From jdav@noc.org Mon Jun 3 14:36:04 1996 Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 15:28 GMT From: Jim Davis To: pt.dist@noc.org Subject: People's Tribune (6-96) Online Edition ****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 23 No. 7 / June, 1996 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: pt@noc.org ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is now available on the World Wide Web at http://www.mcs.com/~jdav/league.html +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 23 No. 7 / June, 1996 Page One 1. LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND! Editorial 2. WHY CUT WELFARE AT ALL? Spirit of the Revolution 3. [S]HE THAT WINNETH SOULS IS WISE News and Features 4. LABOR GROUP GIVES LESSON IN HOW TO FIGHT: BILL TO GUT OSHA STOPPED -- FOR NOW 5. LIBERATION RADIO: READY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! 6. RE: THE POLICE: MUST'VE READ MY MIND ... 7. CORNELL STUDENTS' HUNGER STRIKE PROTESTS PROPOSED HOUSING POLICY 8. TO HAVE A JUST AMERICA, WE WOMEN MUST BUILD IT 9. STAND FOR THE CHILDREN 10. HOW THE STEEL IS TEMPERED -- GARY, INDIANA: THE MAKING OF AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES Focus on America in crisis: Leaders speak out 11. REVOLUTIONARIES MUST EDUCATE OUR CLASS! 12. LRNA WELCOMES FOUNDING OF LABOR PARTY 13. PROGRAM OF THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA 14. LPA ORGANIZER TELLS WHY LABOR PARTY IS NEEDED 15. AMERICA IN CRISIS: LEADERS SPEAK OUT American Lockdown 16. ELECTRONIC SLAVERY GROWING IN PRISONS 17. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE ****************************************************************** 1. PAGE 1: LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND! Every day in this country ... * 95 babies die * 2,660 babies are born into poverty * 2,833 children drop out of school * 6,042 children are arrested * 8,493 children are reported abused or neglected. THESE ARE OUR CHILDREN! It is up to every moral and decent person to change the way things are going. This society is organized to protect the $16 million salary of AT&T's chairman. It is organized to protect the $1.6 million in pay raises for corporate chief executives. It is not organized to protect the well-being of our children. Society is not being destroyed by "declining family values." Our children and families are being destroyed by a system dedicated to protecting a wealthy elite. It is up to us to fight for a society that uses its vast wealth for the spiritual, physical and intellectual health of our children. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ STAND FOR CHILDREN The People's Tribune supports Stand For Children Day, when thousands will rally at the Lincoln Memorial June 1. The theme of the event is "Leave No Child Behind!" See story 9 +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 2. EDITORIAL: WHY CUT WELFARE AT ALL? President Clinton suggested May 18 that he is prepared to give the state of Wisconsin a federal waiver to allow an ominous welfare "reform" bill signed recently by Gov. Tommy Thompson. The New York Times reported that in signing the bill, Thompson said, "From now on, the only check someone in Wisconsin is entitled to is the one they earn through hard work." This cruel legislation would abolish the federal guarantee of cash assistance for poor children and replace it with wage subsidies for single mothers who work. President Clinton said the plan would give people the "dignity of earning a paycheck, not a welfare check." Rev. Quentin Meracle, chairman of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee told the New York Times he fears that the bill will lead families into deeper poverty. The Interfaith Conference had asked the Clinton administration to hold a hearing on this plan before approving it. We agree with Rev. Meracle. Pressure from millions of Americans is needed, and needed now. President Clinton has already issued waivers giving two-thirds of the states the opportunity to test new welfare approaches. The result? So far 15 states have time limit restrictions allowing people only two to five years on welfare. After that, no more assistance. A Connecticut mother and her 16-month-old daughter had their check reduced from $523 to $443. They have $1.60 left at the beginning of the month. This is the direction things are heading, whether a federal welfare reform bill passes or not. The welfare debate has been raging since the last presidential campaign when President Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it." Although Clinton vetoed the Republicans' proposed welfare reform package (which would have given federal welfare money to the states as block grants, effectively ending Aid to Families with Dependent Children), he did so only after public pressure was brought to bear. While the Republican proposal is indeed worse than Clinton's, the underlying premise behind both is the same: that people are on welfare because they're too lazy to work. This blame-the-victim mentality is behind the "welfare-to-work" proposals. The question is, where are the jobs going to come from? Linda March, a young white woman living in a southern town suffering from plant shut- downs, told the Chicago Tribune: "Everyone talks about getting mothers off of welfare -- but how can you do that if the jobs get taken away?" It is becoming clear that today's welfare mom is the scapegoat for society's ills. But the real target of "welfare reform" is the new wave of "middle" Americans like Ms. March who are being downsized out of the labor pool. The capitalist system will not provide a safety net to laborers that it no longer needs. What can be done? America has such an abundance of wealth, of food, clothing and shelter, that to even talk about making a single cut is criminal. Leaders in every community are pointing the way by demanding that the Democratic Party reject welfare "reform" proposals that harm human lives. Putting this kind of pressure on the Democrats is part of the struggle to build a new system that is based on people's needs rather than private profit. Pressuring the Democrats may win the people some concessions. It will certainly educate all of us as to whose side the Democrats are really on. But we are certain of one thing: Real reform will come when every man, woman and child in America has the right to the same quality of life as the billionaires who own this country. It is these billionaires who are, incidentally, the ones who truly are on welfare. ****************************************************************** 3. [S]HE THAT WINNETH SOULS IS WISE Editor's note: Below we print the latest contribution to our regular column about spirituality and revolution. We encourage readers to submit articles to this column and to comment on what appears here. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise. -- Proverbs 11:30 By Rosemary Williams Once, when I was 12 years old, I met a woman who would change my life forever. In Salina, Kansas, we lived next door to an older woman. She was alone and had no family, so all the children in the neighborhood became her children. She was an activist. Mrs. Clark had lived most of her life fighting for one cause or another, but her main battle was helping the poor break the chains of poverty. All of us kids would gather around on her porch and listen to her revolutionary stories. They were fascinating. What we didn't know at that time (and would not comprehend until much later) is that Mrs. Clark was gathering souls for the battle she knew would eventually come. Every Saturday on her porch we would listen and learn, little knowing that all we absorbed from her storytelling we would need to use in our adult lives. One morning, all the kids in the neighborhood gathered, as usual, on the porch, waiting eagerly for our discourse. To our disappointment, Mrs. Clark did not come out. We went home, saddened at heart, to our parents' dismay. We were crushed. We had begun to flourish, we thought, as little activists. Since she had no family, it took us several days to realize that Mrs. Clark had died in her sleep. At her funeral, we child activists of the neighborhood sat in the family section of the church service, representing her family. Mrs. Clark was a righteous person and we were the fruit of her tree of life. She had won our revolutionary souls. Today -- and I'm sure it's the same with the other kids -- every fight that I undertake keeps her in my thoughts. When I look at the news and read the daily papers, poverty, homelessness, violence, sickness and death seem to be the order of the day. A new class is forming. These are the people Mrs. Clark would have joined up with. Poor people have always been the victims of the capitalist, and as such have been ignored as pawns or lost souls, if you will. When I was a little girl, I learned from Mrs. Clark. Now I am with The League of Revolutionaries for a New America. The League has given a new purpose to many of those victims, members of our new class. In the verse above from the Book of Proverbs, I equate the LRNA to the righteous gathering fruit for the tree of life. We are fighting a battle, a battle for the freedom to live the kind of life which allows us to enjoy the very simple things: shelter, clothing, food and health care. Freedom that will keep our children from suffering such degradations as malnutrition and homelessness. Every army needs soldiers and, as the verse suggests, he that winneth souls is wise. Each new soul becomes fruit on the Tree of Life. If we lead by the path that Jesus set forth, we cannot fail. Jesus was a modest man who, through love and example, gathered souls to follow him towards the path of righteousness. He in his infinite wisdom knew that a revolution was forthcoming, a revolution that would enrich the lives of all who followed him and lived by his example. Simple souls that long after he was gone continued to preach his word and gather fruit. My vision and desire, through The League of Revolutionaries for a New America, is to lead by Jesus' example. I want to be like the Mrs. Clark I knew and the millions like her. I pray that many of you will share the dream of the Tree of Life. We must, however, understand that it won't be easy. Like Jesus, we will have our share of stumbling blocks and even a few Judases along the way. But Christ had a vision and so must we. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." (Revelation 21:1) As we go from place to place spreading the gospel, let us leave an uplifting message for all who would join us. If we lift our voices to the sky, we can make a difference if we try! +----------------------------------------------------------------+ SISTER DIANNA ORTIZ'S HUNGER STRIKE FOR TRUTH By Luis J. Rodriguez WASHINGTON D.C. -- A late night spring breeze chilled the small gathering in front of the White House here at the edges of Lafayette Park. Several poets on April 30 were on hand to pay homage to the 21-hour-a-day vigil and hunger strike by Sister Dianna Ortiz. Sister Ortiz was in her fifth week of the silent vigil and second week of her hunger strike when Claribel Alegria, Martin Espada, Demetria Martinez and myself came to read poetry around 11 p.m. Also reading was Alicia Partnoy, a poet and professor presently exiled in the nation's capitol after being tortured in her homeland of Argentina. Sister Ortiz was kidnapped, tortured and raped in Guatemala in 1989. Human rights activists have been pressing the Clinton administration to investigate this and other repressive acts by the Guatemalan military. These activists have charged that some of the violence may have been with the complicity of U.S. intelligence agencies. Sister Ortiz, for example, has made statements that her torture was witnessed by an American operative in Guatemala who called himself "Alejandro" (although he had an American accent). A sign near where Sister Ortiz has been since the vigil began says "Who is Alejandro?" The 37-year-old Ursuline nun is seeking release of files gathered by federal agencies following an investigation into her case last year. So far, these files have not been provided. "I say enough is enough! I demand that the U.S. government stop playing games and stop toying with the lives of people. Give me and the people of Guatemala the TRUTH! We have a right to know the TRUTH," Sister Ortiz recently said in a statement dated April 22, 1996. Earlier the poets gave a reading at the National Museum of American History; we arrived soon after to support Sister Ortiz's struggle for justice and truth. All of the poets have been active in social justice issues for years. In fact, in the late 1980s, Demetria Martinez was indicted by the government -- and later acquitted -- for her efforts in defending sanctuary refugees from Central America. Poetry is about truth. Sometimes this has been forgotten in this country, where poetry is highly marginalized (or, perhaps that's why poetry is relegated to a fringe position among the arts). But as poets we are obligated to express the truth at whatever costs. More poets and journalists have been killed around the world trying to get the truth out than have police officers in the line of duty in this country. I was honored to read to Sister Ortiz and her many supporters. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 4. LABOR GROUP GIVES LESSON IN HOW TO FIGHT: BILL TO GUT OSHA STOPPED -- FOR NOW By R. Lee PHILADELPHIA -- Across the country, those lucky enough to still have jobs know from their own experience that the employers' drive for more efficiency and higher profits can make the workplace more dangerous. That's why battle lines were drawn last year when Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-North Carolina), introduced a bill (H.R. 1834) that would have stripped the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration of its ability to enforce workplace safety laws. But Ballenger, who hails from the state where 25 workers were killed in the 1991 Imperial Foods fire, withdrew his business- backed bill in March after coming under intense pressure from a national campaign led by organized labor. And Jim Moran, executive director of the Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health (PhilaPOSH), feels his organization contributed much to the victory. "We felt Ballenger's bill would injure, maim and kill plenty of workers," Moran told the People's Tribune. "So although there was a campaign nationally -- the AFL-CIO had their own petition drive going on, and the 28 Coalitions on Occupational Safety and Health around the country were doing some work on it -- we felt it needed a shot in the arm," said Moran. The "shot in the arm" took the form of a "wanted" poster with Ballenger's picture on it, declaring that the congressman was wanted "for conspiracy to maim, injure and kill American workers." There was also a button and a petition to go with the poster. The head of OSHA, Joseph Dear, sported one of the 250 buttons sold at an American Public Health Association convention in California last October. That was the last straw for Ballenger, who chairs a work force protections subcommittee. He launched an investigation of PhilaPOSH, the APHA and the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Project, trying to find out if they received any federal grant money. "Obviously he was out to hurt us," said Moran. But PhilaPOSH, a 21-year-old non-profit organization supported by 150 unions, didn't have any federal grants. Ballenger also demanded (and got) an apology from Joe Dear. The conflict got headlines earlier this year. By March 19, Ballenger withdrew the bill. Moran doesn't think PhilaPOSH's "wanted" campaign was solely responsible for killing Ballenger's bill, "but we do think it was probably what pushed it over the edge. It drew him out," Moran said. Moran cautions, however, that only a battle has been won. Ballenger has submitted a new OSHA bill. It doesn't gut OSHA the way H.R. 1834 would have, but still contains some dangerous provisions, and PhilaPOSH is fighting it. And a version of H.R. 1834 is still alive in the Senate, though it seems unlikely to go anywhere for now. Some in the labor movement criticize tactics like the wanted poster, Moran noted. But, he said, "When people are out to hurt you, you have to do something more than write a letter to your congressman. We have to expose these guys more and call them what they are, and not be afraid that we were impolite. They're coming at us with tanks and we got peashooters." Moran is also the chair of the Philadelphia area chapter of Labor Party Advocates. The LPA is holding the founding convention of the Labor Party of the United States June 6 in Cleveland. Moran said workers must have their own party because they are not represented by the Democrats or Republicans. Moran is committed to building a labor party, he said, because there are "120 million workers and their families without a voice. The bulk of society is voiceless." He also said the trade unions must do more to politically educate and mobilize their members, and must deal with "a social agenda" and not just focus on wages and benefits. Organized labor has been short-sighted in not more strongly embracing the homeless and unemployed, said Moran. "They're our people," he said. Recalling with bitterness the story of an injured worker who was fired and then "went home and blew his brains out," Moran talked about the widespread anger and frustration that is fueling people's desire to be politically independent from the powers that be. "People are looking for alternatives," he said. "The wound is deeper and the response has to be sharper." ****************************************************************** 5. LIBERATION RADIO: READY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! By Ritmo Dog OAKLAND, California -- A micro-power radio station can fit inside a shoe box and costs less than $1,000. A 20-watt transmitter can broadcast over a radius of four to eight miles. Since the broadcast area is small, there's room for dozens of stations on the band. Scan the FM dial for an empty frequency; then tune your transmitter to it and take it over. Add a small mixer or set a microphone near your speakers, and you are on the air! The same microelectronic technology that is driving the Internet is democratizing radio. Anyone can make a cassette tape to have their message broadcast in their community. A roving DJ armed with a cellular phone can interview anyone. Their voices can be heard instantly! They can say whatever they want -- it's free! The federal government says that it's also illegal. Since 1978, the Federal Communications Commission has held that any AM or FM transmitter under 100 watts is illegal. (A small, licensed station costs almost $100,000 to start -- and broadcasts only what corporate America wants you to hear.) Free Radio Berkeley is now challenging the constitutionality of this. Micro-technology can guarantee your signal is as clean and stable as possible. This deprives the FCC of many of its arguments against pirate radio. Now hundreds of pirate stations are springing up like mushrooms. Rush Limbaugh has one voice; through micro-radio, we can raise thousands. This is how to drown out the capitalist-inspired hate radio. Micro-power radio stations give a voice to the voiceless and pump up the volume for the victims. Let everyone tell their story! Break the blackout that keeps the real issues off the air! Now is the time to give every community a voice. Every gang should have a station; let every housing project broadcast; let every immigrant group tell its story! Every homeless camp, community action group, and prisoner's family should be on the air! Where else can you hear the voices of street poets, rappers, homeless people, punkers, activists, and many more? Stations that recognize the calling to become real community radio stations should put everyone on the air. Let's publicize every incident of police brutality, judicial tyranny and landlord abuse. Make sure everyone who has the same problem hooks up with each other. Let's provide a forum for every form of music and culture that can rally our peoples. Let's advocate unity, no more privilege, a New America based on co-operation that truly has "liberty and justice for all." Every day, the war on the poor is justified by a corrupt national media. We can counter these lies with the rich, vibrant, incredible, natural expressions of communities. So get a few people together and get started. If you build it, they will come! Many community radio stations are uniting around a few principles: * Form a core of people who will guarantee the station. Agree to a mission statement, and publicize it. Everyone owns the station. Everyone is accountable for what goes out. Individuals are responsible to weekly meetings. * No hate messages allowed! * Set time aside for community interviews, "Rappers' Showcases," "Community Voices," and programs on which anyone can sing, talk, or argue for their cause. Prime listening times are 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Make these the community hours. [Find out how you can get started today! Contact a pirate station near you, or call Free Radio Berkeley at 510-464-3041, or send e-mail to Free Radio Berkeley at frbspd@crl.com] ****************************************************************** 6. RE: THE POLICE: MUST'VE READ MY MIND ... By Joe CHICAGO -- I'm debating whether or not to call up here to the 15th District police station and set up a meeting with Commander O'Shields about the ill behavior of a couple of officers. I'm having second thoughts because I'm gonna feel like an idiot telling him shit he has got to already know. Perhaps he doesn't know every small detail, but procedures are so far from where they should be that he has to know something. Two black female officers stopped me and some friends for making a U-turn we never made, tore up the car searching for drugs which we "must have gotten" when we "jumped out of the car" on a street we never even stopped on. A couple of us laughed as one of the officers tried to sell her fabrication to two other officers just showing up on the scene. She asked me if I saw anything funny and kicked me in the jewels. She never read me my rights (nor has any other cop). She never told me why she stopped us. (I found out after I was released). She never told me what I was charged with. (She told another officer she never does). After spending the night in jail, I went up front to file a complaint and more police did their best to discourage me. I can't stand a cop. Cops lie, cheat, steal and plant evidence and this is what I tell my children. That "Officer Friendly" shit is wack. Maybe he exists somewhere, but in the ghetto we call him "Officer Frisk Me." No gang member, dope fiend or prostitute has ever done as much wrong to me and my people as police have. That "just doing my job" shit didn't fly with me. Things must change. The community must be able to trust the police. Think about it. If a police pulls behind you while you're driving, do you feel secure? Probably not. My stomach drops and I get a sinking feeling. An officer's priority cannot be to go out there and get as many arrests as possible. Instead, he must align himself with and gain the respect of the community. Not respect from fear (please don't make me go there), but true respect that comes from admiration of a job well done. The police force could be cut in half and still do twice the job because they're being helped by and not fighting against the community. I know the community pays the police, but I question who they work for. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ SCARLET By H.B. Cool Scarlet. Red. Anger! Blood shot blood clot Blood spilled by the impact of buck shots Blood bath laugh as you witness the Vast mutilations of your terminators and predators Editors call for it. The world calls for it. Violence! Violence! Silence Why ain't nobody talking Why ain't nobody walking With that gangsta strut, that soul strut Or that pimp strut Utopia? Huh. I must be dreaming I need to be pinched And awakened back to the reality that Makes me flinch I am trapped! In this scarlet's web. Struggling to break loose from the poisonous bites Of the tarantulas black & white Yellow polka-dotted or spotted Antagonist who tries to stop the scarlet That flows in the web of my veins from Flowing The spark that glows in the middle of my Brain from glowing Bloodthirsty TV Break that nigga jaw Mike Savagery You wanna see him But you wouldn't wanna be him The Caesars are entertained The world is the Coliseum Blood drops from the club of a West Side Cop Somalia Cape Cod pray to your god That this madness stop. Hatred replaced my love in twofold My ancestors' blood is on the gold That you flaunt Let the foul acts of your predecessors Return to haunt Your conscience and heal the world So we can restore the love back in The web. And the red can be as Beautiful as a rose. Passionate fiery Scarlet. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 7. CORNELL STUDENTS' HUNGER STRIKE PROTESTS PROPOSED HOUSING POLICY By Jesse Kupers ITHACA, New York-- At 6:00 a.m. on April 26, 1996, 14 Cornell University students declared a hunger strike. The hunger strike was declared to demand that the voting date by the Board of Trustees on the administration's new program house policy be postponed until October. The new program house policy was formally announced to the Cornell community on March 27, 1996. Under the plans offered in the policy, freshmen will be phased out from program houses within a five to seven year span. In addition, if the policy is implemented a moratorium on new theme or program houses will be set in place. The combination of the hunger strike, faculty rally, student rallies, a sit-in on campus roads, alumni support, letters and e-mail messages from around the country and intense negotiations, caused the administration to concede a number of revisions. These victories, combined with impending final examinations, prompted the ending of the strike on Friday, May 2, 1996. We, the hunger strikers, have not achieved all of our goals, most notably the request to postpone the vote, but we are pleased with the relative success of the strike. We are extremely distressed that it required many rallies, demonstrations, letters, a petition and a 14-person, eight-day hunger strike to get this administration to listen to us. This is extremely distressing as our primary responsibility as students is supposed to be to learn. The president's proposal is a blatant attack on our rights as citizens of the United States. We have the right to vote, to die for our country and to choose our institution of higher learning, yet Rawlings posits that we should not have the right to choose where to live. The Constitution guarantees us the right to choose, which has been defended by the Supreme Court, yet in a public school, that is being infringed upon. It is distressing, that in 1996, we are still required to fight to defend our constitutional rights. It is equally distressing, that in our school, which we pay to attend, the students are required to starve to be heard. The students and alumni will remain vigilant of the actions taken by this administration. We commit to fight, by any means necessary, any future infringement on our rights as students, as people and as citizens. This is our institution and we refuse to be ignored and dismissed in it. ****************************************************************** 8. TO HAVE A JUST AMERICA, WE WOMEN MUST BUILD IT By Ethel Long-Scott OAKLAND, California -- There is a sleeping giant awakening in cities across this land, and that is a New Women's Movement for economic security and justice now. Every day, more good jobs are lost while downsizing continues to produce unprecedented profits for the few in the corporations and for the politicians who do their bidding. >From the tens of millions who are destitute or part-time employed and at risk, or the hidden poor in the suburbs, there is a new social movement awakening. To help nurture this new women's movement, we must have the courage to fight for an America dedicated to stopping the government theft of the children of poor women, where all people can thrive and not simply survive. This budding movement, grounded in the causes of the new class of poor women and poor families, must not only annihilate hate-sponsored actions from the right but dedicate ourselves to new bridges across class, race and gender lines. Today it's all of us or none of us. We intend to avenge the deaths of the children of the poor from random street violence, from death in firetrap housing, and from beatings by the police. This is a movement that recognizes that we are building a nation of economic refugees, and we need a new vision and a new leadership. Our aim is not simply to stop the downsizing in the public sector because to the power that be, industrial capitalism no longer needs us. Nor is it simply to stop the waste of our youth, thrown away and criminalized by this system. Nor is it either to stop the waste of poor women left to die of disease, hunger and abuse. Our aim is a movement to build bridges to a new, just and humane future. We are on the move and we won't turn back. Women, this includes liberating that e-mail from the Newt Libertarians, the coalition of the Right, and the double-dealing Democrats. We must build a new America where all people can live in dignity. [Ethel Long-Scott is executive director of the Women's Economic Agenda Project in Oakland, California.] ****************************************************************** 9. STAND FOR THE CHILDREN 1832 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20009 Tel.: 1-800-233-1200 June 1, 1996 Lincoln Memorial Washington, D.C. Dear Friend of Children, We are living in an incredible moral moment in history. What you and I stand for now -- on the eve of a new millennium, in this last national election year of the century -- will shape our nation's fate and our children's future. What an opportunity we hold in our hands as parents, citizens, and community leaders to help ensure that no child is left behind! It is time to ask the moral question: Does America truly value children? Every parent, citizen, and leader must stand up for children not just with words but with work; not just with promises but with leadership and investment in children's health, education, and nutrition and families' economic security; not just with a speech or a photo opportunity but with sustained positive commitment to improving the quality of life of our children. This is why we have called for a national day of commitment to and for children at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on June 1, 1996. If you are struggling to raise a child but know you could do better, come stand with us. If you are a young or middle-income family working hard to make ends meet despite declining wages and economic insecurity, come stand with us. If you are troubled by the pollution of our airwaves, air, food, water, earth, and our children's values, come stand with us. If you are worrying about whether your children's schools are preparing them for the 21st century and whether there will be a job in their future, come stand with us. If you are anxious that your children will get sick and not get decent medical care because you lack health insurance, come stand with us. If you are lying awake nights concerned about your children's safety in a country where 211 million guns are in circulation and random violence is pervasive, come stand with us. If you've had enough of political leaders from all parties using children as political props and pawns and talking about family values while not supporting what families need to raise healthy, safe, moral, and educated children, come stand with us. It is within our power to make the June 1 Stand For Children Day a turning point for our nation's children. With your help, we will challenge families, religious, cultural, business, and government leaders, and citizens to work harder to improve our children's health, safety, school readiness, and quality of life in communities across America. And we will hold our leaders to the same high standard of caring for children to which we hold ourselves. Each of us must be the change we seek for our children. Thank you for taking a Stand For Children. We have a huge task ahead of us and a short time to accomplish it, but we must build a great day on June 1. Our children are depending on us. In faith, Marian Wright Edelman ****************************************************************** 10. HOW THE STEEL IS TEMPERED GARY, INDIANA: THE MAKING OF AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES 'Empowerment is to know why you're poor. If you know the problem, you walk with a different attitude.' -- Karen, a resident of Gary, Indiana GARY, Indiana -- Cheryl, Yolanda and Karen -- three survivors of the Rust Belt region -- tell us how this society has gone from the American Dream to the American Nightmare. They are fighting for the survival of their city, their communities, their families and their children. We chose not to print their last names because Cheryl's, Yolanda's and Karen's stories represent everyone who once was a member of the "middle class" and has been pushed off the bottom of the economic ladder. Their beautiful faces are a snapshot of the multi-ethnic tapestry that is America. Cheryl, an Anglo/Cherokee woman, is in her early thirties. She emits warmth and gentleness. The fire in her eyes shows the resolution of a warrior. Karen is an African American woman in her thirties. She has a smile that can light up any room. And then there's Yolanda, a beautiful Chicana who knows what's needed for the times. "Revolution," Cheryl heard her say in one of their classes. They speak from the ruins of their city, Gary, Indiana. Gary, the city, was an afterthought to its founders. What came first was the plans to build Gary Works, the largest and most modern steel works of its time. Gary was built in 1906 by U.S. investors to house the hundreds of thousands of steel workers needed to keep the blast furnaces going. This was an epoch when the sweat and muscle power of the tens of millions was indispensable to U.S. industry. Today Gary's skies still glow with the crimson flare-ups of the blast furnaces. But new and improved ways of producing steel need fewer and fewer workers, resulting in the lay-off of thousands of workers since the 1980s. Yet productivity is higher. Today Gary Works produces more steel with only one-fourth of its previous labor force. This has meant a reduction of its labor force from 30,000 to 7,000. As we drove around Gary it was plain that something awful had happened here. Broadway, the main street in downtown Gary, is lined with boarded-up, dilapidated and abandoned store buildings that once thrived with shoppers. Cheryl tells us, "It wasn't always like this. That building used to be Sears, the other one JC Penney, and that one Goldblatt's." Yolanda represents the third generation of steel workers in her family. "My grandfather came in 1919 from Texas. I was the first woman to work in the mill," she said proudly. Then she added: "And the last one." Yolanda worked at Inland Steel from 1977 to 1991. She was 21 then. "When I got hired you could tell by the check number how many employees they had. They had close to 20,000 in Inland. When I got laid off in 1991, they had 13,000 employees. Now they have about 6,000." As a steel worker earning $45,000 a year, she was part of the American dream. After being laid off, she got a job earning $16,000. She bluntly summarizes in three words her difficulties from having her income fall by two-thirds. "I went bankrupt." Cheryl adds, "You see a lot of cynicism out here. We've grown up learning not to expect too much out of the world. We need to overcome that. The only way I can see that happening is through education. People need to understand politics better. What is happening to them. Things get taken from people so gradually. It's scary to wake up and know that everything you have worked for could be gone." Cheryl speaks from firsthand experience. She lost everything when her husband was laid off from the mill. On her 21st birthday, they came and repossessed her car. Cheryl asked us to talk to her brother Jim because "he's a good example of all the young men in Gary." Jim told the People's Tribune of the hardships of "finding a decent job with so many places folding." So, he went into the military and served in the Gulf War. He told us that many of his buddies are ill as a result of it and that somehow all their medical records have disappeared. "I work at a job now where I could get killed every week." He works as a millwright. "Big industry wants to go back to paying 20 cents a day. The people that run this country want to get rid of all the technical trades and have people working at McDonald's. They don't realize that you can't maintain a decent lifestyle on these wages and buy consumer goods." Jim's comments are part of the landscape changing in America. Karen, who tended bar and now is a full-time student, adds to the description of this new landscape. "The changes that took place in these boom towns have changed our thinking. I was born when the steel mills were blooming. My grandfather worked and retired from the steel mill. "There was a time, in my high school days, when every young man who didn't go to college had a job in a mill. That was guaranteed. Some of them started working in the mill in their junior year of high school," she recalled. "Within 10 years, the mills laid off 50,000 people," Karen added. This was tragic to a county whose population was 116,000, of whom 93,000 are African American. The same population as Gary. "It got depressing." said Karen. "I remember this woman that came to where I worked, asking me to please help her get out of this mood. I knew that what she was looking for in a drink wasn't there." Eventually Karen began getting involved. "Some friends asked me to come to a community meeting. I began learning that I wasn't poor because of me. There was some other reason. This organization encouraged me to go to school. "I now know that information is power. To me what's empowering is to know why you're poor. If you know the problem, you walk with a different attitude. "Empowerment comes in stages and if you can't believe in yourself, then you can't believe you can make change. I believe all Americans want change. "We have to start at the bare necessities -- teaching people [that] the road to empowerment is to understand themselves. So that they can understand they are not the problem." [Laura Garcia is editor of the People's Tribune. Sandra Reid, coordinator of the People's Tribune Women's Desk and of the Speakers Bureau, contributed to this article.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ BACKGROUND TO BLOODSHED: INDIANA STEEL DEATHS REFLECT NATIONWIDE SLAUGHTER By Anthony D. Prince CHICAGO -- We all had nicknames at U.S. Steel South Works, back when I was there, names like "Crazy Joe" Lulich, Earl "Peanuts" DePass, "Baggy Drawers," "Shadow" Greziak and "No-Talkin' Tony," a millwright who lost his vocal chords to cancer. As for me, I was christened "'SweePea" by a happy-go-lucky laborer named Louie Benavides. One day a faulty desulphurizer valve released magnesium aluminum which ignited to 7,000 degrees when it reached a ladle of molten iron nearby. The resulting fireball fell on Louie, incinerating over 90 percent of his body. He languished in a hospital burn unit for five months until he finally succumbed to infection and pneumonia. He left a wife and two kids behind. He was 27 years old. I thought about Louie Benavides recently when I heard that three men had been blown to smithereens March 27 in a pressure tank explosion at Portage, Indiana's Beta Steel Corp. Four days later, an iron leak at #13 blast furnace at nearby USX Gary Works produced a blast that severely burned three steelworkers. Then, the very next week, as management raced to repair #13, yet another worker was fatally scalded by superheated steam and debris that burst from the ruptured furnace wall. At the end of the same month, on April 28, union members across the country marked Workers Memorial Day at a time when 51,000 people a year -- 141 Americans per day -- are dying from occupational accidents and disease. Here in a corner of the country where 117,000 men and women once belonged to the United Steelworkers of America, where existed the greatest concentration of steel production in the world, times have changed. Today, less than 29,000 remain in the ranks of the USWA. High-tech "mini-mills" like Beta Steel dot a landscape marked with the boarded-up homes of jobless workers and the deserted streets of once-bustling business districts. More steel is made here today by fewer workers than at any time in history and the application of high-tech (which, in the right hands, could make things safer) is instead directly endangering the lives of those still "lucky" enough to be employed. In the case of the March 27 explosion at Beta Steel, it isn't hard to see the drive for maximum profits behind the burnt and broken bodies. Since the first coil of sheet steel rolled off the line in 1994, Beta has been cited by Indiana OSHA 31 times. As for the Gary Works, U.S. Steel has been fined $319,000 in safety violations in the last six years, including citations for two deaths in 1992 and one in 1994. I spent many years as safety chairman at the South (Chicago) Works, now reduced to rubble. I saw more death and injury than I can ever forget and I learned first-hand that as long as the profit motive reigns supreme, as long as the mills exist for the private fortunes of the owners instead of for the common good, people are going to die needlessly. That's the lesson of the recent carnage in Northwest Indiana, a lesson I learned from a guy who once gave me a new name. Now, for him, and for the Louie Benavideses who continue to fall, we need to fight for a new day. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ MILLRAT Face pinched against light, out from metallic jaws of Bethlehem. Millrat, in mill grime, and mill stink, off from the vampire shift. Into the ancient fender-flapping Ford. Onto semi-crammed crossroads. To wave to his kids as he passes the bus stop. To set his thermos on the porch, drag trash to the curb. To drop twelve-pound steel-toes at the door, peck the wife goodbye. To relish his quiet sanctuary, and god-given fights to the remote. To bask in the glory of cars, boat, house, wife, and kids. Blinking, In false consciousness. In safe suburban sleep. Living for vacations, pensions, and insurance. The pursuer of the American Dream. The dreamer; a dead man walking. -- Cheryl +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 11. REVOLUTIONARIES MUST EDUCATE OUR CLASS! "Why are you, a healthy young man, begging?" asks our revolutionary friend. "I ain't a beggar. They downsized the factory and I lost my job. I can't find another one. We need a revolution in this country," answers the new member of the new class of unemployed. "And you can't find another job?" asks the revolutionary, believing he had found a brother in the movement. "The Mexicans got 'em. We need to close the border and give the jobs to Americans." "Is that what you're going to vote for?" "I can't vote because I don't have an address. But if I could, I'd vote for someone who'd beef up the Border Patrol -- and also, we need to get rid of that affirmative action. Then I could get what's due me." At that point, our revolutionary friend, totally teed off, turns and walks away. The conversation is fictitious, but what the jobless young man says in it closely reflects the sentiments being expressed publicly by many distressed Americans in this election year. The revolutionary who walked away because he didn't like what he heard also responded in an all too common manner. The point of the story is that we revolutionaries are dealing with a growing mass of people who, shoved out of the economy, instinctively grope for a revolutionary solution to permanent unemployment. But their thinking is stuck in the muck of yesteryear and does not reflect the new situation. Old, reactionary ideas won't disappear until they are replaced with something new. It's a new ballgame and revolutionaries cannot win by walking away. Can this new class be re-educated? Of course it can, and it must! They were "educated" to be loyal to the ruling class, and they were paid for that loyalty. All that has changed. The ruling class no longer has an interest in them. We have to show them the contradiction between what they have been taught and what they today are demanding in order to live. How do we go about this teaching? We must proceed from what the people themselves are demanding. We can and must teach society the obvious truth that if production is without wages, then distribution must be without money and according to need. This country belongs to the people. They have the right and obligation to run it in their own interests. Either they will take it over and change the system entirely or they will starve, freeze or die from the diseases that the present rulers will not cure. The task of revolutionaries is to educate. -- The League of Revolutionaries for a New America ****************************************************************** 12. LRNA WELCOMES FOUNDING OF LABOR PARTY 'Nothing can be done without independence' [Editor's note: Below we print a statement sent to the convention called by the group Labor Party Advocates for the purpose of founding a labor party in this country. The convention will meet in Cleveland on June 6-9.] Congratulations and greetings to your founding convention. The obscene concentration of wealth on one side and utter poverty on the other is stirring the sense of justice that has moved the American people throughout their history. Nothing can be done without political independence from those who rule over us. Now is the time to prepare for future battles. Millions of Americans are ready to take the next step to fight for their actual interests. The founding of your party will give them an important way to do that. We congratulate you on the success of your efforts and on your contribution to the political awakening of the American people. In the spirit of putting many hands on this big task, we offer to you the pages of our national press, the People's Tribune and the Tribuno del Pueblo, to publicize your goals and activities to our diverse and active readership. Sincerely, General Baker Chair, Steering Committee, League of Revolutionaries for a New America ****************************************************************** 13. PROGRAM OF THE LEAGUE OF REVOLUTIONARIES FOR A NEW AMERICA This is an era of revolutionary change. For the first time in history, humankind can produce such abundance that society can be free from hunger, homelessness and backbreaking labor. The only thing standing in the way is this system of exploitation and injustice. The struggle today for homes, education, health care, freedom from police terror is the beginning of a revolution for a better world, economically, culturally and spiritually. The League of Revolutionaries for a New America takes as its mission the political awakening of the American people. We invite all who see that there's a problem and are ready to do something about it to join with us. With our organized strength, we will liberate the thinking of the American people and unleash their energy. We will win them to the cause for which they are already fighting. We will excite the American people with a vision of a world of plenty. Electronic technology provides better, cheaper and more products with less and less labor. Society now has the capacity to devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the material, intellectual, emotional and cultural needs of all. We will educate the people of this country about the economic revolution that's disrupting society. Every day, the new electronic technology throws thousands -- laborers and managers alike -- out of their jobs. Their labor is worthless to a system that values only what it can exploit. If they cannot work, they cannot eat. Radical changes in the way a society produces its wealth call for radical changes in how that society is organized. We will sound the alarm about the danger of a police state. The capitalist class cannot convince the American people to believe in their system while they are starving and freezing them and destroying their hopes and dreams. Their answer to the destruction of society is a police state. Their government takes away constitutional rights and gives back terror and prisons. They attempt to disarm the victims of capitalism by turning them against one another. We will inspire our people with the alternative to a police state: a society organized for the benefit of all. A society built on cooperation puts the physical, environmental, cultural and spiritual well-being of its people above the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. When the class which has no place in the capitalist system seizes control of all productive property and transforms it into public property, it can reorganize society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. We will empower the American people with the understanding of their role in striving for this new society and with the confidence that it's possible to win. The struggle of those who have no stake in this system carries the energy to overturn it. The League of Revolutionaries for a New America is an organization based on the aims of these millions of people. We are an organization of revolutionaries. Our members come from all walks of life. We are in the thick of battle on every front. From within housing takeovers and protests, universities and hospitals, courtrooms and prisons, factories, sweatshops and fields, from within each of the scattered battles, from wherever there is poverty and injustice, we take this message out to politicize and organize the revolution that is already shaking up this country. We call on you to join us in crusading for this cause. ****************************************************************** 14. LPA ORGANIZER TELLS WHY LABOR PARTY IS NEEDED By R. Lee The People's Tribune recently interviewed Tony Mazzocchi -- a presidential assistant at the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union who is also an organizer for Labor Party Advocates (LPA) -- regarding the upcoming Labor Party founding convention scheduled for June 6-9 in Cleveland. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Could you give us a brief history of LPA leading up to the convention? TONY MAZZOCCHI: It first started in late 1989, when I conducted extensive polling of our (OCAW) members as to their political attitudes. Twenty percent of them responded, which was a very good response, and 55 percent of the respondents maintained that the two major parties represent corporate interests rather than working people's interests. The same percentage said they would like to see some political alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. Subsequently, about 90 other unions conducted similar polling and got the same results. By late 1990 we had a group together, and in January 1991 we created the LPA to see if there was a critical mass in the country that would support the creation of a labor party. In August 1991, OCAW adopted a resolution directing the union to pursue it, utilizing union resources for the effort. We had a message that resonated, a critical mass was there, it came together and the convention is a result of that. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: You've been doing a lot of traveling the last few years, haven't you, promoting the idea of a labor party? TONY MAZZOCCHI: I've been the most active of the organizers. As a practical matter, I've had the mobility to link diverse groups. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Why is a labor party needed at this time? TONY MAZZOCCHI: The two major parties don't represent working people's interests. And by working people I mean both the employed and unemployed. Look around. Everyone is on a slippery slope. We've been in downward mobility since 1972. Americans now feel their children will be worse off than them. The capital flight, the migration of good jobs out of the nation, the creation of triple job holders -- all these things have galvanized people around the notion that we need a political alternative. The emergence of the Perots and Buchanans is an indication of the alienation and frustration out there. We hope to capture that alienation and frustration with an organization that addresses people's needs and doesn't divide them, but unites them around a common program. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: What will be the result of the convention, the product? TONY MAZZOCCHI: There will be a program, a constitution that dictates how we operate, and shortly after that, based on a structure that will be developed, we'll be organizing for post- convention activity. It will be a program that will redefine the agenda in terms of working people, that changes the nature of the national debate. And we will try to intrude a few issues into the presidential elections. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: It will not be an electoral party, immediately? TONY MAZZOCCHI: We're not ready for that. Redefining the agenda is critical right now. We're dealing with a corporate agenda, and both parties are dancing to that tune. Nuances are the only difference between them. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: What do you say to people who argue that Clinton and the Democrats are the lesser of two evils and a labor party will merely sap the Democrats' strength? TONY MAZZOCCHI: If we're non-electoral, we're not interfering with people's electoral work. We're not at all involved in electoral activity. We're a party in formation. Many of our participants will be working electorally. Nobody who supports LPA is told to do anything different in the electoral arena. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: How do you intend to go about redefining the agenda, changing the terms of the debate? TONY MAZZOCCHI: That should be left to those who will become part of a permanent structure. They'll be instructed to develop strategies, and we're confident those strategies will be effective. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Do you envision an organizational structure with local chapters and so on? TONY MAZZOCCHI: A constitution will be proposed which will allow for state, county and city organizations, down to the precinct level. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: How many delegates are you expecting? TONY MAZZOCCHI: We'll have about 1,200 delegates, either elected by local LPA chapters or trade unions. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: Will the Labor Party be primarily aimed at the trade union movement, or are you looking at a broader audience? TONY MAZZOCCHI: We're looking at a much broader audience and agenda. Organizing among the unions was a tactic; there are people, resources and skills there. But we're aiming at the broader American community. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: What are your thoughts on what the content of the party's program should be? TONY MAZZOCCHI: That should be left to be debated at the convention. It will be an amalgam of what a whole lot of people think. We've been sifting through the results of educationals that we've had all over the U.S. A sampling of these will be the basis for the proposed program that will be presented and debated at the convention. ****************************************************************** 15. AMERICA IN CRISIS: LEADERS SPEAK OUT [Editor's note: The polls show a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with both the Democratic and Republican parties, and are looking for political alternatives. This search for political independence from the powers that be is expressed in the efforts of a number of organizations and individuals. The People's Tribune recently asked a variety of leaders from across the country -- writers, organizers, activists, historians, labor and religious leaders -- to offer their views on the drive for political independence. Below are excerpts of their remarks.] +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The People's Tribune asked: 'A lot of people are dissatisfied with the Democrats and Republicans. Consequently, there are a lot of efforts for political independence as an alternative to these parties. What do you think of such efforts?' +----------------------------------------------------------------+ HELEN PREJEAN, C.S.J., writer, lecturer, community organizer, and author of _Dead Man Walking_: Part of me knows that we need a more people-oriented justice party. I'm for any movement of people. People need to connect, in neighborhoods, in churches, across class and race. What allows the politicians to get away with what they do is we are separated from each other. Poor people, white, black, middle class, have more in common with the poor than with the rich that are siphoning off everything and pitting us against one another. I'm for the awakening that is happening. I'm for coalition building with churches, people's congresses, the religious community, etc., using the power to influence whatever institutions exist, including parties. We can't abandon any institution to organize something pure. We have to present the face of Christianity in a way that challenges the right. We're summoning the religious community to get involved in this fight. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ LEONA SMITH, president of the National Union of the Homeless: It's about time. Indeed there's a connection between labor and homeless people, unemployed people, underemployed and the working class that is part of labor and the labor movement; once the jobs dwindle, they're looking at homelessness and lack of housing and they lose membership. The Homeless Union has always taken the position that the labor movement has to understand the relationship between them and us; a lot of the membership said "that's not me" because their jobs were so secure, but with cuts, technology displacing people, it's time that we unify ourselves. Whether Democrat or Republican, today it doesn't matter because they're both corrupt. They're not for the poor people, so for us we have to begin to not be fearful of the challenge and begin to run our own party. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ NOEL BEASLEY, Midwest Regional Joint Board, Union of Needle Trades Industrial and Textile Employees: Since the early 1980s, the Midwest Region of UNITE (formerly ACTWU) has been on record as favoring the formation of a workers' party. The overwhelming majority of our leadership, reflecting the sentiments of our members, have become thoroughly disillusioned with the Democratic Party and are angered by the Contract on America unilaterally imposed by the Republican Party. There are only a relative handful of politicians at the national level who speak on behalf of the working class, and they are treated by members of their own party as mavericks and outcasts. The frustration and legitimate fears of workers are being pushed into current political contests because all candidates feel the certain signs of a coming storm. Many will seek to manipulate the workers, but a new group of political leaders must and will emerge and represent the marginally employed and the unemployed. These leaders will speak words not only of anger and fear of the present, but of hope and faith in a future that can be achieved by redesigning and rebuilding an economic structure that now leaves countless innocent people standing at its doorstep. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ LUIS J. RODRIGUEZ, poet, writer and activist, and author of _Always Running_: The leadership in this country -- whether Democrat or Republican -- is missing the essence of these revolutionary times. It's a time for a new vision: one that takes into account the vast abundance and technological prowess this country has at its disposal -- for peace, for equity, for justice and economic freedom. Study and inquiry is required to sustain such a vision. New leadership with a new vision; this is what we need today. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ HOWARD ZINN, author and historian (excerpt from an April 1996 interview with Calvin Simons, used with permission): The Democratic and Republican parties today are both parties that are very closely connected with corporate wealth, they both have the same fundamental foreign policy, they both support enormous military budgets and only differ in small ways on how much social spending there should be to take care of human needs in this country, and that has become more and more glaring. ... How do we distribute our national wealth rationally and justly? How do we take the $265 billion in the military budget and adapt it for human needs? How do we change the tax structure so that we take back the trillion dollars or so that went to the upper one per cent of the population as a result of what they call "tax reform" in the last 15 years? How do we take that huge sum of money and use it for all of those things we claim we don't have money for? +----------------------------------------------------------------+ MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, noted journalist, author and prisoner on Death Row in Pennsylvania: Wherever you look today, perhaps especially in the field of journalism, you will find men and women who gained entree to the profession during the ferment of the '60s, under the aegis of this or that progressive, conscious movement. These were, for the most part, socially conscious men and women, and they were often seeking change, revolution -- call it what you will. Now, 30 years later, they've become nothing more than apologists and defenders of the system. The system is one of repression, isolation, and increasing self- created domestic terrorism. Our country is tilting dangerously toward totalitarianism: It is a time of grave portent. Yet it is also a time of great potential and opportunity. Which way the scales will tip depends on the choices each of us make; on our readiness and willingness to speak out. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE MOST REV. THOMAS J. GUMBLETON, Catholic bishop of Detroit: I think such efforts are important. I'm not sure how successful they will be, but we have to find some way to respond to the situation where, for many people, there doesn't seem to be a difference between the two parties. If each party could be more faithful to its own roots and history, we might begin to have two truly distinct parties as we did in the past. Our economic policy and our policy on foreign military intervention are two areas where there hasn't been enough difference between the parties over the last 20-30 years, in my opinion. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ RUTH WILLIAMS, director of Preserve Low-Income Affordable Housing Now, and a member of the National Welfare Rights Union: Today an unwed mother under 18 no longer gets subsidized public housing for herself and her child. This is another way of killing our children, another form of a holocaust. Thousands of families of all races are being attacked. It's time for this to stop. There's more of us than them. When they say there's no food, we have to go to the supermarkets in the thousands and say, "I got this, I'll pay you when I can," and walk out the door. When they say no homes, we need to take those homes and put our children in them. When they say no health care, we need to crowd into the hospitals. We need to do this across the country in large numbers. As far as I'm concerned, there's no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Clinton is trying to show that he is doing something, but then he gives the Republicans what they want. I agree we need to form our own party -- but it has to be made up of the masses, the doctors and nurses losing their jobs, the newspaper reporters losing theirs, the children on aid, the college students -- to fight this. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ SPEAKERS HELP SPREAD NEW IDEAS ACROSS AMERICA People's Tribune and Tribuno del Pueblo speakers cross the country with a message about the possibilities of building a new America. In the past several months, our speakers have reached more than 62 million people in the United States and around the world! Luis Rodriguez, poet and author, appeared on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" (1 million). Marian Kramer, co-chair of the National Welfare Rights Union spoke at the Women's Expo '96, which was carried on C-SPAN (61 million). Nelson Peery, author and revolutionary, has been featured in the Chicago Reader newspaper (circulation of 130,000) and was a guest on Chicago radio station WVON (audience of 70,000). Leona Smith, president of National Homeless Union, addressed the "Fight the Right!" march in San Francisco (50,000 strong). Ethel Long-Scott, executive director of the Women's Economic Agenda Project, was a guest on the Northern California radio station KPFA (audience of 100,000) and also addressed the "Fight the Right!" march. Send for a free brochure of all of our speakers. Call the People's Tribune Speakers Bureau at 312-486-3551 or contact us by e-mail at speakers@noc.com. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 16. ELECTRONIC SLAVERY GROWING IN PRISONS By Steven Miller OAKLAND, California -- In March, California voters passed Proposition 194. This measure amends the state constitution to deny unemployment benefits to prisoners. The change indicates that electronic slavery in the prisons is the wave of the future. Since 1990, 30 states have legalized the contracting-out of prisoners to work for private corporations. Most of this labor is based on new, electronic technology. Prisoners now do data entry and information processing, make circuit boards, and handle a variety of telemarketing chores (such as arranging hotel and travel reservations). They also test blood, slaughter ostriches for gourmet markets, and make blue jeans marketed by prisons as "gangsta blues." Some states actually pay prisoners the minimum wage. They then deduct 80 percent of the wages for room and board. Prison officials brag that many prisoners now pay up to $6,000 a year for the "rent" of their cells! San Quentin, California's largest prison, is now filled to 200 percent of capacity. Laws were changed to put two prisoners into the 4-foot-by-10-foot cell originally designed for one. Working is one way for a prisoner to get out of that cell for a few hours a day. It also provides a little money each month for "extras" like decent food. California is in the middle of the largest prison-building boom in history. It is criminalizing its population faster than any government anywhere. Sixty percent of the state's prisoners are in for two non-violent crimes: possession of drugs or violation of probation. This is a captive labor market without rights, ideal for super-exploitation. Cutting off unemployment benefits for prison employment is one more way to guarantee profits. Prison building will bankrupt the state. Why should California pay $36,000 a year to house a prisoner when the state pays practically nothing to care for people on the outside? Capitalism has always proclaimed from the rooftops that if you do not work, you will not eat. The current experiments in electronic slavery are designed to make prisons profitable. What an irony! There's no work for people on the outside (due to electronics), so they are criminalized, then put to work using high technology inside prisons! But both unemployment and prison slavery exist because society is organized for the benefit of a few corporations, rather than for the people. Let's just get rid of this kind of private profit -- and the prison walls -- and turn the high technology loose for everyone's benefit. [Some material for this article was taken from the January 29, 1996 edition of The Nation.] ****************************************************************** 17. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, published every two weeks in Chicago, is devoted to the proposition that an economic system which can't or won't feed, clothe and house its people ought to be and will be changed. To that end, this paper is a tribune of the people. It is the voice of the millions struggling for survival. It strives to educate politically those millions on the basis of their own experience. It is a tribune to bring them together, to create a vision of a better world, and a strategy to achieve it. Join us! Editor: Laura Garcia Publisher: League of Revolutionaries for a New America, P.O. Box 477113, Chicago, IL 60647 (312) 486-0028 ISSN# 1081-4787 For free electronic subscription, email: pt.dist-request@noc.org To help support the production and distribution of the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, please send donations, letters, articles, photos, graphics and requests for information, subscriptions and requests for bundles of papers to: PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE P.O. Box 3524 Chicago, IL 60654 pt@noc.org Reach us by phone: Chicago: (312) 486-3551 Atlanta: (404) 242-2380 Baltimore: (410) 467-4769 Detroit: (313) 839-7600 Los Angeles: (310) 428-2618 Washington, D.C.: (202) 529-6250 Oakland, CA: (510) 464-4554 GETTING THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE IN PRINT The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is available at many locations nationwide. One year subscriptions $25 ($50 institutions), bulk orders of 10 or more 15 cents each, single copies 25 cents. Contact PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, P. O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654, tel. (312) 486- 3551. WRITING FOR THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE We want your story in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. Send it in! Articles should be shorter than 300 words, written to be easily understood, and signed. (Use a pen name if you prefer.) Include a phone number for questions. Contact PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, P. O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654, tel. (312) 486-3551. ****************************************************************** We encourage reproduction and use of all articles except those copyrighted. Please credit the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on donations from its readers -- your generosity is appreciated. For free electronic subscription, email: pt.dist- request@noc.org ******************************************************************