Showing posts with label protest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label protest. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

BLM: How to remedy "lack of care or compassion"? Free medical and dental clinics staffed by volunteers


New Portland, OR police chief Chuck Lovell points out on CBS News the "lack of care or compassion'' by the officers involved in killing George Floyd.
"When I watched the video of what happened to Mr. Floyd ... I remember the big takeaway I had ... it wasn't the tactics, it wasn't the number of officers who were there ... it was really the lack of care and compassion. The thought that this is an idea that could exist ... it almost felt like you're not important. To me, the fight is not with each other. The fight for all of us is against that idea that people, institutions, agencies ... can harbor that feeling and it has bad outcomes for people."
Lovell is right-on naming the root of racism and so many other -isms; it all comes down to harboring a lack of care or compassion in one's heart. 

How to change hearts? How to remedy harboring "lack of care or compassion" in people's hearts? 

Many spiritual teachings present tools for doing just that; it's sometimes called "The Golden Rule"--treat others as you would like to be treated. And sometimes we need a road map, a guidebook, an instruction manual for how to get from here to there.

History presents many examples to guide us, both negative and positive. U.S. history seems rife with negative examples of what happens when we harbor lack of care and compassion in our hearts (slavery, police brutality, wars of invasion and aggression, settler colonialism, strip mining, clear cutting old growth forests, massacring indigenous people, polluting industries, discrimination in all its forms, and on and on).

However, Portland history also presents examples of people uniting together with hearts brimming with care and compassion. 

One such example is the Free Medical and Dental Clinics founded and run by the Black Panthers and staffed by volunteer doctors and dentists from OHSU. 

(You can read all about this inspiring time in Lucas Burke and Judson Jeffries' book The Portland Black Panthers: Empowering Albina and Remaking a City.) 

Although Black Panther free medical and dental clinics were eventually destroyed by a series of decisions by Portland city officials and urban planners (whose hearts apparently harbored lack of care and compassion), now is the perfect time to start fresh. Here's one way.

OHSU, I'm talking to you. You can encourage dentists and doctors to once again volunteer to treat folks for free. In addition to studying the Black Panthers' Free Medical and Dental Clinics as a model of care and compassion, you can also emulate the volunteer-run Haight Ashbury Free Clinic

Founded in 1967, the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic's mission is "provide compassionate care regardless of anyone's ability to pay." It was the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic's volunteers who coined the now famous phrase, "Health care is a right, not a privilege." 

In conclusion, there are many ways (beyond a major restructuring of how police behave) we can nurture each other with hearts harboring care and compassion. One way is for volunteer doctors and dentists from OHSU to ASAP staff free medical and dental clinics in locations accessible for lots of Black folks and everyone. Follow the successful models of the former Portland Black Panthers', and current Haight-Ashbury, Free Clinics. Quickly establishing volunteer-staffed free medical and dental clinics is one of many ways to follow Portland's new police chief Chuck Lovell's implied advice to harbor care and compassion in our hearts. 


Saturday, September 30, 2017

Chanting to Thaw ICE

 
Surrounding ICE with compassion. Photo: John Davenport.
September 14, 2017 I stood on the sidewalk outside the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) headquarters at 4310 SW Macadam Ave, Portland, Oregon and chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for half an hour. I was the only chanting Buddhist in an interfaith action to protect people from being deported, to surround the ICE facility with compassion – to thaw ICE. As I stood there facing the brick wall, knowing the security cameras were pointed straight at me, I waved to them, then placed my hands in prayer position and chanted daimoku. An image rose up in my mind of Nichiren standing on a cliff looking out over the ocean on April 28, 1253, as he chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for the first time. The interfaith group told me I was the first chanting Buddhist to participate in their actions. I felt like I was continuing the transmission started by Nichiren over 700 years ago.
This action in Portland to thaw ICE happens at noon on the second Thursday of the month. A river of people streams in silent meditation around and around the building (consuming an entire city block) while holding signs. On each corner stands a person to ground the action with sound. Three corners each had a person with a prayer bell, chiming positive vibrations. On the fourth corner I stood, chanting with my whole being, as I stared at the brick wall of the ICE headquarters.
The bricks, like everything, are composed of the mystic nature of life, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which keeps electrons spinning in atoms, and galaxies twirling through the universe. I sensed the bricks softening and opening, like even the hardest of hearts. The words of Starhawk, author of the book Truth or Dare, telling how ritual resists and transforms hierarchical power-over structures, resonated with me: “Ritual can become free space, a hole torn in the fabric of domination … a bridge that brings through into the world of the everyday a sense of the sacred. And so the everyday changes, deepens, until the sacred, like an underground stream, wears away control from below” (p. 98). Truly, I felt like a bridge of daimoku, of sacredness, flowing like water, transforming all it touches.
As I chanted, exposed in public, scrutinized by Homeland Security cameras, I felt grounded, powerful as the universe. I cover the webcam on my laptop because it creeps me out to know a spy device is watching me in the privacy of my own home. However, as I stood facing that brick wall of ICE – chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo – all that fear, paranoia, even anguish evaporated.
Two uniformed men, one with a police dog on a leash, whose backs read “Homeland Security,” came out of the building and walked past me. I kept chanting, tuned in to our universal oneness of courage, compassion and wisdom. One man smiled at me and waved. I smiled and waved back as I continued chanting. After the action wrapped up, many silent walking meditators told me how powerful it felt to walk through the vibration of my chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
The marchers have already had some results: Trump has yielded on the immediate deportation of DACA. Next month another SGI member tells me she will join me chanting to thaw ICE, as the silent meditators walk around the headquarters in compassionate prayer. Maybe you can come join us, too! Or, if you live outside of Portland, Oregon, perhaps you can connect with a local interfaith group to thaw ICE in your town, or start your own group to thaw ICE. After all, we SGI members chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo because one person stood up alone and chanted for the first time.
For more information on thawing ICE, please contact the Portland hosts:

Sunday, October 25, 2015

What are U.S. Marines doing in Peru? / ¿Por que hay militares de EE.UU. en Perú?

Machu Picchu, Peru (photo ToddAdams.net)
[El castellano sigue el inglés]
There’s a theory that when U.S. mainstream news starts running stories about a foreign country, it’s because the U.S. is planning on invading that country. Since I’m a permanent resident of Bolivia, friends in the U.S. ask me what’s going on in the Andes.

They tell me that Peru has been mentioned many times recently in the U.S. news. In just the last day or so a lot of articles about Peru were in the U.S. press. Here’s a small sample: An article about food in Peru appeared in a Las Vegas newspaper. NPR reported on infant mortality in Peru. And the Washington Post ran a story about a corrupt Peruvian military official.

Friends ask me, is the U.S. preparing to invade Peru?

To try and answer their question I started asking around and keeping my eyes and ears open. At the People’s World Conference on Climate Change, which was held October 10-12 in Tiquipaya, Bolivia, I heard a Peruvian delegate say how distressing it is having U.S. soldiers in Peru.

U.S. military in Peru was news to me, so I searched online for articles. I found that, yes indeed, the U.S. has sent over 3,000 Marines to Peru, and the Peruvian people are marching in protest.
PeruProtestUSmilitary
Peruvians march in protest of 3,677 US Marines entering their country. 
Photo: teleSur / Rael Mora
News agency teleSUR correspondent Rael Mora suggests that the Marines may be in Peru to destabilize democratically elected presidents in the region (such as Evo Morales, the President of neighboring Bolivia).

The teleSUR article reported that protesters “drew attention to the history of U.S. military presence and its deadly consequences, including its involvement in massacres, torture, disappearances, and other human rights abuses. Many of Peru’s more than 70,000 disappearances during the country’s so-called ‘war on terror’ counter-insurgency strategy between 1980 and 2000 have been seen as part of the U.S.-backed Operation Condor, which saw dictatorships quash rebellious voices and leftist movements throughout the continent.”

US Marines train Peruvian military to suppress citizens
US Marines train Peruvian military to suppress citizens 
(Photo: Rob Curtis/Staff, Marine Corps Times)


The Spanish language website defensa.com, dedicated to “Armies, weapons, technology on the web,” ran a lengthy article describing the movements of the U.S. Marines in Peru.

The Marine Corps Times says that U.S. Marines are training Peruvian military to violently suppress the Shining Path, citizens who have a different vision for the people than their government does, yet have used violence in pursuit of their goals, like their government. However, a 2012 Reuter’s article reports that the Shining Path has changed its violent ways and is instead using theatre and school clubs to build solidarity among people who are harmed by neoliberal policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Members of the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (Movadef, the political arm of Shining Path) perform a theatre play in Lima August 9, 2012. 
Photo: Reuters/Vera Lentz
The article reveals that “security documents reviewed by Reuters show the armed forces think Movadef (the political arm of Shining Path) and leftist groups have stepped up protests to sow disorder as part of a ‘common goal: vacating the presidency through a coup by the masses,’ like demonstrations that brought down leaders in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina over the last decade.”

Will U.S. news soon be filled with stories comparing the Shining Path to Isis, as an excuse to wage war in the land of Machu Picchu?

Do the U.S. Marines in Peru have any connection to protecting the business interests of MMG’s gigantic Las Bambas mine in Peru, to open in 2016 despite protests that left four dead and 16 seriously injured last month?
The mine, located at 4,000 metres in the south of Peru, is set to deliver 400,000 tons of copper per year during the first five years of production placing it within the top three copper mines globally (mining.com).
The mine, located at 4,000 metres in the south of Peru, is set to deliver 400,000 tons of 
copper per year during the first five years of production placing it within the 
top three copper mines globally (mining.com).

Time will tell.

First published as Editor's Pick "What are U.S. Marines doing in Peru?" on blogcritics.org

***

¿Por que hay militares EE.UU. en Perú?

Machu Picchu, Perú (foto ToddAdams.net)

Hay una teoría de que cuando las noticias principales en los Estados Unidos empiezan a publicar artículos sobre un país extranjero, es porque los EE.UU. están planeando invadir ese país. Por que soy un residente permanente de Bolivia, amigos en los EE.UU. me preguntan lo que está pasando en los Andes.

Me dicen que el Perú ha sido mencionado muchas veces recientemente en las noticias de Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo, en el último día salió una gran cantidad de artículos sobre Perú en la prensa estadounidense. Aquí esta una pequeña muestra: Un artículo sobre la comida  en el Perú apareció en un periódico de Las Vegas. NPR informó sobre la mortalidad infantíl en el Perú. Y el Washington Post publicó una historia acerca de un oficial militar peruana corrupta.

Los amigos me preguntan, ¿los EE.UU. estan preparando para invadir Perú?

Para tratar de responder a la pregunta, yo empecé a mantener los ojos y los oídos abiertos. En la Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre el Cambio Climático, 10-12 octubre 2015 en Tiquipaya, Bolivia, oí una delegada peruana decir lo doloroso que es tener los soldados estadounidenses en el Perú.

Militares estadounidenses en el Perú era una sorpresa para mí, así que buscó en línea para artículos. Me encontré que los EE.UU. han enviado más de 3.000 soldados al Perú, y el pueblo peruano esta marchando en protesta.
Peruanos marchan en protesta por 3.677 militares estadounidenses que entran en su país. Foto: teleSUR / Rael Mora
Agencias de noticias teleSUR corresponsal Rael Mora sugiere que los militares estadounidenses  pueden estar en Perú para desestabilizar presidentes elegidos democráticamente en la región (como Evo Morales, el Presidente de Bolivia).

El artículo teleSUR informó que los manifestantes "llamaron la atención sobre la historia de la presencia militar estadounidense y sus consecuencias mortales, incluyendo su participación en masacres, torturas, desapariciones y otros abusos contra los derechos humanos. Muchos de más de 70.000 desapariciones en el Perú durante la llamada "guerra contra el terror" la estrategia de contrainsurgencia del país entre 1980 y 2000 han sido vistos como parte de la Operación Cóndor, respaldo de Estados Unidos, que vieron dictaduras acallar voces rebeldes y movimientos de izquierda de todo el continente ".
Militares estadounidenses entrenan a militares peruanos para atacar los ciudadanos (Foto: Rob Curtis / Personal, Marine Corps Times)



El sitio web en español defensa.com, dedicada a "Los ejércitos, las armas, la tecnología en la web," corrió un largo artículo que describe los movimientos de los infantes de marina de Estados Unidos en el Perú.

El Marine Corps Times dice que los marines estadounidenses están entrenando militares peruanos para reprimir violentamente a Sendero Luminoso, los ciudadanos que tienen una visión diferente para la gente que su gobierno, y han utilizado la violencia para alcanzar sus objetivos, al igual de su gobierno. Sin embargo, el artículo 2.012 de la Reuter informa que Sendero Luminoso ha cambiado sus maneras violentas y en su lugar se utiliza el teatro y clubes universitarias para construir la solidaridad entre las personas que sufren por las políticas neoliberales que hacen los ricos más ricos y los pobres más pobres.
Miembros del Movimiento a la Amnistía y Derechos Fundamentales (Movadef, la brasa política del Sendero Luminosa) presentan una obra del teatro en Lima 9 de agosto 2012.
Foto: Reuters/Vera Lentz 
El artículo revela que los "documentos de seguridad revisados por Reuters muestran las fuerzas armadas piensan Movadef (el brazo político del Sendero Luminoso) y los grupos de izquierda han intensificado las protestas para sembrar el desorden, como parte de un objetivo común: la desocupación de la presidencia mediante un golpe de Estado por el masas como manifestaciones que provocaron la caída de los líderes en Ecuador, Bolivia y Argentina en la última década".

¿Van a llenar pronto las noticias estadounidenses con artículos que comparan Sendero Luminoso a Isis, como una excusa hacer la guerra en la tierra de Machu Picchu?

¿Los militares de los Estados Unidos en Perú tiene alguna conexión con la protección de los intereses comerciales de gigantesca mina Las Bambas de MMG en el Perú, para abrir en 2016 pese a las protestas que dejaron cuatro muertos y 16 heridos graves el mes pasado?
La mina, ubicada a 4.000 metros en el sur de Perú, está configurado para entregar 400.000 toneladas de cobre por año durante los primeros cinco años de producción colocándolo dentro de los tres principales minas de cobre a nivel mundial (mining.com).

El tiempo dirá.