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| January Race, Class, and Civil Rights |
| February Poverty, Homelessness, and Unemployment |
| March Imperialism and Economic Injustice |
| April Environment |
| May Labor |
| June Population |
| July Violence |
| August Nuclear weapons |
| September Education, Information, and Communication |
| October Democracy and Religion |
| November Hunger and Health Care |
| December Children |
The basic idea of Connections 2000 is to gather together all of the forces of clear seeing people and use those forces, through media access, to reveal to everyone else, the interconnections and origins of problems. Poverty, homelessness and unemployment spawn cascades of problems. Whatever your primary area of concern is, it relates intimately and perhaps intricately to these issues.
A child born into poverty may suffer from poor pre-natal health of the parents, may be raised haphazardly because parents are struggling to make ends meet and do not have the health, stamina, education or mental health to carefully nurture, comfort, understand, encourage and cherish each child born to them. Those children may grow up to continue the cycle.
Education may be sub-standard for poor families; because health is faulty, children miss school, schools in low-income areas are often of lower standards than those in affluent areas, and nutrition is not excellent enough to promote healthy ability to think and learn effectively. Without excellent education, the child doesn't have a chance of breaking into jobs that provide living incomes.
Add the intractable prejudices that exist in the U.S., creating faulty self-esteem, fewer educational and job opportunities, fewer avenues into the possibilities of full, joyful lives, and children grow up seeking escape through drugs, mindless activities and crime. It's no wonder. Thousands and thousands and thousands of children never really have a chance.
If you have read this far, you can think of countless other interconnections. No matter what your area of activism, or if you have never been an activist at all, take up your pen or sit down at a keyboard. If everyone who reads this, this month, were to write to newspapers, insert a paragraph in newsletters, write to magazines and TV stations, and on and on, all during the same month, the impact could be immense. And, the underlying causes of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment would become clearly visible.
GO FOR IT!!