Ferraro ’ focus of right attack | By KERRY McCUAIG a The U.S. constitution is taking a beat- ee the Platform as Reagan and his on didare fringe attempt to bless some ' Idates as God’s representatives and sts as ungodly and immoral. a © president seems prepared to ride Pe e-election on a wave of emotional ZY which would throw out a basic | Principle of the U.S. constitution, the ‘eparation of church and state. é he kick-off took place in Dallas at the - ee piben convention where Reagan So it a crowd of fundamentalists to its tion th a Prayer breakfast with his asser- ad oe church and State are partners, ae € removal of religion from public Undermines democracy”’. eCanmat’ fears that a wave of “*moral e ee is sweeping the nation “def idates are being called upon to €nd the faith’ from the platform. Wenty-four years ago, John F. Ken- S Was labelled by those same forces for AN the Reagan bandwagon as “‘a tool | une Vatigan” and a “foreign agent the T the control of the Pope’. Today Night 'is*openly courting the’ Catholic Ned «Up by ¢ | Ucation, a} Set dire Catholics. ne has h | feten i u i. the om, c id eee Huge portraits of the president 1S wife with the pontiff were hung The out the convention site. Republic their virulent Oppositi ans hope funding ; Motion ©n to abortion, support for state for religious schools and pro- of “family values’ will be taken in ke he Church to win Catholic voters 4 BE ostrial areas for Reagan. _Tegular church-goer himself, ra has branded “‘intolerant’’ those ates who oppose prayer in the and funding for religious ed- uring his term an attempt to Ools Public funding for separate (ord Was quashed, but he did manage © through tax credits for parents Whose chi ‘Stitutes, “hildren attend religious in- Ools : Ferraro a Roadblock Vote wing in the way of the Catholic — Candig emocratic vice-presidential one Geraldine Ferraro; the ob- ticket "awing card on the Democratic ltalian- N Practicing Catholic, and an ing p| Merican, the ** Vatican card’ is Naty Played to isolate Ferraro from her He Supporters. ®bortion 1rd on the decriminalization of hbish as brought her up against the ©p of New York’s 1.8 million One after, parchbishop O'Connor has With an alm Ost personal vengeance. 5 ad directives read from the nae on TV, called press con- %S8Socinte €ven cited the Pope, to dis- Views the church from Ferraro’s dup; | Vote foe to instruct Catholics not to ; er. The Reagan campaign is © beside h Pow aitself with glee to have such a Supporter as O'Connor in this ally Democratic stronghold. . ouatholic church bureaucracy has Philag nest solidly behind Reagan. “Mong 1 €lphia_where unemployment the doubt American workers is in le digits, Archbishop John Car- a Geraldine Ferraro flanked by Mondale and his wife. Unable to attack Fer Reagan campaign has launched the ultra-right against-her. dinal Krol shared a platform with Reagan and thanked him for his ‘‘aid’’ to Poland and support for parochial education. Interestingly the church has entered the campaign to push for public funding for its schools and outlawing abortion, rather than lobbying around its cele- brated bishops’ statement against pov- erty and nuclear proliferation. Ultra-Right Reagan’s Tool The Catholic church is but one arm of this religious revival. Buoyed by its suc- cess in the 1980 campaign, where it took personal responsibility for the defeat of several prominent liberal politicians, the Moral Majority led by preacher Jerry Falwell has re-issued its ‘* Family Values Report Card”’. : A candidate would not have to be pro-choice or even a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment to score a ‘*zero”’ in Falwell’s class. A vote against social, service-cuts..or-advocating a na-. tional medicare plan would suffice. Fer- raro’s support for women’s issues and backing from such groups as the Na- tional Organization of Women makes her an ‘‘abomination”’ in Falwell’s words. Unable to attack Ferraro personally, for fear of alienating women voters, Reagan is utilizing the ultra-right to dis- credit her and draw attention away from his opposition to women’s rights. The Democratic campaign faultered as accusations of financial irregularities were leveled at Ferraro immediately fol- lowing her nomination. On Sept. 13 the Justice Department began an investiga- tion to determine whether she broke any federal laws in not disclosing her hus- band’s assets during her six years in Congress. The complaint was launched by the Washington Legal Foundation, an arm of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. Heritage was created in 1974 by Gulf Oil heir Richard Mellon Scaife and trade union busting beer magnate Joseph Coors. Although the press and the polls have : handed the Republicans a landslide vic- tory on Nov. 6, the elephant is scared enough to be highly unscrupulous in its raro personally for fear of isolating women’s voters the effort to break the tide of opposition eminating from minority, peace, ‘women’s, environmental and consumer rights groups. In what is seen as a direct White House attack on Jesse Jackson’s rainbow coali- tion and its drive to register minority vot- ers, the U.S. Census Bureau has halved the number of constituencies required to provide bilingual election materials. The limitation on bilingual ballots is aimed mainly at disenfranchising Chicano and Puerto Rican voters, who have suffered badly under Reagan’s restraint policies. To offset voter registration among Southern Blacks, Reagan has enlisted the Klu Klux Klan. Richard Barrett, a - leading Mississippi Klansman and head of ‘‘Democrats for Reagan’’ publicly vowed to sign up two whites “‘for every n_____r Jesse Jackson has register- ed’’. According to U.S. Daily World cor- respondent John Wojcik, in repeated questioning. of . Republican. campaign leaders, he could find none who would disassociate the party from the Klan’s registration drive. €rraro, one of his own flock, The cocky confidence of the South Af- rican Chamber of Mines was dashed when Black coal and gold miners stage their first ever legal strike, and were joined by tens of thousands of others not covered by contracts with the National Union of Mineworkers. The mine barons were banking heavily on labor laws which leave Black workers than those without it. In the case of a strike, unionized workers must be in- formed in advance that they will be fired. Firing’ is automatic for non-unionized workers. Ses Losing their jobs is an ominous threat for Black workers who, prevented from living in white areas, are forced to return to their impoverished “‘homelands’’, where unemployment runs at 90 per cent. ‘“We can replace striking mineworkers readily from the thousands of unem- ployed former mineworkers in the home- lands, ...”’ said Collin Fenton, a mining executive in an interview with the Rand Daily Mail, Aug. ASE : But the threat melted as the NUM began setting up pickets outside Anglo- American operations earlier this month. Union status, granted to Black workers in 1979, didn’t spare them the brutality of the South African police who attacked the lines with tear gas, rubber bullets and birdshot. The workers hung on however, to win a 50-75 per cent increase in benefits and a month’s paid vacation at half pay. No miner has ever before received vacation with union protection, little better off Mine strikes hit at apartheid — pay. Wages were increased by 2-3 per cent annually. Black miners earn $220 a month, one-fifth the wages of their white counterparts. They. live in company shacks, separated from their families. No protective equipment is supplied; it is not uncommon for a miner to go under- ground without shoes. Over 700 Black miners died in accidents in 1982, accord- ing to labor ministry statistics. But strikes continue at pits throughout the country as miners defy police bullets and threats of firing to insist on imme- diate recognition of their union. Accord- ing to the Chamber of Mines, every mine in the country has been hit with strikes involving almost 80,000 workers. Over 8,000 miners clashed with police at the Consolidated Coal Fields. Arriving in armored cars police unleashed attack dogs then fired into the crowd killing seven and injuring others. Police violence at Rand Mines left 111 injured, and another 220 were hurt at Anglo Mines, where workers were at- tacked in their hostels. The miners’ strikes coupled with rent strikes in several Black townships and class boycotts by over 300,000 school children is hitting at the heart of the’ apartheid system. The strikes, said African National Congress, Canadian representative Yus- sef Saloojee in an interview with the Tribune, “are but another component in the offensive against the regime, It is equivalent to an act of sabotage. South view current events in South Africa as spontaneous, isolated uprisings. It is a Africa is in its worse recession and coal is its mainstay”’. The Anglo-American corporation was targetted because it is the largest trans- national operating in South Africa. ‘*‘We are hitting at the giant of the giants’’, h said. : Saloojee said it would be a mistake to ‘co-ordinated action on the part of the students, workers and community organ- izations ... to make it more and more difficult for the Botha regime to rule”’. What has been reported as widespread looting and rioting is a misrepresentation of the facts he charged. ‘*‘The burning and ransacking was directed specifically against government buildings and vehi- cles. The supermarkets and stores which were looted belonged to those who had collaborated with the government’’. As an indication of the people’s disre- gard for the white rulers, he noted that four high ranking government ministers who came to placate a Black suburb hit -with rent increases, had to be rescued from the crowds by helicopters. South Africa had hoped that the sign- ing of the. accord with Mozambique weuld reduce the military activities of * the ANC, but despite the accords mili- _ tary actions inside the country have in- creased. This, said Saloojee, discredits ‘Pretoria’s claim that itis threatened:by its Black neighbors: “Thé threat is internal ° and it will remain so.”’ : K.M. PAGIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 26, 1984 ¢.9