****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 24 No. 4/ April, 1997 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: pt@noc.org ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is now available on the World Wide Web at http://www.mcs.com/~jdav/league.html +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 24 No. 4/ April, 1997 Page One 1. OPPOSE LEGAL TERROR: BUILD AN AMERICA FOR ALL Editorial 2. THE UNLEASHING OF THE POLICE: AMERICA'S RULERS PREPARE TO SILENCE DISCONTENT Spirit of the Revolution 3. FEAR NOT, PREACHERS! News and Features 4. NO ONE HAS TO GO HUNGRY OR BE HOMELESS IN THE WORLD TODAY 5. WELFARE 'REFORM' SPARKS RESISTANCE ACROSS THE GLOBE 6. CHICAGO FORUM HEARS GRIM FACTS ABOUT WELFARE LAW: WORKFARE WILL HURT EVERYONE, SAY ANALYSTS 7. FIVE YEARS AFTER THE L.A. REBELLION: WHERE ARE WE NOW? 8. GUESS WHO IS LOSING THE NUMBERS GAME? GLOBAL CAPITAL, GLOBAL MISERY 9. CLONING SHEEP: CONVERTING LIFE FORMS INTO CORPORATE PROPERTY 10. HOMELESS ATTACKED BY THE 'LIBERALS' IN CALIFORNIA CITY 11. 1,000 BOUQUETS OF FLOWERS FOR RO'S'N MCALISKEY ON WOMEN'S DAY: WORLD CONDEMNS MISTREATMENT OF PREGNANT IRISH PRISONER 12. MOBILIZE FOR JUNE MARCH IN DETROIT 13. THE STOCK MARKET: GAMBLING WITH OUR FUTURE Women and Revolution: Visions for a New America 14. GOVERNMENT'S UPCOMING DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC HOUSING UNITS WILL AFFECT EVERYONE 15. BOOK EXPLORES STRUGGLE OF THOSE ON WELFARE >From the League 16. IT'S TIME TO FIGHT POLITICALLY FROM A COMMON CLASS STANCE! Announcements, Events, etc. 17. AUDIOTAPES PRESENT A VISION OF A NEW AMERICA ****************************************************************** 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, send a message to pt-dist@noc.org with "Subscribe" in the subject line. For electronic subscription problems, e-mail pt-admin@noc.org. ****************************************************************** ****************************************************************** 1. PAGE ONE: OPPOSE LEGAL TERROR: BUILD AN AMERICA FOR ALL Thousands of people are having their public aid benefits -- including food stamps -- eliminated. The already desperate situation faced by millions of people trying to survive will certainly become more explosive in the months and years to come. The ruling class knows this quite as well as anybody else. That is why police forces are literally getting away with murder. The ruling class intends to meet the inevitable social explosion resulting from the removal of the safety net and the whole breakdown of the economic system with the rawest, deadliest police terror. It is the only way they can keep their power in the face of deepening poverty in the midst of the greatest wealth the world has ever known. History is being made. We can choose to live in the confines of a police state, or we can choose to fight for a society that ends inequality, injustice and poverty forever. A recent gun battle involving L.A. police, and the shooting by police of a Chicago woman, illustrates the nature of the struggle we face. See page 2 for details ****************************************************************** 2. EDITORIAL: THE UNLEASHING OF THE POLICE: AMERICA'S RULERS PREPARE TO SILENCE DISCONTENT On the evening of March 4, Fernanda Royal, 26 years old, was holding her child in her arms as she and other residents of the Cabrini-Green housing complex watched Chicago Housing Authority police make what press reports called a drug-related arrest. Housing cop Ronald Pace allegedly pulled out his gun and fired straight into the group of unarmed tenants. His bullet struck Royal in the chest. Press reports said that after the shooting "at least one sniper" in one of the Cabrini buildings fired at police. The police, quite naturally, did what occupying forces the world over do -- they staged a military assault on the entire community. "Dozens of back-up police officers -- including units from Chicago and the Illinois State Police -- were called," reported the Chicago Tribune. "Apartments were searched by police, who knocked down doors with battering rams in some cases. Streets were closed to traffic. "The confrontation ended after hundreds of residents gathered for more than an hour to yell at police, whom they accused of treating them like animals," reported the Chicago Tribune. This police violence in Chicago vividly illustrates one of the unmistakable political truths of 1997: Today, the police will use all the power that they possess against the people. A few days earlier, on February 28, television viewers in Los Angeles and elsewhere had seen a shoot-out between the Los Angeles Police Department and two armed men who attempted to rob a branch of the Bank of America. There was a gun battle some compared to a scene from the fictional movie "Heat." It ended with both alleged robbers being killed by police. The ruling class and their police wasted no time in using the Los Angeles incident to try and restore the old "Dragnet" and "Adam 12" image of the LAPD and erase those of Darryl Gates, Laurence Powell, Stacey Koon and Mark Fuhrman. They also were quick to claim that the alleged robbers were better armed than the police. The LAPD and other departments used the Los Angeles shoot-out to argue that they need more firepower -- deadly force that will be used against us all. The response to the shoot-out in Los Angeles demonstrates another of the political realities: Today, the ruling class will ruthlessly exploit the fears of ordinary people in order to strengthen the power of the police. Revolutionaries observing these events should well note the timing. These bursts of heavy police gunfire in the nation's second and third largest cities come just as the first provisions of the welfare "reform" law President Clinton signed last year are taking effect. Thousands of people are having their benefits -- including food stamps -- eliminated. An already desperate situation faced by millions trying to survive will certainly become more explosive in the months and years to come -- as a direct result of what Clinton did. The ruling class knows this as well as anybody and that is why the police in Chicago and Los Angeles put on the displays that they did. The ruling class intends to meet the inevitable social explosion resulting from the removal of the safety net and the whole breakdown of the economic system with the rawest, deadliest police terror. The ruling class is using police terror not just to maim or kill their immediate targets, but to use these events to draw your attention and send you a message: Don't challenge our rule. Further, they intend to cow us into accepting life under a police state that upholds bourgeois rule. Like Fernanda Royal in Chicago, millions of us in this country don't have either the money or the weapons which the ruling class possesses. All we have is ourselves. We don't have to take this terror. We can break it and free ourselves of it and move forward to a society that has liberated everyone from poverty and from fear. The only response for us now is to unite, to organize ourselves, and to struggle and win this new society. ****************************************************************** 3. SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION: FEAR NOT, PREACHERS! By Ruben Ayala [Editor's note: Below we print the latest contribution to our regular column about spirituality and revolution. We encourage readers to submit articles to this column and to comment on what appears here.] Living in large cities, it is all too easy to allow the violence and abrasiveness that we encounter from day to day to coarsen us so much that we soon take it for granted and accept it without protest. But let's look at it a little deeper. Our politicians continue to promote policies that favor multimillionaires and disenfranchise the poor. Poverty, racism, the injustices of our judicial system, lack of funds for education, the coldhearted dismantling of welfare and health care programs. Everywhere you look, there are new attacks on our humanity. Have we become so hardened that we can ignore these evils? A Philadelphia-area preacher recently told me that he doesn't get involved with his "brothers and sisters on the left" because they "don't go to church; they don't know Jesus." I reminded him, as I would like to remind unsalted preachers everywhere, that anyone who works for justice in unjust surroundings is working for the Kingdom of God, and thus for Jesus. As Eberhard Arnold, founder of the Bruderhof, and a preacher, albeit from a wholly different era and background, writes in his book Inner Land: "Anyone who is prepared to share only inner need of his fellow men, not their outer need as well, fully and completely, is cutting life into halves. Thereby he is losing the inner half of life, the very part he was supposed to be gaining or preserving. ... Christ took on outer need just as inner need: in His eyes the two are inseparably one. It is possible to share lovingly and militantly in the life of our times only when we respond with every fiber of our being to the work demanded, when in every drop of our heart's blood we feel the distress [of others], share in suffering it, and thereby help to actively overcome it." (page 17). To churches whose pastors or ministers avoid the social and economic issues merely in order to avoid harassment or disfavor -- pastors who are fearful of conflicts and difficulties -- let me say this: When you truly live for the Gospel and work for God's Kingdom, persecution is sure to follow. If you avoid it because you want to retain a comfortable church life and a quiet, happy congregation, fine, but don't be deluded. You are not lighting up the world you live in. Or as Mother Teresa has said (and she's caused more than a few controversies of her own): "Words that do not convey the light of Christ only increase the darkness." In God's army there are no cowards. "God did not give us the Spirit of fear, but of Power, Love, and of Sound mind." We who claim to be working for justice must always look for the spark of the divine in human beings around us. As Christians, we have an obligation to not only profess our faith, but to stand with those who struggle against injustice. In order to bring peace and justice to our fellow human beings, we must vigorously promote activities that will awaken people's consciousness. A church that takes a stance on something but fails to follow its words with concrete deeds is in danger of losing its credibility. It is in danger of divorcing itself from the reality of life. Christians must care about human development, about political and social aspects of life. Preaching a good sermon on the evils of our world won't drive those evils away. A preacher's job is to engender action, to encourage deeds of good, deeds of love. Some pastors think that once they have preached about a troublesome issue, they have resolved it. What a relief to get it off one's chest! How searching our insight and wise our conclusions! But they easily deceive themselves. Preaching the gospel without getting involved in the "life issues" that hamper our ability to follow it in concrete terms is not the example Jesus gave us. Does the gospel you preach make people think about themselves and their surroundings? Is it "radical" only in and of itself, or does it convey the power of true conviction? A church whose proclamation is based on the Word must provoke, unsettle, get under people's skin; it should be eternally at odds with the society in which it exists. If this is not the case, it can hardly be called a part of the Body of Christ. Let me conclude with a few words from the late Archbishop Oscar Romero: "The church knows it is God's lamp, light taken from the glowing face of Christ to enlighten human lives, the lives of people, the complications and problems that humans create in their history. It feels obliged to speak, to enlighten like a lamp in the night. It feels compelled to light up the darkness." Our task is to live out the teachings of Jesus in deed. The next time you deal with a leftist, don't dismiss them because of their vocabulary. Look rather for the spark of the Divine, and be sure that your actions match your words. For more information, contact: Ruben Ayala, Woodcrest Bruderhof, Box 903/Route 213, Rifton, New York 12741 Phone: 1-914-658-8351 URL: http://www.bruderhof.org/ ****************************************************************** 4. NO ONE HAS TO GO HUNGRY OR BE HOMELESS IN THE WORLD TODAY People have always come together and formed societies to take care of their needs. For the first time, there is so much abundance that can be produced that people do not have to compete for what they need any longer. Today, more work is being done and more goods are being produced without human labor. That is what "downsizing" is about and why people are losing the jobs they relied on to earn a wage that allowed them to buy what was needed. Why pay a person to build a car when a robot will do it for no wages at all? And McJobs don't pay enough to keep a family out of the streets. This capitalist society only works when people earn money and are able to go out and buy back what they need to survive. Those who have lost their jobs still need to eat, and must have a home, an education, and medical care. If so much more can be produced today, it stands to reason that food, clothing and shelter can be distributed without money. Humanity finally does have the resources to solve the "world's problems." No one has to starve or be homeless. The example of Thelma Billy shows us what one individual can do. Imagine what could be done if that same effort was taken on by a society organized to meet the needs of all its members? Hunger, homelessness and poverty could be solved quickly. Clinton has used the power of the capitalist system to protect those few whose drive for profit has usurped the collective needs of our children and families. It doesn't have to be this way. Those who have been driven from the factory and from society by the more efficient electronic means of production can visualize their social liberation, the happy, prosperous future which is possible if only they collectively own and direct the instruments that are now destroying the jobs and lives of millions of people. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ [PHOTO CAPTION 1] This man, President Bill Clinton, signed the Welfare Reform Act in November 1996. His action will cause at least 1 million more children to go to bed hungry every night. More families will be forced into the streets. His action takes food and housing from those who need it most. [PHOTO CAPTION 2] This woman, Thelma Billy, and her friends feed over 600 people every week in Washington, D.C. She has chosen to use her personal resources to help feed her brothers and sisters. "I'm not trying to solve the world's problems, but one or two I can help," says Mrs. Billy. [Special thanks to Tim D'Emilio for talking with Thelma Billy and taking pictures of her efforts. To continue feeding the 600 and growing numbers of hungry people, Thelma Billy and her friends need donations of a refrigerator, shelves, a stove, a van, beds, furniture and, of course, more food. Contact the People's Tribune if you are able to make a contribution.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 5. WELFARE 'REFORM' SPARKS RESISTANCE ACROSS THE GLOBE By R. Lee Welfare "reform" isn't just happening in the United States. It is being imposed, in some form, on virtually every nation on earth. Here are some examples: In Britain, the trend is toward having public services -- including education, public housing, health care and state pensions -- provided by competing private companies. Britain's system of free, public health care is being steadily cut back and privatized. There are already reports of acutely ill patients being left unattended in hospital hallways for hours, of people dying after waiting months for necessary surgery. (Meanwhile, on March 13, a former American prison ship arrived at a harbor in Dorset to provide emergency accommodation for up to 500 inmates from Britain's overflowing jails. Since 1993, Britain's prison budget has increased by over 20 percent.) In Germany, the government has proposed slashing $16.5 billion from federal spending by cutting sick pay, raising the retirement age for women, reducing disability and jobless benefits, and making it easier for German companies to fire workers. The plan also calls for tax reform that critics say favors the wealthy. In France, in the winter of 1995, there were public-employee strikes and even uprisings in response to the government's plans to reduce public spending so France could qualify for economic and monetary union with Europe under the Maastricht treaty. Dismantling welfare is part of what it means to have a global economy. Today, the national economies of the world are essentially just sections of an international economy, where investment capital, jobs and production are shifted from one country to another as though there were no national borders. A handful of super-rich international financiers, dominated by the United States, controls the global supply of investment capital. It is this international financial oligarchy of bankers and other investors which is dictating that national governments cut their budgets and eliminate whatever safety net exists for the employed and unemployed, the young, the sick and the elderly. Today, because of electronics and modern transportation and communications technologies, almost any good or service can be produced almost anywhere. The international financiers are going to invest in production where it's cheapest. They won't continue to pay U.S. workers $16 an hour when they can get the same job done in Indonesia for 25 cents an hour. (And since electronics is replacing labor, wages are also driven down by the growing pool of the unemployed.) The combination of electronics and globalization means that the wages and benefits -- including welfare benefits -- of workers in the rich countries are going to fall closer to a worldwide standard -- closer to the level of the poorest countries. If the rich countries don't cut wages and benefits, the international investors will simply take their money elsewhere, and the jobs will go with them. Thus, we are seeing an end to the welfare state in every industrialized country, and some kind of restructuring of government spending and policy in nearly every country. The purpose of this restructuring is to harmonize the national with the global economy, and to reflect the fact that production with electronics demands less and less labor. This restructuring also reflects the need for capital to expand into the state sector by privatizing various state functions. Dismantling the welfare state and privatization are just parts of a larger agenda. That agenda includes these elements: promoting the primacy of private property rights (the basis of unequal control of wealth and power); promoting the "free market" as the solution to all problems; deregulating the economy; transforming the tax structure to benefit the wealthy; reducing the national debt; downsizing government; eliminating or restricting civil liberties; attacking the trade unions; and expanding the prison system and establishing a police state to control the growing mass of poor people. The financiers' ability to shift capital and jobs from place to place means the workers and the new class of impoverished people being created by globalization and electronics are at the mercy of the financiers. Unless the people win political power, our standard of living will continue to fall. The people must form their own political party with the purpose of fighting this international oligarchy on a political rather than an economic level. Electronics means society is going to be reorganized. The question is, by whom? Either we move to replace the existing, dying society with one that answers our needs, or the financiers will condemn us to poverty under a police state. ****************************************************************** 6. CHICAGO FORUM HEARS GRIM FACTS ABOUT WELFARE LAW: WORKFARE WILL HURT EVERYONE, SAY ANALYSTS By R. Lee CHICAGO -- At a recent forum on welfare "reform" here, a pair of experts laid out the devastating consequences of the new welfare law for all workers, employed and jobless, in shocking detail. Cecilia Perry, public policy analyst for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Nik Theodore, a project director for the Chicago Urban League, spoke at a forum hosted by the Committee for New Priorities of Jobs with Justice. Perry highlighted a number of provisions of the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANF), the program replacing the old AFDC program. She focused on how the new law will turn welfare recipients into a pool of virtual slave labor at the disposal of both government and business, and how this will in turn undermine the wages and benefits of already employed workers. In 1997, TANF will force an estimated 1 million public aid recipients into the labor market, and this figure will climb to 2 million by the year 2002, said Perry. Unlike the old welfare law, TANF allows for-profit businesses to hire workfare participants. The businesses will pay nothing -- the workers work for their welfare grant. And since TANF does not guarantee payment of the minimum wage, these workers could end up working for less than $2 an hour, said Perry. TANF workers also will not be covered by occupational safety or anti-discrimination laws, won't be eligible for workers' compensation insurance, and have no right to unionize. One study found that the influx of welfare workers could depress wages for the bottom one-third of the labor force by 12 percent, said Perry. The old law protected employed workers from being displaced by workfare participants, but TANF doesn't, Perry noted. "Now any job in the public or private sector can be converted to a workfare slot," she said. Perry described how welfare workers can be used to break unions and displace higher-paid workers. "We have a case in upstate New York where an AFSCME member working for a state agency got downsized, went on welfare, and now she's back doing her exact same job as a workfare worker," said Perry. In New York City, she said, 22,000 full-time positions were eliminated and 28,000 workfare slots were created in a three-year period. She cited studies showing the lack of jobs. In Massachusetts, for example, there are 150,000 unemployed, 36,000 welfare recipients, and only 25,000 jobs projected. Perry also noted that the new law permits private contractors to administer welfare programs, opening up "new contracts to corporate America." Perry, a member of the Labor Party, said the party opposes workfare. "You need a guaranteed job at a living wage or a guaranteed livable income," she said. "Workfare is not a job. It's not the solution to poverty in this country." Nik Theodore said studies have shown there aren't enough jobs in Illinois for the already unemployed, let alone welfare recipients, most of whom have little education. "In Illinois, there are about 180,000 families on welfare; add to this 150,000 low-skilled unemployed people -- we're talking 330,000 potential job seekers," he said. "We found there are more than four job seekers for every entry-level job opening in Illinois." Theodore also said more than 40 percent of entry-level job openings in Illinois don't even pay the official poverty-line income for a family of three ($11,522 per year), and three- quarters of the openings pay less than $17,000. He said studies show a family of four needs at least $24,000 a year to have a livable income in Illinois, and less than 4 percent of entry-level openings pay this amount. "Even those workers able to secure one of the few entry-level jobs that exist will simply be moving from one form of poverty to another," said Theodore. ****************************************************************** 7. FIVE YEARS AFTER THE L.A. REBELLION: WHERE ARE WE NOW? LOS ANGELES -- Five years ago Los Angeles burned with rage and fire, after Rodney King's tormentors were freed. People felt like justice had gotten beat down as bad as he had. So, they stood up for him. They stood up for themselves. They stood up for America. They had taken to the streets before -- in Watts, 1965, and in East Los Angeles 1970. But never had so many, of so many colors, stood up together in this city. Of the thousands thrown into jail during the 1992 Rebellion, 51 percent were Latinos, 36 percent blacks, and 11 percent whites. But they had no clear program for unity, so they fought the police and got things for their families one-by-one, without organization. So, nothing changed. Today, Los Angeles has more poverty and homelessness, and both candidates for mayor are calling for more police. In remarks to a recent meeting in L.A., Nelson Peery, author of "Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary," and a member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, explained why. "Today, through automation, one factory can produce more than 50 did before," he said. "The change in production undercuts the foundation of this society -- that I work, you pay me, then I buy things that were produced. The computer introduces a producer that doesn't consume, and creates consumers who no longer produce. The wages system can no longer function. With the new global economy, you're seeing the steady destruction of social services because suddenly we're in competition with the whole workforce of the Third World, and there's nothing you can do about it. It isn't a question of a few blacks and browns -- the homelessness is in every town. The poverty is in every town. The problem is this handful of billionaires who control trillions of dollars of investments, who don't have the slightest interest in the well- being of any country!" Even with an education, we will have no jobs. We're going to have to re-do the social structure in order to be able to live." He was asked about his reference to the militarization of society. "Today you have more rent-a-cops than you have regular police," said Peery. "You have city police, county police, police of this and police of that. The entire society is being governed by armed forces. You can't move today in America without bumping into someone with a gun legally telling you to do this, do that, go here, or go there. If we continue the way we're going, we're going to end up in prison camps. "They have gigantic power, but they're not going to drop a bomb on L.A. because they've got too much investment here. Their power is nothing compared to the tens of millions of Americans, united around a vision of freedom and equality and prosperity. We are much more powerful than they are, but their power is our ignorance, our lack of organization, our lack of vision. We have to take over this country. But you have to have political power to do so. "Lincoln said the institutions of this country belong to the people -- they have the democratic right to amend it, or the revolutionary right to overthrow it. If we don't make the decision of what to do with our lives, the other side will make the decision of what to do with us." ****************************************************************** 8. GUESS WHO IS LOSING THE NUMBERS GAME? GLOBAL CAPITAL, GLOBAL MISERY By John G. Rodwan Jr. Systems of economic relations should be organized in ways that are geared toward the satisfaction of people's basic needs. Unfortunately, the powers that be are not committed to this fundamental principle. In the United States and throughout the world, people are suffering because of low wages and rampant unemployment. As the governments and media of the wealthiest nations preach about the imaginary virtues of "free" trade and global capitalism, the ranks of the destitute are swelling. According to World Employment 1996/97, a report issued by the International Labor Office (ILO), nearly 1 billion people worldwide are either unemployed or under-employed. In other words, nearly one-third of the global workforce is affected by an unemployment crisis that is occurring in both developing countries and in industrialized nations. In the rich countries that make up the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), more than 34 million people are unemployed; unemployment has surpassed 11 percent in the European Union. Unemployment rates around 10 percent and higher are common in countries in Latin America and Eastern and Central Europe. Extreme poverty and major joblessness characterize large portions of Asia and Africa. The unemployment rate in the United States has hovered around 5 percent, which politicians and pundits trumpet as reason to rejoice, despite the fact that this means thousands and thousands of people are out of work and that even those who are employed do not necessarily earn enough to survive. It is commonly said that there is a "natural" unemployment rate and that too much employment is inflationary. In other words, it is taken for granted that profits are more important than people. Corporations seek to establish and preserve the optimal balance between outlays and returns and workers are viewed as expendable in this drive towards profit maximization. Full employment and living wages, which should register among the central aims of any sane economic policy, simply are not on multinational corporations' agenda. As the ILO's director-general, Michel Hansenne, put it, "It is not just heartless but pernicious to assume that nothing can be done to remedy unemployment. ... Current levels of unemployment make no economic sense and are neither politically nor socially sustainable." ****************************************************************** 9. CLONING SHEEP: CONVERTING LIFE FORMS INTO CORPORATE PROPERTY By Jonathan King [Editor's note: The writer is an internationally known professor of molecular biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has long been concerned with developing science and technology for human liberation rather than for profit.] The same articles reporting the production of Dolly the sheep outside of normal sexual reproduction also reported that a small British pharmaceutical firm had already applied for patents on the cloning process and the animals created through it. The growing contradiction between technological advances and private exploitation is beginning to be recognizable. Though the cloning of mammals and the possibility of cloning humans has grabbed the headlines, the underlying motion is the conversion of living creatures into corporate property. Since the medieval period, individuals and corporations have owned herds of cattle, flocks of poultry and fields of wheat. But they have never owned the species cow, or chicken, or wheat, never been able to prevent others from raising cows, poultry or wheat. The mechanism of this transformation has been the extension of the patent laws to cover living creatures, their components and their genes or blueprints. Such patents provide a 20-year practical monopoly, since patents enable one to prevent other individuals, corporations or groups from utilizing the subject of the patent. The U.S. patent laws, written by Thomas Jefferson, historically excluded living creatures. With the development of genetic engineering technology, a product of 40 years of public investment in basic biomedical research, it became possible to modify the genes -- the blueprints -- that control the cells of all organisms. In the early 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Chakrabarty case that genetically modified microorganisms could be patented. This opened up the floodgates, and since then thousands of patents on genes, cells, and even entire organisms have been granted by the patent office. The transformation of the organisms that have evolved over millions of years into corporate property represents a qualitative leap in the concept and character of corporate private property. It represents a potential theft equivalent to having our water and atmosphere become private property, for sale to the highest bidder. The development of biomedical technology continues to open up possibilities for the alleviation of disease, the repair of damaged limbs and tissues, the development of new crop plants, and the remediation of hundreds of years of overexploiting the environment. But these potentials cannot be realized, or are being severely distorted, as biomedical innovation is privatized. Consider the implications for our food supply. The W. R. Grace Co. holds patents on genetically modified cotton and soybeans. The patents mean that they control the use and growth of these plant varieties. A farmer purchasing the plants cannot take the seeds and plant them again, or give them to a neighbor. At present, this does not seem serious, since there are a large number of varieties of soybeans which are not patented. But the long-term strategy of the industry involves the replacement of the natural strains by the patented, genetically engineered strains. This is easy if, for example, the patented strains are resistant to some pest or pesticide. Either the fear of these threats or their actuality leads to the widespread replacement of the natural strains by the engineered strains. The long-term result is the development of corporate control not just of the distribution of food, but of primary production. These are the conditions needed to sharply increase the price of food, creating superprofits for the corporations and hunger for millions. A related process drives the pharmaceutical industry. Insulin for diabetics has been produced for decades by cutting the pancreas out of the carcasses of cattle and hogs, dicing them up, and extracting the insulin. With the advent of genetic engineering, the gene for insulin was spliced into bacteria. Now a single Eli Lilly factory in Indianapolis produces enough human insulin to provide for all diabetics needing it in the United States. The bacteria synthesizing the insulin are grown in giant tanks, like those used to make beer. It is produced at very low cost, but sold at high prices. This ability to extract superprofits comes from the extension of the patent system to organisms and their components. The patents enable Lilly to prevent other institutions, including non-profits, from producing insulin. If the production was publicly owned, insulin would be available at a far lower cost. Even more important, the profit extracted from the sale of insulin depends upon millions of people getting sick from diabetes. As long as the profit system drives therapy, powerful forces are at work to keep modern biomedical science from discovering or revealing the true causes of the disease, which would allow us to prevent diabetes. The discovery that mutations in the two recently identified "breast cancer" genes increase susceptibility to cancer might have led to a sharply increased effort to identify the carcinogens in the human ecosystem that are causing these mutations. But the monopoly profits available through the extension of the patent systems to genes depends on selling people the patented product. Myriad Pharmaceutical, which owns the patents on the "breast cancer" genes, is marketing a screening test for $2,400 that provides a limited amount of information of limited use to women as to whether some damage has already accumulated in these genes. The generation of an adult sheep from one cell of another adult opens up the specter of human cloning: producing individuals not from the union of the egg and sperm, but from transplanting an adult cell into an egg lacking the egg's original instructions. If the manipulated egg grew into a full human, it would be genetically identical to the donor of the cell. Such cloning transforms humans into commodities, and devalues the relationship of humans to each other and their culture. To be human is not the simple summation of genetic, biochemical or physiological processes. Consciousness and knowledge do not exist in our genes; they emerge out of the interaction between individuals and human society. Humanity has left behind the stage in social development -- chattel slavery -- in which humans were treated as commodities. The corporate pressure to patent life forms needs to be reversed. In Europe, India and South America, significant social movements have slowed the process. Tens of thousands of Indian farmers demonstrated against the granting of patents on the Neem tree, an important local food source, to W. R. Grace Co. The European Parliament has resisted pressure to accept gene patents. Here in the United States, a small but significant campaign is developing to call upon Congress to return to the original sense of the patent laws, and exclude living creatures, their parts and components. [For more information and copies of the "No Patents on Life" petition, contact the Council for Responsible Genetics, 5 Upland Road, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140.] [Jonathan King is available to speak through the People's Tribune Speakers Bureau.] ****************************************************************** 10. HOMELESS ATTACKED BY THE 'LIBERALS' IN CALIFORNIA CITY By Marshall Blesofsky LONG BEACH, California -- The February 13 meeting of the Long Beach City Council shocked homeless people and their supporters when Jenney Oropeza proposed a moratorium on any new social services and other kinds of "marginal" businesses in her downtown council district. The moratorium was put on the agenda because Dr. Ronald Banner, director of the Substance Abuse Foundation, a drug and alcohol recovery program, bought the former Civic Light Opera building in the "East Village." He is planning to use the building as an outpatient center for drug and alcohol programs. The Downtown Gazette, a local newspaper, reported that Dr. Banner was opening a small-scale, multiservice center. According to Dr. Banner, this is far from the truth. These scare tactics are all part of a "not in my backyard" campaign by some of the residents of this area who bombarded Oropeza's office with calls about the purchase of the CLO building. A hue and cry arose from the developers, boosters and merchants of the "East Village." The "East Village" is a presumptuous term coined by the city's Redevelopment Agency and real estate interests who wish to gentrify the area, making it an exclusive enclave of rich artists and yuppies. Oropeza and, sad to say, Alan Lowenthal co-sponsored the moratorium. Other provisions of this anti-homeless measure would also ban such businesses as recycling centers, 99-cent stores, tattoo parlors, gun shops and -- of all things, yard sales. Dr. Banner was outraged that our friends on the City Council "could include social service agencies with gun shops, topless bars and massage parlors. Lowenthal and Oropeza must look at what they have done." Maybe Jenney Oropeza forgets the members of the Homeless Organizing Committee and the Long Beach Area Citizens Involved (LBACI), who walked the precincts and led the neighborhood cleanup efforts. Alan Lowenthal, a former LBACI president, was saved from a costly runoff against the incumbent in 1992 largely because of two factors. LBACI, a liberal-progressive organization, put enormous amounts of people, power and money into his campaign, and the Homeless Organizing Committee registered over 200 homeless people in the second district and got out the vote. Dr. Banner's project is exactly in a place where homeless people in Long Beach are concentrated and if his center was established, many more homeless people would be helped to leave the streets of the East Village. The city has no plan for what to do with the growing number of homeless people. The Long Beach Police Department, led by the bicycle police, will drive the homeless people into the more affluent sections of Long Beach. Then ex-LBPD cop and City Council member Drummond and Deputy Sheriff and City Council member Shultz will call for imposition of martial law to control the "criminals of want." The proposed moratorium is a move against homeless people, which is part of a nationwide trend to criminalize the poor. It is a pity that this trend in our city is now being championed in the downtown area by our supposed friends. Is this the fate of all liberals -- to knuckle under to pressure from the right, a la Bill Clinton? ****************************************************************** 11. 1,000 BOUQUETS OF FLOWERS FOR RO'S'N MCALISKEY ON WOMEN'S DAY: WORLD CONDEMNS MISTREATMENT OF PREGNANT IRISH PRISONER "Ro's'n has a certainty about her which I find extraordinary. She is tiny, she is the least likely person you could imagine to present a threat to anybody. She is kind and she's thoughtful and decent and caring. In Holloway [prison], when I see her now, she comes into the room with a list of queries about other prisoners' problems and how she can sort them out." -- Solicitor Gareth Peirce, describing her client, Irish prisoner Ro's'n McAliskey, to a meeting in London. By Chris Mahin More than 1,000 bouquets of flowers arrived at London's Holloway Women's Prison on March 8, International Women's Day. They were sent by well-wishers all over the world to Ro's'n McAliskey, an Irish woman confined there without bail while the British legal system decides whether to extradite her to Germany. Ro's'n McAliskey is due to give birth to her first child in May. She is 25 years old, weighs 95 pounds and suffers from asthma, arthritis and an ulcer. Despite the fact that she is young, pregnant and in poor health, she has been interrogated for long hours, incarcerated in filthy conditions, deprived of natural light and denied contact with other prisoners. The British Prison Service admits that by February 16, she had been strip-searched 75 times. The denial of proper medical care to this university graduate has prompted the concern of medical experts. They warn that her life (and that of her unborn child) may be in danger. Ro's'n McAliskey's ordeal began on November 20, 1996, when British authorities arrested her without warning or explanation in her home town in British-occupied northeastern Ireland. They eventually explained that she is wanted for questioning by the German government in connection with an Irish Republican Army mortar attack on a British army barracks in northern Germany in June 1996. Ro's'n McAliskey denies any knowledge of the attack. Her solicitor, Gareth Peirce, has pointed out that she is being accused on the basis of evidence so flimsy that it would be thrown out if the trial were held in Britain. Many of Ro's'n McAliskey's supporters suspect that she was arrested to punish her mother, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. (Bernadette McAliskey has been an outspoken leader of the Irish freedom struggle for 30 years and is a former member of the British Parliament.) During the first week in February, a senior prison official visited Ro's'n McAliskey and told her that she might be denied use of the prison's obstetric unit. McAliskey was warned that if she gives birth in a hospital outside the prison, she would be handcuffed during childbirth -- either to prison officials or to a bed. In such an eventuality, she would be returned to the prison within 24 hours of the delivery and would not be allowed to bring her baby with her. The prison official told Ro's'n McAliskey that if her relatives refused to co-operate with this policy, her baby would be handed over to social service agencies. These threats shocked the conscience of people in Britain, Ireland, the United States, Germany, Norway and Australia. Protests condemning Ro's'n McAliskey's imprisonment were held in all those countries, spearheaded by women's groups, students and human-rights activists. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Helsinki issued statements of concern. In the United States, feminist activist Gloria Steinem, poet June Jordan, actor Ellen Burstyn and other prominent women signed an open letter to Bernadette Devlin McAliskey expressing their outrage at the treatment of her daughter. On March 13, Britain's Prison Service finally announced that Ro's'n McAliskey will be permitted to keep her baby for nine months after giving birth, will be allowed to give birth in an outside hospital and will not be restrained while she is there. These concessions do not go far enough. It's obvious that they were granted only as a result of the worldwide campaign against the mistreatment of Ro's'n McAliskey. Given the fragile state of her health, it's urgent that people all over the world demand that Ro's'n McAliskey be set free now. To protest the imprisonment of Ro's'n McAliskey, call the British Embassy in Washington at 202-588-6500. Check out the "Free Ro's'n McAliskey!" web site at http://larkspirit.com/roisin/ for more information. ****************************************************************** 12. MOBILIZE FOR JUNE MARCH IN DETROIT AFL-CIO LEADERS URGE SUPPORT FOR DETROIT'S ACTION! MOTOWN '97 'The AFL-CIO Executive Council in its historic winter meeting in Los Angeles endorsed a bold, new strategy by the Detroit newspaper workers to win back their jobs... As part of the new strategy, four international unions will sponsor Action! Motown '97, a mass national mobilization in Detroit, on June 20-21, 1997.' The following is a statement from the leadership of the AFL-CIO regarding the nearly two-year strike by workers for Detroit's two largest daily newspapers. In it, President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson call for support and participation in the mobilization for Action! Motown '97 on June 20-21 in support of the strike. DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS: Thank you for the overwhelming support and solidarity you have shown the 2,000 locked-out families at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News since the struggle began in July, 1995. With new developments in the campaign, we need your help now more than ever. The AFL-CIO Executive Council in its historic winter meeting in Los Angeles endorsed a bold, new strategy by the Detroit newspaper workers to win back their jobs by returning to work and forcing the strikebreakers out. As part of the new strategy, four international unions -- the Communications Workers, the Newspaper Guild, the Teamsters, and the Graphic Communications Union, along with the Detroit Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, will sponsor Action! Motown '97, a mass national mobilization in Detroit, on June 20-21, 1997. Action! Motown '97 will focus attention on anti-union Gannett, parent of the News and USA Today, which has spent millions fighting its own workers. The AFL-CIO has assigned a staff representative, John Cox, to help coordinate the Action! Motown '97, working with the Metro Council. For further information on Action! Motown '97, please call 313-896-2600. We urge you to support and participate in Action! Motown '97 and join with others to make a statement for justice in this great fight. Sincerely, John J. Sweeney President Richard L. Trumka Secretary-Treasurer Linda Chavez-Thompson Executive Vice President For further information, e-mail Daymon J. Hartley at ActMotown@aol.com. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ AN OPEN LETTER ON BEHALF OF THE DETROIT STRIKERS The following is an open letter to the labor movement and to all its supporters on behalf of 2,000 locked-out Detroit newspaper workers and their families. April 1997 DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS: It happened! The AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting in Los Angeles February 17-20, approved a call for a national labor mobilization in Detroit on June 20-21. This mobilization will demonstrate labor's power and its determination to fight back and defeat union-busting companies. It will also be an action in solidarity with our struggle to get our jobs back under a fair union contract. (Enclosed is the letter from President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson announcing the June actions.) We are writing to express our most appreciative thanks to the hundreds of unions who sent messages supporting our appeal for the national mobilization. All of us have been greatly warmed by the solidarity so many have shown us. We want everyone to know that despite the action taken by our unions in making an unconditional offer to return to work, only a small number of us have been recalled. Management refuses to reinstate the 300 workers they fired during the strike. The rest of us have been put on a "waiting list." The publishers say they intend to keep all their scabs. The media is telling the public our struggle is over. They said the same about Bridgestone/Firestone after the union there made an unconditional offer to return to work. But as you know, after a creative and militant campaign by the Steelworkers Union, all of the Bridgestone/Firestone workers were able to reclaim their jobs under a good union contract. We can have the same result in Detroit. But it will take a massive, united effort of the entire labor movement. Please do everything you can to mobilize as large a contingent as possible from your union to come to Detroit in June. Details of what will occur on the days of action will follow. We look forward to welcoming you to Motown. We hope this will truly be a national demonstration -- a Solidarity Day III -- that will open a new period of labor victories all over the country. In solidarity, June Mobilization Committee: A Committee of Locked-Out Detroit Newspaper Workers and Supporters Box 242 Sterling Heights, Michigan 48310 810-574-9539 e-Mail: ActMotown@aol.com ****************************************************************** 13. THE STOCK MARKET: GAMBLING WITH OUR FUTURE by Bruce E. Parry, Ph.D. The steady rise in the stock market has been front-page news. There are proposals to put Social Security funds in the stock market. But does the stock market always rise? A crash could be disastrous to our future and that of our kids. WHAT IS THE STOCK MARKET? The stock market is the market for buying and selling corporations. A corporation is a form of business organization that limits the liability of its owners. Each share of a corporation's stock is a certificate of ownership of a portion of that company. If a company has 1,000 shares of stock issued, each share says the owner owns 1/10th of 1 percent (one-one-thousandth) of the company. Each share's value, let's say $100, shows how much the owner can lose (is liable for) if the company becomes worthless. In this case, the company can be bought for $100,000 ($100 x 1,000 shares). If all the shares are owned by one or a few owners, the company is said to be "closely held." The stock of closely held companies cannot be purchased unless the owners want to sell. For many, generally larger, corporations, stock may be sold on the open market. These are "publicly traded" companies. Almost all the huge corporations you read about (IBM, McDonald's, Ford, GM, Microsoft) are publicly traded companies. They each have millions of shares of stock available on the stock market. Stock is sold in specific stock markets. The best known, the New York Stock Exchange, lists only the largest 3,000 or so firms. Of those, only the top 30, blue-chip stocks are counted in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the best-known measure of stock market activity. That means that when the stock market goes up (the Dow Jones rises), the average value of 30 giant companies has risen. Other measures (the S&P 500, NASDAQ, etc.) follow more corporations. WHAT IS THE MARKET'S SIGNIFICANCE? The price of a stock goes up and down based on the corporation's expected profitability. If it is expected to be more profitable in the future, investors buy shares assuming the price of each share will rise. If investors believe the company will be making fewer profits, or suffering losses, they sell, expecting the price of its shares to fall. Investors make money by buying shares at lower prices and selling at higher prices. They lose money when they have to sell shares at a lower price. No one actually makes or loses money until they sell the shares. Gains or losses that occur when stocks rise or fall, but are not sold, are referred to as "paper" gains or losses. Thus, the stock market is a measure of the expected profitability of the major corporations. Business profitability is the central measure of capitalist performance. Thus, the value of an individual stock is a vote on the profitability (and therefore the management) of that company. The value of the overall stock market in any country is a vote on the economic conditions in that country. For the capitalists, a rising stock market is good, a falling one bad. The other side of the stock market is speculation. When more people buy lottery tickets, the lottery jackpot goes up. Then more people play. All the Chicago Bulls basketball tickets are sold out. Since they are rare, a $25 ticket may get scalped for $100. In the same way, both putting more money into the stock market, or having more investors enter the market, tends to push it up. WHY IS THE STOCK MARKET GOING UP? The stock market is going up partly because profits are up and partly because of speculation. The increased profitability of the market is based on the fact that fewer and fewer larger and larger corporations are dominating the world market. For example, we used to refer to the Big Three auto companies (Ford, GM and Chrysler). Today, there are at least eight. But we talked about the Big Three in the U.S. market; the Big Eight compete all over the world. They are all bigger and have a bigger share of the world market than ever before. The same thing is happening in every industry. Fewer, bigger companies are dominating the market, producing more cheaply (with more technology and fewer workers who are paid less). Those companies are making huge profits, so their stocks have been going up. The big companies bought up the smaller companies or drove them out of business. Also, hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement funds have been invested in the market over the last couple of years, particularly through mutual funds. With more dollars chasing the existing shares of stock, the price of stocks goes up, just like the Bulls tickets. Many think this is the chief reason for the market's rise. Another reason for the climb has been that many countries have been pumping money into the international economy to improve their economies. With more money "sloshing around" world financial markets, the value of stocks goes up, just like in the lottery. WHAT WOULD A CRASH MEAN? Everybody knows the stock market doesn't move smoothly. It's volatile. It surges ahead, tumbles, regains its losses, goes higher and crashes again. Financial collapse can lead to economic depression. Eventually, a crash is inevitable. Capitalism has to grow. If capitalism cannot maintain its rate of growth, in markets for real goods (food, clothing, housing, steel, etc.) or in financial markets (banking, insurance, etc.), stock markets will collapse and we will head into depression. Millions of people have all their retirement money in stocks. A crash would mean ruin and poverty for many. That is a major reason Social Security should not put any money in the stock market. For many, the economic depression began long ago. A stock market crash would make it worse, throw millions more into poverty and hundreds of thousands into homelessness. It is another way that capitalism in the 1990s gambles with our future and that of our children. [Bruce E. Parry, Ph.D. is available to speak through the People's Tribune Speakers Bureau.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Layoffs, Tax Subsidies and CEO Pay (1993-1995) 'THE LAYOFF TEN' Company Layoffs Pretax Tax Subsidies CEO Pay Profits (billions) (millions) AT&T 40,000 $20.8 $3.1 billion $ 5.2 Kimberly-Clark 18,000 $ 3.1 $197 million $ 1.6 BankAmerica 15,750 $ 9.0 $1.2 billion $11.9 Eastman Kodak 14,000 $ 3.0 $189 million $ 9.3 Amoco 18,000 $ 3.1 $197 million $ 1.6 Procter & Gamble 13,000 $ 6.1 $194 million $ 3.9 American Home Products 8,600 $ 5.0 $720 million $ 5.0 Mobil 6,000 $ 2.8 $434 million $ 3.0 Allied Signal 3,100 $ 3.2 $665 million $ 8.5 MCI 3,000 $ 3.2 $585 million $ 2.4 +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ WOMEN AND REVOLUTION: VISIONS FOR A NEW AMERICA The purpose of this column is to open debate on all issues concerning women today. We see it as a place where women can discuss and debate strategies for winning women's equality and improving women's status. This is critical to our playing our historic role of leading in the building of a new America. Send your articles, 300 words or less, to People's Tribune Women's Desk at pt@noc.org +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 14. GOVERNMENT'S UPCOMING DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC HOUSING UNITS WILL AFFECT EVERYONE [Ruth Williams is a longtime public housing advocate. She is a member of United Tenants Speak in Detroit, Michigan, where she is president of 17 development sites. She is a founding member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. She is available to speak through the People's Tribune Speakers Bureau.] PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Ruth, could you tell us what is happening in public housing in this era of downsizing? RUTH WILLIAMS: Yes. Over 100,000 public housing units will be destroyed in the next three years. A couple of years ago, we lost the first rights to public housing under the Homeless Act. Then we lost the Brooke Amendment that guaranteed housing at 30 percent of our income. We now pay 55 percent of our income for rent. This is devastating. Now, under the new "welfare reform," we'll pay at least $25. Legal immigrants will have only two years to live here. So there will be more evictions in public housing and more people in the street. This will affect everyone. It's one thing for me to be jobless and hungry. It's another for me to see you with it. I'm coming after you. So, you see, we can no longer separate the welfare bill from housing or anything else. It all goes hand in hand. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: What are the government's plans to solve the homelessness they're creating? RUTH WILLIAMS: They're coming out with new programs that are really for show. HUD gave $25 million for Tenant Opportunity Programs in 1994. But we haven't been able to do much because they will not allow us to be in control. Now they're coming out with a program called "New Urbanism" which is supposed to build new communities. But the truth is, when they build new homes, we cannot afford to live in them. They also have entrepreneur programs so people can own their own business. But people get their plans in for their business and the housing department finds something wrong and stops it. Then, to control things, they pass "one strike and you're out" or "zero tolerance" laws where if you've been to jail, you can be denied residency. Now they're adding alcohol to the list of causes for eviction. They're also beefing up the housing police. People don't realize that this is a blueprint for all of society. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Why is this happening? RUTH WILLIAMS: Public housing was created for laid-off workers, for military families and for non-seasonal workers. Today, with computers and robots, they no longer need us to produce. Now that we've made them rich, they don't need us and they're not going to house us. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: What solutions do you see? RUTH WILLIAMS: Idaho and California produce enough food to feed the world. There's no reason for anyone to be hungry. Public housing is the only security we have in this country. It's already built. It's paid for. And 95 percent of it is safe to live in. These old myths about "it's so dilapidated we have to tear it down," are senseless. It's sinful to tear down housing with all the homeless people walking this country. High-rises can be used for transitional housing and educational programs to train our young people since we're not going to get the old factory jobs back. But they use the tragedies in public housing to keep us divided by attacking the little people rather than the corporations. Then we feel guilty and say, "Oh, if it wasn't for Ms. Susie's son, we wouldn't be in the shape we're in." We have to open our eyes. We are the majority. We have to find places where we can learn about the capitalist society and how to counteract them. We'll learn that we have the power to control this country. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: In closing, could you comment on the role of revolutionary women in creating this new society? RUTH WILLIAMS: Women have always been in the forefront. Now is the time to become even more vocal. The attacks are on us, but they're on the men too, especially our young black men. We have to show people who the real enemy is, that it is not us, the women, the children, our young black men, our Latinos, or any race. It's this greedy capitalist society that doesn't need us. Join the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. ****************************************************************** 15. BOOK EXPLORES STRUGGLE OF THOSE ON WELFARE "David Zucchino has written a deeply empathetic but unsentimental book that has the narrative power of compelling fiction and the moral force of prophecy without polemic. There is a Biblical intensity within this work and in the beautiful, courageous women it portrays." -- Jonathan Kozol "This book is the story of survival by single mothers in the dying days of the American welfare state." -- from The Myth of the Welfare Queen >From the jacket: "In this extraordinary first book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, author David Zucchino sets out to sift through the stereotypes, politics, and pure misinformation about families on welfare. A reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Zucchino gives us an intimate look at Odessa Williams and Cheri Honkala, two 'welfare mothers' from Philadelphia, a city with a disproportionately large number of welfare recipients. He spends the better part of a year with these women, watching as Odessa constructs livable surroundings for herself and her extended family by scavenging and trash picking. Though her character, spirit, and resolve are constantly tested by family crises, she remains the strong and inspiring center of her large and largely dependent family. "Zucchino also grows to admire Cheri, a single mother of one son, and a tireless advocate for the rights of the homeless. He watches as she helps one family after another pick up and keep on going. With utter dedication and zeal, and with remarkably little concern for material gains of her own, Cheri battles an inflexible city bureaucracy that in her view makes the already hard lives of the city's poor nearly impossible. "In this groundbreaking and beautifully written book, Zucchino balances his reporter's objectivity with profound compassion. In seeking to answer the question 'What do welfare mothers do all day?' he uncovers no easy answers but is able to say definitively, 'If there were any Cadillac-driving, champagne-sipping, penthouse- living welfare queens in Philadelphia, I didn't find them.'" This book is an ideal organizing and study tool for letting people get a glimpse of both the plight and the fight of the poor in the US today. Check it out! +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE MYTH OF THE WELFARE QUEEN: A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist's Portrait of Women on the Line by David Zucchino Published by Scribner, 1997. Available in bookstores now. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 16. IT'S TIME TO FIGHT POLITICALLY FROM A COMMON CLASS STANCE! >From the League of Revolutionaries for a New America All across America, a new fighting force is beginning to emerge. It is being forged in the devastated inner cities, in the poverty- stricken rural areas, and in the deteriorating suburbs. Everywhere, economic and social conditions are driving millions into poverty and threatening the overwhelming majority of Americans with the same fate. Yet there is no reason to accept this rampant hunger and homelessness. The new technology, the computers and robots can produce enough for the entire world's population. Under these conditions, the possibility exists for this new core of fighters to make history, to fight for a world of plenty for all. The question is, how can these fighters come together so the battle for the future of America can be won? The foundation of the unity necessary to win is their common economic and social position in society, their existence as a class. The threat of hunger and homelessness and the vision of the possibility of a decent and productive life is the basis for forging this unbreakable unity. How does this unity get expressed practically in the fight to change the country? The country is run by a handful of billionaires who control it politically. Control, the maintenance of the status quo, is a question of political power. Political power is challenged by a political party. Political struggle is the vehicle for a class to impose its will and goals on society. The unity of the new class of poor people can only materialize through political struggle led by a political party. In the past, when the economy was expanding, limited objectives could be achieved through temporary organizational unity -- coalitions. These coalitions relied on a combination of mass activity and a section of the ruling class which was favorable to their goals for economic or political reasons. Today, this is not possible. There is no section of the ruling class favorable to the elimination of poverty, and capitalism is producing hunger and homelessness, not concessions. Battles must be fought politically from a common class stance. America is a diverse country. There are many different kinds of organizations fighting for change. Objectively, they face a common situation, poverty. But they don't have a full understanding of their position as one class. The educating of the fighters to understand their class position in society, the need for that objective unity to be materially expressed in a political party, and the final aims of the struggle, are the tasks of the revolutionaries. ****************************************************************** 17. Audiotapes present a vision of a New America Hear inspiring speakers present their vision of a New America. Send $5 for each audiotape listed below to People's Tribune Speakers Bureau, PO Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654. A free brochure listing all of our speakers will be included with each order. (If you are a radio station or campus recruiter, see special offer below) "Welfare Reform: an Assault on the Middle Class" Michele Tingling- Clemmons, founding member, National Welfare Rights Union "Securing Economic and Social Justice in a Global Economy" Nelson Peery, author, Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary "Immigrant Attacks Affect all Americans" Gloria Sandoval, community organizer: Women & Immigrant Rights "Life, Death and Times of Malcolm X & Revolution Today" Abdul Alkalimat, professor, author, activist "Building an Organization of Revolutionaries" General Baker, labor leader; chair of the Steering Committee of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America "Proposition 209 & Welfare Reform in the African American Community" Ethel Long-Scott, executive director, Women's Economic Agenda Project "The Economy & the Welfare State" Bruce Parry, Ph.D., political economist "Police Raid Won't Silence Liberation Radio" Napolean Williams, founder, Black Liberation Radio Radio interviews are by Mike Thornton of Radio KVMR-FM, Nevada City, CA. Complimentary tapes will be mailed to campuses seeking speakers and to media. ****************************************************************** ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, published every two weeks 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: League of Revolutionaries for a New America, P.O. Box 477113, Chicago, IL 60647 (312) 486-0028 ISSN# 1081-4787 For free electronic subscription, email: pt-dist@noc.org with the word "subscribe" in the subject. 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 ($50 institutions), bulk orders of 10 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@noc.org with a message of "subscribe". ******************************************************************