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II POSTMODERN ISM &Tk y. i SUMMER 1992 BREAKTHROUGH VOL.16, NO. 1 Breakthrough Is the political journal 1 GOODBYE, COLUMBUS: THOUGHTS ON WESTERN of Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC), an anti-imperialist organiza- CIVILIZATION tion working in the international by Jimmy Emerman solidarity, anti-intervention, anti- racist, women's and gay liberation 4 EL SALVADOR: THE ROAD AHEAD movements and other progressive Interview with FMLN Representative Ramon Cardona movements in the U.S. PFOC supports self-determination and 9 A FEMINIST GUIDE TO THE GALAXY liberation for Puerto Rican, Black, Native American, Mexican and other by Judith Mirkinson oppressed peoples, and freedom for political prisoners and Prisoners of War. 15 BACKLASH: The Undeclared War on American Women by Susan Faludi Reviewed by Sally Thomas Breakthrough is published three times a year by the John Brown Education Fund, 220-9th Street, #443, San 17 DE AMBIENTE Francisco, CA 94103, ©1992 JBEF. Interviews with the Nicaraguan Movement of Lesbian Feminists and Gay Men 24 WILL POSTMODERNISM KILL THE MOVEMENT? Editorial Collective: by Les Gottesman Barbara Barnett, Scott Braley, Camomile, Jimmy Emerman, Terry Forman, Les Gottesman, 32 BLACK WOMEN AND AIDS: THE SECOND EPIDEMIC^ Judith Mirkinson, Sally Thomas by Judy Gerber 40 SUPERMAX: CONTROL UNIT PRISONS Volume XVI, No. 1, whole no. 22. by Nancy Kurshan Press date: April 28, 1992. Political Prisoners Update You can write to PFOC c/o: 46 CANT KILL THE SPIRIT Boston: PO Box 747, Allston, MA02134 47 WRITETHROUGH THE WALLS Atlanta: PO Box 18044, Atlanta, GA 30316 Front Cover: "The Plunder of Latin America," mosaic tile and found objects, San Francisco: PO Box 14422, inspired by Eduardo Galeano's triology Memories of Fire. © 1989 Elly Simmons, San Francisco, CA 94114 PO Box 463, Lagunitas, CA 94938, 415/488-4177. Chicago: Box 253, Back Cover: based on an original Cuban poster 2520 N. Lincoln, Chicago, IL 60614 In Memoriam Subscriptions are available from the SF address. $10.00 individual/$15 Jackie Winnow, lesbian-feminist activist, died of metastatic breast cancer on September institutions and overseas (surface 7,1991. Jackie founded the Women's Cancer Resource Center (WCRC) in Oakland, mail)/4 issues; free to prisoners. California. The first center of its kind in die U.S., the WCRC provides information, medical referrals and support for women widi cancer and their families. She struggled in the lesbian and gay community and in die broader women's movement tliat cancer is a political issue. This was an important contribution in 1985, when breast cancer was not recognized as the epidemic that it is now. We honor and remember Jackie Winnow, the many otherwomen activists, and die rest ofthe49,000women who will dieof cancer this year alone. Clayton Van Lyekgraf (1915-1992), a lifelong anti-imperialist, died on March 30, 1992 of cancer. Van was a contributor to the book Prairie Fire and one of the founding members of Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. PRAIRIE FIRE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE BREAKTHROUGH I COODBYE, COLUMBUS: THOUGHTS ON WESTERN CIVILIZATION by Jimmy Emerman N CASE YOU MISSED THE BIG NEWS, SCIENTISTS AT from Spain on the first leg of a voyage that will bring the annual meeting of the American Geophysical them to San Francisco on October 12, Columbus Day, I Union in December in San Francisco were treated to 1992, culminating the quincentennial of the quintes- a series of dramatic, planetary-scale environmental en- sential Voyage of Discovery. gineering schemes to rescue Earth from human progress. Columbus and the ozone hole? You ask, "What's the Among the quick fixes proposed were: connection?" Over the course of 500 years, a passable • Sending millions of small balloons into the strato- sailor, a man obsessed with greed for gold and fame, and sphere to reflect sunlight back into space. a thoroughly incompetent administrator, who ended • Partially shading the planet with giant space umbrel- up being brought back to Spain in chains, has been las, each covering hundreds of miles. elevated to the stature of a god. The Columbus • Dumping 50,000 tons of propane per year into the Quincentennial, among other things, is a celebration of stratosphere above Antarctica to absorb ozone-de- Western civilization's spirit of adventure, rugged indi- pleting pollutants. vidualism, the triumph of science and technology over These suggestions — dismissed incidentally by most nature. of the geophysicists present — have the bizarre logic of The Age of Discovery, the Renaissance, and the Modern Age it ushered in, exploded one of the guiding principles of feudal thought, the divine order of nature, with each species having a relationship to die whole of creation. Instead, the individual and his (sic) aspira- tions represented the pinnacle of progress. Technologi- cal advances over nature would lead to a Utopia of economic, intellectual and spiritual well-being. Societal good would be fulfilled through the granting of individual liberty. Humankind would achieve the stature of gods. A small leap to a science fiction: If techno- quick fix for global logical advance creates a warming. world-threatening crisis — Nearly 500 years in this case, the formation after Columbus hit of a gigantic hole in the land in the Americas, Earth's protective ozone technology and "prog- layer—science can devise ress" — the twin icons a better technology to fix of Western civilization — the problem. continue apace. What better time Meanwhile, on another to look at what five centuries of Western civilization cultural plane altogether, replicas of Christopher Co- have meant — for the continent, for Europe, for the lumbus' fleet, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, set sail planet — and for the way we frame our discussions of I SUMMER 1992 social change. Conquista, the bloody colonization of the Americas Western values — "progress," /science," "individu- .meant the genocide of entire nations of Indian people. alism"— hayg he<^mFSG:entrenched in our thinking It set thestage for theAfrican slave trade, the coloniza- .rfiat it is 4ni?st,Jmpessible;%Qjeparate ourselves from i?# tiori and deva?j[atton of the African continent and of |herf*iias;;||ank about, them, cr|tiea}ly, or;,to imagine jidegadiig people;aridc;ultures of color to a permanently s. Wgs * irilgriersstatus.,:,,,,.., ":\,, ~'~ f The Qiiinc<;nl|;rinial.of Columbus' landfall conve- Qbstgglggf;&:i!j<|<.iHSt? "merirljj jiuts all of this, history behind us. Two of the ii ;• Social Ji-o{?l Iniipxigli^ill give Soipaail approaches to theapproaching extravaganza s i:;are: (J ) the history of the past 5QP years traces a basically the world by the civilization of Europe andlfen fi|||3|rrif|-ica; o%,C2) were horrible ; . o n Ind, tragicallyplpiy fc1«|,%it what's pa|:;|>:past sprimij^to value cliersiif i^ , "line is Stiffillfcions Mel vieWpalMtSlrl i$ ullaSif alidls those oi Paradise, points ou :;:;;?g||i|g men and must be includef \j the wmlcplace, ••; .^ elsfw|iei|| :|fe. "f \i. d%se"|i|£rr|||ids and : — | al|ip|irtg this ;ll|Hiitatistics ori"thi|{fcsta|tetig!;f ^— :the medieval age system to inclu||;llf *l§iiiiafll j|||e:i5till rnat|jtair(ing 4 white male frap|||||f fergnge. iipni'lhe new C^l ifornia. ;C.u|ficulurr|jio' the p|gd| of Assodatiori\n for heads of : * whose Nc|verr|ber 1991 issue s, tb is it%lie approach being re|poriU to demands a|i organization — have its : of the domi- ll>liii!i|ii'it|l||iiS'H '!• already doing their iiilisiiBwiiiiiiftiB!iiiifc i demand more than ' underlying assumptions. history from an African t| an entire chapter on us to cut the rest of U.S. , can you?" |jj|||i|i||!ie1se fails, the "danger" of destroying our l|I||j;|fnal unity" in the name of diversity is raised. fttllfgh 'this is the favorite argument of the right wing, sfepai^^l^^^tlO years and immensely varied social, n^^MBtef Only to Patrick Buchanan, the progres- nd technological systems, to a dominant sive ''n|ifpi|||at isn't immune from this nationalism- |ical paradigm—one that values technology and ba i fi "g T^^^Sfe' can see a growing attack being : above wisdom, human economic advance above mounted |gpi|lt efforts to change the way we are jinst nature, and European men above everyone taught, th|l|||J|d organize society — even in the name ic species? ofdiversg|||plf. ||ut through the advertising hype, we survey not This Jlpijfeal live struggle that all the Columbus a lahlj|||||eflourishin g with human potential, but one celebraJHp won't be able to paper over. The fact that littered|||||li die wreckage of civilizations and cultures the Ujlip looking less and less European — not just in which dllllfot conform to the European norm. La its sta§||lrd of living for people of color, but in the actual BREAKTHROUGH demographic makeup of its cities and whole regions, civilizations had achieved levels of agriculture, science, such as the Southwest, means that the pressure to technology and mathematics which surpassed those of fragmentation and polarization will grow. All the dis- Europe. cussion of "managing diversity" won't alter this and, Just as important, we are being given glimpses into unless conditions of life for people of color, women, the intellectual, spiritual and philosophical life of indig- children, gays and lesbians, the elderly, the poor and die enous peoples. Many Indian cultures, from the Lakota disabled change dramatically, the melting pot is headed to the Iroquois, had achieved a way of life that fully for meltdown. integrated human beings with the rest of nature. People Would a different view of the human enterprise — were stewards of the land, not its owners, with respon- one that valued women as much as men, all cultural sibility for protecting and preserving the harmony of traditions rather than just one, the biological integrity of nature.