From jdav@mcs.comSat Dec 24 23:54:10 1994 Date: Sat, 24 Dec 94 18:12 CST From: James Davis To: pt.dist@umich.edu Subject: People's Tribune (1-2-95) Online Edition ****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 22 No. 1 / January 2, 1995 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: jdav@igc.org ****************************************************************** INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 22 No. 1 / January 2, 1995 Page One 1. COLD-BLOODED MURDER IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE Editorial 2. FIGHT FOR A NEW WORLD IN THIS NEW YEAR! News 3. ZAPATISTAS PREPARE TO RESUME UPRISING FOR DEMOCRACY IN MEXICO 4. TELL MASSACHUSETTS: RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS! 5. THE CHOICES FACING HUMANITY IN 1995: DOOM OR FREEDOM? 6. HELP TURN A COURT VICTORY INTO FREEDOM FOR ALDAPE GUERRA 7. WELFARE FOR THE RICH: GATT: ALMS FOR THE RICH American Lockdown 8. SLAVE LABOR IN OHIO PRISONS HURTS INMATES AND TAXPAYERS 9. MORE 'SPECIAL JUSTICE' FOR THE PRIVILEGED FEW Culture Under Fire 10. POEM: A CUP OF CONSCIOUSNESS 11. THROWAWAY KIDS: TURNING YOUTH GANGS AROUND Announcements, Events, etc. 12. JOIN THE NOC 13. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE ****************************************************************** 1. PAGE 1: COLD-BLOODED MURDER IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE It was not an accident of fate that brought Marcelino Corniel to the White House gate on December 20, encircled by U.S. Park Police and their guns. There, in broad pre-Christmas daylight on Pennsylvania Avenue, one of those cops shot Corniel through his liver and his leg. He died in the hospital a day later. It was not because of fate that this 33-year-old homeless California man, who had old burn scars on 70 percent of his body, was cut down in view of the Executive Mansion and the whole world. Corniel survived in Lafayette Park with nothing over his head but a cold winter sky. He died as he lived, abandoned and powerless under a system run by and for the tiny class of millionaires and billionaires. All Corniel owned was a dirty sleeping bag and blanket, a yellow raincoat, a backpack, a cup holder from a fast-food restaurant, a red marking pen and a diary. He died near a president who signed into law a so-called crime bill, putting 100,000 more cops on the nation's streets to do just what one of them did to Corniel. He died in the nation's capital, where the corridors of well-fed, well-paid power are loud with calls to end every social service that the nation's poor depend on to survive. He died under a system that has generated as many as 7 million homeless like Corniel and whose response to men and women who stood up like him is to kill. It was not some mysterious fate that ended Corniel's life. It was premeditated murder. It is the very solution to homelessness that the capitalists and their loyalists are pushing -- like the Los Angeles radio hatemonger who openly called for exterminating the homeless "like stray dogs." It is the only solution that lets the rich stay rich. So as Corniel is buried, and as the police wash his blood from the sidewalk, you have to ask yourself whose side you are on. Corniel or his killer? Do you want to live and die in a society where poverty's only reward is a cop's fatal bullet? Or do you, like the National Organizing Committee and the People's Tribune, choose to stand among the revolutionaries leading the fight for a society that ends poverty, homelessness and police terror forever? This is what the police murder of Marcelino Corniel means: It is time to choose. Join the NOC. ****************************************************************** 2. EDITORIAL: FIGHT FOR A NEW WORLD IN THIS NEW YEAR! What is your wish for the new year? A peaceful, orderly world of productive, happy people? Your wish can come true. Perhaps not this Christmas, but soon. For a wish to come true, two things are necessary. First, it must be possible. Second, you must be willing to work very hard to make it happen. Is such a world possible? Yes, it is. All the ingredients are here now. What makes for peace? War comes when one group tries to overcome its scarcity by robbing another. With the technology already at hand, we can do away with scarcity forever. No one fights for things that are abundant. The San Joaquin Valley of California could easily feed the United States. The United States could easily feed the entire world. Water resources? The world is three- quarters water. The technology exists to desalinate sea water easily. There is no longer any excuse for scarcity. There is no longer any cause of war -- except that the class which rules the world is more interested in maintaining its privileges through war than in having a peaceful world. An orderly world is not cluttered with doubts, anxieties and fears. In such a world, a person is secure in the present and assured of the future. An orderly world depends upon a government interested in the well-being of the people rather than the profits of the few. There is no rational reason why all the people capable of working should not go to work, creating the good life for themselves and society. There is no rational reason why all the robots which have been created are not now working 24 hours a day. There is no rational reason why all doubts, anxieties and fears should not disappear, buried under an abundance of the good things in life. The irrational reason why those problems do not disappear is that a tiny class of billionaires is not interested in your well-being. Their interests lie in keeping you down and poor -- so that they stay up and rich. So, in 1995, this New Year's wish isn't really a wish at all. It's a vision; it's possible. The only thing missing from making that vision a reality is your commitment to struggle against the corrupt little gang of billionaires who stand between the good life and all of us. Our New Year's vision is that you make that commitment, now. The world is counting on you. Take it easy, but take it! For information on how to join the National Organizing Committee, see story 12. ****************************************************************** 3. ZAPATISTAS PREPARE TO RESUME UPRISING FOR DEMOCRACY IN MEXICO By Allen Harris There is nothing more to talk about in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, except when the fighting will resume between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Mexican government's troops. After a 10-month truce which followed the New Year's Day 1994 uprising in that impoverished state by rural people -- many of them Mayans -- tension has risen sharply. Government forces are tightening their iron ring around the rebel zone, while rebel supporters are moving deep into the Lacandon rain forest and fighters are moving forward to the front lines. All this following the inauguration of a state governor who the people of Chiapas say took office in December by way of fraud in the August 21 national elections. A parallel state government, backed by the Zapatistas, has been installed in Chiapas as an answer. The turn toward renewed fighting also followed the breakdown in peace talks between the Zapatistas and their supporters on one side and the Mexican federal government on the other. "You should know that we have done all that is possible to keep the conflict within the political realm, avoiding at all costs the re-initiation of hostilities," wrote Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, a leading spokesman of the Zapatistas, in a December 3 message to the new Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo. "I have made the necessary preparations so that my successors in the (Zapatista) military leadership can assume their responsibilities without major problems in case I should die," said Marcos. "Surrender has been prohibited," he said. "The Zapatista leaders who opt for surrender will be decommissioned. "However, no matter the result of the war, sooner or later the sacrifice which today appears to be useless and sterile will be compensated in the thunderbolts which light up other skies," he said. "Strength is not on our side; it has never been on the side of the dispossessed. But the historic logic, the shame and ardor which we feel in our chests and which we call dignity, makes us, the nameless, the true men and women of forever," Marcos said in his message to Zedillo. A resumption of the war there concerns revolutionaries not just inside Mexico, but throughout the hemisphere, including the United States. The millionaires and billionaires who rule us in this country have a big economic and political stake in Mexico. If the Mexican people, sparked by the Chiapas uprising, take back their country and abolish poverty and oppression, the capitalists will be tremendously weakened and revolutionaries from the class of the 80 million people in poverty in the United States will be tremendously strengthened. ****************************************************************** 4. TELL MASSACHUSETTS: RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS! POVERTY VIOLATES SPIRIT OF U.N. RIGHTS DOCUMENT By Dottie Stevens BOSTON -- The notion of human rights is an intriguing concept about which much is said, but little is understood. Since most people in our country have their human rights violated daily, ignorance of these rights is a very dangerous thing. There is no reason why our country, with all its resources, cannot provide the basic human needs to all our people. This year, millions of U.S. citizens and residents, living amidst economic plenty, have no hope for a productive future. This includes members of the "middle class" who are one paycheck away from poverty. We are prisoners of the war on the poor, but we don't have to stay prisoners. In 1984, the Up to Poverty Campaign was launched in Boston, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Over 90 women's organizations targeted the inadequacy of the grants for Aid to Families with Dependent Children in this state. (They were 40 percent below the federal poverty index.) The Massachusetts Welfare Rights Union, the Coalition for Basic Human Needs, the Advocacy for Resources for Modern Survival group, the organization Arise, the Women's Alliance and the newspaper Survival News are just some of the organizations in this effort, now named the "Up and Out of Poverty Now!" campaign. Nationally, the struggle is being waged by the National Welfare Rights Union, the National Union of the Homeless, the National Organizing Committee, the National Organization for Women and Food Not Bombs. The National Welfare Rights Union is about building a movement of caring people to move this country where it needs to go. The NWRU uses a three-pronged approach, fighting in the legislatures, the courts and the streets. We write, file and lobby for bills like the Up to the Poverty Level bill which would push welfare benefits up to at least the poverty line. That's where it needs to begin -- caring for, and nurturing, all our people. Our country is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This means that all public officials, from the president all the way to the local dogcatcher, are obliged to enact legislation to make human rights a reality. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. ... "Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection." In Framingham, Massachusetts, the Women's Alliance, the Massachusetts Welfare Rights Union, the Coalition for Basic Human Needs and others are putting together a national grassroots group. This group will report U.S. violations of basic human rights, such as the rights to food, housing and medical care, to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. Our goal is to turn the international spotlight on to the situation facing the poor, the homeless and the medically maltreated in this nation. Given the current political climate, we need to press for the Massachusetts Legislature to live up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Take a stand. Visit, write or phone your state and federal representatives. If not us, then who? If not now, then when? ****************************************************************** 5. THE CHOICES FACING HUMANITY IN 1995: DOOM OR FREEDOM? NOW WE CAN CHOOSE! By Luis J. Rodriguez Doomsayers proclaim this period of history as the end-time. They are right about one thing: It is a time for something to die. A recent survey conducted for U.S. News & World Report shows nearly six in 10 Americans believe the world will come to an end. Some say it's Armageddon. It feels like it. It smells like it. How do we know? Because we have been there before. The New Testament book of Revelation is about the end-time all right, one that already ended. It's a scenario for every such time. At every major juncture of human social development, at every major break from the past to an unknown future, Revelation is played out again and again. The fact is that we are living the end of a way of life based on a certain mode of producing and reproducing life. The present turmoil is no accident. Capitalism, the world economic order we have known for the past several hundred years, is dying. It has to, and all that comes with it -- exploitation, oppression and social decay. But something new is also being born. Every end-time is a beginning-time. Society is pregnant with change and possibility. The foundation exists now for a world in which there is no more hunger, no more injustice, no more fear. Social productive energy based on electronics is liberating the human imagination. Robots. Lasers. Computer chips. Within the parameters of capitalist relations, these developments result in unemployment, abandonment and displacement. But its innate capability is to free us up from work, from drudgery, from the relationships between people based on wealth and privilege. Why can't we have a society that takes care of the physical, creative and intellectual well-being of all people? That allows every human being to be complete in every way -- a full artist at something or many things? If you can imagine such a world, it's already coming into being! We are at the threshold. We all hold the key to getting through. It's in our bones because these quests are ancient as well as urgent. Grasping this allows us to see how everything any of us does from now on truly matters. Where there's clarity, there's no choice. And there's power in this. Power to put to rest what must die, and to help give birth to what must be released. Any organization or individual that embodies this can only win. [Luis J. Rodriguez, a founding member of the NOC, is also an award-winning poet, journalist and critic. His most recent book is _Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A_.] ****************************************************************** 6. HELP TURN A COURT VICTORY INTO FREEDOM FOR ALDAPE GUERRA By Maria Elena Castellanos HOUSTON -- A federal judge recently criticized police and prosecutors for "outrageous" misconduct in railroading an innocent man to Texas Death Row. So shouldn't that man, Ricardo Aldape Guerra, now be free? Yes, but he is not! And shouldn't the police and prosecutors try to "clean up" instead of "cover up" these legalized lynchings? Yes, but they won't ... not until the public becomes mad enough and organized enough to begin to roll back this growing police state. We, the people, must increase the pressure on the Texas attorney general to free Aldape Guerra now! >From radio stations in Toronto, Canada to national magazines in Mexico City and from human rights organizers in Los Angeles to the Italian Parliament in Rome, people have expressed their concern for the fate of this undocumented Mexican worker. Just as Gregorio Cortez in 1903, Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s and the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s stirred a deep passion for justice among millions, the tragic situation of Aldape Guerra has evoked an international cry for justice. The current fax, phone and petition campaign is, hopefully, the final phase of a 12-year-long struggle to free Aldape Guerra. Please join this renewed effort to pressure Texas into freeing this innocent young man. Aldape Guerra was unjustly tried for the 1982 death of a Houston policeman. As U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt stated in his November reversal of the death sentence and conviction, overwhelming evidence supported Aldape Guerra's claim of innocence. In fact, the judge pointed out, the murder weapon and the dead policeman's service revolver were found on the body of another person who died in a shoot-out with police the night of the offense. All of the physical evidence and initial eyewitness testimony clearly indicated that Aldape Guerra was innocent. But, as Judge Hoyt pointed out, police investigators and prosecutors obtained a conviction by: (1) "the knowing use of false testimony," (2) intimidating witnesses into falsely identifying Aldape Guerra as the shooter, (3) hiding exculpatory evidence, (4) misstating the law to the jury, and by (5) playing to the prejudices of the jury against "illegal aliens," among other acts of "rank" and "outrageous" misconduct. Why did 10,000 people petition the governor to stay Aldape Guerra's execution in May 1992? Because to millions of people, the injustice thrust on Aldape Guerra demonstrates that capital punishment is reserved for those who have no capital. And because millions of immigrant and native-born workers on both sides of the Rio Grande River [Rio Bravo] are also feeling crushed by an increasingly robotized, computerized economic system that neither values human labor nor human rights. Let's win Ricardo's freedom now! The Binational Network Against the Death Penalty (Mexico-USA) continues to appeal to human rights defenders and organizations to call in (and fax in) a request that the Texas attorney general not appeal the federal court's reversal of Ricardo's death sentence and unjust conviction. It was previously, and mistakenly, reported that December 15, 1994 was the deadline for enacting or appealing the federal decision. In fact, the attorney general and other state officials have until January 14, 1995 to either carry out the federal order or to appeal it. Please phone or fax your request that the Texas attorney general not appeal the federal court's reversal of Ricardo Aldape Guerra's capital conviction to: Texas Attorney General Dan Morales: (fax) 512-463-1849; (tel) 512-463-2100 President Bill Clinton: (fax) 202-456-2461; (tel) 202-456-1414. Please apply pressure also to the Mexican government in requesting Ricardo's immediate release from Death Row. Send copies of faxed petitions to the Binational Network Against the Death Penalty: (fax) 713-650-9620. ****************************************************************** 7. WELFARE FOR THE RICH: GATT: ALMS FOR THE RICH By Leslie Willis Watching "A Christmas Carol" on television for the umpteenth time, I wondered if Charles Dickens had a crystal ball. Remember the scene where a group of Londoners come to the door of Ebenezer Scrooge's office begging alms for the poor? Scrooge shouts, "Are there no prisons? No workhouses? No orphanages?" Today, if a wealthy businessman came begging, Scrooge might whisper, "Haven't you heard about GATT?" The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade will cost us $42 billion. When confronted with this price tag, both Republicans and Democrats simply shrug and say, "Oh well." "[T]he new GATT agreement will be a bonanza for big business," wrote Bob Herbert in The New York Times on November 30. Herbert pointed out that "Some of the very same government officials who are going to the mat for GATT are also trying to cut the food stamp allotments of the poor." Since the government "can't afford" alms for the hungry, should we take comfort in the fact that another record-breaking year is in the making for corporate profits? Whatever for? These profits, made at our expense and helped along by GATT, pay for the technology that replaces workers, Christmas bonus and all. But it's a new year. Things don't have to be like they were last year or even worse. Let's make 1995 the year when those living in poverty and insecurity pull together to end the incredibly expensive welfare programs that serve a small class of rich people. ****************************************************************** 8. SLAVE LABOR IN OHIO PRISONS HURTS INMATES AND TAXPAYERS By Dan Cahill #251-641 LEBANON, Ohio -- Ohio is turning into a police state, as the government tries to maintain control. There is an air of panic among our legislators as they continue to build prisons. In 1974, Ohio had only 8,000 state prisoners. Today, we have more than 45,000. Presently, there are 27 prison facilities. Another four prisons are to be opened in 1995, which will enable the state to imprison another 10,000 people. One of the four prisons will be Ohio's new supermaximum-security prison. It will rival the supermax prison of Pelican Bay [a state prison in California]. Already the state is preparing to ship prison activists and jailhouse lawyers to this prison. Ohio is considering a "three strikes, you're out" law, meaning that a three-time offender could be locked up for life -- without the possibility of parole! The state is also planning to expand into community correctional facilities, which would increase the number of people under "correctional control" to about 100,000 people in two to four years. A few years ago, prison officials unveiled their marketing plan which offers cheap prison labor to private firms. This is called the Ohio Offshore Industries Project. The first big company that cashed in on this is Unibase, a data-entry company. Prisoners are being paid 47 cents an hour by Unibase. Unibase has two shops in Ohio's prisons and 16 other shops in prisons across the nation. Offering prisoners as slave labor is an effort to compete with cheap labor overseas. With "community corrections," the state will be able to deliver slave labor directly to the factories in the community. Many of the prisoners who spoke out during the Lucasville uprising last year are now facing murder charges and the death penalty. The entire prison system is extremely tense and could explode. Each prison has a paramilitary team ready 24 hours a day to crush any more riots or hostage situations. These are called Special Tactics and Response teams. Each prison also has at least one control unit where beatings ("attitude adjustments") are standard operating procedure. Still, prisoners are pressing for change. There don't seem to be any workable solutions in the near future, so the resentment and hostility towards the government will continue to grow, along with the movement for social change and justice. ****************************************************************** 9. MORE 'SPECIAL JUSTICE' FOR THE PRIVILEGED FEW [Editor's note: The following article is excerpted with permission from Volume 4, Issue 2 of FAMM-gram, the newsletter of the Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation.] WASHINGTON, D.C. -- It pays to have relatives in Congress. In the last FAMM-gram, we reported that U.S. Representative Dan Burton's (R-Indiana) 19-year-old son, Danny, was arrested for transporting seven pounds of marijuana from Louisiana en route to Indiana where he intended to sell it. Miraculously, his case is being handled in the Louisiana state system instead of the federal -- even though he crossed state lines. A spokesman from Rep. Burton's office said that Danny had not yet been convicted of the charges and that some kind of hearing was scheduled for later [in 1994] in New Orleans. Danny Burton was arrested again in June, when police found 30 marijuana plants growing in his apartment in Indianapolis. The police also found a shotgun with six shells and other drug paraphernalia. This case is also being processed in the state system, where it is considered a misdemeanor because the total weight of the marijuana was 25 grams (less than an ounce.) The charge was changed from a felony offense to a misdemeanor after officials weighed the marijuana and decided that it did not total 30 grams, which would have made it a felony offense. That's a suspiciously close call. The most recent case of "special justice" for the families of members of Congress comes from Arizona. Prosecutors there said no charges will be filed against 39-year-old Cindy McClain, the wife of U.S. Senator John McClain, for stealing prescription drugs, if she successfully completes a drug treatment program. It turns out that the senator's wife was stealing Percocet and Vicodin from the American Voluntary Medical Team, which she oversees. Cindy McClain became addicted to the drugs after operations on ruptured disks. She stole to feed her habit. Her crime was discovered when DEA agents were called to investigate the missing drugs. FAMM does not wish to see any of these individuals go to prison. None of their crimes are serious enough to waste scarce prison beds on them. However, it is difficult to read these stories without knowing that there are hundreds of individuals with similar cases sitting in state and federal prisons across the country. We can't help but feel that this "special justice" awarded to the families of members of Congress is not available to the families of school teachers, accountants, farmers, small business owners, truck drivers, and all of the other families of the ordinary, yet vital, professions that pay the salaries of members of Congress. [For more information, write to the FAMM Foundation at 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Suite 200-South, Washington, D.C. 20004 or call 202-457-5790.] ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 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. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 10. POEM: A CUP OF CONSCIOUSNESS A Cup Of Consciousness By Jack Hirschman When I hear of the thousands upon thousands of people young and old in this city who are in extreme risk of hunger every day every night and perceive that for years and years the city fathers (but really a pox on the idea of father) have unleashed the cops to harass and arrest Food Not Bombs volunteers whose essence has been to cook and give food to the hungry displaced unemployed and cold, to break bread with the broken and bring a cup of consciousness to the lips about how poor men and women are considered criminals in this society of mega-rip-offs, exploiters and downright killers of the dignity of the people --- then I'm happy I've known the Bombers of the Lie, the Keiths and Dominics and Roberts and the rest who know tomorrow's cause lives in the guts of today, and happy is my poem with their victories and with the victory that embraces them all, the one that keeps feeding food and truth, the one that's there when you're really in need of the bread of bread, without a touch of greed. ****************************************************************** 11. THROWAWAY KIDS: TURNING YOUTH GANGS AROUND By Luis J. Rodriguez [Editor's note: Below we reprint an article which appeared in the November 21, 1994 edition of The Nation.] Pedro* is a thoughtful, articulate and charismatic young man; he listens, absorbs and responds. His movements are quick, well- developed during his years surviving in the streets of Chicago. Pedro is a 20-year-old gang leader. For most of his life, he has lived off and on between his welfare mother and an uncle. He has been kicked out of schools and has served time in youth detention facilities. He is also a great human being. For four months in 1993, the courts designated me as his guardian under a house arrest sentence. He was respectful and polite. He meticulously answered all my messages. He was loved by my 6-year- old son. His best friend happens to be my 19-year-old son Ramiro. During his stay, I gave Pedro books, including political books to help him become more cognizant of the world. One of these was Palante, a photo-text about the Young Lords Party of the 1970s. Pedro, whose family is from Puerto Rico, began to open up to an important slice of history that, until then, he'd never known about. Pedro read Palante from cover to cover -- as he did other books, for the first time ever. When Pedro was released from house arrest, he moved out of the neighborhood with his girlfriend and her small boy. He found a job. He remained leader of the gang, but was now talking about struggle, about social change, about going somewhere. Last November, Pedro was shot three times with a .44. He was hit in his back, leg and hand. Ramiro and I visited him at the Cook County Hospital. He lived, but he was not the same after that. One day during Pedro's hospital stay, the same gang that had shot him ambushed and killed Angel, a friend of Ramiro and Pedro. Angel, an honor student at one of the best schools in the city, was on his way to school; a news account the next day failed to mention this, reporting only that he was a suspected gang member, as if this fact justified his death. I tried to persuade Pedro to get his boys to chill. I knew that Ramiro and the others were all sitting ducks. Pedro went through some internal turmoil, but he decided to forbid retaliation. This was hard for him, but he did it. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. Earlier this year, Pedro allegedly shot and killed one of the guys believed to be behind Angel's murder and his own shooting. Pedro is now a fugitive. I tell you this to convey the complexity of working with youths like Pedro, youths most people would rather write off, but who are also intelligent, creative and even quite decent. The tragedy is that it is mostly young people like these who are being killed and who are doing the killing. I've seen them in youth prisons, hospitals and courts throughout the land: young people who in other circumstances might have been college graduates, officeholders or social activists. Unfortunately, many find themselves in situations they feel unable to pull out of until it's too late. I've long recognized that most youths like Pedro aren't in gangs to be criminals, killers or prison inmates. For many, a gang embraces who they are, gives them the initiatory community they seek and the incipient authority they need to eventually control their own lives. These are things other institutions, including schools and families, often fail to provide. Yet without the proper guidance, support and means to contribute positively to society, gang involvement can be disastrous. This August, a media storm was created when 11-year-old Robert Sandifer of Chicago, known as "Yummy" because he liked to eat cookies, allegedly shot into a crowd and killed a 14-year-old girl. A suspected member of a South Side gang, Yummy disappeared; days later he was found shot in the head. Two teen-age members of Yummy's gang are being held in his death. Hours before his murder, a neighbor saw Yummy, who told her, "Say a prayer for me." This is a tragedy, but without a clear understanding of the social, economic and psychological dynamics that would drive an 11-year-old to kill, we can only throw up our hands. Yet it isn't hard to figure out the motive forces behind much of this violence. Sandifer, for example, was a child of the Reagan years, of substantial cuts in community programs, of the worst job loss since the Great Depression, of more police and prisons and of fewer options for recreation, education or work. Here was a boy who had been physically abused, shuttled from one foster home to another, one juvenile justice facility after another. At every stage of Robert's young life since birth, he was blocked from becoming all he could be. But there was nothing to stop him from getting a gun. From using it. And from dying from one. No "three strikes, you're out," no trying children as adults, no increased prison spending will address what has created the Pedros and Yummys of this world. Such proposals deal only with the end results of a process that will continue to produce its own fuel, like a giant breeder reactor. This is not a solution. TO BE CONTINUED. [Luis J. Rodriguez, formerly of Los Angeles, now writes from Chicago, where he directs Tia Chucha Press. His most recent book is _Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A._ (Touchstone).] ****************************************************************** 12. JOIN THE NOC The National Organizing Committee (NOC) is a fighting organization. When homeless activists seize empty buildings, look for us. The NOC will be there. When the unemployed fight for jobs, look for us. The NOC will be there. When the victims of police state brutality speak out to expose injustice, listen for us. The NOC will be part of the chorus. We are revolutionary fighters from every battlefront. Our mission is to forge the revolutionary force necessary to destroy this capitalist system, a system of poverty and injustice. We are an organization that believes the poor and exploited people can be educated, organized and inspired to rise up in our millions. We want to create a new system based on justice and economic prosperity for everyone. ____ I want to join the NOC ____ Please send me the NOC program, information, on speakers and samples of NOC publications ____ I want to make a monthly donation to the NOC of: ____ $5 ____ $10 _____ $25 ____$50 ____ Other Name ____________________________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________________ City/State/Zip __________________________________________________ National Organizing Committee, P.O. Box 477113, Chicago, Illinois 60647 312-486-0028 ****************************************************************** 13. 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. ******************************************************************