****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 25 No. 5/ May, 1998 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.mcs.com/~league ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is now available on the World Wide Web at http://www.mcs.com/~league +----------------------------------------------------------------+ PAGE ONE: THE MORAL CRISIS IN AMERICA! THE REAL REASON CHILDREN ARE DYING The March shootings in Arkansas, apparently carried out by an 11- year-old and a 13-year-old, stunned the nation. It left us shaking from the bullets that ripped apart more than the bodies of young children and a courageous 32-year-old teacher. Even those who rush to instant judgements and demand the ultimate punishment -- death -- end their comments with, "but they're children." Since then, the tragedy has been repeated elsewhere in the nation, from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to Wisconsin. Sadly, more incidents such as these appear likely. Why are kids killing and dying? To answer this question we have to look at the society that they were born into. We have an economic system that is riveted by the law of maximum profit. Human life is important only in relation to the acquiring of maximum profit. As a result, America's children are dying -- physically and morally. We can turn on and blame the victims and propose laws that condemn 11-year-olds to execution, such as the one proposed recently by Texas State Representative Jim Pitts. This will only lead us to extermination as a people and it offers no solution or hope. The real culprits for the destruction of the moral fabric in America are those who allow the conditions of poverty to grow, those who enacted the Welfare Reform law, and those who defend the rights of the 171 billionaires in the United States over the right to live of the 21 percent of America's children who live in poverty. We need to save the children, all the children. Shannon Wright pointed the way for us. This 32-year-old sixth-grade teacher used her instinct to protect the most vulnerable among us -- the children. She didn't vacillate. She didn't ask herself who among her students deserved to live or die. No. She sheltered her students from the rain of bullets in an attempt to save all of them. We need to have the courage and the love not only for "our children" but for all the children. We need to fight for a society -- economically and politically -- that will uplift its youth out of the madness of today. We cannot fall prey to desperation and frustration, and think, "There's nothing I can do." No. The fight against slavery started with a minority of Americans, who believed that no American could be free while another one was sold on the auction block. Great movements for change have always started with a handful of people. So today, the courageous and decent people of this country have to find their voice and say: "No. I don't agree with a morality that leads to the cheapening of life, a morality that says it's okay to sentence 11-year-olds to death." We must join with others to build a society where children are cherished and protected as the most valuable resource this country has. Anything short of this is immoral. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 25 No. 5/ May, 1998 Editorial 1. THE TRAGEDY IN JONESBORO Spirit of the Revolution 2. "REVOLUTION IS A PRACTICAL NECESSITY ..." News and Features 3. A RIGHT TO THRIVE, NOT JUST SURVIVE 4. MAY DAY 1998: LABOR TURNS TOWARD UNITY OF EMPLOYED AND UNEMPLOYED 5. I SEE US FIGHTING FOR OUR HUMAN RIGHTS 6. DOCUMENTING THE ABUSE OF OUR ECONOMIC RIGHTS 7. TEEN SAYS 'YOUTH HATE SYSTEM AND WANT TO CHANGE IT' 8. 26 MILLION PEOPLE GOT FOOD FROM FOOD BANKS LAST YEAR, SAYS STUDY 9. THE DOW JONES CAPITALIST PERVERSITY INDICATOR 10. TEMPORARY BLUES 11. INTERVIEW WITH DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKER BARB INGALLS 12. MARSHAL EDDIE CONWAY: POLITICAL PRISONER IN AMERICA Focus on LRNA National Convention, April 25-26 13. THE LRNA HOLDS 3RD NATIONAL CONVENTION 14. PROGRAM OF THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA Culture Under Fire 15. PROF GRIFF INTERVIEW Announcements, Events, etc. 16. SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA [To subscribe to the online edition, send a message to pt- dist@noc.org with "Subscribe" in the subject line.] ****************************************************************** 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. EDITORIAL: THE TRAGEDY IN JONESBORO The 1997-98 school year is going to be remembered for the tragic shootings of schoolchildren by their classmates in a number of places in the country. There was Pearl, Mississippi in October; West Paducah, Kentucky in December; and Jonesboro, Arkansas on March 24. In Jonesboro, two very young boys -- one 13 and the other 11 -- allegedly opened fire on their classmates at Westside Middle School as they emerged from the building during a false fire alarm. Four girls and a teacher died in a hail of bullets. This tragedy saddens the heart of every American and our sympathies go out to the families and loved ones of all involved. For those of us who are older, it is impossible to comprehend how anyone as young as the two boys charged in Jonesboro could actually fire real bullets at their own classmates -- children like themselves who they knew by name, who they grew up with in the same town. And yet here we are. Several times this year it has happened. Not long ago, people were bandying about the expression that it takes a village to raise a child. According to statistics published in U.S. News and World Report, the rate of homicides committed by teenagers in the United States has skyrocketed since 1987, with 1994 the deadliest year. While such killings in poor urban communities are well known, it is not just an urban problem. Justice Department statistics show that juvenile killings in rural areas rose 56 percent between 1990 and 1996. Arkansas and other mid-South states have led the nation in teen homicide every year since 1991, according to the magazine. Our children are in trouble, and if that's the case, it means the village -- our entire society -- is in trouble. Deep trouble. The children are our future. If they go, everything goes. The recent tragedies in the news are only the tip of the iceberg. Every day in this country, 95 babies die; 2,660 babies are born into poverty; 2,833 children drop out of school; 6,042 children are arrested; and 8,493 children are reported abused or neglected. The wealthy rulers of this country like to pose as champions of "family values" and as protectors of "our children" from evils such as violence in the media and pornography on the Internet. If an event such as Jonesboro takes place, they use it to pathologize rural Southerners and their "subculture of violence" and simply call for more repression of the youth for their own good. But, the truth is, the rulers are interested only in protecting the multimillion-dollar salaries of their corporate chiefs. Most of all they are interested in protecting the economic system which keeps them rich and powerful and the rest of us poor and powerless. While the children die, the Dow keeps rising. Right now, our "village" is being destroyed, not by "declining family values," but by a system that serves only a wealthy elite. It is up to us to fight for a society that uses its vast wealth for the spiritual, physical and intellectual health of our children. ****************************************************************** 2. SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION: "REVOLUTION IS A PRACTICAL NECESSITY ..." Dear Reader: As you may have read, I recently agreed to take on the responsibility of coordinating the "Spirit of the Revolution" column. I am writing to introduce myself to you and solicit your ongoing suggestions, ideas, and contributions for this column. I currently live in San Jose, California, with my wife and 13- year-old daughter. I work for a commercial roofing company by day and volunteer with Community Homeless Alliance Ministry and other community groups. I was raised as a Quaker in Massachusetts in the 1950s and 60s. I left the Meeting as a teenager in 1968. The world around me was convulsing with hair-raising violence, yet the Quakers I knew seemed out of touch and removed from the process. Marxism offered me an explanation of the world and program of action, so I dropped out of college. I set out to become a secular political activist and revolutionary. Somewhere in my years of activism, however, I became aware that the spiritual and political worlds were really one. I began to see that spirituality enriched and broadened the political world. It spoke the language and touched the heart of millions of Americans. At the same time, I was already long aware that there could be no true spirituality without politics. True compassion calls us to grapple with issues of strategy and effectiveness when we address our human problems. "It is not enough to be generous, and give alms," wrote the great abolitionist Lucretia Mott. "The enlarged soul, the true philanthropist, is compelled by Christian principle to look beyond the bestowing of a scant pittance to the mere beggar of the day, to the duty of considering the causes and sources of poverty." As it turned out, something of Quakerism had stuck with me during my life as an activist. I found that I owned an inner peace and enthusiasm that enabled me to remain calm in crises and controversies. It caused me to look on those around me with genuine love and respect. It sustained me in times of confusion. At the same time, I felt a stubbornness and contempt for hypocrisy which led me to defy all authority except the Truth -- a Truth I came later to know by the name of God. These characteristics, which I had carried with me over the years, I gradually came to recognize as gifts of the spirit and part of my Quaker heritage. My experience of this process has led me to conclude that too many of us -- of all political and spiritual persuasions -- have allowed artificial boundaries to divide us. Our society today is disintegrating in a much more fundamental way than it was in 1968. New means of production and old forms of distribution are clashing on a world scale. Polarization of wealth is accelerating so sharply, it is unleashing a plague of poverty and desolation. Revolution -- the rewriting of society's property laws -- is no longer merely an ideological stance. It is becoming a practical necessity. This revolution is far too great for any one church or political organization. We have to engage the least among us, those who are being cast aside by capitalism. They are the stone which the builder rejected. We have to unite them with everyone else who is hard-pressed and becoming disillusioned with the system. Our goal is to isolate the purveyors of profit, strip them of their power, and build a cooperative society, based on the abundance made possible by modern technology. Many millions of us, in America and throughout the world, share this aspiration deep in our hearts. Yet we allow ourselves to be sidetracked by the devils of confusion, division, paranoia, and distrust. The time has come to unite all who love justice and truth, be they Muslims or Jews, Christians or atheists. We cannot afford to exclude anyone. The time has come to fight for clarity of purpose. It is my goal to see the "Spirit of the Revolution" column further this process. In this work, I am inspired by the famous words of John Woolman, which (when I read them in 1995) sealed my return to Quakerism: "There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression." In my experience, this spirit is nothing more or less than the Kingdom of God. It lives within us, even as we speak. It is up to us to bring it out into the world. Sandy Perry P.O. Box 2166 San Jose, California 95109 [Contact the Spirit of the Revolution column via e-mail at spirit@noc.org] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 3. A RIGHT TO THRIVE, NOT JUST SURVIVE [Editor's note: Fifty years ago, the United Nations ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes provisions obligating governments to guarantee the health and well-being -- the economic rights -- of their citizens. A number of organizations and individuals in the United States are now engaged in campaigning to promote the idea that we have economic human rights. One of the leading organizations in this effort is the National Welfare Rights Union. The campaign includes documenting the abuses of our economic rights. The article below was submitted by Joy Butts, a member of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union's War Council and coordinator of the Economic Human Rights Documentation Project of the Poor People's Embassy.] We at the Poor People's Embassy believe that all human beings have: * A right to an existence worthy of human dignity; * A right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; * A right to thrive, not just barely survive. Yet, in this country: mothers go so undernourished that they have no breast milk with which to feed their babies; farm workers find themselves living in caves and cardboard boxes because they are so poorly paid; veterans of foreign wars and workers who put in a good 40 years of service in major corporations and factories are downsized and in their old age can't pay for the proper health care they deserve; and welfare recipients forced into workfare positions receive only their welfare checks for laboring in sanitation departments without any safety regulations. These are just a few of the clear and glaring examples of the economic human rights violations we are finding in far too great numbers across the nation. What are economic human rights? They are the rights to food, housing, clothing, health care, education and the right to a job at a living wage. Articles 23, 25 and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), ratified by the United States and many other countries in 1948, speak to these economic human rights. For the most part, these rights have been forgotten here at home, while our government points its finger at countries all around the world. The 50th anniversary of the UDHR offers us the opportunity to educate the American people about the fact that they have economic human rights and that these rights are being violated by welfare reform, downsizing, cuts in education funding and more. Why are we collecting economic human rights documentation? We want to focus the attention, discussion and action of the American people on the pain and suffering of increasing numbers of our brothers and sisters. We want to put this reality right in front of the American people and world public opinion. The American Dream has become a nightmare and it's time to document and make known this reality before it is too late. Corporations are making super profits from mergers and relocations to countries where they pay cheaper wages and don't have to worry about environmental standards, labor regulations and pensions. Yet, rather than look at corporate welfare and profits, there are those who would have us continue to look at welfare recipients as the ones to blame for all their own hardships and the problems of the rest of us. We intend to point the blame where it belongs, not where it far too often falls. The significance of the compelling cases of economic human rights violations can not be seen in the stories alone. Their significance lies in the fact that these cases represent hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives being shattered by our current economic and political situation. The reality is that in this country we've got entire communities, cities and even states that, due to the extent and intensity of human misery and exploitation found there, qualify as economic human rights violations. We can tolerate this no longer. Focusing attention on these real life issues allows us to speak to the root causes and real solutions to these problems. We intend to assist people in looking at individual cases in the context of an economic system that creates these miseries and a government that defends and protects this economic system. To allow these experiences to remain untold, is to accept the incorrect notion that we are to blame for the violence perpetrated against us. To tell these stories, to pull them together into a package, is to deny this myth and to begin to paint another picture for the American people. When 13 percent of the American population controls 95 percent of the wealth, we can see clearly that we've got a class problem, a problem of the haves against the have-nots. When these stories are told, they join a process of indicting an economic and political system that no longer works for increasing segments of the population. In gathering our stories, we push forward the process of gathering ourselves. Through this documentation project these cases move from being isolated and silent experiences of pain and suffering, to being an essential part of a major effort to end this poverty and human misery once and for all. [For more information on how to document economic human rights abuses occurring in your area or to people you know, write the Poor People's Embassy at P.O. Box 50678, Philadelphia, PA 19132, or call 215-203-1945.] ****************************************************************** 4. MAY DAY 1998: LABOR TURNS TOWARD UNITY OF EMPLOYED AND UNEMPLOYED By Richard Monje May 1 marks the period that the world's workers stood up. They drew the line at the 8-hour day. All the advances in the coming decades for workers rights were achieved through struggle and by the blood and sweat of workers of that period. It was collective action as a class. These actions established a unity, an identity of the working class in the United States and the world over. This class struggle was the basis for reforms that led to class relations based on a social contract where the working class was afforded certain "economic and political rights." The best example of these rights is the New Deal legislation of the 1930s and 1940s. The situation has changed in a fundamental way. On May Day 1998, America faces a turning point in its history. How fundamental the change is can be seen in the negotiations I have been in during the last few years. We are negotiating for more than "benefits." It is about survival. Today, every shop-floor issue and every contract is connected to the way society is organized and how the benefits are distributed. There is no longer an 8-hour day. At a time of massive unemployment, there are people working overtime. Many strikes by the United Auto Workers were against overtime and for expanding the work force. The family life of working people sometimes is nonexistent. Single working women and children bear the brunt of the new 12-hour shifts. Look on the faces of these workers and try to justify giving concessions to corporations which brag about record profits while the media announces how strong the economy is. Look on their faces and tell them they have to give up their family life to be "competitive." There was once the guarantee of the basic necessities of life if you were unemployed. It is a real challenge. It is impossible to engage in collective action without explaining on some level what is happening politically. There is now a broad- based attack on our political rights. On the surface, California's Proposition 226, the Campaign Reform Initiative (also known as the "Paycheck Protection" initiative) appears to be in our interests. Backers of the initiative justify it as an effort to "control the unions' misuse of members' dues." The initiative would restrict the unions' ability to use funds to support candidates or ballot initiatives, or to advocate issues without the written permission of the members to be renewed every 12 months. As with all anti-union or anti-worker legislation, it is based on confusion and misinformation. There are many "progressives" who support the legislation because they don't like candidates the unions have supported. The "paycheck protection" movement has succeeded in passing legislation in Wyoming this year. It is projected that it will be on the ballot in 35 states in 1998. Washington state and Michigan have some form of this law already. This "movement" is composed of and related to everyone you would expect, from Newt Gingrich and right-wing Republicans to the religious right. Remember how President Clinton was prevented in late 1997 from having "fast track" authority to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement to South America? The capitalists and their representatives in government are reorganizing the economic and political policies in the world and in this country. Unions and their leaders are tolerated so long as they don't interfere in those policies. The cuts in public assistance, bilingual education, medical care, social services, the enacting of anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of the youth indicate the policies of the capitalists and this government. For the first time, the union movement is taking on corporate America on behalf of the world's poor and working people. There is a growing recognition of the need for unity of the employed and unemployed workers. There are forces within the unions which understand this and are willing to struggle to take those steps toward the formation of a party of the working class. This grouping is ready to begin to organize the segmented resistance to the economic and political attacks into an organization independent of the capitalists. The formation of the Labor Party in 1996 represented the attempt to have a political program and a political organization which would be the expression of poor and working people's vision of the world. The capitalists are going to do everything they can to undermine and crush this new movement. The introduction of legislation like the initiative in California are the dismantling by the political right of collective action, the only weapon available to the poor and working people. This type of law or initiative will, in effect, disenfranchise poor and working people. This is what Proposition 226 represents. On this May Day, as we celebrate the fighters and martyrs of yesterday, we recognize the tasks that history has placed before us today. Our working class has never been in a more favorable position to be unified as a class. We must understand our role as leaders, revolutionaries and shapers of the future. The nature of the class struggle in America demands that the mass movements be led by a class party. The League of Revolutionaries for a New America takes on the task of facilitating this process through its propaganda and education. This is the organizational expression of the reconstruction of America. It is the intellectual understanding of the need to reorganize the system of distribution of the unprecedented wealth produced by society. It is May Day 1998! +----------------------------------------------------------------+ MAC ATTACK The People's Tribune congratulates the employees of the McDonald's restaurant in the Cleveland suburb of Macedonia, Ohio who won their strike for equal pay and decent treatment by management. It was believed to be the first strike at any McDonald's restaurant in the United States. Its leader was only 19 years old, and most of the strikers also were in their teens and early 20s. According to the Associated Press, the walkout first began on April 8 when a supervisor yelled at an elderly crew member for placing a trash bag in the wrong place, causing her to cry. They walked out again on April 12 because the company disregarded requests by some to have Easter off, according to the AP. The strikers also said the restaurant was offering new employees higher pay than theirs. Teamsters Union Local 416 made the strikers associate members. As part of the agreement, the restaurant's bosses will attend human relations classes, said the AP. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 5. I SEE US FIGHTING FOR OUR HUMAN RIGHTS By Ann Turner SAN JOSE, California -- Are we hung up on race? We don't see the big picture of how economics, police brutality, race and class all come together. I was discussing the fights we have with welfare reform, propositions 209 and 187 and other issues along this line. Another person was talking about race and police brutality. I was mentioning how these issues all tie together. My family and I were living in Ohio at the time. This was in the 1980s. The KKK burned down our trailer because we lived in a small town of white people. I am Native American and white. My husband is African American. My two sons are multiracial. This community didn't want to accept our two sons in the school system. We then had a cross burned in our front yard. My sons have been harassed by the police since junior high school for just standing or talking on the phone. So I equate all these fights as one. I do see one race fighting against police brutality or discrimination and they probably don't realize we are fighting the same system. We agree that some of the other races help out the minority, but not enough. So the question is: Why aren't we fighting the system together? If we clean up economics, don't we make everything else better? Am I being naive or just wishing that everything gets better? I'm just tired of having problems with the police and trying to stay alive. I see all this tying into human rights. It's our right to stand on the sidewalk. It's our right to have shelter. So I see us fighting for our human rights. Shouldn't we then come together, each race, and fight together? If we fight for human rights, then we are fighting against police, slavery, hunger and for shelter. The way I see it now, most of us are fighting for one right but we have hundreds of other rights. I'm not saying to stop fighting against hunger, police brutality or for shelter. We do live in reality. But let us also come together and fight for our human rights. We do live in this system which we are trying to fight. I don't like people to think I'm not interested in their cause because of my skin color or because I don't come to every meeting. I'm interested, but we need to look at the big picture. I think if we fight for our cause, which does make us feel good, then we come together for human rights, we include all the things which we can't fight for separately. If we can't fight together for human rights, then I ask you, how can we make a better future? We need everyone, no matter what race, color or anything else. We need to come together as one. We must stop fighting each other. We have similar experiences. I could argue all day. My ancestors are Native Americans -- Indians who were used as slaves and put on reservations. We also are considered people of color. My husband's relatives were slaves and taken from their homeland. But, if I concentrate on the past, I won't and can't work on the future. What happened in the past is what makes us who we are. We are people who want to change the way things are done. We are tired of police brutality, homelessness. We are tired of our children being killed. Now let's talk about the future. A future where our children can go to school and learn. Not worrying if another child has a gun and if my child will come home. Not worrying about people living on the streets. I'm tired of all the babies crying because they're hungry. My babies have cried because they were hungry. I've gone and still go without eating so they can eat. I've gone without sleep so they could be safe. When we go through these situations, we think we are alone, but we aren't. Someone else is going through this, too. When I gave my sons cereal with water because I didn't have milk, someone else was doing the same. It's our human right to put milk on the cereal if we want to. But, because of economics, we can't afford the milk. It's our sons' right to stand on the sidewalk, but, because of economics causing police brutality, we live in a poor neighborhood or don't have the money to buy good clothes. It's our human right to have milk, good clothes or a good place to live. When I speak to people, I keep hearing about a race war. They say a revolution is coming, but it'll be based on race. We need to get the old thinking out. They want to pit each of us against the other. Welfare recipient against the working class. White against black. I see a class war. Once we understand that society is pitting me against Joe and Joe against Sally, because of race or jobs or whatever, then we'll see it's a fight between the haves and the have-nots. When we get tired of my family and Joe's family and Sally's family going hungry or living under a bridge or in a car, then we will fight for human rights. I just want to know: How long do we have to wait? More and more people are without shelter. More and more people are hungry, eating out of dumpsters. I see Food First and the Freedom Bus as our tool to help wake up America. So I ask again: If not now, when? ****************************************************************** 6. DOCUMENTING THE ABUSE OF OUR ECONOMIC RIGHTS 'SYSTEM KEEPS MY FAMILY IN POVERTY,' SAYS CALIFORNIA WOMAN [Editor's note: Below is the text of an e-mail message sent to the People's Tribune (among others) from a California woman. We reprint it as part of our effort to document the abuses of the economic human rights of people in America. We are not printing her name or location in order to protect her identity.] I'm 44 with two kids. I've been on welfare three and a half years. We live on $538 per month plus food stamps. I am now compelled to participate in CalWORKs [a "workfare" program]. I have a severe disability, but can still work. I want to work. I have college and a paralegal certificate and pretty good computer skills. But I can't get out of the system. They told me to "forget about my career goals" and "take any job." I had two good jobs, but by the first paycheck I was fired. People don't like my disability. I did my job well, dressed right, tried hard. It did no good. I still got fired and remain on welfare. The system keeps my family in poverty when the only thing holding me back is sheer prejudice and the county's refusal to admit I qualify for higher-paying jobs. They have the power to place me in a good job but willfully are forcing me to remain in poverty. It makes me nuts. I know these guys are corrupt and that they are paid liars. They have already databased me as a mental case for voicing my objections and asserting my rights. They routinely threaten to call the police and arrest me if I assert any statutory right like asking to see their regulations, for example. That gets their eyeballs open. The next thing is usually, "If you don't leave now, I'm calling the police." I am extremely depressed by all of this. I feel I am treated worse than a criminal in prison or that I don't live in America anymore. This is wicked and it's sick. It's so dysfunctional it gives me nightmares. I can't believe it most of the time. I feel I am a neo-slave, that is, new-age slave. Since when can the government order me to take a job I don't want and tell me to give up my right to pursue the career that they the government paid for? Please respond if you can. I'm interested in any class action to stop this. Or any political movement to stop this. I'm outraged. I want to do something to protest this that gets results. Thus far each attempt just casts me further into the database of mental cases. I am not crazy. I know exactly what is going on. What I want to know is why don't these cowards like [California Governor] Pete Wilson and others respond to proper letters addressing the issue? An outlaw, I am and damn proud of it. America: Home of the free? No. Land of the brave? Maybe a few. ****************************************************************** 7. TEEN SAYS 'YOUTH HATE SYSTEM AND WANT TO CHANGE IT' By S. Reid and F. Scudellari Mark Webber, at age 17, is a talented artist and actor, a member of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. He participates in housing takeovers, works to educate youth, and speaks on his experience being homeless, police brutality and his vision of a new America. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Mark, how did you get involved in trying to change America? MARK WEBBER: Basically, through growing up with my mother and experiencing homelessness at an early age and growing up on welfare. Really, from getting sick of it, understanding and learning about it. PT: How old were you when you were homeless? MW: I was 10 turning 11. PT: Can you talk about that? MW: I grew up in Minneapolis and that's where I was homeless. My mother was on welfare and trying to get a job as a teacher. She didn't report money that she was receiving, which in their eyes is welfare fraud. She got arrested, ended up losing her job at the high school and stuff started to go down hill. We couldn't afford to live in our apartment. We started living in her car. Eventually we took over an abandoned house and we lived in there for a while. Before that, we had a nice apartment, nice clothes. I had Nintendo. I had cool toys. I had everything. I was just like anyone else. And it was literally a couple days transition from being somewhere stable to out on the streets. I continued to go to school while this was happening, which was real crazy. I didn't tell any of my friends. And every day was a constant challenge to hide that. I was extremely, extremely ashamed of who I was and the fact that I was homeless. PT: What had you thought of homeless people prior to that? MW: It was kind of mixed. Before I became homeless, my mom had started to get involved with the Up and Out of Poverty campaign. So, I had a pretty good idea of what it was all about. But my friends and I made fun of the whole fact about being poor. I really never took it to heart until it actually happened to me. But I was pretty much like any other kid at that time. PT: So then you moved to Philadelphia? MW: Yeah, we moved here and I got involved on May 1, 1990 when the whole National Housing Takeover thing started. That was around the time I was homeless again. PT: What is a housing takeover? MW: We identify HUD homes in the neighborhood that are abandoned and take off the boards, the locks and we make the house beautiful. We fix up the front yard. And we let the neighbors know that we're trying to make it a nice place. And we move homeless families into these houses, because there's no point there should be empty houses and homeless people. Actually, in the city of Philadelphia there's more abandoned houses than there are homeless people. And that's where I lived for a good deal of time, in abandoned houses, getting arrested and going right back. PT: Tell us what happened at one demonstration. MW: I was arrested with my friend and taken to a holding cell. And then we got strip searched. It wasn't like a regular strip search. They made us pull our pants down so they could humiliate us and make us feel weird in front of them. I told my mom about it. She told me that wasn't regular procedure, especially because I was a minor. And I was arrested at a demonstration for civil disobedience, nothing major. So, we filed a suit against the Civil Affairs Department in Philadelphia. We won a very large lump sum of money. But, because we were on welfare, we had to spend this money in one month. The suit resulted in an important new law that is supposed to protect juveniles when they are arrested. PT: Tell us about what young people today think about the system. MW: Every single friend I have, and friends of their friends, and every youth that I come across now-a-days, hates this system, hates this government, hates capitalism and wants to change it, but doesn't know how. Most say, "what can we do," or, "there really is nothing we can do because things are never going to change." There's anarchists. There's graffiti artists. And all these people have their own little separate agendas. They don't realize that it all can be organized around the same main thing that we all want, a new society. A lot of kids now-a-days don't know that there's organizations like the League, for instance, or like the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, where they can learn, and actually do fundamental things to make changes. Youth are the future. They know that things are only getting worse and they want to stop it. How can they fight that, that's the thing. Educate others as well as themselves. [To bring Mark Webber to your city, call People's Tribune Speakers Bureau at 773-486-3551 or e-mail speakers@noc.org] ****************************************************************** 8. 26 MILLION PEOPLE GOT FOOD FROM FOOD BANKS LAST YEAR, SAYS STUDY By Amanda Cooper [Editor's note: The author is public relations manager of the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, which is a member of the Second Harvest Network.] On March 10, 1998, Second Harvest, the national network of food banks, released the results of the most comprehensive national study on the charitable response to hunger ever conducted. "Hunger 1997: The Faces & Facts" challenges many of the notions people have about who is hungry in America. Many people imagine the hungry as someone homeless, usually a man with a poor education and worn clothes. Maybe he drifts from town to town or asks for handouts on the corner. In reality, hungry people, like just about every other group in America, are too diverse to stereotype. They are mostly women and children, most live in stable housing environments, and they are as ethnically diverse as the general population. The ethnic breakdown of food recipients is 47 percent white, 32 percent black, 15 percent Hispanic and 3 percent Native American. A total of 26 million unduplicated people received food and grocery products through the Second Harvest network, and almost 21 million of those people needed emergency food. Of these households, 38.6 percent included someone who was working, 12 percent have someone who is retired, and 21 percent include someone disabled. Thirty-eight percent of all clients are children under 18. This means that as many as 70 percent of households that need food from charity to get by include someone who is either working, retired or disabled. Another large portion are children, who are not expected to earn their own livings, and who, unfortunately, are the most detrimentally affected by a lack of proper nutrition. These facts are a direct affront to the notion that people receiving charity are just waiting for handouts. Even more disturbing are the difficult choices that families are having to make on their limited budgets. Twenty-eight percent have had to choose between medical care or filling prescriptions and buying food. And, in addition to the 20 percent of clients who are homeless or in marginal housing situations, 35 percent have had to choose between buying food and paying their rent or mortgage. As the news reminds us that we are "enjoying" the "greatest economic growth in a generation," we have to ask ourselves why so many people are struggling to fulfill their most basic needs. Second Harvest is requesting help in many ways. There are several pieces of important legislation pending in the federal and most state legislatures that will fully or in part restore food stamp benefits. Concerned people are encouraged to learn about this legislation and write to their representatives in support of these and other policies that will eliminate hunger in America. By accessing the Second Harvest website at www.secondharvest.org, you can learn more about the campaign called "Hunger Has a Cure" which is supporting this legislation. In addition, people are encouraged to donate time, food and funds to feeding programs in their area. There is enough food in our country to feed each one of us and where's there's help, there's hope. ****************************************************************** 9. THE DOW JONES CAPITALIST PERVERSITY INDICATOR By John G. Rodwan, Jr. The Dow Jones industrial average reflects the perversity of American capitalism. Generally regarded as a measure of the economy's health, it more accurately demonstrates its sickness. It became clear a few years ago that corporate downsizing led to higher stock prices when AT&T announced layoffs of thousands. Share prices immediately rose, enriching the chief executive officer who made the decision and those who own stock in the company -- Wall Street rallies and workers suffer. Now it turns out that the Dow is not only an indicator of class warfare, but that Wall Street likes war in general. Though upward movement of the Dow (a measure of the projected value of some of the largest nominally U.S. companies) is regularly reported as unqualified good news, it doesn't reflect the actual material experience of people. We are told that the economy is in perfect shape, however widespread economic hardship persists. The spin put on the Dow average and other economic news in newspapers and on television conveniently ignores the well- being of actual individuals. While a booming stock market may bode well for CEOs and the small elite that owns the majority of stock in this country, it does not mean folks are living well in a thriving economy. In fact, it goes up in response to what sane people would consider bad news, like premeditated slaughter of civilians. Measures of economic activity often conceal as much as they reveal, but sometimes they reveal more than intended. The connection between the stock market and the war machine is one of those instances. An article in the Money & Business section of the New York Times shows that the Dow responds positively to war and threats of war Not coincidentally, during the same week that the Clinton administration acknowledged that air raids on Iraq would result in civilian deaths, the Dow average reached record levels. The perversity is thereby exposed in no uncertain terms. According to the Times article: "War is swell. That was the stock market's rather unseemly message when the United States bombed Iraq seven years ago. The Dow Jones industrial average shot up more than 100 points the day the bombardment began, and in the following month it soared 17 percent. Indeed, the current leg of the bull market began when Desert Storm did, in January 1991." Wall Street hungers for a repeat. Prior to the agreement reached between Saddam Hussein and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the stock market welcomed President Clinton's threats against Iraq. Despite use of the word "unseemly," the Times article is not criticizing the economy's morbidity, or that of the Dow. Far from it. Instead, the Times contends that, "Investors may be behaving quite rationally indeed." Further, under capitalism, it is rational to combine war with environmental degradation to drive up the price of stock. The report continues by saying that: "The price of oil is not a worry. Traders, faced with a glut of the stuff and falling demand in Asia, wouldn't mind if some barrels went up in sooty smoke." In its defense of capitalism, the report also trots out the conventional measures of economic vigor and claims that: "The economy is just right, and somehow keeps getting better. Jobs are plentiful, interest rates are low, inflation only a memory. And more people than ever are sharing in the stock market's bounty." The mainstream media is willing to overlook civilian deaths in war, so it should be no surprise that it is willing to ignore economic realities while celebrating the imaginary wonders of capitalism. While inflation, interest and unemployment rates are at what are considered low levels, this does not mean that the economy is working well. Consider unemployment. According to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the unemployment rate in January of 1998 was 4.7 percent. This is much lower than in the capitalist economies of western Europe and is often pointed to as an accomplishment of the U.S. economy. But those who are satisfied with this must find it acceptable for millions to remain jobless, since the BLS figures show that the current unemployment rate translates into joblessness for 6.4 million people (not counting the nearly 2 million who want work but have become discouraged and stopped looking or who haven't looked in the last month). Furthermore, trumpeting this as an achievement tacitly endorses racism, for while the national average may be 4.7 percent, the rate is actually lower for whites (4.0%) and higher for African Americans (9.3%) and Latinos (6.9%). In addition, 7.7 million people had to hold more than one job. The BLS also classified another 7.5 million as "working poor" in 1995. That is, they worked but remained below the poverty level. The official poverty level in 1995 was $15,569 for a family of four. John E. Schwarz, in "Illusions of Opportunity," estimates that such a family would actually need almost double that amount to live decently and that 16 million households are falling below the more realistic level. So, according to the conventional measures, the economy is doing well. Millions are suffering, but that's just part of life under capitalism. Millions must work multiple jobs to survive, and millions more can't find work. And employment doesn't necessarily keep people out of the most desperate poverty. It now turns out that death and warmongering have positive impacts on profits, so that's an accepted part of capitalism, too. The very measures regarded as showing the strength and benefits of capitalism in fact demonstrate its twisted values and what is so very reprehensible about it. It has been clear for years that U.S. capitalism gladly accepted the social and economic death of millions in order to boost stock prices. Now, war is perceived as good for the market. The press treat this as a perfectly normal feature of economic life. No matter what they say in the New York Times, this is not good news. ****************************************************************** 10. TEMPORARY BLUES By John Slaughter I have been downsized, effective Labor Day, 1997. Being downsized is actually a pretty accurate description of how it feels, too. My stature as a human being has definitely been diminished. I am a throwaway, a discard at 58, no longer deemed productive. Not to be outdone, though, I decided to make a career change out of it. I couldn't afford to retire, so I got a student loan, which I will be paying off for the next 10 years, and got myself retrained. I bought all their hype about all the great jobs that would be waiting for me when I graduated. But when I started sending out my very impressive resume, with all my degrees and accomplishments, I got no response. Overqualified, or, reading between the lines, too old? So I took off all dates and the academic credentials, and I began to get some calls. But when they got a good look at me, the response was the same: Thanks, but no thanks. No one would dare breathe age discrimination, but it was pretty clear that that was what was going on. It is kind of ironic. For most of my adult life, I have been fighting discrimination in one form or another, but never my own. Now it is happening to me. I guess that is really how it happens in this society. The system attacks the most vulnerable first: the minorities, women, the youth, gays, and the aging. So now I am a temporary. Unemployed for six weeks, then work for a month, laid off another two weeks, then work for two months. Don't know when I'll work again after this assignment ends. Can't get benefits. Even tried to get family coverage through the HMO of my wife, who is a schoolteacher. Denied me because I didn't fill out the form right. Sent in the form again. They lost it. Heard about a personal insurance plan through an HMO, which according to their ad said it would cost only $54 a month. Sounded great, but when I called, turns out that was the rate for 12- to 24- year- olds! My age bracket: $200 a month. Who can afford that? So what will happen to me if I get sick? What if I can't make the payments on my pickup truck? Talk about a loss of stature. An ol' Southern boy is lost without his pickup truck. And what about our house? I sure better stay on Gloria's good side. I am just one of her paychecks away from the streets. (Will she still love me when I'm unemployed?) So every morning I crowd onto the subway train, along with thousands of other temporaries, mostly African American, mostly women, but some Hispanic construction workers, some Asian, even some Pakistani or Indian women with veils showing only their eyes. And me. All of us riding that A train to jobs that go nowhere, singing the temporary blues. So, this is what I think:. I don't like all these changes going on that are happening to me. I want to be a part of making changes. The way things look as they are, I don't have much of a future. I don't make enough to contribute to a pension fund, and everybody knows that Social Security isn't enough. My kids won't be able to take care of me. They're just struggling to survive themselves. I'm more worried about what kind of future my grandchildren are going to have. That is why for me it is essential to be a part of at least two organizations. One is the Labor Party. It is time we got about the business of building a political party in this country that is going to fight for the millions of people like me. It is very tough to organize temporary and downsized workers into a union. But a political organization that fights for decent jobs and health care and a secure future for the entire working class is an idea whose time has come. Second, I feel that it is absolutely necessary to be a part of a political organization that is about making a permanent change that has a different vision of the future. That is why I am a member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. If you really want to know the truth, the one thing I really enjoy doing is writing. I would just as soon let the robots do all those jobs that all of us temporary workers are doing just because we have to do them to survive. Free me up so I can really be productive. But to do that would take a whole different kind of society. But this is one thing the capitalist class, who are really the ones who are engineering all these changes that are overturning our lives, will come to understand: What goes around comes around. Things turn into their opposites. We temporaries are the catalyst of permanent change, a change that will cast those who think capitalism is forever into the dustbins of history. I may be singing the temporary blues now. But there is only one thing for sure: the blues are temporary too. ****************************************************************** 11. INTERVIEW WITH DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKER BARB INGALLS [Editor's note: On July 13, 1995, some 2,500 employees of the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press went on strike against owners Gannett and Knight-Ridder, who had been trying for some time to bust the unions at the two papers. Thirty-three months later, the strike continues. The Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters (ACOSS) sponsored a speaking tour so that the strikers could educate the public, gain support across the West Coast and promote a nationwide boycott of USA Today. After they were locked out, some of the strikers started the Sunday Journal, a Detroit weekly striker-run newspaper funded entirely by advertising. At the forefront of the struggle is Barb Ingalls, a 41-year-old graphic designer who had been working at the Detroit newspapers for one year and one week when the strikers were locked out in 1995. Barb is a member of Detroit Typographical Union Local 18 as well as a member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Today her strike job is classified as director for the Sunday Journal with, as she puts it, "a minor in mischief and mayhem." Barb is incredibly outspoken, articulate, and passionate about the strikers' cause. The following is an excerpt of an interview Barb Ingalls granted while she was on a speaking tour in Oregon. The interviewer is Amanda Levinson.] PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: What kind of press, if any, are the strikers getting in Detroit and nationally? Are you finding that the community is supportive? BARB INGALLS: One of our people went to the Media and Democracy Forum last fall in New York City and met with a couple of people from the New York Times, and they just said, "It's old, it's boring news, and we're not going to write about you." Public radio is really a bad joke. In fact, in the local NPR [National Public Radio] station, one of their people is a really important scab who crossed our picket line. We had 100,000 people for a labor march, one of the largest labor marches in the United States last June, and the local station said it was 7,000 people. We have to rely on going door to door. When people find out that we're still [on strike], they're incredulous, they're supportive. We've had people call when we're right there and cancel their subscriptions [to the Free Press and the News]. But we're working in the dark. We have radio ads that none of the stations will play. They won't buy them, they say that they're too controversial. We have newspaper ads which only one newspaper would buy. We're under a total media blackout. I am representing a group called ACOSS, which is Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters, and what's happened is that we got really tired of waiting for the courts, and we got tired of waiting for them to grow hearts -- it's not going to happen. So a group of really wonderful people around the country have networked and brainstormed and put these tours together. Word of mouth is what has kept us alive, and my joke is that if I have to talk to everybody in America one by one, I'll do it. PT: What do you see in the future of the strike and what are the things you need to really win? BI: I believe really strongly that this strike isn't just about Detroit. It's a national issue about union busting. So what we need to do is to stay on the road. We need crews of people out on the road in Arlington, Virginia, where Gannett's headquarters are, and we need to have people there working the streets and getting publicity and raising hell and having demonstrations and making it embarrassing. We need to be able to continue the ad boycott and costing them money. We're trying to spark a nationwide boycott of USA Today. USA Today is Gannett's No. 1 money maker. We're also trying to raise money across the country. What's important right now is that the people on strike and a lot of the community supporters have decided that we can't go on like this, waiting and waiting for the courts to work. When they write the history of the strike, and the victory of it, it's going to be because people wouldn't put up with it anymore and came up with these ways to deal with it and ended it. It's going to end up being the workers' strike and the workers' victory. To support the strike, you can send money to: Detroit Newspaper Striker Relief Fund, 450 W. Fort Street, Detroit, Michigan 48226. You're also encouraged to visit the Sunday Journal website at http://www.rust.net/~workers/strike.html For more information on ACOSS, write: Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters, 5750 Fifteen Mile Road Box 242, Sterling Heights, Michigan 48310-5777 or visit the website at http://members.aol.com/actmotown/index.html ****************************************************************** 12. MARSHAL EDDIE CONWAY: POLITICAL PRISONER IN AMERICA By Robert Birt and Mike Brand [Marshal Eddie Conway is a political prisoner who has been held captive in Maryland for 28 years. In 1970, he was a leading member of the Black Panther Party in Baltimore. He fell victim to the infamous FBI program called COINTELPRO, which targeted the Black Panther Party and other freedom fighters in this country. He was framed and convicted for the killing of a policeman. He was totally innocent. Throughout his incarceration, he has upheld the Panther tradition of political education. While struggling for human rights inside prison walls, he has continued to educate himself and those around him for political liberation. His political voice is widely respected. His freedom is sought wherever the truth about his case is known. His support committee publicizes his case and raises funds for his efforts to win a new and fair trial. They can be reached at 410- 276-7221. Recently, he spoke to the People's Tribune.] PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: There is much discussion both about the marvels and the devastating effects of modern technology. How do you see it? EDDIE CONWAY: Technology holds great possibilities for the future of mankind. Because, if used properly, it gives us the ability to feed everyone on the planet, to create housing, health care, to educate people, and create a decent health system for everyone. However, used by multinational corporations for the purpose of profit, technology is having an overwhelmingly negative impact on the masses in the areas of unemployment, homelessness, starvation, and national and ethnic strife, while a few multibillionaires live in absolute luxury coming from the labor of the people of the world. Modern technology offers great hope and, in the hand of those who have it now, presents a grave danger. In the '70s, the Panthers were talking about automation, cybernation, technocrats and massive unemployment. That's all here now. If we look at globalization and electronic technology, you can see that we were looking in the right direction with these insights. PT: How can the new class of poor people unite to defend itself? EC: Well, the fact is that this new class of people will fight to defend themselves. The only question is whether they will organize in a revolutionary manner to gain control of the resources to care for the needs of everyone, or whether they, or at least some of them, will be organized into a fascist movement and be used by the ruling class to oppress the rest of the population. PT: The danger of fascism is real. What can we do to help prevent it? EC: I believe we can best do that by organizing around the needs of housing, health care, food, education, safety, jobs, and other real problems. I think it's important that we network local communities. around the bread-and-butter issues. That way they can grow and learn together how they can and must stop fascism. PT: How should we educate people to overcome racial and ethnic divisions to be able to unite? EC: One of the main problems of the 21st century will be the color question. It's a problem we can solve. If we organize around the bread-and-butter issues, every ethnic and racial group will find themselves struggling side by side with each other, whether they like it or not, because the same issues affect all of us. Probably it's only after we see each other struggling around these issues and begin to struggle together that we will be able to begin to forge some broad unity. In fact, it is already beginning to happen. PT: There's a lot of demonizing of the prison population. What is it like doing political education in the prisons? EC: It's difficult organizing in the prison population just as it is in the community at large. There are a lot of angry people. However, there seems to be a new thirst for knowledge among the prison population. Many young inmates are becoming intellectually receptive to politics. They are seeking new knowledge of their history and seeking new solutions for tomorrow. PT: What is the relation of the inmate population to the rest of the poor? EC: The ruling class is forced to use the prisons as a weapon to control the surplus labor population. Probably 99 percent of the prison population are from that surplus labor population. They are elements that resist fascism in their own way. Because of the history of slavery and racism, blacks are hit hardest by joblessness and are incarcerated at a higher rate. But joblessness and poverty are growing. The ever-expanding prison system is aimed at everybody. ****************************************************************** 13. LRNA NATIONAL CONVENTION, APRIL 25-26 THE LRNA HOLDS 3RD NATIONAL CONVENTION By Allen Harris CHICAGO -- With a unity, enthusiasm and energy as limitless as its vision of a world of freedom and abundance, the League of Revolutionaries for a New America held its third national convention here on April 25-26. About 100 delegates, observers and guests from across the United States and abroad attended the two-day event at the International Conference Center on the city's North Side. About a fifth of the convention were outstanding members of the young generation of revolutionaries who fully participated in the convention's proceedings. With amendments and revisions, the convention approved on April 25 the League's draft political resolution, the League's draft program and its draft organizational resolution. The next day, the convention approved the League's draft bylaws and a new 35-member National Committee, which included both veteran and new revolutionaries. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The People's Tribune asked some convention attendees to describe their vision of the world they're fighting for. On these pages are their replies. General Baker, Detroit, Chairperson of the LRNA's National Committee: "A vision of a free tomorrow. A world free of human want, free of suffering, free of disease, and discrimination. Free of all the kind of things that were set in place because of the competition that exists in scarcity. All of this is possible and that's the kind of world we want. One where all the technological progress that has been made in industry and other places throughout society -- and that has rendered many past workers superfluous -- can create the situation where people shouldn't have to live without. In this Convention we took real steps forward in hammering out a political resolution and a program that speaks to those needs. Past periods could put forth such a vision but the possibilities could not be realized. Today they can. This Convention is a testament to the times we face and the kind of people that are coming around and that are going to come around. It's important to note the diversity in this Convention. We have 50-year veterans and people who have only been in the League for a year and a half. We have a crop of new youth coming forward to make their commitment to spend their lives doing this. It's a glorious weekend. This is a breaking point in the revolutionary movement." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Jesse Ballinger, Los Angeles: "My vision is a society where no one has to do without the basic necessities of life. That would be number one -- housing, food, clothing, education, etc. But more than that, a society where we can have a different attitude about living. Where we're not always living so defensively and just trying to guard the little bit that we have. A society where we can wake up each day and we know we're secure, and we know that everything is right, and we know that everything is as it's supposed to be. And we know we can be with the proper spiritual mind with other people. The kind of society that I envision and why I'm involved in LRNA is one where we can stop having to be in competition with each other, and we can finally live in harmony. I believe LRNA is going to lead us in that direction and ultimately get us there to that society." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Katrina Coker, Lawrence, Kansas: "My grandfather [a Native American] fought because his people knew what would happen to them if they lost their land. I'm his only surviving grandchild. My ancestors set the stage for what I'm doing now. I'm fulfilling my legacy and my son [Chebon] will pick up this struggle after me. That's why I'm here. I'm going back revitalized and ready to take on my responsibilities. That's what it comes down to: Kill the system before it kills you." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Keisha Smith, Rialto, California: "The struggle will go through a lot of different phases. What's important for me is that people get an understanding of this society. We're in a lot of struggles in our everyday lives and it can beat us down if we don't necessarily understand the reasons why we're in this position. If we have the knowledge that we need to understand our position, then we can take the steps to mobilize to change it. So the first struggle is to let everyone know and to educate everyone." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Danny Alexander, Kansas City, Missouri: "The new vision is a vision of hope. It doesn't seem to be anywhere else in our society except in this. Our vision is one of hope based on objective reality. Basically the rest of our society is trying to look backwards and are struggling to reclaim something that's been lost. We live in a world where the tools that could be solving problems of hunger and poverty and the desperation people are experiencing, aren't being used. Instead those tools are being used to perpetuate the whole system. We live in a world of abundance and everyone can be a part of that." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Luis Rodriguez, Chicago, Illinois: "I envision a world in which all the imaginative and creative powers of everybody, especially young people, are finally realized. Where the capacity to create, build, and to dream is realized in a society that truly honors that. I think that the capitalist system presently is destroying that capacity. It's destroying the creativeness and beauty of youth and other people. I would like to see a society that values and honors and realizes the immense energy and power that people have to change things. We have to go towards the abandoned, those who have been neglected, the homeless those who are in prisons, the unemployed to really begin to change this country, and that's where I put a lot of my efforts and where we have to spend a lot of time, to turn to those sections of society that no longer have a stake in the capitalist system." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Cheri Honkala, Philadelphia: "I envision a world in which nobody goes to sleep at night without food and some place to live. A world in which we can build a community where everyone can prosper." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Now is the time to join the League of Revolutionaries for a New America 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. PROGRAM OF THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA America is in the throes of a social revolution -- an upheaval precipitated by changes in the ways that the necessities of life are being produced. This revolution is tearing apart everything that "we the people" hold dear -- our families, our communities, our opportunity for a better future. This chaos cries out for a program that will point the way forward in our struggle to build a society in which the hopes and dreams for our children can become a reality. For the first time in history, technological innovations have given society the means to produce an absolute abundance. Food can be grown virtually overnight. Homes can be built in a matter of hours. Medical technology can provide quality care for everyone. The new wealth generated by these changes is not being shared by all. Instead, obscene riches are being accumulated at one pole of society, while a more and more brutal poverty is created at the other. As a result, a confrontation between the world's rich and the world's poor is gathering momentum. Revolution in the economy makes revolution in society inevitable. The outcome of that social revolution, however, is not inevitable. It will depend on the consciousness of the millions who want to create a better world. We must gather our collective voice and collective strength now to develop this consciousness. Our society can either move to a police state that upholds repression and enforces suffering, or it can move forward to a new stage of human development that cherishes and nurtures the lives of all. In America, people are beginning to fight out this choice with a sense of economic and class identity. Their success will depend on a very broad consciousness of class and political interests. The League of Revolutionaries for a New America seeks to join with all who want to carry far and wide the message of hope for humanity. Our goal is to unite the efforts of all those who strive to build the new society that's possible by starting to educate our audiences and constituencies. It will take our collective efforts to make the American people conscious of the reality of achieving the brighter future for which they are already fighting. Together we will challenge the ruling class on the immorality of its destruction of countless lives and of our society as a whole. We will rely on the morality of the American people and their striving for a better world to prepare for the struggles ahead. We will confront the specific questions faced by our people and demonstrate that the problem is private property and the solution is the reorganization of society on a cooperative basis. Together we will inspire the American people with a vision of a world of plenty. Electronic technology offers the capacity to free everyone from hunger, homelessness and backbreaking labor. Society can then devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the material, intellectual, spiritual and cultural needs of all. Together we will show how this vision can be a reality. When the growing new class which has no stake in the capitalist system seizes political control and transforms all productive property into public property, it can reorganize society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. A society built on cooperation guards the well-being of its people, not the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. Together we will empower the American people with the consciousness to strive for this new society and instill confidence in victory. The struggle of those who have no stake in this system carries the energy to overturn it. A huge movement is getting underway. All it lacks is the understanding of its historic mission and how to achieve it. Revolutionaries for a New America are active and vocal on the radio and television, through the printed and electronic word, places of worship, on the campuses, union halls, and streets of America. Everywhere we go, we strive for unity based on the interests of those the capitalist system most brutally exploits, starves and suppresses. Only a program of those who have no place in the current system will ensure that the interests of all of humanity are served. To all who see and are conscious of the dangers of today, let us combine our efforts to educate and unleash a powerful movement that can deliver the promises of tomorrow. ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 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. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 15. PROF GRIFF INTERVIEW By Andy Willis ANDY WILLIS: Could you talk about some of the issues you're raising through your poetry? PROFESSOR GRIFF: I talk about a lot of critical issues. What I do is, I raise issues and a lot of times I just leave it up to the listener to come up with their solutions. ...What are the components, you know, just throwing something out there? What are the components? What are some of the things that make up the word called "suicide"? So if you just look at that alone, you say, okay, well, I can think of some of the things that would cause somebody to get to that point. Then okay, fine, then that's an issue that I raise. Now what's the solution? That transcends color, race, religion, class, political affiliation, whatever party. So those are some of the things, one of the things that I raise, one of the techniques that I use to raise a lot of different issues, so to speak. I do a lot of things. What I try not to do is give them everything upfront. AW: What do you think are some of the common denominators that people share, particularly oppressed people around the world, no matter what color? PG: I think the common issue, I think people just want to be free. I know that sounds kind of vague. When I say free, I'm saying, if you look at the areas of people's activity -- labor, law, politics, sex, religion, war, entertainment -- people just want to be able to express themselves and be heard and be respected. A lot of times we're dictated to. ... My thing is, I think with poetry, I break all of that up. With the poetry, I think when I come in and I see the same common thing happening in five or six different cities -- what I would like to do through the poetry is let them know that through poetry you can transcend that. You can free yourself, even if it's just for that night or that piece that you're reading. AW: I moved to Chicago from a rural area in West Virginia, and when hip-hop came along, all of a sudden you saw youth of all nationalities listening to the same music, talking about the same kind of attitudes and rebellion. PG: If politics, religion, and education freed people and brought people together like that, the world would be a better place. My parents are from West Virginia. My father worked in the coal mines [and got] black lung disease. ... I understand what you're saying because I've been there and seen it. But I also came back through there when I became Professor Griff and I seen what the music did. Because you smile. I smile. It' s the universal language. ... The music was something that brought people together. Even if it was some critical issues, it still brought them together, even to discuss the issues. They may not agree, but at least it brought 'em together to discuss the issues. So we could honestly say that the last 10 years that Public Enemy's been making records, we did do something. We did nothing but raise the conscious level and just pricked your mind and said, "at least think about it." AW: One of the things we've been working with and trying to document is human rights abuses in the United States. Can you talk about that? PG: The TV and the movies tend to make it appear that this is the most pleasant place to live, and we wouldn't dare treat our citizens like that. But we go from conspiracy to conspiracy to conspiracy. We go from disease to disease. We go from the government experimenting on the people. So I tend to believe that if you're not aware, you tend to get kind of numb to the fact that everything's not peaches and cream. Because if you're allowed to work, and you work, you make pretty decent money. Then you can buy this car, your children can go to that school, I can go on my vacation, I got 2.5 children, I got the house with the white picket fence, I'm not really concerned about conspiracy. I'm not concerned about human rights issues. So a lot of people are really living comfortable and it's about me. They don't know it's happening to you and me today, and it could be you tomorrow. But I seen something on TV, Pol Pot, people looked at that and said that's critical. Why would that man do that? But then again, you can go and pick up a ninth-grade history book and read about the American Indian, the Native American, with the small pox. So what's the difference? Human rights is human rights, and that's something right across the board, be it white on black, be it Korean on Korean, Cambodian on Cambodian, Japanese on Chinese, African on African. Human rights is human rights. I tend to say this: if we knew better, we would do better. AW: I think it is an education process that has to go on to get rid of these false histories that we're brought up with. PG: Exactly. I don't think we should go on and let it be ignored. Someone has to say something. But I remember back in the days, a lot of the artists, not only rap, R&B, funk artists, the rock artists, the easy listening, there was always artists that came out of the ranks that spoke on issues. Where is that at today? AW: You guys are it, in a lot of ways. I mean, Rage Against the Machine ... there are some artists that are speaking to these issues. When I was coming up, James Brown and Bob Dylan were the two foremost spokesmen, and they were talking about issues that affected mankind. PG: A lot of it is lost to the commercialism. When you can make something to sell, whatever, whatever, whatever. As opposed to, I'm oppressed but I'm scared to write about it in my song because it's not gonna sell! AW: Everybody's talking about this separation between the rich and poor. The gap is greater than it's ever been in the history of this country. The one section is growing upwardly mobile in both the white and the black community, and in the country as a whole, and the other section is going down. Where do you see people going from here? PG: I think Sister Souljah said it better, that we're actually headed back to a different form of slavery. Simply because it is a cashless society. The ushering in of the new world order. I think a lot of people, like we said earlier, are just kind of hopeless. Once they wipe away and there is no money on the street, you're talking about accepting the chip in your hand and in your forehead if things move into plastic, and then they're gonna take the plastic out of the chip and put it in your body. Now what are you really going to be worth? Populations in prisons are growing, they're privatizing prisons, using that cheap labor, going right back to a form of slavery. And the gap like you say is widening. 'Cause now it's the haves and the have-nots. A lot of people just don't have it. A lot of middle-class people don't have it. AW: I know. We've got homelessness out in the Chicago suburbs. Everybody assumes the suburbs is the suburbs. But it's getting worse and worse. What do we do? PG: I think the music in every field -- we need to speak to it. A lot of us just don't even speak to it anymore. I mean it's rare to find papers like this. If you find them, it's like people are not pushing it in your face, if it's there and I see it, da-da-da, okay and I move on. But people are not really speaking to the issues through forms of the mediums in which the masses of the people can hear it, see it on TV. A lot of times you might get one out of every 10 records have that kind of message or whatever. But now, it's rare. AW: There used to be an economic base in Chicago for the theaters and all this thriving of the culture. Now what we see in Chicago in a lot of respects is the absolute poverty on the west and the south side and the lack of jobs. Who's gonna pay $25 to $30 a ticket to see a show anymore? It's harder to get by. PG: Yeah, it's hard to get by. With the widening of the gap, it's like that $25, $30 for a ticket could mean I don't eat for the next couple days. A lot of people are looking at it a lot differently. And a lot of times I don't think they're walking away from these shows filled up. A lot of times it's the same stuff you hear on the radio. My thing is that if I'm gonna pay my $25, give me something to leave with, something to ponder over, something to think about. I think a lot of times, like I mentioned earlier in the commercialism, the art is being swallowed up and lost. Because you might see 60 seconds on a Sprite commercial or McDonalds, all these multinational corporations are using rap as the backdrop to a lot of their commercials. ... It's really being lost. ... A lot of people are thinking about mortgages and they're thinking about car notes and they got children in school now, so it's like, the generation under us need to step up, for art's sake. ****************************************************************** 16. SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA Our speakers provide a message of hope and unity to create a society whose wealth benefits all. Our speakers speak from the point of view of the most destitute and what is needed to solve their problems. Our speakers speak from the point of view of what is in the best interest of all of society -- not what is in the interest of a handful of billionaires. Call today to book speakers who cover issues such as homelessness, the environment, women, cloning, labor and more. P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654-3524 773-486-3551 http://www.mcs.com/~league Call or write today to get a copy of our brochure listing all of our speakers! +----------------------------------------------------------------+ NOW AVAILABLE ON AUDIOTAPE Order your audiotape of "Moving Onward: From Racial Division to Class Unity" by Brooke Heagerty and Nelson Peery. GET YOUR COPY TODAY! Send only $10.00 plus $2 shipping and handling to Speakers for a New America, c/o People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654-3524. ****************************************************************** 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. 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