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                 People's Tribune (Online Edition)
                   Vol. 24 No. 10/ October, 1997

                 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
                        Email: pt@noc.org

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The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is now available on the World Wide Web at
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INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition)
Vol. 24 No. 10/ October, 1997

Page One
 1. TALK OF AN ECONOMIC 'BOOM' EVADES THE REAL ISSUE: NOT ONE
    PERSON HAS TO BE HUNGRY!

Editorial
 2. WHO'S IMPOVERISHING AMERICA? WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT?

Spirit of the Revolution
 3. NEW BOOK SPARKS A DEBATE ON FORGIVENESS

News and Features
 4. ZAPATISTA CARAVAN ARRIVES IN MEXICO CITY: MEXICO'S POOR REMIND
    THE NATION: 'THERE CAN BE NO PEACE WITHOUT US'
 5. N.Y. COALITION IS RIGHT: WORKFARE IS SLAVERY
 6. 'LINK UP AND BUILD A MOVEMENT': CAMPAIGN WILL DOCUMENT
    ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN U.S.
 7. STUDENTS TO MEET IN CHICAGO TO PLAN TEACH-INS ON CORPORATE
    POWER
 8. THE BEST SOLUTION: PUBLIC OWNERSHIP, PUBLIC CONTROL
 9. RICARDO ALDAPE GUERRA LIVES ON IN THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE AND
    UNITY
10. LRNA EDUCATION IN ACTION

Women and Revolution: Visions for a New America
11. HAPPY 70TH BIRTHDAY TO SUE YING: AN EXTRAORDINARY WOMAN,
    ARTIST AND REVOLUTIONARY

American Lockdown
12. WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN CALIFORNIA'S PRISONS?

Culture Under Fire
13. THE MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY CONGRESS: IT'S TIME FOR A NEW VISION

>From the League
14. THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA: WHAT WE ARE
    AND WHY

Announcements, Events, etc.
15. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE AUDIOTAPES PRESENT A VISION OF A NEW AMERICA


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1. PAGE ONE: TALK OF AN ECONOMIC 'BOOM' EVADES THE REAL ISSUE: NOT
ONE PERSON HAS TO BE HUNGRY!

All the happy talk about how great the economy is doing misses the
point: While millions are being driven deeper into poverty, no one
should have to be poor. Today, the technology exists to feed the
entire world.
"We are in the calm before the calm. There are no storms on the
economic horizon."

That's what Paul Huard, vice president of the National Association
of Manufacturers, cheerfully declared in early September, after
August's low unemployment rate was announced.

Mr. Huard, what planet are you living on? For millions of us, the
storm is already here!

Today, more than one-fifth of all children in the United States
live in poverty. (This country contains the largest number of poor
children of any country in the industrialized world.) When a laid-
off worker in the United States is lucky enough to find another
job, he or she usually takes a pay cut. The fastest-growing
sectors of the economy offer jobs at the bottom of the pay scale.

One year ago, President Clinton signed the welfare "reform" bill
into law. This measure will cut $60 billion from the social
services budget over the next six years. The food stamp program
and other hunger prevention program cuts are the equivalent of
taking 24 billion pounds of food away from hungry people every
year.

And, at the end of August this year, a new measure went into
effect barring documented immigrants from receiving food stamps.

As part of the "cost-cutting" required by the 1996 welfare law,
the Social Security Administration is slashing disability payments
to tens of thousands of disabled children.

The horror of these situations is compounded by the fact that they
are so unnecessary. Today, no one has to go hungry; we have the
technology to feed the entire world. Today, none of those disabled
children have to be in danger; the world contains more than enough
resources to care for them. The problem is that the resources are
in the wrong hands. A tiny handful of capitalists (including, but
not limited to, Mr. Huard's friends in the National Association of
Manufacturers) control the economic life of this country (and this
planet) and maintain a strangle hold on the majority of humanity.
We need to set our sights not simply on fighting back against
their efforts to drive down our standard of living, but on taking
control of society away from them.

Once we've done that, we will finally live in "the calm before the
calm."

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2. EDITORIAL: WHO'S IMPOVERISHING AMERICA? WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT?

For Anastacio Serrano, Tamika Capers, and Mery Mejia, 1997 has not
been a good work year. Serrano had to pick up two dead dogs and
two dead cats with his bare hands, splattering blood and animal
organs on his shoes and pants.

Capers had to work long hours outdoors without access to a
restroom. Mejia developed a rash after being forced to wear a
different dirty hard hat each day.

Serrano, Capers and Mejia are on workfare; they are three of the
thousands of New York residents required to work in order to
receive public aid. The experience of these three workers says a
lot about where the U.S. and world economies are headed.

In July, lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit in the New York
Supreme Court on behalf of Serrano, Capers and Mejia and six other
workfare workers assigned to New York's Department of Sanitation
and the Department of Transportation, where they clean streets and
remove debris near highways and access ramps.

The lawsuit charges that the city of New York is endangering the
lives, health, and safety of workfare workers. The New York
workfare workers do not have access to drinking water even though
they labor for many hours without rest. The city fails to provide
these workers with uniforms, heavy gloves, face masks, or boots.
Like Anastacio Serrano, some workfare workers have to dispose of
dead animals. Others have encountered syringes, needles, medical
wastes, used condoms, and feces, which they have had to clean up
with their hands.

The working conditions endured by New York's workfare workers
should serve as a warning. For years, the standard of living of
the welfare recipient has been the bottom floor of the house of
labor in America, the minimum toward which other, slightly better-
off sections of the working class could be pushed. Clearly, the
dismantling of welfare which began with the passage of the welfare
"reform" act in August 1996 has set the stage for the driving down
of the standard of living of all workers. For instance, one New
York public employee was laid off, forced onto welfare, and then
wound up working as a workfare worker -- at the very job the
worker had lost!

The attacks on the welfare recipient are taking place in a
specific environment. While today's economy certainly includes the
rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, it does not amount
to an already bad situation simply getting worse.  Today, the use
of computers and robots means that it is possible to produce
things without human labor. The "downsizing" of labor began with
the unskilled and semi-skilled, but it is spreading rapidly to the
skilled workers. What's more, capital flows across national
borders today quickly and easily, drawing workers from all
countries into the same shrinking market for labor power.

The new methods of production are creating new classes -- a
growing class of destitute people on the one hand, whose labor is
no longer needed, and a class of immensely rich global investors
on the other hand, who primarily make their fortunes by
speculating. Historically, the new class of global speculative
capitalists is in a head-to-head confrontation with the new class
of poor.

These global capitalists increasingly dominate the world economy
and dictate terms to national governments. To protect their
profits, the speculative capitalists need to guarantee stable
currencies, keep government spending low and channel public funds
into the hands of private investors. And no capitalist is going to
support labor they don't need. This is why we are seeing measures
like welfare "reform," as well as the privatizing of prisons and
education, and the turning of Social Security funds over to Wall
Street investors. The same sorts of "reforms" are being instituted
in other countries.

Anastacio Serrano, Tamika Capers and Mery Mejia are part of the
new class of poor. One reason their experience is so tragic is
that it is so unnecessary. Today, there is no good reason why
anyone should have to labor in a punitive  "make work" scheme.
Today, production can take place with just a little human labor --
or none at all. The same electronic technology which impoverishes
millions of people when it is utilized under the control of the
capitalists could guarantee a decent life to everyone. It could
end hunger and poverty -- if a different class controlled it.

And a different class can and will control it. New classes disrupt
the old order. There is only one way out for the new class of poor
(who will soon be the majority), and that is to fight for a new
society -- one where no one is allowed to be homeless or hungry or
uneducated. The attacks on welfare recipients ought to serve as a
wake-up call to all of us. Our goal has to be take control of the
technology and use it to transform society in the interest of the
majority. To do that, we, the majority, will have to take
political power away from the class of billionaires who are now
forcing down our standard of living.

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3. NEW BOOK SPARKS A DEBATE ON FORGIVENESS

[Editor's note: Below we print the latest contribution to our
regular column about spirituality and revolution.

The article below is a review of the book Seventy Times Seven by
J. Christoph Arnold, published this month by The Plough Publishing
House, an arm of the Bruderhof religious communities.

The reviewer, David Landsel, spent most of his childhood at the
Bruderhof community in upstate New York. He now lives in Chicago
where he works full time in a transitional shelter in the Uptown
neighborhood.

We encourage our readers to comment on this review and other
articles which appear in the 'Spirit of the Revolution' column and
to contribute to the column.]


By David Landsel

Longtime leader of the L'Arche communities Jean Vanier remarked in
his bible-for-communal-living Community and Growth that "When we
come to community, it is to learn how to forgive." Perhaps that's
why few would be better suited than the Bruderhof communities to
put together such a powerful little book on the power of
forgiveness.

The latest in a long string of books by J. Christoph Arnold, the
senior pastor, will not disappoint readers who have found his
previous books helpful. Less preachy than his previous books but
still written in his trademark straightforward style, Seventy
Times Seven is an eye-opening read for anyone interested in
learning what it means to forgive. In existence since the 1920s,
members of the Bruderhof have learned much on this score, as the
reader will find through the opening chapters.

A friend of mine remarked the other day that everyone has at least
a couple of people in their lives with whom they must exercise an
extra measure of forgiveness, but living in community just means
hundreds more people to love and forgive! This is true because
without forgiveness, a community will not last. So for many of the
storytellers within this book, there is only one option.

One thing almost as notable as the book itself is the critique
published in the back by political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, who
criticizes the content of the book and calls it "a-historical,
ignoring social, class and political position." Abu-Jamal's
criticism may be well-founded, as the Bruderhof communities do
live a very comfortable life by many standards, in isolated rural
locations across the northeastern United States and United
Kingdom. A veritable white paradise. However, many of the people
quoted in the book are not members of the community, so this makes
the criticism far less valid. Perhaps it is true that most are
middle-class white men and women; however, the fact still remains
that the message of forgiveness is for all nations, all classes,
social groups and cultures! This cannot be denied. However, we
must not in our vigilance to reconcile all of society, hastily
preach it as the "only solution." This will not heal, but only
hurt. The key is to meet each person where they are at, and offer
them an example of forgiveness through our lives.

  As is evidenced in Abu-Jamal's writing, "Christianity" is a
dirty word to many these days. Why? Simply because it has become
nothing more than a dead form in so many ways. It has wandered so
far from the teachings of Jesus that I fear to be associated with
it. Christians through the ages have crafted their own religion
around what seems comfortable for them. Jesus' message is one of
love, clarity and extreme boldness, and the fact that we have done
so poorly at following His example does not change for one moment
the validity of His ultimate Truth!

I found one of the most powerful stories to be that of the
writer's father, Heinrich Arnold. Longtime senior pastor at the
Bruderhof, Arnold was no stranger to injustice and persecution,
except it was not from some distant establishment or organization,
it was from his closest brothers and sisters in community. (Yes,
Vanier was speaking the truth!) Stripped of his position by power-
hungry fellow pastors, Arnold was sent to a leper colony to
recover from an illness that he did not have. The fact that he
remained faithful to his calling is a strong witness to any
reader. No white paradise for him -- he suffered in the tropical
jungles of Paraguay, separated from his family and loved ones.
Never mind that the Bruderhof suffered from near-collapse at the
time -- he was determined that God had called him to this way of
life, and he wasn't about to let this deter him. Incidentally, he
did return years later, and was sent to the United States (to get
him out of the hair of the rest of the church) where the community
experienced a powerful revival in the 1950s with the beginning of
its first American hof ("house") in upstate New York. The
Paraguayan communities deteriorated rapidly and closed soon
thereafter.

Many other inspiring stories are told in the book, such as the
story of Marietta Jaeger, mother of a murder victim. She speaks of
"wrestling with God," and finding that the only way to cope with
the loss was to forgive. As she prayed for the kidnapper over the
weeks and months that followed, her prayers became easier and more
earnest. "By then, I had finally come to learn that God's idea of
justice is not punishment, but restoration. ... Jesus did not come
to hurt or punish, but to rehabilitate and reconcile." She even
went so far as to request an alternative sentence. However
abhorrent the crime, in the face of such overwhelming love and
forgiveness, how can any of us who have not been touched by such
need sit by and say that we know better, and that the death
penalty works?

Now, in the sunset of our century, forgiveness is even more valid
today than yesterday. With each new atrocity committed, there are
more and more people in need of the message of forgiveness. Abu-
Jamal says that we cannot just preach forgiveness, we must get out
and take action, "we must change hellish realities, and ... try to
transform this world from the hell it is for billions of her
inhabitants. Change these conditions, and perhaps forgiveness can
be born." The statement, however valid in a human sense, still
conflicts with the message of Jesus Christ that the writers of
this book adhere to. However noble it may seem to want to change
the world at our own hands, Christ is the only one that will bring
that change we hope for. It is up to us to speak the truth, and to
live in accordance with His teachings. His highest command is
Love. If we truly follow that, if our lives are a witness to
forgiveness and love, what a radical world-change there will be!

[Copies of Seventy Times Seven are available for $13 from The
Plough Publishing House. Call 1-800-521-8011 for more
information.]

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4. ZAPATISTA CARAVAN ARRIVES IN MEXICO CITY

MEXICO'S POOR REMIND THE NATION: 'THERE CAN BE NO PEACE WITHOUT
US'

By Arturo Santamaria Gomez

MEXICO CITY --More than 1,000 indigenous people representing the
Zapatista communities, together with thousands of others from just
about every ethnic group of Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero, Morelos and
the State of Mexico who share the same cause, arrived in Mexico
City on September 12. This is not the first time that delegates
from the rebel indigenous groups gathered together in Mexico City.
It was only last year that in this city this group created a
programmatic agenda for a national indigenous movement.

This indigenous march, in which many other non-indigenous
organizations participated, is a new and clear effort to move
consciences and wills towards a more just change in the nation. It
is also a desperate call by all the Mexicans who occupy the bottom
rung of Mexican society -- to remind us one more time that without
them there cannot be any real democracy or peace in our country.

No one who has been observing the Mexican reality closely can deny
the importance of the national indigenous movement, and
particularly the uprising of the Zapatista movement on January 1,
1994, in contributing greatly to the opening of the Mexican
political oyster.

The Zapatista insurrection helped untie the hold of the regime
that was preventing the citizens from taking over the national
electoral system; it opened the way for greater vigilance and
participation of the people in the electoral process; it
contributed like few before to increasing the freedom of
information of the democratic movements inside and outside of
Mexico; it brought some dignity to the Mexican political system,
and it gave back a sense of identity almost lost to millions of
Mexican people. Their poverty and their courage brought back to
its senses a population that foolishly thought they had already
joined the First World. Nonetheless, outside of the widespread
recognition and humanitarian help from various parts of Mexico and
the rest of the world, the Zapatistas have not received anything
in return.

Democratic Mexico, represented politically by the parties that
have constituted the legislative agreement in opposition to the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has made some
advances despite many difficulties; but indigenous rebel Mexico
remains outside of the National Pact that could start taking form
next September when the new legislature meets. The opposition
political parties are the only ones at this point able to
officially negotiate with the powers that be, when in fact these
parties do not represent all the political expressions in the
country. The indigenous movement headed by the EZLN represents a
force that cannot be ignored and it would be a grave mistake not
to take it into account.

The harassment of the Zapatista communities by the military is
still the government's tactic as part of their strategy of low-
intensity war. But even worse is the appearance that the military
is increasingly acting more on its own. The military often
contradicts statements made by high public officials in relation
to the treatment of the EZLN and its civil bases.

If the September 12 march does not succeed in unlocking the peace
talks and make the government comply with the San Andres
Larrainzar agreements, a peaceful solution to the dignified Maya
rebellion will be running out of oxygen. By letting the military
run itself freely, it would appear that the Mexican government is
convinced that a military answer is the only solution to the
conflict. If this is true, this will not only mean a war against
the poorest and most forgotten Mexicans, and at the same time the
ones with the most dignity, but it would also be one step away
from stopping the process of democratic transition that many civil
organizations and political parties are engaged in. The
authoritarian temptation on the part of the hardliners in the PRI-
government, the military and the private sector would only be
reinforced in a war scenario.

Nothing would be worse for Mexico than a comeback of the old
dinosaur politicians and a neoliberal economic program -- the most
lamentable of all the political authoritarianisms with the most
inhuman economic proposals there could be in a market economy. The
political dinosaurs consider democracy something that could be
done without, and neoliberalism concludes that there are excessive
human beings. As far as the technocrats are concerned, the wage-
earning workers are nothing more than numbers, statistical things.
Worse yet, the indigenous people are not even that, since they do
not enter into the market's accounts, the philosophical rock of
its existence.

It would not be an exaggeration to say what the Zapatistas have
said numerous times, that it is their very existence that is at
risk.

To deny the political, cultural and social changes being raised by
the national indigenous movement would mean opening up the jaws of
a slow genocide or to push them to go begging or to get involved
in crime in the cities. But it seems that the owners of power
prefer to see the indigenous people and all the poor dressed as
beggars or thieves, even if they would assault their homes and mar
their streets, rather than deal with them as politically active
and independent subjects.

Those in power prefer to fence themselves in and be surrounded by
proletarians dressed as beggars and delinquents than by active and
autonomous subjects. The Zapatistas are a revolutionary hope for
the indigenous and all poor people.

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LRNA SENDS GREETINGS TO ZAPATISTA FRONT

[Editor's note: Below we print the statement of greetings sent by
the League of Revolutionaries for a New America to the Congress of
the Zapatista National Liberation Front.]

We would like to extend our fraternal greetings to the
participants in the founding Congress of the Frente Zapatista de
Liberacion Nacional (Zapatista National Liberation Front).

We bring our humble greetings from the other side, the United
States of America. Our message to you is ..."You're not alone." We
recognize the importance of your struggle, our struggle, for a
world without hunger, without poverty, the hunger and poverty that
strip the body well as the soul.

We bring greetings from the League of Revolutionaries for a New
America. Our organization strives to organize and politicize
society around the struggle of the new poor in our country. We
strive to do this from the urban barrios of East Los Angeles to
the fields of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas where millions of
Mexican immigrants and Chicanos live; from the welfare offices and
homeless shelters from Philadelphia to Detroit, the center of the
auto industry; from the university campuses, where thousands of
students forged a struggle against the unjust laws Propositions
187 and 209; to the streets of our country's dilapidated cities.

We, from the other side, commit ourselves to give our all to stay
the hand of the interventionist military of the United States. We
will contribute to the education of the people of the United
States through our publications, the Tribuno del Pueblo, People's
Tribune and Rally, Comrades! so that they can take their proper
place in the struggle against our oppressors, the capitalist
class. We believe that this is not only our best manifestation of
solidarity but our revolutionary responsibility.

You are not alone!

In the United States, there's also a revolutionary struggle for
democracy, justice and freedom!

We will never again have a world without our participation!

We will never again let borders divide us!

Laura Garcia
Richard Monje
League of Revolutionaries for a New America

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5. N.Y. COALITION IS RIGHT: WORKFARE IS SLAVERY

By Sandy Perry

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." This line,
popularized by Ernest Hemingway, never applied to anything so much
as the debate over "workfare" today. A coalition of churches and
unions came together recently in New York City to condemn workfare
as a form of slavery. This has outraged ruling class opinion-
makers everywhere.

An examination of history, however, shows that the New York group
is absolutely right. Chattel slavery was used in the United States
because it was the only way to secure a work force for Southern
cotton plantations in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. It was enforced by kidnapping, rape, murder, and
torture. It was justified by the satanical idea that Africans were
intellectually and morally inferior.

Today, the agricultural economy which required slavery has long
been destroyed by the development of industrial machinery. The
slavery of today -- workfare -- is developing in a qualitatively
new and different kind of economy -- one based on electronics. The
industrial economy which destroyed agricultural slavery is itself
being destroyed by electronics-based automation.

Human labor is becoming altogether more and more obsolete as a
result. Sociologist Jeremy Rifkin has estimated that over 90
million jobs are potentially vulnerable to replacement by
automation in the years ahead. (And this is out of a total U.S.
work force of 124 million.) This process is compounded by the
globalization of the economy. The North American Free Trade
Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade are part
of an effort by international capital to eliminate jobs and drive
down wages.

How can a surplus of labor result in slavery? "Workfare" is a form
of slavery -- devised by President Clinton and the U.S. Congress
-- to make America more "competitive" by "leveling down" the wages
of most American workers. The unemployed will be forced to work at
jobs (formerly held by public employees) in return for welfare
benefits. Ultimately, they will not be protected by basic minimum-
wage and health and safety laws. As more and more workers get
replaced by technology, workfare slavery will expand
geometrically. The wages of those still holding regular jobs will
fall.

Columnists argue that workfare is not really slavery because no
one is holding a gun to anyone's head. The reality is that in the
electronics economy of today, the alternative to workfare will be
starvation. This is not the nineteenth century, when you could go
west and start a farm if you didn't like life in the city. This
not even the 1970s, when you could say, "Take this job and shove
it," and still be able to find work somewhere else. Even street
vending, car windshield washing, and recycling are outlawed in
more and more cities now.

Anyone who has felt or witnessed the effect of malnutrition on
humans -- especially small children -- can testify that the weapon
of starvation can be used to enslave people every bit as
effectively as the chain and the lash. And welfare case workers
can destroy a family just as surely as the slave auctions of old.

Now, just as then, the apologists argue that these wholesale
violations of human rights are acceptable, because they say
workfare recipients are intellectually and morally inferior.
Joanne Jacobs of the San Jose Mercury News claims that those on
workfare "couldn't find or keep other jobs,"  need to learn "work
habits," and require "more supervision to be productive." Today
these hateful ideas no longer target African Americans exclusively
-- since the majority of the poor are white. But they are no less
satanical.

With the prospect of losing 90 million jobs to automation, we
Americans dare not ask for whom workfare is being designed. It is
being designed for us.

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6. 'LINK UP AND BUILD A MOVEMENT': CAMPAIGN WILL DOCUMENT ECONOMIC
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN U.S.

[Editor's note: December 10 marks the 50th anniversary of the
United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Some of its
provisions calling for the protection of people's economic human
rights are listed on this page. The way this country treats its
poor is a clear violation of the people's human rights. On
September 5-7, the Philadelphia-based Kensington Welfare Rights
Union convened "The Next Step," an organizing school taught by
poor and homeless leaders in the KWRU and other organizations. The
Next Step teaches the model, used by the KWRU, of the poor
organizing the poor to build a movement to end poverty. The school
was held at the National Union of Hospital and Health Care
Employees headquarters in Philadelphia. It began the process of
mapping out plans for a national campaign, to be kicked off
December 10, to document violations of people's economic human
rights and present this documentation to the United Nations next
June. Below are excerpts from a speech made at the school by KWRU
Executive Director Cheri Honkala.]


We have to link up and build a movement. We really want to
encourage linking up with anybody and everybody who is about
fighting about economic human rights in this country. The majority
of hate groups reside here in Pennsylvania. And most people that
are poor in Pennsylvania, or that are receiving governmental
assistance in this country, are white. If we don't organize them,
somebody else will.

We need to go to the places that nobody else wants to go to. We
need to talk to anybody and everybody that is poor, and I mean
poor in a broad definition. I don't care if you are working at
Wendy's, or telemarketing, or if you are a welfare recipient or
delivering newspapers. If you are part of that 95 percent that
doesn't own anything, you need to link up to this growing movement
for human rights. At the same time, we know that this movement
needs to be led by those that are most affected, those that have
nothing to lose by fighting for absolute freedom from hunger and
want in this country. We need to put those folks into a
relationship with each other in the same room.

At the same time, by doing this and by building this movement for
economic human rights in this country, we will be sending society
a strong message, that we have exhausted every means domestically.
We have tried to utilize the city services, testified before the
legislature at a local, state, and federal level and that we are
serious, that the human-rights violations happening in this
country are just as serious as what is happening in Brazil or
Africa, or any other place in the world.

We will begin to shine a light on the economic human rights
violations that this country does not want to talk about. By
linking up internationally, we can break our isolation. We have to
begin to forge a movement that will link us up with poor and
homeless families that are struggling for their survival
throughout the entire world.

Beginning on December 10, we want to encourage people to do
something, anything, to call attention to the fact that December
10 is the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. We want to demand that we focus on the economic human
rights, particularly at a time in this country when they are
ending the safety net.

We want you to document how many women, children, and men are
going to live in houses this coming winter without any heat,
without any hot water to bathe their children; document people
that die in house fires as a result of resorting to other means of
obtaining heat; document the people that die in houses that
collapse because they didn't have access to decent and affordable
housing; document the people dying on the streets as a result of
being homeless; document the people that lose their teeth because
they didn't have access to dental care; document the people that
are going to go deaf because they didn't have the money for
amoxicillin for their children.

This government cannot get away with telling the majority of
people of this country that they don't have a right to live. We
are proposing that in June we gather together all of the
documentation of economic human rights violations. We will take
our Freedom from Unemployment, Hunger and Homelessness Bus. It's a
new freedom movement, it's a freedom movement calling for the end
of want and hunger and homelessness in this country. We will take
the bus around to strategically important areas of the country of
every race, color, nationality, religious grouping, you name it.
And we will take this bus into the poorest districts of as many
states as we can during June.

We are encouraging people to organize minimarches and tribunals in
the poorest districts in their states so that the poor and
homeless families in that district can speak to the conditions and
what is happening in this country. We also want them to speak to
who is responsible for these conditions. We will then collect this
documentation, get back on the bus and go to another area and
participate in yet another march. We will gather on the last day
in June on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge,
and carry that information in a coffin over the bridge to the
United Nations for a massive demonstration.

It has to be about organizing, not mobilizing. For a yearlong
campaign, if you do not organize and educate folks they will not
continue to stay in the struggle.

To bring this movement to everybody that is out there, we in this
room have to see ourselves as leaders. As we take to the ghettos,
the barrios, the mountains, we have got to get people out of their
intoxication in every sense of the word, to get people to put down
the drugs, the alcohol, the television, and the despair.

If we can't see ourselves as leaders, to nurture them, walk them
through their pain, teach them that there is a better future and
give them a vision for a new America, we will lose them to their
coma or to the jail. But if we can inspire them to get off their
ass and to get involved, then we can win the fight because we are
the majority of the people and we can truly take our country back.

I am incredibly inspired, and I am excited because of the amount
of people that are in this room and that you have been working so
hard over the last few years. We cannot get discouraged. Here in
this room is a beautiful ray of hope. And if we can figure out how
to take what we have got in this room and multiply it, I really
think that we are going to win.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+

EXCERPTS FROM THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of
employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to
protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal
pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone has the right to just and favourable remuneration
ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human
dignity and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social
protection. ...

Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his
family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and
necessary social services, and the right to security in the event
of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other
lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and
assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall
enjoy the same social protection. ...


Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education
shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.
Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and
professional education shall be made generally available and
higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis
of merit. ...

+----------------------------------------------------------------+


******************************************************************

7. STUDENTS TO MEET IN CHICAGO TO PLAN TEACH-INS ON CORPORATE
POWER

CHICAGO -- About 300 organizers from across North America will
meet at a "November Organizing Conference" here to plan a series
of teach-ins on corporate power. The organizers hope to involve
hundreds of thousands of students in the teach-ins in 1998.

The organizers -- students, education workers and community
activists -- will meet from October 31 until November 2 at the
University of Chicago.

Last fall, thousands of students on more than 40 campuses across
North America participated in the first National Teach-In on
Corporations, Education and Democracy,  a coordinated series of
mass educational events and actions that exposed how giant
corporations are ruining the educational system and the world at
large.

The November Organizing Conference will plan out, train for, and
publicize a second Democracy Teach-In which will take place on
March 1-7, 1998.

The teach-ins will be followed by the "May Day of Action Against
Corporate Domination" on May 1, 1998. On that day, students and
community people will use the information from the teach-ins to
take direct action against transnational corporations.

We urge our readers to support the conference and the teach-ins.
For more information about either, phone the Democracy Teach-In
organizers at 608-262-9036 or send e-mail to Ben Manski of the
Teach-in at brmanski@students.wisc.edu.

******************************************************************

8. THE BEST SOLUTION: PUBLIC OWNERSHIP, PUBLIC CONTROL

Richard L. Huber is the new president and chief executive of Aetna
and a Harvard-educated multimillionaire. He has made his home in
Hartford, Connecticut, close to a methadone clinic and not far
from homeless shelters; his neighbors include those in a housing
project.

Huber and his wife are "city folk" and want the amenities of
Hartford without the crime. Faced with drug dealing and a
threatened takeover by a social service center of the buildings on
their block, the couple bought up one-fourth of the buildings on
that same street.

Huber says this was not done because of any moral obligations to
his community. "The only way you're going to control it is if you
own it," he said.

The League of Revolutionaries for a New America would have to
agree with Huber. The only way to end an America divided into
haves and have-nots is to end the private ownership of all that is
used to produce what society needs to prosper. If the public owns
it, the public controls it.


******************************************************************

9. RICARDO ALDAPE GUERRA LIVES ON IN THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE AND
UNITY

By Maria Elena Castellanos

[Editor's note: Maria Elena Castellanos is a correspondent for the
People's Tribune and Tribuno del Pueblo. She was a founding member
and advising attorney of the Ricardo Aldape Guerra International
Defense Committee. Ricardo Aldape Guerra, an undocumented Mexican
immigrant who was unjustly incarcerated in Texas prisons for 15
years, met an untimely death in a car accident on August 21 near
the Mexican town of Matehuala, San Luis Potosi.

After a lengthy and successful international movement stopped
Ricardo's scheduled execution twice in 1992, Ricardo won a
nullification of the death sentence and the right to a new trial.
A federal judge declared in 1994 that Ricardo would not have been
sentenced to death "but for... the rank and gross misconduct" of
Houston police and prosecutors involved in his case. The judge's
findings were affirmed in 1996 by higher courts. Ricardo was
finally released in April of this year. He returned to live with
his family in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico only four months
before the fatal car accident.

The following is a personal account of his untimely death, his
burial and the meaning of his 15-year struggle for freedom from
Texas' Death Row.]


The bright desert sun casts an aura of unreality on Ricardo's
burial. The ceremony is as simple and unadorned as a laborer's
hand. Like Ricardo's own style, the graveside comments are simple
and direct. No flags, no priestly robes, no entourages of
government officials. No music is heard. At first, only the
desperate lamentations of his brokenhearted mother break the
silence.

After almost 15 years of unjust incarceration and struggle, how
could Ricardo Aldape Guerra be dead? Didn't we, the people, save
him from the executioner's needle?

Fifteen years of struggle and countless faces fill my eyes, now
brimming with tears -- caravans of vehicles snake over Texas
highways to court hearings in Austin and Houston; Ricardo's aging
parents talk with field and factory workers and office cleaners in
Texas and California; Ricardo briefly appears shackled in a small
cage within the larger cage in the Death Row visiting room just
days before a scheduled execution date. The ticking of the clock
accompanies memories of long-distance pleas to Mexican officials.

These scenes form a kaleidoscopic background to the earthen floors
and walls of Ricardo's grave.

Deep down, I sensed what Ricardo's niece and mother would voice a
day later -- that Ricardo had filled his four months of freedom
with totally joyful living.

As a niece said at Ricardo's wake: "At least we had Ricardo with
us for four months. Irineo Tristan's mother could not even have
her son [free] for five minutes." [Irineo Tristan Montoya was
executed by the state of Texas.]

Church gatherings, petition drives, television and radio
interviews, press conferences, weeklong court hearings, execution
dates, marches and faxes around the world, the executions of Ramon
Montoya and Irineo Tristan Montoya -- wasn't Ricardo saved from
the executioner's needle?

Ricardo kept telling me, "Maria, I don't want to be a hero. In
fact, I am not a hero. I get these letters from all over. But all
I want is a normal life with my family outside of this cage."
Ricardo, you are a hero by your example of being a loving, decent
person who loved his family with all his heart.

The Texas prosecutors and police knew Ricardo was innocent the day
they arrested him. They railroaded him to the death chamber
because he was an undocumented worker. So it came to pass that
millions of people in the United States came to see Ricardo as a
symbol of the struggle for human rights.

Ricardo Aldape Guerra became a banner for our ongoing struggle for
dignity and justice for immigrants in the United States.

In the course of struggle, an entire community of people came to
see themselves in a new way. The so-called "illegal alien" became
a face with a family and feelings. Ricardo's struggle came to
reflect the struggle of decent, hardworking human beings for a
fair shake and their place in the sun, regardless of their
immigration status. It gave new meaning to the assertion that no
human being is illegal.

After his release, Ricardo shared a secret hope with his family.
He wanted to establish a food program for the poor children of his
hometown.

Ricardo had accepted an acting role in the Mexican television
series, "Al Norte Del Corazon," in which he portrayed himself as
an undocumented worker in the United States. Ricardo refused to
get sucked into the glitter and partying of being a "star."
Perhaps this is because Ricardo sensed that his own life reflected
the lives of millions of others. His unjust jailing in spite of
clear evidence of his innocence, the rank misconduct by Texas
prosecutors and police and Ricardo's repeated confrontations with
the executioner's needle all touched a deep cord of outrage among
the millions of people who learned of his story.

His co-actors at Television Azteca in Mexico City would say that
Ricardo lived to tell his story. Now who will tell his story? We
will. Our children and our grandchildren will tell his story which
is inextricably woven into the threads of our own struggle for
survival, for peace and justice.

There are many more Ricardo Aldape Guerras in the making. Each of
us who became part of his struggle know that millions more people
suffer from poverty and injustice because of the same prejudices,
divisive immigration policies and the same abominable death
penalty laws that shaped Ricardo's tragic experiences.

We buried Ricardo on a Saturday. Upon my return to the United
States, I found the media trumpeting the anti-immigration goals of
"Operation Rio Grande." This increased militarization of the
Texas/Mexico border is aimed at stopping impoverished Mexicans
from entering the United States by swimming across the Rio Grande
River. Let us not allow our enemies to continue to divide us.
Ricardo's life experiences have taught us the necessity of
fighting for the future well-being of our families and children
wherever they may be.

******************************************************************

10. LRNA EDUCATION IN ACTION

By The Education Committee, West Los Angeles Chapter, League of
Revolutionaries for a New America

LOS ANGELES -- Our committee was determined to take the LRNA's
program outward over the summer. We planned a series of six
seminars: The Electronics Revolution, Race and Class, Crime and
the Police State, Political Independence, Culture, and A
Cooperative Society.

The seminars were held biweekly and featured a different
facilitator each time, often with a guest speaker.

The seminars were a tremendous success. We recruited new LRNA
members, raised money, and helped create bonds of friendship and
respect among dozens of emerging Southern California leaders. The
seminars provided a place for serious discussion of many topics
and a forum to hash out why only a cooperative society can solve
the problems we face.

Our committee learned many lessons over the summer:

*  People are hungry for answers. Forty-three different people
attended at least one seminar and many came to all six. One man
drove 120 miles each way to attend a seminar.

*  The American revolution is calling out to everyone. Seminar
participants ranged in age from 16 to 60, and there were students,
musicians, computer professionals, the unemployed, grocery store
clerks, artists, biophysicists, refinery workers, teachers, and
telephone workers. There was a strong mix of African Americans,
Latinos, Asians, and Anglos.

*  People not only want to learn, they want to teach. Many of our
facilitators and presenters had never led a discussion before.
Some were members of the LRNA and some weren't.

*  Everyone has important thoughts and experiences to offer. We
consciously organized the seminars to avoid dividing the room
between teachers and students. The result was that everyone felt
comfortable making a contribution.

*  The key is to be consistent. We had a regular schedule, one
location, and a plan of study that was publicized at the beginning
of the summer. People came, liked the seminars, and told their
friends. Our attendance increased steadily throughout the summer.

We encourage everyone to join an LRNA study group. If there isn't
one where you live, start one.

Use the People's Tribune to sum up your experience so we can all
learn from each other.

******************************************************************

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
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

+----------------------------------------------------------------+

11. HAPPY 70TH BIRTHDAY TO SUE YING: AN EXTRAORDINARY WOMAN,
ARTIST AND REVOLUTIONARY

By Sandra Reid

"I  tried to show my work, but most art galleries were not
interested or overbooked. But when I called Sue Ying, she said it
would be wonderful if I could bring the paintings to the gallery!
That's how I entered a new world, a new life and a new
consciousness, because once you've met Sue Ying, it's never as
simple as just doing an art show. No, she opens up the tiny doors
in your being. She lets in a new breath of fresh air, a new
thought or perplexing problem to consider and, as she's probing
and questioning, she's affirming you. 'Of course you can make art!
You must make art! It's your right. It's your responsibility!' "

-- Chicago artist Diana Berek


[Sue Ying has had a profound effect on the lives of thousands of
people over the past 40 years. She has mended broken hearts and
curtailed selfish ways, always instilling a passion for revolution
in each of us. I've known Sue Ying for almost 25 years. Yet, I'm
still on a quest to grasp the evolution of this extraordinary
woman who gives every ounce of her energy to the revolution,
without any thought of enriching or promoting herself. On behalf
of the People's Tribune Women's Column, we dedicate this page to
Sue Ying on her 70th birthday.]

                          * * * * * *

Sue Ying grew up in Harlem in the 1930s, the daughter of a
Norwegian mother and a Chinese father. In a draft of her memoirs,
she writes: "The boy felt the terror and excitement, blood
throbbing in his throat as he approached the gangplank of the
ship. He was slight, a glimpse of pale yellow in the inky blue-
black night in the harbor of San Francisco. He gathered up his
strength, breathing hard as he walked by the crew. Finally his
feet touched the earth and he entered the bright-lit streets of
San Francisco. My father had jumped ship. He had arrived in
America. My dad found his way to New York to work in the Chinese
restaurants. His bed, the hard tables at night where the customers
ate in the day. He needed no home, working 18-hour days, seven
days a week. My dad survived the chaos of the First World War.
Then he joined the Bonus March, only to end up homeless. We
survived homelessness and, years later, settled down in Harlem."

Having parents of different nationalities made Sue Ying acutely
aware of America's racial divides. "I felt like I was black or
Puerto Rican," she told me in a conversation. "I was part white so
many Chinese kids didn't like me. I really had a time! I went to
school in a Jewish orphanage, identifying strongly with the kids.
Later, I went to an all-black school where most teachers were
white. Some treated us good, not like we were colored kids. But
others were chauvinistic and of course I couldn't learn. From
there I went to street corner meetings of the Communist Party when
I was 11 years old. I met kids who escaped Hitler. They gave me
books that I would not have had access to. That started me on a
search for real knowledge. In my late 20s, I got into an
educational group, and read The State by Lenin, which changed my
life." The inequality of women, the civil rights movement and
education combined to define Sue's life. "Whenever we moved," she
said, "my mother would go first to rent our new apartment. My
father and I would move in and then all the petitions would start.
I saw the woman question again on a personal level at work when we
were harassed by guys." With an impish smirk, she adds, "When they
tried to touch your ass, you'd have to hit someone." Sue was
always in trouble on the job, defending women who "didn't take
that shit." She became politically active in Harlem during the
civil rights movement. "I joined a group and we tried to get
people to not go to Woolworth's," she said. But theoretical
education was the thread that bound her each stage of her life.
For 10 years, Sue wrote Marxist classes.

Today Sue uses her art to organize artists to put a moral
searchlight on culture and class struggle. "Art for me is a
searchlight in contemporary culture. My vision is a society where
everyone is an artist, writer, musician, dancer. On another level,
in this moment of crisis, art can be a way of knowing, of
teaching, a revolutionary act in changing our culture," she said.
Sue Ying wins our love as she continues to make her contribution
in a way that encourages and equips others to make their own
contributions to the struggle.

[The author wishes to thank the many people who contributed to
this article.]

+----------------------------------------------------------------+

THE YING FLING BIRTHDAY BASH!

"I have known Sue Ying for a quarter of a century. She continues
to be a powerful influence on my life as a revolutionary. She is
'in the world to change the world,' to quote Muriel Rukeyser. I
honor her unwavering devotion to our just cause, a woman whose
dreams have become our dreams."

Luis Rodriguez, poet and author


"Sue always strives for political and theoretical clarity, but she
also recognizes that theory illuminates where we need to go."

Lew Rosenbaum, board member of the Guild Complex.


Join the celebration of Sue's life at the Guild Complex at the
Chopin Theater in Chicago from 5-10 p.m. on Sunday, October 26,
1997. (The Chopin Theatre is at 1541 W. Division Street, Chicago.)

There will be a silent auction of her art.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+


******************************************************************

12. AMERICAN LOCKDOWN: WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN CALIFORNIA'S
PRISONS?

By Felipe Mendoza


In the last week of May 1997,  approximately 300 so-called "lifer"
prisoners were moved from medium security level II at CCI-
Tehachapi [California] to medium security level II in CSP-Solano.
Make any sense?

The reason for this mass movement of all of these supposedly
dangerous prisoners? If you ask "lock 'em up" Petie, the governor,
he'll say it was for an emergency. Now ask yourself: What was the
emergency at CCI-Tehachapi? There was no racial or violent riots.
No staff person was attacked or injured in any way. There wasn't
even an escape attempt in 10 years or more more by a "lifer." Yet
all were, by the order of the governor, displaced far from home
and family after doing almost 10 years' time to get there.

The majority of these prisoners have no points. The point system
is what the Department of Corrections uses to determine the
placement of prisoners. Over the years, points are dropped for
good and positive behavior and security determination is also
lowered accordingly. The placement of "lifers" stops at level II
medium security; that's the lowest that they can go to.

Now define the term "life sentence." In the dictionary of law, a
"life sentence" is defined as "life without the possibility of
parole" or as a sentence of "death." Any and all other sentences
have a "fixed term." It does not mean a "life term."

So now you have prisoners that have 15 to 20 years in the system
with zero points. Rehabilitation is no longer thought of. Scare
tactics by the governor have worked on the people, so "lock 'em
up, throw away the key" is the policy. Does this mean that all
"lifers" are now political prisoners condemned to life sentences
by our "law-abiding" political ruler, Pete Wilson?

California was once a great state -- a leader in education, strong
economy and in political agendas to help its citizens. Not any
more. This state is now a police state with more prisons active
and more still being planned. At $20 million-plus to build a
prison, with a starting salary of $35,000-a-year per correctional
babysitter (officer) to start, and, of course, all paid for by
taxpayers, the cost is, well, take a guess.

Is the department out of control? Prisoners are shot and crippled
or killed during fistfights; who pays the costs? The fine training
of these "officers" and the weapons they use are supplied by the
state; who pays the costs? When a prisoner is released and has no
family or friends because he/she was cut off from them by being
moved across the state, who pays the costs?

You can't make a person better by locking them up for long periods
of time and threatening them with deadly force. Common sense has
no room in the system. Whoever is in charge rules. If you have
never been in prison, thank God; and if you have, then watch your
next violation, for it may just be your last.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+

MAN FACING LIFE IN PRISON SAYS POLICE LIES CONVICTED HIM

[Editor's note: Last February, Harold Hall of South Central Los
Angeles was sentenced to life without parole after being convicted
for a double murder-rape. Now in North Kern State Prison, he had
already languished in the Los Angeles Central Jail since 1985
while his case dragged on and he tried to prove his innocence.
Hall has told friends and supporters that police vowed to get him
after he refused to testify against some alleged killers police
said were involved in a drive-by shooting. When Hall was later
arrested on a robbery charge, the cops had him moved to a cell
with informants. The informants -- who later admitted that they
lied because the cops promised them more lenient sentences in
their own cases -- claimed that Hall had confessed to the murder-
rape. During his interrogation on these charges, detectives
handcuffed Hall to a chair and grilled him for 18 hours, refusing
to give him food or water or allow him to use the bathroom. Hall,
who was only 18 at the time and had never been arrested before,
says he finally confessed just to put an end to the torture. There
has never been any physical evidence tying Hall to the crimes.

After the informants admitted they lied, and because there was no
physical evidence, a judge dismissed one of the murder cases, and
another judge granted Hall a new trial on the second case.
However, an appeals court overruled the new trial order, and Hall
was sentenced to life in prison. For several years, he has been
trying to get a DNA test done, which he says would prove his
innocence, but the courts refuse to give it to him and his family
doesn't have the $4,000 it costs to get it done. Below is an
excerpt from a letter Hall wrote earlier this year to friends and
supporters.]

"I'm writing to you from prison to thank all of you for your
continuous show of support in my fight for freedom. ... For a
seven-year period, following my conviction, I used the phone from
jail and spoke to anyone who would listen to me. ... After a time,
I began to get responses from the media, clergy, organizations and
individuals who wanted to know more about the case. Those
responses gave me the energy I needed to persist in my fight, for
which I will be forever grateful. ...Though I am not yet free, I
believe that moment will come soon!

"The system continues to fail me, so I continue to seek your
presence in my corner. Of course, I cannot be in touch with many
of you as before, but I will write a letter from time to time. If
I cannot send all the letters from here, they will be distributed
by the Harold Hall Defense Committee. Please contact them if you
would like to attend meetings, have ideas or would like to stay
involved. We continue to seek funds to have the DNA test
administered and would appreciate any donations you are able to
give. Please make out your check to the Harold Hall Defense
Committee and send it care of  YUCA, 2907 W. Vernon Avenue, Los
Angeles, California 90008. For further information, call 213-294-
3566."


Harold Hall K-44013, D-6/242L
North Kern State Prison
P.O. Box 5000
Delano, California 93216-5000

+----------------------------------------------------------------+


******************************************************************

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
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.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

13. THE MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY CONGRESS: IT'S TIME FOR A NEW VISION

>From October 16-19, the second annual Media and Democracy Congress
will be held in New York City.

The first Congress, convened last March in San Francisco, drew
more than 600 media professionals and activists. This second
Congress is expected to be even larger, and to involve
journalists, media makers, advocates, teachers and students.

The People's Tribune welcomes the Congress and wishes it every
success in its efforts.

The fight to create democratic media has always been important;
today, the very future of humanity depends on it.

We live at a time when a tiny class of billionaires is gobbling up
not just the world's telecommunications, but the very planet
itself. In the hands of the capitalists, new technology which
could be used to liberate humanity from backbreaking labor instead
spreads misery across the globe. Robots replace human beings on
the assembly line; in the "free market" economy, this means
millions go hungry. Under capitalism, computerized production
condemns millions to live in a world of poverty and illiteracy.
The combination of a global marketplace and instantaneous,
worldwide communication enables capitalists to rake in billions
through computerized speculation.

Today, 445 billionaires control almost half the world's wealth
while billions of people live in poverty, including 80 million
people in the United States. All over the world, a new class of
propertyless people with no ties to the capitalist system is being
created.

Today, the fight to democratize the media is part of the fight to
break the strangle hold which the tiny class of billionaires has
over society. That hold cannot be broken as long as millions of
people are immobilized by the lies of their enemies.

Today, democratizing the media means introducing new ideas in
society. It means challenging old assumptions. It means giving
people a vision of the future. The word "media" is a plural noun;
it means "more than one medium." Today, the crying need is for
people who will use every possible medium of communication to
spread a single message: Humanity does not have to live under the
yoke of a handful of exploiters. We can take control of the new
technology. We can end poverty on this planet by ending the rule
of the capitalist class.

Today, democratizing the media means spreading that message far
and wide. It means using all forms of communication, from the
oldest to the newest, from the simplest to the most complex, from
those which reach only a few to those which move millions. This
battle is already underway; it is being waged by people all over
the world. Some fight inside the institutions of our enemies; some
fight outside of them. Today, the decisive question is not where
we are fighting or what weapons we use, but what we are fighting
for.

So, let's use all the forms of media to fight for a world in which
every human being on earth has full access not just to food and
shelter, but to all of culture as well.

Let's fight not just for less of the old world, but to bring a new
world into being!

-- The Editorial Board of the People's Tribune

******************************************************************

14. 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.


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I WANT TO JOIN!

____ I want to join the LRNA. Please send information.

____ Enclosed is my donation of $_____


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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

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15. 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 and Tribuno del Pueblo speakers are available for
free on the Internet! Go to the League's web site at
http://www.mcs.com/~jdav/league.html and click on "Resources for
Revolutionaries." To purchase the tapes listed below, send $5 for
each audiotape listed to the 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.

(Complimentary tapes will be mailed to campuses seeking speakers
and to the media.)

Available tapes include:

"Securing Economic and Social Justice in the Global Economy,"
"Building an Organization of Revolutionaries." Nelson Peery,
author, Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary.

"The Labor Party & the Fight for Labor Unity," Richard Monje,
labor organizer and editor, Tribuno del Pueblo.

"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 Everyone." 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.

"The Global Economy and Fascism." Brooke Heagerty, Ph.D, editorial
board, Rally, Comrades!, and Jim Davis, author, "Work in the
Digital Age."

Many of the tapes are radio interviews by Mike Thornton of KVMR-FM
radio, Nevada City, California.


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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.


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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".
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