NewPeople July/August 2016

Thomas Merton Center Pittsburgh’s Peace and Social Justice Center

PITTSBURGH’S PEACE & JUSTICE NEWSPAPER VOL. 46 No. 7 July/August 2016

Pride is Political: Roots Pride Celebrates Diversity

By Angelica Walker

What would you do for freedom?

That was the theme of 2016’s Roots Pride celebration. The weeklong series of events urged members of Pittsburgh’s LGBTQIA+ community and their allies to envision what freedom looks like for the entire community, not just the white gay men who are often at the center of the Delta Foundation’s larger Pittsburgh Pride.

A panel discusses issues like employment discrimination and The organizers behind homelessness at Roots Pride Townhall. Photo Credit: Roots Pride wanted to remind Rachael Smart.

the money to support marginalized groups like homeless LGBT youth.

Roots Pride 2016 kicked off with a town hall meeting in East Liberty’s Ace Hotel. The diverse panel included people like Tate Hurt, a black agender (nonbinary identity) artist who spoke about the lack of mental health resources available for youth, and black transgender woman Aria Lynn Copeland, who voiced concerns about the healthcare system. Aria said, “I still can't find affordable health insurance.

(Continued on page 5)

In This Issue…

President Obama in Hiroshima

By Michael Drohan

On May 27, 2016, President Obama visited Japan and the city of Hiroshima more than seventy decades after the United States dropped the 10,000 pound atomic bomb nicknamed “Little Boy,” which killed more than 70,000 people instantly and flattened the city. Many other residents apart from those instantly killed suffered unimaginable painful aftereffects of radiation which eventually cost the deaths of 100,000 more people. Since that fateful and dreadful day for humanity, August 6, 1945, no US President has ever visited the site of the crime. President Obama was the first for which there is great credit due.

Suppose for a moment that Howard Zinn or Fr. Dan Berrigan, recently deceased, were the speechwriter for President Obama. Something like the following is what we might have heard from President Obama: “Dear People of Japan and the City of Hiroshima, seventy one years ago, on a bright and cloudless morning, an American plane unleashed the most horrific and inhuman weapon ever invented on this city, incinerating at least 70,000 innocent citizens

the Pittsburgh LGBT community that pride is political, so they planned their own alternative Pride Week as “an intentional celebration of diversity across the entire spectrum of race, class, gender, orientation, and ability in the LGBTQIA+ community.”

Roots Pride was created last year in protest against Delta Foundation after they hired Iggy Azaela to headline Pittsburgh Pride despite her racist comments. Delta has also been criticized for accepting large payouts from ticket fees and corporate sponsorships, but using none of

Discovering Thomas Merton…

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Political Conventions Preview…

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and endangering the Page 11 entire hu- Support for Prisoners… man race as we did Page 13 not really Command Chain Victims… know the ultimate consequences of this conflagration. This was a great act of terrorism committed by my country and its leadership. In a real sense, we could say it was the ultimate crime. The victims of this crime were never able to see justice served for this crime unBy Joyce Rothermel fortunately. And the criminals who carried The Board of the out this heinous crime were never brought Thomas Merton to justice for this crime. Alas, I cannot do Center has selected anything about this, but what I can do is Frida Berrigan as the apologize to you, the people of Japan, on recipient of the 2016 behalf of my country and my government.

Thomas Merton From the depths of my heart, I promise to Award, which will you that I will do all in my power to abolish be presented at a the weapons that were first used on that dinner on Monday, fateful day and make sure that they will November 14 at the never be used again. Thank you for your Sheraton at Station forbearance and listening to me.”

Square. Frida BerriBut as we know, that is not what we gan is a columnist heard on the occasion of Presifor W aging Nonviolence and the author of "It Runs in the Family: dent Obama’s historic visit.

On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious MothRather the following is what we heard, at least in part: erhood."

“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death Frida is the daughter of Phil Berrigan and Elizabeth McAllisfell from the sky and the world ter. She lives in New London, Conn. with her husband Patrick and was changed. A flash of light their three children. The award event will be an opportunity to not and a wall of fire destroyed a only honor Frida and focus on the work of “Waging Peace,” but city and demonstrated that also remember the recent passing of her uncle, Fr. Dan Berrigan, (Continued on page 9) and the legacy of her courageous family.

2016 Merton Award Winner Announced

Check out our new website and stay updated with our blog!

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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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July/August 2016

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

Thomas Merton Center

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, John Zingaro

TMC Staff, Volunteers & Interns

Executive Director: Antonio Lodico Finance Director / Project Liaison: Roslyn Maholland Administrative Assistant: 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, Emily Fecile, Virginia Johnson, Roses Laughlin, Vivian Le, Rianna Lee, Julie Lin, Monii Peters, Ronald Read, Caelan Schick, Katherine Shuey, Joshua Sturman, Angelique Stolar-Hall, Angelica Walker

2016 TMC Board of Directors

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, Evan Schindler, M. Shernell Smith.

TMC Projects

TMC Affiliates

(TMC projects follow TMC guidelines and receive financial and ongoing resources and support from the Thomas Merton Center.)

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

Anti-War Committee awc@thomasmertoncenter.org Book‘Em: Books to Prisoners Project bookempgh@gmail.com www.bookempgh.org East End Community Thrift Shop 412-361-6010 shawnapgh@aol.com Fight for Lifers West fightforliferswest@gmail.com 412-607-1804 Fightforliferswest.org Greater Pittsburgh Interfaith Coalition Anne Wirth 412-716-9750 Harambee Ujima/Diversity Footprint Twitter @HomewoodNation Human Rights Coalition / Fed Up (prisoner support and advocacy) 412-802-8575, hrcfedup@gmail.com www.prisonerstories.blogspot.com Marcellus Shale Protest Group melpacker@aol.com 412-243-4545 marcellusprotest.org New Economy Campaign gabriel@thomasmertoncenter.com Pittsburgh 350 350pittsburgh@gmail.com World.350.org/pittsburgh Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance 412-512-1709

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.

Pittsburgh Campaign for Democracy NOW! 412-422-5377, sleator@cs.cmu.edu www.pcdn.org Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition jumphook@gmail.com; www.pittsburghdarfur.org

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

Publish in The NewPeople 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.

Pittsburghers for Public Transit 412-216-9659 info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org Progressive Pittsburgh Notebook 412-363-7472 tvnotebook@gmail.com School of the Americas Watch W. PA 412-271-8414 soawpittsburgh@gmail.com Shalefield Stories (Friends of the Harmed) 412-422-0272 brigetshields@gmail.com

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.

Stop Sexual Abuse in the Military 412-361-3022 hildebrew@aol.com Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens Group 724-837-0540 lfpochet@verizon.net

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Page 1 Pride is Political 2016 Merton Award Winner Announced President Obama in Hiroshima Page 3 Did You Know? A Direct Way to Contribute to the Merton Center Discovering Thomas Merton New Person Award Photos Page 4 Black Success Matters: How Affirmative Action Creates Equality Speaking Truth to Power: A Tribute to Muham mad Ali Sincerely, A Chola (Poem) Page 5 The HIV/AIDS Stigma: Why We Need to Have the Talk Pride Is Political Continued The War on the Female Body (Poem) Page 6 Philly Will Highlight Democrats’ Internal Ten sions Capital “T” Trouble in Cleveland - NEWPEOPLE July/August 2016

Abolitionist Law Center 412-654-9070 abolitionistlawcenter.org

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Political Cartoon Page 7 A New Gospel of Wealth Anatomy of Fascism Election Calendar Page 8 Exploring the Brazilian Crisis Building Bridges in Latin America Page 9 UN’s Complicity in Unjust Refugee Repatriation President Obama in Hiroshima Continued Wars on Syrian Streets After Lynn Emanuel (Poem) Page 10 Fight the Power: Students Rally for Change Point Park Study= Science + Advocacy for Homeless Programs at the Pump House Page 11 How PA’s Prison Population Exploded: Part One Seeking Justice in the Year of Mercy: A Cam paign to End the Death Penalty Open Letter to Marty Dunbar: I Hope You Can

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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

412-848-3079

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 Pittsburgh Cuba Coalition 412-303-1247 lisacubasi@aol.com Pittsburgh BDS Coalition bdspittsburgh@gmail.com Pittsburgh North People for Peace 412-760-9390 info@pnpp.northpgh.org www.pnpp.northpgh.org Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee info@pittsburgh-psc.org www.pittsburgh-psc.org Raging Grannies 412-963-7163 eva.havlicsek@gmail.com www.pittsburghraginggrannies.homestead.com

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.

Read This Page 12 Join the Clean Energy Revolution No More Fracking Pipelines Bread for the World Lobbies in D.C. Page 13 Unchain Victims From the Chain of Command PPT Celebrates Getting More Transit Service Remembering Hiroshima, Imagining Peace Event Series Page 14 Muslim Women Sponsor “Underground Rail road Re-Enactment” Breaking News from the Giornale Vaticano Corruption in the Roman Curia Comes to an Explosive End (Episode 6) Page 15 My Manifesto Looking Ahead to This Fall’s Association of Pittsburgh Priests Speaker Series In Memory of Kay Fowler Retraction

Merton Center News Did You Know? A Direct Way Discovering to Contribute to the Merton Thomas Merton Center

By Jim McCarville

By Bonnie DiCarlo

President Obama signed a Tax Act in 2015 that made it possible to contribute annually to your favorite nonprofits (like the Thomas Merton Center) directly from your IRA and/or your Retirement Account. This is named a Qualified Charitable Contribution. I’m sure many of you have written a check for your tithing purposes. Now you have another option. If you answer YES to these four questions, you may be able to take advantage of this new and permanent rule.

1. Are you 70 ½ years of age or older?

2. Do you take Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) from your retirement accounts?

3. Would you like to contribute to your favorite charity/ies – a 501(c)3 organization?

You can now send part or all of your Required Minimum Distribution, up to $100,000, directly from your Retirement Account to your charity/charities. The amount you contribute directly will not be subject to Federal tax. Of course, you can no longer claim this amount as a charitable deduction. It is possible that this action could lower your tax bill. As always, there are exceptions and limitations, so please contact your financial planner or tax expert for all the details.

Whether you use the Qualified Charitable Contribution route, or send your check (s) directly to your non - profit organizations, we all know the benefit of tithing. As John Templeton, founder of the Templeton Mutual Funds said at a convention of financial planners in Chicago, Illinois, “Tithe! What we give comes back to us in so many ways.”

4. Do you itemize your deductions Bonnie V. DiCarlo, a Certified Financial Planner TM, offers securities through when filing your taxes?

Allegheny Investments, Ltd., a registered broker/dealer. Member FINRA /SIPC.

New Person Award 2016

On Tuesday June 21st the Thomas Merton Center celebrated Tim Stevens and his lifetime dedicated to peace and social justice. Left Photo: a view of the event at East Liberty Presbyterian Church from above. Photo taken by Marni Fritz . Right Photo: Tim Stevens accepts the 2016 New Person Award. Photo taken by Neil Cosgrove.

Attendees enjoy both the program and their meals. Photo By Neil Cosgrove

Thomas Merton was an amazing figure in the exploration of contemplation and action. Today, he is an icon in the fields of peace, justice, ecology and interfaith dialogue. He is the inspiration of an entire Center located on Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh. It, the Center, does some pretty amazing things as well. Both he and it are relevant to what we do today.

That is what 20 classmates and I learned in a six-week course offered at the Carnegie Mellon’s Osher program, taught

by Joyce Rothermel and Carol Gonzalez. Here’s a synopsis: Merton was born in the Basque country of southwestern France in 1915, into the secular life of the times. Both parents died while young and he was sent to school in England. But his grandfather ordered him to New York when his education appeared to be too much fun and more than a little trouble.

His “conversion” was slow.

Inspired by the poetry of Gerald Manley Hopkins and by common people just praying, he began to go to church. In 1941, at the time of the US entry into World War II, he entered the monastery as a contemplative monk.

In the 1950s he saw tumultuous changes coming and decided he needed to live a different way. In his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, the contemplative monk described how one day, “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs; that we could not be alien to one another. Even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness…. This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief…. I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. …. If only everyone could realize this.”

He rejected militarism and was appalled by the idea of a “just war in a nuclear age.” In his later life, he became famous for his interfaith dialogue with Buddhism and Hinduism.

He called us “to an irreverent reverence, an irreconcilable integration, to enter the dance of life and to see peacemaking, not a tactic, but a way of life.” He named “the root of war as fear” and said “non-violence needs to be practiced and explained.” He said, “If history is in God’s hands, what are we doing sitting on our rump waiting for him to act?”

Merton is more than a person or a philosophy; he is an icon that continues to provide inspiration to many people the world over, including the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh.

In our last class, Molly Rush, one of the founders of the

TMC; Charlie McCollester, a long-time member; and Antonio Lodico, the current Executive Director of the Center, were invited in. They talked about how the issues over the years may have changed, but the inspiration of Merton still motivated the success of the Center.

Molly gave the early history of how a collection of groups, including the Association of Pittsburgh Priests, the Catholic Interracial Council, the Religious Integration Forum, Pax Christi and others came together to take on peace, labor and racial issues.

How TMC helped incubate and spin-off Jubilee Kitchen and the Food Bank, the local Amnesty International and other programs.

Charlie McCollester talked about TMC supporting labor.

Specifically, how, unlike many areas, TMC held the groups together. “The TMC people demonstrated that the role of the compassionate person in social justice is not to show where we are going, but to show solidarity and dialogue. The TMC provides no party line, except for nonviolence. A good part of the reason the police in Pittsburgh do not have the reputation of some cities is the Merton Center dialogues with both them and the community.”

Antonio Lodico talked about how TMC issues of the past – de-industrialization, death squads and globalization– both continue and change the Center.

“The difference with TMC is that we don’t look for the single silver bullet. We may not always agree, but we come together.”

The TMC’s principal areas of focus are Peace, Economic Justice, Environmental Justice and Human Relations. Current projects include: Divest Pittsburgh - to channel public investments away from fossil fuels; Affordable Housing; Public Transit; Anti-War, Anti-Drones; Anti-Fracking; and Book-em, a project that provides books to prisoners. Tony said the Center is “both an incubator and an accelerator” and “both old and young.

Many new people are under 25.”

Carol and Joyce summed it up, “Merton helps us understand that as lay people we can live a contemplative life connected to the world. The Merton Center supports people choosing to bring this contemplative lifestyle into a life of action. Some may dedicate their lives to social action only, but without the contemplative input, it is so easy to burn out, become cynical or lose sight of life’s true goals.”

Jim McCarville is a member of the Editorial Collective and Board of the Thomas Merton Center.

July/August 2016

NEWPEOPLE - 3

Celebrating Struggles for Equality Black Success Matters: How Affirmative Action Creates Equality

By Angelica Walker

When I first realized that I had earned a full scholarship to my first-choice college, I wanted to tell everybody. As a black woman who grew up on welfare, a free education felt like a miracle; the countless hours I’d spent searching for scholarships and filling out applications had finally paid off.

It didn’t take me long to realize that, to many people, my success was based on one reason and one reason only. It wasn’t about grades, or essays, or SAT scores, or AP exams, or volunteering, or marching band. It was about the one box that only I was lucky enough to check: the one that said “black.”

Every graduation season I see articles about black students achieving their dreams, and comments explaining why those students didn’t deserve their accomplishments. When Malia Obama announced her acceptance to Harvard, Fox News commenters and viewers spewed everything from "sounds like black privilege to me" to "little ape should go to college in Africa." When Nigerian immigrant Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna was accepted into all eight Ivy League schools, a commenter said, “she did quite well, but female and black were her keys to admission.”

Since they were created, affirmative action and race-aware scholarship programs have been considered prime examples of “reverse racism.” A 2013 Gallup Poll found that 75% of white Americans wished universities didn’t take race into account for admissions at all. “We should base college admissions on effort and ability,” they say, “not race!” All they want is equality.

Here’s what those people don’t understand: there can’t be equality when minorities continue to be systematically shut out of the professions that run this country.

We need black journalists to tell our stories. But while blacks make up 13% of the population, they make up less than 5% of newsroom journalists. We need black politicians to fight for us in government, but they make up less than 9% of Congress.

We need black lawyers to represent us, but they make up less than 5% of the Bar. We need minority judges to give us fair trials, but despite studies showing that white judges show unconscious bias against minority defendants, blacks The author celebrates graduation with her friends Tenioand hispanics continue to make up 30% of the la Odumosu, Malasia Hawthorne, and Raven Saunders. population and less than 13% of judges.

Photo credited to Angelica Walker.

We need black doctors to give us the care we need, but they make up less than 4% of US physicians. White doctors have been observed to admit black students who otherwise wouldn’t be adspend less time on black patients, and black patients mitted? Yes, of course it does - that’s the point! are more likely to attend appointments and follow A huge portion of the black professionals I doctor’s orders when they have a black doctor, but mentioned, including myself, would not be where we black doctors remain in huge demand. Hospitals in are today if colleges were race-blind. Without minorurban communities are shunned by white doctors ity scholarships I would still be working a minimum because they are considered too dangerous or bewage job, depending on food stamps to survive. The cause they don’t pay as well; since there are no black fact that programs were available to help us achieve doctors, the hospitals remain understaffed. our dreams and give back to society when we otherWe need black teachers to inspire our children, wise wouldn’t have been able to is a good thing, not but in New York City, where 85% of students are a bad thing. racial minorities, less than 40% of teachers identify Maybe someday we won’t need affirmative acthe same way. Students are surrounded by teachers tion; maybe someday we’ll all magically be equal. they can’t relate to, and read textbooks full of faces Believe me, I can’t wait for that day. But it’s not tothat look nothing like them. They see the media day. smearing their friends, the politicians de-funding their schools, the judges locking up their parents, and Angelica Walker is an intern for The New People covering LGBTQ rights and criminal justice rethe doctors brushing off their health concerns. Is it form. She is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh that hard to see why they might need a little extra studying social work, legal studies, writing, and boost to make it into college?

Now, does affirmative action allow schools to political science.

Speaking Truth to Power: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali

By Linda Nordquist

Our heroes of the past half-century are gone – all but Fidel. Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and now Muhammad Ali. To be sure, there are many less celebrated heroes and heroines fighting against oppression in the trenches of the world, and I take nothing away from their courage.

But these four informed the political and personal development of millions of people, black and white, who were inspired by their words that rang out to all humanity. They illuminated a beacon of truth and integrity, compassion and steely resolve that shown throughout the world. What a foursome: Malcolm X, the ex-prisoner turned Muslim; Martin Luther King, the Christian reverend; Nelson Mandela, the South African lawyer turned revolutionary; and Muhammad Ali, the greatest heavyweight champion of the world and trash-talking poet.

The early 1960’s were tumultuous times as protests, sit-ins, demonstrations by black and white Americans demanding an end to segregation, (i.e. the right to vote, to obtain jobs, to attend public schools, to sit at restaurant counters, to use public bathrooms, to sit anywhere on public transportation) swept across the southern states. They were shot at, spit upon, hosed, beaten with clubs, incarcerated, set upon by dogs, lynched, murdered, assassinated.

In 1963 250,000 people marched on Washington for jobs and freedom, the largest demonstration for civil rights ever. Less than a month later, three Klansmen blew up a church in Montgomery, Alabama, killing four little girls.

At the same time, the American military buildup in Vietnam accelerated.

In February 1964, Muhammad Ali flattened Sonny Liston and celebrated his first heavyweight championship fight. At a time when a black man could be hung from a tree for looking at a white woman, when black athletes were told to be deferent to the white world, when black people were the victims of racist caricatures and self-hate, Ali taunted the boxing world and white people, shouting “I’m king of the world! I’m pretty! I’m a bad man!

I shook up the world! I shook up the world! I shook up the world!”

Shortly after, he ditched his “slave 4 - NEWPEOPLE July/August 2016

Sincerely, A Chola

By Christina Acuna Castillo

name” (Cassius Clay), joined the Nation of Is- A little birdie came and sat right outside my window lam and became Muhammad Ali. Two years Body all confident, lips smirking, later the Draft Board reclassified him to 1-A status making him immediately qualified for it said it saw you cry for me. enlistment. On April 28, 1967, while bombs asked God why you had to be an illegal, it said. rained down upon Vietnam and only 37% of He He said, Fuck it, God, make me an illegal too.

Americans believed the Vietnam War was a “mistake,” Ali refused to be inducted into the army, saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with those And for a second, I really thought all that was true.

Vietcong.” He was convicted of draft evasion, But then I remembered your laugh sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 the night your friends called me a Spic, and banned from boxing for three years. They so I told the little birdie to stop lying. even took away his passport so he couldn’t fight outside the country.

“My conscience won't let me go shoot my Because, well, we both know that snakes don’t really cry. brother, or some darker people, or some poor Do they? hungry people in the mud for big powerful y’know, America. And shoot them for what? They never But, cowards do. called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of So, tell me, white boy, my nationality, rape and kill my mother and Which of the two are you? father. ... Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

Ali never went to prison. In this fight, the Christina Acuna Castillo is an American writer and digital Supreme Court awarded the decision to Ali, as maker. Most of her family is from Perú and she couldn’t be proud. She attends the University of Pittsburgh, studyriots in poverty-stricken inner cities throughout more ing literature, creative writing, Latin American studies, and the north consumed black communities. He digital media. More of her work can be found at www.cacexplained the government’s attempt to shackle art.com. him this way: “They did what they thought was right, and I did what I thought was right.”

By 1970 the Black Panther Party had emerged, hoisting slogans like Black Power and might of their enemy? The enormity of the price Black is Beautiful and monitoring police officers in they paid? How they handled themselves while black communities. staring down the opposition? Was consciousness Ali lost three prime years of his boxing life, changed because of their actions? What was their returning in October, 1970 to re-establish his domi- impact on the world? nance in the ring. Ali retired in 1981 with a record Muhammad Ali was a hero. He was a proud of 56 wins out of 60 fights. He won the Heavy- black man who stood up to the “man” and won. He weight Championship an unprecedented three influenced millions around the world. As Rabbi times.

Michael Lerner said at Ali’s funeral: The “Louisville Lip” went on to help shape “The best way to honor Ali is to be Ali.” black poetry, influence the birth of rap music, author several best-selling books and act in movies – Linda J Nordquist is a writer, activist and clinical all this as Parkinson disease crept to the center of social worker. the ring.

How do we take the measure of heroes? By the

Pride Not Ignorance The HIV/AIDS Stigma: Why We Need To Have The Talk

By Mireille Maddah In recent news, an Austrian-based men’s progressive lifestyle magazine decided to do the unthinkable: print its latest issue with an HIV+ bloodinfused ink.

It sounds disturbing at first. Appalling even.

How can a professional journalist jeopardize the health of its readers by exposing them to a biohazard -containing paper?

Answer: it takes HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) 30 minutes to be deactivated. It takes more than 30 minutes to make, edit and publish a single issue of a magazine.

The readers, presumed at risk, are safer than a group of cubs under the paws of a fearless lioness.

A sparking fire, that once seemed prominent, needs to be re-ignited and this time with beautifully rendered visuals that illustrate the truth that some are stubborn to grasp.

The first question that comes to mind is whether the HIV+ person belongs to the LGBTQIA+ community. We cannot allow ourselves to believe after more than 30 years from HIV discovery and fighting against one of the most potent pandemics emerging in the 20 century, that it is only limited to the borders of the LGBTQIA+ community and cannot penetrate the “straight” physiological checkpoints.

Not only does this qualify us as a group that is voluntarily submerging its logic under the depths of ignorance; but it’s also an explicit form of negligence to the facts behind a significant disease.

We are hindered by misinterpretations many pursue to push against the uneducated, instead of spreading awareness about a disease that is no longer silent. Some of the clichés distract from the scientific methods used to understand the true nature of the virus and how it is spread from person to person. th

In the 1980s, a number of gay men had to endure the grueling symptoms of the yet-to-be-named disease, causing all the scare among San Francisco’s underground gay community. At that time, one trigger pulled two lethal bullets: AIDS and the loitering solitude of hiding it.

The disease was first called GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) and was thought to spread only among gay people, until it was later discovered that it can be transmitted heterosexually by sharing needles, organ transplants, sexual intercourse and from mothers to infants. Once the silent murmurs had become too loud to deny and their frequency too highpitched to be ignored, the victimized ones who had to endure both the social shaming and the intriguing physical changes.

The necessity was, and still is, to realize that a handshake will not tumble down the immune system and crumble every T cell in the body and most importantly to adopt a comprehensive protection.

An unprotected sexual intercourse is one of the main routes of transmission of the virus. Since a concrete cure is still not on the horizon and lifelong medications are the best to hope for; prevention is always key, as no effective vaccine is available yet.

No wonder some of the mentioned magazine’s critics have come forward saying that they felt violated while looking at the visualized concepts and were even afraid to hold the papers, believing they might get ‘infected’ by the ominous ink.

The Catch 22 is that people know that holding an HIV patient can never vanquish a single cell of their bodies; yet still, they choose not to come close to the specimen because an HIV realization might be lurking in the shadows of a doubt.

Physicians suggested that healthy heterosexual

Pride is Political: Roots Pride Celebrates Diversity Continued

By Angelica Walker

I can't go to the doctor. I can't go to the dentist... Pittsburgh doesn't see that issue.”

Michael David Battle, Founding Director of the Garden of Peace Project, discussed youth homelessness. “The average age of a black trans kid getting kicked out of their home is eleven... those kids are living in isolation,” said Michael. “They're the kids that are couch surfing with their friends, living under bridges, sneaking into bars. These kids are dropping out of school on average in sixth grade - they don’t even have a middle school education.”

Another big theme was lack of representation on Delta’s board and other mainstream Pittsburgh LGBT nonprofits. According to Michael, “There's not one LGBT organization in Pittsburgh led by a queer person of color - besides Garden of Peace Project and New Voices, and we both started those organizations. We're not there because people in power wanted us there, we're there because we started them.” Panel member Celeste Smith added, “If they're going to be making money off of oppressed people, there has to be one of us at the table.”

Panel members expressed a collective distrust of politicians - Democrats and Republicans alike. Aria asked, “What is politics doing for me? Why am I voting for you if you're not doing anything to help anyway?” Transgender activist Ava Grace noted, “This bathroom bill is all that anybody is talking about. When can we go back to discussing homelessness? When can we go back to discussing employment?”

The panel also included white cisgender allies, Billy Hileman, Vice President of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, and Joseph Onstott, member of the Allegheny County Jail Health Justice Project. Joseph spoke about his experiences with friends who are unaware of these

problems, and said, “Not everybody's going to see the issue when they're surviving just fine... Organizations that are in control try to sweep it under the rug.”

In addition to the town hall meeting, Roots Pride also included social events like a barbecue, giant water balloon fight, and the “Rally and Party,” which combined protest with poetry, music, and dance. This event provided the fun you would expect from Delta’s “Pride in the Street” event, but for a $5-25 suggested donation instead of Delta’s $45-80 pricetag. Attendees danced the night away with friends to local musicians and DJs, and sipped signature “Politi-pride” cocktails.

Despite the party atmosphere, activism was still a major theme of every event.

“Pride is a commemoration of a resistance,” organizer Joy KMT said. “We celebrate the fact that we’re here, that we’re alive. And as we celebrate, we must also remember that there are many in our community [who] are still resisting to survive, and if we don’t do that then our celebration is incomplete.”

“To be honest, I don't care about Roots Pride as an ‘organization’,” said Joy, “But I do care about organizations and nonprofits taking the energy of the community, all of the work we put in to create truly inclusive and truly healing and truly revolutionary spaces in Pittsburgh, and using it to further agendas that may or may not have the best of intentions... I care about all of us out here struggling for a voice, a house, a bed, some food, to be seen, loved and honored for who we are.”

Angelica Walker is an intern for The New People covering LGBTQIA+ rights and criminal justice reform. She is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh studying social work, legal studies, writing, and political science.

couples start taking PrEP pills for the concern of protection. PrEP pills (Pre-Exposure-Prophylaxis) are medications taken as a preventive measure by sexually-engaged couples within conditions permeable to a possible HIV infliction. They build the guardian walls before the viral enemy comes close.

The problem was the social offense taken by the ones who thought that suggestion is a hint to an enriched doubt in their sexual orientation.

Ironically, just as the processes of replication causes copies of the virus to reproduce new immune cells, so is the process of silence to the purposefully deaf on the subject.

Isolating the matter to only hit the concerns of the gay community is no different than closing a wooden door to an arson in a room. It can only heat the debate even further, and ultimately cause it to combust in its own failure to understand. Even the insinuation of the fact that this issue is not of a concern of any other than this penalized community is a penalty made against its own inhabitants.

Banishing the stereotypes surrounding the uneducated ones and helping them fully fathom the truth behind the AIDS debate is a stepping stone towards a better outcome. Human life should be able to withstand all labels and all orientations because HIV knows no gender and no labels. I can only wish that we would arrive to the shores of this cascading conclusion without pointing any fingers and disconcerting ourselves with the rest of the endowing persons, whose only fault was a physical one.

Mireille Maddah is a bounty hunter for pessimists and melancholics, and an aspiring writer with a perpetual writer's block.

The War on the Female Body By LoCi Listen as the battle cry comes calling, As the battle cry calls you to come.

Listen hard, for the enemy sings louder He muffles her voice so it may not be heard But silence is a war defeated By the breasts of our ancestors; And soft cries are greater than deep melodies For they sing their own song Irate Aching Detached— Let the anger pour out drop by drop Tear by tear; Let its hot breath burn The soft of your cheeks, for they leave us with battle scars that dress our skin as warpaint Signifying our battle; declaring our fight We will sew shut the hems of our dresses And slick back the curls in our hair Indeed, I would have us lead disguised as the earth That molded the rib once given to us And mold another; I will step out of my body and break bread With fathers once foe; Brothers turned enemy; Lovers renounced adversary – And silence the breeding of brutes And creatures who have not known the light; Who from sour fruit multiplied their numbers And banned together in darkness.

I will step out of my body and turn bloodshed into wine And with golden chalice as my token I will serve from my cup a toast To the war declared and conquered By and in the name of, the female body.

LoCi graduated from Geneva College in 2013 with a BA in English Literature. LoCi currently works as a writer and copy editor. Also a female rights activist, LoCi volunteers at local organizations to fight sex slavery within Pittsburgh.

July/August 2016

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Contentious Conventions Loom Philly Will Highlight Democrats' Internal Tensions

By Neil Cosgrove

While Democrats settled on a presidential nominee following the June 7 primaries, their convention in Philadelphia from July 25 to 28 promises to be anything but a self-congratulating coronation of Hillary Clinton.

Thousands of activists and over 1800 delegates pledged to support the nomination of Senator Bernie Sanders will be showing up, seeking to ensure that Clinton’s core of late-1980s New Democrats don’t ignore the message 12 million Sanders voters (nearly as many as Republican nominee Donald Trump received) sent to the party over the course of this past winter and spring.

As Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi has pointed out, “Beltway Dems … ought to be horrified to their marrow that the all-powerful Democratic Party ended up having to dig in for a furious rally to stave off a quirky Vermont socialist almost completely lacking big-dollar donors or institutional support.” If the Democrats choose to run primarily on the failings of Donald Trump, without appearing to seriously care about income inequality, underfunded education, crumbling infrastructure, reactionary courts, and misguided militarism, they could fail to make the down-ballot gains they are anticipating, and may even lose the presidency itself. The off-year elections in 2010 and 2014 starkly demonstrated that people are motivated to vote when there is something to vote for, rather than just something to vote against.

The tensions the Democratic Convention will manifest are graphically illustrated by the way in which party insiders and outsiders travel to and stay over in Philadelphia. Journalist Chris Hedges reports that $100,000, or “empire” donors to the party will receive “VIP credentials for all convention proceed-

ings,” tickets to corporate and official party receptions, four rooms at the Loew’s Philadelphia Hotel, and a suite at a baseball game. $50,000 “gold” donors, $25,000 “silver” donors, and $10,000 “bronze” donors may not be so lavishly entertained but Hedges suggests the incentives are attractive enough to warrant the price of a business-class air ticket to Philly.

For activists and many Sanders delegates, on the other hand, attending the convention is a financial challenge. A story on NBC10.com of Philadelphia tells of Sanders delegates using the GoFundMe web site to raise money for a trip that will cost them from $4,000 to $8,000, including airfare from locations around the country and a five-night hotel stay “in an expensive East Coast city.” Some Minnesota delegates are staying at a Radisson in Valley Forge, 30 miles from the Wells Fargo Center where the convention will take place. The hotel assigned to Wisconsin delegates costs $369 a night. “We are not required to stay at the Hilton,” said one Sanders delegate from Wisconsin. “So if fundraising doesn’t work out, there are AirBnBs and other hotels a little further away.”

An AirBnB might be the height of luxury for most activists. The largest demonstrations will most likely occur under the aegis of the Occupy DNC Convention movement, which has been placed by the city in FDR Park in South Philadelphia, not far from the convention site, from Sunday, July 24th to Thursday, July 28th. Demonstrations and marches expected to draw more than 30,000 people are planned for each of those days. However, the city’s permit only sanctions gatherings from 8 a.m. to 6pm, suggesting that camping out in the city’s parks is being strongly discouraged.

Capital "T" Trouble in Cleveland Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spells trouble for many, with a capital “T” that rhymes with “C,” as in Cleveland, where the Republican National Convention will be held from July 18 to July 21, 2016.

Mr. Trump’s racially tinged form of identity politics has sparked strong passions among groups who feel vilified and threatened by his rhetoric, leading to violent confrontations between his supporters and protesters at primary season rallies in Chicago, San Diego, San Jose and other locations. Consequently, Cleveland’s police force expects to put 2,500 extra officers on the streets during the convention, according to WKYC in Cleveland’s website. In contrast, Meghan Keneally of ABC News reports that Philadelphia is planning to employ a little more than 1,000 officers and agents to keep the peace at the Democratic convention.

The U.S. Secret Service will control security in a so-called “hard zone” of a little more than 100 yards around the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention will take place. The Cleveland police will be in charge of all areas beyond that zone, and have announced they will pursue a variety of tactics to control crowd movements and avoid confrontations. Deputy Chief Edward Tomba says officers will not be wearing riot gear or carrying “militarystyle equipment … unless the situation dictates … .”

Police on bicycles will be employed to block streets and move units from place to place.

In anticipation of possible mass arrests the city has contracts with nearby municipalities for extra jail beds. “A team of lock-breakers” will be on hand, according to the Wall Street Journal, “in case people chain themselves to objects or other people to try to disrupt events.”

Nevertheless, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association has called the city’s lack of preparation “irresponsible,” and Cleveland’s recruitment of officers from external sources has yielded mixed results. Greensboro, NC decided in late May not to send 50 officers to the convention, in part because Cleveland was not providing Worker’s Compensation insurance. Charlotte, NC had provided such insurance for the 2012 Democratic convention.

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Organizers are attempting to arrange housing and ride shares by state. For example, a Rally Bus is scheduled to leave Station Square, Pittsburgh, at 2.23 a.m. on Monday, July 25, depart Philly at 10 p.m. that day and arrive back in Pittsburgh at 4:36 a.m. on the 26th. The price is $75. A group calling itself the DNC Action Committee (dncactioncommittee.com) is offering “neutral support--information on legal, medical, housing, press, transportation and other resources--for all those participating in actions in dissent from the Democratic Party” at the Philadelphia convention.

Other events include: •Food and Water Watch, an anti-fracking organization, will march from City Hall to Independence Mall on Sunday, July 24th. More than 5,000 are expected to participate.

•The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign plans to rally at 3 p.m. on Monday, July 25th at City Hall, followed by a march up Broad Street to the Wells Fargo Center. This march has been denied a permit by the city, so there could be police interference, rather than protection. Its principal organizer is Cheri Honkala, a long-time activist and 2012 Green Party vice-presidential candidate whose protest at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia drew a reported 30,000 people.

•The “We the People Restoration Rally,” sponsored by Black Men for Bernie, will take place on July 27th and 28th from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Thomas Paine Plaza, across from City Hall.

Neil Cosgrove is a member of The NewPeople editorial collective and of the Merton Center Board.

By Neil Cosgrove

“In recent weeks, I have spoken with Police Administrators who have experience in planning for an event of this magnitude,” Greensboro Deputy Chief Brian L. Jones wrote in a memo to city officials, “and they express a lack of confidence in the City of Cleveland and their preparedness for the RNC.” A Federal Judge has ruled Cleveland’s narrow parade and protest restrictions “unconstitutional” and pushed the city to issue withheld permits. Local rights organizations have criticized “intimidating” visits by Homeland Security, Secret Service, FBI and city police to local activists.

The National Lawyers Guild and the Rustbelt Medics are coordinating legal support and medical assistance for the Cleveland convention.

A list of activist events scheduled to take place before and during the Republican convention is as follows:  The People’s Justice and Peace Convention will seek to “lift up issues and problems that we believe the RNC will either ignore or not genuinely address.” The event will begin with an address by Michael Eric Dyson at Olivet Church on Friday, July 15. After more sessions at Olivet on the 16th, this gathering will move to the larger Masonic Auditorium at 3615 Euclid Avenue on Sunday the 17th.  Keep the Promise Cleveland March and Rally will “remind the Republican party—and the nation—that the fight for social justice is not yet won.”

Scheduled for11:20 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 17. No location given. Contact Jacqueline Burbank of the AIDS Health Foundation.  End Poverty Now March for Economic Justice, sponsored by Organize Ohio and 28 other groups, will begin at 12 noon on Monday, July 18th and march to Quicken Loans Arena.  The Coalition to Stop Trump and March on the RNC plans to begin at Cleveland Public Square at 1 p.m. on Monday the 18th and end at the Quicken Loans Arena around 3 p.m.  CodePink will screen “The Brainwashing of My Dad,” a film by Jen Senko “examining the rise

of right-wing media through the lens of her father” at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 19th at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, OH.  Super-group Prophets of Rage plans to hold a concert on Tuesday, July 19th at a time and Cleveland venue to be determined.  Stand Together Against Trump will be “a peaceful demonstration directed at opposition to the racist and sexist language and policies of Donald Trump” scheduled for 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. in downtown Cleveland on Thursday July 21st. The group hopes to have 10,000 people march from two locations, Ohio City and Sterling Park on the East Side to Erieview Plaza.

Neil Cosgrove is a member of the NewPeople editorial collective and the Merton Center board.

Dark Political Forces A New Gospel of Wealth Review of Book: Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer, Doubleday, 2016, 449 pages.

Jane Mayer’s copiously researched study of how and why the “one percent of the one percent” has transformed U.S. politics since 1970 argues that this transformation is unprecedented in its scope and stealth. To an implicit counter-claim that big money has historically held bipartisan political sway, Dark Money replies by documenting the newness of a contemporary radical right corporate leveraged buyout of the U.S. political arena.

Most NewPeople readers will be all too familiar with the broad outlines of the machinations of the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Olins, and Bradleys, and their oligarchic efforts to shape public policy and personnel at all levels of government in ways that preserve and grow their colossal wealth. But the devil is in the details, and Dark Money offers surprises and ironies that make the book a riveting and terrifying read.

The book’s three parts are uneven in time span. Part One’s 1970-2008 stretch proffers fascinating family histories of the Kochs and Scaife, histories that, in their idiosyncrasies, both explain the political trajectories of these billionaires and confound our understanding of their public impact on our democracy (they should be too far outside the pale of a two-party system that learned the lesson of a Barry Goldwater). The history of Koch corporate environmental transgressions, firing of whistleblowers, and illegal deals with outlaw states like Iran leads to sanctions, fines, and prosecutions that fuel the growth of what Mayer calls a wealth selfdefense industry, a “many-tentacled ideological machine [that] came to be known as the Kochtopus” (58). One important tentacle penetrated

the academy with the establishment of university think tanks, law and economics programs, endowed chairs, fellowships and grants with ideological strings attached. Deft use of the IRS tax-exempt 501 (c)(4) social welfare organization category enabled the Kochtopus to “weaponize philanthropy” in incrementally effective (not to mention anonymous, thereby “dark money”) ways; universities become farm systems for the major league challenge of electoral politics that lay ahead after the devastating loss of the White House to Obama in 2008.

Part Two covers 2009-2010 with a cluster of battle trope subtitles, including “Covert Operations,” “Boots on the Ground,” “The Shellacking.” The Kochtopus rebounds from the Obama victory and scores heavily in these two years with Tea Party consolidation, the ideological war on climate change science, Citizens United, and the Midterm triumph of 2010, which saw not just the takeover of the House of Representatives but also staggering gains at the state legislative and gubernatorial level, enabling the REDMAP project of redistricting to protect conservative electoral futures. The language of battle cannot be dismissed as leftist polemic; it reflects the self-description of the billionaire-donors themselves as “freedom fighters” (360).

The looming irony in this section is that conservative triumphs that appear to grow out of grass roots populism—Tea Party local primary efforts, dramatic shifts to the right in what Mayer calls “the most granular level of politics”-- are stage-managed by outside big money flows and highly effective Kochrecruited operatives. Even figures like Jim Oberstar, a Democrat, who served the blue state of Minnesota in the U.S. House for 36 years and was thought invulnerable, succumbed to a pricy Koch-engendered ad smear in the shellacking of 2010. Angry white working and middle class populism is, in effect, pro-

Anatomy of Fascism Historian Robert O. Paxton wrote a book in 2005 entitled The A natomy of Fascism which defines fascism as follows: “Fascism may, be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” Using the epithet “fascism” for various individuals, parties, or movements is often done glibly just to name something that a group or individual does not like, thus rendering the term somewhat meaningless. Paxton aids one in being more careful in attribution of this term to individuals, movements, or parties. With the rise of the Trump phenomenon in American politics, many have been struck between the parallels between the authoritarian character of Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, coming to the conclusion that he is a fascist. Paxton himself does not share this opinion, but many other historians have come to a different conclusion.

Let us explore the various parts of the definition of fascism and see if there are any parallels between it and Trumpism. Elaborating on his definition, Paxton writes, “Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program.” When we look at the Trump program, this seems to be fairly accurate, as his positions are continually changing. He professes to be the embodiment of capitalism and at the same time (at least for now) is against free trade. He was pro-choice, but has now morphed into a pro-lifer. He is against raising the minimum wage at one moment and at the next he is for it. Ideological malleability and policy contradictions seem to be his hallmarks.

Behind Trump’s slogan of “making America great again,” there is clearly a sense that he believes (if he believes anything) that America is in decline and that it can no longer do what it used to do in the world, and that he will set the tables right once more if and when elected President. He does not spell out the nature of the decline, but it seems fairly obvious that he is alluding to the notion that since World War II, the US has been defeated, if not humiliated, in all its foreign wars. This holds true for all the

By Laura Quinn duced and choreographed by the billionaire-donor class.

Section Three, entitled “Privatizing Politics: Total Combat, 2011-2014” narrates the miscalculations of the radical right in the Romney/Ryan ticket failure to defeat Obama. Dark Money argues, though, that Obama’s 2012 victory did not represent the limitations of Citizens United or the falling off of a radical right surge financed by the Kochtopus. The fury of the radical right billionaires at the reelection of Obama leads to the Senate takeover of 2014 and the willful legislative paralysis that, in effect, defeat a sitting president. The battle on the state level turned the mostly blue state of Wisconsin red and the oncepurple state of North Carolina deep red (as seen most recently in HB2) and these states become the models for future incursions into blue/purple territory. The Kochtopus is reframing itself as a movement for the “well-being” of the “middle third” of the electorate, those who still qualify as “makers not takers.”

Dark Money leaves us with two resonant ironies: the first is that the billionaire-donors of the Kochtopus, who see themselves as the consummate “makers” are, in fact, huge “takers” themselves; government contracts, subsidies and tax breaks underwrite the tripling of the Koch family fortune in the Obama era. The gnawing irony that extends beyond the scope of Mayer’s book is, of course, the fact that the maverick billionaire who has secured the presumptive nomination of the Republican Party has refused to bow at the Koch altar. For progressives, the thought of Trump as the much-needed Kochtopus-killer is indeed chilling.

Laura Quinn is a retired professor of English at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA and a fairly recent member of the Thomas Merton Center.

By Michael Drohan

wars presently being engaged in in the Middle East and the prognosis for those conflicts is not good. This of course, is not a new theme in US politics and goes back to the Reagan era of overcoming the “Vietnam syndrome” of defeat and humiliation in that adventure. No doubt the situation in post World War I Germany was very different, with Germany’s massive humiliation and despoliation after the war. But the essential sentiment is the same.

Fascism, as the definition says, is marked by a cult of unity, energy and purity.

With Hitler this cult took the form of elevation of the purity of the Aryan race and the program to eliminate Romanis, Jews, and other nationalities not considered to be part of the “master race.” This element of fascism is very clear in the Trump campaign, with his railings against Muslims and Mexican immigrants. Similarly to Hitler, these groups are identified as scapegoats for the ills of the nation. For now, his solution would be the banning of these groups from the country, but that could morph into other Hitler-like solutions.

Even as a candidate for the Republican nomination of that party, Trump has shown complete intolerance for any dissent. Firstly, those who are allowed into his campaign rallies are thoroughly screened with the exclusion of dissenters. The Press is basically allocated to pens. When some dissenters pass through the gates and identify themselves, they are abused by Trump with invectives and then manhandled and expelled. All this happens in the context of having no official power. One can only imagine what repression of First Amendment rights would take place if he were ever elected to office or had any political power.

There are many xenophobic and racist elements to the Trump campaign. In California, one of his delegates belonged to a white supremacist group.

When endorsed by David Duke, he maintained with little credulity that he did not know Duke or the KKK. His opposition to President Obama and questioning whether Obama was truly an American has more than a tinge of racism to it. And then let us not

forget his misogyny, which is crude beyond words.

His disrespect for people with physical disabilities has also to be added to his list of frightening bigotries.

What began looking like a joke has morphed into a specter and a nightmare. In Germany at the beginning of Nazism it was not unalike. It behooves us at the very least to analyze seriously what we are witnessing and not discount the possibility that we are living through proto-fascism.

Michael Drohan This author is a member of the Editorial Collective and of the Board of the Merton Center July/August 2016

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Learning Latin America Exploring the Brazilian Crisis A Thomas Merton Center (TMC) potluck, June 15, explored the political, economic and social crisis wreaking havoc in Brazil. Three speakers participated; Carolyn Kazdin, a United Steelworkers representative who lives in Brazil; Michael Drohan, a TMC Board member, who did economic research about the Amazon jungle in Brazil; and Haydee McCarville, a native of Brazil.

Kazdin praised former President Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party. “Lula displayed great political skills as he rose from factory mechanic to national president in 2002. He promoted programs of racial equality and university quotas. He spread access to housing, automobiles, electricity and education with direct ‘family scholarships’ to keep kids in school. It bypassed the traditional political distribution system. It won him many enemies among the elites, but it helped credit him with raising 40 million people out of poverty.

“Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s handpicked successor, continued his policies, but lacked Lula’s political skills. Still, she won a second term in 2014. When Brazil was hit with the commodity crises of 2014, however, the opposition smelled blood and began investigations to discredit the Workers’ Party.

“The Lower House brought charges of impeachment against Dilma for manipulating budget figures. The Senate has 180 days to complete the impeachment trial. In the meantime, Dilma has had to step down. Vice-President Temer, not of the same party, formed an interim government and immediately began to try to dismantle the Lula legacy with investigations. The investigations, however, took on a life of their own as they discovered widespread and systematic kickbacks and payoffs. All of the political parties became implicated.

“The interim government was immediately wracked with scandal. Temer, who is under investigation himself, is not popular. People are now demonstrating against him in the streets. Students are seizing high schools where the government was cutting lunch programs,” she said.

“Eduardo Cunha, President of the Lower House that led the impeachment charge, was part of a caucus implicated in diverting evangelical church collections for political corruption. He has since been

By Jim McCarville

removed from office on ethics violations.”

Michael Drohan, a TMC Board Member, spoke about the authenticity he saw in the Brazilian Workers’ Party movement when he worked there in the late 80s and early 90s. “It was a powerful force of democracy from the bottom up” and he expressed great hope that it will rise up again. “The charges against Dilma are not impeachable offenses, but a ‘political coup,’ done, almost, with the support of the US” and a “lack of an official US criticism”.

Haydee McCarville addressed the societal crises Brazilian people are going through. She spoke proudly of the Brazilian culture and way of life. But she warned against looking for simplistic solutions to a very complicated situation. She surveyed her large family still living in Brazil, a cross section of political, economic and social classes, and spoke about how people were coping with the crisis. She Speakers and attendees at the TMC Brazil Potluck.

Photo by Jim McCarville. related some comments from her survey, posted here anonymously: vices, infrastructure and quality of life are in decline.”  “Construction has stopped. I’ve laid off No more of this ‘poor me’ stuff. We get the 70% of the people that worked for me and I am now government we deserve. We will never fix this until a ‘consultant,’ but lucky to be one. The only options we take responsibility for ourselves.” are more taxes/less spending. There will be a lot of suffering before we get through this.”

Haydee summarized what she found as “a sense “People have stopped spending. No money. I of permanent disappointment. Even many supporters don’t see who or what could get us out of this. There of the Workers’ Party, those who elected them to is a Brazilian Trump named Bolsonaro. He is misog- clean up the government, felt betrayed and disilluynist, homophobic and ignorant. He grows more sioned. What remained was anger, frustration, fear, loss of faith and loss of hope.” popular every day.”

On the brighter side, she said, “for the first “With layoffs, the market price for my work time, corrupt politicians and fraudulent company has fallen by 30%. I live in constant fear of reowners are going to jail.” She sensed a growing renegotiating my salary. It is worse for domestic jection “of the tradition of impunity that has toleratworkers. We talk all the time about the instability, ed political corruption in the past, along with rejecbut we are not so good at talking about politics.

Each person seizes on a trickle of information and tion of the admiration cult of the ‘espertalhão,’ the declares it the absolute truth. People don’t seek to ‘cool kind of swindler’ who gets away with his con jobs. It is small consolation for such a long-term find solutions, only to ‘win’ arguments.” “When they removed Dilma it was like re- problem, but maybe it’s a silver lining.” moving Ali Baba and leaving 400 thieves. We need Jim McCarville is a member of the Editorial more jails.”

Collective. He is also the spouse of Haydee McCar“People distrust the entire body politic. The ville, cited in the article. disarray is driving away capital, families are losing income, tax revenues needed to support social ser-

Building Bridges in Latin America Information provided by School of the Americas Watch and compiled by Josh Sturman for this article

At a time when refugees who are fleeing U.S.sponsored violence are being branded as criminals, rapists and terrorists, and as anti-immigrant rhetoric continues to poison the public discourse in this election year, it is important for people of conscience to take a stand and to offer a different narrative.

As politicians build walls, we must build bridges.

We need to build grassroots power to challenge the racist status quo and we need to take action. Immigration has been the biggest issue so far in the 2016 presidential election campaign, yet every major candidate has remained silent about the connections between militarized U.S. foreign policy and the reasons why people flee here for their lives.

Instead of welcoming refugees as required under international humanitarian standards, the U.S. is treating them as criminals and imprisoning them for profit. Moreover, the U.S. “solution” to the so-called child migrant crisis has been to further militarize the borders of Mexico and Central America. Mexico now deports more Central Americans than the U.S. – with our tax dollars. Enough is enough! We must answer the call for solidarity, speak truth to power, and demand an end to the manifestations of U.S. violence in the Americas and beyond!

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July/August 2016

After consulting with communities and organizers on the front lines of resistance along the U.S./ Mexico border, School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) has decided to move its annual convergence to the border. They are expanding their focus, and will shine a light on the many human rights violations caused by destructive U.S. foreign policy that the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC) represents.

The SOA Watch movement began as a response to what was happening in El Salvador in the 1980’s, when Salvadoran troops trained at the SOA were butchering civilians and peace activists, including Archbishop Oscar Romero. The patterns of violence and forced migration established during the dirty wars of the 20th century have continued unabated as a direct result of U.S. economic and security policies in Mesoamerica as well as the U.S.-led Drug War. How do we respond to this current reality in the same way we responded to the violence in the 1980’s? Where should our energies lie?

This year’s vigil in Nogales, Arizona is a response to the present-day call to solidarity.

The border mobilization in Nogales is one more way to fight for the closure of the School of the Americas, and to work towards a world that is free of suffering and violence. We cannot forget that many of our immigrant brothers and sisters are survivors of U.S.sponsored atrocities in Latin America.

In calling attention to the militarization of the border, we continue to demand an end to state-sponsored terrorism and violence against our communities on both sides of the border.

We invite you to join in our efforts

to organize our community to stand with human rights activists, torture survivors, union workers, veterans, community organizers, migrants, faith communities, students and educators from across the Americas.

For more information on SOA Watch Pittsburgh and the convergence in Nogales, contact josh@thomasmertoncenter.org.

Josh Sturman is an intern for the School of the America Watch of W. PA and an intern with the Anti-War Committee. He is also a graduate student at Duquesne University.

The SOA Watch is asking us to take the following action: H.R. 5474, the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, was introduced in the House of Representatives on June 15, 2016. The bill will "suspend United States security assistance with Honduras until such time as human rights violations by Honduran security forces cease and their perpetrators are brought to justice."

Please contact your member of Congress and ask him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 5474. If you do not know your Representative's direct office number, call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Ask the operator to connect you to your Representative's office directly. If you don't know who your Representative is, that is not a problem - you can give your zip code to the operator and they will connect you. Ask to speak with the foreign policy aide that handles Latin America to discuss a new bill, HR 5474, the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act. Tell them the bill would suspend United States security assistance with Honduras until such time as human rights violations by Honduran security forces cease and their perpetrators are brought to justice. The government has squandered our tax dollars to arm and train a government that has been credibly linked to countless human rights violations and death squad activity. You can leave a message with the same information.

Humanity’s Destructive Legacy UN’s Complicity in Unjust Refugee Repatriation

By Danielle Fritz

In May 2016, the Kenyan government announced its plans to close Dadaab refugee camp by November and to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees. Constructed in eastern Kenya over twenty-five years ago as a temporary solution for Somalis fleeing their country’s civil war, Dadaab has become a sprawling slum-like city that hosts first, second, and third-generation refugees. Over the years, the government of Kenya has imposed measures that restrict refugees’ movements and make it difficult for refugees to travel outside of the camps in search of work.

In 2013, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reached a tripartite agreement with the governments of Kenya and Somalia, which provides a legal framework for the repatriation of Somali refugees living in Kenya. The agreement does not establish a timeline for repatriation, but stresses the need for all returns to be voluntary. Pursuant to the agreement, UNHCR began repatriation operations in 2014, but very few Somali refugees have elected to participate.

Pressure to repatriate, however, has been mounting. In the aftermath of several terrorist attacks in Kenya in 2014, the government forcibly deported around 350 refugees. After the April 2015 terrorist attack in Garissa, during which gunman from the militant group Al-Shabaab killed nearly 150 people, the government amplified its antirefugee rhetoric and committed to the closure of Dadaab. The government claims that Dadaab and other refugee camps have become havens for Islamist terrorists, although numerous sources dispute these claims.

UNHCR warns that immediate repatriation would have extreme humanitarian and practical consequences and has vowed not to support any measure that violates international law. Although the government of Kenya has yet to act on its stern commitments to close the camp, many Somalis fear that

they will be forcibly repatriated. The lack of infrastructure, social services, and stability within many areas of Somalia renders any repatriation program in the near future insecure and, potentially, unlawful.

UNHCR’s role in the current push to repatriate Somali refugees is still developing. Will the refugee agency condemn forced repatriations, should they happen? Or will the refugee agency facilitate and assist repatriations, even if non-voluntary? Over the past three decades, UNHCR has become a vocal proponent of repatriation as the preferred solution for the world’s refugees, almost completely ignoring other possible solutions, such as integration into the society of a host state or resettlement abroad to a different country.

At times, UNHCR has participated in dubious repatriation schemes, including the repatriation of Rohingyan Muslim refugees to Burma in the early 1990s. During this period, many of the Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after the military junta ruling Burma stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship rights. Concerned by the number of refugees, the Bangladeshi government began forcibly repatriating refugees and denying UNHCR access to camps. UNHCR struck a deal: in return for access to refugees; the organization agreed to promote ‘voluntary’ repatriation to ‘safe’ areas in Burma. Human rights organizations and subsequent research have revealed that UNHCR did not universally inform refugees of their right to refuse repatriation. Moreover, the agency provided misleading information about safety within Burma, and abandoned the process of interviewing refugees individually in favor of mass repatriation.

At other times, the refugee agency has provided quiet support to coercive measures that induce repatriation, such as the withdrawal of food rations and essential services or the introduction of travel and employment restrictions. In the 1990s, for example, the UNHCR office in Afghanistan authorized the

reduction of food rations to pressure Tajik refugees to repatriate. The agency remained silent when the government of Bangladesh severely reduced food rations and other assistance to Rohingyan refugees.

Under these conditions, the voluntariness of a refugee’s decision to repatriate is suspect.

The refugee agency has also promoted repatriation to unstable and unsafe countries of origin. Sudanese refugees in Chad recently expressed their concerns about the repatriation scheme that UNHCR is discussing with the governments of Chad and Sudan.

The refugees claim that the situation in Darfur is more dangerous than when they left. Similarly, Rwandan refugees in Uganda have criticized the High Commissioner’s recommendation that countries hosting Rwandan refugees begin repatriation programs. The refugees argue that they remain at risk of persecution by the autocratic Rwandan government, which cracks down on all forms of political dissent.

Why would UNHCR—an international organization mandated with protecting refugees— vigorously promote repatriation as the preferred solution for refugees, even when the conditions in a refugee’s country of origin are such that repatriation is untenable? In short, UNHCR is dependent on host and donor countries for both funding and access to refugees. As countries seek to limit the costs of refugee flows and exert more control over borders and migration management, UNHCR has become complicit in an international refugee law regime that provides limited and unstable legal protection, and prioritizes refugee return over long-term support.

Danielle Fritz is a researcher with the "International Centre: Researching child sexual exploitation, violence and trafficking" at the University of Bedfordshire. She is also a nonpracticing attorney in the state of New York. This article is based on her LL.M. dissertation on refugee repatriation.

President Obama in Wars on Syrian Hiroshima Streets After Lynn Emanuel Continued

By Michael Drohan

mankind possessed the means to de- that marks us as a species, our stroy itself. thoughts, our imagination, our lanWhy do we come to this place, to guage, our toolmaking, our ability to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a ter- set ourselves apart from nature and I have dreamed of those: rible force unleashed in a not-so- bend it to our will — those very things In 2015 the people were at war distant past. We come to mourn the also give us the capacity for unand fighting in the streets of Syria dead, including over 100,000 Japanese matched destruction.”

Below a foreign God watched the cities bleed. men, women and children, thousands President Obama is no doubt to of Koreans, a dozen Americans held be commended for the visit and the Under his view, children screamed into the dust prisoner. courage he exhibited in doing so. But “The world war that reached its his speech leaves so much to be deI’ll never understand why he allowed it. brutal end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki sired in terms of saying the truth honTheir father’s hands were the shade of loss was fought among the wealthiest and estly. No apology for perhaps the And the mothers held a photograph with a broken frame most powerful of nations. Their civili- greatest war crime ever committed. No zations had given the world great cit- admission of guilt and we may ask the They did not run today. They were soothed by memories of yesterday. ies and magnificent art. Their thinkers question why? The simple answer is The world finds it challenging to think that had advanced ideas of justice and har- that Obama is President of Empire, These people were once happy in a country of promise mony and truth. And yet the war grew the American Empire, and empires But they no longer are there. out of the same base instinct for domi- and emperors do not apologize. The nation or conquest that had caused empire will not allow anyone to apoloBut someday they will be. The mothers smiling. conflicts among the simplest tribes, an gize on its behalf.

This is the struggle and pain of war. old pattern amplified by new capabiliBut the story gets worse in regard It is colored with red. It is made of Tomorrows. ties and without new constraints. to the Japan visit. The real reason for “In the span of a few years, some the visit was to rearm Japan and conFor it may bring sleep tonight 60 million people would die. Men, solidate the encirclement of China. It When fathers and mothers no longer bury children under God’s eye women, children, no different than us. was not about Japan or an apology of Who walk the busy streets believing in Someday, Someday, Someday.

Shot, beaten, marched, bombed, jailed, any kind but to ensure the alliance of starved, gassed to death. There are the US, Korea (South), Vietnam, the many sites around the world that Philippines and Japan in isolating ChiKate Koenig is a History and English major at the University of Pittsburgh. chronicle this war, memorials that tell na. So sadly, despite President She primarily writes novels and short stories. She also works as a photogra- stories of courage and heroism, graves Obama’s reflections on the horrors of pher and currently is working on a photo series centered around the lives of and empty camps that echo of un- war, bombs and conflict, his visit was Transgender individuals. speakable depravity. essentially a summons to more war.

“Yet in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are Michael Drohan is a member of the most starkly reminded of humanity’s Editorial Collective and the Board of core contradiction. How the very spark the Merton Center.

July/August 2016 NEWPEOPLE - 9

By Kate Koenig

Local Activism Fight the Power: Students Rally for Change On June 17th, a group of student activists gathered at the Pittsburgh Public School Board to discuss changes in school code for the benefit of current and future Pittsburgh Public School (PPS) students. Students from Young Undoing Institutional Racism (YUIR) met with Dr. Dara Ware Allen, the Assistant Superintendent for Student Support Services, in order to clarify and improve pieces of the student code. With the teens of YUIR ranging from both private schools within the city such as Winchester Thurston and public schools like CAPA and Barack Obama Academy, a variety of backgrounds and interests were represented for the students of the district.

As per a report published by the National Center for Education Statistics from a previous school year (2013-2014), the PPS district has a 54.15% African-American majority. Much of YUIR's focus is in undoing conscious and unconscious internalized and systematic racism, and accounting for the intersectionality of interests in our world. A major point the teens called for was an amendment to the current disciplinary levels enforced in PPS. There are only two current disciplinary levels, of which both tardiness and teasing fellow students are placed as level one offenses, while both academic dishonesty and arson are placed as level two infractions. Given the disparate natures of offenses within the same levels, students called for more clarity within how levels are defined and as to how disciplinary action would

be addressed.

Given the high population of students of color within the district, the teens of YUIR sought to address the current policies and punishments, such as suspensions, to alleviate disproportionate discipline of said students. Students noted that punishments like suspension for offenses such as not adhering to dress code interfere with a student's education and may place a student further behind. Additionally, the students pushed for the district to recognize matters such as safety for students inside as well as outside of the school. Students may travel through unsafe areas to school and as a result, may carry items such as pepper spray; however, current policies within the city and commonwealth do not account for these challenges that students may face.

The students call for recognition of these special circumstances as to not affect the education of students, and to care about them in not only academics, but in mind and body. Additionally, students called for better wording in regards to policies, specifically targeting the notion of "Safer Saner Schools," to encourage a safe and non-ableist space as well as more care in noting that current structures may not be conducive for families which do not speak English or English as first language.

Self expression is a vital part of student life. A point of interest noted that differing opinions between educators and students can be considered disrespectful conduct. Given what many see as a hierar-

By Nijah Glenn

chal power imbalance between students and educators, the ability to punish students for deviation in thought or belief allows the notion to exist that students are truculent, dishonest, or defiant. The teens proposed addition of affinity groups for students and staff, and a mixture of both to alleviate tensions between the different populations. Workshops focusing on issues such as racism provided by organizers within the social justice community and with input from students were also proposed as suggestions in order to help the PPS community grow. Dr. Ware Allen was very receptive to the points proposed, noting the importance of a safe zone for students and the necessity of students receiving an education without obstacles created by educators.

In order for students to grow within their environment, it is important to have a solid foundation within one's place of education. Students and their needs must be accounted for rather than streamlined to a place of no return. The PPS district is diverse in the walks of life represented, as well as the ethnic groups represented. The YUIR teens noted that in order to help students grow, this diversity must be accounted for. With the changes proposed, hopefully, there will be a better future for students within the district for many years to come.

Nijah Glenn is a senior biology major and dedicated youth activist. She is a member of the NewPeople editorial collective, avid coffee consumer, and is dedicated to making both the scientific field & world more equitable.

Point Park Study= Science + Advocacy for Homeless

By Jeremy Northup, Calla Kainaroi, and Alexandria Bright

Tonight there was bologna and cheese, one box, about 20 sandwiches or so amidst other boxes of expected peanut butter and jelly. As we’ve come to learn, and probably shouldn’t have had to learn, it’s easy to get tired of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches night after night. As we were passing out granola bars, mouthwash, sandwiches and socks, we could hear Dr. Jim Withers inside the mobile medical unit providing an informal orientation to the newest batch of medical students beginning their four-week rotation with Pittsburgh Mercy’s Operation Safety Net. “Our salvation is working with the most excluded first.”

Over the past seven months, a few of us from Point Park University’s Clinical-Community Psychology Graduate program have been engaged with advocate ethnography in Operation Safety Net, immersing ourselves in work that Operation Safety Net does, cultivating relationships with both the staff and the people that they serve, taking note of all the ways the staff attempts to pay attention to and care for those that are among the most excluded—those who sleep on salt-stained, frigid cement on the coldest of Pittsburgh nights, those who would otherwise refuse medical care, having been harmed or ignored by medical and psychiatric establishments. At the same time, we are chronicling the stories and experiences of those who live on the street or are at risk of finding themselves on the street, doing our best to attest to the multiplicity of perspectives.

As a research methodology, advocate ethnography isn’t interested in adding to the stacks and queues of unread academic papers. Instead, it is interested in using research to transform, to agitate,

Programs at the Pump House 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 workers, educators, historians, union members and regular citizens which aims to preserve, interpret and promote a people’s history focused on the significance of the dramatic labor conflict at the Homestead Works in 1892.

and to incite social change. Advocate ethnographers use a variety of different methods: cryptic notes or jottings intended to be reminders for later on, perhaps quickly penned in the back of an SUV as we drive from one camp to another; they may eventually expand into narrative notes, a chronological and more detailed explication of the events witnessed. In addition, advocate ethnographers engage in openended interviews, attempting to understand what it is like for both the workers of Operation Safety Net and the people they care for. To give voice to and to advocate for others, it is of the utmost importance that, as researchers, we are as sensitive as can be, as careful as possible, to have fidelity to the experiences as lived by those who experienced them. To advocate well, we must first listen and then listen some more, act in service, and bear witness.

On the median, Dave stood. We pulled over to ask him and his friend if they needed anything-medical care, food, water, socks, the things we typically have available if necessary. Dave responded fairly quickly that he could really use some medical care, that he was “all messed up.” We told him to cross the street and meet us in front of the library, that over there the medical students could take a look at what was going on and assess the situation.

We stood there in the afternoon, caught in both the glare of the sunlight and those who walked by, as Dave lifted his pant leg, pulled down his sock, and exposed a wound that had become infected, dangerously so. After consulting one another, the medical students decided that Dave needed to go to the hospital; they were worried that the infection wouldn’t subside without IV antibiotics that could only be

administered if Dave was admitted. The five of us out on rounds that night were split down the middle as best as possible—some going to the hospital with one of the medical students, advocating for Dave, making sure that he was able to get the care that he needed and wasn’t turned away.

As Dave, the medical student, and I (Jeremy) walked into the hospital, I was afforded a view that I hadn’t otherwise seen. I watched as security guards sighed and quietly made noises signifying annoyance at Dave. I saw the passive aggression enacted by admitting staff as they handed across a stack of forms that Dave, had I not been there to help, wouldn’t have been able to fill out properly. I sat with him, surrounded by the dull hum of reality television and oppressive white lighting, talking and waiting. I learned about his family, his kids, his childhood.

After a few hours and some needed convincing provided by the medical student on rotation, he was admitted. Being able to sit there with Dave, keeping him calm, continually alerting him as to what was going on and where he was, and making sure he was afforded the care he needed in that moment, I may have been conducting research in one way or another, advocating as well, but even more importantly I would argue, he wasn’t there alone.

The authors are all graduate students in Point Park's Clinical-Community Psychology program engaged in advocate ethnography in conjunction with Pittsburgh Mercy's Operation Safety Net.

to help workers win decent conditions and fundamental rights in Bangladesh’s garment factories and shipbreaking yards. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest exporter of garments after China. The ship breaking yards hire young men and boys in extremely dangerous jobs to cut apart a large proportion of the world’s cargo ships.

Thursday, July 28- 7:30 pm - Film (82 mins.) American Revolutionary - The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs Grace Lee Boggs was a Chinese-American philosopher, writer and activist in Detroit, whose vision of revolution will surprise you. Rooted for over 70 years in the AfricanAmerican community and movement, Boggs discusses her lifetime of vital thinking and action traversing the major US social movements of the last century. She challenges a Saturday, July 16 – 1:30 pm - Barbara Briggs will deliv- new generation to throw off old assumptions, think creaer the Steelworkers annual 2016 Bernard Kleiman lecture: tively and redefine revolution for your time. Boggs died on Struggle for Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy.

Oct. 6, 2015 at the age of 100.

Briggs, Associate Director of the Pittsburgh-based Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights, will report on efforts 10 - NEWPEOPLE

July/August 2016

Support for Prisoners How Pennsylvania’s Prison Population Exploded: Part One

By Martha Conley

Some say Richard Nixon and his “Southern Strategy” paved the path to mass incarceration beginning in 1968, in the aftermath of the Civil Rights revolution in the South. Many, if not most, Southern whites were incensed at the integration of public accommodations, schools and the extension of voting rights to black people in the South. As Dan Baum reported in a Harper’s Magazine article in April 2016, John Erlichman, who served in Nixon’s White House, told him that Nixon was concerned about two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. Baum quoted Erlichman as saying: “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting people to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”

As history reveals, the “war on drugs” was waged primarily on black people, and black communities were disrupted. Black people are still paying a price for integration and being vilified night after night on the evening news for social disorganization not of their making.

Republican strategist Lee Atwater confirmed Erlichman’s statement in an interview with Rick Perlstein recorded in 2012 in The Nation. Atwater said: “You start out in 1954 by saying ‘nigger, nigger, nigger’. By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’--That hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states rights, and all that stuff…. Now you’re

talking about cutting taxes, all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….”

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) must also shoulder much of the blame for mass incarceration, as it created the legislation that made mass incarceration possible. ALEC was founded in 1973 by conservative operatives. It styles itself “America’s largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.” One of its main functions is to provide model legislation to member legislators that promotes a radical right agenda. There are currently seven legislators in Pennsylvania (all Republican) who are members of ALEC. According to a report

by The Western States Center in 2000, titled, “The Prison Payoff. The Role of Politics and Private Prisons in the Incarceration Boom,” mass incarceration was the creation of ALEC and exemplified the overlap between corporations and public policy. According to the report, Pennsylvania was ALEC’s test case.

Then Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge was a member of ALEC in 1994 when it made prison privatization and tough on crime legislation a major policy initiative. In 1995, the Pennsylvania Legislature sponsored 30 crime bills in Pennsylvania and Governor Ridge signed them into law, leading to the incarceration boom. Mandatory life without parole for first and second degree murder, (previously 20 years to life), trying juveniles as adults and putting them in adult prisons, harsh sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, and a boom in prison construction are

just some of the gifts of the 1995 crime bills.

A 2014 article in Fortune Magazine detailed a study of the 10 most corrupt states in the United States. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to Pennsylvanians that our commonwealth made the list, coming in at number five. The study listed construction, salaries, bond issues, corrections, and police departments as prime sources for corruption within a state.

Pennsylvania went from eight prisons in 1986 to twenty-six prisons in 2016. In 1980, the budget for the Department of Corrections was 90 million dollars. In 2015, the budget was two billion dollars.

Most of the prisons were built in rural areas and have served as an employment program for the mostly white people living in those areas, with disastrous consequences for the mostly black inmates targeted by mass incarceration and prison construction policies. According to the National Research Council, in 2014, policy changes, not crime rates, resulted in the tripling of the prison population.

According to an article in The Guardian dated December 3, 2013 one of the model bills adopted by ALEC in partnership with the National Rifle Association was Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law. The law was used as a template and ALEC disseminated it to other states across the country By the way, after creating havoc in millions of people’s lives across the United States through mass incarceration, ALEC now claims to be a leader in criminal justice reform.

Martha R. Conley is a lawyer in Pittsburgh and serves as co-chair of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Pittsburgh and is an official visitor of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

Seeking Justice in the Year of Mercy: A Campaign to End the Death Penalty

By Joyce Rothermel

Catholic social teaching offers a unique perspective on crime and punishment. It starts with the recognition that the dignity of the human person applies to both victims and offenders. It affirms a Catholic commitment to comfort and support victims and their families, while acknowledging the God-given dignity of every human life, even those who do enormous harm. It is for this reason that the Catholic Church, along with many other faith traditions, opposes the death penalty and its use in state sanctioned killing. This teaching is rooted in the belief that all life is a gift from God. The Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty has launched “Seeking Justice in the Year of Mercy: A Campaign to End the Death Penalty”. Pope Francis has named 2016 as a Jubilee Year of Mercy. The tradition of a Jubilee Year calls for designating a time for renewal and forgiveness. It is rooted in the Hebrew scripture.

Every seven years, prisoners would be freed, slaves would be released, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would be particularly manifested.

The Pope has appealed directly to Catholic public officials, “to make a courageous and exemplary gesture by seeking a moratorium on executions during this Holy Year of Mercy.” Pope Francis said,

“Mercy is not opposed to justice, but rather expresses God’s way of reaching out to the sinner; offering him/her a new chance to look at him/herself, convert and believe.” Justice must always recognize the dignity of the human person and the redemptive power of God’s mercy to work in the lives of offenders.

Joining with the Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (PADP), the Catholic Mobilizing Network is seeking participation in this year’s Campaign to End the Death Penalty. The current moratorium on the death penalty established by Gov. Tom Wolf creates a unique opportunity to raise the voice of Pennsylvania Catholics in opposition to the death penalty through education and by organizing Catholics to go beyond the moratorium, and end capital punishment in Pennsylvania permanently.

Writing in support of the Governor’s announcement, the Pennsylvania Catholic conference notes, “The antidote to violence is love, not more violence.”

Officials from the PADP have provided us with a toolkit guide to incorporating abolition of the death penalty into our prayer life, education and social justice events this year. It includes ideas, printable resources, and ways to advocate. We are also fortunate to have a local interfaith chapter of PADP in Pittsburgh.

What can you do? Pray for victims of crime and their families, those who have been wrongly convicted, and those awaiting execution. Learn about Catholic social teaching or that of other faith traditions, U.S. criminal justice policies, and the policies in your state. Educate people in your faith congregation or community about Catholic social teaching or that of your faith tradition and the criminal justice system.

Statements on the death penalty by church officials can be found at: usccb.org/deathpenalty Advocate by contacting your elected officials.

Discuss Catholic teaching on the death penalty, or that of your own faith tradition, and what steps can be taken at the state and national levels to curtail or end its use.

To take action locally or obtain a toolkit, contact Joyce Rothermel at 412-271-8414/ rothermeljoyce@gmail.com or Martha Conley at 412-3617872/marcon71@msn.com Joyce Rothermel chairs the Social Justice and Peace Committee at St. James Church in Wilkinsburg.

Open Letter to Marty Dunbar: I Hope You Can Read This

By Kenneth Sible Dear Marty and Other PA Inmates in State Prisons, I hope you will see this letter and know you have not been forgotten. I have been very frustrated.

The last letter I received from you, Marty, was dated Dec. 30, 2015. Since then I have written to you many times, but my mail has been returned. I believe you also have tried to write to me but your letters have not been received. I want to let you know that you should probably save your energy and postage, since the authorities there at the prison in Frackville, PA are not allowing my mail to get to you or your mail to be sent out to me. This same unjust interference with U.S. mail delivery may be happening to others in our situation.

When I learned about the sexual assaults you

experienced at the hands of a now suspended corrections officer and I took action to expose his mistreatment of you, our communications were stopped.

You, yourself, were terrified to tell anyone because the corrections officer could simply deny it. You knew that correctional officers are virtually always believed in matters of credibility between themselves and inmates. Finally, you found the courage to report the crimes to personnel within the department. They advised you not to mention your allegations again. Your courage allowed you to continue to reach out for justice. I am glad to learn that you have filed a federal lawsuit against the corrections officer and several other prison employees who were told of the assaults and did nothing to stop them.

I believe your situation is not unique, Marty. I work with Fight for Lifers. We are dedicated to giving lifers and your loved ones hope and we will continue our efforts until you are given the justice and mercy that all human beings deserve.

Sincerely and in solidarity, Mr. Kenneth T. Sible Member, Fight for Lifers West c/o Thomas Merton Center 5129 Penn Avenue Pittsburgh,, PA 15224 Kenneth Sible is a member of Fight for Lifers West.

July/August 2016 NEWPEOPLE - 11

Fossil Follies Join the Clean Energy Revolution On Sunday, July 24th, the Thomas Merton Center, in conjunction with other groups from the region, will take six passenger buses from the Pittsburgh area to Philadelphia to participate in the March for a Clean Energy Revolution. Thousands of supporters from all across the country will unite to demand a ban on fracking, a halt to the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, and a just transition to a renewable energy economy. The march will take place on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, with hundreds of policy-makers and media personnel watching.

Pennsylvania is a hub for every aspect of fossil fuel use. Communities across the state are negatively affected by everything from coal mining to fracking, as well as the burning and disposal of these fossil fuels. The health and safety of residents is ignored, their land is destroyed, and they are left with the economic desolation that results from “boom and bust” industries like coal mining and fracking. Local, state, and federal officials have failed to protect the residents and resources of the Commonwealth from exploitation

by the fossil fuel industry. This negligence has prompted people to take the fight against fracking and unconventional gas development into their own hands.

Friends of the Harmed, a project of the Thomas Merton Center and publishers of Shalefield Stories, V ol 2, recently wrote a "Letter to President Obama from the Harmed." This letter calls on President Obama to meet with the families who have been impacted by the fracking industry, and to take action to correct the harmful practices used by the fossil fuel industry. The March for a Clean Energy Revolution will provide the people of western Pennsylvania with an even larger platform to stand together, and make their voices heard.

Anyone interested in joining the march can reserve a seat on a bus online at cleanenergymarch.org. Buses will leave in the morning on Sunday, July 24th, from Butler, Cranberry, Monroeville, Pittsburgh, Washington, Waynesburg, and

No More Fracking Pipelines On April 29th, our own Westmoreland County experienced a gas pipeline explosion. Given the massive destruction experienced across our nation and the world, it was relatively minor. What it DID do was to lift the cover off the potential risks that we live with, unknowingly, every day.

In Salem Twp, James Baker’s house was destroyed and he was sent to the hospital with severe burns. The force of the explosion was seen and felt almost a mile away. A section of Rt. 819 melted and closed for a month. The wildfire was extensive, and came within 200 yards of a well owned by Dominion Transmission. Dominion shut that well down as a precaution; however, it is notable that they own the Oakford Storage Complex, with more than 100 injection and monitoring wells.

The Delmont Compressor Station, a large complex of storage tanks and pipes that process natural gas, is less than two miles from the explosion. It consists of a storage field that spans 39 square miles, located underneath many pipelines. (This is the largest storage area in the United States.)

Spectra Energy, a Houston based parent company of Texas Eastern, said that there are four pipelines in the vicinity . The pipe that burst was laid in 1981 and last inspected in 2012, when no problems were found. Spectra owns 2,000 miles of pipelines in Pennsylvania and this admission reveals that the current standard of inspections cannot be trusted to discover cracks, leaks and conditions capable of causing explosions and fires.

A recent W all Street Journal review found that between 2010-2013 in the U.S., there were 1,400 pipeline accidents and four of every five problems were NOT discovered by the companies that own

By Angelique Stolar

12 - NEWPEOPLE

July/August 2016

Angelique Stolar is an intern for the Thomas Merton Center and a student at Slippery Rock University, studying communications and political science.

By: Carlana Rhoten

them.

Wikipedia reports that from 1994 through 2013, gas transmission systems were responsible for 363 fatalities, 1,392 injuries and $823,970,000 in property damage.

A new and even more dangerous development involves the granting of permits to increase the pressure inside pipelines transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Federal Energy Regulatory Agency (FERC) gives out permits to fossil fuel companies like jelly beans, even though it has little power or resources to regulate, inspect or enforce rules.

Most Republican lawmakers vote against any regulations, and cut budgets to prevent hiring enough qualified inspectors to protect the safety of citizens, and their air, water and property.

On May 11th, Salem Township citizens attended a Town Hall meeting called by their municipal officials to hear from Spectra Energy. Given the seriousness of this event, it is shocking to report that federal and state elected and appointed officials were nowhere to be seen. U.S. Senators/ Representatives, Department of Energy, FERC, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Human Services, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Transportation, Governor Wolf’s Department of Environmental Protection, Department for Conservation of Natural Resources, Department of Public Health, Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard, Senators/Representatives of our PA General Assembly, et al were AWOL. (New York citizens, led

by BXE www.beyondextremeenergy.org. are currently protesting Spectra Energy’s determined effort

Bread for the World Lobbies in D.C. On Tuesday, June 7, 2016, five members of the SW PA Bread for the World team travelled to Washington, D.C. in order to lobby for better antihunger legislation. The three main points of the visit were to urge members of Congress to support the Global Food Security Act (S. 1252), which makes Feed the Future a permanent program; to oppose the Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016 (H.R. 5003), which makes free and assisted school lunch programs less accessible; and a budgetary concern that Congress allot $230 million to global food security programs through the U.S. State Department.

Overall, the visits were successful. Rep. Mike Doyle (PA-14) gave a face-to-face meeting and was enthusiastically supportive of Bread for the World’s goals in the coming year. The offices of Sen. Casey and Sen. Toomey also gave meetings to the PA Bread team. Powerful and personal testimonies were the highlights of the Senate meetings, with several members sharing real stories of the impact of domestic nutrition programs. Both offices ex-

Morgantown, and return to those areas on Sunday night. Please contact Eva Westheimer at ewestheimer@fwwatch.org or 267-428-1916 for more information.

pressed consideration for the bills, though Sen. Casey’s office, the more traditional ally of the organization’s goals, was more supportive and had actually co-sponsored the Global Food Security Act and the Stop Child Summer Hunger Act. The office of Rep. Tim Murphy (PA-18) also granted a meeting, but made no commitments to support Bread’s policy requests.

Congressional visits are an important way to remind the members of Congress of their accountability to their constituents, as well as offering a way to remind them of the personal ramifications of their votes. It is a powerful and essential aspect of democracy.

The local Bread Team is joining Bread’s Vote to End Hunger Campaign and will be reaching out to the candidates for the House, Senate and Presidency to let them know that on election day, Bread members will be voting to end hunger by supporting candidates committed to ending hunger at home and abroad.

To join the local Bread team, contact Joyce

to lay pipelines near the Indian Point Nuclear plant and through areas that threaten water sources. See DemocracyNow.org for a Spectra Energy program.)

On May 19 PA citizens rallied to express their concerns and to join a national protest led by Americans Against Fracking (and Pipelines). The goal is to influence the National Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. Pennsylvanians Against Fracking, and many environmental organizations will join together at 1 PM on Sunday, July 24 for a MARCH FOR CLEAN ENERGY. (Some activists will arrive on Saturday, July 23.) th

th

For more information:

www.cleanenergymarch.org www.paagainstfracking.org The May 19 “ NO MORE PIPELINES “ rally can be viewed on TV in Pittsburgh every Monday at 9 PM during the month of July . Comcast Channel 21 and Verizon Fios Channel 47. th

It can be viewed anytime on the internet. Rich Fishkin, videographer, has it on YouTube. www.youtube.com/richfishpgh. Look for “Killer Pipelines in PA.” Carlana Rhoten is a community producer at PCTV21, Progressive Pgh Notebook TV Series, a project of the Thomas Merton Center. 412-3637472 or email tvnotebook@gmail.com

By Roses Laughlin Rothermel at 412-271-8414 or through email at: rothermeljoyce@gmail.com Roses Laughlin is a summer intern with the SW PA Bread for the World Team. She is a student at the Universit y of Pittsburgh.

In photo from left to right: Sen. Bob Casey, Joyce Rothermel, and article author, Roses Laughlin. Photo taken by Jennifer Lawer

Activist Events Unchain Victims From the Chain of Command Twenty-five people gathered for a rally organized by the Thomas Merton Center’s Stop Sexual Assault in the Military (SSAM) campaign in Station Square on Thursday, June 9th, to urge Sen. Toomey to support the Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA). The MJIA, a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), will remove the decision-making authority to prosecute rape and sexual assault cases from a conflicted, often-biased chain of command, and put it into the hands of professional, independent military prosecutors. The new military justice system will remove the internal bias from reporting rape and sexual assault and encourage survivors to come forward without fear of professional retaliation. The Senate will vote next week to determine whether the amendment will be voted into law. Sen. Toomey has not supported the amendment the past two times it has been brought up for a vote.

“Today, we can expect that 50 service men and women will be brutally assaulted. Not by a foreign terrorist or enemy combatant… [but] by someone also wearing a U.S. military uniform. In our military, there is a culture and judicial process that allows sexual predators and opportunistic rapists and other abusers to thrive. Today, SSAM is once again asking Sen. Toomey to join a wide bi-partisan coalition and vote for the Military Justice Improvement Act,” said SSAM Campaign Leader Ginny Hildebrand.

“While serving in Iraq in 2010, I ministered to one particular young soldier who had been repeatedly raped by her commander… The commander was not arrested or put in jail, but placed on administra-

tive reassignment, pending an internal investigation.

[He] was often seen joking with others in the HQ and handing out cigars to fellow officers, while his suffering victim was under constant suicide watch and psychological care,” Rev. Fr. Paul Dordal stated.

The rally also included a statement from an anonymous survivor of military sexual assault, a letter to President Obama calling for a stronger stance on military sexual assault written by TMC intern Emily Fecile, a statement from Pittsburgh Coalition Against Rape (PCAR), a statement from Phyllis Wetherby, member of the Greater Pittsburgh Area Chapter of National Organization of Women (NOW) for almost 50 years, and a statement from the Women’s Law Project which was also submitted to Toomey’s office in coordination with the rally.

A 2014 survey by the Department of Defense found that over 47,000 incidents of sexual assault were reported by service members. One in seven of these assaults were perpetrated by someone in the victim’s chain of command.

The MJIA was first introduced by Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) in November 2013. In March 2014, Sen. Toomey voted to block the MJIA from moving to a substantive vote. In June 2015, Sen. Toomey once again failed to support the MJIA, and the amendment was returned to the agenda for future consideration. Senators are calling for another vote on the MJIA after learning that Pentagon officials lied to Congress about the number of prosecutions carried out under the current military justice system regarding sexual assault.

The Thomas Merton Center’s Stop Sexual As-

sault in the Military (SSAM) campaign has been working for the past three years to increase awareness of the growing occurrence of sexual assault in the military and works to enact external controls to protect those who are victimized.

The Military Justice Improvement Act has been endorsed by Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), Service Scilla Wahrhaftig and Edith Bell Call on Sen. Toomey to Women’s Action Network (SWAN), pass the MJIA. Photo Taken National Women’s by Marni Fritz.

Law Center (NWLC), Protect Our Defenders, and the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women, just to name a few.

Rianna Lee is an intern with the NewPeople.

PPT Celebrates Getting More Transit Service Over the past year, Pittsburghers for Public Transit supported three campaigns for increased bus service. Residents came together, shared their needs with elected officials, held rallies downtown, and formally made requests through the Port Authority’s service guidelines. Overall, the agency received 85 distinct requests from over 1500 individuals. This demonstrates the high level of demand in our county for improved transit service.

Residents are celebrating recommendations for weekend service on the 89 in Garfield and the extended 79 along the Mt Carmel Rd corridor in Penn Hills.

These proposed changes will make a huge difference in these communities. “We are glad there is an opportunity to expand transportation in Penn Hills because it is greatly needed. We see so many residents who struggle to get to appointments, jobs, training programs, and the store,” said Joyce Davis, from the Lincoln Park Community Center and Penn Hills NAACP. Annie McGowan, resident of Garfield said: “Me and my mom have to depend on someone else to take us to church. A lot of senior citizens can’t get out for church activities, shopping, and meeting family and friends. Now we’ll be able to hop on the bus!”

“We would like to acknowledge all the elected officials who listened to the residents and helped highlight this need,” said Aggie Brose, Deputy Director of the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation. “We all came together and organized, and we are thrilled to see this recommendation for added service.”

The advocates and residents are also there to support all communities in the counCommunities members form Garfield, Penn Hills, and North Hills stand together to fight for more service. Photo by Dean Mougianis. ty who still need better bus service. Representatives from the Buses for Perry Highway

By Rianna Lee

By Casy Stelitano

campaign will highlight the need for more funding so that service can run along Perry Highway, north of Westview Shopping center to CCAC North, Northland Public Library, and other destinations.

The campaign plans to continue to advocate for this much needed service.

We also want to commend the Port Authority for making their service planning and decisionmaking processes more transparent and inclusive—a model for other agencies around the country. The annual service report carefully indicates how each request for service was evaluated and helps the public understand just how many communities need more transit.

Transit advocates and supporters are calling on elected officials, public agencies, institutions, and communities to all come together to secure more funding for the Port Authority. There is 16 million dollars in the drink tax fund balance. This fund is dedicated to public transit in Allegheny County, and there is no reason a few million dollars each year could not be allocated to the Port Authority’s operating budget. This money would enable them to provide service to more communities in need. We must all work together to secure even more sources of funding. Buslines are lifelines, and improving our public transit system is vital to the entire region.

This author is a PULSE fellow serving at Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Remembering Hiroshima, Imagining Peace Event Series

By Scilla Wahrhaftig

As we approach the 71st anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshisma and Nagasaki, Remembering Hiroshima, Imagining Peace will be recognizing the dropping of the first nuclear bombs with a series of events. This year we will be focusing not only on the threat of nuclear weapons and the billions the US is spending to upgrade our arsenal but also on the concerns about nuclear power and the potential disaster that can occur when events like the earthquake in Japan happen.

On August 1st City Council will be issuing a proclamation calling for a reduction in spending on nuclear weapons and a redirection of spending toward human needs, while at the same time calling for a move away from nuclear power and toward

renewable energy. We are also negotiating with the city to display our very powerful series of posters, “Strange Beauty” by photojournalist Takashi Morizumi, showing familiar objects from Fukushima that were contaminated by radioactive particles after the earthquake and meltdown of the nuclear reactor.

On August 5th we plan to conduct with Pittsburgh Filmmakers our annual film showing and skyping with peace activists in Japan and Guam. It was especially meaningful to have activists from Guam skyping with us last year and to hear their courageous stand to save their country from being taken over by the US military.

August 6th will be our second annual Bike Around the Bomb, starting from the tent at Schenley

Plaza and biking approximately 20km, which is the circumference of the immediate impact area of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are of course a fraction of the power of our present day nuclear weapons.

Last year around 30 people completed the ride and we are hoping for an even better turnout this year.

Please visit our website for updated information on these events and also on our fall series of talks and exhibits: https://rememberinghiroshima.org/.

Scilla Wahrhaftig is a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and of Remembering Hiroshima/Imagining Peace.

July/August 2016

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Underground Dispatches Muslim Women Sponsor ''Underground Railroad ReEnactment''

By John Rogers

To deepen my understanding of Holy Islam, I began joining Muslims in prayer at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh (ICP) in Oakland during weekend visits to my son. As a Eucharistic Minister in the Anglican communion, this participation presents no theological difficulty. Being a fellow monotheist, I can easily affirm the first part of the Islamic Shahade "There is no G-d but Allah" and acknowledge Muhammed's status as a prophet. As Muslims recognize Moses, King David, and Jesus as prophets, it is not much of a stretch.

In March I picked up a flyer at the ICP which paled my timid efforts at ecumenicism: An apparent nexus between Islam and runaway slaves in the antebellum era! The handbill proclaimed "ANNUAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD REENACTMENT'' for the last Sunday in April, beginning downtown and concluding at a safe house in Mt. Washington. As a recovering paranoiac, I am usually extra perceptive of connections, but deducing a relationship between Islam and runaway slaves was beyond my powers.

The Moslem Women's Association of Pittsburgh was listed as sponsor, but no time or assembly point was given. Though the new Imam would attend, it was not an official ICP event. The male worshipers I asked knew nothing about it, and fear of violating some stricture in Islam about male-female contact made me reluctant to ask the women. Fortunately, there was a community event several days before the Re-enactment. I approached a woman there wearing the niqab [only the eyes are uncovered] and inquired. She politely asked for my email and said someone would contact me. A woman from one of the suburbs, Malak, then emailed back and

forth with me, relaying my requests to the "conductor" for answers.

After church on the appointed Sunday, my son and I went to the Duquesne Incline on Grandview Avenue to wait. Eliot, being impatient, soon took my car to run errands and bring back food. A grey sedan then pulled up, the front window went down, and a dark-skinned woman told me to get in. I asked if they could wait a few minutes, but the woman said they were already behind schedule. So like many of the foot travelers, I began my journey after Christian worship and on an empty stomach.

A tall white man dressed in suit and tie met us at a park on the west side of Mt. Washington. The man, a retired architect, introduced himself as David. There were 15 or so gathered there, from children to the elderly (likely I was oldest at 77). We immediately set off on a narrow path with David and Sarah, the woman from the car, as our "conductors" for our reprise of this portion of the Underground Railroad. The conductors led us out of the park on a trail seemingly parallel with Sawmill Run Boulevard below. As I trudged along a few words from Isaiah--prophet to Muslims, Christians, and Jews--came to me: "They that wait upon the Lrd . . . shall walk and not be faint." Sarah stopped regularly to point out edible items (like plantain), serving to whet my appetite. Suddenly David stopped and asked us what runaway slaves used as a navigational guide. I felt a sudden panic ("How the heck would I get out of here now!"), followed by a moment of what Buddhists call satori (enlightenment).

Obviously, these runaways were confronted with more than a walk in the woods on a Sunday

afternoon: they had to make it from somewhere in "Ole Dixie" to Canada. Due to fugitive slave laws, slave-catchers, and the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1858, there was no safe "high ground" in the United States for an African slave.

The only safety was to keep moving until they reached Canada.

My head stopped spinning. Recalling a tidbit from American history, I blurted out "the North Star!" David went on to talk about using moss on the north side of trees and the rising and setting of the sun during the day as a guide, which was difficult except on solstices. Personally, I despaired being able to find my way back to the Golden Triangle using Polaris and tree moss as my guides. As we continued through the woods, my head grew lighter and lighter, and I walked slower and slower. A few people started following me, perhaps fearful that like a weak slave I might give up and wander off in the woods. The end finally came. We soon passed through the "safe house" and ended up in the same parking lot we had started in earlier.

Sarah said there had been many annual reenactments in various parts of Pittsburgh over the years. I don't know about other walkers in the past, but I had learned something. "And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time." --- "Little Gidding," T.S. Eliot.

John Rogers is a retired West Virginia attorney and attends Trinity Cathedral. He is also a member of the Pa. Prison Society and the Franciscan Order of Divine Compassion.

BREAKING NEWS FROM THE GIORNALE VATICANO Corruption in the Roman Curia Comes to an Explosive End (Episode 6)

Robert Jedrzejewski

Hard upon "Faversham’s” visit to the baronial digs of Cardinal Ludovico Scrofulenza (aka "Big Louie), Umberto Falena (akaThe Moth), the trusted journalist from the Giornale Vaticano, was contacted by the Cardinal's office to arrange a press conference of all Italian media outlets, TV, radio and press, where some boffo scandalous stuff would be revealed and the evidentiary documentation provided.

"Big Louie" was anxiously anticipating his greatest day in the sun. Little did he know that it would be the darkest day of his life and a comeuppance like no other. For the Bat-Priest's (aka Fr. Franco Bergoglio) part in this caper of justice and righteousness is about to become apparent, but only to you, dear reader, as this secret must remain hidden from all public eyes if the Pontiff is to remain in office and continue his efforts to aright the many wrongs of the Roman Curia.

First though, The Moth pulled out all the stops.

He arranged for the press conference to be held midday in the popular and beautiful Baroque Piazza Navona, an enormous open area, with literally thousands of Romani, tourists, vendors, artists and clerics milling about, seeing and being seen. A podium with numerous microphones was set up in front of the gorgeous Fontana di Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of Four Rivers). All TV cameras focused on the podium, where Cardinal Scrofulenza arrived with his retinue of sycophants.

Brandishing "Faversham"'s genealogical documents in his upraised hand, the arrogant Cardinal Scrofulenza began haranguing the assembled press corps with all the faults of the humble Pope and how he was bent on crumbling the sacred walls of a holy institution with his disdain for Vatican tradition. He hinted at some scandalous new facts that would reveal what a charlatan Bergoglio really was. But then KAPOW, BAZONKA AND GAZOWEY !!! the documents virtually exploded in his hand, became inflamed and finally disintegrated. "Big Louie" collapsed in a heap, believing the explosive conflagra14 - NEWPEOPLE

July/August 2016

tion to be of divine origin. He would spend his remaining days at Qui Si Sana sanatorium under the tender care of, ironically, the Suori di Giustitia Divina (Sisters of Divine Justice) religious order.

Thus departeth from the scene the rapacious Cardinal and his malevolent Vatican career!

And finally The Bat-Priest's role in all of this!

Standing inconspicuously in the rear of the crowd at the Piazza Navona, Fr. Franco appeared to wipe his brow at the moment of Scrofulenza's loudest harangue; instead, he pointed at the documents in the Cardinal's hand as Big Louie reached his apogee, and activated a radio beam from the MicroLaserflex-Conflagrocam (MLC) he cleverly had hidden in his handkerchief. The spurious documents had previously been treated in the Bat-Cellar with a secret chemical, Inflammotrophic-Ethyl-Solinate (IES) -and KABOOM! - the results described above.

The second significant action of Fr. Franco Bergoglio took place late that night; through an unnamed, but highly-placed intermediary, he requested, and was granted a private meeting with His Holiness, Pope Francis (aka Jorge Bergoglio). At this meeting, under the seal of Confession agreed to by the Pontiff, the humble cleric revealed all: His secret identity as The Bat-Priest, as well as those of his cohorts and all their recent activities on his, the Pope's, behalf were revealed. He confessed to his ancestry and his distant, but real blood relationship to his "uncle" (or probably more appropriately "great uncle") and then all the other things one confesses to one's priest. He pledged undying loyalty and offered to be ready to respond to any call for assistance the Pontiff might have occasion to communicate.

The Pope smiled benignly at the end of the session - knowing full well what had just occurred! He was Pontifically, but happily conned. THE SEAL OF CONFESSION IS ABSOLUTE. The confessor can neither speak about nor in any way act upon what the penitent has revealed. He was acutely aware of how well he and his "nephew", the other

Documentary to Be Previewed on Life of Fr. Joseph Philippe, CSSp

By Joyce Rothermel

A reception will be held on Sunday, July 10 at 7 PM in the Bayer Building on the campus of Duquesne University (across from the Chapel) for Haitian Spiritan priest, Fr. Joseph Philippe. Clips from a documentary, “Father Joseph” will be shown. The film will be released in full in September.

The documentary chronicles the works of Fr. Joseph Philippe in Haiti. It follows three decades of service to the poor in rural Haiti; works which are financially supported by Partners in Progress, a Pittsburgh-based organization, supporting rural sustainable development in Haiti and other donors. The film is now being screened at selected film festivals in the U.S. and Europe. http://floatingworldpictures.com/ father-joseph/ “I have spent the last 30 years of my life working to empower the rural poor in Haiti to transform their lives and to teach them to give back,” says Father Joseph. “My spirituality is based on giving back.”

All are welcome to this inspiring evening hosted

by Duquesne University and sponsored by Partners in Progress. You can purchase your copy of the documentary today at http://fatherjoseph.vhx.tv/. Delivery is slated for mid-September and a portion of the proceeds will go to support his work in Haiti -http:// fatherjoseph.vhx.tv/ For more information and to rsvp, call 412-2718414.

Joyce Rothermel serves on the board of Partners in Progress: Supporting Sustainable Development in Rural Haiti.

Bergoglio, were mutually protected.

(Finis for now) Robert Jedrzejewski is a retired college instructor of philosophy, theology and literature.

Voices of Reason My Manifesto

By Toni Conaway

Reading Steven Gimbel’s biography of Einstein, I was struck by his description of the “Culture Split” in Germany between the two world wars -- a divide that led to the ascent of Hitler, the holocaust and the millions of deaths in WWII. Those who lauded God, Country, Militarism and Racism won the day. I couldn’t help but make the comparison to today, which only reinforced my personal sense of isolation from my surroundings and my fears for the future.

I strongly believe that these difficult times call for us to fall on the other side of this cultural divide.

I hope that we can delve into the good aspects of our nature and be on the right side of history this time.

Then we may stand for the following values:

Matter.

4. Respecting separation of church and state: speaking out against the blatant use of religion in politics, respecting secular humanism, rejecting superstition, rejecting religious fundamentalism in all faiths.

5. Addressing violence in our society: starting with the recognition that we are a violent society, speaking out against violence on TV and in the media, opposing the National Rifle Association and working for strong gun legislation, ending police brutality, using violence as a last resort (including internationally), decreasing arms sales globally (we are the largest arms dealer in the world), decreasing the defense budget (which doesn’t reflect the real costs of our military spending, which is greater than 1. Thinking globally: respecting other nations that of the next ten countries combined). and cultures, rejecting U.S. exceptionalism, support6. Working for economic justice: working to ing international organizations, recognizing our expand the middle class, taxing the ultra rich (.01% global interdependence. own 80% of our wealth) at a higher rate, enacting a 2. Respecting science: recognizing that climate high minimum wage, making it more difficult for change is the most serious threat to life as we know corporations to use overseas tax havens, regulating it, teaching science in the schools (evolution not cre- corporations which put profits over people ationism), supporting medical research with suffi(endangering public health with poisoned air and cient funding. water, including dangers of climate change -- Exxon 3.Rejecting sexism and racism: supporting the knew of climate change dangers over thirty years Equal Rights Amendment, opposing government ago but suppressed their findings), ending Citizens intervention in women’s health decisions (including United so the wealthy few can’t dominate campaign a woman’s right to choose), addressing violence funding, pursuing Wall Street traders for their part in against women (internationally as well as nationalthe 2008 economic collapse and beyond (only one ly), recognizing gender inequality, accepting the has spent any time in jail). prevalence and importance of racism in US history, 7. Challenging the media to be more responsiworking to end police brutality against blacks, sup- ble: rejecting channels and correspondents who play porting minorities in organizations like Black Lives to our baser instincts (feed our prejudices, lying to us

without accountability), finding people whom you can respect and listening to them (this is often found in alternative sources).

In summary, I believe we must be educated citizens who think independently and question many of our institutions and leaders. We must especially reject demagogues who play to our worst fears and prejudices. If there is any sign of hope, I find it in the young people who are looking to the future, not the past. Many of them are committed to peace, global citizenship, science, humanism, equality and economic justice. This commitment entails a strong rejection of the political and religious views of the right wing in the US today, something that didn’t happen in Germany. By the time German people realized what their “God and Country” beliefs led to, it was too late.

I will do what I can in the next four months to see that our country falls on the right side of history - making decisions that I believe will lead to a much better future for all the world’s children.

I hesitate to say these things to the readers of the NewPeople, since the Thomas Merton Center has been in the forefront of action taken on all these issues for more than two decades. They have provided leadership in its scores of individuals and organizations, and I don’t have enough words to express my admiration and respect for their energy and dedication to being on the right side of history.

Toni Conaway is a long time peace activist, one of the founders of Peace Links, and most recently involved with the issue of climate change.

Looking Ahead to This Fall’s Association of Pittsburgh Priests’ Speakers’ Series

By Joyce Rothermel

The Association of Pittsburgh Priests has put together a very timely series of speakers for the fall. You may want to put them on your calendars now so you don’t miss them!

Sept. 22, 2016: Tony Norman, “Faith, Fear, & Politics: How to Keep a Clear Conscience on Election Day”. A political science major at Calvin College, Norman began to work at the Pittsburgh PostGazette in 1988. Working his way up to correspondent and a member of the editorial board, Tony has won numerous awards for his columns on cultural issues of the day. Norman also teaches journalism at Chatham University and is a frequent guest on local talk shows and television programs.

Oct. 27, 2016: Jame Schaefer, “Ecological Conversion: Developing Virtuous Communities” “Faced as we are with global environmental deterioration,” Pope Francis ‘wished to address every person living on this planet.” (Laudato Si). Jame Schaefer, associate professor at Marquette University, focuses on the relationship of theology, the natural sciences, technology, and ecological ethics.

Her books include “Confronting the Climate Crisis: Catholic Theological Perspectives” (2011) and “Environmental Justice and Climate Change” (2013). Schaefer will “help us enter into

dialogue with all people about our common home.”

Nov. 7, 2016: Robert Mickens, “The Impact of Pope Francis on the Church in Rome, on Bishops around the World, and on People in the Pews.”

Mickens studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorianum University in Rome, worked eleven years at Vatican Radio, and then another decade as correspondent for The Tablet of London. Now he is editor in chief of Global Pulse, presenting news, features, and analysis from a Catholic perspective.

Mickens is a frequent contributor to the National Catholic Reporter.

Dec. 5, 2016: Tina Whitehead, “Seeing the Other.” Our world has become more and more polarized, more and more fearful. We are inclined to look at others who are “not like us” with suspicion and mistrust. In order to be more compassionate and move toward a culture of inclusiveness, we need to learn how to “see” people of different faiths, cultures, etc. Whitehead will draw on her experiences working with the Palestinian people to share some of the stories that are behind the faces of “the other.” A Canadian and a graduate of Duquesne University with an M.A. in Spiritual Formation, Whitehead has been volunteering in Jerusalem and the West Bank since October 2006. Her

Retraction

The June issue of The NewPeople included a photo with an incorrect photography attribution accompanying the article “World Experts Convene in Pittsburgh to Promote Alternatives to Solitary Confinement.” We have included the photo and the correct caption and attribution below.

Albert Woodfox, Robert King, Bret Grote, Jules Lobel Danny Murillo, Shandre Delany, Dolores Canales. Photo by Theresa Shoatz.

primary work has been with Sabeel, a Palestinian Christian Peace and Justice movement.

All the programs begin at 7 PM and are held at Kearns Spirituality Center in Allison Park behind the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Divine Providence, 9000 Babcock Blvd. Watch for more details, including admission fees, in the September issue of The NewPeople.

Joyce Rothermel is chair of the Church Renewal Committee of the Association of Pittsburgh Priests.

In Memory of Kay Fowler The Pittsburgh area lost a witness for peace at the end of May with the passing of Kathleen Devlin Fowler. The Thomas Merton Center remembers Kay’s faithful weekly witness that went on for years against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the corners of Braddock and Forbes Avenue in the East End of Pittsburgh. No matter what the weather, Kay joined the group reminding all passersby, many of whom had grown complacent with U.S. policy, that we as a country were still at war. Let us honor Kay’s memory and desire for peace and together continue to work for it.

(The Merton Center’s Anti-War and AntiDrone Warfare Committees meet on the fourth Saturday each month at 11 AM at the Merton Center, 5129 Penn Avenue in Garfield. All are welcome.)

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Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

For August events, go to http:// thomasmertoncenter.org/ calendar/

Friday

Saturday

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July 2016 Regular Meetings Sundays: Book’Em: Books to Prisoners Project First three Sundays of the month at TMC, 46pm Contact: bookempgh@gmail.com

Mondays:

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1835– Children of Patterson, NJ stroke for six day week and 11 hour day

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1887– US backed militia force King of Hawaii to sign constitution stripping indigenous peoples of rights

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Documentary of Father Joseph Philippe, CSSp– 7:00– Bayer Building, Duquesne University (Across from Chapel)

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1863– Three days of massive antidraft protests in New York City

1789– French populace storms the Bastille and ushers in the Rights of Man (Bastille Day)

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The People’s Convention– 9:00 am—8:00 pm- David L. Lawrence Convention Center, 1000 Fort Duquesne Blvd

The People’s Convention

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Wednesdays:

Struggle for Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy featuring Barbara Briggs– 1:30 PM– Pump House 880 E Waterfront Dr., Munhall 15120

Harambee Ujima Black Arts Festival – 11am– 8 pmHomewood Community ; 7100 block of Kelly Street, between N. Homewood and Lang Ave

The People’s Convention Continues

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Republican National Convention Begins, Cleveland OH

CodePink screens “Brainwashing of My Dad” (Film)7:00– West End Poverty Now Shore Unitarian March– 12 Noon– Universalist Cleveland Church, Rocky River OH

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March for Clean Energy Revolution– 12:00 –4 :00 PM– Philadelphia, PA

Democratic National Convention Begins, Philadelphia, PA

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March4OurLives (Single Payer Healthcare)- 3:00– 5:00- South Side of Philadelphia City Hall, Marching South on Broad St.

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Boycott, Divest, Sanctions Potluck– 46PM– Thomas Merton Center 5129 Penn Ave

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1877– Rail workers revolt and drive troops from city after cops slay 26 strikers in Pittsburgh PA

Lost But Not Forgotten Teen Summit– 2:00– 5:00 PMCarnegie Library of Pittsburgh Homewood, 7101 Hamilton Ave

1967– Start of seven day riot in Detroit, Resulting in 43 dead, 467 wounded, and 388 homeless

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30 Pittsburgh VegFest– 11:00– 5:00 pmAllegheny Commons Park East North Ave & Cedar Ave, Northside

Join online at www.thomasmertoncenter.org/ join-donate or fill out this form, cut out, and mail in.

Select your membership level:

Low Income Membership Youth / Student Membership

July/August 2016

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

SOAW Film Potluck– 6:30 PM– Thomas Merton Center

mailed to your home or sent to your email account.

You will also receive weekly e-blasts focusing on peace and justice events in Pittsburgh, and special invitations to membership activities. Now is the time to stand for peace and justice!

16 - NEWPEOPLE

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Subscribe to The NewPeople by becoming a member of the Thomas Merton Center today!

As a member, The NewPeople newspaper will be

____$15 ____$15

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American Revolutionary– The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (Film)- 7:30 pm– Pump House, 880 E Waterfront Dr. Munahll 15120

SW Healthcare 4 All PA /PUSH Meeting 1st 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

____$25 Introductory / Lapsed Membership ____$50 Individual Membership ____$100 Family Membership ____$500+ Cornerstone Sustainer Membership ____Donation $____________________________ ____ Monthly Donation– Become a TMC Peacemaker $____________________________ Or Become an Organizational Member:

____$75 Organization (below 25 members) ____$125 Organization (above 25 members) ____ I would like to receive the weekly activist Eblast _____ I would like to receive The NewPeople newspaper ___ Check here if this is a gift membership. mailed to my house

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.

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