This article was originally published in the webzine put out by Cross Left.
In light of recent events, particularly the Bush administration’s casual brushing aside of habeas corpus, and the recent Doonesbury series on “Fear itself,” I print it again
“We are not afraid.
We are not afraid.
We are not afraid today.”
-We Shall Overcome, Fourth Verse.
In his recent personal memoir of his Second World War combat experience, Major Richard Winters identified the one quality that made him an effective leader: he never asked his men to do something he would not do himself. When Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division went into battle in Normandy or in Holland, “Dick” Winters would be at the lead, instilling courage by exhorting, “Let’s go, Let’s go; Follow me!
Major Winters knew that shared risk overcomes the paralysis of fear. His personal courage inspired those under his command to more readily put their own lives on the line–a contribution that was all too necessary to destroy the Nazi threat to the common good. But then again, true leaders in the American democratic tradition have always led by personal example.
Perseverance in times of peril has always required an appeal to our common heritage of intrepidness. Conquering nameless terrors is not achieved by delegating risk to others, but by being at the forefront of hazardous advance. Richard Winters as well as many of his New Deal-Second World War generation–the heart and soul of the last golden age of America Liberalism, one that spanned from 1932 to 1968–had the fortitude to lead by example in spades.
It is no accident that courage is also found at the very heart of a consistent Liberalism. Those who achieve progress constantly place their own personal safety in jeopardy for their beliefs. This was true of our Founding Fathers who suffered at Valley Forge during the American Revolution; the abolitionists who were shunned while they advocated an end to slavery; the suffragettes who were jailed and force-fed while seeking the vote; and Civil Rights workers who were beaten at Birmingham.
Yet in recent years, courage has become a forgotten Liberal theme. Such amnesia has led our nation directly down a path to this present day where an inept administration rules out of a sense of fear. In fighting the war on terrorism President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Karl Rove and others do not appeal to American courage, but draw upon its very antithesis to maintain power.
Instead of a President of the People, we are left with “a unitary Executive” who more and more resembles Leo Strauss’s idealized “benign tyrant.” Such undemocratic leadership demands compliance and timidity, not freedom and boldness. To that end, the president’s associates purposely inspire fearfulness as the means of creating the need for a strongman who will create an illusion of security while leaving certain threats unattended.
“Surrender all reasonable notions of privacy,” they suggest as they still fail to do the obvious; inspect cargo coming into our ports.
“Telephone calls must be monitored, even if there is no reasonable suspicion present,” they proclaim after they fecklessly allowed Osama bin-Laden to escape into the Pakistani mountains.
“In order to foil the terrorists, we demand information from Internet service providers without judicial oversight,” they bellow. Yet they fail to even threaten to regulate the quality of off-the-shelf Microsoft products that secure dams, power grids and air traffic control systems–After all, these irresponsible actors who now occupy the White House find it less important to protect infrastructure than it is to please a significant Bush campaign contributor such as Bill Gates.
In short, the majority power increasingly asks the American people to surrender liberties without first doing the obvious. Common sense measure are ignored or overlooked. It is as if they have concluded that there is no need to resort to the most basic measures of security–which often require little or no surrender of basic freedoms–when liberties often purchased with the blood of American patriots can be exchanged for the false notion of security. Ironically it is the very thing conservatism used to fear: Caesarism.
Surely there exists a threat from terrorist elements, but this is not how the Americans have traditionally reacted to such enemies. We never ran and hid behind a strongman but instead we reacted intelligently and as a self-sufficient people, led by those who fully understood our fierce independence. When Americans act heroically they are not ignorant of fear, but instead recognize its hazard and persevere in spite of its presence.
The philosophy of the current leadership is further reinforced by the personal cowardice and hypocrisy of its members.
Those who flippantly advocate pre-emptive invasions are not made of the same unselfish moral fiber as those men who boarded C-47s to be dropped into the early, still dark Norman morning of June 6, 1944. Men such as Douglas Feith, “Scooter” Libby, Richard Perle or Vice-President Cheney are not even half as honorable as the men who froze for liberty at Valley Forge, repelled treason at Little Round Top or stormed the violent beaches of Iwo Jima. Who among them chose to put aside their personal pursuits and travel to Mississippi in 1964 to bring democracy to their own fellow disenfranchised citizens? There is not one Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner or James Chaney among them. And just as they supported the Vietnam conflict from the sidelines, they dare not send their own children to fight an ill-chosen battle in the war on terrorism that is Iraq.
It is not difficult to understand how different these radical neoconservatives are from a more consistent leadership of an earlier time. During the Second World War, when Joseph Kennedy Jr.’s plane exploded on its way to attack Nazi V-2 bases, flying in the plane next to him on the same dangerous mission was the President Roosevelt’s son, Elliot. When a nation’s leadership detaches itself from the privations suffered by its people, it ceases acting as a liberal democracy.
We as Liberals need to begin undoing this exaggerated climate of fear. It is time to return to the simple wisdom of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural address. Our thirty-third president’s words will remind Americans how our philosophy once appealed directly to this inner steel that exists in all of us. His constant appeal to our common courage overcame economic depression, crushed authoritarian regimes and put our nation on a philosophical path that eventually toppled many of its own racist institutions.
The ability to inspire courage is a prima facie element of leadership. Liberalism has always maintained a legacy of eloquent leaders who successfully challenged the American people to do magnificent things. And they did so by simply using language that reminded them of this common heritage of transcending fear. Liberalism still offers that message to our fellow citizens, but the ability to inspire–and to quickly translate that inspiration into confident action–often depends upon the tone of the message itself.
If American Liberalism is again to flourish, rediscovering the very tone and language that done so much to inspire and motivate is a necessary first step. Since 1968 the mainstream Left has too often has been perceived in terms of what cannot be done. Our philosophy has become more reactive than proactive. Liberalism is a belief in the possibilities of what can and must be done–even at the cost of personal risk.
True Liberalism appeals to reason, not unrestrained emotion. Still, a certain amount of emotion is necessary for progressive action. Effective Liberal action is the condition of the heart and mind working as one.
Nothing should prevent us from appealing to the American attribute of courage. Much like Liberalism, true courage is built upon self-discipline and restraint of self-interest. It is a simple question of balancing the heart with the mind. In achieving this critical balance, the mainstream Left will once again prevail in the national discourse. Now, with our country domestically facing plutocracy, and multiple security crises internationally, we cannot afford to ignore the forgotten inner strength of the liberal platform.
Yes, displaying courage is a form of mental toughness. But there is nothing wrong with strength that suffers from no corruption. As Reinhold Niebuhr observed towards the end of the Second World War, “The preservation of a democratic civilization requires the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. The children of light must be armed with the wisdom of the children of darkness but remain free from their malice. They must know the power of self-interest in human society without giving it moral justification. They must have this wisdom in order that they may beguile, deflect, harness and restrain self-interest, individual and collective, for the sake of the community.”
For more than thirty-five years there has been virtually no talk of bold challenge from either side. But, there was once a time when the Liberal’s voice was the creative voice of exciting, bold ideas. It was the voice that spoke against economic royalty, defeated fascism, conquered Jim Crow and landed a man on the Moon. The time has now come for Liberals to again dream of doing the impossible and of soaring to new heights. We must again talk about converting “retreat into advance;” we must remind each other “…that we can not merely take but we must give as well;” all while appealing to the “….great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.” And that is why we must look back at FDR’s 1933 inaugural message to rediscover how to deliver our good message. It is no accident that this one speech marked the beginning of an age of Liberal ascendancy that was book-ended by similar call for boldness by Robert F. Kennedy who observed and declared, “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.”
We must now return to that way of thinking. And we must do so because Liberalism is the very essence of courage, the true tone of leadership. Courage as a Liberal truth is the ability to overcome the fear of seeking change necessary for improvement.
