The reading that we’ve done on the Catonsville Nine and the Chicago Eight has been insightful on the social climate of America at the time. Getting these personal stories on the actions these people took has been helpful in understanding what motivated the radicals at the time. This also ties well with the radicalism seen in Ireland. People were willing to do extreme things or commit violence in order to make a statement or stance against oppression. In Ireland, it was The Troubles, and in America it was the racial tension and war in Vietnam. In the case of the Catonsville Nine the people didn’t want to do violent or radical things, but felt as though they had no other choice in order to grab the attention of the system that was killing people through the draft. The act was done on the basis that the war was unjust and was resulting in needless killing. In a corrupt system, these people believed that breaking the rules became acceptable, if used to strive towards a more beneficial system. It can be argued that even those who committed violence believed the same, but simply lacked even more hope. Desperation causes fight or flight tendencies. There’s no doubt that people in 1968-69 were desperate.
4 Replies to “Insight on The Climate”
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I agree with you that these people were so desperate that they felt they needed the change right then, but I think it is more than that. I think fear plays a big part in how people approach a corrupt system. Fear makes people stray to desperate decisions because they are scared of what will happen. I agree with your idea that those who fight the corrupt system with violence do it because of their loss of hope, but also because of their fear. Fear fuels desperation and that what leads people to make the necessary decisions for change.
I certainly agree with you that desperate is a good way to describe the actions and words of many of the radical leaders we see you from 1968 1969. This is an idea that we have discussed all semester; how can someone insight change in a system that they believe to be truly corrupt from the core. Many attempts at civilized reforms were met with violence and extreme discipline from the government and police. Prominent figures who were pushing for change were being killed, like MLK and Robert Kennedy. It is easy to understand why things escalated to the way that they did. People had no other choice but to deny the system entirely and I believe that is why we see such a unique rhetoric being used from the radical leaders of the time. People were tired of any legitimate attempt to reform being shot down and that is why they resorted to such extreme displays and that is why we see the literature of the time being the way that it is. Much of it is reflective of the frustrated efforts from many of the leaders we see from this time. With this, it is important understand that not everyone was a radical leader. There were many people who were content with staying out of politics, but these radical leaders were the ones who were putting themselves in the spotlight for the nation to see, which is why we remember them so well.
I agree with Briana that what the Catonsville Nine did was radical in its appearance and performance; however, I would like to point out that in the original post the writer mentions that, although the actions were radical, the individuals felt pressured to that point by society. It is as if the Catonsville Nine had reached a threshold and felt that they had no other choice. The “fight or flight” tendency caused by desperation also mentioned in this post piqued my interest. I began to wonder if that is why there are so many “moderates” or individuals who were not radical in any way and didn’t “want to get involved” in the protests for fear of violence or shame being brought upon them. I would consider that type of behavior to be “flight”, and I believe that the number of those individuals far outweighs the radical fighters, which shows another layer of the desperation that was felt by the country at this time.
I disagree with your statement that the actors in the Trial of the Catonsville Nine did not want to do anything radical. They indeed did not want to do anything violent and felt that they needed to break the law to get the attention of the government because peaceful protests were not working. However, they were nine Christian anti-war activists; their whole persona was being radical. Unlike the actors in the Voices of the Chicago Eight, they did not physically appear radical, but their actions showed it. The protest of specifically pouring napalm and lighting draft records on fire during the middle of the day, and waiting to be arrested shows this. They were not afraid of the government and were willing to sacrifice years of their life in jail if their protest was impactful. They hoped that they would be able to convince the jury to not convict them of their crime if they were able to explain their protest and the corruption they saw in the government. Even more radical was Tom Lewis and Phillip Berrigan for pouring their own blood over draft records to destroy them. While waiting to be put on trial for that protest in Baltimore, they engaged in the protest in Catonsville. I think the actors in the Voices of the Chicago Eight and the Trial of Catonsville Nine are viewed as radical because they were openly defying the government. The United States after WW2 was seen as a hegemon in great power politics; the American people were supposed to be proud of their government and stand as a united people after helping to defeat Nazi Germany. So the fact that people were openly protesting the actions of the American government overseas was new.