I’m fairly certain that, as you read this sentence, you match a certain demographic. In fact, I can say with 100 percent confidence that you do. You are an Internet user and, by virtue of this fact, should be filled with tremendous outrage at the legislation that is set to pass in Congress.

The “Stop Online Piracy Act” (HR 3261), introduced in October, empowers copyright holders to seek punitive action when their material is reproduced online. Fair enough. But like much of the cleverly-worded legislation presented to Congress, this bill’s title is hardly reflective of its likely pernicious effect. (Remember Bush’s “Clean Air Act”?) What SOPA really amounts to is a destabilization of the Internet by corporate entities.

When I first heard about Congress adding a provision to a Defense Authorization bill that would allow for the U.S. MILITARY to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, without trial, just for being suspected of supporting anyone who was “engaged in hostilities against the United States,” I assumed it was just the work of some whacky right-winger who knew that the language didn’t have a chance of surviving the first round of mark-ups in conference committee. When the Senate and House overwhelmingly voted for the bill, with the President signing it in the dead of night when no one was looking, it struck me that something very strange was happening, and so far, no one has offered a serious explanation of why this bill came to be and is now law.

Protesters in Chicago abjam77/Creative Commons

I’ve noticed a meme beginning to fester among liberal insiders who are positing that the Occupy Wall Street movement is starting to “distract” the citizenry from the wicked machinations of Republicans of the legislative class. Nonsense.

The OWS movement is not a distraction from – but serves as an alternative to – the disingenuous theatrics staged by the political hacks of this faux republic. Conversely, movement members have grasped that it is the hollow grandstanding – the modus operandi of the present U.S. political system itself – that serves as distraction from the realities of the day.

Those drawn to the OWS movement realize this: Vast sums of money are required to get the attention of, and gain influence over the entrenched class of self-serving political insiders who hustle their wares in Washington, D.C.

Year after year, election cycle after election cycle, Washington’s political class has revealed whose interests it serves. Accordingly, let the one percent and their political operatives continue on their present myopic, society-decimating course. By doing so, they will just bring more outraged people into the streets and hasten their own undoing.

Among other things, I teach business ethics at the university level. I have also been a consultant to Wall Street firms for some 20 years, and have worked in various capacities on the Street since I graduated from high school, in 1979. I know a few things about what ought to be; I know a few things about what is.

I visited the Wall Street protest site in New York City, at Zuccotti Park, on Saturday, October 1. Subsequently, I read Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times column on the subject of the protests, known as “Occupy Wall Street” or, alternatively, the “99 Percenters” (the protests have in recent days and weeks spread across the country, taking on other names). I agree with almost all of what Kristof wrote, which both applauded the protesters and puzzled about their actual objectives.

Like Kristof, I think that the protests and demonstrations are healthy and important, but the absence of visible leadership and “authorized” spokespersons, and the lack of a plan or list of demands, may very well lead to the protest’s (movement’s) demise, giving comfort to those who wish to continue the plutocracy that exists in this country. Kristof was right to suggest a few concrete proposals that the protesters might run with.

Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen, October 2008. wikimedia commons / Muhammad ud-Deen

On September 30, 2011 a U.S. drone in Yemen assassinated Anwar Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen accused of participation in terrorist activities against the United States. While there is a legitimate debate to be had about the justification and legality of targeted killings as a matter of policy, President Obama should not be permitted to assume this authority unchallenged.

Al-Awlaki’s killing is the first instance of a U.S. administration openly targeting an American citizen for assassination and comes amid a rapid increase in the use of targeted killings abroad. This issue was last raised in 2002 when Kamal Derwish, also a U.S. citizen, was killed in a similar operation. The Bush administration denied that he was an intended targeted, thereby avoiding the constitutional question, but Condoleezza Rice argued that targeting Derwish would have been “well within the balance of…[Bush's] constitutional authority.” In early 2009 Admiral Dennis Blair reaffirmed that the president has the right to assassinate an American citizen that is believed to be “working with terrorists.” The Bush administration avoided a constitutional confrontation while creating the legal framework for a 2010 Obama memorandum that justified the targeted killing of Al-Awlaki.

Activists assemble outside the Supreme Court on January 21, 2011 to call for a constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens United decision. / Brendan Hoffman

Most discussions of how to pass a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood dismiss what is likely to be the only possible solution. Instead of calling for a constitutional convention, we should be focusing our efforts on getting an amendment introduced into Congress. While a number of prominent amendment advocates regard this as impossible, the idea of calling for a constitutional convention is far less plausible and much more complicated. With the rapid expansion of corporate power in the politics of the United States, we simply do not have the time to spend focusing exclusively on the unlikely goal of getting a constitutional convention.

The assumption behind the skepticism of those who reject the idea of getting an amendment introduced into Congress is that it won’t pass because Congress as a body is too corrupt. This is clearly true, but what has not been widely recognized is that with Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and many other members of Congress publicly challenging the power of corporations over government, the stage is set for interested members of Congress to introduce the amendment itself. As more come out in favor of such an amendment, the amendment can become a prominent campaign issue that will enable the public to easily discern between candidates wishing to be elected to serve corporate interests and those who intend to work for the citizens who actually elect them.

(Image courtesy Bloody Marty Mix / Flickr Creative Commons)

Last night as we helped our friends at Design Action Collective celebrate their many years of successfully empowering justice movements (including being the art designers for Tikkun Magazine for a long while), we met a young man who told us a stunning tale. He had tried to get his wife onto his health insurance plan and the company turned them down. Why? Because they weren’t legally married. He and the woman he loved had decided that marriage equality was an important enough justice issue that until their GLBTQ friends could get legally married, they wouldn’t. Instead, they had a wonderful ceremony with friends and family, but no license from the state. When he applied to add his wife to his insurance policy, the company actually checked state records and finding no license, issued no insurance. That’s not fair! I exclaimed…

Occupy Wall Street protestors organizing on September 23. Flicker / david_shankbone

The Occupy Wall Street protesters have been mischaracterized in the news as disorganized drum circlers and unwashed anarchists. After spending nights and countless hours in Liberty Plaza, I can attest that the there is an impressive, complex governing structure that maintains the occupation. These governing institutions did not emerge organically; the system was designed by the earliest occupiers of Liberty Plaza and adopted by the General Assembly (GA) at the time. The structure consists primarily of working groups that coordinate and operate the different functions of the occupation.

A working group deals with logistical issues in the park including sanitation, comfort, medical needs, and food. All of these are basic necessities of a growing socio-political movement. There are also thematic groups that deal with non-logistical issues such as seminars, sign making, outreach, and media coverage. Anyone can establish a group with a concept and initiative, which has led to a proliferation of many functioning working groups. The success of this process can be witnessed in the extensive and organized cleaning program that resulted in the postponement of the city’s order to evacuate the park due to ostensibly “unsanitary conditions.” The rapid growth of the camp is never more noticeable than during the GA, which is held nightly at 7 p.m. in the park. This is the formation of a society founded on the belief in collective action and direct democracy.

The crowd during the GA has grown so large that the “people’s mic”—the crowd echoing the speaker to compensate for the city ban on using a P.A. system—requires every phrase to be repeated three to four times in order to reach the furthest participants. The size has created logistical problems.  All major decisions, including the allocation of funds, must be proposed and adopted by the GA through consensus. This process might seem absurdly inefficient, but it functions because of a core tenet of the movement: process. Whenever there is a problem, the solution is to adjust the process.

Courtesy of Stand with the Eleven

by Jewish Voice for Peace Members Amirah Mizrahi, Antonia House, and Emily Ratner

When Jewish Voice for Peace disrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s keynote speech at the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual general meeting last November in New Orleans, we were met with hisses, boos, verbal harassment and even physical attacks from other members of the audience. But criminal charges were never so much as mentioned. Yet just weeks ago, students who interrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech at UC Irvine in February 2010 were convicted of two misdemeanors for their participation in the protests.

See if you can spot the difference between these two protests:

[UPDATE - On Monday 9/19/11, the clemency board denied Davis a stay. The NAACP is launching a last resort petition to urge the DA to ask the Judge to withdraw the death warrant]

The state of Georgia may take the life of an innocent man on Wednesday.

Troy Anthony Davis

For nearly two decades, Troy Anthony Davis has sat on Death Row for the 1989 shooting of off-duty White police officer Mark MacPhail. Though Davis has maintained his innocence for two decades and built a compelling case for his freedom, he has exhausted the appeals process and is now scheduled to die. The Georgia Board of Paroles and Pardons has the power to grant him clemency and spare his life.

The murder weapon was never found and there is no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder; the case against him was built solely on witness testimony. Of the nine witnesses that testified in Davis’s trial, seven have recanted their testimony, many citing police coercion. Multiple jurors from the original trial have since signed sworn affidavits saying that based on the recanted testimony he should not be executed. New evidence has also emerged implicating another suspect.

This is the fourth time in as many years that a death warrant has been issued for Davis. He was first set to be executed in the summer of 2007, but was granted a stay of execution following the efforts of a grassroots campaign whose supporters included Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, Pope Benedict XVI, Harry Belafonte, Jesse Jackson, former president Jimmy Carter, representatives of Congress, members of European parliaments, a former FBI director and Federal Judge, and many others. Amnesty International organized the delivery of thousands of letters to the clemency board. Despite the recanting of trial testimony by the majority of the trial’s original witnesses, the Georgia Supreme Court denied Davis’s appeal for a re-trial in the early Spring of 2008.

Why is the left so weak in this country and the right so strong? There are many reasons for our sad situation, but one of the most important is the monetary advantage held by the right. This is a difficult problem to solve, but one vitally important piece of the solution has to be passing a constitutional amendment to undo the Citizens United decision. Corporations should not be able to pour unlimited money into elections and call it free speech. Corporations are not people, they should not have free speech rights, and money is not speech! That is just common sense.

Across California, 6,600 prisoners have joined in the hunger strike that began July 1 with prisoners held in security housing units, a sanitary term for solitary confinement, inside Pelican Bay State Prison refusing food and issuing demands that include adequate food and nutrition, an end to group punishment and abuse, as well as compliance with the 2006 Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons recommendations on ending solitary confinement practices. On the outside, demonstrators and coalitions have shown their solidarity with the prisoners through rallies in various cities, online petitions and calls to action. So far, the California Department of Corrections and “Rehabilitation” (CDCR) has refused to negotiate or show any signs of addressing prisoners’ demands.

I wrote about the start of the Pelican Bay Prison hunger strike in a July 2 posting;in the meantime, solidarity with prisoners has expanded both inside and outside the prison. There are ways to get involved and express solidarity: call the CDCR or your elected officials and urge them to honor the prisoners’ demands. You can also tell them you are a person of faith and why you support human rights and true justice for all people. (Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity, the coalition of organizations outside of prison speaking on behalf of and supporting the striking prisoners, even has a sample script and list of phone numbers to make it easy for you to do yourself and share with friends.)

While many people of faith reject the death penalty, solidarity with prisoners has been a difficult pill to swallow for many people of faith on the outside, particularly those of us who believe ourselves to be personally disconnected from the prison system or not “having friends who are felons.” Similarly, we may have thought at some point that having solidarity with prisoners is to turn our backs on victims of violence. There are facts and statistics that can help us deal with this discomfort. For instance, prison sentencing for nonviolent crimes has expanded heavily in just the past few decades. Also, solitary confinement has been practiced under the auspices of deterring violence inside prison, not because of original crimes committed outside (and that method has its fill of unjust procedures, like the debriefing rule, which the hunger strike and the video linked below help to illuminate). Still, something stops a large number of us from saying “yes” to solidarity with prisoners and no to solitary confinement. Luckily, many of us rely on traditions and sources of moral wisdom, which for centuries, have called for human dignity, liberation and freeing the captive.

Across California, 6,600 prisoners have participated in the hunger strike begun on July 1 at Pelican Bay State prison’s security housing unit or solitary confinement.

On July 1st, 43 prisoners inside California Pelican Bay State Prison’s security housing unit (or SHU, a fancy name to get those of us not in prison to think it is something other than solitary confinement and all that entails) began a hunger strike against torture and for self-determination and liberation. Solidarity with prisoners who are organizing themselves for justice is just a click away. Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity, a San Francisco Bay Area coalition of grassroots organizations “committed to amplyifing the voices of and supporting the prisoners,” has a blog and I suggest you check out like I did by clicking here.

It’s day two and at the same time as these 43 prisoners refuse food in participate in this hunger strike at Pelican Bay, 2.3 million people are in similar conditions, marginalized in solitary confinement and isolating conditions within an already hidden and dehumanizing system. For those of you who have not thought about the prison industrial complex as a justice issue for people of faith specifically, just that number of people hidden in our society seems like something to pray on. Here’s a couple other reflections that convinced me to learn about mass incarceration as a social justice issue and now to write about and pray for the Pelican Bay prisoners:

In a well-received Op/Ed piece in the New York Times, Columbia law professor, Katherine M. Franke explains why she considers the New York marriage decision a “mixed blessing.” Why does she say that?

First, Franke is concerned that the decision to allow same-sex couples access to civil marriage in New York will most likely lead to the elimination of domestic partnership status. She sees this as unfortunate because having domestic partnership as an option provides “greater freedom than can be found in the one-size-fits-all rules of marriage.”

Second, Franke does not think people should be “forced” to get married in order to access their partners’ health insurance and other benefits. She believes domestic partnership ought to be an alternative way of accessing benefits for both gays and straights.

Finally, she does not want to “celebrate” the idea of having the state sanction and regulate personal relationships.

A lot of my friends recommended this op/ed piece on Facebook, but I found myself less than convinced by Franke’s claims for a number of reasons. First, while Franke insists that “domestic partnerships and civil unions aren’t a consolation prize made available to lesbian and gay couples because we are barred from legally marrying,” in most cases, that is exactly what they are.

This seems to be the case even in New York City, where Franke resides. According to the City, domestic partnership status is available only to “couples that have a close and committed personal relationship” and who “live together, and have been living together on a continuous basis.” It is not available to anyone who “is married or related by blood in a manner that would bar his or her marriage in New York State.” While it is open to gay and straight couples alike, the status seems to be aimed at those who are living together as if married, rather than alternative domestic configurations.

To give another example, my home state of Delaware just legalized civil unions for same-sex couples precisely because such couples are prohibited from marrying. The new status will provide all the state-level benefits of marriage, but because civil unions have no federal status, none of the federal ones. While I am happy that my relationship will soon have some legal protection in Delaware, I am not happy to be relegated to second-class status. But it was the best we could do politically.

The White House and congressional leaders are in final negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. Congress must raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can pay its current obligations. Yet in order to secure enough votes to raise the debt ceiling, some members of Congress are withholding their vote unless dramatic cuts are made to federal spending–including devastating and long-term cuts to programs for hungry and poor people.

Every deficit-reduction package of the last 30 years–under Republican and Democratic leaders–has exempted key programs for hungry and poor people from cuts. We must protect these programs now.

Final negotiations between President Obama and leaders in Congress are happening now. Call your senators through our special toll-free number (1-800-826-3688) and ask them to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to create a circle of protection around funding for programs for hungry and poor people in the United States and abroad in the bill to raise the debt ceiling.

The City of Orlando has made over 20 arrests for sharing meals with the hungry at Lake Eola Park. The city limits the group to sharing twice a year per park.

Food Not Bombs has been sharing free vegetarian meals and literature in public for over 30 years. While many believe that hunger and poverty is the result of personal failing and the solution can be found by getting closer to God, Food Not Bombs thought the solution could be found in changing public policy, economics and society.

Risking arrest sharing food in Orlando (courtesy FNB website)

With fifty cents of every federal tax dollar going towards the military, no one in the world’s wealthiest country should have to stand in line to eat at a soup kitchen. It was clear that fliers and banners were not enough to motivate the public to take action to redirect military spending towards the real security of education, healthcare and other social services so the eight co-founders started to share meals at their literature table. People of all walks of life visited Food Not Bombs at Harvard Square and the Boston Commons. Visitors engaged one another in dialog. People new to the ideas of peace and social justice were introduced to groups organizing to end the war in Central America, the Nuclear Arms Race and the virtues of vegetarian meals.

The corporate machine’s drive for profit has resulted in a race to the bottom. The bottom line is profit at the expense of people, social justice, and the environment. In the United States, wages are stagnant, unemployment and homelessness grow, and more families are finding themselves unable to afford food.

Food Not Bombs is doing something about hunger. A worldwide all-volunteer organization that has existed for 30 years, Food Not Bombs feeds people vegetarian meals and protests war and poverty. Around the world, nearly one billion people go without food every day, and more than 25,000 die each day as a result. Hunger is growing in the United States, where more than 44 million people rely on food stamps and food pantries and kitchens are so overwhelmed that they are turning people away. This is unacceptable, especially in one of the richest nations of the world.

It is even more unacceptable that people are being arrested for sharing meals with the hungry. Volunteers with Food Not Bombs were first arrested in Orlando, FL, on June 1. They continue to return to feed the hungry and undergo arrest. Cities throughout Florida are introducing laws that could restrict Food Not Bombs to sharing food only twice a year per park. Can you imagine that now it is a crime to give food to hungry people?

On Friday, May 28, I attended a lecture at St. Paul AME Church in Berkeley, California by Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. It was an interesting chance that Alexander’s lecture coincided with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the mandate for California to reduce its prison overcrowding by at least 30,000 prisoners.

While I have been aware of systemic racism within the prison industrial complex thanks in part to the community education efforts of organizations in the S.F. Bay Area and my seminary education at Starr King School for the Ministry, I was alarmed by the facts she offered as well as the links between Jim Crow laws enacted before 1965 institutionalizing social, economic and other disadvantages based on race and today’s mass incarceration. By the end of the lecture, I became acutely aware of what people of faith can gain from understanding racism and mass incarceration as well as sharing with others their reflective milestones. Together, these practices can help to unhinge the moral structuring of white supremacy and identify ways to protect those labeled criminals in the U.S..

Alexander revealed her own process of personal transformation in the midst of political and legal work on racial justice for the American Civil Liberties Union in Oakland, California. Through her story, she showed the development of her consciousness-raising that eventually led her to claim mass incarceration is the “moral equivalent to Jim Crow.” She argues that in the U.S., we have re-created a racial caste system that labels people of color as criminals.

In this video of a lecture previously recorded to the one I saw this past week, Alexander offers a challenge to all those concerned about mass incarceration: