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Our Mission |
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.
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The Walls of Berlin and Bil'in |
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Garth Hewitt: From the Broken Heart Of Gaza |
FACTS ABOUT THE WALL from friends in Bethlehem
Read the truth about the Wall and what is happening today in the Holy City of Bethlehem. |
Read more...
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Eileen Fleming's Biography
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Read more...
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"We're on a mission from God." The Blues Brothers "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
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"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
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DO SOMETHING! |
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
DO SOMETHING! Click Here |
Declaration of Independence |
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 |
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Home Blog February 2009 February 3, 2009
February 3, 2009: JC spoke in parables; I tell stories...
I am also an American Irish dissident who has been to Israel and Occupied Palestine six times on my dime since June 2005.
I have been driven by a desire to learn the true facts on the ground and report it all and much more on WeAreWideAwake.org
I always return home heart broken over what I witnessed, heard, and felt in my gut.
I have cried buckets of tears and spilled much cyber ink.
I can get quite pissed off at particular people-'my own' so to say- because we all claim to be Christian.
Since my first trip to the other side of The Apartheid Wall, I knew I was responsible and culpable in the abomination and denial of human rights to indigenous people.
I knew I had to do something to try to WAKE UP these particular USA Christians to the so called holy land that is in pieces:
Bantustans.
We Americans in particular are culpable in the misery of multitudes via our $7-10 million USA tax dollars that go to support and enable atrocities such as the War on Gaza.
And as hopeless as it all looks-I have radical and audacious HOPE!
Because we truly do have "it in our power to begin the world again"-Tom Paine
Via the World Wide Web and Hearts of Handala: which is Arabic for HOPE + "HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack...And never, never, never, never, ever, never give up." - Sir Winston Churchill
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. ... Genius will not. ... Education will not. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."- Calvin Coolidge
Once upon a time, there was an old widow, who lived in a certain town with a judge who cared nothing about justice, people or God. But an old widowed crone kept coming to him with her plea, "Grant me justice against my adversary."
The judge ignored her until she became such a PIA [pain in the ass] he finally muttered to himself, "Even though I don't fear God or care a hoot about this old crone, she has become such a PIA, I will give into her, just to get her to leave me alone!" [Paraphrased from a story Jesus told in Luke 18 1-5]
Excerpted from KEEP HOPE ALIVE
Chapter 16: A CONFRONTATIONAL CONVERSATION
“Father
Paul, you cannot possibly be telling me that an Episcopal priest has
been taken in by fundamentalist theology?” Terese incredulously asked
the new assistant to the rector at St. Joan of Arc Episcopal Church in
Orlando, who also served at the noon mass every Wednesday. Father
Paul Hendricks was a passionate evangelist on a mission to convert
every Jew he encountered to become a Christian. Terese had kept her
silence for the first six months she had been listening to his
Wednesday noon sermons, but finally broke her silence after the rest of
the parishioners had departed. Paul
sighed and shook his head. “Look, Mrs. Hunter, I read your op/ed in the
newspaper about Israel and Palestine, and we both agree we want peace;
we just go about it differently.” “Father,
let me say that the fastest growing cult in the U.S.A. is the cult of
Christian Zionism. Approximately 25 million U.S. Christians believe as
you do, and I am most depressed to see that the simple answers of
fundamentalism have reached their tentacles into the thinking man’s
church. You just preached for thirteen minutes on Genesis 12:3--‘I will
bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse: and
in you all the families of the world are blessed’--as if God meant
blessings to be political power and military might. Father, surely you
understand that the belief of the ancient Israelites, who held that
they were chosen, as if they were somehow special from others, as if
God esteemed them above others, is just basic primitive nationalism.
Come on, Father, looking down on one’s enemies to foster one’s own
tribal interest and praying to God to smite one’s enemies is what the
ancients did. Isn’t it about time we moved beyond that limited
thinking?” Father
Paul clenched his fists and held them behind his back, as he suppressed
a simmering rage. He stood nine inches above Terese’s upturned head,
and with a slick smile and condescending tone told her, “Mrs. Hunter,
you are very misled. The text is understood to mean a blessing to
Abraham’s lineage--” Terese
cut in. “Agreed! And Genesis 12:3 was promised even before Ishmael, the
father of the Arab nation, and Isaac, the Jew, were born! And what
about the very first mention of Israel? Jacob was renamed
Israel for having wrestled and struggled with God. That is how I
understand Israel; everyone who struggles and wrestles with God is
Israel, too. Israel means more than a geographical location, Father
Paul.” “Mrs.
Hunter, the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of the prophetic
scriptures, and God’s covenant with Israel is eternal, exclusive, and
will not be abrogated. I refer you to Genesis 12:1-7, 15:4-7, 17:1-8;
Leviticus 26:44-45; and Deuteronomy 7:7:8.” “And
Father, I refer you to Matthew 5:43-45, which does not only critique
Genesis 12:3; it blows it apart, for Christ commanded, ‘Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them that despitefully use you, that you maybe children of
your Father.’” The
two had reached Paul’s SUV and he silently prayed he could make a swift
escape, but Terese had positioned herself at the driver’s door, and if
he were to open it swiftly, she could be easily moved aside. Father
Paul entertained the thought for more than a moment, but remained mute
and still, as the tiny woman exploded with a torrent of words. "Look,
blind allegiance to the Israeli government has allowed them to become a
big bully, and isn’t God always on the side of the oppressed? My sense
is that you Zionists see the political state of Israel as a replacement
for Christ, at the center of the Christian faith, and that certainly is
not Christianity!
"How do you take Genesis 12:3 to literally
mean that blessings equal land and political power, yet ignore God’s
promise in Genesis 21:17-20 to ‘make a great nation out of Ishmael’s
descendents’ and that ‘God was with the boy.’ Yet your way of thinking
allows the growing apartheid wall to continue, and supports occupation
and oppression of people that God also made promises too.” “Mrs. Hunter, why don’t you make an appointment and we can discuss this further? I really have to go.” “Okay,
I can take a hint, but let me leave you with this: when religion and
politics are in bed together, everybody gets screwed! The Israeli
government is using you Zionists as apologists in support of their
agenda of illegal occupation and settlements in the West bank, Golan,
and Gaza, on literal biblical grounds taken out of context. Your blind
allegiance to every act of Israel, understood as being orchestrated by
God and which should therefore be condoned, supported, and even
praised, makes me want to puke! And I wonder about the true motives of
Christians who actually relish the idea of Armageddon and love to
speculate on who gets ‘left behind.’ Christ was very clear that there
will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who were so
sure they were in, but get left out. God has always been on the side of
the oppressed, and your uncritical endorsement and justification for
Israel’s racist and apartheid policies are an abomination.” The stunned and silent priest watched in relief as Terese turned, flipped her braid, and walked away.
PS-Dear Reader, This
chapter is based on an actual email converstaion I had with an
Episcopal priest. He gave up talking to me after my third email to him.
I have been informed that he is now in Jerusalem connected with the
Holocaust Memorial. |
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"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 |
Order My Books |
"Memoirs of a Nice Irish-AmericanGirl's Life inOccupied Territory" AND "Keep Hope Alive" To order either book click here. |
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
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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.
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The Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway. © 1968, 2001 Kent M. Keith " In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
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“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 |
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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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