The Common Good

God's Politics

Burger King Agrees to Raise Wages for Tomato Workers

by Elizabeth Denlinger Reaves 05-28-2008

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers announced Friday that after a prolonged and often heated campaign, Burger King has agreed to award tomato pickers 1.5 cents per pound of tomatoes picked, the equivalent of a 71 percent increase in wages.

The decision was announced on Capitol Hill last Friday. Watch the press conference:

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Thabo Mbeki Must Intervene in Zimbabwe

by Seth Naicker 05-27-2008

In the back and forth concerning the role South Africa must play in the crisis of human rights abuses under the reign of Robert Mugabe and his cronies, it is my belief that we must see some form of serious intervention.

I understand the need for diplomacy, which always calls for "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." But when endless reports have been publicized of the atrocities that the people of Zimbabwe are facing, South African President Thabo Mbeki must engage ways to ensure [...]

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Taking Names: Witness Against Torture Gets Personal

by Frida Berrigan 05-26-2008

What does it mean to be a Christian in these times? The works of mercy knock on our door. The hungry, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner demand our compassion -- but more, they demand our action.

I am thinking of the prisoners especially as I prepare for trial in Washington, D.C., tomorrow. There are the

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Don't Let the Empire Limit Our Movement's Imagination

by Zack Exley 05-23-2008

Over the last few years, I've gotten acquainted with a movement of Christians that is vibrant, enormous, and yet refuses to let itself be named or to take credit for any of its accomplishments. Some have named subsets or aspects of the movement -- for example, "The New Monastics," "The Emergent Church," "Ordinary Radicals," and even "Revolutionaries." But there are millions of people swept up into this movement who have never even heard those phrases. [...]

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'Come Let Us Reason' with Iran

by Amanda Hendler-Voss 05-23-2008

On May 20, The Jerusalem Post reported that "a senior member in the entourage of President Bush" said during closed meetings that Bush and Cheney "were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for." The White House denied the story, which claims that the reservations of Secretaries Rice and Gates are the remaining levies holding back the floodwaters of war. [...]

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The Lion of the Senate

by Jim Wallis 05-22-2008

They call him a lion. John McCain, on Tuesday, called him the "last lion in the Senate … because he remains the single most effective member of the Senate." I've always liked lions. I have a beautiful painting of a South African lion on the wall of our living room at home. My boys think it is Aslan, the lion of Narnia, of whom Mr. Beaver said, "'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."

The nation got a shock this week. Edward Kennedy, the lion who has been in [...]

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Things Fall Apart: Prayer Requests for South Africa and Zimbabwe

by Nontando Hadebe 05-22-2008

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

- William Butler Yeats, from his poem, "The Second Coming"

When I listen to stories of victims of the [...]

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'New Year Baby' Documents Khmer Rouge Survivors

by Anna Almendrala 05-21-2008

On Christmas Day a few years ago in Dallas, Texas, Socheata Poeuv's parents called a family meeting to tell her that her sisters weren't really her sisters, and her brother was not her full brother. After 25 years of attempting to live a "normal American life," her parents revealed a shocking family secret that would draw them all back to Cambodia, the home they fled and struggled to forget [...]

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Why We Can't Wait & Why We Must: The Radical Timing of God's Movement

by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove 05-21-2008

Zack Exley over at Revolution in Jesusland has been offering some careful thought and excellent questions about Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw's new book Jesus for President. His questions are well worth reading in depth, [...]

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Video: Immigration Raids and Church Response

by Patty Kupfer 05-20-2008

Please check out this moving video shot and edited by our own on-the-ground correspondent, Sojourners Web assistant Matt Hildreth. Matt researched, made calls, and then stopped through Postville, Iowa, last Friday and got some great footage. It features Sister Mary of St. Bridget's, who has been ministering to immigrant families affected by the raid.

Our allies have been spreading this video around among activists all over the country and they're thrilled to have some interviews with [...]

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