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Chapter 7 Summary
Political Reawakening (1980–85)
Human rights atrocities in the Salvadoran civil war enrage the author, spurring him to organize the Contra Costa Coalition Against US Intervention in El Salvador. The drama of suburban political activity includes confrontations at local shopping centers at which managers and security guards threaten to arrest the author. These actions force him to enlist the ACLU in a lawsuit against Hilltop Mall, the county’s largest shopping-center chain. As a result of a favorable court decision, shopping-center doors are opened statewide to all political groups who wish to circulate petitions and hold informational tables.
The author organizes a mass blockade of the Concord Naval Weapons Station, the Navy’s largest West Coast weapons station. This base has been shipping the vast majority of munitions to US and allied military forces in the Pacific for every armed conflict since 1942. Protesting the naval base’s shipment of weapons to El Salvador, the blockade triggers headlines coast to coast. More important, the action begins a decade of ongoing blockades in which thousands of protesters are eventually arrested, one of whom is critically injured by a munitions train. That unfortunate protester looses both of his legs.
One highlight of this chapter is its comparison and contrast of grass-roots organizing efforts of the ’60s and the ’80s. The author points out why an upsurge of political activism in the US similar to the ’60s does not occur in the ’80s. Candidly assessing the factionalism among the left, he contrasts the divisiveness in the US movement with the inspirational unity achieved by progressive groups in El Salvador. The author sheds light on how the mass media contributed to the loss of volunteers in the Central American solidarity groups after 1985. This decline, plus the deteriorating health of his mother, greatly reduces his political activities. The chapter ends with the author describing how the FBI defies a federal court order prohibiting the agency from surveilling, infiltrating, and obstructing dissident groups. He documents a multitude of illegal actions by US intelligence agencies against activists, including excessive tax audits, break-ins, death threats, and physical assaults, which far exceed the level of government interference and intimidation during the ’60s.
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How Many Roads? Copyright © by Howard Sodja 2002