Curve/tennis

Ahead of the Curve Again:

Once more, if you read Grim's Hall, you're a couple of weeks or more ahead of the curve. On 28 November, we had the big go-around that started with "Treason & Civility," in which I posited that:

We are coming to that binary breaking point on a number of questions. The President is accused by some of such things that, if the charges are believed, demand more than rhetoric or the organizing of a better electoral strategy for next year or three years on. The administration has occasionally been accused of fixing votes, including the 2000 election by which it came to power. The US military is accused -- here by Kimmitt, who is trying to be rational, and who is not defending the fellow accused of treason -- of operating "a network of illegal torture facilities scattered around the world!" "Our Administration kidnaps, tortures, and kills people without oversight," he continues.

If you believe that, and especially if you believe all of it, are you not called to more than blogging? To more than political donations, or organizing? To more than another empty protest march, so common and toothless that they may as well not happen at all? I don't see how anyone could believe those charges, watch the ineffectiveness of the protest movements and political opposition, and not plot insurrection.

Today, the first serious journal of the Left has published a piece calling for preparation for "direct action." From Salon:

At a certain point in the near future, if the current oligarchy cannot be removed via the ballot, direct political action may become an urgent and compelling mission. It may then be necessary for many people in many walks of life to put their bodies on the line. For the moment, however, although pressing and profound questions have arisen about whether the current government is even legitimate, i.e., properly elected, there still remains a chance to remove this government peacefully in the 2008 election. (Or am I living in a dream world?)

I do think this regime's removal is the most urgent matter before the country today. And I do think that at a certain point the achievement of that goal might take precedent over our personal predilections for writing, teaching and the like. We might be called upon to go on general strike, for instance. We might be called upon to set up camp in the streets for weeks or months, to gather and remain in large public squares as the students in Tiananmen Square did, and dare government forces to remove us or to slaughter us in the streets.

This is all terrible and rather fantastic to contemplate. But what assurances have we that it is not all quite plausible? Having discarded the principles that Jefferson & Co. espoused, the current regime seems capable of anything. I know that my imagination is a feverish instrument. But are we not living in feverish times, in times of the unthinkable?

There we have it, then: a call for direct action if the Left loses again in 2008, and additionally some remarks calling into question whether or not the political process is not already entirely corrupted by a secret cabal in the current "oligarchy." "Direct action" is the ultimate in wiggle phrases, as it can encompass everything from general strikes to distributing leaflets to blowing up bombs (consider the famous French Marxist terrorist organization, Action Directe, which for some reason is allowed to operate that website in the UK). But that is part of the point: adopting that phrase as a description of your acts means intentionally putting yourself in the spectrum of resistance fighters, even if you intend yourself to stick to the easy end of the spectrum. You are declaring solidarity with those who do more.

Tennis' advice is hauntingly familiar to students of history:

So what do I advise you to do? I advise you to stay in your position for now. For now, you are where you are supposed to be; you are doing what you are supposed to be doing; you are telling your students what they need to know.

There is only one obvious parallel:

For a brief period during the secession crisis the superintendent was a Southerner, Captain P.G.T. Beauregard. He relieved Delafield on January 23, 1861. A day or so later a cadet from his state of Louisiana called on Beauregard and asked him whether or not he should resign [to join the Confederate military]. The Superintendent replied, "Watch me: and when I jump, you jump. What's the use of jumping too soon?"

This is as plain a declaration as that. What's the use of jumping too soon? Maintain your position as long as it is useful in the greater cause. When I jump, you jump.