"I had no right but for the love of You..."
Late night at the office, hunting down grant applications like nobody's business. Just envision me as a stealthy Robin Hood, skulking through the internet and peering through the leaves at all those rich foundations that I can rob for the poor. Bwahahahahaha!
But anyway. "That's not what I came here to talk about."
For a crazy pacifist liberal with a strong committment to fighting war, racism, and poverty, my public protest resume is pretty pathetic. This is largely deliberate on my part. For one thing, I'm not much of a "joiner" -- or rather, I'm TOO much of a joiner, and I recognize that in myself and try to combat it. I think with my heart and my gut; my head only gets involved as I'm climbing into bed that night, if at all. This is part of the reason I so completely fail at all decision making from "Do I want an English muffin or toast this morning?" all the way up to "Is this relationship going anywhere?" -- because I second guess EVERYTHING. I can't trust my gut but I don't want to rely completely on my head.
So I stay away from many public protests because 1. Any protest is only as legitimate as the craziest person there. and 2. I don't trust myself to keep my cool or draw the lines appropriately in a high-emotion situation. I've participated in no civil disobedience in my life and have been only on the outskirts of a few marches, and most of those were ones that I helped organize, like Statewide Poverty Action's annual Poverty Summit in Olympia. That's a permitted, scheduled march that everybody knows about; the whole "rally" thing is less to attract attention and make noise than it is to get us all fired up and energized for our meetings with legislators that afternoon. At least that was my experience of it last year.
So here's the thing. I'm now part of the planning committee for an event with the Nonprofit that will have a STRONG civil disobedience component. I'm on it because I think it's an appalling human rights violation that we're protesting; because there's the real potential for immediate change to come as a result of this event; because we've already worked and are continuing to work the accepted channels of public debate & pressure; and because the people I'm working with are respectful, grounded, realistic and intelligent human beings with a committment to keeping this nonviolent, grassroots, and practical. We had a meeting today that I felt really, really good about; there was a committment to approachability, nonviolence, integrity, and practicality about details like who can afford to get arrested and who can't and how to mediate with police and media. There was an astounding lack of the egotism, elitism, demonization of the other side, and nonspecific generalized discontent that's kept me away from most public protest.
I believe in this.
And I'm willing to go to jail for it.
And I don't think there's a better way to act on this than the way that could result in jail.
(Just to be very clear: we're talking, like, booked, fingerprinted, released. I'm not trying to paint myself as a willing martyr. It's more that this represents a departure from the respect for law and order that I've always held.)
But this is a place I've never gone before. And like many of the questions I find myself struggling with, this is a place where I don't feel like I have a whole lot of counsel available to me from friends, family, or professional or personal mentors. Most of my support group falls squarely and completely on one side or the other of this line -- savvy and selfless protesters with a history of putting themselves on the line for what they believe, or committed believers in the processes in place with a healthy skepticism about anything outside of that. I'm afraid I'm about to do something that half of the people I love will be disappointed in me for doing, and the other half disappointed in me for having doubts about doing it. That's a troubling place in which to live.
I guess it goes without saying that I'd welcome prayers for clarity from all who do that sort of thing.
Below are a few links to the article and some of the Boss's blogs on the issue. Most of the Boss's blog posts link to other local media articles, so you can get a fairly good picture of what's going on. It's in chronological order.
Note to (Mayor Greg) Nickels: People are Not Trash
Oct. 31st: City Sweeps Remove Belongings, Leave Trash
Stop Secret Homeless Sweeps
Petition & Position
Mayor's Office Response
I have to say...some of the folks who've experienced this are friends of mine, vendors of the paper and kind and loving human beings. They've lost tents, IDs, prescription medications, pictures of families and urns containing ashes. One of my favorite vendors tried to explain it to me: "When you're homeless, you have so little. And when that little you have gets taken away, it's like you've lost who you are. You've lost your identity."
Here's a really relevant column from the Ironist, as well, written before this all started. That was in response to a homeless man who was robbed of his possessions by a random mugger. It makes me a great deal angrier when it's done by police: Material Values
And on a completely irrelevant note. The following list of posts is to be written by me at SOME POINT. Because I want to.
1. Review of the Knight's wonderful novel. The Knight successfully completed NaNoWriMo!!
2. Thoughts on the "Asher Lev" books & art.
3. Thoughts on "Life of a Poet" and Edwin Arlington Robinson
4. Detailed recounting of the Loremaster's wedding, before I forget it all.
And to all a good night!
But anyway. "That's not what I came here to talk about."
For a crazy pacifist liberal with a strong committment to fighting war, racism, and poverty, my public protest resume is pretty pathetic. This is largely deliberate on my part. For one thing, I'm not much of a "joiner" -- or rather, I'm TOO much of a joiner, and I recognize that in myself and try to combat it. I think with my heart and my gut; my head only gets involved as I'm climbing into bed that night, if at all. This is part of the reason I so completely fail at all decision making from "Do I want an English muffin or toast this morning?" all the way up to "Is this relationship going anywhere?" -- because I second guess EVERYTHING. I can't trust my gut but I don't want to rely completely on my head.
So I stay away from many public protests because 1. Any protest is only as legitimate as the craziest person there. and 2. I don't trust myself to keep my cool or draw the lines appropriately in a high-emotion situation. I've participated in no civil disobedience in my life and have been only on the outskirts of a few marches, and most of those were ones that I helped organize, like Statewide Poverty Action's annual Poverty Summit in Olympia. That's a permitted, scheduled march that everybody knows about; the whole "rally" thing is less to attract attention and make noise than it is to get us all fired up and energized for our meetings with legislators that afternoon. At least that was my experience of it last year.
So here's the thing. I'm now part of the planning committee for an event with the Nonprofit that will have a STRONG civil disobedience component. I'm on it because I think it's an appalling human rights violation that we're protesting; because there's the real potential for immediate change to come as a result of this event; because we've already worked and are continuing to work the accepted channels of public debate & pressure; and because the people I'm working with are respectful, grounded, realistic and intelligent human beings with a committment to keeping this nonviolent, grassroots, and practical. We had a meeting today that I felt really, really good about; there was a committment to approachability, nonviolence, integrity, and practicality about details like who can afford to get arrested and who can't and how to mediate with police and media. There was an astounding lack of the egotism, elitism, demonization of the other side, and nonspecific generalized discontent that's kept me away from most public protest.
I believe in this.
And I'm willing to go to jail for it.
And I don't think there's a better way to act on this than the way that could result in jail.
(Just to be very clear: we're talking, like, booked, fingerprinted, released. I'm not trying to paint myself as a willing martyr. It's more that this represents a departure from the respect for law and order that I've always held.)
But this is a place I've never gone before. And like many of the questions I find myself struggling with, this is a place where I don't feel like I have a whole lot of counsel available to me from friends, family, or professional or personal mentors. Most of my support group falls squarely and completely on one side or the other of this line -- savvy and selfless protesters with a history of putting themselves on the line for what they believe, or committed believers in the processes in place with a healthy skepticism about anything outside of that. I'm afraid I'm about to do something that half of the people I love will be disappointed in me for doing, and the other half disappointed in me for having doubts about doing it. That's a troubling place in which to live.
I guess it goes without saying that I'd welcome prayers for clarity from all who do that sort of thing.
Below are a few links to the article and some of the Boss's blogs on the issue. Most of the Boss's blog posts link to other local media articles, so you can get a fairly good picture of what's going on. It's in chronological order.
Note to (Mayor Greg) Nickels: People are Not Trash
Oct. 31st: City Sweeps Remove Belongings, Leave Trash
Stop Secret Homeless Sweeps
Petition & Position
Mayor's Office Response
I have to say...some of the folks who've experienced this are friends of mine, vendors of the paper and kind and loving human beings. They've lost tents, IDs, prescription medications, pictures of families and urns containing ashes. One of my favorite vendors tried to explain it to me: "When you're homeless, you have so little. And when that little you have gets taken away, it's like you've lost who you are. You've lost your identity."
Here's a really relevant column from the Ironist, as well, written before this all started. That was in response to a homeless man who was robbed of his possessions by a random mugger. It makes me a great deal angrier when it's done by police: Material Values
And on a completely irrelevant note. The following list of posts is to be written by me at SOME POINT. Because I want to.
1. Review of the Knight's wonderful novel. The Knight successfully completed NaNoWriMo!!
2. Thoughts on the "Asher Lev" books & art.
3. Thoughts on "Life of a Poet" and Edwin Arlington Robinson
4. Detailed recounting of the Loremaster's wedding, before I forget it all.
And to all a good night!