****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 2/ February, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.mcs.com/~league ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.mcs.com/~league +----------------------------------------------------------------+ AMERICA'S SHAME: CHILDREN ON SKID ROW If someone were kidnapping children off the streets at random and killing them in your city or any city, the whole town would be up in arms about it. Yet something very similar is happening to America's children, in every city, and there are no mass demonstrations about it, no obvious sense of public outrage. America's children are becoming homeless. Children are the fastest growing section of the homeless in this country. One shocking example of this reality is the appearance of homeless children and families in places like Los Angeles' Skid Row, a place probably reserved in the popular imagination for "down and out" men. One such family, the Fosters, was profiled in late December in the New York Times. The article focused on 14-year-old William Foster. He and his mother Janice, his three-year-old brother Deon, and his sister Shayla, 4, became homeless when Janice lost her access to welfare. According to the Times, on any given night in Los Angeles County there are (officially) 12,400 homeless family members, mostly children, competing for the 4,890 shelter beds the county has to offer. While the Times may have just discovered homeless children, the fact is they have been with us for years. For any one to be homeless is a crime, but how morally bankrupt is a society that consigns young children to the living hell of the streets and the shelters? Children who should be laughing, playing, learning, bringing joy to their parents and one another, are instead wondering where they will sleep tonight and what they will eat. Many are forced to prostitute themselves in order to live. Homeless children are dying -- from disease, from drugs, from violence, from despair. This is mass murder, and yet America remains silent. Janice Foster is not to blame for her family's homelessness. A capitalist economic system that puts property rights above what is right is to blame. A system that allows one man, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, to have a net worth greater than that of the bottom 40 percent of our population combined is to blame. A system that says "you must work to eat" and then denies us jobs or adequate income to keep us out of poverty is to blame. Yet the mass of Americans have not stood up to denounce this system. The ruling class has been very skillful at making us feel personally responsible for our situation. The homeless are blamed for their homelessness. Combine this ideology with the fact that most Americans are still "making it," even if just barely, and you have a prescription for allowing the ruling class to get away with murder. This system will keep destroying family after family, child after child, until America understands that William Foster could be anybody's child, and that he is everyone's child. Most families in America are just a paycheck or two, or a public aid check, away from homelessness. We don't have to live like this. The abundance is there for the taking. There is plenty of housing and everything else we need. The key to our getting control of this abundance, and reorganizing things so that no one is homeless or hungry, is to reject the ideas and the dog-eat-dog morality of the capitalists and their system. We are responsible for one another. We have a right to housing and everything we need to live decent, cultured lives. And no one, especially children, should be homeless. This is our true morality. Let's live up to it. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 2/ February, 1999 Editorial 1. OUR PLACE AT THE FEAST Spirit of the Revolution 2. WAS JESUS A COMMUNIST? News and Features 3. AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH'S TRUE MEANING 4. A MORAL CRUSADE FOR COMMUNISM Announcements, Events, etc. 5. SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA: WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH, 1999 [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/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO 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: OUR PLACE AT THE FEAST The economic crisis is worsening throughout the world. The latest bad news for the capitalist system comes from Brazil, where a currency collapse threatens to unleash a downturn that could sweep across Latin America and reach the United States itself. Again, the solutions being put forward help the rich at the expense of the poor. This is a crisis which the world cannot leave the capitalists to solve. People are speaking out about the global economic crisis brought about by the capitalists' use of labor-replacing technology to maximize profits for them and poverty for us. It should be no surprise that more and more people are stepping up their resistance to a system which must go. Indonesia reported in January that more than 130 million of its 206 million people were in poverty, way up from 20 million in 1997 when the Asian financial crisis began. According to the World Bank, Russia suffered a worse economic depression in the 1990s as a result of capitalism than the United States did in the 1930s. It is an outrage that can no longer be suffered in silence. Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico said on Christmas Eve, 1998 that "Blood is spread on the altar of the stock market." He went on: "Believing in the poor led us to strongly denounce [those] who abuse their political power, their privilege and their wealth. ... A woman who makes tortillas is affected by the political situation. Everybody is involved in politics unless he is on the moon." Pope John Paul II, who visited Mexico and the United States in January, united with "those excluded from the banquet of everyday consumerism ... all those who have no share in the material benefits which progress has brought." "International institutions, national governments and the centers controlling the world economy must all undertake brave plans and projects to ensure a more just sharing of the goods of the earth," he said. And what of bourgeois rule? What is their solution? More of the same, of course. In his State of the Union address, President Clinton called for more globalization. "We must tear down barriers, open markets and expand trade," he said. Rather than rescue the victims of capitalism at the bottom, he proposes giving the capitalists an additional $2 billion in corporate welfare as well as $100 billion in more military-industrial welfare. On the same day that Clinton spoke, homeless people in Philadelphia staged a sidewalk protest against a new ordinance which lets police remove homeless people from the streets and fine them up to $100. Similar laws and "crackdowns" (another word for repression) are becoming common across the nation. The National League of Cities, which speaks for the nation's mayors, issued a report which exposes the rapid polarization of wealth and poverty. While highlighting the growing "prosperity" in the urban centers, the mayors also admitted having to deal with rising levels of need by its citizens for food, clothing, shelter and health care. Even as local governments serve and protect bourgeois property by enacting fascist ordinances that make it a crime to be propertyless, three out of five U.S. mayors said in the report that moving people from welfare to slave-fare will not work without more jobs that pay a living wage. >From the ends of the earth to the street where you live, we are in a worsening economic crisis. Everywhere, two great classes face each other. On one side are the bourgeois -- including the capitalists -- who control how the vast abundance of products we need to live are distributed once they have been made. They will only exchange this mountain of food, clothes, homes, etc. for money which they have and the poor don't. On the other side are the proletarians, including the workers. Members of the proletariat are being shut out from the workplace by robotics, a new means of production which eliminates the need for human labor. These shut-out proletarians are forbidden to beg on the streets and forced take what they need without paying. The advent of these robotics represents a new stage in history which is destroying the kind of market where people must get what they need by paying money. This same tool which is destroying the usefulness of money is at the same time creating the basis of a new society where everyone can freely exchange what they can do for what they need without money. The path toward this new society is opening for humanity, but to get there will require the revolutionary effort of the world's dispossessed. This is an economic and social crisis which can only be solved politically. The homeless of America's cities, the propertyless of the world, must unite as one class, conscious of its identity and its mission. It must organize to obtain the political power to build a sane and safe world, one where Americans, Mexicans, Brazilians, Russians, Indonesians and the rest of humanity are not outsiders looking in on the "banquet of everyday consumerism," but as one inclusive family to share in the great cooperative feast called communism. ****************************************************************** 2. SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION: WAS JESUS A COMMUNIST? By Marc Anthony [Editor's note: Below we print the latest contribution to our regular column about spirituality and revolution. We encourage our readers to comment on what appears here and to contribute to this column. Send material to: Boxholder, P.O. Box 2166, San Jose, California 95109. E-mail may be sent to: spirit@noc.org] What is communism and what is a communist? Prior to the 1970s, that word was synonymous with "evil," but I think today most Americans realize that the taboo is unnecessary. We have people like Ronald Reagan to thank for that. These right-wing "conservative" and bigoted "patriots" have shown most of us that they are not really interested in sharing the American dream with anyone but themselves. It is a game of the "haves" and the "have- nots." And half of us are among the "have-nots," which is the Reagan legacy. The American middle class began to evaporate and this phenomenon is still in process. President Clinton never had the guts to take it on and in this country, who can blame him, really? (I guess no one ever told John and Robert Kennedy, or Malcom X and Martin Luther King, or John Lennon). Communism is the elimination of private property, a system in which goods are owned as common property. That's all it really is. Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man. -- John Lennon, "Imagine" But if that is what it is, then why all the hatred and fear? For that, we need to look at another word -- capitalism -- a word that struck fear into the hearts of the first black slaves brought to the new world; that shook the leaders of the great American Indian tribes; and brought to their knees the indigenous Mexican peoples that lived in the Western states. Man, woman and child. It is also the word that strikes fear into the lives of indigenous people from Alaska to the Tierra del Fuego today. (Watch any Spanish- speaking television program and they are almost all blonde, propaganda laying ground for the "final push.") In capitalism, private or corporate ownership of capital goods is characterized by competition in a free market. America is the capital of world capitalism. But half of America knows that the benefit is for the very few. Twenty percent of Americans live below the poverty level and another 20 percent linger near it, only a paycheck away. One percent of Americans own half of the wealth! And another 20 percent support them, with about one third of the wealth. The communist wants property and wealth to be commonly shared. That doesn't sound so bad to most Americans today. But we're still stuck on semantics; that word sounds bad. We've been cultured to react that way. We're afraid. We're afraid to think. We're afraid to see. And we know we are, but we're too proud to admit it. Even to ourselves. But Jesus said, "Either you are with me or you are against me." Was Jesus a "communist"? Let's look at a few things. First, remember that he said, "Take all that you own and sell it, then give your money to the poor and follow me." I never read that anywhere in the Wall Street Journal. But this is consistent with many of Jesus' other sayings and with his lifestyle. "Blessed are the poor, but woe to the rich." (Luke 6). Also remember what Jesus instructed the religious man: "Sell all that you own and give the money to the poor." (Luke 18). As for his lifestyle, we know that he traveled around a lot in his very few years of work. But he did not travel alone; he had several groups with him: the 12 disciples or apostles; a retinue of women that followed him about (and no doubt some had children); his mother and brothers and sisters were frequently with him; and another retinue of "disciples" who at one point is counted as 70. Over a hundred people followed Jesus around. ... All of this was therefore evidently organized and even by modern terms should be recognized as quite an impressive operation. ... The point is: All shared and shared alike. Perhaps it is not absolutely clear, but in the case of the early church it is so stated. After Jesus' death, his original disciples form the early church. Now we find that all property and wealth was handled in a communal (communist) fashion. "The church of believers were of one heart and soul, and none claimed anything as belonging to himself, all property was common property. ... There was not one needy among them, because those who owned land or houses sold them and brought the monies to the apostles, and they would distribute it to whoever had a need." (Acts 4). By now, the early church had achieved a certain degree of organization and formality. James was the leader, and strong tradition has it that this James was blood brother to Jesus himself. And now the point is absolutely clear. Twenty years ago, a communist among Americans was unspeakable. Today it couldn't be worse than the lives half of Americans are faced with. Am I a communist? I am a follower of democratic principles. A democrat with a small "d" as Ralph Nader likes to put it. Remember that when Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to work, the American government branded him a "communist" and the national news bureaus echoed the brand with conviction. When Malcolm X tried to work, he was certainly viewed as a "communist" and today he is an American icon -- only 30 years later. Or the farm workers' leader, Cesar Chavez. Angela Davis seems to be ahead of them all and accepts the brand. Even John Lennon during his antiwar campaign was frequently branded such, even without the benefit of J. Edgar Hoover. After all, we are what we are. Just as those selfish Americans that are hoarding the national wealth, even from the nation itself. [Copyright 1998 by Aztlan Hoy (www.aztlanhoy.com)] ****************************************************************** 3. AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH'S TRUE MEANING By Nelson Peery African American history is the heart of the history of our country. Understanding the exploitation and political maneuvering of the black minority of the population is key to understanding American history. Political control of the black population created the economic, political and moral wherewithal for the ruling class to accumulate unheard-of wealth, conquer defenseless peoples, and finally establish its hegemony around the world. This is not the African American history our government wants known or taught. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under enormous political and moral pressure, made "Negro History Week" official in the 1940s. It was conceived to teach the other Americans about the special contributions African Americans made to the development of our country. Special interests soon saw African American History Month as a vehicle to help achieve their political goals. Some struggled to make it a celebration wherein the African Americans would talk to themselves about themselves. Others set about making it a celebration of outstanding individuals. Few made a critical examination of the historical role played by the African American masses. It was a role seldom under their control. Let us start at the beginning and examine some of these "contributions." The emergence of capitalism was the most important and destructive result of African slavery and of the slave trade. The horror and brutality of that trade and of plantation slavery stand as the greatest crimes in history. Yet, these crimes pale in comparison to the retribution which capitalism exacted from the world. The imperialist wars, especially World War I and World War II, in all their destructive horror, were the direct result of African slavery and of the economic system it spawned. We are jumping ahead of our story. As the Revolutionary War began, America had an opportunity to become the reality of mankind's most lofty ideals. The Founding Fathers wrote these ideals into the preamble to our constitution, but they could not put them into practice. Massachusetts, wealthy from the slave trade, and South Carolina, with the greatest number of slaves, chose wealth, privilege and slavery over those ideals. The resulting institutionalizing of the myth of race and of white supremacy opened the moral doors to the slaughter of the Indian peoples. The "irrepressible conflict," the Civil War, extracted its pound of flesh in the form of a million casualties and a physical and psychological destruction of the South that it has yet to recover from. Cotton, as much a foundation for industry as the steam engine, could not be profitably grown except with unpaid labor. The brutal exploitation of slavery provided the form for the brutal exploitation of more whites than blacks in the sharecropping system. In turn, that system dragged all of Southern agriculture into ignorance and poverty. The 1850 dream of reducing the Western Hemisphere into a slave empire became the reality of arrogant, racist Yankee imperialist conquest. The very existence of black men and women as slaves or second-class citizens made possible the unity of the white people. This unity of the exploiting white capitalist and the exploited white worker was never achieved by the most cunning capitalists of England, Germany or France. This unity was the engine, the reliable base, that allowed American imperialism to finally conquer the world. Each step along this terrible path cut at the vitals of our national morality. Today, America passes her citizens of any sex, age or color in economic distress with less concern than it has for a sick dog. All is justified by white supremacy, all is rooted in the toil and tears and struggle of black America. And what about black history in all this? As with any people in these circumstances, the African Americans struggled and, through struggle, they created. Could America be America without those creations? Those who denied them freedom degenerated into despised predators who live only so long as they kill. Those who sought to degrade them were degraded. Through struggle, the African Americans purified their love of freedom and of human dignity. At the fascist fork in the historic freedom road, black America was all that was left to safeguard and restore to life the ideals so terribly wounded and crippled by history. Only black America could lead the fight for peace. Only black America could face the fangs and clubs and guns for human rights. Only black America could save America. This is the hidden heritage and the meaning of African American History Month 1999. ****************************************************************** 4. A MORAL CRUSADE FOR COMMUNISM [Editor's note: What follows are excerpts from a report, Propaganda for This Stage of Development," which was adopted by the Steering Committee of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA) during a meeting in January in Chicago.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ "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. ... [W]e will show how this vision can be a reality. ... [W]e 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." -- LRNA Program +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT AND OUR PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH A leap is taking place. Clearly an economic crisis of dramatic proportions is sweeping across the world and will inevitably engulf this country. We can anticipate that there will be social upheaval, and that many more people will be thrown into motion. We can also anticipate all sorts of appeals to the people, from both the left and the right, in an attempt to influence their thinking. The impending collapse of the economy and the drive toward fascism condition the environment in which we operate. At the same time, we are seeing a certain level of social consciousness and class identity, as reflected in the formation and growth of the Labor Party and in the activities of the fighting organizations of the proletariat and the response to them. We are also seeing this social consciousness reflected in certain sections of the youth, the intelligentsia and the trade unions. As the economic crisis escalates, the conditions are created for a further and broader growth in social consciousness (which is not to say that this growth will be automatic). When all these factors are considered together, it seems clear that we face both great danger and great opportunity. In light of this, we should evaluate our approach to propaganda and reaffirm what we are trying to do. The way is being opened for politics on the basis of class interests. The conditions are coming to exist to allow us to truly carry on the propaganda campaign we have been talking about for several years -- a moral crusade for communism, a crusade to win people to communism as the practical solution to their problems. Yet the fact that these conditions are coming to exist also means that revolutionaries -- especially conscious ones -- and organizations of the class are likely to come under severe attack, and that the drive toward fascism will be accelerated. This means we must rapidly mount a successful propaganda campaign, and substantially increase the size and influence of the League without delay. The League's press has a central responsibility in this process. We should look at our role in relation to the concept of the line of march. We have said that the line of march of the revolution is from scattered economic struggles to united political struggles. (Rally, Comrades!, April 1992). With the formation of the Labor Party and other events, we are seeing the beginning of this very transition. More recently, we have said that the line of march "is, essentially, the quantitative stages of development of a revolution" [and that] "the next inevitable stage is crisis. The question is, will the next social response [the most recent one being the L.A. Rebellion of 1992] again be spontaneous uprising or will it be guided by the first stage of political and social consciousness? Uprisings ... are the way the mass responds to change when that mass does not have organization, does not have theory and does not have ideology. The first round [of uprisings] is indispensable and welcome because it tells us something important is happening. The same thing will happen over and over again, however, unless the ideological, theoretical and political conditions of the masses change. ... [I]f the [next] response is simply a spontaneous uprising, that is all the state will need to consolidate a clampdown on the American people, making it extremely difficult for them to move." (Rally, Comrades!, November 1997). In the paper, "Our Philosophical Outlook and the Line of March," we said that we are dealing with "two processes: the social movement for the distribution of wealth, and the conscious efforts to achieve the goals of that movement. ... Part of our job is to work within the struggle itself in order to push it ahead toward its actual conclusion. Our agitation and propaganda about how the wealth can actually be distributed calls into question the property relations at the same time as it answers the questions of the day. ... Another part of our job is the growth and consolidation of an organization of revolutionaries. We work within each stage of the fight in order to gather together a core of revolutionaries consciously striving for the resolution of the problems through political revolution. "We aim our agitation and propaganda at contributing the subjective element that will push forward each stage in that process. ... An organization of revolutionaries has to carefully identify and add what has to be added to complete each stage and rely on the struggle at each of its stages to gather the revolutionaries who can prepare for the future stages of the movement." WHAT IS PROPAGANDA? We can't just have revolutionaries that resist the government or are against the capitalist system, and don't know what to replace it with. We need a propaganda campaign to win over the revolutionaries to the cause of communism. The definition of "revolutionary" is different at different stages of the historical process. By "revolutionaries" we mean, at this stage, those who have already accepted the necessity of revolution and who are striving to politically educate others based on some vision of a new society. In other words, at this moment we are focusing on trying to reach, influence and recruit people who are already trying to propagate new ideas, people who can in turn influence tens of thousands of others. Our immediate goal is to create an organization of propagandists. This is not to ignore the existence of the millions of "objective" revolutionaries. We know that, historically speaking, the capitalist system is breaking down and the reforms that people seek will ultimately only come about as a by-product of revolution. Thus anyone who is honestly struggling for reforms is, objectively, a revolutionary. But we must focus our immediate efforts on the revolutionaries who are already trying to educate people. They can be found in most every walk of life. They include writers and journalists, and those who are speaking at community meetings, hosting local radio or community-access television programs, or using the Internet to get their message out, just to cite some examples. Recruiting or influencing one such person can give us access to an audience of thousands. Propaganda is the intellectual effort to win people to the understanding that their struggle is the struggle for communism. Ultimately, our propaganda tries to teach the mass movement to take conscious steps towards the real solution to their problems -- a communistic society. This poses the question of how do we move the mass? We do so by influencing and recruiting propagandists. We reach the propagandists by doing propaganda -- by putting out the facts and analysis, the testimonies and the moral appeals, that the propagandists can use to influence their audience. Our propaganda has two aspects. One side reflects our inseparable connection to the spontaneous movement. The other side has to put forth the ideas of revolution. Thus we have talked about the role of the press being "to be the voice of the revolutionaries to society and to be the voice of the League to the revolutionaries." By this we mean we address society as a whole from the standpoint of the dispossessed, and we address the most advanced section of the revolutionaries from the standpoint of an organization of revolutionary propagandists. We give the revolutionaries, the propagandists, the ammunition they need to propagandize, and in the process we gather them into an organization of revolutionaries dedicated to propaganda. At this stage, we need to place a greater emphasis on being the voice of the League to the revolutionaries. Our connection to the spontaneous movement is key to our success. If the revolutionary forces already committed to communism are not connected to this movement, we're going to be pre-empted by other forces. PROPAGANDA FOR THIS STAGE We have agreed that our essential task is to inject class consciousness into the revolutionary process and win people to communism as the practical solution to their problems. In an October 1995 LRNA article in the People's Tribune we said that it was time for the People's Tribune to "start grappling with issues of ideology and morality, questions of right and wrong." We said [that] "We have to show the participants in this movement that they can win the economic well-being they are fighting for, but only if society is re-organized along communist lines. ... Each issue of this newspaper has to awaken people's indignation at the crimes of capitalism. ... We need a People's Tribune which leads a moral crusade for communism!" We're talking about a morality based on what is possible. There is no excuse for privilege on the one hand and suffering on the other when there is abundance. We are also talking in a sense about reconstructing the morality of the people, which is now based on the dog-eat-dog conceptions of capitalism and colored by years of bribery. We must master the art of relying on the social struggle to introduce new ideas, the art of summing up the scattered impulses of the spontaneous movement and giving them back to the movement in a coherent, understandable form that advances the thinking of those in struggle. This will require real thinking and creativity. THE AUDIENCE Again, our key audience at this stage is revolutionaries who are trying to propagandize, who are trying to introduce the new ideas of the necessity and possibility of revolution and the necessity and possibility of a cooperative society. The challenge posed to us is reaching revolutionaries in every sector of society, whether they be youth, students, labor, intelligentsia/academia, the immigrant worker, the dispossessed, and among those whose lives are about to be irreversibly changed by the current economic crisis. In summary, we are facing the imminent threat of economic collapse and fascism. We have a small window of opportunity to build an organization that will survive the first blows of the enemy and that can change history. We must give the propagandists the ammunition they need to expose the immorality of the present system and inspire the people with a vision of a world of plenty. We have the knowledge and the skill to accomplish our task. We dare not fail. ****************************************************************** 5. SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA: WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH, 1999 March is just around the corner. Plan to book a speaker. Get out the message that uplifting the status of women means eliminating poverty in a new cooperative world. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INVITE THESE SPEAKERS FOR WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH Cheri Honkala, Director, Kensington Welfare Rights Union Laura Garcia, Editor, People's Tribune Ethel Long-Scott, Executive Director, Women's Economic Agenda Project Brooke Heagerty, co-author, "Moving Onward: From Racial Division to Class Unity" Marian Kramer, Co-Chair, National Welfare Rights Union Liz Monge, Board Member, People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo Doreen Stabinsky, Ph.D, Environmental Studies Martha R. Herbert, M.D., Ph.D., Child Neurologist and more ... SOME TOPICS: * "The March of the Americas for Economic Human Rights" * "Identity Versus Class Politics and the Women's Movement" * "Impact of Globalization on Women" * "Welfare: We can't go back. We have to go forward to a new society." +----------------------------------------------------------------+ SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA ON TAPE: "A Speakers Sampler" with Brenda Matthews, Cheri Honkala and Luis Rodriguez "History of the Dispossessed in America" by Chris Mahin "Youth and Revolution" by Nelson Peery "Science for Human Liberation not Profit" "Labor History: Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement" by General Baker Send $5 to PT Tapes, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654-3524. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE RADIO People's Tribune Radio is a new monthly news and information program produced by the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. Our first program is for African American History Month. Next month's will be for Women's History Month. Send for a free cassette and ask your local radio station to play it. Order by calling 1-800-691-6888 or email flr@jps.net. ****************************************************************** 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 (773) 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: (773) 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. (773) 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. (773) 486-3551. ****************************************************************** We encourage reproduction and use of all articles except those copyrighted. Please credit the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on donations from its readers -- your generosity is appreciated. For free electronic subscription, email: pt-dist@noc.org with a message of "subscribe". ******************************************************************