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| Sister Simone Campbell |
If you're near a computer and have about 30 minutes, journalist/ host Ben Wikler did a really interesting interview in December with Sister Simone on his podcast 'The Good Fight' - sponsored by MoveOn.org. It's available online.
It's insightful, funny, inspiring and definitely worth a listen.
Not only does she recount the actions that led to the first 'Nuns on the Bus' tour in 2010, she reminds us that there are millions of Christians in America who oppose the rigid kind of fundamentalist quasi-political claptrap that the Duck Dynasty debacle exposed; people who imagine the New Testament of the Bible is some sort of license to marginalize and judge people.
Sister Simone's story is fascinating. Born in southern California, at age 18 she was tutoring in the south Los Angeles public school system and became so frustrated with the inequality she saw in terms of resources and facilities for Hispanic children that she joined a sit-in at the LA Board of Education building to demand changes.
Further inspired by the courage of students engaged in lunch counter sit-ins in the south and others facing attacks by Bull Connor's heavy-handed police tactics, she joined the Sisters of Social Service to devote her life as a nun to serving God by helping others.
During World War II members of the order in Hungary risked their lives to help Jewish families; some of the nuns were even killed by the Nazis for their efforts.
Sister Simone is no ordinary nun either; she's also an attorney, a poet and a lobbyist! She's the executive director of a small lobbying group in DC called Network, which, according to their Website, "...lobbies on issues of peace-building, immigration reform, health care and economic justice."
After leading Catholic bishops came out against the Affordable Health Care Act, Sister Simone sprang into action and wrote a letter of support for the health care bill that received massive support from the vast majority of orders of American Catholic nuns.
But it also earned them a very public dressing down by then Pope Benedict who tapped an American bishop to "rein in" the feisty American nuns; which of course only fired her up and galvanized huge public support for the nuns and their support of health care on moral and ethical grounds.
This woman actually helped to change the culture of the Catholic Church; and interestingly five of the Catholic bishops who'd originally opposed the heath care act in 2010 were inspired by her and actually changed their minds; the bishop of Austin, Texas even apologized publicly.
Anyway check out the Sister Simone podcast, it's pretty cool.
Speaking of justice in America, as many of you know last year a slim 5-4 majority in the case of Shelby County v. Holder by our right-leaning Supreme Court gutted two key provisions of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1964 with the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch Brothers and Tea Party extremists.
Remember the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized by Congress in 2006 under President Bush with strong bipartisan support.
This opened the floodgate for an unprecedented slew of legislative assaults by state legislatures around the country intended to make it more difficult for students, the poor, elderly people, minorities and legal immigrants to exercise their basic Constitutional right to vote.
But progressive forces are actively at work building support for Congress to strengthen the provisions of the Voting Rights Act to fight back against the conservative majority state legislatures that have developed a Constitutionally unhealthy obsession with making it legal to block the right of citizens to vote.
Organizations like the NAACP have been taking on these archaic state laws in places like Pennsylvania for some time.
The ACLU has been at war with the state of Florida and their notoriously disgraceful efforts to enact extraneous voter ID requirements and reduce the available times and locations for people to vote.
The Department of Justice has also geared up its efforts to deploy the resources of the Federal Government to take on voter suppression in places like North Carolina - which has enacted some of the most absurdly restrictive voter rights laws since the Jim Crow Era.
So stay positive, the majority of the American people are getting behind this movement and remember; the Supreme Court is just ONE branch of the Federal Government. If average citizens can keep up the pressure on their Congressional representatives, we can move Congress to put the Voter Rights Act back onto the floor to put some teeth back into this law.
No way are hard working people going to just stand around while the hard-fought civil and voter rights gains of the 40's, 50's and 60's are unraveled by conservative big money donors and right wing extremists using legislative tricks and wildly exaggerated figures on voter fraud to suppress the right to vote.
You can do something right now to support this movement. The People for the American Way have started a petition calling on Congress to restore the Voter Rights Act back to full strength, take a cue from Sister Simone's drive and energy and add your name to this petition.
Remember, they can only suppress the rights of all Americans to cast their vote at the ballot box if we allow them to. When 96 year-old Chattanooga, Tennessee resident Dorothy Cooper is told she can't vote without a photo ID, then is rebuffed by some petty little desk clerk when she brings her documents to the DMV to get an ID, Republicans have simply gone too far.
Our country might not be perfect, but suppressing the vote is not the American way.
Well that's it from here beside the Delaware River, I'm off to the gym to try and work off some of the French toast I made for breakfast then I'm gonna catch some of the New Orleans - Seattle playoff game at 4:35pm - which of course is the American way.
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