Just a little note to everyone that I’ve blogged a couple of posts over on Nonviolence.org. They’re both based on “peace mom” Cindy Sheeran’s “resignation” from the peace movement yesterday.
It’s all a bit strange to see this from a long-time peace activist perspective. The movement that Sheehan’s talking about and now critiquing is not movement I’ve worked with for the last fifteen-plus years. The organizations I’ve known have all been housed in crumbling buildings, with too-old carpets and furniture lifted as often as not from going out of business sales. Money’s tight and careers potentially sacrificed to help build a world of sharing, caring and understanding.
The movement Sheehan talks about is fueled by millions of dollars of Democratic Party-related money, with campaigns designed to mesh well with Party goals via the so-called “527 groups”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_group and other indirect mechanisms. Big Media likes to crown these organizations as _the_ antiwar movement, but as Sheehan and Amy Goodman discuss in today’s “Democracy Now interview”:http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07%2F05%2F30%2F1343232, corporate media will end up with much of the tens of millions of dollars candidates are now raising. Sheehan makes an impassioned plea for people to support those grassroots campaigns that aren’t supported by the “peace movement” but this reinforces the notion that its the moneyed interests that make up the movement. I’m sure she knows better but it’s hard to work for so long and to make so many sacrifices and still be so casually dismissed – not just me but thousands of committed activists I’ve known over the years.
There are a few peace organizations in that happy medium between toadying and poverty (nice carpets, souls still intact) but it mystifies me why there isn’t a broader base of support for grassroots activism. I myself decided to leave professional peace work almost a decade ago after the my Nonviolence.org project raised such pitiful sums. At some point I decided to stop whining about this phenomenon and just look for better-paying employment elsewhere but it still fascinates me from a sociological perspective.
Martin,
Well, what can we say? Cindy linked up with the Democratic Party groups and they used her for what they could. Now she can see the truth behind the “antiwar” stance of the Party…She may, after a season, return to the kind of action you discuss. This will be her entry into real activism, and we should be happy to welcome her…
Your Friend in Jesus,
Patrick Stanton
Burlington (VT) Meeting
adventtent@yahoo.com
@Patrick: I’m not quite willing to write off what she was doing as unreal. She certainly inspired a number of people. If she were a Friend and I had been asked to serve some oversight role, I would have tried to understand if the headiness of being in the media spotlight were acting as any sort of snare.
Martin — thanks for your Cindy post. I know this is totally off topic, but I am getting interested in Quakerism again. I’m reading an engaging, witty, hard to stop reading booklet on Liberal Quakerism by Chuck Fager called ‘Without Apology’. Have you read this? What do you think of it? For me, it explains so much, going back thru the history of Q‑ism and the American splits. I have a lot more respect for the liberal position, because Fager spells it out clearly. It is useful for quoting and in discussion with newbies who are getting their feet wet in Q‑ism. I realize, if I am to be catagorized under Q terminology, I might be considered a Gurney-ite.…something I’m not sure I’m comfortable with. However, becoming a Q is a life long prospect for me, if I stick with it. More important for me, tho. is not to become a Q, but grow into maturity in the Spirit, and as long Q‑ism aids that for me, I suppose I will continue. And hopefully, I will have opportunities to give back to that which has nurtured me.
Hi Barb,
How funny, you must not have stumbled across the raging discussion about Chuck’s book “currently happening over on Rich Acetta-Evan’s blog”:http://brooklynquaker.blogspot.com/2007/05/review-of-chuck-fagers-without-apology.html. Sixty-eight comments as I write this! I read parts of Chuck’s book a few years ago. I remember finding it engaging, thought-provoking, a little biased, etc. I’d be careful labeling yourself a Gurneyite based on Chuck’s description.
If you want to delve deeper into that side of Quakerism, I might suggest Thomas Hamm’s “Transformation of American Quakerism,” a mostly-nineteenth century history of the Orthodox side of Friend, one big piece of which became the Gurneyites. The G’s weren’t numerically strong in Philadelphia but they became very influential in the twentieth century. I’d argue they’re the major architects of modern liberal Quakerism, though few modern liberal Quakers would claim them – everyone wants to be a Hicksite now.
I should dig out “Without Apology” maybe, see what use you’re referring to.
BTW, vis-a-vis today’s post about the strange google visit: around the same time someone came to my site on the search about kids clothes someone else googled your full name followed by “nascar owner” and “this post”:https://www.quakerranter.org/for_other_uses_see_light_disambiguation.php came in at number 27. Are you really a Nascar owner?! Wow, now there’s a liberal Quaker stereotyped smashed!
Martin — you are so wry and sly. 150 proof, homemade. In addition to NASCAR, I also organized the Million Women March, etc. The googler is onto something.…I am from good Hick stock. Not Hicksite…Hick. I will read Hamm’s book next. Thanks for the recommendation. I run hot and cold with my interest in Q‑ism. But the history, the god wrangling and wrestling, it’s fascinating. Or the lack thereof. No one comes to religion easy these days. thanks for sharing your journey on your last post. I am coming to the idea that the original sin was idealism. Just when I think I’m a thoroughly entrenched realist (or cynic, a woman of the world, a whiskey drinker, etc) I realize that my cynic springs from my deep inner idealist zealot. But how to kill the inner idealist, without killing the inner girl scout too? The cynic also springs from wounds that need to be tended to. I guess I need both of them, both tempered by time and the Spirit. Well, I have to get back to nascar. zoom zoom, gimme some of that rye.