This page lists our reports and commentary from earlier in November, 2007

For an index to all our reports from the
Witherspoon conference on global mission and justice >>

And for all our reports
from the Ghost Ranch Week of Peace >>

For items from
January, 2008
December, 2007

This comes to us from the Rev. Noelle Damico, of the Campaign for Fair Food program of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

On the heels of public revelations that Burger King and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, the growers' lobby, have been cooperating to roll-back the CIW's agreements with Yum! Brands and McDonald's, The Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, has released a public statement decrying these actions. To read the full text of this powerful statement visit www.pcusa.org/fairfood. An excerpt is below.

Dr. Kirkpatrick writes:

In the course of history there have always been those who have opposed the advancement of human rights. But the fundamental truth of human dignity has always triumphed, if not immediately, then eventually. Burger King and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE) are using their power to try and turn back the inevitable progress of human rights for farmworkers. And their coordinated tactics, which squarely target some of the poorest, most vulnerable members of our society, are as morally repugnant as they are in vain….

The New Road to Serfdom

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein has recently published an ambitious history of neoliberalism, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which has attracted lots of attention recently -- both pro and con.

Christopher Hayes, the Washington Editor of the Nation, offers a thoughtful summary and commentary on the book, on the In These Times website.

He summarizes it in one sentence: “The Shock Doctrine is an encyclopedic catalog of the tactics that governments, corporations and economists have used to impose— usually over popular opposition—what Klein calls the ‘policy trinity’ of the Chicago-School program: ‘the elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending.’ ”

While appreciative of her argument, Hayes objects that she over-works her “shock doctrine” metaphor, which she draws from a series of “CIA-funded experiments undertaken by a sadistic Canadian doctor in the ’50s. Subjects were shocked, against their will, into states of highly suggestible infantilism, and the results were enshrined in the CIA’s so-called ‘Kubark’ manual, which Klein alleges has become a handbook for American interrogators during the war on terror.”

Fair Food and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are under attack by Burger King

Now is the time to act – join the farmworkers in Miami on this Friday for the march on Burger King

We have just received this urgent call from the Rev. Noelle Damico, the PC(USA) liaison to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

As the 2007 March on Burger King rapidly approaches, a flurry of articles on the Campaign for Fair Food has hit papers across the country. The recent surge in coverage was sparked by the revelation that Burger King has joined forces with the most conservative elements of the Florida tomato industry to launch an aggressive assault on the CIW's groundbreaking agreements with fast-food leaders Yum Brands and McDonald's.

Click here to see the articles and our analysis of the revelations.

As outrageous as it sounds, it appears that BK is no longer just resisting progress, the world's second largest fast-food chain is actually working with the Florida tomato growers' lobby to take the few pennies farmworkers have won over the past several years -- through hunger strikes, marches, and protests -- away.

The news makes one thing perfectly clear: If you care about Fair Food, it is time NOW to act. If you were on the fence about coming to Miami, it is time NOW to get on the bus.

We are clearly going to have to fight for every inch of progress in this campaign, and even fight to keep the ground we've won. So if you think farmworkers deserve fairer wages and working conditions, you need to join us in Miami this Friday for the March on Burger King.

Go to http://www.ciw-online.org  for all the information on how you can join a caravan to Miami from your community.

Thousands join vigil to close the School of the Americas

a report from Doug King, Witherspoon webweaver

Again this year, on Saturday, November 17, I was privileged to be a small part of the annual action to close the School of the Americas. I arrived Saturday morning just in time for the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship breakfast, and left as the vigil wound down in the late afternoon. Of course the major action was on Sunday, and a great many activities went on during Friday and Saturday -- seminars, prayer services, visits to the building on the Fort Benning base that houses the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), which was created a few years ago to replace the School of the Americas.

More, including links to other reports >>

Committee has begun receiving applications

The Stated Clerk Nomination Committee (SCNC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has received several applications for the top ecclesiastical post in the 2.3 million-member denomination. 

Next summer’s 218th General Assembly will elect the successor to the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who announced earlier this year that he will not seek a fourth four-year term.

Prospective candidates have until Dec. 23, 2007 — 180 days before the convening of the Assembly in San Jose, CA, to submit their applications.

Further information, including job description and application form, are available on the Stated Clerk Nominations Committee’s Web site.

Information is also available in written form from the SCNC staff resource person Rev. Carol McDonald, Synod of Lincoln Trails, 1100 W. 42nd Street, Suite 125, Indianapolis, IN 46208. She can be contacted by phone at 800-566-5996, or by email.

Families USA (“The Voice for Health Care Consumers”) announces Health Action 2008, a national grassroots meeting, in Washington, DC, January 24-26, 2008

Clearly health care will be a major legislative issue in 2008, and this national gathering will be a chance to join with others “to see what lessons we can learn from the past—assess our strengths, build our skills, hone our messages.”

More >>

~~~~~~~~~~~

The leading Democratic candidates’ proposals for universal health care

or ...  “They have seen the enemy – and surrendered” – Barbara Ehrenreich

Len Rodberg, Research Director of the New York Metro Chapter, Physicians for a National Health Program, offers a brief and critical survey of healthcare proposals being put forward by the three leading Democratic candidates for President. He concludes:

None of these plans will truly provide universal access to care. They do not overcome the very significant deficiencies of private insurance. None assures the American people of comprehensive coverage, none offers a realistic way of containing the rising cost of health care, and all would add additional funds to an already too-costly system.

They are at best a diversion from the direction we should be going, toward the creation of a single national, publicly-funded insurance pool that can provide comprehensive, continuous, cost-effective coverage along with the budgetary tools needed to begin containing costs.

MRTI meets in LA, removes Citigroup from list of concern about dealings in Israel and Palestine

Citigroup Inc. has been taken off the list of multinational corporations the Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is engaging to ensure their business dealings in Israel and Palestine comply with denominational peacemaking policies.

The unanimous decision was made during MRTI’s Nov. 8-10 meeting in Los Angeles, and takes the number of companies the group is talking with down to four — ITT Industries, based in White Plains, NY; Motorola Inc., based in Schaumburg, IL; United Technologies Corp., based in Hartford, CT; and Caterpillar Inc., based in Peoria, IL.

The report from Presbyterian News Service >>

A later report from the meeting describes the committee’s planned work for 2007-08, focusing on issues of corporate accountability and access to capital.

At a penny per pound, a little adds up to a lot

St. Petersburg Times columnist Robyn Blumner reports on the Coalition of Immokalee Farmworkers’ struggle for decent wages, and their success in gaining support from Yum Brands and McDonald’s. The latest wrinkle, she writes, is that “a huge roadblock has been erected. The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange is warning its members not to participate in a deal [with Yum Brands and McDonald’s] that it says is illegal.

But she notes that “consumers tend to respond well to a company they think is socially responsible, and the converse is true. A new study by researchers Michael Hiscox and Nicholas Smyth at Harvard University confirms that consumers not only say they're willing to pay more for products made under decent working conditions but act that way too.”

New hope, new challenges.

Church trends erode clout of evangelical bloc for GOP

The LA Times reported recently:

A fundamental shift is taking place within the religious right, long a force in presidential politics, as aging evangelical leaders split on the 2008 race and a new generation of pastors turns away from politics altogether.

The result, in the short term, could be a boost for the centrist candidacy of former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose messy personal life and support for gay rights and legal abortion have not produced the unified opposition from Christian conservatives that many anticipated.  

Over the longer term, the distancing of religious leaders from politics could prove even more consequential, denying the GOP one of the essential building blocks the party has used to capture the White House in five of the past seven presidential races.

Does the Bible always tell us so?

Farmworkers rights group has sights set on Burger King

Anti-Slavery International, a non-governmental organization based in Great Britain, has announced that it is presenting its 2007 Anti-Slavery Award to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a Florida-based farmworkers rights group that has been strongly supported by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The PC(USA) nominated the CIW for the prestigious award, said the Rev. Noelle Damico, who heads the denomination’s “Fair Food” campaign, a project of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

The CIW is best-known for its consumer boycotts that have resulted in groundbreaking agreements with Yum! Brands (the parent company of Taco Bell) and McDonalds to improve wages and working conditions in Florida's produce fields.

The PC(USA) was among the first U.S. religious groups to support the Taco Bell boycott -- the 2002 General Assembly endorsed it -- and the celebration of the March 2005 settlement between Yum! Brands and the CIW was held at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville.

Anti-Slavery International is recognizing the farmworkers group for what many consider even more important work: documenting the cases of trafficking Mexican and Central American farmworkers for forced labor.

Having secured agreements with Yum! Brands and McDonalds, the CIW is now pursuing an agreement with Burger King. Damico will speak at a march and rally at Burger King's headquarters in Miami on Nov. 30-Dec. 1.

The ICC “resonates with the life-giving value of the gospel”

News release from Sharon Youngs, Office of the General Assembly communications coordinator

Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has issued a statement reaffirming the denomination’s support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) Assembly of States Parties.

The ICC is scheduled to hold its sixth session beginning later this month in New York.

The 1999 PC(USA) General Assembly approved a resolution in support of the ICC, one year after the ICC Statute was adopted in Rome. One hundred and five countries worldwide have since ratified the Statute.

Early next year, the Court will conduct its first trial, a case involving an alleged militia leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who is accused of using children under the age of fifteen in hostilities.

Kirkpatrick states, “This is a specific and foundational instance in which the ICC is working with the support of the international community to hold accountable those who are responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.”

Are the old appeals losing their fright value?

Berry Craig, a Witherspoon member who teaches history at the West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah, reports on the recent election for Governor in Kentucky.  Incumbent Republican Ernie Fletcher, who ran his campaign as a “family values” Christian conservative, was clear in his support for God and guns. And clear in opposing gay rights and casino gambling   [We note that horse racing was not an issue.] 

Democrat Steve Beshear won by a margin of almost 184,000 votes.

Latin America’s shock resistance

Naomi Klein writes in The Nation about the declaration by the president of Ecuador that he will renew the US lease on a large military base in Ecuador only if the US will let Ecuador establish a base in Miami. She opens:

In less than two years, the lease on the largest and most important US military base in Latin America will run out. The base is in Manta, Ecuador, and Rafael Correa, the country’s leftist president, has pronounced that he will renew the lease “on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami–an Ecuadorean base. If there is no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.”

Klein sees Pres. Correa’s defiance not as anti-Americanism but as “part of a broad range of measures being taken by Latin American governments to make the continent less vulnerable to externally provoked crises and shocks.” Those shocks, she explains, have been tools of a deliberate US strategy to gain increasing control of Latin American economics. And many Latin American leaders are beginning to resist.

Award-winning documentary film looks at people of faith dealing with scripture and homosexuality – lovingly.

A synopsis from the film’s website:

 As the U.S. Senate begins debate on the nominee for Attorney General who refuses to condemn waterboarding, you may be looking for a few helpful thoughts and quotes.

The On Faith webpage of the Newsweek and Washington Post website has a brilliant collection of religious commentators responding to the above question.

You may also want to look at these new Presbyterian resources:

Vigil and nonviolent direct action to close the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC)
November 16-18, 2007

Religion journalist Ray Waddle wrote recently in the Nashville Tennessean:

There's no disputing the meaning of "Values" in the Values Voter Summit, an election-season assembly of religious conservatives who gathered recently in Washington, D.C.

The latest public battle to define values was won two decades ago when conservatives reshaped the word to mean opposition to abortion and gay marriage, rejection of evolution and resistance to public putdowns of traditional Christianity.

Also implied were respect for personal responsibility and restraint, and for holiness.

Even so, despite obvious organizational skills, the values vote never decisively succeeds.

Creationism does not seem broadly accepted, he notes, and homosexuality is getting more mainstream all the time. And other values – seldom discussed, seldom named – continue their grip on the nation.

These unspoken values keep other "traditional" values from gaining ground.

It's these unmentioned values, he says, that are the real problem: "Social Darwinism," one that he calls "the new relativism," and "turbo-individualism."

It's a short, provocative essay >>

On October 27^th, JVP-Boston joined forces with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts in a solidarity rally with the Sabeel Conference taking place in that city.

Sabeel is an international peace movement initiated by Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land who seek a just peace based on two states -- Palestine and Israel -- as defined by international law and existing United Nations resolutions. Their conference had come under attack by the local Jewish Community Relations Council, CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America -- a group "devoted to monitoring and challenging perceived anti-Israeli news coverage"), and the David Project.

Thanks be to God for the many, many Jews who know what their divine calling is and who want the Israeli Government to live it out. We believe in a two state solution - of two sovereign, viable states each with contiguous borders guaranteed as secure by the international community. We condemn acts of terrorism by whoever they are committed. The suicide bomber has to be condemned for targeting innocent civilians. But equally must the Israelis be condemned for their acts of indiscriminate reprisal. [...]

The world needs the Jews, Jews who are faithful to their vocation that has meant so much for the world's morality, of its sense of what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is just and unjust, what is oppressive and what sets people free. Jews are indispensable for a good compassionate, just and caring world.

And so are Palestinians.

This interesting report came to your WebWeaver with the following note:

I know, I am being way too cranky before my morning coffee, but how many Habitat homes for needy folks could have been built instead?

Working Replica of Noah's Ark Opens

SCHAGEN, Netherlands - The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was thrown open Saturday - you could say it was the first time in 4,000 years - drawing a crowd of curious pilgrims and townsfolk to behold the wonder.

For an index to all our reports from the
Witherspoon conference on global mission and justice >>

And for all our reports
from the Ghost Ranch Week of Peace >>

For earlier items: