Sunday, March 22, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Where We're At Today
Some people might know about us or remember the news clips from last year when we got arrested for the action, but here's a run down of what happened for people who forgot/never heard of us.
Last year, on March 23rd (Easter Sunday), the six of us got dressed up in fancy clothes and went to the Easter Mass at the Holy Name Cathedral here in Chicago. We interrupted the homily of Cardinal Francis George with a little message and a staged "die-in". Basically, we wanted to cause a scene and interrupt a status-quo celebration. I'm sorry if people think that it was rude, but I see our country in a state of confusion and mass amnesia, committing or at least allowing the country to commit genocide by not trying to stop it. So even if you are religious, do you think Jesus would think you were all that great if you went to mass every Easter but didn't do anything to stop your government from slaughtering innocent people in another country? All we wanted to do with the action was to try to wake people up and remind them that the United States government and its hired mercenaries have killed OVER 1 MILLION PEOPLE during the invasion of Iraq. It's fucked up, but people seem to just accept it at this point.
So why Holy Name Cathedral on Easter? A lot of people asked us this. Well, first off, Cardinal George met with Mayor Daley and George W. Bush in January 2008 and we just wanted to let the parishioners of that church know about this - that their religious leader was okay with having a civil meal with a war criminal (who, I hope, will see his day in Nuremburg). We just wanted them to get to know this hidden fact so they could think about that while they listened to Cardinal George speak in the future. Perhaps we could even get him to publicly denounce the war (didn't happen, unfortunately). Also, I personally feel like any religious leader is a fraud if they are not constantly speaking out about injustices like this.
Secondly, Easter was very close to the 5th anniversary of the war last year and we wanted to do something spectacular, in the vein of the Situationists, perhaps, to remind people that we should be outraged and using our outrage to disrupt the status-quo until things like this racist war end. We knew there would be a lot of cameras already there and we exploited this opportunity, quite splendidly. It seemed disrespectful to a lot of people, but our action got more press than a march a few days before that had tens of thousands of people. So how could six young people who dared to be "disrespectful" get more attention than such a large march? It seems to me that we found a weakness in the logic of protests that is already obvious to some; if you don't actually stand up and challenge the foundation of a murderous system, then you won't be heard.
Anyway, because of the effectiveness of our action in getting publicity, we were slammed pretty hard in court. Although we intended no damage to the church's carpet, we were charged under a felony law meant to punish people who try to burn churches. The sentence incurred 3-5 years in prison. We ended up playing it safe and pleading to a misdemeanor charge (attempted defacement of property). Part of the plea was that we had to pay a restitution to the church before we would be sentenced. We didn't think we would be able to afford it, but an amazing couple from the CPT that had been going to all our court dates fronted us the money. We still owe them $12,000 which we are paying off slowly. This is part of the reason that we have a blog now, to try to raise money to pay them back. They are too nice for us to not try to do everything we can to pay them back.
So here are some things we're trying to do to raise money:
-A local Chicago artist made posters for us depicting the action which I will put up on this blog shortly for sale.
-I also wrote an essay about the action and spending a couple of days in the Cook County jail which I will be putting out as a zine and selling here.
Also, I still have the shirt I wore from the action, still soaked in the fake blood from the action. I am going to frame it and send it to the first person that donates more than $500 to our fund to pay of the people that loaned us the restitution money.
Keep an eye out for the zine and the poster on here. If you have any questions or would like to book us for a speaking event, email us at:
holyname6@riseup.net
Keep struggling everyone! A million thanks to everyone who helped us get through this. Especially our lawyers at the NLG, all the amazing people at the 8th Day Center for Justice, the Catholic Worker House here in Chicago, Barb and Dave, Rosalie, Kevin, Kathy and everyone at Voices, and everyone else who donated time, money or friendship to us. Of course, a special thanks to all of our friends who took time out of their busy lives to keep us calm through all of this. Also, thank you to everyone who continues with the resistance to wars! And everyone who took the time to understand why we did that action. It was guided by love.
Thanks!
http://chicago.indymedia.org/feature/display/70337/index.php
Last year, on March 23rd (Easter Sunday), the six of us got dressed up in fancy clothes and went to the Easter Mass at the Holy Name Cathedral here in Chicago. We interrupted the homily of Cardinal Francis George with a little message and a staged "die-in". Basically, we wanted to cause a scene and interrupt a status-quo celebration. I'm sorry if people think that it was rude, but I see our country in a state of confusion and mass amnesia, committing or at least allowing the country to commit genocide by not trying to stop it. So even if you are religious, do you think Jesus would think you were all that great if you went to mass every Easter but didn't do anything to stop your government from slaughtering innocent people in another country? All we wanted to do with the action was to try to wake people up and remind them that the United States government and its hired mercenaries have killed OVER 1 MILLION PEOPLE during the invasion of Iraq. It's fucked up, but people seem to just accept it at this point.
So why Holy Name Cathedral on Easter? A lot of people asked us this. Well, first off, Cardinal George met with Mayor Daley and George W. Bush in January 2008 and we just wanted to let the parishioners of that church know about this - that their religious leader was okay with having a civil meal with a war criminal (who, I hope, will see his day in Nuremburg). We just wanted them to get to know this hidden fact so they could think about that while they listened to Cardinal George speak in the future. Perhaps we could even get him to publicly denounce the war (didn't happen, unfortunately). Also, I personally feel like any religious leader is a fraud if they are not constantly speaking out about injustices like this.
Secondly, Easter was very close to the 5th anniversary of the war last year and we wanted to do something spectacular, in the vein of the Situationists, perhaps, to remind people that we should be outraged and using our outrage to disrupt the status-quo until things like this racist war end. We knew there would be a lot of cameras already there and we exploited this opportunity, quite splendidly. It seemed disrespectful to a lot of people, but our action got more press than a march a few days before that had tens of thousands of people. So how could six young people who dared to be "disrespectful" get more attention than such a large march? It seems to me that we found a weakness in the logic of protests that is already obvious to some; if you don't actually stand up and challenge the foundation of a murderous system, then you won't be heard.
Anyway, because of the effectiveness of our action in getting publicity, we were slammed pretty hard in court. Although we intended no damage to the church's carpet, we were charged under a felony law meant to punish people who try to burn churches. The sentence incurred 3-5 years in prison. We ended up playing it safe and pleading to a misdemeanor charge (attempted defacement of property). Part of the plea was that we had to pay a restitution to the church before we would be sentenced. We didn't think we would be able to afford it, but an amazing couple from the CPT that had been going to all our court dates fronted us the money. We still owe them $12,000 which we are paying off slowly. This is part of the reason that we have a blog now, to try to raise money to pay them back. They are too nice for us to not try to do everything we can to pay them back.
So here are some things we're trying to do to raise money:
-A local Chicago artist made posters for us depicting the action which I will put up on this blog shortly for sale.
-I also wrote an essay about the action and spending a couple of days in the Cook County jail which I will be putting out as a zine and selling here.
Also, I still have the shirt I wore from the action, still soaked in the fake blood from the action. I am going to frame it and send it to the first person that donates more than $500 to our fund to pay of the people that loaned us the restitution money.
Keep an eye out for the zine and the poster on here. If you have any questions or would like to book us for a speaking event, email us at:
holyname6@riseup.net
Keep struggling everyone! A million thanks to everyone who helped us get through this. Especially our lawyers at the NLG, all the amazing people at the 8th Day Center for Justice, the Catholic Worker House here in Chicago, Barb and Dave, Rosalie, Kevin, Kathy and everyone at Voices, and everyone else who donated time, money or friendship to us. Of course, a special thanks to all of our friends who took time out of their busy lives to keep us calm through all of this. Also, thank you to everyone who continues with the resistance to wars! And everyone who took the time to understand why we did that action. It was guided by love.
Thanks!
http://chicago.indymedia.org/feature/display/70337/index.php
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
