Justice, Tim DeCristopher, and the Bureau of Land Management
My schoolboy education in Philadelphia in the 1960 and early 1970s was provided by Quakers – avowed pacifists, who characteristically objected to the Vietnam War, many of whom were no strangers to civil disobedience to get their points across. Wilbert Braxton proudly served as Penn Charter’s headmaster for 29 years (and, as I can attest, quite a tough-minded teacher for us second-year physics students). But while headmaster Braxton may have appeared to us a frail old man, his son was young, and even tougher-minded, fully on his game as a war protester.
I had the opportunity to read a transcript of Braxon Jr’s address to a judge who could have sent him to prison for evading the draft, as he staunchly refused to take up arms. He delivered then, in 1968, an address that is still regarded as a definitive treatise on conscientious objection to war.
I apologize for the long introduction; I made it only to say that I came to know some great words as they apply to positions on civil disobedience. Now, I ask you this. Fast-forward 43 years. Read the remarks that Tim DeChristopher, sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison and a $10,000 fine for disrupting a Bureau of Land Management auction in 2008, which he made to the judge before his ruling was announced.
I have to say that my initial impression of DeCristopher was one of silly, irresponsible lawlessness. But I defy anyone to read his statement and not take away a feeling of profound truth and justice. I encourage response — especially from those who have read his statement in full.
We humans, as a species, have indeed changed a little bit over the millennia. We no longer regard monarchy as possessed of divine right, we don’t revel in or even casually tolerate cruelty to the extent we once did.
We have, however, changed in less wholesome ways as well. We once regarded the natural world with awe and reverence, and this is far less true today – indeed, the links between ourselves and the natural world are important as they ever were, even while they fray and tatter, but they are separated and hidden from us behind layer upon layer of mechanized commerce.
We once lived communally, cooperating in family and local social groups that operated to achieve collective prosperity and safety. The financial constructs and the economic dogma to which we now each have been attached from birth have set us against each other in glorified strife, and these have served to divide, stratify and alienate us from each other.
We are also compartmentalized by language, by regional qualities and regional distances, race, gender, religion, degrees of urbanization, income level, political faction, subcultures of fashion… and – perhaps the greatest tragedy of partitioning – by physical age. From regional qualities to religion, the first five of these divisions have been with us since very near the beginning in varying degrees, and may forever be to some extent. The latter six of these have been increasingly magnified over the last few centuries and the last three have rapidly deepened over the past several decades.
Think for example of how oddly strict the enforced cultural divides were between Mod and Rocker in 1960’s in England, and between jock, nerd, preppie, stoner and punk in the 1970’s and 80’s among American youth, and add to these the more recent additions of goth, emo, hip hop, gamer, rockabilly, and otherkin.
Recall as well how family members of different generations used to associate closely and share knowledge and perspectives, and carry forward valuable wisdom and traditions to the younger limbs of the family tree, and now observe how rare and strange that seems today.
Consider how at every turn a wide range of commercial interests have used broadcast media, advertizing, music, fashion publications and popular entertainment venues to delineate and amplify these many divides.
This is not by accident and it is not natural. In the same way the colonial powers of Europe drew borders in Africa and the Middle East – slicing ancient tribes and cultures into manageable bits in order to prevent any one new “nation” from too easily uniting across the population and throwing off the yoke of foreign empire – the modern financial empires have leveraged and invented more and more barriers and incompatibilities to wedge us each apart from one another and discourage our unity. The old divide and conquer tactics thus work their sick magic much more pervasively and insidiously, and we feel a sense of isolation and helplessness.
Yet we are not alone, and we are not helpless. We vastly outnumber those who now yoke us and despoil our world, and our power of compassion for each other and righteous indignation against them is greater than their power of fear over us. The greatest fear in the minds of these parasitic beasts is the spread of that realization, and they do all in their power to quell it. But their power against a wakeful populace is limited to retribution and violence – and non-violent resistance reverses that meager power and makes of it a spear against the frail bubble of their legitimacy.
If we insist on remaining together in the dazzling and sadistic little box that has been constructed for us, our tragic fate is sealed. Should we step together with firm peacefulness out of their hypnotically captivating enclosure, we can make for each other a shelter and a nursery worthy of our spirit and intellect.
Be civil and disobey – what can they do, obliterate our happiness and take our children from us and destroy our world? This is all being done to us already. We are now losing everything through our inaction, and we therefore have nothing to lose by acting.