Homage to Daniel Berrigan

Last night Judy and I watched the Democracy Now program honoring Berrigan, who died on Saturday at 94. He has been an inspiration to both of us, so we were moved by seeing all the clips, hearing his voice again, etc. One of the most moving segments is about the trip he and Howard Zinn made to Hanoi in January of 1968, to bring home three US prisoners of war. They spent their first night in a Hanoi bomb shelter, under what Berrigan described as "a rain of fire," bombing by US B52s:

So we were in this shelter and very unexpectedly came on three children, who were crouching in there, too, against all expectations, and one of the elder children feeding rice to one of the younger ones. And I wrote this little verse within a couple days and tried to read it later at our trial –

Children in the Shelter

Imagine; three of them.

As though survival
were a rat’s word,
and a rat’s death
waited there at the end

and I must have
in the century’s boneyard
heft of flesh and bone in my arms

I picked up the littlest
a boy, his face
breaded with rice (his sister calmly feeding him
as we climbed down)

In my arms fathered
in a moment’s grace, the messiah
of all my tears. I bore, reborn

a Hiroshima child from hell.

Another tribute by a long-time friend and follower, in newyorker.com,  said that experience "obliterated from then on any capacity he might have had to cloak the realities of war in abstraction." (I'm now recalling another Berrigan saying, something like "no principle is worth the sacrifice of any individual human being."

Judy recalls that once in the 1970s when she and Jack lived not far from Detroit and were associating with (and becoming) peace & justice "activists" in what was called the Great Lakes Life Community, they had Dan Berrigan to their home for dinner one evening. They were impressed that this internationally famous (cover of Time magazine, etc) hero of the peace movement was quite unassuming, friendly, and easy to talk with. They mentioned that they were getting newsletters from Thich Nhat Han, and Berrigan said something like "You're in good hands there!"

But, about "heroes," an interviewer once asked him, "You are a hero of the peace movement, but who are your personal heroes?" Berrigan: "I don't believe in heroes. I believe in community."

I met and had the opportunity for a brief conversation with Daniel Berrigan in the late fall of 1984. I hadn't yet quit The Job, but I was trying to wake up from the standard American Dream/Nightmare. Berrigan listened patiently to my story, then took a piece of paper and wrote out for me the address of the Catholic Worker community in New York City. I don't recall his exact words at that time, but another Berrigan quotation i came across this morning rings true to my memory of the man:

Your faith is rarely where your head is at and rarely where your heart is at. Your faith is where your ass is at! Inside what commitments are you sitting? Within what reality do you anchor yourself?”

Earth Day at 46, for cryin’ out loud

Note: I included this piece in the Free Fredonia Times, issue #42, the Earth Day issue. Click here to see a PDF (on Google Drive). 

 The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. But let me take you back to Earth Day of 1971 and the launch of one of the most powerfully effective TV ads of all time. Senior citizen readers I’m sure will remember it. Probably inspired by that first Earth Day, the “Crying Indian” ad was a public service message sponsored by the nonprofit Keep America Beautiful.  The Indian paddles his birchbark canoe to shore, where someone in a passing car throws out a bag of garbage which breaks open at his feet. Camera pans to a close-up of his face and the tear trickling down his cheek. The narrator intones, “People start pollution. People can stop it.” 

Shown repeatedly in the 1970s, the ad was most successful in its hidden, unannounced purpose: to stop a then-growing effort to promote reuse and recycling of drink containers (and thus reduce roadside litter) by requiring deposits on the containers. The ad was funded by the Advertising Council of America and backed by beer bottlers, can companies, and soft-drink makers. Shifting the responsibility for litter to “people” protected the profits of the corporations making throw-away containers.

I think the Crying Indian probably did persuade some to stop throwing their trash out the car window. I’d like to show it to some of the people who travel 267 and 222. You can see the ad yourself at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGu4AwL5Kho. Being intentionally deceptive “greenwashing,” pretending to sell us something environmentally beneficial but actually something else, makes the ad typical of a great deal of today’s advertising. But isn’t all today’s advertising, or all successful advertising, fundamentally (also often creatively, beautifully, and/or hilariously) deceptive? And about protecting the corporate profits, what’s wrong with that? It’s a legal requirement of corporations. And it’s our culture, our way of life. Any proposal to protect “the environment” (aka our planetary life-support system) that might “hurt the economy” (that is, reduce profits or slow economic growth) gets shot down. Getting back to the ad and the containers, does recycling or not-recycling matter that much if we are committed in either case to eternal over-consumption, consuming ever more and more? 

Getting back to Earth Day – The “official” Earth Day web­site, earthday.org, says “We are now entering the 46th year of a movement that gave voice to an emerging consciousness, channeling human energy toward environmental issues.” The original focus was on littering, along with air and water pollution. Today it’s clear that awareness of the serious global harming done by burning fossil fuels has (at last) entered the global consciousness. On this specifically April 22 Earth Day, leaders of over 150 nations are at the UN to sign on to the first international agreement that might actually reduce global emissions of that super-pollution, and so avert the environmental catastrophe that scientists are warning us is on the way unless we change our ways. 

A recent report in the highly respected journal Nature outlines the impact of climate change over the next 10,000 years: “The next few decades offer a brief window of opportunity to minimize large-scale and potentially catastrophic climate change that will extend longer than the entire history of human civilization thus far.”

Will we – can we – change our ways? I hope so. I like that “window of opportunity.” But it’s forecast to be brief. And the changes needed are fundamental. Beware of deceptive advertising, proposals that either lie to us or deflect our efforts away from what is really needed. The current official Earth Day website lists as one of its major goals “to plant 7.8 billion trees.” Would that be good? Of course. But if the greatest threat to our Earth’s habitability is the burning of fossil fuels, planting trees does not cure the disease or solve the problem, it only lessens the symptoms. Do I smell some way that someone’s profits are going to be enhanced by the planting of 7.8 billion trees? What’s really needed?

Stop burning fossil fuels.

Breathe in, breathe out, repeat . . ..

Ten days late with the 80th birthday post.
Not enough time? Well . . .
80 years = 29,220 days (and nights)
701,280 hours
42,076,800 minutes
2,524,608,000 seconds.

In response to comments on the Day, I heard myself saying, over and over,
"Breathe in, breathe out, repeat."

Maybe over a billion breaths in 80 years?
That's moving a lot of air, eh?

Moving to a higher plane, another thing I have heard myself saying
(over many of those years, and yes, it's those Voices again) is
"We breathe the world in, the world breathes us out,
nothing is lost."

But you ask, 'Higher plane?"
Yes, the metaphoric.

The Latin for breath is spirit.

And suddenly there it is, 
that blood-red kite against the impossibly blue sky,
buffeted but held aloft by unseen spirits of air, 
dancing, dancing. . . .

Don't let go of that string!
Breathe in, breathe out, repeat . . . .

August 13, 2015 – Earth Overshoot Day

"The day marks the estimated calendar date when humanity’s demand on the planet’s ecological services (which produce renewable resources and assimilate wastes) outstrips what the Earth can supply. This means that for the rest of the year, we are taking more than is regenerated, operating in Overshoot. Last year, Earth Overshoot Day was August 19^th. We first went into Overshoot in the late 1970s, and since then the day has crept ever earlier on the calendar. This means we are using the ecological resources of just over 1.5 Earths."

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-08-13/earth-overshoot-day-and-not-for-profit-enterprise

Note: This is a conservative and optimistic assessment. The "calendaring" suggests a simple, linear process that could be reversed; the actual effects of overshoot are more likely to be hyperbolic and irreversible. 

"We're in a bubble here."

Standing outside Dexter Avenue King Memorial church in Montgomery, Alabama, March 13, 2015, closing day of the 50^th anniversary re-enactment of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march, the tallest of the Buffalo Soldiers looks me in the eye and cooly remarks, "We're in a bubble here."

Another Buffalo Soldier has been taking pictures of the men on the rooftops above us. I hadn't thought to look up, but there they were indeed, training binoculars and cameras down at us from just about every rooftop. I assume they are police of some sort, and although I don't see weapons I think they must also be armed. The Soldier I had been talking to refuses to look up. He says, “I’m home sick today.”

I didn't ask the Soldier to explain his remark about a bubble, but I'm sure what he had in mind was that that day's police protection was an artificial and temporary thing in contrast to the current widespread and regularly reported police killings of unarmed Black people. And he clearly felt personally threatened by the police cameras. He had called in sick to be able to take the day off from his job to be in Montgomery with the marchers.

There were at least twenty uniformed Buffalo Soldiers who had come on their “iron horse” motorcycles, and were determinedly heading up the church steps to attend the speechmaking following the end of the march up at the Capitol steps. They didn't all get in, which is how I got the chance to talk with a few of them. I had only a vague recollection of the history of the all-Black U.S. Cavalry regiments formed at the end of the Civil War, so I just said, "I've heard about the original buffalo soldiers but I don't know much about them and I just want to ask what the story is, what you guys are about." Their answers were polite, brief and determined: "We are the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club. We keep alive the memory of the original U.S. Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers and keep true to their tradition of service to our country and our community."

I reflected on how the Buffalo Soldiers, clearly representing Black Pride and at least suggesting Black Power (they did not seem to be armed), were a kind of re-enactment within a re-enactment that day. I also reflected on how different the atmosphere of this 50th anniversary Selma to Montgomery march was from the 1965 event. I hadn't been there myself, but I told the Soldiers about looking into that history and finding an account saying that Klan elements in 1965 in collusion with local authorities had been talking about putting snipers on the Dexter Avenue rooftops to pick off the march leaders – but had been persuaded, in large part by Red Blount, the rich white founder of the modern Republican Party in Alabama, not to try any such thing, that "it would be bad for business."

However, although the 1965 march was allowed, it was not well protected and was indeed bloody all the way from Bloody Sunday in Selma to Montgomery and back (remember Viola Liuzzo). 

In contrast, during this 50th anniversary re-enactment Montgomery authorities were very friendly and helpful. That morning at St. Jude's church on the western outskirts of Montgomery where we marchers began the last five-mile segment leading to Dexter Avenue and the Capitol, Judy had asked the police unit commander there for help getting Jim Scott's guitar to the Capitol, where we hoped he would be performing as part of the culminating ceremonies of the march, so he wouldn't have to carry it the whole five miles. "Sure, that's no problem, I'll put it in this squad car and you can get it out at the Capitol."

But indeed there are bubbles within bubbles. While the 50th anniversary Selma to Montgomery march was primarily organized by the entity first headed by King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, it was also organized "in collusion with local authorities," just with a difference. A search on the internet for "Selma to Montgomery 2015" turned up not SCLC at the top of the results list but dreammarcheson.com, "Commemorating the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March . . . we invite you to celebrate the many dreams that started here by visiting Selma, Lowndes County and Montgomery." With an official “The Dream Marches On” logo, unauthorized use or duplication of which without express and written permission from the City of Montgomery is strictly prohibited, email or call toll-free Meg Lewis at the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce for more information, and WE THANK OUR SPONSORS, showing the logos of 26 corporate sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, BBVA Compass Bank, Honda, Hyundai, AT&T, the Montgomery Advertiser, AARP, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Alabama etc etc.

That is, whatever SCLC or the marchers thought the event was about, it was to be “good for business,” well worth the massive police protection.

Another difference between this re-enactment and the original march was that SCLC was not insisting that focus be kept on voting rights, but allowing signs, chants, and speaking on many issues/dreams. Judy, who never needed assertiveness training, got close enough to where march leaders were about to present their petition to Governor Bentley on the steps of the Capitol, and was able, since she knew many of those leaders, to get them to raise a chant of Medicaid Now! Medicaid Now! as the Governor came down the steps. There, a few of the up-front march leaders turn their backs to him, but he shakes hands with the others, says he will do what is right for all Alabamians, takes and puts in his coat pocket what he is handed, and turns to go back up the steps to his office. One of the pocketed pieces of paper is a letter Judy has written urging him to "execute justice, not people."

The speech-making that followed inside Dexter King Memorial church of course was led off and closed with serious SCLC preaching and teaching; and included teenagers speaking up for LGBT rights.

Judy and I had brought New England folksinger Jim Scott with us. Jim was touring his "Pete Seeger Songfest" program, had done a concert in Fredonia the Saturday before, and Judy thought she could arrange for him to lead the crowd at the church in "If I Had a Hammer," or "We Shall Overcome." I was skeptical about that prospect, and at first it looked as though we wouldn't even be able to get into the church.  It is less than a block away and in sight of the Capitol, but there were about a thousand people in the street, most of them between us and the front steps of the church. But Judy led Jim Scott through and around the crowd to a side entrance and got him into the church up near the altar and introduced to people in charge of the program.

I hung back, deferring to all those other sincere pilgrims, including those Buffalo Soldiers, which is how I got the chance to talk with them. But then Judy stuck her head out of the church doors and yelled to me, "Jim, come on in, Roger and Roberta are saving a seat for you."So I got into the church, sat through a lot of familiar sermonizing and at the end was moved by the crowd, led by Jim Scott, standing and enthusiastically singing and clapping out "If I Had a Hammer," and joining hands with arms crossed to sing a convincing "We Shall Overcome."

Afterward, Jim Scott remarked that he was strongly impressed by seeing how immediately urgent Black issues were to the people he walked with and talked to that day, matters of life and death; in contrast to so many people he knew in New England and the rest of the country, who even though in sympathy could not feel directly or immediately affected and for whom the issues remained primarily abstract matters of morality and politics.

I told Jim I felt the same way. Although I had been a somewhat reluctant marcher and attended only that last day's into-Montgomery segment, I was at the end of the day very glad that I had come to be with people who were not just participating in a re-enactment but in their own lives addressing serious issues – voter inequality, income inequality, inadequate or no health care, sexism, racism, police violence, militarism..

Yet I have to say I fear "Business As Usual Shall Overcome." It's good that the 2015 re-enactment march was not, like the 1965 march, bloody there and back. But the "collusion" with authorities is scary.  March leaders repeatedly reminded the crowd they were not there just to celebrate or commemorate a past victory but again wake the nation to make needed change. But I note that the “official” Dream Marches On message of the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce, supposedly giving whole-hearted support for the march, focuses only on commemoration and celebration, and that of no particular dream but “many dreams.” As though to say, “just pick the dream of your choice and dream on . . .” Let’s have the Governor say a few meaningless words, pocket any demands for change and return to his office. Let’s not have anything happen that would be bad for business or wake a nation.

The Slowdown Dirty Truth take on all this: Indeed there are bubbles within bubbles. Business As Usual is itself, including not just the usual corporate suspects but the usual organizational, institutional and personal making-a-living "busy-ness,” is a fantasy dream, another kind of bubble. In the not very long run, even resolving any one or even all of our yes, pressing issues, will not matter if our climate- and habitat-destroying growth-at-all-costs economy – that has, yes, created the living-as-usual comforts so many of us enjoy – is not stopped.

Indeed, most of our most pressing immediate problems are not even solvable in a business-as-usual context. To proceed without that realization is to live and act in a bubble.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Soldier
http://www.nabstmc.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Soldiers_MC
http://dreammarcheson.com/#Home
http://warisacrime.org/node/14885
http://www.jimscottguitar.com

Sixty million years, and then there is this . . .

Springtime, and I’m back in the saddle again

riding, riding, riding . . . my beloved mower.

But that not everlasting oil must be changed

so now just getting it done

having to improvise, catching

the old oil, almost two warm quarts

through the found tubing but it slips

my left hand thrusts itself in to stop the spill

saving most but not all.

And it hurts.

Holding the damned tubing to catch

All I can, but watching the rest

flowing over that left hand

watching warm trickling blood and oil

bright red and shining black

puddling on the cold carport concrete

knowing this is the way the world ends.