The other day I listened to part of a talk to some Montessori students who were on a field trip to the Peter Claver Catholic Worker Houses in South Bend, Indiana. The Catholic Worker Houses here are a cluster of homes that house the homeless. One of the handouts to the students this day was titled: Could You Survive in Poverty? It noted that income levels have a societal insular effect. What’s more, the writing indicated that people not in the poverty socio-economic strata often can’t relate to some of the things it takes to live in poverty. Some of those components include: I can get by without a car. I know where the free medical clinics are. I know how to fight and defend myself physically. I know which grocery store garbage bins can be accessed for thrown-away food. I know how to live without electricity and a phone… Note: We have put a hold on the campaign traveling for a time to focus on preparation for the rest of our 2012 run. And we will be staying in South Bend, Indiana, during this time doing that and volunteering at the Catholic Worker Houses here.
‘Bridges Out Of Poverty’
This last week I met with Mike Cobbler, who is a representative for St. Joseph County’s Bridges Out of Poverty Initiative. This program examines the sources and impact of generational poverty on families and communities, reveals the hidden rules and norms of social classes, and supports addressing and solving generational poverty. Mr. Cobbler said: “God has given enough resources that all life can be sustained. But people have failed us, policies have failed us and our personal lifestyles have failed us.” Bridges has set up a series of classes throughout the community that outline some of the systemic reasons for poverty, how people function within each socio-economic strata, and how one can (through goal setting, being mentored, and so on…) break the cycle of poverty. To help, those taking the courses are twinned with “allies.” That is, volunteers who will be there for Bridge’s students at every turn to help with strategies for success. “So often the poor are simply living in ‘the tyranny of the moment,” said Mr. Cobbler. They are just treading water trying to make the rent each month, scratching to get money for a car repair, sweating over whether there’ll be enough food for the kids… Mr. Cobbler added that in the three years the program has been in existence in South Bend, Indiana, there have already been some 200 graduates of the 14 week program. Note: Bridges liaisons with the courts, with mental health agencies, drug and alcohol agencies, with social services… in the hopes of creating an extensive referral safety net for those in need.
School of the Americas
I just watched a documentary on the School of the America’s (SOA). This is a facility for training Latin American soldiers. It’s based in Georgia. The documentary stated that often the poor in Latin America who “cry out for justice” are labeled insurgents. And military, or para-military, “death squads” are sent in to terrorize villages to quell the protests. For instance, SOA trained Contras killed scores of peasants in Nicaragua. Bishop Oscar Romero (who quite vocally spoke up for the poor), was killed by two soldiers trained at the School of the America’s. The Pentagon has admitted that these Latin American soldiers are trained to torture, kidnap and assassinate, according to the documentary. There was a “Kennedy Amendment” to close the SOA. It failed by a relatively close margin. Our administration would work to close the SOA.
American urban cores and Third World plight…
I talked with Steve Flood who teaches a Logic Class at Notre Dame University. He asked me about our platform in regard to reversing the decaying inner city urban cores of America. I said the crux of the strategies revolve around mobilizing as much social justice help as possible to these areas, including inspiring many suburban and small town Americans to move back into the cities to help (as we did in Cleveland). Steve told me he’d done some outreach work on the west side of Chicago and explained the Christian Community Development Association is involved with similar initiatives… I also talked with a student from Notre Dame who is just recently back from a service trip to Tanzania. He said what Tanzania really needs is debt relief, help with sustainable agriculture projects, and a better education system. Our administration would work stridently to help Tanzania (and all Third World countries) to attain these… Note: To help with agriculture and education we propose (among a number of things) a tremendous expansion of the Peace Corps. There are currently about 12,000 people serving in the Peace Corps. We believe it should be 100 times that, and would propose more incentives for Americans to join the Peace Corps.
off the couch…
From Liz: As we travel, we take time to exercise with the kids in the afternoons. And recently we stopped at Goshen College’s track in Goshen, Indiana. While there, I encountered a woman jogging with her two young daughters. They were running a mile. The woman explained her daughters would be competing in the Fitness Health Festival in Fort Wayne. Throughout the summer they have kept a log of their miles. They are running the equivalent of a marathon, 26 miles and will receive a “gold medal” when they complete it… In an age when it’s sooo easy for children to be television and video game couch potatoes, this kind of thing is such an innovative way to get kids exercising. And I believe a “gold medal” should got to mom Jean Mounsithirag for sowing the seeds of family fitness.
Lunar Lunacy, business, and ‘peace’
America deliberately crashed two unmanned NASA spacecraft into the moon to see if they will “kick up some ice,” according to an Associated Press report. We, I’m sure, have spent millions, if not billions, of dollars on this. Meanwhile, scores of people in the Third World die from drinking tainted water every day. Would it not make sense, common sense, to spend some of this NASA money on water purification systems for the people on this planet? The article headline today read: Moonstruck: One Giant Thud for Mankind. It could have also well read: Lunar Lunacy... I went to a talk today by Dr. Carolyn Woo, who is the Dean of the College of business at the University of Notre Dame. She said these days the boundary between work and family is tremendously blurred. That is even when home, people will spend, say, a bit of time with the kids then retreat to a room to work on the computer, then they’re on the cell phone talking business, then… Many Amish won’t have a phone (even a rotary one) in their home, because they see it as a distraction to focused family time. Note: Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize today. One of his stances promotes the wholesale, violent killing of unborn babies. ‘Peace’ in the womb?
“Joe the painter”
Since we don’t have the millions of dollars for television advertising, we’ve decided to put our money into: vinyl signage for our motor home. I mean, we’ll travel practically everywhere in the country. So we figure most people will see it before Nov. 2012. (And to think we’re doing all of this without paid political consultants.) Anyway, over the years our ‘go to’ signage people have been at The Sign Shack in Findlay, Ohio. Owner Joe Langhals is an absolute genius when it comes to graphics stuff. (And he’s got one of the best senses of humor…) During our last stop, The Sign Shack guys helped us put together a campaign logo that should push us over the top for 2012. It’s a multi-colored paint brush with a hammer and screw driver coming out of the top of the bristles. The sign below reads: Vote average Joe “the painter“ for U.S. President. Anybody out there remember “Joe the plumber”? We’re counting on a lot of people remembering. Note: When I get to D.C., the first thing I’ll probably do is paint the White House another color. I mean, it’s been white for soooooo long, huh.
‘greenhouse gassing,’ Studebakers and Our Lady of the Way…
Catching up from the last week… While in South Bend, Indiana, I was invited to a Ph.D. level Law Class at Notre Dame University. The class discussion this day revolved around the legal reasons the Bush Administration used for a preemptive war in Iraq. The professor noted at one point that one rationale was Hussein’s violations of human rights, like “gassing the Kurds.” I interjected that as the world’s leading producer of carbon dioxide, the U.S. was, in a very real sense, “green house gassing the world.” And if the scientists are right, this is already playing havoc with weather patterns, including causing drought and famine in more arid countries now. So, from a common sense stand point, wouldn’t other nations have the right to launch a preemptive strike at, well, us? There was marked silence in the class… Later that night, I attended a talk at Notre Dame by the head chaplain in the U.S. Navy. During the question and answer period, I asked about Catholic soldiers who adhered to the church teaching on Just War Doctrine. Pointing, again, to the Iraq War — which Pope John Paul II said wasn’t a Just War — I asked the chaplain if he could see a time in the future when, for instance, a Catholic soldier could opt out of a war. Just like an Amish person opts out of the military for their religious reasons. He answered that he could, indeed, see that… During the week, I took the kids to the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend where we played some football on the Astro-turf out in front of the building… At an Art Walk in downtown South Bend, we stopped by a booth about the Studebaker Nationall Museum. There was a ’50s Studebaker on display at the booth. South Bend was the home of the Studebaker family and the collection of wagons, vehicles and artifacts at the museum span some 150 years… While in South Bend, our family also volunteered at the Our Lady of the Way drop-in center for the poor here. It is run by the local Catholic Worker group and is a sterling example of social justice at it’s best. Everyone is welcome here…
“…war on poverty”
I mentioned in the last blog entry that I talked to a couple classes at Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana. The classes revolved around a Christian response to our global society. One of the classes is taught by professor Michael Griffin, who is also an associate editor for the magazine Sign of Peace. He is a tremendous advocate for non-violence, and is the type of person we would recruit for the U.S. Department of Peace that our administration would propose… I turned professor Griffin’s class into sort of a ‘town hall meeting,’ and it got pretty lively. The students were quite vocal about the environment, health care, the economy, war… One student, Dan Hatfield, said that “…if we fought a war on poverty, there wouldn’t be a war on terrorism.” We have often said that our administration would propose using a lot of current military hardware (cargo planes, ships, etc…), to deliver much more humanitarian aid worldwide. As an example: When you think about it, a percentage of youth caught in dead end inner city poverty in this country often join: gangs. A percentage of youth in dead end Third World poverty join: terrorist cells. If we were as proactive as possible about building the kind of peace Mr. Hatfield proposes, there would be a whole lot less hot spots around the globe. Note: For a time, professor Griffin was the managing editor of Signs of Peace. In a 2005 edition he helped publish, it was noted that a Catholic Worker Peace Team traveled to Darfur, Sudan, to distribute some $17,000 in humanitarian aid. We propose that start happening exponentially in that country to help stop the genocide.
religious monuments, windmills and a ‘war’
The campaign continues… We stopped in Auburn, Indiana, where I talked with Mary Voiral. She put up a full size crucifix in her front yard on a busy street here. She said at a time when they are removing monuments with the 10 Commandments, and other religious symbols, from public places, wouldn’t it make sense for people of faith to display similar things in their front yards? …We journeyed on to Kendallville, Indiana, where we visited the Mid-America Windmill Museum. This is the second biggest windmill display in the world, with 54 large windmills on display. (The first biggest is in Lubbock, Texas.) The particular windmills on display at Kendalville are primarily for pumping water on farms, etc. However, while at the museum, I learned Benton County, Indiana, was installing a wind farm with 360 wind turbines in a “Class 3” wind corridor. Just this morning, our Jonathon, 6, was learning the following poem in ‘motor-homeschooling.’ “The sky is painted blue. The earth is painted green. And there’s lots of fresh air inbetween.” I couldn’t help but think that we’re going to need a lot more wind turbines in this country for the poem to be: true… We then headed northwest to Southbend, Indiana. I talked to a couple Christian Response to the Globe classes at Holy Cross College. [One of the classes was taught by Michael Griffin who is involved with the Peace Fellowship here.] I told the classes that in my first “100 days as president,” I’d sign my allegiance to a ‘war.’ The War on Hunger. I said with 24,000 people starving to death every day in the world, this would seem a huge issue. Note: At an “Art Walk” today in downtown South Bend, I passed out fliers about the campaign. I ask our supporters to download the Hand Out from the top of the home page and pass them out on the streets, throughout your neighborhood, etc. Thanks. –Joe