ustxtxb_obs_1997_11_21_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

ven, ose-eoul e Ilston exos. ceerneciat,i5 carninto $ecc i i tave r 0 r—_ THE TEXAS fl Is s rnilin Scholz Garden f -66\( 1607 San Jacinto, Austin clq\\ ,, t -fu e el le ‘ Saturday, November 22 5.7 p.m. server will consider historically The Role of Labor and the University in Society; Wilfredo Berrios, whose Salvadoran union has successfully fought the same privatization of national industries now facing American workers, will address The Labor Movement and Human Rights; Cecile Richards, whose Texas Freedom ‘Network had such important success organizing to defend the public schools before the Legislature, will lead a workshop on Organizing for Power. Cecil Roberts, one of the early leaders of the Miners for Democracy in the UMW, will take part in the workshops and deliver the keynote speech on Friday evening at the U.T. Law School. Known for his fiery oratory, Roberts is a life-long miner and union activist who led the UMW’s successful 1989 strike against the Pittston Company, which had attempted to cut off health and pension benefits to retired miners. Significantly, Roberts says his union convictions were reinforced by his service in Vietnam, the war that notoriously divided the labor and student movements. “I’ve been accused of advocating class warfare,” Roberts once told a reporter. “Well, I spent a year in Vietnam and I met a lot of mineworkers, I met steelworkers, I met rubber workers. But I never met a rich man. Yet, when I got home from Vietnam, it seemed like the only people who were patriots were the rich folks. The rich folks start all the wars, and we end up having to fight them.” Ab lso appearing at the conference will be U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, the Minnesota Democrat who is per haps the last true progressive in that increasingly hidebound body. Amidst the workshops on labor and immigration; unions on campus; women, work, and unions; and so on, Wellstone will be speaking at noon Saturday at Moody Hall of St. Edward’s University, on “A Progressive Economic Agenda for America.” Later that afternoon, he will be joined at Scholz Garden by Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, and others, in what we’re calling a Texas Observer Political Party and Pachanga. It’s partly a benefit for the Observer \(we’ll be asking for donations at the it’s more broadly an occasion when we all can gather together, ruminate on battles won, lost, and still to be fought, and celebrate the spirit that carries us forward, together. As Molly has said, more than once: “We got to have fun. Might not win…might be the only fun we have is beer and the imagination. When you find your earnest quotient has been raised too far, activate your fun committee.” Consider yourselves all officially nominated, electedand activated. The Editors For further details on the Labor/ University/Community Conference see the advertisement below, or for registration 477-6195. Senator Paul Wellstone will be appearing at Scholz Garden, 1607 San Jacinto Blvd., Austin, from 5-7 p.m. Donations will be accepted at the door. Join Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Bernard Rapoport, Joe Gunn and a host of well -known and lesser known political visionaries, malcontents, and workers in the trenches for the first in a series of irregular, irreverent, extraordinary, uplifting, enlivening and mind-boggling Texas Observer Political Parties and Pachangas Featuring one of the hardest-working men in the Senate business: Senator Paul Wellstone the Minnesota Democrat often tagged the “most progressive U.S. Senator”and proud of it. Come meet Senator Wellstone and your Observer pals, hear some short but passionate speeches, drink some beer, eat some nachos, and get ready for the millennium. Donations will be accepted at the door. NOVEMBER 21, 1997 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7