Civil Disobedience Now!

From Thoreau to John Lewis, a message for action that cannot wait

March for Our Lives, 2018, Washington, D.C. (photo by Jim Moore)

The sad state of our republic

It is a sad coincidence that the death of Democratic Congressman John Lewis, 80, the Georgia-born sharecropper’s son whose leonine, battle-scarred, police-beaten visage and unshakable tenacity in the face of Jim Crow-era segregation, happened on the day my audiobook version of Henry David Thoreau’s On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, was published on Audible.

It is equally sad that on that same day, the citizens of Portland, Oregon, were experiencing the oppressive tactics of unbridled extrajudicial police overreach — verging on, if not actually encompassing, kidnapping — that both Thoreau and Lewis warned us about.

The man who stood beaten but unbowed for justice

John Lewis was never far from the top of my list of the soldiers of peace who suffered so in the cause of the Civil Rights movement.

Before taking on the self-imposed assignment of narrating Thoreau’s short essay on the importance…the imperative…of remaining true to one’s own inner voice when that voice speaks of standing strong for truth in the face of injustice and government overreach, I thought for a long time about the men and women of my own era who led by conviction, who suffered for a greater good.

John R. Lewis (photo © Associated Press/Scott Applewhite)

I considered the contributions of civil rights exemplars like John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta, Dorothy Height, Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. Du Bois, the Freedom Riders, and the millions of unsung voices of men and women — White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, Native American— who, each in their own way, pushed back against the countless injustices imposed on them and their fellow citizens by local, state, and national power wielders.

Henry David Thoreau: A transcendental but prescient voice from the past

As I narrated Thoreau’s essay, the world outside my small studio was suffocating under writhing coils of constricting snakes of coronavirus, climate change, racial injustice, cruel deaths by disease and cops, economic deprivation, education inequality, and government-by-fools.

That last item, government-by-fools, is an inanity foisted on us by every layer of the American political system.

Henry David Thoreau

At first glance, you might find little in common between the quiet, reclusive, Thoreau whose 19th century opinion of local, state, and national government was, essentially, “If I am not a burden on the state, the state should not be a burden on me,” and Lewis, for whom abstaining from confrontation was not an option.

And yet, John Lewis, Henry Thoreau, and the pantheon of American civil rights activists preached — and lived by — the same sermon: Public activism against oppressive government and discriminatory laws — whether through letters or bodily resistance — is a civic and moral duty.

“If I am not a burden on the state, the state should not be a burden on me”

A Washington Post, July 18 editorial said, “While Mr. Lewis was not a policy maven as a lawmaker, he served the role of conscience of the Democratic caucus on many matters. His reputation as keeper of the 1960s’ flame defined his career in Congress.”

Joe Biden lifted up the work of John Lewis in his tribute: “We are made in the image of God, and then there is John Lewis. How could someone in flesh and blood be so courageous, so full of hope and love in the face of so much hate, violence, and vengeance? He was truly a one-of-a-kind, a moral compass who always knew where to point us and which direction to march.”

Lewis himself wrote of the nation’s preeminent civil rights activist, Dr. King, in his 1998 book, Walking with the Wind:

“Every minister I’d ever heard talked about ‘over yonder,’ where we’d put on white robes and golden slippers and sit with the angels. But this man was talking about dealing with the problems people were facing in their lives right now, specifically black lives in the South.”

From Dr. King’s message, John Lewis developed his own civil rights philosophy: “You must find a way to get in the way and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. … You have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate, when you leave here, to go out and seek justice for all. You can do it. You must do it.”

“You must find a way to get in the way and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. … You have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate, when you leave here, to go out and seek justice for all. You can do it. You must do it.”

Echoing the resurgence of civil disobedience in the 21st century — public pushbacks against racism, government overreach, and nationwide tensions surrounding the coronavirus health pandemic — On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, published by Thoreau in 1849, speaks eloquently and personally about one man’s desire to live a peaceful, government-free life.

In this short essay, Thoreau lays out his philosophy best summed up by the author as, “That government governs best that does not govern at all.”

Thoreau takes on the key issues of his day: taxes, slavery, and the Mexican war. In the process he shares with his audiences his own brief imprisonment for failure to pay taxes, his views on the moral necessity to resist government intrusion where it is not wanted or needed, and his disdain for the government’s war-making funded on the backs of taxpayers unconnected to the conflict.

“That government governs best that does not govern at all”

In a key passage from On the Duties of Civil Disobedience, Thoreau writes,

“This American government — what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split.

“But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.

“It is excellent, we must all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate.

For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it.

“Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.”

The Luddites are tearing down our social framework

Mistrust, illogic, and disharmony and gaslighting are sown daily

How quaint is Thoreau’s notion — that “The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.” — when today we are subjects of a Trumpian-themed government of privileged white Luddites continually getting in our way, continually tainting public discourse and sanity by driving wedges of mistrust, illogic, disunity, and disharmony into all we try to do to accomplish our highest aspirations.

They are not just mischievous persons. Like Trump himself, they are existential dangers to the very republic that birthed their reasons for being. They are tearing up the rails upon which our engines of education, health care, commerce, science, charity, and free thought depend.

What we are facing and why disobedience is paramount

But most tragically, as we see in Portland, and in the president’s threats to send camouflaged, masked, and merciless troops into Chicago and other Democrat-led cities, innocent citizens are caught in the flaming winds of White House-fueled and right-wing-fanned domestic hate, discord, and gaslighting.

• When a nation is faced with a president who believes ballots will be rigged and will not go easily out of his office should he be defeated;
• When citizens are steamrolled by a care-nothing Republican leadership that is so tied to Trump they will not see injustice when it is laid at their doorstep;
• When a president seeks to manipulate the census to exclude those who feed, clean, and care for millions of Americans;
• When medical science is placed behind politics so that schoolchildren and teachers will sicken and die;
• When corruption is rewarded with pardons and the truth-tellers are mocked, reviled, and dismissed;
• When the color of one’s skin and the zip code in which one lives are still the determinants of education, wealth, and health outcomes;
• When a history of enslavement is less important than red-hatted reverence for statues wrapped in flags drenched in the blood of slaves;

When all of these things and myriad other ills, woes, infamy, and insults are hurled from the lily-white high places to the multi-colored masses below, it is time for robust and ceaseless civil disobedience.

This is not the time to let the personal and communal exhaustion of Covid-19 news take hold.

This is not the time to be lulled into drowsy confidence by the perk of polls brewing a victory for Joe Biden.

This is not the time to sink into the media-war-wearied and mind-numbed oblivion of social withdrawal.

This is not the time to let down for one moment our guard against the political pepper spray and partisan tear-gassing fired daily from the Rose Garden, Capitol Hill, Governors’ mansions, and county and local governments tied to Trump and fearful of his followers.

This is the time for civil disobedience writ large

This is the time to stand resolute and unbowed by the shameful blows of ignorance, hubris, and fear-mongering raining down on a kind and caring nation.

This is the time to recall the scars on John Lewis’s head and the warrantless grabbing of peaceful protesters in Portland, and the blood shed by countless men, women, and children whose only crimes were to expect justice, equality, and freedom.

This is the time to act on Thoreau’s advice given 171 years ago:

“[To] speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”

It is time for every man and women, every citizen who treasures their right to vote, to make clear to those who have governed us poorly and with little care for our threatened way of life that we will not be moved off our demands for the rights to which all Americans are entitled. We will stand, or sit, or lie down if need be, for the rights for which too many Americans gave the last full measure of devotion — either by choice, or by criminal and inhumane acts.

Our duty is civil disobedience if the government we have does not respect us as individuals or as a community. Civil disobedience is the recourse left to us when government ceases to be of, by, and for the people.

The Camera is not the Photographer

iPhone or Nikon, Samsung or Canon, pinhole or Olympus, it is not about the gear; it is about the eye.

A juvenile sharp-shinned hawk (photo ©courtesy Mike Amedeo)

“Very nice. What camera and lens made this magnificent photo?”

The unintended backhanded compliment

The above question was posted on Facebook under the excellent photograph of a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk perched on a deck rail. The picture was taken by Dr. Mike Amedeo, a friend of mine here in Northern Virginia. Mike, a fine internist, is not a professional photographer, though he shoots with the precision and eye of one.

In all fairness to the the FB poster, I’m sure he had intended to praise Mike, but, as happens all too often, posts like this end up crediting the camera and not the photographer.

What is the “best” camera?

It is axiomatic in photojournalism that the best camera is the one you have with you at the moment

In a world bloated with phone camera pictures, many of which are, admittedly, outstanding, there are serious amateurs and professional photographers who are also equipped with big glass — high-end cameras with lenses costing well above $2,000 — and they produce beautiful, important, thought-provoking images not because they employ expensive cameras, but because they know what to do with the cameras they employ.

I have friends on social media who are multi-Pulitzer-Prize winning photographers. They did not earn those awards because their cameras “made this magnificent photo.” They are Pulitzer recipients because “they” made magnificent photographs and could have done so (and do so) with an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy.

I also have friends like Becky Gibson Portwood, of Cleveland, GA, and Meggan Healy Florell, of Plainfield, Il, who are serious non-professional photographers who create images that please the eye and tickle the mind with their carefully shot, emotion-packed compositions. Both Becky and Meggan take on professional clients — weddings and portraits, for example — but they do so because their work, not their cameras, garners the attention of people who see value in their skills and vision.

Winter Companions© (photo courtesy Becky Gibson Portwood)

Awakening Allium© (photo courtesy Meggan Healy Florell)

Pinhole lesson in humility

Many summers ago — decades before digital photography would become a thing — I attended a photography workshop in Aspen, Colorado, taught by one of the great names in the field of photographic arts. On the first day of his lecture, he made all of us build pinhole cameras. He made one too.

Every camera was constructed from the same list of materials. We each had one frame of film, and our assignment was simple: photograph the mountains. We also processed our film in the school’s darkroom, so control was ours from beginning to end.

As expected, most of us came back with mediocre results. There were a few failures and a few pretty good images. Our teacher’s image was gorgeous. It was a beautiful shot not just for the technical quality of the image, but for the composition, the sensitivity to light and shadows, the artist’s appreciation for what to leave in and what to leave out.

Hone your skills before opening your wallet

When I returned to my job as a newspaper photographer, I returned with a different eye, a more inquiring sensitivity to the subjects of my pictures. The cameras in my bag, once taken for granted, became tools of expression. I don’t think I upgraded my cameras for years after that workshop.

Today, 55 years after joining the ranks of photojournalists, and now long-retired from that profession, I still reach for whatever camera is closest to capture those moments that spark my imagination, intrigue my eye, and, possibly, bring some creative piece of myself to friends on Facebook.

One World Observatory, NYC (camera: Samsung Galaxy photo by author)

Get Off my Feeder (camera Nikon D700 70~200 zoom photo by author)

Whatever camera comes to hand, it becomes an extension of my eyes and emotions. So it is with my award-winning friends who toil in the shrinking vineyard of photojournalism, and my friends who are simply wonderful photographers. It is through their eyes the public sees society and nature — the immigrant child at the border, the endangered coral reefs, the frustrations of poverty and shuttered towns. It is the photographer who is telling the story, not the camera.

The best brush won’t paint the picture

But the best brush in the hands of an artist, can be an exquisite tool

That they use a Nikon or Canon or Olympus, or shoot in large formats with traditional film-loaded studio cameras (yes, they still exist), simply speaks to the quality and flexibility of the imaging tools in their respective bags.

They have learned through years of experience which tool to use and when.

“It’s like praising a great chef’s stove for the meal.”

Michael S. Williamson, a Washington Post photographer, a recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes, responds to queries about his camera choice with, “Whenever someone asks me what kind of camera I use I pause and answer, “I’m not sure, let me check.” — “Oh, it’s a black one.”

Whether shooting with a phone or a big-glass, big dollar camera, Michael’s work is distinctive for the brilliant colors and emotion-stirring compositions he creates. Lenses are his brushes; the sensors are his canvases. He is the artist.

“I’m not sure, let me check” — “Oh, it’s a black one.”

My friend and colleague Steve Northup, a news and feature photographer whose outstanding work for UPI, The Washington Post, and Time magazine helped shape my own photojournalism career, puts the comparison between the camera and the photographer in simple terms when he quips, “It’s like praising a great chef’s stove for the meal.”

I bring this up in defense of excellent photographers like Mike Amedeo and other non-professional photographers like Becky Gibson Portwood and Meggan Healy Florell because photography as an art, as a medium for informing, as a means to reveal the unseen or unnoticed workings of the world around us, is still a rare gift.

Kudos to the photographer

It is a gift not made of metal, glass, sensors, circuits and algorithms, but of vision and experience, of heart and mind working in concert to bring to the world that “magnificent photo.”

So, the next time you stop in your browsing to admire a wonderful picture, praise the photographer…and forget about the camera.

Sunrise, Ocean City MD ( photo by the author)

Behold the Pale Horse

There will be a reckoning for Trump’s supporters

Death on the Pale Horse by Gustave Dore

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.” [Revelation 6:8 King James Version]

The tinderbox of social media explodes

It began with one combustible message

Over the July 4 weekend, I received a social media post from someone I had known well from our shared past; it is fair to say that for many years he has been my friend. I was aware that he had backed Donald Trump in 2016, and I assumed he might still be in the Trump camp. How much he was in it was made abundantly clear to me and many of my social media friends when he wrote a lengthy screed justifying his MAGA position.

For the next few hours my page was alive with outrage and attacks, as if the contents of my social media tinder box had been ignited with a blowtorch rather than a match. As heat of the furious fire increased, my former friend maintained an almost robotic calm, a calm that is seen on the faces of mesmerized believers of false prophets.

Intractable position vs. rational argument

No argument could sway him, no rational comment countering his position shifted the hard right concrete upon which he had affixed himself with the bolts of a true believer. And this from a man who, as noted in his comments, was a Covid-19 survivor, cured by hydroxychloroquine and laissez faire medical advice even as the drug’s most ardent megaphone turns away from the deaths of 130,000 Americans (as of July 6).

In the end, at 4:30 a.m., after a fruitless attempt at sleep, I returned to the scene of the battle and sifted through the warm embers of all the comments — his and those of my other social media friends who had taken him to task — and I began to write. What follows is just one snapshot from a basket of similar pictures imaged by Americans who are fearful for the nation’s future under a second Trump presidency:

Try as one may, persuasion falls short in MAGA world

Nothing can move a mind that is resolute in its righteousness

The man you are backing is not a worthy opponent by any stretch, and no listing of his “accomplishments” while in office nor his bizarre support of a drug you took and were lucky enough to survive, can ever lift him above the mire in which he and so many of his adherents wallow. Trump rejects science. He rejects logic. He rejects any contrary evidence that questions his misshapen worldview.

Despite your assertion to the contrary, I do not blindly follow one news source; I do not take positions based on unchecked information, rumor, hearsay, gaslighting, lies, or idiocy. I am informed in part by my years in government, and by my associations with honorable men and women of both parties who are appalled at what they see in the White House. No…appalled is not the right word. Terrified is a better word.

Joined in a common cause

They and I, and millions of Americans on both sides of the aisle are terrified of the poseur who presumes to be president, though his presumption extends only to his racist, misguided, sad base.

If you question my use of the phrase “both side of the aisle,” I need only point you to The Lincoln Project, co-founded by George Conway, whose Republican credentials don’t often align with my Democratic ones [full disclosure: I once supported and worked for two Republican presidents and several Republican members of Congress]. Conway’s commitment to unseat and sweep Mr. Trump and his ilk out of office is as deep and steadfast as mine.

I cannot mince words — -cannot round the hard edges of my opinions — when it comes to my view of Trump and the horror of his presidency.

Here is a man who, long before his misbegotten run for office, was a failure in myriad respects.

Echos of a shameful era

Here is a man whose guiding star, Roy Cohn, was among the basest of the base — a hater of democracy, a trasher of reputations, an unrepentant thug whose claim to fame hinged on that most unhinged of politicians, Joe McCarthy.

That Cohn was (and seems to remain) Trump’s guide star should have awakened the nation to the peril of a Trump presidency.

We cannot, must not, look away

I cannot avert my gaze from the thousands of families caged at our borders, where even now one of the ugliest forms of discrimination — a black wall of hate — rises at a cost to our humanity that will take Biden and subsequent presidents years to make whole again.

No president in my memory has done more to separate America from its welcoming principles than Trump. And he revels in wielding a wedge of hate and a mallet of unscrupulous power, splitting the nation in twain to serve the slavering, pandering needs of his adoring base.

From his own mouth the dystopian division flows

If that were not so, how does he square any denial when, speaking from a podium set below the presidential sculptures of Mt. Rushmore, Trump made his case for national division perfectly and ineluctably clear (I pulled the quote from the official White House transcript) and said,

THE PRESIDENT: “And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.”

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: “Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they are doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive.”

Repetition and volume do not un-lie the lies

Of course there is no merciless campaign.

There is no threat to our children’s education; no one is seeking to indoctrinate our youth.

There is no wave of violent crimes.

There are no angry mobs of which his exaggeration alludes.

Inconvenient truths lift the veil of purposefully propagated mistrust

Yes, there are protesters.

Yes, there are those who deface and tear down statues and grab the media’s omnipresent eyes and ears.

Yes, there are legions of frustrated men and women who are tired of the burden of racism and social and economic invisibility.

Yes, there are countless small business owners and frustrated customers who suffer the effects of presidential and gubernatorial dithering and denial as the coronavirus continues to spread.

But these images and voices from angry events and aggrieved people do not augur for anarchy as a final course of action — though I must say they are entitled to such a vision.

The nation is ready for change

What such actions and expressed feelings are telling those of us ready and willing to listen is that the nation is primed for systemic change. Not incremental, play-on-the-edges changes, but full-throated change that can be sustained and captured in new laws, new ways of thinking, and new ways of treating each other. That is what I believe most Americans see and feel today. I believe that is what Joe Biden sees for the nation’s future.

“The nation is primed for systemic change”

What Trump cannot see — or what he sees and dumbly embraces — is that he is being manipulated by forces so dark and nefarious in their plans for America that their visions for our country put to shame the Hitlerian dreams of Reich supremacy of the 1930s. Blackhearted demons of Trump’s inner circle dance nightly on their stage of hate which is constructed of the transmogrified timbers of our recently-scuttled ship of state.

To those who resist my argument and my plea to review the path you are on, take this as the inevitable outcome of your choice: If Trump is the man you back, if you are sowing seeds for Trump and his Congressional toadies, the whirlwind you reap will catch you up and spit you out more broken than you can imagine.

Where honest voices are squelched, democracy withers

Such a projected outcome is not hyperbole. I am simply speaking truth to a godless, mindless, reckless, morally vacuous villain who would just as soon imprison me for my treasonous application of free speech.

If he had the chance to point his in-Justice Department at people like me — journalists who believe in speaking truth to power — he would do it in a heartbeat if he thought he could get away with it. Even if he thought he might lose in the end, he would do his best to quash my candor and J’ Accuse outrage.

Your support for Trump greases — with the oil of your blindly incensed acquiescence — the machine he operates to roll back decades of fragile work to mend the nation. Work that is as incomplete and imperfect as our union is. If that is your choice, then you fail to appreciate the sacrifices of millions of Americans who yielded up treasure and blood on the altar of freedom as down payment for the nation’s future.

Trump has no idea what that last phrase means, by the way…so self-absorbed is he in his strutting and bloviating and chest beating.

The threat is real and it rides the Pale Horse

Trump is a real and present danger…an existential danger whose face should appear in every dictionary under the definition of such.

I have no idea if Joe Biden will win. I try use what word skills I have to keep the message of urgency alive, but it will take more than one old writer to unseat the shameful man who has stained the Oval Office with his excretory oratory.

I say again, you are on the wrong side of history if Trump is your horse. A horse he may be, but it is the Pale Horse, and it carries on its back more woes, pains, and sufferings than there are stars in the heavens.