Monday, November 28, 2011

Art Laffin Letters from Italy, No. 1


Dear Family and Friends,

I arrived in Venice Sunday morning after an all night flight and a connecting flight from Vienna, Austria. The flight from Vienna to Venice in a small commuter plane was spectacular. The view of the majestic Alps was simply breathtaking. Rocky snow capped cathedrals they are indeed! I once was able to visit the French and Swiss Alps back when I played basketball in Holland and then lived at the Larche community in France in 1976-1977. To see the Alps in person then, and now from the sky, is a gift I will always treasure.

I was met at the airport by two friends of the Community of Sant Egidio (CSE) http://www.santegidio.org/index.php?&idLng=1064.

They who drove me immediately to the home of CSE couple in Schio, about an hour south of Venice. There I was treated to a delicious home-made meal. The welcome I received from friends of the CSE has been extraordinary. After lunch I was taken to a small hotel for a short break. I was then escorted to the town center where I met the mayor along with other CSE friends. We had a photo taken in front of a famous statue of a common textile worker that was made by Monteverdi, the renowned Italian sculpter. The town of Schio, nestled right near a great mountain range, was once a textile center, but over the years the textile industry here closed and there are several huge abandoned buildings. We then proceeded to the hall where I gave a public talk to about 75 people. After opening remarks by the mayor and a member of the CSE I spoke, with the help of an excellant intepreter, about why I, as a murder victim family member, oppose the death penalty and about Gospel nonviolence. I was deeply touched by the ovation I received. In my talk I mentioned that my brother Paul had once visited Itay and how much he loved being here. I also sharedhow much he would love to meet those attending the talk and make them all laugh. CSE friends then took me to a local restaurant where one of the woman in the group has known the restauant chef for sixty years.

Today I spoke at the Techincal Insitute which is the main school for students in the region. I spoke at two different sessions that was attended by a total of 550 students and faculty. It was a very engaging morning and the students had very compelling questions. Some questions included why the death penalty should be allowed in certain circumstances, how can i believe in God after what happended to my brother, How can I show mercy toward Dennis Soutar, the man who killed my brother, and why are innocent people sentenced to death. I was able to share how I daily need to pray for the strength to love, and that if I say I am a follower of Jesus, I must try to show the same kind of love and compassion that Jesus did. I also shared how my faith in Jesus, and the nonviolent example that He offers, is the solution to all the problems of violence that we face on every level.

After a home-made lunch at the house of other CSE friends, I was driven to Padova (where the great Franciscan, St. Anthony, spent time and died in the 13th century), where I will meet with students this evening. I then will travel to the town of Mestre where I will speak tomorrow at two schools during the day and give an evening talk. On Wednesday, November 30, the special international day of remembrance organized by the CSE to abolish the death penalty, I have three speaking events in Padova. And there are more events to come. This is indeed a Journy of Hope and I feel so fortunate to be here in Italy to participate in the Cities for Life Campaign

I am so grateful to you for all your heartfelt prayers and support. Please know I hold you all in prayer and heart.

With love and gratitude,

Art Laffin




Dorothy Day CW House
503 Rock Creek Church Road, NW | Washington, D.C. 20010
Phone: 202.882.9649 or 202.829.7625

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Christ the King, 2011

by Tom Cornell

     Ez 34, 11-12. 15-17
     Ps 23        
     1 Cor 15, 20-26. 28
     Mt 25, 31-46

When is the high point of the Church year?    It’s Easter, Holy Week and Easter.  That’s when the New Testament story, the story of Jesus, comes to its fulfillment.  Everything that comes before leads up to Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and everything after helps to explain what it all means.  The Church year ends this week and begins again next Sunday, recalling the events of the Gospel story.  And interspersed are the celebrations of the saints.

I know that in this church no Gospel text has been preached on more often than today’s on the Last Judgment and “the least of these my brethren.”  So I’m going to skip it.  Archbishop Dolan has asked us preachers to stress love of Jesus and love of the Church in these days.  I did Jesus last month.  It’s all about Jesus, first and last.  Now, why love the Church?  There’s plenty to love and plenty to cause us wonder.  The Catholic Church is the largest voluntary association of people on earth, in all of history, and the oldest ongoing institution in the world, along with the Orthodox Churches of the East.  In two thousand years’ time, over so vast an area with so many people, we’ve had the opportunity to make just about every mistake conceivable.  It’s no wonder there have been scandals.  There was a time, in the mid-15th century, when the Vatican was a scandal, and the term “whore of Babylon” was not inappropriate.  So why love this corrupt institution?

First of all, the Church is not corrupt, not in itself.  Some of its representatives have been, yes!  But the Church remains the Mystical Body of Christ and the Holy Spirit has never, will never desert us.  “The gates of hell will not prevail.”  Members might fall, some very badly, but the Church remains what it is, bringing Jesus in word and sacrament to us.  If it were not for the Church not many people would have ever heard of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, Lord and Savior, King of the Universe.  How many of you recognize the name Gilgamesh, the hero demi-god of the Babylonian creation myth?  Not many because there was no organization to carry on his memory, no Church of Gilgamesh, as it were.  Jesus would be lost to history too were it not that his followers kept together and developed, from New Testament times, the basic hierarchical structure of the Church, with bishops, priests and deacons, the same structure throughout the far-flung ancient world and the same today.

So here we have the Bible stories every Sunday revealing God’s plan of salvation.  Then there are the saints.  If we have villains, we have the most marvelous heroes too, the saints.  Their memories, their stories, their feasts, are strategically placed throughout the year.  Their lives tell us what  authentic discipleship is all about.  Their stories are often sanitized for mass consumption and dumbed down.  The details of their lives are censored to suit certain constituencies.  Take Saints Francis and Anthony, for instance.  Francis was very controversial in his time.  He rocked the Church and the state.  We don’t hear much about that.  He not only excoriated wealth and privilege but the political life of his day.  His rule for the Third Order forbade lay members from bearing arms.  Hundreds, then thousands then tens of thousands of men joined the Third Order in Italy to avoid military service.  The princes, the powerful people of the day, didn’t like that at all.  They pressured the Pope and that rule was dropped.  They had their way.  Money talks! 

St. Anthony was a hell-raiser too; he wasn’t just the sweet guy walking around in a brown robe with the Baby Jesus in his arms and a big white lily.  He excoriated the bankers of his day.  If he were here today he’d be down at Zuccotti Park in New York City, with Occupy Wall Street!  He had the Gospel on his side so the bishops had to take him seriously.  At his insistence they condemned usury at a Church synod, usury – that’s banks ripping people off.  Did you know that the Church today has taken the same stand, essentially in line with Occupy Wall Street?  We can be proud.  These guys weren’t saps!  Our church is truly a champion of the poor and oppressed and of peace.

We just celebrated the feast of Saint Martin of Tours.  As the son of a pagan Roman army officer, Martin was forced into the army.  The persecution of the Church was already over by his time, and Christianity was now the state religion.  But when Martin was baptized he refused further military service and sat out the next war in a prison cell.  He was later released.  Then he cut his cloak in half to share it with a beggar.  He became a monk and later a bishop.  St. Martin is counted patron of soldiers and patron of conscientious objectors as well.  The patron and model for parish priests is the Cure of Ars, Saint Jean Batiste Vianney.  He was an army deserter. So was Lieutenant Joseph Ratzinger.

Don’t misunderstand me.  Those who protect the freedom and security of their fellow citizens honorably in uniform deserve our respect and support.  But when their patriotism and bravery are abused, when they are sent to unjust and useless slaughter, we must protest in the name of God.  Patriotic rhetoric will not make up for the abuse of our soldiers or comfort them when they can not resign after four and five and six deployments because there are no jobs for them back home, and no health insurance for their children if they leave the military.
        
We should think of the saints as members of our family and ask their intercession with God for our needs.  The Archdiocese of New York has petitioned the Vatican to open the Cause of Dorothy Day for canonization as a saint, and the Vatican has agreed.  It’s in the works.  Cardinal O’Connor, then Cardinal Cooke and now Archbishop Dolan have been eager to advance her Cause.  The Dorothy Day Guild met last Tuesday at the Chancery Office to plan our next step.  For Dorothy to be beatified she needs a miracle.  It looks as if we have one, in Texas, a cure of a brain cancer.  She needs at least one more for canonization.  Pray for a miracle, one miracle in particular.

You may remember I told you four years ago, in 2007, of a trip I made to Rome to present a young man to Pope Benedict, Joshua Casteel. Joshua had been a West Point cadet, then a US Army Arabic language interrogator at the infamous Abu Graib prison in Iraq.  And there he read Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity and converted to Catholicism.  He was released as a conscientious objector to war and to military service, with an honorable discharge and, thank God, full veterans’ benefits, for he has just been admitted to the Veterans’ Hospital in Chicago with cancer, 31 years old, cancer of the lung, 4th phase, metastasized,  spread, they don’t know how far!  Pray for a cure through the intercession of Dorothy Day.  It will take a miracle.  Joshua’s faith is strong.  His parents followed him into the Church.  I saw him last spring, at the Riversides Church in the City.  He told he had taken the previous year off to nurse his father through his last year, a cancer victim.  He is strong, strong in faith.

This is a beautiful faith, and a beautiful church, a beautiful family, and like any other family, with a rascal or worse here and there, but a Mother Theresa, a Damian the Leper, an Ignatius Loyola, a Francis Xavier, a Therese of Lisieux, a Dorothy Day, a Francis, a Clare and an Anthony.  They are our examples.  They give us heart.

The world we know today is faced with more grave threats than ever before in history, threats to our very existence.  If we are to deal with climate change, global warming, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, with endemic poverty and the just revolutionary claims of the world’s disinherited, know that the Catholic Church is a voice of sanity in the chaos.   We have all we need.  We have the Book and the table and we have examples to show the way, Dorothy Day not the least among them.  We can take heart.


Deacon Tom Cornell is a veteran of the Catholic Worker Movement, former national secretary of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and a founder of Pax Christi, U.S.A. This sermon was given at St. Mary’s Church, Marlboro, N.Y., November 20, 2011.



The Illusion of Separation

by Robert Smith 
Take off your clothes.

Actually,
I didn't mean the fabrics you wear...
I meant your skin!
Strip down to particle and wave.
Then you can even leave that behind.
Become thought before thought!
It is possible to meet
Out in the field beyond
The illusion of separation,
The naming of this and that...
Of good and bad,
Of beautiful and ugly,
And of you and I...







Everything about the times in which we live re-enforces the illusion of separation. This most particular of illusions is the root problem that we face as individual persons and then in all the many different ways in which we relate and associate with one another. At least in America, we live very well dressed in our closed-up boxes, tops pulled down tight and snug around us. God forbid that anyone should ever see us naked: without our religion to separate us from "them," without our military to defend us against "them," without our borders to isolate us from "them," and without our money to create a "reality" to protect us from the really "Real"... and on and on and on...

Until our philosophies of life, our faith practices, our mindful meditations, our political convictions, our economic choices--until the sum total of our lives awaken, we will only continue to be defined by our divisions. Aware of our core, essential, fundamental, radical, and all-pervasive unity: then and only then do we begin to live! Everything that we think, say, or do up to the point of awakening is only "doing time" -- living hunkered down in our skin and the box of our choice.

The "1 % ers" are so are so mired in forgetfulness that the "mirrors" of our placards proclaiming the need for social justice are invisible to "them"... Just as our practice and call for kindness cannot leave the police out... something more is calling out to us to be born in this moment... that "something more" is this: to be human, from here on out, is to reduce and then altogether eliminate divisions. Aware of suffering, we are determined to boldly initiate a radical re-ordering of priorities that we might ease every burden. Aware of suffering, we are determined to become a Planet of universal compassion. Aware of suffering, we are determined to calm fears and practice kindness as both personal practice and public policy. Aware of suffering, we are determined to discover the ways and means of building the Earth into its every possibility as Paradise for everyone. Aware of suffering, we are determined to believe in our essential identity as “One.”

Perhaps the governments of the world will respond to the pleas of the "Occupy Wall Street Movement" and implement a progressive taxation system, eliminate tax havens (said to hold some 11 trillion dollars invisible to all but a few hundred people), and create networks of justice to salvage as many lives as possible... but it is also possible that the "principalities and powers" -- the unknown secrets of those who live by division -- will continue to "rule the roost". But our awakening is not contingent upon them! We can choose to create -- right under their noses, a brand new world! In every way possible we can walk away from their monopolies, from their obsessions, from their domination paradigm, and from their illusions of grandeur!

If you want to see something truly grand, watch the sunrise! Or watch a wave, one single wave, break upon the shore! I have held a hummingbird in my hands, one I caught under my hat as it vainly fought against a window for freedom... I held it in my hands, walked outside, sat it down on a tuft of grass, and watched it fly away. Freedom is as simple as that. Close then open your eyes! You are free! Practice your freedom, help others to practice theirs, climb out of your box and help others out of theirs... let your awakening lead to awareness lead to understanding lead to compassion lead to practice... and let it all lead back to Only One, to One Love.

Now this is worth living for! And the Way will open up before you and before all of us, just exactly the way in which the sun rises in the morning... and, of course, waking up means we've got some work to do, some work that no one else can do but us...

 --------------
Robert is a founding member of Dorothy’s Place Hospitality Center in Salinas. After peeling potatoes for about thirty years, and performing occasional other tasks as they arose, he is on sabbatical, living and writing in Decorah, Iowa. His web site is www.theburninghand.com

Robert Smith
213 Valley View Drive
Decorah, Iowa 52101
563-379-9826

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Do You Pay to Play or Do the Time?

by Frida Berrigan 

Standing in front of a judge is intimidating (to me anyway). It seems a whole lot easier to cross a line, refuse to move, or lie down in the middle of the street, than stand before a judge. I would rather be trussed up in handcuffs and crammed into a crowded police wagon than stand before a judge. They are often world-weary and judgmental (I guess it comes with the territory). I would rather stay in the grubby holding cell and drink the water that comes out of the little fountain on top of the stainless steel (seat-less) toilet than stand before a judge. They don’t really appear to be listening to what the people standing before them are saying. They often look out from heavy eye lids and one gets the sense that they think they have heard it all before. It is easier to hold a big sign or wear an orange jumpsuit or participate in street theater or leaflet the tourists or engage in conversation with an angry and alienated guy, than try and explain my motivations and thinking to a judge who I assume doesn’t have the time or interest to care.

I haven’t had a lot of chances to stand before a judge, but I am always really scared when I do. The most recent time, I emerged from more than 24 hours of “processing” in leg irons (I put “processing” in quotes to convey how much it sucked). We had been arrested early in the afternoon on January 11, 2008 at the Supreme Court [4], trying to unfurl a banner that said “Justice Denied.” In total, there were more than 90 of us inside the court building and on the steps outside [5], many dressed in orange jumpsuits and the rest wearing orange tee shirts under our jackets. Inside, after the banner was snatched away from us, we knelt down and began reading a statement together that described what men at Guantanamo had experienced of “U.S. justice.” We decided not to carry identification, symbolically and in a real way taking the names and identities of individual men at Guantanamo into U.S. courts and shedding some small bit of privilege and control that comes along with having a U.S. issued ID.

Sami al Haji
In the many hours that followed, we went from holding cell to holding cell. The Supreme Court police do not often deal with protesters and had never dealt with so many and so many who did not have ID. The other marshals and corrections officers who dealt with us were not happy to have us and the added hassle of names like Sami al Hajj [6] (since released from Guantanamo) and Shaker Aamer [7] (who remains at Guantanamo)—especially as Friday night grew closer. So, from place to place all night long, we traveled. There was not a lot of food or water along the way. Sometimes it was very cold and other times it was very hot. I could feel myself getting grubbier and grubbier every time I moved from cell to cell.


It would have been boring if I was not surrounded by so many wonderful women, we talked and sang and played word games to pass the time. Eventually, we were put into leg irons and taken by the marshals to our last stop before seeing a judge. It was Saturday afternoon. The final holding cell was very crowded and a number of women threw up because they were dehydrated and hungry. We all struggled to get comfortable amid each other’s limbs in leg irons. Eventually, my number was called and I untangled myself from everyone else and shuffled down a long hall accompanied by two clean cut marshals making overtime bonus money. I left the stark, institutional hallway and entered a warm and beautifully paneled court room. The whole room seemed to hum with cleanliness and wholesomeness and I became of aware of how dirty my hair was—they had taken my hair pins and it hung lank and oily around my face—and felt inadequate in my leg irons and my sleeplessness.

“Your honor, I am here on behalf of Yasser Talal al Zahrani [9] who died at Guantanamo in June 2006. My name is Frida Berrigan.” The effort was extraordinary. It took all I had to get those words out with some semblance of dignity and confidence. I was there on behalf of this Saudi Arabian man who at the time I thought committed suicide at Guantanamo. I later learned from Scott Horton’s January 2010 article [10] in Harper’s magazine, that there is strong evidence to suggest that al Zahrani and two other men were killed during interrogation at Guantanamo.

It was worth the many hours of lock up and processing. It was worth the leg irons. It was worth the discomfort and butterflies of speaking even a few words to power. It was the first time that Yasser Talal al Zahrani’s name was uttered in a U.S. court and recorded there. He was dead, and my government was responsible. And I had not forgotten him.

Why am I telling you this story? Because in my mind, going to court is part of the action.

Indeed, it can be a very powerful part of the action. About half our group ended up taking this action into court for almost a week (the charges against me were dropped because I was not wearing an orange “Shut Down Guantanamo” t-shirt and they could not make a positive identification of me).

In May of that year, before Judge Wendell Gardner, 35 people appeared for trial [11]. They represented themselves. They began the trial by explaining to the judge that half the group would be silent throughout the trial in solidarity with those on whose behalf they acted, those who could not themselves speak in court. They would stipulate to the facts and rely on their co-defendants to make the case. They wore orange jumpsuits into the court room each day and held small signs with the name of the men on whose behalf they had acted. The rest of the defendants participated in the trial, taking the stand to talk about why acting at the Supreme Court on January 11th was important to them, cross examining witnesses (mostly our arresting officers).

My friends’ amateur legal eagle efforts and the spectacle of silent defendants drew curious lawyers, correctional officers and people who worked in the busy downtown DC court building into the courtroom for hours at a time. Everyone who worked in that building, all those lawyers and police officers  and marshals and people there to face their own judges and charges, knew why we were there.We and our cause [12] (and our loose interpretation of court decorum) were the topic on everyone’s lips for the four days that the group was on trial. At the end, after impassioned statements that left the whole court room in stunned silence and not a few people in tears, the judge pronounced people guilty, offered fines and when those were refused by almost everyone, started handing out 5 to 30 day sentences. And the trial and sentencing were both covered by the Washington Post [13].
Speaking Truth to Power

There are those that would argue that court time is wasted time, and that time in jail or prison is time away from the movement. I checked in with a few friends on this question and would like to share some of their thoughts.

Beth Brockman
Beth Brockman, a peace activist and friend from North Carolina was part of a group that staged a dramatic action at the Blackwater [14] headquarters in her home state. She shared that in the court room she has opportunity to “confront my opponent” and to continue to practice nonviolence. Brockman served 15 days [15] in jail for the 2007 action that reenacted the Blackwater killing of 17 Iraqi civilians inNisoor Square [16] on the lawn at the company’s headquarters. She wrote:

For me, the courtroom is one of the most difficult places to be nonviolent. It is so easy to get sucked up into playing the legal game, rather than sticking to telling the truth in love… Of course, I know it isn’t about “winning,” it’s about telling the truth in love, taking on suffering rather than inflicting more suffering, and recognizing that everyone has a piece of the truth.

She and her six co-defendants refused to pay fines and served 10 to 45 day sentences. Of jail time, Brockman observes that it is often the easiest part of the action, as long as she has prepared well ahead of time. The mother of two kids, Brockman writes that jail time is an opportunity to reflect and write about the action, and to minister to my prison sisters. Maybe it’s a time to deepen the resistance experience—because there is time to reflect and think about the action without a lot of the usual distractions.

Brian Terrell, a peace activist and Catholic Worker from Iowa, has been getting arrested and going to court and jail for 35 years. The court room experience is frustrating, he writes:

Brian Terrell
"It is an uphill battle… The scene is stacked against any reality being witnessed to. Half truths, lies, excuses and evasions are promoted, truth ruthlessly suppressed. It is a system that depends upon its victims cutting their losses, pleading out for a lesser sentence regardless of guilt or innocence…. This monotonous drone of fractured Latinisms and legal gibberish is shattered when defendants speak simply and clearly, by women and men taking responsibility for their actions of conscience without apology or alibi, who risk putting the system itself on trial. Good things can be told in court but only when its dominant paradigm is broken. For many judges, being asked to think and to actually make informed decisions is an intolerable effrontery. A few others, on the other hand, might be relieved by such a break in the tedium of their day; some rejoice to hear for the first time in years on the bench the constitutional questions that they studied in law school! In any case, it wakes them up."

The Truth is Inadmissible

Often in court, there are words and phrases and concepts that are deemed “unmentionable.” In cases where defendants acted against nuclear weapons and destroyed property, they are often forbidden (under threat of contempt) from even mentioning the words “nuclear weapons” and attempts to explain their motivations are met with “objection, Your Honor, objection.”

Tim DeChristopher experienced something similar. The environmental activist went to an auction and bid on and won more than $1.7 million in federal oil and gas leases before telling federal agents that he was there to disrupt the auction and had no intention of or ability to pay for them.

At his March trial, Judge Dee Benson set clear and devastating ground rules for the trial. According to an October 2011 Rolling Stone [17] article, the judge said that:

DeChristopher’s attorneys wouldn’t be allowed to use a necessity defense—the argument that he had to disrupt the auction because of his beliefs about climate change. Second, the defense couldn’t bring up the fact that DeChristopher had actually raised money to buy the land; the court’s view was that, by then, the fraud had been committed. Third, the fact that [Department of Interior head Ken] Salazar had removed the leases from auction wasn’t admissible. Finally, the defense could not inform the jury that past bidders had not been able to pay for their parcels either.

With all of these important mitigating factors off limits, the attorneys were “left to argue that their client had acted on impulse and hadn’t intended to disrupt the auction. The prosecution didn’t have much trouble refuting this, given DeChristopher’s public statements, and it came as little surprise when, on March 4, DeChristopher was convicted.”

In July, he was sentenced to two years in jail and three years of probation after being found guilty of interfering with an auction and making false statements on bidding forms, two felonies.

At his sentencing, De Christopher told the judge “My future will likely involve civil disobedience. Nothing that happens here today will change that. I don’t mean that to disrespect you, but I’m saying you don’t have that authority. You have authority over my life, but not my principles.” He invited the judge to “join me in valuing this country’s history of nonviolent civil disobedience” and concluded by saying, “This is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like.”

Indeed it is what patriotism and love look like. Time in court can be tedious, but it is not a waste. Nothing crystallizes one’s thinking and builds community like preparing for court and participating in a trial and being ready to go to jail. Time in jail can also be tedious—and studded with deprivation—but it offers an opportunity for reflection, prayer, service to others and insight into an often hidden and criminally unjust world: the criminal justice system.

Post and Forfeit: A Pay to Protest Scheme

In Washington, DC, particularly at the White House, but in other places as well, there is a “pay to play” scheme called “post and forfeit.” You bring your grievance and cause to “America’s Front Porch,” and sit down in a delineated zone in front of the White House, or stand still holding a sign, and you will be threatened with arrest. If you fail to move, the Park Police will arrest you and take you to a processing center in a forgotten and often flooded corner of Washington almost completely inaccessible to public transportation.

There they will record all of your information, remove and list all your belongings, and—after a time—offer you an opportunity to “post and forfeit” in order to avoid further processing at another larger (and the intimation goes, more dangerous) facility to see a judge at some point later that day or the following morning. You “post” a fine—about $100 in most cases—and “forfeit” the right to a day in court. Your “crime” disappears from your record after 6 months if you do not get arrested again. Once you hand over the money, you and your belongings are reunited and you are shown the door. Hopefully there are friends waiting to drive you away, because it is a long walk to the metro station.

John Brietbart, a nonviolence trainer and War Resisters League [18] member was arrested this summer as part of 350.Org’s [19] call to action to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline [20] project to pump oil out of tar sands in Canada for our use in the United States. The plan would have devastating environmental consequences. In an article for Next Left Notes [21], Breitbart describes his experience:

After being handcuffed behind our backs we were searched, photographed and asked if we planned to “go through the system” or “post and forfeit.” Then we were loaded in a police van and driven to the Anacostia Police Station. There, we waited a while and then paid a $100 fee called a Post and Forfeit. This allowed the protestors to be released without returning for a trial. It was like paying the fine for the violation (“Failure to obey lawful order”) in advance. Not everyone felt good about the civil disobedience involving so much coordination with the police, and the requirement of $100 to pay the Post and Forfeit. Since when is CD [civil disobedience] supposed to be only for people with a hundred to spare?

That is a good question. 350.org encouraged people to be prepared for post and forfeit [22] and did not provide jail support for those who “went through the system” because they could not pay out. They did ask people with the means to contribute to make the action accessible for those who could not afford the $100. Breitbart commented that:

For me, engaging in civil disobedience is part of the karmic and political ‘rent’ I feel the need to pay for being an American, living in the richest and most brutal country in this troubled world.

But it is tough to pay rent to the very people who police this nation, right?

Now, I am not disparaging 350.org or all of the activists who got arrested and paid fines. It has to happen sometimes. And for many arrested for the first time, it was a positive and empowering experience [23], made even better by organizers who could pretty much guarantee exactly what would happen after arrest by encouraging everyone to follow the script—at least after the first day of action, when the first wave of activists [24] were held for two days.

But I am questioning—especially when all eyes are on our crippled economy—the wisdom of an organizing strategy that includes paying police departments and court systems. Press reports estimate that 1,253 people were arrested over the course of 350.org’s two-week campaign of arrests. Assuming that most activists posted and forfeited (those with recent arrest records would not be eligible), that is well over $100,000 that activists put into the pockets of the National Park Police this summer.
That is a huge. It is salaries for a handful of full time organizers, stipends for a peaceful army of interns and organizers, rent on pretty sweet office space, millions of copies and bytes of computer bandwidth (or whatever it is called).

The anti-Tar Sands movement is really impressive and has had a significant impact, bringing this somewhat obscure issue to the front pages of newspapers and the front burner of people’s hearts. And, there has been a policy impact as well; the Obama administration recently announced [25] that it would postpone a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 election. They flexed their muscle [26] again on November 6th with an action surrounding the White House. Tar Sands Action has collected more than 3,000 [27] commitments to keep the pressure on in the coming months. That is amazing. They are keeping the momentum going!

Perhaps, in circumstances where we find ourselves encouraging arrestees to “post and forfeit” for expediency or ease of organizing, we should ask that folks double the fine. What if we ask those who can come up with $100 for a fine, to dig even deeper for an additional $100 to sustain the movement? If we are going to end up fundraising for the state, we might as well fundraise for ourselves as well. Imagine what good the movement could do with the money!

Or, when folks come again to DC—now veterans of the White House arrest—maybe they can rethink the “time is money” approach, opting instead to prepare people for the discomfort and inconvenience of Central Cell Block, and empower them to “tell it to the judge,” while acting creatively and in community to put these dirty, earth-killing policies on trial.


Frida Berrigan serves on the Board of the War Resisters League and is a columnist for Waging Nonviolence.

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Thursday, November 10, 2011

Health Care Deaths

by Don McCormick

Recently, USA Today published an article by Rita Rubin that said, “...15,000 Medicare patients die each year in part because of care they receive in the hospital.”  This kind of report was first published in 1999. It was called “Death By Medicine” but it included the whole population and not only Medicare patients. The death rate then was 66,000 per month of which 15,000 were Medicare patients.    The Department of Health and Human Services is very concerned.  We who call ourselves Catholic Workers should also be concerned.  Some Catholic Workers who are brave enough to go to jail over “War Deaths,” should turn their attention to these “Health Care Deaths” and occupy the steps of the hospitals and the offices of the health care providers.  Physicians and the nurses should not work in such unsafe places and should care for their patients at home until things improve.  Just count the deaths by medicine since 1999 and you will mark 10 million graves, more than a Holocaust, more than in all the U.S. Wars since WWII, and more than were caused by nuclear bombs combined.  Isn't this worth fixing?  It has not been fixed by government nor by business. There is no more incentive for them to do that than for government and their allies in business to stop the war industry.  Medicine, instead of being the help people seek, is a money machine and patient deaths are the collateral damage.

We can reverse this by building a health care system that is based on patient and physician cooperatives through which access to care and treatment is from the bottom up and not the top down.  We do not have to accept health care as if it were a product bundled by the state and private companies. Currently, it is presented as a great benefit when it is actually a black box that cannot be unpacked by either the patients or the physicians.  We know instinctively that health care is a  series of relationships between family members, friends and neighbors among whom some are more knowledgeable and can help those of us who are hurt or sick.  It is not a monetary exchange system through which the physically well and most expert advisors are able to control more property and drive fancier cars.  Our current system of death-supporting-care is such an exchange.  The supposed correction of this tragic system is a form of universal health insurance underwritten by government and paid for by taxes.  That is a fool's position unless the government is first “of the people, by the people and for the people.” It is not.  It has not been since those words were first written.   I say, start at the bottom by organizing into cooperatives and let the reforms rise to the top and stop the killing that is being done in the name of medicine and money. 

Don McCormick is a member of Tomorrow’s Bread Today, a Catholic Worker effort that began in 1995.  They have a medical mission in Houston, Portland, Or and Hickory, NC where we have formed Patient/Physician Cooperatives.  They help support A Simple House in Washington.  


Monday, November 7, 2011

The Old Is New again: Occupy and the Catholic Worker

by Ellen Euclide


The goals and values of OWS have not been hammered out yet and I don’t want to put words in their mouths.  I see the potential, though, for values and action plans to evolve in two directions.  One will continue to parallel the Catholic Worker and other social movements of the 1930s, the other will increase our reliance on government and placate Occupiers into believing the system reformed.

Zuccotti Park and other encampments right now are a beautiful experiment in alternative governance and community living.  The ideas are not new, but they have the potential to be revolutionary.  People from all walks of life and with varied motives and agendas have found a welcoming community ready to share tents, coffee and conversation.  They have found the healing realization that they are neither alone nor crazy in their struggles.  This welcoming hospitality and realization of connectedness mirrors the atmosphere that Catholic Worker houses strive to create in neighborhoods across the country.

In many ways, the occupiers’ example of alternative governance for their community also seems to follow the models of democracy espoused by the Catholic Worker and other anarchist and socialist uprisings and movements. 

The idea of personal responsibility and decision making on the most local level is not new, but it is radical.  From Chiapas to Paris, Barcelona to Boston, throughout history one can find examples of everyday people rediscovering democracy.   In the same way, the occupiers use working groups, consensus based general assemblies and open committee meetings in an effort to give everyone a voice.  The process used at occupy encampments is a direct rejection of the “representative” system of US politics and the power of secretive money exchanges.  The occupiers, like so many before them, have embraced a more open and direct, if more cumbersome and time consuming, way of getting things done. 

This is clearly in line with some of the early Catholic Worker philosophies.  Peter Maurin advocated for a society in which government was unnecessary because everyone helped one another and communities had the ability to sustain themselves.  Referred to with the often misused term “personalism,” his philosophy didn’t rely on government to own or redistribute wealth.  He envisioned a society in which everyone had the ability to provide for his or her self and the responsibility to help out those who’d fallen on hard times, as well as the duty to contribute to the provision of community needs.

Here is where Occupy faces a fork in the road.  Their current living situation provides us with a model of community awareness and personal responsibility which has the potential to continue as a personalist, community based solution.  Peter would have said they are “building the new within the shell of the old.”  But, are the selfish “American Values” we’ve been taught too pervasive to modify?   Is the old still strong enough to convince the occupiers to take the “realistic” path?

That path is the one where demands are issued that increase our dependence on government, and it is a potential path that has been and will continue to be debated over and over by Catholic Workers and others.  I have said that the model of Zuccotti is an example of an alternative to the system we are fed up with.  Imagine that instead of sharing extra sleeping bags, the occupiers instead asked for money which would be used to buy and fairly distribute sleeping bags.  The end result, everyone gets a sleeping bag, would not have changed.  The message, though, would be altered.  Their governance would be very much like the one they are protesting, albeit with a higher value placed on equality.

In the same way, the path of demanding taxes on the rich and better government programs for the poor would undermine the revolutionary nature of their movement.  Demanding that the government redistribute the money so unfairly earned by corporations would not truly solve the issue of criminal capitalism.  The issue is not just that we’ve lost; it’s that the system is set up to fail us.  Receiving a consolation prize does not erase the fact that you’ve lost, or that it was a con game to begin with.  It also takes the personal and community responsibility out of the equation.  The bankers would still win big at the expense of the 99%; we would just get a few bucks for our trouble. 

If the occupiers cease calling out the injustices, inequalities and rigged games of US democracy and capitalism and instead simply demand the rights to work, food and healthcare; they will cease to be revolutionary in the sense that aligns with the Catholic Worker. 

The revolution of the Catholic Worker, and the one they are trying on for size at Zuccotti, requires a revolution of the heart and a rejection of many values we’ve been taught all our lives.  At the same time, though, it is an amazingly simple embrace of natural human values.  These are the values that occupiers have found so life giving and empowering, to help one another, to have your voice heard, and to give and receive instead of taking and winning.  To rely on strangers, to sleep next to them in a cold park, to listen to them even when you disagree, these are things we’ve been taught to avoid.  Yet, occupiers across the country are realizing the beauty and power of doing just that.  Just as immigrants in Chicago, farmers in Spain, and unemployed sailors in New York did in the last century.  Just as early Christians, medieval pilgrims and Buddhist and Jain monks have realized for centuries.   

Many of these earlier movements faced violent resistance, others continued to have local influence and to change the lives of those they touched, even if their impact on political systems seemed small.  Still others left a mark that wasn’t obvious until much later.  Is the Occupy movement big enough to create mainstream change by existing as an example of an alternative?  Or will they settle for a consolation prize in the existing rigged game?  We can only wait and see; a movement that is rediscovering democracy certainly deserves a chance to evolve (and maybe some experienced Catholic Workers to help it along).

Ellen Euclide is a member of the Su Casa Catholic Worker--Pete's Place Community in Chicago.  She can be emailed at:  ellen.euc@gmail.com


Thursday, November 3, 2011

Dorothy Day and the Rose of Sharon

by Robert Smith 
"...For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain...For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work...For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight -- this little paper is addressed..."  
And so began the Catholic Worker movement.

In the midst of the Great Depression, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin began a "viewspaper," The Catholic Worker, and when folks came knocking on their door to ask if they really meant what they were writing, they brought out a soup pot and fixed dinner for their few guests.  And, as such things happen, the word spread and hundreds started showing up, and then hundreds of Catholic Worker Houses began all over the United States, along with a number in other countries as well.

A unique aspect of Dorothy's life and radical witness -- and a fundamental aspect at that -- was that Dorothy wasn't interested in "becoming a saint by doing good."  No, not at all! But she was interested in asking why there were hungry people, unemployed people, marginalized people all over this incredibly rich and dynamic and powerful country. Why indeed! She had no hesitation in connecting the dots: monopoly capitalism (in contrast to the traditional American Village cooperative-capitalism), by its very nature, requires that wealth become increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer hands; monopoly capitalism, by its very nature, requires that many people suffer poverty and degradation as a "cost/benefit" of the "free market system" -- the "greatest system ever invented by man"... at least for the men on the top of the predatory food chain; monopoly capitalism, by its very nature, requires the existence of a permanent war economy -- everyone knows that war is good for business! Dorothy wrote for decades about these issues and summarized her analysis with this pithy quote: "Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system."

It is essential that monopoly capitalism be contrasted with traditional American Village cooperative-capitalism, which is in line with the thinking of both Thomas Jefferson and Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi taught, "There is enough for everyone's need, not for everyone's greed." In years gone by, every village, town, and city had their home-grown versions of the "Ma and Pa Café," "Tom's Hardware," "Miller's Feed and General Store" -- someone could repair shoes, everyone had a garden, produce was grown and sold locally: by and large, communities were self-sufficient. Traditional American Village cooperative-capitalism bred satisfaction and contentment -- two hallmarks of safety, health, and well-being. Monopoly capitalism, on the other hand, requires endless growth -- even beyond the capacity of the Earth to sustain. Endless growth requires endless consumption. Between advertisers, credit, guaranteed-to-break products, and the deliberate cultivation of "new and improved"--dissatisfaction and boredom whiplash lives and entire communities. No one has to be anyone's neighbor in the globalized order of monopoly capitalism.

But what did Dorothy Day (and Jefferson and Gandhi) want instead of the "filthy, rotten system?” Her answer: "We want land, bread, work, children, and the joys of community in play and work and worship." This is still the dream of the poor of this world! The poor don't want to get drunk on the same power that is destroying both the rich and this planet -- the poor of this world simply want the opportunity to live and to rejoice in the possibilities of their children. Haven't you read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath? (If not, read it!).

And after you've considered the incredible strength of Ma Joad, the powerful commitment of Tom, rest awhile thinking about the total transformation of the Rose of Sharon--from a very small, insignificant, selfish "self" into the Mother of New Possibilities and the great surprise and truth of “The Grapes of Wrath”--especially when considering the life of Dorothy Day--is that there is a Rose of Sharon within all of us.

Now is our time to set our inner Rose of Sharon loose upon this precious blue Planet!

--------------- 
Robert Smith is a founding member of the Catholic Worker community in Salinas. After nearly 30 years of peeling potatoes, and performing occasional other tasks, he is on sabbatical, living and writing in Decorah, Iowa. His website is: www.theburninghand.com

Robert Smith
213 Valley View Drive
Decorah, Iowa 52101
563-379-9826

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

#OccupyWallStreet: A Radical Perspective

“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 militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence”

by Jake Olzen

To be radical—stemming from the Latin radix meaning root—suggests that it is about getting at the heart of a matter. Dr. King cut right through to the source of injustice and over forty-five years later, are we witnessing the rebirth of a radical revolution of values that Dr. King prophesied?

Police remove an Occupy Oakland camper  on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011.
Is #OccupyWallStreet and its comrades nationwide “on the right side of the world revolution?” In that bold speech Dr. King gave a year before his death, publicly breaking from the civil rights movement’s acquiescence to the status quo support of American involvement in Vietnam, King warned that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Has the United States, by spending upwards of $3 trillion on wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and maintaining over 1,000 overseas military bases in more than 50 countries, reached a moral, economic, political and spiritual tipping point?

#OccupyWallStreet is well into a month of occupation. On October 1, The New York General Assembly—the “official” spokesgroup of #OccupyWallStreet—released a document, Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” naming its reasons for the occupation. A brief glance at part of the manifesto gives a snapshot of the state of the union.

  • They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
  • They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
  • They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
  • They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
  • They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
  • They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
  • They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
  • They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

       We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge
       you to assert your power.

        Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to  
        address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

        To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we 
        offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Thousands peaceably assembled in more than 500 cities nationwide is a phenomenon that demands to be noticed.  The loosely-connected but well-coordinated and steadfast occupation of public spaces are something this nation has not seen since the 1960s.  Ordinary people are continuing to awake to the power of collective nonviolent action.  But do we really know what we’re in for if we are serious about getting the kind of deep, structural changes we want?

The celebratory fervor surging in America’s Left—even in the face of police overreaction and brutality—may risk mistaking the trees for the forest.  Large gatherings—protests, rallies, occupations like these—are a show of power and a shot of energy to waning movements.  #OccupyWallStreet is breathing life into a debilitated Left and worn-out Americans.

But as it stands, #OccupyWallStreet is a symbol of resistance and represents the potential of revolutionary action that can transform Wall Street and company.  It has not yet moved into the kind of active resistance—boycotts, work stoppages, noncooperation, tax refusal, disobedience, blockades, etc.—that have strategic pressure points and staying power that forces change. Even the 700+ arrests of demonstrators in New York—an amalgamation of state repression, activist courage, and social media savvy—is not yet the kind of resistance needed to take down corporate power.  But none of this is to undermine the incredible success, energy, building momentum an ongoing creativity and commitment of #OccupyWallStreet.  The movement is exactly where it needs to be as it attracts thousands, if not millions, of supporters before its propelled into its next stage of nonviolent social change.

A sobering analysis of the protracted struggle ahead—the risk and sacrifice and courage it will continue to demand—can prepare us for the long haul. A warning to us all: the oligarchs (and, perhaps more importantly, its cadre of ideological supporters) of the corporate state will not go gently into that dark night. It will go kicking and screaming, unashamed and uncaring of how many lives it brings down with it.

At its core, #OccupyWallStreet and other progressive movements—the peace movement’s plan for a Washington, D.C. occupation which began yesterday, the environmental movement’s Stop the Pipeline, a whole host of social, economic, and environmental justice groups organizing protests in Chicago for the NATO-G8 summit in May 2012—are protesting and revolting against empire and its deadly consequences, the brunt of which is born most by the poor, marginalized, dispossessed and the earth.

Invoking “empire” is sure to elicit a knee-jerk reaction of being “too revolutionary,” not only from detractors of #OccupyWallStreet, but maybe even from some its ardent supporters in the mainstream Left. Consider some of the more vocal “demands” that have surfaced around these nationwide occupations (it must be noted that no “official” demand(s)—for better or for worse—have been issued by #OccupyWallStreet; see Mark Engler’s summary of the demands issue):
  • End Corporate Personhood
  • Forgive Student Debt
  • Stop Home Foreclosures
  • Tax the Rich

Demands such as these seem radical—revolutionary even—but from the perspective of global capitalism, they are not. The demands are oriented toward reforming the less noble parts of American democracy and stabilizing an economy that works for the 99%. John Nichol’s reporting for The Nation quotes a number of mainstream liberals—congressional leaders and union presidents—indicating growing support for #OccupyWallStreet among certain segments of business leaders and politicians. But lest we be deceived, be wary of such support. Consider how support for the occupation is framed:

“It’s clear what this movement is all about. It’s about taking America back from the CEOs and billionaires on Wall Street who have destroyed our nation’s economy. It’s about creating good jobs. It’s about corporate America treating its workers and customers with honesty and fairness and paying its fair share to stimulate the economy,” —Teamsters President James Hoffa

“We have been inspired by the growing grassroots movements on Wall Street and across the country. We share the anger and frustration of so many Americans who have seen the enormous toll that an unchecked Wall Street has taken on the overwhelming majority of Americans while benefiting the super wealthy. We join the calls for corporate accountability and expanded middle-class opportunity.” —Joint Statement by Co-Chairs of the Progressive Caucus

Nicholas Kristoff’s op-ed in The New York Times that simultaneously celebrates #OccupyWallStreet and affirms capitalism is revealing of how political liberals are characterizing the protests: “if a ragtag band of youthful protesters can help bring a dose of accountability and equity to our financial system, more power to them.” But there is a problem—global capitalism cannot be reformed to work for the 99% and that is the nature of empire: it does not share power, especially the multinational corporations. In this current historical milieu, empire means global capitalism and its stalwart supporters in the power elite—governments, corporations, religious and education institutions, and the militaries of the world.

The scholarship of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri has been invaluable in contextualizing empire outside of the traditional nation-state framework by situating power in the intersections of globalization’s multinational corporations, constitutional entities (domestic and international polities), and democratic spaces (the United Nations, NGOs, etc.). That is, empire today is more than just America. It is deeper, more pervasive—touching every part of our lives. The reach of global capitalism and the institutions that support it, justify it, and defend it are powerful indeed—and, important to note, not totally evil.

At the height of the Roman Empire, the seat of power and authority was centrally located—”all roads lead to Rome.” The empire of global capitalism—which is much more amorphous and porous in a predominantly post-modern society than its antiquated predecessors—resists centralization. Wall Street is a symbol of global capitalism. No doubt, there are very real manifestations of empire’s largess in Manhattan’s business and cosmopolitan districts: luxury condominiums, extravagant restaurants and shopping, an onslaught of media-driven consumption, advertisers technologically painting the streets and the skies with commercials.

But behind the image of Wall Street are people and institutions that are engaged in power relations to protect the vital interests of global capital. An ideology has been created out of these power relations that is so powerful, so dominant, that even as the #OccupyWallStreet protests unfold, it is near-impossible to name it. Maybe that is why the movement has been so reluctant to making demands. How do you demand the end of empire? Really. How does one realistically make that demand without sounding absurd and without being a hypocrite? That’s the point: you can’t. But it must be done.

The question, then, is one of vision—of dreaming—that #OccupyWallStreet must consider: How far are we willing to go? And is the support from the power elite of union bosses and politicians complementary to that vision—will they join us in that paradigm shift away from empire and global capitalism into something new, something unknown, something that is being formed as we speak? These protests are not about handouts or specific policies, even though debt relief and ceasing cuts to social spending would undoubtedly make life easier for all. Rather, #OccupyWallStreet is about a paradigm shift of how power is conceived and consolidated in politics, economics, social relations, and society in general. It is about King’s revolution of values: a comprehensive shift away from racism, militarism, greed and poverty to a vision of community, economic and environmental justice, equal rights and responsibilities across racial, gender, class, sexuality, and religious differences. Indeed this is a revolution—but the real struggle is just beginning.

Jake Olzen is a member of the Kairos Chicago community and a graduate student at Loyola University in Chicago. He lives in the White Rose Catholic Worker.  Jesus Radicals is a network of Christian anarchists.  

Email Jake at:  jake.olzen@gmail.com






This column is Part I of an essay in three parts.




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