Guillermo Santos, a student at John Moffet Elementary School, will participate in the City Wide Walk Out at noon today, May 17th, 2013 to protest the public school budget cuts.

Guillermo Santos, a 4th grader, a member of the Student Council, choir & drumming, saxophone and Jr. Fire Patrol, will walk out from his beloved John Moffet Elemetary School at noon with letters from all of the children at Moffet.

“We are both devastated and outraged that nobody seems to care about taking away our right to education.” I will make sure that the students of Moffet School will be heard.” Gillermo’s walk to Washington D.C. can be followed on his blog.

Even while the US Chamber of Commerce has the word “JOBS” hung on the front of their building, they’ve been working overtime to lobby for job-killing austerity policies that punish the poor to cushion the rich. They’ve been spending millions to bring about the approval of the catastrophic Keystone XL pipeline while remaining silent on green energy programs that would save the climate and create jobs. So from May 18th to May 24th, a group of Americans who have been the hardest hit by the recession will march on the US Chamber of Commerce, holding them accountable for buying off Congress.

With your help, we can launch the direct action phase of this campaign, and kick off actions against the US Chamber all across the country. If you can’t come to Philly or DC, make a small donation to support the effort through our website.

We can turn Washington on its head by exposing the US Chamber of Commerce for what they really are.

(Check out the official march route at bit.ly/greenjobsroute and click here to RSVP on Facebook)

We will be marching from Philadelphia to Washington DC. Leaving at 1:00 pm from 3rd and Cumberland on the 18th of May and arriving to The Department of Commerce by the 24th of May to Demand Green Jobs Now! We need Jobs now in order to provide for our families and save our planet!

Join us as poor and unemployed families march everyday and pitch tents along the roadside.

Follow us at economichumanrights.org as we daily put a face on this crisis.

No more unemployment,homelessness,poor health and the closing of our schools.

Fracking, the Keystone pipeline and drones are not the answer to unemployment or a healthy environment!

JOIN OUR ARMY: OPERATION GREEN JOBS
MARCH FOR GREEN JOBS, A LIFE WITH DIGNITY AND OUR FUTURE!

POOR PEOPLES ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN
174 West Diamond Philadelphia PA 19122

TO DONATE:

Please make your check out to: PPEHRC/AfGJ and send it to:

Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign
174 W. Diamond St.
Philadelphia, PA USA 19122

You can also donate online by visiting: https://afgj.org/afgj-donations
(Make sure you select “FSP – Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign” under Causes, otherwise we will not receive your donation)

Food grows from the rubble!

Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is stepping up its farm organizing.  We are committed to working toward a city where our communities can support themselves.  No longer will people, our friends and families and children, go hungry while vacant land sits empty and unused.  We are no longer waiting for politicians to address the problems in this the second hungriest congressional district in the nation or the 40,000 vacant lots in Philadelphia or the many environmental problems we face everyday and will increasingly face. For this, we need support from our members and friends.

Starting this February, PPEHRC will begin a campaign to distribute food and educate our neighbors about Kensington Farm at 3rd and Cumberland.  Before we even begin growing food this spring, we will be meeting the immediate needs of our community.  We will also distribute fliers that double as tokens for food available at informational meetings about the farm.  For the past two years we have sowed the seeds of a community farm on those lots, and this year we are aiming to raise community involvement to a new level.  We are working to give the farm the roots it needs to help our desperate situation.

We have some immediate needs in order for this project to be successful.  Most importantly for this winter, we are in need of a truck, to transport food, soil, and tools, among other things.  We also need benches and bricks, stones, and other materials to build paths so that we can start fixing up the lot before the weather is warmer.  Some ongoing needs are gloves, topsoil, basic gardening tools, a shed, seeds, and a fire plug key for water.  Help us in our effort to raise 2,000 dollars to hire a full time farmer.   ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE.  Please contact Tara Colon at Tara.B.P.Colon@gmail.com or 2158694753

We are also working on building our Human Rights City in Philadelphia at these meetings. Come join us and learn more about it !

PPEHRC also does alternative summers in several other locations in the country so please indicate where you would like to spend your summer! Apply now before we fill up!

The current situation with our economy by most economists and futurists seems to indicate that things are only gonna get worse. In spite of the pontifications of both the Obama Campaign apologists and the Romney Campaign apologists, things continue to get worse, not only here, but around the world. The answer from the Corporate controlled plutocracy continues to be cutbacks domestically, while continuing to give the wealthy and the corporations tax breaks, and continuing to spend money on continuous war around the world.
While real unemployment continues to rise and more and more families continue to lose their homes to foreclosure, 8 million and counting, neither party and their leaders seem to really care or have any real answers. The “p” word, poverty is not even in the discourse. But, there is a movement rising! As the ranks of the poor and homeless continue to rise at a breath taking pace, people are beginning to look at alternatives to this housing crisis and alternatives to this economy. People are taking things into their own hands and creating their own economies and taking over abandoned and bank owned houses. It is my belief, and the belief of many in this beleaguered class that banks, who got bailed out, while the people didn’t, no longer have any right to keep a hold of houses and other properties that they have foreclosed on, in many case illegally. Why should banks retain property that they, in effect, stole from we the working people!
So, all around the country people are taking over properties that banks and the government stole from them. Like the song says, “…gonna take back what they stole from me…”. In the Tampa bay area where I am from, People are beginning to explore and act on taking over houses, creating local economies, planting community gardens and other creative means of taking back the economy. When the Republican Convention happened in Tampa, we the people took over houses, created Poor People’s Encampments (i.e “Romneyville”), and planted gardens and reclaimed food. In spite of the Local and National Powers that be and their Corporate interests, people did what they needed to to survive and create and growth this struggle of the oppressed class. Study groups are emerging all over the Tampa Bay area, and all over the country as a result of this growing struggle and the newly infused growth of this movement from the various “Occupy” actions. We are seeing the seeds of Revolution grow and it is long overdue!

By Rev. Bruce Wright bgcwright@aol.com, www.refugestpete.org

Sincerely, Rev. Bruce Wright

www.economichumanrights.org, www.refugestpete.org, or, go to facebook/Romneyville

SCHEDULE FOR NEW ARTISTS: SHAMAKO AT 500, KROWN AT 530, AND DAVID ROVICS AND FRIENDS AT 615
Subject: CONCERT EVENTS AT RNC PROTESTS TO BENEFIT POOR PEOPLES CAMPAIGN MOVED TO ROMNEYVILLE

Hey folks hear is a radical Musicians, Artists, Poets Line up of Musical Events, Courtesy of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and ResistRNC to benefit the Poor People’s Campaign:

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29TH AT ROMNEYVILLE, AS WELL, DAVE SHEPERD AND BLUES RIDERS, FALL ON PURPOSE TRENCHFOOT SHINDIG, JOHN CLARK AND IMMINENT FRONT AND OTHERS TBA DONATION
Call 727 278 1547 for info or go to Facebook event “Concert Events at RNC Protests to Benefit Poor People’s Campaign

ADDITIONAL NOTE: THERE WILL BE A PRESS CONFERENCE AT ROMNEYVILLE ON THURSDAY MORNING AT 930AM BY HOMELESS AND NEAR HOMELESS INDIVIDUALS TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEMS OF HOMELESSNESS AND HOW LOCAL PROVIDERS BOTH FAITH BASED AND COMMUNITY BASED SOMETIMES MISTREAT THE HOMELESS COMMUNITY AND HOW ALL ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS THIS NEED ACCOUNTABILITY TO MEMBERS OF THE HOMELESS COMMUNITY. WE WILL ADDRESS CRIMINALIZATION OF THE HOMELESS. FOR MORE INFO CALL 727 278 1547.

ALSO PROTESTS ARE PLANNED TO GO TO AMSCOT (A SUBSIDIARY OF BANK OF AMERICA) AND OTHER ACTIONS INCLUDING POTENTIAL HOUSING TAKEOVER