I Page 2 Portland Observer Thursday. February 5. 1976 We see the world through Black eyes Cut frills first Elections begin now The people of Multnomah County ogam face a serious crisis in the orea of human services — including health programs. As usual, the bulk of the money-saving cuts necessary to balance the county budget will come out of the social services and health areas. These savings ore not savings at all, but merely shift the expenses to welfare or state operated institutions -- hospitals, jails, institutions and mental hospitals. The bill is greater in the long run and the suffering of the individual is multiplied. If the county commissioners are truly interested in the people they ore elected to serve, they will look to other areas to save money instead of destroying what little there is left in the health and social service agencies. They could begin by taking a good look at their own offices and cutting out some of the frills. Each of the four commissioners — Mosee, Buchanan, Corbett and Gordon — has a personal aide paid approximately $25,000 per year. The job descrip­ tions of these aides are rather vague — in the eyes of some, they run errands and do some of the work the commissioners could be doing. One of the four aides just happens to be a long-time political campaign expert. By eliminating these positions, the Commissioners could save $100,000, which would save a number of the essential programs. Much of the $100,000 could be matched by federal dollars and bring in as much as $400,000. The people of Multnomah County are being asked to sacrifice vital services that can only lead to o determination of the community's health. The sick, elderly, disabled, disturbed and youth are asked (forced) to sacrifice. Let's see a little sacrifice on the part of our commissioners, too. The political campaigns of 1976 are beginning to pick up momentum, with the early contestants alreody on the campaign trail. Many important decisions will be made at the ballot box this year nationally and locally. But long before election day arrives many of the major decisions will have been mode. The time to get involved is now. All candidates need help — from making policy decisions to addressing envelopes. There are many interesting and important jobs to be done and this is the way to find out how the system works and to get into the “ inner circle". Many of us have believed that the political process was beyond our reoch, that other people — those who have connections -- have the only opportunity to belong. In Oregon, the system is wide open. There is a place in the Democratic Party for anyone who wants to participate and we can assume that the other parties need help, also. Let's not woit until the day after the election and ther ,,rumble becans«'’ it did not turn out the way we wanted. Auto test unfair The DEQ test of automobile emissions is currently under fire. Allegations have been made that the regulations are applied unfairly, that t,iere are differences among testing stations, etc. A committee of legislators has been appointed to .ook into the matter. Of further concern is the fact that the requirements apply only to the metropolitan area and place c burden on people who live in this area of the state that is not carried by other Oregon residents. We wonder if this is constitutional. It also seems strange that we should sit in lines for hours, then pay for a test, when we daily see cars travelling on the streets belching out huge clouds of smoke and exhaust. Surely even the police can see that these cars are polluting the air. oit - backì PAY C A M CENTERS pQYÉíV'f ? HOUSING Co n ^ r v/ Cfl1 PROGRAMS ( A" SCHOOL LUNCH program 'P O V E R T Y O F T E N DE­ PRIVES A MAN O F A L I S P IR IT AN D V IR T U E ,IT IS H A R D FOR AH EMPTY STOMACH TO STAND UP­ R IG H T." FRANKLIN Time to ta k e a firm stand on H u m a n Services, C ounty Comm issioners P o rtla n d O b server / 1st Place (ooaiatuiity Service O N P A 1973 Published every Thursday by Exie Publishing Company, 2201 North Killmgsworth, Portland. Oregon 97217. Mailing address: P .0 . Box 3137. Portland, Oregon 97208 Telephone: 283 2486 1st Place Best Ad Results O N P A 1973 Subscriptions: $5.25 per year in the T ri County area. $6.00 per year outside Portland. 5th Place Best Editorial N N P A 1973 Second ( lass Postage Paid at Portland. Oregon A L F R E D L. H E N D E R S O N M ita r/P u b lis h e r Soft cop - Hard cop Two policies toward Angola have emerged. The left over policy of Kissin ger remains dominant: mercenaries flood into Angola to join the C IA backed farces I ’N IT A and F N L A (who are reported also to be shooting one another) to stop the M P L A People's Republic of Angola. The newer policy is most clearly advanced by Senator John Tunney iD C a lif): contain and manipulate the new government (PR A ) by getting in tough with the "moderate faction" in the PRA. Tunney's aide M ark Moran told the New York Times last week "my impression is that there are several positions in the M PLA and that the moderates are in a bit of a q u a n d ry .th e y need a softening of Washington's position to legitimise their own standing in the movement.4, Moran apparently met with the C IA counter gang head Savimbi in Lusaka. Zambia last week, and is scheduled to visit Luanda this week. It is throught the extension of loans through the Agency for International Development I A ID ) and the World Band for la b o r intensive self-help (Maoist) projects "for the lower levels of the population" that the Harrim an Tunney group hopes to drive a wedge into the PRA. I t is unlikely that the Tunney et al attempt to get hold of the PRA "moderates" is going too well, in the face of Kissinger's use of mercenaries against Kissinger is left to thresten the Third World msfiosostyle (as he did this week in Congress): “You’ll get no help from us unless you vote with us in the U J 1 " the PRA. According to the Sunday Telegraph the C IA has funded recently some $49.2 million in arms and cash to the F N I.A U N IT A forces, with more money on its way. The Telegraph also refers to the C IA conducing some $54 million in arms etc. and an additional $20 million “for British Mercenaries in Angola." That apparently does not include the money for American and other nationals the C IA has recruited for Angola Roy Innia. director of the C IA rejuvenated CORE, says he can't help it if his Vietnam vet medical technicians decide to lay down their needles and pick up weapons. Other Black C IA recruiters in D etroit. Washington. D.C.. Philadel phia. Los Angeles, etc. are also openly recruiting mercenaries, under the same thin cover. This stuff is clearly illegal. Joke Kissinger was asked last week in Congress if the U.S. might have provoked the Soviets into large scple support by the U.S. giving funds to the F N I.A etc. Kissinger responded to this by saying that the money sent to the CIA-created countergang “was only used for bicycles and office equipment." Another Joke Daniel Moynihan. Kissinger's Tweedle Dum tw in, was unceremoniously remov ed from his job as leading mouth. Mjafce Syndicated columnist Carl Rowan rffT tg ia ls - February 4th) touches briefly on the predicament of the Third W orld in an article on Jamaica. Jamaica's foreign reserves were one week ago just $67.2 million • enough to buy two weeks of imports. The country's unemployment rate is officially 20% (probably making it actually about 60% ). The collapse in the advanced industrial sector has virtually halted the demand for Jamaica's bauxite, while the price of sbgar (third largest foreign exchange earner) dropped from 67 cents to 14 cents a pound. To get emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund (IM F ), the IM F demands fascist austerity. Rowan quotes Jamaica’s Prime Minister Michael Manley as enraged: “In order to get balance of payments assistance. Jamaica must whack its budget for schools, medical care and similar programs. I must throw more of my poor on the dungheap of destruction in order to get IM F support." The identical scrapping of the standard of living of the working population is going on in Italy which is being turned into a Third World country. In return for about $450 million, the IM F is demanding Italy's politicians scrap social services and put the unemployed to work in slave labor projects. Such a program has gotten no official support, even from pro fascist groupings, though they are railing for austerity verbally. W ithin Italy the Tight to reject austerity is being waged by the Cefis industrial group (in opposition to the Agnelli f i a t grouping, which is allied to the Rockefeller group) and the Mansini wing of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). Again, the Soviets are sitting on their thumbs, providing no support for the pro development forces and capitalist anti-austerity forces who have cautiously committed themselves to international development as the solution to the collapse. In the midst of this, the U.S. Labor Party's presidential candidate Lyndon IjiRouche is i n l t aly. to coalesce the pro-development forces to adopt the International Development Bank. Debt moratoria (Italy's debt ia about $14 billion), East West trade, raw materials for industrial production (with the Third World, etc.) is the only alternative to economic collapse Third World Organizing The meeting of the Third World countries in Manila last week failed to initiate debt cancellation and moratoria (postponement), but in spite of that IM F looting policies wore n je rte d delegate at the conference (Group of T t Misusing busing in ’76 'xnnm / . ' 1 T h ird W o r ld W ra p u p The Portland Observer's official position is expressed only in its Publisher's column (W e See The World Through Black Eyes). Any other material throughout the paper is the opinion of the individual w riter or submitter and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Portland Observer. Honorable Mention Herrick Editorial A war N N A 1973 by Augustus Hawkins It is not amazing that our Constitution is one of the most quoted documents in this nation; what is equally amazing, is that it also is at times, one of the most ignored documents. That is. most ignored, when it is expedient to do so by those who don't like the protections the Constitution guarantees. A rase in point is the continuing question of providing equal eductional opportunity for Black school children, and developing the proper tools to accomplish this. The current furor over busing as one of the tools for achieving school desegrega lion, is an exciting example of a prime issue which affords great emotionalizing, and very little else, when one is dead set against recognizing the Constitution as a yardstick for measuring what is legally right in this country. In fact, I believe that a reading of the Constitution is a "must for those Americans who now want to back away from the struggle to desegregate all of our schools. The Constitution clearly says that a person's rights must be respected and protected by law. and that (according to the Fourteenth Amendment). "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person life, liberty, or property without due process of law. nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." And so is further reference to segregated education the Supreme Court on May 17th, 1954, unanimously declared in the words of its Chief Justice. Earl W arren that “Separate educational facili ties are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiff and other similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are. by reason of segregation complained of. deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaran teed by the Fourteenth Amendment.” The Constitution, and the Supreme Court's ruling, clearly supports the right of every youngster in this country to receive an education which precludes educational segregation, whether or not that segregation is accidental, incidental, or otherwise forced or enforced. Schools systems therefore have a legal mandate to enforce that Court's deci sions. and all of its subsequent decisions. Commercial printing People who want to play around with the constitutionally valid right of equal educational opportunity for all children, clearly understand what the law means, what the law implies, and what the law says to those responsible for its enforce ment. President Nixon understood the issues inherent in the Supreme Court's Brown decision. Yet because of his («thological dishonesty, he campaigned in 1972 on an anti busing platform. Raising the issue way beyond its importance, he cleverly prevented the American people from examining his own bankrupt domestic and economic policies, and thereby won the election. M r. Ford also understands the nature of the law of this Land as addressing racist school systems and racist school policies. But mark my words, Mr. Ford will hop on the anti busing band wagon with appropriate vigor, if he begins to luse in t.he presidential primaries and fumbles the 1976 presidential campaign I t used to be that the flag and patriotism was the last refuge of thieves and scoundrels. Busing can be added to this imfamous list, since it too evokes irrational defenses and behaviors. The major Issue in this country today is jobs, not busing: and jobs will be the issue in '76 Any presidential candidate who encourages campaign debates on busing, does so knowing that he has nothing of substance to present to the American electorate. The American public, this time, ought to be smart enough to return any such candidate to posture I t might sharpen his smarts for developing another trade v non aligned nations) told IPS: “the international banking system ran no longer support growth Our proposals lake this fart as seriously as the needs of the population of this earth and provide concrete steps...thip time we must go beyond pious resolutions." In spite of that determination. Mexico's leading spokesman for development was kept from attending the meeting, and other arts of sabotage were committed to isolate the leading Third W orld repre senUtives. Subsequently Peru has joined Algeria's call for the restarting of international production through an ID B type proposal, which is the content of the new world economic order.