Patriot or Terrorist: You Decide

Yesterday we wrote about Desiree Farooz and Code Pink, an organization dedicated to restoring sanity in our Nation's Capitol.

These courageous women continue to stage outrageous protests in the halls of Congress, interrupting hearings and speeches, pulling the masks off of false patriots and tearing down the "decorations" of democracy.

Recently, a commenter on one of our blogs wrote this about Farooz confronting Secretary Rice:

"In our society, people like Desiree Farooz are not helping to get the appropriate messages across. People tend to look as people like that "crazy" or "deranged" and will dismiss it. There are more appropriate and assertive ways to get her message across. I do not think her actions were courageous at all but more inappropriate and already forgotten. She did not get her message across effectively to everyone sitting in that room. The other people in the video are not appropriate either. I work with families and children in expressing themselves in effective manners so they can make a difference. These videos show people who are out of control and unable to stand up and REALLY fight for what they want. To me, that is truly disheartening."

An article in today's RainbowZine reminds us that:

"The true patriots are not defined by their enthusiasm for the victories of American militarists, but by their devotion to those principles for which –as we declare every Memorial Day– so many Americans have laid down their lives: principles of limited government, human rights, and the rule of law.

The true patriots are not those who wrap themselves in the banner descended from what Betsy Ross sewed, but those who carry forth that “Spirit of ‘76″ enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the spirit that made our forebears willing –in the name of liberty and of the proposition that governments are instituted to serve the people and derive their just powers from the people’s consent–to put their lives on the line."

Have modern Americans come to believe the American Revolutionaries (aka our founding "fathers") were nothing more than quaint, polite old men in white wigs who practiced non-violence and used Roberts Rules of Order to debate control of the American Colonies from the British?

After a little more than two hundred years, Americans have become so complacent that we simply cannot see the fascism that is brewing right under our noses.

Is the necessary result of all of these years of "freedom" and "democracy" (the quotes are a reminder that although we have had the dream, the ideals have not yet come to pass) have created a country full of people who no longer recognize their duty as citizens to hold elected officials to account?

These radical times call for radical action and most American's are either blind, ignorant or brainwashed about the history of this country and the sacrifices that were made to get and keep it.

In the words (again) of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr:

"Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."

The decision to participate or not in the General Strike scheduled for November 6, 2007, is each of ours to make.

For us, it all comes down to the old adage, "one person's terrorist is another person's patriot."

We happen to believe Farooz and the women of Code Pink are patriots and we only hope to be as courageous as they have been.