workers.org Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite! JUNE 30, 2005 VOL. 47, NO. 25 50¢ As Bush ‘hunkers down’ Detrás del levantamiento indígena en Bolivia. 12 Leaked memos show RACISM & PRISONS Iraq War conspiracy Michigan rally for justice 5 Popular resistance wears down ‘coalition of willing’ By Leslie Feinberg Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning. According to Manning, Rice didn’t want to talk about Osama bin Laden or Al- The shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq was not a “war of last News on Mumia Qaeda, she wanted to press “regime change” in Iraq. resort.” The “regime change” had nothing to do weapons of mass • Attorneys warned the Blair government that U.S.-British and Herman Wallace destruction [WMD] or “terrorism” or defense of neighboring cases 3 bombing of Iraq almost a year before the imperialist invasion— countries or nuclear capability. designed to provoke the Iraqi government into an action that The cat’s out of the bag now. All that was just a pretext created would justify the invasion—was illegal, a violation of interna- Report shows by U.S. and British imperialism. shocking jobs bias 4 tional law. Many in the anti-war movement who raised their voices to • The “Downing Street memo,” perhaps the most damning of demand “No blood for oil profits!” said it all along. But this time all, contains the transcript of official minutes of a July 23, 2002, MISSISSIPPI VERDICT it’s coming from the same people who had claimed the movement meeting between Blair, his top advisers and Richard Dearlove— was a bunch of conspiracy theorists. head of the British spy agency MI6. At that sit-down—eight Was justice Eight classified memos have now been leaked, mostly to the months prior to the invasion of Iraq—Dearlove explained that served? 10 British media, that show otherwise. Washington officials had made clear at a recent meeting that They come at a time when Britain is also mired in the Penta- “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, jus- gon’s war. The occupation forces can’t even keep a six-mile stretch tified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelli- of road open between Baghdad and the airport. gence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Popular anger in the U.S. is mounting along with the rise in • British Foreign Office Political Director Peter Ricketts wrote troop casualties. A Gallup poll conducted June 6-8 revealed that to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a March 22 memo of the REAL 6 out of 10 of those asked wanted a partial or full withdrawal of importance of winning popular and parliamentary support for a GIs from Iraq. Only 41 percent approved of the Bush adminis- war against Iraq. “We have to be convincing that: the threat is so SOLIDARITY? tration’s handling of the Iraq War. A majority said they’d be upset serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for AFL-CIO on if the president tried to send more troops. ... .” The Blair government then released a pre-war intelligence report claiming that the Iraqi government could launch a chem- Eight smoking guns Venezuela, Iraq 4 ical or biological weapons attack on 45 minutes’ notice. The eight memos released in recent weeks, stamped “secret” These secret papers found their way to British journalist or “confidential,” reveal the following: Michael Smith and have been circulated on the Internet. • Six months after the 9/11 attacks, then-U.S. National Security Although U.S. and British officials have nit-picked some Adviser Condoleezza Rice met with British Prime Minister Tony U.S. SPECIAL Continued on page 5 FORCES Doing what in the Philippines? 8 STONEWALL means SEA OF RED fight Funeral for Portuguese back communist 8 Subscribe to HISTORIC 7 Workers World Trial subscription: $2 for 8 weeks TRANS DAY OF ACTION 7 One year subscription: $25 NAME FIERCE youth ADDRESS speak out 6 CITY/STATE/ZIP EMAIL PHONE N.J. lesbian Workers World Newspaper 55 W. 17 St. NY, NY 10011 212-627-2994 moms win 7 www.workers.org Page 2 June 30, 2005 www.workers.org Pre-Stonewall gay organizing Impact of early Black In the U.S. Leaked memos show Iraq War conspiracy . 1 Pre-Stonewall gay organizing . 2 civil rights struggle Crack in Herman Wallace case . 3 Mumia supporters protest latest legal setback . 3 By Leslie Feinberg sexuals, not by what I do in bed. I believe there is a gay Mumia on: The collapse of compromise. 3 sensibility. Progressives challenge AFL-CIO on ‘Solidarity Center’ . 4 All five founders of Mattachine had at least some train- “When we tried to explain this to somebody, I would say, Ohio workers protest 'vulture' capitalists . 4 ing in Marxism. Harry Hay, as a long-time teacher of the ‘There is a gay culture.’ People would say, ‘Gay culture? Racist hiring practices exposed . 4 Marxist analysis of the development of society and the sci- What do you mean? Do you actually think we’re more cul- Rally launches prisoner rights campaign . 5 ence of change, had the most theoretical experience. So tured than anybody else?’ I would explain that I was using LGBTQ youth take on NYPD . 6 rather than merely organizing to form an activist group, ‘culture’ in the sociological sense, as a body of language, People of color initiate Trans Day of Action . 7 historian John D’Emilio points out, “The founders also feelings, thinking, and experiences that we share in com- Win for lesbian co-mothers . 7 brought to their planning meetings a concern for ideology mon. As we speak of a Mexican culture. As we speak of an Book review: Women workers on a risky journey . 10 that grew out of their leftist politics.” American Indian culture. We had to say that gay culture And, D’Emilio adds, “the worldview of its adherents was an emergent culture.” Around the world rested on an analysis of society that saw injustice as Rowland continued, “The word gay itself is a marvelous In Portugal, the struggle continues . 8 rooted in the social structure. Exploitation and oppression example of what I mean by gay culture. You’ll get a lot of Another brutal offensive in Iraq . 9 came not from simple prejudice or misinformation, but arguments about this. But I know that gay was being used Bolivarian Revolution is vigilant. 9 from deeply embedded structural relationships.” back in the thirties, and we didn’t mean ‘merry’ or ‘festive.’ Stop the killing of Philippine activists. 10 (“Making Trouble”) We meant ‘homosexual.’ This does not constitute Editorials D’Emilio explores the attempts by a language in the sense that English is a language Was justice really served? . 10 Mattachine founders to bring ideological and French is a language, but it’s more compara- clarity to the social condition of homosexu- ble to Yiddish culture. A lot of people, Jews and Noticias En Español als in the 1950s United States. “The non-Jews, used Yiddish words like schlep and founders’ lack of an already developed meshuga. These words separate them culturally Michael Jackson . 12 analysis of the oppression of homosexuals from my mother, for example, who would never Detrás del levantamiento indígena en Bolivia . 12 forced them to generate one by scrutinizing have heard of such words.” the main source of information available to Hay himself tried to clarify what he meant by them—their own lives. Throughout the win- PART 39 “gay culture.” He wrote, “The Homophile com- WW CALENDAR ter of 1951 the five men met frequently to The entire mon psychological make-up manifests itself in a share their personal histories.” Lavender & community of culture so phenomenologically NEW YORK. LOS ANGELES. They talked about their isolation, loneli- Red series, which remarkable that it transcends the mechanical bar- Fri., June 24 Sat., July 16 ness and fear of being the only one in the explores the history riers of formal language by creating an interna- We invite our Trans and Gender Brunch & book signing with Leslie Non-Conforming people of color Feinberg. Feinberg is a managing world with such feelings; how they’d come of the socialist tional behavioral language of its own, in addition communities, and our allies, to editor of WW newspaper and an out as gay men and found others like them. movement and to sharing the pedestrian language of each march with us in the 1st Annual author of Stone Butch Blues, and the struggle for Trans Day of Action for Social and Trans Liberation, among other D’Emilio explained, “Trying to make parental community. To be sure, the communi- Economic Justice in New York City. works. Sponsored by Workers some collective sense out of their individual sexual & gender ties of culture differ in detail from one national Initiated by TransJustice, a project World Party. 11 a.m.-1 p.m. experiences, they posed such questions as: liberation, can of The Audre Lorde Project, The At 5274 W Pico Blvd, Suite 203. community to another. But they are enough alike Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, For info (323) 936-1416. How did one become a homosexual? Were be read online at that no one need be a helpless stranger whatever and Trans People of Color Center homosexuals sick as the medical profession www.workers.org. the port of call.” (“Radically Gay”) for Community Organizing, focus- Sat., July 16 ing on the NYC area. 5:30 p.m. IAC Forum: Lavender & Red, fea- claimed? Was it possible to overcome the gather at Jackson Sq., the inter- turing Leslie Feinberg, lesbian isolation and invisibility of the gay population and organ- An expression of anti-racist solidarity section of 8th Ave., Greenwich transgender author and activist.