Protests
April 28, 2024
A long time ago, President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the vast and ever expanding political dominance of the Military/Industrial Complex. Yet, it has become a worldwide, ever expanding phenomenon — even escaping the bonds of Earth and escaping into Outer Space…
The Bible says that after one Judgement Day, weapons will be remanufactured into farm Equipment… But until that Day…
Historically, “Demonstrations can promote a viewpoint (either positive or negative) regarding a public issue, especially relating to a perceived grievance or social injustice. A demonstration is usually considered more successful if more people participate.” — https://en.wikipedia.org
Public demonstrations have been a necessary function of democratic movements promoting peaceful resolution of Society’s injustices. So, please, do not twist my words, thinking that I am against public protests.
Before computers and social media platforms existed, protesters had to leave the safety and security of their homes and gather in groups to publicly give voice to their Cause.
That process was never welcomed by kings and dictators and the established socio-political mechanisms maintaining power over groups of people who were subjugated by such overlords. The multiplication of gulags, prisons, torture, gallows poles, poisonings, and re-education camps are evidence of governments’ methods for dealing with dissent.
Maintaining the status quo in democracies and liberal monarchies is usually less oppressive, even at times, tolerated. Yet, public protests are often suppressed by heavy-handed policing and arrests.
It seems oppression is a matter of degrees — the tolerance level of the powers that be…
Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, the public protests in America multiplied in many segments of Society, and they accumulated intensity, depending on the historical weight of the cause.
The heaviest causes were Civil Rights and Anti War. The extremes in intensity were illustrated by the first Woodstock Festival, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and the “Bloody Sunday” Civil Rights March…
The intensity ranged from Woodstock (“3 days of fun and music and nothing but 3 days of fun and music.” Max Yasgur, 1969) to the Democratic Convention (The protests lasted approximately seven days, from August 23 to August 29, 1968.) and Bloody Sunday (Some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas… March 7, 1965.)
Now, today’s socio-political demonstrations on college campuses seem a bit different in a way. They seem to be a mixed bag, and I think they have a racial/religious prejudicial element which detracts from the Cause. Dr. Martin Luther King led peaceful protests for civil rights that were for people and not against any person or people or religion and their right to exist, but against social injustices by one dominating group against another. Again, they did not challenge anybody’s right to exist.
So, I am a bit conflicted in my mind about the current campus protests, and I don’t want to be presumptuous…
The anti war demonstrations were against political oppression by the methods of war and not for one group hating another and neither for contending their right to exist! I’ll say it again, “Everybody has the right to exist!”
The lightest demonstration, called a music festival, was exactly that, a demonstration of an alternate method of living life in peaceful coexistence which could answer the perennial question, “Why can’t we all just get along?” Of course, it all evaporated as most pipedreams do…
What is happening in the Middle East, the Ukraine, as examples, are terrible, the lives lost, especially of innocent women and children, is horrific. “This is, in numbers, the most affected region: more than 45 armed conflicts are currently taking place throughout the Middle East and North Africa in the following territories: Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Western Sahara.” — http/geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts
My two dissenting questions are:
- “Who started this War in Gaza in the first place?” and
- “Is so-called “genocide” an ugly, unfortunate circumstance of all wars?”
In other words, are the horrific precipitates and terrible consequences of this War any different from any other War in History? And does it matter at all in the Face of Eternity who fired the first damn shot?!?
My opinionated answers are, “No.” and “No.”
So, then, please, allow me to shift course, back towards my North Star…
Signs of the End of the Age — Matthew 24, Berean Standard Bible:
“For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” — https://biblehub.com/matthew/24
I should think that today just might be the right time for us to consider getting God, Jesus, and the Bible back into our Christianity, and generally speaking, for everyone, to start to rethread righteousness back into Society, to start working to weave a kind of Grand Quilt, a life of transcendent Values and Peace with our neighbors.
(Don’t we humans make this virtuous Culture seem so difficult to accomplish?)
Yet, I am convinced that the Bible can show us how to accomplish that in a way the World could never and can never do — no matter how hard people try to make Life work… Although I can appreciate peoples’ efforts, history teaches us over and over again that the best Humanity can do, at best, is to build a shaky foundation which eventually collapses… Empires, Kingdoms, Governments, and Nations all rise and fall and disappear into the dust storm of time… and these days the ground underneath is slowly eroding away as we continue to slide down the cliffs and into a sea of naught.
However, as the scripture says, everyone who calls out to the Lord for help and rescue will be rescued and saved.” — Romans 10:13 (my paraphrase).
Try reaching out to Jesus;
He’s reaching out for you!
