Not Triage, But Lasting Change Needed

Americans love to think of themselves as charitable people. When disasters strike, news media carries many stories of neighbors helping neighbor and people going out of their way to provide help in times of crisis. It’s beautiful to see, and it brings tears to the eyes.

Yet when fundamental changes that could help make triage unnecessary, or “mutual aid” as it’s now being called, are proposed, society rejects them as unrealistic. Christian churches, even the progressive branches, are often among those who are the first to quote the so-often misinterpreted Scripture, “The poor will always be you.”

It sometimes seems to me that we worship our own good triage deeds more than the Christ who was embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, the God in human form who led a non-violent revolution to bring the Good News that we can bring Heaven to Earth.

We can have permanent, safe housing for everyone in this country at truly affordable rents or mortgages, not just rents and mortgages that are deemed affordable by market standards.

We can have guaranteed educational opportunities for every child that doesn’t just teach to tests or make education an apprenticeship for a future job, but also teaches children how to be members of a just and humane society.

We can have safe elections that ensure that every single person eligible can vote without obstacles thrown up in their path.

We can have universal health care that follows citizens from cradle to grave that includes modalities to take care of the whole body and not just its parts.

We can have clean water and air so that none of us has to worry that toxins in our drinking supplies and being spewed into the air will turn our planet into a poisonous dump, killing the incredible variety of life on it including homo sapiens.

We can have a country that builds instruments of peace rather than instruments of war.

We can have a country that values the lives of every single person on these shores regardless of race, ethnic background, creed, and national origin.

So why aren’t more people working for this?

We talk about these matters every Sunday at 6 PM at Freedom Church of the Poor on the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice’s Facebook page. We look at Scripture that gives us a blueprint for how to do it, from the ancient texts of the Torah and the Prophets to the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. We sing together, we pray together, we mourn together, and yes, we laugh and rejoice together.

We are a community that acts in the best interests of our marginalized brothers and sisters because we know that when they are lifted up, we are all lifted up. Some of us are living in poverty or low wealth and have experienced homelessness, and yet we share our experience, strength and hope to lift others up as well. And we call out those who would keep any of our brothers and sisters down.

For many, many years the director of the Kairos Center, the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, has lived with, organized with, inspired and ultimately helped change the narrative for marginalized people. She and the priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams associated with the Kairos Center are forming communities much like those formed by Moses and the apostles to share and to show other people how to model God’s dream for us. She is also co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, a National Call to Moral Revival.

The Divine doesn’t do triage. The Divine abides within us to guide us to permanent change in how we view ourselves and our brethren on Earth.

I’ve spent much of my life not wanting to be part of any group that would have me for a member. But I am proud, and also humbled, to be accepted into the community of the Freedom Church of the Poor and, by extension, the Poor People’s Campaign, A National Call to Moral Revival. I know I am right where I belong.

Maybe this is where you belong as well! Get a taste of Freedom Church of the Poor here: May 17, 2020

Kairos Center for Religions, RIghts and Social Justice

www.poorpeoplescampaign.org

www.june2020.org

MSNBC, The Economy is not Fine!

The media is doing it again.

Suddenly, because Iowa tried something new to tally yesterday’s caucus results, every media outlet is reporting that the entire Democratic Party is in “chaos.” You can bet that those news reports are going to come up quickly in the president’s campaign talking points. He’s already tweeted about it.

A few months after the 2016 election, Chris Hayes of MSNBC gave a heartfelt editorial saying that he thought the media had been complicit in the results. We did too much coverage of Donald Trump, he said in effect, because of his outrageous statements and behavior. MSNBC mainly covered Hillary Clinton when news about the Benghazi hearings came up, to her detriment.

And for three years now, MSNBC, and Mr. Hayes himself, have been repeating the narrative that the economy is doing just great. Even having had the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, A National Call to Moral Revival as a guest, he and others at MSNBC have  been continuing with that narrative.

That narrative is FALSE, FALSE, FALSE.

And be sure that you will hear it again and again in tonight’s State of the Union address.

As Bishop Barber and his co-chair, the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, are eager to tell you, the economy is not doing fine for almost half of the country who live in poverty or low wealth

Yup, 140,000,000 people in this country live in poverty or low wealth. Don’t believe me? Read The Souls of Poor Folk, an exhaustive economic look at the poverty statistics. Then look at the Moral Budget that poverty economists have created to show how the abundant wealth of this country can be reassessed to ensure the well-being of every child, every woman, and every man in this country.

And while the majority of those people, 66%, are white, the impact is much, much bigger for African-Americans because of the systemic racism that intersects with poverty, as do ecological devastation, militarism, and religious nationalism.

Would thousands of people from across the country plan to join the Moral March and Assembly on Washington, DC, on June 20, 2020, if they thought the economy was doing just fine? Would 250,000 people a year be dying because of poverty if the economy was doing just fine?

Just two weeks ago, another immoral policy went into effect that 900,000 veterans and 5,000 active-duty service personnel off of SNAP benefits. Why would they have needed SNAP  benefits in the first place? After all, 53 cents of every discretionary tax dollar goes to the Department of Defense, the most money allocated anywhere in the federal budget.

But that money doesn’t trickle down to the folks with boots on the ground, or those who might have left boots and arms and sanity on the ground. It goes to multinational corporations that spend trillions of dollars to build bigger and more lethal war materiel.

Ecological devastation is the third horseman of the systemic poverty apocalypse. Governmental neglect of the effects of climate change and industrial depredations always hurts people living in poverty more than anyone else. How many wealthy people do you know who can’t drink the water in their towns? How many mansions are situated near creeks and rivers running with raw sewage and industrial toxins? Ask the people of Flint, MI, or those who live in the area of Louisiana called Cancer Alley. Ask the indigenous people trying to reclaim precious land that has been polluted by corporations with ties to government.

Please consider joining us on June 20, 2020, in Washington to help turn the moral narrative on poverty, to speak truth to power in the very halls of power, and to bring justice to the most vulnerable people in our society.

All the information you need is on the Poor People’s Campaign’s website, including how to join a bus from hundreds of towns and villages across the United States. And watch this video: https://youtu.be/GjHz2xZqz0o