COUNTERPUNCH (PETROLIA) -- Ann Robertson is lecturer in the Philosophy Department at San Francisco State University and a member of the California Faculty Association. Bill Leumer is a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 853 (retired). They wrote this opinion piece about the Poor People’s Campaign.
“By focusing on these fundamentally popular, inclusive issues while remaining nonpartisan, the campaign has the potential to mobilize hundreds of thousands of working people into a real grassroots force,” Robertson and Leumer wrote. “It could grow into the millions. Instead of funneling political discontent into the electoral arena, where most people remain inactive and are forced to vote for the lesser evil, this campaign will be energized by large numbers of people in the street where they begin to have a sense of their own power and understand that many of their interests are directly opposed to the interests of the rich. It will engender a sense of class-consciousness.”