WfJIIKEIiS "11"'111) 50e No. 758 11 May 2001 For Unconditional Military Defense of China Against Imperialism, Counterrevolution! • II II Ina
Taiwan: U.S.-supplied warships, artillery target Chinese deformed workers state. Bush administration is laying basis for war against China.
MAY 7-The Bush administration is toward the question of war with China Missile Treaty in order to proceed with a North Korea or other "rogue states," i.e., laying the basis for a war against the over Taiwan, came only a day after Bei vast missile defense system. Beijing offi small countries without nuclear weapons. People's Republic of China, a war that jing warned that the U.S. had crossed cial ShaZukang said, "Once the United The clear purpose of such an elaborate would be nuclear in scope. That was the a "red line" by offering Taiwan an array States believes it has both a strong spear scheme-should the Pentagon ever get it import of Bush's April 25 statement that of advanced weaponry. Today, the U.S. and a strong shield, it could lead them to to work-is to carry off a successful the U.S. would militarily intervene with resumed spy flights off China's coast for conclude that nobody can harm the nuclear first strike. The New York Times "whatever it took" in an armed conflict the first time since the EP-3E provoca United States and they can harm anyone (6 May) npted, China's "nuclear deter between its Taiwanese client state and tion last month. they like anywhere in the world" (New rent-20 or so ICBM's-now stands at China and that "the Chinese must under On May 1, Bush told the world to York Times, 29 April). No one believes most risk of being negated." stand that." This provocative declaration, "rethink the unthinkable" as he an Washington's flimsy claim that it is pre New Pentagon war plans to be com tearing the veil off Washington's long nounced that the U.S. was planning to pared to shell out $100 billion or more to pleted this summer, according to a report standing policy of "strategic ambiguity" tear up the 29-year-old Anti-Ballistic deal with a nonexistent threat from Iraq, continued on page 8 All U.S. Troops, Bases Out MAY 5-At least 180 protesters were arrested on Vieques last week as U.S. Navy fighters and warships staged a four-day training exercise barely two years to the day since a bombing run of Puerto RiCO! killed a local resident. Angry protesters repeatedly tore down security fences and surged onto the firing range to force a halt to the bombardment. As military security forces kicked people to the ground and fired pepper spray at demon strators-even some who had already been arrested and handcuffed-a Navy spokesman had the gall to denounce the demonstrators as "violent." Some of been key to American military designs. U.S. troops and bases out of Puerto those arrested were held for several days Vieques served as a training base for Rico! U.S. military out of the Caribbean! in a former dog kennel stinking of urine, the terror bombing of Iraq in 1991 and For unconditional military defense of forced to sleep on the concrete floor. of Serbia in 1999. Puerto Rico was a Cuba against imperialism and internal Vieques is integral to the U.S. military launching pad for the 1961 Bay of Pigs counterrevolution! presence on Puerto Rico, which has long invasion of Cuba, the 1965 invasion of The Navy presence in Vieques exem the Dominican Republic and the 1983 plifies the colonial subjugation of Puerto 19 occupation of Grenada. The U.S. mili Rico from the time it was seized by tary presence is aimed at enforcing the an emerging U.S. imperialism during
imperialist subjugation of Puerto Rico the Spanish-American War of 1898. The , Reuters and the rest of Latin America and is a U.S. military controls almost one-eighth Arrest of protester on Vieques as dagger pointed at the Cuban deformed of Puerto Rico's scarce land, including resumption of military exercises pro 7 25274 81030 7 workers state in particular. We say: All continued on page 3 voked broad anger. P.c:i Parti§au Defeu§e City police also arrested four demonstra homosexuals. In the new "democratic" tors, two of them known UNAM student Mexico, student strike leaders have been .··········£o...... ittee activists. We demand all charges be expelled from UNAM for defending pub dropped! lic education, and Alejandro Echevarria CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES Close to half a million workers demon ("El Mosh") f~ces ten months in prison strated on May Day, in three different under bogus charges of "robbery." We concentrations led by different union say: Down with all charges! Rescind the groupings. But at none of these demon expulsions! Mexico: Protest Cop Killing strations did President Vicente Fox While it is common for labor strikes to escape the anger of the working class, be declared legally "nonexistent," the which showed its discontent with his eco Supreme Court has now declared the of Worker on May Day nomic plans. From privatizations and lay "closed shop" law unconstitutional. A We reprint below a May 3 statement by Osornio Cruz, a 22-year-old member of offs, to 15 percent taxes on food, medi union's right to demand that all workers our comrades of the Grupo Espartaquista the Independent Union of Graphic Arts cine and books, to further opening of the at a particular shop be union members is de Mexico (GEM), Mexican section of Workers. Osornio and six fellow union economy for exploitation by American an important tool in labor's arsenal the ICL, protesting the heinous police ists were entering the Hidalgo Metro sta imperialism-it all spells increased mis against the bosses who seek to divide the killing of a trade unionist on May Day. tion after attending the May Day demon ery for Mexican toilers. This murderous working class and weaken their organiza This action by police under the control of stration when they were set upon by display of police brutality. is yet another tions by hiring non-union labor. the bourgeois-nationalist PRD (Party of Metro police in a vicious attack which indication that the PRD and its police will The police, the armed forces and the the Democratic Revolution) underscores included the use of tear gas. Osornio died stop at nothing to keep workers and the courts exist to defend the interests of the that the PRD is no alternative to the rul instantly of massive brain trauma. The oppressed under control. Indeed, from capitalist class; that is, their ability to ing clerical-reactionary PAN (National Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico, section Chiapas to Tepito and elsewhere in the extract profit from the labor of others. It Action Party) or the PRI (Institutional of the International Communist League country, the PAN, PRD and PRI are is the proletariat which has the power Revolutionary Party). (Fourth Internationalist), condemns this united in immiserating the masses and to stop the increased impoverishment * * * police killing and solidarizes with the fel then terrorizing them to try to keep the lid of the working class by leading all the On May Day, PRD-controlled Mexico low unionists, friends and family of Dan on growing discontent. oppressed in the struggle to eradicate cap City Metro police beat to death Daniel iel Osornio. Earlier on May 1, Mexico The murderous police have also taken italism, which is part of the fight to.con their cue from the reactionary Fox, who struct a world socialist society in which in the five short months of his term production is not for the profits of the has overseen attacks on labor, peasants, bosses but to meet the needs and desires For Non-Sectarian the indigenous population, women and of the masses .• Class-Struggle Defense! As Mumia Abu-Jamal's fight for freedom enters a new and critical stage on the legal Gary Mayor Tries to Criminalize front, it is all the more urgent that Jamal's many supporters around the world mobi Anti-Klan Protest-Defend Kevin Quirk! lize in powerful labor-centered protest action to save the life of this innocent All opponents of the Ku Klux Klan's anyone who showed up, protest. letters man. In advancing this strategy, the Partisan racist terror have a vital interest in fight from unionists across the country helped Defense Committee follows in the class- ing the prosecution of Kevin Quirk, a to stay his hand. Over 150 trade union TROTSKY struggle tradition of the International Labor LENIN member of Chicago's Amalgamated ists, black people, students and socialists Defense of James P. Cannon, who was later Transit Union Local 241, for his role in turned out to stop the Klan provocation, founding leader of the U.S. Trotskyist movement. In a 1927 article on the frame-up of the Partisan Defense Cornrnitt~e-initiated chanting, "KKK, no way! You didn't anarchist workers Sacco and Vanzetti, who were ultimately executed, Cannon laborlblack mobilization to stop the KKK march today!" explained that illusions in capitalist "justice" are counterposed to a class-struggle in Gary, Indiana last January 20. On that King's Democratic administration is defense strategy. day, Gary mayor Scott King banned any trying to criminalize the elementary act of and all protest. When we successfully self-defense against KKK terror-indeed, The Sacco-Vanzetti case is no private monopoly, but an issue of the class struggle in defied that ban, the police cited Quirk, a any protest against racism and injustice. which the decisive word will be spoken by the masses who have made this fight their PDC representative, for "parading with Last year King even refused a permit to own. It is, therefore, necessary to discuss openly the conflicting policies which are out a permit." Quirk faces a hearing at Local 73 of the Service Employees Inter bound up with different objectives. 1:30 p.m. on May 16 at the Gary Circuit national Union to hold a rally for a decent One policy is the policy of the class struggle. It puts the center of gravity in the protest Court, 1301 Broadway. contract. Just as an outpouring of protest movement of the workers of America and the world. It puts all faith in the power of the The Klan's threat to march at the Lake letters and calls helped stop King from masses and no faith whatever in the justice of the courts. While favoring all possible County Courthouse on January 20 was staging a mass arrest at the January 20 legal proceedings, it calls for agitation"publicity, demonstrations-organized protest a direct and deadly threat to the over mobilization, a similar effort is urgently on a national and international scale. It calls for unity and solidarity of all workers on whelmingly black population of Gary and needed now. Protest letters demanding this burning issue, regardless of conflicting views on other questions. This is what has to the unions that are based there. The that the charge against Kevin Quirk prevented the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti so far. Its goal is nothing less than their PDC's united-front call-"All Out to be dropped should be faxed to (219) triumphant vindication and liberation. Stop the KKK!"-won widespread back 881-1263 or sent to: Corporation Counsel The other policy is the policy of "respectability," of the "soft pedal" and of ridicu ing from labor organizations and trade- Hamilton Carmouche, Law Department, lous illusions about "justice" from the courts of the enemy. It relies mainly on legal pro . union officials' in northwest Indiana, Gary City Hall, 401 Broadway, Gary, ceedings. It seeks to blur the issue of the class struggle. It shrinks from the "vulgar and Chicago and across the country, as well Indiana 46402, Please mail copies of noisy" demonstrations of the militant workers and throws the mud of slander on them. as internationally. When King denied the protest letters to the PDC at P.O. Box 99, It tries to represent the martyrdom of Sacco and Vanzetti as an "unfortunate" error which PDC's permit application for an anti-Klan Canal Street Station, New York, NY can be rectified by the "right" people proceeding in the "right" way. The objective of demonstration and threatened to arrest 10013-0099 .• this policy is a whitewash of the courts of Massachusetts and "clemency" for Sacco and Vanzetti, in the form of a commutation to liJe imprisonment for a crime of which the world knows they are innocent. . The conscious proletarian elements with whom we identify ourselves uncondition ,.----Spartacist/SYC Events ally, are for the first policy. The bourgeois elements, and those influenced by them, are ~ for the second .... Castro Bureaucracy Undermines Gains'of the Cuban Only the organized and united protest movement of the masses cari save them. In this movement the class conscious workers-the militants-are the driving force. Let those Revolution-For Proletarian Political Revolution! who hamper this movement or endanger its unity pause lest they unconsciously become the executioners of Sacco and Vanzetti. -JameS P. Cannon, "Who Can Save Sacco and Vanzetti?", Labor Defender, January 1927, reprinted in Notebook of an Agitator (1958)
Saturday, May 19, 4. p.m. Eyewitness Report Mount Hollywood Congregational Church, 4607 Prospect Ave., Hollywood (one block east of Vermont) !~!!!!!J!.Ilp.'!.!'!.~!!.! ~ LOS ANGELES For more information: (213) 380-8239 EDITOR: Len Meyers EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna Woodman From Seattle to Quebec: Anti-Globalization Protests PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller 'PUSh Illusions in Rapacious U.S. Imperialism CIRCULATION MANAGER: Irene Gardner EDITORIAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) . Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276·0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Pub· lishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 Defend China Against Imperialism and Capitalist Counterrevolution! (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 13n, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mailljddress:[email protected]. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address Tuesday, May 22, 7 p.m. changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. University of Chicago, Room 115, Cobb Hall, 5811 S. Ellis Opinions expressed in signed aflicles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. The closing date for news in this issue is May 8. Eyewitness Report from Quebec Anti-FTAA Protests CHICAGO For more information: (312) 563-0441 . No. 758 11 May 2001
2 WORKERS VANGUARD Cops Unleashed Against NYC Transit Workers
As they tighten the screws on the work taken control, capitulated in the face of mechanic told WV, "then they try to make ways" was cle'ar at a March 28 TWU force, New York City Transit .,(NYCT) this assault, even enforcing the state's the rest of us do it." The union must fight rally in defense of health benefits, which bosses are now using NYC cops as en dictates against their own members. This to abolish the "probationary" and "provi was turned into a Democratic Party elec forcers against Transport Workers Union was a signal to the transit bosses that sional" classifications which deny work tion rally, with every Democratic mayoral (TWU) Local 100. TWU members told they could declare "open season" against ers full union rights and protections. hopeful in the city on the platform and Workers Vanguard that cops were called TWU members. What is needed to beat back the Jesse Jackson as the featured speaker. in to the 207th Street subway mainte Only months after this capitUlation, wave of company victimizations and cop Since taking office, Toussaint has trum nance barn in late April against. union management at the 240th Street subway assaults, as well as escalating speed peted his intention of channeling union officials when they came to the defense maintenance facility in the Bronx called up, safety violations and attacks on the resources into a "political action com of a victimized worker. Management in the NYPD to bust up a shopgate union union's health benefits fund, is a con mittee" for the Democratic Party. This is threatened to fire the worker after a con meeting, firing 18 cleaners (who were certed effort by the union as a whole. in keeping with the strategy of the AFL frontation with a security guard. They eventually reinstated) for "insubordina But while ND makes a pretense of being CIO bureaucracy, which is devoting even proceeded to interrogate him behind tion." Reporting "TA Sics Cops on Union more militant than its predecessor, ND greater efforts to getting Democrats locked doors in a manager's office with elected now that Bush is in the White out a union rep being present. When the House. ND's flagrant subservience to officials demanded to see the worker, the the racist Democratic Party was to be superintendent called the NYPD cops to expected given its longstanding strategy evict them from the facility. of using the agencies of the capitalist A few weeks earlier, on April I, NYCT state-the courts, the District Attorney management at the Jackie Gleason Bus and the Labor Department-against the Depot in Brooklyn's Sunset Park called union in its efforts to win control of the in the NYPD to prevent union safety local. reps from checking on potentially deadly The union tops hide behind the state gas leaks. These repeated leaks of high Taylor Law outlawing public workers pressure natural gas are so serious that strikes to cover up their own craven class a couple of weeks later the Fire Depart collaboration. Even founding TWU pres ment shut down a nine-block area, includ ident Mike Quill himself, a pro-capitalist ing a public school. TWU secretary bureaucrat, understood that collective treasurer Ed Watt reported in a letter to bargaining without the right to strike is the NYC Chief-Leader (4 May): "On just "collective begging." Quill tore up a more than six occasions Transit Author court injunction based on the Taylor ity management called or threatened to Law's predecessor, the Condon-Wadi in call the police to remove some of our Act, on the eve of a 1966 strike and went highest-ranking officers. Even when nat to jail for it-but the strike won. ural gas leaks were being reported on a The same cops who are deployed daily basis, our members were ordered to against TWU members are also used to work under armed guard, with no respeCt New York City, March 28: TWU workers rally to defend health benefits fund occupy the ghettos and barrios. Yet ND, as for their safety and well-being. Some against management. did the previous James leadership, sup might insist that labor relations at gun ports the presence of management's point is no problem. Our members would Meeting," we wrote: "The union should president Roger Toussaint took pains to "property protection" security cops in the disagree." have immediately made clear to the arro assure NYCT management that he was union. The cops, as well as the courts, are "Labor relations at gunpoint" aptly gant TA bosses that not a single train not "strike happy" even during his elec direct agents of the class enemy; they describes the massive cop mobilization would pull in or out of the station unless tion campaign. More recently, when have no place in the labor movement. deployed against Local 100 on the eve of all 18 cleaners were reinstated on the spot asked if management's threats to cut off Cops out of the TWU! a threatened strike in December 1999, as with full pay and no disciplinary action" health benefits or massively increase co To defend and advance the rights of Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani and (WV No. 732, 24 March 2000). payments might lead to job actions, labor requires a class-struggle leadership Democratic state attorney general Eliot Now, at the East New York bus mainte Toussaint replied, "You'd love to have that seeks to mobilize labor's power in its Spitzer teamed up in an attempt to bust nance facility in Brooklyn, workers are me say that, wouldn't you? I think there interests and those of all the oppressed. the union with draconian Taylor Law engaged in an overtime boycott to reverse are lots of other ways for us to do that Such a leadership will be forged as part of injunctions criminalizing even use of the the firing of two probationary mechanics within the Taylor Law, whether it's legal the struggle for a workers party counter word "strike." Both wings of the Local on bogus charges of not finishing a job action, member mobilization or edu posed to all the parties and agencies 100 bureaucracy, the "old guard" under in the allotted time. "They try to get the cating the community and the riders" of the capitalist class and committed to then-president Willie James and the New probationaries to work harder and faster (Chief-Leader, 6 April). the proposition that those who labor Directions (ND) opposition that has since to show it can be done," one young What Toussaint means by "other must rule .•
residents by an American jet that missed the nationalist lie of "el pueblo unido" Puerto Rican workers on the mainland Vieques ... its bombing target made the Vieques base (the people united), which disappears can playa key role in linking the strug (continued from page 1) a focus for national indignation among class 'conflict in the interest of "unity" of gles of the multiracial U.S. proletariat Puerto Ricans. Opposition to the bomb the oppressed with the capitalist class with those of the combative proletariat the Roosevelt Roads naval station, the ings has become so widespread that even enemy. The two-day general strike in on the island, many of whom wbrk for hemisphere's largest. In the case of a legislator from the pro-statehood New 1998 against plans to sell off the state U.S. subsidiaries. Only socialist revolu Vieques, the Navy took over two-thirds Progressive Party, linked to the Repub owned telephone company illustrated the tion throughout the hemisphere, laying of the island during World War II, throw lican Party, got arrested in the recent massive popular opposition to national the basis for international planning with ing thousands out of their homes and protests, as did Chicago Democratic subjugation as well as the power of the massive assistance from the victorious ordering impoverished farmers whose Congressman Luis Gutierrez, actor Ed Puerto Rican proletariat. But that power proletariat in North America, can open families had occupied the land for gener ward James Olmos and a member of the was derailed by labor bureaucrats who the road to genuine economic develop ations to leave the area within 48 hours. Kennedy clan. Popular Democratic Party chained the working class to the program ment for the countries which are today Eastern parts of Vieques have been candidate Sila Calderon was elected gov of bourgeois nationalism and tied the under the imperialist boot.. bombed so heavily that no soil remains, ernor last November largely on the basis unions to bourgeois political and right just the underlying rock broken into small of her vow to end the bombing runs. wing religious elements through a pieces. With farming devastated, fishing Seeking to calm popular outrage, Clinton class-collaborationist front called CAOS restricted and tourism gutted by decades pushed through a deal offering Vieques (Greater Committee of Trade-Union, If hi t!I<.) of live bombing, fully 70 percent of the residents a referendum on the Navy pres , Civic, Religious, Cultural, Political, Stu 1gil population lives below the poverty level. ence-to be organized by the Navy by dent and Environmental Organizations). Las PJatica~;-;;~;~ un fraUde~ Unemployment is 50 percent, two and a next February-and suspending the use That there is today little mass support iFuera ejercito de Chiapas! half times the rate on Puerto Rico itself. of live ammunition in training exercises in Puerto Rico for the perspective of pegln.9 _____ As nominal citizens of the U.S., Puerto until then. Washington hopes to bribe the independence is due not least to wide Rican youth serve as cannon fodder for population with promises of a $40 million spread fears that this would mean an end U.S. imperialism's wars of domination. aid package if the vote goes in its favor. to unrestricted travel to the U.S. and a But residents of Puerto Rico are politi As part of the deal, the Navy last month sharp drop ~in what is now the highest cally dispossessed-denied the right to gave up a chunk of the island being used standard of living in Latin America vote in federal elections-and discrimi for ammunition bunkers, which one resi (albdt much lower than in even the poor iAbaJo el TlCl--iNmguna conflanza en el PRO nated against economically, linguisti dent accurately described as a "waste est state on the mainland). Moreover, naclOnaflsta burgues! cally, racially and culturally. The island's dump." despite calling for the "demilitarization working people are exploited as a low The Spartacist League fights for the of Puerto Rico," the Puerto Rican Inde wage labor pool by U.S. capitalists seek right of self-determination-that is, the pendence Party has made it amply clear Espartaco ing to maximize their profit margins. The right of independence-for Puerto Rico, that an independent capitalist Puerto Publication of the Grupo imperialists have met liny challenge to the principal remaining colony of the Rico would be quite willing to maintain Espartaquista de Mexico their colonial domination with brute ter U.S. We seek to mobilize the. U.S. prole U.S. bases if the price was right. No. 15, Spring-Summer 2001 ror, from the 1937 Ponce massacre to the tariat to combat all manifestations of The only road to breaking the stran $.50 (40 pages) assassination and imprisonment of count national chauvinism, and we defend the glehold of imperialist domination, and less independence fighters. right of advocates for independence to exploitation and grinding poverty lies Order from/pay to: The April 1999 killing of a local secur organize and agitate for secession. At the through proletarian revolution in Puerto Spartacist Publishing Co. Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 ity guard and the wounding of four other same time, we warn against illusions in Rico and above all in North America. , 3 Young Sparlaeus
DOtv,Af ~'WTH IMF AlI5TER!TY FR{1M brashly asserting American hegemony around the globe by waving its military MEXICO TO SYC at UC Berkeley fist at North Korea, Russia and China. Clinton's policy of genocidal starvation INDONESIA .' Every year the Berkeley Reserve and bombing of Iraq proceeds unabated. Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) rappels The troops of U.S. imperialism still down a building at the center of UC occupy the Balkans in a situation fraught Berkeley's campus in a bi.d to recruit with scarcely suppressed all-sided com incoming college students to the officer munalist fratricide which is still tearing corps of the U.S. imperialist military. On apart south central Europe. Bush is con April 21, the Spartacus Youth Club led a tinuing Clinton's funding and arming of demonstration opposing this deadly arm the murderous war against the Colombian of the bourgeoisie. peasant insurgents. Our protest got the attention of hun With Bush in the Oval Office, many dreds of students who came to Cal Day left-leaning workers and students will (the open house when prospective stu look toward the liberal Democrats as a dents tour the campus). We passed out lesser evil. As the SYC warned in our 200 to 300 leaflets and sold our flaming speeches at the protest, the Democratic red communist literature. We planned on Party is no alternative. It is a capitalist first having a demonstration on Sproul party of racism and war, loyally serving Plaza, but that was thwarted by the cir the same ruling class as the Republicans. cus we encountered there (it's hard to From World War II to Vietnam to the ter SYC anti-ROTC demo at UC Berkeley. Demanding "ROTC Off have a demo when you're competing ror bombing of the Balkans, the Dem called on students to oppose U.S. imperialism. against Ricky Martin at 120 decibels). We ocrats have been the traditional party instead marched with our signs straight to of imperialist war. As for the FTAA, anti-Communist hatred of the Chinese on Colombia-to demand: ROTC Off Wheeler Hall, where the 25 or 30 ROTC the Clinton/Gore administration imple workers state goes hand in hand with his Campus! recruiters were quite taken aback. Imme mented NAFTA and intensified the "free trumpeting of American "democracy." No Wars like the 1999 U.S.fUN/NATO diately after our appearance, the cam trade" rape of Mexico, while backing to wonder these groups don't take a basic war on Serbia that murdered civilians pus police started following us, with one the hilt the murderous war against the stand against the agents of imperialism on and bombed Serbia's infrastructure back cop filming us from minute one. ROTC Chiapas peasants. campus. Given that they look to the self to the Stone Age are endemic to the cap was also filming us-at one point they set Where was the rest of the campus left same U.S. bourgeoisie to playa progres italist system. Imperialism is not a pol up a surveillance post from the second when ROTC staged its recruitment stunt? sive role internationally, it is logical that icy, but the highest stage of capitalism in floor, but quickly abandoned it. Our Progressive Labor not only refused to they won't protest and expose the crimes which the world powers wage ruthless protest drew supporters from the crowd, come to our protest, they also physically of American capitalism from the perspec warfare over markets in order to improve and included students from local high excluded an SYCer from their meeting tive of the international working class. their relative competitive positions, rav schools. We then marched through cam earlier in the week when we went to Now that the Republicans are swinging aging the colonial and semi-colonial pus and chanted slogans like "ROTC is an invite them to participate in this elemen back through the White House, the ISO's countries at the expense of their rivals. imperialist tool-Workers must smash tary act of opposition to U.S. imperial paper, Socialist Worker, runs headlines Witness the proposed FTAA, which ex bourgeois rule!" and "ROTC recruiters ism. During a time 'of increasing U.S. like "We Won't Go Back!" (read: "please tends NAFTA's "free trade" rape of Mex Imperialist looters-Off campus now!" hostility against the Chinese deformed bring Clinton back") and "It's Time to ico to further the domination of Amer Shenanigans abounded. After about workers state, it is not so surprising that Send Bush a Message" (i.e., unite with ican capital over the economies of all 10 minutes, a marching band strategi PL refuses to come to an anti-ROTC the liberals to "fight the right"). The ISO Latin America. But a contract is only cally relocated to within feet of us and demo. PL writes off the gains of the Chi consciously rejects the struggle to mobi worth as much as the guns that back it played bad '80s tunes to the scattered nese Revolution by labeling the deformed lize the proletariat in its own interests to up. ROTC is the direct appendage of the cheers of soldiers and pro-ROTC civil workers state as a capitalist imperialist smash the capitalist system and instead bloody military machine that defends the ians. A middle-aged woman started country. A lone PL supporter sulked at preaches the counterrevolutionary strat interests of the American ruling class. screaming "Go ROTC!" but quickly left. the edge of our ROTC demo, watching egy of putting pressure on the "pro The SYC says: No to the FTAA! Down Later a team of utterly untalented women us mournfully from the shadows. We gressive" members of the ruling capital with NAFTA! For socialist revolution started singing the "Star Spangled Ban approached him and asked if he could ist exploiters, i.e., the racist Democratic throughOitt the Americas! ner" l~e madmen. While a guy in a justify PL's refusal to defend Mumia Party. . The organizers of the April 21-22 pro Nixon mask tossed a globe into a toilet Abu-Jamal for well over a decade, PL's We reprint below the leaflet issued by tests to "Stop the FTAA," however, con labeled "FTAA," a motley group of weird bizarre claims that the 1997 UPS Team the SYC in building this protest. sciously push the deadly lie that U.S. anarcho- "deep ecologists" started hover sters strike was a "dogfight" between two imperialism can be pressured to fight ing around us with pictures of animals wings of the bosses (Challenge, 3 Sep * * * for the "human rights" of the Third being tortured and signs that showed their tember 1997), and their utterly disgusting ,On April 21, "Cal Day," prospective World. But, from WW I's "war to end displeasure with American imperialism position that the gay rights movement and Berkeley students may well wonder if all wars" to the war against Serbia on this based solely on the fact that Ameri anti-gay violence are "both faces of fas they have applied to a police state rather behalf of Albanian Kosovars, the U.S. can soldiers mistreat monkeys in labs! cism" (Challenge, 4 November 1998). He than a college. The Reserve Officers' has always draped its imperialist adven What really attracted the attention of alternated between claiming ignorance Training Corps (ROTC) plans to show tures in "human rights" clothing. The many students and parents were our signs and protesting that he did not agree with case the United States armed forces on "anti-globalization" movement propa in Chinese and English that said: "Protest their positions. He then tried to brush campus by rappelling down Wheeler gates the illusion that the U.S. must com U.S. Spy Plane Provocation! Defend the aside the enormity of these betrayals by Hall. ROTC trains the next generation of bat "undemocratic" multinational trade Chinese Deformed Workers State Against explaining that PL is fighting opportun men and women who will carry out bodies like the WTO-but such agree Imperialism and Capitalist Counterrevo ism in its own organization! slaughter for the most rapacious imperial ments are just conveniences that various lution!" One Chinese student asked a The International Socialist Organiza ist power in~the world. But ROTC has not nationally-based bourgeoisies work out comrade if there is a third way between tion also refused to come to our protest. always enjoyed the right to herd students when they're not actually shooting at socialism and capitalism. Upon getting The ISO's theoretical and organiza into the blood-drenched armed forces. one another to divvy up the world. The her firm negative, he exclaimed, "Me too! tional progenitors broke with Marxism Organized outrage over atrocities com AFL-CIO union bureaucracy has made I'm for pure communism!" Today China long ago by abandoning defense of the mitted by American imperialism's armed racist protectionism a theme of the anti is the main target of all the imperialists. USSR and China in 1950, after the U.S. forces in Vietnam successfully drove globalization movement, peddling the lie For revolutionaries, defense of China and and British imperialists invaded Korea. ROTC off campuses all over the nation. that U.S. workers have a common interest the other remaining deformed workers Following the destruction of the Soviet When ROTC reintroduced itself in aca with their bosses. These protests and their states is a basic act of opposition to our Union, the ISO declared that the counter demic garb in the mid-seventies, we fake-socialist cheerleaders, like the ISO "own" bourgeoisie. revolution was a great triumph that led a campaign against its return to the and Socialist Alternative, obscure the fun Our demonstration against ROTC "should have every socialist rejoicing" Cal campus. The Spartacus Youth Club damental truth that U.S. imperialism is comes in the context of increased belli (Socialist Worker [Britain], 31 August (SYC) today calls on students outraged the main enemy of the working and cosity across the board by the American 1991). The ISO spent much of the last by U.S. imperialist rampages-from in oppressed people of the world, and actu bourgeoisie. A right-wing Republican year campaigning for capitalist politician creased belligerence against China to the ally mobilize workers and youth behind administration in the White House is Ralph Nader, whose protectionism and terror bombings of Iraq to the "drug war" the American imperialist behemoth. WORKERS VANGUARD tOO~ YAM n Bob ,Kerrey, Vietnam War Criminal Almost as obscene as the slaughter of should be brought to justice before a down bombs and napalm on the Viet tory! Two, three many defeats for U.S. 21 women, children and elderly men per workers and peasants tribunal in Viet namese people, they were waging a war of imperialism! petrated by Bob Kerrey's Navy SEAL nam! As the Spartacus Youth Club extermination against black militants at In the name of "human rights," the im death squad in Vietnam in 1969 is the chanted at a May 3 protest outside New home, like the Chicago cops under Dem- perialist rulers are now trying to over hand-wringing concern in the American throw the gains of the Vietnamese Revo capitalist media over the "psychological lution; to crush Cuba under the jIlckboot damage" done to the killers. Respond of U.S. imperialism; to recapture China, ing to sickening editorials like "The War which was ripped from the hands of the Within Bob Kerrey" (New York Times, imperialists in the 1949 Chinese Revo 26 April), one letter to the Times (30 lution, for imperialist exploitation. Tbe April) rightly protested, "It's almost as doors for renewed imperialist penetra if those who were killed have become tion, emboldening the internal forces of mere stage props in some morality play .... counterrevolution, are being opened by The famous photo from World War II of the treacherous Stalinist bureaucrats of the little boy in Warsaw held at gunpoint those countries. We say: 1,2,3,4-Work by a German soldier puts the situation in ers rule is what we're for! 5,6,7,8- the right order: it is the child we focus on, Defend the Chinese workers state! not the soldier." Defend the Vietnamese workers state! All the "war is heW' pontificating by Defend the Cuban workers state! Defend pundits and politicians is a coverup for the North Korean workers state! mass murder. Many GIs were sent to What Kerrey did was no aberration. Vietnam and did not become torturers Mass murder of the heroic Vietnam and murderers. Hugh Thompson, who as ese people was government policy. The a helicopter pilot in Vietnam threatened workers of the world owe a huge debt to to fire on Lieutenant William Calley's Tran Viet Duc/Sipa the Vietnamese workers and peasants, troops when he saw them raping and Relatives and friends of family killed in 1969 massacre at Thanh who defeated the most powerful imperi murdering villagers in My Lai in 1968, Phong gather at the graves. alist war machine on the face of the told the New York Post (27 April), "If planet. We are fighting to repay that debt [Kerrey] did· what they say he did, he York's New School University, where ocratic Party mayor Daley who assassi by fighting for workers revolution here should go to jail." Kerrey is now president: "Bob Kerrey nated Black Panthers Fred Hampton and "in the belly of the beast" to overthrow Kerrey was the head of a specialIy shouldn't die of old age-Put him in a Mark Clark while they were asleep in U.S. imperialism. When the wealth of trained killer commando unit. Their assign tiger cage!" their beds. The same people who purvey this country belongs to the working peo ment in the village of Thanh Phong on the We print below a speech by an SYC the lie that the U.S. imperialists can be ple that created it, then we can begin to night of 25 February 1969 was to assassi spokesman at the protest. pressured to bring "human rights" and redress the crimes committed by the nate a local "Viet Cong" leader. Not find "freedom" to the oppressed masses of the rapacious U.S. rulers against the working ing the man they wanted, Kerrey and his * * * world say, "No more Vietnams," echoing people and oppressed masses of the killers rounded up and systematically Bob Kerrey is a war criminal, the the imperialist rulers who were defeated world. We say: Capitalism means racism slaughtered any villagers they found. Bui head of a team of Navy SEALs in Viet by the courageous Vietnamese workers and war! Socialist revolution is what Thi Luom, who was 12 years old when nam, trained assassins who killed 21 and peasants. We say: Vietnam was a vic- we're for!. she witnessed the massacre, said last civilians-mainly women and children week, "At the time, I was too small. If I in Thanh Phong in 1969. This bloody could, I would like to get my revenge on butcher later came home as a decorated them. If I could kill them, I would." "war hero" for the crimes he perpetrated Despite persistent complaints at the against the heroic Vietnamese workers time of a U.S. massacre, Pentagon brass and peasants. We of the Spartacus Youth awarded Kerrey a Bronze Star whose Club say: Bob Kerrey is a war criminal! citation reads, "twenty-one Viet Cong Butcher of Vietnam! killed" (Washington Post, 27 April). In Kerrey went on to become a Demo the eyes of the U.S. imperialists and their cratic Party Senator and was a liberal South Vietnamese henchmen, any vil hopeful for the presidential candidacy. lager not penned up in "strategic ham This is fitting. U.S. imperialism's dirty lets," i.e., concentration camps, was pre war in Vietnam started under liberal sumed to be Viet Congo Some 100,000 Democrat John F., Kennedy and was Vietnamese liberation fighters were as continued under the Democratic Party sassinated under the CIA's "Operation administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. Phoenix," while countless others were This year is also the 40th anniversary tortured in tiny bamboo "tiger cages." It of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, >l"\ISh tj.\
academics, in an open letter printed in the British New Statesman (10 May ! 1999) once again advised the imperial z ists that: "Nato is not the only or above all the best fulcrum for an agreement. One could find the elements of a multina May Day in Petrograd, tional police force (embracing notably 1917. Banners read: Serbs and Albanians) in the ranks of the "For the Arming of the OSeE to enforce a transitional agree ment." People/Long Live the International," The OSCE (Organization for Security "Russian Social and Cooperation in Europe) is a military Democratic Labor bloc dominated by the European impe Party [Bolsheviks] of rialists. Complaining that "the NATO Kronstadt Proletarians," bombings further undermine what re "Long Live Liberty, mains of the fragile structure of interna Equality, Fraternity." tional law," Chomsky essentially argues Bolshevik Revolution that the bombings would have been okay smashed capitalism, if the U.S. were not so unilateral. Dur brought workers ing the recent Israeli repression against to power. Palestinians, Chomsky and associates were at it again. This time they signed a statement openly appealing for imperial ist intervention: "We are appalled by the capitalism in Russia amidst the dev . appeals for imperialist intervention in the Spartacist League or Spartacus Youth lack of action by Western governments astation of the First World War. Although Balkans and Israel. Clubs. As we noted in our article protest to stop the slaughter" (printed in Social deformed by unrelenting imperialist pres They also don't take a back seat to ing racist ideologue David Horowitz, the ist Worker [Britain], 13 January). This sure and undermined through Stalinist Chomsky when it comes to vehement "no-free-speech for communists" zones is ludicrous: one wonders what kind of bureaucratic misleadership, for more than anti-Communism. The ISO embraced established by the likes of Chomsky and "action" Chomsky had in mind, since the 70 years the Soviet Union continued to every imperialist-backed force whose the ISO have only fed Horowitz's efforts U.S. is the chief military and financial. embody gains for the working class inter purpose was the counterrevolutionary to silence anyone with views to the left supporter of the Zionist garrison state. nationally. This is why we fought for destruction of the Soviet Union and the of Strom Thurmond. During both the Gulf War and the Bal the unconditional military defense of the deformed workers states of East Europe. Unlike Chomsky and his "socialist" kans War, the Spartacist League and the . USSR and East European deformed On the home front, they are not to be camp followers, we fight not only to Spartacus Youth Clubs called to defeat workers states against imperialism-and outdone in trying to silence the voice of expose the crimes of U.S. imperialism, U.S. imperialism through workers revo why we today fight for the unconditional revolu'tionary Marxism. Just try to get but to overthrow their rapacious rule lution. We called for the military defense military defense of China, Cuba, Viet into one of their public meetings if through workers revolution. While this of both Iraq and Serbia, and said that the nam and North Korea against imperialism you're even carrying a copy of the Spar grievously offends the sensibilities of destruction of American imperialism is and internal counterrevolution. Chomsky, tacist League's newspaper, Workers Van liberal ideologues like Chomsky, it is the necessary precondition for the crea however, recoils in horror from those rev guard. You're just as likely to get a fist in the only way forward for the liberation tion of a truly just society here and inter olutions and ardently supports the resto the face, the response of ISO goons to of humanity. Smash U.S. imperialism nationally. We defend the Palestinians ration of capitalism. any known or suspected member of the through socialist revolution!. against Israeli state terror and fight for Chomsky fumes when we point out ArabIHebrew workers revolution to over that his emperor's new clothes are not throw the Zionist rulers. merely threadbare, but that he stands Chomsky's liberal faith in the ultimate naked as nothing but a liberal. But just as This pamphlet assesses recent changes in rationality of imperialism is an obstacle Don Quixote could not continue his quest the world economy in a historical perspective, to the revolutionary struggle necessary from the origins of modern imperialism in the without Sancho Panza to hold his lance, late 19th century through the capitalist counter to get rid of capitalism. The Spartacist Chomsky only has such authority because revolution in East Europe and the former USSR League, U.S. section of the International much of the so-called left heralds him. and its aftermath. Reformist ideologues of "glo Communist League (Fourth Internation One of the standard-bearers in ttJe cult balization" seek to obscure the role of the capi alist), looks to the example of the 1917 of Chomsky is the International Social talist nation-state and the danger of interimperi Bolshevik Revolution, which overthrew ist Organization (ISO). Although-on alist war which is inherent in capitalism, while amnestying the refusal of the labor bureaucra the increasingly rare occasion-the ISO cies to wage class struggle against their makes pretense to revolutionary Marx-. respective bourgeoisies. ism, the truth of the matter is that they Exploitation, poverty and social degradation share in Chomsky's acceptance of the can be eliminated only through proletarian rev Tuesday, May 15, 7 p.m. democratic credentials of the imperialist olutions in the imperialist centers as well as the We Are the Party of rulers. Thus, political lecturer Alex Cal neocolonial countries, laying the basis for an the Russian Revolution! linicos-a leading member of the British international planned socialist economy. Socialist Workers Party and a theoretical Univ. of Chicago, Cobb Hall, Rm. 106 $2 (32 pages) Information and readings: (312) 563-0441 leading light for the ISO until he expelled Make checks payable/mail to: them from his "International Socialist Spartacist Publishing Company, Box 1377 CHICAGO Tendency" earlier this year-was a prom GPO, New York, NY 10116 inent signatory on both the open-letter 11 MAY 2001 China ... (continued from page 1) at an April meeting of the Union of Concerned Scientists, target hundreds of sites in China for nuclear attack. And the Washington Post (27 ApriJ) reports: "Despite the facade of ambiguity, the China has U.S. military already has detailed plans increased military for the defense of Taiwan. They are one of budget in _response only two sets of war plans on the shelves to escalating U.S. of the U.S. Pacific Command; the other is provocations. Right: Beijing for the defense of South Korea." newsstand displays The Reaganite Cold Warriors around newspaper with Bush have made clear that they are aban caricature of Bush; doning Clinton's rhetoric of "strategic headline reads, partnership" and now deem China a "stra "China Is Never tegic competitor." Significant sections of Afraid of Threats." corporate America are concerned that the administration's more bellicose line will cause the Beijing regime to slow down the pace of pro-capitalist "market reforms" and interfere with existing and future U.S. investment in China. But all would simply privatize or liquidate state as enforcer of a global regime of "free package. Last week, France and several wings of the American capitalist class are owned industry and integrate China into markets" and "democracy." Friedman rid other European states joined with China, united around the strategic goal of smash the world capitalist market. But develop iculed China's demand for an apology for Cuba and other countries in voting the ing the 1949 Chinese Revolution and ments have not exactly gone according the death of fighter pilot Wang Wei in the U.S. off the United Nations Commission reconquering China and its vast popula to these projections. "Market reforms," spy plane incident: on Human Rights for the-first time in the tion for direct imperialist exploitation. especially the closure and privatization "Why stop with the plane incident? We UN's history. Citing Washington's long With ever greater urgency, this poses of state-owned enterprises, have pro should apologize for being the market standing use of "human rights" as a club duced massive working-class resistance. for $40 billion a year of China's exports. against China, the Xinhua (4 May) news the Trotskyist call for unconditional mili We should -apologize for the fact that tary defense of China, a bureaucratically As strikes and other protests against lay U.S. companies are among the largest service noted, "The human rights issue is deformed workers state, against imperial offs and corruption multiply, the deepen foreign investors in China and have been actually only a 'big stick' for the U.S. to ist attack and· against the forces ofinter ing of market measures is constrained by instrumental in China's economic take use on other countries for its own hege off. We should apologize for the fact that nal capitalist counterrevolution. Defense the regime's fear of another 1989 Tian monic purposes." anmen upheaval, when the entry of the 54,000 Chinese students study in the of the gains of the 1949 Chinese Revolu U.S. every year, more than any other "Left" Joins Anti-China Crusade tion is integral to the task of mobilizing working class into student protests posed nationality. We should apologize for the the U.S. proletariat for a socialist revolu the overthrow of the venal bureaucracy fact that the U.S. has shown restraint We wrote in "U.S. Spy Plane Provoca tion to sweep away the American capital through proletarian political revolution. in weapons sales to Taiwan. We should tion-Defend China!" (WV No. 756, 13 At the same time, fear of an increas apologize for the fact that the U.S. paved April): ist order, the only road to disarming the the way for China's entry into the World nuclear madmen in Washington. ingly aggressive American imperialism Trade Organization. Yes, we should apol "It is in the direct and immediate interest has caused Beijing to beef up its military ogize for all these things and promise to of working people in the U.S. to defend China in the Cross Hairs stop all of them immediately." the Chinese deformed workers state capacity. And Washington's provocations against the American capitalist rulers. Though deformed from inception by have generated widespread opposition to These barbs amount to a call for a com Just as happened in the wake of the the rule of a parasitic, nationalist bureau U.S. imperialism. When the U.S. spy plete cutoff of U.S. relations with China. counterrevolutionary destruction of the cratic caste, the 1949 Revolution led by plane landed on Hainan, university stu The conservative and hardheaded Lon Soviet Union, capitalist restoration in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and dents there daubed a wall with the slogan: China would embolden the U.S. bour don Economist (28 April) commented: geoisie. and the imperialists internation People's Liberation Army (PLA) over "Wipe Out Our National Humiliation, "Talk of a new 'cold war' between China ally, to ratchet up their assault on the threw capitalist property relations and the Severely Punish the American Military." and America is starting to sound like an working class and minorities at home." yoke of imperialist subjugation, con The present situation in China is deep understatement." It is not only China but Our aim is to forge a revolutionary van structing a planned, collectivized econ ly unstable. Undermining the founda Washington's European and Japanese guard party to lead the proletariat to omy which meant enormous social prog tions of China's socialized economy, the imperialist "allies" who are worried about power. This perspective is anathema to ress for the worker and peasant masses Beijing regime is paving the way for the U.S. waving its nuclear big stick the reformist and centrist pretenders to and especially for women. U.S. policy capitalist restoration. But it is simultane against Beijing. Japan and the European socialism in the U.S. and internationally, toward China has gone through very dif ously preparing the ground for a new powers pursue their _own interests in who ever more openly bow to the dic ferent phases since 1949. In the 1950-53 revolutionary proletarian explosion-not China, and these conflicting interests tates of their respective bourgeoisies. Korean War, U.S. imperialism engaged in a social revolution which would overturn would vastly intensify in a scramble over These groups moved sharply to the right an all-out shooting war against Chinese the economic foundations of society as -_ the spoils of capitalist counterrevolu in the tow of the war drive against the and North Korean forces. In the 1970s in 1949 but a political revolution which tion. More generally, America's imperial Soviet Union in the 1980s and the subse and '80s, Washington entered into a places power in the hands of workers, ist rivals are concerned that the U.S. is quent imperialist ideological offensive strategic alliance with Beijing against the soldiers and peasants councils (soviets). becoming increasingly brazen in assert- over the "death of communism." Soviet Union, the military and industrial That is the only way to defend the social _ing its self-declared role as the "world's Despite its redder-than-red rhetoric, powerhouse of the degenerated and de gains of the 1949 Revolution and open only superpower." The leading German the Progressive Labor Party (PL) offers formed workers states and thus the chief the road to a socialist future. weekly Der Spiegel now talks of "the the most flagrant example of capitula obstacle to U.S. imperialist ambitions. America's rulers are frustrated and snarling, ugly Americans." What we can tion to imperialist China-bashing, echo When the Soviet Union was destroyed angry that "Communist China" has do to China, Bush is in effect saying to ing language you hear from extreme by capitalist counterrevolution in 1991- turned out to be a tougher nut to crack them, we can also do to you. right-wing anti-Communists. Challenge 92, the U.S. bourgeoisie expected that than they thought. Those frustrations In an article headlined "Colliding (25 April) declares that the spy plane China would soon fall into its lap. Amer were clearly expressed in a New York Interests," the London Financial Times provocation "reveals the sharpening of a ica's rulers even hoped that capitalism Times (6 April) column by Thomas Fried- (27 April) noted, "The collapse of the rivalry that will ultimately lead to a war would be restored without a major politi -man, a Clintonite DemQGrat who was an Soviet Union has destroyed the over for world domination between these im cal upheaval, projecting that "reform early advocate of U.S. military action whelming rationale binding the US and perialist gangsters." In equating the world's minded" elements of the Beijing regime against Serbia and promotes Washington Japan· so closely together and perhaps most powerful capitalist-imperialist state created an opportunity for China to play with a bureaucratically deformed workers on their differences." "There is a newly state, PL acts to disarm workers and rad nationalist mood in Japan," says one dip icalized youth who seek to oppose Amer lomat quoted in the article. Japanese ican imperialist aggression. imperialism is increasingly assertive of You wouldn't know from reading the its own regional interests. Epitomizing Challenge statement that PL once con this shift is Japan's new prime minister, sidered China to be socialist. Indeed, at Web site: www.icl-fLorg • E-mail address:[email protected] Junichiro Koizumi, who is simultane one point in the 1960s PL had Beijing's National Office Los Angeles Oakland ously pushing massive austerity attacks franchise as the American "revolutionar Box 1377 GPO, Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 and layoffs to revitalize the Japanese ies." PL lined up with Mao Zedong in New York, NY 10116 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 economy and a heightened military pos denouncing the Soviet Union as "social (212) 732-7860 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 ture abroad. Immediately after taking imperialist" and hailed Mao's "Cultural Boston Public Office: Public Office: office; Koizumi declared that the consti Revolution." By the early 1970s, PL Sat. 2-5 p.m. Sat. 1-5 p.m. tution should be revised to unshackle the had repudiated the Beijing regime and Box 390840, Central Sta. 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor Cambridge, MA 02139 "Self-Defe'hse Forces." As the Financial declared that China was capitalist. PL's (617) 666-9453 San Francisco Times reported: "For the first time since often bizarre politics can best be de New York Box 77494 the second world war, this would author scribed as inverted Stalinism. PL identi Chicago San Francisco, CA 94107 ise the Japanese military to wage offen fies the bureaucracy with the work Box 6441, Main PO Box 3381, Church St. Sta. (415) 395-9520 sive operations~reviving fears among ers state: renouncing political support Chicago, IL 60680 New York, NY 10008 (312) 563-0441 (212) 267-1025 Public Office: Japan's neighbours about the nation's to the regime, it simultaneously rejected Tues. 6-8 p.m. militaristic history." Koizumi also talks military defense of the workers state 564 Market St., Suite 718 of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which and its material foundations-the collec honors Japanese soldiers who died in tivized economy. PL also rejects military World War II and is a rallying point for defense of small capitalist states against chauvinist revanchism. the imperialists, equating oppressor Toronto Vancouver Germany, which manufactures some of nations with oppressed nations. Thus PL Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. the parts for the diesel submarines being has refused to defend Iraq and Serbia Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 sold to Taiwan, announced that it would against U.S. terror bombing. (604) 687-0353 (416) 593-4138 not supply these parts for the U.s. arms It is a measure of how right-wing PL's 8 WORKERS VANGUARD "revolutionary communism" is in prac link leftist opponents of imperialism with tice that its line is essentially indistin right-wing advocates for a new Chinese guishable from that of the International imperialism. This is seen in China's Road, Socialist Organization (ISO). The hall Under the Conspiracy of Globalization, mark of these overt social democrats has a best-selling compilation of nationalist always been anti-Communist hostility essays published in the aftermath of the toward China and the Soviet Union, Belgrade embassy bombing. One of the when it existed. The ISO supported every book's chief edifors, Fang Ning, is a U.S.-backed reactionary force a'gainst professor of "contemporary capitalism" the Soviet degenerated workers state, in Beijing who denounces "globalization" from the Islamic fundamentalists in in the language of Western academic Afghanistan to clerical-nationalist Polish "Marxism." The other, Wang Xiaodong, Solidarnosc and Russia's Boris Yeltsin. is a former editor of the journal Strategy Evenhandedly denouncing the "more ag and Management, which is connected to gressive posture of each side," Socialist the military establishment. Wang m~kes Worker (27 April) writes: "The U.S. and no pretense of Marxism or leftism in any China are competing for influence in sense. He is a mirror image of the most Asia." A previous article titled "Washing extreme right-wing ideologues of West ton's China Bashing" (Socialist Worker, ern and Japanese imperialism, maintain 13 April) seemingly tilted toward China, ing that U.S. hostility toward the People's but in fact it was nothing more than the Republic is national and even racial in ISO's usual "tilt" toward the Democratic character. Party: Beijing students protest U.S. bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade Wang's stated goal is to transform "In recent years, U.S. policy towards during 1999 Balkans War. China into "a post-development great China has balanced uneasily between power" on a par with the U.S., Germany seeing the country as a huge trade and who restored capitalism to China .... But workers state. Basing itself on the dogma investment opportunity on the one hand, and Japan. The aim of transforming we should stand with China against of "socialism in one country," the CCP China, with its relatively weak industrial and as a military threat on the other. US imperialism's attempt to dominate regime always opposed the fight for "Under Georg.e W. Bush, whose admin base and massive rural backwardness, istration is stuffed full of former Cold Asia" (Workers Power, April 2001). Less socialist revolution in the capitalist coun into an imperialist "great power" is not Warriors, there's been a sharp shift to the than a year ago, WP echoed the imperial tries in favor of "peaceful coexistence." _only reactionary but utterly utopian. Just hawk end of the spectrum." ist "human rights" chorus, demand Today, this nationalist outlook serves look at Russia in the wake of capitalist The get-tougher line toward China ing "workers' sanctions" against China those leading sections of the bureaucracy counterrevolution: what had been the is not simply a result of the Republi (Workers Power, September 2000). In who, striving to become part of a new world's second-greatest industrial and can right having taken over the White the face of growing imperialist hostility exploiting class, reach out to the overseas military power is today a devastated . House. Liberal Democrats and the pro toward China, WP abandoned even its lip Chinese bourgeoisie with the aim of forg wreck. Democratic Party AFL-CIO bureaucracy service to unconditional military defense ing a "greater China." Regime spokesmen The phenomenon exemplified by of John Sweeney have repeatedly blocked of the deformed workers state, declar do not even talk about "defending social China's Road is reminiscent of the "red with the Republican right in bashing ing "Capitalist Restoration Triumphs in ism" anymore, but contend that U.S. hos brown" coalition formed in Russia with China, with the former railing against China" (see "New 'Theories,' Old Reneg tility is aimed at preventing China from "slave labor" and the latter fulminating acy," WV No. 754, 16 March). But it is becoming a great world power. against "persecution" of Christian sects. rather cheap for Labourite leftists in In 1997, the former British colony of As the American spy plane crew was Britain to "stand with" virtually anybody Hong Kong was reunited with China being held in Hainan, Democratic Sena against American domination. More to under the formula of "one country, two tor Torricelli demanded that the U.S. the point, during the Balkans War two systems." The Beijing bureaucracy has recall its ambassador. years ago WP stood with the imperial likewise offered to guarantee the con There has indeed been a shift under ist Blair Labour government in railing tinued existence of capitalism on Taiwan Bush, but it was prepared under Clinton. against Milosevic's Serbia in supposed in the event of reunification. Taiwan's While the Clinton administration avidly defense of the Kosovo Albanians. capitalists have invested tens of billions pursued "constructive engagement," U.S. of dollars on the mainland. The Trot capital investment in China and U.S. Proletarian Internationalism skyist International Communist League nuclear-armed warships in the South vs. Chinese Nationalism stands for the revolutionary reunifica China Sea serve the same purpose: to The U.S. Workers World Party (WWP) tion of China: for a socialist revolu recapture the country for imperialism. solidarizes with "socialist China" in de tion against the Taiwan bourgeoisie and And they complement each other: the nouncing the U.S. war moves, while stat a political revolution to oust the Beijing greater the extent of U.S. investment, the ing: "The fundamental socialist institu bureaucracy. louder the drums will beat for military tions in China have been considerably Many of those who oppose Beijing's action to protect that investment. In a eroded by market reforms and imperialist concessions to imperialism also speak statement issued last October, Beijing corporations have a foothold in China. in the language of Chinese nationalism, explained its need to increase military But Chinese society as a whole is under seeing defense of China in national, spending by pointing to the "new gunboat protection from being reconquered and ilot class, terms. Particularly with the policy and neo-economic colonialism" of reenslaved by imperialism because of bombing of China's Belgrade embassy Clinton's U.S. the existence of the Chinese Communist in 1999, U.S. provocations have produced Young Spartacus In Britain, the Socialist Workers Party Party and the People's Liberation Army" a wave of anti-American nationalism Berkeley anti-ROTC protest, April 21: (SWP), with whom the ISO was allied (Workers World, 26 April). on. the mainland. 'When the spy plane Trotskyists fight for defense of 1949 until recently, published a commentary But who introduced the "market landed on Hainan, a Beijing shop assist Chinese Revolution. by SWP leader Alex .Callinicos com reforms" and invited imperialist corpora ant exclaimed: "Our government should menting that "China's rulers haven't for tions in if not the selfsame CCP leader have shot down the plane. Jiang Zemin is the collapse of the Soviet Union, bringing gotten their biggest confrontation with ship? WWP's amnesty of the CCP lead too weak. If Grandpa Mao were still together Stalinist has-beens with outright the US in recent years. When they car ership is counterposed to the fight to alive, the Americans would not dare to tsarists, fascists and the like whose oppo ried out live missile tests close to Taiwan mobilize the proletariat, the only force bully us" (New York Times, 5 April). sition to the Yeltsin regime and "Western in 1996, the Clinton administration capable of defeating the drive toward China was liberated from imperialist imperialism" was centered on agitation deployed a carrier battle group just off capitalist restoration. Indeed, during the domination only through a social revolu for a strong, Russian-dominated imperial the Chinese coast" (Socialist Worker, 21 19'89 Tiananmen events WWP supported tion (albeit bureaucratically deformed) state. These chauvinists were virulently April). The SWP would like its readers the regime's bloody suppression of the which ended the class rule of the Chi hostile to the multinational proletariat to forget that at the time of that confron incipient proletarian political revolution. nese bourgeoisie. Moreover, the survival of the former Soviet Union. The "red tation it sounded just like Bush does While parasitically resting on the of the People's Republic in its initial brown" coalition was the product of the today, proclaiming in Socialist Review social foundations of the workers state, years was critically dependent on Soviet Russian nationalism dominant in the Stal (April 1996): "We would oppose any ttie Stalinist bureaucracy is not commit military and economic support. Only fear inist bureaucracy, which in its final years Chinese invasion of Taiwan as an act of ted to the defense of the collectivized of Soviet retaliation prevented the U.S. split between pro-Western "democrats" imperialist aggression." economy. As current events in China from using nuclear weapons against and chauvinist patriots who each in their Another British group, the centrist make amply clear, this bureaucratic layer China in the Korean War, as Washington own way contributed to the destruction of Workers Power (WP), writes: "We have acts as a transmission belt for the pres repeatedly threatened to do. the Soviet Union. no truck with the Beijing bureaucrats sures ofthe world capitalist market on the The Beijing bureaucracy, by aiding Likewise, the ideology of aspiring Chi the destruction of the Soviet Union, has nese imperialism (though in fact utopian) helped bring about the present condi is today poison to the forging of class tions in which the U.S. is openly prepar unity with the North Korean and Viet ing for war against China. In the early namese deformed workers states, and 1970s, after years of feuding between the with the workers of capitalist Asia. In nationalist Stalinist bureaucracies in Bei "China on the Brink: Workers Political jing and Moscow, "Grandpa Mao" allied Revolution or Capitalist Enslavement?" China with U.S. imperialism against the (Spartacist [English-language edition] Teamsters Soviet Union. Mao sealed his treacherous No. 53, Summer 1997), we wrote: president Hoffa "rapprochement" as American warplanes "It is by linking their fight for political (left) pushes were laying waste to Vietnam. In 1979, revolution with the struggle to smash protectionist, just four years after the revolutionary capitalist rule from Indonesia and South anti-Communist victory of the Vietnamese workers and Korea to Japan and the U.S. that the Chi nese proletariat will form the bridge to a China-bashing at peasants, China under Deng Xiaoping socialist future. Above all, China's work April 2000 acted as a cat's paw for a vindictive U.S. ers must be won to the authentic commu demonstration in imperialism, invading Soviet-allied Viet nism of Lenin and Trotsky and of the Washington, D.C. nam in order to teach it a "bloody lesson." early Chinese Communist Party led by Chen Duxiu, which for decades has been Chinese forces were repulsed by battle trampled on by Stalinism. For a Trot hardened Vietnamese troops. skyist Party in China, section of a reborn Chinese nationalism is today serving to Fourth International!". Williams' book tries to pre-emptively kill who witnessed Faulkner's killing and director J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s: Mumia ... the evidence of Jamal's innocence pre testified at Jamal's 1995 appeal hearing. "The Negro youth and moderate must be (continued from page 12) sented in the new affidavits. Both Wil Singletary said that Jamal was innocent made to understand that if they succumb liams and Weinglass were well aware of and that the shooter was a black man in a to revolutionary teachings, they will be about possible informants for the Feds. this evidence some time ago. Beverly's green army coat who fled the site. dead revolutionaries." This warning was Among those targeted in the FBI inves affidavit was sworn in 1999 before Williams' central premise is that the cops brought home in blood in the murder of tigation were James Carlini, head of Rachel Wolkenstein, who is PDC staff never could or would knowingly frame 38 members ·of the Black Panther Party Homicide; John DeBenedetta, head of counsel and was then part of Jamal's legal up an innocent man: under the FBI's "Counter-Intelligence the Centr~1 Division where Faulkner team. When Williams and Weinglass "I was sensitive to the possibility that Program" (COINTELPRO). Those they worked; and Inspector Alphonzo Gior refused to present it in evidence, Wolken Mumia's sympathies with MOVE might couldn't kill they tried to frame up. As dano, who was the senior cop at the scene stein and Jon Piper, another attorney on have prompted law enforcement to jump we wrote in "Mumia Abu-Jamal: The of Faulkner's shooting. These three con the case associated with the PDC, refused to a conclusion about Mumia's guilt. I (WV even believed that law enforcement was COINTELPRO Files" No. 624, 2 stituted the chain of command for the to be part of this unconscionable suppres willing to fabricate evidence to help in June 1995): investigation of Faulkner's killing. sion of evidence of Jamal's innocence the effort to convict a man they believed "Mumia Abu-Jamal survived the rulers' Several informants or witnesses in the and resigned from the legal team. to- be guilty. Rachel and Jon held more onslaught against the Black Pan''ther Party FBI's investigation were murdered. A An article in the Philly Daily News extreme views; they were convinced in the late '60s and early '70s. He was not actually, to them, it was sacrilegious to assassinated in his sleep in the dead of witness who testified against DeBene (5 May), whose front-page headline read night like Chicago Panthers Fred Hamp detto was murdered in 1983. A reported "Abu-Jamal's Attorneys Drop a Bomb believe otherwise-that law enforcement knew Mumia was innocent, knew that ton and Mark Clark. He was not then rail suspect in the killing was a former cop shell," reports: "Abu-Jamal's former the shooter fled the scene, and relished roaded into a prison hellhole like Los and Giordano associate. During a federal attorney, Daniel Williams, said that the that a conviction and death sentence Angeles Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga corruption investigation of the "Five [Beverly Jdocument had been in the legal would be a terrific coup in the city's war (Pratt) who has spent the last 25 years of against MOVE." his life buried alive for a crime that the Squad" narcotics cops in the early '80s, team's files but that he and attorney government knows he did not commit a prosecutor alleged that Philly cops had Leonard Weinglass had decided not to use Even if one only considers the cases because they had wiretaps proving his plotted to kill a witness. Another witness it. He declined to say why, and Weinglass documented by the Feds, it is simply innocence. But the feds and the Philly in that case testified that he'd been told said he would have no comment." Why, empirically evident that the Philly cops cops did not call off their vendetta against Jamal with the demise of the Panther that a "Five Squad" cop who had cooper Party. They continued to hate him for his ated with the FBI was killed in his home. eloquent and impassioned defense of In his affidavit, Beverly testifies that he black rights, and particularly because he saw police officers in the area where remained defiant and unbowed in the face Faulkner was shot: "Two undercover of state repression and racist oppression." policemen were standing on the west side Mumia's role as an articulate young of 13th St., north of Locust. Also a uni spokesman for the Panthers put him formed police officer was sitting in a car squarely in the sights of the Philly cops in the corner of the parking lot. They and the FBI. The FBI amassed over 800 were there wfiile the shooting of Faulkner pages on Jamal in its COINTELPRO took place. I was not worried about the files. Jamal was put on the FBI's Security police being there since I believed that Index of those deemed a "threat" to since I was hired by the mob to shoot and "national security" and on the Adminis kill Faulkner, any police officers on the trative Index of those to be rounded up scene would be there to help me." and thrown into concentration camps in case of a "national emergency." Dan Williams' Book: A Brief And such cop frame-ups are hardly for the Prosecution confined to Philadelphia, or the United Jamal's new legal team of Marlene States. British barrister Nicholas Brown, Kamish, Eliot Grossman and British bar who is on Jamal's new legal team, earlier rister Nicholas Brown was assembled served as an assistant to the lawyers for after Jamal dismissed former lead counsel the Birmingham Six, victims of a British Len Weinglass and assistant counsel Dan police vendetta against the Irish Republi Williams. With the clock ticking on his can Army. Rounded up in 1974 for two life, Jamal was forced to fire his longtime Trade unions representing millions of workers in South Africa and around Birmingham pub bombings, they were attorneys after Williams authored a book the world have taken up Mumia's cause. Workers at June 1995 COSATU beaten, tortured and put behind bars for purporting to be an "inside account" of demonstration in Johannesburg hold up Jamal flyers. 16 years. When the government finally his case. Jamal's petition to dismiss Wil acknowledged their innocence and freed liams and Weinglass correctly indicts the indeed? It is a cardinal rule for any real knowingly frame up innocent people. them in 1991, one of the six said: "The book as "a breach of client loyalty." In its defense lawyer to use all available means Hundreds of convictions based on con police told us from the start that they statement supporting Jamal in this action, to demonstrate the client's innocence. cocted evidence, coerced confessions, knew we hadn't done it.. .. They told us the PDC wrote: "Even within the loose Here was a signed affidavit from a man police torture, and manipulation of pros that we were selected and they were 'ethics' of the legal profession, publica confessing to having shot Faulkner. Yet titutes to serve as "witnesses" have been going to frame us." tion of such a book by an attorney Weinglass and Williams refused to use it!·· thrown out just in the last several years. At the time of their conviction, the involved in an active case, much less one In his book, Williams makes it clear Among the more notorious of these was presiding judge dismissed evidence of in which the client's life hangs in the bal that to him, maintaining the sanctity of the case of a 53-year-old black grand torture and forced confessions, arguing ance, is an abomination" (see "Mumia the bourgeois "justice" system stood mother, Betty Patterson, whom the cops that "to believe this ... one would have Abu-Jamal Forced to Fire Attorneys," WV above presenting evidence proving set up on charges of drug dealing in order to suppose the existence of a 'conspir No. 754, 16 March). Jamal's innocence. In a chapter of his to manufacture evidence against her sons acy ... unprecedented in the annals of A measure of where Williams is com book titled "Fighting Ideology," he depre in a murder investigation. British criminal history' among the ing from can be gleaned from the simple cates any evidence that goes against the The whole history of this country is officers involved." Shortly before their fact that, in his book, Williams acknowl grain of his own belief in the ultimate littered with frame-ups of those who release, a leading spokesman for the edges one Gerald Nicosia as "someone fairness of the capitalist courts, claiming have struggled to defend their unions, to British establishment complained that with whom I have spent many hours that such evidence could only be the fight capitalist injustice or to in any way the mass campaigns resulting in their reflecting upon the case." When Williams product of deranged conspiracy theories challenge the rule of capital. In this freedom wouldn't have happened "if was fired, this same Nicosia-who has driven by the "ideological zeal" of the country, the rule of capital and the brutal they'd been hanged" in the first place. been working on his own book asserting PDC. Williams' denunciation of the Bev exploitation of labor are premised on the This is.the line today of the F.O.P. and that Jamal killed Faulkner-called a press erly testimony is, not surprisingly, now enforced subjugation of the overwhelm others who seek the legal lynching of conference featuring: Joseph McGill, the being used by the Philly D.A.'s office, ing majority of the black population at Jamal. prosecutor at Jamal's original trial; Hugh whose spokesman declaimed, "Even his the bottom. The rulers put their machin Burns, the lead prosecutor in the 1995 defense team thought it was crazy, and we ery of state repression in high gear par There Is No Justice in the Post-Conviction Relief Appeal hearing; agree" (Philadelphia Daily News, 8 ticularly if they sense any potential evi- Capitalist Courts! Burns' assistant, Charles "Joey" Grant; May). .dence of the explosive combination of From the time the Spartacist League and Maureen Faulkner. Williams trashes not only Beverly's black and red. and PDC first took up Jamal's case 14 Appropriately titled Executing Justice, testimony but that of William Singletary, This was captured in the words of FBI years ago, we have sought to assist him
.·.·trOtskylstlLeagu~1#;~gu~tt9I~kyst~f:QrutrJ,~'i. Down With Protectionism, Canadian Nationalism The Main Enemy Is the Capitalist Class at Home! Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League o $10k2 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal (includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle) ~:""F(J~~~o~ialistii"gofUil~", international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamail o $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) .... ~~~p"ggg~t.~h;j~'~rJ9!1~.~. o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) Including reports from the Quebec City anti-FTAA protests Name ______Saturday, May 12, 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 18, 7 p.m. Address ______Trinity-St. Paul's Centre Britannia Community Centre, Room L4, 427 Bloor St. W. (west of Spadina Sta.) 1661 Napier Street (off Commercial Dr.) Apt. # Phone ( __) ______For more information: (416) 593-4138 For more information: (604) 687-0353 City ______State Zip _____ 758 TORONTO VANCOUVER Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York,'NY 10116
,10 A statement in Socialist Action (March mist outfit would never have promoted Ammiano proclaimed from the plat League demanded that Hartke be 2001) on a recent split led by longtime illusions in the Democratic Party. form that Mumia is "a man who may be excluded. A 300-man goon squad led Socialist Action (SA) leader Nat Wein Weinstein might have balked at openly innocent," rightly drawing boos from the by Weinstein then savagely attacked our stein asserted that the Weinstein group lobbying the Democratic Party conven crowd. The appeal for a "new" or "fair" comrades and members of Progressive ing had opposed SA's "major role in tion, but this was merely a more overt - trial is designed precisely to appeal to Labor after we shouted down that repre building the mass demonstration for expression of SA's politics throughout bourgeois liberals who want a new trial sentative of U.S. imperialism. Mumia Abu-Jamal that took place in his tenure. Under Weinstein's leader for Jamal not to free him, but to try The class-collaborationist NPAC that Los Angeles last August at the time of ship, SA's entire strategy since taking up to restore the "integrity" of the capitalist hosted a big-time Democratic politician the Democratic Party Convention." In Jamal's cause a few years ago has cen justice system. As we explained in the has been Weinstein's model for success "An Answer to Socialist Action News tered on appeals to liberal Democrats. call for our "Revolutionary Contingent" ever since. From the moment SA was paper" (Socialist Viewpoint, May 2001), SA was the chief organizer of the 24 April in that demonstration: "Behind the call formed in the early '80s-advertising it Weinstein's new outfit, the Socialist 1999 "Millions for Mumia" demonstra for a 'new trial' is a reformist politi self as the best friends of counterrevolu Workers Organization, wrote: tion in San Francisco whose central slo cal program premised on the belief that tionary Polish Solidarnosc-it offered "We opposed S.A. participating in the gan, the call for a new trial, was con the brutal racist capitalist state-whose its services to the pro-Democratic Party demonstration because it took place at sciously crafted in pursuit ofa bloc with sole purpose is to defend the 'right' of labOr bureaucracy (which was also then the Democratic Party Convention and many, if not most, protesters sought to Democratic Party politicians like Jesse the capitalist ruling class to reap profits providing a conduit for CIA funds to Sol improve the program of this capitalist Jackson, SF mayor Willie Brown and Board off the labor of working people-can be idarnosc). Socialist Action's first public party and promote its good politicians of Supervisors president Tom Amrniano. pressured and reformed to be 'just'" (WV act was to organize a goon squad to assist and oppose its bad ones .... SA had also heavily built a "Millions No. 736; 19 May 2000). the union tops in preventing militant pick "This would weaken the independent for Mumia" conference in Berkeley the In fact, Nat Weinstein cut his teeth as eters in San Francisco from stopping scab character of coalitions formed to defend Mumia and thus impede their ability to month before the demonstration, where a reformist politician in the ex-Trotskyist buses during a Greyhound strike in 1983. continue independent mobilizations, so Oakland Democratic Party councilman Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the Where Weinstein et al. promote illu necessary to an effective defense, after Wilson Riles Jr. grotesquely called for late 1960s and early '70s, when its sions in the "justice" of the capitalist the election." life imprisonment without parole as an hallmark was the building of a class state and chain workers and anti-racist Oscar Wilde, who famously remarked "alternative" to the death penalty. Neither collaborationist "antiwar" movement youth to the Democratic Party, we fight that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays SA nor any of the other assembled refor aimed at subordinating protest against to mobilize labor's power to demand to virtue, once wrote, "I can believe any mists raised a peep of protest against this the Vietnam War to the liberal wing of freedom for Mumia and all class-war thing, provided that it is quite incredible." capitalist politician, because their aim the Democratic Party. The nadir of this prisoners as an integral part of our strug And incredible' certainly captures the from the outset was to provide a platform treacherous policy was a 1971 confer gle to forge a revolutionary workers party Weinstein reply, which would have us for such Democrats. ence of the SWP-dominated National to sweep away the capitalist state through believe that until the notion sprang full Weinstein's outfit was also the central Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) which socialist revolution. That is the differ blown from the head of current SA leader force behind a similar Jamal mobiliza featured an appearance by Democratic ence between reformism and Trotskyism, Jeff Mackler, this dyed-in-the-wool refor- tion in San Francisco last May 13, where Senator Vance Hartke. The Spartacist pure and simple .•
sibilities behind this slogan in his book: Confederate slavocracy, for "justice for Trotsky, leader together with V. I. Lenin "Mumia may very well be guilty, the Mumia." But it never stopped these ref of the victorious 1917 Russian Revolu agnostics argue, but who is to say? There ormists from arguing that Mumia could tion, pointed to the role of the reformists has been no legitimately fair proceeding get a fair shake from Clinton's attorney in "the actual training of the masses to to adjudicate his guilt. His trial was a general, Janet Reno, who ordered the become imbued with the inviolability of travesty, a besmirchment and stain on attack on the integrated Branch David the bourgeois state." That is the role 'American justice'." ians religious sect near Waco, Texas in played by the reformist organizers of Such liberal politics are also peddled 1993. In any case, even their call to "free the May 12 protests, whose appeals to the by various self-proclaimed "Marxist" Mumia" is defined by the goal posts set state for "justice" simply try to mask the organizations and black nationalists who by capitalist "law and order," as they true face of bourgeois democracy, which have organized Mumia mobilizations argue that the state should set Mumia represents nothing other than the dictator over the past several years. This is typified free because it violated its own Constitu ship of the capitalist class. In contrast, in by Socialist Action, whose leader, Jeff tion in not allowing him to represent our class-struggle defense work we seek Mackler, alibis Williams' dismissal of himself.. In this, they serve to demobilize to raise political consciousness regarding Beverly's testimony as some kind of workers, youth and others who want to the nature of the capitalist state as the deranged conspiracy theory. In an article fight for Jamal's freedom. Why take to machinery for organized violence against titled "The Tragic Evolution of Dan the streets if it's simply a matter to be the working class and oppressed. At the Williams & Gerald Nicosia" (Socialist settled in the bourgeois courts? pinnacle of that machinery of repression Action, April 2001), Mackler writes: From Mexico City to Johannesburg, in the U.S. is the death penalty, rooted in "The reference to mobsters killing workers who daily experience grinding the legacy of chattel slavery. We oppose Details Philly cops' frame-up of Faulkner is also to be found in Williams' exploitation and brutality have taken to the death penalty for the guilty as well as book, his 'Inside Account: According to Mumia Abu-Jamal, $1. Order from/ Williams, this refers to a discussion the streets in support of Jamal because the innocent. We do not accord the state pay to: Spartacist Publishing Co., among Mumia's four attorneys, wherein they see in his struggle their own. As the the right to decide who shall live and who Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116. one raised 'mobsters' as a possible ave Spartacist League, Spartacus Youth Club shall die. nue to pursue. But the defense team and and Labor Black League argue in the call The frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal is in pursuing every possible legal avenue. Mumia rejected it. for a Revolutionary Contingent in the vivid testimony to this fundamental "Aside from this reference, there has not Rachel Wolkenstein and Jon Piper served been a single occasion where this notion May 12 Mumia demonstration in San Marxist understanding. We fight to make on the legal team and fought, against the was raised, either publicly or during the Francisco: "Workers unions are the only the working class conscious that if it resistance of Weinglass and Williams, to course of Mumia's trial proceedings by significant force for integration in racist does not fight against racial oppression follow up every lead that would further any attorney--or for that matter by any America. Unlike students, the working enforced through brutal state repression, one associated with Mumia's-.defense. class in trade unions has the social power so starkly demonstrated in Jamal's case, demonstrate Mumia's innocence. At the The attorney who Williams attributes the same time, as the PDC's statement of remark to was dismissed from the case to bring this system based on exploita it will never. break the chains of its own purpose printed on the back page of more than a year ago." tion and racial oppression to its knees exploitation. Our purpose is building, every issue of Class-Struggle Defense For Mackler, Williams' great crime and to shake the foundations of decaying training and steeling the working-class Notes says: "W~ place all our faith in the was that "he was apparently unprepared world imperialism. But the working class vanguard party needed to smash the rule power of the masses and no faith what to remain a disciplined member of ml1st be mobilized independently of the of capital and turn the wealth of this ever in the 'justice' of the courts. While Mumia's legal team and serve his client capitalist state which has worked for country over to those who labor to pro favoring all possible legal proceedings in pursuing a line of argument that pro years to frame up Jamal." duce it. Free Mumia now! Abolish the for the cases we support, we recognize vided concrete evidence that Mumia was In his book Lessons of October, Leon racist death penalty!. that the courts, prisons and police exist denied his constitutional right to self to maintain through organized violence representation." We, too, believe that and terror, the rule of one class over Mumia was denied his right to represent others." himself. But for Mackler the emphasis is We have organized united-front actions on pursuing only those angles which vio across the country which were infused late the Constitution-the bourgeoisie's with the understanding that the social codification of what rights should be power of labor must be mobilized in accorded the population. By his lights, Jamal's defense, not only in the U.S. any evidence which points to the true March with the Spartacist League, Spartacus Youth Club and the Labor but internationally. We fought to get nature of the capitalist state, its cops and Black League for Social Defense under the following demands: bigger forces to take up his case, bringing courts is out of bounds. it to trade unions, death penalty abolition Freedom Now for- Mumia Abu-Jamal! ists and others. And we were successful. For Class-Struggle Defense! We recognized that these other forces With the Republicans now occupying Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! would seek to silence our revolutionary the White House, the organizers of the politics as they tried to keep the protests upcoming May 12 Mumia demonstra There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! "safe" for Democratic Party liberals. tions now occasionally raise the call to Their politics are captured in the central "free Mumia." To be' sure, it would look slogan of Jamal demonstrations over the more than absurd to call on people to past few years-the call for a "new trial." pressure Bush attorney general John Williams accurately describes the sen- Ashcroft, an open sympathizer of the 11 MAY 2091 11 WfJIINE', """'111)
Free Mumia Now!
WV Photo
On May 4, new attorneys for death row nesses-including two cops-described a political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, an man wearing a green army jacket. Bev innocent man framed up for the killing of erly testifies that he was wearing such a Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulk jacket the night he shot Faulkner. ner, dropped a legal bombshell with new In fact, the police officer who was papers filed in the federal court where assigned to guard Jamal in the hospital Mumia's appeal is pending. Among these the night of the killing wrote in his papers is a sworn confession by a man official report, "During this time, the named Arnold Beverly, who states: "I was negro male made no comments." Jamal's hired, along with another guy, and paid to recent affidavit concludes emphatically, shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that "Because of the blood in my lungs it was Faulkner was a problem for the mob and difficult to speak, and impossible to hol corrupt policemen because he interfered ler. I never confessed to anything because with the graft and payoffs made to allow I had nothing to confess to. I never said I illegal activity including prostitution, shot the policeman. I did not shoot the gambling, drugs without prosecution in policeman. I never said I hoped he died. I the center city area .... I shot Faulkner in would never say anything like that." the face at close range. Jamal was shot In fact, there has never been any evi shortly after that by a uniformed police dence that Jamal's gun was even fired that officer who arrived on the scene." night, as the cops did not report perform At about 3:55 a.m. on 9 December ing anyone of the standard tests (like 1981 near the comer of 13th and Locust Young Spartacus smelling the barrel for the odor of burnt Streets in Philadelphia, Faulkner had Spartacist-initiated Revolutionary Contingent at May 2000 Jamal rally in San gunpowder or testing Jamal's hands for stopped a VW driven by Jamal's brother, Francisco. Mass labor-centered protest is needed in fight to free Mumia. gurishot residue). The police crime lab Billy Cook, which was carrying another reported that the rifling of the bullet that passenger. In a sworn statement submit place at the wrong time when a hit was impassioned defense of the victims of allegedly killed Faulkner was "consis in progress on a police officer who was Philly cop brutality had earned him a spe ted on May 4, Jamal testifies that while cial animus among these thugs in blue tent" with Jamal's .38 calibre pistol. Yet filling out his log sheet in the cab he was causing problems interfering with police and their masters in the city and federal there are millions of guns in the U.S. with driving at the time, he heard shouting corruption." But for the Philly cops, government." that same rifling pattern. and "recognized my brother standing in Jamal was in the right place at the right· With their frame-up of Jamal now the street staggering and dizzy. I imme time. They had been gunning for him The State's Frame-Up Machine completely blown to bits, the Philly diately exited the cab and ran to his since he was a 15-year-old spokesman Mumia's innocence has been evident prosecutors' office, cops and others who scream. As I came across the street I saw for the Black Panther Party in 1969. His from the outset. In the 1995 Partisan have been screaming for Jamal's death a uniformed cop turn toward me gun in later defense of and support for the . Defense Committee pamphlet, The Frame are now denouncing Beverly's affidavit hand, saw a flash and went down to my MOVE organization against brutal police Up of Mumia Abu-Jamal, we demon as a "complete fabrication." An article in knees." terror, which included a 600-man police strated that the prosecution's case against the Philadelphia Inquirer (5 May) titled In his own affidavit, Jamal's brother siege of its Powelton Village house in Mumia at his original trial was mani "Abu-Jamal Lawyers: Killing Was Mob testifies that when he saw Mumia run 1978, only whetted the cops' appetite to festly false. That case rested on three Hit" quotes a spokesman for the District ning to the scene, "he had nothing in his get him. As we wrote in our article legs: "eyewitness" accounts that were Attorney's office declaring that Beverly's hands. I heard a shot and I saw him "Philly Cops' Reign of Terror" (reprinted secured through police manipulation, sworn confession to a crime punishable stumble .... Mumia was not holding a in Black History and the Class Struggle coercion and outright terror; a purported by death is "patently ridiculous on its gun. Mumia never intervened in anything No. 15): "confession" by Jamal while he was lying face." He is echoed by one Michael between me and the cop. I had nothing to "History is not a conspiracy, but there are near death in the hospital, which didn't Smercoflish, attorney for an organization conspiracies in history. We are not say do with the shooting or killing of the surfac~ until two months after the killing; set up by Faulkner's widow, Maureen, ing that the cops who were at the scene police officer. My brother Mumia Abu of 13th and Locust Streets the night of ballistics evidence supposedly showing who is a front for the Fraternal Order of Jamal, had nothing to do with shooting 9 December 1981 knew Jamal was going that the bullets that killed Faulkner were Police (F.O.P.) campaign to push for or killing the policeman." to be there. But they were there and fired from Jamal's gun. Jamal's execution as an alleged "cop As one of Jamal's new attorneys, Eliot had the chance they had long awaited to In fact, five different witnesses from killer." Smerconish sneers, "The only catch Mumia in their racist frame-up Grossman, s~id at a press conference fol machine. This was the culmination of a jive different vantage points told the cops thing they have yet to claim is that the lowing the filing of the affidavits, political vendetta, extending back more on site that they had seen another man shooter was seen on the grassy knoll and "Mumia Abu-Jamal was in the wrong than a decade, against a man whose flee the scene of the shooting. Four wit- is hiding in Roswell, New Mexico." James/Philadelphia Inquirer It is hardly far-fetched to believe that
UNITED STATES alPARTMENT OF JUSTICE the cops would hire a hit man to get rid F£DERAL alREAU oF INVESTIGATION of one of their own, particularly if he 1 - JUli tary lllt.lli ••nce, PhU.delphia were believed to be an informant. Just 1 - N.val Inv.. U ••Uve Service Office, PhU.delpl>ia ""'10. 1 - OfficA Df sracial Inv•• tis.dDn, Phil.delphi• watch the movie Serpico, based on a true ,So.c..... rvjC., Phil.delphi. story, if you want a small taste of what _.. .1.- t.s•.• C III! 1,1 .... PIIlLAIlELPHIA, the cops do to those who' snitch on their ltn OCTOBER "', shakedowns, payoffs and frame-ups. And -'leWDff' .. P". ,. 1$7-3131 ...... - the Philadelphia cops are notorious for - WESLEY COOJ( corruption and frame-ups. - .... ClAL JlATTEI - II.ACK PANTHER PAlIn At the time that Faulkner was killed in :~~~h~~~j. ~~I~i:!:ip:l: !UD=-:/~m ••:!!!!:!.d December 1981, the FBI was engaged in Jun•• nd OctDb ... , lUI, COOK 'IIIIctio... d •• Br.nch -Secretary Dr "inioter Dt C... unlc.tionl fo.. the' Phil.delphia at least three investigations of police cor Branch of the IPP. On t;.,o occa.iona 1n AUlus'l l l'I~, COOK .pok. .t anti_... I'.llin in Phil.delphi.. Articl•• Vl'i tt... ruption involving extortion and bribery in by COOK fDI' the Dffici.l app ...v.p.p .... "Th. Ilaclt Panth... • .....et fDrth ...... b.cIt'l'OIIIId and d •• cl'iptiv. dat•• connection with prostitution, after-hours clubs, gambling and the Mafia in the Cen - p - ter City district that Faulkner patrolled. An affidavit by a source for the FBI at the Mumia Abu-Jamal was targeted by FBI's murderous time, Donald Hersing, which was also COINTELPRO operation from the time he was a 15- submitted by Jamal's new legal team, tes year-Old spokesman, then named Wesley Cook, for tifies that the cops were very concerned Philadelphia Black Panther Party in 1969. continued on page IO
12 11 MAY 2001