The other America tunity to discuss the Liverpool situation, police. *
At least a dozen ships were delayed Source: Workers World, 18 September, via Arm The Spirit them leaders of the conservative Christian movement. They were met with several hundred angry lesbians and gay men who shouted down their attempts to speak and forced them to leave the square without making a single speech.
No less effective was the response to CRI leader Kari Simpson's speech in the provincial capital, Victoria, a week later. Queer Victorians filled the hall, waving bright pink slips of paper at her whenever she made a homophobic remark, and cheering her references to the Gay and Lesbian Educators of BC. She was so unnerved she had trouble continuing her speech.
While these noisy, confident demonstrations have driven the fundamentalists off the streets, many on the left and in the lesbian and gay movement are worried that the excessively confrontational tactics of some sections of the far left actually make it harder to build a movement against the fundamentalists.
According to Will Offley of Socialist Challenge, the 'hard' tactics the far left traditionally proposes may be appropriate in opposing fascist and racist groups, but they are not always appropriate in campaigns against religious bigots. In spite of their prejudice, most supporters of the CRI are ordinary conservative Christians, who would probably reject the CRI if it were identified with physical attacks on lesbians and gay men. The broadest progressive coalition
"Part of any strategy has to be to deny the Christian label to groups like CRI. We have to expose their agenda as being a right-wing agenda, not a Christian one. This makes it extremely important for us to build bridges to the progressive Christian community, and mobilise them into the struggle." The evidence in British Columbia is that it is possible to win majorities in favour of tolerance on school boards.
According to Offley, "to win, we have to create the broadest possible coalition uniting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community, and extending to embrace the students, parents and teachers in districts where the religious right is seeking control of school boards, the left, the union movement, people of colour [especially the Sikh community] and others, to ensure that we win a durable victory, not just a transient success."
Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgenders have made real changes in people's attitudes and won broad support by fighting
Feminist Poet Rejects
Arts Award
Adrienne Rich has turned down the 1997 National Medal for the Arts. The award is given annually by the National Endowment for the Arts, staffed by Clinton appointees
Rich is the first artist to publicly reject the award for political reasons. She said that, "the very meaning of art, as l understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration."
She said that art "means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner-table of power which holds it hostage." She also said that she is disturbed by the widening gap between those who have wealth and power and those who do not
In addition to writing 15 volumes of poetry, Rich has written many political essays, such as the highly influentia essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, which played an important role in challenging heterosexuality as the norm, on the left and in society. * Source: Love and Rage vol.8 #4 August 1997 Puerto Rico
A campaign against privatisation is underway in the USA's Caribbean colony. A general strike has been called for October 1st.
West Coast solidarity
with Liverpool
dockers
Port workers shut down all ports beween Alaska and the Mexican border for eight hours on September 8, in solidarity with Britain's striking Liverpool dockers
At Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbour 32 vessels were in port when longshoremen (dockers) walked out. Three ships in Vancouver, British Columbia, the largest tonnage port on the west coast.
Like in Liverpool, dock workers in Los Angeles, California are being threatened with privatisation and casualisation. The city has leased the coal-exporting Los Angeles Export Terminal (LAXT), to a private company that is attempting to run it with non-union labour. * Source: The Dispatcher, the ILWU newspaper. Haitians in New York protest police brutality
Haitian community groups in New York organised an important meeting on September 9 to discuss "independent strategies against police brutality."
Some 400 participants heard Haitian, African American and Afro-Caribbean speakers denounce the long history of police terror in New York
"Police brutality is an issue of overriding concern," said Reverend Daughtry, who hosted the meeting in his House of the Lord church. "There is not a Black or Latino family untouched."
Racism and police brutality has worsened under the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former prosecutor.
The meeting is the latest angry reaction of the Haitian and black community to the vicious beating and rape of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima by New York City police
Louima's lawyer, Carl Thomas, told the meeting that public pressure has forced the NYPD to cancel plans to transfer the four policemen responsible to desk jobs. They remain suspended
Ben Dupuy, co-director of Haiti Progress newspaper and a spokesperson for Haiti's National Popular Assembly, attacked the big-business media for pro-police coverage of the Louima attack. "We're fighting a system," said Dupuy.
As well as hearing from a number of were held up in Portland, delaying two victims and their families, the meeting for basic human rights. In British Columbia, queer communities have proven that they can beat the organising strategies of right-wing bound for Thamesport used the oppor- in favour of "community control" over the homophobes. We can gain more and change society by pushing for full equality at every opportunity and challenging ignorance and prejudice wherever it appears.
* trains. In Seattle six ships were delayed, and longshore workers aboard ships which may have impacted productivity.
future discussed for proposals organising against police violence, and
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