WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"We're on a mission from God." Jake Blues/John Belushi
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
January 30, 2010:"I would never have become an historian if I thought that it would become my professional duty to go into the past and never emerge, to study long-gone events and remember them only for their uniqueness, not connecting them to events going on in my time."-Howard Zinn In honor of The Life and Spirit of Zinn, I am compelled to repeat myself:
July 31, 2009: The 64th Anniversary of USA Terrorism Enlightened by the Wisdom of Nonviolence:
This
August 6th and 9th mark the 64th anniversary of the most brutal acts of
terrorism upon innocent people; America's atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
On Armistice Day, 1948 General Omar Nelson Bradley
warned, "We live in a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a
world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without
conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the
lessons of the Sermon on The Mount. We know more about war than we know
about peace, more about dying than we know about living."
In
1995, from Ashkelon Prison, Mordechai Vanunu noted: "A radioactive
cloud consumed rubbed out Hiroshima...A live nuclear test sentenced
you. A nuclear laboratory…children women trees animals in and under a
nuclear mushroom…burning… burned…flattened to ground radioactive
ash-Hiroshima...Nuclear weapons gamblers win against you…Hollywood
doesn't know you - you are not a Jewish Holocaust." [1]
A little history:
At
2:45 AM, on August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber flew north from
Tinian Island toward Japan. Three and a half hours later, the Enola Gay
dropped "Little Boy" an 8,900-pound atomic weapon upon civilians in
Hiroshima and leveled almost 90% of the city. On August 9, "Fat Man"
was dropped on Nagasaki, and one third of that city was destroyed.
"Little
Boy" was fuelled by highly enriched uranium-235 and generated a
destructive force of about 15 kilotons—the equivalent of 15,000 tons of
TNT. "Fat Man" consisted of a plutonium core surrounded by high
explosives wired to explode simultaneously and yielded a 22 kiloton
explosion.
As a child, I could not comprehend how my country
could cold bloodedly target and murder Japanese citizens in order to
'save' American lives, which was the lame response I always received
from every adult I questioned as to why after what we did to Hiroshima
did we do it again to Nagasaki?
If THAT DAY, we call 9/11 taught
us anything, it should be that America's nuclear arsenal cannot defeat
'terrorism' or provide security from the actions of a few violent mad
men who target and murder innocent ones.
American money is
imprinted with "IN GOD WE TRUST" but reality is we have become a nation
of hypocrites, for by our foreign policy we expose that we live by the
sword.
America has a nuclear arsenal of over 10,000 weapons
and nearly 2,000 remain on hair-trigger alert ever since the end of the
Cold War.
An estimated 150 – 240 tactical nuclear weapons remain
based in 5 NATO countries and the United States is the only country
with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil.
American
taxpayers provide over $54 billion annually to maintain WMD's, which is
but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. military spending. The
U.S. is also a co-conspirator in international nuclear apartheid and
major collaborator in Israel's INEFFECTIVE policy of nuclear ambiguity.
In
April 2004, and just three days after Vanunu was released from 18 years
in jail for providing the photographic proof and telling the truth
about Israel's clandestine seven story underground WMD Program in the
Negev, Uri Avnery wrote:
"Everybody understands that he has no
more secrets. What can a technician know after 18 years in jail, during
which technology has advanced with giant steps?
"But gradually
it becomes clear what the security establishment is really afraid of.
Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the United
States in the development of Israel's nuclear armaments.
"This
worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State
Department for 'arms control', Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to
Israel in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe
damage to the mighty super-power.
"The Americans, it seems, are
very worried. The Israeli security services have to dance to their
tune. The world must be prevented by all available means from hearing,
from the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full
partners in Israel's nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the
world's sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation."[2]
On
July 29, 2009, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of Baltimore gave a keynote
talk at the first Deterrence Symposium, hosted by U.S. Strategic
Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
He said, "Our
world and its leaders must stay focused on the destination of a
nuclear-weapons-free world and on the concrete steps that lead
there…[and] that deterrence, in the words of the U.S. bishops, is not
'a long-term basis for peace' …the spread of nuclear weapons and
technology to other nations, and the threat of nuclear terrorism, which
cannot be deterred with nuclear weapons, point to the need to move
beyond nuclear deterrence as rapidly as possible…Religious leaders,
prominent officials, and other people of goodwill who support a
nuclear-weapons-free world are not naïve about the task ahead. They
know the path will be difficult and will require determined political
leadership, strong public support, and the dedicated skills of many
capable leaders and technical experts. But difficult is not
impossible.” [3]
The Archbishop outlined several concrete
steps toward total nuclear disarmament supported by the Catholic
Church, including the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, negotiations on a
Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and the revision of military doctrines
of nuclear weapon states to “renounce the first use of nuclear weapons”
and “declare they will not be used against non-nuclear threats.”[Ibid]
In Hiroshima on May 2008, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mairead Maguire said:
"We
live in an insecure, uncertain world; it is also a time of opportunity.
It is a time to put aside many of the old ways and with creativity and
imagination, develop new thinking, ideas, institutions, etc. Young
people and women will help this process; they know that Nuclear weapons
belong to the cold war thinking, and can never be used. To do so, would
be immoral, illogical and destroy the Environment.
"They know
our real problems, are: Poverty, Environment, unethical globalization,
abuse of Human Rights and International Laws, gender inequality,
ethnical/political conflict, State and paramilitary acts of terror…They
know that spending trillions on weapons that can never be used, while
each day over 30,000 children die of preventable disease, is immoral
and unacceptable.
"We are all aware that we are living in an
increasing Culture of violence, and if we are to survive we need to
build a Culture of Non-violence. Choosing not to kill another human
being is the greatest contribution each of us can make to peace. This
is not a hard choice when through prayer, meditation, morality, or
logic, we come to realize that our lives are sacred as is the life of
all our brothers and sisters, and there are always alternatives to
violence which work. Human beings are evolving and there is a new
consciousness that we must choose non-violence and build strong
relationships and community." [4]
On May 17, 2009, Mairead
prevailed on seventeen Nobel laureates to sign a letter called the
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration. Her friend, author and Jesuit priest
John Dear wrote of that day:
"Released in Hiroshima, it calls
upon world leaders, and all people, to eliminate nuclear weapons. And
it warns that unless humanity fails in that endeavor, 'the horrors of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki' will be repeated. Such weapons, [Mairead] says,
belong to the tragic past. They belong to a time when the world lacked
the wisdom to realize that each culture needs the other to survive.
"Governments
which still hold such weapons violate the prohibition of war in the UN
charter. But more than that, she says, they’re operating
anachronistically. They’re out of touch with the insights of the times.
Nowadays our enemies aren’t across the border. The enemies of humanity
today are poverty, environmental destruction, militarism, and war.
"Our
security nowadays lies in nonviolence and love. She insists that we all
need to heed the wisdom of nonviolence and apply it institutionally,
internationally, globally and concluded in The Vision of Peace,
'Everyone of us has a role to play in the creation of a new culture of
nonviolence.'" [5]
2009
is the final year in the United Nations Decade of Creating a Culture of
Nonviolence for All the Children of the World. America is on the record
in the UN as abstaining from voting because to support such an
initiative would make it "too hard for us to go to war."
Many
Americans live under the delusion that the USA is a Christian nation.
If that were true, we would lead the way in nuclear disarmament and
abolish war.
John Dear also wrote:
"Contrary to what
the Pentagon tells us, that our God is not a god of war, but the God of
peace; not a god of injustice, but the God of justice; not a god of
vengeance and retaliation, but the God of compassion and mercy; not a
god of violence, but the God of non-violence; not a god of death, but
the living God of life.
"[And then] we discover a new image
of God. As we begin to imagine the peace and non-violence of God; we
learn to worship the God of peace and non-violence; and in the process,
become people of peace and non-violence.
"The one thing we can
say for sure about Jesus is that he practiced active, public, creative
non-violence. He called us to love our neighbors; to show compassion
toward everyone; to seek justice for the poor; to forgive everyone; to
put down the sword; to take up the cross in the struggle for justice
and peace; to lay down our lives, to risk our lives if necessary, in
love for all humanity, and most of all, to love our enemies. His last
words to the community, to the church, to us, as the soldiers dragged
him away, could not be clearer or more to the point: "Put down the
sword."
"That's it. We are not allowed to kill. That's why they
run away; they realize he is serious about non-violence…Jesus dies on
the cross saying, "The violence stops here in my body, which is given
for you. You are forgiven, but from now on, you are not allowed to kill:
"Violence
doesn't work. War doesn't work. Violence in response to violence always
leads to further violence. Those who live by the sword will die by the
sword. Those who live by the bomb, the gun, the nuclear weapon, will
die by bombs, guns and nuclear weapons. You reap what you sow. The
means are the ends. What goes around comes around. War can not stop
terrorism because war is terrorism. War only sows the seeds for future
wars.
"Underneath this culture of war and injustice is a
sophisticated spirituality of violence, a spirituality of war, a
spirituality of empire, a spirituality of injustice that has nothing to
do with the living God or the Gospel of Jesus." [Ibid]
Jesus
is best known as The Prince of Peace and when he told Nicodemus, that
you must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven, he was not
talking about an emotional high, but a TRANSFORMATION of heart and mind
to wake up and see The Divine in ALL people and all of creation.
Every
August 6th in the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican churches,
there is a celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, an
event reported in the synoptic gospels in which Jesus became radiant
having undergone a metamorphosis; a transformation.
In
2008, at the National Press Club, Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis,
Theological Advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch on Environmental
Issues, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America addressed President
Bush's agenda known as COMPLEX TRANSFORMATION:
"The
question is not how much more sophisticated our plants and weapons can
become, but how serious we are as a nation to lead the world with an
alternative vision which interprets power differently and promotes
peaceful coexistence globally.
"Complex Transformation is the
Bush administration proposed plan to restructure the nation's nuclear
weapons infrastructure. The administration's goal is to consolidate
existing nuclear facilities while increasing the capacity to produce
material for new nuclear weapons.
"According to a report
jointly released by the Energy Department (DOE) on January 10, 2008,
the administration seeks an annual production capacity of 80 plutonium
pits (read: triggers for new nuclear bombs) as a result of the
transformation.
"The main justification for the program is the
perceived need for a more adaptable and responsive nuclear
infrastructure to react to unnamed future threats."[6]
The Wisdom of Nonviolence
"The God of peace is never glorified by human violence… The radical truth of reality is that we are all one." –Thomas Merton
Gandhi's
non-violence was a political tactic that evolved from the inner
realization of spiritual unity within himself. Gandhi studied all the
world's religions and after attending many churches, he remarked that
Christianity was a great religion and all Christians should "TRY IT!"
The
problem is not with Christianity, but that too few who claim to be have
taken The Sermon on The Mount as their manifesto and live lives that
express that God is Love and God Loves All.
"Love is not the
starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open
cities. Love is not killing......Our manifesto is the Sermon on the
Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers." -Dorothy Day
"The
wisdom of non-violence teaches that war is not the way to follow Jesus.
War is not the will of God. War is never justified. War is never
blessed by God. War is not endorsed by any religion. War is the very
definition of mortal sin. War is demonic, evil, anti-human, anti-life,
anti-God, and anti-Christ." [7]
"In all of earth’s
sixty-five-million-year history, we are living in the most dangerous of
times. The fact that a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and two hundred
thousand lives were vaporized within twenty minutes has not prevented
man from dreaming up more ways to fill space with weapons of mass
destruction. We were not created for militarism, but to turn our swords
into plowshares. We have arrived here today by no accident. We have
been summoned by the universe to claim the highest common ground. As
the Dali Lama said, the radicalism of our age is to be compassionate
human beings. We have been called to bring love and compassion back
into the equation and assist others to connect with the deepest parts
of themselves. Now is the time to realize, as never before, that when
any of us suffer, we all suffer. All life is interconnected,
interdependent, and greatly loved by the creator, the sustainer of the
universe. We are called by love, for love, and to love.”- Franciscan
Fr. Louis Vitale, July 20, 2005, Berkeley, California at TIKKUN’s first
annual conference for spiritual progressives. [8]
From Ashkelon prison in 1987, Mordechai Vanunu asked:
"Any
country, which manufactures and stocks nuclear weapons, is first of all
endangering its own citizens. This is why the citizens must confront
their government and warn it that it has no right to expose them to
this danger. Because, in effect, the citizens are being held hostage by
their own government, just as if they have been hijacked and deprived
of their freedom and threatened…when governments develop nuclear
weapons without the consent of their citizens - and this is true in
most cases - they are violating the basic rights of their citizens, the
basic right not to live under constant threat of annihilation…Is any
government qualified and authorized to produce such weapons?"
On
April 5, 2009, President Obama stood on the world stage amongst
thousands of flag-waving Czechs and spoke of good humor, home town
Chicago, the will of the people over tanks and guns, old conflicts,
revolution, moral leadership as the most powerful weapon, iron curtains
that fell and the state of 21st century nuclear weapons:
"We are
here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them that
the world could not change. We're here today because of the courage of
those who stood up and took risks to say that freedom is a right for
all people, no matter what side of a wall they live on, and no matter
what they look like. We are here today because the simple and
principled pursuit of liberty and opportunity shamed those who relied
on the power of tanks and arms to put down the will of a people.
"Some
argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be
checked -– that we are destined to live in a world where more nations
and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction. Such
fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of
nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to
ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable.
"As the
only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has
a moral responsibility to act…It will take patience and persistence.
But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world
cannot change. We have to insist, "Yes, we can."
"There is
violence and injustice in our world that must be confronted. We must
confront it by standing together as free nations, as free people. I
know that a call to arms can stir the souls of men and women more than
a call to lay them down. But that is why the voices for peace and
progress must be raised together.
"Let us honor our past by
reaching for a better future. Let us bridge our divisions, build upon
our hopes, and accept our responsibility to leave this world more
prosperous and more peaceful than we found it. Together we can do it.
"Words
must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be confronted by
standing together as free nations, as free people…[and] Human destiny
will be what we make of it."[9]
To this day, the USA and Israel claim to be peace seekers and democracies.
"Israel
is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and
controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up
with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”-Jeff
Halper, American Israeli, Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions and a Noble Peace Prize Nominee for
2006.
To this day Vanunu remains an open air prisoner captive in
occupied east Jerusalem denied the right to leave the Jewish State.
What Vanunu's Freedom of Speech trial exposed since it began on January
25, 2006 is that the Israeli SECURITY System controls the Israeli
Ministry of Justice.
To
this day, Tel Aviv persists to attempt to deflect its egregious
transgressions of international law and human rights abuses aided and
abetted by well funded publicity campaigns, an AIPAC beholden Congress
and an American media that has failed at its commission to seek and
report all sides of a story when it comes to the now 42 plus years of
military occupation of Palestine.
In April 1999,
thirty-six members of the House of Representatives signed a letter
calling for Vanunu's release from prison because they believed "we have
a duty to stand up for men and women like Mordechai Vanunu who dare to
articulate a brighter vision for humanity."
President Clinton
responded with a public statement expressing concern for Vanunu and the
need for Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty
to adhere to it and accept IAEA safeguards.
However, ever since the silence had been deafening, until hope resurrected in Prague:
"Words
must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be confronted by
standing together as free nations, as free people…Human destiny will be
what we make of it."-President Obama
"You cannot talk like
sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking
beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not
treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is:
the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the
laws of life."- Lewis Mumford, 1946
"Our society is run by
insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs
for maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want peace in the
world they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can
get it…You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do
anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's
all down to you, mate...All we are saying is give peace a chance...All
you need is love...Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may
say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join
us, and the world will be as one...Reality leaves a lot to the
imagination."-John Lennon
"If you are not apart of the solution; you are apart of the problem."-Eldridge Cleaver
Learn more and please and thanks for doing something:
On December 8, 1980, John Lennon died 9 days after Dorothy Day did.
Dorothy Day entered the Catholic church, I left it.
It was at the age of 12, in the summer of 1966, inspired by John Lennon’s honesty, I tuned out the institutional church.
Up
until I was about six years old, every Sunday morning was spent in a
glass-encased room at St. Bernard’s one holy Roman Catholic Church, in
Levittown, Long Island.
The glass-encased room was called, and literally was, the Cry Room.
Growing
up with television, it was natural for me to stand up close against the
soundproof glass and watch 'the show' on the other side.
Every
so often, I’d hear the priest’s voice filter through the loudspeaker
above my head. But it was all Latin to me: and back then, it really was!
I
see myself now, just as I was then, surrounded by squirming kids and
uptight adults, engulfed by the sounds of crying and whining, and I
truly believed that was church.
Once my younger brothers had
grown, I got to be in the main room and the show lost its mystery to
me, for the Latin had been changed to English and quickly became
routine.
When I was 9, in 1963, two life altering events occurred.
By
Thanksgiving that year, I was overfilled with images of JFK being shot
and John-John during that motorcade. He was just a little guy in a
short coat with his knees exposed who saluted as his father’s casket
rode by and many of America’s other children also bid goodbye to their
childhood.
But, three months later, the gloom was gone, for
the Beatles appeared on a Sunday night in my living room, and the world
as I had known it changed again.
In the summer of ’66, it was
reported that John Lennon made a comment to a friend and reporter that
the Beatles were more popular with my generation than Jesus was.
I agreed with him, for my friends and I knew every lyric to every Beatles song, but nobody ever quoted Jesus.
Lennon made me think about my own hypocrisy, and that led me to drop the institutional church.
It
was in July on a Saturday afternoon, immediately after the ritual of
weekly confession that I knelt at the altar and mindlessly repeated the
same old prayers as the week prior. But on that particular day in '66,
in the middle of the three Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary's, it hit me
like a light. Those words that I uttered never changed anything, and I
got up and walked out, convinced I was doomed for hell, for I had
failed at Confession!
I never doubted there was a God, but
as John said and I believed, “that what people call God is something in
all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all
the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone
wrong…Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.
It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
Lennon said and
sang, “You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do
anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's
all down to you, mate...All we are saying is give peace a chance...All
you need is love...Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may
say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join
us, and the world will be as one...Reality leaves a lot to the
imagination.”
William Blake penned, “Imagination is evidence of the Divine.”
On October 9, 2005, I wrote:
John Lennon would have been 65 at exactly 6:35 PM today.
On
3/7/04 inside of 216 North Park Avenue in Winter Park, Florida "When
I'm 64" the traveling Lennon Art for Sale Show to benefit Instant Karma
Adopt-A-Classroom; helping teachers, helping Children show cased the
Love and Art of John for Yoko and Sean.
216 [2+1+6=9] North
Park Avenue had previously been a Victoria's Secret and in the far end
where padded bras had once hung had now become a temporary shrine of
unending love of a father for his son.
The drawings upon the
walls had been created out of play between John and Sean. Yoko had
lightly tinged them pastel and turned them into a book called Real
Love.
I was captivated by one in particular titled "Sheep
Meadowing" in which sheep had levitated into the sky and had morphed
into clouds above the heads of sheep meadowing.
After a time of
timelessness cogitating upon those sheep, I reluctantly pulled my head
back through the clouds to continue on to the second Gathering of Women
for Peace, where sisters of every color and creed gathered in harmony
at the Mosque in East Orlando.
We came together to imagine what Peace in the World would look like and what we could do to make it happen.
All day long in my inner ear I did hear "Revolution 9" from the White Album tuned in so very clear and with a few new lyrics:
Number
9 Number 9 Number 9...Let all who are little come in here, Wisdom has
built her house; come eat her food and drink her wine and walk in the
ways of understanding [Proverbs 9]...I'm so very small I'm so very
small, already within the heart of every atom yet extend Beyond the
Universe and connect every mother and child...Number 9 Number 9 Number
9.
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I
think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends...I believe that as
soon as people want peace in the world they can have it. The only
trouble is they are not aware they can get it."-John Lennon
PS-A print of SHEEP MEADOWING now hangs above my bathtub.
"Writing...is
hard because you are giving yourself away, but if you love; you want to
give yourself. You write as you are impelled to write, about man and
his problems, his relation to God and his fellows…The sustained effort
of writing, of putting [words down while] there are human beings [with]
sickness, hunger, sorrow…I feel that I have done nothing well, but I
did something."-Dorothy Day
Dorothy
Day lived a diverse 83 years that culminated in 1980. She spent her
youth amongst anarchists and bohemians, in bars and through unhappy
love affairs. She ended life with a mile high FBI file and a paper
trail that testifies that what she wrote, she believed, she did and
lived.
As
an unwed mother she shocked her progressive friends when she entered
the Roman Catholic Church, and from the inside, she began to critique
it. She called herself a journalist, but she was also like St. Francis
of Assisi, a lone prophetic voice of wisdom that challenged the
corruption of the gospel/good news that Jesus said was non-negotiable
for his follower's; you must forgive to be forgiven and you must
love-even those who do not love back.
In a 1994 issue of The Progressive,
Erwin Knoll reported "the day after the Japanese attack on the U.S.
naval base at Pearl Harbor [was] a day when even the most committed
pacifist might have been forgiven for maintaining a discreet
silence…There was nothing discreet about Dorothy Day."[1]
On
the Sunday after Pearl Harbor, Day spoke out, "There is now all this
patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and
Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and
European colonialism in this same area. We, the British, the French,
and others set up spheres of influence…control national states-against
the expressed will of these states-and represent imperialism…We dictate
to [all] …to where they can expand economically and politically, and we
declare what policy they must observe. From our nationalistic and
imperialistic point of view, we have every right to concentrate
American military forces [Everywhere we chose]…But I waste rhetoric on
international politics-the breeding grounds of war over the centuries.
The balance of power and other empty slogans inspired by a false and
flamboyant nationalism have bred conflict throughout 'civilized'
history.
"And
it has become too late in human history to tolerate wars which none can
win. Nor dare we quibble about just wars…All wars are, by their very
nature, evil and destructive. It has become too late for civilized
people to accept this evil. We must take a stand. We must renounce war
as an instrument of policy…Evil enough when the finest of our youth
perish in conflict and even the causes of these conflicts were soon
lost to memory. Even more horrible today when cities go up in flames
and brilliant scientific minds are searching out ultimate weapons.
"War
must cease. There are no victories. The world can bear the burden no
longer. Yes, we must make a stand. Even as I speak to you, I may be
guilty of what some men call treason. But we must reject war: Yes, we
must now make a stand. War is murder, rape, ruin, death; war can end
our civilization. I tell you that within a decade we will have weapons capable of ending this world as we have known it." [IBID]
Day's
prophetic voice is also a friend of wisdom and "Wisdom is a spirit
intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained,
and certain. Not baneful, but loving the good, keen, unhampered,
beneficent, kind, firm, secure, all-seeing and pervading all spirits.
Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion and SHE penetrates and pervades all
things by reason. SHE is the aura of the might of God and a pure
effusion of the glory of The Almighty. SHE is the refulgence of eternal
Light, a spotless mirror of the power of God. And SHE who is one, can
do all things and renews everything. And passing into holy souls from
age to age, SHE produces friends of God and prophets." - WISDOM 7:22-8:1
Day
took Jesus seriously and understood that for a Christian the higher law
is God's not man's and for a Christian, God is love and "love is not
the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of
cities. Love is not killing...Our Manifesto is the Sermon on The Mount,
which means we will try to be peacemakers."
Day challenged church, state and corporate media via her publication The Catholic Worker, which gave voice to the voiceless and persists today. Everyday
when I sit in front of my keyboard to write; to give myself away
impelled by love in response to a sense of mission or is it duty? This
need to write about man and his problems, his relation to God and his
sisters and brothers, provokes me to daily wonder:
WWDDS?
What
would Dorothy Day Say about America today, our media, government and
churches?
What would she publish about Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, and the
fact that 2008 is the 60th Anniversary of Israel, Nakba, and the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights upon which Israel's statehood was
contingent upon upholding.
Might she have said:
For
every misunderstanding, every condemning thought, every negative
vibration, every tear torn from a heart, every time one grabbed and
wouldn’t let go, and they only did it because they did not know:
The Divine is within all creation and within all women and men.
And
every tiny kindness you have ever done, every gentle word spoken, every
time you held your tongue, every positive thought, every smile freely
given, every helping hand that opens, helps bring in the kingdom. And
the kingdom comes from above, and it comes from within.
Imagine a kingdom of sisterhood of all creatures and all men.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. -Article 19.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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