Guest writer for Wake Up World
With 43 percent of Americans in or near poverty, most of us know there’s something deeply wrong with our democracy. Will we stand up for it?
In his famous essay “On Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau explained why he went to jail in 1846. He said he refused to pay taxes to a government that was pursuing the extension of slavery. To support such a government, Thoreau argued, was to be complicit in its worst deeds.
With this essay, Thoreau helped inspire the modern tradition of civil disobedience, his footsteps followed by Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others.
This summer, I joined that tradition by getting arrested for demonstrating without a permit at the United States Capitol — along with about 100 others from the Poor People’s Campaign, including Reverend William J. Barber II. The arrests were part of a larger wave of nonviolent civil disobedience over six weeks that resulted in about 2,500 arrests of clergy, activists, and poor people across 40 states and Washington, DC.
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As we marched up to the Capitol to face a line of police officers, we chanted and sang songs about our intentions:
“Everybody’s got a right to live.”
“I went down to the Capitol and took back my dignity.”
“Before this campaign fails, we’ll all go down to jail.”
The chants and songs helped us stay connected and calm in an anxiety-inducing situation. I met marchers from Maine and Washington State as we shared cigarettes and stories of our backgrounds amid the mild tension.
The campaign’s goal is to draw attention to the voices and situations of the 140 million poor and low-income people who make up 43 percent of the U.S. population. Almost half us! We’re hoping that the arrests and other actions will help begin a mass movement.
The truth is, our political, economic, and social systems are broken — and most Americans know it.
Three individual people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the country, and most of the latter can’t withstand a $400 emergency without going under. The police are shooting black people like Antwon Rose with abandon, and getting away it. The president is hell-bent on incarcerating families in camps at the border, including young children, and the U.S. is sleepwalking through wars in at least seven mostly Muslim countries.
Without intervention from the American people, our government is going to drive us off a cliff. And so people are taking action.
Of course, getting arrested isn’t right or safe for everyone. But you don’t have to get arrested to make change. All over, people are taking action in other creative ways.
For example, members of the Democratic Socialists of America publicly shamed Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Washington, DC while she was eating at a Mexican restaurant. The Red Hen, a Virginia restaurant, refused to serve White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Both of these tactics generated widespread discussion, all without a single person getting arrested.
Whatever it is, we’ve all got to do something, or else we’re going to be in a lot more trouble than a $50 fine and an arrest record (which is what I got).
So what are you waiting for? Check out poorpeoplescampaign.org and take action.
About the author:
Saurav Sarkar is the research coordinator for the Poor People’s Campaign at the Institute for Policy Studies. This article is distributed by OtherWords.org and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative 3.0 License.
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Unfortunately nothing is going to change until the higher realm and lightworkers bring the Satanic Illuminati to its knees. It certainly doesn’t hurt to petition, and do whatever else one can to make a difference in the 3rd dimension.
We all have to change ourselves within, to change the world around us…
(snippet)
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises from our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
From “Heart of a Buddha”
Absolutely and create collective consciousness.
The only way to really solve a problem is to first understand the reason behind it. It is corrupt politicians that set it up and socialistic thinking that allows it to continue.
Correct, but they are just willing mind controlled puppets for the Illuminati.
I find it disappointing to see a political article here, which supports cultural Marxism. Getting arrested trying to get support for “poor people” is a waste of time – why not do something to tangibly help poor people since we know the politicians won’t? As for ICE and immigration children: the criminal parents bring in children, hoping to use them as an “anchor” to stay here. The children in most cases have health problems and parasites, plus emotional trauma from leaving their home country. ICE helps those children, giving them free medical care to treat their disease and parasites, psychological counseling, AND they get to talk to their parents twice a week on the telephone, often with video too. After the parents are processed, and the children are nursed back to health, they are reunited, and given free transportation back to their home countries. In almost every case they are immigrating for financial reasons, not political persecution. M13 abuses them, forces them to join and sell drugs, etc. ICE protects them from being abused, or used for child sex rings. ICE is international, and has done a huge amount to lessen the abuse of children worldwide. ICE is helping these children, yet the Marxist media pretends like they are being ripped from their parents arms, by uncaring goons, which is not at all true. The bleeding-heart stories of abuse are usually fabricated, and the San Diego judge is grandstanding by using the judicial system to halt ICE from helping these abused children. In this country, if parents treated their children like these immigrant parents do, they would be confiscated by child protective services! I don’t like “Black Lives Matter” either, because I love black people, and know it’s very bad for the black community “war zones” all over the country, causing the honest and peaceful (most) black people to be hostages in their own homes, while the criminal elements, mostly gangs, run amok. BLM has also done more to damage racial relations than any organization in history, causing ignorant and supremacist black people to think they are being oppressed (not true), so they hate white people, and commit violent acts against them. There is more animosity between the races than ever before, thanks to BLM. I could go on, but suffice to say I’m sorry to see a “political” articles here, when I come for uplifting and positive articles. I don’t support the Triump administration, but I’m not a democrat-liberal-communist-Marxist (all the same) either. I’m non-political, and anti-political, believing in the cooperative model, which has been proven to work. Because I love black people, and all people, it saddens me to see so much hatred intentionally being created between the races.