Rev. William Barber, the state NAACP president and self-described "country preacher" who leads the "Moral Monday" movement in North Carolina, wowed the crowd at Netroots Nation 2014 last night. He easily upstaged the droning Sen. Chuck Schumer (too bad the guy is so dull; his subject, comprehensive immigration reform is essential). He even out-orated National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen García and Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams.
Those two women aren't easy to follow.
Rev. Barber calls for a prophetic "moral fusion" movement in every state that educates, activates and agitates for inclusive voting rights, fair taxes, labor rights, and access to good public education for all. It all seems mighty simple -- except that getting there would demand our deepest commitment, our souls and bodies.
The election of President Obama -- the glimpse his success showed of the emergent majority of youth, people of color, and single women -- has brought out the worst in too many people. Their representatives
Barber says that we are living into a Third Reconstruction, a new incarnation of one of those times when our democracy flowers in new and vital directions. After all,refuse to pass anything because [they] don't like little black girls having pajama parties in the Whitehouse ...
it's about right versus wrong.
I guess the "worst it brought out" in the mentioned groups was their own easy co-opting by the forces of capital imperialism, because Obama has continued the Cheney-Bush police state's policies in most respects with their general passive acquiescence.
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