Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

As the prize of the presidency lurched wildly back and forth in the last days of the year, with the entire nation hypnotized by the spectacle, I had a vision. I saw the Titanic churning through the waters of the North Atlantic toward an iceberg looming in the distance, while passengers and crew were totally concentrated on a tennis game taking place on deck.
It is not just a phenomenon of this particular election. In our election-obsessed culture, everything else going on in the world – war, hunger, official brutality, sickness, the violence of everyday life for huge numbers of people – is swept out of the way, while the media insist we watch every twist and turn of what candidates say and do. Thus, the superficial crowds out the meaningful, and this is very useful for those who do not want citizens to look beneath the surface of the system. In the shadows, and hidden by the dueling of the candidates (if you can call it a duel when the opponents thrust and lunge with plastic swords) are real issues of race and class, war and peace, which the public is not supposed to think about, as the media experts pontificate endlessly about who is winning, and throw numbers in our faces like handfuls of sand.
For instance, as the Gore-Bush contest rose to a frenzy, the media kept referring C to the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876. The education that the public received about this was typical of what passes for history in our schools, our newspapers, our television sets. That is, they learned how the Founding Fathers, in writing the Constitution, gave the state legislators the power to choose Electors, who would then choose the President.

We were told how rival sets of electors were chosen in three states, and how Samuel Tilden, the Democrat, had 250,000 more popular votes than the Republican , Rutherford Hayes, and needed only one more electoral vote to win the Presidency. But when a special commission, with a bare Republican majority, was set up by Congress to decide the dispute, it gave all three states to Hayes and thus made him President.
This was very interesting and informative about the mechanics of presidential elections and the peculiar circumstances of that one . But it told us nothing about how that ACompromise of 1877@, worked out between Republicans and Democrats in private meetings, doomed blacks in the South to semi-slavery. It told us nothing about how the armies that once fought the Confederacy would be withdrawn from the South and sent West to drive Indians from their ancestral lands. It told us nothing about how Democrats and Republicans, while fencing with one another in election campaigns, would now join in subjecting working people all over the country to ruthless corporate power, how the United States army would be used to smash the great railroad strikes of 1877.

These were the facts of race and class and Western expansion concealed behind the disputed election of 1877. The pretense in disputed elections is that the great conflict is between the two major parties. The reality is that there is an unannounced war between those parties and large numbers of Americans who are represented by neither party.
The ferocity of the contest for the presidency in the current election conceals the agreement between both parties on fundamentals. Their heated disagreement is about who will preside over maintaining the status quo. Whoever wins, there may be skirmishes between the major parties, but no monumental battles, despite the inflated rhetoric of the campaign. The evidence for this statement lies in eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration, whose major legislative accomplishments were part of the Republican agenda.
Both Gore and Bush have been in agreement on the continued corporate control of the economy. Neither has had a plan for free national health care, for extensive low-cost housing, for dramatic changes in environmental controls, for a minimum income for all Americans, for a truly progressive income tax to diminish the huge gap between rich and poor. Both have supported the death penalty and the growth of prisons. Both believe in a large military establishment, in land mines and nuclear weapons and the cruel use of sanctions against the people of Cuba and Iraq. Both supported the wars against Panama, Iraq, and Yugoslavia.
Perhaps when the furor dies down over who really won the election, when the tennis match is over and we get over the disappointment that our guy (is he really our guy?) didn=t win, we will finally break the hypnotic spell of the game and look around. We may then think about whether the ship is going down and if there are enough lifeboats, and what should we do about all that.
This is not the Titanic. With us, there is still time to change.
By Howard Zinn

Part 1
I=d like to explain why I, a white American woman, ardently support reparations to African Americans. I believe that in permitting slavery, our country committed one of the longest-running and most heinous human rights crimes in all of history.

THE FIRST CRIME
For 246 years we robbed millions of enslaved African persons of the wealth their labor created. The wealth that was rightfully theirs which they should have been able to pass down to their descendants, went instead into our pockets to be passed down generation after generation to our heirs, doubling and tripling in value all the way. That is the root cause of the huge economic disparity between blacks and whites that exists in our country today.
We also committed indescribable mental, physical, and spiritual brutality against enslaved African persons in order to coerce them into submitting to our exploitation. We robbed them of their identity as a people as we stripped from them their mother tongues, their traditional religions and original cultures, and forced upon them instead European language, religion and culture. We destabilized their social structures, relations between men and women, the family, and did everything we could to break their spirit, set one against another, and demoralize them as human beings. The heart-wrenching, far-reaching results of this, too, are very much with us now.
THE SECOND CRIME
Then, far from apologizing and making restitution for what we=d done during the enslavement–including robbing millions upon millions of African persons of their very lives–we followed it up with another crime: institutionalized racism which is still alive and current in our country even now, 135 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This is because the mind-set slavery was based on–the belief that a person of African descent is less than a white person–has not changed centrally. Yes, laws have been passed that have forced people to refrain from some of the most flagrant racist practices that took place in the South under Jim Crow. For example, Black men no longer live in fear of being torn from their families in the middle of the night to be brutally lynched and their bodies mutilated. But, as every honest person will admit, there has been and still is a colossal amount of discrimination, both blatant and subtle, carried out violently or with a velvet glove, that permeates every aspect of American life–police profiling, in education and housing, in the job market and finance, as to medical care, in relation to the prison industrial complex, and much more–all causing tremendous suffering to African Americans, as well as making it just about impossible for most to achieve financial parity with whites.
What this all means is that there has been one long, unbroken line of economic exploitation and racial injustice (the two are inextricably related) that has lasted from 1619, when the first captive Africans were brought in chains to these shores, to the present. Therefore, I believe we owe trillions of dollars in reparations for the wrongs committed throughout that entire span of time, not just up to 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified, officially ending slavery. And reparations will have to be the real thing, not just a few token social programs put in place to make it appear as though we=re doing something serious when we=re really just dropping a few crumbs from our table.
Reparations will also have to include as a central feature the restoration of all human rights to the descendants of enslaved persons. They must have their identity as a people restored and recognized throughout the world with all the human rights attached to it.  This restoration of identity is crucial: any offer of reparations that does not include it is totally inadequate.

THE GOVERNMENT MUST PAY
I believe the chief entity that must be held responsible for reparations to African Americans is the United States government. If the government hadn=t authorized and supported it through law, the crime of plantation slavery wouldn=t have been able to be committed here in the first place. And the government profited enormously from slavery as it collected taxes from plantation owners on the money they made from unpaid enslaved labor. Huge amounts of money poured in on the cotton industry alone.

It is also my opinion that since emancipation, the US government has essentially done everything in its power to maintain white supremacy and to obstruct the empowerment of African Americans. Every step toward greater justice to Black persons has been extremely hard won, to put it mildly. They=ve had to take to the streets, shed their blood, launch boycotts, wage court battlesCliterally fight long and hard on every front to gain even the slightest progress towards receiving what should have been rightfully theirs in the first place.
HOW CAN
THE GOVERNMENT PAY?
For starters, our government could free up enough money to begin the reparations compensation process by reallocating tens of billions of dollars from the bloated military budget. Then, they could close up the tax loopholes for the rich and for giant corporations and vigorously collect the taxes, thus making tens of billions of additional dollars available. Next, they could do away with the corporate subsidies–the generous corporate welfare your and my tax dollars have been supporting–and use that money for reparations as well. In 1998 alone, our government gave $125 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to large corporations, and from now on this money could be collected and directed instead towards the needs of African Americans.
This is a mere fraction of the ways our government could start drawing together a sizable fund to begin reparations. I am sure many other ways will be found as well.

PRIVATE COMPANIES EXAMINED
Private estates, companies and industries which profited most from the unpaid labor of enslaved Africans should also be identified, and arrangements made wherever possible to collect restitution from them. This inquiry would take place within our borders and also reach far beyond, for there are many foreign companies–as well as governments of nations such as Portugal, Spain, England, and France–which participated in and benefitted enormously from the European slave trade.
This includes not only profits made directly from the actual trading in enslaved persons, but indirectly from all that enslaved labor created. Many early American industries were based on the cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, and other products their labor produced. Railroads and shipping companies, the banking industry, and many other businesses made huge profits from the commerce generated by the output of enslaved labor as well.
Part 2
Continuing with the crucial subject of how the trillions of dollars owned in reparations to African Americans could be amassed, I am sure that once people start looking, numerous industries that profited from the enslavement will be uncovered–the insurance industry, for instance. Attorney Deadria Farmer-Paellman has researched Aetna Inc., the number one United States life and health insurer, and discovered that the profits Aetna made from their early policies taken out by owners on the lives of the enslaved formed the base for Aetna later to become a multibillion dollar corporation. She writes that these life insurance policies, issued in the 1850=s, Awere one of the first lines of business underwritten by the Hartford, Connecticut-based insurer, which now has 47 million customers worldwide and annual revenues of $26 billion.@ And she states, AThey have a moral obligation to apologize and share that wealth with the heirs of the Africans they helped maintain in slavery.@
Attorney Farmer-Paellman indicates, too, that her investigation has identified at least forty other US corporations which benefitted and are still benefitting from their unjust practices during slavery.
I believe the British firm, Lloyds of London, should be looked at, too, for they also got their start and made an absolute fortune insuring slave ships. Then, of course, it would be pretty easy to find out what companies specialized in building ships specifically designed for this barbaric trade in Ahuman cargo@ and go after reparations from them as well. The possibilities of holding businesses accountable are endless.

REPARATIONS AND
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
In keeping with its recent apology for the injustices it has committed, I earnestly believe that the Catholic Church should be asked to pay reparations for their part in the slave trade. Writes Molefi Asante, the noted Afrocentric scholar and professor of African American Studies at Temple University:
ASo profitable was the European slave trade that the Roman Catholic Church entered the business as a grantor of commercial privilege to prevent Christian nations from engaging in fratricidal wars of access to the African Coast. Usually the Pope signed an agreement with a slaving nation which insured that nation=s right to a specific region of Africa. A fee was paid to the church for that asiento. Since no European nation exercised complete hegemony over others, the Church became–and remained for several hundred years–the primary moral sanctioner for the brutal institution of slave trading.@

The Catholic Church was paid about $25 for each captured African, and in addition to paying (with interest) into a reparations fund, the millions they made in this way, it could be considered whether they–who ought to have been leading the fight against such atrocities instead of leading its organization–should pay even more in penance for the shocking immorality of their actions.
COMPANIES PROFITING NOW
Along with the companies and industries that should be targeted for reparations because of the profits they made from slavery, there are additional corporations which I believe should have to pay because of the massive revenues they=ve reaped from the financial straits many African Americans are in now as a result of slavery. In other words, the ongoing misfortune of millions of African Americans has been their tremendous good fortune, and therefore, they should become major contributors to reparations.
For example, taken together companies such as McDonald=s, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Wendy=s–and their stockholders–have made billions of dollars from the economic difficulty that many African Americans have found themselves in as a long-range result of slavery. This economic hardship has enabled these companies to employ (some say exploit) young African Americans at disgracefully low wages while also selling their inexpensive products to the African American community–often to the detriment of their health–because persons couldn=t afford to eat at higher-priced restaurants.
As a beginning form of reparations, I would also like to see every big corporation doing business in African American communities–such as Disney, Starbucks, Old Navy, and Blockbuster Video which recently opened large stores in Harlem–required to develop partnerships with the communities so they actually do what they profess to do: put as much into the community as they take out. Though they claim to serve the community by creating badly needed jobs, in truth they don=t provide that many, and the jobs they do provide usually pay very little. It=s a sheer case of throwing around a few pennies to disguise the fact that they=re carting out big dollars–dollars that should be staying with the black-owned establishments they=re displacing. This hemorrhaging should be stopped through something in the field of reparations.

 THE EFFORT TO BRING ABOUT REPARATIONS
As a person who benefits daily in more ways than I even know from the iniquity of slavery and from the ensuing white privilege that continues to rule our nation today, I will always feel ashamed until the horrendous crime committed by my people has been redressed. I am more grateful than I can say to every person who began working as early as the mid 1860s to bring this about as well as to all those who continue the effort so persistently now.
There is, for example, the late Queen Mother Audley Moore, the great pioneer for human rights and mother of the modern reparations movement, who began her work for reparations in 1968.
There is Dr. Imari A. Obadele who, in 1987, called for the creation of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America–N=COBRA. Co Chaired by Dorothy Lewis and Hannibal Afrik, this important organization continues to grow in strength and number with every year.
There is John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who, in 1989 introduced for the first time his H.R. 40 bill ACommission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.@ He continues to reintroduce this bill in every legislative session since.
And there is the Honorable Silis Muhammad, human rights and political leader as well as leader of the Lost and Found Nation of Islam. He began researching international human rights law in the late 1980s in order to deliver a reparations petition to the UN in 1994. In 1998 he began traveling regularly to Geneva, Switzerland to intervene before the human rights bodies on behalf of African Americans as a People.
And I am very glad to hear that plans are being laid by the Reparations Assessment Group, a powerful assemblage of civil rights and class-action lawyers headed by Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree, to seek reparations in the US courts.
I say let the thought about reparations to African Americans go as far and wide as the crime itself. It will help cleanse America!
You can contact Marie Roberts at mrobertsusa@yahoo.com.

OTP:  You=re a 27-year veteran of the Assembly.  Why would you give up that kind of seniority for a freshman seat on the city council? 
Al Vann:  Because of my long-range view of what=s best for the community, not what is in the best interest of Al Vann.  I think Annette Robinson has shown great leadership as an elected official and community leader.  I would not like for her leadership to be lost because of term limits.  We have a strategy, not a backroom strategy, but a strategy that must be approved by the voters.  That if successful, will allow her to be in leadership in Albany in the Assembly, and for me to serve in the City Council.    Thereby this community can retain its leadership.
Being a freshman councilman does not disturb me.  Because there will be 35 members of the council who will be Afreshmen@.  Indeed the majority will be freshmen.  I will not be a fresh person, I=ll be a new Councilman.  I have 27 years of elected experience, which I think will be very valuable in what will be brought together next year.  I don=t see it as giving up anything, if your view is how can you serve you community and not just yourself.  So I disagree with those who use that as a reason why I should not run.
OTP:  People in the community are asking about the kinds of things the City Council concerns itself with.  They ask about gentrification and Co-oping of public housing.   Gentrification first.  How can we keep our black folks in these areas?
AV:  well my focus has been on my work as a State Assemblyman in the state legislature.  I have not tried to be a City Councilman up till now, but I would say this.  From what I know of the City Council and what the charter actually provided for is for the council to be co-partners with the mayor.   So there is a lot of power within the City Council that I believe has not been used.  I think the city council can be the legislative body for the city.  And I think almost co-equal to the mayor.   So a lot of the issues that we feel may not have been addressed to the benefit of the people, can be addressed by a very active and very viable City Council. 
OTP:  Speaking about the Assembly for a moment, how did you vote on the repeal of the commuter tax?
AV:  I wasn=t there when the commuter tax came up.  I was in West Africa, Ghana at the African, African-American summit.  I was flabbergasted that it actually passed.  I knew it was going to be an issue, I had no idea it was going to be fast-balled.  I thought it would be something discussed over a period of time, and as I say, I was flabbergasted that it passed.  I would have vote against it. 
OTP:  Clarence Norman had voted for it and when I had asked him about it he said it was for reasons of collegiality with upstate legislators, but it was $360 million of collegiality.    That=s one vote and $360 million lost.  What kinds of income streams do you deal with?  As Chairman of the CorporationsCC CC Committee, what role do you play in bring money into the community? 
AV:  The committee that I chair has authority over the public authority commissions.  Obviously the public authorities get most They do most of the financing for the construction of major projects from bonding, but we do have some jurisdiction in how they function.   What my role has been is to sensitize and even demand that WMBE=s get a fair share of the contracts.
OTP:  WMBE?
AV:  Women and Minority Business Enterprises.  If there is a mark I have made as chair of the committee, I think that would be it.  Whether it is the School Construction Authority, the Dormitory Authority, the Port Authority or the MTA, that has been the thrust of what I have done from the position that I hold.  As matter of fact we have recently completed a survey, and will be putting out a report card in the next few weeks on how well they have done in the last few years in awarding contracts to women and minority businesses.  People will be able to see how well they have done or not done.
OTP:  While you=ve been in Albany, you=ve brought in millions of dollars for social agencies in the community.    One of the criticisms is that the kinds of institutions that are built are dependent upon funding from the state, as opposed to independent businesses.  How do you fund institutions that are independent corporate entities?  Supermarkets, that kind of thing.
AV:  If I understand your question correctly, you can lead a horse to water, but you can=t make him drink.  What do you expect one legislator to do?  We bring in resources that our community can benefit from.   Some of it is directly, some is indirectly.  You try and create an environment and atmosphere where people will choose to go into business, but you can=t make people to go into business.  

Economic development has a lot of definitions and interpretations.   Different people have different frames of reference.  I like to think that all of the efforts we have made to maintain institutions and organizations, is economic development.   The fact that I created for the first time in this state, foster care/adoption programs for African American and Latino agencies in this city and state that never existed before.  Those are multimillion dollar programs.   They employ thousands of people.  That=s economic development.  The fact that I was able to maintain Interfaith Hospital for instance.  The fact that I brought in the Bishop Hugley=s Nursing Home on Herkimer between Buffalo and Rochester among others.  This is economic development.  Not just in terms of providing jobs for people, but also at the same time providing quality service for local people working in those institutions.  Those are a few examples.  Bedford-Stuyvesant particularly does not lend itself to certain kinds of economic development.   It is basically a residential community.  The economic development has to take various forms.  We need to further develop our economic strips, and there is some progress being made along those lines.  But unfortunately we don=t own that real estate.  Through the years we were not as aggressive in ownership as we should have been.   So now we are dealing with people who own it and our people are coming in and leasing the space and going into business.   That=s what you do until you own, but we=re at a tremendous disadvantage.  What I advocated years ago, after we had the incident with the Koreans on Nostrand and Fulton, we established the Bedford Stuyvesant Community Trust.  We set in motion an ability to organize the businesses on Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue.  In fact we also organized the Koreans, but that was not our intent.   But they came together in order to respond to our organization.   They probably stayed together.  Basic to that Trust was to have all the businesses support a trust that would use resources to provide technical assistance to Black and Latino small businesses.  To set up a training program for young people who wanted to go into business.  To create a program, say at Boys & Girls High School and others to begin to bring awareness to young people that you don=t have to just aspire for a job.
OTP:  You were trying to show the horse that he was in fact thirsty.
AV: That=s right.  You don=t have to want to be a cop, you don=t have to want to be a teacher.  You can go into business.  This is what America=s all about.  We set it in motion, but it really wasn=t carried through with the people who were involved.  This is often the case.  We respond to various community needs, but if the people themselves don=t carry these things forward, you can=t expect elected officials to do everything.  Expect them to create the program, make it happen, and then run it.   There is the need to generate more leadership from our community who understand that there is only so much that can happen from the top.  There is a dependency with people expecting everything to happen from government.  But there are things that happen because it comes from the community.    If I go to the City Council, whether I be the Speaker or not, I will work to advance programs and policy concepts that will enhance a bottom-up strategy for the development of services, be it economic or social services.  There has to be a coming together of community organizations.   There is a prototype.  I founded the Bed-Stuy Community Conference, years ago.  It was an advanced concept at the time.  We realized that we could no longer allow each individual community-based  organization to continue to function just on their narrow base.  We had to come together and coalition in some way.  Plan together, strategize together, go after resources together and eliminate a lot of the duplication of services.  We did that for a number of years without any funding.  It was very effective.  Child care and educational organizations would meet and plan.  The economic development groups, the housing groups, foster care groups, it worked very well when we had no money. 
I was instrumental in neighborhood-based initiatives coming into being from the state side with governor Cuomo and others.  We were probably the first NBI, Neighborhood Based Initiative, to get funded, because we already had a model in place.   So money started to flow, we started funding the groups.  You would think, if they had stayed together, there would be a multi-million dollar agency in Bed-Stuy, dealing with a community=s concept of how we can represent our people, provide services for our people, and work toward self sufficiency. 
OTP:  What happened?
AV:  Money has a way corrupting in terms of taking us off our mission.  We=re not different than anyone else other than we can=t be like everyone else.   We have to be different.  Because we=re black people.  We have all these other things working against us.   We need to be true to our mission and true to our model.  It worked well.  When NBI was de-funded, when Cuomo went out and Pataki came in, he no longer carried out those initiatives and the money dried up.  We were not creative enough and strong enough to keep our thing going in other kinds of ways, until additional revenues came into play.   There are some things that are still standing from that, but the basic structure no longer exists, although there are some committees that continue to function.
OTP:  But the groups no longer coalesce?

AV:  Exactly, but we=re going to have to do that again, and I will bring into being something similar from a city-wide perspective.   Because I think the community has to be organized that way, in order to survive.  In order to make progress.  We can=t afford to have all these groups.  Everybody=s merging, the big guys are buying out each, merging, acquiring.  If they have to function that way on that level, what is that telling us on how we have to function.  It=s just common sense.  I see from a city policy a way of providing incentives and direction to make sure that happens. There has to be a bottom up strategy, and that=s going to be the major policy initiative that I will advocate, either as a member or as a Speaker. 
OTP:  As I was preparing to come and see you I spoke with my mother-in-law Janie Green, who you knew as an activist in her day, and she thinks a lot of you.
AV:  And we haven=t always agreed.
OTP:  And a lot of other people hold you in high regard.   Now we have Stan Kinard, the young man running for the City Council, he has his new ideas.  He=s new leadership coming from the community.  The voters voted for term limits.  Now this switch that you are doing, isn=t that counter to that? 
AV:  I don=t think so.   First of all, I disagree with term limits, but it=s the law right now.  What they=ve said is as a City Council person, you can only serve two consecutive terms.  So theoretically, if I do nothing, Annette Robinson obviously cannot run again, but after her term, she can come back and run again.  That=s what the law states.  The fact that I put myself in a term-limited situation, I=m not reversing term-limit, though I would like to do that, she will no longer be able to serve as a City Council person.  I will serve as a Council person.  I will be term-limited and I=m not sure what problems they have with that.   This is not a secret deal.  This is a political strategy that we are courageous enough and bold enough to say we think this is a way that our community can have our leadership, if you think it=s good, to continue into the future for a while.  Not indefinitely because I will be term-limited, she will not.  I don=t intend to be in office forever.  I don=t intend to die in office but that=s beyond me, that=s up to God Almighty.   And for those who say they want to bring new vision, being 50 years or older, and bringing new vision, I would have to say, AWhat have you done?@  Anyone can have ideas.  If I=m a candidate, and I=m over fifty years old, I don=t want you just bringing new vision, show me what you=ve done, and I will have more respect for you.  Rather than to criticize those who have been out here doing things. And my political judgment has been good so far and I think the people will probably go with my judgment, because it=s based on my dedication to the community.
OTP:  One of the things I was struck with, as I looked at your background and Stan=s is the similarity between you two.  The activist background the aggressiveness the intelligence, it seems like there is a natural kinship.  How does that work with politicians?  After speaking with you separately, it seems like you guys have a natural match.  How do you make room for new leadership that has to come along behind you?

AV:  Stan has been trying to make a way.  He ran against Frank Boyland and his new vision didn=t work there.  He ran against councilperson Tracy Boyland, and his new vision didn=t work there.  He=s become a perennial and now he=s running over here, and of course he=s free to do that, it=s a democratic society.  More important that new leadership is effective leadership.  People don=t throw out something that works, just because it=s been around.  It=s counter to our African tradition and our respect for elders.  The most important thing is that you have leadership that=s working for you.  When someone comes along Anew@, it means they must offer something better that will benefit the people.   Not because it=s new, or because it=s young.  I=m not impressed when someone says they want new leadership.  Show new leadership, don=t just talk about it.  You mentioned perhaps the similarity that may exist between Stan Kinard and myself, and I think there=s a lot, being black, being conscious of our roots and being true to them.  Where we may differ, when I was a young man, I did not make my reputation because I was a teacher.   I made my reputation because of the other things that I did, other than what I got paid for.  I didn=t get paid to organize the African American Teacher=s Association.  I didn=t get paid to be involved in the community in negotiating for Medgar Evers College and bringing that into the community.  I didn=t get paid for serving on the board of the Bed Stuy antipoverty organizations, or Bed-Stuy Restoration corporation.  Or organizing parents when they were afraid to come into the schools, when we called ourselves Negroes and so forth.   Teaching was what I got paid to do, but because I lived in this community, was born in this community, saw that there were needs and problems, and I got involved in them beyond my A9-to-5@.  So I=m not impressed with people who because they work in the community feel that somehow they=re showing their dedication, love and commitment.  They=re getting paid.  Show me what you do beyond that.   Then I think people will have a little more respect and you=ll gain more support and be able to do the things that you want to do.   I did not come into politics because I wanted to be an Assemblyman.   I was involved in trying to make a difference in the community.  People came to me and said we think we know what you=re trying to do.  You can do it better if you are an elected official.  I was not geared toward electoral politics.  I was a community activist.   I weighed that and looked at that, and said I=d try it.  And if we can do things better and make more changes, why not.   I challenged Cal Williams and the first time I challenged him, I did not win.   I did not run in the primary, I ran on the Vannguard Line in the general election and got two thousand votes.   People said if you could get two thousand votes in the general election, you should run in the Primary, you=d probably win, and in 1974, that=s what I did.  I ran and I won and the rest is history. 
But I didn=t just sit back and look at people and say I want to be an elected official.    I was doing things in the community, that=s my criteria.  Stan Kinard, he has come to me at different times and I=ve tried to help him with his situation, high school, this that and the other.  At no point did he say, AThere are things that I think you can do better, there are some issues I think you need to address, let me work with you to do this, that and the other.@  I can respect that, if he came in that way.  But when you come and say, AI=m going to challenge you because I have some new vision.@  I say fine.  Take it to the people, and if they agree with you, no animosity.    Certain people I expect a little bit more from, because you come from an Afrocentric base.   At least that=s what you express in your rhetoric.  People who have a common bond because of our history should approach things differently.   You may come and say, AI=m going to run,@ and call that respect, but I want you to respect all that I=ve tried to be about in this community for all these years.  I don=t think that I warrant you just coming in and running against me.  Although I don=t fear that at all, and you have the right to do that.  People will speak.  But If you respect the role I=ve tried to play, struggling in this community all these years, I think it would warrant a different kind of response.  But that=s just one man=s opinion.
OTP:  What about the other races, for Mayor, District Attorney, do you have folks you are supporting yet?
AV:  City-wide we will be supporting Norman Siegel for Public Advocate, and Willy Thompson for the Comptroller.  I will not yet endorse a mayoral candidate.   I=ve just endorsed Jeannette Gadson for Borough President. State Committeeman Annette Robinson.  The County leader is going with DA Hynes, we will probably go with that, although I understand that the young woman who was going to run against me, now is running for DA.
OTP:  Sandra Roper.
AV:  She has not asked for my support, and we will probably be committed to go with the County leader and Hynes in any event.  But she never asked.  That=s not a wise strategy on her part. 
OTP:  You=ve grown up in this community.
AV:  Born and raised.   
OTP:  There have been a lot of changes, and one of them, is that there are a lot more different members of the African Diaspora here now.  How do we relate to them better?  I found myself recently speaking to one of the vendors and noting that he was from Africa, without saying which country and it was a lack of awareness on my part.  How do we relate better to the members of the Diaspora be they from Africa or the Caribbean?
AV:  Most people look for immediate, short-range solutions to problems which usually do not work.  Coming together as a community is an ongoing process and has to come from the base.  The people who make up the community from their block associations or tenant associations, retail associations, it is these organizations and organs which reflect the diversity of the people that have to interact and appreciate what each other brings to the table, and identify a commonality.   People being together is not necessarily a community.  If we don=t understand that we have things in common, a common destiny, our children will suffer the consequences.  For instance let=s take schools.  What I find I,s beyond the fact of the parents not being involved in the schools, people in the community have to understand they have stake in the public schools.   They think AUnless I have a child or a grandchild going to that school, then I don=t have to be concerned about what=s happening.@  That=s ridiculous.  Our schools should have involvement from parents and Grand parents, and from community-based organizations who understand that we have to make those schools work.  We have to bring experience expertise and technical assistance in strengthening the community=s role in that school.   If it means leadership training for the parents, whatever we bring to make sure those schools work.  The children are from our community and they will affect us, property, the future.  There is a whole mindset we have to effect in how we begin to deal with each other, whether it=s on the block level the precinct council, all of the organizations that affect the community, we have to make sure there is a common understanding.  It=s all a reflection of our mindset.  What we=ve experienced uniquely as an African People.   The slave mentality, all of the things that have occurred that cause us to think as we do towards ourselves, and how we react to others.  There has to be a cultural/spiritual element that is very strong in our community.  Because as my grandmother used to say, you can be an educated fool.  School alone is not the answer.  We have a lot a black people who have a lot of money  a lot of degrees and they are a part of the problem because they lack their connection to us because they don=t understand their culture, they don=t understand the creator, they don=t understand their responsibility, and how they got where they are.  Because if they did they=d be much further ahead.  One of the problems in the black community is lack of leadership.  Those who have the leadership skills moved out and made no ladder.  No connections coming back.  In many cases they=ve left their momma back here.  We must always build in the cultural/spiritual connection. 

OTP:  Amos Wilson spoke of how the more MBA=s we have, the fewer black businesses there are in our communities.  As I look as these corner bodegas, I see businesses that gross $40-70,000 a week, and the people supporting them with their dollars complain they have no money.    How do we change that?
AV:  I have been well aware of the problem.  I think that in times past, and even now, we don=t control the education system.  We have been educated away from what we should be about.  We=ve been educated into being a job seeker, instead of owning businesses.  That was not always true in Bed-Stuy.  When I grew up in Bed-Stuy, Fulton Street had black-owned businesses.  Mrs. Warren had a grocery store, you had Tip-Top, we had the pool hall, we had Butler Florist, Little Grey shop Restaurant, a bakery.  We had black-owned businesses,  we were developing our own economy, spending money with our own people.  They spent money with their own people.  That=s what economy is all about.   But their children got educated away from business.  Become a postman, social worker, teacher, or whatever, we=re making progress.  And it was progress to some extent, there had been limits to what black people could do.  There weren=t many things that were open to us.  But fundamental to America is to do business.  And we had businesses that we did not continue and grow because we were told we needed to be something else.  We have been educated away from the basic foundation of a capitalistic society, which is doing business.  So we have to re-educate our people to understand, you need to be a business person. Those of us who have that inclination, skill and ability.  Some of us need to be teachers, doctors and lawyers.  But some of us need to be in business and not think that it=s something inappropriate.  That=s one of the things I attempted to do early on, when I originally set up the Bed-Stuy Community Trust.  It was a recognition early on that we need to make young people aware of what business is all about.  What America is all about.  And that you can be independent.  You can be an owner.  Not somebody that=s looking for a job.  You can provide jobs.  It=s that kind of orientation and mindset that we have to strengthen and provide incentives for and provide direction for, which is not now being given. 
OTP:  is there anything you=d like to add?
AV:  Just to elaborate on what I=m attempting to do, cause I want it to be very clear.  First of all, the people will decide if it is a good strategy or not.  They will vote for me to go to the City Council or they will not.  If they do, it means they approve.  If I=m elected, they will vote for Annette or someone to fill my seat in the Assembly.  For people to say this is somehow a backroom deal, or this flies in the face of the public will, I question that.  First of all, most black people did not vote for term limits.  When you analyze the vote that came out, those who did vote for term limits, the majority of the vote for term limits was in the white community, not the black community.  That=s number one.  You cannot say black people believe in term limits.  You can say it=s the law in New York City, and that most people in New York City who voted, voted for it.  But you can=t say most black people voted for it.  That=s number 2.  but the most important thing is that my political judgment that I=ve been making over time,  few people will say that I have not acted in the best interest of the community.  To now say that the judgment or decision I=ve just made, now I=m not always right, but to think that it=s not in the best interest of the community against what I have been about.  You may disagree with it, but it=s Al Vann=s decision of what I think best represents and protects this community, good leadership.  I wouldn=t even leave the Assembly if there were somebody that I knew that I felt good about who could provide the kind of leadership that I know Annette Robinson is capable of providing and has demonstrated she can provide.  I=m very comfortable in the assembly.   I=ve done things and there are some more things I probably could do.  I=m a known quantity there.  I like to think I=m respected there.  But having said that, if I leave the Assembly and come to the Council, I don=t lose my relationships.  I still know people in State.  And should we be fortunate enough and God Bless us, and Carl McCall gets elected governor, I don=t lose my relationship and friendship with Carl McCall, because he=s governor, and I=m on the City Council.  And should I be fortunate enough to be Speaker of the Council, it only strengthens what this community and this City can get from the empowerment that would represent.  So I don=t know what the problem is.  You can disagree with me, and you can offer a different vision, you can offer a different alternative for people, but your coming into being should not be based on your criticism of me, but what you present.  Not on what I haven=t done.  I=m only one person.
 Speaks His Mind

Q:  I=m not a lawyer and I don=t understand the recent Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore.  Can you explain it to me?
 A:  Sure.  I=m a lawyer.  I read it.  It says Bush wins, even if Gore got the most votes.
 Q:  But wait a second.  The US Supreme Court has to give a reason, right?
 A:  Right.
 Q:  So Bush wins because hand-counts are illegal?
 A:  Oh no.  Six of the justices (two-thirds majority) believed the hand-counts were legal and should be done.
 Q:  Oh.  So the justices did not believe that the hand-counts would find any legal ballots?
 A.  Nope.  The five conservative justices clearly held (and all nine justices agreed) Athat punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the voter.@  So there are legal votes that should be counted but can=t be.
 Q:  Oh.  Does this have something to do with states= rights?  Don=t conservatives love that?
 A:  Generally yes.  These five justices, in the past few years, have held that the federal government has no business telling a sovereign state university it can=t steal trade secrets just because such stealing is prohibited by law. Nor does the federal government have any business telling a state that it should bar guns in schools.  Nor can the federal government use the equal protection clause to force states to take measures to stop violence against women.
 Q:  Is there an exception in this case?
 A:  Yes, the Gore exception.  States have no rights to have their own state elections when it can result in Gore being elected President.  This decision is limited to only this situation.
 Q:  C=mon.  The Supremes didn=t really say that.  You=re exaggerating.
 A:  Nope.  They held AOur consideration is limited to the present circumstances, or the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.@
 Q:  What complexities?
 A:  They don=t say.
 Q:  I=ll bet I know the reason.  I heard Jim Baker say this.  The votes can=t be counted because the Florida Supreme Court Achanged the rules of the election after it was held.@  Right?
 A.  Dead wrong. The US Supreme Court made clear that the Florida Supreme
Court did not change the rules of the election.  But the US Supreme Court found the failure of the Florida Court to change the rules was wrong.
 Q:  Huh?
 A:  The Legislature declared that the only legal standard for counting vote is Aclear intent of the voter.@  The Florida Court was condemned for not adopting a clearer standard.
 Q:  I thought the Florida Court was not allowed to change the Legislature=s
law after the election.
 A:  Right.
 Q:  So what=s the problem?
 A:  They should have.  The US Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme
Court should have Aadopt[ed] adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote@

 Q:  I thought only the Legislature could Aadopt@ new law.
 A:  Right.
 Q:  So if the Court had adopted new standards, I thought it would have been overturned.
 A:  Right.  You=re catching on.
 Q:  If the Court had adopted new standards, it would have been overturned
for changing the rules. And if it didn=t, it=s overturned for not changing the rules.  That means that no matter what the Florida Supreme Court did, legal votes could never be counted.
 A:  Right.  Next question.

 Q:  Wait, wait.  I thought the problem was Aequal protection,@ that some counties counted votes differently from others.  Isn=t that a problem?
 A:  It sure is.  Across the nation, we vote in a hodgepodge of systems.
Some, like the optical-scanners in largely Republican-leaning counties record 99.7% of the votes.  Some, like the punchcard systems in largely Democratic-leaning counties record only 97% of the votes.  So approximately 3% of Democratic votes are thrown in the trash can.
 Q:  Aha!  That=s a severe equal-protection problem!!!
 A:  No it=s not.  The Supreme Court wasn=t worried about the 3% of Democratic ballots thrown in the trashcan in Florida.  That Acomplexity@ was not a problem.
 Q:  Was it the butterfly ballots that violated Florida law and tricked more than 20,000 Democrats to vote for Buchanan or Gore and Buchanan.
 A:  Nope.  The Supreme Court has no problem believing that Buchanan got his highest, best support in a precinct consisting of a Jewish old age home with Holocaust survivors, who apparently have changed their mind about Hitler.
 Q:  Yikes.  So what was the serious equal protection problem?
 A:  The problem was neither the butterfly ballot nor the 3% of Democrats (largely African-American) disenfranchised.  The problem is that somewhat less than .005% of the ballots may have been determined under slightly different standards because judges sworn to uphold the law and doing their best to accomplish the legislative mandate of Aclear intent of the voter@ may have a slightly different opinion about the voter=s intent.
 Q:  Hmmm.  OK, so if those votes are thrown out, you can still count the votes where everyone agrees the voter=s intent is clear?
 A:  Nope.
 Q:  Why not?
 A:  No time.
 Q:  No time to count legal votes where everyone, even Republicans, agree the intent is clear?  Why not?
 A:  Because December 12 was yesterday.
 Q:  Is December 12 a deadline for counting votes?
 A:  No.  January 6 is the deadline.  In 1960, Hawaii=s votes weren=t counted until January 4.
 Q:  So why is December 12 important?
 A:  December 12 is a deadline by which Congress can=t challenge the results.
 Q:  What does the Congressional role have to do with the Supreme Court?
 A:  Nothing.
 Q:  But I thought C
 A:  The Florida Supreme Court had earlier held it would like to complete
its work by December 12 to make things easier for Congress.  The United States Supreme Court is trying to help the Florida Supreme Court out by forcing the Florida court to abide by a deadline that everyone agrees is not binding.
 Q:  But I thought the Florida Court was going to just barely have the votes counted by December 12.
 A:  They would have made it, but the five conservative justices stopped the recount last Saturday.
 Q:  Why?
 A:  Justice Scalia said some of the counts may not be legal.
 Q:  So why not separate the votes into piles, indentations for Gore, hanging
chads for Bush, votes that everyone agrees went to one candidate or the other so that we know exactly how Florida voted before determining who won? Then, if some ballots (say, indentations) have to be thrown out, the American people will know right away who won Florida.
 A.  Great idea!  The US Supreme Court rejected it.  They held that such counts would likely to produce election results showing Gore won and Gore=s winning would cause Apublic acceptance@ and that would Acast[ a cloud@ over Bush=s Alegitimacy@ that would harm Ademocratic stability.@
 Q:  In other words, if America knows the truth that Gore won, they won=t accept the US Supreme Court overturning Gore=s victory?
 A:  Yes.
 Q:  Is that a legal reason to stop recounts? or a political one?
 A:  Let=s just say in all of American history and all of American law, this reason has no basis in law.  But that doesn=t stop the five conservatives from creating new law out of thin air.
 Q:  Aren=t these conservative justices against judicial activism?

 A:  Yes, when liberal judges are perceived to have done it.
 Q:  Well, if the December 12 deadline is not binding, why not count the votes?
 A:  The US Supreme Court, after admitting the December 12 deadline is not binding, set December 12 as a binding deadline at 10 p.m. on December 12.
 Q:  Didn=t the US Supreme Court condemn the Florida Supreme Court for arbitrarily setting a deadline?
 A:  Yes.
 Q:  But, but C
 A:  Not to worry.  The US Supreme Court does not have to follow laws it sets for other courts.
 Q:  So who caused Florida to miss the December 12 deadline?
 A:  The Bush lawyers who first went to court to stop the recount, the mob in Miami that got paid Florida vacations for intimidating officials, and the US Supreme Court for stopping the recount.
 Q:  So who is punished for this behavior?
 A:  Gore, of course.
 Q:  Tell me this: Florida=s laws are unconstitutional, right?
 A:  Yes
 Q:  And the laws of 50 states that allow votes to be cast or counted differently are unconstitutional?
 A:  Yes.  And 33 of those states have the Aclear intent of the voter@ standard that the US Supreme Court found was illegal in Florida.
 Q:  Then why aren=t the results of 33 states thrown out?
 A:  Um.  Because…um…..the Supreme Court doesn=t say…
 Q:  But if Florida=s certification includes counts expressly declared by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, we don=t know who really won the election there, right?
 A:  Right.  Though a careful analysis by the Miami Herald shows Gore won Florida by about 20,000 votes (excluding the butterfly ballot errors).
 Q:  So, what do we do, have a re-vote?  Throw out the entire state? Count all ballots under a single uniform standard?
 A:  No.  We just don=t count the votes that favor Gore.
 Q:  That=s completely bizarre!  That sounds like rank political favoritism! Did the justices have any financial interest in the case?
 A:  Scalia=s two sons are both lawyers working for Bush.  Thomas=s wife is collecting applications for people who want to work in the Bush administration.
 Q:  Why didn=t they recuse themselves?
 A:  If either had recused himself, the vote would be 4-4, and the Florida Supreme Court decision allowing recounts would have been affirmed.
 Q:  I can=t believe the justices acted in such a blatantly political way.
 A:  Read the opinions for yourself:
 http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/00-949_dec12.fdf
(December 9 stay stopping the recount), and  http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/00-949.pdf  (December 12 final opinion)
 Q:  So what are the consequences of this?
 A:  The guy who got the most votes in the US and in Florida and under our Constitution (Al Gore) will lose to America=s second choice who won the all important 5-4 Supreme Court vote.
 Q:  I thought in a democracy, the guy with the most votes wins.
 A:  True, in a democracy.  But America is not a democracy.  In America, in the year 2000, the guy with the most US Supreme Court votes wins.
 Q:  Is there any way to stop the Supreme Court from doing this again?
 A:  YES.  No federal judge can be confirmed without a vote in the Senate.
It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. If only 41 of the 50 Democratic Senators stand up to Bush and his Supremes and say that they will not approve a single judge appointed by him until a President can be democratically elected in 2004, the judicial reign of terror can end… and one day we can hope to return to the rule of law.
 Q:  What do I do now?
 A:  E-mail this to everyone you know, and write or call your senator, reminding him that Gore beat Bush by several hundred thousand votes (three times Kennedy=s margin over Nixon) and that you believe that VOTERS rather than JUDGES should determine who wins an election by counting every vote.

And to protect our judiciary from overturning the will of the people, you want them to confirm NO NEW JUDGES until 2004 when a president is finally chosen by most of the American people.

C  MarkLevineEsq@aol.com

by Mark H. Levine, Attorney at Law.

Broader Organization
by Ted Glick
 As the year 2000 comes to a close, and as attention turns toward the official first year of the new millennium, it seems to me that there is one, overriding objective that all pro-justice activists need to prioritize: broadly-based outreach to involve more people in our grassroots-based organizations. As important as other tasks also are, this one has to be right up there at the top.

And it=s not just because George W. Bush has stolen the election that I say this. Under Gore, there=d be the same need.
2000 was a good year for the people=s movement. With the direct actions from D.C. to Philadelphia to Los Angeles and elsewhere, the Nader/LaDuke campaign, the growing anti-sweatshop movement, a burgeoning pro-amnesty movement and many other examples, there is no question but that the Agood guys@ are on the move, tens of thousands of dedicated activists and millions of supporters. But that=s not enough. We need hundreds of thousands actively involved in our emerging, independent, pro-justice movement.

And it=s not just that there=s a need for it. There=s always a necessity to involve more people in our efforts. The fact is that the work we have been doing over the past year has opened up concrete possibilities to dramatically increase our ranks and strengthen our various organizations. This is true whether it be the Greens, other third party groups, student groups, non-violent direct action groups, other community organizations, or grassroots-oriented trade unions.
Why did tens of thousands of people come out to the pro-Nader rallies in the last two months of the Presidential campaign? Because there is a hunger among millions of people for a political force that can take on the economic and political system which is responsible for so much human suffering, oppression and environmental devastation. The Nader campaign, for all its weaknesses, brought to the surface that hunger and the concrete possibilities for movement- and organization-building.
What about all those labor folks and people of color who came out in large numbers for Gore because of their fear of Bush? Are they just going to fade back into the woodwork, accept W. as Atheir@ President, forget about what happened in Florida and with the Supreme Court, go quietly into the night? Not likely, especially if we are out there visibly organizing around issues they care about, including the lack of genuine democracy in this country and the need for fundamental democratic reforms to our electoral system.

The real question is, are we up to it?

It=s hard to generalize; conditions from one locality to another are different, and there is certainly unevenness in organizational development and organizing skills within this still-emerging, still-learning thing we call Aa movement,@ but from where I sit, from what I=m observing and hearing, I think the answer is yes. Or perhaps more accurately, Ayes, if.@

Yes, if we build our organizations in a way which welcomes new people and encourages their verbal and physical participation in decision-making and activity, if we are about building community, personal relationships with one another, as well as doing the practical issue and organizational detail work.
Yes, if we struggle with our weaknesses, deal with them honestly, and not pretend that we=ve got it all together. For example, if there are few people of color involved and we live in an area with a high percentage of people of color, we need to discuss what attitudes and practices may be inhibiting their involvement, at the same time that we reach out to predominantly people of color groups to support them on the issues they have defined as most central.
Yes, if we maintain an openness to new ideas and insights, reject narrowness and sectarianism, while striving for unity and organizational coherence. These are not mutually exclusive; they can be and should be complementary.
Yes, if we are open to learning from the experiences of older organizers if we are young, and if we are open to learning from the fresh insights and perspectives of youth organizers if we are older.

And yes, if our organizations, our meetings, our events, our human interactions are a source of strength, support and positive challenge for those of us in them and those with whom we come into contact. We need to keep building a new culture, Acreating a new way of being,@ as Victoria Gray-Adams described it at the recent Progressive Dialogue II meeting in Washington, D.C.
Let=s be about taking our movement to the next, needed step: bigger, broader, deeper and more powerful. Let=s choose issues to work on that help us do this. And let=s talk to each other about what is and is not working.
It=s a good time to be an organizer with and for the people.
Ted Glick is the National Coordinator of the Independent Progressive Politics Network (www.ippn.org) and author of FUTURE HOPE: A Winning Strategy for a Just Society. He can be reached at futurehopeTG@aol.com or P.O. Box 1132, Bloomfield, N.J.  07003.