Only thing that we did right was the day we refused to fight
Excerpted from Free Radicals: War Resisters in Prison by CJ Hinke, forthcoming from Trine-Day in 2016.
The lines of resistance to war take many forms as these stories of
resisters in prison in World Wars I (“the Great War”, “the war to end
all wars”) and II (‘the good war”), the Cold War, the undeclared Korean
“conflict”, the ‘Red Scare’ of the McCarthy period, the 1960s and,
finally, the US war against Vietnam, demonstrate. There are as many
reasons and methods to refuse war as there are refusers. The Department
of Justice classified WWII resisters as religious, moral, economic,
political, neurotic, naturalistic, professional pacifist, philosophical,
sociological, internationalist, personal and Jehovah’s Witness.
Why are some awake and aware, why do some feel their conscience so
strongly they cannot ignore it? As A.J. Muste proclaimed, “If I can’t
love Hitler, I can’t love at all.” Why isn’t that spirit inside all of
us? Most of us have unconsciously shut up the voice of our troublesome
conscience to make our lives easier. I assure you, however, the world
would be immeasurably better if we all learned to listen to even its
faintest of stirrings.
The reason The Resistance was so effective against the draft is that
meetings listened to everybody. This stratagem was learned in vivo from
Quakers, SNCC, and CNVA. The Resistance functioned because of its
underlying commitment to principled consensus. Many of us—(does not play
well with others)—went ahead to devise our own actions out of
frustration with this long and often tedious performance. Sometimes
others joined us seeing its value and sometimes they did not. If there
were “leaders” of The Resistance, I never met any!
Consensus is not easy but it works. Consensus is a process rather
than a conclusion. Consensus never succeeds by filibuster. Consensus
works in precisely the way that majority rule and voting never do.
Voting ends up with a large disaffected, unsatisfied group of
constituents. Do you really want to vote for some second-best,
had-to-run, mealy-mouthed, forked-tongue liar anyway?!?
Consensus is experiential. Voting is adversarial. Consensus builds
community. Voting makes enemies, creates outsiders. So just listen
already.
