From [email protected] Jan 30 10:56:51 1995
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 94 08:39 CST
From: James Davis <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: People's Tribune (11-28-94) Online Edition

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                People's Tribune (Online Edition)
                Vol. 21 No. 48 / November 28, 1994

                P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
                       Email: [email protected]

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INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition)
Vol. 21 No. 48 / November 28, 1994

FRONT PAGE STORY FOLLOWS INDEX

Editorial
1. THE ELECTION RESULTS: WHAT'S NEXT?

News
2. THE 'MORALITY' OF A POLICE STATE
3. STUDENTS: 'WE DON'T WANT 187'
4. HOMELESS GROUP OPPOSES 'THREE STRIKES'
5. ELDERLY S.F. TENANTS SAY NO TO EVICTIONS
6. U.S. JUDGE SLAMS HOUSTON POLICE, ORDERS NEW TRIAL OR FREEDOM
   FOR RICARDO ALDAPE GUERRA
7. COLLEGE STUDENTS FEEL THE EFFECTS OF AMERICA'S ECONOMIC CRISIS
8. ANTI-CANCER ACTIVISTS  CONFRONT CORPORATE POLLUTERS
9. WHAT PRICE LIFE?

American Lockdown
10. THE HARDENING OF A MAN (POEM)

Deadly Force
11. POLICE KILLING SPARKED UPHEAVAL: 'PANCHO'S DEAD, BUT HIS
MEMORY INSPIRES US'

Welfare for the rich
12. MINING COMPANIES STRIKE IT RICH ON PUBLIC LAND

Culture Under Fire
13. THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THANKSGIVING

14. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
PAGE 1 STORY

WAKING UP AFTER THE ELECTIONS ...

The November election results were the most alarming in decades.
Candidates openly hostile to the nation's

80 million poor people were swept into office.

The Republican Party took control of the U.S. Congress and won
governors' races in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, once
Democratic strongholds.

This change in the nation's politics goes hand-in-hand with the
changes in its economy.

Using electronics and robotics, the capitalists have ruthlessly
slashed employment. They have thrown millions into the streets.

As the capitalist class discards whole sections of the population
it no longer needs in its workplaces, the two leading parties of
that class abandon any claim to represent the interests of those
discarded people.

>From the politics of "good government," both parties have turned
to the politics of punishment. Their promises and programs are
filled with attacks on the homeless, the welfare recipients, the
elderly and the youth.

Today, the permanently unemployed fill the streets. They  watch
factory orders rise, inventories grow and output and exports
increase -- for the capitalists. For those workers who are still
employed, wages continue to fall. Factory workers now work a 42-
hour work week. Overtime is at record levels.

The capitalist class cannot solve this deepening economic, social
and political crisis without proposing ever more vicious attacks
upon the victims of poverty. The old basis of the economy -- the
hiring and employment of human labor -- is being destroyed by the
advance of the new form of production: robotics and computers.

The solution is for society to reorganize itself around the new,
emerging forms of production. The new technology of computers and
robots can easily produce enough abundance to end poverty. The new
class of dispossessed people being created by this technology  --
people of all colors and nationalities  -- must organize itself as
a class to fight for this goal.

We need a system in which the necessities of life are distributed
regardless of anyone's ability to pay for them.

Fighting for this is what the National Organizing Committee is all
about. Join us!

+----------------------------------------------------------------+



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1. EDITORIAL: THE ELECTION RESULTS: WHAT'S NEXT?

With the Republican Party's almost complete victory in the
November 8 election, the 80 million Americans living in poverty
are going to be hit with a massive attack.

Of course, this assault was already well underway in the current
Congress, controlled by the Democrats. This Congress has been only
too eager to sacrifice senior citizens, child nutrition programs
and federal aid to education on the altar of more prisons, cops
and public subsidies to big business.

In this election, there was hardly a difference to discern between
the twin parties of wealth.

Most candidates tried to outdo  each other in spending obscene
amounts of money, in bashing welfare recipients, immigrants and
"gangs" and in echoing the same empty rhetoric, while ignoring the
plight of millions of unemployed and homeless people.

The Republican National Committee sized up the political situation
well, guiding a minority of the eligible voters to the polls while
millions of embittered Americans sat this one out. But the new
Republican majority in Congress will no more be able to restore
job security and educational opportunity or to provide new housing
than the now lame-duck Democratic majority has been. That's
because the Republicans  are tied to the same class of wealthy
capitalists as are the Democrats.

The twin parties of capital are going to find common cause, going
full steam ahead to the destruction of social programs on a scale
previously unseen.

In response, America's unemployed, her homeless, her hungry -- as
well as the rest of society -- dare not fall for the old shell
game again.

As Congress guts welfare, food stamps, aid to the disabled and the
young, a certain section of the Democrats will emerge to counsel
us to bide our time, to hunker down and wait for the Democrats to
regain control.

We have a better idea. It's called taking our country back for
ourselves. It's called organizing millions of people for the kind
of revolutionary offensive that aims at nothing less than the
reconstruction of our country from top to bottom, to remold our
country into one which provides the necessaries of life regardless
of ability to pay.

"The best defense is a good offense." This strategy is as true
today as it ever was. We in the National Organizing Committee are
committed to such a perspective.

The November 8 election showed the bankruptcy of the ruling-class
parties which answer our cries with cops and prisons.

We need fundamental, revolutionary change. We urge you to join the
National Organizing Committee and help bring it about. Call the
National Organizing Committee at 312-486-0028 or write to us at
P.O. Box 477113, Chicago, Illinois 60647.


******************************************************************
2. THE 'MORALITY' OF A POLICE STATE

By Beth Gonzalez

CHICAGO -- The 1994 elections weren't about solutions. Instead,
they set a dangerous moral tone for the political debate over what
to do about the problems of the day.

Poll after poll described the mood of the American people during
this election: "We're sick and tired of what you've given us so
far -- falling wages and disappearing jobs. We're worried about
how we're going to get health care. We're tired of an education
system that can't prepare our children for the future, because
these kids have no future. We don't trust the government and have
no faith in Congress. But we're confused. We don't know why this
is happening in the richest country in the world. We don't know
the way out of this mess, and we have no idea what we can do about
it."

In the midst of this confusion, the candidates debated whether our
state governments are executing our children fast enough. Each
candidate promised to be the fastest in throwing people out of
social programs and into prison. They debated whether teachers and
doctors should be forced to police the schools and hospitals,
turning in immigrant school children and sick people who they say
aren't "entitled" to learn and to heal.

They are trying to set a standard of morality and they expect the
American people to buy it.

Their "morality" denies a sick baby medical attention, executes
15-year-olds, closes down schools to open up more prisons. Their
"morality" accepts a growing poverty amidst a superabundance of
wealth, denying rights and a share of that wealth to one group
after another. This is the morality of a police state.

None of the programs defined by this "morality" solves anything.
Technology -- not the immigrant worker -- is taking away the jobs
and lowering the wages.

This is a system that gives tobacco companies more protection than
it gives to senior citizens. It is this system that is responsible
for the destruction spreading throughout our society.

But these problems do have solutions. Society has the wealth and
technology to solve all the problems facing the American people --
overnight! The only problem is that this system won't allow that.

Society can be and has to be reorganized. Those who are being cast
aside by the new technology can seize control of the wealth of
this country and organize it to satisfy the needs of all the
people. No one has to go hungry or be unhealthy with today's
technology at hand.

This is the solution that defines our morality.

What can be done now, in the wake of the 1994 elections?

It's time to challenge the media, the politicians and the rulers
of this country on morality and their solutions.


******************************************************************
3. 'WE DON'T WANT 187'

Students face arrests, suspensions and rubber bullets as they walk
out to protest California's anti-immigrant measure.

[Editor's note: Below we print excerpts from comments given to
People's Tribune correspondent Dianne Flowers by students in
Lynwood, California who walked out of their schools to protest
Proposition 187, the measure on the California ballot which would
deny health care and education to undocumented immigrants and
their children.]


ISIDRO OROZCO, Lynwood High, ninth grade: "About 200 students left
school in the walkout on November 2. We walked all the way to
South Gate.

"The cops were shooting rubber bullets into the air. They were
telling us to go home. They arrested one boy because he threw a
little piece of paper at the police. He didn't even hit them.

"Some police came in a van and took 20 or 25 students. We don't
know where they took them.

"We had two more walkouts after that one."


JAVIER OROZCO, Hosler Junior High, eighth grade: "When they do a
walkout, [the authorities] take a camera and if they see your
face, they suspend you the next day. The cops drive by real fast.
When they see you, they step on it. If you don't get out of the
way -- bam!"



VICTOR GONZALEZ, Hosler Junior High, seventh grade: "When the
police started shooting the rubber bullets, the students got
scared and started running. They screamed.

"When the police started arresting people, the students started
running. The police got whoever they could get. You know they're
not going to get everybody. Some could hide or run."


[The People's Tribune asked these Lynwood students why they kept
protesting when they faced being suspended, arrested or struck by
rubber bullets. Here is Victor Gonzalez's response:]

"Because we don't want 187. It's going to affect the Mexicans.
It's going to affect a lot of people. They want to take people off
welfare. This could affect blacks, Chinese, whites, many races.
It's not fair to have to have documents to get medical care. A lot
of people ain't going to have education."


******************************************************************
4. HOMELESS GROUP OPPOSES 'THREE STRIKES'

By Robert Ferrell

[Editor's note: Below we reprint an article which originally
appeared in the Newsletter of the Atlanta Union of the Homeless
(Number 13, September 6.) The "three strikes and you're out" laws
require people convicted of three felonies to be sentenced to very
long prison terms and often to life imprisonment. On November 8,
Georgia passed a ballot measure for sentencing two-time violent
felons to life in prison.]


ATLANTA -- "Three Strikes, You Are Out!" If you think that this is
mainly directed at the minority population, you are entirely
missing the boat.

Minorities have always been incarcerated whenever and wherever the
system has seen fit. [The system] got away with it because they
were dealing with mostly minorities, but things have changed
dramatically in the past few years. The system has no need for
minority or white workers because of automation. Therefore, the
system has to find a way to discard what it can no longer exploit
for profit.

So, why did the ruling class fight so hard to enact these three-
strike and two-strike laws? No, it is not aimed at the minorities,
but it is directed at the poor whites and the white middle class
who will soon become poor whites.

They don't need new laws to jail or execute poor minorities
because they have traditionally been given longer  sentences and
executed in larger percentages than whites anyway.

Why are these new laws directed toward poor and middle-class
whites? Simply because the ruling class has always in the past
been able to bribe poor whites with social advantages over other
races. But now, [because of automation and robotics,] the ruling
class has no use for workers period, be they white or any other
color.

This new phenomenon is creating a new class of people who are not
white or black or Latino or Native American or any other race; the
common factor is that they are poor in a country that has the
technology to feed, clothe and house the entire world. This makes
them a danger to the ruling class which owns all these resources.
The ruling class has decided that these ex-workers are a threat
and they should not be allowed to organize.

We have to be able to discard the old way of thinking that has
kept us divided all this time and we have to look at new ways of
thinking if we, as a new class of people, are to survive. I know
for many of us it will be a hard task to accomplish, but it is
absolutely essential to the survival of this new class of people.

We must move past those things that have kept us divided in the
past so that we can accomplish the common goals of feeding,
housing, clothing and providing medical care for this new class of
people that this system has discarded because it can no longer
exploit them for profit.

The People's Tribune urges our readers to contact Robert Ferrell
and the Atlanta Union of the Homeless by calling 1-404-230-5000.


******************************************************************
5. ELDERLY S.F. TENANTS SAY NO TO EVICTIONS

By Jack Hirschman

SAN FRANCISCO -- You can call them the fighting Casa Costanzo
Tenants Association now.

They are a group of senior citizens in San Francisco's North Beach
who have organized and who on November 3 jammed a City Hall
housing committee room to make sure they are never again
threatened with eviction.

And, moreover, they want their residence hotel put under rent-
control ordinance.

The Casa Costanza situation has caused a citywide furor.

Early in October, the 42 tenants began receiving eviction notices.
Most of the tenants are over 50. Many are in their 70s and 80s.

The Carina Foundation, which founded the Casa in 1979, intended it
as a hotel for low-income Italian-Americans. Last year, a Mexican-
American, Felix Medina, applied for residence. When at first
Medina was denied, he filed a complaint charging discrimination.

When HUD began an investigation, even though Medina was made a
resident and has been welcomed by the other tenants, the Carina
directors complained that if they would not carry out the
foundation's original Italian-only policy, they would close the
Casa.

And they issued the eviction notices.

Actually, as was later revealed, Carina was simply using the HUD
investigation as a cover. It had earlier begun giving up on the
Casa because it was losing money.

In any event, the tenants fought back. "I'm not leaving," said a
feisty Mario Luppi. "They'll have to carry me out in shackles."

The little Casa, overlooking picturesque Washington Square Park,
has become the center of media attention. It stands in the shadow
of the International Hotel. It was from the International Hotel,
in 1977, that many elderly tenants were physically evicted and
brutalized in what remains one of the most shameful acts of police
terror in modern San Francisco history.

The Casa tenants formed their own association with the guiding
help of Ted Gullickson of the Tenants Union, and other community
activists.

Meanwhile, under pressure on all sides, Carina on October 24
announced that the foundation was withdrawing its eviction
notices. But at the same time, it announced that it has no funds
to continue the Casa. Thus, like it or not, with nothing standing
between themselves and the actual owners of the land, a family
trust that had been leasing the property to Carina, the tenants
could face eviction down the road, or huge increases in their $100
to $296 monthly rents.

Unless, of course, they fight. And that's exactly what the new
Casa Costanzo Tenants Association is doing down at City Hall.

And also thinking about taking the Casa over themselves and
running it cooperatively and not for profit.

And there are a hell of a lot of people all over pulling for them.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
CASA COSTANZO

By Jack Hirschman

In the shadow of the International Hotel
cops went flailing, clubbing
70 & 80-year-old men and women protesting
the evictions of other seniors
on a 1977 night of awful police brutality.

We not only swore at the police, we swore
that never again would mothers and fathers
who'd worked and birthed and constructed
our dreaming futures have to suffer
eviction and humiliation in this land of bilk and money.

Now we want the tenants of Casa Costanzo
never to experience the fate
of being thrown into the street.

And let the place be rent-controlled,
and let that send a message everywhere
the poor or maimed and vulnerable try to survive:

we can change the rules and put the laws
of the human heart before the pocket
and come back to our long lost selves alive.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+


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6. U.S. JUDGE SLAMS HOUSTON POLICE, ORDERS NEW TRIAL OR FREEDOM
FOR RICARDO ALDAPE GUERRA

By Allen Harris

HOUSTON -- More than 12 years after Ricardo Aldape Guerra was
unjustly sentenced to die for killing a Houston cop, a federal
judge has reversed the conviction, set aside the death sentence
and ordered that Aldape either get a new trial in 30 days or be
freed.

U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt issued the 45-page opinion
on November 15.

Aldape's case, closely followed here and around the world, dates
from 1982, when he was arrested following the shooting death of a
Houston police officer. Aldape has always maintained his
innocence. His trial was a travesty of justice.

Attorney Maria Elena Castellanos called the ruling "a tremendous
victory for millions of innocent, hard-working immigrants in this
country, as well as for prisoners' rights groups, and anti-death
penalty groups."

All eyes now must turn to the state of Texas, in particular to the
attorney general, Dan Morales. He has until December 15 to make
one of three choices: free Aldape, order a new trial or appeal
Hoyt's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Castellanos, an organizer for the National Organizing Committee
and the Binational Network Against the Death Penalty, urged all
supporters and concerned people to pressure the attorney general
NOT to appeal this ruling.

Call Texas governor Ann Richards at 512-463-2000.

Call Texas attorney general Dan Morales at 512-463-2191.

Send faxes to the Binational Network Against the Death Penalty at
713-650-9620.


******************************************************************
7. COLLEGE STUDENTS FEEL THE EFFECTS OF AMERICA'S ECONOMIC CRISIS

By Christine Verdon and Jason Foust

BALTIMORE -- College campuses have throughout history been a
breeding ground for revolutionary thought and activity. Students
have protested great injustices by fighting to bring about change
in a system which delivers very little to those who combat it.

The current reality of higher education is that, for a growing
number of students, completing college is becoming a most
difficult, if not impossible, task and that the college
environment in general rejects those willing to oppose the status
quo. Even those who are able to successfully complete college and
obtain a degree face a job market that will not ensure a means to
provide even the barest necessities.

It's well known that the cost of attending college has skyrocketed
over the past decade or so. In the past, parents have been able to
afford the cost of sending their children to college. Students
could expect to graduate with little or no debt and find
meaningful jobs relatively quickly.

Today, those students who can even afford to start college may end
up swamped in debt after a year or so. Those who receive financial
aid may receive enough funds to pay tuition, but that doesn't help
pay for rent, food, books, etc. Many college students are forced
to take a smaller amount of credits in order to find one or
several part-time jobs. Therefore, they may spend five or six
years to earn a so-called four-year degree.

In the meantime, so many hours are spent at low-paying jobs that
there is little or no time to study. The result is that students
either receive poor grades or are forced to withdraw early from
classes and receive no credit. Often, they'll retake a course the
next semester. In this case, colleges and universities are
profiting by double-dipping into the pockets of those students who
have no or few choices but to spend more time and money completing
their course work because they didn't have enough money in the
first place.

For many students, these factors have become an accepted norm. But
what else can we do? We're told that without a college degree, we
can expect little from the job market. We hear that "times are
tough all over" or "if you want something, you have to work hard
for it."

But it's obvious that only the rich and powerful are receiving
quality education. The Chicago Sun-Times reported in June on the
widening gap in education: "Middle-class youths, especially the
upper fourth of society, are doing quite nicely.

"There is a chasm, however, between them and the rest of America's
students. ... The kids getting left behind are the blue-collar and
working near-poor."

The question is clear: What can the government gain by educating
poor people? Ignorance fosters weakness. It's no secret that
knowledge is a powerful weapon. By denying education to the poor,
the government ensures that power stays in the hands of those who
serve its interests: the wealthy.


******************************************************************
8. ANTI-CANCER ACTIVISTS  CONFRONT CORPORATE POLLUTERS

By Cassandra

SAN FRANCISCO -- For the first time, the cancer movement here
united to confront corporate polluters who are responsible for
their illness. They also confronted the cancer establishment for
its conspiracy of silence.

At noon on October 26, more than 50 women gathered in downtown San
Francisco in front of the Chevron corporate office. Joining them
were environmental activists from the West County Toxic Coalition,
Calprig and Greenpeace.

These women with cancer, their supporters, and people of color who
are fighting environmental racism, led a "cancer industry tour of
downtown San Francisco," targeting five sites: Chevron, Time
magazine, the Bechtel Corporation, the American Cancer Society and
the Environmental Protection Agency.

Chevron produces enormous poundage of toxic air pollutants each
year. Time purchases chlorine-bleached paper even though chlorine-
free paper is available. Chlorine-bleached paper produces dioxin,
a potent carcinogen. Bechtel has built half the world's nuclear
power plants. Women who live near nuclear power plants account for
55 percent of breast cancer deaths.

Protests were also held at the American Cancer Society and the
EPA. The American Cancer Society has not supported efforts such as
the Clean Air Act, yet has cash reserves and holdings of over one
billion dollars in real estate. The EPA has been slow to support
Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts.

Demonstrators carried signs with the names of people, many of them
parents or other loved ones, who have died of cancer. Others signs
declared "Stop cancer where it starts," "Prevention is the only
cure" and "It is Time for prevention" (aimed at Time magazine).

The massive police presence at the demonstration surprised cancer
survivors and environmental activists, who were surrounded and
"escorted" during the whole cancer industry tour. This display of
armed police power at a peaceful protest both protected private
property (cops lined up in front of each targeted building), and
was an attempt to discourage the people's solidarity and frighten
those passing by.

Demonstrators couldn't fail to make the connection between the
corporate system that's killing us, the agencies that protect
these corporations, and the growing development of a police state
in this country.

Cassandra is the pen name of a cancer survivor who is an activist
and a writer, and a member of the Culture Committee of the
National Organizing Committee in San Francisco.


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9. WHAT PRICE LIFE?

By Naomi Sturtivan

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky -- Homeless people have a deep and massive
anger inside. It's as fatal as cancer. Hiding right under the
surface, waiting for the spark that ignites it into a killing
fire.

Some of us hold the anger in check -- mostly! A flare-up of words
is about all we do when another injustice is added to our already
overwhelming burden. A person can only carry just so much psychic
baggage. That's when living on the streets also becomes our
killing fields. Ignite the wrong person's fire, and he will kill.

A young man, living on the streets, lost his life. The price? One
cigarette. An argument over one cigarette, and he lost! No one was
sorry.

No one had a word of sympathy. Why? Because we witness these acts
of violence. Because we know the dangers of living on the streets.
Because we know that it could have been any one of us. Because we
know about the inner rage and how fast it can be triggered!

Another man pushed his way into the food line in front of the
wrong person. He died! The price of his life? A plate of donated,
outdated food that was in plentiful supply.

Many homeless people think bucking the line is funny, a part of
the game. They don't want to take their fair turn. But not taking
their fair turn adds more fuel to the fire of the burning rage
within us, growing stronger.

I feel, very strongly, the anger on the streets. I see short
tempers everywhere. We find ourselves in the deep pit of
homelessness and are unable to get out. I feel my own anger
turning to rage, and I'm the most nonviolent person I know.

Injustices used to seem to me to be like a thorn on a tree. I felt
I had good job skills. I am a survivor. I could get off the
street. I didn't, and I can't without a lot of help. Now I feel as
if the whole forest if falling on me.

I don't want to be nice anymore. I can't afford it. I don't enjoy
life anymore -- if street life can be called having a life. It's
more like having an existence. My joy and my life were taken from
me. Just like that. Gone!

We have become immune to each other's pain for the most part. I
see people turning their heads and their hearts from homeless
people walking in a cold rain without a coat or a bedroll. I can't
justify their feelings. I've never not cared.

Social agencies go by a calendar date instead of the temperature
in dispensing coats and sleeping bags. It doesn't seem to matter
that it's obvious that we are cold and suffering now. Pile some
more fuel on the raging flame.

What price life -- indeed!


******************************************************************
10. THE HARDENING OF A MAN (POEM)

By James Michael Briddle
#711, Death Row, Huntsville, Texas

The taking of a boy
at an early age;
Stripping away the innocence
and instilling Hate and Rage.
Taking him away
from his mom and dad;
Locking him in a cell
and driving him mad.
With the promise
they'll make him a better man;
They start working
on the Ultimate Plan.


Yes, it's working
their ultimate plan;
The taking of a boy
and making a Hardened Man.
The tenderness subsiding,
the hatred setting in;
And the bitter coldness
striking deep within.
Sending him home
to his mom and dad;
Knowing he'll be back
as they've driven him mad.


That's just the beginning
not even close to the end;
And before it's over
his mind they will bend.
Recreating an element
born to concrete and steel;
Infesting him with a sickness
no hands can heal.
Until there's no little boy,
nor even a man;
Just an empty mass of bitterness
by way of the ultimate plan!!!


******************************************************************
11. DEADLY FORCE: POLICE KILLING SPARKED UPHEAVAL: 'PANCHO'S DEAD,
BUT HIS MEMORY INSPIRES US'

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
"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.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

By Anthony D. Prince

SANTA FE, New Mexico -- It's hard to judge what kind of kid
"Cheto" Chavez was before the cops killed his older brother.

Francisco "Pancho" Ortega, 27 -- distraught, wielding a steak
knife, threatening nobody but himself and, as his mother puts it,
"crying out for help" -- was cut down in a hail of police gunfire
on the eve of the Fourth of July, 1993. Fifteen months later, the
city is still reeling from what amounted to the angry "declaration
of independence" that followed.

I was in town for the Fourth National Conference on Police
Accountability and as we sat down to talk, 17-year-old Aniceto
"Cheto" Chavez had his pencil and paper with him because he likes
to draw. In fact, one of his teachers told him to do all his
lessons in picture form.

"The cops are the ones who label everybody," says Cheto. "They're
trying to ban the kids from going to the downtown area, pushing us
out to make room for the gallerias and shops on the West Side. It
was the kids who got together after Pancho died."

Suddenly, a gust of desert wind blows Cheto's latest artistic
creation to the ground. He scrambles to pick it up. It means a lot
to him. So did his big brother. So do all the people of New Mexico
who, as he puts it, "have been harassed forever" and who stood up
when Pancho was taken down.

 The next night, I would join Cheto and almost 100 other
conference participants in a candlelight memorial parade through
the downtown streets where trendy little boutiques and high-priced
restaurants have replaced the people who once called this area
home.

"This used to be the kind of neighborhood where everybody cared,
where we shared firewood," recalls Roberta Vigil, Pancho's mother,
a leading figure in the fight against police brutality, now living
in a trailer on the edge of town. "That's the real meaning of this
march."

Community activist Don Brayfield puts into perspective the
dramatic confrontation at City Hall that followed Pancho's death
and led to a major political shakeup and a new chief of police.
"This death came to symbolize that Santa Fe had changed," he
writes in Puntos de Vista, a local publication. "It has become a
city of 'haves' and 'have-nots,' divided by economic class and
ethnic heritage."

Andres Valdez, a leader of New Mexico's Vecinos United, points out
that Pancho's killer, Officer Tom Lujan, now works for the
sheriff's office in nearby Bernalillo. "The problem is not
isolated to Santa Fe," he says.

For 17-year-old Cheto, the most significant change here has been
the attitude of those on the receiving end of police abuse.

"They [the cops] still harass us, but now the people are backing
themselves up. Now, if they're pulled over and beat up, they
realize they don't have to take it."

That's the kind of kid Cheto has become. He's like many of the
young men and women who are getting a real civics lesson in the
streets.

"Pancho's dead, but his memory inspires us."


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12. MINING COMPANIES STRIKE IT RICH ON PUBLIC LAND

By Leslie Willis

CHICAGO -- Looks like homeless people will once again walk the
winter streets, denied access to empty HUD homes and abandoned
army barracks. If they owned a mining company, however, they could
exploit public land for practically nothing.

It's true. The U.S. Interior Department charges no rent or
royalties to large mining companies who dig out the natural
resources from public lands. In Nevada, the American Barrick
Resources Corporation has mined $8.75 billion worth of gold on
property owned by the American people.

We only spend $15 billion on Aid to Families with Dependent
Children! So this chunk of gold is worth more than half what our
government trickles down to the millions of deprived kids in our
country.

This legal pirating of public land is widespread. For the year
1988, the General Accounting Office reported that 20 land titles
to public land worth up to $48 million were transferred to private
companies for less than $4,500.

No doubt, you could get a piece of this action too, if you gave
$1.1 million to politicians and political campaigns, like the
mining industry did this year.

If we can give away billions in gold, why is the newly elected
Congress preparing to demolish what's left of puny entitlement
programs for the needy? It's welfare for the rich that needs to go
onto the chopping block, not the impoverished masses.


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13. THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THANKSGIVING

By Leslie Marmon Silko

[Editor's note: Below we print an article about the meaning of
Thanksgiving Day written for the People's Tribune and our
bilingual sister publication, the Tribuno del Pueblo, by one of
America's most acclaimed novelists. Leslie Marmon Silko is the
author of Almanac of the Dead, Ceremony, Storyteller and Laguna
Woman.]


TUCSON, Arizona -- Hunger stalked the tribal people of the
Southwest even into the 20th century, when the U.S. government
imprisoned the people for refusing to send their small children
away to boarding schools.

With a critical part of their work force in jail, the remaining
people could not give the corn and bean plants all the care that
was necessary; the crops failed and the people starved.

U.S. government policies still cause people to go hungry, on and
off Indian reservations. A child who wasted food was sternly
admonished, and the old stories were told about drought years and
starvation.

Before anyone at the dinner table would take a bite, everyone
would silently give thanks to all of the animal and plant beings
that had given themselves to human beings to stop the hunger. A
small pottery bowl was passed around the table at the same time,
and the smallest child was encouraged to take small pinches from
the food on her plate to "feed" to the spirits of beloved family
members.

No meal is ever eaten without first saying thanks. No person, no
stranger who arrived at meal time was ever refused, even if
everyone else had a bit less on their plates, because the sharing
of food is a fundamental expression of humanity. Hungry animals
eat first and allow others to feed only when they have filled
themselves; even mother coyotes or mother hawks swallow the food
first and regurgitate later. To share one's food is to demonstrate
one's humanity. So each meal at Laguna was an occasion for
thanksgiving, and each meal was shared with everyone, even
strangers.

Long ago, when the Navajo and Apache people first migrated south,
they had a difficult time adapting to the weather and the terrain.
The Pueblo people did what they could to help the newcomers learn
the ways of the land, but some years the Navajos had meager
harvests and then they would face starvation.

At first, the starving people would make raids to steal food from
the Pueblo storehouses. No one would be killed or injured in the
raids, but the Pueblo villages would be terribly upset, and the
people would have to send out parties of warriors to try to
recover the lost food or livestock.

My great-grandmother was so proud of the way the people solved
this crisis. Her grandfather and the other men from Laguna managed
to catch up with the Navajo raiders because the raiders were
trying to flee with a herd of sheep. The raiders were some older
men and a couple of boys, and when the party from Laguna stopped
them, the raiders expected to get roughed up. The Lagunas asked
the raiders why they had stolen the sheep, and the raiders said
that back at their home, the people were starving to death and
they didn't know what else to do. The Laguna party separated four
sheep from the herd, and told the raiders to take them, and next
time, when the people were hungry, just to come and ask for food,
and the Lagunas would give them some.

Thus, during the summer months and at harvest time, the Pueblo
people still celebrate "feast days" when thanks are given to the
spirits for the food, and Navajos, Apaches, and other people
outside the pueblos are welcome. During the feast days, strangers
must be invited to sit down and eat at any house the stranger may
come to.

Over the years, friendships developed between certain individuals
and gifts were exchanged. One of the saddest times during the
months after my Grandpa Hank died came at Laguna feast time, when
the old Navajo man from Alamo who was Grandpa's friend asked for
Grandpa. The old man wept when he learned Grandpa was dead.

Once a year, the United States celebrates "Thanksgiving" and
traces the day back to the year the starving Pilgrims were fed by
the Indians who, no doubt, realized that hungry Pilgrims, like all
hungry human beings, might be dangerous. It isn't great
spirituality or generosity but simple intelligence that says that
when some are well-fed and some are hungry, the hungry people must
be fed; otherwise, there can be no peace or security for those
with the food.

It is interesting that the old pagan European celebration of "All
Hallow Even" is celebrated in the United States only a few weeks
before Thanksgiving. Ancient Europeans had to feed the spirits of
their dead ancestors and the living who were hungry enough to
masquerade as dead souls; and if they didn't feed them, they
expected reprisals; thus the saying "Trick or treat."

Every day in the United States should be "Thanksgiving" Day, with
baskets of food and turkey dinners for the hungry. Otherwise,
every night in the United States might be "Trick or Treat," and it
won't just be hungry ghosts of ancestors playing the tricks.


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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 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: National Organizing Committee, P.O. Box 477113,
Chicago, IL 60647 (312) 486-0028


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