Acorn Manifesto - Democratic Underground

H2O Man

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Mon Oct-13-08 08:31 AM
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Acorn Manifesto

{1} "The great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry
And all their songs are sad."
--G. K. Chesterton; 1874-1936

My 14-year old daughter finds the HBO show "Real Time" a giggle, and she has got me in the habit of watching it. This weekend, I thought the highlight was when an economist named Stephen Moore was on a rant about ACORN, and host Bill Maher asked what exactly ACORN was? Moore, unable to answer, asked Maxine Waters, who replied that if Moore did not know, then perhaps he was not in a position to make such passionate attacks against it.

The republican reaction to ACORN is symptomatic of how their 2008 campaign strategy has degenerated into a "stragedy." Their attacks on Barack Obama’s experience as a community organizer is, of course, very closely related to their anguish over the goals of ACORN. It is the essence of the difference in philosophy of what our nation’s political system is based upon.

In the past, I’ve quoted from Sean Wilentz’s 2005 book, "The Rise of American Democracy," which provides a detailed analysis of the early transition from our being a republic to a democracy. A republic, he notes, comes from "res publica," or "public thing"; it implies a government for the common good which is administered by an elite group of "enlightened" men. A democracy, from "demos krateo," translates into "rule of the people," which those who consider themselves to be the "enlightened elite" believe is the most dangerous form of government.

Community organizers who attempt to bring the "unenlightened masses" into the political process – in other words, one person, one vote – continue to pose a substantial risk to the ability of the "elite." A single person, like a single acorn, poses little problem. However, each acorn has the potential to grow and become a mighty oak tree, the very symbol of enlightenment in the beliefs of Barack Obama’s Irish ancestors. Indeed, the republican party is concerned that an Obama presidency will lead to a grove of oak trees in our society, and for this reason, I thought it would be of some interest to discuss what that means – both symbolically, and in terms of grass roots, community organization.

{2} "Well, it was John’s idea and it was so beautiful that I copied it – our sculpture is going to be two acorns planted in the ground, one facing to the East, the other to the West. The acorns will symbolize our meeting and love for each other, and also the uniting and growth of our two cultures."
--Yoko Ono

Just as John and Yoko understood the symbolic power of acorns, we can consider their acorn campaign as a good example of how society reacts to people who pose a challenge to the political elite. While not everyone loved John when he was viewed as a happy mop-top singing "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah," many were upset when he began to speak out about social issues. There were efforts, for example, to have songs like "The Ballad of John and Yoko" banned from radio play. The booklet from John and Yoko’s "Wedding Album" contains a number of the overtly racist newspaper articles from that time, that expressed outrage that John had married the mysterious Japanese "Dragon Lady."

The controversial nature of John and Yoko’s acorn campaign came to a head on June 15, 1968. They had been asked by an Arts Council to participate in a public show being held at the Coventry Cathedral. However, a human being named Canon Verney led the opposition to take part in the show, because the Cathedral authorities did not want their acorns to desecrate "consecrated ground."

John and Yoko continued on their acorn campaign, in which they did their famous "bed-ins," and attempted to deliver acorns to 50 world leaders to plant, to symbolize the potential for world peace. They were, at the time, denied entry into the United States, because the ruling elite recognized it would be mighty dangerous for the unenlightened masses to be exposed to acorn ideology.

{3} "If I could persuade myself that I should find him in a Himalayan cave, I would proceed there immediately. But I know that I cannot find him apart from humanity. … I claim to know my millions. All hours of the day I am with them. They are first and last, because I recognize no God except the God that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb millions."
--Mohandas K. Gandhi

Gandhi practiced acorn theology. His mission was not to become one of his country’s ruling elite, but rather, to become one with the masses. He recognized that it was by being among those who the "elite" held in contempt, that he could find true enlightenment.

In the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr., practiced acorn theology. The ruling elite were not threatened by King’s efforts to desegregate lunch counters and public toilets, because they did not use them. But they were threatened by his attempts to register black citizens to vote, because that had the potential to challenge their ability to select elite people to rule the country.

When Martin Luther King, Jr., planned to bring a nation-wide Poor People’s Campaign to Washington, DC, the ruling elite went into a frenzy. They believed that The Poor People’s Campaign threatened to desecrate the consecrated ground of the nation’s capital. Elected officials spoke on the floor of the US Senate about the need to keep this acorn campaign from taking place, and it was later documented that the US Army had an intelligence unit keeping King under close surveillance. There was no room at the elites’ inn for the birth of true democracy that King had propsed.

{4} "Some forty years ago G. K. Chesterton wrote that every time the world was in trouble the demand went up for a practical man. Unfortunely, he said, each time the demand went up there was a practical man available. As he pointed out then, usually what was needed to deal with an impractical muddle was a theorist or philosopher."
--Senator Eugene J. McCarthy

In the past few months, as a result of my wife’s being seriously ill, we’ve spent a great deal of time in ERs, hospitals, and doctors’ offices. One of the few pleasant parts of these experiences came when a lady from the front desk at one ER told my wife about a local example of acorn ideology that she remembered me leading.

A couple of decades ago, members of a local community were frustrated by what they considered to be an elitist school board, which was unresponsive to their needs. When elections came up, this group decided to run a number of candidates. The "elites" were unconcerned, because they were used to only a small amount of the community taking the time to vote.

The group that was challenging the entrenched elite contacted me, because they recognized their success would depend upon community organizing. I had recently been in the news, for organizing the largest "low-income" neighborhood in our region of upstate New York, to fight an effort to use HUD funds in a "development" effort that would have literally left 120 families homeless.

Long story short, in this community, a person does not need to be a registered voter to participate in school board elections. They can vote, so long as they are adults who meet the residency requirements. Thus, I was able to bring hundreds of "low-income" voters to the school, and we determined the outcome of those elections.

The elite were outraged. They did not want to accept the outcome of the election. Among other outlets for their displeasure were some ugly personal attacks in the form of rumors, spread about yours truly. And, as the lady at the ER told my wife, my answer came in the form of a letter from the ACLU, warning the school to accept the election outcome, rather than face legal action.

Barack Obama’s election in November will not alone re-establish democracy in our nation. Rather, it will open a small door. And, as all community organizers know, small doors often lead to large rooms – especially so when we consider the appointments that President Obama will make to the federal courts.

Still, the effort to re-establish democracy, after the severe institutionalized damage done in the past 40 years, will require the tireless efforts of community organizers, who must continue to plant acorns at the grass roots level, in full confidence that these seeds of democracy will grow into that grove of oak trees.