****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 20 No. 1 / January 4, 1993 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: jdav@igc.org ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ TRIAL AND TERROR -- In Gastonia, North Carolina, members of an elite police night squad recently stood trial for slapping, beating, spraypainting, urinating on and pouring hot coffee on homeless men as they slept in the streets. -- In Los Angeles, the police took a page out of South Africa and used rubber bullets against those distributing handbills in support of the L.A. Four. -- In Detroit, four of the seven cops who fatally beat Malice Green were fired -- _seven weeks_ after their savage crime. Only four of those who participated in the beating have been charged with any crime. None of them have spent one day in jail or posted one nickel of bond! JUSTICE MUST BE DONE! THESE COPS MUST DO THE TIME! SAY NO TO A POLICE STATE IN AMERICA! See stories 2, 4, 5 and 10. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 20 No. 1 / January 4, 1993 To see the article, type a period (dot) followed by the number. Editorial 1. THE EXTERMINATORS News 2. SUPPORT GROWS FOR WELFARE MOM FACING PRISON 3. 7 SPEAK OUT IN SUPPORT OF YVETTE SMITH 4. POLICE HAD NO CASE: JUDGE FREES S.F. HILTON 11 5. JUSTICE FOR MALICE GREEN 6. THE COURAGEOUS BROTHERS OF TRANQUILITY CITY Focus on Pelican Bay 7. A HOUSE OF CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT Culture 8. POEM: UNKILLABLE HEART Columns and features 9. THE REVENGE OF THE RAIN FOREST 10. DEADLY FORCE: NO JOBS, NO LEAFLETS, PLENTY OF RUBBER BULLETS 11. AN OPEN LETTER: THE MOST PROFOUND CRISIS... 12. CALL TO FORM ORGANIZING COMMITTEES... 13. WHY ARE WE POOR? GOVT'S UNEMPLOYMENT DATA IS DISINFORMATION 14. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE ****************************************************************** 1. EDITORIAL: THE EXTERMINATORS Unwilling to employ, feed or house the unemployed and homeless, the government is moving to physically eliminate them. And the cops are champing at the bit. In Gastonia, North Carolina, Charles Davis was punched and kicked by a laughing policeman as he slept next to the Gaston County Courthouse. Benjamin Hannah complained when the cops threw hot cooking oil on him as he slept beneath a bridge. Two months later, he was found shot to death. In Nazi Germany they made the Jews wear yellow stars of David before they sent them to the death camps. In Gastonia the "Eagle Team" sprayed the homeless with fluorescent orange paint. Yet, of three Gastonia cops recently charged in the shocking "abusement for amusement" scandal, only one was convicted of anything stronger than a misdemeanor. And the police chief, who issued orders to 'clear out the homeless' in the first place, goes unpunished. Can justice emerge from the courts? Take a look at Detroit. Already, the cops who killed Malice Green are counting their options. If they lose their bid for a change of venue (to move the trial out of Wayne County), they will be able to appeal any verdict on the grounds that they had already been judged guilty by the city that fired them and couldn't get a fair trial. If the trial is moved out of Detroit, those who sit in judgment will not be from the same streets where Green's killers have been piling up brutality complaints for 25 years. One way or the other, the demand of the people is that these cops, all seven of them, must do time! And the people are showing their determination by keeping up a daily stream of visitors to the street that became Green's bloody grave. At this site they leave paintings, poetry, flowers, photographs and political declarations against police terror. The corner of 23rd and Warren is becoming more than just a memorial; it is a banner of resistance, a symbol of determination that America must not become a police state. For more on the Detroit and L.A. situation, see page 7. ****************************************************************** 2. SUPPORT GROWS FOR WELFARE MOM FACING PRISON By Brooke Heagerty SAN FRANCISCO -- There were just a few people there at first. Gathered on the steps of City Hall to speak out in support of Yvette Smith, an African-American mother of five who faces prison after being convicted of welfare fraud. But as speaker after speaker stepped up to the mike, the crowd began to grow. A contingent of supporters who had walked from their three-day, 24-hour vigil at the Sunnydale housing projects arrived amid shouts of welcome and delight. We vowed to fight on to get the case thrown out against Yvette, to get Sheila's three month old baby back, to take those fifteen houses we've had our eyes on, to go on and on until this country is what it should be, until it belongs truly to us. Yvette Smith's sentencing has been postponed until December 18. For more information call the Low-Income Support Network, (415) 666-3771. ****************************************************************** 3. 7 SPEAK OUT IN SUPPORT OF YVETTE SMITH SAN FRANCISCO -- Sarah Menefee sent us these comments by people attending a support rally for Yvette Smith: "This system thrives on victimization and we are the victims. We walked all the way here, because we're all under attack by those who are going after her." Garr Tavai-Fiatoa, Homes Not Jails "When the government breaks the law, they just get reprimanded, but when you or I break the law for trying to keep a roof over our heads, we get thrown in jail. The system has gone wrong!" Royce Tuiman, Homes Not Jails "The cops have taken my husband and my son. They are telling me it will be a long time before I ever see my baby again. I know what Yvette is going through, trying to keep her family together." Sheila, a homeless Native American woman "We had our Victims No More vigil across the street at election time, then we organized to take over some vacant buildings. We entered a building 18 days ago and plan to stay. Yvette Smith's fight is the same as ours." Mike Cullinan, Homes Not Jails "Pete Wilson needs a scapegoat to justify the millions he raised to promote Prop 165 [the welfare cuts ballot initiative, which the voters defeated]. Yvette Smith is being used as one of those scapegoated." Janna, Women's Action Coalition "What if this happens to you? Yvette Smith is a victim of this society. We have food and shelter out there, we should be able to have that. That money in the welfare system is our money. We were born with the right to food and shelter." Maurice Brown, Tenderloin Self-Help Center "After seeing all this S&L bailouts and all the corruption, we know who is breaking the laws. The rich get all the money, but they don't pay any taxes. I sleep out here in the rain and get kicked. We've got to stand shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, in unity!" Lawrence ****************************************************************** 4. POLICE HAD NO CASE: JUDGE FREES 11 WHO SAT IN LOBBY OF S.F. HILTON By Brooke Heagerty SAN FRANCISCO -- This was not your usual traffic ticket. Eleven of us had been arrested for sitting down and refusing to leave the lobby of the San Francisco Hilton Hotel when we couldn't get in to "join" Governor Pete Wilson at his $500 a plate fundraiser for his Proposition 165 (the welfare cuts initiative that California voters defeated). We figured those fat cats in there should see the faces of who they were condemning to death by these cuts. There were cops everywhere and at least 10 state secret service agents. And they were not gentle in removing us. They tied the handcuffs so tight on Sonja that her hands turned blue, causing nerve damage to her wrist. Others suffered back and neck pain from being dragged out and also severe bruising from the cops dragging them by their arms. We were determined to have our day in court, even if it was traffic court. We elected two women from our group as our lawyers and with the help of the Lawyers Guild, we came up with our defense. On December 3, in a courtroom packed with drivers fighting parking tickets and running red lights, we and our supporters waited for our case to be called. The judge ruled guilty on every case before ours, and soon we were whispering among ourselves that things weren't looking so good, we'd got the hanging judge. When they called one of our names we all went up, supporters too, all crowded around, standing in the aisle, squeezing in around the clerk's desk. And there we stood face-to-face with, not one of the arresting officers, but the guy who wrote out our tickets at the station. First he says we were denied access to the hotel. "That's not true, we walked right in." (We were all proud of how we had fooled the police guarding the hotel). "Why were they denied access?" asked the puzzled judge. "Isn't it a public place?" Even the other people in the courtroom were smiling now. So he said we were making noise and chanting some crazy slogans and we sat down and they told us to leave and we wouldn't, so they arrested us. "Is the arresting officer here?" the judge asked. "Well, uh, no," the cop says, pretty uncomfortable by now. "Case dismissed" says the judge. ****************************************************************** 5. JUSTICE FOR MALICE GREEN STOP POLICE BRUTALITY, TERROR AND MURDER By Yunus Collins DETROIT -- November 5, 1992 was a day that will change the Detroit police department's history once again. It signaled a new and higher level of struggle initiated by seven police officers that participated directly and indirectly in the brutal death of Malice Green. Detroit got a rude awakening; police brutality, terror and murder. Shocked out of their slumber, city officials and politicians, community and religious leaders swiftly began to put into place opportunism, liberalism and fascism to chill the spontaneous response of our alienated and impoverished sisters and brothers who have been confronted and will continue to be confronted with police terrorism. We understand that the law of this land is exploitation and oppression; a legal system that defends and advocates property rights and personal interest over human rights; a legal system designed to protect social and economic reality that, by definition, excludes poor people in particular and the working class in general. We are going to expose the hypocrisy of this system that says on one hand that America is a democracy and on the other institutionalizes high-tech Nazi police tactics against us. We are going to expose and isolate those bankrupt hustling preachers, bootlicking politicians and Urban League povertician types who call on us to pray and have faith in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government through the legal and justice system. It is clear that by their whining and groveling to the media and the power structure that they have no analysis of what is happening and no objective program to move us forward and stop the police brutality, terror and murder on us. Their only concern is to position themselves to receive what comes out of the tail of a donkey or an elephant or to desperately catch the crumbs from their master's table. In spite of the daily process of dehumanization, the nation looks on in anticipation, unity and resistance -- by any means necessary! We have no faith in a system that for 500 years has always schemed on a global scale. And we, especially our youth, are not afraid to fight for revolutionary change! This spontaneous action will not stop or die because of jurisdictional and bureaucratic delays. Justice delayed is justice denied! Failed justice leads to intensified repression. We are calling for: -- All seven officers be charged and dismissed without pay for the murder and failure and neglect of duties and responsibilities to prevent this crime. -- Venue should not be changed. -- The four officers charged must be convicted and serve the maximum sentence. -- Conspiracy and Civil Rights violations must be cited, leading to convictions deserving the maximum sentence Creation of community/civilian police review boards. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Justice for Malice Green, Meeting Every Sunday, 3 p.m., New Trinity of Galilee Church, 3309 W. Hancock (at Tillman) in Detroit. Rally/Speakout at the Murder/Memorial Site, Every Wednesday at, 6 p.m. at Warren and 23rd, in Detroit. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 6. THE COURAGEOUS BROTHERS OF TRANQUILITY CITY We Shall Never Forget Them By Brenda Matthews CHICAGO -- Tranquility City: A place that once existed down by the railroad tracks, inhabited by 22 brothers who had a desire for change. Tranquility City was not that of brownstones with high- rises or a place with small children playing in the streets. Tranquility City was a place located in a desolate area down by the railroad tracks in the city of Chicago, where peace was like that of wheat fields blowing in the summer's wind. Where birds of all kinds chirped with sounds of peace and contentment. Tranquility City was a place filled with love, honor, respect and dignity. The place where residents supported one another. A place where violence and hatred, self-destruction and low self-esteem were not tolerated. A place where ideas and dreams lived in the hearts of 22 brothers. Tranquility City was a place with no running water or electricity, a city made of huts and small wood burning stoves, where the sound of the early morning train was the alarm clock, and the evening train closed the end of another day. Tranquility City no longer exists. Now there are only the memories of what used to be. We shall never forget the courage of 22 brothers who lived down by the railroad tracks, who had a will to live by any means necessary. Tranquility City, the city of peace, love, joy and laughter. Memories, only memories remain of that peaceful place called home for 22 brothers living down by the railroad tracks. ****************************************************************** 7. A HOUSE OF CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT PELICAN BAY PRISON, California -- Pelican Bay Prison should be called "Skeleton Bay Prison" because it's just a great big warehouse to hold bodies. Everyone is pale like a skeleton, from no sun, and most are thin and frail looking from lack of any real exercise or activities. It's heartbreaking to see so many young Chicanos in this pit looking like vampires because they've lost all their brown color, pink around the eyes and most of them with that look on tier face that says "intermediate SHU" (Security Housing Unit). The publicly professed purpose for this prison (modeled after the notorious Marion (Illinois) Federal Penitentiary) was the need to house the worst-of-the-worst, the most hardened, most dangerous, uncontrollable, escape-prone, alleged gang members and associates (quietly added to this list were jailhouse lawyers and those who collaborate with the news media). The reality is that the public has once again been duped into dumping millions upon millions of tax dollars into an already proven failed experiment. The true major purpose of Pelican Bay Prison SHU is to inflict physical and psychological tortures to break the prisoner's mind, body and spirit -- a basic requirement for the brainwashing process -- as follows: -- Upon entering the SHU facility, a prisoner is immediately subjected to being physically apprehended by at least two officers - even though he is already handcuffed behind his back or is in wrist chains, handcuffs and leg chains. He is forcefully handled and ordered to do things which are obviously an excessive exercise of authority, such as being ordered to continue looking up at the ceiling, or to face the wall and not look around, regardless of the fact that his hands are still handcuffed behind his back, that at least two guards hold his handcuffs and arm, and that they have their martial-arts-type batons drawn in an attack position. -- He is then taken to a cell and stripped of all clothing and left totally naked in an empty cell for a number of hours. He will also be stripped of medical appliances, such as eyeglasses, back brace, leg brace, orthopedic shoes, etc. He will receive no receipt for these items, thus making it difficult to file a complaint, and he will be without replacement of such appliances for months. -- He will notice that 99 percent of the officers in the SHU units will have no identifying name tag nor badge exposed, thus making identification by name or badge number virtually impossible for the purpose of filing administrative complaints and/or court civil action. -- Throughout the entire SHU units he will see only walls of gray concrete and walls painted a drab pale blue. Sunlight is a rare privilege. His main and almost exclusive source of light is fluorescent lights burning 24 hours a day. He is not allowed a watch nor access to a clock. -- Temperatures in his cell is a constant 85-90 degrees, even up to 95 degrees at times, 24 hours a day, which causes headaches, nausea, dehydration, a constant unquenchable thirst, irritability, a drain of energy, and basic laziness. The inside of his body always moist with sweat, whether he moves or not. -- The practice of threats and intimidation reinforced by excessive, unnecessary physical force is pervasive. -- The prisoner is notified that he has been sentenced by administrators and guards and/or prisoner informants to an "indeterminate SHU" program, which means he has no expectation of ever being released back into the general prison population (which means for life or until his prison term is completed), usually based on an alleged ex-gang member-turned informant who has been psychologically broken to say anything he believes his controllers might want to hear, whether true or false. -- Prisoners' family members are subject to "complete exclusion" from visiting based on arbitrary, unknown rules. For example, if a prisoner's sister or wife writes another prisoner as a pen pal, boy friend, etc. , and prison officials claim that individual is a gang member or associate, they will, without warning, refuse to let her enter the prison grounds for a visit on grounds that she may be a "gang runner" carrying messages. -- Some prisoners, upon being psychologically tortured to a breaking point, react with violence and are beaten, stripped naked, hog-tied, and left in that condition in the VCU (Violence Control Unit) cells. -- It is a common practice for officers to destroy personal property, such as family photos and TV sets, as a retaliatory measure. If the prisoner complains to his superior, the superior tells him to prove he didn't do it himself and prove an officer did it and decides he's a liar because the officer denies doing anything and then writes him up for making false, slanderous statements, regardless of any witnesses he might have. You may say, "Why don't these prisoners file court action?" You may say "These things are unbelievable; correctional officers, officials, would not and do not condone such atrocities!" Unfortunately, this system is a proven failure and serves only to dehumanize prisoners -- mainly Hispanics, Chicanos, and Mexicans. I'd also say perhaps 98 percent of PBSP employees are white. (This is not to say that all prison employees are corrupt, and sadistic, nor do they all agree with the way things are. Some are very caring, compassionate people, but nevertheless fearful of bucking the system). These claims/facts/allegations must be thoroughly investigated by people on the outside who are not on the law enforcement nor the California Department of Corrections (CDC) payroll. Do not allow yourselves to be supporters unwittingly of such cruel, inhuman treatment of human beings for whose care you maintain the ultimate responsibility. [This story and the letter that follows were excerpted from the newsletter of the Pelican Bay Information Project, 2489 Mission St. Suite 28, San Francisco, California 94110. Tel. 415-821-6545.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ LETTER FROM PRISON (excerpts) Dear Luis Talamantez, Pelican Bay Information Project With much respect, my name is Fred Estrada and I am a prisoner here in Pelican Bay State Prison. Note: On 8-20-92 I was visited by some concerned and caring people out of your project on this prison and was seen by some attorneys out of Fresno. At this time me and 3 inmates have cases in the Northern District Court. Due to the fact that on 11-8-91, cruel and unusual punishment happened to us. My mouth was taped for over an hour. We were forced to walk in the rain just in our boxers, T-shirts and shower slippers over a quarter of a mile. I was assaulted and one of my teeth was broken by a staff member. All of this happened to me when I was chained and handcuffed. Me and two plaintiffs are at this time into discovery in the courts. Take care and keep up the good work. Fred L. Estrada C-85637, DS-113 P.O. Box 7500 Crescent City, California 95532 +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 8. POEM: UNKILLABLE HEART by Sarah Menefee two hundred of them stabbed him hung him burned him and for two bits each sold his bones oh burning heart in the chair of the state yes all strapped in with leg restraints bursting into flame it will be such pain your heart will turn itself inside out as though the winds of the world's turning flayed you today he said weeping is prayer sometimes even as the burning came with the smell of roses even out in the shivering night fortitude that is your birthright thinnest rag separating agony from the joyous light no movement but it limns itself on face and body little child's first joyous staggering past the beggars whose neighborhood this used to be demobilized wandering through the earth two hooks for hands the same old story forever eking our way these days where the rag-and-bone man went and long ago the bird's-nest seller war-phlegm heard at the table behind we want to lay down sick and dream the light falling on us till the fever breaks in a cooling sweat dreamt of a nailhole through the throat stigmata of some long revolt an insurrection in the falling rain inasmuch as the young counterboy's eyed looked unfocussed and blurred and all I cared was my appetite someone has come by the table and snatched a piece of the breaded skin then a woman asked for what was left and the biscuit heel remember the one in the center of things some sacrificial act and the tiny clot of a heart held up love has always one foot planted in that terrible ground the mass embrace of Jonestown around us we will not let our limbs and heads be chopped off we have survived and will survive down in the frozen rags of the dead of night those who have least are the sharers have divided the bitter crusts amongst themselves unkillable heart of cooperation ****************************************************************** 9. THE REVENGE OF THE RAIN FOREST By Steve Miller AIDS is neither the first nor the deadliest new virus to come out of the rain forests. In the last 25 years, new viruses have begun appearing in the human beings who have never been seen before. Many of these new diseases are lethal with no vaccine and no cure. All are poorly understood by science -- but they are spread by the economics of exploitation. These new viruses have names like Dengue, Junin, Lassa and Machupo. They are named for the location where they first broke out. One of the deadliest is Ebola, named after the river in Zaire where it first broke out in 1975. The disease begins with a blinding headache that soon becomes a relentless fever. Then the complications begin. The virus causes the blood to clot, rupturing tissues and leading to bleeding from all orifices. Your eyes bleed; your intestines fill with blood. As the brain begins to go, the victims develop a characteristic zombie expression. Some go insane. Eighty nine percent of the victims die within about a week. Of all diseases only rabies and AIDS kill at a greater rate. The virus is spread by all body fluids. Those who handle the bodies are almost always infected. When Ebola broke out in the Bumba Zone of Zaire, the army sealed off the region. All transportation in or out was halted. European capitals, with regular flights into the country, went into a panic. The disease ran its course. The only reason that Ebola didn't cause a huge epidemic is that it kills people before they can spread it. Emerging viruses are viruses that are just now entering the human gene pool. They probably are not newly formed viruses. Most likely they have existed for thousands of years in tiny, isolated jungle locations like a single cave or along the bank of a small stream. Rain forests are the greatest reservoir of living species anywhere on the planet. Each species is infected by at least several different viruses. Viruses are notoriously capable of jumping from species to species in the U.S. Feline leukemia virus crossed from cats into dogs in the 1970s. The explosion of one of these viruses into a large city like Rio de Janeiro or New York is an accident waiting to happen. The cholera epidemic that erupted in Lima, Peru and which is spreading across the Americas is just a preview. During the Vietnam War the lethal Hataan virus was first described. Now a Hataan virus relative infects the rats of Baltimore and Philadelphia. As far as we know it has not caused a human epidemic. No one knows why. No one knows how it got there in the first place. One thing we do know, however, is that these viruses, like many diseases, are spread by the diseased social system of capitalism. In most tropical countries over half the people cannot find work. International corporations hire them to systematically clear the rain forests for wood, minerals and cattle production to make fast-food hamburgers. The viruses have always been there, but the isolation is over. As the workers clear the jungle they come into contact with the rodents, ticks, and insects that can transmit the viruses. The viruses are carried out of the forests, first to expose the work camps. People fly from these camps to cities around the world on a daily basis. Capitalism is providing new meaning to the old ad, "I'd die for a hamburger." Capitalism also has created the perfect conditions for the explosive spread of disease. The world's cities contain millions of hungry, unemployed, impoverished people with no medical care. What little money that was spent in the past on public sanitation and public health is being eliminated. Drinking water and sewer water regularly combine. These factors combine to create a huge pool of people with damaged immune systems that live in close contact with each other and with infectious diseases. Already new and deadly forms of tuberculosis are sweeping the homeless shelters and hospitals of the U.S. This is a disease we have some understanding of and which we have cured in the past. But capitalism thrives on the poverty that spreads the disease. The economics of private profit are the economics of disease. If one of the lethal emerging viruses gets into a large city, it could spread around the world before the first people begin to die. Capitalism is completely incapable of halting its spread. Capitalism has already shown itself to be incompatible with life on this planet. Now the survival of the human race depends on its overthrow. ****************************************************************** 10. DEADLY FORCE: NO JOBS, NO LEAFLETS, BUT PLENTY OF RUBBER BULLETS +----------------------------------------------------------------+ "Deadly Force" is a weekly column dedicated to exposing the scope of police terror in the United States. We open our pages to you, the front line fighters against brutality and deadly force. Send us eyewitness accounts, clippings, press releases, appeals for support, letters, photos, opinions and all other information relating to this life and death fight. Send them to People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Ill. 60654, or call (312) 486- 3551. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ LOS ANGELES -- Everyone knows that police attacked the rally at Florence and Normandie, setting off another conflict. But take a minute to count up the rights we've lost since the Rodney King case, because that's why they did it. -- BAIL. The L.A. Four each got half a million dollars bail while King's LAPD attackers got only $5,000. The L.A. 4 have been locked up for months while Sgt. Stacey Koon is out selling his new book. -- ATTORNEY. Damian Williams' attorneys now admit trying to sabotage his case for the feds. And now, the district attorney admits that one of their lawyers leaked information on the King case to the cops' lawyers! -- FREE SPEECH. The violence on December 14 started when cops arrested people for passing out flyers. There hadn't been any violence at the other rallies, so how could the LAPD take away this basic American right? -- PERSONAL SAFETY. The Metro squad opened fire on people with its new rubber bullets. This is a weapon used in South Africa and Northern Ireland against the movement for justice. The system is taking these steps to create a new kind of America, where people can't fight back. And not only against police abuse. What if you lose your job unfairly? What if the city redevelops your community, taking away your home? These things happen every day in L.A.'s working class neighborhoods. If we let them get away with Monday's attack, we're like the Germans who woke up to find Nazis in control. Here, they hit blacks first, then move on to the immigrant, the homeless, the unemployed of all colors. FREE THE L.A. FOUR! PROSECUTE COPS WHO BEAT RODNEY KING! The above is from a People's Tribune flyer. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Call 1-900-990-5085 Ext. 866 for update on trial of the L.A. 4. $2.00 per minute. Under 18 years of age need parent's permission. All proceeds go toward bail for the L.A. 4. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 11. AN OPEN LETTER The most profound crisis since the Civil War racks our country and its people. The change from industrial to post-modern, high-tech production has transformed productive industrial areas of the country into vast rust belts of permanent unemployment and hopeless poverty. A section of the working class, forced out of the factories, is compelled to take two and sometimes three minimum-wage jobs to survive. They are pushed further and further down as robotics and computerized production invade sector after sector of the economy. These new forms of production have already created a growing class of propertyless, unemployable people. Because they can no longer produce wealth, they are abandoned by the ruling class. Drugs, homelessness, hunger and the slaughter of our youth daily express this abandonment and the destruction of our living standards. These are not problems caused by recession. They express the political, social, economic and cultural crisis of the capitalist system. The profound changes in the means of production are destroying the underpinnings of our means of existence. Our country and its peoples have entered a general crisis. >From individual acts of resistance to the massive uprising in Los Angeles, the people are fighting to maintain their humanity and social worth. The struggle of the masses in defense of their very lives is on the verge of an uprising in every city. In turn, the police have become an occupying force, a law unto themselves, threatening to assume state power. The ruling class is turning from social control through bribery and deceit backed by terror to social control by naked, unbridled police terror supported by bribery and deceit. A new form of fascism threatens the people. New revolutionary opportunity and great new dangers have arisen side by side. A system that cannot feed, house and clothe the people ought to be and will be overthrown. We are facing this moment of historic truth without an organization structured to educate, organize and finally lead the masses in the inevitable transformation of our society. The social foundations of the traditional movements have crumbled. Robotics, computers and the new destitute class they have created have laid the foundation for a new movement. All serious people must recognize this fact. We, the undersigned, are veterans in the struggle of the people within the shops and the mass movement against poverty and its consequences. We earnestly call upon every person seriously involved in the fight for a democratic, peaceful and prosperous future for our country and its diverse people to think this over. We believe this crisis calls for new thinking and new forms of organization. The future belongs to those who prepare. Are we capable of fighting our way to the dawning of a new day? Or will we, in our disorganization and disorientation, accept the terror of the darkness they have prepared for us? In Struggle, Marian Kramer General Baker +----------------------------------------------------------------+ MARIAN KRAMER -- Currently President of National Welfare Rights Union and Co-President of National Up and Out of Poverty Now! Campaign. Civil Rights Movement organizer, staff member of West Central Organization, member of National Welfare Rights Organization, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, National Anti-Hunger Coalition. GENERAL BAKER -- Currently a member of UAW Local 600. Past president of the Coke Oven Blast Furnace Unit of UAW Local 600, one of the founders and leaders of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 12. CALL TO FORM ORGANIZING COMMITTEES... ...TO ESTABLISH AN ORGANIZATION TO EDUCATE, ORGANIZE, AND FINALLY LEAD THE MASSES IN THE INEVITABLE TRANSFORMATION OF OUR SOCIETY Sisters and brothers, The American people are under attack! Our communities are under siege. In the cities, the rural areas and the reservations from Selma to Watts, conditions are all the same. Jobs are minimum wage and factories continue to close. Unemployment benefits are a joke and welfare benefits can't feed our children or pay our rent. Some of us are forced to live in the streets like animals. Our communities are flooded with drugs and alcohol. Our children have no future. The police arrest, beat and kill us. The politicians and their political parties don't represent us. They are tied by a thousand threads to the real estate developers, the banks, the rich, the powerful and the rest of the capitalist class. A system that cannot feed, clothe and house its people does not deserve to continue to exist. We can and must organize to replace it. How? By preparing the people to take this country from the exploiters and run it in our interest. This calls for a national organization that will: * Root itself among the oppressed, the exploited, the homeless and the hungry of all colors and nationalities. * Develop a national long-range vision, strategy and plan for victory. * Educate the people on the situation we face, who the enemy is and how to fight. * Coordinate the varied scattered fights so that we can have an impact. * Build a structure that is in line with our local and national needs. * Develop the tools necessary to win: publications, schools, cadre, etc. This organization would be made up of the leaders of our scattered fights; those who want to develop a national analysis, strategy and resources; those unwilling to compromise with a system of exploitation, hunger and misery; those who want to win. Having discussed the Open Letter written by Marian Kramer and General Baker, we, the undersigned, call upon all who understand this need to join us and form Organizing Committees to establish an organization of revolutionaries. In the spirit of Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Joaquin Murrietta, Chief Crazy Horse, Lucy Parsons, Albert Parsons, Malcolm X and others too numerous to mention, we make this call. Abdul Alkalimat Nacho Gonzalez Ethel Long-Scott John Slaughter Leona Smith ****************************************************************** 13. WHY ARE WE POOR? Government's unemployment data is disinformation By Bruce E. Parry, Ph.D. The government purposely publishes figures that makes the unemployment situation look better than it is. The government publishes eight different measures of unemployment. These range from U-1, counting the fewest as unemployed, to U-7, counting the most. The government publishes U-5a, the one in the middle. But U-7 is more revealing. It counts many people that U-5a does not, such as: -- all those looking for full-time jobs; -- half those looking for part-time jobs; -- half those working part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work; and -- discouraged workers (those who have given up looking because there are no jobs). The chart compares the published data with the more realistic U-7 measure. _Dis_information is when someone purposely lies to deceive their enemies. The government unemployment data is disinformation to deceive poor and working people. ****************************************************************** 14. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, published weekly 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 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 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: Lenny Brody 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 bundles of papers to: PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE P.O. Box 3524 Chicago, IL 60654 Respond via e-mail to jdav@igc.org GETTING THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE IN PRINT The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is available at many locations nationwide. One year subscriptions $25 ($35 institutions), bulk orders of 5 or more 15 cents each, single copies 25 cents. Contact PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, P. O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654, tel. (312) 486- 3551. WRITING FOR THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE We want your story in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. Send it in! Articles should be shorter than 300 words, written to be easily understood, and signed. (Use a pen name if you prefer.) Include a phone number for questions. Contact PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, P. O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654, tel. (312) 486-3551. ****************************************************************** We encourage reproduction and use of all articles except those copyrighted. Please credit the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on donations from its readers -- your generosity is appreciated. ****************************************************************** d 1 p