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Journey of a Citizen
Too much awareness is a tough burden to carry. I got an email the other day from a reader who opened up the deep, confusing paradox of being a citizen of the American empire.
“I read that 51 percent of our Federal taxes go to feed the war machine. The fear of the IRS overwhelms the shame I feel, for paying those dollars that go to kill people. Mixing all of the emotions: hypocrisy, shame, guilt, fear, anger, all together equal for me a sense of futility and hopelessness.
“I cannot even point the finger at the biggest killers, when I know that I am part of the problem and am too scared to do anything about it. How can I judge them, when I have blood on my hands also?”
It just so happens this email arrived the same day I sat and talked for an hour with Paul Rogat Loeb, author of the recently updated and re-released Soul of a Citizen, the definitive book on social and political activism — on stepping out of safety and beyond our fear and anger, indeed, beyond all the emotions listed above, and giving public meaning to one’s life.
There’s nothing simple or “guaranteed” about taking this step, or any of the steps thereafter, on the journey called Making a Difference.
Loeb’s book tells innumerable stories of people who have taken courageous stands, who have worked, often with little recognition and even less hope of success, for extraordinary change . . . and have achieved it. But the point of the stories isn’t to hoist anyone onto a pedestal. Every word of Soul is directed at you and me, or rather, at the soul of the citizen within each of us.
Loeb draws a link between the “celebrity activists” of days past, the ones whose names have entered history — Gandhi, Mandela, Tutu, King, the Dalai Lama, Rosa Parks — and Everyman and Everywoman: shy (perhaps), despairing, quietly outraged, uncertain, sitting on the sidelines. He does so by demythologizing the history makers. Profound change doesn’t flow from Greatness; it inches forward incrementally, resulting from the humble efforts of ordinary people.
“The book’s core message puts responsibility back on our shoulders,” Loeb said.
For instance, the actual Rosa Parks story, with which he leads off the book, is compelling in that regard. Parks is usually described, simply, as a woman whose feet were tired, who in a moment of divine anger and courage refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and in so doing became the mother of the civil rights movement. In point of fact, by the time Parks took her stand — by remaining seated — in December 1955, she’d already been involved with her local NAACP chapter for a dozen years, and had recently spent 10 days at a civil rights and labor training session at the Highlander School in Tennessee. When she refused to give up her seat on the bus, she knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew the time for doing it was ripe.
“In short,” Loeb writes, “Parks’ decision didn’t come out of nowhere. Nor did she single-handedly give birth to the civil rights movement. Rather, she was part of a longstanding effort to create change, when success was far from certain and setbacks were routine.”
He adds that “Parks’ first step toward involvement — attending a local NAACP meeting — was as critical to altering history as her famed stand on the bus.”
The point being: Take the small step! Move, however clumsily it may seem, in a direction that speaks to your awareness. Something will happen. The deeper point Loeb is making is that the journey that begins with that first step into public life, that first tentative fusion of private awareness and collective effort, is an end in itself. Hope is realized not merely in some ultimate, headline-grabbing victory, but in each small step along the way.
“Hope,” Loeb said, quoting Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, “is believing in spite of the evidence — and watching the evidence change.”
Activism is about building the future. Consider, Loeb asks us, the artisans who built the great medieval cathedrals of Europe, “working generation after generation on projects whose completion few would live to see.”
I’d say it’s like that, but more complex: building peace, building environmental sustainability, building justice and fairness. These “cathedrals” are far too big, and they have no royal architect, let alone a royal blessing. But we must start, or continue, despite what we know: that the work is daunting, and will never quite be finished.
The joy is in the journey. This is what it means to be a citizen.
26 Comments so far
Show All“The book’s core message puts responsibility back on our shoulders,” Loeb said.
Thank you for this.
Every time I have suggested that we look at ourselves for the solutions, I have been met with resistance. This is especially so right here on Common Dreams, where most seem only to want to point fingers instead of stepping up and taking ownership of their own part of the problem.
I am afraid of sticking my neck out too. And, I don't do it often enough. The things I do are small, and maybe they help in some small way, but I know I could do more. But, I do the best I can and hope more of my fellow citizens will too.
There was a piece here a few days ago about leaders and followers. It made the case that it's not so much the first in the group who creates change, but the initial followers who dare to add their voices and actions that build social movements.
The movement now is for individual citizens to take control of their lives and their communities and start re-building them. People have started doing this across the country. It is now up to the rest of us to join in and build the movement. The opposition to us is great, and our success is not guaranteed, but the solution is in our hands and only in our hands. It's completely up to us to make the choice to act or to point fingers.
'These “cathedrals” are far too big, and they have no royal architect, let alone a royal blessing.'
But they certainly do have royal opposition with all of the influential, divisive and oppressive forces at its disposal, many of which are not clearly recognised as such. In fact, many of those commonly perceived as "allies", including some organizational centers, are actually dedicated to ensuring that no new "cathedrals" of the people are ever built or even founded.
The "peasants" may be willing and eager to rebuild, but their leadership is wholly owned and sponsored by demolition experts who view any such construction, its planning, or its organization as a threat to their comfortable existence and their own overwhelmingly enormous "cathedrals" devoted strictly to the worship of Mammon.
Personal responsibility is all very well and neccessary, but where is the current equivalent of the NAACP with a site plan and coodination capabilities? For that matter, where are the scaffolds and cranes? Certainly not here!
A small minority of "enlightened" people chiselling away at diverse individual stone patterns (with a considerable amount of "silly putty" tossed in for added diversion) alters nothing of significance in the overall landscape.
Sigh. I began putting it all on the line back in 1968, after Tet and MLKJR. By now I am covered with emotional scars, barnacles, and swim with broken harpoons in my back. Not bragging, just recalling. I have fought against war, defended persons with disability, fought for disability rights, for accessibility, for ethical health care against insurance giants and neocons, and finally for survival with bupkis except newspaper clippings and memories. To defeat me in battle was still to leave the field badly wounded. Humor, poetry, making music, and making love like an endangered species have gotten me this far. You foun' anythin' tastes better?
The first black man to reach out and compress my hand with respect, and invite me into his house was James Farmer. I was 15 years old. Mother nixed the Freedom Rides. Loeb overlooks Howard Zinn, leading his black gals from Spelman College to defy The Man. Theirs were among the first eyes upon the prize. I am more familiar than I wanna be with Montgomery, AL, home of my forebears. Every white movement causes a squeak of leather somewhere.
Time's fun when you're havin' flies," Kermit said.
Trylon
Trylon
All your efforts are greatly appreciated. You are part of the foundation of our generation's cathedral. Your great sacrifices give others courage to keep building.
Thank you.
P.S. It is now possible for a black man to run a business on the Main Street of Montgomery AL.
My acts have, in part, been "undoings". My GGGF interpreted slave law as the Chief Justice of Alabama's Supreme Court, while he had a mulatto daughter, Caroline, that he adored. At noon on 4 Feb 1861 he gaveled to order the first meeting of the Provisional Congress, thereby launching the Confederate States of America into existence. He represented Montgomery County in the Confederate Congress 1861-1865. In 1871 he tumbled down a flight of marble stairs and died of head injury. When I go to Montgomery I always visit his grave.
How ironic that I discovered this poem at the age of nine.
INCIDENT
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December:
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
--Countee Cullen, 1903-1946
And - God's truth - the first black boy to ever speak to me, at age six, hissed at me "Peckerhead!" I had to ask my dad (raised in Birmingham) what that meant and my father couldn't answer until he stopped laughing. That took quite a while.
Excellent article, Mr Koehler.
Thank you.
I know that Paul Loeb means well when he writes but he does have the tendency to anger the already disaffected when some of what he writes almost feels like rubbing salt on the wounds. This article is flawed in that it tells us to simply be heroes without giving us a clue as to how to get there. Rosa Parks was one of the many who paved the road to Civil Rights along with other prominent African Americans but what even most liberals and progressives fail to mention is that unlike today, at that time, there was more self-confidence in progressives and the team spirit that was needed to make it happen. I realize that even on progressive and liberal minded sites, some people follow the same conservative line of "it all starts with you" every time their favorite politicians are in trouble. It is my understanding that they are not really happy with their misrepresentation but possess this dangerous fear of shifting the blame away from the leaders and onto one another where it does not belong. Granted, people do elect politicians but why shift the blame to the people when the politicians are responsible for misinforming and misleading? It is like saying that politicians are above the law which may explain why they waste more time and taxpayer money showing up on the media for their 15 minutes of fame moments and doing very little actual legislation aside from giving their puppet nods to the lobbyists with the most money. It is easy to preach about "taking small steps" but what happens when giant leaps backwards cancel those small steps and what happens when there is no team oriented efforts that are needed to correct the wrongs? All this silly talk about taking small steps and telling us to look the other way when a giant regressive leap crushes our small steps in the progressive direction. It's like going to war alone without other nations on our side and we know the consequences. The author, Loeb, and others will have to answer this simple question. Do we go it alone or build united team efforts to fight for those liberal and progressive causes?
Don't keep waiting for someone to lead. Two steps forward and one back is still forward motion. Waiting is standing still. Standing still eventually becomes being left behind.
Nobody is waiting for leadership. We voted for leadership and we should have gotten what we voted for but we didn't. Your logic that 2 steps forward 1 step backward still being forward is flawed and I said nothing about standing still. Please tell us that two small steps and one giant leap backward is still "progress". Please explain why you think that we should continue to pay the government taxes to do their dirty work. Politicians have a HUGE RESPONSIBILITY along with the powers that they have to change things for better or worse that we don't have. Why don't you stop and think for one minute about that? You might also want to consider the fact that sometimes it takes team work and cooperation to get things done that simply cannot get done individually while you are at it.
That was a great comment. Who is that jealous loser who flagged it? CD, please remove the flag from that comment.
Thanks Marco for your defense. As for the flag, let them keep flagging us. It just means that we were bugged by partisan trolls afraid to say something. Whenever I get flagged, I just take it to mean that someone out there knows that I posted very courageously.
Very well put!
"Gandhi, Mandela, Tutu, King, the Dalai Lama, Rosa Parks"
Add Daniel Ellsberg ... a governmental whistleblower of the Vietnam War era. There's an excellent documentary on him, "The Most Dangerous Man In America". It's one of the best expose's of governmental machinery you'll ever see. Easy to find a copy via your "socialist" public library.
Gandhi fought an innervated British Empire whose citizens were losing interest in running the world. He also agreed to partition and Indians and Pakistanis are still paying the price.
MLK and the civil rights movement came at a time of rising economic hopes and expectations, flush years with lots of well-paid union jobs, high corporate taxes, federal programs, and an educated post-war population eager to spread the post war peace dividend. Mandela bargained away economic justice in favor of a peaceful transition to majority rule, in the face of world wide rejection of Jim Crow style, legal apartheid. The Dalai Lama lost; China took Tibet.
What hope can there be in small steps? I still care but I pay less and less attention. I focus on jazz and gardening. I do my work and raise my kids. I pay my bills. I write letters, and sometimes even make calls. I have rain barrels, e-windows, compost, PV system, etc. I do it because sometimes you do the right thing because it's right, not because you think it will really matter on a practical level. You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, but you don't kid yourself that you are changing anything.
I hope something worthwhile survives the ever-deepening madness; that's about all the hope I have
"What hope can there be in small steps? I still care but I pay less and less attention. I focus on jazz and gardening. I do my work and raise my kids. I pay my bills. I write letters, and sometimes even make calls. I have rain barrels, e-windows, compost, PV system, etc. I do it because sometimes you do the right thing because it's right, not because you think it will really matter on a practical level. You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, but you don't kid yourself that you are changing anything."
And that's fine. I do similarly and can look at myself in the mirror...most of the time. And I completely agree that it's the right thing to do. It takes courage to do this in the face of overwhelming opposition and complacency.
However, I think you're selling yourself a little short. Your kids see what you are doing and how you live. As do your friends and neighbors and anyone else who happens by your house. Are we single-handedly changing the world? No, thank God. It's not up to each of us to change the world, only ourselves and our small parts of it. In this way, change happens in an organic and democratic way instead of a dictatorial way, which we see far too much of.
I have a lot of respect for those such as you who do the many small things to keep stepping in the right direction. It takes courage and integrity - two things that are sadly, and tragically, lacking.
"I hope something worthwhile survives the ever-deepening madness; that's about all the hope I have"
Me too.
hi Jareilly ....
what you do within your boundaries are ALREADY something - far more than many would do given the choices. please don't lose hope, regardless.
every little thing counts, every life counts, and your children will thank you for it IF ever the world survives such times.
for that alone -- you should remember that you are already acting with your strength and good conscience. it also becomes an inspiration for others, including myself, to act or do in what little ways we each can.
after all - as a buddhist saying goes:
"LIFE is like a stream of water....before life makes the individuals such as ourselves....it is one body flowing...then it reaches the waterfall...and the water comes down in droplets...which are our individual lives....and when it reaches the bottom -- it is all one again...."
every little drop counts. and yours is one of them. so, from one "droplet" to another .....
Thank you for what you do.
:-).
Very well said.
Since our MSM feeds us only the views and oppinions that are allowed, the majority are propaganised, told what views are exceptable and how to think. When our political representatives follow the dollar instead of the will of the people they are supposed to represent, this cuffs our hands behind our back. It has been proved futile time and again Congress does what Congress wants regardless of our pleas to the contrary. There are thousands of us yurning for an end to these pointless and illeagle wars. For repreations to be made for the dishonor our governments have fostered. Many of us feel confined to the sidelines, not so much unable, but unaware of what to do that would bare fruit in a positive nature, we watch in horror the war machine march on. Knowing full well, truth, justice and the Amercan way, have gone the way of the rotery phone. Other than this, we are kept divided on so many issues, it's hard to present a united front. Show the way! Peace and love to all!
Sioux Rose
corrections:
propaganised = propagandized
views are exceptable = views are acceptable
Yurning = yearning
Illeagle = illegal
repreations = reparations
bare fruit = bear fruit (unless you dig naked bananas)
conclusion: GET A DICTIONARY!
Or is that you, Shrub?
Sioux Rose
ESTE: One or two words spelled incorrectly is one thing, but when a post is full of them it means the writer is just spouting opinions with no basis in materials read. People who take the time to educate themselves tend to recognize how words are spelled. I think it insults the quality of the forum to see posts that are carelessly written.
A lot of people here do not know the difference between its and it's. Or there and their, or except and accept, etc.
As a former English teacher, yeah, I care about that. And so do others in this forum.
For what it's worth, I think you were wrong as well. It's one thing to correct a person's spelling, but it was uncalled for to do it in such a nasty way.
I enjoyed 76-water's post, misspellings and all.
Dear Mr. Koehler,
Thank you for your very thoughtful expression here- that shows your own heart and mindful inclinations - to build commuity and to exchange ideas, as well as actions and outreach. We are not on this Ship of Satate alone; others do influence us - be it Dennis Kucinich, or the USCCB. for good or ill. At each of those small steps on the road to Hope though we do make a decision
for our in/actions, and so goes the journey. Let us all become more aware at each step, and more accepting of the daunting work, that may never be complete, and more prone to do the action that we are each capable of, whatever that may be, to benefit ourselves and others equally. The video of Chris Hedges at UTS' James Chapel yesterday - one of the outcomes of that early April Conference at the Riverside Church, and is worth a listen. Try ICH as a source. Gracias!
Love/peace/struggle, Elizabeth/ny
whatever our individual abilities, capacities and from them "willingness" - whatever we each can do for the right thing that we know if we ask ourselves about things that we can easily recognize are common to all humanity...kindness, generosity, fairness...etc...
every little bit counts.
after all -- if it's through the "decisions" of individuals given power by "many individuals" to bring war and ruin, or cause cruelty, it's also through the "decisions" of individuals to bring good.
A favorite moment of mine from that famous Trilogy book -- "lord of the rings" by JRR Tolkien - turned into that blockbuster trilogy of movies a few years back -- depicts the "Fellowship of the Ring" being lost in the deep caves and mines of Moria - that was abandoned by Dwarves after it was overrun by the "forces of Evil"...
Frodo - the young Hero Hobbit tasked with carrying the dreadful and Corruptingly overpowering "ring of power" to throw it into the volcano where it was created to its undoing , and therefore Sauron the owner's Evil rule over the lands - noticed in the dark caves that "something" was following them...and told this to the Wizard Gandalf..
and gandalf said it was the once-hobbit GOLLUM who long ago was overpowered by the Ring and consumed by his desire and hatred for it, having lived 500 hundred years of "evil" starting with his murdering his friend that found it in the river.
and of course it was the start of the "finding" of the ring in this trilogy that Sauron was seeking to regain his complete powers against wchih there would be NO safety forever.
SO Frodo remarked about Gollum:
"I wish the ring had never been found...i wish it had never come to me...how I hate it, and Gollum , how i detest him and what a VILE creature he is ...he Deserves DEATH..I wish my Uncle Bilbo stabbed him in the dark when he had the power and chance to do so and escaped..I have no PITY for him"....
so Gandalf told Frodo:
"Death? who can give it? not even the wise can tell ...but your Uncle Bilbo - who had the power to give death to Gollum, who may have deserved it, nevertheless stayed his hand. he would not strike at the back of a creature so undone..my heart tells me that Gollum has yet a part to play before all is over....and in the end, your uncle bilbo's PITY will have decided our Fates".
(in the end of course, it was indeed the lust and cleverness of Gollum that allowed him to recover the ring and in that insanity fell to his death in the volcano and with it the destruction of the Ring...and Sauron and his Evil and indeed it was the 'pity of bilbo' - a "small" act of kindness that decided their Fates).
basically - it is about the actions of "small people" ...
but something else the Wizard Gandalf told Frodo:
"we can not tell what is to be ...not even the wise can see that...but what we CAN do is use whatever TIME WE have to do OUR part".
the Gazillionaires who are not satisfied with their wealth and power do THEIR part with what time THEY have....
OURS is our part to do OURS with what time WE have.
just as Bilbo, Gandalf, the Hobbits, the Elves, Frodo did with theirs....even in the face of so much evil.
every little thing counts.
"every little thing counts."
In the world of fairy tales and myths and Hobbits, perhaps, where "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." But remember that only happens AFTER the "second coming" of Jesus Christ and the Xian evangelists have a whole catalog of calamities surrounding that blessed event.
For now, the destruction of the Ring seems a long way off. The actual geopolitical world has evolved (devolved?) to the point where only power counts, and as Chairman Mao famously said, "all power comes from the barrel of a gun." The U.S. is at least equally determined to prove his point in spades.
Fantasy is of course fantasy.. storytelling only.
and so was the Play by Shakespeare of the "merchant of venice" which was partly about the early banking and mercantile industries..which we NOW are talking about on a global scale..and
in our discussions and other people across the globe confront MUST BE CHANGED as a reality...where small people seek to act.
but in them , when well-told, are also reflections on lessons we could teach ourselves to help ourselves towards a better reality.
it's also of course the fantasy of would-be-dominators to use violence - from which they of course derive power - and that's the reality of our situation.
BUT there are those among us who always believe that it does NOT have to be so.
that is the difference between the reality we so far live with, and what we hope we can do.
is that not in itself the very reason why we have ANY right to exist at all or ....even have a civilization?
what are all these "elections" - these "democracies" - these discussions about "reform", about not making war, about people moving for changes in how we perceive , live and treat the environment?
it is because many countless people on the planet do not want to live UNDER that violence reality. is that a "fantasy?"
if so - Martin Luther King, Jr - who was real, lived and died...
lived a fantasy.
then we should stop - and let violence consume us.
if we did that -- we have no right to call ourselves civilized.
if so - as Albert Einstein related : (I paraphrase)
"i happened to have a discussion with an old friend..and I expressed to him my growing concern about how we have merely advanced in our violence...and what might or need to be done if we are not to exterminate ourselves...he gave me his often quizzical answer, which gave me pause:
'why are you so concerned that we , the human species SHOULD survive?' "
is that how we should treat "reality" or where we should go?
we should even go back to what Martin Luther King said...
"I must with great shame and sadness say that the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own country and government".
THAT IS REALITY -- yet it did not stop him to meet his death SAYING it because he believed that there is another way...ANOTHER REALITY...NOT that which Mao summed up from what until now is our reality.
evne MAO - correctly - having said that power comes at the point of a gun - was merely intoning what we ALL KNOW to be the case, and "gunned down" Martin Luther King, JR...
but that did not mean MAO or KING, JR. believe IT OUGHT to be our destiny. they simply were saying that that was the CASE with what humanity has done...but in their different approaches - what humanity should aspire to get away from and create a better reality.
that is our task, isn't it?
or else - we ARE barbarians and worse than beasts and don't deserve to even be talking right now.
in fact if we are just going to lie down and "take it" - and BE part of the violence - we might as well tell Reilly and others that try as well as ourselves :
"let's just PAAAARRRRTTTTTYYYYYY- buy guns, eat hamburgers as much as we want....steal, lie, anyway - this is a violent world....and we die tomorrow ..at least we have gotten what's coming to us in our VIOLENT REALITY and help MAKE it so..and oh....let's bomb iran along the way..let's have some more unemployment and we'll just grab what we can from stores anytime we want...let's also just urinate whereever we want, and sell piss and pass it off as orange juice".