Workers Vanguard No 859 - 25 November 2005

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 859 - 25 November 2005

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WfJR/(ERS 'ANIIIAR' 0No. 859 , ~ i ! ! i ! > . C ' 7 ~ 1 25 November 2005

lass- truggle Roadto Black Liberationl\'OVEMBER 2 2 -The abandonment ofm a s ~ e ~ of O\erwhelmingly black andpoor people by America's capitalist rulers in the face of Hurricane Katrina is acrime that must be seared into the memory of working people. Months after thecatastrophe. New Orleans r e m a i n ~ a rotting shell. Bodies are still being foundalmost dail). Nearly half the devastatedcit: is \\ithout power. without medicalcare and with most of ih populationunahle to return to their homes.

Barel) a day after a moratorium one\ictions by Louisiana's governor expiredon Octuber 25. record numhers of niction notices were being served. SomeIO,()()O peuple now face homelessness aslandlords raise rents by as much as 100percent. With Dickensian cruelty, FEMAha, announced that after the Thanksgivingholiday. it \\ill evict as many as 53.0UOfamilies from the motel rooms they'vebeen forced to call home. Thousandsmore will be e\icted following Christmasand Ne\\ Year's. Earlier this month. FEMA,in an unprecedented mow, stopped payment to tlood insurance policyholders,outrageously claiming that it had run outof money. This is an outright lie. Of theutterly inadequate $62.3 billiofl Washington appropriated for relief after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, "'morethan h a l f - S . ~ 7 . 5 billion-is sitting inFEl\IXs account. \\aiting for a purpose"'(T i l l ie 28 0.'memberl.

When the State of Louisiana requestedS250 billion in funds. thi" v.as con emptuous/\ dismissed in the media as the"'Louisiana Looters' Bill."' In contrast. Congressmen had nl ) pwbkm voting themsches another pa) raise as they recessedfor Thanbgi\ing.It is the c a p i t ~ t 1 i s l l o ( ) t e h who arc making out big.,;\'unhrop CrummCln is in linefor S2 billiun in FE\I:\ funds to rebuildib ship) anls, \\ here 1l11)St of the ~ a \ ) 'ssurface ,hip, are built. And defense contract,)r Titan, a company that has its hand,in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. hasalready received contracts worth me r halfa million dollars. Meanwhile, nationwidethe hourgeoisie continue, to intensif) itsatla-:1-.s on the \\orking class: on the hccbof auto part-; supplier Delphi's sa\agea"ault on its \\or1-.ers v. ages and pensions thruugh ban 1-.ruptC) mancU\ e!"s.G\ljust ~ \ I 1 n o u n c e d ih plan to cut 30,O()()job, O\er the ne.\t three years.

At tIll' ~ a l l l e time, popular supportfor the Bush administration continues tofall mer gO\ernll1L'nt corruption scandal"the economy and, mainly, the debacle of

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the bloody Iraq occupation. On No\Cmber 17, Democratic Congre"man Johnl'vlurtha of Pennsyl\ania, a longtime ha\\1-..called to "redeploy l ' .S. troops" out ofIraq within six months. although whenRepublicans forced a House vote on thequestion, Murtha and all but threeDemocrats voted against immediate troop

' ';;3'WReuters

\\ithdr,l\\ al. The Democrat,' concern isthat through its incompetence and sa\ager ) in Iraq. the Bush administration isundermining the reactionar) "'\\ ar on terror" .and C.S. imperialism', long-termstrategic interests. E.\pressing this frustration, liberal columnist Frank Rich complained that "the percentage of Americans

who now regard fighting terrorism as atop national priority is either in the singleor low double digits in e\Cr) poll" (Nn\"York Times, 20 November).

The Democratic Party is a capitalistparty dedicated to the fundamental interests of U.S. imperialism. As we wrotc in"Big Lies and Imperialist War" (WV No.856, 14 October):

'"GrO\\ ing opposition in the l'.S. population to the Iraq occupation. n:\ulsionover the government's role in the deathand d e ' ; t r ~ c t i o n of hlack people and thepoor after Hurricane Katrina. anger atthe attack-, on fundamental democraticrights-the situation speak-, to the hurning need to build a workers party thM\\ould organiEe cla.\s struggle agaill't theU.S. capitali,t rulers. Only \\ hl'n themultiracial proletariat ",iLl'S PO\\ cr fromthe hlolllldr.:nched. arrogant capitalistrulers can we hegin to 'peak of a \\ od drid of impniali'-l war, and o c c u p a t i ( ) n ~ an d p f f l " r i n ~ n1alcI idl ~ t ' L ' l l r i t \ an d ~ ( ) L ' i a l ju,tice for ~ 7 1 1 . -

We print below, edited for publication, a presentation bj Spartac!st Leaguespokesman Erica Jones at an October 20New York City forum.

* * *\Ve saw it as necessary to have a forum

on the fight for black liberation and thefight for a workers America at this timeb e c a u ~ e events such as the racist atrocityin New Orleans have further exposed theirrationality and anarchy of capitalism. itslies and its unsustainahility. The tragedyof New Orleans isn't exactly --all natural."as the capitalist rulers and their media\vOlild have you believe. The raw. nakedtruth is that securing the safety of theblack and poor living in 1\C\\ Orleans wasnot considered pwfitable. The facilitieson the Mi",issippi Ri\ er fWIll Baton Rougeto New Orleans constitute the U.S,-, largest porI. and the Louisiana coast prudu-:esone-third of the country's seafood, onefifth of its oil and one-quarter of ih natural gas. But the capitalist system as itrelates to building and securing illfrastructure is not rational.

The U.S. g()\ernmenL from Clinton'stime to the current Bush administration.knew about the dangers facing Nev.Orleans. The) knew that the levees ,urrounding New Orleans \\erc not built tl l\\ithqand anything beyond a LC\el 3 hurricane, that the Ie\ ees \\ere in poor repair.that the \\ Clland, \\hi-:h prm ided a harrier to the ocean \\ere rapidly receding.Yet before hurricane sea,on, f ~ n d i n g fortlood control was drastically slashed asIllore and more mone) was pr()\ ided forthe war in Iraq.

The capitalist class and the partiesthat uphold its rule-Democrats andRepublicans-also kne\\ that if a hurricane the size of Katrina hit Ne\\ Orleans,given the social structure of America, therich would be protected as they alwaysare-on higher ground. Yet bourgeois

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NBA Racism7 November 2005To the editor: watched the repeated replays was that ofthe civil rights activists being pelted withflour and other foodstuffs at the Greensboro. North Carolina. Woolworth's lunch

counter in 1960 and elsewhere. Nobodyelse would have been expected to takethis without standing up for himself.(Compare Artest's treatment with baseball icon Ty Cobb-a racist sociopathwho once attacked with impunity a paraplegic fan for needling him.) Why areyoung black athletes expected to')

As the Nell' York Times noted with theopening of another National BasketballAssociation (NBA) season. November 19marks the a n n i \ l ~ r s a r y of the now-famousbrawl in the Indiana Pacers/Detroit Pistons game in Auburn Hills. Michigan.Black P a c e r ~ forward Ron Arkst v. as suspended for a full season for punching afan. Two black teammates were barred forat Ieaq 15 and 30 games respectively.This was 'a travesty that captures all toowell the treatment of black people in thissociety-ewn those who have "made it."It turned my stomach to see Artest'lying on the scorers' table. being peltedby beer, food and who knows what elseby white fans in the $300-plus seats. Atleast one press account said the "N" wordwas used. Why shouldn't Artest go after..the racist pig who did this? I know Artestis not a freedom rider. but the imagethat popped into my head the more I

Not surprisingly. those screaming theloudest for Artest's suspension were thesports press corps. To give a facade ofevenhandedness they also criticized thefans who were involved. But it is the verysame sportswriters who playa key rolein inciting the fans. Their basic line isthat young black players are nothing butoverpaid. s p o i l ~ d thugs who should kisseverybody's ass that they have the chanceto play professional basketball for money-if not for this they'd likely be in prison.

TROTSKY

Marxism and the StateA viral less011 drawn bv Marxistsfrom theexperience of the Paris Commune-whenthe city's proletariat briefly held powerin 187J-was that the working class can-

not emancipate itself by taking hold qf themachinery of the capitalist state. In hisintroduction to Karl Man's The Civil Warin France. Friedrich Engels explained thenecessity FI!' the working class to smash thebourgeois state and estahlish its own classdictatorship. It is through the victory ofproletarian rel'oll/tion internationally thatLENIN

the material basis wOl/ld be laid/f)r the elimination qj' classes and the withering mmyof the state.From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognise that the working

class. once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine; thatin order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must.on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously u sed againstit itself. and, on the other. safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, bydeclaring them alL without exception, subject to recall at any moment. What had beenthe characteristic attribute of the former state? Society had created its own organ., tolook after its common interests. originally through simple division of labour. But theseorgans, at whose head was the state power, had in the course of time. in pursuance oftheir own ~ p e c l a l interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into themasters of society. This can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary monarchy.but equally so in the democratic republic. Nowhere do "politicians" form a more separate and powerful section of the nation than precisely in North America. There. eachof the two major parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turncontrolled by people who make a business of politics. who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states. or who make a livingby carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions ....

The state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another. andindeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy: and at best an evilinherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy. whoseworst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the Commune. cannot avoid having to lopoff at once as much as possible until such time as a generation reared in new, freesocial conditions is able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap heap.

Of late. the German philistine has once more been filled with \vholesome terror at thewords: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good. gentlemen. do you want to knowwhat this dictatorship looks like') Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

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-Friedrich Engels. 1891 Introduction to The Ci\'il War in Franceby Karl Marx (1871)

! ' ! w ! ! ' f . . l ~ Y or..lf.'ll!l!l!o!!'!.DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Ray BishopEDITOR Alan WildeEDITOR. YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Rosemary PalenqueCIRCULATION MANAGER Susan FullerEDITORIAL BOARD: Helene BrOSius (managing editor). Kathleen Harris (letters editor).Linda Jarreau (production manager). Bruce Andre. Jon Brule. Helen Cantor. Paul Cone.George Foster. Walter Jennings. James Robertson. Joseph SeymourThe Spartacist League IS the U.S. Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist),Work.ers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) publ!shed biweeKly. except Skipping three alternate Issues In June July andAugust (beginning With omitting the second Issue in June) and skipPing the last Issue In December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co 299 Broadway. SUite 318. New York. NY 10007. Telephone (212) 732,7862 (Editorial). (212) 732,7861(Business} Address all correspondence to Box 1377 GPO. New York. NY 10116 E-mail addres s: vanguard::g:;tlac netDomestic subscriptions $10.00'21 Issues Periodicals postage paid at New York NY. POSTMASTER Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard Box 1377 GPO. New York. NY 10116OpinIOns exp ressed In signed articles or fetters do not necessanly express the editonai ViewpointThe closing date for news in thiS issue is 22 November.

No. 859 25 November 2005

November 2004:Pacers forward

Ron Artesthit with beerthrown by

white fans.

The \'i1ification of Artest and other blackathletes is an essential component of thecriminalization of a generation of blackyouth in a society that has no jobs foryoung black men and therefore no education to offer other than that found in aprison cell.In their glorified gossip columns thesewriters daily scream their resentment forthe salaries the athletes command. thewomen they get to sleep with and adulation they get. They whip up pseudopopulist resentment against the playersnot the multimillionaire owners who plythe sportswriters with perks, comps andmartinis-for the high price of ticketswhich the "working stiff" (like the sixfigure salaried sportswriters) have to payto see them play. (In contrast nobodycomplains about the high cost of movietickets that pays the $10-20 million perfilm that Ben Affleck gets for such artistic gems as Gigli.) The players' personallives are retailed in the gutter press,with their jobs put on the line everyday by innuendo. Have a couple of badgames and the suggestion of drug oralcohol "abuse" is likely to appear. andwith it the threat of being cut. prosecution and cop terror. It is in the context ofthis everyday dehumanizing treatment ofblack athletes that the fans at AuburnHills. a white suburb of black Detroit.felt they could do and say anything toArtest and his teammates.

The Artest suspension was intended asa warning to all young black players totoe the line or be cast back out on thestreet. While basketball is seen as a"black sport" it is increasingly less so.The influx of sllccessful European ballplayers, which will be accelerated by theembarrassing losses of the U.S. Olympicteam last year. means there are fewerblacks in the NBA and will be even lessin the immediate years to come. TheNell' York Times quoted fonner NBA starCharles Barkley. "'The NBA has a doublestandard because fans are looking at ablack league. Larry Bird [1980s greatwhite hope for the Celtics] touched onit last year when he said the leagueneeds more white players." The attack onArtest is inseparable from the attack 011black people. especially young blackmen. throughout this society. ,To purge itself of the "hip hop"image. the NBA recently adopted a new

This pamphlet presents a comprehensive historical analysis of the origins ofanarchism and the views of its leadingfigures through the 1871 Paris Communeand the split in the First International anddiscusses the impact of the 1917 OctoberRevolution. The first article addressesradical youth today who, in an ideologicalclimate conditioned by the so-called"death of communism," are drawn to allvariants of anarchism, Green radicalismand left liberalism. The pamphlet isdedicated to the fight to win a newgeneration to revolutionary Marxism.

$2 (56 pages)Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPO. New York, NY 10116

Letter

dress code prohibiting chains. pendantsand medallions. sunglasses worn indoors,shorts and T-shirts. Cited as the godfatherof the young players to whom theserestrictions are directed is Philadelphia76ers star Allen Iverson. From the momenthe donned a Sixers uniform. Iverson hasplayed under the shadow of a "criminal"past. What does that criminality consistof? When he was a star high school playerin Hampton. Virginia. Iverson and somefriends were set upon by a gang of racistthugs at a bowling alley. They defendedthemselves. A brawl ensued. As wouldbe expected. only the black students werecharged. Iverson was con\'icted and spentfour months in jail. Throughout hisentire college career and early pro yearsIverson was branded a troublemaker anda felon, without anybody-most blacksports fans included-knowing whatreally happened. This marked not onlyhim. but a generation of black NBA players as well.

Having '"made it" in the world of sports.like the entertainment business. does notspare these black stars the contempt regularly meted out to black people. Thehalf-time show at the NBA all-star gamewas a southern country band. \Vhen theshow was over Charles Barkley observed,what's this NASCAR stuff doing here'?With hundreds of black performers andrecord executives in attendance. this year'sGrammy Awards included a tribute toSouthern Rock. which featured the LynyrdSkynyrd song "Sweet Home Alabama." asegregationist anthem vvTitten in responseto Neil Young's anti-lynching song "Southern Man."

Eighteen years ago Workers Vanguard("'Racism in Sporh." No, 426. 17 April19X7) noted. "Ever since the 1830s whenslaveholders imported boxing from England to bet on which slave (in plantationcolors) could best pummel the 'property'of a rival plantation. black athletes havebeen used to entertain and make millionsfor their bosses. only to be chucked asidewhen their talents were no longer profitable." We added. '"Sports is about the onlyprofession where. for a few short. brutalyears. blacks can earn six- and seven-figureincomes. But even for those on top. the'American Dream' is a nightmare." As thecase of Ron Artest shows. nothing haschanged o\'er the past two decades.

Paul C.

WORKERS VANGUARD


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- , npaper Diskord. bllt theY responded that theY couldnot pllhlish it llnless "the Marxist rhetoric"IVas "tOiled dO\\'Il quire ([ hit."

It was a racist outrage when severalstudents at May H o u ~ e held a '"StraightThug:gin Ghetto Party" on October 14.Students were encouraged to dress "ghetto:' and showed up flashing mock gangsigns, drinking from 40-ounce bottles in25 NOVEMBER 2005

paper bags, and wearing handcuffs, Theonly thing missing from this disgustingspectacle were students wearing blackface! When several black students arrivedto investigate, they were told, "You guysshould've come earlier because you're farmore ghetto than us"! And the garbagehas continued, with some students settingup a Web page called "People AgainstGhetto Parties Are Stupid" on the campus's online "facebook:' mocking thejust anger of many students who wereappalled by the party,

It speaks volumes about the times thatstudents thought they could act out theseracist s t e r e o t y p e ~ and get away with it.

SYC protestsracism at U of C: ::iMarch 2004student protestagainst beatingof black studentClemmieCarthans bycampus cops,

The racist atrocity that recently tookplace in New Orleans following: Hurricane Katrina laid bare the nature ofthe capitalist system and showed quiteclearly the contempt the ruling classholds for the black popUlation, The capitalist rulers abandoned thousands of poorblacks to die as the city was submergedin water. and then proceeded to brandblacks who were forced to find food inabandoned stores and hotels as "looters:'while whites who did the same thing werehailed as heroically "finding food," Fortwo decades an entire generation of blackyouth has been criminalized through theracist "war on drugs" carried out by thecapitalist Democrats and RepUblicansalike. The reality for poor black peopletoday is segregation into ghetto hellholesthat are more akin to prisons than neighborhoods, enforced with rampant cop terror.

hunt'" In 2001. we joined with theGeneral Union of Palestine Students inprotest against the administration', handing over immigrant students' records tothe FBI. demanding, "Down with SFSUcollaboration with FBI anti-immigrantwitchhunt! Defend immigrant rights'"

This history shows that [SFS U president] Corrigan's recent claim that "Weare a campus community that identifiesitself by a central commitment to socialjustice and equity" is nothing but a sickjoke. The truth is that the administrationis feeling the pressure from enraged students and faculty and launched an"investigation" team of former SF mayorWillie Brown and Louise H. Renne toput a lid on protest. But don't be fooled.

The Democratic Party figure WillieBrown is a black front man whose jo b isto make it easier to enforce segregationand oppression through brutal cop terrorand economic marginalization in SanFrancisco's poor black neighborhoods.Louise H. Renne is a hangman of thecapitalist injustice system, the presidentof the Police Commission that ovefseesthe San Francisco police and its "Officeof Citizen Complaints," whose purposeis to whitewash the cops' image.

The Spartacus Youth Club fights fo rfree, quality education for all. Studentswho want to fight for equality must linkarms with the multiracial working class,the only social force in society with thepower to make real social change. Forstudent/worker/faculty control of theuniversity! Abolish the administration.'

Drop al l charges agaimt ProfessorAkom flO IV!. .

From the days of chattel slavery to thepresent. black o p p r e ~ s i o n is the foundationupon which the American system of capitalist exploitation resh. It is not the resultof bad ideas, nor is the ,ource of racism tobe founc! in sOllle 111: thical "humannature." Rather. black. ( ) p r r e ~ ~ i n n has itsmaterial basis in the fact that black peopleare an oppressed race-color caste, in themain segregated at the bottom of American society. Black workers, who composethe majority of the black popUlation, are aspecially o p p r e ~ s e d layer of the proletariat: last hired in times of economicboom, first fired during a recession.Ghetto youth are increasingly viewedas an expendable surplus populationunworthy of being provided even thebasic needs of subsistence. The genocidal logic of America's rulers wascaptured in right-wing bigot WilliamBennett's recent statement on his "Morning in America" radio show that "youcould abort every black baby in t h i ~ country, and your crime rate would godown."The special oppression of black people inAmerica cuts across class lines; even thethin layer of black students who make it toan elite college (black students are only 4percent of the U of C student body) are stilltargeted with raw racism. The beating ofblack grad student Clemmie Carthans lastyear by two University of Chicago c o p ~ illustrates this point. At 3:30 in the morning on January 24. 2004. having a l r e a d ~ ~ t o p p e d Carthans simply because he was"black man on the U of C campus, the campus cops brutally beat Canhans after theysaw him hugging a white woman.

The University of Chicago does notexist in a vacuum. detached from theoutside world, but is itself a bastion ofwhite bourgeois privilege dedicated tothe maintenance of the capitalist system,

cOlliilllled on page 83


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Fight Government Repression!This fall, a series of rallies against government repression, initiated by the Partisan Defense Committee, drew hundreds

of union members. activists, students andsocialists. Held in New York on September 15, in Chicago and Berkeley on October I, and in Los Angeles on October 8,these united-front events helped broadensupport, particularly in the labor movement, for the causes of Mumia Abu-Jamal,Lynne Stewart and Assata Shakur-fighters again.st oppression victimized by theracist capitalist "justice" system.Participants discussed the need formassive protest against the government'sall-sided attacks on democratic rights. Asthe PDC-a legal and social defenseorganization associated with the MarxistSpartacist League-pointed out in itsleaflet building for the rallies:"The bloodthirsty U.S. government's'frontal assault on democratic rights isbeing carried out under the pretext of thebogus 'war on terrorism.' Basic rights,won through the hard-fought class struggle, of the 1930s union organizing drivesand the social struggles of the 1950sthrough the early 1970s-in the ci\ilrights movement. the Vietnam War protests. for women's and gay rights-arebeing run through the shredder by theBush administration \vith the full agreement of the Democratic Party. Politicalopponents face being imprisoned with noright to an attorney or a trial. The gm'ernment asserts the 'right" to disappearand torture its opponents-to lock themup and throwaway the key:'The leaflet stated that the Mumia, Stewart and Shakur cases "must be rallyingpoints for labor. blacks and defenders ofcivil liberties ... Their fight is a fight forall." Passing the bucket at the fourevents raised some S2.750. which wasdivided between the defense committeesfor Mumia and Stewart.Leftist attorney Lynne Stewart is facing years in prison for her vigorous legaldefense of Islamic fundamentalist clericSheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Her conviction threatens the Sixth Amendment rightto an attorney (see "Lynne Stewart Speaksat NYC Rally." WV No. 855. 30 September). She is scheduled for sentencingalong with her co-defendants, MohamedYousry and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, on January 20 in New York City. Stewart's speechin New York was videotaped and playedat the West Coast rallies.Assata Shakur, former member of theBlack Panthers and the Black LiberationArmy, and two companions, Zayd MalikShakur and Sundiata Acoli, were ambushed by New Jersey state troopers in1973. The troopers immediately openedfire, killing Zayd Shakur, and one of thecops was killed with a bullet from apolice revolver. The two remaining militants were convicted of killing the copand their own comrade. While SundiataAcoli has been in prison for over 30years, Assata escaped prison hell in 1979and eventually fled to Cuba, where shestill resides.Addressing Assata Shakur's case wereBrother Sadki "Shep" Ojore Ougbala ofthe N.Y. Hands Off Assata Shakur Coalition and Dara Cooper, Hands Off Assata

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PDC Rallies ' i i i i(,r,L; jermnent Repression

11\ . ~ ~ "fthChicago united-front rally against government repression initiated by the POC, October 1.

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!H'ands on Lynne Stewart!Hands Off Assata Shakur!

Campaign/Chicago Coalition. In herNYC speech, Stewart recalled that yearsago she, like many others, had a sign onher door reading, "Assata Shakur Is Welcome Here." She added, "Now if you putthat on your door, you could be accusedof materially aiding terrorism." In May,the federal Department of Justice andstate of New Jersey raised the bounty onAssata Shakur's head to $1 million, whilethe Feds added her name to domestic andinternational "terrorist" lists.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, America's foremost class-war prisoner, has been ondeath row for over 23 years, falsely convicted of killing a cop. Mountains ofproof of his frame-up and the conspiracythat put him in prison have been compiledfor the world to see, including the confession of Arnold Beverly, that he, notJamal, killed Daniel Faulkner in 1981.But the capitalist rulers want to see theexecution of the ex-Black Panther Partyspokesman, MOVE supporter, award-. , : ~

-u::roo

J'Oakland,9 February 2002:POC banner atlabor-centereddemonstrationin defenseof immigrantrights, againstUSA Patriot Act.

winning journalist and outspoken voicefor all the oppressed. Over the past twodecades, the PDC and Spartacist Leaguehave fought to bring this case into unionhalls and workplaces from the U.S. toSouth Africa, seeking to mobilize thesocial power of the working class to freeMumia and abolish the racist deathpenalty.Mumia provided the rallies with tapedgreetings and a commentary on theHurricane Katrina disaster. AddressingMumia' s cause in NYC was Pam Africa ofthe International Concerned Family andFriends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. MoniqueCode read a statement of support for therally from Mumia's son Jamal Hart.Imprisoned since 1998 on bogus firearmspossession charges, Jamal was targetedfor prominently speaking out in defenseof his father. Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel for Mumia, spoke in the Bay Area.Mumia's sister Lydia Barashango traveled from Philadelphia to speak at theChicago and Los Angeles rallies (see article page 6). Jonathan Piper of the PDC,who was a member of Mumia's defenseteam from 1990 to 1999, also addressedthe Chicago rally.The West Coast forums were chairedby the PDC's Valerie West. who hadworked with Stuart Hanlon and othersin defense of framed-up Black PantherGeronimo ji Jaga (Pratt). Geronimofought for 27 yean, to prove his innocencebefore winning his freedom in 1997. Westparticularly aided him against attempts bystate prison authorities to punish him forcontinuing to struggle for his freedom. Inher remarks, West made special mentionof a Spartacist League/Spartacus YouthLeague lawsuit against the FBI over earlier "terrorism" guidelines. In 1984, thegovernment conceded the central point of

our legal challenge: that Marxist advocacy cannot be equated with yiolence orterrorism. This was a modest but genuineblow to the government's efforts to criminalize leftist political dissent. The broadrepressive sweep of the current "war onterror" makes it all the more urgent tomobilize in defense of its victims.Mobilize Labor's Power!

Based on the need to mobilize labor.blacks and defenders of democratic rightsindependent of the capitalist parties.the PDC-initiated rallies were in starkcontrast to the dime-a-dozen liberalreformist "Anybody but Bush" gatherings that sene to reinforce DemocraticParty lesser-evilism. United-front defenseactions can be catalysts for the openpolitical debate and militant struggleneeded to combat the rulers' war on blackpeople. immigrants, women and labor. Intaking up the cause of the class-war prisoners. the trade unions will be striking ablow against the very capitalist statewhose purpose is to repress working people and minorities. It is through suchstruggles that the working class willdevelop the consciousness to wield itssocial power and organization in a revolutionary fight to smash the murderous,racist capitalist state and replace it witha workers state. The Spartacist Leagueseeks to forge a revolutionary workersparty to lead the workers in this battle.In motivating a class-struggle approach,PDC rally moderators stressed that whileall legal avenues must be pursued in casesthat are in the interests of the entire working class, no faith must be placed in the"justice" of the capitalist courts. AsRachel Wolkenstein explained in NYC:"Class-struggle defense means mobilizing the social power of the working classwith its allies to create the type of pressure needed to obtain Mumia's freedom,overturn Lynne's conviction and defendAssata from the bounty hunters" (see article page 5).The rallies featured speakers fromunions representing thousands of workers. The Berkeley rally was addressedby Brian McKeever, Vice President ofLocal 9 of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association. whose strike againstNorthwest Airlines is important for theentire labor movement. Jack Heyman.Executive Board member of International Longshore and Warehouse UnionfILWU) Local 10. also spoke there. Ne\\York speakers included James Webb.President Emeritus of the Coalition ofBlack Trade Unionists, who has spokenout for Mumia for many years: CleoSihers of 119gers for Peace and Justice.the Communist W o r k e r ~ Organizationand Workers to Free Mumia; and ChrisSilvera. Secretary-Treasurer of TeamstersLocal 808 and chairman of the TeamstersNational Black Caucus. Mike Elliott.

continued 011 page 6WORKERS VANGUARD


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For Class-Struggle Defense! Since 1974. we have conducted legaland social defense work in accordancewith these principles. The PDC cut itsteeth organizing international defensecampaigns for Latin American leftists inthe grip of bloody military dictatorship. We launched fundraising campaignsfor striking British miners in the mid1980s. as well as for the people of theAfghan city of Jalalabad when it wasbesieged by CIA-backed Islamic reactionaries following the Soviet withdrawalin 1989. We have initiated mass labor/black mobilizations to stop the KKK andNazis from marching in cities across thecountry. including the nearly 10,000-strong mobilization in New York City inOctober 1999.

We print belm1' the opening remarksby Rachel Wolkenstein of the PartisanDefense Committee at the September 15New York City rally against governmentrepression, which she chaired.

This rally and others which will follow in {::hicago. the Bay Area and LosAngeles were called by the PartisanDefense Committee a couple of monthsago. Our purpose: to rally against LynneStewart's conviction and before her sentencing. She faces 30 years' imprisonm e n t ~ t h i s would be effectively a lifesentence. We rally to show defiance ofthe one-million-dollar bounty placed onAssata Shakur's head like a fugitiveslave warrant. We rally to mobilize tofree Mumia Abu-Jamal and abolish theracist death penalty.Since the September II attacks. Bushand the Democrats have used the bodiesof those killed in the criminal attack 0'1the World Trade Center as a bloody shirtto launch the so-called war on terror aswell as the invasions of Afghanistan andIraq. The reality is that the "war on terror" is nothing but a pretext for a frontalassault on democratic rights and anattempt to invoke "national u n i t y " ~ t h e notion that the exploited have the same

f\. : , , , . ~ . f f I

NO TO THE VEILMEN !DEFEND AFGHAN WO CTIt15SUPPORT N;'}ALALABAO VI IOF CIA CUTTHROATS.PARTISAN DEFENSE

01 0April 1989: PDC ralsmg funds forpeople of Jalalabad, beSieged byU.S.-backed Afghan Islami c reactionaries, at Washington, D.C. abortionrights demo.interes.ts as the exploiters who rule thissociety. Under this "national unity"umbrella. the capitalist rulers carry outtheir brutal policies toward black people.the poor. immigrants. and have launcheda repressive assault on the working classand leftists.These railies could not be more timely.The criminal racist policies of the capitalist state carried out by its two parties.the Democrats and Republicans. havebeen laid bare in the aftermath of Hurri-

'cane Katrina. The class and race divisionsin the United States are clear. The devastation and death. which has been inflictedprimarily on black and poor people. wasnot caused by nature. It was manmade,produced by the rulers' criminal neglectand contempt toward the poor and blacks.The death and destruction there wascaused by the operation of the capitalistsystem. This anarchic, profit-driven system cannot even provide for the safetyand welfare of the population. That system has to go!

The same capitalist state which isresponsible for the savage occupation ofIraq and the human disaster on the GulfCoast also attempts to silence, imprisonand kill the voice of the voiceless, MumiaAbu-Jamal, radical attorney Lynne Stewartand Assata Shakur. These are fighters whoraise their voices, give their lives and25 NOVEMBER 2005

\ ' 4 ~ " '"*,,''' 1 1 . . ~ \ . " 1'1",. ' " ~ ~ " " ' ~ '

n )l i'l )I i'l ) l " ~ i'l )l f:: fJ

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September 15: PDC's Rachel Wolkenstein addressing New York City rallyagainst repression.energy in opposition to the policies of thisracist capitalist system and in defense ofthe very kinds of p e o p l e ~ p o o r , black.those specially targeted by the s t a t e ~ who have been criminally victimized inthe aftermath of Katrina.My name is Rachel Wolkenstein. I havebeen counsel for the Partisan DefenseCommitt ee since it began in 1974. I waspart of Mumia Abu-Jamal's legal defenseteam from 1995 through June 1999. incharge of the defense investigation. Itwas this investigation which led to obtaining Arnold Beverly's confession thathe, not Mumia, shot and killed PoliceOfficer Daniel Faulkner. In July 1999, Iresigned from the legal team. along withJon Piper, when lead attorney LeonardWeinglass and co-counsel Dan Williamsprecluded Mumia from putting this evidence of his innocence before the courts.

The Partisan Defense Committee issponsoring this united-front rally to bringtogether, in defense of Mumia. Lynne andAssata. speakers and organizations acros,a spectrum of political beliefs. each raising his own views on these vital casesand how to fight to win. The PDC isbased on the principles of non-sectarian.class-struggle defense. This purpose is inaccordance with the political views ofthe Spartacist League. We have a Marxistworldview; this is a class society. Ahandful of capitalists control and reapthe wealth of the world for their ownbenefit. but this wealth is created by therriany who labor. We say: Those wholabor must rule!

The interests of the capitalist class.including the political parties which represent it. are totally opposed to the interests of the working class and minorities.And in the United States. black oppression is the bedrock of capitalism. Thus.the PDC is partisan. unconditionally. onthe side of the working people and theoppressed. We stand for pursuing all legalavenues in defense of the cases andcauses that are in the interests of theworking people. But we place all our faithin the power of the masses and no faithwhatsoever in the justice of the courts.The capitalist system and its courtscannot be fundamentally reformed. Westand for the independence of the working people from th e capitalist state andits parties Democratic, Republican.Green regardless of whether the politician is white or black. Class-struggledefense means mobilizing the social power of the working class with its allies tocreate the type of pressure needed toobtain Mumia's freedom. overturn Lynne'sconviction and defend Assata from thebounty h u n t e r s ~ a mass movement. centrally based on the independent power ofthe working class.

The PDC is also non-sectarian. Thatmeans we defend any member of theworkers m o v e m e n t ~ w o r k e r s , leftists,fighters against black o p p r e s s i o n ~ w h o suffers persecution by the capitalistcourts because of his activities or opinion. These are class-war prisoners. Westand on the old IWW (Wobbly) slogan,"An injury to one is an injury to all!"

In Oakland in February 2002. the PDCand the Labor Black League for SocialDefense initiated a united-front demonstration centered on the powerful ILWUlongshore union in defense of immigrantsand against the USA Patriot Act. ThePDC. along with the Spartacist League.has filed friends of the court briefs in theFederal Court of Appeals and in the U.S.Supreme Court challenging the government's "enemy combatant" policy in thecase of Jose Padilla. This is the government's attempt to establish its so-calledright to disappear people.

Twenty years ago. the PDC revived thetradition of monthly stipends for those inprison for standing up to racist capitalistoppression. Over the years. we have provided financial support to 35 prisoners onthree continents. A number were formersupporters of the Black Panther Party,notably Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt). whowas in prison for 27 years for a murderthe cops and FBI knew he did not commit.Among the first stipend recipients wasRamona Africa. the sole adult survivor ofthe 1985 bombing of the MOVE commune in Philadelphia by the FBI. the ATF[Bureau of AlcohoL Tobacco and Firearms1 and the Philly cops under blackDemocratic mayor Wilson Goode.In 1987. MOVE prisoners asked us totake up the case of Mumia Abu-Jama\.and we threw ourselves into his defenseat a time when he was virtually unknown.Beginning in 1989. we held rallies acrossthe country and internationally to mobilize support for Mumia and to fight toabolish the racist death penalty. We haveemphasized that this is a political deathpenalty case which illustrates the racismendemic in this country in its cruelest,most vicious form and lays bare theessence of the capitalist state. We areopposed to the death penalty as a matterof principle. It is not for the state todetermine who is to live or to die.Our work succeeded in getting broaderforces to take up Mumia's case, althoughmost of them generally did this not on

continued 011 page 7

Ho/if/flY Appefl/Benefits ffJr C/flss-WflrPrisonersBay Area

Sunday, December 112 to 6 p.m.Oakland YWCA Tea Room1515 Webster Street

For more information: (510) 839-0852PO. Box 77462San Francisco, CA 94107

Los AngelesSaturday, December 102 to 6 p.m.

Mount HollywoodCongregational Church4607 Prospect AvenueFor more information: (213) 380-8897or e-mail:[email protected]

New YorkFriday, December 96 to 11 p.m.

6 Harrison St. (at Hudson)Manhattan(Take 1 or 9 to Franklin St.)For more information: (212) 406-4252PO. Box 99, Canal st. Sta.New York, NY 10013

ChicagoSunday,December 113 to 7 p.m.

United Electrical Hall37 S. Ashland (at Monroe)For more information: (312) 563-0442PO. Box 802867Chicago, IL 60680

TorontoSaturday, December 107 to 10 p.m.

Steelworkers Hall25 Cecil Street(near Queens Park Sta.)For more information: (416) 593-4138PO. Box 314. Station BToronto, Ontario M5T 2W1

This is not charity-it's a duty and an act of solidarity with those in prison.Their fight is our fight!SPONSOR: PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE

5


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poe Rallies ...(colltil7l1edfiYJII7 p(/ge 4)UAW Local 55 I Educ ation Committeechairman. spoke in Chicago. while theLos Angeles rally featured Henry Walton.host of the KPFK radio program "LaborReview."From the podium and the floor, discussions brought out the critical difference between a class-struggle strategyand one based on appealing to the capitalist state and political parties. On theW e ~ t Coast. Don Cane of the Bay AreaLahor Black League for Social Defenseaddressed the recent split among theAFL-CIO tops and called for a politicalfight against all wings of the lahorbureaucracy:

"Both Sweenev's AFL-CIO and Stern'sChan2e to W i ~ Coaliti(ln forsake class


7/12

We join student acti\ish. trade unioni ~ h and defender, of civil lihertie, inoutrage 0 \ er the recent frame-up conviction of Hostos Community Cllllegestudent leader Miguel Malo. Malo. thefonner Student Senate Presidcnt at Hostos. was arrested in 200 I for the "crime"of holding up a sign denouncing cu h inbilingual programs and hikes in fces forEnglish as a Second Language ""orkshops. On October 24, OWl' four yearsand 50 court appearances later. he wasconvicted on frame-up charges of reckless assault and disorderly conductbased on false allegations that heassaulted two City University of NewYork "peace officers." Numerous witnesses have testified and evidence has

TWU ...(cOIztinlled .tiy) II page 12)an '"ally" of the TWU. The cops are thehired guns of the capitalists whose jobis to terrorize the ghettos and barrios'and repress working-class struggle-theyhave no business in the unions! Neith'erdo the MTA's "Property Protection"security guards, who are members ofLocal lOa.

In a gross violation of labor principles, five local vice presidents are suingToussaint and the union over a seriesof complaints. Before his election in2000, Toussaint's New Directions opposition group repeatedly sued the leadership in office at the time. The courts arean agency of capitalist repression-theirintervention into union affairs can only

~ ~ L _ ,

already acknowledged our tactical mistakes in "A Hard Look at Recent PartyWork and Current Tasks" (WV No. 841,4 February).

In his comments. Heyman dodged hisow n role in initiating the ILWU motionexplicitly endorsing the April 1999 rallywith its central demand for a "new trial"for Mumia, to which he added as windowdressing the statement that Mumia cannotget justice in the bourgeois courts. Wewere correct not to endorse the April1999 protest and other actions that subordinatcd the call to free Mumia to thedemand for a "new trial." The "new trial"slogan is based on the lie that the samecapitalist courts that want to see himkilled could deli\er justice for MUll1ia.Working with the dubious InternationalBolshe\'ik Tendency and its Labor ActionCOlllmittee to Free Mumia Ahu-Jamal.He) man provided a left face for those\\ho opposed raising the call for Mumia'sfreedom. We sent large teams to the rallies. But in not building "Free Mumia"contingents, we weakened our politicaleffectiveness in counterposing a class-25 NOVEMBER 2005

Hands Off Miguel Malo!shO\\n that it \\as actually CL'NY copswh o assaulted Malo. leaving him ",ithinjuries to his wrists. forearms and hack.

The Partisan Defense Committee senta Novemher 7 protest letter to BronxCounty District Attorne) Robert T.Johnson. pointing out that: "O\er thelengthy persecution of Mr. Malo. youroffice has attempted to deny him thelegal counsel of his choice. deny him atranslator. violated his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent hy demanding that he write an affidavit. and most

weaken the union. Courts. cops-out ofthe unions'MTA "Plantation Justice"

NYC transit workers are wary of theirleadership in this year's contract negotiations given their experience the last timearound. In 2002. 10.000 transit workersvoted to authorize strike action at twomass meetings a week before the contract expired. Then. as the clock wasticking down, thousands of TWU members marched over the Brooklyn Bridgeto City Hall prepared for a long-awaitedfight. but were infuriated to learn that theink was already drying on a deal.

Under that settlement. workers receivedno wage raise in the first year. just a lumpsum bonus. Local 100 officials claimedthat they at least won some gains againstthe MTA's vicious disciplinary system,

struggle strategy to the liberal-reformistoutlook of the rally organizers and exposing the maneuvering of Heyman. His rolewas in fact to aid the reformists whosereliance on liberal public opinion hasdemobilized protests for Mumia.

Responding to Heyman, an SL speakerexplained that the protest organizersdeliberately rejected the call to freeMumia in favor of the "new trial" sloganbecause they did not want to alienatepeople whose faith in the bourgeois justice system would not allow them tohelieve that .. there could he this conscious political frame-up of an innocentman. In other words. they were pandering to the illusions of liberals in thenature of the racist capitalist system"Many in the liberal milieu helie\e thatMumia may be guilty and oppose hisconviction solely on the ground thathe did nOl receive a fair trial. The comrade pointed out that Heyman obscuredthe fact that these slogans embodieddifferent strategies and opposing clas'sperspectives.Mumia Abu-Jamal Is anInnocent Man!

In Chicago and L.A., Lydia Barashango, Mumia Abu-Jamal's sister, spokemovingly of he r brother's character asthey grew up together. She spoke of theimpact this case has had on her family,which has been "'on hold" for all theseyears-including men who have beendriven out of Philadelphia and who live inconstant fear of state retribution.

In NYC, Pam Africa urged everyoneto get the affidavit by Rachel Wolkenstein reprinted in the September 200 IPartisan Defense Committee pamphlet,MUlllia Abu-Jamu! Is ({}/ Inl10cent Mall.'The pamphlet includes the confession ofArnold Beverly and other eyewitnessaccounts and declarations that confirmMumia's innocence. Pam Africa called ita " m u ~ t - h a \ ' C " because it tells the truthahout MUlllia's case. She told the audience. "I f you want to be in this fight tofree MUlllia. get the Rachel Wolkensteinaffidavit ... Arm the youth \\ith sOllleinformation ahout '" hat is really happening with Mumia."

Robert Bryan. Mumia's lead counselsince 20m, told the Berkeley rally what

recently. your office demanded that ap n ~ h i b i t i v e l ) high hail of 53.000 be setensuring that he spend time in jail.Because of the political witchhunt carried out by your office with assistancefrom the CUNY administration. Mr.Malo. an innocent man. faces up to ayear in p r i ~ o n when he is sentenced ....The A ~ s i s t a n t District Attorney in\'olvedin the case argued that to beliC\e MiguelMalo would mean that the campus copsare 'complete and utter liars: Well. theprosecution's entire case was based on

but the numbers tell a different story. Arecent Local 100 Internet posting notesthat renewed MTA efforts to "increa,eefforts to improw employee a\'ailability"mean "tougher time and attendance rulesand more disciplines and threats." Lastyear alone, the MTA hit the predominantly black subway and bus workerswith 15,204 disciplines. with minority andwomen workers in the lowest-paid jobsthe hardest hit. No wonder transit workerscall this "plantation justice."This time the Local 100 tops are noteven making a pretense of preparing for astrike. Isolated shop rallies have taken theplace of union-wide protests, and a massunion meeting isn't scheduled until December 10, just five days before the contract expires. What's needed is a series ofmass meetings-not showpieces where thebureaucrats present the decisions they've

Mumia had said to him that same dayabout his case:"He said. Robert. it's about the thousands of men and women on death row.which is not only in the United Statesbut around the world. It's about the many

more thousands of people. certainly inthe U.S. but around the globe. who arevictims of human rights abuses. It'sahout people \\ho ' ~ ' e discriminatedagainst because of their politics. becauseof their gender. because of their sexualpreference. It's about the right of children not to gO to bed hungr\, al1\'wherein the w o r l d ~ I t ' s ahout the ~ ' i ~ d l t t ~ J r people to have an education and not to beabused. particularl) by governmentssuch a, the one in this countr:."Bryan noted that "when there werefew people who were willing to standup for Mumia. when there were virtuallyno organizations. there was the PartisanDefense Committee. And the PartisanDefense Committee started organizing,having rallies. raising the consciousness ofall of us he fore anybody else was doing it.'

Speaking during the discussion at thisrally. Wolkenstein described her battleswith others on Mumia's former legalteam, namely lead defense attorney Leonard Weinglass and co-counsel DanielWilliams. Recounting that Weinglass and

.Class-StruggleDefense ...(continued from page 5)the basis of class-struggle defense. Others have been agnostic on Mumia's innocence, thereby effectively denying thatthis is a political case. Mumia is an innocent man! He is the victim of a racistpolitical frame-up. There have been illusions sown in the courts hy campaignsbased on the call for a new trial forMumia. rather than a call to free Mumia.There is no justice in the eapitalistcourts! This campaign for a new trialeffecti\'ely demobilized a whole generaticin \\ ho had come out for M umia in thehundreds of thousands at the time of his1995 hearings in the face of the deathwarrant and into the later 1990s.

The question of defense of Mumia.Lynne and Assata and the O\erall fightagainst government repression. the de-

fahrications and suppression of e\'idence. Cops arc so well knO\\n for lyingthat there is a word for it: testilying.:\ohody kno\\ s this better than thelargely black and Latino residents of theBronx."

Miguel Malo \\as targeted hecause heis a student leader and acti\'ist whodefends immigrant rights on an overwhelmingly minority campus. His persecution is intended to stifle all protestso that CUNY can continue to slasheducation for workers, immigrants. minorities and the oppressed. Show support for Miguel Malo at his sentencinghearing on December 13 outside theBronx County Criminal Courthouse at215 East 161st Street!

already made and union members get nochance to ~ p e a k . but decision-makingmeetings where the memher,hip hammersout a policy of struggle against the l\1TA.

It is through union struggle that theTWU can defeat the l\1TAs multipleschemes to pit different sections of theworkforce against each other, weakeningthe union as a whole: immigrant versusnative-born, new-hires versus veteranworkers. bus division versus suhways,regionalfsuburban lines versus city transit.A hard fight lies ahead. The only road tovictory for transit workers and the entireworking class is mobilizing labor's powerindependent of the capitalist state andpolitical parties. The working people needa party that fights for their class interests.a workers party committed to overturningthis whole system of capitalist exploitation,racial oppression and imperialist war. .

Williams had suppressed the evidence ofJamal's innocence and ensured it wasnever introduced in court. Wolkensteinsaid: 'All the issues that are raisedaround the Beverly evidence-and it'smuch more than the confession byArnold Beverly-have to be raised in thecourse of the mass movement whichmust he huilt. Because that evidence confirms in every way that this was a political prosecution, not only racist hut political. and touches on the entire workingsof the American capitalist legal system."She continued:"The legal betrayals of the case camefrom politics-the people who were suppo,edly doing the lawyering succumbedto a political \'iew that they had to present IVlumia in a way that would bepalatable to the b O l l r g e ~ o i s COllrt,. It wasthe political Marxi,t hl\\yers who werefighting to turn O\er ever: ,tone and pursue in the courts even hit of investigation that was p o " i b l e . ~ along with all thedifferent constitutional violationS:'

As Wolkenstein stated in conclusion,Mumia's case show s "'the total nature of thecapitalist, racist frame-up system .. . It's apolitical frame-up. and it will only, only bea mass movement based centrally on thepower of labor that will get him free.".

fense of blacks and others throughout theGulf Coast victimized by the capitalistrulers, the defense of the trade unionsall are dependent on our understandingof the capitalist state and its courts, andthat the system as a whole has got togo ' The power to defend all intendedvictims of this racist capitalist state isgoing to come out of the social power ofthe working people and its allies. Thatmeans labor strikes, mass protests anddemonstrations organized around thepower of the integrated labor movementin this country and internationally. Thcspeakers here tonight arc activists andleaders. And I say that with Lynne here.because that is her main role. not a,a defendant or a victim. They are allhere to explain. to rail) new supporters and. importantly. to debate the ",a)forward. the best way to fight gm ernment oppression. Free Mumia' Hands offLynne Stewart' Hands off Assata Shakur'This rally is one part of that \'ery important struggle._

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Chicago SYC Replies to YDS:IIState Department Socialists" and FBI SmearsWhen the Chicago Spart(lcus YouthClub posted an announcement for itsMarxist class series to the e-mail list ofthe Unil'ersity of Chicago Young Democratic Socialists, former YDS hOl1cho

Lllcas Shapiro replied with vitriolic slanders. We reprint below the SYC's r e p l } ~ issued as a leaflet titled "YDS: Lapdogsfor u.s. Imperialism" on October 29.On October 10, Young DemocraticSocialists (YDS) former national organizer Lucas Shapiro posted an e-mail onthe YDS list serve. slandering the Spartacist League as a "sect" whose members"might as well be federal agents" becausethey "disrupt other leftwing events." Weof the Sp artacus Youth Club are responding to refute these smears. What Shapirocalls "disruption" is simply the exerciseof our democratic right of raising criticism of the left's crawling before thecapitalist Democratic Party. With his"fede ral agents" slur, Shap iro is taking apage from former FBI Director J. EdgarHoover's sinister COINTELPRO pro-

FflRA.t Sl\..-:At'OF 1':V1._10.t.TJOIo,ORt'("ordJ 9TaIlckl__ -1-=.-..'-. "u..~ S . ~ ~ z ~ n ) ~ . 4 6 ! ' ; ~ . TL_ 225o Spt'tia\ Flit J\ ..o ~ , flfI?l. TL.- 142W rt)J"\I. __ It rLlt PrnPlo.. ~ t 4 7 . TL. 143o AtuntlOf~ f ' L l . J r r t . c :

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t . o c . l ! t l f ' ~ St-archer-:;-;:t:a._ D . ~ ____ _ huh.h.''roG _______r.IL[ r-;lM.BER ---t-:;-=-oERIAL_ I_Jt2?'=wi7S'"L' . ~ . ' 2 1 i

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~ _ ~ 5 f ~ ~ 2 ~ FBI files misspell Spartacist League'sname. YDS slander mimics previousprovocations against us that usedsame FBI misspelling.

Racist Party...(contilllledfimn page 3)Founded by oil baron John D. Rockefeller. the U of C serves as a training ground for the next generation ofcapitalist politicians, corporate lawyers,and other assorted representatives of theproperty-owning class. Located in ablack neighborhood in one of the mostsegregated northern cities in the UnitedStates, the U of C is a leading landlord inChicago's largely black South Side, andutilizes a private army of campus copsto terrorize. black residents of the surrounding neighborhood. This is a schoolwhose student orientation helps fosteranti-black racism. inculcating a fear ofblack residents of the surrounding neighborhood. We of the Spartacus Youth Club

gram that targeted leftists and black radicals in the 1960s for "neutralization."'On that note, it's striking that Shapirospells the name of our organization"Sparticist League" (with an "i"). Considering nearly everyone even vaguelyfamiliar with us is aware that our name isspelled "Spartacist," it is remarkablethat someone who presents himself asbeing knowledgeable in regards to ourgroup could misspell our name. Thisparticular misspelling obviously does notcome from reading our own press. Instead. it has a very sinister origin. andhas appeared in a variety of slanderous.violence-baiting provocations directedagainst us over the years. We researchedits origins. and traced it back to FBI andCIA surveillance files about our organization. some of which were recovered by usunder the Freedom of Information Act.Shapiro has some nerve to claim thatwe "might as well be federal agents," considering that Democratic Socialists ofAmerica (DSA) founder Michael Harrington and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, the DSA's predecessor,both have had known ties to the CIA. In1959, for example. Harrington (then amember of the Socialist Party [SPI) ledthe Young Peoples Socialist League (theyouth organization of the SP) in their participation in a CIA-funded event in Viennadesigned to provide a counterweight tothe World Youth Festival. a CommunistParty supported event. This was lateradmitted to by well-known feminist andDSOC member Gloria Steinem, who herself served as an executive of the CIAfunded "International Research Service"(Washington Post, 18 Fehruary 1967).Like all fake leftists who throw aroundsmears about "disruption" and "cults."what sets Shapiro off is that we opposethe lefts program of "unity" to pressurethe capitalist politicians. What Shapiro.the DSA and YDS really despise aboutus is our revolutionary politics. exem-call for the opening of the U of C to thesurrounding black neighborhood as partof our fight for a free. quality educationfor all. Nationalize the University! Foropen admissions, no tuition and a statepaid living stipend for all students!Many students have rightfully expressed their outrage over the racist MayHouse party, but this is mainly expressedin calls to pressure the administration tomake the university a more "tolerant"place. What should have happened wasimmediate protest by students and campus workers to show that this racist crapwill not be tolerated! Given the administration's role as a pillar of the racist capitalist order. it is dangerous to believe thatit can be made to act on behalf of thosethis system oppresses. Just look at Georgia State University, where in 2004 thePi Kappa Alpha fraternity had a racist1!Z/2'lUiElZlmt-l,]

8

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist Leagueo $10/21 issues of Workers Vanguard ::J New 0 Renewal(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/21 issues-Airmail $10/21 issues-Seamailo $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist)o $2(4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist)o I would like to contribute $ to the production of Workers Vanguard.NameAddress Apt. # ____City _________ State _____ Zip ____

E-mail ___________hone (__ ______859Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

plified by our unwavering defense ofthe former Soviet Union against imperialist aggression and capitalist counterrevolution while calling for workers political revolution to oust the Stalinistbureaucracy. The DSA and its predecessors, on the other hand. have consistentlygiven their support to U.S. imperialism'svicious struggle against socialist revolution. Michael Harrington. for instance.was head of the Socialist Party when theSP supported U.S. imperialism in its

"" 'ODleD andRe,Tolution tl: ')-----Women of the East-ProletarianRevolutionorSlavery

SL defended Red Army interventionagainst CIA-backed Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan in the1980s. YDS forebears sided with U.S.imperialism.attempt to crush the heroic struggle ofthe Vietnamese workers and peasantswho were fighting to oust capitalism.It infuriates Shapiro that the SYC andSL supported both the Soviet interwntion in Afghanistan and the suppressionof SolidarnosC's counterrevolutionarypower grah in Poland. We are proud ofour positions on these events. whichwere both aspects of our principleddefense of the Soviet degenerated work-"Straight Out of Compton" party, withtwo students even going so far as towear blackface to the event. The GSU'sBlack Student Alliance and the campusNAACP organized a series of speakoutsand rallies to respond to this outrage.The GSU administration reacted by suspending the BSA. charging them withintending "to incite others by makinga misleading flyer" and "discriminatory harassment"! Any pO\vers grantedthe administration to discipline groupsdeemed as offensive will ultimately beused to target minority groups and leftists.

The Spartacus Youth Club s look to theworking class as the only social forcewith the power and interest to smashthe capitalist system of exploitation andeliminate the racism it produces once and

ers state, and the defense of the gainsmade by the October Revolution of1917. We hailed the Red Army's marchinto Afghanistan. realizing that the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistanmade possible the extension of thesegains to the Afghan people, women inparticular. The Soviet intervention intoAfghanistan allowed the Afghan government to redistribute land to poor peasant


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Black Liberation ...(co/lTil1l1edjimll page 9)e\ces,. surplus population for the rulingclass. Will iam Bennett's comment that"you could ahort eVl::ry black haby in thiscountry. and your crime rate would godov.n" reflech the hourgeoisie's impubetoward genocide of the black population.

Howe\er. hlack \vorkers play a strategic role in thc American economy andare represented in union jobs at a higherrate than white workers. For the strugglefor hlack freedom to succeed requiresstruggle by the \\orking class as a \\ holeto abolish capitalism and establish in itsPlace an ealitarian socialist society. Ourprogram of revolutionary integration ismis premised upon mobilizing the workingclass to take lip the fight for black liberation-a class-struggle fight to uprootthe source of black oppression, which iscapitalism.

But the struggle of black people in thiscountry for freedom, while part of thestruggle of the working class as a whole.is also more than that struggle. Blackpeople are an oppressed race-color caste.And while there are other racial and ethnic minorities. mainly immigrants. whoalso face oppression because of the inherently racist nature of U.S. capitalist society, the histories of non-white groups ofpeople in this country are not all thesame.

The liberal "people of color" rhetoricthat you hear actually erases the distincthistory of each racial minority group andliquidates the unique aspect of blackoppression rooted in U.S. history-likeslavery. like lynching and the Klan. likethe degradation and humiliation of ridingin the back of the bus. sitting in the b3ckof a restaurant and not being allowed totravel or buy a home where you want.Dividing the working class along racelines is key to maintaining capitalist rulein the U.S. Conscious of the social powerthat the proletariat would attain through

Y .I

center of your program. The question ofblack oppression in the United States isstrategic to the revolutionary task of theworking class.We Are the Party of theRussian Revolution

We base our program on the lessonsof the Russian Revolution of 1917. TheOctober Reyolution. led by the BolsheyikParty under Y. I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky.is the only successful workers revolutionin history. where the working class overthrew the rule of its capitalist exploitersand took power. The October Revolutioncreated a workers state based on workerscouncils. or soviets. and ftJrged a RedArmy that triumphed in war against counterrevolutionary forces backed up byworld imperialism.

The early Soviet government expropriated the holdings of the capital ists andcancelled the debt owed to the imperialists. It proclaimed the right of workingpeople to jobs. health. housing and education. and took the first steps toward building a socialist society. The revolutionarygovernment gave land to the peasants andself-determination to the many oppressednations of the former tsarist empire. The

UsherlTimeCanal Street, a central thoroughfare in New Orleans, remains devastatednearly three months after Hurricane Katrina hi t the Gulf Coast.unified struggle. the American bourgeoisieapplies "divide and conquer" strategies.

In racist capitalist America, the right toabortion is under attack. and the fastestgrowing component of rising incarceration rates is young black and Latinawomen. who are also getting the HIVvirus and AIDS at a higher rate thanthe rest of the population. Black womenworkers face triple oppression. Theyare oppressed as part of a race-colorcaste. oppressed as women and oppressedas workers. In the U.S. and all overthe world. \\ e fight for full equality forwomen and their complete integrationinto the workforce. We call for equal payfor equal work and for free. safe abortionon demand as part of a free. quality healthcare system. The struggles against exploitation, against women's oppression. againstracial oppression will advance together orfall back separately. Tile working classcannot be free unless it fights for black.ft ~ d o m , and you cannot have a workersrevolution without black freedom at the10

regime separated church and state and.significantly, funded secular education andscience. promoting a thoroughly materialist worldview. It eliminated all lawsdiscriminating against national and ethnic minorities. women and gays. And itdecreed that abortion be free and legal.What made the Russian Revolution successful was the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. which fought not only for thefreedom of those oppressed by capitalistrule in Russia but for the emancipation ofthe international proletariat and for a worldsocialist order.

As re\olutionary internationalists. theBolsheviks uncler Lenin and Trotsky sav.that for l ' S. Comlllunists. the fight forhlack liberation was a central priority.As early as 1920. a main point on theagenda of the Second Congress of theCommunist International was the situation of black people in America. As JamesCannon. an early Communist Party (CP)leader and later the founder of AmericanTrotskyism, wrote in The First Ten Years

o f American ComlllunislII (1962). "Themain discussions on the Negro questiontook place in Moscow." It was based onthese discussions and the influence andpressure of the Com ntern that the American CP of the '20s started to really dosomething to fight black oppression. TheCP adopted the understanding of the blackquestion as a special question of doublyexploited second-class citizens. requiringa program of special demands as part ofthe overall revolutionary program.

I hope this paints a clear picture as towhy we proudly say. "We are the partyof the Russian Revolution." We militarilydefended the Soviet Union and its collectivized property system and planned economy against the imperialists and internalcounterrevolution. in spite of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Unionunder Stalin beginning in 1923-24. Wefought for proletarian political revolution to oust the Stalinist hureaucracyand for the extension of the revolutionworldwide.

Communism is far from dead. Whilethe bourgeoisie has been busy perpetuating the lie about the "death of communism" since the counterrevolutionarydestruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92. it is also actively dusting of f its special police "red squads." The governmenthas also initiated some of the worst attackson democratic rights in recent history.such as the USA Patriot Act and the detention of Jose Padilla. whose case represents the government asserting its "right"to disappear people. and the recent conviction of leftist attorney Lynne Stewartand new attacks on former B lack PantherParty members. All of these attacks areultimately aimed to suppres, the workingclass.

While the U.S. rulers are nO\\ grabbingmore of the oil wealth of the Near East.their main and ultimate target is the People's Republic of China. by far the largest and strongest of the remaining' stateswhere capitalism has been overthrown.Capitalist restoration in China. a countryof over a billion people. would meandeath and starvation of enormous proportions. China and North Korea are amongthose states explicitly indicated as potential targets for a U.S. nuclear first strike.

This makes all the more clear our dutyto fight for the unconditional militarydefense of the remaining bureaucratically deformed workers states of China.North Korea. Cuba and Vietnam againstthe imperialist powers. And that meansdefending their collectivized economies

ProgrammaticStatementof theSpartacistLeague/U.S.$2 (40 pages)

Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPONew York, NY 10116

>u

Far left: BlackPanther leaderHuey Newton.Left: 1970 policeraid on New. Orleans Pantheroffice, part ofmurderousgovernmentvendetta.

and the economic and political e:-.propriation of the capitalist class. It also meansdefending the right of :\'orth Korea tode\elop nuclear weapons. As we did inthe former USSR and the East Europeandeformed workers state,. we also call forproletarian political revolutions to get ridof the ruling nationalist hureaucracies.whose policies undermine and weakenthose states. and install governmenh hasedon workers democracy and re\olutionaryinternational ism.Trotskyism vs.Black Nationalism

The SWP. formerly the Trotskyist partyin the U.S . capitulated to both the liberalcivil rights leaders and to black nationalism. They gave up on political combatagainst the black misleaders and on recruiting cadre from a generation of hlackyouth who were radicalized by the civilrights movement. Many of these youthbecame involved with the Black PantherParty for Self-Defense. The Black Panther Party represented the best of a generation of radical black youth. In highschooL when I first became politicallyengaged, I was immediately drawn towardlearning more about and emulating thePanthers. But in regard to the contradictory and radical-nationalist Black Panthers. all you hear about nowadays is theirfree breakfast programs. It wasn't theirsocial work that attracted me to them. Itwas their militancy.Little do you hear about the militancyof the Panther,. That aspect h,h beenwhitewashed hy Hollywood and the liherals. who'd ha\ e you belie\e that thePanthers were the Black Panthcr Part)for Social Welfare and not the BlackPanther Party for Self-Defen,e. Littledo vou hear ahout their llffer to sendtroops to Vietnam to assi,t in the fightagainst U.S. imperialism. ahout how the)initially organized independently of theDemocrats and Republicans. or abouthow they advocated armed self-defenseagainst racist attacks. HowC\er. thePanthers rejected mobilizing the revolutionary power of the multiracial proletariat to fight black oppression.

Some of the key leaders Jnd groups.such as the Black Panthers. that came outof the Black Power movement becameself-avowed black nationalists. But blackpeople are not oppressed as a nation. Thereis no economic basis for a separate. independent black economy. Black nationalism is utopian: it's pseudo-nationalism.But even such a form of nationalism is

i!f:For a Workers PartyThat Fights for a Workers Government!

For Socialist Revolution .in the Bastionof World Imperialism!Organizational Rules and Guidelinesof the Spartacist League/U.S.

Opponents of the RevolutionaryInternationalist Workers Movement90, T' OPO ~ . " Vo," 10"5

WORKERS VANGUARD


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divisive and interferes with the development of class consciousness.

The Panthers were. in fact, confinedby a sectoralist perspective of blacksliberating blacks. Latinos liherating Latinos, A ~ i a n s liberating Asians. etc . andlacked an internationalist class-struggleprogram. Black workers have an exceptional role to play in the re\olutionarystnlggle to smash capitalist \\age slaver). Becaw . e of their p o ~ i t i o n as both the1110st oppressed and the Illost eonsciow,la) er of the prnletariat . biac k workers areslated to be a key factor in the COIlling American re\olution. B) rejecting a\\ orki ng-c1ass perspecti ve. the Pantherleaders cut themseln:s olT from becomingleaders in the ,tnIggle for socialist re\()iution internationally.

V K. Bulla Wide World

The lack of \\orking-class orientatiun also made the Panthers more \ulnerable to FBI director 1. Edgar Hoover'sCOINTELPRO, or Counter-IntelligenceProgram, which was originally set up in1956 against the Communist Party butwas revived particularly to murderouslyrepress and disrupt the Panthers. Some233 out of the 295 FBI COINTELPROactions against black organizations wereagainst the Panthers. At least 38 Pantherswere murdered by agents of this racist

, Left: Bolshevik leader V.1. Lenin addreSSing Second Congress of Communist International, 1920. Right: Black poetClaude McKay speaking on racial oppression in U.S. at Cl's Fourth Congress, 1922.and Latino youth. While he pardoned hiscapitalist crooks and cronies on his wayout of the office. he made doubly sure thatinnocent political prisoner and AmericanIndian Movement activist Leonard Peltierwas not to be freed. Clinton paved the

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. Mobillie laborandB\ackS fa.- ....... ......-- .- .- ..

F'GHl K l ~ N : : : : : . : : . ~ ; A ' Detroit, 1979:OR'e


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WfJRIlERS "MIIIARIJ. ..

NYC Transit: Jobs, Health Care, Pensions on the LineTWU Must Fight Bosses' Attacks!

NEW YORK CITY-With the contractbetween Transport Workers Union (TWU)Local 100 and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) expiring onDecember 15, the transit bosses are gunning for major givebacks from the union's33,000 subway and bus workers. Thej'dTA typically tries to conceal enormousbudget surpluses as it works tosqueeze the union for concessions.But the MTA is only too ready to fatten the pocketbooks of its real estatebuddies, as seen last year when itoffered to sell property on Manhattan's West Side worth nearly $1 billion to dcvelopers for $21 illion.With this year's contract negotiationsproceeding, the MTA hilS a surplus ofO\er $1 billion that's just too big tohide. Even so, the bosses are demanding major conce,sions that wouldlead directly to fewer jobs and higherhealth care co,ts for workers as wellas an additional tier of workers withinferior benefits.

The attacks on the TV/U are part ofa class war by the capitalist rulersagainst working pcople in the U.S.and internationally. The same capitalist gO\('rnment that launched theimperialist wars against Afghanistanand Iraq left masses of black poor andothers to die in :-Jew Orleans. Nowman) Hurricane Katrina survivors arethreatened with e\ iction from themeager shelter they managed to getin other areas, while many also stillremain without jobs. With help fromthe courts. United and Northwest airline, and auto parts maker Delphi havedeclared bankruptcy in order to annul pension plans and tear up union contracts.part of a broad as,ault on wages andhealth care and other benefits. To the parasitic capitalists, pensions have becomeoutmoded and outlandish perks: workersshould simply work like sla\es. then die.

It's time that labur waged some classstruggle against these assaults. Earlierthis month, over 5,000 Philadelphia transitworkers in TW U Local 234 and UnitedTran

Workers Vanguard No 859 - 25 November 2005

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Transcript of Workers Vanguard No 859 - 25 November 2005