Tick Tock Sheptock

As I watch events in Ferguson, MO play out in the media, I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., during an interview with Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes” in which he said, “A riot is the language of the unheard. The U.S. Government has failed to hear that the economic plight of the American Negro has worsened over the past few years”. It's crystal clear to the socially and politically conscious that governments in the U.S. are defending the interests of corporations, not defending or enriching the lives of all American citizens. On the contrary, poor people who want a better life often become capitalist cannon fodder. (Just think for a moment about the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.) Once a group is socioeconomically deprived, American governments add insult to injury and compound their suffering. They treat poor people as if their poverty is the result of a character flaw, as opposed to a set of systemic flaws in American governance. They aim to pu...

In recent years I've taken to telling people about an impending CLASS WAR and encouraging them to side with the Proletariat / BROletariat. I'm keenly aware of the increasing tensions between the haves and the have-nots and of the broken promise made by Washington, DC's mayor Vince Gray (2011-2015) to make our nation's capital into “One City” – a campaign slogan that plays off of the title of a Charles Dickens book called “ A Tale of Two Cities ”. In 2010 I ran across an article that referenced predictions by Gerald Celente, the renowned and fiercely accurate predictor of socio-economic trends and the director of Trends Research Institute. He predicted in 2008 that by the end of 2012 there would be, among other things, jobs marches, a reaction to the Wall Street bail-out, food riots and revolution in the UnitedStates – some of which happened. Fast forward to August 4, 2014 (President Obama's 53 rd birthday). That afternoon, after leaving a dual-purpose rally...

 I began blogging on June 21st, 2008 . Below is my 4th entry from July 11th of that year. It has to do with the then-disputed disposition of the historic Gales School by DC Government to a religious organization to be used as a homeless shelter and a July 10th, 2008 DC Council hearing to address the matter. To see video of the hearing (as I've become more tech savvy in the past 6 years) CLICK HERE and follow the instructions below: INSTRUCTIONS: 1 -- Scroll down to the last hearing for July 10th, 2008 and click "View meeting". 2 -- Go to 34 minutes and 40 seconds in the video. 3 -- Watch the next 3 testifiers: a snobbish, NIMBYistic ANC commissioner (my reason for resurrecting this post from 6 years ago) , myself and a local activist who supports the poor. HERE it is again. As it turns out, there is much tension between the Advisory Neighborhood Commissions , the business community and well-to-do people on the one hand and the poor and homeless on the...

BEHOLD: CCNV Shelter Historical Documents and "Promises to Keep" (a film of the direct action against Ron Reagan that created the shelter) . CCNV: Past, Present and Future (a website that was put together by my colleagues and I) Well, the CCNV (Community for Creative Non-Violence) Shelter Task Force has completed its mission. It was convened on October 8th, 2013 to compile data and come up with recommendations for the mayor and city council concerning the future of the shelter; and, it held its final meeting on July 8th, 2014. The task force came up with a list of 17 principles that should be adhered to as we consider the future of the property and the one-sixth of DC's homeless people which it holds. On July 14th, 2014 the DC Council held its final hearing before a two-month recess and presented a bill which contains those 17 principles and requires the mayor to develop a comprehensive plan for CCNV. (That bill is pasted at the end of this post.) But the wo...

Once in a while I discuss the spirituality of my homelessness and advocacy while making one of my many speeches to high schools, colleges, universities and churches. That's not to say that I somehow choose to be homeless in order to fulfill a spiritual mission. True spirituality is not mission-based, as a mission has a beginning, a middle and an end. Spirituality is a state of being that has a beginning and no end; therefore, it can't have a middle. My homelessness and advocacy have been spiritual insomuch as I have learned about the horrors that exist in the most powerful country in the world; I have tapped into abilities that I didn't realize I had; and, I have made various spiritual connections in my mind as to how power is attained (or obtained) and used vs. how it should be used. Wikipedia defines advocacy as: a political process by an individual or group which aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social...

I am known for a number of things that I do – namely for my homeless advocacy. I'm also known for my bass-baritone singing. Then there is my dancing. But this past Tuesday dozens of people were reminded of my propensity for brutal honesty and for being the bearer of bad tidings. After all, homelessness is bad news and the grim reality is that capitalism is a hurtful system that permeates the world. Those who own or control large sums of money are driven by the profit motive and don't want to do anything that will cut into their ungodly amount of profit – such as lowering rents or feeding the poor. And they surely don't want land to be used for the social good of all by, for example, being made available for poor people to build modest homes on. It is truths like these that caused me to add this slogan to my e-mail signature recently: “Asking an advocate for the poor to be nice is like asking a soldier to fight a war without a weapon”. On Tuesday, June 17th, 2014 the...