From jdav@mcs.comMon Jan 30 10:56:51 1995 Date: Fri, 25 Nov 94 08:39 CST From: James Davis To: pt.dist@umich.edu Subject: People's Tribune (11-28-94) Online Edition ****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 21 No. 48 / November 28, 1994 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: jdav@igc.org ****************************************************************** INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 21 No. 48 / November 28, 1994 FRONT PAGE STORY FOLLOWS INDEX Editorial 1. THE ELECTION RESULTS: WHAT'S NEXT? News 2. THE 'MORALITY' OF A POLICE STATE 3. STUDENTS: 'WE DON'T WANT 187' 4. HOMELESS GROUP OPPOSES 'THREE STRIKES' 5. ELDERLY S.F. TENANTS SAY NO TO EVICTIONS 6. U.S. JUDGE SLAMS HOUSTON POLICE, ORDERS NEW TRIAL OR FREEDOM FOR RICARDO ALDAPE GUERRA 7. COLLEGE STUDENTS FEEL THE EFFECTS OF AMERICA'S ECONOMIC CRISIS 8. ANTI-CANCER ACTIVISTS CONFRONT CORPORATE POLLUTERS 9. WHAT PRICE LIFE? American Lockdown 10. THE HARDENING OF A MAN (POEM) Deadly Force 11. POLICE KILLING SPARKED UPHEAVAL: 'PANCHO'S DEAD, BUT HIS MEMORY INSPIRES US' Welfare for the rich 12. MINING COMPANIES STRIKE IT RICH ON PUBLIC LAND Culture Under Fire 13. THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THANKSGIVING 14. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE +----------------------------------------------------------------+ PAGE 1 STORY WAKING UP AFTER THE ELECTIONS ... The November election results were the most alarming in decades. Candidates openly hostile to the nation's 80 million poor people were swept into office. The Republican Party took control of the U.S. Congress and won governors' races in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, once Democratic strongholds. This change in the nation's politics goes hand-in-hand with the changes in its economy. Using electronics and robotics, the capitalists have ruthlessly slashed employment. They have thrown millions into the streets. As the capitalist class discards whole sections of the population it no longer needs in its workplaces, the two leading parties of that class abandon any claim to represent the interests of those discarded people. >From the politics of "good government," both parties have turned to the politics of punishment. Their promises and programs are filled with attacks on the homeless, the welfare recipients, the elderly and the youth. Today, the permanently unemployed fill the streets. They watch factory orders rise, inventories grow and output and exports increase -- for the capitalists. For those workers who are still employed, wages continue to fall. Factory workers now work a 42- hour work week. Overtime is at record levels. The capitalist class cannot solve this deepening economic, social and political crisis without proposing ever more vicious attacks upon the victims of poverty. The old basis of the economy -- the hiring and employment of human labor -- is being destroyed by the advance of the new form of production: robotics and computers. The solution is for society to reorganize itself around the new, emerging forms of production. The new technology of computers and robots can easily produce enough abundance to end poverty. The new class of dispossessed people being created by this technology -- people of all colors and nationalities -- must organize itself as a class to fight for this goal. We need a system in which the necessities of life are distributed regardless of anyone's ability to pay for them. Fighting for this is what the National Organizing Committee is all about. Join us! +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 1. EDITORIAL: THE ELECTION RESULTS: WHAT'S NEXT? With the Republican Party's almost complete victory in the November 8 election, the 80 million Americans living in poverty are going to be hit with a massive attack. Of course, this assault was already well underway in the current Congress, controlled by the Democrats. This Congress has been only too eager to sacrifice senior citizens, child nutrition programs and federal aid to education on the altar of more prisons, cops and public subsidies to big business. In this election, there was hardly a difference to discern between the twin parties of wealth. Most candidates tried to outdo each other in spending obscene amounts of money, in bashing welfare recipients, immigrants and "gangs" and in echoing the same empty rhetoric, while ignoring the plight of millions of unemployed and homeless people. The Republican National Committee sized up the political situation well, guiding a minority of the eligible voters to the polls while millions of embittered Americans sat this one out. But the new Republican majority in Congress will no more be able to restore job security and educational opportunity or to provide new housing than the now lame-duck Democratic majority has been. That's because the Republicans are tied to the same class of wealthy capitalists as are the Democrats. The twin parties of capital are going to find common cause, going full steam ahead to the destruction of social programs on a scale previously unseen. In response, America's unemployed, her homeless, her hungry -- as well as the rest of society -- dare not fall for the old shell game again. As Congress guts welfare, food stamps, aid to the disabled and the young, a certain section of the Democrats will emerge to counsel us to bide our time, to hunker down and wait for the Democrats to regain control. We have a better idea. It's called taking our country back for ourselves. It's called organizing millions of people for the kind of revolutionary offensive that aims at nothing less than the reconstruction of our country from top to bottom, to remold our country into one which provides the necessaries of life regardless of ability to pay. "The best defense is a good offense." This strategy is as true today as it ever was. We in the National Organizing Committee are committed to such a perspective. The November 8 election showed the bankruptcy of the ruling-class parties which answer our cries with cops and prisons. We need fundamental, revolutionary change. We urge you to join the National Organizing Committee and help bring it about. Call the National Organizing Committee at 312-486-0028 or write to us at P.O. Box 477113, Chicago, Illinois 60647. ****************************************************************** 2. THE 'MORALITY' OF A POLICE STATE By Beth Gonzalez CHICAGO -- The 1994 elections weren't about solutions. Instead, they set a dangerous moral tone for the political debate over what to do about the problems of the day. Poll after poll described the mood of the American people during this election: "We're sick and tired of what you've given us so far -- falling wages and disappearing jobs. We're worried about how we're going to get health care. We're tired of an education system that can't prepare our children for the future, because these kids have no future. We don't trust the government and have no faith in Congress. But we're confused. We don't know why this is happening in the richest country in the world. We don't know the way out of this mess, and we have no idea what we can do about it." In the midst of this confusion, the candidates debated whether our state governments are executing our children fast enough. Each candidate promised to be the fastest in throwing people out of social programs and into prison. They debated whether teachers and doctors should be forced to police the schools and hospitals, turning in immigrant school children and sick people who they say aren't "entitled" to learn and to heal. They are trying to set a standard of morality and they expect the American people to buy it. Their "morality" denies a sick baby medical attention, executes 15-year-olds, closes down schools to open up more prisons. Their "morality" accepts a growing poverty amidst a superabundance of wealth, denying rights and a share of that wealth to one group after another. This is the morality of a police state. None of the programs defined by this "morality" solves anything. Technology -- not the immigrant worker -- is taking away the jobs and lowering the wages. This is a system that gives tobacco companies more protection than it gives to senior citizens. It is this system that is responsible for the destruction spreading throughout our society. But these problems do have solutions. Society has the wealth and technology to solve all the problems facing the American people -- overnight! The only problem is that this system won't allow that. Society can be and has to be reorganized. Those who are being cast aside by the new technology can seize control of the wealth of this country and organize it to satisfy the needs of all the people. No one has to go hungry or be unhealthy with today's technology at hand. This is the solution that defines our morality. What can be done now, in the wake of the 1994 elections? It's time to challenge the media, the politicians and the rulers of this country on morality and their solutions. ****************************************************************** 3. 'WE DON'T WANT 187' Students face arrests, suspensions and rubber bullets as they walk out to protest California's anti-immigrant measure. [Editor's note: Below we print excerpts from comments given to People's Tribune correspondent Dianne Flowers by students in Lynwood, California who walked out of their schools to protest Proposition 187, the measure on the California ballot which would deny health care and education to undocumented immigrants and their children.] ISIDRO OROZCO, Lynwood High, ninth grade: "About 200 students left school in the walkout on November 2. We walked all the way to South Gate. "The cops were shooting rubber bullets into the air. They were telling us to go home. They arrested one boy because he threw a little piece of paper at the police. He didn't even hit them. "Some police came in a van and took 20 or 25 students. We don't know where they took them. "We had two more walkouts after that one." JAVIER OROZCO, Hosler Junior High, eighth grade: "When they do a walkout, [the authorities] take a camera and if they see your face, they suspend you the next day. The cops drive by real fast. When they see you, they step on it. If you don't get out of the way -- bam!" VICTOR GONZALEZ, Hosler Junior High, seventh grade: "When the police started shooting the rubber bullets, the students got scared and started running. They screamed. "When the police started arresting people, the students started running. The police got whoever they could get. You know they're not going to get everybody. Some could hide or run." [The People's Tribune asked these Lynwood students why they kept protesting when they faced being suspended, arrested or struck by rubber bullets. Here is Victor Gonzalez's response:] "Because we don't want 187. It's going to affect the Mexicans. It's going to affect a lot of people. They want to take people off welfare. This could affect blacks, Chinese, whites, many races. It's not fair to have to have documents to get medical care. A lot of people ain't going to have education." ****************************************************************** 4. HOMELESS GROUP OPPOSES 'THREE STRIKES' By Robert Ferrell [Editor's note: Below we reprint an article which originally appeared in the Newsletter of the Atlanta Union of the Homeless (Number 13, September 6.) The "three strikes and you're out" laws require people convicted of three felonies to be sentenced to very long prison terms and often to life imprisonment. On November 8, Georgia passed a ballot measure for sentencing two-time violent felons to life in prison.] ATLANTA -- "Three Strikes, You Are Out!" If you think that this is mainly directed at the minority population, you are entirely missing the boat. Minorities have always been incarcerated whenever and wherever the system has seen fit. [The system] got away with it because they were dealing with mostly minorities, but things have changed dramatically in the past few years. The system has no need for minority or white workers because of automation. Therefore, the system has to find a way to discard what it can no longer exploit for profit. So, why did the ruling class fight so hard to enact these three- strike and two-strike laws? No, it is not aimed at the minorities, but it is directed at the poor whites and the white middle class who will soon become poor whites. They don't need new laws to jail or execute poor minorities because they have traditionally been given longer sentences and executed in larger percentages than whites anyway. Why are these new laws directed toward poor and middle-class whites? Simply because the ruling class has always in the past been able to bribe poor whites with social advantages over other races. But now, [because of automation and robotics,] the ruling class has no use for workers period, be they white or any other color. This new phenomenon is creating a new class of people who are not white or black or Latino or Native American or any other race; the common factor is that they are poor in a country that has the technology to feed, clothe and house the entire world. This makes them a danger to the ruling class which owns all these resources. The ruling class has decided that these ex-workers are a threat and they should not be allowed to organize. We have to be able to discard the old way of thinking that has kept us divided all this time and we have to look at new ways of thinking if we, as a new class of people, are to survive. I know for many of us it will be a hard task to accomplish, but it is absolutely essential to the survival of this new class of people. We must move past those things that have kept us divided in the past so that we can accomplish the common goals of feeding, housing, clothing and providing medical care for this new class of people that this system has discarded because it can no longer exploit them for profit. The People's Tribune urges our readers to contact Robert Ferrell and the Atlanta Union of the Homeless by calling 1-404-230-5000. ****************************************************************** 5. ELDERLY S.F. TENANTS SAY NO TO EVICTIONS By Jack Hirschman SAN FRANCISCO -- You can call them the fighting Casa Costanzo Tenants Association now. They are a group of senior citizens in San Francisco's North Beach who have organized and who on November 3 jammed a City Hall housing committee room to make sure they are never again threatened with eviction. And, moreover, they want their residence hotel put under rent- control ordinance. The Casa Costanza situation has caused a citywide furor. Early in October, the 42 tenants began receiving eviction notices. Most of the tenants are over 50. Many are in their 70s and 80s. The Carina Foundation, which founded the Casa in 1979, intended it as a hotel for low-income Italian-Americans. Last year, a Mexican- American, Felix Medina, applied for residence. When at first Medina was denied, he filed a complaint charging discrimination. When HUD began an investigation, even though Medina was made a resident and has been welcomed by the other tenants, the Carina directors complained that if they would not carry out the foundation's original Italian-only policy, they would close the Casa. And they issued the eviction notices. Actually, as was later revealed, Carina was simply using the HUD investigation as a cover. It had earlier begun giving up on the Casa because it was losing money. In any event, the tenants fought back. "I'm not leaving," said a feisty Mario Luppi. "They'll have to carry me out in shackles." The little Casa, overlooking picturesque Washington Square Park, has become the center of media attention. It stands in the shadow of the International Hotel. It was from the International Hotel, in 1977, that many elderly tenants were physically evicted and brutalized in what remains one of the most shameful acts of police terror in modern San Francisco history. The Casa tenants formed their own association with the guiding help of Ted Gullickson of the Tenants Union, and other community activists. Meanwhile, under pressure on all sides, Carina on October 24 announced that the foundation was withdrawing its eviction notices. But at the same time, it announced that it has no funds to continue the Casa. Thus, like it or not, with nothing standing between themselves and the actual owners of the land, a family trust that had been leasing the property to Carina, the tenants could face eviction down the road, or huge increases in their $100 to $296 monthly rents. Unless, of course, they fight. And that's exactly what the new Casa Costanzo Tenants Association is doing down at City Hall. And also thinking about taking the Casa over themselves and running it cooperatively and not for profit. And there are a hell of a lot of people all over pulling for them. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ CASA COSTANZO By Jack Hirschman In the shadow of the International Hotel cops went flailing, clubbing 70 & 80-year-old men and women protesting the evictions of other seniors on a 1977 night of awful police brutality. We not only swore at the police, we swore that never again would mothers and fathers who'd worked and birthed and constructed our dreaming futures have to suffer eviction and humiliation in this land of bilk and money. Now we want the tenants of Casa Costanzo never to experience the fate of being thrown into the street. And let the place be rent-controlled, and let that send a message everywhere the poor or maimed and vulnerable try to survive: we can change the rules and put the laws of the human heart before the pocket and come back to our long lost selves alive. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 6. U.S. JUDGE SLAMS HOUSTON POLICE, ORDERS NEW TRIAL OR FREEDOM FOR RICARDO ALDAPE GUERRA By Allen Harris HOUSTON -- More than 12 years after Ricardo Aldape Guerra was unjustly sentenced to die for killing a Houston cop, a federal judge has reversed the conviction, set aside the death sentence and ordered that Aldape either get a new trial in 30 days or be freed. U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt issued the 45-page opinion on November 15. Aldape's case, closely followed here and around the world, dates from 1982, when he was arrested following the shooting death of a Houston police officer. Aldape has always maintained his innocence. His trial was a travesty of justice. Attorney Maria Elena Castellanos called the ruling "a tremendous victory for millions of innocent, hard-working immigrants in this country, as well as for prisoners' rights groups, and anti-death penalty groups." All eyes now must turn to the state of Texas, in particular to the attorney general, Dan Morales. He has until December 15 to make one of three choices: free Aldape, order a new trial or appeal Hoyt's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Castellanos, an organizer for the National Organizing Committee and the Binational Network Against the Death Penalty, urged all supporters and concerned people to pressure the attorney general NOT to appeal this ruling. Call Texas governor Ann Richards at 512-463-2000. Call Texas attorney general Dan Morales at 512-463-2191. Send faxes to the Binational Network Against the Death Penalty at 713-650-9620. ****************************************************************** 7. COLLEGE STUDENTS FEEL THE EFFECTS OF AMERICA'S ECONOMIC CRISIS By Christine Verdon and Jason Foust BALTIMORE -- College campuses have throughout history been a breeding ground for revolutionary thought and activity. Students have protested great injustices by fighting to bring about change in a system which delivers very little to those who combat it. The current reality of higher education is that, for a growing number of students, completing college is becoming a most difficult, if not impossible, task and that the college environment in general rejects those willing to oppose the status quo. Even those who are able to successfully complete college and obtain a degree face a job market that will not ensure a means to provide even the barest necessities. It's well known that the cost of attending college has skyrocketed over the past decade or so. In the past, parents have been able to afford the cost of sending their children to college. Students could expect to graduate with little or no debt and find meaningful jobs relatively quickly. Today, those students who can even afford to start college may end up swamped in debt after a year or so. Those who receive financial aid may receive enough funds to pay tuition, but that doesn't help pay for rent, food, books, etc. Many college students are forced to take a smaller amount of credits in order to find one or several part-time jobs. Therefore, they may spend five or six years to earn a so-called four-year degree. In the meantime, so many hours are spent at low-paying jobs that there is little or no time to study. The result is that students either receive poor grades or are forced to withdraw early from classes and receive no credit. Often, they'll retake a course the next semester. In this case, colleges and universities are profiting by double-dipping into the pockets of those students who have no or few choices but to spend more time and money completing their course work because they didn't have enough money in the first place. For many students, these factors have become an accepted norm. But what else can we do? We're told that without a college degree, we can expect little from the job market. We hear that "times are tough all over" or "if you want something, you have to work hard for it." But it's obvious that only the rich and powerful are receiving quality education. The Chicago Sun-Times reported in June on the widening gap in education: "Middle-class youths, especially the upper fourth of society, are doing quite nicely. "There is a chasm, however, between them and the rest of America's students. ... The kids getting left behind are the blue-collar and working near-poor." The question is clear: What can the government gain by educating poor people? Ignorance fosters weakness. It's no secret that knowledge is a powerful weapon. By denying education to the poor, the government ensures that power stays in the hands of those who serve its interests: the wealthy. ****************************************************************** 8. ANTI-CANCER ACTIVISTS CONFRONT CORPORATE POLLUTERS By Cassandra SAN FRANCISCO -- For the first time, the cancer movement here united to confront corporate polluters who are responsible for their illness. They also confronted the cancer establishment for its conspiracy of silence. At noon on October 26, more than 50 women gathered in downtown San Francisco in front of the Chevron corporate office. Joining them were environmental activists from the West County Toxic Coalition, Calprig and Greenpeace. These women with cancer, their supporters, and people of color who are fighting environmental racism, led a "cancer industry tour of downtown San Francisco," targeting five sites: Chevron, Time magazine, the Bechtel Corporation, the American Cancer Society and the Environmental Protection Agency. Chevron produces enormous poundage of toxic air pollutants each year. Time purchases chlorine-bleached paper even though chlorine- free paper is available. Chlorine-bleached paper produces dioxin, a potent carcinogen. Bechtel has built half the world's nuclear power plants. Women who live near nuclear power plants account for 55 percent of breast cancer deaths. Protests were also held at the American Cancer Society and the EPA. The American Cancer Society has not supported efforts such as the Clean Air Act, yet has cash reserves and holdings of over one billion dollars in real estate. The EPA has been slow to support Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts. Demonstrators carried signs with the names of people, many of them parents or other loved ones, who have died of cancer. Others signs declared "Stop cancer where it starts," "Prevention is the only cure" and "It is Time for prevention" (aimed at Time magazine). The massive police presence at the demonstration surprised cancer survivors and environmental activists, who were surrounded and "escorted" during the whole cancer industry tour. This display of armed police power at a peaceful protest both protected private property (cops lined up in front of each targeted building), and was an attempt to discourage the people's solidarity and frighten those passing by. Demonstrators couldn't fail to make the connection between the corporate system that's killing us, the agencies that protect these corporations, and the growing development of a police state in this country. Cassandra is the pen name of a cancer survivor who is an activist and a writer, and a member of the Culture Committee of the National Organizing Committee in San Francisco. ****************************************************************** 9. WHAT PRICE LIFE? By Naomi Sturtivan LOUISVILLE, Kentucky -- Homeless people have a deep and massive anger inside. It's as fatal as cancer. Hiding right under the surface, waiting for the spark that ignites it into a killing fire. Some of us hold the anger in check -- mostly! A flare-up of words is about all we do when another injustice is added to our already overwhelming burden. A person can only carry just so much psychic baggage. That's when living on the streets also becomes our killing fields. Ignite the wrong person's fire, and he will kill. A young man, living on the streets, lost his life. The price? One cigarette. An argument over one cigarette, and he lost! No one was sorry. No one had a word of sympathy. Why? Because we witness these acts of violence. Because we know the dangers of living on the streets. Because we know that it could have been any one of us. Because we know about the inner rage and how fast it can be triggered! Another man pushed his way into the food line in front of the wrong person. He died! The price of his life? A plate of donated, outdated food that was in plentiful supply. Many homeless people think bucking the line is funny, a part of the game. They don't want to take their fair turn. But not taking their fair turn adds more fuel to the fire of the burning rage within us, growing stronger. I feel, very strongly, the anger on the streets. I see short tempers everywhere. We find ourselves in the deep pit of homelessness and are unable to get out. I feel my own anger turning to rage, and I'm the most nonviolent person I know. Injustices used to seem to me to be like a thorn on a tree. I felt I had good job skills. I am a survivor. I could get off the street. I didn't, and I can't without a lot of help. Now I feel as if the whole forest if falling on me. I don't want to be nice anymore. I can't afford it. I don't enjoy life anymore -- if street life can be called having a life. It's more like having an existence. My joy and my life were taken from me. Just like that. Gone! We have become immune to each other's pain for the most part. I see people turning their heads and their hearts from homeless people walking in a cold rain without a coat or a bedroll. I can't justify their feelings. I've never not cared. Social agencies go by a calendar date instead of the temperature in dispensing coats and sleeping bags. It doesn't seem to matter that it's obvious that we are cold and suffering now. Pile some more fuel on the raging flame. What price life -- indeed! ****************************************************************** 10. THE HARDENING OF A MAN (POEM) By James Michael Briddle #711, Death Row, Huntsville, Texas The taking of a boy at an early age; Stripping away the innocence and instilling Hate and Rage. Taking him away from his mom and dad; Locking him in a cell and driving him mad. With the promise they'll make him a better man; They start working on the Ultimate Plan. Yes, it's working their ultimate plan; The taking of a boy and making a Hardened Man. The tenderness subsiding, the hatred setting in; And the bitter coldness striking deep within. Sending him home to his mom and dad; Knowing he'll be back as they've driven him mad. That's just the beginning not even close to the end; And before it's over his mind they will bend. Recreating an element born to concrete and steel; Infesting him with a sickness no hands can heal. Until there's no little boy, nor even a man; Just an empty mass of bitterness by way of the ultimate plan!!! ****************************************************************** 11. DEADLY FORCE: POLICE KILLING SPARKED UPHEAVAL: 'PANCHO'S DEAD, BUT HIS MEMORY INSPIRES US' +----------------------------------------------------------------+ "Deadly Force" is a weekly column dedicated to exposing the scope of police terror in the United States. We open our pages to you, the front line fighters against brutality and deadly force. Send us eyewitness accounts, clippings, press releases, appeals for support, letters, photos, opinions and all other information relating to this life and death fight. Send them to People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Ill. 60654, or call (312) 486- 3551. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ By Anthony D. Prince SANTA FE, New Mexico -- It's hard to judge what kind of kid "Cheto" Chavez was before the cops killed his older brother. Francisco "Pancho" Ortega, 27 -- distraught, wielding a steak knife, threatening nobody but himself and, as his mother puts it, "crying out for help" -- was cut down in a hail of police gunfire on the eve of the Fourth of July, 1993. Fifteen months later, the city is still reeling from what amounted to the angry "declaration of independence" that followed. I was in town for the Fourth National Conference on Police Accountability and as we sat down to talk, 17-year-old Aniceto "Cheto" Chavez had his pencil and paper with him because he likes to draw. In fact, one of his teachers told him to do all his lessons in picture form. "The cops are the ones who label everybody," says Cheto. "They're trying to ban the kids from going to the downtown area, pushing us out to make room for the gallerias and shops on the West Side. It was the kids who got together after Pancho died." Suddenly, a gust of desert wind blows Cheto's latest artistic creation to the ground. He scrambles to pick it up. It means a lot to him. So did his big brother. So do all the people of New Mexico who, as he puts it, "have been harassed forever" and who stood up when Pancho was taken down. The next night, I would join Cheto and almost 100 other conference participants in a candlelight memorial parade through the downtown streets where trendy little boutiques and high-priced restaurants have replaced the people who once called this area home. "This used to be the kind of neighborhood where everybody cared, where we shared firewood," recalls Roberta Vigil, Pancho's mother, a leading figure in the fight against police brutality, now living in a trailer on the edge of town. "That's the real meaning of this march." Community activist Don Brayfield puts into perspective the dramatic confrontation at City Hall that followed Pancho's death and led to a major political shakeup and a new chief of police. "This death came to symbolize that Santa Fe had changed," he writes in Puntos de Vista, a local publication. "It has become a city of 'haves' and 'have-nots,' divided by economic class and ethnic heritage." Andres Valdez, a leader of New Mexico's Vecinos United, points out that Pancho's killer, Officer Tom Lujan, now works for the sheriff's office in nearby Bernalillo. "The problem is not isolated to Santa Fe," he says. For 17-year-old Cheto, the most significant change here has been the attitude of those on the receiving end of police abuse. "They [the cops] still harass us, but now the people are backing themselves up. Now, if they're pulled over and beat up, they realize they don't have to take it." That's the kind of kid Cheto has become. He's like many of the young men and women who are getting a real civics lesson in the streets. "Pancho's dead, but his memory inspires us." ****************************************************************** 12. MINING COMPANIES STRIKE IT RICH ON PUBLIC LAND By Leslie Willis CHICAGO -- Looks like homeless people will once again walk the winter streets, denied access to empty HUD homes and abandoned army barracks. If they owned a mining company, however, they could exploit public land for practically nothing. It's true. The U.S. Interior Department charges no rent or royalties to large mining companies who dig out the natural resources from public lands. In Nevada, the American Barrick Resources Corporation has mined $8.75 billion worth of gold on property owned by the American people. We only spend $15 billion on Aid to Families with Dependent Children! So this chunk of gold is worth more than half what our government trickles down to the millions of deprived kids in our country. This legal pirating of public land is widespread. For the year 1988, the General Accounting Office reported that 20 land titles to public land worth up to $48 million were transferred to private companies for less than $4,500. No doubt, you could get a piece of this action too, if you gave $1.1 million to politicians and political campaigns, like the mining industry did this year. If we can give away billions in gold, why is the newly elected Congress preparing to demolish what's left of puny entitlement programs for the needy? It's welfare for the rich that needs to go onto the chopping block, not the impoverished masses. ****************************************************************** 13. THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THANKSGIVING By Leslie Marmon Silko [Editor's note: Below we print an article about the meaning of Thanksgiving Day written for the People's Tribune and our bilingual sister publication, the Tribuno del Pueblo, by one of America's most acclaimed novelists. Leslie Marmon Silko is the author of Almanac of the Dead, Ceremony, Storyteller and Laguna Woman.] TUCSON, Arizona -- Hunger stalked the tribal people of the Southwest even into the 20th century, when the U.S. government imprisoned the people for refusing to send their small children away to boarding schools. With a critical part of their work force in jail, the remaining people could not give the corn and bean plants all the care that was necessary; the crops failed and the people starved. U.S. government policies still cause people to go hungry, on and off Indian reservations. A child who wasted food was sternly admonished, and the old stories were told about drought years and starvation. Before anyone at the dinner table would take a bite, everyone would silently give thanks to all of the animal and plant beings that had given themselves to human beings to stop the hunger. A small pottery bowl was passed around the table at the same time, and the smallest child was encouraged to take small pinches from the food on her plate to "feed" to the spirits of beloved family members. No meal is ever eaten without first saying thanks. No person, no stranger who arrived at meal time was ever refused, even if everyone else had a bit less on their plates, because the sharing of food is a fundamental expression of humanity. Hungry animals eat first and allow others to feed only when they have filled themselves; even mother coyotes or mother hawks swallow the food first and regurgitate later. To share one's food is to demonstrate one's humanity. So each meal at Laguna was an occasion for thanksgiving, and each meal was shared with everyone, even strangers. Long ago, when the Navajo and Apache people first migrated south, they had a difficult time adapting to the weather and the terrain. The Pueblo people did what they could to help the newcomers learn the ways of the land, but some years the Navajos had meager harvests and then they would face starvation. At first, the starving people would make raids to steal food from the Pueblo storehouses. No one would be killed or injured in the raids, but the Pueblo villages would be terribly upset, and the people would have to send out parties of warriors to try to recover the lost food or livestock. My great-grandmother was so proud of the way the people solved this crisis. Her grandfather and the other men from Laguna managed to catch up with the Navajo raiders because the raiders were trying to flee with a herd of sheep. The raiders were some older men and a couple of boys, and when the party from Laguna stopped them, the raiders expected to get roughed up. The Lagunas asked the raiders why they had stolen the sheep, and the raiders said that back at their home, the people were starving to death and they didn't know what else to do. The Laguna party separated four sheep from the herd, and told the raiders to take them, and next time, when the people were hungry, just to come and ask for food, and the Lagunas would give them some. Thus, during the summer months and at harvest time, the Pueblo people still celebrate "feast days" when thanks are given to the spirits for the food, and Navajos, Apaches, and other people outside the pueblos are welcome. During the feast days, strangers must be invited to sit down and eat at any house the stranger may come to. Over the years, friendships developed between certain individuals and gifts were exchanged. One of the saddest times during the months after my Grandpa Hank died came at Laguna feast time, when the old Navajo man from Alamo who was Grandpa's friend asked for Grandpa. The old man wept when he learned Grandpa was dead. Once a year, the United States celebrates "Thanksgiving" and traces the day back to the year the starving Pilgrims were fed by the Indians who, no doubt, realized that hungry Pilgrims, like all hungry human beings, might be dangerous. It isn't great spirituality or generosity but simple intelligence that says that when some are well-fed and some are hungry, the hungry people must be fed; otherwise, there can be no peace or security for those with the food. It is interesting that the old pagan European celebration of "All Hallow Even" is celebrated in the United States only a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Ancient Europeans had to feed the spirits of their dead ancestors and the living who were hungry enough to masquerade as dead souls; and if they didn't feed them, they expected reprisals; thus the saying "Trick or treat." Every day in the United States should be "Thanksgiving" Day, with baskets of food and turkey dinners for the hungry. Otherwise, every night in the United States might be "Trick or Treat," and it won't just be hungry ghosts of ancestors playing the tricks. ****************************************************************** 14. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, published weekly in Chicago, is devoted to the proposition that an economic system which can't or won't feed, clothe and house its people ought to be and will be changed. To that end, this paper is a tribune of the people. It is the voice of the millions struggling for survival. It strives to educate politically those millions on the basis of their own experience. It is a tribune to bring them together, to create a vision of a better world, and a strategy to achieve it. Join us! Editor: Laura Garcia Publisher: National Organizing Committee, P.O. 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