WfJIIIlIIIS'III",1I1J 25«1: X-S23 No. 587 4.'.i~-~-~'! 5 November 1993 For International Labor Action, Not Protectionist Poison!

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Espartaco Photo oto Mexican workers fight Latino workers have sparked "multinational" companies. militant labor struggle in U.S. May Day 1991: Combative auto Above, construction workers workers march in Mexico City. protest police repression in No to NAFTA! San Diego last January. Wall Street's Takeover

Congress is preparing to vote on • German). It is a step toward trade war November 17 on the North American and the further redivision of the world Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which by the imperialist powers, ultimately has broad ruling-class support from the through the means they have always Wall Street banks to the Detroit auto 01 eXICO employed-shooting wars. bosses. The pact is an attempt by the Seeking to garner Congressional votes U.S. rulers to carry out a giant neocolo­ crows: "Herald a Glorious Market­ German and Japanese trade rivals for the pact, Clinton pushes unalloyed nial takeover of the Mexican economy From Yukon to Yucatan." through the creation of a "Fortress North anti-immigrant and anti-Asian racism, and impose Washington's "New World But despite the bourgeois propaganda America." In the auto industry, the larg­ vituperating against Japan "as the most Order" throughout the Americas, while about "free trade," this "glorious mar­ est single area of U.S. investment in severe threat to American jobs," and vastly increasing capitalist exploitation ket" represents a profoundly protection­ Mexico, NAFTA will impose heavy tar­ warning of "a flood of illegal immi­ of the workers of Canada, Mexico and ist measure aimed at enhancing the iffs against vehicles without "North grants" if the trade pact is defeated. the U.S. A Los Angeles Times editorial power of U.S. imperialism against its American content" (read'- Japanese and continued on page 14

Financial Times Air France St,ikers

Ignite Class SJiuggle '1-'1/ Tf U S II!!!

'The gOl'ernment is not a/i'aid (It' the Air France strikers, what it/cars .. ·Af.';~ is that ('l'cryhody may take to the strcets and sa\' 'Enough!'" -striking Air France worker

"This is !lot a strike hut (J rc\'(}/t." - French minister of transport Bernard BOSSOJ1 Air France For nearly two weeks, a strike of strikers Air France ground crews against threat- battle cops on airport runway LO ened layoffs and wage in Paris. ~ cuts threw Paris air­ ports into chaos. The Sl g-French working class o as the bourgeoisie re- spokesmen for the interests of capital country a quarter-century ago." Starting with a "day of action" by work­ acted in fear of labor throughout the ",orld responded with The stage was set when the manage­ ers in the public sector on October 12. o militancy. When on - dismay. The New York Times (26 Octo­ ment of the national airline announced the mechanics and freight workers of Air ~ October 25 the new ber) lectured that "Mr. Balladur has no a "restructuring" plan entailing 4,000 lay­ France decided not to return to work ~ right-wing French gov­ stomach for conflict at a time when he offs to gear up for intensified competi­ the next morning. beginning a militant ,.... ernment of Edouard judges France to be ripe for a social tion after the I January 1997 deregula­ strike that crippled air traffic throughout o Balladur backed down, explosion of the sort that rocked the tion of the European airline industry. cOl1tinl/cd 011 page 3 this inflammatory piece of so-called The move for Melzer's dismissal has "investigative reportage," NBC-TV's gained support in a broad range of quar­ Pit.rti§it.u Defeu!ie yuppie "crimebuster" John Miller ters, including the Parents' Association foamed at the mouth over the supposed of the Bronx High School of Science £o...... ittee infiltration of the New York City educa­ and Ramon C. Cortines, the newly cho­ tional system by "pedophiles." Like a sen Schools Chancellor. In answer to his CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES page out of the McCarthy witchhunt of inquisitors, Melzer has courageously the 1950s, Melzer and other individual pointed out that "It is an insult to our members of the organization were ac­ youth that a teacher can be barred from costed at home and at their workplaces the classroom "for what he believes or by scandal-mongering "news teams," for whom he privately associates with" Hands Off NAMBLA! threatened with violence and loss of their (New York Times, 22 September). livelihoods for their supposed "advo­ Melzer has been left to twist in the cacy" of child molestation. wind with the complicit silence of main­ Although he has not been accused of stream gay rights organizations who seek Stop the Witchhunt any crime, Melzer continues to be pillo­ "respectability" by conciliating the state ried by the tabloid press as well as and conventional morality. As Schools the reactionary New York City School Chancellor Cortines denounces Melzer's of Peter Melzer! Board. This same board virulently op­ "advocacy and promotion of illegal activ­ posed condom distribution and AIDS ities," the leadership of Melzer's union, The morality vigilantes are at it again. Peter Melzer has been a teacher for education in NYC schools, and arranged the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Their latest target is Peter Melzer, a 31 years without a single complaint the palace coup in which former Schools has contemptibly joined the witchhunt. tenured teacher of physics at the lodged against him, and his association Chancellor Joseph Fernandez was de­ "Pedophiles do not belong in a classroom Bronx High School of Science, who is with NAMBLA has been known to posed earlier this year for championing with kids," said a UFT spokesman (New a member of the Steering Committee of school officials since 1984. But he the "Children of the Rainbow" curricu­ York Times, 3 October). Maybe if the NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy became the object of unwanted notoriety lum, which promoted tolerance of gays UFT's Sandra Feldman and other pro­ Love Association). For this alone, school in March of this year, when NBC-TV's and lesbians. Calling his views "repug­ capitalist morality cops defended their district officials have removed Melzer New York affiliate ran a sensationalist nant," the New York Times (9 October) members and advocated and promoted from the school and reassigned him to series entitled "The NAMBLA Tapes," reluctantly defends Melzer from dis­ the "illegal" activity of striking against a desk job at the Board of Education a contrived "expose" of NAMBLA and missal on First Amendment grounds; the hated Taylor Law, NYC teachers while pushing for his outright dismissal. several of its individual members (see while a hlrteful piece in U.S. News & would get a decent contract and NYC Also under investigation is a school "WNBC's Anti-Gay Witchhunt: Defend World Report decries "creeping toler­ schoolchildren could finally get some­ librarian who'is a NAMBLA member. NAMBLA!" WVNo. 571,12 March). In ance" and calls for kicking Melzer out thing approaching an education rather of school. than 12 years of pre-prison hell. The vendetta against Melzer comes On November 1, the PDC sent a amid the current hysteria which willfully protest letter to the Board of Education u.s. Imperialism's Ravaging equates all child sexuality with abuse and Mayor Dinkins demanding the re­ of Latin America and coercion. "Child abuse" is now used instatement of Peter Melzer. Hands off The North American Free Trade Agree­ to justify everything from the persecu­ NAMBLA! ment (NAFTA) is a plan hy Wall Street hanks tion of Woody Allen to the Waco holo­ and American multinationals to intensify caust, while covering up this society'S their exploitation ol Mexico and solid!ly truly perverse attacks on children, from Washington's Latin American neocolonial the lack of basic immunization to throw­ Free Greyhound Striker empire in the context of growing economic ing their mothers off welfare to putting Roger Cawthra rivalry with the German Fourth Reich and teenagers on death row. The portrayal of Japan Inc. The founding conference of the NAMBLA as child molesters has noth­ Less than a year after successfully TROTSKY Trotskyist Fourth International in 1938 LENIN ing to do with the protection of children; appealing his conviction on charges pointed out that Latin America was that rather it is part of a generalized campaign stemming from his picket line militancy region of the world where the "democratic" pretensions of the United States were against sex aimed at the "moral rearma­ during the 1990 Greyhound strike, on most clearly exposed as a cover for hloody imperialist suhjugation. ment" of the American people which October 5 Roger Cawthra began a 15- In order to achieve the "closed door" in Latin America-closed, that is, to all would bolster the bourgeoisie's author­ month sentence for federal firearms vio­ rivals and open only to the United States-"democratic" Yankee imperialism has ity. The guiding principle for sexual rela­ lations. This union militant has been been propped up in the Latin American countries by the most autocratic "native" tions between all people ought to be hounded by the government at the federal military dictatorships which have, in turn, served to prop up the imperialist structure one of effective consent. While mutual and state levels for more than three years! and to guarantee an undisturbed flow of superprofits to the Northern colossus. The agreement and understanding can often The federal firearms charges arose in most active and willing supporter of military dictatorships in the Latin American be a murky question in this repressive 1991, as Cawthra awaited trial in Con­ countries is American imperialism, the bulk of whose billions of dollars invested society, the a priori presumption that sex necticut on charges of firing a shot at a abroad is confined to the Western Hemisphere. The real character of "democratic" between younger and older people is a Greyhound bus driven by scab driver American capitalism is best revealed by the tyrannical dictatorships in the Latin crime means that the racist, anti-woman, Carl Francis. In that trial Cawthra was American countries with which its fortunes and policies are inextricably bound up pro-death penalty U.S. courts and cops railroaded into a six and a quarter year and without which its days of imperialist sway in the Western Hemisphere are become the arbiter of morality. Govern­ sentence on Francis' word alone. Not numbered .... ment out of the bedroomsJ continued on page 11 Under Roosevelt, the policy of the iron fist in Latin America is sheathed in the velvet glove of demagogic pretensions of friendship and "democracy." The "good neighbor" policy is nothing but the attempt to unify the Western Hemisphere under the hegemony of Washington, as a solid bloc wielded by the latter in its drive to close the door of the two American continents to all the foreign imperialist powers except itself. This policy is materially supplemented by the favorable trade agreements NOLIDIIY which the United States seeks to conclude 'with the Latin American countries in the hope of systematically edging its rivals out of the market. The decisive role which IIPPEIIL foreign trade plays in the economic life of the United States impels the latter toward ever more determined efforts to exclude all competitors from the Latin American market, by a combination of cheap production, diplomacy, chicanery and, when need FOR CLIISS"WIIR be, of force .... At the same time, the policy of American imperialism will necessarily increase the revolutionary resistance of the Latin American peoples whom it must exploit PRISONERS with growing intensity. -"Thesis of the World Role of American Imperialism" (September 1938) COME TO A FUNDRAISINfJ PARTY! Music * Dancing * Food

Saturday, Dec. 4, 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, 5-9:30 p.m. Wetlands Please call for information: 161 Hudson (at Laight) !!Iw!!!!!Yor..~pa,!!'!.~'!.! ~ (404) 659-0251 For information: (212) 406-4252 DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon EDITOR: Jan Norden PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joan Parker ········.·.·ATLANl'A NEW VORK CITV CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, Sunday, Dec. 12, 3-7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, 1-4 p.m. Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg UE Hall Fort Mason Ctr., Bldg. A-1 The Sparlacist League is the U,S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) , 37 S. Ashland Ave. Marina at Laguna Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December, For information: (312) 663-0719 For information: (510) 839-0852 by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial). (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO. New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes CHICAGO IAN PRANCISCO to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. The clOSing date for news in this issue is November 2. A $10 ticket includes a subscription to Class-Struggle Defense Notes for one year. SPONSOR: PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITIEE No. 587 5 November 1993

2 WORKERS VANGUARD On the Yeltsin Coup: A Correction to Our View The article "Yeltsin's Coup Serves. it was necessary to call on the working an obstacle to the consolidation of a Khasbulatov forces in opposition to Washington" in WV No. 5X5 (X Octo­ class to actively resist it. Rather such strong counterrevolutionary regime. Yeltsin's move to complete his August ber) states: resistance was made dependent on a The defense of parliament, which 1991 power grab and seal his victory "For almost two weeks there had p,.io,. split in the state apparatus (i.e .. was an impedimcnt to the consol idation in blood. been a stand-off between the compet­ army and police). In reality, a working­ of power in Yeltsin's hands, against its A military bloc with the Rutskoi/ ing bourgeois-restorationist factions. class mobilization would most likely dissolution in the service of imperial­ Khasbulatov forces in this confronta­ Those who gathered before the White have been a necessary catalyst for such ism, was posed from September 21 on. tion would not entail an iota of pol itical House were ~politically supporting one wing of the capitalist-restorationi!o.ts. a split. In the course of a discussion With the fight taken to the streets on support nor would it preclude the pos­ But with the fight taken to the streets. within the International Communist October 3-4, the fragility of the weak sibility of quickly sweeping away these had 'there been a significant split in League, it was decided that the fail­ capitalist state was underlined, but momentary allies against Yeltsin on the the state apparatus. opening up a clear ure to raise this call represented an the working class saw neither side as road to establishing the dictatorship of power vacuum. there would have heen abstentionist blunting of our line. fighting for its interests. A massive out­ the proletariat in the form of soviets. A an opportunity for a proletarian mobi­ lization illdcpcJldcJlt of' hlith call/ps Moreover, in insisting that a working­ pouring, of the working class would military bloc, like other common ac­ seeking to sweep away all the capitalist class mobilization be "independent of have shattered the existing political tions, does not mean folding together forces. But the unrest did not reach that both camps," the paragraph did not dis­ alignments, for both wings feared the into a common political program, how­ point. and the working class saw no tinguish between political opposition to spectre of civil war. Absent was a revo­ ever critical. It is crucial to preserve one fighting for its interests." [empha­ sis in original [ the contending restorationist factions lutionary vanguard, rooted in the pro­ one's own political program and organ­ and the possibility of a military bloc letariat. which could credibly have izational independence while acting While condemning Yeltsin's Ameri­ with the Rutskoi/Khasbulatov forces, fought to indcpcndently mobilize the together with another political, or in can-backed. bonapartist coup. the arti­ which at that mOlllcnt were viewed by working class and its allies, engaging this case military, formation in a con­ cle failed to draw the conclusion that Yeltsin and his imperialist sponsors as in a milita,.y Moe with the Rutskoi/ crete and particular action.

job cuts and layoffs: and widespread pri­ France ... vatizations in the puhlic sector. In Bonn, Rome and London. capital­ (colltillued page I) fi'Onl ists arc following the French situation France. Air France lost over $10 million closely. In their countries too, the attacks a day, while foreign carriers threatened on the workers have met active resis­ to sue the Paris airport authorities to tance: coal and metal worker strikes in recover the costs of postponing and the Ruhr. factory occupations in southern diverting their own flights to France. Italy. A powerful social explosion in But it was not just these monetary ~, """~,;,',".w.; .~~%~~;Sf~~1~; J France would send big ~hock waves losses that caused' the government to beyond national borders. buckle. It was fear of the strike spread­ The combative mood of the European ing, cspecially to other public sector proletariat in response to the rulers' workers facing layoffs and cutbacks. Just attacks on jobs and living standard~ a few days before the Air France walk­ occurs in the context of broader social out. 35,000 railway workers demon­ turmoil. To weaken and divide the work­ strated in Paris. And during the strike, ing class, the European bourgeoisies---­ 10,000 teachers marched through the aided and abetted by open fascists--have French capital in an anti-government launched a massive campaign or anti­ protest. immigrant racisill. The firebombing of Unemployment in France is now hostels housing asylum-~eekers goes approaching 12 percent. the highest Incl hand in hand with government moves to .lil1Cc Wo,.ld Wa,./I. Paris sociologist Oli­ expel "illegal" immigrants -like French ver Duhamel. after conducting a survey interior minister Pasqua's ,,;ero immi­ which showed 70 percent of the popu­ gration" plan. lation to be in favor of the strike, In response. a new generation of young observed: "Everyone is afraid of unem­ radicals has come to the forc in militant ployment and salary cuts so they have protests against the fascists and against taken a kind of vicarious pleasure in the "re\pectable," official racist propo,sals. Air France protests." It is necessary to weld together the raw Sensing it was sitting on a social vol­ social power of the proletariat. so dra­ cano, the Mitterrand/Balladur govern­ matically shown in the Air France strike, ment moved to end the Air France strike Strikers demonstrate at Orly airport last week in Paris. and the militancy of youth and minqrities as quickly as possible. Within a few fueling rccent struggles against racism days, the airline's "socialist" boss Ber­ union tops into negotiations to continue class unhappy memories of its humiliat­ like the October 16 march of 50,000 nard Attali was shoved out and his ill­ the "restructuring" in a less confronta­ ing defeat in Vietnam, so the Air France in London against the fascist British fated "restructuring" plan scrapped. But tional way. Everyone knows the struggle strike evokes the haunting spirit of May National Party. instead of following up this victory, the is not over. '6X in France. The Minister of Transpor­ The Air France strike marks the end reformist union leaderships are squan­ Relieved that the strike is over, the tation, Bosson, justifying the withdrawal of Balladur's brief "honeymoon," usher­ dc,.ing the advantage won from the gov­ French bourgeoisie is also fearful of the of Attali's plan, explained that "It was ing in a new period of political and social ernment. Balladur regime's show of weakness. Le a movement unheard, of since May crises. The fascists, building themselves Pressured hy the airport workers for Monde (26 October) warned: 6X" (Lihh'ation, 27 October). And the up to serve as future shock troops for a common struggle, they had to call for "When a government retreats under the lame-duck social-democratic president capital against the workers and their pressure of a strike. it breaks a dam. a "day of action" on October 26. Several Fran<;ois Mitterrand declared in a press allies, will try to use palpahle social inviting the workers of other public conference that "it is not May '6X. But thousand workers participated, including enterprises confronted with restructur­ instability to their advantage. This men­ Air France flight personnel and employ­ ing plans that imply layoffs and wage this risk still exists indeed." ace shows even more clearly how urgent ees of Air Inter (the nationalized domes­ freezes (as in the railroads) to follow Twenty-five years ago. that worker/ it is for the working class to throw all tic French airline), as well as workers the path of those who won against the student revolt, which spread spontane­ its social pow,er into the battle and offer from the state-owned railways, the government. ... By trying to avoid the ously across the country. brought France spreading of the Roissy and Orly [Paris the only progressive solution to the cri­ Chausson auto and bus manufacturer and airports[ conflict, the government may to the brink of revolution and led to sis: the overthrow of capitalism and the the SFP nationalized television produc­ have only postponed the threat of the toppling of Charles de Gaulle's establishment of its own class power._ tion company. contagion." semi-bonapartist regime. Only the' out­ October 26 could have been the The threat of contagion is hy no means right betrayal by the then-powerful sp,.inglwo,.d for other and even bigger limited to France. Almost all workers pro-Moscow Stalinist Communist Party class battles. But the cowardly reformist in the public sector and industry are saved bourgeois rule in France, prevent­ Spartacist League union "leaders" did everything they under fire throughout Europe. After the ing the working class from moving to could to limit the mohilization, taking French government's retreat, the Italian take power in a key country at the center Public Offices workers for a ride around the airports. bourgeoisie saw the Air France strikers' of NATO Europe. Even so, May 196X -MARXIST LlTERATURE­ For the labor traitors it was just a matter victory as a powerful hoost to Iqlian had powerful reverherations around of a "show of force," rather than using workers, who for months have been the world, especially in West Europe. Bay Area this power against the bourgeoisie. mobilizing against savage "austerity" The following year came Italy's "hot Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1 :00-5:00 p.m. autumn" as workers seized their factories 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) The Air France strike has once again plans. And as the Air France strike was Oakland, California Phone: (510) 839-0851 shown that the working class does not winding down, 2,000 TAP-Air Portugal and hattled police and company goons. lack the will to fight. What is needed is strikers, fighting against thousands of Today conditions from the Baltic to Chicago a revolutionary leadership-a c1ass­ layoffs and a wage freeze, were occupy­ the Mediterranean are ripe for new Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m. Sat.: 11 :00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. struggle leadership in the unions and a ing the runways of the Lisbon airport. May '6Xs and "hot autumns," Every" 161 W.,Harrison St., 10th Floor communist vanguard party. Although the Some of their signs read: "TAP/Air where, in the wake of the collapse of the Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 Air France strikers were able to force France, same fight!" deformed workers states in the East the the government to abandon the Attali rul ing classes are waging the same New York City Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1 :00-5:00 p.m. plan, without a revolutionary leadership Spectre of May '68 Haunts attacks against their working classes: French Bourgeoisie 41 Warren St. (one block below they could not go over to the offensive. dismantling of the "welfare state" con­ Chambers SI. near Church St.) In the coming months Air France man­ Just as U.S. Rangers getting killed in cessions granted after World War II: New York, NY Phone: (212) 267-1025 agement will surely seek to pull the Somalia evokes in the American ruling imposing wage freezes and wage cuts, 5 NOVEMBER 1993 3 Stop the Fascists Through Labor181ack Mobilization!

Across the country, in broad daylight to win-and that means a political pro­ Ku Klux Klan rallies and cowardly mid­ gram to organize massive mobilizations night firebombings, racist fascist thugs Indianapolis, Columbus-­ of the working class, drawing in the are stepping up their campaigns of vio" black community, youth and all the fas­ lence and bigotry. Their growth is Fake Lefts March Into Cop Corrals cists' intended victims behind the power directly fueled by the rot of American of the labor movement to stop these capitalism which makes all workers fear race-haters in their tracks whenever they for their economic security and sets up raise their heads in the urban centers. blacks and immigrants as easy scape­ '~'~ goats for the fascist demagogues. More­ It's the State, Stupid. over, the fascists are emboldened by a In Indianapolis and Columbus, anti­ Democratic White House that revels in fascist protesters were given a crystal racism at home and abroad. The slaugh­ clear lesson in the role of the state. The ter of Somali women and children, government and its cops, courts and the incarceration of black Haitians in troops are not neutral "peacekeepers" but Guantanamo, the Waco holocaust and the the "special bodies of armed men" with assembly line of "legal lynching" on a monopoly of armed force to protect death row in prisons across America are capitalist rule-and that includes pro­ a big green light to the fascists in tecting their fascist dogs of war from "Bubba" Clinton's America. anti-Klan protesters. In both cities, the The escalation of fascist attacks across liberals and the city fathers staged the U.S. is only a pale reflection of "unity" diversions aimed at getting the what's happening in Europe, where the fascists' many intended victims to ignore destruction of the Soviet Union and surg­ the threat on their doorsteps. Then, with ing unemployment have fueled an omi­ the legal assistance of the ACLU, fascist nous growth of fascist groups and bloody thugs in their white hoods and sheets nationalist pogroms. Although relatively stumped for genocide on the state house small in numbers now, the fascists are steps while anti-fascist protesters were the mortal enemies of all working people individually searched and funneled one­ and must be crushed in the egg before by-one through metal detectors into large they grow. When the capitalists feel their cages surrounded by an army of cops rule is being threatened by the working who controlled the only entrances and class-as in Germany and Italy in the exits from these traps. 1920s and '30s-the bourgeoisie will Supporters of the Spartacist League, finance the fascist killers and assist their Spartacus Youth Clubs and the Labor rise to power in order to smash the work­ October 23: Anti-fascists penned in by cops during KKK rally at r:nlllrnnllC: Black Struggle League urged anti-Klan ers organizations. It happened in Ger­ Ohio Statehouse. demonstrators not to shuffle like cattle many with Hitler and we better not let into these cop corrals. In Columbus, it happen again or here. "Aryan Liberation Front" boasts of a complex, despite a federal court order police maced anti-Klan protesters who Here's a sampling of recent fascist spate of terror bombings of Asian and for desegregation. While slick David tried to break down the chain-link fence activity around the U.S.: black civil rights organizations' offices ("Klan in a suit") Duke appeals to "main­ that separated them from the fascists . • In Los Angeles, a white supremacist and the home of an Asian city council­ stream" white racism, in Vidor it's the One anti-racist was overcome by the purporting to be the leader of a terrorist man in the state capital. The president old-style hoods-and-sheets terror that fumes, fell to the ground and is lucky group called "Fourth Reich Skinheads" of the Sacramento NAACP chapter has filled the KKK's ranks with new ver­ he wasn't trampled to death as others attempted to firebomb a Jewish 'syna­ spoke for the besieged minorities in this min: "Citizens estimate that there are scrambled to get away. gogue and schemed to foment "race war" . city: "If I didn't know better, I would now several hundred active members in Scandalously, some ostensible social­ by bombing black churches and plotting think I was living in 1963 in the city of town" (Boston Globe, 19 September). ists, including the Revolutionary Work­ the murder of Rodney King, the most Birmingham, Alabama" (San Francisco • Across the Midwest, Texas-based ers League (RWL) and the Progressive famous survivor of LAPD racist police Examiner, 6 October). Thomas Robb's Knights of the Ku Klux Labor Party (PL), willingly marched brutality. • In Vidor, Texas, the Ku Klux Klan Klan is on a recruitment drive, assisted their own supporters into these traps . • Emboldened by California governor has driven out every black family that by state governments and police forces Members of the RWL's front group, the Wilson's anti-immigrant attacks, the attempted to move into a public housing which showcased the hooded terrorists National Women's Rights Organizing on the state house steps in Indianapolis, Coalition (NWROC), excused this sui­ Indiana on October 16 and Columbus, cidal idiocy by saying, "We do this every Ohio on October 23. Hundreds of anti­ weekend," and argued that it was neces­ fascists were "permitted" to "protest" in sary to "confront the Klan." Inside this chain-link holding pens surrounded by pen an~ under the thumb of the cops, phalanxes of riot cops. however, the RWL/NWROC supporters • In Pennsylvania, the Ku Klux Klan couldn't do more than impotently holler has staged rallies across the state, includ­ at the KKK scum on the other side of ing Harrisburg, the state capital. In Lan­ the barricades ... while rubbing shoulders caster, an abortion clinic was destroyed with skinheads and Klan sympathizers in a firebombing last month. In New standing right next to them! Hope, a tiny petty-bourgeois enclave That the cops controlled everyone outside Philadelphia, the "USA Nation­ inside the pens was shown when a KKK alist Party" has announced "Gay Bash sympathizer unfurled a Confederate flag '93" and called on Klan and skinhead inside the pen in Indianapolis! Youths thugs to goose-step through New Hope who seized and burned the flag were on November 6. ejected from the area, while the cops pro­ Enough! These racist terrorists can tected the racists who continued their pro­ and must be stopped! Every time the fas­ vocations among anti-racist protesters. cists have attempted to openly rally, In Indianapolis and Columbus, the large integrated crowds of anti-fascists RWL/NWROC showed themselves to ;'!S"..; ...... • ~ .,' have come out to express their defiant be nothing other than a bunch of radical Spartacist Canada opposition to these race-haters. But liberals who occasionally ma:;querade as Anti-Klan unionists, minorities and youth turned out to stop the fascists in desire to confront the fascists is not centrists i.e., nominally, and rarely call­ downtown Vancouver last January. enough. What's necessary is a strategy ing themselves "revolutionary" while in 4 WORKERS VANGUARD on the rights of all gay students but all minorities. An injury to one is an injury Blood Bank Bigotry to all! As fee hikes and budget cuts make college increasingly the privilege of the rich and white, campus cops and admin­ istrators have stepped up attacks against the few black, Latino and immigrant stu­ dents left on campus. Last spring, the Recl Cross Anti-Gay Bla~klist UCLA administration called in the noto­ riously brutal racists of the LA PO to beat .;~~ LOS ANGELES-Welcome to college in and arrest integrated demonstrations of '-1- 1 Clinton's America: if you're gay, the Red DOWN .'nd 11 students fighting for a Chicano studies Cross doesn't want your blood and will iNS IrtCr4fIH\'" . program. Recently at Cal State Fullerton, blacklist you; if you complain about it, students celebrating Mexica.n Inde­ the campus cops will drag you away. On pendence Day were gassed and clubbed September 23, Kevin Fullen, president by campus cops. The role of capitalist of the Pasadena City College Gay and college administrations and their cops is Lesbian Student Union (GLSU), went to to smash any sort of student militancy donate blood in a Red Cross campus and keep the campuses safe for the racist blood drive. Fullen told our reporter that rulers of this country. In the case of Pas­ he was asked a list of questions, includ­ adena City College, the administration ing: "Have you had sex with another man Spartaclst plays the role of enforcing the anti-gay since 1977?" When he answered in the contingent at bigotry of the bourgeoisie. SF protest affirmative, he was told that he would The PCC' Gay and Lesbian Student against Union has refused to protest this .bla­ not be allowed to give blood, and that government tant discrimination by the Red Cross, his name would be entered into a Red exclusion of Cross national database with the warning Immigrants claiming that the issue is "too politic tag: "deferred as possibly transmissioni­ with AIDS, cal." This narrow and dangerous view ble of disease or associated illness." June 1990. reflects the misplaced faith that many "This means I couldn't even give gay organizations have that gays and les­ blood to my own brother," Fullen told bians will somehow be protected now us. Fullen immediately told students that Clinton and the Democrats are in waiting to give blood about the Red the White House. This, despite Clinton Cross's outrageous anti-gay blacklist giving the finger to his gay supporters and lodged a' protest against this bigotry over the anti-gay ban in the military! with the Dean of Students. But admin­ with the blood bank blacklist! mously screened-but rather an expres­ Capitalism. which needs to maintain the istration officials told Fullen to keep The Red Cross national database of sion of the reactionary social attitudes patriarchal family, will never end dis­ his mouth shut and ordered him to "deferred donors" is a sinister threat to which are deeply rooted in the bourgeois crimination against and persecution of leave the area! The next day, Fullen gays and many others. Admitting to IV order. Such a list would inevitably end homosexuals. It will take a socialist rev­ posted flyers on campus that read drug usage, or sex with a prostitute will up in the hands of the state and be used olution to replace the social institution "Red Cross Discriminates." He was also land you on this list that perni­ to persecute the victims of this horrific of the family and its stultifying rein­ immediately harassed by ca,mpus cops ciously equates "gay" with "HIV car­ disease. From the beginning of the AIDS forcement of prescribed sex roles, as well whom Fullen argued with about his rier." The Red Cross itself says publicly epidemic, which has disproportionately as to provide free, quality health care right to protest. Fullen was manhandled that there is a National Donor Deferral decimated minorities and gays, the go.v­ for all. by the campus cops, then grabbed Registry which contains a I ist of "indi­ ernment's chief response to the disease Alongside the Spartacist League. the and charged with "using profanity and viduals who have been deferred for med­ has been hysteria and repression. Both Spartacus Youth Clubs seek to mohi­ disturbing the peace." Realizing that the ical reasons." But these snoops have the Republican and Democratic parties lize the power of the integrated labor absurd charges wouldn't stick, admin­ determined that sexual preference is have used the AIDS crisis to whip up movement to fight for full democratic istration officials made the cops release cause for "medical" exclusion. This is vicious anti-gay bigotry. rights for homosexuals. We demand: Bil­ Fullen ... but threatened to expel Fullen not a matter of protecting the safety of The blood bank bigotry and the attack lions for AIDS research! Down with the if he continued his protest! We de­ the blood supply-which, in the midst on Fullen by Pasadena City College and Red Cross anti-gay blacklist! Cops off mand: Hands off Kevin Fullen! Down of the AIDS crisis should be anony- the campus cops are not only an assault campus! _

deeds serving up the most abject refor­ tionary fight for black liberation through there is no "separate" road to black lib­ of all the oppressed and in its own self­ mism. Paper will take whatever is printed socialist revolution! eration. Today's advocates of "black defense. But various fake-socialist on it, and so in NWROC's leaflet dis­ empowerment" like Farrakhan and the groups who talk of "confronting" the fas­ tributed in Indianapolis we read: "No reli­ A Dangerous BPM who push "buy black" consumer­ cists despair of the working class' capac­ ance on the cops, courts, Democrats or Nationalist Diversion ism echo the defeatism of the historic ity to struggle, so they look to substitute RepUblicans to stop the fascist marches!" Several blocks away from the anti­ right wing of the black movement, like their own small forces ... or appeal But in practice the RWL/NWROC will­ fascist holding pen in Indianapolis, some Booker T. Washington who advocated (directly or indirectly) to the state to reg­ ingly put themselves and their followers 300 people attended a diversion organ­ complete segregation of the races. In a ulate the racist guard dogs of capital. under the control of an overwhelming ized by the Black Panther Militia (BPM). racist society, separate will always mean From Chicago in 1982, where we police force to "confront" the fascists. Their press release stated explicitly, "The unequal. To fight the enforced poverty mobilized steel workers, black youth and The RWL needs to "confront" some basic Black Panther Militia is not going down­ and oppression of the mass of the black Holocaust survivors to stop the Nazis Marxism. Leon Trotsky wrote in a March town to do military combat with the population in this country, it is necessary from threatening the Gay Pride parade, 1934 letter to his French comrades: Klan'." (The BPM was founded by black to mobilize the integrated working class to mass mobilizations in Washington, "[n this period it is very important to Milwaukee city councilman McGee, who in defense of the ghetto masses and to D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia, San Fran­ distinguish between the fascists lInd the seeks to build a local black power base wrest power from the hands of the racist cisco and Atlanta, and in Vancouver last state. The state is not yet ready to sub­ in the Democratic Party through anti­ capitalist rulers. year, our strategy of mobilizing the ordinate itself to the fascists; it wants to 'arbitrate.' ... Our strategic task is to white demagogy.) A featured speaker at The Spartacist League and the Parti­ organized working class has given a taste increase these hesitations and apprehen­ the BPM rally was Khallid Muhammad, san Defense Committee have organized of the power that must be brought to sions on the part of the 'arbiter,' its army a national assistant to' the sinister Louis labor/black mobilizations that have bear to stop the fascist scum. To defeat and its police. How? By showing that Farrakhan (who said Hitler was a "great successfully stopped the fascists. The the fascists once and for all means build­ we are stronger than the fascists, that is. man" and invited Klan leader Tom Metz­ conditions for our success in these ing a revolutionary party to overthrow by giving them a good beating in full view of this arbiter without, as long as ger to a Nation of Islam rally). actions were: no illusions in the state, the decrepit rule of the capitalist class we are not absolutely forced to, directly Pumped up by an afternoon of nation­ an intransigent fight for the political which spawns the fascists, and bring the taking on the state itself. That is the alist rhetoric at the BPM's diversion, independence of the working class, and working people who create the wealth whole point." some black youth made their way over confidence in its ability to fight on behalf of this country to power. _ Another telling indication of RWL/ to the state house pen to give the open NWROC's fundamentally reformist ap­ Klan supporters in the crowd their just petite is their new slogan, "Rebuild a deserts. But after the cops escorted the Mass, Militant, Integrated Civil Rights KKKers safely away, white press photo­ Movement!" But the whole strategy of graphers and even some anti-racists were the liberal civil rights movement was to attacked by black youth. The degenera­ appeal to the federal government. And tion of this anti-racist protest into Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League while the civil rights leadership preached indiscriminate racial attacks was' set up loyalty to the Democratic Party and by the cops and abetted by the national­ o $ 7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $3/3 issues of called for federal intervention in the ists' anti-white rhetoric-and by the (includes English-language Spartacist) Women and Revolution South, the feds spied on Martin Luther criminal idiocy of fake-left groups like o New 0 Renewal international rates: o $2/4 issues of King and set up more militant fighters the RWL which chose to "demonstrate" $25/24 issues-Airmail $7/24 issues-Seamail Etlpartaco (en espana!) like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers alongside out-and-out racists. (includes Spanish-language 0$2/10 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard Spartacist) for extermination through the govern­ ment's deadly COINTELPRO (counter­ Black Liberation Through Name ______Socialist Revolution! intelligence program). When the civil Address ______rights movement came North it smashed The "get whitey" rhetoric of bfack up against the bedrock of racial oppres­ nationalist preachers and politicos has a ______Apt. # Phone ( __ ) ______sion that is integral to the American cap­ certain appeal to youth who are fed up City State Zip ____-= italist system. Then or now, no civil - with the betrayals of black Democratic 587 rights bill can achieve black equality. Party mayors and liberals who preach Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 What's needed is an integrated, revolu- accommodation to the status quo. But 5 NOVEMBER 1993 5 Nazi Terror in Germany, Anti-Immigrant Frenzy in California

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AP Der Spiegei Left: Nazi skinheads firebomb hostel for asylum-seekers in Rostock, east Germany, August 1992. Right: Border police round up desperate Mexicans seeking jobs in the U.S. For a Workers Fight Against Anti-Immigrant Racism!

We puhlish he/ow WI edited and pected of breaking any laws-"are being addiction." Or. ,·It's the Japanese capi­ there have been 7.500 separate violent ahridged l'l'rsiOIl (Jj' a talk gil'('l1 hI' S'LI detained in conditions that would be talists. They 're bankrupting our country. attacks on foreigners in Germany- U.S. Celllra/ Committec I1Icfll/Jcr .Ioscph unacceptable at prisons for criminal they're buying it cheap." It's anybody 30 racist murders last year alone. Seymour at thc Unil'crsity o( Calijimlia offenders." but the people who are really responsI­ at Berke/ey Oil Scptemhcr 24. Wc hal'c The rising tide of anti-immigrant rac­ ble. That's one factor. Wilson and Clinton: omitted the coneluding scctio/) Oil West ism in the so-called "free societies" Secondly, during the Cold War, the Hard Cop/Soft Cop Act Ellropc which was thc slIhje('t oj' ollr of the West is not a series of random conflict with the Soviet Union to some Early this year there was an exchange artie/c, "Racist Allti-Immigrant FrclI:.\' coincidences. Nor is it some spontane­ degree forced the American and the West on immigration in the letters pagcs of in 'Fortrcss Europc'" (WV No. 5RO, ous, irrational outpouring of bigotry. It European governments to live up to their the At/aI/tic tv! ollth/y (J anuary 1993), a /6.1I1/r), expresses the current state of world cap­ democratic pretensions a little more. But very respectable. politically middle-of­ italism. First, both North America and with capitalist counterrevolution in East the-road literary magazine. Yet one of Last spring the German' parliament West Europe are in a deep depression Europe and the destruction of the Soviet the letters. which is presented as an abolished the right of asylum, which had and there is no recovery in sight. So that Union, Western imperialism is throwing entirely legitimate statement of opinion, been written into the West German con­ a central purpose of capitalist politics off its liberal mask. You can see this reads like Nazi propaganda. stitution after World War II, The follow­ and propaganda is to divert the blame very clearly in the case of Germany. With "In just a few decades Los Angeles has ing day Nazis celebrated this victory by from the people who are really respon­ the capitalist reunification of Germany. firebombing the home of a Turkish fam­ changed from a mainly white 'Iowa by sible, that is, the people who own and you have this orgy of GenTIan national­ thc Sca' to what David Rieff calls thc ily in the industrial city of Solingen, in control this country: "It's the black wel­ jsm, whose most extreme expression, but capital of the Third World .... In more western Germany, burning to death five fare mothers-it's illegal Mexican im­ I?y far not the only expression, is the and morc areas of the country it is the Turkish women and children, About the migrants-they're ruining our schools. Nazi skinheads. Since the German banks white English-speaker who feels like an alien in his own land. same time, the new, more right-wing They're eating up our tax dollars. bought out East Germany in 1990, cre­ government in France announced a pol­ "Why is it wrong for the heirs of the They're responsible for crime and drug ating a new. powerful Fourth Reich, Anglo-European tradition to look upon icy of "zero immigration," In order to these changes with dismay'? Is it not nat­ achieve this, they would abolish the o. ural. normal. and healthy to wish that (5 right, established by the French Revolu­ .r: one's people and one's culture should CL tion. that every child bom in France was ...... flourish'? It is the wordless acquiescencc ~ by whites in the steady occupation of entitled to become a French citizen, And ~TOP their country by aliens-who insist on they have recently decreed that so-called ., FREE T!

Reuters South African army continues occupation of black townships as U.S. imperialist chieftain Bill Clinton welcomes Mandela and De Klerk into New World Order. South Africa: Mandela/De Klerk's Neo-Apartheid Fraud

On October 15. the Nobel Peace Prize under a "Pax Americana" sealed in Wash­ Committee bestowed its annual award ington. In South Africa. the ANC will on South African president F. W. De police the black townships for the owners Klcrk and African National Congress For a Bolshevik Workers Party! of the Witwatersrand mines, the Jo 'burg president Nelson Mandela. They are banks and their masters in Washington, credited with "peacefully" bringing bloodbaths are orchestrated by the gov­ "Transitional Government of National Frankfurt and the City of London. about the demise of apartheid. But even ernment to show an iron fist to intimi­ Unity" in which all parties will be guar­ Nelson Mandela is expected to preside with the prospect of the ANC in office, date the black population and draw anteed cabinet seats and decisions are to over neo-apartheid capitalist rule in a the system of white supremacy remains, hard limits to "democracy" in a "post­ be by "consensus"-giving white parties New World Order. Just how far these and in the huge black townships on the apartheid" state. The South African rul­ effective veto power. Grotesquely, the petty-bourgeois black nationalists will upland veld near Johannesburg and the ers are also intent on continuing and MK is to be incorporated into the notori­ go to accommodate the white racists is teeming squatters' camps around the intensifying tribal rivalry among blacks. ous South African Defence Force. seen in recent revelations of secret talks ports of Cape Town and Durban there is which has been a keystone of apartheid. The violent chaos marking the birth between Mandela and leaders of the anything but peace. Since De Klerk The effects of these poisonous commu­ of the "new South Africa" stems from ultraright Afrikaner Yolksfront (AYF). released Mandela from prison in Febru­ nal/tribal conflicts have been seen in the the efforts of both De Klerk and Mandela The Yolksfront includes the parliamen­ ary 1990, more than 10,000 people, over­ repeated clashes between immigrants to square the mass aspirations for free­ tary Conservative Party (whose former whelmingly blacks, have been killed. The (largely Zulu) housed in hostels on the dom and equality with the continued rule MP Clive Derby-Lewis and his wife death toll is escalating: since July, when Witwatersrand and the (largely Xhosa) of apartheid, capitalism, which requires masterminded the Hani assassination); the first all-race South African elections township populations, as well as in the the subjugation and superexploitation of the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstllnds­ were set for next April 27, more than bloody "taxi wars" of rival groups of cheap black labor. For the oppressed beweging (AWB, Afrikaner Resistance 1,300 have been murdered. While Man­ black entrepreneurs. blacks of South Africa, the very concept Movement) of Eugene Terreblanche: dela "negotiates" with the apartheid mas­ On September 7, the 26-party Negotia­ of "power sharing" with one of the most "retired" military officers like General ters. the bodies pile up. And the finger­ tions Forum established a "transitional bloodthirsty racist states in the world is Constand Yiljoen and disaffected mem­ prints of the not so "hidden hand" of the executive council" (TEC) to produce a an utter fraud. This is a by-product of bers of the security forces. apartheid state and its agents are all over new constitution, oversee the elections the collapse of Stalinist-ruled degener­ The meetings were confirmed in a this carnage. and "share power" until then with the ated and deformed workers states in the September 24 joint statement between The assassination in April of Chris government. The' ANC, which used to Soviet Union and East Europe, whose the ANC and AYE which said that the Hani, general secretary of the Commu­ proclaim "one person, one vote" majority shock waves have been felt around the demand for an Afrikaner I'O/ksfaaf was nist Party and former leader of the rule as its goal, has now agreed to 'a world. In the Near East. the PLO has put on the table "for frank and forthright ANC's armed force, LJmkhonto we requirement of a three-quarters majority signed a peace of the oppressor, agreeing discussions." The Afrikaner ultraright­ Sizwe d enormous media intere&t. M."'".oc,,",""" mdepend~nt warker~ part, l' '4'1Z. ,:,w:; .,.:p·:~t *" ,,~. Itale fondl~ towards Br8J"11 ~ them to join him in a new revolutionary MOSES MAYEJ(lSO" explains why the uruon calis, unfashionably, for time, they don't want to oppose the ANC PT To look afld learn'5tm~ nationalisahon withoul compensation, and. why it wants broader unity on wnles JEREMY CAQHtN but cry. 'Viva NEF!'" clor:.e',flr,peCl,an3dv,se:> entering the government of apartheid But however "moderate" Mandela's the left and iln end to COSATU', alliance with the mc agamstalocalcopyofthe capitalism. Indeed, the NUMSA con­ TbI.lIGIDfmmlldCOlllnlallaisoc... lCda dcpE~ccafuatut.."."..r __ fik promises to the financiers and industri­ .-.bc:n~II>eA.~_~ACP gress which raised the possibility of a alists, whatever the constitutional guar­ Thr NUMSA...ciuaI «

California agribusiness is the biggest be more powerful forces involved than ters of a Japanese firm that's trying to Anti-Immigrant employer of "illegal immigrant" labor in that. And here's where anti-Japanese take over some high-tech computer out­ the country. Is this a contradiction? Why protectionism comes in, you see a very fit. One of the LAPD detectives who's are big agricultural capitalists and their clear division of labor within the Amer­ assigned to the case is this hip black Racism ... bankers giving money to a politician ican ruling class. The right wing, mainly played by Wesley Snipes. In one scene (continued from page 7) who is campaigning to stop the flow of concentrated in the RepUblicans, blame Snipes and his partner are being chased man's only" country. In fact, I think if immigrants? Because they have to do the black and Hispan'ic and Asian poor. by Japanese thugs in the pay of this cor­ Wilson ever saw white Anglo-Saxon two things: they want to exploit Mexican The liberals and the union bureaucracy poration, and they drive into the L.A. youth harvesting lettuce or picking fruit and other immigrant workers, but they and the Democrats blame the wealthy ghetto. Snipes has an instant conference in the Imperial Valley, he would keel also want to divert the popular economic capitalists-but /lot American wealthy with the brothers in the 'hood, saying, over dead in a state of shock. He's a discontent away from themselves. So capitalists. It's the Japanese wealthy cap­ "There's some bad Japanese cats tai ling racist like the old Southern slaveowners they blame the very people that they're italists, who are supposedly trying to me. Brothers,. take care of them." And were racists. They wanted blacks in this exploiting. bankrupt this'country by flooding it with you have a scene of this L.A. black street country, they wanted plenty of blacks in cheaper and better goods, so that they gang trashing the Japanese "bad guys" Down with Anti-Japanese this country, as long as they were slaves can then take over the country real cheap. on behalf of the "good guys," the LAPD! Protectionism! and they could exploit them, and they Last weekend my wife, daughter ahd Now, put this in political perspective. had no rights. Wilson wants plenty of People have a hard time buying the I saw the movie Rising Sun, which as a Just a few months ago, Clinton and Mexican workers in this country, as long line that the American economy has gone crime melodrama is moderately enter­ Wilson and the black Democratic then­ as his friends in agribusiness can exploit to hell in the last 20 years mainly because taining. Politically, it is quite a sinister mayor of L.A., Tom Bradley, brought in them and they have no rights. there are too many black welfare mothers movie. The plot centers around the mur­ massive military force and laid siege to Pete Wilson is basically the political and too many illegal Mexican immi­ der of your typical American blonde sex South-Central. They were qUite prepared agent of California agribusiness. And grants. Most people figure that there must goddess in the L.A. corporate headquar- to kill hundreds of black youth if the

12 WORKERS VANGUARD inatory nature of the blockade, pointing out that the Border Patrol didn't check Thousands of Mexican Workers Barred the fields or the factories because that woultl affect the interests of the bosses who hire undocumented workers to lower their costs (La lornada [Mexico City], 8 October). Workers Vanguard has covered the struggles of the UTAF EI Paso: Racist Border Blockade agricultural workers and EI Paso gar­ ment workers in recent years, pointing "Operation Blockade" is the latest t,\~\ out the very real possibility of united step in. the militarization of the 2,000- cross-border labor struggles. But" the mile-long Mexico-U.S. border. This AFL-CIO union tops have given no massive mobilization by American more than lip service to aiding Mexi­ immigration police to keep undocu­ can workers. On the contrary, with mented immigrants from crossing over their protectionist opposition to the from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua to EI North American Free Trade Agreement Paso, Texas was begun on September (NAFTA). they echo the same theme 20. Border Patrol agents have been sta­ as Clinton about Mexican workers tioned every 200 yards. 24 hours a day, "stealing American jobs." along a stretch of 20 miles. Some 200 Class-conscious workers on both vehicles are participating in the action, sides of the border must wage an inter­ as helicopters constantly buzz the bor­ nationalist opposition to the capitalists' der. While it was initially portrayed NAFTA rape of Mexico. The possibil­ as a temporary measure initiated by the ities for joint class struggle are increas­ local Border Patrol chief, it was paid ing with the rapid industrialization of for by a special appropriation from the northern Mexico, This year there was Justice Department. And although in a factory occupation at the Maquila­ the face of angry protests from Mexico dores Internacionales garment plant they're not calling it a blockade any­ (producing Levi's and Britannia jeans) more, the operation is continuing and and a successful wage strike at TDK may be expanded to Arizona and in Chihuahua. And at the Zenith plant California. in Reynosa, union dissidents carried There has been an epidemic of vir­ out a work stoppage against a corrupt ulent anti-immigrant hysteria spread by company-owned "labor" boss, which capitalist politicians of both parties this continues despite over 400 punitive year, particularly in California where a Times U.S. Border Patrol cops block bridge. Mexican and American workers must layoffs. But to seize such opportunities deep economic depression drags on. join hands across the border. requires the intervention of a workers While Republican governor Pete Wil­ party based on revolutionary inter­ son has proposed a whole array of rac­ ing to the Los Angeles Spanish­ Between workers and shoppers, up to nationalism, rather than the narrow ist measures, California's Democratic language daily La Opinion (8 October), 80,000 Juarez residents are affected by nationalism of the labor reformists on Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara President Clinton even claims the EI the blockade. both sides of the border. Boxer call for militarizing the Mexican Paso blockade reduced unemployment At bottom the economic forces are One common enemy that workers in border, and liberal Democratic state "in many of those towns in south stronger than migra repression. Ciudad both Mexico and the U.S. can imme­ treasurer Kathleen Brown has called for Texas" below 10 percent (EI Paso is in Juarez, with over 2.5 million people, diately unite against is the hated migra. closing it altogether. When federal West Texas). and EI Paso's 600,000 residents are one "Operation Blockade" is only the latest attorney general Janet Reno visited the In fact, the racist cordon has not economic region which is both divided atrocity. In EI Paso the Border Patrol is San Diego border region in August at affected either unemployment or the' and united by the Rio Grande (RIO notorious for abusing students at Bowie the height of the Mexico-bashing, she crime rate in EI Paso, contrary to the Bravo in Mexico). "Free trade zone" High School, beating women at the declared that using troops was one of Border Patrol's claims. But it has maquiladora factories on the Mexican Paisano apartment complex, randomly the "options" being studied. "Operation sharply cut business for downtown side employ tens of thousands of work­ seizing people who "look Mexican" on Blockade" in EI Paso is the test case. merchants, who complained bitterly ers producing for the American market. the streets (in this 70 percent Hispanic This competition in electoral xeno­ (along with suburban housewives, And many of the workers in the gar­ city), and brutalizing border crossers. phobia is already producing concrete whose Mexican maids and gardeners ment sweatshops and agricultural fields A May 1993 report by Americas Watch measures. In October, Wilson signed couldn't get across the border) .. In Ciu­ on the American side were born (and on "Frontier Injustice" about human into law reactionary acts making it a dad Juarez, there was a rash of pro­ often live) in Mexico or have family rights abuses on the Mexican border crime for non-citizens to request pub­ tests against the blockade. Early on, ties across "the wire." So far this year, documents how Border Patrol shootings lic medical services, prohibiting state hundreds marched through the city the INS has arrested over 2RO,OOO and rapes are routinely covered up by and local governments from giving demanding, "Let us in! We want to undocumented workers in the EI Paso INS authorities. The answer to this any job aid to undocumented work­ work!" (£1 Paso Times, 23 September). region alone, and for everyone arrested systematic racist repression is not ers, and overruling local "sanctuary" The leftist Committees of Popular it's estimated two more get through. complaint forms or government moni­ ordinances prohibiting cooperation Defense (COP) burned American flags The purpose of the INS/Border Patrol toring but a common working-class with the Immigration and Naturali­ and effigies of Uncle Sam. Catholic blockade and the increased militariza­ offensive against the capitalists and zation Service (INS), the migra. And bishops denounced the U.S.' anti­ -tion of the border is not to cut off this their governments who live off the in Washington, Boxer's $24-million Mexican measures. "Operation Dig­ mass immigration but to control it in products of the workers' toil. Full amendment to the federal "defense" nity," a call by Juarez officials to refuse the interests of capital. citizenship rights for immigrant work­ budget to deploy hundreds of,/'{ational to shop in EI Paso, initially had an Carlos Marentes of the Border Agri­ ers! Hands across the border against Guard personnel to aid the INS has impact but soon crumbled in the face cultural Workers Union (UTAF) in EI racist migra repression and maquiladora been approved in committee. Accord- of cheaper prices on the American side. Paso underlined the racist and discrim- superexploitation!

police who had beaten Rodney King had Labor Black League had a demonstration pendence and especially the French Rev­ death of communism." But it was not walked and the ghetto had erupted, as it in San Francisco around the slogan, "Full olution. Before that, people were not communism that died. It was Stalinism had a year earlier. As it turned out, they Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants citizens of countries but suhjects of that died, the bureaucratic degeneration didn't have to. But Clinton was obvi­ and All Foreign Workers." If people monarchies. If you were born in England of the Bolshevik Revolution under the ously so frustrated that he couldn't kill made it into this country, they should or the American colonies, you were a conditions of imperialist encirclement. blacks that he wiped out an entirely have the rights of citizens. subject of the British king. If you were We continue to stand for and fight innocuous integrated religious commune These days, the terms "citizen" and born in France, you were a subject of for the liberating principles of the Bol­ in Waco, Texas, burning to death. nearly "citizenship" have a very conformist the French king, unless your parents shevik Revolution. And on the subject a hundred men and women. connotation. You say somebody's a were Russians, and then you were a sub­ of this talk, those principles were very So here you have the American ruling "good citizen," you have the image of ject of the Russian tsar. clearly stated in the 1918 founding con­ class, Democrats and Republicans, abso­ someone in the Junior Chamber of Com­ The conception of citizenship, that stitution of the Soviet Russian workers lutely willing to kill hundreds of rebel­ merce who goes to these conventions everybody born in a country has equal state: lious black youth, and then this big­ where they wear funny hats, and he can legal rights, that there were no nobles "Article 20; Acting on the principle of budget Hollywood movie, with a popular cheat on his wife. I remember when I and commoners, was a product of what the solidarity of the toilers of all nations, black superstar, presents the Crips and was in grade school-I don't knbw if we call the bourgeois-democratic revo­ the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet the Bloods as America's front line of they still have it-they had a category lution against the medieval feudal order. Republic shall grant all political rights defense against the supposedly sinister on your report card called "citizenship," But today it is the capitalists who are enjoyed by Russian citizens to foreigners Japanese takeover! In this country, anti­ attacking the most elementary demo­ resident within the territory of the Rus­ which basically meant that you behaved sian Republic for purposes of employ­ Japanese protectionism-in fact, any yourself and you did what the. teacher cratic rights achieved by their revolu­ ment and belonging to the working class kind of nationalist protectionism-is told you to. I never did. I always flunked tionary bourgeois ancestors. while we or to the peasantry not employing hired intimately and directly linked with mur­ "citizenship." I was a bad citizen of the communists are defending those rights. labour. Local soviets [councils I shall be derous racism. third grade, P.S. 253 in Brooklyn. In December 1991, when Boris Yel­ authorized to confer upon such foreign­ ers. without any troublesome formalities, But citizenship doesn't mean that. A tsin-Washington's man in Moscow­ the rights of Russian citizenship." Full Citizenship Rights couple hundred years ago, citizenship kicked out the lame-duck Soviet presi­ for All Immigrants! was a very revolutionary concept. And dent Gorbachev, lowered the red flag on This is simply a concrete application of Last week, in response to the renewed - it became part of the central political the Kremlin and announced that the the basic Marxist principle that,the work­ attacks on immigrants by Wilson, Boxer vocabulary of the Western world as a Soviet Union no longer existed, the ers of the world must unite against their and Feinstein, the Spartacist League and result of the American War of Inde- Western capitalist rulers celebrated "the oppressors. _ 5 NOVEMBER 1993 13 NAFTA ••• JOBS and WAGES (continued from page 1) Tell PreSident Clinton and Congress Liberal Democratic Senator Bill Bradley - pushes NAFTA as the way to ensure that NO Mexico "is irrevocably tied to the U.S.," arguing that "the biggest threat to Amer­ NAFTA ican jobs does not come from Mexico Tile NOflh Amerrcan free Trade Agreement IS a bad Oeal for Wotlong people It IS a lalally Ilawed InVestors but from Europe, Japan and China." agreement that would be a disaster for the UnIl6(j Slates UnIon members are telhng PreSident Clrnton and Congress Meanwhile the mainstream opposition No NAFTA The labor and environmental Side agreements 10 NAFTA have .~ ~ to NAFTA runs the gamut from extreme real enlorcement meChanIsms and no teeth They do RS Of CONORlIS 001'", 10 oo"eel Ih' ,,,,"" ollh, a"o,· vnun ,OUR ...... , ... _ ••" right-wing politicians like Ross Perot to mo", '"ona'", by th, S"h aam"",,,,,,,, ~. ,~ ..'0" ••~ ~ ~ NAFTA 'NlII re:'uce lhe standard ot liVing lor !.At III..., k ~_~._ '~!o"'" ___ . work.rng Amencans and Will result in tha loss ~,DC Z0515; ::10. the majority of the Congressional Dem­ of hundreds of thousands 01 U S jobs whIle SeMM, WUhlngton DC ocrats to the AFL-CIO labor bureaucracy and their hangers-on in the reformist left. Playing on the wholesale destruction Left: Flag-waving UAW bureaucrats push pro­ of jobs and working conditions in the tectionist poison at rally of laid-off GM workers. U.S. and Canada during the Reagan/ Right: "Progressive" union tops of OCAW push Bush years and the Clinton "recovery," Perot's line that Mexican workers are "stealing chauvinist union misleaders and their American jobs." right-wing allies peddle racist, protec­ tionist poison, blaming unemployment its junior partners and clients in Canada lines and the phone company have all rantings about "open floodgates" (Perot's and plant closings not on the North and Mexico. been put on the auction block. Many "giant sucking sound") allowing jobs to American capitalists but on the Mexican heavy industry plants have been closed go south and racist hysteria over immi­ workers. Despite occasional expressions "The Gringo Banks down. Pemex, the nationalized oil com­ grants "taking American jobs." But these of "concern" for the hideous exploitation Are Drooling" pany, has eliminated 130,000 union jobs, same pro-capitalist bureaucrats aided the of the Mexican proletariat, the protec­ The 1989 "free trade" agreement with sparking huge protests. Mexican work­ bosses in destroying the jobs of Mexican, tionist opponents of NAFTA are whip­ Canada already gives a taste of what ers bitterly joke that NAFTA's Spanish U.S. and Canadian workers. When the ping up a war for "American jobs" and NAFTA has in store for the work­ initials, TLC, really stand for Todos a la UAW struck GM's Lordstown plant in "American profits." ing class. That pact has been so disas­ Calle (everyone thrown into the street). 1992, the bureaucrats settled the strike The American imperialist behemoth trous to Canada's economy that the The PRI, -.yhich has ruled Mexico for by knifing Mexican auto workers at a is the greatest enemy of all workers, former ruling Conservative party was over six decades, uses its hatchet men sister plant in Ramos Arizpe-as GM including the workers of the U.S. As decimated in last month's elections. It in the corporatist Confederation of Mex­ pledged that those workers would be laid has led to a wholesale destruction of ican Labor (CTM) to wield the ax for off before Lordstown workers. industrial jobs, particularly in Ontario, privatization and austerity. Any attempt where the provincial government of to organize independent unions is met Junior League Jingoists the social-democratic New Democratic with firings and the blacklist. And the Fake-left groups like the Communist Party shoved a "social contract" down government is openly preparing for Party USA echo the bureaucracy's rac­ the workers' throats. Not surprisingly, an assault on the unions following ist "yellow peril" appeals, railing that the NDP lost virtually all its seats in the NAFTA's enactment and national elec­ NAFTA might make it easier for "Japan federal parliament in the last elections. tions next August. Far-sighted imperial­ to use Mexico as an 'export platform' to Meanwhile, Business Week (13 Sep­ ist spokesmen are worried that a defeat ship goods to the U.S." (People's Weekly tember) exultantly reports: "The gringo for NAFTA could destabilize Mexico. World, 28 August). The "progressive" banks are drooling: They're ready to International Longshoremen's and Ware­ swoop into Mexico once NAFTA is Racist Hypocrisy of the housemen's Union leadership even rants approved." Mexico's workers and peas­ Union Tops about "poisoned food" coming in from ants are reeling under a decade of aus­ Mexico. And "left-wing" Labor Notes terity dictated by the International Mon­ Clinton's America is the "land of the leader Diana Kilmury, a Teamsters inter­ etary Fund (lMF). Labeled a "model" plummeting payrolls," as over 1.8 mil­ national vice president from Canada, for developing countries by the IMF and lion manufacturing jobs have been elim­ sounds like the worst reactionary nation- the World Bank, the PRI (Institutional inated since 1989 alone (Business Week, Revolutionary Party) regimes of Miguel 20 September). A study by the Economic ,~"".... de la Madrid and now Carlos Salinas de Policy Institute, entitled "The Joyless Gortari have driven down the Mexican Recovery: Deteriorating Wages and Job peso and leeched the workers and peas­ Quality in the 1990s," detailed the con­ -...u Edward Carreon ants dry to repay billions in debt to Wall tinuing mass layoffs and declines in Ford worker at Cuautitl€m, Mexico, Street. Under the PRI's "Stability Pact" hourly wages. All spring and summer '-UW site of 1990 strike brutally repressed there have been an endless series of job­ /fIIIIII by government and corporatist CTM wage controls, the average industrial bureaucrats. wage has fallen by two-thirds over the slashing announcements by scores of past decade, to $2.35 per hour. In the major employers. But the AFL-CIO Marxists we combat the economic maquiladoras near the U.S. border, over bureaucrats who helped put Clinton into nationalism which seeks to pit workers half a million workers, mainly young the White House are sworn enemies of in the U.S. against their class brothers women, slave for far less than that while class struggle. So they now turn to even and sisters to the north and south. In a living in perilous slums. more right-wing forces to channel work­ 1991 joint statement of the Grupo Espar­ In a virtual fire sale of 90 percent ers' anger into the dead end of protec­ taquista de Mexico, the Spartacist of state-owned companies, Washing­ tionist nationalism. League/U.S. and the Trotskyist League ton's Mexican lackeys have wiped out The anti-NAFTA rallies being called of Canada, we said: 'There is a bl\rning 400,000 jobs through "privatization." by a coalition of protectionist trade-union need for an internationalist proletarian Mexican journalist Alvaro Cepeda Neri bureaucrats, Perot supporters and the outright fascist Liberty Lobby are a sea n/AP opposition which stands· with the work­ acerbically notes: "The booty of privat­ Multibillionaire right-wing populist H. ing class and impoverished peasantry of ization has made multimillionaires of 13 of American flags and jingoist appeals Ross Perot joins AFL-CIO in pushing Mexico against the imperialist assault" families, while the rest. of the popula­ to "Save American Jobs." Seeking to chauvinist opposition to NAFTA. (WV No. 530, 5 July 1991). We call on tion-some 80 million Mexicans-has build a base for his right-wing populist the workers of Canada, Mexico and the been subjected to the same gradual nationalism, Perot appeals to widespread alist when she says: "We in the trade U.S. to join in common class struggle impoverishment as though they had suf­ disgust with the Wall Street bloodsuck­ union movement must wake up, other­ to smash NAFTA and defeat the rapa­ fered through a war" (New York Times, ers of the '80s "greed decade." He lec­ wise we will see the sovereignty of our cious designs of Yankee imperialism and 27 October). Shipyards, steel mills, air- tures that "NAFTA is driven by investor countries whittled away." greed" and will "do even more harm to The stench of racism is so thick in the U.S. economy and American workers this protectionist propaganda that even in the 1990s than leveraged buyouts the bureaucrats realize they have to clean Spartacist~ Forums (LBOs) did in the 1980s"! up their act with their multiracial ranks. Grotesquely parading as a friend of When Canadian auto workers met Amer­ "middle-class Americans" and even Mex­ ican workers near Niagara Falls for an ican workers, Perot in his book Save Your anti-NAFTA rally on October 2, the u.s. Imperialist Butchers: Job, Save Our Country laments how bureaucrats cautioned the crowd "not to "careers and standards of living are let anti-Mexican elements into your Hands Off the World! sacrificed and Mexican workers are ranks." Instead they welcomed Jesse exploited-all in the name of increasing Jackson, fig leaf "friend of labor" huck­ • U.S.fUN Out of Somalia Now! profits." Perot is a union-hating bil­ ster for the capitalist Democratic Party. lionaire who dreams of a corporatist state The bureaucrats and reformists alike • Down with the Starvation Blockade of Haiti! to resolve the crisis of American capi­ beg Clinton and the capitalists for a • Defend Cuba! talism. Yet he is lionized by the labor "peoples' NAFTA," as a report to the Speaker: Diana Coleman, Spartacist League bureaucrats for his opposition to NAFTA. United Electrical workers convention After decades of loyal service to the put it (UE News, 23 July). They want Friday, Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. I Wednesday, Nov. 17, 6:30 p.m. State Department and the CIA, backing U.S. imperialism, which has the blood UC Berkeley San Francisco State University U.S.-sponsored dirty wars in Central and of millions of workers and peasants 159 Mulford Student Union B116 South America, the AFL-CIO traitors are around the world on its hands, to protect For more information: (510) 839-0851 For more information: (415) 777-9367 also suddenly filled with compassion "worker rights in Mexico"! The social­ for the conditions of the Mexican pro­ democratic In These Times (6 Septem­ BERKELEY .• SAN.FRANCISCO letariat. Behind this hypocritical veneer ber) lamented that "Clinton had' a chance of concern lies the union tops' chauvinist to refashion NAFTA into an agreement 14 WORKERS VANGUARD Waco ... (continued from page 16) lies, from the events around the original BATF assault in February to the fabri­ cated charges of "child abuse." The massacre of the racially integrated religious group was :t warning of what this murderous ruling class has in store for all those whu defy it. And as they did in the wake of the 1985 bombing of the black MOVE commune in Philadel­ phia, th~ vindictive racist rulers now seek to punish those who s~rvived the Waco inferno. Outrageously, eleven members of the Branch Davidians are facing trial on charges including conspir­ acy to commit murder in the deaths of four government agents who were killed in the February assault. The government is so vengeful that it is prosecuting three who were not even present on the day of the BATF raid! I{ there were any justice in this unjust society, Clinton, Reno and their hired Attorney General Janet Reno, who calls for censoring "TV violence," ordered the murderous assault on Waco commune. guns v.;ould he facing trialfor mass mur­ Millions watched on TV as the feds' gruesome holocaust killed 86 men, women and children. der hefore a jury which included the Waco slll"l'il'Ors. We demand: Drop the turned into an "ambush" by Koresh and they were carried out by "blue ribbon" lawyer for slain Branch Davidian Steven charges! Freedom .f(1/' all the jailed his followers against the feds. Govern" commissions versed in the art of cover­ Schneider, told WV: "I was in there two Branch Dal'idians now! ment- mass murder was labeled "mass up (including some who played key roles weeks before the fire and saw those kids While much of the rest of the left either suicide." in amnestying the MOVE massacre), we before they got burned up.... They openly echoed or quietly acquiesced to Even as the government's flood of lies looked through the well over a thousand seemed to be well-fed, clean and healthy the government's lying rationales for the swung public support behind the line that pages of these reports. Their conclusions and as well adjusted as anybody could Waco holocaust, we of the Spartacist the victims were to blame for their own are so blatantly self-serving that even be under the circumstances." But this League have sought to sear this.heinous deaths, we responded with an article the capitalist media, which has dutifully meant nothing to Reno. who made her crime into the consciousness of the work­ headlined "Waco and the White Hous,~ and consistently parroted the govern­ mark as Dade County (Miami) district ing class. Beginning within hours of First the Massacre, Now the Lies" (WV ment's line, felt compelled to keep their attorney by sending people to jail on the massacre, the SL organized a series No. 575, 7 May). We exposed the lurid distance: the New York Times (12 Octo­ flimsy "child abuse" frame-ups. of demonstrations of outrage in cities stories of "child abuse" as a "New ber) called it "The Waco Whitewash," The scenes of the Branch Davidian around the country, including one outside Age witchhunt," upheld the Branch while Time (II October) headlined its commune being razed to the ground the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building in Davidians' right to armed self-defense. story 'Tripped Up by Lies." recalled nothing so much as the Nazis' Washington, D.C. At the huge gay rights and tore apart the feds' accounts of As Gary Richardson, a lawyer for one destruction of the Jewish ghetto in War­ march in the capital later that month, how Koresh and the Davidians had set of the Davidian survivors, said, "Our saw. Ironically. Clinton/Reno's holo­ a Spartacist banner' confronted the the blaze themselves. "But even if some­ clients said the Feds were lying all caust took place 50 years to the day after pro-Democratic Party militarism, declar­ one in the commune started the fire as along. and they were." The BATF lied the start of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto ing, "Waco Holocaust~Clinton/Reno/ the tanks of their sworn enemies were so repeatedly and brazenly~even "re­ uprising. Black journalist Walter Wil­ FBI Are Mass Murderers!" smashing through their walls," we wrote. writing" their original assault plan after liams noted the eerie parallels: "the Nazi Grotesquely, the government and its "the responsibility for the deaths of all the fact to make it fit the events~that news media told Germans about Jews~ media apologists tried to paint the Waco these people lies squarely on the gov­ director Stephen Higgins and five other they were involved in sexual rituals massacre as a "humanitarian" act, just ernment." Far from being an unintended top agents were suspended (on full pay. involving children. Like the BATE Nazi as the bloody neocolonial invasion of tragedy, the feds were determined to of course) and Higgins was pensioned SS men said they were searching for ille­ Somalia was justified as a food-relief exac't bloody revenge for their earlier off only days before the report was gal weapons. reported by paid inform­ mission. The Branch Davidians' exercise botched assault. released. ants, in the Warsaw ghetto. When SS of their Second Amendment right to bear Now the Treasury and Justice depart­ The government continues to claim agents stormed the ghetto. Warsaw Jews arms was portrayed as "terrorism." The ments have finally released the results that the four BATF agents who died on put up a fierce resistance .... The SS had murderous BATF assault on February 28 of their own "investigations" into the February 2X were "ambushed by over­ to call in armored mi Iitary units for assis­ against the religious commune was Waco holocaust. Despite the fact that whelming firepower" after Koresh was tance. The BATF/FBl's armored units tipped off by the media. But BATF didn't usc bullets and shells. They used undercover agent Robert Rodriguez con­ O-chlorobenzalmalonnitrile, known as that would have strengthened rights and Southern California. tradicts this ludicrous lie. confessing CS gas. banned for use in war by the raised incomes for workers." When hundreds of militants were fired in the Treasury report that even after Paris Chemical Weapons Convention" Prominent social democrat Jonathan and one was gunned down during a 1990 his cover had been blown, Koresh (Cincinnati Enqllirer, 2 May). Tasini, writing in the Oakland Tribune strike at the Ford plant in Cuautitbin out­ wished him "good luck'.' and allowed The incineration of the Branch David­ (6 September), claims to stake out a side Mexico City, UAW Local 579 at the him to leave the farmhouse unharmed ian commune was a deliherate. ca/clI­ position between "free traders" and the St. Paul Ford plant called for donations as the BATF was about to come in fated. crimil/(i/ massacre. A recent article "worst nativist instincts" of the Ross and solidarity telegrams and delegations. with guns blazing. The feds stormed the by Alexander Cockburn in the 5;an Fran­ PerotlLane Kirkland crowd: But what was needed were solidarity commune with National Guard helicop­ cisco Examiner (8 October) talked of "Rare is the voice with a broader. vision, strikes to stop production at the auto ters and Special Response Teams armed Clinton/Reno's "catastrophic errors in arguing for a just, international develop­ giant throughout the U.S. and Canada. with submachine guns. grenades and judgment." Cockburn has done a valu­ ment philosophy that replaces the unfet­ In the last decade, the number of high-tech assault gear~ostensibly in able service in exposing many of the tered movement of jobs, capital and goods with democratic, open and sus­ Mexican auto workers has skyrocketed order to serve a "search warrant'" for government's myriad lies around Waco. tainable trade policies that guarantee a to 368,000, many working in some of "illegal" weapons. Some "ambush"! But where liberals argue that this is the basic standard of living for every worker the most modem and productive plants The reports also admit that during the result of "errors" that can be corrected in the world." in the world. Last Christmas, Nissan .51-day siege of the Waco commune the through pressure, Marxists understand These reformists believe that U.S. impe­ opened an assembly plant in Aguas­ government was methodically preparing that murderous repression against work­ rialism can be made to change its spots. calientes, Mexico with 4,500 workers, to drown the Branch Davidians in blood, ers, the oppressed and all who defy This is a rehash of the notion of "ultra­ where 40 percent of the jobs will even­ even as its "negotiators" struck a deal ruling-class dictates is at the core of the imperialism" first propounded by Ger­ tually be performed by robots. Nissan's with Koresh that he could peacefully sur­ capitalist state. man social democrat Karl Kautsky, that sister plant in Smyrna, Tennessee was render after completing the bible com­ As they whitewash this horrendous the advanced capitalist powers can be the scene of a disastrous union defeat in mentary he was writing. Now they have crime, the government reports offer blue­ pressured to adopt a more just, harmo­ 1990, when the UAW tops blew an concocted a new excuse for their mur­ prints for more effective state-organized nious and equitable policy. But capital­ organizing drive. A coordinated fight to derous vendetta. claiming that Koresh violence, calling for expanding and plac­ ism~premised on vicious exploitation unionize Nissan would be a powerful "told his followers that soon they would ing even more deadly weaponry in the and competition for markets and raw example to millions of workers on both goout into the world,turn their weapons hands of the federal police forces. Their materials-can offer no just interna­ sides of the border~and in Japan. But on individual members of the public, and recommendations dovetail with Clin­ tional development policy. In the mean­ it won't be done by the UAW tops, whose kill those who did not say they were ton's proposed "crime bill," which seeks time, Tasini calls for American workers protectionist poison is a roadblock to believers." Only the fevered minds of to put more cops on the street and vastly to admit that they "have lived too well joint class struggle. government agents could come up with increase the federal government's use of for too long at the expense of others"! The pro-capitalist traitors, whether the that. This is the method of Hitler's Nazi the racist death penalty while disarming There have been numerous class bat­ corporatist Mexican CTM or the. give­ propagandist Goebbels: the bigger the the masses with gun control. tles north and south of the Rio Grande/ back artists in the AFL-CIO and the lie, the more often it is told, the more David Koresh and his followers Rio Bravo that have cried out for Canadian Labor Congress, must be people will swallow it. wanted to be left alone to live as they joint labor action by Mexican and U.S. ousted in the struggle to forge a class­ Reno's ultimate lie in justifying the chose. As communists committed to the workers: auto workers in the modem struggle leadership of the workers move­ murder of 86 human beings was that fighl for socialist revolution to eradicate Hermosillo plant in Sonora, garment ment in all three countries. What is Koresh was guilty of "child abuse." this oppressive capitalist system, we workers in El Paso, organizing cam­ urgently posed is the construction of an The FBI/Justice Department report now intend to make sure that the government paigns of maquiladora workers from international, revolutionary vanguard of blithely concedes that "there was no bombings and mass murder of MOVE Tijuana to Matamoros for independent . the proletariat that will lead the working direct evidence establishing that any and the Branch Davidians are never for­ unions. Thousands of Mexican drywall class in a fight for socialist revolution children were being either sexually or gotten. A future workers ~overnment construction workers waged a militant and a planned economy throughout the physically abused." Noted Texas trial will avenge these massacres. Hands off struggle for union representation in Americas .• lawyer Jack Zimmerman, who was the the surviving Branch Davidians!.

5 NOVEMBER 1993 15 WfllIllEIiS """'II/) Haiti: Down with U.S. Starvation Blockade!

U.S. warship off the coast of Haiti. Imperialist sanctions on victimize the masses.

OCTOBER 3l-A flotilla of six U.S. who profited handsomely from the UN "attaches," many Haitians desperately Cuba! Down with the imperialist star­ warships, backed up by vessels from sanctions imposed last June by run­ look to Washington to remove its pup­ vation blockade! Canada, France and Argentina, has set ning contraband. Rather it is the long­ pets. But racist Yankee imperialism is Following their colonial occupation of up a naval blockade of Haiti that threat­ suffering black population which is tak­ today the greatest enemy of all mankind, Somalia in the guise of "humanitarian" ens to plunge the impoverished Carib­ ing the brunt. and would only impose the iron heel of relief, the imperialists are now producing bean island country into mass starvation. At the UN on October 28, Aristide another dictatorship on black Haiti. Pro­ mass hunger in ·Haiti in the name of Masquerading as a mission for "democ­ called for a "total and complete" impe­ claiming a "New World Order" follow­ "democracy." U.S. warships even turned racy," they are enforcing a United rialist blockade of Haiti to step up pres­ ing the collapse of the Soviet degener­ back a boatload of 56 tons of rice, Nations-mandated embargo on oil and sure on the junta. Speaking to a rally of ated workers state, Washington is acting powdered milk and medical supplies military supplies that aims to pressure several thousand Haitians outside, black as world gendarme. American interven­ sent by the relief organization Food the military regime to permit the return Democrat Jesse Jackson called for the tion in Haiti also poses a mortal threat for the Poor on the pretext that they to office of the elected president, Jean­ U.S. to use military force, but with a to the Cuban Revolution, which the U.S. could not search the containers in the Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in an formal disclaimer of "only as a last has sought to strangle for more than three hold. A total trade embargo, as demanded army coup headed by General Raoul resort." Bled dry by decades of U.S.­ decades. by Aristide, would be catastrophic in Cedras two years ago. Yet the racist backed dictators, from "Papa Doc" and The international working class must a country where 850,000 people-one­ embargo isn't hitting the bloodstained "Baby Doc" Duvalier and their "Tontons oppose this imperialist intervention. We eighth of the population-depend on generals and their bourgeois backers, Macoutes" thugs to Cedras with his say: U.S'/UN hands off Haiti! Defend continued on page 11

f.·.··.eds.\.··.: ...... - ..... ·S~~I'a" ... ~­ Government Massacr. Clinton/Reno's Vendetta

Millions across the country watched them burn to the ground. in shock last April 19 as TV cameras To justify this mass murder, Clinton, captured the government's incineration Reno and their media mouthpieces gro­ of 86 people, 22 of them children, in a tesquely blamed the victims for their own religious commune outside Waco, Texas. deaths, demonizing David Koresh and Under direct orders from President Bill his followers as a gang of heavily armed Clinton and Attorney General Janet crazies who immolated themselves. But Reno, an army of National Guardsmen, even the whitewashing reports by the J us­ FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and tice and Treasury departments released Firearms (BATF) agents stormed the in the last month show that the justifi­ - Branch Davidians' isolated farm build- cations offered by Clinton and Reno for Wide World ings with tanks, armored vehicles and their deadly vendetta were a tissue of BATF stormtrooper. deadly gases and then coldbloodedly let continued on pa[!,e 15

16 5 NOVEMBER 1993