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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Saturday, September 11, 2004

Family Values....not



Wow, what a great evening! We vigiled in Atlanta tonite on the corner of Moreland and Euclid Aves in the Greenwich Village/Berkeley part of Atlanta called Little 5 Points! We registered about eight voters, most of them have never voted before in their lives! We also got about 18 wimmin to sign up for starting a CodePINK Atlanta!!! Awesome!
We started out asking “What’s christian about bush” with a strate young white christian couple, (she being much younger than he). Unfortunately we only had about two minutes left on the video because this couple had some very interesting things to say. They proclaimed bush as righteous and believe the lord talks to him and he is doing the lord's work.
I asked them which passages of jesus was bush following. The only thing they could think of was revelations "brother shall turn against brother". The husband tried to dominate the conversation until I asked the wife if she had a voice. She spoke in a perky but quiet voice: “My husband is the one who has studied the bible and I believe in him.”
“Do you think it was christian to kill when jesus said we should love our enemy?”
“Yes,” she grins as she admits, “We should love our enemy but kerry believes in killing babies.”
I ask her “So you would rather have a president who kills human beings that are children and women and men then a president that supports a woman's right to chose when she will have a child?
She looked questioningly at her husband who then said “We are not of this world, but of the kingdom of god.”
I quote the bible again and told them “The kingdom of god is on this earth, according to jesus.”
He began pulling her sleeve and ushering her out of there quick.
They were the only fundamentalists that approached us tonite. Many other christians, across the racial spectrum represented here, spoke with us and declared that bush was NOT doing the work of jesus in any way.
One white womon said she thought when bush first was running for president and heard him speaking of family values, she could support him. But when she found out about what he was really for – cutting education, giving away our jobs and retirement, etc. –  she felt he wasn't for any family values.
“He is just for oppressing wimmin by taking away our rights and making same-sex marriage illegal. This is what he calls ‘family values’” she bitterly asserts.  
It was a very exciting nite, here in the middle of the deep south! We have a lot of hope!