No. 290, October 9, 1981
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WfJ/iIlE/iS ",1N(JO,1" 25¢ No. 290 :"':;:'~ X-523 9 October 1981 World Ca~italist Economies in Trouble a ree Blue Monday, 28 September 1981. out the fall was checked and reversed. For a moment everyone feared another Late in the trading day the big institu Black Thursday, 24 October 1929, the tional investors, insurance companies Great Crash which ushered in the world and pension funds, stepped in to buy depression. The panicky selling on stocks at now bargain-basement prices. world stock exchanges followed the sun. So Blue Monday did not become Black The trading day opened in Tokyo on a Thursday ... this time. truly blue note as the Nikkei Dow Jones While the panicky selling from Tokyo index plunged 300 points, the largest fall to New York was something of a chain in its history. A two-week slide in the reaction, investors were also reacting to London market turned into a full-scale the specific economic and political rout, the third largest decline in its conditions of their respective countries. history. Stock prices in Zurich hit a six And these conditions are, each in their year low. The Paris bourse and Frank own way, bad. For months Wall Street furt exchange likewise suffered severe has been saying that Reagan's policy of declines. "The markets in the West are financing a massive arms buildup by like a snowball rolling downhill," said reducing taxes is just plain crazy. It will one French hroker of the day's dealings ruin the economy. After unsuccessfully ( ~Va/l Srreer Journal, 29 September). trying to bully the moneymen into Everyone's eyes turned to the giant lowering interest rates, the tough-guy l':ew York Stock Exchange, which on president made an effort to appease Friday had closed at a 16-month low. them by red ucing the budget deficit. On (Prices on the Big Board had fallen Thursdai September 24, Reagan an almost 200 points since June.) Stock nounced an additiogal$J I billion of market tipster Joseph Granville was bUdget cuts In Medicare, Medicaid. predicting prices would fall right welfare, food stamps, veteran's benefits, through the floor. And when the Big government employee pensions, subsi ber Spiegel Board opened, it looked as if Granville dized housing and student loans. Wall Panicky traders on Wall Street. The Big Board has dropped nearly 200 points was dead on target. Prices fell 14 points Street's verdict was: not enough! On since June. in the first hour. "There is panic in the Friday stock prices fell to a new low and London, financial capital of the sick the sun. The means: tear down the Street. The market looks as if it is having on Monday a crash was averted only at man of the imperialist West. Two years "welfare state," revive the "magic" of a free fall with 'no end in sight," the eleventh hour. ago Margaret Thatchercame to office as free-market capitalism squeeze the exclaimed one broker (New York The most depressed of the world's right-wing crusader, much like Reagan, money supply to choke off inflation and Times, 29 September). But as it turned depressed stock markets is naturally vowing to restore Britain to its place in continued on page 8 SL Protests . S L9 REAGAN ;a:. -~_~ Solidarnosc zabif - ail POLISH, , Counterrevolution ~y Un~ PAT~O,~~~.. AGjNT~ .ER- K.ochCV, ,(RT, COuNTER- "State Department Socialists" Provide NYC Office ~k~lIl~g~d.R ~.1A~;;;JI ~.~.·~.S~~O'fl!~ &.14'1 \);;lff'" 1U1.",~ 5, R.. '-Blii-~ When Polish Solidarnosc opened an swered. Outside on the street there was a ~"~~} rH~J~"I1f!'::;";'lau.~""> {~t_;AI office in New York's United Federation demonstration by the Spartacist League of Teachers (UFT) headquarters Sep (SL) which proclaimed, "Polish Soli tember 24, it was a significant step in darnosc Agents of Counterrevolution." their link-up with Western imperialism. The 50 protesters carried placards and That was recognized by all sides, chanted "No Rollback! No Capitalist including capitalist propagandists who Restoration in Eastern Europe!" and try to cover this up with their "free "Social Democrats, AFL-CIO Front for world" rhetoric. The inaugural "Soli CIA in Poland, Too!" darity" press conference was jammed An SL press release pointed out it was with representatives from every NYC no accident the Solidarnosc office was newspaper, TV network and major news sponsored by UFT president Albert t weckly, plus government mouthpieces Shanker, a leader of Social Democrats, like Voice of America and Radio Free USA (SDUSA), a gang of super Cold Europe. a handful of East European Warriors. It also noted that Lech news agencies. and Workers Vanguard.. Walesa had invited AFL-CIO "Euro WV Photo But the o,minous declaration of intent by pean representative" Irving Brown to New York, September 24: "Reagan busts American union PATCO, loves pro-imperialist labor fakers was an- continued on page 7 Solidarnosc... Labor Must Shut Down the Air~orts! Militant PATCO Pickets Stop Traffic at S.F. Airport SAN FRANCISCO, 25 September Today the largest Bay Area airport demonstration yet in support of the air traffic controllers strike got out of the hands of the AFL-CiO officials who called it. Some 600 to 800 picketers from PATCO (the air controllers' union), the International Association of Machinists (lAM) and a score of other unions surged into the streets, blocking all traffic into San Francisco International Airport for an hour and 20 minutes. Picketers first surrounded a car Air controllers which broke down in the passenger and Machinists pickup lane and began chanting, "On defy bureaucrats, strike! Shut it down!" Then they chant "Hell no, we fanned out across all lanes of traffic, won't go'" defying orders from California AFL CIO secretary John Henning and Jeff Pector, head of the AFL-CIO's SF Airport Coalition, to uselessly restrict picketing to the central terminal. TV coverage from helicopters showed freeway traffic backed up for miles WV Photo around the airport. Many air travelers by the cops to clear the street. breach. "You heard him!" yelled leaflet calling on unionists to "write missed their flights. But had these Wringing his hands, Pector asked a Bryant, unsuccessfully trying to herd your congressman"! To do what-shut militant pickets been led in 'mass group of lAM stewards for help, but demonstrators back to the curb. But down the airports? When Henning picketing of airport employee en they just laughed at him. The IAMers no one listened to Bryant either. Such raised the same call to "write your trances at shift change, there would mstead joined with other militants to opportunist shenanigans expose the congressman" at today's demonstra have been no departing flights to ,.get protect the demonstration from R WL's paper position-plagiarized tion he was loudly booed, but not by on. Such a strategy ofsolidarity strikes would-be thugs and hit-and-run driv from Workers Vanguard-for labor to the likes of Bryant. to shut the airports down would have ers. One such driver cooled down in a "shut down the airports" as so much Tying up passenger traffic into the won the PATCO strike eight weeks hurry when a burly trade unionist hot air. According to the RWL, such airports won't win the PATCO strike. ago. suggested the picketers "flip the fucker action should take place only with But even such action is too militant for Faced with hundreds of workers in on its side." Unfortunately, another "international union sanction," i.e., Henning, who fears it will lead to more the street, Pector pleaded with the hostile driver escaped after ramming a never. The RWL's real program is to effective tactics. Those 800 demonstra crowd on his bullhorn: "You can all go picketer, throwing him across the tail bureaucrats like Henning who tors who came out today should have home now. The demonstration is hood of his car. occasionally blow smoke about form been led in mass picketing at the over." This appeal was met with jeers When the lAM stewards refused to ing a "labor party." At an earlier SF airport worker entrances. As the sign and the chant, "Hell no, we won't go!" do Pector's bidding, Steve Bryant of airport demonstration on August 21, carried by a militant warehouseman Despite his protest that "it's not my the small Revolutionary Workers Bryant paid his dues to such fakers by said: "Bust Union Buster Reagan! demonstration," Pector was ordered League (RWL) stepped into the handing out a Central Labor Council Shut Down the Airports!" CIA International Terrorism Ex~osed How U.S. Arms Afghan Counterrevolutionaries In the first days of 1980, James Earl Eurocommunist renegades from Mos foreign personnel" (In These Times, 16 Operation Afghanistan, reports Bern Carter fired the opening shots of Cold cow to pseudo-Trotskyists whose "anti 22 January 1980). Recently, however, stein, was "personally ordered by War II. The American president dema Stalinism" has more in common with investigative reporter Carl Bernstein of President Carter and carried out under gogically whipped up popular anti Amnesty International than with the Watergate fame has lifted the veil on the direct supervision of his national Soviet frenzy over Russian intervention founders of the Communist Interna imperialist intervention in Afghanistan. security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, against counterrevolutionary Islamic tional. While the British IMG initially Bernstein's article for the New Republic and his CIA director, Stansfield Tur guerrillas in Afghanistan. And the bulk headlined "Soviet Troops Out of Af details the CIA's intriCate gunrunning ner." So the "captured Soviet AK-4T' of the left soon fell into line, from ghanistan!" its comrades of the mis operation, part of a war drive aimed at with which Brzezinski posed at the named "United Secretariat of the overturning the historic social gains of Khyber Pass, the weapons used to Fourth International" (USec) hesitated the Russian October Revolution: gun down "Communist schoolteachers" to take up the imperialist refrain so "A year and a half after Soviet troops who taught young girls to read and W'liKEliS blatantly.