The basic conflicts between old and new ideas are what the struggle for social change is all about. Objective changes in the material conditions of our lives and our response to those conditions make the social struggle a school. This means we as leaders must teach as we fight, learn as we lead, educate as we organize, talk as we walk. This is our indispensable role as leaders in contributing to how objective developments in human history are consciously fought out, to the changing of minds.
This revolutionary moment
If history had a soundtrack, we’d be in a loud part. It might sound like a red alert on the Starship Enterprise. The cracks in the dam are starting to open. All systems are failing. 140 million people are poor. ICU’s are overwhelmed by the global COVID-19 pandemic and the
While the ruling class are not the only people for whom Black lives don’t matter, they are the class that has the POWER to ensure that Black lives don’t matter (and the class that controls the state and the police). Which should make them the focus of our attention, for all who are committed to MAKING Black lives matter.
By Willie Baptist, Charon Hribar, and John Wessel-McCoy Part one in a six-part series published by The Journal of the University of the Poor Thinking about the question of mental terrain involves looking at what is already in the hearts and minds of people. Specifically, we are considering the hearts and minds of the (U.S.) American people admitting that 300+ million human beings are not monolithic. Nevertheless, in terms of social movements throughout history, problems are resolved first in people’s thinking, and then in their actions. For example, with slavery people first needed to end mental slavery in order to
Before Covid-19, there was another health crisis grabbing headlines in our country. An estimated 128 people in this country die each day from an overdose of opioids, a class of drugs that includes legal prescription medications like oxycodone and illegal substances like heroin. Prescription opioids gained popularity in the 1990s when drug companies manufactured new medications such as OxyContin and marketed them as having a low-risk for addiction. Many users of prescription opioids go on to abuse them, then turn to heroin and the much more potent and fatal fentanyl. While opioid prescriptions have fallen in recent years, deaths from heroin and synthetic opioid overdoses continue to rise. Every demographic group has been touched by the opioid crisis, although low-income whites are the most likely to be prescribed opioids and die from overdoses.
For the past two months, leaders from the Kairos Center’s Reading the Bible with the Poor Cohort have been convening a weekly online gathering called the Freedom Church of the Poor. This formation brings together leaders from different frontline battles like the fight for living wages, immigrant rights, healthcare, and housing. We are Christian, Jewish and non-religious; leaders with the Poor People’s Campaign, scholars and clergy; and we come from every region of the country. By taking the name of Freedom Church of the Poor we join a much longer history and tradition of resistance to ideological and religious forms of control and domination.
A poem by Amy Miller Dear friends, political intimates, beloved chosen family. We are. Physically distant. Struggling. Together attempting smart, fresh, grounded, moment-seizing – getting shit done in new and unsettling ways. And we may also struggle on our intimate fronts and battle with our own minds, hearts, bodies. And/or. With those with whom we find ourselves. Ok, I can own it. I am struggling. I forget. Do I watch pandemic news today? Or hide away? Do I work, walk, browse boys online with my queer self, or make lunch for my kid? Is it time for one more phone
A poem by Huggy Bear The rich just keep getting richer and the poor just keep getting poorer.Trust me that’s more than just a clicheWhether it be food, clothing, shelter, justice system or healthcareYour lot in life depends on what you can afford to payLet’s not even mention the trials and tribulations of beingA person of color, woman, immigrant, transgender or gayThey’re subjugating the people and destroying the planet for their profitsBut that’s always been the Capitalist way There was never any money in your salvation and your liberationAll the profits have always been in our oppression.They’ve been trying to school
Por Luis J. Rodriguez ¿Cuales son las historias, ideas, y formas organizativas necesarias en estos tiempos políticos y caóticos en que vivimos? Hay miles de ideas regadas por todas partes, especialmente por la internet, que pueden ser o no ser basadas en la realidad, o incluso en los hechos; ideas que nacen en instancias que suelen ser de las más reaccionarias a las más visionarias. ¿Cuáles de estas ideas toman fuerza con los pueblos más explotados y oprimidos de este país– y del mundo– mientras que se movilizan para romper las cadenas que aprisionan el trabajo, la creatividad, las mentes,
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