The following is the text copy of a newspaper written for and distributed at the March for Women's Lives, April 1992. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Truth Hurts A product of the Truth Hurts Foundation "Dedicated to presenting reality, despite its painful nature" Table of Contents The Truth Hurts Foundation is... Baby and Me, and Big Brother Makes Three You Need Not Have a Wombful of Blues Feast and Famine The Economics of Education: Classism Perpetuated AIDS: Doctoring Reality GE Brings Death to Good People Burning Righteous, But Burning Blind The Truth Hurts Foundation is a collective of three people. This publication was created with high intensity and a low budget. The Foundation is now in its embryonic phase, but we'd love to have an interconnecting network of members nationwide. If you liked our newspaper, and want to become a member of the Truth Hurts Foundation, write to: P.O. Box 3111 Amherst, MA 01004 Membership fee is your name, address, and a letter expressing a sincere desire to tap into the fullest potential of our species. --30-- Baby and Me, and Big Brother Makes Three By Kevin J. Smith World population has doubled since 1950, with 85% of this growth occurring in the Third World. The fundamental assumption of mainstream western population control, in a predictable display of twisted logic, is that rapid population growth is one of the main cases of underdevelopment in the Third World. This assumption has been used as a means of blaming the victim for a series of devastating problems. In the 1970s overpopulation was the supposed villain causing hunger and poverty, and in the 1980s the same culprit was the force behind economic strife and unemployment. Now in the 90s, the poor are being held responsible not only for their own misery but for ecological destruction of our entire planet as well. The primary perpetrators are rarely addressed and, when discussed at all, are downplayed tremendously. Some examples are: dominant economic systems which squander human and natural resources solely for short-term profits; displacement of native peoples by agribusiness and other related industries; the coercive role of international lending institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; war and arms production; the exorbitant wastefulness of industrialized countries and wealthy elites worldwide. Burdened by the "benign hand" of western imperialism for years, many Third World countries suffer a huge foreign debt. As a precondition for loans and aid to many of these countries, the IMF and World Bank stipulate structural adjustment. This Faustian arrangement standardly entails currency devaluation, wage freezes, unlimited trampling by foreign investors, privatizing industry, raising food prices, and hatcheting social services. Accompanying these lopsided demands is the incorporation of bank- endorsed-and-controlled population programs. These programs focus almost entirely on family planning, to the exclusion of basic health care and social services. In Nepal and Bangladesh, for example, the World Bank approved governmental paying incentives for sterilization even though the process generated widespread abuse of poor women and men. The Bank and other lenders are also pushing for governments to deregulate contraceptives, especially hormonal types. Their commercialization efforts have already been successful in parts of Asia and Latin America, to the detriment of adequate screening and follow-up for side effects. An example of this disturbing rapacity involves use of Norplant in Indonesia. Norplant is a progestin implant inserted under the skin of a woman's arm, preventing pregnancy for at least five years. Its side effects include headaches, nausea, nervousness, menstrual irregularity, and weight gain. Insertion and removal require a local anesthesia and medical proficiency. Responsible and ethical use of Norplant necessitates sufficient screening, follow up, and removal on demand. Nearly half a million Indonesian women have been subjected to Norplant, often without consultation in alternative contraceptives and Norplant's side effects, pregnancy screening, and suitable sterilization of equipment. Many of the women aren't told that removal of Norplant is essential after five years to avoid a high risk of ectopic pregnancy. Furthermore, removal on demand is not guaranteed, due not only to a shortage of adept personnel but also to the government's impositional imperatives. In the U.S. as well, unscrupulous administration of Norplant has been documented. The Texas and Kansas state legislatures, for example, have considered giving women on welfare sizable cash bonuses in exchange for use of the drug. It is blatantly apparent, on the domestic front as well as internationally, that those who make the rules are either unwilling, or too stupid, to realize our most pressing problems are the causes, rather than the effects, of rapid population growth. Until the high childhood mortality rates, poverty, and general despair instigated by systemic ills are ameliorated, the poor will find no rational incentive for having fewer children. Ever since witch burnings found their full fruition in the late 15th century, expropriation has been the keyword of capitalist exploitation. Expropriation of land, natural resources, and knowledge required a concurrent war against the consciousness of immanence, embodied in women, sexuality and magic. Imbued with a deadly combination of greed, material obsession, and spiteful ignorance cloaked in religious rhetoric, the oppressors have relentlessly transmuted semantic reality to suit their whims. The same war still prevails, though the weapons of oppression have changed. Today the preferred instrument of torture is economic leverage; third-world peoples, along with the poor and oppressed in this country, face the excruciating crunch of racism, sexism and class malevolence every day of their lives. Reproductive power has become just another commodity to be tampered with, in the disgusting and horrific tirade of thing-worshippers. It is up to all of us, women and men alike, to reclaim the true dignity of women, and to thus restore the wondrous and infinite magic of immanence. --30-- You Need Not Have a Wombful of Blues By Robin F. Howard We all know Roe v. Wade is in jeopardy. Misguided zealots, New Fundamentalists, priests, jealous infertile women have it in their hearts to deny women the right to terminate unwanted pregnancies, while at the same time cutting social services many of those pregnant women would need. Clinical abortion is a traumatic and emotionally sterile operation even in the best clinics, but far less traumatic than bearing an unwanted child without adequate social or economic supports. Nonetheless, if Roe v. Wade is dismembered further, clinical abortion will be available only to those women who can afford the doctors who would quietly perform them, or the travel to places where it is legal. Clinical abortion, however, is not the only way to end a pregnancy. For thousands of years, women have used plants' many properties for all aspects of health care, to include inducing abortion. If caught early enough, ending a pregnancy can be no more traumatic than a bad period. There are many abortifacients (abortion-inducing agents) and emmenagogues (menstrual-promoting agents), some being common culinary herbs. Three of these are extremely effective and readily available: Ginger: One teaspoon in a cup of boiling water, drunk when cooled slightly, will very often bring on a late period. Nausea while using ginger is a strong indication of pregnancy. Discontinue after five days if flow has not started. Pennyroyal: Its effectiveness has led me to share my experiences with other women who are pregnant, or think they are. A strong tea made with two tablespoons of pennyroyal leaves per cup of boiling water, drunk very hot, twice a day for two or three days, has been sufficient for me, and the same recipe has been used by several of my friends (one of whom was fully two months along), with 100% success. I have also seen directions for very strong infusions of one ounce of herb per one quart of boiled water, steeped eight hours, with the suggested dose of up to four cups per day. Pennyroyal also induces perspiration, expels gas from the intestines and is a mild sedative. Vitamin C: Believe it! Very effective, very safe, and you probably won't get a cold for a while, either. 500mg an hour for 12 hours a day (for a total of 6000mg, or 6 grams, per day) for up to six days. Although safe, this is a high daily dose and will probably give you diarrhea. Some other emmenagogues include: Angelica root: Infusion or tincture (10 drops, 3 times a day for four days). Fresh parsley leaves. Juice or vaginal insert (a few sprigs changed twice a day for three days). Rue leaves. Infusion, tincture (10 drops every six hours for four days). Saffron stigmas. 1/2 gm daily for four days (Caution: 10gms is a fatal dose). Tansy plant in flower. (Tanacitum vulgaris, not Tansy Ragwort). Infusion or tincture. Also, basil, caraway seed, fresh horseradish, savory, marjoram, nutmeg, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, and watercress. Naturally, this in no way constitutes a prescription. Only you can make this decision, but be sure to get the support you need from family and friends. Read some herbal books. Take a long walk. Meditate. If there is no one you can turn to, write to me at the Foundation address. Since the burning times we have been kept ignorant of our own bodies and told that the money-driven, prescription-crazed fraternity of Western medicine holds the secrets. I suggest that is easier to work with the body's natural healing than the medical establishment would like us to think. Both chemical drugs and herbs only assist the body, allowing it to do that which it already knows. It makes sense that we should assist these processes in the most natural and nourishing ways possible. Herbs rather than chemicals. Whole foods rather than adulterated ones. Harmony rather than discord. The only way we can keep from losing our reproductive rights is to take complete control of them, not allowing Congress or the Supreme Court or Operation Rescue to override our sovereignty as capable, thoughtful individuals. By talking to each other, really getting to know our bodies, learning properties of plants and sharing knowledge freely, we can access tremendous strength and begin to shift the power from the hands of the few to the hands of the many. --30-- Feast and Famine By Kevin J. Smith In 1985, the year of LIVE AID, Africa's most destitute countries were ironically paying back to the West approximately twice the amount they received in charities. Their astonishing debt amounts to billions of dollars in interest payments alone. Production solely for profit, as it pertains to food and agricultural resources, is nothing short of an abomination. It trespasses upon the most fundamental human need, the need for nutritional sustenance. A tightly-controlled media perspective of Africa, for example, shapes the poverty and hunger there as by-products of overpopulation and natural disasters. Political implications of western expansionism, largely responsible for this poverty and hunger in the first place, are not considered addressable topics. Since 1945, when America unfortunately catapulted to a position of world dominance, U.S. farmers have increasingly been suffocated in a vise of simultaneous rising production costs and falling crop prices. In order to merely break even, they are forced to constantly increase production. Since those who need the farmers' products the most cannot afford them, overproduction invariably occurs. In this case, one result has been the annual feeding of about 200 million tons of grain, soybean products and other feeds to domestic livestock. During the last decade, a considerable amount of the overstock has been exported. However, contrary to a common and mistaken notion that these exports are being used to feed hungry people abroad, two-thirds of the shipments are designated, once again, for the consumption of livestock. And there, as here, poor people often can't even afford the grain, let alone meat from animals growing fat on it. Our grain-fed-meat production system is not only incredibly wasteful, but destructive as well. Livestock production constitutes about half the total U.S. water consumption, requiring 2,500 gallons of water per one pound of steak. Also required per pound are 20,000 calories of fossil fuels. Soybean and corn, the U.S.'s primary feed crops, are more conducive to topsoil erosion than any other crops. The maddening pace of production has caused the U.S., a country blessed with an abundance of natural resources, to become increasingly dependent on imported fertilizers. Soil and water, our food-producing resources, are generally thought of as renewable. Unfortunately, present rates of production sabotage the earth's natural renewal cycle. This debacle has already spurned massive topsoil erosion and needless depletion of underground lakes. Mother Earth is incredibly resilient, but even she has limits. This blind, frenetic race for short-term profits, besides pillaging our environment and exacerbating hunger in impoverished countries, renders most supermarkets in this country little more than showcases for chemicalized, polluted trash posing as food. While some U.S. citizens starve outright, others who receive their "three squares a day" are malnourished nonetheless. As early as the turn of this century, research began sprouting up correlating health deterioration with food additives. Studies traced and found that much adult sickness and death was attributable to the same cause. Ninety years later, the situation has worsened. Modern, highly toxic, additives, coupled with environmental contamination, impose a severe strain on an individual's health. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), supposedly enacted to serve the public's health interests, does so on pretense alone. A congressional Energy and Commerce subcommittee report released in late 1990 stated that the FDA checked paperwork on only 9% of the 40 billion pounds of food imported into the U.S. in 1987. The agency, furthermore, actually sampled and tested about 2% of the imports. Statistics on the FDA's inspection of domestic food supplies are similarly atrocious. The report went on to state that of the FDA's inspections, millions of pounds of foodstuffs not meeting FDA standards were distributed for sale nonetheless. Horrifying as this is, it isn't surprising. The FDA, like any other federal agency, is a buffer to placate the general public while potentially curbing capitalism's most heinous offenses. Obviously, its capacity in the second category has worn extremely thin. A suggestion, short of incinerating every fast food restaurant, is to buy from local growers whenever possible. Besides being healthful, it is a means of strengthening communities and reinvesting in the sincere labor of those connected with the earth. Corporate food monopolists will keep trying to convince us of a need for their products, assisted by their cronies on Madison Avenue. Eventually, if and when the demand they attempt to instill is unfulfilled, the supply will disappear. Hopefully, the opportunistic parasites who have bastardized food for their own gain will disappear as well. --30-- The Economics of Education: Classism Perpetuated By Gabriel Frost Johnson Education should be the means by which all are given the same equipment to play with on the level playing field of life. However, this is not so in America today. The field is not level and the U.S. education system does not give everyone the same equipment. Minorities and the poor are discouraged from playing. If they manage to stay in school, they will find their education to be of very poor quality. Our education system and the economic system which supports it reproduces a classist status quo. Fear of equality obstructs attempts at reform. Current inequality in our schools has historical roots in a late nineteenth and early twentieth century reform movement which centralized school boards in most U.S. cities. This move caused small business-men's representation to fall sharply, and working class representation to virtually disappear from school boards. The Voter's League of Pittsburgh justified the transfer of power to the rich by saying: employment as [an] ordinary laborer would naturally lead to the conclusion that such men did not have sufficient education or business training to act as school directors...where millions are spent each year. Stating that the lower classes are too ignorant to be involved in the education of their children is merely a rationalization. Education has remained out of working class control throughout the last century. Education exists to train wealthy children to be wealthy masters, and to train future workers in separate schools. The traditional economic theory of education has been that education raises a person's level of skill and, therefore, their wages and standard of living. Workers compete with each other for jobs. Since there are more workers than jobs, it is reduced to who will accept the worst job or the lowest wage. So the traditional theory is that this wage competition drives the job market and people compete for jobs on the basis of what skills they have acquired through schooling. Therefore, as the population becomes more educated, more people will compete for skilled jobs. This will lower the average wage for skilled workers. There will be a surplus of low skilled jobs because there will be fewer less educated workers. Employers will be forced to raise wages to attract low-skilled workers. Education allegedly results in the economic redistribution of the wealth, and all workers, regardless of the level of their skill, will be paid approximately the same amount. However, the reality is that education does not provide skills for future employment. Sixty percent of American workers report that their job skills were provided only from informal on-the-job training. The remaining forty percent state that informal on-the-job training accounts for a significant portion of the skills they use. Because education and formal training are not cited as the origin of job skills, education only shows how trainable someone is; it becomes a 'certificate of trainabilty'. So, the labor market serves only "to match trainable people with training ladders". The level of education achieved merely translates to a person's estimated training cost, and as such determines their place in line for a job. A high school diploma or a college degree serve only as indicators of a lower training cost. This contrasts with the popular myth that education provides a student with actual job skills. In theory, education exists to equalize the labor market. In fact, this is false. The inequalities of our education system translate into education serving as a means to maintain classist inequalities. Different school districts, and different schools themselves, provide different qualities of education (putting people in different places in line for a job). Furthermore, the abysmal quality of inner-city schools encourages students to drop out, denying them even a 'certificate of trainability'. When a school board hires just one woman to retrieve 400 missing children from the streets of the North Bronx, we may reasonably conclude that it does not particularly desire to find them. If 100 of these children startled us by showing up at school, there would be no room for them...." (Kozol p115). The economic plight of our inner-city schools is so severe that the schools must plan and hope for half of their students to drop out. Armed with the tools of inequality, the upper class uses the education system to maintain their dominance. The greatest determinant of the quality of education is the amount of money spent per pupil. Inner-city schools have less money available to them because they have a smaller tax base. Suburban schools are richer than city schools because their property is worth more in taxes, and because less of their property is tax-free as urban museums and public buildings are. This is blatantly unfair; urban schools deserve more money to serve their impoverished population. Conservatives have many pat responses to such statements. 'You can't improve something by throwing money at it.' How can schools function without paying for heat or books? Conservatives say, 'Can you make mediocre teachers better by paying them more?' The answer, of course, is no. However, quality teachers won't be attracted to teach in the schools that need them the most if they cannot receive a livable wage. Class size is an important determinant of educational quality and an indicator of the amount of money spent on education: is a school spending $20,000 on one teacher with 50 students, or $40,000 for two teachers, each with a class of 25? Conservatives often claim that class size doesn't matter; only parental influence does. It is interesting to note that the children of the rich generally attend private school where classes are very small-and their parents are not present. Conservatives are quick to demand more testing as a means to aid education. Time is wasted preparing children for standardized tests instead of teaching them anything important. Even if tests were unbiased, they would only measure what students know-they do not teach. Testing results are published, and politicians use the low inner-city scores to justify low funding because 'they are too dumb to use more money'. Money is funnelled to suburban kids who, presumably, have more use for computers, quality teachers, books and heat. Resources should be allocated according to where test scores show the greatest need instead of letting funds reinforce inequality. Individual test scores are compared against a national average. Currently, the goal is to ensure that your children do better than everyone else's children instead of discussing what an acceptable score should be. Testing is a self-fulfilling prophecy; the low scores show the result of being ignored financially, and then the scores are used to justify the continuation of economic policy. Since finances are the root of the problem, the solution should be to 'share the wealth'. Reformers traditionally use one of two methods. The first involves a state-declared minimum that all districts must spend per pupil. If a district cannot reach this minimum, the state would then provide assistance, and, of course, if any district could raise additional money, it could spend it on its children. This plan, tried in many states, has two problems. 1) The minimum is often set so low as to be ineffective. 2) Richer districts react by forcing the market price of teachers upwards, out of the reach of the disadvantaged schools. Another flaw in this plan is one which plagues all local aid schemes. In order to get richer communities to vote for the plan, they must be promised some sort of 'gift'. In the end, all the 'gifts' drive up the cost of the original reform, making it ineffective. The second plan involves either the forced redistribution of money across district lines, and/or the forced busing of students across these same borders. These plans are usually met with violent reaction from rich communities. When threatened with having to send their children to a bad school (which was an acceptable school when only the poor attended it), or having their tax dollars support the schools that desperately need aid, the reaction is swift. Parents quickly mobilize their political power to stop any threat of integration. The controllers of the status quo have the attitude 'It's working for me, so why should I change it for you?' It is unlikely that the educational system will ever be more than a grim affirmation of class and racial structure unless we overcome this selfish attitude. The system is failing abysmally for a great percentage of our children. It needs to be changed despite the objections of our rich elected leaders. We need to decide what we want education to be. Will education teach humanistic values like sharing and respect, or will it continue to be a symbol of privilege? The only easy answer to this problem is to do nothing and let the status quo continue to run the show, sacrificing the nation's children. Terms need to be redefined before they can be implemented as policy. Today, desegregation means "combining Black kids and Hispanics" while white children are left untouched. For true change to occur, upper and middle class white parents will have to acknowledge that it is time to stop hoarding resources and to start thinking in a more communal manner. The time has come for all parents and politicians to realize that if we are going to be one nation under testing, then we must be one nation under equal funding. Parents will have to accept the redistribution of educational monies, including limits on spending in upper class schools. Change is possible, but we must hold the wealthy accountable for their unjust manipulation of America's future. SOURCES Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities (Crown Publishers. New York:1991) Bowles, Samuel and Gintis, Herbert. Schooling in Capitalist America (Basic Books, Inc. New York: 1976) Baxter, Carolyn, O'Leary, P.J., and Westoby, Adam. Economics and Education Policy: a reader (Longman. New York: 1977) --30-- AIDS: Doctoring Reality By Kevin J. Smith Political and medical institutions in the western hemisphere have demonstrated criminal neglect in dealing with issues of AIDS research, treatment and prevention. Meanwhile government leaders and right-wing propagandists, with the help of a lap-dog media, have willfully used AIDS myths and hysteria as fuel for a severely repressive political forum. Of all western nations, the United States is guiltiest of such transgressions. Due to this continued neglect, many people have suffered and died unnecessarily, and the fatalities continue to mount. Furthermore, many prominent scientists believe that current research is destined to fail because it is based on false or narrow premises. The prominent view of AIDS, put forth in 1984 by Dr. Robert Gallo1 , is that the HTLV-III virus (renamed HIV) is the sole cause of AIDS. After announcing he had discovered the cause, Gallo claimed the right to all royalties from a blood test which detects the antibody to the HIV virus. Gallo is also among those who propose that HIV, a harmless virus in Central African green monkeys, was transferred to humans via bites and meat consumption, and mutated to a form that produced AIDS. But before Dr. Gallo's widely publicized "discovery," and long since, various researchers have published inquiries about AIDS in general and HIV in particular. Those who have refuted Gallo's assertion have been attacked and, more often, ignored by the medical establishment. Dr. Joseph Sonnabend,2 for instance, co-founded and edited a journal called AIDS Research, welcoming all points of view on AIDS. After ten issues, in 1986, Dr. Sonnabend and nearly all the editorial board were fired.3 The journal's new name was AIDS Research and Retroviruses, with an editorial board which included Robert Gallo along with predominantly government, military and corporate scientists. Professor Peter Duesberg, Gallo's most significant critic, has been virtually ignored by the major media. Duesberg, a professor at UC Berkeley, is a world-renowned virologist and the first to map the genetic structure of retroviruses.4 He states that for a number of reasons, the HIV hypothesis "faces several direct challenges."5 The U.S. government has since refused to renew Duesberg's $500,000 annual research grant. Five alternative theories of the origin of AIDS, similarly ignored by mainstream medical and media establishments, are 1) Genetically- Engineered HIV, 2) Dioxin, 3) Maguari and Dengue Viruses, 4) African Swine Fever Virus, and 5) Multiple Factors (no single microbe). 1.Genetically-Engineered HIV. East German microbiologists Jakob and Lilli Segal published a 68-page pamphlet in 1986 entitled "AIDS: U.S.-Home Made Evil; Not Imported from Africa." In it, they cite Fort Detrick, Maryland,6 as the probable origin of AIDS. They analyzed the HTLV-I virus (found in green monkeys) in comparison with HTLV-III and concluded that natural mutation was impossible. According to the Segals, the transition required complete restructuring in a laboratory setting. They further assert that AIDS was most likely spread by prisoners who had been used as guinea pigs in experiments at Fort Detrick.7 The Segals' theory, despite highly convincing research of the HTLV- I/HTLV-III mutation, has loopholes. First and foremost, their entire premise is based on the assumption that HIV is actually the cause of AIDS, a theory which is being increasingly questioned. Still, it brings to light the alarming history of U.S. Chemical-Biological Warfare (CBW) experiments, targets to include Native America, Germany, Japan, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and populations within the U.S.8 Even more disturbing is a House Appropriations hearing in 1969, at which the Defense Department's biological warfare division requested funds for developing a new disease that eerily resembles the AIDS virus. Speaking on its behalf, a military official said, "Within the next five to ten years it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important respects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease."9 2.Dioxin. Dioxin is one of the world's most toxic chemicals, and a component of Agent Orange and PCB, two deadly herbicides. Earl Zela Tex Aldredge, director of the Hazardous Waste Task Force in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Dave Bergh, an environmental rights and veterans' activist in Minnesota, both believe that AIDS could be a result of Dioxin poisoning. Bergh and Aldredge are veterans of the Vietnam war, in which Vietnamese people and U.S. soldiers were subjected to severe Dioxin poisoning. Political sociologist Dr. Susan Cavin followed up on this theory. By researching the studies of Ton That Tung, a Vietnamese professor and the world's foremost expert on Dioxin poisoning, she was able to record twenty-three symptoms of indirect10 Dioxin exposure which resemble those of AIDS.11 One of the problems with this theory is that is doesn't explain why AIDS in the U.S. affects mostly gay men, hemophiliacs, intravenous drug users, recipients of blood transfusions, and the sexual partners of these people. Another is that considerably more Vietnamese citizens and Vietnam vets should have AIDS if Dioxin is the full culprit, but reports do not indicate as such. Perhaps the singularly most important aspect of the Dioxin theory is that it confronts the issue of hazardous environmental influences as co-factors in the deterioration of immune systems. This, however, is something the government and mainstream medical institutions would prefer to hide, because it also confronts the entire corporate structure upon which our present economy is based. 3.Maguari and Dengue Viruses. The proponents of this theory are Mark E. Whiteside, M.D., and Caroline MacLeod, M.D., co- directors of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Miami, Florida. They have been involved in AIDS research and treatment since 1982 and have worked in the poor, rural slums of Little Haiti (a Miami neighborhood) and Belle Glade. Belle Glade has the highest per capita rate of AIDS in the U.S. There, also, the male-female ratio of AIDS is three to one, which more closely resembles third-world statistics than those for the rest of the U.S. According to their theory, AIDS is an environmental, tropic-based disease which is caused by at least two insect-carried tropical diseases, called dengue and maguari. They believe that repeated bites by blood-sucking insects can transmit the virus from person to person and that blood transmission, such as needles and certain forms of sex, are effective though secondary modes of transmission. Whiteside and MacLeod stress that maguari and dengue are not the only AIDS- causing viruses, but they very likely play a crucial role in the spread of AIDS. They have discovered that a high percentage of the AIDS cases with which they have dealt fall into the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC's) category of "Unknown Cause" or "No Identifiable Risk." This means, specifically, that the Persons With AIDS (PWAs) are neither gay men, IV drug users, hemophiliacs, or blood transfusion recipients. The percentages range from 22% of Florida generally to 30% and 50% respectively in Miami and Belle Glade. The CDC has attributed these percentages to heterosexual transmission of AIDS, but Whiteside and MacLeod strongly argue against this reasoning, along with governmental reports which claim such heterosexual transmission to be the primary cause of AIDS in tropical regions. Whiteside asserts that in Africa, for example, children make up 15% to 22% of AIDS cases even though only half of the mothers of these affected children tested positive.12 He states also that "an untreatable, sexually-transmitted disease (like herpes) does not confine itself to a single poor neighborhood."13 Belle Glade and Little Haiti both suffer overcrowding, open waste, and an excess of rats and mosquitoes. These conditions are highly conducive to such insect transmission of AIDS. Research into the origin and spread of dengue and maguari leads one again to the possibility of U.S. CBW operations.14 But whatever the origin, the dengue-maguari theory again raises the issue of a preventable environmental cause of AIDS. Not surprisingly, MacLeod and Whiteside have encountered strong resistance from local health officials and from the CDC. Primary obstacles to this theory are that 1) Cuba had major dengue epidemics in 1977 and 1981, along with the probable presence of maguari (first isolated in nearby Jamaica). Yet Cuba reports relatively few AIDS cases; excepting Cuba's relatively excellent third- world health care stature as a barrier to the spread of these viruses, the AIDS statistics in Cuba aren't consistent with the dengue-maguari theory. 2) Caribbean children in general are subject to insect bites regularly, but AIDS cases among them are rare. It would appear that this theory is not sufficient as the cause of AIDS, but its role as co-factor might be substantial. 4.African Swine Fever Virus. Pathobiologist Jane Teas and microbiologist John Beldekas, both from Boston, have undertaken considerable research relating to African Swine Fever Virus (a disease of pigs not contained to Africa) as the cause of AIDS. They have found that African Swine Fever (ASF) causes symptoms which are very similar to AIDS.15 According to Beldekas and Teas, many countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and Central Africa had major outbreaks of AIDS within 1 1/2-2 years after an ASF epidemic. Teas has hypothesized the "accidental introduction of African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) into the population of Haiti."16 Further work with Beldekas has broadened the hypothesis into an ASF-AIDS link throughout the third world, including insect transmission as a mode of spreading the disease. Although first located in Kenya in 1909, ASF was unknown in our hemisphere until a major epidemic occurred in Cuba, in 1971.17 By slaughtering all pigs, both diseased and healthy (the only effective means of control) in the province of Havana, the Cuban government was able to bring the epidemic to a halt. Outbreaks of ASF occurred in Brazil and the Dominican Republic, 1978; Haiti, 1979; and again in Cuba, 1980. Unlike Cuba, the people of the other three countries were encouraged by their governments to eat the pork of the slaughtered pigs, under the direction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Common to all these epidemics, as well as those in Africa since the 1960's, was a new and less virulent strain of ASF, one which caused a much lower death rate in pigs than its predecessor. Coincidentally, in the early 1960's a new ASF vaccine was tried out on pigs in Angola. Over one-third of the pigs had severe reactions to the experiment and developed low-grade versions of ASF which, although not killing the affected pigs, persisted nonetheless. Scientists, meanwhile, had developed a successful vaccine for hog cholera, a disease having the exact clinical symptoms of ASF. However, several of the countries were given vaccines which were probably made from blood contaminated with ASFV.18 The situation in Angola, suggests Teas, accounts for the spread of ASFV in African pigs, while the contaminated cholera vaccine explains the outbreaks of AIDS in the western hemisphere. In attempting to document their research Beldekas and Teas have run into extreme recalcitrance from the USDA and the CDC. The reasons for this are primarily twofold: A.On an economic level, their research threatens a $9 billion U.S. pork industry.19 B.Politically, it directly attacks the HIV mainstream theory, and also points an overwhelmingly accusatory finger at the USDA's Animal Virus Research Facility at Plum Island, New York. Among other shady doings at this facility,20 Plum Island is the only place in the U.S. where ASFV can be tested. The work of Teas and Beldekas has presented a cogent argument that ASFV is involved in AIDS, perhaps directly in people with weakened immune systems, and as at least a co-factor otherwise. There are two major questions concerning the theory, but not without reasonable answers. For example, Cuba (as previously mentioned) reports a low incidence of AIDS, despite two major outbreaks of ASFV. However, unlike the other countries in which ASF epidemics occurred, Cubans slaughtered their pigs immediately and ate none of the meat. As also mentioned previously, Cuba is home to an excellent health care system. The other question concerns the fact that, up to now, the maximum percentage of PWAs with the ASF antibody in any population has been 47%; theoretically 100% would have to be the indicator that ASFV is in fact the cause of AIDS. ASFV is, however, very difficult to detect. Furthermore, lack of antibodies in any particular person does not necessarily mean that the virus is absent. 5.Multiple Factors (no single microbe). Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, whose ostracization by the medical establishment was mentioned earlier in this article, contends that AIDS is a variety of syndromes with multiple causes depending on particular populations. Sonnabend has said "You must look at the total environment of a person. If you take the view that it's a germ, you don't have to look at social conditions. To make people well, it is not enough to set up clinics, but you must eradicate poverty, hunger, and ghettos." Co-factors can be categorized basically as medical, environmental, and behavioral. Aspects of environmental influences have been mentioned throughout this article. Behavioral causes encompass modes of personal behaviors that are conducive to contracting AIDS, such as drugs (both IV and oral drugs, such as poppers,21 which severely weaken immune systems), diet and sexual practices. Medical co-factors, on one hand, overlap with environmental hazards and with behavioral considerations. On the other hand, they pertain to deaths and illnesses which are the by-product of medical practices and prescription drugs. For example, there is evidence suggesting that a 1967-1980 World Health Organization worldwide smallpox vaccination project triggered the spread of AIDS.22 Another theory is that AIDS was imported from the third world in the 1970's, during which time western pharmaceutical industries were profiting from imported blood, much of it coming from extremely impoverished and sick people.23 Jim Beldekas (see ASFV-AIDS connection) and Mathilde Krim, co- chairperson of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, believe that this contaminated blood was used to produce Hepatitis-B Immune Globulin (HBIG). HBIG was regularly used by many gay men during the early and mid-1970's since Hepatitis-B was a prevalent STD among them at that time. The first recognized case of AIDS in the U.S. was 1977; considering the incubation period of AIDS, this would lend weight to the assessment of Beldekas and Krim. Krim also argues that the early increase of AIDS in gay men must have been due to a common-source infection, and that sexual contact alone was insufficient to explain the speed with which AIDS struck the gay community. Between 1978-1980, due to a major promotional campaign among gay communities, approximately 500 gay volunteers were inoculated with HBIG. The vaccine, manufactured by Merck, Sharp, and Dohme,23 was then mass-marketed. The biggest problem with Sonnabend's theory is not the aspect of co- factors, since they seem to play a very definite role in the contracting of AIDS. Rather, it is his belief that no single microbe is responsible; the fact that sexual partners of IV drug users and blood transfusion recipients are at high risk for AIDS points to a single microbe as the cause, at least in some instances. Dr. H. Hunter Handsfield has stated that the single microbe and multifactorial theories could very well act jointly as catalysts for AIDS.25 The horror of AIDS is also the horror of an unholy alliance forged between governmental, military, corporate and medical institutions. Their goals are power and profits, and they will do whatever they feel necessary to achieve and protect these goals. It is clear that these institutions, foremost those of the U.S., played a considerable role in the origin and spread of AIDS, due more likely to standard practices of imperialism and oppression than to a deliberate conspiracy. But to whatever degree this is the case, AIDS is the ruling class's dream come true. Only through education and collective activism will it be possible to eradicate the many ills imposed on us by this self-serving and corrupt alliance. NOTES 1.Dr. Gallo is head of the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. 2.Dr. Sonnabend is a New York City physician and co-founder of the AIDS Medical Foundation. 3.Harvard scientist Max Essex, a close associate of Robert Gallo, was responsible for persuading the publisher to fire Sonnabend and the board. 4.Retrovirus, as defined by the 1991 Oxford Concise Science Dictionary, are "RNA-containing viruses that convert their RNA into DNA by means of the enzyme reverse transcriptase; this enables them to become integrated into their host's DNA." Retroviruses contain cancer-causing genes which are activated when the virus enters its host cell and starts to replicate. 5.For specifics, consult Peter H. Duesberg, "Retroviruses as Carcinogens and Pathogens: Expectations and Reality," in Cancer Research, vol. 47, March 1, 1987, pp. 1199-1220. 6.Fort Detrick has historically been the nucleus for developing and testing biological weapons. 7.For a detailed account of such experiments, read, Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business, Jessica Mitford, 1976, Knopf Publishers. 8.For a prime example of such experiments by the U.S. government on its own citizens, read Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, James H. Jones, 1981, The Free Press. 9.A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret Story of Chemical and Biological Warfare, Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, 1982, Hill and Wary Publishers. 10."Indirect" means the result of being near a contaminated area, consumption of contaminated food or water, and possibly of sexual contact with a contaminated person. 11.Ton That Tung, "Herbicides and Defoliants in War," Vietnam Courier, number 18, August-September 1983. 12.N. Clumeck, "Overview of the AIDS Epidemic and its African Connection," International Symposium on African AIDS, Brussels, Belgium, November 22-23, 1985. 13.Mark Whiteside, "Outbreak of No-Identifiable Risk AIDS in Belle Glade, Florida," International Conference on AIDS, Atlanta, Georgia, April 17, 1985. 14.Bill Schaap, "The 1981 Cuba Dengue Epidemic," Covert Action Information Bulletin, number 17, Summer 1982, p. 28. 15.William R. Hess, "African Swine Fever: a Reassessment," Advances in Veterinary Science and Comparative Medicine, vol. 25, 1981, pp. 39-67; and Beldekas, Teas and Hebert, "African Swine Fever Virus and AIDS," Lancet, March 8, 1986, p. 564. 16.Jane Teas, "Could AIDS be a New Variant of African Swine Fever Virus?" Lancet, April 23, 1983, p. 923. 17.It can be stated with absolute certainty that the CIA was responsible for this disaster. See Drew Fetherston, "CIA Linked to 1971 Swine Virus in Cuba," The Washington Post, Sunday, January 9, 1977, p. A2. 18.Jane Teas, "An AIDS Odyssey," New York Native, Dec. 17- 30, 1984, p. 15. 19.Ironically, after the 1979 epidemic in Haiti, USAID led a program of pig extermination in that country. U.S.-raised pigs, fed exclusively with expensive U.S. grain, were then brought in and sold at $100 per pig. The AID program cost $23 million, but only $9 million of it was used to compensate the peasants who had lost approximately $500 million due to the epidemic. 20."Biological Testing Involving Human Subjects by the Department of Defense, 1977," Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, U.S. Senate, March 8 and May 23, 1977, pp. 77-78. 21.John Lauritsen and Hank Wilson, Death Rush: Poppers and AIDS, 1986, Pagan Press. 22.Pearce Wright, "Smallpox Vaccine Triggered AIDS Virus," London Times, May 11, 1987, pp. 1, 18. 23.Piet J. Hagen, Blood: Gift or Merchandise, 1982, Alan R. Liss Publishers. 24.Merck, Sharp and Dohme's business relationship with the Pentagon concerning CBW is explored in Seymour M. Hersh, Chemical and Biological Warfare, 1968, Bobbs-Merrill Publishers. 25.Letter to JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), 1983, vol. 250, p. 3046. --30-- GE Brings Death to Good People By Kevin J. Smith "War's good business, so give your son . . . but I'd rather have my country die for me."- Jefferson Airplane Don't be surprised, despite the rhetoric surrounding the "end" of the Cold War, to find that reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal are trivial. King George Bush, in his pathetic State of the Union Address, proclaimed "30% cuts in military budget-this deep, and no deeper." For years, peace and activist groups have pleaded with the government to halt nuclear proliferation, with negligible results. But a few of these groups, and one in particular, INFACT, recognize that to affect change we must go directly into the belly of the beast- industry itself. In the case of nuclear weapons, we are dealing with a beast of formidable power and influence. This predator without a conscience is the General Electric Corporation. Only two years after its inception in 1894, GE established itself as a major military contractor. GE's secret collaboration with German munitions maker Alfred Krupp, in a notorious price-fixing scandal, greatly aided the development of Hitler's war machine. Krupp was later convicted as a Nazi war criminal while GE, for its nefarious war crimes, received a mere monetary fine. Near the end of World War II, then-GE president Charles Wilson was determined to ensure that the U.S. became entrenched in a permanent war economy. With GE's sales escalating from $340 million before the war to $1.3 billion afterward, it was obvious to merchants of death such as Wilson that war was good business. Maximizing his position as Vice-President of the War Production Board, and subsequent connections to high-ranking government officials, Wilson opposed and overruled the popular decision of conversion to peaceful production. Since that time, General Electric's impressive record includes: production of critical components for more nuclear weapons systems than any other company; a consistent ranking among the top three nuclear weapons manufacturers; number one on the Environmental Protection Agency's list for superfund toxic dump sites (outnumbering even the Pentagon); knowingly and willfully poisoning the environment and the people who work or live near its facilities, with deadly radiation and toxic waste; the intentional release of 7,789 Curies of radioactivity during a secret experiment, approximately double in magnitude of the Chernobyl disaster; a long history of illegal price-fixing and defrauding the government, as well as direct bribes and job extortion; union busting, runaway shops, and plant closures; draconian gag orders designed to intimidate employees from speaking out about the company's routine negligence; a revolving-door policy between government and industry in which high-echelon military officers occupy seats on GE's board of directors; a 150-member Washington lobbying staff which constantly pressures Congress to continue the insane pace of nuclear weapons production; executive memberships in the Business Council, the Business Roundtable, and the Council on Foreign Relations, three organizations commonly recognized to exert considerable leverage over national policy and government decision making; a large research and development unit which strives to create both supply and demand for more nuclear weapons; one of the leading users of Political Action Committee (PAC) financial contributions, securing access to government decision makers in both the legislative and executive branches; leaving the mammoth expense for the environmental havoc it has wreaked squarely upon the shoulders of U.S. taxpayers; and spending upwards of $75 million annually to promote the cynical fabrication that "GE Brings Good Things to Life." Confronted with this staggering list of unethical (some would call it criminal) behavior, it is tempting to say, "They're just too big and powerful. There's nothing I can do." Yet there is something you can do, something very easy yet extremely effective: simply boycott GE and its subsidiary companies. INFACT (INFant Formula ACTion) was formed in 1977, by a group of people who were outraged over the gross negligence of the Nestle Corporation. After manufacturing infant formula which was deemed nutritionally inadequate in the first world, Nestle marketed the exact same formula to developing countries. The result was thousands of infant deaths from a malady now known as "bottle-baby disease." INFACT's ten-nation boycott forced Nestle, the world's largest food corporation, to the bargaining table in 1984. INFACT monitored Nestle for two more years and then established a sister organization which continues to ensure that Nestle complies with World Health Organization guidelines. The boycott and follow- up efforts, besides saving countless more lives, represents the first time in history that a major transnational corporation has been forced solely by consumer pressure to negotiate its conduct. Having blossomed into an international grassroots movement dedicated to stopping the abuses inflicted by transnationals, INFACT's efforts are now being directed against the deadliest and dirtiest business in the world, nuclear weapons. General Electric, because of its massive involvement and influence in the nuclear weapons industry, was selected as the focus of INFACT's campaign. By targeting the industry leader, a strong and uncompromising message is being sent to all such manufacturers that nuclear weapons is a business which the human race neither wants nor can afford to be in. The boycott's success is a crucial step in making this message a concrete and permanent reality. INFACT's four demands of GE are to: 1.Cease production of nuclear weapons; 2.Stop interfering in government decision making on war and peace; 3.Stop all direct marketing and promotion of nuclear weapons; and 4.Implement conversion plans developed in consultation with employees, employee representatives, and affected communities. Despite its stature in the nuclear weapons industry, GE's sales of nuclear weapons accounts for only approximately 12% of its total sales. GE is therefore exceptionally vulnerable to an effective and widespread consumer boycott. Thus far, GE has lost over $160 million in sales, and over $42 million in sales of medical equipment alone. The boycott's influence is evidenced by the fact that GE has quadrupled the amount of money it is spending on public relations. With such a relatively small percentage of GE's profits being derived from nuclear weapons, it might seem ironic that it is so stubborn to change. The answer is simply that its involvement in this particular industry wields it a tremendous amount of ideological power. This power, perhaps even more than money, is the addiction driving GE, and other transnationals, to rape the earth and plunder taxpayers' pockets. An outstanding video, entitled Deadly Deception, which chronicles GE and the INFACT boycott, was recently nominated for an Academy Award. Its nomination represents exponential visibility for the boycott, both in the U.S. and worldwide. It you'd like to obtain the video, or to seek more information about the boycott, contact: INFACT 256 Hanover St., 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02113 (617) 742-4583 Meanwhile, do yourself and your planet a wonderful favor by boycotting GE and its subsidiaries. Tell all your friends to do the same. This is what makes grassroots movements successful. The bottom line is that if we are to perpetuate ourselves as a species, we have no choice. GE Products: GE & Action Light Bulb & Lighting Accessories GE Medical Systems Equipment GE & RCA Consumer Electronics GE Financed Credit Cards GE & Hotpoint Appliances GE Construction Materials GE Capital Kidder, Peabody GEnie Online Computer Service All GE/RCA/Hotpoint products (excluding the RCA record label) --30-- Burning Righteous, But Burning Blind By Robin F. Howard "Race relations in America have undergone fundamental changes in recent years, so much so that now the life chances of individual blacks have more to do with their economic class position than with their day-to-day encounters with whites." This statement, taken from The Declining Significance of Race by William Julius Wilson in 1978, encapsulates the primary conservative premise for dismantling Affirmative Action programs, to enable market deregulation with the stated purpose of allowing market forces to govern the equalizing of race relations. That this would occur is never questioned in conservative treatise; it is simply assumed that Affirmative Action and other such "discriminatory" programs stand in the way of real racial equality. Not only is economic class position largely determined by race, but also merely living in a racist, Eurocentric society is a profound "day-to-day interaction," and cannot be separated from, nor subordinated to, what advantages one might gain by participating in the work force. Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to be marginalized, that is, seasonal, unemployed, or discouraged workers who have no full- time employment. It is the marginalized sector of the black working class that has been blamed for a variety of social ills, including high crime rate, increasing drug abuse, a worsening economy. In addition, they are theoretically responsible for deteriorating American Values because of poor socialization and cultural deviance compounded with personal deficiencies of character. When all combined, the result is the recipe for the myth of the culture of poverty. But, as sociologist Charles Willie reminds us, "such a relationship [between the disinherited and the affluent]...is masked by the affluent as a way of denying that the problem of poverty is, in part, a function of their reluctance or unwillingness to share their privilege." Poverty in this country is especially tragic if one realizes that this country houses extreme poverty and outrageous affluence side by side. Black Americans have borne the brunt of much misfortune handed down through our economic system. Blacks are three times more likely to be extremely poor than whites, so are also three times more likely to have a higher death rate, a shorter life expectancy, a higher infant mortality rate, and a higher material mortality rate. One hears incessantly about the high crime rates in black inner city neighborhoods. But the figures, when representative of the whole population, tell us that, "The association between juvenile delinquency and race tended to disappear when the effects of socioeconomic status were held constant" and "any association between race and juvenile delinquency may be explained by differences in the socioeconomic status and family composition [one or both parents absent] of white and nonwhite populations." Consider, too, that "There is really no relationship between class and actual crime rate," but "the lower the class, the higher the arrest rate, the longer the time spent in jail prior to trial...the higher the conviction rate, and the longer the prison sentence." When a typical street robbery nets approximately $250 and receives, on average, a 133-month (11+ years) sentence, and a typical embezzlement which nets tens of thousands dollars and typically receives a sentence of approximately 21 months, and a full one third of all business failures are due to white-collar crime, I wonder who actually benefits from a criminal justice system that actively perpetuates rather than prevents street crime. That is, since ways of reducing these crimes are not only known and could be implemented, then its perpetuation must serve the interests of a powerful segment of society. It appears that the high visibility of black crime is due to 1) a higher proportion of the lower socioeconomic population being black and other nonwhite peoples, and/or 2) media bias. Daniel Moynihan's highly inflammatory The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, written for the Johnson administration, struck at the heart of mainstream America's insecurities by proclaiming that "Ours is a society which presumes male leadership in private and public affairs. The arrangements of society facilitate such leadership and reward it. A subculture, such as that of the Negro American, in which this is not the pattern, is placed at a distinct disadvantage," and also, "...the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which...seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole...." So, in other words, blacks, more than whites, are more likely to live in female-headed households, and that female contamination will retard the evolution of a society (even though women invented such frivolities as agriculture, writing and the windshield wiper). Who, then, but white males would first "presume male leadership" and then "place" this subculture at a disadvantage? One of the underlying assumptions here is that black single-parent families are a product of promiscuity and irresponsibility. But in fact, as late as 1963 (Moynihan's report was published in 1964), the "greatest contribution to family instability among blacks has been the death of the male spouse rather than divorce or desertion." Counter to Moynihan's assertion that the white dominant culture functions strictly on patriarchal values, a study done in California from 1960-1970 by Middleton and Putney showed that black middle class and working-class couples tend to be egalitarian in decision making and that whites, especially in the middle class were more likely than blacks to be matriarchal. So even if there is a man present, male leadership is not necessarily "presumed." Conservatives such as Thomas Sowell contend that discrimination is discouraged by the market system which, in effect, rewards a business for maintaining a work force at the lowest possible cost, while companies that pay a wage premium for preferred workers thus lower their own profit margin. Studies show that, all else being equal, blacks and whites have unequal access to higher-paying working-class jobs. Economist Thomas Boston states,"blacks have a lower probability of holding [higher-paying] jobs and a higher probability of holding [lower-paying] jobs than do whites-other things being equal," yet Sowell claims "One must be careful to avoid uncritical reliance upon statistical underrep-resentation of minorities as a basis for concluding that discrimination exists." If we attempt to bring racial balance to the various job sectors, "...provisions of [Affirmative Action Programs] can be used as prima facie evidence of reverse discrimination of white males..." so that "employers will be left in the untenable position of having to choose between lawsuits- suits...for failure to establish an...affirmative action plan, or suits...if they are adopted." Clearly, the conservative economic view does not envision even the possibility of raising the standard of living for the entire population because their paradigm is based on competition rather than cooperation. It is a zero-sum game wherein for someone to gain, another must lose, and no motives are without suspicion: "Given the mortality of human beings, often the only compensation for historic wrongs is within the scope of our knowledge and control is purely symbolic compensation-taking from individuals who inflicted no harm and giving to individuals who suffered none." I assert, however, that by simply living in this culture where there is enough for all, but a very few reap any real benefits, and the rest are left to compete vigorously for the crumbs, there is already tremendous suffering in our daily life. Regarding many poor and black Americans, the system starts its abuses in the underfunded hospitals where many are born (or die), continued through the education system, and, failing to make quiet victims of the target populations, the American government harasses and sometimes assassinates its most vocal and effective internal "enemies." When referring to race differences in education, many begin their arguments at the level of SAT scores. The high school level is far too late to start a discussion on the inequities in the educational system. Thomas Sowell, for instance, makes no connection between the overall lower quality of predominantly black public schools, and nowhere addresses the issue of the "white" slant of standardized testing in America or the Eurocentric values taught at most colleges and universities. In his comment "as of 1983, there were less than 600 black students in the entire United States with combined SAT scores of 1200," you'd think that he'd at least perfunctorily examine the underlying reasons for low scores rather than hinting that blacks have no motivation to educate themselves, implying that sloth, not poor elementary and secondary public school education, is to blame for low scores. All this failing to relegate its least desirable populations to silence, the government has used covert tactics to undermine the efforts of individuals to raise the conscience of this society and to improve the living conditions of poor communities. The FBI, in its infamous programs of intimidation, harassment and murder, plied its trade through CO-INTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) throughout the 60s and 70s, and continued many of the same tactics well into the 80s. Its targets were mainly members of black radical and progressive groups, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panther Party. COINTELPRO's stated objectives, as set forth by J. Edgar Hoover, were: 1. to prevent the "coalition of militant black nationalist groups which might be the first step toward a real Mau Mau in America"; 2.to prevent the rise of a "messiah" who could "unify and electrify" the movement, naming Martin Luther King, Jr, Stokely Carmichael and Elijah Mohammad as its leaders; 3. to prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups by pinpointing "potential troublemakers" and "neutralizing" them "before they exercise their potential for violence"; 4. to prevent groups and leaders from attaining respectability by discrediting them to the "responsible Negro community" and to the white community; 5. to prevent long-range growth of these organizations, especially among youth, by developing specific tactics to "preventing these groups from recruiting young people." An FBI document clearly indicates the means by which they intended to enforce these goals: "The Negro youth and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teachings, they will be dead revolutionaries." Other means included assassinations of more than 30 Black Panther Party Leaders, maintaining a target list of 1,879 black activists to be "neutralized," drafting and mailing obscene, racist hate mail and tape recordings to family, friends and supporters of African-American activists, planting embarrassing stories in newspapers, and targeting black elected officials for harassment. Clearly, the government would never allow any real equality to exist. There is ample evidence that, despite market forces, discrimination flourishes. Conservative economists and sociologists will argue, however, that the core of the solution lies not in the correction of past and present discrimination through programs such as Affirmative Action, but in market deregulation so that the rich will feel free to "invest." But the rich are investing in cheaper labor and resources in foreign countries, from which the poor majority of this country do not benefit. The government punishes those citizens who disbelieve its myths. The very framework on which our society is built is racist and the resulting structure reflects that racism. Our government seeks to intimidate political activists, then murder or incarcerate the unintimidated (it is now legal to jail, isolate, and torture someone solely for their political beliefs). Therefore, that race no longer plays the more significant part in the lives of African-Americans, as claimed by the majority of conservatives, is just plain ludicrous. --30-- Feel free to reprint any articles, just include our address. Thankx, The Truth Hurts PO Box 3111 Amherst, MA 01004