TUE AOEBIPAM EUDIDE IIIE HmERIvlin EmilRE IND MORE UNWILLING POOCH UNWILLING COLD WARRIOR? ■ ■ LIFE IN* HOLE IN THE WATER
Armand & Dixie 404 SW 10th Portland 224-9028 Catering Specialists Watch for the opening of Portland’s first wine bar 4:30 p.m.—8:30 p.m. ITALIAN SPECIALTIES MEATS & CHEESES IMPORTED CANDIES PASTRIES FRESH COFFEE Hours Mon.-Fri. 10-9, Sat. 10-6 Papa Haydn Fine European Pastries 5829 S.E. Milwaukie We will be closed for our annual summer interlude from July 26-Aug. 8 Tues-Thurs 11:30am to 11pm Fri-Sat 11:30am to 12 mid Closed Sunday & Monday. 2 Clinton St. Quarterly EXPERIENCE OREGON % EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING BUT THE ORDINARY % SHOP AT PORTLAND’S FAMOUS WEEKEND MARKETPLACE Art, Crafts & International Foods Saturdays & Sundays thru Christmas in Old Town LGSADE MEXICAN RESTAURANT Bteokhwl Ob Huevos Rancheros Huevos Con Chorizo Chili Relleno Fried Eggs - Any Style Omelets - Mushroom - Spanish - Cheese Breakfasts include Fried Potatoes, Beans, Juice, choice of beverage, Toast or Tortillas. Served 6:30 to 11:00 a.m. Mon.-Fri. 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. Sat. & Sun. 4343 S.E. Hawthorne 231-668Q
CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY California?, Walt Curtis I n an interview with the Clinton Street Quarterly last summer, Barry On The Radio, Lynn Darroch.... 35 Hole In The Water, Larry Adams. 42 Why Have My Friends Moved to Lenny Dee.......................... King Clam Jeffrey Frederick, Jack Gallagher.................. View from Northeast, Carol Diane Miller............ Brazil: ‘Miracle’ On The Brink, David Milholland.............. My Rose Festival Memories, Steve Winkenwerder........ The CRIB, Peggy Lindquist... Mssr. Marsupial Man of Conscience The Clinton St. Quarterly is published free to the public by the Clinton St. Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, Or. 97202. ® 1981, Clinton St. Quarterly CONTENTS STAFF Abortion in the Halls of Congress, Carol Sherman & Roger Margolis.. 14 Golden Fries, Jim Blashfield & Matt Wuerker. 16 Empire As A Way of Life, William Appleman Williams... 18 The Curse of The Rounders, Commoner told us that “we’re in for a hard four years.” And now that they’re upon us; as we see those ignoble triplets, paternalism, racism and militarism rising to new heights; as we look at hard won gains in social, economic and environmental areas being garroted before our very eyes; it is time to seriously examine how we protect and advance those causes that define our mutual wellbeing. This issue of the Quarterly, while not neglecting the bizarre and entertaining, takes seriously the challenge we face, here in Oregon and in the world. It’s encouraging you to get involved, as effectively as possible, in fighting for what you believe. Bob Marley’s last message to us all was his album Survival.. .“All together now, wake up and live” .. .“We’ll have to fight, we gonna fight, fight for our rights.” This issue of the CSQ is dedicated to Bob Marley, all he gave us, all he stood for. Co-Editors: Jim Blashfield, Lenny Dee, Peggy Lindquist, David Milholland • Design and Production: Jim Blashfield, (Eric Edwards pp. 30-34) • Ad Production: Peggy Lindquist, Stan Sitnick • Production Assistant: Dana Hoyle • Ad Sales: Denny Chericone, Lenny Dee, David Milholland, Randy Shutt, Pat Sumich • Proof Readers: David Milholland, Lenny Dee • Contributing Photographers: Michael Moran, Laurie Meeker, Lynn Darroch, David Milholland, Larry Boyd • Contibuting Artists: David Celsi, Matt Wuerker, Sharon Niemcyzk, Dana Hoyle, Johanna deVries, Stephan Leflar, Steve Blackburn • Typesetting: Cathy Siegner, Publisher’s Friend, Thanks — Archetype • Camerawork: Jeff Jacobs, Publisher’s Friend • Advertisers call: 222-6039 We’re proud to present the political/historical insights of Oregonian and celebrated historian William Appleman Williams, who in this issue goes to the roots of America’s imperial ways, and asks us to reconsider the roles played in history by Jefferson, Lincoln, Ike and JFK. It’s provocative, stimulating reading. The diverse and dynamic talents of those artists and writers whose work has graced our pages have been duly recognized. We emerged a big winner in the nondaily category of the competition staged recently by the Willamette Valley Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Kudos and thanks to Katherine Dunn, Kevin Mulligan, Isaac Shamsud-Din, Musicmaster Lynn Darroch, Stephen Leflar, Lenny Dee and Steven Sandstrom. You done us proud. We welcome your letters, and every subscription that comes our way makes us smile. Many thanks also to our advertisers and all those behind the scenes who make this paper happen. Tell those who advertise in the CSQ you saw it here. We’ll be back in September. THE VIEW FROM NORTHEAST CAROL DIANE MILLER THE REV. John Garlington, president of the Albina Ministerial Alliance, attempted to describe the plight of black Portlanders June 4 in an eloquent speech on the steps of City Hall following a march to protest the removal of Charles Jordan as police commissioner. Blacks in America have no power, the reverend said. “All we have is an appeal to conscience.” That, of course, has been the theory under which many black leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., have operated. But the appeal to conscience will have no effect in the hard line ’80s, when many white Americans believe that blacks have had more than their share of the fruits of the land and “law and order,” the code phrase for keeping blacks in line, once again has gained favor among the powerful. In fact, an examination of the history of this country would reveal few instances in which the white majority acted with conscience toward blacks. Thanks to Mayor Frank Ivancie’s Sunday night massacre, there certainly is no longer a conscience in control of the Portland Police Bureau. His appointment of 27-year veteran Ron Still as head of the Bureau, who last year authorized the illegal police search of an attorney’s office, and whose record of race relations can best be termed dismal, can hardly reassure the black community. Still and Ivancie owe their loyalties to the police union, a tight, incestuous body run by the white, male cops which for years has vigorously opposed any effort to open up its ranks. Ivancie has no idea how to run the department and doesn’t intend to try. According to an interview he gave to The Oregonian recently, he will give his tacit approval to whatever the police do. Ivancie showed that he does not care about justice when he refused to support pardons for persons who had been wrongly convicted on evidence created by narcotics officers. Instead, he’s thrown his lot in with good ol’ boy Still, who has never spoken out about police abuses on any front. Where has his conscience been over the years as blacks have repeatedly cried for relief from police abuses? Indeed, where are the “good” cops and why have they been silent witnesses to their colleagues’ abuses? Still told people attending a June 20 police/community relations forum that there is a “fine line” between aggressive, assertive police work and the abuse of someone’s rights. Unadulterated bullshit. There is a clear difference between good police work that nabs a dope dealer and te planting of drugs on a “suspect.” There is a clear difference between the force necessary to subdue an unruly suspect and the force necessary to kill or main (e.g., the choking of Eric Branch). Men and women of conscience instinctively know the difference. ONE HOPE, of course, was to change the composition of the force, to introduce a much higher percentage of women and nonwhites into police ranks. Commissioner Charles Jordan introduced a tepid affirmative action plan that merely would have given city department heads the option of choosing candidates for job vacancies from a list of the highesy scorers on the city civil service examination or a list of nonwhite candidates who also passed the exam. But even that modest step was too much of a threat and the union sued to prevent implementation, implementation. That was essentially the reason behind the union’s opposition to Baker when Neil Goldschmidt brought him up from Berkeley, California. Although a white male, he simply was not one of them. Goldschmidt’s appointment of a black commissioner to head the department was the ultimate insult. Ironically, Jordan had no significant power as police commissioner and he declined to use effectively what little he had, opting instead for the cooperation of the bureau. Of course, the old guard of the command staff, including Still, and the union, fought every tiny progressive step the commissioner took. Portland is not unique in this regard. In every city in the nation where the police command is black—Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark, Atlanta—there is a struggle with the white-dominated unions. To really understand what the union is all about, one should read its monthly The Rap Sheet. One finds in the writings the work of fascist minds. “As creeping twilight seeped through the streets and chased the good people fleeing for their cars, the weirdos would limp and slither out from dark doorways... overcrowd them on leaky boats and send them to Cuba.” The union has hired possum cops Ward & Galloway to work on The Rap Sheet at the same salaries they were making as police officers. BLACK PORTLANDERS win find little resource in appealing to the conscience of the community at large. We’ve heard no cry of outrage from the corporate boardrooms and civic clubs over the police abuses. After all, these are the same people who stood silently by while the school system abused black children under an absurd desegregation plan. A telling commentary on the attitude of the city’s so-called enlightened community can be found in a letter to the editor published June 5 in The Oregonian from historian E. Kimbark MacColl. After all the revelations of police impropriety, the only thing MacColl could find to be outraged about was Black United Front leader Ron Herndon’s statement that “Anybody who takes the promise of a white politician to black people seriously is either ahistorical or naive.” Given history, MacColl’s criticism of Herndon’s remarks can only be viewed as sanctimonious. An even worse attitude emerged in the results of an Oregonian poll on community attitudes toward the police conducted in June of this year. Only a very slight majority of the people polled thought that the police had overstepped their bounds in the plainly illegal actions against motorcycle club members and drug suspects. There’s not much of a conscience to appeal to there. Only the blacks who were polled overwhelmingly condemned the police actions. There is little hope that an appeal to conscience would move the majority of the city’s elected leadership to reform the police department. Jordan’s colleagues on the City Council have been largely silent on this issue. Commissioner Margaret Strachan, who while campaigning for votes in Albina donned a green ribbon—supposedly to show concern over the killings of black children in Atlanta—has said nothing about police abuses. Curiously, Ms. Strachan hasn’t been seen wearing a green ribbon since the night of her election. Illustration by Steve Blackburn Clinton St. Quarterly 3
From the land of the bossa nova BRAZIL MIRACLE’ ONTHEBRINK BY DAVID MILHOLLAND (visited Brazil for 6 weeks in May-June, 1977. Speaking little Portuguese, traveling very light, my wanderings took me through many regions and gave me an eyeful. Though I knewsomething of her history and had always dreamed of spending a Carnaval in Rio, nothing had really prepared me for what I was to see. Everywhere I went, from the smog-bound megalopolis of Sao Paulo to the most distant reaches of the Amazon Basin, things were on the move. My entree was a bus ride fromthe Paraguay border to the coast, some 600 miles, a stretch I’d always understood to be largely unsettled. Our ultra-modern bus, driven whenever lossible at breakneck speed, passed literally hundreds of farm-to-market vehicles, and the raw red soil of newly broken land stretched to the horizon in every direction. WITH OVER half of South America’s land mass and population (at present, there are approximately 135 million Brazilians), and bordering every country but Ecuador and Chile, it is clear that events in Brazil will be decisive in determining the fate of the entire continent. Yet little appears in our media about this giant land. And what does appear is fragmentary. Our attention is serially focused on the momentary hot spot, the “newsworthy” locale we heard nothing about the day before. The nature of this crisis-oriented coverage is to arrive too late to understand or alter the course of events. This leaves political affairs in the hands of the “experts,” until we are all called in to pay the consequences with our taxes and 4 Clinton St. Quarterly our lives. As in El Salvador and Central America, U.S. government and corporate policy are major elements in the dramatic transformation happening in Brazil. But to understand the present reality and its awesome implications, we must examine the history and nature of the place itself. WAY BACK Water water everywhere. Rains that fall with shocking intensity, followed momentarily by ecstatic sunshine, ad infinitum. Most land is covered by a many tiered canopy of
■MA , , f ’M . j ^ A * ■■* * * ' ■/' ^.f - •■>• MT .'^r, », X» " :« hardwoods which serves to mute the downfall and transforms it into a fine warm spray before it reaches the jungle floor. Hundreds of rivers, including the immense Parana, Sao Francisco and Amazonas extend to the Atlantic. Scattered across the land, thousands of small groups of native people live inside the grand design. Though practices vary, most combine hunting and foraging with slash and burn agriculture. Because crop yields decline dramatically if cultivation is prolonged beyond two seasons, tribes are nomadic and require large extensions to support even modest populations. And because the forest rapidly encroaches upon the abandoned plots, a generation later no traces or habitation can be found. Little changes for thousands of years. THE OCCUPATION THREE YEARS AFTER Vasco da Gama reached Calcutta in 1497, opening the lucrative Eastern trades to Portugal, his compatriot, Pedro Alves Cabral, landed on Brazil’s NE coast and claimed it for the crown. While the Spanish pillaged and constructed an American empire, the Portuguese focused eastward, settling into Brazil more slowly. Finding no precious metals, they tried enslaving the natives (who they termed bugres for their reputed sexual practices). Unable to make the Indians a pliable workforce, boatloads of West Africans were imported in ever increasnig numbers. The coastal cities of Salvador and Recife prospered as this slave labor Aseemingly endless land with untapped resources and miraculous opportunities has always beckoned the adventurous to Brazil ... As here, only a few “ignorant savages” stood in the way. made the Brazilian sugar industry the world’s largest. Few early Portuguese settlers tilled the soil themselves. An attitude to labor emerged: Quem nao roba nem herda acabo comenda merda—He who neither robs nor inherits ends up eating shit. A more ambitious, less capitalized group of settlers, largely from poorer Northern Portugal, began a colony further south, in the highlands around present-day Sao Paulo. Faring poorly in the sugar trade, they soon launched forays further inland in search of gold. These hearty bandeirantes—flag bearing expeditionaries—ranged across the whole of Brazil, eventually extending the “portugee” lands to nearly their present limits. They captured, killed and bred with the Indians they encountered. A seemingly endless land with untapped resources and miraculous opportunities has always beckoned the adventurous in Brazil. A pattern of short-term, speculative exploitation has predominated, and Brazil’s history is rife with booms and busts. In many ways, this Clinton St. Quarterly 5
frontier mentality has parallels with our own. As here, only a few “ignorant savages” stood in the way. The bandeirantes finally discovered gold in 1698, and diamonds soon thereafter. And just in time, for the once- thriving sugar industry was fading in the face of tremendous competition from the Caribbean Islands. Thus, many plantation owners joined the rush inland. This “golden age” lasted nearly 100 years, and opened the Sertao or backlands to further mineral exploitation and some established agriculture. At the start of the 19th century, revolutionary fervor swept the Spanish colonies, but in Brazil people were ill- prepared and little-interested. Portugal’s grip had been less tenacious than the Spanish crown’s. So as Bolivar, O’Higgins, San Martin and their troops succeeded in removing the Spanish yoke, the Brazilians imported theirs. In 1808, Napoleon’s army forced the Portuguese royal family to scuttle for cover to Brazil. A decade later, King Joao VI returned to Europe, but left his son, Pedro I, who soon became the “Perpetual Defender and Protector of the Independent Empire of Brazil.” Thus until 1888, when his declaration of the end of slavery forced Pedro II from his permanent throne, the nation experienced prosperity and cultural development, but gained little experience in self- government. By this time, the Brazilian people were a many-hued melange, as centuries of interbreeding wove together the African, Amerindian and Iberian strains. Gilberto Freyre’s Masters and Slaves advanced the theory that comingling had produced a “new race,” but by and large, the vested wealth, power and privilege stayed in the hands of the “pure” blooded descendants of European stock. And new immigrants continued to pour in from throughout the Old World. THE HOLOCAUST DURING THE Pedros’ reign, coffee replaced the lagging gold mines as, the major economic factor and Brazil soon controlled the world market. Boom-bust cycles in cocoa, rubber, cotton, oranges and even mate tea followed. And each cycle left in its wake ravaged lands, abandoned communities and further depradations on the native peoples. At the start of the Twentieth Century, German-born professors could be found teaching theories of white supremacy in Brazilian universities, and the hue of “protect the settlers” was heard from distant Europe. The clamor for new lands and the rush to garner windfall profits led to inevitable confrontations. Colonization companies launched Amaracoes—Indian hunting expeditions—with bounties paid. Candido Rondon, who had grown up among the Indians on the frontier, became the spokesman for those “In the past ten years more than 24% of the Amazon has been destroyed by the reckless falling of trees.’’ Brazilians who were horrified by reports of the massacre of Indians tribes. Rondon argued that the Indians were neither savage nor barbarian, but merely a stage in the overall development of human civilization. In 1910, Rondon joined a number of his fellow army officers in establishing the Indian Protective Service (SPI). The SPI’s enabling legislation recognized the Indians’ rights to exist on their own lands and to continue their “ancient and traditional ways of life.” While such legal decisions have seldom prevented human greed from having its day, the SPI was remarkably successful in preventing armed conflict from resulting in genocide. But other forces were at work as well. Native groups which had been self-sufficient for millenia found their religious practices prevented by missionaries, saw their lands evaporate and stood helplessly by as one epidemic after another flew through their ranks like wildfire. Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro reports that between 1900 and 1957, more than 80 tribes came into contact with Brazilian national society, and the indigenous population dropped from more than 1million to fewer than 200,000. Some groups retreated into further isolation, but those who became “integrated” found themselves living in the greatest misery. A SWING TO THE LEFT AS THE century unfolded, economic activity increased substantially in Brazil, especially in the area around Sao Paulo, which was to become one of the world’s great industrial centers. The disparity of wealth grew even more extreme, particularly in the eight states of NE Brazil, which had long ago been ravaged in the speculative cycles, and among the urban poor who had largely fled from intolerable conditions on the land. This immense supply of cheap labor was exploited at every turn. In 1930, a revolution headed by Getulio Vargas swept to power. A man of dramatic contradictions, Vargas consolidated his position by deposing his own government in 1937, inaugurating the Es- tado Novo—after the Mussolini model. The next year, in the wake of a fascist coup attempt, he declared himself a populist. Despite tremendous right-wing pressure, Vargas led Brazil into WWII on the side of the allies, the only South American nation to participate. At war’s end, a coup ousted Vargas and a liberal republic was restored in Brazil. Throughout this period, U.S. and European economic interests vied for control of Brazil’s vast resources. U.S. oil companies were particularly eager to explore and exploit the Amazon basin. In 1950, Vargas bounced back, winning the presidency with the anti-imperialist slogan Opetroleo e nosso—the oil is ours. Petrobras, the state-owned oil company created by Vargas-introduced legislation in 1953, became the symbol of economic nationalism. In the space of seven years, it was producing 45% of national consumption. Vargas also developed a strong Ministry of Labor, linked directly to the unions, which threatened big business interests. He fell from power and committed suicide in 1954, blaming “hidden forces” and “International groups” as the compelling raison d’morte. His successor, Juscelino Kubitschek, who planned and built Brasilia, completed his five-year elected term. The next elected president resigned his office in the furor arising from an award he’d given Che Guevara, and Vice President Joao Goulart became president. Goulart’s policies veered increasingly leftward, but his presidency was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Brazilians. His bill limiting profit remittances abroad squeezed through congress, and as foreign investment dried up, inflation grew rampant. Finally, in late March 1964, Goulart was forced to flee to neighboring Uruguay. THE GENERALS' "REVOLUTION” THE PRETEXT for the generals’ “revolution” was that Goulart, like A Vargas before him, had designs on perpetuating himself in power. Secretary of State Dean Rusk justified our involvement by saying that the Brazilian military would not act in the interests of an privileged oligarchy, but would instead act as a modernizing force. Though the generals had stepped in to “defend democracy” and stabilize the economy, elections were held in abeyance so the economy could be rationalized, free from political pressures. Rapid development in the interests of all would surely soon Venezuela Guyana Colombia Boa Vista Ecuador R. Amazon Belem R. Amazon R. Tocantins Recife Peru R. Xingu Salvador Brazil Brasilia Bolivia R. Parana 'Horizonte, Paraguay Chile Argenti /Uruguay ^/Francisco Rio de Janiero Sao Paulo • » < iSurinam^ Guiana* Yanomamo lands Negro _ _ I Manaus * Amazon Region Young Witukaiateri mother and child 6 Clinton St. Quarterly
follow. It was a dress rehearsal for the much bloodier Chilean affair in 1973. Investment security was ensured by a very repressive counter-insurgency apparatus: Brazil became a testing ground for vicious torture techniques, and out-ofuniform police death squads disposed of those people the military’s court system dealt with too leniently. The popular resistance struggled on for a number of years, but the bonzinhos—good little people—who filled the burgeoning bureaucracies, the industrial working class and the passive peasantry who comprised the backbone of the Vargas-Goulart forces, did not rise to the occasion. The intelligentsia was dubbed the esquerda festiva—festive left espousing radical politics while living a life rooted in bourgeois hedonism. All political parties were liquidated, and two synthetic parties were established to create the facsimile of democracy. Brazilians joked that one said “Yes!” and the other “Yes, Sir!” Three months after the generals’ coup, the government had intervened in more than 450 unions, purging “suspicious elements” in their leadership. The American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), a branch of the U.S. foreign policy team linked to the AFL-CIO, an advocate of “business unionism,” trained many new leaders in the U.S. just prior to Goulart’s fall. The executive director of the AIFLD, William Doherty, bragged that the “Brazilian trade unions are enjoying a freedom never seen under Goulart.” The climate of freedom that Mr. Doherty applauded was equally afforded the media. The relatively conservative Inter-American Press Association reported in 1973 that Brazil had “no press freedom whatsoever.” Even publications of imaginative work was curbed and the once promising Cinema Novo with its themes of social protest and often surrealist style simply became history. Five presidents have succeeded one another since 1964, all generals, with one, in what is now the world’s most populous Catholic country, a Presbyterian. By some measures, their revolution has been a smash, until recently. With investment security ensured, U.S. aid and investment from throughout the western world poured in. Inflation was brought under control and the economy spurted. Between 1968 and 1973, the Brazilian economy grew by 10% a year in real terms. It was the widely hailed “economic miracle.” PROSPERITY KNOCKS BET ONCE SOME COULD handily claim that they had never had it so good. In Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte, capital of the mineral-rich Minas Gerais state, where Brazil’s headiest capitalists resided, a “factory a day” was opened and countless skyscrapers shot into the sky. And drawing on the bandeirante tradition, these investors and thousands of prospectors and settlers joined the state-owned corporations and the multinationals in opening up the interior and finally the Amazon basin itself. The region contains over a twentieth of the planet’s land area, a fifth of its water and a third of its forests. Still by 1972, the Amazon was contributing only 4% to the nation’s GNP. The capitalists were ready. Immediately following the “revolution,” laws that had required government control of Brazil’s mineral resources and limited their exploitation to Brazilian companies were reversed. And new legislation was passed as needed to encourage operations on the scale chosen by the conglomerates. Hannah Mining, U.S, Steel, the German Thyssen group, the Patino Tin Syndicate, to name a few, joined their Brazilian colleagues in opening up a number of mining projects. The state-owned Companhia Vale do Rio Doce merged its borrowing power and political sway with the multinationals on the largest projects. A major stumbling block to earlier development had been the lack of a transportation network other than the Amazon itself. Yet in only four years in the early ’70s, three major highway projects covering thousands of miles were begun and completed by the Brazilian National Highway Department. More than $400 million in loans from the InterAmerican Development and World Banks set in gear the massive earthmoving equipment that literally moved mountains overnight. In conjunction with the highway project, Litton Industries conducted an extensive aerial and satellite mapping project which revealed an immense bounty of heretofore unknown mineral deposits. Those findings were coupled with the discoveries of thousands of prospectors who surged across the Amazon. Fabulous quantities of iron, bauxite, tin, gold and uranium were unearthed, with mineral claims jumping from 2,000 in 1968 to more than 20,000 in 1975. Other corporations have begun large scale timber, cattle and agricultural ventures with the blessing of the generals, many of whom have suddenly developed a financial stake in those projects’ success. Jose Lutzenburger, Brazil’s leading environmentalist, calls them “the mafia”—“henchmen for multinational business.” The entire array of Western technology (large tractors dragging cables in tandem across the jungle floor, 2,4,5-T, 2,4-D, Agent Orange and fire) are used to clear vast tracts. According to Marvick Kleer of the University of Riberao Preto, “in the past ten years more than 24% of the Amazon has been destroyed by the reckless felling of trees.” Some of the cleared areas are already turning into desert. Because of the fragility of the soil base, erosion begins immediately once the land is cleared, and though the first two crop cycles are often good, within five years the soils can no longer hold water and often are reduced to impermeable lateritic sandstone, the substance underlying most of the Amazon. Harold Sioli of the Max Planck Institute of Limnology in West Germany claims “the Amazon is more delicate than any other natural area of the world.” Sioli’s studies indicate that currently the Amazon Basin produces roughly 50% of the oxygen added to the earth’s atmosphere annually. The burning of the Amazon rain forest, he warned, would send vast quantities of stored carbon into the air, and have unpredictable but drastic effects on the earth’s temperature. From a planetary point of view, he claimed, continuance of such deforestation could only be suicidal in its effects. CARRY ON BOYS THOUGH scientists and environmentalists may howl, a government JR, in power by force of arms has only to listen to its conscience and examine its checkbook. And since the timber reserves of Africa and South Asia are soon to be exhausted and as world beef prices have risen to profitable heights, the Brazilian profitable heights, the Brazilian government has proffered both fiscal and tax incentives to promote large scale investment in timber and cattle operations. Both experienced hands (the King Ranch of Texas, Georgia-Pacific of Oregon) and babes-in-the-woods (Volkswagen, Liquigas—the Italian industrial chemical firm) have followed their financial noses. Their strategies draw heavily on experience in different fields and different climates. Volkswagen, with enormous profits derived from its virtual dominance of Brazil’s domestic automobile market, has invested heavily in land and cattle. While I was there, a Brazilian acquaintance claimed the fire Volkswagen set to clear one tract of land “was the only man-made phenomenon visible to the Apollo astronauts as they circled the earth.” Liquigas, according to Fortune magazine, plans to build an airstrip on their cattle ranch big enough to land chartered jets. “The company will slaughter on the ranch, package the meat in supermarket cuts with the price stamped in lire, and fly it direct to Italy letting nature do the chilling job at 30,000 feet.” While you digest your flash-frozen flank steak, consider the possibilities of “sustained yield” forestry on this fragile world. Highly debatable in our temperate zone, sustained yield assumes the Amazon rain forest is a renewable resource, which is foolhardy and untrue. Georgia-Pacific’s cut-and-run philosophy is well suited to a partnership with the generals. Arriving relatively late on the Oregon timber scene and frequently criticized for not following sustained yield practices, G-P closed out its hardwood plant operatons in Coos Bay last October and next year will return to its “home office” in Atlanta. The greenbacks they’ve been cutting from our soil all these years are winging their way south never to return. Like many U.S. corporations, Georgia-Pacific finds it easier to export its earnings to a repressive third world haven than to make long-term investments on American soil. Ask those people in Coos Bay who are now looking for work. Like many U.S. corporations, Georgia-Pacific finds it easier to export its earnings to a repressive third world haven, than to make long-term investments on American soil. THE MAD BARON THE LEADER of the pack, with a development that far overshadows A his “competitors,” is Daniel Keith Ludwig, an American enterpreneur whose 3.5 million-acre Jari estate was purchased in 1967 for only $3 million from a Brazilian rubber trader. Jari is the size of Connecticut, the largest private holding in the Western Hemisphere. Ludwig has been accused variously of deforesting more than 6,000 square miles of jungles, of flying out gold, uranium and Clinton St. Quarterly 7
other valuable minerals through a network of clandestine jungle airstrips, of paying most of his laborforce only U.S. $1.60 a day while holding them in the jungle under duress with private security guards, and of flaunting his power while creating a “state within a state.” A project of this scale requires massive capital (since 1967, Ludwig has pumped an average of $180,000 daily into Jari), but this multi-billionaire (a fortune earned with his shipping company, National Bulk Carriers) has it. According to Roberto de Oliveira Campos, Brazil’s former Minister of Planning who convinced him to make the investment, Ludwig is “accustomed to investing in lunatic adventures, and just as accustomed to having them pay off.” Now 83, Ludwig pursues his adventures largely for his own pleasure, as he has no known heirs. Despite substantial Brazilian and international criticism, Jari is regularly cited as the “model integrated industrial complex” the government wants to encourage throughout the Amazon. His piece de resistance was the arrival of a floating pulp mill, constructed in Japan and towed 13,000 miles around South America and up the Amazon to Jari. It’s slated to produce 750 tons of kraft paper each day. The heavy pollution generated is just another price of progress. Virtually everything Jari produces (Ludwig is experimenting with soybeans, sugar cane, herds of water buffalo, etc.) is destined for export. But foreign observers, according to anthropologist Shelton Davis, “have been mesmerized by the technological scale of Ludwig’s effort and continue to accept uncritically the Brazilian government’s claim that it is now interested in protecting the natural resources of the region. In the end, the primary losers in what National Geographic recently headlined as ‘Mr. Ludwig’s Billion Dollar Gamble’ may turn out to be the future generations of Brazilians.” VICTIMS TODAY D UT IF the heirless Mr. Ludwig is I ■ laughing his way to the bank, plenty of present day Brazilians are waiting for a drop from the trickle down hose. Though the number of working family members had doubled from one to two among the working class, the average family income is now lower than in 1958. The rural poor, with little to show for promises of jobs and land in the Amazon, are truly suffering. In the chronically depressed Northeast, malnutrition, infant mortality as high as 25% illiteracy of more than 50% and an average annual income of approximately $150 (1/5 the national average) indicate an almost total abandonment by the national government. The key to this entire pattern is the word “export.” An export economy breeds dependency, internal disruption and as Shelton Davis puts it, “has taken food away from the domestic market and worsened the already severe pattern of hunger and malnourishment that characterizes the majority of the population of Brazil.” As you read this, one child is dying every minute in NE Brazil. The front line victims of this economy, so caught up in its own momentum it can’t slow down, are the 200,000 Indians still living at the furthest reaches of the nation. It is now unlikely that native groups remain which have avoided contact with “civilization.” The governor of the frontier state of Roraima, General Fernando Ramos Pereira, states, “an area as rich as this—with gold, diamonds and uranium—cannot afford the luxury of conserving half a dozen Indian tribes who are holding back the development of Brazil.” The largest unassimilated tribe is the famous Yanomamo, called the “fierce people” by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, for what he perceived to be their “high capacity for rage” and generally aggressive behavior. Still 12,000 strong, their lands straddle the borders between the far NW corner of Brazil and the Amazon sections of Venezuela and Colombia. The Yanomamo’s cultural integrity and indeed their survival are directly threatened by the construction of the Northern Perimeter Highway across their land and the discovery of gold and uranium. Recently the German government signed a long-term agreement with Brazil for the provision of natural uranium in exchange for the most advanced nuclear technology—an $8 billion project. And that uranium is largely on Yanomamo land. A gold rush is currently underway, with 60% of the prospectors reported to be carriers of malaria and hepatitus. Epidemics and ethnocide are beginning to reduce the “fierce people” to prostitutes and beggars on what remains of their land after “national needs” are served. Like sages are transpiring across Brazil. The descendant of Rondon’s Indian Protective Service, FUNAI, vested with the role of protecting Indian interests while slowly “integrating them into national society,” has recently acquired a new president, Colonel Joao Nobre da Veiga, who was previously head of information and security for an affiliate of the powerful state-owned Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the mineral company with its tentacles reaching into Indian lands everywhere. With the fox in the henhouse, the struggle to protect Indian rights has fallen into the hands of the Indians themselves, and their national and international supporters. THE EROTIC FANTASY ONE NIGHT in Belo Horizonte, as I watched a Godard film in a downtown cinema, the sound of what appeared to be grenades or mortars reverberated outside. Many patrons exited hurriedly fearing the worst, while 1sat through till film’s end, my imagination running wild. Student demonstrations had been taking place in many cities, and though the government response had been restrained, they threatened brutal retaliation if things got out of control. The noise turned out to be festive revelry, but we’d all been scared. He was part- German, part- Italian, part- Brazilian and )art anything le needed to have his way with things. Business Week reported recently that after a “decade of stability, Brazil’s political and economic climate can no longer be taken for granted.” Prolonged strikes and mass demonstrations are happening more frequently. The synthetic opposition party, MDB, has begun to take itself seriously, and has several times garnered more votes than the official ARENA party. While it has been advantageous to permit democratic openings during a period of reckless internal expansion, the generals’ regime has proven itself equally capable of bloodthirsty behavior when it felt that was required. This will undoubtedly prove easier as the shift to the Reagan era becomes manifest. Today, though high rise apartments, well-stocked department stores and that bottom line of Western civilization, the motor vehicle, have created a false sense of well being, inflation is once again on the rise, over 140% annually. The nation is in debt some $60 billion. More than half the $13 billion in export earnings goes to service the debt, with the remainder insufficient to pay for petroleum imports. The Brazilian people, particularly the middle class and poor, are being asked to pay the price of this hasty development. One seldom-mentioned aspect of this surge across the continent, with highways, airstrips and communications infrastructures now largely in place, is the long-held Brazilian dream of empire. One theory holds that Brazil will only be great when, like the U.S., it reigns from sea to shining sea. Several obstacles stand in the way, but so did Mexico, Russia, Franc and England in our nation’s past. Empire has often been used historically to guise a nation’s deep-seated internal problems, while making the future more attractive than the present. Brazilians popularly call their country “the land of the 21st century.” Author and MDB state representative Fernando Morais responded to the government’s assertion that Brazil is an intermediate power in a multipolar world: “What power? Is a country a power where the people don’t have enough to eat, where the external debt ascends to $60 billion? Is it a power because we have eight nuclear plants? The idea of being an intermediate power is simply a delirium, an erotic fantasy of the military.” But the tremendous external indebtedness, the wild inflation, and a history that dismisses an “inferior people” as an obstacle to manifest destiny sounds familiar. The holocaust that has nearly eliminated the native people of Brazil is no less virulent than that which happened in Nazi Germany, despite its lack of international attention. External expansion might swiftly follow. Sudetenland-Paraguay is so linked to the Brazilian economy that in parts of the country only cruzeiros—Brazil’s currency—are honored. Paraguay would fall quickly if the generals so chose. Uruguay, once Brazilian turf, would soon follow. Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Indian nations despite their small white uppercrusts, are staggering under the same debt load that curses Brazil, but with little infrastructure development to show for it. They have the Andes for protection, but their militaries are puny compared to Brazil’s. Only Argentina, with its viciously anti- Semitic fascist government currently engaged in wiping out all internal opposition, could stand up to Brazil. But the population disparity is four to one, and the Argentine economy has been stagnant while the Brazilian “miracle” has been occurring. Brazil now stands as the capo di tutti capi of the military dictatorships of the Southern cone. Her current role is to protect U.S. and allied interests in the region, much as the Shah’s Iran served in the Middle East. But power shifts, or further internal disruption could serve to spring Brazil onto the stage she picks, for her own reasons. This scenario of Brazilian hegemonism is still a fantasy. But the roots of predatory fascism are deep. No dramatic change will take place in a vacuum, as the superpowers themselves prime up for another round of colonial war games (EI Salvador, Afghanistan). MOVING OFT ILEFT Brazil in an impoverished state, walking out of Boa Vista with my thumb outstretched, across a vast savannah. The road is very recent. Mount Roraima, Sir Conan Doyle’s Lost World is witnessed en route. The sun was fierce, the rains torrential, but I stood my ground when offered a ride-for-pay to the border. My forced march continued late into the evening, with my only fellow beings cattle grazing in the distance. I catnapped around 11 pm, only to be awakened by the rumble of trucks, many trucks, a short while later. The first two who passed me undoubtedly took me for an apparition, a bearded night spirit to be avoided at all costs. The gurgle of a stream brought forward my dehydration, and 1threw myself onto the ground, pack still in place, to draw water to my lips. I lay there for a few seconds in a kind of reverie. A truck drew to a halt nearby, and with my piteous approximation of Portuguese, I talked my way into a center seat between driver and assistant. No sooner inside than I felt a wave of heat unlike any I’d ever experienced. I jumped, I twitched, and I’m sure 1 was taken for a convulsive, until the assistant leaped in his seat and screamed bloody murder. I’d lain in a bed of fire ants who were intent on eating me alive. The assistant and I did our St. Vitus dance together, my strains unfortunately coming in staccato while his were moderato. How the driver, who cursed me and my people under his breath, remained immune I’ll never know. We picked them off, finally stopping to shake out our clothes, and I was allowed to ride on. After a late nite snooze and rendezvous with the 20 odd trucks which made up the caravan, all hauling large hardwood planks to the prosperous Venezuelan market, we rose early. One of the eager beavers mired his truck in the viscous clay so completely that when another truck attempted to pass him, it lost its load and tied up the rest of the right of way. So, willing or not, the entire energies of the fleet were focused on their plight, and I was welcomed to the struggle. Rocks were hauled, planks positioned and thousands of oaths flew to the sky, the soil and the guilty drivers. I witnessed and experienced Brazil became a testing ground for vicious torture techniques, the out-of-uniform police death squads disposed of those people the military’s court system dealt with too leniently. great comraderie, a collective energy that finally prevailed. No sooner free and past the roadblock than our vehicle’s load shifted as the wheels settled into a cavernous rut, and a passing 4-wheel rig was hailed to carry me on my way. My “savior” throttled his beast into moving out, and we quickly chewed up the distance to the border. He was part-German, part-Italian, part- Brazilian and part anything he needed to have his way with things. He carried three passports, a bundle of Indian spears he hoped to trade and an urgency that overshadowed any generosity in his spirit. He told me he was “heading to Caracas for tractor parts I can’t get quick enough in Brazil.” It was clear that nothing was going to get in his way. He told me he had “10,000 or so acres and I’m just getting started.” When we reached the border, he bribed and thoroughly intimidated the Brazilian official, and finding my visa clearance would take a half hour of his valuable time, he abandoned me as readily as he picked me up. Only later did I realize what he and his friends are up to in the Amazon. They should be stopped. To Find Out More II ■ 1GHLY recommended reading is Ushelton Davis’ Victims of the Miracle: Development and the Indians of Brazil, the source of much of the information in this article. He is director of the Anthropology Research Center (ARC, 59 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111), whose newsletter and bulletins are the best source of information and suggested action on the Brazilian Indian’s critical struggle. The writings of Jorge Amado, Carolina Maria de Jesus and Machado de Assis, the music of Milton Nascimento, Hector Villa-Lobos and Chico Buarque, and the work of many other fine writers and artists are becoming more readily available here. Allow them to open a door to this rich, exciting, disturbing culture. It’s been a one-way exchange for far too long. 8 Clinton St. Quarterly
IF THE MORAL MAJORITY HAS IIS IN K YOUD BETTER START PRAYING. The Moral Majority—and other groups like them—think that children should pray in school. Not ju^t their children. Your children. But that’s just the beginning. They want their religious doctrines enacted into law and imposed on everyone. If they believe that birth control is a sin, then you should not be allowed to use contraceptives. If they believe that abortion is wrong, then you should not be allowed to have one. If they believe that the Bible condemns homosexuality, then the law should punish homosexuals. If they believe that a man should be the breadwinner and the divinely appointed head of the family, then the law should keep women in their place. If they are offended by the ideas in certain books, then the law should ban those books from your libraries and schools. And like Joe McCarthy, they believe that anyone who disagrees with them should be barred from teaching in the public schools. These new groups are on the march and growing stronger each day. Their agenda is clear and frightening: they mean to capture the power of government and use it to establish a nightmare of religious and political orthodoxy. And they are dangerously deceptive. They appear to represent American patriotism, because they wrap themselves in the American flag and use words like “family” and “life” and “tradition.” In fact, their kind of “patriotism” violates every principle of liberty that underlies the American system of government. It is intolerant. It stands against the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression and separation of church and state. It threatens academic freedom. And it denies to whole groups of people the equal protection of the laws. Make no mistake about it: the new evangelicals are not a conservative movement. True conservatives place great value on the Bill of Rights—a time-tested document designed to guarantee individual rights by limiting the powers of government. In fact, the new evangelicals are a radical anti-Bill-of-Rights movement. They seek not to conserve traditional American values, but to overthrow them. Their agenda represents massive government intrusion. And conservatives as well as liberals should stand up against them. THE DANGER POINT. These groups have already had alarming success. They have been pivotal in blocking passage of the E.R.A. in fifteen states. Public school boards all over the country have banned and imposed prayer and other religious ceremonies.' State legislatures have begun placing increasingly severe restrictions on a woman’s right to have an abortion. And there is mounting pressure to pass laws requiring the teaching of the Biblical account of creation as an alternative to evolution. They have grown into a rich and powerful force in this country. How rich? In a week, the Moral Majority raises a million dollars with its television program. How powerful? In the last election, key members of Congress were successfully targeted by them for defeat, because of their positions on abortion, E. R. A., and other civil liberties issues. And the head of the Moral Majority promises more of the same. At a press conference a week after the election, he warned elected officials, both Republican and Democrat, to “get in step” or “be prepared to be unemployed.” Already there is talk of constitutional amendments that would impose prayer in the public schools and outlaw all abortions. And legislation has been introduced that would strip federal courts of their authority even to hear constitutional cases. In the Senate, Strom Thurmond will now chair the Judiciary Committee, which controls most legislation affecting the courts and the Constitution. Senator Thurmond favors repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and has announced his support of much of the Moral Majority’s program. He has actively opposed civil rights and civil liberties for thirty years. Now he may prevail. We are facing a major struggle over the Bill of Rights. This struggle does not involve the question of whether the Moral Majority and other groups like them have the right to speak. They do, and we would defend that right. Even those who oppose the Bill of Rights are protected by the First Amendment. The danger lies in the content of their views, not in their right to express them. Nor is it a question of partisan politics. There have been shifts of power from one party to another before. That is not what concerns us. The American Civil Liberties Union is non-partisan and does not endorse or oppose candidates for public office. But we will make certain that, whatever other changes may occur in the political arena, the Constitution does not become a casualty of the new order. WHAT THE ACLU CAN DO. For 60 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been the organization that protects the Bill of Rights. As former Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote: “The ACLU has stoodfoursquare against the recurring tides ofhysteria thatfrom time to time threatenfreedoms everywhere... Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate howfar ourfreedoms might have eroded had it not beenfor the Union’s valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights ofpeople ofall persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised by the majority they were at the time. ” We’ve been there in the past and we’ll be there in the days ahead. We will meet the anti-Bill-of-Rights forces in the Congress, in the courts, before state and local legislatures, at school board hearings. Wherever they threaten, we will be there—with lawyers, lobbyists, staff and volunteers—to resist their attempts to deprive you of your liberty and violate your rights. WHAT YOU CAN DO. The ACLU, like the Moral Majority, depends on individual contributions. But they raise more money in a few weeks than we raise in a year. We can only be as strong as the number of people who support us. Ultimately, the protection of your rights depends not on legislatures, not on who gets elected President, not even on the courts. It depends on individual citizens, aware of the fragility of liberty, alert to the forces that imperil it, and prepared to give of themselves in order to preserve it. In the past, when the Bill of Rights was in danger, enough people recognized the threat, and came together in time to repel it. Such a time has come again. It is up to you to assure that the Bill of Rights will be passed on intact to the next generation. Please send us your contribution before ■ another day passes. Without your help, we don’t have a prayer AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION • Suite 601. 534 SW 3rd, Portland, OR 97204 □ I want to join the ACLU and help fight the new anti- Bill-of-Rights movement. Enclosed is my check in the amount indicated below. □ I do not want to become a member, but enclosed is I my contribution. | 1 —1 I -im already an ACLU member; enclosed is an extra | contribution. □ $25 n$50 QSIOO □ $1,000 □ More N A M E I ADDRESS____________________________________ < CITY________________ STATE ZIP______ ! I A ORCSj Clinton St. Quarterly 9
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