No. 421, February 6, 1987
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
WflliltEliS ,,1N(;',1,, 25¢ No. 421 '"'~.)('523 6 February 1987 Reagan Off the Deep End? There he goes again-as soon as The very next day the Pentagon Reagan gets into a political jam at canceled port leaves for the Nimitz, home he reaches for the.red phone and sending the nuclear aircraft carrier U.S. naval task forces are sent prowl into the eastern Mediterranean; the ing for a military "crisis." For weeks, Kennedy's battle group was ordered to the Reaganauts have been looking to remain in the region "indefinitely"; a divert attention from the Iran/Contra 1,600-man Marine amphibious unit is scandal with some "bang bang" for the on station while another is due there TV evening news. So you could almost shortly; six U.S. warships are heading hear the shouts of joy from the White north in the Persian Gulf, and a third House basement when news came carrier, the Kitty Hawk, is racing from from Lebanon that three more Ameri the Philippines to the Arabian Sea. cans had been kidnapped in Beirut. In addition, the State Department AP The London Guardian (29 December) banned all travel to Lebanon and gave perceptively. noted that, this "intensi American passport holders 30 days to fied the political pressure on President get out of the country. And while Reagan's Reagan just as the lacklustre State of they're rattling sabers in the Med, an "diplomacy": the Union address to Congress and the FBI dragnet arbitrarily seizedPales Bibles and guns nation on Tuesday night conspicuous tinian Arabs in Los Angeles (see page for Iranian ly failed to achieve its goal of re 2) in a transparent effort to whip up mullahs. U.S. establishing the prestige of the presi war hysteria at home. battleship Iowa dency after Irangate." Since it didn't The "State of the Union" speech, off Honduras play in Peoria, they bring up the supposed to be the rallying cry for the coast. Sixth Fleet. continued on page 11 Anger Over Racist Attacks Derailed in Georgia ATLANTA-They came from around the wrist with nothing more than the country to participate in what was misdemeanors. After being subjected dubbed the biggest civil rights march to racist invective and intimidation since the '60s: But the "Brotherhood Il" throughout the day the marchers gave march in Georgia's all-white Forsyth a final display of suicidal pacifism, County January 24 was more like a chanting at their would-be murderers:" walking prison than a freedom march. It "We love, you, we love you, we love was designed and tightly controlled by you." The white lynchers retorted: "We its Democratic Party organizers as a hate you, we hate you, we hate you." show of faith in racist American "de This march against "intimidation" mocracy," rather than a militant pro did nothing to intimidate the KKK kill test against Ku Klux Klan terror. Many ers. In its wake, one Klan group an of the more than 20,000 undoubtedly nounced plans to march through For came out of a felt desire to oppose KKK syth County on February 7, another to lynch mob attacks of the sort met by a hold a cross-burning in Barrow County few score Martin Luther King Day two weeks later. Yet a third Klan marchers the previous Saturday. Pro provocation is scheduled to go ahead in testers eagerly bought Workers Van suburban College Park near Atlanta. guard and other Spartacist literature And in the aftermath, Forsyth County calling for a perspective of labor/black passed' an ordinance to stymie any mobilization to smash racist terror. But future anti-racist march, demanding when they arrived in the Forsyth county that march organizers pay all "security" seat of Cumming, they found them costs. Yet the black Democratic politi selves hemmed in on all sides by an army cians and preachers like Atlanta city of National Guardsmen and local and councilman Hosea Williams who organ state cops, and were ordered to refrain ized "Brotherhood II" join in hosannas even from singing old civil rights songs. for the "New South." They agree with While Georgia politicians bemoaned the Atlanta Constitution (26 January) the bad press being given Forsyth editorial claim that "the events of the County, more than 1,000 rabid racists last two weekends dramatized just how turned out. The night before, every gun much it has changed." Does someone shop in Cumming sold out of ammuni- " , Dennis Brae have to remind them that they are' all tion and weapons. A black TV reporter National Guard, cops, Democratic Party bigWigscorral anti-Klan protesters, sworn into office under the Confederate who got too close to the racist mob was Forsyth County, Georgia, Januar·y 24. slaveholders' banner, which happens to attacked even as she was televising a march, several hundred demonstrators attack, while waiting for buses to pick be the Georgia state flag and the banner report. One marcher hit by a brick had were forced to cower in a shopping them up. Yet the more than 50 racist waved by the Klan lynchers! to have brain surgery. And after the center after sundown, fearful of a Klan terrorists arrested are being slapped on continued on page 13 Unleash Labor/ Black Power! Finish the Civil War! I Tragically dead at 29 years of age death all the more bitter; by his own hand. A member of our In a note which he intended as his ALDEN BURR CAVANAGH organization for more than eight will, written a few months before and years. found by his side at the time of his The shock of his death is com death, he wrote among other things pounded by the evident fact that of his regard for the Spartacist 1AUGUST 1957 - 20 JANUARY 1987 none of his friends, roommates, League as mankind's last best hope. comrades, lovers or others who were But he noted that, like his grandfa close to him at the time had any ther, he was taking the reasons for inkling of such an impending act. this will to the grave with him. Thus he was deprived of any support Alden is free now from his .tor in what must have been his agony. ments and ourworld is a poorer place To the extent that others knew for it. him, and especially his comrades, they felt affection and personal re -Bay Area District of the SL/U.S. spect for him, which feelings only -Central Committee of the SL/U.S. grew with time, thus making his 25 January 1987 Alden with Spartacist contingent at anti-Klan rally in Boston, 1982. MEMORIAL MEETING Sunday, February 15 Hyatt Regency Oakland, 5:00 p.m. California Room, 1001 Broadway For more information: (415) 839-0851 OAKLAND WV Photo Down with the McCarran-Walter Act! Karl Liebknecht: "The Main Enemy Is At Home!" The great German revolutionary Karl Stop the FBI/INS Liebknecht issued the following interna tionalist manifesto calling for an interna tionalist demonstration against the imperi Witchhunt of Palestinians! alists and their world war on May Day 1916. Addressing 10,000 workingpeople in To boost his plummeting polls and witchhunt are well-established busi- Berlin, Liebknecht was arrested by the whip up Americans for new war moves .nessmen, students and working people. TROTSKy Kaiser's troops whose uniform he wore. LENIN in the Near East, Reagan and his top cop For example, the alleged Southern Poverty and misery, need and starvation, are ruling in Germany, Belgium, Poland Meese are rounding up Palestinians in California "PFLP leader" Khadar and Serbia, whose blood the vampire of imperialism is sucking and which resemble Los Angeles, treating them as though Musa Harnide is a 32-year-old business vast cemeteries. The entire world, the much-praised European civilization, is falling they lived under the Zionistjackboot in man who studied marketing in college, into ruins through the anarchy which has been let loose by the world war. the West Bank. On January 26, in-a has lived in the U.S. since 1971 and was Those who profit from the war want war with the United States. To-morrow, Gestapo-like dragnet federal agents expecting final approval of his U.S. perhaps, they may order us to aim lethal weapons against new groups of brethren, burst into the homes of eight Palestini citizenship application January 27. He against our fellow-workers in the United States, and fight America, too. Consider ans and a Kenyan,'arrested them andare is active in Democratic Party politics as well this fact: As long as the German people does not arise and use force directed by holding them for deportation. a Jesse Jackson supporter, and an its own will, the assassination of the people will continue. Let thousands of voices Six of the Palestinians were charged outspoken opponent of U.S. aid to the shout "Down with 'the shameless extermination of nations! Down with those under the 1952 McCarthyite "thought contras. Hamide's wife, Kenyan-born responsible for these crimes!" Our enemy is not the English, French, nor Russian crimes" McCarran-Walter Act for Julie Nyangugi, is an accountant. people, but the great German landed proprietors, the German capitalists and their allegedly "advocating communism," Anti-Arab repression is an aspect of executive committee. i.e., the views of the radical-nationalist racist American capitalism that is Forward, let us fight the government; let us fight these mortal enemies of all Popular Front for the Liberation of compounded by Washington's support freedom. Let us fight for everything which means the future triumph of the working Palestine.