People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (10-99) Online Edition

People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (10-99) Online Edition
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10-99 PT Index
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People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

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The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO is available on the World
Wide Web at http://www.lrna.org

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Page One: America's shame: Children in poverty

Is there anything more precious to us than our children? We would
sacrifice anything, deny our own happiness in order to secure
theirs. And is there anything else that ties us so profoundly to
the world far beyond our own family or our immediate community?

So then how do we feel when we learn that almost three million
children today in America live in extreme poverty, an increase of
almost one half million since just last year. (Extreme poverty
means about $6,400 a year in income for a family of three, or
about $123 a week.)

And this growing poverty isn't because of bad or irresponsible
parents, like the government is always telling us. According to a
Children's Defense Fund study, it's because the government has
ended welfare and cut food stamps.

And while these millions are falling deeper into poverty, the rest
of us are right behind them.

We can try to spend our lives fearing the future or "taking care
of our own" like the rulers of this country tell us to do. We can
try to forget the shame we feel about an America that allows any
child to go hungry, let alone one child in four, as is the case
today.

Computers and robotic technology are daily proving that society
can end this animal-like existence. This technology makes possible
a cooperative society that provides equally for all. A handful of
billionaires and a rotting and immoral system is all that stand in
our way.

So which are you going to make happen? A world that condemns your
children and all the children of the world to a dark and
forbidding future? Or one in which they will have everything they
need to live the life you have always wished for them? The choice
is as simple as that.

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INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

Editorial
1. ONE CLASS DAY

News and Features
2. GLOBALIZATION'S VICTIMS PREPARE TO CONFRONT THE WTO
3. THE ROAD TO ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS : MESSAGE FROM THE LOW-PAID,
LAID-OFF, AND LOCKED-OUT
4. "UNKNOWN QUANTITIES" RELEASE: CARTOONISTS RALLY FOR MARCH OF
THE AMERICAS
5. ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION: WHO'S RESPONSIBLE? WHO PROFITS? HOW
DO WE END IT?
6. 140TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATTACK ON HARPER'S FERRY: WHAT CAN
TODAY'S FIGHTERS LEARN FROM JOHN BROWN?

Spirit of the Revolution
7. SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION: POVERTY IS AN INSULT TO CREATION

Music/Poetry/Art/Media
8. OZOMATLI: 'THE FUTURE OF MUSIC'
9. POEM: PRISONER AM-8335 AND HIS LIBRARY OF LIONS
10. GRASSROOTS MEDIA NETWORK UNITES PEOPLE IN COMMUNITY RADIO

Announcements, Events, etc.
11. SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA
12. 2ND ANNUAL CHICAGO AREA PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
BENEFIT DINNER
13. JOIN WITH OTHERS TO MAKE THE VISION OF A WORLD OF PLENTY A
REALITY

[To subscribe to the online edition, send a message to pt-
[email protected] with "Subscribe" in the subject line.]

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TOPIC
10-99 Edit: One class day
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People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

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1. EDITORIAL: ONE CLASS DAY

Apasha laughed aloud. M. Ezili, the guide, smiled at her. "No, it
is true, Apasha. It was ridiculous but true. At one period, 225
people had more wealth than the poorest 6.5 billion people on
earth!"

"But why? What could they do with it all?"

"They must have been real fat with so much!" volunteered Soka from
the back of the class.

"Well very few people ever saw them," said M. Ezili, "but in
reality they had the best in food, health and spent fantastic sums
to keep themselves looking young and beautiful."

Images of thin even pinched people in dark confining clothes
materialized against various glamorous settings recreated from the
vast anthropological databases.

Ezili dialed down the images as the class muddled over these
discrepancies and mysteries. She was used to this confused
response. The children always had difficulty with this so-called
globalization period of history. Older periods with their pompous
kings and queens and lowly peasants seemed easier to understand
given the backward primitive technology of those times. But the
madness of the globalization process in the early part of the
higher-technology period made no logical sense to them at all.

"Let's take a little break." Guide Ezili suggested.

Apasha and Soka stepped through the insulator veil into the garden
where the other children had gathered.

"If all those resources were controlled by just a few people, then
all the starvation and disease in those times that we're learning
about was really a crime not an accident."

"Yes," added Soka, "and they say the water, air and even
atmosphere became poisoned because making money was their only
rule! They almost took every thing down with them."

"I want to go back to class and find out what stopped the
disaster!" said Apasha.

"Whatever it was, I'm glad it happened!" smiled Soka.

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
readers.
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TOPIC
10-99 Globalization's victims prepare to confront the WTO
TEXT
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People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

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2. GLOBALIZATION'S VICTIMS PREPARE TO CONFRONT THE WTO

By Chris Mahin

When the trade ministers of the world's most powerful economies
gather in Seattle later this year, they will be greeted by
protests from some of globalization's victims.

A diverse coalition of groups representing environmentalists,
trade unionists, farmers and students will protest on November
27-30. These actions will culminate in a huge rally and march on
November 30 to mark the opening of the Third Ministerial Meeting
of the World Trade Organization.

Organizers promise that there will be music, giant puppets and
street dancers, as well as thousands of demonstrators, including:
laid-off steel workers, teamsters, longshoremen, and other
industrial workers. The series of events could be the largest
protest against globalization ever held in the United States.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a powerful global agency
founded in 1995. It acts as a sort of supreme court of
international commerce, overruling laws or procedures that
restrict international trade. It has forced countries to change
the laws they have enacted to protect the environment, public
health and domestic production.

Students have been particularly active in the efforts to publicize
the protests in Seattle. On October 5-7, the fourth round of the
Democracy Teach-In will take place on numerous college campuses.
The focus will be on educating people about the WTO and preparing
for the Seattle protests.

"It's time to organize Democracy Teach-Ins in our communities and
on our campuses so we will know the WTO's agenda and how to be
ready to meet them in Seattle," declares a statement issued by the
Teach-In's organizers, the 180/Movement for Democracy and
Education. Other student groups are also organizing students to
attend the protests in Seattle.

Student activists point out that the WTO could have a very
destructive effect on education. Unlike its predecessor, the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO does not set rules
simply for trade in goods; it also sets rules for other kinds of
trade, including intellectual property. Since education is now a
$1 trillion industry, and the United States exports billions of
dollars worth of education and training services, the WTO's
decisions will affect students as well as workers and farmers.
(For instance, the WTO could rule that a country cannot subsidize
college loans for its students because that would be a "non-tariff
barrier to trade.")

The activities designed to expose the WTO will begin on November
27, when the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) presents a
teach-in on "Economic Globalization and the role of the World
Trade Organization." This event will feature 35 speakers from
around the globe. The IFG is a non-profit alliance of activists,
scholars, economists, researchers and writers.

The massive protests planned for the WTO meeting are another sign
that a confrontation between the world's rich and the world's poor
is gathering momentum. Today, the globalization that the WTO
personifies is a sign that society is living through an economic
revolution. As the International Forum on Globalization has
pointed out (in a statement on its Web site), the process of
globalization is "the most extreme restructuring of the planet's
social, economic and political arrangements since the Industrial
Revolution." Today, for the first time in history, technological
innovations have given society the means to produce an absolute
abundance. However -- as the WTO's victims know only too well --
the new wealth generated by these changes is not being shared by
all. Instead, obscene riches are being accumulated at one pole of
society, while an increasingly brutal poverty is created at the
other.

Revolution in the economy makes revolution in society inevitable.
However, the outcome of this social revolution is not inevitable;
it will depend on the consciousness of the millions who want to
create a better world. That's why events like the protests at the
WTO meeting are so important. Our society can either move toward a
police state that upholds repression and enforces suffering or it
can move forward to a new stage of human development that
cherishes and nurtures the lives of all. In America, people are
beginning to fight out this choice with a sense of economic and
class identity. Their success will depend on a very broad
consciousness of class and political interests.

The League of Revolutionaries for a New America seeks to join with
all who want to carry far and wide the message of hope for
humanity -- the message that today society can be reorganized so
that the abundance is distributed according to need. Such a
society built on cooperation guards the well-being of its people,
not the profits and property of a handful of billionaires.

We welcome the efforts to expose the WTO. We urge all those
readers of the People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo who can, to
attend the events in Seattle and other cities.

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DEMOCRACY TEACH-INS WILL EXPOSE CORPORATE POWER AND WTO

In early October, teach-ins to expose corporate power will take
place on campuses across the United States. They will constitute
the fourth round of the Democracy Teach-In, which began in October
1996.

This year, the focus will be on the danger represented by the
World Trade Organization. Events will take place at campuses
including the University of Pittsburgh; Duke University; the
University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa; and the University of
California at Berkeley. The Democracy Teach-In is sponsored by the
group 180/Movement for Democracy and Education (180/MDE), a
chapter-based organization formed at the Campus Democracy
Convention in November 1998 after three years of Democracy Teach-
In organizing.

At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, teach-in organizers are
planning a forum on October 6 on corporate globalization, the WTO
and education; and a gathering on October 7 to mobilize for the
protests at the WTO ministers' meeting in Seattle. (At noon during
each day of the Teach-in in Madison, there will be street theater
on the central library Mall on campus.)

In the South, the members of the Campus Democracy Collective at
the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville are organizing a Teach-
In with workshops on October 6-8. Then, on October 9-10, they will
host a joint Southern regional meeting called by 180/MDE and
another campus activist group, the United Students Against
Sweatshops. Among the speakers at the Southern conference may be a
representative of the students on strike at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico.

The People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo welcomes this latest round
of the Democracy Teach-In. We urge all our readers to help
publicize the work of the Democracy Teach-In in whatever way they
can.

[For more information about the protests against the World Trade
Organization, or to find out more about the Democracy Teach-In,
contact: 180/Movement for Democracy and Education Clearinghouse,
731 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53703. Phone: 608-262-9036;
Fax: 608-251-3267; e-mail: [email protected]; web site:
www.corporations.org/democracy. For more information about the
Southern regional conference, phone: the Campus Democracy
Collective at 501-587-0094 or 501-571-3536.]

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
readers.
******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 The road to economic human rights
TEXT
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People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

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3. THE ROAD TO ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS : MESSAGE FROM THE LOW-PAID,
LAID-OFF, AND LOCKED-OUT

By the Philadelphia Survival Committee of LRNA

TWO AMERICAS -- THE POLARIZATION OF WEALTH AND POVERTY

The new age of electronics is making it clearer every day that
there are two Americas. In one lives the class of the Bill Gates',
the propertied and wealthy. In the other lives the class of the
Katie Engelses, the dispossessed and downsized. "It isn't that I
never worked," said Katie Engels, "I've worked since I was 14
years old."

She was testifying at a Congressional hearing on growing hunger,
poverty and economic insecurity in the U.S. as human rights
violations. Katie is an impoverished white mother and the
president of a multiracial organization of poor and homeless
families, the Philadelphia-based Kensington Welfare Rights Union.
"With the jobs that are out there you're not making enough to
live. When you're hungry, it's really hard. ... Mothers go hungry
at night so their children can eat. You have to find a way to feed
your kids no matter what it takes. And if it takes going in
people's trash cans, I have no pride when it comes to my kids."

In Bill Gates' America, it's a different story. In this current
market run-up, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' personal wealth
reached nearly $100 billion, a figure greater than the gross
national products of entire nations. In the U.S., the three
richest individuals have a total wealth equivalent to the incomes
of 106 million people combined.

This polarization of wealth spans the globe. According to the
Economic Policy Institute, in 1997 the world's 477 billionaires
had as much wealth as 52 percent of humanity. The United Nations
says that more than half the world's population exists on less
than $2 a day. An economic system that creates individuals like
Gates while millions in this country and billions in the world go
without food, health care and housing is not ingenious. It is
insane.

POLARITY MEANS STRUGGLE

Gates and Engels represent the growing moral and political
conflict between the private-property-rights of global capitalists
and the human rights of the global poor. The struggle to abolish
poverty today is necessarily and immediately a political struggle.
It is a struggle across color and along class lines. It is a
struggle over power and wealth. The struggle of the poor and
unemployed of the U.S. is part of an emerging globalized struggle
of the new class of the dispossessed. The beginning stirrings of
the low-paid in Canada, the struggles of the Zapatistas of Mexico,
of the urban poor and embattled students of Indonesia, the unpaid
workers of Russia, the unemployed workers of France, the landless
workers of Brazil, the downtrodden in Columbia, are expressions of
the same emerging class content of the times.

This growing moral and political conflict is emerging as a major
strategic concern. Global capital's ability to project its
economic and political influence worldwide currently depends on
its control and use of the U.S. government, the most powerful
government globally. However, the global capitalist rulers are
increasingly threatened by the eroding moral authority and
prestige of the U.S. government at home and abroad.

In every part of the world, the struggles of the dispossessed come
up against the economic, political and military might of the U.S.
government, which serves as a crucial support of the domestic
class enemies of these struggles. These world struggles are
compelled to seek out and strike a blow at the Achilles' heel of
U.S.-backed oppression.

This Achilles heel, this weak point, is the politics and morality
associated with the increasing economic insecurity among the
masses of the U.S., at the bottom of which is the new class of the
low-paid, laid-off, and locked-out. There is growing sentiment
that increasing poverty in the midst of plenty in the United
States is simply wrong.

In a recent survey, 57 percent of Americans said that dealing with
the problems of poverty should be a top priority. The social
position of the majority of humanity compels them to question
bourgeois morality and moves them toward accepting a new morality
that is based on their own class interests and points the way to a
new future. This can only mean the poor internationally uniting in
mutual assistance with the struggles of their class sisters and
brothers in the U.S. whose new socio-economic position places them
at the Achille's heel of the common global enemy.

In today's struggles against poverty wages, utility shutoffs and
increasing evictions, the impoverished can no longer garner
legitimacy from the federal government and the Democratic Party,
as did past movements of the poor in such struggles as the 1930s'
CIO movement and the 1960s' Civil Rights movement. Indeed, it is
precisely the federal government and the Democratic Party, acting
in the interests of the capitalist class, that are responsible for
the latest attacks on the general welfare of the people.
Therefore, the program of struggles and demands of the
dispossessed must seek moral legitimacy and political leverage
elsewhere -- in the international arena.

The struggle of the dispossessed in the U.S. can leverage the
deepening international moral crisis to its advantage
domestically. An effective tactic being taken up by the
dispossessed is documenting and dramatizing the stories of
economic human rights violations in the U.S. -- stories of
violations of the common standards set globally by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, moral standards reaffirmed by the
increasing life-and-death struggles of the impoverished world
majority. These violations represent a moral indictment of the
U.S. government for rejecting the founding creed of this country
and abdicating its responsibility to ensure the health and well-
being of its residents. The daily and deadly assaults on the poor,
aided by the new federal and state "welfare reform" policies,
expose the government as the bloody hands of the rich.

The continuing organizing campaigns, tribunals and marches to the
United Nations initiated by poor and homeless families --
protesting economic human rights abuses in the U.S. -- are
receiving growing support and respect from around the country and
internationally, from every walk of life. If consciously kept on
strategic course, the legitimacy and leverage garnered by the
struggles of the dispossessed will present tremendous
opportunities for winning step by step the strategic fight for the
hearts and minds of the American people.

THE IMMEDIATE TASK OF REVOLUTIONARIES

Every political struggle begins with the battle for the hearts and
minds of the people. The bulk of the 260 million people in the
United States are going to have to have their minds changed if
poverty is going to be abolished. In the U.S., one form this moral
and ideological battle will take is a redefining of the founding
creed of this country according to present conditions. Today, the
guarantee of "the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness" for everyone can only mean the abolition of a system
that produces "haves" and "have-nots."

The movement of the poor must be given shape and consciousness so
it can obtain the moral legitimacy and political leverage
necessary to exert mass influence. Portrayed as "lazies," "welfare
queens," and as a "black underclass," etc., the dispossessed have
been cast as the villain and not the victim of their plight, and
thus denied moral and political credibility.

Although there is growing economic insecurity among the mass of
the people in the United States, they-- including the people who
shape their thinking -- remain pragmatic. To influence them and
those among them trying honestly to tell the truth, effective
propaganda use must be made of the emerging practical movement and
morality of the new class of the dispossessed. This can only be
ensured by revolutionary propagandists keeping closely in tune and
inseparably connected to this essentially global and revolutionary
process.

This means that revolutionary writers and teachers must maintain a
"grand strategic" perspective of the whole staircase as well as
each step of this process. The immediate step or situation places
them at the vital pivot of the process. Their immediate task is to
identify and give conscious expression to especially those arising
tactics that help recruit the emerging revolutionaries who are
taking up the task of making the current struggles of the poor and
unemployed conscious of their global and revolutionary role. The
task is to teach these teachers and organize them as propagandists
of the embattled propertyless mass. The arising tactics are those
that tend to combine the historical, global, philosophical, moral,
strategic and immediate elements of the practical struggles in a
way that make them schools most favorable for effective
revolutionary propaganda.

Economic life is the environment for the political thinking of the
workers. With the new electronic technology making more and more
workers permanently unemployed, the opportunity arises to change
the political thinking of the workers.

The private ownership of electronic technology, which is causing
the accelerated concentration of purchasing power in fewer and
fewer hands, threatens a worsening of the world economy and its
eventual collapse. As a result, the present smaller skirmishes
will inevitably erupt into massive social dislocations and
struggles that will make those of the 1930s' Great Depression look
like a picnic. Positioning and preparing for such developments
requires relying on those tactical movements that make for
effective revolutionary educational work.

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MARCH OF THE AMERICAS WILL DRAMATIZE U.S. ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS
VIOLATIONS

Poor and homeless families from the United States, Canada, and
Latin America will gather in Washington, D.C. October 1 to begin a
30-day "March of the Americas" from Washington to New York. The
Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, spearheaded by the
Philadelphia-based Kensington Welfare Rights Union, will be joined
by poor and homeless families from across the Americas in filing
the first legal brief in history against the United States of
America for economic human rights violations. The brief will
highlight violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
articles 23, 25 and 26, due to downsizing, welfare reform, and
cuts in education. These three articles guarantee each person the
right to medical care, housing, food, clothing, education and a
job at a living wage.

The March of the Americas will begin at 10 a.m. October 1 in
Lafayette Park in front of the White House with a rally and
speakers. At noon, the poor and homeless families will march to
the Inter-Americas Commission to file the brief. After this, the
marchers will turn their backs on Washington and march to the
United Nations in New York City over the entire month of October.
The March of the Americas will be met on November 1 in New York by
representatives from the United Nations, including Anne-Marie
Lizin, the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty.

[For more information, write P.O. Box 50678, Philadelphia, PA
19132 U.S.A.; phone 215-203-1945; FAX 215-203-1950; e-mail:
[email protected]; or see the KWRU Web site at
www.libertynet.org/kwru]

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
readers.
******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 "Unknown Quantities" Release:
TEXT
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People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

BODY
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4. "UNKNOWN QUANTITIES" RELEASE: CARTOONISTS RALLY FOR MARCH OF
THE AMERICAS

Funny Valentine Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming
publication of "Unknown Quantities" a comic book created to
commemorate the 1999 March of the Americas. More than 40 artists
and writers have contributed material to the 64-page "Unknown
Quantities," including: Alex Ross, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Tom
Tomorrow, Time magazine cartoonist Jim Siergey, Roberta Gregory,
Donna Barr, Jay Stephens, Mitch O'Connell, Hilary Barta, Jon
Langford (guitarist for The Mekons and The Waco Brothers), Heather
McAdams, Bryan Talbot, Wayno (a regular contributor to Tower
Records' Pulse magazine), and Funny Valentine Press publisher
Steve Darnall, whose writing credits include the critically-
acclaimed DC Comics' series "Uncle Sam."

Although "Unknown Quantities" isn't going to be released to the
general book-buying public until December, Chicagoans will have a
chance to buy the book -- and meet some of the contributors -- on
October 1 (6-8pm), when Chicago Comics (3244 N. Clark; 773-528-
1983) will host a special gathering to celebrate the March and the
book.

"The idea was to create something to entertain, and hopefully
inspire, the marchers," Darnall says. "Everybody deserves art, and
we wanted to make sure that these marchers got some kind of
recognition for their efforts."

Although many of the cartoonists were interested in addressing the
social and political issues of poverty and homelessness, there
were no editorial prerequisites for contributors. So it is that
you'll find Alan Moore's harrowing essay "Sidewalk Jockeys"
alongside Jay Stephens' whimsical "Jetcat." Editorial cartoonist
Tom Tomorrow ("This Modern World") weighs in with a sardonic look
at health care and the global economy, while Gary Gianni offers
his adaptation of O. Henry's ironic "The Cop and the Anthem," and
Wayno and Heather McAdams offer their respective tributes to music
legends Tom Jones and the Louvin Brothers. And so it goes.

"I told the creators to view this as the equivalent of a mix
tape," Darnall says. "When you make a mix tape for someone, there
are some great records that you include because they relate
specifically to how you feel -- then there are some you include
just because they're great records."

[For more information about the October 1 6-8pm "launch party,"
contact Chicago Comics at 773-528-1983.

Guests of the World Wide Web stay at the Web Page of Empty Love
http://www.wraithspace.com/emptylove]

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
readers.
******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 Environmental destruction:
TEXT
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People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

BODY
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5. ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION: WHO'S RESPONSIBLE? WHO PROFITS? HOW
DO WE END IT?

By Traviss Thomas

There is a trend in the environmental movement to place blame for
environmental destruction on the individual. Those who support
this tell us that if only everyone would recycle their trash and
ride a bike to work, the environmental crisis could be averted. In
fact, the environment is being pillaged not by individuals who are
careless with their garbage, but by giant corporations profiting
from environmental exploitation.

Corporations have worked hard to manufacture this trend. Corporate
"greenwashing" campaigns emphasize the superficial environmental
efforts that some corporations make. For example, the Coca-Cola
Corporation has devoted a branch of its public relations
department to Coke's environmental image. Coke donates money to
America Recycles Day and to college-campus recycling programs.
Several corporations champion recycling.

The effect is to redirect the focus of the debate away from
corporate environmental exploitation and onto a topic where
corporations appear actively pro-environment. Without
greenwashing, the debate might focus on the oil industry's
suppression of alternative energy advances or on the clear-cutting
practices of the paper industry.

The broader effect of corporate greenwashing is that it hides the
true objectives of corporations and distorts the public's
impression of the place that the environment has in a capitalist
system. Corporations exist in order to create profit. In spite of
the pro-environmental sympathies that some CEOs may (or may not)
have, each business must turn a profit to survive. Natural
resources, then, are treated as potential commodities, not as
necessities of human survival. The environment has no monetary
value until it is made into something that can be sold, so the
interests of corporations are inherently at odds with any efforts
to conserve or protect the environment. What is truly insulting is
that while corporations are destroying our environment, corporate
greenwashing implies that we are actually to blame for this
destruction.

To create demand for their products, corporations engage in
tremendous amounts of advertising. The consumer culture that this
advertising creates increases the toll on the environment. It is a
rarely noticed paradox that Coke encourages recycling while at the
same time promoting consumption. The illusion that Coke, and big
business in general, tries to promote is that consumers
themselves, not corporations, are the source of consumer culture.

The mainstream media, themselves giant corporations, do virtually
nothing to expose the fallacy of corporate concern for the
environment. When newsworthy events take place that might reveal
corporations' tendency to destroy the environment whenever
profitable, the media will resort to active suppression of facts.
For example, Project Censored, a media watchdog group, cites the
corporate anti-environmental crusade as one of the most ignored
stories of 1991.

Identifying the real culprits in the environmental crisis is
essential to solving the problem, but recognizing the inherent
conflict between corporate interests and environmental protection
is only the first step. The liberal viewpoint -- that by
restraining corporate capitalism the environment can be adequately
preserved -- falls short of a comprehensive understanding of the
situation. Regardless of the restraints placed on corporations, it
will always be profitable to exploit the environment so long as
capitalism exists. Only in a society devoted to meeting human
needs -- not profit -- can the environment truly be utilized
efficiently and respectfully.

[Traviss Thomas is a student at the University of Oklahoma at
Norman, where he works with the Student Action Network and Our
Earth, the campus environmental organization.]

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
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******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 Harper's Ferry
TEXT
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http://www.lrna.org

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6. 140TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATTACK ON HARPER'S FERRY: WHAT CAN
TODAY'S FIGHTERS LEARN FROM JOHN BROWN?

By Chris Mahin

"I think that for once the Sharpe's rifles and the revolvers were
employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one
who could use them."

Those defiant words were spoken by the writer Henry David Thoreau
in 1859, just days after John Brown and a small band of
abolitionists attacked the town of Harper's Ferry. Because October
1999 marks the 140th anniversary of that milestone in the struggle
against slavery, it is important that we remember what took place
there and examine what lessons it contains for today.

On the night of October 16, 1859, 22 armed men attempted to take
control of the town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia. (It was in a
region that would become the U.S. state of West Virginia in 1863.)
Seventeen were white; five were free African Americans. All were
deeply committed opponents of slavery. Their plan was to seize the
federal arsenal in the town -- which contained more than 100,000
firearms -- and use the weapons to spark a slave rebellion. Due to
a number of tactical mistakes made by the raiders, their plan
failed. The group was quickly surrounded by Virginia militia
forces and a contingent of U.S. Marines. Four townspeople and a
marine died in the fighting. Ten of the raiders (including two of
Brown's sons) were also killed. After 36 hours, John Brown and
several of his comrades were captured.

The raid on Harper's Ferry was the culmination of decades of
struggle against slavery. For almost 30 years, decent people in
the North had denounced slavery and appealed to the South to end
the practice. Their appeals fell on deaf ears. Opponents of
slavery were physically assaulted and even murdered. As the
defenders of slavery became more and more arrogant and violent,
the movement against slavery began to polarize. Out of the bitter,
armed conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in
Kansas in the 1850s emerged John Brown, a leader who advocated
physical resistance to slavery. Brown ultimately came to believe
that abolitionists should "take the war to Africa." That is, to
arm the slaves.

Brown's view was a minority position. When news of the violence
committed by his band at Harper's Ferry first reached the North,
the raid was condemned even by opponents of slavery. But when the
state of Virginia put Brown on trial just one week after the raid
-- before his wounds had healed or his volunteer attorneys had
arrived from Boston -- public opinion in the North began to
change. As his trial proceeded, even Brown's enemies had to
acknowledge the great dignity, courage and sincere religious
conviction that the anti-slavery fighter displayed in court.

On October 30, 1859, a Virginia jury found Brown guilty of murder,
treason and inciting slave insurrection. On November 2, Brown
defended his conduct, saying that his actions had been in defense
of God's "despised poor," and were "not wrong, but right." Then he
defiantly told the court: "Now, if it is deemed necessary that I
should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice,
and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with
the blood of millions in this slave country ... I submit; so let
it be done!" Then Judge Richard Parker sentenced him to be hanged.

Public meetings were called all over the North to denounce the
sentence. In Boston, the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson told a cheering
crowd that Brown was "this new saint" whose hanging "would make
the gallows as glorious as the cross."

On December 2, 1859, Brown rode to his execution ground in a
wagon, seated on his own coffin, commenting on the beauty of the
countryside. Fifteen hundred soldiers were present to guard the
field where Virginia executed this old man, a farmer who faced
death with courage and serenity. Church bells rang out throughout
the North.

While the attack on Harper's Ferry was a defeat in the military
sense, it achieved its political goal of helping to end slavery.
The North's sympathy for John Brown outraged the defenders of
slavery and helped push the South to secede, making the Civil War
inevitable.

Today, there is much we can learn from the boldness of those who
raided Harper's Ferry. Those 22 men lived at a time when society
was in crisis; so do we. They had a vision: Mobilize the "despised
poor." Obtain weapons and place them in the hands of the victims
of a terribly unjust economic system. Have faith in the militancy
of the poorest section of society, for when it moves, the very
best elements of all of progressive humanity will then be free to
move too. Thoreau captured the spirit of the Harper's Ferry raid
with his comment that finally the weapons were to be in the hands
of those who could use them.

Today, we live in a world where weapons need to be placed in the
hands of the "despised poor" once again. But here we should
remember another of Thoreau's comments about John Brown. Thoreau
observed that the Virginia authorities did not gain much when they
took Brown's rifle away from him when they captured him at
Harper's Ferry. After all, Thoreau pointed out, Brown still
retained "his faculty of speech, a Sharpe's rifle of infinitely
surer and longer range." Today, there is an arsenal which needs to
be seized by revolutionaries -- the arsenal of political science.
There is a weapon inside that arsenal that revolutionaries need to
grab and distribute to anyone willing to receive it -- the weapon
of political clarity.

Today, we honor John Brown and his comrades-in-arms best when we
use our "Sharpe's rifle of infinitely surer and longer range" --
our "faculty of speech" -- to speak and write and agitate against
a system where a tiny handful of millionaires rules society and,
every day, creates more of the poor that John Brown strove to
defend. If we do that, history will truly be able to say that
while John Brown's body is buried in his family plot in North
Elba, New York, his soul really does go marching on.

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
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******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 Spirit of the Revolution
TEXT
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Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

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7. SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION: POVERTY IS AN INSULT TO CREATION

by Gary MacEoin

[Editor's note: The following are excerpts from an article
recently published in National Catholic Reporter. It is important
to note that, since the 1960s, economic globalization has caused
widespread poverty to extend into the so-called developed
countries as well, including the United States.]

Dom Helder Pessoa Camara, retired archbishop of Recife and Olinda
in the parched and impoverished Northeast of Brazil, a brilliant
thinker and one of the Catholic church's most inspired and
charismatic leaders of the 20th century, died Aug. 27 at his
modest home in Olinda. He was 90.

Under his moral leadership the Catholic church in Latin America
moved from its traditional support of the wealthy landowners and
business elite to a preferential option for the poor.

When the Second Vatican Council assembled in Rome in 1962, Dom
Helder participated as an auxiliary bishop of Rio de Janeiro.
Although at age 53 one of the youngest of the more than 2000
participants, he quickly emerged as a leader. Wearing a wooden
cross over a simple black cassock, he urged his fellow bishops to
give their silver and gold pectoral crosses to the poor and drop
such titles as eminence and excellency. He helped create a small
think tank headed by Cardinals Pierre Gerlier of France and
Giacomo Lercaro of Italy that became known as the church-of-the-
poor group.

Although shunned by bishops from the Anglo-Saxon world, some of
whom saw the group's ideas as merely a device to extract a higher
level of aid for the missions, the group attracted widespread
sympathy and support. In 1965, two weeks before the end of the
council, Dom Helder summed up the group's findings: "Almost 2000
years after the death of Christ, at a time when the Declaration on
Religious Liberty is to be promulgated, nearly two-thirds of
humans live in a sub-human condition that makes it impossible for
them to understand the true meaning of liberty. ...
Underdevelopment has plunged Latin America and the whole Third
World into a situation unworthy of the human person; it
constitutes an insult to creation. A revolt by Latin American
Christians against the church is inevitable if the church sins
today by omission, in an hour of oppression and slavery."

The press loved the tiny, almost emaciated Brazilian who gave
interviews in a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish, and French, and
who made himself understood more by his exuberant gestures than by
his words.

An article in Vozes de Petropolis in 1968 sums up his thought in
five short paragraphs:

"The church must overcome that magic and fatalistic Christianity
that she has transmitted to the Latin American masses; a religion
preached to men without freedom easily becomes a magic and
fatalistic one; there should be real hope here on earth, not only
an otherworldly reward.

"The church must speak clearer and louder to the rich and
powerful. They often mistake a stratified disorder for law and
public order.

"The church should encourage the use of lawful nonviolence, a
democratic political pressure.

"The social revolution necessary in Latin America presupposes a
social revolution in North America; there is a problem of justice
in the relations between a developed and an underdeveloped world.

"The church should stop thinking that this implies an intrusion
into politics, realizing rather that it is her duty because it
deals with the common good and relates directly to world peace."

Dom Helder practiced what he preached. When I visited him in 1969
in Recife, to which he had been promoted as archbishop five years
earlier, he welcomed me to the single room that was both his
living and working space -- the sacristy of an old church no
longer used for public worship. He slept next door behind the
altar in the church.

One of the Oblate missionaries from the United States with whom I
was staying was taking me one day to a meeting at which the
archbishop was speaking. He braked the car unexpectedly and pulled
over to the curb. Dom Helder opened the door and got in. My friend
later explained that the bishop had no automobile. When he wanted
to go somewhere, he simply went out on the street and waited
until a passer-by gave him a lift.

By this time Dom Helder had become a non-person in Brazil. The
military dictatorship, which with U.S. support overthrew the
constitutional presidency in 1964, had in the interval muzzled the
press and abolished labor unions and all other bodies that
shielded the weak and voiceless from arbitrary mistreatment.
Although many church lay leaders and clerics were among the
victims of the repression, Dom Helder alone protested publicly. He
continued the call for fundamental social changes such as land
distribution and access to education until the military regime
banned all news coverage of him.

While silenced at home and the recipient of many death threats, he
traveled abroad as often as possible to denounce the torture and
killing of innocent people.

In 1985 the military was forced to withdraw to its barracks and
return control to a civilian government. A 21-year period of
terror ended, in no small way due to activity by church leaders.

Perhaps the most important contribution of Dom Helder to the
church in Latin America was his role in the creation of the
Conference of Latin American Bishops -- CELAM. This made possible
the 1968 meeting at Medellin, Colombia, in which Dom Helder again
played a prominent part, helping to formulate the document that
denounced the dependence of the people on internal and
international power structures maintained by intolerable
institutionalized violence.

Medellin coincided with the first flourishing of liberation
theology, which insists -- as Dom Helder had done -- that Christ
came to free us from the sins of hunger and oppression too. Dom
Helder soon emerged as a leading proponent of the first theology
developed cooperatively by Catholics and Protestants since the
16th-century Reformation, a position he maintained until his
death.

He defended the use of class analysis as the central and
indisputable element for understanding the social situation,
insisting that one could use the insights of Marxism without
becoming a Marxist. His response to those who denounced him as
"the red bishop" serves as a perfect synthesis of his world view:
"When I feed the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why they
are poor, they call me a communist."

[Reprinted with permission from National Catholic Reporter.
Subscriptions are available at 115 East Armour Blvd., Kansas City,
Mo. 64111-1203, or by phone at 800-333-7373]

[Spirit of the Revolution is printed monthly, and depends on
articles, comments, and criticisms from readers. If you have
something to contribute, feel free. Contact us: c/o Boxholder,
P.O. Box 2166, San Jose, California 95109 or by e-mail at
[email protected]]

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
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******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 Ozomatli: 'The future of music'
TEXT
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People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
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8. OZOMATLI: 'THE FUTURE OF MUSIC'

by Steve Teixeria and Moises Ruiz

Okay, you're at home with the boob tube on for background noise-
comfort and then you hear ... a Latin beat. An infectious beat.
You focus on the commercial for "Edtv," starring all-American
easybake heartthrobs Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, cuz
you can't help being mesmerized by the clip's background music. It
goes, "Como vez/como vez ..." with some Hip-Hop (till you don't
stop) and more salsa with some rhyming interwoven.

That yawn-inducing 1999 mainstream flick is forgotten, but that
tune is still with us (hallelujah), and that band, Ozomatli, is a
hit that is building momentum.

The name Ozomatli was inspired from the God of Dance, in Aztec
culture.

Legions of fans from the groups hometown of Los Angeles -- for
that matter all of Cali, north and south -- were no doubt
delighted to hear their favorite party band bouncing from the TV.
Yep, their sounds have seduced thousands. And therefore, their
political messages have reached, changed and motivated thousands.

The sounds: two turntables, groovin' bass, all-encompassing
guitar, tabla, drums, percussion, alto sax, tenor sax, trumpet and
trombone, (as said before) Hip-Hop and salsa, cumbia, nortena,
songs in Spanish, raps in English. When put all together listeners
writhe, snap, clap, smile and perhaps see the God of Dance plus so
much more.

Ozomatli's songs wrestle with issues such as police abuse,
workers' rights, human rights, revolution. Despite the tenderness
of network television's stance on outspoken politics, the 10-piece
ensemble has made appearances on Conan O'Brien and Vibe. The
latter talk-show (hosted by Sinbad) stint was a major coup, not
only because they were playing on a nationally syndicated affair,
but because they revealed to the nation how the musicians came
together because of a strike.

On March 12, 1995, along with fellow co-workers, bassist Wil-Dog
staged a sit-in strike at his place of employment, the L.A.
Conservation Corps (housed in the former site of an L.A. Emergency
Response Unit Headquarters), in response to another co-worker
being unfairly terminated.

"The Conservation Corp is a poverty-pimp program," stated while
recently on tour, "so the Clintons, Mayor [Richard] Riordan and
Governor [Gray] Davis can say they're giving inner-city kids jobs.
The staff has benefits, but none of the kids, so we got together
and it was, Fuck this!"

Various musicians showed up and played to support the effort. From
this, the funky seed was planted and an awareness grew throughout
the City of Angels.

When Ozomatli appeared on Late Night with Conan, they carried a
banner in support of political prisoner and writer Mumia Abu-
Jamal. Their amalgamated sound got them on late night TV; their
politics leave a deeper imprint.

If fans disagree with Ozo's collective opinion, it's okay; they're
not fascists. Such a disagreement was overtly expressed at a March
1999 event in which Ozo members implored the audience to remember
the people dying in Iraq from U.S. bombs.

"That's cool," Guitarist Raul Pacheco offers, " we're not going to
kick you out. If someone had wanted to talk to me afterward, I'd
have loved to."

That mutual Ozo/audience respect is solid, due in largeness to
their accessibility. Each show begins with a drumline a la
Carnaval, wherein Ozo enters the venue just like everyone else,
marching among the crowd to the stage. At gig's end, the comrades
rejoin their fans, and culminate with a mind-blowing drum circle
(sometimes sharing instruments with audience members). The
experience is positive and communal and enchanting, much like
Carnaval.

When asked about the lunatic idea of partying around such serious
stuff, Wil-dog fires back: "Why does the revolution just have to
be about being serious? Fighting police brutality should be fun --
it is fun!"

Ozomatli's eponymous full-length debut on Almo Sounds captures the
rap, salsa and funk party-fun on disk. It has, charted
impressively on Billboard's Latin Music 100, so the accountants
can't complain.

Technically, the group's talent has garnered enormous respect from
fellow musicians, bagging them globe-wide tours with Offspring and
more recently Santana and Mana. During one performance, Carlos
Santana hailed Ozomatli, calling them "the future of music." Music
trade magazines Guitar Player and Drummer have also highlighted
Ozo's musicianship.

To quote Raul, "The way to get any song across is to play it well.
And with that song a message."

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
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******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 Poem: Prisoner AM-8335 and His Library of Lions
TEXT
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P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
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9. PRISONER AM-8335 AND HIS LIBRARY OF LIONS

--for Mumia Abu-Jamal
SCI-Greene,
Waynesburg, PA
May 2, 1998

by Martin Espada

When the guards handcuffed inmates in the shower
and shoved them skidding naked to concrete,
or the blueshirts billyclubbed a prisoner
to wrench the gold from his jaw,
to swirl KKK in his spat blood,
the numbered men pressed their fingertips
against the smooth cool pages of your voice,
that voice of many books,
and together you whispered in the yard
about lawsuits, about the newspapers.

From the battlements
the warden trumpeted a proclamation:
in every cell one box per inmate,
twelve by twelve by fourteen,
for all personal possessions. You say
four blueshirts crowded your death row cell
to wrestle seventeen cartons away,
wrinkled paperbacks in pillars
toppling, history or law collected and studied
like the bones of a fossilized predator,
a library beyond Carnegie's whitest visions of marble.
One guard would fondle a book emblazoned
with the word Revolutionary, muttering:
this is what we're supposed to get.

Today, after the hunger strike,
you sit windowed in the visiting room,
prisoner AM-8335: dreadlocks blooming
like an undiscovered plant of the rain forest,
hands coupled in the steel cuffs,
brown skin against the striped prison jumpsuit,
tapestry of the chain gang.

I would rather be beaten, you say,
than this assault on the life of the mind.
You keep Toni Morrison's book in your box with the toothpaste.
You stare through the glass at the towering apparition
of your library, as if climbing marble steps.

And you say:
Giving up a book is like giving up a child,
like parting with your own flesh.
How do you choose between Beloved
and The Wretched of the Earth.

Your eyes pool.
A single tear is the scarification of your cheekbone,
a warrior's ceremonial gash on death row.
Across the glass a reflection of the guards walking,
small blue men patrolling your forehead.

In the parking lot, I turn again towards the prison,
walls ribboned with jagged silver loops of wire,
and see a great library
with statues of lions at the gate.

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
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TOPIC
10-99 Grassroots Media Network
TEXT
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10. GRASSROOTS MEDIA NETWORK UNITES PEOPLE IN COMMUNITY RADIO

by Sandra Reid

The People's Tribune interviewed Comrade P. Odekirk and Tony
Truong of the Grassroots Media Network (GMN). The group brings a
message of unity to 130 radio stations, publications, community
organizations, as well as individual filmmakers, journalists, and
broadcasters.

PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO: Can you tell our readers
about your upcoming conference?

COMRADE P. ODEKIRK: The Grassroots Media Network is organizing the
2nd annual Grassroots Media Conference and Culture Jam for October
8 - 11, 1999 in Austin, Texas. We're using the suggestions and
experiences from last year's very successful gathering to give
folks a good mix of workshops and presentations, with topics
ranging from the Zapatistas struggle to how youth read images in
the media.

TONY TRUONG: Also, we'll have musical performances, art exhibits,
and, of course, the Grassroots Film and Video Festival, to make
this a truly multi media affair! The film screenings will kick off
on Thursday, October 7. The arts are a good way to get a message
out to a wide range of people.

PT/TP: Why is this conference important?

PO: The Grassroots Media Conference & Culture Jam unites people
involved in community-oriented media. It allows people from all
over the country, as well as some from outside the country, to
meet face to face, share information, and build a network for
communication and mutual support.

PT/TP: How has your group impacted the thinking of people in your
community?

PO: Our membership has grown from a few radio stations to over 130
radio stations, publications, community organizations, as well as
individual filmmakers, journalists, and broadcasters. We have
raised money for the independent union Fuerza Unida, the
Zapatistas, and, in Austin, KO-OP Radio and last year's holiday
dinner for the homeless. In our base city, we have banded together
with a handful of other organizations to form Pueblos Unidos. We
are now working on building a community center to serve various
needs of the Austin community.

TT: GMN gives people the sense of power in numbers. Often in
progressive movements, people get burnt out from feeling like
David going against Goliath. So when you know that someone else in
another part of the world is involved in a similar struggle, it
gives you hope. The GMN also helps people who are involved in
different struggles to work together in solidarity.

PT/TP: How did you get involved in media and why?

PO: I started as a programmer with KO-OP Radio in 1995. Shortly
after I was elected to the Board of Trustees, I discovered the
labor dispute at Pacifica. At that time, KO-OP was airing Pacifica
Network News.

Therefore, I took the issue to the programmers, who decided to run
a disclaimer about Pacifica News. Pacifica cancelled our contract.
This gave us the opportunity to work with other media groups and
produce our own news program and the creation of the Grassroots
Media Network. My involvement in media has shifted from doing my
music show to helping others gain a political voice in media.

TT: My interest lies in film. To me, it's very important to give
people the chance to see works that show real people living real
lives and dealing with real issues. So many members of our society
are marginalized and limited not only in their representation in
the media but also in their access to controlling the media. This
is especially true in film. The industry leaves it up to smaller
festivals, like the Grassroots Film and Video Festival, to show
films that are made about the struggles of the working class,
people of color, gays and lesbians, etc. So, when I have the
chance to work on the GFVF, it is both a challenge and a great
opportunity.

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
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******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 Speakers for a New America
TEXT
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Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

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11. SPEAKERS FOR A NEW AMERICA

* Richard Monje, Special Projects Coordinator, UNITE! Union

* Laura Garcia, Editor, People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo

* Brooke Heagerty, Writer, race and class

* Doreen Stabinsky, Environmentalist

* Jonathan King, Biologist, Social Effects, Cloning

* Chris Mahin, Writer, Historical Topics

* Steve Wiser, Mumia's Spiritual Advisor

* Cheri Honkala, Leader, March of the Americas

* Ben Manski, Student Organizer

* Steve Miller, Public School Teacher

Our speakers bring a vision of a new, cooperative world. Send for
a free brochure. Speakers for a New America will be at many events
this year, from the March of the Americas for Economic Human
Rights, to the anti-sweatshop and campus democracy teach-ins and
the protests against the WTO, to African American History Month
celebrations. To bring a speaker to your campus, contact People's
Tribune Speakers Bureau.

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

U. UTAH PHILLIPS * NELSON PEERY

A live interview with songwriter and labor activist U. Utah
Phillips and author/revolutionary, Nelson Peery. They debate
rebellion, revolution, racism, class unity and how to achieve a
new world dedicated to peace and justice.

A Two-tape set. Send $15 donation to People's Tribune Speakers
Bureau, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 or call 1-800-691-6888.

People's Tribune Speakers Bureau
1-800-691-6888 or e-mail [email protected], or write People's
Tribune Speakers Bureau, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654

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FOR THE PRICE OF A CUP OF COFFEE ... YOU CAN MAKE HISTORY.

The capitalists won't fund ideas about what the world could be
without them. LRNA is fighting for a cooperative world where
everyone's material, intellectual and spiritual needs are
fulfilled. LRNA relies solely on friends for financial support. An
independent source of funds guarantees the truth will be told.

Send your donation today!

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People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
readers.
******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 2nd Annual Chicago Area PT/TP Benefit Dinner
TEXT
******************************************************************
People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

BODY
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12. 2ND ANNUAL CHICAGO AREA PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
BENEFIT DINNER

October 23, 1999 from 6pm to 11pm (Dinner served at 7pm)

UNITE! Hall, 333 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago

Tickets:
$15 per person
$8.50 for students

Let's imagine things can change: Ideas and Revolution

Join us for an evening of dinner, celebration and conversation

Featuring Luis Rodriguez

An award-winning poet and journalist, Luis Rodriguez speaks around
the country to standing-room-only audiences. His acclaimed
memoir, "Always Running, La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.," tells
the story of his former life as a gang member in Watts and East
Los Angeles. He brings a vision of hope to all.

For more information, please call 773-202-7012

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
readers.
******************************************************************

TOPIC
10-99 Join with others
TEXT
******************************************************************
People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition)
Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999

P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.lrna.org

BODY
******************************************************************

13. JOIN WITH OTHERS TO MAKE THE VISION OF A WORLD OF PLENTY A
REALITY

Who is the League of Revolutionaries for a New America? We are
people from all walks of life who refuse to accept that there
should be great suffering in a world of great abundance. Together,
we can inspire people with a vision of a cooperative world where
the full potential of each person can contribute to the good of
all. Together, we can get our message of hope out on radio and
television, in places of worship, union halls, and in the streets.
We don't have all the answers, but we are confident that together
we can free the minds of the millions of people who can liberate
humanity. Join us!

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___ Please send me a one-year individual subscription. My check or
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or money order for $25 is enclosed.

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I want to join the League of Revolutionaries for a New America.

___ Send me a bundle of 5__ 10__ 25__ 50__ 100__ People's
Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo to get out in my city. (Bundles are
only 15 cents per copy)

___ Send me a membership kit so I can build a chapter of the
League of Revolutionaries for a New America in my city.

___ I want a speaker in my city. Send me a "Speakers for a New
America" brochure.

___ I want to make a financial donation.

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

Name

Address

City/State/Zip

Phone

E-mail

Call us at 800-691-6888 or write to LRNA * P.O. Box 477113 *
Chicago, Illinois 60647.

FOOTER
******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO
(Online Edition), Vol. 26 No. 10/ October, 1999; P.O. Box 3524,
Chicago, IL 60654; Email: [email protected]; http://www.lrna.org
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE/TRIBUNO DEL PUEBLO depends on donations from its
readers.
******************************************************************