WfJRIlERS 'ANfJIJARIJ 50¢ No. 843 "€9]!Jg)C-7ijl ~ 4 March 2005 Defend China, North Korea! U.S. Hands Off the World! Chln~L :\urth Korea. Syria. Iran ... this haye been flying mer Iran for a : ear. limited nUL'lear capacit). ha..; not been Illll~i"lh of the Beijing Stalini'h. that is the ,hl)rt li,t of countries ll\erth and. thumbing his nose at anxiet) attacked. We defend the I~ight uf the there loan bl' "pe~teel"lIl c(1e\l,;tcnl"C" threatened ill the laq fe\\' \\ eeb b\ thc in "old Eurupe'-' Bu,h \ll\\~ that all '\ orth Korean de(urmed \\ orh-r~ ~tak tll \\ ith impuiali'1l1. can nnl) L1nderminl' lludcar-armcd l11aniac~ in W'hhington. options. including 11lilitar). are pns,iblc. ha\e nuclear \\ eapons. Chilla i~ fool­ defense of Chin". \\hile the) continue their de\ astating Thi-, saher rattling against Syria and ishly trying to gel f'\\lrth K()re~l bad. to Pursuit ol"capitalist c'ollnterre\olutioll ()cCupatil'n uf Iraq. Although the LS. Iran-neocolonial capitalist states-i, the ,ix-nation wlk, \\hich cum to di~ann in China. \\hether through militar) pre,-­ call't come up \\ith any proofthar Syria part of redrawin~ the map of the '\ear :\orth Korea ... thereh: llf'ening a flank .,ure (as was used to economically bleed is re,;pon-,iblc for the bomb that killed East in braeli and U.S. interest'. for L.S. impL'riali';lll agailht the Chi­ the Soyiet Union in the anm race) or fl'rIllL'r Lebancse prime mini,;ter Rafik' LS. ill1periali~,rn picb its target, ne,e dcfurmed workers ,tate itself. through economic penetratiun ('r huth. Hariri. it \' 0\\' Syria !llU~t be made tll carefully. and thr(l\\, its men\ helming China\ heroic sacrifices stopped Gen­ i, a prime goal of the C.S. hOllrge,)i,ie. pa). Then there', Iran. rumored to be militar: might agailbt ,t"k., that l"an't cral .\-lacArthur [rum grabbing the :\eucon ('I,ld \\arril'r In in~' K!'i,!nj deY elopin~ the capacit) to produce defend them..;ehe,--,uc:h a, Iraq. :-';orth t:IHlre Korean peninSUla and turning it spi.:.~dk .... ft)J< hj~ protege,,- ir! ihl' \\"hltc nUL' lear \\ Cap(llh. l' nmclnned -,p) d1"llne-, Korea. \\ hich c·iJims tll hay L' de\ eloped into a 'leucolon: uf l:.S. imperiaii.,ll1. cO/itinucd Oil ('Llr..!,C AIDS in America: RaCism, Poverty, Bigotry

!VP ri'{Jri!/1 helml' {/ silghrh edilcd ({lid (7/)('·l:,'..;tLi j!i'( 'Iel!IU!!()}! 1:\ ('OlJlfOde Karell ,'>" (-, )Ir" IIr i! SjJurrllcisr League fin'lilll il1 \'C\' E¥ FOR

Yor/\ ('ifl' (iIi i 7 .r-t !l:"!lory. "1'" ~ MO"'IDSaUSH: Yuu ';~ln't begin to talk about any .r A R~WED!AfAND (iI,llIc>Srnlthl ,,'peel. 1,1" :'>..IDS in ~:li: coulltry or area of ct!\BfO~ $I!U"«Ut§$ Glob, the \\ prld \\ithuUI placing it in an interna­ D 1;, .~ for tb@ Serial tional C(lI1te\t. hll" over two decade~. this GL08.4L di~ea,e has h!,)ui=ht ma"ile mi,ery and 1'~~t Killen death to t'lfl'ad section, of the \\ odd. par­ ticularly in-;ub-S;lI1aran il..frica. but also ~Jr;V:A'DS in .\,ia and Latln America. Over the last . " rreUND ::;2 years. U\ er 65 mill ion people haw '" ~" becn infeell'd worldwide. The desperate fight to obtain anti-rctrmiral drugs has ", " become a \ehicle for ~oeial qruggle and " .. '~ has Illobi I ized thou,ands of youth in ._, ~Y AP South Africa. Nevertheless. at the end of Reininger'Co, n t act~, ., ------:2i 2003. only about 1 percent of the four < Above: AIDS patient. Proportion of U.S. AIDS Cases by Race/Ethnicity to million people \\ho need anti-retroviral OJ 70 "0 Protesters at Global and Year of Diagnosis :::;- drugs in Southern Africa get them. No Day of Action AIDS o 60 OJ country on any continent has been un­ White, not Hispanic 0. rally in New York, White OJ touched. and \\)th the continuing spread June 2001. AIDS is 31% 50 I "S- CD of AIDS in RLis,ia. China. South A~ia ravaging black -;Ro 0. and many other countries_ much is still America as shown III 40 o Ql 3 (J) unknown. and there is no end in sight. by chart showing co 30 () HispaniC o The possibilit: of bringing this source racial breakdown of I __~.. ~,~ () O 2[. ,.,~W'" ~ of so much mi~ery and death under con­ new HIV infections ~ troL to extend the treatments that are cur­ in 2002 and accompanying graph. 10 rently available to all those who need it-this essential task i~ undermined 19851198611987119881'9891'990 1'99,11992 11993l;"9-:-Tl-;-;J1996! 19971199811999t20~~~ eyery step of the way by the reactionary capitalist system. In its epoch of imperi­ class fighting in it~ own interests and scientific problelll~ of eliminating HIV known about AIDS for reasons that have aiist decay. capitalism is a hideow,. profit­ the interests of the oppressed. It is our are quite wlggering. The HIV virus nothing to do with the complex biological dri\ en system. propped up by brutal task to build an internationalist. vanguard mutates and develops ,trains that are facts of the virLls. The advancement of racial and se\ual oppression. This is an working-class party that will seize the re~istant to every anti-retroviral drug de­ medical science in general is thwarted by economic s) stem where tho,e few who means of production and make a revolu­ veloped. NC\\ strategic.; lllu,;t be continu­ the chaos of capitalism and its drive for (l\\ n the mean, of production exploit the tion that will lay the basis for building a ally coordinated and systematically re­ immediate profit s. Compounding these Jlla.,.,es that produce all the wealth. The society based on human needs and not on ~earchecl and developed. The mo~t rational obstacles are the prejudices and bigotry only counten\ eight to the unre,trained pri\ate profit-a party like the Bolshe\ik and thoroughg(ling weapon would be a fomented by an irrational. rotting capi­ greed of the ruling L'!as,; is the v.ork.ing Party that led the 1917 Russian Revolution. vaccine. as has heen L1sed effecti\Cly talist economic system. For example. It's not that elcmenh of the capitalist again.,t smallpox. polio. hepatitis Band the oppression of women that underpins clas, arc incapable of mak.ing decisiom other de\astating \iruses. BLlt as late as every class soeit't)' mean~ that women are 09 "I that prm ide benefits for more than them­ 199-1-. the C.S. goyern11lent was spending increasingly bearing the brunt of the pan­ sehes. but their actions must always less than S100 million per year on devel­ demic. For instance: an anti-HIV micro­ be ultimately consistent with their self­ opment of a vaccine. and the funding is bicide. an ointment that a woman could preservation as an exploiting class. So. tightening this year. apply to herself. with or without the every step forward is paid for with persis­ Vaccines are long-term, high-risk, low­ knowledge of her sexual partner. has not profit projects. So, much remains un- continued on page 8 2 5 2 7 4 11 8 1 0 3 01III 7 tent world poyerty and bloody wars. The Sinister Conviction of Boston Priest slavery of women and stultifying "absti­ nence only" for young people. "Recovered Memory" Witchhunt Gerald Amirault. a married man with children of his own. was released from "Recoyered memory" prosecutions­ cated sex between men and little boys, or prison in 2004 after being unjustly which put hundreds behind bars in the had a 30-year record of child abuse com­ imprisoned for 18 years. framed up with daycare and "satanic abuse" witchhunts plaints made against him or a history of incredible tales of evil robots. knives and of the 1980s and early 1990s-are back. being moved from parish to parish. Yet all dead pets at the Fells Acres Day School he In Boston on February 15, 74-year-old these allegations have become the com­ ran with his sister and mother (who were defrocked priest. Paul Shanley, was sen­ mon currency of Shanley's biography, also imprisoned). This was based solely tenced to 12 to 15 years in prison based and if guards usher a murderer into his on the coerced testimony of children solely on uncorroborated "recovered cell. the killer will probably have the whose only real abuse came at the hands memories" of a man who claimed Shan­ N AMBLA charge at the top of his mind." of the prosecutors who, in their zeal for ley abu!ied him 20 years earlier. Alexan­ In fact. Paul Shanley did openly advo­ convictions and pUblicity. fed so much der Cockburn wrote in COlillterPunch cate recognizing homosexuality as a nor­ crap into them that they still reel from (19/20 February): "In the state that gave mal sexual variation (based partly on the the trauma. Just as Amirault was up for us Salem in the seventeenth century and pioneering work of Alfred Kinsey). and a commutation. the church sex stor) the Amiraults (all wrongly sent to prison did have homosexual liaisons. He was a exploded and he lost another two years to on charges brought by Middlesex county long-haired "street priest" in the 1960s. prison. as the cowardly politicians of District Attorney Martha Coakley) in the mentioned in the book COllllllon Grollnd, Massachusetts refused. in the midst of the twentieth. Shanley's case has reintro­ who tried to help runaways and kids scandal. to set him free. despite the Board duced recovered memory to the court­ hooked on drugs. Shanley's "association" of Pardons' unanimous recommendation. rooms of the twenty-first." with NAMBLA is that he attended a con­ We defended the Amiraults. and many Shanley has been one of the prime ference of people fighting a Boston anti­ other daycare workers, against the witch­ whipping boys in the explosive sex SC~lI1- gay witchhunt at the end of which some Paul Shanley hunts of their time. daIs that have rocked the Catholic church people, not including Shanley, founded a Now former priest Paul Shanley has beginning in 2002, when the Boston group that later became NAMBLA. society, that the pitch of modern inquisi­ been thrown to the wolves of "recovered Globe began a series on priests and sex­ NAMBLA's name is perennially dragged tions increases according to the proximity memory" prosecution. This is a very dan­ ual ab!lse of youth. Roderick MacLeish through the plentiful Boston mud, having of youth and sex. It is no accident that the gerous thing. No evidence was presented Jr., the personal injury lawyer represent­ been pounded for over 20 years by media church sex scandals have focused over­ that he committed any crime. This may be ing Shanley's accuser, retailed scandalous smears and witchhunting prosecutions. whelmingly on gay sex (did no priest ever a difficult case for some of our readers to tales to the press about Shanley, which We in the Spartacist League have repeat­ touch a girl?), as this is guaranteed to set grasp, given the passionate-and legiti­ have been refuted by JoAnn Wypijewski edly defended this tiny beleaguered group reactionary alarm bells ringing a lot mate-disgust so many feel for the real in CounterPunch. She actually read the as an elementary act of proletarian louder. Since the daycare witchhunts, the miseries inflicted by organized religion in 1,600-page official church file on Shan­ decency. We oppose criminalizing their code word for anti-sex crusaders, from this socially backward country, from the ley, which apparently no other reporters advocacy of the eminently reasonable the Christian right to the straightlaced Christian fundamentalist right to the bothered to do. As Cockburn pointed out, proposition that youth who have sexual morality feminists, has been "protect Roman Catholic hierarchy. The Catholic "Had they done so, they would have feelings be allowed to express them. the children" from so-called pedophiles. church upholds subservience to authority, found nothing to buttress the claims NAMBLA simply advocates the decrim­ This campaign reflects anti-gay bigotry. from children's submission to parents, a that Shanley founded NAMBLA [North inalization of consensual sex between increased powers of repression for the wife's submission to her husband, the American Man/Boy Love Association], men and boys. capitalist state and a shoring up of reac­ flock's submission to the priest and or was ever a member, or had ever advo- It is telling, in this deeply puritanical tionary "family values" like the domestic continued on page 10

Fortieth Anniversary of the which are at their disposal, they also had ample opportunity, and of course would have little reason to fear exposure were they involved. At the same time, the Muslim theory Assassination of Malcolm X cannot be discounted out of hand because the Muslims are not a political group, and in all 21 February 1965, Malcolm X was substituting religion for science, and color mysticism for rational analysis, they have a gunned down while speaking at Harlem's world view which could encompass the efficacy and morality of assassination. A man Audubon Ballroom. To the racist American who has a direct pipeline to God can justify anything. ruling class, Malcolm was the most hated and feared black leader of his generation. No Program But, though he gave voice to the allger and The main point, however, is not who killed Malcolm, but why could he be killed? In' anguish of the oppressed black masses in the literal sense, of course, any man can be killed, but why was Malcolm particularly this racist societv, he died all unfinished, vulnerable? The answer to this question makes of Malcolm's death tragedy of the sharp­ politically contradictory figure. We reprint est kind, and in the literal Greek sense. Liberals and Elijah have tried to make Malcolm TROTSKY beloH' an obituarv, written bv the Bay Area LENIN a victim of his own (non-existent) doctrines of violence. This is totally wrong and totally Spartacist Committee on 2 March 1965. hypocritical. Malcolm was the most dynamic national leader to have appeared in Amer­ ica in the last decade. Compared with him the famous Kennedy personality was a t1imsy Of all the national Negro leaders in this country, the one who was known uniquely Cardboard creation of money. pUblicity, makeup, and the media. Malcolm had none of for his militancy, intransigence, and refusal to be the liberals' frontman has been shot these, but a righteous cause and iron character forged by white America in the fire of down. This new political assassination is another indicator of the rising current of irra­ discrimination, addiction, prison, and incredible calumny. He had a difficult to define tionality and individual terrorism which the decay of our society begets. Liberal reac­ but almost tangible attribute called charisma. When you heard Malcolm speak, even tion is predictable. and predictably disgusting. They are, of course. opposed to assassi- when you heard him say things that were wrong and confusing, you wanted to believe . . nation. and some may even contribute to the fund for the education of Malcolm's Malcolm could move men deeply. He was the stuff of which mass leaders are made. children. but their mourning at the death of the head of world imperialism had a con­ Commencing his public life in the context of the apolitical, irrational religiosity and siderably greater ring of sincerity than their regret at the murder of a black militant who racial mysticism of the Muslim movement, his break toward politicalness and rational­ wouldn't play their game. ity was slow, painful. and terribly incomplete. It is useless to speculate on how far it Black Muslims'? would have gone had he lived. He had entered prison a burglar, an addict, and a victim. The official story is that Black Muslims killed Malcolm. But we should not hasten He emerged a Muslim and a free man forever. Elijah Muhammed and the Lost-Found to accept this to date unproved hypothesis. The New York police, for example, had good Nation ofIslam were thus inextricably bound up with his personal emancipation. In any cause to be afraid of Malcolm, and with the vast resources of blackmail and coercion event, at the time of his death he had not yet developed a clear. explicit, and rational social program. Nor had he led his followers in the kind of transitional struggle neces­ sary to the creation of a successful mass movement. Lacking such a program. he could not develop cadres based on program. What cadre he had was based on Malcolm X instead. Hated and feared by the power structure, and the focus of the paranoid feelings of his former colleagues. his charisma made him dangerous. and his lack of developed program and cadre made him vulnerable. His death by violence had a high order of !~!!{/!!}!'!!fl!.~ll.l!.. ~ probability, as he himself clearly felt. DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Alison Spencer Heroic and Tragic Figure EDITOR: Alan Wilde The murder of Malcolm. and the disastrous consequences flowing from that murder EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Quincy Levinson CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Thomas for Malcolm's organization and black militancy in general. does not mean that the mil­ EDITORIAL BOARD: Rosemary Palenque (managing editor). Linda Jarreau (production manager), itant black movement can always be decapitated with a shotgun. True. there is an ago­ Bruce Andre, Jon Brule. Helen Cantor. Paul Cone. George Foster, Kathleen Harris. Walter Jennings. nizing gap in black leadership today. On the one hand there are the respectable servants James Robertson, Joseph Seymour of the liberal establishment: men like James Farmer whose contemptible effort to blame The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League Malcolm's murder on "Chinese Communists" will only hasten his eclipse as a leader, (Fourth Internationalist). and on the other hand the ranks of the militants haw yet to produce a man with the lead­ 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 skipping the last issue in December. by the Spartacist ership potential of Malcolm. But such leadership will eventually be forthcoming. This Publishing Co .. 299 Broadway. SUite 318. New York. NY 10007. Telephone. (212) 732-7862 (Editorlai). (212) 732·7861 (Business). Address ali correspondence to: Box 1377. GPO. New York. NY 10116. E·mail address: [email protected]. is a statistical as well as a social certainty. This leadership, building on the experience Domestic subscriptions: 51000121 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address of others such as Malcolm, and emancipated from his religiosity. will build a movement changes to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377. GPO. New York. NY 10116 in which the black masses and their allies can lead the third great American revolution. Opinions~expressed In signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editonal viewpoint. The closing date for news in this issue is 1 March. Then Malcolm X will be remembered by black and white alike as a heroic and tragic figure in a dark period of our common history. -Spartacist No.4 (English-language edition). May-June 1965 No, 843 4 March 2005

2 WORKERS VANGUARD In Memory of. Gregg Best 1953-2004

"Jor Class StruSg'e Asainst US.. Ca Gregg at San Francisco demonstration against U.S. war on Iraq, 'Defend Ira February 2003. Us. Imperial. ", Down With UN starvation Blocka REVOLUTIONARY INTERflATIONALlST CONTINGENT

These photos honor the memory of Gregg Best, an ardent socialist and longtime supporter of the Spartacist League. Gregg with wife Phyllis and sons Zach who died suddenly on December 16, An outspoken opponent and Alex, Cleveland 1990. of racism and bigotry of any kind. Gregg could be counted on to champion cases and causes in the inte

Above: Gregg with his long-time friend Steve. Right: Gregg was one of many supporters who helped renovate the Workers Vanguard office in New York. Top: Gregg with union banner at 9 February 2002 rally .. protesting "war on terror" attacks against immigrants, blacks and labor. Above: Press conference for February 9 rally.

4 MARCH 2005 3 Letter In Defense of Science and Technology

remarkably out of touch with the current debate. There is much debate about whether AIDS is all it has been cracked up to be: or whether, in fact, HIV even An Exchange on Eco-Radicals and HIV Denialists exists! See Dr. Peter Duesberg's massive tome on the subject, bn'entillg the AIDS 25 August 2004 United States, populism has always repre­ after the Pentagon itself, in a secret Virus. According to Duesberg and other To the Editor, Workers Vanguard, sented a trap, not a blessing, for the work­ memo leaked recently. has predicted dissenters, AIDS may instead be the I'd like to take issue with a few of the ing class socialist movement in the massive unrest all over the world in just a product of the overuse of drugs as well points in, the headline article in the 9 July United States. Populism legitimates and few decades. as a result of global warm­ as a code word for old fashioned dis­ 2004 issue of your paper [WV No. 829J, props up the order it ostensibly opposes. ing, which even the Pentagon admits is eases no one would spend any money on entitled "We Need a Fighting Workers by accepting its basic principles, by prof­ occurring as a result of our tremendous otherwise-like malaria, dysentery. and Party! Break with the Democrats! No Vote fering delusions about how this order over-use of "technology and large-scale starvation-in the Third World. to Nader!" First of all, I must say that might be painlessly reformed. industry"! Whether or not HIV actually exists, You go on to ask. rhetorically, "And I completely agree with the sentiment Where have you been?! Haven't you there is also considerable contention expressed in the title of the article. We what about the Green Party's 'key value: been reading the forecasts of the Club of about whether the so-called "anti-AIDS certainly do; and we certainly should. that people must 'live within the ecolog­ Rome, which indicate that we need to cocktails," these "sophisticated medi­ One problem I have is that you propose ical and resource limits of our communi- lower our worldwide industrial use by cines" whose "refrigeration" requires the no solutions, on the electoral field. Wh)' destruction of the planet, in your addled not advise your readers to vote for some view, actually stop AIDS, or rather, in fact, socialist candidate-perhaps the SWP. weaken and kill the patients! Many of Isn't it important that socialism gets at them were, after all, at one time drugs least a few supporters during this sordid otlered by the pharmaceutical industry upcoming election (if it takes place at all)? for chemotherapy. At that time, they The major problem I have with the arti­ were judged too dangerous. even for cle, however, begins with the sentence, chemotherapy. So along comes the ''AIDS "Many of the proposals of the Greens and -i~ crisis," and, 10 and behold. and what do Nader go against the interests not only of you know-suddenly they become cure­ the industrial working class, but against ails for AIDS. and are judged benign' human progress." I would like first to Now, isn't that spec-iat? fault the author(s) for not discussing There are alternative means of treating '<'->., exactly which of the Green's/Nader's pro­ the conditions called AIDS-they are posals are anti-working class. and why holistic. however. They involve support­ and how they are. I think the subject mer­ ing and boosting our immune systems its special attention. if we are to win over rather than destroying our bodies. They the hearts and minds, especially of work­ do not require expensive. toxic drugs, nor ing class people now mistakenly suppor­ massive "refrigeration" nor "electrifica­ tive of the Greens. The WV has called tion"-impossible in a few centuries any­ attention to the fact that. in terms of for­ way, according to ecosocialists like eign policy, Nader agrees with Kerry that Sarkar, since we are running out of fossil the U.N. should do the job in Iraq-after fuels, nuclear is too dangerous, and "solar ten years of U.N. sanctions already killed electricity" simply will not work. millions. Finally, I wish to critique your satire Economically, however, your critique of the "pre-industrial Hobbiton" of the has fallen short. Here is something I Greens' vision, their "community eco­ wrote recently on the subject. In fact, nomics" utopia. Yes, it is a bit silly and while they talk a big game about "another unrefined. There is the assumption that world is possible," the Greens h?ve never some of us can be merchants, others arti­ offered more than ineffectual schemes, sans, others farmers, etc. and still all such as miraculously get along and treat each other like in that REM song, "smiling • "stakeholder's democracy." Here, cor­ porate stockholders consult with the rep­ happy people holding hands" (a leading resentatives of communities affected by "Community Economics" theorist, Steve their decisions-while leaving the pre­ Welzer, former SWP' er, even argues that sent board of directors still in charge, feudalism was OK and a damn sight • "Jeffersonian community based eco­ better than capitalism!). It's too petit­ nomics." This ecumenical approach to ', ...."" ...... ''-. . bourgeois for my tastes, too. But that economics assumes that the lamb can lie U"_:''''~''~- "::"."'~''' ",::/;s,~'-"*iJ1!#;0.€&/!IIJ'III'!!'::, .~' down with the lion. A vital small busi­ Ululun<;:ok/laif should not dissuade us from understand­ ness sector can become prevalent, all the Irrationality and gross inefficiencies of capitalist production underscore need ing that Marx and Engels themselves put while operating in peaceful coexistence for worldwide planned, collectivized economy. Overflowing silos of grain in forward a socialist version of decentral­ with corporations as well as workers Iowa (top), famine in Angola (above). ism. Theirs was not a vision of a "Metro­ cooperatives-provided it is all "decen­ tralized." What happens when the corpo­ Marxist" future, in which we all would rations start centralizing again? ties' and 'move to an energy efficient 90%? Haven't you looked at the Ecologist and should live in big cities, in the mod­ • corporate regulation and taxation-ask­ economy'? What does this mean for the recently, or the works of Mike Davis ern "Megalopolei." Foster is very clear on ing the government of, for, and by the already desperately poor in inner-city (Ecology of Fear, Dead Cities), James this point, in Marx's Ecology: as is corporate gangsters, controlled by the ghettos? For the fight against the hor­ [sic] Bellamy Foster (Marx's Ecology), Engels himself, in The Housing Question, corporate gangsters from the Civil War to the present, will now regulate and tax rible worldwide AIDS pandemic, which, Joel Kovel (The Enemy of Nature) and as is Marx and Engels, in such works as the corporate gangsters in the interest of requires sophisticated medicines, refrig­ Saral Sarkar (Eco-Socialism or Eco­ The Communist Manifesto. Look at it; the public and the environment. eration-i.e., electrification and a modern Capitalism ?)? All these authors are social­ there it is; right under your very noses, • fanciful small business loan/expanded industrial infrastructure? We need an ists, attempted either to synthesize Marx­ Spartacists! The "decentralization of pop­ currency/"democratic investment" pro­ international expansion of advanced tech­ ism with ecologism (Sarkar, Kovel) or ulation; the unity of industry and agricul­ grams, by which everyone will somehow nology, science and production to solve show that Marx was already an ecologist, ture": what do you think that means, right gain equal opportunity for prosperity and advancement without challenging the these world problems, not a retreat to very much cognizant of "ecological and there in the Manifesto?! It doesn't mean a fundamental tendencies toward inequal­ some utopian sentimental pre-industrial resource limits" (Foster). Or has the mere "pre-industrial Hobbiton." It does mean ity and misery when the means of pro­ Hobbiton of happy farmers, honest trades­ fact that such authors and reports remind that the working class, once in power, duction are held in private hands in order men and small craftsmen, which is impos­ you Spartacists ever so superficially of builds garden cities, with their own indus­ to profit from exploiting others' labor. sible in any case. Technology and large­ Thomas Malthus' work (Foster devotes try, in the countryside, and greens exist­ It is somewhat incredible and disturb­ scale industry, which is extremely efficient much of his book to the problems that ing cities, a la the visionary plans of Ebe­ ing that so many "socialist" groups this and saves huge amounts of human labor, ecologist Marx himself had with Malthus), nezer Howard, Patrick Geddes, Henry year-Solidarity, the International Social­ can be used to solve human problems." dictate that they may safely be placed on Wright, and Lewis Mumford, and the ist Organization, the Socialist Alliance This polemic is positively embarrass­ the dustbin of "human progress"?! contemporary "new urbanists." Each and the NY Socialist Project-support ing! It is utterly outdated and completely Instead of seriously disputing or even worker will work and farrnlgarden, col­ voting for the Greens/Nader. They ignore out of touch with current realities. It seems grappling with these ecologists' asser­ lectively. Industry must be made ecolog­ the not-so-trivial fact that such populist deliberately designed to alienate any eco­ tions, you simply and crudely assert that ically safe: non-polluting, as much as schemes have nothing to do with social­ logically minded person from Marxism, we need to "fight against the horrible possible. As against the deadly stultifica­ ism. They may understand the problems which you seem to confuse, in the ecolog­ worldwide AIDS pandemic!" This is tion of our suburbs and dying small with these schemes. They will still argue, ical field, at least, with Stalinism. silly "emergency-ism": No time for seri­ towns, the fruits of cosmopolitan urban however, that a resurgent populist move­ Are you honestly trying to assert that ous thought right now about our oppo­ culture and society will be spread ment will "open the discourse" for further there are no "ecological and resource nents' claims: the sky is falling! As if the throughout the land. movements toward the left, and "buy us limits" upon our use of industrial tech­ mere mention of "AIDS!" should lead us Instead of sticking your heads in the time" to build a genuine opposition. nology? It seems that way, although you all to forget completely that the world is anti-ecological Stalinist sands, why not However, as Tim Wohlforth wrote in his never actually state this ridiculous claim. heading toward ecological disaster! Here think about what these supremely eco­ book The Struggle for Marxism in the It would indeed be difficult to do so, again, however, you reveal yourself to be logical demands from Marx and Engels 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Letter

mean for us today? How about, as part of 'iii I misses "all illusions as to the revolution­ our transitional program, the demand to s: Jan ~J" ~'krinf·' ary or leading role of the proletariat" "turn prison towns into garden cities for ~mwar3unl1 btl -g&ifftn(~ft. because workers are "addicted to con­ current prisoners, slum dwellers and sumerism," He advocates a reversion to workers''''? pre-industrial, "labour-intensive technol­ Tom S. ogies" which "would be preferred, not Brooklyn, NY 'tll!m~,'. ~t f,,*.II. ~nldtMw, only to provide jobs, but also because WV replies: such technologies reduce resource con­ Tom S. claims that we did not back up sumption and, consequently, have less our statement that many positions of the \Jtiebri" (hself. negative environmental impact," This is Greens and Ralph Nader are reactionary a reactionary utopia in which the mass and anti-working-class. But, in the very of humanity would work longer and next sentence, the WVarticle stated: "In harder while consuming less. Sarkar him­ Germany, the Social Democratic/Green self describes it as "similar to an ever­ government attacked the living standards worsening recession" and "a great crisis itrI.'~IS Ur!.

of the workers to increase Germany's J,"" ,,~~ '&'f~g braw 1918-20 Civil War and then, again, a society is fundamentally counterposed to leakage from nuclear power plants. materials in limited supply is not neces­ scant generation later, in recovering from the universe of small, decentralized com­ Under capitalist rule, the fundamental sarily an insurmountable problem. the Nazi invaders' scorched-earth policies munities advocated by ecologists (and irrationality of profit and market relations Science and technology are not the and the loss of 27 million lives in World anarchists). Saral Sarkar, another of the can render unsafe even the best under­ same thing. Science is based on a process War II. The precondition for that historic authors touted by Tom S., writes that "in stood technology. But in opposition to eco-radicals. we are defenders of techno­ of experimentation and the gathering of gain for working people was the 1917 eco-socialism, to a large extent, eco­ logical development and promoters of it. empirical knowledge in the service of Russian Revolution, which took the fac­ nomic activities would be decentralised, Even the present technology is more than deepening our understanding of how tories and other means of production out economic units small, and regions and adequate to provide food and shelter for nature works; technology is the applica- of the hands of the capitalist class. local communities self-provisioning and everyone. Yet, as famine plagues many countries, the U.S. government is still autonomous" (Eca-Socialism or Eco­ paying farmers here not to grow food." Capitalism? [1999]). This harks back to The revolutionary Marxist solution to the pre-industrial village, essentially glo­ Superiority of planned, the problem of degradation of the envi­ rifying the "mental torpidity" of rural collectivized economy ronment has as its necessary precondition life decried by Marx and Engels. It is demonstrated by proletarian socialist revolutions in the also profoundly inegalitarian: Would you Cuban deformed advanced capitalist countries of North workers state's rather live in a self-provisioning com­ America, West Europe and Japan. In the advances in field mune in the fertile U.S. Midwest or in aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War against of medicine, export devastated Haiti? Iraq, we wrote an article on the world oil of doctors to many Marxists understand that the qualita­ market, which concluded: countries. One of tively higher level of industrial productiv­ thousands of Cuban "The ecology activists are right in one doctors providing ity of socialist society compared to capi­ important respect: the massive burning free medical care talism will lay the basis for overcoming of hydrocarbons-whether oil or coal­ to impoverished the division between manual and intel­ is in the long term bad for the earth's lectual labor, agricultural and indus­ atmosphere. The answer, however, is not Venezuelans. to save oil by cutting the living standards trial labor. As Engels put it, "productive of North American and European work­ labour, instead of being a means of sub­ ing people. A planned socialist economy tion and fulfillment of what science The Russian Revolution demonstrated jugating men, will become a means of would carry out the scientific research makes known. But technological consid­ in practice the ability of the proletariat to their emancipation. by offering each indi­ required to develop safer, more efficient sources of energy (including nuclear and erations do not exist apart from class seize the reins of state power and con­ vidual the opportunity to develop all his solar energy)." society. The organization of industrial struct a modern industrial society in faculties, physical and mental, in all -"The World Oil Racket." WV production under capitalism necessarily which workers have access to medicine, directions and exercise them to the full­ No. 535, 27 September 1991 leads to the degradation of the environ­ science, education and culture. It is this in which, therefore, productive labour ment because capitalist firms are moti­ question, workers revolution, that at bot­ will become a pleasure instead of being a Communism and vated solely by maximizing profits. tom separates us from the ecologists, As burden." Human Liberation The basic goal of Marxist socialism is Marxists, we oppose the environmental­ The precondition is the revolutionary At bottom, eco-radicalism is bourgeois to liberate the creative powers of human­ ist movement not because we are indif­ seizure of state power by the proletariat. ideology. It shares the same basic prem­ ity, which have been shackled by the ferent to the degradation of the environ­ Immediately preceding the above pas­ ise as other expressions of bourgeois capitalist system and earlier forms of ment caused by the existing capitalist sage from Anti-Diihring, quoted by Fos­ ideology: that the capitalist system has class-divided society. Marxists regard organization of industry. As Marx wrote ter, Engels states that "only the abolition developed the highest level of scien­ the development of the productivity of in Capital Vol. 3 (1894): of the capitalist character of modern tific knowledge and technical application human labor power as the prime mover of "Even a whole society, a nation, or even industry" and the creation of society in possible in the present period and in the social evolution and the underpinning of all simultaneously existing societies taken which the productive forces are organ­ foreseeable future. Sarkar's book con­ historical progress. We look to a qualita­ together, are not the owners of the globe. ized "on the basis of one single vast plan tains a lengthy section implying that tive increase in the application of known They are only its possessors, its usufruc­ can allow industry to be distributed over even under socialism solar power would tuaries, and, like bani patres familias science and 'the development of new [good heads of the household], they must the whole country in the way best not be a viable technology for generating technology. Ultimately this will liberate hand it down to succeeding generations in adapted to its own development." electricity. Why not? He cites a 1978 the productive capacities of mankind, an improved condition." In contrast, "eco-socialist" Sarkar dis- continued on page 11 4 MARCH 2005 5 Mumia Denied J)ay in Court, Again Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! Last month. Pennsylvania Court of mitigating circumstances (reasons pre­ Dembe's cancelation of Jamal's hearing, Common Pleas judge Pamela Dembe scribed by law why Jamal should not be hundreds of his supporters. including canceled a scheduled court hearing for executed) as set forth by the Supreme an international delegation from Pari,. Amcrica's foremo~t political prisoner. Court in the 1988 Mills case. Mumia turned OLit on February II for a "Day of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Mumia had been pre­ appealed, seeking to overturn the con­ Action" calling for his freedom. The Phil­ pared to present in court on February 11 viction, while the prosecution appealed. adelphia protest was called by the Inter­ evidence of his innocence that further seeking to reinstate the sentence of death. national Concerned Family and Friends undercuts the foundations of the prose­ In an ominous development. last summer of Mumia Abu-Jamal. cution's entire racist frame-up. Dembe the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered While such protests are welcome. what squelched the hearing suggesting she Jamal's counsel to file a brief to explain is needed are mass protests centered lacked "jurisdiction of the Court to pro­ how Jamal's case was not adversely on the social power of the multiracial ceed in defendant's third PCRA [Post affected by a pro-death penalty ruling by working class. For years. and in spite of Conviction Relief] petition:' the U.S. Supreme Court which held that the evidence of his innocence, what has Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man! the Mills case could not be applied to con­ driven Jamal's supporters from the streets Convicted in 1982 on frame-up charges. victions prior to 1988. Jamal's attorneys are illusions in the capitalist courts, pro­ of killing police officer Daniel Faulkner pointed out that Mumia's case should be moted by reformist protest organizers on 9 December 1981. Jamal was sen­ immune from the ruling as his conviction like Workers World Party and Socialist tenced to die explicitly for his political didn't become final until 1990. But the Action. These illusions have been embod­ views and past membership in the Black entire history of Jamal's case shows that ied in the subordination of the call to free Panther Party. For nearly four years. both a fighter for black freedom like Jamal has Mumia to the demand for a "new trial." a federal and state courts have Jefused to no rights the capitalist courts are bound conscious appeal to liberals who were even consider the sworn testimony of Reuters to respect. agnostic on Mumia's innocence and thus Arnold Beverly that he, not Jamal, shot Mumia Abu-Jamal during his PCRA would not rally around a call to free him. and killed Faulkner. hearings in Philadelphia, 1995. Mobilize Now to Free Mumia! Why mobilize in the unions and streets if Dembe's cancelation is just the latest On February 4, Mumia lost one of his the courts can be relied on to ultimately in a long series of legal machinations shoot Officer Faulkner when she really most prominent supporters when re­ do the right thing? by the courts to bar additional mountains did not see who did it." It has long been nowned actor and civil rights activist The PDC, a legal and social defense of Mumia's evidence. Dembe ordered known that White had been coerced and Ossie Davis died at the age of 87. Serv­ organization associated with the Sparta­ Mumia's attorneys to submit papers was under police control when she gave ing as co-chairman of the Committee to cist League, has sought to bring Jamal's explaining why evidence of Mumia's her lying testimony, and other witnesses Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, Davis joined case to unions in the U.S. and around the innocence should not be barred by rules have testified that White was far from others in reading from Mumia's writings world and raise funds for Mumia's allowing only evidence that is "newly the scene. in a 1994 united-front speakout spon- defense. As part of its annual Holiday discovered." In papers submitted to the Mumia had also hoped to bring out the court, Robert Bryan, Jamal's lead coun­ testimony of Kenneth Pate, stepbrother of sel. explained that the evidence was Priscilla Durham, the Jefferson Hospital previously unknown, adding, "Had the security guard who joined in the cops' prosecution not engaged in fraudulent manifest lie that Mumia "confessed." In conduct and a cover-up of its misdeeds, fact, the cop assigned to guard Jamal the new evidence would be unnecessary." while he lay bleeding in the hospital The prosecution's case against Mumia reported at the time. "during this time the has long been exposed as a lie from top to negro male made no comments." The bottom (see Partisan Defense Committee bogus "confession" was cooked up two pamphlets, The Frame-Up ofMumia Abu­ months later at a round-table meeting Jamal IJuly 19951, and MlIm;a Abu­ called by the D.A.'s otlice to orchestrate Jomal Is (111 Innocent Man' [September the cops' trial testimony. In an April 2003 200 I j). At the now canceled hearing. declaration. Pate described how Durham Mumia had hoped to bring forward two told him that when Mumia was brought pieces of evidence that have come out to the hospital he was "all bloody and the since Dembe's 2001 decision denying police were interfering with his treat­ Mumia's earlier PCRA petition. These ment. saying 'let him die·." Cops pres­ tViO pieces of evidence further bIO\\' to sured her that. as a security guard. she bih key parts of the government frame­ "had to stick. with them" as part of the up: the coerced testimony of prostitute '''brotherhood' of police." and to "~ay Cynthia White that she Sa\\ Mumia shoot that she heard Mumia say that he killed Faulkner and the patently false claim the police officer. when they brought that Mumia confessed to the shooting. Mumia in on a stretcher." Durham told WV Photo In early 2002. a new witness. Yvette Wil­ her brother. "All I heard him say was: Ossie Davis hosted February 1995 rally for Mumia sponsored by Partisan liams. courageously carne forward and 'Get off me, get off me, they're trying to Defense Committee and Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal. testified in a sworn affidavit submitted in kill me·:· federal courts that White herself admitted Still pending in the federal courts is sored by the Committee and the Parti­ Appeal for Class-War Prisoners, the PDC the cops coerced her to testify against Jamal's application for habeas corpus san Defense Committee to protest the coordinated the raising of over $1.600 for Jamal: "1 was in jail with Cynthia White relief. While affirming Jamal's frame-up National Public Radio cancelation of its Mumia's legal defense from labor unions in December of 1981 after Police Officer conviction, in December 200 L federal plans to air Mumia's commentaries, and across the country. Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. district court judge William Yohn over­ again spoke at a Committee/PDC rally in Based on the only significant integra­ Cynthia White told me the police were turned Jamal's death sentence on the February 1995. tion in racist America-the workplace making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal grounds that the jury failed to consider Mumia's case is a textbook example of and the factory floor-the trade unions what the capitalist state is all about. As have the social power and the potential to Marx and Engels explained. the state is an become battalions in the struggle against Pc::: .·ar'i~an .aefen~e armed body of men for the suppression of capitalist exploitation and racial oppres­ D £onllniUee Seplember2001 one class by the other. Mumia's plight sion, to shake the foundations of this Evidence Explodes Frame-Up: Pamphlet shows how that state, from its brutal cops decaying capitalist system and ultimately Declarations and affidavits to its robed ''justices,'' will dispense with topple it. If undertaken with a mobiliza­ of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mumia Abu-Jamal the niceties and formalities of its sham tion of the union movement at the fore­ Arnold R. Beverly, Rachel Is an Innocent Man! "democracy" in the interest of silencing front, the fight to free Mumia and to abol­ Wolkenstein and others an eloquent voice for black freedom. ish the racist death penalty would be a Mumia is not just another black man first. giant step in that direction and prove that death row political ensnared in this racist system. He is an would strike a significant blow against prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is outspoken advocate for the oppressed. a the draconian new repressive measures an innocent man. MOVE supporter. an eloquent journalist being implemented by the Blish adminis­ and fighter who was in the cross hairs of tration with bipartisan support. To that Published September 2001 Afflda\lt at Rac.'le, VVo,kensteln 7 the Philly cops and the FBI since he was end. labor must break the chains with Affldav:t of ArnOld R $.50 (32 pages) 22 Declarat,:X1 ofMt....'l13 23 a teenage spokesman for the Black Pan­ which the trade-union misleaders have DeclaratlotlS of WI iii am Cook 24 AffidaVit of ::1ol'a':::j ther Party. shackled the unions to the political par­ Order from/pay to: Dec.ala: :y, 0; L 26 28 Aft'da.l: :)1 Terr, Partisan Defense Committee 30 Last month, the San Francisco Board ties-centrally the Democrats-and the PO. Box 99, Canal Street Station Free Mumia Now! of Supervisors approved a resolution state agencies of the enemy class. No illu­ New York, NY 10013 affirming "its support for justice and a sions in the capitalist courts f Free Mumia new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal." Despite now f Abolish the racist death penalty f.

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

I they arc [thel only voice to the outside world." And now the state has prevailed senuing shock waves through the defense bar that already shies awa) from the kind of cases that has been Stewart's staple for a generation. She has taken on cases in\'oh­ ing members of the Black Panther Part}. the Attica Brothers. Puerto Rican Indepenuence fighters and since at least 1995 the blind Sheik. In order to put into operation the draconian special measure, of the Targeting Lynne Stewart g()\ernment the state needs to seed fear into those who arc s\\orn to protect and prO\ ide a full and \ ig­

The COIl\ iction of civil righb atturne) Lynne Stew­ reall~ targeted because she ignored unconstitutional mous defen,e-Iaw.'ers. But the hattIe i,n't l1\er. art and her co-defendants translator .\lohallled You~ry rules put in place by the gmernment. Perhaps what has happened has awakened many peo­ and paralegal Ahmed Sattar i~ a triumph of fear over In an intervie\\ with Stewart she spoke about what ple in this country who would have preferred to ~Ium­ rL'a;;on. The three legal worker~ were chargeu anu con­ the case \\as really about. "The justice department ber'.' Lynne Stewart. paralegal Ahmed Sattar and pro­ victed of aiding and abetting terrorism in connection decided that things that I did as a Im\yer are now to be fessional translator ~loharned Yousry plan to stage a \\ ith their reprcsentation of the blind Egyptian Sheik outlawed. are now to be made into crimes. in order to \igorom appeal of thi, outrageous verdict. Thcy will Omar Alxlel-Rahman. When the fonner attorney gen­ ueter other law} crs from vigorously defending people. need your support. nO\\ more than ever. it will take eral AshLTuft Clnnounceu the arrest of Stewart he did so What 1 basically did wa~, T issued a press release on work of many to undo John Ashcroft's revenge. From on the late night David Letterman talk show. Certainly behalf of my client. They said that this prcss release Death Row this is lvIumia Abu-Jamal. an unprecedented \ enue for such an announcement. was materially aiding a terrorist organization. thus 12 February 2005 And as it began on TV so it was often prosecuted with making it impossible for any first amendment right to ~)2{)(J5 .1/lIl1Tiu A!",-Jamu! a fearsome visage of O~allla Bin Laden beamed to be protected. Anu to me that is the real essence of this jurors via video tape threatening to attack America on \\ork, is that we be permitted to defend people such as the Sheik's behalf. yourself in these cases as political people, not just as Send urgently needed contributions for Jamal's Even though the judge dutifully instruped the jury defendant 10872." legal defense, made payable to "National Lawyers that Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the case. Recently black political prisoner Albert Woodfox of Guild Foundation" and earmarked for "Mumia" How do vou wash something like that from the mind the Angola Three talked about the importance of to: Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, 130 after it h~s been admitted int~ evidence'? Lynne's hus­ lawyers in destroying isolation. "1 think that this was Morningside Drive, Suite 6C, New York, NY band activist Ralph Poynter put the hammer to the nail a pretty strong shot across the bow as they say. you 10027. when he said of the trial "'this prosecution doesn't have . know if you dare put forth an honest attempt to uphold If you wish to correspond with Jamal, you can a damn thing to do with terrorism. It has to do with pol­ the standards of law in this country we will get you. write to: MumiaAbu-Jamal,AM8335, SCI Greene, itics and putting Lynne Stewart away." Stewart was You know we will destroy you, cause in most cases 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370.

U.S.'s "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the ers abroad, the American capitalist class of American capitalism and the nuclear Hands Off ... Western Pacific. cannot now easily re\'erse its industrial brinksmanship of the faith-based Bush We fight for the unconditional military administration: (continued from l)age 1) decline. This is the material basis for the defense of the Chinese deformed workers rabid behavior of the Bush administra­ "The Am~rican capitalists understand House and Pentagon, by saying, "Work state against imperialism and capitalist tion. Its outlook brings to mind the siege that their decline requires keeping not for the fall of the Communist Party oli­ counterrevolution, as we do for the other mentality of the Afrikaners in South only all potential rivals. but American garchy." This is not a new Bush policy, remaining workers states-North Korea, Africa, the Ulster Protestants in Northern working people themselves. permanently off balance. Everything will be done to but the resumption of a goal that was tem­ Vietnam and Cuba. Taiwan is part of Ireland and the Zionists in the Near East. make the consequences of decades of porarily deflected by the September I I China. and we Trotskyists will stanu with After World War II, when the U.S. American decline appear instead as the attacks. That China signed on to the U.S. China in thc event of any military contlict emerged on top among capitalist imperi­ work of terrorish. or China. or (as in the unlimited "war on terror" has only em­ with U.S. imperialism over Taiwan. We alist powers. it took the lion's share of unhelievahle Frenc'h-bashing in the rUI1- boldened Washington. As a result of capi­ do not minimize the danger posed to the the plunder and placed the world on dol­ up to the Iraq war) even of Europe." talist counterrevolution in the former Chinese deformed workers state by the lar rations. Particularly after 1971, when That capitalism has outlived its useful­ Soviet Union. the U.S. wars in Afghani­ growing social weight of the Taiwan and President Nixon announced the U.S. ness is a terrible understatement. Fulfill­ stan and Iraq. as well as a reneweli U.S. Hong Kong capitalists. some of whom would go off the gold stanci:Jrd. the re.,t ing basic human need., such as health care, military presence in the Philippines and have family ties to top Chinese go\ern­ of the world was pressured to hold education, jobs, requires ripping power expanded nuclear presence iil Guam. ment officials. Nor do we deny the danger reserves in U.S. paper currency, worth out of the hands of the capitalist ruler:; China is now squeezed in a dangerous mil­ of the newly fledged entrepreneurs on nothing except for belief in the almighty and rebuilding society on the basis of a itary vise. the mainland. Nonetheless. the core of U.S.A. But now the U.S. is the biggest global collectivized planned economy, The United States and Japan issued China's economy remains the collec­ debtor nation, and with its huge balance socialist egalitarianism and working-class a significant joint policy statement on tivized state industry, and the economic of trade deficit. foreign competitors are rule. The terrible impact of capitalist 19 February avowing that Taiwan i~ "'a policies of the ruling bureaucracy are con­ compelled to hoid U.S. reserves. for fear counterrevolution in the Soviet Union has mutual security concern." This comes strained by fear of popular and working­ that a collapse of the American economy hurled the consciousness of workers fast on the heel> of the IT.S. enlisting class unrest that could topple it. We would seal off imports and thus plunge back, such that few now identify their Japan and Australia to deploy it, over­ ad\ance a program for thc revolutionary their own economies into collapse. struggles with the ideals of socialism. hypcu antiballistic mi"ile (ABM) shield reunification of China, which would "The Dollar's Crisis & Our~." a percep­ This is the reality we confront. and. again,! China (,ee "Japanese Trotskyists require a proletarian socialist revolution in tive article by Loren Goldner (Agaill.l/ the though our task to bui Id a party of the Taiwan. the expropriation of the Hong Currenl, January/February 2005). keenly Bolshevik type to lead struggles aheau is Kong capitalists, and a workers political draws the connection betwcen the decay surel} harder. it is no less urgent.. re\olution against the Stalinist bureauc­ racy in Beijing. Sooner or later. the cxplosi\e social tensions within Chinese society will Spartacus Youth Club Class Series shatter the bureaucracy. Then the fate of the most populous country on earth will BAY AREA lOS ANGELES be starkly posed: proletarian political revolution to open the road to sociali~m Wednesday, March 9, 6 p.m. Saturday, March 5, 2 p.m. or capitalist enslavement and imperialist Religion, Reaction and For Women's Liberation Through subjugation. Working people all over the Capitalist Society Socialist Revolution! world havc a stake in this struggle. Cap­ San Francisco State University 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 italist counterrevolution in the Soviet Cesar Chavez Student Center (BeverlyNermont Red Line Station) Room T-143 (Terrace Level) Union and across East Europe created a Wednesday, March 9, 7 p.m. Information and readings: (510) 839-0851 "unipolar" world of unbridled military or e-mail: [email protected] Marxism vs, Feminism: aggression by U.S. imperialism abroad, For Women's Liberation Through coupled with more savage attacks on TORONTO Socialist Revolution! workers. women. minorities and immi­ UCLA, Ackerman Union, Room 2410 grants. So too would destruction of the Wednesday, March 9, 6:30 p.m. Information and readings: (213) 380·8239 Young Spartacus Chinese ueformed workers state be a ter­ China: The Fight Against or e-mail: [email protected] Spartacus Youth Club speakout against rible global defeat. The fate of China Capitalist Counterrevolution U.S. war on Iraq at University of and the fate of workers the world o\'er York University BOSTON Illinois-Chicago, September 2003. are inextricably linked. economically and Student Centre, Room 315C politically. Information and readings: (416) 593-4138 Wednesday, March 9, 6:30 p.m. Say: Down With Japanese Provocations The unchallenged global military or e-mail: [email protected] For Women's Liberation Through Against China. North Korea!" WV No. hegemony of the U.S. stands in sharp Socialist Revolution! il"+2. 18 February J. Although arrayed contradiction to its declining economic VANCOUVER For Free Abortion on Demand! Harvard Uhiversity, Loker Common against North Korea, the main ABM tar­ base. The tendency of the Bush adminis­ Tuesday, March 22, 5:30 p.m. get is China's missilc force. Ever since tration and correspondingly wide sections Basement of Memorial Hall Break with the Pro-Imperialist NDP! the \ictory of the 19..+9 Chinese Rno­ of the American ruling class to vie\v the Information and readings: (617) 666-9453 For a Binational Revolutionary or e-mail: [email protected] lution, Taiwan has been an outpost for world through the apocalyptic theological Workers Party! U.S. imperialism', counterrevolutionary lens of Armageddon has its roots in this University of British Columbia scheme, and interference in Chinese objective contradiction. H~ving presided Student Union Bldg., Room 211 leI. Web Site: internal affairs through the Chincse bour­ over the deindustrialization of the country Information and readings: (604) 687-0353 www.ic.·fi.org geoisie on the island. During the Korean and dri\'en by the pursuit of grcater profit or e·mail: [email protected] War. MacArthur described Taiwan as the margins exacted from the labor of work- 4 MARCH 2005 7 stranglehold on the pittance it divvies out AIDS ... in order' to force its reactionary, religious (continued from page 1) agenda on the world. Funds for AIDS are tied to anti-abortion policies, and con­ yet been developed, and is still years doms are put way down the list after the away, Around the world, even treatment "A" and "B" in the much-lauded Ugandan with AZT or nevirapine (which have been campaign against AIDS called "ABC." around for many years) to prevent mother­ "A" is for "abstinence," "B" is for "be to-child transmission, is still not readily faithful," and the "C" is for condoms. available, Why? Because in most of the In this country, millions of adoles­ world today, women continue to be the cents and children get federally funded slave of the slave, economically depen­ abstinence-only sex-miseducation pro­ dent on her spouse, isolated in the hOlDe, grams. These are not just repressive and with lives considered of lesser value. totally useless for young people, but they The U.S., which is among the most are deadly. Youth are given ignorant, ly­ advanced, industrialized capitalist coun­ ing. religious propaganda instead of the tries, with some of the most technologi­ science-based contraceptive information James Schnepf cally sophisticated medical research, has they need to protect themselves from sex­ Promoting potentially deadly ignorance about sex in youth: Federally funded not been able to eliminate HIV infec­ ually transmitted diseases and from get­ programs push "abstinence before marriage" in schools, government pamphlets. tions. Every country has its peculiar ting pregnant. For example, federally characteristics shaped by the history of funded programs give youth false infor­ This will impact HIV-positive people, not union busting and by moving production its class society. Effective control of HIV mation, such as that tears and sweat can to mention poor people in general. to the non-unionized South and out of the requires great medical resources, not to transmit HIY. Most dangerously. they Thedeindustrialization of the major country. Today in the U.S., a mere 8 per­ mention clean running water, which overstate the failure rate of condoms Northern cities over the last several cent of private industry remains union­ poverty-stricken countries in Asia and and discourage their use. Recently, Texas decades meant that the black population, ized. Black workers still playa strategic Africa lack. But in the vastly wealthy A&M University surveyed 29 high which had migrated in waves to the role in the American economy and are U.S., access to quality health care for the schools regarding Bush's much-vaunted North for jobs in the first half of the 20th disproportionately in union jobs. How­ masses of people has been deliberately abstinence-only education in his home century, was now left with little in the ever, more and more, the black popula­ neglected by the ruling class. . state and found that these programs had '80s. Over a million manufacturing jobs tion has become an excess, surplus pop­ The counterrevolution in the Soviet no impact on teen behavior. These teens were lost during this period and over 2.6 ulation for the ruling class. Just as HIV Union, a historic defeat for the world, are left in ignorance when they do have million more have been lost since Bush was beginning to infect the U.S. popu­ working class, has emboldened the U.S. sex, and they do have sex, as teenagers took office. The capitalist class-which lation, the "war on drugs" was being capitalist rulers to pursue their goal of naturally do. It was reported in November must accumulate profit through the launched against black people with a bru­ worldwide domination through mass that new federal guidelines for treating exploitation of working people's labor­ tal vengeance-a war of police repression murder and torture, from Afghanistan to rape victims omit mentioning the option ultimately had little use for those at the and imprisonment aimed at the black and Iraq. No matter how much they hypo­ of the emergency contraceptive pill. bottom when they finished looting what minority population. And now, over 20 critically yell about "freedom," the U.S. Anti-science, anti-evolution, faith-based they could from them. As the "last hired years later, this has sent much of a gener­ ruling class is the bloodiest ruling class programs mean death as well. National and first fired," the black population sup­ ation of black men to prison. in history and is the main enemy of the Institutes of Health (NIH) officials warn plied, in the words of Karl Marx, a The rate of HIV infection is actually workers and oppressed worldwide. The HIV / AIDS researchers to eliminate cer­ "reserve army" of unemployed labor for increasing in the most recent period among U.S. has the widest gap in the entire tain "key words" from funding propos­ the American capitalists. certain sectors ofthe population in the U.S. world in the standard of living between als-including "sex workers," "anal sex," The color bar is the fundamental divid­ In New York City, the financial center of rich and poor. It's virtually the only de- "needle exchange," "abortion," "condom ing line in American society, a key prop the world, half of black men are unem­ ployed and HIV infection rates are compar­ able to the Third World. The rate of HIV infection among women is rising dramati­ cally in the U.S.-as it is everywhere in the Horrific "scientific" world. When AIDS was first identified in experimentation the early 1980s in the U.S., religious and on blacks. Left: Dr, Sims, social bigotry contributed to AIDS being considered "Father branded as a "white, gay disease." Now it of Gynecology," is branded as a "poor black disease." preparing to Last Tuesday, r heard Jacob Le\'enson, operate on slave author of The Secret Epidemic: The Story woman. Infamous of AIDS and Black America, speak at the Tuskegee study Brooklyn Library. First of all, there are withheld treatment virtually no other books that focus ex­ for black men with clusively on the history of AIDS among syphilis. black people in the U.S. Levenson is a young, white journalist who took an in­ terest in why AIDS in the U.S. had be­ veloped country that has no universal effectiveness," "gay," "homosexual," and for obscuring the irreconcilable divide come a disease of black poverty. Also medical coverage. Its rulers want to throw "transgender"-to improve their chances between the working class and the capi­ speaking was Mindy Fullilove from old people on the garbage heap, with the of being funded. talist class. White workers and immigrant Columbia University. She was one of the slashing of Social Security. workers are told that black people are first black health professionals in the mid You may have read new statistics on Capitalist Rulers Wage War on their enemy, not the bosses who exploit '80s to try to address the rampant HIV the high infant mortality rate in the U.S. Working People, Blacks them all. Up until the last few decades, infection which was sweeping the ghet­ By the way, although high infant mor­ The fate of specially oppressed sectors although black workers often held the most tos of the Bay Area, along with crack tality is largely attributable to the lack of society-black people, immigrants and arduous industrial jobs, such as the coke cocaine. AIDS in this black ghetto was of health care available to poor women, women-is in large part determined by ovens in steel, at least a layer had jobs totally ignored, although it is right next it is also partly due to the difficulty of the course of class and social struggle. with health benefits and a pension. These door to the gay, white ghetto of the getting an abortion in the U.S., as com­ Coming out of the struggles of the civil benefits were won because of decades of Castro District. Fullilove jumped into the pared with other industrialized countries. rights movement was a brief moment of union struggle and many of these battles fray because there were virtually no Today, there is one abortion clinic left in the broadening out of public health care, were integrated actions, where black and trained black scientists to consult at the the state of Mississippi, and it is under most notably the passage of the Medicaid white workers fought side by side on the time in the U.S. The researchers and attack. and Medicare programs, however inferior picket lines. Such integrated class strug­ community organizers were told patroniz­ The United' States has a hugely profit­ and substandard. Today, massive cutbacks gle is the only way forward today. ingly they were the 'Third World com­ able pharmaceutical industry whose com­ in Medicaid keep coming down the pike The mass actions of the civil rights ponent"-the intention was to relegate mercial interests conflict with the lives of every year. Some 55 percent of people liv­ movement broke down Jim Crow in the care for black people to a ghettoized millions of people around the world. In ing with AIDS rely on Medicaid. Because South, but, when the protests came up back burner. fact, the U.S. government continues to of federal cutbacks, nearly every state against the hard economic reality and Black people's disproportionately high hold hostage funds for AIDS. and keeps a . is cutting back on Medicaid coverage. dehumanized ghetto conditions in the HIV infection rate in the U.S. was not Northern cities, the movement hit the unknown before then. Before the mid limit of what could be achieved without '80s, the Centers for Disease Control overthrowing the entire capitalist system. (CDC) had published statistics that 74 The pro-capitalist leadership of the civil percent of all female cases were black rights movement channeled the struggles and Latino and 57 percent of pediatric into the dead end of the racist Democratic AIDS cases were black. I looked back at Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League Party. Randy Shilts' excellent 1987 book, And We seek to build a multiracial, working­ the Band Played On, which recounts the o $10/21 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal (includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle) class party that will replace the current vicious bigotry and government negleC't international rates: $25/21 issues-Airmail $10/21 issues-Seamail pro-capitalist labor leadership that only that contributed to the deaths of thou­ o $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) knows how to organize givebacks today. sands of gay men in the 1980s. He makes o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) It will take a proletarian, international clear that key to dispelling the myth that Name ______socialist revolution to complete the tasks AIDS was an excl.usively "gay plague" Address ______of the Civil War, to extend to all op­ was the evidence that intravenous drug pressed sectors the fruits of their labor. users, who were often black and hetero­ Apt. # _____ That means seizing the means of produc­ sexual, their spouses and children, as City ______State ______- Zip _____ tion and taking state power from the cap­ well as hemophiliacs, contracted AIDS. Phone (_-_) ______E-mail ______::-:-: italist class. While the profit-driven blood bank busi­ 843 The capitalist class has sought to nesses were trying to suppress the infor­ Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co" Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 exploit workers at an ever higher rate by mation, people were getting infected 8 WORKERS VANGUARD through transfusions. In other words. cisco. Oakland and Richmond. Black and HIV is borne by blood. semen, vaginal Latino community activists were isolated secretions and breast milk, not the wrath and had fewer connections to get money. of God agairist Sodom and Gomorrah, or, There were few statistics on sexual behav­ "§ the more "polite," bigoted way to put it, a ior or drug use in the Latino Mission, :.:: disease caused by a so-called "lifestyle." black Western Addition or Bayview/ But Shilts never addressed the impact Hunters Point that could inform an epi­ of AIDS on the black inner-city popula­ demiologically coordinated plan of attack. tions. In our review of Shilts' book, we There had been virtually no serious sci­ said: "AIDS, which was first recognized entific studies of black male/female Rally against draconian as a disease in gays, is being transformed sexuality in the U.S.-ever-because New York State into a disease of the ghetto, among the American medical "science" is often a re­ Rockefeller desperately impoverished and oppressed: flection of the racist belief that black peo­ Drug Laws. the chronically unemployed, sometimes ple are inferior, and "natural rapists" to be already homeless, often illiterate, already castrated and lynched. Such views reflect without any insurance for health care" the origins of American capitalism, built ("~lIlell and Revolution No. 35, Summer on the backs of black chattel slaves. 1988). The fight for black rights and free­ Black women have been stereotyped as dom is central to the American workers either asexual, selfless "mammies" of revolution, and it's the task of a revolu­ white children or sexually insatiable Jeze­ least populated states in the U.S. com­ health care and drug treatment, probably tionary party to be a tribune of the people, bels, fair game for white men. In fact. bined. There has been an explosive the meanest aspect is the seizure of these as Lenin said, and instill this conscious­ as the revelation of Strom Thurmond's growth of prisons over the last three women's children and restrictions against ness into all the struggles of the multi­ secret black daughter showed, from slav­ decades in the name of the "war on visitation. Most women in prison are racial working class. ery until today, it has been a rite of pas­ drugs." Escalating cop terror against the mothers. In 2003, the Supreme Court sage for white men to treat black women black masses is a social necessity when ruled that prisoners with certain drug AIDS and Special Oppression as sexual property. When the pioneering decent, livable jobs are removed. infractions could be denied any family These prisons, with their high-tech, visits. And for the sizable numbe( of We communists fight against all mani­ Indiana University sex researcher Alfred security units, are the torture training inmates who are functionally illiterate, festations of social oppression. Defense . Kinsey carried out his extensive field grounds for the likes of Army Specialist this means they cannot even correspond of democratic rights for homosexuals is interviews back in the late 1940s. he told Charles A. Graner. who used his years as with their family. part of the historic tradition of Marxism. his co-researchers that he had to withhold a prison guard in the U.S. to train for Murderous bigotry against homosexuals his findings about black men because he There is a growing ex-felon population Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Graner is being and drug felons are banned for life from stems from the oppression of women and recognized that publishing anything about sued by an inmate of the State Correc­ receiving welfare, that is, any cash assis­ the straitjacket of the bourgeois family. their sexuality was too explosive; there tional Institution-Greene in Pennsylvania tance, and food stamps. Among other The reactionary, religious bourgeoisie was no way to address this issue without for putting a razor in his mashed pota­ says that the only legitimate sexual activ­ stoking a violent. racist reaction in Amer­ states, California. Illinois and Georgia toes, and, with other guards. beating him ity for workers is for reproduction of the ica. Slaveowners penned the American enforce these lifetime bans. Forty-eight up and yelling "Shut up, n----r. before next generation of workers. The family as Constitution. which lauded liberty and percent of women affected are black or we kill you."' This is the prison that holds Latina. Anyone with a drug conviction an economic unit arose with the rise of the equal rights of all mankind, and the today's foremost class-war prisoner. cannot get financial aid for any post­ class society. and the capitalist class uses only way to reconcile such a contradic­ Mumia Abu-Jamal. on death row, be­ secondary education and is barred from the family to instill obedience to the bour­ tion was to deem black people less than cause he is the voice of the voiceless, a geoisie from generation to generation. human. Racism is the bedrock of Ameri­ public housing. Ex-felons. many of whom fighter for black freedom. More and more, the mythical icon of can capitalism. along with the anti-poor. went to prison homeless, cannot even stay It's important to state here that we con­ the monogamous family, enshrined with Puritan work ethic and fundamentalist. 'Nith relatives in public housing for fear sider drug use, prostitution, gambling and of causing them to lose their homes. are something called "family values," is used anti-sex religious reaction. age of consent laws (as a few examples, barred from all sorts of job licensing­ to club poor people over the head and to In the early '80s as the breadth of the there are others), all as "crimes without such as nursing attendant and childcare­ remind them that they are inadequate. This AIDS epidemic began to be known, the victims." In other words, the capitalist are tracked by authorities, virtually un­ model has nothing to do with family life black population was so beneath interest state's criminalization of these activities employable, stigmatized, and the family actually experienced by workers. to the medical establishment, which was has nothing to do with the welfare of soci­ traumatized and destroyed. Let me say a word about the current also so blinded by anti-homosexual prej­ ety and everything to do with regimenta­ Read the compelling book, Life on the media coverage of a new resistant HIV udice, that, in 1981, when Dr. Arye tion and repression. The government Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine strain that rapidly leads to full-blown Rubinstein wrote a paper for the prestig­ should stay Dut of the bedroom. And drug Bartlett, by Jennifer Gonnerman. Elaine AIDS. While gay activists have expressed ious New England Journal of Medicine use or addiction, depending on the cir­ Bartlett is on a speaking tour around the genuine concern about the decreasing use documenting cases of AIDS in black chil­ cumstances, may be a health concern, but city right now. She spent 16 years in of condoms, the hysterical, not-so-thinly­ dren in the Bronx, his paper was rejected not a crime. Drug addiction, especially prison in upstate New York, on a 20-to­ veiled, anti-gay rhetoric escalated every because the editors deemed it impossible among ghetto youth, is fundamentally a life sentence, for delivering four ounces day in the New }~rk Times to a crescendo that children could have a "homosexual reflection of hopelessness and a response of cocaine in a sting operation-her first of statements by community leaders and disease." And they certainly weren't con­ to brutal oppression. As Marxists we offense-and became an activist protest­ commentators who called for vigilantism cerned that black children had any new, know that this will not change until social ing the Rockefeller drug laws while still and criminalizing gay men as "murder­ mysterious illness. reality changes. The road to a truly in prison. The book recounts the impos­ ers." One psychologist did at least note: According to the CDC, the overall rate egalitarian society is through a socialist sible barriers she faced when she finally first they don't let gays get married, and of HIV infection has slowed from revolution. managed to get out of prison. The fabric then they condemn them for having sex 150,000 new cases a year in the mid '80s To this day in the U.S., federal funds of her entire family had been irremedi­ outside traditional marriage relationships. to the current estimate of 40,000 annu­ are banned for needle exchange pro­ ably ripped apart by her prison years. We are for appropriate public health ally. Anti-retroviral drugs, if you can grams, which are used all over the world The New York State laws are still the measures being taken that may override afford them, have changed HIV infection to save lives. And of course, both needle harshest in the country, and the recent personal liberty when necessary, but legit­ into a chronic condition, rather than exchange and condoms are banned or reforms that shorten the longest sentences imate fears of victimizing the victims death, for many. The absolute number of unavailable in almost all prisons, al­ only affect the smallest percentage of the looms, especially in this post-September new infections has stubbornly stayed the though the use of drugs and sexual activ­ incarcerated. 11 period, when civil liberties on every same for the last decade, but what has ity are well known by all. Regarding the rate of HIV infection in front are under attack. What has also been changing is the percentage of black The state of Ohio, with its miles of black women, I want to mention the been glaringly revealed is that 25 years people infected. HIV infection has been empty shells of former steel mills and "down low" media frenzy which has after having repeatedly predicted that a decreasing overall in the white population auto plants, announced they were open­ been hyped everywhere, from a titillating resistant HIV strain that develops quickly in the U.S., but it is increasing among ing their fourth women's prison in Janu­ New York Times magazine cover story to into full-blown AIDS could occur, and black people. ary because of rising drug convictions, the Oprah Winfrey show. The "down was in fact inevitable, the public health As of 2002, black people were half of reduced probation options and longer low" frenzy was provoked by J. L. King's agencies don'l even have the centralized the new HIV diagnoses reported. Blacks sentences. Nationally, women are impris­ book, On the Down Low: A Journey databases that they need to proceed. are over half of those tested late and oned mainly for drugs, prostitution, bur­ into the Lives of "Straight" Black Men Partly this is because of the chaotic patch­ diagnosed HIV-positive and thus will glary, fraud and larceny. In 1970 there Who Sleep with Men. The book purports work of private doctors, laboratories and have a shorter life span, even if treated. were 5,600 women in prison; now there to expose the phenomenon of HIV­ hospitals that may hold critical informa­ The leading cause of HIV infection are some 100,000 and almost half are positive, black, bisexual men who "cheat" tion, and partly because of rampant prej­ among black men is sexual contact with black. About one million women are on their wives. In fact, it is a backward udice and discrimination that has not other men, followed by injection drug under the control of the criminal justice religious piece, which reinforces bigoted abated, and has forced gay people to use. The leading cause for black women system. Besides inadequate education, continued on page 10 fight for confidentiality. is heterosexual contact, followed by in­ As vilified as gay white men were and jection drug use. Black and Hispanic are for being "deviant" from the precious women represent less than 25 percent of norms of bourgeois society, their rela­ U.S. women, but account for 82 percent Spartacist SPARTACIST Sf~l.~A~ tively greater resources allowed them to of female AIDS cases. The majority of *4 ~mH mM fight for attention to the AIDS epidemic, black women with AIDS live in the South Africa "Black Economic Empowerment" = Attacks on Workers, Poor Northeast and the South. Newspaper of the South African especially when the spectre of infection Capitalism, AIDS and ANC's in the larger popUlation was posed. But section of the International black gay and bisexual men, IV drug AIDS and the Incarceration Communist League "Rollout" Scam (Fourth Internationalist) users and their partners, enmeshed in of Black America hopelessly impoverisned lives in disinte­ We had an article in Workers Vanguard Issue NO.4 (24 pages) grating neighborhoods, were beneath vil­ almost exactly ten years ago called US$1 R1.50 ification and faced death on the streets or "Lockdown U.S.A." (WV No. 618, 10 Subscription: 4 issues death in prison. March 1995). In that article we said that US$4 R10 (R20 Overseas) The Secret Epidemic contrasts the gay, 1.5 million were behind bars. Currently Make checks payable/mail to: In South Africa: white San Francisco Castro District to the it's nearly 2.1 million. Today, nearly Spartacist Publishing Co. Spartacist, Post Net Suite 248 black areas of the San Francisco Bay seven million people in the U.S. are injail Box 1377 GPO Private Bag X2226 Area in the early '80s. Black men were or are on probation or parole, and that's New York, NY 10116 Johannesburg 2000, South Africa dying silently in the ghettos of San Fran- more than the population of the eight 4 MARCH 2005 9 put fully at the service of humanity. AIDS ... Microbes are living organisms. and (continued from page 9) despite the creationists' babbling, they will continue to evolve, and we will have stereotypes of so-called amoral gay men. to continue to live with them. Access to For example, it purports to give women quality health care should be a simple advice on how to detect if your partner is democratic right. It is a basic necessity secretly on the "down low." Such a book. like education. housing and a job. A and the publicity around it. reflects the planned, socialist economy. under the racist and anti-gay hysteria which por­ rule of the working class, would have one trays sinister. predatory and deceitful purpose-to provide for all in the best black men whose alleged uncontrollable way possible. This degenerate, capitalist sexuality leads them to prey on innocent ruling class kills. It kills masses of peo­ women and their children. ple internationally through wars and star­ Certainly. every variety of so-called vation. and all in the service of maintain­ "infidelity" in marriage is as old as mar­ ing its ruthless profit-driven economic riage itself. Certainly. black gay and system. It killcd over a million and a half bisexual men face many reasons not to people in Iraq through a starvation block­ come out, and. on the other hand, nobody ade. and its neocolonial occupation force is going to oppose honesty in personal continues to kill thousands of people. relationships: This sensationalized racist Struggle for health care is key issue for American labor. Striking L.A. grocery Here in New York. its cops gun down stereotype only serves to divert attention workers, January 2004. black youth in the streets and on the from the deep-rooted bigotry that pre­ housetops of New York like Timothy vents desperately needed AIDS funding racial oppression of black people as a gon State University just released a survey Stansbury Jr., and in their own apart­ for research, health care and education race-color caste in American society. that found that 16 percent of black Amer­ ments like Alberta Spruill. and while from being available. There is absolutely But two major attacks on poor women icans think that government scientists cre­ they are struggling to make a living like no evidence that the rate of homosexual­ that marked the reactionary. post-civil ated the disease. and slightly more than Ousmane Zongo. It kills because this is a ity'is any higher or lower in the black . rights movement period were overseen by half say they believe a cure is being with­ desperate ruling class which has become population than the white. Phill Wilson. -the Democrats and showed the cruelest held from the poor. a bar to human progress for over a cen­ of the Black AIDS Institute. points out contempt for black and poor women and For 40 years. the U.S. Public Health tury now. that the single biggest driver of the heter­ children. The first was Jimmy Carter's Service withheld treatment from black Union struggle in this country in the osexual spread of HIV to black women is overseeing of the 1977 denial of Medicaid men with syphilis in Macon County. recent period has centered around fight­ the massive incarceration of black men. to poor women for abortions. proclaimed Alabama, who were told they were being ing for decent health care. as the behe­ He perceptively compares the U.S. prison to all with his cruel "life is not fair" treated for "bad blood" in the infamous moth "wealth care" industry attempts to system to the migrant worker mining speech. And. on the other end. it was "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis shake more money oui of the pockets of induqry in South Africa in the role it has Clinton in 1996 \>>'ho led the charge. along in the Negro Male." This so-called study sick people. Free. quality health care for played in fueling the AIDS epidemic, with the Republicans. to ax. as he put it. continued until 197~. But it's not just all is \vithin the bound~ or material pos­ "where you take large groups of men and "welfare as we know it." Tuskegee: the "Father of Gynecology." J. sihility. hut not under capitalism where move them from their families for an Improvcments in water quality and Marion Sims. portrayed as an icon in extended period of time." hygiene. from the early to late ~Oth cen­ every medical school. performed gyne­ In America. as in South Africa. as tur). narr()\\ cd the gap hel \\ een black and cological experiments on slave women evcrywhere. mcn who are forced to leave v.hite people's health status. But. begin­ between 1845 and 185~. He hought a their homes for an extended period of ning in the 1980s. the health gap has been slaw woman for the purpose or e\peri­ time have new se.\ual partners. as do the \videning. and black life expectancy went menting on her. and he used no anes­ women they leave behind. This serves to down hetween 1984 and 1990. Black peo­ thesia with the racist justification that spread H IV among both the migrants in ple get less care. inferior care and at a black people feel pain less. But the spe­ South Africa and men cycling in and out later point in illness across the board. cial oppression of the black masses is l)f American prisons. along with their In an extensive history of racism and not a conspiracy: in fact. conspiracy the­ partners. Particularly characteri~tic of heal th care in the U. S.. An Ame ri('(lll ories tend to disann one from taking any American racism is the fact that the rigid Health Dilemma: Race, Medicine, und action at all. Racism is necessary to the racial segregation of black people mag­ Health Care ill the United States, the American capitalist economic system, nifies the opportunities for infection authors, two black physicians. W. Michael which must be replaced by socialism. within this besieged minority population. Byrd and Linda A. Clayton, refer to the "slave health deficit'· which has character­ For a Socialist Future to Combat Democrats Paved the Way ized the cIass nature of the medicine-for­ Poverty, Ignorance and Disease! for Bush Reaction profit health system in the U.S. I want to I mentioned early on in the talk that the Bush recently motivated the wholesale also refer you to "Wealth Care USA" in counterrevolution in the Soviet Union elimination of Social Security, in favor of the Spartacist League's journal Women was a historic defeat for the world work­ a Wall Street crap shoot, by remarking and Revolution (No. 39, Summer 1991). ing cIass. The planned economy. albeit that the current Social Security system is The Slave Codes declared that slaves were degenerated, was overthrown, after hav­ "unfair" to black people because they subhuman, they were chattel, property ing been undermined for generations by AFP die before they can get the benefits. like a mule. Women in particular were the Stalinist bureaucracy. However, the South African AIDS activists at 2,000- Wretched health care. in contrast to the treated like breeding animals and mar­ Bolshevik Revolution was the only suc­ strong march on Parliament in Cape privileged commodity set aside for the riages were arranged and torn apart to fit cessful workers revolution, and the vision Town to demand free anti-retroviral rich, along with early deaths by homicide the needs of the white owners. Since pseu­ and program of the BolSheviks who made drugs, February 16. and coyly named "police interventions" doscientific rationalizations had to prop that revolution are models for anyone (this is what government statisticians call up slavery by "proving" that blacks in who wants to end this miserable capital­ profit rules. If there are no jobs, why edu­ cops gunning down black people in the general were inferior, the health status of ist system. You really need an interna­ cate people. why even keep people alive? streets), has produced a system that con­ free blacks was as bad as that of slaves. tional, planned economy to deal with pov­ We aim to build a revolutionary vanguard demns poor and black people across the Mistrust of mainstream medicine among erty and disease, as well as all the myriad party that will sweep away capitalist rule income spectrum to shorter life spans. the black population is not a small factor problems of this society. Then, for the first and open the road for a decent world for This life and death statistic is one of the in treatment. Conspiracy theories for AIDS time, the modern gains of science can be all. Join us .• most devastating indictments of the abound. The Rand Corporation and Ore-

ketball players are perhaps innately inca­ ----:-- SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. --­ Witchhunt ... pable of certain activities). Surely there (continued from page 2) are many abusive priests. But we'll never Local Directory and Public Offices know what happened in many cases, as Web site: www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] submission of all humanity to God. The the actual guilt or innocence of those sin­ National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860 worst thing. ultimately, about religion is gled out to be demonized is irrelevant to that it preaches blin.d faith in false, mysti­ both prosecutors and the church hierar­ Boston Los Angeles Oakland cal forces ruling our fate, crippling human­ chy, who would rather throw money at Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 ity's fight for freedom from oppression accusers than uncover the truth. This too Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 and for control over nature. is a terrible injustice to those abused. (617) 666-9453 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 We care about the suffering of those The falsity and reactionary political Public Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m. Public Office: victimized by corrupt, violent institutions uses of "recovered memory" prosecutions Chicago 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sat. 1-5 p.m. Box 6441, Main PO 1634 Telegraph and adults-whether priests or bullying were thoroughly exposed a decade ago. In Chicago, IL 60680 New York 3rd Floor state prosecutors. The terror and helpless­ a major review of research and books (312) 563-0441 Box 3381, Church St. Sta. ness felt by children coerced into submis­ debunking "recovered memory" prosecu­ Public Office: New York, NY 10008 San Francisco sion by frightening authority figures like tions. we wrote: "Much of this persecu­ Sat. 2-5 p.m. (212) 267-1025 Box 77494 priests, especially when combined with tion aims to strengthen the bourgeois 222 S. Morgan Public Office: San Francisco enforced guilt about sex, does scar them state in its regulation of the population CA 94107 (Buzzer 23) Sat. 1-4 p.m. for life. Obviously the church has a lot to and to spread panic, as a diversion from 299 Broadway, Suite 318 cover up-look at the millions in hush the real brutality of life in this twisted. money it's been dishing out (including to mean. bigoted, racist society" (Womell . tROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CANADA some of Shanley's accusers). Forced out and Rel'Ollltiol1, No. 45. Winter-Spring over the scandal was Boston' s arrogant 1996). What we wrote then is equally true Toronto Vancouver Cardinal Bernard Law, the Catholic ver­ today: It is in the interests of all in the Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. sion of Harvard's all-purpose bigot Larry workers movement to protest and oppose Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 Summers (who recently speculated that this new, deadly "recovered memory" (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353 women. Jews. Catholics and white bas- witchhunt. Free Paul Shanley!.

10 . WORKERS VANGUARD Tom S. misidentifies our views on used to combat HIV His book, Inventing treatments for AIDS that do not require Letter... modern industrial technology with those the AIDS Virus, was published by Reg­ "expensive, toxic drugs." Obviously, any­ one who believes this would see no need (continued from page 5) of J. V Stalin. Environmentalists com­ nery Publishing. a right-wing outfit that monly point to the former Soviet Union also publishes such reactionary, anti-gay to demand the vast increase in funding study purporting to prove that. given the to argue that socialist planning is just as bigots as Patrick Buchanan, G. Gordon that is needed across the board for health existing technology. the total energy destructive of the environment as capital­ Liddy and Ann Coulter. Duesberg served care and medical research on AIDS. Why indirectly consumed in manufacturing a ism. However. the ecological disasters as im adviser to South African president denounce those like the U.S. and South solar power plant is greater than what the which occurred in the USSR. as well as Thabo Mbeki. whose ignorant diatribes African governments. who refuse to make plant would produce during its lifetime. those being created in China today. denying that HIV causes AIDS were vital medications readily available. or the (There are a number of studies contra­ resulted from the mismanagement of the largely aimed at deflecting criticism over pharmaceutical giants. which demand dicting that conclusion: Sarkar dismisses collectivized economy by the Stalinist his government's criminal refusal to allo­ exorbitant prices for life-prolonging med­ a few out of hand while simply ignoring bureaucracy. A Soviet government based cate medical resources to combat the epi­ icines':' At bottom. the myth about com­ the rest.) Yet even if Sarkar's contention on workers democracy. representing the demic. Despite overwhelming evidence bating AIDS through "alternative" or "hol- were justified with regard to current solar energy technology. its generaliza­ tion to socialist society is invalid. It assumes that it is impossible to signifi­ cantly increase the efficiency of solar German foreign cells or lower their production costs­ minister, Green hardly the most intractable technical Party leader problem facing mankind. Joschka Fischer, deployed German A ~ocialist system is. by its very troops for first time nature. not limited to the known technol­ since Third Reich ogies developed and utilized by the capi­ to participate in talist mode of production. Under a social­ wars against Serbia ized system of international planning. and Afghanistan. an international workers soviet would Fischer visits no doubt choose to invest considerable German troops resources in developing renewable energy in Balkans. sources and in reorienting the world economy away from a reliance on fossil fuels. In contrast. investment decisions under capitalism. including those regard­ interests of the working people, would that a course of anti-retroviral medica­ istic" remedies boils down to an argument ing research and development, are pri­ have sought to prevent the pollution of tion for HIV-positive pregnant women against fighting the pharmaceutical giants. marily determined by how individual cap­ the Caspian Sea and the destruction of can largely prevent transmission of the the racist governments and the whole cap­ italist companies feel they can make a the Aral Sea, as it would resist the virus to the fetus, the Mbeki government italist system. profit. If burning fossil fuels results in mounting pollution today of China's riv­ fought for years to block distribution of In a recent study, touted on Web sites pollution, environmental degradation and ers and urban atmosphere. these medicines; today it does little to devoted to "holistic" therapies as well as disease, that is not a concern to the indi­ But we approach such questions from implement even those limited govern­ in the Nev,: York Times. the onset of AIDS vidual capitalist: those costs don't appear the standpoint of strengthening, develop­ ment programs that were finally set up. was delayed in HIV-infected pregnant on his balance sheet. ing and extending the planned, collectiv­ The fact that the main victims of women in Tanzania when they were given Moreover, the development of commu­ ized economy and technological progress. AIDS, when it was first recognized in vitamin supplements-hardly a surpris­ nism will be accompanied by a corollary The capitalist counterrevolution which 1981, were homosexual men and. later, ing result in a country beset by wide­ downward drift in the present population destroyed the Soviet Union in 1991-92 intravenous drug users. brought to the spread malnutrition. An author of the hypertrophy. Evidence of this can already has certainly "improved" the environ­ fore a powerful undercurrent of anti-gay study hailed this as "a low-cost interven­ be seen under capitalism in the industrially ment, and some Green radicals may wel­ bigotry and racism in the response to the tion that could result in major savings." advanced countries of the world-e.g., come the closing of Russia's steel smelt­ disease. Randy Shilts, in his book And Not widely reported was the study's con­ Japan. North America and Western ers and other factories, since they no The Band Pla.ved On. documented how clusion that the "benefits" of vitamins Europe-where economic and technolog­ longer poison the atmosphere. But the difficult it was for doctors trying to deal were "small relative to the effects of triple ical advancement has effected, not through final reversal of the remaining gains of with the beginnings of the epidemic to antiretroviral therapy" ("A Randomized fiat, a substantial reduction in the birthrate. the 1917 Russian Revolution, above all get any recognition or response from Trial of Multivitamin Supplements and Under communism, both the division the destruction of the Soviet planned V.S. government health officials. Right­ HIV Disease Progression and Mortality," between town and country and economic economy, was a historic defeat for the wing religious bigots and reactionary The New Englalld Journal of Medici/Ie, dependence on the family will virtually proletariat that has brought with it an politicians seized on the idea that AIDS I July 2004). This study exemplifies the disappear. No longer will poor peasants or enormous rise in the death rate due to is a "behavioral" rather than an infec­ racism inherent in capitalism/imperialism, agricultural workers be compelled to have rampant malnutrition and disease. tious disease to present it as God's pun­ not least in how it provides--or fails to more children in order to ensure enough ishment for people they would just as provide-health care. As in numerous manpower to work the land. Human The Reactionary Agenda soon see dead. Suicidally, a number of other AIDS studies carried out in Africa, beings will have far greater mastery over of HIV-Denialists gay activists and even some leftists have the doctors watched as scores of black both their natural and social environments. Over the past couple of decades, accel­ bought into this myth. women grew sick and died of AIDS with­ Additionally. communist society will erated in good part by "death of commu­ That HIV causes AIDS is a scientific out administering anti-retroviral drugs be based on a thoroughly different set of nism" reaction in the imperialist centers fact. no less than Darwinian evolution. known to be effective in prolonging their social values from those that exist today. following capitalist restoration in the The mechanisms by which the virus lives-and 267 of the women were given The liberation of women from patriar­ Soviet Union in 1991-92. there has been breaks down the immune system are the a placebo. that is. no treatment at all. As chal domination will mean complete and a growing assault on science, from the subject of considerable research and de­ in the Tuskegee experiment, the rationale unhindered access to birth control and teaching of evolution in public schools to bate. But that HIV causes AIDS is not a given for such studies is that these impov­ contraception. Communism will elevate stem-cell research. A manifestation of matter of scientific dispute. An article by erished black women would not have had the standard of life for everyone to the this trend is the crusade. which Tom S. the National Institutes of Health (NIH) access to advanced medications in any highest possible level. By eliminating champions. promoting the lie that the titled 'The Evidence That HIV Causes case. scarcity. poverty and want. communism HIV virus does not cause AIDS. This is AIDS," posted on their Web site, notes: The bourgeoisie's racist disdain for the will also eliminate the greatest driving not a scientific debate. It is a reactionary "AIDS and HIV infection are invariably lives of its colonial underlings partakes of force for the prevalence of religion and campaign which aims to provide pseudo­ linked in time, place and population a mindset that sees everything from superstition-and the attendant back­ scientific legitimacy for a right-wing group." And: "Many studies agree that human life to the natural environment as wardness. which defines the role of social agenda that would condemn mil­ only a single factor. HIV, predicts whether nothing but raw materials to be ravaged women as the.vroducers of the next gen­ lions of people to death. a person will develop AIDS." Another in the drive for profit. That the leaders of eration of working masses to be The scientific godfather for this cru­ NIH article. "How HIV Causes AIDS." the most powerful industrial country in exploited. A prolonged, mild population sade is Peter Duesberg. a professor of declares that "the level of HIV in an the world have minds filled with the shrinkage based on increasing material molecular and cell biology at UC Berke­ untreated individual's plasma 6 months to worst superstitions. ignorance and big­ abundance and progressive social ideals ley. who claims that HIV is harmless and a year after infection .. .is highly predictive otry of the Dark Ages is dramatic evi­ will go a long way toward ensuring that that AIDS is caused by "Iife-style" fac­ of the rate of disease progression: that dence of the decay of capitalist society. there are enough resources to guarantee tors such as illicit drug use by gay men is. patients with high levels of virus are That backwardness and irrationality is the well-being of all. and others. as well as by AZT. a drug much more likely to get sicker. faster. mirrored in petty-bourgeois fads like faith than those with low levels of virus." healing. astrology and hostility to science Given the racism inherent in American and technology. Socialist revolution will A Spartacist Pampnlet capitalism. and especially the legacy of make modern technique. science. culture This pamphlet reprints presentations given the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experi­ and education available to all. with a cor­ by SL Central Committee member Joseph ments where black men were criminally responding explosion in creative human Seymour on the origins of Marxism in the allowed to go untreated for decades by energy. As Friedrich Engels wrote in French Enlightenment and in left Hegelianism. Enlightenment researchers who wanted to study the Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880): Also included are "150 Years of the Communist effects of the disease. many black people "Man's own social organisation. hitherto Manifesto" and "Marxism and Religion." are justifiably suspicious of the govern­ confronting him as a necessity imposed Rationalism by Nature and history. now becomes the In the retrograde climate of post-Soviet AND THE ment and the medical establishment. reaction, the struggle to reassert the validity Tragically, many blacks buy into conspir­ result of his own free action. The extra­ neous objective forces that have hitherto of the program and purpose of reVOlutionary acy theories. promoted by the likes of Marxism is crucial for our fight for new Origins governed history pass under the control nationalist demagogue Louis Farrakhan. of man himself. Only from that time October Revolutions. of Marxism claiming that AIDS is a government con­ will man himself. more and more con­ spiracy to kill blacks. Obviously. anyone sciow,I). make his own history-only $2 (~8 pages) believing this myth-or the myth that from that time will the social causes set HIV does not cause AIDS-would be less in movement by him have. in the main Make checks payable/mail to: and in a constantly growing measure. the Spartacist Publishing Co. likely to use condoms. get tested for HIV results intended bv him. It is the ascent Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 infection or seek medical treatment. of man from the kingdom of necessity to

L--_~ ____" Tom S. tells us that there are "holistic" the kingdom of freedom:'. 4 MARCH 2005 11 WfJ/iNE/iS "Nfi",/i1J 13-Year-Old Devin Brown Gunned Down by LAPD

LOS A;\GELES-The cop killing of blaL·k. 13-)car-old Dcvin Bn)\\ n on Fcbruar;. 6 \\ as thc outragcous. hut pre­ I;Uilck~l.A. Seethes Over Racist Cop '~rror" dictable outcome of the "open scason" for intensified racist cop terror givcn by the It "'1 capitalist rulers of Los Angeles. Brown's killing is the latest in a string of police I, attacks on hlack people in LA .. with one I atrocity quickl) following anothcr. Dc\in BrO\\I1 \\ as killed just three d,!,) ~ after LA. County District /\ttorney Steve Coole\ announced that there would he no criminal charges filed against the cops that hospitalized another hlack man. Stanley "Iiller. hy hcating him rcpcatcdl;. \\ilh a mctal n'bhlight 011 li\c Idc\ ision last June. And less than thrcc \\ccks earlier. a jur) with' no hlack memhers a\\arded S2A million for "\\ rongful ter­ mination" to t\\O of the Tngle\\Olld cops \\ 11\1 were disciplined after being caught on videotape hattering hlack tcenager Donman Jackson-Chavis l In this contcxt. two Los Angeles Policc

Department (LAPD) cops on shift in WV Photo South-Central LA. radioed in to say they February 26: L.A. protest against cop killing of Devin Brown. \Nere pursuing a possible drunk driver in a Toyota shortly before -1- a.m. on Febru­ launched a raciq war on black youth. But this is exactly the truth that is long history of lettin& the raci,t. capital­ ary 6. The ensuing 3-minute "chase" came referring to gang member~ ,I' "terrorists:' covered up. suppressed and distorted ist rulers off the hook b) mi,directing to an end after the pursucd car ran into a "tribal" and "thugs." One speaker at a by all the preachers. liberals. national­ black anger toward Koreans. Latinos. curh. The 1-1--year-old in the passcnger recent LA. City Council meeting hit the ists, trade-union bureaucrats and social­ Jews and iTllllligranh, \Ve fight for multi­ seat managed to get away. In the mean­ nail on the head: "Black people fear the democratic reformists. The reformist racial lahor struggle to unite all of the time. LAPD cop Steve Garcia was out of police as much as they fear the gangs. In "socialists" of Workers World Party's In­ oppressed against our cOl11l11on opprcs­ his car and shooting. as the Toyota mO\cd fact. the LAPD is considered the biggest ternational Action Center (lAC) ludi­ sors-the capitalist ruling class, The back from the curh. A fey\! seconds and 10 gang in the city," The LAPD acts like an crously announced in a 17 February Work­ struggle for black. immiglClnt. and labor bullets later. Dnin Brown was dead. occupying force in the ghettos and bar­ en World article on De\in Brown: "lAC: rights can only go 1'01'\\ ard togethcr' Devin was a talented 8th-grader at rios, Likc thc L' .S. imperialist military in Disarm LAPD" ~ While saying not a word A Latina from thc Ju~tice fur Janitors Auduhon magnet school whosc short life Iraq. hoth think they can kill \\ith about the perspective of mobilizing labor union (SElL; 1'1',771 "poke mo,ingly at the was annihilated by the racist cops y·:ith­ impunity. In a profit-dri\Cn system that struggle against racist cop terror. the TAC February 26 prote,t. Dc\ in BrO\\n's out a moment's hesitation. His family and cannot provide johs. health care or a proclaims that "it is absolutely irrespon­ mother is hcr~el f a member of U ;\'ITE thc people \\'ho met him cherished the life deccnt education. cop terror sen es to sible to allow the LAPD to arm its officers HERE. and sewralmember, of her unioll of Devin Brown. "Therc \Nas a sweetness force the oppressed black and Latino with guns. Allowing the LAPD to carry were present at the prote,t. The multi­ about him ... T saw an innocence and a masses into submission, Dm\!n \\ ith racist any weapons provides a dangerous risk to racial proletariat of Los Angeles-from s\\ eetheart." one of his teachers said. cop terror I We will not forget the brutal the general public and especially Black the hea\ily black and Latino workcrs on Devin was close to his parents, When slaying of Dcvin Bro\\n! and Latino youth:' Meanwhile. the Interna­ the docks and in transit. to the over­ Devin's father died suddenly of heart fail­ That cop beatings and killings are a tional Socialist Organization demands that vvhelmingly immigrant janitors and hotel ure last year. Devin was devastated. As his domestic corollary of the "war on terror" "if city officials want to reduce gun vio­ workers-is a powerful latent force in cousin put it. "He took it the way any was driven home hy the racist shooting lence. they should start with their police this city that has every interest in mohiliz­ young child might." of Bassim Chmait. a 20-year-old Arab department." Let's be clear: the only force ing against racist cop terror. But as a young. hlack male in racist. American youth killed in Orange County that can aholish racist cop terror is the rev­ Exactly one year ago. there was a big capitalist America. Devin Brown was seen on February 5 by an off-duty U.S. Cus­ olutionary proletariat in power! and popular grocery workers strike. cen­ as "Enemy No, I" to the L.A. hosses' toms and Border Patrol agent. Bassim and A February 26 protest at Leimert Park tered in Southern California. If won. that ruthless thugs-the LAPD. When LA. his three friends were on their way to a was called by a coalition including mil­ strike could have galvanized union strug­ police chief Bratton arrived in LA" he college house party in Mission Viejo lionaire LA Sentillel publisher and head gle nationwide, Instead. it was misled when the Homeland Security officer, sup­ of the Brotherhood Crusade. Danny into defeat and sold out by the pro­ posedly angry about neighborhood noise. Bakewell. by the Nation of Islam (NOI) capitalist union tops. The recent labor pistol-whipped Bassim's friend and shot and by various black preachers. What all battles in Southern California have Bassim in the head at pointblank range these types have in common is their use­ shown there is will to fight on the part of when he tried to protect his friend. Down fulness to LA.·s rulers in diverting out­ the working class, Responsibility for the with the anti-Arab. anti-immigrant "war rage over cop killings into religiosity. defcat of recent labor struggles must be '>, on terror"! dead-end Democrattc Party politics or laid at the door of the labor misleaders. The police exist to defend capitalist poisonous anti-immigrant racism (the whose job it is to inundate the work­ rule. which in the U.S. is based on the specialty of the Nation of Islam). Among ers with false. bourgeois consciousness racial oppression of black people as a the speakers was LA. city councilman and politically subordinate the unions race-color caste at the bottom of Ameri­ (and former LAPD chief!) Bernard to the hourgeois state via the capitalist can society, They are part of the capital­ Parks. now running for mayor. Parks Democratic Party. This is the main ohsta­ ist state. which is a machine of organized praised the NOI and the preachers for cle to a fighting. class-struggle lahor violence used to enforce the class rule of their "constructive" work-i.e" for chill­ mmement. Tnstead of tapping into the a minority of exploiters against the ing out the population and concealing the outrage against police \iolence among majority of toilers, The state cannot be nature of the cops. \\ orkers and mobili7ing lahor unions reformed. but must hc smashed through At Dcvin's funeral. Tony Muhammad. again,t it. thc LA, COllnty Fcderation of workers revolution, As revolutionary the local leader of the black-nationalist Labor (AFL-CIO) has hccn throwing fighters for thc emancipation of the prole­ NO!. pronounccd. "We'lI pol icc our­ union money and political support hehind tariat. we seck to advance thc conscious­ scl\'Cs!" This is reminiscent of when the the reelection of "tough on crimc/more ness that thc American working class can­ NOT Security Agency was gi\en contracts cop"" Democratic L.A, mayor Jim Hahn, not liberate itself from the misery and in the carly 1990s to police the fedcrally There must be a political fight within the exploitation of the profit system without subsidized housing projects in cities from unions to oust the sellout bureaucrats and fighting against every manifestation of Baltimore to Los Angeles. acting as black forge a militant class-struggle leader­ WV Photo racism and championing the cause of front nlen to carry out the hourgeoisie's ship. Break with the Democrats! For a Spartacist supporter at February 26 black freedom. For black liberation racist "war on drugs/crime" against the revolutionary workers party to fight for a rally in L.A. through socialist revolution! . mainly black residents. The NOI has a workers government! •

12 4 MARCH 2005