If I believed I was a prophet, I’d say that after three years of agony, a breakthrough in SAYMA’s logjam/paralysis is in sight. It will soon be a month since the summer representative meeting of Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association, or SAYMA. Held by Zoom on July 20, its major business item was the … Continue reading SAYMA: The Gravy Train Is Lurching toward a Stop
This just in: a lawsuit filed against Friends Central School (FCS) in Philadelphia in 2017 by two teachers who were fired after a Palestinian speaker they invited in February 2017 was disinvited by school officials. The order of settlement is below. (More text follows.) The speaker, Sa’ed Atshan, teaches at Swarthmore College. FCS Students protested, … Continue reading Breaking: Friends Central School, Fired teachers, Settle lawsuit.
Operator: Hello, this is Theology 911. What is your theological emergency? Aunt Mabel: Oh, thank heaven. OMG it’s so awful! Operator: Yes, ma’am. Please ma’am, are you in danger? Aunt Mabel: I sure am, sonny. It’s the guns. And it’s not just me. Please send a SWAT team to my house right away, or it … Continue reading A Theological Emergency that’s part real & part satire. Can you tell the difference?
A quick followup to the July 28th post, “Why nonviolent protests are smarter, even/especially today”. The point, to reiterate, was that lots of academic & private polling research, plus my own movement experience, confirms the idea that nonviolent protests move public opinion in a progressive direction, while violent demonstrations nudge it toward the reactionary right, … Continue reading Stick to Nonviolence: A Followup
One of the less useful of the recent media tempests involved a report about the fate of David Shor, a somewhat lefty data analyst. Shor had tweeted a summary of a paper by Princeton scholar Omar Wasow. Wasow argued that his research on 12 years of Black-led protests, particularly in election years, moved public opinion … Continue reading Why nonviolent protests are smarter, even/especially today