Every bombed village is my hometown. And every dead child is my child. Every grieving mother is my mother. Every crying father is my father. Every home turned to rubble is the home I grew up in. Every brother carrying the remains of his brother across borders is my brother. Every sister waiting for a sister who will never come home is my sister. Every one of these people is ours, just like we are theirs. We belong to them, and they belong to us.”
— James Baldwin
It is paradoxical that during this time when I’ve been working on concepts for a just future, this country has been increasingly expanding its toxic politics and military might both around the world, and within our domestic society. There is a pervasive sense that it is all falling apart. Or it is the coming/ongoing collapse that is driving my work today.
Over the past several years I’ve been praying and doing research to try to understand how things have gone so wrong.
I’ve learned from Indigenous friends and experiences, the depth of the trauma that occurred, and continues to occur, as a result of the settler-colonization of their lands.
I’ve tried to understand how my faith community, Quakers, lost their/our way. I never will understand how it is possible to believe there is that of God in everyone and everything, and then be deeply involved in the dehumanization, the cultural and literal genocide, the damage and deaths of Native children and communities. Black and brown children and their communities.
The masks have come off to expose the extreme ugliness and depth of devastation of the capitalist system and its increasingly violent enforcement. Fundamental freedoms no longer exist. Freedoms which were essentially only applied for the dominate class in any case.
One of the most difficult things for Friends to accept is that we can no longer even have the illusion that our lobbying efforts are effective, as they once were. This is important because we only have so much energy, and I believe it should not be spent trying to tweak a fundamentally unjust system.
Some time ago I was searching for how to respond to these systems of injustice we are all embedded in. I was reminded of how I responded to another system of injustice I was confronted with, the Selective Service System (the draft). For the sake of my parents I tried to fit myself into the constraints of conscientious objector status.
But I couldn’t do it. I would have still been complicit in the systems of war. So I turned in my draft cards.
I thought back to that time, and realized I was, we all were, embedded in systems of injustice. I was led to the concepts of the current economic draft. The economic draft conscripts us to work in jobs that don’t reflect our values by the threats of the loss of healthcare associated with the job, of the requirement of a large income to pay off student debt. Or the poverty draft of targeting young men who don’t have good job prospects.
Were there ways we could conscientious object to the economic draft?
During these time of seeking, I’m grateful that a Quaker friend challenged us (Quakers) to remain faithful to the command to “resist not evil.” That concept was brought up to me by another Quaker back in the days of my struggles during the Vietnam War. I realized then, but had forgotten, how important that admonition was. Resistance legitimizes the unjust systems and absorbs you attention and energy. You cannot make progress toward justice while you remain embedded in the systems of injustice.
That history of conscientious objection and non-cooperation with the draft led me to the concept of active objection. Active objection turns our focus and energy towards systems of justice. To focus on Mutual Aid, LANDBACK, and replacing carceral systems with systems of community care, instead. To the concept of the NewCO (New Conscientious Objector). Which I will continue to write about on this blog.
