“The nonviolent philosophy of clinic escorts - Feministing” plus 3 more |
- The nonviolent philosophy of clinic escorts - Feministing
- Home Spirituality Philosophy Did God Speak at Sinai? - Aish
- Art, Film and Philosophy - My North.com
- Bucknell series to examine 'Avatar' and ecology - Bucknell University
| The nonviolent philosophy of clinic escorts - Feministing Posted: 01 Feb 2010 07:19 AM PST After reading some of my recent posts about clinic escorting Aspen Baker emailed me asking for more focus on the nonviolent philosophy behind escorting. Aspen, Founder and Executive Director of Exhale, is an inspiration in the way she brings philosophies of peace to reproductive justice organizing. In her writing Aspen argues the abortion debate has become a polarized war of ideology and politics that has little relationship to the lived experience of abortion. To bring peace to this conflict and break out of this debate, Aspen advocates basing our work around the voices, experiences, and needs of women who have actually had abortions. This "pro-voice" philosophy is very much connected to my thinking around the nonviolent approach of clinic escorts. The atmosphere outside reproductive health clinics when antis are present is tense. The threat of physical violence is always present, and verbal harassment is all but guaranteed. Many antis are obvious in their attempts to engage escorts in debate - they'd love to piss us off, get us angry, and get a chance to spew their rhetoric in a verbal battle with someone on the opposite side of the abortion war. They want the outside of the clinic to have a toxic atmosphere (er, I mean, be a space "full of saints and angels") that gets in the way of women accessing abortion. As an escort in the DC area I have agreed to WACDTF's nonviolence policy. When escorts make a commitment to nonviolence we are deliberately deciding not to engage with antis in the way they want. We recognize that fighting with them does nothing to help women access reproductive health care, and instead contributes to making reproductive health clinics frightening or even dangerous to access. When we practice nonviolence we are refusing to engage on the antis' terms. Our goal is to de-escalate the situation outside the clinic so women can access reproductive health services. Sometimes we have to step in to stop physical clashes between antis and patients, those accompanying patients, and passers by on the street. We wouldn't be able to do this if we engaged with the antis on their terms. We are trying to create a space free of conflict, and thus our work needs to be grounded in nonviolence. Nonviolence connects us to a history of struggles for justice. It is a way to step outside conflict as the framework of a debate and model a different approach. It also gives us the tools to do the necessary work instead of get distracted by a conflict that's not actually about the needs of real people. When met with nonviolence those behaving violently (verbally or physically) are often at a loss. It doesn't match their expectations and doesn't engage with them on their own terms so it throws them off and, if they're actually interested in a productive outcome, makes them behave differently. At the very least it keeps antis outside clinics from getting to define that space on their own terms. Nonviolence is a tool to model a different approach to abortion. I don't want to be locked in a fruitless debate - I want women to be able to access reproductive health services, including abortion, without coming up against barriers. The abortion wars do nothing to help create this reality, and in fact get in the way of realizing reproductive freedom. Nonviolent clinic escorts are simultaneously dealing with a sad reality by working to help individual women access abortion and living an approach to abortion that represents our vision for a world where abortion is not understood through a violent conflict that has little to do with actual women's health care. 0 TrackBacksListed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: The nonviolent philosophy of clinic escorts. TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/17912 13 CommentsFive Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Home Spirituality Philosophy Did God Speak at Sinai? - Aish Posted: 01 Feb 2010 08:02 AM PST Who did God give the Torah to at Mount Sinai? Most people reply, "God gave the Torah to Moses." And what were the Jewish people doing while Moses was receiving the Torah? "Worshipping the Golden Calf." Correct answers –- but NOT according to the Bible. The above answers come from Cecil B. DeMille's classic film, "The Ten Commandments." Amazing the impact one movie can have on the Jewish education of generations of Jews. It's a great film, but DeMille should have read the original. The version found in the Torah is quite different. The Torah's claim is that the entire people heard God speak at Mount Sinai, experiencing national revelation. God did not just appear to Moses in a private rendezvous; He appeared to everyone, some 3 million people. This claim is mentioned many times in the Torah.
The Torah claims that the entire Jewish nation heard God speak at Sinai, an assertion that has been accepted as part of their nation's history for over 3,000 years. DeMille's mistake is such a big deal because the Jewish claim of national revelation, as opposed to individual revelation, is the central defining event that makes Judaism different than every other religion in the world. How so?
HISTORY AND LEGENDS Two types of stories are part of any national heritage. The first kind is legends. Included in this category is George Washington's admission to chopping down the cherry tree, along with his statement, "I cannot tell a lie." Johnny Appleseed planting apple trees across America with his discarded apple cores is another legend. Then there is history. For example, George Washington was the first president of the United States. William the Conqueror led the Battle of Hastings in 1066 in which Harold, King of England, was killed. The Jews of Spain were expelled from their country in 1492, the year Christopher Columbus set sail. What is the difference between legend and history? A legend is an unverified story. By their very nature legends are unverifiable because they have very few eyewitnesses. Perhaps little George did chop down the cherry tree. We can't know if it happened. This does not mean that the legend is necessarily false, only that it is unverifiable. No one thinks legends are facts, therefore they are not accepted as reliable history. History, however, is comprised of events we know actually happened. It is reliable because we can determine if the claimed event is true or false through a number of ways. One key to verification is the assertion that large numbers of eyewitnesses observed the specific event. Why is the number of claimed original witnesses a principal determining factor in making historical accounts reliable? This can be understood through looking at the nature of the following series of claims and weighing their levels of credibility. The nature of the claim itself can often determine its degree of believability.
THE BELIEVABILITY GAME Gauge the level of credibility of the following scenarios. Some claims are inherently unverifiable. For example, would you believe me if I told you the following: Scenario #1:
Believable? In theory this could have happened. It doesn't seem likely, but you don't know I'm lying. Would you choose to believe me? Without any substantiating evidence, why choose to believe me? A foolish move, indeed. Scenario #2: Would you believe me if I told you the following:
Believable? This could have happened too. If I were to bring in my family to confirm the story it would be more believable than the first story. You certainly don't know if I'm lying. Would you believe me? Would you fork over $10,000 dollars if I told you God commanded you to do so? No way. There is still not enough evidence to trust my claim -- because it is very possible that my family is lying. Scenario #3: There is another type of claim that you can know is false. For example, would you believe me if I told you this:
Is this believable? This kind of claim is completely different. The two previous scenarios at least had the possibility of being true. You chose not to accept them because they were unverifiable. However this third scenario is impossible to believe. I'm claiming something happened to you that you know did not happen. Since you didn't experience it, you know I'm lying. I cannot convince you of something that you yourself know didn't happen. I cannot convince you of something that you yourself know didn't happen. This first type of claim -- that something happened to someone else -- is unverifiable, because you do not know for certain that the claim is a lie. Therefore it is possible for a person to decide to accept the claim as true if he really wanted to and take that leap of faith. However, the other type of claim -- that something happened to you -- you know if it is inherently false. People do not accept patently false assertions, especially those that carry significant consequences.
SINAI: AN IMPOSSIBLE HOAX So far we have seen two types of claims -- one is unverifiable and the other is inherently false. Could the revelation at Sinai have been a brilliant hoax, duping millions of people into believing that God spoke to them? Let's imagine the scene. Moses comes down the mountain and claims, "We all today heard God speak, all of you heard the God's voice from the fire..." Assuming Moses is making it up, how would the people respond to his story?
If the revelation at Sinai did not occur, then Moses is claiming an event everyone immediately knows is an outright lie, since they know that they never heard God speak. It is preposterous to think Moses can get away with a claim that everyone knows is lie.
REVELATION CLAIMED LATER IN HISTORY Perhaps a hoax such as this could have been attempted at a later period in history. Perhaps the claim of national revelation did not originate at Sinai, but began, for example, 1,000 years after the event was said to have occurred. Perhaps the leader Ezra, for example, appears on the scene, introducing a book purported to be written by God and given to a people who stood at Sinai a long time ago. Could someone get away with this kind of hoax? For example, would you believe the following:
Is there a possibility that I'm telling the truth? Do you know for a fact that it is a lie? After all, it happened so long ago, how do you know it didn't happen? Maybe you learned about in school and just forgot about it. You know North America did not sink hundreds of years ago for one simple reason: If it did, you would have heard about it. An event so unique and amazing, witnessed by multitudes of people would have been known, discussed, and passed down, becoming a part of history. The fact that no one has heard of it up until now means you know the story is not true, making it impossible to accept. An event of great significance with a large number of eyewitnesses cannot be perpetuated as a hoax. An event of great significance with a large number of eyewitnesses cannot be perpetuated as a hoax. If it did not happen, everyone would realize it is false since no one ever heard about it before. Thus, if such an event was indeed accepted as part of history, the only way to understand its acceptance is that the event actually happened.
INTRODUCED LATER? Let's assume for the moment that the revelation at Mount Sinai is really a hoax; God did not write the Torah. How did the revelation at Sinai become accepted for thousands of years as part of our nation's history? Imagine someone trying to pull off such a hoax. An Ezra figure shows up one day holding a scroll.
How would you respond to such a claim? The people give Ezra a quizzical look and say,
If one cannot pull off a hoax with regard to a continent sinking, so too one cannot pull off a hoax to convince an entire people that their ancestors experienced the most unique event in all of human history. Everyone would know it's a lie. For thousands of years, Sinai was accepted as central to Jewish history. How else can this be explained? Given that people will not fall for a hoax they know is a lie, how could national revelation have been not only accepted -- but faithfully followed with great sacrifice by the vast majority of Jews? The only way a people would accept such a claim is if it really happened. If Sinai did not happen, everyone would know it's a lie and it would never have been accepted. The only way one can ever claim a nation experienced revelation and have it accepted is if it is true.
SINAI: THE ONLY CLAIM OF NATIONAL REVELATION Throughout history, tens of thousands of religions have been started by individuals, attempting to convince people that God spoke to him or her. All religions that base themselves on some type of revelation share essentially the same beginning: a holy person goes into solitude, comes back to his people, and announces that he has experienced a personal revelation where God appointed him to be His prophet. Would you believe someone who claims God appointed him or her as God's new prophet? Would you believe someone who claims to have received a personal communication from God appointing him or her as God's new prophet? Maybe He did. Then again, maybe He didn't. One can never know. The claim is inherently unverifiable. Personal revelation is an extremely weak basis for a religion since one can never know if it is indeed true. Even if the individual claiming personal revelation performs miracles, there is still no verification that he is a genuine prophet. Miracles do not prove anything. All they show -- assuming they are genuine -- is that he has certain powers. It has nothing to do with his claim of prophecy. Maimonides writes:
A BOLD PREDICTION There are 15,000 known religions in all of recorded history. Given this inherent weakness, why do all of them base their claim on personal revelation? If someone wanted their religion to be accepted, why wouldn't they present the strongest, most believable claim possible -- i.e. national revelation! It's far more credible. No one has to take a leap of faith and blindly trust just one person's word. It is qualitatively better to claim that God came to everyone, telling the entire group that so-and-so is His prophet. Why would God establish His entire relationship with a nation through one man, without any possibility of verification, and still expect this nation to obediently follow an entire system of instructions, based only on blind faith? Yet, Judaism is the only religion in the annals of history that makes the best of all claims -- that everyone heard God speak. No other religion claims the experience of national revelation. Why? Furthermore, the author of the Torah predicts that there will never be another claim of national revelation throughout history!
Let's consider the option that God did not write the Torah, and its author successfully convinced a group of people to accept a false claim of national revelation. In this book, the author writes a prediction that over the course of history no one will ever make a similar claim. That means if such a claim is ever made at some future time, the prediction will end up being false and his religion is finished. How could the author include in the book he is passing off as a hoax the prediction that no other person will ever attempt to perpetuate the same hoax when he just made that exact claim? If he could do it, he can be certain that others will too, especially since it is the best possible claim to make. If you are making up a religion, you do not write something you know you cannot predict and whose outcome you would think is guaranteed to be exactly the opposite. However, aside from the Jewish claim of Mount Sinai, it is a fact that no other nation has ever claimed such a similar national revelation. Let's summarize two primary questions: 1. Out of 15,000 known religions in recorded history, why is Judaism the only one that claims national revelation, the best of all claims? Why do all other religions base themselves on the inherently weak assertion of personal revelation? 2. If Judaism's claim is indeed an example of a successful hoax that falsely asserts national revelation, the author just got away with passing off the best possible claim, and others will certainly follow suit. Why then would he predict that no one else will ever make a similar claim, a prediction he knows he cannot foresee, and whose outcome is likely to be the exact opposite? There is one simple answer to both questions. A national revelation -- as opposed to personal revelation -- is the one lie you cannot get away with. It is one event you cannot fabricate. The only way to make this claim is if it actually happened. If the claim is true, the people will believe it because they are agreeing to something they already know. Either they personally witnessed it, or their ancestors collectively passed down the account as part of their nation's accepted history. If the claim is false, it's like trying to convince you that God spoke to you or your parents and somehow you never heard of it. No one would ever accept such a claim. Therefore no other religion has ever made the best of all claims, because it is the one claim that can only be made if it is true. One cannot pass national revelation off as a hoax. When inventing a religion, the originator must resort to personal revelation, despite its inherent weakness, since it is a claim that is unverifiable. The originator can hope to find adherents willing to take a leap of faith and accept his or her religion. After all, no one can ever know it is a lie. [Of course, no one can know if it's true either.] This simply cannot work with national revelation since it's the one claim that everyone will know is a lie. It is no wonder that all other religions are based on a claim of personal revelation. Only Judaism can claim national revelation since the Jewish people is the only nation in the history of mankind who ever experienced it. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the other major religions of the world both accept the Jewish revelation at Sinai, including the Five Books of Moses in their Bible, and hold the Sinai revelation as a key component of their religion. When starting their own religions, why did they build upon the Jewish claim? Why didn't they just deny the revelation ever happened? The answer is that they knew that if national revelation can never be fabricated; so too, its validity can therefore never be denied. Now it is understandable how the Author of the Torah can confidently predict that there will never be another claim of national revelation in history. Because only God knew it would happen only once, as it did -- at Sinai over 3,000 years ago.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Art, Film and Philosophy - My North.com Posted: 01 Feb 2010 05:11 AM PST Time: February 3, 2010 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Bucknell series to examine 'Avatar' and ecology - Bucknell University Posted: 01 Feb 2010 01:53 PM PST LEWISBURG, Pa. — Bucknell University will host the series, "Avatar: Responses from Earth," this spring and next fall. The series is an examination of various real-life cultural perspectives on ecology from "real life" traditions and disciplines on earth, in response to the success of the film "Avatar" as a sci-fi environmental parable, according to Alf Siewers, associate professor of English at Bucknell. The series opens with the talk, "This Holy Earth: Ecological Vision in the Cosmic Cathedral," with Father Andrew Damick on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. in the Traditional Reading Room of the Bertrand Library at Bucknell. Damick, who is a founder of the Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas, will discuss Christian panentheism (distinct from pantheism) as an often forgotten approach to nature in the West. Terrestrial traditions "The fall series will include Buddhist, Native American and environmental ethics perspectives on the environment," he said. The series, which is free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by the Environmental Center's Nature and Human Communities Initiative and the Chaplains' Office. Other talks this spring are "Feminist Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty," with Sheila Lintott, assistant professor of philosophy, on Feb. 15; and "Aspects of Ecology in Judaism," with Rivka Ulmer, associate professor of religion, on March 8. A related event is the spring Nature and Human Communities Animal Studies lecture, "Do We Have Duties of Justice Toward Animals?" with Gary Steiner, Bucknell professor of philosophy, on March 25. Contact: Division of Communications Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Philosophy - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Hi jos,
Great post, but I want to know how can we as escorts incorporate the nonviolence pledge into our escorting, when the antis at our local clinic will frequently kick, hit, throw things at, and just generally abuse our patients? The local police refuse to stop the protesters from hurting the patients. One patient who came in last week was actually punched so hard that she miscarried her baby- a baby that she was going into the clinic to get her weekly checkups because her OBGYN and her had an issue and she left the practice and didn't feel comfortable finding another doctor. She tried to get the police to do something, even going in and filing a report, which she got harassed by the police for mind you, but they don't want anything to do with the protection of the patients outside the clinic. With these kinds of people standing outside there what are we supposed to do?
rebekah, that sounds absolutely horrible, I'm so saddened that's the situation you have to deal with and so grateful you're doing that work. How does your group of escorts respond to violence? Because nonviolence doesn't mean responding, it means not responding on the same terms. But it's definitely a tactic for getting in the way of and stopping physical violence.
If this is a larger conversation, if your group of escorts needs support and ideas from other groups, please feel free to email me at jos AT feministing DOT com and I'll see what I can do to make those connections.
That is heartbreaking and sickening.
The only thing I would think the woman could do is file a suit against the entire police department and go to every media outlet and tell her story..but it would be re-living the trauma over and over.
How horrible and shameful of those police officers.
In this instance I can't say I would be non-violent with the protesters. That is not protesting- that is assault, plain and simple.
I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that something like that is a FACE violation. Perhaps you should try contacting your local branch of the FBI or Department of Justice? If the local police can't help, go up the chain of command, I say :)
This patient should get records from her doctors documenting the injury and establishing that the assault played a role in her miscarriage. She should be able to press assault charges on the protester.
If the clinic does not already have surveillance cameras, it should. Talk to the folks in charge of security there. Video footage of a woman being assaulted with the police witnessing but not interfering would be damning in court.
A UVVA case against a clinic protester. Now THERE's a clusterfuck.
The whole problem with "non violence" is that it assumes that the other side is acting in good faith - which, in the case of the anti choicers, is very much not the case.
Also, as an ideology, "non violence" has historically been a failure.
Contrary to popular belief, Indian independence was NOT won by "non violence" but was a byproduct of World War II and, specifically, the fact that large numbers of Indian soldiers in the British colonial army in India defected to the Japanese side, with arms in hand.
This - plus widespread social unrest in India - made British rule untenable even after they won WW II, and forced England to withdraw.
"Non violence" also did not lead to African Americans winning civil rights and affirmative action - the threat of social unrest from the urban uprisings ("riots") and armed urban guerrilla groups like the Black Panther Party and the Coalitions is what forced the US government to make concessions to African Americans.
In Northern Ireland, Catholic civil rights activists tried "non violence" - and the British government's response was the Bloody Sunday massacre, where British troops fired on "non violent" protesters.
Northern Irish Catholics only won their civil rights thanks to a 25 year long campaign of armed resistance led by the Irish Republican Army.
Bottom line "non violence" does not work - but self defense does.
Good luck - but, based on the historical evidence of the failure of "non violence", I don't expect this to end well for the pro choice cause.
Honestly, I wish "non violence" was a viable strategy - because, on a personal level, I abhor violence... I'm just enough of a political realist to accept facts when they stare me in the face.
So, if non-violence truly does not work, as you claim, what do you propose that clinic escorts like Jos do in their work? Should she punch the lights out of the next anti that gets in her way? Should escorts carry weapons?
The philosophy of non-violence explicitly does not depend on the good faith of the opposition. Gandhi did not expect good faith from the British Raj and MLK did not expect good faith from the racist establishment. Non-violence is a commitment independent of the intentions and actions of the opposition.
Put it this way - I believe in the Second Amendment and that every American has the right to self defense, by whatever means necessary.
That's a cowardly dodge. If you really believe something, don't pussyfoot around. Say it. "Yes, I think clinic escorts should carry guns and be prepared to use them." "Yes, I think that clinic escorts should be physically violent with protesters."
"In Northern Ireland, Catholic civil rights activists tried "non violence" - and the British government's response was the Bloody Sunday massacre, where British troops fired on "non violent" protesters.
Northern Irish Catholics only won their civil rights thanks to a 25 year long campaign of armed resistance led by the Irish Republican Army."
Ah. Let me guess, you're American. First, let's get a couple of things clear: the "25 year long campaign of armed resistance" was in fact a campaign of terrorist attacks on British civilian targets such as shopping malls. Funded, I might add, in large part by Americans.
Likewise, while Bloody Sunday did indeed happen pretty much as you're suggesting, the reason British troops were deployed in the first place was to stop Protestant attacks on Catholics that looked like they were going to turn into a bloody sectarian civil war. (Also note that about 30-40 soldiers had been killed by IRA splinter groups in the months leading up to Bloody Sunday, and that members of these IRA groups were involved in the peaceful demonstration though they were unarmed at the time.)
That's also why giving Northern Ireland "back to" Ireland - which is what the IRA demanded - wasn't a solution. The Unionist/Protestant faction in Northern Ireland (which wanted it to remain British) was just as large and just as violent as the Nationalist/Catholic faction (which wanted to unite it with Ireland). Of course, this is all a result of English interference in Ireland in the 16th and 17th century, especially the Tudor conquest and the creation of the Plantations.
Basically, it's a huge and often oversimplified political mess with no easy solution unless you have a time machine, one that gave countless British politicians headaches. (Still does, actually - the Real IRA and other terrorist groups opposed to the peace process on both sides are active even now. Even the IRA and Unionist factions that aren't are still carrying out lots of murders and kneecapping, since they're effectively a form of organized crime.)
Also, as an ideology, "non violence" has historically been a failure.
But so has "violence."
In the long run, violence generates its own opposition. It's like defending yourself from a false indictment for a crime by killing policemen.
Of course, if you're a terrorist, you can use this to your advantage: do something that "forces" those in power to overreact, and hope that this overreaction will destroy them.
(OK, now that I've got that out of my system....)
You seem to be talking about the Barney-the-purple-dinosaur school of non-violence, which is the way they present it in school and the media. And, yes, that is a failure.
Non-violence as a philosophy basically requires:
(a) seeing that violence is not going to achieve your goals in the long term, and
(b) doing a lot of thinking and "thinking outside the box" to find other ways of getting where you want to go. The most successful non-violent strategies are generally ones that no one has thought of before. One of the biggest mistakes that Progressives make is to assume that the tactics that worked half a century ago will work now.
For what it's worth, even the people who do use violence and are successful try to suppress it once they get into power. Violence is like poison gas in warfare -- it's as likely to blow back and poison your own troops as to kill your enemy.
I think "non-violence" needs to be more clearly defined in this context. Surely no one wants a clinic escort punching someone out for calling him/her or the patient a baby killer, of some such blather.
On the other hand, on August 6 of last year, an escort in Akron, OH, went to the hospital with 6 broken ribs because he was attacked by a biker gang, apparently invited in by local anti-choicers, while escorting.
Speaking only for myself, I would not give the anti-choicers the satisfaction, nor a clinic a bad name, by doing anything illegal, or even questionably legal. That said, I think it is legal in every jurisdiction to defend oneself against physical attack. To a physically abusive protester, how about saying something like, "There are security cameras recording this. If you touch me again, I will break your fingers, and there isn't a prosecuter in [jurisdiction] who will call it anything but self-defense." Hopefully, that would head off actually having to do it.