Resistance in the Military

Posted on December 16, 2010 by David S. Meyer

Birther Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin outside his court-martial

Governments fall when their leaders lose control of the armed forces.   When the soldiers lay down their swords and shields and take the hands of the people in the streets, their leaders get on planes and look for somewhere else to land.  For this reason, resistance in the military is generally the last–and most important–site for organized political action.

In the United States, and in every democracy or Constitutional government, the military is supposed to be responsive to the government.  Like any other bureaucracy, its members are supposed to take orders from civilian authority, executing them as if they were their own idea.  Soldiers smartly salute the Commander-and-Chief whether they voted for him or not.  Respect and obedience carries all the way through the chain of command, regardless of the soldiers’ judgments about the wisdom or ethics of any order.

This ethos informs the way a professional military works at its best, but also explains why soldiers charged fortified encampments at Gallipoli during World War I, marching to their deaths in waves.  It also explains why American soldiers followed orders and massacred unarmed civilians at My Lai during the Vietnam war.

Is there a place for individual conscience?

Since World War II, there has been wide acknowledgment that soldiers should not carry out illegal orders.  Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, a physician in the Army, refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he does not believe that President Obama has the legal authority to send him there.  It’s not about international law or the War Powers Act, but Obama’s birth.  Lakin doesn’t think Obama was born in the United States; in his view, the Commander in Chief serves illegally, and Lakin himself is duty-bound to refuse orders.  Lakin explains:

I feel I have no choice but the distasteful one of inviting my own court martial…I disobey my orders to deploy because I, and I believe all services’ men and women and the American people, deserve the truth about President Obama’s constitutional eligibility to the office of the presidency and commander in chief.

Colonel Lakin’s beliefs can fairly be described as unpopular and marginal.  A military court found him guilty of refusing to follow a lawful order.  He can be sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison and discharged from the service.  At his trial, however, he announced that he was sorry, and would keep his politics out of his job, and follow orders.  Whoops.

Unsurprisingly, the birthers have championed his case/their cause.  Lakin got the attention they seek, and displayed courage in the service of their beliefs.

Such resistance in the American military is relatively rare, but it has run across the political spectrum.

First Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada refused to follow orders to deploy to Iraq in 2006.  Watada explained that when he studied his mission, he concluded that the Iraq war violated international law.  Citing the Nuremberg precedents, Watada explained that he was duty-bound to refuse to follow such orders.  (He offered to go to Afghanistan, but American soldiers don’t get to pick their wars.)

Watada’s court-martial ended in a mistrial, and after several failed efforts to retry him, the Army negotiated his discharge in 2009.

Watada’s case became a celebrated cause for antiwar activists, who applauded both his judgment and his willingness to follow his conscience.  Activists have encouraged others to follow his lead.  Note the efforts of Courage to Resist, an antiwar group focused on the servicemen and women who refuse to deploy.

Their cases are rarely so simple as Watada’s, who had grievances with the military only on matters of policy.  Other resisters have registered their objections on the basis of their own experiences of mistreatment in the military.

The group has recently taken up the case of Private Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leading all those documents to Wikileaks.

I suspect that many readers would want to applaud one of these Army officers, but would see the necessity for civilian control of the armed forces in the other case.  (Even if you agree with Private Manning’s judgments about American foreign policy, do we want to have the judgment of a high school dropout supplanting that of a government that, after all, has to answer to an electorate?)

The American military provides yet another complication: everyone in the service is a volunteer who signed a contract, effectively letting the rest of the country off the hook.

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Diluted Tea

Posted on December 15, 2010 by David S. Meyer

Sharron Angle, the failed Republican/Tea Party Senate candidate in Nevada, has just announced that she’s forming a PAC to advance Tea Party ideals and Tea Party candidates.  Angle, whose candidacy was buoyed by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, lost the Senate race to Harry Reid, a seat widely viewed as winnable for Republicans.

The Tea Party Express made Angle’s candidacy possible, and also invigorated other problematic Senate campaigns, including those of Christine O’Donnell (Delaware), Joe Miller (Alaska), and Ken Buck (Colorado).  In fact, the Tea Party Express may well have cost the  Republicans control of the Senate.

Conservative political consultant Sal Russo renamed his PAC  (originally, “Our Country Deserves Better”) “Tea Party Express” when conservative activism under the Tea Party label promised better fundraising.  It worked.  If his Tea Party group sometimes made different choices about candidates and issues than other Tea Party groups, well, that’s just movement politics.

Of course, Sharron Angle has as much right to claim the Tea Party brand as anyone else, including Christine O’Donnell, who is also starting a PAC.  It’s not only a vehicle for employment and raising money, but also a way to cultivate political ties that could help in future campaigns.  Joe Miller is going to need something to do when the Alaska Senate race is finally declared as well.

More PACs under the Tea Party brand creates competition for defining the movement and its efforts.  If the new PACs track their sponsor, they need to find new sources of funding, or else undermine the  older Tea Party groups.  And each will offer its own definition of what it means to be a Tea Partier.  They’ll distinguish themselves on the basis of prioritizing particular issues: taxes or immigration or abortion or the deficit.  Every priority carries strong supporters and opponents.  In effect, there is a looming battle over defining just what the Tea Party is.

The battle for definition is recurrent in movement politics, and the populist elements in the Tea Party make it particularly likely to be messy and contested.

And opponents will point to the craziest people and ideas to define the Tea Party.  The latest news suggests there will be plenty of  them.

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Strong Tea

Posted on December 14, 2010 by David S. Meyer

Rep. Michele Bachmann, founder of the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, promised that she would provide classes on the Constitution for her colleagues, particularly her newest colleagues.  And there are plenty of them in the next Congress.  Bachmann is one Tea Partier who aims to deliver on her promises, and apparently, she’s positioned to deliver in a big way:

Justice Antonin Scalia has agreed to deliver the first lecture, ironically on the topic of the separation of powers.

This development is odd and interesting for all kinds of reasons.

First, there is this whole SEPARATION OF POWERS THING.  The Court and the other branches aren’t supposed to coordinate behind the scenes or lobby each other.

Chief Justice Earl Warren reported, years later, that he was invited to dinner at the White House when Brown v. Board of Education was on the docket, and resented being lobbied, ever so gently by contemporary standards, to consider the well-being of the white children in the South.  President Johnson worked to keep his consultations with Justice Abe Fortas secret, expecting (correctly) controversy if the meetings were ever public.  Much more recently, Justice Alito, taken to task for muttering “not true” during President Obama’s State of the Union address, announced that he thought it inappropriate for the President to chastise the Court at the occasion, particularly when protocol demanded that the Justices sit on their hands and take it all stoically.

It’s hard to imagine Justice Scalia coaching one faction in Congress on arguments or policies that would pass his Constitutional muster.  It’s also hard to imagine Justice Scalia refusing to allow members of Congress who weren’t members of the Tea Party to benefit from his Constitutional lessons.

Second, there is the matter of maintaining an appearance of objectivity.  In addition to wearing those basic black robes, sitting Justices generally refrain from explicit political activity.  Virginia Thomas’s recent announcement that she was curtailing her Tea Party activities seems much less likely to be about her loss of political faith or energy than about maintaining some appearance of propriety for her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas.

Third, it’s kind of amazing that Michele Bachmann has that kind of pull.  The other instructors mentioned for the course are renowned for their seriousness and expertise only among the true believers, not among professional historians or legal scholars.  Justice Scalia is a major get.

Question: Does all of this undermine any notion of a legal system in which rulings are based on law rather than exclusively political orientation?  (By the way, other recent decisions play into this vision.  It’s been widely observed that a Bush appointee to a Federal Court has invalidated the insurance mandate provision of President Obama’s health care reform, while two Clinton appointees have rejected that argument. ) Our textbooks, judicial nominees’ testimony before Congress, and our Constitution would have us believe that at least some of these judges think about the law and the Constitution in making such decisions.

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Phelps Family Flop? Not quite.

Posted on December 12, 2010 by David S. Meyer

Elizabeth Edwards’s funeral in Raleigh, North Carolina, was another occasion for the Westboro Church (read: Fred Phelps and family) to get attention.

As discussed here, the tiny hyperconservative church has succeeded in gaining national attention by picketing military funerals and displaying provocative and hateful placards about gays.   Reverend Fred Phelps’s story is simple: soldiers are dying because of the moral degradation of the United States.  It’s not the war, however, that represents the slippery slope toward sin so much as tolerance of homosexuality.

Elizabeth Edwards’s funeral provided another opportunity for the Westboro Church.  The Phelps family announced a planned picket, and locals responded by organizing a counterprotest–a Line of Love–outside the funeral.  Coordinated by a Facebook group, the Line of Love drew an estimated 300 people–countering a Westboro presence estimated at five stalwarts.

Surely, just the presence of the counterprotesters, in large numbers and holding signs indicating admiration of Elizabeth Edwards and sympathy for her family, must have provided some comfort to the mourners, to the citizens of Raleigh, and to everyone who takes offense at Westboro’s views and/or tactics.

The flip side, however, is that it once again draws national attention to a group that virtually defines the lunatic fringe.

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The Royal Treatment

Posted on December 10, 2010 by David S. Meyer

If you’re upset about the tripling of university tuition in Britain, why destroy Prince Charles’s car?  He didn’t raise tuition, can’t lower it, and will be able to find other ways to get to work–or whatever he does.

But activists found an opportune moment last night, when they caught the Prince and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, on their way to the theater.  According to the New York Times:

The confrontation occurred when a group of about 50 protesters, some in full-face balaclavas, broke through a cordon of motorcycle police flanking the car as it approached London’s theater district in slow-speed traffic. Some of the demonstrators shouted “off with their heads!” and others “Tory scum!”

A photograph of the couple, in formal evening dress, showed them registering shock as protesters beat on the side of their armored, chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce with sticks and bottles, smashing a side window, denting a rear panel and splashing the car with white paint. A Jaguar tailing the car and carrying a palace security detail was so battered that the police ended up using its doors as shields.

Shocked, indeed.

Prime Minister David Cameron called the attack on the royal couple’s car “shocking and regrettable.”

Shocking indeed!

The British royal family has, for more than 200 years, more often been subject to snarky comments than political protest.  With the establishment of parliamentary supremacy in the United Kingdom, a struggle that stretched over several hundred years after signing of the Magna Carta, but was pretty well established by the start of the 19th century, people who wanted something from the British government knew to target Parliament rather than the King.  Putting Parliament in charge of running the state surely saved the life of at least one king somewhere down the line, and created a vestigial role for a royal family that seems to exist pretty much to unify and entertain the British people–and others.

If the monarchy can’t deliver anything, then it makes sense to target protest at those who can.

But if you’re protesting in the streets after Parliament has just passed the tuition hike and a limousine holding the heir to the throne happens to come by…..

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Protest against Tuition Hikes: A Teaching Moment

Posted on December 9, 2010 by David S. Meyer

“They say ‘Cut Back.’  We Say ‘Fight Back.'”  The chants are the same across the Atlantic, even if the politics are somewhat different.  Students and other young people in the UK have taken to the streets to protest the Cameron government’s decision to triple tuition.

It’s still cheaper than a comparable education in the US, British Conservatives say; oddly, this hasn’t calmed the British students who have to come up with the money.

Student protests have been coordinated and aggressive.  Across the country, students have occupied buildings on campuses and staged marches through town centres (what Americans call “centers”).  But the focal point has been Parliament in London.  A series of demonstrations have seen unusual levels of disruption for Britain, featuring fires, arrests, and clashes with the police. According to the BBC:

The BBC’s Ben Brown, outside Parliament, said protesters shouted “shame on you” as news of the result filtered out to the crowd.

In violent scenes earlier, the BBC’s Mark Georgiou said there had been injuries to both police and protesters near to Westminster Abbey.

The Metropolitan Police say there have been attacks using “flares, sticks, snooker balls and paint balls”.

The political unrest has exacerbated rifts in a Conservative/Liberal Democratic coalition government that has seemed tenuous from the start, with 21 Liberal Democrats and 6 Conservative MPs voting against the policy.  Three ministerial aides resigned in protest.

American university students are also facing tuition hikes and education cuts, but have thus far been unable to create a campaign nearly as well coordinated.  Part of the problem in the US is that American universities are funded by diverse sources, including state and federal governments, and have depended more on tuition and fees for a long time.

By imposing a nation-wide policy, British Prime Minister David Cameron has made it easier for students to decide who to target and when.  American politics diffuses responsibility more broadly, and thus makes it harder for activists to hold anyone accountable.

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Is the Tea Party Over (part III)

Posted on December 8, 2010 by David S. Meyer

Only the left went on the attack against President Obama’s compromise on extending the Bush-era tax cuts.  Faced with intransigence from the Republicans in the Senate, Obama cut a deal.  He endorsed a two year extension of historically low tax rates for the wealthiest Americans in exchange for Republican support to continue the Bush-era rates for middle-class Americans, and extend unemployment insurance.  Liberals are now extending their anger at Republicans to include a president they had once claimed as one of their own.

What’s much more surprising is the silence from the Tea Party movement.  The Tea Party’s rhetoric during the last two years emphasized the perils of deficit spending.  It’s not surprising that Republican leaders would backburner their concerns about the deficit in order to secure low tax rates for their core constituents.  Spending on unemployment and the Earned Income Tax Credit, financed through deficit spending, is a small price for them to pay–largely because they don’t have to pay it.  (There is a strong Keynesian argument to make for these programs, which will translate into increased consumer spending and stimulate the economy; it’s not, however, an argument Republican leaders will make.)

But the populist anger that animated the Tea Party appeared to be more anti-government and anti-spending than pro-rich.  The election dramatically strengthened the position of the Republican Party, but this is a clear instance in which the Tea Party identity promised something clearly different.  Recall that they also expressed an anger at the deficit spending at the core of the George W. Bush program.

You would think that the deficit hawks at the grassroots would try to hold their Republican allies’ feet to the fire, forcing them to honor the (admittedly diverse and often contradictory) demands of the Tea Party.  The silence here is another piece of evidence that the election has taken the wind out of the Tea Party’s sails.

And the Republicans elected to Congress have, for the most part, been quite eager to defer their concern with the deficit in favor of preferred programs, like tax cuts for the wealthy.  Alaskans preferred independent patronage Republican Lisa Murkowski to a (perhaps) authentic Tea Partier, who might actually refuse Federal spending in Alaska.  Even Rand Paul, the new Senator from Kentucky, has emphasized the need to keep Medicare payments to doctors at competitive rates.

The Tea Party was a coalition between well-funded organizations sponsored by large business interests and populist anger about government spending, immigration, the deficit, health care reform–and scores of other issues.  How long can such a coalition hold together when Republicans actually participate in governance and make choices?

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Coming Out and Movement Politics

Posted on December 7, 2010 by David S. Meyer

An astonishing number of young men and women who came to the United States as children without government authorization are going public with their status.  When they come out, they acknowledge that they are breaking the law and put themselves at risk for arrest and deportation. Their stories make for dramatic and compelling testimony in support of the DREAM Act.  (Thanks to Roberto Gonzales for posting this link, for example.)

Coming out is a critical component of most movement strategies.  Coming out means revealing something about yourself that people might not know otherwise, and taking some risk in doing so.  We hear most about coming out as a political strategy from the gay and lesbian movements, and now, from DREAM supporters, but it’s really a part of most movements’ strategies.  Often, it’s about proclaiming a belief (rather than a legal status or sexual orientation): Christians testify to make faith visible; atheists go public to undermine the apparent social consensus on divine authority.  Advocates of animal rights, health care reform, racism or civil rights, and virtually every other cause you can imagine, make their beliefs known, hoping to build support for them.  People may go public with being (or not being) a virgin, or having had an abortion or cancer to show those around them that the experience is more common than others might have thought.

When people come out with their beliefs, they mean to show their friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers that what they believe isn’t marginal or odd, but is a position that makes sense to “normal people.”  Depending upon the belief and the context, they risk something about those relationships, and maybe even the relationship itself.  They might also be risking being cast out from their community, getting beaten up or killed, losing a job, or going to jail.  Risk changes depending upon the issue and the community.

When people come out, they encourage others like themselves to do the same, often explicitly, and certainly by example.  They hope that there is some safety in numbers.

And it matters.  When the Supreme Court ruled (Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986) that states could prohibit some kinds of gay sex, Justice Lewis Powell, who voted in support of the decision, reportedly told his colleagues that he had never known someone gay–one of his clerks was closeted.  Justice Harry Blackmun’s dissent was drafted by a clerk who was openly gay.

We have to believe that one reason support for same sex marriage has grown so rapidly is that more and more Americans are learning that friends and neighbors and relatives are gay, and are much less comfortable discriminating against people they have come to view as, maybe, normal.  No one doubts that gays and lesbians haven’t served in the American military since there was a military–even if their sexual orientation was hidden.  And as it gets safer, gay men and lesbians become more likely to come out, and coming out has been an integral part of a movement strategy.

But risk hasn’t disappeared for gays and lesbians, even if it has diminished in many settings.  Even relatively recently, members of Congress whose same sex activities were exposed were more eager to claim identity as alcoholics than as gay.

Kathryn Himmelstein’s study shows that gay teens, although no more likely to get in trouble than straight students, were likely to face much harsher punishments.  As reported in the New York Times:

She used data collected from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which followed middle and high school students for seven years beginning in 1994. The study is a broad overview of adolescent health but contained information on teen sexuality and both minor and serious misconduct. The study asked teens about nonviolent misdeeds like alcohol use, lying to parents, shoplifting and vandalism, as well as more serious crimes like using a weapon, burglary or selling drugs.

Notably, teens who identified themselves as lesbian or gay or who experienced feelings of same-sex attraction were less likely to engage in violence than their peers. However, they were far more likely to be expelled from school, stopped by police, arrested or convicted of a crime.

Girls who labeled themselves as lesbian or bisexual appeared to be at highest risk for punishment, experiencing 50 more police stops and about twice the risk of arrest and conviction as other girls who reported similar levels of misconduct.

Now what about those young men and women who risk deportation? Take Pedro Ramirez (right), elected student body president at Cal State Fresno.  Ramirez, a high school valedictorian and double-major, could not receive the small salary for being student body president because he doesn’t have a social security number.   Brought to the United States at age three, he says he didn’t realize he was an illegal immigrant until he started applying to colleges.  Cal State administrators were willing not to pay him, and to keep his status a secret, but Ramirez came out in response to a anonymous threat that he would be outed.  The LA Times reports

In a way, I’m relieved…I don’t want to be a liability or cost the school donations. I never really thought this was going to happen. But now that it’s out there, I finally feel ready to say ‘Yes, it’s me. I’m one of the thousands.’

He is one of tens of thousands, and increasing numbers of them have declared their status at marches or when questioning candidates for office.  They want to make their point as obvious as possible: they are young Americans who have already demonstrated significant achievement and tremendous potential for the future.  You may not realize that you know an illegal immigrant, they say, but you do.

In coming out, these people are risking not only their own deportation, but the safety and well-being of their families.  Their bet is that, when push comes to shove, Americans will want to protect young, ambitious, and honest young people who are among our best, brightest, and bravest.

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When Allies Disappoint

Posted on December 4, 2010 by David S. Meyer

This lame duck session in Congress seems like the last best hope for advocates of the DREAM Act, as well as the best shot for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell through Congress–and not the courts.  Activists on both issues share a lot, not the least, disappointment in President Barack Obama.

Candidate Obama promised to press for comprehensive immigration reform, but in two years invested very little political capital in an effort he must have judged too costly and too unlikely.  Candidate Obama also promised to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and activists imagined an Executive Order, just like President Harry Truman’s edict ending racial segregation in the armed forces.  In office, however, he stalled, explaining that he was going to end it the right way, minimizing both political fallout and disruption in the military.  Of course, these aren’t the only groups who supported the Democratic candidate for president, expecting a more aggressive and effective advocate for positions he promised, sometimes not even so explicitly.  Health care reformers, civil libertarians, antiwar activists, and many others shared their disappointment.

Now what?  None of these advocates harbors the illusion that the other party will be more responsive to their concerns.  How can you pressure your allies without damaging them and putting the other guys into power?  Political life was simpler for them when George W. Bush was president and Republicans controlled Congress: their job was to mobilize discontent and pressure, and there was no reason to temper their demands or their tactics.  Now, with opponents making real political gains, pushing goals like the DREAM further into the distance, progressive activists are trying to figure out how to manage a relationship with a disappointing ally who could still be much worse.

This dilemma, of course, isn’t limited to the left.  Anti-abortion activists were disappointed with Ronald Reagan, who continually promised and continually failed to deliver on the promises to end abortion they heard, and those deficit hawks were mightily disappointed with George W. Bush’s budgets.  And, of course, Tea Partiers are trying to find ways to hold new Republican allies accountable.  Activists don’t want to be taken for granted, but are understandably slow to abandon what seems like their best hope.  They learn, however, that elected officials need to be reminded, often and vigorously, about how much their supporters expect.

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Fasting for the DREAM

Posted on December 2, 2010 by David S. Meyer

Students in San Antonio are fasting in support of the DREAM Act, which would provide a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States (illegally) as children, and have attended college or served in the military (Thanks to Ambreen Ali at Congress.org for posting the link to this story.)  They assembled in the hallway outside Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s district office, and pledged to stay until she met with them.  Senator Hutchison declined a meeting, urged the students to eat, and went back to Washington.  Sixteen students were arrested.

Senator Harry Reid (and others) are trying to put the DREAM Act back on the Congressional agenda during the lame duck session.  They know that chances of passage will be much worse in the next two years, once Republicans control the House and enjoy a larger minority in the Senate.  For activists, it’s even more urgent.  The hunger strike reflects this urgency–as does the participation of two students who are themselves undocumented immigrants.  (Putting yourself in the hands of the police can be a quick route to deportation, while also putting family members who may also be undocumented at similar risk.)

We’ve discussed the moral certainty that activists express when they take on terror tactics.  Willingness to kill, and/or to risk one’s own life and safety for a cause reflects an intense commitment, borne of moral certainty or desperation.

The hunger strike is a tactic in which the activists take on almost all of the suffering.  There is, of course, a coercive element to it–demanding that a target accede to some thing (even a meeting) to save your health.  But there’s more: Gandhi saw a hunger strike as a commitment to dialogue.  He believed that activists had to take on suffering to demonstrate their concerns and commitment, and that in doing so, they were asking for evidence that they might be wrong.  (In his terms, this meant that violence, which didn’t recognize the possibility of error, was absolutely wrong.)  Like civil rights civil disobedience in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, suffering violence (or personal harm) demonstrated both your own commitments and the inhumanity of your opponents.

The sixteen students in San Antonio got our attention because of their commitments.  It’s hard to think that they have something to say to Senator Hutchison that she hasn’t heard already; indeed, as they note, she supported a version of the DREAM Act in 2007.  That was, of course, before she ran (unsuccessfully) for the Republican nomination for governor, and before anti-immigration sentiment captured the national Republican party.

Now, activists in support of the DREAM Act face deteriorating political prospects.  And young people who saw a realistic hope of some path to citizenship when the DREAM was first proposed–a decade ago–see their personal prospects deteriorating along with their political goals.   They have to do more, and a hunger strike is one next step.

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