Workers Vanguard No 768 - 09 November 2001

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 768 - 09 November 2001

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WfJRNERS ""(}"RIJ oC!:No. 768 ~ X . 5 2 3 9 November 2001

"Anti-Terror" I.aw Targets I.abor, MinoritiesNo to Bosses' "National Unity"!For Class Struggle at Home!

NOVEMBER 6-The weeks of relentless pounding of Afghanistan by thousands of bombs and missiles have produced the intended result. Villages havebeen reduced to rubble and then reducedto an even finer rubble, with hospitalsdestroyed, Red Cross facilities obliterated, entire families blown to smithereens. "Humanitarian aid," i.e., peanutbutter, is dropped wrapped in yellow,the color of cluster bombs, the only purpose of the latter being to randomlymaim and slaughter. With the Talibanvirtually unscathed, the seemingly aimless character of the war has sowed dissension in the ranks of imperialist America's bloc partners, primarily those inthe Arab/Muslim world and in Europe.These are disturbed by any number of"what ifs." What if the war destabilizesPakistan, putting its nuclear capability upfor grabs? What if it triggers a furtherwar between India and Pakistan, plunging the region into chaos? What if accessto oil is disrupted? What if these powersare inexorably drawn from their currentstatus as cheerleaders into a shooting warin which they have no direct interest?The destruction of the World TradeCenter was a criminal act that incineratedthousands of ordinary, innocent people.But it is not the death of ordinary peoplethat moves America's rulers. After all, binLaden is a Frankenstein's monster thatturned on his creator, American imperialism, which unleashed him and other.Islamic reactionaries, like the Taliban,against the Red Army in Afghanistan inthe 1980s as part of its decades-long driveto smash the Soviet Union. In its crusadeagainst "godless Communism," Washington readily accepted the re-enslavementof Afghan women as "collateral damage."A few years ago, Madeleine Albright alsomade clear that the death by starvationand disease of ..

".

WV PhotoSL/SYC contingent in October 20 antiwar protest in San Francisco.

Defend Afghanistan Against Imperialist Attack!ican imperialism. This is the response ofa swaggering bully. America's rulersseek to assure that their drive for profits,based on the exploitation of the workingclass here and abroad, will encounter noobstacles.The jobs that are, in. the short run,sometimes available as a result of imperialist ventures and wars are today, in thecontext of a worldwide depression, notto be found. While many workers fromaround the country have poured into NewYork City to donate their time and laborin the aftermath of the WTC disaster, thepowers that be are satisfied to allow thesmall businessmen closed down by thedevastation to go under. Over 600,000jobs have been slashed nationwide justsince September, and those unemployedwill join the ranks of millions of others inthe midst of a deepening recession.Postal workers are ordered to work, thethreat of anthrax notwithstanding, ~ h i l e the Senators, Congressmen and SupremeCourt justices are carefully insulatedfrom any possible exposure. On Friday,firemen in New York City fought throughpolice barricades to protest against beingpulled off the search for the bodies oftheir own as well as other victims of theattack. One fireman hit the nail right onthe head when he pointed out that thedead were being left as garbage for thepower shovels now that the gold cachesstored in the subbasement of the WTChad been found and secured.It has only been a few weeks since theair war against Afghanistan began, and it

is becoming increasingly clear to manypoor and working people that they haveeverything to lose by supporting Bush'scrusade for "Enduring Freedom," including such scant freedoms as are nowaccessible to them. As we said in our initial statement on the World Trade Centerattack (WVNo. 764, 14 September): "Theruling parties-Democrats and Republicans-are all too eager to be able to wieldthe bodies of those who were killed andwounded in order to reinforce capitalistclass rule. It's an opportunity for theexploiters to peddle 'one nation indivisible' patriotism to try to direct the burgeoning anger at the bottom of this society away from themselves and toward anindefinable foreign 'enemy,' as well asimmigrants in the U.S., and to reinforcetheir arsenal of domestic state repressionagainst all the working people."Over 1,100 non-citizens have beenrounded up and held, most deprivedof access to lawyers or their families.The cynically labeled "USA-Patriot Act2001" authorizes preventive detention ofnon-citizens for seven days withoutcharges and effectively indefinitely oncethey are charged, legalizes FBI break-insand authorizes the CIA to engage indomestic spying. It also defines "terrorist" to include anyone who is deemed anopponent of the government. The sinisternature of this is already apparent tomany black Americans. Reflecting suchapprehensions, Chicago-area Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. pointed out: 'Theterrorists didn't attack the Statue of

Liberty, the Constitution or the Bill ofRights or the Declaration of Independence. They attacked the symbols of oureconomic and military power in theworld. It's. he supporters of this bill whoare really attacking American libertiesthat are contained in our most sacred historical documents."The federal "anti-terror" law is accompanied by a series of other proposedmeasures targeting port and maritimeworkers, airline workers and others forincreased surveillance and victimization.Lest workers forget that labor militancyis not a right in the eyes of our bourgeoisrulers, South Carolina's attorney generalrecently issued a chilling reminder.Referring to the Charleston Five, longshoremen who face prison terms fordefending their union against the use ofscab labor, he intoned, ''I'm against forcing people to join unions in order to geta job. And so this whole idea of endsjustifying the means, as we know theseterrorists that killed so many people,that's exactly their argument."The "terror" that concerns the U.S.imperialists is any resistance to their prerogatives and class rule. The defense ofAfghanistan against imperialist attack isintegrally linked to the defense of theworking masses here against increasingexploitation and oppression, which requires the overturn of the imperialistorder through workers revolution. Thetask is to educate and mobilize the proletariat to that end. And that requirescontinued on page 9


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Par t i au De f eue o . . . . . t t e eCLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES

8ulld PDC Holldllyllpp'lIl101 Cltlll--WtlI PI/IOllell!"The class-conscious worker accords tothe class-war prisoners a place of singular honor and esteem. The class-war prisoners are stronger than all the jails andjailers and judges. They rise triumphantover all their enemies and oppressors.Confined in prison, covered with ignominy, branded as criminals, they are notdefeated. They are destined to triumph.They are the representatives of an ideathat will crack the walls of every prisonand crumble them into dust."There is a way of saying that the classwar prisoners are victorious, whichsmacks of superficial optimism andwhich offers little consolation to menwho spend long, almost forgotten yearsbehind the gray walls of the jail. We donot mean to speak in this sense, asthough it were an automatic process. The

victory of the class-war prisoners is possible only when they are inseparablyunited with' the living labor movementand when that movement claims themfor its own, takes up their battle cry andcarries on their work."-James P. Cannon, "The CauseThat Passes Through a Prison"(September 1926), reprinted inNotebook ofan Agitator(Pathfinder Press 1958)

tisan Defense Committee is holding its16th annual Holiday Appeal for ClassWar Prisoners. The fight for these class-'war prisoners is all the more urgent asthe U.S. capitalist rulers have seized onthe horrific and criminal World TradeCenter attack to rain bombs on the desperately impoverished peoples of backward Afghanistan, while gearing up theapparatus of state repression againstworkers, immigrants and the oppressedat home. As masses of workers are laidoff, over 1,200 immigrants detained, thenew "anti-terror" law ratchets up thegovernment's power to spy on the population, jail activists and trade-union militants and indiscriminately round up noncitizens. All this underscores the linkbetween opposition to U.S. imperialistmilitary adventures abroad and defenseof the interests of workers and theoppressed in the U.S.

It is in the spirit of class solidarityevoked by James P. Cannon that the Par-

In 1986, the PDC revived a traditionof the International Labor Defense (ILD)and its founder and early leader James P.Cannon of sending monthly stipends toclass-war prisoners as an expression of

Proletarian Internationalism vs.Social-PatriotismAs proletarian internationalists, we call

for military defense of backward Afghanistan against the savage attack by America's imperialist rulers. In opposition to the"national unity" promoted by the bosses'labor iieutenants in the AFL-CIO bureaucracy, our task is to mobilize the u.s. proletariat in struggle for its class inter-TROTSKY ests against the capitalist exploiters. Writing LENINas the second interimperialist world warloomed on the horizon, revolutionary Marxist Leon Trotsky stressed that the workingclass must be won to the program of revolutionary internationalism if it is to sweepaway the capitalist system that breeds war and privation.

The exposure of the thoroughly reactionary, putrified and robber nature of moderncapitalism, the destruction of democracy, reformism and pacifism, the urgent and burning need of the proletariat to find a safe path away from imminent disaster put the international revolution on the agenda with renewed force. Only the overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the insurgent proletariat can save humanity from a new, devastating slaughterof the peoples ...

A "socialist" who preaches national defense is a petty-bourgeois reactionary at theservice of decaying capitalism. Not to bind itself to the national state in time of war, tofollow not the war map but the map of the class struggle, is possible only for that partythat has already declared irreconcilable war on the national state in time of peace. Onlyby realizing fully the objectively reactionary role of the imperialist state can the proletarian vanguard become invulnerable to all types of social patriotism. This means thata real break with the ideology and policy of "national defense" is possible only fromthe standpoint of the international proletarian revolution.

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-Leon Trotsky, "War and the Fourth International" (June 1934)

EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna WoodmanPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Irene GardnerEDITORIAL BOARD: Karen Cole (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour,Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and wrth a 3-week interval in December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 7327862 (Editorial), (212) 7327861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO. New York, NY 10116. Email address: [email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices.POSTMASTER: Send address 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.The clOSing date for news in this issue is 6 November.

No. 768 9 November 2001

solidarity. The Holiday Appeal campaignhelps to sustain the PDC's monthly stipend program for 16 class-war prisonersand provides extra funds for holidaygifts for them and their families. This isnot an act of charity, but rather the dutyof fighters against injustice to thoseinside prison walls as we struggle fortheir freedom.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, In a sworn statement filed last May in federal court,Mumia Abu-Jamal reaffirmed once againthat he is an innocent man. A prizewinning journalist, former Black PantherParty spokesman in his youth, supporterof the MOVE organization and defiantopponent of racist state terror, in 1982 hewas railroaded to death row at the handsof Philadelphia's notorious cop and courtframe-up machine on demonstrably falsecharges of killing a Philly cop.In a recently published PDC plmlphletentitled Mumia Abu-Jamal Is an Innocent Man! we reprint the sworn confession of the man who actually did killpoliceman Daniel Faulkner, Arnold Beverly. Beverly's account is affirmed inaccompanying declarations by Jamal andhis brother William Cook, who was atthe scene of the shooting.The pamphlet features the affidavit ofPDC counsel Rachel Wolkenstein, whowas a member of Jamal's defense teamfrom 1995 to 1999. It compellingly marshals the evidence of his innocence andpowerfully documents the struggle wagedagainst Mumia's former attorneys, whoworked overtime to ensure that this exculpatory evidence was never introduced incourt.December marks 20 years of Mumia'simprisonment. The PDC calls on workingpeople, minorities, youth and all opponents of racist capitalist oppressionto raise the cry: Freedom Now forMumia Abu-Jamal! Abolish the RacistDeath Penalty!

Jerry Dale Lowe, United Mine Workers member framed up on federal chargesin the July 1993 shooting death of a scabcontractor in Logan County, West Virginia. The scab was part of a convoy leaving the mine, shot in the back of the headfrom the direction of the bosses' thugs.Lowe was singled out by authoritiesbecause he was a militant defender of thepicket line. For the "crime" of defendinghis union, Lowe was sentenced to nearlyeleven years in jail in Ashland, Kentuckywith no possibility of parole. Last March,his appeal based on new ballistics evidence was turned down in federal court.

Ed Poindexter and WopashitweMondo Eyen we Langa, former BlackPanther supporters and leaders of theOmaha Nebraska Committee to CombatFascism. Victims of racist FBI COINTELPRO operation, framed up for anexplosion in 1970 which killed a cop.Both were convicted on the basis of perjured testimony, sentenced to life and. have now spent more than 30 years apiecein jail. Nebraska Board of Pardonsrefuses to lessen sentences so that theycan be considered for parole. PoindexterIS at Lino Lake, MN and Mondo is atLincoln, NE.

Jaan Laaman and Ray Luc Levasseur were arrested in 1984 and '85 as partof the Ohio 7. They are radical activistswith a shared history of opposition to

Jennifer BeachMumia Abu-Jamalracism and imperialism. Sentenced to 45years to life under RICO conspiracy lawson allegations of bank expropriations andbombings targeting symbols of U.S. imperialism in the late '70s and '80s. JaanLaaman has been transferred to SouthWalpole, MA. Ray Luc Levasseur is inAtlanta, GA.Hugo Pinell, the last of the San Quentin 6 still in prison. Militant anti-racist,leader of prison rights organizing alongwith George Jackson, who was murderedby prison guards in 1971. In prison forover 37 years. Currently serving a lifesentence at the notorious Pelican BaySecurity Housing Unit in California.Eight MOVE members, Chuck Africa,Michael Davis Africa, Debbie SimsAfrica, Janet Holloway Africa, JaninePhillips Africa, Edward GoodmanAfrica, Delbert Orr Africa and WilliamPhillips Africa, are in their 24th year inprison. They were sentenced to 30-100years after the 1978 police attack on theirPhiladelphia home, falsely convicted ofkilling a police officer. Last year, thePCRA petition to overturn their frameups was denied. '

Jamal Hart, Mumia's son, was sentenced in 1998 to 15V2 years on bogusfirearm possession charges, targetedfor his prominent activism in the campaign to free his father. Although Hartwas initially charged under Pennsylvania laws, which would have meant a probationary sentence, Clinton's JusticeDepartment intervened to have Hartthrown in prison. He is not eligible forparole. Hart is at Fairton, New Jersey.

WV PhotoJerry Dale Lowe

Contribute Now! All proceeds fromthe Holiday Appeal will go to the ClassWar Prisoners Stipend Fund. Send yourcontributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99,Canal St. Station, New York, NY 10013;(212) 406-4252.The PDC is a class-struggle, nonsectarian legal and social defense organization that champions cases and causes inthe interests of the whole of the workingpeople. This purpose is in accordancewith the political views of the SpartacistLeague.

~ 8 e l l e l l t fOI CIIISS-WIII P,i'olle,s=: ..,....,..,.,Organize for Jamal's FreedomFriday, November 306 to 9 p.m.

AFSCME District Council 170775 Varick St. (at Canal), 14th IIFor more information:(212) 406-4252

P.O. Box 99, Canal St. Sta.New York, NY 10013

Sunday, December 93 to 7 p.m.United Electrical Hall

37 S. Ashland (at Monroe)For more information:(312) 563-0442

P.O, Box 802867Chicago, IL 60680

Sunday, December 21 to 4 p.m.Centro del Pueblo

474 Valencia, San FranciscoFor more information:(510) 839-0852

P.O. Box 77462San Francisco, CA 94107SPONSOR: PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE

WORKERS VANGUARD


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Letters.from ... a n ' . ' . A i d l n i i ~ ; V l o r ~ e r ; < ! . ' Airline., Bosses;Get BUli,oos"Workers Get, . layoffs .17 October 200 ITo the editor:

As a reader of your newspaper, Iwanted to add some of my own observa-tions about what's happening to airlineworkers in the wake of the September 11attack on the World Trade Center. Theairline bosses seized on the opportunitythe tragedy afforded to expedite therestructuring of their companies so as tobust the unions and increase the rate ofexploitation of the workforce. ExceptingSouthwest and Continental, the domesticcarriers were projected before SeptemberII to lose almost $2 billion combinedthis year, which management largelyattributed to risi!1g labor costs. After thehijackings, that projection more thandoubled.All the companies but Southwest inrapid succession announced furloughs of10-25 perc ent of the workforce, totallingmore than 100,000, both to reduce the

Dear Editor:31 October 2001Oakland, CA

With its usual combination of callousindifference toward the lives and health ofpostal workers and a truly maniacal drivefor speedup and productivity, the U.S.Postal Service has let an unknown number of postal workers become infectedwith anthrax. Anything to keep the mailmoving (a sentiment that National Association of Letter Carriers president VinceSombrotto was quick to endorse). As WVnotes, this does indeed underscore theabsolute indifference of the bosses to thelives of working people.

I would make a couple of additionalpoints: 1) as you can see from the newspaper photos, a high percentage of Washington, D.C. (and New York City) postalworkers are black-making them doublyexpendable in the eyes of the bourgeoisieand 2) unlike Congress which could bedisbanded for a long time without muchloss, postal workers actually do socially9 NOVEMBER 2001

payroll and motivate' heir bailout beforeCongress. This week, Continental, whichled the campaign for federal loan guarantees, announced it is content with thecash handout (and furlough of 12,000employees) and is unlikely to require theloans and the accompanying financialencumbrances in order to turn a profit bynext spring. The prospects for other companies are improved, too. Midway Airlines, which closed its doors on September 12, now expects to again fly by lateOctober, with any members of its oldworkforce who do return to do so at lossof seniority.Meanwhile, the "Airline Labor DisputeResolution Act," introduced in the Senateby John McCain on behalf of the industrybosses, seeks to eliminate the right of airline workers to strike and vote on theircontracts by forcing all disputes into"baseball arbitration," in which a federalarbiter would select and make binding the

As NationalGuard troopspatrol airports,airline workersare subjectedto increasedharassment,surveillance.

useful work which the bourgeoisie hastrouble doing without.At the medium-sized post office whereI work, carriers are not so much fearful asangry and bitter. One of my co-workersbrought to my attention a column by theNew York Times' Maureen Dowd, entitled"Postal Workers Left in the Dark." Thisarticle refers to the fact that CapitolPolice dogs got tested for anthrax beforepostal workers did. Many people thoughtthat about captured where, in the hierarchy of things, the postal workers fall:somewhere below German shepherds,especially if those German shepherdswork for the cops.Another co-worker who is about myage and a Vietnam vet (white) said itreminded him of the Vietnam War, wherethe brass were always throwing aroundthe term "acceptable loss." A couple ofdead postal workers (now on the "frontlines") is just "acceptable loss" to thePostmaster General. Everyone noted thestrikingly different response when it wasCongressmen who faced the possibility

comprehensive contract ofone side. A black American Airlines ramp workerwho's in the TransportWorkers Union told me:"The problem is that thereis no 'league minimum'with this company." TheInternational Association of Machinistsand TWU are the most vocal unions inopposition, though the strategy is to lobbyCongress. The lAM bureaucracy set theservile tone of the union chiefs shortlyafter the terror attack by announcing to itsmembership, "Labor, management andthe federal government must worktogether."I was told that Continental furloughedclose to 3,000 employees at Newark.A mixture of resignation and anxietymarked the days leading up to "FurloughDay." One Continental ramp worker likened the flow of long, solemn faces inthe Terminal Operations hallway to "afuneral procession." Throughout the airline industry, co-workers sought out eachother, not infrequently across craft lines,to exchange phone numbers, job leadsand relive shared memories. Those withthe seniority to survive what was widelyviewed as the first round of furloughs did.not escape the sting of cutbacks. There isa freeze on overtime, upon which manydepended to maintain a decent standardof living, and hundreds were downgraded to part-time status, impellingscores of the still-employed to search foradditional jobs.Individual expressions of protest wereevident. The day the New York Times,September 21, ran an article on Continental and the shady financial maneuveringof its CEO, Gordon Bethune, a copy wasposted in the Newark Inflight Ops hallway (flight attendants) with the new

of, contrac ting anthrax. Af ter anthraxspores were found on the machines inNew York. City'S Morgan Station andworkers were told to stay on the job, sev-

headline: "Furlough Gordon!" Quicklyremoved, presumably by management, itwas re-posted the next day. When it wasremoved for a second time, I'm told itwas replaced by a sign warning against"unapproved postings." Though the articlemerely covered the mundane workings ofa typical capitalist enterprise, it gave thelie to internal company propaganda of"Working Together"-Gordon placed thecompany on shaky financial ground, risking the jobs of the workforce, to protecthis own job and maximize his personalwealth. Continental workers at Newarktold me that all facilities mechanics survived "Furlough Day," but for eleven newhires it was a short reprieve. In a movethat caught the shop off guard, management activated a clause in the contractwith the Teamsters that allows it to terminate probationary employees, and theunion tops assented. Notification wasconveniently timed to coincide with a"diversity" training workshop (the principle message of which was to rat out yourco-workers to management) to which theshop was herded, preventing any fraternization with the just terminated mechanics. Two days later, three of thosemechanics were back on the job-in theemploy of a non-union contracting company-doing the same work for less pay.For the shift bid at the end of themonth, management has broken its agreement with the union and changed thehours of the shifts so it can grind more

continued on page J I

eral workers in my post office expressedthe hope that New York postal workerswould walk out, rather than wait for theunion bureaucracy to file a lawsuit( !).One worker here told me that the dayafter the two Washington postal workersdied, management didn't have the guts tocome out on the shop floor. (These guysare always holding meetings to pushspeedup and threaten discipline.) Instead,they spoke over the loudspeaker, nevermentioning the deaths, but assuring workers that everything was under controland that there were gloves and masks ifworkers wanted them. Our local union

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We print the following letter in theform that we received it bye-mail.

20 October 2001To the EditorIn the 12 October issue of WorkersVanguard it is alleged that IBT comradesin Toronto have been pressing Trotskyism [sic] League youth "to agree that allthose killed in the attack on the Pentagon'deserved to die.'" This is absolutelyuntrue. We categorically deny makingsuch a statement at any time in Torontoor anywhere else. We are flatly opposedto such views as our 18 September statement makes clear.On 28 September I had a conversationwith young TLer in front of the buildingat the University of Toronto where TariqAli was speaking. During this discussionthe question of the omission of the Pentagon bombing from your initial statementcame up, along with the question of Lebanon 1983 and other issues. On 19 October, after reading your erroneous account,I met this same comrade at a public meeting on "globalization" at the University ofToronto and asked him if he had been thesource of this misinformation. He agreedthat I had made no such statement, nordid he know of any other IBT comrade making such a statement. He furthermore denied being the source of the falseattribution.In a subsequent discussion with Comrade Charles I pointed out that in the present political climate the consequencesof such falsehoods could potentially beextremely serious. I told him that I wasraising this with him, as a leading member of the TL, on behalf of the IBT. Heindicated that he was not the source of thequotation. He also advised me that Workers Vanguard has a policy of correcting"factual errors" and suggested that I writeto you on this matter.We look forward to an appropriatecorrection in the 26 October issue ofWorkers Vanguard.

Bolshevik Greetings,Tom RileyWV replies: The statement in our article"On the Pentagon Attack" (WV No. 766,12 October) that International BolshevikTendency (IBT) members argued that "allthose killed in the attack on the Pentagon'deserved to die'" was a distortion of areport from our Canadian comrades,which we retract. What the IBT wrote inits 18 September statement is: "Unlikethe personnel in the Pentagon, the command center of the U.S. military, thethousands of victims trapped in the WorldTrade Center's twin towers and the hundreds of passengers and crew on board

WORNERS ~ " N ( ; I J " ~ ' ':Rape of Grenada

Front page of wv (No. 341, ':1 November 1983) as Reagan ordered invasion of Grenada after bloody fiascoin Lebanon.4

tbe four hijacked airliners were civilianswhose deaths we mourn."The IBT has since posted a 21 October"Reply to Workers Vanguard" on its Website claiming that our statement that "theIBT amnesties the 'war is not the answer'reformists in the U.S." is also "a malicious invention without any basis in fact."On the contrary, our characterization isabsolutely true. Neither in its 18 September statement nor in the 21 Octobercyberspace reply to us (which, to ourknowledge, are the only pieces of propaganda the IBT has produced since September 11) does the IBT mention, letalone criticize, the social-patriotism ofthe reformist left, whose various "antiwar" coalitions are based on bleatingappeals to the imperialist ruling class forpeace. Instead, the IBT aims virtually allits polemical fire at the Spartac ist League,claiming we are social-patriotic because

ism, the main enemy of the working peo-.pie and oppressed of the world. Thatrecognition does not translate this attackinto an 'anti-imperialist' act, nor do wethink the planeload of innocent passen-gers which was used as the massive bomb'deserved to die' (or the janitors andsecretaries who were employed at thePentagon)."

In 1983, when we raised the evocativeslogan, "Marines out of Lebanon, now,alive!" to intersect widespread outrageamong the American population againstthe Reagan administration, the IBT (thencalled the External Tendency-ET) denounced us as social-patriotic and countered with the call, "Marines: live likepigs, die like pigs!" We wrote in "Marxism and Bloodthirstiness" (WV No. 345,6 January 1984):"From a safe distance, the petty-bourgeois radicals embrace the 'good' peo-ples (if necessary first inventing them, asin Lebanon today) and for the 'bad,'

Lettersin Afghanistan" ("The 'External Tendency': From Cream Puffs to Food Poisoning," WV No. 349, 2 March 1984).Four years later, they finally owned up totheir real position, declaring: "Trotskyists never hail Stalinist traitors or theirstate.... The slogan 'Hail Red Army' isnot a Trotskyist slogan, because what ittells workers is to trust the Stalinists, putyour faith in the Stalinists, hail the Stalinists" (see "BT Says Don't Hail RedArmy in Afghanistan," WV No. 449, 25March 1988). This retrospective repudiation came even as Soviet troops werebeing withdrawn, so the IBT's sole purpose was to clean up its history toremove any taint of "Spartacism."

Here was a quintessential expression ofsocial-patriotism, on what was a definingquestion of opposition to the imperialistrulers. In the biggest covert CIA operation in history, the U.S. funneled billionsof dollars to the Islamic "holy warriors"in Afghanistan, with the aim of using theAfghan conflict as a launching pad for thedestruction of the Soviet Union. Albeitadministered by a nationalist Stalinistbureaucracy, the Soviet Union was a

......... .. 1 I I I = = . ~ . F ... C ~ ~ ..-..-.":::: ~ ; ~ ~ : ' : : . : : . :

Lochon/GammaSoviet forces land at Kabul airport, December 1979. Trotskyists hailed Red Army intervention against CIA-baCked,anti-woman Islamic reactionaries. Those who went on to form IBT couldn't stomach our hard Soviet-defensist line.we refused to hail as an "anti-imperialistact" a truck-bomb attack on a U.S.Marine barracks in Lebanon by unknownforces 18 years ago.We opposed the presence of U.S.(and United Nations) troops in Lebanonfrom the outset, lllllike sundry ThirdWorld nationalists and fake leftists whosold the lie that the imperialists wouldbe "peacekeepers" in the multi-sidedreligious/ethnic civil war then wrackingthat country. We also made clear that"from the standpoint of the struggle of theinternational proletariat, the Marine HQin Beirut was an appropriate target"(Young Spartacus No. 114, December1983/January 1984). However, this didnot make its destruction an act of "antiimperialism." In fact, no side in the Lebanese civil war was fighting imperialism.Those whose cause was clearest-thePalestine Liberation Organization-hadrequested imperialist intervention in thefirst place. And to this day it is still notclear who blew up the Marine barracks.Marxists recognize that victoriousstruggle by the proletariat against theimperialist rulers-and the massive arsenal of violence in the hands of the capitalist state-requires the maximumassembling of effective force to deter anddemoralize the forces of reaction. But theuse of terrorism as a strategy by individ-. uals or small groups-even against a military target-is counterposed to mobilizing the proletariat in class struggleagainst the imperialist rulers. At the sametime, Marxists draw a distinction betweenattacks on institutions like the Pentagonand'random terror against innocent civilians, as in the case of the World TradeCenter, even if the perpetrators of theSeptember II attacks (whoever theywere) might not have drawn any such distinction. As we wrote in "On the Pentagon Attack":"The Pentagon is the command and ad-ministrative center of the U.S. imperialistmilitary, and rather quintessentially repre-sents the military might of U.S, imperial-

well, the only good one is a dead one.Reactionary in itself, such an attitudecompletely divorced as it is from Marxistclass analysis-necessarily gives way toanti-communist public opinion. Thus wesee many of yesterday's 'radicals' joining up ideologically with U.S. imperialism over the plight of 'poor littleAfghanistan' and the crushing of coun-terrevolutionary Polish Solidarnosc."This aptly captured the politics animating the ET/IBT, which was founded bypeople who quit our organization in theearly 1980s when they caught the firstwhiff of the heightened reaction and

repression of Cold War II. The renewedimperialist offensive against the SovietUnion was launched after Red Armytroops moved into Afghanistan in December 1979 to aid a pro-Moscow, leftnationalist regime besieged by a CIAbacked Islamic insurgency. Noting thatwhat was posed was not only defense ofthe Soviet degenerated workers state butthe possibility of extending the socialgains of the October Revolution to thehideously oppressed peoples of Afghanistan, particularly women, we forthrightly declared, "Hail Red Army inAfghanistan !"In an early polemic, we wrote: "I f theET were more honest, they would admitthat they hated it when we hailed the

Soviet Red Army's military intervention

The International BolshevikTendency-What Is It?International Communist Leaguepamphlet, August 1995

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workers state based on proletarian property forms. In its contemptuous dismissalof the Soviet Union as a "Stalinist state,"the IBT was simply giving voice to thesocial-democratic hatred for the dictatorship of the proletariat-the necessaryinstrum ent for the suppression of counterrevolution. The IBT's purpose wasto gain entry into the social-democraticswamp, and it succeeded, being' welcomed into events organized by .reformists from which the SL was excluded.We have long noted that early supporters of the IBT were the crystallizationof every flinch and deformation in ourorganization under the pressures ofrenewed imperialist Cold War. Indeed,they have attracted to their ranks some ofthe most loathsome elements that haveever been supporters of our organization.One is Howard Key lor, who never brokefrom the Stalinist line of support to the"democratic" imperialist Allies in WorldWar II. Another early adherent was oneGerald Smith, who devoted his energiesin the early 1990s to building "Copwatch," a "police reform" outfit in Berkeley. Then there was Fred Ferguson, theIBT's chief trade-union supporter, whoran for office in the Bay Area printersunion just before the 1991 Gulf War on aplatform whose sole reference to theimpending war was to complain, "I t is our

International Communist League Pamphlet

The InternationalBolshevik Tendency-What Is It?

WORKERS VANGUARD


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Postal ...(continued from pa ge 3)president also spoke in the same vein overthe loudspeaker. Many workers found thiswhole thing insulting and obnoxious. Theunion president's participation served tofurther discredit him.Several days later there was a meetingand the speaker was a postal inspector.(Postal inspectors are cops and are universally loathed by postal workers. Weare very often the target of their investigations.) There were a number of worried questions about health concerns andI asked about the Brentwood facility inWashington, D.C. and why it hadn't beenclosed promptly. As several people commented afterwards, they really didn'tanswer any of our questions.Since then most carriers, mail handlersand clerks are wearing gloves, but notmasks. (My doctor tells me that maskswon't do any good, anyway.) I think thisis a good idea in general. Post offices areincredibly filthy. Mail, like money, isdirty to begin with. And the Post Officehas a policy of never washing a mail bag,tub or tray. They are used (no matter howencrusted with filth) until they fall apartand are only then discarded. The sortingmachines are cleaned by blowers thatblow the dust into the work areas and intothe workers' lungs. I personally have gotten three serious infections since I startedworking for the Post Office (including

sons and daughters who will die"-withnot a word in defense of the Iraqi peoplefacing imperialist slaughter! And finally,there is current IBT supremo Bill Logan,a sociopath who was expelled from ourorganization in 1979 for gross crimesagainst communist morality and elemental human decency-including interference in the personal/ sexual lives of comrades, forcing couples apart or makingthem stay together and forcing a comradeto give up her baby.In joining this anti-Spartacist lash upin the 1990s, Logan steered the IBTmore openly into the waters of socialdemocratic opportunism. In 1996, theIBT's British outfit totally liquidated intoArthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party(although one might more appropriatelycharge Scargill with opportunism foraccepting them given that the IBT stoodto his right, particularly in regard to theCold War). More recently, the IBT supported the Socialist Alliance in Britain,which ran point in the last elections forTony Blair's Labour Party. Both the IBT's18 September statement and its recentWeb posting avoid any mention of theLabour Party, whose government is themost stalwart ally of U.S. imperialism inthe current war. The title of the IBT's initial statement, "U.S. Imperialist Rule: AnEndless Horror," played well to its audiences at antiwar rallies in Britain and Canada, where anti-Americanism is the stockin trade for those who want to cover forthe crimes of their own imperialist rulers.War provides the clearest test fororganizations that claim to speak onbehalf of the working class, and it isnot only over today's U.S.-led assaulton Afghanistan that the IBT has baredits opportunist underbelly. In 1990, asWashington instigated the United Nationsblockade of Iraq that has led to the deathof some one and a h alf million people, theIBT group in the U.S. busied itself in trying to build an "antiwar" coalition withred-white-and-blue reformists, decliningeven to call to end the blockade as part ofthe coalition's "basis of unity."Eight years later, when NATOlaunched its bloody war against Serbiaunder the guise of defending the KosovoAlbanians, the IBT joined with the rest ofthe opportunist left in promoting imperialist war propaganda with the call, "Independence for Kosovo!" While claimingto "defend Yugoslavia against NATO'sattack," the IBT simultaneously lined upbehind the Kosovo Liberation Armywhich was then literally acting as spotters for U.S.INATO air strikes-writing:9 NOVEMBER 2001

Funeral of Joseph P.Curseen Jr., one oftwo Washington,D.C. postal workerswho have died ofanthrax.

one that required hospitalization and taking the antibiotic Cipro).The work situation is more terriblethan ever: speedup, harassment and theconsistent attempt to ratchet up the rateof exploitation. One of the more diabolical plots of the Post Office is the newscanners that we have been issued. Theyhave also issued us little bar codes onadhesive tape that have to be attached toa number of our customers' mailboxes!We have to scan a bar code before weleave the post office, scan a bar code atthe first mailbox on our route, scan thebar code on a mailbox when we stop forlunch, when we return from lunch, whenwe get to the last mailbox, and when we

"While we offer no political support tothe bourgeois-nationalist KLA, we nonetheless side with them militarily in theirstruggle for freedom from their Serboppressors" (1917 No. 21, 1999). Onlyafter a month of the bombing, as KLAforces in Kosovo served as military auxiliaries for NATO and KLA supporters inthe West joined in openly pro-NATOdemonstrations, did the IBT finallyacknowledge that the KLA had become a"cat's paw of imperialism."The IBT readily shouted for "Independence for Kosovo!" at a time when thissuited imperialist interests. In Canada,the IBT stands with the English-Canadianchauvinist rulers in opposing independence for Quebec. In fact, the IBT and theunabashedly Maple Leaf nationalistCommunist Party of Canada were theonly purportedly sQcialist groups tojoin the Canadian ruling class in callingfor a "No" vote in a 1995 referendum onindependence in Quebec. The IBT'ssole member in Quebec, as he quit,denounced its "de facto bloc with theCanadian bourgeoisie" (see "From theSwamp of Anglo-Chauvinism- 'Bolshevik Tendency' Opposes Quebec Independence," Spartacist Canada No. 108,March/April 1996).The IBT seeks to camouflage itsmany capitulations to bourgeois socialchauvinism with what we have termed"vicarious bloodthirstiness." Thus muchof its latest Web posting is devoted to reiterating for the umpteenth time the chargethat we were guilty of a "cowardly flinch"for raising "Marines out of Lebanon, now,alive!" at a moment when the Reagan administration waS widely reviled becauseit had sent the troops into the Lebanesequagmire.The vulnerability of the governmentover the Lebanon fiasco was demonstrated not least by the fact that it immediately launched an invasion of the tinyblack Caribbean island of Grenada inorder to get an easy "victory." The sheerabsurdity of the IBT's charge that wewent social-patriotic over Lebanon isshown by the fact that we coupled ourLebanon slogan with the call, "U.S. outof Grenada, dead or alive!" on the frontpage of WV (No. 341,4 November 1983),where we also hailed the 700 Cuban construction workers who resisted the American invaders. Unlike in Lebanon, in Grenada Marxists had a side: with theCubans and others who fought against theU.S. occupation forces.In its Web posting, the IBT writes that"Leninists stand for the immediate

return to the post office. This is in addition to punching a time clock.In regards to the war, the sentimenthas been more muted than I expected. Itis also more muted than around the Persian Gulf War, when there were a lot ofanti-Arab cartoons, etc. The Post Officehanded out flag lapel pins, but only aminority wear them. The ones with thebiggest flags always seem to be the unionstewards and officials. There are alsosome who have put up flags on theirtrucks, but many of these seem to be morefor protection than out of commitment. Anumber of my co-workers are Indian,Pakistani or Sikh, as well as Hispanicsand all kinds of Asians. One right-winger

and unconditional removal of imperialisttroops from neo-colonies as a matter of principle." But at the time, the IBTwasn't simply for the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lebanon.Rather, they engaged in idiot NewLeft grooving over the dead Marines,sneering: "The pro-imperialist 'Americanmasses' don't want the U.S. Marines todie in Beirut, and neither does the SLleadership. We say: 'Marines: Live LikePigs, Die Like Pigs!'" (ET Statement of12 November 1983, reprinted in Bulletinof he External Tendency of he iSt No.2,January 1984). While opposing the manybloody incursions of U.S. imperialismaround the world, our purpose is not togloat over the deaths of American soldiers-who are disproportionately blackand overwhelmingly of proletarian origin-but to make the working class conscious of the need to overthrow capitalism through a socialist revolution. Such arevolution will never be achieved if youare indifferent (at best) to the workingclass ranks of the army.The IBT posting demagogicallyclaims that in labeling Reagan's Lebanonadventure "senseless" our concern wasthe same as that of the bourgeoisie, quoting their 7 February 1984 article "Marxism and Social-Patriotism":'''Senseless' is precisely the way thatReagan's Democratic critics in Congressperceive his intervention in Lebanon.'Senseless' from the point of view of thebest interests of U.S. imperialism. Theyalso want to be sensible and smart and get them out now, while they are still alive."

In fact, the bourgeoisie doesn't carehow much of its working-class cannonfod,der is expended in war. During theVietnamese Revolution, the rulers inWashington were worried not about GIs

put a personal statement along the linesof "America, defend it or leave it" on allthe desks, but management came aroundcollecting it within the hour becausesomeone had complained about it. Someof those who have bought tickets tothe Partisan Defense Committee's Holiday Appeal over the years start offdefending the U.S.'s need to "do something about the terrorists," but are increasingly uneasy and unconvinced about whatthe U.S. is actually doing. And the PostOffice response to anthrax has certainlydriven a small wedge into the "united westand" rhetoric.At one post office, all the managerswere on the back dock, wearing glovesand going through every item of mail.Rumor has it that a guy tried to mail apadded envelope at an L.A. post office,but fled (taking the envelope) when thewindow clerk went to call a manager toinspect it. Now post offices around thecountry are looking for the envelope. Isthis for real? Who knows. But it is ameasure of the hostility to managementthat the main reaction of carriers wasostentatious snickering at the unprecedented sight of bosses doing any work.By the way, the Letter Carriers contract expires this November 2l . TheAmerican Postal Workers Union's contract, which covers most of the insideworkers, does not expire at the sametime anymore. Their contract is currentlyin arbitration.

D.C.

coming home in body bags, but aboutlosing the war-and that was directlyrelated to the fact that the Americanarmy was splintering from within. TheVietnamese liberation fighters did notgloat over the deaths of American GIs,but rather appealed to black troops inparticular to turn against their own racistrulers, declaring in one instance: "U.S.Negro Armymen! You are committingthe same ignominious crimes in SouthVietnam that the KKK clique is perpetrating against your family at home."Revulsion in the ranks of the militaryover senseless slaughter has long been apowerful weapon for communists: manyof the early cadre of the Communist parties in Europe were World War I POW s onthe Eastern front who came home won toBolshevism and the Russian Revolution.Winning over the largely peasant-derivedranks of the tsarist army was crucial to thevictory of the Bolshevik Revolution.We are Marxists not least because weabhor war and its pointless slaughter ofmillions of lives. Unlike the reformiststhe IBT is so happy to tail, we are simultaneously for the victory of just causes,from the Vietnamese Revolution to thedefense of semicolonies and small countries from Jraq to Serbia and now Afghanistan against imperialist bombing andblockade. This is all part of our struggleto reforge Trotsky'S Fourth Internationalas the instrument for the emancipation ofthe working class and oppressed worldwide. In contrast, as we wrote in our 12October polemic, "the IBT's vicariousbloodthirstiness and conspicuous silenceon the social-patriotism of the reformistleft merely serve the interests of the classenemy, insofar as their insignificant forcesare capable of serving any cause.".

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Recession ...(continued from page 12)trade. But one can expect conflicts overagricultural trade to take on much greaterweight in the near future. For qne thing,there are now strong forces in-the U.S.Congress, with farm-state Republicans inthe lead, pushing to increase subsidies toAmerican farmers in open violation ofWTO-sanctioned treaties. An EU spokesman on agricultural matters, Gerry Kiely,rebuked Washington politicos that "U.S.policy is going in the wrong direction."That is, in a direction contrary to theinterests of European capital.On the other side, Germany in particular is pushing hard to expand the European Union to the East European countries of the former Soviet bloc (e.g.,Poland, Hungary, Slovakia). These countries have much larger peasant populations (over 20 percent in Poland) andfar more backward agricultural sectorsthan the advanced capitalist countries ofWest Europe. Hence German imperialism's ambitions to consolidate a sphereof influence in East Europe will almostcertainly lead to higher levels of EUagricultural protectionism vis-a-vis theUnited States."Global Warming" andthe Politics of Oil

Two of the most publicized disputesbetween the Bush administration andWest European governments-over theKyoto treaty and the anti-missile defensesystem-appear at first glance to have little or nothing to do with economic conflicts of interests. But, in fact, they do.

game, the core countries of the EuropeanUnion-Germany and France-are notmajor producers and distributors of oil., The high level of oil consumption inthe U.S. tends to raise the price of oil inthe world market. And every additionaldollar in the world market price of oil notonly enriches an important sector of corporate America at the expense of Germanand French capitalists but also increasesthe energy costs of industry and transportin Europe. So the European bourgeoisieshave tried to use concern over globalwarming as a pretext to pressure the U.S.to restrict its consumption and especiallyimportation of oil. In response, GeorgeW. Bush, who is closely tied to Texasbased oil interests, fed the Kyoto treatyinto the White House shredder.

M, MatzelGerman troops in Macedonia on eve of 1999 NATO air war against Serbia.Germany now heads up imperialist occupation force in Macedonia.The dispute over Kyoto is not reallyabout global warming. After all, theAmerican and West European governments clearly cannot even control thelevel of industrial production or the salesvolume of new automobiles within theirown national boundaries. How, then, canthey possibly regulate industrial pollutionon a global saale and its effect on worldwide weather patterns? Obviously, theycan't . The Kyoto dispute is actually aboutan important and longstanding conflict ofinterest between American and Europeancapitalism: the economics of world oil.The United States, with a popUlation

of 280 million, accounts for 26 percentof world oil imports. Europe (excludingRussia), with a popUlation of slightly over500 million, accounts for about 24 percent. The far lower per capita consumption of oil in Europe is achieved by exorbitant taxes on gasoline and heating fuel,which triggered widely popular protestsby small truckers and farmers throughout much of West Europe last year. Butwhy should European capitalists be concerned with, much less opposed to, therelatively high level of oil consumptionand importation in the U.S.? Because theworld oil market is dominated by giantAmerican companies like Exxon-Mobil,which effectively control Saudi Arabia.Although Royal Dutch Shell and BritishPetroleum are also major players in this6

Even more so than the dispute overKyoto, European opposition to Bush'splans for an anti-missile defense systemappears to have nothing to do witheconomics. Here, it needs to be emphasized that the Commander-in-Chief ofAmerican imperialism really does envision fighting and winning a nuclear war.Even the London Economist (21 July),which is generally pro-American, deridedBush's plans "for the construction ofa giant shield over the whole of America" as "technicaIly probably impossible to achieve and strategically highlydangerous."Dangerous to whom? No one buysthe official White House line that theproposed missile defense system is intended to protect America from attack by"rogue states" like Iraq. Everyone J


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"Japan Economic Crisis Shakes Imperialist Order," WV Nos. 693 and 694, 3 Julyand 31 July 1998.)To prevent a totar economic collapse,the Japanese government has been bailingout the banks to the tune of trillions ofdollars over the past decade. And to offset the stagnation of industrial investment, trillions more have been spent onpublic works projects, which in manycases amounted to nothing more than arip-offof the state treasury by the keiritsubosses who' run the long -ruling LiberalDemocratic Party (LDP). Where Japan

once had the highest rate of economicgrowth in the capitalist world, it now hasthe highest rate of growth of governmentdebt. This year the combined central andlocal government budget deficits reached10 percent of the country's gross domestic product, the highest such level everexperienced by an advanced capitalistcountry except in wartime.At the same time, a large fraction ofJapanese banks are actually insolvent, inthat their liabilities exceed their incomegenerating assets. According to the mostconservative estimates, Japanese banksare now carrying on their books halfa trillion dollars in "non-performing"loans, equivalent to over 10 percent ofthe total national income.The severe. structural problems of theJapanese economy were partly offsetin the late 1990s by the American economic boom. The keiritsu benefited notonly through increased exports to theU.S. but by greater profits and capitalgains on their more than 500 billion dollars in investments in America. Whenthe U.S. boom went bust last spring,influential sections of the Japanese rulingelite decided that drastic measures wereneeded to deal with the country's longeconomic malaise. So with much fanfare,the governing LDP chose a new leader,the right-wing nationalist Junichiro Koizumi, whose promises of a "reform withno sacred cows" included abolition of

the restrictions imposed on Japan's military by the U.S. in the aftermath ofWWII-restrictions which continue tohave huge support among a popUlationfor whom the horrors of war, not least theAmerican A-bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki, are still a living memory.

Koizumi's economic "reform" programis substantially similar to that implemented by the administration of HerbertHoover in the U.S. with the onset ofthe Great Depression in 1930-31. Thiswas to encourage bank failures and corporate bankruptcies in order to purge theeconomy of "inefficient" firms combinedwith tight money to impose "discipline"on both industrialists and financiers.In the context of a worldwide recession,Koizumi's program, if implemented,would drive Japan into a full-scale depression. There are, however, powerfulvested interests within the Japanese ruling class (not least in the LDP) opposedto Koizumi's slash-and-burn approach.But whatever the policies of the Tokyogovernment, Japan-still the secondlargest economy in the world-is in adeepening and likely prolonged economicslump.

The former East Asian "tigers" (centrally South Korea) and the ASEANcountries of Southeast Asia (e.g" Thailand)'based their economies on the "Japanese mode!." Indeed, this region isclosely enmeshed with Japanese capitalism through investments, loans, subcontracting arrangements, licensing agreements and the like. The crux of the"Japanese model" is close cooperationbetween the government and big industrialists with the aim of maximizingthe country's exports, primarily to thehuge American market. Thus successiveregimes in' Seoul provided subsidies andloan guarantees to Hyundai, Daewoo andother South Korean chaebol (analogousto the Japanese kei'ritsu).In 1997-98, the capitalist countriesof East and Southeast Asia replicated the"Japanese model" in another respect aswei!. They, too, suffered a crisis of overcapitalization that left the big (and small)9 NOVEMBER 2001

industrial firms of the region awash withdebts they could not repay. For example, South Korea's Hyundai Electronics,the world's second-largest memory-chipmaker, has debts of over $6 billion andnow faces the prospect of bankruptcygiven the presently depressed world market demand for semiconductors.There is, however, a crucial differencebetween Japan, on the one hand, andother East and Southeast Asian capitalistcountries on the other. This is the difference between an imperialist countryand dependent, neocolonial countries.Japanese industrialists are in debt almostexclusively to Japanese banks and otherfinancial institutions (often owned by

Japanese capitalismin free fall:homeless protestin Tokyo in 1998;Tokyo stock priceshit 16-year lowthis July.

the same individuals and families). Theindustrial firms, banks and governments of South Korea, Thailand et al.are heavily in debt to banks in Japan, theUnited States and, to a lesser extent,West E u r o p e ~ Under the imperialist system, the economic fate of South Koreaand Thailand is determined in Tokyo andNew York, not in Seoul and Bangkok.In order to repay their foreign loansin yen and dollars, the capitalists ofSouth Korea and Thailand have to run abalance-of-trade surplus, mainly with theUnited States. For these countries, theslogan "Export or Die" is not a cliche buta harsh reality. Last spring, Morgan Stanley economist Andy Xie predicted: "Alooming US recession threatens to cutoff their lifeline" (London FinancialTimes, 12 March). The U.S. recessionthen looming is now here and, moreover,the Japanese economy has suffered aneven sharper decline.Consequently, a mood of deep gloomhas fallen upon the once buoyant capitalists of East Asia. "I don't think the regionis conducive to fast growth," says thehead of Thailand's largest manufacturerof construction materials. The CEO of aSouth Korean securities outfit declares:"The real crisis in Korea is diminishinghope for the future." There is no moretelling indication of the destructive irrationality of the world capitalist systemthan the historic pessimism voiced by thecapitalists of a region not long ago hailedas the site of an "economic miracle."Mexico Under NAFTA

Since the destruction of the SovietUnion, the Latin American propertiedclasses have demonstrated their subservience to Wall Street and Washingtoneven more blatantly than in the past. InMexico, the National Action Party of"free marketeer" Vicente Fox, a formerCoca Cola CEO, replaced the long-rulingInstitutional Revolutionary Party (PRI),which had institutionalized nationalistpopUlist demagogy. Argentina rigidly tied

its currency, the peso, to the U.S. dollarin foreign-exchange markets. Yet thegreater integration of the Latin Americaneconomies with that of the United Stateshas brought not prosperity but greaterimmiseration.A few months ago, the New York Timescorrespondent in Mexico City wrote:"Mexico has been in a recession formonths, and its deep dependence on tradewith the United States is the primarycause." But even the economic boomin the U.S. in the mid-late 1990s didnot bring about a significant improvement in the conditions of Mexico's toiling masses. Superficially, the economicstatistics looked good. In the seven years

AFPfollowing the implementation of theNorth American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) in 1994, Mexico's economicgrowth averaged 4 percent a year. Exports (primarily manufactured products)tripled. Foreign investment, mainly byU.S. multinational corporations, increasedat an annual rate of $10 billion.Yet for all that, according to the official2000 census, 40 million Mexican peasants and urban poor-out of a total population of more than 100 million-haveto survive on the equivalent ofle ss than $3a day. Fourteen million people live inhouses with dirt floors, six and a half million in shacks with cardboard roofs; 20percent of the labor force has no regularfull-time employment.To be sure, workers employed in theprofit-making sectors of the Mexicaneconomy were able to take advantage ofthe economic expansion through strikesand other forms of labor struggle toimprove their wages and benefits. In the,maquiladora assembly-for-export plants,located along Mexico's northern border,

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wages last year increased by an estimated10 percent. But Mexico's ch ief attractionfor American as well as European andJapanese multinationals is its cheap labor.To the extent that labor becomes lesscheap in Mexico, Mexico becomes lessattractive to foreign investors.Business Week (6 August) noted:"Rivals threaten Mexico's appeal as amanufacturing hub." In particular, multinationals now producing consumer electronics in Mexico are considering shiftingtheir operations to Southeast Asia, wherewages are as low as 60 cents an hour.Business Week quotes Charles Parks,executive vice president for Latin America for SCI Systems, which employs (fornow) 10,000 workers in Guadalajara:"Anything that is really price-sensitive isconsidering moving lock, stock, and barrel, to Asia."

An important and direct effect ofNAFTA has been the devastation of Mexico's smallholding peasantry, which cannot possibly compete with the highlymechanized and scientifically advancedagribusiness of North America. Fox'sminister of agriculture, Javier Usabiaga,has proclaimed an economic death sentence for the country's rural toilers: "Asmall farmer, no matter how productive,is not going to be able to make enoughmoney to survive .... He is going to haveto find another job" (New York Times, 22July).Find another job?! Even during therelatively favorable conditions of the late1990s, millions of small farmers drivenoff the land could not find jobs in theurban industrial economy. Many werecondemned to the squalid slums aroundMexico City or Guadalajara, eking out anear-starvation existence as street vendors or day laborers. And the number ofdesperately poor former peasants andlaid-off workers is now being multipliedby the world economic slump.The transformation of a smallholding peasantry into an industrial proletar

iat was a progressive historical development in what are now the advancedcapitalist countries of West Europe andJapan. But backward, neocolonial countries' like Mexico canno t today replicate their development into advancedindustrial economies. Within a capitalistframework, the countries of the so-called"Third World" cannot elevate themselvesinto the "First World" either by the "freemarket" neoliberalism of Vicente Foxor by the nationalist corporatism/protectionism practiced by the PRI over theprevious half-century.The social, economic and culturalmodernization of Mexico can be achievedonly through a socialist revolution thatplaces the proletariat, standing at the headof the peasant and indigenous massesand all the oppressed, in power andestablisltes a planned, socialized economy. From the outset, a victorious workers state in such a backward countryone, moreover, sharing a long borderwith the U.S.-would have to strive topromote proletarian revolution inthe American imperialist behemoth and

continued on page 8

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Recession ...(continued/rom page 7)internationally. And a revolution in Mexico would indeed have a powerfully radicalizing effect in the U.S.Over the past few decades, ~ h e Mexican proletariat has in a sense extendeditself into the territorial boundaries of theUnited States, mainly in Texas and California, as impoverished Mexican andother Latino workers and peasants haveflooded into the U.S. looking for jobs.These immigrant workers, many of whomretain strong family ties to Mexico, havebrought with them the experience ofbitter class struggles in their homelands.Thus the Los Angeles area, with its largeMexican and Central American communities, has for several years been a centerof labor militancy in the U.S. To releasethis potential for revolutionary strugglerequires an international revolutionaryparty capable of liberating the Mexicanworking class from the shackles ofnationalist populism and of breaking thehold of the racist, pro-imperialist AFLCIO bureaucracy over the Americanworking class. This perspective underscores the crucial nature of the fight inthe U.S. for full citizenship rights for allimmigrants.Wall Street" BleedsSouth America

I f the Mexican bourgeoisie has bounditself ever closer to American imperialismthrough NAFTA, the Argentine bourgeoisie did so in a different way a fewyears earlier. As a supposed "cure" forthe country's chronic hyperinflation, in1991 the neolibeFal regime of CarlosMenem pegged the Argentine peso to theU.S. dollar at a rate of one to one. Furthermore, the expansion of the domesticmoney supply was now based on theamount of dollars held by the centralbank.In order to attract more dollars, thefinancial authorities in Buenos Airesmaintained interest rates higher thanthose prevailing in other Latin Americancountries. And for a time in the early1990s, Argentina did attract a sizableflow of speCUlative (easy come, easy go)money. But the high rates also discouraged borrowing for long-term productiveinvestment in new plant, equipment andinfrastructure.Because of its peculiar foreignexchange system, the Argentine economy was severely damaged by the U.S.financial/economic boom in the midlate 1990s. Huge sums of money fromTokyo, London, Frankfurt and elsewhereflooded into the Wall Street bull market. Consequently, the value of the dollarrose sharply in relation to the Japaneseyen, the major European currencies andalmost all the currencies of Third Worldcountries with the notable exception ofArgentina. The Argentine peso and therefore the price of Argentina's goods in theworld market also rose sharply comparedto almost all other countries, including itsmain trading partner, Brazil. Mainly dueto mounting balance-of-trade deficits,Argentina slid into recession three yearsago, that is, well before the current worldslump.

8

Ironically, in the name of "free market

NYC NOTICEThe New York Spartacist League publicoffice will re-open on Saturday, November 10th. (See Directory for regularhours.) We had suspended office hoursin solidarity with a strike by cleaners inthe building where the office is located.This strike -has now ended with thecleaners returning to work. We will nolonger be at the Student Events Centerat NYU every Tuesd,ay night as previouslyadvertised.

CHICAGO NOTICEThe Chicago Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth Club announces publicoffice hours at our new location. Officehours are every Saturday from 2 p.m. to5 p.m. at 222 S. Morgan (buzz "23")near UIC-Halsted stop on the Blue Line.

Buenos Aires,August 29:tens ofthousands oftrade unionistsmarch to protestgovernmentcutbacks.

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Class Struggle ..(continued from page 1)breaking the allegiance of the workersto their class-collaborationist, socialchauvinist leaders.Centrists and Renegades

Reformist groups like the International Socialist Organization and Workers World Party, who busy themselvesattempting to enlist dissident DemocraticParty politicians (currently with scantsuccess) in building "peace" coalitions,offer up the pipe dream of an imperialistsystem cleansed of war and injustice. WeMarxists say that only workers revolutioncan end imperialist war, and as part ofthat task we seek to break the proletariat. from the chauvinist "national front" andto mobilize class-struggle opposition tothe war. And while such a perspectivemay seem remote in the U.S. today, inItaly the COBAS (Rank and File committees) unions have called for a politicalgeneral strike on November 9 in opposition to the imperialist war againstAfghanistan and to the Italian government's assault on social benefits. Similarly in 1999, the COBAS launched aone-day general strike in opposition tothe U.S.-led NATO air war against Serbia.Such labor actions against the war in thiscountry would challenge the jingoist

Perry/NY TimesNYC, November 2: cops attack fire-fighters protesting order to pull backfrom search through WTC ruins.Over a dozen firefighters, includingunion officials, have been arrested."national unity" used to cement the workers behind the war aims of their capitalistexploiters.

Our perspective is based on the experience of the October Revolution of 1917,which triumphed amid the slaughter ofWorld War I because of the Bolshevikprogram of turning the imperialist warinto a civil war. Proletarian oppositionto the imperialist depredations of theexploiters can, in the words of LeonTrotsky, be pursued "only through therevolutionary mobilization of the masses,that is, by widening, deepening, .andsharpening those revolutionary methodswhich constitute the content of classstruggle in 'peacetime'" ("Learn toThink," May 1938).This is the understanding we havepropagated in our sales at work locations,in the" ghettos and in all our interventionsat antiwar protests and meetings. Nevertheless, the Internationalist Group (IG), ahandful of centrist renegades who fledour organization in the mid-1990s underthe pressures of imperialist "death ofcommunism" triumphalism, have recently taken us to task for having "flinched"in the face of the jingoist warmongeringnow rampant in this country. In an Internet manifesto dated October 2001, the IGexcoria tes 'us for our supposed "opposition to calling for the defeat of 'their own'bourgeoisie in an ill lperialist war. All talkof socialist revolution comes down to 'piein the sky in the sweet bye-and-bye' ifyou don't come out four-square for thedefeat of 'your own' bourgeoisie in animperialist war."At bottom, the IG deliberately muddlesthe question of a military defeat in a particular war with the proletarian defeat ofone's bourgeoisie through socialist revo-9 NOVEMBER 2001

APKabul, October 26: Red Cross facility hit by U.S. air strikes for second time inten days.lution. The latter is the program animating any truly revolutionary party inpeacetime as in wartime. The slogansused to proceed toward that end-to leadthe working masses from their currentlevel of consciousness to the seizure ofstate power-are, however, necessarilyconjunctural. Thus, upon returning toRussia after the overthrow of the tsar inearly 1917, Lenin had to fight againstthose in the Bolshevik Party wh0 wishedto lend support to the bourgeois Provisional Government. Having won this battle, he then had to caution left proletarianelements of the party who wanted toimmediately call for the overthrow of theProvisional Government. On 5 May 1917,the Central Committee passed the following motion authored by Lenin: "The slogan ' Down with the Provisional Government!' is an incorrect one at the presentmoment because, in the absence of a solid(i.e., a class-conscious and organised)majority of the people on the side of therevolutionary proletariat, such a slogan iseither an empty phrase, or, objectively,amounts to attempts of an adventuristcharacter."

The IG, in an effort to back up itsempty phrasemongering, offers the following example: "The French defeat atthe hands of the Algerian independencefighters culminating in 1962 demoralizedthe French bourgeoisie and helped lead tothe worker-student revolt of 1968, whichposed the first potentially revolutionarycrisis in Europe in years." In reality, theeight-year-Iong colonial war in Algeriabears no resemblance to what is happening in Afghanistan today.It is interesting to examine our position

of defense of Afghanistan against theU.S. onslaught as compared to a s ituationwhich was, in some ways, similar: the1935 invasion of Ethiopia by imperialistItaly. Ethiopia under Emperor HaileSelassie was a cruelly oppressive society-one of the world's last bastions ofchattel slavery-characterized by tribalbackwardness, SUbjugation of minoritypeoples and unremitting exploitationof the peasant masses. Revolutionariesdefended Ethiopia against Mussolini'sItaly because the latter was an imperialistpower, regardless of the fact that the formof imperialist rule was fascist rather thandemocratic.

In calling on the working class todefend Afghanistan against U.S. imperialism, we apply the same Leninist principleof siding with backward countries againstimperialist atta


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Class Struggle ...(continued from page 9)

"For that reason, we believe it is necessary to wage a political struggle withinthe unions to forge a revolutionary work-ers party that will fight for b.lack free-dom. for immigrant rights and for ourclass brothers and sisters abroad againstU.S. imperialism. Such a party will leadthe fight to get rid of the capitalist orderand create a workers government and anew society without exploitation. This isthe onlv road to end racism and war for-ever. Those who labor must rule!"In order to tell the truth about this imperialist war, our comrade had to battle thedisruptions of one Jack Heyman, a lefttalking ILWU local bureaucrat styled bythe IG as a "workers leader," who wasthwarted in his efforts by longshoremenin the audience.We Said: Hail Red Armyin Afghanistan!

The IG's r-r-revolutionary phrasemongering is shared by another clot ofcentrists, as exemplified by a 9 Octoberjoint statement signed by the League fora Revolutionary Communist International(LRCI, centered on the British WorkersPower group), the Morenoite FraccfonTrotskysta in Mexico and the CommunistLeague-Workers Power in Greece. They,too, are enamored with the call for"defeat of the imperialist forces." Wherethe IG attacks us for focusi ng on the indefensible nature of the indiscriminateattack on the World Trade Center, theircentrist counterparts omit altogether anycondemnation of the slaughter of thousands of ordinary working people andminorities in that attack, indicating a congruence with the worldview shared byU.S. imperialism's leaders and Islamicfundamentalists inspired by bin Ladenthat entire peoples are responsible for thecrimes of their rulers.In the case of the LRCI et aI., antiAmericanism is intermingled with preposterous slogans and some very red rhetoric to appeal to any and all who mightread it, from the psychiatrically challenged to youth in search of an alternativeto pacifism and reformism. The red rhetoric is unserious bombast, as captured inthe call on "soldiers to organise resistancein the armed forces ... to rebel against theimperialists and their mass-murderingGenerals" and on "workers in the munitions factories to boycott and sabotageimperialist war production." For theseopportunists, words are meant not for theclass struggle but for Greek tavernas,English pubs and Latin American cantinas. In Britain, the real substance of Workers Power's "revolutionary defeatism" iscaptured in their organizing to "LOBBYPARLIAMENT as it debates the war."

Indeed, voting Labour is just aboutthe only "principle" the British WorkersPower group adheres to. In 1997 as wellas this year Workers Power voted for"Bomber Blair" and his Labour Party.In the 1999 NATO war against Serbia,the LRCI was marching in demonstrations shot through with placards reading "NATO Good Luck," championingthe Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army,which was then a pawn for NATO. Theircurrent left posturing over Afghanistan isa function both of the growing unpopularity of the U.S. bombing among Europeans and the peripheral nature of Afghanistan from the standpoint of theEuropean imperialists. .

As to the preposterous, there is the callfor "united action of all Afghan forcesincluding Islamist forces-to repel theimperialist assault," a task of interest tothose who believe in alchemy. The notionthat there can be any but the most ephemeral unity among the various tribes withinAfghanistan's borders is belied by a history of constant internecine conflict.These peoples have no coherent nationalinterest because Afghanistan is not anation. The "Afghan forces" are today,as i 1 the past, engaged in shooting ateach ()ther, with the Taliban, ba sed on thedom; nant Pashtun people, arrayed againstthe hrgely Tajik and Uzbek NorthernAlliance, which currently acts as a puppet of U.S. imperialism.10

IJ le 'WISIJ f1 College MovietoneItalian imperialist invaders (left) fought Ethiopian resistance forces for seven months in 1935-36 war of annexation.Declaring "Afghanistan has sufferedover 20 years of war," the LRCI jointstatement lumps together the CIA-backedmujahedin war against the Red Armyintervention in Afghanistan with the laterwar among the rival mujahedin groups,the Taliban and the components of theNorthern Alliance. In other words, theLRCI and its current bloc partners areunited in hoping that no one will look too

closely at where they stood on the U.S.proxy war in Afghanistan at the time! Wehailed the Red Army in Afghanistan andfervently desired that Soviet commandoswould take out the Islamic fanatics whothrew acid in the faces of unveiled womenand murdered those who dared teachyoung girls. Not so Workers Power,which condemned the Soviet presence

Australasian SpartacistMelbourne, October 13: AustralianWorkers Power pushes reformistpacifism on the ground; centrists'"revolutionary" hot air is strictly forcyberspace.while stopping short of echoing the imperialist cry for a Red Army withdrawal.The Morenoites openly backed the muja-hedin. In France, 'they called for the SovietArmy to pull out of Afghanistan and leaveits arms with the anti-Communist Islamicguerrillas. In Italy, the Morenoite grouplooked forward to "the possibility ofextending the Iranian revolution withinthe borders of the USSR" (Avanzata Pro-letaria, 12 January 1980)!As a left cover for its opposition to theSoviet military presence, Workers Powerat the time concocted an Afghan proletariat as an independent "revolutionaryforce." The current LRCI joint statementraises the demand for a "workers' andpeasants' government" in Afghanistan,where there are no workers and not muchof a peasantry. This idiocy is now echoedby the IG in its call for "socialist revolution" in Afghanistan. It was only theintervention of the Soviet Union thatopened the possibility of bringing theAfghan peoples into the 20th century.That's why we raised the call, "Extendsocial gains of the October Revolutionto Afghan peopl es!" Today, social revolution can come to Afghanistan onlythrough socialist overturns in those countries in the area with significant proletarian concentrations, from Iran to Pakistanand India. Central to a revolutionary perspective in such countries is the fightagainst the age-old subjugation of

women. Indeed, the Afghan conflict inthe 1980s was the only war in modernhistory fought centrally over the status ofwomen.In reality, the IG has little taste for theproletariat-whether in the U.S. or in the"Third World." Instead the IG peddles itswares to a variety of petty-bourgeoisnationalist audiences. In its latest Webposting, the IG sneers that "the SL presents itself as the vanguard fighter againstIslamic fundamentalism." Its contemptfor our unqualified opposition to Islamicreaction is a tacit rejection of our call fora Red Army victory against the mullahsin Afghanistan in the 1980s (which the IGfeigns to stand on). It is also a promissorynote to nationalists from those parts of theplanet where Islam is dominant, in thename of a "united front" against Americanimperialism, to forswear the struggle forproletarian power in those countries. It is,in embryo, an abandonment of Trotsky'Stheory of permanent revolution, whichholds that the proletariat in the backward countries is the only force capableof leading the struggle for social andnational justice. As Trotsky stressed, onlyproletarian revolution can break the imperialist yoke over such countries and,with its extension to advanced capitalistcountries, end imperialism forever.The growth of Islamic and other religious fundamentalism in backward countries is a measure of the bankruptcy of thepost-independence bourgeois-nationalistregimes, which enforce imperialist star--vation dictates while themselves promoting obscurantist backwardness. Take, forexample, predominantly Hindu India,where the caste system and such hideouspractices as suttee (the burning of widows) flourish after more than five decadesof "democracy." The weight of socialbackwardness is evident in all aspects ofthe society. Some 70 million Indians areafflicted with goiter and 200 million areat risk of iodine deficiency, which is thesingle most preventable cause of mentalretardation. Iodized salt is a cheap, readymeans for combatting such medical disorders. Yet in the wake of a clamor bysmall-scale salt producers, Gandhiansand fascist groups tied to the ruling BJP,last year Hindu-chauvinist prime ministerAtal Behari Vajpayee overturned a ban onthe sale of non-iodized salt.For Socialist Revolution in theBastion of World Imperialism!

In Europe no less than in America, theworking class has been subjected to acontinuous attack on jobs, wages andbenefits. In large measure these attackshave been carried out by governments ledby social-democratic parties. In addition to the COBAS strike called in Italy,there is evidence of popular discontentthroughout Europe. At the end of October, the giant IG Metall union in Germanycalled for a halt to the bombing, only tobe reprimanded by "their" Social Democratic chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, wholectured: "Concern yourself with the living conditions of your members, butkeep your fingers out of foreign policy,because you understand nothing about it"(Spiegel Online, 31 October). An IG Metall spokesman replied, "We're not aboutto let even Schroder shut us up."While workers throughout Europe are

no doubt suspicious that the war againstAfghanistan may redound to their detriment, the union tops also seek to voicethe interests of their own bourgeoisiesthrough appeals to anti-Americanism.Thus, the vice chairman of IG Metallwarns against "blindly following ordersfrom America." Such anti-American nationalism is also promoted by centrists likethe LRCI, whose occasionally left-sounding rhetoric is mere window-dressing thatserves to reinforce working-class illusions in the social-democratic labor lieutenants of capital. Only the Leninist commitment to drive the social-chauvinistmisleaders out of the labor movement, tosplit the masses of workers from theirsocial-democratic betrayers, can preparethe way for the long overdue and increasingly urgent socialist overturns necessaryin Europe and elsewhere. .While in the U.S. the working classremains largely in support of the war,tears are beginning to appear in the fabricof jingoist "national unity." For manypostal workers facing the threat of potentially deadly anthrax infection, Osamabin Laden likely appears as less of anenemy than their own bosses. The arrestof four firemen's union officials following last Friday's protest near the ruins ofthe World Trade Center will justly betaken as a warning by many workers thatthe bosses will crack down on any laborunrest. Beginning with the strikes lastmonth by Minnesota state workers and atthree General Dynamics tank plants, it isevident that many workers resent thelosses to their living standards sustainedduring the recent nine-year boom andare dismayed by the prospects of furtherlosses-including the loss of any paycheck at all-as a result of the recessionand the war effort. The Republicans' planto grant even further massive tax breaks tothe rich will doubtless add kindling tothese smoldering resentments.Evidence of such dissatisfaction canbe found)n the fact that a layer of localtrade-union bureaucrats is voicing opposition to the U.S. bombing. This alsofinds its echo among black Democrats. InSeptember, Oakland Democrat BarbaraLee cast the .sole vote against the Congressional war resolution; subsequently66 Congressmen and one Senator votedagainst the "anti-terror" law. And Lee,who received death threats after her vote,was feted by a rally of several thousandhosted by local liberal Democrats and theILWU tops.Both the ILWU on the West Coast anda lash-up of more than 400 New YorkCity trade unionists, including 12 localpresidents, have come out in oppositionto the war. A statement issued by "NewYork City Labor Against the War"declares that war "will redirect billionsto the military and corporate executives,while draining such essential domesticprograms as education, health care andthe social . securi ty trust. In New YorkCity and elsewhere, it will be a pretextfor imposing 'austerity' on labor andpoor people under the guise of 'national. unity'."The black Democrats and oppositionaltrade-union tops are positioning themselves to get ahead of and contain theincreasing discontents that the capitalistrulers' war at home and abroad, coming

WORKERS VANGUARD


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Airline ...(continued from pag e 3)work out of the mechanics from 10 p.m.-4 a.m., the time block for heavy maintenance projects, without paying overtime.One consequence is that mechanics onthe afternoon shift will be expected totake on a project like changing a shaft andbearing at the end of the shift instead ofjust replacing a bearing, while performing all the same work earlier in the day.This change will place greater stress onthe morning shift, which will no longerhave backup for fixing jams and doingemergency maintenance during a criticalperiod when there are a lot of bags in thesystem.The changing of shift schedules tospeed up work is not limited to facilitiesmaintenance. Flights now arrive anddepart from Newark in groups known in. the industry as banks whereas previously,when there were 25 percent more flights,arrivals and departures were relativelycontinuous. The bank system allows thecompany to maximize feeding passengersinto connecting flights at its hubs. For thepart-time ramp workers, many of whomwere downgraded from full-time, itmeans their shifts now coincide with thebanks so that they have to perform thesame amount of ~ o r k in four hours thatthey previously did in six or eight hours.Other measures the industry bosseshave tried to rally their workforces behindthe companies include "voluntary" paycuts, individual schedule reductions andearly reti.rement. Born out of the cultureof company loyalty bred by the profitsharing prevalent in the industry, and perhaps best understood as profit-sharing inreverse, the voluntary pay cuts, at American Airlines and Southwest in particular,are a means for shifting the blame for layoffs to the workforce (in the event thereare too few volunteers). The executivepay freeze through the end of the year atthe major carriers is a cynical ploy to seekto cement the bond of the workforce tothe company and set a precedent foraccepting wage cuts. Of course, all thetop executives already have each takenhome hundreds of thousands of dollarsthis year. Southwest grossly entitled itsvoluntary pay cut program "Pledge toLUV" after the code for its Dallas LoveField base.The airline that has most bungled itsefforts to reduce labor costs, thereby raising the ire of its workforce, is Northwest.

amid a deepening recession and theenduring character of racist oppression,will generate among working people andminorities. Selling themselves as thefriends of labor and blacks is the longstanding card played by the Democrats,which is why they are historically thepreferred party of the bourgeoisie whenit comes to mobilizing the population forwar. Jesse Jackson Sr, offers such services to his capitalist masters in an articlein the Chicago Defender (15 October)headlined "Victory at Home, VictoryAbroad!"-the NAACP's slogan duringWorld War II. Trying to stoke supportfor the war among the black population, Jackson holds out the promise of abetter future if they rally 'round the flag:"In many ways, we are two nationsunder one flag. We want to be one nationunder one flag."

Black columnist Mary Mitchell captured some of the mistrust of the blackpopulation for the government's "waragainst terrorism," writing in the ChicagoSun-Times (9 October): "When blackpeople think of terrorists, they don'timmediately think of the Taliban orOsama bin Laden. They think of the KuKlux Klan, the Aryan Nation, Southernslaveholders.", Mitchell went on to complain t

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Workers Vanguard No 768 - 09 November 2001

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