By Sylvia Yoneda – Country Activist, October 1990
Editors:
I am responding to Paul Encimer’s letter of September, which you titled “Beyond Dialogue”. In it he articulates one of the points of contention between different factions involved in the Redwood Summer rallies and actions, namely dialogue vs. symbolic action. As a member of the Fort Bragg community I feel moved to shed a few rays of light from the inside, and perhaps remove some of the divisions between activists and their strategies.
Encimer dismisses the possibility of communication occurring among divergent sectors of a community, preferring civil disobedience which would have resulted in a political “show” trial. To what end? His ability to inform the public about the high ideals which brought him (and about 80 others) to the Fort Bragg July 21st rally to commit civil disobedience (CD) and be arrested. If CD had been the chosen action on the 21st, there could have been blood in the streets. The Yellow Shirts were prepared to physically attack any action they perceived as “hippie” or “radical” in content. Dialogue turned the tables on them, “put the ball in their court,” creating cracks in the previously solid front of so-called “Solidarity”. The Yellow Shirts’ vulgar behavior—especially when viewed on local TV’s that evening—shocked previous Yellow Shirts who spoke out on local call-in talk shows, in clubs and in public against those who embarrassed their own community with their excessive behavior. Upon inquiry, it was learned that the most obscene participants in the Yellow Shirt display at Redwood and Main Streets were not loggers at all. Although some of their fathers are loggers, most of them were drinking, and unemployed. At least one of them is known as a local drug dealer. They saw an opportunity to act out their own social alienation toward others whom they thought it “acceptable” to treat as social lepers. Local police described them as “troublemakers”.
What was the point of the dialogue? To exchange points of view, to break through the “redwood wall” which has been erected by those whose interests are served by preventing the environmentalists and loggers from recognizing their shared concerns (probably 80%) and acting on them. Anyone who would insist that this is impossible, does not believe in democracy. Having your “day in court” is another aspect of our democratic system which should also be guarded and utilized judiciously. But why would anyone insist on symbolic action when it is possible to achieve real substantive results—even if outsiders cannot see them immediately? That is why the organizers were locals, and why such a decision as to whether or not to go forward with symbolic actions should never be imposed by others from the outside who do not know the inside story…so what was the point? What was actually accomplished? Symbolic action is a start, but is no substitute for reality.