'Virtual Poor People's Campaign Rally Draws Crowd Of More Than A Million': Rev. Dr. Wm. J. Barber
Last edited Tue Jun 23, 2020, 05:34 PM - Edit history (3)
- 'Virtual Poor People’s Campaign Rally Draws Crowd of More Than a Million. Through personal testimonies of systemic racism, poverty and inequality, ecological devastation, and militarism—the event brought the campaign's bold fusion agenda to new audiences. By Sarah Anderson, Common Dreams, June 22, 2020.
President Trump drew a smaller crowd than he expected for his rally this past Saturday, but that wasn’t the case for the Poor People’s Campaign. Well more than a million people viewed the campaign’s Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington via Facebook that same day. Many more viewed MSNBC and C-SPAN simulcasts and two repeat broadcasts over the weekend.
According to organizers, the three and a half hour event was “the largest digital and social media gathering of poor and low-wealth people, moral and religious leaders, advocates, and people of conscience in this nation’s history.” The virtual rally lifted up people who are living the interconnected injustices that have been the campaign’s focus for the past two years: systemic racism, poverty and inequality, ecological devastation, and militarism and the war economy. Many spoke of how the Covid-19 pandemic has only deepened existing inequalities.
Natalia Fajardo had a job in a chocolate factory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, until the crisis hit. “Now, more than ever, I feel the fragility of just being OK. My partner and I are part of the millions that are just one emergency away from losing it all. Meanwhile our government uses this crisis to fatten the pockets of those who can’t fit any more bills in their already overstuffed pockets.” Fajardo is now a volunteer organizer with the Wisconsin Poor People’s Campaign. “Because I know there’s enough,” she explained. “Enough food, enough clean and safe water, and definitely enough money for every human being — not just in this country but in our planet — to live with dignity.”
Fajardo’s testimony underscored a major theme of the campaign: the myth of scarcity. As campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis put it, “People are being abandoned amidst abundance.”
Who’s getting more than their share of that abundance? One testifier after another pointed to the rich, large corporations, and the military.
Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies, pointed out that 54 cents of every discretionary federal dollar goes to the military, while just 15 cents goes to anti-poverty programs.
..As part of the virtual rally, the Poor People’s Campaign launched a policy platform to reprioritize national resources to elevate human needs instead of enriching the wealthy and expanding the military. Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II gave specific examples of needed resource shifts, drawing from a more detailed Moral Budget produced last year with the Institute for Policy Studies: Free up resources for social and green energy investments by cutting $350 billion from the military budget and saving $179 billion by ending mass incarceration and another $24 billion by abandoning the border wall...
Read More, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/22/virtual-poor-peoples-campaign-rally-draws-crowd-more-million
- MSNBC: Rev. Dr. Wm. J. Barber: Upcoming 2020 Virtual Poor People's Campaign Rally, June 20
*MORE, MSNBC: 'Ending Poverty & Inequality': Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II & Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis on the day of the Poor People's Virtual Rally Event, Saturday, June 20, 2020.
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