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civil disobedience
From Vietnam to Today: Lessons in Resistance for the Trump Era
More than ever before, Americans of conscience are being forced to answer the question: What does it mean to be a responsible citizen?
Apr 06, 2025
The return of Donald Trump to the presidency is revealing itself to be a time of significant national division and turmoil. He is pursuing policies that reflect international bellicosity and a frightening dedication to xenophobia, misogyny, and intolerance. I take him seriously when he promises retribution and punishment of his “enemies.”
More than ever before, Americans of conscience are being forced to answer the question: What does it mean to be a responsible citizen?
Throughout our national history, Americans have had to come to grips with national leaders bent on suppressing dissent, punishing those who disagree, and harnessing the power of government to enact legislation designed to restrict freedom and diminish equality. Citizens who find the moral courage to dissent, must ask themselves about the cost—professional, social, or personal—they are willing to pay. We know from bitter experience that silence in the face of evil aids the oppressor and neutrality often disguises indifference.
I had to redefine manhood, patriotism, duty, obligation, courage, honor—even when my definitions were bound to run up against opposition.
At its core, moral courage is the ability to stand up against wrong. Bayard Rustin said that moral courage happens when we speak truth to power, when we directly confront wrong, aware that our decision may result in harm to our personal well-being. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exhorted us to act with principle. He said that the time is always right to do right. And Susan B. Anthony comforted those who felt that the fight may be endless: “Failure is impossible.”
Quiet moral courage may be invisible to many, unnoticed by louder voices, stridently demanding a stage for their protest. Moral courage does not belong exclusively to those with advanced degrees. As Bob Dylan noted, “You don’t need to be a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows.” At its best, moral courage is an act of selfless love.. a caring for community and an affirmation of the possibilities of a kinder, more compassionate world.
In my recently published memoir, 90: A Conscientious Objector’s Journey of Quiet Resistance, I try to describe how the moral courage I expressed personally ricocheted in larger arenas. Some 50 years ago, I had to face the prospect of fighting in a war I felt was morally repugnant. Resistance to a terribly misguided national policy meant alienating family members and facing the fact that refusing military service would be disgraceful to my recently deceased, beloved father. Then, as now, our nation was in a state of upheaval; the dislocations of the Vietnam War swirled in the tumultuous eddies of the civil rights movement and the emergence of a rebellious counterculture.
I was only 20 when the United States introduced a lottery to determine who would be called to don the uniform of our military. I drew 90, a number that placed me squarely in the crosshairs of being drafted. Naïve, traumatized by the recent death of my father, and idealistic, I made the decision to resist the war as a conscientious objector. I had little hope of gaining this status, as I didn’t belong to a religious sect that opposed all war and my draft board was in San Diego, California—a notoriously conservative, pro-war city. More and more, I became convinced that I would go to jail if the board rejected my application. This terrified me, despite knowing that scores of brave Americans have chosen prison as a means of expressing dissent.
Where did I find the moral courage to join some 170,000 other men who filed for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam era? I remembered my soft-spoken father whose example told me to never back down when faced with issues of right or wrong. I recalled my grandmother Rose, who fled czarist persecution to find meaning in an America that would welcome all comers, especially the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I sat in awe-struck admiration of the men, women, and children of the civil rights movement who sacrificed even their lives for the ideals that America ought to represent.
I had to redefine manhood, patriotism, duty, obligation, courage, honor—even when my definitions were bound to run up against opposition. Somehow, I had to summon the strength to follow Henry David Thoreau’s model when he stopped paying taxes and was thrown in jail to protest slavery and an immoral, expansionist war that would expand that evil. He demanded, well over a century and a half ago, “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.”
I became a CO and learned to live with the consequences of that act of quiet resistance. For two years, in lieu of serving in the military, I worked as a laboratory glassware washer at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital.
My decision to protest an unjust war derailed my dreams of a career in the law but opened my eyes to other possibilities for honoring my need to serve America.
More importantly, the most crucial lesson I learned was that a good American needs to obey the dictates of conscience rather than blindly follow the demands of their government.
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Millions March Against Trump-Musk in Nationwide 'Hands Off' Protests
"They're dismantling our country. They're looting our government. And they think we'll just watch."
Apr 05, 2025
In communities across the United States and also overseas, coordinated "Hands Off" protests are taking place far and wide Saturday in the largest public rebuke yet to President Donald Trump and top henchman Elon Musk's assault on the workings of the federal government and their program of economic sabotage that is sacrificing the needs of working families to authoritarianism and the greed of right-wing oligarchs.
Indivisible, one of the key organizing groups behind the day's protests, said millions participated in more than 1,300 individual rallies as they demanded "an end to Trump's authoritarian power grab" and condemning all those aiding and abetting it.
"We expected hundreds of thousands. But at virtually every single event, the crowds eclipsed our estimates," the group said in a statement Saturday evening.
"Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
"This is the largest day of protest since Trump retook office," the group added. "And in many small towns and cities, activists are reporting the biggest protests their communities have ever seen as everyday people send a clear, unmistakable message to Trump and Musk: Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
According to the organizers' call to action:
They're dismantling our country. They’re looting our government. And they think we'll just watch.
On Saturday, April 5th, we rise up with one demand: Hands Off!
This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way. They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam.
They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don't fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.
The more than 1,300 "Hands Off!" demonstrations—organized by a large coalition of unions, progressive advocacy groups, and pro-democracy watchdogs—first kicked off Saturday in Europe, followed by East Coast communities in the U.S., and continued throughout the day at various times, depending on location. See here for a list of scheduled "Hands Off" events.
"The United States has a president, not a king," said the progressive advocacy group People's Action, one of the group's involved in the actions, in an email to supporters Saturday morning just as protest events kicked off in hundreds of cities and communities. "Donald Trump has, by every measure, been working to make himself a king. He has become unanswerable to the courts, Congress, and the American people."
In its Saturday evening statement, Indivisible said the actions far exceeded their expectations and should be seen as a turning point in the battle to stop Trump and his minions:
The Trump administration has spent its first 75 days in office trying to overwhelm us, to make us feel powerless, so that we will fall in line, accept the ransacking of our government, the raiding of our social safety net, and the dismantling of our democracy.
And too often, the response from our leaders and those in positions to resist has been abject cowardice. Compliance. Obeying in advance.
But not today. Today we've demonstrated a different path forward. We've modeled the courage and action that we want to see from our leaders, and showed all those who've been standing on the sidelines who share our values that they are not alone.
Citing the Republican president's thirst for "power and greed," People's Action earlier explained why organized pressure must be built and sustained against the administration, especially at the conclusion of a week in which the global economy was spun into disarray by Trump's tariff announcement, his attack on the rule of law continued, and the twice-elected president admitted he was "not joking" about the possibility of seeking a third term, which is barred by the constitution.
"He is destroying the economy with tariffs in order to pay for the tax cuts he wants to push through to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies," warned People's Action. "He has ordered the government to round up innocent people off of the streets and put them in detention centers without due process because they dared to speak out using their First Amendment rights. And he is not close to being done—by his own admission, he is planning to run for a third term, which the Constitution does not allow."
Live stream of Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C.:
Below are photo or video dispatches from demonstrations around the world on Saturday. Check back for updates...
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Belgium:
Massachusetts:
Maine:
Washington, D.C.:
New York:
Minnesota:
Michigan:
Ohio:
Colorado:
Pennsylvania:
North Carolina:
The protest organizers warn that what Trump and Musk are up to "is not just corruption" and "not just mismanagement," but something far more sinister.
"This is a hostile takeover," they said, but vowed to fight back. "This is the moment where we say NO. No more looting, no more stealing, no more billionaires raiding our government while working people struggle to survive."
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Even When You Are Weary, Fight On
Since the strategy of Trump and his right-wing minions is to wear us down and out, keep our heads spinning, and make us feel powerless in the face of this onslaught of cruelty and greed—our duty is clear. We stay focused. We organize. We march on.
Apr 05, 2025
The presidential announcements and outrage come at us so viciously fast that it is difficult to keep up with the latest assault on governance, our intellect, decency, or humanity.
Much of the perceived chaos is planned and judiciously meted out to keep our heads spinning leaving little time or energy to respond to anything before something new intrudes the space. Their goal is to produce as much confusion and chaos as possible so the public will struggle to keep up and lose the ability to pay close and constant attention to the important things of democratic and constitutional order. Our national setting has become a mixture of reality TV with the sensationalism of that genre, where mean-spirited sound bites emanate from those in power who smirkingly stare into the cameras knowingly creating the next news cycle. There is a racist, hate-filled, untruthful, and vindictive blanket covering this government and suffocating the country under its weight. We have never seen anything like this before.
There has been one attack followed by another. The announcement of tariffs has sent financial markets into a tailspin. Those who are reliant upon 401K plans and the likes are feeling anxious wondering how fall the markets will fall, and how deep it will cut into their retirement. Consumers already worried about the costs of everyday living are frightened by the possible consequences of this latest announcement.
Sparks begin to fly when we become angry, frightened, and distressed enough to stretch beyond ourselves and touch the mysterious fires that power movements that will save us and our loved ones.
Meanwhile, we are continuing to reel from the attacks on federal employees, the Department of Education, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, the Courts and law firms, media, colleges and universities, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and The Smithsonian Museums (particularly The National Museum of African American History and Culture). Each have fallen under the axe of DOGE or the accusation of promoting "Woke" ideology.
Immigrants have been a favorite target of this administration. The undocumented have been hounded, hunted, arrested, and transported to prisons in El Salvador and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which are known for human rights violations. But the long authoritarian arm of government is not only extended to the undocumented, but also against scholars and students legally here. We were shocked when Mahmoud Khalil was kidnapped. He was a graduate student at Columbia University and had been a spokesperson during that school's 'stop the genocide' demonstrations.
Rumeysa Oztur was recently picked up by plain-clothed goons and transported to Louisiana while on her way to an Iftar near Tufts University in Massachusetts. She is a doctorate student and, like Khalil, legally in the country. Each is apparently guilty of decrying the genocide in Gaza and indicting the white supremacy of Zionism for those atrocities. These two names have been widely reported, but we should not assume that these are the only names. These arrests however signal a First Amendment crisis where it appears that anyone can be criminalized for supporting Palestinian rights. My fear is that these seem to be a trial runs that start with those with the undocumented, then moves on to those with vulnerable legal status, and finally is used against citizens who express points of views critical of and unsanctioned by the government. Where does the creep towards totalitarianism end?
If you are not already weary from the list of head spinning encroachments on democratic order, there is much more to add to the list of insults. There is the re-installation of Confederate statues, renaming bodies of water and land to fit an imperialistic paradigm, and the removal of photographs and references to Black people and women, and any image or phrase that speaks to diversity, inclusion, or equity. Even the word "Gay" emblazoned on the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, the Enola Gay, came under attack. There are no-so-funny teases about the annexation of Canada, Greenland, and taking back the Panama Canal that adds to the dizziness of any day. In Washington, D.C., the city government was ordered to dismantle "Black Lives Matter" plaza that was erected during the George Floyd unrest and after first-term Trump held a bible up in front of a church after the crowds had been tear-gassed and attacked by police and military.
The callous war criminality of this administration in collaboration with other war criminals have quipped about removing the population from Gaza and turning the devastation produced by that illegal war into a coastal resort. And now there is the insinuation that Trump may try to extend his time in office.
Some of the news and reports from this government are real and some are not. It is difficult to tell what is real from what is not. But one thing we understand with these demagogues and anti-democratic criminals in office or serving the government is that we need to take everything as real. We have discovered that there is nothing beyond the pale for these gangsters let loose on the world stage.
Since the strategy is to wear us down and out, keep our heads spinning, and make us feel powerless in the face of these avalanches of rumors, innuendoes, and news means simply that we cannot lose our focus, let ourselves become weary or tired, or stop paying attention. We must pay attention to all the mess, all the rumors, and all the insanity coming from this group of White Supremacists, Zionists, and Christian Nationalists.
The plan of this government is to change the discussion daily, create a new issue, a new controversy, and orchestrate a new debate to fill the media's bandwidth. It is their way of moving things in and out of the public scrutiny so fast that you can't deal with one thing before the next thing comes along.
But no matter what they do or say Palestinians are still struggling and dying every day. Israel is still bombing Gaza, Lebanon, and Israeli settlers are still attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. The U.S. is still bombing Yemen and Syria. Children are still being exploited for their labor in the mineral pits of Africa. Federal workers still have been fired or are in danger of losing their jobs. And we the people are still trying to remain plugged in and aware of what is going on at home and around the world. But we need to do more than being aware.
We need to find ways from the reserves of our strength to do what we can to hold up and onto the light, bring the hope, and maintain a very vocal and very loud demand for justice. We need to remind ourselves that we need to keep our focus and watch over everything and continue to stand, march, demonstrate and confront the wrongs that abound with a strength drawn deep from the reservoirs of our being.
Yes, we are weary, tired, and frightened. Yet in times like these when our lives or the lives of loved ones are endangered people have been known to find a Herculean strength that has lifted cars, fought bears, and turned ordinary strength into incredible power.
We have the surprising ability to reach beyond ourselves to muster the strength and power in moments of fear and great distress. We know the histories of the many movements that produced extraordinary results, brought down mighty systems, freed people, and changed the outcomes of the human story. The movements of labor, civil rights, climate change, LGBTQIA, and every other movement was sparked by a faint flicker in vast darkness when the heaviness of the moment felt unbearable, frightening, and too threatening.
When a new outrage, the proverbial final straw of insults and injury is thrust upon us that is when the small amber of resistance begins to spread into the great fires of change. Sparks begin to fly when we become angry, frightened, and distressed enough to stretch beyond ourselves and touch the mysterious fires that power movements that will save us and our loved ones.
We are in those moments now and may the sparks that ignite the flames of hopefulness and light drive out the heaviness and darkness and grow into something large and fierce enough to save us from this madness.
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