Poor People's Army

Episode 27 of Redneck Gone Green

Howdy folks,

Feb 13, 2024  Redneck Gone Green will be joined by Cheri Honkala and Shamako Noble, leaders of the Poor People’s Army (aka Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign).  We will be discussing their plans to march at the Democratic and Republican Party conventions, their housing takeovers and food distribution programs, and their commitment to political education.

We broadcast live at  6pm Eastern 3pm Pacific every Tuesday. You can join us here on Youtube. You can also join us on Rumble.  Please subscribe to our Rumble channel and keep an eye out for when we post our livestream 24 hours before our broadcast. 

Below my signature is a thought piece that puts the Poor People’s Army and work into a deeper context. As always, we ask you to participate in this growing community by liking, commenting, and sharing our content.

Onward to the world we deserve,
David Cobb (he/him)
Why I put my pronouns in my email signature

Poor People’s Army 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau over 10% of the US  population lives below the poverty level, mostly women and children. Experts agree that this figure grossly underestimates the true extent of poverty due to factors such as high living costs, stagnant wages, and disparities in wealth distribution.

Capitalism creates and perpetuates poverty, but most efforts to alleviate poverty ignore the root cause. The Poor People’s Army boldly takes it head-on. Their mission is clear and unequivocal: 

They are building a nonviolent Poor People’s Army to keep people alive and to build a cooperative economy and society.

The Poor People’s Army have supporters all across the US, and their headquarters are in Philadelphia. They have been organizing for over 30 years, and came out of the welfare rights and anti poverty movements of the 60s 70s and 80s. They were founded by and are still led by poor people and homeless people who want the power to control their own destinies. They work for a cooperative society where everyone gets what they need to survive and thrive. 

They know that rich people and corporations will not willingly share the wealth that working people create. They also know the rich and powerful own both the two corporate parties. So when they coronate the two least supported candidates in the history of the US, they will be mobilizing thousands of poor and working people to march on their conventions. They will be bringing  the message of prioritizing #LivesOverLuxury. 

Here is how the Poor People’s Army describe themselves:

We understand that the rich are at war with us daily and use a variety of means to fight against poor and working people. Therefore we must form an army to fight back. Poor and working people endure violence at the hands of the police, the courts, and the prisons. We endure violence from corporations that influence and control laws that make us slave away or starve while they reap higher and higher profits, corporations that poison our water, air, and soil, corporations that are literally creating the conditions for mass extinction and climate catastrophes that impacts billions of people across the globe. We endure violence from a healthcare system that excludes us, that ignores our mental health, that treats our addictions and sorrows as personal failures. We endure violence from systems put in place to criminalize poverty and punish poor parents, by breaking up families, by removing children from their homes, by imprisoning and punishing poor parents and caregivers. 

While the world at times seems hopeless, we look back to systems of oppression in the past that fell under their own weight… Systems of brutal slavery and oppression, Monarchs that people thought were ordained by God, Empires that spanned the globe, colonialism. We take not only inspiration from these historical examples of people rising up and yearning for freedom, but we also see an unprecedented world of possibility based on the productive capacity in the machines, computers, and automation that humans have built. Things that seemed impossible, like feeding, clothing, and sheltering the entire human population, are now only impossible because poor people lack power. Not power through Congress, or power through entrepreneurship, or entering corporate boardrooms, but economic power by taking control of how we make and distribute all goods and services, by taking back what the rich have stolen from us over the millenia. 

We understand we are on the precipice of an economic revolution where robots and computers are replacing human labor, faster and faster. The potential exists for a society where everyone has the basic necessities of life, where war and famine are prevented, and where problems are collectively solved. Computers and machines can allow for this. But if poor and working people do not take true power, then the rich will no longer have a use for us, as more and more jobs are taken over by computers and robots. Inequality and social control will only increase and the rich find ways to adapt to a new jobless society. But we have a unique opportunity, if we can truly unite those at the bottom to displace those at the top. It won’t be easy, but the alternative is fascism and death, extinctions and executions. We do not have time for incrementalism. We do not want to be killed in more humane ways. We want to live and thrive, and we can only do so by taking power from the rich and the corporations to end poverty forever, to end richness forever.

While we understand that poor and working people must find a way to unite during the difficult transition that lies in the years ahead, to ultimately get rid of inequality, we know that it will take organizing to build the forces possible of doing this. One way we can build our side is to increase activities that point out the contradictions in society today. We can take every opportunity to point out the contradictions by taking back empty houses for homeless people, taking back empty land for communities’ use, and distributing free food. We can shout out when they can find billions of dollars instantly for wars but gridlocked for any meaningful change at home, when they impose sanctions to regimes abroad and do not recognize the sanctions against poor and working people in the U.S. through denial of benefits and withholding of the basic necessities of life. We can use portions of the system to expose the system, running for office as political candidates independent from and challenging the corporate party duopoly.

We can use existing organizations and institutions that are willing to look outside the system for change, we can create new organizations and groupings, and we can expose organizations propping up the status quo. We can take every opportunity to build unity by doing our best to catch people when they are thrown out of the system– when they are outsourced, downsized, kicked out of their homes or apartments, when they can’t get access to decent healthcare or detox on demand, when they can’t reunite with their children. These are our people. And if we can show our people at the bottom that we can transform society together, then we can look past all the ideologies of “Left” and “Right” out there, and bring together the bottom to come for the top. 

We must point out false opportunities, misdirection, and dead end roads for our side. We have to expose who the slave masters are in this era, and we cannot work with them or their allies. We don’t want to enter the system to reform it. It must be thrown out. We cannot fall trap to loyal oppositions created by the rulers.  There is a role for everyone.

I invite you to join this conversation live on Tues, Feb 13 at 3pm pacific, 6pm eastern. Cheri and Shamako Kali Akuno are movement leaders, and this is an opportunity to engage. If you cannot join us live, you can go to our Youtube account and watch the recording.

---

Cheri Honkala

Cheri Honkala has dedicated her life to advocating for the rights of marginalized communities, particularly those experiencing poverty and homelessness. Cheri  co-founded the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (now known as Poor People’s Army), which are organizations committed to fighting for economic justice and housing rights. 

She has run for various political offices, including Sheriff of Philadelphia and Vice President of the United States on the Green Party ticket in 2012. Cheris continues to be a tireless advocate for revolutionary social change led by the grassroots.

Shamako Noble

Shamako Noble

Shamako Noble serves as the Culture, Media, & Special Projects Coordinator for the Poor People’s Army. He is a hip hop artist, cultural organizer, and political theorist from San Jose, California. 

He has been making music since he was 8 years old and has been involved with education and social movements since he was 13.  He has participated in numerous local and national social change events including Netroots Nation, the March for our Lives.,  The US Social Forum, various National Truth Commissions and The U.S. Court of Women on Poverty in the U.S.