"All you are doing is going to meetings...."

Cynthia Peters:

Another way to put this: it’s not too soon to plan your report-back. This is especially true given that these times require so much more than a report-back.

 

Do those sentences sound contradictory? “Plan a report-back. It’s not enough to plan a report-back.” What kind direction is that? It reminds me of the period in 2002-2003 when the U.S. was planning to invade Iraq. My partner and I were heavily involved in neighborhood-based organizing and our two children (ages 11 and 7) were coming with us to lots of meetings and demonstrations. The invasion of Iraq started to seem inevitable and my 11-year-old tearfully confronted me. “Why aren’t you doing anything to stop the war?”

 

“I’m trying,” I said.

 

“No you’re not,” she responded. “All you’re doing is going to meetings.”

 

I couldn’t deny the accuracy of her observation. War was looming, and the adults around her appeared to be doing not much more than sitting around in living rooms and community halls talking to each other. Sure, we were organizing, reaching out to others, educating people about the consequences of war, planning demonstrations, connecting the war abroad with the war at home, etc. But it all looked like not enough next to the horror of war.

 

Today I rode my bike by another basketball court with another memorial for another murdered African American kid – teddy bears and candles in a circle at center court. Almost 100 people were killed in Iraq this week, 300 wounded, and untold more dying from indirect effects of war. The oil spill in the Gulf oozes on, laying waste to the life in its path. According to Bill McKibben, if that oil had made it through the pipeline to the refinery and then on to our gas tanks, it would have caused no less damage to the planet. Of course, as experts race to contain the oil flowing from the out-of-the-ordinary leak, billions of gallons of pipeline oil continue on their merry way to wreak their ordinary havoc.

 

With so much at stake, I’m writing about USSF report-backs? It seems like a terribly thin response given the monstrosity of events unfolding around me.

This quote made me reflect on what I learned from my efforts in the run up to the war. www.JimN2010.com fills the void for feelings of regret that I didn't do enough back then to end the war before it began...

 

Its not just about going to meetings and meet ups to talk about bring positive reforms to our community, state, nation, a world.  You have to turn the talk into action.  Political engagement  is a life time commitment... not a social outlet.

Posted via email from Quote for the day