Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign
Thursday, May 31st - Thursday, June 13th 2018
Kensington, PA - Washington, D.C.

Diary, Part 4

June 9th
WE ARE ALL CAP(ITALIST)S

I can only imagine the amount of fantastic band names that have come and gone over the decades here in the heart of the empire. D.C./Baltimore quartet Capital Offender for example, who fit the fun colourful aesthetic of the surroundings right now with punk flavoured rock and roll. One song that I think is called We’re Gonna Fight is almost a 7 Seconds cover (latter day note: I might be talking out of my arse here, but what the hell). The good time death-themed flirtations continue with a second Virginia visitor, Torino Death Ride. Vocalist Richard is delivering his classically smirking post-hardcore vocals into a corded telephone. I like it, as it provides a good old muffle. After all the logistical mobile faffing this morning, going back and forth between here setting up this stage and our previous base in Baltimore, I’d be happy to carry such a forgivingly limited device around.

I didn’t come all this way to just listen to the excellent regional sounds though. Musician-activist Infinite Skillz is here with St. Pete posi hip hop (see also Shadcore, who recently released a new album). Skillz plays some of his strong numbers such as Black Burbon and Everything, but makes the decision to cut off the beat to one of my favourite songs by him (the high-fluting Headband Game). Our movement-supportive soundman Jimmy is also messing with his beats in a semi-amusing fashion. The crowd is not moving much but it sounds great to me. What I get is an impression of restlessness caused primarily by the winding down of Pride rather than apathy towards the artist himself.

Infinite Skillz would be the last scheduled performer of the evening. Unbeknownst to those involved however, the night would be far from over for some. Twerk stage invasions, vicious showers of both rain and cornmeal snacks, a completely trashed Dupont Circle following a consumerism-focused Pride, and a nightlong equipment guarding vigil (our original plan to occupy the park was delayed until the following day due to the size of the parade crowd), made for a wild end to yet another emotional day of the campaign. At least we’ve made it, in a manner of speaking. To “kind of” make it is the best most of us can expect to achieve.

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June 10th
A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT

For the second time during this trip I find a spider living in my hair while taking a shower. And for the second time, I spare its life. Empathy is a muscle that you must exercise, and these past ten days have been a boot camp in it.

Easing us further into an organic and tender day is Philadelphia’s Eddie Somerset. Eddie has more than earned his spot on this stage, having marched and done security with the Poor People's Campaign for the last 4 or 5 days. Now he’s letting loose from those necessary rigidities with a Barry White instrumental-inspired cover of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, a fantastic combination track that I had been enjoying on the march route without knowing it was from one of our own. His delivery is somewhat spoken word anyway, as found on other numbers from his Surviving The Struggle album. Somerset is followed by spoken-word stalwarts Leroy Moore and Tiny of Poor News Network, delivering representations of the Krip-Hop Nation (musicians and artists with disabilities) and the Poor People's Pun Party, soon to be celebrated in full in the ashes of crapitalism and gentriFUKation.

The Dischord family still cast a heavy shadow over this city, excitingly for a fanboy like me. The church helping us out while we’re here, St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal, employs the services of Ian Mackaye’s dad Bill, and to this day still puts on punk gigs. I spent some time over at legit 80s-born D.C. hardcore store Smash Records (no affiliation with The Offspring), picking out the latest release from Red Hare, and I keep hearing excited murmurs from my punk associate Shea that members of The Teen Idles and Fugazi are all over the place, including in our next performers The Delarcos. Their bassist Nathan was in fact in Teen Idles and is one of the founders of Dischord.  And The Delarcos, it turns out, are very easy to mix up with their friends in Rise Defy,
 who were supposed to originally play today but pulled out, and whose bassist Klaus appears to have been a member of Dead Kennedys at some point.  Not that that is relevant, but this is a seamless correction of a case of mistaken identity, and you will never know there was an incision.  While The Delarcos boom out a cover of Jericho by The Clash, a bunch of us are frantically bringing in food, furniture and possessions from our illegally parked truck to occupy the park. Punk as fuck.

My most anticipated act of the weekend is the militant hip hop duo Rebel Diaz. They’re the kind of artists who delight whether they’re preaching the good fight or preaching the good rhymes. You’d never know they were a duo today, as they share half their set with friends, such as Ferguson organizer Tef Poe, King Capo on the likes of La Patrulla (The Patrol), and a singer who I think was from Jacksonville named Chi (sorry, journalist of the year here) who made use of a beautiful Miles Davis sample. The ensemble’s raw talent clearly connects with the more modest crowd that has gathered today. Viva Fidel becomes Viva Puerto Rico along with a declaration that the underarching hurricane is that of America itself. Rebel Diaz appear to have two upcoming releases: Multiply with Tef Poe, and América vs Amerikkka featuring lead song Y Va Caer, that I initially heard on Democracy Now! even if for some reason none of our two week protest was to be found there.

Karma comes quickly for Rebel Diaz when Yet More D.C. Hardcore act Never Submit invite them back onstage for a multi-ethnic, multi-genre crossover of defiance. I love seeing the political punk/rap convergence continue to spread, those founding documents of the Radical Beat. “Blank checks for bankers!” wails vocalist Scott. Babies With Rabies and The Screws continue the thrashing about soundtrack into the early evening, accompanied by the sound of incredibly makeshift structures being haphazardly hammered into place throughout Dupont Circle. The things that activists like to do to relax before a big action are really weird…


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June 11th
HEADS UP, HUD

We sweep the plentiful night rain out of our temporary village and head off to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Earlier this year the department announced proposed changes to subsidised housing rules, now waiting to be approved by Congress, that quietly kick the American poor in the face once again.

The Make Affordable Housing Work Act (named because presumably, kicking poor people in the face is complementary to Making America Great Again) includes some of the following ideas: increasing rent from 30% of a recipients post-deduction income to 35% of their total gross income; increasing mandatory rent minimums from $50 to $152; changing the definition of “elderly” from 62 to 65; allowing the implementation of work requirements; and removing a households elderly or disabled status if there is someone in the house who is neither, even if that person is a full-time student.

These proposals will affect the vast majority of the 5 million households that receive federal housing assistance. 89% of these households include seniors, children or people with disabilities. It’s already difficult to get this assistance due to a lack of funding, with an average wait time for Section 8 housing vouchers of 2 years. As usual, the reason for these belt-tightening facekicks -- as described by HUD Secretary and useful idiot Ben Carson -- is to give an “incentive” to poor people to get off their arses and earn more money. Because we unwashed masses hadn’t thought of that option before.

About 30 PPEHRC participants arrived at HUD to demand a meeting with Carson to point out that these measures are going to make more people homeless, miserable and sick, and to suggest that the department stop spending $31,000 a pop on dining room furniture for Ben’s office. A standoff began at the security checkpoint, and within a short time agents from the Department of Homeland Security arrived -- which is a reasonable response to residents wishing to speak to the government representative that is supposed to work for them.

Most of the crowd was eventually herded outside reluctantly, with PPEHRC National Coordinator Cheri Honkala sitting down and refusing to move. It took the guards an immense amount of time to figure out how to lock the door to their own workplace, suggesting that the concept of open government is more present in the bricks of the building than its inhabitants. Eventually, after a slew of false compromises, Honkala was hauled off to the cop shop for the all too familiar crime of existing in an inconvenient place.

At the exact time that this was happening (completely coincidentally, of course), the tent city in Dupont Circle was being visited by other fuzz, including a park ranger. We had a permit for the vigil that they demanded to see in physical form along with its holder (who was at the HUD action). They ordered us to remove the ground pegs from our tents, as that would ensure they remained symbolic rather than an encampment (which is illegal), and to comply with other basically innocuous things of little consequence. Despite being such good law-abiders, we were evicted from the park 10 hours later for not meeting the requirements of our permit. From beginning to end, the cops throughout this campaign made sure that all of our previous conceptions of them remained fully intact. At least we had Ian Mackaye's dad to help us out for the last night of bands.

Honkala was thankfully released that evening, but has as of this writing been charged with unlawful entry and a stay away order for HUD, with a D.C. Superior Court date set for August 7th at 9:30am. If you’re in the area, consider going to show your support.

* * * 
NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR

This Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign began in 1998, and has done bus tours, extensive marches and summits in most of the years since. But if you didn’t know any better (like me until recently), you’d think the modern “Poor People's Campaign” began about 9 months ago in the run up to the 50th anniversary of the campaign that Martin Luther King was organising in 1968 when he got mysteriously assassinated. In late May, a line was added to the older groups’ Wikipedia page that could have led an observer to believe it had been incorporated into the new organisation (though it was not stated outright, and seems unlikely to have been malicious). Grumbles abound in our camp that the new campaign is being funded by deep cooptation-oriented pockets rather than the poor themselves, and that the civil disobedience that resulted in over 2,500 arrests during its recent month of action was pre-orchestrated with law enforcement. I’ve not been able to find details of these charges though, even in the independent media.

It's hard to look at some of the coverage of the other campaign - which culminated in a huge rally on Saturday, June 23rd - and not feel small in several senses. The rhetoric of being grassroots, self-funded, legit, feels righteous, but the slickness of a big mainstream campaign hits different kinds of legitimacy buttons. Maybe we should just throw the towel in, do what the Wikipedia incident implied, and merge into their group, get shinier placards. It’s hard enough to fight capitalism without fighting alleged astroturf campaigns as well. It seems fair to say that neither approach has all the answers. We’re often good on the left at eating our own, looking for traitors while the right searches for recruits. It’s hard to know where to draw the lines. We’ll see which wing has staying power in the years to come. The intimate relationships that this group provides seems to have been priceless for many involved. And there will always be a place in social movements for that. In fact, you might say it’s fundamentally the main goal.

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BETWEEN HARD ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is currently running an effort to raise post-march and pre-other-action funds. Anti-capitalists having to raise money: it might still be a juicy quip for the pinstripe crowd, but to us it’s a great indicator of the rock-up-a-hill backwards priorities of this sort of economy. You don’t see the people fucking the world up having to hold bake sales!

Anyway, in the spirit of empowering art, community, good times, symbolic support and physical support, we have the Keepin’ It 100 Concert Series. It’s a cool idea that will allow anyone involved in local music scenes across the country to support the PPEHRC. You take an upcoming event (or create a new one) and affiliate it with the campaign. You pledge to donate at least $100 from the event, 99 other musicians/promoters do the same, and the movement stays 100% grassroots. It’s advertised for July, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind any later contributions.


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Part 1 of this series is here.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.

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