2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Robert Reich | Why Republicans are Disciplined and Democrats Aren’t [View all]mnhtnbb
(31,302 posts)was a stroke of genius by Wm. Barber, the leader of the NC NAACP.
It's about time the left name what is going on in this country.
Even though this article is from TIME, it's a pretty good summary.
The man behind the Moral Mondays movement, Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP and a Disciples of Christ minister, says he is undeterred. The Moral Mondays are the result of seven years of progressive organizing for a new Southern fusion politicsa new multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition with an anti-racist, anti-poverty agenda. Their goal, he continues, is to directly attack the old divisions of the white southern strategy and what we believe were the shortcomings of the so-called Christian evangelical right that limits issues in the public square to things like prayer in school, abortion, and gender issues.
His goals are bigger than just changing policies and looking toward the 2014 election. Barber believes the South is in the middle of what he calls the third reconstruction. Changing demographics in America, and state battles over voting rights laws, he claims, echo both the first reconstruction, which was voting rights for African Americans after the civil war, and the second reconstruction, which was the Civil Rights movement. A new southern strategy must, he says, be rooted in the idea of the deep moral issues about faith, our constitution, anti-racism, anti-poverty, that can break open the solid south and put holes in it so that we expand the electorate, we expand the discourse, we destroy the myth that when you hurt entitlements you only hurt certain folk.
Barber, 49, sees North Carolina as a necessary test case. Republicans won both houses of the General Assembly in 2010 for the first time in more than a century, and the state that swung from President Obama in 2008 to Mitt Romney in 2012. [Republicans] believe if they can get away with this in a progressive, southern state, then it pours water on the aspirations of the rest of the southern states, Barber says. Barber has a masters degree from Duke Divinity School and a doctorate in Public Policy and Pastoral Care from Drew University, and he worked on Jesse Jacksons 1984 presidential campaign.
Local Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and United Methodist leaders issued a joint statement in early June supporting the Moral Mondays purpose, if not their means of civil disobedience. Their concern, the faith leaders explain, is not an act of political partisanshipinstead it is a matter of faith with respect to our understanding of the biblical teachings and imperatives to protect the poor, respect the stranger, care for widows and children and love our neighbors (Isaiah 10:1‐2, Hebrews 13:2, James 1:27, Matthew 22:39, Galatians 5:14).
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/07/01/moral-mondays-religious-progressives-protest-north-carolina-policies/#ixzz2aLMTdkn5