P age A2
A prii . 9, 1997 • T he P orti and O bserver
Editorial articles do not necessarily
reflect or represent the views o f
7C/1JAL
R jilibd W
(Ttjc |JortIanh ©hsrruer
now 29 years since
they” took Dr. King
away from us. 29 years
since his leadership was stolen
away from the progressive move
ment. 29 years since the day an
assassin’s bullet changed the
course of history.
(The ^îartlanh ® bsm w r | 31
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T h an k Yot F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver
Don’t
Abandon
Oregon’s
Schools!
Y our h ig h blood
PRESSURE
MEDICATION IS THE
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN THE
THINGS YOU LOVE
AND THE THINGS
YOU’LL MISS.
I f you 're not
treating your high blood
pressure every day,
you 're not treating it right.
For more inform ation on
high blood pressure,
call 1.800.57S.W E L L
National High Bl««*i Prewire Education Program
N atio n a l H e a rt, Lung,
A
and Klootl
Institute
Since 1992, Oregon schools
have suffered service cuts equiva
lent to over $230 million. This
has meant increased class sizes,
shortages of materials, deferred
maintenance, and other damage
to Oregon’s children’s education
and future. That is why The Coa
lition for School Funding Now!
was organized to work for equi
table and adequate funding for
Oregon's K-12 public schools.
The minimum necessary to
achieve that goal for the 1997-99
biennium is $5.75 billion: $4.012
billion from the state plus $1.738
billion in local revenues. That
works out to an annual per pupil
figure of $4.656 (ADMw). This
figure also represents the removal
from the formula of $272 million
in ESD funding and $26.1 million
in Portland PERS costs.
One of the most important prin
ciples of the Coalition is that all
Oregon children deserve a decent
education. School funding that
funds some schools at the expense
of others is no solution. Pitting
one Oregon child against another
is not only bad policy - it is wrong.
Unfortunately, that is just what
thecurrent legislative school fund
ing proposals do.
We have returned to the State
Capitol to make three key points
to legislators on school funding,
and to ask that you promise not to
abandon Oregon’s schools.
Point#l: Don’t Rush to Pass
the “Cut the Schools Budget”
Point#2: Dedicate All Addi
tional May Forecast Revenues to
K-12 Schools
Point#3: The Money is There
to Get to $5.75 Billion - Where is
the Will?
— The Coalition fo r School Fund
ing Now!
Think of it-M artin Luther King.
Jr., would still be only 68 years old.
Younger than Reagan. Youngerthan
I )ole.
The assassin’s bullet took away
three decades of his voice, his wis
dom, his energy. When the histori
ans look back on America in the
second half of this century, one of
the conclusions they will have to
draw is that the right wing took
power at least in part because our
progressive leadership was gunned
down--in November of ’63, and in
April and June of ’68.
The Rainbow/PUSH Public Policy
Institute is meeting in Memphis this
week, to honor the life of Dr. King.
Our goal is to consider the lessons of
his life, as we reconstruct our vision
and our politics for the 21st century.
We remember that Dr. King was
an apostle of nonviolence, a prophet
of social change, a radical.
We remember that Dr. King died
as he struggled side-by-side with
p e r
N A T IO N A L
M IA
C O A L IT IO N
Taking Stock
Memories of Memphis
garbage workers, organizing a union.
We know him as a man of peace,
who look on a president and an FBI,
trying to end a war.
We believe Dr. King was killed
not because he was a “dreamer,”
but—as Reverend Jackson always
reminds us-because he was "a drum
major for justice.”
We do not yet know who killed
him, really. So, we support the King
family in their quest for a new trial
for James Earl Ray. It is a lasting
stain upon our nation that so many
questions about his death remain
unanswered.
We understand that the Lorraine
Motel is the place where the mo
mentum shifted from our side of
history to the right-wing version.
And though we have had our victo
s
p
e
ries in the hard days and nights since
April 4, 1968—including the Jack-
son campaigns of ’84 and ‘88—we
have yet to regain the initiative.
We understand that Dr. King was
a strong believer in Jesus as an advo
cate for "the least of these;” in the
promise of America; and in the right
to vote for change.
As he wrote in the famous letter
he composed in his jail cell in Bir
mingham: "One day the South will
know that when these disinherited
children of God sat down at lunch
counters, they were in reality stand
ing up for the best in the American
dream and the most sacred values in
the Judeo-Christian heritage, and
thusly, carrying our whole nation
back to those great wells of democ
racy which were dug deep by the
e
t
founding fathers.”
They did not kill our freedom and
justice movement when they assas
sinated Dr King, but they certainly
did set it back some. We miss him
still Our mission is to continue his
struggle, until his dream becomes
reality.
i
Reverend Jackson last week led a
group o f 30 stockholders into the
R.R Donnelly & Sons Company
board meeting while 300 pickets
marched outside. The action was in
support o f the $500 million class
action law suit filed on behalf of
more than 600 Black Donnelly work
ers.
"Racism, ageism, and sexism
must end,” Jackson said. “ We in
tend to stand up and fight back.
From LaSalle Street to Wall Street,
our presence will be felt.”
The picket line was set up as part
of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition’s
Wall Street Project, which has just
opened its office. The project will
establish a rating system for corpo
rate responsibility, which will in
clude company policies towards Af
rican American employees, Hispanic
and female employees, stockhold
ers, vendors, consumers, and pen
sion funds.
r
e
S
Doing Small Business On A Small Planet
’ve done everything but
‘shrink the kids’, right?
O"
Well, not quite. It is true
th a t I made a pitch for
Schumacher's “Small Is Beauti
ful" and that I later cited a "Small
lending” trend to match. But
now it is time to kick back and
reflect. What next?
31
r
Not for long, mind you, for several
dark horses’ are coming up fast on
the outside—no pun intended, that’s a
horseracing metaphor. I intimated the
possibility at close of my article of
March 26, “..will the powerful eco
nomic giants created by the buyouts
and urge-to-merge move quickly to
sop up any commerce they may have
m issed?” Y ou may find that the ‘Amal
gamated International Corp.' also has
discovered that your idea for door-to-
door deliveries is very profitable.
While you’re idling your motor at
the starting line for the great new
‘entrepreneurship 500’-visualizing
a beautiful new web page that
Michelangelo, himself would have
been proud of, or pricing that IPO
(Initial Public Offering)—consider
the follow ing before you move out of
yourbasement office and warehouse.
First off, there
is a ‘business in
form ation g lu t’
the likes of which
has not been seen
since the Califor
nia gold strike of
’49, or the Yukon
Gold Rush. Keep in mind that in
both these cases those who reaped
the big steady stream of profits—and
never got cold, hungry, or dirty—
were the ‘Information Entrepre
neurs’, where to find it, how to pan
it, where to sell it (“and oh, by the
way, we were a full service outfit,
supplies, equipment ant repairs”).
Believe me, nothing has changed,
this century or this year, except for
the prices, options or the size and
glitz of the seminars. When I was a
naive young accountant many years
ago, I thought I needed all the pre-
mier information services available
in order to be competitive. I ended
up with both Prentice hall and Com-
merceClearing House Tax Services-
-and lost six hours
a week of produc-
in
tive time trying to
,’ roi essor
keep up with the
M( KIM.EV
almost daily ar
Bl Rl
rival o f “Critical”
loose leaf insert
sheets.
Thanks to many years of experi
ence in business and industry, in
cluding office management and sys
tems design, I’ve been able to visit
several friends with home offices (or
offices away from home) who, though
surrounded by computers, etc., are
victims of the same trap.
Chagrined is hardly the word for it
as I point out that yes, their system
capacity and capabilities have seen a
dramatic increase over the short time
that I visiting. But for whose benefit?
What has happened, they soon real
ize, is that ‘their’ system has ex-
panded to accomodate the business of
‘others'. A time-wasting mass of new
files, bulletin boards, objects, data
paths, instructions, commands, etc.
Market persons will love you.
Such data labyrinths are a reflec
tion of all the solicited and unsolicited
inputs one drowns in as soon as it is
even hinted that a new enterprise is
underway. And a computer assisted
enterprise is just as susceptible to
these disinformation onslaughts I suf
fered at the hands of those tax service
companies. Input and output along
the Byzantine convolutions of ever-
evolving information corridors slyly
steals time that would better be used
in actual marketing and in intelligent
networking.
“The Medium Is The Message’,
Marshall McLuhan’s truism, has
more meaning that ever, but the
small business person has more than
an electronic Gutenberg Galaxy’
to worry about. Next week we will
explore more of the new commercial
landscape.
Civil Rights Journal. Honoring Paul Robeson
by
B ernice P owell jackson
pril 8 was the 100th an-
niversary of the birth of
Paul Robeson, another
of our nation’s nearly-unknown
heroes. Now there is a way to
help educate many Americans
about this American Renais
sance man and to honor him at
the same time.
Despite great obstacles and facing
much racial prejudice, Paul Robeson
entered Rutgers University in New
Jersey in 1915 and graduated|s a Phi
Beta Kappa scholar and an A Il-Ameri
can football player for two consecu
tive years. He was the second African
American to graduate from Colum
bia University Law School.
But Paul Robeson was more than a
scholar and athlete. As an actor, his
portrayal of Othello on Broadway re
ceived great acclaim. His deep bass
voice singing folk songs and spiritu
als such as “Old Man River” was
known around the world. He was
beloved in Russia, India, England
and Japan and eastern Europe be
cause he sang the songs of the peoples
of the world in the language of those
people and touched their hearts. For
thirty years, from World War I until
after World War II, Robeson’s ex
traordinary achievements kept him in
the world spotlight.
But Paul Robeson was more that
an outstanding scholar, athlete and
performer. Paul Robeson was a man
deeply committed to the struggle for
justice and peace in the world.
Robeson, however, paid a high
price for his outspokenness against
racism and on behalf of peace. Dur
ing the 1950’s he found himself a
target of Joseph McCarthy and the
House Un-American ActivitiesCom-
mittee, which declared almost any
one a “communist” who espoused
views which they disagreed with.
Robeson was never charged with a
crime and never arrested or put on
trial. But Robeson’s love of the Rus
sian people and their culture and his
deeply-felt commitment to peace
made him a natural target.
Branded a communist, Robeson
found it impossible to get work any
where in the U.S. and he was denied
a passport. He was not even allowed
to leave the country for travel not
requiring a passport-to Canada, the
West Indies and Mexico. All doors
to stage, screen, concert hall, radio.
TV and recording studio were locked
to him.
Paul Robeson was a man who
bowed to no one. When summoned
before the House Un-American Ac
tivities Committee and asked why, if
he liked Russia so much, he had not
stayed there, Robeson replied, “Be
cause my father was a slave and my
people died to build this country and
I’m going to stay right here and have
a part of it, just like you. And no
fascist-minded people like you will
drive me from it. Is that clear?”
Because of his stand against the
Congressional witch hunt, Robeson
became a “persona non grata” and
his name is almost unknown to young
people. But his is a name, his is a
voice, both singing and speaking,
that the world needs to remember.
This Way for Black Empowerment: The End of Mobutu
Its
I) k . 1. 1 N O R
\
El
I \N I
^7^
I
years after the end
of the Cold War, people
in the so-called Third
World-where the superpowers
fought most of their battles by
proxy-are still digging them
selves out of the rubble.
In most of these “hot spots” the
precarious path to peace, rule of law,
and democracy has been made bit
terly difficult by these countries’
devastated infrastructures, fractured
societies, and by the failure of the
U.S. government to support democ
racy with the same enthusiasm (and
money) with which it “fought com
munism". But lately there have been
signs that the ordinary people in
these countries have had enough of
the transition to democracy. They
want democracy now. Last week’s
electoral victory in El Salvador by a
democratic coalition opposing the
fascist-leaning ARENA Party is one
hopeful example. The imminent
demise of the Mobutu dictatorship
in Zaire is another.
With Laurent Desire Kabila’s
rebel forces in control of eastern
Zaire—and extending their control
over new territory each day-the end
of President Mobutu Sese Seko's 3 1
year reign of terror is no longer in
question. The question being dis
cussed in Zaire's nervous capital
city, Kinshasa, these days is this:
will the cancer-stricken President-
for-Life die first, or live long enough
to see himself overthrown by the
Alliance of Democratic Forces for
the Liberation o f C ongo-Zaire
(ADFL)? Many Kinshasa residents
are holding out for the latter sce
nario, and make no effort to hide
their pro-Kabila sentiment, even as
Mobutu's security forces take down
their names.
Making a virtue of necessity, many
in the U.S. foreign policy establish
ment are beginning to say that the
ADFL’s blitz against Mobutu's thug-
gish and sorry excuse for any army is
a “welcome” development. Not the
whole foreign policy establishment,
by any means.
Those still ensconced in the State
Department must stifle themselves
and hang tough with Mobutu, since
that agency’s Africa policy runs on
automatic, and hasn't been adjusted
since the 1980’s “Congo Crisis.”
But many influential organizations
and individuals are now releasing
eloquent statements bout “Mobutuist
tyranny.”
This month of April marks seven
years since the beginning of Zaire’s
“ dem ocratic tran sitio n ” , when
Mobutu was scared enough by the
collapse of the Berlin Wall to permit
some limited political freedoms to
his people. Zairians rushed into this
narrow opening and en larged it. Two
years after Mobutu’s 1990 announce
ment that he would “permit” two
additional parties to exist in addi
tion to his ruling party, Zairians had
forced the convening of a 2800 del
egate Sovereign National Confer
ence, the goal of which was none
other than the drafting of a new
constitution, the formation of a new
transitional government, and the
election of a new transitional parlia
ment, all with the mandate o f guid
ing the country to free elections by
1994.
The “war” in Zaire did not start
with Kabila's uprising last fall; riv
ers of blood have been shed for years
by Zaire’s brave