AUSTRALIA $1.50 · CANADA $1.50 · FRANCE 1.00 EURO · NEW ZEALAND $1.50 · UK £.50 · U.S. $1.00 INSIDE Youth, workers from 23 countries join May Day brigade to Cuba — PAGE 9 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE Vol. 81/no. 14 April 10, 2017 US gov’t SWP: Help us Socialist Workers Party: escalates win ‘Militant’ ‘Universal health care!’ threats on readers, raise N. Korea contributions! by seTH GALInsky BY MARY MARTIN Washington has escalated its threats Socialist Workers Party members against North Korea at the same time and supporters are launching a seven- as U.S. forces are engaged in provoc- week campaign to take the party to ative Operation Foal Eagle military workers on their doorsteps, at strikes exercises in the area with thousands and other labor fights, and to protest of South Korean troops. These moves actions demanding amnesty for un- pose the danger of military clashes documented workers, against cop on the Korean Peninsula and in the brutality, in defense of women’s right region. to choose abortion and other issues of “Let me be very clear: the policy concern for working people. of strategic patience has ended,” Sec- A key part of this effort will be to retary of State Rex Tillerson told re- expand the readership of the Mili- porters March 17 on a visit to Seoul, tant, winning 1,100 new subscribers, a not-so-veiled threat of U.S. military coupled with getting out the same Sunnyside Seventh-day Adventist Church action. “All options are on the table.” number of three Pathfinder books. At Hundreds attend free health clinic, above, in Portland, Oregon, August 2016. Both Obamacare and Trump plan enrich insurance companies while health care for working people deteriorates. Washington demands the Demo- the same time, the party is organiz- cratic People’s Republic of Korea get ing a Militant Fighting Fund to raise Medicaid support, Republican Join fight for government rid of its nuclear weapons and cease $112,000 to support the paper. The splits sink ‘Trumpcare’ plan funded health care for all! all efforts to build intercontinental campaigns will run from April 1 to missiles that could threaten the U.S. May 23. by BRIAN WILLIAms The following statement by Osborne Tillerson cynically added, “North The three books that are part of Amid seemingly unbreachable di- Hart, Socialist Workers Party can- Korea has nothing to fear from the the drive are: Are They Rich Because visions from both the conservative didate for New York mayor was re- United States.” But the U.S. has some They’re Smart?; The Clintons’ Anti- and moderate wings within the Re- leased March 29. 28,000 troops stationed permanently Working-Class Record: Why Wash- publican Party majority in the House Continued on page 6 Continued on page 3 of Representatives, President Donald Millions throughout the United Trump’s plan to repeal the Afford- States — unemployed or working, able Care Act, commonly known as NY meeting: ‘End US embargo Obamacare, was pulled from con- SOCIALIST WORKERS sideration right before the scheduled vote March 24. PARTY STATEMENT of Cuba! Get out of Guantánamo!’ The Trump administration’s bill, like Obamacare, is not based on pro- U.S.-born and immigrants — are feel- viding health care for all who need it, ing the carnage of the slow-burning but pressuring more people to pur- capitalist economic crisis. chase health insurance, with rising Millions who want to work can’t Continued on page 4 Continued on page 11 US wars in Syria, Iraq take deadly toll on working people by JIM BRADLey dren were burned to death in Mosul Washington’s airpower, artillery when several buildings in the Jadida and troops, working with the Syrian district collapsed after being hit by Democratic Forces, made up of the U.S. airstrikes March 17. At least 33 Kurdish People’s Protection Units Continued on page 11 (YPG) and their Syrian Arab allies, are closing in on Raqqa, which has served as the capital for the reaction- ary Islamic State since 2013. YPG Inside leaders say this coalition of forces Kentucky workers defeat Militant/Paul Mailhot will lay siege to the city in early April. attack on desegregation 2 “Solidarity with Cuba is very important at this moment,” Sandra Ramírez, above, from Cuban At the same time, U.S. military Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, told over 200 people at March 25 Harlem rally. forces alongside Iraqi army troops ‘Militant’ fights prison BY SARA LOBMAN tánamo, and still has policies aimed at have pushed deeply into Mosul, the censorship in Illinois 4 NEW YORK — “Solidarity with ‘regime change’ in Cuba. last major city occupied by IS in Iraq. Cuba is very important at this mo- “We will never renounce the con- Washington is promoting these of- Attacks on political events ment,” said Sandra Ramírez, director struction of a socialist Cuba,” Ramírez fensives to increase its military and are blow to workers’ rights 7 of the North American division of the concluded to applause. political weight in the region against Cuban Institute for Friendship with The ICAP leader was speaking to the competing capitalist powers of –On the picket line, p. 5– the Peoples (ICAP). more than 200 people from New York Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and An- Idaho miners strike against kara. Their war moves have had a “Cuba and the United States have and across the U.S. and Canada at a union busting, for safety established diplomatic relations,” she public meeting at the Malcolm X and deadly toll on the civilian population, said. “But the U.S. government still Dr. Betty Shabazz center in Harlem. with hundreds killed and many more Steelworkers at Quebec refinery maintains a blockade against our The March 25 event was part of a two- injured over the past weeks. strike over pension cuts country, still illegally occupies Guan- Continued on page 8 Over 150 men, women and chil- Ky. workers defeat state Pa. protest: ‘I won’t let you disappear my neighbors!’ attack on desegregation BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN Representative Kevin Bratcher, at a AND GALE SHANGOLD meeting Feb. 26 in Fern Creek, Jeffer- Over four decades after civil rights son County, whose participants were battles in the streets won court-ordered majority Caucasian. “It is unacceptable busing to desegregate schools to combat for Black students living in segregated grossly inferior education for Blacks, neighborhoods. They will not have ac- working people in Louisville, Kentucky, cess to the equal opportunities that fam- forced the defeat of moves in the state ilies where I live … have.” legislature to end the county’s busing After the bill failed, Sen. Dan Seum program. pledged he would push another neigh- Facing broad opposition to the assault borhood schools law next year. He’ll in Louisville, proponents of “neighbor- face the opposition of the majority of hood schools” — code words for segre- working people in Jefferson County. In gation — failed to meet the deadline to 2012 half the candidates running for the bring their bill up for a vote in the state county school board ran on a platform senate. Similar bills failed in 2011 and of getting rid of busing. All of them lost. 2012. “I was for busing in the ’70s and I still Militant/Ruth Robinett The fight for desegregation in Louis- am,” Karl Wisman, a retired pipefitter READING, Pa. — Carrying signs saying “I will not let you disappear my ville has gone on since the 1970s, when from Louisville, told the Militant in a neighbors,” “No 287g,” and “If you come for immigrants I will stand in your supporters of Black rights seeking to March 14 phone interview. “Busing had way!” some 250 supporters of immigrant rights demonstrated here March 18, at the Berks County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Eric Weaknecht says he wants to dismantle Jim Crow segregation won a a positive effect on Kentucky, helping assign his force to collaborate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce- court order for busing. A similar battle to change attitudes and relations among ment to help catch and detain undocumented workers. ICE’s 287(g) program was fought out in the “Battle of Boston,” whites and Blacks. In the workplace and authorizes extending the agency’s powers to local cops. This would be the first where defiance of court-ordered busing the unions, it was the fight for affirma- time the program would be implemented in Pennsylvania. organized out of City Hall was met with tive action.” The protest was sponsored by Make the Road Pennsylvania. “What the sher- mass, national street mobilizations. Vol- “When I first started on the job in iff is proposing could terrorize thousands and thousands of residents of Berks unteers rode the buses to defend Black 1979, there were few Blacks, and a lot of County,” Adanjesus Marin, Make the Road’s director, told protesters. children from attack. racism evident,” he added. — JANET POST This year’s debate in Louisville was Before busing, Louisville schools marked by support for 42 years of school were more than 90 percent Black, and desegregation and how the fight for it schools in the county approximately bor movement joined the fight against U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in 2007 helped change social relations in the 95 percent Caucasian. Until the 1960s, the order. The governor — himself an that Louisville’s efforts to desegregate area, advance the rights of Blacks and Blacks attended one public high school, opponent of desegregation — felt com- the schools violated the Constitution be- transform the working class, making it Central High, and one private school, pelled to order the National Guard out cause it used race as a factor.