****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 24 No. 7/ July, 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. 7/ July, 1997 Page One 1. JULY 4, 1997: TODAY'S REVOLUTION IS FOR A NEW AMERICA 2. SOCIETY IS RESPONDING TO THE POLITICAL ATTACKS Spirit of the Revolution 3. THE WELFARE DEBATE: RELIGIOUS LEADERS ATTACKED FOR SPEAKING OUT News and Features 4. CAMPAIGN FOR JOBS AMENDMENT COMES TO BALTIMORE 5. STAND FOR CHILDREN 1997: CHILDREN POINT THE WAY 6. NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CONVENES IN ATLANTA: TEACHERS CAN HELP RALLY THE NATION TO SAVE OUR CHILDREN 7. TWO YEARS AFTER THE SIGNING OF NAFTA: UNITY IS KEY FOR THE PEOPLES OF THE U.S. AND MEXICO 8. THE LESSON OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, JULY 1863: THE CHAMPIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS CAN DEFEAT THE DEFENDERS OF PROPERTY Focus on the Attack on Social Programs 9. VOICES FROM THE FRONT: MARCHERS TAKE THEIR FIGHT TO THE U.N. -- LEADERS OF THE KENSINGTON WELFARE RIGHTS UNION SPEAK 10. EDITORIAL: WHAT'S BEHIND THE ATTACK ON SOCIAL PROGRAMS? 11. WELFARE CUTS DEMAND POLITICAL RESPONSE Culture Under Fire 12. ACTIVISTS DISCUSS PLANS TO FREE THE MEDIA >From the League 13. THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA: WHAT WE ARE AND WHY Announcements, Events, etc. 14. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE 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 1: JULY 4, 1997: TODAY'S REVOLUTION IS FOR A NEW AMERICA The dual nature of the American Revolution created two Americas. One is the America of the ruling class. There is another America, an America that gave birth to Harriet Tubman and John Brown and Nat Turner. This year, let the Fourth of July be a time to remember our heroes and our heritage, a time to reawaken our people to the great revolution developing around and within us. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The American Revolution began as a protest against England's refusal to support the colonists' insatiable demand for and invasion of Indian land. What began as a war of aggression ended as the first great war of democratic national liberation. To this day, the slogans and visions of that war inspire all who love liberty and democracy. The dual nature of our revolution created two Americas. One is the America of the ruling class. This America spoke of liberty while enslaving the Native Americans. With the first state-sponsored genocide, it attempted to eliminate them. When the available Indians had been worked to death or sold to the mines and plantations of the Caribbean, this America introduced African slavery and for 250 years turned our country into "the most cruel and brutal society west of the Dnieper." This America launched an unprovoked attack against Mexico, robbed her of half her territory, annexed the Hawaiian Islands, attacked decrepit Spain, annexed Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands. Loudly proclaiming its manifest destiny, this America, brutally exploiting its own workers and farmers, claimed the Western Hemisphere as its own special colonial reserve. It then set about murdering and lynching democracy be it in Alabama or Argentina. It incinerated with napalm and blasted with artillery the barefoot patriots who shouted the battle cry of "Liberty or death!". This America is feared and hated as no country in history save Nazi Germany. There is another America. There is an America of Tom Paine and Nathaniel Bacon and their crusade to liberate all the exploited classes. There is an America of Denmark Vesey, of Tecumseh and Abraham Lincoln. There is an America that gave birth to Harriet Tubman and John Brown and Nat Turner. More importantly, there is the America of the unknown heroes: those who died under the lash and on the rack rather than submit to slavery. Who remembers the five white youths hanged in Mississippi for planning a slave rebellion on the eve of the Civil War? And there were farm boys leaving comfort and loved ones marching to battle singing, "As He died to make men holy, let us die to set men free." Who knows the names of the thousands of black men and women who faced the lynch mobs and died rather than forsake liberty? Who knows the name of the Indian youth at Sand Creek, who was awakened by the sound of the massacre and ran naked through the snow into the hell of Gatling-gun and rifle fire to hurl his spear and give his life for the cause of freedom? And there was Sacco and Vanzetti and Joe Hill and Paul Robeson. All of them Americans. All of them -- those known and those lost in history -- created an America of ideals and visions and dreams. This is an America loved and honored around the world. It is an America that revolutionaries must dedicate themselves to defend and make real. This Fourth of July is of special significance. The glue of bribery that held these contradictory Americas together is beginning to dissolve. The cruel, imperialist America is less and less dependent upon the political and military support of the American people and is abandoning them. The inevitable and growing globalization of production and distribution is creating two international classes, the rich and the poor. Of the 6 billion persons on this planet, 3.5 billion already are in poverty. Eighty millions of them live in the United States. As for wealth, 447 individuals now control more wealth than the poorest 2.75 billion. America cannot ignore nor escape the great revolution unfolding around us. History is moving in such a way as to allow for awakening and revitalizing the America of the people. This year, let the Fourth of July be more than baseball, hot dogs and beer. Let it be a time to remember our heroes and our heritage. Let it be a time to awaken our people to the great revolution developing around and within us. Our League of Revolutionaries for a New America is dedicated to this task. ****************************************************************** 2. SOCIETY IS RESPONDING TO THE POLITICAL ATTACKS For the past 25 years, fundamental changes have gone on in our economy. These changes are so fundamental they constitute an economic revolution. Since the economy is the foundation of society, it is not possible to change it without shaking up and finally changing society. Changes in the economy can tear down the existing society, but it takes changes in the people's thinking to build a new one. The recognition of change always lags far behind the actual changes. Nevertheless, that recognition is inevitable and in fact, has begun. The whole world took note of the recent changes in the consciousness of the European workers. Europe is racked by rising unemployment and right-wing attacks against social programs. Its people defended themselves with strikes and now with a resounding defeat of their right-wing governments. There is a real basis for the Left in our country to rejoice, knowing that such resistance is bound to develop here. There is an old saying that "every shut eye ain't sleep and every good-bye ain't gone." It is not likely that we have seen the last of European reaction. The ruling class has ruled for a thousand years and knows all the tricks of the trade, including creating and secretly supporting their opposition. Twist and turn as they may, the rich cannot stop the development of class consciousness, nor will they escape its judgment. In the United States, consciousness is expressed in a different but just as fundamental way. Here, social, class or revolutionary consciousness is and always has been most sharply expressed by attitude toward "race." The Chicago Tribune (June 11, 1997) quotes a Gallup Poll on changes in "racial" attitudes of whites between 40 years ago and now. Today, 93 percent of white Americans could put a qualified black person in the White House as opposed to 35 percent in 1958. Sixty-one percent approve of mixed marriages as opposed to 4 percent 40 years ago, and 18 percent today say they would leave a neighborhood if "a large number of blacks moved in" as opposed to 80 percent in 1958. There is no question about the changes taking place. The question is, who is going to profit by them? ****************************************************************** 3. SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION: THE WELFARE DEBATE: RELIGIOUS LEADERS ATTACKED FOR SPEAKING OUT By Chris Mahin [Editor's note: Below we print the latest contribution to our regular column about spirituality and revolution. We encourage our readers to comment on what appears here and to contribute to this column.] Even before President Clinton signed the welfare "reform" act into law, many in the religious community predicted that it would endanger lives. The expressions of concern have come from numerous religious denominations: * The National Council of Jewish Women has launched a yearlong nationwide campaign called "Speak Out for Children" to protect the estimated 1 million children who will become poor after the federal welfare law takes effect on July 1. * A national Catholic social justice lobbying group called Network has developed a two-year program called Welfare Watch designed to monitor the effect of the new law. * In Illinois, the organization Protestants for the Common Good has collected thousands of signatures on a petition calling for a just social welfare system. * In Los Angeles, an interfaith group held a liturgy on Ash Wednesday, burning a copy of California Gov. Pete Wilson's welfare proposals. The religious community has also questioned President Clinton's claim that "volunteerism" alone can end poverty in America. In January, Clinton challenged every church in America to hire one family on welfare. "The welfare problem would go way down," he claimed. But many religious leaders doubt that volunteerism can reduce poverty significantly. "This is largely camouflage for a lack of commitment by the federal government to the common good," said Charles Miller, executive director of the Evangelical Lutheran Church's division for church and society. These principled positions taken by religious leaders are examples of moral leaders fulfilling their obligation to "speak truth to power." But now some in the religious community are coming under attack for daring to speak that truth. In February, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania blasted the leading Catholic charity in the United States. At a fund-raising dinner in New York City on February 20 for a conservative Catholic political group, Santorum complained that Catholic Charities USA was "the most effective opponent" of the welfare reform bill. He asked his audience to help "turn this around." Santorum, a Catholic, urged his audience to replace Catholic Charities with "Catholic charity" and programs that "do not just feed the stomach but feed the soul." It was an unprecedented attack on the country's largest private relief organization, a group which runs 125 soup kitchens and serves 10.8 million people in the United States. The fact that a high elected official from a state with a large number of Catholic voters would dare to make such an attack is an ominous sign of the times. Fortunately, tirades like the one Sen. Santorum issued on February 20 have not slowed down those in the religious community working to document the effects of the new welfare bill. We urge our readers to assist all such efforts, whether carried out by religious or secular groups. [For more information about the Welfare Watch project, contact Network, 801 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 460, Washington, D.C. 20003 or send e-mail to network@igc.apc.org.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ MAILER ON MORALS: "This country is in a race to become the leader of global capitalism, and if we don't watch out we're going to prove that Marx was right -- that once it becomes dominant in human affairs, money leaches out every moral value. "So, I thought, 'Let's go back to the message of Jesus.' What he is saying over and over again in the Gospels is that the corporate men of Mammon are evil. And as far as I'm concerned, they are now running this country. It just seemed to me this book might be a way of reminding people that there is something else in existence besides making money." -- Norman Mailer, explaining to a reporter for the Chicago Tribune why he wrote his new book _The Gospel According to the Son_, a first-person account of the life of Jesus. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ DOES CHRISTIANITY TOLERATE HUNGER? A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE THINKS SO ... By Francis C. Scudellari CHICAGO -- The "City File" column in the May 16 edition of The Reader, a local alternative weekly, cites a quote by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that originally appeared in the May issue of U.S. Catholic magazine. Scalia declares that Christ's message "is not the need to eliminate hunger or misery or misfortune, but rather, the need for each individual to love and help the hungry, the miserable, the unfortunate." It's bad enough that the ruling class defies Christ's teachings, but now they are trying to appropriate them for their own programs. We should let Scalia know that Christ's message might be better described as the need for the individual not to love and help the ruling class, but to eliminate it. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 4. CAMPAIGN FOR JOBS AMENDMENT COMES TO BALTIMORE By the Baltimore Chapter, League of Revolutionaries for a New America BALTIMORE -- The Labor Party's 28th Amendment Campaign for a Job as a Right has come to Baltimore, Maryland. It is about time! Unemployment and poverty here are tearing us apart. The Campaign is sponsored by the Labor Party. It calls for a constitutional amendment which would guarantee the right to a job at a livable wage to everyone. It defines such a wage as at least $10 per hour at present, and ties it to the cost of living. The Campaign has the support of an important and growing number of trade unions. On May 7, the Labor Party held a meeting at the Hospital Workers Union Hall (1199E) to discuss the Campaign. Representatives of several unions spoke. Each reported on their union's efforts to organize poorer workers to fight for living wages. WORKERS UNDER FIRE The reports showed how workers are being attacked politically, often by a politician who claims to be a friend. For example, the trade unions are fighting to work for more than the insulting $5.25-per-hour minimum wage. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is leading a struggle to represent low-wage workers employed by companies with city contracts. AFSCME has helped form a community-union alliance to represent the minimum-wage workers, but "welfare reform" is undermining everything. Two hundred AFCSME members have already lost their jobs to welfare recipients forced to work for their welfare check. According to the Welfare Rights Union, at least 300 "workfare" workers work at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital (as well as at many other locations throughout the city). No one knows how many jobs have been lost. Workfare workers make $1.50 an hour or less. Next year, 13,000 local workers are due to be cut off welfare altogether, and forced into the Baltimore labor market. The bottom is being cut out of low-wage jobs and the minimum wage, no matter what the governor and mayor promise. 'EMPOWERMENT' ZONES Another example was given at the meeting which clearly shows how the connection between politics and economics is being used against the working class. There are three so-called empowerment zones in Baltimore where public money is used to "develop" poor communities. Companies which place factories there receive large public subsidies. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars of federal, state and local funds are offered to businesses to employ workers at close to the minimum wage. Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening, both Democrats, regularly brag about how they are developing the city through these special deals for business. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers union is organizing workers at the shops in the empowerment zones. Its experience with one shop, PTP, shows how the political situation there favors the employers at the expense of the low-wage workers whom the company hires. PTP paid workers barely the minimum wage. The workers were black, white and Asian. When the UE tried to organize them, PTP hired a union-busting outfit. They used racist tactics to attack the Asian workers. All of this time, they were receiving public money for community development and tax write-offs for each worker they employed for at least six months. Eventually PTP just broke their lease, closed up shop, and took the money and ran. The attack on the welfare recipients is a political attack on all workers. It was carried out by the Republican and Democratic parties, the political parties of the employers. So is the way the empowerment zones are set up. The workers -- employed, unemployed and on welfare -- need their own political organization to fight effectively. The Labor Party Campaign for a Job as a Right is a way to begin that fight. First, a constitutional amendment is the legal way to reorganize the whole society around the economic priorities of workers. We need decent jobs to survive, to raise our families and live our lives. The struggle for the 28th Amendment is a real beginning. It is a way to unite and organize ourselves for the struggle to make our society one where people take care of each other instead of getting used to seeing profits being made by a few who discard us when we are no longer needed. For more information about the 28th Amendment campaign, contact the Labor Party, P.O. Box 53177, Washington, D.C. 20009. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ LABOR PARTY PRESS PUBLISHES JULY ISSUE The Labor Party Press, the official publication of the Labor Party, recently published its July issue. It includes articles on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the party's 28th Amendment campaign for a job as a right, and other important issues. To join the Labor Party and subscribe to its press, write: The Labor Party, P.O. Box 53177, Washington, D.C. 20009. Phone: 202- 234-5190. FAX: 202-234-5266. E-mail: lpa@labornet.org. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 5. STAND FOR CHILDREN 1997: CHILDREN POINT THE WAY In 1996, more than 250,000 people attended the Stand For Children rally in Washington, D.C. This year, Stand For Children took place June 1 in the form of over 550 local events nationwide. The quotes on this page, taken from the Children's Defense Fund web site, are from students, grades 5-7, attending the Fowler After-School Club in Maynard, Massachusetts. They are describing the importance of standing for children. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ I know you know that there are about 10 million children in the United States that can't go to school. They can't go to school because their parents do not have enough money to keep them well. Many children don't even go to the doctor if they have some sort of disease or if they are sick. If you want more children to survive, shouldn't the hospitals have free check-ups for the people that don't have enough money so their children may be able to go to school? Well, I think they should, and their parents should think that too. Arturo Orevalo Jr., 5th Grade +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Kids make life worth living. All children should have food, clothes, animals and toys. Kristin Damon, 5th Grade +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Children love to play in the mud and swing on swings. Children love to have a pet to cuddle and play with. Children love to have someone to talk to about their problems. Children all over the world need lots of care and love. Children need so many things to help them learn and grow. Vanessa Clark, 7th Grade +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Kids are special. They give the earth something we all need, laughter. They give us a chance to raise another human being. Children should be cherished and never mistreated. Children are flowers ready to bloom in the spring. Jamie Gunnerson, 5th Grade ****************************************************************** 6. NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CONVENES IN ATLANTA: TEACHERS CAN HELP RALLY THE NATION TO SAVE OUR CHILDREN By Gloria Slaughter [Editor's note: The author has been a public school teacher for 27 years and is a member of the NEA.] ATLANTA -- In the 1960s Jonathan Kozol wrote Death at an Early Age. This book chronicled the deteriorating conditions of a school in Boston's Roxbury section. In the 1990s Kozol wrote Savage Inequalities. After 30 years, the poorest areas in this country, inner city and/or rural, contain the worst public schools. School reform, such as restructuring, hasn't taken place. The National Education Association (NEA) will convene in Atlanta July 1 through July 6. Several years ago, Jonathan Kozol received the "Friend of Education" Award at the NEA convention. It seems that it is time to take the challenge from Kozol and ensure that every young person has an equal, quality education. Just as the majority of poor children don't get a good education, those without health insurance don't get as much medical attention as those who have insurance. Families USA reports that, nationally, one out of every three children had no insurance in 1995 and in 1996. Even though we are told that there has been a six-year economic expansion, the second-longest in U.S. history, there are still stark pockets of joblessness and poverty. Nationally, the unemployment rate among African American males has averaged 39.7 percent this year; 33.1 percent of African American teens are unemployed in Georgia. According to economists and labor-market specialists, this has been a serious problem for decades. Ineffective public schools play a role, as does lack of financial help for college. Many inner-city residents, isolated by poor public transit systems, find it difficult to reach thriving suburbs. Racial discrimination also persists. African American applicants received unfavorable treatment in 20 percent of job searches, according to a 1990 study by the Urban Institute which used pairs of identically qualified black and white male college students in Washington and Chicago. This summer, the NEA members must rally support for health insurance for children, find ways to support job training and education for our nation's African American male teen-agers and force Congress to find the funding to repair the infrastructure of America's schools, particularly in urban and rural communities. The $5 billion to do this was axed by the recent agreement to balance the federal budget. The federal government helped build America's highway system. Our system of public schools is no less deserving of support. ****************************************************************** 7. TWO YEARS AFTER THE SIGNING OF NAFTA: UNITY IS KEY FOR THE PEOPLES OF THE U.S. AND MEXICO By Arturo Santamaria Gomez MAZATLAN, Sinaloa, Mexico -- Everyone who enthusiastically and actively promoted the North American Free Trade Agreement imagined that with such a historic decision the relations between Mexico and the United States would inevitably be better than ever. Two years after the signing of NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico friendship finds itself in one of its worse moments. To the misfortune of its promoters, as well as the Mexican population in general, the potential that NAFTA could develop was extraordinarily overestimated. A simplistic and technocratic vision about the capabilities of the market to improve the development of the complexities of a society has had fatal consequences for Mexico. However, as well as being a problem for the economic stability of the immense majority of Mexicans after two years of NAFTA, the signing of the agreement has also been witnessed by the majority of the U.S. population, and in particular the unions, as being very harmful to them. The most visible thing for the U.S. workers has been the shifting of factories south of the border, in particular when greater salaries are demanded. They almost see Mexico as a strikebreaking nation. >From the perspective of the greater part of the U.S. population, be they workers or not, NAFTA is seen as detrimental to them. The extraordinary loans given to the Mexican government, although paid off by the end of 1996, were seen as contrary to the interests of U.S. citizens. NAFTA put Mexico in the eyes of the United States as never before. And rather than see it in a better light the broadest sectors particularly of the Anglo population view Mexico as worse than before. The right-wing propaganda, particularly coming from the ranks of the Republican Party and its allies, is determined to convert Mexico in its totality into the No. 1 enemy of the United States -- now that the Soviet Union is no longer. It is easy for the American right wing, with its ever increasing and more dangerous fascist characteristics, to blame Mexicans more and more for the internal problems of the United States. The right-wing ideologists of the United States blame Mexicans for the problems of unemployment, low wages, social violence and the problems of health and drug trafficking. It is difficult to believe, but the ones blamed for the principal ills of North American society are the 3 million undocumented workers in a country of 265 million people. For both U.S. citizens and Mexicans, it is extremely important to know that only a handful of individuals in both countries are the ones principally responsible for their mutual problems and, paradoxically, they are the real winners in this relationship. Those who head the economic integration of the United States and Mexico within the globalization of the economy, in which you also find drug traffickers from both countries, are the ones who make the political decisions, including, of course, economic decisions for both countries. Although, of course, the Mexican associates do this in a subordinate way, given their political and economic disadvantage. If ordinary U.S. and Mexican citizens continue to blame each other for the problems in their two countries, exactly as the patriotic and erroneous propaganda would have it, things will continue to get worse. It is urgent for the benefit of the majority of people in Mexico and the United States that there be a greater coming together between us -- through the unions, alternative political parties, associations of producers independent of the monopolies, educational institutions, student organizations, ecologists, and indigenous groups. In other words, the connections between all those seeking better alternatives in both countries are needed to better coexist. Truly a relationship from below is needed between the inhabitants of these neighboring countries because the animosity provoked by unpopular politics on both sides of the border is tending to increase. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ WHO HAS NAFTA BENEFITED? The North American Free Trade Agreement has not strengthened Mexican sovereignty, has no direct relationship to the struggles for democracy in Mexico (as many of its supporters speculated), and it has not lessened Mexican immigration to the United States. NAFTA has not improved the Mexican economy and neither has it improved the well-being of the majority nor has it improved the relationship between the people of Mexico and the United States. NAFTA has only benefited a few corporations, with minimal favorable impact on other sectors of society. Close to 300 companies, almost all of them transnationals, are responsible for 70 percent of the exports. Excluding the products from the maquiladoras, there are only 17 types of products that make possible 60 percent of these exports. In the area of agriculture, granulated coffee, tomato and vegetables compose 73 percent of the agricultural exports in the first two years of NAFTA. Almost half of the exports are produced in maquiladoras, but the Mexican makeup of this merchandise, including the labor, is approximately 22 percent. In 1996, the maquiladoras only consumed 1.83 percent of the raw materials and employed 803,060 workers. Since 1965, the maquiladoras have only been able to create 2.2 percent of Mexican jobs. What's more, the manufacturing exports that are not generated by the maquiladoras have less and less of a national character. Of total Mexican exports in 1987, 87 percent were of national content and in 1994 it had dropped to 42.24 percent. In the first year of NAFTA, it dropped four more percentage points. The gross quantities of exports increased between 1983 and 1984 by 134.39 percent, but in net numbers they only increased 13 percent. In 1994, only $3 billion more were exported than in 1983. [This economic data appears in a soon-to-be-released book entitled, Apuntes para un Balance del TLCAN, written by Alberto Arroyo, Alejandro Villamar, Bertha Lujan and Rafael Gonzalez.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 8. THE LESSON OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, JULY 1863: THE CHAMPIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS CAN DEFEAT THE DEFENDERS OF PROPERTY By Chris Mahin Exactly 134 years ago this month, in the heat of a Pennsylvania summer, two armies fought a battle for the soul of America. By the time their bloodletting was done, tens of thousands of men lay dead -- and America had been changed forever. On July 1, 1863, those two armies clashed at a place called Gettysburg. What happened there has important lessons for today. One army entered Gettysburg as an invader. The soldiers of the Confederacy's Army of Northern Virginia were white, Protestant and English-speaking. That army had a cause. The very fact that it was invading the North that summer proved that it was not fighting for "states' rights" or "Southern independence" or any of the other nice-sounding lies told by its defenders. No, this army was defending the most ignoble cause ever championed by men in arms. It was fighting to preserve the selling of little children on auction blocks, the whipping of women, and the systematic working to death of young men. The Confederate States of America had initiated the Civil War not to preserve slavery in the South, but to extend it to the North. In June of 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia had moved north to start that process. But on July 1, 1863, the Confederate infantry ran into the advance units of a very different army. This army was made of volunteers. Unlike the Confederates, it consisted of people of different nationalities, and included immigrants from many parts of the world. The Union's Army of the Potomac was composed of farmers' sons from Maine and Michigan and office workers from New York and Philadelphia. This army also had a cause. Two years before Gettysburg, at the beginning of the Civil War, most soldiers in the Union army had been fighting simply to re-unite the United States. They believed that the secession of the slave states was illegal and wrong. But as the war dragged on, the Union soldiers gradually began to see that their fate was inextricably bound up with the fate of the slave -- and that the illegal rebellion of the slaveholders simply could not be crushed without crushing slavery itself. Then, seven months before Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. That act made the moral positions of the two armies as distinct as the battle lines they eventually set up on two different ridges just south of the town of Gettysburg. One army fought for slavery, the other for freedom. One army fought for the "sacredness" of property rights, even when property rights guaranteed misery for 4 million people; the other army fought to stop 347,000 slaveowners from imposing their will on 30 million residents of the United States. Those differences were decisive. While the battle itself raged for three long days, left tens of thousands dead or wounded, and included the longest bombardment by cannons ever to have taken place thus far in the history of North America, it was not the Napoleon cannons of the Union army (or the not-very-brilliant generalship of George Gordon Meade) which won the battle for the Union. Every honest account of the battle pays tribute to the steadfastness of the Union soldiers at Gettysburg, soldiers who went about the work calmly because they knew what they were fighting for and were willing to die for it. Here are the words of Lt. Frank Haskell of Wisconsin, a participant: "Men are dropping dead or wounded on all sides by scores and by hundreds; and poor mutilated creatures -- some with an arm dangling, some with a leg broke by a bullet -- are limping and crawling toward the rear. They make no sound of complaint or pain, but are as silent as if dumb and mute. A sublime heroism seems to pervade all and the intuition that to lose that crest and all is lost." An unforgettable example of that heroism came on the battle's second day. At that point, the very end of the Union battle line was positioned on a small rocky hill south of the town of Gettysburg called Little Round Top. There, a regiment of volunteers from Maine commanded by a college professor fought desperately to prevent the Confederate forces from surrounding them. If the Confederates had succeeded, they would have been able to attack the entire Union line from behind. When the soldiers of the 20th Maine ran out of ammunition, they simply fixed bayonets and attacked, driving the Confederate soldiers off the hill. Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the commander of the 20th Maine regiment, summed up that kind of situation well when he said: "The inspiration of a noble cause enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before." When the three days of hard fighting finally ended, the officers' corps of the Confederate army had been devastated. The Army of Northern Virginia retreated. While the Civil War dragged on for almost two more years, its final result had already been determined. In total, 23,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded or missing in action at Gettysburg. Most of them were young. All of them were volunteers. (The Union did not begin drafting men until later in 1863.) These men sacrificed to stop an economic elite which cared nothing about morality from taking control of this country. All of us owe a great debt to those who gave their lives at Gettysburg in 1863 to ensure that the United States would continue to exist, and would not become a country in which 347,000 slaveowners gave orders to everyone else. But that gratitude must not blind us from ignoring the fact that today the United States is becoming a country in which a small handful of millionaires and billionaires give orders to everyone else. Perhaps the best way that we can honor those who fell in freedom's cause at Gettysburg would be to help finish their work -- by creating a United States without any capitalist exploiters, whether slaveowner or otherwise. ****************************************************************** 9. VOICES FROM THE FRONT: MARCHERS TAKE THEIR FIGHT TO THE U.N. -- LEADERS OF THE KENSINGTON WELFARE RIGHTS UNION SPEAK By R. Lee PHILADELPHIA -- Here in the city where the Constitution was drafted, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, where the homeless sleep in the shadow of the Liberty Bell, a new movement for justice has taken root. It is a movement led, in the main, by homeless women, often with their children in tow. For years now, Philadelphia's homeless have been fighting the city and federal governments for housing. In the summer of 1995, the most militant section of the city's homeless, led by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), began a series of tent cities and housing takeovers. Last summer, the KWRU led a 140-mile march from Philadelphia to Pennsylvania's state Capitol at Harrisburg, but the group's pleas for justice still went unheeded. This year, on June 21, a group of poor and homeless families, welfare recipients and supporters, marching under the banner of the KWRU, began a 10-day "March for Our Lives" from the Liberty Bell to the United Nations in New York City to indict the United States for violating the human rights of its poorest residents. On these pages are excerpts from interviews with some of the Philadelphia fighters who planned to participate in the march, scheduled to reach the United Nations on July 1. Most of these comments are from April 1996, at Philadelphia's Tent City; Tara Colon's remarks were made in mid-June 1997. CHERI HONKALA, executive director of the Kensington Welfare Rights, Union: Homelessness is going to get much worse with the welfare cuts here in Pennsylvania. We've got to move people away from looking at the problem as just their situation, and get them to see that they can never actually run from the situation unless we have a different system in this country. And teach them that in a way that is not rhetoric. Housing takeovers now are not like some protest or symbolic thing; it's the norm. Anyone from the mailman to the person that lives next door, sees a real need to have some relationship to this struggle, because people see their future or their children's future looking very similar to this. So they figure it's better to be connected to it, because at least these folks are trying to do something to resolve the problem. When somebody needs housing or clothing or food, we get it. First we utilize the system; people get a great education -- they learn the system doesn't work. And then we teach people how to organize to take. Women take over abandoned houses -- and have no choice but to do this to put a roof over their kids' heads -- then enter a court system in which they are told that what they're doing is wrong and illegal, when all they're trying to do is provide for their children. And so it's real educational to see that every institution is set up for a different class and not them. I got six months' federal probation for obstructing the view of the Liberty Bell last summer. What was obstructing the view of the Liberty Bell was homeless mothers and children. It was a sad day in that courtroom, that a judge would rule that human beings were less important and didn't have a right to demonstrate in front of the Liberty Bell. What was so bizarre was that there was only one difference between the homeless families that were there demonstrating and the other homeless families that live every day in Philadelphia on Independence Hall in front of the Liberty Bell -- the only difference was that the folks with us were saying something about their condition, and that's what they were charged with. We dared say something about the conditions in this country. They have the National Guard going through the neighborhoods boarding up the houses and putting two by fours behind all the doors and all the windows. They're serious about keeping those houses empty. Everybody living in North Philly is having to live illegally. Nobody has car insurance, or a driver's license; a lot of people don't have any utilities on legally. To have water, or a warm house, you have to be illegal. The criminalization of the poor is very real. And the police all know it. They know that everybody around can be locked up at any given moment. We're in the fight of our life right now around leadership development, trying to create as many conscious leaders as possible in this process. Because the situation is never safe, but you're a hell of a lot safer if you've got some conscious folks in the process. And for us it really means identifying potential revolutionaries in the process and recruiting them, so that then we can have much deeper discussions about what's happening. WILLIE BAPTIST, a member of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union: When you're in a fight, you have to locate your enemy's weakness and focus on it, and homelessness is a key point of vulnerability for this system. With the dismantling of the welfare state, the acceleration of evictions, the expansion of the shelter and jail systems, all this forces people into motion. Some advocates for the poor try to save the welfare state; our approach is to organize those being assaulted. Homelessness is the key issue, as an expression of the insanity, inhumanity and obsolescence of the system. The other aspect is how homelessness fits in with the housing policies of the various ruling circles. Housing policy is connected to labor policy. Dismantling the welfare system is an effort to obliterate the floor of the wages system; they are lowering the wage structure and developing a corresponding housing policy to fit that. This means a housing policy where housing is totally unaffordable for people who are not working. They have not been able to explain homelessness in an America of plenty. We have to develop a combination of approaches that allows us to win the hearts and minds of the people. I think those approaches grow out of the conditions themselves, and we're going to have to become part of that process, help push people forward, and use that as a base for elevating people's thinking, not only for people who are in the situation, but also for those who are seeing that what these people are struggling about raises a lot of questions regarding their own future, their own existence. We set up a tent at the Liberty Bell last summer, and as a result we had debates all over the damn city about homelessness, about what's going on here in the heart of liberty. It was a powerful thing. Combining activity with explanations, with widespread discussion, with speaking tours -- we've had tours on the campuses, different places, trying to explain things, and because we've been connected to these kinds of activities, people want to listen to what's going on. MARILUZ GONZALEZ, a member of the KWRU: It's a shame what the system is doing to us. If we all get together and organize we can do something. I love what I'm doing. I want to continue helping other people get together. We've got to open our eyes and wonder what the system's all about. I know a lot of people are getting laid off, factories are closing, everything is shutting down. They're trying to cut off the medical system, too. Sooner or later everybody is going to become homeless. People are going to realize what's going on and they're going to look up to us homeless people. When I became homeless, I just wanted to end my life and the lives of my three kids, because I couldn't get help from anyone and because I had no job skills. But I looked at my children and I said "No!" I wanted to make a better life for me and my children, one way or another. Since I became a member of KWRU, I've learned a lot about the struggle and how to organize. I've learned about politics, about attitudes, about how to get along with people and care what happens to them. TARA COLON, executive assistant of the KWRU: In 1948, the United States signed a human rights charter along with 200 other countries giving people the right to a job, housing and the right to privacy. In 1996, Clinton did not sign a revision to that charter that would guarantee people the right to food, because he wouldn't be able to enact the welfare reform bill which is cutting Food Stamps and Medicare. So the United States is in violation of all of those rights. We decided that we are going to scream and holler and let the whole world know. We'll march from Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell to New York to the United Nations. We're going to carry a coffin 120 miles with all our human rights violations, which could be anything from your house catching fire from faulty wiring to you working three jobs and none provides health care. People need to unite around the need for a real change in this country. California can feed the world three times over. There's enough technology for everyone to have food on their table, a home, a quality life. Nobody should be living homeless and starving. KATE ENGLE, a member of the KWRU: We've got to stand up for our rights and fight for what we believe in. And we believe people should have housing, food and clothing. We believe the law should be the same for us as it is for them. They want to make cuts in welfare -- they call it welfare reform. It's a death sentence for all the poor. They ain't going to go to jail, but if we were to go out and kill somebody, we would. Why ain't they? It makes me mad. I think the only way homelessness is going to be resolved is if everybody wants to get up and out of poverty, and if people come together. We need to get rid of the system we have altogether. Why should the rich have so much money? We don't even have carfare. If people want to know where the welfare money is going, it's going to big corporations. ****************************************************************** 10. WHAT'S BEHIND THE ATTACK ON SOCIAL PROGRAMS? Editorial [Editor's note: In 1996, Congress and President Clinton dealt a severe blow to social programs which have existed in this country since 1935: Congress passed the so-called Personal Responsibility Act and Clinton signed it. To help put this ominous move in context, we print excerpts below from a speech given by veteran revolutionary Nelson Peery. Peery spoke on March 4, 1995 at a plenary session of the Midwest Conference on Technology, Employment and Community in Chicago.] I would like to skip a description of the millions of homeless, the tens of millions of jobless, the acres of burned-out neighborhoods, the slaughter of our youth, the "in your face" looting of the public treasury, the decline of education and the threatening complete elimination of social services. The important thing is to understand why this is happening. When and why did government grow big with the alphabet programs? When and why did it suddenly need to shed itself of these programs? The major task of government is to create the structural programs and policies that allow the economy to function. When the government was the instrument of the farmers, that government did the things necessary to protect and expand the farm. The Indians were cleared from the fertile lands, slavery was protected and extended, shipping lanes for export were cleared and frontiers expanded. As the farm gave way to industry, the government transformed itself into a committee to take care of the needs of industry. Government began to grow. Industry needed literate workers, so the school system expanded. The army needed healthy young men to fight the wars brought on by industrial expansion, so a school lunch program was started. As industry got big, a Department of Housing and Urban Development provided order to the chaotic, burgeoning cities. As industry moved outward, a Department of Transportation brought order to the transportation chaos. Government became big government to serve the needs of industry as it became big industry. The workers were kept relatively healthy and the unemployed were warehoused in such a manner as to keep them available for work. New means of production changed the game. Not only were expanding sections of the working class superfluous to production, but the new mode of high-tech production no longer needed a reserve army of the unemployed. Nor did it need healthy young men for an infantry war. As industry gave way to the new electronic means of production, it downsized. The government had to follow suit. If we knew the consequences of our actions, we probably would not get out of bed in the morning. The scientists pursuing their craft could hardly visualize what the engineers would do with the marvels they were creating in the laboratory. The engineers, as they applied the marvels of science to the workplace, probably never understood the effect it would have on the capitalist system. Nor did the capitalists, in their scramble for the market and its profits, understand the effect they were having on history. As the application of these new scientific marvels to the workplace expanded, a new economic category, the structurally unemployed, was created. One hundred and fifty years ago, Marx and Engels coined the term "the reserve army of the unemployed." This was the reserve to be thrown into production as the need arose. The structurally unemployed are something different. They are a new, growing, permanently unemployed sector created by the new, emerging economic structure. The economists, their inquiry tainted with racist ideology and unable to understand the difference between the reserve army of the unemployed created by industrial capitalism and the structural, permanent joblessness created by robotics, came up with the term "underclass." Racism allowed for this term to be quickly and widely accepted. The so-called underclass is, in fact, a new class. History shows that each qualitatively new means of production creates a new class. Previously, each new class has been the owners or operators of the new equipment. This new class, created by robotics, is not simply driven out of industry, it is driven out of bourgeois society. The social system is under attack as the electronic revolution destroys its economic underpinning. This underpinning is value created by the expenditure of human labor. In proportion to the use of robotics, the new system becomes more productive and less able to distribute that production. We stand at the end of pre-history. Wageless production cannot be distributed with money. The contradiction between the modes of production and exchange has reached its limit. Production without wages inevitably results in distribution without money. This objective economic demand will sweep aside any subjective or political system that cannot conform to it. Communism moves from the subjective arena of the political and ideological into the realm of the objective and economic. Since there are no concrete economic connections between today and tomorrow, consciousness plays the decisive role in this revolution. How will the movement acquire this decisive consciousness? As with all changes of quality, it must be introduced from the outside. An organization must be built for the specific purpose of bringing this consciousness to the new class, and not only the new class. Since we are entering a social revolution, this message must be taken to all of society. Today, in the robot, we have an efficient and willing producer capable of freeing up humanity so they may fully commit themselves to the age-old struggle for a cultured, orderly and peaceful life. Any person who has been forced onto the streets by the private use of robotics cannot help but visualize the possible world wherein robotics is used for the benefit of society, rather than by individuals whose only interest is profit. Humanity stands at its historic juncture. Can we who understand today visualize tomorrow with enough clarity to accept the historic responsibilities of visionaries and revolutionaries? I think so. Humanity has never failed to make reality from the possibilities created by each great advance in the means of production. This time, there is no alternative to seizing tomorrow. ****************************************************************** 11. WELFARE CUTS DEMAND POLITICAL RESPONSE By Bruce E. Parry, Ph.D. The debate over Social Security is currently on hold, but it will re-emerge. It's sort of like the bad guy in all recent movies: You are supposed to think he's dead, but you know he's not. He's going to show up again when you least expect it and make things worse. Why will the Social Security debate show up again and mean trouble? Social Security is the next target in a long-term, step- by-step dismantling of government programs. It is the target of the corporate, ruling-class interests that run this country. Its elimination is part of their attack on social programs. Social Security -- the biggest entitlement program -- is the ultimate target. The restrictions on General Assistance, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability, Aid for Families with Dependent Children and Food Stamps are incremental cuts to prepare a political environment in which even bigger cuts can be made. This is further proven by the fact that there is no Social Security crisis. The entire problem of underfunding Social Security can be fixed for 75 years with a 2.2 percent tax adjustment! The crisis mentality that has been raised over Social Security has been fueled by a $2.5 million campaign by the libertarian Cato Institute and aided by the Investment Company Institute. Both are funded by financial companies that will benefit from changing Social Security. If poor and working people do not recognize that we are being manipulated by our enemies, there will soon be few friends left to defend us. We need to get into political activity -- broadly defined -- that is independent of the Republicans and Democrats. Both of those parties work for the corporations. Instead, we need to defend ourselves and demand that the government take the resources to fund all these programs from those that have them: corporations and the rich that own them. A quick look shows how the dismantling of government entitlement programs has unfolded over about the last eight years. The first target was the poorest of the poor: those receiving General Assistance (GA). GA was a group of state programs that provided cash assistance to the poor when virtually no other assistance was available. In the most notorious cases, Michigan's Gov. John Engler threw 90,000 recipients off the rolls in one ruthless cut. It was followed when Illinois terminated over 100,000 recipients. State by state, GA was slashed or eliminated all over the country. The next target was Social Security payments for those suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction. While both are diseases recognized by the medical community, recipients were vulnerable due to lack of political support. In an atmosphere of "welfare reform," thousands were thrown off Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability -- federal programs -- just for being sick. These were the first cuts in federal programs. Another loss occurred when California narrowly voted to refuse public services to undocumented workers. This turned poor and working people against themselves as one group attempted to save itself by sacrificing others. In the next wave, the feeding frenzy of welfare reform resulting in the sweeping 1996 legislation, AFDC was eliminated and Food Stamps curtailed. Again, turning people against themselves, assistance was curtailed for documented immigrants, a provision that is still being fought out. AFDC was eliminated and replaced by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). It is run by states. The federal government is washing its hands, turning the welfare battle over to the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Again, poor and working people are being divided and conquered. Assistance has been limited in duration and workfare has become the law of the land. Food Stamps -- an agricultural subsidy run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- have also been slashed. The ruling class intends to continue this step-by-step elimination of minimal programs that barely save the lives of poor and working people. This attack has to be fought politically. ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 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 or e-mail cultfire@noc.org. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 12. ACTIVISTS DISCUSS PLANS TO FREE THE MEDIA by Scott Pfeiffer "Regardless of what a progressive group's first issue of importance is, its second issue should be media and communication, because so long as the media are in corporate hands, the task of social change will be vastly more difficult, if not impossible, across the board." --Robert W. McChesney NEW YORK -- From May 29-31, progressive and radical media makers, watchdogs and activists from across the United States (as well as a couple of reps of the International Media Collective from Toronto) gathered at the headquarters of the Learning Alliance here for the latest Freeing the Media event. The main aspiration of the weekend, which was organized by the Learning Alliance, the Cultural Environment Movement (CEM), and Paper Tiger TV, was to make strides towards the founding of a local media group and an international media network. Also on the agenda was strategizing for the upcoming second Media and Democracy Congress, to be held in New York City on October 16-19. There was debate and discussion on tactics, but all were united in the conviction that something must be done -- and soon -- about the hellish state of communications at the end of the 20th century. The trends that have been accelerated by the deregulation fostered by the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996 may be familiar to activists, but have been generally kept hidden from the public, so they're worth recounting: Massive giveaways of new broadcast spectrum, i.e. public property, to wealthy corporations. Massive mergers (Time Warner gulping up Turner) and concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands, so that today less than 10 massive globally-linked media conglomerates dominate U.S. media. Content that serves, and is driven by, advertisers. Market-imposed censorship. No public participation in communication policymaking. And, perhaps the coup de grace ... Howard Stern's producer now controls the stations in the CBS network. Much of the conference was spent broken down into discussion groups. The out-of-towners' group kicked up three main themes on which to concentrate our brainstorming, discussion and debate: 1. Community building (international and local). The point was made that communication is a basic right of communities, and that it's necessary to work with grass-roots community organizers. 2. Distribution. Communities must have access to the means of dissemination. Here radio is key. Chuck U. of M.I.T's No Censorship Radio talked about his experience with radio as a voice for the community. Dharma Bilotta-Dailey and Tracy Jake Siska of Chicago's CounterMedia reported on the persecution of Black Liberation Radio. 3. Skill-sharing. The importance of not feeling the necessity to reinvent the wheel was stressed. It was pointed out that there are already existing local and international progressive media groups, institutions and networks. These include the Institute for Alternative Journalism (host of the Media and Democracy Congress), the Cultural Environment Movement (which, under the tutelage of George Gerbner, has come up with a Viewer's Declaration of Independence and ratified a People's Communication Charter), the Alternative Media Center, and many, many more. There is the Direct Action Media Network, which founder Jay Sand describes as a "multi-media news service that gathers and distributes coverage of progressive protests, strikes, marches, and campaigns." The job will entail facilitating communication and collaboration between these groups. The Canadian reps of the Media Collective, Jesse Hirsh and Josh Hehner, said that that is very much the way the International Coalition for Democratic Communication, a.k.a. Videazimut, works -- i.e., it facilitates communication between member TV producers such as Paper Tiger and Free Speech TV. They went on to describe the Media Collective as "the Internet without computers," explaining that the main way they communicate is through voice mail. Veteran journalist, filmmaker and "news dissector" Danny Schechter maintained that the real question is how to get our message to the public. With many years' experience inside the media under his belt, he reminded participants not to write off mass media, even as we create alternative structures. After all, the mass media is what most people experience. Many conference participants voiced caveats about the upcoming second Media and Democracy Congress, although some critics, such as Joan Sekler of the Los Angeles Alternative Media Network encouraged all who could to attend, regardless. Last year, critics said, the Congress was dominated by academics and professionals. And the exorbitant admission price for the upcoming event ($200 to walk in the door if you register after June 30 -- room and food not included) would tend to shut out grassroots activists. It was decided that a letter would be drafted to the Congress' organizers addressing these issues. On the other hand, the Congress organizers know that they need to have the grass-roots activists there, to lend their conference some legitimizing authenticity. It was proposed to use that leverage to force organizers to put up the dime to fly in media activists from countries where disseminating the voices and images of the powerless is literally to put your life on the line -- perhaps Mexico. The philosophy of media-work was discussed. Greg Ruggiero, associate program director of the Learning Alliance and co-editor of the Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, felt that whenever we make or use media, we should keep in mind that the point is to build a movement for human liberation. Someone else felt that media itself should be viewed as a survival tool. The Media Collective seems to have merged Chomsky with McLuhan to forge a compellingly devastating analysis of the corporate propaganda environment. As the conference drew to a close, an International Independent Media Federation was planned, somewhat along lines suggested by Z Magazine in the April '96 issue. It would be the new, transitional form of the Media Collective. It would articulate an international movement, and aid in shared distribution. The details are to be worked out at the Congress in October, but already the Federation is working to publicize the Action! Motown '97 march of striking newspaper workers with a "multimedia information blast." ****************************************************************** 13. THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA: WHAT WE ARE AND WHY The League is an organization of revolutionaries. * We are people from all walks of life, with various ideals and ideologies. * We are organized to awaken the American people to their growing poverty and the threat of a fascist police state. A police state is a society controlled by police forces who are above the law and responsible to no one but themselves. * We are organized to bring the people a vision of a peaceful, prosperous, orderly world made possible by the very automation and economic globalization which, in the hands of capitalists, threatens our existence. In a word, the League of Revolutionaries for a New America educates and fights for the transfer of economic and political power into the hands of the people so they can build a democratic, cooperative, communal society. HERE IS WHY -- Rapidly expanding automation is doing away with most human work and will pauperize the humans doing the work that remains. Capitalism has no use for and will not care for human labor when robotics is more profitable. Consequently, the growing mass of permanently unemployed people are sinking deeper and deeper into poverty. A huge global movement of the destitute is getting underway. The demand for the essentials of a decent life and no money to pay for them marks it as the world's first revolutionary mass movement for communism. (The American Heritage Dictionary defines "communism" as "a social system characterized by the common ownership of the means of production and subsistence and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.") This developing movement needs to understand its historic mission and how to achieve it. The No. 1 need of the revolution is for an organization of teachers, of propagandists who will bring it clarity. Only then can the people of this country save themselves from the threat of a new world order of poverty and oppression. The League of Revolutionaries for a New America has been formed to carry out that task. Historically, a revolution in the economy makes a revolution in society inevitable. We must prepare for it. If you agree with this perspective, let's get it together -- our collective experience, intelligence and commitment can change America and the world. Collectivize with us. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ I WANT TO JOIN! ____ I want to join the LRNA. Please send information. ____ Enclosed is my donation of $_____ +----------------------------------------------------------------+ I want to subscribe! ____ People's Tribune. $2 for four issues or $25 for a year. ____ Tribuno del Pueblo. $2 for four issues or $10 for a year. (You can also get bundles of 10 or more copies of the PT or TP for 15 cents per copy.) Name Address City/State/Zip +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 14. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE AUDIOTAPES PRESENT A VISION OF A NEW AMERICA Hear inspiring speakers present their vision of a New America on audiotape. We are proud to announce that audiotaped interviews of some People's Tribune speakers are available for free on the Internet! To hear Nelson Peery speak about his acclaimed book, Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary, or Chris Mahin, People's Tribune Editorial Board member, speak about the attack on Illinois microbroadcaster Napoleon Williams, free speech and the drive toward a police state, or to hear Gloria Sandoval on the significance of attacks on immigrants, go to the League's Web site at http://www.mcs.com/~jdav/league.html and click on "Resources for Revolutionaries." To purchase tapes, send $5 for each audiotape listed below to People's Tribune Speakers Bureau, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago Illinois 60654. A free brochure listing all of our speakers will be included with each order. (If you work with a radio station or other media, or are a campus recruiter, see special offer below.) Available tapes include: "Securing Economic and Social Justice in the Global Economy." Nelson Peery, author, Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary "The Demise of Public Housing and the Struggle for a New America." Annie Chambers, founding member, National Welfare Rights Union. "Marching to the United Nations." Tara Colon and Cheri Honkala of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. "Homeless Organizers Speak." Richard Powell, Mobile (Alabama) Chapter of the Homeless Union; Ann Turner, Community Homeless Alliance Ministry, San Jose (California), Low-Income Support Network; Jackie Gage, president, Homeless Organizing Committee of Long Beach, California. "Attacks on Immigrants Affect All of America." Gloria Sandoval, community organizer around issues concerning women and immigrant rights. "The Life, Death and Times of Malcolm X and Revolution Today." Abdul Alkalimat, professor, author, activist. "Proposition 209, Welfare Reform and the African American Community." Ethel Long-Scott, executive director, Women's Economic Agenda Project. "The Economy and the Welfare State." Bruce Parry, Ph.D., labor economist. "Police Raid Won't Silence Liberation Radio." Napoleon Williams, founder, Black Liberation Radio, Decatur, Illinois. Some of the tapes are radio interviews by Mike Thornton of KVMR-FM radio, Nevada City, California. Complimentary tapes will be mailed to campuses seeking speakers and to the 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". ******************************************************************