Disobey This Command

by: scott_laugenour

Mon Feb 07, 2011 at 16:34:59 PM EST

Political Disobedience, like Civil Disobedience, is organized direct action that people take to confront power that does not serve people's interests.  I first heard the phrase 'political disobedience' from fellow Green-Rainbow Party member, John Andrews.  I liked it instantly upon hearing it as I did with the title of the art piece mentioned in the previous paragraph; I think the time for it is now.

Fourteen-year-old Danika Rumi Padillo shared these words in prepared text with the 70 people who watched the two screenings of "The People Speak" in the Berkshires recently:  

I felt sad at [Howard Zinn's] passing... But the refrain I heard repeated constantly after his death was "Don't Mourn, Organize."... Can't we, with our enormous privileges, in a nation which does not yet unconditionally repress peaceful dissent, find it in ourselves to act on the causes Zinn championed: equality, justice, peace?   As the countless stories of dissenters show, we, the people, do have the power, for as Howard Zinn said "The elite's weapons, money, [and] control of information would be useless in the face of a determined population."

An online petition is circulating now among people who are presumed to be participating in next year's Democratic Party presidential primaries.  The petition implores President Obama to adopt the anti-war policies that some voters had expected him to institute upon his election in 2008.  It threatens that those signing will not support him in the 2012  primary unless he changes his policies.  Is this an example of 'political disobedience?'

I don't think that signing the petition alone is an example of political disobedience.  It is not enough action; it's folly to believe that the Democratic Party is an anti-war party and will change its policies because of a petition that only asks for an online click.  There are more effective actions that voters who are tired of our military policies can take.

I heckled Senator John Kerry at a Berkshire Brigades event in January 2008 when he told anti-war voters that a 60-vote Democratic Party majority would end the wars.  I didn't believe him.  Obama and other mainstream Democratic Party candidates will seek anti-war votes in order to win elections, but voting records in Congress and the party's acceptance of campaign contributions from military industry interests indicates that the Democratic Party will not be agents of any meaningful change and will not respond in any material way to this petition, although they may learn to market themselves differently.

A stronger statement of political disobedience can result from as little as 25% of the signatories on the petition visiting their town halls to register affiliation with their state's respective Green Party and then participating in Green Party primaries.  Any voter can vote however he/she wishes in the general election, but party registration is the most public way that the 'determined population' of which Prof. Zinn spoke can express its expectations.

As we mobilize we have been registering many new members into the Green-Rainbow Party.  Sometimes a voter will hesitate to join because it means no longer participating in Democratic or Republican Party primaries.  Voters ultimately decide to join us if they determine that their participation in other parties' primaries has not truly advanced the kinds of public policies they desire and if they determine that their very participation in those primaries gives that party power.  

Political disobedience means that we withold the political power of our votes and our party registration from those who institute major policies that we reject.  It does not mean withdrawing from the political system, however.  It is not done singly; it is organized.

Regarding the kind of true health care reform that eludes us because of the grip that the private health insurance industry has on the 'major' parties, there are similar opportunities for political disobedience and new party registration that can tip the scales.

Tomorrow evening the Berkshire Greens are meeting in Lenox.  A major part of the agenda is a discussion about health care from Dr. Michael Kaplan, a long-time advocate of single payer health care who has recently taken the 'politically disobedient' step of registering with the Green-Rainbow Party.  As he explained to another new member, who was asking about why this country does not have the kind of publicly provided health insurance system that virtually every other wealthy democracy does, "the reasons we do not have single payer health are not economic, they are political."   As long as voters give political power to parties that accept lavish contributions from the insurance indusy we will not have it.  The first step in making real change is ours, through political disobedience.

Throughout the course of history, organized civil disobedience has been behind many human advances for equality, peace, justice, and fairness.    When citizens are told that they must accept the status quo and participate within the framework of two parties, both of which are lavished with influence way beyond anything that can be outbid monetarily, it is time to 'disobey that command' and add some necessary political disobedience to the citizens' arsenal.