Author: Breeze Richardson
As I follow the news of “Occupy” Movements across the country I am curious to learn what Friends are hearing & thinking about, and being led to say and do.
Protesting economic inequality is honorable, and I wonder what personal actions the individuals gathered from Oakland, to Chicago, to Naperville, to Washington DC, to New York City are being led to think about in their own lives as contributors to that very economic inequality they are fighting against.
Or is their fundamental point – “we are the 99%” – bear witness to the mere fact that such a question is irrelevant: there is a super class of Americans, who are 1% of the population, who have a responsibility to contribute in a way that redistribution can take place.
And then my thoughts turn to the bigger question… is standing on the corner enough? What is the outcome of these people bearing witness to their beliefs? Are they asking individuals to change? Corporations? Asking the government to take a different attitude? Enforce their beliefs? And will the winter weather stand in their way or alert the nation to the conviction with which they are standing there?
Are there academics, intellectuals in the creative class, politicians, or others in positions of power, are those in the 1% working to figure out how they can help envision the way forward? Will their ideas have a brief moment in time where the nation will be looking? A better way could be proposed?
Last week Naomi Wolf was in Chicago to give a talk entitled: “Citizen Empowerment 101” where she shared her personal experience getting arrested in New York while trying to intervene on behalf of protesters (who she believed “the details of the permit gave the protestors the right to be on the sidewalk as long as they did not obstruct foot traffic”) and was “subsequently arrested for resisting a lawful order after police told her to ‘leave,’ and she did not.” She told her story during the talk, which has been edited for you to hear.
What has been your experience? What are your thoughts? What role should we be taking as Friends, as individuals?
I had an opportunity to go in search of other Friends’ thoughts on this topic, and here’s what I’ve found:
Friends in Multnomah Meeting approved a Minute in support for “Occupy Portland” (read here), and in response Friend Rick Siefert wrote of how Quakers can truly help this Movement by sharing our Quaker testimonies and values. What do you think?
A Friend writes of his experiences in Washington DC (here).
The Friend Speaks My Mind podcast – in reaction to those gathering as “Occupy Philadelphia” – investigated how Quakers are getting involved with this “national call for social change” (audio here).
In addition to sharing your own thoughts, have you found other Quaker writings we might explore?
Greater econimic equality and oppurinuty are esential to our image of ourselves and survival of of our democratic governmant. With respect to jobs and health care, ecomonics are as fundimental as who lives and who dies.
I am grateful to Breeze for opening this discussion, which on the merits should go on for a long time. There are many vital issues intertwined, and I have a sense of “Kairos” — the “fullness of time” of which the Scriptures speak. There is much of Truth to be revealed, and as some try to silence or deny the protests, I think we’re seeing that “even the rocks would cry out” for justice, for righting the skewed balance of things, for bringing humanity back into the political and economic equation.
Just now I read a statement out of England. It’s not exactly clear whether this was a minuted action of Britain Yearly Meeting (or through an interim or executive body,) but I trust the good faith of their Recording Clerk in making a public declaration based on reports given and positions taken in earlier sessions. The concerns for economic justice have long and deep roots in our Religious Society, and I’m glad that British Quakers are addressing these, with suitable understatement but poignant relevance as well. Here’s the link:
http://www.quaker.org.uk/news/news-release-quakers-express-support-occupy-london
As Amos said (and Dr. King was fond of quoting,) “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”