From jdav@noc.orgMon Jan 30 10:55:59 1995 Date: Sun, 29 Jan 95 14:09 GMT From: Jim Davis To: pt.dist@noc.org Subject: People's Tribune (2-6-95) Online Edition ****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 22 No. 6 / February 6, 1995 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: pt@noc.org ****************************************************************** INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 22 No. 6 / February 6, 1995 Editorial 1. WHY IS CONGRESS CUTTING PROGRAMS IN A TIME OF PLENTY? News 2. PROP. 187 KILLS IMMIGRANT WOMAN 3. OUTRAGE FOLLOWS EXECUTION OF MARIO MARQUEZ IN TEXAS 4. CHICAGO YOUTH CENTER FIGHTS ON IN SPITE OF POLICE HARASSMENT 5. BALTIMORE PUBLIC HOUSING LEASE DEFEATED Focus on AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY 6. AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY IS U.S. HISTORY 7. THE 104TH CONGRESS HAS NO MANDATE TO STARVE THE POOR 8. MORRIS BROWN: AMERICAN HERO Deadly Force 9. POLICE BRUTALITY IN SAN JOSE: 'THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!' Culture Under Fire 10. DOCUMENTARY EXPOSES GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. Second Convention of the National Organizing Committee 11. CALL FOR A SECOND CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE 12. DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE NOC FOR ITS SECOND CONVENTION 13. JOIN THE NOC 14. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE ****************************************************************** 1. EDITORIAL: WHY IS CONGRESS CUTTING PROGRAMS IN A TIME OF PLENTY? The coincidence was eerie. In January, Congress began hearings on massive government cutbacks -- just days before the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz during World War II. An anniversary connected to the Holocaust seems to be a fitting, if horrible, metaphor for what's happening in Washington, D.C. these days. On January 13, Michigan Gov. John Engler told the House Ways and Means Committee's human resources subcommittee that Republican governors want Congress to dismantle hundreds of anti-poverty programs and give the money to the states. Two days later, Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kansas) called for the federal government to terminate Aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps and similar programs and "compensate" the states by picking up an "equivalent share" of Medicaid. Kassebaum conceded that some states might then abolish welfare completely. On January 19, a hearing began on the proposal by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to abolish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a move which would destroy public television. While members of Congress bickered over which programs to kill first, the most fundamental question was carefully avoided. Today, humanity has developed new technology so productive that it is possible to feed, clothe and house every person on Earth easily. Given this, why are we talking about cuts at all? Newt Gingrich loves to prattle on about the post-industrial, information age we're living in. Why has the development of this post-industrial world led to more unemployment, hunger and misery? The problem lies not in the technology itself but in who controls it. Six months ago, a major U.S. business magazine shed some light on exactly who that is. On July 18, 1994, Forbes magazine published a complete list of the world's billionaires. They were all there, in alphabetical order, from Theo and Karl Albrecht of Germany (worth over $5 billion) to the William Bernard Ziff Jr. family of Manalapan, Florida (worth a mere $1.5 billion). Forbes' list ran to 358 names, an incredibly small fraction of the world's five billion human beings. While these people wallow in their luxury, eight of every 10 human beings on this planet live below the U.S. poverty level. All the talk about "reinventing government" and a "revolution" led by Republicans misses the point. Every day, new technology is developed which has the potential to feed, clothe, house and educate everyone. That potential can become a reality only if society is reorganized without the billionaires and millionaires. This country needs a revolution, all right -- a revolution to oust them. ****************************************************************** 2. PROP. 187 KILLS IMMIGRANT WOMAN AN UNDOCUMENTED CHINESE WOMAN HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN DEPORTATION AND DEATH She was 59 years old, Chinese, and becoming very ill from leukemia while visiting in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco General Hospital had available urgently needed chemotherapy treatment, but she dared not go in. Why? Because of fear of deportation under California's Proposition 187, the murderous voter initiative that was pushed to passage by Gov. Pete Wilson. The proposition denies medical assistance to undocumented immigrants, except in emergencies. But there's a Catch-22: If you seek emergency treatment but reveal your undocumented status, the information could be later used by the government to deport you. In the middle of what became a fatal emergency, this unidentified woman was forced to choose between risking deportation or risking death. On November 23, 1994, she died. The woman's death came just three days after that of Juan Emilio Garcia de la Cruz, 20, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who was suffering from heart trouble but was afraid to go to the hospital out of fear he would be asked for papers. De la Cruz's death came one day after that of Julio Cano, 12, who also was suffering from leukemia, but whose parents -- undocumented immigrants from Mexico -- delayed seeking treatment ... because they feared deportation. These deaths in the wake of Proposition 187 again show what direction the ruling class wants to turn this country as the economic crisis deepens. As victims of this crisis turn to fighting to meet their needs for food, clothing, housing and health care, the rulers who control this government turn to repression, force and violence to defend themselves. Wilson saved his political career and served his masters -- the millionaires and billionaires who rule California and the nation -- by using Proposition 187 to draw attention and discussion away from their attack on the most defenseless in our society. Is this the kind of country we want, where a few millionaires and billionaires are the only ones who never worry about seeking necessary medical treatment? Or do we want a society that sees to it that no one has to die to stay in this country? ****************************************************************** 3. OUTRAGE FOLLOWS EXECUTION OF MARIO MARQUEZ IN TEXAS By Allen Harris "I do want to say that I am not responsible for all that has happened in my life. I am truly sorry and I am paying with my life." Those were the last words of Mario Marquez before he was put to death on January 17 at the end of 36 years of misery, torture and abandonment. They included a declaration of love for his two brothers who were witnessing his execution on Texas' lethal injection machine. Marquez also expressed his forgiveness for "those who brought me here tonight." Mario Marquez exhaled deeply and died shortly after midnight. One of the witnesses to the state-sponsored murder was Ted Koppel of the ABC News program "Nightline." Marquez became the second person to be executed in Texas in 1995 and the 87th in 13 years. Texas killed him knowing fully that he was retarded. Texas has executed more people than any other state. There are 19 men scheduled for execution between now and June 1. Outraged reactions came from many quarters. "They executed a five-year-old child last night," said Maria Elena Castellanos of the Binational Network Against the Death Penalty (Mexico-USA) to the People's Tribune later that morning. "We are appalled that Texas is about to execute Mario Marquez, who is mentally retarded, severely brain damaged and the victim of child abuse so severe that it was child torture," said Jimmy Dunne of the Death Penalty Education Center late on January 16. "Has Texas no compassion, no humanity?" Marquez' lawyer, Robert L. McGlasson, said on "Nightline" January 17 that the death penalty is not being used against the Ted Bundys of society, but against whoever the state decides to kill. "The government is carrying out a much more cold-blooded, premeditated murder" than any that the accused were being put to death for, said Castellanos. She said that the main goal of Texas is not punishment and retribution, but genocide and repression against a rising class of Texans and Americans crushed by poverty and forced to fight for their survival. Marta Glass, a leading death penalty abolitionist in Texas, told the People's Tribune: "The Marquez case was an absolute tragedy all around. He was born retarded and absolutely tortured as a child and the state of Texas executed him to put a cap on a hard life." "We ask everyone of conscience to appeal to Texas politicians by fax, telephone and show that we're mad. "Bill Clinton holds this country up as the moral leader of the world and yet there is no atrocity that you can name that's taking place in a Third World country that is not taking place in the United States of America," said Glass. As one form of protest, Glass proposed: "If anyone has plans to visit Texas or do business, we want you to write the governor and tell them you're canceling your trip and canceling your business and are doing it because of the death penalty. Say that you will not buy Texas products as long as you continue this outrage." ****************************************************************** 4. CHICAGO YOUTH CENTER FIGHTS ON IN SPITE OF POLICE HARASSMENT By Rich Capalbo CHICAGO --Last November 12, Chicago police swept through the Nkrumah/Washington Learning Center. The police said they were chasing some young people who ran into the building where a center-sponsored dance party was going on. The center is in a tough part of Chicago's South Side. The old residential building on 5122 S. Ada is being remodeled by the staff and community. They are building a place for educating and organizing the young people of the neighborhood. Within the last year, El-Amin Greene and Lamond Vooel Currie, the principal organizers of the center, have had some run-ins with the local police, problems that they did not start. The police have accused the center of being a gang headquarters, according to Greene. "The police have accused us of 'running' the young people in this community because the young people respect us," he said. Making good on their threat to "get the center," the November 12 invasion took place. The police kicked in the back door, put a gun in Currie's face and stormed into the peaceful dance party. Harassing the 60 or so kids present, cops went through the building, talking to the staff with abusive language and trashing living quarters. They "found" a sawed-off shotgun, a weapon that no one had ever seen before. With the weapon as an excuse, the police arrested Currie. Lamond Currie has filed a complaint on behalf of himself and the center regarding the arrest and the abuse of all the people in the building on November 12. They don't, however, expect fair treatment or serious action by the police internal investigators. It was only recently that Chicago Police Superintendent Matt Rodriguez admitted to the press that the department preferred to pay any damages connected to police abuse and harassment and not to punish cops involved. Clearly, the ruling class has declared war on the poor in this country and it is not going to punish its troops. But the staff of the Nkrumah/Washington Learning Center is committed to fighting for the community and its kids in spite of any police harassment they might face. If you want to help them, call the center at 312- 523-4506. Since November 12, the center has been raided twice more. ****************************************************************** 5. BALTIMORE PUBLIC HOUSING LEASE DEFEATED By Mike Brand BALTIMORE -- Amid widespread opposition and tenant protests, Housing Commission Director Daniel P. Hensen III was forced to back down from his efforts to require public housing tenants to perform so-called "public service" free for the city or face eviction. Tenant organizers charged that they were being treated like "slaves" and "second-class citizens." They are right. Housing is a basic human need which should be the right of all people in a decent, civilized society. The Hensen lease made public housing a favor to be granted only to those poor people who met with Hensen's approval. Families who did not would be out on the street. The tenants know that the revised lease is still far from perfect. For example, it still allows families to be evicted without hearing or appeal if any family member is convicted of a drug- related offense. Their struggle continues. The People's Tribune spoke with several tenant leaders. Here are their statements. Goldie Baker, president, Scattered Sites Public Housing: "Hensen thinks he's got us [poor people] in a snake pit. We are a class of people that has been targeted by Hensen and his 'superior' mentality. He thinks he knows what is best for us. "Hensen wanted the public service lease. He had a handful of rubber stamps that he could use but a lot of tenants he could not control. So he backed down for political reasons. Next year is an election year and City Council President Mary Pat Clarke is running against the mayor. The last thing that Mayor Schmoke and his buddy Hensen want is a confrontation with public housing tenants." Annie Chambers, board member, Scattered Sites Public Housing: "It was good that they took the public service clause out of the lease, but it is still a bad lease. For example, the drug language is still bad. Last year, we had a case where a child was arrested on a drug charge in west Baltimore. His family lived in Perkins projects in east Baltimore. Their solution was to evict the whole family. Together with Legal Aid, we stopped it at a hearing. Now families have no right to the hearing. "Director Hensen must be made to understand the plight of poor people in this city. We will continue to fight for decent, safe public housing for poor people. We will not stop with Dan Hensen." Shirly Wise, co-chair, Scattered Sites Public Housing: "It was not a real victory. The residents knew nothing about the new clauses in the lease in the first place. They were not notified. We did cause some alarm at the Housing Commissioners meeting. We went down there on December 10, 1994. Hensen said that they already had voted on a draft lease. We challenged them that the proper notification and procedures did not take place. "I'm still not satisfied. Residents are not properly notified. They can evict tenants if they have an accidental fire in their apartment. Why is that fair?" ****************************************************************** 6. AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY IS U.S. HISTORY By John Slaughter ATLANTA -- Five hundred years ago, the only thing that was alien to this land was the concept of property. It was absurd to the peoples of this land, which only later would come to be named America, that the earth, the water, the animals, and all the vast resources of this beautiful country could be the private property of anyone. When the "explorers" from the East first set foot on these shores, they brought with them the first property: human beings as chattel, Africans enslaved as the property of others, in bondage solely for their power to labor and create wealth for the "owner." It was this alien thing that has unalterably defined the course of American history. African American history is American history. African Americans have been a part of and are at the core of our history from the very beginning. Yes, we need a special month to celebrate this, but we miss the point if we think that African American history can be separated out from the rest of our history, or that it occupies only one-twelfth significance in the scale of things. The African American was present at the American Revolution, where freedom was the battle cry that has come to define the American experiment. Yet it has been the African American liberation movement that has really defined the content of our understanding of freedom. Can America be free as long as the African American is held in bondage? The Civil War may have been framed by some as a conflict over economics and property rights, but it was also a question of whether or not the African American would be free. Perhaps that is only another way of saying the same thing. Nevertheless, the vast wealth accumulated by slave labor laid the basis for the expansion of the American empire, the colonial exploitation of peoples of color of other nations. White supremacy, the ideology developed to justify the enslavement of the African, came to be expressed as the Manifest Destiny of American supremacy. Soon whole sections of Mexico were annexed, then Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, etc. Recently in Atlanta, a construction site for the Olympics was raided by immigration officials looking for undocumented immigrants. It was a pathetic sight, as Mexican and other Hispanic workers scurried in every direction to escape the roundup. Many were caught, jailed and deported. How is immigration policy today, as personified by Proposition 187 in California, any different from the Fugitive Slave Act, which made it a crime to protect or harbor the runaway slave? Lincoln emancipated the slaves in 1865, but "property" remains, and with it only different forms of human bondage. Today an economic revolution has been engendered by the introduction of a new kind of "slave." Isn't it ironic that the Czech word robot means slave? But it is the robot which is replacing human labor and creating a new class. Those who originally were enslaved for their power to labor are now cast aside as useless, because their labor power is no longer needed. The African American people are at the core of this new class. This new class is composed of every nationality and color. The robot is no respecter of the color line. What is to become of this class of "useless" people? Are they to be the aliens in our midst -- criminalized and discarded? No. As in the beginning, it is the concept of property that is the alien thing among us. The destiny of our quest for freedom from bondage in all of its forms lies with the destiny of this new class. Because they have been cast off from the production process, they have no ties to the property system. The African American is at the heart of the new class. African American liberation is the condition for the liberation of America. The day when we finally throw off the shackles of the property system is the day when we can all proclaim "Free at last!" [John Slaughter is the author of New Battles Over Dixie; The Campaign for a New South. He has been active in the labor and civil rights movements in the South.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH 1995 WHICH WAY FOR AMERICA? Will America become a police state or a country where everyone has a job, a home and equality? For a thought-provoking debate on strategies for winning this NEW America, invite one of our speakers to your celebrations. ETHEL LONG-SCOTT is a nationally known organizer of poor people, especially women. She is the executive director of the Women's Economic Agenda Project in Oakland, California and has been instrumental in leading campaigns to defend poor women accused of "welfare fraud." ABDUL ALKALIMAT is a professor, activist and scholar and was the organizer of the U.S. delegation to the Seventh Pan-African Congress held in Uganda. He is an author of books on Malcolm X, Harold Washington, and other subjects. He is also an organizer of national high-tech and employment conferences, where the effect of the electronic revolution on society is debated. NELSON PEERY, a leader in the revolutionary movement since the days of the Scottsboro Boys case, is the author of Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary, a memoir about the black soldier in World War II. Peery currently chairs the Political Committee of the National Organizing Committee. DINO LEWIS is a poet, writer and organizer of the homeless and the poor. While in jail, he began writing about his hopes and dreams for a new America. He is a founding member of the Homeless Writers Coalition, a group of writers and poets from Skid Row in Los Angeles who produced a jazz-backed CD called Sidewalk Prophets. The People's Tribune Speakers Bureau has national and local speakers on numerous topics. Send for a free brochure. Call or write: P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654, 312-486-3551; or e-mail speakers@noc.org +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 7. THE 104TH CONGRESS HAS NO MANDATE TO STARVE THE POOR [Editor's note: The following is excerpts from an interview with Ethel Long-Scott of Oakland, California, one of the African American History Month speakers for the People's Tribune Speakers Bureau. She is the director of the Women's Economic Agenda Project and is a member of the Steering Committee of the National Organizing Committee.] PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Why is the government pursuing "welfare reform"? ETHEL LONG-SCOTT: The significance of these proposals is to try and shift the blame for a system that can no longer provide for people, by scapegoating not only the traditional parts of the poor, but also the new unemployed. They are scapegoating people to conceal the fact that a new economic class has been developed because of the electronic revolution. This new class of the permanently unemployed is made up of all colors and both genders. The old social contract -- welfare, unemployment insurance, etc. -- took care of workers that capitalism needed. That period is over. We need a new economic and social contract. But that new social contract can only come from the people on the bottom. So, we need to make sure that the reality of what's really driving this welfare reform discussion is made clear -- since capitalism no longer needs a section of workers, they're expendable. Gingrich and a section of the Republican Party have joined with the Democrats in making war on this new class. The position of the African American worker is once again the measuring stick of where our country is going. Workers who have traditionally been the most exploited, such as the African American, are the ones at the front of the homeless lines and the food lines, but with the electronic revolution, you have more white poor, so you see in Congress an assault on the quality of life of this new class. PT: Why are women playing such a leading role in the struggle against poverty? ELS: Women, and particularly single mothers, are finding themselves at the cutting edge of this mushrooming fight for not only their survival, but against this war to throw them and their families away. The process of denying them the ability to provide economic security for their children is the first step in awakening their social consciousness -- the understanding that they're going to have to fight to protect themselves and their families. It's not only an individual fight -- it's the beginning of a critique of the whole economic system. These women are coming to terms with the fact that if there is to be a just society, they must fight for it. PT: How do you see the Republican "Contract with America"? ELS: We call it the "Contract on America." It's a contract with the wealthy and on the majority of us who have to work in order to eat. And if you're not working, you're at risk. And it's important to see that many of these proposals led by the Republicans were developed in some form by parts of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have facilitated the idea that the way to solve the problem is to cater to working middle Americans. Of course they're ignoring the fact that the economy, not poor people, is destroying middle America. The Democrats and Republicans both represent one class -- the wealthy in our country. The 104th Congress pretends to have a mandate, but something like 62 percent of the population didn't vote in the last election because they don't trust any of them. PT: What do you say to people who still have jobs? ELS: We have to reject the idea that the answer is law enforcement, or begging in the street. Prisons are really just fancy concentration camps. We have to understand why capitalism doesn't need us and we don't need it. This system is exploiting and destroying us. We need to shape a system that takes care of our people. This African American History Month is about recognizing that in America you have to talk about both class and race to resolve problems in favor of the majority, which ultimately means establishing new leadership and governing the country in our own interest. ****************************************************************** 8. MORRIS BROWN: AMERICAN HERO By Jon Rice [Editor's note: Below we print the first of several profiles of outstanding leaders we will run during African American History Month 1995.] Morris Brown was a revolutionary. He was a man with a vision -- a vision which saved his people at the time and place in which he lived. He was a shoemaker who lived in Charleston, South Carolina between 1780 and 1822. Morris Brown was a prosperous free black in a land of black slaves and free whites. He was not to associate with slaves and poor blacks. It was not considered proper. It was in fact becoming quite dangerous for free blacks to associate with slaves. Here is why: The profit motive had become a prime consideration in slavery by the early 1800s. Cotton, rice and factories made big profits and profit meant everything under the new economic system. Slavery was the money-maker, even if it stung one's conscience. The trick was to convince oneself that this so-called black race was not capable of freedom. Slavery then could be made to appear right and become a permanent condition for an "inferior" people. One race (the black American) was to do all the work without pay. White Americans were to rule. Racism had become full-blown under this capitalist impulse to make profits at all costs. The freeing of slaves was made illegal under any conditions in South Carolina. In a world like the Charleston district of South Carolina, where free blacks made up 20 percent of the black population, this plan dashed the hopes of thousands of slaves who hired out for a living and dreamt of freedom. It also made wealthy free blacks extremely insecure. But Morris Brown had a vision -- an inspired vision which came out of a religious fervor sweeping the country called Methodism. Morris Brown felt the urge to preach and, most strongly, to preach to the poor. Brown began to preach and attracted a following among the poor and black. He spoke to them in the rhythm and language of the oppressed. He reached their spirits, filling them with hope where despair once ruled. Brown went to Philadelphia to study under black Bishop Richard Allen. He returned to Charleston as a reverend, preaching hope and freedom through salvation and freedom from sin. It sounded very safe to many wealthy white slaveowners to have their slaves preached to about being sinless. But what the black slave heard was not always what the slaveowner might have intended them to hear. The sinless life of Morris Brown's preaching had revolutionary implications and the slaves knew it. "Don't be afraid to do what is right," he preached. "Let God be your master!" (And what if the slaveowner's wishes departed from "right"?) The Rev. Morris Brown and the white Methodists clashed. Rev. Brown boldly took his 4,000 black followers, mostly slaves, and started their own church. There in the heart of slavery, they built their own edifice with their own hands and created their own institution. They built the only slave-run church in North America on the corner of Hanover and Reid Streets in Charleston. They called it the Mt. Zion African Methodist Church. The church targeted for destruction by the slaveowning powers from the moment it was created in 1818. In 1822, six slaves and one free black, members of Mt. Zion African Methodist Church, were hanged for allegedly plotting a slave revolt. Despite threats, torture and promises that their lives would be spared if they turned in others involved, they went to their deaths (as the slaves said at the time) "like Jesus before Pilate." They didn't say "a mumblin' word" and never implicated anyone else. They shook white South Carolina to its roots because those six blacks were not afraid to do what was right -- even unto death. South Carolina's resulting fear of losing control of the slaves made it paranoid and ultimately caused it to secede from the Union. That act of secession would be the death of slavery. The seed was sown by the Rev. Morris Brown and the fearlessness that he inspired in those six black men: Rolla Bennett, Peter Poyas, Jesse Blackwood, Ned Bennett, Batteau Bennett and Denmark Vesey. Morris Brown was expelled from the state and the church was physically destroyed. Its members continued to meet in secrecy until the day of their liberation. [Jon Rice is the author of _Up on Madison, Down on 75th_, an account of the Illnois chapter of the Black Panther Party.] ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ "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. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 9. POLICE BRUTALITY IN SAN JOSE: 'THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!' By Maria Ortiz [The following is taken from remarks made on December 15, 1994 by Maria Ortiz to the Human Rights Commission in San Jose. Ortiz is a member of Save Our Sons and the Coalition for a Police Review Board.] SAN JOSE, California -- We, as concerned community members, take the opportunity to address the problem of police abuse and the ineffectiveness of the independent police auditor. What we have witnessed throughout the year of 1994 was not a decrease of police brutality and killing of civilians, but an overwhelming increase of police brutality and killings of civilians, not only by the San Jose Police Department, but by the Santa Clara Sheriff's Department and correctional personnel. Here are some examples: On September 27, Moses Pardo, a 68-year-old grandfather, was murdered by the San Jose Police Department, shooting him several times in the chest over a knife no bigger than an apple peeler. To this day, the knife has not been found. In this case, the witnesses were and have been harassed by the police department. Arthur Diaz was murdered by the Sheriff's Department. The sheriff's car rammed into Diaz' body. Never regaining consciousness, he died that same day. The Diaz family continues to find overwhelming discrepancies in the so-called police report. On August 15, Jimmy Zuniga was brutally beaten by the San Jose police and parole agents, because Jimmy had violated his parole and refused to serve as an informant in his neighborhood. After he was brutally beaten in the presence of his 7-year-old daughter, he was immediately rushed out of the house so that the neighbors would not see what they did. They took him to the San Jose jail, where the inmates saw Jimmy with his eye hanging out. Individual police officers such as Officer Ayuo have had a long history of intimidating, harassing, threatening and beating many people. The response from the independent police auditor was that her hands were tied in regard to the past history and she couldn't do anything about it. We fear for our sons' lives when they're out in the street. The police pull them up for being so-called gang members, whether they're in a car or walking, or even shopping. These are but a few examples of the many cases of police abuse in our communities. Many of the cases I just mentioned to you have been reported to the independent police auditor and to date we have not heard from her office regarding any resolution favorable to the community. We are requesting this commission to make a recommendation to the San Jose City Council. A community police review board is desperately needed to resolve this highly volatile problem. ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 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. DOCUMENTARY EXPOSES GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. By Illene Nunes OAKLAND, California -- In 1991, the Public Broadcasting System was scheduled to air a documentary about General Electric Co. which was mysteriously pulled off the schedule. A subsidiary of PBS ran the piece recently, and here's what GE didn't want you to know. Washington state has one of the world's most toxic rivers. How did it get this way? GE is the U.S. government's No. 1 arms contractor. They manufacture most, if not all, the nuclear weapons for the United States. And you thought they just made light bulbs! The Hanford nuclear power plant is in Washington state; it is one of many owned by GE. In 1949, this plant released a radioactive cloud with radiation levels 50 times higher than the levels that devastated the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. The road the infectious cloud traveled is traceable by cancer rates 100 times above the national average -- traceable down to the very houses the cloud passed over. The people affected are in utter despair! Some of their children were born without skulls; others were missing limbs. There was cancer on every block! One lady reportedly lost her hair in 1949 and it never grew back. Only because of this documentary does she now know why. Today she is dying of cancer. Worse yet, GE has not been held accountable for anything! It hasn't cost them one thin dime. Moreover, the government has conveniently set up Superfund cleanup sites which are toxic waste dumps uninhabitable even by a cockroach. There are thousands of these sites across the country and -- guess what? -- GE makes up one-third of these sites and refuses to pay cleanup costs. "The government made me do it," goes the excuse, so who pays? Of course, we the taxpayers! It also was reported that it will take approximately 30 years of cleaning to make even a dent in America's toxic waste problems, in addition to at least $1,000,000,000,000,000. How many more lives have to be affected and traumatized before we take action? We, the people of America, must make the changes and stop letting unqualified, immoral jerks make decisions that directly affect our lives. Downsize the government! Cut costs at the top! For example, get rid of flags and flag poles and we will save $300,000 a year. Besides, we as a country know who we are -- what do we need all these flags for, anyway? The working class must come together and stop this avalanche of government from killing us! The bottom line is that there are two classes of people in America: the working class (the have-nots) and the capitalists who own nearly everything. The American public is not in control. Unite! We would be the majority if we came together. Capitalists feed on separatism! Don't be part of their feeding frenzy! ****************************************************************** 11. CALL FOR A SECOND CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE The world is in the midst of revolutionary change. The smokestacks and assembly lines no longer dominate our landscapes. The jobs we once knew are slowly disappearing. We are being replaced by robots, computers, lasers and other new technologies in our workplaces. The capitalists are defending their profits and domination by being ever more ruthless in their policies towards the workers and the new class of the dispossessed. The system can no longer feed and house us or provide us with jobs. We must help develop the fighting capacity of the oppressed and the exploited through education and organization. At every opportunity, we must go on the offensive and expose the capitalist system and uncloak our class enemy. We, the homeless, the welfare recipients, the unemployed, the youth, the minorities of all complexions and nationalities, women and other sectors of society -- in a word, the dispossessed -- must fight back if we are to survive. We are reaching out to revolutionaries who come from all walks of life. We are appealing to revolutionaries in the churches, in the media, in schools and colleges, in trade unions, in libraries, hospitals, in community organizations, and in discussion groups of all kinds. Revolutionaries are everywhere and we invite you to join us in fighting for a future of justice and economic security. We must destroy this system of private property. We have no choice but to create a new America free of exploitation and want. In order to do so, we need an organization that can educate. The National Organizing Committee has been in existence 18 months. We have experience carrying out our program, dedicated members who are revolutionaries, presses, and an educational system for our membership. It is time for us to do the following: * Sum up our experience; * Give our organization a name that reflects what we are -- an organization of revolutionaries; * Develop an organization that teaches our class who we are fighting, and what we are fighting for; * Evaluate our work and our organizational structure, and change it if necessary. Therefore, the National Council of the National Organizing Committee, in accordance with its bylaws, calls for the convening of a Convention of the National Organizing Committee, to be held April 29-30, 1995 in Chicago, Illinois. ****************************************************************** 12. DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE NOC FOR ITS SECOND CONVENTION This is an era of revolutionary change. For the first time in history, humankind can produce such abundance that society can be free from hunger, homelessness and backbreaking labor. The only thing standing in the way is this system of exploitation and injustice. The struggle today for homes, education, health care, freedom from police terror is the beginning of a revolution for a better world, economically and spiritually. [The NOC] takes as its mission the political awakening of the American people. We invite all who see that there's a problem and are ready to do something about it to join with us. With our organized strength, we will liberate the thinking of the American people and unleash their energy. We will win them to the cause for which they are already fighting. We will excite the American people with a vision of a world of plenty. Electronic technology provides better, cheaper and more products with less and less labor. Society now has the capacity to devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the intellectual, emotional and cultural needs of all. We will educate the people of this country about the economic revolution that's disrupting society. Every day, the new electronic technology throws thousands -- laborers and managers alike -- out of their jobs. Their labor is worthless to a system that values only what it can exploit. If they cannot work, they cannot eat. Radical changes in the way a society produces its wealth call for radical changes in how that society is organized. We will sound the alarm about the danger of a police state. The capitalist class cannot convince the American people to believe in their system while they are starving and freezing them and destroying their hopes and dreams. Their answer to the destruction of society is a police state. Their government takes away constitutional rights and gives back terror and prisons. They attempt to disarm the victims of capitalism by turning them against one another. We will inspire our people with the alternative to a police state: a society organized for the benefit of all. A society built on cooperation puts the physical, cultural and spiritual well-being of its people above the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. When the class which has no place in the capitalist system seizes control of all productive property and transforms it into public property, it can reorganize society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. We will empower the American people with the understanding of their role in striving for this new society and with the confidence that it's possible to win. The struggle of those who have no stake in this system carries the energy to overturn it. [The NOC] is an organization based on the aims of these millions of people. Our members come from all walks of life. We are in the thick of battle on every front. From within housing takeovers and protests, from within universities, hospitals and prisons, from within each of the scattered battles, from wherever there is poverty and injustice, we take this message out to politicize and organize the revolution that is already shaking up this country. We call on you to join us in crusading for this cause. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS DRAFT PROGRAM AND THE PROGRAM ADOPTED AT THE NOC'S FOUNDING CONVENTION? The last program was what we needed for where we were at that time in building an organization of revolutionaries. But in two years, a lot has changed in this country. We have already seen how this system is now attacking the very people who until very recently trusted and defended it. These people are now searching for political direction and for solutions to their problems. The ruling class tries to keep people confused and to keep them from fighting in their own interests. We have to meet the ruling class's intensifying propaganda war. This Draft Program says what has to be done to stop this handful of billionaires. More and more, people from every walk of life and every pocket of struggle against this system are looking for an organization with a plan for what has to be done. If we carry out this Draft Program, we will bring into the organization large numbers of people who want to do their part for the political awakening of the American people. We also found that our Program needs to state more clearly what our organization intends to do. The fight for what people need in order to live, the fight for an America of justice and happiness is the revolutionary struggle today, and our members are on the front lines of that struggle. This Draft Program spells out the message our members take to those front lines. The members have the important and difficult work: They take stock of what the people around them understand and what they're ready to do. They figure out how best to take out that message to the American people so that they can take their destiny into their own hands. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 13. JOIN THE NOC WHAT IS THE NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE? 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 E-mail: info@noc.org ****************************************************************** 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 For free electronic subscription, email: pt.dist-request@noc.org 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 pt@noc.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. For free electronic subscription, email: pt.dist- request@noc.org ******************************************************************