Monday, September 10, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Vigil Day #113 Darfur Vigil Washington DC
Please note: The Darfur (Sudan) Vigil continues! ALL FUTURE UPDATES AT:
BrigadeOfPeacemakersForDarfur.blogspot.com
BrigadeOfPeacemakersForDarfur.blogspot.com
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
How does an outsider live in the face of Genocide?
* Genocide in Darfur? I’ve not been there. I don’t know for sure. Samantha Powers, Pulitzer Prize winning Genocide author comes to mind (I attempt to summarize): the central reason that the US, with all its power, has never stopped [or Healed] genocide, is its bias toward [the anesthesia of] disbelief.
* What needs to happen in the face of Genocide? Genocide is the ultimate wound on all humanity, and on specific people. The wound must be fully and completely healed,, the patient mercifully and generously rehabilitated, and a rich environment completely restored, or humanity will become even sicker and die. Victims of Genocide are the “least of these, my family.” “Do unto others ALL that you would have them do unto you.”
* How does one live in the face of genocide? I have no hope of ever answering this. But I find that I cannot avoid, and, I don’t want to avoid answering a different question, “How does Jay live in the face of genocide?”
* Who is Jay in the face of genocide? Hmm. Single, mid-50’s businessperson; has a small, loving “family;” negative net worth (small debt); no “dependants;” no business obligations; gobs of skills/expertise/talent/vision/energy/compassion;” no visibility to, or connection with anyone living to Restore Darfur; lifelong Love of Jesus, Gandhi, King, Teresa. Newfound gratitude to Bonhoeffer; for years now in the embrace of the pain and suffering of his Darfur family (thanks Kristoff), and the agonizing tragedy of his comatose US, Christian family.
* How does Jay live in the face of genocide? Hmmm. Normally? Probably not; little desire to do so. My “family” lives in unimaginable torture, in agony, abandoned. Jay wants to stand with them, for them, in the most meaningful, helpful way possible. Jay sees no way to be helpful. What is clear? Little or nothing. “The golden rule is to steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot (Gandhi)” comes to mind. “If at first the idea is not absurd, it has no hope,” comes to mind.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer who I first read 2 days ago AFTER realizing it was time to stand with Darfur, comes to mind:
“One may ask whether there have ever before in human history been people with so little ground under their feet – people to whom every available alternative seemed equally intolerable, repugnant, and futile….”
“The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts….”
“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.”
“Civil courage?... it depends on a God who demands responsible action in a bold venture of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in that venture.”
“We will not and must not be either outraged critics or opportunists, but must take our share of responsibility for the course of history in every situation and at every moment, whether we are the victors or the vanquished. One who will not allow any occurrence whatever to deprive him of his responsibility for the course of history – because he knows that it has been laid on him by God – will thereafter achieve a more fruitful relation to the events of history than that of barren criticism and equally barren opportunism.”
“But at this point it is quite clear, too, that folly can be overcome, not by instruction, but only by an act of liberation; and so we have come to terms with the fact that in the great majority of cases inward liberation must be preceded by outward liberation, and that until that has taken place, we may as well abandon all attempts to convince the fool. In this state of affairs we have to realize why it is no use trying to find out what “ the people” really think, and why the question is so superfluous for the man who thinks and acts responsibly – but always given these particular circumstances. The Bible’s words that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Ps. 111.10) tell us that a person’s inward liberation to live a responsible life before God is the only real cure for folly.”
“The only profitable relationship to others – and especially to our weaker brethren – is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men’s sake.”
“I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, and even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything.”
“I believe that God is not timeless fate, but that he waits for and answers sincere prayers and responsible actions.”
“…from a Christian point of view… the most important factor, large-heartedness, is lacking.”
“…there remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future;…Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety – that, in practice, is the spirit in which we are forced to live. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative.”
“…the optimism that is will for the future should never be despised, even if it is proved wrong a hundred times; it is health and vitality….”
“What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough…?
* How does Jay know what to do? I don’t. But I will act in some way. I’ll do the best that I can, from moment, to moment. In Washington, the seat of my part of God’s family? “The golden rule, steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot.” At the Whitehouse, our home? A hunger strike? Probably. Of necessity? J No resources! Living in the elements? Like Darfur. To die? NOT THE PURPOSE. THE PURPOSE IS LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No idea what the outcome for us will be. Not rosy. SOON. NOW. 15,000 people at the Capitol last Sunday need encouragement!!!!!!!!! Leaders, at, and watching the Capitol last Sunday NEED ENCOURAGMENT! With the “peace agreement” signed, PRESSURE COMES OFF OF - RESTORE DARFUR. Pressure WAS NEVER, NEVER ON – RESTORE DARFUR!!!!!!! Must cause focus, energy, courage, RESTORATION.
* What about friends and “family”? Immediate friends and family? I suspect that I’ll cause them to suffer, again. I hope for their sakes they can see me as a soldier. Soldiers go to war. Soldiers MUST go to war. Their families must be brave, and continue life. Darfur family? Must be with them. Must fight for them. They need miracles. Must take a shot in the direction of miracles. Don’t know how. Act anyway. Must commit everything – proportional response.
* What about debts? Sell everything to pay down. The remainder will be small, and will not damage the creditor (ATT). Repay if the future allows.
* What about resources, survival? “The golden rule is to steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot;” Gandhi. I have no resources. My Darfur family has no resources. Except our Spirit and human gifts. I have courage, Love, body mass, vision. I’ll spend these. I’ll join Darfur. If anyone wants to support us, that will be fine.
* How do you fund the fight? Most soldiers don’t fund themselves. I am not in a position to fund myself. Oh well. If people discover that we are part of their Immediate Family, like Jesus sees it, we will have support.
* What about the rest of the world’s ills? “As you do unto the LEAST OF THESE….” I think Jesus was specific. For Jay, Darfur is the “least of these” right now. When our Father gives me others? Well, that is not now.
* What needs to happen in the face of Genocide? Genocide is the ultimate wound on all humanity, and on specific people. The wound must be fully and completely healed,, the patient mercifully and generously rehabilitated, and a rich environment completely restored, or humanity will become even sicker and die. Victims of Genocide are the “least of these, my family.” “Do unto others ALL that you would have them do unto you.”
* How does one live in the face of genocide? I have no hope of ever answering this. But I find that I cannot avoid, and, I don’t want to avoid answering a different question, “How does Jay live in the face of genocide?”
* Who is Jay in the face of genocide? Hmm. Single, mid-50’s businessperson; has a small, loving “family;” negative net worth (small debt); no “dependants;” no business obligations; gobs of skills/expertise/talent/vision/energy/compassion;” no visibility to, or connection with anyone living to Restore Darfur; lifelong Love of Jesus, Gandhi, King, Teresa. Newfound gratitude to Bonhoeffer; for years now in the embrace of the pain and suffering of his Darfur family (thanks Kristoff), and the agonizing tragedy of his comatose US, Christian family.
* How does Jay live in the face of genocide? Hmmm. Normally? Probably not; little desire to do so. My “family” lives in unimaginable torture, in agony, abandoned. Jay wants to stand with them, for them, in the most meaningful, helpful way possible. Jay sees no way to be helpful. What is clear? Little or nothing. “The golden rule is to steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot (Gandhi)” comes to mind. “If at first the idea is not absurd, it has no hope,” comes to mind.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer who I first read 2 days ago AFTER realizing it was time to stand with Darfur, comes to mind:
“One may ask whether there have ever before in human history been people with so little ground under their feet – people to whom every available alternative seemed equally intolerable, repugnant, and futile….”
“The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts….”
“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.”
“Civil courage?... it depends on a God who demands responsible action in a bold venture of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in that venture.”
“We will not and must not be either outraged critics or opportunists, but must take our share of responsibility for the course of history in every situation and at every moment, whether we are the victors or the vanquished. One who will not allow any occurrence whatever to deprive him of his responsibility for the course of history – because he knows that it has been laid on him by God – will thereafter achieve a more fruitful relation to the events of history than that of barren criticism and equally barren opportunism.”
“But at this point it is quite clear, too, that folly can be overcome, not by instruction, but only by an act of liberation; and so we have come to terms with the fact that in the great majority of cases inward liberation must be preceded by outward liberation, and that until that has taken place, we may as well abandon all attempts to convince the fool. In this state of affairs we have to realize why it is no use trying to find out what “ the people” really think, and why the question is so superfluous for the man who thinks and acts responsibly – but always given these particular circumstances. The Bible’s words that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Ps. 111.10) tell us that a person’s inward liberation to live a responsible life before God is the only real cure for folly.”
“The only profitable relationship to others – and especially to our weaker brethren – is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men’s sake.”
“I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, and even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything.”
“I believe that God is not timeless fate, but that he waits for and answers sincere prayers and responsible actions.”
“…from a Christian point of view… the most important factor, large-heartedness, is lacking.”
“…there remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future;…Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety – that, in practice, is the spirit in which we are forced to live. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative.”
“…the optimism that is will for the future should never be despised, even if it is proved wrong a hundred times; it is health and vitality….”
“What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough…?
* How does Jay know what to do? I don’t. But I will act in some way. I’ll do the best that I can, from moment, to moment. In Washington, the seat of my part of God’s family? “The golden rule, steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot.” At the Whitehouse, our home? A hunger strike? Probably. Of necessity? J No resources! Living in the elements? Like Darfur. To die? NOT THE PURPOSE. THE PURPOSE IS LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No idea what the outcome for us will be. Not rosy. SOON. NOW. 15,000 people at the Capitol last Sunday need encouragement!!!!!!!!! Leaders, at, and watching the Capitol last Sunday NEED ENCOURAGMENT! With the “peace agreement” signed, PRESSURE COMES OFF OF - RESTORE DARFUR. Pressure WAS NEVER, NEVER ON – RESTORE DARFUR!!!!!!! Must cause focus, energy, courage, RESTORATION.
* What about friends and “family”? Immediate friends and family? I suspect that I’ll cause them to suffer, again. I hope for their sakes they can see me as a soldier. Soldiers go to war. Soldiers MUST go to war. Their families must be brave, and continue life. Darfur family? Must be with them. Must fight for them. They need miracles. Must take a shot in the direction of miracles. Don’t know how. Act anyway. Must commit everything – proportional response.
* What about debts? Sell everything to pay down. The remainder will be small, and will not damage the creditor (ATT). Repay if the future allows.
* What about resources, survival? “The golden rule is to steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot;” Gandhi. I have no resources. My Darfur family has no resources. Except our Spirit and human gifts. I have courage, Love, body mass, vision. I’ll spend these. I’ll join Darfur. If anyone wants to support us, that will be fine.
* How do you fund the fight? Most soldiers don’t fund themselves. I am not in a position to fund myself. Oh well. If people discover that we are part of their Immediate Family, like Jesus sees it, we will have support.
* What about the rest of the world’s ills? “As you do unto the LEAST OF THESE….” I think Jesus was specific. For Jay, Darfur is the “least of these” right now. When our Father gives me others? Well, that is not now.
STAND WITH DARFUR to Encourage the President, and the United States
Let's RESTORE DARFUR, NOW.
With Great Joy, sadness, and with thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Jay
Saturday, May 06, 2006
How does an outsider live in the face of Genocide?
* Genocide in Darfur? I’ve not been there. I don’t know for sure. Samantha Powers, Pulitzer Prize winning Genocide author comes to mind (I attempt to summarize): the central reason that the US, with all its power, has never stopped [or Healed] genocide, is its bias toward [the anesthesia of] disbelief.
* What needs to happen in the face of Genocide? Genocide is the ultimate wound on all humanity, and on specific people. The wound must be fully and completely healed, the victims mercifully and generously rehabilitated, and a rich environment completely restored, or our humanity will further sicken and die alltogether. Victims of Genocide are the “least of these, my family.” “Do unto others ALL that you would have them do unto you.”
* How does one live in the face of genocide? I have no hope of ever answering this. But I find that I cannot avoid, and, I don’t want to avoid answering a different question, “How does Jay live in the face of genocide?”
* Who is Jay in the face of genocide? Hmm. Single, mid-50’s businessperson; has a small, loving “family;” negative net worth (small debt from alturistic campaigns); no “dependants;” no business obligations; gobs of skills/expertise/talent/vision/energy/compassion/bodymass;” no visibility to, or connection yet with anyone putting their life on the line to Restore Darfur; lifelong Love of Jesus, Gandhi, King, Teresa. Newfound gratitude to Bonhoeffer; for years now in the embrace of the pain and suffering of his Darfur family (thanks Kristoff), and the agonizing tragedy of his comatose US / Christian family.
* How does Jay live in the face of genocide? Hmmm. Normally? Probably not; little desire to do so. My Darfur “family” lives in unimaginable torture, in agony, abandoned. Jay wants to stand with them, for them, in the most meaningful, helpful way possible. Jay sees no way to be helpful. What is clear? Little or nothing. “The golden rule is to steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot," (Gandhi) comes to mind. “If at first the idea is not absurd, it has no hope,” (Einstein) comes to mind.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer who I first read 2 days ago AFTER realizing it was time to stand with Darfur (Monday May 1 after the DC demonstration), comes to mind:
“One may ask whether there have ever before in human history been people with so little ground under their feet – people to whom every available alternative seemed equally intolerable, repugnant, and futile….”
“The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts….”
“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.”
“Civil courage?... it depends on a God who demands responsible action in a bold venture of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in that venture.”
“We will not and must not be either outraged critics or opportunists, but must take our share of responsibility for the course of history in every situation and at every moment, whether we are the victors or the vanquished. One who will not allow any occurrence whatever to deprive him of his responsibility for the course of history – because he knows that it has been laid on him by God – will thereafter achieve a more fruitful relation to the events of history than that of barren criticism and equally barren opportunism.”
“But at this point it is quite clear, too, that folly can be overcome, not by instruction, but only by an act of liberation; and so we have come to terms with the fact that in the great majority of cases inward liberation must be preceded by outward liberation, and that until that has taken place, we may as well abandon all attempts to convince the fool. In this state of affairs we have to realize why it is no use trying to find out what “ the people” really think, and why the question is so superfluous for the man who thinks and acts responsibly – but always given these particular circumstances. The Bible’s words that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Ps. 111.10) tell us that a person’s inward liberation to live a responsible life before God is the only real cure for folly.”
“The only profitable relationship to others – and especially to our weaker brethren – is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men’s sake.”
“I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, and even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything.”
“I believe that God is not timeless fate, but that he waits for and answers sincere prayers and responsible actions.”
“…from a Christian point of view… the most important factor, large-heartedness, is lacking.”
“…there remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future;…Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety – that, in practice, is the spirit in which we are forced to live. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative.”
“…the optimism that is will for the future should never be despised, even if it is proved wrong a hundred times; it is health and vitality….”
“What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough…?
* How does Jay know what to do? I don’t. But I will act in some way. I’ll do the best that I can, from moment, to moment. In Washington, the seat of my part of God’s family? “The golden rule, steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot.” At the Whitehouse, our (we in the US) home? A hunger strike? Hmmmm. Of necessity? :-) No resources! Living in the elements? Like Darfur. To die? NOT THE PURPOSE! THE PURPOSE IS LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No idea what the outcome for us will be. Not rosy. SOON. NOW. 15,000 people at the Capitol last Sunday need encouragement, before their passion fully dies!!!!!!!!! Leaders, at, and watching the Capitol last Sunday NEED ENCOURAGMENT! With the “peace agreement” signed, PRESSURE COMES OFF OF - RESTORE DARFUR. Pressure WAS NEVER, NEVER ON – RESTORE DARFUR!!!!!!! Must cause focus, energy, courage, RESTORATION.
* What about friends and “family”? Immediate friends and family? I suspect that I’ll cause them to suffer, again. I am so deeply sorry. :-( I hope for their sakes they can see me as a soldier. Soldiers go to war. Soldiers MUST go to war. Their family and friends must be brave, and continue life. Darfur family? Must be with them. Must fight for them. They need miracles. Must take a shot in the direction of miracles. Don’t know how. Act anyway. Must commit everything – attempt proportional response - absolute commitment.
* What about debts? Sell everything to pay down. The remainder will be small, and will not damage the creditor (ATT). Repay if the future allows.
* What about resources, survival? “The golden rule is to steadfastly refuse to have what millions cannot,” Gandhi. I have no resources. My Darfur family has no resources. Except our Spirit and our humanity. I have courage, Love, body mass, vision. I’ll spend these. I’ll join Darfur. If anyone wants to support us, their Darfur family fighting for Life, that will be fine.
* How do you fund the fight? Most soldiers don’t fund themselves. I am not in a position to fund myself. Oh well. Bodymass. Spirit. If we have family, Immediate Family (non-biologically related, like Jesus) they will support us.
* What about the rest of the world’s ills? “As you do unto the LEAST OF THESE MY FAMILY….” I think Jesus was specific. For Jay, Darfur is the “least of these” right now. When our Father gives me others? Well, that is not now. Not yet.
A plea to Christian Brothers
May 5, 2006
URGENT
TO: S-----
(meeting w/ J-- today)
FR: Jay McGinley 484 356 6243
STAND WITH, to RESTORE DARFUR
“We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ’s large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes, and by showing a real sympathy that springs, not from fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer. Mere waiting and looking is not Christian behavior. The Christian is called to sympathy and acting, not in the first place by his own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brethren, for whose sake Christ suffered.”*
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1943
Letters & Papers from Prison
1. NO JOY FROM THE IMPENDING PEACE DEAL
Yes, I weep upon reading of the impending peace deal this morning. But more dread, than joy is what I feel. Dread that we who have been watching can now turn our heads because Darfur is “saved.”
2. IS DARFUR NOW SAVED? NO.
Was Europe “saved” when Germany surrendered? No. They still lived in Hell. They were saved when the Marshall Plan was COMPLETED.
Were the remaining Jews “saved” when Germany surrendered? No. Many were saved when a nation (the Jewish state? I’m no historian) re-built a civilization around them.
“Peace is not the absence of injustice [indifference, neglect], it is the presence of Justice [Love]. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3. NOTHING IS ACHIEVED UNTIL DARFUR IS RESTORED
Jesus lives among the 3 million in the camps. Do we feel better now with the peace agreement? We’re done, right? We have done nothing. People there, most, would find death a mercy, compared with the Hell that now awaits them. The hell of DESTITUION. The hell of utter DESTRUCTION. The hell of ABANDONMENT.
4. WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE LEADERS. WE MUST MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW.
This was said eloquently by a Senator (?) in DC Sunday (April 30, 2006).
Who are our leaders. Shane? Jim? I think it may be you two. WE MUST DISCOVER HOW TO MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW.
5. THE COST TO SAVE DARFUR IS LIVES FREELY GIVEN
No, I don’t understand this. But it saved South Africa, American Slaves, India from the Brittish…. It’s absence caused the slaughter in Rwanda, Armenia, among the Jews in Germany, Cambodia…. I expect to give my life a third time to RESTORE Darfur beginning around May 14 in DC. My guess is that I will undertake a 40 day Hunger Strike to Restore Darfur.
Shane, I beg your brotherhood, toward my discernment, toward my attempt to be Christian. Toward my attempt to RESTORE DARFUR.
URGENT
TO: S-----
(meeting w/ J-- today)
FR: Jay McGinley 484 356 6243
STAND WITH, to RESTORE DARFUR
“We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ’s large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes, and by showing a real sympathy that springs, not from fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer. Mere waiting and looking is not Christian behavior. The Christian is called to sympathy and acting, not in the first place by his own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brethren, for whose sake Christ suffered.”*
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1943
Letters & Papers from Prison
1. NO JOY FROM THE IMPENDING PEACE DEAL
Yes, I weep upon reading of the impending peace deal this morning. But more dread, than joy is what I feel. Dread that we who have been watching can now turn our heads because Darfur is “saved.”
2. IS DARFUR NOW SAVED? NO.
Was Europe “saved” when Germany surrendered? No. They still lived in Hell. They were saved when the Marshall Plan was COMPLETED.
Were the remaining Jews “saved” when Germany surrendered? No. Many were saved when a nation (the Jewish state? I’m no historian) re-built a civilization around them.
“Peace is not the absence of injustice [indifference, neglect], it is the presence of Justice [Love]. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3. NOTHING IS ACHIEVED UNTIL DARFUR IS RESTORED
Jesus lives among the 3 million in the camps. Do we feel better now with the peace agreement? We’re done, right? We have done nothing. People there, most, would find death a mercy, compared with the Hell that now awaits them. The hell of DESTITUION. The hell of utter DESTRUCTION. The hell of ABANDONMENT.
4. WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE LEADERS. WE MUST MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW.
This was said eloquently by a Senator (?) in DC Sunday (April 30, 2006).
Who are our leaders. Shane? Jim? I think it may be you two. WE MUST DISCOVER HOW TO MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW.
5. THE COST TO SAVE DARFUR IS LIVES FREELY GIVEN
No, I don’t understand this. But it saved South Africa, American Slaves, India from the Brittish…. It’s absence caused the slaughter in Rwanda, Armenia, among the Jews in Germany, Cambodia…. I expect to give my life a third time to RESTORE Darfur beginning around May 14 in DC. My guess is that I will undertake a 40 day Hunger Strike to Restore Darfur.
Shane, I beg your brotherhood, toward my discernment, toward my attempt to be Christian. Toward my attempt to RESTORE DARFUR.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Since November 3, 2004 at Passionofthepresent.org
How long are WE THE PEOPLE going to accept being kept on the SIDELINES?
That is OUR FAMILY you are EXTERMINATING!!!
"Amongst ourselves" you say?!?!??!
WE are PART OF "amoungst ourselves!!!"
We're FAMILY.
WE ARE COMING IN.
Cartoons may be purchased from the New York Times cartoon store.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Hunger Strike!!! Day 12. ENOUGH RADICALS CAN RESCUE DARFUR, NOW
I AM BEGGING ALL RADICALS TO CONVERGE, NOW. Contact me at: restoredarfur@cs.com
Saul Alinsky, U. Chicago, arguably the first true "Radical" of the mid 1900's wrote that (and I synthesize):
CONSERVATIVE: A conservative is someone that does not want change AND WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO PREVENT IT.
LIBERAL: A liberal wants change WITH THEIR HEAD, speaks eloquently, organizes lots of events, but RARELY FIGHTS MUCH for anything.
RADICAL: A RADICAL is someone that so wants change with their HEAD & HEART SO DESPERATELY that they are the MOST FORMIDABLE FIGHTER OF ALL (Think Dr. King. Think Gandhi, think Saul Alinsky, think Stefania).
Tonight, to my amazement, I ended the Hunger Strike. Why? So that I can resume it almost immediately, with strength, if the opportunity to bring this Genocide TO AN END NOW can be developed. Although last night was miserable (my stomach was VERY unhappy; 2 hours sleep), indications are I could have gone the 30-40 days with relative ease. I HOPE to have the opportunity to verify this VERY SOON!!!!
To my amazement (having all last night to think) I FOR THE FIRST TIME, FOR THE FIRST TIME!... I SAW WITH CLARITY HOW TO STOP THE GENOCIDE. NOW I MUST TRY TO BRING THIS, OR ITS EQUIVALENT, TO REALITY.
There is a FATAL assumption among the Genocide Activists: CREATING AWARENESS AND CONCERN AMONG AMERICANS IS NOT THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!
MAKING DARFUR GENOCIDE AN EMERGENCY, !!!!EMERGENCY!!!! FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND THE PEOPLE OF NATO IS THE ANSWER!!!!!
HOW TO STOP THE GENOCIDE:
1. IF IT WERE AN EMERGENCY, AN EEMMEERRGGEENNCCYY TO THE UNITED STATES PEOPLE TO BRING THIS GENOCIDE TO AN IMMEDIATE CLOSE… WE COULD DO SO… EASILY…EEAASSIILLYY!!, IMMEDIATELY!!!! Khartoum is a petty government of bullies, not a principle among them to fight for, raping and plundering the country. If as Eric Reeves proposes (sudanreeves.org) we exerted our influence we could have a NATO PEACE KEEPING FORCE on the ground, SUPPORTING THE AU immediately. Khartoum scurries away into their rat-holes, begging for mercy, pleading for terms that would have NATO go away. Duh.
2. WE COULD CREATE THE EMERGENCY IF 1000'S OF OUR CROWN JEWELS, !!!OUR STUDENTS!!!, YES, OUR STUDENTS, IN THE US AND OTHER NATO COUNTRIES WERE ON HUNGER STRIKE, RESOLVED TO STAY ON STRIKE UNTIL NATO WAS ON THE GROUND… NATO ON THE GROUND WOULD HAPPEN, FAST.
3. IF IT WERE AN EMERGENCY AMONG THE 1000'S OF STUDENTS, THE POTENTIAL RADICALS I ENVISION, THEY WOULD IMMEDIATELY UNDERTAKE THIS STRIKE.
4. WE COULD CREATE THE EMERGENCY AMONG THE POTENTIAL STUDENT RADICALS WITH 10-50 PEOPLE, MOSTLY WELL-PLACED (respected, visible, known, elite campuses) STUDENTS, AND OTHERS (I'M IN!!!!!!) ON HUNGER STRIKE UNTIL THE 1000'S JOINED, OR ELSE. NO HOLDS BARRED.
"But Jay, THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO END THIS IMMEDIATELY!," you say. I'm all ears!!!!! Otherwise, let’s get on with this, OR face that you have chosen, CHOSEN!!!, the extermination of 400,000 more of our Darfur Family in the next 9 months.
Agape, Jay
Ps: CONTACT ME. Restoredarfur@cs.com LET'S DO IT.
Pps: You lead, I'll follow. I'll carry the waste like Stefania. I'll do the typing. I don't care. Let's Rescue and Restore our Darfur Family. IT IS TIME TO PUT UP, OR SHUT UP.
Saul Alinsky, U. Chicago, arguably the first true "Radical" of the mid 1900's wrote that (and I synthesize):
CONSERVATIVE: A conservative is someone that does not want change AND WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO PREVENT IT.
LIBERAL: A liberal wants change WITH THEIR HEAD, speaks eloquently, organizes lots of events, but RARELY FIGHTS MUCH for anything.
RADICAL: A RADICAL is someone that so wants change with their HEAD & HEART SO DESPERATELY that they are the MOST FORMIDABLE FIGHTER OF ALL (Think Dr. King. Think Gandhi, think Saul Alinsky, think Stefania).
Tonight, to my amazement, I ended the Hunger Strike. Why? So that I can resume it almost immediately, with strength, if the opportunity to bring this Genocide TO AN END NOW can be developed. Although last night was miserable (my stomach was VERY unhappy; 2 hours sleep), indications are I could have gone the 30-40 days with relative ease. I HOPE to have the opportunity to verify this VERY SOON!!!!
To my amazement (having all last night to think) I FOR THE FIRST TIME, FOR THE FIRST TIME!... I SAW WITH CLARITY HOW TO STOP THE GENOCIDE. NOW I MUST TRY TO BRING THIS, OR ITS EQUIVALENT, TO REALITY.
There is a FATAL assumption among the Genocide Activists: CREATING AWARENESS AND CONCERN AMONG AMERICANS IS NOT THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!
MAKING DARFUR GENOCIDE AN EMERGENCY, !!!!EMERGENCY!!!! FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND THE PEOPLE OF NATO IS THE ANSWER!!!!!
HOW TO STOP THE GENOCIDE:
1. IF IT WERE AN EMERGENCY, AN EEMMEERRGGEENNCCYY TO THE UNITED STATES PEOPLE TO BRING THIS GENOCIDE TO AN IMMEDIATE CLOSE… WE COULD DO SO… EASILY…EEAASSIILLYY!!, IMMEDIATELY!!!! Khartoum is a petty government of bullies, not a principle among them to fight for, raping and plundering the country. If as Eric Reeves proposes (sudanreeves.org) we exerted our influence we could have a NATO PEACE KEEPING FORCE on the ground, SUPPORTING THE AU immediately. Khartoum scurries away into their rat-holes, begging for mercy, pleading for terms that would have NATO go away. Duh.
2. WE COULD CREATE THE EMERGENCY IF 1000'S OF OUR CROWN JEWELS, !!!OUR STUDENTS!!!, YES, OUR STUDENTS, IN THE US AND OTHER NATO COUNTRIES WERE ON HUNGER STRIKE, RESOLVED TO STAY ON STRIKE UNTIL NATO WAS ON THE GROUND… NATO ON THE GROUND WOULD HAPPEN, FAST.
3. IF IT WERE AN EMERGENCY AMONG THE 1000'S OF STUDENTS, THE POTENTIAL RADICALS I ENVISION, THEY WOULD IMMEDIATELY UNDERTAKE THIS STRIKE.
4. WE COULD CREATE THE EMERGENCY AMONG THE POTENTIAL STUDENT RADICALS WITH 10-50 PEOPLE, MOSTLY WELL-PLACED (respected, visible, known, elite campuses) STUDENTS, AND OTHERS (I'M IN!!!!!!) ON HUNGER STRIKE UNTIL THE 1000'S JOINED, OR ELSE. NO HOLDS BARRED.
"But Jay, THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO END THIS IMMEDIATELY!," you say. I'm all ears!!!!! Otherwise, let’s get on with this, OR face that you have chosen, CHOSEN!!!, the extermination of 400,000 more of our Darfur Family in the next 9 months.
Agape, Jay
Ps: CONTACT ME. Restoredarfur@cs.com LET'S DO IT.
Pps: You lead, I'll follow. I'll carry the waste like Stefania. I'll do the typing. I don't care. Let's Rescue and Restore our Darfur Family. IT IS TIME TO PUT UP, OR SHUT UP.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Hunger Strike!!! Day 11B. “FAMILY EMERGENCY RESPONSE”
Dear friends, if ever I have had something to contribute, this is it. Jay
[From Eva Fogelman's, Conscience & Courage, Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ. Please get it and read it; before it is too late.]
"THIRTEEN JEWISH PEOPLE HAD BEEN SAVED ONCE AGAIN BY STEFANIA'S INNER VOICE." Gandhi said, "I will admit but one tyrant in my life, the still, small voice within." Let it be. The control that will Rescue and Restore Darfur is NOT in the White House, NOT in the UN, NOT in the press. It is within us. Gandhi called it, "Soul Force." I am not a mystic. I am a realist. And my family, our family, is being exterminated.
Time's up folks. Eric Reeves recent analysis (sudanreeves.org) tells me that within the next 9 months, 9 MONTHS!!!, another 400,000 EXTERMINATIONS will take place in the form of FORCED DISEASE, STARVATION, and DEHYDRATION. Really? Pulitzer Prize winning Samantha Power's 100 year genocide analysis concludes that: IT IS OUR BIAS TOWARD DISBELIEF, OUR CHOICE TO DISBELIEVE, THAT IS THE MAJOR REASON GENOCIDE CONTINUES, AGAIN AND AGAIN. Let's not disbelieve, again.
THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE OUR DARFUR FAMILY IS A MIRACLE, AND THAT MIRACLE IS WHAT I CALL THE "FAMILY EMERGENCY RESPONSE." The only group healthy enough in this country to lead/trigger the family emergency response is our youth. Stefania found within herself the "FAMILY EMERGENCY RESPONSE." It is COURAGEOUS. IT IS FORCEFUL. IT IS INNOVATIVE. IT DRAWS ON ALL AVAILABLE INTELLIGENCE/SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE AND RESOURCES. IT, IT ALONE, WORKS MIRACLES.
WE NEED A MIRACLE. This country has NEVER stopped, or significantly slowed Genocide. EVER. It probably never will. Is that good enough? NOT ON MY WATCH.
At the time we come to the quote below, for about 16 months 17 year old Stefania and her 7 year old sister Helena have, starting with just 1, found and provided housing that so far has saved the life of 13 Jews in Poland during the height of Nazi power and control. They have fed, clothed, cleaned, carried waste, protected, hidden, for all that time. Stefania had also discouraged a young suitor she dearly loved for fear a relationship would endanger her 13 Jews.
"In the concluding months of the war, as the Russians advanced from the east inflicting heavy casualties on the German side, an empty building across the street from Sefania's cottage (where they all 15 lived) was converted into a field hospital. The formerly deserted street was suddenly swarming with Nazi soldiers, ambulances, wounded, doctors and nurses. Many of the hospital personnel lived on the grounds - which had been a college campus - and Stefania realized that her situation was now much more precarious.
"One afternoon, two SS soldiers knocked on her door. "You have been ordered to vacate the premises within two hours." They read to her from an official-looking sheet of paper. "This residence has been commandeered by the Third Reich. The penalty for noncompliance is death."
"Two hours! How will I find a place for my sister and me (and 13 hidden Jews) in just two hours?" she cried, but they merely repeated the orders and left.
"For the next hour and a half Stefania ran through every street in town - but she could find nothing that would shelter all fifteen of them. After three years of looting and deprivation, the buildings were in worse shape than ever. There were doorways but no doors; houses without ceilings; rooms filled with the rubble of loose masonry and roofing material.
[In a 1990's interview Stefania recalls] "Just ruins, nothing more. Almost two hours had gone already. So I came home. I started to cry. I said, "How can I leave thirteen people to certain death? I can run out, but these people will be dead. … There was nothing available, nothing. Only twenty minutes left. I came home. I said nothing. All my thirteen came down to me, with the three children. The pressed against me, so tightly, they looked at me. My decision. Will I leave? My decision. Will I leave them or not?
"All thirteen of them said to me, "Run away. You don't have to die with us. We have to, but you don't have to die with us. You cannot help us anymore. Save your life and your little sister and run away, because you still have 10 minutes." Joseph pushed me. They said, "Run away. Don't die with us. You cannot help us anymore. What you could do you did, but not now. Save your life and Helena. Go. Run away."
"And all these people watched me, the children pressed so close I could hear their breathing, my sister too. So I really, I didn't know what to do. I said to them, "Well, first of all, come on. We will pray. We will ask God." You see, I had a picture which I bought as a little girl, of Jesus and his mother, and it always hung on my wall. And I said, "Come on - we will pray. We will ask God."
"First I knelt, then my sister and all the thirteen after, behind me. And I prayed, and I turned to look. All thirteen were in deep, deep prayer. And I asked God not to let us be killed. Help, somehow. I cannot leave this apartment. I cannot leave thirteen people for certain death. I will be alive if I go, but thirteen lives will be finished - children too, and young people. I asked God, "Help, somehow."
"And again I heard a voice, a woman's voice. It was so beautiful, so nice, so quiet. She said to me, "Don't worry. Everything will be all right. You will not leave your apartment. You will stay here, and they will take only one room. Everything will be all right. I am with you." And she told me, "Be quiet. I'll tell you what to do." She said, "Send your people to the bunker. Open the door. Open the windows. Clean your apartment and sing."
"I was like hypnotized. My head was bent down, and I was listening, I was listening and the voice said again, "Everything will be all right." Then it disappeared. I listened a few minutes more, but nothing more came.
"So I got up and said to my people, "Go the attic," exactly like the lady told me. I said, "I will not move from my apartment. I will stay here, so go to the attic and be quiet, very quiet."
"And you see, I was completely different. My people looked at me, all my thirteen, and they thought something was wrong with my mind. But I said, "Okay now, go out, go to the bunker. Everything will be all right if you stay quiet over there."
"And I opened the window and the doors, and I cleaned. I started to sing. I don't know how I became so happy. And all the neighbors came, and they said, "Miss Podgorska, what happened? Why haven't you moved? The Gestapo, the SS will come. They will kill you. This is war, this is the military. They have no mercy for the enemy - and they are our enemy. Go out. We don't want to see you killed. You're too nice, too young to be dead."
"I said, "I have no place to go." They said, "Don't you have a friend? Go stay with her." I said, "No, I will not leave my apartment." And they also thought something was wrong with me.
"The janitor's husband came, and he said, "Miss Padgorska, I will throw you out. Go out, I don't want to see you be killed - I have no place to bury you." And he was serious. … I said, "No, I am sorry, I will not move from my apartment." And he said, "Something is wrong with you," but he left.
"I kept singing and cleaning my apartment, and exactly ten minutes past the two hours an SS man came. He was so friendly. He was laughing to me from a few yards away. He came closer to the window and he said - he spoke a little Polish, very broken but he spoke - and he said it was good that I hadn't moved from my apartment because they would take only one room. This last room, they would take. He said, "Very well, you can stay."
"THIRTEEN JEWISH PEOPLE HAD BEEN SAVED ONCE AGAIN BY STEFANIA'S INNER VOICE."
"…Thirteen people, and their children and grandchildren, are alive today because a teenager ignored the fact that she would be killed for harboring Jews; thirteen men, women and children are alive today because a teenager believed in miracles."
400,000 in our Darfur family need a miracle. Now. If our youth don't give it to them, if our youth don't lead this country, if our youth don't show us how to radically exercise our humanity, the miracle isn't going to happen.
Jay
ps: If you find this piece worthy PLEASE email it far and wide. It also is on the blog rescuerestoredarfur.blogspot.com
[From Eva Fogelman's, Conscience & Courage, Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ. Please get it and read it; before it is too late.]
"THIRTEEN JEWISH PEOPLE HAD BEEN SAVED ONCE AGAIN BY STEFANIA'S INNER VOICE." Gandhi said, "I will admit but one tyrant in my life, the still, small voice within." Let it be. The control that will Rescue and Restore Darfur is NOT in the White House, NOT in the UN, NOT in the press. It is within us. Gandhi called it, "Soul Force." I am not a mystic. I am a realist. And my family, our family, is being exterminated.
Time's up folks. Eric Reeves recent analysis (sudanreeves.org) tells me that within the next 9 months, 9 MONTHS!!!, another 400,000 EXTERMINATIONS will take place in the form of FORCED DISEASE, STARVATION, and DEHYDRATION. Really? Pulitzer Prize winning Samantha Power's 100 year genocide analysis concludes that: IT IS OUR BIAS TOWARD DISBELIEF, OUR CHOICE TO DISBELIEVE, THAT IS THE MAJOR REASON GENOCIDE CONTINUES, AGAIN AND AGAIN. Let's not disbelieve, again.
THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE OUR DARFUR FAMILY IS A MIRACLE, AND THAT MIRACLE IS WHAT I CALL THE "FAMILY EMERGENCY RESPONSE." The only group healthy enough in this country to lead/trigger the family emergency response is our youth. Stefania found within herself the "FAMILY EMERGENCY RESPONSE." It is COURAGEOUS. IT IS FORCEFUL. IT IS INNOVATIVE. IT DRAWS ON ALL AVAILABLE INTELLIGENCE/SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE AND RESOURCES. IT, IT ALONE, WORKS MIRACLES.
WE NEED A MIRACLE. This country has NEVER stopped, or significantly slowed Genocide. EVER. It probably never will. Is that good enough? NOT ON MY WATCH.
At the time we come to the quote below, for about 16 months 17 year old Stefania and her 7 year old sister Helena have, starting with just 1, found and provided housing that so far has saved the life of 13 Jews in Poland during the height of Nazi power and control. They have fed, clothed, cleaned, carried waste, protected, hidden, for all that time. Stefania had also discouraged a young suitor she dearly loved for fear a relationship would endanger her 13 Jews.
"In the concluding months of the war, as the Russians advanced from the east inflicting heavy casualties on the German side, an empty building across the street from Sefania's cottage (where they all 15 lived) was converted into a field hospital. The formerly deserted street was suddenly swarming with Nazi soldiers, ambulances, wounded, doctors and nurses. Many of the hospital personnel lived on the grounds - which had been a college campus - and Stefania realized that her situation was now much more precarious.
"One afternoon, two SS soldiers knocked on her door. "You have been ordered to vacate the premises within two hours." They read to her from an official-looking sheet of paper. "This residence has been commandeered by the Third Reich. The penalty for noncompliance is death."
"Two hours! How will I find a place for my sister and me (and 13 hidden Jews) in just two hours?" she cried, but they merely repeated the orders and left.
"For the next hour and a half Stefania ran through every street in town - but she could find nothing that would shelter all fifteen of them. After three years of looting and deprivation, the buildings were in worse shape than ever. There were doorways but no doors; houses without ceilings; rooms filled with the rubble of loose masonry and roofing material.
[In a 1990's interview Stefania recalls] "Just ruins, nothing more. Almost two hours had gone already. So I came home. I started to cry. I said, "How can I leave thirteen people to certain death? I can run out, but these people will be dead. … There was nothing available, nothing. Only twenty minutes left. I came home. I said nothing. All my thirteen came down to me, with the three children. The pressed against me, so tightly, they looked at me. My decision. Will I leave? My decision. Will I leave them or not?
"All thirteen of them said to me, "Run away. You don't have to die with us. We have to, but you don't have to die with us. You cannot help us anymore. Save your life and your little sister and run away, because you still have 10 minutes." Joseph pushed me. They said, "Run away. Don't die with us. You cannot help us anymore. What you could do you did, but not now. Save your life and Helena. Go. Run away."
"And all these people watched me, the children pressed so close I could hear their breathing, my sister too. So I really, I didn't know what to do. I said to them, "Well, first of all, come on. We will pray. We will ask God." You see, I had a picture which I bought as a little girl, of Jesus and his mother, and it always hung on my wall. And I said, "Come on - we will pray. We will ask God."
"First I knelt, then my sister and all the thirteen after, behind me. And I prayed, and I turned to look. All thirteen were in deep, deep prayer. And I asked God not to let us be killed. Help, somehow. I cannot leave this apartment. I cannot leave thirteen people for certain death. I will be alive if I go, but thirteen lives will be finished - children too, and young people. I asked God, "Help, somehow."
"And again I heard a voice, a woman's voice. It was so beautiful, so nice, so quiet. She said to me, "Don't worry. Everything will be all right. You will not leave your apartment. You will stay here, and they will take only one room. Everything will be all right. I am with you." And she told me, "Be quiet. I'll tell you what to do." She said, "Send your people to the bunker. Open the door. Open the windows. Clean your apartment and sing."
"I was like hypnotized. My head was bent down, and I was listening, I was listening and the voice said again, "Everything will be all right." Then it disappeared. I listened a few minutes more, but nothing more came.
"So I got up and said to my people, "Go the attic," exactly like the lady told me. I said, "I will not move from my apartment. I will stay here, so go to the attic and be quiet, very quiet."
"And you see, I was completely different. My people looked at me, all my thirteen, and they thought something was wrong with my mind. But I said, "Okay now, go out, go to the bunker. Everything will be all right if you stay quiet over there."
"And I opened the window and the doors, and I cleaned. I started to sing. I don't know how I became so happy. And all the neighbors came, and they said, "Miss Podgorska, what happened? Why haven't you moved? The Gestapo, the SS will come. They will kill you. This is war, this is the military. They have no mercy for the enemy - and they are our enemy. Go out. We don't want to see you killed. You're too nice, too young to be dead."
"I said, "I have no place to go." They said, "Don't you have a friend? Go stay with her." I said, "No, I will not leave my apartment." And they also thought something was wrong with me.
"The janitor's husband came, and he said, "Miss Padgorska, I will throw you out. Go out, I don't want to see you be killed - I have no place to bury you." And he was serious. … I said, "No, I am sorry, I will not move from my apartment." And he said, "Something is wrong with you," but he left.
"I kept singing and cleaning my apartment, and exactly ten minutes past the two hours an SS man came. He was so friendly. He was laughing to me from a few yards away. He came closer to the window and he said - he spoke a little Polish, very broken but he spoke - and he said it was good that I hadn't moved from my apartment because they would take only one room. This last room, they would take. He said, "Very well, you can stay."
"THIRTEEN JEWISH PEOPLE HAD BEEN SAVED ONCE AGAIN BY STEFANIA'S INNER VOICE."
"…Thirteen people, and their children and grandchildren, are alive today because a teenager ignored the fact that she would be killed for harboring Jews; thirteen men, women and children are alive today because a teenager believed in miracles."
400,000 in our Darfur family need a miracle. Now. If our youth don't give it to them, if our youth don't lead this country, if our youth don't show us how to radically exercise our humanity, the miracle isn't going to happen.
Jay
ps: If you find this piece worthy PLEASE email it far and wide. It also is on the blog rescuerestoredarfur.blogspot.com
Hunger Strike!!! Day 11A: STAND CONF., etc
I'm trying to spend most of my time demonstrating (commitment/urgency) so there is not much energy left to write. But there are important things to communicate so here goes:
GEORGETOWN U: Saturday and Sunday thru mid afternoon (Days 9 & 10) were spent at the STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) conference at Georgetown U. It was awesome. Truly. Fatally flawed, but truly awesome and hopeful. The intelligence, schooling, high level of involvement by all (sessions were packed at 9am Sat. and Sun. 9AM!!!!!). organization, knowledge, preparation.... Utterly astonishing.
The fatally flawed part. Well, I've written about the broader subject. There is an old expression that loosely applies here - success is 10% preparation and 90% perspiration. The Heavenly news is that these folks have: fine character, extreme intelligence, incredible schooling and skills, connections, the Internet, financial resources.... HOWEVER, THIS ALSO IS THE BAD NEWS. Why? Because, so far, although I saw glimerings of awakening on Sunday, they DELUDE THEMSELVES THAT THIS WILL BE NEARLY ENOUGH!!!! IT WILL NOT!!!!! HEAD WILL NOT SAVE DARFUR. HEART/HUMANITY WILL RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR. Am I criticizing, putting down individuals? No. I am awed by the individuals. BUT THERE IS A BLIND SPOT. AND UNLESS THAT BLINDSPOT IS ELIMINATED IMMEDIATELY, SO WILL BE OUR FAMILY IN DARFUR. These 250 young, humane, well intended leaders at Georgetown are our greatest hope by far. If they fail, we're out of time, we're out of hope. More specifics on what is needed in previous, and in the next posts. (FAMILY EMERGENCY RESPONSE; WE ARE THE EVIDNECE/MESSAGE/DEMONSTRATION OF THE DARFUR DISASTER (how powerful are we as the evidence/message/demonstration?)).
DUPONT CIRCLE: Sunday afternoon and evening till 9pm was awesome. A VERY IMPORTANT ACTION OPPORTUNITY is to get 400,000 signatures by September 7th!!! (PLEASE take your friends to africaaction.org NOW!!!!). About 8 of us from the conference went and collected between 400 and 600 signatures!!!!
Yes, collecting signatures on a petition is just a drop in the bucket, HOWEVER, in this case, it is ONE of the things we can do! A 1000 mile trip begins with 1 step.
Agape, Jay
GEORGETOWN U: Saturday and Sunday thru mid afternoon (Days 9 & 10) were spent at the STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) conference at Georgetown U. It was awesome. Truly. Fatally flawed, but truly awesome and hopeful. The intelligence, schooling, high level of involvement by all (sessions were packed at 9am Sat. and Sun. 9AM!!!!!). organization, knowledge, preparation.... Utterly astonishing.
The fatally flawed part. Well, I've written about the broader subject. There is an old expression that loosely applies here - success is 10% preparation and 90% perspiration. The Heavenly news is that these folks have: fine character, extreme intelligence, incredible schooling and skills, connections, the Internet, financial resources.... HOWEVER, THIS ALSO IS THE BAD NEWS. Why? Because, so far, although I saw glimerings of awakening on Sunday, they DELUDE THEMSELVES THAT THIS WILL BE NEARLY ENOUGH!!!! IT WILL NOT!!!!! HEAD WILL NOT SAVE DARFUR. HEART/HUMANITY WILL RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR. Am I criticizing, putting down individuals? No. I am awed by the individuals. BUT THERE IS A BLIND SPOT. AND UNLESS THAT BLINDSPOT IS ELIMINATED IMMEDIATELY, SO WILL BE OUR FAMILY IN DARFUR. These 250 young, humane, well intended leaders at Georgetown are our greatest hope by far. If they fail, we're out of time, we're out of hope. More specifics on what is needed in previous, and in the next posts. (FAMILY EMERGENCY RESPONSE; WE ARE THE EVIDNECE/MESSAGE/DEMONSTRATION OF THE DARFUR DISASTER (how powerful are we as the evidence/message/demonstration?)).
DUPONT CIRCLE: Sunday afternoon and evening till 9pm was awesome. A VERY IMPORTANT ACTION OPPORTUNITY is to get 400,000 signatures by September 7th!!! (PLEASE take your friends to africaaction.org NOW!!!!). About 8 of us from the conference went and collected between 400 and 600 signatures!!!!
Yes, collecting signatures on a petition is just a drop in the bucket, HOWEVER, in this case, it is ONE of the things we can do! A 1000 mile trip begins with 1 step.
Agape, Jay
Friday, August 12, 2005
Hunger Strike!!! Day 7: Health. Headway.
Deomonstrating at the Holocaust Museum.
Health? No problems. Truly. Am I depleting? Yes. Am I hungry? Yes. Any signs of damage? NONE. I am intending to do NO DAMAGE!!! I'll stop when I sense any signs. Hydrating? YES. Vitamin, potassium, salt every day.
Headway? There have been many wellwishers on the street. One dear lady cried as I told her of what is happening. Many students at the STAND CONFERENCE have been coming by to talk. Quite a few emails are coming in, offering encouragement, asking how they can help. One emailer wants to join the Strike!!!
A highlight? The youth leader conference of 250 students in STAND from around the country was at the Holocaust museum today. It is jointly sponsored by the Holocaust Museum, Rebock and mTV. About 5pm this guy comes out. Turns out he is the guy doing the mTV shoot. He says, "I've just interviewed 20 of the students, and 10 of them talked about what you are doing. Can we do an interview?" We did, for about 20 minutes. At the end he says, "These folks HAVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!"
Yes, I seem to be making some tiny headway. :-)
Health? No problems. Truly. Am I depleting? Yes. Am I hungry? Yes. Any signs of damage? NONE. I am intending to do NO DAMAGE!!! I'll stop when I sense any signs. Hydrating? YES. Vitamin, potassium, salt every day.
Headway? There have been many wellwishers on the street. One dear lady cried as I told her of what is happening. Many students at the STAND CONFERENCE have been coming by to talk. Quite a few emails are coming in, offering encouragement, asking how they can help. One emailer wants to join the Strike!!!
A highlight? The youth leader conference of 250 students in STAND from around the country was at the Holocaust museum today. It is jointly sponsored by the Holocaust Museum, Rebock and mTV. About 5pm this guy comes out. Turns out he is the guy doing the mTV shoot. He says, "I've just interviewed 20 of the students, and 10 of them talked about what you are doing. Can we do an interview?" We did, for about 20 minutes. At the end he says, "These folks HAVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!"
Yes, I seem to be making some tiny headway. :-)
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Hunger Strike!!! Day 6. Pioneers must pay the price.
Demonstrating in front of Holocaust Museum.
THERE WILL BE NO RESCUE AND RESTORATION OF DARFUR UNTIL SOME, UNTIL ENOUGH, EARLY PIONEERS (THOSE WHO GO FIRST) AMONG WE THE PEOPLE PAY A BIG PRICE FOR IT. THEN, others more timid, with less vision may follow. It will NOT happen any other way. It never has; and it never will.
The following is pretty longwinded, but I hope you stay with it. It is REALLY IMPORTANT to our family in Darfur. It has been really important for me to come to clarity on this.
As I sit outside the Holocaust Museum with my posters I've been reading Eva Fogelman's Conscience & Courage. This is her exhaustive research findings regarding the relatively few "Rescuers" during the Nazi Holocaust. Reading it helps me understand myself, and what I am doing here in DC on Hunger Strike!!! a little better
Yesterday I met with some college interns here in DC for the summer. They are involved with the organization of potential promise - STAND (Students Taking Action: Darfur). We had met and spoken before at the July Hunger Strike. At that time they asked me to speak at a Church, which I did on the last day of the July Strike. It is evident that our encounter in July had an impact on these promising young leaders, these alive souls. Our reason for meeting was to brainstorm how to stop the Genocide, how to approach the larger world and increase the mobilization.
They voiced many heartfelt, honest, reasonable concerns:
" What is the "Ask?" They work for organizations that exist by "Asking," and secure aid for Darfur by "Asking".
" What do I tell someone that says, What about Niger and its famine?
" How do we articulate the need?
" Why is there so little REAL urgency even among activists (they didn't state this exactly, but it was implied.)
" Isn't this "post genocide" in Darfur, and if so, isn't the need much less urgent than it was? Isn't it infinitely more difficult now to mobilize people to take action?
" What strategies and tactics do we take?
" Is it enough for us just to stop the Genocide?
" How do we unify the efforts of the activists?
I hope I only frustrated them a little and did not lose their relationship entirely with how I responded. It was not my intention to do either and I may not have, and I pray I did not. But these are desperate times for our Darfur family and there is no time to kill. We must relentlessly pursue the truth, and those who find that doing so is not their highest priority, I/we must be willing to lose them from dialog for now.
In our meeting I was neither very articulate, concise or clear in my own mind. But I was certain that the questions they shared, questions held broadly I am sure throughout the activist community, were based on a fatally flawed understanding of the situation here in the U.S. faced by those of us that want to Rescue and Restore Darfur. I remain certain that this is the case.
I think I can boil what I see down to this. In the early 60's, what was the "Ask" to implement Civil Rights? THERE WAS NO ASK because:
1. There was no perceived need AMONG THOSE WITH POWER, THE MASSES, WE THE PEOPLE;
2. There was not SALABLE product. WHAT??!??!?!?!?? No salable product???? With all the cruelty, inhumanity and injustice???? YES, there was a desperate situation, BUT IT TOOK AN ENORMOUS STRUGGLE, REQUIRING ENORMOUS SACRIFICE TO TURN IT INTO A VISIBLE, SALABLE PRODUCT. Only THEN was it relevant to think in terms of "what is the Ask."
What is the "Ask" for Darfur? That is the wrong question AT THIS TIME because:
1. There is no perceived need THAT IS REMOTELY STRONG ENOUGH. And from Samantha Power's book, "The Problem from Hell", I SEE THAT GENOCIDE HAS NEVER BECOME A PERCEIVED NEED THAT IS REMOTELY STRONG ENOUGH TO MOBILIZE THIS COUNTRY!!!!!! Not Nazi Germany, not the Armenians, not the Kurds in Iraq, not Bosnia, not Rwanda….!!!!! IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED. WE MUST INVENT/CAUSE THE FIRST TIME!!!!!!!
2. THERE IS NO SALABLE PRODUCT, yet, and we are NOT MOVING yet IN THE DIRECTION OF CREATING ONE.
From Conscience and Courage I can see more clearly that in 1930's and early 1940's Germany and Europe there was a DESPERATE NEED, but NOT a DESPERATE PERCEIVED NEED, not among potential rescuers, NOT AMONG POTENTIAL VICTIMS!!!! How did the rescuing come about? Well, two things:
A. Rescuers happened only when CERTAIN, PSYCHOLOGICALLY PREDISPOSED, ENORMOUSLY COMPASSIONATE OR PRINCIPLED PEOPLE, THE VAST MINORITY, came in close enough contact / experience with the emergency that they became mobilized.
B. When these predisposed people felt competent to make a difference, maybe.
Well, in the Holocaust there never was mass rescuing! But in the Civil Rights Movement THERE WAS! How did this come about? Well, for the sake of this piece, IT BECAME A STRONG ENOUGH NEED WHEN ENOUGH OTHERS HAD PAID AN ENORMOUS PRICE FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Marches, suffering public scorn, white students getting lynched, whites getting "divorced" by their families, people marching, civil disobedience, jail, police dogs, fire hosings…. Extreme stuff that constituted an EXTREME PRICE PAID BY THE FEW! ONLY WHEN THE MASSES SAW THE FEW PAYING SUCH AN EXTREME PRICE COULD THESE PEOPLE OF LESSER VISION, IMAGINATION AND COMPASSION "SEE" AND FEEL THE ENORMOUS NEED… AND THEN RESPOND! AND THEY FINALLY DID!!!!!!! IN LARGE NUMBERS!!!!!!
In any market, in every market for new products including the product - THE NEED TO RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR - IT IS ALWAYS A FEW "PIONEERS" that start the market. IF THESE PIONEERS ARE SECURED FAST ENOUGH, IN GREAT ENOUGH NUMBERS (.000001% of the eventual market), AND IF THEY ARE CONSUMED WITH ENOUGH PASSION, THEY ARE THE TINDER THAT IS USED TO IGNITE THE TWIGS (the "Early Adapters," 5% of the ultimate market), and if this happens in the right way, the twigs are of sufficient heat, PASSION, to ignite the EARLY MAJORITY!!!!!
THESE STEPS CANNOT BE BYPASSED. NEVER. EVERY OTHER APPROACH IS CERTAIN TO FAIL!!!!! CCEERRTTAAIINN TTOO FFAAIILL!!! Some of us are going to have to be the TINDER. We are going to have to burn with an intense heat. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY A HUGE PRICE. MARCHES, HUNGER STRIKES, FAMILY PROBLEMS, CAREER PROBLEMS, UNIVERSITY PROBLEMS, HEALTH PROBLEMS…..
Everything else, anything less, will KILL what little time is left to Rescue and Restore Darfur.
THERE WILL BE NO RESCUE AND RESTORATION OF DARFUR UNTIL SOME, UNTIL ENOUGH, EARLY PIONEERS (THOSE WHO GO FIRST) AMONG WE THE PEOPLE PAY A BIG PRICE FOR IT. THEN, others more timid, with less vision may follow. It will NOT happen any other way. It never has; and it never will.
The following is pretty longwinded, but I hope you stay with it. It is REALLY IMPORTANT to our family in Darfur. It has been really important for me to come to clarity on this.
As I sit outside the Holocaust Museum with my posters I've been reading Eva Fogelman's Conscience & Courage. This is her exhaustive research findings regarding the relatively few "Rescuers" during the Nazi Holocaust. Reading it helps me understand myself, and what I am doing here in DC on Hunger Strike!!! a little better
Yesterday I met with some college interns here in DC for the summer. They are involved with the organization of potential promise - STAND (Students Taking Action: Darfur). We had met and spoken before at the July Hunger Strike. At that time they asked me to speak at a Church, which I did on the last day of the July Strike. It is evident that our encounter in July had an impact on these promising young leaders, these alive souls. Our reason for meeting was to brainstorm how to stop the Genocide, how to approach the larger world and increase the mobilization.
They voiced many heartfelt, honest, reasonable concerns:
" What is the "Ask?" They work for organizations that exist by "Asking," and secure aid for Darfur by "Asking".
" What do I tell someone that says, What about Niger and its famine?
" How do we articulate the need?
" Why is there so little REAL urgency even among activists (they didn't state this exactly, but it was implied.)
" Isn't this "post genocide" in Darfur, and if so, isn't the need much less urgent than it was? Isn't it infinitely more difficult now to mobilize people to take action?
" What strategies and tactics do we take?
" Is it enough for us just to stop the Genocide?
" How do we unify the efforts of the activists?
I hope I only frustrated them a little and did not lose their relationship entirely with how I responded. It was not my intention to do either and I may not have, and I pray I did not. But these are desperate times for our Darfur family and there is no time to kill. We must relentlessly pursue the truth, and those who find that doing so is not their highest priority, I/we must be willing to lose them from dialog for now.
In our meeting I was neither very articulate, concise or clear in my own mind. But I was certain that the questions they shared, questions held broadly I am sure throughout the activist community, were based on a fatally flawed understanding of the situation here in the U.S. faced by those of us that want to Rescue and Restore Darfur. I remain certain that this is the case.
I think I can boil what I see down to this. In the early 60's, what was the "Ask" to implement Civil Rights? THERE WAS NO ASK because:
1. There was no perceived need AMONG THOSE WITH POWER, THE MASSES, WE THE PEOPLE;
2. There was not SALABLE product. WHAT??!??!?!?!?? No salable product???? With all the cruelty, inhumanity and injustice???? YES, there was a desperate situation, BUT IT TOOK AN ENORMOUS STRUGGLE, REQUIRING ENORMOUS SACRIFICE TO TURN IT INTO A VISIBLE, SALABLE PRODUCT. Only THEN was it relevant to think in terms of "what is the Ask."
What is the "Ask" for Darfur? That is the wrong question AT THIS TIME because:
1. There is no perceived need THAT IS REMOTELY STRONG ENOUGH. And from Samantha Power's book, "The Problem from Hell", I SEE THAT GENOCIDE HAS NEVER BECOME A PERCEIVED NEED THAT IS REMOTELY STRONG ENOUGH TO MOBILIZE THIS COUNTRY!!!!!! Not Nazi Germany, not the Armenians, not the Kurds in Iraq, not Bosnia, not Rwanda….!!!!! IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED. WE MUST INVENT/CAUSE THE FIRST TIME!!!!!!!
2. THERE IS NO SALABLE PRODUCT, yet, and we are NOT MOVING yet IN THE DIRECTION OF CREATING ONE.
From Conscience and Courage I can see more clearly that in 1930's and early 1940's Germany and Europe there was a DESPERATE NEED, but NOT a DESPERATE PERCEIVED NEED, not among potential rescuers, NOT AMONG POTENTIAL VICTIMS!!!! How did the rescuing come about? Well, two things:
A. Rescuers happened only when CERTAIN, PSYCHOLOGICALLY PREDISPOSED, ENORMOUSLY COMPASSIONATE OR PRINCIPLED PEOPLE, THE VAST MINORITY, came in close enough contact / experience with the emergency that they became mobilized.
B. When these predisposed people felt competent to make a difference, maybe.
Well, in the Holocaust there never was mass rescuing! But in the Civil Rights Movement THERE WAS! How did this come about? Well, for the sake of this piece, IT BECAME A STRONG ENOUGH NEED WHEN ENOUGH OTHERS HAD PAID AN ENORMOUS PRICE FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Marches, suffering public scorn, white students getting lynched, whites getting "divorced" by their families, people marching, civil disobedience, jail, police dogs, fire hosings…. Extreme stuff that constituted an EXTREME PRICE PAID BY THE FEW! ONLY WHEN THE MASSES SAW THE FEW PAYING SUCH AN EXTREME PRICE COULD THESE PEOPLE OF LESSER VISION, IMAGINATION AND COMPASSION "SEE" AND FEEL THE ENORMOUS NEED… AND THEN RESPOND! AND THEY FINALLY DID!!!!!!! IN LARGE NUMBERS!!!!!!
In any market, in every market for new products including the product - THE NEED TO RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR - IT IS ALWAYS A FEW "PIONEERS" that start the market. IF THESE PIONEERS ARE SECURED FAST ENOUGH, IN GREAT ENOUGH NUMBERS (.000001% of the eventual market), AND IF THEY ARE CONSUMED WITH ENOUGH PASSION, THEY ARE THE TINDER THAT IS USED TO IGNITE THE TWIGS (the "Early Adapters," 5% of the ultimate market), and if this happens in the right way, the twigs are of sufficient heat, PASSION, to ignite the EARLY MAJORITY!!!!!
THESE STEPS CANNOT BE BYPASSED. NEVER. EVERY OTHER APPROACH IS CERTAIN TO FAIL!!!!! CCEERRTTAAIINN TTOO FFAAIILL!!! Some of us are going to have to be the TINDER. We are going to have to burn with an intense heat. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY A HUGE PRICE. MARCHES, HUNGER STRIKES, FAMILY PROBLEMS, CAREER PROBLEMS, UNIVERSITY PROBLEMS, HEALTH PROBLEMS…..
Everything else, anything less, will KILL what little time is left to Rescue and Restore Darfur.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Hunger Strike!!! Day 4. We MUST be Unreasonable.
Driving to DC and touring the Holocaust Museum.
[[[George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." See full quite from Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize winning book below.]]]
On the drive from Philadelphia today to DC, the traffic on Rt50 coming into DC was so slow that I had lots of time to consider options regarding the Hunger Strike!!! I am not called to do permanent damage to myself on this Strike!!! I am called to get back to work when I am done so I can begin the long and joyful effort to reprovision for future battles. The question I wrestled with is, should I go on a modified strike and have some nutrition every 4 days or so. There are many restaurants along Route 50 so I had lots of opportunities. I wrestled for probably an hour, and then it came clear to me. Some situations are so extreme that they require the most extreme price be paid, the most extreme measures in response. NOTHING LESS HAS ANY VALUE OR HOPE. The answer that came to me? No compromise. No nutrition (beyond the vitamin, potassium, salt and water I take daily). A 30-40 day Strike!!! if I am able. The posters I carry are, "NEVER AGAIN WHATEVER THE PRICE. GENOCIDE IN DARFUR," and "HUNGER STRIKE!!!! RESCUE RESTORE DARFUR." Tomorrow, day 5, I hope to be in front of the Holocaust museum. Other days will include the White House (OUR house) and the Washington Post (OUR eyes and ears).
I toured the Holocaust Museum for the first time today. I was so discouraged, so disheartened by the experience that I seriously considered ending the Strike!!! My God, if people that "Remember" have focused so little on HOW TO MAKE NEVER AGAIN A REALITY, how is anyone else going to focus on that?!?!?!?!!? And as for Darfur, the exhibit is such a weak token to the horror in Darfur, so dated, so benign (mostly pictures of smiling, pretty children, and nicely clothed women), that it speaks of simply using Darfur as a way of legitimizing the focus on the Holocaust. I fear that the museum is NOT about Never Again Genocide on Earth, but about Never Again FORGET what happened to JEWS. It seems to be simply a Museum to me, a place about the PAST, with little to do with the future. Not Never again, but rather, Again and Again. I did NOT tour the permanent exhibit and I plan to do so. Maybe that will alter my view. Overall, I am deeply grateful for the museum. The world, and Darfur, are much better off for it. But, it must become more. Fast.
But there was a little book store on the third floor that I entered before leaving and there on the shelves were 2 books that I've since scanned. WOW. My courage and commitment are restored!!!! Conscience & Courage, Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust by Eva Fogelman; and the Pulitzer Prize winning "A Problem from Hell," America and the Age of Genocide" by Samantha Power of Harvard. Although these folks are far more researched and scholarly than I, they have reached the same conclusions that have me on Hunger Strike!!! in DC! This was encouraging, and hopeful for me.
Among the findings I found hopeful and helpful from Fogelman a psychologist that has conducted extensive Doctoral study of Rescuers, is that Rescuing is a developed trait, deep within the core of an individual. We can exercise this capacity for Rescuing (this capacity for HUMANITY) within ourselves! We MUST exercise it or it atrophies. And in doing so, we exercise it in others. I REMAIN CONVINCED THAT THE ONLY HOPE FOR DARFUR, THE ONLY HOPE FOR A U.S. WORTH EXISTING, IS FOR A FEW OF US TO EXERCISE OUR HUMANITY WITH GREAT BOLDNESS AND VIGOR. In doing so we have the chance, the only chance, of stimulating, activating, exercising the Humanity in our fellow human beings. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Let's get on with it.
Samantha Power has done a Prize winning, exhaustive research on the Genocides of this century, and the causes of US inaction, time, after time, after time. I'm sure I'll share more later, but 2 things for now:
1. A central idea, or finding is, THE SYSTEM IN THE US IS WORKING... THAT IS WHY WE ALLOW GENOCIDE! No, she does NOT assert that there is a DESIRE for genocide, simply that our SYSTEM of values places TOO HIGH A PRICE on stopping genocide. My takeaway? IF WE ARE TO STOP GENOCIDE WE MUST SHAKEUP AND CHANGE THE SYSTEM, AND THE SYSTEM IS US.
2. Power's book ended with a paragraph I just had to have: "George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." After a century of doing so little to prevent, suppress, and punish genocide, Americans must join and thereby legitimate the ranks of the unreasonable."
OH PLEASE, LET'S HURRY IN BECOMING UNREASONABLE PEOPLE. 300-500 Exterminations per day in Darfur hang in the balance.
Agape, Jay
[[[George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." See full quite from Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize winning book below.]]]
On the drive from Philadelphia today to DC, the traffic on Rt50 coming into DC was so slow that I had lots of time to consider options regarding the Hunger Strike!!! I am not called to do permanent damage to myself on this Strike!!! I am called to get back to work when I am done so I can begin the long and joyful effort to reprovision for future battles. The question I wrestled with is, should I go on a modified strike and have some nutrition every 4 days or so. There are many restaurants along Route 50 so I had lots of opportunities. I wrestled for probably an hour, and then it came clear to me. Some situations are so extreme that they require the most extreme price be paid, the most extreme measures in response. NOTHING LESS HAS ANY VALUE OR HOPE. The answer that came to me? No compromise. No nutrition (beyond the vitamin, potassium, salt and water I take daily). A 30-40 day Strike!!! if I am able. The posters I carry are, "NEVER AGAIN WHATEVER THE PRICE. GENOCIDE IN DARFUR," and "HUNGER STRIKE!!!! RESCUE RESTORE DARFUR." Tomorrow, day 5, I hope to be in front of the Holocaust museum. Other days will include the White House (OUR house) and the Washington Post (OUR eyes and ears).
I toured the Holocaust Museum for the first time today. I was so discouraged, so disheartened by the experience that I seriously considered ending the Strike!!! My God, if people that "Remember" have focused so little on HOW TO MAKE NEVER AGAIN A REALITY, how is anyone else going to focus on that?!?!?!?!!? And as for Darfur, the exhibit is such a weak token to the horror in Darfur, so dated, so benign (mostly pictures of smiling, pretty children, and nicely clothed women), that it speaks of simply using Darfur as a way of legitimizing the focus on the Holocaust. I fear that the museum is NOT about Never Again Genocide on Earth, but about Never Again FORGET what happened to JEWS. It seems to be simply a Museum to me, a place about the PAST, with little to do with the future. Not Never again, but rather, Again and Again. I did NOT tour the permanent exhibit and I plan to do so. Maybe that will alter my view. Overall, I am deeply grateful for the museum. The world, and Darfur, are much better off for it. But, it must become more. Fast.
But there was a little book store on the third floor that I entered before leaving and there on the shelves were 2 books that I've since scanned. WOW. My courage and commitment are restored!!!! Conscience & Courage, Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust by Eva Fogelman; and the Pulitzer Prize winning "A Problem from Hell," America and the Age of Genocide" by Samantha Power of Harvard. Although these folks are far more researched and scholarly than I, they have reached the same conclusions that have me on Hunger Strike!!! in DC! This was encouraging, and hopeful for me.
Among the findings I found hopeful and helpful from Fogelman a psychologist that has conducted extensive Doctoral study of Rescuers, is that Rescuing is a developed trait, deep within the core of an individual. We can exercise this capacity for Rescuing (this capacity for HUMANITY) within ourselves! We MUST exercise it or it atrophies. And in doing so, we exercise it in others. I REMAIN CONVINCED THAT THE ONLY HOPE FOR DARFUR, THE ONLY HOPE FOR A U.S. WORTH EXISTING, IS FOR A FEW OF US TO EXERCISE OUR HUMANITY WITH GREAT BOLDNESS AND VIGOR. In doing so we have the chance, the only chance, of stimulating, activating, exercising the Humanity in our fellow human beings. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Let's get on with it.
Samantha Power has done a Prize winning, exhaustive research on the Genocides of this century, and the causes of US inaction, time, after time, after time. I'm sure I'll share more later, but 2 things for now:
1. A central idea, or finding is, THE SYSTEM IN THE US IS WORKING... THAT IS WHY WE ALLOW GENOCIDE! No, she does NOT assert that there is a DESIRE for genocide, simply that our SYSTEM of values places TOO HIGH A PRICE on stopping genocide. My takeaway? IF WE ARE TO STOP GENOCIDE WE MUST SHAKEUP AND CHANGE THE SYSTEM, AND THE SYSTEM IS US.
2. Power's book ended with a paragraph I just had to have: "George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." After a century of doing so little to prevent, suppress, and punish genocide, Americans must join and thereby legitimate the ranks of the unreasonable."
OH PLEASE, LET'S HURRY IN BECOMING UNREASONABLE PEOPLE. 300-500 Exterminations per day in Darfur hang in the balance.
Agape, Jay
Friday, August 05, 2005
The only hope
The only hope is our Humanity. Darfur genocide happens due to InHumanity, there and here.
We must generate, we must unleash humanity. The only hope is to exercise our humanity, individually, that it will grow, and not atrophy. And, in exercising our humanity, we often exercise the humanity of others, despite themselves.
There is no other way. There is no other core strategy. There never has been, and never will be.
We must generate, we must unleash humanity. The only hope is to exercise our humanity, individually, that it will grow, and not atrophy. And, in exercising our humanity, we often exercise the humanity of others, despite themselves.
There is no other way. There is no other core strategy. There never has been, and never will be.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Never Again (what???)
NEVER AGAIN A BYSTANDER IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE
NEVER AGAIN... WHATEVER THE PRICE
Ever since I was a selfish, spoiled little boy in Short Hills, NJ even I have known that the world should have stopped when the Holocaust was happening in Germany; EVERYTHING should have gone on hold that was not directed at bringing the Extermination of Humans to a halt! (Stupidly simplistic? Thank you.)
Ever since I knew I might join the July hunger strike at the White House I've been trying to complete the phrase, NEVER AGAIN.... "Never Again..." suggests to me the beginnings of a deep, human, profound, essential truth. I've been powerfully drawn to understanding what the whole phrase means, in the face of Genocide. My interest is not historical; I'm not overly interested in who coined the phrase or why. My interest is in what it means to we humans; what it means to be human in the face of GENOCIDE. I believe the phrase offers us a key, if we complete the phrase correctly. A path to become, to regain what it means to be... human.
Well, today I came close enough, for myself, at least.
NEVER AGAIN... NEVER AGAIN A BYSTANDER, IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE.
NEVER AGAIN... WHATEVER THE PRICE
Yes, this is close enough for me. Never again on the sidelines. Never again an onlooker. A fighter of genocide. This is what I must be. I must give everything I have to give, if I am to be a human being in the face of this man-made extermination of people, of our brothers, sisters... of our family.
Tonight I resume the Hunger Strike begun in July. Until August 8th I expect to remain at work with the deeply wonderful family I work with in the Philadelphia area. August 9th, I plan to tour the Holocaust Museum in DC for the first time. Beginning the 10th, for a total of 30 days or so I intend to be on Hunger Strike at some combination of the Holocaust Museum, White House, and Washington Post.
Why? I can't think of any more promising, forceful, urgent way to act on my horror, my agony, my overwhelming desire to Rescue and Restore Darfur.
What am I doing? I don't really know. If I were a person of violence I would be taking a person hostage of the highest U.S. "importance" to demand U.S. action. Being a person of strict nonviolence, I suppose I am trying to take some hearts hostage. Yes, I guess that is what this is partly about. Whose hearts? A few hearts among we the people, hearts that might then take others hostage....
My greatest hope? THE GREATEST HOPE? Our students in high school and college. Most of us oldsters have sold so much of our humanity for things, that we are of little hope, of little help, initially. We oldster's have little left of the humanity to give that it will take to Rescue and Restore Darfur. We are too skilled at imprisoning our hearts behind reason, reality, "responsibility" and religion. Our only hope is that the students, the youth, are not yet as dead, and sKilled, as we are. Students saved us in the Civil Rights Movement. They saved us in South Africa. Will they save us, U.S., and Darfur? Let us pray.
I'm terrified of my journey ahead, personally. This is a good sign! This is a sign that I may be getting off of the sidelines, into the line of fire, onto the field battle for Darfur! Thus far I am alone in this Hunger Strike campaign; no support, no participants, no promoters, no lodging (besides my car on the streets of DC). Will this change? Our Father knows.
I'm terrified. I'm overjoyed. I'm so sad - at the Slaughter in Darfur... at our Death in the United States of America. Let us pray, that life begins.
Agape,
Jay
NEVER AGAIN... WHATEVER THE PRICE
Ever since I was a selfish, spoiled little boy in Short Hills, NJ even I have known that the world should have stopped when the Holocaust was happening in Germany; EVERYTHING should have gone on hold that was not directed at bringing the Extermination of Humans to a halt! (Stupidly simplistic? Thank you.)
Ever since I knew I might join the July hunger strike at the White House I've been trying to complete the phrase, NEVER AGAIN.... "Never Again..." suggests to me the beginnings of a deep, human, profound, essential truth. I've been powerfully drawn to understanding what the whole phrase means, in the face of Genocide. My interest is not historical; I'm not overly interested in who coined the phrase or why. My interest is in what it means to we humans; what it means to be human in the face of GENOCIDE. I believe the phrase offers us a key, if we complete the phrase correctly. A path to become, to regain what it means to be... human.
Well, today I came close enough, for myself, at least.
NEVER AGAIN... NEVER AGAIN A BYSTANDER, IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE.
NEVER AGAIN... WHATEVER THE PRICE
Yes, this is close enough for me. Never again on the sidelines. Never again an onlooker. A fighter of genocide. This is what I must be. I must give everything I have to give, if I am to be a human being in the face of this man-made extermination of people, of our brothers, sisters... of our family.
Tonight I resume the Hunger Strike begun in July. Until August 8th I expect to remain at work with the deeply wonderful family I work with in the Philadelphia area. August 9th, I plan to tour the Holocaust Museum in DC for the first time. Beginning the 10th, for a total of 30 days or so I intend to be on Hunger Strike at some combination of the Holocaust Museum, White House, and Washington Post.
Why? I can't think of any more promising, forceful, urgent way to act on my horror, my agony, my overwhelming desire to Rescue and Restore Darfur.
What am I doing? I don't really know. If I were a person of violence I would be taking a person hostage of the highest U.S. "importance" to demand U.S. action. Being a person of strict nonviolence, I suppose I am trying to take some hearts hostage. Yes, I guess that is what this is partly about. Whose hearts? A few hearts among we the people, hearts that might then take others hostage....
My greatest hope? THE GREATEST HOPE? Our students in high school and college. Most of us oldsters have sold so much of our humanity for things, that we are of little hope, of little help, initially. We oldster's have little left of the humanity to give that it will take to Rescue and Restore Darfur. We are too skilled at imprisoning our hearts behind reason, reality, "responsibility" and religion. Our only hope is that the students, the youth, are not yet as dead, and sKilled, as we are. Students saved us in the Civil Rights Movement. They saved us in South Africa. Will they save us, U.S., and Darfur? Let us pray.
I'm terrified of my journey ahead, personally. This is a good sign! This is a sign that I may be getting off of the sidelines, into the line of fire, onto the field battle for Darfur! Thus far I am alone in this Hunger Strike campaign; no support, no participants, no promoters, no lodging (besides my car on the streets of DC). Will this change? Our Father knows.
I'm terrified. I'm overjoyed. I'm so sad - at the Slaughter in Darfur... at our Death in the United States of America. Let us pray, that life begins.
Agape,
Jay
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Fasting to where the Darfuries are...
... the brink of death. [[[No longer my current plan. Not quite that far. I am to regain full health to fight again.]]] I'm beginning to see that this is where I am called. I hope to begin August 10th back in DC.
I've known since the brief July Hunger Strike at Lafayette Park that I was being powerfully called back. I follow such calls in my life. I've never regretted doing so. I've always been deeply grateful when I have done so. For much of my life such unfathomable "calls" had to do with "saving" dying organizations in business. Now the "call" has to do with Rescuing and Restoring the Darfur part of our family.
There is almost nothing I understand about the call. This is always how it is until I am weeks or months underway. By the way, I often fail :-) . (Many of us are going to have to try, and fail, until someone discovers the way.) "If at first the idea is not absurd (unfathomable, crazy, outlandish, unimaginable...) it has no hope," wrote Einstein. This is more than a cute reference. The Rescue and Restoration of Darfur will be a type of thing never before seen, if it happens. Never has one people rescued and restored another, taught Dr. King. Non-biologically related, of a different race, 10,000 miles away.... My God let's face this seeming "impossibility" while some people remain to be rescued. Such an unprecedented transformation WILL NOT COME ABOUT THROUGH THE LEFT-BRAIN, NEAT, QUANTIFIABLE, TANGIBLE TYPES OF ACTIVITIES IN WHICH WE HAVE BEEN SCHOOLED. If a fire starts, and builds, it may be fanned and spread by left-brain action, but in its very essence it will be the scary, right-brain, intuitive, passionate, inspirational, HUMANE, "FAMILY," faith stuff. Please let's face, and embrace this. If what any of us "involved" in the struggle contemplate seems rational, clear, right, sane... it is probably HOPELESS, "KILLING TIME," something our Darfur family is out of.
I want to share with you the little bits of clarity that are beginning to emerge for me. Thanks for Jim Fussell's deeply helpful piece at preventgenocide.org. regarding Fasts, because I find it well intended, constructive, stimulating... and also flawed. I reference the flaws and this is a passionate complement and deep, deep thanks to Jim. He has built steps toward our needed action, but further steps need to be added. Maybe I am being shown some. I share below.
THE IMMEDIATE TARGET IS NOT, NOT, NOT THE VISIBLE POLITICAL LEADERS. We are not far enough along for this! Let's wake up please. We need nonviolent warriors first! People risking being casualties (by definition attendant to being in battle) for the cause of Rescue and Restoration. THE IMMEDIATE TARGET MUST BE THE 1-IN-A-MILLION PERSON THAT IS SO HUMANE, THAT THEY CAN BE AMONG THE FIRST ENLISTEES IN THE BATTLE FOR DARFUR. Nothing else is possible until a handful of these, THE NOT YET SPAWNED LEADERS, are ignited.
POLITICAL OR EVEN PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE ARE NOT RELEVANT OR APPROPRIATE YET. NOT EVEN MORAL PRESSURE. INFLAMMATION OF THE HUMANITY, COMPASSION, EMPATHY OF THE FEW, IS WHAT IS NEEDED FIRST.
I DON'T KNOW HOW THE HELL TO IGNITE THE HUMANITY IN ANYONE, AND I'VE YET TO FIND ANYONE THAT WILL SIT DOWN AND TALK ABOUT IT DEEPLY AND THOROUGHLY. Thank God for the words and example of Jesus, Gandhi, King, Deming.... But tonight, as these thoughts have come to me with greater clarity, I see that by personally going to where our Darfuries have been forced, TO THE BRINK OF DEATH, TO THE BRINK OF STARVATION, I WOULD BRING THAT PLACE IN TRUTH TO DC, AND MAYBE SOMEONE WITH ENOUGH HUMAN VISION INTACT in DC, in the US will "SEE" where the Darfuries are and have their Humanity mightily engaged. For most or even all of us Darfur is insuficiently real; it is too abstract, accademic, remote. We must bring the reality, not to our consciousness, but to our spirit, to our soul, THAT MAYBE we will bring it to the spirit and soul of others. Nothing else matters until this has happened. Gandhi did not liberate India using "Mind Force" but rather Soul Force/Truth Force.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO... BUT I'M SEEING SOME OF THE TRAIL MARKERS MORE CLEARLY :-) ! The right steps at this juncture are IN THE DIRECTION OF COURAGE, RISK, CASUALTY, DEPRIVATION, EXTREME SACRIFICE, EXTREME OTHERISHNESS... battle. In sheer physical terms (think Laws of Physics), it is a ferocious nonviolent BATTLE that will Rescue and Restore Darfur. By definition those engaged in battle face ALL that I've just listed: courage, risk, casualty.... I must be a warrior. We must raise/enlist warriors. THIS IS JOB ONE.
THIS is what "Never again" must mean. NEVER AGAIN WILL I BE A CIVILIAN, SAFE AT HOME, WHILE MY FAMILY IS SUBJECT TO GENOCIDE.
Agape,
Jay
I've known since the brief July Hunger Strike at Lafayette Park that I was being powerfully called back. I follow such calls in my life. I've never regretted doing so. I've always been deeply grateful when I have done so. For much of my life such unfathomable "calls" had to do with "saving" dying organizations in business. Now the "call" has to do with Rescuing and Restoring the Darfur part of our family.
There is almost nothing I understand about the call. This is always how it is until I am weeks or months underway. By the way, I often fail :-) . (Many of us are going to have to try, and fail, until someone discovers the way.) "If at first the idea is not absurd (unfathomable, crazy, outlandish, unimaginable...) it has no hope," wrote Einstein. This is more than a cute reference. The Rescue and Restoration of Darfur will be a type of thing never before seen, if it happens. Never has one people rescued and restored another, taught Dr. King. Non-biologically related, of a different race, 10,000 miles away.... My God let's face this seeming "impossibility" while some people remain to be rescued. Such an unprecedented transformation WILL NOT COME ABOUT THROUGH THE LEFT-BRAIN, NEAT, QUANTIFIABLE, TANGIBLE TYPES OF ACTIVITIES IN WHICH WE HAVE BEEN SCHOOLED. If a fire starts, and builds, it may be fanned and spread by left-brain action, but in its very essence it will be the scary, right-brain, intuitive, passionate, inspirational, HUMANE, "FAMILY," faith stuff. Please let's face, and embrace this. If what any of us "involved" in the struggle contemplate seems rational, clear, right, sane... it is probably HOPELESS, "KILLING TIME," something our Darfur family is out of.
I want to share with you the little bits of clarity that are beginning to emerge for me. Thanks for Jim Fussell's deeply helpful piece at preventgenocide.org. regarding Fasts, because I find it well intended, constructive, stimulating... and also flawed. I reference the flaws and this is a passionate complement and deep, deep thanks to Jim. He has built steps toward our needed action, but further steps need to be added. Maybe I am being shown some. I share below.
THE IMMEDIATE TARGET IS NOT, NOT, NOT THE VISIBLE POLITICAL LEADERS. We are not far enough along for this! Let's wake up please. We need nonviolent warriors first! People risking being casualties (by definition attendant to being in battle) for the cause of Rescue and Restoration. THE IMMEDIATE TARGET MUST BE THE 1-IN-A-MILLION PERSON THAT IS SO HUMANE, THAT THEY CAN BE AMONG THE FIRST ENLISTEES IN THE BATTLE FOR DARFUR. Nothing else is possible until a handful of these, THE NOT YET SPAWNED LEADERS, are ignited.
POLITICAL OR EVEN PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE ARE NOT RELEVANT OR APPROPRIATE YET. NOT EVEN MORAL PRESSURE. INFLAMMATION OF THE HUMANITY, COMPASSION, EMPATHY OF THE FEW, IS WHAT IS NEEDED FIRST.
I DON'T KNOW HOW THE HELL TO IGNITE THE HUMANITY IN ANYONE, AND I'VE YET TO FIND ANYONE THAT WILL SIT DOWN AND TALK ABOUT IT DEEPLY AND THOROUGHLY. Thank God for the words and example of Jesus, Gandhi, King, Deming.... But tonight, as these thoughts have come to me with greater clarity, I see that by personally going to where our Darfuries have been forced, TO THE BRINK OF DEATH, TO THE BRINK OF STARVATION, I WOULD BRING THAT PLACE IN TRUTH TO DC, AND MAYBE SOMEONE WITH ENOUGH HUMAN VISION INTACT in DC, in the US will "SEE" where the Darfuries are and have their Humanity mightily engaged. For most or even all of us Darfur is insuficiently real; it is too abstract, accademic, remote. We must bring the reality, not to our consciousness, but to our spirit, to our soul, THAT MAYBE we will bring it to the spirit and soul of others. Nothing else matters until this has happened. Gandhi did not liberate India using "Mind Force" but rather Soul Force/Truth Force.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO... BUT I'M SEEING SOME OF THE TRAIL MARKERS MORE CLEARLY :-) ! The right steps at this juncture are IN THE DIRECTION OF COURAGE, RISK, CASUALTY, DEPRIVATION, EXTREME SACRIFICE, EXTREME OTHERISHNESS... battle. In sheer physical terms (think Laws of Physics), it is a ferocious nonviolent BATTLE that will Rescue and Restore Darfur. By definition those engaged in battle face ALL that I've just listed: courage, risk, casualty.... I must be a warrior. We must raise/enlist warriors. THIS IS JOB ONE.
THIS is what "Never again" must mean. NEVER AGAIN WILL I BE A CIVILIAN, SAFE AT HOME, WHILE MY FAMILY IS SUBJECT TO GENOCIDE.
Agape,
Jay
Monday, July 18, 2005
Day 7 (of 8) July Hunger Strike at Whitehouse
While on hunger strike I have had much needed time to reflect and pray. I share with you the fruits:
1. What are we to do? RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR.
2. Why is our family being exterminated in Darfur? ITS MY PRIORITIES, MINE AND YOURS. None of us in the west wants this Genocide of our Darfur family. It continues because among people like me and you, it is not a high enough priority. Yes, tons of food and words are delivered daily. But food will not stop the Genocide and words are cheap. Me and you Standing Up is dear. Where is the fasting? Where are the demonstrations? Where is the civil disobedience? What are we saving these tactics for? SOME OF US ARE GOING TO HAVE TO STEP UP AND PAY A HUGE PRICE.
3. Who can stop this slaughter? ONLY ME AND OR YOU CAN STOP THE GENOCIDE. “Never think that a small group of committed people can't change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has,” wrote Margaret Mead. I think that a corollary to this is: NEVER THINK THAT A COMMITTED INDIVIDUAL CAN'T CHANGE THE WORLD. IN FACT, IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT EVER HAS. Many, many, many people are involved already, but how many of us are committed? Never Again depends on me and you, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
4. How hard will it be to stop the extermination now? MUCH HARDER THAN WE HAVE FACED. Isn't it self serving, to think that to Rescue and Restore Darfur will take less than the commitment seen in the Antiapartheid, Civil Rights, or similar struggles? Yes, it is self serving to deny that the cost to me and you must be very dear. Ten years ago the cost was too high for me and you to rescue Rwanda. Also Darfur?
5. What can stop the Genocide? ONLY OUR HUMANITY RADICALLY UNLEASHED, A CRUSADE OF NONVIOLENT ACTION, CAN STOP THE GENOCIDE, CAN RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR. It is not our intelligence, methods, computers, political skills, connections, military or the Internet that can stop the Genocide. It is not our hoped for Generals (Bush, Kofi, UN, Senate, Congress, France, Nato, Germany, China….) who will Rescue and Restore. They will NEVER be the army needed.
6. When will the time be right for us to stand up? THE TIME WILL NEVER BE RIGHT. You and I are WAITING for the right plan, the right strategy, the right time, the right leadership, the right resources… There is no such thing. There is no safety, comfort or certainty in battle. Our choice is not to wait for the right opportunity. Our choice is whether to enter the battle or not. We must enter the battle now, alone and unsure.
7. What Spirit and Tactics are required? THE SPIRIT OF LOVE AND FAITH, THE TACTICS OF FASTING, DEMONSTRATIONS AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Whenever there have been campaigns that led to mass Rescue and Restoration, the Spirit was one of selflessness, love, courage, justness and faith; faith that if we embody the will of our Father to the extreme, He will use us to move the mountain. And the TACTICS WERE EXTREME, MATCHING THE EXTREME FORCES OF DESTRUCTION. If we do not aggressively employ these tactics we have chosen to let the Genocide extermination prevail. Darfur is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, and for you to exercise our humanity. Dr. King said, “If a man does not know what he will give his life for, he is not fit to live.” If we will not give our lives to stop Genocide then what will we give our life for? If not now, when? If not me, if not you, who?We know what to do: “Do unto others ALL that you would have them do unto you.” Let's do it.
More soon. Jay
1. What are we to do? RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR.
2. Why is our family being exterminated in Darfur? ITS MY PRIORITIES, MINE AND YOURS. None of us in the west wants this Genocide of our Darfur family. It continues because among people like me and you, it is not a high enough priority. Yes, tons of food and words are delivered daily. But food will not stop the Genocide and words are cheap. Me and you Standing Up is dear. Where is the fasting? Where are the demonstrations? Where is the civil disobedience? What are we saving these tactics for? SOME OF US ARE GOING TO HAVE TO STEP UP AND PAY A HUGE PRICE.
3. Who can stop this slaughter? ONLY ME AND OR YOU CAN STOP THE GENOCIDE. “Never think that a small group of committed people can't change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has,” wrote Margaret Mead. I think that a corollary to this is: NEVER THINK THAT A COMMITTED INDIVIDUAL CAN'T CHANGE THE WORLD. IN FACT, IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT EVER HAS. Many, many, many people are involved already, but how many of us are committed? Never Again depends on me and you, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
4. How hard will it be to stop the extermination now? MUCH HARDER THAN WE HAVE FACED. Isn't it self serving, to think that to Rescue and Restore Darfur will take less than the commitment seen in the Antiapartheid, Civil Rights, or similar struggles? Yes, it is self serving to deny that the cost to me and you must be very dear. Ten years ago the cost was too high for me and you to rescue Rwanda. Also Darfur?
5. What can stop the Genocide? ONLY OUR HUMANITY RADICALLY UNLEASHED, A CRUSADE OF NONVIOLENT ACTION, CAN STOP THE GENOCIDE, CAN RESCUE AND RESTORE DARFUR. It is not our intelligence, methods, computers, political skills, connections, military or the Internet that can stop the Genocide. It is not our hoped for Generals (Bush, Kofi, UN, Senate, Congress, France, Nato, Germany, China….) who will Rescue and Restore. They will NEVER be the army needed.
6. When will the time be right for us to stand up? THE TIME WILL NEVER BE RIGHT. You and I are WAITING for the right plan, the right strategy, the right time, the right leadership, the right resources… There is no such thing. There is no safety, comfort or certainty in battle. Our choice is not to wait for the right opportunity. Our choice is whether to enter the battle or not. We must enter the battle now, alone and unsure.
7. What Spirit and Tactics are required? THE SPIRIT OF LOVE AND FAITH, THE TACTICS OF FASTING, DEMONSTRATIONS AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Whenever there have been campaigns that led to mass Rescue and Restoration, the Spirit was one of selflessness, love, courage, justness and faith; faith that if we embody the will of our Father to the extreme, He will use us to move the mountain. And the TACTICS WERE EXTREME, MATCHING THE EXTREME FORCES OF DESTRUCTION. If we do not aggressively employ these tactics we have chosen to let the Genocide extermination prevail. Darfur is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, and for you to exercise our humanity. Dr. King said, “If a man does not know what he will give his life for, he is not fit to live.” If we will not give our lives to stop Genocide then what will we give our life for? If not now, when? If not me, if not you, who?We know what to do: “Do unto others ALL that you would have them do unto you.” Let's do it.
More soon. Jay
Sunday, October 03, 2004
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