On Civil Disobedience

{1} "You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. ....But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love -- 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.' Was not Amos an extremist for justice -- 'Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.' ... Was not John Bunyan an extremist -- 'I will stay in jail until the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.' .... Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist -- 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' So the question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremists we will be. .... after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Letter from Birmingham City Jail.

Yesterday, withi a matter of hours, a jury returned its verdict in the case of the St. Patrick's Four at the federal courthouse in Binghamton, NY, and Cindy Sheehan was arrested outside of the White House in Washington DC. As the opposition to the war in Iraq grows, there will be an increase in acts of civil disobedience to focus the nation's attention on the horrors of a war that many view as the greatest failure in American foreign policy. The tone of many of the discussions about civil disobedience, ranging from those on Fox News to the Democratic Underground, indicate that there is a general lack of awareness of what civil disobedience is, including its history in our country, and its goals. This essay will attempt to explain what civil disobedience is, when it is used, and what its goals are.

Throughout history, we find that there are three ways that people respond to oppression. The first is through acquiescence. People surrender their sense of self-worth, and accept abuse and mistreatment from their oppressors. The second response is one of violence, in which oppressed peoples react with anger and hatred. The third method is nonviolent resistance, as practiced by Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Civil disobedience is one tactic used in campaigns of nonviolent resistance. It has, at times, been used in campaigns that do not remain nonviolent. The Boston Tea Party was an example of civil disobedience. Those who are opposed to those engaged in the civil disobedience will often attempt to discredit these actions by calling them extreme, irresponsible, un-American, and dangeous.

{2} "Before the victory is won some may have to get scarred up, but we shall overcome. Before the victory of brotherhood is achieved, some will maybe face physical death, but we shall overcome. Before this victory is won, some will lose jobs, some will be called communists and reds, merely because they believe in brotherhood, some will be dismissed as dangerous rabblerousers and agitators merely because they are standing up for what is right, but we shall overcome. That is the basis of this movement, and as I like to say, there is something in this universe that justifies Carlyle in saying no lie can live forever. We shall overcome because there is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying truth crushed to earth will rise again."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience.

There are numerous types of nonviolent direct action which can be used to oppose oppression. Not all of these are civil disobedience, even though they involve violating the law of the land, and require as much commitment and bravery as true civil disobedience. A wonderful example would be the "underground railroad" in which people, often Quakers, helped escaped slaves journey from the deep south to Canada. There are similar activities today, with dedicated people helping people escape from countries in Central America, where their lives were in danger from oppressive regimes. These brave nonviolent actions recognize that, as King taught, everything done in Nazi Germany was "legal."

"It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in the days of Hitler's Germany," he noted in his 11-16-61 address to the annual conference of the Fellowship of the Concerned. "But I believe that if I had the same attitude then as I have now, I would publicly aid and comfort my Jewish brothers in Germany if Hitler were alive today and calling this an illegal process." That is what distinguishes civil disobedience from other nonviolent resistance: it is done publicly.

King recognized that there were two types of laws: just laws and unjust laws. As a rule, he noted that everyone has a responsibility to obey just laws, which are intended and applied in such a way as to promote order and equality in our society. King also recognbized that just laws can be applied unjustly. The best example would be the laws requiring people to get a permit to hold a public demonstration to air their grievances against their elected officials: in the south, King's people were at times denied the permits they were entitled to, and hence they violated the "just law" by demonstrating illegally.

There are also unjust laws, which King taught us that we have a moral obligation to disobey. Unlike a just law, the unjust laws are made to discourage order and to deny equality. Unjust laws benefit one group at the expense of another. King used the example of a traffic light. When applied to all, it is helpful, and promotes order and safety. If a traffic light were to be used to stop one ethnic group on the road to progress, it is unjust. A civil disobedience campaign would have people openly defy that law, recognizing that they will be ticketed, fined, and possible sent to jail for violating the law. Cindy Sheehan was arrested for this type of action yesterday.

King also recognized that there are times when a crisis arises, when an ambulance or firetruck must put on its flashing lights and sirens, and run the red lights of society. And that is what the St. Patrick's Four did when they protested the Bush administration's plans for aggression in Iraq.

This morning on Fox News, "guest" Bill O'Reilly was asked by a caller about Cindy Sheehan's smiling when she was arrested yesterday. Likewise, the calm and at-peace nature of the St. Patrick's Four outrages many of their critics. Yet Gandhi and King taught that civil disobedience must be accomplished with the law broken openly, lovingly, and with the penalty readily accepted. O'Reilly, of course, could not fathom a connection between Sheehan's Texas vigil and her act of civil disobedience.

{3} "Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak to the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. .... And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; A Time to Break Silence (Beyong Vietnam).

King had known that "the hangman of the 1950s 'cold war' was McCarthyism." He knew the price that a brave few paid for challenging the system then. He knew that he would be attacked by his enemies when, a year to the day before his death, he bravely delivered the greatest of American speeches, in which he connected racism in America and the war in Vietnam. As intelligent as King was, he had to have known what the result of that speech would be, yet he accepted that openly and lovingly.

Today, our nation honors King with a holiday. Even President Bush attempts to capitalize on King's memory, by placing a wreath on his grave. Yet surely, were King alive today, he would be trying to convince Bush of the spiritual emptiness and outright evil of his policy in Iraq. King would be advocating nonviolent resistance to the war, and engaged in campaigns of civil disobedience. He would be arrested and jailed for his opposition to the war. He would be smiling with Cindy Sheehan. He would be tried under the Patriot Act for conspiracy, along with the St. Patrick's Four. Indeed, Bush's wreath is the crown of thorns, even if the president is unconscious of that symbolism.

"Everyone loves the dead. Once you die, you got it made for life," a rock musician once said. It's too easy to love the Martin Luther King that is being placed on a stained glass window, rather than the living Martin, who was found marching in the streets and praying in jail. "I come not to bring peace, but a sword," said Jesus.

Those who engage in acts of civil disobedience upset those who are comfortable in acquiescence. "But Cindy was smiling. Would her son be proud?" "Those Catholic Workers spilled human blood. They discredit the anti-war movement."

Many democrats, when looking at Gandhi today, consider him to have been naive. Yet, in his day, those who opposed him saw him as just the opposite. King was considered a tool of communists. Even Thoreau, the author of "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience," was considered threatening in his day, because he also defended the Harpers Ferry raid in "A Plea for John Brown."

Those who participate in the campaigns of civil disobedience, in opposing the Bush administration's war policies, has to expect to be arrested, tried, and convicted. They must be aware that those who oppose their actions will distort their motives and their actions, with all of the irrational anger that Bill O'Reilly is paid to display. And they need to understand that even those who should be supporting them will often be confused and turn on them. It is part of the process. But it is not the end of the process.


{4} "My personal trials have also taught me the value of unmerited suffering. ....Recognizing the necessity of suffering I have tried to make it a virtue. If only to save myself from bitterness, I have attempted to see my personal ordeals as an opportunity to transform myself and heal the people involved in the tragic situation which now obtains. I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Suffering and Faith

In the first few days of the St. Patrick's Four trial, the police used their orange "crime scene" tape to keep the anti-war and the pro-war demonstrators separate. There was even a taped off space between the two groups, which was called the DMZ, or demilitarized zone. In those first few days, there was virtually no communication between the "opposing" sides.

Yet by the end of the week, each side was showing the other a mutual respect that included smiles, handshakes, and even embraces. Each side wants "the best" for this country. Each side believes it is showing the greatest support for the troops. Both sides want the war to end. This is the transforming power that King spoke of. The brave actions of Cindy Sheehan and of the St. Patrick's Four will not end the war in Iraq. But they may help transform the national discussion in a manner that forces the government to end their immoral war.

Yesterday's events should give us hope for the future. King knew the value of hope. I will end with a poem that an angry young man left for Martin one day. This young man was among those who had looked at Martin's nonviolent campaign as a sign of weakness, until he had the opportunity to be in the same room with King. He wrote the following three lines on a card which he left on Martin's desk early one morning.

"I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see,
I sought God, but he eluded me,
I sought my brother, and I found all three."

The Liberty of Conscience

{1} "Every man, not least the conscientious objector, has an interest in the security of the nation. Dissent is possible only in a society strong enough to repel attack. The conscientious will to resist springs from moral principles. It is likely to seek a new order in the same society, not anarchy or submission to a hostile power. Thus conscience rarely wholly disassociates itself from the defense of the ordered society within which it functions and which it seeks to reform, not to reduce to rubble.

"In parallel fashion, every man shares and society as a whole shares an interest in the conscientious objector, religious or not. The freedom of all depends on the freedom of each. Free men exist only in free societies. Society's own stability and growth, its physical and spiritual prosperity are responsive to the liberties of its citizens, to their deepest insights -- to their free choices --'That which opposes, also fits.' .....

"When the state through itits laws seeks to override reasonable moral commitments it makes a dangerously uncharacteristic choice. The law grows from the deposits of morality. Law and morality are, in turn, debtors and creditors of each other. The law cannot be adequately enforced by the courts alone, or the courts supported merely by the police and military. The true secret of legal might lies in the habits of conscientious men disciplining themselves to obey the law they respect without the necessity of judicial and administrative orders. When the law treats a reasonable, conscientious act as a crime it subverts its own power. It invites civil disobedience. It impairs the very habits which nourish and preserve the law."
-- Chief Judge Charles Wyzanski, Jr; U.S. Federal District Court of Massachusetts; decision exempting atheist John Sisson, Jr from draft on C.O. grounds; April 1, 1969

My oldest son offered to drive me to Binghamton, NY yesterday, so that I could attend the rally in support of the St. Patrick's Four. These are the Catholic Workers on trial for an act of civil disobedience two days before the Bush administration invaded Iraq. One of his friends from grade school, who he shared a tent with every year at scout camp, had been killed in Iraq. And so I realized that it was a rally that he was interested in, too.

The four, Daniel Burns, Clare Grady, Peter DeMott, and Teresa Grady, are from Ithaca. They are parents with strong ties to their families and community. Their religious faith helped them to understand the invasion of Iraq was simply wrong, long before most citizens of the United States would come to the same conclusion. So they went to a local military recruiter's office, said some prayers, spilled some blood, and were arrested.

They went to trial in the Tompkins County Courthouse, charged with criminal mischief, a felony. Their defense was based upon the Nuremberg Principles. These principles resulted from the Nuremberg Trials, which occured after WW2, in which the USA and three other nations laid out the international law to prevent genocide and holocausts.

Nuremberg recognizes three types of crimes: (1) Crimes against peace, which is planning and waging aggressive war; (2) War crimes, or the mistreatment or murder of prisoners or innocent civilians; and (3) Crimes against humanity, or the enslavement or extermination of a civilian population either before, during, or after a war.

The St. Patrick's Four based their defense on the "crimes against peace" aspect, which holds each person responsible for what actions they take or fail to take when their government is planning an illegal, aggressive war. They told the jury about the rich history of civil disobedience in the United States. Nine of twelve jurors voted to acquit, and the judge declared a mistrial in April, 2004.


{2} "The obscene haste with which a large part of the American people rushed to the support of a man convicted of multiple premeditated murder of men, women, and children, the obscene pride with which they even identified themselves with him is one of those rare historical events which reveal a hidden truth.

"Behind the television faces of the leaders, behind the tolerant politeness of the debates, behind the radiant happiness of the commercials appear the real people: men and women madly in love with death, violence and destruction. ...

"Has the lieutenant taken our sins upon himself; will he redeem our sins? What sins? Could it be the wish to kill, kill without being punished? Has the lieutenant become the national model for a new superego, less exacting than the traditional one, which still preserved a trace of thou shalt not kill?

"The old superego still stuck to the memory of this prohibition even in war. The new superego is up-to-date. It says: you can kill. No -- you can waste and destrooy. Calley never used the word 'kill.' He told a psychiatrist that the military avoided the word 'kill' because it 'caused a very negative emotional reaction' among the men who had been taught the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill.' Instead, Lieutenant Calley employed the word'destroy' or the phrase 'waste 'em.' A pardon for Calley, who did not kill but only destroyed and wasted 'em would, according to some, be a 'constructive step to restore the morale of our armed forces and the public at large.'"
-- Herbert Marcuse, philosopher; New York Times; May, 1970

For a period of time, the Bush administration enjoyed widespread popular support for their war in Iraq. This support was the result of a sophisticated "perception management" campaign. The administration told repeated lies, which went unchallenged by the corporate news media. They convinced more than half the adult population that Iraq was behind the terrorist attacks on 9-11; that Saddam had extensive WMD programs; and that the USA was at risk of a biological, chemical, and/or nuclear attack. "We can't wait for a mushroom cloud!," the administration told the public over and over.

Years ago, C.G. Jung spoke of this type of appeal to the mass unconscious: "...what the unconscious really contains are the great collective events of the time. In thecollective unconscious of the individual, history prepares itself; and when the archetypes are activated in a number of individuals and come to the surface, we are in the midst of history, as we are at present. The archetypal image which the moment requires gets into life, and everybody is seized by it. That is what we see today. I saw it coming, I said in 1918 that the 'blond beast' is stirring in its sleep and that something will happen in Germany'." (C.G. Jung; Analytical Psychology; Vintage Press; 1968; page 183)

The St. Patrick's Four was, much in the manner of Jung, aware of a beast arising in the collective unconscious of America. Much like Jung in 1918, very few believed their message. They knew, for example, that the military machine was using young men, and preparing them for a sanitized attack -- not unlike Calley's -- in which "enemies" were destroyed and wasted.

And so their act of civil disobedience was a reminder: Thou shalt not kill.

At the time, it was not hear by many of the unconscious people in America, who were frightened by mushroom clouds. But as the war wore on, and no WMDs were found, and President Bush's claims were exposed as lies, the war became less popular. In the effort of "manage public perception," any opposition to the war was viciously attacked. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" became more popular as it was attacked; his book "Will They Ever Trust Us Again? letters from the war zone" shows the movie became a favorite of American soldiers in Iraq. A woman named Cindy Sheehan caught the attention of America when she questioned what "noble cause" her son had died for; an attempt to paint her as "anti-American" has largely failed.

It was in this context that the Bush administration pressured the Department of Justice to prosecute the St. Patrick's Four on federal charges of "conspiracy." This is the Patriot Act in practice, keeping America safe from Catholic Workers who pray for soldiers and remind politicians that Thou Shalt Not Kill.


{3} "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and avenger." -- Psalm 8:2

There are thousands of examples of the evil being committed in Iraq by the Bush administration. Over 1900 were Americans. Despite the Geneva Convention agreements, the US military is not keeping track of Iraqi civilian deaths. For the sake of this essay, I will attempt to focus on only one segment.

The people organizing the demonstrations of support for the St. Patrick's Four have extensive information about the suffering and death of babies and infants in Iraq. Most Americans have heard that in the years between the first Gulf War and the second, over 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of our "containment" of Saddam. It is hard for any of us to picture a half a million children. But the organizers have photos and film that show how Iraqi children have been damaged by things such as depleted uranium. I can say that any juror who sees one of these photos will never convict the St. Patrick's Four.

We know that Jesus said that those who harm little children would be better off having a heavy weight ties around their neck, and being dropped in deep water. The harsh teachings of Jesus are always aimed at the self-righteous, such as politicians who pretend to be religious men and women, but who are guilty of war crimes, of crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity.

Isaiah said, "I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them," (Isaiah 3:4). I believe that if the American public were more fully aware of what the St. Patrick's Four and other anti-war protesters were able to show them is happening to Iraqi children, the support for this war would stop. No one could take George Bush seriously when he attributes the violence in Iraq to "terrorists" who hate us for our freedoms.

{4} "Gaze deeply into my pupils as I spin this glittering antenna in my hand. Round and round it goes. It is one of Secretary Rusk's antennas that he used in the old days to detect signals from Hanoi. ... Do not fight me now. Lie back and breathe deeply. ....

"You are going to sleep, and you are going to clear your mind of all thoughts of falling dominoes. ... Sleep. Sleep. Sleep, until ditches filled with bodies may lose their existence, and the dread of becoming a helpless giant can never again haunt your sun-filled afternoons. In sleep, forget.

"See my antenna spin. See how it glitters in the light, even through the deepest darkness of unutterably restful sleep, with he bone-eating brightness of liquid fire in the night. Sleep warm in its brighness. When you awake you shall think of sports or flowers, or of bills and of nice fun things to do after work."
-- Russell Baker; Sleep; New York Times; March 6, 1971

The Bush administration is hoping to manage the public's perception of the St. Patrick's Four in several ways. First, the corporate media is paying their trial very little attention, considering that it is the first federal trial of anti-war protestors.

Second, the Bush Department of Justice has petitioned the federal court judge to keep the four from being able to present their defense based upon the Nuremberg Principles. They are aware that this defense worked with the jury in county court, and do not want it to be included in the conspiracy trial.

Third, because they are aware that many people on the democratic left are concerned about abortion clinic bombers, the administration has begun to have their people -- including many disguised as democrats -- say that it would be "dangerous" to let the St. Patrick's Four present their defense, because then clinic bombers and the murderers of doctors could "get off" with the same defense. They also compare the four to the Ku Klux Klan members who were found "not guilty" of lynching blacks in the deep south, only to be prosecuted by a noble Department of Justice.

What's sad is that the appeals to these unconscious "buttons" works in many cases. I have had people on the Democratic Underground forum be fooled -- if only temporarily -- by the liars who pretend there is no difference between someone who is engaged in civil disobedience and a mad bomber or mass murderer.

I discussed this with a veteran who served in Korea, as I left the rally in Binghamton. He was clear that he was opposed to the St. Patrick's Four's activity at the recruiters. He believed they should have been convicted in the county court, and sentenced to community service. When I asked him if he believed the four were being allowed to present a defense, he said, "Hell no." And he recognized that there is no threat to the justice system by allowing them to speak of Nuremberg.


{5} "I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and mlitarism are incapable of being conquered."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr; "A Time to Break Silence (Beyond Vietnam)"; April 4, 1967

I stood outside the federal courthouse in Binghamton, talking with two old friends. One is a Lakota Indian woman, a spiritual being who prays daily for peace. The other is a retired administrator of community-based programs for the disadvantaged; he is a socialist who traveled to Cuba frequently in all the years I have known him. As I listened to them talk, each from their own distinct point of view, I mentioned the above quote from King, because in the truest sense, it summed up what both were saying.

More, it is what the St. Patrick's Four are telling us.

"Somehow this madness must cease, " King told us a year before he was killed for delivering this message. "We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother of the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."

To learn more about the case of the St. Patrick's Four, see:

http://stpatricksfour.com/

and read the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin at: pressconnects.com

St. Patrick's Four

Two days before the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq, four Catholic Workers from Ithaca, NY went to a military recruiter's station and engaged in a non-violent act of civil disobedience. They were charged with criminal mischief, and tried in the Tompkins County Courthouse. Nine of twelve jurors voted to acquit in April of 2004.

The federal government has since decided to charge the four with conspiracy. On Monday, September 19, 2005, they go on trial at the federal courthouse in Binghamton, NY.

For more information, please go to: http://stpatricksfour.com/

I urge people to support he St. Patrick's Four. If possible, besides participating in the tasks suggested on their site, it would be beneficial to have letters to the editor of the Binghamton newspaper. Write to : The Press & Sun-Bulletin, P.O. Box 1270, Binghamton, NY 13902; or e-mail at: pressconnects.com

Thank you for your attention to this important case.

The Synergism of Hatred

"Pain is pain, suffering is suffering -- whether being wrongly imprisoned, wrongly placed in a concentration camp, or wrongly abused as a child. But pain is a component of suffering, not suffering itself. There are no degrees of suffering." -- Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

The pain and suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina, and encreased and enhanced by the poor response by the Bush administration, has resulted in a discussion on the issues of race and class. In the past few days, I have participated in a number of such discussions and debates, including on the Democratic Underground forum. In one such discussion, I noted that class is determined by race in America. Certainly race is not the exclusive factor in determining social class. But when we find, for example, that blacks have the highest infant mortality rates and the shortest life expectancy, we can safely say that being black is directly connected to social class status in the USA.

Further, statistics show that approximately one out of three young black males is either on probation, parole, or incarcerated in this country. This would indicate that being black is directly connected to class in America. It also reminded me of a conversation I took part in with Rubin Carter on 2-26-2001 at Colgate University in upstate New York.

Rubin was incarcerated for 20 years for a brutal triple murder that occurred in a time of racial unrest in Paterson, New Jersey. After two decades, a federal court overturned Carter's conviction, ruling that it was based upon appeals to racism, rather than actual evidence of guilt. Indeed, investigatons into the crime and Carter's extensive court case showed that he had nothing to do with the murders.

How does one respond to being falsely convicted of a terrible crime, labled as a racist mass-murderer, and sentenced to triple life in prison? Rubin was determined to maintain his sense of dignity, and to live as a free man inside the concrete walls and steel bars of the prison. He would spend close to half of that time in solitary confinement, because he refused to behave like an "inmate."

When you are living in total darkness, he told me, you cannot look out; therefore, you must look in. In that unnatural darkness, he was able to stop thinking of people in terms of black or white. He recognized that any system that discriminates against human beings because of race, class, religion, or other related issues, was based upon hatred. And that hatred contaminates the vessel which contains it. Hatred destroys itself and the host, like a cancer.

Any system which discriminates against human beings in this manner is criminal. But it doesn't only put the hateful person's mind in shackles: it creates a system that imprisons its victims in a cycle of ignorance, poverty, drug abuse, and violence. It creates a social underclass, and the concepts of race, class, sexual orientation, religion, age, and gender create a synergism of hatred.

Discussions of racism are always uncomfortable. Rubin noted that in every audience, when he says "racism," white folks tend to react by saying, "Not me!," while black people simply duck. Now this doesn't imply that all, or even most, white people are racists. Or that only blacks are victims. But it does mean that our system has built-in racism, and that it can be found in the White House, the Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court on the federal level. And it is found in state houses and in school houses.

Rubin said that he recognized that those who say there are races actually are in error. There is no such thing as "race." It is a man-made concept that divides people, but it has no scientific value or spiritual truth. There is only one race: the human race. One race, one people, one family, one spirit, one life, and one love. This has been the message of enlightened human beings from around the globe throughout human history.

We tend to think of skin color as defining "race." Yet this does not hold up under any objective examination of the hman family. Indeed, the human family is composed of extended families, known as clans, which then form tribes. And, in the global sense, there are now six main Tribes of the Human Family.

In general terms, there is the White Tribe, which has gained a degree of control in the competition between trbes a few centuries ago. The White Tribe has some competition within itself, of course. The French may hate the Germans who hate the English who hate the Irish; however, when one is threatened by a non-white tribe, they unite and fight.Still, it seems unlikely that the White Tribe will remain in any exclusive control for long.

There is the Yellow Tribe, that is gaining control in the economic world. The White Tribe's only real advantage today seems to be WMDs, that the Yellow Tribe knows the White Tribe is willing to use.

The Red Tribes have largely been decimated. The Lakota (Sioux) Nation, in the North & South Dakota area, exist in largely "third world" conditions. Being born a Lakota surely has much to do with social status, or "class."

The Brown Tribe is growing, and beginning to control their lands and resources. Was the Bush invasion of Iraq based on race? Class? Religion? Is it possible to agree it is the synergism of hatred that has killed thousands of inocent civilians in Iraq?

Rubin said that for centuries, the Black Tribe was mentally decimated. Yet today, in this country, the most humane leadership on the federal level tends to be that provided by the Congressional Black Caucus.

The sixth tribe is the "mixed" people, who have heritage from a combination of two or more of the other five. They may most closely represent the return to our common ancestors.

The Six Tribes are in competition for the world's resources. And, Rubin noted, while competition brings out the best in products, it brings out the worst in people. No one, the good Hurricane reminded us, asks to be born, or chooses their circumstances in terms of color or class. Rather, we are born trapped in happenstance.

Rubin recited a wonderful poem, and I do not recall it fully. But bear with me: There were six people trapped in that worldy happenstance, in a cold and often cruel reality, where they sat around a dying fire, each with a stick of wood.

The first looked around the circle beyond that fire, and selfishly held his stick back; he felt uncomfortable being white, while the other five were a shade of black.

The second was ready to share, until he saw the others were not from his church; feeling the growing cold made him hold more tightly to his stick of birch.

The third recognized no one, as having helped him when he lived in a ditch; he was angry at the very thought, of sharing with the rich.

The fourth was a wealthy man, who had sold sticks in his store; he found it foolish to think, his stick should warm the shiftless poor.

The fifth watched the embers as the fire faded from sight; he grasped his stick with thoughts of fighting the hated white.

The sixth man sat and decided he would not join the others' games; instead he sat and watched the fire of life, extinguished with the flames.

The lesson of the poem, Rubin said, was that the six people did not die from the cold without, they dies from the cold within.

It is a sad fact that there would have been widespread suffering and death from Hurricane Katrina, no matter what anyone did in the 72 hours before it struck. And that is because we have been divided by foolish things for so many years. We are divided by concepts such as race, class, gender, age, and at times things like hair styles.

At the same time, we see a powerful force in New Orleans. It is human compassion. We see the strength of human kindness. We see the potential for a reconciliation within this human family. Yet while we can reconcile with others, we must first find peace within ourselves.

The myth of racism is a sickness. It is, like classism, a cancerous hate. We must be alert to the dangers it presents. To do so requires that we wake up to our humanity. It demands that we recognize our own personal worth, and then the worth of our brothers and sisters. We can transcend the terror of today with the power of love.

Peace to you,
Water Man

A Change of Worlds .....

"Your God is not our God. We are two distinct races with separate orgins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us. To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is sacred ground. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems; and it is written in the hearts of our people.

Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the white man whose God walked and talked with him as friend with friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. The very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footstep than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet the shadowy returning spirits. And when the last red man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall become a myth among the white men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds."
-- Seathl (a.k.a. Seattle) Dwamish chief, Washington Territory, 1854

Gandhi on Democracy .......

"The states that are today nominally democratic have either to become frankly totalitarian or, if they are to be truly democratic, they must become courageously non-violent."

"Without the recognition of non-violence on a national scale there is no such thing as a constitutional or democratic government."

"Democratic government is a distant dream so long as non-violence is not recognized as a living force, an inviolable creed, not a mere policy."

"The true democrat is he who with purely non-violent means defends his liberty and therefore his country's and ultimately that of the whole of mankind. In the coming test pacifists have to prove their faith by resolutely refusing to do anything with war .... It follows that such resistance is a matter for each person to decide for himself and under the guidance of an inner voice, if he recognizes its existence."

"There is no escape for any of us save through truth and non-violence. I know that war is wrong, is an unmitigated evil. I know too that it has got to go. I firmly believe that freedom won through bloodshed or fraud is no freedom."

"The case of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty."

"You cannot build non-violence on a factory civilization. .... Rural economy as I have conceived it eschews exploitation altogether, and exploitation is the essence of violence. You have therefore to be rural-minded before you can be non-violent, and to be rural-minded you have to have faith in the spinning wheel."

"That state is perfect and non-violent where the peopleare governed the least. The European democracies are to my mind the negation of Democracy."

"The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

"Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood."