CASA CRY MAY 2018
“Whenever I open the Scriptures, I read about a God who hears the cry of the suffering and stands on the side of the oppressed for justice. As I have prayed and read the Scriptures this year, I hear a resounding call to the very soul of this nation: We need a new Poor People’s Campaign for a Moral Revival in America. In the end, love is the greatest power to sustain a fight for what is right.
Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King called for a “revolution of values” in America, inviting people who had been divided to stand together against the “triplets of evil” — militarism, racism, and economic injustice — to insist that people need not die from poverty in the richest nation to ever exist. Poor people in communities across America — black, white, brown and Native — responded by building a Poor People’s Campaign that would demand a Marshall Plan for America’s poor. Dr. King, along with many other impacted people and moral leaders in the Poor People’s Campaign of 1967/68, began an effort to build a broad, fusion coalition that would audit America, demanding an accounting of promissory notes that had been returned marked “insufficient funds.” We have not finished their work. Though Trump’s presidency is the culmination of a violent backlash against the Second Reconstruction that Dr. King and many others led, the future of our democracy depends on us completing the work of a Third Reconstruction today. This is why I hear the Spirit calling us to build a new Poor People’s Campaign. As our social fabric is stretched thin by widening income inequality, politicians criminalize the poor, fan the flames of racism and xenophobia to divide the poor, and steal from the poor to give tax breaks to our richest neighbors and budget increases to a bloated military. Americans across the country are crying out in defiance — and for change. Bringing this cry into the public square, a Resistance has emerged: The Fight for $15, the Movement for Black Lives, Moral Mondays, the Women’s March, The People’s Climate March and No Ban/No Wall protesters have taken to the streets.
At such a time as this, we need a new Poor People’s Campaign for Moral Revival to help us become the nation we’ve not yet been. I don’t just know this because the river of resistance in my tradition echoes its truth down through the centuries. What began with an outcry in North Carolina became a sustained movement for political change through moral, fusion organizing, led by poor and impacted people. Throughout America’s history — from abolition, to women’s suffrage, to labor and civil rights — real social change has come when impacted people have joined hands with allies of good will to stand together against injustice. They stood for the deep moral center of our Constitutional and faith traditions. Those deep wells sustained poor and impacted people who knew in their bones both that power concedes nothing without a fight and that, in the end, love is the greatest power to sustain a fight for what is right. We hope you’ll join us and invite others to come along as we commit to go forward together, not one step back!” -Rev. Barber For more information on how you can join the New Poor People’s campaign or other actions, go to poorpeoplescampaign.org
DON’S JOKES
I worked in the woods as a Lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe. After that, I tried being a tailor, but I wasn't suited for it -- mainly because it was a sew-sew job. I attempted being a Deli Worker, but any way I sliced it...I couldn't cut the mustard. I had a job in a Shoe Factory. I tried hard but just didn't fit in. My soul was not in it. I managed to get a good job working for a Pool Maintenance Company, but the work was too draining. Never hire a plumber wearing boots and an electrician who has scorched eyebrows. Why were the elephants kicked off of the beach? They had their trunks down. A golf club walked into a bar and ordered a drink. The bartender said, “No can do. You will be driving later.” What is the sign that your computer is getting old? It starts losing memory. Ole took a flight from Minneapolis to Seattle, and when the plane landed he said, “Vell, dere goes five dollars down the drain for dat flight insurance!” You want to know what God thinks of money, just look at people God gave it to. I never had a penny to my name. So I changed my name. Sven: Ole, You should pull down your shades at night. I saw you and Lena fooling around. Ole: Ha! The jokes on you. I wasn’t home last night.
INTERESTING FACTS
Arizona has spent $3,600,000 drug testing 87,000 welfare recipients. Want to know how many failed? One. ----Harper’s Index On t-shirt of one of the teachers in the Oklahoma teacher strike and protest: “Don’t make me use my teacher voice”
The U.S. military has plans to create genetically modified marine organisms that can be used as underwater spies for the military to track enemy traffic undersea. ----Defence One
From 1900 to 2015, nonviolent campaigns succeeded 51% of the time, whereas violent campaigns succeeded only 27% of the time. So far this decade, 30% of nonviolent campaigns have succeeded, whereas only 12% of violent campaigns have succeeded — meaning that in fact, the proportional success gap between them is now actually wider than average.--- Washington Post
On April 14, the U.S. fired 105 missiles on Syria. That number is 10 times the number of Syrian refugees the U.S. has taken in all year.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement agents raided 98 7-Eleven stores in one morning in January.
About 72% of Afghan refugees had to flee a second time after returning home. The world’s 42 richest people have as much money as do 50% of the world’s poor. ----Harper’s Index
It is a myth that undocumented immigrants “take” from the government. They actually pay millions in taxes every year, and they are not allowed to get public benefits like food stamps or subsidized health care for their kids. U.S. tax money goes to ICE which takes away human rights from the immigrants.---Rewire News
A 2010 study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) estimated that the United States would need to spend at least $285 billion over five years to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country. The two largest private corrections corporations, GEO Group and CoreCivic, each gave $250,000 to Trump's inaugural festivities. They each get $2 billion a year to detain immigrants. Each year , ICE detains about 400,000 immigrants. -----Human Rights First
Brian, Don and I were in Duluth MN 2 weeks ago. We attended the Midwest Catholic Worker Faith and Resistance gathering. The gathering happens once a year somewhere in the Midwest and focus on a justice concern in the area. We always have the people affected by the injustice guide us and share what they would like us to do. Some of us do nonviolent civil disobedience at an agreed upon area. We approach this prayfully hoping that attention will be drawn to the problem. This year it was the Enbridge oil pipeline that the company wants to put in across Ojibwe land. They want to leave in the old deteriorating pipeline in place and put in a higher capacity pipeline next to it. There has been discharge all along , especially at the pumps. The Native Americans would like the old pipe removed, and no new pipeline placed on their land. The U.S. continues to disregard treaties made with Native Americans. It was agreed that we would trespass onto the site where the new pipes are stored. It is the size of 2 football fields dilled with 36x36 round and 20ft. long pipes. On Monday we went to the site. We carried in sacred items sent from around the country to be placed on the site and prayed over. Each of us going into the area carried a jar of water with a message tied to it. Each person said a prayer into the water and and placed it in one of the pipes. We sang and prayed for a change, to honor the treaties made with our Native American brothers and sisters. We prayed for a change in our hearts to honor and revere the water we drink, the air we breathe and the earth which gives all things for life. Earlier, Babette, an Native American, spoke to us of the connectedness of all things, especially water. Pictures on a screen showed water at a molecular level changing configuration by the attitude of the person approaching the water. Beautiful configurations occurred when reverence was shown. Very distorted formations occurred when a negative mind set approached the water. Think., 50 to 60% of our body is water. Perhaps it is time to listen to our native Americans brothers and sisters as they ask us to live in harmony with all creation, to honor our agreements we made as we took much of their land. We have much to learn. Peace, Roberta
Sr. Lucy Edelbeck, a Dominican Sister and very good friend and supporter of our’s, passed over on April 19.
She will be remembered for her justice and peace work, her teaching skills and artwork (Lucy’s Cards) May she now rest with God. We also remember Vel Phillips, an attorney and avid defender of human rights, who also passed over last week. She is a heroine of our time. May the young people follow her example.
Sunday, May 13 -----Mother’s Day Water Ceremony at McKinley Beach, 1750 Lincoln Memorial Dr., at 3 p.m. followed by a New Poor People’s Campaign picket at Lincoln Memorial Dr starting at 4 p.m.
Monday, May 14th-- New Poor People's Campaign day of moral fusion and civil disobedience. Join the call for a moral revival! Go to facebook.com/pg/wisconsinppc for details
Thurs., May 17 ----Vigil at the . Marine Recruiting Station, 14th & Wells Sts., from 4 to 5 p.m. to call for an end to war, weapons and training for war. No more funds for war! The Pentagon cannot account for $6.5 Trillion given it by taxpayers. Armed Forces Day is on May 19.s
Don’s Memoirs entitled Midwife of grace, are still available . Yes, believe it or not, there are stilll copies of it at Amazon. Also Lincoln Rice’s book on the beginnings of the Chicago Catholic Worker is also still available.
“Whenever I open the Scriptures, I read about a God who hears the cry of the suffering and stands on the side of the oppressed for justice. As I have prayed and read the Scriptures this year, I hear a resounding call to the very soul of this nation: We need a new Poor People’s Campaign for a Moral Revival in America. In the end, love is the greatest power to sustain a fight for what is right.
Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King called for a “revolution of values” in America, inviting people who had been divided to stand together against the “triplets of evil” — militarism, racism, and economic injustice — to insist that people need not die from poverty in the richest nation to ever exist. Poor people in communities across America — black, white, brown and Native — responded by building a Poor People’s Campaign that would demand a Marshall Plan for America’s poor. Dr. King, along with many other impacted people and moral leaders in the Poor People’s Campaign of 1967/68, began an effort to build a broad, fusion coalition that would audit America, demanding an accounting of promissory notes that had been returned marked “insufficient funds.” We have not finished their work. Though Trump’s presidency is the culmination of a violent backlash against the Second Reconstruction that Dr. King and many others led, the future of our democracy depends on us completing the work of a Third Reconstruction today. This is why I hear the Spirit calling us to build a new Poor People’s Campaign. As our social fabric is stretched thin by widening income inequality, politicians criminalize the poor, fan the flames of racism and xenophobia to divide the poor, and steal from the poor to give tax breaks to our richest neighbors and budget increases to a bloated military. Americans across the country are crying out in defiance — and for change. Bringing this cry into the public square, a Resistance has emerged: The Fight for $15, the Movement for Black Lives, Moral Mondays, the Women’s March, The People’s Climate March and No Ban/No Wall protesters have taken to the streets.
At such a time as this, we need a new Poor People’s Campaign for Moral Revival to help us become the nation we’ve not yet been. I don’t just know this because the river of resistance in my tradition echoes its truth down through the centuries. What began with an outcry in North Carolina became a sustained movement for political change through moral, fusion organizing, led by poor and impacted people. Throughout America’s history — from abolition, to women’s suffrage, to labor and civil rights — real social change has come when impacted people have joined hands with allies of good will to stand together against injustice. They stood for the deep moral center of our Constitutional and faith traditions. Those deep wells sustained poor and impacted people who knew in their bones both that power concedes nothing without a fight and that, in the end, love is the greatest power to sustain a fight for what is right. We hope you’ll join us and invite others to come along as we commit to go forward together, not one step back!” -Rev. Barber For more information on how you can join the New Poor People’s campaign or other actions, go to poorpeoplescampaign.org
DON’S JOKES
I worked in the woods as a Lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe. After that, I tried being a tailor, but I wasn't suited for it -- mainly because it was a sew-sew job. I attempted being a Deli Worker, but any way I sliced it...I couldn't cut the mustard. I had a job in a Shoe Factory. I tried hard but just didn't fit in. My soul was not in it. I managed to get a good job working for a Pool Maintenance Company, but the work was too draining. Never hire a plumber wearing boots and an electrician who has scorched eyebrows. Why were the elephants kicked off of the beach? They had their trunks down. A golf club walked into a bar and ordered a drink. The bartender said, “No can do. You will be driving later.” What is the sign that your computer is getting old? It starts losing memory. Ole took a flight from Minneapolis to Seattle, and when the plane landed he said, “Vell, dere goes five dollars down the drain for dat flight insurance!” You want to know what God thinks of money, just look at people God gave it to. I never had a penny to my name. So I changed my name. Sven: Ole, You should pull down your shades at night. I saw you and Lena fooling around. Ole: Ha! The jokes on you. I wasn’t home last night.
INTERESTING FACTS
Arizona has spent $3,600,000 drug testing 87,000 welfare recipients. Want to know how many failed? One. ----Harper’s Index On t-shirt of one of the teachers in the Oklahoma teacher strike and protest: “Don’t make me use my teacher voice”
The U.S. military has plans to create genetically modified marine organisms that can be used as underwater spies for the military to track enemy traffic undersea. ----Defence One
From 1900 to 2015, nonviolent campaigns succeeded 51% of the time, whereas violent campaigns succeeded only 27% of the time. So far this decade, 30% of nonviolent campaigns have succeeded, whereas only 12% of violent campaigns have succeeded — meaning that in fact, the proportional success gap between them is now actually wider than average.--- Washington Post
On April 14, the U.S. fired 105 missiles on Syria. That number is 10 times the number of Syrian refugees the U.S. has taken in all year.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement agents raided 98 7-Eleven stores in one morning in January.
About 72% of Afghan refugees had to flee a second time after returning home. The world’s 42 richest people have as much money as do 50% of the world’s poor. ----Harper’s Index
It is a myth that undocumented immigrants “take” from the government. They actually pay millions in taxes every year, and they are not allowed to get public benefits like food stamps or subsidized health care for their kids. U.S. tax money goes to ICE which takes away human rights from the immigrants.---Rewire News
A 2010 study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) estimated that the United States would need to spend at least $285 billion over five years to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country. The two largest private corrections corporations, GEO Group and CoreCivic, each gave $250,000 to Trump's inaugural festivities. They each get $2 billion a year to detain immigrants. Each year , ICE detains about 400,000 immigrants. -----Human Rights First
Brian, Don and I were in Duluth MN 2 weeks ago. We attended the Midwest Catholic Worker Faith and Resistance gathering. The gathering happens once a year somewhere in the Midwest and focus on a justice concern in the area. We always have the people affected by the injustice guide us and share what they would like us to do. Some of us do nonviolent civil disobedience at an agreed upon area. We approach this prayfully hoping that attention will be drawn to the problem. This year it was the Enbridge oil pipeline that the company wants to put in across Ojibwe land. They want to leave in the old deteriorating pipeline in place and put in a higher capacity pipeline next to it. There has been discharge all along , especially at the pumps. The Native Americans would like the old pipe removed, and no new pipeline placed on their land. The U.S. continues to disregard treaties made with Native Americans. It was agreed that we would trespass onto the site where the new pipes are stored. It is the size of 2 football fields dilled with 36x36 round and 20ft. long pipes. On Monday we went to the site. We carried in sacred items sent from around the country to be placed on the site and prayed over. Each of us going into the area carried a jar of water with a message tied to it. Each person said a prayer into the water and and placed it in one of the pipes. We sang and prayed for a change, to honor the treaties made with our Native American brothers and sisters. We prayed for a change in our hearts to honor and revere the water we drink, the air we breathe and the earth which gives all things for life. Earlier, Babette, an Native American, spoke to us of the connectedness of all things, especially water. Pictures on a screen showed water at a molecular level changing configuration by the attitude of the person approaching the water. Beautiful configurations occurred when reverence was shown. Very distorted formations occurred when a negative mind set approached the water. Think., 50 to 60% of our body is water. Perhaps it is time to listen to our native Americans brothers and sisters as they ask us to live in harmony with all creation, to honor our agreements we made as we took much of their land. We have much to learn. Peace, Roberta
Sr. Lucy Edelbeck, a Dominican Sister and very good friend and supporter of our’s, passed over on April 19.
She will be remembered for her justice and peace work, her teaching skills and artwork (Lucy’s Cards) May she now rest with God. We also remember Vel Phillips, an attorney and avid defender of human rights, who also passed over last week. She is a heroine of our time. May the young people follow her example.
Sunday, May 13 -----Mother’s Day Water Ceremony at McKinley Beach, 1750 Lincoln Memorial Dr., at 3 p.m. followed by a New Poor People’s Campaign picket at Lincoln Memorial Dr starting at 4 p.m.
Monday, May 14th-- New Poor People's Campaign day of moral fusion and civil disobedience. Join the call for a moral revival! Go to facebook.com/pg/wisconsinppc for details
Thurs., May 17 ----Vigil at the . Marine Recruiting Station, 14th & Wells Sts., from 4 to 5 p.m. to call for an end to war, weapons and training for war. No more funds for war! The Pentagon cannot account for $6.5 Trillion given it by taxpayers. Armed Forces Day is on May 19.s
Don’s Memoirs entitled Midwife of grace, are still available . Yes, believe it or not, there are stilll copies of it at Amazon. Also Lincoln Rice’s book on the beginnings of the Chicago Catholic Worker is also still available.