When Everyone Finds You Annoying, You Know You're Getting Somewhere
http://vimeo.com/groups/occupy/videos/32458762
Yeah, OK, this is so far out of everyone's comfort zone that no one really likes it or understands it. The poor activists have such a seige mentality (and you would too) they can't really get their heads around holding hands with the establishment and having a celebration of what they have done. And the church has such a staid, status quo mentality, such a sense that the problems in the earth are overseas, that Christians regularly look at me as if I had gone insane again when I ask them about what their response to the Occupation is.
We are all in our own ghettos, you know, we all live and move among the people we know, we tell them what we think and we know they will like it and we might be outraged or judgmental together in our ghetto, and we may have solidarity in our ghetto, but nothing changes.
The Occupation is rife with lifelong activists. These lifelong activists may win tiny victories, but largely they are in their marginalized ghettos and if the Occupation follows them, that is where they will be too. And look, the church in England is in its marginalized ghetto as well, it's much whiter and maler and richer than the Occupation, but it is a timid and dying voice in our culture.
It need not be that way. Let's open the gates of our ghettos, shake hands, roll up our sleeves, light some candles and change the injustice rife in our world. Not Africa, not America, not the Middle East. Let's start here where we live. We seriously need to take the logs out of our own eyes. It starts here or it doesn't happen. I honestly think all these Christian organizations point to the problems overseas because it's easier to do that than to address the fundamental bloat of consumerism in their own backyard. I am not buying any more goddamned toothbrushes for cute children in Liberia. We have our own problems. We have our own kind of moral famine going down.
This world is not good enough for my children. It is not good enough for your children. The government does not listen to the people and the function of the markets is to steal from us and from our earth more and more. Real change requires real transformation and real transformation is icky and exhausting and a big headache and requires you to act outside your comfort zone. But it is possible. That's what those cold and tired goofballs in tents have shown me. Look, the Farmer and the Cowman can be friends. The people of this island even though they are obsessed with the past and protocol and other annoying things have really from time to time beat the government back into place. They can do it now. We can do it now.
Yeah, OK, this is so far out of everyone's comfort zone that no one really likes it or understands it. The poor activists have such a seige mentality (and you would too) they can't really get their heads around holding hands with the establishment and having a celebration of what they have done. And the church has such a staid, status quo mentality, such a sense that the problems in the earth are overseas, that Christians regularly look at me as if I had gone insane again when I ask them about what their response to the Occupation is.
We are all in our own ghettos, you know, we all live and move among the people we know, we tell them what we think and we know they will like it and we might be outraged or judgmental together in our ghetto, and we may have solidarity in our ghetto, but nothing changes.
The Occupation is rife with lifelong activists. These lifelong activists may win tiny victories, but largely they are in their marginalized ghettos and if the Occupation follows them, that is where they will be too. And look, the church in England is in its marginalized ghetto as well, it's much whiter and maler and richer than the Occupation, but it is a timid and dying voice in our culture.
It need not be that way. Let's open the gates of our ghettos, shake hands, roll up our sleeves, light some candles and change the injustice rife in our world. Not Africa, not America, not the Middle East. Let's start here where we live. We seriously need to take the logs out of our own eyes. It starts here or it doesn't happen. I honestly think all these Christian organizations point to the problems overseas because it's easier to do that than to address the fundamental bloat of consumerism in their own backyard. I am not buying any more goddamned toothbrushes for cute children in Liberia. We have our own problems. We have our own kind of moral famine going down.
This world is not good enough for my children. It is not good enough for your children. The government does not listen to the people and the function of the markets is to steal from us and from our earth more and more. Real change requires real transformation and real transformation is icky and exhausting and a big headache and requires you to act outside your comfort zone. But it is possible. That's what those cold and tired goofballs in tents have shown me. Look, the Farmer and the Cowman can be friends. The people of this island even though they are obsessed with the past and protocol and other annoying things have really from time to time beat the government back into place. They can do it now. We can do it now.
Wow - you do have a way with words, lassie! Let's go for it. I wrote a jolly comment here, then lost it all while 'signing in.' But your blog here is a corker of a post: goes with a swing and brings with it so much good thinking. I may have a 'Lord,' by the way: Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger, a formidable woman, with a good heart,though I need to speak with you before approaching her.
ReplyDeleteSo - here's for our children and our children's children: OYEZ, OYEZ - Hear ye, Hear ye...