The Women's Economic Agenda Project (WEAP) is committed to attaining economic human rights for all people. In a land of abundance, there is no reason anyone's basic human needs should not be met. WEAP is diligently working to organize the poor, low-income workers, and unemployed into a movement to achieve a vision of a world without poverty and despair, a world that Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of in his Poor People's Campaign of 1968.
ARTICLES
More than a million spectators gathered before the Capitol on a frosty January afternoon to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, who promised in his campaign to change Washington’s mercenary culture of lobbyists, special interest influence and backroom deals. But within a few months of being sworn in, the President and his top aides were sitting down with leaders from the pharmaceutical industry to hash out a deal that they thought would make health care reform possible.
I have read many articles about the failure of President Obama and Congress to enact either Single Payer, or at least a public option, in the health insurance legislation currently struggling its way through Congress. One thing that bothers me about those articles is that everybody is pointing fingers at the insurance companies, but nobody is really seeing that the pharmaceutical companies are the real culprits behind the collapse of decent healthcare.
As the nation observed the birthday of Martin Luther King, leaders of organizations of poor and homeless families, including Katrina survivors, clergy, USSF organizers and Detroit hosts…gathered in New Orleans to plan a national March and Caravan from New Orleans to the United States Social Forum in Detroit from early April to late June 2010. In 1998 the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) picked up the mantle of MLK and vowed to work until the dream was fulfilled. "If you think we're there, you can ignore this. But if you're hurting, or your mother or your brother or your neighbor or friend is hurting, put on your walking shoes," said Cheri Honkala, National Organizer of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC).
The president's health care summit on Feb. 25 is being portrayed as a last ditch bid to find some common ground with his "just say no" Republican opposition. He also faces an increasingly wary group of disgruntled Democrats, whose memory of the Massachusetts massacre -- the election of a Republican to Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat -- remains fresh. The summit proceedings, which will be televised in the name of "transparency," will no doubt be laden with a formidable amount of stagecraft. They will be preceded by the unveiling of the president's own legislative proposal -- presumably the odious Senate bill with some tweaks -- a few days before. But it's almost certain that this latest White House initiative, undertaken with the stated goal of salvaging and passing at least some elements of the stalled congressional bills, is foredoomed.
"We, the poor, jobless, downsized, uninsured victims of welfare reform and others abused by the institutions of domination are no longer silent. We are moving forward with the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and so many freedom fighters to improve the lives of Americans."
-Portia Anderson, WEAP
Upcoming Events
| 03/01/10 | Health/Human Rights Learning Circle |
| 03/10/10 | Budget Advocacy Planning Session |
| 03/11/10 | Strength in Debate Part II |
| 03/25/10 | Economics as if People Matter |
| 04/04/10 | March to Fulfill the Dream |
| 04/10/10 | Changing the Workplace, Changing the World! |
| 06/22/10 | The U.S. Social Forum II |