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
VIDEO by Ishmahil Blagrove - RicenPeas Passenger among the Free Gaza 21. The
following video is the last footage taken onboard the Spirit Of
Humanity before its voyage, to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, was
prematurely halted by Isreali special forces. It shows the atmosphere
inside the cabin as the crew try to negotiate with the Isreali ship via
radio.
July 5, 2009: Another letter from an
Israeli Prison and Nobel Laureate on Hunger Strike
AS LONG AS THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE HAVE NO LIBERTY, NO FREEDOM THOSE OF US WITH A VOICE TO SPEAK MUST SPEAK
AS LONG AS THE CHILDREN OF GAZA LIVE IN FEAR OF ISRAELI BOMBS AND OCCUPATION THOSE OF US WITH A VOICE TO SPEAK MUST SPEAK
AS LONG AS SIX MILLION PALESTINIAN REFUGEES ARE DEPORTEES AROUND THE WORLD THOSE OF US WITH A VOICE TO SPEAK MUST SPEAK
AS LONG AS MILLIONS OF GOD’S CHILDREN ARE HUNGRY, IMPRISONED, AND WITHOUT HOPE THOSE OF US WITH A VOICE TO SPEAK MUST SPEAK
BECAUSE IT IS IN SPEAKING WE FIND OUR LIBERTY, OUR FREEDOM AND NO PRISON BARS CAN TAKE AWAY OUR PEACE, OUR LOVE WHICH IS THE TRUE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY
(FOR GAZA AND THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE) MAIREAD MAGUIRE – NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE (IN RAMLE – ISRAELI PRISON) 3lst June, 2009
www.peacepeople.com Letter from USA in Spirit with Humanity eileen fleming "While
there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal
element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."-Eugene V. Debs
Since
the pirate-frogmen Israeli Forces kidnapped the FreeGaza21 at gunpoint
and imprisoned them all, many statements and letters from Israeli
Prisons have voiced the spirit of and for Humanity.
The
altruistic, courageous, righteously angry, FreeGaza21 inspired me to
re-read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" a scalding critique of American
Christianity that Reverend Martin Luther King addressed to his "Dear
Fellow Clergymen" who had abandoned him.
I have taken a few
liberties with King's masterpiece by adding and negating some words to
address the ongoing turmoil in Israel Palestine in light of the
FreeGaza21.
My target audience are my sisters and brothers in
Christ, in particular those that fill the pews every Sunday but have
not yet connected to JC in the poor, oppressed, occupied, widows,
orphans, refugees, prisoners and all other indigenous people who endure
under brutal military occupations that are funded by USA tax dollars.
The
misery in the so called Holy Land is also ideologically supported by
legions of misinformed, uninformed apathetic American Christians who
have neglected to honor what Jesus said was non-negotiable-that is if
you really love him- you must and will forgive, pray for, do good
towards your enemies and try to be a peacemaker [reconciler] for they
are the daughters and sons of the Lord. My spin on King:
I am
on the internet because injustice can be expressed here while the net
is still neutral. I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all
communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in comfort and not be
concerned about what happens in Israel Palestine.
Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Never
again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside
agitator" idea. Anyone who lives in the world can never be considered
an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
In any nonviolent
campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to
determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; examining one's
motives and acting on conscience with direct action. Nonviolent
direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension
that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to
confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no
longer be ignored I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have
earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive,
nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.
Too long has The Peace Process been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
Lamentably,
it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their
privileges voluntarily. We know through painful experience that freedom
is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed. We must come to see that "justice too long delayed is
justice denied." There are two types of laws: just and unjust. I
would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a
legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has
a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St.
Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
A just law is a
man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An
unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put
it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law
that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts
human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is
unjust.
Segregation [Translates to Apartheid in Afrikaner]
distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator
a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of
inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish
philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I
thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of
things.
Hence segregation; apartheid, conscription and
military occupation is not only politically, economically and
sociologically unsound; it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich
has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential
expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his
terrible sinfulness?
An unjust law is a code that a numerical
or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not
make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same
token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to
follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made
legal.
One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly,
lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that
an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and
who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse
the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality
expressing the highest respect for law.
Everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and it was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany.
Shallow
understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than
absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance
is much more bewildering than outright rejection. Oppressed people
cannot remain oppressed forever and if repressed emotions are not
released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through
violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. [End of Letter
from Birmingham Jail]
Our times call for extreme expressions of creative NONVIOLENCE and the FREE GAZA Movement is of its time.
In
August 2008, the FREE GAZA Movement docked their first –and the very
first boat in the Gaza port in 41 years. The most recent-the Spirit of
HUMANITY is an international incident that the USA media and government
have failed to address as of this writing.
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead
The
persistence of internationals, Israelis and Palestinians who with a
humble flotilla of wooden boats and small yachts have sailed only in
international waters to reach Gaza and bring the message that many in
the world are outraged at politicians with eyes that do not see, ears
that do not hear and hearts of stone who allow only small trickles of
humanitarian aid and building supplies into Gaza, which was devastated
by Israeli forces six months ago and it remains in the same sorry state
of destruction today. Many call the FREE GAZA activists extremists and radicals. They are. So were the founders of the United States of America.
"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
"Soon
after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense" [on Feb. 14, 1776] in
America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the
system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of
religion... The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and
to do good is my religion."-Tom Paine
On her first
FREE GAZA trip, Cynthia McKinney, former Georgia Congresswoman sailed
on the Dignity when it was rammed three times by the Israeli navy on
December 30, 2008.
On June 30, 2009, Cynthia was on board the
Spirit of Humanity and while Israeli pirate-frogmen surrounded her boat
she said, "This is an outrageous violation of international law against
us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights
mission to the Gaza Strip. President Obama just told Israel to let in
humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we
tried to do. We're asking the international community to demand our
release so we can resume our journey.”
Fourteen FreeGaza21
remain in Israeli jails because they have refused to sign a false
statement that they were in Israeli waters.
Mairead Maguire,
Nobel laureate is on a fast to end the siege and to raise awareness of
the 11,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel-many children under
sixteen years old.
In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King
reminded his fellow clergymen that Jesus was an extremist for love who
taught his follower's to "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you, and persecute you."
The Hebrew prophet Amos was an
extremist for justice, "Let justice roll down like waters and
righteousness like an ever flowing stream."
The world is fueled by fundamentalism and pulled to change by extremism. Our only dilemma is what will we be extremists for? Hate or love? God or State? The preservation of injustice or the extension of justice which equates to equal human rights for all. The clinging to the status quo is a form of willfully ignorant and cold hearted extremism.
Reverend King wrote from his jail cell:
Few
members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and
passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the
vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent
and determined action. Too many others have been more cautious than
courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security
of stained glass windows.
There was a time when the church was
very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being
deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the
church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and
principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the
mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the
people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the
Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside
agitators."'
Small in number, they were big in commitment and
by their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils
as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So
often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an
uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. Far
from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure
of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often
even vocal--sanction of things as they are.
If today's church
does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will
lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be
dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the
twenty-first century.
King wondered if organized religion was
too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the
world. He knew that "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."
We who claim to be
Christian are called to love our enemies and that the daughters and
sons of God are the peacemakers. The last words Jesus spoke to his
follower's before his martyrdom was to "put down the sword" and his
first words after his resurrection was "peace be with you." [Read
more... ]
During
one of my six trips to occupied Palestine since 2005, Mohammad Alatar,
film producer of “The Iron Wall” addressed my group on an Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions tour through Jerusalem and to the
village of Anata and the Shufat refugee camp.
We traveled
through the very area where the prophet Jeremiah in the 6th century
B.C. critiqued the conflict in the Mid East, which was already old
news: “I hear violence and destruction in the city, sickness and wounds
are all I see.” [Jeremiah 6:7]
After we broke bread and ate a
typical Palestinian feast prepared by the Arabiya family in the Arabyia
Peace Center, Mohammad Alatar said, “I am a Muslim Palestinian American
and when my son asked me who my hero was I took three days to think
about it. I told him my hero is Jesus, because he took a stand and he
died for it. What really needs to be done is for the churches to be
like Jesus; to challenge the Israeli occupation and address the
apartheid practices as moral issues. Even if every church divested and
boycotted Israel it would not harm Israel. After the USA and Russia,
Israel is the third largest arms exporter in the world. It is a moral
issue that the churches must address.”
While he lived the FBI
placed wiretaps on Reverend King's home and office phones and bugged
his hotel rooms. By 1967, King had become the country's most prominent
opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of U.S. foreign
policy which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech
delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 [a year to
the day before he was murdered] King called the United States "the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."
"Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can
we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea."
–Rev. MLK In 1986 the federal government 'honored' King with a national holiday.
What a fine day it will be, when America and her Churches honor the Spirit of HUMANITY.
FreeGaza21! Free Gaza Palestine! Free Vanunu NOW!
Visitors since 07.22.05
Visitors: 32214462
"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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