Newspaper Page Text
The Augusta News-Review October 22,1983
Mallory K'. MillenderEditor-Publisher
Paul Walker Assistant to the Publisher
Wanda Johnson General Manager/Advertising Dir.
Diane CarswellCirculation Manager
Yvonne Dayßeporter
Rev. R.E. Donaldson Religion Editor
Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson. Church Coordinator
Charles Beale. Jenkins County Correspondent
Mrs. Fannie Johnson Aiken County Correspondent
Mrs. Clara WestMcDuffie County Correspondent
Mrs. Ileen Buchanan Fashion & Beauty Editor
Wilbert Allen Columnist
Roosevelt GreenlColumnist
Al i r byColumnist
Philip Waring Columnist
Marva Stewart Columnist
George Bailey Sports Writer
Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist
Olando Hamlett Photographer
Roscoe Williams • Photographer
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Pennywise, dollar foolish
The Richmond County
Board of Education is repor
tedly considering requiring
principals to run their school
as if they were a business and
firing those principals who,
after crash course in business
principles, don’t measure up.
This absurdity comes on
the heals of having large
numbers of teachers teaching
out of their fields, all in the
name of a balanced budget.
Georgia students ranked
49th on recent Scholastic Ap
titude Tests. And Richmond
County schools are all
showing a decline in their test
scores.
Small wonder.
It is time that somebody
rebelled against the ’‘tax
The Mayor Comments
Citifest to be exciting
by Edward M. Mclntyre
In our city we can be proud of
the many people who sponsor and
work so un- 1
selfishly for
worthwhile con-
cems.
Sometimes we
do not equate
fun and ex
citement with W
charitable even
ts, but the up
coming Citifest promises not only
to provide fun and excitement for
those attending, but also away of
giving to others who are perhaps
less fortunate.
Bankers First and WAGT have
planned all kinds of events and
special guests for every member of
the family.
NBC’s Smurf will be on hand
Civil Rights Journal
The dogs of war
by Dr. Charles E. Cobb
The Reagan administration, is
slowly but surely setting the stage
for a major
Central Ameri- '
can conflict. gH /
The president I'3
has resorted to M
“gunboat diplo- I ■
macy” and has
dispatched a |mK., „
naval task for- '/
ce and carrier ■HHHHHSP
battle group to the Pacific Coast of
Nicaragua.
•These so-called “maneuvers”
are undoubtedly designed to
demonstrate the power of the
United States military. This hard
line policy toward Nicaragua’s
Sandinista government only in
creases the risk of all out war.
Many of the president’s critics
have been openly predicting a U.S.
supported invasion of Nicaragua
from Honduras. Was could also
start if Nicaragua invaded Hon
duras. But in either case the United
States would be directly involved.
U.S. involvement in the region
Page 4
cap” mentality that forces
teachers into areas for which
they are not trained, and for
ces principals into trying to
be businessmen —for which
they are not trained —and
students into schools where
the education is getting wor
se and worse.
It is time to put a stop to
selfishness under the guise of
“fiscal responsibility” and
realize that a quality
education is worth paying
for.
We should be spending
more on education, not less.
And we ought to stop letting
selfish conservatives deprive
our children of a quality
education.
along with Augusta’s Elbo the
Clown. The children will not want
to miss them. There will be coun
try-western music and bands from
local high schools for your
listening pleasure.
For those of you who like arts
and crafts, there will be plenty for
you to browse through. If you en
joy seeing people kick up their
heels, come see the doggers per
form on Broad Street.
I understand there will be lots of
good southern barbeque and loads
of the all-time favorite American
hot dog to satisfy hungry ap
petites.
The Citifest will be on Oct. 21.
Bring your family and friends
downtown to .the 900 block of
Broad Street between noon and 7
p.m. and share in downtown’s new
excitement.
has included the providing of arms
to the “contras” an insurgent
group that included many elements
of the old oppressive Somoza
government which was overthrown
in 1979 by the Sandinistas.
It is no military secret that Hon
duran troops could not resist an all
out war without American sup
port. Depending on the extent of
U.S. involvement in such a war
and the threat to Nicaragua, Cuba
would almost certainly be drawn
into the conflict.
This would naturally raise the
question of Soviet involvement.
The policy being pursued by the
president is very risky. What is the
goal that the administration is
trying to achieve? Can it be the
ceasing of the flow of arms into El
Salvador? Or is the goal to force
the Sandinistas into a more pro-
U.S. position? Or is it the actual
overthrow of the regime?
Certainly military attacks will
only exacerbate these issues. The
American people must ask them
selves, are the gains of military ac
tion as opposed to diplomacy wor
th the obvious risks?
THE GOOD NEWS
IS "AMERICA IS 014 JB»
KSSEEI THEMENDT
3R &UACK- yzssoogces iMC.
To Ite Equal
A program to end poverty
by John E. Jacob
It’s not my business to tell
Ronald Reagan how he can be re
but
there’s no '
harm in giving
some simple
advice that ■
would do the
trick. Moreover, I
it’s free ad
vice—no need
to pay high
priced, high-powered political con
sultants.
I’m under no illusions that he’ll
take my advice. But if he does, he
can demonstrate he has the
flexibility necessary to national
leadership in these perilous times,
and that he truly cares about
creating opportunities, as he
claims he does.
In order to guarantee re-election
in 1984, the President will have to
win or neutralize the votes of
minorities and the poor; votes now
beyond his reach. And he’ll have
to do something drastic about the
image of meanness his Ad
ministration has earned through its
harsh policies toward the poor—an
image that will cost votes among
many decent people not personally
affected by those policies.
What I’m suggesting is that the
President come out strongly for a
national income maintenance
policy that would guarantee a
minimum income floor beneath
every family.
An income maintenance system
would be based on a refundable
credit income tax. In one stroke,
Going Places
Should Jesse run?
by Philip Waring
One of the most interesting
questions on whether Jesse
Jackson should I
run for
president. This
will be the first
of several M
columns I shall
devote to this | . ..
question.
Rev. Jackson H W Mi
has been on the front page of
Time and Jet magazines. He has
been featured in the N.Y. Times,
Atlanta Constitution and
Washington Post, and interviewed
on all of the networks, both
television and radio. He has met
with seven Southern governors in
cluding Gov. George Wallace
when he spoke before the Alabama
state legislature.
Former president Jimmy Carter
and vice president Mondale, on
separate occasions have said if Jesse
is not shooting for a third party
project, let him run for the
Democratic nomination like any
other candidate.
Jackson recently received a leave
of- absence as president of
Operation PUSH to further pursue
“presidential possibilities,” etc.
we could replace an ineffective,
inefficient welfare system and
rationalize a tax system riddled
with loopholes and special interest
favors.
It would work like this: the
government would make a basic
annual grant to everyone in the
form of a tax credit. Those above a
set income line, which should be a
bit over the poverty line, would
have the grant taxed away from
them on a sliding scale. So the
poor would keep all of the grant,
moderate income people would
keep some of it, and the affluent
none of it.
A credit income tax would do a
number of very important things.
First, it would wipe out poverty
since the grant would be enough to
lift people above the poverty line.
Second, it would help moderate
income families to make ends
meet, since they’d get to keep part
of the grant.
Third, it would encourage work
effort since the grant would only
be taxed away on a sliding scale.
Under the present system, welfare
grants are cut by the amount ear
ned and it often pays not to work
at all.
Fourth, it would help make the
tax system fair—something
everyone agrees it is not, with
moderate income families now
paying roughly the same rates as
do the affluent who take advan
tage of numerous loopholes.
Finally, it would revitalize the
economy. By infusing dollars into
the pockets of poor and moderate
income families, increased demand
for goods would get our factories
humming again.
They feel Jesse could stir interest in
millions of people.
A large segment of successful
political figures, however, wage a
word of caution, feeling that the
delegate votes are not there. Num
bering among these are Mayors But
ch Mortal of New Orleans, Tom
Bradley of Los Angeles, Coleman
Young of Detroit, Richard
Arrington of Birmingham, Harold
Washington of Chicago and An
drew Young of Atlanta.
The Congressional Black
Caucus is split with most of them
urging caution while Congressmen
Delums and Fauntroy join in with
AME Bishop Brookins in saying:
“If not Jesse, who?” and “If not
now, when?”.
There’s a vast split among
various local, state and other
political leaders, according to the
Joint Center for Political Studies
and other groups. Heads of the
NAACP, Urban League and
SCLC have urged caution.
As we write this column, the
front page of the Atlanta Con
stitution has a photo and feature
story on Mayor Andrew Young’s
recent speech at the Hungry Club
there. Young praised Jackson as a
friend who had accomplished
much to better the Black com-
Now, how can a conservative
President support such a plan?
Easy. This income maintenance
program is a conservative plan en
dorsed by conservatives who
dislike government interference in
private lives as characterized by the
workings of means tests and
welfare bureaucracies.
The leading conservative
economist today, Nobel Prize
winner Milton Friedman has writ
ten: “We should replace the
ragbag of specific welfare
programs with a single comprehen
sive program of income sup
plements in cash—a negative in
come tax. It would provide an
assured minimun to all persons in
need, regardless of the reasons for
their need.”
How about costs? Well, that
depends on the level set for the
basic grant and the tax rate. But it
would be reasonable to expect a
net cost of around $25 billion
above the present tab for welfare
programs and food stamps.
And let’s remember, the income
maintenance program would reach
all in need while today’s piecemeal
system doesn’t give one dime to
about half of the poor and misses
virtually all of the near-poor.
A self-professed conservative,
the President can easily back a
conservative program that aids the
poor, makes the system fair, en
courages work, and doesn’t
require a new bureaucracy.
I’m sure that an income main
tenance plan isn’t part of the game
plan his staff is preparing for the
re-election campaign, but if the
President wants another four years
at the helm, it ought to be.
munity during the past twenty
years and upheld his right to seek
the nomination.
But the former U.N. Am
bassador, who has marched and
gone to jail with Jesse during the
civil rights campaigns of the six
ties, pointed out that in his
opinion the mathematics would
indicate that Jackson might get
only 100 delegates out of 3,000.
(Earlier, the Joint Center said that
his maximum would be around
300 out of some 3,400 Democratic
delegates at the convention.)
Mayor Young praised Jackson’s
efforts as a ‘lighting rod” to get
hundreds of thousands of Blacks
to register and run for public of
fice. Jesse has come up with a
phrase which will grow and stand
in the race and political scene:
“Run for office, you may win. If
you don’t run, you and yours will
remain losers.”
Jesse has a new national cam
paign committee headed by Mayor
Dick Hatcher of Gary, Indiana.
They’ve been mailed out, so I am told,
thousands of appeal letters: “Give
a Jackson for a Jackson.” Former
President Andrew Jackson’s pic
ture is on a twenty dollar bill.
Whatever do you, dear readers,
think about this entire matter.
Walking With Dignity
Biko ’s
girl friend
impressive
by A] Irby
Dr. Mamphela Ramphele has
turned her political “wilderness”
Hinto a well
trended “gar
den.”
Even the
South African
government,
which banned
and banished
her to the nor
thern rural district in 1977, must be
privately impressed by her success
in helping that impoverished Black
community lift itself by its boot
straps. Dr. Ramphele was the
girlfriend and political associate of
“Black Consciousness” leader
Steve Biko.
In the year he died in police
custody, a massive government
crackdown on the Black Con
sciousness Movement resulted in
Dr. Ramphele being banished to
Tzaneen, far from King William’s
Town, where she and Biko had
been most active.
She is also banned, meaning she
must get a permit to leave the
Lenyenye township where she is
assigned to live, and she cannot be
quoted by the press. The gover
nment is not obliged to give
reasons for her banning, which
was.extended last year to 1984.
Blacks in Lenyenye and the
surrounding area might be secretly
pleased that Dr. Ramphele is being
forced to stay on. She has founded
a thriving community health cen
ter, which is proving to be vital as
this area faces a bleak winter of in
sufficient food due to drought.
The Ithuseng (help yourself)
community health center is em
bued with the spirit of Black Con
sciousness. And although none of
its projects are of political nature,
the overall success of Ithuseng
points to the continuing influence
of Black Consciousness, long after
its force as a Black political
movement has waned. (The ascen
dant Black political force now is
the externally based African
National Congress.)
The philosophy of Black Con
sciousness, articulated forcefully
by Biko, emphasizes Black (non
white) self-reliance and self
respect. It excludes involvement by
whites, but adherents claim that is
due not to an anti-white bias, but to
recognition that Blacks must
achieve their own “liberation.”
That spirit of self-reliance is
strong in Ithuseng. It runs a num
ber of self-help projects in
Lenyenye and the surrounding
Black villages, including literacy
classes, a child-care center, and the
promotion of cottage industries
and local gardening to provide
local sources of revenue.
When Dr. Ramphele arrived in
Lenyenye in 1977, close friends
said she felt “anger, and some
more anger” at her own banning,
followed by the death of Biko, the
father of her young son, Hlumelo.
(Hlumelo reminds his mother to
get a legal permit when she leaves
the area, because his father’s arrest
and subsequent death stemmed
from his violating provisions of his
banning.)
But close associates say Dr.
Ramphele soon told herself, “As
long as I am here, I might as well
do something positive.” There was
much to be done.
The government health clinic for
Lenyenye’s population of 10,000
was small, with a staff of only two
nurses. Dr. Ramphele, a medical
doctor, set out to build a new
clinic, raising private donations of
about SBO,OOO. Ithuseng takes care
of some 40 to 80 calls per day from
local residents. Although Dr.
Ramphele’s opposition to the
government remains as deep as
ever, her anger has been replaced
with a positive, ebullient attitude.
She appears even to have won
respect from her legal overseers.
Initially, close associates say, the
police used to threaten patients
who came to Dr. Ramphele. That
harassment has stopped. The good
lady-doctor was initially assigned
to live in a run-down four-room
house that friends say was “not fit
for human habitation.” Dr. Ram
phele protested to the magistrate,
and she was given a new
home—one several being built to
house the local police force.
At present Dr. Ramphele’s
biggest concern is the devastating
drought that threatens huge foot
shortages in her district.