‘Guilty!’ — Of Trying to See Our Senator

[proud2BlibKansan]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/09/3711/

Published on Sunday, September 9, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

‘Guilty!’ — Of Trying to See Our Senator

by Rev. John Dear

On Thursday, September 6th, 2007, six of us were found guilty in Federal court in Albuquerque, NM by a Federal judge for trying to visit the office of our senator. We will be sentenced in a few weeks. The message? It is a Federal crime to attempt to speak to an elected Republican about the U.S. war on Iraq. Don’t visit your senator. Don’t get involved. Don’t speak out. Don’t take a stand for peace–or you too may end up in jail.

It all started one year ago, on September 26, 2006, when nine of us entered the Federal Building in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and tried to take the elevator to the third floor to the office of Senator Pete Domenici to present him with a copy of the “Declaration of Peace,” a national petition campaign aimed at stopping the U.S. war on Iraq, bringing our troops home, and pursuing nonviolent alternatives and reparations. Over three hundred seventy five similar actions took place across the nation that week.

The Senator‘s office manager came downstairs, said she would only allow three of us upstairs, and after forty five minutes of waiting and negotiations, we nine just decided to go upstairs, figuring we had a right as group of constituents to deliver our petition to the Senator’s office.

As we stepped onto the elevator, a policeman put his foot in the door, and the next thing we knew, the power was turned off. So there we stayed–for some six hours. At one point, a police officer brought over a chair for one elderly member of our group who uses metal crutches. It seemed the officer was inviting us to make ourselves at home. He even said he supported our anti-war stand.

more . . .

Rev. John Dear is a Jesuit priest, pastor, retreat leader, and author of twenty five books on peace and nonviolence, including most recently, “Transfiguration” (Doubleday, with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, available from www.amazon.com). He is featured in a new DVD film, “The Narrow Path,” with music by Joan Baez and Jackson Browne (at www.sandamianofoundation.org), and writes a weekly column for the National Catholic Reporter at www.ncrcafe.org. He lives in northern New Mexico. For information, see: www.fatherjohndear.org
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[VP505]

1. What a crappy way for

his staff to treat the people paying their salary. Their heads must explode every time I FAX Domenici, as I no longer consider him worthy of any courtesy, politeness or respect and tell him so as bluntly as I can. I am proud to say that by now I am sure I have achieved "Look there is another one from THAT a**hole" status with his staff.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Makes me sick

This man is a priest and look how he is treated.

[gaspee]

2. ...

unfucking believeable - I can't help the language, I'm outraged. The courts should have thrown this out.

Every day one more thing happens to make me believe this crap isn't fixable.

When even DU'ers are on a thread about police brutality defending the indefensible and when it's a crime to seek out an audience with your elected representatives, it's quite obvious that American culture itself, this romance with militarism and the making of our elected officials into more than they are or should be...

I can't even make sense of what I'm trying to say, I'm so disappointed and pessamistic about our future.

We're moving to tighter and tighter governmental and police control of our lives, under the party of supposed small government. I guess they mean everything except the military, police and prisons.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Yes it' s hard to see the police brutality defended here

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

[Occulus]

6. b-b-b-but "we don't know all the facts"

"there has to be more to the story"

"this is only coming from one side"

"it looks like they were provoking the situation by telling them their jobs"

:eyes:

[onethatcares]

3. the only ones represented anymore are those with

thousand dollar checks for the pigs at the trough. The great experiment is over, we lost, no matter what.