soC!: .••, . ... iiIl&AllA'.X_523 No. 622 4!!11' ~!t~~:-,- 5 May 1995 In Wake· 01 Oklahoma ·;llrICi·ty: Government launches Assault on Your Rights
The death toll is climbing toward 200 which killed 84 people, as part of a strat in the April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. egy of provoking chaos, is typical of Murrah federal building in Oklahoma their M.O. Extreme nationalists, who see City. The blast, which reportedly came whole peoples as their scourge, also from several thousand pounds of ammo engage in such criminal slaughter of ran nium nitrate fertilizer mixed with fuel dom people, as in the ethnic-national oil and a detonator, tore away a huge butchery racking the former Yugoslavia. swath in all nine floors of the steel So do the imperialists, who have regu reinforced concrete structure. The build larly slaughtered whole populations in ing housed a broad spectrum of govern the name of freedom and democracy. ment agencies, from the Social Security The Oklahoma bombing may well Administration and the Department of have been modeled after a strikingly sim Agriculture to the Secret Service, the ilar scenario described in The Turner Drug Enforcement Administration and Diaries, a 1978 novel by West Virginia the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire white-supremacist William Pierce. (In arms (BATF). Overwhelmingly, the vic this book, which is it bible for American tims of this act of indiscriminate terror fascists, a fertilizer bomb destroys FBI were ordinary government workers, headquarters at 9: 15 a.m.) Former Green black and white, who staff the offices in Beret colonel Bo Gritz, who in 1988 ran the building. Most wrenching were the for president on the ticket of the racist pictures of dead and dying children being Populist Party and is now the fUhrer of carried from the rubble of the day-care a "militia" group in Idaho, praised the center. blast as "a Rembrandt-a masterpiece of Immediately, the news media began Banali/Gamma-Liaison science and art put together." Tom Metz whipping up an anti-Arab hysteria say Government seizes on bombing of Oklahoma City federal building for "anti ger, leader of the fascist "White Aryan ing the suspects were "men of Middle terrorist" crackdown on civil liberties. Above: FBI SWAT team during 1994 Resistance," tipped his hat to the Okla Eastern origin," running shots of the VVorld Cup soccer games. homa carnage, saying, "Evidently, these 1993 NYC World Trade Center bomb people ... saw the Federal building as a ing, comparing the blast to the 1983 strategic military target, and these are ions attacking civil liberties which the cover to a wholesale abrogation of every bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in the kind of things that happen at war" White House has been trying to get one's rights-authorizing them to open Beirut. Every paper featured stories (New York Times, 23 April). through Congress for a couple of years. your mail, listen in on your phone caIls, about "foreign terrorists" striking at the These fascist killers grow from the Among them are: secret trials for "sus keep tabs on who you associate with, "heartland of America." Arabs through fertile soil of racist U.S. imperialism. pected terrorists," using the military for and assert a state monopoly of armed out the U.S. felt under siege. But During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the domestic police enforcement, unlimited force. They're not really afterthe fascists, the next day the government revealed Pentagon reveled in raining bombs on harassment and surveillance of dissident who at bottom are the creatures of this that the suspects were two white Iraq's cities, killing thousands of civil organizations, blanket authorization for racist ruling class, but the labor move American men. Moreover, it turns out ians, destroying hospitals and water wiretaps, and escalating the ongoing ment, blacks and other minorities-those that captured bombing suspect Timothy works. In that "Desert Slaughter," the campaign against the constitutional right the capitalist rulers consider "the enemy McVeigh is an Army veteran associated arrested suspect in the Oklahoma bomb to bear arms. within." with the right-wing paramilitary "militia ing case, Timothy McVeigh, "served Such police-state measures have long In justifying his "anti-terrorist" crack movement." with the Big Red One's 2nd Battalion of been used against leftists, blacks and any down, Clinton pointed a finger at "hate" From the "war on international terror the 16th Infantry, which performed one one else the government puts on its "ene speech, later adding, "whether it comes ism," the government's line suddenly of the most grisly operations of the mies list." But the bipartisan embrace of from the right or the left." But the kind shifted to a war on "extremism." Behind ground war-the burial [of] many Iraqi this repressive arsenal, which is cyni'1llly of bloodthirsty mass murder seen in the this "anti-extremist" crusade is an accel soldiers, some still alive, by armored being sold over the dead bodies in Okla Oklahoma bombing is the hallmark of erated drive by both capitalist parties to vehicles equipped with plows" (New homa City, is intended to legitimate its the fascists, whose view of their per ram through a whole York Newsday, 25 April). It's not surpris extension to the population as a whole. ceived enemies is "the only good one is oc panoply of repressive ing that out of such barbarism can come In the name of combating "terrorism," a dead one." The 1980 fascist bombing ~ measures. The Clinton a twisted, Nazi-like mentality. the government w'!nts to give a legal of the Bologna train station in Italy, ..... administration imme This government is in fact the biggest diately seized on this terrorist and mass murderer of them all. o,.,., horrendous atrocity to Don't forget the A-bombing of Nagasaki o place Qn the "fast track" and Hiroshima, as well as the firebomb ~ 00 an ominous "Omnibus Wby "Labor Party Adlocales" ing of Dresden and Tokyo! The 1985 ...:t Counterterrorism Act," bombing of the Philly MOVE commune l" N as well as draconian was the Reagan government's message LI"I Doesn't Advocate a LaborPartv N new FBI "guidelines." to black America that anyone who steps Clinton's "package" is ~~~.... ~.···SEEPAGE3 ---.... ~~- out of line would face the full brunt of ..... chock-full of provis- continued on paRe 8 13 May 1985-Ten Years Later MOVE Massacre We Will Never Forget This May marks ten years since the in prison hellholes-virtually the only Jamal quotes Ramona Africa, who spent heinous crime was approved right at the Mother's Day 1985 siege of Osage Ave "growth industry" in America. The racist seven years in prison for the "crime" of top. Philadelphia police met with the FBI nue in Philadelphia, when eleven black and reviewed strategy and tactics two vendetta against MOVE and those who being the sole adult survivor of the days before the operation against MOVE people, including five children, were dared defend them continues in ominous massacre: began .... From Reagan's top cop this was killed and hundreds were burned out of moves by the Philly cops to silence the "To blame MOVE for that massacre is no surprise. The people wh.o salute SS their \:l6mes in the police/FBI bombing voice of Mumia Abu-Jamal and force his like an armed robber blaming the murder graves in Germany brought Bitburg back of the MOVE commune. The racist execution. The black journalist and for of his victim on the victim by saying he to Philly with a bang. This was no 'fire fight,' it was a firestorm: Dresden in slaughter, ordered by Democratic mayor mer Black Panther had long been in the shouldn't have resisted, he should've given in to the robber and he wouldn't America .... Wilson Goode and orchestrated by the cops' gun sights; he was framed up and have gotten killed .... The bottom line is "This, was a willful racist massacre of feds, was a signature of the Reagan years. sentenced to death in the wake of his that this government came to kill MOVE people with no name (they called them The Philadelphia body count was ex courageous defense of MOVE prisoners on May 13, not to arrest us," selves 'Africa') who had committed no crime .... ceeded on 19 April 1993, as Democratic arrested in the 1978 murderous police The Spartacist League and Partisan "We communists say black Democrat president Clinton and Attorney General assault on their Powelton Village home. Defense Committee fought for Ramona Wilson Goode is as guilty as Republican Janet Reno ordered the BATF/FBI assault In a recent column from death row Africa's freedom until her release in Ronald Reagan and the racist cops for the murder of eleven blacks, women and which resulted in the deaths of 86 men, titled "Judicial Approval of Mass Mur 1992, and continues to aid and demand women and children in the compound of der," Jamal exposes the whitewash children alike. The liberals now apologize freedom for the nine MOVE members for this calculated obliteration of a black the racially integrated Branch Davidian amnesty given this March to the police still in jail as a result of the 1978 Powel neighborhood-to do otherwise requires religious group outside Waco, Texas. and government murderers in the MOVE ton Village raid. a break from the whole myth of the 'new black power' at the voting booth, organ Today, a decade after the MOVE mas bombing: "The U.S. Court of Appeals Immediately after the 1985 MOVE sacre, wholesale attacks on the black in Philadelphia recently decided that the ized through the Democratic Party of massacre, stressing that a communist George Wallace and Jesse Jackson .... population are accelerating. Assaults on politicians, firemen and police responsi party must serve as a tribune of all the "The Osage Avenue massacre was sup welfare spell genocide for a layer of ble for the bombing of MOVE on May oppressed, we vowed to "sear the mem posed to be a message to anybody who ghetto blacks, and black men languish 13, 1985, are not, in fact, responsible." gets '{lut of line' in Reagan's America ory of this heinous act into the con blacks will get the Philly treatment, labor sciousness of the American workers will get the PATCO treatment, and e\lPry movement." Workers Vanguard (No. one, not least the Marxists, will get the The Soviet Union in Battle 379, 17 May 1985) headlined, "Reagan 'terrorist' treatment. But you can fight Bombs Black Babies-Bitburg Hits the terrorists in City Hall and the White Against Nazi Germany House and win. Black people do have Philly," denouncing the government's social power: they are concentrated in May 8 marks the 50th anniversary of the "Vietnam-style overkill" and the "brutal, some of the key sections of the American end of World War /I in Europe. The smashing conscious racism of the bombing." proletariat, constituting its most militant of the Nazi regime was carried out funda In the following issue, our front-page layer. But to unlock this power means mentally by the Soviet Red Army. While the breaking the capitalist two-party strangle article headlined: "Philly Inferno: Racist hold, fighting for a workers party to mo workers had no side in the interimperialist Murder! Reagan, Cops, Black Mayor bilize labor and oppressed blacks in rev conflict between the Allied "democracies" They're the Terrorists" (WV No. 380, 31 olutionary struggle against this racist, and the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany. May 1985). We reprint below selections capitalist system. Avenge the Philly the Trotskyist Fourth International called inferno--For black freedom through from this article. socialist revolution!". TROTSKY on the world proletariat to unconditionally LENIN '" Attention, MOVE. This is America.' defend the Soviet deRenerated workers state. With this ultimatum, delivered over a cop Several months after the German Wehrmacht invaded the USSR. Polish Marxist Isaac bullhorn at 5:40 a.m. on May 13, there Deutscher noted that the heroic resistance of the Soviet workers showed that the began the hideous siege and mass murder by firebombing of a black neighborhood revolutionary Rains of October 1917 still persisted. despite Stalin's criminal under in West Philadelphia. At least four black mininR and hetrayals. Decades later in the absence of proletarian political revolution children, seven black men and women to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy. and of workers revolutions in the West. the Soviet burned alive and entire city blocks Union succumhed to capitalist counterrevolution. destroyed in a deliberate firestorm .... "Now as the details of the sinister oper Eight months have passed since the fateful date of 22 June 1941 when Hitler ation einerge, it is utterly clear that this began his march on Russia. From that day the two most powerful armies in the world have been locked in epic combat from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Although the German Panzer divisions have in this time conquered a territory no smaller than that of Germany itself, nothing foreshadows the breakdown of the superhuman her oism with which the Russian revolution fights for its life and for its banner. Bleeding profusely it finds its greatness anew. The destiny of the world now hangs in the balance across the vast spaces of the USSR .... One fundamental truth about the German-Soviet wa~ has to be understood: the heroic resistance of the Russian workers and peasants is proof of the vitality of revolutionary society. Soviet workers and peasants are defending everything which, in spite of various deformations, has remained of the revolution: an economy without capitalists and landlords. They defend what they see as their socialist fatherland-and here the accent is on the adjective no less than on the noun. They defend it not because, but in spite of the privileges which the new bureaucracy has usurped for itself; not because, but in spite of the totalitarian regime with its GPU, concentration camps, cult of the leader, and the terrible purges. Whoever has had an opportunity to observe Soviet reality even for a short time knows that the totalitarian regime had not strengthened but weakened the Soviet state. The huge quantity of modern weapons which the Red Army wields in battle could have been produced on a far greater scale and in better quality without the whip that lashes the backs of the Soviet workers. The sword of the revolution would be sharper today if it had been honed by a true democracy among the working masses. Solidarity with Russia does not in any way demand that this truth be concealed. -Isaac Deutscher, "22 June 1941" (February 1942) Firebombing of Philadelphia MOVE commune, with explosives supplied by FBI, killed eleven people and burned down entire black neighborhood. !!Iw~!!!!YO~~pa,!~,!~'!.! ~ DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: George Foster Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League EDITOR: Jan Norden EDITOR. YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Carla Wilson o $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard D New D Renewal PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller (includes English-language Spartacist. Women and Revolution CIRCULATION MANAGER: Shauna Blythe and Black History and the Class Struggle) EDITORIAL BOARD: Bruce Andre. Ray Bishop. Liz Gordon. Frank Hunter. Jane Kerrigan. international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamail Len Meyers. James Robertson. Joseph Seymour. Alison Spencer. Marjorie Stamberg D $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes:English-language Spartacist) The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). D $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276·0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Name ______~------___ Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (BUSiness). 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2 WORKERS VANGUARD Why ~~LaborParty Advocates" Doesn't Advocate a Labor Party
The twin parties of American capital ism, Democrats and Republicans, have never been as discredited as they are today. It is an increasingly accepted commonplace that the "Republicrats" are simply two wings of the same Property Party. Clinton's "new" Democrats com pete with Newt Gingrich's right-wing Republicans in tearing down social serv ices, targeting black welfare mothers, bashing immigrants and trampling the unions. Meanwhile, millions of working people can barely eke out a living, even when there are two wage-earners in the family. Black people find themselves under siege on every front, from the attacks on affirmative action to the deadly "war on drugs" which is filling the prisons and decimating the ghettos. And while many women looked to the Advocate photos Labor Party Advocates head Tony Mazzocchi (left) seeks to refurbish "friends of labor" image of capitalist Democratic Clintons in '92, women's rights today Party. At January 14 Hayward, California LPA meeting, former Democratic governor Jerry Brown (far right) was a are under savage assault by "right to life" featured speaker. terrorists. Through a dozen years of Reagan/ than playpens for handfuls of left refor AFL-CIO's solidly pro-capitalist creden boys even to hold discussions about a Bush, labor and black misleaders told mists like Socialist Action and Socialist tials, least of all the COPE political program for the labor party they were their constituencies to take it on the chin Organizer. But it has now garnered the action machine that disburses millions supposedly working toward. Recently, and work to put a Democrat back in the support of three international unions in union members' contributions to LPA has staged a number of "program White House. But yuppie racist Bill ("Rail Union Endorses Labor Party Democratic Party candidates: "Labor hearings," including the meeting in Hay Clinton wasted no time in making it clear Advocates," Labor Notes, September Party Advocates is neither running nor ward, and is even talking about holding that blacks and labor would have no say 1994). And since the November '94 endorsing candidates for political office a national convention-maybe, some in his Democratic Party, as he spit on elections, LPA has attracted a broader and therefore is not interfering in on time-before the next presidential elec Jesse Jackson and shoved NAFTA hearing. An LPA meeting in Hayward, going COPE work or other political tion in 1996. But the game's the same: through Congress despite vociferous California on January 14 drew some 400- activity." If that isn't clear enough, the 'pressuring the Dems for a better deal. opposition from organized labor. Falling 500 people, mostly union members. A same brochure quoted from Jan Pierce, Far from rejecting the pol itics of 1esser voter participation at all levels undoubt meeting in Toledo a month earlier also vice president of the Communications evilism, Labor Party Advocates simply edly reflects widespread disenchantment drew several hundred. Workers (CWA), to dot the i's and cross wants to put the "lesser" back in the with both major parties. The right-wing Mazzocchi's "socialist" cheerleaders the 1's: "We can continue to work within Democratic Party el'il. Gingrich "sweep" in the '94 elections yearn to be in on the ground floor of the Democratic Party." was based on the votes of less than a something on the model of the British And this is at the heart of Lahor Party A "Labor Party" Fit for fifth of the electorate. It's not surprising, Labour Party-or more to the point, the Advocates. At LPNs founding in 1991, Ross Perot? then, that over the last few years, all insipid, barely social-democratic Cana Mazzocchi laid down the condition that To put it bluntly, the increasing pos kinds of calls for a third party have been dian New Democratic Party. They regu the organization would not run its own turing about a "labor party" by elements sprouting up-a "New" party, a "21 st larly churn out press releases describing candidates, enabling LPA members to be of the labor bureaucracy is an effort to Century" party, a "rainbow" party, and Labor Party Advocates as "inspiring," "free to work for the candidates of any rope working people and minorities back even a "labor" 'party. "historic," even "labor's Declaration of of the major parties." LPA doesn't reject into the Democratic Party fold, and that's Throughout our existence, the Sparta Independence." But LPA spurns the most the Democratic Party, only its most what the LPA is all about. To believe cist League has fought for labor to break basic element of working-class inde recent drift to the right:,. the reformists of Socialist Action (May with the Democratic Party and form a pendence-a clean break with the bosses' "The Democratic Party has changed. 1991), Tony Mazzocchi is "a long-time Once it was a real grass-roots organiza workers party to fight for a workers gov political parties. Indeed, these "labor progressive and even radica~' militant." party advocates" don't even ... advocate tion .... Organizing Labor Party Advo ernment. Only a party which opposes the cates is not going to retard the.'re-birth Actually, Mazzocchi is a pro-capitalist capitalist profit system down the line, formKig a labor party. They just want to of the Democrats. On the contrary, it union bureaucrat to whom the methods which acts as an organizing center for talk about it, in order to pressure the will ,encourage it." , of class struggle are alien. He 'spent 12 workers in struggle everywhere, which Democrats. -Labor Party Advocate (August 1991) years working inside the Democratic fights to uproot every manifestation of An LPA handout concludes with a Party as OCAW's legislative director. racial and sexual oppression, can 'truly money-back guarantee that Mazzocchi & At the outset, Mazzocchi peremptorily For Mazzocchi, calling for a "labor claim independence froI11 the parties of Co. would not dream of besmirching the dismissed pleas by his "socialist" water- party" and supporting Democratic poli Wall Street. And only such a party can ticians have always gone hand in hand: lead the struggles of the workers and he backed Democrat Jesse Jackson in oppressed to victory. 1988 and spoke as a featured guest at Ever since the days of FDR's "New Jackson's Rainbow Coalition only last Deal," the union bureaucracy has been fall-three-and-a-half years after found a key prop of the Democratic Party, ing Labor Party Advocates. shoveling pro-business "friends of Mazzocchi explicitly hails Roose labor" down the 'workers' throats every velt's New Deal for its "worker-oriented time an election rolls around. Recently, economic policy." But it was this alli however, talk of a "labor party" has ance with the Roosevelt and Truman become downright respectable among administrations-a bloc of labor, North these lifelong Democratic Party' stal ern liberals and racist Southern Dixie warts. At the AFL-CIO's annual extrav crats-that made the unions dependent aganza in Bal Harbour in February, even on the government's NLRB "labor "Lame" Kirkland's crorties on the exec court," paved the way for the Taft utive board, such as IUE chief William Hartley union-busting law and sacrificed Bywater, were muttering about a labor labor's postwar drive to organize the party. And get this: Gus Hall's Commu South on the twin altars of racism and nist Party U.S.A., which after decades anti-Communism. of denouncing calls for a labor party as Resurrecting the New. Deal coalition a "Trotskyite" ploy to disrupt the unity . is also what anima:tes the CP's newfound of Democratic Party "progressives," now support for a labor party. The People's proclaims: "It's Time for a Labor Party!" Weekly World (21 January) emphasized Labor party talk has become posi "the urgent need to combat the Repub tively trendy. This trend has been lican's Contract with America, not only reflected in increased interest in an outfit by defending existing 'programs but by called Labor Party Advocates (LPA), fighting for expanded programs to meet headed by longtime Oil, Chemical and the people's needs." A month earlier Atomic Workers (OCAW) International People's Weekly World (17 December official Tony Mazzocchi. Two or three NYC transit workers demonstrate against layoffs. To fight for its interests, 1994) ran a major speech by Gus Hall years ago, LPA meetings were little more labor must break with the Democrats and forge a class-struggle workers party. continued on page 4 5 MAY 1995 3 ering around the LPA, perhaps the most Labor Party single-minded "labor party" party is the Socialist Organizer group, centered in San Francisco. They appeal for a Advocates ... "democratic Labor Party" and complain (continued from page 3) about undemocratic maneuvering by Mazzocchi & Co. An S.O. leaflet titled under the headline, "We Need a New "What Kind of a Labor Party Do We New Deal." Need and What Should Its Program Look A measure of the kind of labor party Like?" lays out a series of minimalist the LPA has in mind was revealed by reforms-shift money from "building Mazzocchi's failed bid for OCAW pres weapons of war" to "human needs," pub ident in 1981, when he simultaneously HC works, etc.-nothing that wouldn't called for a labor party while arguing fit in a Democratic "new N~w Deal." that stdkes were ineffective! LPA's BIDOM, now a journal without an organ "sociatist" enthusiasts to the contrary, a ization, acts as a press agent for LPA, party of the working class will not be uncritically reprinting speeches by vari built simply on the basis of disaffection ous union bureaucrats, not even bother with the Democrats, but will arise in the ing to offer its own "program" for a labor course of sharp, tumultuous class strug party. It's striking that none of these gles. And in these struggles the mass outfits even come close to calling for of the working class will find itself the equivalent of the British Labour directly pitted against the pro-capitalist Party's (now scrapped) "Clause IV" trade-union bureaucracy. Can anyone AFL-CIO top Lane Kirkland (second from left) presides over destruction of nationalization of the "commanding even imagine the current crop of labor unions while begging Democrats. Here looking on as Clinton signs toothless heights" of the (capitalist) economy. bureaucrats, who cut their teeth purging "striker replacement" executive order. The closest that any of these refor reds from the unions on behalf of J. mist left groups gets is Labor Militant, Edgar Hoover, organizing a party to take America," with its demagogic appeals to tax and value-added tax scheme that whose British cothinkers spent four on the bosses and their state? Any party the "angry white male" vote of anti-black would have jacked up tax rates for the decades buried deeply inside the Labour that these labor cops for capital would racism and immigrant bashing. The over poor while easing up on the rich (see Party there, even as it broke strikes, build would be aimed at heading off any riding reason why the U.S. has no work '''Tax the Rich' Fakers Back 'Flat Tax' imposed degrading racist "virginity struggle that challenged the capitalist ers party is because the deep racial divi Jerry Brown," WV No. 549, 17 April tests" on Asian women immigrants, system. sions in the working class, fostered by 1992). Yet Brown spoke to the LPA gath deployed imperialist troops in Northern As James P. Cannon, a leader of the the bourgeoisie in a thousand ways, are ering as a champion of the poor, receiving Ireland and governed in coalition With syndicalist ·IWW and the early Ameri a bar to successful, unified class strug a standing ovation. Henning exclaimed, the openly capitalist Liberal Party. In the can Communist Party and a founder of gle. Class consciousness is precluded by "We want Jerry in the labor party"! U.S., Labor Militant talks of "public the Trotskyist movement in the U.S., race prejudice. This unity fest with a capitalist dem ownership" of "500 multinationals," but remarked: "The achievement of political Black oppression is the bedrock of agogue left many of LPA's fake-left press it doesn't even hint at the need to replace class consciousness by a proletariat is racist American capitalism. At the same agents nursing a serious political hang the racist capitalist state. And even that necessarily a convulsive and historically time, black workers occupy key posi over. "Nothing good can come from is window-dressing for its real policy, monumental act." In this deeply race tions in the industrial and urban working LPA's invitation to this life-long capital which is for "the creation of a Labor divided society, key to such a develop class. And through their ties to the ghet ist politician," moaned Socialist Action Party on any program" (Labor Militant ment will be the struggle tO'mobilize the tos and barrios, black and Hispanic (February 1995). The Bulletin in Defense leaflet, "Build Labor Party Advocates! "). power of labor against racism in all its workers are linked to those who have of Marxism (BJDOM, March 1995) At bottom, all these outfits have a stagist ugly forms, because a workers party the most to gain from revolutionary warned that capitalist politicians like concept, that the workers first must go that's going to lead anything in this coun struggle to bring down the profit system. Brown "want to control the steering through an obligatory reformist stage of try must be a beacon for the fighters of That is precisely why the labor lieuten wheel" of the labor party movement: consciousness. all oppressed groups. or if will !lot be. ants of capital will oppose any move "We can't let that happen!" But none of Yet Mazzocchi insists, "We aren't organ toward a truly class-struggle, multiracial these "critics" waged a fight to get cap The sort of labor party Militant Labor, izing around a 'progressive' agenda. workers party every step of the way, and italist politician Brown thrown out of the Socialist Organizer, BJDOM and the like Carpenters hall-that would destroy any want is what Russian revolutionary v.I. hope of being allowed to remain as Lenin called a bourgeois workers party, house "oppositionists" in Mazzocchi's one that while based on organizations of sandbox. the working class is committed to main NOll IONS taining the capitalist system. While in (iRC)' \VORKI:,R Workers Party-Reformist or certain historical instances the formation Revolutionary? of a labor party organized independently from openly capitalist parties~ven on ~.,.~.""·'I·.·· From the time of the 1848 Commu a reformist program-has represented a nist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich step forward for the working class, we Engels called for the "organization of fight for a party which is truly inde the proletarians into a class, and conse pendent of the bourgeoisie, one based quently into a political party." In his on a revolutionary program. 1887 preface to the American edition There is a rich history to the question of The Cimdition of the.. WorkinfS Class of a labor party in the U.S. In the early in England, written in the wak,.e of '30s, the Trotskyists opposed the call for American labor's strike movement for a labor party in the U.S. precisely the eight-hour day in the 1880s, Engels because it would foster illusions in the raised the need for the working class conservative trade-union bureaucracy. In in the U.S. to form "a distinct politi 1932 Trotsky called it "a very simple cal party, independent of, and opposed but absolutely irrevocable principle: that
Uni to, all the old political parties formed a Marxist, a proletarian revolutionist, CIO's appeals to black workers in auto were key to successful drive for mass by the various sections of the ruling cannot present himself before the work industrial union in 1930s. A workers party must lead fight against racial classes." Engels stressed that such a ing class with two banners. He cannot oppression in struggle against capitalist system. party must "proclaim, as the ultimate say at a workers' meeting: 'I have a end, the conquest of political supremacy ticket for a first-class party and another, We're trying to organize the working why such a party will only be built by the working class, in order to effect cheaper ticket for the backward work class around their economic interests, and in bitter political combat against the the direct appropriation of all means ers.' If I am a Communist, I must fight many of them are opposed to the 'pro entrenched bureaucratic misleadership of prod~ction-Iand, railways, mines, for the Communist Party" ("The Labor gressive' agenda." of the unions. machinery, etc.-by society at large, to Party Question in the United States," At the same time, Mazzocchi & Co. be worked in common by all for the May 1932). Latter-day falsifiers to the push poisonous economic protectionism Heeere's ... Jerry! account and benefit of all." contrary, Trotsky never changed his view which pits workers in the U.S. against The Hayward LPA meeting in January, This is what Trotskyists fight for today, on this fundamental principle of fighting their class brothers and sisters abroad. co-sponsored by several Northern Cali codified in our call for a workers party for a revolutionary party. Mazzocchi says the "multi-national cor fornia labor councils (including Alameda to fight for a workers government through With the turbulent strike wave of the porations have ... scabbed our jobs County, San Francisco and San Mateo), socialist revolution to expropriate the mid-late 1930s, which led to the growth abroad." California AFL-CIO chieftain offered a snapshot of what the LPA capitalist class and sweep away its state of the mass industrial unions Qfthe CIO, John Henning, another LPA bigwig, stands for. Henning, one of the main apparatus of repression. In contrast, a the Trotskyists adopted the call for a raves, "American capital spits on the speakers, pointed as a positive ;example number of groups which occasionally labor party to popularize the need for American flag." Such flag-waving chau to the San Francisco Union Labor Party. and falsely-claim to be Trotskyist call the political independence of the work vinism politically chains the proletariat whose mayoral candidate captured City for the formation of a reformist labor ing class. This slogan was directly coun to its "own" exploiters and paralyzes Hall in 1901. What Henning didn't men party, i.e., a party aiming to patch up the terposed to the New Deal popular-front working-class struggle. A clear example tion is that that "Labor Party" adminis profit system rather than eliminate it alto coalition with the Democrats, pursued of that is the ten-month-old rubber work tration was controlled by Republican Par gether. These groups look to Labor Party by the "progressive" union bureaucrats ers strike at Japanese-owned Bridge ty hacks and that its program called for Advocates in the hope that it will create and the Stalinist Communist Party in stone-Firestone, where instead of fight segregated schools for Asian Americans! an American version of the pro onter to stem the proletariat's rising ing for class solidarity with Japanese Introduced as a surprise speaker at the imperialist British Labour Party or the militancy and class consciousness and workers, the bureaucrats are killing the Hayward meeting was former California Canadian New Democratic Party, which channel it into support for Roosevelt. strike with anti-Japanese protectionism. governor Jerry Brown. a Democrat who is ramming austerity down the throat of The Trotskyists at no time called for a Any "third party" constructed around fishes for union support with the bait of the working class in the three provinces reformist party or one based on "any pro such policies would look dangerously' populism. During his 1992 presidential where the NDP is in office. gram," but rather fought, for a party like Ross Perot's "United We Stand run, Brown called for a flat-rate income Of the coterie of "left" groupies hov- based on the revolutionary Transitional 4 WORKERS VANGUARD store workers including John Steele, a Communist League· candidate in the Toronto~ Canadian Police Grab Ontario elections. The RCMP's harassment of and threats against a left-wing political Young Socialist Organizer activist are an outrage which reeks of McCarthyite anti-communism. To tar TORONTO-On April 20, using the Emad about his political views and attack on democratic rights. Further this leftist with any alleged connection protests should be sent to Solicitor excuse of the Oklahoma City bomb activities, his religion and his reasons to the April 19 Oklahoma City bomb blast, four officers of the Royal Cana General of Canada Herb Gray; 340 for a recent trip to Cuba on an inter blast-by all appe>arances an act of Laurier Ave. Ottawa ON, KIA OP8, dian Mounted Police National Security national youth brigade. The cops asked: w., nativist right-wing terrorism-is as Canada, fax (613) 952-2240. Unit staged a raid on the leftist Path "Have you ever been to Oklahoma?" ludicrous as it is obscene. The 'targeting finder Bookstore in Toronto. Police "Do you know how to make a bomb?" of Mr. Emad, a Canadian citizen of Ira physically assaulted volunteer workers "Do you promote terrorism?" When a * * * 23 April 1995 nian origin, is of a piece with the racist in the bookstore, including a candidate lawyer managed to contact Emad by Herb Gray· state persecution of people of Middle of the Communist League (associated phone, the police instructed Emad to Solicitor General of Canada Eastern descent which erupted during with Jack Barnes' Socialist Workers tell him they were discussing an "immi the Persian Gulf War. Such hysteria has Party in the U.S.) in the upcoming gration" matter. After the lawyer Ottawa, Ontario Dear Sir: again been fomented in the aftermath Ontario elections, in order to forcibly pointed out that Emad is a citizen, the of the Oklahoma City carnage. seize Nojan Emad, a 19-year-old leader cops claimed it was a "national secu We vigorously protest the illegal sei The Partisan Defense Committee of the Young Socialists. Emad, a Cana rity" matter. The Young Socialists zure, detention and interrogation of demands: Hands off Nojan Emad and dian citizen of Iranian origin, was leader was finally released with a warn NojanEmad, a leader of the Young Pathfinder Bookstore! dragged into a minivan which then ing not to contact his lawyer and was Socialists in Toronto, by officers of the drove off. Held against his will, he was told he could be picked up again at any RCMP National Security Unit on April Yours truly, interrogated and threatened. time. 20. We further protest the RCMP's Peter Stevens An April 21 Pathfinder protest state We print below a Partisan Defense invasion of the Pathfinder bookstore, for the Partisan ment reports that the RCMP grilled Committee protest against this ominous and their assault on volunteer book- Defense Committee
Program, a series of demands aimed at them launched with substantial support counterrevolutionary war in Vietnam, defeat. A class-struggle workers party connecting the immediate felt needs of from the labor bureaucracy and reformist North personally interviewed hidebound will be forged through stormy struggles, the working class to the fight for a work leftists, none of them representing in anti-Communist Steelworkers president not just union battles but also mobiliza- ~ ers government.' any way a break toward independent I.W. Abel, who had uttered the words tions of labor in alliance with black and In a discussion with his U.S. support working-class politics. The rail union "labor party" in denouncing Democratic Hispanic minorities against racist reac ers on how to influence the development bureaucrats were the principal backers "peace" candidate George McGovern. tion. Indeed, key to building a workers of the CIO's political formation, Labor's of the "Progressive Party" candidacy of North prettified this reactionary thrust party will be winning the support of Non-Partisan League (LNPL), which Republican Senator Robert La Follette as a "developing break between the labor immigrants, many from Latin America, was being tugged between supporting in 1924, as was the Stalinist CP in the movement and the Democratic Party" who are among the most combative sec the Democrats and efforts at independent 1948 Wallace campaign. The historical (Bulletin, 24 July 1972). tors of labor today. Labor must raise political action, Trotsky stressed: norm is for popular disaffection with the The Workers League carefully tailored the call for full citizenship rights for all "Are we in favor of the creation of a Democrats to be derailed into precisely its own program for a "labor party" to immigrants. reformist labor party? No. Are we in such a bourgeois electoral dead end. suit the reactionary labor bureaucracy it A concrete example of the kind of favor of a policy which can give the trade Thus it is notable that nearly all of tailed, not even mentioning opposition leadership needed is the series of labor/ unions the possibility to put its weight black mobilizations initiated by the upon the balance of the forces? Yes. "It can become a reformist party-it Spartacist League and Partisan Defense depends upon the development. Here the Committee to stop the KKK/Nazis in question of program comes in." major cities around the country, from Trotsky goes on to emphasize several Washington, D.C. in 1982 to Springfield, key programmatic questions, including Illinois in January 1994. These united the need for workers militias to combat front actions were supported by numer strikebreakers and fascist gangs, and for ous unions and union officials, were workers control of industry. He then defended by union-based defense guards sums up: and drew significant numbers of minor "We say, you cannot impose your will ity workers and youth. This is the kind through a reformist party but only of approach to mobilizing labor/minority through a revolutionary party." power that is key to building a workers - "How to Fight for a party that will fight capitalist exploita Labor Party in the U.S." (March 1938) tion and oppression. A party of the working class will not At the time, there were various "Labor be built overnight. Where there is real party parties"-as the then-Trotskyist movement in the direction of forming Socialist Workers Party (SWP) dubbed a workers party, even on a local or par the Lovestoneites and Norman Thomas' tial basis (such as union candidates), so Socialist Party-which "carryon an ab long as it presents a clear class break stract, general, universal and perpetual from the capitalist parties and stands for campaign for a Labor party" (see "The defense of workers and the oppressed Labor Party Question in America," WV e.g., support to strikes, opposition to rac No. 248, 25 January 1980). The r.efor ist terror-Marxists would seek to inter mist character of this campaign ~as vene. While this can involve a range of expressed in the 1936 formation of the tactics, including critical or conditional American Labor Party (ALP) in New Demonstration by predominantly Latino L.A. janitors in 1990 defied racist cop mobilization. Labor mu.st fight for full citizenship rights for all immigrants. support in elections, we always fight on York, which was set up as a vehicle the basis of the revolutionary program. to garner workers' votes for Roose the opportunist groups tailing LPA also to the war in Vietnam or to black oppres And we emphasize that it will not be in velt. While running its own candidates immersed themselves in the 1992 pres sion. Today, the WL writes off the organ accord with the "labor lieutenants of cap locally, the ALP endorsed Democrat idential campaign of Ron Daniels, an ized labor movement and the AFL-CIO ital" but in the struggle to oust them that FDR for president. From the ALP to "independent" Democrat who served as as no longer working-class organizations a workers party to sweep away the profit the LPA, the reformists' policy then and Jesse Jackson's campaign manager in at all, equating the unions with the pro system will be forged .• now is for a "labor" auxiliary for the 1988. Even the left wing of the fake capitalist tops (see "Workers League vs. Democrats, because they tail the pro Trotskyist spectrum, the centrist Trot the Unions," WV No. 580, 16 July 1993). Democratic labor bureaucracy. skyist League (TL) of Peter Sollenber In contrast, the Spartacist League has The revolutionary approach to the ger, called in 1992 for LPA to unite with consistently fought in the unions for a labor party slogan was succinctly stated capitalist "third party" campaigns like class-struggle program, including oppo Spartacist League by SWP leader Cannon in 1948 at the that of Ron Daniels and NOW's 21 st sition to U.S. imperialist intervention Public Offices time of the Henry Wallace Progressive Century Party (International Revolution, abroad, defense of minorities against Party campaign pushed by the CP: September 1992). racist attack, and for a fighting workers -MARXIST LlTERATURE "We must not forget that our labor party One pseudo-Trotskyist organization party. policy is a method of struggle against Bay Area the trade union bureaucracy in all its sec offering a revolutionary-sounding tri Today, a section of the labor bureauc Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1 :00-5:00 p.m. tions, the so-called progressives as well tique of Labor Party Advocates is the racy is talking "labor party" because they 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) as the reactionaries, the Stalinists as well Workers League (WL) of the dubious have been marginalized by Clinton and Oakland, California Phone: (510) 839-0851 as the red-baiters." David North.' According to North's his "New Democrats." In their view, the Chicago -"Election Policy in 1948" International Workers Bulletin (6 June labor movement was NAFTAed, then (April 1948) Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p~m. 1994): "The Workers League has always they were stabbed in the back over Sat.: 11 :00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. 161 W. Harrison St.. 10th Floor The Fight for Revolutionary advanced the labor party demand as a the "striker replacement" bill-and in response, as a desperate pressure ploy, Chicagc;>. Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 Leadership means of popularizing the need for a revolutionary political party of the work they want to threaten the Democrats with New York City An ALP-type formation is the best ing class to take power." What a crock! a split. But it is these same bureaucrats Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1 :00-5:00 p.m. that could come out of Labor Party For years the WL begged the racist, who have presided over the wholesale 41 Warren St. (one block below gutting of the union movement over the Chambers St. near Church St.) Advocates. The history of the U.S. this Ilro-imperialist AFL-CIO bureaucracy New York. NY Phone: (212) 267-1025 century is riddled with the wreckage to launch a labor party. Back in 1972, last two decades, and this latest gambit of third bourgeois parties, many of at the height of U.S. imperialism's is just a continuation of their policy of 5 MAY 1995 5 Tailing the ANC's NeD-Apartheid Nationalism During the 1980s, the explosion of "essentially accuses the ANC of bringing directly and through COSATU (Congress ensconced in the Labourite left as Work mass black struggle in South Africa, Stalinist gulags to the veld" (WV No. of South African Trade Unions) and the ers Power, routinely calling for votes for leading to the development of a powerful 602, 10 June 1994). SACP (which the CWG polemic curi the Labour Party. and combative trade-union movement, ously never mentions). Using the double In fact, the CWG's support for the ANC shook the apartheid state to its founda Nationalist Demagogy and talk that is required by a policy oftailism, is the transposition to South Africa of tions. Decisive sections of the white rul Confusionism the CWG argues that the ANC "has a the same opportunist methodology which ing class and their senior partners in Since coming to office, the ANC-Ied mass proletarian following," and so due leads their British comrades to invariably Washington and London became con Government of National Unity has bro to their "tactical orientation to the masses vote Labour: fear of going against the vinced of the need to co-opt the leader ken black workers' strikes and driven off inside the ANC" they called for a vote sentiment of the masses. In its original ship of the African National Congress squatters while wooing foreign investors to this political vehicle of the fledgling statement of critical support for the ANC, and the closely allied South African and seeking the blessings of the Inter black bourgeoisie! The ANC/COSATU/ the CWG argues that this "is the correct Communist Party (SACP) in an attempt national Monetary Fund. Those left SACP "tripartite alliance" is a nationalist tactic for small organisations of militants to restore social order. At the same time, groups which backed the ANC now find popular front, in which the black prole to get a hearing from the masses" (Qina the collapse of the Soviet bloc, as the themselves in an awkward position. One tarian and plebeian masses of South Msehenzi, April 1994). Thus it opposed Kremlin Stalinist bureaucracy disinte grated under Gorbachev, deprived the ANC of its main international sponsor. Qina Msebenzi Consequently, Mandela & Co. came to terms with the Randlords and Western Paper of Comrades for a Workers Government (eWG) No 9 March April 1995 R250 imperialists in the form of a "power shar ing" deal with the National Party, the Why we voted for the ANC ruling party of the apartheid state. This Why we called for the hostels to be nattenecl. A reply to the Spartacist League and Workep' Power led to last spring's elections, whose pre Lair ill 1994 ...... CWG m.mben Ud. brlet-..daa witll leadcnbip in..,. swoop deny thallhe ANC has • membership ...ben "'tile US.NMtI S.,...... Leepe (SL) _ ...... which is inaeasingly crilic:aJ of whallhe Ieidmhip is doing . determined outcome was a coalition YiIkiDI SA. Jail before tile April eIecIiooI ...... et __• The Sl*f8Cist ..... y thallhe AN<: does have important _ ben "'tile Brilioll W ...bn ...... _we ..... poiltlcai SInJ&gIes wiIhin iL MioIy AN<: W
life as it "oscillates between the banal inception. now faces evisceration under and the bizarre." He writes of prisoners the hand of the chief justice of the Supreme Court, a possihility unthinkahle forcibly subjected to volatile combina just a few years ago. Many of the con tions of psychiatric drugs, to beatings, demned, with constitutional error rife to long periods of torture in the hole. He throughout their records, will soon he tells of a young inmate who was incar executed without meaningful review." cerated at age 15: In the intervening four years. the "He has never held a woman as a mate rush toward that grim reality has esca or lover; he has never held a newborn lated dramatically, particularly since the in his palm, its heart athump with new November 1994 elections. The whole life; he hasn't seen the sun rise, nor the moon glow, in almost fifteen years-for sale assault on haheas corpus appeals is a robbery, 'armed' with a pellet gun, at accompanied by a frenzied crusade to fifteen years old. speed up the assembly line of death: "When I hear easy. catchy, mindless slo Clinton's "crime" hill added over 60 gans like 'three strikes., you're out,' I more capital offenses to the nation's think of men like Rahbani who had 0111' strike (if not one foul) and are, for all books; now he demands a one-year time intents and purposes, already outside of limit on death row appeals. Ever more any game worth playing." states join the march toward death, and It is a telling indictment of this racist in Texas some months ago, a man was society that some of the finest works of executed after the courts acknowledged black literature deal with life in prison. he was innocent of the crime for which When Mumia speaks of this "warped rite he died. of passage" for young black men, it The fight to save the life of Mumia brings to mind the writings of George Abu-Jamal is indeed a race against time. Jackson, who remarked: "Blackmen born As Ossie Davis, co-chairman of the WV in the U.S. and fortunate enough to Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, Partisan Defense Committee raises banner in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal stressed at a speakout in New York in live past the age of eighteen are con at NYC hospital workers rally, March 1. ditioned to accept the inevitability of June 1994: "Mumia is somebody that we prison." George Jackson wasn't formally The racist character of the death pen chambers await the order to smother need desperately. At a time like this, we sentenced to die; instead, prison police alty in this country is incontrovertible, life." Demolishing the demagogic argu cannot afford to let them take such a out to get this Black Panther mili and was proved by irrefutable statistics ments of racist pol iticians riding into voice from us without putting up a strug tant gunned him down in San Quentin in the 1987 case of McCleskey \'. Ke'!lP. office on the "war on crime," Jamal gle of gigantic proportions." We encour in 1971. But in his lengthy and thoroughly re points out: age our readers to read Lil'c fi'on! Dcath Rowand pass it on to others. Use this The quarter-century since then has searched piece titled "Teetering on the "No matter that of the ten states with the been marked by a vast burgeoning of Brink Between Life and Death," which highest murder rate, eight lead the coun powerful indictment of legal lynching as the population behind bars, reinstitu was published in the Yale Law Review try in executions that supposedly deter: a weapon in the . battle to save Mumia no matter that of the ten states with the Abu-Jamal! tion of the death penalty and, lately, (January 1991), Jamal wields his con lowest murder rate, only one (Utah) has a determination by the American rul siderable eloquence and intellect to bring executed anyone since 1976. No matter * * * ing class to get rid of a whole layer of home the systematic racist injustice of that the effectiveness of the death penalty Powerful forces don't want Mumia the ghetto black popUlation: behind the the American legal system, at whose is not really debated; no matter that the Abu-Jamal's voice to be heard. Look death penalty lies an impulse to geno apex stands the barbaric death penalty: contention that the death penalty makes for Live from Death Row at your book citizens safer is no longer seriously cide. Jamal writes of the "black march "States that have not slain in a genera argued. store. If it's not there, get them to to death row" and notes how "at the tion now ready their machinery; gener "Haheas corpus, fundamental to English stock it. Jamal's book can be ordered heart of this country's death penalty ators whine, poison liquids are mixed, law since the reign of King Charles by writing to: Addison-Wesley. Jacob scheme is the crucible of race." gases are measured and readied, silent and to the U.S. Constitution since its Way, Reading, MA 01867 .• 5 MAY 1995 11 WORNERI ,,INtiO,IR. Munlia Abu-Jamal Book Published " Ive• rom ea ow"
read were painstakingly handwritten by Jamal, who for years was denied access A Review even to a typewriter, as he wages a Iife Live from Death Row and-death battle against those who would by Mumia Abu-Jamal silence this "voice of the voiceless" for Addison-Wesley, 215pp, $20.00 ever. Indeed, more than just a powerful literary work-and that it is-Live from "Don't tell me about the valley of l Death Row is a vital weapon in that battle, the shadow of death. I live there. which has been joined by thousands of In south-central Pennsylvania's death penalty abolitionists, anti-racist Huntingdon County a one-hundred fighters, trade unionists and leftists year-old prison stands, its Gothic around the world who have rallied to the towers projecting an air of forebod call: Save Mumia Abu-Jamal! Abolish the ing, evoking a gloomy mood of the racist death penalty! Dark Ages. I and some seventy-eight Today the fight to save Mumia's other men spend about twenty-two life is more urgent than ever. As his hours a day in six- by ten-foot chief legal counsel, Leonard Weinglass, cells. The additional two hours may points out in an afterword to the book, be spent outdoors, in a chain-link "Because of the November 1994 election fenced box, ringed by concertina of Republican governor Thomas Ridge razor wire, under the gaze of gun who ran, in part, on expediting execu turrets. tions, there is danger that in early 1995 "Welcome to Pennsylvania's death an execution date will be set. Mumia is row." near the top of the list of those awaiting Death row the signing of a warrant, so we are in With these words, Mumia Abu-Jamal political prisoner a race against time." Ridge has already welcomes the reader to his book, Live Mumia Abu-Jamal, from Death Row, and to the world in with his son in 1982. signed five death warrants. And in Jan which it was written, the torture cham uary, Mumia was ominously transferred bers spread across the country in which to the isolated "high-tech hell" of the over 2,900 men and women (and chil Greene "supermax" facility in south dren!) "walk the razor's edge between fearful of his resonant and articulate a petition for a new trial. They have also western Pennsylvania. half-life and certain death" at the hands voice being heard. Last year, National peremptorily rejected all requests for The defense ofthis outspoken advocate of the state. For 13 years, this award Public Radio (NPR) caved in to police press interviews with Jamal, including for all the oppressed is becoming the winning black radio and newspaper jour pressure and, in a blatant act of censor by CBS-TV's Connie Chung, People focus of opposition to the racist and bar nalist, former Black Panther Party activ ship, canceled a series of 12 broadcasts magazine and French and German tele baric death penalty. The case of Mumia ist and supporter of the Philadelphia Jamal had been commissioned to air on vision channels (see "Cops Escalate Abu-Jamal is today's equivalent of the MOVE group has been imprisoned on the program All Things Considered. Vendetta Against Mumia Abu-Jamal," Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s, nine black Pennsylvania's death row. Framed as a Earlier this year, the Philadelphia Fra WV No. 621, 21 Ap'ril). youth who were ultimately saved from "cop killer" by the racist cops and courts, ternal Order of Police (FOP) and its allies It is a very important victory, there Southern lynch law by an international he was sentenced to die for a crime he tried to prevent the book's publication fore, that this book e~ists at all. Live campaign of protest. What is distinctive ;- never committed, to "pay" for his out through a <,:ampaign of intense intimida from Death Row is a "compilation of here is that Mumia is himself the most spoken political beliefs in defense of the tion. Simultaneously, prison officials vin 41 political and social commentaries, articulate spokesman for his cause in downtrodden and oppressed. dictively abrogated Jamal's lawyer-client vignettes of prison life and autobiograph the fight to eliminate the whole system Throughout these years, the authorities privileges,-confiscating correspondence ical sketches, including the 12 essays of legal lynching. As John Edgar Wide have waged a vendetta to keep Mumia concerning his case and preventing vis banned by NPR and the first article by man, author of Homewood Diaries and from being heard in order hF make it its by legal assistants just as Jamal's a death row prisoner ever published in Philadelphia Fire and winner of the easier to kill him. They are particularly. lawyers are in the process of preparing the Yale Law Review. The words you will continued on page 10
2nd. Capital punishment, whether by electrocution, hanging or the now-preferred method of lethal in jection, is an act of premeditated barbarity that underlines the already advanced brutalization of this last execution, McGill convinced the jury that the c1ass- and race-biased society. First in 32 Years sentence of death for Jamal would not be carried The legal killing of Mr. Zettlemoyer, who will be out. In previous cases, this blatant violation of the first inmate executed in Pennsylvania since 1962, As we go to press, a 10 p.m. death sentence for legal procedure resulted in automatic reversal of places in immediate danger the over 180 men and May 2 hangs over Keith Zettlemoyer, likely to become the death sentence by the Pennsylvania Supreme women, largely black and Hispanic, who "live" on Pennsylvania's first victim of judicial murder since Court-but not for Jamal. The Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania's death row. Elmo Smith was electrocuted in 1962. Although U.S. Supreme Courts have turned down Jamal's The murder victim's mother, Aldona De Vetsco, has Republican governor Tom Ridge has signed five war appeals, and ·now with the Pennsylvania death petitioned the courts stating: "I am opposed to the rants, Zettlemoyer's execution by lethal injection machine churning once again, Jamal's life is in immi Commonwealth of Pennsylvania executing Keith threatens to open the floodgates of death, placing nent danger. Zettlemoyer for the killing of my son." Her statement all inmates of Pennsylvania's death row, the fourth We print below a protest sent by the PDC, only throws into relief the state's lust for vengeance largest in the country, in danger. not justice. It thirsts for the blood of Keith Most prominent among those immediately threat * * * I May 1995 Zettlemoyer and countless future victims to lubricate the machinery of death. ened is political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, on Governor Tom Ridge death row since July 1982. To win the death sentence Harrisburg, PA We demand the execution of Mr. Zettlemoyer be for Jamal, prosecutor Joseph McGill told the jury, stayed and his death sentence commuted. "You are not asked to kill anybody. You are asked Governor Ridge: to follow the law ... the same law that will provide The Partisan Defense Committee vehemently Sincerely, for him appeal after appeal after appeal." Pointing opposes the execution of Keith Zettlemoyer by the -Rena Herson out that 20 years had then elapsed -since the state's state of Pennsylvania, scheduled for 10 p.m. on May for the Partisan Defense Committee
12 5 MAY 1995