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 15, 2012: Remembering Grace by Debunking Christian Zionism
August 15, 2012:Remembering Grace by Debunking Christian Zionism
The New York Times obituary for Journalist Grace
Halsell, notes her curiosity about ''a wider world” led her to experience life
on society's fringes by disguising herself as women of different races.
She wrote official statements for President
Lyndon B. Johnson, but after the 1968
assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ms. Halsell left the
White House to ''embrace the Other. I wanted to strip myself to see who I was,
to see if there was anything there.”
In her 1969 book, “Soul Sister” she described
the anonymity and degradation of being a black domestic in a world of white
employers. In 1973 she wrote ''Bessie Yellowhair,'' based on her life on a
Navajo reservation and as an American Indian nanny for a Los Angeles family. In 1978 in ''The Illegals,'' she wrote of crossing the border with a group
of Mexican immigrants. In the 1980's she lived undercover with a group of
Christian fundamentalists.
In 1981 she published "Journey to Jerusalem" which took a close look
at Israeli torture, Israel’s illegal settlements and the oppressed
lives Palestinians were forced to lead under occupation. She was dropped by
mainstream publishers and her lectures were sabotaged.
Grace wrote, "despite
obstacles to prevent it, the presses had started rolling. After its
publication in 1980, I was invited to speak in a number of churches.
Christians generally reacted with disbelief. Back then, there was little
or no coverage of Israeli land confiscation, demolition of Palestinian
homes, wanton arrests and torture of Palestinian civilians."
Halsell died on August 16, 2000, but her
work continues to inspire and Grace was an inspiration for the character
Terese in my first book, from which I excerpt:
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 despite-fully 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 descendants 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 conversation 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.
I am Eileen Fleming for US HOUSE and I approve of all of my messages.
Visitors since 07.22.05
Visitors: 32250628
"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