|
  We've Reached a Critical Mass The 37 arrests, arbitrary, illegal and high speed chases by cop-SUV's... We have now the spectacle of police breaking the law, on purpose, in public. They have devolved into adolescent bullies, a local version of Bush. We were left last night reciting the 1st Amendment again and again, straight into their faces, as if trying to revive a passed-out loved one by reciting his name: "and the right of the people peaceably to assemble! and the right of the people peaceably to assemble! and the right of the people... The police are saying that they are no longer law enforcement. They create their own law now and systematicly marginalize the real law the comes from the courts. They badmouth judges in public, something they learned from Giulianni. The gap of time between arrests and yet another judge's ruling against them is regarded as a strategical opportunity. They will steal bikes and make completely self-made definitions of a "procession" and use permit definitions written in the 19th century, in that time between arrest and ruling. Then they appeal, never intending to obey the law. The lesson? ... the critical mass that we have reached? It is now our turn to become the adults here. The police, we've noticed, have a cultural rage that is like the child-like quality of the right wing apocalyptic Christians. They regard even bicyclists as beyond their borders, chaos, darkness, the Other. Now, let's go back to the streets. Who owns them? The streets belong to the people, like we always shout when we're surrounded by the boys in blue. But the police themselves -- they belong to the people too. Lately they have tried privatize both the streets and themselves. They seem to work for a mysterious government, not answerable to anyone, not public. An American citizen forces the freedom of the 1st Amendment, the permission to express and assemble in public -- back into their policy. We have to ride and ride and ride. :: back to top :: Weddings on the Great Lawn Last year, the negotiations with the police about how and where to march for Peace during the RNC - it all seemed endless and off the point somehow. Everyone, instinctively, wanted to go the Great Lawn in Central Park. It is symbolicly our village common, the verdant center where the great singer returns to sing, where the Dalai Lama sits, the eye in the storm of the city. You remember -- the police insisted that the grass was too tender, that they would protect the lawn. They tried to direct us to Robert Moses-land in Flushing Queens, or the Manhattan suburban highway along the West Side. It was this fear of the 1st Amendment that drove us inward, into our Ritual. I went and got my Marriage Officiant certificate at City Hall for “Reverend Billy” and announced on our website that I’d marry people on the Great Lawn, on the afternoon of Sunday the 29th, but that the betrotheds would have to weave the 1st Amendment into their vows. We would meet after 1 PM, at Turtledove Pond, on the southern edge of the Great Lawn. Eleven couples and one large group were joined in holy matrimony. They brought their Readings – Walt Whitman, Emma Goldman, the Simpsons… and we listened as the foundational American rights popped up in the vows, “I will not interrupt your freedom of speech, and will never censor you, you can announce your beliefs and write them, gather with friends…” This collapsing of the national emotions into the personal ones was unexpectedly moving. We found ourselves crying. We were amazed – looking at the phrase“I love my country” from a new vantage. We DO love our country, as expressed in our love for our partners. When was that stolen from us? The police peered in from the edge. The press came in farther (the Al Francken Show, the NY Times) – but Ritual is not presentational theater. The repetitious vows and prayers were building the heat of a shared meta-marriage, as in the Solid As A Rock marriage anthem – WE BUILD IT UP and BUILD IT UP and BUILD IT UP. So we were laying-on-hands, praying to the God That Is Not A Product, and we were shouting Peace-a-lujah!, but it we were watering something growing in the center, and the power on the outside was stranded there. They could only wonder what power we possessed after we said our goodbyes and walked through their blue line and back into the city. Could they know we were now the nightmare of their bosses? Isn’t it the Right's great fear – that progressive people would love America again? Oh no! The lefties have their own faith! ... more in the monitor :: back to top :: Ground Zero Phenomenon Confounds Protesters at Ground Zero For 16 consecutive Tuesdays they have repeated the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, shouting into their cellphones about the freedoms of worship, speech, press, freedom of assembly... hurrying along with commuters who want to board the Path Train, reconstructed now under the old World Trade Center towers. When the activists arrive at 6:30 for their half-hour, they don’t greet each other -- they just get on their cells and repeat the archaic prose like a round. The Church of Stop Shopping hands out an invitation to join the exercise. They claim that “we re-introduce of the basic freedoms, after the paranoia of 9/11.” However, now something else is going on. At after-the-protest discussions there is an intensifying debate about what actually happens in those 30 minutes. They call it The Mystery. There is an agreement that at about the 2/3’s point, something strange sweeps through the body. It is described as pleasureable, but also spooky. The 220 year old words seem to have a life of their own. The activists report that “something pulls” in the long amendment sentence; that they “see things in glimpses” when they say the words again and again. The rooms and tunnels between Church Street and the trains below have do have an other-worldly quality. The over-bright light makes you not look at any one thing for very long, and the warehouse-like acoustics tries to rip any language into a soup of cries and whispers. In this echo chamber, the Stop Shopping Church and their friends think they have found the room-tone. The cellphone actors get the most intensity in the amendment words when they pretend to speak in anger, or in humor, or in fear. And commuter’s conversations in their cells are often, “I missed the 6:27 so I can’t walk the dog but I’ll be home soon.” And it is startling in this militaristic environment to hear the 18th century demand for freedom. There are the side-long glances from the stockbrokers as the Constitution unexpectedly pours out of a fellow commuter, standing nearby on the descending escalator. But then a person will step out of the exodus and stop and listen. This happens every once in a while. They cock their heads softly and listen to the words with a strange intentness, like listening to music. The protesters agree that these five freedoms do tricks on the mind. After 30 or 40 repetitions, one’s self-conscious fear wears off and everything changes. The phrase “peaceable assembly,” for instance, without the fear blocking it -- gives the mind a glimpse of an unwashed crowd of patriots (back in the day before the Patriot Act made patriotism illegal). Each repeat of the freedoms becomes a wilder run around the track through memories of resistance in the history of this country. The protestors walk uptown after “The Mob,” feeling all this recovered memory-of-freedom syndrome unwinding through their arms and legs. This isn’t the same sensation, they say, that a protester has after most rallies and marches. Carrying American freedoms back to this bomb-site isn’t anything like “right-thinking.” There is no self-congratulation. There is the humility that something can still tap into a great waterfull of brave thinking that brings us hope now. :: back to top :: |
  |
 
   Brother Michael's Church Bulletin Diatribes, Data and Discussion. Blog-a-luia! 
For so long I have thought that Americans have been at the mercy of their own consumerism, and I thank you so much for what you do, and I thank you for your bravery. In this country, when one speaks out against consumerism in the way that you have, you become easily likened to classic and misguided views of communism. I believe in a Christmas and country without a reliance on products in correlation with satisfaction, and I believe in the power of a ministry to touch people. -J.B.
 Stay in touch, hear from us, confess! 
Wed, July 9 @ 5:00 PM : : First Amend-a-thon!
: : Northwest Corner Of Union Square, New York, NY
: : more 
Go to complete events listing
|
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
