Editorial Support the Kosovar resistance! The failure of six weeks of U.S. and NATO bombing to Albanian civilians from ethnic cleansing in the solidarity! stop Serbia's genocidal attack on Kosova has brought the Lapski and Shalja region of north Kosova, which region to a crossroads. Serb troops have forced 1.5 million contains the Trepca mines. THE KLA DEMANDS OUR CRITICAL SUPPORT Kosovars from their homes and have murdered and raped According to one report, "Along with trying to protect Since the outbreak of the bombing campaign, KLA com­ thousands. Faced with a major debacle, the U.S. is plan­ Kosova Albanians, the KLA fighters are trying to prevent manders say they have been increasingly brushed aside by ning an extended bombing campaign and possibly the Yugoslav forces from completely depopulating it and secur­ the U.S. and NATO. The KLA's calls for material and logis­ introduction of ground troops, while leaving the door open ing the northern region as'part of a potential partition tical support have gone unheeded. to a Russian-mediated deal with Serbia's Milosevic. Yet the offer. Fearful of such a deal between Belgrade and the One KLA commander stated, "We have a well organized U.S. continues to shunt aside the force which can stop West, KLA sources say they are concentrating their men army and if we get armed very well, we can confront Serb Serbia and reverse ethnic cleansing—the Kosova and materiel in these strategic areas in the north, which forces. Neither Americans nor Germans nor British can Liberation Army (KLA). Belgrade would need to control before suing for peace." push Serbs from Kosova. This has to be done by us." When Serb troops invaded Kosova in force in March, Meanwhile, the KLA's fourth brigade, operating in the The U.S., however, remains averse to allowing the Milosevic boasted that he would eliminate the KLA in five mountains along the Yugoslav-Albanian border, has Kosovars to decide their own fate. It has long opposed inde­ days. He failedto do so.. Despite massive destruction and stepped up its operations. Mike Boettcher of CNN who pendence for Kosova. When the KLA began to undertake loss of life and a shortage of arms and materiel, the KLA is accompanied it reported that "the guerrilla army shows major actions in response to Serbian attacks in 1998, the regrouping and has expanded its operations. Thousands of signs of a gathering momentum aimed at striking back State Department denounced it as a "terrorist" organiza­ Kosovars arriving in Albania from Germany, Switzerland, into the heart of Kosova." tion. When the U.S. promoted its "peace" plan at England and elsewhere, as well as thousands inside The events of the past weeks have transformed the KLA Rambouillet this spring, it stipulated that the KLA disarm. Kosova and in the refugee camps fleeing Serbian forces, from a group of disparate rebels into a force which has the Though the KLA at first balked at this, it signed on after are swelling the KLA's ranks. support of virtually all Albanians inside and outside of coming under intense pressure from U.S officials. The extent of this was shown in late April when Kosova. A potentially revolutionary subjective source of When the U.S. finally decided to intervene against thousands of KLA fighters defended 250,000 resistance to genocide has emerged which demands our ' (Continued on page 11)

Vol. 44 — No. 4 MAY 1999 5(ty Black World Labor revolt and solidarity greet Touchstone of 'American automation's 50th exploitative year 9 by Andy Phillips labor's support for Mumia in Philadelphia where Mumia civilization was seized, tried, and sentenced to death? Co-author of The Coal Miners' General Strike of 1949-50 and by Lou Turner Both the new political consciousness and the tasks the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S. remaining present something of what's new in labor in As aware as we are that we are experiencing a violent­ Detroit—Longshoremen shut down ports along the 1999. The globalization of production, the rise of service ly changing world, we are much less aware that with industries, and deepening of economic and social crises everything we learn from that experience we are also entire west coast April 24 in solidarity with U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. On that,day, they led a comprise the context for the rise of new voices among forming a new concept of the world. World-historic events workers, as well as new contradictions. like the war in the Balkans, and events much closer to march by thousands in San Francisco demanding a new home such as the emerging anti-brutality movement NEW INDUSTRIES, NEW MILITANCY sparked by the Amadou Diallo murder in New York City, The growth of the service industry has exposed new and before that the NYPD torture of the Haitian immi­ kinds of alienation and given rise to new mihtancy. Often grant Abner Louima, as well as the anti-death penalty the positions are filled by immigrants and women who movement that has grown up around cases like that of bring activist attitudes with them. Most recently 73,000 Mumia Abu-Jamal and a whole slew of wrongful convic­ health care workers in California joined the Service tions in the state of Illinois, are being connected in the Employees union, the biggest union victory since the birth minds of many. And then the Columbine High School mur­ of industrial unionism in the U.S. when autoworkers in der rampage happens. Flint, Mich, conducted a new kind of strike, the sit-down. The meaning we thought we grasped of this changed In the transportation industry, 19,000 United Airlines world seemed almost to evaporate. This experience didn't workers signed with the Machinists Union. Northwest fit in our developing concept of the world. In fact, we have Airlines employees also won important gains, as did only forgotten how we came to understand the meaning of Philadelphia transit workers and GM workers in Ohio such events as Kosova, on the one hand, and the racist and Michigan. low-intensity war on Black life in these United States, on The nation's clear and expanding gap between rich and the other. This forgetfulness marks every transition in our poor has inspired new alliances. Students are increas­ attempt to conceptually grasp the meaning of "American ingly participating in campaigns to organize university civilization." Longshoremen led 20,000 marchers in San Francisco, employees, as well as participating in organizing Chicago The violence that so grips Black communities, whether while more than 10,000 supporters of U.S. political pris­ oner Mumia Abu-Jamal converged on Philadelphia on home health care workers and building national support of the police-state kind or the self-inflicted kind that aris­ for California Strawberry workers. es from the depths of a social alienation created by a quar­ April 24, above, to demand his freedom from Pennsylvania's death row. See page 11. At more than 30 universities, students have forced ter century of Black econoijiic devastation, has, as administrators to assure that any item for sale carrying a Malcolm X said at the time of the assassination of school logos is produced by workers at a living wage and President Kennedy, "come home to roost." trial for him. These events, a week before May 1, came the closest as any to the spirit of May Day in the U.S. this in safe conditions, targetting Third World sweatshops. Black life has never been anything but cheap in Student employees themselves have organized and struck America. In the carnage of two deranged neo-fascist youth year. At the same time the cause for Mumia finds a solid at public institutions across the nation. at Columbine, white America found that it was not spared Among the most promising developments is in such hatred, a hatred that its conservative culture the last grounding in the political consciousness of labor, a further 25 years convinced it to treat v«fith "benign neglect." challenge emerged naturally from their demand: Where is (Continued on page 10) In their Hitler's birthday attack on their classmates, Harris and Heboid, made clear their hatred for Blacks. Indeed, there is no more chilling account of the Columbine massacre than the one of the yc-ung white woman student | Felix Martin, Labor Editor, 1921-1999 | who told of being targeted in Ithe Columbine library by Felix Martin, Labor Editor of News & Letters from Martin joining our Black worker-editor Charles Denby Harris and then being passed pver when he saw a Black 1983 to his death last month, identified with everyone as his West Coast editor. That revolutionary relation­ student. "I hate n rs!", Harris screamed, and then who Was struggling for freedom all his life. "I was always ship of Black and white is what permeated all of his life pumped bullets into the head of Isaiah Shoels. involved with labor," he once said. "My daddy was a from that moment on. The media, and apparently] much of white America, miner, organizing the mines, so we were organizers too." Above all else, Felix Martin was a profound thinker, continue to ignore the racist handwriting on the wall, at From those earliest years in Kentucky to the end of his who manifested Marxist-Humanism's unique concept of the same time as they overindulge themselves in dime- life, he kept on fighting for freedom whether it was orga­ "worker AS intellectual." At the memorial meeting for store psychologism about our so-called "youth problem." nizing a union or fighting a labor bureaucrat or arguing Raya Dunayevskaya, he said that "when I read chapter In the same week as the Colunlbine massacre, there was with his fellow workers to recognize racism as "the whip one of Philosophy and Revolution on Hegel, I could just more than enough evidence of a youth culture whose mind which the privileged use to keep us in our place — at the feel the scales peeling off my mental seeing. Hegel and spirit stays on freedom a^t mass youth marches in bottom." That was the appeal he made specifically to his wrote, 'Individualism that lets nothing interfere with its (Continued on page 5) fellow-workers at the GM South Gate plant in California Universalism, that is, freedom.' What a smog Raya in the very first article he wrote in News & Letters in looked through to be able to say that." ON THE INSIDE April 1972, right after he found Marxist-Humanism, and That kind of individualism is precisely what his life saw in Indignant Heart not only Charles Demy's auto­ Special section, pages 6-7 manifested. Of all the stories he captivated audiences biography, but his own. with as he delivered them in a unique hill twang, the P In her 1980 retrospective-perspective of the first 25 story he most loved to tell was of how he found a way to ROUGH NOTES ON HEGEL'S Years of Marxist-Humanism, Raya Dunayevskaya wrote read Philosophy and Revolution while he was working SCIENCE OF LOGIC that in the mid-1970s the ""new militancy of workers on an assembly line in the factory — reading a para­ graph and then mulling it over as he turned to hang a Last of four-part serialization of .Ray a Dunayevskaya's white and Black raised again the question of what kind door, his job on the line. detailed commentary on Hegel's pathbreaking work. of labor human beings should do" and saw this as what was represented by a white production worker like Felix (Continued on page 3) Page 2 NEWS & LETTERS MAY 1999 IS Marx'S Capital about women's freedom? 'Queer Revolution' confab San Jose, Cal.—A conference entitled "Queer by Terry Moon refused to submit to the subordinate role in which they Revolution: To the Left and Over the Barricades" was had been placed in the home before they got their facto­ held April 17 at San Jose State University. Sponsored Last month, Maya Jhansi ended her column by insist­ ry jobs. So where they could not work out the new rela­ by the campus group Queer Revolution, this day-long ing that classes in Marx's Capital "are important for tions, they took to breaking up the homes..." (p. 32). conversation covered such varied topics as Queer left women and women's liberation because if we are serious Contrary to Jaggar's interpretation, Marx was not history, labor struggles, civil rights, Marxist philosophy, about putting revolution back on the feminist agenda, saying that working outside the home equaled either spirituality and the relation to revolution, sexual fluid­ then a new confrontation with the fullness of Marx is socialism or the end to women's oppression. In every ity, gender non-conformity, environmentalism, and the necessary." Yet much of feminist theory has, for the most subject Marx touched, be it production, anthropology, or MumiaAbu-Jamal movement. part, reduced Marx's philosophy of freedom to econom­ history, he was always looking for how human relations The guest of honor for the event was Harry Hay, ics. were changed. That was his focus because he was trying founder of the Mattachine Society of the '50s, the Los Alison M. Jaggar is an example of a feminist theorist to work out the creation of a new society built on new Angeles chapter of Gay Liberation Front in the early who interprets Marx in a nar­ human, instead of alienated, rela­ '70s, and the Radical Faeries in the '80s. He spoke of his row way. Even though her tionships. involvement in radical politics starting with his partic- work Feminist Politics and Woman as Reason Marx's studies, unseparated from pation in the dock worker demonstrations in the '30s. Human Nature was written the history of his time, enabled him His presence was a living reminder of the integrality of 15 years ago, it remains one of the best examples of the to see the possibility of new human relationships, of queers in all areas of leftist politics. truncated view of Marx that is still being put forth "new passions and forces," that arise to create a new, Though it was a small group, there was a wide vari­ today. Jaggar critiques Marxists—she makes no dis­ truly human world. That is why confrontation with the ety of radical political perspectives and experience tinction between post-Marx Marxists and Marx—for fullness of Marx can help us make sure that our revolu­ which imade for a very dynamic discussion. For theorizing that "once women are fully integrated into tion is total from the start. instance, a debate arose when Hay gave an essentialist wage labor, there is no material basis for the sex specif­ view of queerness, inferring a superiority of queers over ic oppression of women" (p. 223). While post-Marx heterosexuals. Many in the group argued against 1;his Marxists and much of the Left did claim that all our form of! biological determinism, asserting that we need problems would be solved if only we were integrated to empjhasize the liberatory potential of all human into the labor force, this was not Marx's idea. beings, j Yet we also realized the need to define the In a much maligned paragraph Marx writes that umque (contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans- "modern industry, by assigning as it does an important gendertd people to the revolutionary project as a whole. part in the process of production outside the domestic There was also a very lively discussion around sphere to women, to young persons, and to children of Marxist philosophy and revolution, and the envisioning both sexes, creates a new economic foundation for a of a new society that will not only reject oppression of higher form of the family and of the relations between queerSijbut will promote total liberation for all people. the sexes...." Jaggar, like many others, interprets this to —Julia Jones mean that Marx thinks that "participation of all in pub­ lic production" will end "the oppression of any group by another" (p. 225). Jaggar rightly criticizes this idea Taking back the night because she knows that women's oppression is not only Memphis, Tenn. — Militant cheers were hollered by linked to the workplace, but "tiiat to reconstruct reality the Memphis Radical Cheerleaders squad at the Rhodes from the standpoint of women requires a far more total College Take Back the Night rally in April. transformation of our society and of ourselves..." (p. After the march around the campus where we made 389). sure to yell our chants into the frat boys' windows and But what Jaggar misses is what Marx says in the had a sipeakout. Unlike two years ago when Rhodes was very next paragraph—that "in its brutal capitalistic only interested in covering up campus rapes, this year a form," women's entry into the labor force can be nothing suggestion was made to bring the- clothesline project to other than a "pestiferous source of corruption and slav­ Rhodes jduring the time parents visit. ery." This makes it obvious that he wasn't saying all The Clothesline Project is where the dirty linen gets women have to do is work. Kather the entire society hung ini public. Women and children create a message on must be transformed so that the way we produce things a T-shiit about domestic violence or rape, and these would be done in a liberating manner. shirts ajre hung on a clothesline for all to see. The event What would we learn if, rather than thinking that can be supplemented with leaflets about the problems of what Marx said about women and labor was a limita­ date rape. If Rhodes does that this year, perhaps we won't tion, we look at what it means for women's liberation need a march in 2000. —Kind Lady and T. Moon today? Marx's chapter on "The Working Day" could have been written yesterday, describing, as it does in great detail, the conditions women and girls are facing right Fighting censorship and sexism at U. Memphis now. It is filled with descriptions that speak to the women and girls as young as 12 and 14 who have Memphis, Tenn. — The Women's Action Coalition know its source of funding; 3) to have a written policy become the dominant labor force of multinational facto­ (WAC) has a fight on our hands. We are a University on how items are chosen for the paper. ries and sweatshops in the U.S.: "With a working day of Memphis student organization, but we noticed that Immediately after that meeting we received a dis­ ranging from 12 to 14 or 15 hours, night-labor, irregular many of our events would never appear in the student missive arrogant reply from the faculty advisor to The meal-times, and meals mostly taken in the workrooms newspaper, The Daily Helmsman. We heard that the Daily Helmsman who claimed that "According to the themselves, pestilent with phosphorus, Dante would copy editor, Jonathan Cullum, had deliberately cen­ Supreihe Court..., student newspapers at public uni­ have found the worst horrors in his Inferno surpassed in sored an announcement we had submitted last month versities have a right to publish (or not publish) any­ this industry" (p. 356). on a safe sex action we did. thing the student editors wish." Furthermore, she WAC member Jennifer emailed him requesting, a tried to shut us up by saying our wish to know how Moreover, we need to look at how women's liberation The Helmsman was funded was a "veiled threat" moved from an idea to a movement. The movement meeting and he replied that as "a Southern Baptist...I have many objections to the agenda of your group...At which *could be considered prior restraint, which is in didn't only start with Betty Friedan and middle-class violation of the First Amendment." That's a new one. women. It was as well working-class women—Black and the time I made the decision [to block the announce­ ment], I felt a moral imperative not to contribute to Shut up a student group by using the First white—during World War II who went to work in the Amendment! factories, resisted being forced out of their jobs at the the publicity of what I felt was an immoral event." end of the war, and raised questions that today's We told him that we found his behavior unaccept­ Of course we are fighting back, with letters, with women's moyement is still grappling with. able for a student paper funded by a public universi­ legal advice, but that's just the beginning. WAC is watching! We will take action! —WACsters We can see this in an essay by Raya Dunayevskaya, ty. We demanded: 1) an apology in the paper; 2) to "On Women in the Post-War World, and the Old Radicals" in Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution. Dunayevskaya writes that the women's Who are the real targets in the Balkans? experiences in the workplace did transform them to the Editor's note: The following comments by Slavenka standing that they are at war. The war did not concern point where, when they came home, they wished "to Drakulic, Croatian journalist and feminist, first appeared them, the war was happening somewhere else. But now, establish new relations there, too...They gained a new in Zaginflatch, a Zagreb newsletter. suddenly, they have become victims and that is why they dignity and a new concept of what their relations to are wearing targets, probably utterly unaware of the their fellowmen and fellowwomen should be, and they Day in and day out Serbian citizens are holding hands unbearable symbolism of this idea. or gathering in a square in the center of Belgrade, where For t£he Serbs are not the victims—the Albanians are rock concerts are being held on a daily basis. A paper tar­ the victims. Their fascinating autism is reflected in refus­ get is fastened on their chests. They have lunch, read the ing to understand it even then they are being punished, papers, sleep, watch the news, go to work, and are baking when they are being bombed. They are still not asking Women Worldwide cakes. At night they are disturbed by the explosions of a themselves: what have we done? Have we really gone by Mary Jo Grey refinery, factory or ministry and the fear that the rockets wrong somewhere? This lack of every possible doubt, could fall 500 meters to the left or right. But differently every possible question Over their actions is staggering •Women's organizations in Pakistan have strongly from the citizens of Sarajevo [from 1992 to 1995], the citi­ and frightening. condemned the execution of 29-year-old Samia Sarwar zens of Belgrade are not targets, in spite of being acciden­ Even today, even if they dare to say something against by her family, April 6, in the office of AGHS, a well- tal victims. They are aware of this and this makes the Milosevic, the Serbian intellectuals and the opposition do known legal aid and human rights group in Lahore. night bearable, in spite of the fear. not mention the Albanians and their sufferings. They are Her parents opposed her attempt to end a ten-year At the same time, a few hundred kilometers away, able to lament over the issue of how the West did not help marriage to an abusive husband. No arrests were other citizens of the same state of Serbia are standing in them, how nobody understands them, and at the same made and her prominent family has launched an the woods for days in the rain, be it on the border with time igjaore completely the suffering of their fellow citi­ attack—including a public demonstration, April 9, of Macedonia, or at border places where 50,000 people live zens, a* if they don't exist. That is why none of them can businessmen and religious fanatics in her hometown of and die without food and medical help, or squashed in be deprived of the responsibility of keeping Milosevic in Peshawar—threatening the lives of the human rights refugee camps across the border in Albania. They have no authority, even if they are not aware of this responsibility. activists who supported her. place to go back to, no house, no lunch, no news, no con­ Theyl did not know of the suffering of the Albanians? A —Information from Women Living Under Muslim cert, no native land, nothing. They do not need a paper real pity. They could have heard and found out about it if Laws target, they do not need symbols. They know that they are they had only wanted to. But this time, as before, they are * * * the targets, every man, woman and child. in unison and homogeneous in lying to the world's face. In Fifteen Turkish women living and working in One million Albanians have already been depopulated, spite oft testimonies, reports, recordings, facts. Amsterdam have been conducting a protest—including which is the nicer word for ethnic cleansing. But they This |is why we are witnessing two parallel tragedies in a hunger strike—since Feb. 2 against government are—Albanians. They are something different. And now, progress. The first is the suffering of the Albanian people, removal of their rights. Although they have lived and these same citizens of Serbia who are not Albanians—the their exodus which is already being called genocide by worked in the Netherlands for years, the new same people who were not concerned by Sarajevo or some people. There is no use in reminding now (but it Koppelingswet Act has removed their child benefits, Srebrenica, nor Dubrovnik or Vukovar, not even Drenica should not be forgotten) that their fate is being shared by health care, work, rent rebate, disability and sickness and Racak—dare to parade around with a target on their the Croatians and Bosnians but also the Serbs from benefits, and housing permits because they are immi­ chests. Krajina. The second tragedy is the autism of the Serbian grants. For years the Serbs have been rejecting the under­ people. —Slavenka Drakulic MAY 199¾ NEWS & LETTERS Page 3 Felix Martin, Labor Editor, 1921-1999 (Continued from page 1) He credited his meeting up with Marxist-Humanism as what kept him from spending his life in prison for killing his foreman, when it made him see that it was the whole system that needed uprooting and that his life had to be spent on that and not wasted on one fore­ The Workshop Talks columnists mourn the 'death of man. His deep respect for workers as the creators of all Felix Martin, the Labor Editor of News & Letters and value allowed him to understand Marx's Capital as if all our co-columnist. His was a unique voice. To allow him the categories were specifically about his life. to speak for himself once more in this space, we reprint Most of all, he understood the imperative importance his 1979 review of Charles Denby's Indignant Heart: A of a revolutionary organization like News and Letters Black Worker's Journal. Committees. In one especially powerful report he gave to an N&LC Convention, he told a story about visiting by Felix Martin, Labor Editor the Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park. "It used to be called the Karl Marx tree," he explained. "It's the In the mountains where I grew up, those who couldn't largest living thing on this earth that is still growing. get a job in the mines, and who needed something to eat, That's why it is still the Karl Marx tree to me. It repre­ He personified the overcoming of the gulf class soci­ sharecropped. They were the really poor and used the sents the idea of Marx's Marxism, which is the greatest ety imposes between practice and philosophy and made corn raised to buy a few other things and for moonshine. idea still living and still growing. What we're talking the American Revolution seem imminent. As we mourn The cropping in our area meant you supplied your labor about at this Convention is the story of the Karl Marx his passing and honor his life, it is abundantly appro­ while the man furnished the land, the tools and the seed. tree in terms of our ideas and our organization that we priate that we are carrying our In Memoriam to this Where I was raised it was only white. There weren't any have to make sure continues to grow." extraordinary American revolutionary in the May Day Blacks. The story embodied not only his deep love for N&LC issue. — Olga Domanski How much rougher it is when your skin is Black. but how deep was his love for nature, which made him Charles Denby, my friend and editor of News & Letters, a co-thinker with a whole generation of young environ­ has just had his Indignant Heart: A Black Worker's mentalists. Felix Martin's love for nature" came out of Overnite purges militants Journal published and one chapter deals with sharecrop- his own multidimensional nature as both farmer and ping. In the deep South, where sharecropping was not worker, and philosopher. The poetry you heard in his Memphis, Tenn. — The movement to get a union in white and white, but Black and white, the plantation stories came out of the way he combined all of those at Overnite Transportation is still going on. But I was owner gave only the land. The tools and seed and every­ dimensions spontaneously. fired in February. In order to get rid of the union thing else was for the cropper to supply, and you always There was no one he met — from someone walking a activists Overnite did background checks on everybody. would end up in a hole to the plantation owner. Certainly picket line he came upon and joined, to a fellow-shopper- I was a prime target, as I was one of the 16 people who the struggle of Appalachian white and Southern Black is in a grocery store he would engage in discussing the started trying to organize Overnite Transportation. similar, but that struggle is deeper and rougher if you are plight of the small farmer today, to the doctors and When I went to work there seven years ago I had a Black. nurses tending him in the last years of his life — who prison record. But the government gave Overnite a tax All through the first part of Indignant Heart I felt was not introduced at once to Marxist-Humanism and break for hiring people like me. Now, all of a sudden, this kinship with Denby's life, that part of my life resem­ News & Letters. they tried to claim that I left my prison record off my bled his, and at the same time the depth of experience and application. struggle was profoundly Black. For the Black a run-in I talked to people in Nashville and the facts are on with the law was devastating whether guilty or not. microfilm that Overnite was given a tax break April 13, Where I was raised we didn't pay attention to the law. We 'True to his class' 1992, to hire me. It's hard for them to say that they did­ created our own. Brother Woods [Felix Martin] and I have been friends n't know I had a record when they got a copy of my When you come to the North, on the surface—for and comrades close to 40 years. We met on the assembly parole certificate! Blacks—it looks free. You can sit where you want. But line at the GM South Gate plant. During those years, We started working with Congressmen Harold Ford, then Denby explains how he often felt more at home Brother Woods and I became "brothers-in-arms" in the Jr. His office staff told us that any day now Overnite will entering through the back door in the South, where he , fight for justice and equality for the working class. render a decision on all those who were fired. Dealing knew where they stood, than the front door in the North, But our greatest battles for justice and equality for with Overnite, I've learned not to get too excited about where there was such hypocrisy. I remember my own the workers took place every day of our lives on the shop what they say, I wait to see what they actually do. mountain accent in the North and how people would floor and in ourunion. Every day we not only had to sur­ They are dealing with my case because if they take think of us as stupid mountain people. In Indiana where vive, but we had to fight GM management and the lead­ me back, we're pretty sure they'll take everyone. If I first worked after coming North, my revolt against the ership of our national and local UAW union. Overnite puts me back and I've got a criminal back­ conditions of work was immediately answered with the call of being just a dumb hillbilly striking out. It is sad that during the witch hunt of the 1950s and ground, then the only difference is Overnite didn't get 1960s in the auto industry, we lost many true and dedi­ paid to hire the rest of them. I'm glad I can be a part in Denby in the North found that his slavery was to the cated comrades because of the "Red" scare that was getting these guys their jobs back. As for me, I'm just boss and machine in place of the plantation owner. In sweeping the nation. How did Isaac and I not only sur­ wounded, I'm not dead. I'm a soldier that got injured in speaking of Auto in the first part of the book he is pro­ vive this nightmare, but over the years come to be the line of duty, but I'll be back in the war in a minute. found. Twenty-five and more years ago (the first part of respected and appreciated by the membership of our —Militant Black Overnite worker the book was written in the early '50s) he was seeing so local union and now from the retirees group? We won much on the question of Black and white, of men and many members of our union for our courage and dedi­ women and of conditions of labor—all in the plant—that cation to our cause. We never backed down or sacrificed he anticipates so many of the struggles of workers in the our principles. Sears workers win '60s and '70s, like the Black caucuses, and women in the Olive Branch, Miss. — On March 24, workers at plant, and most especially the fight of workers against the Brother Woods and I, like most of the working class, machines, speed-up and against the labor bureaucracy. have few material possessions to show for a lifetime of Focus Distribution, Inc. voted 114 to 90 to be represent­ work and struggle, yet we are rich beyond measure. We ed by IUE/Furniture Workers Local 282. The stunning The second part of the book, which deals with the are part of the working class that one day will bring result was the first election victory by any union in this last 25 years of Denby's life, is one in which you really see peace, justice and equality to mankind. booming and notoriously anti-union suburb of where you are going. It begins with Denby returning In the years ahead, many who are here today, friends Memphis. Focus Distribution is a warehouse and ship­ South, only it is a very different South. It is a South of the and comrades of Isaac, will man the picket lines and ping operation for Sears appliances. Several past union Montgomery Bus Boycott. It is a South of a people on the march in demonstrations in order to make a better drives, including a recent one by the Teamsters, had move. And the North that Denby continues to write of, not world. Remember always that walking beside you every failed. alone as observer, but as participant, is now a very differ­ step of the way, Isaac will be at your side. In January, a Black forklift driver called Local 282 and ent North. We can ill afford to lose a man like Isaac, but we must asked for union pledge cards. He had heard that Local This movement of the Black struggle, of workers accept the realities of life. Each of us should pattern 282 was a militant Black-led union which didn't make against capital, certainly puts the stamp on the second ourselves like Isaac who gave so much of himself and deals behind workers' backs. Before Local 282 staff could part of the book. It allows a life in the process of becom­ asked for nothing in return. even get involved, workers had formed their own shop ing to have a certain direction, to find a way to go, and to, Isaac Woods died a whole man, true to his class, true committee and signed up enough co-workers to petition in turn, help give a certain direction to the freedom to his youth, true to his comrades and true to the next for an election. "The organizing was done so carefully," movement. generation. —Rudy Salenta Local 282 vice-president Ida Leachman told N&L, "that But it is not the movement alone which did this. the company didn't even know there was a union cam­ The last 25 years of Denby's life has been as editor paign until the election petition was filed on Feb. 8." of this newspaper, News & Letters, a workers' Appeal from Kosova UnionsTh e company fought back with anti-union flyers, paper. That experience as writer and thinker meetings and videos. "There are about 260 workers in together with the development of a body of free­ Pristina, Kosova—The people of Kosova desperate­ the warehouse, mostly Black men, but with white work­ dom ideas—Marxist-Humanism—puts its stamp on ly need your help. We appeal to the people of Europe to ers and women too," Leachman said. Workers said that Denby's self-development as a revolutionary. defend us from this fascist violence. Please, come to the attendance policy was manipulated to avoid giving And it is here where my kinship with him is strongest. Kosova with humanitarian aid, come to show your soli­ anyone raises, but what made them angriest was the I have not had his years in association with News and darity, come to see for yourself what is happening. We way management talked down to them like children. Letters Committees. But in the time I have been with need you by our side or the Serbian regime's genocide is The shop committee really ran the union campaign. them, that self-development of Denby as an individual going to continue until they get their "ethnically pure When the company showed the first anti-union video, and as part ofthis body offreedom ideas, all ofwhich is so state." claiming that the union would be coming to workers' forcefully presented in Indignant Heart, I have felt with­ There is a blockade around Kosova which isolates the homes to intimidate them, the workers put out a leaflet in myself. Thus my becoming has taken on a certain suffering people from the outside world. We need you to the next day saying "This is your campaign. Nobody will pathway toward something very, very different, new and break this blockade. We need a humanitarian corridor be coming to your door. It's your decision." human. reaching from the outside world right into Kosova. Let the A white worker named Thomas Langston researched To some of my fellow workers, those who have strug­ fleeing victims of ethnic cleansing escape their torturers! the internet for information on the union, and coun­ gled all their lives and are continuing to struggle, I want Let food, medicine, educational supplies, and everything tered management propaganda with the facts, even to take this book and say, "Look, read this. Here you are." else needed for a human life, reach the communities who putting out his own leaflets. Langston and other work­ To those who are beginning to struggle and open their are resisting ethnic cleansing. Let Kosova live! ers were passing out leaflets in the company parking lot eyes I want to say, "Here is a book in which you will find We ask everyone who hears this appeal to unite to orga­ and the company called the sheriff. They grabbed some of yourself." Indeed, anyone who has anything nize a "convoy of aid and solidarity." Your action will sig­ Langston and. said that because he was passing out human within them will be able to find something of nal that the people of Europe will not sit back and allow leaflets on his own time, he was trespassing on compa­ themselves in this book. ethnic cleansing and will not allow politicians to make the ny property. After they took him to jail, the company promise "No more Bosnias" become empty words. Your withdrew the trespassing charge, but the state refused action will give hope and strength to all the people in to drop a charge of failing to obey a direct order from a Kosova who want to establish a just and democratic soci­ police officer. ety in which everyone can live and work in peace. Leachman is thrilled that a hole has been punched in —Agim Hyseni and others on behalf of Kosovan Olive Branch's anti-union wall. "The company hoped miners, health workers and students that the arrest would frighten off the workers and kill Contact Agim Hyseni: Tel/Fax 381 38 26 112. Or the union campaign, but it went the other way." Ardian Kastrati: email [email protected] —Michael Flug Page 4 NEWS & LETTERS MAY 1999 Supporting Kosova's struggle for self-determination Battle of ideas over London — Since the air attacks against Serbia began Kosova and terrible tragedy. For there is a tragic similar­ veteran Labour Party left-winger Tony Benn and the ity to another historic moment of Irish history which bombing of Serbia Socialist Workers Party (SWP) have been holding demon­ could yet happen—Michael Collins and the treaty that strations for "peace" along with Serbian nationalists. partitioned Ireland in 1921. Imposed under the threat of London — On Saturday, April 10 a march to sup­ Groups like the SWP are engaged in contortions to justi­ "a bloody terrible war," the war-weary rebels signed the port Kosova was called by Workers Aid for Kosova fy in socialist language their defense of the reactionary treaty, hoping thereby to regroup their forces. Instead, which several hundred attended. We marched in the Serb state, which they partition was rain across North London to Clerkenwell Green and a hypocritically attempt | J&~- j8f rally was held with Kosovars and leftist speakers on enforced brutally in the steps of the Marx Memorial Library. Workers Aid to square with defend­ the north and the pro- announced that they are organising another convoy ing self-determination treaty forces in the through Albania as part of a political campaign to open for Kosova. south were the tools up a corridor for aid into Kosova. Meanwhile, every of counter-revolution night nearly 1,000 from within the revo­ The representative of the Kosova Information Kosovans have demon­ lution. Partition Center said, "We are the indigenous population of strated in Trafalgar looms over Kosova as Kosova. We have never sought to displace other people Square in solidarity a serious possibility but have always stood up for human dignity and with their homeland, FfcACE as well. human rights." The feminist writer Amanda Sebastyn said that she has been in communication with groups which these leftists do Having sat back for not attend. like Women in Black and that women in Macedonia ten years crying croc­ have said that they are being kept in the dark by the Those on the Left odile tears and collud­ state media which are not telling them what is going who ^are demonstrat­ ing with Milosevic, on. ing for peace have the Western powers done nothing for have now come to the She added that for the Macedonian regime to leave Kosova. They never proclaimed "aid" of the refugees in that field was an act of murder. lifted a finger to help Kosova. The bour­ Macedonia, she pointed out, is an apartheid state. She when the Workers Aid geois governments apologised for shaking as she detailed the betrayal of for Kosova group orga­ have raised principles those in Belgrade she had worked with in solidarity nized a march last October in London. It was the most in contradiction to the reality of their own objectives. with Bosnia. Mark Osbourne of Workers Liberty working-class demonstration I had been to in years—90% They wage a war against Serbia to force Milosevic to sign denounced the Left for organising an event the next of them were emigre Kosovan workers. The labour move­ on to a deal that will keep Kosova as an autonomous day in collaboration with Serb fascists. ment was represented by a tiny number of union branch­ region within Serbia. The unprinciples of the big powers es and active socialists who made up the rest of the soli­ are revealed in the war's whole conduct thus far. LEFTISTS TAILEND SERBIA darity campaign. Most disgusting are statements of British Foreign That rally, on April 11, was sponsored by Tony Benn The feeling among people outside the organized Left is Minister Robin Cook that they could not have expected of the Labour Party and the Socialist Workers Party not like the Gulf War of 1991.1 am encountering none of such an exodus as a result of ethnic cleansing. As if the with its slogan, "Stop the Bombing!" It was attended by the cynicism that existed then. Far from it, many are say­ past ten years had not shown how Milosevic would con­ 3,000. We handed out a leaflet there entitled, "Why We ing "something should have been done a long time ago." duct his war! To add to this hypocrisy the Labour govern­ Are Not Marching For Serbia." The SWP rallying point There is however cynicism and criticism about the disas­ ment has just brought forward stricter immigration and was intermingled with Serbs and their flags. As we trous conduct of this war. asylum laws. passed one of their leaders, Alex Callinicos, a friend of mine asked him, "Hey, there's a spare Chetnik flag The fundamental issue for those who support There is a force for liberation—the Kosova Liberation there. Are you going to carry it on the march?" freedom for Kosova, and wish to engage in solidar­ Army (KLA). But will they arm the KLA to inflict a ity with its struggle, is not the unprinciples of the defeat on the Serb forces? No! This indicates that the After about half an hour of passing out leaflets we peace party but the unprinciples of the war party. Western powers do not intend to defeat Serbian forces met a woman from the Mumia campaign who told us The important question is the objectives of this but strip away their strength until they sign a compro­ the Kosovars were holding a rally at Trafalgar Square, war—what they are and what they should be. mise agreement. But the lesson of Vietnam which the the same destination as this march! We left right away for it. The police were keeping the Kosovars out of the It was the principle of the Irish when the First World U.S. has still not learned is that you cannot bomb people into submission. square and had cordoned them off on the other side of War began that "England's misfortune was Ireland's the road next to Admiralty Arch. There were about 300 opportunity." Its application resulted in the Easter Rising The cause of freedom in this war will be served by a defeat of the Serbian forces in Kosova by the Kosovars, chanting "Out of Kosova, Serbian Police," of 1916. I believe the same principles apply to this free­ "UK, USA arm the KLA," "We are ALL KLA." dom struggle. organised forces of the Kosovan people them­ Such are the contradictions of the present moment that selves. FIGHTING ETHNIC CLEANSING there is a blend of historic opportunity for insurgent There is one important difference between Bosnia in 1995, when the Bosnian forces were on an offensive An old Indian man was distributing stickers which against the Serbs, and now, in that the KLA is now on the said "764055 Kosova Concentration Camp." He gave defensive. What will be decisive is the ability of the us some, which we put on our jackets. He explained to Voice of opposition Kosovans to turn this into a revolutionary war. If the us that when he was 13 years old, his home in India Kosovans can utilise the NATO attacks to the advantage was destroyed by Hindu extremists, his relatives to ethnic cleansing of their self-emancipation, they could not only inflict a killed and he had ended up on the streets in Pakistan, defeat on Serbia but also be stronger in relation to the big so he knew what ethnic cleansing was, and that's why power maneuvers in the Balkans. he was here today. When he moved to England he from Belgrade The peace party can see none of these possibilities. It married a European and he said he was now being sees two equals in the conflict and believes in a Utopian targeted by Islamic fundamentalists for his mixed- Editor's note: The following piece first appeared in scheme in which differences can be worked out through race marriage. Zaginfletch, a Croatian anarchist publication. diplomacy. The irreconcilable relationship between the Then the front of the "Stop the Bombing" march oppressor and the subjugated people does not figure in came along the Strand. We erupted in fury at the sight Belgrade — The situation in Kosova is generally well- their schema. of a sea of SWP placards amidst Serb flags and target known to people in Belgrade, except that I still think a lot I do not believe there is a place for the articulation of placards, the banners of the Left, and the Greens and more Albanians have been killed than reported. I have Marxist-Humanist principles within the peace party. The the pacifists, Stalinists, and Welsh Nationalists. As the heard from a verified source that the Trepca works are demand being raised for peace is utterly vacant of any Serbs under Nelson's Column waved their Chetnik now being used to melt down Albanian bodies, instead of content of freedom. The question I put to those who flags at us, we shouted back "Fas-cis-ti! Fas-cis-ti!" ore. I have also heard reports from Pristina [capital of demand peace is what is their alternative—often it is an " Our relationship with the Left can never be the same Kosova] that policemen are entering Albanian houses alternative they dare not speak. What is needed is a rev­ again, but we felt great about having "served the writ'" and shooting at everything that moves. olutionary war party with clear ideas as to what the on them. Hopefully some of them will know in their The NATO hits in downtown Belgrade have been very objectives of a war for freedom for Kosova should ~be. If bones that they have screwed up. and betrayed every­ precise, but that does not apply to most attacks outside the Western powers will not risk the "bones of a single thing they believed in and maybe consider our position downtown. The Yugoslav army is very mobile, especially grenadier" then they should arm the KLA and allow them as an alternative. We should hate the sin, not the sin­ at night, and has suffered few casualties to bombardment to defeat the Serbs themselves. —Chris Ford ner, and stand our ground. —Dave Black except in the first two. nights. Most of the troops hide in highly populated residential areas like schools, parks, etc. Most of the common people in Belgrade are being A 4 highly hypocritical, considering NATO attacks on X t Yugoslavia a bad thing, while at the same time calling To understand Kosov4 today, the "ethnic cleansing" (combination of genocide and forced eviction of people from their homes) of Kosova it is essential to understand what happened in Bosnia Albanians a normal reaction of "us" to "their" attacks. The most surprising thing to me was that many if not Get a copy of most common people who have had OK beliefs in the past are now readily supporting "our" fight against "their" attacks. Fortunately, most of the previous anti-war cam­ BOSNIA-HERZEGOViNA: paign activists and other peace activists aren't doing the same, although they are not doing much else either. NATO has once again demonstrated its alliance with ACHILLES HEEL OF WESTERN 'CIVILIZATION' Milosevic in destroying all democratic forces in the this book reveals. region. Most peace and social activists in Belgrade live in constant fear of mobilization. The government media (all The reason for Serbia's descent into media here which have not been closed down yet) has provided no information about the mobilization in virulent narrow nationalism Macedonia except from official Macedonian sources until To order, the mobilization boycott started to give effects (when The U.S.'s role in the allowing "ethnic reservists refused to go). The Yugoslav government is sys­ cleansing" in Bosnia to go unchecked see page 9 tematically covering up true NATO losses, vice-versa. I fear that the deal between Milosevic and the USA The way Bosnia's struggle discloses the goes far further. I can only guess, but I believe that this need to overcome the philosophic void entire war has already been agreed; upon during one of the Milosevic-Holbrooke meetings. in the radical movements The supposed "humanitarian aid" from Russia consists $5 (plus postage) of airplane parts to be assembled here and ammo. I've also heard unconfirmed reports of a weapons deal with Ukraine being planned. There is no more future in 4 &&4*° Yugoslavia for young people. —Antiwar activist r MAY 1999 NEWS & LETTERS Page 5 •MM^ ' Marchers protest police brutality, demand justice New York — "No justice, no peace." New York City res­ the demonstrations due to his clear articulation of police Haitian-American community held itself apart from the idents transformed that essential truth into daily activity brutality issues, his insistence on only symbolic law-break­ African-American, and partly because once the lawyers got for a solid two-and-a-half months following the Feb. 4 ing and legalistic demands may have held the movement Louima's case, they went into the courts. "Whatever you police murder of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African back. It is also possible that this terrible killing has can say about Sharpton, he is smart enough to know that, immigrant, in a hail of 41 bullets. The demonstrations cul­ brought out so many ideas for discussion—including even when you are in court, you have to keep pressure on minated April 15, when 10,000 people or more marched Mumia Abu-Jamal, institutional racism and loss of civil in the streets." She also mused about what it meant that from the Brooklyn Bridge to lower Broadway in front of the liberties—that New York will never be the same again. Diallo was from Africa, the motherland, about the kind of federal building. So many people filled Brooklyn Bridge —Anne Jaclard and Paul Geist resonance that had on the African diaspora. that you could see neither the beginning nor end of the When this movement started in front of Diallo's home on march. Feb. 7 and for seven weeks thereafter, it was nearly all Billed as a "rally for justice and reconciliation" by a New York—The April 3 National Emergency March Black with some Puerto Ricans. It gradually forced other coalition of civil rights, community and religious organiza­ for Justice and Against Police Brutality in Washington, sectors of society to realize that this wasn't a "Black prob­ tions, unions and poHticians, the orderly march and two D.C. brought together several thousand people from many lem," but a human problem. By April 15, the march of rallies contrasted with the still-angry mood of the Black cities and small towns who have been organizing for years 10,000 across Brooklyn Bridge was rich in diversity of age, working people and youth who turned out in force. around these issues. "People start to reminisce about what gender, class and sexual orientation. That march was liv­ There was a strong representation of union members happened in their little towns years ago and do not forget ing proof to me of News & Letters' concept that throughout from the low-wage, mostly Black service and hospital their history—the struggle for civil rights. We are still in U.S. history Black masses have been at the forefront of unions. The crowd also included many whites, Latinos and the midst of it—a few doors have opened and many have social change. —John Marcotte Asians who have come to join the struggle against police shut," said a president of a South Jersey branch of the brutality through the Diallo movement. Many people car­ NAACP. ried signs with, the names of victims of police beatings and Speakers addressed the crowd for several hours. murders. One said, "Police brutality has been part of the fab- Black World The protesters were both furious at how deep and ricof this society since the formation of police to cap­ (Continued from page 1) wide are racism and brutality, and joyous about so ture runaway slaves." Jane Bye of the Committee many people coming together to fight back. Against Anti-Asian Violence pointed out that the Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area, April 24, in Many were critical of the demonstration's murder of Amadou Diallo in New York was "part of a support of Mumia and other political and death row call for "reconciliation" when nothing has long and violent history of police brutality prisoners. changed and of the ten-point program for against young Third World immigrants." A Black, white, Latino and Asian youth have seen some­ reforming the police unveiled there. speaker from the Lakota Nation, Rosebud thing in the Black dimension of "American civilization" The influence of politicians and union Reservation, brought "greetings from the that not only squares with their own rejection of this leaders could be seen in the mildness invisible people." degenerate society but represents a radical challenge to it, in thought and in action. of the demands and one of them Richard Perez of the National Congress being to raise cops' pay. That one was for Puerto Rican Rights called for a higher And yet, as we saw at the Philadelphia Mumia demon­ roundly booed by the crowd every level of unannounced civil disobedience at stration, local struggles in New York and Chicago were in time it was read out. One Police Plaza in New York, as did Al large part responsible for raising the struggle around Mumia to a new national level, especially when the Earlier protests had more militant Sharpton. Sharpton said, "You cant preach morality in Yugoslavia and ignore it in the media, at the behest of the powers-that-be, do everything themes. One called by Women for in their power to "disappear" the movement. Justice kicked off a campaign of picketing police stations. U.S. You can't send our boys to Yugoslavia, and we are Speakers said that in Black and Latino neighborhoods the afraid when they walk the street in Chicago." Pam Africa New York, more than anywhere else at the moment, is police arrest all the young people and leave the drug deal­ called on us to unite to save Mumia Abu-Jamal. the focal point of whether the movement will achieve a ers on the streets. One woman vowed to "dismantle and The most powerful experience to me was when new stage or succumb to old contradictions and reformist crush the police state that is forming in New York City." the family members of those murdered by police politics. With, not one but, two high-profile police brutali­ ty trials about to begin, that of the cops in the Louima tor­ The daily demonstrations at Police Plaza, which grew began to speak for several minutes each. The list went on and on—20, 30, you lost count! New York, ture and in the Diallo murder, New York is where Los enormous and multi-racial over three weeks in March, Angeles was seven years ago with the Rodney King trial. were abruptly ended by Rev. Al Sharpton. In all, 1,200 peo­ Kentucky, Chicago, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, ple were arrested, including, on the last two days, CUNY Pittsburgh—you felt this is truly a national epidem­ The difference is, however, that the New York trials professors, Chinese immigrants and Methodist ministers. ic! The details of each case were homfying. You were preceded by three months of mass protests and civil disobedience. The slightest perception that the ^justice" In his speech to the crowd the last day, Sharpton said, began to see a pattern of sheer unprovoked brutali­ ty, of state cover-ups. done in the New York trials comes anywhere near the "They said we'd never get the races to walk together—they racist outcome of the Rodney King trial, and Mayor not only walked, they went to jail together. We showed that We had an open mike discussion on the bus on the trip Rudolph Giuliani's New York will take LA to the next the city will arrest non-violent protesters, but not violent home. A Puerto Rican mother who had been struggling for stage. Although it took New York seven weeks to bring out police. We exposed the contradiction." In the same speech, justice for eight years immediately said she was angry at white support and become "fully" multicultural, in fact, it however, Sharpton truncated the dialectic he had begun to Sharpton for emphasizing the Diallo case so much, when was radically multicultural from the start. It disclosed the articulate, saying, "We don't care if you're a socialist or a so many others have been struggling for years. Marxist-Humanist concept of the Black diaspora's "trian­ capitalist, we have to protect ourselves before we can have Several African-American women spoke to this gular trade of revolutionary ideas" between Africa, the debates." thoughtfully, emphasizing that they were by no means Caribbean and Black America. The same week was the start of daily pickets at the apologists for Sharpton, but that he had called for reopen­ Brooklyn federal courthouse, where the cops who tortured ing all the cases. More importantly, one cannot predict These two crucial aspects of the present objective situ­ Abner Louima are about to go on trial. The abiding theme which is the case that will move masses to action; we had ation, namely, New York's continuity with the 1992 LA of all the demonstrations has been mass opposition to to see this as a process of all these cases building on each rebellion and the growing radicalization of its multicul­ Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attempts to "clean up the city" other. Diallo came after the Abner Louima case last year, tural character, are the context in which to assess the by sacrificing the poor and minorities. He is hoping to run with its mass march across Brooklyn Bridge, and that is movement and its Black political leadership. That means for higher office by appealing to racism. part of its context. not only Rev. Al Sharpton, but local and national leaders who provide him the cover of legitimacy. Did April 15 mark a new stage of the mass movement One African-American woman explained that in the or put a hd on it? Whereas Sharpton became the focus of Louima case the movement stopped, partly because the The stage is now set in New York to answer the ques­ tion posed in Los Angeles seven years ago, namely: Was the LA rebellion the end, the last echo, of a dialectic of his­ tory set in motion in the 1950s and '60s Civil Rights and Black/Red View Technology no answer Black Power movements or the beginning of a new dialec­ by John Alan al fund. Chevron also, according to a Chevron tical motion? spokesman, does business with companies in Richmond In the momentum of the present moment, this question Two related events happened over the last two and pumps annually another $25 million into the is less likely to be worked out by the Left, including the months in northern California. Jesse Jackson made sev­ Richmond economy. The record also shows that Chevron Black Left, than by the Black masses themselves. The eral highly publicized visits to Silicon Valley to pressure is a major contributor to candidates running for the Black Radical Congress (BRC), titular heir to the Black the corporate moguls of the high-tech industry to open Richmond City Council. left tradition, has ventured out on the high seas of inter­ the doors of their boardrooms, executive positions and This lacing together of politics and an oil economy is national politics and in the Black radical tradition has engineering departments to African Americans. the political economy of Richmond. The negative human even tried to connect the Kosova situation with the one at Jackson's efforts were another attempt to concretize results of that political economy are racism, poverty, home, only to obfuscate both. The National Council of the the concept that the problems of racism and poverty can health problems and environmental abuse. The only BRC adopted a lengthy draft statement of the be resolved in the world of high technology. This concept real potential forces capable of challenging Chevron's International Committee of the BRC on April 18 on the has been advocated for a long time by upper-class economic and political domination over Richmond are situation in the Balkans. African Americans as the class distance between them the African Americans and other minorities in the com­ The BRC statement is pitifully abstract in its rhetorical and the Black masses widens. Jackson dramatized this munity, the oil workers and the environmentalists. demand to dismantle NATO and hopelessly naive regard­ situation by announcing that the Rainbow Coalition had ing the UN (Lenin called its precursor a "thieves kitchen" bought stock in a high-tech corporation. POTENTIAL FORCES for Western imperialism), and international law. More A mere whisper about controlling commodity produc­ POWER TO POLLUTE contradictory is that the BRC analysis of Milosevic's fas­ tion by strict enforcement of clean air laws creates fear cist history of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosova is Less than a hundred miles north of Silicon Valley, in ki the minds of all politicians, including those who ver­ vitiated by its abstract demand to end NATO bombing Richmond, Cal., poor African Americans lived through a bally oppose Chevron's pollution. They say, yes, we don't without troubling itself about the 40,000 Serbian troops fearful experience with high-tech. On March 25 the want polluted air, but if Chevron leaves, as one eity that have carried out the genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Chevron oil refinery exploded. For hours acrid smoke council person put it, "There will be a massive lack of entire population of Kosovar Albanians. shifted with the winds over their houses and in the jobs and no tax support. The people would know what a The one fact of the changed world that the BRC state­ streets of their community. dead town is." ment does recognize is that "The struggle for democracy Hundreds of people went to hospitals suffering from The Chevron explosion came a few weeks after a Feb. in multiethnic and multiracial societies is a totally new nausea, irritated eyes, breathing difficulties and diar­ 23 explosion at the nearby Tosco refinery. Four workers terrain where the present leaders of the USA [and rhea. According to Chevron's managers, the nearby were killed. Now there is a new alliance between refin­ Europe] have no experience." Unfortunately, the BRC is Black community was not immediately warned of the ery workers and the community, trying to make the oil at sea when it comes to this new reality too. (The April 17 coming catastrophe because the computerized alarm companies criminally liable for the human suffering they fascist bombing in the Black Brixton neighborhood in system had failed. cause. The new organization, the Bay Area Labor London, and two subsequent bombings in an Asian neigh­ For years African Americans and environmentalists Community United for Health and Safety, demands not borhood and at a gay bar, still finds the Tony Blair gov­ have complained that Chevron's oil refinery is a threat only that Tosco officials be indicted for murder, but also ernment in a state of denial about the depth and extent of to the health and life of Black people living near it. that workers take over the health and safety functions in racism in Britain.) Neither Chevron nor the Richmond city government did - the refineries, even if that means controlling production. The revolutionary struggle for radical multiethnic much to alleviate that threat. Richmond's politicians We know that all the technology that Chevron uses in democracy is in no way separable from condemning geno­ have never been in any position to compel Chevron to the production of gasoline and chemicals has not solved cidal ethnic cleansing wherever it occurs and supporting clean up its act. They are well aware of the fact that the health and safety problems of either the workers or national self-determination, from East Timor and Chevron- is the dominant economic power in Richmond the community. Neither does high-tech change class and Palestine to Kurdistan and Kosova. That radical tradi­ and thus the de facto major political power. race relations or end poverty. Those conditions are nat­ tion, more than anything in today's changed world, con­ Chevron pours more than §15 million a year into ural to capitalist production and can only be changed tinues to disclose the Black dimension as the "touchstone Richmond's tax revenues, about 20% of the city's gener- through the social action of the masses. of American civilization." Page 6 NEWS & LETTERS MAY 1999 PART 4 DOCTRINE OF NOTION another time must be studied more careful* Editor's note ly, both on the question of the Judgment— where Hegel lists four major forms and a The following concludes our four-part Cilobal Crises." total of twelve for a sub-section—and the publication of Ra\a Dunayevskaya's All material in brackets as well as foot­ syllogism, where we have three major sec­ detailed commentary on Hegel's Science of notes have been supplied by the editors. tions, each containing four sub-sections. It is Logic. It was written in 1961 .md appears "SLT and -SLIP refer to the text of the not only because I am hurrying to get to the in print for the first time. Science of Logic translated by Johnston and sections which have not been dealt with in The Logic i> one of Hegel's most impor­ Struthers in two volumes (Macmillan, any great detail by Marxists, but because far tant works and was of great service to 1929);"SI.M"refers to the translation by A.V. our age this section on Subjectivity is not Marx, especially in the writing of Capital. It Miller (Humanities Press, IWD.-LCw" 38" the subjectivity which has absorbed all has taken on new importance in light of refers to Lenin's 1914-15 commentary on objectivity and which we will first read ilit f the need to comprehend the logic of con­ Hegel's I/ogic, he first such study done by the Absolute Idea. One phrase from the last temporary capitalism and the struggles a Marxist. paragraph in Hegel's section on th* against it.These notes serve as an anchor of liunayevskaya's text has been slightly Syllogism will, however, be of the Essence: a nationwide series of classes News and shortened, indicated by die use of ellipses. "The Syllogism is Mediation—the complete Letters Committees is holding on "The The original can be found in The liitya Notion in its Positedness" [SLII, p. 342; SLM, Dialectic ol Marx's Capital and Today's Dutiayevskaya Collection, 2806. p. 704].The key word is Mediation. It is of the Essence in all thought, as well as in all struggles. Indeed, it could be said that medi­ so that it affirmed as true what it pro­ ation is the conflict of forces. For example, nounced to be finite knowledge, and all of Essence could be summed up in the declared to be superfluous and improper fig­ word Mediation, or, if instead of Essence, Raya ments of thought that which it recognized you're thinking concretely of production in Dunayevskaya as truth, and of which it established the def­ Capital, then of course it is production rela­ inite notion" [SLII,..p. 226; SLM, p. 592]. tions. So that what U-P-I does in showing the Founder of It could also be said that Khrushchev's general movement in Logic, mediation is th)e Marxist-Humanism "peaceful coexistence" and Kant's indiffer­ concrete struggle and appears in all thr#e in the U.S. ent coexistence of Absolute and the books: in Being, it is Measure, which is, of Particular or Reason and Understanding course, the threshold of Essence; in Essence, coincide also in the fact that Kant does see a it is Actuality, or more specifically, Causality dialectical relationship between the two, which, as Reciprocity, brings us to the 1 unlike Leibniz, who saw only harmony aris­ Volume II : threshold of Notion; in Notion, it is Actiab, ing from it. Subjective Logic or the Practice, which supersedes Subjectivity of Doctrine of the Notion Purpose and thus achieves unity of Theory Section One: Appearance and Practice. With the Notion, we reach, at one and the same time, that which in philosophic terms Chapter I: Notion Section Two: Objectivity is oldest, most written about, and purely intellectualistic; and, from a Marxist point of The forms of the Notion are: Universal, • The three chapters in this section—I, view, least written about, most "feared" as Particular, Individual. These three forms of Mechanism; II, Chemism; HI, Teleology—ate idealistic, unreal, "pure" thought—in a word, Notion are the categories which express devastating analyses of Bukharin's Historicdl a closed ontology. development in this entire book, even as in Materialism over one hundred years before And yet it is the Doctrine of the Notion the Doctrine of Essence it was the cate­ it was ever written...2 that develops the categories of Freedom gories of Identity, Difference and For us, what is important is Lenin's pea- and, therefore, should mean the objective Contradiction; and in Being, it was Quantity, found understanding in 1914, as against the and subjective means whereby a new soci­ Quality and Measure, with this difference: period when be gave the green light to vulr ety is born. It is true that consciously for that the movement in the Doctrine of the gar materialism with his Materialism and Hegel this was done only in thought, while Notion from Universal to Particular to Empirio-Criticism, of the fact that the in life contradictions persisted. But what was Individual could characterize the movement mechanical, chemical and even teleologi- for Hegel consciously does not explain away of all three books of the Science of Logic, cal—that is to say, subjectively purposeful— the objective pull of the future on the pre­ thus, Being standing for Universal, Particular are no substitute for the self-developing sub­ sent, and the present as history (the French standing for Essence, and Individual standing ject. Lenin notes here that Hegel laid the Revolution for Hegel), and not just as the sta­ for Notion. basis for historical mate- tus quo of an existing state. Be that as it It is this first meet- ^•^•^ ™*"^^' rialism, quoting Hegel's [may], let's follow Hegel himself. ing with U-P-I that statement "In his tools Before we reach Section One, there is the makes Lenin say that it "It is not only man possesses power Introductory "On the Notion in General." We reminds him of Marx's over external nature, The Plan. Intellectual planning, or what will meet in Lenin constant references to first chapter in because I am hurry­ even although, accord­ Hegel would call "Self-Determiriation Marx's Capital from now on. Thus, in this Capital. Not only that; ing to his Ends, he fre­ ing to get to the sec­ applied externally," 3 is certainly no substi­ early section, Lenin notes that Hegel is he begins immediately quently is subjected. to tute for the self-developing subject, not even entirely right as against Kant on the question thereafter (that is, after tions which have not it. But the End does aot as idealistically expressed by Hegel in the of thought not separating from truth, but dealing with chapter only remain outside the Absolute Idea. going toward it, as it emerges from the n—Judgment—and in been dealt with in Mechanical process: it Concrete and moves to the Abstract: the Approach to chap­ any great detail by also preserves itself "Abstraction of matter, of natural law, of ter rn on Syllogism) to within it, and is its deter­ Section Three: The Idea value, etc., in a word, all scientific (correct, make the famous apho­ Marxists, but mination. The End, as serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect rism: (1) Relating to the Notion which exists Lenin notes that the introductory section nature more deeply, truer,fuller. From living the relationship because for our age as free against the to this is very nearly the best description of observation to abstract thinking, and from between Abstract and this section on object and its process the dialectic. It is in this section that we will this to practice—such is the dialectic road to Concrete: "Just as the and is self-determining go through chapter I on Life; chapter n on knowledge of truth, the knowledge of objec­ simple value form, the Subjectivity is not activity, equally is the the Idea of Cognition, which will not only tive reality. Kant degrades knowledge in individual act of the subjectivity which truth which is in and'for deal with Analytic and Synthetic Cognition, order to make place for belief; Hegel elevates exchange of a given itself of Mechanism. . ." but will take up the question of Practice, knowledge believing that knowledge is commodity with has absorbed all [SLII, p. 388; SLM, p. Volition, the Idea of the True and the Idea of knowledge of God. The materialist elevates another already 747]. the Good; and finally, chapter HI on the knowledge of matter, of nature, throwing includes in undevel­ objectivity and which Lenin further defends Absolute Idea. God and the philosophic rabble defending oped form all major we will first read in Hegel for his seeming It is the section in which Lenin will write, him into the dung heap" [LCW 38, p. 171]. contradictions of capi­ strain to "subsume" the although he will not develop it, that "man's The section to which Lenin refers in talism—so the simplest the Absolute Idea." purposeful activity of cognition not only reflects the world, but Hegel is "It will always remain a matter for generalization, the first man under the category creates it" [LCW 38, p. 212]. He Will also astonishment how the Kantian philosophy and simplest forming «^™^^"^^™™ ,—™^"™l^™,^—™ of logic because, as stress over and over and over again totality, knew that relation of thought to sensuous of notions (judgments, Lenin states it: "Theiie is Inter-dependence of Notions of all Notions, existence, where it halted, for a merely rela­ syllogisms, etc.) signifies the ever-greater here a very deep content, purely materialis­ Relationship,Tramitiotts, Unity of Opposites tive relation of bare appearance, and fully knowledge of the objective world connec­ tic. It is necessary to turn this around; the and various ways of defining dialectics from acknowledged and asserted a higher unity of tions. Here it is necessary to seek the real practical activity of man billions of times the single expression that it is the transfor­ the two in the Idea in general, and, particu­ sense, significance and role of Hegelian must bring the consciousness of man to* the mation of one into its opposite, to the more larly, in the idea of an intuitive understand­ logic" [LCW 38, pp. 178-79]. (2) Where he repetition of the various logical figures, in elaborate threefold definition of dialectic, as ing; but yet stopped dead at this relative rela­ rejects Plekhanov as a vulgar materialist, or order that these should achieve the signifi­ including Determination, Contradiction and Unity; and finally, the sixteen-point definition tion and at the assertion that the Notion is at least having criticized Kant only as a vul­ cance of an axiom" [LCW 38, p. 190]. of dialectic, which passes through and remains utterly separated from reality;— gar materialist. (3) Includes himself when he I believe that Hegel here is criticizing Objectivity, Development, Struggle and final­ says that all Marxists at the beginning of the what we will much later in history know as twentieth century had done so. (4) And ly Negation of the Negation. 1. Although the Doctrine of the Notion or Subjective Logic is, Hegel writes, "the third where he concludes that it is impossible to 2. Nikolai Bukharin, Historical Materialism: Lenin will also do a lot of "translations" of part of the whole" [SLII, p. 209; SLM, p. 575] understand Capital without understanding A System of Sociology (New 'fork: the word Idea, the word Absolute, which in it was originally published as volume two of the whole of Hegel's Logic. (The friends International Publishers, 1925). This work the Science of Logic in 1816. Parts One and should reread the whole chapter on Lenin in was attacked for its "positivistic Aristotelianism" by Antonio Gramsci. See Two, the Doctrine of Being and the Doctrine of Marxism and Freedom?) 3. Dunayevskaya has here apparently short­ Essence were first published four years earli­ Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks ened the phrase "self-determination is applied er in volume one, entitled "The Objective I have had to skip a great deal which at (New York: International Publishers, 1971), p. to them only externally" [SLII, p. 391; SLM, p. Logic." 437. 750]. MAY 1999 NEWS & LETTERS Page 7

some places he uses as no different than On that same page, he states, in very mate­ concept of Absolute, Absolute Substance, Objective, but in other places as the unity rialistic terms indeed, that the "Idea has its Hegel rejects, even as he rejects the Absolute of Objective and Subjective. It is obvious reality in some kind of matter." Hegel will Ego of Fichte and Schelling, and the Absolute This is the that Lenin is very greatly moved by the then take idea through Life through what he of the General Good Will of Kant. Note how fact that Practice occupies so very great a calls the Idea of the True and the Good as every single time, in no matter which section place in Hegel, but feels that, neverthe­ Cognition and Volition. of the Logic you take, [when] Hegel reaches last part of less, this practice is limited to the theory In the Idea of Cognition, Hegel will inform an absolute for that stage, he throws it aside of knowledge. I do not believe so. (See -my us that his Phenomenology of Mind is a sci­ to start out all over again. So that when he the series original letters on the Absolute Idea, May ence which stands between Nature and reaches the Notion, he is dealing with it as a 12 and 20,1953.)4 Mind, which in a way seems contradictory new beginning after .be rejected Absolute Let's retrace our steps back to the since it has served as the "introduction" to Substance, and that even his Notion has the "Rough Notes on beginning of this whole section on the his Logic, and he will further summarize it dialectic of further development; indeed Idea. Hegel argues against the expression when he comes to the Philosophy of Mind. Universal, Particular, Individual is the Hegel's Science "merely Ideas: now if thoughts are mere­ He will hit out a great deal sharper at absolute Mediation, or the development of ly subjective and contingent they certain­ Jacobi than at Kant, although he gives Jacobi the Logic. of Logic" ly have no further value. . . And if con­ credit for showing that the Kantian method If, for example, we stop in the Absolute versely the Idea is not to be rated as true of demonstration is "simply bound within Idea at the Expression: "the self-determina­ by Raya Dunayevskaya because, with respectto phenomena, it is the circle of the rigid necessity of the finite, tion in which alone the Idea is, is to hear transcendent, and no object can be and that freedom (that is, the Notion, and itself speak" [SLII, p. 467; SLM, p. 825], we can THE SERIES assigned to it, in the sensuous world, to whatever is true) lies beyond its sphere and see that the whole Logic (both logic and which it conforms, this is a strange lack of scope" [SLn, p. 458; SLM, p. 816]. Logic) is a logic of self-determination and January-February: understanding, for so the Idea is denied But he gets less and less interested in never more so than at the very point when Prefaces and Introduction objective validity because it lacks that other philosophers, the more he reaches the you have reached an Absolute—say, growing which constitutes appearance, or the question of Freedom, Liberation, Unity of internationalization of capital. You then go untrue being of the objective world" Theory and Practice: "In this result -then not to taking over, but breaking it down to March: "Being" [SLII, p. 396; SLM, p. 756]. Hegel gives Cognition is reconstructed and united with the new beginning in the self-determination Kant credit for having rejected this "vul­ the Practical Idea; the actuality which is of nations; or when the state had reached the April: "Essence" gar appeal" to experience, and recog­ found as given is at the same time deter­ high stage of centralization, you most cer­ nized the objective validity of thought— mined as the realized absolute end, —not tainly do not go to taking over, but rather to This issue: "Notion" only to never have thought and reality however (as in inquiring Cognition) merely the destruction of the state. s '— Hegel can reach these anticipations of the future because a very truly great step in Get the whole philosophic cognition is made only when a new way of reaching freedom has become series with a possible, as it had with the French Revolution. If at that point you do not cramp subscription to your thoughts, then you will first be amazed on how very close to reality—the reality of the present which includes the elements of NEWS the future—thought really is. To me, that is why Hegel makes so much & LETTERS HEGEL'S of the method. It is not because that is all we get from Hegel—method—but because the $5 for one year end and the means are absolutely insepara­ ble. Thus, on p. 468, Hegel writes: "The (10 issues! method therefore is both soul and sub­ To order, see page 9. stance, and nothing is either conceived or known in its truth except in so far as it is completely subject to the method; it is the How to contact SCIENCE peculiar method of each individual fact as objective world without the subjec­ because its activity is the Notion." It isn't NEWS & LETTERS tivity of the Notion, but as objective true, for example, as Lenin stated, that Hegel COMMITTEES world whose inner ground and actual ended this chapter at the point [SIH, p. 485; persistence is the Notion. This is the SLM, p. 843] where Notion and reality unite 59 E. Van Buren, Room 707 • Chicago, IL 60605 Absolute Idea' [SLII, p. 465; SLM, p. as Nature, which Lenin translated to mean as Phone 312 663 0839 823]. Practice. In this final paragraph, Hegel pro­ Fax 312 663 9069 OF This is because, in ceeds on to show the link back from Nature MEETINGS reaching this final to Mind, and of course we know that those Call fof information chapter, the Absolute two transitions were in themselves two full -.. DETROIT ; • Idea, he is through books.5 P.O. Box 27205 • Detroit Ml 48227 with all which we Or as Hegel puts it: "The transition here MEETINGS would politically therefore must rather be taken to mean that Tuesdays, 6 p.m. describe as "taking the Idea freely releases itself in absolute self- Central Methodist Church Woodward and Adams LOGIC over"; that is to say, security and self-repose. By reason.of this meet. Hegel breaks down the capitalism will develop all technology so freedom the form of its determinateness also Determinations of Idea as, first, Universal; perfectly for us that all the proletariat will is utterly free—the externality of space and P.O. Box 29194 • Los Angeles, CA 90029 MEETINGS second, a relationship of Subjectivity to have to do will be to "take over."As we reject time which is absolutely for itself and with­ Sundays, 5-.30 p.m. Objectivity, which is an impulse to transcend this concept politically, Hegel rejects it philo­ out subjectivity" [SLTI, p. 486; SLM, p. 843]. Echo Park United Methodist Church the separation; and finally, the self-identity of sophically. He has now so absorbed all the Marcuse thinks that it is this statement . 1226N. Alvarado Identity and Process so that "in the Idea the other systems that, far from taking over, he is about the Idea releasing itself freely as (North of Sunset, side door) Notion reaches Freedom..." [SLII, p. 399; SLM, first going back to aTOTALLY NEW BEGIN­ Nature, "this statement of putting the transi­ I' \S.~:;. -. wamjMfciy.. „ JUKI" -'*• v'''* p. 759]. NING. tion forward as an actual process in reality P.O. Box 3384, Flint, MI 48502 Here is what I mean: Take a philosopher that offers great difficulty in the understand­ 4. These letters are included in The like Spinoza. Despite his profound dialectical ing of Hegel's system."^ But he himself does­ NEW YORK Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism understanding that "every determination is a n't attempt to overcome these difficulties. P.O. Box 196 • Grand Central Station New York, NY 10163 (Chicago: News and Letters, 1989). negation," he went to God taking over. This On the contrary, he disregards them, accept­ 212 663 3631 ing the idea that it is a closed ontology and MEETINGS the best we can do is take this method and Most Sundays, 6:30 p.m. use it as a critical theory. (Call for information) One thing is clear to me, that when Hegel Washington Square Church wrote that the "transcendence of the opposi­ 133 W. 4th St. (Parish House tion between Notion and Reality, and that parlor), Manhattan unity which is the truth, rests upon this sub­ '- -',J,J ^S'^fVtTlllfWIF: - -' 7 -\i jectivity alone* [SLII, p. 477; SLM, p. 835], the P"O. Box 3345- Oakland, CA 94609 /*" subjectivity was certainly not to be that of 510 658 1448 •. «G the philosopher, despite all of Hegel's hopes MEETINGS 'fmt that it would be, but that of a new, lower, Sundays, 6:30 p.m. deeper layer of "world spirit," or, to be specif­ 2015 Center St. (at Milvia) Berkeley ic, the proletariat and those freedom-fighters MEMPHIS & in backward Africa, who just will freedom so MISSISSIPPI jiii/ii UiUiiiyyy^nyii mi ilia dliiJaU£JU,.» much that they make it come true. For what 1910 Madison Ave, #59 • Memphis, TN 38104 happens after [the revolution],however, that niiu-r The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism truth must arise not only from the movement INTERNATIONAL .mil Philosophy and Revolution from Practice, but also that from Theory..The MARXIST-HUMANISTS .mci Hegel's Absolute as New Beginning negation of the negation will not be a gener­ ality, not even the generality of a new society BCM Box 3514, London, England WC1N 3XX $18.50 value for only $15 for the old, but the specific of self-liberation, OrdVi mm IMUII \m \ A. I tiirr\, . 5. Hegel's Philosophy of Nature and WORLD WIDE WEB \Vn i tt /.i lit i \ • S«* ]-„ \an Biiieii. Km>m 7()7 • ('hu..u;ii. II. h()M)S Philosophy of Mind. 6. Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, p. 166. www.newsandletters.org Page 8 NEWS & LETTERS MAY 1999 FIGHTING RACISM AND ETHNIC CLEANSING IN KOSOVA AND AT HOME Readers' Views As a Southeast Asian immigrant, I him but that is not the same thing. If any have experienced my own form of ethnic- ruler in the region is a client of the U.S., and industrial strength." So much for the READING MARX cleansing, as our family was forced to it would be Franjo Tudjman, I think self-determination of the Kosovars, There were two organizational tasks leave my birth country under General Ne Richard Bunting whose genocide is never even mentioned. Marx put forth in his letter to Meyer and Win, when Burma was under the throes Oxford Rather WSFP denies the deaths, rapes Vogt, which was discussed in the of a racist paranoia, narrow nationalism * * * and scorched earth policy of Milosevic, "Workshop Talks" column in the April and xenophobia. During the hysteria of claiming that the reports of atrocities are issue. The first reads: "Hence, the task of I doubt any war is for humanitarian only to "mask the interest of multi­ the late '60s we were called "foreigners" reasons, whether for Kosovo, Iraq, the 'International' is everywhere to put the even though we were born there and national corporations in Kosovo's rich conflict between England and Ireland in WWII. They are for the security (the natural resources." They don't call for an spoke nothing but Burmese. That is why national security label) of multinational the foreground and everywhere to side the Kosovars have my unwavering sup­ end to the murder of the Kosovars but openly with Ireland." Omitting this first corporations that gain slave labor or only for opposition to NATO. port and solidarity in their struggle for cheap resources. Bernice Russell task denudes the letter of its full organi­ self-determination. Illinois Women's Liberationist zational content. So does referring to "two It is depressing to see the reactions of * * * * * * Memphis American Friends" instead of specifying the so-called socialists here in the U.S., I consider the following to be a realis­ Being a Central European, I am very the organizational relationship of Meyer whose vanguardism does not allow them tic view of the two dimensions of NATO cynical. I think the scenario between the and Vogt to Marx. Importantly it was not to see beyond'their narrow opposition intervention in Kosovo: The first is the West and Yeltsin, with his red face, fist alone to "awaken the consciousness of the only to US/NATO. Do they think racism human one of trying to interrupt the vio­ and threats, is pre-fixed. But it is a vefy English worker" but to organizationally is an exclusive property of the right- lence of Serbian soldiers to the civilian dangerous game. He may not control the and concretely side with the deeper revo­ wing? I saw one leaflet passed out at a population. The economic-political one Communists and Nationalists in Russia, lutionary subject. Philosophy giving action demonstration here by a Serb nationalist may not be so unequivocal. The interven­ I don't think NATO will protect the its direction is thus lost. Observer which compared the Kosovar Albanians tion is a contribution to the evaluation of Czech Republic at any time. A deadly Prague with "hordes of Mexicans coming to the military ability of NATO forces and game is being played and Central Europe Southern California...and then declaring the efficiency of the technology in an is once more in the middle. Our former independence and expecting NATO to other than desert environment. Should Prime Minister Klaus is pro-Yugoslavia. bomb Southern California for their they succeed in removing Milosevic they Members of political parties who would cause." To see the vanguard-Left march­ will start aiding the post-war reconstruc­ never work on issues with Communists JOHN ing alongside those circulating this kind tion of the country. Magnanimous loans and right-wing Nationalists in BROWN'S of racist trash reveals to me the putrid will be provided, of course. In the final Parliament now march side by side with racist underbelly of such a "Left." phase Western military equipment will pro-Milosevic supporters in Ostrava. At LEGACY Asian-American be sold to a friendly Serbia. On the the Congress of the government parjty California whole, a good strategy to gain new out­ that signed the Czech Republic injto lets for Western services and goods. NATO, 50% of the delegates signed! a Your readers might want to know that In a very real sense, Milosevic is the Observer petition condemning NATO attacks and we are celebrating John Brown's 199th product of the massacres and forced Czech Republic sent it to the Yugoslav embassy here. birthday on May 9 at his gravesite near expulsions carried out by Ante Pavelic's * * * Sadly, it is the Kosovars who are dying. North Elba, in upstate New York, in the Independent State of Croatia against I see all the refugees from Kosova on Student Adirondack Mountains, which he often Serbs, Jews and Roma during World War the Spanish news station. What I see Central Europe said had been placed there to serve the II. The Serbs' image of themselves as makes me cry. Now Serbia has closed its emancipation of the American slave. * * * Nominally white, John Brown represents perpetual underdogs, fighting for nation­ border with Albania. What are all those The April Lead, "NATO bombing |of al survival, is a deadly false conscious­ refugees going to do? Does the U.S. real­ the abolitionist cause, making war Serbia allows Milosevic to intensify geno­ against slavery. Those who think it saner ness today, but it is nurtured by genuine ly care about them? They are like the cide in Kosova," scores many relevant memories of terrible oppression. Indians in Mexic6. I know about their to collaborate with evil than to resist it political points, but also philosophical have labeled him a madman, but it was Milosevic is a "mirror image" of Pavelic. situation because my father is from ones. It asks us to reconsider what yie There is also the question of how far Chiapas. The U.S. is friends with the not for his madness that he was hanged. know of the very concept of "politicaliifa- It was for obeying the biblical injunction the legacy of Tito is responsible for the government of Mexico which is trying to tion" as Marx practiced it. There's a rea­ present horrors. I think Tito would be get the Indian guerrillas out of the to remember those that are in bonds as son to challenge the Left to consider the­ bound with them. Anyone who wants to horrified by the resurgence of narrow Lacondon jungle to crush the revolt ory in the midst of a war in so direct a nationalism. What Milosevic did inherit there. Unfortunately Marcos hasn't been honor his memory is welcome to join us. way. It's because the Left has never New Abolition Society from Tito was the apparatus of dictator­ able to bring about change, but the U.S. before displayed such a total ignorance! of ship, in particular control over the friendship with the ruling PRI hasn't PO Box 400603 what a liberation struggle is all about If Cambridge, MA 02140-0007 media. Milosevic rose to power through helped. Mexican woman we remember that a key element in the League of Communists so in part he Chicago Milosevic's effort to "ethnically cleanse" is a product of state-capitalism calling * * * Bosnia was the capitulation of important itself Communism in its period of domi­ Women Strike for Peace published a Yugoslav Leftists such as the one-tiine EUROPEAN LABOR MARCH nance as well as its collapse. I don't con­ disgusting statement expressing their socialist humanist Markovic, we will see sider Milosevic can be accurately outrage that anyone should ask for that these transgressions bode very poor­ Big demonstrations are planned by dif­ described as a product of Western pow­ "removing from Yugoslavia's jurisdiction ly for our future here as well. ferent European initiatives for an anti- ers, such as the USA or Britain. They the seat of Serbia's cultural, religious Mitch summit in Cologne close to the time of the have indeed tried to strike deals with and national roots and of its economic California June 3-4 summit there of heads of the European Union which will be followed on June 19 by a summit of the heads of G8. them what they were— a hate group wjho. Within a short period of time, the heads of I got involved in support for Mumia wore swastikas on their clothes a)id the most important economic, financial MARCHING because he is a political prisoner. I whose creed includes white supremacy and political powers will meet. The appeal learned about his situation through the doctrines. It's no little thing that Eric for an anti-summit Conference points out FOR struggle for freedom by another political Harris and Dyland Klebold chose to exe­ that those summits will be bringing MUMIA prisoner, Leonard Peltier. My mother was cute 13 people on Hitler's birthday. Yes, together "representatives of a world involved in the movement to free Peltier, there was something terribly wrong with where a great part of the population is as well as solidarity with Nelson those two teens but hate was what held struck by unemployment and misery, Mandela when he was in prison for so that group together. If they had been while wealth increases and destruction of We hear daily criticisms of Serbian dic­ many years. She taught me why it's Black kids in a Chicago school the media the environment continues." tator Milosevic's control of the media, by important to be behind the liberation would not be treating them so sympa­ The demands are becoming European which he is able to keep the truth from movements these people represent. thetically. They would be called gang- in scale which is why they appeal for a the Serbian people. But what is one to Native American woman bangers. That's what the Trench Coat common march with four main demands: say about the supposedly "free" media in Philadelphia Mafia was. 1) a guaranteed individual income; 2) the U.S., when all during the day of the Angry massive creation of new jobs as well as a Saturday march in Philadelphia, not a Chicago reduced working time; 3) improvement of word was said, not a picture flashed on AMADOU DIALLO * * * social rights in Europe without racism TV, of the thousands marching in support In the wake of the Colorado schjool and solidarity with peoples of the South of Mumia Abu-Jamal? Even the next day, I've been to many of the Diallo demon­ strations. I like that so many white and shootings, an "expert" from a local men­ and East; 4) a debate on the need for an the Sunday New York Times, supposedly tal health facility (where teens are often economic model which does not depend a bastion of the free press, did not carry a Jewish groups have joined the protests. The initial response was terrible, but imprisoned for being gay, rebellious, etc.) on the market and competition. single article on the march. We apparent­ appeared on TV to discuss intervening There were 50,000 marchers in ly don't need dictators in the government, that has changed. America is waking up to the need for social movements. In my with youth who become violent. One of Amsterdam in June 1997, mostly against we have enough of them in the editorial the two "danger signs" the TV anchor the Maastricht treaty. Even more are newsrooms. Disgusted own lifetime, every movement to make things better has been initiated by unctuously warned about was "counter- expected for this year's Euromarches in Detroit Blacks. Don cultural behavior." Next they'll be reqijiir- May and June. Stephen # # ~* ing lobotomies for kids so they can be as New York Prague Our March for Mumia started at the * * * blissfully soulless and obtuse as TV news main train station and ended at the anchors. Still rebellious American embassy. Most of the 300 Many see Diallo's murder as a catalyst for bringing out the atrocities perpetrat­ Memphis attending were young people and mem­ * * * EDUCATING FOR CAPITALISM bers of the solidarity group here. One sol­ ed against Blacks and Latinos. Demonstrations against police racism While watching CNN and other TV Governor Engler's legislation ram-rod- idarity member was confronted while stations the weekend after the massaicre ded through his Republican-controlled hanging posters by the police who told and brutality are now taking place in New Jersey over the police murder of a at Columbine High School, I was struck state legislature to take the school sys­ him that nothing could stop the "grilling" by the horribly grotesque juxtaposition- tem away from the elected Board of of Mumia. The racism of the police in Black man in Orange and over the con­ stant harassing of Black and Latino ing of the reports on the funeral of a Stu­ Education is being fiercely challenged by Oslo reflects the same attitude as in the dent killed in Colorado and the pictures a majority of Detroiters. Engler is not U.S. By the time we reached the embassy motorists by the state police due to "racial profiling." Protester of NATO bombing attacks in Belgrade interested in the students. He's interest­ riot police had blocked the road and ed in the corporations that need better New York and Kosova. One minute you heard Stu­ secret agents were all over taking our pic­ dents and pastors in a church pleading educated workers for their technological­ tures. It was said that similar demon­ for an end to alienation and violence &md ly advancing production lines that are strations were held in Germany, the next you saw the bombs' destroying costing companies millions in training Stockholm and other parts of Europe. COLUMBINE MASSACRE the countryside and the indescribable programs. Engler is simply transferring Mumia's case is well known in Norway I agree with Mary Mitchell's column in fear and terror mirrored in the facek of the costs to the public school system paid and some parliamentarians have shown the Chicago Sun-Times that we have to fleeing Kosovar refugees. HypotiHsy for by the taxes of the people in Detroit. solidarity with our work. Participant stop calling the Trench Coat Mafia an knows no bounds. Retiree Educator .,,, Norway antisocial "clique" of outcasts and call Michigan ,, Detroit MAY 1999 NEWS & LETTERS Page 9

Tennessee wants to commit murder in Flowers School. This Palestinian school schools! Politicians and syndicalists com­ our name. Steve Earle has been courageous in advocating recon­ promised with the present "Leftist" gov­ OUR Fairview, Tennessee ciliation with Israel. It would be unfor­ ernment, exploiting and misappropriat­ CRIMINAL * * * givable for the Israeli authorities to defy ing the meeting; they marched against INJUSTICE Thank you for your intense newspaper. Palestinian peace overtures by harming themselves. The strike was a victory for SYSTEM I especially appreciate keeping up on the their work. We are demanding that Israel the alternative workers' organizations labor front but all the issues you address approve the request of the school for re- and self-organized schoolworkers unions. really relate to those of us in these U.S. zoning their property from green area to At the head of the procession were many While Native Americans in prisons are prisons. It has come to my attention that public use. We know that Israel issued Kurdish people with their prohibited battling for access to sacred religious arti­ many of the conditions prevalent in our virtually no permits for Palestinians to flags, asking for freedom for Ocalan. The cles, officials at the State Correctional U.S. prisons don't exist in other coun­ construct in the Occupied Territories and Italian demonstrators wanted to pay their Institute at Smithsfield, Pa., were giving tries, where men are paid an honest wage that zoning laws are applied in a blatant­ debt to the Kurdish people for allowing one of America's highest tributes to a even in prison-connected labor. That says ly discriminatory way, always to D'Alema's "Leftist" government to throw pigeon when they flew the flag at half a lot about the U.S.V Prisoner Palestinian homes and never to Israeli him out of Italy. mast after the staffs pet pigeon was Kansas settlers who moved to the territories. Correspondent killed by a skunk. As a Native American, Peace activist Italy I believe all living things are sacred and # Voices from Within the Prison Walls by Israel should be afforded high respect, although D.A.Sheldon is right on track with what half mast seems a little much. But it * * *, ENVIRONMENTAL the prison system is — a conglomerate to seems ironic that a pigeon is afforded a CANADA make money, to keep a cheap labor force INJUSTICE SYSTEM higher place in Euro-American ideology I have watched with dismay the deteri­ for state and federal use. We build The Agency for Toxic Substances and than American Indians who are treated oration in every sector, economic, politi­ portable houses under the guise that it Disease Registry and Tennessee state like a disease, with our ceremonies called cal, cultural in Canada over the years. will help the elderly and low-income peo­ legislators met with Black residents of barbaric and little more than "heathen This trend accelerated since the signing of ple. B.S. They are built for making the Defense Depot at the end of March, worship." This kind of incident just rein­ the Free Trade Agreement, tnen NAFTA, money. There are work crews that wire where community people voiced their forces our belief that we are mostly alone and now we are living under the schools, libraries, etc. with computer net­ concerns about the many health prob­ in our struggle to obtain spiritual cultur­ Damocles Sword of the MAI (Multilateral works, and crews that work on roofs on lems of people in Black communities cre­ al rights, even in prison. Prisoner Agreement on Investment). In its drive state buildings. All for 25 cents an hour. ated by exposures to hazardous waste Huntington, PA. for globalizing its interests and acquiring All these so-called work programs take releases here. I took the meeting on a the cheapest labor markets, the U.S. is jobs away from the private work sector. tour of the area which focused on path­ projecting a more and more belligerent There is a popular misconception that, That leads to more crime for out of work ways of toxic contamination of the attitude worldwide, acting as the only except for the men on Death Row, all pris­ people to pay their bills. We have people Defense Depot entering Black communi­ Superpower in the world whose corpora­ oners are guilty of the crimes for which locked up for writing a bad check for five ties and posing imminent danger to tions and military forces can dictate to the they were convicted. The truth is that dollars or breaking a window. human health and the environment, whole world. Can we still speak of democ­ there are nearly as many people innocent including a river of contamination from The conditions we are in all across this racy in Canada or the U.S.? I don't think of the crimes for which they were con­ the Defense Depot running straight country make me think of "One Flew so, in view of the fact that economic and victed as there are guilty. Even among through Hamilton High School. The sight Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Yes, we need a even political decisions are not made any­ those, a far higher percentage were con­ was a shock even to Dr. Johnson of the revolution because this system has gone more by the elected representatives of the victed by illegal and unconstitutional ATSDR. After the tour the Health too far. I wish we could get 25 or 50 mil­ people but in secret back-room negotia­ practices than by proof of guilt. Until peo­ Assessment of the ATSDR was ruthlessly lion people to read Voices and act on it. tions, between various corporate power ple in the "free world" begin to under­ attacked for protecting rich white corpo­ Prisoner brokers. Not long ago, we had a more or stand and acknowledge this they will rations and the military instead of poor South Dakota less free press in Canada and in most of never be able to overcome their brain­ and people-of-color communities. washing but will continue to believe we * * * the Western democracies. Now practically are getting what we deserve and the sys­ Voices is very impressive, covering so 80% of our daily newspapers are in the Doris Bradshaw tem is protecting them. They need to many prison issues and pulling them hands of one individual, one company, Memphis know that the people running the "crimi­ together as a whole. What is especially which pursues hot national, but corporate • nal justice system" are more criminal important is that it is so positive through­ goals. Concerned citizen out, despite the subject matter. I will try to NIGERIA than those they are holding in prison. British Columbia The mere fact of their innocence is no help its distribution in Britain. I want to compliment the author of indication that they will not soon be Activist your Lead on Africa, especially West inside with us. Prisoner England ITALY Africa, in the March N&L ("Nigerian Editor's Note: See below for how to elections reflect new upheavals on Huntsville, Texas order this important work. Both TV and newspapers censored any African continent" by Ba Karang), having * * * announcement of the National School known many Nigerians, personally. The The state of Tennessee wants to be workers strike against government article showed clearly the tremendous Texas. Prosecutors and prison officials INTERNATIONAL SCENE financing of private schools but nearly difficulties facing the general population here, where there hasn't been an execu­ 30,000 came out to march against the law of the whole region. There is no doubt tion in 39 years, traveled to Texas to see ISRAEL that gives money to clerical nursery that the oil companies are behind the how they could execute so many on Death The brutality of the demolition of schools in the Emilia-Romagna region. white manipulation. Row like on an assembly line. We have Palestinian homes reached a new height This bulwark of Italian Communists was D. Tyler 102 on Death Row here. The state of with the planned destruction of the Hope the first region to finance non-state Louisiana SELECTED PUBLICATIONS FROM NEWS & LETTERS BOOKS ces from within the Prison Walls • Marxist-Humanist Literature Catalog by D. A. Sheldon. Prisoners' views of (in)jusiicc system and A full list of publications (includes many not listed here) By RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA organizing from within $8 available from News and Letters Committees....55« postage • Marxism and Freedom: From 1776 until Today For pamphlet plus donor copy lov a prisoner $16 1988 edition. New author's introduction $17.50 ARCHIVES • Harry McShane and the Scottish Roots of Marxist- • Philosophy and Revolution: from Hegel to Sartre and Humanism by Peter Hudis $3 • Guides to Collection and Supplement to the Raya from Marx to Mao Dunayevskaya Collection: Marxist-Humanism: A Half 1989 edition. New author's introduction $14.95 D Bosnia-Herzegovina: Achilles Heel of Western Century of Its World Development 'Civilization' (Expanded edition) $5 Full description of 15,000-page microfilm collection...$4.50 • Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution • Marx Capital and Today's Global Crisis • The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection-Marxist-Humanism: 1991 edition. New author's introduction. Foreword by Includes critiques of Ernest Mandel and Tony Cliff $2 A Half Century of Its World Development AdrienneRich $12.95 A 15,000-page microfilm collection on 8 reels available from • The Coal Miners' General Strike of 1949-50 and the Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202 $165 • Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution: Birth of Marxist-Humanism In the U.S. Reaching for the Future (1996 edition) $15.95 by Andy Phillips and Raya Dunayevskaya $2 NEWSPAPER • The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism: • 25 Years of Marxist-Humanism In the U.S.: A History Selected Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya $8.50 • News & Letters subscription of Worldwide Revolutionary Developments Unique combination of worker and intellectual published • The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism: Two by Raya Dunayevskaya $1.50 10 times a year. (Request information about gift subscriptions) Historic-Philosophic Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya $5/year Contains "Presentation on Dialectics of Organization and • Myriad Global Crises of the 1980s and the Nuclear Philosophy of June 1, 1987," and 1953 "Letters on Hegel's World Since World War II • Bound Volumes of News & Letters Absolutes." $3 paperback, $10 hardcover by Raya Dunayevskaya $2 1970-77,1977-84,1984-87,1987-94 $25 each N&L is also available on microfilm from University Microfilms By CHARLES DENBY • Theory and Practice, by Rosa Luxemburg International, 300 Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, Ml 48106. N&L as well First English translation $2 • Indignant Heart. A Black Worker's Journal as other Marxist-Humanist literature is available on audio tape. 1989 edition includes Afterword by Raya Dunayevskaya • Nationalism, Communism, Marxist-Humanism and the Mail orders to: $14.95 Afro-Asian Revolutions News & Letters, 59 East Van Buren St., Room 707, Chicago, IL by Raya Dunayevskaya $1.25 By KEVIN ANDERSON 60605, Phone (312) 663-0839 • Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study • Frantz Fanon, Soweto, and American Black Thought Enclosed find $_ _for the literature checked. Please First full-length treatment of Lenin's studies of Hegel.$15.95 by Lou Turner and John Alan $3 add $1 for each item for postage. Illinois residents add 7% sales PAMPHLETS • Working Women for Freedom tax. by Angela Terrano, Marie Dignan, and Mary Holmes $2 • American Civilization on Trial, Black Masses as Vanguard Name Statement of the National Editorial Board. Includes "A 1980s • Dos ensayos por Raya Dunayevskaya $2 View of the Two-Way Road Between the U.S. and Africa" by Address Raya Dunayevskaya, and "Black Caucuses in the Unions" by • News and Letters Committees Constitution Charles Denby $2 33« postage City State_ Zip_ Page 10 NEWS & LETTERS MAY 1999 New labor revolts greet automation's 50th exploitative year (Continued from page 1) vision of putting an end to the division between especially outsourcing—another word for runaway the deep South, where in the early 1990s Black mental and manual labor itself, the hallmark of shops—tops the agenda, with forced overtime also high on women workers at the Delta Pride catfish opera­ capitalist production which Karl Marx described the workers' priority list. tions in Mississippi vowed to end plantation condi­ over a hundred years ago. The main focus is on GM, which has divested itself of its tions and carry union organization to other work­ A Marxist theoretician, Raya Dunayevskaya, who Delphi parts unit under contract with the UAW. By get­ ers in the region—and to complete what the Civil stayed with a mining family during the strike, caught the ting rid of its parts plants, GM hopes to cut worker wages Rights Movement left unfinished. significance of what the miners had brought onto the his­ and benefits from $20-25 per hour with good benefits to In fact, unresolved conflicts have continued to this toric stage, seeing the todayness of Marx's philosophy in $10-15 per hour that non-union suppliers pay without moment, the most formidable being a question posed 50 their actions. She posited their practice as a form of theo­ benefits. Ford and DaimlerChrysler long ago got rid of years ago: What kind of labor should a human being do? ry itself. Connecting Marx's philosophy with today's labor most of their parts plants. consciousness called for a new philosophy, Marxist- More ominous however is the concept and prac­ NEW STAGES OF PRODUCTION, REVOLT tice of modular production, wherein That question was raised in the heat of suppliers produce parts and deliver an historical general strike. The strike Read the story of how labor's first fight against automation turned assembled units to be installed on the erupted against the effects of automation into a declaration of independence which continues today for U.S. production line. Some have already where it was first introduced into the labor workers as well as for radical thought. started to do this, and the logic of this process, the coal fields of West Virginia and development is seen in a Volkswagen Kentucky. The weight of new laws against plant in Resende, Brazil, where parts labor organization and of company violence • Automation's introduction into industrial production producers and line production work and even of out-of-step union leaders could • Coal miner strikes against inhuman conditions and the labor bureaucracy side by side, but in separate demarcat­ ed areas. not suppress, and indeed inspired, such • Coal miner thoughts challenging the nature of work in capitalism questioning. • The battle of ideas and new foundations for restating Marxism in our age The modules include whole wheels, full A frightened Congress passed the Taft- axle components, a combined transmission Hartley slave labor act in 1947 to cripple and suspension unit and a cabin, chassis labor power in the wake of the near general Hie 1949-50 Coal Miners' General Strike and and engine unit. The modules, delivered to strikes that swept the nation in major The Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S. the production line, are quickly installed by industries. In both 1947 and '48 when the a drastically reduced line force. It's not hard miners went on strike President Truman to picture production quotas set by union invoked Taft-Hartley against them, declar­ "A Missing Page from American Labor History" by Andy Phillips workers competing against non-union workers toiling under one roof. ing a national emergency that resulted in "The Emergence of a New Movement from Practice that Is Itself a Form of Theory" by Raya Dunayevskaya throwing Mineworkers union President Right now, Ford and GM are both con­ John L. Lewis into prison and fining the union millions of Humanism, which was to become the basis for a new type structing similar modular plants designed to produce low- dollars for breaking the law. of revolutionary organization, News and Letters cost cars next year. GM was negotiating with three UAW In 1949 Lewis changed his tactics, ordering a three-day Committees. locals for modular agreements, including the Spring Hill, workweek and selective regional strikes to deplete coal Tenn. Saturn plant, but the UAW stopped this to deal with reserves and avoid Taft-Hartley, since no national emer­ CONTRADICTIONS WONT GO AWAY the explosive issue in the national contract. They are look­ gency could be declared. After six months of reduced work The ramifications of automation and the contradictions ing over their shoulders at a recent revolt in the Spring weeks, in-again out-again work periods and on-again off- of capitalist society have only grown. The miners' fears of Hill UAW local which tossed out the local's founding lead­ again contract talks, miners in northern West Virginia automation came true, with employment in coal slashed ership and with it, a separate, productivity-based union refused Lewis' order to return to work in January of 1950. from 500,000 in the mid-'50s to less than 100,000 today, contract. After a series of mass rank-and-file meetings, a with the same effects in other industries as automation As Karl Marx emphasized over and over again, capital rank-and-file organization created by the miners swept through them. has but one function, and that is to reproduce itself, through which they reached decisions and carried Labor productivity has increased under the whip regardless of the consequences. That has not changed in a them out themselves took control of the strike away of technology, layoffs and unpaid labor time done hundred years, nor in 50. Marx first spelled out this from Lewis. by more and more workers and consumers. process. Coal miners experienced it anew when automa­ In the following month-and-a-half, against the opposi­ Technology has succeeded in transferring labor tion was born, and Marxist-Humanism restated the prob­ tion of Lewis and the union bureaucracy, the press, courts, time from workers to consumers, nowhere more lem for this age. Once the socially necessary labor time police, coal operators and President Truman, the miners frustratingly clear than in voice mail. It is nearly required to produce a product is established, every pro­ accomplished the following: They established committees impossible to talk to a human being at a company ducer must meet it—or revolt. to spread the strike nationally, closing all union and non­ or city office. Callers are routed through a maze of union mines; enlisted students who sent letters to nation­ time-consuming push-button directions—all at the al labor organizations to solicit aid; set up a Miners Relief consumers' time and with the loss of jobs. Retrogression at heart Committee and sent striking miners to speak to local Other unpaid time runs from factories where workers unions in the East and Midwest, forging links of solidari­ do set up and clean up on their own time, to office work­ ty with steel, rubber, and auto workers, resulting in finan­ ers who start an hour early and take work home in what of school massacre cial aid as well as truckloads of food and clothing; estab­ is becoming a 12-hour workday, but are paid for eight Evergreen, Colo. — I live in Jefferson County where lished and operated food and clothing distribution centers; hours. These unpaid hours amount to billions in extra the Columbine High School massacre occurred. My daugh­ discovered a way to protect Lewis, the union and miners profits—and affect productivity measurements. ter attended Chatfield High School in the adjacent school from the Taft-Hartley act (since a law could not be passed Every worker knows that employers implement new district to the south where the Columbine students will against an individual, each miner took it upon himself to technology to lower labor costs, driving down wages and finish this school year. South Jefferson County is an upper stay out);and forced the operators to negotiate a contract. throwing people out of work. While national unemploy­ middle class community containing a lake, bicycle paths The March 3 contract won wage and benefit improve­ ment is at a low 4.2%, not included in the data are those and a view of the Rocky Mountains to the immediate west. ments, but not what the miners wanted. They knew who have dropped out of the job market, who have two or My first thoughts upon seeing the initial news coverage automation, in the form of a truck-size instrument called more jobs, or are in the military or in prison. And in inner of this tragedy were of the Oklahoma City bombing. Eric "the continuous miner," would further dehumanize work­ cities, unemployment often exceeds 50%. Harris and Dylan Heboid, who planned this attack on ing conditions, reduce the work force, and hurt and maim Cheapened imports from Asia, Latin America and Hitler's birthday, were intrigued by white supremacy, miners. They called it a "man-killer." Their frame of refer­ Russia and reduced exports to these economically devas­ racism, neo-Nazism and the use of bombs. A student testi­ ence was their lives, not a contract. tated countries have decimated U.S. agriculture, textile fied they had singled out an African-American student in On the minds of many was that question: What and steel industries, with steel employment now at the school library and killed him. kind of labor should a human being do? Before, it 170,000, down from 500,000. Understandably the corporate-owned, government- had been: What should be the fruits of one's labor? Since the first strike against automation revealed sanctioned press avoided the obvious connection to the translated into wages and benefits. It renewed the divergent class interests between workers and the labor Oklahoma City bombing. bureaucracy, the divisions have widened. Indeed, these were atrocities and need to be considered Thanks to concessionary contracts, workers face two or an integral part of any serious philosophic analysis of life more tier wages, team work schemes where workers crit­ and labor in the U.S. In the minds of the mainstream 'Ex-gays'rip lies icize and discipline each other, interplant competition for press however, by avoiding the connection to the Memphis, Tenn.—A diverse group of mid- jobs, loss of seniority protections, ignored health and work Oklahoma City bombing, they thought they could limit the Southerners gathered March 23 at First Congregational grievances, forced overtime when others are laid off, and "meaning" of the Columbine High School massacre to Church for "Focus on ALL Families: A Forum for Gay unbridled technological changes and outsourcing that 'Twys'" psychological problems. and Lesbian Equality." This conference was the culmi­ lead to inhuman speed-up, injury, and plant closings. Now these so-called journalists thought they could nar­ nation of a week's worth of statewide activities with the In strikes and lock-outs over the last decade and a half row the causes of the massacre to problem teens, gender overall theme of Equality Begins at Home. at Hormel, Caterpillar, Staley, Firestone and the Detroit straitiackets for boys and a culture of violence. Now that Mark Perriello told of the torment he had experienced newspapers, rank-and-filers were eager to shut down the causes have been narrowly defined come the proposed in the fundamentalist "ex-gay" program: "They say they these operations immediately, but were overruled by then- remedies: save souls. It's the exact opposite. They oppress souls." union leaderships that insisted on legal" tactics, even as Tighter gun laws—even though much of the carnage The two final speakers were a gay couple who met at the corporations brought in replacement workers and resulted from home made bombs. Liberty University (a fundamentalist Baptist college), stalled negotiations in the courts. Another proposed remedy was early identification and while they were students there. These men, Marc Finally the role of racism in diverting from the roots of treatment of alienated kids. Few of us, young or old, could Adams and Todd Tuttle, now travel the country telling unemployment and poverty in capitalism itself continual­ pass such scrutiny. As far as our high schools are con­ their story of trying to become "ex-gays." They finally ly escapes the union bureaucracy. When workers reported cerned, only the homecoming queen and jocks would be came to the realization that they could be happy and anti-Black graffiti spray-painted in the bathroom of an spared from being dragooned into therapy. healthy as gay men. auto plant in suburban Detroit, they were ignored by both Finally, parental responsibility—unfortunately this All of these topics were especially pertinent in light of the company and union until the incident was publicized responsibility doesn't extend to creating a better world by activities happening that same day on the other side of by a reporter. Only then did they condemn the racist act allying with our revolutionary youth. town at Central Church. There James Dobson's Focus and threaten disciplinary action. It isn't known at this time if Eric Harris and Dylan on the Family and other far right groups were conduct­ STRUGGLES ON THE HORIZON Heboid had links to any militias or help of any other kind. ing training for those who want to "love" homosexuals What is known however is that we are in a period of deep straight. That's not to say that workers, in unions and outside, retrogression. Racism, nationalism, white supremacy, neo- Tuttle said, "It's not James Dobson, the person, that's have stood still even as globalization and technology have Nazism, and so on are on the rise. The Right is currently dangerous. It's his philosophy that's dangerous. They socialized labor in terms of *90s issues. As with service winning the battle of ideas and there is no clear mass say that gay people can't be happy, that if you have the work, confrontations in old-line industries like auto reveal movement for freedom in sight. This is fertile ground for right kind of family you won't have gay children. That's new alienations and revolts. Recent strikes at GlVFs Buick retrogressive acts of violence such as the Oklahoma City a lie. There have been gays in every country, culture and complex and in Flint, Mich., challenged inhuman bombing and the spate of shootings at schools. Unchecked time of history. They accuse gays of 'recruiting.' There demands of massive overtime which was to lay the ground we could end up with absolutism. wasn't a pink bus going around my neighborhood when for corporate restructuring, meant to ultimately cut jobs. We need to take "real" responsibility by talking to youth I was a child, picking up kids and filling their heads On the immediate horizon are the UAW-Big Three about revolution" and with them, staying the hand of U.S. with 'gay ideas.' But there was a bus taking kids to the negotiations which begin in June on contracts expiring imperiahsm, destroying capitalism and creating a now fundamentalist church that taught these lies." Sept. 1. Talks will cover 220.000 GM employees, 101,000 society based on fundamentally new human relationships. —Lesbian feminist activist at Ford and 78,000 at DaimlerChrysler. Job security, and -DJL MAY 1999 NEWS & LETTERS Page 11 International mobilization Labor fires Bay Area Youth Mumia march demands freedom for Mumia San Francisco — "An injury to one is an injury to by Kevin Michaels Their presence in such numbers made it clear that they all! Free Mumia" Abu-Jamal!" The April 25 march and reject the retrograde political trajectory of the country in rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal was led by the The date April 24 was in the minds and on the lips of which they are coming of age. They represent the begin­ supporters of imprisoned Black journalist Mumia Abu- Longshoremen, who organized a one day complete West nings of a movement which has the potential to challenge Coast work stoppage to show their support. Jamal for much of this spring. That day had been chosen this direction. by organizers for a massive solidarity rally in Mumia's More than 20,000 came to San Francisco from all The day's main march was remarkable for its variety of over the West, from San Diego, Oregon, and Colorado. home town, Philadelphia, because it is both Mumia's birth­ colorful banners, giant puppets and creative chants. It day and the third anniversary of the signing into law of the wound its way through downtown Philadelphia and There were many Blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians, Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a retro­ passed through the intersection of 13th and Locust, the including many immigrants. One of the many banners gressive piece of legislation which severely circumscribes site of the incident for which Mumia was wrongly convict­ read "Asians on the move for Mumia." the process of appeal for pris­ ed, and returned to City Hall We marched from the primarily Latino Mission dis­ oners sentenced to death. to hear further speeches. trict, through the mainly Black Western Addition, to This law will imperil the It would be misleading, end up at the Civic Center. Many youth, a generation fight to win Mumia a hear­ however, to give the impres­ not even born when Mumia was put on trial, came from ing at which the evidence not sion that the day was not high schools and middle schools. The Oakland school brought forth at his first, without its contradictions. district created great interest regarding Mumia's case grossly unfair, trial—as well Despite the positive content in the Bay Area by forbidding a teach-in on Mumia. The as the new evidence discov­ of the majority of the speak­ youth have a keen interest in the issues of police bru­ ered by his current ers' messages, a few went tality and police violence. lawyers—can be presented. out of their way to distort They also identified with the plight of the Kosovars The nationwide organiz­ the nature of the tragic who face police killings of their own. This is in sharp ing efforts for the march, i events transpiring in contrast to many Left banners calling for nothing more dubbed "Millions for ^ Kosova. Zack de la Rocha, than stopping the bombing of Yugoslavia. Mumia," included house 2j the singer for the band Rage Unfortunately, most of the older Left was still burdened meetings, video showings, * Against the Machine, typi- with a narrow opposition to NATO without expressing benefit concerts, appeals at ^fied this effort. He solidarity with the Kosovar struggle against ethnic churches and numerous denounced the railroading of cleansing. other means of getting out One of hundreds of colorful banners. Mumia as a human rights While the youth don't constrain their passion for news about the day. A com­ violation and tried to draw a humanity everywhere, the new in this particular march plementary march in San Francisco was planned for the parallel between it and the ongoing bombing of Serbia, was massive participation of labor. One Longshoreman, West Coast, as well as local actions on the part of Mumia's without breathing a word about the forcible expulsion of who helped organize the work stoppage, said labor sup­ supporters worldwide. A section of organized labor lent a an entire nation from its homeland. This willful over­ ports Mumia partly because of Mumia's tremendously hand when the members of the International Longshore looking of the ethnic cleansing of Kosova simply because brave act of solidarity when Mumia refused to give ABC and Warehouse Union declared that they would not work of a perverse need to portray Milosevic's Serbia as some an interview to show solidarity with locked-out ABC on April 24. kind of a remnant of socialism undermined an otherwise workers. Another longshoreman said that workers Chartered buses rolled into Philadelphia as the beauti­ powerful day. today understand that there is something larger than ful spring day dawned—including one bus of stalwart sup­ The April 24 march in Philadelphia, the even larger "traditional" labor issues, such as wages, at stake here. porters from Texas—and participants marched to rally at gathering in San Francisco and the numerous demonstra­ Speakers made connections between fighting racism City Hall from various pre-arranged points in the city. As tions in Europe and Latin America represent the single and labor struggles. the crowds downtown swelled, speakers including Mumia's largest concerted effort for a political prisoner facing the While labor's participation in this march was seen by son Mazi Jamal, writer Julia Wright and lawyer Leonard death penalty since the height of the movement for Sacco everyone as one of its high points, the workers them­ Weinglas, offered accounts of the importance of Mumia's and Vanzetti. The creative energy on display on this his­ selves felt that Mumia's life would not be saved until struggle. toric day was evidence of a movement which can success­ labor stood up for his cause in Philadelphia itself. A One look at the 12,000-strong assembled crowd made it fully challenge the racist state's grip on Mumia and much Turkish man said that while class struggle is impor­ plain that to a substantial degree," the movement for work toward this end is ahead of all who support Mumia. tant, we have to include the Kurds, the Ewandans and Mumia's freedom is a youth movement, made up of both Hopefully, the new eyes of the youth who came out in such Kosovars of the world. In general, marchers were look­ Black and white. A large percentage of those participating numbers on April 24, will see past the self-imposed limi­ ing for ways to transform this inhuman society through were in all likelihood born after Mumia's 1982 trial, mak­ tations which were in evidence among some in attendance the struggle to save Mumia's life. ing this event the largest political gathering of their lives. to find a road towards freedom for Mumia. —Participants Editorial Support the Kosovar resistance! (Continued from page 1) aid the victims of genocide, then our wish is that they leave victims of nationalist terror. Activists who called for uncon­ us alone to resolve our own problems. We're convinced we ditional support for the IRA, for the ANC, for SWAPO, and Serbia, it was not out of any desire to aid the KLA or the can handle the Serbs by ourselves, provided we get arms." hundreds of other acronyms of varying merit, unite with Kosovars, but rather to assert the power and hegemony of the Serbs in regarding the Kosovars as beneath the rest of the NATO alliance. According to Barton Gellman's detailed THE LEFT EST DISARRAY humanity in their claims" (BosNet, April 14,1999). analysis in The Washington Post (April 18), U.S. officials Williams also says, "Soon NATO will be faced with two expected that Milosevic would capitulate to U.S. demands What stands in the way of the needed solidarity with after a few days of air strikes. That Milosevic might use Kosova is the disorientation in the Left. Many are respond­ alternatives—either to stop the bombing and 'negotiate,' or that period to try to eliminate the KLA did not bother U.S. ing in a knee-jerk reaction to the U.S. bombing by sup­ to commit ground troops." This may be how NATO sees the officials in the least. porting Serbia, as if it has any right to sovereignly over a matter, but why should we? Why narrow the choices to people it ethnically cleanses. Others blame the Kosovars supporting U.S. bombing or capitulating to Milosevic? Gellman writes, "Policy makers generally assumed the There is a very different alternative we can choose—that Serb leader would try to eradicate the rebel KLA, as he for starting the problem, as if they have no right to inde­ pendence. And others stoop so low as to call the KLA a the KLA be allowed to obtain the arms and materiel it boasted he could do in five to seven days. They did not fore­ needs to defend the Kosovars and to defeat Serbia. see Serb efforts to depopulate Kosova of its 1.6 million eth­ "CIA front." This is a vicious lie. The KLA grew out of a core of nic Albanians, some two-thirds of whom are now homeless A TALE OF TWO OPPOSITIONS and many thousands believed dead, and therefore made no Marxist-Leninist guerrillas who fought Serbian rule in the military plans to halt them." 1980s. It was until recently a small and rather marginal The Kosovars are not the only opposition to Milosevic. Milosevic had originally planned to invade Kosova later force, since most Kosovars supported Ibrahim Rugova's Montenegro has declared itself neutral in the fight this spring under the code-name "Operation Horseshoe." Kosova League for Democracy which advocated non-vio­ between Milosevic and the U.S., and many Montenegrin ("Horseshoe" refers to the Serb tactic, first used in Bosnia, lent resistance. That approach, however, proved a total youth refuse to have anything to do with the Serbian army. of assembling villagers inside a horseshoe-shaped ring; failure by 1997 in light of increasing Serbian attacks. By On April 13 workers at Bar, Montenegro's largest commer­ paramilitaries then move in to vent their appetite for rape that time the KLA merged with the Kosova Parliamentary cial port, denounced Milosevic as a warmonger and and murder, with the exit road left open for those who Party of Adem Demaqi who favored armed struggle. As protested Serbia's use of the port to shoot at NATO war- survive.) against any narrow nationalism, Demaqi proposes that planes. When Milosevic decided to move up his full invasion of Kosova join in a federation of equals with Serbia and The opposition in Serbia itself is more muted. Kosova in response to NATO's bombing, a new situation Montenegro after gaining independence. This is not only because of severe repression and was created. Serbia's intransigence has so embarrassed By mid-1998 the KLA had grown rapidly—not the way the U.S. bombing makes it easy for NATO that it has been put into the position of fighting an because of support from the U.S., but because its Milosevic to accuse anyone who opposes him of extended air war and/or using ground troops. Yet the U.S. resistance to Serbian ethnic cleansing won it the being a traitor. It is also because the opposition in continues to disregard those already on the ground who full support of the local populace. Belgrade, to the extent that it exists, has never can hit back at the Serbian forces—the Kosovars them­ Those who attack the KLA in the name of opposing U.S. come to grips with Serbia's responsibility for geno­ selves. imperialism remain trapped in the mind-forged manacles cide in Bosnia and now in Kosova. Until it does so, Shrem Dasgobia of the KLA states, "When we signed of. the past. Throughout this century radicals have made it will not be able to pose any kind of meaningful the Rambouillet agreement, we were led to believe that excuses for one or another state-capitalist regime that opposition. NATO and the USA would help the Albanians. So we called itself "Communist" on the grounds that it resisted Solidarity with Kosova is not only needed by those in the stopped arming and mobilizing ourselves. If NATO will not U.S. imperialism. Those regimes are now largely gone, but Balkans. The genocide occurring there may well reflect the the nostalgia for some state power to serve as the "Other" kind of future the rulers have in store for us here at home. of the U.S. is very much with us. Yet this now means Racism and ethnic cleansing have long been integral to NEWS & tailending an outright fascist power! U.S. history, from the genocide against Native Americans Vol. 44, No. 4 May 1999 Others oppose the KLA not out of support for Serbia, but to the decimation of Africa through the slave trade to the because they desire a "peaceful" solution. But a pacifist lynchings and mob violence against African Americans. As News & Letters (ISSN 0028-8969) is published 10 times a year, monthly, capitalism faces new crises and instability, it is returning except bi-monthly January-February and August-September for $5.00 a approach is absurd when an entire people is subject to year (bulk order or 5 or more, 150 each) by News & Letters, 59 E. Van genocide. It fails to differentiate between the violence that anew to the ethnic cleansing and racism that marked its Buren St., Room 707, Chicago, IL 60605. Telephone (312) 663-0839. Fax inflicts oppression and the violence that resists it. From origins. It is seen in everything from the draconian cut­ (312) 663-9069. Second Class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois. POST­ whatever standpoint, those who fail to extend solidarity backs against welfare to unbridled police abuse against MASTER: Send address changes to News & Letters, 59 E. Van Buren with the Kosovars today are taking an accommodating African Americans and Latinos. St., Room 707, Chicago, IL 60605. Articles may be reprinted verbatim if credited to "News & Letters." position towards genocide itself. Can the movements opposing police violence and state- Raya Dunayevskaya As Ian Williams of Balkan War Report writes, "Many are sanctioned racism in the U.S. willfully ignore the fact that Chairwoman, National Editorial Board (1955-1987} inveighing against NATO intervention in tones far more in Kosova a militarized police force is violently expelling Charles Denby strident than we ever heard them use during the siege of an entire people from their towns and villages because of Editor (1955-1983) Sarajevo, the massacre of Srebrenica and certainly more their ethnic identity? We cannot generate freedom for our­ Olga Domanski, Peter Wermuth, Co-National Organizers, News and angrily than they speak now about Milosevic's ethnic selves if we ignore genocide against an entire people. That Letters Committees. Lou Turner, Managing Editor. Felix Martin, cleansing in Kosova. There was a time when the Left sup­ is why we call on all our readers to support independence Labor Editor. for Kosova and the right of the KLA to obtain arms. ©^H<Jip 759-C ported liberation struggles by oppressed peoples. Now, too News & Letters is printed in a union shop. many seem prepared to condemn them to remain quiescent -April 28,1999 Page 12 NEWS & LETTERS MAY 1999 Our Life and Times South Korean workers fight layoffs

by Kevin A. Barry and Mary Holmes est rate since 1982. Another 400,000 workers are held work stoppages and one-day strikes to press their expected to lose their jobs this year. own demands and show support for the subway work­ Subway workers in Seoul went on strike, April 19, Workers are most furious at the government's lenien^ ers. Several thousand scientists and technicians struck against a government plan to lay off over 2,000—20% of cy with the financial sector and the chaebol (conglomer­ on "Science Day" (April 21) against proposed layoffs of their workforce. The strike was initiated as the first in ates), whom they blame for bringing on the economic staff at state-run research facilities. a series of "rolling strikes" by unions affiliated with the collapse. Under a state-imposed plan called the "Big The Kim government has taken a hard line against militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Deal," the top five chaebol are supposed to "swap" busi­ the strikes and in support of "restructuring" in order to (KCTU), aimed at reversing President Kim Dae Jung's nesses among themselves to rationalize production, and keep the spigot of international capital flowing into the IMF-ordered economic "restructuring" policies. sell off less profitable companies. Workers in the bloat­ country. However, this stance is not likely to deter work­ Subway workers returned to their jobs a week later ed, debt-ridden chaebol are being forced to balance the er actions anymore than it will solve South Korea's eco­ under government threats to arrest union leaders, fire books by losing their jobs. At least 170,000 workers in nomic mess this side of the next millenium. striking workers, and break up any resistance with chaebols are expected to be laid off in 1999. force. The same day, the 42,000-member Korean "Coincidental" with the start of the subway strike, Telecom workers union cancelled a planned strike to Daewoo (dubbed "Debt Pile Daewoo" by workers) Autonomy for East Timor protest layoffs and wage cuts. announced the proposed sale of its shipyard to foreign The KCTU has characterized Kim's policy "unilateral investors. Workers immediately went on indefinite The Habibie government in Indonesia has agreed to restructuring" because workers have shouldered nearly strike. Later in the week, auto workers walked out over hold a referendum on "partial autonomy" for East Timor the entire weight. When the Asian crisis struck South a plan to sell off Daewoo's bus manufacturing division. in August under UN auspicies. This is essentially the Korea and the economy nose-dived in late 1997, the Kim Other workers, from steel to university employees, same rotten proposal put forth by Habibie at the begin­ government wholeheartedly embraced IMF "nee-liber­ ning of tihe year^ when he claimed he would "cut East al" mandates to secure a $58 billion bailout. Timor loose" if autonomy was rejected. Habibie refused Since then, tens of thousands of workers have been to allow the question of full independence on any ballot. thrown onto the streets in a society with virtually no Since |the autonomy referendum was proposed, the "safety net." Unemployment has soared to nearly 9%, March in Chiapas military |has intensified its program to recruit, train and and upwards of two million people are jobless, the high- finance East Timor militia surrogates to sabotage the OS|E} political climate for any vote, much less an open dia­ logue on East Timor's self-determination. Knowing the Turkey moves right referendjam deal was near to conclusion, militia thugs increased their terrorism. One of their most brutal mas­ Turkey's April 18 elections resulted in unanticipated sacres was staged in Liquica on April 6 when paramili­ new strength for the neo-fascist Nationalist Action taries opened fire on over 2,000 people who had sought Party, which placed second. Nationalist Action espouses sanctuary in a church. Pan-Turkism and has a long history of links to the Gray A week later, 7,000 paramilitaries, armed with lists of Wolves and other police and paramilitary death squads. names of people who they beat and killed, swept According to the April 24 Financial Times, "the party is through the capital, Dili. This well-organized rampage ferocious in denying that Turkey's Kurdish problem is followed a pro-Jakarta rally, during which the militia anything other than a 'terrorist' one." leader ordered them to conduct a "cleansing" of inde­ The largest vote-getter was current Prime Minister pendence supporters from Dili. Bulent Ecevit's Democratic Left, a party that is leftist While Habibie and the military are talking truce and only in name. The fact that the Islamic fundamentalist elections, their actual intent under the "autonomy" Virtue Party did worse than expected, placing third, smokescreen is to never permit full independence in does not lessen the danger inherent in a coalition East Timor. Not the least of their fears is that an inde­ between Ecevit's party and Nationalist Action. pendent East Timor would fan the flames of self-deter­ With such a coalition likely, it is virtually certain that mination in other parts of Indonesia. Turkey's anti-Kurdish war will be intensified. That war has already resulted in the destruction of more than 3,000 Kurdish villages, six million displaced persons and 29,000 deaths. China's May 4 movement Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan sits in jail, soon to go on trial for his life, after having been kid­ This May marks the 80th anniversary of China's May napped from Kenya with U.S. support. Turkish and U.S. Fourth Movement, one of history's most creative youth pressure not only prevented any European country from Over 1,000 unarmed Zapatista supporters movem$nts. It began on May 4, 1919 when students giving Ocalan asylum, but has also resulted in Britain's marched into San Andres Larrai'nzar in Chiapas on took to the streets of Beijing to oppose Japanese occu­ agreement to shut down the world's only Kurdish TV April 8 and reclaimed the town hall which state pation. The students soon gained the support of China's station and France's scrapping a Senate vote condeming police, sent in to carry out the PRI government's new working class. Massive solidarity strikes, especial­ Turkey's 1915 genocide against the Armenians. attack on Zapatista "autonomous zones," had ly in Shanghai, forced the release of arrested students However, the Kurdish people show no signs of allow­ seized the day before. and resignation of pro-Japan government ministers. ing themselves to be cowed. Their Peoples Democracy The May Fourth Movement exemplified not narrow Party garnered overwhelming support in predominant­ nationalism but a profound concept of national libera­ ly Kurdish southeastern Turkey despite heavy repres­ tion. For no sooner had the youth seen the government sion, including threats to ban the party and police vio­ hesitatft than they surged forth with a whole series of lence against peaceful demonstrations. Algeria's election farce new demands that challenged China's traditional struc­ Algeria's one-candidate election on April 15 only tures of class, age and gender oppression. deepened the crisis, possibly giving a second wind to Sparked by women students, new groups such as the Islamic fundamentalist groups that have engaged in a Women's Association of Hunan launched the demand for CrftCAGO AREA READERS seven-year campaign of murder, rape and kidnapping. the famous "Five Rights" for women: 1) equal property After becoming convinced that a massive vote fraud and inheritance rights, 2) the right to vote and hold A memorial meeting for was about to take place, six presidential candidates office, 3) an equal right to education, 4) an equal right withdrew from the race leaving Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to work, 5) an end to arranged marriages and their the favorite of the current military rulers, as the sole replacement by free choice. Felix Martin candidate. His opponents ranged from a moderate It was during this period that Marxist ideas really will be held on Islamicist to a socialist. penetrated China for the first time, as Marxists and On election day turnout was extremely low, yet the adherents of John Dewey's pragmatism debated the Sunday, June 6, at 6:30 p.m., government reported it at 70%. The day after the elec­ best philosophy with which to liberate China. May 4 has at 59 E. Van Buren, room 707. tion, youths demonstrated against the government in resonated ever since, most recently in the mass democ­ several cities. ratic Uprising of 1989. NEWS AND LETTERS COMMITTEES Who We Are And What We Stand For News and Letters Committees is an National Editorial Board and National what is, but to reveal and further Presentation on the Dialectics of Orga­ organization of Marxist-Humanists Chairwoman of the Committees from develop the revolutionary Humanist nization and Philosophy in The Philo­ that since its birth has stood for the its founding to 1987. Charles Denby future inherent in the present. The sophic Moment of Marxist-Human­ abolition of capitalism, both in its pri­ (1907-83), a Black production worker, new visions of the future which ism (1989), and donated new supple­ vate property form as in the U.S., and author of Indignant Heart: A Black Dunayevskaya left us inher work from mentary volumes to the Raya its state property form, as it has his­ Worker's Journal, became editor of the 1940s to the 1980s are rooted in her Dunayevskaya Collection. News and torically appeared in state-capitalist the paper from 1955 to 1983. discovery of Marx's Marxism in its orig­ Letters Committees aims at developing regimes calling themselves Communist Dunayevskaya's works, Marxism and inal form as a new Humanism and in and concretizing this body of ideas for as in Russia and China. We stand for Freedom, from 1776 until Today her re-creation of that philosophy for our time. the development of new human rela­ (1958), Philosophy and Revolution: our age as Marxist-Humanism. Thiajis In opposing this capitalistic, racist, tions, what Marx first called a new From Hegel to Sartre and from recorded in the documents on microfljm sexist, heterosexist, class-ridden soci­ Humanism. Marx to Mao (1973), and Rosa Lux­ and open to all under the title The ety, we have organized ourselves into a News & Letters was founded in emburg, Women's Liberation, and Raya Dunayevskaya Collection— committee form of organization rather 1955, the year of the Detroit wildcat Marx's Philosophy of Revolution Marxist-Humanism: A Half-Century than any elitist party "to lead." We par­ strikes against Automation and the (1982) spell out the philosophic ground of Its World Development. ticipate in all class and freedom strug­ Montgomery Bus Boycott against seg­ of Marx's Humanism internationally, as Dunayevskaya's philosophic compre­ gles, nationally and internationally. As regation—activities which signaled a American Civilization on Trial con­ hension of her creation and develop­ our Constitution states: "It is our new movement from practice that was cretizes it on the American scene and ment of Marxist-Humanism, especially aim... to promote the firmest unity itself a form of theory. News & Let­ shows the two-way road between the as expressed in her 1980s writings, among workers,'Blacks and other ters was created so that the voices of U.S. and Africa. presents the vantage point for re-creat­ minorities, women, youth and those revolt from below could be heard This body of ideas challenges all ing her ideas anew. Seeking to grasp intellectuals who have broken with the unseparated from the articulation of a those desiring freedom to transcend the that vantage point for ourselves and ruling bureaucracy of both capital and philosophy of liberation. limitations of post-Marx Marxism, make it available to all who struggle labor." We do not separate mass activi­ Raya Dunayevskaya (1910-1987), beginning with Engels. In light of the for freedom, we have published ties from the activity of thinking. Send founder of the body of ideas of Marxist- crises of our nuclearly armed-world, it Dunayevskaya's original 1953 philo­ for a copy of the Constitution of News Humanism, became Chairwoman of the becomes imperative not only to reject sophic breakthrough and her final IS and Letters Committees.