Abel and I left Denver at 1AM on Saturday, April 3rd to Join the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign’s “March to Fulfill the Dream“. We drove straight through taking turns sleeping and arrived in New Orleans around 7AM on Sunday, April 4th, the day of the kickoff for the march.

The significance of starting our march on April 4 is that it is the day that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous speech in 1967 at Riverside Church denouncing the Vietnam war and boldly stating that we must declare an “eternal hostility to poverty”.

Over the next year King was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and a poor people’s march to go from Marks, MS to Washington, DC. One year to the day after King’s Riverside speech he was assassinated. A month later the poor people’s march went forward without King and today, over 30 years later poverty conditions have not improved and have arguably worsened. On April 4, 2010 we began the March to Fulfill the Dream in continuum of King’s last dream of a world without poverty and war.

Here’s a video I took of Cheri Honkala of PPEHRC speaking at our kick-off event.

While in New Orleans we stayed at the Lower 9th Ward Village, an inspirational community center being spearheaded by Ward “Mack” McClendon. I fell in love with this place and made a short video about it.

Five years after Katrina, New Orleans remains in great need of repair and in the lower 9th ward 75% of the people remain displaced. Those who have returned and do not have money are just barely hanging on. Even Mack who runs this amazing community center may lose his home, which he has yet to be able to move back into. I’ll have a video about this and more coming soon.

On our way out of town we stopped at the New Orleans Mission interviewed some of the homeless people there. One person who really broke my heart was Ronald, a homeless Vietnam vet. He is evidence of the destruction from war that continues long after the war “ends”.

Our next stop was Waveland, MS where we met with Katrina survivors who have been in battle to keep their homes. I’ll have a report on this in the coming week. Please check back…

Also, follow the march by visiting the PPEHRC website (this website is a bit confusing but see the “UPDATES” column for the latest posts.

We have many more cities and stories to collect on this march and caravan. We want your involvement. Check out our route and dates. If you have a lead on a story about poverty we should cover along the way, please let us know. We also invite you to collect your own stories and share them with us.

We also will be holding music and cultural events along the way. If you are a musician or artist and would like to participate just let us know.

I can be reached at 303-669-7286

CRUDE:
The Real Price of Oil
Thursday, March 11
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 suggested donation

Three years in the making, this riveting new documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) tells the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life, high stakes legal drama involving global politics, the environmental movement, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, multinational corporate power, and the fate of disappearing indigenous cultures.

Subverting the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, this award-winning film explores a complex situation from all angles, bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus. “Absolutely the most powerful, emotion- provoking, heart-wrenching documentary I have ever seen.” (John Perkins, Author, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man)

ArgusFest 6th Annual
Fair Trade Holiday Bazaar
w/ Art, Music, & Culture to
Help End Poverty
Sunday, December 6
1:00 to 4:30 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver

Do your holiday shopping with a clean conscience. Join ArgusFest at our 6th Annual Fair Trade Holiday Bazaar.

The event will feature vendors offering fair trade gifts, many of which whose sales help support organizations working to reduce conditions of poverty. Throughout the day we will feature live music, film, poetry, and education about poverty issues.

Vendors include:

- Cruelty Free World

- Emergency USA

- People of Hope Crafts

- Ladies Sewing Circle

- Bread and Roses Workers’ Cultural Center

- Bead for Life

- Pachyderm Power

- and more…

If you are interested in becoming a vendor please contact Jason Bosch at 303-669-7286.

More details coming soon…

Religion & Human Rights
Friday, October 16
6:00 PM
Flobots.org Community Collective
2705 Larimer St, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

Religion has been used to justify countless crimes against humanity and yet it has also acted as a catalyst for incredible sacrifice by believers in the service of humanity. Tonight ArgusFest hosts a lively discussion between Robert Jensen (author of “All My Bone’s Shake“) and David Eller (Author of “Natural Atheism“) about the role religion has played in both the promotion of human rights as well as human rights abuse. This will not be a discussion about whether or not God exists but rather the outcomes resulting from people’s belief in God.

Art, Music, & Culture to
Help End Poverty
& 6th Annual Fair
Trade Holiday Bazaar
Sunday, December 6
1:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver

Calling all artists, musicians & creative people who support economic justice!

In cooperation with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, ArgusFest is helping to coordinate music and cultural support in Denver and Boulder around the upcoming “March to Fulfill the Dream”. This historic poor people’s march will travel from the Katrina-torn Gulf through the Mississippi Delta and on through the Rust Belt culminating in Detroit at the 2010 US Social Forum.

Today, America is facing unprecedented economic decline. Not since the Great Depression have so many people been facing poverty and homelessness. Cheri Honkala of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign notes that many once middle class people have now lost their financial security and are only one paycheck away from living on the streets and the situation is expected to get worse. It is not hopeless though. People are educating themselves about how we got to this place and how we can move forward towards economic justice.

We are calling on artists, musicians, poets, and performers who wish to learn more about the fastest growing social movement in America today and get culturally involved.

Complementary Currency
presentation by Jason Bosch
Thursday, October 1
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

How is money created? How does its structure shape our world for better or worse? What are some alternatives?

In addressing social and environmental problems we typically only focus on the immediate issues at hand such as the victims of war or the environmental damage done by agribusiness but we rarely look at the larger economic system which, in its design rewards certain behaviors while punishing others. Imagine playing a game where the rules were written by your opponent. Our money system was created by people in the past who do not share our same values and yet we continue to play by those rules. In this presentation will give a brief overview of money structures both historical and present and share the good news about how complementary currencies offer opportunities for a more just and sustainable future.

The Shock Doctrine
Thursday, September 24
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

The Shock Doctrine is the latest documentary from acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom (The Road to Guantanamo), co-directed by Mat Whitecross. Based on Naomi Klein’s bestselling book, The Shock Doctrine argues that America’s ‘free market’ policies have come to dominate the world through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

Both the film and the book argue that governments all over the world exploit natural disasters, economic crises and wars to push through radical free market policies. Klein calls this ‘disaster capitalism’ and in her view, disaster capitalism is as effective as psychiatric shock therapy at wiping our collective memory.

The film concludes that the result is often catastrophic for ordinary people and hugely beneficial to big corporations. The documentary also adds to Klein’s thesis - which was written before the recent market turmoil - and includes an analysis of how the financial world got into its current troubled state.

Resolved
Thursday, September 3
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

With competition as fierce as that of any sport, debate teams are a way for high school students to develop techniques of persuasion and reason. They’re also, according to this searing documentary by Greg Whiteley, a hotbed of racial and class bias. Up-and-coming debaters from racially diverse schools challenge the traditional debate method by replacing the impartial, straightforward style with arguments born of personal experience.

Taking Root: The Vision
of Wangari Maathai
Monday, July 13
7:00 PM
Hooked on Colfax
3215 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

Taking Root tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy—a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration. -Read More

Homeland
Four Portraits of
Native Action
Monday, June 22
7:00 PM
Hooked on Colfax
3215 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

Nearly all Indian lands in the U.S. face grave environmental threats – toxic waste, strip mining, oil drilling and nuclear contamination. But a handful of activists are fighting back.

Filmed against some of America’s most spectacular backdrops, from Alaska to Maine and Montana to New Mexico, Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action profiles the against-all-odds struggles of Native American leaders who are taking on powerful energy companies and government agencies to protect the environment for all Americans. A moving tribute to the power of grassroots organizing, Homeland is also a call-to-action against the current dismantling of thirty years of environmental laws.