Moral Mondays Barber Rev
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">DN EJ in north carolina hurricane florence (gore ally?)</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">=</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">an 1 22</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000"><font color="#000000">...</font></font><strong>Confronting White Christian Nationalism</strong></font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There are very <a href="https://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/5819-desmond-tutu" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">good Christians</a> who are compassionate and caring. And there are very bad Christians. You can say that about Islam, about Hinduism, about any faith. That is why I was saying that it was not the faith per se but the adherent. People will use their religion to justify virtually anything.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christian nationalism has influenced the course of American politics and policy since the founding of this country, while, in every era, moral movements have had to fight for the Bible and the terrain that goes with it. The January 6th assault on the Capitol, while only the latest expression of such old battlelines, demonstrated the threat of a modern form of Christian nationalism that has carefully built political power in government, the media, the academy, and the military over the past half-century. Today, the social forces committed to it are growing bolder and increasingly able to win mainstream support.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When I refer to “<b>Christian nationalism,” I mean a social force that coalesces around a matrix of interlocking and interrelated values and beliefs. These include at least six key features, though the list that follows is anything but exhaustive:</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">* First, a highly exclusionary and regressive form of Christianity is the only true and valid religion.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">* Second, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity are “the natural order” of the world and must be upheld by public policy (even as Latino Protestants <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/07/latinos-will-determine-future-american-evangelicalism/619551/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">swell the ranks</a> of American evangelicalism and women become important gate-keepers in communities gripped by Christian nationalism).</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>* Third, militarism and violence, rather than diplomacy and debate,</b> are the correct ways for this country to exert power over other countries (as it is our God-given right to do).</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>* Fourth, scarcity is an economic reality of life</b> and so we (Americans vs. the world, white people vs. people of color, natural-born citizens vs. immigrants) must compete fiercely and without pity for the greater portion of the resources available.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>* Fifth, people already oppressed by systemic violence are actually to blame for the deep social and economic problems of the world </b>— the poor for their poverty, LGBTQIA people for disease and social rupture, documented and undocumented immigrants for being “rapists and murderers” stealing “American” jobs, and so on.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">* Sixth, the Bible is the source of moral authority on these (and other) social issues and should be used to justify an extremist agenda, no matter what may actually be contained in the Good Book.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Such ideas, by the way, didn’t just spring up overnight. This false narrative has been playing a significant, if not dominant, role in our politics and economics for decades. Since childhood — for an example from my own life — I’ve regularly heard people use the Bible to justify poverty and inequality. They quote passages like “the poor you will always have with you” to argue that poverty is inevitable and can never be ended. Never mind the irony that the Bible has been one of the only forms of the mass media — if you don’t mind my calling it that — which has had anything good to say about the poor (something those in power have tried to cover up <a href="https://www.history.com/news/slave-bible-redacted-old-testament" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">since the days of slavery</a>).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In many poor communities — rural, small town, and urban — churches are among the only lasting social institutions and so one of the most significant battlegrounds for deciding which moral values will shape our society, especially the lives of the needy. Indeed, churches are the first stop for many people struggling with poverty. The vast majority of <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/lifeway-study-almost-a-quarter-of-american-families-have-turned-to-church-food-pantries-for-help-130318/#wJkarAeovRMz5vSJ.99http://www.christianpost.com/news/lifeway-study-almost-a-quarter-of-american-families-have-turned-to-church-food-pantries-for-help-130318/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">food pantries</a> and other emergency assistance programs are run out of them and much of the civic work going on in churches is motivated by varying interpretations of the Bible when it comes to poverty. These range from outright disdain and pity to charity to more proactive advocacy and activism for the poor.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Geographically, the battle for the Bible manifests itself most intensely in the Deep South, although hardly confined to that region</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, perhaps as a direct inheritance of theological fights dating back to slavery. For example, although there are more churches per capita than in any other state and high rates of </span><a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/125999/mississippians-go-church-most-vermonters-least.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">attendance</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Mississippi also </span><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2012/09/20/news/economy/income-states-poverty/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">has</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the highest child poverty rate, the least funding for education and social services for the needy, and ranks lowest in the country when it comes to overall health and wellness. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It’s noteworthy that this area is known as both the “Bible Belt” and the “<a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/12/americas-new-poverty-belt/677/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Poverty Belt</a>.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is possible, in part, because the Bible has long been used as a tool of domination and division, while Christian theology has generally been politicized to identify poverty as a consequence of sin and individual failure. Thanks to the highly militarized rhetoric that goes with such a version of Christianity, adherents are also called upon to defend the “homeland,” even as their religious doctrine is used to justify violence against the most marginalized in society. These are the currents of white Christian nationalism that have been swelling and spreading for years across the country.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A moral movement from below</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1992-10-18-1992292082-story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">We live</a> in a moral universe. You know this. All of us know this instinctively. The perpetrators of injustice know this. This is a moral universe. Right and wrong do matter. Truth will out in the end. No matter what happens. No matter how many guns you use. No matter how many people get killed. It is an inexorable truth that freedom will prevail in the end, that injustice and repression and violence will not have the last word.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="http://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Poor People’s Campaign</a> (which I co-chair with Reverend William Barber II)</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> we identify Christian nationalism as a key pillar of injustice in America that provides cover for a host of other ills, including systemic racism, poverty, climate change, and militarism. To combat it, we believe it’s necessary to build a multiracial moral movement that can speak directly to the needs and aspirations of poor and dispossessed Americans and fuse their many struggles into one.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This theory of change is drawn from our study of history. The most transformative American movements have always relied on generations of poor people, deeply affected by injustice, coming together across dividing lines of all kinds to articulate a new moral vision for the nation. This has also meant waging a concerted battle for the moral values of society, whether you’re talking about the pre-Civil War abolition movement, the Populist Movement of the late nineteenth century, labor upsurges of the 1930s and 1940s, or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Today, to grasp the particular history and reality of America means recognizing the need for a new version of just such a movement to contend directly with the ideology and theology of Christian nationalism and offer an alternative that meets the material and spiritual needs of everyday people....</font></p><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">=</font></div></div><div><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">tool/site:</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><a href="http://www.politicalresearch.org/research/christian-right"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.politicalresearch.org/research/christian-right</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">eg FRC</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><a href="http://www.politicalresearch.org/2020/07/01/crumbling-cornerstone-christian-right"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.politicalresearch.org/2020/07/01/crumbling-cornerstone-christian-right</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The Family Research Council (FRC), a leading organization of the Christian Right has long featured Christian nationalist ideology in its materials and events — including speakers at its annual political conference, the Values Voter Summit. But those days may be over.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FRC’s new 2020 election resource, authored by David Closser, Biblical Principles for Political Engagement: Worldview, Issues, and Voting drops the claim that America was founded as a Christian Nation, and relies solely on an open ended Dominionist argument — which it also casts as non-partisan. But one could be forgiven, if after a close reading, one were to think that in the FRC worldview, biblical means Republican.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The guide takes 31 pages (plus notes) to conclude that Christians are “biblically obliged” to vote; that they should vote primarily according a candidate’s views on “abortion and human sexuality,” and that there is no room for disagreement. </font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The Republican party,” Closser declares, “has generally embraced policy positions on abortion and human sexuality that are consistent with Scripture, while the Democratic Party has embraced positions on these issues that are at odds with Scripture.” </font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>He says, however, that there may be “room for disagreement,” on matters of race and poverty.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“For our purposes,” Closson continued, “it will suffice to note that the need to care for the poor and marginalized is evident in the Bible. However, the Bible does not outline a specific remedy.” But he insists that it’s unfair to think that Republicans are “against the poor” just because “conservatives believe in the efficacy of limited government and free markets in addressing poverty.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He declares that “church leaders” should do more than address moral questions in sermons and pray “for those in positions of authority.” He demands that they “carry ideas to their logical conclusion” and “describe practical action steps… and the reality of our two-party system.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Closson goes on to compare evangelicals who prefer to be apolitical, to those who were complicit in the horrors of Nazi Germany and South African apartheid. He uses these loaded analogies to try to manipulate fellow Christians into political participation under the direction of FRC.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“[I]t is not enough,” he declares, “to acknowledge that various policy positions are profoundly evil and yet not encourage action.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It is striking that an organization that was once so unambiguously Christian Nationalist makes no appeal to Christian nationalism in their 2020 election year resource.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In any case, old habits of mind die hard. Closson managed to shoehorn-in the strawman argument on which so much of the Christian Nationalist argument depends. Buried in the third endnote he claims that “progressive secular elites” are telling conservative Christians that they are violating the idea of separation of church and state “by bringing their beliefs into the public square.” The Founders, he claims, “did not intend to erect a “wall of separation” between all expressions of faith in God and all aspects of public life.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>As is de rigeur in the knocking down of this strawman, Closson offers no examples of anyone who says that Christians should be banned from the public square.</b>In any case, Jefferson did not intend his metaphorical wall of separation to limit public expressions of faith and no responsible person makes any such claim. The wall of separation is intended to protect the rights of all citizens by at once preventing government coopting of religious institutions, and by thwarting religious factions as a matter of constitutional proscription, from enshrining their religious views in laws and public policy. These are of course, the very aims of Donald Trump and his Christian Right allies. And that is why it is significant that the most important political formation of the Christian Right has demonstrated that it is terrified of non-theocratic Christians and opponents of Christian Nationalism, who believe in religious freedom, pluralism, and separation of church and state.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I wrote an article in The Public Eye in January 2018, titled A Manual to Restore a Christian Nation that Never Was, about the FRC’s grassroots political organizing manual I had picked up at the 2017 Values Voter Summit. The manual sought to justify conservative Christian political action and government by fusing the Christian nationalist ideal with the Dominionist notion of Biblical Principles informed by a Biblical Worldview. A significantly revised edition, published later in 2018, an election year, elided almost all of the Christian nationalist material, relying instead on the Dominionist argument. (Among other things, it encouraged pastors to urge their “congregation to vote their Biblical values.”) But it is striking that an organization that was once so unambiguously Christian Nationalist makes no appeal to Christian nationalism in their 2020 election year resource, issued by FRC and 21 state affiliates.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All this suggests that what the Christian Right has long treated as a strength was actually, or has become, a weakness.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Christian Nationalism Inside Out</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Christian nationalist idea has long been challenged by activists, scholars and journalists, and has been followed by a surge of critical writing and political action in the past year alone. A number of books, have, for example, gained wide attention. These include The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, by Katherine Stewart; The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American by Andrew Seidel; Taking Back America for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States by Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry; and Revolution of Values: Reclaiming Public Faith for the Common Good, by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There has also been considerable media coverage of the Christian nationalism of the secretive state legislative campaign, Project Blitz, including a statewide controversy in Minnesota that gained national attention. Simultaneously, a wide range of religious, secular and civil rights organizations have actively opposed Project Blitz’s overt and covert activities.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Christians who are opposed to Christian Nationalism are notably visible. William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove of the Poor People’s Campaign have called out Christian Nationalism and denounced it as “heresy</b>.” Barber and Wilson-Hartgrove, joined by Katherine Stewart, all say that the contemporary Christian nationalism and antiabortionism, are a continuation of the politics of White Supremacy since the successes of the Civil Rights movement that made overt racial politics much less palatable.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The BJC (Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty) launched a campaign in 2019, called Christians Against Christian Nationalism. They called it “a persistent threat to both our religious communities and our democracy.” They warned, “Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy;” and that “It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And the BJC and others have continued the Campaign.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Amanda Tyler, executive director of BJC, wrote, in response to Donald Trump’s now infamous June 1st stunt – in which he wielded an upside down bible for a photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church across Lafayette Park from the White House after clearing away protestors with mounted police and tear gas: “For many, the display had nothing to do with Christianity,” she said, “but instead was an egregious example of Christian nationalism with its attempted merging of religious authority and political authority…. that merging of authority is ‘idolatrous and often leads to oppression of minority and other marginalized groups as well as the spiritual impoverishment of religion.’” </font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Barber, Tyler, and the thousands of endorsers of the Campaign show that there is a religious and not just an historical, secular, or political argument to be made about Christian nationalism. Their high profile entry into this struggle may someday be seen as a turning point in the battle for the narrative of American history, and perhaps the story of Christianity as well.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Retreat or Retrench?</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Several Christian Right leaders, led by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council were alarmed by the Baptists’ campaign in the summer of 2019. They went so far as to deny that there was any such thing as Christian Nationalism. Perkins was joined in this by David Closser, FRC’s Director of Christian Ethics and Biblical Worldview, Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and even Christian nationalist author David Barton himself.</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This seemed like an odd overreaction at the time, but now that Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council are close political and governing partners with Donald Trump’s Republican Party, their roles have changed, sometimes awkwardly. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appointed Perkins to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in May 2018 – a few months after the publication of my essay “A Christian Manual that Never Was,” related reporting by Paul Rosenberg in Salon, and a frantic response from Perkins in his national Washington Watch newsletter. Since then, the FRC has largely eliminated expressions of Christian nationalism from its public profile. Perkins now chairs the Commission. </font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Here’s the rub.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Religious nationalism of any variety, and all of the attendant bigotries that go with it –– runs against the grain of the mission of the USCIRF –– which by statute seeks to advance the values of religious freedom as a human right recognized in international law and treaties, notably Article 18 of the<b> Universal Declaration of Human Rights</b>. The Declaration affirms that:</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The USCIRF asserts that “The freedom of religion or belief is an expansive right that includes the freedoms of thought and conscience, and is intertwined with the freedoms of expression, association, and assembly.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In religious nationalist ideologies, the favored group seeks governmental power to enforce its views and, as the Christian Right has shown, treating anyone other than the favored faction as second-class citizens at best. And this is the paradox of Perkins’ role: Downplaying the overt Christian nationalist rhetoric that helped propel his movement to political power, while continuing to advance the theocratic goals of the Christian Right.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That’s why some of the avatars of Christian Nationalism are in retreat. The anti-democratic Christian supremacist ideology, and distorted historical narrative of Christian nationalism stands exposed, and its crumbling foundation that may no longer be able to support the movement on which it was built.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">10 21</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">w<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/joe-manchin-2655354959/" aria-label="West Virginia constituents decry 'immorality' of Joe Manchin" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" outline="outline" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height">est Virginia constituents decry 'immorality' of Joe Manchin</a></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; display: inline-block; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="social-authorname rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/julia-conley" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Julia Conley</a> <a class="social-authorname rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Common Dreams</a></div><div class="social-date" style="margin-top: 8px; display: inline-block; color: rgb(164, 162, 160); font-size: 1.4rem; vertical-align: top; font-family: Helvetica; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <span class="social-date__text" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; color: rgb(142, 142, 142); top: 3px; position: relative; line-height: 1; left: -3px;">October 24, 2021</span></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2655354959" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; font-size: 17px; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow: hidden; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 4; line-height: 31px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p>West Virginians were joined by economists and economic justice campaigners at a <a href="https://youtu.be/U9-d7GnJFz8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">virtual press conference</a> hosted by the Poor People's Campaign on Friday where they condemned Sen. Joe Manchin's...</p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 1021</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>New study reveals the group that was crucial to toppling Trump in 2020</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Julia Conley and Common Dreams October 15, 2021</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Calling into question widespread perceptions of lower-income Americans and their level of political engagement, a new study released Friday detailed the high turnout among poor voters in the November 2020 elections—particularly in battleground states which helped deliver victories for President Joe Biden and Democrats in the Senate and House—following a concerted effort by campaigners to engage with low-income communities regarding the issues that mattered to them in the election.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Released by the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival (PPC:NCMR); the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice; and Repairers of the Breach, the study shows that of the 168 million Americans who cast ballots last year, 59 million, or 35%, had an estimated annual household income of less than $50,000, classifying them as poor or low-income.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to the report, titled "Waking the Sleeping Giant: Low-Income Voters and the 2020 Elections" and written by Kairos Center policy director Shailly Gupta Barnes, those voters were among the Americans that the Poor People's Campaign reached out to last year when it held a non-partisan voter outreach drive across 16 states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The organization reached over 2.1 million voters, with campaigners speaking with them about "an agenda that includes living wages, healthcare, strong anti-poverty programs, voting rights, and policies that fully address injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy," according to the report.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Poor People's Campaign found "that the reason poor and low-income voters participate in elections at lower rates is not because they have no interest in politics, but because politics is not interested in them."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"They do not hear their needs and demands from candidates or feel that their votes matter," wrote Rev. Dr. William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign, in the foreward to the report. "They are less likely to vote because of illness, disability, or transportation issues, not to mention the rise of voter suppression laws—all systemic barriers rather than individual failures."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Intentional efforts to engage these voter" in the leadup to the 2020 election,contact the groups found, were key to turning out low-income voters in states where Biden's margin of victory was near or less than 3%, including:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Arizona, where low-income people represented 39.96% of voters;</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Georgia (37.84%);</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Michigan (37.81%);</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nevada (35.78%); and</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wisconsin (39.8%)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"While the data cannot be used to claim that being contacted by PPC:NCMR was the only factor that drove them to vote, we can say that our efforts to directly reach out to low-income, infrequent voters improved their turnout rates in these states," the report reads.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The groups highlighted the case of Georgia, which was carried by Biden—marking the first Democratic presidential victory in the southern state since 1992. Outreach by the Poor People's Campaign helped encourage more than 39,000 Georgians who didn't vote in 2016 to cast ballots last year—"accounting for more than three times the final margin of victory for the presidential contest in the state."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The racial demographics of low-income voters in Georgia were fairly evenly split between Black and white low-income voters, with 1.9 million low-income white voters casting ballots last year and 1.6 million Black Georgians going to the polls. Another 164,000 low-income voters were classified as Hispanic.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In other states carried by Biden, white people made up a larger share of eligible lower-income voters reached by the PPCNCMR, including in Michigan, where 2.95 million out of 3.8 million poor voters were white; Pennsylvania, where three million of the state's 3.95 million eligible low-income voters were white; and Wisconsin, where 1.8 million out of 2.1 million low-income voters were white.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The statistics present "a challenge to the media-driven narrative that emerged out of 2016 and before, i.e., that white low-income voters are the de facto base of the Republican Party and delivered Donald Trump into the White House," wrote Gupta Barnes.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"While the narrative that white low-income voters are voting not only against their own interests, but also the interests of other racial segments of low-income voters, persisted through the 2020 elections, our analysis suggests something significantly different," the author added. "The findings suggest that, rather than writing white low-income voters off, it is possible to build coalitions of low-income voters across race around a political agenda that centers the issues they have in common."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Though the Poor People's Campaign made an intentional effort in 2020 to reach low-income voters, listen to their concerns, and urge them to turn out in the elections, the report notes that legislative action must be taken to turn last year's high turnout among poor Americans into a long-term reality.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"To realize the potential of the low-income electorate, our voting infrastructure must be expanded to encourage these voters to both register and vote," the report reads.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As Common Dreams has reported this year, the PPCNCMR has campaigned extensively to urge the passage of the For the People Act, which would outlaw partisan gerrymandering, expand early voting, establish a national automatic voter registration system, and take other steps to strengthen the country's election system.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"While mechanisms to increase registration are important for low-income voters, there is an even greater need for policies and legislation that increase their ability to cast a ballot and actually vote," wrote Gupta Barnes.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Additionally, the report says, Democrats must identify—and pass—"an agenda that appeals to important concerns of low-income voters across race, that is, issues like raising hourly wages, stimulus payments, paid leave, housing, and healthcare."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"According to exit polls, 72% of Americans said they would prefer a government-run healthcare plan and more than 70% supported raising the minimum wage, including 62% of Republicans," the report reads. "In Florida, the $15/hour minimum wage referendum got more votes than either of the two presidential candidates."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report comes as progressives in Congress are pushing back against corporate Democrats' claims that the Build Back Better Act—the spending package which would invest $3.5 trillion in climate action, child care, affordable housing, and other measures to help lower- and middle-income people—is unaffordable.</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Common Dreams reported on Tuesday, the Poor People's Campaign held a press conference on Capitol Hill this week to demand the legislation's passage.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The report, wrote Gupta Barnes, "underscores why the needs and concerns of low-income voters must be brought more fully into our political discourse, platforms, and campaigns—and why candidates who are elected on these platforms must live up to their campaign promises."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/heres-how-christian-nationalism-in-the-us-legislates-evil-and-punishes-the-poor/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/heres-how-christian-nationalism-in-the-us-legislates-evil-and-punishes-the-poor/</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On August 26th, during the Republican National Convention, Vice President Mike Pence closed out his acceptance <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/08/27/citing-scripture-pence-switches-out-jesus-for-the-american-flag-in-convention-speech/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">speech</a> with a biblical sleight of hand.</span> Speaking before a crowd at the Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, he exclaimed, "Let's fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents. Let's fix our eyes on this land of heroes and let their courage inspire." In doing so, he essentially rewrote a passage from the New Testament's Book of Hebrews: "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross."</font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176754/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article originally appeared on TomDispatch.</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There's nothing new, of course, about an American politician melding religion and politics on the campaign trail. Still, Pence's decision to replace Jesus with the Stars and Stripes raised eyebrows across a range of religious and political persuasions. </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Indeed, the melding of Old Glory and Christ provided the latest evidence of the rising influence of <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/old-glory-god" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Christian nationalism</a> in the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/trumps-biblical-spectacle-outside-st-johns-church/612529/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">age of Trump</a>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">It's no longer hard to find evidence of just how deeply Christian nationalism influences our politics and policymaking. During the pandemic, the Bible has repeatedly been used (and distorted) to justify <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/texas-court-to-rule-on-teens-refusal-to-wear-mark-of-the-beast-school-id.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Covid-19 denialism</a> and government inaction, not to speak of outright repression. In late March, as cities were locking down and public health officials were recommending strict quarantine measures, one of Donald Trump's first acts was to gather his followers at the White House for what was billed as a "<a href="https://www.religiousfreedominstitute.org/blog/presidents-call-for-national-day-of-prayer-for-those-affected-by-covid-19-has-deep-roots-in-american-history" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">National Day of Prayer</a>" to give Americans the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-national-day-prayer-americans-affected-coronavirus-pandemic-national-response-efforts/#::text=May%20God%20bless%20each%20of,for%20our%20National%20Response%20Efforts." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">strength</a> to press on through death and difficulty.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Later in the spring, protests against pandemic shutdowns, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coronavirus-protests-restrictions" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">funded</a> with dark money from the likes of the Koch Brothers, demanded that states reopen for business and social distancing guidelines be loosened. (Forget about masking of any sort.) At them, printed protest signs said things like: "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/accidentallycommunist/comments/g47f8c/even_pharaoh_freed_slaves_during_a_plague/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Even Pharaoh Freed Slaves in a Plague</a>" and "<a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/lifting-stay-home-orders-people-killed/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Texas will not take the Mark of the Beast</a>."</span> And even as faith communities struggled admirably to adjust to<a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/05/13/survey-shows-faith-can-prosper-in-online-services/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"> zoom worship services</a>, as well as remote pastoral care and memorials, President Trump continued to fan the flames of religious division, declaring in-person worship "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/politics/religious-gatherings-cdc-coronavirus/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">essential</a>," no matter that legal experts <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/05/22/tl-jeffrey-toobin-dr-peter-hotez-live.cnn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">questioned his authority</a> to do so.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And speaking of his version of Christian nationalism, no one should forget the June <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spectacle in Lafayette Square</a> near the White House, when Trump had racial-justice protestors tear-gassed so he could stroll to nearby St. John's Church and pose proudly on its steps displaying a borrowed bible. Though he flashed it to the photographers, who can doubt how little time he's spent within its pages. (Selling those same pages is another matter entirely. After all, <b>a Bible he signed in the wake of that Lafayette Square event is now on sale for <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2020/09/08/trump-bible-signed-autographed-for-sale-st-johns-church-photo-op/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">nearly $40,000</a>.)</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Battle for the Bible in American History</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">To understand how power is wielded in America by wealthy politicians and their coteries of extremists in 2020, you have to consider the role of religion in our national life. An epic battle for the Bible is now underway in a country that has been largely ceded to <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/july-august/christian-nationalist-temptation-america-white-evangelical.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">white evangelical</a> Christian nationalists. Through a well-funded network of churches and nonprofits, universities, and think tanks, and with direct lines to the nation's highest <a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/07/07/the-price-of-white-evangelical-patriarchy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">political officials</a>, they've had carte-blanche to set the terms of what passes for religious debate in this country and dictate what morality even means in our society.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Under Trump, such religious nationalism has reached a fever pitch as a reactionary movement that includes technocratic billionaires, televangelists, and armed militias has taken root with a<b> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/God-Country-Christian-Case-Trump/dp/1684510570" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">simple enough message</a>: God loves white Christian America, favors small government and big business, and rewards individualism and entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, the poor, people of color, and immigrants are blamed for society's problems </b>even as the rich get richer in what's still the wealthiest country in the history of the world.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The dangers posed by today's Christian nationalists are all too real, but the battle for the Bible itself is not new in America. In the 1700s and 1800s, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-33/why-christians-supported-slavery.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">slaveholders</a> quoted the book of Philemon and lines from St. Paul's epistles to <a href="https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">claim</a> that slavery was ordained by God</b>. They also <a href="https://www.history.com/news/slave-bible-redacted-old-testament" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">ripped</a> the pages of Exodus from bibles they gave to the enslaved. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century, churches and politicians alike preached a "<a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">prosperity gospel</a>" that extolled the virtues of industrial capitalism.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Decades later, segregationists continued to use stray biblical verses to rubberstamp Jim Crow practices, while in the late 1970s the Moral Majority helped to mainstream a new generation of Christian extremists into national politics.</b> In my own youth, I remember politicians quoting <a href="https://sojo.net/articles/poor-will-always-be-us-jesus-indictment-rich-not-poor" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Thessalonians</a> in the lead up to the passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act as proof that God believes in work-requirements for public assistance programs.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Students of religion and history know that, although such theological battles have often tipped disastrously toward the forces of violence, deprivation, and hate, Christian <b>religious thinking has also been a key ingredient in positive social change in this country.</b> Escaped slave Harriet "Moses" Tubman understood the Underground Railroad as a Christian project of liberation, while escaped slave Frederick Douglass fought for abolition through churches across the north in the pre-Civil War years. A century later, near the end of his life, <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/quotes-from-rev-dr-kings-last-years/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.</a> explained how, to achieve his universal dream of justice, a beloved community of God would be built through a "<a href="https://kairoscenter.org/freedom-church-of-the-poor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">freedom church of the poor</a>."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After all, in every chapter of American history, abolitionists, workers, labor organizers, civil rights leaders, and other representatives of the oppressed have struggled for a better nation not just in streets and workplaces, but in the pulpit, too. In the wreckage of the present Trumpian moment, with a fascistic, white nationalism increasingly ascendant, people of conscience would do well to follow suit.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The "Psychological Bird" of Bad Religion</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802875025/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><em>Always with Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor</em></a>, I focus on a reality that has long preoccupied me: how, in this country, the Bible has so often been manipulated to obscure its potentially emancipatory power; in particular, the way in which what theologian Jim Wallis has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-OIyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=jim+wallis+most+quoted+biblical+passage+on+poverty&source=bl&ots=HOKOZc7n6F&sig=ACfU3U2xJE_fV6pwoF2CXslEs0t5XjPfDg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9pqiF5MXqAhUvlHIEHdi7B-YQ6AEwDXoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=jim%20wallis%20most%20quoted%20biblical%20passage%20on%20poverty&f=false" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">called</a> the<b> most famous biblical passage on the poor (from the Gospel of Matthew) -- "<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26&version=NIV" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the poor will be always with us</a>" -- has been misused.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since I was a young girl, scarcely a week has passed in which I haven't heard someone quoting <a href="http://practicalmattersjournal.org/2017/05/10/you-who-have-neglected/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Matthew</a> as an explanation for why poverty is eternal and its mitigation reserved at best for charity or philanthropy (but certainly not for government). The logic of such thinking runs through so many of our religious institutions including what's now known as "evangelical Christianity," but also our legislatures, courts, military, schools, and more. It hasn't just shaped the minds of young Christians but has <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">helped to spiritualize (and cement in place) poverty, while implicitly or<b> even explicitly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/jerry-falwell-jr-cant-imagine-trump-doing-anything-thats-not-good-for-the-country/2018/12/21/6affc4c4-f19e-11e8-80d0-f7e1948d55f4_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">justifying</a> ever greater inequality in this society</b></span><b>.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Today, the idea that poverty is the result of bad behavior, laziness, or sin rather than decisions made by those with power is distinctly ascendant in Donald Trump's and Mitch McConnell's Washington.</b> Biblical passages like that one in Matthew have become another ideological tool brandished by reactionaries and the wealthy to deflect attention from this country's systemic failures.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consider, for example, the historic development of what's often known as the "<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bible Belt" (or alternatively the "Poverty Belt")</span>. It sweeps across the South, from North Carolina to Mississippi, Tennessee to Alabama, home to poor people of every race. It represents the deepest, most <a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/12/americas-new-poverty-belt/677/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">contiguous area</a> of poverty in the United States made possible in part by heretical theology, biblical misinterpretation, and Christian nationalism.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The convergence of poverty and religion in the Bible Belt has a long history, stretching back to the earliest settler-colonists in the slave era. It echoed through the system of Jim Crow that had the region in its grip until the Civil Rights years and the modern political concept of "the solid South" (once Democratic, now Republican). Within its bounds lies a <b>brutal legacy of <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/the-leadership-of-the-poor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">divide and conquer</a> that, to this day, politicizes the Bible by claiming that poverty results from sins against God and teaches poor white people in particular that, although they may themselves have little or nothing, they are at least "better" than people of color.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the end of the bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, Martin Luther King <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/address-conclusion-selma-montgomery-march" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">explained</a> the age-old politics of division in the region this way:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow... And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man... And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That "psychological bird" was seasoned and cooked in a volatile mix of racist pseudo-science, economic orthodoxy, and <a href="https://www.ivpress.com/reconstructing-the-gospel" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">bad religion</a>. In fact, it retained its enormous power in large part by using the Bible and a version of Christianity to validate plunder and human suffering on a staggering scale. De jure Jim Crow may no longer exist, but its history haunts America to this day, and the Bible continues to be <a href="https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">weaponized</a> to validate anti-poor, white racist political power.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As jobs and opportunity continue to vanish in twenty-first-century America and churches stand among the last truly functional institutions in many communities, the Bible, however interpreted, still influences daily life for millions</b>. How it's understood and preached affects the political and moral direction of the country. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Consider that those Bible Belt states -- where Christian nationalism (which regularly displays its own upside-down version of the Bible) now reigns supreme -- account for more than <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Revive-Us-Again-P1422.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">193 electoral college</a> votes and so will play a key role in determining the fate of Donald Trump and Mike Pence in November.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I had my own experience with that version of biblical and theological interpretation and its growing role in our national politics in June 2019 during a </span><a href="https://budget.house.gov/legislation/hearings/poverty-america-economic-realities-struggling-families" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">hearing</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives. Its subject was poverty in America and the economic realities of struggling families</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A racially and geographically diverse group of leaders of the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style=""><a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Poor People's Campaign</a> (of which I'm the co-chair)</b> were invited to testify on those realities. Alongside us that day were two Black pastors invited by Republican congressmen to stand as examples of how faith and hard work is the only recipe for a good and stable life for the impoverished.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">We had come to present what we've called the <a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/poor-peoples-moral-budget/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Poor People's Moral Budget</a>,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a study showing that the United States does have the money to end poverty, hunger, homelessness, and more, just not the political will to do so. In response, members of the committee turned to the same <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/who-are-the-poor/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tired stereotypes</a> about why so many of us in such a wealthy country are poor. Some cited the<b> supposed failure of the 1960s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_poverty" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">War on Poverty</a> as evidence that programs of social uplift just don't work, while ignoring the dramatic way politicians had undercut those initiatives in the years that followed. </b>Like those pastors, others replied with tales of their own success rising out of economic hardship via bootstrap individualism and they plugged Christian charity as the way to alleviate poverty. I listened to them all as they essentially promoted a heretical theology that claimed people suffer from poverty largely because they're estranged from God and lack a deep enough faith in Jesus.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That day, the walls of that House committee room rang with empty words twisting what the Bible actually says about the poor. One Republican representative typically remarked that,<b> although he was familiar with the Bible, he had never found anyplace in it "where Jesus tells Caesar to care for the poor." Another all-too-typically suggested that Christian charity, not government-sponsored programs, is the key to alleviating poverty.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Someone less familiar with the arguments of such politicians might have been surprised to hear so many of them seeking theological cover. As a biblical scholar and a student of the history of social movements, I <a href="http://www.liztheoharis.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">know well</a> how religious texts actually instruct us to care for the poor and dispossessed. As a long-time organizer, I've learned that those in power now regularly, even desperately, seek to abuse and distort the liberating potential of our religious traditions.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Indeed, in <a href="https://kairoscenter.org/liz-theoharis-house-budget-committee/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">response</a> to that representative,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Reverand William Barber, my Poor People's Campaign co-chai</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">r, and I pointed out how interesting it was that he identified himself with Caesar (not necessarily the most flattering comparison imaginable, especially as biblical Christianity polemicizes against Caesar and the Roman empire). Then I detailed for him many of the passages and commandments in the Bible that urge us to organize society around the needs of the poor, forgive debts, pay workers a living wage, rather than favoring either the rich or "Caesar." That, of course, is indeed the formula of the Trump era (where, in the last six pandemic months, the 643 wealthiest Americans raked in an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/business/us-billionaire-wealth-increase-pandemic/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">extra $845 billion</a>, raising their combined wealth by 29%). I also pointed out that th<b>e most effective poverty-reduction programs like Head Start are federally funded,</b> neither philanthropic nor a matter of Christian charity.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Good News from the Poor</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the Poor People's Campaign, we often start our organizing meetings by showing a series of <a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/the-souls-of-poor-folk-audit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">color-coded maps </a>of the country. The first has the states that have passed <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voting-restrictions-america" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">voter suppression laws</a> since 2013; the next, those with the highest poverty rates; then, those that have not <a href="https://www.nashp.org/states-stand-medicaid-expansion-decisions/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">expanded Medicaid</a> but have passed anti-LGBTQ laws. And so it goes. Our final map displays the states densest with self-identified evangelical Protestants.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that those <b>maps overlap almost perfectly,</b> chiefly in the Bible Belt, but also in the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic states, and even in parts of the Northeast and West</span>. <b>The point is to show how inextricably connected the battle for voting rights, healthcare, and other critical resources is to the battle for the Bible. </b>The stakes are measured in the health of the entire nation, because the same politicians who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/trump-religion-megachurch-american-tradition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">manipulate the Bible</a> and the right to vote to win elections then pass immoral budgets and policies.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Vice President Pence altered that line from the Book of Hebrews, he was charging headfirst onto that very blood-soaked battlefield with a desecrated Bible in hand. The question is: why should he and other Christian nationalists have the power to define Christianity? If they are so intent on "fixing their eyes on Old Glory," shouldn't they also fix their eyes on what Jesus actually said?</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Greek word <em>evangelia,</em> out of which "evangelical" comes, means bringing good news to those made poor by systems of exploitation.</span> The Bible's good news, also defined as gospel, talks again and again about <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%2061%3A1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">captives being freed</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Luke%204%3A18" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">slaves released</a>, and all who are oppressed being taken care of. It's said that were you to cut out every one of its pages that mentions poverty, the Bible would <a href="https://www.redletterchristians.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fall apart</a>. And when you actually read the words on those pages, you see that the gospel doesn't talk about the inevitability of poverty or the need for charity, but the responsibilities of the ruling authorities to all people and the possibility of abundance for all.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At a time when <a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/the-souls-of-poor-folk-audit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">43.5%</a> of Americans are poor or one fire, storm, health-care crisis, pandemic, eviction, or job loss from poverty, it couldn't be more important for Americans to begin to reckon with this reality and our moral obligation to end it. Instead, politicians pass <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voter-suppression" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">voter suppression</a> laws, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/free-school-meals-children-trump.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">kick kids</a> off food programs, and allow the <a href="https://grist.org/cities/the-real-heroes-of-the-flint-water-crisis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">poisoning</a> of our water, air, and land, while Christian nationalist religious leaders <a href="https://archive.thinkprogress.org/an-open-letter-to-clergy-who-prayed-with-trump-7876ee87dbc2/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">bless</a> such policies and cherry-pick biblical verses to justify them as all-American. Consider such a reality not simply a matter of a religious but a political, economic, and moral crisis that, in the midst of a pandemic, is pushing this country ever closer to the brink of <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/04/mlks-warning-of-americas-spiritual-death-3/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spiritual death</a>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If America is still worth saving, this is no longer a battle anyone should sit out.</font></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">disaster socialism?! ;)</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/american-capitalism-doesnt-hold-up-all-that-well-under-the-stresses-and-strains-of-a-virulent-pandemic"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/american-capitalism-doesnt-hold-up-all-that-well-under-the-stresses-and-strains-of-a-virulent-pandemic</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>American capitalism doesn’t hold up all that well under the stresses and strains of a virulent pandemic</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Bob Hennelly / Salon March 22, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As it turns out, American capitalism doesn’t hold up all that well under the stresses and strains of a virulent pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the face of the coronavirus, that stingy “real time delivery” dictum taught in business school to guide how we deploy labor and distribute stuff can be a recipe for needlessly high body counts and wealth destruction on the scale of the Great Depression.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Currently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is fashioning a coronavirus pandemic stimulus package that is fashioned after the Trump/ GOP $1.7 trillion tax cut — meaning, weighted to favor corporations and the wealthiest Americans.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To be fair, this was the same impulse we saw in the Bush/Obama response to the Great Recession. Their remedy led to Wall Street’s pillaging of MLK Boulevard and Main Street, the destruction of $20 trillion in household wealth, and accelerated wealth concentration. It also left tens of millions of households in a precarious position to face this pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And while President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression in the form of the New Deal was widely praised for uplifting working-class Americans, we must remember that it left out Americans of color. Consider the Faustian bargain that FDR made with the Dixiecrats to get basic labor protections and standards for workers that expressly left out domestic and agricultural workers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greed dies hard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now that the wolf (COVID-19) is at the door, we can see the reflex that many political leaders have to put wealth preservation above the common good. Four senators, including Sen. Richard Barr (R.-NC), chair of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, sold off significant stock holdings after being briefed on the impending coronavirus pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These guys can’t help themselves. When destiny asks them to choose between money or life, they pause to make a trade.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is what happens when you organize every aspect of your society to promote wealth accumulation and nothing else. It’s really just physics. You invest everything in accumulating gold or money for security and all of the sudden your life gets cut short as your lungs no longer function because you caught coronavirus from some other person who accidentally became the real sculptor of your destiny.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This will come as a real downer for the wealthy elites who have structured their lives around pre-coronavirus social distancing behind the gated walls of privilege that won’t protect them now.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it’s our grocers, postal workers, trash collectors, nurses and emergency medical technicians who hold the jobs that are the most essential and need protecting.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, our vaunted American health care system — which is designed to maximize shareholder profits and discourage patients from using it — turns out to be antithetical to promoting the public health. This for-profit model is based on scarcity, which rations access to care, ventilators and personal protection equipment for medical staff, all to feed the insatiable bottom line.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Works great until that doomsday scenario when everybody needs it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our whole socioeconomic framework was predicated on the notion that our society could function and feed off vast inequality, and that the day-in and day-out misery of tens of millions of American families was their problem.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It turns out that the country’s economic deprivation — reflected in hunger and homelessness — significantly complicates our ability to end the pandemic. And as this more vulnerable cohort falls ill as a consequence the inadequacy of this existing system puts the broader society at a greater risk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Poverty may not be contagious. But COVID-19 is.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the end of his life, as the Vietnam War raged, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called for a “revolution of values” when he suggested that instead of the phrase “Black Power,” activists should invoke the more inclusive rallying cry “Power for Poor People” in order to build a multi-racial coalition of the impoverished and disenfranchised.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Out of that call to action, the Poor People’s Campaign was formed. Just weeks after her husband’s murder, Coretta Scott King initiated a 14 day protest in Washington, D.C. on Mother’s Day, demanding passage of an Economic Bill of Rights.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 21st century iteration of the Poor People’s Campaign has been calling for a “national call for a moral revival” in the throes of our current pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“With its broad sweep, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us into an unprecedented national emergency,” the Poor People’s Campaign writes on their website. “This emergency, however, results from a deeper and much longer-term crisis — that of poverty and inequality, and of a society that ignores the needs of 140 million people who are poor, or a $400 emergency away from being poor.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Long before this coronavirus pandemic, there was already an under-reported poverty pandemic that killed hundreds every day in America in the form of missed diagnoses and delayed care.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Poor People’s Campaign wrote, </b>“millions of people are in dire need of critical attention immediately. We call on you to fulfill your moral and Constitutional responsibilities: expand the COVID-19 emergency provisions to care for us all and enact our Moral Agenda immediately.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They continue: “We cannot return to normal. Addressing the depth of the crises that have been revealed in this pandemic means enacting universal health care, expanding social welfare programs, ensuring access to water and sanitation, cash assistance to poor and low-income families, good jobs, living wages and an annual income and protecting our democracy.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And this real-time national realignment “means ensuring that our abundant national resources are used for the general welfare, instead of war, walls, and the wealthy.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Indeed, the Poor People Campaign’s list of demands is an essential foundation for our country’s survival:</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1. Immediate, comprehensive and permanent paid sick leave for 100%</b> of employees for this pandemic. Paid sick leave must become standard across all sectors of the labor market.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>2. Immediate health care for all, including 100% free COVID-19 testing,</b> treatment and quality care to all, regardless of income, age, disability, citizenship or any other factor, and including the uninsured.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>3. A guaranteed and adequate annual income / universal income</b>, including rapid, direct payments to all low-wage and temporary workers, from grocery, fast food and delivery workers, care workers, and pharmacists to other workers who remain on the front lines and are severely underpaid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>4. A national moratorium on evictions, tax foreclosures, rent hikes, and a national rent freeze. </b>This includes an immediate halt to encampment sweeps and towing vehicles of unhoused communities. Federal resources must be directed to local and state governments towards opening and preparing vacant and habitable buildings, properties and warehouses to house and provide adequate care for all people who are homeless. This includes ensuring education, food assistance and health care for homeless children and provisions for medical testing, treatment and respite for the homeless.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>5. Jubilee and debt forgiveness for medical debt, student debt, water, utilities and other forms of household debt.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>6. Protections for our democracy and the right to vote with expanded opportunities to vote during this crisis and an expanded census to ensure every person is accounted for.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And there’s more — much more.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As we refashion America, we need “a national moratorium on water and utility shut-offs, a waiver of all late-payment charges, and reinstitution of any services that have already been cut off due to nonpayment, including access to cellular and the internet.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this remodeling at home has to come with a recalibration of our risk threat matrix that has us spending hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowed money on further notice wars abroad.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the shadow of COVID-19, the greatest threat to our immediate collective well- being is the miserable circumstances of our poorer neighbors we had for all too long ignored, figuring their reality had nothing to do with the rest of us.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">raLLY on impeachment </font></div><div><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/30/headlines/william_barber_mitch_mcconnell_is_bringing_old_southern_justice_to_us_senate" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243); color: rgb(25, 31, 36); text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px; font-family: Roboto, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" text-align="text-align" center="center">Rev. William Barber: Mitch McConnell Is Bringing Old Southern Justice to U.S. Senate</a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==
</font><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">But the reverend’s message is not just directed at the enthused people in the sanctuary. A cameraman stationed in the middle of the church is beaming Barber’s sermon to some 20,000 people watching on Facebook Live. For some it’s good church from an eloquent and experienced pastor. But others in this vast virtual audience on Easter Sunday are seeking a different kind of resurrection. Barber’s mix of piety and politics, they believe, may just breathe new life and leadership into America’s political left in time to defeat the agenda of President Trump.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">More than one person has made the connection between Barber and another fiery southern preacher who, like Barber, deftly mixed religious parables with the uniquely American promises found in the nation’s founding documents. “William Barber is the closest person we have to Martin Luther King Jr. in our midst,” said Cornel West, the well-known Princeton professor and author.
...Barber’s admirers say his sermons and speeches, which have intertwined the religious tenets of love, justice and mercy that exist in all faiths with an American vision of morality baked into the Constitution, steal the moral high ground long claimed by political conservatives.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">After all, the Bible says little about abortion, prayer in schools and same-sex marriage. Yet there are hundreds of scriptures that deal with how people treat “the least of these,” which in modern times could be interpreted to mean denying them the right to vote or health-care coverage. Last, week, Barber joined a health-care protest at a Sen. Patrick J. Toomey’s office (R-Pa.) and said a Republican repeal of Obamacare would be the nation’s greatest moral failing since slavery.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">“We’re really talking about, in a sense, political murder,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/23/15860414/william-barber-obamacare-repeal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(25, 85, 165); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); zoom: 1; font-size: inherit; margin-bottom: 18px; line-height: 1.8em;">Barber told Vox</a>. “I know that’s a strong term, but it comes out of the Bible. “The Bible talks about it in Ezekiel 22, when politicians become like wolves devouring the people and do not care for the needy.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 20px; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">...</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;"><font color="#111111" face="Georgia"><span style="font-size: 20px;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/29/woe-unto-those-who-legislate-evil-rev-william-barber-builds-a-moral-movement">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/29/woe-unto-those-who-legislate-evil-rev-william-barber-builds-a-moral-movement</a></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;"><font color="#111111" face="Georgia"><span style="font-size: 20px;">=</span></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/rev-william-barber-building-new-moral-movement-reach-people-race">https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/rev-william-barber-building-new-moral-movement-reach-people-race</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/william-barber-moral-monday-north-carolina/">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/william-barber-moral-monday-north-carolina/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px;">Barber leaned on his cane as capitol police led him away in handcuffs.</span></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That might have been the end of just another symbolic protest, but then something happened: The following Monday, more than 100 protesters showed up at the capitol. Over the next few months, the weekly crowds at the “Moral Mondays” protests grew to include hundreds, and then thousands, not just in Raleigh but also in towns around the state. The largest gathering, in February, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/14/3622926/turnout-of-the-moral-march-on.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">drew tens of thousands of people</a>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> More than 900 protesters have been arrested for civil disobedience over the past year. Copycat movements have started in <a href="http://www.naacp.org/press/entry/moral-monday-florida-social-justice-campaign-launch-on-march-3" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Florida</a>, <a href="http://www.moralmondayga.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Georgia</a>, <a href="http://www.truthfultuesday.net/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">South Carolina</a>, and <a href="http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/03/alabama_1.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Alabama</a> in response to GOP legislation regarding Medicaid and gun control.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>With Moral Mondays, Barber has channeled the pent-up frustration of North Carolinians who were shocked by how quickly their state had been transformed into a laboratory for conservative policies.</b> “He believed we needed to kind of burst this bubble of ‘There’s nothing we can do for two years until the next election,'” explains <a href="http://mcsurely.com/index.php/our-team/alan-mcsurely/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Al McSurely</a>, a longtime NAACP organizer. But what may be most notable about Barber’s new brand of civil rights activism is how he’s taken a partisan fight and presented it as an issue that transcends party or race—creating a more sustained pushback against Republican overreach than anywhere else in the country.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Barber’s activism is rooted in his family’s history. In the 1960s, his parents moved back to eastern North Carolina from Indianapolis to help desegregate the local schools. His father, also a preacher, taught science at a formerly all-white high school. His mother became the school’s first black office manager. Students called her “nigger” before they finally learned to call her “Mother Barber.”</p><div id="InContent_Banner_2" data-adunit="InContent_Banner_2" data-size-mapping="InContent" class="dfw-unit display-none" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto 1em; text-align: center; position: relative; z-index: 2000; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Barber fears that Republican lawmakers’ efforts to expand private-school vouchers will resegregate the very schools his parents worked to integrate. As NAACP president, he helped pass legislation establishing same-day voter registration and expanding death penalty appeals—bills that Republicans repealed in the last legislative session.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 1993, a flare-up of his condition left him hospitalized, and he spent the next dozen years relying on a walker to get around. Exercise, faith, and “a little miracle and medicine” fueled his recovery—along with a good health plan. “I never want to have health insurance and see other members of the human family denied,” he says. “It’s immoral.” He shakes his head at lawmakers who receive generous benefits only to try to deny their constituents access to Obamacare or expanded Medicaid. “The logic doesn’t compute.”...</p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><p name="200e" id="200e" class="graf graf--p graf-after--figure" style="margin: 38px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In North Carolina, protesting your government could soon open you up to charges of “economic terrorism” under a measure proposed Thursday by two Republican lawmakers.</font></p><p name="eb38" id="eb38" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bill would <a href="http://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2017/03/02/two-nc-state-reps-want-to-label-some-protesters-economic-terrorists" data-href="http://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2017/03/02/two-nc-state-reps-want-to-label-some-protesters-economic-terrorists" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">create a new felony charge</a> applied to any criminal offense that leads to at least $1,000 in economic harm to any business, if the offender intended to intimidate the government or the public. Separate language in the proposal would make it illegal to block traffic as part of a protest or demonstration.</font></p><p name="25fe" id="25fe" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proposal is so broad it could potentially be used to ensnare people like the Rev. William Barber II, a key leader of the state’s Moral Mondays protests.</font></p><p name="d3f0" id="d3f0" class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Many of these extremist legislators cannot stand protest because it doesn’t allow them to do in the dark the work they’re doing that’s hurting so many people,” Barber told ThinkProgress. “This is an old game. It is an attempt to malign movements that work and that challenge what the system is doing.”</font></p><p name="9fb7" id="9fb7" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The mass meetings Barber helps convene are rigorously peaceful, but numerous participants have been arrested for acts of civil disobedience or at the request of legislators. Such arrests could, under the broad language of the bill, be construed as felonies if a prosecutor linked the protest in question to an economically harmful boycott or street closure.</font></p><p name="4645" id="4645" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proposal from state Reps. John Torbett (R-Gaston County) and John Faircloth (R-Guilford County) is the latest in a string of state-level proposals to roll back protester rights and raise the legal stakes of public dissent in the era of President Donald Trump.</font></p><div name="397c" id="397c" class="graf graf--mixtapeEmbed graf-after--p" style="position: relative; overflow: hidden; max-height: 280px; box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0392157) 0px 1px 4px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0901961) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset; display: table; width: 700px; margin-top: 43px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/minnesota-lawmaker-launches-possibly-unconstitutional-attempt-to-curtail-black-lives-matter-fbd4998762b7" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/minnesota-lawmaker-launches-possibly-unconstitutional-attempt-to-curtail-black-lives-matter-fbd4998762b7" class="markup--anchor markup--mixtapeEmbed-anchor" title="https://thinkprogress.org/minnesota-lawmaker-launches-possibly-unconstitutional-attempt-to-curtail-black-lives-matter-fbd4998762b7" style="background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; padding: 20px;"><span class="markup--strong markup--mixtapeEmbed-strong" style="letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.3; display: block; margin-bottom: -8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Minnesota Lawmaker Launches Possibly Unconstitutional Attempt To Curtail Black Lives Matter…</font></span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
thinkprogress.org</font></a><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/minnesota-lawmaker-launches-possibly-unconstitutional-attempt-to-curtail-black-lives-matter-fbd4998762b7" class="js-mixtapeImage mixtapeImage u-ignoreBlock" data-media-id="cd5d3d40fad58ea048b0c2378ae2bc52" data-thumbnail-img-id="0gQpWIUgcdUsvDxc5.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; width: 160px; height: 160px; background-size: cover; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center center; box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0901961) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset; background-image: url(" https="https" cdn-images-1.medium.com="cdn-images-1.medium.com" fit="fit" c="c" gqpwiugcdusvdxc5.jpg="gQpWIUgcdUsvDxc5.jpg" /></div><p name="15c8" id="15c8" class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--mixtapeEmbed" style="margin: 38px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/minnesota-lawmaker-launches-possibly-unconstitutional-attempt-to-curtail-black-lives-matter-fbd4998762b7" class="js-mixtapeImage mixtapeImage u-ignoreBlock" data-media-id="cd5d3d40fad58ea048b0c2378ae2bc52" data-thumbnail-img-id="0gQpWIUgcdUsvDxc5.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; width: 160px; height: 160px; background-size: cover; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center center; box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0901961) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset; background-image: url(" https="https" cdn-images-1.medium.com="cdn-images-1.medium.com" fit="fit" c="c" gqpwiugcdusvdxc5.jpg="gQpWIUgcdUsvDxc5.jpg"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“No matter what your politics are, everyone should be concerned anytime that lawmakers seek to curb our fundamental constitutional right to not only protest, but to criticize our government,” American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina spokesman Mike Meno said in an interview. “This is one bill in a wave of legislation that we’ve seen across the country designed to criminalize peaceful protest and really have a chilling effect on our First Amendment rights.”</font></a></p><p name="cd76" id="cd76" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/minnesota-lawmaker-launches-possibly-unconstitutional-attempt-to-curtail-black-lives-matter-fbd4998762b7" class="js-mixtapeImage mixtapeImage u-ignoreBlock" data-media-id="cd5d3d40fad58ea048b0c2378ae2bc52" data-thumbnail-img-id="0gQpWIUgcdUsvDxc5.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; width: 160px; height: 160px; background-size: cover; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center center; box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0901961) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset; background-image: url(" https="https" cdn-images-1.medium.com="cdn-images-1.medium.com" fit="fit" c="c" gqpwiugcdusvdxc5.jpg="gQpWIUgcdUsvDxc5.jpg"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington state is weighing a similar “economic terrorism” measure. Arizona lawmakers want to </font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/arizona-gopers-push-bill-to-make-protest-planners-into-criminals-b4f18bd56d7c#.nnoq8zidf" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/arizona-gopers-push-bill-to-make-protest-planners-into-criminals-b4f18bd56d7c#.nnoq8zidf" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">treat protest organizers like mobsters</a>. Minnesota legislators are pushing for <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/anti-protest-legislation-2afe0d59360a#.2wh2i18cq" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/anti-protest-legislation-2afe0d59360a#.2wh2i18cq" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">the right to sue protesters</a> to recoup the costs of police overtime incurred by demonstrations. At least four states have moved to criminalize roadway protests in recent months.</font></p><p name="c3ea" id="c3ea" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All these laws constraint protests in various ways, primarily by exposing demonstrators to new financial or criminal consequences.</font></p><blockquote name="d7d5" id="d7d5" class="graf graf--pullquote graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" style="margin: 55px 0px 0px -1.75px; border: none; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; --baseline-multiplier:0.157; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.48; letter-spacing: -0.014em; text-indent: -0.32em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Any time tyrants try to stifle the voice of the people, it always backfires.”</font></blockquote><p name="6bc1" id="6bc1" class="graf graf--p graf-after--pullquote" style="margin: 54px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the North Carolina law also recasts a longstanding American right as a sinister usurpation of public order. Where the Constitution protects citizens’ rights to group together in public to dissent from its government’s actions, <a href="http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/PDF/H249v0.pdf" data-href="http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/PDF/H249v0.pdf" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">Torbett’s bill</a> targets efforts to “[i]ntimidate the civilian population at large, or an identifiable group…[or i]nfluence, through intimidation, the conduct or activities of the government of the United States, a state, or any unit of local government.”</font></p><p name="eee4" id="eee4" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The law offers no detail on how officials would distinguish persuasion from intimidation when responding to protest activity. The state already has statutes on the books to punish rioting. Any law that requires cops and prosecutors to discern people’s intent creates a murky psychological task within a seemingly precise criminal procedure.</font></p><p name="49b5" id="49b5" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The language about protesters’ intentions struck Meno as particularly ironic, he said, since Torbett and Faircloth’s bill itself “seems designed to intimidate people who would want to protest their government.”</font></p><p name="9dd9" id="9dd9" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Police and civic leaders would not have to divine protesters’ inner thoughts in all cases under Torbett’s crackdown, however. The second a protest moves onto a roadway, for example, everyone involved becomes a criminal under the proposal. Blocking roads would be as serious a misdemeanor as crimes like sexual battery or assaulting a public official. Public officials would be automatically required to dispatch police to clear a roadway, by force if necessary, once “at least 10 persons obstruct vehicular traffic.”</font></p><div name="948c" id="948c" class="graf graf--mixtapeEmbed graf-after--p" style="position: relative; overflow: hidden; max-height: 280px; box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0392157) 0px 1px 4px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0901961) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset; display: table; width: 700px; margin-top: 43px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/charlotte-rage-charlotte-roads-1ee83a4753a4" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/charlotte-rage-charlotte-roads-1ee83a4753a4" class="markup--anchor markup--mixtapeEmbed-anchor" title="https://thinkprogress.org/charlotte-rage-charlotte-roads-1ee83a4753a4" style="background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; padding: 20px;"><span class="markup--strong markup--mixtapeEmbed-strong" style="letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.3; display: block; margin-bottom: -8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">To understand Charlotte’s rage, you have to understand its roads</font></span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font><span class="markup--em markup--mixtapeEmbed-em" style="display: block; margin-top: -1px; margin-bottom: 10px; max-height: 120px; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The long, winding history that led up to this week’s unrest.</font></span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">thinkprogress.org</font></a><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/charlotte-rage-charlotte-roads-1ee83a4753a4" class="js-mixtapeImage mixtapeImage u-ignoreBlock" data-media-id="22f30975bdecc26b2dc33e12ef2dd244" data-thumbnail-img-id="1scCkSDPMGKiHmqr_t58qPA.jpeg" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; width: 160px; height: 160px; background-size: cover; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center center; box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0901961) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset; background-image: url(" https="https" cdn-images-1.medium.com="cdn-images-1.medium.com" fit="fit" c="c" sccksdpmgkihmqr_t58qpa.jpeg="scCkSDPMGKiHmqr_t58qPA.jpeg" /></div><p name="c6f6" id="c6f6" class="graf graf--p graf-after--mixtapeEmbed" style="margin: 38px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/charlotte-rage-charlotte-roads-1ee83a4753a4" class="js-mixtapeImage mixtapeImage u-ignoreBlock" data-media-id="22f30975bdecc26b2dc33e12ef2dd244" data-thumbnail-img-id="1*scCkSDPMGKiHmqr_t58qPA.jpeg" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; width: 160px; height: 160px; background-size: cover; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center center; box-sizing: border-box; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0901961) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset; background-image: url(" https="https" cdn-images-1.medium.com="cdn-images-1.medium.com" fit="fit" c="c" sccksdpmgkihmqr_t58qpa.jpeg="scCkSDPMGKiHmqr_t58qPA.jpeg"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The choice to single out traffic obstruction as a new and special offense is not random. Protests tied to the broad Movement for Black Lives have frequently targeted high-traffic roads and highways, gumming up a city’s normal flow as a means of calling the whole community’s attention to police abuse that would otherwise be easy for the white populace to ignore. (Roads are convenient targets, but also </font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/top-infrastructure-official-explains-how-america-used-highways-to-destroy-black-neighborhoods-96c1460d1962#.w0pkv87y2" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/top-infrastructure-official-explains-how-america-used-highways-to-destroy-black-neighborhoods-96c1460d1962#.w0pkv87y2" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">historically appropriate ones</a> for racial justice movements in particular.)</font></p><p name="1c5d" id="1c5d" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bill is unlikely to become law with Democrat Roy Cooper in the governor’s mansion, though Republicans do hold a veto-proof majority. Regardless, this will likely not be the last time lawmakers try to smear protesters.</font></p><p name="af6a" id="af6a" class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If thousands of people are marching to protest voter suppression laws, the people who passed those laws will say they’re disturbing the peace,” said Barber. “Even what happened in Charlotte, the people who wanted to use that as a scapegoat took the actions of a few people to try to malign the whole. That’s not new. That happened in [the 1968 sanitation workers strike in Memphis, Tennessee] just before Dr. King was killed.”</font></p><p name="0110" id="0110" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Charlotte’s brief-but-cinematic rage last September captured great public attention, North Carolina is also serving as incubator to a more sustainable, less flashy form of populist dissent — one that could nonetheless run afoul of the broad criminalization of protest activity which Torbett proposes.</font></p><p name="e07e" id="e07e" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>For <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/what-future-protests-can-learn-from-moral-mondays-5bea19ad5660#.28qzn7egv" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/what-future-protests-can-learn-from-moral-mondays-5bea19ad5660#.28qzn7egv" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">nearly 4 years now</a>, thousands of North Carolinians have regularly rallied at the state capitol for “Moral Mondays</b>,” a movement anchored by Rev. Barber’s call to revive working-class solidarity in the face of economic and social inequality.</font></p><p name="99ba" id="99ba" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The movement has opted for rigorous state and local focus rather than the nation-wide activism of the Fight for $15 protests. It has rarely made the national headlines that often greet police protests. But it is <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/rev-barber-moral-change-1ad2776df7c#.l272l7gjk" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/rev-barber-moral-change-1ad2776df7c#.l272l7gjk" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">rooted in an all-of-the-above moral urgency</a> that <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/fight-for-15-richmond-convention-1dbc73e24183" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/fight-for-15-richmond-convention-1dbc73e24183" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">links those two fights</a> with dozens of other local and national causes — a broad, ambitious, and positively articulated vision of American social and political change that seems poised to blossom from statewide success to national significance.</font></p><p name="68b1" id="68b1" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moral Mondays are so studiously lawful — despite <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/moral-monday-protester-arrests-hit-900-8ff135f7851e#.bz90p57q6" data-href="https://thinkprogress.org/moral-monday-protester-arrests-hit-900-8ff135f7851e#.bz90p57q6" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">hundreds of arrests</a> that have been <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-a-case-study-for-resistance-in-the-trump-era/" data-href="https://www.thenation.com/article/north-carolina-a-case-study-for-resistance-in-the-trump-era/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.439216); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; background-position: 0px 1.07em;">thrown out of court</a> — that Torbett and Faircloth’s bill would seem not to immediately target its activities. But it doesn’t take much imagination to envision how an ideologically motivated prosecutor might seek to link peaceful civil disobedience to lost revenue for a business owner who runs afoul of protesters — and then depict dissenters as “economic terrorists” using the bill’s language.</font></p><p name="714f" id="714f" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barber, who is confident the proposal would be struck down in court if it ever became law, welcomed the hamfisted attempt at chilling protest activity.</font></p><p name="47d8" id="47d8" class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What they will do with attempting to pass things like this is grow the movement. There is no fear. People are not gonna stand down,” said Barber.</font></p><p name="0e70" id="0e70" class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.179; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Any time tyrants try to stifle the voice of the people, it always backfires.”</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div></div>