From: Christic Institute <christic@igc.org>
Subject: CAUSES & CURES: COME HOME AMERICA
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 03:18:39 GMT

/* Written 12:45 pm  Apr  8, 1992 by christic in cdp:christic.news */
/* ---------- "CAUSES & CURES: COME HOME AMERICA" ---------- */
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CAUSES AND CURES: `COME HOME AMERICA'

By the Rev. Dr. JOSEPH LOWERY

[Dr. Lowery, 67, is president and cofounder of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference and a veteran civil rights leader.
This was his keynote address at the Causes and Cures National
Teleconference on the Drug Epidemic.]

This conference should call America home. Among the best known and
loved stories in the Bible is that of the prodigal son, this young
adult, who turned away from his upbringing, who abandoned certain
sound principles, and who took onto himself a new and reckless
lifestyle. He sped down the freeway of confused priorities on a
collision course with tragedy. A journey of self-destruction that
found him in consortium with swine and the bottomless pit of
self-pity, self-hatred and damnation. But he came to himself and to
his everlasting credit, he made the critical and saving decision to
come home.

O America, God shed his grace on thee, and crown your will at this
moment that you may leave the far country where you have confused
your priorities, forgotten your roots in spirituality! 

We have wasted our resources on self-righteous militarism; we have
bowed down to the false gods of greed and lust and political
expediency; we have sowed the wind of materialism and we are
reaping the whirlwind of greed and lust. Our culture is stained
with the overwhelming glorification of money and sex and power; we
have forsaken the good spouse of spirituality and we are carrying
on an affair with the harlot of materialism and greed. Come home,
America, to a new birth of values! Come home, America, to reorder
priorities! It is obvious that militarism is often the wheel that
steers the luxury liner of materialism and the hammer that drives
the nail of racism into the body politic. 

The war on drugs is really a war on victims, the least of these,
more than it is a war on the drug thugs from the business suites
and the major traffickers and the money launderers. Yes, a modern
brand of genocide. Brains of the addicted are scrambled, black
males are hauled to prison and the streets are crimson red with the
blood of our children. A real war on drugs will place major law
enforcement emphasis on the big-time traffickers, who move back and
forth with impunity and even with the protection of our government.
And the big-time bankers, who wash the filth from the funds with
fiscal and financial bleach. 

But, O America, can't you see that you can't confine the tragic
consequences of this folly to one segment of the community? Most
cocaine is consumed by the non-poor and the whirlwind is evident in
scandal after scandal in high places, and cynicism in all the
places. Come home, America! 

There is no quarantine available to keep this sickness from
spreading all over this land. Crime in the suites is more pervasive
than crime in the streets. We see the whirlwind in S&L corruption,
bribery, police brutality and fraud. Millions in bankruptcy, an
escalation in the number of homeless. We see ex-KKK and Nazi
figures almost governors of our states getting support from victims
of the whirlwind. Come home, America! 

Economists predict that an additional 20,000 people in Atlanta will
lose their jobs in the next 10 months, while 90,000 people have
been removed from public assistance in Michigan and families are
being evicted in wintry weather. Come home, America, to reorder
your priorities! Your addiction, America, to commercial demagoguery
in the advertisement and sale of alcohol and tobacco is even more
evident in human misery. Come home, America, to a new birth of
ethical behavior, not only to practice safe sex as Magic Johnson
has counseled us, but to practice sane economics, to practice sane
and safer foreign policies.

COME HOME, AMERICA, TO DEAL WITH THE CAUSES OF OUR ADDICTIONS AND
NOT SIMPLY THE SYMPTOMS! Come home, America, to provide jobs and
job training, housing and health care for all your children. Come
home, America, to increase treatment for drug addiction as a health
problem, as a national addiction to materialism, militarism, racism
and sexism. Come home, America, put an end to funding of insidious
covert operations overseas and direct these resources to
prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, community development,
health care, early childhood education. 

Come home, America, and hear the cries of our neighbors in Latin
America: They're trying to tell us to go home . . . ``for you have
exploited our resources. We labor all night and we watch the
profits go north.''

Come home, America, to a new sense of international responsibility,
to a new sense of sensitivity to the rights of self-determination
and human dignity and abundance and a good life for all of God's
children.

Finally, I cannot stop here without saying to those who are trapped
in poverty, those who have been driven to despair (many of them are
my people, all of them are my people), those especially who are
trapped in the ghettos and the barrios, driven by a poverty that
leads to desperation and a desperation that leads to antisocial
behavior--let me say to you: Don't give up, hold on, there is help
coming!

This coalition means that we are coming together to bring help. We
challenge you to embrace liberation lifestyles which make us free
at last in this life. You reach out for the spiritual rebirth of
the values and strength that brought us through tough times before.
The black community understands:  We were born in adversity, grew
up in hard times, cut our teeth on trials and tribulations. We
don't have to give in, give up or give out. We must resist the
assault from without by a new birth of spiritual strength from
within. Liberation lifestyle will free us in this life from
confused priorities, free us from dependency on alien substances,
free us from dependency on everything except our faith in God, our
respect for ourselves, and our love for each other. Do not let
legitimate need drive you to illegitimate greed! 

God can help us, America, to come home, and when we come home,
there will be a great getting-up morning, a great glad singing and
a celebration, for we will kill the fatted calf and we will put the
cloak of brotherhood and sisterhood around our shoulders and the
ring of our kingship with God on our finger. Come home, America, to
that day when justice will role down like waters and righteousness
like a mighty rain! Come home, America, to that day when black will
not be asked to get back, when brown will stick around, when yellow
will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead man, and when white
will be alright. Come home, America, to a drug-free society! Come
home!

                            *    *    *

For the complete Causes and Cures catalogue of books, magazines and
videos on covert operations, drug trafficking, addiction and
treatment, please use one of the e-mail addresses posted below or
write us at the following address:

                     Causes and Cures Campaign
                        Christic Institute
                  1324 North Capitol Street, N.W.
                      Washington, D.C. 20002
                          (202) 797-8106

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