Dissenter's Credo

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In a prophetic conclusion to his underread classic Compulsory Mis-Education, the renowned sociologist Paul Goodman wrote: "In my opinion, the present system is not viable; it is leading straight to 1984....The change, when it comes will not be practical and orderly."

Recent murmurings by apologists for law and order on university campuses are blocking several key considerations. First among them is the under-reported reality that our own Central Intelligence Agency is operating in direct violation of international and domestic law. And furthermore, in a nation such as ours which has historically repected such values as foreign nations' rights to self-determination--in word, of not always in deed--and our own commitment to truth in government and the use of violence only as a final resort, the CIA presents a serious and flagrant challenge.

When the U.S. government refused to heed a World Court decision condemning U.S.-sponsored acts attempting to over-throw the legally elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua--including the CIA mining of harbors there--it was the first time in 30 years such international authority had been refected.

What messages does this send the rest of the world? It says that our government considers itself above the law and severely challenges the sincerity of high-level rhetoric about the U.S. being a "friend of democracy around the world." The Reagan Administration's ongoing duplicity and subterfuge regarding weapons sales to Iran and then funneling the money to the Contras in Central America further underscores this deception.

It is high time that the citizens of this country take seriously the words of Massachusetts' own Henry David Thoreau: "All...recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to and to resist the government, when its tyranny and inefficiency are great and unendurable."

Some will say that government is too powerful or basically amoral; but if it is strong and lacks a living conscience, is that not because we have allowed it? In getting arrested occupying a building at the University of Massachusetts--a building which ironically houses the office of Infromation--we, the dissenters, made a strong and clear statement: a respected place of higher learning, one with a tradition of conscience and integrity, tarnishes itself unacceptably by inviting the CIA to recruit students there.

Furthermore, in the tradition of Mohandas Gandhi and Thoreau we engaged in basically nonviolent protest. It is extremely sad that there were injuries among both the police and the students. From my vantage point as an arrestee, I was appalled by the large presence of state riot police and examples of unnecessary use of force by the police. Jay Allain