Today, tens of millions of poor people in this country are on the front lines of our failing democracy and increasingly militarized society. They are the true canaries in the coal mine, already living through the violence of a society that has prioritized war and profits over addressing the pain and toll of low-wage jobs, crushing debt burdens, polluted water and land, and lives cut short by poverty, the police, and the denial of basic human rights. They can undoubtedly also foresee the drive toward an ever-deeper warfare state and the possible fallout from Project 2025 if Donald Trump and J.D. Vance win this year.
Forged in the crucible of violence, the criminalized and impoverished still call out for a true peace.
On June 29th, Reverend Savina Martin, a military veteran and formerly homeless mother, took to the stage of the Poor People's Campaign's Mass Assembly in Washington, D.C., and shared these thoughts:
"I am a US Army veteran and I was impacted by homelessness many years ago. Today, thousands of homeless veterans are fighting for [their] benefits, housing" navigating a complex system while sick and suffering, trying to survive the war waged against the poor. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson permits cities to criminalize homelessness by enforcing bans on sleeping outside when no shelter is available. How can sleeping while homeless be against the law? If you sleep, you get arrested?
"This system depends on us to fight their wars, but we can't depend on [our government] to guarantee housing or healthcare? Instead, [our government] allocates $1.1 trillion to war, weapons, and a system that criminalizes the poor, leading to mass incarceration, deportations, and detentions. We want jobs and homes, not death in the streets."
Savina was speaking of the war on the poor, the power of the military-industrial complex, and an extremist agenda that will connect her in unsettling ways with 140 million poor and low-income people in this country -- and billions more around the world. As in other moments of history, the struggle of the poor for life and dignity in a world that denies them both is a struggle for the best that we can be as a society. In their leadership lies the hope for us all -- not in Project 2025, a future Trump administration, or the all-too-devastating version of a Pax Americana that would go with it, but in the peace (and justice) that Savina and so many others are demanding, and will continue to push for, until it is ours.
Copyright 2024 Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes
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