ENPages
1
directions -- urbanization with its "ethnically pure" ghettos and all their explosiveness -- will come to dominate in the South as it has in the North.
___ Today, as in year past, distribution of political funds in the South are controlled by the political establishment of the Black Belt. Consequently, for many candidates representing Black and progressive constituencies, the Southern Elections Fund is the only source of campaign funds and technical assistance in the region. Without SEF grants many predominantly black counties in the South would, for lack of financial resources, have no black candidates seeking municipal and county offices. Thus, poor and minority people would again be cut off from the means of systematically challenging the forces responsible for pperpetuating the economic and political oppressions which remains the heritage of black citizens in the South. ___ In 1976, fifteen to twenty-five Black-Belt counties will be targeted to receive intensive financial aid and in-county technical assistance from the Southern Elections Fund. To insure that this program is effective, we must be able to provide funds and expertise to candidates from the time they file to run for office through the November general elections. That means we must raise a substantial part of this year's program budget now! ___ Because of the still tight economic situation and national competition for available political funds, your assistance is more crucial to our work than ever. Please review the enclosed material carefully -- then write the most
2
COMMITTEE FOR NEW POLITICAL INITIATIVES Seminar Notes
Primary speakers for the conference sponsored by the Committee for New Political Initiative on Monday, June 2, 1975, were Gar Alperovitz, Jeff Faux, and Pam Woywod. The discussion focused on the topic of public ownership of industry and economic planning. Roy Leib began the seminar by asking such questions as "What is public ownership?" "How should it work?" He said that although there seem to be indicators that many people are beginning to favor public ownership, questions are arising about how it will work.
Gar Alperovitz
In the course of talking about public enterprise and the context in which that question comes up, there are a whole number of questions which are non-technical, in fact the most interesting ones -- primarily questions relating to politics ane also social relations. There is no expertise on that. One of the things that we found important, at least in terms of our own thinking, is that you can come at this subject straight up in terms of "Let's nationalize the oil industry or the railroads or banks." Even though there is a surprising amount of sentiment already being demonstrated in the public being open to such ideas, there are still many unanswered questions. According to several polls, roughly 42-44% of the public are saying that they are in favor of nationalizing the oil industry. And when the question is asked whether the oil industry should be turned into a public utility, it comes up roughly 62%.
Why bother? Does it do you any good; and if so, why, how, and in what context, and why should you want it? That requires you to say something about what you see as some of the larger problems there are in the society, with some forecast on that, and something about the political context which may be emerging -- and finally whether or not public enterprise is at all relevant to those kinds of issues.
Our overview of the coming period (15-20 years and also 2-5 years) is that what we are likely to face is intensified inflation and intensified unemployment, like the recent and present cycle. And that this is not a temporary phenomenon--could possibly get worse-- and although there may be