SELMA AND VIETNAM
By Joseph Hansen
President Johnson's frantic efforts to assure the American people that he intends to do something -- but really do something -to guarantee the right of the Negro people to participate in elec= tions in the United States is a sign of a deep shift in public opinion, one which the high command of the Democratic party judges to be politically dangerous.
The first reaction of the White House to the atrecities in Selma, Alabama, was the usual routine response. On March 8, the day after the Alabama state troopers had used clubs, whips, tear gas and horses against peaceful Negro demonstrators committed to the "nonviolent"Ghandist philosophy of their leader,. the Rev. Martin Luther
King, the Justice Department said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] was interviewing marchers to "gather evidence that - might indicate use of unnecessary force by local law-enforcement officers and others."
Four days later, as the terror continued in Selma and the skull of the Boston clergyman, Rev. James Reeb, was smashed in by a club-wielding racist, Johnson was hinting that he had federal troops standing by in Alabama. —
On March 15, he went to the extraordinary length of addressing. a joint session of Congress to ask for effective legislation -but really effective this time -- against discrimination in registration and voting. The address was timed before the television cameras at prime evening time and carried by ali three networks,
As Tom Wicker, special correspondent of the New York Times put. it: ‘Mr. Johnson! s televised speech represented a sharp escalation in his efforts to achieve voting rights legislation and. to cope with the explosive situation centering on Selma, Ala."
The usual pattern is that when domestic turmoil rises dangerously, a foreign adventure, even going so far as a war, is deliberately cooked up to divert attention and to close the dangerously widening gap between the classes. In this case, a flare-up in domestic social unrest tended to divert attention away froma foreign adventure that risks a nuclear holocaust. The White House had no choice but to offer a sizeable concession to public sentiment. At the same time, however, Johnson. again escalated the war in Vietnam, sending a bombing mission to within a hundred miles of Hanoi on the same day as his congressional address,
There are many lessons to be drawn from the Selma events and their repercussions. A minor one was the death of the Rev. James Reeb. This was mourned, and properly so, throughout the United States except among the racists. The alert Johnson even picked up a telephone to offer his condolences to the widow.
But only sixteen days before the white minister and two of his associates were clubbed down by five white racists, Malcolm X was assassinated in New York. His foes said the ultimate cause of the murder of Malcolm X was his advocating self-defense against. the force and violence of the racists, Where were the editorial homilies on how the nonviolent philosophy of the Rev. Reeb brought on his own doom?
But the most important thing to note is the swift and deepgoing nation-wide reaction to the police terror in Selma. Sentiment rose so high that clergymen everywhere were threatening to mobilize. Demonstrations flared from coast to coast. Advocates of nonviolence like James Farmer began talking the forbidden langhage of effective self-defense, The spirit .of Malcolm X seemed to be striding across
the United States,
What were the causes of all this?
First of all, Johnson's “escalation of the war in Vietnam is deeply unpopular. The American people gave Johnson an unprecedented majority precisely because they were afraid of the policies advocated by Goldwater and because Johnson attacked Goldwater ori his "trigger happy" propensities.
Immediately after winning office, Johnson disposed of his promises as so much campaign literature, precisely as the candidates of the Socialist Workers party had predicted.
. But by breaking his promises so abruptly and without so much as offering a sentence of explanation, Johnson alienated those who had voted for him as the "lesser evil." He at once appeared to them for what he really is -- the trigger~happy twin of Goldwater,
The Selma events came immediately on top.of Johnson's broken promises about not extending the war. The main impact of this was on the 22,000,000 Negro people and their allies. In the election, the Negroes permitted to vote had cast ninety-seven per cent of their ballots in favor of Johnson. They were voting against Goldwater's evident friendship with. the racists. They took Johnson as the “lesser evil,"
In Selma, they saw the continuation and even worsening of the old shape of things. When the first reaction of the White House was to do nothing, to only talk, to try to gain time, to mumble about more "laws," the blacks saw Johnson for what he really is -- the racist-minded twin of Goldwater, just a "Southern cracker," as Malcolm X described the Texas politician.
Thus the combination of the "escalation" in Vietnam and the police terror stirred the American people as they have not been stirred for a long time. In Selma they caught a glimpse of the way America looks to the rest of the world, Is this the "democracy" of the boasted main defender of the "free world"? Is this what Johnson is exporting. to South Vietnam? Is this what Johnson is offering to North Vietnam?
Johnson is. now moving wildly to save his "lesser evil" image, to dissociate himself from the image of Selma. It remains to be seen if it is not too little and too late,
For the rest of the world, a certain lesson is to be learned from the anger of the American people over the policies of their rulers. Too often the United States is viewed as an unbroken and most depressing scene of political backwardness, political stupidity and insensitivity to the rest of humanity. The American imperialists seem to be able to get away with anything. This is not an accurate
picture,
There are forces in the United States that do want peace, that do want democracy, that do want friendship with other countries and who feel solidarity with all the humble of other lands. The outburst of feeling in America is an expression of these forces. They constitute potentially the most powerful obstacle to the reactionary policies of America's rulers both at home and abroad.
TORONTO STUDENTS