The Try-Works

And good riddance.

From the Denver Post:

Activists who plan to protest at the Democratic National Convention this summer are splitting with the umbrella organization, Re-create 68, because of concerns over its rhetoric and tactics.

The new coalition, called Alliance for Real Democracy, is a network of local and national groups, including Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, the American Friends Service Committee, the Green Party of Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Colorado Street Medics, and Students for Peace and Justice.

“We’ve separated ourselves; we’re not part of Re-create 68,” said Claire Ryder, chairwoman of the Denver Green Party.

Ryder said many activists had attended Re-create 68 meetings and were not comfortable with its organizational techniques.

Nevertheless, she said, “This has all been very difficult because a lot of them are our friends. We’ve worked together on a lot of other issues over time.”

Glenn Spagnuolo, an organizer with Re-create 68, said he doesn’t mind the new structure.

“More power to them,” he said.

Spagnuolo characterizes the groups that are splitting with his as liberal Democrats who are largely white and middle-to-upper class and want their party to guide the country out of the war in Iraq.

He described Re-create 68 as representing minorities, anarchists, communists, socialists and “radicals” who don’t support Democrats or Republicans.

Both his organization and the Alliance oppose the war, he said, and neither one advocates violence.

However, the statement of nonviolent principles listed on the Re-create 68 website includes the right to self-defense, which has raised questions within the moderate flank of the local activist community.

Adam Jung, a University of Denver student who represents Tent State University, which pulled out of Re-create 68 in May, said he doesn’t think Re-create 68 is planning violence. But he expressed concerns about Spagnuolo’s insistence that he would resist police.

“This isn’t like Cuba or the Revolutionary War,” Jung said. “If attacked by a police officer, I wouldn’t respond violently. I’m going to comply.”

The rest.

I answered this moronic line of reasoning in the comments to the article:

Re-create 68’s statement of non-violence doesn’t require anyone to defend themselves, it only refuses to deny people that right. As Re-create 68 has made clear, there will be folks marching with their children and elders, and they have every right to defend them. As even Martin Luther King Jr. put it, “the principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.”

If Ms. Ryder and Mr. Jung are content to stand by while someone beats them into a puddle, more power to ‘em. But I’m guessing there’s less moral purity in it than slavish devotion to the state, even when representatives of it are violating their Constitutional rights. And, of course, there’s no moral purity at all in refusing to defend children and elders. That’s just cowardice.

Mr. Jung’s position is insupportably stupid. His position ain’t pacifism, it’s bootlicking toadyism. As I’ve been saying over and over again, not even Martin Luther King Jr. bought this line. Hell, even as, shall we say, little versed in the study of history as Mr. Jung seems to be, I doubt he buys it.

It’s fucking asinine, it’s fucking cowardly, and it’s the worst kind of assumption of class and racial privilege. Mr. Jung and Ms. Ryder are content to pawn off their right to self-defense precisely because they’ve never been in a position where they’ve had to exercise it.

Which, I’m guessing, is probably why one meets a hell of a lot more of Mr. Jung’s ilk in Santa Monica than on Pine Ridge.

Update: Obscenely stupid image from the obscenely stupid Metro Denver Greens blog.

Update II: White and upper middle class you say?

Update III: Mr. Spagnuolo left this in the comments over at John Martin’s place.

Just thought I would let you know that Code Pink and the Colorado Street Medics, the only two groups out of the bunch that are working with us and over 100 other groups, have contacted the Post and asked for a retraction. They have not “split”.

Adam Jung’s a fucking liar. Somebody had to say it.

Update IV: Adam Jung has chimed in over at John Martin’s place with some questions for Glenn Spagnuolo. It’s almost too good to be true.

Glenn, are you familiar with the story ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’? You are kind of like Nikabrik the dwarf in that story, and groups like Unconventional Action and RAIMD are like the hag and werewolf that he tries to bring into Caspian’s group.

Funny, I always pictured Mr. Spagnuolo as a rebellious spice smuggler with a Wookie sidekick drafted into overthrowing the evil Empire. Or, maybe, an intrepid hobbit, driven to the ends of the Earth by the need to destroy a great and gathering evil. Or, maybe, a boy wizard wrestling with his dark and secret past. Or, maybe . . . oh fuck it, you’re an idiot, Mr. Jung.

Seriously, maybe you’d do a little better at trying to frame a coherent argument if you tried on a book or two that, like, big girls and boys read.

Update V:  Adam Jung has emailed me several times insisting he is not responsible for the comment quoted in Update IV.  There ain’t no reason not to believe him, at least on that score.  My apologies, Mr. Jung.  For that, and no more.