This does ring true for me...and it has for decades.

 

Black Panthers And Hillbillies---A Hidden History, An On-Going Hope

I don't know how many people migrated out from Appalachia to the north or moved east and west from their homes in search of work after the Second World War and into the 1970s. I don't if anyone knows, or if it's even possible to count, but I bet that it was at least in the hundreds of thousands. Their numbers included my father, who left the coal regions of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and many of the kids who I went to school with who came from Western North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia or who had parents who did.

If you are not from some part of Appalachia, or if you never encountered these people, then you probably have no image of them or ever thought much about them. And since we don't know the numbers of people involved, and because Appalachia is so large and is so diverse, any stereotypes that we have fail. I do remember from my childhood and teen years that the kids who came from Southern and Central Appalachia seemed tough and ready to fight, racist, and fatalistic. They chose hard drugs and hard drinking pretty early on. On the other hand, the kids from the Northeastern Pennsylvania coal regions in these years seems depressed and bored and not so much given to rebellion. They were often sadly resigned to finding low-paying and union-represented factory jobs or, possibly, making it into community college or a trade or using family connections to move away with the hope of doing better. I only began to come to terms with this and how I fit in and didn't fit in the late 1970s.

I did get to know a little about the hillbilly community in Baltimore and thought that I would move there when I was in my late teens. Working at the Sparrows Point steel mill or the Wilmington GM plant didn't seem like bad ideas at the time. Only the postwar recession killed those plans. I was also aware of the movements for social change that were developing in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood among uprooted Appalachians and Southerners (yes, the two groups are different) and I still credit the Young Patriots and Rising Up Angry groups with helping my political development as a teenager. You can read about this in Hy Thurman's hands-on autobiography Revolutionary Hillbilly and follow him on Facebook for a full account and a look into where that movement is at today. The movement in Uptown seemed to challenge almost everything when I encountered it.

The white and Southern Young Patriots allied with the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords Organization, a revolutionary Puerto Rican organization, and the three groups founded what is today thought of as the first Rainbow Coalition. The film American Revolution II captures some of the excitement and the methods of organizing used in those years. It remains instructive. The film and Thurman's book both center Black Panther Party organizer Bobby Lee. Whether you agree with the politics involved or not, the movement in Uptown in part of modern Appalachian history. There are many entries about this on this blog. For me the bottom line is that people of color are not demanding anything that white working-class people don't absolutely need.

No movement for social justice every loses on every count. Those movements may not win, but it's a good bet that when people struggle against oppression they always gain ground, even if their gains are in developing new ways of relating to one another or deeper self-confidence or new ideas. The first Rainbow Coalition and the groups within it did not fail.

Hy Thurman had an interesting piece on Bobby Lee in the April 13, 2017 issue of Counterpunch. Please give that a good read. The following parable from Bobby Lee appears in that article:

The White Panther and the Black Panther Story
By The Black Panther Man, Bobby Lee

Every day in Africa, the Zebra and the Gazelle wake up. They know they must run faster than the White Panther that hunts in the day and the Black Panther that hunts in the night or they will be killed. Every morning, the White Panther wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest Zebra or Gazelle or it will starve to death. Every night the “Black Panther” rises up. It too knows that it must outrun the slowest Zebra or Gazelle or his family will starve also.

It does not matter whether you are a White Panther or a Black Panther or a Zebra or a Gazelle: When the sun rises and when the sun sets, you better be strong and running.  

Plain talk from Beau of the Fifth Column

Let's talk about Moore County, North Carolina....

Let's talk about what Warnock's win means....

Bishop William J. Barber, II preaching in Georgia today

Bishop William J. Barber, II was at St. Mary's Road United Methodist Church in Columbus, Georgia today and delivered a powerful message about voting and what's at stake in the runoff election now underway there. What he has to say here affects all of us and every state. What do we take into consideration when we think about politics and vote? Why is what happens in the South so important to the future of the United States?

ReformJudaism.org, Amy-Jill Levine, Gender Identity, And Voting

I have posted from ReformJudaism.org occasionally without comment from readers. I believe that their Torah study and commentary are important contributions to how we understand monotheism and ethics and creation itself, but I also understand that many Christians reject this or are firm in their beliefs that Christianity supersedes and replaces Judaism or that Christians have been "grafted" onto Judaism and monotheism and that they (Christians) are freed from Jewish law and practices. In my mind, Christian Zionism is one of the great errors of the day, but I have to admit that it is a powerful cultural and political force. All of this and busy schedules and the demands of daily life means that decisive numbers of Christians are not going to engage with Judaism. And ReformJudaism.org is not put together with Christians in mind.

I have recommended in the past that Christians engage with Amy-Jill Levine and her interesting work. She attends and Orthodox synagogue and is not, so far as I know, part of the Reform movement. It's not that I agree with her on everything, but that her methodology and scholarship are closer to what we need than closed minds and dead traditions. It would be helpful if more Christians read her work or watched her videos and discussed her lessons. She's smarter than the average bear and she lives in Tennessee, which are good recommendations, though she isn't all that into talking about the Tennessee Volunteers football program. Someone must have said a good prayer for the Volunteers when they took down Alabama recently, but it must not have been Amy-Jill Levine. Amplify Media has many of her books and is within the comfort zones of many Christians, so readers can start there.

The following essay by Jacob Kraus-Preminger appeared at ReformJudaism.org before the elections. I'm lifting it without permission and only giving part of the article with a link for you to follow up with. This is a good example of how faith works and how faith and works inform one another. Please read 'til the end because there is mention of other important articles and link as well added on.

I still remember when I was 13 years old and decided that I wanted to learn to play guitar. It did not come easily to me: I have always struggled with coordination and am left-handed; most guitars are made for right-handed people. Practicing guitar was the first thing that I truly committed myself to. What kept me going was not a desire to be the next great guitarist, but a love I had discovered in synagogue and at summer camp for singing as a community. When I was finally able to lead communities in song myself, I was grateful both for my newfound skills and for what I had learned from the experience of acquiring those skills: namely, how deep commitment and ongoing practice could enable me to do something I did not think was possible.

I am mindful that democracy also takes commitment and practice. Democracy takes practice because it still is not accessible to all. The democracy we live in today was established by people who restricted political power to white, Christian men. Over the centuries, people and movements have pushed these boundaries and pursued a democracy that better reflects all who call this country home. Nevertheless, voter suppression laws still intentionally keep Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) from voting, as well as poor people, people with disabilities, and young people.

Democracy takes practice because it is messy. It requires that people who will not always agree come together and make collective decisions.

Democracy takes practice because it is at risk. People who gain power by spreading division and fear are challenging the very foundations of free and fair elections.

Go here to read the rest.

Now, the Union for Reform Judaism is doing some great work of affirming and embracing children of all genders and helping families and communities support their transgender youth. This isn't something to turn away from or refuse to engage with, and it should help many Christians to know that Jews are doing this in ways that are Scripturally and ethically sound. No one is rewriting God's Holy Word to suit current fashion, please Nancy Pelosi, keep Biden in the White House, and destroy America. Really. There are great videos here and here to check in with.

Beau of the Fifth Column--Short videos that help you think

Beau is one of my favorite voices. Please give him a listen. These are short videos available on Youtube.

Let's talk about Republicans losing more than the youth....

Let's talk about republicans coping with the midterm news....

Let's talk about CEOs "destroying the planet"....

Join the Poor People's Campaign & other people of faith for one final push on November 3

Join the National Co-Chairs of The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Bishop William J. Barber II & Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis this Thursday, November 3rd at 8:00PM ET for a National GOTV Virtual Rally. This event will air live at poorpeoplescampaign.org/livestream

This event will also air live on our Twitter, Facebook & YouTube pages and be crossposted to state campaign Facebook pages in an effort to reach thousands across the country.

During this gathering, we will celebrate the work that has been done for this national effort since June 18th, hear the stories of those impacted by the five interlocking injustices and rally to ensure that our neighbors, families and communities are all registered to vote and equipped with a voting plan.

Here’s how you can get involved:

Mark Your Calendars & Invite a friend to join you virtually on Thursday, November 3rd at 8:00PM ET.
Visit vote.poorpeoplescampaign.org to create a voting plan and to sign up for our text bank initiative and help us get out the vote!

Let us know you’re tuning in by tagging us in a post that you’re watching and using #OurVotesAreDemands

Forward Together,

The Poor People’s Campaign

 

Please listen in. This is Bernie Sanders telling you all some hard truths.

 

Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy and what compassion looks like as policy

The following are some quotes taken from the book Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy. You may be familiar with her book Dopesick or the Hulu series by the same name. I believe that Raising Lazarus is a needed starting point for people who want to do healing and create new policy paths in our communities and in the United States. The crises of substance use disorders and opioid use disorders are linked to other social crises as well. The problems our families and communities are facing every day are linked to one another, making these crises systemic. But if we going to wait to become experts ourselves, or depend on so-called experts and leaders, before taking action things are going to get much worse. Raising Lazarus gives us the starting points that we need. Think of this book as a compass.

One of our primary problems is in our lack of compassion for people who suffer with substance use disorders and opioid use disorders and their families. Many of us hold to the ideas that someone has to hit bottom before they will want or deserve help, that some people are beyond help, that there should be high barriers to people seeking help, that these disorders are moral failings, and that imprisonment is the best and most socially beneficial form of treatment. Macy makes a good point in her book that when we talk in these terms it is often our own trauma speaking and that the decades-long war on drugs and that trauma are costing us our compassion. This trauma and our lack of compassion, then, excuse us from helping others and saving lives. 

Here are some quotes from the book with page numbers given from the hardback edition (Little, Brown and Company; New York, 2022).

Page xiii: Within the first pandemic year, the overdose count was 29 percent higher than the year before, and the numbers kept climbing. By late 2021, it was clear that addiction had become the No. 1 destroyer of families in our time, with almost a third of Americans reporting it as a serious cause of family strife, and drug overdoses claiming the lives of more than 100,000 Americans in a year---more than from car crashes and guns combined.

Page xvii: in a country that spends five times more to incarcerate people with (substance use disorder) than it does to treat their medical condition, progress was stagnant. In 2019, an estimated 18.9 million Americans in need of treatment didn't receive it. That's a treatment gap of roughly 90 percent. Among the lucky few who do get treatment, Black patients were far less likely than Whites to have access to lifesaving buprenorphine...a medicine that blocks opioid cravings...

Page xv: In Charleston, West Virginia, complaints about vagrancy and needle litter outside the public health department's needle exchange led to its closure in 2018, sparking a 1,500 percent increase in HIV.

Page 13: At one community meeting Mathis attended...a historic-district leader complained repeatedly that her neighborhood had been overtaken by people engaging in around-the-clock drug deals. "We need to tear down those houses and abolish the Fourth Amendment so police can do what they need to do," the woman said.

Mathis listened patiently to a range of stigma-inflicted comments. But at the mention of of abolishing the Fourth Amendment she stood..."Y'all, I just have to ask: Do you know the song, 'They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love'? Well, I'm not feeling the love in this room right now."

Mathis reminded them that that Jesus tended first to people's physical needs because he understood that folks who were tired, hungry, and hurting "wouldn't have ears for what he needed to say." When the civic leader persisted, Mathis politely suggested she fix her neighbors a casserole---people who use drugs sometimes forget to eat, she explained.

Page 72: Fentanyl was present in more than 60 percent of the 2020 overdose deaths reported by the CDC, a quadrupling of the portion it accounted for in 2015. By June of 2021, mortality kept rising as fentanyl and other synthetics were involved in a whopping 87 percent of opioid deaths and 65 percent of all drug overdose deaths.

Page 89: Between 1999 and 2019, the gap between rural and urban death rates almost tripled, growing from 62 per 100,000 to 169.5. That death-rate disparity was bigger now than the disparity between Black people and White people, which academics pinned not just to deaths of despair but also to poor nutrition, lack of exercise, smoking, and uneven access to quality medical care.

Whether they meant to or not, people were literally killing themselves as the hyper-polarized government they hated stood by, and politicians who professed to lead them were engulfed in culture wars about transgender bathroom rights, Stonewall Jackson statues, and critical race theory. "People are making a virtue of going it alone and not depending on anyone, almost as a kind of self-protection," Silva told me.

Or as Nikki put it: "Rigid thinking is what it is, and that's a trauma response."

Page 256: But anyone with walking-around sense now understood that shipping 100 million opioid doses to a county with a population of just 90,000 was not acting in the best interests of that community. Huntington (West Virginia), a small city an hour west of Charleston, had the highest overdose-death rate of any community in the nation.

In 2016, Huntington-based EMS workers had responded to twenty-six heroin overdoses in less than four hours. One in five babies born at the local hospital was exposed to addictive substances. Foster-care placements doubled, and the school system had to install a twenty-four-hour hotline so that the police and schools could communicate about students living in homes where parents had (substance use disorder). The high school now has a dedicated space where traumatized teens can go if they need to talk to an adult or just be alone, no questions asked.

Page 275: People with (substance abuse disorders) are still ignored by policy makers when they often have the most knowledge to offer about their conditions, said Baltimore addiction specialist Yngvild Olsen, who cited a recent survey of 900 people with (substance abuse disorders). Their top three goals, in order, were: staying alive, reducing harmful substance use, and improving mental health. 

Macy provides a few pages of needed policy and political changes at the end of the book. None of them will solve all of the problems quickly, but they all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. When that puzzle has been put together we will see one another and what is within us more clearly. Policy is a test of faith. Can we raise people from the tombs we have consigned them to or not? Is resurrection possible or is it a fable? Macy and the stone-rollers who she writes about believe in resurrection. Do you?   

  

      

Why I vote for progressive policies and pro-worker candidates...

 

I voted---And some observations about our system

 

Moral Clarity About Our Own Atrocities---Bishop William Barber II

The following came out as an e-mail from Bishop Barber and Repairers of the Breach on Saturday, April 30. Please learn about and support Repairers of the Breach by going here.

Dear Movement Family,

In Philadelphia this week, the Pennsylvania Poor People’s Campaign organized a march from City Hall to a church downtown, where Carolyn Hill shared the story of losing her two nieces to poverty. “The child welfare department decided I was too poor to raise them,” Ms. Hill testified. “I had a roof over my head and food in the fridge and the girls were doing well in my care… But if I had had the Child Tax Credit earlier, child welfare might not have taken my nieces from me.” She hasn’t seen the babies she helped to raise in nine years because of policy decisions by Republicans and Democrats who believe lies about scarcity.

Over the past couple of months, Russia’s assault on Ukraine has produced scenes that demand action from people who want to hold onto our humanity. To see the butchery at Bucha or the massacre at Mariupol and do nothing would be to forfeit any claim to moral authority. We know this instinctively. It is why, despite the political gridlock on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have acted swiftly to approve historic military aid to Ukraine. In the face of such a moral imperative, it would be anathema for either party to ask, “How are we going to pay for it?”

But our moral clarity on the question of Ukraine exposes the contradiction at the heart of American politics for the past 40 years. In 1967, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. told the story of visiting Marks, Mississippi, and meeting a teacher who cut her apple into several pieces at lunch each day so that students who had nothing else to eat could share it for nourishment. In the richest nation in the history of the world, King knew it was a moral contradiction to witness such poverty and do nothing. So he agreed to work with a coalition of Black, White, Latino and Native poor people to make America see the human suffering in its midst. King was gunned down for his efforts to build a Poor People’s Campaign, but the mobilization helped compel the government to launch a War on Poverty. Republicans and Democrats agreed it was unimaginable to simply look away.

America has not sustained that moral clarity about the catastrophe of poverty. As we continue our national tour to prepare for the Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls on June 18, 2022, poor and low-income people like Ms. Hill are putting a face on the moral crisis of poverty in the richest nation in the history of the world.

As we all watch the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine, Americans are aware that the main difference between us and the Russian people is that we see the truth of the human slaughter that is hidden from them by Putin’s propaganda. If they could see what we see, we know they could not allow it to continue in their names. But if this is true of human suffering half a world away, then it must be also true of the catastrophes hidden in our cities’ homeless encampments and Walmart parking lots, filled with families sleeping in cars because they cannot afford housing. If it is true for babies in Ukraine, then it is also true for Ms. Hill’s babies.

We are no less culpable than the Russian people because we have been willing to go along with narratives that blame poor people or hide their suffering behind arguments about book bans or “critical race theory.” It is our moral duty to see the suffering of other human beings, especially those closest to us. And when we witness unnecessary suffering, it is our duty to act.

If Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine demand action, then so too does the failure of the US Senate to pass Build Back Better’s provisions for affordable housing, green jobs, living wages for care workers, and a child tax credit that will immediately lift 4 million children out of poverty. If Putin’s attack on democracy in Europe can unite Western democracies, then the assault on voting rights in state houses across America must, at the very least, unite Senate Democrats in their resolve to pass federal voting rights protections before the midterms this fall.

The moral imperative of these issues is no less pressing than the human suffering in Ukraine. We cannot ignore the cry for help from Ukraine, just as we cannot look away from the poor people and low-wage workers who are calling for a Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls.

This historic gathering at a watershed moment in our nation’s history isn’t just another rally. It is a call coming from grassroots movements in communities across America where people are learning that we have power when we get together, and we have authority when we act to stop the atrocities that we have allowed here at home for far too long.

Forward together,

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
President and Senior Lecturer
Repairers of the Breach

PS: As we focus our attention on mobilizing people for June 18th, our organizers have put together a great set of resources to help you organize a bus from your community. Please reach out to your faith community, union, neighborhood association, or civic organization to start signing people up for a bus this week. We’re putting everything we’ve got into building a national platform where we can demand that this nation see the suffering of people like Ms. Hill.

Forward together, not one step back!

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
President and Senior Lecturer
Repairers of the Breach

“The way to heal the soul of the nation is to pass policies that heal the body of the nation. It’s the just thing to do. That’s how we as a nation can together move forward.” -Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

Eugene Debs, Socialism Today, And Faith & Activism

Eugene Debs (1855-1926) was one of the great leaders of the socialist movement in the United States. His influence and example can still be felt on the left in the U.S.

Debs was one of those who did not subscribe to a particular religious faith for most of his adult life but who lived out the Gospels and a humanist way of going through life. He was a labor leader, a prolific writer, a gifted public speaker who was much in demand, a leader of the Socialist Party, and a Presidential candidate. He won almost one million votes when he ran for President in 1920---and he was campaigning, if we can call it that, from his prison cell in Atlanta where he was being held under political charges stemming from his opposition to the First World War.

You can learn more about Eugene Debs here.  

The largest socialist organization in the United States is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Go here to learn about and contact DSA. DSA's Religion and Socialism Working Group is here.

Please read the demands below. Many of them are still relevant. There is nothing there that contradicts or opposes true faith and religion. We say here on this blog that these demands, and the demands raised by the socialist and labor movements today, reflect a true and living faith and fulfill religious covenants and promises.     

Bernie Sanders on the relevancy of Eugene Debs, hope, and solidarity.

The Nature Of Truth And Lies: Truth in Transition with Carlton D. Pearson

 

The #PoorPeoplesCampaign June 18 Mobilization Tour comes to Philadelphia---This clip has ASL interpretation---FORWARD TOGETHER! NOT ONE STEP BACK!

There is some solid preaching and inspiration here. It's a call to commit and to take action. It's another way to look at faith and action. It's teaching and it's learning. It's overcoming fear. It's real.

Ramiro Navarro for Oregon State Representative in House District 21!

My friend R.J. Navarro is running for State Representative from Oregon's House District 21. He is a working-class guy with a history of reliable community activism. I've seen him move a room that I did not think would support him. I've been impressed by his work ethic, his love for his family, and his humility. I know that he is a person of faith and of courage. I wish that I knew many more people like him.

If you are in Oregon's HD 21, please give R.J. your support. And whether you're in his district or not, please donate to his campaign.

Like the ad says, R.J. has the support of the Working Families Party. He also has Labor endorsements, an endorsement from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, endorsements from reproductive justice groups, and an endorsement from at least one civil rights group. This is a bottom-up, grassroots campaign.

Go HERE for more information and to lend a hand. 

   

Salem & Marion County, Oregon Upcoming Candidate Forum

 

Protect Trans Kids Rally In Salem, Oregon On May 13

 

Why Good Friday is a warning against far-right Christian nationalism---Rev. Nathan Empsall, Episcopal priest and the executive director of Faithful America

Good Friday is a day when Christians remember Jesus Christ’s death on the cross — his execution upon an instrument of state torture.

It is also a powerful reminder of how dangerous it is for society when authoritarian politicians and corrupt religious leaders conspire for power and dominion.


Good Friday’s warning resonates deeply even now, nearly 2,000 years after Jesus’ death. That’s because the relationship between the religious authorities of Christ’s time and the brutal Roman governor who ordered his execution, Pontius Pilate, is little different from the Christian nationalist bond that exists between today’s Republican Party and conservative American Christianity.

Read more here.

Why do we still need libraries?