On Saturday afternoon I met with some of the Protest Chaplains in a classroom at Union Seminary here in New York. I enjoyed the meeting very much; I think they did too. I had been carrying a compliment for them for awhile from the days when I brought water down to Zuccotti. On one occasion a selfless chaplain helped me unload while coordinating with the aid station and talking down a disruptive protester. Now there's multi-tasking.
But the compliment I had was despite the water I had delivered-theirs was the real "water" carrying. Since the rousting on November 15th it has been these chaplains who have been liaisons with outlying OWS communities. In addition to flopping on friendly couches in Manhattan all manner of sanctuaries have been set up in the metro area. These satellite communities house a variety of populations and one wonders if OWS can account for their welfare.
The chaplains have that worry too. Moreover, this is what brought Bishop-elect Dietsche and Fr. Matthew Heyd to hatch that plan for Charlotte's Place support: to minister to this seemingly forgotten population. I addressed this in detail in a recent Episcopal Cafe article--I won't repeat it here. Despite the level of support no one can quibble with the intent to support a population who might be ill-equipped to cope with the hardship of their circumstances.
During Saturday's meeting one chaplain relayed moving anecdotes of how OWS process in the outlying encampments was a little ragged. (OWS has a rigorous adherence to democratic participation in all group meetings.) I didn't think this was a calamity because at times such insistence seemed tiresome, and was abandoned altogether if a speaker was on a roll. But the chaplain's stories of having to compose reactions to disruptions among OWS members on the fly at an outer borough location was a larger concern.
The condition of assisting OWS to re-stabilize a community in such a dispersed way is a tough undertaking. Increasingly so when the more vital, more assertive members have found beds in Manhattan and are closer to the action.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
OWS Gets Calculated Disruption and Violence
"These past several months have witnessed something very different in the U.S. People from many different walks of life came together to occupy public space in nearly 1,000 cities in the U.S. They stood up to vicious police violence, they broke through the confines of “protest as usual,” and in the middle of all that, they built community. Even in the face of media attempts to ridicule, distort, and demonize these protests, their basic message began to get through. People throughout the U.S.—and even the world—took notice of and took heart from these brave and creative protesters.
The political terms of discourse began to shift; the iced-over thinking of people in the U.S. began to thaw. Standing up to the unjust brutality and arrests became a badge of honor. People began to listen to and read the stories of some of the victims of this economic crisis, and to share their own. And most of all, as the protests spread to city after city, the fact of people occupying public space forced open debate and raised big questions among millions as to what kind of society this is, and what it should be. Why does such poverty and need exist in the face of a relative handful of people amassing obscene amounts of wealth? Why do the political institutions of society seem only to serve that handful? Why do so many youth feel they face such a bleak future? Why does the insane destruction of the environment continue to accelerate? And what is needed to overcome all this?
Those who actually wield power in this country regarded these protests, and these questions, as dangerous, and reacted accordingly. Time and again those who wield power violated their own laws and ordered police to pepper spray, beat with clubs, and shoot tear gas canisters at the heads of people who were doing nothing more than non-violently expressing their dissent and seeking community. This reached a peak in the recent coordinated and systematic attacks of the past few weeks against all the major occupations. In fact, the mayor of Oakland admitted on BBC to being part of conference calls that coordinated national strategy against the occupiers. On top of all that, and in another blatant show of illegitimate force and power, they attempted to prevent journalists and photographers from covering these acts of repression—unless they were “embedded” with the police.
To put the matter bluntly, but truly: the state planned and unleashed naked and systematic violence and repression against people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. This response by those who wield power in this society is utterly shameful from a moral standpoint, and thoroughly illegitimate from a legal and political one.
Now this movement faces a true crossroads. Will it be dispersed, driven into the margins, or co-opted? Or will it come back stronger? This question now poses itself, extremely sharply.
One thing is clear already: if this illegitimate wave of repression is allowed to stand... if the powers-that-be succeed in suppressing or marginalizing this new movement... if people are once again “penned in”—both literally and symbolically—things will be much worse. THIS SUPPRESSION MUST BE MASSIVELY OPPOSED, AND DEFEATED.
On the other hand, this too is true: movements grow, and can only grow, by answering repression with even greater and more powerful mobilization.
The need to act is urgent.
As a first step in the necessary response, there must be a massive political mobilization on a day, or days, very soon to say NO! to this attempt to suppress thought and expression with brutality and violence. This mobilization should most of all be in New York, where this movement started... but it should at the same time be powerfully echoed all around the country and yes, around the world. This is a call for massive demonstrations—soon—carried out in public spaces where they can have maximum impact and exposure and where the authorities cannot pen in, suppress, and otherwise attempt to marginalize these demonstrations.
These demonstrations must be large enough to show clearly that people will not tolerate that which is intolerable... that people will not adjust to that which is so manifestly unjust. Such demonstrations, along with the efforts to reach out and build them, can draw many more people from passive sympathy into active support and can awaken and inspire even millions more who have not yet been reached. Such demonstrations can powerfully answer the attempt by “the 1%” to crush and/or derail this broad movement. Thousands and thousands in the streets, acting together, can seize new initiative and change the whole political equation. The urgent questions raised by Occupy—and other urgent questions that have yet to be raised in this movement—can once more reverberate, and more powerfully than before."
-From an OWS Working Group Flyer
The political terms of discourse began to shift; the iced-over thinking of people in the U.S. began to thaw. Standing up to the unjust brutality and arrests became a badge of honor. People began to listen to and read the stories of some of the victims of this economic crisis, and to share their own. And most of all, as the protests spread to city after city, the fact of people occupying public space forced open debate and raised big questions among millions as to what kind of society this is, and what it should be. Why does such poverty and need exist in the face of a relative handful of people amassing obscene amounts of wealth? Why do the political institutions of society seem only to serve that handful? Why do so many youth feel they face such a bleak future? Why does the insane destruction of the environment continue to accelerate? And what is needed to overcome all this?
Those who actually wield power in this country regarded these protests, and these questions, as dangerous, and reacted accordingly. Time and again those who wield power violated their own laws and ordered police to pepper spray, beat with clubs, and shoot tear gas canisters at the heads of people who were doing nothing more than non-violently expressing their dissent and seeking community. This reached a peak in the recent coordinated and systematic attacks of the past few weeks against all the major occupations. In fact, the mayor of Oakland admitted on BBC to being part of conference calls that coordinated national strategy against the occupiers. On top of all that, and in another blatant show of illegitimate force and power, they attempted to prevent journalists and photographers from covering these acts of repression—unless they were “embedded” with the police.
To put the matter bluntly, but truly: the state planned and unleashed naked and systematic violence and repression against people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. This response by those who wield power in this society is utterly shameful from a moral standpoint, and thoroughly illegitimate from a legal and political one.
Now this movement faces a true crossroads. Will it be dispersed, driven into the margins, or co-opted? Or will it come back stronger? This question now poses itself, extremely sharply.
One thing is clear already: if this illegitimate wave of repression is allowed to stand... if the powers-that-be succeed in suppressing or marginalizing this new movement... if people are once again “penned in”—both literally and symbolically—things will be much worse. THIS SUPPRESSION MUST BE MASSIVELY OPPOSED, AND DEFEATED.
On the other hand, this too is true: movements grow, and can only grow, by answering repression with even greater and more powerful mobilization.
The need to act is urgent.
As a first step in the necessary response, there must be a massive political mobilization on a day, or days, very soon to say NO! to this attempt to suppress thought and expression with brutality and violence. This mobilization should most of all be in New York, where this movement started... but it should at the same time be powerfully echoed all around the country and yes, around the world. This is a call for massive demonstrations—soon—carried out in public spaces where they can have maximum impact and exposure and where the authorities cannot pen in, suppress, and otherwise attempt to marginalize these demonstrations.
These demonstrations must be large enough to show clearly that people will not tolerate that which is intolerable... that people will not adjust to that which is so manifestly unjust. Such demonstrations, along with the efforts to reach out and build them, can draw many more people from passive sympathy into active support and can awaken and inspire even millions more who have not yet been reached. Such demonstrations can powerfully answer the attempt by “the 1%” to crush and/or derail this broad movement. Thousands and thousands in the streets, acting together, can seize new initiative and change the whole political equation. The urgent questions raised by Occupy—and other urgent questions that have yet to be raised in this movement—can once more reverberate, and more powerfully than before."
-From an OWS Working Group Flyer
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Which Side Are You On?
Early in Elie Wiesel's "Night", his terrifying story about The Holocaust, he describes an exchange with his rebbi mentor who tells him, "Every question possesses a power which is lost in the answer." Later the rebbi answers the question why he prays to which he says, "I pray to the God in me so that I might ask the real questions."
If you've read the book, the story becomes a progressive horror as Wiesel's family is relocated, then separated enroute to a concentration camp. All this to the background refrain "that it could be worse." And of course it does.
There are two points here.
One, is a didactic about OWS: it is a magnet for questions, a veritable black hole for them. It's so resolutely inscrutable as to lose newly converted liberal types eager for an "ask list." Some even re-frame the movement as religious, e.g, "what historic Christianity and OWS have in common." I'm guilty of that one.
Amin Husain patiently corrects all this with, "it's a economic and social movement with moral overtones." And how it loves questions! But pressed to provide answers, the questions are reduced to someone's sense of a solution based on what they know. What we know is that the current system for all its assurances of faux order is rigged. 1% get the lion's share; the 99% fight over the scraps. Even docile churches join it to keep everything in place.
The questions will remain questions until the dominant culture listens to the people, the 99%. Again, Amin,"...and this is what makes it radical to a too-ready-for-the answer prone culture." That is the calmer, well thought out definition of "radical." What could be more radical than for the 99% to change the conversation so their government and their society finally listens?
And the second point: the recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act following the truly horrendous Supreme Court Decision on "Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission" of January 21, 2010 have become the dark Tweedledum and Tweedledee of our day. Not only can corporations breath; they can get pissed off and vengeful about it too. This brought Chris Hedges to say this at the end of his recent post on Truthdig:
But the NDAA passed anyway. And I suspect it passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets, knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can.
By my reference to Wiesel above, don't think this entry is seeking a comparison with the atrocities of the Nazis. That stands alone in its depravity. Survivors live to beckon us to remember and to engage the nobler parts of ourselves. (That statement deserves a pause and its own reverence.)
But there is haste here as well--in his later writings Wiesel is quickened not because he was chosen but because he was a witness. Injustice can seem perpetual and ingenious if we are absent. Said Wiesel in his 1986 Nobel Prize reception speech on the causes for human indignity, "we must choose which side we are on", and, "the answer to indifference is action." In his speech he asks us--in effect--"what have we witnessed and what are we doing about it with the life we have been given?"
I am witness to injustice and pain because of a system stolen from the people. This translates into hunger, poverty, homelessness, and fear.
For me, this means an open-ended commitment to Occupy. What about you?
If you've read the book, the story becomes a progressive horror as Wiesel's family is relocated, then separated enroute to a concentration camp. All this to the background refrain "that it could be worse." And of course it does.
There are two points here.
One, is a didactic about OWS: it is a magnet for questions, a veritable black hole for them. It's so resolutely inscrutable as to lose newly converted liberal types eager for an "ask list." Some even re-frame the movement as religious, e.g, "what historic Christianity and OWS have in common." I'm guilty of that one.
Amin Husain patiently corrects all this with, "it's a economic and social movement with moral overtones." And how it loves questions! But pressed to provide answers, the questions are reduced to someone's sense of a solution based on what they know. What we know is that the current system for all its assurances of faux order is rigged. 1% get the lion's share; the 99% fight over the scraps. Even docile churches join it to keep everything in place.
The questions will remain questions until the dominant culture listens to the people, the 99%. Again, Amin,"...and this is what makes it radical to a too-ready-for-the answer prone culture." That is the calmer, well thought out definition of "radical." What could be more radical than for the 99% to change the conversation so their government and their society finally listens?
And the second point: the recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act following the truly horrendous Supreme Court Decision on "Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission" of January 21, 2010 have become the dark Tweedledum and Tweedledee of our day. Not only can corporations breath; they can get pissed off and vengeful about it too. This brought Chris Hedges to say this at the end of his recent post on Truthdig:
But the NDAA passed anyway. And I suspect it passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets, knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can.
By my reference to Wiesel above, don't think this entry is seeking a comparison with the atrocities of the Nazis. That stands alone in its depravity. Survivors live to beckon us to remember and to engage the nobler parts of ourselves. (That statement deserves a pause and its own reverence.)
But there is haste here as well--in his later writings Wiesel is quickened not because he was chosen but because he was a witness. Injustice can seem perpetual and ingenious if we are absent. Said Wiesel in his 1986 Nobel Prize reception speech on the causes for human indignity, "we must choose which side we are on", and, "the answer to indifference is action." In his speech he asks us--in effect--"what have we witnessed and what are we doing about it with the life we have been given?"
I am witness to injustice and pain because of a system stolen from the people. This translates into hunger, poverty, homelessness, and fear.
For me, this means an open-ended commitment to Occupy. What about you?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Taking That Hazardous Leap
I received this from Dr Anne Fraser. Dr. Fraser has her Phd from Harvard in Comparative Religion. Her observations shed needed light on why traditional faith responses are so tepid re: OWS. We can only look to the emergent churches, it seems, for substantive support. Even then with caution--if they are offshoots of mainline denominations--since only a certain amount of inventive behavior will be tolerated.
So, from Dr. Fraser:
Today I finished reading Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs and thought the last three chapters, entitled Freedom, Imagination, and Culture, were beautiful and so inspiring and reminded me of all you are dealing with concerning the church and OWS.
Although he is writing about Buddhism, his message applies so strongly to Christianity, which, it seems to me, like Buddhism, is centered around suffering and its recognition and alleviation through a radical path that takes great vision and imagination and can't be constrained by institutions. I really recommend the book, particularly the last three chapters.
Here is just a little taste of what he writes, "Part of the appeal of any religious orthodoxy lies in its preserving a secure, structured, and purposeful vision of life, which stands in stark opposition to the insecurity, disorder, and aimlessness of contemporary society. In offering such a refuge, traditional forms of Buddhism provide a solid basis for the ethical, meditative, and philosophical values conducive to awakening. Yet they tend to be wary of participating in a translation of this liberating vision into a culture of awakening that addresses the specific anguish of the contemporary world. Preservation of the known and tested is preferable to the agony of imagination, where we are forced to risk that hazardous leap into the dark."
So, from Dr. Fraser:
Today I finished reading Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs and thought the last three chapters, entitled Freedom, Imagination, and Culture, were beautiful and so inspiring and reminded me of all you are dealing with concerning the church and OWS.
Although he is writing about Buddhism, his message applies so strongly to Christianity, which, it seems to me, like Buddhism, is centered around suffering and its recognition and alleviation through a radical path that takes great vision and imagination and can't be constrained by institutions. I really recommend the book, particularly the last three chapters.
Here is just a little taste of what he writes, "Part of the appeal of any religious orthodoxy lies in its preserving a secure, structured, and purposeful vision of life, which stands in stark opposition to the insecurity, disorder, and aimlessness of contemporary society. In offering such a refuge, traditional forms of Buddhism provide a solid basis for the ethical, meditative, and philosophical values conducive to awakening. Yet they tend to be wary of participating in a translation of this liberating vision into a culture of awakening that addresses the specific anguish of the contemporary world. Preservation of the known and tested is preferable to the agony of imagination, where we are forced to risk that hazardous leap into the dark."
Monday, January 9, 2012
Hiding Sacramental Power
Yesterday during the 8 AM service there was no water on the altar to afford a reenactment of our baptismal vows...an activity in synch with the feast commemorating Jesus's baptism of that day. I offered to fill the pitcher and even gestured to a field expedient solution of using water in the flower vase! Wisely, Pastor Richard Allen waved away all the commotion and suggested that we just "imagine" the water sprinkled on us at our baptisms.
This had the effect of setting the experience more deeply.
And it made me recall a sermon I had heard on baptism as "walking wet." I think it was by Bishop Chris Epting yet I think it's not original with him. It's an intriguing concept and we even dedicated a chaplain's conference to the idea. Why? Because beyond the momentary moisture of the act of baptism we are branded, "marked as Christ's own forever." A fine thing but living differently (and consequentially) is something else again and the idea of being perpetually wet is catchy and an image closer to the intent of the sacrament.
At the suggestion of friend Bishop Charles Jenkins I'm reading--and taking refuge in--Martin Luther King's address "Beyond Vietnam" given at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967. Charles was trying to shore me up after the arrest and I welcome the support...I urge you to read King's response to his sense of "walking wet" even when it wasn't popular. As you may recall he stepped forward from the institutional church and criticized that war.
He said, "we are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless..." This, for him, was a "vocation of agony" because we are all asked to wrestle with conscience beyond acts of charity as in "The Good Samaritan." Moreover, he said, "(One) comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." Indeed, it is the "whole Jericho Road which needs to be transformed."
Dr. King's plea "to enter the struggle" has a direct parallel to the OWS phenomena and our appeal to mainline churches who are glued to the sidelines. "They" prefer to confine actions (and the transformative power of sacraments) to pre-cleared parameters. In most churches the eucharist is celebrated, followed by coffee hour, and then everybody goes home. The "dangerous memory of Jesus Christ", as Tracy put it, is nestled in the caress of a cultural side street so as not jostle anyone.
I post an abbreviated version of this blog on Facebook (contact me, I'll friend you) and the reaction was easy to predict. Most were well-meaning church goers who wanted to rhapsodize about sacraments. It is not what it is but the miracle of activity quickened later in doing. We seem to have lost a sense of where to look for wonder.
Which brings me to the street again. Our current understanding of "Church" either needs to reform or to get out of the way...let The Body of Christ be the celebrator and not the caretaker.
This had the effect of setting the experience more deeply.
And it made me recall a sermon I had heard on baptism as "walking wet." I think it was by Bishop Chris Epting yet I think it's not original with him. It's an intriguing concept and we even dedicated a chaplain's conference to the idea. Why? Because beyond the momentary moisture of the act of baptism we are branded, "marked as Christ's own forever." A fine thing but living differently (and consequentially) is something else again and the idea of being perpetually wet is catchy and an image closer to the intent of the sacrament.
At the suggestion of friend Bishop Charles Jenkins I'm reading--and taking refuge in--Martin Luther King's address "Beyond Vietnam" given at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967. Charles was trying to shore me up after the arrest and I welcome the support...I urge you to read King's response to his sense of "walking wet" even when it wasn't popular. As you may recall he stepped forward from the institutional church and criticized that war.
He said, "we are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless..." This, for him, was a "vocation of agony" because we are all asked to wrestle with conscience beyond acts of charity as in "The Good Samaritan." Moreover, he said, "(One) comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." Indeed, it is the "whole Jericho Road which needs to be transformed."
Dr. King's plea "to enter the struggle" has a direct parallel to the OWS phenomena and our appeal to mainline churches who are glued to the sidelines. "They" prefer to confine actions (and the transformative power of sacraments) to pre-cleared parameters. In most churches the eucharist is celebrated, followed by coffee hour, and then everybody goes home. The "dangerous memory of Jesus Christ", as Tracy put it, is nestled in the caress of a cultural side street so as not jostle anyone.
I post an abbreviated version of this blog on Facebook (contact me, I'll friend you) and the reaction was easy to predict. Most were well-meaning church goers who wanted to rhapsodize about sacraments. It is not what it is but the miracle of activity quickened later in doing. We seem to have lost a sense of where to look for wonder.
Which brings me to the street again. Our current understanding of "Church" either needs to reform or to get out of the way...let The Body of Christ be the celebrator and not the caretaker.
Friday, January 6, 2012
"You Should Know Better"
I wanted to save opening this message with you for today, The Feast of the Epiphany. We commemorate gifts of mystery from afar to the Christ Child. This message actually doesn't qualify in either category, neither is it mysterious nor is it foreign. And therein is its pain.
I've received many contacts since the arrest but of them all this is my favorite. Maybe because I haven't gotten that many of this kind, or maybe because it makes me smile every time I read it. I'm not amused to make fun of the author--whoever it is--but as a confirmation of the distance that separates us.
You are a deacon, priest, and bishop. You have taken vows that you would obey your bishop. You are canonically resident in the Diocese of New York. The Bishop of New York and the Presiding Bishop were quite clear that they were against the actions you took on Saturday. Trinity Church can not legally allow the movement to occupy a space they have leased to another entity. It is the other entity you should pressure. Your actions Saturday, not Trinity Church's put your wife in harms way. You were treated well because you hid behind your purple cassock--a vestment which clearly identifies you as a member of the church establishment. Your actions of disobedience of your superiors are at odds with your visual identification with the hierarchy whose will you repudiate. Bottom line: you are protesting against the wrong people and just embarrassing yourself and the good reputation you have built over decades. Anonymous
Perhaps it's a factor of age and retirement that has put this space between us. For some reason he/she cannot understand the truth so summarily set aside by leadership here. For the moment I won't pile up the instances of arrogance so aptly acted out by Trinity Church. I'll let the historical narrative do that. Anon's reference to law as the reference point rises to the level of ludicrous when applied to what a church could decide to do/not. As Chris Hedges points out in his Death of the Liberal Class the Law is used as a defacto act of naivete by the liberal institutions which, in effect, abdicate any real agony of decision making by deferring reflexively to it. No matter how awful and immoral the application.
I promised not to re-visit Trinity in this blog but for Anon's benefit as to whether my protest was "against the wrong people," a corporate mindset is a corporate mindset no matter how you dress it up.
And speaking of dressing up I wore a working cassock that happened to be purple and I guess I made a point. The Church I have known lives now more vibrantly in the streets than in creaky bureaucracies. That special treatment you spoke of seemed a little distant in that holding cell and rather than a shield it was a magnet for numerous conversations with cops who sympathized with the Occupy movement.
The most offensive Anon remark is this beauty...that somehow Brook gave up her First Amendment rights as an American because she attended a protest. Candidly she calls the incident her "gift" because if this could happen to her--a middle aged white woman--think of "the least of these" who get abused and mistreated.
Which brings us back to the manger and the raw circumstances of Jesus's birth. I'm hoping that Anon and I might meet there eventually but his/her manner of Church seems to imply that the Magi sent their gifts in by Fedex to avoid the untidiness of a stable. Thankfully, it wasn't that way.
I've received many contacts since the arrest but of them all this is my favorite. Maybe because I haven't gotten that many of this kind, or maybe because it makes me smile every time I read it. I'm not amused to make fun of the author--whoever it is--but as a confirmation of the distance that separates us.
You are a deacon, priest, and bishop. You have taken vows that you would obey your bishop. You are canonically resident in the Diocese of New York. The Bishop of New York and the Presiding Bishop were quite clear that they were against the actions you took on Saturday. Trinity Church can not legally allow the movement to occupy a space they have leased to another entity. It is the other entity you should pressure. Your actions Saturday, not Trinity Church's put your wife in harms way. You were treated well because you hid behind your purple cassock--a vestment which clearly identifies you as a member of the church establishment. Your actions of disobedience of your superiors are at odds with your visual identification with the hierarchy whose will you repudiate. Bottom line: you are protesting against the wrong people and just embarrassing yourself and the good reputation you have built over decades. Anonymous
Perhaps it's a factor of age and retirement that has put this space between us. For some reason he/she cannot understand the truth so summarily set aside by leadership here. For the moment I won't pile up the instances of arrogance so aptly acted out by Trinity Church. I'll let the historical narrative do that. Anon's reference to law as the reference point rises to the level of ludicrous when applied to what a church could decide to do/not. As Chris Hedges points out in his Death of the Liberal Class the Law is used as a defacto act of naivete by the liberal institutions which, in effect, abdicate any real agony of decision making by deferring reflexively to it. No matter how awful and immoral the application.
I promised not to re-visit Trinity in this blog but for Anon's benefit as to whether my protest was "against the wrong people," a corporate mindset is a corporate mindset no matter how you dress it up.
And speaking of dressing up I wore a working cassock that happened to be purple and I guess I made a point. The Church I have known lives now more vibrantly in the streets than in creaky bureaucracies. That special treatment you spoke of seemed a little distant in that holding cell and rather than a shield it was a magnet for numerous conversations with cops who sympathized with the Occupy movement.
The most offensive Anon remark is this beauty...that somehow Brook gave up her First Amendment rights as an American because she attended a protest. Candidly she calls the incident her "gift" because if this could happen to her--a middle aged white woman--think of "the least of these" who get abused and mistreated.
Which brings us back to the manger and the raw circumstances of Jesus's birth. I'm hoping that Anon and I might meet there eventually but his/her manner of Church seems to imply that the Magi sent their gifts in by Fedex to avoid the untidiness of a stable. Thankfully, it wasn't that way.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Use Of Force
For the past two days the New York City Police Department has inserted itself into the character of these days. And the scene has taken some bizarre turns.
On New Years Eve about 1000 protesters were loosely assembled at Zuccotti. That was at about 10:30. Then a mischievous guy raced among us as he was chased, brutally subdued, and cuffed. This aroused all of us because he's known as an innocent guy, prone to stealing a hat or two--but this treatment? Whoa! As he was dragged to the paddy wagon the crowd shouted, "Shame! Shame!" Me too.
It was an object lesson how a group which was merrier than usual (it was New Years) could refocus on a common object of scorn. Twenty minutes later the cops, like nervous hosts, started to rearrange the metal barricades. Fidget with them was more like it in the name of "keeping the sidewalks clear." The action was transparent--they were exerting control of the area by re-staking out a perimeter.
It made you shake your head because it was simple to see what would happen next...the protesters began to collect barricades. There were some laughable tugs of war between protesters and cops over these sections of fence. In some cases not so funny as protesters were cuffed, arrested, then beaten in that order. After about 45 minutes of this street theater the protesters had tallied up a pile of 50 or so barricades in the center of the park. Mounting this ersatz sculpture they began to sing and taunt the cops.
It was then the NYPD did the smartest thing of the evening; maybe even of the past two days. They looked at the pile of barricades and the swarm of protesters protecting it...they shrugged their shoulders and left them alone. Victory: 1 for the protesters (a point made); 1 for the cops (the mob wasn't enflamed any further).
And there we stayed through the next hour, to midnight, and joyously afterward with people taking turns chanting and singing songs from atop barricade mountain.
Later, through a miscue, a large contingent of protesters left the park parading off north. About this time Brook and I left despite an inceasing assemblage of cops newly arrived from Times Square. Thinking this odd I asked a friend and senior protester about it and he replied, "It's just an intimidation tactic." Uncertain but tired we went home about 1:30. But later that parade got trapped and protesters were arrested one by one. Some so indiscriminately that passersby were swept up and cuffed too. Clearly the spell of wisdom for the cops had lifted.
Later the next day I got a call that a friend had been arrested on a trumped up charge. He was later released when two other clergy, Brook, and 12 of his friends went to court to plead for his release. I can't be specific but it had all the liability of sneezing to intentionally spread germs.
Which brings me to force and the use of it. It shouldn't be and it is incumbent on OWS and the NYPD to work out a system to "civilize" these arrests. It has gotten so bad that as one protester is being beaten in front of me I'm thinking the thing Our Lord would do would be to place oneself between the blows and the protester. Indeed, this is the hallmark of St. Augustine's Just War Theory. Force is allowable when defending the defenseless. But even that pseudo-pacifist thought is an escalation here.
We (I) should energize ourselves before we have to lay down between the blows and our neighbor. Why? Because we must be praying for that cop too. New Years Eve and days following prove that events can spin out of control quickly and we would be better lovers of Christ to blow out the fuse beforehand.
On New Years Eve about 1000 protesters were loosely assembled at Zuccotti. That was at about 10:30. Then a mischievous guy raced among us as he was chased, brutally subdued, and cuffed. This aroused all of us because he's known as an innocent guy, prone to stealing a hat or two--but this treatment? Whoa! As he was dragged to the paddy wagon the crowd shouted, "Shame! Shame!" Me too.
It was an object lesson how a group which was merrier than usual (it was New Years) could refocus on a common object of scorn. Twenty minutes later the cops, like nervous hosts, started to rearrange the metal barricades. Fidget with them was more like it in the name of "keeping the sidewalks clear." The action was transparent--they were exerting control of the area by re-staking out a perimeter.
It made you shake your head because it was simple to see what would happen next...the protesters began to collect barricades. There were some laughable tugs of war between protesters and cops over these sections of fence. In some cases not so funny as protesters were cuffed, arrested, then beaten in that order. After about 45 minutes of this street theater the protesters had tallied up a pile of 50 or so barricades in the center of the park. Mounting this ersatz sculpture they began to sing and taunt the cops.
It was then the NYPD did the smartest thing of the evening; maybe even of the past two days. They looked at the pile of barricades and the swarm of protesters protecting it...they shrugged their shoulders and left them alone. Victory: 1 for the protesters (a point made); 1 for the cops (the mob wasn't enflamed any further).
And there we stayed through the next hour, to midnight, and joyously afterward with people taking turns chanting and singing songs from atop barricade mountain.
Later, through a miscue, a large contingent of protesters left the park parading off north. About this time Brook and I left despite an inceasing assemblage of cops newly arrived from Times Square. Thinking this odd I asked a friend and senior protester about it and he replied, "It's just an intimidation tactic." Uncertain but tired we went home about 1:30. But later that parade got trapped and protesters were arrested one by one. Some so indiscriminately that passersby were swept up and cuffed too. Clearly the spell of wisdom for the cops had lifted.
Later the next day I got a call that a friend had been arrested on a trumped up charge. He was later released when two other clergy, Brook, and 12 of his friends went to court to plead for his release. I can't be specific but it had all the liability of sneezing to intentionally spread germs.
Which brings me to force and the use of it. It shouldn't be and it is incumbent on OWS and the NYPD to work out a system to "civilize" these arrests. It has gotten so bad that as one protester is being beaten in front of me I'm thinking the thing Our Lord would do would be to place oneself between the blows and the protester. Indeed, this is the hallmark of St. Augustine's Just War Theory. Force is allowable when defending the defenseless. But even that pseudo-pacifist thought is an escalation here.
We (I) should energize ourselves before we have to lay down between the blows and our neighbor. Why? Because we must be praying for that cop too. New Years Eve and days following prove that events can spin out of control quickly and we would be better lovers of Christ to blow out the fuse beforehand.
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