Debt. Prison. What's next?
With the United States government just one week away from a historic default on its debt, President Obama and House Speaker Boehner are publicly trading salvos about the impending crisis.
Yesterday, meeting in Los Angeles, the NAACP passed a historic resolution calling for an end to the so-called “war on drugs,” weeks after a series of high-level reports (including a New York Times op-ed by former President Jimmy Carter) and called on the federal and state governments to end failed drug policies that have increased our prison population by 700% over a 35-year period.
What do these seemingly separate issues have in common? Answer: each was a central focus of the last two issues of Fellowship magazine, FOR’s national journal addressing peace, social justice, and nonviolence since 1918.
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Without Fellowship, you missed our “Rethinking Money” issue, which featured commentary and analysis on debt, usury, banking, and our modern economic system by faith-based voices like Tom Greco, Ray Foss, and Scott Mooney, as well as FOR’s executive director, Mark Johnson.
Those who received our “Transformation of/in Prisons” issue discovered the analysis of leading anti-mass incarceration advocates like Michelle Alexander, Kaia Stern, and Rima Vesely-Flad as well as the voices of people who have been imprisoned for decades, like Judith Clark, Jazz Hayden, and Philip Brasfield. They found Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and Christian spiritual reflections on the U.S. punishment system. And our readers learned in advance that prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison in California were preparing to launch a hunger strike on July 1 — three weeks later, this past weekend, the prisoners won significant victories in their campaign for human rights and against torturous conditions of imprisonment.
What’s next in Fellowship? Over the coming year, you’ll find feature articles, interviews, poetry, prayers, book and film reviews, and art and photography addressing such themes as faith and “security,” human rights accompaniment, they centennial anniversary of Bayard Rustin’s birth, and more. Don’t miss an issue!
Start — or renew — your annual subscription to Fellowship today!
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In peace,
Ethan Vesely-Flad
Editor, Fellowship
