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.
"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
August 7, 2012: My Friend, Brother and Mentor Died Last Night and The song is From George
August 7, 2012:My Friend, Brother and Mentor Died Last Night and The song is From George
I called him Dr. D and I met him in 2003 shortly after he founded the now defunct Olive Trees Foundation for Peace, which brought together Jews, Christians and Muslims to raise awareness and funds to help replace the over one million fruit bearing trees on BOTH sides of The Wall.
He died last night, but he had been ever more on my mind since I saw him for the last time a few weeks ago.
A few of my photos from The Little Town of Bethlehem which is Occupied Territory- and Dr. D was the ONE who took me to Bethlehem for my first time and it blew my mind when I saw The Wall from a Palestinian POV:
About forty
years ago, on the first day of August, George Harrison and Friends and
fans got together for two shows at Madison Square Garden, New York City
and blew the roof off at The Concert for Bangladesh.
Everyone
checked their egos at
the door and in harmonious rocking solidarity with George, Ringo,
Clapton, Dylan, Leon Russell, Ravi Shankar and more raised awareness and
funds that were- and still are- being dispersed through UNICEF. The George Harrison fund for UNICEF supports
lifesaving assistance to children caught in humanitarian emergencies,
not just in Bangladesh, but all countries in crisis where children are
at risk.
The
Concert for Bangladesh ended as George sang and the band played My friend came to me, with sadness in his eyes He told me that he wanted help Before his country dies
Such a great disaster - I don't understand But it sure looks like a mess I've never known such distress Now please don't turn away,
Now it may seem so far from where we all are It's something we can't neglect It's something I can't neglect
In
2003, I met a man from Palestine who had such sadness in his eyes.
I saw him for the last time a few weeks ago; and it brought sadness to my eyes to see him in pain and down on his back.
But it also took me back to the days I listened to Dr. D tell me his stories of when he became a 1948 refugee from the Upper Galilee and then made his way to the USA and into a Top Secret position in the Defense
Industry during the Cold War and he inspired my first book:
"The formula is simple and it's reduced to four words every kid in the world knows: Tell me a story. It's that easy."-Don Hewitt In 2008 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba (“Catastrophe,” in Arabic): the dispossession and forced exile of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral land before and during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948;
The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, produced and distributed popular educational materials about the Nakba and its continuing relevance for resolving the Palestinian refugee issue and establishing a just and lasting peace.
My retelling of ONE of Dr. Diab's stories was awarded an Honorable Mention in
"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
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.
" 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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