100. No unviolent army, no hope
Friends I don't think I'm to be faulted for citing titles, and essays that as you hear them, may seem so obvious, because our behavior as activists indicate that they are totally nonobvious. The exception being the one in 1 million potent activists, they intuitively or deliberately operate out of the family emergency response, out of the heart. They don't make the kind of mistakes I'm talking about because the heart doesn't make those kind of mistakes.
The Head and the flesh always make these kind of mistakes. Like this one -
A brutal invader attacks part of the world that you care about. Is there an army in response? Yes. Your son needs a complex operation. Is there a qualified team committed to your son's operation and recovery? Yes. Your daughter plays soccer, or you did; there is a tremendously important match coming up. Is the whole team going to be there on your side? Yes.
These are natural questions when we're in complete personal solidarity with the issue. And implicit in all these situations are teams of people in complete solidarity with what they're trying to do. Deep emotional solidarity. But when was the last time you asked that question about environmental Armageddon? Where's the deeply committed, at the cellular level, failure is not an option Army, to go against the army of lobbyists that are totally committed at the cellular level, as hideous as their motivations of greed are? When was the last time you asked that question? I haven't asked it nearly, nearly as frequently as I've needed to; it's escaped me, too often.
There's no hope of winning a war without an army. There's no hope of that operation succeeding without a committed team. There's no hope of that game being won without a totally committed, totally in solidarity from the heart team.
And yet in the most important issues of all time - ending citizens United, averting environmental Armageddon, ending homelessness, ending poverty... we never ask: "Where is the totally committed, failure is not an option, my life is on the line, I will willingly die for this – army?
We never ask that question. And never will you or we be a hope until that question becomes something that we ask centrally, every day; and learn to answer, in the affirmative, with our lives.
