Update on Capital Returns

If you have been following my blog at all, you may have heard about the Capital Returns Campaign that I have discussed relatively intensively.

I just wanted to give you an idea of what is going on. Monday, Jan 28th the United Steelworkers went to Capital Returns with enough signatures to file for voluntary recognition of a union and after the company refused to grant recognition, the Steelworkers went to the National Labor Relations Board to file for elections.

With that said, the workers of Capital Returns will have the chance to ultimately decide if they wish to have a union will be held in the beginning of March. Before that however, the company is going to do everything in their power to make sure that the workers are intimidated and scared enough to vote against the union.

That's where you come in! On Feb 20th, 2008 at 3:00pm at Capital Returns (6101 N 64th St) we will be having a mass rally to show that we all support the struggle of the workers at Capital Returns.

The company will be doing their part to intimidate the workers, do your part to show the workers how much this community supports these workers!

Presidential Nominations

Okay, okay so I admit. The political primary elections have swept me up like a Oklahoma tornado. My once beloved act of watching football, and especially the first week of the playoffs was all of the sudden swished away by the roaring of debates in Iowa and New Hampshire. Instead of watching the Seahawks beat the Redskins last week, I turned my new full attention over to my new favorite 'football' team, Barrack Obama who had an close second place finish in the tight last game in New Hampshire.

So why do I like Obama you may ask? It's pretty easy, Obama is the only real presidential candidate with any sense of winning that has some spunk behind him. His huge following of young people and idealism towards real change makes a young idealist like myself smile a mile wide. Could we really have a potential president that actually started his career doing just what I do? A grassroots organizer? How exciting! A president who knows what its like to be working on the streets trying to empower poor people to stand up for themselves and realize the immense amount of power that they have when they're organized?!

I don't want to do too much political bashing here, but Mrs. Clinton just doesn't have that appeal, her insider Washington persona just doesn't sit well with the people that really want a new kind of government that really listens to the people and not the lobbyist. The establishment, in this election just won't do. Over the past 7 years we have had to put up with politicians that have sold their ideas to the highest bidder and I applaud a personality in politics that says lobbyist determining the agenda are a thing of the past.

With regard to John Edwards, I really really really like him. He's a very youthful guy that really plays up on the importance of the America's working people. He has come out strongly against the possible new CAFTA agreements that would do no good for the Central American workers or American workers. I love that he has that hometown personality and is so in support of labor rights. He too has denounced the power of the lobbyists and stated how important it is for working families to have the largest voice in American politics, the only problem is that with such a low percentage of the vote in the early primaries, his chances of winning seem slim to none. I do however think that he would make an excellent vice president to Barrack Obama should he win the nomination.

Now by reading my blogs and my work as a community organizer, you probably realized by now that I lean pretty hard to the left. And like I said, I don't want to do too much bashing, but here's a little of what I think about the candidates on the right.

John McCain if I had to pick out of the Republicans is probably my top choice, mostly because so many of the others just give me the creeps! I like some of John McCain's ideas, especially on human rights. As a solider in Vietnam and a POW, he really knows first hand what it means to be tortured and how inhumane torture is. I remember a few years ago he proposed a bill in the Senate that would try to protect the civil liberties of incarcerated 'enemy combatants' against interrogations that involved torture. He also, among the republicans seems to have the most logical and sane ideas about immigration, even though he discusses cracking down on undocumented migrants, he took quite a bit of fire for not being tougher on those issues and refused to relent. However, his lack of a plan for universal health care and pro market beliefs make me feel as if he's a no go.

Mitt Romney is a totally different story. I find the guy to be downright scary and quite frankly, just not a very nice guy. His political attack ads that he has pushed on everybody who dares face him has in my mind portrayed him as a mean spirited guy that's willing to beat up anyone that comes in his way. If he were to become president, I would certainly be scared, given the United State's already shaky international relations with Iran especially make me think that if he picked the same fight that he is doing with other republicans we just might have nuclear warfare in Iran. Also his very right wing beliefs about the free market and what comes across as racist remarks regarding undocumented immigrants make him probably what I would consider my very last option.

Mike Huckabee is a guy that really perplexes me, okay... well maybe not. As a former Baptist Minister he makes me think that he might be okay, okay maybe not. The moment that I hear that he is also a Republican make me add 1 and 1 together to equal another Bush. The Christan Right loves this guy, but the Christian right is not Christianity. His hard nose attacks on the immigration issue make me wonder if he actually ever did read the Bible that he supposeably espouses when we read that "the foxes have holes and the birds have a nest, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." As a Christan, Mike Huckabee makes me scared that with one more right wing Christian in office that campaigns on his theological superiority may be the death of potential people that might turn to Christianity, but have more compassionate and left leaning principals like love your neighbor as yourself.

Anyway, as the political playoffs continue with football playoffs, good luck Obama and Edwards, your the two top candidates in these books!

Dream of Flying

When will the moment be when we pick up and fly? Like a penguin who has the means, but cannot take wing we sit here still on this earth with the means to take flight and find what we are looking for and yet the glorious burden of what we are supposed to do acts as the hurricane, the rainy day the dreary weight upon our shoulders that keeps us from reaching our fullest potential.

At this place we stand weighted by the rain, and like the penguin we go through our lives looking for that gust of wind that will one day allow us to take to the air. We lust for it, we daydream about the day in which we will have the financial stability, the time away from work, the completion of the mortgage, and yet while we wait, the sun rises and sets smiling at us each and everyday, begging us to come and join in the fun of God's great wonderland. The wealth of this life cannot ever be realized until this mediatative and beautiful journey can take place.

That is why I plan on taking a trans-american bicycle tour upon completion of my year a Cap Corp. If life is meant to be lived, what are we waiting for? I write this blog more as an accountability to myself to actually do this than anything else really to put it forth into the world to say that something so seemingly crazy will be completed.

Through this trip I hope to find meaning, I hope to find a deeper understanding of whether God is really calling me to the ministry of the Church, I hope to find a deeper understanding of what the plan for me and all of God's children here on earth, I will never find the complete answer, but to be in pursuit of it must be to some extent our calling on this journey.

Just wanted to share the lyrics to one of my favorite songs in the whole world and I hope that the meaning that I have found out of this prose maybe also inspiring to you.

Dream of Flying
Alexi Murdoch

"Pale light this morning

Woke me
Slow pain I feel
Will not let me be

So much work to do
I don't know if I can
Trying so hard, so hard, so hard
But I know that I'm just one man

Five years old I climbed up on the wall
My mother warned me but I took no heed
Like all creatures great and small
I took a fall and found out I could bleed

These days I'm afraid of everything
Suppose cause everything will die
Thought it was to love what they will lose
So much easier to lie

Sometimes I fell like I'm drowning
Actually it's more like most of the time
But every now and then when I'm sleeping
I still have a dream that I'm flying

And I wake up crying"

Be a flying penguin!

Jon

Onto 2008

They say that the revolution of the new world will never be televised. These beliefs are founded in mountains of evidence seen on the broken streets of Milwaukee that pass under my bicycle wheels every day on my ride to work. News Release! The corporation, George Bush or the American Idol will not save us from the jobless cities, minimum wage jobs, under-funded schools, violent gang wars, racial segregation lines, and blatantly unequal access to opportunities in the social structure. For it is only by OUR hard work in which the seeds of justice will be sewn.

What have things come to? When the streets of Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago are divided so staunchly that the only thing we hear about each other comes from the mind draining visual plastic opiates that sit in our living rooms. We are not simply mindless consumers of propaganda and ridiculous garbage that advertisements convince that we need.

We are people and as people, we are members of families, communities, neighborhoods, churches. Yet we have become so isolated! When did we give up on getting to know people that are different than us? Did we ever have this?I know that we have, and amidst the muck we see community built at places like the Catholic Worker, the Lions Club, Town Hall Meetings, neighborhood organizations, the examples of small seedlings bursting and poking out to rear their faces in the desert are too many to number and these seedlings certainly have the potential to grow into flower and fruit. Recently, I've been reading the book of Acts and I am convinced that the community that was formed then around the body of Christ might be one of the great examples that we have of a human world community family, when we give everything up and follow the prophetic word of God, great community has the opportunity to arrive. I don't mean to be preachy here, and I apologize if I come across that way, but instead I wish to point out the optimism and great movement of a committed group of individuals that share a vision of "the way that things should be." This is not to say that the way in which the church has acted recently is any indicator of this, but community is certainly evident in our religious movements, our civic movements and only when we can unify in solidarity can a new world be possible.

This God gives us the power to go into the streets of Milwaukee, Detroit, and Chicago with word and action that says we are not going to put up with this corporate domination and exploitation of this human community for any longer. This God is a God of Peace and God that speaks to us. When our streets look like bombed out Falajuah and Baghdad where is the freedom that George W says were spreading to the world in our own communities? To what do we have freedom to we ask? Freedom to access dingy minimum wage jobs that leave us homeless on streets, that leave our children's mouths at the mercy of food shelters, that put our teenage brothers and sisters with no other choices except for hustling drugs, violence, and eventual incarceration, freedom to house our families in burnt out urban homes? And yet each and every one of us in our human community is valuable. We are valuable to be active participating individuals working in the Kingdom of God's community to enact real social change. Each and every one of us, every welfare mom, every homeless beggar, every drug addicted burnout, every Wal-Mart sales associate trying to get by has human dignity.

This is not about charity, this is not about simply feeling sorry for the least of us, this is about empowerment, this is about realizing the great abilities and talents that each and everyone of us has to be an important, positive member of our community.This empowerment has to be evident! Who are we?! What do we stand for? For if we stand for nothing, we will truly be defeated. We all know that when the current structure of power is not challenged, it will certainly take its stand and bulldoze all the concepts of equality, democracy, comradely and love. At the disposal of this structure of power is the money that was stolen from our brothers and sisters; the profit to coerce and allow members of our community to be paid large sums of money to work against their own families. But we must live in hope; this hope is one of the only things that we can cling to in 2008. Because there are so many voices, so many brothers and sisters that feel the same way as I do about our broken communities. And although it sometimes seems hopeless, this is a battle that we can win!

The power of the corporation is powerful, but the Lord's power of justice that inhabits all of our souls deep down inside is so much stronger. The power of love knows no boundaries and when that power amasses, the constructs of social inequality will collapse on their own fallacies of justice.

So go into this New Year with great love, great hope and compassion knowing that the struggle will be hard, but certainly is doable.

God Bless Everyone!

Jon

P.S. I didn't know where to fit this in, but on a boarded up door of a burnt out door of a once vibrant Detroit business was spray painted "Where are the 200 thousand troops to protect this city?" It had quite an impact on me and I thought I would share it.

*"Surviving Decay" Graphic was drawn by my favorite visual artist ever. Eric Drooker, please check out www. drooker.com to see more art from Eric.

International Human Rights Day-Dec 10th

Why hello computer/cyber world! I hope that the holidays are filling people's lives with love, grace and the values of community.

Things at the Faith Community for Worker Justice are going very well. Robin, my volunteer student from Alverno College has committed to helping out 20 hours a week next semester to advance the mission that the Faith Community for Worker Justice is working on through 2008. With that said, things are looking up!

The Capital Returns Campaign is going much better now thanks to the work that the Faith Community for Worker Justice put into it. Thanks to the protest at the plant and panel discussion that were organized by FCWJ, the United Steelworkers, the labor union that is working within the plan has stepped up their internal organizing at the company and has sent an organizer all the way from Philadelphia to work specifically on this campaign until it is won. Way to go for making sure that we advance human rights for low wage workers at Capital Returns. Hopefully soon we will have a union organized at Capital Returns and the ridiculous health and safety issues that were and have been making the folks who work there choose between their jobs or their health will be alleviated and the workers at Capital Returns can labor with dignity.

Dec 10th is just around the corner and with this date comes International Human Rights Day. A day that Milwaukee will celebrate along with the rest of the world in conjunction with the United Nations. The event in Milwaukee is being organized by me, but not really sponsored by FCWJ in the same way that most events are. The idea around international human rights day this year is to highlight the work that all sorts of area non profits are working on around Milwaukee.

Sponsoring organizations in include:

9to5- the working women's organization
Citizen Action- a direct action community organizing group in Milwaukee
Good Jobs Livable Communities-a community based labor group
Milwaukee Network for Social Change-who organizes the "free market"
WISCOSH-the Wisconsin Committee for Occupational Safety and Health
Running Rebels- an inner city youth empowerment organization
Democracy Matters- a organization committed to spreading democracy through education
Lutheran Human Relations Association-a Lutheran based social justice organization
United Steelworkers- a labor union supporting the workers
Faith Community for Worker Justice-a interfaith religious/labor group
Greater Milwaukee Human Rights Council-dedicated to advancing human rights in Milwaukee

At this event we should also be having Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Mayor Tom Barrett, Senator Spencer Coggs discuss the importance of human rights. Other speakers will include Pastor Tim Berlew from Greenfield Memorial Methodist Church and Rose Daitsman-Greater Milwaukee Human Rights Council who will release the executive summary of human rights in Milwaukee.

Human Rights are important to all of our organizations, each of our organizations works on addressing these different issues that fall under the veil of human rights and yet so much of the time we don't get the chance to recognize that.

International Human Rights Day will address Human Rights as they relate to all of us and our struggles to make sure that people are treating with dignity, love and compassion in the world. This event will highlight the commonalities that we all have in our passions to create a better world.

If you can make it, please join us at the City Hall Rotunda at 3:00 pm on Monday, Dec 10th.

Hopefully everyone has a super happy holiday and enjoys their time spent with friends, family and loved ones.

A Reflection on Love and our Human Family

When asked by an interviewer; Desmund Tutu the illustrious religious leader and force behind the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa; sat in his chair, for is the wrinkles on his face bore the years of struggle and experience that only a great man could have accomplished by a life lived ideally.

Desmund Tutu was asked, how do you get people to stop killing each other? Tutu smiled with a love for his human family that seemed to conquer all the host of violence, betrayal and conflict that could possibly be conjured up by a cruel world. His smile revealed something so fundamental, so basic as if the question itself was almost silly for an interviewer to ask.

Tutu responded by stating that the moment we can all see that we all come from the same family will be the moment in which the violence of inequality and murder will cease to exist. Tutu, stated quite bluntly that he or anyone he knew could not drop a bomb on Iran, recruit another child solider, not pay a worker their fair wage, not traffic another young woman into a prostitution ring if we see each and every one of these people as a member of my family. After all, I cannot murder 'that' person because they are my sister, they are my brother. Only then will we be able to start with the healing process in a world that has in the past been so cruel to our brothers and sisters.

In a conversation I had with a friend over our yearly visit to the School of the Americas Protest calling for human rights to be observed in Central and South America we discussed the concept of beginning to see ourselves as one human family. She mentioned that this concept might not be as successful as Tutu had stated, for it was easy to think of this peachy idea of love human family in the complex state of mind as if it were some off center wacky idealist idea. After all, as a child she too had treated her biological sister with great senses of indignity. Well of course, I thought, knock me out of this peachy rosy dream and get back to reality Jon, we live in the real world after all. For I too had done quite a good job at treating my biological brother with a large degree of hatred and angst during the years that we grew up together. To this day, although I love my biological brother deeply, I cannot say that conflict between the two of us remains non-existent.

In the end, however, he is my brother and despite our differences I shall not try to actively harm him-through this treatment I too expect for that to be reciprocated. When I love, I expect for that my brother to do the same. The concept of one human family follows suit. For I might not always agree with my brother, my sister, however in the end they remain my brothers and sisters in the communion of our human family and when they suffer, our whole human family suffers.

After our conversation with my friend at the SOA, I started referring to her as my sister and their was a quiet transformation that allowed for all involved in the conversation to see each other differently than we had seen each other before and at some level I think the both of us started seeing the other people in our community this past weekend in a different light. At some level I felt like we had broken through some sort of an unspoken boundary. For she was no longer just a friend of mine, but a integral part of my family, she was my sister.

As we gathered at Ft. Benning this weekend, we gathered because our brothers and sisters were suffering and we stood at the gates of that army base petitioning that our sisters and brothers who were causing the suffering to stop. Bringing about the new world that we are all called to find means that we love unconditionally, a concept that is more threatening to the status quo than the most unruly gang of anarchist revolutionaries, communists, Al Quida terrorists or whatever. Whatever movement that we create needs to be based on the prophetic idea and words of Desmund Tutu and the concept of each being a part of a collective human family. The concept that we love our sisters and our brothers who are both at the hand of suffering, but also the brothers and sisters that are the catalysts for that suffering; for they are all apart of our human family.

Love unconditionally, love everyone, love, love, love, love and when that revolutionary act becomes the norm, the world that many of us have been looking for will be realized.

Just a few words....

In a world of derogation, denial of freedom and dignity of life, we cleave. Cleaving for something valid, something worth living for; as commercials fly by like candy and opiate we are convinced that we are not legitimate, not worthy, not loved. Only that commodity displayed in gold will bring us the happiness that each and every one of us is looking for.

But below us, on another level there is another world, another reality that low wage workers here in Milwaukee are facing everyday, and a world that does not revolve around the simple accumulation of commodity that serves only to allow us false happiness. No, sir, no maim, there’s another world a world that is plowed down by our highways, our Wal-Marts, our boutique outlets.

There is struggle, a struggle that doesn’t ask the question of what piece of clothing will elicit the greatest common denominator of sexual satisfaction, and acceptance by our peers. No, sir, no maim, this struggle is primal, and this struggle is for life itself. In Milwaukee and across this world we have a population that looks for nothing except where the next meal is going to come from, a population that must choose between baby formula and having to pay the rent. A population who through this struggle has found only comfort in drugs, alcohol and destitution.

And here we stand, which dress should we wear that makes our ass look sexy? Which automobile will complement my attitude? What present can I buy for my kid that will show them that I love them? What is going on here? What lies have we told ourselves to leave us in this point of such meaningless isolation with ourselves and the community to which we live?

In the end, what do we all really want? What do we cleave to? What are we trying to do? We want a world of hope, we want a world of dignity, and we want a world of grace. A world where companies like Capital Returns treat the people who work for them with respect, and no matter how many computer lines those workers down there are told to type per hour let us remember that they are not the machines that they are continually told that they are! They are humans! They are living, breathing, worrying, struggling through the broken down neighborhoods in which their wage and aliments caused by contact with dangerous medicine will never allow them to escape. Let us always remember that workers rights are human rights and the struggle of everyday life doesn’t have to be that way. I believe in a better way, a way where employees in low wage conditions have the voice to form a union and allow their disempowered voices to ring as loud as the tone of freedom on Independence Day.

We are human, all of us, let us never forget that! Let us treat each other decently, let us love unconditionally, let us live and break out of our cycles of poverty and through it, a new world will be possible!