The lesser of Two Evils...

[gman]

As far as Christianity encouraging complacency, I wouldn't necessarily say that in all cases, as there are many different forms of christianity. I don't think anyone could accuse Martin Luther King Jr. of being complacent, nor those christians who took to the hills in El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. to join the guerrilla army fighting against their downpressive U.S.-sponsored governments. So Rootsie's statement is a generalization to me. But like Ayinde says somewhere on this board, a generalization is not a bad thing, it's a way of simplifying a discussion- if in the majority of cases the generalization is true, then it can be useful. And in this case I'd say that 90% of the time, yes Christianity encourages complacency- waiting for someone to come save you, or de-prioritizing this physical world in favor of preoccupation with some 'afterlife', when as far as I'm concerned the only way to find out about any afterlife that may exist, is to die.
   You're absolutely right that people need to be organized and I don't think I or Rootsie was saying anything different.
   I don't have the authority to tell other people what to do, but later today I'll return to this board and share some of the concrete things that I personally have tried to do around these issues over the course of my life. Maybe others could do the same.

[Tyehimba]

Change for the better can only occcur when individuals realize the false values and corruption underlying the present state of affairs, and commit to helping by first working on themselves. what is needed is not any illusions of change but definite steps to  right the imbalance that currently exists. At the core of this is the need to change attitudes and mindsets which have been conditioned to uphold and support the plethora of lies, myths and distortions. Inherent in this in western chauvinsim, racism and female discrimination. Thus the movement for change cannot be divorced the the systematic adressing of such issues.

Meaningful change can only be lead by those that are informed and have the depths of experience to properly understand the deep problems that plague society. Being as there is no substitute, it is such people that will be able to work decisively to bring about meaningful change.

At the heart of systematic change, lies people taking the responsibility for informing themselves and becoming aware of how they by their ignorance contribute towards the system of false values and injustice. There is no substitute for understanding collective and person history which can never be held apart from 'change'.

[Oshun_Auset]

I hear a lot of good hearted people who are well informed and want to change the shituation African, and all people find ourselves living under.

Since organization on a grassroots level is the key...how many here are organizing their people and part of aprogressive  organization moving the people forward? I ask this not to be flippant, but, Vision without action is hallucination. The AAPRP and other progressive Pan-African and socialist(people orientated) groups need people like you to help organize the masses, we need an African United Front! We Africans crawled a long time ago, it is time for us to fly!

We have an economic breadbasket and land to develop, Africa! Until Africa is strong, we as a people have no strength!

Link up!

"Jamaica is and Island, but it is not I land"
----popular Rastafarian saying that can be used as motivation for the African diaspora to organize for the betterment of home(Africa).

"All of us may not live to see the higher accomplishments of an African empire(a united Africa), so strong and powerful as to compel the respect of mankind, but we in our lifetime can so work and act as to make the dream a possibility within another generation"

----The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey

[gman]

This continues my last mssg to OutofZion, re concrete things you can do to resist babylon.
Here's some of the things I've personally been involved in:
-Movement to divest from Apartheid South Africa (while in college, involving demos, petitions, taking over the adminstration building to force a meeting with the board of trustees). The equivalent nowadays is divestment from Israel, which is a growing movement on campuses now.
-Boycotts of supermarkets in support of the Oregon farmworkers' attempts to unionize
-Corporate research in support of the union movement (basically, spying on the companies- very boring work but it can pay off, for eg. a piece of info I found out from hours of poring through obscure industry periodicals turned out to be instrumental in getting a hotel to pay for its employees' healthcare)
-Adult literacy classes and meetings on organizing techniques
-A program where volunteers waited with videocameras in an area subject to violent raids by the Immigration, which resulted in embarrasing the INS and gaining a lot of support for immigrant workers in Portland, OR
-Handing out flyers and organizing a benefit concert in support of political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal, the MOVE 9, Leonard Peltier and the Angola 3
Just to give an idea of the sort of concrete things anyone can do to start putting a dent in this s*itstem. When enough people get together and start doing things like this, we can eventually punch a hole in the system and replace it with something much better.