Ryan White—one of 78,341

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.. Millions rally on Earth Day On April 8, Ryan White died from complications of AIDS. He was 18 years old. Ryan, a hemophiliac, had contracted the virus through a blood transfusion in 1984.

Ryan became known to the entire world when the school he was attending in Kokomo, Ind., banned him from the classrooms and forced him to take his classes from his home through a telephone hook-up.

Ryan's family won a court decision, and he was reinstated into the classroom-but the hate be(continued from page 1: “Millions rally on Earth Day But big polluters still thrive Pro-choice supporters mobilize at L.A. clinic”) putable. But such measures amount to little in the overall scope of things.

Moreover, most people—who must work for a living, go to school, or raise a family under increasingly difficult circumstances— should not be asked to make cutbacks in their lifestyles. How can people give up their gas-guzzling cars, for example, when no reliable mass transportation exists to take them to work?

It is incorrect to put the blame on individual consumers while letting the wealthy industrial and agricultural producers—as well as the U.S. government-off the hook. Consider the following facts:

* Chronic pesticide poisoning, mainly from large factory farms, causes 20,000 cases of cancer a year. Some 375,000 tons of pesticides are used in this country annually. Virtually all of it washes into our streams and groundwater.

* Some 150 million people in this country breathe air considered unhealthy by the Environmental Protection Agency. Almost three-fourths of airborn toxics are produced by big industrial corporations.

* Between 1984 and 1988, oil companies spilled more than 83.4 million gallons of oil in the United States. Yet Congress still refuses to take measures such as requiring that tankers be equipped with double hulls.

By came too much. He was taunted at school by the other children, who wrote obscenities on his locker and shouted insults when he walked in the school hallways.

Vandals broke windows at his home and slashed the tires of the family car. Grocery store clerks would fling down change to Ryan's mother to avoid touching her hands when she shopped.

His family was finally forced to move to Cicero, a small farming town about 20 miles from Kokomo, and he began attending Hamilton High School. At Hamilton, 1970 1980 * The installati as gunne chemical None of THese LAWS WILL PUT US OUT OF BUSINESS!

ENVIRONLANtS TOO COSTLY AND THe TeCHNOLOGY IS COMPLICATED!

U.S. military ons on public ery ranges, n and germ-w these sites ar 1972 IT'LL MAKE U UNCOMPETITIVE 1985 We'LL Move To ANOTHER STATE FIRST! operates nearly 1000 lands-which it uses uclear-waste dumps, arfare factories, etc. e subject to environi year by Socialist Action Publishing Second-class postage is paid at San he was accepted and treated as just another student. He died before graduating.

Ryan White's family must have been very wonderful parents. They fought for their child the way most parents would have, but their love also gave him his personality. In television interviews, Ryan came across as a gentle, intelligent, mature young person who never expressed anger or hate towards the adult idiots who drove him from his home, school, and Classmates.

AIDS holocaust

Ryan's funeral was attended by the rich and famous, and flags were flown at half mast at the Statehouse. Everyone learned to respect and love Ryan and grieve for his death.

But as of April 22 of this year, 78,341 good people have died from the same disease that took Ryan. And that is just in the United States. Worldwide, it is estimated that there are 600,000 people infected with AIDS and that 300,000 people have died. More Americans have died of AIDS than were killed in the Vietnam War.

1975 JOBS WILI Be LOST!

AIR QUALITY ERE STAKTIONF 1989 It was early in the 1980s when the first gay men began falling ill with a disease that was to become known as AIDS. However, it was not until Rock Hudson died in 1985 that the nature of this real health crisis was admitted. By that time 12,000 Americans were dead and hundreds of thousands infected.

The government of the United States and its economy, the richest in the world, have been shown to be incapable of doing anything to stop the spread of the disease or to effect a cure. The government's only concern is private profits not the needs of humans.

During the Second World War, when this government wanted to develop an atomic bomb, they spared no expense. They initiated the Manhattan Project and built Los Alamos, a huge scientific complex. Hundreds of the best minds in the field of nuclear physics were recruited to develop the bomb—all at government expense (or the taxpayers' expense).

That's what should have been done to tackle the complicated problem of the HIV virus. Instead, for nine years AIDS has been a political football for both capitalist political parties. For eight 1978 TOO ReSTRICTIVeWe CANT DO IT!

CLEAN 1990 GeT Me PR. I WANT TO exPeNsIve ADVeRTISe HOW GReAT AND IMPOSSIBLE OUR CORPORATE TO WORK OUT! HAS BeEN! ENVIRONMENTAL RecOrD EARTH DAY DY HELLER FOR THE GREEN BAY PRRSS GAZETTE, MIS.

mental laws and restrictions.

These corporate criminals must not be allowed to get off scot-free. Unfortunately, the capitalists were able to have a field day with Earth Day. Dozens of new "nature-friendly" commercial products were timed to appear during the week preceding April 22.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Business Roundtable, two employers' lobbying groups that usually work together to try to gut impending environmental legislation, scheduled a "proenvironmental" press conference. Representatives of several high-polluting industries— coal, chlorine, chemicals, plastics, and electric power—also shared the podium.

"A clean environment is not just a desired ... but a realistic goal, to which American industry is committed," said Alexander Trowbridge, former NAM president and former secretary of commerce. Besides, he told reporters (no doubt with a wink), it's "good business."

In the meantime, the National Chemical Association placed a two-page ad in the New York Times in which the affiliated 170 companies claimed to be concerned about ecology. "We're responsible," the chemical companies pledged, perhaps not realizing how true their words would ring to most readers.

Signers Exxon years the president, "Rotten" Reagan, did not let the word AIDS come out of his slimy lips while thousands of men, women, and children fell victim to the disease. History will record that the United States had its own Holocaust. It will be called the AIDS Holocaust. And the capitalist system let it happen.

A bill scheduled for Congress would provide a meager $600 million for the years 1991 and 1992 for emergency help to hospitals for AIDS patients in all of the cities in the United States. Very likely that amount will be cut as it goes through the sticky fingers of our Congressmen. Meanwhile, the Pentagon spends more than $1 billion every working day.

What is desperately needed in this country is a political party of the oppressed, poor, and working class that would go to war against the economic control of our resources and taxes by the wealthy and their hired guns, the politicians—who use them for their own greedy interest.

We need to "ACT-UP" for human needs instead of profits. That's the only way we will ever stop the AIDS Holocaust.

the world's largest oil spill), Union Carbide ("responsible" for the deaths of 2300 people in Bhopal, India), and Dow Chemical ("responsible" for defoliating a large part of Indochina during the Vietnam War).

A rally for the Democrats?

The Democratic Party also did its best to profit from Earth Day. "We love it," beamed Paul Tully, political director of the Democratic Party. Throughout the week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ran television ads declaring the party's commitment to the environment.

The New York Times pointed out that the Democrats treated Earth Day "as if it were their own organizing rally." Legions of Democratic candidates and elected officials were given the microphone at Earth Day events.

But the patience of the crowd had its limits. In San Francisco, when candidate John Van de Kamp, launched his "if I am elected governor" routine, he was booed roundly.

Meanwhile, the Republicans made an effort to keep up in the opinion polls. Even President Bush took a break from his weekend fishing trip in Florida to address a citizens' group fighting to protect a coral reef. He astonished reporters, however, by confirming that plans were in the works to open die portions of the Califomia coast to oil But it was Democrat Jimmy Carter who first undertook to expand drilling in California waters. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are capable of taking the steps necessary to protect and restore the environment. Both parties are financed and run by the big polluting corporations solely to ensure that the employers receive ever-higher profits.

Environmentalists who attempt to get votes for Democratic Party candidates, or who concentrate their efforts on lobbying activities, are misguided. Other political movements of recent decades—such as those against the Vietnam War, for Black civil rights, and for women's liberation—have shown that it is necessary to stay independent of the ruling class parties in order to make gains.

In order to be fully effective, the fight to restore the environment must be made part and parcel of a full program of demands for jobs, housing, and social services that can appeal to working people.

To carry out the fight, working people need their own political party—a labor party. Ultimately, armed with a revolutionary program, working people will sweep out those who profit from pollution and establish a society dedicated to the betterment of all humanity and the planet we live on.