ustxtxb_obs_1983_12_09_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

this, and Carter did what? Drug his feet on it. And then what Reagan did, they moved it again. We had a monoply, but it was a regulated monoply. I think the regulation had been such that, if you had had dramatic increases in residential usage, everybody would have been pretty upset and outraged. So most of the pluses and profits from long distance were used to subsidize the residential usage. But the theory on that was for universal service. That was something in 1934, before people had a telephone. When I grew up, we didn’t have a telephone ’till I was about in the fourth grade. They had the vision to forsee that at some point in time that everyone could have a phone. And a phone is a matter of safety and is a necessity of life for many of our senior citizens. I know for my own mother, her phone is very very important. And the access charge, what they want to do, if it goes through, you’ll be paying the access charge whether you have a long-distance bill or not. Thank you all very much. COPS’ Tenth Anniversary New Democratic Models By Geoffrey Rips San Antonio IF THERE IS a strategy of hope available for the 1984 elections, it can be found here. If there is a countermeasure to Ronald Reagan’s martial rhythms, it could be heard in the HemisFair arena on November 20, 1983, where 11,000 members of San Antonio’s Communities Organized for organization’s tenth anniversary. While Walter Mondale and John Glenn jockey for position without being able to sound the clarion call of hope necessary to take the reins of leadership, that call rises again and again from below from the floor of the COPS convention, in voter registration efforts across the South and the Southwest, in the crowds filling churches and campus lecture halls to hear Jesse Jackson declare, “This is not the campaign of a man running but of 10 million people running.” If there is to be a democratic future, it can be found in the model for democracy provided by COPS. In his new book, The Anatomy of Power, John Kenneth Galbraith writes that the chief source of contemporary power dwells not in personality or property but in organization. He also writes that external power is derived from internal power. COPS’ strength is derived from its decentralized decisionmaking process organized around parishes and representing, in the end, the participation to some degree of nearly 90,000 Bexar County families. This process nurtures leaders and future leaders, who rise through the ranks, developing their skills and teaching others what they have learned. COPS, then, is not wedded to specific issues or personalities but to a process of empowerment and, therein, lies its strength. Candidates and officeholders, among others, have learned to respect and fear a process that has empowered tens of thousands who, only a short time ago, had no stake in political life. “Ten years ago,” Andres Sarabia, first president of COPS, told those assembled, “the city manager refused to meet with us in our communities, the mayor took a vote then allowed us to speak, the school board tried to build an unneeded administration building. Ten years ago not one politician attended our first annual meeting.” Ten years later, Governor Mark White was on hand to proclaim COPS Day in the state of Texas, whereupon COPS President Sonia Hernandez exacted the governor’s pledge that “another school year will not begin until there is meaningful funding change [for education] in the state of Texas.” State convention stage with state Representatives Frank Tejeda and Joe Gamez of San Antonio. Bob Krueger and Lloyd Doggett, each campaigning for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, appeared on the convention center floor at different times during the proceedings. Each was acknowledged from the stage and each agreed to participate in a COPS forum during 1984 in which senatorial candidates will be held accountable for the positions they take. Various San Antonio city council members, school board officials, and the city’s new police chief were also present. Business, labor, and church leaders sat onstage or in the audience. \(It seemed that only the state media were unaware of the political significance of COPS and its network. Aside from Molly Ivins of the Dallas Times-Herald and a reporter from El Paso, the only daily media coverage of the convention was by the San Antonio press, despite the fact that large delegations from Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, and the Valley were present, despite the statewide importance of COPS perceived by state officeholders and would-be officeThen there was San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, a somewhat reluctant admirer of COPS’ political clout. He rattled off a litany of COPS successes over the last decade, as if he had not opposed the organization in many of these fights. After recounting the doubts city officials had about COPS ten years ago \(“What can housewives know about water development policy? What can parish leaders know about city firesult of COPS’ work, $’12 billion had been spent on streets and drainage in San Antonio in the past ten years. COPS delivered, he said, 20,000 of the 31,000 votes in 1977 that established single THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9