2023-07-02 20:48:23
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has adopted the term “Bidenomics”, despite the fact that it was originally used in a derogatory manner by polemicists in media outlets where extreme right-wing fanaticism is propagated such as Fox News, the editorial pages of the newspaper The Wall Street Journal and other niche media related to MAGA, the wing of the Republican Party that supports Trump. Biden referred to “Bidenomy” in a speech he gave this Wednesday, in which he attributed the good state of the US economy. At the beginning of his address, the president referred to the great American poet Carl Sandburg’s 1916 description of Chicago, which he called the “broad-shouldered city,” in honor of the vigorous and energetic workforce of Chicago. the region. While the recent economic data may be poetic for Biden, it also hides the suffering of millions of Americans trapped in poverty.
This June 19, in the city of Washington DC, the Campaign of the Poor held a Congress of Action against moral poverty. Opening the conference, Bishop William Barber asked the audience to repeat with him: “Poverty is a death sentence in America and we will not be silent anymore.” Barber had just retired after serving 30 years as an activist pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina. After leading the historic Morale Monday marches in front of the North Carolina legislature in 2013, Barber co-founded the Poor People’s Campaign, which takes its name from the movement launched by the Rev. Martin Luther King in 1968, which was cut short by the murder of him Barber, whose deep voice and rhetorical style are often compared to King’s, advocates for a “Third Reconstruction” that builds the political power necessary to improve the lives of poor and low-income people.
The first reconstruction took place after the American Civil War, between the years 1865 and 1877, when the federal armed forces withdrew from the former Confederate states. This ushered in a century of terrorism and oppression perpetrated by white supremacists, aided by the extremist group Ku Klux Klan. The second reconstruction occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, with the gains made by the civil rights movement.
Working with Democratic Congresswomen Barbara Lee of California and Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, Bishop Barber is pushing for United States House Resolution 532, “The Third Reconstruction: Completely Addressing Poverty.” and low wages from the bottom up”.
In conversation with Democracy Now!, Barber pointed out:
“[En la resolución] 20 policies are proposed. Does Congress have the will—human, moral, not Democratic or Republican—to decisively address the eradication of poverty and other systems of injustice that can be combated? The deaths [a causa de la
pobreza] they are preventable and constitute political assassination.”
Barber’s argument rests on the grim fact that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Economic inequality is at an all-time high, as detailed in fact sheets published by the Poor People’s Campaign in collaboration with the Institute for Policy Studies. The wealth of billionaires has increased by $1.5 trillion in the last two years, while poverty is on the rise after the cancellation of financial aid programs due to the pandemic. The child tax credit halved child poverty in the United States. The cancellation of this aid has plunged 3.5 million boys and girls back into poverty. For the first time, in New York City alone, more than 100,000 people are living in homeless shelters.
In his interview with Democracy Now!, Barber added: “Living wages could stop the deaths. health care
[universal]
could stop the deaths. Child tax credits could stop the deaths. Redirecting money that goes to the war industry could stop the deaths. [La salvaguarda
de] voting rights could stop the deaths.”
Barber promotes a “fusion policy,” which aims to include people of diverse races, ethnicities, and classes in collaborative grassroots activism.
“By 2024, we are planning to hold 30 major nonviolent mobilizations at state capitols. By June 15, 2024, we are organizing a great Moral March of low-wage workers and the poor in the city of Washington DC AND, for the elections [presidenciales de 2024], we are going to mobilize the 87 million poor and low-income people in this country. Poor and low-income people currently make up more than 30% of the electorate, overall, and more than 40% of the electorate in battleground states. In most places, those people don’t vote because they feel like the system has abandoned them.”
At the inauguration of the Congress of Action against Moral Poverty, Barber – like Biden – evoked another renowned American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and recited verses from his poem “The Psalm of Life”. This poetic work includes one of Longfellow’s premises: “to act so that each dawn finds us further away than today”.
In the same book that contains the poem “Chicago,” Carl Sandburg, who grew up poor and championed the working class throughout his life, included another poem that addresses the constant attacks on workers and the power they have. the masses when they are mobilized. Sandburg wrote:
“I am the people, the crowd, the multitude, the mass.
Do you know that all the great works in the world are done by me?
In the century since these Sandburg poems were published, the American people have risen up many times to demand change. The next few years will be no different. May it be like Bishop Barber and those who share his cause reaffirm at every rally: “Always forward, never backward.”
© 2023 Amy Goodman
Spanish translation of the original column in english. Edition: Democracy Now! in Spanish, [email protected]
Amy Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an international newscast broadcast daily on more than 800 English-language television and radio stations and more than 450 Spanish-language stations. She is co-author of the book “Those who fight against the system: Ordinary heroes in extraordinary times in the United States”, edited by Le Monde Diplomatique Cono Sur.
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