Campus teach-ins: Students demand facts on Middle East

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6 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1990

S.F. Bay Area

On a few days' notice, a handful of students at the University of California-Santa Cruz who are opposed to U.S. intervention in the Middle East called their first teach-in for Oct. 25. They expected only some 15 to 30 to attend. Actually some 800 students showed up for the event.

Like every other teach-in in the Northern California region during the last weeks of October, the speakers were universally greeted with resounding ovations. The applause seemed to swell in direct proportion to the keenness of the speakers' opposition to U.s. war policy.

Today's antiwar movement stands on the shoulders of the social struggles of the past three decades. Speakers and students alike are less sexist, racist, and homophobic than at any time in this writer's experience. They reject the Israeli destruction of the Palestinian nation, reject the anti-communist prejudices of past decades, and are unwilling to accept as good coin the lies and half-truths passed off as fact by the capitalist media.

Almost 700 attended a four-hour teach-in at San Francisco State University to hear panels of Vietnam veterans—including Brian Willson, Peggy Tuckson, and Stan Long explain the lessons of the Vietnam War for today. Speaker after speaker urged the students to become involved in organizing for the Oct. 20 demonstrations in San Francisco.

About 250 attended a faculty-organized teach-in at Laney College in Oakland to cheer Marine Reservist Erik Larsen when he said he would refuse deployment to the Middle East to fight for oil profits.

On Oct. 18, about 75 students at San Francisco City College gathered to hear a panel of antiwar activists, including Larsen. Joni Jacobs of the National Organization for Women related the struggles of women for equal rights to the demands of the new antiwar movement. Peg Stevenson, an environmental activist from Greenpeace, added valuable information on the U.S. government's disregard for the development of alternative energy sources [see excerpts on this page].

Palestinian speakers addressed every Bay Area event to offer their support for the risThe following are major excerpts from a talk by Peg Stevenson, director of San Francisco Greenpeace's Campaign on Atmosphere and Energy, to the San Francisco City College Middle East Teach-In on Oct. 18.

I would like to make just a couple of points about oil and energy and the military build-up in Saudi Arabia.

This war is in part about oil-more specifically about George Bush's risking millions of lives and wasting billions of dollars rolling out the big guns to secure, by force, access to oil at the price he sets. His rationale is an old, predictable argument that American national security and our way of life (by which he means a national car fleet that averages 19 miles per gallons) are dependent on cheap oil.

The Reagan/Bush cabal set the stage for this war by peddling arms to Iraq, but even more so by systematically destroying federal programs on energy efficiency and renewable energy over the last 10 years. Since they came to office they have:

• Between 1981 and 1989, reduced federal funding for renewable energy by 90%.

• Turned the Department of Energy into the Department of Nuclear Weapons. In 1980, the DOE spent 81% of its budget on energy matters and 19% on weapons' production. Today the DOE spends 49% on energy U.S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation (Required by 39 U.S.C. 3685).

1A. Title of publication: Socialist Action. 1B. Publication no. 721090. 2. Date of filing: Oct. 3, 1990. 3. Frequency of issue: Monthly. A) No. of issues published annually: 12. B) Annual subscription price: $8.00.

4. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: Socialist Action Publishing Association, 3435 Army St., Suite 308, San Francisco, CA 94110-4543.

5. Complete mailing address of the headquarters of general business offices of the publisher: Socialist Action Publishing Association, 3435 Army St., Suite 308, San Francisco, CA 94110-4543.

6. Full names and complete mailing address of publisher, editor, and managing editor. Publisher: Socialist Action ing movement against U.S. intervention and to champion the national rights of the Palestinian people.

Similar events, rallies and marches are regular features of life at the University of California-Berkeley, where on Sept. 14 the First National Middle East Teach-in drew some 2000. The sponsor of this event, the Committee Against a Vietnam War in the Middle East (CAVME), has focused its attention in recent weeks to helping campus activists organize these educational meetings.

Columbia

NEW YORK-Over 500 people crowded into Columbia University's Altschul Auditorium to attend the second major New York teach-in on the Gulf crisis. The crowd, mostly Columbia students, took every seat, and 51% on weapons' production.

• Cut federal funding for mass transit by 50% since 1981.

• Rolled back auto-fuel efficiency standards at the request of Ford and GM. In terms of oil, that single action will waste over the next decades more oil than we imported from the Persian Gulf in 1985, and, in my opinion, make Ford and GM responsible for the lives risked today.

I want to turn now to what the rest of us have been doing—which is creating a revolution in energy efficiency that has occurred in the economy despite open hostility from the federal government. The good news is that it is possible to supply energy needs right now, today, with increased energy efficiency and renewable energy. Again, in case you have any doubts, let me illustrate with a few facts:

• Since 1976, the U.S. GNP has nearly doubled, while energy use has stayed almost flat. This is due to a revolution in energy-efficiency technologies—millions of small and large decisions about which lightbulbs, building contractors, appliances, and cars are the best to buy.

• Since 1979, more than a million solar buildings have been installed across the United States.

• Since 1979, the United States has gotten Publishing Association, 3435 Army St., Suite 308, San Francisco, CA 94110-4543. Editor: Alan Benjamin, 3435 Army St, Suite 308, San Francisco, CA 94110-4543. Managing Editor: David Kirschner, 3435 Army St., Suite 308, San Francisco, CA 94110-4543.

7. Owner (if owned by a corporation, its name and address must be staied and also immediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of stock. If not owned by a corporation, the names and addresses of the individual owners must be given. If owned by a partnership or other unincorporaied firm, its name and address, as well as that of each individual must be given. If the publication is published by a nonprofit organization, its name and address must be stated.): Socialist Action Publishing Association (unincorporated), 3435 Army St., Suite 308, San Francisco, CA 94110, Nat Weinstein and Carl Finamore, 3435 Army St., Suite 308, San Francisco, CA 94110.

8. Known bondholders, mortgagecs, and other security BRI TROORO HOME NOW!

ESISTANCE!

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