BLACK ACTIVISTS RALLY FOR FREEDOM FOR ALL
By Lola Smallwood Chicago Tribune Staff Writer June 21, 1998
More than 2,000 people came out for the Black Radical Congress held Saturday in the University of Illinois' Chicago Circle Center and headlined by the likes of author and Harvard professor Cornel West and famed poets Sonia Sanchez and Amiri Baraka.
No longer led by a line of 20-something firebrand intellectuals not content with talk, the Black Radical Congress now represents a matured movement built on analysis of modern-day problems and dedicated to consensus before moving forward.
"We are very familiar with the description of the problem," said Jamala Rogers, chairwoman of the Black Radical Congress National Continuation Committee. "We are here to write a prescription for the problem, and it's clear a lot of folks want to do something and want to be radical in their approach."
The three-day conference coincided with Juneteenth, or June 19, the day freedom was announced in Texas in 1865, nearly three years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Participants discussed ways to free people of color and the working poor from the clutches of capitalism, poverty and powerlessness.
Juneteenth events included a Black Expo, a marketplace of black businesses that drew thousands to Soldier Field, and a South Side street festival sponsored by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, where about 200 people gathered for fun and food.
While people enjoyed festivities outdoors, serious dialogue ensued between gray-haired and college-age activists and scholars during 30 workshops at the Black Radical Congress. Topics ranged from police brutality to environmental racism to examining the role of the church in the black movement.
"I came to the conference because of the amount of institutionalized oppression that now has gone beyond our national borders," said Michelle Y. Holliday, a research post-doctoral fellow at the U. of I. at Chicago. "I feel overwhelmed by this conference."
Conference organizers, expecting a crowd of 400 to 500 people, also were overwhelmed by the response.
Though leaders were reluctant to talk about the method in which the new Black Radical Congress agenda will be constructed or when it will be launched, they said the goals are clear.
"With the level of capitalism, unemployment, homelessness, we are in crisis," said Manning Marable, a Columbia University history professor and co-convener of the conference. "We are living in a society that clearly has failed the people. The Black Radical Congress is a statement of a necessity for a broader movement."
=========================================== The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- June 22, 1998
Effort to Privatize Social-Security
Makes Headway, Surprising Rivals
By CHRISTOPHER GEORGES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Economic Security 2000's teach-in
Monday in Baltimore marks the group's nearly 4,000th
event in the past 18 months to push an overhaul of Social
Security.
The organization once unleashed dozens of campaigners
through a rock-concert crowd here to gather petitions for
their wonkish cause: changing Social Security to allow
workers to invest part of their payroll taxes on their own. It
is now a leader of a crusade of conservative, youth,
business, and libertarian groups that is relentlessly goading
the public, lawmakers, the media and business leaders to
support the "privatization" of Social Security, in one form or
another.
The combined effort has ranged from the publication of
dozens of think-tank papers targeted at policy gurus to
teach-ins aimed at college freshmen. The effectiveness has
surprised the privatizers and their critics alike.
Just a few years ago, the notion of privatizing all or part of
Social Security was such a remote possibility that
traditional defenders of the system paid it little heed. Now
the landscape has been reshaped, catching supporters of
the traditional system off guard. Former Social Security
Commissioner Robert Ball, a privatization opponent and
author of one of the most comprehensive plans to reform
the system without privatizing, acknowledges a "certain
complacency" among those who support the current
system. "There are already 15 privatization plans out there,"
he figures, "and it is getting to be dangerous and
persuasive."
An Opponent's Compliment
Sen. Paul Wellstone (D., Minn.) concedes, "We are now
behind the eight ball. They have done a masterful job." And
Tim Fuller, executive director of the Gray Panthers, an
activist seniors' group that strongly opposes privatization,
puts it bluntly: "We have been sandbagged."
Participants in the debate over fixing Social Security
basically split into three camps. The first, call it the
tinkerers, would save the New Deal program by trimming
benefits, raising the retirement age, lifting taxes, and, in
some versions, allowing the government to invest trust-fund
assets in the stock market. (All the payroll taxes collected
now go into Treasury bonds.) Hard-core privatizers, would
let workers invest most of their payroll taxes themselves,
substantially diminishing the tax-financed government
benefit program. A third group would create individual
accounts to exist alongside traditional Social Security. In
some plans, contributions would be in addition to existing
taxes; in others they would be in lieu of a portion of existing
taxes.
Privatization foes worry that even a small move toward
individual accounts will unravel public support for Social
Security. But that may be happening already. Public-opinion
polls, story and op-ed counts in the news media, plans
outlined, events held, money raised, congressional sponsors
all indicate the privatizers have commandeered the debate.
"If the debate stopped now, it would appear as though some
form of individualized retirement accounts would be in the
final mix," says Carolyn Lukensmeyer, director of Americans
Discuss Social Security, a group that is neutral on the issue
and is funded by the Pew Charitable Trust.
An Assertive Group
Privatizers have certainly been assertive. Economic
Security 2000 has dispatched representatives to more than
500 radio talk shows, set up radio programs in some states
that exclusively discuss the topic, placed op-ed articles in
more than 200 newspapers, and met with more than 70
editorial boards. The Cato Institute and Heritage
Foundation have published dozens of reports pushing
privatization, and raised millions of dollars to advance the
cause. While opponents contend Wall Street and mutual
funds are funding the effort, evidence is scarce. Most of the
money comes from general foundation, business and
grass-roots donations to organizations such as Heritage,
Cato and Economic Security 2000.
In contrast, privatization opponents have been quiet. The
most visible deed was an informal meeting held several
months ago to kick around some ideas. The various
opponents haven't met since, and have yet to endorse any
reform plan.
Organized labor, which had been widely expected to lead
the antiprivatization battle, has been AWOL. And the
powerful American Association of Retired Persons, likely to
oppose large-scale privatization, may have dealt itself -- and
its deep coffers -- out of the picture by agreeing to Mr.
Clinton's request to serve as an "honest broker" until this
winter by holding forums around the nation.
To be sure, privatization opponents are finally showing some
sparks of resistance. AFL-CIO officials and others say their
passivity is calculated, explaining that an 11th-hour
advertising blitz may be more effective than a protracted
debate. "This issue ripens in the fall," says Gerald Shea, an
AFL-CIO Social Security expert. Emboldened by their
victory against a California initiative to limit the use of union
dues for political purposes, senior AFL-CIO officials have
suggested a campaign of nearly $30 million this fall
opposing privatization.
'Sense of the Congress'
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) plans in coming days to
introduce a nonbinding "sense of the Congress" resolution
laying out some vague principles behind reform, such as
"any solution must be equitable to people of all ages." The
left-leaning Economic Policy Institute is launching a Web
site. Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D., N.D.) is planning to introduce
legislation for a long-term fix without privatization.
But the tinkerers' efforts may be too little, too late.
Heritage and Cato are planning to swamp the labor effort
by pushing their donors to contribute to a $100 million ad
campaign. Further, more and more lawmakers are locking
themselves into positions in support of individual accounts.
"Once a congressman gets locked in it, it becomes very
difficult to change his view," says Wendell Primus of the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning
advocacy group.
Defenders of the current system panic when they peer into
the crystal ball of public opinions. One of the nation's most
influential defenders of the current system, Sen. Daniel
Moynihan (D., N.Y.), surprised all sides with a complex plan
that would allow for an element of privatization. Although
staffers for Sen. Moynihan now concede the effort was
perhaps premature, privatization proponents could hardly
contain their glee. "This is, by far, the most important
development in advancing privatization thus far," says Bill
Beach of the Heritage Foundation.
"It has been very harmful," acknowledges the AFL-CIO's Mr.
Shea. "I think it had a very different effect than the senator
intended."
Privatizers are clearly aware that the timing is opportune:
As more Americans have successfully invested in the
markets in recent years, they are less fearful of losing
retirement money through bad investments. "In 1983,
private stocks were an exotic thing," says Michael Tanner of
the Cato Institute. "But thanks to programs such as
401(k)s, there is now a new confidence in how the stock
markets work."
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