Scoundrel Time as Corporate Liberalism (A VERY BRIEF ORGANIZING NOTE)

It's critical for an organizational thrust or a more transcendent Movement to always -- always -- continue moving ahead toward its goals/objectives.  Sometimes this has to be done speedily and sometimes it's a matter of "deliberate dispatch."  It should never be done recklessly. And, occasionally, a momentary pause for reconnoitering purposes is necessary.

But the ethos and its tangible dimensions must be full ahead.  And, in doing so, there are always plenty of dangers levied by the adversary: some are "legal", some are physical, often the two occur together.

If an organizational thrust or Movement loses the initiative or at least much of it, matters become vastly more dangerous to the organizers and the people with and for whom they're working.  Retaliatory legal and physical attacks can be legion.  While there are many examples of this, the massive and militant Jackson Movement situation in 1963, undercut by the National NAACP with the Kennedy administration in the shadows, is tragically classic in the most dramatic sense from both legal and physical perspectives.  

I am sure others on our lists can cite comparable examples.

Hunter Bear


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Hunter Gray 
  To: Bear Without Borders 
  Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] 
  Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2013 4:13 PM
  Subject: [Redbadbear] Scoundrel Time as Corporate Liberalism



  From Redbadbear:

  Sam Friedman levied a sharp critique of corporate liberalism a day or so ago, commenting that I (Hunter) knew much about its negative impact in and on the Southern Movement.  He's right -- I do.  The National NAACP and the Kennedy administration did their best to subvert our large and militant Jackson Movement almost 50 years ago -- and did a great deal of damage.  I've recently passed around a couple of my long and pointed missives regarding present events in Jackson where 50th Anniversary efforts are underway, in the name of the Jackson Movement, to whitewash that, along with some of the cruel realities of Old Mississippi (and probably some of the present ones) -- and present the National NAACP and the Kennedys as Sterling Knights of the Light.

  I'm not known for crudity -- but, B.S.  And I could cite many other sorry Dixie instances involving various versions of corporate liberalism and self-serving high level "pragmatism" during that sanguinary era.

  And I can cite other instances in other times and places.

  My correspondence on all of this has picked up considerably and that's why I've enlarged my signature link regarding my book, Jackson Mississippi.  (Here is that, in case you don't scroll down.)

  See the new and expanded/updated edition of my "Organizer's 
  Book." It's the inside story of the massive Jackson Movement,
  bloody repression and murder, and more -- including a myriad
  of organizing "lessons."  And with my new and 10,000 word
  Introduction. http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm (". .a local activist's
   important account of the deleterious effects the involvement of 
  national organizations can have on indigenous protest movements."
  David Garrow in "The Age of the Unheralded", Progressive Magazine,
  April 1990.

  And that's why I've occasionally quoted the concluding line of a speech I gave at Jackson in 1979 -- condemning
  "the subversion by the corporate liberals of New York and the self-styled "pragmatism" of those splendid scoundrels residing in Camelot on the Potomac." That drew a thundering and standing ovation from about one thousand people.

  Sam's right on all of this stuff. And so am I -- and so are many others.  And, when Sam finished an earlier edition of my book a few years ago, he wrote a very solid review on just this of which we're writing.  Posted that on Amazon where it certainly remains.

  Much changes as years and decades pass.  But Scoundrel Times, whatever the masks of the period, always continue -- with the basic thrust, however openly or covertly, of keeping the people in their "place".  And, of course, that means Down.

  Hunter Bear

  HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
  Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
  Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
  www.hunterbear.org 
  (much social justice material)

  See the new and expanded/updated edition of my "Organizer's 
  Book." It's the inside story of the massive Jackson Movement,
  bloody repression and murder, and more -- including a myriad
  of organizing "lessons."  And with my new and 10,000 word
  Introduction. http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm (". .a local activist's
   important account of the deleterious effects the involvement of 
  national organizations can have on indigenous protest movements."
  David Garrow in "The Age of the Unheralded", Progressive Magazine,
  April 1990.

  See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
  ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE:
  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

  The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
  http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
  (Expanded in 2012. Photos. Material on our Native
  background.)