Vol. 21, No. 8
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
25¢ August 1, 1991
[Front page:
Stand up against police state measures!;
Thomas nominated--Supreme Court -- Enemy of the People;
Solidarity Day '91--Workers need class struggle]
IN THIS ISSUE
| The Fight Against Cutbacks |
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| Massachusetts; Pennsylvania; Maine; Illinois; Chicago; Detroit; California.............................................................. | 2 |
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| No to nuclear plant renewals.............................................. | 3 |
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| Health care reform for whom?........................................... | 4 |
| Health care caps shift burden onto workers....................... | 4 |
| Senators create AIDS hysteria............................................ | 4 |
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| Strikes and Workplace News |
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| Defy strikebreaking laws.................................................... | 4 |
| Janitors; Hospital workers; Cadillac Gage; United Nations; Clothing workers; Hotel workers......................... | 5 |
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| Stand Up Against Growing Police State! |
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| Another cover-up for racist L.A. Police............................. | 6 |
| How the D.A. protects police brutality............................... | 6 |
| Turning poor neighborhoods into prisons.......................... | 6 |
| Protest the jailing of anti-racist fighters............................. | 6 |
| Anti-crime law -- war on workers and poor....................... | 7 |
| Blacks decry racist police in Miami................................... | 7 |
| Police torture in Chicago.................................................... | 7 |
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| U.S. Imperialism, Out of the Persian Gulf! |
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| Hands off the 'war parade 18'............................................ | 8 |
| Chicago activists hit Desert Storm hoopla......................... | 8 |
| Down with the strangling of Iraq........................................ | 8 |
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| Defend Women's Rights! |
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| Will the abortion gag rule last............................................ | 4 |
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| What does Clarence Thomas stand for?............................. | 9 |
| Why Thomas is accepted by white conservatives.............. | 9 |
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| For Workers' Socialism, Not Revisionist State-Capitalism |
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| Yugoslavia tearing apart at the seams................................. | 10 |
| What's behind the crisis in Yugoslavia............................... | 10 |
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| The World in Struggle |
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| Apartheid regime behind sectarian violence...................... | 11 |
| Turkish Kurds; Dominican Republic; Australia; S. Korea; Madagascar; Zaire.............................................................. | 12 |
Stand up against police state measures!
Thomas nominated
Supreme Court -- Enemy of the People
Solidarity Day '91
Massachusetts:
How the politicians restore a 'business atmosphere'
The fight against cutbacks
Health care caps shift burden onto workers
Will the abortion gag rule last?
Strikes and workplace news
Stand up against the growing police state!
Hands off the "War Parade 18"!
Chicago activists hit Desert Storm hoopla
Down with the strangling of Iraq!
What does Clarence Thomas stand for?
What it takes to be accepted by the white conservatives
Yugoslavia tearing apart at the seams
What's behind the crisis in Yugoslavia?
The truth comes out in South Africa:
Apartheid regime behind sectarian violence
The World in Struggle
Turkish Kurds fight the terror from Bush ally Ozal
General strike shuts down Dominican Republic
Australian auto workers fight labor bureaucrats
Huge demonstrations in Madagascar
Two-day general strike in Zaire
All across the country politicians are turning to police-state measures. From the White House and Congress to the courts and local police, a series of measures are being implemented to foster racism and anti-woman bigotry and to stifle the voices of dissent.
In this issue of The Workers' Advocate we highlight a number of these measures. And we call on the workers and all progressive people to get organized to resist the reactionary "law and order" climate.
Jailing social problems
Today every social problem is being dealt with not by trying to solve the problem but with new and more repressive laws.
Is AIDS a problem? Then segregate off the afflicted and write laws to jail infected doctors.
Is homelessness a problem? Then sweep them from the streets and public parks. Apparently if the rich can't see them then they are not there.
Are drugs a problem? Then write a new anti-crime bill with harsher sentences, more executions, more jails and police. There is no thought to drug treatment or alleviating the poverty and distress breeding drug abuse. Oh no! Instead, barricade off the ghettos as they are doing in Los Angeles, and unleash police terror against the oppressed minorities.
Where are our rights?
But what about the rights of the people, fought for and won through years of strenuous mass struggle? Oh we still have rights on paper, we just aren't supposed to exercise them.
Minorities are still supposed to have equal rights. But in the name of stopping "quotas," the courts are tearing down every block to racist bigotry and discrimination.
A woman's right to choose an abortion is still legal, for now. But with "gag rules," restrictions and the closing of clinics, "choice" becomes an empty phrase.
Strikes are still legal. But with bans on mass picketing and solidarity strikes and the use of "permanent replacements" it is just not legal to win the strikes.
Such is the state of "democracy" in this "land of the free."
Down with the 'new world order'
Every day President Bush sings the glories of spreading "American freedom and democracy" around the globe. We got a taste of this "new world order" with the Persian Gulf war and there is no freedom in it. To prop up a Kuwaiti tyrant and protect the oil plundered by U.S. imperialism, the U.S. war machine slaughtered and starved the Iraqi masses. Meanwhile, at home, GI resisters were jailed and protesters were beaten.
It is not "freedom and democracy" but "might makes right" that is the credo of Bush's "new world order." It is the "right" of the privileged, the wealthy, the capitalists that is being protected by hi-tech bombers and the police baton.
Today the capitalists are faced with growing worldwide competition, a recession, and a deep, underlying economic crisis. To protect their profits they are waging a concerted campaign to drive down the standard of living at home while plundering working people in countries around the world. And to enforce this drive, Bush and Congress are turning to military aggression abroad and police-state measures inside the U.S.
But there is another power, or at least a potential power, in this country -- that of the working class and oppressed people. We are the vast majority. And if we unite our numbers through organization; if we separate from the capitalist parties, from the Democrats as well as the Republicans, and build our own independent movement; if we unleash the pent-up anger and outrage in a barrage of mass struggle, then we can resist each new step of reaction, we can stand up for our rights, and we can prepare for a battle to break the power of the wealthy capitalists once and for all. Today the mass struggle is still small, and the workers split up and isolated. But sentiment is growing for a fight. Let us build up each separate protest and direct it into a single stream of struggle against the capitalist rulers. Resist the growing reaction! Down with the "new world order"!
[Photo: Left: confrontation with police in Portland, Oregon during a Persian Gulf War protest. Right: march against racist LAPD chief Gates.]
In the last few months, the Supreme Court has been issuing one decision after another stripping rights from the working people. It is on a "law and order" rampage. There isn't a popular right the worthy justices can find enshrined in the Constitution, nor an outrage that is forbidden.
In one decision after another, the court has smiled at the use of torture to extract confessions, put aside the need for search warrants in one situation after another, made it harder to challenge cruel and inhuman conditions in the jails, and justified the gag rule on abortion rights.
As one Reagan or Bush appointee after another comes on the court, it has given up the pretext of defending the people's rights. In the days of the Warren court, it promoted some mild reforms in order to persuade the masses to rely on legalism and give up mass struggle. Now the Supreme Court is reverting to the usual role it has played in American history -- that of the supreme club to bludgeon the people, and supreme nay-sayer to rule out the social welfare of the many as an unconstitutional infringement of the property rights of the rich.
To reinforce this change, and cement a people-bashing majority until deep into the twenty-first century, Bush has nominated Clarence Thomas to replace the aging Thurgood Marshall. Clarence Thomas is an all-rights-to-the-rich man, who believes that "natural law" dictates that society should be subordinated to the dictates of religion and of capitalist profit-making.
But there is a twist. This particular right-winger, Clarence Thomas, happens to be black and of humble origins to boot.
Of course, racist Bush is not about to support just any black person for a Supreme Court seat. First he has to meet Bush's criteria for being ideologically correct -- diehard conservative and contemptuous of the common people. On this account Thomas is well-qualified. He has made a career of doing his best to make up for his background and convince the wealthy conservatives that he is oh-so loyal; he even slandered his own sister as a lazy welfare bum in order to win acceptance from a conservative audience.
Thomas echoes Bush down the line. Thomas opposes the meager affirmative action programs, although he himself went to Yale Law School on such a program. His fervor against affirmative action and welfare has won him approval from arch-racist and "ex"-klansman David Duke. ("If he's for real and if he believes what he says, I think he would make a great Supreme Court justice," Duke said, on July 13.) He is an opponent of abortion rights. And he considers restrictions on capitalist profit-gouging to be against "natural law."
Clarence Thomas will not defend the rights of the working people, the minorities, or the downtrodden. He will be another hanging judge like Chief Justice Rehnquist and his fellow conservatives. The nomination of Clarence Thomas shows that workers, black people, and other of the oppressed can expect no sympathy from the Supreme Court. Don't hold back on the anger against the nomination of Clarence Thomas! Use it to fuel mass actions against the capitalist offensive and its Supreme Court toadies. Get prepared for a long struggle to organize the working people, a struggle that will confront a constant lash from the Supreme Inquisitors in Washington.
[Cartoon.]
Solidarity Day is August 31. Rarely do the AFL-CIO unions hold national demonstrations, and there are signs that the union officials will be more halfhearted than ever. Yet workers from across the country will join together for a protest march in Washington D.C. The workers will come to show support for on-going strikes and to protest budget cutbacks, layoffs, and concessions to the corporations. They will come to express their anger at a government that serves only the rich. And they will come to demonstrate their hopes that working people can mount a fight-back against the monopolies' take-back offensive.
This is important. Today the workers are being battered in a society where the rich are increasingly trampling on the rest. $500 billion is being spent to bail out the S&Ls, but social programs for working people are decimated. Corporate executives pig out on obscenely high salaries. But workers wages and health care benefits are cut and millions are laid off. Taxes have been slashed for the rich and the monopolies. But the tax burden on the workers has become unbearable. Billions are spent to slaughter Iraqi toilers to protect the profits of the oil monopolies. Meanwhile the prospects for many working class youth have been narrowed to little more than serving as cannon fodder for the imperialist war machine or going to jail.
Today there is a war at home. A class war, in which the filthy rich capitalists are laying siege to the livelihood of the workers and oppressed. It is essential that the workers close ranks, stand up as a class, and build an independent mass movement to fight the capitalists.
But if a serious struggle is to be built, the workers will also have to oppose the very trade union leaders who have called this march.
The AFL-CIO bureaucrats have announced three slogans for this march: national health care for all, ban "permanent replacements" for strikers, and freedom of association -- at home and abroad. These are important goals. And the fight for them will take mass initiative and fierce battles with the capitalists.
But the AFL-CIO hacks do not want such a battle. For over a decade the capitalists have been chipping away at workers' pay and jobs. But instead of fighting the bosses, the union leaders have preached "labor-management cooperation" and lied that "concessions save jobs."
Their appeals for Solidarity Day are no different. Are the bureaucrats calling for mass battles to defend workers' health care from the corporate slashers? Oh no, they whine that their aim is to cut costs for the corporations.
Do they complain about "permanent replacements" for strikers in order to build up the strike movement? Oh no, as AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland put it, they want to bring "reason, moderation and compromise" back to the bargaining table.
And when they call for "freedom of association" is this to mount organizing drives in the U.S. and to support the tenacious strikes by workers in Korea, Mexico, and other countries? Not a chance. They have yet to mount a concerted effort to organize the unorganized at home. And they continue to preach against low-wage workers in other countries and call for trade war to make more competitive the very U.S. monopolies that are eliminating the workers' jobs.
On every issue, instead of mobilizing for a class struggle against the capitalists, the union bureaucracy is looking for the way to help them. Oh they will complain about Bush and his wealthy cronies. But then they turn around and praise the Democrats, who are just as wealthy and who have joined with Bush for a bipartisan offensive against the working masses.
The workers' movement will never amount to much unless it stands up in its own class interests, separated from the capitalist parties -- the Democrats and Republicans alike. The gathering of workers for Solidarity Day is a good time to work for building an independent working class movement, to organize for class struggle against the capitalist parasites. The AFL-CIO leaders won't do this. The rank and file will have to get organized on their own.
Massachusetts has a national reputation for liberalism. Whether praising liberalism or condemning it, the press often turns to the example of Boston and both its Democratic and Republican politicians. So how are the liberal politicians dealing with the budget crisis that is devastating city after city, state after state?
A new state budget was approved on June 30. It was based on a consensus of Democratic and Republican politicians that the state must cut spending and create a "pro-business atmosphere." In fact, while there is a liberal Republican governor, Weld, this budget was devised by the Democrats. And the Democrats proposed the sharpest cuts in social services, slashing Medicaid and local aid even more than Governor Weld wanted.
Cutting social spending
The budget indeed slashes social spending. At a time of recession and unemployment, the budget throws the people onto their own resources. Look at the major cuts:
Public health: The largest cuts are in the Medicaid program, which provides medical care for one out of every 11 state residents. $440 million was cut from the program. It was left to the governor to find out how to make such cuts. Likely targets are dental services and eyeglasses, which are not mandated by federal law. People will probably be thrown off the program.
Public schools: Heavy cuts are to made in the schools. State aid to towns and cities is to be cut by $358 million, and most will be taken from the local school budgets. It is especially the working class and poor districts, which are already short of money, that will suffer. (Proposals to cut more from the wealthy districts and less from the other districts were turned down.) One out of every six teachers will be laid off. To save money, special education, busing, and bilingual education may be cut.
Libraries, parks, summer jobs: The local cuts will also mean cutting down on libraries, on parks, and on summer job programs.
Higher education: Massachusetts has a lot of famous private schools, but it has one of the skimpiest systems of public higher education in the country. Funding for public higher education will be cut back 15% from last year, which in turn had been slashed from the year before. Scholarships and loans for working class youth will also be cut $20 million. The results of these cuts will be to deny college and junior college education to thousands of working class and poor youth.
Welfare: There will be major cuts in welfare although not all the details have been worked out yet. 15,000 people, one-third of the people on general relief, will be cut off the rolls, even though the state is in a recession and 100,000 have run out of unemployment insurance benefits. The clothing allowance has been cut from AFDC -- why do families and children need coats or shoes anyway?
Wage freeze: It is not said openly, but the budget implies that state employees will either have their wages frozen or cut.
More spending to help out the wealthy
But don't accuse the legislature and governor of being heartless. They will dig deep and spend more on the truly deserving, even if they have to throw every last pauper out of school.
And who are the truly deserving? Why, it must be those who have already made something of themselves: the wealthy. Rewarding these deserving people is part of creating a "business environment."
Research and development: $50 million of tax credits are to be given to corporations in the name of fostering research and development.
Keeping the banks afloat: Boston bus and train fares are to be increased in order to raise $21 million. The entire amount is to be given to .the banks in the name of interest on past transit deals. Meanwhile pressure on the wages of transit workers, and the replacement of permanent workers with oppressed part-timers, will continue.
Privatization: Governor Weld is also eager to privatize a number of government services. Privatization will provide lucrative contracts for a number of companies. The only savings it will provide is by cutting the wages of the workers actually providing the services.
Big construction projects: There are no cuts or slowing down of a number of construction projects and other programs useful for real estate speculation.
No new taxes?
Just as the politicians cry about "family values," they pat themselves on the back for a budget with "no new taxes." But just as they impoverish and ruin working class families in the name of "family values," so "no new taxes" has turned out to mean in Massachusetts that the taxes should bear heaviest on the ordinary people.
The minimum excise tax on automobiles is increased from $5 to $25. Bus fares are increased. The cities and towns are encouraged to raise property taxes by $119 million, and they will not have to go through referendums.
The business environment
This budget shows that both parties serve the interests of the businessmen. They debated how best to create a "business environment." For them, the current economic crisis was not just a problem, but an opportunity -- a time to stamp down the expectations of the people for reasonable wages and decent conditions. And no matter how little money there is in the state treasury, it is always time to raid the till for more money for the corporations.
There is no voice in the legislature for the people. The workers and the unemployed have to rely on their own mass action to defend themselves. They will have to build an independent political movement to find their voice. And ultimately, the only way they can destroy "the business environment" of misery and exploitation is by eliminating the capitalist system whereby the means of production are owned by a privileged few. The world has been built up by the collective efforts of millions of laboring people, and it is time that the fruits of their labor were no longer doled out to them with eyedroppers.
On July 5, Pennsylvania did not pay 10,000 state workers because no budget had yet passed. In addition, 370,000 senior citizens did not receive rent rebate checks which should have been issued the first of the month. The checks can amount to as much as one-quarter of the monthly income of many retired workers. As well, payments for many state-assisted programs were stopped and some may have to close--youth services and homeless shelters included.
The state of Pennsylvania is faced with a $3 billion deficit. Governor Robert Casey has proposed massive cuts in all social programs -- especially education and health care -- along with tax hikes. He also proposed a system of payless paydays for state workers. 10,000 workers would not be paid on July 5; 10,000 more would go without pay July 12; 53,000 go without paychecks on July 19; and another 23,000 would not be paid on July 26.
The state workers are angry. Hundreds demonstrated at the state capitol in Harrisburg. At one point the workers chanting "Paycheck! Paycheck!" blocked the staircase inside the capitol rotunda.
[Photo: Pennsylvania state employees rally against budget cuts. They denounced payless paydays.]
State workers in Maine have also confronted payless paydays. Hundreds converged on the capitol in Augusta to protest against the state legislators who have refused to release money to pay them. The workers forced their way into the statehouse and chanted, "End the lockout!" "We want a budget!" and "Free the Maine 10,000!"
"We want pay now!" shouted hundreds of Illinois state workers as they marched through the capitol July 16. They were protesting the state government budget crisis which has delayed paychecks for more than 10,000 employees.
At dispute is whether the 20% income tax surcharge should become a permanent tax increase or remain a two-year extension. No politician would replace it with a tax on the wealthy. While Democrats and Republicans bicker, the workers and poor pay the price. But state workers are fighting back.
More than 300 parents, teachers and students demonstrated June 25 outside Mayor Richard Daley's office. They opposed plans to close many of the city's schools to resolve the $315 million school budget shortfall. City police sealed off the entrance to the mayor's office. And Daley never appeared. The demonstrators then marched through city hall chanting, "No cuts! No closings! No vouchers! No B.S.!"
On June 26, more than 200 homeless people and welfare recipients rallied outside the Illinois State Building. They denounced the state's welfare cuts. On the same day, 300 parents and children rallied at the monthly school board meeting to denounce proposed school cuts.
On July 20, a march in Detroit denounced Republican Governor Engler's slashing of general assistance and other social programs for the poor. It was held in the mostly black, working class neighborhood on the east side near Harpo's music theater, site of angry demonstrations last summer against the beating of two black men who had been assaulted by a crowd of white racists leaving a concert.
The march, organized by the Marxist-Leninist Party, was small but vociferous. A big banner with a drawing of Engler "Scissorhands" led the way. Rhythmic chants rang out, punctuated with the banging of empty pots symbolizing the effect of the cuts. People came out of their homes to watch and express their approval. The Workers' Advocate newspaper was distributed to onlookers who were encouraged to join the march. Half a dozen adults and several children did so, grabbing placards or pans and shouting slogans.
It ended with a brief rally where a speaker emphasized that mass struggle was the key to fighting the budget cuts.
Thousands of mass transit workers in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area threatened to walk off their jobs on July 1. The workers are mad about demands by the Southern California Rapid Transit District's (RTD) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) that at least a third of them pay for up to one-half of their medical benefits. The transit bosses have refused to change this demand after five fruitless months of negotiations.
Then in stepped California Governor Pete Wilson. He imposed a 60-day cooling off period. This blatant strikebreaking was disguised as "genuine" environmental concern on the part of the governor. Wilson issued a statement declaring "Any disruption in service will dramatically increase the number of automobiles using the Bay Area's highways, thus increasing pollution, transportation inefficiency and the likelihood of gridlock."
But if Wilson's so concerned, why not press the transit bosses to provide the workers full medical benefits? Not a chance. Wilson is himself slashing the state budget -- leading to layoffs and cutbacks in a wide variety of state programs -- to serve the capitalists. He is not about to help out the transit workers.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is gearing up to extend the lives of aging nuclear power plants through relicensing. It is considering 20-year renewals for the 66 plants whose licenses will expire between now and 2016.
Relicensing the nukes would pose a massive safety threat to the people. These reactors were built and licensed to last only 30-40 years. Even within that span, they have been plagued with radiation leaks, accidents and near-disasters, including the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. As well, nuclear plant hazards increase with age because key components -- including the reactor vessel, the cables holding it, and the water pipes -- deteriorate, often without being detected.
Take the example of Massachusetts' Yankee Rowe, the oldest reactor, which has applied for a renewal beyond its shutdown date in 2000. Yankee Rowe's reactor vessel has become brittle in three places from 30 years of neutron bombardment. By regulation, it should now undergo a new engineering analysis, but this has not been done. Once brittle, the reactor vessels are subject to cracking in the event that an emergency cooling system is activated.
Eroded pipes at nukes are also a serious issue, since pipes make up both the steam generating and cooling systems. In 1986 an eroded pipe ruptured at Virginia's Surry #2 plant, killing four workers.
On top of these ailments of old age, basic design flaws have been discovered in the existing plants, such as not enough independent backup systems. This has led to new construction and licensing standards. So, even without wear and tear, the older plants are in violation of current safety regulations, and could not be legally operated or licensed if they were brand new. (Unfortunately, the reactors are not run according to regulation. In some cases, the exact safety apparatus in use is not even known, or is misrepresented by the utility. In others, guidelines are ignored.)
Far from being granted renewals, these old plants should be shut down early. That is why on July 9, during a Congressional tour of Yankee Rowe related to its relicensing, protesters gathered at the gate with picket signs saying: "Death Rowe"; "Hell no! We won't glow!" and "Guinea pigs, unite!"
Profits and militarism come before safety
What then is the purpose of keeping the nukes on line? They are unacceptably dangerous as presently handled. They are expensive. New York's Shoreham cost $5.5 billion to open; the most modern plants spend some $40 million a year on improvements; Three Mile Island had cleanup costs over $1 billion. As well, due to a series of accidents and to the awareness spread by the antinuclear movement in the 70's and 80's, public opinion opposes nuclear power. And the present-day unsafe nukes are not needed for power generation. The 20% of U.S. power they supply could be replaced by other methods, although if the environment is to be safeguarded, society would have to make a serious effort to clean up fossil fuel plants and make full use of other sources of energy, such as geothermal, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, ocean and solar power.
Nevertheless, both the utilities and the government are insisting on preserving the reactors. The U.S. Justice Department, for example, has just intervened to stop the closing of Shoreham. It is even going to the ridiculous extreme of demanding an Environmental Impact Statement, claiming that environmental damage would result because this "clean" and "green" nuke might be replaced with a fossil fuel-burning plant. This angle is unusual since the Justice Department is not known for being environmentally conscious.
There are several reasons why the U.S. ruling class is so eager to maintain its decrepit nuclear reactor fleet.
*One reason is that the nuclear power program is closely bound up with U.S. imperialism's nuclear weapons program. The research and development for both go hand in hand. Reactor technology is important for the military because reactors are used to produce plutonium fuel for atomic bombs.
*It is also more profitable to certain capitalists to keep the reactors running. There are entrenched interests who make a great deal out of nukes, such as the construction, mining, and maintenance companies. There are government subsidies to plunder. And, in the face of the high costs and risks of decommissioning nukes, the utilities find it easier to make fat profits out of the present nuclear plants. After all, they are conveniently passing the high operating costs on to the consumer, charging roughly twice the price of conventional power.
*Once on line, nukes are also relatively invulnerable to social unrest such as strikes, because they are dangerous and difficult to shut down.
Decommissioning: the unsolved nightmare
Neither the utilities nor the government knows how to fully decommission a nuclear reactor. The technological problems remain unsolved. This means the country's 110 reactors are basically running off the edge of a cliff.
The main issues are: 1) How to dispose of the spent fuel rods, the most highly radioactive entities known on the planet; 2) How to dispose of the reactor vessel; and 3) How to dispose of the mountains of contaminated materials at the site.
Only one U.S. reactor has ever been decommissioned, and all of these issues were sidestepped. In 1989 the Department of Energy (DOE) took "full responsibility" for decommissioning Pittsburgh's Shippingport plant to demonstrate how "safely" and "easily" a reactor could be shut down. Shippingport's story illustrates what the U.S. government means by "responsibility."
First, Shippingport was a tiny reactor, 72 megawatts compared to the 1,000-megawatt modem reactors. It was transported whole, while other reactors will have to be carved into pieces by remote control, which will release high levels of radiation, and the pieces will have to be somehow sealed and transported to their tombs. To avoid tackling this problem, the DOE simply spent $98 million to put the vessel on a barge and ship it on a circuitous route of 8,100 miles to Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state. This military facility will not accept any commercial reactors; nor will any other site in the country.
As for the spent fuel rods, they were temporarily placed in a military facility in Idaho. No site exists for disposing of fuel rods. They are accumulating fast, since every full-size reactor uses up 15,000 a year -- over 22,500 tons already sit in pools near the reactors, awaiting disposal.
The only proposed site for civilian high-level radioactive waste disposal, Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is tangled in controversy. Its earliest opening date is set for 2003, but it may be canceled because of being situated between two prominent earthquake faults and 12 miles from a still young volcano.
Low-level radioactive waste dumps are now the responsibility of each state. They are supposed to establish state or regional sites by 1993, but no locality wants to host such a site.
Nuclear reactor components will remain radioactive for tens to hundreds of thousands of years and must be entombed where they cannot cause contamination, but no place has been found.
Operating the country's nukes for another 20 years so that they accumulate more waste and/or cause disasters is only going to worsen the decommissioning problem.
The AFL-CIO officials are demanding health care reform. But the question is reform for whom?
The bosses want cuts
Many corporate bosses are complaining that soaring costs are cutting into their profits and hurting their competitive positions. They are dealing with this by slashing benefits and shifting more of the cost onto the workers. The government budget-cutters are taking the same course. In this climate, at least 55% of the workers on strike last year were fighting to defend their health care benefits from takebacks.
Meanwhile, the medical capitalists are feeling the pressure and are also on a cost-containment binge. The insurance companies, medicine and technology firms, and the big-time health care providers are not about to cut costs by reducing their profits. Instead, they cut back or outright eliminate services and research, understaff facilities, and force unbearable overwork on health care employees.
For all of these capitalists health care reform means nothing more than developing a country-wide system to cut costs by further squeezing the workers and poor.
Workers must have their own program
For the working class health care reform means something different. The workers must defend their present benefits and extend them to the unorganized, the unemployed, and the poor who have no coverage. What is more, universal care really requires a nationalized system. The entire health care system must be overhauled. This is necessary to provide essential care that presently doesn't exist or is being cut back. It is also needed to cut costs by chopping off capitalist hangers-on and profiteers, rather than by restricting care. And the working people must have as much say as possible in the health care system so that it will serve their needs. Under capitalist rule, this can only go so far, but it is vital that this be pushed as far as the people can.
For the workers reform must mean making the capitalists pay for a real system of universal and effective health care.
Which side are you on?
Unfortunately, the union bureaucrats are trailing behind the capitalists' program.
Instead of calling for strikes to defend and extend health care benefits, they whine that "the pressures from health care bargaining...continue[s] to fuel labor-management strife." (AFL-CIO Employee Benefits Director Karen Ignagni, AFL-CIO News, June 10, 1991)
Instead of pushing that the capitalists must cut into their profits to pay for health care, they repeatedly complain about "the heavy burden on employers." (Lane Kirkland, AFL-CIO News, May 28, 1990)
Instead of fighting for a complete overhaul of the health care system, they endorsed the Democrats' Senate bill. This legislation maintains the present patchwork of private insurers, government programs, medical providers, etc. which are all free to continue to cut back coverage and services. In fact, the union leaders' only complaint is that the bill's cost-containment features do not go far enough. (See the AFL-CIO News, June 24, 1991.)
Today a confrontation is building between the workers and capitalists over health care. The union bureaucrats' quest for "labor-management cooperation" has put them on the capitalists' side.
The corporations are shifting the burden of health care costs onto their employees. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is the mouthpiece of big business. It surveyed its 8,500 members in February, and found that one-third of them intended to reduce medical benefits within two years.
One method of reducing benefits is that a company provides health insurance, but puts a cap on how much it will pay for it. As health costs escalate, the workers are left to pay for the entire additional cost of the insurance.
A case in point is the 1989 agreement between AT&T and the Communications Workers of America union. A maximum limit was placed on how much the company would spend for the health care of retirees. If the cost of health insurance exceeds this, then, starting in 1995, the retirees' pension checks would be reduced to cover the difference.
The leaders of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Union support a similar plan for the 484,000 retirees of GM, Ford and Chrysler. An agreement "in principle" between the "Big Three" auto giants and the UAW was reached in July, and the details are supposed to be worked out by the end of the year.
Eventually the retirees will have to decide whether to eat or go to the doctor. What do the corporations care anyway? They have already extracted their profits from the retirees, and would just as well throw them away.
Today, everyone is saying something must be done about health care costs. But the corporations and the working people have different interests. All the corporations want is to spend less on the workers. They want the workers to pay for the escalating prices and deteriorating services that result from the system of medicine for profit. The workers face a struggle just to keep the inadequate health benefits they had in the past, to say nothing about extending them to all workers and to cover the medical problems of today.
In many cases it is legal to strike in the U.S., it is just not legal to win. There are innumerable laws, and a whole system of restrictions on collective bargaining, to undermine the workers' struggles. There are bans on mass picketing. There are laws against spreading strikes to other work places and companies. There is a law that allows companies to "permanently replace" strikers. Some 26,450 workers, involved in 48 major strikes, were "permanently replaced" last year alone. And, if all else fails, Congress will simply write a new law banning a particular strike outright.
Obviously, if the workers are going to fight and win, they must not only fight to get rid of the strikebreaking laws. They also have to defy them. They must block scabs with mass picketing, spread the strikes to other work places, and not give an inch to the capitalist strikebreakers.
But instead of relying on the initiative of the rank-and-file workers, the union bureaucrats have put their trust in legalism and the politicians. And what has become of it? On July 17, the House passed a bill to bar companies from hiring permanent replacements for strikers, providing the strike obeys all the rules. This would help the workers some, but only a little. As long as the other laws are in place, strikers will still be confronted by the courts and police, and will still have to defy them to win. Even this weak bill won't make it into law. Even if the Senate passes it, Congress will certainly not uphold it against the promised presidential veto.
George Bush is notorious for being the businessmen's president. But what about the Democrats? The fact is they are a capitalist party too. While they play at being "friends of labor," it is only to get votes and only when they feel their action is no serious threat to the rich.
So why do the AFL-CIO leaders support them? Well the union hacks don't really want a fight against the capitalists either. Their complaint against the permanent replacement of strikes is that it has "increased conflict." Indeed Lane Kirkland complained at a June 20 news conference that the use of permanent replacements "destroys the balance of bargaining power that brings reason, moderation and compromise into the process." (AFL-CIO News, June 24) Moderation and compromise towards the bosses who are killing you -- that's what the union hacks stand for.
The Bush administration and the Supreme Court have joined together to impose a gag rule on federally-funded family planning clinics. They are not to be allowed to even mention the "a" word: abortion. It requires the clinics to lie about medical advice. It effectively prevents millions of poor women from having access to safe abortions or reliable information. (See "Supreme Court bans talking about abortion with the poor" in our June issue.)
This is an unpopular regulation which has met widespread opposition. Many Congresspeople proudly point to their efforts to overrule the Bush administration on this. Since May 23, when the Supreme Court ruled that the gag rule was constitutional, bills have been put forward in Congress to reverse it.
But take a look at their proposed legislation on the gag rule. Most of it contains "parental notification" provisions that harass young women and restrict their freedom to decide on abortion. In the name of "family values," these provisions create the possibility for family tragedies. They deny rights to many young women who want these matters kept secret; such women are often forced to desperate measures. Further, not all parents are supportive, and some are abusive or even absent. In practice, parental notification laws have given rise to personal tragedy.
But in mid-July, when the Senate considered overriding the gag rule, it rushed to attach parental notification provisions to the bill. Several amendments were tacked on, containing contradictory provisions concerning parental notification. One amendment required parental notification, and another provided a number of exceptions. Who cared if the amendments conflicted? Not Congress. All it wanted is to drape itself in the name of "family values" while its cutbacks in social programs devastate millions of working class and poor families.
Congress defends not the rights of women, but the rights of the ruling class. When it poses as a friend of the people, look closer. Likely as not, what it gives with one hand, it takes back with the other. The rights of women must be defended by the mass actions of the working people.
[Photo: 2,000 pro-choice activists marched in New York July 6 to protest Supreme Court gag rule.]
[Graphic.]
In San Jose, California janitors continue their fight to unionize Shine Maintenance. Shine supplies janitorial service for Apple Computer and other major electronics firms. Recently the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) stepped in and ordered that 100 workers should be fired. Many of those fired were actively involved in the union campaign. The INS is serving as a union buster for the capitalists.
Meanwhile, janitors held a rally June 14 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of their confrontation with Los Angeles police. In 1990, dozens of demonstrators were injured and 40 people were arrested when the LAPD viciously attacked a march demanding union recognition for the janitors in Century City. The brave stand of the janitors in defying the police terror won them widespread support. Within two weeks of the bloody confrontation, the Century City janitorial contractor was forced to sign a union contract. Lawsuits against the police are still pending.
[Photo.]
600 workers rallied June 30 in support of strikers at Canonsburg General Hospital in North Stravane Township, Pennsylvania. The 160 strikers are fighting attempts to slash their health benefits, scabs, and court orders banning mass picketing. Scores of strikers have been arrested for defying the court injunction.
The rally included strikers, hospital workers from nearby cities, coal miners and steel workers. After an hour of long-winded speeches by union officials and Democratic Party politicians, union leaders had planned to hold a sit-in in front of the hospital in which strikers would peacefully allow themselves to be arrested.
But the demonstrators were in no mood for such passivity. The crowd swarmed past the police barricades and sat in the hospital driveway. When the police began to arrest and load demonstrators onto a police bus, workers in the crowd opened up the back door of the vehicle and the arrestees jumped out. A second attempt by the police to fill the bus failed when someone deflated the tires. Realizing they were outnumbered, the police agreed not to attempt further arrests. But union officials agreed to force the strikers off the hospital grounds.
One striker commented, "This is just a start. This should be the starting point for strike action and defying injunctions everywhere."
Since July 1, workers have been fighting a lockout at the Cadillac Gage Corporation in Warren, Michigan.
Cadillac Gage is a subsidiary of the giant defense contractor Textron, based in Providence, Rhode Island. Textron is well known for its union busting activities. Its plan to smash the union at Cadillac Gage began when it first threatened to move production to its plant in Greenville, Ohio where workers receive much lower wages. When this did not intimidate the workers, Cadillac Gage eliminated half the work force -- they went from 160 workers in January to 60 just before the lockout. Finally, the company offered a "take it or leave it" contract which included the elimination of seniority rights, job classifications and further positions.
At a raucous union meeting, the local UAW vice-president recommended the sell-out contract. But the workers denounced him and demanded he get off the stage. The contract was defeated in a vote of 81-18. When they returned to work the next Monday, the company locked the gates and threatened to bring in scabs.
The workers are maintaining picket lines. But the UAW bureaucrats won't allow mass picketing, even though scabs are now operating the plant.
After all the United Nations' talk about stopping tyranny with the Persian Gulf war, you might suppose that U.N. workers must enjoy full democratic rights. But that is not the conclusion one can draw from the struggle being waged by the food service workers at the United Nations world headquarters in New York City.
For over two years, the more than 100 workers have been demanding their right for union representation from the food service contractor, Restaurant Associates. However, with the complicity of the U.N., Restaurant Associates has denied the workers' demands.
On June 18, the workers struck. They are demanding the right to organize, wage increases, paid holidays, just pay for overtime, and an end to speedup and harassment. The company has responded by hiring replacement workers.
Once the case went to the courts, the company said that they don't mind a vote on whether or not to have a union. However, they will allow only the replacement workers and those who have crossed the picket line to vote. They oppose any vote for strikers who are still on the picket lines.
Whether it is the Persian Gulf or its own workers in New York, don't expect democratic rights from the U.N.
[Photo.]
In mid-July, 300 workers returned to work at Greico Brothers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. They beat back a huge wage cut demanded by the company.
Greico Brothers is a major men's suit manufacturer whose products are sold under the Brooks Brothers label. It demanded that workers either accept a 30% pay cut or the plant would be shut down. But the workers -- many from Korea, Italy, Southeast Asia and Latin America -- united and defied the threats. They struck and maintained solid picket lines for four weeks. Greico eventually caved in.
About 30 hotel workers picketed June 19 in front of one of the fanciest hotels in Los Angeles, the Beverly Wilshire. They demanded the reinstatement of a fired worker. And they denounced the complicity of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers union leaders with the hotel administration.
While luxury hotels cater to millionaires, the majority of hotel workers only make minimum wage. The hotel workers' union, in cahoots with the unionized hotels, has made it impossible for the workers to oppose working conditions, unjust layoffs, harassment and the big salaries and bonuses the sellout union leaders get. For example, one local union official made $116,072 last year, including a "small" increase of over $31,000. Meanwhile, the workers are fighting to feed their families.
[Photo.]
Facing mass outrage at the videotaped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers, Mayor Bradley had to scramble to cool out the public. One of the steps taken was, of course, an investigation.
On July 9 the Christopher Commission, appointed by the mayor, released its report. It is full of hard evidence proving what the people have known all along -- the LAPD is a brutally racist police force. But in the end it exonerates Police Chief Gates and city officials and calls for minor reforms that are not likely to change much.
Systematic racism
Page after page of the commission report revealed the systematic harassment, beatings, and murder of the poor and minorities by the LAPD.
This is shown most graphically from the computer printout of communications between the officers on patrol. They are full of racial slurs including references to a black community as scenes out of "Gorillas in the Mist." Officers are seen bragging that "I don't hit people; I shoot them" and "My shooting policy is based on nationality and looks." And the messages included admiration for brutality against women like "The best wife beating I've ever seen... looks like a whipped slave."
Covering up for Gates and Bradley
But the Christopher Commission only goes so far. In the end, it blames the problem on only a few bad apples and lets the officials responsible off the hook.
While newspaper headlines read "Commission Calls for Gates to Resign," the fact is the commission refused to call for the police chief to be held accountable and fired. It wrings its hands over racism among the police officers, but is blind to how that was fostered by Gates -- who is notorious for his racist remarks against blacks, Latinos and immigrants. It criticizes the failure to discipline and prosecute the racist cops, but could find no wrongdoing in Gates letting them off the hook. Its recommendation on this front is simply to shorten the term of office of the police chief. That would mean that Gates, who has been chief for 13 years, would have to resign. But he will resign blameless.
Meanwhile, the commission also exonerates the Democratic Mayor Bradley and his civilian police commission. The report admits that Bradley and the police commission were aware of the racist police brutality. And it admits they had opportunities to do something about it. But it calls for no measures against them. Indeed, the report's key recommendation for reforming the police department is that the civilian police commission be more involved.
This is outrageous. If Bradley tolerated racist police terror for years and years, why should becoming more involved change anything. But it's not just that Bradley tolerated police brutality, he in fact stands for it. Why, it was just at the end of June that Bradley lauded that model of police-state methods called "Operation Cul-de-sac." (See article on this page.)
The fact is that, all across the country, the filthy rich capitalists are building up the police forces to clamp down on the hard-pressed working masses, especially the oppressed minorities. The Democratic mayor, just like the vulgar racist police chief, were put into office to serve the interests of the rich and privileged. In the final analysis, the Christopher Commission report is really a whitewash of those officials and the entire racist system they serve.
Just look, for example, at the rate of prosecution of police officers accused of using "excessive force" in the last four years. From 1986 to 1990 the District Attorney's office investigated 54 LAPD officers for the use of excessive force. But criminal charges were only filed in one case and that was when an officer was accused of assaulting a police sergeant!
In all of the other 53 cases there was evidence and eyewitnesses. In some there were even other police officers willing to testify about beatings of prisoners who were often already handcuffed. But in every case the guilty cops were let off with one flimsy excuse after another.
In one ruling it was just a "prank" that a cop sprayed a fire extinguisher in the eyes of a suspect. In another it was the fear and trauma of being attacked by the suspect's dog (that the policemen shot), that caused him to kick the handcuffed prisoner. In some of the cases it was the "unsavory" character of the suspect that made police brutality all right according to the District Attorney. With this kind of cooperation from the District Attorney's office it is no wonder that the LAPD has had a free hand to hunt down, beat, and quite often kill the poor and minorities they hate so much.
Bush's "war on drugs" is looking more like a war on the minorities every day. Take a glance at Los Angeles.
On June 21, Mayor Bradley and other L.A. officials dedicated the erection of nine permanent steel barricades in "Operation Cul-de-Sac." This operation closes off an entire neighborhood of mostly black people and Latino immigrants to create what officials call an "artificial community" for "a very high level of police activity."
In the name of "fighting crime" almost every aspect of life is being watched and controlled by the L.A. police and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Residents must show IDs to enter. A computer is being set up to track residents with information from the INS, welfare and unemployment offices, schools, a door-to-door survey, and police interrogations. As well, the police are "mobilizing the community"--some residents are organized into a spy network to snitch on their neighbors.
Despite the crime-fighting label, the aim of this program is to terrorize the disenchanted poor people and prevent them from rising against the wealthy capitalists. The program was started "temporarily" over a year ago and still few drug arrests have been made. On the other hand, residents complain of constant police harassment and brutality.
Young people are repeatedly stopped to check IDs and citizenship papers. No groups of youth are allowed to congregate, even in their own yards. The police have dispersed crowds with mace. Young people have been dragged off to the police station for strip searches and interrogations, including demands that they give information on their neighbors. And the INS has carried out repeated "sweeps" to catch and deport undocumented immigrants.
This is a police-state, pure and simple. And it is not likely to be limited to this one community. The Project Summary states that "procedures and techniques" should be developed in order to be able to "transfer to other areas" this model for turning poor neighborhoods into virtual prisons. Three other neighborhoods in Los Angeles have already been temporarily cordoned off. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is closely monitoring it. Bush's former Drug Czar, William Bennett, toured the area earlier and and hailed it as a model for "getting tough" on crime.
[Photo: LAPD barricades working class neighborhoods in "Operation Cul de Sac"]
Two more names were added to the rolls of political prisoners in U.S. prisons. Mark Newman and Tom Tegner have been imprisoned because of their well known anti-racist activism in Portland, Oregon. The courts and police conspired with local nazis to railroad them into prison in an effort to undermine anti-racist organizing. Of course, this is not what the public charges state. Mark and Tom were convicted of assaulting two white racists last August.
The case against Mark was completely fabricated. He has been singled out because he is the leader of Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP). It was formed in the late 1980's to oppose the growth of racist skinhead gangs which are linked to neo-nazis and the KKK in Portland. SHARP became popular among the youth through distributing anti-racist literature and organizing confrontations against the nazis. For this SHARP has come under increasing harassment from the police who are generally sympathetic with the pro-nazi racists.
Last August 26, SHARP and other anti-racist activists marched around apartments on 20th and SE Hawthorne shouting slogans against nazis and racism. Racist skinheads had moved into the apartments and had been attacking residents there. They shouted out the windows, but were afraid to come down and confront the protest. After the demonstration ended, three SHARP members returned to take down license numbers of the nazis' cars. They suddenly found themselves surrounded by 30 nazis, who began to smash the windows of the SHARP'S car and fractured the skull of one SHARP member with a lead pipe.
The three SHARP activists fled, picking up Mark and other activists as they sped to the hospital. On the way they spotted two of the racist young women who had participated in the attack on the car. Over Mark's objections, a few in the car demanded they stop and confront the two nazis about the attack. The SHARP activists began to beat the two women. Seeing this, Mark put a stop to it and they proceeded to the hospital.
But they were pulled over by the police. The police had with them Leanne Fossi, one of the two nazi women, who is well known for participating in other racist attacks and in confrontations with SHARP. She recognized Mark as the SHARP leader and charged him and Tom with the attack. Naturally the police took her word. They ignored the SHARP members' explanation of the earlier attack on them and the much more serious injury their member had suffered. The other woman later dropped out of the nazi movement, rejected racism and did not testify at the trial of Mark and Tom. She confided to SHARP that she knew Mark was innocent and that the nazis merely wanted to frame him.
During the trial, Mark's court- appointed lawyer convinced him to plea bargain, thinking he would avoid prison and receive probation. Mark made the mistake of accepting this advice. Mark and Tom were each sentenced to 16 months in prison. None of the racists were ever charged for their beating of the SHARP member.
The handing out of prison sentences for first offense assault shows the courts were out to get them. The imprisonment of Mark and Tom is nothing but a political attack on the militant anti-racist struggle; it is government intervention to protect the nazis.
(Based on June 21 leaflet of MLP-Seattle Branch)
In the "new world order," might makes right, and force is the only way to deal with all problems. In that vein, the White House and Congress are finishing up on another Anti-Crime Bill. Don't expect this bill to solve the problems of social crime. In the name of fighting crime, it will be another step towards expanding police-state measures.
The House is currently discussing the bill, while the Senate passed its version July 11. Republicans and Democrats are jointly spearheading this initiative; the Senate version passed 71-26. This overwhelming bipartisan support shows that both parties of the rich are bankrupt in dealing with crime and only see it as an excuse to step up reaction.
The war on crime is in fact a war on the working and poor people, especially minorities and youth. The big-time criminals are hardly ever brought to justice. Oliver North flouted the constitution during the Iran-contra affair and he's a hero. The S&L bankers, Wall Street junk bond kings, and other rich sharks have made off with billions of other people's money, but they are given slaps on the wrist, if anything at all. Employers can kill and maim workers on the job, but they are never put in jail. Bush and his generals can order the massacre of 100,000 Iraqis -- but they are lauded as champions of liberty. The crusade against crime is a farce!
The U.S. already has mountains of harsh laws. It has more people in prison than any other country in the world, and the numbers keep rising. The death penalty is legal. Yet none of that has dented social crime. At the core of the problem is that capitalism in the U.S. refuses to deal with the social issues underlying crime. Poverty goes up. The conditions for people in the inner cities is deplorable. The poor are reaching third-world-style conditions of life. Youth, especially minority youth, have very little hope ahead of them. Meanwhile, gangsterism, violence and a militarist gun culture are glorified on TV and in the movies.
The honorable ladies and gentlemen in Washington have no solutions to any of this. Even to talk about the social problems underlying crime has become something to sneer at -- only bleeding- heart liberals are supposed to stand for that. The fashion in America today is more law-and-order, more force, more jails. It may be fashionable, but it won't curtail crime. You can bet on that. However, it will increase police state measures, and the rights of all working people will suffer.
That's what the Senate Bill was all about. Take a look at some highlights:
Love affair with the death penalty
The death penalty does not deter social crime. And as well, in the U.S. it is applied in a discriminatory manner -- falling heavier on blacks than whites. Yet the cry for more executions goes on unabated.
The Senate authorized executions for 51 federal offenses. A sweeping new provision added would give federal jurisdiction over any murder committed with a weapon that had ever crossed a state or national border. Just about all guns have so moved. The bill would allow capital punishment in these cases even if the state concerned did not have the death penalty.
The Senate also made it harder to appeal against the death penalty. The Supreme Court has already acted in this direction, and the Senate was eager to add its voice.
A national police computer for Big Brother
There was considerable controversy over the "Brady Bill," the proposal to have a five-day waiting period for handgun sales. The NRA gun lobby opposed this provision tooth and nail. Instead they proposed an instant computer check to be done with a new national computer system.
The Senate passed both the five-day waiting period and authorized $100 million to help states update and computerize their records so that instant background checks will be feasible nationwide. The waiting period could be phased out once the new computer check system is in place.
This will accelerate the process of creating a Big Brother system where a national computer keeps check on every person in the U.S. Can anyone believe that once such a system is in place only checks for handgun sales will be made? That it won't be gradually extended to cover immigration checks and keep track of and blacklist strikers and protesters? Be real.
You can thank both the gun control advocates and the gun lobby for this new expansion of police powers.
Boot camps for the youth
Congress won't lift a finger to provide jobs or education to poverty-stricken youth. But the Senate didn't forget to authorize 10 military-style prison camps, to be located on closed military bases, for young people convicted of drug-related state or federal crimes. They are to be treated with harsh military discipline.
Such camps have become a fashion among liberals and conservatives, while they refuse to address any real social conditions among the youth.
Police rights
Across the U.S., police brutality is on the rise. Witness the exposures at the Los Angeles Police Department this year. But you won't find anything in the anti-crime bill against police brutality.
Instead the Senators added a "Police Officer's Bill of Rights." It provides conditions about how police officers have to be treated with kid gloves during internal investigations. This is ironic. Everyone knows that cops are already treated with more than enough consideration, and their crimes are routinely whitewashed.
The Crime Bill also authorized $3.3 billion for police and prisons. The Senators weren't sure they could actually provide the funds to implement this authorization, but went ahead and voted for it anyway. It dramatizes their priorities if nothing else.
Hundreds of black people took to the streets of Miami June 27 to protest another racist shooting by the police.
According to relatives, Charlie Brown was running away from a gunfight when cops told him to stop. He put up his hands, but police opened fire anyway and wounded him in the abdomen. Another witness reported that Charlie cried, "You shot me for nothing... I don't have a gun on me." Of course, police claimed Brown aimed a gun at them. They were exonerated and back on duty a day later.
Within an hour of the shooting over 100 people had gathered at the shooting site in the Overtown neighborhood. They threw rocks and bottles at police. A group of teenagers wrecked a police mini-station causing the police inside to retreat. Later the cops returned to retake the station. A police van was also burned.
Meanwhile, blacks also protested in Liberty City. Unoccupied buildings were torched and crowds stoned several cars and trucks of the news media. The confrontation lasted almost seven hours. About 25 people were arrested.
Only two days before, the Third District Court of Appeals decided to give William Lozano a new trial. This policeman had been convicted earlier of two racist murders and sentenced to seven years in prison. But the court called for a new trial claiming that jurors convicted him out of fear that an acquittal would spark another riot. However, the head juror denies that the issue of a riot ever entered into the deliberations of the jurors.
The angry masses are right -- there is no justice to be found in the racist system.
Racist police brutality is not unique to Los Angeles. It is the norm in cities all across the country. Take a look at Chicago for example.
The police in this city have been caught carrying out sadistic torture of black suspects. Amnesty International has documented systematic torture over a 12-year period. The People's Law Office also documented forty cases of police abuse and torture from 1972 to 1985.
The methods, all directed against black suspects, include electroshocking suspects' ears, lips and genitals; placing plastic bags over suspects' heads until they lost consciousness; simulating Russian roulette and sticking gun barrels in suspects' mouths; handcuffing naked suspects across hot radiators; inflicting burns with cigarettes; and severely beating testicles and the bottoms of feet.
Although the incidents are well documented, the city has done nothing about them. Indeed, Jon Burge -- who was shown to be involved in numbers of the tortures -- has been promoted to commander of the Area 3 detective division. And Richard Daley -- who was Cook County's prosecuting attorney and directly responsible for covering up torture when evidence first began to come out -- has become Mayor. Such is racist justice in America.
[Photo: June 10, New York City demonstrators denounced the war parade]
The "War Parade 18" are activists arrested for protesting against the Gulf War at the June 10 "welcome the troops home" parade in New York City. They were among the victims of police brutality at the event, but they are the ones facing a pile of trumped-up charges. The charges range from disorderly conduct to felony riot, and could result in prison terms as long as 13 years. The "18" includes supporters of various political trends, from the Revolutionary Communist Party, Refuse and Resist!, and Stop the U.S. War Machine Action Network! to ACT UP! and Amnesty International.
On top of the charges, the arrested activists and their supporters were viciously attacked by the police at their first court hearing. The cops tried to suppress a skit outside the court building which ridiculed Bush's "new world order."
Inside the courtroom, one of the defendants' lawyers read a statement critical of the court's persecution of war protesters. The judge responded by ordering court officers to lock the courtroom doors to prevent more spectators from seeing the proceedings. As a result, a defendant was locked out. When he was let in, he did a Nazi goose step and salute to mock the police-state atmosphere. The judge then ordered the courtroom cleared.
At this point about 50 cops set upon the defendants and shoved people into the hallway. Defendants were beaten and choked. The police riot continued in the hall with another 50 police joining in. They lashed out in all directions. A lawyer was shoved down the stairs and a radio reporter was roughed up. One of the defendants, a 16-year-old black woman, suffered a concussion and other injuries as cops told her she would get the Rodney King treatment.
The authorities approved this brutal repression. Instead of curbing the police, additional heavy charges have been laid against two people for resisting the police rampage. Meanwhile, several defendants have been placed under police surveillance. One defendant was even picked up by the cops, handcuffed and driven around, just to harass her, and then released.
The anti-war protests and the GI war resisters have been a thorn in the side of the war festivals. This is why the capitalist authorities have resorted to their strong-arm tactics. Let all progressive people defend the "War Parade 18" and others under attack for standing up to the war machine!
This year in Chicago the militarists used the traditional fireworks display to celebrate the massacre of Iraqis in the Gulf war. Originally they billed the fireworks as a re-enactment of the air war over Baghdad, but they decided to back off this disgusting idea real fast. Nevertheless Marshall Fields Department Store, the sponsor of the fireworks, went on to plan a big chauvinist orgy. And this drew protests from Chicago activists.
On June 29 about 100 people denounced Marshall Fields and the upcoming display. About two-thirds gathered outside the store, while the rest went inside, displayed banners, threw leaflets off a third floor balcony, and ran around. When they learned what the protest was over, most shoppers expressed sympathy. Then there was a die-in in the store, and about 20 people were arrested. Outside the store, there was a picket and a skit ridiculing the militarists, Bush, Quayle, and Field Marshall Marshall Fields.
On July 3 itself, 30 anti-war activists staged another protest against the chauvinist display. The militarists sought to use holiday crowds as a ready-made audience for their imperialist boasting. But the activists distributed anti-war literature, and they set up around the downtown Loop a number of slide shows depicting the devastation caused by the U.S. bombing of Iraq.
[Cartoon strip.]
The war was supposed to be over. Yet months later, the U.S. and its UN allies are still blockading Iraq. This is a crime against humanity. It wasn't sufficient to massacre a hundred thousand Iraqis. The whole country must be starved until Bush can replace Saddam Hussein with another strongman of his choice.
Bush says he has "no quarrel with the people of Iraq." But it is the people of Iraq he is punishing. He is preventing them from obtaining food to eat. He is preventing them from getting supplies to rebuild the country's infrastructure and to stop the spread of epidemics.
No more bombs on Iraq!
And now he is threatening to send his bombers over Iraq yet again. He seems to think that he stopped the war too soon, and he wishes to undo his error. He talks about ferreting out more nuclear weapons plants. But his main aim is to place the dictator of his choice into power in Baghdad.
Mass misery
The war devastated the infrastructure of Iraq. Power plants, bridges, and other vital installations were among the "military" targets hit by U.S. bombs and missiles. And the continuing blockade has added to the damage.
Epidemics and malnutrition are taking their toll in Iraq. Meanwhile the price of food has skyrocketed. An inadequate harvest -- with a broken infrastructure, the lack of a million Egyptian laborers, and the chaos caused by Hussein's suppression of the Kurdish and Shiite movements -- is adding to the problem.
UN hypocrisy
The UN has played its usual hypocritical role. It has blockaded food from getting to Iraq. And then, by preventing sales of Iraqi oil, it has prevented Iraq from having anything with which to buy food. Yet it presents itself as humanitarian for bringing in a few crumbs of relief.
But even Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the chief co-ordinator for the UN's relief efforts in Iraq, was shocked by shortages and chronic malnutrition. He recommends something of an easing of sanctions to allow Iraq to sell a bit of oil to import a little food, drugs, and essential equipment for the infrastructure. But the Bush government would rather starve Iraq further until Saddam says ouch.
No to Bush and Hussein!
The Persian Gulf war was a reactionary war on both sides. Saddam Hussein, a dictator and oppressor of the people, fought to take over Kuwait and get some more money to bail his regime out of crisis. U.S. imperialism fought to extend its control of the Gulf area, to ensure that oil profits are divided exactly as it says, and to display its military hardware.
The only just side was the side of fighting against the war and the oppressors. It was the side of the discontented Iraqi masses who rose up against Hussein after the war. It was the side of the anti-war activists, GI resisters, and anti-imperialists in the U.S. who opposed American aggression.
Here in the U.S., we have laid our emphasis on denouncing "our own" U.S. imperialists. We must use the outrage generated by each crime of the imperialists to build up an independent movement in the U.S. This is the way to ensure that this aggression backfires into a real defeat for U.S. imperialism. This will contribute to building a movement to overthrow "our" capitalist rulers altogether.
And it will provide real support and encouragement for the Iraqi working people to deal with their own tyrant Hussein. It will help them ensure that he is not replaced by Saddam II, but by a breaking up of the strangling system of Ba'ath tyranny.
There is a big fuss being made about Clarence Thomas' humble origin. Undoubtedly it is praiseworthy to work hard to get an education despite racism and poverty. But the days are long past when Clarence Thomas was an outsider (and when he held more rebellious views typical of outsiders). For over a decade he has been a Washington insider, first a member of the Reagan administration and now a judge. As an insider and member of conservative circles, he has to be judged on the stands he has taken and fought for. As a member of government, he has to be judged on the stands that he has inflicted on the people.
Opposing measures to overcome racism and poverty
Time and again, Clarence Thomas has lashed out against anti-discrimination measures and social programs to help the oppressed and the poverty-stricken. For instance, commenting on his reign as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Reagan, Thomas stated: "In the civil rights arena, we began to argue consistently against affirmative action. We attacked welfare and the welfare mentality. These are positions with which I agree."(l)
Thomas' record backs up this claim. Under Thomas, the EEOC made it increasingly hard to gain compensation for discrimination by employers. In 1985, the EEOC condemned the idea of setting up goals or timetables for overcoming systematic racist or sexist employment practices. Meanwhile, the EEOC failed to act on thousands of complaints of discrimination against older workers. Thomas' EEOC also rejected "comparable worth" measures which would raise the pay level in jobs where the wages were kept low because they were traditionally "women's jobs."
Blaming the victim
Thomas' philosophy is blame the victim for the social ills caused by racist and sexist institutions. For example, he admits that racism is prevalent, but scolds black people who complain about it. Those who target racism as the cause of problems, says Thomas, are just "regurgitating all that is wrong with black Americans and blaming those problems on others."(2)
Thomas feels the real problem is not racism but what he calls the "recent tradition that almost requires you to wallow in excuses." The suffering in the black community is not caused by mass unemployment, rotten housing and schools, social cuts, discrimination, etc. but by blacks who "wallow in excuses" and don't know the value of "hard work."
Tolerance for segregation
While Thomas rails against anti-racist fighters, he is tolerant of such things as school segregation. He even wants to reconsider the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which overturned the segregationist doctrine of "separate but equal" school systems. He says he supports the results of this decision, but he is critical of the decision itself. Why, he says, it was based on the notion that being forced into segregated school systems had harmful effects on black children. Thomas feels such reasoning led to "a disastrous series of cases requiring busing and other policies that were irrelevant to parents' concern for a decent education."(3)
Thomas thus whitewashes present-day school segregation with an updated version of the racist "separate but equal" malarky. Is it any wonder that Thomas defended the Reagan administration's 1982 decision to allow tax-exempt status for Bob Jones University despite its policy of banning interracial dating, etc.? (1)
Thomas vs. abortion rights
Thomas also doesn't have much regard for women's rights. He has hopped aboard the anti-abortion bandwagon.
Thomas has lavished praise on an essay by right-wing businessman Lewis Lehrman which denounced the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which legalized abortion nationwide. Lehrman's writing describes "the struggle for the inalienable right to life of the child-in-the-womb" as the "durable moral issue of our age."
It seems that Thomas might not be satisfied with merely overturning Roe v. Wade, thus letting each state decide whether to allow abortions. He may hold that there should be a national ban on abortion altogether. His views lead to the idea that abortion violates "inalienable rights" and thus presumably would be unconstitutional.
Thomas considers Lehrman's speech a "splendid example of applying natural law." And what is this "natural law"? Thomas has described it elsewhere as follows: "Our political way of life is by the laws Of nature and nature's God... binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and of government.")
Thus Thomas links his stand against abortion with the idea that religious views should be binding on everyone. Consistent with this, Thomas also praises his mother's view that "when they took God out of the schools, the schools went to hell."
The "natural laws" of profit-making
Thomas also wants "natural law" applied to the economic system. Of course what is "natural" for the capitalist employers is to drive workers into poverty and unemployment and to destroy the environment so as to make the biggest possible profits. And surprise, surprise! It turns out Thomas sides with the capitalist view of what is natural.
In 1982, for example, Thomas wrote in the right-wing Lincoln Review against such things as the minimum wage and laws protecting various trade union rights.(4) As previously mentioned, Thomas would like to see the welfare system dismantled as well.
(1) Speech to the Heritage Foundation, June 18, 1987.
(2) Speech at Savannah (Georgia) State College, June 9, 1985.
(3) Article for the libertarian Cato Institute in 1988, cited in the Washington Post National Weekly Edition, July 8-14, p. 13.
(4) Cited in the Nation, July 29, 1991
Thomas has done his best to make a go of it inside white conservative circles. But these conservatives haven't made things easy for him. Racist to the core, the conservatives force blacks who want to join them to "prove their love" over and over.
In Thomas' words
Thomas himself gently chided his conservative friends for this. In a speech to the white conservatives of the Heritage Foundation (June 18,1987), he told them: "Unfortunately, I would have to characterize the general attitude of conservatives toward black conservatives as indifference -- with minor exceptions. It was made clear more than once that, since blacks did not vote right, they were owed nothing."
So how could they gain acceptance? "For blacks the litmus test was fairly clear. You must be against affirmative action and against welfare. And your opposition had to be adamant and constant or you would be suspected of being a closet liberal."
How adamant and constant? Thomas said: "It often seemed that to be accepted into the conservative ranks and to be treated with some degree of respect, a black was required to become a caricature of sorts, providing sideshows of anti-black quips and attacks."
Denouncing his own sister
In fact, Thomas has made opposition to affirmative action and welfare two central themes of his political life. This is what it took to gain acceptance.
And how far did he have to go to gain acceptance? Was he willing to become the type of "caricature" needed to please Bush and his friends?
Well, Thomas was even willing to lie about his own sister and present her as a lazy welfare bum. In a speech to a conference of black conservatives in 1980, before he had yet made it into a presidential administration, he denounced his sister who was then on welfare:
"She gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check. That's how dependent she is.
"What's worse is that now her kids feel entitled to the check, too. They have no motivation for doing better or getting out of that situation."
And what really was his sister's situation?
But recently reporters have discovered his sister, Emma Mae Martin, of Pin Point, Georgia. It turns out that she is a poor but hard-working person raising a family of working class children.
Martin worked minimum-wage jobs while her brother, Clarence, attended law school. She quit work to care for an elderly aunt who had had a stroke. For four or five years she was on welfare, on a miserly $169 a month. (Perhaps if Clarence tried to raise four children on this for a few years he might not be so indignant at people being upset at checks being late.) And today she is a cook at a hospital.
And what about her four children? Clarence denounced them in 1980 as demoralized by welfare and stuck in dependence. How he could tell this about a four-year-old, a nine-year-old, an 11- year-old etc. is his secret. But let's see what happened to them. Today, one is a 15-year-old still in school, another is a carpenter, another was just laid off from a bakery, and the eldest was cannon fodder in the military during the Persian Gulf war.
Perhaps today too they believe that they deserve their checks. Maybe they will really give Thomas a scare and go out on strike for higher pay or against school cutbacks.
Support the common people
The conservatives would now like everyone to ignore what Thomas stands for because he made it from a humble origin. But Thomas has no respect for others working hard in humble origins, even his own sister and her children.
For Clarence Thomas, to believe one is entitled to social assistance is proof that one is sunk in self-pity, demoralization, and dependency. But what's so wrong if his sister and her children did believe she was entitled to her check? Wasn't she in fact entitled to it? Wasn't the right to social assistance won through hard struggle and "self-help" by strong- willed and self-respecting people?
To be accepted among the conservatives in Washington, to be appointed to responsible high positions in the Reagan or Bush administrations, one has to be willing to trample on the working people. And, as Thomas himself pointed out, if one comes from the black people, one has to be willing to be almost a "caricature" in one's fervor to distance oneself from the black masses and in telling stories denouncing them.
Yugoslavia is splitting apart. Two of its six republics have declared independence; the center has chosen to reply with force. The army has pulled off what is essentially a military coup. Violent clashes are taking place in eastern Croatia, although a fragile cease-fire holds in Slovenia.
The old Yugoslav federation can no longer continue. Several nations want out. The federal government is dominated by the bureaucratic and military elite of Serbia, and it wants to keep the country together through repression. At the same time, seeing that this may not work, the Serbian leaders are busy carving out a "Greater Serbia" with as much territory as they can grab.
Yugoslavia has been a patchwork of many peoples; in each republic, there are large minorities from neighboring nationalities. Under these conditions, a multinational union would be best; it would also provide a framework for economic development better than several mini-states. However, if national frictions are to be smoothed out, a multinational state has to be democratic, respecting the rights of all its peoples. Multinational states based on force cannot last. They merely hide tensions and conflicts under the surface, ready to explode sooner or later.
Unfortunately, today in Yugoslavia there is no political movement which stands for a democratic union of the nationalities. The economic crisis is deep; and the wealthy and middle classes want to preserve their own -- hang the others. The working class is the only social class with interests in common across nationality lines; they have been the worst victims of Yugoslavia's economic crisis. Although many workers of the different nationalities still live and work among one another in friendship, the class as a whole lacks its voice. The working class does not have its revolutionary party which could express its economic and political interests. Large sections have been split apart or cowed down by the nationalist din.
The working people are caught in a situation where none of the contending sides offers them real hope. In the present conflicts, the working people of all the nationalities will suffer -- no matter whether Yugoslavia is kept together by force or whether it breaks apart into "Greater Serbia" and some additional states. That's because narrow, bourgeois nationalist parties have come to the fore, each of these parties representing the wealthy section of each nationality. They are neither democratic nor do they have any program for improving the lives of the masses. Shouting about the glory of the "free market," the nationalist parties are simply vehicles for each elite to enrich itself by exploiting workers within the boundaries they seek.
How the conflict broke out
On June 25, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. They had been demanding an agreement to make Yugoslavia a looser grouping. Large majorities had already voted in favor of separation. But Serbia and the Serb-dominated federal army refused to consider a loose confederation. In fact, in a move which inflamed tensions, Serbia even blocked a Croat from his turn at assuming the rotating head of the federal presidency a few months ago.
The Serbian establishment acted arrogantly not simply because they want to impose their will by compulsion. They also thought they had the backing of European and U.S. imperialism. The big powers had declared that they would not recognize Slovenia and Croatia as separate states. Indeed, U.S. Secretary of State Baker declared on a visit to Yugoslavia that Washington would not recognize these states "under any circumstances."
After declaring independence, Slovenes took over control of border posts. The Yugoslav army responded with military action. But it did poorly. Slovenes resisted, and the ill-fed and ill-trained soldiers of the federal army had no stomach for war. Many were shot at, captured, or simply walked away. The military operation wasn't all that popular back in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, either. Mothers of soldiers fought their way into the Serbian parliament and demanded return of their sons.
The European Common Market intervened and three cease-fires were initiated. The rebellious republics were persuaded to slow down their separation in return for an end to military attacks and for allowing the Croat president-to-be to assume his post.
But that was just a gesture; the Croat is routinely outvoted by the Serb-dominated collective presidency. In fact, federal institutions have all but collapsed. The military is really running the show. Since the Croat president-to-be hadn't been allowed to take his post, the army had had no legal authority to launch the military operations -- but it did anyway. And it is keeping up its incursions into Croatia, no matter what the president thinks.
The cease-fire is holding in Slovenia, but not in Croatia. It appears that the Serbian elite may be willing to eventually accept Slovenia's departure, but Croatia is another matter. There are many Serbs living in Croatian territory; the Serb leadership isn't willing to let them remain under Croatian control. On the other hand, the Croatian leaders also take a narrow-minded attitude; they are determined to hold on to every inch of territory. Few expect the Croat regime to treat the Serbs within their borders as equals. In fact, ominous threats to force them out have been made by Croatian nationalists.
"Greater Serbia" in the making
Extreme Serbian nationalists are whipping up hysteria among Serbs in Croatia and launching armed assaults on Croatian security units. They call themselves chetniks after Serb royalist bands which existed during World War II. Although the chetniks are officially an opposition party in Serbia, they have received backing from the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic. They receive weapons and media coverage.
The Yugoslav army is seizing on the clashes inside Croatia to extend its direct control there. Army tanks follow each report of conflict inside Croatia and then never leave. In this way, the borders of the new "Greater Serbia" are emerging in a de facto manner.
Oppressors on both sides
Meanwhile, showing that there is no principle on either side, Croatian leaders recently admitted that they have been having secret talks with Serbia about carving up the Bosnian republic. Bosnia is 19% Croat, 32% Serb, and 42% Bosnian Muslim. An aide to Croatian leader Tudjman has suggested unmixing Bosnia's population through "voluntary population exchanges... like those between Greece and Turkey after the first world war." Of course, "voluntary" transfers are a segregationist myth.
These plots aren't designed to help people in Bosnia. Not much strife has been reported in that republic among the different peoples. But no matter how much tragedy it may bring to the ordinary people, the nationalist leaders of Serbia and Croatia are determined to carve out their dreams of "Greater Croatia" and "Greater Serbia."
This agreement is a typical example showing that both Croatian and Serbian nationalist leaders are not democratic. The Serbian leader Milosevic has been responsible for crushing the Albanian people of Kosovo and spearheading the recent drive for Serbian domination of Yugoslavia. He has allied himself with the chetnik bands who not only provoke clashes in Croatia, but also threaten Albanians and liberal Serbs. Meanwhile, the Croat leader Franjo Tudjman is also a tyrant. Some nationalists even praise Nazi collaborators during World War II. This raises many bitter memories, since Croatian nationalists known as ustashas set up a Nazi puppet state and massacred hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs, gypsies, and communists.
Armed clashes are continuing in eastern Croatia. While it is too early to say what the outcome will be, it is clear that more tragedy and suffering await the ordinary working people of all the strife-torn nationalities. National suspicions and hatreds have been whipped up to an extreme degree.
What the workers need is a political force which can point out that the workers of each nation have more in common with each other than with their nationalist elites. A force that can organize the workers to fight for their common interests, against all the exploiters. A force that can chart the path towards a society ruled by the working class, for the benefit of the working class. Such a force does not yet exist, but it is precisely such a force that the workers of Yugoslavia desperately need.
[Map.]
There's no shortage of experts in the media declaring that the troubles in Yugoslavia are the result either of "ancient hostilities" or "hardline socialism."
They don't explain anything. Yes, there are historical frictions in the Balkans. But different nationalities can live together without bloodshed. And they did so in Yugoslavia until not too long ago. And yes, Yugoslavia has called itself socialist and some Yugoslav leaders pose as defenders of socialism. But these are empty slogans. Yugoslavia's "socialism" was just a variety of capitalism -- covered over with pro-worker declarations. Today all the political forces swear by the free market, with only some differences about how fast to proceed with all-out privatization.
The cause of the current problems isn't socialism. In fact, it was the communist movement which organized a revolution against fascism, united people of different nationalities, and brought into being a state with the promise of different nations living together with equal rights. But it was departures from socialism -- in how national policy was implemented, in how a bureaucratic regime was set up, and in how a capitalist economy was developed -- which created the conditions which would ultimately destroy this attempt at a multinational Balkan federation.
How Yugoslavia was first born
Yugoslavia is a fairly recent state, founded in 1918. Earlier, the people in this region were under the control of different empires. Slovenia and Croatia were in the Austrian Empire. Others had long been under the thumb of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, but this was collapsing. Serbia had become independent of Turkey in 1878. The peoples were divided along religious, language, and cultural lines, but there was also a lot of historical intermingling going back centuries. And in some countries, such as Serbia and Bulgaria, there were strong working class movements against the exploiters.
National consciousness grew among these peoples. Frequently, however, one or another nationalism sought to advance itself at the expense of neighboring peoples. Thus, the Serbian ruling class had designs on its neighbors.
What made the region a tinderbox wasn't just the ethnic mix; it was the playing around by the big imperialist powers. Russia, Turkey, Germany, France and Britain all had their eyes on exploiting this region. This rivalry led to World War I. With the German defeat, its ally Austria had its empire dismantled and the state of Yugoslavia was created. But this was not a state where the different peoples had democratically decided to form a single country -- it was instead dominated by the Serbian monarchy.
King Alexander ruled with fascist methods. His regime not only oppressed the other nations, but also ruthlessly persecuted the working class everywhere. Both nationalist movements and the communist movement of the working class developed. The communist movement united workers across national lines. It not only promised to establish a federation where all the nations would have equal rights but also sought to provide this federation with the basis to last by carrying out revolutionary social change.
During World War II, the country was taken over by the German-led fascists. In Croatia, the nationalist ustashi set up a brutal Nazi puppet state. Widespread resistance developed against the fascists. It was mainly carried out by the communist movement, which united toilers from all the nationalities: Serbs, Croats, and others. Serbian nationalists formed chetnik bands who spent more time fighting the communists than the fascists.
The anti-fascist revolution
By this time, the Yugoslav communist leaders around Josip Tito had embraced many anti-socialist, revisionist ideas in accord with Stalin and the Soviet leadership. Nevertheless they rallied the people for a democratic revolution against fascism and promised to build a new state based on respect for the nationalities, rejecting the domination of a single nationality. The success of this movement shows that "ancient enmities" are not inevitable and can be superseded -- if the toilers of the different nations are united in struggle on common aims and on the basis of equal rights.
The reality of Yugoslav "socialism"
Unfortunately, the communist leaders of Yugoslavia did not live up to these goals. For example, they vacillated on how far to go against traditional Serbian chauvinism and took an arrogant attitude to the Albanian nationality in Yugoslavia and to Albania itself.
Meanwhile, a conflict emerged between Tito and Moscow. Stalin had taken a heavy-handed attitude towards Yugoslavia. Tito broke with Stalin and the Yugoslav leaders criticized the bureaucratic order inside the Soviet Union, but the alternative they established wasn't a course towards genuine socialism either.
They allied themselves with British and U.S. imperialism; Britain had long been wooing Tito. And the system they set up claiming to be a revolutionary alternative to the Soviet Union was just capitalism disguised as "workers' self-administration." Workers controlled the factories in name; in fact a managerial-bureaucratic elite ran the economy. The landlord power in the countryside had been broken, but the peasants were left to the mercy of the market after that. And the political system, in its essentials, wasn't different from the bureaucratic order in the Soviet Union.
For a while, the Yugoslav state did try to improve the conditions in the poorer regions. And as long as the economy grew, there was some development everywhere. Tito also sought to balance the Serbs and Croats and forge a new national identity different than the old Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. But the road of capitalist development inevitably meant that national inequalities would get worse. Investment flowed most where profits are highest; the developed areas grew much faster than the poor. Croatia and Slovenia developed, Kosovo suffered. By 1970, the per capita income of the average Slovene was over six times that of the average Kosovan. Meanwhile, Serbs were given important privileges in the bureaucratic-managerial elite and in the army.
But the economy went into crisis. Tito tried a quick fix in the 70's with massive borrowing from the imperialist banks. But the economy remained in trouble, and the debt bills came due in the 80's. Under International Monetary Fund (IMF) demands, Yugoslavia was forced to make major austerity measures, devastating the lives of the working people. Inflation and unemployment went skyward.
Crisis destroys Yugoslav union
It was economic crisis and the austerity measures which finally destroyed the political foundations of modem Yugoslavia. The old framework could not last. Serbian nationalism reared its ugly head. It first showed its fascistic colors against the Albanians of Kosovo. The Albanians complained of their harsh conditions and demanded a halt to the drive to curtail their rights. Their outcry was cruelly put down.
In the face of the austerity drive, a workers' movement also showed the potential of developing. 1988 was the biggest year of strikes. This strike wave created the possibility for workers uniting across national lines and fighting for better conditions for all. But it was not to be. That very year, Serbian leaders stepped up their efforts to drown the people in nationalist hysteria. Rebellious Kosovo was crushed. The nationalist demagogue, Slobodan Milosevic, came to the fore as leader of Serbia. Other national movements also grew. It was only a matter of time before things got so bad that the Slovenes and Croats began demanding outright secession. One after another, all the federal institutions collapsed leading eventually to the recent near-coup by the Serb-dominated military.
While Yugoslavia has been home to different peoples and there are old suspicions and resentments, what has broken the multinational state isn't those frictions, but the way capitalism undermined the promise of a multinational state based on national equality.
[Highlight: The cause of the current problems isn't socialism. In fact, it was the communist movement which organized a revolution against fascism, united working people of different nationalities, and set up a state with the promise of different nations living together with equal rights. But departures from socialism created the conditions which would ultimately destroy this attempt at a multinational Balkan federation.
Economic crisis and austerity measures in the 1980s finally destroyed the political foundations of modern Yugoslavia.]
Some liberal newspapers in South Africa have finally revealed facts about what many had already suspected: the apartheid government of De Klerk made large financial payments to Chief Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha movement.
For months now, the news from South Africa has been dominated by heart-wrenching reports of bloody clashes among blacks, between supporters of Inkatha and the African National Congress. The establishment in South Africa used these reports to justify continued white minority rule. They pointed to the violence and suggested that this is what would overtake the country if blacks were given full political rights.
Meanwhile, Inkatha's ties to government police agencies were hidden by the media. Plenty of evidence has existed to show that Inkatha's campaign of murder is organized and funded by the South African secret police. Witnesses have noticed that the leaders of Inkatha's murder raids were often disguised whites, and that they worked in conjunction with the police.
Now it has been revealed, and openly admitted by the government, that secret funds were used to finance Inkatha political rallies. This is obviously just the tip of the iceberg. If Inkatha could not afford to hold rallies -- to make banners, etc. -- how could they afford a military campaign? Indexed, the reports of money going to Inkatha have come at the same time as additional reports pointing to police involvement with a recent Inkatha- style bloody assault on a train.
These revelations show that De Klerk has been working behind the scenes to discredit the anti-apartheid movement, even as he professed his ardent desires to negotiate reform with the ANC and other black forces.
Inkatha -- a tool of the racists
The activities of Inkatha have been a thorn in the side of anti-apartheid activists for some time. Buthelezi is promoted as the "moderate" black "opposition" leader, the alternative to the ANC and the whole anti-racist movement.
Buthelezi was touted as the anti-apartheid leader who opposed international sanctions against South Africa. He opposed any actions that would harm the racists' business dealings.
Buthelezi also opposed any push for black majority rule in South Africa. He preached that blacks should be satisfied with rule over their own "community." Buthelezi and his followers have accepted a variety of positions offered by the racist government -- leaders of "homelands," municipal leaders of the stooge administrations ruling black townships, etc.
Since Mandela's release from jail and the beginning of his negotiations with President De Klerk, Inkatha has launched a full-scale war against anti-apartheid activists. Unable to win over the black masses through political means, Inkatha resorted to political murder. Their purpose was to cripple ANC and other popular organizations, and to drive the masses away from them. In many cases Inkatha supporters carried out mass murders of people in neighborhoods and on trains and buses.
De Klerk stonewalls
President De Klerk stonewalled the revelations for a few days. Then his interior minister came out and admitted the payments to Inkatha. But De Klerk still refused to discuss the issue, refused to fire his interior minister, and in fact is trying to use the issue to revive his popularity with the racists.
In late July the revelations were broadened when it came out that South Africa had funded political organizations in Namibia. When elections were being held there, shortly before South Africa withdrew its formal rule, South Africa funneled some $35 million to parties running against SWAPO.
This revelation was confirmed by De Klerk's foreign minister, who again tried to use the report to shore up the administration's popularity with white racists. But these exposures just make it all the more certain that Inkatha is a recipient of massive funds from the government -- not just for a few rallies, but for all its activities. If the government is willing to spend $35 million in Namibia, how much would it be willing to spend in South Africa itself to block black majority rule?
Bush silent after removing sanctions
Talk about bad timing! The exposure of South Africa's "dirty tricks" campaign came just a few days after President Bush removed sanctions from South Africa, saying it was well on the way to eliminating apartheid. Since the exposures, Bush has been silent about South Africa. He is hoping the scandal will simply blow over, and he and De Klerk can go back to business as usual. And of course none of the media flunkies who surround Bush are going to ask him any embarrassing questions, like: Don't these revelations in fact show that the racists are determined to hold onto their ill-gotten power and privileges to the end?
Bush and the other racist rulers of America want us to believe that South Africa is doing away with apartheid. Clearly, things are rapidly changing in South Africa. But the racists are still in power, and pulling every "dirty trick" they can think of to make sure that white privileges are preserved as much as possible.
Mandela pursuing a pipe dream
The exposures of government backing of Inkatha also hang over ANC and Mandela's head. Today, Mandela shouts that he is outraged at De Klerk and denounces him harshly. But until recently, Mandela has only had warm words for De Klerk. Clearly Mandela was chasing fool's gold there.
And that's not the end of it. Mandela has never given up wooing Buthelezi either. ANC has been trying to get him to join a Popular Front of all black organizations to negotiate with the government. It is one thing to deal with Inkatha to pressure it to give up sectarian violence and its links with the South African police, it is another to regard the present Inkatha as another anti-apartheid opposition movement.
What's been going on in South Africa is not mindless violence between black factions but a government-directed effort to disrupt the anti-apartheid movement. The racist government won't hand over rights to the black people on a silver platter. Liberation for the masses in South Africa will not come by having faith in negotiations with De Klerk, hoping that the racists will someday "see the light," or wishing for some "power-sharing" scheme, that will enable the Buthelezis to lord it over the black workers. Apartheid can only be uprooted by the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed masses themselves.
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Kurdish people in eastern Turkey turned out en masse for the funeral of a Kurdish politician, Vedat Aydin, on July 10. As it grew, the funeral march became a demonstration against Turkish state terror. Marchers began chanting slogans in support of outlawed Kurdish guerrillas. The police responded with deadly force, reportedly killing as many as 50 people. Leaders of the funeral march, including members of parliament, were badly beaten by police.
Aydin was a victim of state terror. On July 5 Aydin had been taken away from his home by four men who were recognized as members of the political section of the police. A few days later his body was discovered near a road outside the city of Diyarbakir.
For decades the Turkish government has carried out a policy of murderous suppression of the Kurdish minority. Aydin's death, and the attack on his funeral, shows that this policy has not changed. During the Gulf war, when he was seriously afraid of rebellion among the Kurds, President Turgut Ozal had some talks with Kurdish politicians and made various promises. But underneath, Ozal's death squads and military-police apparatus went on with their deadly work.
In the aftermath of the Gulf war, President Bush and Ozal posed as the greatest friends of the Kurds. The current terror campaign exposes that this was just a cynical fraud.
Bush visits Ozal to say thanks
President Bush visited Turkey in late July to thank President Turgut Ozal for his support during the war. And his thanks was not just verbal. Ozal got $660 million in military aid for next year alone.
With the defeat of Iraq, Ozal sees his chance to push Turkey forward as a regional power. He talks of making Turkey the Japan of the Middle East, a model of capitalism. His policies are blatantly pro-capitalist; Ozal sloganeers: "I don't like the poor; I like the rich." Ozal plans to make commercial inroads into the Arab countries, Iran, and the southern republics of the Soviet Union.
Ozal ties his policies closely to those, of U.S. imperialism. He allowed Bush to use Turkish bases during the Gulf war to bomb Iraq. And now he is allowing the allies' rapid response force to be based in southern Turkey, near the border with Iraq. Bush and Ozal say they represent "modern, free-enterprise society"; but for the Kurds it is just more murderous suppression.
A two-day general strike shut down commerce and industry in the Dominican Republic in mid-July. The strike demanded a 100% pay raise for all workers and the rehiring of 3,000 employees fired from their jobs at the government-owned electric utility. The strike also opposed President Joaquin Balaguer's signing an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that provides for layoffs and massive austerity.
To divert workers' anger against his policies, Balaguer launched a campaign against Haitian agricultural workers inside the country. There are over half a million Haitians living and working in the Dominican Republic. Many of them are in effect slaves, having been kidnapped from their homes in Haiti and transported to plantations where they are forced to live and work under atrocious conditions. Using typical capitalist logic, "blame the victim for the crime," Balaguer tries to blame the impoverished Haitians for his country's economic crisis. He sent the army into some plantations to round up and expel hundreds of Haitian workers.
The successful two-day general strike shows the power of the organized Dominican working class. The workers' strength would be enhanced even more if they take up defense of the super-exploited Haitians as a major front of struggle. It would strike a big blow at the Dominican bourgeoisie's divide-and-rule methods.
Over 100 Ford employees and supporters in Melbourne, Australia marched on the headquarters of the auto workers' union on July 8. The workers demanded that the union take up the defense of Hasan Donmez, a fired union steward, and 19 other workers who have been fired for supporting Donmez. The workers marched through downtown Melbourne chanting "Stop the sackings! All workers unite!"
Donmez was fired on June 25 for opposing Ford management's demand for speedup in the paint shop. Immediately, workers occupied and shut down the paint shop, and other workers throughout the plant stopped work and joined them. But this action was sabotaged by the bureaucrats of the auto workers' union, who agreed to let the company bring in police to expel the workers. In the next few days 19 workers refused to return to work without Donmez' reinstatement, and they were fired.
Undaunted, Donmez and his supporters set up a picket line outside the plant. The labor bureaucrats then called a special meeting of all stewards where they denounced Donmez as anti-union and issued a special newsletter denouncing the fired workers as violent. This scab activity enabled the company to then go ahead and obtain court injunctions against the fired workers' picketing.
Donmez then went on a hunger strike and organized the July 8 march against union headquarters. But when they reached union headquarters, the workers were met by a force of armed police. The union's state secretary, Ian Jones, met briefly with three of the marchers but told them bluntly he would give them no support.
Hand-to-hand combat raged on the grounds of the Samyang Metal Company plant in South Korea on July 14. A force of 1,000 riot police stormed the plant to expel striking workers who had been occupying the plant. Workers resisted with rocks and gasoline bombs, but were eventually driven out. Two dozen workers were arrested and one was seriously injured.
Workers had occupied and shut down the plant May 13, when negotiations on a new contract broke down.
The deployment of a massive police force against the workers shows that President Roh Tae Woo's regime has not changed its colors despite the international embarrassment he suffered this spring. When Roh's police murdered some students, a huge campaign of protests was organized, and Roh's pretensions to "democracy" were exposed. At that time Roh shuffled some cabinet posts and promised reform. But his police force remains a tool of the capitalists to suppress the toilers.
[Photo.]
Yet another African country is witness to stormy protests demanding an end to tyranny. Week after week, mass demonstrations are taking place demanding an end to the rule of President Didier Ratsiraka, now in his third seven-year term of office. But he refuses to go, claiming to have been legitimately elected back in 1979.
In late July, opposition activists began to occupy government ministry buildings. Protesters also took to the streets in defiance of a decree outlawing public gatherings.
Workers in Zaire carried out a two- day general strike in mid-July. The strike intensifies pressure against the corrupt regime of longtime U.S. ally President Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu is counting on a national conference, beginning July 31, to shore up confidence in the government. But many dissident figures are refusing to participate in the conference. And the workers' strike movement is threatening to cut off Mobutu's major source of income, the export of minerals. Mobutu's imperialist friends are looking around for an alternative, someone who could stabilize the situation and who is not as exposed among the masses as Mobutu.
Kurdish people in eastern Turkey turned out en masse for the funeral of a Kurdish politician, Vedat Aydin, on July 10. As it grew, the funeral march became a demonstration against Turkish state terror. Marchers began chanting slogans in support of outlawed Kurdish guerrillas. The police responded with deadly force, reportedly killing as many as 50 people. Leaders of the funeral march, including members of parliament, were badly beaten by police.
Aydin was a victim of state terror. On July 5 Aydin had been taken away from his home by four men who were recognized as members of the political section of the police. A few days later his body was discovered near a road outside the city of Diyarbakir.
For decades the Turkish government has carried out a policy of murderous suppression of the Kurdish minority. Aydin's death, and the attack on his funeral, shows that this policy has not changed. During the Gulf war, when he was seriously afraid of rebellion among the Kurds, President Turgut Ozal had some talks with Kurdish politicians and made various promises. But underneath, Ozal's death squads and military-police apparatus went on with their deadly work.
In the aftermath of the Gulf war, President Bush and Ozal posed as the greatest friends of the Kurds. The current terror campaign exposes that this was just a cynical fraud.
Bush visits Ozal to say thanks
President Bush visited Turkey in late July to thank President Turgut Ozal for his support during the war. And his thanks was not just verbal. Ozal got $660 million in military aid for next year alone.
With the defeat of Iraq, Ozal sees his chance to push Turkey forward as a regional power. He talks of making Turkey the Japan of the Middle East, a model of capitalism. His policies are blatantly pro-capitalist; Ozal sloganeers: "I don't like the poor; I like the rich." Ozal plans to make commercial inroads into the Arab countries, Iran, and the southern republics of the Soviet Union.
Ozal ties his policies closely to those, of U.S. imperialism. He allowed Bush to use Turkish bases during the Gulf war to bomb Iraq. And now he is allowing the allies' rapid response force to be based in southern Turkey, near the border with Iraq. Bush and Ozal say they represent "modern, free-enterprise society"; but for the Kurds it is just more murderous suppression.
A two-day general strike shut down commerce and industry in the Dominican Republic in mid-July. The strike demanded a 100% pay raise for all workers and the rehiring of 3,000 employees fired from their jobs at the government-owned electric utility. The strike also opposed President Joaquin Balaguer's signing an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that provides for layoffs and massive austerity.
To divert workers' anger against his policies, Balaguer launched a campaign against Haitian agricultural workers inside the country. There are over half a million Haitians living and working in the Dominican Republic. Many of them are in effect slaves, having been kidnapped from their homes in Haiti and transported to plantations where they are forced to live and work under atrocious conditions. Using typical capitalist logic, "blame the victim for the crime," Balaguer tries to blame the impoverished Haitians for his country's economic crisis. He sent the army into some plantations to round up and expel hundreds of Haitian workers.
The successful two-day general strike shows the power of the organized Dominican working class. The workers' strength would be enhanced even more if they take up defense of the super-exploited Haitians as a major front of struggle. It would strike a big blow at the Dominican bourgeoisie's divide-and-rule methods.
Over 100 Ford employees and supporters in Melbourne, Australia marched on the headquarters of the auto workers' union on July 8. The workers demanded that the union take up the defense of Hasan Donmez, a fired union steward, and 19 other workers who have been fired for supporting Donmez. The workers marched through downtown Melbourne chanting "Stop the sackings! All workers unite!"
Donmez was fired on June 25 for opposing Ford management's demand for speedup in the paint shop. Immediately, workers occupied and shut down the paint shop, and other workers throughout the plant stopped work and joined them. But this action was sabotaged by the bureaucrats of the auto workers' union, who agreed to let the company bring in police to expel the workers. In the next few days 19 workers refused to return to work without Donmez' reinstatement, and they were fired.
Undaunted, Donmez and his supporters set up a picket line outside the plant. The labor bureaucrats then called a special meeting of all stewards where they denounced Donmez as anti-union and issued a special newsletter denouncing the fired workers as violent. This scab activity enabled the company to then go ahead and obtain court injunctions against the fired workers' picketing.
Donmez then went on a hunger strike and organized the July 8 march against union headquarters. But when they reached union headquarters, the workers were met by a force of armed police. The union's state secretary, Ian Jones, met briefly with three of the marchers but told them bluntly he would give them no support.
Hand-to-hand combat raged on the grounds of the Samyang Metal Company plant in South Korea on July 14. A force of 1,000 riot police stormed the plant to expel striking workers who had been occupying the plant. Workers resisted with rocks and gasoline bombs, but were eventually driven out. Two dozen workers were arrested and one was seriously injured.
Workers had occupied and shut down the plant May 13, when negotiations on a new contract broke down.
The deployment of a massive police force against the workers shows that President Roh Tae Woo's regime has not changed its colors despite the international embarrassment he suffered this spring. When Roh's police murdered some students, a huge campaign of protests was organized, and Roh's pretensions to "democracy" were exposed. At that time Roh shuffled some cabinet posts and promised reform. But his police force remains a tool of the capitalists to suppress the toilers.
[Photo.]
Yet another African country is witness to stormy protests demanding an end to tyranny. Week after week, mass demonstrations are taking place demanding an end to the rule of President Didier Ratsiraka, now in his third seven-year term of office. But he refuses to go, claiming to have been legitimately elected back in 1979.
In late July, opposition activists began to occupy government ministry buildings. Protesters also took to the streets in defiance of a decree outlawing public gatherings.
Workers in Zaire carried out a two- day general strike in mid-July. The strike intensifies pressure against the corrupt regime of longtime U.S. ally President Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu is counting on a national conference, beginning July 31, to shore up confidence in the government. But many dissident figures are refusing to participate in the conference. And the workers' strike movement is threatening to cut off Mobutu's major source of income, the export of minerals. Mobutu's imperialist friends are looking around for an alternative, someone who could stabilize the situation and who is not as exposed among the masses as Mobutu.