OPINION/NEWS
The Clackamas Print
Wednesday, November 1,1995
The fight against politicians and big business
Dan Anderson
Staff Writer
Yesterday was payday. Like
anyone, I trade a certain amount
of my time and energy for money.
Luckily for me, I work in a union
shop and make eleven dollars per
hour—significantly better than
the typical part-time job for a stu
dent—and the trade seems a bit
more fair. The arrangement al
most always benefits the money
giver more than the worker.
Even at that, I only received
roughly 70 percent of the money
I earned; the Man’s associates in
Salem and Washington D.C.
pulled a fair chunk away. And
like anyone, I require food and
shelter, so I cash some of my to
kens in for those needs. But like
anyone, I plug in to the media,
supported by entities who crave
my money; the Man lures me into
buying things I don’t need, such
as media gadgets and fuel-con
suming automobiles.
Like anyone, I’m pinched by
the Man.
Incidentally, the Man is a
convenient label I place on the
global ruling class; the Man em
bodies, for example, the extremely
wealthy, governments, oil compa
nies, big business and political
interests. There is no one “Man,”
although there do not seem to be
very many Men (and virtually no
GALAB provides
needed support
Andrew Beck
Staff Writer
Gay, lesbian and bisexual
rights at Clackamas Community
College are important to the Gay,
Lesbian and Bisexual Students’
Club (GALAB).
GALAB is a club formed
three years ago to provide social
help and support for gay, lesbian
and bisexual students enrolled at
Clackamas. GALAB also hopes
to provide a forum in which to
discuss issues relating to gay, les
bian and bisexual students.
“We provide an important
service on campus, for a campus
that supports diversity,” said
Kate Gray, English instrucor and
advisor of GALAB.Gray has
been involved with the club for
two years.
The club has two meetings
during the week; one at 4 p.m.,
Thursdays, at the Oregon City
Starbuck’s on Molalla Avenue;
the other at noon, Fridays, in
Barlow 238. Up until a week
ago, GALAB has usually just
participated in a group discus
sion on how its members’ lives
are being affected by their sexual
orientation. The group also pro-
vides emotional and mental sup
port for its members. As of this
week, GALAB now has a weekly
topic its members choose for dis
cussion. This week’s meetings
will discuss the many stereotypes
the general community has of
gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
“I want all possible gays,
lesbians and bisexuals on cam
pus to know there is a safe place
for them in GALAB,” Gray said.
But GALAB’s emergence on the
campus has not always been eas
ily accepted. In 1992, during vot
ing on Oregon’s controversial
anti-gay bill, Measure Nine,
GALAB advertised a public
meeting on campus with the
group Parents for Lesbians and
Gays(PFLAG). GALAB put up
posters around the campus for
the public, and most of the post
ers were destroyed. A swastika
was drawn on one of the post
ers, along with the German Na
tional Anthem.
With all the current national
attention to gay rights and the
growing effects of national gay
awareness, GALAB is trying to
continued on page 6
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Women) controlling and forcing
the consumption of the world’s
resources, to satisfy the Man’s
greed.
Since the Man controls the
world’s resources, at least the re
sources he can manipulate to sell
to the workers, and controls the
means by which these resources
are processed, are transported to
market, the markets in which the
finished goods are sold, the ad
vertising used to get more people
to spend more money on these fin
ished goods, and the media used
to run the advertising—as well as
selling the means to tap into elec
tronic media and to transport one
self to each marketplace to buy—
the Man needs help. Which is
where the biased, disproportion
ate trade comes in. I get paid
eleven dollars per hour of work
to move the Man’s boxes from
pallet to pallet, for example.
Companies such as Wal-Mart
and K-Mart, both immense con
glomerates who force the few
businesses only partially affiliated
with the Man out of business
through strong-armed, intimidat
ing tactics, pay their employees
in a very interesting way. They
pay them little enough to keep
them shopping at Wal-Mart or K-
Mart, but barely enough to keep
them working. These employees
receive no benefits other than a
flaky health insurance plan,
which seems to cover all medical
conditions except illness, injury
or disease, and only after an 80%
copayment. These companies cre
ate families who must rely on an
other facet of the Man, the U.S.
Government, for food stamps and
medical aid.
The Man has become fat on
fast food. These restaurants rely
largely upon part-time help, stu
dents, and full-time immigrants,
all of whom will accept minimum
wage, degrading and stressful
working conditions and a total
absence of benefits. These jobs
do not create enough tax revenue
to pay for the Man’s government
to build its weapons and bombs,
which means it must entice the
Man’s big business to hire more
part-time help by offering big
business a tax break, or subsidies.
Which says nothing about the
Man’s desire to fuel the world on
petroleum, a finite source of en
ergy which he can easily control.
Burning gasoline in our automo
biles takes us from work to the
markets, to home; burning diesel
brings all the goods to market.
The Man has even invented
motorsports, motorboating, and
all-terrain vehicles which entice
many people into spending money
on fuel for recreation.
I propose complete, compre
hensive unionization of the
world’s workforce. This will drive
wages and benefits up, which will
provide a more stable tax base for
the Man’s government to allevi
ate its own debts with. Higher
wages increase the workers’ buy
ing power, which means they can
buy the means of production,
transportation and marketing
from the Man. Big business which
relies on a cheap labor force to
strong-arm its smaller, not-the-
Man competitors, will suffer and
give independent owners a better
chance at success. Reliable medi
cal insurance from employers
along with higher wages will radi
cally reduce the workers’ reliance
upon the Man’s government.
There are many, many mote ben
efits to the syndicate system.
However, there are also im
mediate drawbacks. For example,
prices for most consumer goods
would rise drastically, because the
Man would hate to concede de
feat and share even some of his
wealth. Big business would fight
the new unions from the begin
ning, planting corruption and of
fering bribes to union officials.
These drawbacks could lead
into benefits as well, in the long
term. Smaller, specialized busi
nesses would rise, allowing cus
tomers to buy cheaper goods from
a variety of vendors. Also, a suc
cessful fight from the start against
such an impervious foe as the
Man would bring forth very high
morale and support for the union.
Next payday, consider the
trade you make with the Man, and
consider that a union could eas
ily make the trade for money more
favorable for you.
Strange laws still on the record
Many laws have stayed on because it is more
expensive to change them than to keep them as is
Paul Ulmen, Staff Writer &
Cori Kargel, Business
Manager
There are some rather
strange and weird laws still on the
books in some states, so don’t get
caught! It’s still against the law
to—
—carry an ice cream cone in your
pocket in Kentucky. In Utah,
don’t let your youngsters hitch
their bikes to airplanes. Donkies
cannot sleep in your bathtub in
Brooklyn, New York. You’ll be
in big trouble if you enter a res
taurant in Califomia—on horse
back. Horse racing on the New
Jersey turnpike can bring a hefty
fine. If your goldfish is being
rowdy and making a disturbance,
it won’t be allowed to ride the bus
in Seattle. North Carolina will
not allow you to plow a cotton
field—with an elephant.
In another mid-western
town, it’s illegal to dye a rabbit
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or a baby chick pink
or purple. In a Loui
siana town, a man
cannot be on a pub
lic street in his bath
ing suit, but a
woman can. In a
southern Oregon
town, it’s illegal for
a man to walk down
the street with an
other man’s wife. In
an eastern state, it is
illegal for a woman
to wear a two peice
bathing suit. In a beach town, a
pregnant woman can’t walk back
wards on the beach—not while
she’s singing opera, that is. In
an Oregon town, it is still illegal
to carry a knife in the outside of
your left boot. In a southern town,
it’s against the law to read a news
paper from back to front.
No matter how hungry you
are, it’s still against the law to take
a bite from someone else’s ham
burger in Oklahoma. Don’t think
of keeping pigs outside your
kitchen window in Dover, North
Carolina. Turtle auctions are still
illegal in Kansas City, Missouri.
If you plan to attend an outdoor
concert in Green, New York,
kindly control yourself by not
walking backwards on the side
walk while munching peanuts.
Ckeop Talk
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