Sorry to Wakefield - for failing, not for trying
Channel: WakefieldMoves2012
Date: 03/03/2012

Wakefield,
I am sorry I have failed to stop this. I apologize for not being more politically effective in my career to change the course of events leading up to it.  Voting is not enough. I did not speak loud enough, I did not learn enough, I was not awake and I was afraid to speak truth to power.  I allowed others to govern me and did not assert the natural freedoms that lead us all to natural law.  I did not perceive the deceptions of my government and I did not oppose them strenuously enough.  I am particularly and deeply saddened that I did not stand strong enough as one who benefited from colonialism to reject it and stand with my indigenous brothers and sisters and firm in my commitment to know the land that my parents emigrated to.  I gave my loyalties to culture and state that betrayed me again and again.  In the context of education and free speech as I was taught I learned to write insightful and strong academic papers, literature, commentary, lyrics, poetry and song.  I did not know how difficult it would be to be true to those things, and the costs paid by the truly courageous who act from simple sincerity, courage and wisdom.  I listened to wrong advice to love and look after myself first and only then look after others and contributed to a culture where no one really stretched their capacity to love.  Loving others and loving self are not contradictory, they are the same.  Only when I realized this, did I understand commitment.  And so, I arrived too late after worrying about my own stuff for a year in Wakefield, too late. I make no promises, there are no guarantees in life.  I re-dedicate myself to beauty, the good, freedom, the real, the truth and offer again my body, mind, spirit and risk my own freedom for the sake of liberation of all beings, 1st nations to landless migrants and refugees, most vulnerable, the ecology, the elderly, the weak, the poor. When we have done all we can for these, we can offer our best efforts not to trip over the myriad of regulations, laws, policies, procedures, and we can try to pay all of our bills on time, and we can sit still and be quiet.  But the comfortable, the moneyed, the parochial, the bureaucratic, the jobbed, the titled, the privileged and the stiff upper lipped are not our cause.  The best we can do for them is to shake the earth and help them dance, let the money fall out and rain upon the poor.  'If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, if you have come because our liberation is bound together, we can walk together.'