In All Our Affairs: Practicing Justice
When I was a young man, I was all for justice. I was for justice for the working class, who were being exploited by capitalism. I was for justice for blacks and other minorities, who were being discriminated against. I was for justice for the Vietnamese, for Latin Americans, and for all the people of the third world, who were oppressed by Yankee imperialism.
Justice! I demanded. And I acted on it. I wrote flyers and newspaper articles, made angry, profanity-laden speeches, protested, demonstrated, marched, picketed, rallied, occupied offices and buildings, and went on strike. I joined a revolutionary communist party that wanted to overthrow the U.S. government, read and taught Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin, Mao and Che Guevara, and conspired to turn the student, labor, and civil rights movements in a radical direction. All in the cause of justice.
But I didn’t practice justice. Whoever disagreed with me politically were nothing but petit bourgeois reactionaries, counterrevolutionaries, pigs, fascists. I would try to intimidate them, silence them, block them, shout them down. They weren’t just wrong. They were the enemy. They had had to be stopped—by any means necessary.
I didn’t practice justice at work, which I saw as nothing more than a base of operations for my real work, my political work. I would consistently come in late, clock out to the field and go to a bar instead, file false reports, and create as much unrest in the shop as possible, abusing both management and union leaders.
I didn’t practice justice in my personal life, freely engaging in adultery and promiscuity, cheating on girlfriends, betraying friends, neglecting financial responsibilities, borrowing money and not paying it back.
Yes, I was selfish, self-centered, dishonest, arrogant, and all the other things we say about drunks like me in the program. But all of these things manifested themselves in widespread injustice. I was terribly unjust. . . .
Above is excerpt from “In All Our Affairs: Practicing Justice,” posted 09/22/20 at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook.... For full text, please click on link and go to Practice These: The Virtue of Justice.
Justice! I demanded. And I acted on it. I wrote flyers and newspaper articles, made angry, profanity-laden speeches, protested, demonstrated, marched, picketed, rallied, occupied offices and buildings, and went on strike. I joined a revolutionary communist party that wanted to overthrow the U.S. government, read and taught Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin, Mao and Che Guevara, and conspired to turn the student, labor, and civil rights movements in a radical direction. All in the cause of justice.
But I didn’t practice justice. Whoever disagreed with me politically were nothing but petit bourgeois reactionaries, counterrevolutionaries, pigs, fascists. I would try to intimidate them, silence them, block them, shout them down. They weren’t just wrong. They were the enemy. They had had to be stopped—by any means necessary.
I didn’t practice justice at work, which I saw as nothing more than a base of operations for my real work, my political work. I would consistently come in late, clock out to the field and go to a bar instead, file false reports, and create as much unrest in the shop as possible, abusing both management and union leaders.
I didn’t practice justice in my personal life, freely engaging in adultery and promiscuity, cheating on girlfriends, betraying friends, neglecting financial responsibilities, borrowing money and not paying it back.
Yes, I was selfish, self-centered, dishonest, arrogant, and all the other things we say about drunks like me in the program. But all of these things manifested themselves in widespread injustice. I was terribly unjust. . . .
Above is excerpt from “In All Our Affairs: Practicing Justice,” posted 09/22/20 at http://practicetheseprinciplesthebook.... For full text, please click on link and go to Practice These: The Virtue of Justice.
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