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More Power Than We Know: The People's Movement toward Democracy
Political Studies, Social Studies
Paperback
First published March 1, 1975
40 people want to read
About the author
David T. Dellinger
8 books13 followersBorn in Massachusetts, son of a prominent lawyer. Educated at Yale, Oxford, and Union Theological Seminary. Imprisoned during World War II for draft refusal, David Dellinger became the leader of the American peace movement during the Vietnam war. One of the Chicago 8 defendants arrested for nonviolent protest at the 1968 Democratic convention. Publisher of Liberation Magazine and other influential journals of progressive thought. Died in Vermont.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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February 12, 2013easily the most clear spoken powerful pacifist activist i've ever encountered. so fucking good. read it.
August 21, 2016
I'm reading Dave Dellinger's "More Power Than We Know: The people's movement toward democracy" and it is really good. I've heard of Mr. Dellinger from the anti-war movement of the 60s and 70s but I've never read anything by him. In this book he focuses on the anti-war movement, the revolutionary moment, and a few chapters on the Chicago 7 trial. Here's a gem (his book is littered with them) that applies today:
"Logically enough, the shattering of human solidarity by tokenizing political participation and compartmentalizing responsibility to which the [Chicago 7] defendants had objected in the convention protests, was brought into the courtroom to make it easier for the jurors to convict them without feeling responsible for the punishment that would automatically follow. Like the 120,000 'good Americans' who worked for two years manufacturing the first nuclear bomb without being told what they were making, the jury was ordered to do its work without knowledge of its effects on the defendants and their families (or on the political freedom of the country). American society has wise men to handle these matters–experts in the law, experts in foreign policy, experts in 'urban renewal,' experts even in what is permissible in public protests against the experts. The rulers and their experts will shoulder the responsibilities of life and death (and of a thousand daily 'little deaths' as well). The duty of the ordinary citizen is to manufacture the munitions, build the luxury apartments, cast the votes, and render the jury verdicts that will enable the wise men to carry on. Other ordinary citizens, armed with the weapons and the verdicts, will then be able in their turn to fulfill their appointed tasks, killing some of the of the rulers' enemies and imprisoning others in ghettos and jails."
I'm searching for more of the political and cultural environment of the 60s and 70s as it pertains to policing around the country at that time. With COINTELPRO in play, it makes these two decades superbly interesting to review. Dellinger has a wonderfully analytic mind and does a great job laying out some criticisms while being respectful. The book opened up another side of the Weatherpeople that I had never heard before (committed and determined revolutionaries gone astray that need to come back to the movement) and he makes a compelling argument. Also, some of the meetings and people he worked with on the anti-war side of things and the Black liberation side of things was tremendously interesting.
I wanted to know more after reading Seth Tobocman's graphic novel "Len" about radical lawyer Leonard Weinglass. He's another supremely interesting person from that era that I'd like to know more about.
My only minor complaint about the book is that while Dellinger alludes to spirituality throughout, the second and third to last chapters of the book are explicitly about religion and spirituality. Both chapters felt out of place among the other chapters of the book but it didn't spoil the integrity or the analysis of the book at all.
Anyway, much like Martin Luther King's writing (not his "I have a dream" speech, but more like his Massey Lectures from Canada), Dellinger is a compelling writer and analyst of the anti-war movement at the time. Really good book; I highly recommend.
"Logically enough, the shattering of human solidarity by tokenizing political participation and compartmentalizing responsibility to which the [Chicago 7] defendants had objected in the convention protests, was brought into the courtroom to make it easier for the jurors to convict them without feeling responsible for the punishment that would automatically follow. Like the 120,000 'good Americans' who worked for two years manufacturing the first nuclear bomb without being told what they were making, the jury was ordered to do its work without knowledge of its effects on the defendants and their families (or on the political freedom of the country). American society has wise men to handle these matters–experts in the law, experts in foreign policy, experts in 'urban renewal,' experts even in what is permissible in public protests against the experts. The rulers and their experts will shoulder the responsibilities of life and death (and of a thousand daily 'little deaths' as well). The duty of the ordinary citizen is to manufacture the munitions, build the luxury apartments, cast the votes, and render the jury verdicts that will enable the wise men to carry on. Other ordinary citizens, armed with the weapons and the verdicts, will then be able in their turn to fulfill their appointed tasks, killing some of the of the rulers' enemies and imprisoning others in ghettos and jails."
I'm searching for more of the political and cultural environment of the 60s and 70s as it pertains to policing around the country at that time. With COINTELPRO in play, it makes these two decades superbly interesting to review. Dellinger has a wonderfully analytic mind and does a great job laying out some criticisms while being respectful. The book opened up another side of the Weatherpeople that I had never heard before (committed and determined revolutionaries gone astray that need to come back to the movement) and he makes a compelling argument. Also, some of the meetings and people he worked with on the anti-war side of things and the Black liberation side of things was tremendously interesting.
I wanted to know more after reading Seth Tobocman's graphic novel "Len" about radical lawyer Leonard Weinglass. He's another supremely interesting person from that era that I'd like to know more about.
My only minor complaint about the book is that while Dellinger alludes to spirituality throughout, the second and third to last chapters of the book are explicitly about religion and spirituality. Both chapters felt out of place among the other chapters of the book but it didn't spoil the integrity or the analysis of the book at all.
Anyway, much like Martin Luther King's writing (not his "I have a dream" speech, but more like his Massey Lectures from Canada), Dellinger is a compelling writer and analyst of the anti-war movement at the time. Really good book; I highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews