ON THE LINE

...Supporters of Abiola, however, have appealed for economic sanctions...

...embargo on Cuba, several U.S...

...JfeAN Damu and David Bacon Teens Test Freedom to Travel When President Clinton tightened travel restrictions as part of the U.S...

...On June 11, 1994, he declared himself head of state...

...We are at a juncture in human evolution," she says, "where we either must allow individuals to create appropriate alternatives within their own lives and communities, or we're going to destroy ourselves...

...They sit silently...

...Over the last seventeen years, she has made eight documentaries, ranging from a profile of community organizing to a look at the use of light in religious practices...

...Heeding an appeal from the International Chemical and Energy Workers Federation (ICEF), OCAW president Bob Wages sent letters of protest to Abacha...

...Recording executives David Altschul and Jim Ed Norman, who plan to release the new Foremen CD, Folk Heroes, in September, believe the quartet has "cross-over appeal"—that is, both liberal and conservative consumers will want to hear what The Foremen have to say...

...Kristi Coale...

...Unionists Go to Jail in Nigeria San Francisco Since the strike against Nigeria's military dictatorship by oil workers ended last year, Frank Kokori has been in prison...

...policy—oil companies, or the people of Nigeria...

...Yes, we are breaking the law, but we are doing it to change the law...

...The general used Nigeria's oil income as a source of personal wealth and power...

...For information on Third Parties '96 or a copy of the declaration, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope and small donation to: Linda Martin, Conference Coordinator, Green Politics Network, 4714 Minor Circle, Alexandria, VA 22312, (703) 642-S710, e-mail: lindamartin@igc.apc.org ings, to force a return to democracy...

...But Nigerians know what his crime was...

...Among the points adopted in the declaration are campaign-finance reform, an end to corporate welfare, the defeat of anti-affirmative-actio ? proposals, an end to the war on drugs, and dramatic cuts in military spending...

...I mean with the Republican ascendancy in Congress—it's rotten for the country, and it's a great thing for us...

...We have a unique opportunity now," Zimmerman says...

...European oil corporations sympathized with the strikers and let their pumps go idle...

...I'm calling it a reverse Perot...

...Like other women who survived back-alley abortions, Fadiman told no one of this experience for many years...

...The repression of Nigeria's oil workers has sparked a brush fire of protest from oil unions in the United States and Europe...

...But California-based Chevron, and New York-based Mobil, took a different tack...

...Along with NUPENG president Wariebi Agamene and two leaders of the industry's staff union, Francis A. Addo and Fidelis Aidelomon, Kokori has been detained for almost a year...

...Meanwhile, third parties in Virginia and Colorado are using the declaration to build local and state coalitions to run slates of candidates...

...Zimmerman got his feet wet during the 1980s comedy boom in the Bay Area, when he performed stand-up in a duo called the Reagan Brothers...

...The purpose of my films...

...She scraped together $600 in cash and had an illegal abortion—blindfolded and unanesthetized...

...I think our government's policy is more of an enemy than anyone else...

...Abacha appointed an army-dominated Provisional Ruling Council, did away with federal and state elected bodies, and prohibited political activity...

...There's even talk of an MTV video...

...He has never been arraigned...

...We're starting at the bottom, organizing our groups at the state level...

...is not to persuade, but to quicken the ^j^^ spirit of the curious...

...Two days later, she fell ill with peritonitis and blood poisoning and was rushed to the university hospital where her own doctor—who had refused to provide her with a safe abortion or a referral—saved her life...

...Palo Alto, California In a small auditorium at Stanford University, a group of medical students resemble mourners at the wake of a close friend...

...A pantheist, Fadiman strives to see the spiritual side to everything, abortion included...

...Meanwhile, the Freedom to Travel Campaign, which has taken more than 500 people to Cuba, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S...

...On June 23 he was arrested...

...Her second documentary, the soon-to-be-released From Danger to Dignity, chronicles the efforts of activists and legislators to decriminalize abortion while telling the story of the underground network that helped women find safe abortions outside the law...

...During the late 1980s when Roe v. Wade appeared to be in peril, Fadiman snatched up her video camera and put together a compelling story—her own illegal abortion, which evolved into a story that included many other women...

...But a big question remains regarding the attitude of the Clinton Administration...

...youth got the idea to reach out to Cuba with their own gesture of goodwill...

...Headed by singer-songwriter Roy Zimmerman, The Foremen are unabashed progressives who skewer liberal sacred cows nearly as often as conservative bugbears...

...We try to make everyone laugh by finding whatever's funny in the truth of the issues we're singing about...

...Abiola and the leaders of the oil workers' union remain in prison today...

...oil payments to Nigeria in escrow...

...Ryan Downing When Abortion Was Illegal Dorothy Fadiman at home: telling her story so other women don't have to live it...

...Most of America is quite liberal, especially on social issues...

...We're in a blockade, too...

...Oil provides 95 percent of the West African nation's foreign earnings, and has made Nigeria one of the continent's most industrialized countries...

...The coalition will meet again to come up with a platform...

...it was like a body part you couldn't mention," she recalls...

...The arrest of Abiola and the oil workers' strike had a galvanizing effect on Nigerian workers...

...We should have the power to work for dialogue," says Ruzicka...

...Financially strapped, emotionally unready to be a mother, and lacking a stable relationship, Fadiman decided to terminate the pregnancy...

...I don't think of Cuba as an enemy," says eighteen-year-old Maria Ruzicka...

...We feel that it's not at all out of the question that we could come up with enough organizations in enough states to put a Presidential candidate on the ballot in 1996," Martin says...

...Working, debating, partying, and playing with their Cuban counterparts as well as challenging the U.S...

...No woman should have to go through this," she says...

...It hasn't been on people's minds so much since the Nixon era...

...When she was twenty-two, "the term abortion was a dirty word...

...It also features clergy of different faiths who referred women to doctors who performed abortions or to safe places in Mexico...

...People's consciousness of things political is so high now and especially their consciousness of personalities...

...Delegates from twenty-six independent political parties in the United States adopted a declaration of common principles...

...Now the proud mother of two grown daughters, Fadiman was twenty-two and a graduate student at Stanford in 1962 when she discovered she was pregnant...

...Their list of targets includes the Bank of America and Citibank, which are tied to Chevron and Mobil, respectively...

...The real question," according to OCAW vice-president Calvin Moore, "is whose interests determine U.S...

...Soon after the oil rigs shut down, the domestic supply of oil ran out...

...But while the religious right has tried to portray abortion rights as antithetical to Christian beliefs, Fadiman says she sought clergy from different faiths to demonstrate that there was—and still is—broad support in the religious community for choice...

...The oil workers' strike was touched off by a series of events beginning in June 1993, when former defense minister General Sani Abacha took over the country, preventing the newly elected civilian president from taking office, and calling a complete halt to Nigeria's budding democratic process...

...Carrying out what the government defines as "trading with the enemy," the youth repaired a maternity clinic and worked on reforestation and urban garden projects in various parts of Cuba...

...Fed up with political repression and the wildfire of corruption, the legitimately elected Nigerian president, Moshood Abiola, decided to challenge the military regime...

...The continued imprisonment of these union leaders has sparked a campaign in the United States and other countries to win their freedom...

...We get people coming up to us who say, 'I'm a conservative but I laughed anyway,' " Zimmerman reports...

...youth visited Cuba as part of the San Francisco-based Freedom to Travel Campaign...

...Corruption and incompetence escalated so far that by 1994 the country owed foreign oil corporations nearly $1 billion in operating fees...

...In the song, which ridicules the President's vacillating views, The Foremen sing, "Lean to the left a little/Then lean a lot to the right/Do a total turnabout/Let the other guy lead...

...Members of various progressive organizations, the Green Party, the New Party, and individual activists met in Washington, D.C., in June to discuss the formation of a national third party...

...The primary point of this film is that these clergy supported women, they assisted them, and they were there if the women wanted to talk about it, but they didn't tell them what to do," says Fadiman...

...There are no formal charges...

...Our sense is that there is a new mainstream that is totally disgusted with the major parties," says conference coordinator Linda Martin...

...ON THE LINE Leftie Folk Comics Make It Big Los Angeles Inspired by the likes of Lenny Bruce and the Wayfarers, a new quartet of folk minstrels, The Foremen, has emerged in Southern California and is playing to packed houses up and down the state...

...What we found out is that we have a lot more in common than that which divides us," says Martin...

...President Clinton has not sought that dialogue, and if youth have to do it, then so be it...

...While to most progressives the current climate appears overwhelmingly conservative, Zimmerman is convinced that "the majority that's silent these days is the liberal majority...

...That spring the companies began to lay off workers...

...For Fadiman, the satisfaction of filmmaking lies in a certain "messianic zeal" to share her experience and beliefs with thousands of people...

...We don't realize how dangerously close we are to returning to the old days when abortions were difficult to obtain...

...In July, the oil workers went on strike, calling for Abi-ola's release...

...A new song on the Folk Heroes CD comments on the affirmative-action backlash...

...Jordan Elgrably The Foremen (clockwise from left) Andy Corwin, Doug Whitney, Roy Zimmerman, and Kenny Rhodes...

...For Zimmerman, the proof is in successful Foremen performances for groups ranging from the ACLU and the anti-nuclear Alliance for Survival, to those with a decidedly conservative constituency, such as The Century Club of USC alumni...

...Court of Appeals on September 19...

...In a hushed tone, she explains why she made the film in 1992...

...As head of the oil workers' union, NU-PENG, Kokori could effectively turn the foreign dollar spigot on and off, which he periodically did in order to win higher wages for his members...

...Copies of From Danger to Dignity are available from Concentric Media, P.O Box 1414, Menlo Park, CA 94026...

...The result was the Academy-Award-nominated, When Abortion Was Illegal, the first in a trilogy of documentaries on the issue...

...They suggest freezing the assets of Nigerian generals and companies, and call for putting U.S...

...Some wipe tears from their cheeks, while others hold hands or hug...

...Other affiliates of the Nigerian Labor Congress also struck briefly...

...The fifty-five-year-old filmmaker, herself tearful, walks slowly toward the podium...

...I hope President Clinton will listen," says fourteen-year-old Cuban American Arlen Benjamin, who participated in the trip...

...To purchase a copy of When Abortion Was Illegal, contact BullFrog Films (800) 543-3764...

...embargo, the young people in their teens and twenties risk a maximum fine of $250,000 and ten years in prison...

...They have just seen the film, When Abortion Was Illegal, Dorothy Fadiman's moving, first-person documentary...

...These two companies flew in strikebreakers to keep oil flowing...

...Kokori and his colleagues believed that a democratic government could end the corruption, preserve their jobs and wages, and redirect the flow of the oil wealth...

...In general, though, the group is glad to reach a broader audience...

...The Foremen didn't want to help the "other side" by getting on Limbaugh's show, says member Kenny Rhodes...

...We're looking for an organization to take on the coordination," says Martin...

...In "W.I.M.P.," tenor vocalist Kenny Rhodes does a convincing impersonation of the belea- -guered white male: "Oh lord . . . no one knows all the woes of the majority . . . [or] fights for the rights of the privileged . . . Now how'm I expected to rule the Earth/I'm a white, indignant male person: W.I.M.P...

...They're decent, hard-working, want to pay taxes, believe in government, and are caring and tolerant of other folks...

...While The Foremen got their start in small venues, promoting themselves on their homegrown label, Metaphor Records, with the Warner/Reprise release they will reach national talk radio and morning TV...

...Abacha ordered the army to take control of all oil union offices, and those of the Labor Congress as well...

...After a grassroots beginning playing parlor performances in people's homes and other low-budget gigs, The Foremen recently signed a major recording deal with Warner/Reprise that will permit them to go national...

...There will be a fotlow-up meeting in October in the Midwest around Columbus Day weekend...

...Greenpeace has produced an hour-long video documenting the repression of the Ogoni people's movement to recover part of the wealth pumped from their homeland...

...But her openness in talking about her abortion while making the documentary compelled other women she interviewed to talk freely about their experiences...

...Military assistance to Nigeria has been halted because of human-rights violations...

...Kokori is the general secretary of Nigeria's 60,000-member National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NU-PENG...

...On May 4, Randall Robinson, director of TransAfrica, and ten other labor and community leaders were arrested for blocking the gates of the Nigerian Embassy...

...Their operations guaranteed continued income for the Abacha military regime...

...Condemnations of human-rights violations in Nigeria have also come from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Africa...

...Last September, the national convention of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) called for Kokori's release and a return to democracy...

...Treasury Department, forty U.S...

...In fact, the group was dismayed last year when Rush Lim-baugh picked up a tune from an early, self-produced recording called, "Do the Clinton...

...Between June 23 and June 30, despite threats from the U.S...

...The union he leads brought the country's biggest industry to a halt, shutting off its main source of foreign earnTHIRD PARTIES '96 NIKE ZACHMANOGLOU At the summit in D.C, Linda Martin (second from left) sees a new day dawning...

...The case will be brought before the U.S...

...government's travel restrictions...

...The involvement of religious figures with the pro-choice movement seems incongruous at a time when the religious right is standing ready to force the Republican Party to take a hard anti-abortion position, and the Vatican is vociferously denouncing abortion rights...