Be Known by the Enemies you Make
August 8, 2012
left. Kevin Annett, the only Minister in the history of the United Church of Canada to be defrocked. He opposed sales of Indian lands held in trust; and exposed past genocide of Indian children in church-run residential schools. Both Catholic & Protestant churches were involved.
"With all that shit they say about you, f**k man, I knew you were the real thing!"
by Kevin Annett
(edited by henrymakow.com)
The nasty creep was named Phil Spencer, left, and his eyes shone with the same weird glow worn by the kid on our street in Winnipeg who used to smash prairie dogs to death with a mop.Phil was a fellow United Church minister.
It was June,1995, and just months earlier, Phil had spearheaded my removal from a United Church pulpit in Port Alberni. With the same infantile bullyness, Phil now sauntered over to me to as I passed out leaflets protesting my firing.
"Hi Kevin!" he exclaimed, thrusting his smirking, triumphant face into mine.
Revulsed, I thought of my wife Anne's inconsolable tears and her nervous breakdown after I was summarily fired, and of my two small daughters who had lost their home and friends - all because of Phil. A rage boiled up in me, a loathing for this man, and my fists clenched.
"Hi Kevin!" he jabbered again, as he danced and jumped in front of me.
Disgusted, I looked past the leering buffoon, and walked away from him.
I regretted my forbearance for weeks after that. As every new attack rained down on me, and as my family and I were systematically ripped apart by the church, I imagined that at least I could have landed a well placed blow.
But another truth came to me later that summer when I received a phone call from a woman, another minister from Vancouver island.
"We're behind you, Kevin, even if we can't say so" she said. "It's just sickening what they're doing to you".
"Thanks, but it's not over yet" I replied. "Phil Spencer sure has it in for me."
The woman laughed.
"He's doing you more good than you know. Every time he attacks you, everybody sees he's just a crazy, angry guy. His drinking is out of control again. You just keep the high ground, Kevin".
The system always rewards its own, of course, starting with its sicko hatchet men. The same year I was defrocked, Phil Spencer was appointed to head the Comox-Nanaimo Presbytery.
Phil Spencer was an unwitting ally of mine that day, and he and his kind have been ever since. For his attacks helped launch me on my new calling, and his deceit gave rise to the truth movement that is bringing down his United Church of Canada and its legacy of child rape and murder.
I suppose I should thank him someday...
WE CAN TAKE AWAY THEIR LEGITIMACY
In reality, the "rulers" of church and state keep revealing by their responses to us where they are the most vulnerable, and how even a small group of us can trigger their downfall.
One case in point: the day that fifty of us briefly occupied Holy Rosary catholic cathedral in Vancouver during a Sunday mass in early 2007.We carried a banner that day that declared "All the children need a proper burial". The pew crowd were respectful and curious. The priests, however, went quite ballistic: one of them lost his saintly guise altogether and tried putting me into an arm lock and wrestling me out of the place.
And small wonder: for by entering their church and confronting their crime, we threatened not only the public image of Catholicism that Sunday, but, more specifically, the cash in their collection plates.
Sure enough, within a few weeks of that catholic church occupation and after we publicly announced that similar occupations would continue, the Canadian government declared that an apology for the Indian residential schools was forthcoming, along with an "official inquiry".
Loose cannon tactics? Confrontational methods? So be it. They work! And they sure scared the shit out of the Catholic archdiocese in Vancouver, whose lawyer called me up afterwards and literally pleaded with me not to lead any more occupations of the cathedral.
The fifty of us who invaded Holy Rosary church were mostly poor, homeless native men and women. We had nothing going for us except our own resolve. But our tiny group was nevertheless able to do the impossible, and use the very weight of the wealthiest and most "powerful" corporation in history, the roman catholic church, against itself, and force a change.
Frankly, the problem doesn't lie in such methods, as some claim, but rather with the inconsistency with which we rely on such direct action. Still today, few people are willing to challenge the church like the fifty of us did, even when its crimes have been exposed and the mass graves of its victims located. Too many of us, in truth, are still captive to the illusion that the powerful are unassailable.
The reality is that our campaign to bring down criminal church and government bodies has now reached such a level of successful, critical mass that the criminals in our cross hairs are acting ever more desperately, and are trying to strike at us with the only way they know how: with lies and confusion. Yet by so doing, they are exposing their real nature more quickly to wider numbers of people, many of whom are abandoning the catholic church in droves.
Put simply, the mask of church and state is slipping, and the illusions that have allowed their crimes to continue for centuries are evaporating daily. And it's up to us now to take full advantage of that golden historic opportunity.
Despite what Christian Sunday school may have taught you, light and darkness are not opposites but rather co-dependent forces that work together for a third and higher purpose, unknown to either. Our enemies, and all that they inflict on us, are the means by which we not only learn endurance, courage and clarity, but have opened to us the real purpose of what we have struggled and suffered through.
OUR GOAL IS REVOLUTIONARY
I began this journey twenty years ago, and only now am I aware of what it's really all about.
A religion and a culture that could so systematically kill off generations of children and then hide the evidence and continue to maim the innocent is an abomination that must be gotten rid of. The more seasoned and far seeing of us know this already, and have given up our naive hope that church and state can be "held accountable" for doing the atrocities which come naturally to them. Instead, we are committed to abolishing those murderous institutions altogether, as international law and the safety of children demands.We have pledged our lives to the fundamental shakeup of our society. And our looming common law court of justice is the first stage in that shakeup.
Yesterday, I was accosted on the streets of Vancouver by a young man who grabbed my hand and exclaimed,
"You're Kevin Annett! Man, I love you!"
I must have looked self-conscious or something, for the guy smiled and continued,
"With all that shit they say about you, fuck man, I knew you were the real thing!"
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Related Makow- Kevin Annett Rips the Mask from Power
Kevin Annett said (August 10, 2012):
I noticed some odd comments about me on your discussion group, as always coming from people I've never met but who seem to be self-proclaimed experts about me.
I never imagined my work would boil down in some peoples' minds to whether one believes I;m a saint or a devil. I;m not the issue, after all.
My only request to my critics is 1. That they provide actual evidence, not hearsay and rumor, when it comes to my work, and 2. They show the same if not more passion and commitment in confronting people and groups that are actually criminal, like the government and churches. What's revealing is that the same critics rarely do so, and are nowhere to be seen when something practical is being done to protest at churches, demand answers from the churches about the mass graves of children under their care, etc.
I take seriously those critics who back up their rhetoric with action. Sadly, the Internet activists aren't doing so when it comes to dead Indian kids. It's easier just to call me names.