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(In New York the NYPD threw me out before I could ask Rumsfeld a question, but the bruises were minor compared with those caused by the thugs who brutalized me as I stood silently with my back to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a speech she gave in February.)
More Prophets
How about Rae Abileah, who got brutalized when she called for justice for Palestine, just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was receiving fulsome applause from our bought-and-sold Congresspeople in May. Or the Code Pink women of Dallas, in the belly of the beast, who do something imaginatively conspicuous every time George W. Bush comes up for air.
Or Jesselyn Radack, an attorney fired from the Justice Department for insisting that John Walker Lindh, who was labeled, for political purposes, "The American Taliban," be given his rights as an American citizen.
After being blacklisted from her profession, Jesselyn has landed on both feet as National Security and Human Rights Counsel at the Government Accountability Project, which focuses on protecting/defending whistleblowers. And Jesselyn was a terrific support to the successful defense of Thomas Drake, ex-NSA senior executive who was recently subjected to a three-year-long witch-hunt aimed at dissuading others from blowing the whistle as, to his credit, he did.
And then there's Cindy Sheehan, who had the courage to ask Bush to explain to her what "noble cause" had taken the life of her son Casey.
And former FBI special agent/attorney Coleen Rowley, who took a huge risk -- just one year short of retirement -- in blowing a loud whistle about FBI shortcomings before 9/11, and who continues to work hard, in a variety of imaginative ways, for Justice. (Fair Warning: do not, within earshot of Coleen, call her a prophet.)
About the women prophet/activists I have gotten to know over the past 10 years I could go on forever.
The Shibboleth of Success
One trait peculiar not only to the Hebrew prophets of the eighth century but to the ones I just mentioned is that they did not get hung up on the all-too-familiar drive for success. That drive, I think, may be a distinctly American trait. We generally do not want to embark on some serious course of action without there being a reasonable prospect of success, do we? Who enjoys becoming the object of ridicule?
The felt imperative to be "successful" can often be an impediment to action for Justice. A prophet/activist from whom I have drawn inspiration is Dan Berrigan. I'd like to share some of the wisdom on this that seeps through his autobiography, To Dwell in Peace.
Berrigan writes that after he, his brother Phil, and a small group of others had used homemade napalm to burn draft cards in Catonsville, Maryland, in May 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, Dan mused about why he took such a risk:
"I came upon a precious insight. ... Something like this: presupposing integrity and discipline, one is justified in entering upon a large risk; not indeed because the outcome is assured, but because the integrity and value of the act have spoken aloud. ..."Success or efficiency are placed where they belong: in the background. They are not irrelevant, but they are far from central.
"I was in need of such reflections as we faced the public after our crime. ... All sides agreed -- we were fools or renegades or plain crazy.
"One had very little to go on; and one went ahead nonetheless. Still, the 'little' had at least one advantage. One was free to concentrate on the act itself, without regard to its reception in the world. Free to concentrate on moral preparation, consistency, conscience. Looked at in this light, the 'little' appeared a treasure.
"The act was let go, its truth and goodness were entrusted to the four winds. Indeed, good consequences were of small matter to me, compared with the integrity of the action, the need responded to, the spirits lifted."
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