Portland Observer, December 1, 1982 Page 5
Washington Hot Line
NAACP
ELECTION
by Congressman Ron Wyden
On November 29, members o f the
House and Senate will return for the
so-called lame-duck session o f Con
gress.
Although there is a lot o f unfin
ished business still on the table, it is
unlikely that much o f it will be com
pleted. For one thing, time is limited
(to approximately three weeks). For
another, there will be a lot o f pres
sure to wait until the new Congress
convenes in January to take up a lot
o f the controversial measures.
For example, although Social Se
curity has been in the news a lot late
ly, I don’t believe Congress will en
act any significant changes in the
system during the lam e-duck ses
sion. Not only is time too short to
properly consider such a complicat
ed issue, but House leaders w ill
want to wait until the new Congress
is assembled to help ensure they
have the votes to prevent massive
cutbacks.
I also think it is unlikely— though
possible— that Congress w ill ser
iously consider a rew rite o f the
Clean A ir Act in the lame-duck. U n
less members o f the Energy and
Com m erce C om m ittee are able to
agree on a short version o f the bill—
which they have shown little p ro
pensity for to date— I just don’t set
how it can be done.
There are, however, a number o f
issues that will be considered— if not
resolved— during the lam e-duck.
Following is my best guess as to ma
jor issues that will be debated during
that period:
Jobs legislation: Congress almost
assuredly will take up proposals for
a new jobs p ro g ram — most likely
one that will aim at providing jobs
in road and bridge repair and other
endeavors that will help rebuild Am-
e rica ’s in frastru ctu re. There have
been various proposals as to how
such a program would be paid for,
including a 5 cent-per-gallon tax in
crease on gasoline.
formulations include a direct subsi
dy or a long-range stimulus bill such
as one I have introduced that would
open up pension funds for housing.
Tax cut acceleration: Despite
warnings by Congressional leaders
that he doesn't have the votes to get
it passed, the latest word from the
White House is that President Rea
gan intends to go ahead with plans
to ask Congress to speed up the 1983
incom e tax cut from July to Jan
uary. Although this move would in
crease the federal deficit, the Presi
dent claims it would help provide
the econom ic shot in the arm the
country needs to begin moving out
o f the recession. Opponents claim
it would only make matters worse.
Housing: Legislation to shore up
the hard-hit housing industry is still
a possibility— though not a certainty
E n viro n m ental: A lthough I ex
pect Congress to defer consideration
o f the Clean A ir A ct during the
lame-duck session, I am fairly cer
tain it will take up legislaiton to es
tablish a process for identifying the
best possible perm anent nuclear
waste disposal sites. Congress has put
o ff making a decision on this matter
for too lo n g — and the health and
safety o f the American public have
been jeopardized as a result.
The lam e-duck Congress is also
likely to consider legislation to pro
tect existing and proposed w ilder
ness areas by prohibiting further oil
and gas drilling and leasing in those
areas.
— for the lame-duck.
Possible
r ^ P2 ? 2 nd ^ran^ ’5 f,Lh? N8t'on®, Association for the Advancement
OTColored People will hold ita annual meeting and biennial elections of
1?7 1982 814k°° p m at the Vancouver Ave. Firm
Baptist Church, 3138 N. Vancouver Ave.
Anyone 17 years or over "who appears on the roll o f the branch as a
bona fid e member o f the branch at least thirty days p rio r to the elec
tions” is eligible to vote.
Lucious Hicks IV, President
Betty White, Secretary
brought to you
every week
by
Rewriting American History
A M ER IC AN STATE BANK
by Dr. Manning Marable
“From The Grassroots”
W hy has Reagan repeatedly a t
tempted to “ rewrite” the history o f
the black freedom struggle? The
most immediate and obvious reason
is that the trend toward racist ran
dom violence against blacks has
continued unchecked in the 1980s,
and that blacks o f every socioeco
nomic class and political persuasion
are becoming more militant.
A lm ost d aily throu g h o u t 1982,
there were a fresh series o f racial
atrocities in virtually every corner of
the country, as reported in the A t
lanta-based publication, R acially-
M o tiv a te d R andom Violence. On
December 19, 1982, and January 16,
1982, the of rices o f a black newspa
per, the Jackson Advocate (Missis
sippi) were
firebom bed
and
shotgunned, and s ta ff members
were threatened. On M ay 3, 1982,
Chester Reems, a black man in Dur
ham, North Carolina, was attacked
by a racist for “ walking with a white
w om an.” The white man drove his
autom obile into Reems, throwing
him more than 80 feet. Reems was
pronounced deal on arrival at (D ur
ham's) hospital, having suffered a
broken neck and multiple fractures.
On May 26, 1982, one young black
man was killed and another serious
ly wounded by a gun-weilding white
man in F ra n k lin to n , N o rth C a ro
lin a . Black fam ilies in Boston’ s
H yde Park neighborhood exper
ienced assaults, racial slurs, and had
their homes vandalized during July
and August, 1982.
Much o f the racist violence came
from white teenagers and young
adults. White students at Chicago's
Bogan High School harassed and at
tacked young blacks. Between 55
and 73 black teenagers were arrested
in the interracial righting, but police
arrested no whites. W hite youths in
D orchester, Massachusetts, fire -
bombed an apartm ent building in
which black fam ilies had recently
moved. On August 8, a black family
driving in downtown Boston were
pursued by four young racists. The
youths got out o f their car, covered
their license plates and, while hurl
ing racist epithets, began smashing
the windows o f the fam ily’s car with
chains and clubs. Fo rtu n ately the
fam ily escaped with only^pinor in
juries. The most pubjjbized “ lynch
in g " occurred in B ro o k ly n , New
York, on June 22. A gang o f young
whites stopped an automobile con
taining three black men. Two o f the
men were cut and punched, but
managed to escape. The third black
man, W illia m Turks, was brutally
beaten to death.
The violence against blacks can be
explained only through the prism of
history. Immediately following the
Compromise o f 1877, and the end
o f the First Reconstruction, A fro -
American people experienced a wave
o f murderous race hatred and vio
lence. W ith the demise o f the Sec
ond Reconstruction, many whites
have returned to the bloody A m er
ican tra d itio n o f the a u to -d a -fe ,
mob violence, and crim in al beha
vior towards peoples o f color. What
we now are witnessing is “ the spirit
o f the mob” ; a desire to inflict pun
ishment at random ; to terro rize
small children and their families; to
force black people ever backward,
into the darkest and most obscure
corners o f p o litical discourse and
economic life.
The mob hates the black man and
woman, because it fears the poten-
tial strength o f united black political
power, the danger o f being replaced
on the jo b by a black person, the
threat o f blacks living next door and
underm ining property values. As
W .E .B . DuBois suggested, the mob
believes " th e Negro an in fe rio r
ra c e ," and that " th is in fe rio rity
must be publicly acknowledged and
submitted to .” Leaders o f the “ mob
spirit,” from the hoodlums in Bos
ton, the rirebombers o f Mississippi,
to the President himself, will distort
the lessons o f the past to ensure ra
cial inequality in the future.
The black elite now cries in the
face o f Reaganism, yet it too bears
indirectly a share o f the blame for
the present “ mob spirit.” The black
elite w ill promulgate an economic
program which m irrors the right-
wing tendencies o f Social D em oc
racy in most o f the Western world’s
nations, but beyond that invisible
boundary, they will not go further
left. In short, the black elite calls for
federal in itia tive s to p rovide em
ployment for the poor, but they will
not advocate a clearly socialist
agenda which would severely restrict
the prerogatives o f private capital;
they denounce the growing trend o f
racist violence, without also seeing
that such violence is a manifestation
o f a more profound crisis within the
cap italist p o litic a l econom y. The
elite has no viable solutions to ad
dress the proliferating and perma
nent black reserve army o f labor, or
the deterioration o f the inner cities.
They are simply prepared to admin
ister the crisis, but not to resolve it.
Their failure, in brief, is one o f vi
sion. The Old Guard constantly ma
neuvers, responding to minor politi
cal crises, but they are hopelessly in-
ept in projecting a constructive pro
gramme to transform the larger so
ciety. The react, ra th e r than act;
they imitate, rather than create; they
plead, rather than demand. As the
decades o f the 1980s progressed, it
has become obvious that their lim
ited vision has created a temporary
yet quite real b arrier between the
black majority and their goals o f bi-
racial democracy, economic justic,
and freedom. W ith DuBois, I must
agree thtt many critical failures o f
both Reconstructions were the result
o f the blacks* leadership " b y the
blind. W e fell under the leadership
o f those who w ould com prom ise
w ith tru th in the past in order to
make peace in the present and guide
policy in the future.”
A French in ventor patented th e first practical syn
thetic fiber in 1884. He called it artificial silk. W e know it
today as rayon.
•
The firs t w h ite road m a rkin g s fo r tra ffic c o n tro l,
called "center line safety stripes," were painted on the
surface of River Road, near Trenton, Michigan, in 1911.
•
The Egyptians learned by abo ut 1500 B.C. h o w to
make w rought iron. They used a bellows made o f goat
skin to force air into their iron-making furnace.
•
We do not do business w ith South Africa.
American State
Bank AN INDEPENDENT BANK
Head Office
2737 N. E. Union
Portland, Oregon 97212
Street Beat
by Lenita Duke and Richard Brown
Last week the Portland C ity Council
engaged in a dog fight over police dogs.
The Street Beat team asked Portland
ers, “ Do you th in k the C ity C ouncil
should spend money to acquire police
dogs?"
Debt counselling available
Free professional counseling is
being offered local residents whose
fam ily income can't keep up with
debts incurred when the economy
was better.
Consumer Credit Counseling Ser
vice o f O regon, In c ., (C C C S ), a
Portland-based non -p ro fit oigan-
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ization, is already helping almost 100
North Portland-area residents find
ways to make financial ends meet.
The door is open to others.
" W e ’re seeing people today who
have never had a money manage
ment problem in their lives,” says
Lawrence W in th ro p , president o f
1
Abortion:
A woman's
choice
Abortion is safe and legal in a
clinic setting the Portland Utxnen's Health Center
offers abortion services up to 19 weeks from the last
rrKTistru.il (XTirxl The abortion procedure used up to I?
weeks is vat uum aspiration w ith minimal dilation Dila
tion and Fv.it nation (an adaption of the
six non methodl is used fix abortions 13
to l9 w rT ‘ks Abortions are performed
with optional local .friestfietic
Medicaid. insurance and major credit
cards are accepted Other referrals
available r all for furtfier information
Fees
rw^D-n AMrA
'<> to M weeks LNMPS18000
I I 14 weeks I N M f’ $?t5O0
FEMINIST
W O M E N 'S
HEALTH
CENTER
15 19 weeks I NMP $10000
I FJK I L A N D
65,0 FOSTE* « oad
5OV777-7O44
97206
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the 15-year-old service.
He says CCCS services are avail
able to anyone, regardless o f income
level, who c an ’ t pay his— or
her— bills.
CCCS counseling alone is free. If
more help is needed, there’s a debt
management program for which a
nominal charge is made (or waived
in serious hardship cases). In these
programs, counselors work with cli
ents and their creditors to arrange
mutually satisfactory programs for
getting debts paid— usually by ex
tending repayment periods and re
ducing the amount o f monthly pay
ments.
Appointments for counseling may
be made by calling 232-8139 (in
P o rtla n d ). T h e re ’ s no o b lig atio n
and advice alone is free. The service
is funded prim arily by private con
tributions and governed by a volun
teer board o f directors.
Don S w att
Service Station Attendant
No, 1 don’t. I believe it should
be le ft to the C o un ty to take
care o f instead o f the City. The
public should decide whether we
want police dogs or n ot. In
some respects police need the
dogs. In others the dogs aren’t
needed.
Wendy Rogers
Student
No, 1 don't like animals. I do
not like dogs. I d o n ’ t think
we’ve gotten to the point where
they need police dogs.
Michael Reif
Salesman
N o . The police sho u ld n ’ t
have the dogs. They should im
prove the manpower instead of
getting animals. This would be
too much.
Jay Hinshaw
Machine Operator
Carl Buchanan
Security Officer
ALL YOU NEED
FOR MINOR ITCHES
AND RASHES.
I d o n ’ t thin k police need
dogs. The police arc likely to let
them go more on blacks than on
whites. The dogs remind me of
when Bull Conner sic’d the dogs
on M artin Luther King.
No. W e’ve had three friends
who’ve gotten bit. The police sic
the dogs on them. In court my
friends c o u ld n ’t get any re
course.
Kevin Coyle
Stock Clerk
No! There are more im p o rt
ant things than getting police
dogs. They can borrow dogs
from another precinct. I think
Ivancie is out o f his m ind. We
should go with Mildred. She has
her ideas together.