The Gray Panthers

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote a commemoration for the event. He wrote:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government… All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, to let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

Though the Founding Fathers were not perfect, I still admire them for giving us the ideals of freedom and equality that future generations of radicals and reformers expanded upon. The ideals that Thomas Jefferson espoused were the building blocks that later day abolitionists, women’s suffragists, civil rights workers, feminists and gay rights activists used to change society’s views on race, gender and sexual orientation. Our Founding Fathers set up this democratic republic that worked only with the participation of an informed and active citizenry, an ideal that the Everyday Citizen blogsite exemplifies. Some activists work to better our society as individuals, some work with other like-minded citizens in groups. One of the groups that has worked to make this country live up to its ideals of freedom and equality are the Gray Panthers.

The Gray Panthers formed in 1970, when Maggie Kuhn and group of five friends, all of whom were retiring from national religious and social work organizations, created an organization for older Americans to fight for progressive causes like their opposition to the Vietnam War, their fight against age discrimination and their support of universal health care. Among the issues that the Gray Panthers currentlysupport are a national single payer health care system; the development of renewable, clean energy sources; the regulation and oversight of environmental industries to ensure that the people are protected from environmental hazards; policies that preserve civil rights and that do not discriminate against people based on age, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnic background, or disability; and an economic system that provides safety net services for those in need, invests in the development of its children, supports a thriving middle class, allows people to benefit from their efforts, encourages adults to contribute to the greater good of the country, and ensures economic security in retirement including strengthening Social Security.

I looked at youtube for some videos of activities of the Gray Panthers. Here are a few. If you wish to become active with the Gray Panthers, you can go to this website and volunteer at a local chapter. Here is a link to their Facebook page.

A panel celebrating the Gray Panther’s fortieth anniversary as a social and economic justice advocacy organization challenging ageism, racism, and sexism

Gray Panthers recently joined teachers, students, hotel workers, union members, and neighbors in a spirited rally in Chicago’s Hyde Park against property taxes that are being used to fund the construction of a luxury hotel — while public schools face millions of dollars in cuts

Gray Panthers own Judy Lear on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court talking about the ACA decision and the Gray Panthers stance on healthcare

Deetje Boler of the Gray Panthers talks in a San Francisco meeting against the police use of tasers

Judy Lear of the Gray Panthers speaks out in a Brooklyn rally in 2007 against war

A Gray Panther forum in Austin, Texas in 2008 on “Rehabilitation Not Incarceration”

Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn addresses Vermont seniors and members of what is now called the Community of Vermont Elders (COVE) in this archival video shot in 1991

The National Council of Elders

Last September, when I visited Washington D.C., I encountered a small gathering at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial organized by a group called the National Council of Elders. The National Council of Elders is a group that was founded by Rev. James Lawson, Dr. Vincent Harding and Rev. Phil Lawson that consists of veterans of the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, the immigrant rights movement and the gay rights movement and their goal is to continue their work in social justice and to impart the wisdom of their experiences to a new generation of social justice activists. The representatives of the National Council of Elders were presenting their Greensborough Declaration, which urged the country to resolve to help the poor and working class in their struggles during this economic recession.

Among the members of the National Council of Elders are many of the icons of the great social justice movements of the past 60 years. It includes respected activists like Dolores Huerta, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Marian Wright Edelman, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Reverand Mel White, Reverand Nelson Johnson, and Dr. Grace Lee Boggs. They have shown their support of the Occupy Wall Street movement and had created a Greensborough Declaration to influence the Presidential elections to focus on the issues of economic inequality and the struggles of the middle class and poor.

One of the things that I most admire about the National Council of Elders is the ecumenical nature of the participants. There are Christian ministers, Jewish rabbis, and Muslim ministers who are a part of the group, and I’m sure that Buddhist and other religious clergy also participate. To me, this shows that the fight for social justice is an integral part of many religions, especially the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. I’ve always disliked Karl Marx’s statement that religion the opiate of the masses. If you look at the history of American reform, for instance, many of America’s great grassroots social movements, from the Abolitionists, to the women’s suffragists, to the labor movement and the civil rights movement, drew many of its leaders and supporters from Christian churches. In the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran are many references that testify to the Abrahamic God’s concern for the poor and the marginalized.

An example is Proverbs 31:8-9 in the Old Testament, which states:

Open your mouth for the mute,

For the rights of all who are destitute,

Open your mouth, judge righteously,

Defend the rights of the poor and needy

The Koran states in the 177th verse in Chapter 2:

Righteousness is not that you should turn your faces to the East and the West;

rather, the righteous are those who believe in God and the last day,

and the angels and scripture and prophets;

and who give material gifts out of love for God,

even of what they care for,

to relatives and orphans,

and the poor and the traveler and the needy,

and for the purpose of liberating the enslaved;

and who pray regularly and give alms;

and who fulfilled their promises when they promise;

and those who are patient in misfortune, affliction, and hard times:

they are the ones who confirm the truth, and they are the conscientious.

Matthew 25:31-40 of the New Testament reads:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothed you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”

And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.”

I end this blog with the National Council of Elders’ Greensborough Declaration, then with a few youtube videos of the work of the group. To go to their facebook page, you can go to this link.

The National Council of Elders show their support of the Occupy Wall Street protests and emphasize the need for any social movement to be intergenerational

A meeting on November 20, 2011 between members of Occupy Wall Street and the Council of Elders

Youtube videos of the National Council of Elders releasing the Greensborough Declaration on September 12, 2012

Jasper Protests The War

Originally published as a September 7, 2009 webcomic for Everyday Citizen

Over the years, I’m ashamed to say, I’ve been somewhat of an arm chair liberal. I’ve talked a lot with my friends about politics and social change, and I’ve complained a lot about the things that are wrong with our society. Yet I haven’t really volunteered much to try to make any changes in our society. My brother and his wife put me to shame in this sense. Over the years, they have taken part in protests for immigrant rights and to fight the invasion of Iraq, and they are now working with the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports to reduce pollution in the Ports of southern California. Right now they are working on a postcard campaign to persuade local politicians and Congress to support the Clean Trucks program.

Attached is the copy of the postcard and here is the website for more information about the Coalition: cleanandsafeports.org. I deeply admire them for their activism and willingness to get involved to try to improve their community and their country.

Last week I decided to attend my first vigil. It was a vigil on health care reform on September 2, 2009 at the corner of Stevens Creek Boulevard and Winchester Road in San Jose, California. I went with my friend Dave, who officiated my wedding with Lisa 4 years ago, and is a passionate liberal and a former nurse. When I was researching health care reform to try to form an opinion, I would ask people that I knew in the health care field what their opinions were. Dave has definite opinions of the health care debate.

It was a fun vigil. Several people were there for the first time, and I think everyone was invigorated to meet other people who shared the same passion for health care reform. During the vigil, a large group of people lined themselves at the corner of the street and waved signs at passing cars. If the cars approved of the message of universal health care, they would honk their horns. At the same time, the organizer of the event would allow various individuals to go to the microphone and tell of their own individual stories about their experiences being sick and the financial toll that they suffered. As the night encroached, we lighted candles.

I was amazed at how many cars honked their horns in support of health care reform. A lady next to me, who participated in past vigils protesting the war in Iraq, mentioned that there were far more cars honking their horns for health care reforms than honked their horns for peace. The people who were participating in the vigil were very diverse, with many different nationalities, age groups, and an even mix of men and women. Dave and I met unexpectedly met some friends whom we hadn’t seen in over a year.

A highlight for me was in meeting Father Bill Leininger. When I first talked to him, he mentioned that in the past he had marched with Cesar Chavez and had met Dorothy Day, and I was really impressed with him. After the vigil was over, I mentioned this priest in my facebook site and a friend told me that Father Leininger is a pioneer clergy in the social protest movements of the past 40 years. I went on the internet and found that in recent years, Father Leininger has joined in vigils in support of protests in support of janitors at Cisco System, to support WalMart employees, and to fight for immigrant rights. Last May, SIREN (Services, Immigrant Rights, & Education Network), 2nd Annual Fundraiser gave Father Leininger their Advocate Award for his years of support of immigrant rights. After finding this out, I wish I had gotten a chance to talk to Father Leininger more.

If you want to know more about what activists are doing around the country, this website, Everyday Citizen, is a good source of information. Two magazines are also excellent sources. One is the Catholic Worker. Founded in the depths of the Great Depression by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker chronicles the work of a progressive Catholic movement founded by Day and Maurin to help the poor and fight for peace.

In the August-July 2009 Catholic Worker, Jenny Thomas wrote an article about a group of Catholic Workers who went to a Gaza border crossing to deliver $17,000 of medical supplies to a hospital in Gaza. The members of the Catholic worker team, Beth Brockman, Mark Colville, Brenna Cussen, Colin Gilbert, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy, and Jenny Thomas, went to the Dheished Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, the Palestinian farmers cut off from any water supply, and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Ric Rhetor wrote an article about the New Sanctuary movement and a vigil they held on July 7 outside the Federal Court in New York. It was for Roxroy Salmon and his appeal to stay in the country. RoxRoy is an organizer at Families for Freedom and a member of the New Sanctuary Coalition. Because of minor drug convictions from over 20 years ago, he is facing removal proceedings. The court gave Roxroy an order of deportation, but his lawyer has filed for a deferred action.

Z Magazine is an independent magazine based in Boston. Z Magazine has a radical point of view and chronicles the efforts of activists to make this world a better place.

In the July/August 2009 issue of Z Magazine, there was an article mentioning the closing of Northland Poster Collective after 30 years of creating art, slogans, posters, bumper stickers, t-shirts, poems and quotes for unions, grassroots activists, and social justice movements. The organization was an activist organization and art group, and it provided such slogans for picket lines as “The Labor Movement: The Folks That Brought You The Weekend”, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Cross Picket Lines”, and “Unions: The Anti-Theft Device For Working People”. The troubles that Northland Poster Collective have faced are being faced by all left wing media center.

In the September 2009 issue of Z Magazine, nine activists were arrest in August in Fort McCoy in Tomah, Wisconsin, for protesting U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the continuing U.S. possession of nuclear weapons. These nine activists were also commemorating the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima in August 6 and Nagasaki in August 9. Four members of the group were taken to Madison where they faced federal trespass charges.

One of my favorite books is Grace Paley’s book, Just As I Thought. It chronicles her years of activism against war and racism, and her years of teaching. I’ve admired the humorous and down-to-earth perspective that Paley brings to her recollections of protesting the Vietnam War and the various vigils against nuclear weapons. In an interview with Meredith Smith and Karen Kahn, Paley talked about the importance of Americans to use their privileges to fight for social causes.

“But we were just talking about civil disobedience. Some people think it’s an elite act because some of us have privileges of white skin or maybe jobs we won’t lose the minute we are arrested. Well, it’s true that people of color are treated worse in prison than white women. They are. (Of course, the great civil disobedience movements- King, Gandhi- were not exactly white). When white women (or men) use the argument- therefore nobody should do it- I don’t understand them. It seems to me that privilege is obligation, that if it’s easier to go to jail, so to speak, or more possible, then direct actions that may lead to arrest are exactly what we ought to undertake when that is what’s called for.

It’s sort of like having democratic rights and not using them. It’s a totally different subject but people will always come to you when you’re giving out leaflets and say, ‘You wouldn’t be able to do that in Russia.’ So therefore you shouldn’t do it here? Well, of course you have an obligation to push the privileges of democracy, to push and extend them everywhere. And people who can should do so. We also have to be willing to divide up the work without feeling that some folks are being snotty about it or braver. They’re not braver. For instance, when my children were babies, I was a lot more cautious. We much investigate, imagine, press the limits of nonviolent action.”

My favorite book of activism is Howard Zinn’s recollection You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. Zinn’s book chronicles his life of activism, from the time he was a teacher at an black women’s school in Spellman College in the 1950s, and his work in the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement. He wrote something that describes the importance of vigils and protests and petition writing in the cause of social change. He wrote:

“Consider the remarkable transformation, in just a few decades, in people’s consciousness of racism, in the bold presence of women demanding their rightful place, in a growing public awareness that homosexuals are not curiosities but sensate human beings, in the long-term growing skepticism about military interventions despite the brief surge of military madness during the Gulf War.

It is that long-term change that I think we must see if we are not to lose hope. Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment we will continue to see. We forget how often in this century we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

The bad things that happen are repetitions of bad things that have always happened- war, racism, maltreatment of women, religious and nationalist fanaticism, starvation. The good things that happen are unexpected.

Unexpected, and yet explainable by certain truths which spring at us from time to time, but which we tend to forget: Political power, however formidible, is more fragile than we think. (Note how nervous are those who hold it) Ordinary people can be intimidated for a time, can be fooled for a time, but they have a down-deep common sense, and sooner or later they find a way to challenge the power that oppresses them.

People are not naturally violent or cruel or greedy, although they can be made so. Human beings everywhere want the same things: they are moved by the sight of abandoned children, homeless families, the casualties of war; they long for peace, for friendship and affection across lines of race and nationality.

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zig-zag towards a more decent society.”

We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

If you enjoy this cartoon, take a look at these links for more of my political cartoons at Everyday Citizen:

Jasper Escapes the Detention Center
Jasper At A Detention Center
Jasper Meets a Poet
Jasper’s Day
Jasper Tackles Health Care
Jasper and the Economy
Jasper Sings a Protest Song
The Road To Health Care Reform Cartoon
A Cartoon about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
A Cartoon about My Experience in an Evangelical Church
A Cartoon about Political Debate
A Cartoon On Gay Marriage

Jasper’s Day

Originally published on the March 4, 2009 entry of the website Everyday Citizen

One of the things I look forward to at the beginning of each month is to receive in the mail the latest issues of the Catholic Worker and Z Magazine. When I read both periodicals, I get information on activists and read about information in the grassroots that I don’t find in any other periodicals. Though I don’t always agree with every opinion that I read, I’ve learned a lot about different perspectives on the effects of globalization on the poor and marginalized in this world. Especially nowadays, as our country and the world struggles through hard economic times, it is easy to turn inwards to our national problems and forget the problems in the rest of the world. In my cartoon, I based some of the dialogue of the Facebook friends on articles that I’ve read in the latest issues of the Catholic Worker and Z Magazine.

The cartoon character Jasper is based on my own cat named Jasper. He’s a bit of a fat cat, around 18 pounds or so, and he’s a really nice if lazy cat. He’s spends most of the time sitting near the window, soaking up the sun. In the mornings, he scratches the door to get me to wake up to feed him food. So we’ve put Jasper and the other cat, Gracie, in the other room with food and water and closed the door so he can’t wake me up. Everyone in the apartment complex seems to know him well. The other cats sometimes hiss at Jasper, but Jasper just stares and doesn’t really take the other cats seriously. Since he’s about twice as big as those other cats, I don’t think he feels threatened.

In the January-February edition of the Catholic Worker, Felton Davis wrote an article about the harassment that immigrants, and especially Latinos, have been facing recently in this country. On December 7, 2008, Jose Sucuzhanay, an immigrant from Ecuador, and his brother Romel were beaten by 4 young men with baseball bats in the Bushwich section of Brooklyn. Community activists, elected officials, and member of GLOBE (Gays and Lesbians of Bushwick Empowered) held a rally to protest the killings of the Sucuzhanay brothers, as well as the killings of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez in July and Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero on November 8.

The December 2008 edition of the Catholic Worker has an article by Cathy Breen about the situation of Iraqi refugees who have fled to Syria. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Syria has over 1.2 million Iraqi residents with valid valid visas. Approximately 220,000 Iraqi refugees have been registered by the UN High Commission for Refugees. Breen found many Iraqis living in destitution, struggling to come up with the money to meet the rent and pay for food, as well as pay for the Syrian visas. Finding work to earn a livelihood is among the greatest challenges that many refugees face.

James Petras wrote in the March 2009 issue of Z Magazine of the practice of many agricultural companies in the industrial countries to buy vast tracts of fertile lands from poor countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America with the help of often corrupt local governments. The result of this is that the numbers of landless peasants are growing, as small farmers are being forcibly displaced as they face debt and a lack of affordable credit. Those of the poor that try to gain some cultivable land are often harassed and jailed for their efforts. Petras notes that Arab petroleum companies have focused on purchasing land in Southeast Asia; the Asian “economic tiger” countries focused on Africa and Latin America; while the U.S. and European companies focus on exploiting the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, as well as Latin America and Africa.

This type of information that I’ve found in the Catholic Worker and Z Magazine is unavailable in most of the other magazines. Both periodicals focus on the work of grassroots activists, and they give a different viewpoint from the more well known political writers and politicians that one finds in Time magazine and Newsweek. Though I don’t always agree with some of the political views of the two magazines, I respect their views and it helps to expand my view on various issues. If we look at the past, there has always been a fruitful influence between the more radical and the more moderate segments of the political Left. Many of the programs of the New Deal, like Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act were influenced by the ideas of Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party of the 1920s. The reforms of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in the 1900s and 1910s were influenced by the Populists, by progressives like Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman, and by the muckracking newspapers. The radicals are the first to see the problems of the country because of their view from the grassroots and come up with the radical ideas for change. The liberals take those ideas and water them down so that they are palatable to the mainstream American society. Jules Feiffer, the radical cartoonist who worked for many years in the Village Voice, said:

“I’ve always seen liberals as people who’ve taken radical ideas, whether from socialists or communists, finding ways to redefining them, relabeling them, reforming them, compromising them, and then improving the society with them. And the liberal’s job generally has been to process and homogenize the more radical notions out there for some time and make them acceptable to the mass society. And to that extent, liberals have played an important part. That liberals innovate anything is questionable. But that they innovate anything worth innovating is doubtful. The innovation comes from more radical sources generally.”

If you enjoy this cartoon, take a look at these links for more of my political cartoons at Everyday Citizen:

Jasper Tackles Health Care
Jasper Protests the War
Jasper and the Economy
Jasper Sings a Protest Song
Jasper Meets a Poet
Jasper At A Detention Center
A Cartoon about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
A Cartoon about My Experience in an Evangelical Church
A Cartoon about Political Debate
A Cartoon On Gay Marriage

The United Methodist Women

Christmas time was created to celebrate the birth of a man named Jesus who had a profound effect on our religious and moral views. This Christmas, I thought I’d do a few blogs on some Christian groups who are fighting for social justice causes. Randy Leer wrote a blog with various quotes from the Bible showing how God wants people to be concerned and helpful to the needy and the poor. I just recently did some blogs about the work of the Catholic Worker and the the American Friends Service Committee. Another group that I recently discovered that does great work for social justice is the United Methodist Women.

The United Methodist Women has a membership of over 800,000 and its mission is to foster spiritual growth, develope leaders and advocate for justice. Each year they raise over $20 million for programs to help women, children and young people in the United States and 100 countries. This group was formed in 1869, when Mrs. William Butler and Mrs. Edwin Parker and the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society first organized in Boston in response to a lack of women’s health in India. Through the merger of various women’s missionary societies, the United Methodist Women took its modern shape.

The United Methodist Women are very active in social justice issues. Among the issues that the United Methodist Women are involved in are women’s rights, immigration, health care, the environment, economic justice, racial justice, economic justice, public educatiom, child advocacy, global justice, domestic violence, and human trafficking.

On December 11, 2012, the United Methodist Women has done an action alert on the problem of child marriages, where 10 million girls will be forced to become wives, said a report by the Global Partnership to End Child Marriage. Southeast Asia has a rate of 48 percent of girls married before 18; in Africa that number is 42 percent; and in Latin America it is 29 percent, according to NOW. It is illegal for anyone to marry before the age of 18 in India, yet India still has one of the highest rates of child brides in the world – 18 percent of the girls in India were married by the time they were 15, and 47 percent were married by the time were 18. According to the PBS documentary Child Marriage: What We Know, child brides are more likely to suffer both mental and physical domestic abuse; more likely to show signs of child sexual abuse and post traumatic stress; have lower status in the household; and become isolated from their peers or support networks. The United Methodist Women urges you to urge your representative to support H.R. 6087: The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2012.

You can follow the United Methodist Women on their facebook page. The United Methodist Women are doing their best to keep in the spirit of Isaiah 58, which reads in part:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Here are some youtube videos that I found showing the work of the United Methodist Women.

On October 15, 2012, the United Methodist Women protest against an anti-Islamic transit ad campaign that denigrates Muslims

On October 9, 2011, the United Methodist Women join an Occupy Wall Street protest

On May 1, 2010, the United Methodist Women conduct a March and Rally for Justice for civil rights, human rights, and an end to racial profiling

Harriett Jane Olson, chief executive of United Methodist Women, and Inelda Gonzalez, president of United Methodist Women, speak at an immigrants rights rally in 2010

On Feb. 28, 2012, Beatrice Fofanah, United Methodist Women coordinator in Sierra Leone and United Methodist Women-sponsored delegate to to the 56th Commission on the Status of Women, spoke at “Voices of Rural Women,”

Lynda Turet from the Center for Social Inclusion discusses structural racism at the 2010 United Methodist Women Legislative Event

Coretta Scott King- Civil Rights Leader

Martin Luther King Jr. is justifiably viewed as a hero by many people around the world. He’s been one of my biggest heroes. One of the great heroes that is often overlooked is his wife, Coretta Scott King. Coretta Scott King is a strong civil rights leader in her own right, as well as an outspoken advocate of women’s rights, the peace movement, the anti-apartheid movement, a foe of capital punishment, and an opponent of the Iraq War. King’s efforts to end the Vietnam War led the FBI to keep surveillance on her from 1968 to 1972. Due to her efforts in promoting education, the American Library Association began in 1970 to award a medal named for Coretta Scott King to honor outstanding African American writers and illustrators of children’s literature. In 2006, the Jewish National Fund announced the creation of the Coretta Scott King Forest in the Galilee region of Northern Israel to commemorate King’s work for equality and peace. This blog will showcase some youtube videos that highlight Coretta Scott King’s work for social justice

A youtube video of the life of Coretta Scott King

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Coretta Scott King was deeply involved in the modern Civil Rights movement early on, participating in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. In the early 1960s, Mrs. King conceived and performed a series of Freedom Concerts, which combined prose and poetry narration with musical selections, and raised important funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during their civil rights campaigns. She was very active in advocating civil rights legislation, most prominently in lobbying for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Coretta organized the Full Employment Action Council in 1974, which focused on ending unemployment and job inequalities in the United States. In 1983, she organized the Coalition of Conscience, which brought 800 organizations together for the task of organizing the 20th Anniversary March on Washington. In 1987, she helped lead a national Mobilization Against Fear and Intimidation campaign in Forsyth County, Georgia.

A youtube interview of Coretta Scott King talking about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the early Civil Rights Movement

PEACE MOVEMENT

Coretta Scott King was an early advocate for nuclear disarmament and for pacifist causes. In 1957, Mrs. King was one of the founders of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy along with Lenore Marshall and Norman Cousins and others due to their concerns about the nuclear arms race. In 1962, Coretta was a delegate for the Women’s Strike for Peace at the 17-nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. King strongly opposed the war in Vietnam, and she prodded her husband to speak out against the war. She took part in peace marches with SANE spokesman Benjamin Spock in San Francisco and Washington D.C. in 1965 and spoke at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom conference in the late 1960s. Three weeks after the assasination of her husband, Coretta delivered a speech at an anti-war rally in New York City. In 1990, Mrs. King was co-convener of the Soviet-American Women’s Summit in Washington, DC. During the early 2000s, Mrs. King spoke out against the invasion of Iraq.

A youtube video of an interview where Coretta Scott King talks about her involvement in the peace movement

ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT

In 1985 Mrs. King and three of her children, Yolanda, Martin III and Bernice were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, DC, for protesting against apartheid. The next year, she traveled to South Africa and met Winnie Mandela. After her trip, Mrs. King lobbied President Reagan to impose economic sanctions on South Africa.

Coretta Scott King speaking Soweta, South Africa to introduce Dr. Leon Howard Sullivan

GAY RIGHTS

Coretta Scott King was a strong supporter of LGBT rights because of her appreciation of the contributions of gays and lesbians to the Civil Rights movement, especially gay civil rights leaders like Bayard Rustin, Pauli Murray, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes. On April 1, 1998 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, Mrs. King called on the civil rights community to join in the struggle for LGBT rights. Coretta Scott King spoke in November 2003 at the opening session of the 13th annual Creating Change Conference, organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. On March 23, 2004, at Richard Stockton College in Pomona, New Jersey,, Mrs. King said that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue and she denounced a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would ban equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. King also criticized a group of black pastors in Georgia for supporting a bill that would amend the Georgia constitution to block gay marriage.

Coretta Scott King speaking at the 1996 Atlanta Pride Festival

THE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. CENTER

Mrs. King founded and developed the programs for the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. For several years, she served President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer of the center, and promoted the center’s educational and community programs to train a new generation of activists on the nonviolent advocacy of causes that both Martin and Coretta Scott King fought for their entire lives. After the establishment of the center, Mrs. King spearheaded the campaign to establish Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday. In 1983, an act of Congress instituted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, which Mrs. King chaired for its duration.

Coretta Scott King talks about the Martin Luther King Jr. Center

Youtube videos of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta

An Interview With Democrat Nancy Hirstein

The Democratic Club of Sunnyvale was formed over a year ago for Democrats in Sunnyvale, California and the neighboring region to promote Democratic values. I attended a few meetings last year and found the group to be dedicated to using the political process to fight for local environmental, labor and economic fairness issues. They’re a nice group of people. One of the individuals whom I met was Nancy Hirstein Smith. Nancy is the founder of the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale and has been heavily involved in campaign and voter registration efforts.

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Thanks, Angelo! It’s an honor to be invited to answer questions about myself and the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale. Before I start answering your questions, I wanted to brag that our club has been growing steadily since its first meeting in May 2009. It’s hard to believe we’ve already been in existence three years!

You were one of the founding members of the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale. How did the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale come into being?

When I became active in local party politics, I noticed that our area has a lot of dedicated Democrats and a lot of active clubs, but I had to drive 20 minutes to get to most of the meetings. Many groups were concentrated in San Jose or further north in Palo Alto. There was a great club that meets in our neighboring city, Santa Clara, but they are what is known as an issues club and are not focused on local Sunnyvale candidates and concerns. Sunnyvale is the second largest city in Santa Clara County and I began to feel more and more strongly that the progressive Democrats in Sunnyvale needed an organization just for them. At the Regional delegate elections in January 2009, I recruited five other Sunnyvale residents and we formed a core team that came up with the bylaws and mission statement for a so-called geographic club. In May 2009, we held our first meeting, signed up more than 20 members, and by September 2009 were officially chartered by the California Democratic Party!

How did you become a Democrat? Was there a particular person, book or historical figure that influenced your political outlook?

I took a journalism class at the fundamentalist Christian college I attended. For one of my assignments, I did a story about how students would register to vote and then vote straight-ticket Republican without any understanding of local issues or candidates. To prepare for the story, I searched hard to find Democrats to interview among all the Republicans at the school. When I found Tony, an aide to the area’s state senator, he recruited me to gather signatures for delegates to the National Democratic Convention in 1984. Imagine my surprise to find my name on the petition as a delegate!

Tony and I went on a few dates, but it didn’t work out. He was an intense person and soon became embroiled in a scandal related to the story I did about voter registration. After Tony wrote, copied and distributed fliers in the campus dormitories that scolded students for not voting conscientiously, the local paper (not just the campus paper) wrote an exposé about how Tony used state resources to copy those fliers

For quite a few years after that, I adopted a political stance of “journalistic objectivity.” I still remember Tony fondly for shoving me in the deep end of the political pool. My name made it on the ballot even though my candidate, George McGovern, dropped out early in the race. The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s people hounded me for months to pledge for Rev. Jackson instead. At this conservative college, I flaunted my liberalism: I wore a black leather jacket and put a “Vote Democratic” poster up in my dorm room window. It was all very exciting.

The journalistic objectivity didn’t stick. Being a chameleon and trying to blend in means you cannot debate issues and influence others. As I mature, I am becoming more and more comfortable expressing what I really think about issues, even if I still can’t quite shake the softer touch.

When I attended your meetings last year, we were able to meet many Democratic politicians in the Sunnyvale City Council and in many state offices. How has it been to meet these various officeholders? Do you think the club has influenced these officeholders?

I’ve been involved in Sunnyvale politics for a while, so I already knew all the Sunnyvale City Council members when the club started. I’ve also known some of the County Supervisors and Assemblymembers.

Our club started in 2009, the year after a presidential election. Not only is 2012 a Presidential election year, it’s also the first election after redistricting. I’ve recently had the honor of meeting or deepening acquaintances with several fine Democratic candidates for State Assembly, State Senate, and Congress.

There is a protocol for inviting candidates and presenting them to your club members. When you first invite them, you want to be very clear about what will happen at the meetings, what the format will be, who goes first, and how much time they have to present themselves. The process needs to be fair to all candidates, as much as you can possibly control. Even though there are often more candidates for local city council seats than for higher office, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s less work to plan forums or debates for higher offices.

My impression is that, the higher the office, the more politically savvy the candidate. The more they know about how debates and forums work, the more challenging it is to meet their needs. It’s been a thrill to get to know them all, no matter what level of office they are pursuing.

For local candidates, it’s especially helpful that our club fills out response forms for them when they answer questions for our club. One candidate, who did not quite get our club’s endorsement, felt a lot better after she read some very positive responses in her candidate evaluation forms. Candidates for higher office really appreciate having a Democratic club in Sunnyvale, a group of people they know will be sympathetic to their positions. We met some grateful candidates after redistricting changed all the boundaries. Sunnyvale was affected in that we got new representatives for our state assembly, state senate, and congressional districts. All Democratic candidates for these seats have visited our club meetings at least once in the 2012 election cycle.

The Democratic Party is far more diverse than the Republicans, with moderates, liberals, progressives, all under one tent. How do you think the majority of the club members lean?

Funny story. When we set up our vision statement and guiding principles in 2009, we claimed that “We are an active and welcoming group that promotes progressive, Democratic values and positions.” Before May of 2012, I would have said that our members tend to be quite progressive. However, it turned out that one of our regular attendees was a registered Republican. We discovered it after we elected him president and he got a bit more scrutiny! When I reported this kerfuffle to the Democratic party chairman in our county, I joked that we are maybe a bit too welcoming.

Our meetings are open to anyone, unless we are holding a vote to endorse candidates in a race. We have invited several Republicans to take part in talks of general interest to the community. However, we never intended to let any of them claim membership.

The Republican almost-president in question offered to register as a Democrat and will soon have a seat on our board, so this story has a happy ending.

What are some things that the Democratic Club has done to promote its values and get them translated into political action? What are some issues that are important to the members of the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale?

In the winter of 2011, we spent a lot of time as a club defining what we value. To me, the results were somewhat surprising because they aren’t necessarily things the people would think differentiate Democrats from non-Democrats. The top five things our club members value are community, participatory democracy, compassion, pragmatism, and patriotism. We intentionally measure our monthly programs, the candidates and propositions we endorse, the people we elect to leadership positions within the club and the projects we undertake against these criteria.

In the winter and spring of 2012, we made a big push to became a more active, rather than have lectures at every meeting. We recruited leaders from the club to head up committees. After three years as president, I wanted to let someone else lead the group. We have been working with an organizational development expert — who offered her services to the Democratic Party — to make the transition a smooth and successful one. She’s giving us a lot of great advice about how to recruit good people, act from our core values, and clarify our guiding principals.

We had to take several steps back and restructure the club. I’m confident that we’ll emerge a stronger club that focuses on recruiting and electing qualified Democratic candidates.

What are some unique things about being a Democrat in the middle of Silicon Valley? Are they more interested in environmental issues, economic issues or social issues?

One exciting thing about Silicon Valley is its engineers. There are many very smart, analytical people in our club. When we discuss issues during a meeting and the exchange of ideas gets a bit lively, listening to the rational arguments of the engineers in our club gives me deeper insights into ideas like environmental conservation, transparency in government, ranked-choice voting, and campaign finance disclosures.

As the 2012 elections loom, what are your thoughts on important state and national issues that may be on the 2012 ballot?

The biggest concern to me now are the ginormous, democracy-killing concentrations of wealth. One of the biggest threats to our democracy is the growing wealth divide. Unless we take steps now, wealth will continue to be concentrated among the wealthiest 1% and we’ll see no more of our middle class and our hard-fought meritocracy.

Also, I hope we can do something about the Citizens United travesty. It is outrageous that faceless corporations have more rights than individuals.

What’s your opinion on President Obama’s first term?

I think the continuing drags on the economy and the nasty divisiveness in Congress have kept President Obama from making as much progress as I would like to see on some items on his agenda. The President’s records on privacy issues and net neutrality isn’t as strong as I’d like to see. I wish he would have come down a lot harder on AT&T after their snooping scandal broke just before he took office.

While he didn’t pursue the torturers, the scammers in the banking near-collapse or the invaders of privacy, he did take up several causes I support. He’s standing up for equal pay for women, keeping the estate tax, marriage equality, and healthcare for all.
I’m quite sure Mitt Romney doesn’t share my values, so I’ll throw all the support I can to reelecting President Obama.

In the past year, the Occupy Wall Street protests have sprouted throughout the nation, crying out against the growing economic inequalities in our country and pushing for greater accountability of our nation’s financial institutions. How do you think these protests might influence the upcoming elections? Do you think the Occupy message will influence the way Democratic candidates run in local and national elections?

I’ve been involved for 12 years with an organization called United for a Fair Economy. In that time, it’s been very difficult to raise the issues passionately about the evils of concentrated wealth and dynasties that pass untouched through generations by inheritance. Then, along came the Occupy Movement and took their outrage to Wall Street. Suddenly, everyone now knows there is an issue, even though many don’t know all the nuances and actual craziness that’s going on. I hope people continue to educate themselves, keep up their energy, recruit sympathetic and viable candidates, and vote. It’s the best way to make some changes. It’s the only way to make changes.

A big benefit of being in a club is just meeting people who share the same values and forming friendships with those people. Three years into the club’s existence, how has it been to see the club grow and evolve? What are some future plans for the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale?
The next big step is for me to hand over the reins to another president and take a role as an adviser. I would be delighted to see something I helped create continue on after I’m no longer its leader. I’ve made a lot of great friends in the club and look forward to many years of working together with them on current and upcoming progressive causes. This sounds like a cliché, but finding like-minded friends get so much harder after your twenties. Political organizations are a great way to meet people and make friends. It’s like a bulwark against the chaos to have people you can join with to make change possible.

Here are more interviews that I did for Everyday Citizen

An Interview With Cartoonist Ann Cleaves
An Interview With Muslim American Activist Zahra Billoo
An Interview With Cartoonist Monte Wolverton
An Interview With Cartoonist Adam Zyglis
An Interview With Reverand Gerald Britt
An Interview With Cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards
An Interview With Poet, Activist, and Teacher Diane Wahto
An Interview With Cartoonist Jesse Springer
An Interview With Cartoonist Steve Greenberg
An Interview With Eric Wilks
An Interview With Cartoonist Greg Beda
An Interview With Poet Melissa Tuckey
An Interview With Cartoonist Andy Singer
An Interview With Author Robert Balmanno
An Interview With Cartoonist J.P. Jasper
An Interview With Cartoonist David Cohen
An Interview that Everyday blogger Diane Wahto kindly did of me

Youtube videos of former California Assemblyman Sally Lieber talking about getting legislation through the California Legislature. Nancy Hirstein Smith introduces Sally Lieber.

“Nuns On The Bus” and Christian Women for Social Justice

In the past few months, the big news in the Christian world has been the clash between the Vatican and the American nuns over the issue of social justice. In April, the Vatican reprimanded the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which has challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, for deviating from some aspects of Catholic doctrine. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of the United States’ 57,000 nuns, decided they could not accept the Vatican’s verdict, and sent their president and executive director to Rome on June 12 to open a dialogue with Vatican officials. In the meanwhile, several nuns decided to organize a Nuns On The Bus tour around the nation to emphasize their commitment economic justice and to persuade Congress to consider the poor and the struggling middle class when deciding on budget issues. The American nuns are just the latest examples of Christian women who have made great contributions to the great Christian tradition of fighting for social justice for the poor and marginalized in society.

Nuns On The Bus traveled through 9 states on June and July to support the poor and struggling families and to criticize the proposed budget cuts to social programs that Republicans in Congress support. The Nuns on the Bus journey was sponsored by NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and the NETWORK Education Program. In their webiste, the nuns stated their goals:

Every hour of each day, Catholic Sisters stand in solidarity with all who live in poverty, and we confront injustice and systems that cause suffering.

We cannot stand by silently when the U.S. Congress considers further enriching the wealthiest Americans at the expense of struggling, impoverished families.

As part of our campaign for budget fairness we are taking a bus trip. Our bus will travel to places in many states where Sisters actively serve people in need. For they are our best witnesses to the suffering our federal government must not ignore.

We ask all who visit this website to join us in prayer and to support our work to defeat government actions that would add to the suffering of already struggling families.

In their website are details on how the proposed Republican budget would harm the poor:

As Catholic Sisters, we must speak out against the current House Republican budget, authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). We do so because it harms people who are already suffering.

The Ryan Budget would:

Raise taxes on 18 million hardworking low-income families while cutting taxes for millionaires and big corporations.

Push the families of 2 million children into poverty.

Kick 8 million people off food stamps and 30 million off health care.

The American Catholic nuns are keeping in the Christian tradition of fighting for the poor and those without a voice in society. They are specifically following spirit of the Papal Encyclicals, like Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Mater et Magistra, Populorum Progressio, and Laborem Exercens. As Populorum Progressio stated over 50 years ago:

The introduction of industry is a necessity for economic growth and human progress; it is also a sign of development and contributes to it. By persistent work and use of his intelligence man gradually wrests nature’s secrets from her and finds a better application for her riches. As his self-mastery increases, he develops a taste for research and discovery, an ability to take a calculated risk, boldness in enterprises, generosity in what he does and a sense of responsibility.

But it is unfortunate that on these new conditions of society a system has been constructed which considers profit as the key motive for economic progress, competition as the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation. This unchecked liberalism leads to dictatorship rightly denounced by Pius XI as producing “the international imperialism of money”. One cannot condemn such abuses too strongly by solemnly recalling once again that the economy is at the service of man.

Christian women have always been involved in the fight for economic justice. St. Clare, Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, Pauli Murray, Corrie Ten Boom, Sojourner Truth and countless Christian women have reached out to help the poor and the marginalized in keeping with the spirit of Jesus’ saying in Matthew 25:31-46:

Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, `Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, `Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, `You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, `Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, `Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Here are other Christian women’s groups involved in social justice ministry.

The United Methodist Women has approximately 800,000 members and they aim to support spiritual growth, developing leaders and advocating for justice. They have raised up to $20 million each year for programs and projects related to women, children and youth in the United States and in more than 100 countries around the world. You can visit their facebook page here

A youtube video of United Methodist Women at Occupy Wall Street

A youtube video of a United Methodist Women rally for justice

Presbyterian Women in the PC(USA) is the women’s organization of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Numbering around 300,000 members, the Presbyterian Women are committed to prayer and Bible study, mission work of the church worldwide, working for justice and peace, and building an inclusive, caring community of women that strengthens the PC(USA) and witnesses to the promise of God’s kingdom. You can visit their facebook page here. A subgroup of the Presbyterian Women is the The Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns

Youtube videos of the history of the Presbyterian Women

Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America work to combat commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking and support families with special needs. They also advocate for racial and cultural equity through anti-racism training and cross-cultural programs. Their facebook page is here.

A youtube video of the Women of the ELCA working at a food pantry

A youtube video of the Women of the ELCA quilting ministry

The Episcopal Women’s Caucus was formed on October 30, 1971, as a justice organization dedicated to Gospel values of equality and liberation and committed to the incarnation of God’s unconditional love. Their facebook page is here.

Youtube videos of Nuns on the Bus

Bruce Springsteen and the Blue Collar Worker

Many Republicans today hold to a strong belief in a free market economic philosophy with a minimum of government interference. Within the Republican Party, libertarians like Ron Paul and the Tea Party activists are pushing the Republican Party to a more austere economic policy with cuts on government spending, a minimum of government regulations on businesses, and lower taxes on the wealthy, on the assumption that an unrestrained free market will eventually life all sections of the population. They look to the Reagan recovery of the early 1980s, where after passing tax cuts, cutting spending on social programs, and cutting business regulations, the American economy went through an economic upsurge in the mid 1980s. The unrestrained free market economy that libertarians and Tea Party members sound great on paper. But when you look at history, the boom-and-bust cycles of the unrestrained free market economy has wrecked havoc on the poor and the middle class. In the course of this country’s history, the United States has had periods of serious economic crisis in 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1919, 1929 and now today. And in those economic crisis the same things happen: a large percentage of people are thrown out of work, homes are foreclosed, banks go under, thousands of businesses go under, and charities are overwhelmed by the sheer need of the poor and homeless.

During those times, musicians have chronicled the struggles of the poor and the working class. In the nineteenth century the spirituals of the African American churches sang about the struggles that African Americans endured in segregationist America. Folk singers like Woodie Guthrie sang about the unemployed and the migrant workers of the Great Depression. The punk rockers and ska groups of the 1970s articulated the anger of the youths of the decaying manufacturing centers in England and America. Rap groups like Public Enemy described the despair of the inner cities during the 1980s and 1990s. One of the great musicians of social commentary today is Bruce Springsteen, who has been singing about the blue collar American for the past 40 years.

The Reagan years are seen by many conservative Republicans as the inspiration for their policies today. Before Reagan was President, the United States was going through a period of high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment. Reagan’s economic policies did succeed in lowering inflation from 13.5% in 1980 to 4.1% in 1988, and in reducing interest rates from 20% in 1981. Reagan’s free market policies exacerbated economic trends of the 1970s where blue collar workers were seeing their manufacturing jobs disappear due to the increasing globalisation of the world economy. According to an article in the January 17, 1990 article by Peter Passel for the New York Times

Are you better or worse off than you were four years ago, asked Ronald Reagan in 1980. But George Bush’s image-makers chose not to press the rhetorical point in his Presidential campaign, and for good reason.

Young, male, blue-collar workers, part of the demographic coalition that has given Republicans a big leg up on the White House in recent decades, suffered devastating financial setbacks during the 1980′s. While the real earnings of 25- to 34-year-old men who graduated college rose by 9 percent from 1979 to 1987, the earnings of high school dropouts fell 15 percent. High school graduates did not do much better, absorbing a 9 percent cut.

Steve Lohr wrote in the December 25, 1991 edition of the New York Times

The pinch on blue-collar workers has been tightening for years. From 1980 to 1990, after adjusting for inflation, the wages of blue-collar workers fell by 6.3 percent, while white-collar salaries rose 3.9 percent. “Even a strong economy did not arrest the decline of earning capacity of blue-collar workers,” said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The manufacturing sector, heavily blue collar, suffered more in the 1981-82 recession than this time around. In the previous downturn, 2.2 million manufacturing jobs were lost. Many of the cuts were made in the name of fashioning a lean and newly competitive corporate America that could hold its own against foreign rivals. The streamlining process succeeded in making American producers more vigorous and, recently, manufactured exports have been one of the few sources of strength in the American economy.

Yet the process of squeezing more production from fewer workers is by no means over. This time, companies began shedding factory jobs 18 months before the recession began. Since January 1989, companies have eliminated 1.2 million manufacturing workers. “Manufacturing employment has been hard hit in this recession and for years before,” said Thomas Nardone, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fewer Auto Sales, Fewer Auto Part.

During the Reagan years, Bruce Springsteen began to delve into more social commentary in his music. He became a star in the 1970s with albums like The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle and Born to Run. When the country’s economy took a turn for the worst in the late 1970s, Springsteen’s songs began to focus more on stories of individuals struggling to get by in urban America. Eric Alterman wrote an article for the April 11, 2012 edition of the Nation in which he wrote:

It’s hard to find an analogue for Bruce Springsteen anywhere in American history. Musically, he is an amalgam of so many disparate influences it looks ridiculous to list them together. (Don’t believe me? OK, here goes: Elvis, Dylan, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Frank Sinatra, Sam & Dave, the Shirelles, King Curtis, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Roy Orbison, Gary “U.S.” Bonds, the Sex Pistols, Pete Seeger, the Swinging Medallions, Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson, Wilson Pickett…) But it is equally difficult to locate a proper political antecedent for Springsteen in American history. Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger are the obvious nominees, but the fact that they were associated with the Communist Party, as well as pretty orthodox folk singers, significantly limited their ability to be heard by many Americans. Springsteen, meanwhile, has managed to give voice to political values—what he calls “news with a beat”—that fall well leftward of the boundaries of mainstream political discourse.

This happened almost entirely by accident. Springsteen began his career singing about guitars, cars and girls before moving on to empty factories and abandoned quarries. His songs began as stories of individual characters divorced from what Trotsky called “the dialectic,” until, in the early 1980s, he began to read deeply in American history and literature. Springsteen began to ask questions of himself about what really determined the contours of the lives of the working-class characters whose tribune he had become. “A lot of the core of our songs is the American idea: What is it? What does it mean? ‘Promised Land,’ ‘Badlands,’” he would explain in 2009, decades after the transformation took place. “I’ve seen people singing those songs back to me all over the world. I’d seen that country on a grassroots level…. And I met people who were always working toward the country being that kind of place. But on a national level it always seemed very far away.”

In September 1979, Bruce began his first tentative steps into the political realms when Springsteen and the E Street Band joined the Musicians United for Safe Energy anti-nuclear power collective at Madison Square Garden for two nights. Springsteen’s album The River tried to reflect the hard times of the recession of the late 1970s. Some of the songs of Nebraska were partly inspired by historian Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States. The song Born In The U.S.A. criticized the treatment of Vietnam veterans, some of whom were Springsteen’s friends and bandmates. Springsteen contributed the song “Streets of Philadelphia” for the movie Philadelphia, a movie about a gay man dying of AIDs. Springsteen created in 1995 The Ghost of Tom Joad, inspired by John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and by Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winners author Dale Maharidge and photographer Michael WilliamsonBruce Springsteen wrote the song American Skin (41 Shots) in the aftermath of the shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Guinean immigrant, and the acquittal of four police officers who had fired at him forty-one times. Here are two Rolling Stone reviews of two of Springsteen’s most celebrated albums.

The October 25, 1982 review of the album Nebraska noted

Until now, it looked as if 1973′s dizzying The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle would be the last Springsteen album to surprise people. Ensuing records simply refined, expanded and deepened his artistry. But Nebraska comes as a shock, a violent, acid-etched portrait of a wounded America that fuels its machinery by consuming its people’s dreams. It is a portrait painted with old tools: a few acoustic guitars, a four-track cassette deck, a vocabulary derived from the plain-spoken folk music of Woody Guthrie and the dark hillbilly laments of Hank Williams. The style is steadfastly, defiantly out-of-date, the singing flat and honest, the music stark, deliberate and unadorned.

Debbie Miller wrote in a review of the album Born In The U.S.A.

The people who hang out in the new songs dread getting stuck in the small towns they grew up in almost as much as they worry that the big world outside holds no possibilities — a familiar theme in Springsteen’s work. But they wind up back at home, where you can practically see the roaches scurrying around the empty Twinkie packages in the linoleum kitchen. In the first line of the first song, Springsteen croaks, “Born down in a dead man’s town, the first kick I took was when I hit the ground.” His characters are born with their broken hearts, and the only thing that keeps them going is imagining that, as another line in another song goes, “There’s something happening somewhere.”

…That you get such a vivid sense of these characters is because Springsteen gives them voices a playwright would be proud of. In “Working on the Highway,: all he says is “One day I looked straight at her and she looked straight back” to let us know the guy’s in love. And in the saddest song he’s ever written, “Downbound Train,” a man who’s lost everything pours his story, while, behind him, long, sorry notes on a synthesizer sound just like heartache. “I had a job, I had a girl,” he begins, then explains how everything’s changed: “Now I work down at the car wash, where all it ever does its rain.” It’s a line Sam Shepard could’ve written: so pathetic and so funny, you don’t know how to react.

I first listened to Bruce Springsteen’s songs when his album Born In The U.S.A. was a big hit in 1984. I’m not the fan that some of his more fervent followers are, but I like a lot of Bruce Springsteen songs. I admire his courage and eloquence in articulating the lives of everyday Americans, and think he’s one of this country’s cultural treasures. As this country faces its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, I’m glad that Springsteen is here to make sure that the voices of average Americans are heard.

Bruce Springsteen in the VH1 Storytellers series describing his music

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:vh1.com:177957

A youtube video of Bruce Springsteen singing Atlantic City

A youtube video of Bruce Springsteen performing The River

A youtube video of Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA

A youtube video of Bruce Springsteen performing Working On A Highway

The video for the Bruce Springsteen song Streets of Philadelphia

A youtube video of Bruce Springsteen performing The Ghost of Tom Joad

A youtube video of Bruce Springsteen performing American Skin (41 Shots)

Jasper Meets Howard Zinn

Just over two years ago, I read my first Howard Zinn book. The book was A People’s History of the United States and it taught me a lot about the struggles of Native Americans, African Americans, women, war resisters and workers to overcome prejudice and fight for their rights in this country. Since reading that book, I’ve become a real fan of Howard Zinn’s books and his philosophy on social change. Whenever I’d pick up a progressive magazine, like The Progressive or The Nation, I’d always look to see if there was a Howard Zinn article and would be excited if that particular issue had one. I was sad to hear about his death earlier this year. His books and his life, though are a constant inspiration to me on how to be active in fighting for the poor and the marginalized in this country.

Though A People’s History of the United States is his most famous book, my favorite books of Howard Zinn are Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics and You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train. Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics is a collection of interviews that David Barsamian took with Howard Zinn for public radio over the course of a decade. It covers a diverse range of topics, from Zinn’s dissenting views on capitalism and the Iraq War, to his views on FDR’s economic Bill of Rights, to reminiscences on his time as a teacher at Spellman College in the 1950s and early 1960s. My favorite interview in this book dealt with the topic of artists and their importance in resistence. Zinn said in that interview:

The reason that I do is because artists play a very special role in relation to social change. This came to me when I was a teenager and becoming politically interested for the first time. It was people in the arts who perhaps had the greatest emotional effect on me. Singers such as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Paul Robeson. Writers like Upton Sinclair and Jack London. I was reading the newspapers and Karl Marx. I was reading all sorts of subversive matter. But there was something special about the effect of what artists did.

And by artists I mean not only singers and musicians but poets, novelists, people in the theater. It always seemed to me that there was a special power that artists had when they commented, either in their own work or outside their work, on what was going on in the world. There was a kind of force that they brought into the discussion that mere rose could not match. Part of it had to do with a passion and an emotion which comes with poetry, which comes with music, that comes with drama, which is rarely equaled in prose, even if it is beautiful prose. I was struck by that at an early age.

Later, I came to think about the relative power of people in charge of society and the powerlessness of most people who become the victims of the decision makers. I thought about the possibility of people without the ordinary attributes of power, that is, money and military equipment, resisting those who have a monopoly on that power, and I thought how can they possibly resist it? I thought art gave them a special impetus through its inspiration and through its emotional effect that couldn’t be calculated. Social movements all through history have needed art in order to enhance what they do, in order to inspire people, in order to give them a vision, in order to bring them together, make them feel that they are part of a vibrant movement.

You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train is about Howard Zinn’s life in activism. He talks about his time in World War II, when he flew missions to bomb European towns, which laid the seeds to his later anti-war feelings. Zinn’s time as a teacher of Spellman College, an African American woman’s college in Atlanta, Georgia, led him to be involved in the early civil rights movement and taught him many lessons about social movements. He taught Alice Walker and Marian Edelman Wright during his tenure there, and in the course of his activism there, met members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and future civil rights leaders Stokely Carmichael and Bernice Johnson. During his time in Boston College, he led teach-ins and gave speeches against the war in Vietnam. His activism continued to his last days, as he spoke out against the Iraq War and against the bailouts of the last few years.

His life of activism really inspires me. One of the things I most like about Zinn is his confidence in the ability of ordinary people to affect social change. In one of my favorite passages, Zinn writes:

It is this change in consciousness that encourages me. Granted, racial hatred and sex discrimination are still with us, war and violence still poison our culture, we have a large underclass of poor, desperate people, and there is a hard core of the population content with the way things are, afraid of change.

But if we see only that, we have lost historical perspective, and then it is as if we were born yesterday and we know only the depressing stories in this morning’s newspapers, this evening’s television reports.

Consider the remarkable transformation, in just a few decades, in people’s consciousness of racism, in the bold presence of women demanding their rightful place, in a growing public awareness that homosexuals are not curiosities but sensate human beings, in the long-term growing skepticism about military interventions despite the brief surge of military madness during the Gulf War.

It is that long-term change that I think we must see if we are not to lose hope. Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment we will continue to see. We forget how often in this century we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

The bad things that happen are repetitions of bad things that have always happened- war, racism, maltreatment of women, religious and nationalist fanaticism, starvation. The good things that happen are unexpected.

Unexpected, and yet explainable by certain truths which stpring at us from time to time, but which we tend to forget:

Political power, however formidible, is more fragile than we think. (Note how nervous are those who hold it)

Ordinary people can be intimidate for a time, can be fooled for a time, but they have a down-deep common sense, and sooner or later they find a way to challenge the power that oppresses them.

People are not naturally violent or cruel or greedy, although they can be made so. Human beings everywhere want the same things: they are moved by the sight of abandoned children, homeless families, the casualties of war; they long for peace, for friendship and affection across lines of race and nationality.

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zig-zag towards a more decent society.

We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so many- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

I end this blog with a quote from a Zinn article in the March 2009 issue of the Progressive. Many Progressives had high hopes for change when President Obama began his administration, and have been bitterly disappointed in the compromises that Obama has made while in office. Howard Zinn was not surprised. In looking at the history of reform Presidents, Zinn knew that any efforts of reform would be challenged by entrenched corporate interests, conservative politicians, and an establishment that doesn’t take too kindly to change. With such opposition, it’s often easier for Presidents to delay or even shelve reform efforts, unless an active and powerful grassroots movement pushes back and pressures the President for change. Zinn wrote on March 2009:

I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes- the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.

But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhoods, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on maters of war and social justice.

Let’s remember that even when there is a ‘better’ candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore…

Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed it responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war.

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which require direct action by concerned citizens.

If you enjoy this cartoon, take a look at these links for more of my political cartoons at Everyday Citizen:
Jasper and the Nature Poem
The Reunion
Government and the Market Economy
Jasper Joins Two Protests
Bob the Nerd Vampire
Jasper Debates War
Jasper Finds His Way Home
Jasper Escapes the Detention Center
Jasper At A Detention Center
Jasper Meets a Poet
Jasper’s Day
Jasper Tackles Health Care
Jasper Protests the War
Jasper and the Economy
Jasper Sings a Protest Song
The Road To Health Care Reform Cartoon
A Cartoon about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
A Cartoon about My Experience in an Evangelical Church
A Cartoon about Political Debate
A Cartoon On Gay Marriage