Rev. Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival just unveiled a Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Poor People’s Moral Agenda that will guide the movement through their upcoming 40 days of nonviolent direct action and beyond.
The agenda includes demands for a massive overhaul of the nation’s voting rights laws, new programs to lift up the 140 million Americans living in poverty, immediate attention to ecological devastation and measures to curb militarism and the war economy.
How to get involved: You can sign up for alerts by texting MORAL to 90975 and they’ll keep you posted on upcoming actions and campaign developments.
A major partner, Fight For 15, has just signed on to collaborate with the Poor People’s Campaign.
This initiative was prompted by a report jointly produced by the Institute for Policy Studies, The Poor People’s Campaign, the Kairos Center and Repairers of the Breach.
WE MUST SEE NOW THAT THE EVILS OF RACISM, ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION AND MILITARISM ARE ALL TIED TOGETHER…YOU CAN’T REALLY GET RID OF ONE WITHOUT GETTING RID OF THE OTHER.”
The report, called “The Souls of Poor Folk” is available at the IPS website and covers several topics:
- Poverty: highlighting structural changes in employment towards a low-wage economy, tied to a decline in union membership. These changes — including scaling back government programs, increased housing and healthcare costs, and exploding student debt — have caused massive gains from economic growth to go to a smaller and smaller share of society, while more of the population lives on the brink of homelessness.
- The War Economy and Militarism: highlights how the United States, since Vietnam, has waged ongoing wars that have little to do with protecting Americans and are much more motivated by profit. These wars have siphoned massive resources away from social needs, caused staggering numbers of civilian deaths in poor countries, and taken a toll on U.S. soldiers and veterans. Increased militarism abroad has also increased militarization of our communities at home and created a war economy that perpetuates the criminalization of poor folks in the U.S.
- Ecological Devastation: describes how the U.S. and global climate crises are multipliers of the other injustices documented in this report. Fossil fuel and chemical industries contributed to an estimated 9 million premature deaths worldwide in 2015. And poor people of color face the worst impacts, as evidenced by 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, water affordability and pollution crises, and limited access to sewage systems. — www.ips-dc.org/...
Since the Fight for 15 twitter thread was quite long, I’ve excerpted it below:
(1/9) TODAY the #PoorPeoplesCampaign unveils "The Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Poor People’s Moral Agenda." Our moral agenda is drawn from deep engagement and commitment to the struggles of the dispossessed. Join us to fight for it: http://bitly.com/ppcff15 #FightFor15
(2/9) We demand a full rebuild and expansion of the Voting Rights Act, the execution of enlistment to vote at the age of 18, early voting, and same-day enrollment,We demand the inversion of state laws preemption laws. #PoorPeoplesCampaign #RestoreTheVRA #FightFor15
(3/9) We demand fairness in the criminal justice system by addressing continuing inequalities.We demand immigration reform that keeps families together.We demand that public safety resources in our communities, schools and borders be used for the well-being of our people.
(4/9) We demand living wage laws, guaranteed income & employment, educational equality, single-payer universal healthcare, social housing, thoughtful infrastructure investment, debt relief, and state and federal policies that ensure the wealthy & corporations pay their fair share
(5/9) We demand a change in the current poverty standards that understate the conditions of poverty in this country - that encompasses housing, education, health care, water, sanitation, childcare, & wealth - that is made widely available to all. #PoorPeoplesCampaign #FightFor15
(6/9) We demand a redefinition of national security to mean the well-being of the people, foreign policy based on human rights & diplomacy, reallocation of resources from the military to the public good, and the defunding of programs that send military equipment into communities
(7/9) We demand renewable energy, a jobs program to transition to a green economy, resources to develop water and sanitation infrastructure, a ban on fracking, mountaintop removal & offshore drilling, a ban on new pipelines, refineries, and coal, oil & gas export terminals
(8/9) We demand that all policies and budgets be judged through the prism of whether they serve the general welfare and lift up lives and the environment #PoorPeoplesCampaign #FightFor15
— @subirgrewal