If you watch the television news for very long, you realize the disequilibrium from images of destruction that focus on objects, without much regard for the “subjects” being threatened, destroyed. This understanding comes with a realization that just as we rejoice in creation, we suffer in destruction. We are all an intricate part of the process and the Them versus Us mindset, in quantum terms, is today obsolete.
Not long before his death in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values…. we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” This statement now does not include only our nation, but all nations, indeed, the world.
The Poor People’s Campaign is a national call for moral revival that continues those efforts and visions from more than 50 years ago. It focuses on systemic injustices of racism, poverty, devastation of the environment, militarism, a war economy and a corrupt moral narrative masquerading in our societal structures today. The Poor People’s Campaign upholds cutting US military spending, ending wars, and eliminating nuclear weaponry, honoring voting rights, a living wage. The failures to act definitively in collaboration for over 50 years, now offers even less secure grounds for peaceful survival and mutual coexistence.
Rev. Dr. William Barber leads the movement and reminds us that the word for voice and vote are the same in Hebrews – “kol”. (That God-given gift has been bestowed on all, and cannot, should not be taken away by those who cannot or will not recognize these values for all. (Rev. Dr. William Barber: This Vote That I Have…)
For more information: Attend a meeting on Wednesday March 30 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Contact: newyork@poorpeoplescampaign.org
