4/2000, 2000 April
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- | That's where I wanna stop, | 0:02 |
and I understand now, I'm supposed to pass around a list | 0:03 | |
so anybody who wants to sign up for the BRC. | 0:06 | |
Oh, the Listserv, oh, the Listserv. | 0:12 | |
(assembly laughing) | 0:14 | |
Now tell me, he just put down list. | 0:16 | |
What am I supposed to know about list? | 0:17 | |
(assembly laughing) | 0:19 | |
There's a Listserv, a PRC listserv (laughs) | 0:21 | |
Woman | He tried. | 0:25 |
(laughs) | ||
- | Okay, so I'll lighten the air with that confusion. | 0:32 |
(assembly applauding) | 0:36 | |
Man | There are three hands. | 0:42 |
I saw one, two, three, four, | 0:44 | |
and then we can go from there, okay? | 0:46 | |
- | I actually just, I don't know how I got on it | 0:49 |
but I just want to recommend your announcement list. | 0:52 | |
I think it's the most extraordinary, | 0:56 | |
I think it's the most extraordinary, | 0:58 | |
I don't know, it's an announcement list. | 1:01 | |
But the most wonderful stuff comes off of it, | 1:04 | |
I would just never had learned about | 1:08 | |
the Dorrisman funeral without it. | 1:10 | |
I mean it was, I just find that some stuff | 1:13 | |
that comes across it is incredibly moving | 1:16 | |
and incredibly, and very, very informative. | 1:18 | |
So I wanted to recommend that if anybody is interested in it | 1:21 | |
that they get on that list. | 1:24 | |
Woman | Listserv. | 1:27 |
Man | Cappy, would you tell how to subscribe to the list? | 1:28 |
Woman | Cappy was our former recycle organizer. | 1:31 |
- | I had to step down (laughs) | 1:34 |
But it's in the hands of a very capable person | 1:36 | |
by the name Art McKee. | 1:40 | |
I think that the problem was that | 1:43 | |
we have all levels of people in the BRC, who are, | 1:45 | |
some people are extremely computer literate, | 1:50 | |
and some people are struggling. | 1:52 | |
And so, but one of the problems we really tried to move on, | 1:56 | |
for example, getting everybody on the coordinating committee | 2:00 | |
is connected by email. | 2:03 | |
And the website you're talking about were really the lists, | 2:06 | |
really lists, we have a number of lists, not website. | 2:10 | |
There's one website but there's a number of lists. | 2:13 | |
Okay, so that's the clarification. | 2:16 | |
Woman | I'm one of those people who's struggling. | 2:18 |
(assembly laughing) | 2:20 | |
Man | I'm with you. | 2:23 |
- | But we try to make it really simple, | 2:24 |
being there's a range of lists, | 2:29 | |
announce lists and some discussion lists | 2:31 | |
so for people who really want | 2:34 | |
to exchange opinions back and forth | 2:37 | |
there's also the ability to just get information. | 2:38 | |
You can get it on the web, read only, | 2:42 | |
for many of our lists, Listserv lists, | 2:45 | |
instead of having to have it dumped into your box often. | 2:48 | |
So, that's the way that the national campus network list, | 2:51 | |
the national campus net that I run, that's the way it is. | 2:56 | |
You don't have to get, you can leave it, | 3:00 | |
you can log on once a week and see what's come to the list | 3:02 | |
since the last time you logged on. | 3:07 | |
- | And one of the, just a brief commercial for it, | 3:09 |
one of the best services is to tell us | 3:12 | |
when somebody was there and they described what happened. | 3:16 | |
I find that one of the best things. | 3:20 | |
The theoretical is great, | 3:22 | |
announcements of things that are coming up, great, | 3:25 | |
but I was there and here's what happened, | 3:28 | |
invaluable to us. | 3:30 | |
Woman | Is anybody gonna tell us the URL? | 3:32 |
Woman | Yeah. | 3:34 |
Woman | That's its real virtue. | 3:35 |
- | Yeah. | 3:36 |
Woman | I thought it was such a good principle. | 3:37 |
Cappy | To those of you who are, oh, I see. | 3:39 |
I thought I'd see-- | 3:44 | |
Woman | Here it is. | 3:45 |
- | Just send your e-mail to, oh no it doesn't, | 3:48 |
I'm sorry. | 3:52 | |
It doesn't have a subscribe, apologies, I apologize. | 3:53 | |
(laughs) | 4:00 | |
Person | It doesn't have it either? | 4:01 |
Man | We'll get it, why don't we-- | 4:03 |
- | You can send it to me, pinderhc@bc.edu | 4:05 |
and I'll forward it to the appropriate place, I promise. | 4:08 | |
Woman | What is it? | 4:11 |
- | Pinderhc@bc.edu, just say, | 4:11 |
information on BRC list and it will be forwarded. | 4:16 | |
P-I-N-D-E-R-H-C at B-C dot E-D-U. | 4:20 | |
- | But there's also the BRC National Office, | 4:24 |
one word, at email.com. | 4:26 | |
Brother. | 4:32 | |
Man | What's the address for the website? | 4:33 |
Cappy | The website is blackradicalongress.com or .org. | 4:35 |
- | I have been to meetings like this before. | 4:42 |
(assembly laughs) | 4:45 | |
I was at the founding of the Republic in Africa, | 4:47 | |
I was at the founding of the Fund for Southern Politics | 4:50 | |
and what bothers me is, | 4:56 | |
first of all, I wanna say to you sir, | 4:59 | |
I congratulate you and I salute you, | 5:02 | |
and I hope one of the things you will consider doing | 5:04 | |
is bringing young people into those trials, | 5:06 | |
letting them learn the arguments and the law, | 5:10 | |
letting them present them to a wide audience. | 5:14 | |
It's one thing to convince us | 5:17 | |
about the fallacy of the justice system. | 5:19 | |
It's another thing to prove it to a community | 5:22 | |
by that community's peers using the same language, | 5:24 | |
the laws and the regulations as you have so mastered. | 5:30 | |
And I say not to challenge you, | 5:34 | |
but we've got to get more people involved in every event | 5:37 | |
so that when we say there's a legitimate reason | 5:41 | |
to question the legal system, | 5:44 | |
there's no question about that. | 5:45 | |
We've got to turn that around. | 5:47 | |
Now I'm simply offering a way to turn that around. | 5:48 | |
Now I'm gonna tell ya'll somethin' that may surprise you. | 5:51 | |
Woman | Okay. | 5:53 |
- | Whenever people declare war on capitalism, | 5:55 |
I don't wanna be a part of that | 5:59 | |
because I think capitalism has proven to be | 6:02 | |
a sophisticated animal to redefine itself | 6:05 | |
within seconds for anyone, | 6:08 | |
anywhere in the globe, at any time. | 6:10 | |
And if we're prepared to attack it, | 6:13 | |
if ya'll are prepared to attack it with that understanding, | 6:17 | |
go for it. | 6:21 | |
But I think if we begin to realize | 6:23 | |
that it would be incongruent for us to meet here today | 6:26 | |
and have a plenary session | 6:31 | |
and not issue a statement in support | 6:33 | |
of what's goin' on in Washington. | 6:35 | |
Then we're all lyin' to ourselves. | 6:37 | |
Woman | That's right. | 6:39 |
- | And I don't think there's a contradiction, | 6:40 |
or a juxtaposition, in those two issues. | 6:42 | |
I believe that you got to organize people where they are. | 6:44 | |
You don't organize people where you think | 6:48 | |
they're gonna leap in three or four years. | 6:50 | |
So I just hope, and if it turns out | 6:52 | |
that I am the conservative spokesman in this congress, | 6:55 | |
(assembly laughs) | 6:58 | |
Woman | The gentleman from Washington. | 6:58 |
- | I'm prepared to do that, | 7:02 |
with the same vigor and panache, | 7:04 | |
that I valued on the other side. | 7:06 | |
But, quite seriously, I hope | 7:08 | |
that we would look at the value of language | 7:09 | |
when we're talkin' about politics. | 7:12 | |
You can do whatever you wanna do | 7:15 | |
but in America, at this time, let us understand one thing, | 7:17 | |
the stock market is but a mere indication | 7:21 | |
of where we're goin', you can't keep win, | 7:24 | |
any poker player, who has to win every hand | 7:26 | |
is doomed to fail. | 7:30 | |
Woman | That's right. | 7:31 |
- | So I think we gonna se a lot of WTO type things | 7:32 |
throughout the world, | 7:35 | |
and I just don't want us to language ourselves | 7:36 | |
out of the fight. | 7:40 | |
Woman | Me? | 7:43 |
- | Yes. | |
- | Well there were a couple of things | 7:45 |
I think arise up to the occasion | 7:46 | |
because I'm at the point of fatigue. | 7:48 | |
But it seems to me that some of these court cases | 7:50 | |
are actually political campaigns, | 7:52 | |
and that they have to be risen to the point | 7:55 | |
of the campaign thing. | 7:58 | |
I think of Green Peace and the whales, | 8:00 | |
and them in their little dingeys | 8:03 | |
out in the middle of god knows where, | 8:04 | |
and screamin' and hollerin' and all that kind of stuff, | 8:06 | |
but the point that I am tryin' to raise | 8:08 | |
is that it takes some of that | 8:10 | |
to bring both media, | 8:13 | |
and to move people from a point | 8:15 | |
of non-alertness to alertness, | 8:18 | |
and I, and also there's some links | 8:20 | |
that we could make right now, brother, | 8:23 | |
and I mean I'll talk to you on the side. | 8:25 | |
There are some radical lawyers out of this state | 8:26 | |
who you need to be in touch with. | 8:29 | |
I mean we need to, at this juncture, | 8:31 | |
in the reformation of the capitalists | 8:35 | |
on the level that they didn't even begin to dream about, | 8:39 | |
a hundred years from now, | 8:42 | |
we have to place some alliances, | 8:45 | |
both on the national and international level. | 8:47 | |
That e-mail, we can discuss among ourselves, | 8:50 | |
but the e-mail is a very important international linkage. | 8:53 | |
I mean it's critical. | 8:57 | |
And there are very few organizations | 8:58 | |
that have mastered this. | 9:00 | |
And while you may not be able to raise | 9:01 | |
the argument in North Carolina | 9:03 | |
to have 10 thousand Parisians walkin' down the street | 9:06 | |
in the middle of Paris saying, | 9:10 | |
hold on, you know that raises a whole 'nother kinda thing. | 9:11 | |
And we have, I'm gonna raise the issue | 9:14 | |
of the master strategies. | 9:16 | |
I mean I'm almost feelin' like | 9:19 | |
what I think he's feelin' like, | 9:21 | |
but we have been somewhere around this before, | 9:23 | |
and that is not to say that it does not have to be repeated. | 9:25 | |
But some of us have learned over 50 years | 9:29 | |
some strategies we're not able to put into effect. | 9:33 | |
And I think that at some point, | 9:37 | |
while there's grass roots growing, | 9:39 | |
there has to be some other vision projection outward, | 9:41 | |
you know, some master plans put into effect, | 9:47 | |
because we're losing the big war. | 9:51 | |
We may be winning some battles, | 9:53 | |
but the big war is really goin' on, | 9:54 | |
I tell my dope-dealin' friends up in jail, | 9:57 | |
I said you know, ya'll still battlin' | 9:59 | |
about the northeastern corner of the ghetto. | 10:00 | |
These people have subdivided outer space. | 10:03 | |
I mean, what are we talkin' about? | 10:06 | |
We're in two different time zones here. | 10:08 | |
And that is not to say one completely nullifies the other | 10:10 | |
but I'm thinkin' that at some point | 10:14 | |
we gotta hit a pentacle of intellectual combustion. | 10:16 | |
We have got to hit people, I mean I have a plan. | 10:19 | |
We've gotta hit people with money, | 10:23 | |
we have got to get them to bankroll a brain thrust, | 10:25 | |
and yes, it's gonna be infiltrated, but so what? | 10:29 | |
Ya know, and move at another level | 10:32 | |
because we, as I said before, | 10:35 | |
I don't know whether we're really winning | 10:38 | |
the big war, okay. | 10:40 | |
Man | If Stephan wants to get started in this | 10:43 |
while we're here and then gist it in. | 10:45 | |
- | And somewhat, I don't know if this completely a response, | 10:47 |
but certainly a comment, or follow-up, | 10:51 | |
and a salute to what you've been saying to this point | 10:54 | |
and some of what was said earlier. | 10:58 | |
I think some of the points that were just raised | 11:01 | |
by a number of the commentaries that were just made | 11:04 | |
are very relevant and very timely right now, | 11:06 | |
as it relates number one, for example, to, | 11:09 | |
how do you get young people engaged in the struggle? | 11:12 | |
I mean one of the things that I was always faced with, | 11:15 | |
right now, I'm 32 years old, I'll be 32 this summer, | 11:19 | |
and it was weird. | 11:24 | |
I would talk to my parents and people who were really, | 11:27 | |
really products of the struggles in the 60's and the 50's, | 11:30 | |
and somehow another that message got lost | 11:35 | |
in the 70's and the 80's to this generation | 11:39 | |
and the next generation and so on and so forth. | 11:42 | |
And the reality is, and I don't say this, | 11:45 | |
I say this from a perspective | 11:48 | |
of having worked with children and worked in education | 11:50 | |
and doing education law for a number of years, | 11:52 | |
and looking at our youth that are coming up behind us, | 11:55 | |
there has to be a real connect with that community, | 11:59 | |
if these issues that we're talking about | 12:04 | |
are so profound and paramount to change in our society, | 12:06 | |
we've got to figure out ways | 12:12 | |
to make this struggle real to them | 12:15 | |
because all too often, | 12:18 | |
if I am privileged enough to go to a integrated high school, | 12:21 | |
then I don't know what it was like | 12:27 | |
not to go to a integrated high school. | 12:29 | |
And that's not to say that all integrated high schools | 12:31 | |
are the paradigm for which we are looking. | 12:34 | |
I wanna be very clear about that. | 12:37 | |
But what I am saying is the opportunity, nonetheless, | 12:40 | |
should be afforded to me. | 12:43 | |
Now, in looking at that, and recognizing | 12:45 | |
that we need to engage young people as what's one way. | 12:49 | |
And looking and listening to some of the other things | 12:55 | |
that were being said as it relates to a global movement | 12:56 | |
and a society of information overload. | 13:00 | |
What I would also say is, number one, | 13:06 | |
e-mail is your friend, but be careful. | 13:08 | |
Man | Amen. | 13:11 |
- | Because don't believe that your information | 13:12 |
is not being read or cannot be picked up | 13:15 | |
by someone else over the internet. | 13:19 | |
So it's not the Panacea that a lot of people | 13:24 | |
tend to play it up. | 13:27 | |
Woman | It's not private. | 13:28 |
- | Exactly, exactly. | |
But it is a tremendous way to get out your message | 13:31 | |
and get out your information | 13:35 | |
and I'm thankful for the receive of the BRC news | 13:37 | |
in my e-mail because it puts me in touch with other people | 13:42 | |
and gives me the perspective that I need to have | 13:45 | |
to be able to look at these issues in a different way. | 13:48 | |
And in looking at that, I mean you talked about, | 13:51 | |
we talked about globalization, | 13:53 | |
you talk about the WTO for example, | 13:55 | |
and that kind of brings links | 13:59 | |
and kind of ties it all together | 14:02 | |
to what this panel has been talking about. | 14:04 | |
For example, I can talk about it | 14:06 | |
from a agricultural perspective | 14:08 | |
of how it's affecting family farmers | 14:10 | |
and driving them out of business | 14:13 | |
and he can talk about it from a perspective | 14:14 | |
of how globalization is affecting farm workers | 14:17 | |
and the relationship between the two | 14:21 | |
if we were to unite and to bring our messages together | 14:23 | |
in one common platform. | 14:28 | |
And it's not a legal forum. | 14:30 | |
It has to be a political and a social forum. | 14:33 | |
It has to be an economic forum. | 14:36 | |
There have to be all of those components brought together. | 14:38 | |
And, ya know, I hear that very clearly | 14:41 | |
coming out of the message | 14:43 | |
and I'm lookin' forward to hearing about your plan | 14:45 | |
and how we can make this plan work but. | 14:48 | |
(assembly laughing) | 14:50 | |
- | I'm afraid I just lost Bob, | 15:01 |
I was hopin' that he would be in here. | 15:02 | |
I wanna, I agree with much of what Guyot said | 15:08 | |
because our rhetoric can often define us | 15:14 | |
away from issues we spin deep and deeper into them | 15:19 | |
and that was one of the terrible mistakes | 15:22 | |
of the late 60's and early 70's | 15:24 | |
was using rhetoric as a weapon | 15:26 | |
to upgrade our self-esteem | 15:30 | |
rather than to actually communicate with people. | 15:33 | |
And one of the things that the rhetoric did | 15:36 | |
was that we closed off our minds | 15:39 | |
with rhetoric we were using. | 15:42 | |
Much of it was true, much of it was accurate, | 15:44 | |
but it sealed off instead of opening up. | 15:46 | |
Both the separatism, the Marxism, | 15:52 | |
some had structuralism | 15:56 | |
about how you fit into the system or stuff like that. | 15:59 | |
But I wanna, I just wanna point that out, | 16:01 | |
we have to have a vision, we have to develop a vision, | 16:05 | |
but a vision has always got to be open. | 16:08 | |
I mean it's a way to get to somewhere, | 16:11 | |
it's not closing off something | 16:13 | |
that I define you know what the future's gonna be | 16:16 | |
and you have got submit to that definition. | 16:18 | |
But it's good to open it up to where we can, | 16:21 | |
it's the only way that we're going to bring | 16:25 | |
sectoralism to a unifying possibility. | 16:28 | |
Otherwise it's each little group | 16:31 | |
fightin' for its own right and its own piece of the pie, | 16:33 | |
and the pie, that's what Guyot was talking about, | 16:36 | |
the pie can always accommodate, ya know, | 16:39 | |
to another little group | 16:41 | |
as long as it takes a piece away from somebody else | 16:42 | |
and makes you fight them | 16:45 | |
instead of what the pie is all about. | 16:46 | |
So that has a lot to do | 16:47 | |
with the capitalism itself as a whole. | 16:49 | |
I organized in Teamsters in Chicago, | 16:53 | |
I built a group called | 16:57 | |
the Concerned Truckers for Democratic Union, | 16:58 | |
I was the founding president of that group, | 17:01 | |
and we used to picket in Chicago at the Union Hall | 17:03 | |
and at companies in support of the farm workers. | 17:06 | |
Now many of you don't know, | 17:09 | |
but the Teamsters were organizing farm workers | 17:11 | |
to crush the USUFWLC, Chavez' group, | 17:14 | |
so that, because they could make sweetheart deals | 17:19 | |
with the growers | 17:22 | |
so that they would have more money in the union | 17:25 | |
to pocket and build more hotels in Las Vegas, | 17:28 | |
and not to improve the conditions of the farm workers. | 17:31 | |
We, and I organized in freight, | 17:35 | |
which was the aristocracy of the Teamsters | 17:38 | |
'cause it was the original foundation, | 17:41 | |
but I was a dock worker | 17:43 | |
so I was like the lower end of the high end. | 17:44 | |
But coming from that, | 17:47 | |
if you stake your position on moral basis, | 17:48 | |
but at the same time show the material needs | 17:51 | |
and how that fits into a higher vision | 17:54 | |
then it is possible to reach people from different sectors. | 17:57 | |
And I was also on the Founding National Executive Committee | 18:01 | |
of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, | 18:05 | |
which after a 20 year stuggle, | 18:08 | |
eventually took power of the union, | 18:09 | |
and then they won the UPS strike | 18:11 | |
and the government attacked them | 18:13 | |
and put Jimmy Hoffa back in. | 18:14 | |
So now we still have, we got Mayor Daley in Chicago | 18:16 | |
and we got Jimmy Hoffa in president of the Teamsters. | 18:20 | |
Man | Happy camp. | 18:22 |
- | Yeah, the same gang. | 18:23 |
But we have to pull these pieces together | 18:25 | |
and the only way it can do | 18:28 | |
is for each group to fight hard for their own position | 18:29 | |
but to realize a higher vision | 18:33 | |
that's gonna pull us together in the long run. | 18:34 | |
- | The name of this meeting was where do you stop and turn, | 18:43 |
and I think in this discussion, it has raised the, | 18:47 | |
what I consider to be the most central question, | 18:51 | |
which is the question of culturalism, | 18:55 | |
because what's happening to the black farmers | 18:58 | |
in North Carolina is happening to the white farmers | 19:00 | |
in northern Vermont, and the reasons, | 19:04 | |
aside from I'm not diminishing | 19:09 | |
the racist element | 19:14 | |
of what's happening here | 19:18 | |
because we know that within this society | 19:19 | |
that's always a defining characteristic of what's happening. | 19:22 | |
But even if that wasn't happening, | 19:27 | |
they would be facing | 19:30 | |
what my neighbors are facing now in Vermont | 19:33 | |
and they're facing in Vermont | 19:37 | |
what the dairy farmers are facing, | 19:40 | |
it's the same thing that the farmers | 19:43 | |
out in Wisconsin are facing, | 19:46 | |
that the small industrial workers are facing, | 19:48 | |
and their problems are tied | 19:54 | |
to the problems of access to education, | 19:59 | |
healthcare, and all those same questions in this country. | 20:04 | |
And I think that, I'm hoping, | 20:09 | |
I hope that what we're beginning to see, | 20:13 | |
as we begin to see the emergence | 20:16 | |
of target of things | 20:20 | |
like the WTO, et cetera, | 20:23 | |
is that we're beginning to understand | 20:26 | |
kind of the network, the web of how this society, | 20:30 | |
the overall society | 20:35 | |
ties together. | 20:40 | |
And I really second what Muriel says, | 20:41 | |
that in addition to our understanding, | 20:44 | |
need of understanding and analysis | 20:49 | |
of stuff on, in a community level, | 20:53 | |
that we also need to be developing | 20:56 | |
a larger entity, | 21:00 | |
whether we call it a political party | 21:03 | |
or just a progressive movement or whatever, | 21:05 | |
so that all these, | 21:08 | |
all these issues are linked together, | 21:11 | |
so you can say to those young people, Guyot, | 21:13 | |
it isn't just a question of go down, | 21:17 | |
learn why what's happening to these farmers, | 21:20 | |
look what's happening to you. | 21:23 | |
Our students have, our kids have come to accept | 21:27 | |
the fact that they have to pay | 21:31 | |
thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars | 21:33 | |
in order to get a education. | 21:37 | |
They've come to accept that they come out of college | 21:40 | |
only 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars, | 21:43 | |
which severely, severely limits what they can do, | 21:48 | |
and on the other side of that, | 21:54 | |
that's as related to what is the figure | 21:57 | |
of black men in prison? | 22:01 | |
Woman | About one in three. | 22:05 |
- | Yeah, right, okay. | 22:06 |
I mean, you know, | 22:08 | |
if we go, if we talk about these issues | 22:12 | |
we must be able to show people | 22:17 | |
that all these things are related. | 22:20 | |
If you're concerned about what the cost of tuition is | 22:24 | |
in your junior college | 22:28 | |
in Lyndonville, Vermont, | 22:31 | |
then you gotta look at what the resources are | 22:35 | |
of this country and where they are going. | 22:39 | |
And once you begin to do that, you begin to, | 22:43 | |
you cannot not see the prison system, | 22:47 | |
and where the resources, | 22:53 | |
the money is going into these prisons, | 22:55 | |
instead of going into the community needs. | 22:57 | |
And I think that we need | 23:01 | |
to begin to talk in a broader context | 23:03 | |
so that all these things are part of one | 23:07 | |
because the other side of the issue for the farmers | 23:13 | |
is the question of the environmental degradation. | 23:18 | |
Many of those farmers, just like my neighbors, | 23:22 | |
have been pouring poison onto their fields for years, | 23:25 | |
ya know, taking out these huge loans, | 23:30 | |
I mean there's nothing much different, | 23:33 | |
okay I'm going to wrap it up, | 23:35 | |
than the situation | 23:36 | |
that the third world countries are in, | 23:39 | |
having borrowed all this money and they're destitute, | 23:42 | |
and that is what has happened to the farms. | 23:46 | |
So to summarize, I just wanna say | 23:50 | |
I think that we need to be really thinking | 23:52 | |
in terms of a broader perspective, | 23:55 | |
which has a platform | 24:00 | |
that includes all these different aspects, | 24:02 | |
so we're not just talking every, | 24:05 | |
you talking about this one, | 24:08 | |
he's talking about this, and so forth. | 24:09 | |
- | You've run out of energy? | 24:19 |
Cappy, we have one more and then we can sum up. | 24:23 | |
Man | Actually I'll pass on to someone | 24:27 |
'cause it was just somethin' | 24:29 | |
more about the clarification of the congress. | 24:30 | |
- | Anybody wanna take any time, | 24:35 |
I know Charles just, I think he's in the hallway, | 24:37 | |
but anything about the weekend itself, | 24:40 | |
that people wanna pass on or whatever, I don't know. | 24:42 | |
Man | Can we talk about the Listserv | 24:46 |
that is going to be started? | 24:47 | |
- | From this weekend? | 24:51 |
Woman | We just announced last night. | 24:53 |
- | Yeah, I don't know enough about it. | 24:55 |
I think they took down names for the Listserv | 24:56 | |
and they also sayin' stuff will be put on the website | 25:01 | |
so I think between the two, if you signed up, | 25:03 | |
you oughta be able to get them. | 25:06 | |
- | I mean, the idea was brought about by Curtis Mohammed, | 25:08 |
and he wants to really have something tangible | 25:11 | |
coming out of this weekend that we can build on, | 25:13 | |
not just a reunion or reflection of 40 years ago, | 25:16 | |
but something we can work towards, | 25:19 | |
you know especially younger people, | 25:21 | |
like students and myself, | 25:22 | |
so we started this Listserv, | 25:24 | |
hopefully everyone's filled out | 25:27 | |
one of those profile sheets yesterday | 25:29 | |
that was passed around at the church, | 25:31 | |
and that's gonna be used to start this Listserv, | 25:33 | |
and we're gonna start this new networking | 25:36 | |
that we really need to do to keep this moving. | 25:38 | |
- | Well I'd like to focus on the comment, | 25:44 |
I think it was great I took off from work, | 25:45 | |
which I mean, at the best of work I usually bypass | 25:49 | |
but seein' the guys in jail I really feel like | 25:52 | |
I'm takin' something away they have so little. | 25:54 | |
But I knew that this was going to be an important period, | 25:57 | |
and I think that I was particularly cheery | 26:02 | |
to see so many young people because I'll tell you, | 26:06 | |
I go to meetings and I see quote-on-quote | 26:09 | |
radical women and men coming | 26:11 | |
but I've never seen them bring their children. | 26:13 | |
And I drag my kids to every place I go, | 26:15 | |
but I never see them bring their children | 26:18 | |
and I have seen many of radical parents | 26:20 | |
who has children who are reactionary | 26:22 | |
who are goin' out the other side of the door. | 26:25 | |
You know what I'm saying? | 26:27 | |
And so I'm glad to see this combinating happening, | 26:29 | |
'cause when numbers start moving | 26:33 | |
I know that all these problems that we have in this world | 26:35 | |
pretty much are person-made, I started to say man-made, | 26:39 | |
but they're person-made. | 26:42 | |
So it is possible for people to unmake them, | 26:44 | |
and let's start with that premise. | 26:47 | |
And I am assuming that many minds, | 26:50 | |
because I saw it in snack, | 26:52 | |
many minds, it was the greatest concentration | 26:54 | |
of brain thrust I have ever seen | 26:57 | |
and if I were on the Joint Chiefs of Staff | 27:00 | |
I would be fighting too. | 27:02 | |
(laughs) | 27:04 | |
But hopefully we can reconfigure it again, | 27:06 | |
because when people start thinkin' about how to win | 27:09 | |
and are intelligent, are learned, | 27:13 | |
are dedicated in commitment, | 27:16 | |
they can move a rock, they can move a mountain. | 27:18 | |
So I'm glad I was here. | 27:21 | |
Woman | So am I. | 27:23 |
- | And I wanna just say I'm glad I was here too | 27:26 |
and I know that, there's no question in my mind | 27:30 | |
that you're now gonna go home and forget | 27:34 | |
what happened here these last three or four days. | 27:35 | |
So start thinkin' about right now | 27:38 | |
what you're gonna take back | 27:40 | |
and what you're gonna do with it. | 27:41 | |
(assembly applauding) | 27:43 | |
Man | Thank you, thank you so much. | 27:51 |
(laughs) | 27:53 | |
- | Struggles, that people are in motion | 27:56 |
and they're consistently, | 27:59 | |
there are consistent arenas of fightback | 28:01 | |
that have not taken place in a long period of time, | 28:04 | |
and fightback in large numbers, | 28:07 | |
the sweatshop movement in the colleges, | 28:09 | |
the janitorial strike in Los Angeles, | 28:12 | |
so it is across the board and a multitude of areas. | 28:16 | |
And the question that was raised just previously | 28:22 | |
about the whole business around coalitions, | 28:25 | |
that is our only salvation. | 28:27 | |
We can, it is impossible, under today's conditions, | 28:29 | |
to go alone on a single issue and win. | 28:34 | |
It is, what is needed is unity of the people | 28:39 | |
on many issues and finding the common core. | 28:43 | |
With that introduction, | 28:50 | |
Lawrence, would you offer a proposal please. | 28:53 | |
- | I move that we, | 28:56 |
consistent with the purpose of this celebration | 28:58 | |
and consistent with the discussions | 29:01 | |
that we have individually and collectively held | 29:03 | |
that deal with the question of economic, | 29:05 | |
organizing around economic justice, | 29:07 | |
that we, in plenary session, | 29:10 | |
support a resolution that gives our unconditional support | 29:12 | |
to the demonstrations now being conducted | 29:18 | |
in the District of Columbia in opposition | 29:20 | |
to the World Trade Organization and its policies. | 29:22 | |
Audience | So move. | 29:26 |
- | I'll accept that as a friendly amendment. | 29:31 |
Woman | And I am now to be satisfied. | 29:35 |
I can, in turn, sorry, all in favor. | 29:37 | |
Audience | Aye. | 29:41 |
- | I don't know that we need a discussion, | 29:44 |
but if you wanna be democratic about this let's do it. | 29:45 | |
(laughs) | 29:48 | |
- | My trade union tradin' now. | 29:49 |
I'm just gonna say that, | 29:52 | |
you know I don't know how long we want it to be, | 29:53 | |
but that in supporting the brother's motion | 29:55 | |
that we empower one or two people | 29:58 | |
to draft up the statement and go with it. | 30:01 | |
Woman | I was gonna do that following the first movement. | 30:04 |
- | Okay, yeah. | 30:06 |
Man | Done, yes. | 30:07 |
- | Done. | 30:08 |
Let's, is there any more discussion? | 30:14 | |
Alright, the vote, | 30:19 | |
the question has been called, all in favor. | 30:21 | |
Audience | Aye. | 30:23 |
- | Opposed, extensions, so move. | 30:24 |
Alright now, can we get a couple people | 30:27 | |
to volunteer to draft this. | 30:29 | |
I don't that I am the best person to be one of those people. | 30:31 | |
Audience | Guyot. | 30:34 |
Woman | He's out of DC because that's where the action is. | 30:36 |
Guyot | I really would be improper for me to do it, | 30:41 |
I gotta be honest with you, | 30:44 | |
(assembly laughing) | 30:46 | |
I don't wanna accept responsibility and | 30:48 | |
- | Can I, excuse me, let me just ask a question | 30:50 |
on procedure here. | 30:54 | |
Was there not, is there not supposed to be | 30:57 | |
some sort of press release | 31:00 | |
concerning the whole-- | 31:05 | |
Man | No, let me say | 31:07 |
- | I'm asking. | |
Man | Let me say this. | 31:09 |
- | I'm asking a question, | |
Man | Let us show | 31:10 |
- | Don't get upset. | |
Man | That there is not. | 31:11 |
Let us show that there is and go out today. | 31:12 | |
We should vote to adopt a statement that can be released | 31:14 | |
as soon as possible, so let us, that's our responsibility. | 31:17 | |
Now you volunteered to work on this. | 31:21 | |
(assembly laughing) | 31:24 | |
These two gentlemen, | 31:30 | |
now whoever else wants to work with 'em. | 31:31 | |
Woman | I agree, I second that nomination of these two | 31:34 |
'cause we need to have somebody | 31:39 | |
that knows how to work those machines. | 31:40 | |
Man | Let's, we will leave them to the work. | 31:41 |
(people talking over each other) | 31:45 | |
- | What he's just been volunteered for. | 31:50 |
(laughs) | 31:54 | |
Hold on, hold on a minute. | 32:01 | |
- | We're still in session. | 32:04 |
We're still in session. | 32:06 | |
What we have the first, | 32:07 | |
we have the actual instrument | 32:08 | |
that at some point before the midnight hour | 32:10 | |
will materialize. | 32:12 | |
This body has not determined | 32:14 | |
where this instrument ought to go, | 32:15 | |
and I don't mean all of its ramifications, | 32:18 | |
but what is its prime aim, | 32:20 | |
I think we need to leave these people | 32:23 | |
with some kind of further direction here. | 32:24 | |
Man | It should be released to the press. | 32:27 |
- | Is it local? | 32:30 |
Man | All press available. | 32:31 |
- | Is there a mechanism though? | 32:33 |
Man | What I would suggest | 32:34 |
is that you have burdened my life | 32:36 | |
the next couple of hours with this thing, | 32:39 | |
is that we release it to the BRC lists, | 32:42 | |
to The Black World Today, and all the lists | 32:46 | |
that are associated with A16 activities. | 32:49 | |
Man | Okay, send it to them. | 32:53 |
Man | Send it to them. | 32:54 |
Woman | The fair trade networks, the fair trade networks. | 32:54 |
And once you get it one they'll put it on-- | 32:57 | |
Man | Yeah, that is purely consistent with our vote. | 32:59 |
- | Okay. | 33:02 |
Man | The big demo is today and tomorrow, | 33:03 |
there's one tomorrow. | 33:05 | |
Woman | Now that you've gotten | 33:06 |
all that shift disturbed you gonna leave. | 33:07 | |
(assembly laughing) | 33:09 | |
- | No but I think we oughta give him a hand | 33:11 |
for really puttin' this all together. | 33:14 | |
(assembly applauding) | 33:15 | |
(people talking amongst themselves) | 33:17 |