copyright Robert Jensen 2001
Posted on Common
Dreams News Center website, January 21, 2001.
Distributed as a ZNet Commentary, January 22, 2001.
by Robert Jensen
On Inauguration Day 2001, standing on the steps of the State Capitoljust a few blocks from the governor's mansion that George W. Bush recentlyhad vacated, about 1,000 Austin residents raised their hands as I administered a Citizens' Oath of Office:
"I do solemnly pledge that I will faithfully execute the office ofcitizen of the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability,resist corporate control of the world, resist militarism, resist the roll-backof civil rights, and resist illegitimate authority in all its forms."
Bush's inauguration in Washington earlier that day made it clear toall of us that whatever radical and progressive political organizing wehad done during the eight noxious years of the "New Democrat" administrationof Clinton must be intensified during the toxic four years to come undera Bush administration.
The possibilities for that organizing were plainly visible from looking at the range of people in the spirited, noisy and passionate crowd -- from Democrats to the Revolutionary Anarchist Marching Band. On the platform, representativesof the NAACP and Green Party, the American Civil Liberties Union and Universityof Texas Radical Action Network, the National Organization for Women andInternational Socialist Organization, all spoke to a common theme: theneed to build a popular movement to challenge power and keep alive radicaland progressive politics.
While many in the crowd voted for Al Gore, there was a consensus thata Democratic Party which has moved so clearly and consistently to the right -- embracing reactionary domestic policies, such as Clinton's so-calledwelfare “reform” law, and pursuing brutal and inhumaneforeign policy, such as the ongoing bombing/sanctions policy toward Iraq-- is not going to be at the forefront of a progressive movement.
In Austin we chanted, "He's not my president." But I also said thatif Gore had been elected, for me the chant would have been the same. Thepoliticians of both major parties who have surrendered the promise of realdemocracy to corporate interests will never be leaders of the people.
If Bush is not our president, and Gore wouldn't have been either, thequestion is clear: Who can be our leader?
At that moment, I asked the people in the crowd to turn to the personnext to them, then turn to the other side, and then to look at themselves.If our movements are to be truly popular movements, leadership will comefrom us. It will be diffuse. We will all, at some point and in some fashion,have to step forward to claim both the right and the obligation to lead.
Popular movements don't search for leaders, they produce leaders. Such movements -- to abolish slavery, win labor organizing rights, endwars -- have won real gains for human freedom and justice, not becauseof leaders but because of the moral vision and courage of all the peoplewho did not turn away from the struggle.
The last phrase of the citizens' oath we took in Austin echoes the "Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" issued in 1967 by Americans strugglingto end their government's barbaric attack on the people of Vietnam. Thosewere grim times, certainly no less scary and threatening than the situationwe face today. But people struggled, fought, resisted -- against the grainand against the odds.
The powerful have added new weapons to their arsenals -- structuraladjustment programs and World Trade Organization rules whose effects areas lethal as a B-52 bombing run. Just as their strategies for dominationand control have "matured," so have our analyses and strategies for fightingback.
But the essence of the struggle is unchanged, and our pledge shouldconclude with the same words as the 1967 pledge: "Now is the time to resist."
Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at theUniversity
of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.Other
writings are available online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/freelance.htm.