Rolling Thunder

{1} "The feathered and blanketed figure of the American Indian has come to symbolize the American continent. He is the man who through the centuries has been molded and sculpted by the same hand that shaped its mountains, forests and plains, and marked the course of its rivers.

"The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the land that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers; he belongs just as the buffalo belonged. …

"The white man does not understand America. He is too far removed from its formative processes. The roots of the tree of his life have not yet grasped the rock and soil. The white man is still troubled with primitive fears; he still has in his consciousness the perils of this frontier continent, some of its fastnesses not yet having yielded to his questing footsteps and inquiring eyes." – Land of the Spotted Eagle; Luther Standing Bear; Boston & New York; 1923.

This essay is not about Indians. At least not in the sense of what "we" should do to "save" the Indians. It is, instead, about what we might consider as we take steps to save ourselves and our communities. Just as the Indian has come to symbolize the continent, the truth is that what this country has done to Indians for 241 years is what it is doing to many of us today. And that is no coincidence.

When I was young, I used to help an elderly man collect herbs that he sold to white people. He was a strange man, caught half-way between the native world and the modern culture. He once told me, as we were preparing a small fire to cook on and stay warm, that "the white man makes a huge bon-fire, and has to stay back from it, and so his back stays cold; the Indian makes a little fire, and can sit close to it, and stay warm."

I think that describes our "consumer society." It’s a big fire, that requires a huge amount of fuel. But it leaves us cold, and so we throw on more fuel, mistakenly thinking that’s going to warm us. It’s a system that, as John Trudell notes, not only destroys the Natural World with toxin waste, but requires that human beings be polluted internally, in order to become part of that toxic culture.

In 1735, Handsome Lake was born in the village of Conawagas, near what is now Avon, NY. He was from the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation. The Seneca are the "western door" of the Iroquois’ Longhouse, and so his people didn’t feel the full impact of the white culture until after the Revolutionary War. After that war, we know that Handsome Lake began to drink heavily, in an attempt to ease the pain he felt in his life.

It can take more than strong drink to make a man or woman into a drunk. The communities that were Handsome Lakes’ world seemed at the mercy of distance forces over which the local people had little control. The adults saw their children suffering, and they felt hopeless and helpless.

Few people wanted to be around him, because he had been so obnoxious a drunk. As John Trudell said, people have to be poisoned within, in order for the system to become fully toxic. By 1794, Handsome Lake lay wasting from the diseases that alcohol both cause and contribute to. One of his adult daughters helped to care for him in his near-empty cabin, but he spent much time in isolation. There was a period of time he went in and out of consciousness, and he would later describe being taken on a journey by four beings.

In 1798, he began to tell of his vision, and of how his people needed to reform their way of life to survive. Today, this is known as the Gai’ wio’, or the Code of Handsome Lake. By 1802, he was a visitor to Washington, DC, along with some traditional leaders from the Seneca and Onondaga Nation. Those who study Thomas Jefferson are aware of his interest in and admiration of Handsome Lake.

You don’t have to be an Indian to appreciate the similarities between the deterioration of Handsome Lake’s culture in 1794, and that of our own, today. You can see most clearly from the margins of our society. "The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun." – Ecclesiastes 1:9 (The Preacher).


{2} "They started unzipping them. I finally came to recognize one. It was my buddy, Richard. I won’t describe what I saw. Rage and revenge set in on me. …. I continued to drink myself numb. In combat, I was relentless. I was full of rage. In fire-fights, I would never put my head down. My urge to kill was overwhelming. It was with me the rest of my time in Viet Nam. The fear I used to have had become a thrill. Killing became thrilling. I didn’t have any fear.

"As I talk about this now, I know my memories of Viet Nam will be with me forever. They will never leave. Many different feelings come back to me from time to time – it doesn’t take much to trigger them. Sometimes when I hear the rain, I think of the monsoon season, . I meditate to relieve myself of the horror, of what I experienced over there. I can’t explain the memories. Sometimes I feel as though I am still over there ….as if it’s real. Sometimes I think about how hungry or how thirsty I used to get ….what it was like to witness the carnage and death of men – our own and the enemy. The smell of death was with me for a long time." Richard Thomas; from "Wounded Warriors"; Little Turtle Publications; 1995.

Clinical psychologist Doyle Arbogast authored the book "Wounded Warriors," to show how Indian spirituality helped 17 different people recover from the damage done by our modern society. It is the story of individual healing, and more: just as Trudell’s point about a poison system needs to poison individuals, a community/society that heals requires individuals who help remove that poison. Handsome Lake did this in 1798; Richard Thomas and the others in this book do it 200 years later.

There are many poisons in our culture: the violence within families; abuse of illegal drugs and addiction to legal ones; poverty; crime; and many more. Sometimes we do not fully appreciate the fact that the "leadership" in our society is just as sick as the margins of our society. Maybe sicker.

Arbogast recognized that the healing that the individuals and communities in Indian country required wouldn’t happen as a result of some action taken in Washington, DC. In fact, it could only come in spite of the poison that comes from Washington, DC. He saw that it wasn’t coming from any one "religion," but rather from the powerful force he calls "spirituality."

For many of those individuals who have been poisoned by the toxins of modern society, it includes participating in a 12-step program. It is interesting to note that Handsome Lake formed the first "support groups" to help individuals maintain sobriety. Becoming healthy again takes place one day at a time. As an individual heals, he/she helps to heal their family and their community.

The idea of healing the ills of individuals and communities as the building-block for building a healthy nation is not the exclusive property of Indians. When we examine the programs and goals of the groups that were considered "black nationalists" in the 1960s, we find over and over attempts to pull people out of the gutter, and to exert local, community control.

Doyle Arbogast opens his book with a quote from "The Realms of Healing," by Stanley Krippner and Albert Villodo: "The spirit is returning to the Indians and is extending to young people across the country. Many of them are becoming spiritual warriors. That doesn’t mean they are going to make war. Being a spiritual warrior means becoming a complete person. It means having consideration for other people, and finding spirituality through truth and beauty."

{3} "Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightening, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door1’ "
(The New Colossus; Emma Lazarus; 1883)

When Bill Moyers interviewed Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons for PBS in the 1980s, he asked, "You’ve said on other occasions that there has to be a spiritual change if we are going to face these environmental issues. What kind of spiritual change?"

Oren responded, "We don’t preach here in this, our country. You know, we don’t proselytize. As a matter of fact, we try to protect what we have from intrusion. And yet at a meeting that was held in Hopi in 1969 when we sat there with many Indian leaders from around the country, spiritual leaders, they talked about these young people who were sitting on our doorsteps every day when we got up. They had come from all over the country, and they had come to learn something about us. And we said this is a very strange phenomenon, you know, that our white brothers’ children are coming to our doorstep, and wanting to be part of us. What do we do with this?

"So one of the Hopi elders said, ‘Well, we have a prophecy about that. It is said that there would come a time that they’re going to come and ask a direction. Maybe this is what’s happening.’ So it came under discussion by the elders, and it was agreed upon that this may be true. And if it is, then we should be more responsive to the questions. "

Moyers asked Lyons about how this could be done, and the Onondaga Chief explained that Indian society was based upon community. And that community is defined by mutual support, about sharing, and about working together to reach common goals.

Again, there is no new thing: during the mid- to late-1700s, men like Jefferson and Franklin were in frequent contact with the Iroquois nations’ leaders. They were influenced by Iroquois political philosophy. Read Franklin’s 1754 Albany Plan of Union, or the 1777 Articles of Confederation, and you see the Iroquois’ influence on the leaders of the Revolutionary War.

The "leaders" in Washington DC tend to be a lot closer to King George than they are to Franklin or Jefferson. They are not going to bring about any meaningful change in the direction this culture is headed in on their own. The few who are advocating a revolutionary change in direction, such as Al Gore, are making it clear that this can only be accomplished by changes at an individual level on the part of the average citizens.

Luther Standing Bear wrote that "it is now time for a destructive order to be reversed … The Indian can save America." The power to change the "destructive order" is within the grass-roots. It’s only going to be accomplished by starting at the community level. And it requires Wounded Warriors to take the positions of leadership.

Beyond Washington, DC

"I don’t have a degree like many of you out there before me have. But history don’t care anything about your degrees. The white man, he has filled you with fear of him ever since you were little black babies. So over you is the greatest enemy a man can have – and that is fear. I know some of you are afraid to listen to the truth – you have been raised on fear and lies. But I’m going to preach to you the truth until you are free of that fear …." –Elijah Muhammad, quoted in The Autobiography of Malcolm X; page 253.

I spoke on the telephone with my normal brother the other day. He had been a Tip O’Neill democrat when he left the East Coast in the 1970s. Much like my father’s brothers, who were FDR democrats when they left for California, my brother’s beliefs – fiscal conservative, social liberal – resulted in his becoming a registered republican. My father taught me that you do not turn on family, even when they make serious errors in judgement, and that this included when one’s brother went through a republican phase.

The Bush2 administration has largely cured my brother from the errors in thinking that made him believe the republican party offered the majority of Americans something good. But he has not returned to the democratic party. Instead, he is an independent, and votes for candidates as individuals.

He recognizes the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq as the single most important issue facing our country today. Every other important issue is, in fact, held hostage by the Iraq war, much as LBJ’s "Great Society" was hostage to Vietnam. When I asked him about the democratic candidates’ debate, he said that in his opinion, the single biggest problem is when the "front runners" dismiss what Dennis Kucinich is saying. He said that the top democrats seem to think Dennis is wrong to dare to tell the public the truth about the war. He thinks that the others want to tell some of the truth, but are afraid of the consequences of telling the whole truth.

That is the result of a combination of two things: people have been lied to for far too long, and they have become afraid of the truth. We see that fear in the cowardly actions of many of our elected "leaders." And we hear the echoes of those lies when our brothers and sisters try to rationalize that cowardice, and convince others that the democrats in congress have really played it smart and done the right thing. And all the while, we know that the Bush administration has been increasing the number of US troops, and that the violence continues to spin rapidly out of control. And the democrats’ actions that fund that can never be viewed as good if one removes the fear and the lies.

I’m not interested in debating anyone who thinks that funding the Bush madness is a stroke of genius. I am interested in discussing tactics for increasing pressure on the congress to end the war now, with the people who are interested in grass roots activism.

We need to work on a number of levels. They include public education: many people are opposed to the war, but are not convinced that their voice counts. We need to concentrate – now – on getting those people who feel alienated from the system, who feel disenfranchised from the voting booth, to register and to vote. In many ways, these people have a more accurate sense of what lies that some of the leaders from both parties tell. They aren’t afraid to say they find the system corrupt, and that they are unwilling to believe any politician who says that funding the war today will help end it tomorrow. They know that is as much a lie as saying that by buying an alcoholic a case of beer today, it will help him quit drinking tomorrow. No, we need to quit buying that drunk in the White House more beer, and we need to take the keys away from him, because he has killed too many innocent people when he drives while intoxicated.

We need to take part in organized campaigns to let the congress know that we are too that point that we were in when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said this about Vietnam: "Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."

With those lines, Martin defined the difference between thinking that is infected by lies and fear, and that brave thinking that demands truth. I am convinced that we will only bring this war to an end when we begin to make Martin a reality in our daily lives, and in our communities across this country.

Letters

"The letter-writing campaigns generated by the White House were designated to give the impression to the recipients of the letters of a broad base of support for positions advocated by President Nixon, while the letters also served as a vehicle for publicizing the Administration’s position on various matters." – The Senate Watergate Report; Chapter III: Use of the Incumbency – Responsiveness Program; page236.

All politicians understand the need to use the media to their best advantage. Politicians hire media advisers to help them during their campaigns and while serving in office. A large part of the media consultants’ jobs involve the high-profile things that we associate with the politician; in a campaign, for example, these include commercials, speeches, press releases, and the "spin" after debates. All of these are the professional attempts at "perception management."

Another type of media manipulation involves the organized effort to work behind the scenes, to create the image of public support for a politician, or the politician’s position on a specific issue. These efforts attempt to make the public support appear separate from the campaign headquarters or the politician’s office. Two examples would be individual’s support from the grass-roots level, or groups/organizations that are not affiliated with the politician/campaign.

Even a brief introduction to the art of media manipulation could be the stuff of a fun college course. If we were to conduct such a course at our internet hedge school, we might start with one of the more interesting examples that involves the Nixon administration. While we can all agree that this was a gang of criminals posed a serious threat to our Constitutional democracy, it is possible to learn some lessons of value by studying their operations.

H.R. Haldeman served as President Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff, and Assistant to the President. (All the President’s Men; Bernstein & Woodward; page 9) Jeb Stuart Magruder served first as Haldeman’a aide, and Deputy Director of White House Communications, then as the Deputy Campaign Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). (All the President’s Men; page 10) Together, they would be in charge of the media manipulation during the beginning of Nixon’s first term.

In an October 11, 1969 memo to Magruder, Haldeman wrote about the need to organize a program of "sending letters and telegrams, and making telephone calls to the senators, blasting them on their consistent opposition to the President on everything he is trying to do for the country. This program needs to be subtle and worked out well so they receive these items from their home districts as well as other points around the country." (Senate Watergate Report; Exhibit 000; page 237)

Three days later, on the bottom of a Magruder memo to Haldeman, the president’s Chief of Staff wrote, "this was an order, not a question, and I was told it was being carried out and so informed the P." The "P" is, of course, President Nixon. (ibid)

Two days later, Haldeman followed up with another memo to Magruder: "This should be reported orally – or at least in a confidential memo." (ibid) The Senate Watergate Committee identifies a number of areas that the Haldeman operation was focused on. They included attacking moderate republican senators who opposed Nixon on some issues; the three who were identified were Goodell, Percy. And Mathias. Other issues that they focused on included attempts to support Nixon’s nomination of Harold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Nixon’s speech about the attacks in Cambodia in May, 1970.

Magruder would then seek the help of Patrick Buchanan. Senate Committee Report; interview with Magruder, 10-1-72; p.1; page 237) At the time, Buchanan was an Assistant to the President, and one of Nixon’s top speech writers. (The Final Days; Bernstein & Woodward; page 9)

Also involved was Betty Nolan, who was hired by the RNC in May, 1970. Her duties included the letter-writing campaign. She reported to RNC officials, and to Magruder at the White House. (Senate Committee; interview with Nolan on 9-3 & 28 - 73, p. 3; page 237)

Originally, the letters that she wrote were "signed" by people within the operation, using false names. Nolan would claim that she couldn’t recall who suggested this. This changed under Buchanan. Nolan would write anywhere from 35 to 70 letters per week, and distribute them to people around the country to sign and mail, primarily to publications. Buchanan had found that the White House and RNC could find enough people willing to put their name to letters-to-the-editor by using "volunteers" from groups such as the Young Republicans.

Letters were sent to newspapers in general, and to some specific individuals. The operation attempted to influence Washington newspapers, and also Katherine Graham and Eric Sevareid. One of Magruder’s top aides, Ron Baukol, noted in a memorandum to Charles Colson that they viewed having two or three printed from every 30-35 sent as being successful. He noted the operation was being expanded "slowly, so the security of the program will not be breached." (Senate Committee Report; Exhibit 000; page 238)

The same Senate Committee exhibit contains a note that Gordon Liddy sent to John Mitchell on 5-15-72: "Betty Nolan hit four of the senators with 195 letters. In addition, early yesterday morning she had over 70 letters sent to the New York Times protesting its May 10 editorial" Liddy also noted all "staffers were instructed at the May 11 staff meeting to write similar letters to the Times."

Another figure playing a role in this operation was E. Howard Hunt. In his testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee, Donald Segretti told about a 5-8-72 call from Hunt, stating that Nixon was preparing to take "very decisive action in Vietnam," and that they needed to be prepared to counter the "expected reaction of the peace groups." Segretti, an attorney recruited to conduct political "dirty tricks" to sabotage the democrats in the 1972 campaign, contacted two other operatives in Florida to set up tables in public places, to have citizens sign telegrams of support to be sent to the White House. Segretti also sent two telegrams "that contained several hundred false names" to the White House; these were used to claim the President enjoyed wide support among the majority of people across the country.

These later operations often involved "citizen’s committees," which were used to manipulate the media and public perception, by making it appear that there were grass roots organizations, distinct from the administration, that supported Nixon’s policies. The Senate Watergate Committee Report has an additional section on the uses and abuses associated with these "citizen committees."

It’s interesting to note that while Patrick Buchanan was focused on having individuals send the prepared letters to newspapers, television stations, and politicians, that two figures associated with intelligence – Liddy and Hunt – focused on "front" groups. Those individuals interested in using the power of letters to influence newspapers’ editors, reporters, and readers, can find valuable lessons in the Nixon White House’s operations.

Rewarding Research

"Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research." – Malcolm X; Message to the Grass Roots; Detroit Council for Human Rights’ Northern Negro Leadership Conference; November 10, 1963

I was doing a bit of research on the Nixon White House’s tactics for manipulating the media during the 1972 presidential campaign. There are a few books that contain fascinating information on how Nixon aide Patrick Buchanan started a small operation which coordinated phone calls and "letters to the editor" in an attempt to influence how television stations and newspapers reported events.

Some of the most important information is found in The Senate Watergate Report. Chapter II is titled "Campaign Practices"; it contains large sections on the administration’s tactics between 1968 - ’71, and on the 1972 campaign. On pages 236 - 246, the report covers "Public Relations in the White House: Letter-Writing, Direct Mailing; Citizen’s Committees. In the upcoming week, I plan to write about how progressive democrats from the grass roots can learn from, and indeed use, some of the basic "tricks of the trade" that Buchanan developed.

However, I found something that I thought was worth starting with. It’s a Nixon White House tactic that I think we will see being used by the republican party in 2008. This is from the section on the 1972 campaign. Read it and see if it sounds like something we can expect:

"The political strategy of the Committee to Re-elect the President in early 1971 and 1972 was unambiguous: undercut Senator Muskie in the Democratic primaries, divide the Democratic Party so that it could not unite after the convention, and assist where possible in getting the weakest Democratic candidate nominated. The absence of a serious fight for re-nomination gave the CRP and the White House the luxury of focusing their political efforts during this period on potential Democratic opponents rather than serious primary contenders within their own party. In the meantime, the various Democratic contenders had to concentrate their own political efforts on obtaining their party’s nomination.

"The Nixon strategy was best embodied in a series of political memoranda written by speechwriter Patrick Buchanan ….. In addition, Buchanan advocated concentrating on dividing the Democrats so that they would be unable to unite for the general election. In a July 2, 1971 memo, Buchanan advised:

" ‘(We) maintain as guiding political principle that our great hope for 1972 lies in maintaining or exacerbating the deep Democratic rift between the elite, chic, New Left, intellectual avant garde, isolationist, bell-bottomed environmentalist, new priorities types on one hand – and the hard hat, Dick Daley, Holy Name Society, ethnic, blue collar, Knights of Columbus, NYPD, Queens Democrats on the other.

" ‘The liberal Democrats should be pinioned to their hippie supporters. The Humphrey Democrats should be reminded of how they were the fellows who escalated and cheered the war from its inception.’ "

I am not attempting to discourage discussion and debate within democratic circles during the primaries. In fact, I think that the socially progressive, anti-war democrats should use this season to move the party at the grass-roots level. In fact, as Minister Malcolm X used to say in his messages to the grass roots, too often the difference between a democrat and a republican made elections a choice between a fox and a wolf.

We have our work cut out for us. It is tempting, after last night’s first republican "debate," to take for granted that our candidate will win in ’08. Let’s make sure we find the correct candidate, with the most progressive platform. And let’s increase our gains in the House and Senate, and in the state houses across the country.