Complacency won’t lead to action. But civil disobedience will
You can feel it in the air: Many of us are living in the fear that we are one bad event away from this administration seizing power over the people in such a way that we will find ourselves swept up in a nightmare of tyranny such as we’ve never seen before.
Our nation has fallen into a trance that has caused us to question our sanity, our understanding of events and of basic human qualities like honesty, forthrightness, integrity, and cooperation. This trance has caused us to become silent in the face of great evils. We have learned how to live in denial of the obvious. Indeed, we now know the answer to that old question, “How could good German citizens allow the Nazi Party to rise to power?” We need somehow to awaken from this trance, break through the denial, find our voice, and reclaim our roots as a democracy.
Our trance has largely been induced through the propaganda of the corporate run media. So I say we should take our public assembly straight to the media outlets, where once there was life, but now only deception, distortion and disinformation. I call upon the citizenry to gather in groups of tens, of hundreds, of thousands, and on Tues., September 11 , the sixth anniversary of 9/11, I call upon us to engage in several direct actions at each of the major media outlets in this city.
Imagine surrounding the media buildings with pots and pans, dressed in orange, circling the building seven times and each time mounting a thunderous roar of “IMPEACH THEM ALL.” Imagine thousands of people with tape on their mouth, muzzled and doing a die-in outside a TV station to demonstrate the logical consequence of a nuclear attack on Iran. Imagine the nude bicyclists of the Fremont Festival streaking throughout the city as a living reminder that this administration is stripping us of our civil rights. Imagine every kid from every high school walking out of class to surround military recruiter sites with the all day chant, “NO MORE LIES!” Imagine a jazz band parading outside a radio station playing dirges, followed by silent mourners carrying our Constitution draped in black. All on the same day, all in groups of tens, of hundreds, of thousands — and all without getting permits or permission from the authorities that are increasingly unworthy of our respect. Imagine rocking this entire city with direct actions to cast out the tyranny of fear, the smog of deception, and the chains of silence. Imagine a citizenry that dares to act as if they are, in fact, a free people! Imagine a celebration of democracy.
This call to action is a summons to our citizenry because we can’t simply stay asleep watching a treasonous band of lawbreakers bully our nation into tyranny. We must stand up to them. We must create a free space for our citizenry to take heart and as an example for other cities to do the same. This public act is a liturgy to inspire and motivate those who are already hard at work in the trenches for electoral integrity, for impeachment, for stopping the war, for the re-prioritizing of the political agendas of our representatives.
Imagine that on 9/11 everyone called in “sick” so as to assemble with groups of tens, hundreds, thousands, and perform acts of a free people. Imagine the entire police department calling in with the “blue flu” so that they could participate as citizens with us in a celebration of democracy. Imagine reclaiming our courage, our moral vision, and our national idealism that strives for liberty and justice for all! Imagine shutting down this city for one day to make our voice heard, ending the shame of our silence, and the guilt of our cowardice in the face of those who would bully us. Imagine reestablishing our national self respect.
As free citizens our greatest strength is the gift of each other. We are bound together through a sacred narrative, a declaration of independence from the tyranny of empire. We are bound together through a code of conduct called the Constitution that tells in no uncertain terms that “we the people” are the rulers and those we elect are in service to us. We have forgotten this and need to reclaim the birthright of our heritage: our democracy. We need to compel those who dare to steal this birthright to respect our basic human rights. This is what it means to be a free people. n
Rev. Rich Lang is pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Ballard and host of Living Faith Now, a progressive Christian radio show at www.livingfaithnow.org. He can be contacted at [email protected].