When Cheri Honkala spoke about the woman in Tennessee with a debilitating disease who lost her health care from the state when 300,000 people were removed from TennCare, her voice cracked and she brought home the tremendous toll that poverty and government neglect can have on a person, on families, on whole communities. Cheri is head of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. This week around 100 members of PPEHRC are in Caracas, Venezuela as delegates to the World Social Forum.
Cheri's words joined those of migrant workers, families who have had their children taken away by the government because they were poor, a mother who lost a son in the War on Iraq, and disabled Iraqi war veterans against the war. These people came here to voice the often misunderstood or misrepresented story of being poor in the richest, most powerful country in the world.
At a press conference on Thursday, January 26, across from the US Tent near the Museum of Bellas Artes in Caracas, the mostly Spanish-language media heard one heart-felt story after another of homelessness, government neglect, repression, imprisonment (the US has more prisoners than any other country in the world), and lack of media coverage that the poor in the US face every day.
The Venezuelan press seemed most eager to understand this phenomena of poverty in the US, news of which rarely comes their way from US media outlets. It was also clear that most Americans don't get an accurate account of the Venezuelan revolutionary process, nor the immense leadership of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in helping make "another world possible."
Presently, Chavez is being demonized in much of the US press as a murderous dictator (he hasn't murdered anybody, and he was elected in nationwide elections). We don't get the news about the tremendous support Chavez has among the poor, the marginalized, the forgotten.
One purpose behind the Poor People's Campaign's presence here is to defeat the lies about US poor (mostly by the media not talking about them) and the lies about the Venezuelan poor (again, by keeping this away from media attention). If an exchange of truths about our two countries is the main thing we achieve, it would have been worth all the work, funds, travails, and tears in making sure the US poor had a presence in the World Social Forum.
Later that night, I did a poetry reading and talk in Spanish and English to about 250 people at the US tent. The lights blew out and I had a hard time reading my text, but it was still a spirited and well-received event. It is important to make sure poetry becomes part of these types of gatherings. For beside the poverty of material things and the necessities of life, the poor everywhere face a poverty of spirit, of hopes, of imagination.
The World Social Forum is about creating and emphasizing a politics of imagination, of hope, of spirit--as well as meeting the material and health needs of all people. It's about establishing foundations for a healthy and balanced earth, for healthy and balanced people, across borders, languages, races, religions, and political affiliations.
As globalization (capitalism in the age of electronics) spreads from one nation to another, bringing more misery, war, and poverty, there is a growing response that is also global in nature for peace, justice, equity, and a dignifed life for every human being. From the indigenous groups that came here from every part of the hemisphere to the people fighting for health care in Ohio, whatever differences exist between the poor is nothing compared to what we have in common--hunger and the need to create effective organization and policies in our international efforts to eradicate poverty once and for all.
Cheri's words joined those of migrant workers, families who have had their children taken away by the government because they were poor, a mother who lost a son in the War on Iraq, and disabled Iraqi war veterans against the war. These people came here to voice the often misunderstood or misrepresented story of being poor in the richest, most powerful country in the world.
At a press conference on Thursday, January 26, across from the US Tent near the Museum of Bellas Artes in Caracas, the mostly Spanish-language media heard one heart-felt story after another of homelessness, government neglect, repression, imprisonment (the US has more prisoners than any other country in the world), and lack of media coverage that the poor in the US face every day.
The Venezuelan press seemed most eager to understand this phenomena of poverty in the US, news of which rarely comes their way from US media outlets. It was also clear that most Americans don't get an accurate account of the Venezuelan revolutionary process, nor the immense leadership of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in helping make "another world possible."
Presently, Chavez is being demonized in much of the US press as a murderous dictator (he hasn't murdered anybody, and he was elected in nationwide elections). We don't get the news about the tremendous support Chavez has among the poor, the marginalized, the forgotten.
One purpose behind the Poor People's Campaign's presence here is to defeat the lies about US poor (mostly by the media not talking about them) and the lies about the Venezuelan poor (again, by keeping this away from media attention). If an exchange of truths about our two countries is the main thing we achieve, it would have been worth all the work, funds, travails, and tears in making sure the US poor had a presence in the World Social Forum.
Later that night, I did a poetry reading and talk in Spanish and English to about 250 people at the US tent. The lights blew out and I had a hard time reading my text, but it was still a spirited and well-received event. It is important to make sure poetry becomes part of these types of gatherings. For beside the poverty of material things and the necessities of life, the poor everywhere face a poverty of spirit, of hopes, of imagination.
The World Social Forum is about creating and emphasizing a politics of imagination, of hope, of spirit--as well as meeting the material and health needs of all people. It's about establishing foundations for a healthy and balanced earth, for healthy and balanced people, across borders, languages, races, religions, and political affiliations.
As globalization (capitalism in the age of electronics) spreads from one nation to another, bringing more misery, war, and poverty, there is a growing response that is also global in nature for peace, justice, equity, and a dignifed life for every human being. From the indigenous groups that came here from every part of the hemisphere to the people fighting for health care in Ohio, whatever differences exist between the poor is nothing compared to what we have in common--hunger and the need to create effective organization and policies in our international efforts to eradicate poverty once and for all.
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