The attack--the vicious, cowardly attack--on democracy in Benton Harbor shows that Whirlpool, the corporate power structure, is determined to crush anyone who stands in its way. It is part of a process under way across America in various forms. The once-stable working class community of Benton Harbor was devastated by automation and globalization and the community began resisting.
We live in a failed system. Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small, privileged few are rich beyond conscience and almost all others are doomed to be poor at the same level. It is rich against the poor, haves against the have-nots. It is revolution time, all of us against them.
The story goes that Rip Van Winkle slept through the American Revolution. There are those among us sleeping through today's revolution. There are those among us who are missing in action. The new and most compelling revolution is the one for human rights, the battle against poverty, and the fight for justice for all.
Our goal is freedom, justice, and the fight to do away with poverty. Any country that will not feed, clothe, and house its people must be overthrown. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Over two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry every night. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; without shoes and clothing, they are shabbily clad. It is in South America, Central America, Africa, Asia, and right here at home in Benton Harbor, Michigan. The land of the free and the home of the brave.
We are not asking America to be true. We are demanding America to be true to the huge promissory note it signed many years ago. The revolution will not wait, it will not slow down for those who claim that progressives like Rev. Edward Pinkney are moving too quickly. It will not be silenced by those who claim that we cannot win. I am here to tell you, we can and will win. We will make the invisible, visible: Black, brown, poor whites, and all others. We can win and will win!
-Rev. Pinkney
