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Last
week my picture was on the front page of this newspaper.
I am the lone protestor.
At least I was that morning.
Standing on the corner with my "PROTEST"
sign, people gave me this quizzical look as if to say…
"Duh, don't you think it would make more sense to say
what it is you're protesting."
Others came right out and asked.
Finally, I was able to shorten my answer to one word:
"Apathy."
In other words, I was protesting you… on Easter
Sunday and during Passover.
"Well,
what can I do?" doesn't cut it anymore.
Silence is not an excuse.
Silence is not neutral.
Silence is betrayal.
I was protesting because you aren't; because you don't
feel responsible for the injustice… enough to care.
"Oh, but I do care!"
Oh, but you don't care!
Last year I
tried to have the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council
endorse a resolution demanding the impeachment of Bush and his
Bush league players. I
was denied the right even to have the resolution put up for a
vote. (www.gpln.com/resolution.htm)
I was given reasons why it was inappropriate for the VMICC to
allow it. I was
told that the VMICC has no authority; is here only to make
recommendations; is missing the by-laws.
Cute. Where
were you?
Recently two
state legislatures, (not city, not county), had resolutions
submitted, which if passed, will be sent to the U.S. House of
Representatives demanding Bush's impeachment. And on Vashon
Island there is still silence. Are you waiting for me to offer up the resolution again?
Me? What
about you? (www.gpln.com/constitutionincrisis.htm)
This is not
just about war. It
is about injustice, though, and the destruction of the rule of
law. It's about negligence, incompetence, and malfeasance, the
destruction and disintegration of a way of life… a
disintegration that has already found its way into your life
even if you can't see it… yet.
The truth is
I don't want you to protest on a street corner. I want you to protest in your heart. I want you to open the space for other people to protest.
I want you to want people to protest.
I want you to want ideas about what you can do…
enough to become honestly informed.
I want you to acknowledge the hypocrisy and the
injustice and I want the hypocrisy and injustice to disturb
your life.
What
hypocrisy and injustice?
Look at the pictures….
read the commentary… the hypocrisy and injustice you
refuse to know about or acknowledge because you're afraid to
look for it—or at it—even though people are screaming in
your ear to look.
One young
person said to me as I was standing on the corner, "It's
hopeless." It
was an intelligent and honest thing he said to me.
He felt the hopelessness, and he acknowledged the
despair… because he was coming awake.
It takes courage. One woman came up to tell me she was afraid… Why should
these beautiful people have to experience that kind of
hopelessness or fear—in America?
Well, is it
hopeless? It's
your call. Think of yourself as an American Indian in the
early days. It was hopeless… and all the fighting and the sorrow and
the tears could not hold back the tide.
Or think of yourself as an African recently caught in a
net, now tied and bound for shipment in the belly of a boat.
If you think that the bitterness and tears that
followed in the footsteps of that Indian or that African has
wiped out the scourge of hypocrisy and injustice in your
homeland… well just you wait.
What goes around, comes around.
What are you going to
say when your child or grandchild gets his or her notice that
they want to put a gun in those hands to be sent off to kill?
You will worry and the tears will come, and the tears
will come.
http://www.gpln.com/simplenoteasy.htm
http://www.gpln.com/savingamerica.htm
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