Page 2 Portland Obaefvw, November 23, 1963
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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-
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