First Portland Community Congress The Alliance for Social Change has slated its First Portland Community Congress at the NW Service Center Saturday, Oct. 9. In the words of community catalyst Beverly Stein, it will be “a place where community activists and concerned citizens alike can come together to build skills, discuss strategies and coordinate activities.” Free childcare, exceptionally modest attendance fees ($3-$10 on a “sliding scale”) and two dozen mini-forums on topics such as neighborhood organizing, crime, discrimination, housing and disarmament make this a most attractive and timely event. Michael Rotkin, the socialist mayor of Santa Cruz, where voters recently approved a resolution opposing U.S. intervention in El Salvador by a 2-1 majority, is the featured speaker. Call the Alliance at 222-4479 for more information. You Be the Judge When the majority of voters step into the booth to cast their ballots, we have virtually no information about either the judicial positions or the candidates running for them. Studying the array of names, we are probably not making reasoned decisions. Michael Marcus is running for District Judge in Multnomah County, a fact which may have come to voters’ attention by the lawn signs sprouting around the city. A Legal Aid lawyer for 12 years (Director of Litigation for Multnomah County Legal Aid for the past eight), he has been a persistent and effective legal activist with a reputation among his peers for being very bright. He has specialized in Landlord-Tenant Law and has been instrumental in establishing tenants’ rights in Oregon. And he has sat as District Court Judge pro tern (temporarily) 60 times. District Court judges, according to Marcus, have contact with the greatest number of people in the court system, and a judge there has the potential of shaping how people look at the whole justice system. “District Court is the first contact with government process for many young people,” says Marcus. “It’s a formative period when they’re developing sources of self-esteem and the court has the means of helping to direct that.” There is a loud and insistent demand from parts of the community for more and longer jail sentences in response to the increase in crime. But Marcus believes that creative sentencing is the key to making District Court work for the community. In this regard he differs from his opponent, Dorothy Baker, who bills herself as something of a hardliner and sees jail sentences as the deterrent to crime. He concedes that jail does work best in some cases. “People are outraged about crime and they have a right to be outraged, but it’s critical to understand when a jail sentence does more harm than good. People are very complex, and sometimes a jail sentence will create more danger for the community rather than less.” Community service is a tool Marcus seems to favor. He tells of sentencing a man convicted of drunk driving to working at the local detox center where he was of service to people needing help and saw first hand some of the grisly effects of alcohol abuse. The idea, he says, is to “communicate the basic value offended by the misconduct. I think I can do more there,” he says. “You see more clients in a half day in District Court than in a week at Legal Aid.” He recognizes that judges tend to get somewhat jaded, but “what it takes is a respect for people. You last longer than if you don’t respect them. You just have to be idealistic about people.” ■ AYes on #7 Means no to Military Aid Last July, Ronald Reagan certified that the Salvadorean government had made significant improvements in human rights and reform in El Salvador. Yet, reports from Amnesty International, the Catholic Church and the American Civil Liberties Union revealed that human rights violations in El Salvador have increased since the right-wing “Constituent Assembly” rose to power last March. Reagan’s certification was needed to clear the way for another $130,000,000 in proposed military aid to the brutal Salvadorean regime. United States military involvement in El Salvador has escalated rapidly in the last two and a half years. In addition to the $128,000,000 worth of military hardware and advisors already supplied, Salvadorean troops and officers have been brought to the States for military training at Fort Bragg and Fort Benning. And, there is speculation in Congress that the Reagan ad- m inistration’s commitment to El Salvador may soon have even graver consequences for the peoples of the U.S. and El Salvador. Last month, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut told Washington reporters that he foresees the use of United States combat troops in El Salvador within the next 12 months. But public opposition to Reagan’s policies in El Salvador is mounting. This November, Multnomah County citizens will have the opportunity to vote on Ballot Measure #7, which would put Multnomah County on record as opposing military intervention in El Salvador. Similar measures have already been passed in Chico and Santa Cruz, Calif., and Cambridge, Mass. Passage of Measure #7 will send a message to Washington that the people of Multnomah County do not want their tax dollars spent on the murder and torture of the Salvadorean people. The El Salvador Initiative Coalition can be reached at 235-9388 or 284-3432 or write to P.O. Box 14513, Portland, OR 97214. ■ Oregon... you're working lor US The phallic competition hit Burnside, with the US Bank Tower clearly emerging as winner in the Corporate Lust category. By placing it a distance away from its competitors, the jarring effect was made even more pronounced. As if to assuage those twinges of conspicuous consumption guilt, a simulcast (“We’d give $1 million to put Oregon back to work”) campaign had as much effect on the marketplace as The Oregonian's vaunted “free ads for the unemployed.” Undoubtedly, the construction boom, in the face of our region’s crippling economic reversals, has helped keep Portland buoyant. And we should give thanks to NW Natural Gas and Michael Graves for relieving us from the tedium of our new skyline. But the Burnside tower is an eyewrenching disappointment. Come on US ... it’s rejuvenated timber, trade and agricultural industries we need. The erector sets should be left in the boardroom. ■ Begin on the Record New York Times, Dec. 4, 1948 TO THE EDITOR (an excerpt): Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israel elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (The New York Times), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants — 240 men, women and children — and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans- Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin. ■ — Hannah Arendt, Rabbi Jessubun Cardozo, Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook, Stefan Wolfe, and 24 others. worker supers Until a few years ago, A&P led the nation’s major supermarket chains in volume. But then A&P suffered four straight years of losses, lapsing into fourth place, and began boarding up its windows across the country. In 1974, the chain had 3,468 supermarkets; by last February, it was down to 1,055. Forty-four of the stores closed in the past year were in the Philadelphia area. The United Food and Commercial Workers union here suddenly found it had more than 2,000 members out of work. The UFCW fought back, though, with a tactic more and more unions are considering as companies close shops and demand concessions: It bought two of the closed stores. If all goes as planned, the plywood will come off the windows by October. They will be the first supermarkets in the United States owned and controlled by their workers. The cooperative supermarkets are part of a broader labor agreement under which A&P is also reopening some twenty-four stores on its own, with new management, a new name — Super Fresh — and a new concept. Super Fresh workers bought their jobs back with pay cuts and reductions in benefits, but they believe they are getting quid for their quo. A quality-of-work-life program gives employees a say in store operations, trains them to run stores of their own, and gives them the first right to buy any stores A&P decides to close. But, most important, there are the new cooperatives. Just a few blocks from the deserted Front Street store, at the UFCW union hall, the future worker-owners have been meeting two or three nights a week since March. Stock people, deli clerks, assistant managers, cashiers — all have been grappling with how much power to give their new managers, how much to pay themselves, how to split profits, how to negotiate with the union as workers and owners, what to sell, what to call their stores. Each has ponied up $5,000 fora share and a vote in the business. That’s a big risk, particularly for the laid-off. But it is also a down-payment on job security, self-governance, mutual respect, and jobs where the workers will call the shots. The mood was one of determination: Each of the new cooperators has a lot of time, energy, money, and hope at stake. I wondered as I watched them writing: Was the gamble worth it? Was this really the best way to hang on to a job? “Well, I hope so,” said one of the hybrid worker-owner, capitalistcooperators that the 1980s economy will probably spawn more of. “A lot of times, I think it’s not just a matter of keeping a job. It’s the kind of job you have.” ■ — Mary Williams, The Progressive it’s (in) the water What’s that bubbling on the banks of our beloved Willamette? For years, Albany’s Teledyne Wah Chang has been storing its daily output of 2,000 pounds of radioactive waste, including concentrated amounts of bonecancer-causing radium-226, on several sites on their property. The settling ponds, sited on the river’s flood plain, are currently oozing water-soluble sludge outside the containment dikes. And despite plans to cap the site, nothing is proposed for the floor or walls of the ponds. Agricultural lands directly downstream use this water, and it ultimately makes its way into our urban recreation areas. Wah Chang has a miserable track record of compliance with environmental sanctions. They are currently proposing to maintain the waste storage in perpetuity, and hearings are taking place before the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council. Contact Friends of the Earth (243-2806) or Forelaws on Board (637-3549) for more information or to find out how you can become involved. ■ 28 Clinton St. Quarterly
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz