http://lettersfromtheleft.com/2013/05/14/standing-for-justice/ http://lettersfromtheleft.com/2013/05/14/standing-for-justice/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 21:14:28 +0000 leslie boyd http://17.7564 I stood with 48 other people from all across North Carolina as we were arrested for second degree trespass and loud singing.

 

This was the third “Moral Monday,” in which demonstrators go into the NC Legislature Building and refuse to leave.

Two weeks ago, there were just a few demonstrators, and 19 were arrested.

The action, led by the NC NAACP, is to protest the avalanche of backward legislation coming out of the General Assembly. Many of us have tried to talk to our legislators and have gotten nowhere. We’re met with lies and half-truths about the laws they’re passing — if they meet with us at all.

Tim Moffitt, my representative, called the Voter ID law a leg-up for people trying to get out of poverty because an ID will help them get a job.

“I wouldn’t hire somebody without a photo ID,” he said. “Would you?”

Actually, I would hire someone who doesn’t have a license, I said.

“I call it a $6 investment in someone’s future,” he said.

That would be fine as long as someone doesn’t need that $6 for food.

Nathan Ramsey told me we can’t expand Medicaid because the state’s computer system isn’t ready for it. I told him I happen to know we turned down federal money to get it ready. Then he said, “we have to fix Medicaid before we can expand it.”

I told him our Medicaid system was a national model until it was seriously under-funded two years ago, so all we have to do is fully fund it again.

They’re used to dealing with people who aren’t familiar enough with issues to see through a snow job, I guess.

We have e-mailed and called and gone in person to talk to legislators who don’t give a damn what we think or what’s best for the people they supposedly serve. They have said as much with their actions and even with such words as, “I am the Senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.”

Each week’s bills have become more outrageous than the week before and there’s not any let-up.

Rev. William Barber, the head of the NC NAACP, led a group of about 300 of us into the building a month ago and we delivered letters to legislators, who ignored us. Thom Tillis actually ran away from us.

So, two weeks ago, a few dozen people went into the Legislature Building, “The People’s House,” as the Rev. Barber calls it, and 19 refused to leave. They were arrested.

Last week, more people went and 30 were arrested.

Last night, hundreds of people went in, singing and chanting, and 49 of us were arrested.

I have never been arrested before, but it is time to stand up for justice.

My issue is health care, but they have attacked us on so many fronts, we have united to say we will not stand for these injustices. As we chanted last night, “The people, united, will never be defeated!”

We were arrested as we sang “We Shall not be Moved,” and led away with our hands bound by zip-ties, still singing as they loaded us onto the elevator. We had our belongings taken from us and were loaded onto a bus, where we chanted and sang some more. We worked together to open the bus windows to alleviate the stifling heat. Of course, that allowed our chants and songs to be heard by the crowd of hundreds across the street, who cheered and waved as each of us was loaded onto the bus, still singing.

As the bus pulled out, we chanted, “The people, united, will never be defeated!” People standing on the sidewalk said they could hear us and several were moved to tears.

We were proud, we were defiant; we were not intimidated, and we chanted all the way to the jailhouse. The chant became musical and some people began to harmonize. It was a beautiful, powerful sound and it gave each of us courage.

Once in the jailhouse garage, we began to sing, “We Shall Overcome,” and we continued to sing as we were led inside and placed on steel benches, our voices echoing in the cavernous garage.

One by one, our zip-ties were removed and we were searched and processed. One person began to sing, “Freedom, freedom freedom, freedom, oh-oh, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,” and soon several of us were singing and harmonizing. The song became a prayer as we swayed and sang, and the police watched.

We were processed, one by one, and moved to the next bench, where we sang again.

“Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, oh-oh, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom.”

They made us take our shoelaces out of our shoes and we joked about how much cuter our shoes had been with laces as they flopped when we walked.

Those of us who have been arrested have been banned from the Legislative Building until our court cases have been resolved, so the people who were arrested in previous weeks stood across the street, singing and chanting encouragement.

The first of us were released in about three hours, and we were met by a cheering crowd that included a legislator or two. We walked into the waiting arms of Rev. Barber and Rev. Curtis Gatewood, and then were led to food and drink before we were shuttled back to our cars.

I spent the night with my friend, Carol, who stayed up until after 2 a.m. with me, searching the Web for news of the Moral Mondays demonstration. I had seen the first news report while we were being booked on News 14, and now there were several.

State Sen. Tom Apodaca called us a “nuisance,” and said we all should know by now that he doesn’t care what we think.

Well, I believe the movement will grow. I believe the legislators will have to care because we will not go away. Those of us who have been arrested and threatened with real jail time if we go back will be replaced by people who will join the movement. Each week it will grow.

Moral Mondays will continue for awhile at least, and the movement will need more people to stand up for justice.

Our freedom requires people who are willing to fight, so if you want to go, whether you can be arrested or not, check the NC NAACP web site, sign up and go to Raleigh next Monday or the Monday after …

If we don’t take action now, things will only get worse.

 

Leslie Boyd, a former newspaper reporter, is president of the health care advocacy nonprofit, WNC Health Advocates, founded in memory of her son, who died in 2008 because he couldn't access health care. E-mail her at leslie at lettersfromtheleft dot com or follow her on Twitter @leftyletters1, visit Letters from the Left on Facebook. For more information about WNC Health Advocates or to read Boyd's health care blog, visit wncha.org.]]> http://lettersfromtheleft.com/2013/05/14/standing-for-justice/feed/ 0

So much is going to hell with our current General Assembly, they are wreaking such havoc with education, health care, unemployment, voting rights, women’s rights …

It has to stop. We have to stop it. And we can begin by showing up at the Legislature Building — “the people’s building,” as NAACP President Rev. William Barber calls it — and refusing to leave as the NC NAACP sponsors Moral Mondays.

If enough of us do it, maybe something will get through, if not to the legislature, then to the people of this state.

Protest is our Constitutional right, and we need to exercise it.

Last month I spent a week trying to convince people to attend a legislative day with me and not one person went.

I’m still hearing all the noise about how awful things are, how far backward we’re careening with this legislature, so is ANYONE from the area willing to come with me?

You don’t have to get arrested; you can leave the building when ordered and still make a pretty powerful statement with your presence at the protest. I, however, intend to be arrested.

When I was in Raleigh last month for the legislative day, Rev. Barber said he would begin civil disobedience actions soon. Well, they have begun and it’s time to take part.

If you know me, you know my primary issue is health care, but all of these social justice issues are connected. People who live in poverty are more likely to have unsafe housing, to have less access to healthy food, to be exploited by employers. They are far more likely to die from treatable or manageable illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer.

This isn’t Democrat and Republican, this is life and death.

It’s time to stand up and be counted, to risk arrest for what I believe in, to tell the world that we in North Carolina are not the mean-spirited, greedy, selfish people who sit in the General Assembly.

Our social safety net is shredded and almost gone. People are going to die as a consequence, and I feel compelled to go and fight for those lives.

I am a survivor of child sex abuse. My abuser was someone my family loved and trusted and he went to his grave with “our secret” intact.

Ten years ago, a man in our church was convicted of raping his 9-year-old grand-niece and sent to prison. On Palm Sunday that year, our pastor preached a sermon about redemption and forgiveness. He said the man is still a child of God and we are called to love him.

My thought was, “God forgive me, but no way!”

Later, I sent an e-mail to the pastor to tell him about what survivors of childhood sex abuse face for the rest of their lives, and explaining why I wasn’t ready to love this man. Leave it to God to love him, I said, because I can’t.

As a Christian, I knew the pastor was right, but I wasn’t there yet. I know what that little girl will have to deal with for the rest of her life.

Then on Friday, I ran into someone I know from around town, who gave me a big bear hug. We began talking about the book I’m trying to write about my son’s life, and he offered me some advice about the writer’s block I’m trying to get past. I have reached the part where Mike moved to Savannah, but I know what happens next and on some level I don’t want to write it.

“Just write,” my friend said. “You can go back and rewrite later, but you need to keep moving ahead. Don’t allow yourself to be stuck.”

He showed me a book on grammar he just published and mentioned he had sent it to a couple of people at the paper, but hadn’t heard anything back.

“They have issues with me,” he said. “I can’t blame them. I had a scrape with the law a few years ago.”

He spoke as though I would know what it was, and when I didn’t, he reminded me: he had been caught up in child porn. I could see the shock on my husband’s face and hoped mine didn’t show the same.

“I did 10 months in prison,” he said. “I went through a lot of counseling, did a lot of self-examination and I understand a lot about myself now.”

So, he’s in recovery much the same as my son was after he quit drugs and alcohol.

So now I am faced with a real person who has done something abominable. Do I believe the words I have preached all my life about people who have done things wrong and then sincerely repented, or am I a hypocrite?

This man could have run to a town where people didn’t know him or his past. He could have walked away from here, except this is his home. He has faced the consequences for the terrible thing he did and now is trying to rebuild his life.

It would have been easier if he had robbed a liquor store and shot someone. Part of me wanted to ask if he had any idea what happened to those children he was looking at, but then I realized that’s part of what he deals with every day now as he tries to move ahead in his life.

If I am to get beyond what happened to me — which I can not change — then I have to allow others to get beyond their past as well.

I can rewrite portions of my book, but not my life. I can’t bring Mike back; I can’t retrieve my innocence. I have to look ahead. Just as my friend is trying to do; in fact, it’s all he has now.

Perhaps the best way to heal myself is to walk with him as a friend so perhaps we can heal together.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev deserves a fair trial.

I know there are plenty of people who disagree with me, but as horrible as the crime was, we live in a country where the Constitution guarantees him a fair trial.

I had a lengthy discussion on Facebook last night (and continuing into today) about whether Tsarnev deserves a trial before we kill him, preferably the same way he killed the two people in Boston.

First of all, even if he has confessed, he still has a right to a trial. One person kept saying he gave up those rights when he set the bombs, but our Constitutional rights are supposed to be inviolate. The reason they were established was for cases like this one, where people are calling for a lynching.

On March 5, 1770, British soldiers killed five citizens. Attorney John Adams (later vice president and president) agreed to defend the soldiers at trial because this founding father believed everyone has the right to a fair trial. That right was enshrined into the Constitution because of cases like this one, where the accused has committed a particularly heinous crime.

But this is still the United States and we are still a nation governed by laws, not whims. You may want this man dead, but that doesn’t make it right to kill him.

I have been accused of condoning terrorist acts and of supporting terrorism because I want to see this man get a fair trial. I know it comes from emotion, but really, it’s quite a stretch from defending someone’s rights under the US Constitution to being a supporter of terror.

As for the death penalty, I see that as a way to increase the body count by one. That’s about it. I do not condone the taking of a life, especially in a nation where so many innocent people have sat on Death Row.

For one thing, there’s that pesky period at the end of the Sixth Commandment. No footnotes, no exceptions, “Thou shalt not kill.”

Some say the word is more accurately translated as murder, but if you’re pumping poison into someone to stop his or her heart, that’s a deliberate killing, which is the definition of murder.

And as my favorite lapel button says, “Why do we kill people who kill people to prove that killing people is wrong?”

Finally, when we end someone’s life, we rob them of any chance of redemption. I don’t think it’s ever our call to do that.

So, let me say it again, I am not a terrorist and I don;t support acts of terror; I just think this kid deserves his Constitutional rights, just as I do.

Dan Peterson

My friend Dan Petersen has decided to fast, perhaps with prayer, perhaps with meditation. I think he got the idea when Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy said she would fast and pray about the financial mess the city is in because of the state’s raid of its assets.

I ran into Dan last week and he told me about the fast and asked if he could send me e-mails documenting his progress, and I responded by asking if I could post the e-mails.

The deal was made. Here is Dan’s first e-mail:

Here I am at the end of day three. Time just flies by these days, and in the interest of feeling less food obsessed I’m glad for it. Day three is always a milestone in the world of fasting. If it’s a three day fast (quite a typical period for a cleanse) then woo-hoo lets have a little breakfast. If it’s a longer fast then its a milestone because by now one’s body has switched to it’s reserve feeding process. It is now consuming fat rather than quick at-hand resources that everyday eating provides. And for some reason the feeling of being hungry now subsides. So… not that it’s a breeze, but it’s a lot easier than most people think.

 As far as the prayer portion of “fasting with prayer” goes, it may or may not be easy. I think it depends on where one has been on the journey with regard to religion, spirituality, family, self awareness and confidence. And the confidence part, at least for me, changes all the time.

 I personally was brought up going to a Christian church, and so by default, lean in that direction. But what I have deemed to be lies, deception, treachery and simply put, outright abuse by those so-called Christian leaders both close and far have given me a sour taste for my religion.

 Though in truth I think all religions are in the same boat. Not bad, just victims of the wretched people who abuse the power.

 I keep reminding myself that the Jesus person also was disgusted by what was being passed off as religion in his day. And that he must have felt as angry and bitter toward those leaders as I do about our present day pharisee-like leaders today.

 Particularly when blended with dirty politics.

 So I would have to say that many of my prayers, were they aloud, would sound more like a barroom brawl. And in my prayers, I’m winning the fight and our illustrious pharisee leaders in Raleigh are catching the business end of thrown beer mugs right in the chops.

 But then I realize that is exactly what they are legislatively doing to the good people of North Carolina. And I don’t want to be anything like them. So if prayers have anything to do with religion, I need new prayers, new understanding of what my religion should mean to me.

 The Dalai Lama person seemed to say it the best for me in this quote:

“The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things that we must check in life.”

 Perhaps I should send this quote to our present day pharisees.

No one here was thinking about politics. As President Obama said last night, there were no Republicans or Democrats here.

In the lower image, look at the number of people not in uniform. One of those volunteers was a man who lost a son in Iraq and then lost another son to suicide. He turned his grief into heroism yesterday.

My first thought was of the people in the first big city I went to as a child. I grew up about 30 miles outside of Boston and went there countless times for Red Sox games and church youth rallies. I love Boston, with its amazing history and its maze of streets that once were Native American trails through the forest. Just walking the streets makes me think of my ancestors, the founders of this nation.

Last night, I wondered what they would have thought of the reaction to the bombing.

Less than a half hour after the blasts, someone on Facebook posted that he believed it was Muslims and that he was sure the filthy liberal Democrats would try to pin the blame on the Tea Party. I un-friended him immediately. It is one of the few times I have done that.

I appreciate different points of view, when shared in a civil manner, and I have a number of friends who share my views on very few things. We remain friends because we hope we can learn from each other. If things get nasty, I un-friend. As I said, it has happened very few times.

But yesterday’s bombing wasn’t about Democrats and Republicans — or maybe it was, but I refuse to make it that way until the perpetrator and motives are discovered and revealed.

I don’t know who built the bombs and I don’t know what kind of statement the person was trying to make with this wretched act of violence, but I am not going to try and assign blame until I know more. Yes, I have thoughts on the matter, but I will not talk about them because if I’m wrong, the comments would only be hurtful.

In this day of saying what’s on our minds with no filters imposed, of tweeting and posting without thinking before we put crap out into the ether, perhaps it’s best to learn to shut up once in awhile, to keep some thoughts private.

Right now, my thoughts and prayers are with the people whose lives have been shattered by this tragedy and with my beloved Boston.

It would be nice if all of us tried to do the same thing.

Reid is a member of the National Rifle Association and he has caved to their rhetoric.

God forbid we should regulate guns in any way because the Second Amendment gives us the right to possess whatever firepower we want.

It’s as though our founders wanted us to be a lawless nation, shooting whomever we please because they have offended us in some way.

Having a madman shoot dozens of children is just collateral damage to these creeps. It’s better to have children tote guns to school than to take away the weapons of mass destruction from anyone.

Let’s face it, our mental health system is horribly broken. But that is not what’s causing these deaths. The vast majority of people with mental health issues are not violent. They will not take up a gun and kill everyone in sight.

But a few will, and we refuse to take away the most egregious weapon available to them.

Another point made by the NRA is that criminals won’t obey the law. Well, dufusses, that’s what makes them criminals and that’s why we arrest them and lock them up when we catch them committing crimes. Should we abolish all our laws because criminals ignore them?

And when they talk about enforcing the laws we have on the books, tell them they need to insist that Congress appoint a full-time director the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. That would go a long way in the fight to enforce the laws that haven’t already been watered down or outright repealed.

It’s time to stand up to the NRA and to take out Harry Reid.

Diane Feinstein has said she will fight for the assault weapons ban. Perhaps she would make a better majority leader. God knows she has the spine to stand up to the moneyed interests in this fight. That’s more than we can say for Harry Reid.

It’s still there, a visible sign of my prayers for peace, as a memorial to the estimated 200,000 human lives lost, a tribute to the millions displaced and injured, as a protest of violence, torture and of the lies that led us to war.

I said I would leave the lamp in the window until all our soldiers were home. Although the military action is officially over, we still have soldiers there, and people are still dying.

So far, we have spent about $2 trillion on a war that was all about a lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction; our warmongering leaders wanted oil and they wanted profits for their friends in the war-making business.

We now know that British leaders were aware there were no weapons of mass destruction, although former Prime Minister Tony Blair doesn’t want to talk about what he knew and when.

This war was perpetrated on us by war criminals who likely never will go to trial for their misdeeds. They will die in their own comfy beds, unlike those whose deaths they have caused and continue to cause.

Jeb Bush believes history will be kind to his brother, but I doubt it. Already, we know about the lies and that most of the mainstream media were complicit in this crime against humanity.

Of course, many of us knew this in advance of the war. Millions of us protested, but George W. Bush dismissed us as “irrelevant.” A friend of mine, a retired Army Intelligence officer and lifelong Republican, cut up his GOP ID card and mailed it to the White House.

“I am not irrelevant,” he said. “And I am no longer a Republican.”

But most Americans believed what they were told because the evidence to the contrary was hard to find. The media — even the venerable New York Times — were cheerleaders during the run-up to war.

You don’t see the damage on the news the way we did during Vietnam; the big corporations raking in war profits don’t want that. But do a Google search for images of the war in Iraq. The photo here is five days old. There are photos of fighting from yesterday. The violence continues, as do the lies.

I put my light in my front window 1o years ago and it still shines, a protest to lies and killing.

First of all, the party announced meetings on Facebook rather than contacting precinct chairs directly to let us know what we need to do to get ready. I got my packet in the mail with no map of the precinct and no names of anyone who has attended precinct meetings in the past.

This is not the way to organize. I took on the job thinking there would be records of who has attended meetings in the past, or at least names of people who have been active. It is as though this precinct never existed for all the background I got.

Our meetings were supposed to be listed online, but they weren’t.

If we as a party can’t be more organized than this, how do we expect to get anywhere when election time comes around? I don’t know a lot of people who have the time to knock on doors asking if residents are Democrats and if they are interested in coming to a precinct meeting. There must be some background somewhere. Why aren’t precinct chairs offered that information?

So, where are the borders? It only took me a few minutes online to find a map, but I do not have time to go knocking on doors before next Saturday, which is the only time we have left to get a meeting together so we have a voice at the county, regional and state conventions in the coming year.

We need to be ready to roll by this time next year, not struggling to organize. Precincts are the most basic level of party organization and if we can’t get it together here, we are going to have another two years of right-wing dismantling of everything that made this state a decent place to live.

We have lost nearly half of our unemployment compensation; plus unemployed people now have just 12 weeks to find another job; fracking is likely to become a reality; we have rejected the Medicaid expansion and the $12 billion in federal money that comes with it; we likely will have a voter ID law in a few weeks; our social safety net is being shredded, our education system dismantled.

If we can’t get it together, we’re going to be the laughingstock of the nation. Mississippi is going to look progressive next to us.

So, here’s the deal: If you are a Democrat in Buncombe County, NC, and you vote at the Enka Middle School, you are in the 45th Precinct. We will meet at 10 a.m. next Saturday. I will call Monday to set it up at Enka Middle School. Please try to be there and bring a neighbor if you can.

The mindset of the American Tea Party.

That’s right, I am suffering from ignorance fatigue. I am done with people telling me the free market can handle health care and that the minimum wage is a horrible burden on employers. I have heard enough from people who believe churches should handle health care or that taxes and the national deficit are at an all-time high.

For those of you who don’t know how to check such things beyond listening to Fox News and “reading” Andrew Breitbart, perhaps you weren’t alive in the 1950s, when the economy was booming and the top tax rate on regular income was 91 percent (now, remember — and I will use small words here — that rate only applied to income above $200,000, which would be income over $1.78 million today), and the top rate on capital gains was 25 percent (this year it will be 20 percent, after a hike from 15 percent). All this research was done in about two minutes using tax tables and an inflation calculator.

When taxes were so high and oh, so terribly burdensome, our country was enjoying prosperity like it would not see again. People who worked a 40-hour week made enough to live on because workers had unions to protect them from the carnivorous uber-rich.

In 1955, the average wage was $5,610 — more than $48,000 in today’s money. It was enough to buy a small home, own a car, feed your family, even save enough to send a kid or two to college.

But the good manufacturing jobs have been sent to places where big business can pay people $1 a day and keep them locked up in compounds, and Americans are told to be happy there are jobs at Walmart.

Walmart pays its people such low wages that 70 percent of them are eligible for government assistance, and then we criticize them for being “takers” because they want to feed their families. Why aren’t we criticizing the people who won’t even pay subsistence wages while they pocket billions that they can’t possibly even spend?

Do you understand what that means? We, the taxpayers, those of us lucky enough to still have decent jobs, are subsidizing Walmart with our tax money so the owners can amass even more money. That’s right, our tax dollars are going into the Walton family’s pockets, and they want even lower tax rates on their income.

Did you know the national deficit is falling faster than it ever has without a recession going on? According to Investors’ Business Daily, ”…(the Congressional Budget Office) expects the deficit to shrink from 8.7 percent of GDP in fiscal 2011 to 5.3 percent in fiscal 2013 if the sequester takes effect and to 5.5 percent if it doesn’t. Either way, the two-year deficit reduction — equal to 3.4 percent of the economy if automatic budget cuts are triggered and 3.2 percent if not — would stand far above any other fiscal tightening since World War II.” (Read the whole story at: http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/021213-644063-chart-should-embarrass-deficit-hawks.htm#ixzz2MmyM2D3j).

So, if you get your info from Fox News, Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter or any of that ilk, please don’t try and “educate” me, OK? I have reached my yearly limit on ignorance and it’s barely March.