A Moral Imperative

I have had the privilege of hearing the Rev. Dr. William Barber, Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in Goldsboro, North Carolina.  The Rev. Dr. Barber is the architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013. His website is Repairers of the Breach.
 
Rev. Dr. Barber does not mince words.  He called for us to come together, as progressives, as people of faith, as people with moral character, as people who must act together.  We may have differences, but we cannot afford to be divided.  We have a moral imperative, a moral call to action, and act we must.  We must:
 

1. Critique issues like health care repeal with moral language. Not left vs right, or GOP vs Democrat. We must criticize these actions as wrong, as not moral.  This violent public policy is in violation of the Constitution, of economic justice, and of our religious values.   As it is written in Isaiah 10 (a book shared by all the peoples of the book):
   
   1  Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,
   2  to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
   
   We need to hold tight to that.  This is violent public policy. It is immoral, unjust, evil.
   
   
2. Call out those who claim to be people of faith yet who support this budget and this legislation. Call them out, challenge them on moral terms. Call out the silence of white evangelicals, who are so loud on the attack, but so silent on the fundamental, pre-eminent issue of how we take care of the least of us.
   
   
3. Fill the galleries and halls with people who will be hurt by these measures. Use all the tools we have to put a face on the hurt and the injustice.  Show up. Speak up.
   
   
4. Unpack the lies. Clearly show the intersections.  The states and politicians who have refused to restore the Voting Rights Act are why we have a Congress like this, and why Trump was elected.  There were over 800 fewer polling places in black precincts in the south for this election.  Do not fight in silos or just on our issues. UNPACK THE LIES.  Speak in clear, short strong statements of truth.
   
   
5. Challenge the media.  Call them on their complicity, or their silence.  Tell the media “You cannot have people on the air, listed as political analysts, who lie, and are not challenged.”  Demand that the personalities challenge the guests, and call them on their lies.  Do not allow guests to say “Obamacare kills.” No, lack of Obamacare kills.  People who did not get care died.
   
   
6. Put a face on those impacted.  Put their faces, their stories, and their pain on display. The sick. The poor. The working poor.  Put a face on it.  The main people speaking at our rallies and events must be those impacted.  We must show the country what violent public policy looks like.
   
   We must also welcome those now who realize they voted for the wrong thing. Join them in the fight.  They too must be with us, beside us, at our press conferences.  
   
   
7. Expose the kind of health care that Congress has.  Call out that they have this kind of health care, paid for by taxpayers, while they are taking care from others. Expose the race and class connection.  Take your state’s number of people losing care, and break it out by race and age and class.  Talk about the 14th Amendment, and equal protection. Is this legislation in violation of equal protection?
   
   
8. Civil disobedience is part of our strategy. This is not a one time event.  We cannot tolerate violent public policy.  If this disgraceful legislation passes the House on Thursday, we need be in the streets on Friday.  We must look at civil disobedience. In DC, in the states, everywhere.  At some point you must be willing to put your body on the line.
   
   
9. Voter Registration. Every event we have, every rally, every protest, every teach-in, must also be a voter registration event.  If 30% of the unregistered voters had been registered and voted, we would have had a vastly different outcome.  If we can make that happen, we can take our states back, we can take the US House back, we can take the Senate back, and we can take the Presidency back.
   
   
10. This is not a rally, or an event. This is a movement.  We cannot, we will not, tolerate unjust, immoral, violent public policy.
    
    

Remember: Everything we progressives have now, everything we hold dear, was called impossible at one time.  Moral dissenters either win in the moment, or in the days to come.  This is a matter of life and death.   We may have  differences, but we cannot afford to be divided.  

We have a moral imperative, a moral call to action, and act we must.

A recording of the speech is here https://act.moveon.org/survey/readytoresist/  Rev. Dr. Barber begins speaking at about the 9 minute mark.
 
IndivisibleMT Resources Here
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