From jdav@mcs.comMon Jan 30 10:57:24 1995 Date: Wed, 21 Dec 94 09:32 CST From: James Davis To: pt.dist@umich.edu Subject: People's Tribune 12-26-94 (Online Edition) ****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 21 No. 52 / December 26, 1994 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: jdav@igc.org ****************************************************************** INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 21 No. 52 / December 26, 1994 Page One 1. SOCIAL SECURITY THREATENED Editorial 2. SUPREME COURT RULING PUTS RIGHTS AND PUBLIC IN GREAT DANGER News 3. ENCRYPT NOW AND AGITATE! 4. RADIO HATEMONGER CALLS FOR KILLING THE HOMELESS: FLOOD HIS STATION WITH PROTEST! 5. RALEIGH, NC: NEW 'CHRISTMAS CAROL' WILL FOCUS ON HOMELESS 6. HOMELESS GROUP OCCUPIES S.F. BUILDING 7. THE SAFETY NET: IS THE END NEAR? 8. NEW CONGRESS GOES (PORK) BARRELIN' ALONG 9. IRISH-AMERICAN GROUP CONDEMNS CALIFORNIA'S PROPOSITION 187 10. ALDAPE GUERRA TO GET NEW TRIAL OR FREEDOM! American Lockdown 11. TEXAS PRISON GUARDS CHARGED WITH MURDER Deadly Force 12. NO TO SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS FOR THE S.F. POLICE! Culture Under Fire 13. MUSICAL ALLIANCE MEETS IN THE MOTOR CITY 14. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE ****************************************************************** 1. PAGE 1 STORY: SOCIAL SECURITY THREATENED U.S. CONGRESS DEBATES CHANGING THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM A REAL REVOLUTION IS UNDERWAY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, AS MORE AND MORE PEOPLE DECIDE TO FIGHT THE CUTS AND THE POLITICIANS PROPOSING THEM. Peace on Earth, good will toward men. That's what the holiday season is supposed to be about. That's what millions pray for. So why are we threatened by our government instead? The new leaders of the U.S. Congress told us months ago that they intend to cut programs benefiting the neediest people in this country. Now they're talking openly about changing the Social Security system. Having paid into the system all their lives, Americans expect Social Security to be there for them when they retire. As meagre as the retirement payments are, Social Security is the only thing standing between many people and life in the street. For years, ruling-class politicians have manipulated the Social Security fund. They've used it for purposes it was never intended for, such as paying the general bills of the government and hiding the true size of the deficit, leaving us with a multibillion- dollar IOU. Now they want to make us pay for this thievery! Some people made the mistake of believing that the cuts in entitlement programs would be directed only at welfare mothers and their children (as if that wasn't bad enough). Now it's clear that the cuts will hurt a much broader section of the population. If the spirit of this holiday season is to have real meaning, thinking people must decide that once-a-year charity is not a solution to poverty in a land of abundance. Cutting benefits is intolerable at any time of the year. Today, the same technology that eliminates jobs under this economic system could eliminate poverty under a different one. A real revolution is underway this holiday season, as more and more people decide to fight the cuts and the politicians proposing them. As a new year begins, we are looking for some stars of hope. We need individuals ready to fight for the humanity they believe in. Join the People's Tribune and the National Organizing Committee and help develop the plans necessary to end this suffering. ****************************************************************** 2. EDITORIAL: SUPREME COURT RULING PUTS RIGHTS AND PUBLIC IN GREAT DANGER 'Why do so many of our children die this way?' -- Mary Lou Redd of Chicago, whose unarmed neighbor, Jason Collins, 16, was shot and killed by police. You might not think a U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning the use of police deadly force is relevant to you. You may choose to ignore the court's finding that cops can now shoot to kill a fleeing person who has been placed under arrest, even if he is unarmed and not considered dangerous. On December 5, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling stated that the due process rights of Roland Brothers Jr. of Texas were not violated in November 1988, when Harris County sheriffs fired 12 shots at the alleged car thief. You could say that this decision does not matter to you. But you would be wrong, dead wrong. Ask Brenda Jackson of Chicago. Her husband was killed in a head-on collision with another vehicle pursued by police on the wrong side of an expressway. Or talk to Sharon Parker. She nearly lost her life when police in Crystal Lake, Illinois fired a fusillade of bullets into the window of a car that she and her boyfriend (unknown to her, a fleeing ex-felon) were in. And these incidents happened before the December 5 court ruling. Now, as the restraints on police deadly force are further loosened, there will be more people like Parker and Jackson, more who will be placed at risk right alongside the "pretrial arrestees" who, according to the court, give up all protections against "unreasonable seizure" once they're under arrest. In upholding the actions of the Harris County sheriffs, the nation's highest court refused to extend its own 1985 decision that struck down a Tennessee "fleeing felon" law. At that time, the court ruled that police may not shoot fleeing criminal suspects who pose no immediate danger. Now, in the Brothers case, the court has declared that that decision doesn't apply once a person is under arrest. Now the police will be able to be the legal judge, jury and executioner so long as they report the victim was "in custody." An arrest used to be the first step in due process. Now, it could be the last. With this decision, it should be clear that no legal authority is going to intervene to halt the mounting use of deadly force in this country. By all means necessary, that job falls to those against whom police power is increasingly directed: the poor, the young, the oppressed, the striking worker, the homeless, and -- oh, yes -- those who believe that our rights don't end at the tip of the billy club or the barrel of a 9mm police special. ****************************************************************** 3. ENCRYPT NOW AND AGITATE! DONŐT LET THE GOVERNMENT CONTROL ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS By Stephen De La Rosa November 10, 1997: "They came into our home in the beginning of late night. Our family was all tucked in for the evening ... lost in dreams, visiting other worlds. "Until the hammers fell. "I first heard them breaking our slumber at the front door; then, a half-second later, they breached the rear door and the French door. ... "They rushed in like a cold wind upon a wet back. We heard them at once. We met at the landing outside of our bedrooms. Fear was upon the faces of my normally invincible teen-agers. Terror was in my mind and heart. "Our home had quickly filled up with intruders. I had no time to grab my weapon. No time to mount any defense for my children. In they came -- uniformed and armed and with a mission. ... "... They systematically confiscated the entire contents of our library. Computers and hardware is what they were most interested in. I realized then why they were there. I had sent out, that very evening, a call through the Internet for nonviolent civil disobedience to protest the arrest of yet another private citizen who chose to use encryption. ... "Our arrest as an entire family proved that the government would stop at nothing to halt the use of private encryption techniques." -- Memoirs From the American Disappeared Ones B.A. Reader Since December 15, 1791, American citizens have enjoyed the protection of the Bill of Rights. Two hundred and three years later, these same laws are being attacked by descendants of the same forces which fought against their passage originally. Those without a sense of justice will not hesitate to make encryption illegal. Encryption is a numerical process designed to code and encrypt private electronic communications. The phone company uses encryption daily with cellular calls placed from the family sedan. Using "hardware" (the physical realm of the electronic world) and "software" (the ethereal), we as American citizens have the ability to protect our families, homes and businesses. The government wants to change this. It wants private citizens to be thought of as potential enemies, just like the Japanese who were interned unlawfully during World War II. On February 4, 1994, a government plan was introduced called the Digital Telephony bill. (See the letter from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc. dated February 7, 1994.) This bill is aimed at making telephone and computer networks "wiretap friendly." At the same time, the Clipper chip standard was introduced. The Clipper chip is designed to scramble all electronic messages sent using telephones, faxes, computer modems and cellular phones into a secret code that only our government could decipher. This standard gives our government the keys to all our private lives. If you think, as I do, that our government has gone too far, then you have but one choice: Encrypt now and encrypt often. Encrypt with the strongest program that you can find. Former FBI Director William French Smith stated: "Without this initiative, the government will eventually become helpless to defend the nation from terrorism and other threats ... that can be interdicted ... by lawful electronic surveillance." Our FBI has a history of invading the privacy of American citizens. This type of spying needs to end. The FBI has no right to call for more powers to invade our domestic life. What William French Smith neglected to mention is that with the passage of these bills, the American standard of justice would be altered to presume that an accused person is guilty, instead of being innocent until proven guilty. The Digital Telephony bill and the Clipper chip bill stand for government supremacy and spying on people. Our time to act is running short. We must enlist allies to fight this assault on our freedom. Today, more than 838 commercially available cryptographic software products are being sold in 33 different countries around the globe. (See "The Secret Sharers: Clipper Chips and Cypherpunks" by Dan Lehrer in the October 10, 1994 edition of The Nation.) The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a statement on "Public Policy for the Information Age" on November 1, 1993. "Without strong cryptography," the statement said, "no one will have the confidence to use computer communication networks to conduct business, to engage in commercial transactions electronically, or to transmit sensitive personal information." The national banking system has been using encryption for over two decades to transfer money and data around the world. One of the largest cryptographic companies in the United States, RSA Data of Redwood City, California, claims to have sold more than five million units of its encryption software in 1994. RSA has licensed its ciphering products to major companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Novell and Lotus. These companies will be economically disadvantaged if Clipper becomes law. The actions of these computer giants must be followed closely. If they remain strongly opposed to government controls, we can count on the computer giants as allies. If, however, they strike a bargain with the powers that be (in the interests of corporate greed and government contracts), then all bets are off. This would declare Big Business to be squarely on the side of government and hostile to the rights of private citizens. What can we do to prevent this scenario from happening? Encrypt data and agitate for the defeat of these attacks on our rights. We need to organize resistance to the plans of bureaucrats who want to make America into a closed society where the government is supreme. We must devise new and stronger devices to protect our electronic transmissions. We must encrypt now because these unknown enemies will come and consume us in the night when we are seemingly safe in the arms of those we love. Join organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation who are dedicated to preserving the Bill of Rights through the use of electronic media. Talk to your neighbors and be prepared, for we will be challenged to be citizens! [This article was adapted from a longer original version by Chris Mahin of the People's Tribune Editorial Board.] ****************************************************************** 4. RADIO HATEMONGER CALLS FOR KILLING THE HOMELESS: FLOOD HIS STATION WITH PROTEST! By Jan Lightfoot HINCKLEY, Maine -- One o'clock in the morning is not an hour for hate -- or is it? That's when Emiliano Lamon, a California radio personality on KFI radio, had a less-than-divine revelation. Lamon failed to disguise his hate for other humans. He asserted his revelation came to him on his way to work last July 9. It was: Putting the homeless to sleep like stray dogs. The Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness decided to take action against the call to genocide. The coalition staged two protests outside KFI's studios. Lamon never apologized or publicly recanted his remarks. KFI didn't make equal time for opposing comments. In fact, at a meeting on September 29 with the coalition, KFI's general manager said, "It was not a matter of right or wrong. It is a matter of ratings." The education and advocacy group, now 10 years old, has asked for a nationwide flood of letters from the homeless, from advocates and others outraged by this blatant bigotry against the poor and the homeless. In response, the Homeless Crisis Hotline here in Maine sent KFI a copy of a September 1994 article which appeared in Catholic Digest about a homeless guy named Michael Dennis of New Orleans. He saved the lives of two elderly crash victims, removing them from their fiery vehicle. Written on it was simply: "These are two people who are delighted the homeless are not put to sleep like dogs." We must fight overt and covert hate with knowledge and facts. Many enemies of the poor disguise their hate. Disguised hate needs to be fought as hard as hate that's in plain view. We must educate the public to the real facts. Write to KFI Radio General Manager Howard Neal, 610 S. Ardmore, Los Angeles, California 90005. Phone: 213-251-3103. Send copies to the Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness, 1010 S. Flower, Suite 216, Los Angeles, California 90015. Call Bob Erlenbush at 213-746-6511 for additional information. ****************************************************************** 5. RALEIGH, NC: NEW 'CHRISTMAS CAROL' WILL FOCUS ON HOMELESS [Editor's note: The following is excerpted from a press release from Home Street Home.] RALEIGH, North Carolina -- Home Street Home is holding a charity event on December 25 in Raleigh, North Carolina to help set the agenda for the 1995 White House Conference on Aging. The play "Christmas Carol" will be performed at the event. The old A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens will be updated for our time to depict the true picture of what is happening in our society today. The focus of "Christmas Carol" is homelessness. "This is a topic of great concern and interest to everyone," said Mary Uebelgunne, who is chair of the planning committee for the event. "An outgrowth of our charity event will be a report that will be sent to the planners of the White House Conference on Aging. We will include in our report suggestions for consideration in setting national aging policy over the next decade." The upcoming "Christmas Carol" has been officially recognized by the White House as a White House Conference on Aging activity. Mary Uebelgunne said, "President Clinton has emphasized grassroots involvement in planning the White House Conference on Aging." The purpose of the conference, to be held in May 1995, is to produce policy recommendations that will guide national aging policy. The activity being planned across the country to give input on this policy will culminate in the May 1995 White House Conference on Aging. ****************************************************************** 6. HOMELESS GROUP OCCUPIES S.F. BUILDING By Michael Steinberg SAN FRANCISCO -- The homeless advocacy group Homes Not Jails took over an empty six-story apartment building at 250 Taylor Street in San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day. As thousands of hungry and homeless people awaiting free holiday dinners from adjacent Glide Memorial Church looked on from a block-long line on Ellis Street, four members of Homes Not Jails entered and occupied the vacant building at high noon. The media gathered at Glide rushed across the street to record the event while occupiers flung open windows and hung colorful banners as supporters chanted "Homes not jails!" This building had been empty since 1988, following the eviction of all its low-income tenants by landlord Robert Imhoff of Landmark Realty. The San Francisco Rent Board ruled the evictions illegal and referred them to the district attorney's office, but Imhoff has never been prosecuted. Imhoff is considered to be the city's worst slumlord by many housing advocates. He owns property valued at over $20 million, but is infamous for refusing to fix up dilapidated, overpriced rental units and is chronically delinquent in paying property taxes, including those for 250 Taylor Street. This Thanksgiving was the fourth time Homes Not Jails has publicly occupied 250 Taylor Street. Over its two-year history, Homes Not Jails has carried out over a dozen successful occupations of abandoned buildings across the city to highlight the problem of empty buildings sitting uselessly while thousands suffer homelessness on the streets. The last U.S. Census found 6,500 abandoned units in San Francisco. Estimates of the city's homeless population are in excess of 10,000. Besides its public takeovers, Homes Not Jails is constantly seeking out abandoned properties and opening them up with and for homeless people. Hundreds of such buildings have been made available in this way to people without homes. Homes Not Jails has also authored legislation that would empower the city government to seize abandoned residential properties and allow homeless people to fix them up as their own. This legislation was introduced over six months ago, but thus far San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has failed to act on it. While legislators fiddle, and Mayor Jordan and the San Francisco Police Department attack the homeless, Homes Not Jails continues to provide a positive, direct solution to the problem of homelessness. Despite the social misery abounding in these dark days, actions like those of Homes Not Jails can still light things up. And for that we can all be thankful. ****************************************************************** 7. THE SAFETY NET: IS THE END NEAR? By Leslie Willis Few welfare rights leaders were surprised by the November election results or by the increasingly ugly tone of the welfare reform debate in Congress. "It's nothing new. It's just more extreme," was a typical response, from Deb Konechne of the Welfare Rights Committee and Up & Out of Poverty Now! in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The terms of this debate have moved steadily rightward since the Reagan years. Extreme "reform" ideas are turning into hard copy like the "Contract with America" and the "Personal Responsibility Act." The think tanks' notion of creating orphanages for children whose parents are alive but poor is now being discussed seriously in Congress. Programs embraced by millions of Americans, such as the school lunch program, the Women, Infants and Children program and even the food stamp program, have become fodder for the political cannons on Capitol Hill. As the battle dust settles in Washington, the march will continue down the road toward ending all entitlement programs. Our representatives may differ on how fast to march, but not on the destination. Stopping this march is the task not just of revolutionaries and social activists but of all humanitarians. What will cutting food programs mean? Today, five million children under the age of 12 go hungry at some point each month. More than 10 percent of the population survives on food stamps. The welfare reform debate is being waged on the backs of the poor. The November election set the terms for this debate by linking welfare recipients and immigrants with crime and job loss. Accepting an ideology that says that no one has a right to anything means destroying the safety net for all Americans, not just those presently on welfare. Jobs will not be created by denying food, health care, education and housing to people. Crime will not be stopped by executing and imprisoning more people than any other country in the world. Throwing people off welfare after two years will crowd the already bombed-out city streets with destitute women and children, easy pickings for the booming prison industry. The People's Tribune unites with all those fighting for a completely different future. We believe that the contradiction of living in a country that has so much wealth, that is truly the land of plenty, while the ills of poverty increase must be (and will be) resolved, not in favor of a handful of billionaires but in favor of the whole society. This can be accomplished by reorganizing society to use today's technology to produce and to distribute to all people according to their needs, not according to how much wealth they are able to hoard. ****************************************************************** 8. NEW CONGRESS GOES (PORK) BARRELIN' ALONG By Leslie Willis The Republican "Contract with America" promises to balance the budget by cutting programs like food stamps, welfare and school lunches. (Congress may even cut Social Security). At the same time, this contract calls for cutting taxes on the profits of the rich (capital gains) and pumping more money into the military budget. If this contract is turned into law, the wheels of our "new" government will continue to be greased with pork for the wealthy, at an even heavier cost to the rest of us. More often than not, pork-barrel projects mean welfare for the rich. For example, "defense" is budgeted $260 billion. A lot more than defense is being funded with that money. During the recent congressional effort to increase the 1995 defense budget by $515 million, Senator John McCain of Arizona said: "I think that the American people would be astounded to know that ... a $260 billion expenditure ... of funds will now authorize [just] four ships and 24 fixed-wing aircraft." The decisions on how to spend much of this money are based not on defense needs, but on which companies want lucrative contracts for goods, services, materials, equipment and construction projects. Many of the added construction projects being fought for are located in the home states of the members of the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee. One such construction project consisted of an addition to a gymnasium for rocket scientists in Huntsville, Alabama. The addition, a fitness center, cost $2.6 million. Republican Senator Richard Shelby from Alabama sits on the Armed Services Committee. The pork-barrel projects and the Republican "contract" are nothing more than a straitjacket for America, a means to ensure that those who rule will continue to hold the purse strings. Isn't it time to snip these ties that bind us and liberate our country's wealth? Please send information for this column, or comments on it, to: 'Welfare for the Rich'/People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654. ****************************************************************** 9. IRISH-AMERICAN GROUP CONDEMNS CALIFORNIA'S PROPOSITION 187 [Editor's note: Below we reprint the full text of a statement we received from the Irish-American Student Organization, an organization in Chicago.] PROPOSITION 187 BLAMES FAILING U.S. ECONOMY ON IMMIGRANTS Proposition 187, a law recently passed in California, makes state or federal services (except for emergency medical care) unavailable to undocumented immigrants. IASO sees this as an attempt to blame America's worsening economic state on immigrants. If there were such a law in 1848, many Irish people fleeing Ireland from the famine would not have been able to stay and prosper. Who are we to deny that right to others today? America has always called itself the land of opportunity and hope, but Proposition 187 reserves the "American dream" for the few and those of European descent. IRISH REPUBLICANS OPPOSE PROPOSITION 187 An Poblacht/Republican News, the newspaper of the Republican movement in Ireland, recently published an article on Proposition 187 which states Proposition 187 is economic opportunism and scapegoating, not a patriotic gesture. For instance, last year illegal immigrants in the state of California contributed around $12 billion more in taxes than they received in social-service benefits such as education, health care and housing. (The Chicago Tribune, November 30, 1994, page 27.) In addition, the labor which they provide -- usually with no benefits and at extremely low wages -- is crucial for Californian industries, most notably agriculture. PROPOSITION 187 HURTS IMMIGRANTS TO INCREASE PROFITS Social services make it possible for undocumented workers to remain in the United States and raise families here so they don't have to stay away from loved ones for long periods of time. The longer they stay, however, the more likely they are to demand a decent standard of living and oppose the horrendous working conditions many of them endure. Proposition 187 will make it difficult for immigrants to provide for themselves and their families. This guarantees a high turnover in the migrant labor force and high profits for corporations. IRISH-AMERICANS FOR EQUALITY AND HUMANITY Everyone, regardless of nationality, deserves a fair opportunity to fulfill their basic human needs. Special deals cut with Congress, such as the Irish Morrison visa, should not be at the expense of others. Racism is at work when young Mexican men and women are portrayed wildly stampeding across the Rio Grande to take jobs while European people emigrating to the United States are welcomed with open arms. IASO sees Proposition 187 as an attack on immigrants of color; it will also harm undocumented Irish immigrants who need these services to make ends meet. In support of Irish self-determination and in opposition to racism, we must actively block any attempt to pass similar propositions in the state of Illinois. [For more information on the Irish-American Student Organization, write to IASO, 3824 N. Janssen No. 2W, Chicago, Illinois 60613 or call 312-296-6377.] ****************************************************************** 10. ALDAPE GUERRA TO GET NEW TRIAL OR FREEDOM! Ricardo Aldape Guerra has been living a nightmare for the last 12 years on Texas' Death Row. This undocumented worker was unjustly sentenced in 1982 for the death of a Houston policeman, but now there is a possibility of freeing him. Aldape received a favorable decision November 15 from U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt in Houston. The judge ruled that his first trial was unjust and ordered the government of Texas to give Aldape either a new trial or his freedom within 30 days (that is, by December 15). Judge Hoyt also declared that the evidence in favor of his innocence were "overwhelming" from the beginning. Demand justice. Freedom for Aldape Guerra before Christmas! .TOPIC 12-26-94 ****************************************************************** 11. AMERICAN LOCKDOWN: TEXAS PRISON GUARDS CHARGED WITH MURDER By Marta Glass HOUSTON -- On October 7, 1994, at the Terrell Unit, near Livingston, Texas, groups of prison guards made themselves judge, jury and executioner by reportedly going from cell to cell and beating, kicking and stomping unarmed individual prisoners. Prison officials say that inmate Michael McCoy, convicted of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, was beaten because he allegedly spat on an officer from inside his cell. McCoy was suffering from cancer, and twice underwent surgery for the disease in 1993. He was found in his cell that night, unconscious, and died two days later at the prison hospital. Sources inside the prison dispute the official position and state the real reason Michael McCoy was beaten to death was because he had threatened to file suit against TDC guards for the beating of another prisoner. Guards Joel Lambright, 20, and Alex Torres, 31, are now free on bond after being charged with McCoy's murder. Four other prison guards, including a husband and wife, have been charged with aggravated assault for allegedly seeking out and beating prisoners in their cells. Prison officials admit as many as 15 other prison guards may be facing charges. The violent melee perpetrated by the guards was said to have started at approximately 2:30 p.m. and lasted until 9 p.m. Six inmates have been charged with retaliation. That portion of the public and its leaders who cry out for ever longer sentences and increased use of the death penalty have been strangely silent in this case. This writer wonders if the so- called "victims' rights" groups rushed to comfort the family of Michael McCoy and the other victims of this case of official abuse and murder. This appalling episode did not reach the media until a week after the occurrence. We know this is not an isolated incident, and are left to wonder what the official position would have been had there been fewer witnesses. ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ "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. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 12. DEADLY FORCE: NO TO SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS FOR THE S.F. POLICE! By Jack Hirschman SAN FRANCISCO -- A year and a half ago, San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan set into motion his Matrix program arresting and harassing homeless and poor people. Homeless rights activists and members of the National Organizing Committee's San Francisco chapter pointed to deepening police- state tactics. Jordan insisted that his program would improve the situation of the homeless. It hasn't. On November 29, Jordan announced he is ordering semi-automatic guns put into the hands of all the cops in the city. Jordan's action has been made to appear to be a response to the killing of a police sergeant in a November 13 shootout with a crazed carjacker. The carjacker was armed with an arsenal of weaponry and was also killed. But isn't this the same mayor who, only a year ago, called for a ban on semi-automatic weapons? Listen up: there's method in the double-talk. And it's not because one police officer caught a rampager's bullets. On November 27, the San Francisco Food Bank, after a nine-month study, announced that 150,000 of the city's 700,000 residents are not getting enough to eat on a daily basis. Ninety thousand are "at extreme risk of hunger." The other 60,000 are at "some risk of hunger." The areas hit the hardest are Bayview-Hunter's Point; the Richmond and Sunset districts; South of Market; the Tenderloin; and the Potrero Hill section. Why this condition? The people are poor. Their poverty is tied to huge rental bills; not enough money left over from the rent to provide food; lack of emergency food centers in some of the areas; and a grinding disenchantment with the system. And so the real reason for all the guns being ordered for the rapidly deployable police state forces is to cover up the failure of the system to provide for its people. While landlords and corporate business interests suck the blood of the poor, the cops will be there to make sure neither the hungry young nor the hungry elderly have any say in the matter. It's called capitalism-at-the-barrel-of-a-gun. That's Our Town. How about yours? And when are we all gonna seriously begin the process of massing with demands for a completely new system, so neither its robbery of us and now its gunpoint threat over us rules our guts? Recall Mayor Frank Jordan! ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ CULTURE UNDER FIRE Culture jumps barriers of geography and color. Millions of Americans create with music, writing, film and video, graffiti, painting, theatre and much more. We need it all, because culture can link together and expand the growing battles for food, housing, and jobs. In turn, these battles provide new audiences and inspiration for artists. Use the "Culture Under Fire'' column to plug in, to express yourself. Write: Culture Under Fire, c/o People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 13. MUSICAL ALLIANCE MEETS IN THE MOTOR CITY By Danny Alexander KANSAS CITY, Missouri -- Early this fall, Detroit's weekly music paper, Jam Rag, hosted a National Music Alliance Conference to bring together the fledgling movement. We met at Alvin's Bar just down the block from the original offices of Creem magazine and just across the street from Wayne State University. Most of the alliance participants in attendance were from Detroit or Toledo with some flying in from as far away as New York and Washington. Letters of support were read from Florida and California. There was a series of presentations by the various alliances and those who worked with musicians at the grassroots level -- writers, lawyers and video filmmakers. There were also presentations by Native American organizers, a representative of the Gray Panthers and several members of Rock Out Censorship. One of my favorite presentations was a panel of three members of the Toledo Music Alliance. They told of their ups and downs in trying to get people to stay involved in their group and working to get the attendance up at shows. The work had been rough, but they delivered a crucial message: "Even if it's just a handful of people at times, even if it's just these two guys sitting next to me sometimes, it helps to know you're not alone." At the end of the day, Detroit-bred rock writer Dave Marsh delivered one of the quietest and yet most moving speeches I've ever heard. The focus of his talk was the isolation of the musician. Though we know musicians are people with day jobs, trying to lead two lives so that one might pay for the other one, social pressures artificially separate their lives as musicians from their day-to-day environments. Musicians tend to be isolated as musicians, competing with each other. Even on the rare occasion that they make it big, they are alone, without support in an industry that is, for the most part, not made up of friends. He talked about Kurt Cobain. He tied that loss to the many great Detroit musicians who are gone forever. Alliances like the ones in Toledo and Detroit and the one here in Kansas City are a part of the answer. Over the last three months, I've been listening to four of the tapes I brought back from Detroit -- three by Toledo bands, and one by the Detroit Musician's Alliance, featuring 21 different artists! The Detroit tape is especially mind-boggling because it features such a wide range of artists playing everything from pitch black metal to neo-punk to fold rock to pop. Toledo's 's Tinfoil has two very strong tapes, the latest, South Central, rebuilding the bridge between Detroit garage rock and contemporary metal. Toledo's Swiftkik, on the other hand, plays radio-ready AOR with the ability to push harder when necessary, as they do on the title track, "Slaves to Society." All of these artists deserve more attention, but there is only one reason they are being played in this area -- a handful of people threw a nationwide gig. Write the Detroit Musician's Alliance at P.O. Box 24323, Detroit, Michigan 48224 or call 313-730-SONG. Write to the Toledo Musician's Alliance at P.O. Box 4275, Toledo, Ohio 43609. .TOPIC 12-26-94 ****************************************************************** 14. POEM: BREAKING THE BLACKOUT BREAKING THE BLACKOUT By Danny Alexander The takeover of an abandoned house becomes a home, and even if the cops come the next day, the next week, a year later, lives have changed forever. But money blacks out the stories of poor mothers struggling to house their children, all the forgotten veterans of never-ending wars, and it keeps me from finding your helping hand, keeps you from finding me groping in the darkness. Money talks -- bullshit walks with power, and the only real heroes lead (and follow) carry (and hold on) love and feed one another stories of the lights blacked out, fires burning strong inside all of us and just up ahead where the new day is breaking. History is being made though we don't learn about it in school or in the newspapers or on tv. You can find it in the same places the abolitionists always force an end to slavery -- in the street presses and 'zines, videos, grafs and murals, hip hop beats, raw guitar and a voice shouting, singing, dancing, to be heard. (Dedicated to the Break the Blackout planners who met in Philadelphia on November 19 and 20, 1994.) ****************************************************************** 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. Box 477113, Chicago, IL 60647 (312) 486-0028 To help support the production and distribution of the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, please send donations, letters, articles, photos, graphics and requests for information, subscriptions and requests for bundles of papers to: PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE P.O. Box 3524 Chicago, IL 60654 Respond via e-mail to jdav@igc.org Reach us by phone: Chicago: (312) 486-3551 Atlanta: (404) 242-2380 Baltimore: (410) 467-4769 Detroit: (313) 839-7600 Los Angeles: (310) 428-2618 Washington, D.C.: (202) 529-6250 Oakland, CA: (510) 464-4554 GETTING THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE IN PRINT The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is available at many locations nationwide. One year subscriptions $25 ($35 institutions), bulk orders of 5 or more 15 cents each, single copies 25 cents. Contact PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, P. O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654, tel. (312) 486- 3551. WRITING FOR THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE We want your story in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. Send it in! Articles should be shorter than 300 words, written to be easily understood, and signed. (Use a pen name if you prefer.) Include a phone number for questions. Contact PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, P. O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654, tel. (312) 486-3551. ****************************************************************** We encourage reproduction and use of all articles except those copyrighted. Please credit the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on donations from its readers -- your generosity is appreciated. ******************************************************************