SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
November 28, 2014
Sullivan’s
Salvos 12/2/14
In this edition:
*Immigration
*Ferguson
*Did You Know?
*Immigration
I
support President Obama’s Executive Order on immigration. As a matter of fact,
I wish he had gone further.
The
bottom line for me is very simple: people should have more rights than
corporations. Labor deserves greater rights than capital.
If
a Mexican company wanted to move to the US, it would be welcomed with open
arms. US and international courts would fight to ensure the move took place. It
has NAFTA to protect it. The media would consider it a boon and good for the
economy.
Now
replace the Mexican company with an actual Mexican human being. If she wants to
move to the US, she has to jump through decades worth of hoops. US and
international courts would fight to ensure the move did NOT take place. She has
no NAFTA to protect her. The media would consider her a threat and a criminal.
We
have open borders for corporations, closed borders for people. We must rethink
this arrangement.
*Ferguson
The
Grand Jury decision in Ferguson, MO led to more protests and more questions. I
am distraught. I wanted to tell the world how I felt. Then I realized that the
Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior had already done so.
Below
is an exerpt from “Letter From A Birmingham Jail”, dated April 16, 1963. I read
a portion of this aloud at the November 25 Board of Supervisors meeting.
“I must make two honest
confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess
that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white
moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's
great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's
Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted
to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the
absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who
constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot
agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes
he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical
concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more
convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more
frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm
acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white
moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of
establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the
dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped
that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South
is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in
which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and
positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human
personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the
creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is
already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt
with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must
be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,
injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the
light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be
cured.
In your statement you assert
that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they
precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like
condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil
act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving
commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the
misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like
condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing
devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come
to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to
urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights
because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and
punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the
myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just
received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All
Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually,
but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken
Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings
of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a
tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there
is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.
Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or
constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time
much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent
in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad
people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never
rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of
men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself
becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time
creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is
the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending
national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift
our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of
human dignity.”
*DID YOU KNOW?
The US had 409 deaths from police shootings in 2013.
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---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 7:51 PM
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