October 2016 Issue

Thomas Merton Center Pittsburgh’s Peace and Social Justice Center

PITTSBURGH’S PEACE & JUSTICE NEWSPAPER VOL. 46 No. 9 October 2016

Should Clean Drinking Water Become a Luxury?

By Angelica Walker

This year, for the first time ever, Americans will drink more bottled water than soda.

This exciting switch shows that Americans are finally waking up to the health benefits of drinking less sugary drinks... Right?

Wrong. Americans aren’t drinking more water. They’re just drinking less tap water, because much of our tap water is no longer drinkable. Despite bottled water costing 2000 times more than tap water on average, according to researchers at the Pacific Institute, more and more people are coughing up the cash for store bought water and expensive filters because they feel like that’s the only way to avoid harmful chemicals.

Others, less concerned with chemicals,

prefer filtered water because they just “don’t like the taste” of tap water. But what’s that taste, anyway? What makes our tap water so gross and undrinkable? According to new surveys of Pittsburgh water, it’s the taste of lead.

In August, Pittsburgh residents were mailed letters informing them of their right to water pipe inspection. According to the notice, 17% of Pittsburgh homes in a recent sample had lead levels above the EPA’s safety action level of 15ppb. A whopping 40% of homes had lead levels above 5ppb, the maximum allowed amount in bottled water. Four percent of homes had levels over 50ppb.

Because our potable water is so poor, city government is now Continued on Page 6...

In This Issue..

Frida Berrigan’s Radical Roots

By Bette McDevitt

When Frida comes to share a meal with us and receive the Merton Award, she’ll be talking about her parents, Elizabeth McAlister and Philip Berrigan, with whom she was raised at Jonah House, a communal home for peace and justice activists in Baltimore, and her uncle, Daniel Berrigan.

Frida Berrigan was born into activism, and she hasn't wasted any time in taking on the mantle. Here’s her current schedule; in her hometown of New London, Connecticut, she is helping two families from Syria settle into their new homes. As co-founder of Witness against Torture, she’s planing for a rally in D.C. in January, at the time of the inauguration of our new president. She is hopeful that President Obama may close Guantanamo before he leaves office, but not holding her breath.

She has two small children, two and four, a stepdaughter, 9, and a husband who shares her commitment to peace and justice issues. She writes a blog on the website W aging Non-Violence, People Powered News and Analysis and in the past year, she wrote a book It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood.

Quotes from her blog indi-

Housing is a Human Right March September 20th. Demonstrators sitting down in the intersection of Liberty and Market. Police warned them they were in violation of the law, but allowed them to stay there for several minutes, before they resumed the march in the direction of Market Square. No arrests were made. For more on affordable housing see page 4..

Photo by Neil Cosgrove

cate that we’re in for a provocative after-dinner speech. Her writing is peppery, funny and hits hard on themes of current concern. “I really work hard at it,” she said in a recent phone interview.

Here’s her slant on finding a moment of serenity, from her blog, in a section called “Is it OK to Have a Happy Place?”

“Do you want to hear my happy place? Sitting on the couch on our front porch with the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle, pen poised to write in an answer, confident that it is correct, reassured by a gentle burble of kids playing in the background. Do you have a happy place? Is that OK? That is the question that most often disturbs my fleeting moments of contentment. Is it OK that I am content, just for this minute, just in this space and time?

“Happiness and contentment, comfort and ease, security and peace of mind — these are no longer just occasional happy accidents of right living and hard work. They are commodities, being aggressively marketed to us under countless trade names.

They are enshrined as rights for some of us — those of us who are white and born in the United States and extended the credit to buy them. For these reasons, a question like ‘What is your

Prison Labor Strike…

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Joyful Process With Liana Maneese…

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SOA Watch Sends 13 to Mexican Border… Page 11 What Corrupts Free Media?...

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2016 Merton Award Honoring Frida Berrigan Frida Berrigan is a columnist for W aging Nonviolence and the author of It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood.

Monday, November 14 Sheraton Station Square 6:00 PM Tickets $65

https://2016mertonaward.eventbrite.com Scholarships, Sponsorships and Ads available 421 361 3022

This year we have exciting raffle prizes, including a basket of wine, a restaurant basket, handmade tea pot and cups courtesy of Don Fisher, a bike from Free Right and a framed Corita print.

We will also be holding a silent auction so be sure to bring your check books and credit cards! We have wonderful prizes in store for you including a two-night stay at the Barnard House Bed & Breakfast in Emlenton PA, a farm share of fresh vegetables from Kretschmann Farm, a $250 gift certificate to Ton Pottery in Lawrenceville, a jazz & culture basket, a home-made dinner for six and more!

Continued on page 3...

The Thomas Merton Center works to build a consciousness of values and to raise the moral questions involved in the issues of war, poverty, racism, classism, economic justice, oppression and environmental justice.

TMC engages people of diverse philosophies and faiths who find common ground in the nonviolent struggle to bring about a more peaceful and just world.

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October 2016

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IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE THOMAS MERTON CENTER 5129 PENN AVENUE, PITTSBURGH, PA 15224

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East End Community Thrift Store

Monday—Friday: 10 am to 4 pm

Tuesday—Friday: 10 am to 4 pm Saturday: Noon to 4 pm

Office Phone: 412-361-3022 — Fax: 412-361-0540 Website: www.thomasmertoncenter.org

The NewPeople Editorial Collective

Neil Cosgrove, Ginny Cunningham, Michael Drohan, Russ Fedorka, Marni Fritz, Nijah Glenn, Jim McCarville, Bette McDevitt, Joyce Rothermel, Molly Rush, Jo Tavener

TMC Staff, Volunteers & Interns

Executive Director: Antonio Lodico Finance Director / Project Liaison: Roslyn Maholland Director of Communications: Marni Fritz Support Staff: Sr. Mary Clare Donnelly, Meagan McGill Activist & Office Volunteers: Raphael Cardamone, Monique Dietz, Nancy Gippert, Nijah Glenn, Lois Goldstein, Jordan Malloy, Meagan McGill, Joyce Rothermel, Judy Starr New People Coordinator: Marni Fritz East End Community Thrift Store Managers: Shirley Gleditsch, Shawna Hammond, & Sr. Mary Clare Donnelly TMC Organizer/ Internship Coordinator: Gabriel McMorland

Thomas Merton Center Interns: Christina A. Castillo, Tallon Kennedy,

Human Rights Book‘Em: Books to Prisoners Project bookempgh@gmail.com www.bookempgh.org Cities for CEDAW Fight for Lifers West fightforliferswest@gmail.com 412-607-1804 Fightforliferswest.org

Thom Baggerman, Ed Brett, Michelle Burton-Brown, Rob Conroy (President), Neil Cosgrove, Mark Dixon, Michael Drohan, Patrick Fenton, Mary Jo Guercio, Wanda Guthrie, anupama jain, Ken Joseph, Anne Kuhn, Jonah McAllister-Erickson, Jim McCarville, Joyce Rothermel, Molly Rush (co-founder), Tyrone Scales, M. Shernell Smith.

Greater Pittsburgh Interfaith Coalition Anne Wirth 412-716-9750 Human Rights Coalition / Fed Up (prisoner support and advocacy) 412-802-8575, hrcfedup@gmail.com www.prisonerstories.blogspot.com

Publish in The NewPeople

Shalefield Stories (Friends of the Harmed) 412-422-0272 brigetshields@gmail.com

Pittsburghers for Public Transit 412-216-9659 info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org

Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens Group 724-837-0540 lfpochet@verizon.net

Stop Sexual Assault in the Military 412-361-3022 hildebrew@aol.com

Economic Justice

To Submit Articles, Photos, or Poems: Visit www.thomasmertoncenter.org/newpeople/submit.

To Submit an Event to the TMC Calendar: Visit www.thomasmertoncenter.org/calendar/submit-event To Advertise: Visit www.thomasmertoncenter.org/newpeople/ad Advertising prices range from $15 for a business card size to $250 for a full page. There is a 10% discount when purchasing 6 months of ad space at a time, and a 20% discount when purchasing a year of ad space at a time. An additional 10% discount is available for non-profit organizations and faith-based groups.

For more information: Call 412-361-3022 or email newpeople@thomasmertoncenter.org.

Table of Contents 

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2 - NEWPEOPLE

October 2016

Anti-War/Anti-Imperialism

Harambee Ujima/Diversity Footprint Twitter @HomewoodNation Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance 412-512-1709

(Affiliates are independent partner organizations who support the nonviolent peace and justice mission of TMC. - Articles may not necessarily represent the views of Affiliates)

Pittsburgh Cuba Coalition 412-303-1247 lisacubasi@aol.com

Abolitionist Law Center 412-654-9070 abolitionistlawcenter.org

Pittsburgh North People for Peace 412-760-9390 info@pnpp.northpgh.org www.pnpp.northpgh.org

Amnesty International info@amnestypgh.org - www.amnestypgh.org Association of Pittsburgh Priests Sr. Barbara Finch 412-716-9750 B.a.finch@att.net Battle of Homestead Foundation

www.pittsburghraginggrannies.homestead.com

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The Big Idea Bookstore 412-OUR-HEAD www.thebigideapgh.org The Black Political Empowerment Project Tim Stevens 412-758-7898 CeaseFire PA www.ceasefirepa.org—info@ceasefirepa.org Citizens for Social Responsibility of Greater Johnstown Larry Blalock, evolve@atlanticbb.net Global Solutions Pittsburgh 412-471-7852 dan@globalsolutionspgh.org www.globalsolutionspgh.org North Hills Anti-Racism Coalition 412-369-3961 email: info@arc.northpgh.org www.arc.northpgh.org PA United for Single-Payer Health Care www.healthcare4allPA.org www.PUSH-HC4allPa.blogspot.com 412-421-4242 Pittsburgh Area Pax Christi 412-761-4319

Should Clean Drinking Water Become a Luxury Cont’d  Page 7 From Heart to Harvest I Vote to End Hunger Campaign Page 8  I Am Project Page 9 Joyful Process with Liana Maneese Wisdom From a Social Justice Warrior  Page 10 Protest Continues in Palestine IRS Attacks IFCO/Pastors for Peace Ecological Conversion Topic in Fall Speakers’ Series Page 11 Local SOA Watch Sending 13 to Mexico Border Naturalization Ceremony at the Pump House Battle of Homestead Foundation October Events Page 12 What Corrupts or Frees the “Media” Safe Spaces and Trigger Warnings: What’s Actually

Pittsburgh BDS Coalition bdspittsburgh@gmail.com

Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee info@pittsburgh-psc.org www.pittsburgh-psc.org Raging Grannies 412-963-7163 eva.havlicsek@gmail.com

412-848-3079

The New People is distributed each month to 3,000 people who belong to diverse organizations, businesses and groups. The deadline for all submissions is the 13th of the month for the following month’s issue.

Page 1 Should Clean Drinking Water Become a Luxury?

Frida Berrigan’s Radical Roots Page 3 Frida Berrigan’s Radical Roots Cont’d Thomas Merton Center 2016 Interfaith Gathering Commemorating Indigenous Peoples Day at TMC Potluck Page 4 Creative Thinking About Housing: Bringing To gether the “Two Pittsburghs” Humanizing America’s Housing Deprived Citizens Page 5 Dozens Protest Slave Labor in America’s Prisons Outside of Pittsburgh Jail Welcoming Chandana Cherukupali, New Commu nity Organizer for PPT TMC Protests Mylan Gauging Page 6 Loophole in Pennsylvania Clean Power Plan Pro tects Dirty Plants

Pittsburgh 350 350pittsburgh@gmail.com World.350.org/Pittsburgh

TMC Affiliates

We are mission driven volunteers who look to build love and community by serving others in times of need.

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Marcellus Shale Protest Group melpacker@aol.com 412-243-4545 marcellusprotest.org

Pittsburgh Campaign for Democracy NOW! 412-422-5377, sleator@cs.cmu.edu www.pcdn.org

Anti-War Committee awc@thomasmertoncenter.org

The East End Community Thrift (Thrifty) is an all volunteer-run thrift shop which provides quality, low-cost, used clothing and household goods to the surrounding community. Thrifty needs volunteers and shoppers! Please contact us at (412) 361-6010 and ask for Shirley or Shawna, or stop in at 5123 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224. Email shawnapgh@aol.com.

School of the Americas Watch W. PA 412-271-8414 soawpittsburgh@gmail.com

Environmental Justice

Ronald Read

2016 TMC Board of Directors

Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition jumphook@gmail.com; www.pittsburghdarfur.org

Religion and Labor Coalition 412-361-4793 ojomal@aol.com SWPA Bread for the World Joyce Rothermel 412-780-5118 United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) 412-471-8919 www.ueunion.org Veterans for Peace kevinbharless@yahoo.com 252-646-4810 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Eva 412-963-7163 edith.bell4@verizon.net

TMC is a Member of Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network 412-621-9230 office@piin.org Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Martha Conley 412-361-7872, osterdm@earthlink.net TMC supports these organizations’ missions.

Going on in America’s Classrooms?

Page 13 Journey Toward Justice Cooperative Principles: Framework for a Demo cratic Economy In Memory of Peter Oresick Page 14 Green Party Ticket Promotes Peace Offensive The Case for Jill Stein and Growing the Greens Page 15 The 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising in Ireland

Merton Center News Frida Berrigan’s Radical Roots Cont’d happy place?’ made my father’s lip curl.” You’ll need to go to the blog to read the rest.

Here’s another sample, her thoughts on the passing of her uncle, Daniel Berrigan. “I moved to New York City in 1998, with an internship, a notion of being a writer, and a way station of sanity and welcome at 98th Street (where Dan and a dozen other Jesuit priests lived). I didn’t need a New York City dream — I had Uncle Dan. “For more than 10 years, we had such great times — long lunches, long leisurely walks through Riverside Park and long prayer walks across 42nd street for Pax Christi’s Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. Actions, Bible studies, dinners at 98th street, road trips to Syracuse or Kirkridge [a retreat center in Pennsylvania]. I was always welcome. He always had time. He answered my phone calls at odd hours, asked me questions and listened for the real answers. He loved cappuccinos, cold white wine in the afternoon, and for the toll operators on the George Washington Bridge to be really energetic and colorful. He hated the radio, but always had music running through his head. He loved to share his food and would always offer me half of whatever he

had, not eating until I ate. My Uncle Dan — Unka — told me my history. He shared his favorite books. He lifted his eyebrows in a particular way when he was ready to be rescued from a conversation.

“And then — all of sudden — this spry and stalwart man, this slight man of swagger and soul and scripture (alliteration is my only poetry) begins to falter, grow slow, grow quiet. And now, the one I leaned on for advice, clung to for courage and counted on for the word that made it all make sense — now, he needs. Not much, not all the time, but more and more. And what does he need? An arm, a hand, easy company, love without condition.

He needs me. Imagine… Me. And I find — improbably and providentially — that I have Frida Berrigan with Uncle, Dan Berrigan. Photo take from something and someone to offer. Myself, but Frida’s blog. more, a love that changes with time and a son — Seamus Philip — who is (or was, he is four now) Square. pure love.”

Bette McDevitt is a member of the editorial And the rest of the story? It’s on the website, and will probably be part of her conversation with us collective. on Monday, November 14, at 6 o’clock at Sheraton

Thomas Merton Center’s 2016 Interfaith Gathering

By Joyce Rothermel

The persistent efforts made for a more peaceful and just world necessitate community as well as encouragement and inspiration. Such an opportunity will be available on Nov. 4 and 5 at the Epiphany Center, 820 Crane Avenue in the Beechview neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The theme of the two-day gathering is “Mysticism and Social Transformation: The Importance of Nurturing the Inner Life as We Work for Social Justice”.

Returning to Pittsburgh to inspire those who gather will be Art McDonald, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Essex, MA. Art was a staff member of the Merton Center in the 1980’s before becoming a full time minister in the Unitarian Universalist Church here in Pittsburgh. In Art’s presentations, he will draw on the wisdom of Meister Eckhart, Thich Nhat Hahn, and others. His first talk will be on Friday evening at 7:30 PM, followed by time for socializing with those gathered before concluding the evening. Cost for the opening night is $15.

The interfaith gathering will continue the following day for those able to attend. (One need not have been at the Friday night presentation to participate.)

It will begin at 8:30 AM with another presentation by Art followed by sharing and quiet time for reflection before lunch. The afternoon will provide opportunities for participants to choose from focusing on racism, the environment, and the future of church/worship congregations in the U.S. Time is also allotted for quiet reflection and outside walks around the grounds. Art will lead an interfaith prayer service to conclude the gathering at 5 PM. The cost for Saturday, which includes a continental breakfast and lunch, is $30. For those participating in both the Friday and Saturday events, the total cost is $40 To register, go to https:// tmcinterfaithgathering.eventbrite.com.

For more information, contact Donna Brett at donnawbrett@gmail.com or call Joyce at 412-487-5589. Registration is required for those attending both days or Saturday only. RSVP’s for Friday night only are not necessary; participants can pay at the door. Watch for more details on TMC’s website and in the weekly eblasts. Please invite others who may be interested to attend.

Joyce Rothermel is on the planning committee for TMC's 2016 Interfaith Gathering.

In addition to supporting our projects, the Thomas Merton Center is currently:  Advocating for affordable housing in Pittsburgh with Pittsburgh

UNITED

 Advocating for Martin Esquivel-Hernandez’s release from a

for-profit-prison after being detained by I.C.E. on May 2nd 2016.

 Working toward city-wide divestment of fossil fuels.  Partnering with the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh to combat

Islamophobia in Pittsburgh

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By Bette McDevitt

Commemorating Indigenous Peoples Day at TMC Potluck

By Joyce Rothermel

All are invited to a potluck supper at the Thomas Merton Center in Garfield for a viewing of the 2015 documentary, “The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking The Domination Code” on Thursday, October 20, 2016 from 6 – 8:30 PM. The film presents a powerful story of historical truth, spirituality, and resistance, told on behalf of the original nations and peoples of Great Turtle Island (North America), and elsewhere on Mother Earth. It lays out in graphic detail the religious reasoning behind Christianity’s takeover and subjugation of the first inhabitants of North America and how those themes continue to be played out today.

Columbus and other colonizers laid claim to the lands of original nations based on the idea that Christians had a biblical right to discover and dominate non-Christian lands. This doctrine of Christianity, supported by papal edicts, continues to serve as the conceptual foundation of the political and legal system of the United States, and as the conceptual foundation of other dominating political systems elsewhere in the world. The film calls upon the Catholic Church to revoke the papal decrees that set into motion the domination system.

The documentary is based on the book Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery by Steven T. Newcomb, who also co-produced

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it. Representing 30 years of research, the film brings to our awareness an amazing and little known story.

Following the film, those gathered will learn about and discuss the current controversy about the Dakota pipeline. Last month, Pittsburghers rallied outside the Federal Building in support of the efforts of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and antidrilling activists to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline Project in North Dakota. Thousands of Native Americans are camped at the pipeline site, where construction has been temporarily stopped. Items will be collected the night of the film to send to those in the encampment.

Bring one of your favorite dishes or beverages to share. To let us know you are coming and to find out what is needed by those camping in North Dakota, call 412-361-3022.

Joyce Rothermel is a member of the Thomas Merton Center Board and NewPeople Editorial Collective

Dine with TMC at Franktuary Wednesday, October 12th!

5-7PM Ten percent of proceeds get donated to the Thomas Merton Center. Come out to th elAwrenceville location, have a hotdog (vegan options available) or a drink and support TMC!

Please complete and return to TMC. Thank you!

Name(s):__________________________________ Organization (if any): ________________________________ Address:___________________________________

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City:_________________ State:______ Zip Code:________ Home Phone:____________________________ Cell Phone: ______________________________ Email:__________________________________

Mail to TMC, 5129 Penn Ave. Pgh. PA 15224 Call (412) 361-3022 for more information.

October 2016

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Thinking About Housing Creative Thinking About Housing: Bringing Together the “Two Pittsburghs” By anupama jain

Pittsburgh, like much of the country, is facing an escalating housing crisis. Housing disparities implicate core human rights, quality of life, and ongoing questions of how to sustainably develop our urban areas. This has led many to talk about “two Pittsburghs,” one affluent and usually white, as compared to lower-income communities often made up of people of color with long histories in the region.

To address these important issues, a community Housing Summit will take place in the Oakland neighborhood from November 10-12, 2016, bringing together as many people and groups as possible. The organizers invite creative types to contribute to the Summit by responding to the core topics through poems, essays, and visual art to be displayed in the program booklet and during the event. (Please submit art and direct questions to: housingsummit@pitt.edu.)

More broadly, all residents are invited to attend the Summit, because housing is a human issue and we want to showcase the diverse personal stories that people have to tell, to collectively confront the lack of affordable housing, and to brainstorm viable solutions to the housing crisis. In addition to representation by people from the city and region, there will be nationally and internationally recognized speakers and activists participating in the dialogue.

The overall focus is highlighting the human

right to housing and advancing new thinking and community organization that can help Pittsburgh residents realize this basic human right. A neighborhood tour is planned for Friday November 11th, with visits to Pittsburgh’s most impacted neighborhoods.

The Summit kicks off with a book launch on November 9 at the Hill House by Dr. Mindy Fullilove, whose book, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, is based on research in the Hill District. Fullilove will then deliver a keynote address on November 10, "Where is home?

How housing instability affects us all.” Friday evening, November 11, will feature a panel on “Big Money and Local Lives: Globalization and the Affordable Housing Crisis,” followed by Saturday’s opening panel on activist strategies for “Taking Back the Land.” Workshops and a closing panel will explore lessons and strategies for building broadbased movements for housing justice.

Event Details: The University-Community Housing Summit will take place at the University of Pittsburgh November 10-12. It is being co-sponsored by Pitt’s

Global Studies Center, Northside Coalition for Fair Housing, Hill District Consensus Group, Human Rights City Alliance, University Human Rights Network, Pittsburgh Homes for All Coalition, United Steelworkers, Casa San Jose, and the Department of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Volunteers are needed to help with outreach and other tasks. (Send email to housingsummit@pitt.edu).

Learn more at: http://housingsummit.org. anupama jain, PhD, is an educator with expertise in diversity and inclusion, and a researcher who focuses on how people build community by sharing stories, promoting social justice, and cultivating empathy.

Humanizing America's Housing Deprived Citizens

By Neil Cosgrove

Public policy directed towards America’s poor is commonly influenced by the poor’s isolation from the rest of us in depressed city neighborhoods, in trailer parks, and in rural hills and valleys. So distanced, neglect of these fellow citizens can be justified through unfair, misinformed, dehumanizing stereotypes.

Matthew Desmond restores awareness of the complex humanity of America’s poor through his recently published Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. His detailed descriptions of struggling adults and children and their tenuous lives evolve from his immersion in an environment most Americans avoid, with national and historical context provided through extensive referrals to social science literature on America’s low-income housing crisis.

Desmond, a Harvard sociology professor, lived for months at a time in a predominantly white trailer park on the south edge of Milwaukee and in a rooming house on that city’s traditionally black north side, where he shadowed an African-American couple who owned numerous rental properties in the area. He got to know many of the couple’s tenants, and accompanied dozens of tenants to eviction hearings in housing court. He took extensive field notes and kept his digital voice recorder on constantly. He gained his subjects’ trust simply by being where he was for extended periods of time, and by listening without judging.

Desmond’s field work occurred primarily during 2008-09, but his observations owe much less to the Great Recession, he argues, than to misguided, myth-infused public policy and the systemic preda-

tions unbridled capitalism makes possible. Indeed, even in the midst of economic recovery, America’s housing crisis remains unabated. The government’s American Housing Survey, encompassing the years 1991-2013, indicates that “today, the majority of poor renting families in America spend over half of their income on housing, and at least one in four dedicates over 70% to paying the rent and keeping the lights on. Millions of Americans are evicted every year because they can’t make rent.”

Evictions have exploded primarily because wages for the commonly low-paying jobs available to the poor, welfare allotments, and social security disability payments have failed to keep up with significant increases in rents. Shrinking amounts of public housing units and lack of investment in new low-income rental units (problems with which we in Pittsburgh are quite familiar) mean that even in neighborhoods identified as “run-down” demand for housing, and the consequent rents, are high.

Desmond’s fine-grained descriptions drive home the obvious point that wide-scale housing uncertainty is destructive to both individual families and communities. Moving in and out of apartments and shelters, sometimes within a matter of weeks and months, means that children fail to settle into schools or to develop a sense of stability and wellbeing. Adults cannot plan for a future, but bounce instead from crisis to crisis. Forced to store their possessions and personal effects, for an initial fee and monthly rental, the evicted often must choose between shelter for themselves and their dependents or shelter for a microwave, a lamp, or a photo album. After a period of non-payment to the storage company, possessions are auctioned off.

When one’s address changes frequently, both jobs and access to government aid can be lost. Spirits are broken. Suicide rates go up. People sometimes compensate by seeking the momentary pleasure of drugs, alcohol or what the affluent would regard as unwise financial choices, like blowing a month’s worth of food stamps on lobster, or much of an SSI check on a make-over. Desmond convincingly demonstrates that such behavior is not the cause of extreme poverty, but its result, and that housing stability often results in the people he’s observed making wise decisions regarding their children’s well-being, and their own personal growth and education. Moreover, increased housing stability would create neighborhoods in which tenants and property owners are invested in crime prevention, better sanitation, and beautification.

Desmond offers up two main policy solutions for the low-income housing crisis. One is to provide “the right to counsel in civil matters” like that existing for criminal proceedings, a right recognized in countries like India and Zambia, and in Western Europe. Currently, “90% of landlords are represented by attorneys, and 90% of tenants are not.” His major proposal is “a universal voucher program,” in which families earning less than a designated income would have any rent exceeding 30% of that income covered by a voucher. Studies Desmond cites do not show housing assistance lowering the incentive to work; instead, “the status quo is much more of a threat to self-sufficiency than any housing program could be.”

No matter how thoughtful and informed those proposals may be, the sad conclusion is that they will go nowhere until the more affluent see America’s poor differently. We might start with the constitution. Not the second or first amendment, but the preamble, which says the document’s intent is to “establish Justice … promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.” There is no distinction made in that preamble between the poor and the affluent. Those guarantees are meant for all citizens, and Desmond helps readers see the poor as worthy of the value citizenship conveys.

Housing is a Human Right March September 20th. Left: Demonstrators sitting down in the intersection of Liberty and Market. Police warned Neil Cosgrove is a member of them they were in violation of the law, but allowed them to stay there for several minutes, before they resumed the march in the direction of the NewPeople editorial colMarket Square. No arrests were made. Right: The action began at Katz Plaza Photo by Neil Cosgrove lective and the Merton Center 4 - NEWPEOPLE

October 2016

board.

Local Activism Dozens Protest Slave Labor in America’s Prisons Outside of Pittsburgh Jail

By Tallon Kennedy

“From Attica to ACJ, break the bars and break the chains!” protestors chant outside of Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County Jail (ACJ) on September 9th, 2016 in solidarity with a nation-wide strike of forced prison labor.

“This date was chosen in commemoration of the Attica prison revolt,” one of the protesters, who chose to remain anonymous, tells me before the action begins.

The Attica prison revolt was a violent riot carried out on September 9th, 1971 at the Attica Correctional Facility in New York. Over 2,000 prisoners revolted— taking hostages and putting out demands for better living conditions and an end to physical brutality. About 33 inmates and 10 correctional officers were killed in the conflict. Today it is known as the most important uprising in the history of the prisoners’ rights movement.

“Ultimately, most of their demands were met,” the protester says.

We arrive at the rendezvous point of Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street.

It’s a cloudy, rainy day in Pittsburgh. People are adorned in all black clothing; some wear bandana masks over their mouths; some hold black flags in the air. Cardboard signs are passed around with anarchist symbols on them, and words such as “NO BARS” and “END PRISON SLAVERY.” At first, it’s a surprisingly small gathering of about fifteen people— a number that grew to approximately fifty once night fell and we neared the county jail.

The issue at hand is forcing prisoners to manufacture products that make profits for companies, while the prisoners receive wages as low as five cents an hour, and sometimes nothing. Some are forced to work in facilities with a heat index of 150 degrees Fahrenheit, while physically battered and served rotten food, according to a report by The Nation. The resemblance to a slavery system is unmistakable.

“It’s the same economic system that’s existed since the founding of America, which is reliant upon

the coerced and unpaid labor of people of color in order to generate profits for the wealthy, ruling, white class,” the same protester informs me.

“They literally have them picking cotton” says another, a fact that The Nation reports as well, speaking with prisoners in Texas who were forced to go out into the fields and pick cotton at gunpoint.

The symbolism is salient and undeniable. America is the most incarcerated nation in the world today, and it’s only gotten worse as a result of the war on drugs, which is a movement that has disproportionately affected the lives of black Americans. According to the NAACP, “Five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at ten times the rate of Whites.” Black people are systematically targeted for placement inside prisons, and then forced to pick cotton in fields at gunpoint for little to no recompense. It sounds like the 1800s, but this is happening in the 21st century.

“Prison labor is slave labor,” the protesters shout, trying to make as much noise as they can, banging on pots, and playing trumpets, trombones, and tambourines outside of the prison entrance. After a couple of minutes of this noise, lights can be seen flickering through the small cubed windows of the jail in support of the protest.

“A lot of McDonald’s uniforms, and their silverware, and their cups are manufactured in prisons. The same thing is true for Starbucks,” a protester tells me, explaining how private prisons contract out work to large corporations, who then take advantage of the cheap or free labor of inmates to manufacture goods and supplies. Alternet supports this claim, also naming other recognizable corporations involved, such as Microsoft, Target, Macy’s, and many more.

Silhouettes of prisoners are seen crowding around the veiled windows, overlooking the protesters, pumping their fists, and banging on the glass in response. On other windows, only pairs of hands can be seen behind the glass, wrapped around the bars.

They look like ghostly shadow figures behind those

windows, with the jail obscuring its prisoners from the public eye.

It’s National Strike Against Prison Slave Laa power- bor Solidarity Action in Downtown Pittsburgh, September 9th. ful image. So Photo by Jordan Malloy often we are told that prisoners deserve to be where they are, and so we ship people away to these sickening institutions, to be forgotten. What happens behind those bars does not concern the majority of citizens; as long as these people are out of sight, then they’re out of mind.

“We hear you. We love you. We believe you.

We support you,” the protesters yell, trying to let the prisoners know that they are cared for, and that they deserve basic human rights, such as compensation for labor, and the right to choose to labor.

Rounding the corner of the jail, protesters stop chanting, and instead begin banging wood and metal against the guardrail outside of the prison grounds. It is clamorous and rhythmic, and sounds like the locomotive chug of a factory at work; not a factory of enslaved prisoners toiling for nothing, but rather, a factory manufacturing a revolutionary spirit within the hearts of the oppressed.

Tallon Kennedy is an intern journalist at The NewPeople Newspaper. He is a poet and an undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh studying writing, literature, & gender, sexuality, and women's studies.

Welcoming Chandana Cherukupalli, New Community Organizer for PPT

By Marni Fritz

This past August, Pittsburghers for Public Transit (PPT), a project of the Thomas Merton Center, hired a new Community Organizer, Chandana Cherukupalli. Her main job will include working on current campaigns while maintaining, encouraging and supporting leadership amongst their very active resident community.

Chandana graduated from Northeastern University, in Boston, where her organizing career began.

At college, after being exposed to the ills of the world, Chandana described hitting a “brick wall” when it came to becoming active against social problems. She joined her campus United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) chapter after realizing that organizing was a way to “do something about it.” Her on-campus experience laid the groundwork for her future activist ventures, and she soon realized the importance of branching beyond the campus, and working in the community.

After graduating, Chandana took an extended trip to Bangalore, India, for about ten months. While she was there, Chandana began going to meetings at the Alternative Law Forum (ALF), a community group meeting center similar to TMC. There she began organizing in support of sanitation workers, a

caste-based trade, fair wages, safety equipment, sick days, paid days off and access to resources necessary for a safe working environment. She spoke the same language as the workers, which allowed her to learn about union organizing and to learn from amazing women leaders in Bangalore.

Now, Chandana is excited to be working with communities in Pittsburgh.

“I like the community vibe in Pittsburgh. Interpersonal connection is really important to me. The basis of this work is caring about people,” Chandana says.

“I’m so happy to be doing the work I’m doing because transit is a very tangible and material way to combat issues like racism, housing, environment, and all these connected things. When the realization hit me that things are so interconnected, it became hard for me to focus on one thing as ‘the thing,’” she added.

Currently PPT is tackling the city-wide affordable housing crisis by asserting that affordable housing be located in close proximity to good transit lines to ensure access.

“Transit lines are lifelines,” says Chandana.

People use public transportation for jobs, doctor ap-

pointments, school, and other necessities. The problem of displacement becomes compounded without access to transit because people are not able to meet their daily needs.

“It is important to understand that things are so connected,” Chandana explains, “when you don’t make those connections, affordable housing seems so far from transit.” Mifflin Estates in West Mifflin is beginning to meet about access to transit.

“Most people have to walk a mile or more to the closest bus stop along a road with a lot of traffic and no sidewalk.” This makes it hard to walk to the bus stop with children, if you’re elderly or if you are living with a disability. “It's about equity and access.”

Recently, PPT won their campaigns to restore weekend service to Garfield and to increase service to Penn Hills. On October 8th there will be a celebration of this victory at Kelly Strayhorn Theater where Garfield and Penn Hills residents will ride the bus down to the Theater in celebration.

Visit www.pittsburghforpublictransit.org/ for more information.

Marni Fritz is the Director of Communications and NewPeople Coordinator for the Thomas Merton Center.

TMC Protests Mylan Gauging

A spirited group of Pittsburghers held a press conference outside the Mylan Labs in Cecil Township to protest the morally repugnant price gouging of the LifeSaving Epi-Pen. Supporters from the W. Pa. Coalition for Single Payer Health, including former State Senator Jim Ferlo and representatives of Public Citizen and MoveOn.org Civic, presented over 700,000 signatures on petitions demanding Mylan lower the price and that Congress investigate and initiate immediate reforms to stop the profiteering practices of for-profit pharmaceutical companies.

Photos by Bob Madjaric October 2016

NEWPEOPLE - 5

Environmental Concerns Loophole in Pennsylvania Clean Power Plan Protects Dirty Plants

By Wanda Guthrie

A Right-to-Know request has revealed that Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has exempted 42 new natural gas power plants, adding 8000 megawatts to the grid, from the Clean Power Plan since January, 2014. In doing so, the DEP has demonstrated it is commitment to such plants, and consequently to continued fracking, the expansion of pipelines and related infrastructure, combustion, and dangerously high amounts of methane gas being released into the atmosphere.

The department has approved every plant it has considered, while ignoring the warnings from experts about the impact of natural gas power generation. For instance, on March 21st, Representative Greg Vitali chaired a hearing entitled “Should Pennsylvania Incentivize Natural Gas?” Among the panelists were climate experts Dr. Robert Howarth and Dr. Donald Brown, both of whom gave very clear testimony regarding the need to prioritize a transition away from natural gas. Dr. Howarth explained that we can buy valuable time to deal with CO2 if we can stop the production and use of its far more potent, yet much more short-lived cousin CH4, or methane, a common by-product of natural gas extraction.

The only representative of the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) in attendance was panelist David Althoff, an Environmental Group Manager, who discussed DEP’s work managing natural gas incentive programs. The agency’s blatant enthusiasm for natural gas is contrary to its mission to actually protect the environment, since

construction of new gas-powered plants, or replacing coal plants with gas, will greatly incentivize the use of fracked gas, with its accompanying release of large amounts of methane.

Due to a loophole in Governor Wolf’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), from January 8, 2014 onward, power plants can be left out of the plan altogether, should the state exercise its discretion. Twenty-one of the plants are already guaranteed exemption because their capacity falls at or below the minimum 25 megawatts required before a plant is subject to the plan.

An investigation of media and industry reports conducted by Pennsylvanians Against Fracking found that only four of the power plants are coal plant conversions--Panda Hummel Station, NRG Shawville, NRG New Castle, and Talen Brunner Island. A 43rd plant on the list, Armstrong Power LLC, appears to be an existing natural gas power plant that is adding five diesel emergency generator engines. The coalition’s investigation also turned up 15 additional plants not included on the DEP’s list.

Some are listed in industry reports as being in the conceptual phase, meaning more plants could be coming.

Pennsylvanians Against Fracking has been addressing the issues with the Clean Power Plan in a series of statements.

The coalition’s third statement reads, “The proposed plants are but the beginning of what lies ahead for Pennsylvania if the state adopts a Clean Power Plan that places natural gas as a clean energy fuel. The intent is clear; natural gas will be the next

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6 - NEWPEOPLE

October 2016

energy to power not only Pennsylvania but the nation as well, to the detriment of developing renewable energy sources and despite climate change being the singular health and environmental threat the world faces.”

Pennsylvanians Against Fracking has also created a sign-on letter, to be delivered to Governor Wolf, calling on him to direct the DEP to remove natural gas drilling, infrastructure, and power plants from the state’s plan to comply with the Clean Power Plan. Organizations can sign on to the letter at paagainstfracking.org Dirty Gas has no place in a Pennsylvania Clean Power Plan, even though: •The Clean Power Plan puts natural gas in the “clean” column •The Clean Power Plan guarantees reliance on natural gas •The Clean Power Plan doesn’t limit how much a state can rely on gas to meet its target •The Clean Power Plan institutionalizes and enables pollution •The Wolf administration’s developing Clean Power Plan for Pennsylvania is a means by which we can kiss a fracking moratorium or ban goodbye Wanda Guthrie is Chair, EcoJustice Working Group, an activity of the TMC, and member of the Steering Committee of Pennsylvanians Against Fracking.

Should Clean Drinking Water Become a Luxury Cont’d

By Angelica Walker

legally obligated to engage in measures including testing your home’s water, treating pipes for corrosion, and replacing service lines and pipes. To access these services, residents are invited to call (412) 782-7554 to request a test, which will place them on a waitlist. The letter included no details about how many days, months, or years it would be before any pipes would actually be replaced.

How did our water supply get this bad? Could we have prevented this?

Well, we could have. Lead pipes have been corroding at steady rates for over 30 years, and we’ve long known how harmful it is to ingest lead. The problem is, we just didn’t care. Instead, we allowed corporations to convince us that tap water is inherently unhealthy.

“When we’re done, tap water will be relegated to showers and washing dishes,” Susan Wellington, president of the Quaker Oats Co.’s U.S. beverage division told industry analysts in 2000.

She didn’t say this out of her passion to create a healthier public. She said it to sell bottles and make money.

For the next 16 years, beverage and water filter companies poured billions of dollars into making us believe that their water is somehow better that tap water. They showed us cute animations of their filters pulling little dirt particles out of tap water, like Febreeze pulling odors out of the air.

They let us know that as long as we’d keep buying their products, we’d be safe.

The third option - putting pressure on governments to fix the pipes - was never mentioned. Thirty years ago our pipes were relatively fine. But that was also never mentioned. The fact that replacing these pipes would lead to cleaner water was never mentioned. Dirty tap water was painted as an inevitable, per-

petual fact of life.

While filtered water started out as a luxury item, praised by urban yuppies and ridiculed by the working class, it slowly became seen as a necessity. Now that the problem has worsened, those who can’t afford filters are often left to drink lead or not drink at all.

Half a year after news broke in Flint, little has been done. Instead of putting pressure on governments, charities responded by distributing a free but temporary, and now mostly gone supply of bottled water.

People have responded by telling us there’s just not enough money to fix the pipes - because, for some reason, public health is not considered a priority.

But can you imagine if we needed funding to develop vaccines for a new virus infecting millions of American children and causing delayed neurodevelopment, learning difficulties, decreased memory, aggression, osteoporosis, and heart disease? Can you imagine the media outrage and fear? We would find the money.

But because our water is still relatively clear instead of yellow, because we haven’t been educated on how harmful lead can be, because we’ve been trained to only use tap water for “showers and washing dishes,” because we’ve been told the solution is to avoid tap water altogether by investing in fancy gadgets, this is an invisible issue.

Because it usually only affects the poor, this isn’t an issue worth worrying about.

Clean, safe water is a government responsibility and a human right. It’s time we started acting like it.

Angelica Walker is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh studying social work, legal studies, writing, and political science.

Ending Hunger, Eating Well From Heart to Harvest My earliest memories come from growing up in Mt. Washington, living upstairs from my grandparents. The back yard was planted end to end with a garden that fed the whole family. We had fruit trees on the borders – pears, plums, cherries, peaches, and, of course, fig trees Pop carried here from their home town of Campolieto-Campobasso in Italy. No space was wasted, and the skill of ages went into making everything flourish. I learned from an early age about planting onions among the tomatoes, and putting the zucchini squash and beans in alternating plots each year. The brick walkways had chamomile and thyme growing in the spaces, so walking through the garden was a fragrant experience. Mint, chamomile, oregano flowers, and rosemary scented the linen drawers.

My grandfather worked for the railroad as a skilled stone cutter, laying the rail beds that wound through the city and into the boroughs beyond. He went off in the morning with a lunch box filled with hand-made bread, slathered with lard, and filled with the bounty of the season - fresh onions and tomatoes, with basil in the summer, dry sausage and roasted peppers in the winter, and all variations in between.

As a child, I did not know we were poor because we ate like kings! Of course, it was the labor of days and nights that fed the family. All summer, we put up food in jars, working under the porch in the shade of the grape arbor that grew up to the second floor.

Since every house on the whole block was farming as we did, we pooled resources to harvest and can.

Three or four women chatted away in Italian as they peeled, pared, pressed and stirred vast vats of sauce

By Patricia DeMarco, Ph.D

over the black coal stove. We went to each house in turn, sharing seasonings and recipes, none written down but passed on from hands to hands.

At the end of the summer, the cold room in the cellar would be filled with hundreds of quarts of tomato sauce, ratatouille, beets, carrots, beans dried and stored, onions and garlic hanging from their braided stalks, roasted peppers stored in oil, eggplant and all manner of pickles. In the winter, we would make salchiche (sausage) and Pop would take a good piece for prosciutto, a five year process of packing in salt and pepper. The new one would go to the back of the line, and the front one would be cut. A special treat in summer would be a curl of the deep red meat over a cold slice of melon.

We did not always have meat, but we kept illegal chickens under the porch that supplied eggs, and vast amounts of chicken cacciatore for the gatherings of the extended family on feast days. (My Nona celebrated the saint day, not the birthday, of her children.) As I have tried to become less dependent on meat in the diet, I have recalled so many of my Nona’s meals. She made yellow and green zucchini with onions, peppers and tomatoes well-seasoned with garlic, basil, oregano and hot pepper to pour over polenta. Or this was served fresh sometimes in the summer, with eggs poached in the broth and big slabs of hot bread. In the winter, the freshness of the summer days would rise from the jar, as the canned ratatouille was opened to serve. And nothing beats home canned tomato sauce over hand-made gnocchi.

I have always put some freshness of summer up for the winter in jars. Partly because I love jam on

I Vote to End Hunger Campaign Bread for the World and its thousands of members across the U.S. believe that ending hunger by 2030 is a goal within reach, and we are taking our convictions with us when we vote this November.

One in three voters in the U.S says that they will vote for candidates who make ending hunger one of their top priorities.

Bread for the World is digitally engaged with 14 million voters, focused in ten swing states. We are in conversation with the presidential candidates, and Bread’s activists across the country are meeting with candidates for Congress. We want the president and Congress members who take office in 2017 to do their part to put our nation and the world on track to end hunger by 2030.

In the United States one in five children is at risk of hunger. While the social programs that began in the 1960s have reduced poverty by about 50 percent, we can do better. To end hunger in the U.S., we need policies that enable people to provide for themselves and their families. We must disrupt discrimination and injustice.

Globally, the world is making unprecedented progress against hunger, poverty, and disease. The number of people in extreme poverty has dropped from two billion in 1990 to less than one billion people today. It now seems feasible to virtually end hunger and malnutrition in the world. In fact, all the nations of the world, including the U.S., agreed last fall to the Sustainable Development Goals, which include

Patricia DeMarco is a researcher and writer, hosting a radio program on the Union Edge, entitled "Just Transitions: Labor, Environment and Health.”

By Joyce Rothermel

ending hunger by 2030 in the U.S. and around the world.

Government can’t end hunger by itself, but our government needs to provide a framework in which states, local communities, churches, businesses, and families can work together to end hunger.

Here is a portion of the Bread for the World policy statements and action items. Bread for the World supports these domestic policy strategies:

policy strategies:

1. Provide U.S. leadership for international systems that reduce hunger and poverty. U.S. government leadership on hunger and malnutrition helps mobilize attention and leverages additional resources from other countries and institutions, thus accelerating progress.

• Lead the world in implementing global goals to reduce poverty and protect the environment—the 1. Create jobs that pay. Twenty-three million Ameri- Sustainable Development Goals. cans make so little that even when both parents are working, they can’t feed their family. The best way 2. Expand and improve development assistance foto end hunger is to ensure that people can get good, cused on poverty. We spend less than one percent of family-sustaining jobs. the U.S. budget on aid to help reduce global hunger, • Make growing the economy and reducing income poverty, and disease. We benefit when children are disparities a high priority. educated and the struggling farmers can feed their families in very-low income countries.

2. Invest in people. There is no higher calling for • Make U.S. aid more efficient and accountable. government than helping people reach their potential, • Use U.S. assistance and diplomacy to promote and we know one of the biggest obstacles, especially equality for women. for children, is hunger.

• Ensure that everyone has access to good nutri3. Invest in global food security and nutrition. 45 pertion, health care, education, and housing. cent of all preventable child deaths are due to hunger and malnutrition. Every dollar invested in nutrition 3. Remove obstacles to earning a decent living. To for mothers and children yields a return of $16. end hunger, we need to include everyone.

• Invest in sustainable agriculture among small• Enforce laws against racial, gender, and other holder farmers–more than 40 percent of whom are discrimination, and end discriminatory practices. women.

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4836 Ellsworth Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Phone: (412) 683-2669

my breakfast toast, but dislike the overly sugared and tasteless commercial preserves. I find that done in small batches of about 12 cups at a time, it is simple The author’s harvest. Photo credit: and very rePatty DeMarco warding to make jam. Strawberries in May, rhubarb, plums, peaches, raspberries, and blackberries all find their way to the larder. It is also very easy to put up fresh fruit, especially peaches and pears and applesauce with just a boiling water bath as a processing requirement. And of course, the fresh tomato sauce, ratatouille, beets, carrots, and eggplant come in season. The time is easily found when the reward is so tangible, and adds so much to the quality of life.

Though I rely on my CSA (farmshare) from Kretschmann Organic Family Farm for most of my produce to can, I still feel connected to the farming tradition of my family. It warms my heart to share my Nona’s legacy with those I love.

4. Strengthen the safety net. Most people need some help at some point in their lives. On average, families who receive SNAP (formerly called food stamps) leave the program after 14 months.

• Strengthen our national nutrition programs—school and summer meals, SNAP, WIC (for pregnant mothers and young children), and home-based meals for elders.

We ask our candidates: 1. If elected, what will you do to end hunger, alleviate poverty, and create opportunity in the U.S. and worldwide?

2. Will you publicize your position on hunger, poverty, and opportunity on your website and in social media?

3. Will you meet with us within the first 30 days of taking office?

Will you help us reach out to candidates here in southwestern Pennsylvania? Please join our SW PA Bread for the World efforts. Visit www.bread.org/ votetoendhunger and contact me at rothermeljoyce@gmail.com

Joyce Rothermel is Co-Convener of the SW Bread for the World sup- PA Bread for the World Team. ports these international October 2016

NEWPEOPLE - 7

I Am Steve I Am Project

By Kate Koenig

The mission of the “I am ____” Project is to open a window into the lives of trans individuals to promote awareness and compassion through the medium of photography. Photography has often been used as a tool for education and awareness. While debates in politics and social matters don’t always change hearts or encourage the “other side” to reconsider their position, art can sometimes transcend those beliefs and bring about a new understanding. This project is my attempt to bridge the gap and open more hearts to transgender individuals.

The project is ongoing and I would love to continue expanding upon it. If you would like information about participating in the project or sponsoring project travel to more cities, please contact me at katekoenigphotography@gmail.com.

Website: http://www.katekoenigphotography.com Link to the Project: http://www.katekoenigphotography.com/iamproject/ How did you come up with Steve?

The name was a long process. I’m not good with change, especially with things that involve me hearing them every day. I tried out the name Clive for a while, but a week later I decided it wasn’t good for me. I was okay with my birth name, but it felt wrong because my parents intended for it to be for a daughter.

I actually asked my parents before I came out what they would have named me and they said Steve.

There were some real doosies in the running.

What are your hobbies?

I work on independent art and comic making. I used to play piano and I want to get back into it. I run when I have the motivation to and I want to get into weight lift-

ing.

What kinds of things do you see yourself writing?

I’m interested in writing novels and short stories. I’m very interested in what makes us human, morality, things like that. I want to bring in fantasy elements to help portray that.

What would you like to see happen in the LGBT community or trans community?

I don’t like how it tries to isolate itself.

I don’t like that a lot of people in the community attack cis, straight people. It’s a kneejerk reaction dehumanizing them. I don’t like how the community splits itself, too.

It honestly bothers me that the community is so militant. I think people that have experienced trauma shouldn’t be negated because of it. There are asexual people who have been assaulted, and that’s why they’re asexual, but that doesn’t mean they are less valid.

I hope the LGBT community gets itself to a point where it is compassionate. I also hope it becomes less materialistic. I had a friend who was upset about all of the nudity at a pride event because there were children there. The community can be either positive or very nihilistic and negative.

How has your gender identity changed you, how has it not?

I like to think it hasn’t. I think once you realize things, you start to overcompensate. When I was first figuring things out, I started acting like a loud obnoxious jerk. I like hanging out with testosteronefueled dude bros. I think they’re weirdly mellow for how aggressive they are.

As far as how it has changed me, I think it’s been more of a responsibility. I had a conversation with my sister and she said what is being this gender if it isn’t this. Since then, I’ve tried to be more stoic. But in terms of personality, I don’t think it’s really changed me that much.

Do you have a significant other? How do they identify? Were you dating before you began your transition? How did they take it? If not, how did the conversation go when you told them?

Yes, Leo. He is a trans man.

We were not dating, but we knew each other. We started our transitions pretty much around the same time.

Before Leo I dated someone else. She lived in Canada.

She’s three years older. I was seventeen and she was twenty. The age was the issue. She needed different things from the relationship.

She was fine with the transition. With Leo, we’re both okay with waiting for in person contact.

8 - NEWPEOPLE

October 2016

When did you first hear the word ‘Transgender’?

I’m not sure about the word, but I knew the topic. My friend in high school sophomore year, he didn’t really come out, he just made a new Facebook and friended me.

I said, “I didn’t know you had a brother!” It was about half a year after that that I figured it out about myself. It took a few conversations with him to understand him and what it meant to be trans.

Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten? Five years is hard to think about because I’m not sure if I’m going to grad school yet. In ten years I’m hoping to be writing for a living. Transition wise in five years I hope to be at least started on hormones. In ten years, reaching a point where I feel happy and comfortable with everything.

Do you bind and if so, what was the process of binding like?

Yes. I think when I was first starting, I was very exact about it because I’d heard all of the dangers about it. I would put it on at seven am and would take it off after school which ended up being about eight hours. With the dorm situation, I’ve been more stressed. I’ve ended up wearing sweatshirts a lot. I never used ace bandages. I just got exercise binders, which I’m really excited about using. I used to wear three sports bras and I couldn’t really breathe.

Kate Koenig is a writer studying History, English, and German at the University of Pittsburgh.

Besides writing, Kate is actively involved in photography. Her writing has previously been published in The Original Magazine and her photography has been published in TeenInk and Hot Metal Bridge Magazine.

Learning from Women Activists Joyful Process With Liana Maneese

By Marni Fritz

Often in the anti-racist social movement, the work of women goes ignored. Women work tirelessly behind the scenes, only to be represented by a man with a bull-horn. This erasure is exhausting and overwhelming. In an effort to raise up the voices and anti-racist work of women in Pittsburgh, I am beginning a series that focuses on the fierce women who are taking ownership of their work, to discuss concepts of identity, what their work looks like, and how they make sure they are giving themselves the emotional attention they deserve.

her mentor, who was also a woman of color, Liana had realized that “it was for white people that I was pretty much doing everything I had ever done. To prove something to white people. Never to me.”

Currently Liana focuses her energy on two separate businesses using different approaches to combat racism: Adopting Identity and The Good Peoples Group. Adopting Identity is an organization for individuals who “I have always wanted to work for myself my are ready to delve deeper into antiwhole life. For the past three years I have been try- racism in their own lives. The Good ing to figure out what that will look like.” Liana, a Peoples Group focuses on training for black woman adopted from Brazil by white parents, businesses and nonprofits looking to reflects on her life as a businesswoman navigating cover the basics.

The Good Peoples Group team. Photo by Njaimeh Njie the nonprofit world in Pittsburgh. But her experience The offices of both entities are in Pittsburgh nonprofits and higher education has opening around the New Year, with been one of tokenization, exploitation and exhausopportunities for membership. As a member, one She describes herself as an empathetic person tion. would be able to take advantage of workshops cov- who really takes on the emotional burden of her enClaiming that her education wasn’t good ering various topics around power, privilege, race vironment and it was killing her. enough, the white women with whom Liana and identity. Members would be allowed to use the “I need to be happy. At least sometimes.” worked influenced her to go back to school. But facility, resources and personal consulting time And she’s right. It is about finding the “joyful without the support she needed, Liana was discour- based on their membership level. “These businesses process,” the balance and “a way for me to care for aged by the head of her department, who actively all came from life experiences, learning about myother people, do work, help change the world and tried to convince her professors to give her a lower self in the process, learning more about systems, give, but in a way that is also helpful for me, not just grade than the ones she earned. how certain things make me feel, make other people killing me slowly.”

“When I think about identity, I always say: feel, and what was standing in other people's way.”

Part of the emotional care Liana allows herself ‘Other people decide who you are for you.’ I can do For Liana, it is extremely important to help is finding a balance specific to her needs. To her, whatever I want- dress a certain way; try to get peo- those she’s working with find happiness in the pro- this looks like making money, helping people while ple to think a certain way about me. But, ultimately, cess of deconstructing racism. But a major problem helping herself simultaneously, focusing on specific my identity is determined by them.”

Liana encountered with anti-racist work was the sys- big things she wants to go after, being OK with not And unfortunately, Liana discovered that she temic focus. doing certain things, and not feeling guilty if people had also been feeding into that. After approaching “In an effort to make white people feel comfort- chide her for “not showing up.” able talking about race, we promote a “That’s the beauty of it - it's not that I don’t mentality that ‘it’s not you, it’s the sys- care what other people think, but I check in with tem,’ which is detrimental to anti-racist myself.” People often expect a lot of emotional and work. We make up that system. We re- physical energy from people doing social justice inforce that every single day. We are work, but for Liana, setting boundaries is parapart of it. Which is why the only way I mount. could ever live with myself is to not “In Pittsburgh everyone’s expected to be a cerwork for other people.” tain way all the time and it’s just unfair to all those The emotional exhaustion of working people and to ourselves because it limits our ability in nonprofits and being an “activist” to grow and change.” soon became too much for Liana.

Make sure to check out the Good Peoples Group and Adopting Identity on Facebook to “When you do this stuff all the time it kills you. Which is why we say stop ex- stay updated on the opening of their office space pecting black people, brown people, etc. and services! to have to deal with this. Because the stuff that white people have to do, we’ve Marni Fritz is the Director of Communications and already been doing and we have all this NewPeople Coordinator for the Thomas Merton Center. other stuff on top of it and it’s overLiana Maneese. Photo by Njaimeh Njie whelming.”

Wisdom From a Social Justice Warrior The last verse of a song from the 20th century’s Southern Freedom Movement, entitled “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle,” says, “Freedom is a constant dying. O Lord, we’ve died so long. We must be free.

We must be free.” Of course, these tragic words sound so contemporary.

I am not a person of color, but I do have dearly beloved family members of color. So even for me, it is deeply depressing to acknowledge what we see on the internet every week, sometimes every day, the constant devaluation and destruction of black lives.

This is the same destruction of black lives which the United States has overseen ever since Emancipation.

Even today, there seems to be no end in sight.

This is the crisis that Angela Y. Davis addresses in her new book, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (Chicago: Haymarket Press, 2016).

For those who don’t know her, Angela Davis is a renowned scholar and political activist. In the late 1960’s, while she was a young philosophy professor at UCLA, Governor Ronald Reagan led the charge to have her terminated because of her support for political prisoners and her affiliation with the CheLumumba Club, the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Because of the hyped-up media coverage at the time, Professor Da-

vis received several credible death threats, so she purchased guns for self-defense.

In August, 1970, her guns were used without her knowledge or consent in the attempted escape of political prisoners from a courtroom in Marin County, CA. This escape was a desperate and ultimately fatal attempt by a young man of color to save the older brother whom he adored, the only adult male with integrity he had known in his short life. It was a futile attempt and four people, including the judge, died when the police fired upon the escape vehicle.

Because the guns were registered in Davis's name, authorities issued a warrant for her arrest. J Edgar Hoover went so far as to place her on his infamous Ten Most Wanted List.

The nation-wide hunt for Angela Davis, her eventual arrest, the trial and the campaign to "Free Angela Davis" made international headlines and made history. (The 2012 documentary, “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners,” is a fascinating overview of those events.)

Ever since that time, Davis has been an indefatigable advocate for the rights of oppressed people the world over and for the abolition of prisons. Her book is a collection of interviews and speeches Davis has given all around the world. She addresses prison abolition, black feminism, police brutality,

By Jeff Cummings

elections versus direct action, intersectionality, Palestinian rights, Assata Shakur and so much more.

These pages are full of wisdom from a tried and proven social justice warrior, required reading for all serious activists.

Space demands that I limit myself to just one quote. The interviewer asks, "You've been an activist for decades. What keeps you going?"

Davis replies, "Well, I don't think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it's only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect. What has kept me going has been the development of new modes of community. I don't know that I would have survived had not movements survived, had not communities of resistance, communities of struggle. So whatever I'm doing I always feel myself connected to those communities and I think that this is an era where we have to encourage that sense of community, particularly at a time when neoliberalism attempts to force people to think of themselves only in individual terms and not in collective terms. It is in collectives that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism."

Jeff Cummings is a fundraiser with Donor Services Group and a social justice journalist.

October 2016

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Struggling for Peace Protest Continues in Palestine “You won’t read about this in your newspapers,” said Palestinian activist Iyad Burnat as he showed film clips of encounters between Israeli soldiers and villagers engaged in nonviolent demonstrations in the West Bank village of Bil’in. For eleven years Mr. Burnat has helped coordinate weekly demonstrations against the Israeli occupation and the separation wall that deprived the village of 60 % of its farmland--an experience recorded by his brother Emad in the 2011 documentary “Five Broken Cameras.”

In 2004 the Israeli government undertook construction of a wall separating Israel from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The wall, 90% of which is built on West Bank land, is more than twice the length of the “Green Line” forming Israel’s 1967 border. Thousands of olive trees were uprooted and hundreds of acres of Palestinian land were seized in the process.

Mr. Burnat helped organize a “Popular Committee” in Bil’in to protest. Every Friday villagers gather for a Unity March to the wall. They’re met by Israeli soldiers and border police, who respond with rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas, sound grenades, “skunk water,” and sometimes live ammunition.

From a distance a few teenagers hurl stones from slingshots (he calls them the “Davids” confronting Goliath). But they’re aware that even though their stones hit no soldiers they risk a prison sentence of up to 20 years for their actions; Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has declared Palestinian stonethrowing “an act of terrorism.” (More than a dozen nearby villages carry out similar demonstrations. He describes them, and their attendant casualties, in his book “Bil’in and the Nonviolent Resistance.”)

By Leila Richards

The film “Five Broken Cameras” captures the creativity and humor of these demonstrators, as well as the dangers they face. Every demonstration has a different theme, often employing costumes and props--a Gaza “peace boat,” a mock settlement, a metal cage with demonstrators locked inside--to drive home a political message. The fact that the demonstrations have attracted growing international participation over the years--Israeli peace activists, visiting church groups, even embassy officials-affords villagers a measure of protection, but the toll has been high: 150 arrests, 1300 injuries, and two deaths, including a young man shot in the chest with a tear gas canister at close range (tear gas, Mr. Burnat reminds us, manufactured not far from Pittsburgh).

In July 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled in an advisory opinion that the separation wall violated international law and should be dismantled-a decision ignored by the Israeli government. But with the assistance of Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, Bil’in villagers challenged the route of the wall in the courts. In 2007 the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that the wall through Bil’in served no security function and should be rerouted.

It took four years for the Israeli military to comply-and the decision returned only half of their land. The rest has been used for settlement construction.

Mr. Burnat is only 43, but his hair is turning gray. His entire life has been spent under occupation. He has been arrested 15 times, and has broken bones from beatings. His oldest son was shot with live ammunition directly in front of him and is crippled with a nerve injury. When an audience member remarked that he had a “right to be exhausted,” he

IRS Attacks IFCO/Pastors for Peace The IRS has informed IFCO/Pastors for Peace (P4P) that they are determined to revoke IFCO/ P4P’s tax-deductible 501(c)(3) status because IFCO/ P4P supplied humanitarian aid to the churches and people of Cuba for the past 26 years without being licensed by the US government.

The Interreligious Foundation of Community Organizing (IFCO) is an African-American led foundation, and has been in existence for over 40 years, supporting many causes from anti-Klan work to Native American rights. IFCO was the fiscal sponsor for the Palestine Flotilla and the U.S.-Cuba Friendshipment Caravans, working with the Cuban Council of Churches for over 26 years, and many other solidarity organizations. They also are the group that administers all U.S. applications to the Latin American Medical School, where hundreds of U.S. residents have become doctors and are now serving in underserved U.S. communities.

If the IRS succeeds, many organizations nationwide will be impacted and have their operating and fundraising abilities severely affected.

So why now? The IRS says that because P4P took humanitarian aid to Cuba (for the past 28 years) without U.S. government license they are going to revoke IFCO/P4P’s 501(c)(3).

The deliberate defiance of the U.S. blockade against Cuba challenges the immorality of an unjust policy, which the UN General Assembly has declared “an act of war against a civilian population and a profound human rights violation against the entire population of Cuba.” This has been the purpose of the U.S.-Cuba Friendshipments. For over 26 years! They continue today exactly because, despite the change in official narrative supporting the ‘normalization’ of US-Cuba relations, the policy of regime change and economic sanctions are 100% still in full force.

It doesn’t matter who wins the presidency as far as U.S.-Cuba policy is concerned. It is highly unlikely that Congress will unite to end the blockade of Cuba. No matter how many people travel to Cuba, pretending they are not just curious, the U.S. policy of war against Cuba and the use of resources to overthrow the Cuban government remain in full force.

Pastors for Peace will continue to travel across the U.S and inform the people of this country that the people of Cuba are still under siege by the U.S., whose stated objective is to: ‘starve them into submission.” If Cuba were to ‘surrender’ to the U.S. and be annexed, or allow for elections which allowed

replied, “I have to do this for my children.” He intends to continue protesting until the separation wall is dismantled. And he’s confident that, with the support of the international community, he’ll eventually prevail.

Mr. Burnat regards the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the occupation as a legitimate tool of resistance, citing the precedents of boycotts employed by the US civil rights movement, South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, and the Palestinian boycott of Israeli products during the first intifada. The BDS movement, launched by Palestinian civil society organizations in 2005, is grounded in international human rights and UN resolutions. Its rapid growth has no doubt been helped by the current policies of the Netanyahu government, which has virtually shut down all effective avenues of protest against the occupation. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon has advocated the annexation of the West Bank, and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan characterizes Palestinian hunger strikes as a “new type of suicide terrorist attack.” Israel’s allies in this country, and our elected officials, remain silent. Should we acquiesce?

“I swore never to be silent whenever, wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation,” said Elie Wiesel in accepting the Nobel Prize.

“Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Leila Richards is a retired public health physician who worked in the West Bank in 2004 as a volunteer through the World Council of Churches.

By Lisa Valanti

U.S. proxies to run the Cuban government, then Congress might act, but until then… the insanity continues, and P4P will continue to challenge it.

Please go to the Pastors for Peace website: http://ifconews.org and sign the petitions and do whatever else you can do to help us put enough light on the IRS using its powers to intimidate dissent, and to force the IRS to recant. Because if they get away with this, all progressive organizations could face the same consequences. United is the only way we stand.

We also invite you to support work towards genuine normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations by joining the Pittsburgh-Matanzas Sister Cities Partnership; cubasipgh@gmail.com, http:// cubasipgh.org or Pittsburgh-Cuba MeetUp. Lisa Valanti participated in the Pastors for Peace Friendshipments to Cuba for 26 years, this being the first summer she has ever missed, and participated in both international solidarity events, the Little Yellow School Bus 23-day hunger strike and the 94-day Fast for Life to free humanitarian aid to Cuba.

Ecological Conversion Topic in Fall Speakers’ Series

By Joyce Rothermel

Jame Schaefer, PhD will speak on “Ecological Conversion, Developing Virtuous Communities” on Thursday, October 27 at 7 PM at the Kearns Spirituality Center. Jame is the second of four speakers in the fall speakers’ series of the Association of

gy, natural sciences, technology, and ecological ethics relate to and impinge upon each other. Her publications include Confronting the Climate Crisis: Catholic Theological Perspectives (Marquette University Press, 2011). Her talk will discuss and describe how to develop virtuous communities and help her listeners enter into dialogue with all people about our common home – earth. Her views on the urgent need for ecological conversion echo and reinforce those expressed by Pope Francis in his renowned encyclical, “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home”.

The Kearns Spirituality Center is located at 9000 Babcock Blvd. in Allison Park (beside Pittsburgh Priests.

LaRoche College and behind the Motherhouse of the Dr. Schaefer is an associate professor in the Sisters of Divine Providence). The fee for the upTheology Department at Marquette University; her coming talk is $20. Pre-registrations can be made by works and books focus on the ways in which theolo- sending $20 to the Association of Pittsburgh Priests 10 - NEWPEOPLE October 2016

at P.O. Box 2106, Pittsburgh, PA 15230. Participants can also register at the door the evening of the talk.

Other speakers in the series are Robert Mickens, whose topic is “The Impact of Pope Francis on the Church in Rome, the Bishops around the World, and the People in the Pews,” on Monday, Nov. 7; and finally, Tina Whitehead will address “Seeing the Other” on Monday, Dec. 5.

For more information and questions, contact Fr. John Oesterle at 412-232-7512 or johnoesterle2@gmail.com

Joyce Rothermel serves as Chair of the Church Renewal Committee of the Association of Pittsburgh Priests.

For an Inclusive America Local SOA Watch Sending 13 to Mexico Border Three-hundred and ninety human rights, social justice, faith-based, labor, and immigrant rights groups are calling for an International Convergence at the U.S./Mexico Border from October 7-10, 2016.

Thirteen people are participating through the SW PA School of the Americas Watch chapter here at the Merton Center with the financial help of many of our members.

Activists will gather at the border in the lead-up to the November elections, to highlight U.S. foreign policy as one of the root causes of migration, and to stage protests and nonviolent direct action against racism, xenophobia and U.S. militarization at home and abroad.

After holding an annual vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, for 26 years, SOA Watch and partner groups, based on broad-based grassroots power, will push back against militarization of the border, against criminalization of migrants and refugees, as well as name the root causes of migration.

SOA Watch and the endorsing organizations will stand on the side of mutual aid and solidarity, and build power for a cultural shift.

Communities are being targeted for assassination and state repression throughout the Americas by

U.S.-trained, military and police forces. People from Latin America continue to be forced to flee from U.S. trained repressive security forces, only to be confronted with a militarized border, racist laws, and xenophobic rhetoric in this election cycle. Black and Brown bodies in the U.S. continue to be targeted, systematically imprisoned and killed in the same way. We can no longer separate the issues and today we say enough! We cannot look at immigration reform without looking at its root cause. We cannot discuss police brutality or the prison industrial complex in the U.S. without discussing its root purpose.

State violence is used to exert control and oppress our communities in order to maintain an exploitative racist system that benefits the few. Today we say enough!

The convergence will include workshops and events on both sides

of the U.S./ Mexico border -- art, music, and resistance. To learn more about why SOA Watch is moving from the gates of Fort Benning to the border, visit www.SOAW.org/border A gathering will be held at the Merton Center following the return of the Pittsburgh group to share our experiences and discuss follow-up activities in our region.

Joyce Rothermel is a member of the SW PA School of the Americas Watch and will be participating in the Convergence.

Naturalization Ceremony at the Pump House Keynote Address: Naturalization Ceremony at the Pump House – site of the 1892 Battle of Homestead.

September 7, 2016 It is truly an honor to be invited to address a naturalization ceremony creating new citizens of the United States of America. It is especially meaningful at this time when immigration has become controversial in a way that it has not been since the 1920s.

It is also especially meaningful that this ceremony is being held in this place, the Pump House for the great Homestead Steel Works, the site of one of the most consequential conflicts in American labor history.

Like most Americans, I am a product of immigration: my father, Irish/Scots/ English mix; my mother, German; my wife, Polish. I am proud of my paternal ancestors who fought in the Revolution, the Civil War and World War II, and my mother's uncle who volunteered for the ambulance corps in World War I because he wanted to show his love for America, but would not shoot at fellow Germans. I am equally proud, however, that many family members including myself actively protested and resisted the Vietnam War and our invasion of Iraq.

Who is an American? The “100% American” questions the loyalty of the immigrant, the aptitude of the descendants of slaves or natives, Orientals or “Hunkies,” Catholics or Muslims. But only Native Americans have any degree of antiquity to their claim on this land. We fought a revolution over the issue of ancestry as a determinant of political power.

We fought a Civil War over slavery and the exclusion of a race of people from civil and legal rights.

But what is an American goes to the question of meaning. Is an American someone who has loyalty to a set of ideals, including freedom of speech, assembly and religion, who pledges allegiance to a government that provides for the common defense and promotes the general welfare? Or, does being an American come wrapped in an imperial flag, demanding unregulated private control of the nation’s wealth and lifeblood, and the reduction of government to the pursuit of power at home and abroad? If there is any meaning to the concept of American exceptionalism, it is not that God is on our side; rather, it is rooted in the diversity of our origins and expressed in our common yearning for freedom and justice for all.

On this very site in 1892, workers at the Carnegie Steel mill, the most productive and profitable facility in the world, resisted the occupation of their workplace by a well-armed private army in the name of an American right to a voice on the job, some input determining the price of their labor, some protection for their health and safety on the job. Government, in service to the interests of the wealthy and powerful, defeated the workers and decimated their organization. Immigrant labor and racism were used as tools to break the union, reduce pay and dramatically increase the hours of work.

However, in 1937, it was immigrant workers and African Americans who united through participation in the political process with the native born to strengthen workers’ rights, abolish child labor, and establish the eight-hour work day. The greatest Pittsburgh novel, Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell,

By Joyce Rothermel

By Charles McCollester

(real family name Belejcak – Slovak-Rusen) ends with the third generation union organizer character realizing deep in his soul that he has become an American.

“Maybe not the kind of American that came over on the Mayflower… or the kind that’s always shooting off their mouths about Americanism or patriotism…. If I’m anything at all I’m an American, only I’m not the kind you read about in the history books or that they make speeches about on the Fourth of July; anyway, not yet…. It wasn’t where you were born or how you spelled your name or where your father had come from. It was the way you thought and felt about certain things. About freedom of speech and the equality of men and the importance of having one law – the same law – for rich and poor, for people you liked and the people you didn’t like.”

America is a work in progress and immigrants who seek citizenship here reaffirm our basic commitment to human equality and the rule of law – that “same law for rich and poor, for those you like and those you don't like.” Our freedom to dissent and our history of joining together in concerted activity to better the lot of everyone is at the core of what it means to be an American. Educate yourself, vote, participate, share your wisdom, celebrate your roots.

We are a work in progress. Help us become better. It is your job now as well as ours. Welcome fellow citizens!

Charles McCollester is a former TMC board member.

Battle of Homestead Foundation October Events The Battle of Homestead Foundation(BHF) offers a summer lecture and film series, free and open to the public, at the Pump House, 880 East Waterfront Dr., Munhall, 15120. The BHF is a diverse organization of citizens, workers, educators and historians which aims to preserve, interpret and promote a peoples’ history focused on the significance of the dramatic labor conflict at the Homestead Works in 1892.

Saturday, October 15 – 1:30 pm- Poetry Progam - Meter and Meaning in Pittsburgh’s Varied Workplaces– a Tribute to Peter Oresick.

Four local poets – Judith Vollmer, Vanessa Vesch, Nick Coles and Jonathan

Robison--will present their own works and honor the life and work of the late poet, artist, educator, and publisher, Peter Oresick.

Selections from Carl Sandburg’s “Smoke and Steel” will be read by Coles.

Oresick was one of the founders of the Battle of Homestead Foundation, the sponsor of this speaker series. BHF evolved from the Homestead Strike Centennial Commemorative Committee, founded in 1990, and was incorporated in 1997.

Thursday, October 27- 7:30pm Film-Pride This film is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It’s the summer of 1984, Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers is on strike,

prompting a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists to raise money to support the strikers’ families. Initially rebuffed by the Union, the group identifies a tiny mining village in Wales and sets off to make their donation in person. As the strike drags on, the two groups discover that standing together makes for the strongest union of all. Pittsburgher Kipp Dawson, who was with these miners during the organizing, will speak. She is a former coal miner and currently a middle school teacher.

October 2016

NEWPEOPLE - 11

Defining Free Discourse What Corrupts or Frees the "Media" On several occasions Donald Trump has blamed a “disgusting and corrupt media” for his ongoing failure to gain a plurality of American voters.

Turning the word “media” into short-hand for a huge number of digital, broadcast and print outlets is an old political trick, of course, allowing an “us” to feel embattled and aggrieved by a “them” that may or may not encompass everybody who sees things differently.

“It is not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want, even if it is completely false,” Trump has tweeted, missing the obvious irony that he has the freedom to say and write many things others regard as completely false. The short answer to his claim is that permission to say and write what he might argue is false is as good a definition of the freedom of the press as any other.

Once in office, Trump has promised to change established law regarding provable slander and libel.

His ambition is to reverse decades-old high court decisions that establish a distinction under the law between alleged slander or libel of a public figure and that of a private citizen. A public figure hoping to establish he or she has been libeled must demonstrate that a media outlet both knowingly and maliciously published something untrue. Without such a high bar, the Supreme Court has decided, freedom of the press really would be threatened.

However, it’s not fear of libel that really irritates many thin-skinned public figures. Rather, it is those reporters who claim the right to do something other than act as stenographers. The rich and powerful would prefer that media outlets simply record and playback their utterances, along with the various

manipulative statements and performances generated by their underlings. To actually juxtapose to those statements a differing point-of-view, or to cite information contradicting a politician’s proffered version of reality, strikes the pampered and the privileged as a personal and unfair attack.

It is the response of the privileged to those perceived attacks that truly threatens to corrupt media. Many corporations and wealthy individuals retaliate by filing frivolous slander and libel suits they know have no legal merit, simply because those entities know the targets of their suits can’t afford to “lawyer up” in the way they can. Individuals and organizations who dare to criticize the wealthy can be driven into poverty and bankruptcy through the process of defending their first amendment rights.

Another strategy, of course, is simply to purchase or create one’s own media outlets.

The habitually ahistorical political discourse in this country forgets that the expectation of supposedly “unbiased” or “objective” reporting doesn’t go back much further than a century; even in the heyday of putative standards of “objectivity” for professional journalists, such reporting was always more aspirational than ingrained. Fifty to sixty years ago the Chicago Tribune was as obviously conservative as Fox News is today. Other papers leaned Democratic, but it took the fulminations of Spiro Agnew to convince people that the big East Coast print and broadcast outlets were part of a “liberal media elite.”

Any moderately reflective member of the abhorred “media” recognizes the limits of so-called “objective” journalism. Editors, reporters and commentators do not have a privileged perch on God’s shoulder, where they can see all, know all, and, most importantly, understand all. Editors choose what stories are worthy of an outlet’s attention, and how that story should be “framed.” Reporters select sources, take notice of certain information while ignoring other information, and construct narratives

By Neil Cosgrove

they suspect will have the most appeal to their prospective audiences. More highly placed individuals—executive producers or managing editors, for instance—may decide to green-light or “kill” some reporter’s product based on their own, all too limited point-of-view.

For decades, supposedly “objective” editors and reporters deliberately suppressed information about the sexual behavior of the rich and powerful, and about the often associative exploitation of women by the same. For decades, the only events in AfricanAmerican neighborhoods worthy of being designated “news” were stories of crime, while the most “newsworthy” of those stories involved white victims. While the nature of editors’ and reporters’ limited visions may have changed, that their perspectives are limited is beyond question.

What the first amendment does allow for is the presence of marginalized people who may, given their own limited visions, see things differently enough to shift perceptions within ever widening circles. A “free press” allows for honest selfexamination by journalists sufficiently aware of their own limited viewpoints, with the most courageous among them struggling and sometimes succeeding in perceiving something they had not seen before, and sharing that fresh perception with their audience.

“Objectivity” is a myth, but a constant commitment to intellectual honesty and painful self-examination is a professional standard worthy of the effort.

When that commitment disappears, or is overwhelmed through the suppression, intimidation or elimination of dissident voices by the rich and powerful, then we can say that the media has become “corrupt” in its entirety.

Neil Cosgrove is a member of The NewPeople Editorial Collective and of the Merton Center Board.

Safe Spaces and Trigger Warnings: What’s Actually Going on in America’s Classrooms?

By Tallon Kennedy

Back in September of 2015, The A tlantic produced a piece entitled “The Coddling of the American Mind” about the rise of trigger warnings and safe spaces across America’s colleges and universities. The Atlantic decried this trend by calling it “vindictive protectiveness,” suggesting that safe spaces create “a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse.”

This is a sentiment that President Obama echoed in a town hall event in Iowa, saying that he’s heard some college campuses alter their course material if the language of a book “is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women.”

In response to this controversy, the University of Chicago sent out a letter to its incoming students this fall semester, stating that “we do not support socalled trigger warnings…we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

It would seem that the overarching narrative of trigger warnings and safe spaces is one of babying the intellectual mind. It’s a narrative of intolerance to other viewpoints, and fostering destructive hypersensitivity within students. It’s a narrative of protecting students, rather than challenging them. But is this what’s really going on, or is the truth more nuanced and complex?

I took some time to speak with Julie Beaulieu, lecturer within the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies department at the University of Pittsburgh, to find out more.

Beaulieu created a blanket statement “content warning” for classrooms, preparing students for a class that “will often include difficult and/or emotionally challenging topics.” In a syllabus, Beaulieu advises students to “arrive to class early and take a seat by the door so that you can easily exit the classroom” if the student thinks that a discussion of the 12 - NEWPEOPLE October 2016

day’s reading could be especially unsettling to them.

“Content warnings aren’t about ‘don’t teach this difficult stuff’” Beaulieu tells me as we walk across the streets of Pittsburgh, headed towards the esteemed Cathedral of Learning.

“I don’t think it is shielding students from discussions. I think that you would see a variety of tough topics on a syllabus with or without the content warnings.” Beaulieu says. “You might actually be using the content warnings because you’re teaching tough stuff.”

But if trigger warnings don’t necessarily alter the difficulty level or the substance of course material, as President Obama proposed, and if they don’t prevent provocative subjects from being discussed, wouldn’t they at the very least silence other students who may have contradictory positions about a controversial topic?

“I’m not, as a teacher, an idea policer,” Beaulieu responds, saying that safe spaces don’t silence students, so much as enable them to comfortably have open discussion, knowing there’s a way to deal with strong emotional responses in the classroom if they were to arise.

“It’s about having an aspirational statement that says ‘we are all going to collectively do our best to make this space as safe as possible’” Beaulieu says.

“It just means watching your tone, or thinking critically about how you reply, or just apologizing when you get it wrong.”

The Atlantic article paints a picture of a university environment that is coddling to students in a way that is creating a generation of thin-skinned individuals who won’t be able to deal with real-world problems once they leave the safe college environment.

“Quite frankly that’s just deeply offensive to me.” Beaulieu retorts. “People say it’s ‘coddling’ but I actually see it as exactly the opposite, I see it as preparing people to deal with social/political stuff that’s really difficult in a way that they get to set

their own terms.”

This is an insightful notion in a society that seems increasingly concerned with exactly how political issues are discussed, with many condemning the rise of “political correctness” as unjustly policing rhetoric to an infantilizing degree. As a result, there has been speculation about the way this current generation of college students will grow up to confront oppositional ideas.

But Beaulieu proposes that safe spaces are far from childish, and cultivate very adult, serious conversations about health and community.

“It’s actually entirely possible that [safe spaces] make this generation stronger and more capable of setting boundaries and having meaningful relationships” Beaulieu says.

If the old narrative is thus challenged by these contradictory ideas of safe spaces and trigger warnings being beneficial to critical thought, and of preparing young adults to civilly confront tough issues the world throws at them, what should the new narrative be?

“Content warnings allow people to know that you care about them, and that you care about their feelings of safety,” Beaulieu proposes.

Love. Empathy. Peace. Are these not emotionally mature concepts to be looking towards? Are these not ideologies that should pervade the rhetoric and tone of intellectual discourse?

“Here we are: bodies, histories, experiences, all in this shared space. Why wouldn’t you want to at least aspire to make it safe?” asks Beaulieu.

Tallon Kennedy is an intern journalist at The NewPeople Newspaper. He is a poet and an undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh studying writing, literature, and gender, sexuality, and women's studies.

Building Social Justice Journey Toward Justice I’ve admired Sister Patricia McCann, of the Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy, for years, and now I know what makes her tick. “My social justice orientation is faith-based,” she said, “in a very holistic way. We’re supposed to live the gospel.”

Pat grew up in an Irish Catholic family. Her father, a state policeman, and her mother, a homemaker, second-generation Irish, grew up on stories of oppression in Ireland, oppression largely because they were Catholic. “So they were both strong on social justice, “said Pat. “Voting and going to church were two moral obligations, just about equal. My dad felt that the political system could make life better for people and if you were Irish and Catholic in America, you were a Democrat, a member of the party that helped the poor, the working people, the union, and the immigrants. It was all part of the real world, not like here’s church and here’s the world.”

Pat grew up in Bedford, where her father was in charge of the state police force during the early years of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. In grade school, she was the only Catholic child in the class. Attending St. Xavier’s Academy in Latrobe in the 1950’s, she had her first exposure to Catholic social teaching.

“The early encyclicals supporting labor unions and dealing with Nazism made the case that the church should be involved in social justice. Then in the 1970’s came the pastorals on peace, racism, the economy. By that time I was teaching church history at St. Vincent’s and used those pastorals in my classes.” Pat also taught American history at Our Lady of Mercy Academy (no longer existing) to high school students.”

While teaching at Mt. Mercy College, (now Carlow) Pat accompanied four bus loads of college

By Bette McDevitt

students from Carlow, Pitt and Duquesne to the rally for passage of the Voting Rights Bill, led by Martin Luther King, in March of 1965. The students were stationed to greet the marchers from Selma on the steps of the capital building in Montgomery. “We knew it was going to be dangerous, because a social worker had been murdered by KKK the week before in Selma. We were not frightened, but I became more concerned when we were there. We got nonviolence training on the bus from someone experienced in going to these demonstrations. When we were stopped in Birmingham by the police, one of the faculty members got off the bus and told the police we were on an educational trip, and we were permitted to go on. When we got to Montgomery we went directly into the black neighborhood and to the Baptist church. They fed and housed us, with open arms. I talked with a Marine, a veteran of Imo Jima, who had never voted. Every time he went to vote, he was asked to write the Constitution as a test for registering. It was a very important experience for me and made clear that this had to be included in my teaching.”

The Sisters of Mercy had been involved with the Merton Center since it’s founding in 1972, providing staff and financial support, and when Pat returned to the Mother House in the 1980’s to take a position in administration, she had direct involvement with the Center. “The various orders of women religious adopted the Center as a way to do social justice. We did whatever was needed. Some of our sisters were right on the front line. I would get phone calls that one or another of them was in jail.” It was the Sisters of Mercy, along with the Sisters of St. Joseph, who posted $125,000 in bail so that Molly

Rush could be released from jail.

Pat is now involved with the McAuley Ministries, named for the founder of the order, Catherine McAuley. The Ministries provide grants to those in need, in the zip code of Mercy Hospital, allowing projects to come alive that otherwise would never see the light of day. The funds came from the sale of Mercy Hospital to UPMC, providing the Sisters a way to continue their mission of helping the poor.

There is still time for politics, and Pat remains a steady writer of letters to the Post Gazette that go right to the heart of justice. “I have always loved politics, This 2016 election is the first time in my life that I find it very distressing, because of divisiveness, racism, polarization, bigotry, and the antiimmigrant bias. I think we have lost our sense that politics is a vehicle to pursue the common good.

And let me say this for the record. Pro-life is a very important issue, but pro-life means a lot more than anti- abortion; it means openness to immigrants, opposition to war, and the death penalty, addressing the issues of health care and affordable housing, recognizing that our obligation as a society is to help reduce poverty. Anti abortion cannot be the only issue we must use to measure the commitment to pro-life.

It is important for us to think large.”

Amen.

Bette McDevitt is a member of the editorial collective.

Cooperative Principles: Framework for a Democratic Economy

By Jeff Jaeger and Ron Gaydos

This is the first article in a series of seven that will present fundamental cooperative principles. The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Great Britain codified these principles in 1844. Each of them plays an important part in a successful cooperative.

We will tell you where these principles came from, how they continue into current cooperative culture, and why they’re important. But first, here are all seven: 1. Voluntary and Open Membership 2. Democratic Member Control 3. Members' Economic Participation 4. Autonomy and Independence 5. Education, Training and Information 6. Cooperation among Cooperatives 7. Concern for Community Principle Number One: Voluntary and Open Membership Imagine what work was like in 1800's Great Britain. Feudalism was giving way to industrialization. The impacts of the industrial revolution roared across society, but was hardest on people forced off of the communally used farmlands during the Enclosure. Having nowhere to go but to the new enclosed farms, mines, or factories, those who had to become wage earners were not guaranteed a living. Even skilled workers were forced into poverty.

In Rochdale in Lancashire, a group of 28 striking workers, about half of whom were displaced weavers, founded The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. They started a small store at 31 Toad Lane to provide basic foods the members needed at an affordable price. Anyone could buy into the store by paying one British pound. It didn't matter what your job was or who you worked for. Within three months the store was selling a wide range of food and household items.

The Rochdale Society answered an increasingly competitive and impersonal economy with an open organization for mutual benefit. The general idea of an open and voluntary cooperative started to catch on, and in ten years there were nearly 1,000 cooperatives of various kinds throughout Great Britain.

Rochdale still does business today as part of the Cooperative Group based in Manchester, England.

The First Principle continued into the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, a blend of a union and a network of cooperatives in the eastern US, which established foundries and manufacturing plants in the 1860’s into the 1880’s. The Knights of Labor welcomed women and African Americans into its membership of worker-owners.

Around the world, as well as in Pittsburgh, cooperatives still honor the principle of open and voluntary membership. The East End Food Co-op began in 1972 as a food-buying club – membership cost a dollar – and has evolved into a consumer coop with over 12,000 members. Member ownership and participation in the co-op’s leadership is open to anyone who chooses to be a member. East End’s Board of Directors election is going on now and will conclude on October 9. The business operates on the recognition that it needs the support of its members and customers.

Pittsburgh has many other cooperatives whose members adhere to the First Principle. The Black Urban Gardeners and Farmers Cooperative (BUGS) is open to any African American who upholds cooperative principles. The newly formed Allegheny Solar Cooperative is a member owned solar energy installer about to make member shares in its solar installation open to anyone. Work Hard Pittsburgh is converting from a closely-held ownership to a cooperative open to anyone interested in jointly owning and governing a co-working space in Pittsburgh’s Allentown neighborhood.

The Ujamaa Collective, dedicated to developing cooperative economics for Pittsburgh’s Black communities, works to help Black women in particular develop self-sufficiency through creative entrepreneurship by working together in their boutique, farm and marketplace where women create and sell their wares and share expertise with their neighbors and fellow members.

Many workers today question job security and democracy at their workplaces. Most workers spend about half of their waking hours in an authoritarian environment. Wealth and income inequality, and job downgrading to lower-wage or part-time status, af-

fect more people every year.

This is therefore a good time to revisit a business model with open and voluntary membership.

The cooperative model is shaped by a group of people who are looking out for each other and the community around them. The local community gains strength and resilience from the willingness of people to participate in, and become members of, a cooperative. We’re stronger together!

Jeff Jaeger is a member of the Steel City Soils Cooperative and a graduate of Slippery Rock University’s Master of Sustainability program. Ron Gaydos is a consultant in inclusive economic development, entrepreneurship, and organizational strategy, and a member of the Thomas Merton Center’s New Economy Campaign. Jeff and Ron are Co-Founders of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Cooperatives. (www.PittsburghChamber.coop)

In Memory of Peter Oresick Our community lost an outstanding member when Peter Oresick passed away last month.

Husband of TMC member Stephanie Flom, father, brother, poet, printer, publisher, professor and painter of icons, Peter was well known as the editor of Working Classics, a landmark literary anthology of working-class poetry. In 2010, he became editor-in-chief of the literary magazine The Fourth River. Peter wrote or edited 10 books, including Iconoscope: New and Selected Poems, which appeared last year, plus a collection of Willa Cather’s 10 Pittsburgh stories, which will come out this month from Carnegie Mellon University Press. Memorials are suggested to the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka (vankamurals.org).

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One Alternative Green Party Ticket Promotes Peace Offensive Voters wanting to support a presidential ticket that is not advocating militarism as the dominant response to conflict in the world might look to a third party as a possibility. The Green Party ticket of Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka, which advocates a peace offensive as the center piece of its for eign policy, is one such possibility.

Responding to a mocking question about her peace offensive in the Middle East from a Fox and Friends host, Stein critiqued the positions of the major parties and explained her alternative: “ More of a failed policy is not going to work. You cannot bomb terrorism out of existence. You have to starve it. You have to deprive it of weapons and you have to deprive it of funding. So, unfortunately, our allies, and arguably the CIA itself, have played a role in providing arms, training and funding. So we need to freeze the bank accounts. . . .Saudi Arabia is still the major funder of terrorist enterprises around the world. It’s time to get clear with our allies that they need to help us . . .to stop the funding, the training and the armaments. Most of the arms supplied to the Middle East are actually coming from the U. S. and our allies. . . .We can shut down this war because it’s our weapons that have enabled the war to be fought.”

Baraka, Stein’s running mate, a military veteran and international human rights advocate, discussed the peace offensive in depth on Progressive News with Tim Black, where Black posed a rhetorical question “Why can’t we have a war against war?”

Baraka responded to the truth he saw in the question. “People are accepting that war is a viable option and . . . not even questioning it anymore. . .

. We have got to wake people up to the fact that we do not have to have these conflicts with these various nation states that we are being told are our enemies and are a threat to the way of life in the US.” Identifying the high price some are paying, he said, “. . . thousands of our young people, who are going off to these conflicts and thinking that they are defending the US, come to find that basically they are involved in an occupation project. And they are then forced to do some pretty horrible things sometimes and it’s very difficult for them to live with that. . . . We have more veterans who have committed suicide over the last six years than who died in Iraq and in Afghanistan.”

Continuing his critique, he said, “We’ve got to do something about . . this attempt by the US to convince people that the US has some kind of Godgiven right to intervene any place it wants to around the world--to determine what government is legitimate and what government is illegitimate, to police the entire world.“ He explained the Green Party’s foreign policy stance thus, “We have to have a commitment to international law and international morality. . . . We have to have a peace offensive. We have to use the power of the state to bring about real national reconciliation in all of these conflicts where the US is presently involved. We can’t just withdraw because US intervention has helped created the chaos in many of these countries. What we have to do now is figure out a way to have a real reconciliation and a real peaceful resolution of these various conflicts.”

The Green Party platform calls for a foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law, and

By Lois Hurt

human rights, and nonviolent support for democratic movements around the world, which includes Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS), a nonviolent movement to end Israeli apartheid, occupation, war crimes and systematic human rights abuses. In addition to Israel, it identifies Saudi Arabia and Egypt as countries that, as human rights abusers, should not receive US financial and military support until they change their policies.

The platform calls for military spending to be cut by at least 50% and for the 700-plus military bases to be closed, while ensuring a just transition that replaces reduction in military jobs with jobs in renewable energy, transportation and green infrastructure.

And it calls for an end to the US’ role as arms supplier to the world the use of assassination as an instrument of US policy the use of drone aircraft for assassination, bombing, and other offensive purposes. the use of anti-personnel land-mines.

Finally, the platform calls for restoring the National Guard as the centerpiece of the US defense and its platform details various actions by which the US should lead global nuclear disarmament.

Lois is a professional nurse, healer, energy worker, student of the New Age, activist, dancer, and folk musician. Lois is registered as a member of the Green Party.

The Case for Jill Stein and Growing the Greens

By Joshua Zelesnick

A vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in November is not a wasted vote or a vote for Trump. A vote for Dr. Stein is just as much of a viable option for the future of the United States as a vote for the neoliberal, war-mongering Clinton and the narcissistic, fascist Trump.

Here is why.

Consider how political parties gain their legitimacy. Right now, the Green Party is a fringe party that has no chance of winning the 2016 presidential election. This is true. But think about what would happen if Jill Stein received a substantial number of votes in this presidential election cycle.

Let’s do the math. According to the International Business Times, Stein has polled at up to 7% (in June), but has consistently polled at about 5%. Already this is a drastic increase of support compared to the 0.36% of the vote she received in the 2012 election. The Bipartisan Policy Center reported that voter turnout was 126 million people in 2012— down 5 million votes from 2008. Think about what kind of message it would send if Stein received, say, 10% of 126 million votes; that’s 12.6 million votes.

And this amount is possible if enough of the left rallies behind her.

12.6 million votes is no small amount. It’s enough to scare the establishment—corporately owned Democrats and Republicans. Plus, more people voting for Jill Stein in the presidential election opens up doors for more Greens to run for national and state legislatures. This is the main point I wish to make.

On the news program Democracy Now, both Benjamin Jealous (former president of the NAACP) and Robert Reich (former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and author of Saving Capitalism) have argued that the Green Party needs to gain legitimacy by building a strong foundation at the local and state level first—before making the leap to the presidency. They both agree with much of Jill Stein’s platform, but they don’t agree with the roundabout way the party seems to focus mainly on presidential elections.

On Democracy Now Jill Stein tried to defend her party after Ben Jealous gave this criticism by naming some local and state Green Party officials that are making an impact in their communities. She 14 - NEWPEOPLE

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may be right (and yes, there are a handful—about 137 country-wide—of Green office-holders in local and state regimes), but her response was not convincing.

Her response should have been that if more people vote for her this year, the Green Party will have a much better chance to grow and build at the local and state levels—and national levels too—for future elections. Such a response could be spun to seem like a counterintuitive way to grow (as Jealous argues), but it actually isn’t at all—and it could work.

The reason the Green Party isn’t stronger is because of the massive failure of the left in this country to organize. Instead of criticizing the Green Party (like Jealous and Reich), the left should be helping to prop it up. The left in this country (and especially unions) is strong enough to be afraid to lose and not strong enough to really win anything. Every election season there is always a dire reason to vote for the Democrats.

Rewind, push play. Rewind, push play. We’ve either held our breath and voted for Democrats, wrote in candidates, or didn’t vote at all. I wonder what would happen if the left rallied for a big fight and tried to win.

What might the possibilities look like in 2020 if the Green Party and the Libertarian Party get strong showings at the polls this year?

Wouldn’t it be harder for the Commission on Presidential Debates (an organization that sounds official but is really just a secret, legally binding

agreement between Democrats and Republicans to prohibit third parties from the national debating process) to exclude these parties from the nationally televised debates? Think about how much more interesting and lively the theater of the discourse would be too.

Flying off the coattails of the Sanders’ campaign, Jill Stein has a shot to win a significant number of votes if the people rally behind her and take a stand against corporately owned candidates. Doing this is not without risk—as nothing worth fighting for is. It’s a vote that sees past the repetitive present to what could be: a truly legitimate third party: the Green Party.

Joshua Zelesnick teaches writing at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh.

Imperialist Legacies The 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising in Ireland

By Michael Drohan

The first day of the Battle of the Somme of World War 1 was July 1, 1916. On that sad day, England suffered 57,400 casualties and of those 5,000 belonged to the 36th Ulster Division, the storied Boys of Ulster. Many from the South of Ireland in the 11th Division (mainly Catholic) also took part in this hemorrhaging of human life.

Before the Battle of the Somme ended in September 1916, the British had lost approximately 420,000 men, the French 2,000 and the Germans something in the region of 460,000 men. It is difficult to comprehend the enormity of this tragedy as it is to understand the tragedy of all wars. However, the Somme was but one act from July to September 1916 in a four-year orgy of violence, killing and devastation.

From the outcome of the war, as spelled out in the Versailles Agreement, we get the best glimpse of what all the blood-letting was about. In that Agreement, the British and the French divvied up the carcasses of the Ottoman and the German Empires and began setting up in Ottoman lands in the Middle East the unfortunate boundaries and colonies that have spawned the modern tragedy that afflicts those peoples. As for the colonies of the German empire in Africa, the spoils were divided between France and Britain.

Germany itself was pillaged, especially by the French, as the Germans were saddled with socalled reparations for all the costs of the war.

Through this latter measure, the conditions were laid down for the rise of Nazism and the next World War. To summarize, the blood-letting of World War 1 was all about imperialism and imperial competition for control of the world, with no nobler pur-

pose. Through the fog of war, we can see a new world order emerging of a quasi-hegemonic imperial state of Great Britain, with France and the US as junior imperial partners.

Scarcely two months before the Somme bloodbath, on Easter Monday 1916, April 24, a motley bunch of insurrectionists in Ireland took part in a challenge to British imperial rule in its nearest colony, Ireland. Compared with the cataclysm of death and violence that was taking place on the European continent it could be described as a mere skirmish.

The insurrectionists numbered a little more than 1,000 men and women who belonged to a variety of organizations that viewed Britain’s war as a colonial and imperial enterprise. One of their leaders, Major John MacBride ( father of the Nobel Prize Laureate, Sean McBride) had taken part in the Second Boer War on the side of the Boers against Britain, in the Irish Transvaal Brigade. His spouse, Maud Gonne, the daughter of a British Officer posted in Dublin, also took part in the Rising and was also an avowed anti-imperialist, suffragist and pacifist by instinct. Another leader, James Connolly, a Socialist, headed up a militarized group of workers called the Irish Citizens Army and famously declared “we serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.” Irish people, he maintained, should struggle for the emancipation of the Irish working class, not kill and be killed for the phony claims of competing empires.

Given the fewness of their numbers and the lack of a general mobilization of the people of Ireland, one might be inclined to write it off as a foolhardy expedition. The reaction of the colonial rulers to these anti-colonial and anti-imperial upstarts was

Recipe for Regime Change So it’s that time of year again and you want to do something that will preserve U.S. dominance and corporate control of a faraway nation’s resources.

Here is a recipe to make sure “democracy” wins out that will make your presidential administration one to remember: Calls for:  A position as a high-ranking White House official  Journalists willing to compromise integrity for access to government sources  Academic think tank reports that prioritize use of military force over diplomacy  Support from influential Congress members  Military generals and executive branch officials who are eager to start a new war Directions: 1. Have your journalist contacts create stories about what an evil dictator the target nation’s leader is and how he or she is ruining the country. If a war is going on, tell the press that war crimes and genocide are occurring. None of this has to be true.

2. Use the academic think tank reports to provide legitimacy to the news stories and help shape the opinions of policymakers indirectly.

3. Form a coalition of generals and executive branch officials who will advocate for regime change any time they are on television or alone with a policymaker.

4. Call for economic sanctions on the targeted country. They will help destroy its economy, which will hurt the popularity of the new leader

brutal in every way. To begin with, the British brought in heavy artillery that destroyed the center of Dublin and reduced it to ruins. They scarcely discriminated between civilians and the insurrectionists holed up in the General Post Office of Dublin and St. Stephen’s Green. To add savagery to savagery, in the first week of May they executed 17 of the deputed leaders of the Rising. One particular case will forever be remembered as illustrating the barbarity of colonialism and imperialism: James Connolly, mentioned above, had been injured in the fighting in the GPO and was unable to stand or walk. He was propped up in a chair in Kilmainham Prison and shot by a firing squad.

So what can we conclude from this brief survey of the events of 1916? A first thought that comes to mind is that it would have been better for mankind if Britain had executed General Douglas Haig, the British General who commanded the massacre of the Battle of the Somme, rather than the insurrectionists of Dublin in the Easter Rising? How many million lives would have been saved? The British Empire was in decay but it took some fifty more years for it to come to terms with that decay, and reluctantly at that. A strange thought: if the dreamers and rebels of the Easter Rising in 1916 had won it might have saved the slaughter of 50 million human beings and prevented the present slaughter we are witnessing in the Middle East and in many other corners of the formerly colonial world.

Michael Drohan is on the board and editorial collective of the Thomas Merton Center.

By Ron Read

even more.

5. Tell the media that diplomatic solutions are on the table, but only on the least favorable terms for the country you want to attack.

6. Support the local opposition to the current regime by sending “military advisors” to the country. Also ask Congress for military aid and for a no-fly zone over the target country for increased support.

7. Use your contacts in Congress to write a resolution authorizing the use of force in the target country to get a full-scale attack. If it fails, don’t worry, you can always try again after a few months.

8. Once military action has been authorized, call for the target leader to surrender or they will feel the wrath of the world’s largest war machine.

general regional instability in the provided examples.

There are also political and legal costs that come with launching propaganda campaigns and covert wars to facilitate regime change.

Members of the Reagan administration faced criminal charges for their secret war against the Sandinista regime. Some of the largest protests in the world took place against the Iraq War during the Bush administration. And the last thing Hillary Clinton wants people to discuss right now is how we got into Libya, as well as the refugees displaced by the conflict.

But despite the costs involved in using the recipe, in all three cases the targeted leader was removed from power and U.S. hegemony was preserved. Also important was that the threat of a foreign government showing some resistance to the demands of global capitalism was averted.

Journalists and activists will say these are the wrong priorities, but remember that the general public does not care about the lives of “foreigners.”

They just want a tough leader who will stand up against threats to national security, whether those threats are real or not. So, until people in the U.S. start caring about the effect our wars have on the rest of the world, go ahead and Rock the Casbah.

Remember, you may not need all of these steps; you just need to make sure the leader is forced out of power. For good examples of where variations on this recipe have worked, look at: Iraq, Libya, and Nicaragua. With Iraq, members of the Bush administration utilized excellent propaganda, creating the illusion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, to urge the U.S. to invade. In Libya, members of the Obama administration, including Hillary Clinton, told the press that the Libyan government brought in “mercenaries” to commit genocide so NATO would launch a bombing campaign in support of rebels at war with the regime. And in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration portrayed the Sandinista regime’s overthrow of the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship as a threat to U.S. security in an effort to get support for the Contra fighters at war with the Sandinistas, The NewPeople Newspaper published false information regarding Bob Barker, host of This recipe for Ron Read is a law student at the University of PittsPrice is Right, in an article titled “The Price Was Right,” which appeared in the Sepburgh and an intern for the Anti-War Committee regime change tember issue of the NewPeople. Bob Barker, the TV host, does not own a company can produce some of the Thomas Merton Center. providing furniture to prisons that profits off of prison labor. Barker has no ties to minor setbacks.

Bangladesh, and he does not have a nonprofit with the focus of ending recidivism. He Keep in mind that does have a non profit for animal health. We pointed at the wrong Bob Barker and the the recipe led to NewPeople apologizes for the misinformation, and for any damage this may have refugee crises, caused to Bob Barker’s image. civil wars, and

RETRACTION

October 2016

NEWPEOPLE - 15

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

1 Introduction to Non-Violent Communication – 1:30– 3:00Meeting Room 2, Homewood Carnegie Library 7101 Hamilton Avenue

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3

4

Mahatma Gandhi Birthday Celebration– Frick Fine Arts Auditorium– 2-5 PM

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6

7

8 Pittsburgher’s for Public Transit Restored Bus Service Celebration!-

David Harris– Address on Politics & AfricanAmerican Communities– 79pm– Church of the Redeemer

Mike Stout & The Human Union Album Release Party [Presented by The Union Edge]

7-9PM- 841 California Ave 10:30 PM

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10

11

Indigenous Peoples Day TMC Closed

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17

24

12

Small Business Resource Fair: Cooperatives Edition– 4:30– 7:00 PMBeechview Carnegie Library 1910 Broadway Avenue in Beechview

Franktuary Happy Hour– 10% of sales go to TMC! 57– Franktuary, Lawrenceville

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14

15 Poetry Progam Meter and Meaning in Pittsburgh’s Varied Workplaces– 1:30 PM– Pump House, 880 East Waterfront Dr., Munhall, 15120

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Potluck & Film Screening- “The Doctrine of Discovery: Unm asking The Domination Code” - 6-8:30 PM– Thomas Merton Center

APP Speaker Series Featuring Art McDonald– 11:30 am– 12:30 pmScotus Hall at Mt. Alvernia

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26

Annual Just Harvest Dinner – 6-7PM- Omni William Penn Hotel, 530 William Penn Pl

Just(Ice) on the Rocks, TMC’s monthly happy hour at Mixtape in Garfield, 5-8 APP Speaker PM Series

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Film Screening of “Pride”- 7:30 PM– Pump House 880 East Waterfront Dr., Munhall, 15120

October 2016

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Regular Meetings Sundays: Book’Em: Books to Prisoners Project First three Sundays of the month at TMC, 46pm Contact: bookempgh@gmail.com

Mondays: SW Healthcare 4 All PA /PUSH Meeting 3rd Monday, 6:30 —8 pm Squirrel Hill Library Contact: bmason@gmail.com Association of Pittsburgh Priests 2nd Monday, 7—9 pm, Prince of Peace Rectory 162 South 15th, Southside, Pgh. PA 15203 Amnesty International #39 2nd Monday, 7—9 pm First Unitarian Church, Morewood Ave. 15219

Wednesdays: Human Rights Coalition: Fed-Up! Every Wednesday at 7p.m. Write letters for prisoners’ rights at the Thomas Merton Center Darfur Coalition Meeting 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, 5:30 – 7:00 pm, Meeting Room C Carnegie Library, Squirrel Hill 412-784-0256 Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (PADP) 1st Wednesdays, 7-8pm, First Unitarian Church, Ellsworth & Morewood Avenues, Shadyside Pittsburghers for Public Transit 2nd Wednesday, 7pm, 1 Smithfield St., lower level

Thursdays:

International Socialist Organization Every Thursday, 7:30-9:30 pm at the Thomas Merton Center Global Pittsburgh Happy Hour 1st Thursday, 5:30 to 8 pm, Roland's Seafood Grill, 1904 Penn Ave, Strip District Green Party Meeting 1st Thursday, 7 to 9 pm, 2121 Murray, 2nd floor, Squirrel Hill Black Political Empowerment Project 2nd Thursday, 6 pm: Planning Council Meeting, Hill House, Conference Room B

Fridays: Unblurred Gallery Crawl 1st Friday after 6 pm, Penn Avenue Arts District, 4800-5500 Penn Ave., Friendship and Garfield 15224 Hill District Consensus Group 2nd Friday, 10 am — 12 pm, Elsie Hillman Auditorium, Kaufmann Center 1825 Centre Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 People of Prisoners in Need of Support 3rd Friday, 7:00pm New Hope Methodist Church, 114 W. North Ave, Pittsburgh 15212

Saturdays: Project to End Human Trafficking 2nd Sat., Carlow University, Antonian Room #502 Fight for Lifers West 1st & 3rd Saturday, 10 a.m. to 12:30 pm, Thomas Merton Center

“Ecological Conversion”7PM– Kearns Spirituality Cntr

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Anti-War and Anti-Drone Warfare Coalition 4th Saturday at 11:00 am at TMC, 5129 Penn Ave., Garfield, PA 15224

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5

TMC Interfaith Gathering with Art McDonald— 7:30- Epiphany Center, 820 Crane Avenue in Beechview

TMC Interfaith Gathering Cont’d– 8:30 am– 5:00 PM — Epiphany Center

Please note: If you were a financial contributor to the Thomas Merton Center in 2015, and you would like to claim your donation for tax purposes, please call (412) 361-3022 and let us know so that we can process an acknowledgement letter for you.