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No. 812 ~X-523 24 October 2003
PennsJlvania Supreme Court Rules Innocence Is No Defense Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! mony of Arnold Beverly that he, not with the PDC. Yet it has been ruled out Statement by the Partisan Jamal, shot and ki1led police officer of order by both the Pennsylvania Daniel Faulkner on 9 December 1981- courts where Jamal has sought to over Delense Comminee blasts through all the cover-ups and lies turn his sentence under the state's Post used by the state to put Jamal on death Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), and The following statement was issued row for a crime he did not commit. the federal judiciary which has turned by the Partisan Defense Committee; a The testimony of Beverly, who has down Jamal's habeas corpus appeals legal and social defense organization allowed his confession to be recorded and slammed shut the courtroom doors associated with the Spartacist League, on video, is corroborated not merely by on evidence of Mumia's innocence. on October 19. a series of affidavits but as Jamal's The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is a On October 8, the Pennsylvania attorneys described, "a stack of memo textbook example of a racist frame-up. Supreme .Court yet again ruled that a randa approximately the size of a New A Black Panther Party spokesman at the court of law is no place for evidence of York City phonebook" written by PDC age of 15, an award-winning journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal's innocence. That counsel Rachel Wolkenstein and Jona and a supporter of the Philadelphia evidence--centered on the sworn testi- than Piper, another attorney associated continued on page 7
Victory to Supermarket, Transit Workers! • II II riKe I
LOS ANGELES, October 21- workers have struck in St. Louis, Major strike battles have erupted , w?il~ ~,300 followed suit in W~st in Los Angeles and throughout .... Vlfglllla, Kentucky and OhIO. Southern California. Seven United Other major UFCW locals will Food and Commercial Workers have strike votes before month's (UFCW) locals, representing 70,000 end. These struggles underline the workers, are picketing the three common interests of the working supermarket giants Vons (Safeway), class as a whole-from Latino Ralphs (Kroger Co.) and Albert immigrants and urban ghetto resi sons. Two days after the grocery dents in the Southwest to impover strike began, over 2,000 mechan ished white workers in Appala ics and maintenance workers in chia-against the capitalist class Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) enemy. The fight for decent health Local 1277 downed their tools. Hon.:: care is a life-and-death issue facing oring the picket lines, which have workers and oppressed minorities shut down the Metropolitan Trans across the country. portationAuthority (MTA), are driv Historically an "open shop" anti ers organized by the United Trans union town, L.A. is a city of vast portation Union (UTU) and clerical, disparities of wealth, with millions custodial and tool room workers of low-paid immigrants and black organized by the Transportation workers. In recent years, there have Communications Union (TCU). been significant organizing efforts These strikes have struck a chord among the many Mexican and among workers throughout the L.A. Central American workers who area. Teamsters truckers have been are exploited in low-wage, back honoring UFCW picket lines out breaking jobs. These immigrant side supermarkets and distribution workers have brought with them centers. Teamsters members them traditions of militant labor struggle selves are engaged in a number of from their countries of origin and strikes in the area, including work have helped revitalize the L.A. ers at the Darigold· milk company Picket line of striking Albertsons grocery workers faces down scab truck in Brea. labor movement, as seen in the and the First Transit commuter "Justice for Janitors" organizing route as well as sanitation workers Orange County workers in ,Service dictated austerity. Workers with some efforts in the early 1990s and the organ whose strike has just ended victoriously Employees (SEIU) Local 660 have been social power are saying "Enough!" and ization of 90,000 home health care and by winning Teamsters representation at working without a contract since Septem fighting back with widespread popular other workers in 1999. This labor comba Norcal Waste Services in the South Bay, ber 30. Instead of the SEIU's lunchtime support. Victory to the grocery and transit tivity was evident in the 2000 transit which includes the airport, heavily black contract rallies, now is the time to strike strikes! strike, which came amid a series of other Compton and the posh Palos Verdes com alongside their class brothers and sisters! Coming only days after the recall elec strike battles and had wide popular sup munity. Meanwhile, 50,000 L.A. and The bosses' attempts to gut the unions tion, when the AFL-CIO tops squandered port among the Latino and black poor and drastically slash medical benefits millions of dollars in union dues in a who make up the bulk of the ridership as much as 50 percent in the case of the futile effort to keep the widely despised in the L.A. mass transit system. The 43 UFCW-are at the core of all these con Democratic governor Gray Davis in Los Angeles Times (29 September 2000) tract disputes. Union members are deter office, the current outbreak of strikes spoke at the time of "Striketown mined to defend their hard-won gains in Southern California offers a class USA" and noted that those strikes "have against employer demands that they sac struggle road to fight capitalist austerity been a great unifier across racial and rifice their health and livelihoods on the and union-busting. And it's not just a ethnic lines." 7111.25274118103011117 altar of company profits and government- West Coast phenomenon: 10,000 UFCW continued on page 5 Depraved Court Convicts Mother for Son's Suicide weak. So at school he was bullied, spit Judith on, kicked and punched. Everybody knew Scruggs Connecticut it and nobody did anything, because that's how things are supposed to go in the bru Healey/NY Times Everything bad that happens is your tal holding pens called public schools in their tiny illegal basement apartment in and day care working people urgently own fault if you're poor, they tell you at America. He was so scared of school he the early hours of Sunday, October 12. need. A pack of wolves shows more soli school. Small, weak kids get relentlessly stayed home 45 days in the months before When she got home from work, her chil darity and concern for its nursing females bullied so much they just shut down or he finally hanged himself in the bedroom dren were dead and Kim Brathwaite and young than the capitalist rulers do. actually kill themselves. It happens a lot: closet where he often hid, on 2 January was charged with "reckless endanger Viewed from the most basic stand suicide is the third leading cause of death 2002. When the cops came, they found ment" and "endangering the welfare of a point of any civilized society-how the for kids aged 10 to 14. If you do grow up, the house a mess. The state, incredibly, child," and placed on "suicide watch" by new generations are raised and edu and if you're lucky, you get to work at a filed felony charges against the grieving the judge who set her bail so high, at cated-U.S. society is an utter disaster. meaningless, deadening job that doesn't mother for an "unsafe" home that posed a $35,000, it was unlikely she'd be able to Poor women without husbands are being pay enough. If you're a working woman, "risk of injury." Judith Scruggs now faces get out to attend her babies' funeral. We hounded off welfare, told to get a job or there's even more trouble, because now up to ten years in prison. say all the charges should be dropped "find a man" any way they can. But then the government is out to put you in jail for This isn't just one backwoods prose against these innocent mothers! when they do successfully stay off wel "neglect" if anything bad should happen cutor running wild: only a few days later These stories are just the ones that fare and work to support themselves, like to your kids. And something bad is always in New York City a mother in Canarsie, made th~ newspapers. The daily terror Kim Brathwaite and Judith Scruggs did, waiting to happen when you're poor. Brooklyn was arrested and faces up to 16 and humiliation entailed in growing up they are still blamed for everything that In the old' blue-collar town of Meriden, years in prison because her two young impoverished or black in racist, capital goes wrong. These working women were Connecticut, Judith Scruggs, a 52-year children tragically died in a fire. Kim ist America takes its toll largely unre doing the best they could, and their chil old mother, worked 60 hours a week at Brathwaite, a single mother from Trini ported in the press, where dry statistics dren died because of the horrible cruel two jobs to provide for herself, her 12- dad, had to go to her 12-hour 3 p.m. to on packed prisons and cuts in educa ties of the capitalist system. year-old son and her 19-year-old daugh 3 a.m. shift at a downtown Brooklyn tion, welfare and social programs mask The capitalist politicians, Democrats ter. On October 6 she was convicted of McDonald's. Her babysitter cancelled deadly official cruelty. There's an explo and Republicans alike, are part of the a felony count in her son's suicide. Her unexpectedly, and nine-year-old Justina sion in diseases and asthma rates, with problem, and voting for them is no solu boy, J. Daniel Scruggs, was small and and 19-month-old Justin died in a fire in rat and cockroach populations soaring tion. The biggest lie they teach you in once again in the wake of budget cuts in school is that working people themselves inner cities. can't do anything about their condition. This brutal world reeks with official In fact, it is the working class which For Women's Liberation Through hypocrisy, starting with the government has both the power and interest to fight Socialist Revolution! in Washington, D.C., which would like for the needs of all its members-men to replace the Bill of Rights with the Ten and women, adult and young alike The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was a bea Commandments, and whose only "con through overturning capitalist rule. Only con to workers and the oppressed around the cern" for the lives of children ends once the establishment of a workers govern world. The Second Congress of the Third they're born. "Family values" anti-sex (Communist) 1nternational,founded in 1919, ment can lay the basis for abolishing hysteria is used to punish kids and work forever the brutal exploitation of labor recognized the potential of doubly oppressed ing people, setting up a patriarchal model women workers in the struggle for socialist and the humiliating bullying and intimi at total variance with the way most people dation of the poor, of women, of youth, revolution and laid out the communist pro actually live, a fake ideal to cover the lack that is its inevitable accompaniment un gram for women's emancipation in a resolu of social services, health care, education der capitalism.• TROTSKY tion edited by German Communist leader LENIN Clara Zetkin. It is imperative that proletarian women play a powerful role in the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and realization of communism. The goal is to secure for all women complete and unrestricted social rights, so that in their education and employment and as mothers they can develop every aspect of their full human per sonality, linked by bonds of solidarity with society as a whole. The proletariat must BAY AREA BOSTON attain greater unity and strength so that, in the revolutionary struggle against the bour The Russian Revolution: Alternate Tuesdays, 6 p.m. geois order as in the revolutionary construction of the new order, it may create the Workers Ta~e Power November 4: We are the Party social preconditions for achieving this goal for women .... Monday, October 27, 5 p.m. of the Russian Revolution! For women to achieve full social equality with men in truth and fact and not just on San Francisco State University BU College of Arts and Sciences the passive pages of dead law books, for women as well as men to win the possibility of Room TBA Room B25A unrestricted achievement and free development of their full human personality, two Defend the Gains of the 725 Commonwealth Avenue primary conditions must be me!. First, private property must be uprooted and replaced Chinese and Korean Revolutions (BU East/Central on Green Line B) by social property. Second, the activity of women must be integrated into the social Against Capitalism! Information and readings: (617) 666-9453 production of a neW order free of exploitation and SUbjugation. Only the realization of Wednesday, November 5, 7 p.m. or e-mail: [email protected] these two conditions will prevent women from becoming economically dependent on UC Berkeley, Wheeler Hall, Room 223 men as wives and mothers in the family, or, as a result of the class conflict between Monday, November 10, 5 p.m. NEW YORK CITY exploiter and exploited, falling under the economic subjugation and exploitation of the San Francisco State University Alternate Tuesdays, 8 p.m. capitalist as proletarian women working a job. Room TBA October 28: Race, Sex, Class and - "Theses for the Communist Women's Movement," The Communist International Information and readings: (510) 839-0851 the Capitalist War on the Poor in Lenin's Time: Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, or e-mail: [email protected] For Women's Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! 1920, Vol. 2 (Pathfinder Press, 1991) LOS ANGELES Columbia University Alternate Saturdays, 2 p.m. Kent Hall, Room 405 October 25: Introduction to Information and readings: (212) 267-1025 Revolutionary Marxism or e-mail: [email protected] 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 (BeverlyNermont Red Line Station) TORONTO !~!l!f.ll!yJ!ll!f'l~I!.! ~ Information and readings: (213) 380-8239 Alternate Saturdays, 3 p.m. or e-mail: [email protected] DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Len Meyers November 1: Dialectical Materialism EDITOR: Alan Wilde CHICAGO vs. Religious MystiCism EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael Davisson Ontario Institute for Studies PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller Alternate Wednesdays, 6:30 p.m. in Education, Room 4410 CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Thomas October 29: The Russian 252 Bloor St. West EDITORIAL BOARD: Rosemary Palenque (managing editor). Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule, Revolution of 1917: How the (above St. George Station) Karen Cole, Paul Cone, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Working Class Took Power Information and readings: (416) 593-4138 Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer or e-mail: [email protected] The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League U of C, Cobb Hall, Room 107 (Fourth Internationalist). 5811 S. Ellis Ave. VANCOUVER Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and Information and readings: (312) 563-0441 August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist or e-mail: [email protected] For a Revolutionary Workers Party! Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. Break with the Racist, Pro-Imperialist Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY POSTMASTER: Send address NDP! Independence for Quebec! changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. Thursday, November 6, 6 p.m. The closing date for news in this issue is 21 0ctober. Simon Fraser University Maggie Benston Centre, Room 2290 Information and readings: (604) 687-0353 No. 812 24 October 2003 or e-mail: [email protected]
2 WORKERS VANGUARD ,; i\' • t"~{)f)S '!I ';;'~. The Islamic Headscarf in French High Schools Lutte Ouvriere Spearheads
Expulsions in Aubervilliers Lila and Alma Levy,· students expelled from We print below a leaflet issued by the the possibility of sanctions if dialogue is high school for wearing Ligue Trotskyste de France, section of not possible" (Le Monde, 9 October). The headscarves, targets of French government LCR member continued: "The problem is the International Communist League, on anti-Muslim witchhunt. October 9.' that those two students go much further.... On September 24, two sisters at a high They pursue a logic of activism." An LCR school in Aubervilliers, a Paris suburb, teacher even denounced the JCR (Jeunesse were expelled for wearing the Islamic Communiste Revolutionnaire, youth or head scarf, pending a permanent decision ganization of the LCR) because the JCR AP by the disciplinary committee which will has the correct position of opposing the paign when he referred to the "ayatollahs tion. In the absence of any perspectives take place tomorrow. These expulsions racist expulsions (Le Monde, 9 October). of secularism who have abandoned com and given the hopelessness in capitalist come as a national debate is taking place. Nevertheless, the JCR is "politically sub mon sense" (Le Monde, 25 September). society, youth are increasingly turning A government commission (the Stasi ordinate" to the LCR, and the JCR is This man, who opposes the veil and has toward Islam. These young women seek Commission) has been set up to study the preparing to campaign in the spring for fought against the expUlsion of his daugh refuge in religion as a "heart in a heartless possibility of banning the Islamic head the electoral slate-and thus for the poli ters, correctly denounced the "double world" (as Karl Marx put it), as an illusory scarf at school. President Chirac and Prime tics-of the LOfLCR. Whether it is done punishment" that risks being inflicted consolation in the great beyond for the Minister Raffarin cynically pretend to by Raffarin's racist laws or by teachers upon them: "the one which they wear on very real suffering down here. Contrary be interested in the fate of young Mus who are members of LO and LCR, the their heads and the one which would to LO and the LCR, who want to make lim girls. No way! They feel so concerned result for these schoolgirls is the same: deprive them of the humanity that school people believe that Alma and Lila pursue that they are deporting hundreds of Mus "Get out!" provides" (L'Humanite, 9 October). a "logic of activism" for Islamic funda lims, animists and others daily by charter We defend Alma, Lila and all girls who LO does not defend the schoolgirls' mentalism, the reality in France is that flights! The government is so determined wear the headscarf against the reaction expulsion on the basis of secularism but many of these girls wear the headscarf in to fight Islamic fundamentalists that in late ary bourgeois state and against the teach rather primarily on the basis of "defending reaction to racist segregation in this soci August they deported Nasr Eddine Bour ers and others who seek to expel them. At women." LO claims that it is necessary ety. Islam is a religion of the oppressed rached, a spokesman for sans-papiers the same time, as communists, we oppose to expel girls wearing the headscarf for and of the ghetto. Even Alma and Lila [undocumented immigrants] in Perpi the Islamic headscarf and the veil which their own good: "The question is not the insist that they "would never wear the veil gnan, to his probable death at the hands represent a reactionary social program 'right' of some girls to wear the veil, but in a country in which it is obligatory" of Algerian Islamic fundamentalists! The of confining women to the family, the the right of thousands of young girls and (Liberation, 22 September). government is so worried about the fate of home and a position of subservience (see young women to rely on the banning of LO argues that some left groups "call Muslims that they fuel the lie that every "Women and Immigration in France," the veil to stand up against the reaction for the 'right' of young Muslim women to Muslim is a potential terrorist with Vigi Spartacist [English-language edition] No. ary constraints that their social milieu wear the veil at school. Sometimes they pirate, a campaign of daily racist terror. 57, Winter 2002-2003). Our opposition to tries to impose on them" (Lutte Ouvriere, add the argument that, in the absence of The Ligue Trotskyste de France says: the veil and the headscarf is also part of 19 September). Lo.claims that it is pos that right, they will not have access to cul Down with Vigipirate! No to the deporta the reason that we oppose the expUlsions. sible to turn schools into havens of pro ture and to the knowledge acquired in tion charter flights! Full citizenship These expUlsions can only lead to even gressivism. That in no.way resolves the school. This is actually a concession to rights for all immigrants! No to the racist greater isolation and oppression for these oppression of women whO are forced to reactionary pressure" (Lutte Ouvriere, 19 expUlsions ofgirls wearing the headscarf! young women. Their religious beliefs can put the veil back on as soon as they leave September). The real reactionary pressure For Alma and Lila to be reinstated at only be reinforced if they are cut off from school. Furthermore, LO's campaign to in France comes from the bourgeoisie school! public education. We defend secularism expel girls from school reinforces the (which, furthermore, uses the imams and Right-wing politicians are nol the only and the separation of church and state, but racist segregation which is one of the pushes them forward in order to control ones fighting for the racist expUlsion of the principle of secularism is deformed sources of oppression for these girls. the ghettos), not from young girls wear girls who wear the Islamic headscarf by the racist, anti-worker and anti-woman Confined to the ghettos, youth ofimmi ing the headscarf! LO falsely suggests at school. Lutte Ouvriere (LO) [a left· French state when used to attack young grant origin in France are denied jobs and that those who oppose the racist expul group that claims to be Trotskyist] spear Muslims wearing the headscarf. Secular a decent future; so they seek an identity in sions necessarily accept the veil. There headed the campaign for Lila and Alma's ism is based on the idea that the state religion. This is the case of Alma and Lila are in fact groups that do not believe that expulsions in Aubervilliers. Accord should not interfere with people's personal in Aubervilliers. Their father is a Jewish the veil is a symbol of oppression. For ing to Le Monde (9 October), "Teachers beliefs. Alma and Lila's father, a lawyer atheist, their mother is from Kabylia [a example, Socialisme Par en Bas [Social who are members of Lutte Ouvriere have for the MRAP [an anti-racist group asso Berber-speaking region in Algeria], and ism from Below-SPEB, affiliated with argued since the beginning of the school ciated with the French Communist Party], these sisters do not regularly attend the the British Socialist Workers Party of year for immediate sanctions." Whatever aptly evoked the hypocrisy of this cam- mosque. This is far from being an excep- the late Tony Cliff] says: "The Islamic their intentions, LO is campaigning for headscarf represents, above all, a sym the same thing as the government. LO bol of resistance to religious and racist hails the teachers who fought for Alma oppression" (lslamisme et Revolution). and Lila's expulsion: "Well, we approve However-as opposed to the SPEB, LO of the teachers who had the courage to and the LCR-we in the LTF have always defend that position and we hope that fought fiercely against the veil and there will be many more in this country. Islamic reaction, and we continue to Furthermore, teachers should not need do so. In Afghanistan one can see most an excuse, should not have to rely on a clearly who really wanted to fight against law. Their vocation as teachers and their the oppression of veiled women. conscience should be enough" (Lutte The only time in centuries that Afghan Ouvriere, 26 September). In other words, women were not forced to wear the suffo LO calls for teachers to do the job them cating burka was in the 1980s. That was selves of expelling girls wearing the because in 1979 the Soviet Union inter headscarf, in the middle of a hysterical vened in Afghanistan at the request of the campaign in France to do just that. government-a petty-bourgeois, modern LO is not alone in its campaign to expel izing regime that sought to lower the the schoolgirls. The Ligue Communiste bride price. Under the protection of the Revolutionnaire (LCR) has some internal Red Army, Afghan women were trained differences, but at the Aubervilliers high as nurses, teachers and soldiers. This was school they differ with LO only on-a just the opposite of what tpe French colo nuance: the LCR seeks to "avoid as much nial capitalists did in Algeria, because the as possible deprivation of education and 1981: LTF protest in defense of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan against Soviet Union was a workers state. Despite expUlsion" but "we do not want to exclude Islamic reaction. continued on page 6 24 OCTOBER 2003 3 L.A. Sye Organizes Strike. Support On October 16 the Los Angeles Spar say: Capitalism means racism and war tacus Youth Club initiated a united-front Workers revolution is what we're for! rally at Pasadena City .College (PCC) Domestically, the "war on terror," around the slogans: "Victory to the UFCW which is enthusiastically supported by grocery workers strike! Victory to the Rally at pee the Democrats and Republicans alike, transit workers strike! Picket lines mean has meant anti-immigrant witchhunts don't cross!" Afterward, we brought stu directed overwhelmingly against Mus dents out to the picket lines to show their lims and Arabs and is also aimed at support for the striking workers. attacking organized labor. In the eyes of Earlier in the day, a member of the the ruling class, a strike by the working SYC went out to the ATU picket lines and class disrupts their "national unity." This invited union members to come and speak has been demonstrated over the past to the PCC students. Two workers came period by the Taft-Hartley union-busting out. PCC students cheered as one of them injunction against the ILWU longshore spoke. Many students we spoke to under union last year during the lockout by stood that the workers' fight for health the bosses. New Jersey teachers two benefits, union jobs and pensions would years ago were slandered as representa benefit them, too. Some students are gro~ tives of the Taliban when they dared to cery workers themselves. The grocery go on strike. We say: Down with the and transit strikes in Los Angeles are con anti-immigrant witchhunt! For full citi crete examples of the power that workers zenship rights for all immigrants! The have to shut down production. working class has no nation! Earlier in the week, we had invited Stu So why didn't transit or grocery store dents for Social Justice, a leftist campus workers strike during the recall election? group at PCC that includes anarchists, to Because their leadership in the unions endorse and speak at the united-front rally looks to the Democrats for "help." In and to come to the picket lines with us. contrast, we in the Spartacus Youth Club But even though they were nearby during Young ::;partacus and the Spartacist League seek to break the rally, they declined to speak. Origi Spartacus Youth members and PCC students join strikers at UFCW picket workers from the Democratic Party, the nally, they planned to support the strikers location in Pasadena, October 16. party of racism and war. We need to by protesting at Von's corporate headquar build a multiracial, class-struggle work ters-that is, by begging the bosses. To store workers who right now are on the budgets of community colleges and ers party. The Democrats represent the their credit, after our march to the picket strike because of threatened cuts to their increased the tuition and fees at all the same capitalist system-they just lie bet lines, Students for Social Justice orga health care benefits. These strikes are public colleges in the state-this is a ter than the Republicans. The world view nized students to go to the picket lines too. very important to support because when racist purge, denying access to higher of labor tops-even those of the most At the picket lines, one of their mem they are walking their picket lines, they education for working-class and minority "progressive" stamp-is defined by what bers handed out a leaflet critical of the are fighting not only for themselves, they youth. Capitalist society is divided into is possible or "practical" under capital labor leaders and the Democratic and are fighting for wages and health care of two main classes, the capitalist ruling ism, a system which is predicated on Republican parties. The leaflet also advo all workers and the oppressed, as well as class and the working class. Only a few the exploitation of labor. We communists cated a general strike of workers and stu in defense of unions themselves! If you rich capitalists own the means of produc pursue another road, one based not only dents. That's a good sentiment-but what cross those picket lines you are actively tion and the raw materials while the on getting better terms of exploitation the Students for Social Justice did not aiding the capitalist bloodsuckers. majority of the population are workers but fighting to do away with the entire advocate was that the working class fight The Students for Social Justice are who produce all the wealth of society but system of capitalist wage slavery. to take power, expropriating the bour supporting the strike by going to the cor are exploited and subjected to all forms Hillary Clinton was on the board of geoisie and running society in its own porate headquarters to pressure the com of oppression and repression. Capitalism directors ofWal-Mart and played a major interests and in the interest of all the pany, making appeals to the conscience of offers no solution! For international role in strikebreaking against transit oppressed. Real social justice requires a the bloodsucking bosses. But a strike is a workers revolution! Asian, Latino, black workers in New York City. The grocery socialist revolution. And that will take question of power. We seek to build solid and white-Workers of the world, unite! workers are being told by their union leadership, a revolutionary vanguard picket lines that no one dares cross! Strikes Imperialist war abroad means racist leaders to protest Wal-Mart, a southern party. We print below, slightly edited for work by shutting down production, stop attacks against blacks, immigrants and strikebreaking company, because Wal publication, the speech delivered by SYC ping the flow of profits to the bosses. unions here at home. As internationalists Mart buys Chinese goods. We seek to member Camilo at the united-front rally. These strikes show that the workers make we defended the Soviet Union which organize the South and organize Wal the city run-the workers should run the served as a deterrent to U.S. imperialism. Mart workers into unions. We defend the * * * city! We seek to build a vanguard work U.S. imperialism was able to rape Iraq Chinese deformed workers state because I'm Camilo with the Spartacus Youth ers party to lead an international socialist because the Soviet Union no longer the 1949 Revolution overthrew capital Club here at PCe. We seek to bring revo revolution and do away with the racist exists. Down with the colonial occu ism, which is a very good thing. But lutionary socialist politics to students at capitalist sfstem. Picket lines mean don't pation of Iraq! We fought to win U.S. China today is in danger of capitalist PCC and win them over to actively take cross-Side with the workers against the workers to stand in solidarity with their counterrevolution due to the policies the side of workers and the oppressed. bosses! PCC students: Join the fight, take working-class brothers and sisters in Iraq of the Stalinist bureaucracy which runs We are the youth group of the Sparta- . a side for workers rights! by taking a side against their own rul China. Defend China, Cuba, Vietnam and cist League, which is the U.S. section of As communists, we in the SYC and SL ing class, by defending Iraq against U.S. North Korea! the International Communist League. We fight for free health <;are and quality edu imperialism without giving any politi We will continue to fight for socialist follow the program of Marx, Engels, cation for all. But under the economic cal support to the capitalist regime of Sad revolution through organizing the work Lenin and Trotsky. system of capitalism, workers, minorities dam Hussein. We called for U.S. workers ing class and engaging in class struggle. We are here today in a strike support and the poor will never be guaranteed free to oppose the bloody imperialist war drive So if you are interested in learning more rally to mobilize students to take the side health care and education because capi through class struggle here at home. about the SYC/SL and revolutionary pol of workers against the bosses-both the talism is based on profit. The capitalist Imperialist war is an inevitable product itics, check us out. Come march with us MTA transit workers and UFCW grocery administration of Gray Davis just slashed of the capitalist system, which is why we to join the picket lines! Now!.
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4 WORKERS VANGUARD right to open non-union stores in "non struggle against-the legalistic, class pit the black and Latino poor against the L.A. Strikes ... union" areas. collaborationist labor bureaucracy. unions. The transit bosses' ploy didn't (continued from page 1) The employers' hardline demands are The UFCW strike has from the outset work, however, as the strike by mainly so outrageous that the UFCW officials elicited broad popular support, with busi black and Latino bus drivers was widely The prominence of immigrant work were finally forced to call a strike. Yet ness at the markets a fraction of what it popular. The unions should actively reach ers on the front lines of these strikes un they announced in advance that the union was before the strikes. But the bureauc out to the ghetto and barrio masses for derlines the connection between defense would only strike one of the big three racy's focus on a consumer boycott is a support and solidarity on the picket lines. of the unions and defense of immigrant chains. The companies responded, as diversion. In the end, consumer boycotts Championing the interests of the op rights. This means opposing the "national promised, with a lockout at the other don't win strikes-they are always partial pressed, including through the demand unity" barrage pushed by the bosses and chains, prompting workers to set up and subject to the vagaries of media for free mass transit, is the way to build echoed by their labor lieutenants, which is picket lines over an area extending from manipulated "public opinion." At the real public support. used to justify a "war on terror" that is in Central California to the Mexican border. same time, the union misleaders have The union bureaucracy's allegiance to fact a war against immigrants, black peo Outside a Vons warehouse in El Monte, a welcomed "friend of labor" Democratic the Democratic Party and the capitalist ple and all of labor. The AFL-CIO tops scab trucker nearly ran over a UFCW Party officials. At an October 16 UFCW state is counterposed to class struggle. sow illusions in the capitalist Democratic picket captain, only to be shepherded support rally, there were in fact more For months the transit union misleaders Party as "friends" of labor and minorities, away by the cops afterward. At another local Democratic Party politicians called had been doing everything possible to as during the recent Immigrant Workers location, when a union-hating customer on to speak than union officials. The labor demobilize the membership and avoid a Freedom Ride. Instead, it is necessary to knocked a picket sign out of a worker's bureaucracy's loyalty to the Democratic strike. ATU maintenance workers had fight for a workers party and to mobilize hands, the striker shouted back: "You Party is the political expression of its voted overwhelmingly to strike in Janu the working class independent of the cap can't cross picket lines on two broken commitment to class collaboration in de ary, while UTU drivers did likewise in italist parties to demand: Full citizenship legs!" Picket lines mean don't cross! fense of the capitalist profit system. And June. When a strike against the union rights for all immigrants! Some strikers have expressed illusions that means, for the sake of class peace, hating MTA bosses appeared inevitable Jesse Jackson, speaking at a UFCW that the L.A. County sheriffs' "sickouts" they are willing to call off strikes and this summer, the ATU and UTU bureau support rally yesterday, was widely ap are part of labor's struggle. The sheriffs, accept rotten compromises and empty crats pleaded with Gray Davis for a 60- plauded when he spoke about the need and all cops, are the racist hired guns of promises. day "cooling off' period, in effect asking to organize the unorganized. Jackson's the bosses. Their job is to defend the While numerous Democrats have cyn the capitalist government to bar their appearance at the rally testifies to the bosses' property, break strikes and sup ically proclaimed support for the super memberships from walking out. ATU national significance of the Southern Cal press social struggle from the picket lines market workers-in an attempt to put a Local 1277 president Neil Silver then ifornia strikes. And with low-wage, anti union giants like Wal-Mart prominent in the retail industry, the need to organize the unorganized is urgently posed. But this can only be achieved through the mobilization' of labor's power against the capitalists. Instead Jackson preaches unity between the union and the union hating grocery bosses against Wal-Mart. Jackson only seeks to use the L.A. strikes to boost the "friends of labor" credentials of the Democrats in the buildup to the 2004 elections. Speaking at an October 16 strike sup port rally organized by the Spartacus Youth Club at Pasadena City College, one transit worker said: "A victory for us against the union busting attacks by the MTA and the gro cery bosses will be important not only for union members but for the over three million uninsured workers and immi grants here in Los Angeles. We need to take the lead in fighting in defense of all AP photos those here in Los Angeles who have Left: Transit workers walk the picket line. ATU strike has shut down L.A. been victimized by this anti-union town, transit system. Above: Strike rally by grocery workers in L.A., October 16. by the anti-union bosses .... "What we have to depend on is our soli to the ghettos and barrios. On October 15, lid on the struggle-liberal Democrats on cravenly asked the bosses' courts to rule darity, our strength and our numbers on Robert Haeberle, the father of a striking the MTA board have been in the forefront on whether ATU members could honor the picket line-where it counts-and not on appeals to the Democrats. In our UFCW worker, was arrested by the of attacks on the ATU strikers, vilifying UTU picket lines if the drivers struck last strike, three years ago, the Demo Fullerton Police Department for helping transit workers as indifferent to the plight first while mechanics were still "cooling cratic Party of this town was anti-union his son defend a picket line at Albertsons of the working poor. MTA board chair off'! Only when the MTA refused to and ... they led the offensive against the against the driver of a scab truck. Strikers man and county supervisor Zev Yaro back off from its demands to extort unionized drivers and mechanics of the told WV that the truck nearly ran Hae slavsky ranted, "People who depend on $200/month employee medical insurance MTA. And we will never forget the fact that [MTA board member and county berle over and that the driver spat on him. the transit system to get to work, to get to contributions as well as hijack the union supervisor] Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, The leaders of unions like AFSCME school... will be held hostage to a set of run health trust, which the MTA had that Jesse Jackson told us to actually and SEIU that organize cops, parole offi demands that are unreasonable and un been underfunding, did the ATU tops come back and kiss the feet of the cers and prison guards are betraying the manageable." This is Obscene coming finally pull workers off the job. MTA bosses. We say no! We'll fight in our defense and fight in defense of all basic interests of working people and the from bourgeois politicians with $140,000- Silver has returned to the negotiating those people in this county that need oppressed. Cops out of the unions! per-year salaries who have presided over table at the urging of Democratic mayor health care." Teamster solidarity is the key to a gro the L.A. County budget cuts and devas James Hahn and City Councilman Anto cery workers victory not only in this tated public hospitals, schools and social nio Villaraigosa. Looking to end the Picket Lines Mean strike but in organizing non-union outfits services. strike as quickly as possible, Villaraigosa Don't Cross! like Wal-Mart. While Jim Santangelo, The MTA similarly tried to play the declared, "We're pushing parties to the The struggle here in Southern Califor head of Teamsters Joint Council 42, race card three years ago during the 32- table. The only side we're taking is the nia began when grocery workers struck vowed to honor UFCW pickets, Team day strike of UTU bus drivers, hoping to continued on page 6 the Vons supermarket chain after "last sters delivery drivers~while themselves ditch" negotiations sponsored by a fed honoring the lines-have routinely allowed eral mediator broke down on Saturday scabs to drive their rigs the final 100 feet evening, October 11. UFCW officials had or so across UFCW lines at the stores. delayed the strike for the futile talks, This kind of empty solidarity doesn't sit expressing "tremendous respect" for the well with many Teamsters who know that Federal Mediation and Conciliation Serv if the UFCW strike loses, they'll be tar Web site: www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] ice. But the government and its agencies geted next-strikers at Vons reported are not neutral mediators in the class rumors that the company plans to replace National Office Los Angeles Oakland struggle-they are the executive commit Teamsters drivers with owner-operators Box 1377 GPO, Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 New York, NY 10116 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 tee of the capitalist class. The real pur in the 2005 contract round. While the (212) 732-7860 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 Teamsters are honoring the picket lines pose of government mediation is to pres Public Office: Public Office: sure the unions into capitulation in the at two struck warehouses, according to Boston Sat. 2-5 p.m. Sat. 1-5 p.m. name of "compromise." the Los Angeles Times (16 October), Box 390840, Central Sta. 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor The retail food giants want to shift an "Santangelo said some members already Cambridge, MA 02139 estimated $1 billion in medical insurance were pushing to widen the job action to (617) 666-9453 New York San Francisco costs onto UFCW members-estimated [the ten Teamsters-organized] ware Chicago Box 3381, Church St. Sta. Box 77494 by the union at an additional $3,455 per houses, but he indicated that such action Box 6441, Main PO New York, NY 10008 San Francisco, CA 94107 year in one possible family scenario was premature." Chicago, IL 60680 (212) 267-1025 (415) 395-9520 forcing lower-paid workers to drop med The unions must shut down all the (312) 563-0441 Public Office: Public Office: ical coverage altogether. The employers processing and distribution centers to Public Office: Tues. 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tues. 6-8 p.m. 564 Market Street Sat. 2-5 p.m. and Sat. 1-5 p.m. also want to ax the union's defined win: nobody shops at empty stores! That 299 Broadway, Suite 318 Suite 718 benefit pension plan in favor of a cheaper would mean mass pickets to stop all 222 S. Morgan (Buzzer 23) cash-contribution model which places scabbing-defying restraining orders to workers at the mercy of the stock market. "limit pickets" and preparing the union CANIDA Threatening the union's very existence, to deal with cop and court scabherding. the grocery bosses are demanding a two-_ This perspective, including the mass pick tier wage system with significantly lower ets needed to stop all scabbing, goes Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 . pay and benefits for new hires, the sub against the outlook of-and would have (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353 contracting out of union labor and the to be carried out through a political
21()C~",O,E3EfLf99;3::< ~, 5 I' '" .~"'J'.' •.. ".~~.,._ ,~'.~.>. egy, which substitutes futile reliance on American ghettos. In America, with its L.A. Strikes ... local ordinances and lawsuits for the nec vast wealth and medical technology essary task of union organizing. firmly in the grip of the capitalists, health (continued from page 5) In those few instances where the care has become a crisis of epidemic pro side of the public" (L.A. Daily News, 16 UFCW has tried to organize individual portions. As the rates of poverty and October). While balking at an immediate Wal-Mart stores, workers who vote for unemployment rise, the number of those return to work without an agreement, the union in NLRB elections are invari without health insurance has grown to Silver declared in advance his willing ably fired or otherwise driven off the job. some 40-45 million nationally. At the ness to cut a deal to increase health care As reported in the Nation (28 June 2002), same time, Medicare payments are being contributions and cede partial control of two weeks after the first successful elec slashed and millions driven off the wel the union health fund. tion for union representation at a U.S. fare rolls. Those not lucky enough to find Selling out workers struggles on be Wal-Mart store-the Wal-Mart Super job-based health insurance are one medi half of the Democrats is nothing new for center in Jacksonville, Texas-in Febru cal crisis away from a major family catas labor bureaucrats. But they don't always ary 2000, the company announced that it trophe. get away with it. Transit workers remem would eliminate meat-cutting operations Hit by the national recession and facing ber that during the last UTU drivers in 180 stores and switch to pre-cut beef. (as of June 2002) an $800 million health strike in 2000, when Davis signed a law This was followed by a spate of firings budget shortfall over the next three years, demanded by the union tops that any over petty infractions. As of last June, the Los Angeles County, dubbed "capital of new "regional transit zones" be covered union had gotten the NLRB to issue 40 the Third World," has embarked on by existing contract provisions for four complaints against Wal-Mart in 24 states, AP another round of criminal cutbacks to an years, Silver immediately bowed to all to no avail. Even with such rulings, the Jesse Jackson and Democratic Party already destitute public health care sys Davis and ordered ATU members to damage is already done, resulting only in MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky tem. With over three million L.A. County cross the drivers' picket lines! Flouting a a slap on the wrist. The UFCW might take embrace after helping to end 2000 residents having no health insurance, the 30-year tradition of transit unions honor a lesson from garbage haulers in L.A. transit strike. majority Democratic County Board of ing each other's lines, Silver declared, who, in the midst of the current grocery Supervisors has closed four school-based "If there is a picket line, it shall be and transit strikes, withdrew their petition lutionary crusade to open up China to health centers and 11 of its 18 remaining crossed." Silver was forced to reverse to the NLRB for union recognition and capitalist exploitation and turn it into one public health clinics, causing the L.A. himself within 24 hours as his member went on strike instead. giant sweatshop. China is a bureaucrati Weekly (30 August 2002) to proclaim ship-almost to a man-defied him and The failure of the AFL-CIO to organize cally deformed workers state where cap L.A. the "ground zero of the national refused to cross! The heroic stand by the the South has meant that fanatically anti italism was overthrown as a result of the health care crisis." maintenance workers and the determina union corporations like the Arkansas 1949 Revolution and whose economy is The irrationality of capitalism is such tion of the other unions forced the MTA based Wal-Mart, now the world's largest still based.on nationalized property. Just that the basic needs of life are held hos to back off its harshest demands. retailer, are driving down wages and liv as workers defend their unions-despite tage to profit. Medical care is denied This time around, while UTU drivers ing standards everywhere. The labor sellout leadership-against the bosses, to improve the capitalists' bottom line. are honoring the ATU strike, most are not movement needs to organize Wal-Mart workers must defend China against impe Safeway/Vons CEO Steven Burd recently manning the picket lines. The bosses are workers starting in those areas already rialist-backed counterrevolution despite declared that the grocers' hardline stance trying to get a contract negotiated with unionized and extend the organizing drive the Beijing bureaucracy's accommoda slashing medical benefits and labor costs the UTU first in order to put pressure on to the South. Any serious effort to organ tion to capitalism. "is an investment in our future" (Los ATU members to settle for a substandard ize the South requires a fighting labor In fact, the "AFL-CIA" (as it is known Angeles Times, 17 October). Well, work contract. No one should go back to work movement committed to the cause of internationally) has long acted as a pawn ing people need to fight for a future with until everyone has a contract! All UTU black liberation. The unions will have to for the American imperialist rulers in out capitalism. The only way that immi drivers, Teamsters transit workers and face down company gun thugs and Klan fomenting counterrevolution and prop grants, blacks and all working people will TCU members should be out on the picket terror in order to organize workers and ping up anti-labor dictatorships abroad. be assured free, quality medical care is to lines alongside the ATU. All the regional lead integrated strikes. But this won't hap The union bureaucrats have even less rip the means of production out of the buses and Metrolink rail lines which pen playing by the bosses' rules. appetite to help organize workers abroad hands of the capitalist class and put them bring in the suburban business commuters Opposed to a class-struggle perspec than they do to organize the South, and in the hands of those whose labor builds should be shut down. What's needed is a tive, the UFCW and Teamsters tops' anti can only demand that America's racist this society. single industrial transit union from Santa Wal-Mart campaign instead appeals to capitalist rulers enforce "labor standards" Safeway and the other grocery bosses Monica to Foothill, San Fernando Valley flag-waving patriotism, which serves only designed to ban cheap foreign goods. are planning on a long battle to wear to Long Beach. to fuel anti-immigrant chauvinism-par WV was told by one striker that UFCW down the strikers. But it doesn't have to ticularly poisonous in a city where first organizers passed out American flag pins go that way. If the warehouses are shut Organize Wal-Mart! or second-generation immigrants make to Wal-Mart workers after 9111 in dis down and all the chains are struck, tran The corporate grocery giants have all up a goodly portion of the unionized pro plays of patriotic unity. But there is no sit stays out and extends the strike to the cited non-union Wal-Mart's low wages letariat. Wal-Mart is lambasted for unity of interests between labor and cap regional lines, and other unions join the and minimal benefits as the reason they importing most of its apparel and much ital, and appeals to patriotism only serve fray in strike action, this could be over in need to drastically cut labor costs to of its general merchandise despite its the bosses' interests. a hUrry. remain competitive. UFCW officials have "Buy America" programs. The unions' What's needed is a class-struggle lead rightly dismissed this as a negotiating protectionist outlook is offered up in the Health Care U.S.A. ership of the unions. Workers must break ploy, since the "big-box" Wal-Marts that "progressive" guise of opposing sweat It is a measure of the huge gains from any illusions in the Democratic sell groceries are only projected to have shop labor. The labor tops point to the embodied in the planned, collectivized Party as a "lesser evil" and fight to defend 1 percent of the local market share. Yet fact that Wal-Mart is one of the largest economy of those countries where capi their class interests. We fight to build a the biggest cheer at the October 16 buyers of China's growing export goods, talism has been overthrown that tiny revolutionary workers party. Such a party, UFCW support rally went to Villaraigosa which are now mainly produced by firms Cuba, despite a decades-old U.S. embargo, acting as a tribune of all the oppressed, when he announced that he was going jointly owned with Western capital has been able to provide decent health would mobilize in hard class struggle to sponsor a bill to keep out non-union ists. With their anti-Communist China care to its population, resl,llting in an against capitalism to defend existing Wal-Mart superstores. This epitomizes bashing, the AFL-CIO misleaders join in infant mortality rate comparable to the gains and fight for a socialist future. Vic the legalistic, lobby-your-Democrat strat- the American bourgeoisie's counterrevo- U.S. as a whole and better than many tory to the grocery and transit strikes!.
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, (2) Paid in-county subscriptions: 0; (3) Sales through MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and declared: "Hail Red Army in Afghani 1. Publication title: Workers Vanguard. other non-USPS paid distribution: 9,213; (4) Other 2. Publication no.: 09-8770. classes mailed through the USPS: 429; c. Total paid Headscarf ... stan! Extend the gains of October 1917 to 3. Filing date: 30 September 2003. and/or requested circulation [Sum of 15b (I), (2), (3), the Afghan peoples!" And we fought and (4)]: 11,648; d. Free distribution by mail: (I) Out 4. Issue frequency: Bi-weekly. except skipping 3 (continued from page 3) side-county as stated on Form 3541: 193; (2) In-county against the withdrawal of Soviet troops in alternate issues in June. July, August (beginning with as stated on Form 3541: 0; (3) Other classes mailed omitting the second issue in June) and with 3-week the political domination by a parasitic Sta 1989. The fruit of this betrayal by the through the USPS: 116; e. Free distribution outside the interval in December. mail: 0; f. Total free distribution (Sum of 15d and 15e): linist caste, the social basis of the USSR Soviets in Afghanistan is the horror that 5. No. of issues published annually: 23. 309; g. Total distribution (Sum of 15c and 1St): 11,957; exists there today. Those who now shed 6. Annual subscription price: $10.00. was the expropriation of the capitalists h. Copies not distributed: 2,478; i. Total (Sum of 15g crocodile tears for the fate of Afghan 7. Complete mailing address of known office of and 15h):14,435; j. Percent paid and/or requested cir and the collectivization of the economy; publication: 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY culation: 97.42%. this was incompatible with the medieval women and the rise of Islamic fundamen 10007-4104. No. copies of single issue published nearest to fil talism in the world do not want to admit 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters enslavement of women under the burka. ing date: a. Total number of copies (Net press run): it, but at bottom the cause is the fall of the or general business office of puhlisher: Spartacist 14,000; b. Paid and/or requested circulation: (I) Paid/ Lined up against the USSR and the Afghan Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318. New York, requested outside-county mail subscriptions stated government were the anti-woman muja Soviet Union. In the 1980s, LO and the NY 10007-4104. on Form 3541: 1,492; (2) Paid in-county subscriptions LCR refused to oppose the worst Islamic 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of stated on Form 3541: 0; (3) Sales through dealers and hedin, those who today once again have publisher. editor. and managing editor: Publisher carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and other non the upper hand. The U.S. and French scum in Afghanistan, and today they Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suitc 318, USPS paid distribution: 9,700; (4) Other classes complain about Islamic fundamentalists New York, NY 10007-4104; Director of Party Publica imperialists supported and armed these mailed through the USPS: 384; c. Total paid and/or in France! But these two positions are tions-Len Meyers. 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New requested circulation [Sum of 15b (I), (2), (3), and reactionary fundamentalists, from Mas York, NY 10007-4104; Editor-Alan Wilde, 299 (4)]: 11,576; d. Free distribution by mail: (1) Outside soud to the Taliban and bin Laden, who linked in a very concrete way: then, as Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007-4104; county as stated on Form 3541: 192; (2) In-c'lunty as wanted to force women back into the veil today, they sided with their own French Managing Editor-Rosemary Palenque, 299 Broad stated on Form 3541: 0; (3) Other classes mailed way, Suite 318, New York. NY 10007-4104. through the USPS: 99; e. Free distribution outside the and kill as many Soviet soldiers as possible. bourgeoisie. 10. Owner: Spartacist Publishing Co. (Unincorpo mail: 0; f. Total free distribution (Sum of 15d and 15e): rated Association), 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New 291; g. Total distribution (Sum of 15c and 1St): At the time, LO condemned the Soviet In order to liberate women, not only York, NY 10007-4104. 11,867; h. Copies not distributed: 2,133; i. Total (Sum intervention, saying that Afghanistan was from the veil but from every form of op 11. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other of 15g and ISh): 14,000; j. Percent paid and/or re like Vietnam. They wrongly equated the pression, it is necessary to fight for security holders owning or holding I percent or more quested circulation: 97.55%. of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other secu 16. This statement of ownership will be printed in rape of Vietnam by the French-followed workers revolution which is the only rities: None. the 24 October 2003 issue of this publication. by the American-imperialists with the way to do away with the material basis 12. For completion by nonprofit organizations 17. Signature and title of Editor, Publisher, Busi authorized to mail at nonprofit rates: Not applicable. ness Manager, or Owner: (Signed) Len Meyers (Direc progressive intervention of the Red Army for. oppression. To achieve that, it is nec 13. Publication title: Workers Vanguard. tor of Party Publications), 30 September 2003. I certify in Afghanistan (Lutte de Classe, 7 July essary to build a revolutionary workers 14. Issue date for circulation data below: 26 Sep that all information furnished on this form is true and 1980). As for the LCR, they wrote in 1988 party. Such a party would fight in the tember 2003. complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false 15. Extent and nature of circulation: Average no. or misleading information on this form or who omits that the fall of the Afghan government interests of all workers and thus against copies each issue during preceding 12 months: a. Total material or information requested on thc form may be "would in any case represent a lesser racist terror and the oppression of wom number of copies (Net press run): 14,435; b. Paid and/ subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and evil than the perpetuation of the Soviet en. That is the party we seek to build. or requested circulation: (I) Paid/rcquested outside imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil county mail subscriptions stated on Form 3541: 2,006; penalties). entanglement in Afghanistan" (/nprecor, For women's liberation through socialist 11 April 1988). We, on the other hand, revolution! • 6 WORKERS VANGUARD scended in the U.S. from the system of Jamal's current attorneys utilized ing is Ronald Castille, who was District Mumia ... black chattel slavery. In the U.S., where information provided in Wolkenstein's Attorney at the time when his subordi (continued from page 1) the decaying capitalist system offers no affidavit (reprinted in the PDC pamphlet nate Jack McMahon made an infamous future to millions of inner-city youth, the Mumia Abu-Jamal Is an Innocent Man! videotape instructing members of the MOVE organization, Jamal was saddled death penalty, the mass incarceration of [September 2001]), stating, "For nine D.A.'s office on how to exclude blacks at trial with a lawyer he didn't want-and black men and the elimination of welfare whole years, attorney Weinglass and from juries. Castille was the D.A. oppos one who did not want Mumia's case-a speak to the bourgeoisie's impulse to attorney Williams did more than any ing Jamal's first appeal, and was later judge, Albert Sabo, known as the "king of genocide. For more than a decade, Demo prosecutor could ever do to send Peti one of the members of the Pennsylvania death row," an overwhelmingly white crats and Republicans did everything in tioner Jamal to his death. They strangled Supreme Court who turned down Jamal's jury, a prosecutor's office that concealed their power to increase the number of at birth the evidence which shows that he appeal of Sabo's denial of his PCRA in and fabricated evidence and a parade of victims and speed the pace of state did not kill Police Officer Faulkner and, 1997. A number of defendants have had witnesses who were coerced by the noto sanctioned murder. In 1993 the Supreme in the process, jettisoned numerous other their convictions overturned on the basis rious Philadelphia police into giving Court ruled in the Texas Herrera case that decisive claims for relief." Wolkenstein of this racist jury-rigging-but not lying testimony against Mumia. the execution of an innocent man was not and Piper, in fact, resigned from Jamal's Mumia. Castille has blocked every effort Jamal's innocence has been evident unconstitutional. Such contempt for the legal team in 1999 precisely over the by Jamal to determine his role in the pro from the outset. We have repeatedly ex lives of the black and Hispanic poor was suppression of the Beverly confession. duction of the McMahon video. posed the D.A.'s case, which rested on clearly expressed earlier this year by As she explained in her affidavit, Wein The court's lie that the prosecutors are three legs; eyewitness accounts that were prosecutor Frank Jung who, when asked glass' refusal to proceed with Beverly's just impartial truth seekers was shared secured through police manipulation, by a Missouri Supreme Court judge, "Are confession and other evidence "was also as well by Weinglass and Williams. coercion and outright terror; a purported you suggesting even if we find Mr. my final realization that attorney Wein- Williams' entire book is an articulation of "confession" by Jamal while he was lying the idea that the capitalist state is some near death in the hospital, which didn't kind of neutral arbiter, expressing and surface until two months after the killing; defending the interests of all the people. ballistics "evidence" concocted by the But the state is not neutral. It is the instru police that the bullets that killed Faulkner mentality for organized violence by one were fired from Jamal's gun. class, the capitalist rulers, against the This is Texas lynch law justice-up working class and all those at the bottom North. Not only did the court bar Beverly's of this society. In the U.S., this is confession but rejected the sworn account expressed in the terror and frame-ups car of court stenographer Terri Maurer-Carter ried out by viciously racist, brutal and of a conversation she overheard in the corrupt police. courthouse where Mumia was tried, in Williams' hatchet job reflects the views which Judge Sabo declared in regard to of a layer of liberals whose function is to Jamal's case, ''I'm going to help them fry refurbish the credentials of the capitalist the n----r." As Jamal's legal papers stated: "law and order" system by curbing its "Judge Sabo's vile racist comment... "excesses" and giving it the appearance meant that, in Judge Sabo's courtroom, Mr. Jamal, like Dred Scott before him, of fairness. They ignore the overwhelming was not a citizen with rights guaranteed evidence that Mumia is innocent and to him by the Constitution, but rather an instead speak of his supposed "guilt." inferior being with 'no rights which the Among the latest examples is Dave white man was bound to respect' ." Lindorff, who writes for CounterPunch The court justified its refusal to even con and the Nation and recently authored sider Maurer-Carter's testimony by claim the book Killing Time, and filmmaker ing the issue of Sabo's bias had already Michael Moore, who declares in his been litigated and ruled upon in Mumia's WV Photo New York City, 23 October 1999: Trade unionists at POC-initiated anti-Klan recent book, Dude, Where's My Coun 1995 PCRA appeal-before the same mobilization. try?, that Mumia "probably killed" Faulk Judge Sabo, who exonerated himself of ner but "that does not mean he should be any racist animosity and prejudice toward Amrine is actually innocent, he should be glass would not carry out the defense denied a fair trial or that he should be put Mumia! executed?" replied, "That's correct, your demanded by our innocent client." to death." It is precisely to appeal to such This latest setback appears to terminate Honor." That Weinglass and Williams played the liberals that the reformist left, most nota Mumia's appeals before the Pennsylvania Even as scores of men and women con role of prosecutor was set forth for the bly Socialist Action and the Workers state courts, leaving only his habeas cor demned to death have proven their inno world to see in the publication two years World Party, subordinated any call for pus appeals in the federal courts. Those cence and won their freedom in recent ago of Williams' false "inside account" of Jamal's freedom to the demand for a appeals have been on hold pending the years, numerous states have adopted laws Jamal's case, Executing Justice, published "new trial" for Mumia-as if he could get recent ruling by the Pennsylvania Su with stringent time restrictions on filing shortly before Beverly's confession was a fair trial in the racist capitalist courts. preme Court. Nearly two years ago fed death penalty appeals on newly discov submitted to court. Williams' declaration The latest ruling against Jamal under eral court judge William Yohn overturned ered evidence. These restrictions make it that Beverly's confession was "lunacy" scores--again-that for a defiant and out Jamal's death sentence while affirming virtually impossible for victims of prose was the core argument used by prosecu spoken opponent of this racist system like the conviction, condemning him to a life cutorial frame-ups to uncover the evi tors in fighting to keep this conclusive evi Jamal, there is no justice in the capitalist of prison hell. Jamal's attorneys appealed dence to prove their innocence of the dence of Mumia's innocence out of court. courts. As we explained in the introduc that decision, seeking to overturn the con killing for which they were sentenced to The court didn't merely reject the argu tion to the pamphlet Mumia Abu-Jamal Is viction. The state appealed as well, seek die. Pennsylvania's law, enacted in 1995 ment that Weinglass 'and Williams were an Innocent Man!: "The long hidden and ing to reinstate the sentence of death. Still explicitly to cut off Jamal's appeal rights, acting as agents of the state, but pro suppressed evidence of Mumia's inno on death row, Mumia remains just a short provided the pretext for the current court nounced that it wouldn'reven matter if cence is the truth. But in this capitalist walk and maybe a few months from the ruling barring Beverly's confession as they were. According to this court, five of system of injustice, the truth is insufficient death chamber. Workers, minorities and untimely. The federal Anti-Terrorism and whose members are former prosecutors, to secure Jamal's freedom. What we need all opponents of racist capitalist repres Effective Death Penalty Act, signed into the state's interests are not inimical to is not just more truth but more social sion must now redouble their efforts to law by Democratic president Clinton in those of Jamal (or any other defendant in power. It is elementary that if labor's mobilize mass protests centered,on the 1996, was the pretext for federal court a criminal case). "The Commonwealth, power is to be brought to bear in a mighty social power of the labor movement to judge Yohn also barring Beverly's testi having the obligation to seek justice, blow on Jamal's behalf, it must be mobi demand: Free Mumia'now! mony in Jamal's habeas corpus appeal. is not a 'beneficiary' of poor defense lized independently of the very forces of Death Penalty Using these laws, the capitalist rulers lawyering"-i.e., they're claiming that the capitalist state that have worked for Capitalist Barbarity send black, Hispanic' and working-class incompetent defense doesn't benefit the years to frame up and kill this innocent Jamal's case throws a spotlight on the men and women to their graves as if it were state and its prosecutors! man." Mobilize now to free Mumia! Abol barbaric, racist death penalty, a form of no more than a question of an overdue Among the judges endorsing this rul- ish the racist death penalty!. institutionalized state terror directly de- library book. In opposing Jamal's motion for a stay of execution during his 1995 appeal the prosecution bared the state's .------Spartacist/SyC Events L P-L Parti!!NI.o oefen§e contempt for Mumia, grotesquely declar p'-- £oo.. oittee ---$.50 ing, "The carrying out of a valid death sentence cannot constitute irreparable injury for purposes of requesting a stay"! The entire history of the state's ven detta against Jamal reveals that the courts have in fact spumed any provisions of the law that would allow this outspoken Wednesday, October 29, 6 p.m. For more information: (617) 666-9453 champion of the oppressed to walk out of e-mail: [email protected] prison a free man. As Jamal's attorneys College of Arts and Sciences, Room 312 explained, his case is governed by the Boston University BOSTON Pennsylvania death penalty statute's ex ception to the filing deadline, where "interference by government officials" is responsible for the failure to previously raise a claim. As they demonstrated, in actively working to suppress Beverly's confession and other evidence of Jamal's $.50 (32 pages) innocence, Jamal's attorneys at the time, Leonard Weinglass and Daniel Williams, Saturday, November 1, 3:30 p.m. For more information: Order from/pay to: call: (213) 380-8239 Partisan Defense Committee "acted in function, if not in fact, as agents Cahuenga Branch Los Angeles Public library e-mail: [email protected] P.O, Box 99, Canal Street Station of government officials insofar as their 4591 Santa Monica Boulevard New York, NY 10013 actions served the interests not of peti (Santa MonicaNermont Red Line Station) LOS ANGELES tioner, but of the District Attorney." 24 OCTOBER 2003 7 of a free, quality health care system. But the eradication of women's oppression Mexico ... requires an immense leap forward in the (continued from page 12) existing inaterial conditions-and this can only be achieved through a social the possibility of maquiladora factory ist revolution not only in Mexico but by jobs. After the end of the U.S. bracero means of the creation of an internation program, which functioned as an escape ally planned economy based not on cap italist profit but on the fulfillment of valve for the unemployment crisis in everyone's needs. In other words, the lib Mexico, the Mexican government opened eration of women cannot be realized sep the first free-trade zone in 1965. Foreign arate from the emancipation of the work investors who set up a factory in Mexico ing class." near the U.S. border were exempt from One of the ironies of history is that the tariffs (for the parts they imported) and special oppression of women is linked didn't have to pay other taxes. This was to one of the first social advances: the extended in 1994 with NAFTA [North development of technology beyond what American Free Trade Agreement], which was necessary for the minimal subsis converted all of Mexico into a source of tence that characterized hunter-gatherer enormous imperialist profits based on the societies. Agriculture, metallurgy, domes miserably paid labor of Mexican work tication of animals and other revolution ers. The Mexican, American and Cana ary advances made possible the exis dian sections of the International Com tence of an idle ruling class living off munist League wrote in a joint statement the work of others. The institution of the in 1991: "While strengthening the U.S. family, which demands monogamy and bourgeoisie against imperialist trade women's domestic slavery, emerged to rivals, an FTA [Free Trade Agreement] ensure that the inheritance of proper will also subject the working masses of the ty passed through the male line. Male Americas to greater exploitation. We call Radele/Liaison chauvinist ideology, propagated by the on Mexican, U.S. and Canadian workers to ruling class through government institu join in opposing this anti-labor pact" (see tions, the media and religion, serves to "Stop U.S. 'Free Trade' Rape of Mexico," justify the SUbjugation of women. WVNo. 530, 5 July 1991). With the growth of capitalist industry, The right-wing clerical government of the entry of women into the workforce in Fox and his band of seminarians ensures factories has taken them out of their iso that Mexico is a very attractive place lation in the home and provides a pre for foreign investment and for Mexican requisite for their emancipation: partici blood-sucking bosses while it attacks the pation in social production. However, rights of all working people and of spe under capitalism, this means adding wage cially oppressed sectors of society such as slavery to domestic slavery. The complete indigenous people, women and homosex liberation of women from this double uals. The privatization of nationalized oppression can only take place through industries being sought by Fox would hit the replacement of the family with the millions with hunger and unemployment. socialization of domestic work. The ex The economic recession has already pansion of the productive forces laid the caused the closing of many maquiladoras basis for the socialization of domes and massive layoffs, especially in the bor tic work, but this will not happen under der zone. Between the year 2000 and mid capitalism because the family plays an 2003,700,000 (one out of every ten!) jobs important economic role for the bour have been lost in Mexico's manufactur geoisie. In a socialist system things ing sector (EI Norte, 1 September). This would be very different. The planned occurs in the context of the worst unem economy would allow the replacement of ployment crisis in six years. Women, who Ruben R. Ramirez the economic functions of the family Women form strategiC part of working class in border zone maquiladoras. with 24-hour childcare, and collective in general occupy the least skilled and Below: 1995 strike at RCA Thomson plant in Ciudad Juarez. more easily replaceable jobs, are the most laundries and kitchens. For women's lib eration through socialist revolution! affected. worst. A large component of women clothing they sew. A woman worker in the Women in the Maquiladoras who work on the border left their peasant electronics industry has to solder 2,000 Police Terror and and/or indigenous communities with the tiny, barely visible parts in one day. Pain Illusions in the State Guillermina Valdez Villalva, founder hope of no longer being subjected to caused by repetitive movements and of the Center for Orientation of Working Lilia Alejandra was the 17-year-old the family nucleus, although they usually diseases caused by work materials are Women in Juarez, said: mother of a three-year-old boy. She send part of the money they earn to their common. "When the plants first came to the city, worked for the maquiladora Servicios we always expected them to hire the parents or siblings. Also living in the bor "My sister started to work at SILVANIA on 30 January 1974"and from there she Plasticos y Ensambles in Ciudad Juarez. unemployed male. But very soon we dis der zone are men and women who tried to Her body was found wrapped in a blanket covered that. .. young women between went to TUBOS ELECTRICOS in 1981 cross into the U.S. to work and didn't and then to the HONEYWELL plant in on 21 February 200 I in an unlit empty lot the ages of 16 ana 21 were the only ones' make it or were deported. hired." Juarez, where she died. The cause of her which she crossed every night to get disease, according to the hematologist -Quoted in Women and Sandra Arenal's book Sangre joven home from work. The forensic doctor Revolution No. 34, Spring [Young Blood] recounts a series of con who saw her at the hospital, was that she was anemic in the fourth degree due explained to her parents, when they went 1988, "Class Struggle in the versations with women workers who to identify the body, that there were signs 'Global Sweatshop'" to acetone, which is the substance she express their strength and anger over their had handled daily at work .... She was of physical and sexual violence and that Work in the maquiladoras is character experiences upon arriving at the maquilas only 30! During her funeral I heard the cause of death was strangulation. The that around the very same time another ized by its mechanical and repetitive [factories]. Stories are told about super same day that Lilia Alejandra didn't come nature. What matters is to have agile fin visors who decide to have the person woman worker had died." A 22-year-old woman who had already home, the neighbors around the empty lot gers, to be young and to be in great need nel strip every now and then to make had called the police to report that a in order to be willing to withstand the sure they haven't stolen some of the spent six years in the maquilas said she had "outlasted others." Her finger bones woman was being beaten and raped by are deformed and on both hands she has two men in a car. A police car arrived at an enormous yellow-brown callus from the site only after the neighbors made a This pamphlet assesses recent changes in the j J the tip of the thumb, over the back of the second call, and it still took over an hour. world economy in a historical perspective, from The car had already left. the origins of modern imperialism in the late hand, to near the wrist. Looking at her hands with sadness, she says: "They will Various investigations and testimonies 19th century through the capitalist counterrevo point to the nefarious role of the police, lution in East Europe and the former USSR and not pay me for my hands!" its aftermath. Reformist ideologues of "global "special prosecutors" and government ization" seek to obscure the role of the capitalist The Origins of agencies. We completely solidarize with nation-state and the danger of interimperialist Women's Oppression the demands for justice from the families war which is inherent in capitalism, while of the victims and from organizations like amnestying the refusal of the labor bureaucra In our article "Capitalist Exploitation and Anti-Woman Terror" (Espartaco No. Mujeres de Negro [Women in Black] and cies to wage class struggle against their Casa Arniga [Friendly Home]. Simply respective bourgeoisies. 13, Fall-Winter 1999), in which we ana seeking some justice can turn one into a ExplOitation, poverty and social degradation lyzed the attacks against women in the can be eliminated only through proletarian Ciudad Juarez maquiladora zone, we target of attack. A secretary at Casa Amiga, revolutions in the imperialist centers as well as explained: which provides psychological support the neocolonial countries, laying the basis for "We communists fight to end the oppres services and carries out investigations an international planned socialist economy. sion of women, an inheritance of the about the crimes, was shot down in the social backwardness maintained by the $2 (32 pages) doorway to the organization's office. bourgeoisie. We stand out in our fight for But the desperation that the disap Make checks payable/mail to: full equality for women and their com peared and murdered wemen's families Spartacist Publishing Company plete integration into the workforce. We Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 call for equal pay for equal work and for live with, the indignation that many peo free, safe abortion on demand as part ple around the country feel, and the fear
8 WOBK~R~ VA~lJA~D ' . .,~~.',. -1<:,"1 .... _. ,c f -."""",~'I ;, among women workers of becoming "one The future for women and their struggle to improve the situation of working ation of women is profoundly rooted more" victim is channeled into a deadly for complete emancipation is linked to women nor to unionize those who aren't in precapitalist "tradition" and religious illusion: the idea that with more police class struggle against capitalism. unionized. backwardness. Thus, the fight for the lib presence the anti-woman crimes will stop. We Spartacists fight to forge a revolu-' eration of women will be an indispen The solution is not pressuring the state tionary Leninist-Trotskyist party to inter The Fight Against Imperialism: sable motor force for revolution. -the armed bodies of men that one class vene in social struggles and thus change For Proletarian Internationalism! No wing of the bourgeoisie can playa uses to maintain its hegemonic power the consciousness of the working class. progressive or revolutionary role, It can over another-to function better. It is nec Lenin wrote in What Is To Be Done? The woman worker of the maquiladora not bring any significant advance for essary to understand the social role of the (1902), "Class political consciousness earns a miserable wage in a foreign women and all of the oppressed. The fact capitalist state in assuring capitalist dom can be brought to the workers only from owned factory which produces exorbi that the bourgeois-nationalist PRD often ination over the working class. A key part without, that is, only from outside the tant profits for the owners. The woman poses as a defender of women is simply a of capitalist rule is the subjugation of economic struggle, from outside the worker of Juarez sometimes takes two testimony to the brutal ideological back women; anti-woman violence is inher sphere of relations between workers and hours to get to work on foot because there wardness of its bourgeois opponents. An ently part of capitalism. The police, army employers." We seek to build a leader aren't even paved roads between where example of this was the scandal caused by and courts are, and will be, used to break ship of the working class that fights as she lives and the avenues for the trucks the "Robles Law" introduced by the PRD combative strikes that stymie the bour a defender of all the oppressed. Lenin that take the raw materials to the facto in Mexico City a couple of years ago. geoisie and to perpetuate the oppression explained that the ideal revolutionary ries. The oil worker fears losing the min While we defend this law, which grants of women. "should not be the trade-union secretary, imal economic stability he has gained in the right to abortion in the case of defor The United Nations, that den of but the tribune of the people, who is able the face of the threats of privatization and mation of the fetus or danger to the to react to every manifestation of tyr foreign investment. The campesino [peas thieves whose sanctions killed 1.5 million anny and oppression, no matter where it woman, against clerical attack, we note Iraqis and set Iraq up for the U.S. attack, appears, no matter what stratum or class ant] can't make a living anymore off his that the PRD has made clear its opposition is now the "human rights" cover for an of people it affects; who is able to gener land because of the competition from to the unrestricted right to abortion. In expansion of the repressive police force alise all these manifestations and pro- American agribusiness. The indigenous general, the capitalist class opposes full in Juarez. The UN sent a commission access to abortion because it allows to Juarez which has recommended that women some freedom from total subordi the FBI train Mexican police. During the nation in the family structure. civil rights movement in the U.S., the FBI The only way to be rid of the imperi worked hand in hand with the fascist alist yoke and obtain elementary demo Ku Klux Klan to murder fighters for civil cratic rights for women and the oppressed rights, even including four young black is for the proletariat to take state power girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama through a socialist revolution and reor in 1963. This gives some measure of how ganize the economy in a planned and grotesque the notion is that these impe rational manner. rialist agencie's could defend women's The phenomenon of the maquiladoras rights. clearly shows the potential power of the In the documentary Senorita Extravi unity of workers in the U.S. and Mexico. ada, there is an interview with a woman They are part of a common industry with named Marfa, who was charged with the same bosses. Conscious of the social public disturbance along with others power that the proletariat would attain and taken to the Carcel de Piedra prison through unification of its struggles, the in Chihuahua. There the police raped American and Mexican bourgeoisies her and took her to a clandestine cell. apply "divide and conquer" strategies. After she was released, she reported This obstacle to joint struggle of all the police, and although they were cap the oppressed against their common tured, they were never sentenced. In spite oppressor comes in different forms in of the death threats she has faced, she different countries, and one of the princi tells of her experience at the police head Espartaco pal tasks of revolutionary parties is to quarters courageously and with tears in Mexico City, February 15: GEM comrades march in demonstration against combat these ideas that only serve the her eyes: U.S. attack on Iraq. bourgeoisie. "And then one of them said, 'Or what, Our comrades in the Spartacist League/ do you want us to take you to Lomas de duce a single picture of police violence woman is forced to beg in front of a huge U.S. know that the struggles of the work Poleo?' '" he began throwing pictures and capitalist exploitation; who is able to bank headquarters into which she would of the girls at me: 'Look at them, bitch, take advantage of every event, however ers against the bosses and that of blacks look at them, bitch.' ... All of them were small, in order to set forth before all his never be admitted. and immigrants against racism will ad dragging her, through the bushes ... there socialist convictions and his democratic All of these victims of imperialist op vance together or fall back separately. In they rape her. .. they start beating her. . .in demands, in order to clarify for all and pression should understand that the only the U.S, it's necessary to combat anti-black the pictures you see them laughing at everyone the world-historic significance hope for liberation is the mobilization of racism in all spheres, including among what the other is doing ... you could see of the struggle for the emancipation of the [women's] faces .. .like this, in pain, the proletariat." labor's power against the entire capitalist Hispanic immigrants. Our comrades also suffering, crying and yelling." system. While Mexican capitalists might intervene for the working class to raise The most class-conscious militants in The purpose of the police force as a feel resentful for having been left behind the slogan "Full citizenship rights for the unions should fight to mobilize the in the international fight for domination, all immigrants!" (see "Oakland Labor whole, independent of the degree of social power of the working class to fight moral corruption of the individuals who they are no friends of the oppressed and Centered Mobilization Defies 'National against the oppression of women, to organ cannot lead an anti-imperialist struggle. Unity' -Defend Immigrants! Defend comprise it, is to carry out the violence ize them in the unions with salaries and and terror that the bourgeoisie needs to In fact, the national bourgeoisie couldn't the Unions!" WV No. 775, 22 February rights equal to those of men. They should maintain itself without the. help of their 2002). In Mexico, bourgeois nationalism stay in power. Fighters for social justice fight for free, quality health care serv must unite with the social power of the imperialist masters. has been the main ideological obstacle for ices, and for the right to free abortion on We revolutionaries base ourselves on the working class in its battle against working class. No other force can end demand. They should fight to organ capitalism or the oppression and violence Leon Trotsky'S theory of permanent revo exploitation. It is necessary to combat the ize workers detachments to defend the lution, the basic premise of which is that false consciousness of Mexican workers that it generates. We oppose calls on the women against these attacks. But the cur bourgeois state to increase its 'police in the epoch of imperialism the countries that their ally is the Mexican boss and not rent union leaderships aren't even inter- of belated capitalist development can the American worker. forces. No illusions in. the armed fist of , ested in demanding buses to transport the the bourgeoisie! not attain the general level of economic And in both countries we combat the . personnel-a basic service-while many productivity of the advanced countries. anti-woman ideology that is a prop for We are for the right of armed self women workers in Juarez are murdered defense. Of course, the right to bear The productive forces are the scaffolding the capitalist system which requires the walking through solitary fields on their that supports the entire superstructure subjugation of women. Only in this way arms will not emancipate women, whose way to their jobs or back home. The situ oppression is deeply rooted in the capital of legal, political, religious and cultural will we be able to forge a revolutionary, ation of the working woman is, on its relations in society. While the oppression proletarian, internationalist party with ist system and its fundamental institu own, proof of the total bankruptcy, servil tions, and this emancipation can only be of women in the industrialized countries the capacity to finish off the capitalist ity and male chauvinism of the union shows the limits of liberty and social system of exploitation, misery and terror achieved through a socialist revolution. bureaucracy. However, the right to bear arms makes an progress under capitalism, in "Third once and for all. For women's liberation While a large portion of the workforce World" countr\es like Mexico the situ- through socialist revolution!. obvious difference in one's capacity for on the border and in the country in gen self-defense. But the existing gun "con eral is not unionized, the CTM [Confed trol" laws in Mexico and other capitalist eration of Mexican Workers] is the main countries ensure that the army, police and workers union in the maquiladora zone. criminals have a monopoly on arms. And Their pro-capitalist thug bureaucrats tied Espartaco l7f.;i~·J NU"ERO~l OTO/to-Im
Fourth International written by Leon Woods/Newsday Pench/Sacramento Bee Trotsky in 1938. We seek to link the daily struggles of the masses against the capi Ovaciones (8 October) headlined: Brace would have banned government collec ency, whatever their "r-r-revolutionary" talists to the program for proletarian rev ros [Mexican laborers] in Arnold's Cross tion of statistics that document race, was posture, proving once again that Maoism olution through a system of transitional Hairs: TERROR! Rise of Hitlerian Actor defeated by a vote of 64 to 36 percent. (a variant of Stalinism) is nothing but a demands stemming from today's condi Means Millions of Mexicans in Califor The Spartacist League called for a "no" rationale for class collaboration. tions and from today's consciousness of nia at Risk." vote on Prop. 54 as a racist ban on the The International Socialist Organiza wide layers of the working class and Two factors rang the death knell for gathering or publication of statistical evi tion (ISO) opted to "oppose" the two cap unalterably leading to one final conclu Davis and the Democrats. Having vetoed dence of the discrimination endemic in italist parties by abstaining on the recall sion: the conquest of power by the prole the driver's license law-a law we Marx capitalist America. As a testament to the and then, after much coquettish flirting, tariat. In intervening in the workers strug ists fiercely defend as a minor extension depth of that discrimination, the despera enthusiastically embraced another capi gles, we hold to the words of Lenin: of rights for immigrants, whittling away tion of the black population came out in talist party, the Greens, in the person of "It is the task of the Social-Democrats at their "illegal" status-twice before, the election in a grim "lesser-evilism": "progressive investment banker" Peter [i.e., revolutionary socialists], by organ Davis looked hypocritical by signing the two out of three black voters even backed Camejo, who placed fourth in the election izing the workers, by conducting propa bill in a play for the Latino vote, which Bustam<1nte-a man known for public with 222,121 votes. Socialist Worker ganda and agitation among them, to tum went 46 percent for the recall and only 52 racist slurs against blacks, while nearly Online (3 October) declared Camejo "A their spbntaneous struggle against their oppressors into the struggle of the whole percent for Bustamante (San Francisco three out of four (73 percent) black vot real alternative in the recall circus." Also class, into the struggle of a definite polit Chronicle, 9 October). Davis lost the anti ers opposed the recall of pro-death pen tailing Camejo is the grossly misnamed ical party for definite political and immigrant wing of his supporters over the alty Davis. Socialist Alternative (affiliated with Peter socialist ideals." driver's license issue (opposed by some Taaffe's Committee for a Workers' Inter - "Our Immediate Task" (1899) 70 percent in exit polls), and infuriated The Syphilitic Chain of national): "With California labor leaders How keenly such a fight is needed has millions by hiking car registration fees to Class Collaboration failing to provide an alternative, despite only been underscored by the eruption outrageous levels-a regressive tax that Helping out the labor tops in mis serious weaknesses in his program, a vote of a mass class battle in Southern Cali we Marxists oppose. leading the workers and oppressed were for the Green Party candidate Peter fornia just days after the recall elec . This was scarcely, however, an unal a range of self-proclaimed "socialist" Camejo is the best way of demonstrating tion. Seventy thousand members of the loyed victory for the Republican right organizations, which through support for opposition to all candidates of both major United Food and Commercial Workers that launched the recall campaign in one shill or another end up in a syphilitic parties, and the need for a working class have been on strike or locked out since the first place. When the recall made chain of support for the Democratic Party. alternative to the crisis." October 11; just days later, mechanics the ballot, the Republican campaign was By providing this policy of subordination Is this for real? Camejo, who used to who have been working without a con hijacked by its more mainstream wing to the bosses' parties with "leftist" justifi be a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, is the tract for over a year shut down the L.A. cations, these fake socialists stand in the co-founder of Progressive Asset Manage transit system. way of the fight to make workers aware ment, a financial investment firm that rec The grocery store workers are acutely of their class interests. The Communist ommends investment in "good" capitalist aware that behind this contract battle Party and Committees of Correspondence firms. Some working-class alternative! stands an attempt by the bosses to break for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) Camejo doesn't even give lip service to the core of their union. A central issue were the most overt, loudly campaign socialism, as supporters of the Spartacus in both strikes is health care. The bur ing for a "no" vote on the recall-a bla Youth Club pointed out when ISOers geoning health care crisis in American tant vote of confidence in the Demo uncritically hailed him at a campaign society is one of the clearest examples of cratic Party and its current government in rally at San Francisco State University on the inability of the capitalist system to Sacramento. Workers World Party was October 2. At this rally, Camejo, a no address even the basic needs of the one step removed, calling for a vote to the show, was represented by a fellow Green: workers and oppressed. A revolutionary left-radical Peace and Freedom Party a San Francisco assistant district attor party must intervene into the ongoing which called for a "no" vote on the recall. ney, whose job it is to prosecute the black struggle to point out that the workers Another wrinkle on the sellout was and Hispanic poor for breaking the capi could mobilize massive support for the presented by the Maoist Revolutionary talists' laws. As Camejo's Web site says, strike by calling for free, quality health Communist Party (RCP), which, in an "The Green Party is the party of law and care for all-including undocumented article titled "California Recall: The order." It calls to "Amend the 'three immigrants-and free transit for all. Coup Inside the Circus" (Revolutionary strikes' law so that it is applied only [!] As Leon Trotsky wrote in the Transi Worker, 21 September), cast the recall when the third offense is a serious or vio tional Program, "There can be no discus as part of a national right-wing Republi lent felony." sion of systematic social reforms and can conspiracy which began with the ISOers were embarrassed by Camejo's the raising of the masses'living stan impeachment of Clinton in 1998. Ignoring cloying support to Democrat Bustamante. dards ... every serious demand of the pro the widespread and justified hatred of At a debate in Los Angeles, "Camejo also letariat and even every serious demand wage-slasher Davis, the article ended came close to endorsing Bustamante, say of the petty bourgeoisie inevitably reaches AFP with an appeal that "this bizarre episode ing he would be a better governor than beyond the limits of capitalist property Latinos celebrate. Gray Davis' signing of bill allowing "illegal" immigrants of 'democracy in action' is a wake-up call Davis or the RepUblicans running to relations and of the bourgeois state." For to get driver's licenses-about the to everyone that we need a new and mas replace him," wrote the San Francisco a workers party that fights for a workers only good thing to come out of the sive resistance-to deliver a resounding Chronicle (10 September). At a forum in government! California elections. NO!, to make it clear that in our millions, East San Jose on September 21, Camejo we are not going to tolerate their punish declared: "I'm happy to sit here with The Two Property Parties of represented by former governor Pete Wil ing, imperial plans for the people of the Cruz Bustamante and say, maybe, finally, the Bourgeoisie son and former Reagan/Bush Sr. cabi planet." Readers logically concluded that we're going to have someone who is not Whereas the Democrats are inclined to net member George Shultz. Their candi the "resounding no" was meant to be a a European-American male as governor" at least talk about co-opting and deflect date, Schwarzenegger, was spurned by vote against the recall of Davis. Uncom (San Jose Mercury News, 22 September). ing discontent from below,' the Repub the more extreme bigots, the born-again, fortable with such blatant opportunism, No doubt the ISO's unease was fed by its licans are shameless Robin Hoods in anti-abortion, anti-homosexual "family some individual RCPers have told us that own ambivalence over the vote on the reverse: no taxes for the rich; cuts, values" types who favored conservative their "real" position was ... not to vote at all. recall: some members advocated a "no" layoffs, union-busting for the working Republican Tom McClintock. (The Pete During the war against Iraq the RCP vote to keep Davis in office, as did many class. In his campaign, Schwarzenegger Wilson wing restricts itself to more established the "Not In Our Name" Greens as well. went after the workers compensation and "moderate" reaction, like the notorious (NION) coalition in order to draw in lib But it's not just that Camejo serves as unemployment systems, promising to anti-immigrant Prop. 187 that denied edu eral, pacifist youth without challenging a shill for Bustamante. The Green Party lower business costs-that is, cut aid to cation and health care to undocumented their false belief that war could be ended is a capitalist party with a capitalist pro injured and unemployed workers. He workers, and the racist anti-affirmative without abolishing capitalism. The NION gram. The Green platform calls to "mini garnered support from racists through his action measure, Prop. 209.) Schwarze "Pledge of Resistance" does not mention mize the exportation of jobs to other coun denunciation of Bustamante for accept negger won the election partly by cam the words capitalism or imperialism and tries." This means support to flag-waving ing big donations from Native American paigning as a quasi-Democrat, because speaks only of the need to "make com trade protectionism, pushed especially by tribal gambling interests. And he capi he is not intransigently opposed to all mon cause with the people of the world the labor bureaucracy. A major theme of talized on anti-immigrant chauvinism abortion rights for women (he advo to bring about justice, freedom and Ralph Nader's campaign as the Green by denouncing Davis' signing of a law cates restrictions like banning some late peace." Within NION contingents, the Party's presidential candidate in 2000 to allow undocumented immigrants to term abortions and supporting "parental RCP's youth would sometimes posture was strident China-bashing, combining a obtain driver's licenses. Given the enor consent" laws), appointing Democrats with red flags and militant chants, but reprise of Cold War anti-Communism mous role played by Latino immigrant among his advisers and advertising his without challenging the moralistic, class with scarcely disguised "yellow peril" labor in the economies of both Califor marriage to Maria Shriver (a member of less (and ultimately pro-Democratic racism. Such chauvinist protectionism also nia and Mexico, it is no wonder that the Kennedy clan), touted as Arnold's Party) politics on which NION was serves to aid Ashcroft's anti-immigrant the election of the "Terminator" is a hot "secret weapon." based. With their article on the recall, the witchhunt. topic in Mexico, where the newspaper Significantly, Proposition 54, which RCP continues to tail the NION constitu- As for the Green Party's calls for "the 10 WORKERS VANGUARD creation and spread of local currencies and United Nations, when it served as the would "tax the rich" with a vengeance! information affirmative action policies barter" and "consumer items that would advance agents of the U.S. invasion to Sure, the Greens want to tinker with are based on. contribute toward economic autonomy strip Iraq of any means of self-defense. the capitalist system. The ISO seems to Our position of critical support to the for individuals," these eccentric reaction And the Green platform explicitly backs think that it can trick history and promote SWP was attacked by the small oppor ary positions are pitched to layers of the political aims of U.S. imperialism socialism by "working within" such a tunist Internationalist Group in an article, the petty bourgeoisie concerned with Camejo just wants to make the milit party. However, this is not a new idea. In hastily posted on the Web the day before ecology and small-scale production. This ary machine "better" and more efficient: one instance, the American Communist the election, calling for abstention on the anti-industrial stance is fundamentally "Develop a new national defense poli Party, then called the Workers Party, came recall and opposing critical support to the anti-working-class, dreaming of a long cy with participation by citizen and gov close to supporting the 1924 presidential SWP. The IG disputes our claim that the gone pre-industrial age, an America of ernmental representatives as well as the candidacy of Republican Senator Robert SWP defends Iraq against the U.S. impe small farms and small businesses ... and military" and "consolidate military func La Follette on the Progressive Party rialist invasiorr, implying we made it up. rural idiocy and backwardness. tions to eliminate duplication." He also ticket as a "third party alliance" seeking Here's one quote from the Militant (7 In fact, the ISO argument in favor of a April); "Instead of welcoming the U.S. vote for Camejo has its own contradic and British armies as liberators, many tions. In·its "Where We Stand" column, Iraqis have resisted the invasion. They the ISO states, "We do not support candi defend their country's sovereignty and dates of capitalist parties like the Demo should be supported by working people crats or Republicans." But in its praise of around the world." The IG is willfully Camejo, Socialist Worker never claims blind because their empty sloganeering is that the Greens are not a capitalist party, nothing but a cover for them to tail and when asked, individual ISOers con the "progressives" in the trade-union tradict each other on the question. The bureacracy. As the IG itself notes, we gist of the ISO argument is never about wrote in our earlier recall article that the the class line, but that Camejo is "a real SWP's slogan "Bring the GIs Home alternative from the status quo presided Now!" is an accommodation to the social over by the mainstream parties" (Social patriotic antiwar movement. But the IG ist Worker, 3 October). He provides them likewise denounces our call "U.S. Troops with a "movement" to work in. Out of Iraq!" as "barely distinguishable" ISOers who want to claim that their from the SWP's slogan. What is the IG organization really stands for class "inde for, "Troops Stay"? pendence" should contemplate the fact Furthermore, the IG denounced us for that (according to the October-November our critical support to the SWP because newsletter of the Northern California its call for a "workers and farmers gov CCDS), the ISO in Northern California ernment" and a "socialist world" is just has joined with the CCDS and Demo "Sunday speechifying." By this logic, the cratic Socialists of America (DSA) in a 9 February 2002: Oakland labor-centered demonstration in defense of only electoral support one could ever give "Socialist Unity Coalition" which also immigrant rights, initiated by poe and Labor Black League, was example of to a reformist or centrist formation is includes the Socialist Party and Solidarity working-class mobilization independent of capitalist parties. uncritical support, sowing illusions that (the Communist Party has also been such groups really do have a program to asked to join). The DSA and CCDS actu signs on to the Bush government's Home to build a farmer-labor movement at a fight for socialism. We would like the IG ally work in the Democratic Party, as do land Security crackdown: "Increase state time of widespread agrarian crisis. Trot to explain, then, why Lenin in "Left Some members of Solidarity! funding for additional security of criti sky's intervention played a central role in Wing" Communism-An Infantile Disor Just because a party is independent of cal infrastructure against terrorist at turning the American Communists from der advocates that communists pursue the Democrats and Republicans does not tacks." This demand is barely distinguish this opportunist course of seeking to various tactics (including critical support) mean it's independent of the capitalist able from the mainstream Democratic forge an ongoing bloc with capitalist toward the British Labour Party, whose class itself; after all, few members of any Party. forces. In "Strategy and Tactics in the vague "socialist objective" was the epit party are actually capitalists, who are a In Germany, where the Green Party is Imperialist Epoch" (The Third Interna ome of such "Sunday speechifying." distinct minority. in the central government administration, tional After Lenin), Trotsky polemicizes But the IG is not really interested in Rather, the point is that it should there is a real commingling of Green against this "two-class" party; Marxist principle. This pseudo-leftism instead be a proletarian party. As Trotsky Party ecologists and the far right, whose "Classes cannot be tricked. This applies, has another purpose. Most revealingly, put it: anti-immigrant racism the Greens pro considered historically, to all the classes the IG claims that the SWP program is "The masses of any bourgeois party are and it is particularly and immediately mote on grounds of combatting over true of the ruling, possessing, exploiting, "barely distinguishable" from that of the always cattle, although in different de population and attendant "environmen Socialist Equality Party, that organiza grees. But for us the masses are not cat and educated classes. The world experi tle, are they? No, that is precisely why tal destruction." The nominally pacifist ence of the latfer is so great, their class tion of dubious political bandits. (We we are forbidden to subordinate the pro Greens, in coalition with the majority instinct so refined, and their organs of suspect that the SEP's 5,915 votes come letarian party to a bourgeois party, but on Social Democrats, enabled Germany to espionage so varied that an attempt to from its candidate having the same name deceive them by posing as somebody the contrary, must at every step, oppose send troops abroad for the first time since as Democratic State Senator John Bur the former to the latter." else must lead in reality to trapping, not World War II in the U.S.-led NATO air the enemy, but one's own friends." ton.) The IG willfully ignores the fact Marxism is premised on illuminating war against Serbia in 1999. The U.S. Trotskyist movement was that the SEP called for a "no" vote the class content of every institution and But the Green "magic words" (accord founded by communists who had learned against recalling Davis, which is one step the class line in every battle. Opportunists ing to Socialist Worker, 3 October) that the hard lesson of such attempts at trick removed from open political support for like the ISO instead use as their com seem to really bewitch the ISO are: "tax ery and fakery and been won from it by the Democrats, while the SWP called for pass whatever is popular in the petty the rich," which "could solve the state's Trotsky'S arguments. Trotsky pointed out a principled "yes" vote. In fact, the IG bourgeois milieus they mainly inhabit. huge budget deficit." This is a utopian that those who sought the "two-class" itself, by abstaining on the recall-given Whatever the small print in its news fantasy. While Marxists oppose regres alliance were thoroughly imbued with a viable option on the ballot which at paper says about standing for a social sive taxation, which would dispropor skepticism concerning the American pro least could register support for working ist revolution, the ISO gives a reformist tionately fall on the working poor, the letariat, seeking shortcuts around the class political independence from the content to "socialism." A letter in Social ISO and other reformists regard the slo hard political fight to win the working capitalist parties-also gives backhanded ist Worker Online (3 October) by ISO gan "tax the rich" as a way of posing class to a revolutionary perspective. This support to the Democratic Party. Bay Area honcho Todd Chretien states: the possibility of radically redistributing skepticism also drives the opportunism Tellingly, the IG went into a conniption "Camejo's campaign ·is raising the right wealth without getting rid of capitalism, of the entire reformist left today, from fit two years ago when Workers Vanguard questions and giving the right answers: i.e., as a way of pandering to liberal pro the Green-chasing ISO to the Third made a simple statement of fact: "To her end the occupation and tax the rich." Democratic Party illusions. But the only World cheerleaders of the RCP. credit, black Oakland Congresswoman As for the first, Camejo baldly stated, way to get rid of social inequality is to Barbara Lee, a protege of former liberal "We are for the U.N. inspectors. We want get rid of the capitalist production sys Fight for a Revolutionary Congressman Ron Dellums, registered to get all of the weapons of mass destruc tem, and what the ISO means when it Workers Party! the sole vote against the resolution giving tion out of Iraq" (www.votecamejo.org), denounces "corporate America" is rather Bush a blank check for war"-when the declaring his support for that den of the petty-bourgeois bugaboo of the mega Our critical support to the SWP candi Democratic Party as a whole was cheer imperialist thieves (and their victims), the corporation. Even if a "tax the rich" date was yet again underlined when ing on Bush's "war on terror." This was measure could get through the legislature we learned that the SWP had taken a denounced by the IG as "uncritical laud (an assembly of the rich!), highly taxed position of not voting-i.e., abstaining ing" of Barbara Lee, whose stance merely capital will simply flee to more profitable on the racist Proposition 54. Hiding reflected her black and working-class con CORRECTION investment environments. More likely, this capitulation to racist attacks behind stituency in Oakland. But in the California In "California: Vote Yes to Recall since they have state power, the capital radical-sounding rhetoric, Britton claimed elections, like the ISO, which also advo Davis!" (WV No. 810, 26 Septem ists will mobilize their cops, courts and that Prop. 54's bourgeois opponents pro cated an abstention on the recall, the IG is ber) we incorrectly implied that troops to wage war upon the working mote reliance on the capitalist state-a afraid to vote against the Democrats. Gray Davis set up the California class in an effort to drive back up the rates truly hollow protest from the organization Throughout the course of the Cali Anti-Terrorist Information Center of profit. , that called for the intervention of federal fornia recall election, the crucial point (CATIG) during the lockout of long Under capitalism the terms of exploita troops in the 1960s civil rights struggles! for us was how to use the heightened shore workers last fall. However, it tion are determined not by votes in the That the SWP has by no means changed political interest as an entry point for was set up before that. As we wrote legislature but by the class struggle. Lob its colors was reaffirmed by the Militant our revolutionary program. We insisted at the time that the sinister role of bying for a "fairer tax system" is one of (October 6), which confirmed its pro on no vote .to any capitalist party, and CATIC came to light, "CATIC was the standard ways that the labor bureauc found respect for the capitalist state by called for a vote to Britton as a state set up and is run not by the Bush racy diverts union members from militant claiming that the recent Supreme Court ment against capitalism and war. Every administration, but by the governor, class struggle. The labor bureaucrats decision on affirmative action showed other left group failed the test, either Gray Davis, and state attorney gen oppose and sabotage the class-struggle that the gains of the civil rights movement groveling outright before the Demo eral Bill Lockyer, both Democrats, methods that can win because they do not could not be overturned short of a "mas crats or taking their place a step or who made it a centerpiece of their want to challenge bourgeois law, order sive counterrevolutionary movement." No two or three removed. But we told the re-election campaigns last year" and property rights. The exercise of SWPer we have talked to can answer how truth: What's needed is the forging of ('''War on Terror' = War on Work labor's muscle through strikes, shutting they reconcile their position defending an internationalist workers party to fight ers," WV No. 805,6 June). down industry for even a few days, could affirmative action with their abstention on for the American socialist revolution. cost corporations and banks billions-that Prop. 54, which would have banned the Join us! • 24 OCTOBER 2003 11
UP?\U~)V\;l\V ~: ,;-~-,~ ~ WfJlIllEIiS "/1"'11' ISO Enthuses over Cap'italist Greens The California Recall
Republican action movie star Arnold working class and the oppressed. As we Schwarzenegger is now the governor explained in "California: Vote Yes to elect of California following the Octo Recall Davis! No Vote to Capitalist Par ber 7 vote that recalled Democrat Gray ties!" (WV No. 810, 26 September), we Davis from office by a margin of 55 to and the Left advocated a "yes" vote to recall Davis as 45 percent. This victory to a candidate a vote of working-class opposition to the who campaigned explicitly against "ille Bustamante in Davis' place. Despite these they portray as the "friend" of blacks and capitalist Democratic Party and a vote for gal" immigrants and trade unions as "spe massive efforts, many union members labor, the AFL"CIO tops seek to cement Socialist Workers Party candidate Joel cial interests" will be touted as giving stayed home; union households barely the political allegiance of labor to the Britton, the one candidate on the ballot Schwarzenegger the mandate for layoffs, backed Davis by 51 percent and split racist capitalist system. The fundamental whose campaign drew even a crude class budget cuts and union-busting that the almost evenly between Schwarzenegger task of revolutionaries in the United line against capitalism and war. (Britton despised Gray Davis lacked. and Bustamante. States is'to break the multiracial proletar got 655 votes in the election.) Our vote Davis and his party are no less The trade-union bureaucracy (who iat from the stranglehold of Democratic to Britton was from a perspective of crit an enemy of working people and the would sell their grandmothers for a lunch Party "lesser evilism" and to forge a rev ical support, not least because the SWP oppressed than are Schwarzenegger and invitation to the governor's mansion) olutionary workers party that will fight is virtually uncritical of the trade-union the Republicans, but you would never hobble the mobilization of workers power for a workers government to overturn the bureaucracy. While it calls for "a fight know it from the $10.8 million that the against the capitalist class enemy through capitalist profit system. ing working-class alternative to the twin AFL-CIO threw (unsuccessfully) into endless preaching that the "ballot box" is The Spartacist League viewed the parties of imperialist war and occupa beating the recall, or, failing that, elect workers' salvation. As a core component recall election as an opportunity to pre tion," these are empty words short of ing Democrat lieutenant governor Cruz of the capitalist Democratic Party, which sent our revolutionary program to the continued on page 10 Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
We reprint below a translation of an Action Party of President Vicente Fox] article printed under the Mujer y Revo congressional deputies, said that the kill lucion (Women and Revolution) mast ings happen because "the girls move headfrom Espartaco No. 21 (Fall-Winter around in certain places, hang out with a 2003), newspaper of the Grupo Esparta certain type of people." Jorge Lopez Mol quista de Mexico (GEM), section of the inar, former assistant attorney general of International Communist League. Chihuahua, said that the possible solu In the last decade and a half, some 500 tion would be the "self-application of a young women have disappeared in Ciu curfew." On September 27 a man found dad Juarez, Mexico; among these cases the body of a woman who had been stran 370 are registered homicides showing a gled with a purse belt; she was semi pattern of torture, mutilation, rape, burn naked with her pants and underwear ing and/or strangulation of, tbe victim. below her knees and her blouse above her Most were dark-skinned, thin, and had breasts. The body was that of 29 year-old long hair. Many worked in maquiladoras Erika Perez. The Chihuahua attorney gen [foreign-owned factories producing for eral, Jose Silva Solfs, declared that "she the export trade]. Several groups of vic- was not sexually attacked and died of an overdose"! Anyone who knows something about Mexico knows that male chauvinism 1~':7!J;l f!I{e] rules in this country of capitalist exploita tion and oppression. The church incul Mujer y Revolueion cates the subservient role of women; there is no democratic right of abortion; tims' relatives have organized to try to violence against women happens in six find the disappeared and not let them be out of every ten homes. Working-class forgotten. A recent report by Amnesty and peasant women are doubly oppressed, International, as well as several books as the slaves of slaves. that have been published, have detailed Victor Ronquillo, in his book Las negligence on the part of the government muertas de Juarez (1999) [The Dead and the police in investigating these Women of Juarez], describes the hatred crimes. After receiving acclaim in Europe against women and notes that the mur and parts of the Americas, the powerful ders represent a threat to every woman: documentary Senorita Extraviada [Young "The way in which the bodies are aban Woman Missing], produced by Lourdes doned, the traces of torture, the vestiges of a personal rite: the right breast cut off Portillo in 2001, was finally shown on and the left nipple bitten off. Fire immo Mexican television in September. AP lates'the victim. All this reveals a mes Ciudad Juarez, a border city in the state Mexico City, November 2002: Protesters demand investigation into murder sage whose designated recipients are the of Chihuahua, is known for these brutal and disappearance of over 300 women in Ciudad Juarez (above). Crosses next victims." anti-woman crimes, but unfortunately mark location where corpses of eight young women were found in 2001. , The Border Zone: what is happening there is not unique. Articles in different local papers in the reported that "the homicides of young There has been a series of statements Imperialist Superexploitation maquiladora zone in the north of the poor women, with traces of rape, are about the dead women of Juarez which In 1960 Ciudad Juarez was a small country and even in cities like Mon mounting in Argentina, southern Spain blame the young women for what hap town of 250,000 inhabitants on the border terrey testify to several cases similar and Guatemala. Impunity is the norm pened to them! Francisco Barrio, former with the U.S. Today, it,has a population to those which continue to be reported and official responses range from ineffi governor of Chihuahua and current coor of over 1.2 million people, attracted by in Juarez. On September 15 La Jornada ciency to hints of complicity." dinator of the PAN's [governing National continued on page 8
12 24 OCTOBER 2003