Our latest blog post is an excerpt of an article on TomDispatch.com by Rev. Liz Theoharis, Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, “Organizing the Rich or the Poor?”:
“This society has long suffered from a kind of Stockholm syndrome: we look to the rich for answers to the very problems they are often responsible for creating and from which they benefit. The wreckage of this pandemic moment is a bitter reminder of this affliction . . .
“With a possible depression ahead and more social unrest on the rise, isn’t it time to stop vindicating the wealthiest people in this country and look instead to leadership from those who were living in a depression before Covid-19 even hit and already organizing and protesting?
“Today, there is a freedom railroad rumbling underground, all around us. It has stops in the Amazon warehouses and the fast-food restaurants where low-wage workers are organizing for better wages and conditions; in immigrant communities that are protecting themselves against ICE raids in the midst of stay-at-home orders; in cities where people are winning moratoriums on water and utility shut-offs; in housing developments and hospitals where thousands are insisting that housing and healthcare are human rights.
“You can see it in the tens of thousands of people protesting across the country, refusing to be subdued by years of racism and police violence, people who are demanding full justice and the right for all of us, but especially repressed black lives, to survive and thrive.
“In a moment from hell, there is only one meaningful way to revive American society: from the bottom up.”
A link to the full article is here. To RSVP for the Poor People’s Campaign’s June 20th and 21st Digital Moral March on Washington event, of which DSA is a Mobilizing Partner, click here.
Photo: Stephen Melkisethian via Creative Commons License