A Message to Our Readers Law." the Message Couldn't Be More Clear
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JANUARY 30, 1981 60 CENTS VOLUME 45/NUMBER 3 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY/PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE ' • •- r1 Demand Martin Luther Kin national holiday By Osborne Hart Not since the 1963 march on Wash Clenched fists punctuated chants of and even younger, to many thousands WASHINGTON, D.C.-The largest ington, led by King, has there been . "We want a holiday-Black folks' holi in their forties and fifties, to the el~ Black rights demonstration in nearly such a national outpouring of the day!" and "We took a holiday!" derly. two decades took place here January Black community. The mood was festive but deter mined. Determined that civil rights Buses were chartered by church, 15, demanding that Dr. Martin Luther Braving the cold, singing and chant community, and social groups. Opera King, Jr.'s birthday be declared a ing despite slush and snow, tens of gains, won by the movement King helped lead, will not be taken away by tion PUSH and the Southern Christian national holiday. thousands of demonstrators marched Leadership Conference brought bus A huge, militant crowd of more than from the Capital grounds to the rally Reagan or by racist terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan. Determined that the loads. Radio station WJPC in Chicago 100,000 people, the overwhelming ma site. organized forty buses. jority Black, rallied at the Washington Portraits of King were held aloft struggle will go on until Black people Monument to honor the slain civil everywhere. are truly free. Chapters of the newly formed Na rights leader. Thousands more demon Black nationalist flags of red, black Participants represented a broad tional Black Independent Political strated in cities throughout the country and green waved throughout the cross section of the Black community Party in Newport News, Virginia; (see page 4). crowd. from high school, junior high school, Continued on page 3 . Dear Militant reader, ists, an injunction against renewed spy activ SWP, the YSA, or any of their members can be March 16 is a date you should remember. On ity, and $40 million in damages. proved guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable that day the Socialist Workers Party and doubt," they assert. Young Socialist Alliance lawsuit against gov As the trial draws near the government has "The issue is whether the Government has a ernment spying, disruption, and harassment made a dramatic shift in its defense. They now will go to trial. Coming to tri:::.l in the early right to keep itself informed of the activities of openly claim the right to spy on everyone! groups that openly advocate revolutionary change in the structure and leadership of the Government of the United States, even if such advocacy might be within the letter of the A message to our readers law." The message couldn't be more clear. What is involved is a fight for the rights of not only days of the Reagan administration, the social The preliminary government trial plan socialists-but all working people. A victory ist suit will represent an important challenge states: will be a victory for every worker trying to to the government's offensive against the " the Government may legally investi- organize strong unions; every fighter for Black rights of us all. gate individuals or organizations regardless of rights, for women's rights; every opponent of Our suit demands a complete stop to the their nature." nuclear power. If we win it will make it more government's spy operations against social- "The issue in this case is not whether the Continued on page 21 In Our Opinion VOLUME 45/NUMBER 3 JANUARY 30, 1981. CLOSING NEWS DATE-JAN. 21 the sources of financing for business invest The demands were given added legitimacy New cast, old script ment" through generous tax breaks. because Washington was responsible for the Ronald Reagan climaxed his inaugural ad The future looks grim for working . people shah to begin with. dress by evoking the image of a young GI under Reagan. It is grim. The new adminstra That's not simply our assertion. In a J anu lying dead in France during World War I. In tion will step up the drive to raise corporate ary 21 summary of the events leading up to the the soldier's diary, Reagan said, was found profits at our expense. It will step up efforts to embassy crisis, the New York Times, no friend this pledge: "I will work, I will save, I will prepare American youth to fight and die in of the Iranian revolution, wrote in part: sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheer wars against liberation struggles around the "The Central Intelligence Agency helped fully ...." globe. stage the 1953 coup that restored the young So there's the watchword of the new admin In so doing, the Reagan adminstration will Shah to his throne after he had been deposed istration-cheerful sacrifice. build on what the Carter adminstration did by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, The nation's problems, Reagan explained, from draft registration to decontrol of energy who nationalized Western-owned oilfields." stem from trying to "live beyond our means." prices. The article explains that although the Shah His answer? "Reverse the growth of govern And, like the Carter administration, it will was opposed by a broad range of the Iranian ment" and curb its "intervention and intrusion face resistance and opposition that will limit people, "President Nixon approved nearly in our lives." its ability to carry out its reactionary program. unlimited arms sales ... and President Car For starters, the intrusion of food stamps is Democrats and Republicans alike try to ter politically embraced the Iranian ruler in a to be removed from the lives of some eight confuse and disorient this opposition with New Year's 1978 visit to Tehran." million Americans, if Reagan's economic pro appeals to the "national interest," to "we the Despite this criminal involvement with the gram goes through. people." But the most important fact of Ameri Hitler of Iran, Washington refused to consider Those pesky safety and pollution inspectors can politics is that "our country" is divided Iranian proposals for ending the embassy are to stop interfering with American industry. into classes, whose interests are irreconcilably crisis. Instead, Iranian assets in this country Washington is to stop intruding on employ opposed, and that both Democratic and Repub were seized. Countries aligned with the United ers by telling them they have to hire Blacks or lican parties represent the capitalist-class mi States were pressured to join a trade embargo. women. nority against the working-class majority. Carter staged his "rescue" fiasco, killing Prosperity is possible, Reagan said, if we That's why the pompous "changing of the eight Gis and underlining that he didn't give a remove these "roadblocks that have slowed guard" in Washington last week changed damn for the safety of those held in the em our economy and reduced productivity." But nothing fundamental. bassy. don't expect quick relief, he hastened to add. Facing an antilabor onslaught from both Now, with the resolution of the crisis, there Economic ills "will not go away in days, capitalist parties, workers need our own party is the propaganda theme that "we have been weeks, or months." to fight for our own interests-a labor party. humiliated." When it comes to the Pentagon, of course, Then we'll see political fireworks to make Who's "we"? Reagan's plan is not to reverse the growth of Reagan's inauguration look like the pale cha True, American bankers and oil magnates government spending but to put the accelera rade it really was. may feel a setback for their plans to roll back tor to the floor. Carter had projected an arma the Iranian revolution and resume plundering ments budget of $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) that country's resources. over the next five years. Reagan wants more. American workers, however, have no such The key to everything, Reagan explained, is Why 444 days? stakes in Iran. to stop seeing ourselves as conflicting "interest It took 444 days to achieve the release of the But, it's argued, "we paid them ransom." groups." Some of us are industrialists, he said, fifty-two Americans from the Tehran embassy. That, too, is propaganda hokum. The agree and some are truck drivers. But "all of us But the fact is that they could have been ment simply provides that the United States together ... must bear the burden." released on Day 1. will return some of the money and property Let's think of ourselves, he urged, as "we the Like the terms of the final settlement, the that legally belong to Iran. people-this breed called Americans." initial demands of the Iranian people were And, the agreement declares, it "will be the During the week before the inaugural, James neither exorbitant nor unjustified. They could policy of the United States not to intervene, Carter delivered his farewell address, his final and should have been met at the time. directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, state of the union message, and his final Washington brought the shah to this coun in Iran's internal affairs." budget. Their theme? try with full knowledge that it would be Again, that may not be to the liking of "We are all Americans together," Carter regarded by Iran as a major provocation. Chase Manhattan or Exxon. But American said. We should stop trying to defend "o~r own The Iranians responded by occupying the working people have every reason to support private interests" rather than make the neces embassy.