From jdav@noc.orgTue Mar 21 17:04:11 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Mar 95 13:48 GMT From: Jim Davis To: pt.dist@noc.org Subject: People's Tribune (3-20-95) Online Edition ****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 22 No. 12 / March 20, 1995 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: pt@noc.org ****************************************************************** INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 22 No. 12 / March 20, 1995 Page One 1. THE WAR ON THE POOR IS A WAR ON AMERICA Editorial 2. BUSINESS PROFITS FROM OUR MISERY News 3. SAN FRANCISCO HOMELESS MAN OPPOSES FINGERPRINTING OF WELFARE RECIPIENTS 4. LET'S BRING ABOUT CHANGE TO SAVE THE WORLD'S CHILDREN! 5. COOPERATING IN MASSACHUSETTS: GROUP FIGHTS TO EMPOWER AID RECIPIENTS 6. WHEN THE KILLING TIME COMES ... 7. A LIFELONG REVOLUTIONARY FOR A NEW AMERICA: HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY, KAY STRAUTHER 8. IN HONOR OF ROSE ARIAN Deadly Force 9. ANNIVERSARY OF RODNEY KING BEATING: WHAT IT MEANT IN SYRACUSE Culture Under Fire 10. STORY: OH SAY CAN'T YOU SEE? 11. POEM: MODERN HIEROGLYPHICS ON THE WHITE HOUSE WALL 12. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE ****************************************************************** 1. PAGE ONE: THE WAR ON THE POOR IS A WAR ON AMERICA Talking about the assault on public aid recipients, one Massachusetts welfare mother told The New York Times, "suddenly we're responsible for everything from the schools to the deficit." She said a mouthful. Nearly every "major" politician, Democrat or Republican, is calling for cuts in all kinds of public aid programs -- federal, state or city. It's important to see two things about this: first, that these attacks don't just stem from the personal views of this or that politician; and second, they are not simply an assault on the poor -- they are an attack on the overwhelming majority of Americans. Today's welfare state had its origins in a time of big, industrial businesses that needed the labor of millions. When these workers were temporarily unemployed, the welfare state supported them because the capitalists needed them. The welfare system and everything else that was needed to run an industrial society demanded big government. Today, when computers and robots are steadily replacing labor and businesses are "downsizing," the capitalists no longer need a big government or a welfare state. The cuts in welfare are just the beginning. They will set the stage for going after Medicare, Social Security and various subsidies to the "middle class." The attack on the poor also creates a horrible, punitive "blame the victims" political climate which goes hand in hand with the drive to create a police state to control the permanently unemployed. Many of those who today support "reducing big government" and "getting tough on crime" will later find themselves unemployed with no safety net and at the mercy of the police state they helped create. What's more, the various proposals to eliminate the "entitlement" status of social welfare programs and convert them to block grants to the states amounts to eliminating the legal right to survive. The attack on the poorest of the poor is simply the spearhead of an attack on the people as a whole. It is a wedge that divides us, and a tool for fostering mass acceptance of a certain philosophy -- a view that we are not responsible for one another, that neither society nor government has any obligation to the individual, and that the "free market" will solve all our problems if we just let it. There is no question that society is going to be reorganized around computers and robots. The only question is, who will benefit? The ruling class' solution means rising poverty, hunger and homelessness and a police state to control the excluded majority. But if the people take control of the new technology, we can end poverty and create the conditions for the true dawn of human civilization. Those who know the truth must tell it, to win the American people to an understanding of who the real enemy is, and to a vision of the bright future we can have if we unite and organize to liberate ourselves from a system that we no longer need, and that no longer needs us. ****************************************************************** 2. EDITORIAL: BUSINESS PROFITS FROM OUR MISERY Talk about nerve. One of this country's leading business magazines is actually gloating about how much money America's capitalists made last year by throwing people out of work! The March 6 edition of Business Week includes an article about the "stunning" rise in corporate profits in 1994. The gleeful tone of the piece, written by Lori Bongiorno in New York, is summed up by its title: "Hot damn, what a year!" For millions of people, 1994 was the year of the layoff -- their layoff. But for the 900 companies on Business Week's Corporate Scoreboard, "1994 turned out to be the best year for company earnings in more than two decades," according to the article. It seems that the profits of these companies increased by 40 percent last year, the biggest increase since Business Week began keeping track of such things in 1973. General Electric Co. led the pack, earning $5.9 billion in 1994. General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. were close behind GE, in second and third place, respectively. GM's profits increased by 129 percent, to $5.7 billion; Ford's increased by 110 percent, to $5.3 billion. Chrysler Corp., No. 7 on Business Week's list, saw its profits rise 54 percent, to $3.7 billion. If this article simply listed the huge profits made by major companies last year, its cheerleading on behalf of millionaires would be obnoxious but forgettable. However, the article also proves that it is precisely because of their "downsizing" that these companies made such gigantic profits in 1994. The article pays one sentence of lip service to the agony experienced by the millions who have lost their jobs, referring quickly to the "painful restructuring" of Corporate America. Then, in the very next sentence, it lets the cat out of the bag, admitting that the sharp rise in profits is caused by two factors: "[l]ower operating costs -- including restrained wage hikes" and "technological improvements." The article cites the example of the Sears Merchandise Group, where profits rose 18 percent in 1994, increasing to $890 million. The piece gives part of the credit for this to "strong appliance sales" and some to "a lot of cost-cutting." Using a mild term like "cost-cutting" is an outrageously bland way to describe massive layoffs which devastated the lives of thousands of loyal Sears employees, many of whom had worked for that employer for decades. But outrageous blandness notwithstanding, Business Week's basic point is well taken. The biggest capitalists in America are making billions of dollars by throwing millions of people out of work and then replacing us with "technological improvements" -- like robots, computers and high-tech. Since all that is undeniable, surely it raises another point, a matter that Business Week didn't even want to bring up. If "technological improvements" now mean that production can take place without human labor, what do we need capitalists for, anyway? ****************************************************************** 3. SAN FRANCISCO HOMELESS MAN OPPOSES FINGERPRINTING OF WELFARE RECIPIENTS [Editor's note: The following article is adapted from an article in the January issue of Streetsheet.] SAN FRANCISCO -- James Kidd, a homeless General Assistance (G.A.) recipient, took the city to court over the new requirement that all G.A. recipients be fingerprinted. Kidd has enlisted the pro bono legal services of National Lawyers Guild attorney Graham Noyes, who specializes in criminal defense and constitutional law. Kidd, who is 55 and has lived in San Francisco since 1958, applied for and began receiving G.A. in February 1994. In March 1994, he received a notice stating that he had an appointment to be fingerprinted at the G.A. office. Kidd refused to submit to this indignity, and his benefits were terminated. Kidd contested the termination at an administrative hearing. The judge upheld the denial of benefits. At his hearing, James Kidd submitted a declaration explaining his reasons for challenging the policy. The following is his declaration: "I have no physical or mental disabilities that would excuse me from the fingerprinting requirement and my reasons are not self- centered. I am concerned with what lies ahead for homeless people. We are arrested for urinating in public when there are no public restrooms; we are cited for sleeping outdoors when we have no homes; we are told we are breaking laws that we are not breaking. Our belongings are taken and thrown away without due process. We are beaten and knocked down by fascist police. "We could escape this by enduring the humiliation of the process and social workers of G.A. but fingerprinting has changed that. [Mayor] Frank Jordan has stated that Matrix will keep San Francisco from becoming a magnet for homeless people. And he doesn't want G.A. to be a magnet for people needing assistance. It is clear that the goal of the Department of Social Services is to cut the budget, not fraud. Fingerprinting is just another stage in the G.A. filtering system. This is the same logic as making jails so bad that no one will want to go there. "This approach is wrong. In implementing this, society becomes more and more distant and brutal and drives more people further and further into the periphery. This is especially cruel to homeless people, for we have done nothing wrong. We simply happen to be the ones that are shut out of an economic system that is unable to accommodate everyone. Not that it couldn't, but this is the way that the moral majority likes it. It's not right for the majority to impose this kind of control over a minority group -- a control they would not accept themselves. There would be an outcry like you never heard if it was suggested we use fingerprinting to eliminate voter fraud, or to prevent people from receiving two refunds from the IRS. The Department of Social Services says we can fake Social Security numbers. Why doesn't Social Security get a fingerprint computer? "I refuse to be fingerprinted, not to hide fraud and not because I am a criminal, but to take a stand. I believe it is a moral position; it's one my conscience dictates. For every person [the city] can show me committing fraud, I can show 10,000 who aren't getting the aid they need and deserve. One of my favorite songs goes, 'If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair. You're sure to meet some gentle people there.' Today, most of the gentle people are hiding in the bushes. I am entitled to G.A. benefits, but do not deserve to be fingerprinted." On December 22, on James Kidd's behalf, Noyes filed in San Francisco Superior Court and served on the city attorney's office an amended petition for administrative mandate which challenges the fingerprinting policy as violating the federal and state constitutions. In his new book You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, historian Howard Zinn, talking about the civil rights movement of the 1960s and its lessons for today, says: "What the Movement proved ... is that even if people lack the customary attributes of power -- money, political authority, physical force -- as did the black people of the Deep South, there is a power that can be created out of pent-up indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they can win. It is a phenomenon recorded again and again in the history of popular movements against injustice all over the world. There is no sign of such a movement in the early nineties. But the need for it is clear, and the ingredients for it are all around, waiting to be put together. ... There are millions of people ... increasingly impatient with the system's failure to give them, however eager they are to work hard, security in jobs, in housing, in health care, in education. ... The reward for participating in a movement for social justice is not the prospect of future victory. It is the exhilaration of standing together with other people, taking risks together, enjoying small triumphs and enduring disheartening setbacks -- together." As we go to press, James Kidd's hearing is taking place. Show your support for this challenge to the Matrix mentality; stand with James Kidd in his refusal to submit to this Orwellian humiliation. ****************************************************************** 4. LET'S BRING ABOUT CHANGE TO SAVE THE WORLD'S CHILDREN! There is an assault taking place worldwide against children. Here in America, hardhearted politicians pass laws to treat children like adults. In Brazil, death squads murder poor children. In Mexico, poor children look for food in garbage piles. Stand up for the children, our future! By Ali Khalid Abdullah JACKSON, Michigan -- I want to come before you and bring up a subject that sickens the sensitivities of any human being who is worth the breath they breathe. That subject is the assault taking place worldwide against children. Children today are under attack from those we call "adults." Children are under attack from those we call "responsible political leaders and heads of state." Children are under attack from those we call fathers and mothers. Children are under attack from the Hollywood stars they see. Children are under attack from the sports heroes they look up to. Children are under attack by the local and federal law enforcement agencies in America and abroad. Children ... children ... children are under attack, conscious readers, and it is up to those of consciousness to stand up for them or else we too, as adults, will fall. Here in America, we have hardhearted political officials who have introduced bills and passed laws in various states to treat a child's mind like an adult mind. These political leaders don't want to know why a child has gone bad, or why a child has committed some act against social standards. All they want to do is deal with them in harsh terms. But the children are the results, the reflections of what adults are. The political leaders who have sworn to uphold the law have officially declared "war" on all children of color and all children who happen to come from a poor family with little or no education. The strange part about all this is that so-called responsible, spiritual people are the ones who are passing these laws by consent for the politicians to act upon, like the proposition that was passed in California that bans all people who happen to be living in this country (illegally) to escape horrors in their own country from receiving medical or financial or educational assistance. These political leaders know this will do more to damage children and women than men. But who cares, right? In Brazil, death squads are hired to murder young children who just-so-happen to be poor and from a broken home, in order to keep them from asking people for food, money or shelter. That government would rather kill them than help them, while this government knows of this horror but continues to do business with Brazil daily while they tell the American people that they are concerned about human rights. In Mexico, children are literally looking for food in garbage piles because their parents are too poor to feed them. Yet the American government knows this and does business with Mexico on a daily basis and turns a blind eye and screams to the world how humanitarian they are. Crap!!!! This government is a liar. This government is a whore that will sleep with any vicious leader or head of state for a price. This government does not really care about human rights because if they did, they would not treat and/or allow others to treat children so cruelly. It is time for change, real change. The only way change will take place, the only way the political forces in America and around the industrial world will change is by the people demanding and doing anything necessary to assure that this change takes place, even if it means giving one's own life. Do you think you can do this, conscious readers? Do you think that you can become fed up with the lies and take the necessary steps to effect change? If you say "yes," then you should be seriously involved with the various organizations mentioned in the People's Tribune. You should join the National Organizing Committee and other grassroots organizations that are real about making changes for all of God's people who are somewhere suffering. You may think that you can't make a difference, but if another of you comes along, and then another you, and then another, pretty soon we will have many yous and the job can start. Our children are our most precious resource. If we do not stand up for ourselves, then at least stand up for the children, our future. [Please send comments to: Ali K. Abdullah #148130, Charles E. Egeler Correctional Facility, 3855 Cooper Street, Jackson, Michigan 49201-7517.] ****************************************************************** 5. COOPERATING IN MASSACHUSETTS: GROUP FIGHTS TO EMPOWER AID RECIPIENTS By Anthony D. Prince Sometimes, even in the darkest hour, you can glimpse a new dawn. Sometimes, even a group of people who have been pushed down to the bare necessities, whose dignity has been all but trampled to dust and who have been figuratively and literally spat upon by society are able to create a vision of tomorrow in the middle of the darkness and degradation of the present. Go to the farthest, eastern-most shore of Massachusetts, that birthplace of so many American visionaries, American revolutionaries. There, in the tiny town of Eastham, population 3,000, you will find just such a group of people, and their leader is Carol Gagnon. ****************** EASTHAM, Massachusetts -- When they think of Cape Cod, most people think of elegant seaside mansions, summer beach homes or the Kennedy family compound on Martha's Vineyard to the south.. First to mind are not the seasonal workers who suffer a staggering 57 percent unemployment rate when winter comes to places like Provincetown, Wellfleet or Eastham. But that's the cold reality for Carol Gagnon, a 37-year-old single mother, and hundreds of welfare recipients like her. "I was in the store the other day," she says, "and when I pulled out my food stamps, a guy started yelling at me, 'You people are the problem!' " Now, like many of the country's 27 million food stamp recipients, she does her shopping at midnight. Gagnon's story began in 1990 when she left an abusive husband with her three-year-old daughter in tow. The graphic arts job she had once enjoyed fell victim to the advent of high technology. "I was great at paste-up," she recalls. "Now a computer does that job." Her descent into poverty was rapid and brutal. Her bitterness at the state of Massachusetts is barely disguised. "They fund domestic violence programs and encourage us to leave," she says. "Then they leave us with no way to stabilize ourselves. I did what I had to do. My choice was stay and be abused or end up in the homeless shelter." But unlike so many others whose dignity is beaten out of them in such circumstances, Gagnon envisioned a way out, a goal and a means to attain that goal. She started Mass A-PEAL, the Massachusetts People's Empowerment and Action League. Today, four years later, Gagnon's organization has birthed a set of cooperative efforts borne of necessity. "ShareShop," a store where labor can be exchanged for used shoes, clothing and other necessities; "Living on the Edge," a food distribution network; and drug-free, alcohol-free dances that attract 200 teen-agers every Friday night. "We've dispelled the myth that welfare recipients are lazy, that we don't care about anybody but ourselves," says Gagnon. Of the 100 people a day who come into ShareShop, "only one or two might take advantage. The rest all donate something or do some work," says Gagnon. In fact, Mass A-PEAL's efforts represent a stinging indictment of a society dominated by private wealth and corrupt political rulers. The very existence of a hardscrabble secondhand store operated by some of the poorest people in America, while the privately owned warehouses are full of new, unsold shoes, coats, shirts and other products crystallizes the capitalist paradox of goods in plenty and people without the money to buy them. "Poverty is a symptom," says Gagnon. "We bailed out the S&Ls and nobody talked about them because they're the good old boys; they just made a little mistake!" Turning her wrath on Massachusetts Gov. William Weld and the state's legislators who recently told welfare recipients to find a job or a training program in 60 days or lose all their aid, Gagnon reports, "The same day, they voted themselves a $16,000-a-year pay raise." In fact, when it comes to ordering people to find jobs or starve, the hypocrisy of the state of Massachusetts goes deeper still. Four years ago, Gov. Weld began accelerating the use of prison labor to replace state employees. Said Weld's commissioner of corrections: "Anytime we have 140 inmates out there, there are 140 salaries we're not paying." In the same year that Carol Gagnon was forced onto welfare, Weld used between 800 and 1,000 inmates to perform state work, the same William Weld who now tells people to "get a job" or starve. It was precisely such bald-faced hypocrisy, such high-handed arrogance by a previous ruler of Massachusetts -- England's King George III -- that fueled the colonists' revolt 200 years ago. At that time, the dirt farmers, runaway slaves, workers and indentured servants found common cause in a great revolutionary upheaval. Carol Gagnon and Mass A-PEAL are cut from the same cloth as those ragged rebels, and they share the same vision. In an age where food can be grown in computer-driven greenhouses and clothing literally flies off laser-controlled looms, where no one should have to go without because of a lack of employment or money, that vision can and must become a reality. ****************************************************************** 6. WHEN THE KILLING TIME COMES ... By Jackie Gage LONG BEACH, California -- When the killing time comes, where will you be? People who kill when there are other options are either ignorant, inhumane or insane. People who kill when there are no other options are desperate. A system that perpetuates killing when it has other options is dysfunctional and barbaric and needs to be changed. I do not condone killing of any kind. When someone has been robbed of life, we must ask why. What led to the death of that individual? The media use our fear and our grief to force their opinions on us and control our way of thinking, which controls our actions. We must take back the control and make educated, unbiased decisions before acting. My family has been victimized by the inhumanities caused by the system, one that continually markets the trickle-down theory. The politicians are correct. Water, oil, sweat and the blood shed to build this country all trickle down. We recognize the fact that robotics and modern technology -- once sold to us as a labor-saving device -- is really a people- replacing device responsible for the poverty and devastation that plagues this country while influencing policies and procedures of other countries. We must implement our constitutional rights and make our voices heard. We know the method used by a system that feeds us with a long-handled spoon. Through education and support we can eliminate the oppression destroying innocent lives. Every grassroots organization must unite to end the oppression that has created more casualties than the Vietnam War. In our struggles we must educate, organize and share our knowledge and strength with the world. Make your voice heard. Contact your local chapter of the National Organizing Committee or write to the People's Tribune and Tribuno del Pueblo so that others may know of your struggles and triumphs. ****************************************************************** 7. A LIFELONG REVOLUTIONARY FOR A NEW AMERICA HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY, KAY STRAUTHER By Laura Garcia for the People's Tribune Editorial Board CHICAGO -- Who is Kay Strauther? She is a woman who just turned 80. What is so special about her? Kay is a revolutionary African American woman who has dedicated her life to the fight for a better distribution of wealth in this country. How did this soft-spoken lady turn so radical? "I was born in Forrest City, Arkansas on February 19, 1915. Poverty, problems with the Ku Klux Klan and a search for a better future for his children forced my father to migrate to Detroit, Michigan. These were the times when blacks in great numbers were lured from the South to the North in search of jobs. "For instance, Henry Ford was paying $5 a day, which was an enormous sum for those times. I was then six or eight years old." Kay was the oldest of the four girls and two boys of Jonas and Beatrice Strauther. A brother and two sisters still live in Detroit. Her father was a barber both in Arkansas and later in Detroit. Her mother had been a schoolteacher in Arkansas and a homemaker in Detroit. "My father died when I was 10 years old and left my mother with six children," Kay recalled. "We had a pretty hard time because my father's income was gone. There was no such thing as Social Security or welfare. We survived by whatever family and friends could provide us with. "Then when I graduated from Northwestern High School in 1931, there were very few jobs. It was the time of the Great Depression. There were soup lines in downtown Detroit." This is when Kay started wondering why there were poor people and rich people. This is when she found out about the Communist Party. "I heard that Communists didn't believe in the rich with all the money and the poor with nothing. I became curious as to what kind of thinking these people had. I wanted to meet them. "I went to some of their meetings in my late teens and early 20s, but I was never accepted in their organization. Or, rather, I was never asked to join. There were very few women in the Communist Party. There were black men, because they [the Communist Party] wanted to organize the men into unions. "I would still go to things -- speeches, readings, things like that. But I never joined anything until I joined the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. I was one of the organizers." By this time, it was the 1960s. "I was working at Wayne State University as a secretary. I met General Baker and Marian Kramer. They were protesting for jobs, against being laid off at Ford Motor Co., for more money, for hiring women." Later on, Kay moved and changed with the times. She became one of the founding members of the Communist Labor Party in 1974. She retired in 1977 at the age of 62 and visited the Soviet Union. Asked why she retired early, she says frankly: "I didn't want to spend all my life working for someone else. I wanted to be a full- time revolutionary." Kay moved to Chicago in 1979 and has lived here ever since. Today, there's hardly a demonstration or an event where you will not find Kay agitating with copies of the People's Tribune in hand. Or if it's Tuesday afternoon, callers will be answered by Kay as she busily inputs articles for upcoming issues of the People's Tribune. Kay also discusses with the board her latest talks with people in the street who buy the People's Tribune. Her revolutionary fire still burns strong, fanned by the injustices she sees today. "Things aren't fair," she says. "We have to fight for a better distribution of the wealth. Until we have this, we won't stop fighting!" On this, her 80th birthday, we the Editorial Board of the People's Tribune proudly join with her comrades and friends in celebrating her birthday. Happy birthday, dear comrade! ****************************************************************** 8. IN HONOR OF ROSE ARIAN [Editor's note: The statement below was sent by the national office of the National Organizing Committee to a memorial gathering held in San Pedro, California on March 5 to honor the life of Rose Arian. Rose Arian, who died earlier this year, was part of a family which has played an important role for decades in the union movement and the fight for social justice on the West Coast.] Rose Arian was a lifelong comrade in the struggle for a just, peaceful and orderly world. She was part of the great struggles of the Depression years. She was part of the struggle against the McCarthyites. She was stable and steadfast during the years of ideological and political confusion. She never surrendered. She never lost confidence in herself or her class or in the future of humanity. As lesser people humiliated themselves, denouncing what they considered a lost cause, Comrade Rose gave direction and assistance to a new generation of revolutionaries. Her ideals left an imprint on everything she was associated with, including our organization. Comrade Rose was a worthwhile person. Her quiet, enduring contribution has become a part of the foundations of not simply a new movement but a new world. We shall miss Comrade Rose. We extend our heartfelt condolence to her family. We pledge to them and to her memory that we shall continue to fight for the ideals that were central to her long and fruitful life. ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ "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. ANNIVERSARY OF RODNEY KING BEATING: WHAT IT MEANT IN SYRACUSE By Nancy Rhodes SYRACUSE, New York -- Here in Syracuse, the beating of Rodney King occurred as our community task force was nearly ready to take our citizen review proposal to the Common Council -- a proposal many months of research, neighborhood speakouts and rewrites in the making -- where it would face another grueling year of inch-by- bloody-inch birthing. Ignoring all this, opponents have often said the CRB was only a rash reaction to an "aberration." You many remember exactly when you heard the Simi Valley verdict. I was at the Urban League at a meeting. Someone sent a note in. At the massive gathering soon held at Southwest Community Center, a group of young people seared questions into many minds: "Where were you?" demanded one skinny young woman with electrifying dignity, looking tiny at the microphone in the middle of the vast gym floor. "Where were you? How did you allow this to happen?" It's hard to imagine the landscape of our efforts without this landmark. In Syracuse, that image has a special, coincidental importance. On March 3, 1993, the second anniversary of Rodney King's beating (shortly before our CRB law, once vetoed by the mayor, was again to face a Council vote), late-news viewers were shocked awake by police routing some 900 mostly black teens down Salina Street, our city's main drag. Exiting a Landmark Theater concert at 10:30 p.m., a mostly orderly crowd somehow "rioted" in time for the 11:00 news. Bus drivers later related watching police charge the crowd with Mace and batons. Complaints later revealed some officers specially concentrating on young black women for attack and racial epithets. Despite pressure to back off, the Urban League held hearings for young people and produced a report authored by a local law professor. The police chief reportedly warned watch groups in black neighborhoods that response times would be slower if the League persisted in its hearings. City Hall abruptly decided funds weren't available for the League's summer youth programs (cuts later restored). For some observers, the investigation highlighted the incident's always suspiciously tight timing. How did so many cops in full riot gear get there so fast? Who got the TV news crews there so fast, too? Some of us have always believed the Landmark incident was a set- up, a made-for-TV horror movie meant to scare voters and councilors alike before the crucial vote, meant to be followed by the predictable, "Would you want your officer to hesitate?" Here, that backfired, at least temporarily. Irritated, one councilor remarked there was now no way out of voting for the CRB. Since then, other communities have reported what seem oddly like attempts to provoke their young people -- usually their teens of color -- at just critical moments. We must seize them all year long. [The author is the editor of Policing By Consent, the newsletter of the National Coalition on Police Accountability and a leading activist in the fight against police abuse in Syracuse, New York.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE INFERNO ON OSAGE AVENUE: TEN YEARS LATER Help us prepare for an important anniversary. Ten years ago this May 13, the Philadelphia Police Department perpetrated the MOVE bombing that destroyed 61 homes and cost the lives of 11 people, including five children. This deliberate act of slaughter represented a gigantic step toward the establishment of a full-blown police state in this country. Ten years later, a system that can no longer feed, clothe or house millions of people is resorting to unprecedented levels of violence and repression. Our editors will be assembling a special feature to mark the 10th anniversary of the MOVE bombing, drawing its lessons and pointing the way out of the crisis we face today. To bring this special feature to an expanded audience, and to keep the People's Tribune coming month after month, we need money. Can we count on you for help with this important effort? Thanks! Get out the People's Tribune, get out the truth and unity. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 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. STORY: OH SAY CAN'T YOU SEE? I am Old Man Bags. I have a little story about how I myself got tagged. I was taking a little snooze, after a little booze, enough as to put me in a deep hibernation. It's a thing you learn to do, sad but true. You see I sleep on the streets and I get cold feet. Anyways that's how my story began. I was next to a wall curled up in a little ball when hissing sounds started to enter my dreams. Snakes I thought, and in my dreams I fought, cause I was sure I had froze and was now listening to the serpents of hell. Then to my surprise when I did arise, I sprang up like an alley cat. At first I couldn't understand, it wasn't my maker, I watched them shaker, two young lads with spray paint cans. Sure I was mad, and yelled I am Old Man Bags, what do you think you are doing? Both started to laugh, and said "Well Old Man Bags you've just been tagged what do think of us now?" Well they were right, oh what a sight, I had been painted from head to toe. Damn I replied, you could of sprayed me in my eyes, and these are the only clothes I have to keep. I slapped the cans from their hands, and said don't you understand, I have nothing, I live here alone on the streets. One gave me his sweater and said he thought I looked better, and I should settle down unless I wanted to get beat. I said, but I am the only private property I have, me, Old Man Bags, go ahead knock me dead, I'm too tired, too old to weep. The other said I was making him sad, and gave me a hand full of doe and said there was something he would like to show and picked up one of the spray cans. He walked to the wall and his name he sprawled and I slowly started to understand. I was thinking, oh say can't you see by dawn's early light, these are times of peace, this is how they now fight, it's better than sending them to foreign lands. The other picked up his can and wrote his name with his own hand, and started to make the message complete. I started to get tears in my eyes when I started to realize, this is their version of their wall, names written bold, names written tall, and each and everyone alive. You see this country has a wall of its own version, of deception and coercion and how their names should be read. The big problem with this country's wall is each and every one of their names are youths who are now dead. (Vietnam Memorial) You see those war veterans who died are now very much alive reincarnated in the youth of everyone. I see each and every life come back to life and writing their name boldly for you to see. Thank you I said, Mack! Curbby! You're not dead! And then I started to weep. They said Old Man Bags please don't be sad, how bout we get you something to eat. -- OLD MAN BAGS (Dennis Lonell Muldrow) ****************************************************************** 11. POEM: MODERN HIEROGLYPHICS ON THE WHITE HOUSE WALL Modern hieroglyphics on the white house wall if you don't read it you will fall. Try to cover up an endless sea, and you'll see, you'll see, you'll see. Modern hieroglyphics on the white house wall, come and see, come one, come all. IT'S A REALITY OF THE STREETS! Read it. Know it. Be complete. Modern hieroglyphics are you and me. WE WILL BE STUDIED THROUGHOUT HISTORY! On spray painting will have degrees. Modern hieroglyphics is a reality. Spray, spray, spray from the can, we are modern day Americans. They cover it up, we spray it back. Like an airplane flying against the flak. We'll be back, we'll be back. Modern hieroglyphics on the white house wall, on the white house wall. On the white house wall (spray) On the white house wall (spray) On the white house wall (spray) On the white house wall (spray) -- Dennis Lonell Muldrow ****************************************************************** 12. 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 ******************************************************************