gains in political freedom growing from the left  anti-war movement and the civil rights movement?  One is that protest has become a more widespread and legitimate tool in political fights.   Another is that a tremendous diversity of opinion, culture, and interests are tolerated.    Despite the uniformity of the media and popular culture, underneath the surface there are multiple vibrant immigrant, ethnic, class and economic cultures.  It is true that things are getting more polarized, i.e. the culture clash between the born again Christians and eastern intellectuals is getting sharper and more vicious.     But in contrast to the time of McCarthy, these diverse cultures are fully visible and playing out politically and in public.   So one positive legacy of the 1960’s is first, that outside groups gained more power, and secondly, that a culture of diversity grew and took root.  Never again will the U.S. be considered exclusively a white male straight nation.   So even if we don’t have the immediate political power to stop a reckless and irresponsible war in Iraq, we have created the public space in which to fight.   Our local vigil and rally in Lexington this weekend to push Cong. Ed Markey to take a more forceful stand against the war was covered by reporters and video, plus interviews, on several of the major news channels in Boston, including Fox.    One station even asked Markey for a response.  So, we have created a public space in which to fight, and we should be proud of that.   It took a personal review of some of Herblock’s McCarthy cartoons to see how today we may not be as powerful as we want to be politically, but we certainly are not voiceless either. 10:24:52 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Toby Sackton. Last update: 3/3/2003; 11:24:20 PM.