***** James, how would you suggest we... Fill in the blank... Free Palestine, stop global warming, stop fascism in America...? My reply: If I want a Mercedes, new, from a showroom, it really doesn't matter whether I go in with dollar bills, the checkbook, a credit card, a bank check... Etcetera. What matters is the amount. And, oh by the way, if I instead of the amount I go in with lip service, conversation, begging, demanding, taunting, demonstrating, tantruming, Facebook posting, article writing, meeting, 2 hour demonstration... They might tolerate it for a few moments and then they rightfully are going to get me arrested, and no onlooker will object. Lip service, words... wanting... whining, demanding... does not achieve anything worthwhile, though it does give you the total Destruction of one's credibility, moral potential, respect in the eyes of onlookers , worthiness in the eyes of onlookers. Contrary to the criminally insane dictum of my boomer generation, there is no free lunch! When enough of us heroically, lovingly, courageously, selflessly, seriously... pay enough of our own personal lives to be the price of freeing Palestine it will happen. Lip service doesn't help, in fact, it disperses our energy, gives us the delusion that we're making any difference, and totally destroys our credibility in the eyes of potential joiners. An individual, then individuals, then tens of thousands of individuals devoted their very being to get rid of Mubarak and finally it was enough. The same in the American Civil Rights Movement. The same in getting rid of South African apartheid. It is not how we pay the price. It is that we pay the price. I cannot pay the price of anyone else, but I can, or cannot, pay the entire price of my own life.
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