David Hoffman: Why idealism isn't enough: What protest songs, politics taught me about power

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

In 1970, folk singer Phil Ochs shocked his Carnegie Hall audience when he appeared on stage dressed as Elvis Presley.

Frustrated after years of singing protest songs that only reached a limited audience, Ochs had come to believe that one could not simply sing a song and hope to change the world. Instead, one must first acquire fame through more traditional music, and only then can they use that fame to address social injustice.

Many protest songs, from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” which drew attention to lynching victims, to Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” to the Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion,” to Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto," and even the more politically oriented songs of The Beatles, were released after these artists were already famous through other forms of music.

While I have never formally worked for any newspapers, I have been submitting letters and columns to them for several years, beginning with an excerpt of a poem I wrote in 1979 that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, about the suicide of actress Jean Seberg — whose career was destroyed by false rumors disseminated by the FBI — to my first full column published in 1983 in the South Bend Tribune that supported the creation of a holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Every time I wrote such articles, I naively believed the words flowing from my typewriter (and later my computer) could change the world.

Without going into too much detail, growing older, combined with several health scares I experienced a few years ago, belatedly awakened me to the veracity of Phil Ochs’s theory, and led me to understand one uncomfortable, but inexorable, truth about the human condition: The reality is that, especially in the world of politics, evil is almost always going to triumph.

Before dismissing this as hyperbole, examine the evidence: People who abuse minors are normally scorned, imprisoned and ostracized. Yet in the world of politics, the victims of such crimes are the ones who are often ostracized, and, as we appear to be witnessing with the Epstein files, the crimes themselves are frequently covered up or ignored to protect the powerful.

People who are convicted of felonies routinely have trouble finding employment, primarily because their convictions make employers view them as untrustworthy. Yet a majority of voters had no trouble placing a convicted felon in charge of the treasury, the military and the nuclear arsenal.

Politicians who used every advantage to avoid combat, or even military service completely, are routinely praised as “courageous” for making jingoistic speeches during wars they often instigated through lies, and that others, not so well-connected, have to fight and die in.

Hard-fought gains made through the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, like diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and groups who condemn the rise of authoritarianism in America, are persecuted, prosecuted, and labelled as “un-American.” Yet those who injured several police officers while attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn a democratic election, are not only pardoned, but there was even talk about paying them through a speciously named “anti-weaponization” fund.

On a daily basis, Americans are being served a plethora of clichés — such as “nobody is above the law,” “we are a government of laws not men,” and “justice is blind” — that do not comport with reality.

In the movie “The Usual Suspects,” the character Verbal Kint says that true power does not derive from guns or money, but from a willingness to do what the other guy won’t.

He is right: All you need is a handful of the wrong people in the right positions — in local and state governments, the U.S. Congress, heading state and federal law enforcement agencies, seated on state and federal courts (especially the U.S. Supreme Court), in control of the military, owning or threatening the media, and occupying the presidency — to undermine democracy and silence all the voices and protests throughout the world.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t condemn evil, nor apathetically ignore it. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

We need such citizens more than ever, before “the government of the people, by the people, and for the people” perishes from the earth.

— David R. Hoffman is a retired civil rights and constitutional law attorney.

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