Listen: Never-Ending War Around the World and in the Supermarket
By Bob Hennelly
As we gather for this episode of the Moral Monday Labor Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. William Barber and Bob Hennelly, the Israeli assault on Gaza continues. Since Oct. 7, when at least 1,200 Israelis were killed and 240 taken hostage, 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, 70 percent of them women and children, according to the American Friends Service Committee.
According to the United Nations, “an acute shortage of food, water, shelter and access to healthcare is itself life threatening as communicable diseases surge and a completely man-made famine looms."
We know the cycle of genocidal violence is churning all over the planet in places like Darfur as our almost trillion dollars in military spending adds fuel to this global fire.
Meanwhile, in a grocery store in Fordyce, Arkansas over the weekend, four people were fatally wounded and another 11 injured as yet another American retail location became the scene of a completely avoidable and preventable mass casualty event.
We read in the Associated Press that Callie Weems, 23, who was a nurse and a new mom, died in a barrage of gunfire as she attempted to help another gunshot victim. We lift up her memory and example as displaying courage under fire so that others might live. We pause and reflect on the heavy toll from the proliferation of U.S. military style assault weapons here at home and around the world and we recommit to using the tools of our wounded democracy to stop it.
On Tuesday, here in New York, from where we broadcast live, it will be primary day when we select the candidates for the House of Representatives and the state legislature. Polling places are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
In our first half of the show, we hear from Andrea Linton, a proud member of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union [RWDSU] who has worked at a midtown Manhattan location for 39 years. We hear why she and her union are urging Gov. Hochul to sign the Retail Worker Safety Act which would require business owners to take steps to protect workers and shoppers like Callie Weems.
Linton describes how post-Covid, the withdrawal of the social safety net extended by the federal government during the pandemic has caused street conditions to deteriorate to the point that she was assaulted on the job by a homeless individual
In the second half of the show, with less than a week to go before the June 29th Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly in Washington D.C, we are joined by Yara Allen, co-director of Theomusicology with the Poor People's Campaign and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, who is the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. Yara gives us some insights into what goes into crafting the music that has always moved the movement.
Listen to the entire show below: