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ROP Spring 2006 Newsletter

                                       

Rebuild America:  The Gulf Coast, The Country, Our Communities

ROP has a history of taking complex policy and politics and placing them into a framework that speaks to the times and affirms common sense values of democracy and human dignity.  Over the past few years we have spoken with hundreds of our neighbors on their doorsteps to document that rural Oregonians share the values of fairness and justice over bigotry and exploitation.  Building on that history, ROP has adapted the work of many others into a campaign that offers a positive platform for what our country could look like.  The three-part campaign is designed to build consensus from the ground up and create more room for hands-on disaster relief for the growing victims of the neo-conservative movement.  While we all begin to use the frame to promote dialogue and plan actions in our own communities, our annual Rural Caucus and Strategy Session, May 6th and 7th in Woodburn, will provide the space for a People’s Convention to make some decisions on next steps. 

 We are Rebuilding America:

 The Gulf Coast – by directing actions and solidarity towards ensuring that all Gulf survivors, the voices of the poor and communities of color, are part of the rebuilding of their communities.

The Country – by building consensus from the ground up on a basic platform that will put this country on a new course.  The platform takes the form of a pledge for voters that also allows local groups to gather names of supporters and new contacts who believe that another America is possible.  Close to election time signature ads in local papers will send a strong message to both our communities and our elected officials.

Our Communities – by partnering with existing services or creating our own projects we recognize that in a society where the social safety net has been unraveled, it is critical for progressive to make sure that everyone in the community is clothed, fed, and cared for.  

Fundraising (& Celebrating) for Change                                                                                                           Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity’s annual dinner featured the Rebuild America theme.  Over 200 folks in the county came together for an evening to celebrate “being progressive in Columbia County.”  Funds raised ($6,000) at the event supported all three tiers of the campaign: part went to a local low income housing program and community grant fund, part to support rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast, and part to the local human dignity group that is taking on a larger campaign to shape local, state, national, and global politics that support justice and dignity for all.

 

Taking Our Work to the Gulf Coast

The Oxygen Collective, a group from Southern Oregon, traveled to New Orleans to spend some time working with Common Ground, an organization set up post-Katrina to provide short-term relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina and long-term support in rebuilding New Orleans. Members of the Oxygen Collective spent a few weeks working in New Orleans.  Since their return they have shared the story of their experience, brought the founder of Common Ground to Oregon to educate Oregonians on the situation in the Gulf Coast, and helped with the donation of a former public transfer bus to the organization.

 

Politics of Service

One of ROP’s newest human dignity groups, Jefferson County’s Front Porch Group, has taken on the creation of a community kitchen as their first project.  The kitchen served its first meal in November and is now serving monthly with a staple of seven to ten volunteer chefs and servers.  A while back when I referred to this endeavor as a soup kitchen, I was quickly corrected.  There is a difference between charity and service, they reminded me.  I got to thinking about this difference and what it really takes to take care of one another. 

 

In a time when our social service infrastructure is in shambles and people can’t find work, or healthcare, or housing, or childcare, or food, what are we as a progressive community to do?  Too often I think we fall on the advocacy side of things.  We see the big picture and we want the right decisions made that will impact budgets and programs that will make a big difference in many communities.  But in all of that, we can lose sight of the community that is right in front of us. 

 

Many charities on the other hand, see the need immediately in front of them and work to fill the outstretched hand with something to eat or a blanket for the night, but they fail to see or fail to act on the big picture decisions and policies that can make a difference in meeting the needs of people for the long term.  There can also be a self-serving tendency to volunteer, assuage our guilt, and then carry on with our middle class lives.  Many of us who have volunteered know that we get more out of the experience than those we were there to supposedly help.

 

If we are after a true revolution that builds up a new America based on radically inclusive democracy, justice, and real beloved community, we must combine our advocacy efforts and political analysis with service that meets the real needs in people lives.  Not as a hand out or even as a hand up, but as human rights that we are all entitled to.  As a beginning place in the conversation of what beloved community can look like – why is it that we aren’t already getting our needs met at a time that we are spending billions on war and corporate tax breaks?  This community will require time and energy and resources from all of us, but in the end, it will provide us with a gift that no one else can give us – the beloved community that we are all yearning for.

 

Tour of Moms

Michelle De Ford and Lynn Bradach are two Oregon mothers who have a very personal perspective on today’s politics. They both lost their sons in the Iraq War.  Since returning from Camp Casey this summer, they have become vocal members of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO).  They are effective speakers whose stories bring dialogue about the war to a deeper level.

 

Rural Organizing Project is coordinating speaking tours through the state to allow these moms to talk with small town Oregonians.  Their experience with the war/occupation in Iraq as regular citizens who were transformed by tragedy into activists will resonate with many community members who remain unsure of just what to think about US policies in the Middle East.  They provide a very clear perspective on what our tax dollars are doing around the globe.

 

The Rebuild America vision is a four point platform that details out specifics for what would allow this country to better nurture its own democracy.  Michelle and Lynn offer up personal perspectives on how all the points in the platform intersect while sharing their own expertise and passion on one point in particular:  Withdrawal from Iraq. 

 
 

The Moms have visited southern Oregon drawing audiences up to 100 people strong.  They will continue their tours around the state for the next several months.  Contact ROP your group is interested in getting these truth tellers to your community.

 

Election 2006

We will hardly rebuild the best of democratic premises and practices in the next year.  But we can and will get started.  Given that 2006 is an election year, we will bring this frame into our ongoing election cycle work.  From the south coast to eastern Oregon and in every corner of the state, local groups are taking action by addressing local, regional, and national issues that are impacting their communities and using the Rebuild America platform as a positive framework to build a people’s convention of support behind that shared vision.  Help build this people’s convention at the ROP Annual Caucus and Strategy Session this May 6th and 7th in Woodburn, our next step to realizing this vision in our local communities and around the state.