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emember this about this
w eek’s GOP Info-mercial:
Colin Powell and Jack
Kemp may provide the cover; but
Newt Gingrich and Ralph Reed
wrote the book.
The most interesting thing to
JaxFax about the G O P convention is
that the delegates are not only ig­
nored (an increasingly common phe­
nomenon in the age o f television)—
they literally do not exist This is a
“virtual” convention.
No one cares what they th ink Their
views are in total opposition to those
of many o f the leading speakers.
There is no controversy, no debate,
not even any discussion.
I he party nominee brags about
not having read the platform, a doc­
ument which the Christian Coalition
largely wrote (even to the point o f
banning a "tolerance" amendment).
Until last week. Jack Kem p had
better relations with urban mayors
than he did with much o f his own
party.
Ralph Reed and the Christian
Coalition dominate the convention
floor, with 102 whips equipped with
h 9
k
A ugust 21, 1996 • T he P ori land O bserver
C O A L IT IO N
You can’t judge a
book by its cover
cutting-edge, hand-held computer
technology-yet they have nothing to
do, except throw a few scattered boos
at Colin Powell when he states his
support for affirmative action and
choice.
The Christian C oalition owns
much o f the G O P now; but up on
stage, starring in this m ade-for-TV-
movie, the most visible actors are
pro-choice, minority, and female—
Powell, Molinari, Whitman.
Pat Buchanan, the candidate most
Christian Coalition members sup­
ported in Iowa and New Hampshire,
is invisible. And Newt G ingrich is
only on camera long enough to em­
barrass him self by singing the prais­
es o f beach volleyball, as the embar­
rass him self by singing the praises o f
beach volley ball, as the embodiment
o f freedom. Not the Contract On
Am erica-beach volleyball...
The truth is, depsite the friendly
T V images o f inspiring minorities
and perky females, this convention is
not at all inclusive. The Republican
Convention o f 1996 is one o f the
most exclusive gatherings in modem
political history. According to a
Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily
Reflect Or Represent The Views O f
M ortlanh ffibseruer
Washington Post survey:
♦ 61% o f the G O P delegates are
men.
♦ 92% o f the delegates are white,
and the number o f A frican Am erican
delegates has been cut in h a lf since
1992
♦ 36% o f the delegates have a net
worth o f more than 5500,000 (more
than 1/3'), and I 8% are m illionaires
(¡ 51). No wonder they ’re trying to
resuscitate the capital gains tax cut
yet again.
♦ 4% o f the G O P delegates are
se lf-d e sc rib e d "co n serva tives, "
while only ! 9% even c a ll themselves
moderates. ”
Not quite a snapshot o f a diverse,
inclusive, economically struggling
America, is it?
And that’s not even taking into
account the real power brokers in
San Diego, the big-money, six -fig ­
ure-donor, yacht-partying, special-
interest lobbyists hanging around
outside.
This is a “virtual” convention. The
Republican Party it portrays has not
existed since the days o f Abe Lincoln
and Teddy Roosevelt.
The 20th century slave trade
n «
by
/ r. i M adison
J I» t oe
his is amazing: Anyone
who thought the institu­
tion of slavery was an
chapter in the saga of man's
inhumanity to man only need to
look at the Baltimore Sun's se­
ries on the thriving slave trade of
M auritania and Sudan in M ica.
That's right - it’s 1996 and sla­
very is still going on in Africa. But
very few people are talking about it.
What’s worse, Nation o f Islam
M in ister Lou is Farrakhan, the world ’ s
most visible speakeron the injustices
o f the white man against the black
man, is one o f the biggest supporters
o f these Moslem nations. When he
returned from his controversial trip
to the M iddle East and Africa, Farra­
khan responded to rumors that sla­
very was still alive in Mauritania and
Sudan by throwing down the gaunt­
let to reporters to go there and find it.
The Sun did. And the result was a
gripping account o f the widespread
buy ing and selling o f African ch il­
dren into lifelong forced labor, rapes
and torture o f women. For about
$ 1,000, the two Sun reporters were
able to purchase two young boys
who had been enslaved by Arab mas­
ters. One o f the reporters, Gregory
Kane, appeared on my show. He
recalled a popular torture in Sudan,
used by the ruling Arabs on the sup­
pressed Christians: Attaching one end
ofarope to acamel, and the other end
to the genitals o f a slave and whip­
ping the animal into a frenzy so that
it sprints, dragging the captive along
the ground. And just three weeks
ago, the leader o f Sudan’s Human
Rights Organization appeared at a
bipartisan Congressional briefing and
said that as many as 10,000 slaves
were under government control.
Since 1983, Sudan’s ruling Mos­
lem government in the North has
waged a viscous war against the
Christians in the South.
B ut rep o rtin g on sla v e ry in
Mauritania and Sudan isn’t new. Six
years ago, Emerge magazine wrote
that Mauritanian Arab masters were
still subjugating A frica n s, even
though the government repeatedly
said that slavery there had ended. (At
an N A A C P National Board meeting
government repeatedly sid that sla­
very there had ended. (At an N A A C P
National Board meeting in 1994, I
raised the issue o f Mauritania and the
board unanimously passed a resolu­
tion that condemned the situation
and urged Congress to get involved.
But reporters were more interested
in covering the internal bickering o f
the group and didn’t mention the
action we had taken).
I f F a rra k h a n ’ s support o f
Mauritania and Sudan is surprising,
then the silence ofthe Congressional
B lack Caucus and other black orga­
nizations is shocking. Veteran black
journalist Sam Cotton recently wrote
the one-time chairman o f the C B C ,
Mervyn Dym ally...’’testified before’
Congress that slavery no longer ex­
isted in Mauritania. Dym ally is a
lobbyist for the Mauritanian govern­
ment, paid $120,000 for his servic­
es.”
However, the current head o f the
C B C , Rep. Donald M. Payne, is re­
portedly preparing legislation that
would impose economic sanctions
and arms embargoes against Sudan.
But how effective would this be.
when the United States virtually has
no economic or military ties with
Sudan or Mauritania to begin with?
The dual conspiracies o f silence
and denial on this issue underscores
the missing ingredient in our circles
o f leadership-integrity, Steven Cart­
er’s book on the subject outlines an
ethical litmus test that separates a
leader from a misleader. His criteria
for integrity is for one to: Discern
what’s right and wrong, take a posi­
tion, even at personal cost, and pub­
licly speak out on that issue. That’s
true leadership. Minister Farrakhan.
So we must call, write or fax our
representatives on Capitol H ill and
groups like the C B C , TransAfrica,
the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, the N A A C P and others,
and demand that leadership by shown
in ending the suffering in Sudan and
Mauritania.
The New Black Voice
by
I) k . L enora F i i . ani
<TfT
'ifj
I
our years ago, just after
Ross P erot’s 1 9 9 2 pres-
idential campaign, when
I myself was an independent can­
didate for the presidency, I was
invited to address a group of
supporters of Ross Perot In south­
ern California.
The topic was building an inde­
pendent movement that could bring
together Americans o f different po­
litical persuasions, economic status,
and racial backgrounds. I must con­
fess I was nervous. I was going to
speak to a crowd o f 400 Perot parti­
sans, very few o f whom were African
American, and frankly I had no idea
what the response would be like. I
believed very passionately - as I still
do - that the American people can
overcome our differences and come
together to save our country. This
was my dream. And I must tell you
that when I finished my speech and
this room full o f Perot supporters
rose to their feet and gave me a
standing ovation, I felt certain - prob­
ably for the first time - that my dream
would become a reality.
And indeed, it has. Forthis month,
hundreds o f hundreds o f thousands
o f Reform Party members around the
country from many walks o f life w ill
come together in this most historic
experiment in grassroots democracy
to select the Reform Party candidate
for president and move us further
down the path o f building a new
party o f the American people.
It is amazing to me how plain old
grassroots democracy frightens the
political establishment. It is a mea­
sure o f how alienated our govern­
ment and the two major parties have
become from the American people -
- from you and me. They are pan­
icked that ordinary Americans are
standing up and saying we don’t like
whats happening to our children and
neighbors, whether we live in the
suburbs or the inner city. These are
the kinds o f things the majority o f
Americans are profoundly concerned
about. And we have decided to take
matters into our own hands and build
a new political party. This had shak­
en the political establishment, in­
cluding both political parties and the
media - to the core.
Psychiatric school programs
2\
recent report on chang-
es In the educational
system show th a t child­
ren are being used as “guinea-
pigs" for psychological behavior­
al programs in schools and mind
altering drugs such as Ritalin are
being prescribed to them -all with­
out parental permission.
Literacy scores have plummeted
and juvenile crime has tripled as a
result, with the number o f children
arrested for murder expected to in­
crease by 150 percent in the year
2010 Documents from the U S. Food
and Drug Administration show that
chi Idren as young as five are commit­
ting suicide on psychiatric antide­
pressants.
Parents, horrified by this Brave
New World "mental health” approach
to education, have in cre a sin g ly
sought to home-school their children-
-yet even this has been at a risk
I n the state o f Colorado, for exam­
ple, this could have constituted a
charge o f “educational neglect" and
both children and parents may have
been ordered to undergo psycholog­
ical therapy.
The bill that proposed this was
narrowly defeated in May this year
The recent release o f U S. Justice
Department statistics showing in­
creasing juvenile crime has prompt­
ed the reprint o f a compelling book­
let. Psychiatry: E du cation ’s Ruin,
which traces how our education sys­
tem has been brought almost to the
brink o f collapse because o f the psy­
chiatric and psychological programs
introduced into it in the 1960s.
More than a quarter o f a m illion
copies o f the booklet are being dis­
tributed to legislators, teachers and
parents. The message is clear: “ If
you value your children’s future, if
you value your children’s future, if
you value the future o f our society,
insist that psychological and psychi­
atric programs are removed from
schools.”
Bruce Wiseman, an educator and
national president o f the Citizens
C o m m issio n on Hum an R ig h ts
( C C H R ) which produced the book­
let, stated, “N o parent, teacher, or
educator would have believed that
the result o f psychiatry's methods in
schools would be the wholesale de­
struction o f schools and children’s
desire to learn Who could have pre­
dicted that the end result o f educa­
tion would have been illiteracy, vio­
b etter rC</> TJhe (Scditor
Send your letters to the Editor to:
Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208
lent crime and children taking their
own young lives.”
In 1965, the Elementary and Sec­
ondary Education Act was passed
wh ich opened the door to put psychi­
atry and psychology firmly into our
schools.
A s o f 1994, psychologists and
psychiatrists in schools almost out­
numbered teachers.
The cost o f educating Am erica’s
youth is now $300 billion a year and
a substantial portion o f this is used to
finance psychological programs and
experiments.
Educational psychologists and
psychiatrists claim that if one student
excels and another does not, the self­
esteem o f the slower student w ill be
harmed. Their solution was to “dumb
down” the curriculum.
Psychologist W illiam Coulson,
once a supporter but now a staunch
SUBSCRIBE TO
opponent ofpsychological influence
in schools said, “One o f the effects of
self-esteem programs is that you are
no longer obliged to tell the truth if
you don’t feel like it...”
Behaviorist approaches to educa­
tion, which preach that there is no
“right” or “wrong,” have had devas­
tating results: 13 percent o f Am eri­
can 17-year-olds are functionally il­
literate and the percentage may run
as high as 40 percent among minority
youth.
Between 24 and 44 m illion adults
cannot even read the poison labels on
a can o f pesticide or a letter from a
child’steacher; in 1988alone,28,IOO
adolescents between the ages o f 13
and 17 were arrested for aggravated
assault and by 1992, it had jumped to
an unbelievable 63,700 arrests.
Fro m the Citizens Com m ission
on H u m a n Rights International.
( L h r ^ p o r t la n it O P b a c ru e r
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p e r s p e c t t v e s
My Choice Has Been Made For Me
y sympathetic neighbor
independent committee. To ana
J B seem
s to th in k I ’ve
lyze “ Measure 47,” the new cry o f
been put betw een a
rock and a hard place.
It seems that the loosely-de­
scribed guru o f communications on
lower Alberta Street is being might­
ily tugged (or pulled) in different
directions at once. He may be right,
for I do feel pressed to address two
different areas o f the reader’s con­
cerns - and most immediately. But it
seems my path has been set for me.
O n the one
hand, there are
those who say, “ it
has really been a
good sum m er
with the ‘ P e r­
sp e ctiv e s’ c o l­
umn. Especially
useful has been the discourse on
‘ language’ and some often neglect­
ed applications to our daily affairs,
for parents and our ch i Idren as wel I.
We have been made aware o f nu­
ances and implications in our com­
munications that can make a huge
difference in our live s-so cia lly as
well as in the all-important eco­
nomic venues...etc.”
That is all well and good, but my
neighbor weighs in heavily w ith the
other crowd “The national educa­
tion gurus don't think Oregon has a
ghost o f chance in 'implementing'
that 'Ye ar 2000 Education Plan"’
And many Oregonians believe that
the national evaluators are looking
at more than the nuts-and-bolts o f
the plan itself—at a lot more!
Measure 47, a sort o f ‘Son-of-5’,
cut-and-cap” tax (or anti-tax) mea­
sure brought before us courtesy o f
that per ennial fuss-budget. B ill
Sizemore (pun intended). This new
and perhaps fatal assault on school
districts already in dire financial
straits has brought together in ur­
gent counsel and frequent confron­
tation some rather diverse collec­
tions o f mayors, school administra­
tors, commissioners, legislators and
parents.
Just as in the case o f Measure 5,
the politicians have approached the
business community very early on-
but with an apologetic air (though
still retaining an urgent tone. “ In
1990 we were a I ittle shri I l--nobody
figured that the economy would take
o ff the way that it did... We project­
ed an immediate collapse o f the
entire school system based on the
best information we had.” Both the
ity and county Cham ber's o fCom -
merce have been asked to form an
wolf.
But, that is far from being the
only erotical financial chasm which
the city and school districts could
find yawning beneath them, come
November There is the ominous
economic events which could be
triggered by passage o f ‘Son-of-5’
“ Measure 46,” which requires a
majority o f voters to approve any
tax measure, might be seen as ap
plying to bond
measures passed
after 1990 One
By
billion in city o f
Professor
Portland bonds
Mcklnley
did not meet that
Burt
standard. It is
feared that gov­
ernments maybe required to those
debts FR O M O P E R A T IN G B U D
G ETS
Consider this. (M y cyber space
and computer land acquaintances
in the Associated Oregon Indus
tries are, and with a great deal o f
alarm ). A court could rule this mea­
sure retroactive and the Portland
School District would have to pay
back the $100 million in bonds
already issue. Believe me, these
matters are being given urgent atten­
tion by corporations that have made
investments total ing bill ions-based,
in great part on grandiose projec­
tions o f an education system capable
o f supporting the new technologies
(all the way back to Japan).
Ofcourse, too, there are all those
who have their personal and pri­
vate urgencies. And we are going
to get around to them in the coming
weeks. There is deep concern over
the failure o f some promising ‘in­
dependent schools.’ The media re­
ports that a private school intended
to “put the fear o f God in public
education officials" has failed. The
staff and 70 students o f the “ Parks
Elementary School” in Gresham no
longer have their dream o f a “tradi­
tional back-to-basics” institution.
This has been a disappointment
to a number o f inner city parents
who were closely following the
progress o f this private sc h o o l-
having made some overtures to an
individual like the Gresham phi­
lanthropist, Loren E. Parks. This
was in conjunction with several
requests made o f local corpora­
tions and foundations.
We w ill explore more o f the
urgent situations that beset the ed­
ucational establishment.
(Jf)trseriier
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Charles Washington
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