From TV: "We Are One" Movement

April 04, 2011

Writer

On tonight's TV show, Glenn will mention the "We Are One" movement. While Glenn will lay out a lot of the facts on TV, you can see for yourself the language and ideas being put forth by leaders of the movement

We Are One Movement (April 4)

Website

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding their dream: The right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life. The workers were trying to form a union with AFSCME.

Beginning with worship services over the April 1 weekend, and continuing through the week of April 4, unions, people of faith, civil and human rights activists, students and other progressive allies will host a range of community- and workplace-focused actions.

Join us in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for: the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born. It’s a day to show movement. Teach-ins. Vigils. Faith events. A day to be creative, but clear: We are one.

We Are One Teach-In Toolkit - Read it here

Fight Back! National Teach-In (April 5) Website

A National Teach-in On Austerity, Debt, Corporate Greed (and what YOU can do about it)

Hosted by Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West

Teach-In Participating Campuses Website

What are the leaders saying?

Stephen Lerner, SEIU

“Join thousands of Americans on April 4 in cities across the country for a dramatic series of actions to stand up for the middle class.”

Richard Trumka in Support of We Are One Teach-Ins:

America’s working people, well we’re tough. We’ve been through three decades of stagnant incomes and declining living standards. And we’re willing to sacrifice to do our part. But then something else happened in Wisconsin, and Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, in dozens of states. The politicians weren’t just taking our money and our benefits. They weren’t just going after the food on our table and the roofs over our heads. They were coming after our rights.

We have the opportunity to rekindle and share with a new generation that fundamental American belief that we the people can transform our nation, our economy, our political leadership and our world. Now it’s up to us. All of us to turn this moment into a movement. And this movement into a force that can’t be turned back.

Leo Gerard (President of United Steelworkers / Member of AFL-CIO)

It’s time workers stood up to the freeloaders. Join Monday’s We Are One rallies. These demonstrations across the country by religious groups, social justice organizations and labor unions will illustrate that the middle class is mad as hell and not going to take trickster economics anymore.”

Finally, below are "A Prayer for Workers on the Occasion of the We Are One Mobilization" and "A Song of Solidarity (Red, White & Blue)" By Geoff Gilson

A Prayer for Workers on the Occasion of the We Are One Mobilization

Almighty God,

We are gathered here today in fellowship and in hope

As women and men committed to justice and freedom,

And as people who honor the dignity and rights of all working people.

We recall today the life and the hope of Martin Luther King, Jr.

And we remember today his vision of a just society, a beloved community.

We have been to the mountaintop,

And we have seen the Promised Land

Even as Dr. King courageously stood with sanitation workers in 1968,

So we stand today with teachers, firefighters, police officers,

And all workers whose rights are today imperiled across this nation

We know, God, that your Spirit is among us

And that Dr. King’s vision abides in our hearts.

We have been to the mountaintop,

And we have seen the Promised Land

We see in one another and in our working brothers and sisters

Your divine signature, God, and we lift it up this day.

We offer this common prayer in one voice to you,

In one mighty chorus across the nation.

We have been to the mountaintop,

And we have seen the Promised Land

God of Compassion and Mercy,

We ask that you remain with us and strengthen us

As we endeavor to ensure that freedom prevails for working people,

And that your divine signature is never obscured by injustice.

We have been to the mountaintop,

And we have seen the Promised Land

We ask that you guide us today and in the days to come

That we may all one day arrive in the Promised Land

As a beloved community, a great fellowship of men and women

Committed to the dignity and welfare and freedom of all people.

We have been to the mountaintop,

And we have seen the Promised Land

We ask for these things

In the sure knowledge that justice

Will triumph.

Amen.

A Song of Solidarity (Red, White & Blue) By Geoff Gilson

"From the factories to the farmyards

Where we work and till the soil

We keep our country running

With our backbone and our toil

From the mountains of Montana

To the Gulf shore, with its oil

We sweat and grind and break our backs

And risk health beyond call

We're not corporations

Making wealth for the few

We are the whole nation

The Red, White and Blue

We're not about money

We want justice too

It's not just the rich

It's you and me too

We're the Red, White and Blue

It's not a sin to offer

A helping hand to those

Who can not make both ends meet

Through sweat and tears alone

There is no faith nor charity

In claiming liberty

And being mean and selfish

To deny equality

We're not corporations ...

There are those who doubt us

They say it can't be done

What we say, we've said before

And that is, 'Yes We Can!'

We will stand together

With hope and dignity

It's not just the rich

It's you and me too

We're the Red, White and Blue

From the streets of Cairo, Egypt

To the shanties in Darfur

They look to us for democracy

Not arms to make more war

It's not about our dollar bill

But strength and guts and will

The world loves Martin Luther King

And the freedom songs we sing

We're not corporations ...

We're not a split nation

Giving rights to the few

We are One America

The Red, White and Blue

We know without thinking

What we need to do

It's right and it's true

It's you and me too

We're the Red, White and Blue"

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VIDEO: Both Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama are radicals, but there's one HUGE difference

Biden backs yet another criminal justice policy with disastrous consequences

The number of people serving life sentences now exceeds the entire prison population in 1970, according to newly-released data from the Sentencing Project. The continued growth of life sentences is largely the result of "tough on crime" policies pushed by legislators in the 1990s, including presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Biden has since apologized for backing those types of policies, but it seems he has yet to learn his lesson. Indeed, Biden is backing yet another criminal justice policy with disastrous consequences—mandatory drug treatment for all drug offenders.

Proponents of this policy argue that forced drug treatment will reduce drug usage and recidivism and save lives. But the evidence simply isn't on their side. Mandatory treatment isn't just patently unethical, it's also ineffective—and dangerous.

Many well-meaning people view mandatory treatment as a positive alternative to incarceration. But there's a reason that mandatory treatment is also known as "compulsory confinement." As author Maya Schenwar asks in The Guardian, "If shepherding live human bodies off to prison to isolate and manipulate them without their permission isn't ethical, why is shipping those bodies off to compulsory rehab an acceptable alternative?" Compulsory treatment isn't an alternative to incarceration. It is incarceration.

Compulsory treatment is also arguably a breach of international human rights agreements and ethical standards. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have made it clear that the standards of ethical treatment also apply to the treatment of drug dependence—standards that include the right to autonomy and self-determination. Indeed, according to UNODC, "people who use or are dependent on drugs do not automatically lack the capacity to consent to treatment...consent of the patient should be obtained before any treatment intervention." Forced treatment violates a person's right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment.

It's a useless endeavor, anyway, because studies have shown that it doesn't improve outcomes in reducing drug use and criminal recidivism. A review of nine studies, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, failed to find sufficient evidence that compulsory drug treatment approaches are effective. The results didn't suggest improved outcomes in reducing drug use among drug-dependent individuals enrolled in compulsory treatment. However, some studies did suggest potential harm.

According to one study, 33% of compulsorily-treated participants were reincarcerated, compared to a mere 5% of the non-treatment sample population. Moreover, rates of post-release illicit drug use were higher among those who received compulsory treatment. Even worse, a 2016 report from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that people who received involuntary treatment were more than twice as likely to die of an opioid-related overdose than those with a history of only voluntary treatment.

These findings echo studies published in medical journals like Addiction and BMJ. A study in Addiction found that involuntary drug treatment was a risk factor for a non-fatal drug overdose. Similarly, a study in BMJ found that patients who successfully completed inpatient detoxification were more likely than other patients to die within a year. The high rate of overdose deaths by people previously involuntarily treated is likely because most people who are taken involuntarily aren't ready to stop using drugs, authors of the Addiction study reported. That makes sense. People who aren't ready to get clean will likely use again when they are released. For them, the only post-treatment difference will be lower tolerance, thanks to forced detoxification and abstinence. Indeed, a loss of tolerance, combined with the lack of a desire to stop using drugs, likely puts compulsorily-treated patients at a higher risk of overdose.

The UNODC agrees. In their words, compulsory treatment is "expensive, not cost-effective, and neither benefits the individual nor the community." So, then, why would we even try?

Biden is right to look for ways to combat addiction and drug crime outside of the criminal justice system. But forced drug treatment for all drug offenders is a flawed, unethical policy, with deadly consequences. If the goal is to help people and reduce harm, then there are plenty of ways to get there. Mandatory treatment isn't one of them.

Lindsay Marie is a policy analyst for the Lone Star Policy Institute, an independent think tank that promotes freedom and prosperity for all Texans. You can follow her on Twitter @LindsayMarieLP.

BOMBSHELL: 'It wasn't just Hunter,' Rudy Giuliani says Joe Biden was target of Ukraine corruption investigation — and he has the evidence to prove it

President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani joined Glenn Beck on Tuesday's radio program discuss the Senate's ongoing investigation into former vice president Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and reveal new bombshell documents he's currently releasing.

Giuliani told Glenn he has evidence of "very, very serious crime at the highest levels of government," that the "corrupt media" is doing everything in their power to discredit.

He also dropped some major, previously unreported news: not only was Hunter Biden under investigation in 2016, when then-Vice President Biden "forced" the firing of Ukraine's prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, but so was the vice president himself.

"Shokin can prove he was investigating Biden and his son. And I now have the prosecutorial documents that show, all during that period of time, not only was Hunter Biden under investigation -- Joe Biden was under investigation," Giuliani explained. "It wasn't just Hunter."

Watch this clip to get a rundown of everything Giuliani has uncovered so far.

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Revealing Bernie’s dark side — one 1980s quote at a time

For most Americans, the 1980s was marked by big hair, epic lightsaber battles, and school-skipping Ferris Bueller dancing his way into the hearts of millions.

But for Bernie Sanders — who, by the way, was at that time the oldest-looking 40-year-old in human history — the 1980s was a period of important personal milestones.

Prior to his successful 1980 campaign to become mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders was mostly known around the Green Mountain State as a crazy, wildly idealistic socialist. (Think Karl Marx meets Don Quixote.) But everything started to change for Sanders when he became famous—or, in the eyes of many, notorious—for being "America's socialist mayor."

As mayor, Sanders' radical ideas were finally given the attention he had always craved but couldn't manage to capture. This makes this period of his career particularly interesting to study. Unlike today, the Bernie Sanders of the 1980s wasn't concerned with winning over an entire nation — just the wave of far-left New York City exiles that flooded Vermont in the 1960s and 1970s — and he was much more willing to openly align himself with local and national socialist and communist parties.

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Over the past few weeks, I have been reading news reports of Sanders recorded in the 1980s — because, you know, that's how guys like me spend their Saturday nights — and what I've found is pretty remarkable.

For starters, Sanders had (during the height of the Soviet Union) a very cozy relationship with people who openly advocated for Marxism and communism. He was an elector for the Socialist Workers Party and promoted the party's presidential candidates in 1980 and 1984.

To say the Socialist Workers Party was radical would be a tremendous understatement. It was widely known SWP was a communist organization mostly dedicated to the teachings of Marx and Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution.

Among other radical things I've discovered in interviews Sanders conducted with the SWP's newspaper — appropriately named The Militant (seriously, you can't make this stuff up) — is a statement by Sanders published in June 1981 suggesting that some police departments "are dominated by fascists and Nazis," a comment that is just now being rediscovered for the first time in decades.

In 1980, Sanders lauded the Socialist Workers Party's "continued defense of the Cuban revolution." And later in the 1980s, Sanders reportedly endorsed a collection of speeches by the socialist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, even though there had been widespread media reports of the Sandinistas' many human rights violations prior to Sanders' endorsement, including "restrictions on free movement; torture; denial of due process; lack of freedom of thought, conscience and religion; denial of the right of association and of free labor unions."

Sanders also traveled to Nicaragua and met with socialist President Daniel Ortega. He later called the trip a "profoundly emotional experience."

Comrade Bernie's disturbing Marxist past, which is far more extensive than what can be covered in this short article, shouldn't be treated as a mere historical footnote. It clearly illustrates that Sanders' brand of "democratic socialism" is much more than a $15 minimum wage and calls for single-payer health care. It's full of Marxist philosophy, radical revolutionary thinking, anti-police rhetoric, and even support for authoritarian governments.

Millions of Americans have been tricked into thinking Sanders isn't the radical communist the historical record — and even Sanders' own words — clearly show that he is. But the deeper I have dug into Comrade Bernie's past, the more evident it has become that his thinking is much darker and more dangerous and twisted than many of his followers ever imagined.

Tomorrow night, don't miss Glenn Beck's special exposing the radicals who are running Bernie Sanders' campaign. From top to bottom, his campaign is staffed with hard-left extremists who are eager to burn down the system. The threat to our constitution is very real from Bernie's team, and it's unlike anything we've ever seen before in a U.S. election. Join Glenn on Wednesday, at 9 PM Eastern on BlazeTV's YouTube page, and on BlazeTV.com. And just in case you miss it live, the only way to catch all of Glenn's specials on-demand is by subscribing to Blaze TV.

Justin Haskins (Jhaskins@heartland.org) is editorial director of The Heartland Institute and editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com.

Candace Owens blasts leftist cancel culture: 'Godless', 'societal atom bomb'

Candace Owens, BLEXIT founder and author of the upcoming book, "Blackout," joined Glenn Beck on Friday's GlennTV for an exclusive interview. available only to BlazeTV subscribers.

Candace dropped a few truth-bombs about the progressive movement and what's happening to the Democratic Party. She said people are practically running away from the left due to their incessant push to dig up dirt on anybody who disagrees with their radical ideology. She explained how -- like China and its "social credit score" -- the left is shaping America into its own nightmarish episode of "Black Mirror."

"This game of making sure that everyone is politically correct is a societal atom bomb. There are no survivors. There's no one that is perfect," Candace said. "The idea that humanity can be perfect is Godless. If you accept that there is something greater than us, then you accept that we a flawed. To be human is to be flawed."

Enjoy this clip from the full episode below:

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BlazeTV subscribers can watch the full interview on BlazeTV.com. Use code GLENN to save $10 off one year of your subscription.