I’m beginning to feel a stirring in our land and country. There is energy building to combat all that the Radical Right-wing Republicans are doing to us.
Actions are heating up and beginning to spread.
Trayvon Martin may have given his life in sacrifice for the soul of America. The conversation about race in America in the aftermath of the acquittal of his murderer is deeper than we have seen in 50 years. Maybe for the first time since slavery days that conversation, with help from President Obama, is centered on the lives and experiences of African-Americans and other People of Color instead of being centered on what white people think about the problem of race in America. People are not letting go of this legal atrocity and not forgetting about Trayvon Martin’s murder in a way that is reminiscent of the memory and action resulting from Emmett Till’s lynching so many years ago. America is challenged now every day by the media with the fact that the circumstances of Trayvon’s murder are an everyday occurrence in the lives of African-American men.
Every Monday now at the State Capitol in North Carolina, hundreds of average people gather and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience to protest the policies of a Radical Right-wing Republican state government. Arrested Monday after Monday, the real American patriots and defenders of democracy keep coming on. They are protesting the agenda of the hideous anti-democratic ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). I’m in Chicago as I write this and the Chicago Federation of Labor led by my good friend Jorge Ramirez is preparing a major demonstration for when ALEC comes to Chicago to meet in August.
Actions are spreading against Walmart and its poverty wages and oppressive and illegal working conditions. The blog post we did about Walmart suing retired human rights activist Gene Lantz has carried across the progressive blogosphere.
Fast food workers are building a movement for workplace justice across America, even going on strike in some cities.
Americans are preparing to fight battles once won through struggle with a struggle of today and the possibility of a real social movement.
Photo credit: Overpass Light Brigade
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