WHO: Concerned Citizens for Tent City, cctcNashville@aol.com, 615-474-8390
WHAT: A Rally To Save Tent City!!
WHERE: The Steps of the Nashville Metro Courthouse
WHEN: This Friday, October 24, From 3:00 PM to 5:00PM
WHY: Providing and improving a place to call home is better than destroying it.

This Friday, October 24th a whole lot of concerned folks will gather to speak out for, protect, and improve a place referred to as Tent City. There, on land that Metro Nashville neither owns nor has any use for, many of our neighbors and fellow Nashvillians have found a place to call home, even if only for a little while. And they are not alone, for many their spouses and pets are there as well. At Tent City, they are able to stay together.

You will hear from folks living at Tent City why this place is so important to them. You will hear from clergy, community leaders and others why they stand together with the folks living at Tent City. Did you know that in 2006 there were over 11,522 homeless right here in Nashville? That over 30% are veterans? And over 1800 of our homeless are school-aged children? And that there are not anywhere near enough temporary shelter beds or housing? So why are we destroying a homeless encampment that has served many until they can move on? Why can't we, instead, work to improve this encampment and see Tent City as a "passing through place" until we can help these, our neighbors, move to something better?

Please join us. You will be asked to participate in a very unique and compelling activity that will let our Mayor and all our city officials know just how important and vital it is to us that all have housing - because no matter the type - we all deserve a place to call home.

So we need you! Join us and bring a key. Yes, bring a key. We will take that key and with your help, we will all make our voice and our point loud and clear.

RAIN or SHINE - (Stand with those who are forced to stand in the rain.)

Labels: Nashville Homeless Power Project, Tent City

Hey all! Michigan Welfare Rights Organization is now publishing daily weblog reports on http://michiganwro.blogspot.com/ You can also sign up for the RSS feed on the sidebar.

They're looking for ideas and guest writers on issues in Detroit and Michigan such as:

* poverty
* housing
* jobs
* utilities
* education
* youth, families, seniors
* homelessness
* public assistance information
* activist groups
* human interest stories
* ...and more!

Please join in on reporting these concerns along with our solutions. As we learned from the water films, there is a national and international audience interested in learning more about Detroit and Michigan, and how they can help its people.

Contact Sylvia Orduno (mwroinfo@gmail.com) for more info.

Labels: Michigan, MWRO

By Lynette Malles

Tuesday, September 2. Marchers gather at Mears Park in downtown St. Paul. The rally has been permitted months previously to begin at 4pm but we discover that the stage sound system is OFF! PPEHRC lawyer consults with park officials who inform him that sound was not included in the permit and due to "special security concerns" city employees should not come to the park to turn on the sound. Speeches proceed by bullhorn, only reaching the first few rows of listeners until after an hour "somebody" shows up to turn on the power.

About this time three U.S. Justice Department community officers warn Cheri about other protesters at the Capital with their own tear gas (false) who have been breaking windows (which didn't happen). She reminds the officers that if they know about the possibility of violence, THEY should do something about it and assure the safety of PPEHRC marchers.

Meanwhile, a disruption designed to pull media attention AWAY from the rally occurs just off the park. Among those arrested is a reporter from Independent Media.

The march 1,000-strong then gets under way, led by women with children and the disabled in wheelchairs. Passing the Ramsey County courthouse and jail, literally hundreds of regular police, military police and National Guard troops are on guard. Our leaders focus on preventing violence that might flare up from participants, not part of the campaign, who keep trying to bypass the front of the march. PPEHRC marshals, veterans of previous RNC and DNC demonstrations, instruct volunteers to join hands forming a circle of protection around Cheri, the disabled, the babies and their mothers. This creates a buffer and helps keep control, not letting agitators take over. March swells to 2,000.

The mood is tense. Residents from Dorothy Day Center for the homeless do not join as the march ends directly in front of their shelter, right across from the Xcel Energy Center. Apparently they were told by someone that they would "lose their beds" if they came out. Such rumors perpetuate the shroud of shame that envelopes the homeless, leaving them "invisible."

At the side door of the RNC Cheri is supported on the shoulders of another. For a moment she thinks that as a visible target she is going to die. But she addresses the crowd, "Raise your right hand and repeat after me 'I promise' (I promise) 'not to leave here' (not to leave here) 'or do anything stupid' (or do anything stupid). There are little bitty babies here. Please don't follow me. I am going to the steps of the Xcel Center to serve the Republicans with a citizen's arrest for crimes against humanity." As she approaches the fence with police guns aimed at her, for another moment she is sure that she's going to be shot. She wraps the citizen's arrest document in an American flag and slides it under the fence.

PPEHRC marshals give the signal to depart at once. We disburse with only a couple of our group getting sprayed trying to get out of the area. We keep getting blocked at every turn by police as if they want to push us back into the tear gas zone of agitators.

What did I get from this life-altering experience? I could go on about the courage and grace of people I hope to meet again. I learned that protesters in public places should purchase large generators and control the power. FEAR tactics employed by police under dictatorial political rule can be effective-large numbers of peaceful protesters stayed away.

But despite informers, plants, infiltrators and riot police, our experienced and disciplined leadership WON the day for peaceful dissent! To date, 17 new PPEHRC chapters are starting up around the country.

Police riot-gear masks made them invisible. OUR faces were seen, OUR voices heard.

Labels: Lynette Malles, March for Our Lives 2008, Non-Violence

What Can Be Night on October 15th was a celebration not just of the in-progress film What Can Be but of a culture of vision as expressed through music, spoken word, and testimony.

A packed nightclub in Culver City rocked with words, sounds, emotions, and hope. Visions of a world without war, without borders, without poverty and violence.

The house band was the Rock A Mole All-Stars with Ernie Perez (Boxing Gandhis), Carvell Holloway (Ten East), Michael Sulcer (Ray Charles Orchestra), Wayne White (Herbie Hancock, Commodores), Boudreau (Gladys Knight), and Miguel and Marisoul from La Santa Cecilia. They rocked the house with not one but two versions of the What Can Be theme song. Also, the entire La Santa Cecilia band served up some of their cutting edge Mexican music.


DJ Tamra kept things going with a delicious mix of music.



Poets who hit the mic were:
Besskepp, Mike the Poet, Ashlynn, Busstop Prophet, Kat, Thesaurus G, Poet John Paul, Metaphysicz, Porschia Baker, Black Spinach, Matt Sedillo, Amalia Ortiz, and Lee Ballinger

There were special contributions from Shamako Noble of Hip Hop Congress, Drew Amavisca (who’s also the director of What Can Be), Saria Idana, Shakespeare, and Cheri Honkala of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

There were re-interpretations of the work of Bob Marley and Langston Hughes.

What Can Be Productions will soon launch a MySpace page and web site which will feature the visions of musicians, writers, and visual artists from around the world. If you would like to be part of this, contact whatcanbemovie@aol.com.

Many great connections were made on Wednesday night. For example, a local video editor said: “That was really an incredible event. I felt like I was in a room full of celebrities and that the place just pulsated with creativity and life! It was a wonderful experience and very inspiring.”

Eppelsauce Music from South Africa was also in the house and we will be working with them in the future (www.epplesauce.com). This is their mission statement:

“Eppelsauce Music is a dynamic record label specializing in African and World Music. With most African artists now produced outside of Africa, Eppelsauce Music, based in Cape Town, South Africa, proudly offers the richest sounds and artists from across the African continent, made in Africa.

Eppelsauce Music presents the finest from traditional to modern, to everything in-between. The messages in our music are heart-felt, insightful and uplifting…sure to leave you melting like gold to the true wealth of the African continent.

Eppelsauce Music is an innovative social enterprise, dedicated to:

Promoting refugee rights and transforming xenophobia into cross-cultural understanding by producing and presenting refugee musicians from across the African diaspora

Fostering poverty alleviation while supporting the cultural development of artists in rural, marginalized and vulnerable communities

Inspiring global education through collaboration in production and performance between Cape Town, broader Africa and the world.”

*****

Statement by What Can Be Productions / October 15, 2008

We are here tonight to celebrate the making of a film called What Can Be that hasn’t even started shooting yet. What’s up with that?

A couple of years ago Trini Rodriguez, who runs Tia Chucha’s in the Valley along with her husband Luis, coined the phrase “Don’t go by what is, go by what can be.” Somehow those words reached the ears of Mike the Poet, who incorporated them into a poem called “One Global Human Family.”

This poem is a great example of one of the most important developments of the 21st century—the turn toward a culture of vision. We are making the film What Can Be to help connect as many visionary artists as possible. Across LA. Across America. Across the world. We want to get the ball rolling NOW, not wait until the film comes out in the spring.

What’s at stake here?

We’re in the middle of a war and preparing to start new ones. Fifty million of us have no health care. Immigrants are hunted in the streets like animals. We just gave away $700 billion to the banks.

In the middle of all this, the American people are trying to find a way to dream. The majority oppose the war. The majority favor universal health care. The majority want to see immigrants left in peace. Everyone except Congress is against the bailout.

What’s missing is a vision, an overarching dream that can inspire the American people with the knowledge that the world they want is very possible, in fact it is within their reach as soon as they link up with each other.

This is where America’s millions of artists come in. It is up to the artists to give the American people a vision of a world without war, without borders; a world of healthy happy people who love and respect each other.

That’s what we’re here to explore tonight.

Labels: Ernie Perez, Lee Ballinger, Luis Rodriguez, Rock A Mole, Trini Rodriguez, What Can Be

From Nashville Homeless Power Project:

We're pleased to announce that the owners of Shur Brite Car Wash are now talking with elected workers, NHPP, and Mid TN Jobs with Justice, about making a more just work site beyond the minimums of the law. Workers have wanted their respect and dignity uplifted by having a written schedule, a break room, vacation days and other changes that would not be possible without organizing combined with legal work. In last weeks meeting, owners have agreed to co-write an employee handbook with NHPP and Jobs with Justice, consider building a break-room, and address many of the concerns of their workers. The entirety of the 120 workers signed up for the lawsuit plan to meet next Monday, and discuss more specifics. While negotiations are not complete, NHPP is cautiously optimistic that an agreement can be made involving both back wages, and future changes for the workers

Labels: Nashville Homeless Power Project, Shur Brite Campaign

Original article and photo available at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/gallery/2008/n081006_clemmie/flash.htm?gid=722

Clemmie Greenlee transformed herself into an advocate the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill, and ex-cons who want to get on the right track. Along with brother Lonnie, she runs a small organization that talks with children and adults about the pitfalls of HIV, drugs and violence. She is also part of the progressive leadership of Nashville that works with the Center for Community Change

Labels: Clemmie Greenlee, Nashville Homeless Power Project, USA Today

Dear Cheri,

I am one of the women that were in Brussels on September
16th, and had the opportunity to hear you and your PPEHRC fellows. I
was very impressed by the things you said, by your courage and I
sympathize with your fight for economic human rights.

I live in Vicenza, a small city in the north of Italy, were the American
government wants to build the biggest American military base in Europe.
There is already an American military base in our city, and other
smaller bases in the towns around; Vicenza is a city of art, the city
of the famous architect Palladio, and the people of Vicenza are
fighting against this new base, to preserve the territory from the
pollution military bases cause, to preserve the water stratum under the
ground were the base should be built, and to say no to the policy of
preventive war that the USA government is carrying out.

It is a very difficult struggle, because our government made agreement with your
government and doesn't want to step back. We have been asking for a
referendum among Vicenza citizens for 2 and half years, and finally the
new Vicenza administration decided that on October 5th we would have
been able to vote on this matter. But 3 days before the referendum, the
council of state forbade the referendum. It was a very bad news for us,
and in few hours we organized a manifestation and in the same evening
ten thousand citizens were in the streets to protest. And we decided
that, in spite of this prohibition, Vicenza would vote anyway. In three
days time we have organized the referendum, managing all the
organization by ourselves, and, spite the media, the government that
were against us, and all the difficulties to organize such a thing in
only 3 days, it's been a wonderful act of civil disobedience. 24
thousand Vicenza citizens came to vote against the base, and it's been
very moving to see also very old persons walking with difficulty, come
to give their vote for a peaceful city and a peaceful world. People
would come to vote bringing food, wine, and coffee for us that were in
these improvised polling station in the streets. They say we are
anti-American: that's completely false. My neighbors next door are 2
American soldiers. They wouldn't greet me, because on my balcony I have
a flag of our movement Nodalmolin, but when they were in Iraq I was
very worried for them, thinking that they might be killing or be
killed. It is very upsetting to see young people go to war, and to a
war that is absolutely nonsense (if ever a war had a sense). And, as
you said in Brussels, I know that for many of them soldiers, join the
army is the only chance to have economic human rights, but at what a
price!

I wish to keep in touch with you and your movement, your struggle
is our struggle.
I hope my English is not too bad. It would be nice to see you again.

My best wishes to you and your fellows of the PPEHRC
Stefania Tarabella
from No Dal molin movement of Vicenza

Labels: International, International Letters of Support, Italy, No Dal Molin

Marchers for poor tape manifesto on City Hall door
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/oct/04/chattanooga-marchers-poor-tape-manifesto-city-hall/
By: Cliff Hightower

More than 50 people marched down McCallie Avenue to Miller Park on Friday and then peacefully walked to the steps of City Hall to post a manifesto calling on economic rights for poor people.

The Poor People’s March was the first of its kind in Chattanooga as organizers tried to bring attention to homelessness and poverty in the city.

“The ultimate goal is to end poverty,” said Mary Bricker-Jenkins, a Chattanooga resident and member of the Chattanooga and North Georgia Economic Human Rights Campaign. The group organized the march across downtown Chattanooga.


Caption: A group trying to call attention to the rights of poor people marched from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to City Hall, where it taped a manifesto to the doors.


The group, which started just a few months ago at the Community Kitchen, is affiliated with the national Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, Ms. Bricker-Jenkins said.

Homeless people, volunteers, teenagers and a small group of Gregorian friars walked along McCallie Avenue at 5 p.m. led by a bagpipe player in a Scottish kilt. The group of marchers held signs, some saying “Homelessness is not a crime” or “We’re all homeless.”

Ali Rudolph, 24, moved here in August with her husband from Oregon, she said. Both are homeless, but he was gone Friday to the Military Entrance Processing Station in Knoxville to join the Tennessee Army National Guard, Mrs. Rudolph said.

She marched in solidarity with others like her, she said.

“It is for a good cause,” Mrs. Rudolph said. “A lot of us out here don’t get treated the way we should.”

The group ate dinner at Miller Park and then proceeded to City Hall, where they taped a copy of the “Poor People’s Manifesto” on the door. Brother Ron Fender, a local Gregorian friar, told marchers he asked City Council members Tuesday to come on the march.

None showed, he said.

“We want them to have a reminder we were here,” he said.

Several marchers shared different reasons for marching. Amanda Wheelock, a 16-year-old Ringgold, Ga., girl, said just a few days ago she met a homeless man on Walnut Street Bridge who used to be a doctor. She said a few minutes later, while he was eating a sandwich, the police shooed him away.

“That’s why I’m here,” she said. “I can’t see why he can’t sit there and eat his sandwich.”

Elizabeth Wray, an 18-year-old Chattanooga resident and member of the human rights group, said her brother died two years ago homeless. Marching for her is “personal, not political,” she said.

She said sometimes people in Chattanooga take for granted what they have. The reward Friday night was everyone blending together, she said.

“It’s really a beautiful thing to see people merge,” Ms. Wray said.
A group trying to call attention to the rights of poor people marched from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to City Hall, where it taped a manifesto to the doors.

Labels: CHANGER, Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, PPEHRC