never forget that justice is what love looks like in public
So, something else I've been up to:
www.carolinamercury.com
www.carolinamercury.com
The Historic Thousands On Jones Street (HKonJ) People's Assembly / Moral March on Saturday. (I am actually IN that second photo, y'all - no lie, I blew it up and managed to pick out my group.)
We are black, white, Latino, Native American. We are Democrat, Republican, independent. We are people of all faiths, and people not of faith but who believe in a moral universe. We are natives and immigrants, business leaders and workers and unemployed, doctors and the uninsured, gay and straight, students and parents and retirees. We stand here - a quilt of many colors, faiths and creeds.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
President of the NC NAACP and convener of HKonJ
Activism (and some paganism) is under the cut:
Things actually started earlier in the week - We have Soup Night every Thursday (and while it's still small, there has been some community activism and pagan organizational planning done around our dining room table already ...), and once we'd finished the pot, I put another pot on to cook overnight to take up to the UU church on Friday; we sent it over to the Raleigh UUs, who were planning to put up 500+ people from congregations from all over the state on Friday night.
Five of us drove over on Saturday morning to participate in the march - our day started early, because three of us planned to do some ritual-ing up at the state capitol building before the event began, an expanded version of a ritual we'd been doing last summer in support of the weekly Moral Monday protests and civil disobedience arrests (900+ unique arrests!) while the legislature was in session: Invocations of Mars and Thor and Lugh as guardians during the action, and then of an American Triad of Libertas and Justitia and Columbia; this time we also invoked Marsyas as a patron of speaking truth to power; an Ancestor cohort of activists and historical movement leaders I've been calling the Antesignani (the Standard-bearers, those who march in front of the army); Athena Polais, mother of the polis; and Tyr, who I'm increasingly coming to see as a patron of civil disobedience.
We do this in front of one of the veterans' monuments on one side of the capitol building; the monument includes a statue of Libertas and also faces the legislature building, which is a block away. This time, there was a non-denominational prayer service with a few dozen clergy going on at the same time, down in front of the legislature building, so I suppose we energetically had each other's backs. We ended up with a nice omen, particularly for what we were getting ready to do: Queen of Swords (be bold but smart) for needed action and Ace of Cups (new partnership/coalition) for outcome. The shadow card, which I usually use as a sort of temperature-taker for "what's our status right now?" was the 7 of Pentacles, which I tend to read as an investment card - the resources you invest now end up providing a greater return in the future.
Then we walked the mile-ish stretch up to Shaw University, where everything was starting, and tried not to FREEZE for a couple of hours, during which we met Horton the Mystery Terrier in his stylin' shearling doggie coat with an HRC sticker on it, collected AIDS Action Network stickers and Planned Parenthood stickers and anti-fracking stickers and Equality NC signs and flyers about an upcoming meeting of a farmworkers action group on working conditions, ate ham biscuits, listened to some speakers tell us about some truly appalling things our legislature has been doing, wandered to the back of the crowd on our street and jammed with an environmentalist group who'd brought a drum and some other rhythm instruments, tried to stay warm some more, signed some petitions - including an anti-fracking petition for a woman who took one of our flyers for an area inter-pagan group we're putting together, so she could advertise for us - ate doughnuts and then marched the route back to the capitol building with the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO and a guy carrying a flag with an old-school Polish Solidarnosc logo on it. Signed some more petitions - including a pro-ERA petition - gave up trying to stay warm, talked to a couple of people who commented on the pentacles on our friend Em's clergy stole (she's an ordained Universalist minister), listened to some more speakers, learned some more appalling statistics about the fallout from the decimation of the social safety net in our state and heard some of the plans for action later this year.
So, that's how we and (literally) tens of thousands of our compatriots spent our Saturday morning. Next up: voter registration drives start up, and it sounds like we'll be back doing the Monday protests again when the legislature is back in session.
More photos under
Note: I did not take these. All of them were yoinked from the Carolina Mercury's FB album; there are a ton more photos there, if you follow the link. Also, #hkonj and #moralmarch will get you some photos from the day, if you scroll back.
#OrganizeTheSouth
"Forward Together, Not One Step Back"
LOTS of pink Planned Parenthood caps all over the place.
Equality NC is one of the main LGBTQ advocacy orgs in the state. LOTS of these signs everywhere, too.
FLOC = Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Background:
Moral Monday movement spreads through the South
Old South vs. New South: The Third Reconstruction
North Carolina: Battleground State (or Why You Should Care), from Bill Moyers
Take the firepower of the rich, pour in heaps of dark money loosed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, add generous doses of fervent ideology, and presto: the battle for American politics and governance is joined. And every state becomes North Carolina, including yours.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.
www.carolinamercury.com
www.carolinamercury.com
The Historic Thousands On Jones Street (HKonJ) People's Assembly / Moral March on Saturday. (I am actually IN that second photo, y'all - no lie, I blew it up and managed to pick out my group.)
We are black, white, Latino, Native American. We are Democrat, Republican, independent. We are people of all faiths, and people not of faith but who believe in a moral universe. We are natives and immigrants, business leaders and workers and unemployed, doctors and the uninsured, gay and straight, students and parents and retirees. We stand here - a quilt of many colors, faiths and creeds.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
President of the NC NAACP and convener of HKonJ
Activism (and some paganism) is under the cut:
Things actually started earlier in the week - We have Soup Night every Thursday (and while it's still small, there has been some community activism and pagan organizational planning done around our dining room table already ...), and once we'd finished the pot, I put another pot on to cook overnight to take up to the UU church on Friday; we sent it over to the Raleigh UUs, who were planning to put up 500+ people from congregations from all over the state on Friday night.
Five of us drove over on Saturday morning to participate in the march - our day started early, because three of us planned to do some ritual-ing up at the state capitol building before the event began, an expanded version of a ritual we'd been doing last summer in support of the weekly Moral Monday protests and civil disobedience arrests (900+ unique arrests!) while the legislature was in session: Invocations of Mars and Thor and Lugh as guardians during the action, and then of an American Triad of Libertas and Justitia and Columbia; this time we also invoked Marsyas as a patron of speaking truth to power; an Ancestor cohort of activists and historical movement leaders I've been calling the Antesignani (the Standard-bearers, those who march in front of the army); Athena Polais, mother of the polis; and Tyr, who I'm increasingly coming to see as a patron of civil disobedience.
We do this in front of one of the veterans' monuments on one side of the capitol building; the monument includes a statue of Libertas and also faces the legislature building, which is a block away. This time, there was a non-denominational prayer service with a few dozen clergy going on at the same time, down in front of the legislature building, so I suppose we energetically had each other's backs. We ended up with a nice omen, particularly for what we were getting ready to do: Queen of Swords (be bold but smart) for needed action and Ace of Cups (new partnership/coalition) for outcome. The shadow card, which I usually use as a sort of temperature-taker for "what's our status right now?" was the 7 of Pentacles, which I tend to read as an investment card - the resources you invest now end up providing a greater return in the future.
Then we walked the mile-ish stretch up to Shaw University, where everything was starting, and tried not to FREEZE for a couple of hours, during which we met Horton the Mystery Terrier in his stylin' shearling doggie coat with an HRC sticker on it, collected AIDS Action Network stickers and Planned Parenthood stickers and anti-fracking stickers and Equality NC signs and flyers about an upcoming meeting of a farmworkers action group on working conditions, ate ham biscuits, listened to some speakers tell us about some truly appalling things our legislature has been doing, wandered to the back of the crowd on our street and jammed with an environmentalist group who'd brought a drum and some other rhythm instruments, tried to stay warm some more, signed some petitions - including an anti-fracking petition for a woman who took one of our flyers for an area inter-pagan group we're putting together, so she could advertise for us - ate doughnuts and then marched the route back to the capitol building with the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO and a guy carrying a flag with an old-school Polish Solidarnosc logo on it. Signed some more petitions - including a pro-ERA petition - gave up trying to stay warm, talked to a couple of people who commented on the pentacles on our friend Em's clergy stole (she's an ordained Universalist minister), listened to some more speakers, learned some more appalling statistics about the fallout from the decimation of the social safety net in our state and heard some of the plans for action later this year.
So, that's how we and (literally) tens of thousands of our compatriots spent our Saturday morning. Next up: voter registration drives start up, and it sounds like we'll be back doing the Monday protests again when the legislature is back in session.
More photos under
Note: I did not take these. All of them were yoinked from the Carolina Mercury's FB album; there are a ton more photos there, if you follow the link. Also, #hkonj and #moralmarch will get you some photos from the day, if you scroll back.
#OrganizeTheSouth
"Forward Together, Not One Step Back"
LOTS of pink Planned Parenthood caps all over the place.
Equality NC is one of the main LGBTQ advocacy orgs in the state. LOTS of these signs everywhere, too.
FLOC = Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Background:
Moral Monday movement spreads through the South
Old South vs. New South: The Third Reconstruction
North Carolina: Battleground State (or Why You Should Care), from Bill Moyers
Take the firepower of the rich, pour in heaps of dark money loosed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, add generous doses of fervent ideology, and presto: the battle for American politics and governance is joined. And every state becomes North Carolina, including yours.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.