BEAUTY PAGEANT SEX SLAYING! ms asms m SMSESa INS IDE THE DOPE SCENE BAND IT S A N D B A D W E E D POLITICS!SEX!VIOLENCE!
Cover art by Jere Harley Clinton St. Quarterly is published THE E S H Designed and edited by Centerfold .by Henk Pander free to the public by Clinton St. Vol. 1, No. 2 Lenny Deiner, Eric Edwards Other contributing artists:' Theatre, Inc., 2522 S.E. Clinton St., Summer 1979 CLINTON ST Joe Uris, Beverly Walton Isaac Shamsud-Din, Jerry Krueger, Portland, OR 97202. © 1979 Clinton David Celsi, Mic DeJohnette Ad salesby David Milholland St. Quarterly. QUARTERLY Patriotic eporter A gram of salt Before everyone forgets here are some facts about nuclear war and SALT II. OVERKILL is when you can kill more than 35 percent of your enemy in a first strike. The US and USSR both have overkill up the kazoo. In fact if the US were to lose all of its home 1 ed nuclear capability it still could, using what’s i le air and under water (SAC and Polaris subs) at a mes destroy the Russians. Of course, they could a: J do it unto us. SALT II. of course, will not change this at all. THE NEUTRON BOMB DOES NOT WORK. As a deterrent to a Soviet thrust at Western Europe, the number of neutron weapons needed to stop Soviet armor would make Europe a desert. And the Soviets are equipping many of their tanks with radiation protected interiors. SALT II WILL INCREASE DEFENSE COSTS AND UP NUKE PRODUCTION. For example, to pass SALT II the administration plans to build the complex, gigantic and very expensive MX Nuke Missile system. That’s mobile missiles in trenches always on the move or ready to go over an area of hundreds of square miles. And MX is just starters! THE US POLICY OF LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR WON'T WORK. The Soviet Union has already announced that they will make no distinction between strategic use of Nukes and all-out war. If SALT II WON'T CUT DEFENSE COSTS OR MAKE US SAFER. WHAT IS IT FOR? SALT II will set a sort of equality of destruction at a cost so high as to give the US and USSR a near monopoly on nuclear war in the foreseeable future. Salt II will also relieve the pressure from the people of both nations for an end to the arms race. Nixon’s revenge THE SUPREME COURT IS OUT TO LIMIT YOUR RIGHTS. Recent decisions by the Nixon court point to a rapid erosion of basic freedoms for the press and the individual. Now the authorities can demand not only reporters’ notes, but their state of mind aS well. Newspapers and other print and nonprint media offices can be searched by the Law in fishing expeditions for unspecified things. This is a direct abridgement of the Constitution. Court rulings allowing prior censorship of the Progressive magazine and limiting access to all nuclear information, together with the parts of the Atomic Energy Act, will keep people from knowing of protesting government policy. A curtain of secrecy is falling over all our lives. Coming soon? If the US courts are walking off with the Bill of Rights, in West Germany the government has taken any vestage of freedom left visible. Using the terrorist issue as an excuse, the German government keeps people from working because of vague political associations. It even stamps folks’ passports with negative comments and warnings to other governments. In West Germany every day for a half-hour on TV wanted posters are flashed on the screen. People all over Germany call in to inform on the hapless folks whose faces appear on the screen. A nation of finks. Is Germany showing'the path we soon may follow? The Last Laugh ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. If Skylab hasn’t fallen when you read th is . . .T H £ CLINTON STREET QUARTERLY ANNOUNCES.. .THE SKYLAB IS FALLING, THE SKYLAB IS FALLING LOTTERY . . .Just be the first to name the date and place where Skylab falls, and YOU will win a trip to the actual Skylab crater site (along with the U.S. Government’s own Skylab team of scientists, a doctor, and a PR person) or a full tank of gas, whichever costs more. Armand & Dixie 404 SW 10th Portland 224-9028 Catering Specialists Hours Mon.-Fri. 10-9, Sat. 10-6 FINE WINES & BEER ITALIAN SPECIALTIES MEATS & CHEESES IMPORTED CANDIES , PASTRIES FRESH COFFEE 2
HARD NEWS The Black Hills of South Dakota are sacred to the Sioux people. In 1868 the U.S. gave the hills to the Sioux. But the land has gold and whites The major villain in all of this is the moved in in 1874. Protecting the white Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA); miners was the Seventh Cavalry, which which along with other public and was destroyed along with General private interests plan to tap into Custer, in 1876. In among the white underground water supplies to carry reprisals that followed, the land was ore to processing plants. The result taken away by Congress. may make South Dakota into someNow the Black Hills have been thing of a radioactive moonscape. The found to have valuable mineral potenTVA is seen by Indian activists like tial. Uranium and other fuels lie Russel Means as a governmental foot beneat the land. The Sioux stand once in the door for 26 mining companies more to see their special spot made who stand to profit if the region is into a white mans mine. This time, the opened for mining. leavings of mining will leave millions Indian and environmental group of tons of proven cancer causing opposition is growing but like the Four tailings behind. The water table in Corners Coal Power Plant in the western South Dakota will be perSouthwest which uses ground water to manently depleted. ship coal slurry, the oil cruch is a popular and effective excuse to plunder yet another hunk of Indian "One does not land in the once open west. sell the earth upon which the people w a lk" —Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse) Armand & Dixie 404 SW 10th Portland 224-9028 Catering Specialists Hours Mon.-Fri. 10-9, Sat. 106 FINE WINES & BEER ITALIAN SPECIALTIES MEATS & CHEESES IMPORTED CANDIES PASTRIES FRESH COFFEE The Texas Jaycees have named JA Y CEES mutilation murderer Ben Lach one of the “Outstanding Young Men ' of NAM E America for 1979” . Lach was convicted of murder after KILLER removing the head of a university cleaning woman with a scalpel. The woman died and Lach is doing time. M A N OF The Jaycees say that next year they will take a closer look at their YEAR nomination procedure. PORTLAND SATURDAY MARKET SUNDAY JAZZ AT SATURDAY MARKET October 7 Jim Pepper Quartet October 14 Thara Memory Quintet October 21 Eddie Wied and the Sky Trio October 28 Basil Clark’s Jazz Reunion 1 p.m. On First Avenue under the Burnside Bridge Co-sponsored by Music Performance Trust Funds of the Recording Industries Quality handcrafts • International food Local produce •Free entertainment Every Saturday and Sunday till Christmas Under the Burnside Bridge in Old Town 3
“ We have come a long way in a very few years for having loved the salmon to death. ” KILLING THEM SOFTLY By Bill Bakke Few of us look at it or even spend much time by it or upon it. The Columbia River flows by silently, a grey flood of water, a massive stream in winter or a blue, sky-reflecting mirror in summer. Yet this river has been the home of salmon and trout for thousands of years and the center, the beating heart, of Indian culture in the Northwest. The Indian and the salmon were linked in time, but we have inherited this ancient river and the land it flows from only recently. We reach back to the mythologies of Europe to understand our culture without realizing another cultural heritage exists here. We are largely detached from this land because we have not been limited by it or had to cope with it; we overcame it. We came and. like the Indian animal god, coyote, we are the changers. We have transformed this land and the river to meet our needs, and in so doing we have overlooked and in many ways have destroyed the cultural, birthdefining mythologies that make the Columbia River the source of spiritual and physical nourishment. As we have reshaped this land we have come to realize that its bountiful resources are not infinite. Bonneville Dam was originally designed without fishways. An engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers said, at the time Bonneville was built, that the Corps could not babysit the salmon. In 1978 an ex-director of Washington State Department of Fisheries, now representing the Public Utility District dams on the mid-Columbia, said in a public hearing, that, “we can’t love the salmon to death.” Perhaps we have not loved them enough. In the late 1800s the nonIndian commercial fishery harvested 30 million pounds of salmon annually from the Columbia River. Today, these same salmon stocks which supported this early commercial fishery, the spring and summer chinook, are being reviewed for possible inclusion on the List of Threatened and Endangered Species. We have come a long way in a very few years for having loved the salmon to death. As we lose the salmon runs, we change the life styles and economies of the people living in the Columbia River Basin. As the salmon resource fails, the competition between the user groups becomes bitter and angry as they fight over the few remaining fish. And while they fight each other, the development interests in the Basin have a free hand. Grand Coulee Dam blocked 1,000 miles of spawning and rearing habitat. These were some of the largest chinook in the river, and the commercial salmon fishery greatly benefited from their presence. But there has never been any compensation for that loss. even though 30 years have passed since its construction. Twenty years have elapsed since the salmon run was killed off at Brownlee Dam on the Snake River. The young salmon migrating to the sea in the spring encounter as many as eight dams on their way downriver. It has been determined that a 15 percent loss occurs at each project, yet these losses remain uncompensated. The Columbia River is operated for power production by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and, in the spring, when the juvenile salmon are descending the river toward the sea, the flows may not exist to move the salmon through the reservoirs, and during low flows many are consumed in hungry turbines. Even though the Army Corps of Engineers is transporting salmon and steelhead around the dams by truck and barge, the fishery agencies want the river to do the transporting, and . that requires adequate flows at the right time to move the salmon seaward. In 1974 there wasn’t enough water, and the juvenile salmon moving down out of the Snake River system sustained a 95 percent mortality at the dams. It has also been found that delay in their seaward migration can cause them not to adapt to salt water; the delay is a function of low flows and dead water in the reservoirs. Only 50 percent of the Columbia River Basin, which was once available for salmon production, is now accessible to them, and what remains is largely degraded so that the salmon habitat is producing less than its potential. Our rivers are like our farm lands, for they are a fertile, foodproducing resource. It is accepted that we protect farm lands with landuse planning, but we continue to lose our salmon rivers because fish production has not been considered important enough when decisions are made to log watersheds, to build hydroelectric dams, or when we take water from our streams to irrigate agricultural land. Yet, if considered, the economic value of salmon is comparable to other resource yields. For example, the Forest Service found that the timber yield value of the Clackamas watershed is worth $14 million, while the fishery yield value is worth $13 million annually. Clearly, the fishery is worth considering, but when fish are not a direct concern of an agency, they are easily overlooked. This is true in federal and state governments. It’s incredible how the work of one agency is undone by a sister agency. The loss of our salmon resource is a very complex problem caught up in heated political struggles and biological shortcuts. The traditional spokesmen for the salmon have been the biologists, and they have been notoriously unsuccessful; partly because they are too careful, they are not good 4
to have fundraising letters, brochures — you gotta have at least three brochures, then you have bumper strips, newspaper advertising, radio advertising, and we haven’t yet talked about television commercials. And remember before you start buying T.V. spots, you gotta produce the damn things; we’re talking about thousands of dollars...” “How much does it cost these days to run for the U.S. Senate in Oregon?” Our informant doesn 't blink. “About a million dollars. You don’t raise your big money for a statewide campaign within Oregon, of course; you get it from national sources.” “Which ones?” “Lobby groups, special interest groups, labor, industries.” But is David Force right? Does Packwood already have a decisive jump on any Democratic opponent regarding major funding sources? Any analysis of the Senator’s fiscal efforts must be made in the context of his legislative record. Bob Packwood was born 46 years ago in Portland, attended Willamette University, and received his law degree from New York University in 1957. In the sixties, Packwood served three terms in the State Legislature representing Multnomah County, before his election to the Senate in 1968 (against Wayne Morse) and his re-election in 1974 (against Betty Roberts). Packwood’s decade in the Senate has been essentially colorless but, if you think hard, a few things about his record come to mind: his opposition to the Longshore strike in 1971, his early call for Nixon’s resignation in 1974, his consistent identification with women’s rights, and his second-term support for certain labor measures: i.e. situs picketing, cargo preference, aind the union-backed Labor Reform Act. As modest as this record is. Packwood has set out to make the most of it. His support of situs picketing has endeared him to building trades workers while his endorsement of cargo preference has continued his friendship with the maritime associations. The national headquarters of the building trades union, for example, threw an “ appreciation dinner” for the Senator last winter in Washington. Packwood’s advocacy of women’s rights has been long-standing. In 1970 he introduced legislation to legalize abortion nationally; in 1977 he was the only Senator to vote against the confirmation of HEW Secretary Califano because Califano deplores abortion. These actions inspired Gloria Steinem last spring to endorse the Senator for re-election and help raise funds for his campaign. “Bob Packwood is a man of integrity and compassion,” wrote one of the founders of Ms. Magazine in a letter to friends. “That’s why I’m doing something I’ve rarely done before. I’m writing you personally to ask that you send a political contribution to Senator Packwood’s re-election campaign.” Within two months, Steinem’s letter has netted Packwood $200,000; before the campaign is over, observers expect that figure to more than double. With Packwood receiving labor and feminist backing, what’s a good Democrat to do? In Jackson County, for example, David Force notes that, even at this early date, “ Packwood has co-opted traditional Democratic financial bases. An opponent would either have to build a fund-raising system based on individual givers or attack Packwood froi>.the right on issues like abortion and labor.” (Attacking from the right, of course, is not something Neil Goldschmidt is likely to do.) Yet the situation for a Democrat is not completely hopeless. Not every labor union is in Packwood’s pocket. Mike Hereford of the Retail Clerks union points out that Packwood’s voting record, as computed by the national office of the AFL-CIO, is less than 50 percent effective and that “each of those votes was important. Goldschmidt would need to appeal to Labor is a social movement,” said many of the very labor leaders he Hereford, “and Packwood's record on alienated by his opposition to the Mt. social issues isn’t good.” Referring to Hood Freeway. And not without a next June’s state convention of the competitive message to liberal women, AFL-CIO, Hereford warned. “ If the convincing them that it would be vote were held today, he wouldn’t have better for them in the long-run to vote enough votes to win an endorsement.” for a socially-liberal Democrat than a Which means a Democrat could get moderate Republican who happens to that endorsement, with the likely constand with them on a few issues. sequence of over a quarter of a million “There may be some singular addollars funding support from the vantages to his not running,” an old national headquarters of the AFL- friend of the Mayor's informed us at CIO. press time. “ It may give him a chance Can Neil Goldschmidt beat Bob to recover some psychic energy after Packwood in 1980? Not without a two terms as Mayor. And it may give well-financed campaign to overcome him some time to deal with downstate an unfamiliar name. Not without a elements that associate him with Portstatewide effort to persuade semi- land. If he passes this one up, he could urban and rural voters that he can lay out for a couple of years and take think beyond Portland and Eugene. on the incumbent governor in 1982.” Not without an eleventh-hour drive to Can Goldschmidt beat Packwood? reverse Bob Packwood’s headstart in Not without an uphill fight. And most gaining AFL-CIO endorsement; in observers think that, at 39 years old, this last-minute push, incidentally. he does not have to wage that fight. GOOD MORNING. OREGON. WOULD YOU L IK E ME TO PLAY CHESS WITH YOU OR WOULD YOU RATHER I CALCULATE WHAT A PACKWOODGOLDSCHMIDT RACE WOULD BE L I K E . . .OKAY , HERE S MY EOREOAST EXPECTED TURNOUT - 70? COUNTY REG. VOTERS PACKWOOD GOLDSCHMIDT MULTNOMAH 3 4 8 , 1 2 1 4 8? 52? LANE 1 5 9 , 5 9 5 4 7? 53? CLACKAMAS 1 3 5 , 4 6 1 54? 46? WASHINGTON 1 2 9 , 8 7 5 58? 42? MARION 1 0 6 , 9 2 1 56? 44? JACKSON 7 0 , 9 8 7 5 3? 4 7? DOUGLAS 4 8 , 3 6 0 55? 4 5? L INN 4 4 , 2 9 1 52? 4 8? OTHERS 4 3 8 , 7 2 8 54? 46? TOTAL 1 , 4 8 2 , 3 3 9 52? 48X CONCLUSION - PACKWOOD BY •4X OR MY NAME A IN T C L IN T WILD CARD - T . KENNEDY 5
Junk Food Makes You Kill By Michelle Hall Williams Mayor George Moscone. Re-loading his gun, Dan White proceeded Do you sometimes feel withdrawn? through City Hall to the office of his Lacking energy because of your poor former colleague, San Francisco diet and irregular sleeping habits? Do Supervisor Harvey Milk. Supervisor you sometimes refuse tb shave and Milk smirked at ex-Supervisor White. instead lie in bed for hours on end? Dan White maimed and executed Get moody and depressed? Do you Harvey Milk, then drove to a nearby sometimes feel frustrated by your Doggie Diner and called his wife. financial and personal problems? Eat * * * Twinkies, cupcakes and Three Mile Island Chocolate Bars? Dan White became the first person Well, bubie, you may be mentally to test California’s new special cirill. Able to murder with impunity. cumstances death penalty law: murder of a public official, with intent. Dan * * * White was all for the death penalty Take your all-American rigidly last fall; this spring, his defense lawyer moral upbringing and (shove it? No.) was not. couple it with the paramilitary backThe defense said Dan White ground of being a boy scout, cop and cracked under pressure. He didn’t fireman. Win a local election and dis- ' mean to kill anyone. He was mentally cover that the world or urban politics ill. The defense played a tape of his is unfair. Suffer stress and pressure/ anguished and dramatic confession. Eat junk food, triggering a bioPeople wept. The defense trotted in a chemical change in your brain. Quit prominent Marin County psychiatrist your job as a San Francisco Superwho said, “ It is possible to lose your visor because your wife just had a grip on basic information if you are baby, your french fry stand is failing sufficiently emotionally discombobuand you need more money. Change lated.” Yes, discombobulated. your mind and want your job back. Continue an exclusive diet of junk * * * food. * *• * The jury agreed. Voluntary manslaughter. No intent. Diminished On the morning of November 27, capacity, in fact. Aggravated by an 1978, ex-San Francisco Supervisor exclusive diet of junk food. Dan Dan White went to see the Mayor White’s just deserts? Eight years max. about a job. He took a gun and a But I know he did it. Next time you pocket full of bullets to City Hall and visit the Bay Area, I’ll take you to the crawled in a basement window to Dan White Memorial. It’s his french avoid the main entrance metal fry stand near Fisherman’s Wharf. detectors. Called the “Hot Potato." You’d better Failing his interview, Dan White come soon as the last time I passed by. maimed and executed San Francisco business was real slow. ONE MORE TIME IMAGE CONSULTANTS KyNG HARVEST NATURAL FOODS AN ALTERNATIVE CLOTHING STORE FOR MEN & WOMEN 1114 N.W. 21st 223-4167 6
Paying the price for a high These scenes are true. Only the names and places have been changed to protect the guilty. The summer of love-peace and good vibes — the dawning of a new age. For a young fella just out of high school, the burgeoning scene around Lair Hill Park was an easy ride on TransLove Airways to an exciting new life. The fuel for that flight came in 95dollar, 2.2-pound bricks that seemed to make everyone grow into cosmicpolitico new beings. What could be neater than to supply all of your friends with this wonderful substance and at the same time make rent for your $99-a-month hippie shack, A dozen years later our friend Emmett is in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city awaiting the shipment of a precious substance. Around him are men dressed to kill — with bulges at their waist and holsters at their side that would do Don Corleone proud. The lastest drought has put many of these folks in perilous financial straights that only a big score can reverse. Everyone is screamin’ and yellin’ to get their bid in to Mr. Big who is in touch with the proceedings by telephone. The tensions and the octave level gets higher and higher as Mr. Big’s agent refuses to let the dealers see any of the offered merchandise. The agent threatens to cut off telephone contact with Mr. Big unless everyone agrees to the then unheard of price of $500 a lb. Finally Emmett cuts the tension and at the same time almost cuts his own throat by breaking into the bags of this suddenly very precious substance. The 10 pounds Emmett will purchase are already spoken for. Tomorrow his phone will be constantly chiming with requests for more. There’s never enough to satisfy the habits of a generation hooked on weed — needing better and better stuff to satisfy their habits. Hooked like they warned us in Reefer Madness? Well, not exactly — but veteran dopers have built up a tolerance level that continues to require high grade reefer. And as the dope culture has spread far and wide across These men are believed to be ARMED AND DANGEROUS America, the demand has far exceeded the supply. It’s a seller’s market and they’ve discovered, as have most American businessmen, that the consumer will pay any price for the desired product. Just like the oil companies discovered in 1973, major marijuana dealers in Portland have found that holding the product back just whets the consumer’s appetite. Our man Emmett, up until December ’78, was able to get bales of high-grade Colombian for $350 a pound — then before Drug dealers are circulating these composite drawings of two young men wanted for several recent armed robberies in Portland’s drug community. The suspects burst into their victim’s home, often when children are present, demanding money and contraband. the holiday season, the big operators held back and only sold the old, driedout summer leftovers. This garbage went like hotcakes through the holiday season and encouraged the top echelon to raise bale price to an average of $450 a pound. It also encouraged the big timers to continue to short shrift the average buying public. The 5-10 top cats are making so much money (a great deal of which comes from coke sales) that they no longer care to serve marijuana smokers with any kind of quality product at a reasonable price. When a number of middlemen refused to move the lowgrade holiday smoke, they we-e summarily cut off. Most of these folks believe in the magic of the weed and try to provide the best possible produce at the lowest possible piice. They came into the business when it was a family affair and high morality governed the trade instead of high sleaze. There is only one ball game in town and you either play by the rules or else. . . . And or else has not been very pleasant of late. It seems that a number of people who have been fronted large quantities of weed have suddenly been ripped off — putting your local tradesmen forever in the debt of certain businessmen — while other tradesmen seem to be setting up private fiefdoms in certain sections of the city that will be defended at all costs. Usually an anonymous tip to the gendarmes will do the trick in moving a tradesman out of the wrong neighborhood. The few remaining respectable dealers like Emmett are facing serious problems. Because of the high demand for weed, the quality continues to be more and more suspect. A lot of the seedy shit movin’ about of late is just the Columbian Connection trying to make weight in a year of severe drought through most of Colombia. If it’s not drought, then it’s increased drug enforcement practices by the U.S. government. The good ol' U.S. of A. ruined the Mexican Connection (remember Acapulco Gold, Oaxacan, and Michoacan) and is now stopping some ships beyond the 2(X) mile limit. Combined with the avaricious nature of those at the top of the trade and the enormous demands of local consumers, Emmett has his work cut out for him if he's to in any way stay true to the vision of that first joint those many moons ago in Lair Hill Park. Whatever Happened to the Mexican Connection? The cutting off of the supply of Mexican weed to the U.S. began with ex-President Nixon’s worldwide “war on drugs” in 1971. The program called for economic assistance to foreign governments, tightening world drug laws and building what Nixon called a CIA-style intelligence operation in the Drug Enforcement Administration, and training foreign narcotics police to form a frontline defense against illicit substances headed for America. In 1975, the State Department, CIA and DEA drafted the Narcotics Control Action Plan for Mexico. The State Department channeled funds and equipment through its Office of International Narcotics Control Matters (INC) to the Mexican attorney general’s office. The equipment included over 30 helicopters, remote sensing devices, high aerial reconnaisance, computer terminals, and telecommunications systems. Combined with the DEA sponsored spraying of paraquat, Operation Condor proved remarkably Successful in disrupting our most substantial source of marijuana. The Mexican government’s acceptance of the program was largely the result of their desire to acquire more police hardware to supress peasant insurgency movements in the mountainous northwestern Mexican states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihauhua (The Golden Triangle) where peasants were trading drugs for guns. The DEA sponsored Operation Condor has led to a system of illegal arrests and tortures that makes a mockery of President Carter's Human Rights Policy. Craig Pyles in the June 4th Village Voice reported that “during the two years it was in Culiacan Mexican Operation Condor arrested over 2.000 people — all duly labeled “narcotraficantes” (narcotics traffickers). But according to a study in the Culiacan correctional facility in 1977 by the Prisoners’ Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, 90 percent of the 457 inmates interviewed were not major narcotics traffickers but poor peasants from the sierra and juveniles from the towns who had been illegally detained and forced to sign confessions under torture in the Ministerio Publico. The method of obtaining these confessions is called by both prisoners and police “la calentada” — the “heat-up.” Specifically, the methods include beatings by fists, rifle and pistol butts; smashing inward with palms open over both ears to break the eardrum; bondage in extended positions, often to extreme dehydration in the hot sun; forcible induction of carbonated beverages through the nasal passages; electric shocks administered over a wet body, especially on the genitals; rape of detained women; submerging the head in buckets of excrement; cigarette burns; prying apart fingers — and toenails, and various spontaneous inventions. “Since the United States continues to fund the Mexican program with an estimated $12 million a year, continuation of that funding should be subject to the constraints of the Harkin Amendment, which prohibits the granting of military and economic aid to countries that engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. Given the level of concern shown by the government for the health of America's pot smokers; a turn for the better amongst our Mexican Connec- ■tions is as likely as Doonesbury’s Duke being appointed head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. 7
“First gas, now roads. . . ” _____________________________________ Front St. Shutout Makes Neighbors Roar THOSE i P i o r s RVPPIM' O P LUA Y T O gl>IL.C> L © O S ^ 1 By Penny Allen “ First they take our gasoline! Now they take our roads!!" shouted one angry and alienated man from Multnomah neighborhood as he stood outside Multnomah Elementary School. Despite the school’s topnotch academic standing in Oregon, it has just been closed and many local residents see the closure as a gerrymandered rip-off. No wonder they aren’t too interested in the finer details of “The Plan to Close Front Avenue.” You can’t kick a strong community too many times before it learns to bite. On June 4th, people from every southwest Portland neighborhood gathered to hear Mayor Neil Goldschmidt field questions about his Planning Bureau’s South Portland Circulation Study. The traffic-pattern Study was undertaken originally several years ago to straighten out the mess at the west end of the Ross Island Bridge. Since that time the report has grown to a thorough and futuristic proposal which recommends not only the removal of Front Avenue between the Corbett and Lair Hill neighborhoods but also suggests that the “ found” land be used for housing. The document must ultimately be seen as the Goldschmidt administration’s only gesture towards amending the widespread displacement and gentrification going on in Portland's innercity neighborhoods. But most southwest Portland residents from anywhere further out than Corbett and Lair Hill are having no truck with the Study, and at least a thousand of them have signed petitions protesting the closure of Front Avenue. The whole complex plan has been reduced to a single rallying cry: “They’re closing Front!” Indeed, indignant participants at the June 4th meeting seemed finally to have found an out-let for the general frustration wrought by our eroding gasolinebased system. As a matter of fact, timing of the event just after the school closure, coupled with Goldschmidt’s superficial presentation of the issues (never once mentioning housing) made the whole show look like a deliberate kill. Ernie Munch of the Planning Bureau, who has spent at least five years preparing the South Portland Circulation Study, no longer defends his plan 'well in public. He has also never had the time for small-scale in-depth presentation of his plan in the outlying southwest communities, and of course no idea as radical as removing a highway to build housing could ever make sense without grass-roots support. Goldschmidt distracted the angry crowd by joking about “having already spent enough money on the project to get everybody worried.” The Mayor also agreed with those who suggested that closing Front was one sure way for him to lose an election. Ernie Munch looked like a patsy. Closing Front Avenue certainly would be a hot potato and could indeed inconvenience a great many people. It would also be very expensive. The only trade-off that seems worth all that is housing for Portland’s displaced — sweat-equity housing to be built and owned by those who would live there, a project to be undertaken by a neighborhood-based community development corporation. For anything short of that, closing Front Avenue should be forgotten. On page forty-two of Munch’s South Portland Circulation Study it says, “The new housing should encourage an occupant mix in terms of age, income, family size, owner and renter, and occupation. An emphasis should be placed on the provision of low income housing to assist those low income families and individuals who are currently being forced to leave Corbett/Lair Hill (or you can add Northwest or Albina or inner Southeast) because of rising rents and property values.” Such a good and honorable idea! But many another high-flown intention has somehow slipped out of sight between the neighborhood level and the City Council vote, especially when low-income housing was at stake. “Displacement” may be a fancy word in Mayors’ conferences, but we are unlikely to see Goldschmidt and his people really do anything about it. Blacks Bumped As Rents Rise By Joe Uris Portland’s Black population is facing a forced migration from Portland. As property values rise poor people face an increasingly difficult time finding and keeping affordable housing. While all lower economic levels are effected, the housing squeeze is particularly hard on minority groups. Example: The Irvington neighborhood. By the late ’60’s Irvington was experiencing the fate of many other good inner city areas throughout the nation. Middle class white families faced with an increase in rental properties adjacent to black Albina reacted in terror as black people rented or bought into this once middle class stronghold. Whites sold fine homes for a fraction of today’s worth. Those with the cost of a down payment benefited, but all too few of those were poor people and even fewer were black. Some home owners, unable to sell for a decent price, rented to blacks and others under a program of federal housing for the poor program. The result was some crowding, but also the creation of Portland’s first truly integrated neighborhood. Now all that has changed. Irvington, long popular with the liberal smart set, is now an “in” area. Federal housing money and low cost loans during the Model Cities program, (created to help minorities and the poor in the early ’70s) saved the area from urban decay. The money often ended up being used to stop black movement into a “ good” neighborhood. The white middle class became interested. Many wanted a “ tame” integration experience for themselves and their kids. The fine older homes and convenient location, together with a school whose curriculum is well larded with federal bucks designed to help the poor, has drawn more and more of the new middle class to the area. The result is a boom in the housing market. And the result of the boom, ironically, is the forced disappearance of many black families from Irvington. Blacks who are less than middle class no longer can afford to live in this new middle-class ghetto. The black population of Irvington is down. The white middle class — up. Example: Albina. Once the only neighborhood where black people were allowed to settle, Albina is seeing more and more speculators moving into the area. The reason? The houses are old, well built, often bigger and finer than what is available elsewhere, and the prices are comparatively low. As an immediate result, the amount of available housing for poor people and black workers is diminishing. And this in a city with a less than 5 per cent vacancy rate! Portland has never welcomed the black community. Oregon excluded black folks from the state as part of the compromise which created the state. In the 20’s the Ku Klux Klan was active enough to control much of the state’s politics and to terrorize many minority and Catholic people. The few black people who settled here were mainly laborers, servants and railway workers. The Second World War brought Oregon and Portland it’s first large influx of black people. They came to work in the shipyards. Many brought their families and stayed on after the war. By 1948, most of Portland’s poor arrivals and their war worker white friends were living north of Portland in a federal housing development called Vanport, the state’s secondlargest city. In that same year Vanport was allowed to flood out. The disaster left many homeless. Those that didn’t get the message moved into Albina and the area of what is now the Memorial Coliseum. Since that time Portland’s black population has been forced to move repeatedly. The construction of the coliseum created one such move, the creation of the I-5N freeway another forced move. The expansion of Emmanuel Hospital destroyed 33 blocks of working class black housing as well as a number of popular commercial establishments along Williams Avenue. Similar forced black and white migrations took place on the west side as well. The urban renewal of the South Auditorium area and downtown took their toll. As Lair Hill Park and Corbett became popular with the newly moneyed set, these neighborhoods were upgraded by Portland Development Commission loans and aid. The result? The black population of these areas has virtually disappeared. While it is obviously not just black people who have suffered these displacements, the black community, because of its perilous economic situation, has been hardest hit. The city of Portland through such agencies as the Portland Development Commission, has been following a policy of exclusion toward the lower economic group. This has hit hardest at the most visible and culturally unique of Portland’s poor, its black people. 8
Florynce Kennedy, lawyer, activist, and political maverick, visited Portland recently to address a feminist conference, and to teach a two-week course inThe Politics of Oppressionat Portland State University. The following remarks were excerpted from a tape-transcript of a conversation with her one evening. I’m best known as a feminist because the first work I did nationally that came to a lot of people’s attention was for the feminist movement. But I would call myself a general practitioner rather than a specialist. Most people in politics specialize, like in homosexual rights because they’re homosexual. Naturally, I would be more interested in racism because I’m black, and feminism because I’m a woman. But if a new disease developed, I would be interested in it. Recently I’ve been traveling to nuclear rallies and more black studies groups. I went to Black Power conferences in the past, but because of media whiteout it was rarely given national attention. I’m older so I’ve been into more things. And I didn’t get involved only because of things that happened to me personally. I think there are several kinds of people who get involved in these kinds of things. One is the kind who is uncomfortable with the world—personally uncomfortable. They get involved usually on the basis of their personal discomfiture. At this point, I’m not personally discomforted. In fact, I would tend to avoid getting involved where I’m personally discomforted, if possible. I fight with my landlord only when I’m outraged by something he does. But I do not, as a matter of course, get involved in tenant affairs because my landlord is giving me a problem. I think that splinters people too much. I prefer to move from one area to another, depending on what seems to be the hottest and the most appropriate. As a person who opposed the war in Vietnam, I oppose nuclear proliferation and the Trident missile submarine, which is nuclear powered, I believe. The cost of nuclear proliferation has always been one unfavorable aspect. And then anything that causes women to give birth to 12-toed babies is something you couldn’t very well overlook. I naturally believe that there should be consumer action against the oil companies, on grounds of violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and other trade regulations. This is clearly evidence of runaway corporate anarchy. The tendency is to try to make it look like the OPEC countries are responsible. But the oil companies, the Seven Sisters—Exxon, Mobil, Gulf, Texaco, Royal Dutch, Shell, and Standard of Ohio—are far more responsible and corrupt and greedy. They thought they could steal oil from foreign governments, but the governments are refusing to let them do that. Chase Manhattan and other banks lent millions of dollars to the oil companies, and perhaps the Shah, to hold and control oil. When the Shah lost power, they’re sitting, waiting for their money back. Khomeini is not necessarily going to even recognize the Shah’s debts. So they’re trying to get their money back out of us. Third Party Politics I’m pretty interested in the Freedom Democratic Party. I think that’s pretty important. A lot of people are nervous to work outside the so-called two parties. I like a statement that Dr. George Wald made recently when asked if he thought we -weeded a third party. He said, "I think we could use a second party.” The Freedom Democratic Party is more a caucus within the party. It started with the 1964 challenge to the Mississippi delegation by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party led by Fannie Lou Hamer, who has since died. The idea of the people who are working on the Freedom Democratic Party project is to revive Fannie Lou Hamer in terms of gathering black votes to pressure for issues more than to pressure for candidates, although there may come a time when we would conceivably back somebody like Dick Gregory. In other words, the idea is to garner votes, garner support, and garner voter registration projects within the black community and the gay community. Niggerization of Homosexuals The Harvey Milk situation, I think, is clearest evidence of the niggerization of the homosexual community. It is clear evidence that the community is' held in the lowest possible regard. I mean, there is no lower regard than anyone can be held in than to be killed. If a board of supervisors’ member and a mayor are killed and you give the person who kills them a sevenyear sentence, that’s just like saying they’ve got a hunting license. So that requires coalition. The gay issue is no longer an issue of sexual preference, as 1 see it. Because niggerization is political murder, and the killing of Harvey Milk was a political murder. But the main reason a coalition with the gay community is important is because they are the only ones that seem to have sufficient pride to be enraged and to make an appropriate response to niggerization. Their expression of indignant rage was something that deserves our respect. They may not have a socialist perspective. but 1 haven’t seen any socialists break windows on appropriate occasions lately. 1 happen to think violence is most appropriate and most necessary in a country which devotes as much of its gross national product and national budget to violence. One part of the budget a city almost never cuts is the police budget. I mean violence is what keeps the whole establishment going. One difference between me and a lot of people is that I don’t expect people to do what I do. I don’t expect people to approve of what I do. I don’t wait until everybody decides that this is the thing to do. I rarely quarrel with people over priorities. Because one thing about coalition, as I view it, you accept people where they are, and you proceed from that acceptance to get whatever you want done. 1don’t try to persuade anybody that I’m right nor that they’re wrong. I'm not inclined to tell people how they should express themselves. But I am prepared to show admiration for those people who do what I think ought to be done. So my admiration for the homosexual would not necessarily be shared by everybody. In Defense of Ray I represented Jerry Ray, James Earl Ray’s brother, in front of the subcommittee of the House inquiring into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I was only there one time. They were attempting to cover up the conspiracy in the Martin Luther King case. They were accusing Jerry Ray of having robbed a bank, along with his brother James, in order to account for the money that the FBI or CIA or police or Ku Klux Klan or whoever really was in on it had given him. It was obvious. You know, smalltime criminals do not have their nose fixed and get passports and go to' London. That’s strictly the CIA’s modus operandi. They had decided to try to tie the brothers into a bank robbery. The bank had already indicated earlier this year that they knew there was no involvement by the brothers because they had film of the robbery. But the subcommittee was going to use that bank robbery story as a cover-up even though they knew that the brothers were not guilty. So we went down there and pointed out that the bank had already indicated they weren’t guilty and that was not the way they would be able to cover up the money. Even though these people all were racists, they just didn’t happen to have killed the guy. At least, if James Earl Ray killed King, he did not do it alone. And Jerry did not collaborate on a bank robbery to get him the money for a nose job. Even if he had been able to get his nose fixed, he couldn’t have gotten a passport unless he had certain help from the government because he got it almost instantly. The real point of it was not to permit them to cover up the story. It was very confusing for a lot of people because they couldn’t see me representing this redneck murderer. But I don’t expect to be popularly supported. I just do what I think ought to be done. And I hope that most people don’t totally reject it. For example, I would like to have seen the Oglala Sioux take the money that they were offered for their land. In that sense, 1 would be against the general feeling. I’d like to see them take the money and buy guns and then take the land. But it’s highly unlikely that they would do that. Pathology of the Oppressed It’s the pathology of oppressed people not to be angry enough to fight their oppressors. The average kid with parents who abuse him doesn’t usually grow up and kill them. The average woman whose husband beats her does not usually kill him. It is not in the nature of the oppressed mentality to respond appropriately to oppression. But I never would have predicted that the Iranians would have blasted forth the way they did. Of course, they got rid of the Shah for Khomeini. But you can’t predict when people's cups will be full enough. That's why it's worthwhile to push. Because the grass is very dry and you just keep dropping sparks, hoping it might catch on. 9
Will Seagram’s 7 Crown Downtown? Seagram is interested in buying a sizeable chunk of stock in downtown Portland By Kevin Mulligan “The basic issue we raise is a moral one, which seems to have been overlooked in the excitement generated by this huge proposal. It concerns the city’s use of its powers of condemnation for the benefit of one developer,” said Lyndon Bowman, President of the Oregon Society of Industrial Realtors. “This appears to be a case where city officials have met with a developer in private, worked out plans to condemn private property, and agreed to resell it to them at a loss. We know for a fact that a good many of those property owners have never been contacted, or nothing was ever discussed with them,” Bowman said. “Now, I don’t know many of these people, and we have no axe to grind, although there are a good many economic axes being ground in connection with this thing,” he added. And those economic axes are starting to cut into a lot of people’s hides. The development in question is the now nearly famous Morrison Street Project which is being proposed for the belly of downtown Portland by the Cadillac Fairview Company. Described by the developer as a project which will give Downtown “a focal point, a global civic attraction,” the four-block proposal will level the entire area between SW Morrison and Taylor, and 3rd and 5th avenues, and replace it with an ultra-modern, mixed-use project involving two new department stores, a hotel, office and parking towers, and a 250,000-squarefoot retail mall. The benefits of this project for Portland are mentioned in terms of $70 to $85 million in new investment, 1,300 new jobs, approximately $1.7 million per year in hotel and property taxes, and the establishing of a “ retail mix” which will allow Downtown to “ become competitive with most suburban shopping centers.” All worthwhile goals. However, in the haste to welcome a development of this type into the Downtown, the powers-that-be seem to be ignoring a very vital fact. That is, the area which has been proposed for this development is already a healthy, and somewhat happy, retail and residential community. And for the most part, the people who do business in that area are not interested in being moved out to make room for a gleaming steel and glass temple of consumption. It appears to be of small consequence to the city council, or the Portland Development Commission, or the Cadillac Fairview Company, that this project, if and when it wins approval, will wipe out several historically important buildings, a valuable downtown hotel, and several thriving restaurants and businesses which combine to provide perhaps the greatest retail “mix” of anyplace in the city. Nor does there seem to be a great deal of concern for the fact that this project will bring thousands of additional cars into the downtown area each day, fouling the air, clogging the streets, violating the intent of the Transit Mall, and laughing in the face of the gasoline shortage. However, perhaps the greatest injury to be committed in this case will be against the spirit and strength of our entire community. At no time in the development of this project have local merchants, property owners, developers or concerned citizens been contacted to solicit and gain their opinions and suggestions. In fact, both the developer and the PDC have repeatedly demonstrated an arrogant and selfish attitude toward the people who have been making their living in this area for decades. For the most part, the merchants in the area weren’t even informed that a development project was being considered, let alone asked what type of project they would be interested in for their community. Finally, as in the case of the Wacker electronics company, which this paper reported on last issue, the PDC and the city are again offering concessions and assistance to a foreign developer that have never been offered to local businesses or developers. In June of last year, representatives of the PDC and the Portland Bureau of Planning traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Urban Land Institute Development Conference. There, the City gave a presentation to the 17-or-so developers that were in attendance, telling them about the needs and, one would think, the requirements for developing this area of Downtown. Significantly, the area which was pinpointed for development by the PDC was circled in red on the map. which the developers saw, and it included the entire four-block area. It seems there was no looking back after that, and the PDC has continued to pursue its goal of destruction and development of the entire area as a four-block unit. Although the Cadillac Fairview Company wasn’t at the PDC presentation, they soon heard about the possibilities and put a full contingent of professional planners, architects, lawyers and civic hustlers on the trail of Portland Prime (land, that is). Just when, or by what criteria, the PDC selected Cadillac for this development remains a mystery. However, we do know that at least two other companies were interested in working with the PDC to develop a proposal, but, according to a source at a leading Portland architectural firm, the PDC responded like the auctioneer in the 10
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz