If one chooses to win, to be on The Winning Side, they will choose the status quo. By every objective measure the status quo will prevail and destroy everything. If one chooses joy, to be aligned with the forces of life, to have a life that feels like that, they will choose anti-violence, the losing side, the side of tough loving, no matter what. I wish it were other than that, but that's how it is. Those are the choices.
### I think they are called Traitors? I think they are called foreign agents? Spys? The zionists in this country, Christian and Jewish, though they profess to be American citizens their loyalty is not to America, it is to the Zionist state of Israel. They do all within their power which is mighty to subvert the interests of the United States for Israel. Am I the only one that thinks this is a problem? Is this not treason?
### A friend asked me... The Israeli apartheid state is one of your core issues, and I was wondering if you might be able to recommend any pertinent literature on the subject?........
😃 correction, human rights is my only issue, and therefore the u.s. Israel decimation of Palestinian human rights, a genocide executed by my country, the world's sole superpower, is my top agenda item and with respect I believe it is the top agenda item of every individual on Earth that has retained a large portion of their soul. Indeed, genocide is rightly the red line for every such person.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan pappe is the definitive work on the subject. Like everyone who speaks for Israel he has paid an immense price for speaking the truth and in his case being self-exiled from Israel to secure a position in teaching in England. As with the others I mentioned below there are our long talks by him on YouTube that are an excellent way of getting up to speed.
As I usually say to those that ask me to direct them to sources on this viciously disputed topic, I recommend that they review the sources that I provide and the first thing they should ask themselves, well, James said that his view is based on scholarly sources, are the sources he is pointing to me to scholarly? I recommend that same question to you. For myself, I don't have the time or interest to build my activism in life on quicksand, on trash from the left, or trash from the right. I'm interested in the truth, and I'll pay near any personal price to find it and then stand on it.
Miko Peled is an Israeli whose father was a famous General in the '67 and '47 Colonial assaults, rapes, plunders, lootings of Palestine. His book, The General's son, is immensely credible and you will easily find numerous hour-long Talks by him on YouTube as he wages a Truth campaign around the country.
If Americans knew, Alison Weir. She has been a truth Warrior since the early 2000s. Her book by that title is a fairly fast read. Roughly half of it is scholarly citations as I recall. And as with Miko, on YouTube you can and should find roughly our long talks as she goes around the country.
Mondoweiss and electronic intifada are absolutely rigorous, truth based, very scholarly, high integrity data sources daily for what's going on.
An age of fools, William Cook. I came across this long synopsis of this book only last week. Had I come across it several years ago before I go so deep into the scholarly inquiry of what the hell was going on between Israel and Palestine, I probably would have quickly discarded it as not believable, not credible, not fact-based. But instead I read it last week and from the perspective of years of rigorous study I found it the most truthful, courageous, important summary of what's going on and has been going on that I can think of. I'm glad I have the years of study to be able to spot the several areas that I still think are questionable in this article. But 98% of it is absolute truth. http://www.countercurrents.org/polya031215.htm
I stopped adding to the following page a year or so ago because the story just doesn't change, it just keeps getting more Savage, more brutal, more cruel , more damning of we Americans that fund it and allow it, and longer. These were the sources that I had built my understanding on which was sufficiently strong that my last Hunger Strike , 52 days, requiring Georgetown University Hospital 8 days to enable me to survive it at the end, was built by that time on sources including these. http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/2015/08/scholarly-links-on-israel-palestine.html And https://picasaweb.google.com/105834340090771270335/ZioniHolocaust
I am heartbroken by and therefore scathing of the cruel mockery that United States activism has made of the term peace activist for all the decades since Martin Luther King was assassinated. There are some exceptions, and they thereby prove the rule. The glaring exception that I see, the large and growing exception that I see, are the Jews in the United States and Israel that fight with their very lives, their careers, their intellect, their souls, their time, their money, their deep morality, relentlessly for human rights for Palestine. If one ever wondered whether campaigning for human rights for Palestine is anti-Semitic one only need to look at the work of Jewish voice for peace, breaking the silence, if not now, students for justice in Palestine, open Hillel....
Oh, and Haaretz, the paper of Record in Israel of all places! They are for Israel what the New York Times is supposed to be in the United States, the paper of National Record. But the New York Times is the most disgusting, blood-drenched, propaganda arm of Netanyahu's Israeli Nazi Genocide machine.
The UK Guardian also is quite consistently truthful.
99% of the UK and u.s. press act as propaganda arms for Israel, largely because they know that their careers will be assassinated on the spot should they Mumble the truth. The history is clear. Regardless of how senior a reporter may be, within a week or two of mentioning the truth their career is destroyed, they are made an example of, and no one else Ventures there. The same has been done to the US House and Senate. Our American value system is such that we will assassinate other people's children to protect the financial interests of our own.
### My American friends, please look in the mirror. I stand in amazement and gratitude at those who have been fighting so long for animal rights. I certainly was not. I review and often share their work as I see it come by on my Facebook feed and I am fed by their compassion. But yesterday I also begin feeling a rage. I felt a rage at a picture of someone in a foreign land posing with a shark they had dragged out of the water for a selfie apparently causing the death of the shark. A horrible Act. But I could not convince myself that those appalled at this picture don't include a large percentage that just finished a steak dinner, a bacon and egg breakfast, and a burger for lunch. Included a large percentage that have never put themselves In Harm's Way to stop The Butchery of roughly 4 Palestinians per week by American dollars, bombs, and political support. Americans, if we want to be appalled we don't need to look at someone from a foreign land on a foreign Beach. We Slaughter about 15 million of our fellow creatures for our entertainment and enjoyment, per day. Just look in the mirror.
### Yes, I am usually so scathing , so critical , so pessimistic about the future. Yes. But I think I am seeing a level of Citizen work that I certainly have not seen in fifty years or more. Millions of citizens here and abroad turning attention away from selfish short-term pleasures to matters of Greater importance to the collective. This is important at least for themselves and for those around them. Joy is in the attempt to reduce the world's suffering. The individuals devoting more of their lives to this task become a demonstration of the path to those around them.
Show me a group that is completely devoted to serving the least of these and I'll show you my church.
### I think the house action on gun control was a cynical ploy to drum up votes for establishment Democrats in November. There from 5:30 this morning it took me until 2 o'clock this afternoon to come to this conclusion but I see it as nearly inescapable. There was nothing about strategy after today. And when they came to talk to us outside the house throughout the morning and at the closure they were far too likely to stress how important it was to vote for Democrats in November, especially Hillary. They do not have a strategy for getting gun control legislation. They see a strategy for establishment Democrats winning in November especially Hillary. F*** them all. These are the same bastards that with few exceptions, with John Lewis at the head of them, happy to sacrifice Palestinian children of color on the altar of establishment democracy winning elections. F*** them all.
### We ate meat and meat and meat and meat and meat and meat and meat and meat. At some level my mom loved animals. If she had to choose between wrecking the car and killing us all, or hitting a squirrel in the road, she would do the former. And yet she cooked and served us lamb and beef and pork and on and on and on. Everyone did it. We are such f****** Savages.
### As it stands Jill Stein will get my vote. I don't vote gender, I vote Humanity, seriousness of purpose, courage to face and stand for the real issues of humanity. I think everyone should.
Status report. Spent the last hour-and-a-half meeting with a stellar Washington DC advocate for the homeless. We laid the groundwork for what I think can be an important collaboration going forward. Had it not been for that meeting been planned I would have stayed in bed all day and am heading back to bed now. It's not that I feel so awful I just feel so weak. Doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. I hope to be less active online today so that I can devote myself to preparing for advocacy meeting with DC government officials on Tuesday regarding planning to move homeless into housing wage jobs.
***** I question the morality, decency, sanity of anyone that would bring a child into this 2016 World. In defence of such people I have to say that our prevailing Societal myths are so intense, so University ascribed to that it is difficult, nearly impossible, to see the matrix for what it is. God help the children that are brought into this world. For goodness sake adopt, be foster parents, but don't be so cruel as to conceive new children.
### in Desperate attempts to stop global warming I have gone literally to death's door, happy to go through if it would help, on 50 day plus water only hunger strike numerous times. I can no longer understand why I did that. I see nothing in humanity as a whole worth saving, not now, not through the last five thousand years. A few individuals? Yes. I don't have an allegiance to cancer. I don't have an allegiance to the plague. I would not have an allegiance to the Borg or the crystalline entity from Star Trek. I do not have an allegiance to the human race outside of the small Aboriginal tribes for which we were designed, and the handful of individuals that each generation somehow retain their Humanity in the viciously deadly cultures that we humans in large masses develop and promulgate. And I have a loyalty that will never die to do what I can to lessen the suffering of the most abused, neglected, persecuted such as are Palestinian family and our sisters and brothers in the underclass here in the DC region. We are the weapons of mass destruction. God save the universe if we escape Earth.
If you are on Facebook hopefully you can see this. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1155399927845167&id=100001255131592
If I have to choose between which is more dangerous, 1. Scientists that deny, that are blind to, that are not in awe of, that there is a force of creation behind everything, and 2. So-called religious folks that deny science, I'll go with number one. By every objective measure it is number one that is necessary and sufficient for all life on Earth to be destroyed. Without number 1 there is no fracking, no deep sea Drilling, no nuclear weapons, no Advanced Weaponry of any sort, no global warming, no massive Wall Street Trading, no Global destruction of the environment.... Yes, they both concern the hell out of me. But objectively, the Liberals, the scientists, are in the final stages of destroying Earth. Not the religious lunatics.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10208318720718563&id=1620551416
### A little-known, and immensely important intellect of the 20th century, was Ashley Montagu. Immensely deep and Broad scholarship and intellect, Spirit, Humanity. He said, 'the world is not dying from the lack of love, it is dying from the presence of tribal love.' I know of more no more important truth than that. Jesus world was full of conditional, tribal, loving for me and mine. He gave his life to save us from that, to move us from tribal love to Universal family, unconditional love, submission to the service of Creator's family, every creature in creation. Me too. Everything else is self-inflicted Doom now.
Regarding guns for personal protection: My biological dad was the most intensely and unfailingly loving individual that I have ever encountered on this Earth. Everything of value in myself I attribute to him being in my life as an example. Among the ways that he lived his love for us was to work literally 7 days a week 365 days a year at his lucrative profession of teaching piano to wealthy people and teachers from around the country who came to learn his methods. He worked himself to the Bone so that we could have an incredibly expensive idyllic house in a wealthy Northern New Jersey New York suburb , on the end of a cul-de-sac adjoining a massive Nature Preserve. But among other things it made us immensely vulnerable. It would have been a very attractive robbery Target and we could all have been murdered in our beds with the robber escaping never to be found. My dad was a person of little words. He was a person of immense Deeds. I don't remember any particular discussion other than when I was very young I became aware, I think he told me maybe he even showed me, that he had purchased a handgun which he put in the bedside table to protect us. And my recollection is that almost immediately he told me and showed me that he had gotten rid of the handgun because he considered having it a greater Danger than not having it. Obviously I've never forgotten that. In our desperately sick culture we think that life is pulse. Life is not pulse. It may in rare instances be enabled by pulse but life is not pulse. This was demonstrated, this was known and lived by all the people throughout history that are rightly Revere.
***** Oddly enough I identify more as a Jew, with Jews, than than any other group I can think of at the moment. Intellectually driven, of immense conscience, almost unable to not follow conscience. The group I next most identify with are Muslims. Modest, humble, nearly unable to not be generous. Least with the billion + terrorist group, pathologically supremacist, cancerously acquisitive and domineering and raping and plundering, psychotically delusional, willfully out of touch with reality , murderously selfish... Christians. I identify with Jesus. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus was never a Christian. Jesus would never have been a Christian.
***** I think I fairly dramatically evolved last night. I'm not sure how it will manifest in my life but I believe that it will. I thought that my loyalty to the human species died a year or so ago, but it seems not. I think that happened last night. I can't even understand how I was so blind as to ever feel that loyalty. To individual humans? Yes. To the species? Am I loyal to cancer? Am I loyal to the plague? Would I be loyal to the crystalline entity from Star Trek? I am definitely loyal to the subspecies of human, loving, a miniscule tribe scattered around Earth. Minuscule. I am loyal to all nonhuman species but certainly not with the ferocity that I was to the human species. I am loyal to the universe enough to be opposed to the human species escaping out into it to wreak the same destruction that it has to Earth. How does it feel? Certainly more sane. More clear. More enlightened. More at peace. More clear.
It is near impossible in my mind that Bernie can arrange things such that I can trust Hillary as president. I'd rather see the whole American experiment melt down and start again.
### He has lost my respect as a great historical leader. Too many Horrors executed at his hand, too many Horrors left unblocked by his voice and or body. But I continue to Revere aspects of his Humanity such as described in this article here. There is greatness in his soul. And yes, although very unlikely, it is possible that he is faced with circumstances that explain and make impossible to avoid the horrible crimes that I hold him responsible for. I may never know.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/us/politics/long-and-genuine-hugs-shooting-victims-relatives-recall-obamas-empathy.html?referer=https://news.google.com
### Extraordinary moral stature. The great change agents, the Agents of positive change, throughout history are of an extraordinary moral stature. Indisputable, right? How many activists since the assassination of Martin Luther King don't totally reject measuring themselves, let alone being measured by others, against that same yardstick? Practically all, they incinerate anyone that dares go there. Moral stature is everything to the true would-be Catalyst for moral change. And it doesn't even make it into the discussion, into the consideration, into the planning these last fifty years in America. Everything but. This is why there's no hope.
***** Eureka! The missing proof that justice is a necessary but entirely insufficient anti violent goal:
Throughout my life I have wanted Justice to be a sufficient goal. 15 years ago I was told by someone that didn't like me so much, an African American female pastor in a prestigious completely White Main Line Philadelphia Church, ''James, you love Justice more than anyone I have ever met.'' ''No,'' I respectfully replied. ''Thank you, and I can't explain just why, I know what you're referring to in me, but that isn't it. I think what you're seeing is that I may love living beings, all of creation, more than anyone that you have ever met.'' I couldn't explain why better than that. I couldn't explain why to myself, but I knew it deep in my spirit.
Several years ago in an extremely deep study of the theological scholar Dominic Crossan on the historical Jesus I almost became persuaded he was correct, when he asserted, as later has also done Harvard African American Scholar Cornel West, that Justice is loving made publicly manifest. Subsequently I realized that that is sometimes true but not necessarily true. Think of those that wield Justice, True Justice out of hatred, out of blind self-righteousness, arrogance, evil. Think of Inspector Javert in Les Mis.
But that was not sufficient proof that justice is an insufficient goal of the anti-violent warrior.
The proof, not the proof to you, the proof to me, just clicked into place as I pedaled this 200 lb ELFusion vehicle from the Washington Monument to my abode 3 miles away. In the 90-degree heat, dehydrated, mostly uphill and with a debilitating chest cold in its third day.
Several pieces clicked into place.
1. Gandhi said that physical force is a superior choice in the case where one's wife is being raped and the only way that the husband can stop the rape is with physical Force. Gandhi cited this example many times. What clicked into place is that he never said that physical Force was justified in protecting oneself, and he always behaved as though it absolutely was not. This may be an oversight but I think not. Why would that be?
2. Gandhi was not about his own life, ultimately he was not about the life or even the Dignity of the wife being raped, nor of the husband. He was about achieving an infinitely larger good, a prevailing Justice for All of humanity, indeed for all of creation. In being about winning that greater good it is necessary to tap into the ultimate power in the universe which he described as Soul Force, truth Force, the love of a mother for her child. He cited the love of a mother for her child as the ultimate power that he tried to tap into. He never said the love of a mother for justice. He never said the love of a mother for herself. Why? Because neither of them are as powerful a moral Force for the engagement of the mass of passive onlookers as the love of a mother for her child, which involves self-sacrifice.
3. That shows the third proof which you can prove to yourself I suspect. Ask yourself which moves you more, the mother protecting herself, or the mother sacrificing her life for her child? I did not ask if you were unmoved by the mother trying to protect herself. Of course you are, of course you should be as am I. But which moves you more? The Mother Out of Love sacrificing or risking her life for her child! The Ultimate Force in the universe that the anti-violent, loving, nonviolent Warrior devotes their very being to embodying for the joy of it, because they can't do otherwise, tapping into is that Force which can only be activated in the onlookers, you in the question I asked you a moment ago, can only be tapped into in the onlookers when they witness someone offering or giving their life for a cause Beyond and greater than themselves equivalent to a greater good for another or a greater good for others. The Selma Marchers were putting their body In Harm's Way for their children, for their race, for their brothers and sisters. The Freedom Riders, Alice Paul and her sisters, the tens of thousands of Egyptians in Tahrir square, Malala, the school children in Soweto. And finally, number
4. The anti-violent Warrior the loving Warrior, cannot tap into the ultimate power within them self for justice, neither Justice for everyone, or just just for their self. We don't work that way. We're not built that way. It's a function of our DNA. Justice is a motivating force. It is not as motivating a force as the heart connected to the well-being of another(s) and thereby being engaged to protect the life or the Dignity of the other. 'Man hath no greater love than to lay down his life for his brother.' The ultimate need, the ultimate motivating force, of the healthy human being is meaning, the potentially great meaning to the life of another. The definitive work on this is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for meaning. Whether one got out of the death camp alive in Nazi Germany he observed was not a function of how healthy and strong the individual was coming in. It was a function of how desperately important the inhabitant perceived it to be that they survive so that they could get out to help someone else, the wife, or in the case of Frankel, a much larger Community by publishing his psychological treatise.
The ultimate motivation that mother nature gave us was not the desire for self-preservation, or for justice, even for justice for the larger group. It is to protect the very lives and dignity of others. Yes, she gave us the desire for justice, and the drsire to protect oneself. But if that's all she gave us, we essentially socially dependent species from the very beginning, then we would not have survived through the Millenia. She gave us the ultimate motivation of caring more about the group then about our own lives. This is the only Force sufficient to enable the anti violent Warrior to go as far and as deep with as much courage and selflessness as an Alice Paul, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, and the others that we Revere have to go. This is a huge step for me.
In part I departed from the Democracy spring action a month ago because I sensed it was only about Justice. I do love justice, immensely, but I knew even then Justice is not enough. It's too little too late. Part of my long hesitation to get involved in support of what Bernie Sanders was doing was because although my soul realized that he was going for a much greater good for and all of creation , many most or near all of his followers were simply pursuing Justice and in large part Justice for themselves. I'm not opposed to that per se. I don't deny their right to do so. But I knew deep in my soul it was too little too late.
Now I have the proof I was looking for. The pursuit of justice as an end goal now is way too little way too late. These are the final nanosecond on the clock and they are ticking down.
### Devoting every penny you can possibly spare, every moment you can possibly spare, to supporting the campaign that Bernie Sanders is prosecuting is the best possible investment you can make for planet Earth at the moment.
***** I fear Hillary much more than I fear Trump. Hillary is the figurehead of the neocon neoliberal zombie horde that has been destroying Earth since Reagan and massively accelerated by Clinton Bill. Trump is a lone clown and Hillary's horde can neither control him nor buy him so they will fight him and that may tremendously blunt what other evil he could do. Yes, he would do massive damage. But infinitely less than Hillary's Huns that have a 30-year running start. And, the only folks with enough education to stop the impending horror if they elect Hillary are already under her spell and there goes the next four years. I fear Hillary much more than Trump. I cannot imagine any circumstance under which I will vote for that vile creature Hillary. I'll be influenced by what Burnie does but my guess is I will either write in Bernie or I will vote Trump.
***** Violence: violating what is right, violating the rights of others. It is absolutely not as simple as whether physical force is used. Treating the police as a group rather than individual human beings under all circumstances is violating their right to be treated as a human being. Shooting someone about to kill a toddler because that was the only way to stop them is not violence. That does not violate the rights of the would-be Killer.
### Not Human Rights, activists, but rather human rights catalysts. I don't care about words so much but I do care about Concepts. Although I have paid a high price in the last decade-and-a-half for fighting against the dilution and perversion of the word and concept 'activists,' like quite a few such words I think it was Ill chosen to begin with. Catalyst strikes me as a much truer capture of what Gandhi and those alongside him were and did , and Martin Luther King and those alongside of him, the tens of thousands of young people in Tahrir square, Malala, Alice Paul and the hundreds that fought alongside her, the Freedom Riders, SNCC.... They made of themselves such an extremely different thing, such a new extraordinarily moral thing , even though relatively miniscule in number versus their country and world population, exactly as a catalyst does they caused a hugely disproportionate change through the large population. They didn't try to manipulate. They didn't try to control. They didn't try to force... other than themselves, over whom they exercised huge self-control, discipline, molding themselves into something so radically pure, radically pure anti-violence, radically courageous loving, that the infinitely larger numbers could not avoid being changed by them. In nature as I understand it there is little if anything so relatively powerful as the catalyst, minute qualities of an element that fundamentally change an infinitely larger whole. Those who I have envied and admired throughout history, those who I try to be worthy of following, because of their unique effectiveness, I understand to be catalysts. They fashioned themselves into catalysts at enormous personal cost. This is what I strive to be and what I wish for others to strive to be. Human rights catalysts. Yes, Catalysts can be totally ineffective. They can become what is needed but if the nature of the mass surrounding them is impervious to reacting, incapable of reacting, protected from reacting... the Catalyst has no effect. But where I see profound progress in human morality throughout history it has been such a catalytic reaction that brought it about. I see no other chance. I see no other hope. I see no other way. Well, I see an infinite variety of ways that require a much lower price on the part of the would-be change agent that hold the promise of doing nothing but killing what little time is left for all decent future. Yes, 'Be the change you wish to see in the world.'
### IF YOU HAVE NOT YET, must read now. Spirit is everything. The True activist is the one possessed by a selfless heroic nearly impossibly moral spirit. Such a spirit does not rest until it has a deep moral factual understanding of the situation, the evil and the need, and the scrupulously moral basis for action, and then it cannot remain still but is propelled into heroic action. The specific and general thoughtfulness of this article and these activists and their work is very rare and very relevant and very able to be copied by those who wish to become serious advocates for change.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/01/new-wave-climate-insurgents-defines-itself-law-enforcers
### This preemptive mass media coronation of Hillary taught me three things things: 1. Even the one in a million that I thought was an uncorrupted human needs to be suspected, 2. Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes are corporate whores, immoral chameleons, 3. The power of greed and therefore those who hold the money is even greater than I thought.
### I would say that in my learning, experience, practice, observation, the true activist devotes their every breath to attempting to pay as much as possible of the price NOW, whatever price, including the ultimate price, for a better world... for others. I can think of no exceptions. This is what they showed with their choices without hesitation. This is what they prepared and prepared and prepared and prepared... to do. Gandhi's words on the subject, 'I'm talking about the love of a mother for her child.' Anyone that is seriously interested in this topic that has not watched the PBS documentary, Freedom Riders, has really disabled themselves.
***** Though I've long stated he's our greatest intellectual, Chris Hedges, I've also long been concerned that something wasn't right. He's no revolutionary, I think. He's just one more Champion for violence. Just one more Champion for inverting who is oppressed and who does the oppressing. Who imposes, and who does the imposing. The world he wants is not the world I want.
***** How the f*** is it that it takes a lifetime to become an effective surgeon, years to become an effective nurse, years or a lifetime to become an effective artist, years to become an effective Soldier or police person, years to become an effective gymnast or skier or a surfer... But two hours, or just a momentary self-declaration, to become an activist?
'Act' the change you want to see?
'Pretend' the change you want to see?
'Occasionally use' the change you want to see?
'Mimic' the change you wish to see?
'Put on' the change you wish to see?...
(BECOME, and) BE the change you wish to see in the world... Truth-force... Soul Force... Anti-violence... Loving.
Gandhi devoted a lifetime to trying to be, trying to become, the change he wished to see in the world, the embodiment of Truth Force, the embodiment of (TOUGH) Loving, the embodiment of Soul Force. In the end he said he had just barely scratched the surface. Was he a fool? Did he have no idea of what was involved? Was he lying? One would think so if one looks at nearly all of the so-called activists since King's assassination who think it is something that they learn in two hour training, or a decision that they make, a self-declaration, or that it is as simple as not using physical violence, and then they're all set... they're activists, just like King, just like Gandhi, and the thousands alongside them that would pay any price even death rather than violate that spirit. Magic!!! So, it turns out there is a free lunch! Would it not be so nice if Muhammad Ali had not had to devote his life to becoming the greatest at both boxing and anti-violence? Would it not be nice if the Freedom Riders, if dr. King and those fighting alongside of him, had not had to go through rigorous rigorous rigorous, in King's case, lifelong training, to become that change, to become the embodiment of non-violence, to become the embodiment of loving, anti-violence?
How the f*** is it that it takes a lifetime to become an effective surgeon, years to become an effective nurse, years to become an effective gymnast or skier or a surfer... But two hours, or just a momentary self-declaration, to become an activist?
Ah, the magic of self-delusion. Sadly, Now such self-delusion is planetary suicide. Does anyone love the future enough to wake up in time? If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?
http://m.truthdig.com/report/item/shut_down_the_democratic_national_convention_20160605
............
... I admit to being conflicted on my comment above. But I stand by it. I think it is insane that the young people of this country don't come to Washington DC and so fill every street corner that the city ceases to function until it implements Marshall Plan level policy to stop global warming, for example. But to shut down, shut down, a meeting of fellow citizens, no matter how corrupt, no matter how revolting? How is this not inviting citizens that disagree with my policies to shutdown my peaceful meeting? I am opposed to the Democratic party just as I am opposed to the Nazi party. But if I violate their rights then I am violating my rights, and more importantly, I am violating the rights that I am bound to protect with my life for all species. Hate begets hate. Violence begets violence. There is only one set of rights, that which applies to us all. An attack on what is Right for any creature is an attack on what is Right for every one of us. Violence, violating the rights of others to get what one wants, that's the world we have. I don't want more of it.
Fb reply: James, I think you are misinterpreting this. He is not calling for violence. These homeless and impoverished people were denied the right to peacefully assemble. That is a Constitutional right denied in the city where the Constitution was written! Nowhere does he promote violence. You interpret "shut down" as a violent expression. I disagree. If someone is murdering someone else, and you try to stop them, are you violating their rights??
James: Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Please be sure you have read what I just added to my comment immediately above this one. Not that it will persuade you differently. I don't write to persuade. I write to share what I am persuaded of. Yes, I am absolutely responding to the wording shut it down. The DNC is a citizen group. It is different than a governmental group in my view, Morally. It is different than a corporate group, morally. And the nature of the assembly, no matter how much I may detest it with every fiber of my being,, I do not have the right to shut it down nor does anyone else. To demonstrate against it? Absolutely. I would say there is a duty to demonstrate against it. Language matters. The headline is shut it down. Yes, I absolutely respond to that as should anyone.
Friend: Please see my comment below and also consider that lobbyists have a huge hand in putting the DNC together. It will be run by bankers and lobbyists. This is much more a corporate assembly than a citizens assembly. The whole "people side" of it is a sham, theater for the controlled masses. To stand in support of such a gathering is to support war lords and those who impoverish our inner cities. Just my opinion...
James: Which part of my wording, duty to protest, is unclear? Again, I hope you seriously consider what I've said. I have considered what you have shared. I think you are not seeing the distinction between violence and nonviolence. I think Hedges article provides an important opportunity to see that whatever one does one should accept in return. So, if you are fine with the state or fellow citizens shutting down your meetings then you should feel fine with Hedges language to shut down the DNC. Otherwise, not so much. And then there's the matter of incitement. Are you okay with the violence against the Trump demonstrators in California? I suspect not. Are you okay with language that would incite such violence? I suspect not. This is not a time for amateurish, thoughtless, self-indulgent, acting out, Behavior. No, I am not accusing you or Hedges of that. I am cautioning against it. I've shared what I have to share. Be well
James: I think we have a shared what we have to share on this. Be well
Friend 2: James, thank you for posting this article. I will be on the South side of city hall, as close to Honksla and Chris as possible. I AM NOT going to Philly to solely support brother Bernie Sanders, although I will participate in many activities "permitted" in FDR park. I do not want to get arrested the first day, but if I have to I will. I will go to Philly with peace in my heart, revolution in my soul and a very practical approach to what the FBI, Homeland Security and their patsies the Philadelphia police force have in mind for those of us that will be Heard and not Herded. I grew up in South Philly and coming home in more ways than one. I hope to see you there as I know your convictions are even deeper than mine.
James: I appreciate your thoughtful and constructive words. On those days I will be fighting, every breath, for an anti-violent, loving world, of that we can both be certain. Whether I will be in Philly or not depends on whether on those days I view the that is my best means of serving creation. Yes, Sanders is a wonderful human being, a godsend. My donation of virtually all of my meager savings this month to his campaign was not to him, but to the revolution he is trying to lead. He would be the first to agree, is the first to agree, that he is not the revolution. He is the spirit of the Revolution I believe, and those who embody that Spirit are also of the revolution. It is that spirit that my life is devoted to embody with my every breath in whatever Direction, in whatever form, I think can best serve creation.
