People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (08-99) Online Edition .TOPIC 08-99 PT Index .TEXT .BODY ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.lrna.org +----------------------------------------------------------------+ PAGE ONE: RISE IN WEALTH = RISE IN POVERTY The stock market is soaring higher and higher. Smart men and smart money say these are the best of times. But the U.N. Development Program, in its annual global overview, states, "Global inequalities in income and living standards have reached grotesque proportions." We live in a world where the three of the richest shareholders of Microsoft -- Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer -- have more assets, $149 billion, than the combined gross national product of the 43 least-developed countries and their 600 million people! In the United States, poverty is not disappearing as the billionaires watch their investments grow. No, poverty is growing too. Millions upon millions of citizens are stuck or sinking below the absurd "poverty line" of $13,000 for a family of three. Everyone who is not a millionaire or a billionaire has real cause for concern and cause to educate and organize. Currently the vast majority of U.S. citizens have zero savings and are financially stretched to the breaking point, if they have any credit at all. We need to convince anyone who doubts it that the capitalist system is to blame and that it offers no way out of the problems plaguing us. Sure, the wealthy would prefer that we focus our anger on anybody but them. They pay to shape public policy and opinion into blaming the poor for poverty. Welfare reform has worsened the situation for poor working families; and so-called enterprise zones are a cheap-labor subsidy. The net result is that many are working long hours in jobs that don't support them. In this environment, some are misled into blaming people of different religions, nationalities or skin color for the worsening conditions. Again, the billionaires would rather have us attack each other than attack the real problem. With the global capital system racing toward an inevitable crash, we don't have time for false solutions provided by this government of, by and for the wealthy. What we really need is a new society that will use the wealth of the world to guarantee the health and well-being of the world's people not the privilege of a handful of billionaires. Let's talk about how we get it! +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 Editorial 1. CAN A LIE BECOME THE TRUTH? News and Features 2. KILLER'S ALIENATION SHOWS NEED FOR VISION OF A NEW AMERICA 3. KPFA RADIO FIGHTS FOR SURVIVAL AS A PROGRESSIVE VOICE 4. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF FASCISM TODAY? 5. FIGHTING SONGS SUPPORT THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLES 6. VIVA LA UNION! 7. NO SWEAT CAMPAIGN -- INTERNATIONAL UNITY OF WORKERS AND STUDENTS 8. PROGRESSIVE PHYSICIANS, PUBLIC DEMAND UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE 9. DID YOU KNOW THAT... Spirit of the Revolution 10. ISLAM Announcements, Events, etc. 11. LONG ROADS AND REVOLUTION [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. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Edit: Can a lie become the truth? .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 1. EDITORIAL: CAN A LIE BECOME THE TRUTH? Can lies be accepted as truth? The most obvious answer to this question is a resounding NO! This is as fundamental as right and wrong, justice and injustice, or good and evil. But what guarantees the outcome? Will truth triumph over lies? History and past experience (depending on who we ask) tell us NO! These questions came up after Vice President Gore spoke at a union convention recently. What was disturbing was not what he said, but what he didn't say. We are now entering the campaign season for the 2000 elections. The political debate is being framed in a way that suggests that the current situation in the U.S. is one of prosperity. This is not the reality . The reality is that wealth is being concentrated at a dramatic pace. The richest countries have 20 percent of the world's people but 86 percent of its income. The 200 richest people in the world more than doubled their net worth between 1994 and 1998. But in nearly half the world, countries' per capita incomes are lower then they were 10 or 20 years ago. Most of the world finds itself in a deep economic crisis. While multinational global corporations increase their control of the world's resources, the world slides further toward oblivion. The situation is no different in the U.S. Wages and benefits have actually fallen. The U.S. is now the world's biggest debtor. The Do Jones stock market average has gone up 1150 percent since 1982, while productivity of non-farm business has only gone up 28 percent. This means that there is an extreme imbalance between goods produced and the circulation of money. This is reflected in the stock market as an imbalance between the inflated market value of companies and their real value. Inevitably, a crash will come to bring the market value and real value of these businesses back into line. Should the global crisis continue (and most economists admit it will), it will worsen the current crisis in our national economy. The national situation is worse than it has ever been for the poor within the U.S., with little or no safety net. Even for those employed, consumer debt is now almost 95 percent of disposable income. Personal savings, the last recourse in a crisis, have dropped to negative 1.2 percent. The reason for this drop is that, while most people in the U.S. in the past owned their own homes, today people have refinanced and taken out home equity loans, rubbing out the last resort for many. In 1995, 49 million people, about one in five, lived in a household that had trouble paying for basic needs (the poor accounted for only 40 percent). An estimated 8 million with those financial troubles had incomes of more than $45,000 a year. This picture shows the world is more productive than ever. This crisis is not one of scarcity, but of distribution. The program of the ruling class is to continue to exploit the world's resources at the expense of the world's workers and poor. This program contains a whole series of measures to control the workers and poor, as well as plans to stabilize and hold back the crisis. What is not on their agenda is a frank and open discussion of the real problem and the solution. Thus, the lies about the economy become the truth. The multinational global corporations unleash a barrage of propaganda aimed at convincing us things are good. They operate through think tanks, ad agencies, public-relations firms, and government agencies, and feed the mass media with these lies. They are not always successful. A recent study showed that over two-thirds of those involved feel they did not benefit from the 18-year rise of the stock market. There are organizations that are focusing the blame for the crisis on "big government" or minorities. Revolutionaries have an important role to play. We must present an analysis that shows the real problem and the solution. We must show the real possibility of reorganizing the distribution of the wealth of this country and the world, of constructing a society that places the needs of its people before the enrichment of the few. To disseminate these ideas on a scale that can really change things, we have to build a large system of propaganda that first reaches the propagandists (those that are already shaping people's ideas), and then reaches the leaders and activists and becomes an organized, conscious force for revolutionary change. .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Killer's alienation shows need for vision of a new America .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 2. KILLER'S ALIENATION SHOWS NEED FOR VISION OF A NEW AMERICA By Dru Clark [Editor's note: The following article was submitted by a reader. It deals with the case of Benjamin Smith, who drove through Indiana and Illinois on the July 4 weekend shooting at people of color, Jews and other minorities. Smith killed two people and injured nine others before apparently killing himself. The writer attends Indiana University, where Smith was also a student.] "We can never fully know what drove Mr. Smith to commit his hateful acts." That was what Kenneth R. Gros Louis, chancellor of Indiana University in Bloomington, wrote to students and members of the local community in a letter following the killing spree over the July 4 weekend. After less than a week of investigation, discussion and reflection, this eloquent statement summed up the entire analysis of a two-state killing spree? Motive: Race hatred. Case closed. Was Benjamin Smith simply putting white-nationalist ideology into practice? Did Smith simply walk up to its leader, Matt Hale, and ask to join the racist World Church of the Creator (WCC)? This is the story, it seems, that society at large is content to believe. This is the song that will lull us all to sleep this evening. Benjamin Nathaniel Smith was known to most of us at Indiana University as August Smith. To a small community of activists and organizers in Bloomington, he was an image of everything we were and are fighting against. A racist, neo-nazi and holocaust- revisionist, Smith distributed literature claiming that the holocaust was a lie and that Jewish people had conspired to oppress America. So, we responded. We organized Bloomington United Against Hate, an ad hoc organization that passed out signs making the distribution of hate literature to residences displaying them illegal. A local anti- racist group organized a trip to Smith's house for the sole purpose of harassing him. Unwittingly, in our efforts to make a statement against hatred, we may have only helped to push Smith further from our community. Eventually, this lack of ties to anyone in the community, and his own failure to organize a Bloomington white-supremacist community, would provide the conditions in which murder and suicide became Smith's final expression of alienation. A joint report by the Leadership Conference Education Fund and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights states that hate groups target "young people alienated from society." Smith found refuge in a perverse rhetoric that told him that he was not alien, but the only true citizen in a country of aliens. The WCC fed him the myth of Aryan supremacy, gave him heritage, gave him an identity, told him he was somebody better. Perhaps we all have something to learn from the WCC. What we can not do is suppose that this is simply an isolated incident. Racism is more than a series of isolated incidents of extreme violence. Racism pervades our daily lives. We must focus our efforts at the very root of this problem. We must seek out the alienated and the oppressed BEFORE they commit random acts of misdirected hostility. We must open them up to the skills of analysis that will allow them to identify their fetters. We must then stand back, ever ready to assist in the creative process of cutting those chains and joining a true community of interdependent, loving families and individuals. This is the duty of all revolutionaries. August Smith was no victim. He had free will. He had the gift of education and the privilege of affluence. However, somewhere along the way he lost the sense of self-worth that every human being deserves. The ruling class pushed him out of our community. The lessons that we must take from July 4, 1999 are: First, that youth alienation must be combated with a vision of a new America where the necessities of life are divided based on need; and second, that racism is something we must let go of in order to make this vision a reality. Racial division is the capitalist's strongest weapon against class unity. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ STATEMENT BY THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA THE ROOTS OF RACISM: AS OLD WAYS WITHER, CLASS UNITY MUST GROW [Editor's note: Nelson Peery is a member of the People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo editorial board.] By Nelson Peery We are living in a time of economic and social revolution, resulting in the withering of old classes and class relations and the emergence of new classes and new class relations. It is a time of the dying away of old ideologies and the rise of new ones taking their place. Revolutionaries, understanding the changes in material conditions, must be the trailblazers, the first to discard the old and grasp the new. This cannot be done without understanding the relationship between the objective and subjective factors of the class struggle. Clarity is especially necessary on the relationship between race and class if we are to maintain a revolutionary orientation in the increasingly complex social struggle. Let us start at the beginning. Random House Dictionary describes as objective those "things external to the mind, rather than the thoughts or feelings;" and the subjective as "that existing in the mind, belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the objective of thought; opposed to objective." If we can agree on this, we can understand racism as an ideological or subjective expression of the objective formation of capitalism. As capitalism consolidated, so did the ideologies that sustained it. None was more important in the United States than racism. The United States, along with a few other countries, such as Australia and South Africa, described themselves as "a white man's country." Thus racism was a pernicious, specific form of the nationalism that swept the world astride victorious capitalism. Racism was the subjective, ideological expression of the objective historical process of capitalist development and consolidation. It was not possible to separate racism from the capitalism we have known. It was an indispensable tactic of controlling the working class. Things change and the capitalism we have known is changing. In a short hundred years, production and distribution has grown from local to national to international. The internationalization and automation of production is the objective base for changing the political or subjective relations between the capitalist and the working class. The capitalist no longer needs to bribe a section of the class. International competition between the workers is striking at the base of racism. A new class of part-time, temporary and minimum- wage workers accompanied by an army of destitute, permanently unemployed is expanding. This new class, abandoned by "their" capitalists, have no need for racism. They are open to education for unity, revolution and a communal, cooperative society. Racism will not die simply because its material base is withering. Ideologies take on a life of their own. Simply being against racism is not enough. A new idea must be introduced to take its place. That new idea is the unity of this new class. This unity is possible. Its material base is the growing equality of poverty and a decline of social bribery. Our moment is at hand. We cannot seize it unless we are clear about the epochal changes we are living through; unless we understand our new revolutionary tasks and have the courage to grasp them. [Excerpts of this article originated in the People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 6 / June, 1999.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 KPFA radio fights for survival as a progressive voice .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 3. KPFA RADIO FIGHTS FOR SURVIVAL AS A PROGRESSIVE VOICE By Steve Z Miller, Cynthia Cuza and Allen Harris For a half century, Berkeley radio station KPFA has been a progressive voice in northern California. It is the nation's oldest listener-supported radio station. For months, its staff and community supporters have fought to keep it that way. In July, KPFA's parent, Pacifica Foundation, locked up the station and prepared to sell it down the river like a slave. A nationwide outcry erupted after KPFA host Dennis Bernstein was forced off the air on July 13 for violating a "gag order" forbidding KPFA from airing Pacifica's dirty laundry in public. In the resulting protests, nearly 100 people were arrested. The drama capped a purge by Pacifica of longtime staffers with an eye toward transforming Pacifica's five stations into corporate-friendly outlets that won't criticize world domination by millionaires and billionaires. The public response in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the nation led to a rally and march by some 4,000 people in Berkeley on July 31 to voice uncompromising opposition to Pacifica and any attempt to sell KPFA. One of the speakers, El Gavilan of "La onda bajita," a KPFA low-rider program, told the rally, "The reason that freedom of speech is in the First Amendment is because without it there is no other freedom." Pacifica Foundation is chaired by Mary Frances Berry, who heads the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. It controls KPFA's license, its frequency (94.1 FM) and transmitter. Because 94.1 is in the middle of the dial in a major market, that wavelength is estimated to be worth up to $75 million. A leaked e-mail, confirmed as authentic, indicated that Pacifica indeed wants to sell KPFA. KPFA has been mainly funded by listeners and operated by paid union workers and volunteers. Pacifica (but not its stations) is about 20 percent funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a federal agency run by a former official of the Voice of America and Radio Marti. Pacifica has hired Disney's public relations firm to try to trick the public with ploys such as "giving back" KPFA to its staff. Jay Imani is a cultural worker, member of the KPFA local advisory board and also of the steering committee representing the KPFA community, staff and listeners. He laid out the people's bottom line. "This is not about 'free speech,' but about the truth in a country of lies," said Imani. "Every struggle is partial struggle until there is complete communal ownership worldwide. But it is important for the revolutionary movement that this struggle is won. There's no way to win a struggle in the U.S. without major media access." "A movement that won't or can't defend its own media can't win," Imani added. "That's why people are fighting so hard. You can't have viable opposition without opposition media. KPFA is the flagship of opposition media. Nobody will give it up without a fight." This struggle grows out of the serious changes occurring in society, when the mass media are rapidly being concentrated in the hands of Disney, Westinghouse, General Electric, Fox, Microsoft, Time-Warner, etc. They hold the power to dominate public opinion and set the public agenda according to their own exclusive interests. This concentration, in tandem with the rise of the police state in America, is a direct threat to the freedom and future of the American people. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ MOVEMENT CONDEMNS ATTACK ON MICRO-POWER RADIO by Mike Thornton Micro-Power radio has become one of the last opportunities for communities to access electronic media and provide community access to the airwaves. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has agreed to look at changing its regulations to provide for a Low Power FM category (LPFM) and since that time the FCC has increased its efforts to shut down Micro-Power stations across the country. In some cases armed SWAT Teams have been used and even stations that have been serving their communities for years, if not decades, have been targeted, including Black Liberation Radio in Illinois and MicroKIND Radio in San Marcos Texas. Since the so-called Tele-communications Reform bill passed, media (especially radio outlets) have been concentrated into fewer and fewer large corporate hands. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has pushed the FCC to shut down as many Micro- Power radio stations as possible. The corporate media in the U.S. and for that matter worldwide want no challenges to their domination of the flow of information. These media conglomerates exist to forward the agenda of the billionaire ruling class and do so by excluding news, voices and stories that go against their interests. The battle for media access takes on added importance as a result of the struggles at the Pacifica Network. The battle between Pacifica Foundation and its flagship station KPFA threatens to bring this bastion of free speech down. This could close access to a very important venue for freedom of communication, making the need for Free Radio even more important! LRNA asks all people of conscience to step forward and demand that the federal government and the NAB cease their attacks on Micro- Radio stations and follow through on regulatory changes that will provide for democratic access to the airwaves. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Speakers on this and other topics are available. Contact Sandra Reid (Speakers for a New America) at 1-800-691-6888 or contact: Mike Thornton, LRNA National Committee, Radio Committee Producer: People's Tribune Radio, 530-265-9462 or 530-265-9045. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 What is the nature of fascism today? .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 4. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF FASCISM TODAY? By Bob Lee [Editor's note: The following article on the nature of fascism today is based on a section of a recent report to the National Committee of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. The report was adopted by the committee in Chicago in April.] Fascism today is the political expression of the concentration of wealth and the spread of poverty based on [the replacement of labor by] electronics. It is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie unrestricted by trappings of bourgeois democracy. There are objective and subjective sides to the development of fascism. The objective side The unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few "megacorporations" and billionaires is the objective foundation for the drive toward fascism and a fascist state. Under the conditions of widespread ownership of property, bourgeois democracy provides the best state form for capitalism to flourish and grow. Under today's conditions, the capitalists cannot allow decisions about their wealth and property to be placed in the hands of a growing class of people with no tie to private property or the capitalist system. A new kind of state and society is needed that will allow the capitalists to expand markets and maximize profits under the conditions of globalization. An expanded apparatus of repression and particularly the increasing role of the military combine with the growing power of the corporations to lay the objective basis for fascism. The dilemma that the U.S. faces in the world today forms part of the objective basis for the drive toward fascism. We can see that the developing world economy and the beginnings of the formation of a world bourgeoisie are coming into conflict with and undermining the dominance of the U.S. in the world. Any solution the U.S. pursues will force it to crack down at home and aggressively impose its will on the world stage. There is no doubt that the U.S. dominates world finance capital, that it controls the array of multinational organizations pushing "free trade" in all corners of the globe, and that it has the military and economic power to impose an economic Pax Americana over the rest of the world. For the U.S. government, implementing national policy means economic globalization under the hegemony of the U.S. At the same time, globalization is undermining that hegemony. While this challenge to U.S. dominance is in its beginning stages and the U.S. is still obviously and extremely powerful, a profound shift is taking place, if still underground, in the world's power relations. One of the many, if more significant signposts in this process is the introduction of the Euro and the economic unification of Europe. Politically, the U.S. cannot simply impose its will as it could in the past, and is increasingly driven to war to do so. Objectively, the U.S. has no way out. Neither militarization and war, nor freer markets and continued expansion of neo-liberal policies, nor protectionism and economic nationalism can solve the dilemma posed by globalization. Every path leads to greater polarization, massive discontent and alienation, and the further development of the proletariat. Of course, the U.S. will not simply give up and get out of the game. Simply because the objective basis is set for the global economy and a world bourgeoisie does not mean that the subjective forces will stop fighting for their interests or what they perceive their interests to be. It will mean, however, that fascism will grow out of the process to implement whatever solution or combination of solutions the U.S. pursues to protect and maintain its position in the world. The subjective side The objective conditions set the parameters, but it's people who make history. To accomplish what they need, the capitalists and the forces they command must rely on the subjective side of the process. The capitalists are not trying to win the American people to fascism per se. Rather, they are cultivating a morality and an ideology among the American people that will tolerate the form of rule the capitalists need. What is the subjective side of the motion toward fascism today? There are the hard-core, openly fascist elements such as the neo- Nazis and the Klan. They are in many ways ideological holdovers from the past period, their roots firmly in the rabid nationalism and race hatred that characterized the fascist movements of previous times. There is also the ideological right -- a complex and heterogeneous grouping -- which has played, and continues to play, an indispensable role in helping to cultivate the ideological environment that has made the rightward shift in politics and society possible. More difficult to conceptualize, perhaps, is the role of the diverse array of propagandists for globalization and the policies that are being used to advance it, such as free-trade neo-liberalism. Profound disagreements among these various subjective elements should not obscure the foundation for fascism that their propaganda is helping to build. The propaganda for globalization, for example, has included the elimination of a government's responsibility to society, the elevation of the rights of private property above everything else, and the expansion of the apparatus of incarceration and extermination. Underlying this has been the relentless efforts to dehumanize all those who "can't make it" and to demonize all those who resist their fate. The propaganda of the ideological right also dehumanizes the poor, fights for "law and order" solutions and advocates replacing government with the reliance on family, church and the individual. Similarly, the overtly fascist groupings echo many of these sentiments, their open anti-government stance feeding suspicion of government and other social institutions. Race and racism historically have been crucial elements of fascist ideology. However, as the material foundation for racism is being eroded by the qualitatively new technology, the connection between race and fascism is breaking down. Of course, color still remains a key tool to manipulate the masses for fascism, and some openly fascist groupings and their "mainstreamed" leaders, such as David Duke, continue to rely upon color as the centerpiece of their propaganda. Other elements do not emphasize color (although of course they might use it in subtle ways). Similarly, we have seen that the promotion of a global economy accompanies no racial distinctions as to who should starve and who should eat. Downplaying color distinctions allows these elements to broaden their message, not only to a certain section of blacks, but to the broad section of whites that do not respond overtly to racist appeals. From different directions and in different forms, the various aspects of the subjective are reaching the huge, diffuse and discontented American masses and sweeping them up into support for fascism, without the American people even realizing it. Left unchallenged, it will be this vision of America that shapes the coming struggles. .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Fighting songs support the people's struggles .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 5. FIGHTING SONGS SUPPORT THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLES By Sarah Menefee When the several-thousand-strong Millions for Mumia marchers poured into San Francisco's Civic Center on April 24, led by the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and other labor and community groups, they were met by the uplifting music and lyrics of Brother Jahahara (harry armstrong), backed by fellow musicians and youthful rappers: Another freedom fighter is threatened with an early grave, but on the streets and in the jails the people will rebel ... Brother Jahahara, who moved from Chicago to the Bay Area four years ago, is a longtime fighter on many fronts, and these daily struggles inform his music: he's a union and community organizer, a West Coast coordinator for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), active in the Jericho Amnesty Movement and in the Black Radical Congress. After speaking at a special League of Revolutionaries for a New America educational about his work in the reparations movement, Brother Jahahara gave me a tape of his powerfully inspiring songs of struggle and liberation: for the political prisoners of the capitalist prison states; for Mumia Abu-Jamal; for Mother Afrika and her scattered children; for "education, freedom and just reparations"; for a working people's party; and finally "Jahahara's Theme, WE'RE GONNA WIN!" These songs -- beautiful, driving, rhythmic, triumphant -- fill the listener with determination and hope, with the spirit to fight on. On keyboard, drums and that most perfect instrument of all, the roused human voice, Brother Jahahara sounds the future we envision as we organize and fight to make it real. This is art grounded in the survival and determination of the most oppressed warriors who have risen out of the dark night of slavery, exploitation, poverty, prison and terror, sounding a vision of justice, equality, humanity, and peace -- for all of us, our best selves and dearest aspirations. "The whole wide world will see our victory." .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Viva la union! .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 6. VIVA LA UNION! By Jose Silva When I got my first job in a factory, I was 17. On my first day on the job, although naive towards the labor system, I found out there were a lot of injustices committed against the workers. When I started working there, I was making minimum wage. Other workers that had been working there for 10 or 15 years were only making $2 above the minimum wage. The majority of workers were Latino immigrants and they were mostly women. One day, there was a problem with the production line. The supervisors came out of their offices like roaring lions, yelling and cursing at all the workers. I was furious, but it seemed that this kind of treatment was acceptable to the workers. It wasn't acceptable to me. I couldn't support the fact that these hard- working workers who were giving their heart in their labor and working 10 to 12 hours a day on only a half-hour break, were subjected to this abuse. I wanted to do something about it. I knew there had to be something that could be done to help the workers, but unfortunately I did not know what to do and other workers wouldn't dare say anything about it. I did not know of any labor laws or workers' rights to help them. The worst thing for me was that when a supervisor was reprimanding a worker the supervisor used me as the interpreter, because I was the only bilingual in the factory. All I could do was just translate. A couple of years later, I found a better-paying job in a factory that was a union shop. A few months after I started working there, I asked a co-worker what is a union and what does the union do for the workers. He did not have the answer I was probably looking for at the time, but he did offer me some advice. He told me in his own words: "Listen kid, this is a good-paying job. In order to preserve this job, stay out of the union and never question your supervisor." I never did agree with that wise man. I continued to ask more questions about the union. When I found out what the union could possibly do for us, the workers, when we became united, that day brought out the revolutionary in me. I knew how to fight tactically for dignity and respect in the workplace. I was willing to take on any abuser from management; I did not care the rank. I was determined to stop injustice. I remembered the words of Emiliano Zapata, "I would rather die on my feet than to live on my knees." I would rather get fired fighting for workers' rights than to accept the idea of injustice in the workplace. A good-paying job is worthless if you are not treated with dignity and respect. Now I am the leader of our workplace, a revolutionary who unconditionally will fight against any injustice committed against any one of our union members. The company calls me a radical, a troublemaker. Let them call me what they want if that is how they wish to interpret my stand for workers' rights; if that is the way they want to acknowledge that under my leadership we will not tolerate any kind of abusive aggression toward the workers. In the end, the unorganized workers only know one thing: It is better to have a union. It's up to the leaders of today to follow the steps of all the revolutionaries that have nailed their names in the pages of history. Revolutionaries who have been fighting for workers' rights since the Industrial Revolution, must continue our struggle to assure the survival and the success of the labor movement. One day, we will prevail. One day, there will be justice and equality for everyone in the workplace. We will bring down the decadent capitalists that treat workers like slaves. But until that day, there will be no peace. Our revolution will live forever and that means all the brave working men and women who fought in this revolution will live forever. .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 No Sweat Campaign .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 7. NO SWEAT CAMPAIGN -- INTERNATIONAL UNITY OF WORKERS AND STUDENTS By Dru Clark We are the workers of tomorrow and we refuse to let this system exploit our working brothers and sisters today. This was the sentiment expressed by some 212 people from 80 different campuses and 30 organizations at the July 1999 United Students Against Sweatshops national conference in Washington DC. (USAS is a cohesive international coalition of campuses and individual students working on anti-sweatshop and licensing Code of Conduct campaigns.) In 1997, Students joined with labor and religious organizations calling for an end to university licensing with corporations that contract sweatshop labor -- the No Sweat campaign, following the 1996 Kathie Lee Gifford sweatshop scandal. Students with workers spells class unity, a danger for the ruling corporate elite. The response of the U.S. government and the garment industry was the U.S. Department of Labor's Fair Labor Association (FLA, pronounced 'flaw'), created in 1998 to address growing public concern over sweatshop labor in this country and abroad. It became clear to both the religious community and the labor movement that the FLA would place the interests of corporations above those of workers. Both groups left the organizing table, leaving the FLA dominated by corporations, the very corporations who are still supposedly under its jurisdiction today. The FLA was never supposed to improve worker conditions or empower workers. It was meant to stifle a movement of class unity between students and workers. In truth, the very elements that make up the FLA charter render it incapable of protecting worker interests. Instead of objective, worker-driven, independent monitoring for sweatshop busting, the charter places its trust in monitoring organizations operated by the corporations themselves (so-called internal monitoring) or external monitoring agencies paid for by the corporations. Under the FLA, companies choose which factories are inspected and warn factories in advance of an inspection. The industry-dominated structure of the administration makes amendment of the charter nearly impossible. Furthermore, there is no procedure for addressing worker complaints. Worker participation is completely neglected. Many students are graduating with undergraduate degrees to find that employment is no longer guaranteed. Temp agencies represent a paradoxical security in unstable job markets, providing employment, but no security for many graduates. Students are beginning to feel the same push from global capitalism that once- secure industrial workers felt from the advent of automation: separation from a society that no longer finds their labor valuable; they too are becoming disposable under the capitalist system. Kathie Lee Gifford, wealthy TV celebrity and icon of upper-class moral integrity, has been exposed as the beneficiary of sweatshop labor. American youth are finding that the very clothes on their backs are made in near-slave conditions. Moral implications have forced the religious community to react. Such conditions make it possible for the birth of a new student movement whose goal is the empowerment of workers, the unemployed and the marginalized to fight a moral battle against economic abuse and corporate corruption. When asked to identify what makes this point in history different from any other, one organizer, Doug, replied, "the race to the bottom due to inequities through development policy. ... We are privy to the most devastating downward spiral of environmental and labor exploitation in the history of the planet." Students today see where they are going in a country where corporations, driven only by the need to expand profits, are allowed to influence what we blasphemously call a "democratic process." They seek more control over their schools and less domination by corporations in their education. Fundamentally, as one organizer expressed it, "there is a structural change because we're creating policy to increase the social responsibility of the businesses that produce our apparel." The impulse toward a structural change of power from the hands of administrators to those of students in solidarity with workers and university communities is clearly revolutionary. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ GOALS OF CONFERENCE The explicit goals of the student campaign are: 1) to bring university standards of ethics in line with students' moral principles; 2) to increase awareness among student and faculty of sweatshop abuse as a national and international issue deserving of their concern; 3) to impose a Code of Conduct on commercial licensing by universities with full disclosure as a strong enforcement mechanism. STUDENTS WILL BE MOBILIZING FOR THE UPCOMING World Trade Organization (WTO) Conference in November to confront the corporate domination of international trade agreements and demand worker rights be codified in these agreements. For background and organizing action strategies contact: United Students Against Sweatshops 1413 K St. NW, 9th Floor Washington DC, 20005 202-347-USSA [as of August 9th] or UNITE! 1710 Broadway New York, NY 10019 tel: 800-23-UNITE fax: 212-765-9541 or www.nlcnet.org www.sweatshopwatch.org www.uniteunion.org www.globalexchange.org .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Progressive physicians, public demand universal health care .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 8. PROGRESSIVE PHYSICIANS, PUBLIC DEMAND UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE By Salvador Sandoval, M.D. On Sunday June 6, a radio program aired nationally which focused on the nation's health care crisis and proposals by the Labor Party to do something about it. Participants on the panel included the widely respected Doctors Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein from the Physicians for a National Health Program; Quentin Young, former president of the 50,000-member American Public Health Association; Kit Costello, president of the California Nurses Association; Dr. Claudia Fagan from Chicago; Tony Mazzochi from the Labor Party; and Cathleen Connors, who spoke on Canada's universal health plan. Many listeners called in to comment from their respective participating radio stations around the country. It was pointed out that the United States spends more money than any other country in the world for health care, and yet 43 million of its people lack health insurance. In fact, the number of uninsured in the United States has been growing at the phenomenal rate of 125,000 per month! The vast majority of Americans want some type of universal health plan. One third want a complete overhaul of the system. Even 56 percent of doctors favor national health insurance. Yet both the Democratic and Republican Parties have ignored this. As Kit Costello pointed out, the two parties have tinkered with half- measures when drastic surgery is required. In fact, as Quentin Young noted, in 1996 the Democratic Party quietly dropped the platform it had adopted in the 1930s calling for a national health insurance plan! What was mentioned by Cathleen Connors and others is that Canada, Britain and other countries achieved their own national health plans precisely due to efforts by their respective independent Labor Parties -- something that has been sorely lacking in the United States until now. Instead we have a situation in this country where for-profit corporations increasingly tell the public and their health-care providers what care will or will not be allowed (to guarantee their profits). They deal with health care as a commodity that can be sold. They speak of "covered lives." They talk of "medical losses" -- meaning money they pay out (that means less profit for them). Obviously, they have a different sense of morality than what most Americans think. When 102,000 Americans die each year because they can't get health care (or received it too late); when we live in a situation where unpaid health-care bills is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy; when even independent, private practice physicians are enrolling in unions to combat mistreatment at the hands of health maintenance organizations, you have a situation ripe for change. The Labor Party means to be a part of this change. That is why it has adopted the "Just Health Care" campaign to form a "Committee of One Million" to call for a national solution built around the principles of its health-care program. Persons interested in obtaining a copy of its Activist Manual for setting up this committee can call 1-888-445-2267 (1-888-44-Labor). .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Did you know that... .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 9. DID YOU KNOW THAT... 'NEW POOR' GROW BY 200 MILLION SINCE 1993 Blaming the Asian financial crisis for worsening poverty across Asia and the world, the World Bank reported that there are now 200 million more people in abject poverty than a decade ago. "Countries that until recently believed they were turning the tide in the fight against poverty are witnessing its re-emergence," World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn said. The number of people worldwide living on less than $1 a day is estimated at 1.5 billion -- up 200 million from 1993, according to the report. (Associated Press, June 3) MAQUILADORA UNION STRUGGLES FOR RIGHTS IN TIJUANA In northern Mexico along the U.S. border, there are capitalist enterprises called maquiladoras where large corporations exploit workers with low wages and poor conditions. The first legally recognized independent labor union among the maquiladoras is called October 6. For the past year it has been on strike against the Han Young factory in Tijuana, where truck chassis are assembled for Hyundai Precision America in San Diego. The authorities in the state of Baja California del Norte declared the strike illegal, but the 15th Circuit Federal Court in Mexicali recognized the strike on April 6. Nonetheless, in May, a special unit of Tijuana police, backed by state police, tore down the October 6 union's red-and-black strike banners and escorted 70 strikebreakers into the Han Young plant. The battle continues. (Politico - The forum for Latino politics, V2-36, May 24) HEPATITIS C RAVAGES PRISONS Hepatitis C has been found among large numbers of prison inmates in Texas, Maryland and California. The disease has infected as many as 42,000 Texas inmates, a rate of 28.6 percent. In Maryland, a recent study found a rate of 30 percent. A 1994 study revealed the rate was 41 percent in California. Four million Americans are believed to have hepatitis C, most of them without knowing it, and 8,000 to 10,000 die from it each year. (New York Times, May 29) .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Spirit: Islam .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 10. SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION: ISLAM by Randy Banks Islam ... the religion of an estimated 1.8 billion people worldwide, is often misunderstood by the people in the U.S. who can benefit from it most. The history and origins of Islam reach deep into the past to that Biblical figure of dynamic fame Abraham and his son Ishmael. Chapters 15 and 16 of the Bible's book of Genesis bring to light the promises that God, Allah in Islam, gave to Abraham. Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, was promised that her seed would be multiplied "exceedingly" and that "it shall not be numbered for [its] multitude." Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and descendent of Ishmael, fulfilled the promise. Yet, not only do Muslims see Islam as the fulfillment of the promise, we see the hope for all things on earth because we know the promises of Allah are true. Being descended from Abraham and his wife's servant was expressed in the life of Muhammad (A.D.570- 632), for he was both prophet of Allah and servant to mankind; and the word Islam, translated into English, means "surrender" to Allah. Before the rise of Islam there was clan/gang wars, the disregard for women and children, unjust dealings among merchants and men of wealth, and the buying and selling of political and legal justice as well as people as servants. Strong drink was the mode of intoxication in those days, resulting in momentary block-outs of the collective ills. Despite the decay and hopelessness and the monumental ills that mirror those in the U.S. today, which can -- and often do -- destroy the spirit, Muhammad answered the calling of Allah, bringing about change after change so rapid that now, more than 1,400 years later, people who read of it are left in awe. Like unto Abraham before him, Muhammad liberated the slave, freed women and children from oppression and degradation, imposed just dealings on merchants and charity upon all, removed servitude of all kinds, set up a rule of law balanced by mercy and justice, prohibited strong drink and replaced it with worship -- all this he did, and more, even though he was unable to read or write. The Qur'an, which is the Holy Book of the Muslims, is the living testament of the development of Islam. Recited to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel, the Qur'an is unique in as much as it stabilized and enhanced past revelations at the same time it provided mankind with knowledge that the scientific community could only validate in the 20th century. Likewise, Islam deals with the nature of people in ways subtle yet profound. One example is community prayers three times a day with rich and poor side by side; everyone sees the conditions of each other and the rich are embarrassed if the divide becomes too great. Another is the month of fasting during the daylight hours for all Muslims who are healthy and of age, this allows everyone to taste hunger once a year and causes Muslims to work toward ending the hunger of others. A third is giving to charity -- this mandate produces a "habit" as well as reduces attachments to wealth and the quest for limitless wealth because the more you have the more you have to part with. These examples are just a few of the hundreds, but in sum, Islam puts each man/woman in the shoes of others so they know well the conditions and being so informed, act to rid or at least reduce those conditions -- what then can be more revolutionary? Although Islam is depicted as an Arabian religion in this and other western nations because Muhammad was an Arabian, the religion has large followings in China, Northern Ireland and Mexico -- as well as elsewhere -- who will disprove that myth. Arabia, though mostly desert, was being invaded by the two great empires in the time of Muhammad -- the Byzantines and Persians. After the death of Muhammad, those two empires began to squeeze Arabia in their expansion efforts, yet their efforts were not realized. With the Muslims numbering from 10 to 30 thousand, they bilaterally vanquished those empires with a speed and effectiveness never heard of before or since. Trade, learning and justice flourished, men who just months before were slaves, were now rulers of vast stretches of land and multitudes of people. The masses of oppressed and exploited under the prior empires began to drink of freedom from the ocean of Islam. Historians, scholars and researchers of later days are confounded by those events and their impact. Nonetheless, the record stands clear -- the faith of the Muslim in Allah is in direct conflict with oppression, exploitation or domination be it by large empires or single individuals. That faith is extended to all. [The author is a Muslim prisoner and educator. Comments and questions can be directed to him at ISP, P.O. Box 41, Michigan City, IN 46360.] .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ****************************************************************** .TOPIC 08-99 Long Roads and Revolution .TEXT ****************************************************************** People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org .BODY ****************************************************************** 11. LONG ROADS AND REVOLUTION A live interview with U. Utah Phillips and Nelson Peery who debate and discuss rebellion, revolution, racism, class unity and how to achieve a cooperative world dedicated to peace and justice. INTERVIEW ON TAPE U. Utah Phillips is a storyteller, songwriter and labor activist whose contributions to folk music are legendary. He has crossed generations with his recording collaborations with the diva of folk-punk-rock music, Ani DiFranco. Nelson Peery is the award-winning author of "Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary" and a founding member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. Send $15 to People's Tribune Speakers Bureau, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654. Or call 1-800-691-6888 to order this three part series on two 60-minute cassettes. Also included is an interview with award-winning author Luis Rodriguez. [This interview on tape was produced by Mike Thornton of Full Logic Reverse at flr@jps.net] .FOOTER ****************************************************************** This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 8/ August, 1999; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: pt@noc.org; http://www.mcs.com/~league Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its readers. ******************************************************************