Social Justice

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After reading this letter, please take a moment to write your city council representative (a map of the OKC City Council wards can be found at this link). And if you are lucky enough to live in ward 2, please write Councilman Ed Shadid (ward2(at)okc.gov)and thank him for not co-sponsoring this terrible law.

Dear Mayor Mick Cornett (mayor@okc.gov),
Dear Ward 1 Councilman James Greiner (ward1@okc.gov),
Dear Ward 3 Councilman Larry McAtee (ward2@okc.gov),
Dear Ward 4 Councilman Pete White (ward4@okc.gov),
Dear Ward 5 Councilman David Greenwell (ward5@okc.gov),
Dear Ward 6 Councilwoman Meg Salyer (ward6@okc.gov),
Dear Ward 7 Councilman John Pettis (ward7@okc.gov),
Dear Ward 8 Councilman Mark Stonecipher (ward8@okc.gov),

I am an Oklahoma City resident and regular voter in city council and mayoral elections.

I just read in the newspaper (The Oklahoman: Oklahoma City councilwoman introduces law on panhandling)that each of you have cosponsored an ordinance that would criminalize panhandling in the city of Oklahoma City, punishable by a fine of $500. I strongly oppose this ordinance.

In this letter I want to explain, from my perspective as an attorney and as a minister, why you withdraw your co-sponsorship of this ordinance.

First, wearing my attorney hat — I work part-time as an attorney, often in a criminal defense context in both Oklahoma County and OKC municipal courts and have seen first hand what often happens when poor people are charged with minor offenses. Defendants in these contexts are stuck with a terrible set of choices:

  1. Some are able to scrape together the money to make bond but then not have enough money to pay an attorney Others stay in jail and get their court-appointed public defender but end up sitting in jail for a long time to have their day in court. The lucky few win despite these long-shot odds but most never really have a fair shot at justice.
  2. Others plead guilty (since most are not represented by counsel, they often take a foolish naked plea) and then are stuck in an endless cycle of trying to make payments on court fines and probation costs. When down the road they stumble and are not able to make a payment, a bench warrant goes out and the cycle continues.

What is the end result of all of this? The taxpayers end up paying for most of it, since the fines often end up not being paid but the costs of incarceration and courts still are incurred. And as for the defendant, what about them? Does a criminal conviction help them in any way? No. It makes it harder for them to find future employment and better themselves.

This ordinance is a short-sighted approach to real problem. By imposing massive fines on the panhandlers, you are pushing them further into the mire of our rotten system. I agree that panhandling is not a good way to alleviate the problem of poverty but there are better ways to deal with this issue. I encourage you to actually take some time and visit with the many churches and organizations in this city who are working with our homeless population, or better yet why don’t you take a walk down the street from City Hall and talk to some of the homeless citizens of our city? They might have some good thoughts for you about not only this ordinance but all of the other ways that our city government pushes the poor down rather than helping them out.

OK, let me move on to discussing this with my minister hat on. Besides being an attorney, I also work part-time as the Minister of Peace and Social Justice of Joy Mennonite Church (we meet at 504 NE 16th St, just south of the state capitol).

I understand that most of you are church members and/or have publicly identified yourselves as Christians (see
Cornett, Greiner, McAtee, White, Greenwell, Pettis, and Stonecipher), so I think it is relevant for most of you to share scripture text that tells the teachings of Jesus on the current situation.

Luke 6:20-26 (NRSV):

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.

‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.

‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

In light of this text, here are some questions for each of you…

Who is Jesus blessing, the rich or the poor?

Who is Jesus cursing, the rich or the poor?

Whose side is Jesus on? the rich or the poor?

And whose side is Jesus on today? How would Jesus answer the troubling problem of homelessness? Would he impose $500 fines and even jail time on those who have no resources or would he find a better way?

I hope and pray that you reconsider your decision to co-sponsor this bill, but I will be adding some action to my prayers by speaking to my congregation and our friends about the evils of this proposed ordinance.

Please do the right thing. If you want to alleviate the pain of homelessness, fix it with proactive help and not fines and jail time.

James M. Branum

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I saw this on Facebook on the group Interfaith worker Justice which I thought was worth sharing here:

Wall Street and City of London bank chiefs will be targeted this week at the launch of a new transatlantic campaign to reinstate historic usury laws restricting the interest rates charged by loan sharks and credit card companies. Hundreds of campaigners will demand a meeting with Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Sir Philip Hampton outside the firm’s Liverpool Street headquarters on Wednesday.

Organised in the UK by London Citizens – an alliance of church groups, unions and voluntary organisations – the campaign accuses banks of propelling hundreds of thousands of people into unsustainable debt by charging excessive interest rates. Initially, campaigners will target banks bailed out by the taxpayer. To read more, see the two articles below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/22/debt-interest-religion-usury

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/19/banking-royal-bank-scotlandgroup

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The power of the people!

  • Here is a press release from Oxfam International

      14 September 2003

      Cancun talks collapse as poor countries stand firm
      The Cancun conference has collapsed after all night talks failed to resolve deadlock between rich and poor countries. The EU and the US tried to push the developing countries into agreement, but they held firm and refused to accept a bad deal.

      Oxfam’s Phil Twyford said: “World trade negotiations will never be the same again. This meeting has failed and the rich countries are to blame. But the new power of developing countries, backed by campaigners around the world, has made Cancun a turning point.

      “In the past, rich countries made deals behind closed doors without listening to the rest of the world. They tried it again in Cancun. But developing countries refused to sign a deal that would fail the world’s poorest people.”

    This really does say it all.

    One thing that does worry me greatly though about this is that most of the nations that refused to sign onto this deal were those of the Caribean, Africa, and the Pacifc rim. What is notable in that list is the one giant omission… Latin America. I haven’t heard yet how the nations of Latin America would have voted (except that the UTNE reader story I quoted earlier said that the Brazilian delegation decided to support Kenya’s walkout after seeing the protests both in Cancun and elsewhere). If this omission is accurate (that most of the Latin American countries would have gone with the plan put out by the US, EU, etc.) then we got some work to do between now and November to prepare for the meeting of the FTAA (Free Trade Association of the Americas) in Miami in November.

    The good news is that I think this can be won, especially if the citizenery of the nations of Latin America begin to speak out and even take to the streets in peaceful opposition to this plan to extend NAFTA to all of Latin America.

  • For more information on global trade issues check out: MakeTradeFair.com

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    Such good news!

  • I still am awed by the fact that the WTO talks have broken down. We should be dancing in the streets and making toasts and beating on drums in celebration, but no the world goes on.

    I may be making too much of this but I can’t help but feel like this is a glimmer of hope that says that God has not given up on this world and those who live here, and that maybe this world can be a better place with God’s help and the goodwill of our brothers and sisters in the cause of peace and justice around the world.

    One of the most compelling accounts I’ve found thus far on what has gone down in Cancun at the WTO meetings is on UTNE. Here is one excerpt that I especially want to share from the 9/14-9/15 dispatch from Cancun:

      At the end, Antonia gives a report on what happened inside. The Kenyans were part of a ‘Green Room’ — one of the small ‘informal’ meetings where the real decisions of the ministerial are laid out, where the big, powerful countries represent themselves and the developing countries might have one representative for dozens. Kenya was representing not just themselves but the whole group of African, Caribbean, and Pacific nations and the African Union. The developing countries wanted agricultural agreements to limit the subsidies for U.S. and European crops that keep prices artificially low and allow the dumping of grain in their countries that destroys the livelihood of their farmers. The U.S. and E.U. wanted to put investments on the table, to craft a new version of the old Multilateral Agreement on Investments that civil society defeated back in the ’90s. When it became clear to the Kenyans that the U.S. and E.U. were saying they would have to accept the investment agreement if they wanted to talk about agriculture, they walked out. When they announced their decision, they were joined by South Korea and India. At least two of the delegates were now referring to the WTO in the past tense,

      “And the delegates from Brazil and Swaziland both said that if it weren’t for the actions inside and outside, they wouldn’t have been able to stand strong,” Antonia finishes. An electric shock of joy pulses through the room, and we all burst into cheers. That was our strategy — the hope we held throughout all the work and planning, that if there was clear, strong public opposition to the WTO in the streets and in the forums and in the conferences themselves, the disaffected delegates of the developing world would be empowered and supported to rebel. And they did.

    In reading this, I am also struck with the courage of Kenya’s government to be willing to be the point man for this opperation. To be willing to stand up to the first world and say “no this ain’t right and we aren’t going along with it” is not an easy stand to take, especially when your nation suffers with tremendous levels of poverty (with an average 2002 GDP per capita of $1,020 as estimated by the US government) and could potentially suffer from reduced aid from the Western world as a result.

    I would encourage anyone reading this to take a moment and send an email/letter/fax to the Kenyan Embassy in Washington, D.C. to let them know that you appreciate that nation’s courageous stand for the world’s poor.

  • Granma International (Cuba): 5th WTO ministerial meeting ends without agreement — The intransigence of the rich over the crucial issue of subsidies comes face to face with the strong position of the underdeveloped countries. G-22 emerges strengthened

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    September 15, 2003

    Victory for the People!

  • Cancum IMC: Developing Countries Pull Out, WTO Talks Collapse

    This is tremendous news! It is in my eyes one of the first victories in the movement to free the world from the tyrany of corporate globalism as enforced by so-called “free trade.” This one event will have effects world-wide, even here in Oklahoma.

    Here are some more stories on the Cancun protests and today’s victory (what shocks me though is how little coverage this WTO meeting is getting. There is no story on this on the front page of the Washington Post, MSNBC, or CNN right now… this is ridulous. This is arguably one of the most significant stories of the year and it is getting buried. It looks to me that the media is doing exactly what their bosses are telling them to do…bury this story so they won’t be embarrassed by the courage of the WTO delegates from the third world who refused to be patronized and exploited)

  • BBC: Mixed feelings over Cancun collapse — Rich countries have expressed their regret at the failure of the Cancun global trade talks, with many calling for reform at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

  • NY Times: Poorer Countries Pull Out of Talks Over World Trade

  • NY Times: Farming Is Korean’s Life and He Ends It in Despair

      . . . But in rural communities like this one in southern South Korea, Mr. Lee, a three-time member of the provincial assembly, was seen as a heroic figure, a defender of debt-ridden farmers struggling to maintain an age-old agrarian tradition in a fast-developing country where manufacturing is king.

      “Mr. Lee committed suicide to save the farmers,” said An Sung Hyun, 65, a neighbor. “He sacrificed himself for farmers like me.”

      That sentiment is echoed in a new banner that greets drivers as they enter Jangsu. “The late Lee Kyung Hae, patriot and hero, we will follow your goal,” it reads. “We strongly oppose W.T.O. globalization.” . . .

  • The Guardian (UK): Blow to world economy as trade talks collapse