(Clearwisdom.net) The U.S. Democratic National Convention began in Boston on Monday July 26. Newsday correspondent James P. Pinkerton traveled around the city on July 25 to see the various groups demonstrating. The peaceful and beautiful Falun Gong parade was very different from other groups' protests and amazed him. He predicted that Falun Gong would win people's respect and would be remembered in Boston Common.
In his report on July 25, Pinkerton wrote, "Next, I find myself in this
Starbucks. And then something surprises -- and moves -- me. It's a protest of a
much different kind. No hackneyed leftists, no misplaced anger, no sexual
bravura. It's a peaceful procession by the Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa. Their
brothers and sisters are routinely and energetically persecuted in China by the
Beijing regime. As best I can tell, Falun is a peaceful program of physical
exercise, mediation and philosophy."
He said that in China, practitioners are imprisoned, tortured and killed. But
here, they can protest, and they do -- in the thousands. "The procession along
Boylston Street is polite, but it's so numerous that it takes half an hour to
pass by, as the cops stop them every so often to let cross-traffic through. Some
hold signs in Chinese and English, others hold flowers, others hold pictures of
those murdered by the Chinese government. The parade even includes a gruesome
float, depicting people tortured and killed; it's an image from Madame Tussaud's
dungeon." He continued.
"And it hits me: if China ever becomes a free country -- free for speech, not
just for big business -- then these Falun Gong people, bearing polite witness to
tyranny, will deserve no small share of the credit. And so maybe, someday, the
Faluns will be remembered on the Boston Common." He added, "Remembered, for
upholding the liberating and self-sacrificing tradition of Shaw and the men of
the 54th."
In the end, Pinkerton commented, "Souls don't get much higher than that, and
neither does memory in history. If there's any inequality that's earned, it's in
the aristocracy of virtue and self-sacrifice that's not dead, even if it's often
martyred."
Reference: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-dncpinkertonblog,0,2168936.story
