Sunday, May 27, 2018

Poor People’s Campaign to Challenge War Economy, Militarism, Gun Violence as Protests at Massachusetts State House Enter Third Week Cole Harrison

In Boston- Memorial Day schedule of events Also Poor Peoples Campaign schedule "War Economy Encampment" for Monday and Tuesday



  

Action Takers on May 21 -- All Charges Dismissed!Action Takers on May 21 after all charges were dismissed at Boston Municipal Court

Hi Massachusetts,
We are reaching out to all people who have indicated an interest in Civil Disobedience as part of their commitment to the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, or who signed up to participate in the Week 3 action.
Please RSVP here if you can participate in either CD or Support on Tuesday, May 29st.Use the check boxes on the right to indicate how you can take part.
Veterans for Peace - BostonOn Monday, May 28, at noon, we will set up a Veterans' Encampment on Boston Common, near Park Street Station. The encampment will have tents, a canopy, stage, and an information table.
Everyone will be invited to sign a flag, with names representing people who have died because of our war economy -- including soldiers from all countries who were lost in combat, PTSD suicides, and civilians lost to gun violence and mass shootings.

We will present music, talks, and teach-ins on War Economy themes Monday, and continue on Tuesday morning.

Monday's Themes:
1pm - Veterans Speak Out
2pm - Middle East - Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq
3pm - Solemn ceremony at Soldiers & Sailors monument
4pm - War at Home, Militarization of Police, Gun Violence, People's Budget
6pm - Asia, Africa, Latin America

Tuesday's Themes:
9am - Veterans and Vietnam
10am - Nuclear weapons and Korea

On Tuesday, May 29, we will rally at 2pm at the William Gould Shaw/ 54th Regiment Monument, at the steps leading up from the Common to Beacon St. and the State House.  
Masachusetts State HouseFollowing the rally, we plan to enter the State House to force a moral conversation with our elected officials about the war economy.  We will present our demands to elected officials along with an American flag inscribed with names of people who have died because of our war economy -- soldiers from all countries who were lost in combat, PTSD suicides, and civilians lost to gun violence and mass shootings.
Those who are willing to do Civil Disobedience and have attended any type of nonviolent civil disobedience training this year, or in the past, will be invited to sit-in inside the Massachusetts State House until they are arrested, or until the action is ended by the group.
For those who are not able to be arrested we invite you to act as support on Tuesday evening, perhaps into Wednesday. We need as many or more support people than those actually doing CD. Support involves taking care of belongings, providing jail support, rallying outside the statehouse, acting as marshals, handing out literature and doing all other tasks involved with the action. Anyone not wishing to be arrested will have ample time to leave the state house prior to closing.
Please RSVP here if you can participate in either CD or Support on Tuesday, May 29st. Use the check boxes on the right to indicate how you can take part.
Monday and Tuesday’s protests will come days after President Trump cancelled peace talks with North Korea, bragging  about the United States’ “massive and powerful” nuclear capabilities; violated the Iran nuclear agreement; and opened a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem even as Israeli forces were slaughtering mostly peaceful Palestinian protesters in Gaza.  It will highlight how our government prioritizes the war economy over programs to eradicate poverty and help veterans. We will carry signs that read, “Money for Veterans, not for War,” and “Build Schools, Not Walls.”
In solidarity,
Massachusetts Coordinating Committee

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Massachusetts Poor People's Campaign-Week Three-War Economy Week-May 28-29

Action Takers on May 21 -- All Charges Dismissed!Action Takers on May 21 after all charges were dismissed at Boston Municipal Court

This is a reminder that the Poor People's CampaignA National Call for Moral Revival is getting ready for our Week 3 days of action May 28-29!
Veterans for Peace - BostonOn Monday, May 28, we'll set up a Veterans' Encampment on Boston Common, near Park Street Station. The encampment will have tents, a canopy, stage, and an information table.
Then, on Tuesday, May 29 at 2pm, we'll hold a Rally to Protest the War Economy, Militarism, and Gun Violence at the 54th Regiment Monument near the steps leading up from Boston Common to the State House, and after that, those who wish will enter the State House to present demands.

At the Encampment, we will present music, talks, and teach-ins on War Economy themes on Monday, and continue on Tuesday morning. Everyone will be invited to sign a flag, with names representing people who have died because of our war economy -- including soldiers from all countries who were lost in combat, PTSD suicides, and civilians lost to gun violence and mass shootings.

Monday's Themes:
1pm - Veterans Speak Out
2pm - Middle East - Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq
3pm - Solemn ceremony at Soldiers & Sailors monument
4pm - War at Home, Militarization of Police, Gun Violence, People's Budget
6pm - Asia, Africa, Latin America

Tuesday's Themes:
9am - Veterans and Vietnam
10am - Nuclear weapons and Korea

On Tuesday, May 29, we will rally at 2pm at the William Gould Shaw/ 54th Regiment Monument, at the steps leading up from the Common to Beacon St. and the State House.  
Masachusetts State HouseFollowing the rally, we plan to enter the State House to force a moral conversation with our elected officials about the war economy.  We will present our demands to elected officials along with an American flag inscribed with names of people who have died because of our war economy -- soldiers from all countries who were lost in combat, PTSD suicides, and civilians lost to gun violence and mass shootings.
Those who are willing to do Civil Disobedience and have attended any type of nonviolent civil disobedience training this year, or in the past, will be invited to sit-in inside the Massachusetts State House until they are arrested, or until the action is ended by the group.
For those who are not able to be arrested we invite you to act as support on Tuesday evening, perhaps into Wednesday. We need as many or more support people than those actually doing CD. Support involves taking care of belongings, providing jail support, rallying outside the statehouse, acting as marshals, handing out literature and doing all other tasks involved with the action. Anyone not wishing to be arrested will have ample time to leave the state house prior to closing.
Monday and Tuesday’s protests will come days after President Trump cancelled peace talks with North Korea, bragging  about the United States’ “massive and powerful” nuclear capabilities; violated the Iran nuclear agreement; and opened a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem even as Israeli forces were slaughtering mostly peaceful Palestinian protesters in Gaza.  It will highlight how our government prioritizes the war economy over programs to eradicate poverty and help veterans. We will carry signs that read, “Money for Veterans, not for War,” and “Build Schools, Not Walls.”
In solidarity,
Massachusetts Coordinating Committee

Social Security- A Sad Story


 
 
 
Social Security
 

A woman dies at age 65 before collecting one benefit check.  She and her employer paid into the system for almost 50 years and she collected NOTHING!

Keep in mind all the working people that die every year who were paying into the system and got nothing!

And these governmental morons mismanaged the money and stole from the system, so that it's now going broke.

BEAUTIFUL! And they have the audacity to call today's seniors "vultures" in an attempt to cover their ineptitude. DISGRACEFUL!

The real reason for renaming our Social Security payments is so the government can claim that all those social security recipients are receiving entitlements thus putting them in the same case as welfare, food stamp recipients.

THIS IS WORTH THE FEW MINUTES IT TAKES TO READ AND DIGEST!

F.Y.I.  By changing the name of SS contributions it gives them a means to refute this program in the future.
  It's free money for the government to spend under this guise.

The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a *Federal Benefit Payment*?
I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you.
  
Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.  The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment."  This isn't a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income!  Not only did we all contribute to Social Securitybut our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.

(This should be enough for you to forward this message, If not read on.)

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.  If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved!

This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it's a fact). And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts. 
Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger *Ponzi scheme* than Bernie Madoff ever did.
 (Lyndon Johnson)

They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking.  They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend
 the money to them.  And they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer.
(Isn't it funny that they NEVER say this about welfare payments?)

But is it our fault they misused our investments?  And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a *benefit*, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.

Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!

Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare.. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.

Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.

Then call it what it is: 
Our Earned Retirement Income.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 



--
David Rothauser, filmmaker, writer. teacher, actor 
Memory Productions
90 Boylston Street #1, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA
1-617-332-5014
Article 9 in North America https://memoryproductions.wordpress.com/
Hibakusha, Our Life to Live http://www.hibakusha-ourlifetolive.org/
ESL through Theatre http://eslthrutheatre.com/

From The Poor People's Campaign-The greatest patriotism

Dear Movement family,
As the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival prepares for our third week of direct action, the nation pauses for Memorial Day weekend. Listening to many, including veterans in this movement, we chose to focus this week on our challenge to militarism and the war economy as well as the proliferation of gun violence in the US. We believe the greatest patriotism for moral agents is insisting that America become a more perfect union.
As we reclaim legislatures at the people’s houses across America this Tuesday, some of us will carry American flags to symbolize the unfulfilled promises for which our people have sacrificed. I carry the flag for my father, who offered first-class blood for second-class citizenship during World War II, only to come home to the Jim Crow South where German POW’s rode in the front of the train while he was forced to sit in the back. Veterans like my father knew the hypocrisy of this nation. With Langston Hughes they cried, “America never was America to me / and yet I swear this oath: / America will be!”
When we visited a homeless camp in Washington State, a veteran living there flew the flag on a stick outside his tent. He asked us to carry the flag for him—for the veterans who live and die in poverty while corporations make a killing on killing.
Some will also carry flags and kneel to protest the killing of innocent Black, Brown and Red people at the hands of police. Some will carry flags because at the same time as flags fly at schools across the country, many are killed by a society that feeds on gun violence.
As we gather this Tuesday, some of us will be wearing carnations to remember the people who died while serving in our nation’s military. We remember Memorial Day’s roots in Black people honoring the graves of soldiers who fought in the Union army to end slavery and create the possibility of Reconstruction. We honor each person who was willing to serve when we cry out against unjust war-making and unnecessary military spending that robs the poor here at home. We remember all those who have suffered moral injury and died from suicide and from the loss of limb and mental stability.
We remember all the people who have died in unnecessary war—children and families from Afghanistan to Iran, Iraq & Palestine—because of decisions to promote war instead of peace.
We also remember those who die from the proliferation of guns on our streets and the militarization of poor Black and Brown communities here at home.
This is why, in addition to flags and carnations, we will also carry sackcloth this Tuesday to remember the 250,000 people who will die this year because of low wealth while we invest over $700 billion in a bloated military budget. We declare that as long as 140 million people live in poverty in the richest nation in the history of the world, none of us are truly honoring those who gave their lives serving this nation. As long as systemic racism cripples our democracy through voter suppression and as long as this administration weaponizes deportation—even deporting veterans and their family members—we are not honoring “liberty and justice for all.”
Around the world and among the poor in this nation, we understand that many are angry and ashamed when they see the US flag. Great evil has been done under this banner—and much of it to us. But just as we refuse to give up the Bible to extremists' heretical interpretations, we refuse to give up the flag and the hope that a movement of people can make America into the nation we have never yet been. We are pressing on toward a Third Reconstruction.
Forward together,
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
Co-Chairs of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Tom Wolfe-Fashionista Of His Own Kind-And A Hell Of A Writer When The Deal Went Down Has Cashed His Check - The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love (1967)-In The Time Of Hunter Thompson’s Time –Hey, Rube- A Short Book Clip

Tom Wolfe-Fashionista Of His Own Kind-And A Hell Of A Writer When The Deal Went Down Has Cashed His Check


By Bart Webber

I had been, strangely enough, in La Jolla out in California attending yet another writers’ conference which seems to be the makings of my days these days, attending writers’ conferences that is instead of taking pen to paper or rather fingers to word processor keyboard, when I heard Tom Wolfe had cashed his check. “Cashed his check” a term (along with synonymous “cashed his ticket”) grabbed from memory bank as a term used when I was “on the bum” hanging out in hobo jungle camps and the whole trail of flop houses and Salvation Army digs to signify that a kindred had passed to the great beyond. Was now resting in some better place that a stinking stew-bitten, flea –bitten, foul-aired and foul-person place. No more worries about the next flop, the next jug of cheapjack wine, the next run-in with vicious coppers and railroad bulls, and the next guy who was ready to rip whatever you had off to feed his own sullen addiction.

By the way this is not Thomas Wolfe of You Can’t Go Home Again, Look Homeward, Angels, etc. but the writer, maybe journalist is a better way to put the matter of tons of interesting stuff from acid trips in the 1960s hanging with Ken Kesey and his various tribes of merry pranksters, the Hell’s Angels, drifters, grifters and midnight sifters, to marveled space flights in the 1970s to Wall Street in the reckless 1980 and back who had cashed his check. The strange part of the “strangely enough” mentioned above was that on Monday May 14th 2018, the day he died, I was walking along La Jolla Cove and commenting to my companion without knowing his fate that Tom Wolfe had made the La Jolla surfing scene in the early 1960s come alive with his tale of the Pump House Gang and related stories about the restless California tribes, you know those Hell’s Angels, Valley hot-rod freaks and the like who parents had migrated west from dustbowl Okies and Arkies to start a new life out in Eden. These next generation though lost in a thousand angsts and alienation not having to fight for every breath of fresh air (with the exception of the Angels who might as well have stayed in the Okies and McAllister Prison which would have been their fate.   

I don’t know how Tom Wolfe did at the end as a writer, or toward the end, when things seemed to glaze over and became very homogenized, lacked the verve of hard ass 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s times. Although I do note that he did a very although I note he did an interesting take on the cultural life at the Army base at Fort Bragg down in North Carolina in a book of essays around the theme of hooking up. That hooking up angle a sign that social cohesiveness in the age of the Internet was creating some strange rituals. Know this those pound for pound in his prime he along with Hunter Thompson could write the sociology of the land with simple flair and kept this guy, me, flipping the pages in the wee hours of the morning. RIP, Tom Wolfe, RIP.  




The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love (1967)-In The Time Of Hunter Thompson’s Time –Hey, Rube- A Short Book Clip 





Short Book Clip


Hey, Rube, Hunter Thompson, 2004


Make no mistake the late, lamented Hunter Thompson was always something of a muse for me going way back to the early 1970’s when I first read his seminal work on the outlaw bikers The Hell’s Angels. Since then I have devoured, and re-devoured virtually everything that he has written. However the present book leaves me cold. This is a case where ‘greed’ (on whose part I do not know although the proliferating pile of remembrances of Thompson may give a hint) got the better of literary wisdom. This compilation of articles started life as commentary on the ESPN.com, part of the cable sports network. And perhaps that is where the project should have ended. Hey, this stuff has a half-life in cyberspace so nothing would have been lost.


So what is the basis for my objection? Part of Hunter’s attraction always has been a fine sense of the hypocrisy of American politics. Although we marched to different drummers politically I have always appreciated his ability to skewer the latest political heavyweight- in- chief, friend or foe. That is missing here although he does get a few whacks in on the then current child-president Bush. But this is not enough. What this screed is really about is the whys and wherefores of his lifelong addiction to sports betting and particularly professional football, the NFL. A run through the ups and downs of previous seasons’(2000-2003) gambling wins and losses, however, does not date well. Hell, I can barely remember last week’s bets.


But the real problem is that like in politics we listen to different drummers. I am a long-time fan of‘pristine and pure’ big time college football and would not sully my hands to bet on the NFL so his whining about the San Francisco 49’ers or the Denver Broncos is so much hot air. However, I will take Notre Dame and 3 points against Alabama in the2012 major college national championship game. That’s the ticket. I miss Hunter and his wild and wooly writing that made me laugh many a time when I was down and needed a boost but not here. Enough said.