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4, 1997 • T he
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T hank Y ou F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver
Tyco layoffs unjust
e learned that M attel
Inc. plans to lay off
80% of the workers at
/co Toys Inc.-115 at the Port
land Distribution Center and
2 85 at the Beaverton factory.
The reason for this brutal deci
sion has been explained by the great
critic and historian Eli Siegel,
founder o f the Education Aesthetic
Realism.
Eli Siegel saw what no other
economist has seen- -that the Ameri
can economy, the profit system, has
failed because it is unethical. The
profit motive, he showed, comes from
the ugliest purpose in a person, con
tempt, which Mr. Siegel defined as
“the lessening o f what is different
from oneself as a means o f self
increase as one sees it.” It is con
tempt that is inconsequential to a
person's well being, his or her right
to make a decent living.
With tremendous feeling for
people Mr. Siegel said: "...Man was
not made to be used by man for
money."
That's all there is to it. It is a
corruption, it is artifice. It was seen
as necessary by people, but it is
against the nature of man. (Goodbye
Profit System Update:, Definition
Press, New York, 1982)
What does a man-a husband and
father feel—in Beaverton, for in
stance, knowing that he will be los
ing his job at Tyco, worried about
feeding his family, paying the rent
and health insurance? And what
does a single mother feel as she looks
into the eyes o f her two children,
distressed thinking about how she
will support them?
As profit is thirsted after, the
owners o f Mattel have to make the
feelings o f these men and women
utterly unreal. Meanwhile, it is the
labor o f these very same persons that
have made it possible for the CEO
and stockholders to live in such com
fort and luxury.
As parents, ourselves, who have
seen the joy and thnll on our son’s
face playing with his Tyco racing
car, we are outraged to leam that the
people whose hard work went into
making toys which have given chil
dren so much pleasure are being
treated so brutally themselves. It is
a horrible fact that as Tyco is throw
ing so many people out of work,
they are callously announcing: that
they will be increasing their quar
terly dividend to its shareholders by
17%, shareholders who most likely
never stepped one foot into a Tyco
Factory.
Ellen Reiss, the Class Chair
man o f Aesthetic Realism explains
what is happening all over America
as she writes in the international
periodical, The Right of Aesthetic
Realism to Be Known: "Various
people have tned to save...profit
economics by getting rid of. decent
sa la rie s fo r p eo p le; firing
people;...The American people.. .are
b ein g m ade to en dure this
misery...because some persons will
not gracefully accept the kind, re
ally irreversible, historical fact that
ethics has put an end to the using of
one’s fellow human beings for pri
vate profit...The lie that somehow
the only way productivity can go on
in this nation is through certain
persons’ making big profits from
the lives o f others, is both ridiculous
and an insult to America - her Dec
laration o f Independence, her his
tory, her earth. For America to have
a just economy, for every person to
be guaranteed decent living, and
feel the pride dignity they have a
right to, this beautiful, ethical ques
tion which Eli Siegel asked must be
discussed honestly being a person?”
When this occurs America will
be truly kind and have an economy
that will thrive.
For more information you can
call the Aesthetic Realism Founda
tion not-for-profit educational foun
dation in New York City, 212-777-
4490.
Sincerely, Lauren Phillips
Blaustein Bruce Blaustein Victims
o f the Press. We sign our names
this way because,despite notable
exceptions, the press and media in
boycotting Eli Siegel and Aesthetic
Realism have hurt the lives o f ev
ery American.
......
e finish excerpting
Peter Edelman’s Atlan
■tic Monthly essay on
welfare repeal. Edelman, a former
Clinton appointee and an expert
on welfare & poverty issues,
entitled his article, “The Worst
Thing Bill Clinton Has Done.
We remind our readers-and the
Clinton Administration-that solemn
promises were made last year, dur
ing the campaign, that the welfare
bill would be “ fixed.” Most impor
tant, there was a pledge to create one
million new jobs for welfare recipi
ents, a crucial reform if we are to
avoid social disaster in the next few
years.
It is the Rainbow/Push Coalition’s
job to make sure that promise is not
forgotten. A m erica’s poor children
deserve no less.
>”A real fix would involve, first,
jobs, jobs, jobs-preferably and as a
first priority in the private sector,
where there is real work to be done.
“And then everything that en
ables people to be productive citi
zens. Schools that teach every child
as well as they teach every other
child. Safe neighborhoods. Healthy
communities.
“Continuing health-care and day
care coverage, so that people can not
p
e
RAINBOW PUSH
C O A L IT IO N
The Worst (IV)
only go to work bu, also keep on
working.
“Ending the racial and ethnic dis
crimination that plagues too many
young people who try to enter thejob
market for the first time.”
>”Many o f the jobs that welfare
recipients and other low-incom e
people get do not pay enough to pull
them out o f poverty. Continuing at
tention to the minimum wage and
the Earned Income Tax Credit will
be necessary.
“States should insist, as the City
o f Baltimore has, that all their con
tractors pay all their workers a suffi
cient wage to keep them out o f
poverty...and should fund their con
tracts accordingly.
“Current child-care and health
care policies are insufficient to al
low low-wage workers to stay out of
poverty even if transitional subsi
dies let them escape temporarily
r s p
e
when they leave the welfare rolls.
> ”Federal and state child-care
subsidies should help all workers
who would otherwise be poor, not
just those who have recently left the
welfare rolls.
>”And at the end o f the day we
still have 40 m illion Americans,
including 10 million children, who
do not have health coverage. We
still have to deal with that as part o f
a real antipoverty strategy.”
>’’Welfare is what we do when
everything else fails. It is what we do
for people who can’t make it after a
genuine attempt has been mounted
to help the maximum possible num
ber o f people to make it. In fact,
much o f what we do in the name o f
welfare is more appropriately a sub
ject for disability policy.
“The debate over welfare misses
the point when all it seeks to do is
tinker with welfare eligibility, re
c
t i v
quirements, and sanction. The 1996
welfare law misses the point.”
>”To do what needs to be done is
going to take a lo, o f work - organiz
ing, engaging in public education,
broadening the base o f people who
believe that real action to reduce
poverty and promote self-suffic iency
in America is important and pos
sible.
“We need to watch very carefully,
and we need to document and publi
cize, the impact o f the 1996 welfare
legislation on children and families
across America.
“We need to do everything we can
to influence the choices the states
have to make under the new law.
“We can ultimately come out in a
better place.
We should not want to go back to
what we had. It was not good social
policy. We want people to be able to
hold up their heads and raise their
children in dignity.
“The best that can be said about
this terrible legislation is that per
haps we will leam from it and even
tually arrive at a better approach. I
am afraid, though, that along the
way we will do some serious injury
to American children, who should
not have had to suffer from our
national backlash.”
e
s
Is science scientific, are scientists ethical?
s we often do in these
columns we begin by
--•» \ .d 1 efin in g our te rm s -
freely admitting that this ap
proach can lead to confusion as
well as enlightenment.
Especially, when we consider
today’s acrimonious arenas where it
is a toss up whether to give weight to
either words or deeds — seldom dar
ing to trust either category.
If we take W ebster at his ‘w ord,’
“Ethics is the discipline dealing with
what is good and bad, and with
moral duty and obligation.”
All well and good, but it would
seem that as is usually the case in the
affairs o f man, there are ‘different
strokes for different folks’ -for dif
ferent professions, different nations,
different religions and there is even
dissension among the practitioners,
philosophers and ‘true dissension
among the practitioners, philoso
phers and ‘true believers’.
I took sort o f an “unscientific”
poll among my friends and associ
ates (cross-generational), “As young
people what was it that inspired so
much respect and admiration for the
scientific community - a ' reverence’
you might say?.”
Most o f us reflected on the phe
nomenal num ber o f high school
classmates who sought an opportu
nity to become scientists or physi
cians. Black or white, there could be
no more reward
ing goal.
O ur pantheon
of honored bene
factors o f m an
kind included Dr.
George W ashing
ton Carver (that
ironic place Tuskegee looms again);
Dr. Charles Drew o f blood plasma
fame; Dr. Daniel Hale W illiams,
pioneer in heart surgery; Dr. Louis
Wright, first to apply the new antibi
otic, aureomycin, to human afflic
tions - and there were many other o f
these dedicated savants who con
tributed so much to remedy and cure
the ills o f mankind, Dr. Percy Julian
who developed cortisone for the ar
thritic and a drug to relieve glau
coma, and infinitum; black heroes
among others.
We were all o f us in agreement
about the early structure o f our
dreams, ambitions and almost uni-
versai admiration and respect for
what the world ‘seemed’ to view as
m ankind’s most hallowed institu
tions. What no one seemed sure about
was, “just when did the Philistines
enter the temple?” Just when did
those horrors be
g in, the d o c u
i in
m e n te d e x p e r i
j P rofessor
m ents cited last
J M ( K IM F \
week? So we be
Bi rt
gan to ask o u r
selves, “Must there
always be an ‘illu
sion’ before there can be disillusion
m ent.”
The preponderance o f opinion
among our group was no, we had not
deceived ourselves, had not been
deluded by the conscious efforts o f
entire professions and their support
ing institutions - something pro
found had happened between then
and now. A gradual change, true
enough but always provoking a rude
awakening.
So it is with those o f us who were
taught so early on that, “a scientist is
a searcher for truth” and that re
corded organized medicine began in
Africa with Imhopteps, chief vizer
and physician to king Narmer. This
genius, a product o f the sophisti
cated support structure o f Egyptian
Temple Schools left his prescription
on papyri where they meet favorable
professional opinion yet today. Ag
ricultural endowments were the sup
port.
How proud we were when our
teachers described this dedicated and
honorable medical practice that was
in full flower several thousand years
before the ‘borrow ing’ Greeks and
Hippocrates - an honorable institu
tion that dispatched its dedicated
physicians all over the known world
and which gave us the universal
medical symbol, the caduceus with
its intertwining snakes.
So what has happened to institu
tions which were the epitome of
hope, inspiration and respect? To
the “Hippocratic Oath” and adm o
nitions like “Do no harm.” Is our
“rude awakening” due to a newly
vigilant and assertive media — or
has it indeed been a “gradual change”
from a hallowed, humanistic insti
tution to market place; from profes
sional to entrepreneur? Or from pre
scriptions to drug and gene patents?
Civil Rights Journal: More signs of hope
by
B ernice P owell J ackson
f you only watch televl
»4 | slon uncritically and only
I know the stereotypes of
young African American men,
you might believe they are all
gang members and criminals.
But there are millions of young
black men who are making posi
tive contributions not only to
their own communities, but to
the whole nation.
LeAlan Jones and LloydNewman,
two Chicago 18 year-olds are two o f
them.
Jones and Newman have received
a host o f awards for their journalistic
work which tells the story o f their
neighborhood. Newman live in the
notorious Ida B. W ells housing
project.
Their radio docum entary, Re
morse: The 14 Stories o f Eric Morse,
was aired on National Public Radio
and told the story o f Eric Morse, the
5 year-old who was pushed out a
window by two boys, 10 and 11 years
old, when he refused to steal candy
for them.
For this outstanding story Jones
and Newman received the Robert F.
Kennedy Journalism Award, mak
ing them the youngest ever to re
ceive the prestigious award and the
first radio documentary to win the
prize. Working with journalist David
Isay, Jones and Newman won the
grand prize over eight other journal
ists.
The two young men were not out
looking for journalism prizes when
they made the documentary. “We
were trying to help the community
so that this w on’t happen again,”
said Newman in a recent jet maga
zine article. “To throw a 5 year-old
out the window...makes no sense,”
he added.
While they were happy to win the
award, they believe that the cost was
too high. “I’m, still looking at the
death o f a 5 year-old, and for me to
win an award, I can’t forget that,”
said Jones, adding, “If I could give
that award back to bring Eric back,
I would.”
Jones and Newman interviewed
their friends and neighbors about
Eric M orse’s death. They also talked
to relatives o f the victim and the
suspects. Eric M orse’s mother gave
her only interview to the young men.
“She felt comfortable with us be
cause she knew we would under
stand what she was going through.
We come from the same environ
ment,” Newman explained.
The two boys who killed Eric
were convicted and were sentenced
to a m axim um security juvenile
prison, becoming the nation’s young
est children to be so sentenced.
In addition to the Robert Kennedy
prize, Jones and Newman have also
won a Peabody Award and a Hillman
Foundation award for their docu
mentary. Their first radio documen
tary, Ghetto Life 101, done when
they were 14 year-olds, won more
than a dozen national and interna
tional awards. They have recently
written a book, Our America: Life
and Death on the south side o f Chi
cago.
A portrait of inequality in America
M arian W right E delman ,
3200 13 th S treet , NW , (202)
588-8764
by
Ithough th e United
State» is the richest,
most technologically
advanced nation In the world,
far too many American chlldren-
-Black, white, and Hlspanic-are
struggling to live, leam, thrive,
and contribute In America.
Black children, despite signifi
cant progress since legal segrega
tion began to crumble, still fare worse
than other children in America.
For example:
*78 percent of white children live
with both parents, but only 39 per-
cent o f Black children do
“A
•63 percentofw hitechildren live
in homes their parents own, but only
28 percent o f Black children do
23 percent o f white children
have both a father at work and a
mother at home, but only eight per
cent o f Black children do.
• Some 30 percent o f white chil
dren have a parent who completed
college, but only 13 percent o f Black
children do.
• 71 percent o f white children are
covered by private health insurance,
’ but ‘ only 44 percent ‘ o - r f m
„ i . _u.i
Black
chil
dren are.
• 16 percent o f white children are
poor, but more than 41 percent of
Black children are. _ 19 percent o f
white children live in central cities,
but more than 48 percent o f Black
children do.
• 7 o f every 1,000 white infants
die in the first year o f life, but 16 o f
every 1,000 Black infants do.
• 6 percent o f white infants are
bom at low birthweight
better TSc ^Che (SLïïtlor
Send your letters to the Editor to:
Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208
IS M S S M M
Black
a m
— high school graduate is
nearly one and a half times more
likely to be unemployed than a white
high school dropout, and a Black
college graduate is more likely to be
unemployed than a white high school
graduate with no college.
If a Black adult does find work, he
or she brings home $ 168 a week less.
The Black community cannot
wait for anyone to solve its prob
lems. We must all get involved to
improve the life chances for Black
children.
Yes, the Federal, state, and local
govemements do have a responsi
bility to protect all o f their citizens in
a fair manner, and all children need
protection today.