Hey, good Morning. This Monday Morning Open Thread is due to be published by 6:00 am Pacitic Time. Johnny says it must be up by 5:00 am Pacific time to meet that deadline (the server must be running Windows). Hence, it is being drafted and queued Sunday evening and I will show up as soon as I get up and get going. (As a retiree, I have a lot of flexibility in that regard.)

I was originally thinking of a couple of Haiku, a couple of tunes, some enviro news and off we go. After all, it is my first Open Thread. After yesterday's, however, I've decided to make it more of a ramble. You see, I am the modern liberal's villain, the "pragmatist"'s nemesis. I am of That Left. A sixties radical, I was arrested and tossed out of UC Berkeley for delivering some non-negotiable demands to and refusing to leave the offices of campus officialdom. Did I mention Non-Negotiable demands? Yeah, that was us. The "New Left". Fucking radicals. Still are it seems.

Anyway, I think I've got some stuff to share that's worthy of at least a little thought (I think) . It's way too much to organize and present methodically and coherently in an Open Thread, so I'm gonna hop around, lightly touch on a few topics and perhaps expand some other time.

First off - I'm not and we weren't uncompromising. Not against compromise per se at all. However, it is a misquote that "politics is the art of compromise". The correct version is "Politics is the art of the possible" (Otto von Bismark, BTW). If it is possible to obtain some goal without compromising, then it behooves one to do so. If you do have to compromise, don't give up what you came for, give up something else instead.

If you are going to negotiate with an entrenched power structure, smug, in charge, lawyered up and used to getting its way, you have to know what is critical so you don't give it up by accident. The easiest way to do that is to make sure at the outset that everybody knows what those things are. At quitting time, when all is said and done and we are ready to shake hands and put ink on paper, no matter what else is in that paper, those few things will be, end of discussion. Many things might be asked for on both sides, and discussed, but everybody knew that any agreement would have to contain those few items. Obama should try it sometime. The Dems too.

In our case it was the return of our leadership. The whole UC student movement had been crippled by a bunch of suspensions of our most senior, most experienced, most active leadership. A few of us who were a bit less senior, experienced and active looked around and wondered what to do, and it dawned upon us that it was on us. So, we figured out our wish-list and which were our non-negotiable demands, typed up the latter, shook hands and headed up the Sproul Hall steps. If somebody needs to step up, and you don't see anybody doing it, then it's on you, so go do it.

Our arrests and suspensions led to the usual ruckus and in the fullness of time the university blinked and inked that paper, reinstating those suspended over politics and political activism, including ourselves, and promising to cease such suspensions for all time. (They sort of promised that after FSM, but interpreted it so as to permit the suspensions that drove our little movement.)

So, compromise is ok, but only on some things. Some things are non-negotiable and you have to know what they are and when their time has come. If you are trying to build a movement, consensus among participants as to what those things are is critical.

SDS operated by consensus. The broader movement coalition sought consensus, but there, the dissidents simply didn't show up for whatever actions they disagreed with. It included a lot of subgroups, each dedicated first and foremost to its own specific issue(s). This is called by some who decry it "identity politics" and "fragmentation". Nobody causes it, it happens, but it isn't problematic if properly and intelligently handled. There were many causes or issues and most folks had one or two primary concerns and a willingness to work with others to advance other causes and issues as well. Everybody realized that we needed progress on a broad front, that it all helps. I showed up for numerous groups actions and ad hoc events, and pretty much failed to show up only where explicitly told not to. (Some classic liberals didn't want our kind around,)

Many were and still are fighting for civil liberties - the protection, expansion, clarification and spread of those basic rights and liberties that everybody should enjoy. This is not to be confused with civil rights. The civil rights movement grew out of the black struggle in the south and expanded into a struggle for black equality throughout the land. Blacks were still getting the shaft in the rest of the country too, just n different ways. Part of that expansion was also a lot of parallel movements to work for equality for all other oppressed, suppressed and screwed over groups, hispanics, for example, and those we then called "handicapped". That was the New Left thing, put everybody and their particular interests into one big movement. There is, after all, no conflict between demanding wheel chair access to polling places and ending racial discrimination in hiring. Both are good things, so why not do them both?

The women's movement emerged and the women's movement had two sides or factions that I am not competent to address. I do know that a lot of the male left had (and still has) trouble adapting to women's equality, and I am still baffled by that. I helped out and showed up when asked, as did about 1/3 of my peers, but it wasn't up to us since it was their gig. The women involved, by and large, continued to work on all the other issues they were previously working on, but also did their own thing. When they saw fit, they invited participation. There was no conflict with anything else and no impediment to progress in other areas except that some egos got hurt.

The black power movement caused some consternation for some, but it was pretty simple. If they were ever to be able to go out and spread the movement to their neighborhoods and their people, they had to have all of that experience organizing and the whole organizational skill set needed to build and sustain a movement. That meant that they had to run their own actions and not simply be part of black equality actions dreamed up, organized, managed and run by white dudes. They began to run their own show, and, when they saw fit, invited such participation as they saw fit. Again, there was no conflict with anything else, though some egos got bruised.

The old left - the socialists and union organizers were still part of the process too. Like all the rest, they pushed their agenda and assisted others in pushing their own. A lot of peaceniks and anti-war types were also some kind of socialist anyway. Ditto feminists and Black Power advocates. The general idea was to work together on trying to bring about a better life and better world. One supported anybody pushing anything that wasn't antithetical to one or more of one's own core issues whenever one could.

Having their own primary goals didn't stop them from helping out in other areas. It was multitasking. If just about any group wanted some bodies at a rally, they put the word out and the socialists, feminists, peaceniks, black power advocates and operatives, civil libertarians, labor organizers and other groups would show up. It was really all about showing up. There were groups with specific causes, but few real factions.

You build a mass movement not by saying "hey, fuck your personal issues, we've got to work together full time on this issue, but by saying "Sure, I'll help get the word out for your gig and we can help with flyers too. Do you think you can maybe get some folks to come to a union picket downtown next Wednesday and/or an anti-war rally at city hall tommorow?" What it is all about is full equality for everybody, ASAP, and better distribution of wealth, ASAP, and we all need to have a meeting of the minds about that first and foremost. Then we need to look at all the ways we can work together to bring that about. That includes a vast panoply of issues and actions, some to do daily, by ourselves, some to do togetherin groups or en masse, and even electoral politics. It also admits of crises issues.

I was a civil libertarian, equal rights, peacenik/anti-draft, socialist, but when they suspended our leaders, that took momentary precedence. We weren't going to end the war or the draft or discrimination solely by our own actions within the next few months, so it was ok to divert time and resources to narrowly focus on stopping political suspensions. It was actually critical to do so, because routine use of that practice which could destroy the movement.

For today's blacks, for example, I think, Black Lives Matter is a crises issue. How can you canvass a neighborhood, work on voting rights or candidate support or an increased minimum wage or the right to unionize down at the local supercenter if you are subject to being shot on the thinnest of pretences. Some might multitask, and some might only work on that issue, but it is a crisis, and they're entitled to treat it as such. It doesn't really hurt most of the other movements going on to have some folks saying "In addition to $15 an hour, how about you make these shit heads stop shooting us and busting us for nothing. In fact, how about we prioritize that."

Remember - nobody gets out of here alive, so let's all try to do the right thing by everybody else. From each according to their ability and all that.