P ige 2, Portland Observer, December 24, 1986
Along the Color Line
Healthwatch
by Ot M.innifU) M.irjtM«.*
\
by Steven Bailey. N O
O»
The recent state conference on legislative
development by Oregon Fair Share shows just
how far Fair Share has come in the last de
cade. This consumer-oriented group concen
trated heavily on the utility issues during the
/0's, and, while helping guarantee that elec
tricity will not be shut off in winter months
due to delinquent payment (so seniors and
others don't freeze) and helping establish bet
ter representation in utility board decisions,
they (Fair Share) have really not done much in
other areas of consumer affairs. The times
are changing, and Fair Share is involving it
self in a wide variety of consumer issues.
At the recent state conference (Dec. 13th,
1986), members of Fair Share came up with
the following concerns and endorsements:
Major areas of concern were: 1) health
issues, 2) taxes and schools, 3) insurance re
form.
Of concern also were: 4) jobs and
quality employment, 5) toxic waste and job
exposure, and 6) South African divestiture
and world peace.
The specific endorsements in the area of
health care were:
1) Support of a bill to require all doctors to
accept Medicare assignments (meaning that
doctors will only charge fees consistant with
Medicare rates and only require the patient to
pay the 20% not covered by the federal
government).
Currently, Oregon is in the
lower half of U S ratings for percent of doc
tors accepting Medicare. Even though the
Oregon Medical Association has lobbied hard
to prevent manditory assignment changes,
I air Share has pledged to join other Senior
organizations to challenge the OMA in Salem
and to attempt to get a law introduced similar
to the Massachusetts law that ties licensure
of doctors to Medicare assignments.
2) Freedom of Choice: Orogon Fair Share
has endorsed LC draft $56 which would gua
rantee Oregonians the freedom to choose any
licensed health provider and know that their
insurance policy cannot arbitrarily exclude
these practitioners from coverage. This is a
draft (soon to become a bill) that will bring
Oregon into a group of 44 other states that
pium uit insurance discrimination. We, as Ore
gonians, deserve to have freedom of choice in
an area as personal and important as health
care. Write the Oregon Health Care Coalition
at P.0 Box 10943, Portland, OR, 97210, for
more information on this issue.
3, Price labeling on prescriptions:
Fair
Share joins other Senior organizations is sup
porting legislative change that would require
that all prescriptions be labeled for actual cost,
so that consumers can make an educated
choice of which form of prescription to use
(i.e., generic substitutes) and which pharma
cies have the best prices. This label change
would be similar to the price information that
we now require on food in Oregon.
4) Care for the needy: Fair Share realizes
that there are thousands of Oregonians who
do not have adequate health care.
This
penny wise, pound foolish attitude is counter
productive to a strong and vital society. We
need to continue to improve the quality and
access to health services for our needy and
indigent populations.
5) Quality long term care: Concern for the
debilitating costs of long term care, as well as
the variable quality of care, for our seniors in
nursing homes was mentioned frequently.
Fair Share looks toward changes that would
help allevaite both of the major problems. Fair
Share will research what work is being done in
this and other areas of long term care and as
sist other groups as their resources permit.
It is encouraging to see Fair Share become
more of a broad based consumer group.
While we still need improvement in areas of
traditional concerns to Fair Share, the coali
tion's expansion into other areas now makes
this one of the most constructive and produc
tive groups open to the general public. The
next time one of Fair Share's recruiters comes
to your door or the next time Fair Share holds
a meeting close to your home, get involved!
Maybe you'll find that change is possible with
enough good people working for the same
issue.
Happy New Year to all friends of the Port
land Observer May 1987 be a year in which
we all prosper.
EDITORIAL/OPINION
persons were executed in the United States.
Of these, 2,066, or 54 percent, were Black.
For the crime of murder, 3,337 were executed;
1,630, or 49 percent, were Black. For rape,
455 men were executed, 405, or 90 percent
were Black. During this period, Blacks made
up only 10 percent of the total U S. popula
tion.
The above statistics show a clear pattern of
systematic bias against Blacks in the applica
tion of the death penalty. However, Blacks
aren't the only group who disproportionately
receive the death sentence. The poor of all
races have been the chief victims of the death
penalty.
Given the fact that capital punishment is
inhumane, immoral, anti God, incompatible
with an enlightened society, and discrimina
tory, it should be abolished once and for all.
Letters to the Editor
Freedom and Social Justice
by
A lexander R Jones
"Black America's Biggest Challenge"
The challenge facing Black America as we
head into the 21st century is the development
of the capability to routinely educate our
children so they will be able to compete with
the best in an increasingly competitive society.
We must find teachers who care and who
believe Black youth can excel, and we must
use teaching methods that will produce not
only mastery of the basics of reading, writing
and arithmetic, but real world expertise in a
marketable skill, whether it be in the perfor
ming arts, computer programming, carpentry,
or business management.
For the latter, we should adopt the power
ful educational technology developed by philo
sopher and writer, L. Ron Hubbard.
i N r n p ro fe ta *)* o f w x x jio y v e n d p o i i l x j i v e n t e
A lo n g th e C o for l * W
e p p e e *« m ove» 140
n t w ^ M p r s •oti-tn.ilMXWrtlv
Emperor Reagan's New Clothes
The Iran-Contra arms scandal may mark the
final chapter of Reaganism, a political m ove
ment of the far Right based on militarianism,
economic greed, pseudopatriotism, and racial
bigotry. Its prinicipal spokesperson. President
Ronald Reagan, no longer manipulates the
public's confidence Back in September, an
ABC News Washington Post Poll stated that
series of investigative reports. In both instan
ces, the administrations tried to deny their in
volvement in crimes, and/or refused to con
firm that illegalities existed Both Watergate
and the current crisis are logical outcomes of
Republican public policies and administrative
styles. For Nixon, there was an utter con
tempt for the democratic processes, a desire
to bend and break the law to obtain power.
For Reagan, there is a hatred of Congressional
checks and balances, and a belief that the
ends justify the means.
Reagan has been called the "Teflon Presi
dent", a politician so widely popular that vir
tually nothing he did alienated the majority of
Americans Between late 1983 and late 1986,
Reagan's popularity ratings ranged between
57 to 68 percent But Reagan has never been
popular among Black Americans. Nine out of
ten Blacks voted against him in both 1980
and 1984,
More than other Americans,
we saw through the old actor's verbal tech
niques and phony folksy style. Essentially,
white America is gradually moving to a per
spective which Black America has held of Rea
gan since 1981. What did w e know that
whites did not know?
We knew, firstly, that the real legacy of Rea
ganism was high unemployment, factory clo
sings and deteriorating innercities. The laissez
faire policies of Reaganomics have destroyed
millions of families, and shut down thousands
of businesses. Reagan frequently attacked the
"tax and spend” Democrats, but offered no
real alternatives in fiscal policy. He promised
to balance the budget with an amendment to
the Constitution, but in practice, he never sub
mitted to Congress any balanced budget.
Reagan vowed to use tough rhetoric to get
the Soviets to negotiate arms treaties, yet in
practice, he has not eliminated one single bal
listic missile through negotiations in six years.
Reagan's charm and good public relations
gimmicks fooled many people, but now a
majority see that the "em peror" is vulnerable
and immoral. No suit of "new clothes," no
new rhetoric, is likely to reverse Reagan's fall
from grace.
Reagan's personal approval rating was 67 per
cent. After news was released that the Presi
dent had, in effect, traded guns for hostages
with the Iranian regime, his approval rating
slumped to 53 percent. By early December,
his overall public approval rating slid down to
46 percent, the sharpest one month decline
ever recorded by any public opinion polls
which measure presidential popularity
Reagan was quick to blame all of his
troubles on the media, the convenient "whip
ping boy" of all politicians, but any analysis of
recent opinion polls disputes the interpretation
that "Reagan bashers" are the cause of the
President's problems. A majority of Ameri
cans believe that Reagan is lying about the
scandal. Fifty three percent state that Reagan
himself must have been aware "that money
from the Iranian arms sales was going to help
the contras” ; 65 percent believe that Reagan's
top aide Donald Regan also knew; only 36 per
cent believe that Reagan has the ability to deal
with "d ifficu lt international crises” , and only
27 percent of all Americans would choose
Reagan over the U S Congress to "make the
right decisions on foreign policy."
Many have drawn parallels between the
Watergate scandal and the Iran Contra arms
disaster Indeed, 47 percent of all Americans
now believe that the crisis is "as serious for
the country as Watergate was,” and 10 per
cent more believe it is "even more serious."
In both cases, the scandals were initiated by
illegal actions committed by presidential em
ployees and lieutenants inside the White
House basement the "plum bers” and the
National Security Council. In both cases, the
press was forced to extract the truth from con
servative Republican administrations in a
Letters to the Editor
Capital Punishment Should Be Abolished
Toney Anaya, the outgoing governor of
New Mexico, was criticized by proponents of
the death penalty in New Mexico and across
the nation recently when he commuted the
death sentences of five convicted killers to
life imprisonment. Gov Anaya said the reason
he commuted the condemned men's death
sentences was because capital punishment is
"inhumane, immoral, anti God, and is incom
patible with an enlightened society."
Gov Anaya's assessments of the death
penalty are accurate. However, there is an
other reason capital punishment should be
abolished The death penalty should be out
lawed because it is discriminatory.
There is substantial evidence showing that
courts have been arbitrary, racially biased, and
unfair in the way in which they have sentenced
some persons to prison and others to death.
For example, between 1930 and 1980, 3,862
M.
• f Pu»<fc«a» Un»v« » u ly
seen their children so bright, so eager to go to
In the summer of 1985, volunteers from
Applied Scholastics, a corporation specializing
in the use of Mr Hubbard's educational
methods, began a sepcial project with a group
of 18 Black children from a small rural com
munity in Alabama. The children ranged in
age from 8 to 16.
school.
One 15 year old wrote, "I don't really like
school, so when they told me about going to
summer school, I didn't want to come here
either. At school teachers sometime make me
feel dumb. You make me feel normal and I
realy (sic) like coming here You listen to us.
The way you show us how to learn makes it
sim ple."
A 10 year old exclaimed, "It's fun coming
here. I've learned a lot
I know all of my
sounds now. I read more than I ever did
before. Every night I read something before I
go to bed. I feel smarter and more sure about
m yself."
The Hubbard educational method. A tool
for survival we cannot afford to ignore.
Tb start things off, the young students were
all given the Standard California Achievement
Test (SCAT). Then came seven weeks of
class time using the Hubbard educational
method. Finally, they were tested once again.
The results were astounding.
In a mere seven weeks, the group showed
an average improvement of eight months in
vocabulary and reading comprehension.
EIGHT MONTHSI Leaders and parents in the
community were ecstatic. They had never
iti
Portland Observer
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B n. 3137 Portland Oregon 9 770«
■IZ/rcr// Hrnilrr\>in. I tlilor/l^tfhliyhcr
.4/ Williams, (ir n r r a l Manager
S now Bunny Lodge
Community Center. 6400
Snow Bunny Lodge near
Transportation and inner
Fee is $14
N a tio n a l A d v e r tis in g A a p r a * a m » ii v »
A m a lg a m a t e d P u b lis h « ! •
N a w Vorfc
Trip, Dec 29. 8 30 AM 5 PM Peninsula Park
N Albina Enjoy inner tubing down the slopes of
Mt Hood Bring lunch and a change of clothes
tubes are included Pre registration is essential
I,,,