I have been remiss in highlighting a Protester of the Week for some time and wanted to start my week off right with a quick profile highlighting ridiculing one of these foolish loons gentlemen.
This morning was a breezy and cool, fall-Navy-Football kind of morning. Given the phenomenal weather I wasn’t surprised to see 7 ‘Prots’ manning the rails. All the usual suspects were there with the usual frenetic signs linking the woes of the world to Christians dumping camels in Palestine and other such nonsense.
But there was a new sign out there today written on a sizable, clean white poster board in legible black magic-marker handwriting. It read:
“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy rotten system. –Dorothy Day”
A quick moment of self-deprecation: I thought I knew who Dorothy Day was. And so as I walked into the PGON I shook my head because I thought this was a really weird thing for her to say. Once I got to my computer and googled her though I realized that I am an idiot because I thought this woman was Dorothy Day.
Note: the above picture is Doris Day, a noted singer and TV personality.
It turns out that Dorothy Day was a one-time-anarchist, pacifist and matron/founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. While I may not agree with everything in which she believed, I can’t argue that she wasn’t someone who worked tirelessly for the poor and oppressed her entire life, remaining a fierce critic of capitalism (ugh) and consumerism (ugh but acceptable). To that end, she is under consideration with the Catholic church for sainthood. This is Dorothy:
And I say all that because I don’t think you should get to quote Dorothy Day (possibly out of context; I couldn’t actually find the context for the quote anywhere on the internet) if you are some overweight schlub in his mid-20’s with nothing better to do that to chit-chit with the Xanax zombie protester next to you while holding a sign. From what I read today, I have trouble believing that Dorothy Day would waste her time BS’ing at the Pentagon Metro Station.
As an aside, the quote in a fuller context is:
“The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”
- As quoted in Women on War : Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age (1988), by Daniela Gioseffi, p. 103
Until next time Monday!
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