Fair Economy Illinois

Members of Bridgeport Alliance participated in an action today with IIRON and Fair Economy Illinois.

From Chicagoist - More than 60 demonstrators began a protest inside the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue, calling the company “one of the nation’s biggest corporate deadbeats.” continue reading

Learn more about Fair Economy Illinois here. 

Tom Gaulke on Huff Post Live

Tune in - Huff Post Live - Wednesday morning (2/27) at 9:30 CST to hear Tom Gaulke on a panel about real effects of sequestration in our communities. 

BA in the News

Articles on the SOUL King Day Event!

DNA Info -Activists Plan ‘King Day’ Rally

Progress Illinois - Community Group Brings Together Politicians, Religious and Community Leaders In A Call For Social Justice

SOUL - Martin Luther King Day 2013

Sunday, January 13, 2013
2:30pm - 4:30pm
 3566 S. Cottage Grove.
West Point Missionary Baptist Church

This is the time each year when we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King and continue his work through community organizing. Some of the issues we will address include funding for an arts & recreation center in Bronzeville, restoring bus service on 31st Street, closing state corporate tax loopholes so we can avoid massive budget cuts to Medicaid and education, and addressing the vacant property epidemic through a land bank that will create both affordable housing and jobs.

We will be asking elected officials to make commitments on issues affecting our communities. We need to show our elected officials that their constituents are watching and that people care about these issues.

Please come out and bring your friends, neighbors, and fellow congregants!

Musical celebration and sign-in will take place from 2:30 - 3:00, with the public meeting starting promptly at 3:00.

Bridgeport Alliance will have two buses leaving Benton House. Boarding at 2PM. Refreshments will be served starting at 1PM. Rides will be given to Benton House from First Trinity Lutheran after 10:30AM worship. We will have 100 folks from Bridgeport, so get there early if you don't want just scraps.

We Will Not Go Back

As part of the ongoing "fiscal cliff" discussions, Senator Durbin is negotiating behind our backs to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- cuts that could create depression-era conditions for millions of Americans who've paid for and earned support from these vital programs.

Join us on December 6th at noon to tell Senator Durbin that we won't go back! On December 6, we're building a Durbinville Shantytown encampment at the Federal Building to symbolize the dire consequences these cuts could have, and fight to preserve these essential programs. Join us! And bring a tent!

Come get free soup and bread every day in Federal Plaza from December 3rd - 6th!

Monday, December 3, noon: Soup and Bread line in Federal Plaza

Tuesday, December 4, noon: Soup and Bread line in Federal Plaza

Wednesday, December 5, noon: Soup and Bread line in Federal Plaza

Thursday, December 6, noon: Erect the "Durbinville" shantytown to show the world what these cuts really mean!

Enough is enough! It's time to stop unnecessary budget cuts and make corporations and the rich pay their fair share!

Demand that Senator Durbin:

Block the "debt ceiling sequester" cuts -- say no to austerity!

Reject Simpson-Bowles or any other "Grand Bargain" that attempts to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, working people, the sick or the elderly -- protect vital public programs, no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid!

Block the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 2% -- it's time for the rich to start paying their fair share!

Support and fight for progressive sources of revenue -- impose a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street financial speculation, tax capital gains as normal income and close corporate tax loopholes, cut Pentagon spending!

Christ at the Capitol

This past Tuesday, members of First Trinity, Benton House, and Bridgeport Alliance traveled South.

South to Springfield.

With our friends from SOUL and IIRON,

and a whole network of folks from Make Wall Street Pay, IL.

We were lobbying for SB-282, a bill that passed the senate, but is still up in the house.

This bill, if passed in IL, would require publicly traded corporations in IL to disclose their tax info. Right now, they don't.

Doesn't seem like a big deal.

Unless you're aware that about 2/3 of Illinois corporations don't pay any taxes.

Some of them even get paid to be here.

Nice, huh?

In our current political context, where cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and where scheduled upcoming Sequestration Cuts threaten to plunge our most vulnerable sisters and brothers into even more vulnerability, putting many of them in danger of losing their lives and well being (this is not an exaggeration),

it is our belief that SB-282, if passed, would be a step toward creating revenue through taxing the income of the ultra-rich and corporations, rather than taxing the lives of the poor.

One small step toward something better.

As we were hurrying about through the Capitol, finding our state reps,

sharing with them the importance of passing this bill,

(four of the six people in my group from Bridgeport are personally now, or about, to get cuts to the medicine they rely on),

we passed,

at the center of the building,

a Christmas Tree.

Along side it was a Nativity Scene, and around the scene were set-up chairs,

as if 

near the manger of Christ, 

there was about to be a press conference.

As I walked by the reporter and the camera standing up front, 

in a hurry, 

the reporter extended her hand to shake mine, 

asking if I was Pastor Something-Or-Another.

I shook her hand. “No. I'm not. Sorry.”

She looked confused. I walked away.

It turns out, as we made our way by the manger again later,

that there was a press conference, and from what I overheard,

it was some clergy-type ranting about how Our Nation was Founded 

on Judeo-Christian Values, etc., etc.

He was talking about the importance of the image of Christ at Christmas,

and how the Nativity was an important thing to display in our government building because some dead founders might have been Christians.

I heard no love in his voice.

But I was in a hurry, so maybe I missed it.

(The Nativity Scene itself is sponsored by a public-interest law firm).

Truth told, I'm not one to argue either way, for or against, religious imagery in a state building.

As long as all religions have equal access.

But if I were to stand up where that ranting man was Tuesday, 

speaking of the importance of the baby Jesus lying in a feeding trough at the center of the Capitol, 

I wouldn't be yelling about our founding fathers.

In fact, I wouldn't mention them at all.

Not even the Deists...

Rather, what I'd say is something like this:

To our Senators, State Reps,

(CC'ed to all the lobbyists and state-residents who pass through this building),

especially to Christians, to whom this symbol might hold some sort of meaning,

Remember this:

Remember this season,

when bills (like SB-282) are up for passing,

when choices being made about budgets directly help or hurt the poor...

Remember that this scene...

this Nativity of Christ

declares, through and though

that the one whom Christians call the Son of God,

and even the King of Kings...

remember 

that the Most High 

was born into poverty,

among animals,

and among the (ewwww...) common people.

His mother, looking dreamily upon him in this sentimental diorama

is the same scared, unwed, teenage-mother-to-be who cried out with joy at the good news of her son's birth,

singing powerfully about the lifting up of the lowly, 

the scattering of the proud,

and the tearing down of the powerful from their thrones.

Remember when you see the shit-covered shepherds gathered around this rag-bundled child,

when you see the Three Great Kings (or magi) bowing down to Jesus,

when you see the donkey and the camel and the mice,

what you are witnessing, friends,

is the acting out of the exultation of the poor,

the acting out of the disenfranchised worker placed,

now, at the center of God's story,

You are witnessing the bowing down of royalty

in order to serve the poor and vulnerable,

You are watching Kings

bringing valuable gifts to the Lowly One,

born in a barn,

without healthcare,

without hand sanitizer,

the wealthy sharing wealth

so that the Son of God might be lifted from such poverty,

just as he, one day, will declare that his mission 

is to liberate the captives,

to restore vision to those without,

and to declare the year of the Lord's reign, 

where the first become last, and the humbled are exalted.

Where the lowly are lifted up.

When you pass that sentimental,

pretty-and-glowing Nativity Scene this season,

remember that the decisions you make as our public servants,

sisters and brothers, matter.

Your decisions matter.

And when your decisions lift up the mighty 

and cast down the lowly,

not only are they unethical, but they are anti-Christian,

regardless of your political party,

and regardless of what church you attend.

When you pay mind to those with money, 

granting them special wishes,

rather than asking those with money to serve the poor, 

and to share their wealth for the good of all,

you are enabling those with money, and yourself, 

to destroy Mary's Song,

and to pervert the Gospel.

You sanitize the manger that declared God acting among, and lifting up the poor.

If you are going to put Christ at the center this season,

if you insist on it,

even at the center of the Capitol,

may the purpose not be

to dwell on some fantastic past,

or some idealized or beatified forefathers,

but rather

let the purpose be a reminder

that Christ at the center means the lifting up of the poor,

Christ at the center means Kings bowing down to the vulnerable,

Christ at the center means making decisions that liberate

and heal

and set free.

I pray that you make these decisions, in the Spirit of Christmas, and in the Spirit that showers constantly with the opportunity to reform and change.

Amen.

Budget Showdown

Friday, November 9, 2012
3:00pm
Pritzker Park (State and Van Buren), Chicago, IL

Following the economic crash engineered by Wall Street, a devotion to corporate welfare, and historically low rates of taxes on the very rich, we face a manufactured budget crisis (sometimes called "the fiscal cliff") at the end of the year. And now we are being told that we need to pay for it through cuts to education, health care, and social services.

We've seen this before. Time after time, our elected officials face a choice: either make everyone (including big business and the very rich) pay their fair share of taxes, or cut programs that support working families, the elderly, and the poor. And time after time, the interests of the wealthy few have triumphed over the needs of the many.

On November 9, join IIRON, SOUL, Northside POWER, the Lakeview Action Coalition, the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, and National Nurses United as we say: Enough is enough! It's time to stop unnecessary budget cuts and make corporations and the rich pay their fair share!

Demand that our elected officials keep their hands off of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!

Fight back against budget cuts set to begin at the end of the year!

Demand an end to the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 2%!




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#BudgetShowdown #n9 #MakeWallStreetPay

Covenant for Economic Justice

Bridgeport Alliance was represented at the recent Covenant for Economic Justice public meeting hosted by IIRON at St. Mark United Methodist Church on June 10 by over 20 members and friends. 

Read more about it here.