Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 1983)
Page 2 Portland Obaefvw, November 23, 1963 _________ EDITORIAL/OPINION There is something we can do The television movie, The Day A fton was viewed by more than 100,000 Americans, many of them seeing for the first time a portrayal of some of the devastation and human suffering a nuclear war would bring. Yet our country is rushing headlong toward a nuclear war, with deployment of Cruise and Pershing I I missiles in Europe that will give the Soviets only six minutes to determine if an at tack was in progress and to respond rather than the thirty minutes depicted in the show. The world has never been in a more dangerous posi tion since the man with his finger on the button has already demonstrated his willingness to kill. The program demonstrated that the essential, most crucial, task facing the American people is to get Reagan out of the White House before he destroys humanity. The second crucial task is to enter into sincere negotiations with the Soviet Union, recognizing that the U.S.S.R. does exist and that it will not give up or alter its Marxist ideology. We must decide that two opposing and competing systems can co-exist in peace. These are tasks that should involve all people. If the program did nothing else, hopefully it woke up those whose view of the world stops at their neighborhood boundaries and whose inter est in humanity includes only family and friends. It should be clear that this country must allow the peoples o f the world to seek and find their own destiny or we will all be annihilated. And, like it or not, the responsibility and power to change our government is in the hands o f the voters. While other Democratic candidates are hiding under the table or patting Reagan on the back, only Jesse Jackson is condemning U.S. aggres sion throughout the world and calling for a halt to it. Jackson’s campaign is organizing in Portland and can use help. There is no one who does not have something— time, money, talent, etc., to share. This year take the train The holidays are upon us and many people— those with no, enough money to fly or with an undependable car— are used to catching the Greyhound to get to the home of a favorite relative or friend. This year take the train (or the other bus company). Over 12,500 drivers and baggage people are ou, on strike— not asking for raises but trying to hold their own against a company determined to break the union. Help them keep their jobs. Letters to the Editor Get out of Grenada, Lebanon, El Salvador To the editor: being and rights o f its citizens by union busting, and attempting to wipe out the Civil Rights Comm is sion, affirm ative action programs, abortion rights and benefits of the poor and disadvantaged. Government officials conduct their national and international campaigns against the lives and hopes o f the poor in the name of hu manity and democracy. But the real motive is to create a subjugated population— barefoot, pregnant and without unions to press high wage demands and good working conditions. The U .S . government and its partners, domestic and inter national corporations, want access to all the land, natural resources and cheap labor in the world. When countries choose socialism, like Grenada, Cuba and Vietnam , they use their wealth to create jobs and services to enrich the lives of their cit The U.S. government has earned the title o f International Public Ene my No. I. It has criminally invaded Grenada and Carriacou. In Leban on Reagan's military policy is re- responsible for the deaths o f over 200 members o f the armed "peace keeping force" sent to prop up a government accepted by almost no one except the U.S. government. " O u r ” government is arrogantly trying to overthrow the legitimate leftist government o f Nicaragua while in El Salvador they support the hated, murderous right wing government. They are deploying missiles in Europe despite massive protests and support the fascist South African government against Black leftist revolutionaries. Here in the U .S. the government especially targets women and people o f color in its attack on the well a Small farmers endangered by Dr. Manning Marable Earlier this month, the w orld’s Tint international conference on robotics and high technology in ag riculture was held in Tam pa. F lori da. The conference participants dis cussed the means o f developing rob ots to replace farm laborers as a cost-cutting device; but the question of making American produce "m ore competitive” with foreign produce raises many more political questions concerning the survival of small farmers. Advances in technology and the growth o f agribusiness have already eliminated millions o f jobs for Black, Latino, and white workers. O nly 40 years ago. two out o f five Black males were farm workers or farmers. Even as late as I960, five percent o f all Black workers were employed in agriculture, and another three percent were farm owners. By 1977, fewer than 146,000 Black men were employed in agriculture. High technology is promising to eliminate the remainder o f these jobs within the present decade. A g ricultural engineers in Florida are currently at work on a robot equipped with a crude form o f vi sion that can spot ripe oranges and pick them gently. A t the Tampa conference, the Australians demon strated a computerized robot that takes only 13 minutes to shear 88 percent o f the wool from a sheep, without ever cutting the animal. By contrast, an experienced worker can shear one sheep in only one-fourth the time, but ordinarily cut the ani mal an average o f 17 to 25 times. Japanese scientists have de veloped a robot-driven combine which harvests rice and wheat. The driverless combines eliminate the need for skilled workmen, and are now being exported to the U .S . by large agribusiness firms. By 1990, much o f Am erica’s food supply could be harvested by robots. But lacking adequate capital, most smaller farms w ill not be able to purchase the new technology, and they too will simply disappear The crisis o f Black farmers has been building for decades, and has now reached a critical point. From 1959 to 1974, the number o f Black operated cotton farms in the South declined from 87,074 to 1,569. Black-owned tobacco farms dropped from 40.670 to less than 7,000 during the same period. Blacks now represent only 5.6 per cent o f the South's farmers; only 27 percent are self-employed, two- thirds are salary workers, and five percent are unpaid fam ily workers. The dire condition o f Black fa rm ers is now shared by many thou sands o f white farmers. Farm fam i lies are being pushed o ff the land at the rate o f almost one percent per month in the 1980s. Farm prices are at the lowest point in a half-century, due to enforced below-parity prices. The social costs o f the economic cri sis are also devastating— a rise of farmers' suicides, divorces, child abuse and alcoholism. W hat are the broader political implications o f the agricultural crisis? The North American Farm Alliance, a coalition o f more than fifty agricultural and community as- sociatons, points out (hat one out of every five jobs is linked to agricul ture in some way, from processing food to the making o f tractors and pickup trucks. Fewer farmers mean more tractors, trucks and other farm equipment sold at auction. thus depressing the tractor industry The result is a 35 percent unemploy ment rate in the farm implement in dustry. Suppose half o f all fam ily farms disappeared. Since farmers collec tively control almost one trillion dollars in various means o f produc t io n -la n d , livestock, machines, etc.— about 500 billion dollars would be transferred to banks, in surance companies and the upper classes. Agribusiness has proven re peatedly its contempt for environ mental protection standards, so the impact for both urban and rural workers would be utterly disastrous. Reversing the trend toward the elimination o f small farmers begins with federal legislation. A new farm products pricing system must be es tablished which w ill guarantee small farmers a stable and fair return for their labor. The federal government should directly subsidize the cost of buying land for low income and new farmers. Tougher laws advocating the rights o f farm laborers to collec tive bargaining, to increase their wages and to improve their working conditions must be passed. An im mediate debt moratorium on small farmers* loans to the Farmers Home Administration and the cancellation o f past taxes would save thousands o f farms this year alone. The federal government must prosecute those corporate interests responsible for perpetuating all forms o f debt peon age. a contemporary form o f agri cultural slave labor. And a ffirm a tive action policies on the hiring and promotion o f minorities within the Agriculture Department and its va rious agencies would help to end that department's discriminatory policies. izens. The U .S. government, who believes that all resources and labor are for the personal enrichment of businessmen, are resorting Io out law methods to regain control over countries who want to be free from U.S. economic, political and m ili tary domination. As a U .S . citizen I am disgusted at having my tax mon ey spent on weapons to be used abroad to keep people suppressed and in poverty. The U.S. must get out o f Gren ada, Carriacou, Lebanon and El Salvador immediately. They must cdase using our hard-earned money to support right wing dictators who rob and murder their citizens, and stop attacking the poor and working people in the U .S. A. (A.uo* 1 - jesse JAmow is ceallv 601W6 To ÇUM Fofc WeSlDEMT THIS CoULO... Yfc ASKED Hito HOT To DO IT 6EÓAUSF ru ii Tms COULD... r n iii n THIS COULD- A d ria n n a W alle r Thanksgiving celebration has deep roots To the editor: Your newspaper is always inter esting to me, if for no other reason than that in its pages I often see news and pictures o f friends, former students, neighbors and community events that I seldom find elsewhere. I also appreciate the coverage of al ternative opinions, even though I do not always share the point o f view o f some o f the writers. In previous Thanksgiving Day is sues you have had guest columnists who have disparaged the celebration o f America's traditional harvest fie- stival, and have made it appear in appropriate for persons who are sensitive to the human rights of m i nority groups. Was this holiday in deed initiated by English colonists, to commemorate their successes against the Indians, as some have said? I f that were so, I would have no part in it either. We should not overlook the an cient roots of Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is much older than the Pilgrims, older than English set tlements in America. The Pilgrims celebrated a harvest festival because in their homeland it was traditional to have what was called the " H a r vest H o m e ." The English in Virgin • t MX • • —- ______ ______ ■ ■ ¡ O r r ijii'’ N frt » .I|ir" P u b lis h e r s Assn- .ilio n H K H ™ ia had done the same thing, years before the M ayflow er ever sailed from England. It was a time o f public and religious celebration for the fruits o f agriculture, and it rec ognized that all good comes from God. Jewish people, whose book the Pilgrims read diligently, have had a harvest festival for 2,000 years. So do many other races and cultures. T o make Thanksgiving Day a nationalistic and political cel ebration is to twist it out o f its orig inal context. Like so many other holidays, Thanksgiving has been costumed and commercialized for the convenience o f the callous. I f the Pilgrims expressed thanks for the bloody destruction o f those that they perceived to be their ene mies, they were no different from people today on both sides of m od ern wars. But the inappropriate thanks o f one group of people does not change the appropriateness of gratitude. Jesus once called atten tion to an inappropriate giving o f thanks. He pointed out a man who was morally upright in his own eyes, who went to church and thanked God that he was a better man than most—certainly better than another person who was praying nearby. The second person meanwhile bowed his head and agonized, "G o d be merciful to me, a sinner." Jesus made it plain that the Heavenly Lather knows a sincere prayer from a phony, but the insincere do not pre-empt the act o f praying. Our fam ily experienced three suc cessive Thanksgivings without any o f (he traditional foods or trap pings, when we were prisoners of war during W orld W ar I I. It sharp ened our sense o f appreciation for fam ily and food, and it gave us more concern for those who have neither. The events in Plymouth in 1621 were interesting but they did not make our Thanksgiving. Rather, the abiding sense o f the peace and presence of G od. regard less o f material prosperity, was an dis the occasion for celebration. This is as valid in the N o rth /N o rth - east community o f Portland as it is anywhere. I f some celebrate with greed, others can heed the instruc tions o f the Hebrew leader, Nehemiah, on the occasion of a much more ancient thanks giving: " G o and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and rend some to those who have nothing prepared.” We have yet to learn the full im pli cation o f that last clause. B eth N ance Portland Observer Th» P o rtla n d O b w n r r I LISPS 959 6801 is published even, Thuisdev by t«,e Publishing Company Inc . 2201 N inth Killings MOtth Potllend O i*g on 97217 Post Office Bo« 3137 Portland Oregon 97208 Second class postage paid at Portland Oregon M •s e e » « » The Portland O bwrvar was established m 1970 • Subscriptions 115 00 per year in the Tri County area m aster Send address changes to the Portland O t n m f r MEMBER 283 2486 Bo« 3137, Portland, Oregon 97208 A lfre d L. Henderson, E ditor/P ublisher A l W ilhams, Advertising Manager Aiiocftt’on • Founded fM5 Post P O l-rom lh « W in ilo n Salem ( hronn lr Feds, state prosecute Indians (Continued fro m page 1 column 3) W hite men are making millions of dollars a year fishing. Indians make maybe $40,000 a year with thirty people depending on h im ." Nineteen Indians were tried in federal court for "poaching" but were denied the defense o f the U .S .-In d ian treaties. Now there are 71 new indictments on both sides of the Colum bia, many involving the same people who were tried in feder al court. The Indian people see these prose cutions as an attempt to deny them their fishing rights and to blame the decline o f the Colum bia fishing on them. The National M arine Fisheries Service claimed in June, 1982, that ■ ■ " " ™ ™ ™ I I I I I I I I I The Observer welcomes Letters to the Editor. Letters should be short, and must contain the writer's name and address (addresses are not p rin t ed). The Observer reserves the right to edit f o r length. 'lewspaper. Subscribe today! ■ PORTLAND OBSERVER News fo r and about you. I i» > Yes. I w o u ld lik e a s u b s c rip tio n ! to th e Portland Observer. □ I have enclosed my check or money order for • 15, for a one year subscription PLEASE PRINT I J cedes treaty rights— is a conspiracy designed to circumvent favorable court decisions that recognize and guarantee Indian treaty fishing rights, and that it undermines the sovereignty o f the Indian Nations. Because o f the political nature of the prosecution o f these fisher peo ple, Amnesty International has sent an observer to attend the pretrial hearings in the Oregon cases. Thanks to you ™ ™ ™ ™ Mail io Portland Ohaarver N a tio n a l A dvertising R epresentative A m a lg a m a te d Publishers Inc N e w Vorfc the arrest o f over 35 Indian fisher men would end the depletion o f the fish. However, two days after the federal court verdict, a National M arine Fisheries Service study ab solved the Indians of any responsi bility and found that "m issing" salmon were the result o f a mis count. The Indian fishermen also charge that the Lacey A ct— which super- Bo« 3'37 N a m e ______ _ ------------ ------------ A d d res s ____ Portland Oregon 9T2OB C i t y __________ State _________Z i p ________ .. ..........J I J J ■ I I I ■ I I I
