July 5, in the wake of all the patriotic hoopla,
tens of thousands of clergy and laity concerned descend upon Washington DC for a SILENT VIGIL. Let the silence roar our rejection of a rapacious economy and a racist society and a population which needs to wake up to the perils of climate change.
Some bring signs, some don't. No talk (of course talk in the streets but no podium). Truly participatory democracy. Time enough to get better organized afterwards.
Imagine the potential of this BEARING WITNESS TO THE GREED AND INJUSTICE OF OUR TIMES AND CALLING ATTENTION TO HOW CLOSE TO AN EDGE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN PUSHED.
An idea for your consideration.
A SILENT VIGIL
A process of freedom awakening
What do you think the prospects for success (big turn-out) would be of a grass-roots call (not from adjudicators/religious groups or even envyronmental groups, church or otherwise) but from individual clergy and laity (as during Vietnam)--we just pick a Sunday in July and ask clergy and lay folks concerned to come to Washington for a silent vigil, prayer for
Saving American Democracy by decrying the idea that a corporation is a person. "Citizens United," they call it, without any sense of the irony that we they are doing is robbing Americans of their democracy.
Decrying the greed underlying the vast concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.
Joining in penitentional prayer for the outrageous persistence of the murder of black men by the police, with its clear connection to the racism of the chattel slavery upon which this country's economic engine was built.
Standing with surviving members of the Native Nations in pledging to undo the carbon economy and create an Earth friendly economy in the spirit of the ones who were here first.
All of us coming to Washington from across the land a couple of weeks before the pope speaks.
What do you think? I think it can only work it it remans a completely free process, spontaneouss, no organizational ties other than those that would in the end be needed to work out arrangements in Washington with the police for a lot of people being there. And perhaps organizing church-synagogue-mosque hospitality for people sleeping in those buildings for the Saturday night before.
Please let me know what you think? Coming to the end of three decades of active leadership of synagogues, I'm a bit frustrated at how small is our resistance to the issues described above.
I do believe this is a watershed moment. Why not clergy and laity concerned come to life?
July 5, in the wake of all the patriotic hoopla,
tens of thousands of clergy and laity concerned descend upon Washington DC for a SILENT VIGIL. Let the silence roar our rejection of a rapacious economy and a racist society and a population which needs to wake up to the perils of climate change.
Some bring signs, some don't. No talk (of course talk in the streets but no podium). Truly participatory democracy. Time enough to get better organized afterwards.
Imagine the potential of this BEARING WITNESS TO THE GREED AND INJUSTICE OF OUR TIMES AND CALLING ATTENTION TO HOW CLOSE TO AN EDGE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN PUSHED.
Joshua Chasan
jchasan@comcast.net
My role in this is only to get it off the ground and perhaps help with arrangements for shelter in Washington DC.
It's now in your hands. Spread the message by whatever means you've got. Sunday, July 5, early afternoon, in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps if something must be said and I would hope not, then simply a recitation of the Gettysberg Address
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