Crossposted on Dailykos
I know that the title of the diary may seem to suggest otherwise, but this is a serious question. I’m hoping for answers from the activist writers here I respect so much, like Meteor Blades and Madman in the Marketplace and others whose names maybe I don’t know, who have done this and who understand better than I what it’s meant to accomplish.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this – about Cindy Sheehan’s planned protests all this week at the White House, about the die-ins, about getting arrested. I’m planning to go, on Friday. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get there.
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I’ve been thinking about past protests and civil disobedience. About integrating lunch counters. Now there was a powerful message. We are going to sit here until we all get served and if you arrest us, then when we get out we’ll come right back and sit right back down. It says, you can’t deny us our rights no matter what you do, no matter if you threaten violence or lock us up or fine us – you can’t.
And then there was the demonstration DC Rabble held a few years ago, to protest DC’s lack of representation in Congress. When Congress was voting on the budget, they went up into the galleries and shouted, “DC Votes No! Free DC!” over and over until they got arrested – because you’re not supposed to make noise in the galleries, to disrupt Congressional proceedings. The trial ended in jury nullification, because DC voters refused to convict them. Delicious irony! This protest also sent a clear message. We may not have official representation, but we have voices and we will use them any way we can, however we have to. And you can’t keep us quiet until you give us our rights – officially.
I’m not really sure why Cindy Sheehan’s die-in seems like it might be different. Maybe because it doesn’t have such obvious symbolism as these two other examples. Maybe because it seems staged; but it’s not really any more so than these other examples. Maybe because it seems odd to plan to get arrested on purpose – as opposed to doing what you ought to be able to do anyway, and getting arrested as a result. Eating lunch even if you’re black and having a voice in Congress are things you ought to be able to do anyway. Lying down on the sidewalk in front of the White House? Not as important a fundamental right.
In correspondence with a good friend who participated in civil rights work in the 60s and 70s, he tells me this:
I don’t think any of us (with the possible exception of the SCLC leaders who came in) had any sophisticated sense of what we were doing or what we hoped to accomplish. I think – and remember, this was only two years after the murder of Martin Luther King – for many of us it was a very personal act of moral expression.
Is that what it is? Is that all it is? Is there something more? Is that all it needs to be?
I suppose if I were arrested, it would represent a depth of commitment to my beliefs that I haven’t shown up to this point. I’ve worked hard, I’ve risked my health and finances to do campaign work; but I haven’t risked physical injury, and I haven’t risked my reputation, and I haven’t taken any public action to place myself firmly, unequivocally, on this side or that side of any issue.
And I’m beginning to re-think my absolute devotion to the Democratic Party. It’s not that I’m ready to jump ship for any other party, but so many issues of importance to me are ignored by so many Democratic candidates and officeholders that I’m starting to think it’s those issues I want to spend my time on – and supporting the candidates who speak for me, too, of course, but only those.
Maybe that’s a reason I should do it. If I was arrested for protesting this war, then it would be awfully hard for me ever again to lift a finger for a candidate who didn’t oppose it.
I am looking forward to hearing what others think.
Even if this gets only a small amount of media attention it is worth doing. It will show that the oppostion is still here, still determined to make its point and keep it in public view. In at least some small way it will continue to put pressure on those now in power. And one other thing. It makes for a sense of solidarity amongst those participating. In the old days that was amongst the most important reasons.
I think she gives other people courage, and she also. . .at the guaranteed risk of being called foolish by a lot of people. . .continues to say by her escalating drama: My son is dead. Look at me! Think about my son! We are real. It may do nothing to soften the hearts of those who wage the war, but then again, it might and I think she has to keep trying.
that’s the real value of her message – that it personalizes the deaths. And I think she does give people courage.
She sure is called foolish too. I crossposted this on Dailykos, and wow. Check it out.
You know, I just can’t bear to go read that. You were brave to post it there. I am struck by the (appropriate, imo) softness with which it is being received here.
Part of it may be the title. I think the way I titled this would tend to draw in people who disagree with or don’t like Cindy. Here, things move a little more slowly, so people have time to read more instead of just clicking on what they think they’ll like.
But that’s probably only part of it. At least today I haven’t been called a liar yet!
Sit back and watch the Cocksack lynching of Cindy…
I haven’t been over there, but all I can think is “wow, who needs the freepers anymore?”
Please disregard this last comment, since ubikkibu actually went and read there…
As did I. Over at Kos it’s the typical “realist” reactionary pap, not to mention use of RNC talking points (e.g. “celebrity hound”)
It is much easier to roundly criticize and denigrate Cindy and her efforts than to thoroughly examine one’s conscience and ask oneself, “Why am I not standing with her.” There is a real disconnect between writing eloquently in our various blogosphere echo chambers about the Iraq War and actually doing something about it.
Damn right her civil disobedience has value.
Not to mention prodding the conscience of self-aggrandizing blogpundits and Democratic Party shills, if picked up by the MSM it shows the less informed among us (US Citizenry) that something terribly wrong is going on in the big, bad world.
It, too, demonstrates to the larger world that there is dissent in America and that honorable folk will not allow this criminality called the Iraq War to go on unopposed. Every time Cindy takes a stand, it encourages more of the “little people” to make their voice heard.
We in the so-called progressive blogosphere should applaud this momentum, not stymie it for crass cynicism’s sake or ulterior short-term political gain.
Bless Cindy and her good work.
That’s what I don’t get (and I still have been to the big orange)…why would anyone feel the need to attack her, besides the freeper contingent? She is standing up against a terrible wrong, a criminal war waged on a country that was no threat to us, and is killing our soldiers and making us less safe. Why would anyone put her down?
Of course, it’s easier to attack her efforts than to get up off their asses and make an effort of their own, I guess. Disgusting.
Why do they respond to her w/ venom or at least try to mute her appeal?
Cindy is a thorn in the Democrat Establishment.
She shames them, rightfully.
She asks, where were you on Sept. 24th? (only about 3 Congresscritters showed for the protest)
She asks, why did you bow down before the Bush war machine and give it carte blanche to do what they will to Iraq?
She mocks Hillary and other Dem. hopefuls for their unwavering support of this criminal enterprise.
She exposes the duopoly that is running this once democratic nation. She exposes the neo-liberal Democratic elites who share the same geo-political ends as the neoclowns, but disagree with the neoconservatives’ means. She questions those ends, namely American economic and military hegemony.
She essentially questions the purpose of the Democratic Party with her every word, action.
She’s an everywoman, and a BADASS to boot.
That 3 you gave me down string is the FIRST 3 I ever got on Booman. Was that a mistake?
If not, could you tell me what it was for?
pmahoney@msh.org, my email address so we don’t clog the diary with bullshit
Thanks.
Usually when that happens, it was just a slip of the finger on the mouse…
most of the orange folks have been supportive of Cindy, with a few simply saying it’s a waste of time. Although the poll numbers there reflect more hostility than the comments.
You know what’s a waste of time? Blogging.
And here I am blogging…argh! 🙂
Nyah, nyah.
Just trying to make the point that the orange team thinks they’re getting something done by not wasting their time doing something. Or as the clever diary went a couple days ago: “Don’t just do something–stand there!”
I call it rejuvanating 🙂 Getting ideas, sharing.
Most here actually write their congresscritters and reprehensatives. They march, they support.
This is an active activist’s area. 🙂
So true. BMT walks the walk, and I never meant to imply otherwise. I just hope for more who can both blog and walk, and I don’t have a strong feeling that the “protests are a waste of time” crowd are doing much besides complaining. But now I’m talking out of my rear, so I should stop.
I don’t think they are either. Their criticism sounds a little too desperate, doesn’t it?
I always read comments like those as the writer trying to convince him- or herself why it’s ok not to get involved. It reeks of submerged guilt, and it should.
But again: just speculation.
It’s important to be a bit wary of speculation. But also, those comments sound to me like what I sound like when I’m trying to convince myself not to get involved and that confirms it for me.
Plus, we make connections with each other that push us forward to do more than we thought we could do on our own.
The thing is, those connections in my life, the ones who’ve really had an effect on me, haven’t been on blogs, but people I knew personally.
Blogging is fun and sometimes useful, but definitely overrated.
I was actually thinking of my blog-friends that I met and marched with in Washington when I wrote that. 🙂
I may have already said this to you, but “Band of the Gypsies” is probably one of the top ten albums of all time.
I think the person who has had the most effect on my politically is Stephanie Dray. She’s had a recommended diary or two at dailykos so you may know her writing. She’s the one who introduced me to dailykos. I knew her previously from an internet game. We’d never met in person at that time, but I considered us friends. When I suddenly woke up in early 2004 and realized I needed to DO something, she gave me just the right nudge at just the right time to make me realize I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by going off and getting a campaign job. And I did.
I probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for her encouragement. It’s the people we have connections to who change our lives most.
One of the best comments on the dailykos thread.
Cindy reminds me of people I know right here at home, of friends moms when I was growing up. And when she talks about how she used to think “I’m just one person, what can I do to change anything?” and how after Casey died, she decided that maybe as one person she couldn’t change anything, but at least would she would try, so that if she failed, she wuld know that she had done everyting she could, it makes me realize that we have to try, even if we’re afraid of failing.
I think she has that effect on most people outside the FoxNews/Right winger category.
It’s really important to realize that individuals can make a difference – and believing that is often hard, especially now in this age of television. Cindy shows us that we can. Yet Cindy also shows us that “the” way of making a difference is to get ourselves on TV, which is a discouraging message, because getting on TV is hard, and by definition only a very few people can do it more than fleetingly. (This isn’t Cindy’s fault of course.)
But, maybe people move from being a part of a movement like Cindy’s to… other ways of involvement.
I too question this from time to time. I just know that she inspired me as did so many people here to stand up and speak up for what I believed in. I wish I could afford to go there but just not possible right now. I am so waiting for that “The whole world’s watching” moment. I am sure many of you that went to DC felt it there. I just keep hoping we will see it on National news coverage.
Protests and civil disobedience actions are effective even if they fail to garner media attention. (Although last night’s vigil was front page on all our three local papers.)
They tell other Americans who oppose the war that they are not alone. They show that there are more options than sitting on your couch. For an individual, they provide a time to reflect on what America should be, and a means to strengthen resolve. And they keep the masters of war worried.
The answer to the question depends on what you mean by “effective” – reaching millions? Changing policy overnight? Someone over on dailykos asks how many lives Cindy Sheehan saved by being arrested yesterday.
Yours, I think, is the perspective that makes most sense. How an action changes the world is not the only important thing. It’s also important how the action changes the actor.
Yes.
Keep arresting Mommies and someone will ask “why?”.
I say do it with as large as group as you can and get the fucking media involved.
I’m sure the Orange Guru is saying it’s all meaningless…
I plan on getting arrested. Planning. But sitting alone in a cell won’t be as effective unless I’m surrounded by a thousand others.
Damn straight they can arrest this Mom. We have to wake these assholes up.
is going to jail as well.
When my grandchildren ask me about America’s darkest days, I’ll tell them I didn’t sit on my ass complaining. At least not all the time. I voted, I organized, I wrote and emailed, and I got arrested because I wanted to wake up my fellow citizens to the idea that yes, it really has gotten to that point.
Yeah, that’s part of it. Later on I’d like to be able to say I did something.
I have to go eat lunch now. Back for more, later!
… I want to be able to look my children in the face for the rest of my life.
To be able to look one’s descendants, and oneself in the eye.
Like the little boy (or little bird) throwing crabs back into the sea, one by one, because to each one thrown back, it is a big deal.
You may not be able to control what other people do, but you can control what YOU do. 🙂
and Daddy’s too 🙂
Are you going to be in DC this week? Friday?
Are you going to be in DC this week? Friday?
My first civil disobedience: In 1971, I was arrested for the first time in my life (not the last, but that’s another story), for trying to march in my first Veterans Day parade after I got back from Vietnam. I was arrested along with thirty-two other Vietnam veterans, because we wanted to march under the banner of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
What’s the point? In my case, then, as with the lunch counter sitters during the civil rights movement, it was because we had the RIGHT to march, and they were refusing us that right.
Sometimes, however, civil disobedience has another point. It is an escalation, a gauntlet thrown on the ground, that says we — peaceful, law-abiding citizens — are willing to break the law and suffer the consequences for a higher principle.
Last night, thousands of peaceful, law-abiding citizens — including myself and my family — stood peacefully in parks and on street corners around the country to mourn the 2,000th death of American soldiers in Iraq. The events have garnered modest media coverage (here in the Boston area, the Boston Globe reported that the demonstrations “seemed” to be smaller than the ones in August). What if those thousands of people all around the country had engaged in peaceful civil disobedience, and been arrested? Might that not have made a much stronger statement concerning the issues we were there for?
Now, I’m as hopelessly middle-class as anyone. Family, mortgage, debt-up-to-my-eyeballs. Etc. I’m no spring chicken, and getting arrested now would be much more of a personal risk than it was thirty-some years ago.
That’s the fuckin point. Civil disobedience demonstrates that you are willing to take personal risk for your principles.
I say I am willing.
Demonstrations — of any sort — are meaningless if done in a vacuum. Demonstrations are useful and effective if done as part of a coordinated strategy — political work, legislative work, personal persuasion, letters-to-the-editor, etc.
Demonstrations are empowering, sometimes entertaining, and almost always fun.
They are not the be-all and end-all of what needs to be done.
Yes to everything said here.
Also, chance favors the prepared mind.
Remember, Sheehan became an activist long before the media “discovered” her. You have to keep planning and building and working. You never know when you’ll meet coincidence. You can never know when the timing is perfect–as it was this summer.
Before the summer, we didn’t talk about the war so much in the mainstream. Now, when the talking heads are running through the laundry list of presidential woes, “the war” or “anti-war protests” are mentioned. Not perfect, but further than you were yesterday.
It’s the sustained action that will carry you through; that’s not always going to show up on the screen or in print. You get things cooking with civil disobedience not by a microwave but by crock pot, to use a really tortured analogy (I’m a/b to turn off my crock pot, satisfied that I won’t have to cook for a couple of days…sorry). A microwave takes an instant to get warm, and then cools off; crock pots move slowly to boil, but when it gets hot it stays hot for a while.
Think of it like that. :<)
Becoming more civilly disobedient has become a focus of thought and discussion within our anti-war group. It has not yet gained majority support, I think. But it is on the table, and gaining in support.
My take is this: We have one party that speaks for war mongers (R). We have another party where half supported the war and don’t want an immediate withdrawal, and the other half oppose the war and can’t convince their colleagues to become and anti-war party representing the people (D). So the political process is foreclosed as an avenue of progress. At least until the ’06 campaigns and elections give us a chance to effect political change.
That means the law of the land is a war. An illegal war that is killing our men and women, and the innocent men, women and children of Iraq. It is a moral wrong. The only thing preventing it from being a legal wrong is American hegemony over the processes that govern international law.
Confronted with a moral and legal wrong, you have a choice. Acquiesce actively or through passive silence. Or oppose. When the political process for opposition is not available, then you oppose by defying the law. Since you don’t have the power to defy the actual law causing the wrong (i.e., the act of war — we can’t as citizens illegally declare peace even when we want to), you oppose the other minor laws within the country in as strategic way as you know how. You are symbolically disobedient to the government that passes all law. Because the government, in acting in immoral and illegal ways, has forfeited its right to act lawfully on your behalf.
It is how we say stop, even when our leaders have ceased to listen. And it is a moral imperative.
That makes a whole lot of sense. My friend I mentioned in the diary also said:
Even when there’s nothing you can do, there’s something you can do – if you really want to.
Oooh! I’m “borrowing” that entire post! 🙂 Printing it off too. I might want to reread it while sitting in jail 🙂
This civil disobedience strikes me as a proxy civil war, forcing into view the question of who is really breaking the law: the protestors or the protested.
It exposes the real nature of the emergency in America today: not a threat so intense that we need to suspend the rule of law, but a suspension of the rule of law that has us spinning into senseless peril.
The proof is a mother trying to wring victory from her son’s obedience to his commitment to the country — to hold those who sent him into fatal fire to their end of a larger commitment to a free and democratic republic.
That is worth dying for.
The television coverage in D.C. seemed productive: wingnuts claiming the protestors were dishonoring the dead, Cindy vowing to come back and get arrested. It is about what Americans should die for, and Cindy seems ready to die to defend democracy and our freedom, to honor her son.
The election issues are another more complex matter. While the Democrats in their current position don’t merit stewardship here, the odds of doing better seem long but getting better as the anti-treason campaign progresses. The incumbency addicts will never honor the source of this power, this duel over who controls American democracy: the people or the machine.
Another particular strength of Cindy Sheehan’s Civil Disobedience is her strong, single voice against the complete conflation of persons in the military with agreement with Bushian politics and policies. Her example shows people not connected to the military just what sacrifice is being extracted from those who serve. She also demonstrates that being related to the military does not mean swallowing this war and its promotion whole. And her status as a mother who has lost her son gives her credibility that no amount of smears or innuendo or criticism can cover up.
Cindy Sheehan does not conform to group pressure. It would be easier for her to stay at home. (It would have been easier for many of you here to stay at home rather than go to Washington for the anti-war demonstration. Did you go to make a big media splash? Maybe. But what I read of your going was the personal effect that it had, and how that has influenced you since then. It changed you, and that has been the most important thing.) Cindy did not “stay at home”. She went out, and it has changed her — and is changing many others.
but I was sick the weekend of the march and couldn’t go out. I was disappointed.
What you say about how we change ourselves even as we try to change the world, you’re right, that’s the key, that’s the thing – I think that’s why I need to do this.
…and carried you all with me in spirit.
But furry, I would direct you to Boston Joe’s posting today, The Accidental Activist. Could be, you will find part of your answer there.
Some people don’t think any kind of protest is effective. I think it is better than nothing. Publicity. Community. The slow chipping away at injustice.
I don’t know much about how Sheehan’s civil disobedience is unfolding, but I the first time I had close contact with the issue, I was surprised at how choreographed it all was. In a number of instances, negotiations with police were done ahead of time. A set number of arrests was agreed on. Non-violence was required. Organizers knew in advance who was going to be arrested and tried to discourage impulsive actions from unplanned participants. Response teams were at the ready to escort people back from the correctional facilites. Sometimes there was an agreement to issue citations on the spot and not haul people to the pokey.
Nonetheless, it does take quite a bit of courage to put yourself in legal jeopardy and it can have long term consequences. I have a friend who cannot be a chaperone for her daughter’s field trips because of her arrest record for civil disobedience. Additionally, wording in the Patriot Act puts people at greater risk since you can be charged with conspiracy.
I think if you are willing to be arrested it shows how committed you are to what you believe in. I think standing for something matters.
This is a very good question you have asked.
I do not know Cindy Sheehan’s story. I know she was on a MoveOn ad before the election. Then I heard about her this summer at Crawford. And then in DC in September. And now.
I can only imagine… her son is killed in a war; she learns more and more about this war and the way it came into being…and she keeps hearing her president describe this war and the need for it in such banal platitudes that the question “Why?” grows and grows. She can find no good answer – no answer that fills the emptiness and eases the pain. No one can answer her. So she goes to the one who calls himself “the War President” to find an answer.
She wants to meet with the President to ask, “Why?”, knowing he has no answer for her, at least not a truthful answer.
And he knows this too.
What else could have as great importance for her than what she is doing now?
What would one have her do instead? Write her congress people to protest the war and request action? Get involved in political campaigns for “change?” “Get a life?”
The point is this IS Cindy’s life: following her President around, seeking his attention, requesting a meeting so she can ask, “Why?”
I believe she would be doing this whether anyone paid attention to her or not, whether anyone joined her or not.
I agree. Do you know if the woman who lost a son and was in Michael Moore’s movie is still actively opposing this war?
Thanks.
No, I don’t. I don’t remember her name either.
Many pathways for grief. I heard a counselor speak about those who need action as a means of expressing and coping with a death. He told us the founder of MADD (mothers against drunk drivers) was a mom who lost her child in an accident caused by a drunk driver. Powerful.
Cindy should start MADD (Mothers Against Drunken Dictators)…or alternatively MADDP (Mothers Against Dry Drunk Presidents)
Lila Lipscomb, I believe. She’s from Flint. Our anti-war group invited her to attend our vigil in Lansing (she has attended in the past). She is still active. If I remember correctly, she could not attend because she planned on being in Washington.
Very interesting distinction you make here, furryjester, between getting arrested for doing something you have a right to be doing, and getting arrested as a show of symbolic political defiance. I believe there’s room for both in progressive politics. I think there’s a third form, too: getting arrested trying, through your physical presence, to stop something happening that you believe is wrong.
An example of the third category would be the mass Clayoquot Sound blockades, on Vancouver Island in the 90s, to protest cutting old-growth forests. People blocked the road against the logging trucks. Many, many were arrested, and charged with and convicted of contempt of court for defying a court injunction. One of my friends, arrested at Clayoquot, had to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for three months.
These mass protests and arrests brought international attention to environmental issues in British Columbia. Civil disobedience was not the only strategy of our environmental movement; I don’t think it can ever be the only strategy in a political movement. But as many people on this thread have said, it can be very powerful, to get public attention for your cause, to indite the lawmakers for their moral inadequacy, and to build solidarity — as I think you said, furryjester, it’s an action that changes the actor.
In the early 90s I was active in the abortion rights movement in Vancouver. I was with a group of women who got arrested doing a sit-in at the federal Justice Minister’s offices, to protest a proposed new restrictive abortion law.
This was just one action in a huge nation-wide response to the proposed new restrictions, which never made it into law, because they were voted down in the Senate. Our Senate, unlike in the U.S., is an appointed body that usually has little real effect — they mostly just rubber-stamp bills from the House of Commons. That they chose instead in this instance to act by preventing a bad bill from becoming law, was a testament to the success of our political strategies — including civil disobedience.
It’s probably different for me. I knew two of the 2,000+. I can’t speak for them, but I can say that as someone who knew them I am personally angry that I lost their presence in my life and their children lost them because people lied, abused, and manipulated. Then there’s my husband, he’s been there and came home with what the military is calling generalized anxiety. He is doing better now thank God. If he would have been keeping us all safe, what we have experienced as a family concerning this “generalized anxiety” thing would have been very different. Sure it would have been tough but everyday at the grocery store I would have looked around at all the faces and thought about how he went through what he did to keep me and you and everybody else safe. It would have fed my being and I would have gone home and cooked dinner humming a little and I would have had soft gentle hugs for him. If I ever became tired out or short, visiting all of you would have refueled me. Instead now he has suffered because people wanted something different going on in Iraq so they made up stories and lies. Nobody was in immediate jeopardy of any kind and anything else that anybody tries to predict would have happened in the future had Sadaam not been removed amounts to tea leaves and crystal balls. My family has suffered for this, my children have suffered for this……..unsure of and scared of the one man they were always supposed to be able to count on. I can’t grab them up either and tell them that daddy went to war to keep us all safe and he is a bit strange right now, but soon everything will be alright. The truth is daddy went to war because people decided to use him like a whore for their own greedy desires because he signed his name on a line and became their physical property. He signed on that line so that he could be his most effective in keeping us all safe if ever we were in danger, but men abused him with it and abused us all! He may still have to go back there too because of the same old lies and this time he may not come home. The people I see at the grocery store, I don’t know if they would hate me for telling the truth and call me names and spit on me, or if they would wrap me in their arms and hug me and tell me that because my family has made a solemn vow to keep them safe they will help me right this horrible wrong because we are all unsafe now with this going on. They are your soldiers, most of them are deadly serious about keeping you safe and they have trained long hours. They are tired and wore out and strained. Your soldiers have been abused, and that leaves none of us any safer and probably undermines our safety. Nobody will hear me either and nobody cares enough to stop this! Going to jail means very little to me………actually going to jail allows everybody to see on the outside how my soul and being are on the inside…..my family is trapped right now, I live in jail every single day!
It’s hard even to know how to start. If I was in your place I’d be spitting nails from the moment I heard the words “generalized anxiety” – it just reeks of bullshit meant to minimize what your husband is going through. We all know how that works.
You say nobody cares. I do but sometimes I care so much that it’s like this overload and I have to make myself… not care as much about some things. And I can, I have that luxury because I don’t have friends or loved ones who have been lost or broken over there. I think a lot of people do this because they don’t know what else to do. It’s hard.
I numbed myself because I couldn’t go around furious and crushed and weeping all the time because of what my government was doing that I couldn’t stop. I numbed myself because last year, I wanted to focus on getting some Democrats elected so we could end that. I didn’t like that I had to do it but there were SO MANY things to be furious about that I had to, because I just couldn’t hold all that anger.
Once you numb yourself that way it’s hard to get the anger back because it’s a scary thing to feel that. And because I’ve got to look out for myself; I’ve got this nice job now and I can go to the docter whenever I need to for the first time in my life and how would it be if I screwed that up by pissing off the wrong people? it’s scary.
And now it seems to someone like you that we don’t care, that I don’t care, and it’s not what I want for myself, for you, for us as a community of people who believe in a common good. But it’s been so hard to find ways or a way to try to change things. I’ve been looking and looking and still haven’t found the best way. People think I’m crazy or weird for the things I say and I know I’m not, nor am I wrong, and it doesn’t change what I believe, but it makes it harder to step out and act.
And look, see, I know your family is suffering and I’m not trying to make this all about me. Only to explain. I think it’s like this for other people too. They only have so much energy to care for themselves and their family and maybe if they set aside any extra, for the world – and once they run out they just make themselves not care, it’s not that they hate you, it’s just… hard. But your family suffers. And you feel like you’re alone. And it shouldn’t be this way.
I can’t promise you much but only that I won’t give up looking for the best way for me to act, to speak for change, because this is a great wrong and you and your family and other families have suffered for it, and you should not. So I will not give up.
I have health insurance for the first time in my adult life. Growing up it was fine.
Sorry if my post sounded personalized toward you, I didn’t mean it that way. What I mean is that if everybody carried the appropriate amount of concern for themselves and their own wellbeing and they if they were appropriately awake and alive to how they spent their military dollars and now what someone has done with that and the dedication of the “warriors” that were born on American soil to keep Americans safe if needed, then this wouldn’t be happening. I can see where those who care often feel overwhelmed because they well know what is going on and they look around them at all the others asleep and they know something must be done but they are a mustard seed. Completely Overwhelming right now!!!! One foot forward though and one day at a time and we will move this mountain. Take care of yourself, love yourself, your presence is extra important…..when you feel overwhelmed hand it off to a higher whatever because this is bigger than all of us…….but all of us together will change all of this as soon as we are able.
or anything like that. No, it’s just, like you said, do people care? or not? will they do anything? or not? And if not what does that mean, what does that say, what does that make us?
Great resources on this topic are available from
Albert Einstein Institution –
including free downloads here:
Strategic Nonviolent Action Downloads
It comes down to communicating consent of the governed (or lack of consent) in a peaceful yet very powerful way. As a country we have come to think of Democracy as a holiday to be observed (or not) on election day.
Democracy: It is not just for election day anymore.