JANUARY 2008, VOLUME 35, NO. 1 DONATION $1

Fighting for life in New OrleansGov’t attacks people for demanding public housing

Viola Francois Washington, center, reacts after being sprayed with chemicals by New Orleans police Dec. 20 during protests over the planned demolitionof public housing. AP PHOTO/CHERYL GERBER

Also in this issue:

3 Cover story — Why is there hunger in the midst of plenty?JIMWESTPHOTO.COM

More than 2 millionhomes in the US were inforeclosure in December2007. Between Januaryand July 2008, $690 bil-lion in mortgages arescheduled for interest ratejumps, based on adjustablerate mortgages (ARMs)contracted two years ago.

These ARMs are not sub-primemortgages. They are higher qualitymortgages, supposedly with less risk ofdefault. However, the lenders expectthat at least $325 billion of these loanswill go into default, adding another 1million homes to those already sched-uled for foreclosure. The housing bub-ble, which was created by the FederalReserve Bank and major US lending in-stitutions to artificially keep the econo-my afloat, has burst.

In 2005, the housing bubble account-ed for 50 percent of all US economicgrowth. There was a tremendousamount of housing bubble borrowingduring the middle of this decade, whichinflated home prices by 30 to 40 percentbeyond their actual worth. New homebuyers purchased houses with little orno money down, as housing prices keptinflating upward. And those who al-ready owned homes refinanced theirmortgages to get the cash difference forwhat appeared to be a constantly risingmarket price for their homes.

As the housing bubble deflates andhome prices continue to drop, many ofthese homeowners will find themselveswith negative equity—owing more thantheir houses are worth. Negative equityleads to foreclosures and very big lossesfor lenders. If home prices fall by 30percent, there will be 20 million home-owners with negative equity.

New home sales are now down 23.5percent from a year ago and homeprices are down 13 percent over thesame time period. Even the affluentsuburban communities that surroundAmerica’s big cities are now reportingforeclosure trends not seen in 60 years.

The financial system—banks, mort-gage houses and other non-bank finan-

cial institutions—made a lot of loansthat are likely to tank. Many of thesebad loans they sold to investors, includ-ing pension funds, other banks and fi-nancial institutions, “hidden” inbundled securities.

Economists are predicting a “Finan-cial Tsunami,” saying that all of theseevents are just the tip of the iceberg. Asa result, lending institutions are notlending. From August to November2007, lending was down 9 percent. Notsince the Federal Reserve began track-ing these numbers in 1973 has lendingconstricted so rapidly. The mortgagecrisis has already become a credit crisisthat has now begun to choke many cred-it-worthy, economically healthy small-and medium-sized businesses that arebeing denied loans they have regularlygotten in the past.

On top of this is the exploding na-tional debt that is increasing at $1.4 bil-lion a day, or nearly $1 million aminute. As our government continues toprint money to fund its military budget,the national debt stands at more than $9trillion. Foreign investors and govern-ments own 44 percent ($2.23 trillion) ofthe publicly held portion of the US debt.They are losing money on these hold-

ings, as the dollar continues to drop invalue against other major currencies.

China, Japan and the petro-dollarrich Middle Eastern countries accountfor most of the foreign-owned publiclyheld US debt. China and Japan com-bined own more than $2 trillion in dol-lar-denominated assets.

There is no question that the USeconomy faces a major crisis. The onlyquestion is how long the capitalist classcan forestall the inevitable crash thatprecipitates a general world economiccrisis. At present, a large part of that de-pends on how long China, Japan and theoil-producing nations of the world cancontinue to prop up the economythrough buying US debt.

What can we conclude? First, we canbe certain that the situation and the conse-quences for our class are serious. Whatmust we do? Certainly, nothing can bedone without organization and a strategicunderstanding that the coming of this cri-sis means that this society of necessitymust be transformed into one that distrib-utes the necessities of life according toneed, not ability to pay.

The People’s Tribune is devoted to theproposition that an economic system thatcan’t or won’t feed, clothe and house itspeople ought to be and will be changed.To that end, this paper is a tribune of thepeople. It is the voice of millionsstruggling for survival. It strives toeducate politically those millions on thebasis of their own experience. It is atribune to bring them together, to createa vision of a better world, and a strategyto achieve it.

We find ourselves at a historic momentas labor-replacing technology leads uson a path toward the decisivereconstruction of society. Who will win —the capitalists or the growing mass ofpoor — will depend on winning thehearts and minds of the people to createa society whose fruits benefit all.

We offer our pages as a vehicle for thenew ideas rooted in our reality, and to bethe voice of those who seek to raise theconsciousness of society. Let us gatherour collective experience, intelligence andcommitment to bring forth a vision thatchanges America into a society “by thepeople, of the people, for the people.”

PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE EDITORIAL POLICY:Articles that are unsigned, such as thefront page and editorials, reflect theviews of the editorial board. Bylinedarticles reflect the views of the authors,and may or may not reflect the views ofthe editorial board.

Deadlines for articles and art: Thedeadline for articles, photographs andother art is the first of each month for theissue that comes out at the beginning ofthe following month. For example, thedeadline for the June issue is May 1.Articles should be as short as possible,and no longer than 600 words. Wereserve the right to edit articles toconform to space limitations.

People’s Tribune Editor: Bob Lee

Editorial Staff: Bob Brown, NelsonPeery, Sandra Reid, Cliff Bailey

Photo Editor: Daymon J. Hartley

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2 PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE | JANUARY 2008 www.peoplestribune.org

EDITORIAL

Is a general economic crisis in the making?

Visit us on the web at www.peoplestribune.org

www.peoplestribune.org JANUARY 2006 PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE 3

“Mama, I’m hungry!” is a heart-breaking cry when there is no foodavailable. That painful phrase is heardmore and more often in America.

How is it that in the richest country inthe world, more than 35.5 million peo-ple lived in households strugglingagainst hunger in 2006? This is an in-crease of more than 300,000 comparedto the year before. Consistent with ourhistory, 21.8 percent of Black house-holds and 19.5 percent of Hispanichouseholds were listed in the “worstoff ” category. That is to say that therewas not enough money to feed thehousehold.

These chilling statistics are availableto anyone who wants to see them. Youcan be sure the government won’t pro-vide explanations as to why there issuch hunger in the midst of plenty. Theycannot for long ignore the 800-poundgorilla called hunger in America that isgrowling in their living room. So, at theend of each year, the propaganda organsof the government churn out their cher-ry-picked statistics in an attempt toshow that the economy is healthy andexpanding and the people are employedand happy. It is the mission of the revo-lutionary press to provide the answers.

Extracting the truth from a pile offacts is a difficult task and most avoid itin favor of simple answers. However,the problem is not simple and until themasses understand it, it cannot besolved.

A capitalist nation’s economy is acomplex inter-connection of buying andselling. At its base is the buying of la-bor power from the worker. That laborpower—the worker’s ability to work—isput to work producing goods for themarket. The worker uses the money tobuy that production in order to care forthe family. A circuit of labor power formoney, money for commodities, com-modities to produce more labor poweris established. The labor power and thecommodities it produces are essentiallysold at the cost of their production.

If, by improving the machinery, theamount of labor power that is used inthe production of the necessaries of lifefalls, then the price of these necessariesfalls. This also means that the cost ofproducing a human being (or the cost oflabor power) falls. Since labor power,like all commodities is sold at the costof its production, real wages also fall.We end up with the insane position thatthe cheaper and more plentiful the pro-duction, the poorer the producers are.

The congressional Budget Office re-ports: “The growth trend in labor pro-ductivity stepped up to nearly 3 percent,on average, between 1995 and 2006, a

rate considerably faster than the 1.4 per-cent pace from 1974 to 1995. Had it fol-lowed that pre-1996 trend of 1.4 percentinstead of the actual 2.9 percent, laborproductivity would be 16 percent lowerthan it is today. Furthermore, if the 3percent trend is sustained over the nextdecade, the level of real GDP will benearly 40 percent higher in 2017 thanthe level that would have resulted fromthe pre-1996 rate of growth.”

We can only attribute this tremen-dous growth of productivity to the in-creased use of robotics or automation inproduction. A deep antagonism is de-veloping in the economy. On the onehand there is greater and greater pro-duction with less and less labor. On theother there is the insistence by the rul-ing class that the necessities of life mustbe paid for with money that can only beobtained by selling labor power, whichis becoming more and more worthlesson the market. The result of greater andgreater wealth is greater and greaterpoverty. This antagonism can only besolved by doing away with the sale oflabor power as the condition of life forthe worker. This means doing away withthe system. We are approaching thepoint where we will have to choose.

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WHY IS THERE HUNGER IN THE MIDST OF PLENTY?

COVER STORY

Desperate for work on a Detroit street. PHOTO/JIMWESTPHOTO.COM

Notice to readers regarding donations and subscriptions

Dear Readers,

Financial support for the People’s Tribune is growingthroughout the country! We recently received a $500 do-nation for 50 subscriptions for Sacramento’s homelesspeople, and numerous donations from readers in Ameri-ca’s poorest towns. The movement needs revolutionarynewspapers, and they must be financially self-sufficientto guarantee that the truth is told. The People’s Tribunegets no grants. We rely on no corporate money to tell uswhat to print. Yet, costs are rising. It is with regret that

we inform our readers that those who have not beensending donations for their bundle orders or subscrip-tions must make them by February 1, 2008, or stop re-ceiving the paper. In addition, we have increased thedonation requests for bundles of five papers or more to25 cents per paper. Single subscriptions are $20 per year.Thanks in advance for your understanding and support.Please call 800-691-6888 or email sandy@peoplestri-bune.org if you have any questions.

People’s Tribune Editorial Board

4 PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE | JANUARY 2008 www.peoplestribune.org

The holidays —

A time forgivingBy Lenette Evans

As we all come to the end of the Sea-son and celebrate with friends, familyand loved ones, it is also a time for allof us to be thankful for the many thingsthe Lord gives to each of us everyday,and how blessed we are.

But so many of us take so much forgranted daily and yet want more, morematerialistic things and very little of Je-sus Christ himself.

We need to be asking for more of Je-sus and less of ourselves, becoming lessselfish and seeking the Lord diligently,doing his will.

None of us are put here on earth to

seek our own needs but to be used byGod in every area of our life, and to bewinning lost souls and building theKingdom of God in our families,friends, neighbors, work, schools andthroughout the community. So where isthe honor? Where is the true Thanks-giving and giving to others that are inneed? Don’t be a pew-sitter, sucking upoxygen in the church acting like aChristian on Sunday, and throughout theweek doing nothing to help the poorand share the gospel to others. Jesushad a deep love and compassion for thepoor. He fed the 5,000, he healed thesick, he prayed and ministered to peopleon the streets and made a differenceevery day.

Being a Christian isn’t just going tochurch and restaurants to feed the poorand those in need, and donate clothes,blankets and personal items.

God has given us ALL so much andhas blessed us. Let’s reach inside ourhearts and also be used by God to helpthe poor in our communities. I pray this

coming year there will be a deeperchange in all of us, and churches willrise up, and businesses will be used tohelp the poor in our community, to helpthose in need. Jesus did it and so canwe. Let’s be examples of Christ and dothe same

Deuteronomy 15:7-8 RSV says:“If there is among you anyone in

need, a member of your community inany of your towns within the land thatthe Lord your God is giving you, do notbe hard-hearted or tight-fisted towardsyour needy neighbor. You should ratheropen your hand, willingly lendingenough to meet the need, whatever itmay be.”

We never know when one of us willlose our jobs and end up poor, living onthe street, and hungry. So let’s all startdoing our part in serving the lord andhelping those in desperate need.

Lenette EvansSavingSouls1@yahoo.com

269-876-1848

SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION

This column is printed monthly and depends on articles, comments, and criticisms fromreaders. If you have something to contribute, feel free. Contact us: c/o Boxholder, P.O. Box 720821 • San Jose, California 95172 or by e-mail at spirit@lrna.org.

“Here in the city ofBenton Harbor,Michigan, they havebeen giving all thisgrant money to helpthe homeless andstill we see nothingreally happening atall. They say onething and do anotherand the homelesspeople are still onthe back burner.”

— Orlandis Cage

Sacramento homeless fight for their rightsBy Cathleen Williams

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Early lastDecember she stood at the edge of thefield, near a cluster of tents, a tall youngwoman with a pony tail and hands thatwere ingrained with dust. “We call thisour little bit of heaven,” she said, wav-ing her arm toward the empty expanse.Behind her, the traffic on highway 5roared past, and off in the distance therewas a line of trees and the backs of newsuburban houses. Two porta-pottiesstood by the road, one bearing a hand-written sign, “Homeless People NeedWork.” Wind rippled the American flagthat had been raised above one of thenylon tents. The weather was changing.Storms from the northwest were bear-ing down upon California’s central val-ley.

This small band of homeless peoplewere refugees from a tent city thatsprang up over the past months on anempty, unused lot owned by Union Pa-cific Railroad on the edge of Sacramen-to, California. When the tents werediscovered in November by the policeand city officials—more than 60 hadbeen set up—homeless campers werethreatened with arrest and the destruc-tion of their property if they didn’tmove. Some did, but others stood theirground, angry and deeply indignant.

“I’ll pay the consequences, but I’m notrunning,” said one camper. “This iswhere I call home.”

An official count of homeless peoplein California’s capital was conducted onJanuary 30, 2007. On that winter night,the total number of homeless peoplewas 2,452. Of this total, 709 werehoused in emergency, one-night shel-

ters; 738 were housed in short-termtransitional shelters; and 1,005 were un-sheltered and sleeping in the streets, in-cluding four children and 17 seniors.The report found that the number ofhomeless who were housed in emer-gency or transitional shelters remainedfairly constant when compared to previ-ous years, but the number of unshel-

tered homeless people was significantlyhigher, resulting in a 10 percent in-crease as compared to 2005. Over halfof these homeless people suffer from adisabling condition, and have beenhomeless for a year or more, or have ex-perienced at least four episodes ofhomelessness within three years.

The City took rapid action to shutdown the tent city, sending its popula-tion, including children and seniors,back on the streets and the open groundby the river. At the time these residentswere evicted, the City offered motelvouchers to cover one or two nights ofshelter—and that’s it. Then the UnionPacific lot was fenced with barbed wire.

But the community in Sacramento isfighting back. A lawsuit has been filedon behalf of homeless individuals andorganizations to call a halt to the crimi-nalization of homelessness. Homelesspeople should not be cited, arrested, andharassed for sleeping outside whenthere is no adequate shelter for them.The confiscation and destruction oftheir few possessions must stop. Jobs,support in recovery, and housing are ba-sic human rights. Support is being ac-tively organized for the lawsuit and foradvocacy of the human rights of home-less people.

For more information, emailCathleen@markmerin.com.

The tent city in Sacramento. PHOTO/PAULA LOMAZZI, SACRAMENTO HOMELESS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

www.peoplestribune.org JANUARY 2008 | PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE 5

From the People’s TribuneScience Desk

This school year a high school foot-ball player in Virginia died after beinginfected with the methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus (MRSA) “super-bug.” MRSA is a “superbug” because ithas become resistant to the antibioticmethicillin, that is, this drug no longerkills the bug. Because of the emergenceof drug-resistant bacteria, there are fewor no treatments for infections such asMRSA. Indeed, the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention (CDC) esti-mates that MRSA kills about 19,000people a year in the USA, and that90,000 patients die each year from an-tibiotic-resistant infections.

The development of the MRSA “su-perbug” was expected. As Dr. John J.Jernigan of the CDC told the New YorkTimes (Oct. 28, 2007), “We know thatantimicrobial resistance will follow an-timicrobial use as sure as night willfollow day. It is just a biological phe-nomenon.” That phenomenon is one of

the basic laws of nature—biologicalevolution based upon natural selection.

Faced with the threat of increasingMRSA-related deaths, the CDC hasurged us to wash our hands and cleanup locker rooms, bathrooms, showers,and healthcare facilities. The CDC hasalso blamed the overuse of antibiotics inthe treatment of human diseases, butantibiotics are not just used in humans.As previously described in the People’sTribune (June 2007, page 10), over 50percent of the antibiotics used in theUSA are given to animals by corporatefood producers. The use of antibioticsin animal feed is a key source of new“superbugs” and a risk the food indus-try is willing to take in order to maxi-mize profits.

The overuse of antibiotics onlyspeeds up the appearance of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” as they will de-velop “as sure as night will follow day.”The only way to insure that we can treatresistant infections is to keep develop-ing new and stronger antibiotics. How-ever, despite the critical need for new

antibiotics, an article in the May 1,2007, issue of Clinical Infectious Dis-eases (www.idsociety.org) reports thatthe Food and Drug Administration’s ap-provals of new antibiotics have declinedby 56 percent during the past 20 years,and out of 506 new drugs under devel-opment, only six were antibiotics.

Why so few new antibiotics? An arti-cle posted October 28, 2007, onPHARMABIZ.com entitled, “Develop-ment of new antibiotics no longer at-tractive for pharma industry,” providesone part of the answer. The articlepoints out that the development of an-tibiotic resistance results in the elimina-tion of the drug from the marketresulting in huge economic losses forthe pharmaceutical industry, often run-ning into billions of dollars. Indeed, itoften costs more to discover and pro-duce the antibiotic than can be recov-ered by its sale.

The article from Clinical InfectiousDiseases offers additional insight intothe issue. The authors point out that an-tibiotics are less economically attractive

than drugs that treat chronic diseases:“Pharmaceutical companies appear to bemore interested in developing drugs thatpatients take for life, such as those usedto treat hypertension or arthritis. Bycomparison, antibiotics are usually pre-scribed for one or two weeks at most.”

As the threat of antibiotic-resistantdiseases, such as MRSA, increases, theability to treat these diseases decreases,because it is more important for thepharmaceutical industry to make moneythan to save lives. We cannot changebiological laws such as bacteria’s in-evitable evolutionary ability to developantibiotic resistance. But, we canchange the economic relationships thatplace money ahead of health care. Onestep is the creation of a universal healthcare system that includes the publiclysupported development of new drugsand their distribution at cost. Imagine asociety where the development and useof new drug therapies is undertaken tocure disease and alleviate suffering, notfor profit; a society where humanity re-places exploitation.

‘Superbugs’ increase while antibiotics decrease

Editor’s note: The following is ex-cerpted from a statement issued by theGrassroots Global Justice Alliance.

The Global Justice Movement willtake to the streets in January 2008. Forthe first time in its eight-year history,there will be no World Social Forum(WSF). Instead the WSF InternationalCouncil is calling on activists through-out the world to organize local actionson January 26, 2008, to demand theright to another world.

George W. Bush and his regime haveled the latest assault on communities,workers and the environment. This ischaracterized by what are known as capi-talist neo-liberal policies whereby publicservices are privatized, basic necessitieslike water are commodified, and govern-ment laws and regulations are strippedaway. Billions of people are deprived ofbasic public needs such as education,healthcare and the right to housing.

For the past three decades our com-munities—working-class communities,communities of color and indigenouspeoples—have been disproportionatelyaffected by the neo-liberal agenda thatimpacts all aspects of our lives. It inten-

sifies racism, sexism, homophobia andcorporate rule, deprives people of hu-man rights, and produces violence, ex-ploitation, poverty, hunger andecological disaster. We face greater re-pression in the U.S., while our brothersand sisters in the Global South struggleagainst re-colonization and attacks ontheir sovereignty. The voices of thosemost affected by capitalist globalizationmust be central to the resistance anddefining alternatives.

U.S. social movements emerged fromthe successful first ever United StatesSocial Forum in Atlanta, Ga., June 27 toJuly 1, 2007, stronger, more united, andwith a clearer understanding of theforces we are up against.

Grassroots Global Justice Alliancejoins the Call for a ‘Global Day of Ac-tion’ by the World Social Forum and thePeoples Movement Assembly of theU.S. Social Forum. We urge grassrootsorganizations and allies to mobilize onJanuary 26, 2008; and we encourage ac-tions that are focused on, but not exclu-sive to, the six thematic areas identifiedfor the U.S. Social Forum: • War, Militarism the Prison IndustrialComplex

• Immigrant Rights and Migration• Workers Rights in a Globalized

Economy• Women and Queer Liberation• Indigenous Sovereignty, Environmen-

tal Justice and Global Well-being• Gulf Coast Reconstruction and the

Right of Return

Your organization can organize an ac-tion on any of these themes, or on anyissues you’re working on. The last timea World Day of Action took place wasFebruary 15, 2003, designated as a dayto protest the War in Iraq andAfghanistan. An estimated 38 millionpeople took part.

WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING AND WHAT YOU CAN DO

In Atlanta, site of the first U.S. SocialForum, a Poor People’s Movement As-sembly is being organized to include aseries of town hall meetings with peo-ple voting on issues that matter to themin the state of Georgia. In Vermont, theyare planning a week of actions aroundthe intersection of the war, lack ofhealthcare and climate justice. Actionsare being organized from the Border toNew Orleans, making the connectionsaround the Right to Return and againstthe Wall of Death. Around the world,people are taking action

We believe “Another World is Possi-ble, and Another U.S. is Necessary.” Wewill act together on January 26, joiningour many struggles into one movement,as a step towards making these alterna-tives real.

Join the millions in resistance by reg-istering your action on the World SocialForum Global Action website:www.wsf2008.net

A global day of action: Act together for another world on January 26, 2008

One movement, many struggles!

Marching at the US Social Forum inAtlanta last summer.

PHOTO/KRISTINA ANN OLSON

PEOPLE’S TRIBUNESCIENCE DESK

ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

6 PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE | JANUARY 2008 www.peoplestribune.org

Homeowners line up in effort to stave off foreclosures

By Mike Rhodes

For the full version of this andother articles about the strugglefor civil liberties for homelesspeople in Fresno, California, seehttp://www.fresnoalliance.com/home/homelessness.htm

People who are homeless inFresno build some interesting andcreative shelters. Today I visitedBruce Tracy who has dug 10 feetinto the ground, creating a multi-room shelter that keeps him coolin the summer and warm in thewinter. Tracy said he has built alot of these underground homes,and that it took him about threemonths to dig out this home. “Idug it all out with a shovel and anaxe.”

About a week ago the FresnoPolice Department found Tracy’shome, which is on public land.Tracy said the police came in withguns drawn, searched the place,and forced him out in his under-wear. He was forced to stand out-side in his boxer shorts for 2 hourswhile the police interrogated him.“They came back a couple of daysago and said I had to leave. Theysaid they were going to bulldozethe place,” Tracy said.

The destruction of Tracy’shome follows a pattern by the cityto eliminate homeless encamp-ments and force people into whatsome people call concentrationcamps. Tracy’s underground

home cost the taxpayers nothing.Why is the City of Fresno destroy-ing homeless encampments andforcing them to move into hous-ing that violates building codes, isnot as nice as what they had, andis costing taxpayers a significantamount of money?

I asked Bruce and his friendThomas what they thought wasbehind the City of Fresno’s plan tomove homeless people into toolsheds. “It’s all about control,”Thomas said. “I got pulled over45 times in 30 days,” addedBruce. Bruce says homeless peo-ple are constantly harassed. “Theyjust want to eliminate the home-less” by making life so hard thatthey move, he says.

Most homeless people live amuch more communal life thanmost Fresno residents who live insuburbs or apartments. Theyknow their neighbors and taketime to talk with them everyday.While we were visiting Bruce, afriend came by to make sure hewas alright. He had seen our carparked nearby. After Bruce as-sured his friend that everythingwas OK, he told me that the friendsaid he would keep an eye on ourcar to make sure nobody dis-turbed it. That’s what neighborsshould do. They should look aftereach other, not bulldoze theirhomes.

Mike Rhodes is editor of theCommunity Alliance newspaper.

By General Baker

DETROIT — On Thursday, Decem-ber 13, 2007, about 4,500 people cameto a forum, searching for ways to stoptheir impending home foreclosures, thelargest turnout to such an event in thenation. More than 200 were lined up atCobo Hall before the doors opened atnoon and a steady stream of the unluckycontinued until the lenders closed thedoors at 8 p.m. The meeting was con-vened by the state attorney general.Some got help and others were turnedaway. Some shouted, others cried.

This problem did not just start. Thou-sands of people have already lost theirhomes. More than 70,000 homes in

Metro Detroit—equal to every residentin the cities of Dearborn and Livoniacombined—has been in some stage offoreclosure in the last two years. InMetro Detroit one in every 21 havebeen in some phase of foreclosure; thatis eight times the national average. Insome neighborhoods, one in sevenhomes received foreclosure notices be-tween January 2006 and September2007. In the city as a whole, one in 10homes had notices.

Michigan is first in the nation indelinquencies of subprime loans. It isfirst in FHA delinquencies, second inVA delinquencies and fourth on loans atbetter than prime rate.

Five of the 10 worst Zip codes in the

nation for foreclosures are in the city ofDetroit. About 55 percent of the mort-gage loans in the region in 2006 weresubprime, meaning the interest rateswere at least three percentage pointshigher than for average buyers. The tabfor foreclosures, in lost assets, unrecov-erable loans, lost property loans, anduncollectable property taxes, couldreach $1 billion.

Over 70,000 properties in WayneCounty alone have been listed in the taxforeclosure rolls for the last three yearsin a row, with no turnaround in sight.Meanwhile, the organized meetings withlenders and new proposed solutionsfrom the Bush administration seemmore designed to bail out the lenders

who will not be able to dump all of theproperties that they have foreclosed on.

While calls are being made for aMarshall Plan to bail out mortgages tosave lenders, section 8 certificates forlow-income people are being cut backand called in. Homelessness aboundswith no relief on the horizon. Publichousing projects are up for demolitionin the city of New Orleans and the lead-ers of that fight back are thrown in jailas these struggles take the back seat tothe “Sub Prime” crises. If the emphasisin this crisis is not placed on people onthe bottom, no middle income personcan have any salvation. The homelesspopulation that never had a houseshould not be forgotten.

Fresnounderground

Bruce Tracy (right) and his friend, Thomas. PHOTO/MIKE RHODES

www.peoplestribune.org JANUARY 2008 | PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE 7

By Ted Quant

Editor’s note: Ted Quant has beenan activist in New Orleans for over 30years.

The housing crisis in New Orleansand the heroic campaign to stop thedemolition of 4529 units of publichousing have placed the question ofgovernment responsibility at the fore-front of the fight for the human rightto housing. Residents, advocates andsupporters have stood in front of bull-dozers, brought lawsuits, taken theirdemands from the streets of New Or-leans to the door steps of HUD inWashington D.C., and to Congress,and faced pepper spray and tasers toget into City Hall to make their voicesheard. Housing is a human right de-nied by the government of the UnitedStates.

The housing crisis in New Orleansis a fight for the right to housing now!The fight to prevent the destruction ofthe current public housing structuresis based on the fact that many of thepublic housing structures survivedKatrina and could be renovated withminimum cost and people returned totheir homes. Secondly, there is a hugequestion of trust. The HUD proposalto demolish the old, damaged proper-ties and replace them with safe, mod-ern housing sounds good. Manypeople, including many residents, be-lieve and want this. But the experienceof the residents of the St. Thomas De-velopment gives cause for distrust.Only a few apartments were availableto the poorest families.

Herein lies the challenge to themovement which is under attack as“outside agitators,” “retrogrades whowant poor people condemned to dilap-idated projects,” “people standing inthe way of the rebuilding of New Or-leans,” etc. These attacks are designedto shift the consciousness of peoplefrom the real issue of who is to blamefor the housing crisis and how to re-solve it. The demand must be if theytear down a unit, it must be replaced.

Yet, the limited number of housingunits planned for completion in 3 to 5years does not ensure one-to-one re-placement of the demolished publichousing.

Consider also that 50 percent of the51,000 rental properties in New Or-leans damaged or destroyed in theflood were affordable for people mak-ing less than 80 percent of the medianincome. Tens of thousands wererenters who worked in our service andtourist industry at wages of $6 to $10an hour. They could meagerly survivebecause they could still find rentalunits for $400 to $700 a month. To-day, those rents are $1000 to $1500 amonth.

Impoverished working class peoplewho were the backbone of the econo-my can’t return to the city they lovebecause there is no affordable housingfor them. Thousands of families aredoubled and tripledup. 50,000 are in trail-ers. Soon they will allbe evicted. Wherewill they go? FEMAsays they will getvouchers and rentsubsidies. What goodare these when the po-tential rental proper-ties have not beenrebuilt? And why is itthat two years afterKatrina there has notbeen more progress onrebuilding affordable private rentalproperties as well as expansion ofpublic housing?

This “incompetence” is by design.Louisiana has millions of dollars tobuild Katrina cottages and has not builtone of these fast-to-build prefabricatedhouses that could greatly relieve thehousing crisis. Why? Incompetence ordesign? Why were the un-flooded pub-lic housing apartments locked up andpeople prevented from returning evento get their belongings? Good undam-aged apartments were locked up andallowed to deteriorate with mold whileformer residents were given formalde-

hyde soaked trailers to live in for overtwo years.

Every crisis from 911 to Katrinahas been an opportunity to advance aNew World Order agenda of corporatetakeovers and privatization of every-thing from schools, to prisons, to mu-nicipal fire departments, to shred theConstitution, get rid of Habeas Cor-pus, to even privatize the military andthe war. The agenda includes insuringthat Louisiana’s demographic will nolonger include that 30 percent Blackpopulation.

It took the heroic determined effortof a relatively small number of peopleto seize this issue and begin to fight.On December 20, the organizers mo-bilized people to come to the New Or-leans City Council meeting to voicetheir objections to the demolitionplan. Over a hundred were locked outof the meeting and many were pepper

sprayed and tasered as they fought tohave their voice heard. In the end, thecouncil voted unanimously to go for-ward with the demolition and organiz-ers vowed to continue the fight.

A major fight is now in store for theconscience of the community. Withperhaps 12,000 homeless people inNew Orleans, there is a need for morepublic housing not less. The move-ment is a demand that the governmentprovide housing now. There are nooutside agitators in the fight for a newsociety built around human ratherthan corporate rights and for a futurewithout poverty and homelessness.

Fighting for lifein New Orleans

Residents,supporterswageheroic fightfor housing Fighting to get into New Orleans’ City Council chamber.

AP PHOTO/ALEX BRANDON

Chicago Cabrini Green resident reports on New Orleans housing battleBy James Pfluecke

Editor’s note: The People’s Tribune in-terviewed J.R. Fleming, who was amongthose who traveled to New Orleans for therecent demonstrations there in support ofpublic housing. He is a resident ofChicago’s Cabrini Green public housingdevelopment and the Chairman of theChicago Community Chapter of the HipHop Congress. He is dedicated to makingsure everyone has a home and their humanright to housing.

People’s Tribune: Why were you inNew Orleans?

J.R.: The US Human Rights Networkinvited us down and paid for our trip. Thisis the fourth time we have gone to NewOrleans to support their work.

We wanted to give the youth an oppor-tunity to go to New Orleans and see whatwas going on and get firsthand experienceabout the people there and the conditionsthey were living under. We wanted ouryouth to share what they had learned aboutthe United Nations Rights of the Child.

PT: What did you do in New Orleans?J.R.: We participated in the fight for

housing there, especially to stop the demo-lition of public housing.

PT: How are people living there?J.R.: There are at least 12,000 homeless

people who are very visible. The visuals ofit all—in the open, filling up underpasses,the huge tent city in front of city hall—yousee homeless people everywhere you go. Itis a first-hand account of how the systemdoes not care. The structure turns a blindeye and those in power physically have towalk over the homeless every day to get towork.

PT: Why should Americans care aboutNew Orleans Public Housing?

J.R.: Because the City of New Orleanslacks the housing to otherwise address thehomelessness you see in the underpassesand everywhere. The existing public hous-ing is an immediate resource to bringabout the resolution to this homelessness.They are the only sound structures thatsurvived hurricane Katrina and hurricaneAmerica.

I personally wanted to watch and ana-lyze our youth. I wanted to see their emo-tional reactions, hear their voice and theirquestions and answers to see what kind oflessons they would learn and what theywould be taught.

PT: What happened when you got ar-rested?

J.R.: Well, it hurt me more not knowingwhat would happen to the youth when Iwas arrested because I know that for any-one it would be hard emotionally to wit-ness such atrocities in 21st centuryAmerica. To see all of the homelessness,suffering and pain and then get arrested fortrying to end it? That is hard.

Marching to HUD, New Orleans. PHOTO/EDWIN LOPEZ

8 PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE | JANUARY 2008 www.peoplestribune.org

By Mike Rhodes

FRESNO, Calif.—Community ac-tivists are demanding justice in the LillyMae Harmon homicide case. Betty Har-mon, the daughter of Lilly Mae Har-mon, said “the City of Fresno and its

Police Department have clearly demon-strated that people of color, our seniors,people without police connections, donot share in the same equal protectionsunder the law. Based upon the attitudesconcerning investigating crimes againstpeople of color, it has become clear that

Fresno is actually two cities. One isblack; the other is white. They are total-ly separate and unequal.”

Betty Harmon and Rev. Floyd D.Harris, Jr., National President of theNational Network in Action, a Civil andHuman Rights Organization, an-nounced they were filing a federal law-suit against the City of Fresno. Harmonand Harris said that it was outrageousthat the Fresno Police Department didnot investigate Lilly Harmon’s deathand made the family pay for a privateinvestigator to look into the homicide.

Rev. Harris, standing at the front doorof City Hall said “it has come to our at-tention that the City of Fresno is theTale of Two Cities—the haves and thehave nots. If Mrs. Lilly Mae Harmonhad been a white woman living in NorthFresno, living on the bluffs by the river,we would not be standing here rightnow. We feel that the police departmentwould have taken more action, fasterand quicker. But, because Mrs. Harmonwas a lady who lived out in the countrywho might have driven down dirt roads… her case was a low priority. We comehere to tell the City of Fresno thatenough is enough.”

Surrounded by community support-ers, Betty Harmon said she lost hermother under tragic and suspicious cir-

cumstances. “When I took my concernsto the Fresno Police Department, Ifound that their motto to ‘protect andserve’ had limitations. Not only did Ihave to hire a private investigator totrack down and prosecute the case, but Ihad to pay out of my own pockets forservices that taxpayers delegate to thepolice. The people of color in Fresnodemand justice and equal protection un-der California law and the Constitutionof the United States.”

Betty Harmon said, “If we allow thepolice and city officials to turn theirheads and ignore social harms towardscitizens of color, if we allow the trend tocontinue that people of color must hiretheir own private investigators toachieve social justice, we allow a stan-dard to be set in this community thatpeople of color must pay for their au-topsies in order to qualify for police in-vestigative intervention—if we don’tstand up, then we bring back an erawhere people of color do not matter. Nohope; No voice; No vote; No power.”

For an in-depth report on the incidentthat led to this lawsuit, see the July 2007Community Alliance newspaper or goto: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/06/16/18427916.php

Also see: http://justiceforlillymaeharmon.org/

Fresno: The tale of two cities

Fresno activists demand justice in the Lilly Mae Harmon homicide case.PHOTO/MIKE RHODES

By Cliff Bailey

On December 3, 2007, the next shoedropped in the ARM (adjustable ratemortgage) scam. On that fateful dayTreasury Secretary Henry Paulson,former head of Goldman Sachs, an-nounced a plan by the Bush administra-tion to provide relief from the ARMfiasco.

As reported in the Washington Post,this deal is being done between theTreasury and a group of consumer cred-it counseling organizations, investors,nonprofits and lenders. The group isaptly named the Hope Now Alliance,because it is the hope of all these orga-nizations that the predatory loans theymade do not go into foreclosure.

The plan is being worked out be-tween government and capital. It re-flects capital’s interests. If this were tohelp individual homeowners it wouldhave been hashed out between govern-ment and groups that represent workerslike the Eastside Organizing Project inCleveland and the NTIC in Chicago.

“We’re focused on those in the center

… that are going to have a problemmeeting their payments,” Paulson said.So an agreement made with capital willbe used to decide which predatory mort-gages capital sold to unsuspecting work-ers will be refinanced. It’s incredible.

This plan then is really about how tomake the most money for banks andmortgage companies and their associat-ed brokers, originators and hedge funds.It is not about providing places for peo-ple to live. If it were about providingplaces to live there would be no ques-tion about who could or could not pay.It would simply be a question of provid-ing shelter.

Another reason for this group to wantto stave off foreclosures is that they maynot be legal. In a recent case presentedin a Federal District Court in Cleveland,Ohio, Judge Christopher Boyko dis-missed 14 foreclosure cases brought onbehalf of mortgage investors. The judgeruled that the investors failed to provethat they owned the houses they weretrying to seize.

Foreclosures in Ohio are of the Judi-cial type, meaning that the foreclosure

process happens through the courts.Based on this ruling, current foreclo-sures may not be legal in states thathave the Judicial type of foreclosure.This is because the mortgages havebeen sold to so many different financialinstitutions and hedge funds that no onecan tell who really owns them.

Finally, instead of providing shelterfor workers, this plan provides shelterfor banks and hedge funds. It puts a lit-tle more air into the leaking housingbubble, keeping alive the idea thateverything is going well and capitalismis working just fine, thank you. Capital-ism is working—for the capitalists. Forthe rest of us, it is a bust.

Know someone facing foreclosure?With over a million homes in foreclo-sure, you probably do. Ask your friendor relative to read this paper, this article.Educate them on what is really going onwith the ARM scam. When people see,really see, what is happening to them,they will demand decent shelter and nota postponement of a guaranteed highermortgage payment.

Government’s mortgage ‘relief’ plan

No hope nowThe plan is reallyabout how to makethe most money forbanks and mortgagecompanies and theirassociated brokers,orginators and hedgefunds. It’s not aboutproviding places forpeople to live.

www.peoplestribune.org JANUARY 2008 | PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE 9

Court ruling a victory for soldierwho refused serviceBy Jack Hirschman

The injunction against the court-mar-tial retrial of Lt. Ehren Watada, whichfederal judge Benjamin Settle posted onOctober 8, turned a righteous supportrally for Watada in San Francisco Chi-natown’s Portsmouth Square park into ajoyous celebration of the courageoussoldier from Hawaii, the first high-ranking officer who refused deploy-ment to Iraq on the grounds that the waris an illegal one.

Watada’s ordeal after his declarationled to a court-martial trial which wasdeclared a mistrial earlier this year.

Judge Settle’s injunction squelches theattempt on the part of the U.S. Army tocircumvent the law of double-jeopardywhich prohibits the trying of a citizentwice for the same “crime.”

After artist Betty Kano encircled thespeakers’ podium with a traditionaldrum-call, Chinatown Community Rev.Norman Fong introduced JapaneseAmerican poet

Peter Yamamoto; Grassroots environ-mentalist speaker David Chiu; the cur-rent poet laureate of the city, JackHirschman (see poem at right); pastlaureate Janice Mirikitani; and Jeff Pa-terson, who was the first GI to resist the

Gulf War, and now works with Courageto Resist. Speakers were translated intoChinese by Angela Chu, who para-phrased the poems as well. The rally de-signed as a press conference wasorganized by Ying Lee, one of thefighting activists of the Asian commu-nity.

Conscientious objectors are known inwartime, but conscientious rejectors—especially among the officer class—isrelatively new, and Ehren Watada’s ex-ample is being seen as an heroic break-through in anti-war activities.

FOR EHREN WATADA

This warring governmenthaving lost its peopleand having exposedits lies and its twistsand turns of the knifein the back of all decency,

has only the guns leftto keep the people in linein Iraq and here as well,the guns that make peopleafraid because they canmake people dead,

and so when an officerlike Ehren Watadafrom one of the twonewest states to belegalized as part ofthe United States

realizes that the wardeclared by his countryis an illegal one, and herefuses to be deployedto Iraq, and is illegallycourt-martialed,

he has opened a crackin the cage we all arefearfully imprisoned in,and the sun of truthhas streamed in radiantly,and hopefully others

today or tomorrow willbe touched by the sameluminous courage asEhren Watada’s, and thedominum effect lead to thehighest-ranking officer: Peace.

— Jack Hirschman

Thirty years agothat spot was like a mother to me.Justlike my best friend’s mother.

Twenty years agoit was my own mother.Absurd, butI used to shout to her“Mother,”when I felt helpless:“Mother!”

A powerfully written book on thewomen in the Chicano Movement andin theater is now available. Through aspecial offer, a copy of Teatro Chi-cana, signed by co-editor Laura Gar-cia, is available for only $30.

Teatro Chicana, a Collective Mem-oir and Selected Plays, was written byseventeen women who performedwith Teatro de las Chicanas in the ear-ly 1970s. The group evolved to TeatroRaíces and then Teatro Laboralthrough 15 years of existence.

Laura Garcia, editor of the Tribunodel Pueblo, wrote a chapter in thebook that describes her youth as an

immigrant to the Imperial Valley. Herpath to college and then political ac-tivism is described with passion andreveals to us all the pain and joy ofbeing a women. Being a member ofan all-woman, street-theater groupwas a transformative experience. Shecredits the teatro for helping her findher voice, political understanding ofthe working class and subsequent po-litical activism.

Published by the University ofTexas Press, the book provides seven-teen stories that paint a picture of po-litical issues that are still relevant 30years later.

Order your own copy of TeatroChicana, signed by Laura Garcia, for$30. Proceeds from your donationwill benefit the Tribuno Del Pueblo.Make check payable to Tribuno delPueblo, PO Box 3524, Chicago, IL60654-3524.

Expect two weeks for deliveryupon receipt.

Laura Garcia is also available tospeak through Speakers for a New America. Call 800-691-6888 oremail info@speakersforanewamerica.com.

Make a donation, get a book!

New book profiles women in the Chicano Movement

Yong’il Bay

— By Ko UnKorea’s literary spokesperson, Ko Un, was nominated for

a Nobel several times. The poem was translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach

Todayfactories have killed my mother.Now,there is no motherto greet you, sun and moon.And since I am motherless,I am without dreams, no matter how long I sleep.For millennia now, sandhas been announcing the end of the world.Who has understood?Those grains of sandwere once mother of every man and beast.

10 PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE | JANUARY 2008 www.peoplestribune.org

Editor’s note: Below we reprint a re-cent e-mail inquiry from a reader, andthe paper’s response.

To People’s Tribune:The People’s Tribune, which seeks

and speaks truth, sometimes puzzles mewith its questions. I know that the posi-tions taken by the Tribune are alwayswell thought out, always analytical onbig and little questions about our coun-try, our system of governance, and criti-cal in its thinking. Most importantly, itis accessible to the people, in the streets,naming the contradictions and invitingdebate and commentary from the Peo-ple.

I am wondering how anyone wouldthink the government (which brought ussmall pox infested blankets, theTuskegee experiment, sterilization ofNative and Puerto Rican women,Vieques, Juneteenth, Operation Wet-back, Operation Return to Sender, 9/11,Cointelpro, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hi-dalgo, Wounded Knee, Blackwater, justto name a few, without any chronologi-cal order or detail), would be chargedwith housing the homeless and feedingthe hungry and ending the war. Wouldyou trust the same forces that were re-sponsible for the aforementioned atroc-ities to feed and clothe the people madevulnerable and weak by them? That is aposition which baffles me. When wecall the police to address a crime in ourcommunity, our own people end up in a

court in front of a jury of no peers, ourown people become captives in a prisonsystem designed to break us down andsteal our human capital.

Our president is kneeling down infront of a corporate boss and he is notpraying. It is madness to seek redressfrom forces that have no record of any-thing but contempt for us. There is nocourt for poor people, there is no av-enue for addressing our issues exceptwithin us and among us. We are all wehave and we must dig deep to find solu-tions to the morrass we are in that wedid not create.

Providing our own food and a systemof justice and a system of bartering inthe neighborhood is one way we canfind our way. Many communities are al-ready doing this. Detroit is so devastat-ed and the casinos are the only thinggetting built here. Libraries are boardedup and people are without lights andwater. We can and must find our way;we are better than this.

Hasta la Victoria SiempreElena Herrada

The People’s Tribune Responds

Dear Elena,Thank you for your thoughtful letter.

The People’s Tribune welcomes the op-portunity to discuss why we call on thepeople to fight to make the government

serve their interests.First, we completely agree with your

lack of confidence in the governmentfor the reasons that you state. Today, thevision of a government of the people,by the people and for the people has be-come just another phrase like the adver-tising slogans that bombard us daily.Today, the corporations have becomethe American government. Such a gov-ernment cannot and will not tend to theneeds of the people.

On the other hand, the masses of peo-ple are being drawn into the strugglewithout being conscious of this reality.They do not understand who are theirfriends and enemies. Many think thatwe can just throw a bad president out tofix things. Others don’t believe that thegovernment has any responsibility toprovide for their needs. Without under-standing, the corporate drive for a fas-cist America could easily take hold. Thedanger is that, without consciousness,the people will be led by their rulersinto a fight against their own class inter-ests rather than against corporate power.We have a huge educational task on ourhands.

The question is—how do we educatethe people so they will fight for a newAmerica that represents their interests?Our tactic is to start where people are.Our goal is to draw the people into po-litical struggle against the government.We do this by asking them: why doesthe government have no qualms about

maintaining the well being of the corpo-rate giants but refuses to educate, houseand provide healthcare for the people?People will come to understand the na-ture of the government if they makesensible demands that the governmentrefuses to accept. This is beginning tohappen with the struggle for healthcare.

We must pose the idea of a responsi-ble people’s government. The reality isthat globalization and robotics and theresulting falling wages and growingpoverty makes it impossible for the pri-vate sector to provide the necessities.The only alternative is a different peo-ple’s government. But, first we have toget rid of this one, and the first step is toexpose it by making demands.

Our political demand must be that ifthe capitalists can’t or won’t provide forthe people then the government must.Nationalize healthcare! Nationalize ed-ucation! Nationalize public housing!Nationalize the energy! With consciousrevolutionaries playing their education-al role within these battles, the peoplewill come to see that their livelihood de-pends on actually taking over this cor-porate/state and creating a new Americawhere the world of plenty that exists to-day can be distributed to all based ontheir needs.

The People’s Tribune

Why they’re trying to divide and conquer

A reader asks, why demand that the government fixproblems, when the government is the cause of problems?

Editor’s note: This editorial will ap-pear in the January-February issue ofour sister publication, the Tribuno delPueblo.

Precisely because of the significancethat the movement for immigrants’rights has for the entire U.S. workingclass, Latino immigrants experienced aserious increase of terrorism and sav-agery directed against them in 2007.

This is not just a question of racismor discrimination. There is somethingmore fundamental going on. And it hasto do with the state of the economic sys-tem we live under—capitalism.

Modern capitalism has no borders. To-day’s global corporations and the wealthypeople who run them don’t care whethertheir profits come from abroad or theUnited States. Their trade policies—suchas the deluge of U.S. corn overwhelmingMexican farmers—have caused the floodof immigration we see today.

Likewise, these same capitalists can nolonger assure native-born U.S. workers

the higher standard of living they havebecome accustomed to. The advancedtechnology that competition obliges thecapitalists to use is replacing and margin-alizing millions of workers—and drivingdown the wages of all the rest.

The new technology enables humani-ty to produce more than enough to giveevery human being a full and happylife. But that doesn’t happen becausecapitalism requires that distribution bebased on profit—no money, no sale.

With more and more people unable topay—and many more reading the hand-writing on the wall—this creates an ex-plosive situation in which the wholecapitalist class fears losing control.

To avoid that, it is employing theweapon of divide and conquer. Al-though the attack is directed at the im-migrant, the ultimate target is thebroader U.S. working class. And thegoal is keeping working-class NorthAmericans from becoming conscious ofthemselves as a class—and taking unit-ed political action.

A rally for immigrant rights in Chicago last summer.PHOTO/PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE

www.peoplestribune.org JANUARY 2008 | PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE 11

By Shamako Noble

Editor’s note: The letter below ap-peared recently in Silicon Valley De-Bug.

First I would like to commend andcongratulate all who have participatedin the motion to support the Jena 6. In-deed such a display does reflect that aSTRONG need for sweeping changeand the willingness to push it forwardexists. Most notable are the roles playedby such great folks as Mos Def, DaveyD and Troy Nkruma and the entireNHHPC. Your energy and efforts con-tinue to resonate throughout the countryand the world and represent the growinghope for a more just collective future.

With that said, I just wanted to throwout a couple of thoughts. The massmovement around the Jena 6 is a power-ful reflection of the need for change inour society; it is also a potential pitfallfor broader movement work that doesnot benefit from the divisions that suchpassion can create.

Most recently, Davey D commentedon Mos Def as the Paul Robeson of ourtime. This is a most apt description, asPaul Robeson fought for the rights ofBlack Americans, but also of coal min-ers, farmers, and factory workers bothhere and abroad. In fact, a great deal ofwhat got Paul Robeson labeled a com-

munist sympathizer was his support fora wide spectrum of economic and socialjustice work. He was extremely skilledat recognizing and articulating the spe-cific plight of the Black American; con-necting that struggle, and his clout as aworld renowned performer and intellec-tual, to various struggles throughout theUnited States and the globe.

50,000 people descended on Jena.Many claim that this is “the beginning.”While that may be true, it is equally truethat the immigration movement, whichinitially brought out millions fadedaway quietly, bringing out only a frac-tion of what it produced last year. Whatcaused the diminished activity and howit could have been avoided are still inquestion. However, millions becamehundred of thousands virtuallyovernight; that energy—while still pre-sent—is deeply quieted.

Many have argued that self-preserva-tion is the strongest motivating force forsuch an action; a larger more sustain-able self-preservation is possible by rec-ognizing and cultivating the reality thatall of our communities are sufferingfrom the same problems; many of thosesame communities have developedgreat solutions. It is important—evencritical—for Black America to take re-sponsibility for its problems. We mustalso recognize that long lasting changein this country cannot come through the

advocacy of the Black communities’agenda alone. We can also recognizethat all of the Black Community agen-da, is not yet one agenda and so thosecommunities with the most urgency,suffering from rampant poverty and un-employment, police accountability is-sues, poor education, lack of healthcare, and violence could seek allianceswith those communities that share thesame need for change.

The divisions around this issue whichhave made this a very distinct black andwhite line obscure that the black agen-da, and even more specifically the poorblack agenda, is both advanced by andshared with the poor Latino, White andAsian agenda of America and beyondAmerica.

Racism in America is distinct, and iseven more distinct in certain places. Thecore of the social and economic prob-lems that we truly face as Americanpeople are global, and are shared by theAfrican Diaspora, the global indigenous,and the general poor and working classof the world. This was also somethingthat Paul Robeson understood, and mod-eled as an artist of his era. Robeson, as amember of an oppressed group in Amer-ica worked for African freedom, and re-lated to everyday life of, “Britishdockworkers and Welsh miners, and themany Africans whom he met.”

Battling racism is important and

racism, in any form, should not be toler-ated. However, what we are really fight-ing is a system of institutional racismand economic oppression. Thus, if weall live in Jena, then the fight has beenhappening and continues to happeneach day. This was beautifully illustrat-ed by Bomani Armah, who recentlypinned a song that is available on no-tarapper.com and myspace.com/kno-tarapper, commented on the fact that“The hard work still remains to be done,in Jena, and throughout America, andI’m taking a stand, as an artist, father,husband, son, and brother.”

These are serious times. The HipHop community—bonded by the cul-ture that generates common experi-ence—has taken a firm stance on Jena.Let us continue to take such a stance incities all across the USA, advocating forthe use of chess strategy like AdisaBanjoko; continue to press for Interna-tional and National education reformlike Martha Diaz; continue to work dili-gently to seek justice for Katrina vic-tims like Supervisor James White, orRosa Clamente, and continue daily tosupport the efforts of under recognizedcommunity organizers, youth workers,parents, teachers, artists, poets, etc.Every day another Jena 6 is born, andthe systems that create them continue tothrive.

Si Se Puede

Beyond Jena

An open letter to the Hip Hopcommunity, the black communityand connected Parties

Editor’s note: On this page we are printing apiece by Shamako Noble that appeared recentlyin Silicon Valley De-Bug. Below is some infor-mation about Silicon Valley De-Bug taken fromtheir web site.

Silicon Valley De-Bug is a collective of writ-ers, artists, organizers, and workers based in SanJose, California. We started in the Spring of2000 by reporting on the hidden experiences ofworking people who were employed as low-

wage temporary workers. As we grewas a collective we began exploring allof the issues of our community—inthe workplace, schools, streets, rela-tionships, and everything else.

De-Bug is about allowing every-body to tell the stories of their lives,and their opinions on the world, bothnear and far. We operate by the princi-

ple that experience is the ultimate authority. Inthis way, we are creating a platform for other-

wise unheard stories to be communicated toeach other and the world around us.

De-Bug as an organization grows with the in-terests of our folks. Following the lead of theyoung adults in the organization we have devel-oped a wide-ranging set of projects that all ex-press the De-Bug principles of communitybuilding in different ways. For more informationabout any of the projects call or e-mail us.

Some of our projects include De-Bug Maga-zine, a bilingual publication that comes outevery two months; Open-World TV, a weekly ca-ble TV show that features comedy acts, localevents, talent, and community issues; FresnoYouth Media Project; and the community cam-paign to ban police use of tasers in San Jose.

For more information, write to 701 LenzenAve., San Jose, CA 95126, call (408) 453-2517, e-mail svdebug@newamericamedia.org, or seethe web site athttp://www.siliconvalleydebug.org/.

About Silicon Valley

De-Bug…

VOICES FROM BENTON HARBOR, MI

Wealth gotten by dishonesty shall be diminished

God created us as good creatures but unfortunately some have chosen to turnaway from good, enslaving themselves to evil, corruption and deceitfulness,which caused them to become blind to biblical truths and justice. My husband,Rev. Edward Pinkney, has been wrongfully convicted by the capitalist class whoprofits off the enslavement of the innocent. Proverb 13th chapter, 11th verse sayswealth, gotten by dishonesty (capitalists) shall be deminished but He (Pinkney)that gathereth by honest labor shall increase in power.

— Dorothy Pinkney

Pinkney has fought for justicefor the community

“Rev. Edward Pinkney has been a stal-wart fighter for justice in the commu-nity and is leading its resistance tothese powerful corporate interests. Rev.Pinkney has succeeded in bringingwhites and blacks together in this fightfor justice. And we know that powerfulinterests view that as a no-no. Pleasewrite letters asking for justice for Rev.Pinkney and the people of Benton Har-bor. I know that our concerted worktogether will change things.”

— Cynthia McKinney, Presidential candidate

and former member of Congress

By Belinda Brown

Edward Pinkney is fulfilling the callof God by speaking the truth. The cor-rupt Berrien County Court system muststop oppressing the people. According toPsalm 82:4, judges are commanded to:“Deliver the poor and needy: rid themout of the hand of the wicked.” Whenthere is no justice, the people become aprey for the forces of darkness. The Lordasks who will listen to this word that ex-plains the sad plight of God’s peoplewhen there is no deliverance. Unfortu-nately, many ignore this word. This manof God is not a coward or afraid to standup. He has walked that courthouse upand down. He knows how people aretreated. He knows the employees that are

corrupt. They see people being hurt andfamilies torn apart by this racist system.Until we have an outcry for justice, thesepeople will keep doing whatever theywant to do. We need to come up withstrategies. We need to talk to the youngpeople. We need national and interna-tional attention. We need to keep reach-ing out to other organizations, andboycott businesses that don’t support thecommunity.

Now, that the truth has been spoken,it’s time to make a decision. Can youtruly afford to sit on the sidelines and letthis traumatic injustice go on? Or, areyou courageous enough to stand up andact on what God has clearly revealed?It’s time to come together, for yourgood, and the good of your loved ones.

Think deeply about the famous warninggiven by Sir Winston Churchill: “Menoccasionally stumble over the truth, butmost of them pick themselves up andhurry off as if nothing had happened.” Ihope we can all realize that “escapism”is intellectually and spiritually dishon-est and cowardly!

This Man of God Has Stood UP ForYou When You Were Afraid to StandUP For Yourself. This Man Of God HasInspired Some of You to Get an Attor-ney When You Wanted TO Plead Guiltyto something you did not do. This ManOf God Has Monitored those court ap-pointed Attorneys Who have trickedyou into False Guilty Pleads and LesserCharges just so that the court can takeyour money. From left, Belinda Brown, Rev.

Anderson and Rev. Pinkney in court.PHOTO/DAYMONJHARTLEY.COM

It’s time to make a decision, Benton Harbor

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FREE PINKNEY!!HELP WITH HIS DEFENSE FUND!

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Write or send donations to:Rev. Edward Pinkney Defense

1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022

From the Editors

Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Har-bor, Mich., convicted by an all-whitejury of “voter fraud” in March 2007,was sentenced on December 20 to oneyear in jail as a result of an alleged pa-role violation based on an article ap-pearing in the People’s Tribune. Thefinal outcome of these free speech is-sues will be determined in a secondhearing some time in January.

The backdrop to this case is a ragingstruggle for justice by Benton Harbor’spoor, and others, against the take-overof their town and lake-front park prop-erty by the giant global corporation,Whirlpool. The redevelopment that issweeping Benton Harbor, like New Or-leans, and other cities across the nation,aims to displace the poor in favor ofhigh-end properties and amusementsfor the rich.

The arrest of Rev. Pinkney for utiliz-ing his right to free speech, thetrumped-up charges of “voter fraud” in-tended to silence Pinkney and others,are part of a whole process in which the

legal battles move into the political are-na in order to strip the people of theirright to freedom of expression. It is asmall part of the motion toward fascismin this country.

It is important to note that in Ameri-can history, revolutionary movementsbegin not so much to achieve newrights, but to hold on to those the peoplehave. The Civil War’s beginnings werenot rooted in an effort to liberate theslaves or to preserve the Union. It beganas the mass response to the slave power’sattempt to silence the anti-slaveryforces—and their newspapers—in thedecades leading up to the war.

We know from history that during suchperiods of economic and political transi-tion as our country is entering, there is anobjective motion on the part of the rulingclass to establish a fascist dictatorship inorder to maintain their control. Every ex-pression of that motion—no matter howsmall—must be exposed and fought. IfWhirlpool’s ruling clique in Benton Har-bor wants to attack the community fordefending their freedom of expression,we are ready for that fight.

The truth behind the Pinkney case

Activist gets one-year jail sentence for speaking out