What makes the TV preachers run?

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BEHIND THE LINES The other night I saw the Rev. Jerry Foulmouth (Falwell) on TV urging his listeners to join "Operation Rescue." That's the bunch of fundamentalist potential fascists who are trying to shut down abortion clinics all over the country by terrorist means.

They come to the clinics in droves—violating the civil rights of women who need to use the clinic. They close the doors to the clinics with their bodies. The police take their sweet time (several hours) before removing these leeches from RY SCHORR FOR THE KC STAF blocking the clinic doors.

Several weeks ago, I joined hundreds of other women and men who support women's rights by defending the clinics. I went over to a clinic in Oakland and was greeted by others who had also traveled before sunrise to defend women's rights.

By 9:30 in the morning, over 65 women had their unwanted pregnancies ended and were able to return to their families, jobs, or schools. They did not have to go to a back-alley butcher or fly to another country to have an abortion. They will not be charged with a crime or jailed for having had an abortion-as is done in many countries where abortion is illegal.

First-class Scrooges What is this anti-choice movement all about? It's not a moral movement. The leaders of this movement, the TV evangelists and other such creatures, are as moral as rattlesnakes.

Virtually every one of the antichoice advocates supports the death penalty, supports whichever war the capitalist class is engaged in at the I CAN'T...

YOU GUYS CUT FUNDING FOR EDUCATION... moment, and is for increasing the war budget at the expense of schools, food programs, and social services for the needy.

They are first-class Scrooges when it comes to the children and families of the poor, and they are the first to fight increases in welfare that would reduce the high infantmortality rate in this wealthy country.

What is their real motive?

The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, the crying TV evangelist, was paid $85,000 in 1986, and $86,000 in 1987. On top of that, he got a house worth $1.5 million and one worth half that much for his son. He also received a Palm Springs condo, a private jet, and an airconditioned tree house for his grandson.

They have a class morality. They are for the rich and against the poor. Their aim is to mobilize discontented workers and middle-class people to defend the status quo which serves them and their capitalist friends so well. They can't do this openly. They need to use phony moral issues to corral discontented and confused people in defense of the ruling rich.

In this country today, the top 10 percent of income earners control 56 percent of the wealth. The wealthiest 2 percent hold more than two-thirds of all corporate stock. (In 1910 the top fifth of the population received about 46 percent of the nation's income, while the bottom fifth received 8 percent.) In 1986 the bottom fifth received only 5 percent.

The total estimated wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans is $156 billion-equal to the entire Gross National Product of Mexico. The total U.S. budget for welfare, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and housing is likewise $151 billion.

Slim pickin's

The haves are getting theirs and the have-nots are getting slim pickin's.

1. Marshal Hahn Jr., chairman of Georgia-Pacific in Atlanta, Ga., earned $900,000 in 1987—and his company made $8.6 billion. Mary Jenkins, who cleans Hahn's office after he's gone home, makes $3.50 an hour, which comes to about $3640 a year. Jenkins, who is the sole support of her grandson, is not covered by a health or pension plan.

Mary Jenkins is not alone. More than 2 million women are working fulltime in jobs that pay wages below the poverty line. (In 1987, for a family of three, the poverty line was about $9100.) In 1985, two-thirds of all women were either the sole support of their families or had husbands earning $15,000 or less per year.

Get the drift? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And things are about to get much worse. The capitalists of the world are in deep doo-doo. The world capitalist economy is about to go down the tubes. Discontent will grow. Working-class consciousness will radicalize. Mass strikes and demonstrations will break out.

That's what the Foulmouths and Swaggarts are preparing for. They need to set up false devils so that these poor fools, mobilized around phoney moral issues such as abortion, will do their dirty work for them.

[My thanks to Ann Hornaday of Ms. magazine for the statistics quoted above.]

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