Tread lightly on the things of earth

Probably the most important course I took in seminary was one on Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. In my reading [1] I saw for the first time the depth of commitment and sheer courage displayed by the civil rights activists during the 1950s and 60s. I saw how even one person's contribution to a "hopeless cause" — no matter how insignificant that contribution feels — can make a lasting difference, and even be the turning point. (Lesson: Our thoughts, prayers, and actions have effects that ripple out much further than we usually expect or hope for, affecting even the unseen world.)

So when I see resistance rallies like the Rally Against War in Iraq in Washington, DC on Saturday, I'm there, baby (Real video stream). Used to, I would have been stopped by fear.

When a friend alerted me Saturday afternoon that this rally had been broadcast on C-SPAN, I searched for its C-SPAN video stream and mistakenly found — and watched most of — this one, the October 26, 2002 rally.

While watching this earlier broadcast, I was struck by something former attorney general Ramsey Clark (Johnson Administration, 1967-69) said:

Regime change needs to begin at home.

We need to liberate the United States from militarism, for God's sake.
Don't you see what we're doing?
Billions and billions for killing, mass killing.
Who has the weapons of mass destruction? We do.
Who's spending more money every day for more weapons? We [are].

[We need] to liberate this country from corporate oligarchy;
they control our lives.
This is not a democracy, it's a plutocracy.
The people don't rule here, wealth rules, the corporations rule.
They rule the Congress, they elect the President,
they run the Pentagon, they own the media.

We've got to liberate the United States from repression.
Don't we know we've got 2 million in prison, for God's sake.
Don't we know we execute more than one person a week
in this country ... we know what's right, we just don't stand up.

After watching these rallies and reading others' follow-up (as at No War Blog, United for Peace, and Lean Left), hope is finally renewed in me. We can stand up and resist. We can cast off this blindness of heart and spirit that makes us desire war. We can wage peace instead.

[1] My favorite texts were Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 and Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65.