Vol. 22, No. 10
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
25 cents December 1, 1992
[Front page:
Spare-change liberalism--What Clinton will deliver;
Why tolerate a system that breeds police terror?;
Anti-nazi struggle grows in Germany]
IN THIS ISSUE
| How Clinton won............................................... | 2 |
| Right-wing plans stepped-up attacks on gays.... | 2 |
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| No to police brutality and racism! |
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| Federal study to call minorities inferior............. | 3 |
| Outcry in Detroit; Justice for Malice Green!..... | 6 |
| Black NYC cop shot up by fellow officers........ | 6 |
| Can oppressors convict one of their own?......... | 7 |
| Webster commission wants faster repression.... | 7 |
| L.A. cops kill Latino youth................................ | 7 |
| Murder is a way of life for L.A. cops................ | 7 |
| Daryl Gates denounced...................................... | 7 |
| On Spike Lee's Malcolm X............................... | 8 |
| From the speeches of Malcolm X...................... | 8 |
| Protests vs. 500 anniversary of Columbus......... | 10 |
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| Marxist-Leninist Party holds 4th Congress....... | 9 |
| On the role and tasks of the MLP....................... | 9 |
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| Defend women's rights! |
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| Clinic defense in Boston.................................... | 4 |
| Will women priests be ordained?....................... | 4 |
| Irish vote for abortion information.................... | 4 |
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| Strikes and workplace news |
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| California drywall; Alabama steel; Silicon valley; Tacoma clerical; GM job bank; Auto contract; New York transit................................. | 5 |
| L.A. teachers...................................................... | 10 |
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| The fight against racism in Europe |
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| Kohl deports Gypsy refugees............................. | 11 |
| Racist violence in Spain..................................... | 11 |
| German leftists support refugees....................... | 12 |
| Huge rallies oppose racist violence................... | 12 |
| Nazi firebomb kills three people........................ | 12 |
Spare-change liberalism
Why tolerate a system that breeds police terror?
Anti-nazi struggle grows in Germany
How Clinton won
Big business found him acceptable
Right wing plans stepped-up attacks on gays
Federal programs to label the minorities inferior
Defend women's rights!
Strikes and workplace news
Black NYC cop shot up by fellow officers
Justice for Malice Green! Workers Unite! Fight the racist system!
No to police brutality!
From the speeches of Malcolm X
Marxist-Leninist Party holds 4th Congress
On the role and tasks of the Marxist-Leninist Party in the present difficult situation
Columbus Day:
The fight against racism in Europe
Twelve years of Reagan and Bush are over. Quite understandably, many workers, women, and minorities are breathing a sigh of relief. For 12 years, workers were victims of take-backs and strikebreaking. Women faced efforts to turn the clock back on abortion and other rights. And minorities confronted a growth in bigotry and violence.
Many working people and youth voted for Bill Clinton. They responded to his promises of change.
Now we will soon have Clinton in the White House, and the Democrats also control both houses of Congress. So what change is in store for the people? Is this the dawn of a new era of prosperity and fairness, as Clinton and Gore promised, us?
Would that it were so. Unfortunately, we cannot expect Clinton and the Democrats to represent the interests of the working people who voted for him. No, he won not as the champion of the people but because mass sentiment for change coincided with the capitalist ruling class finding it acceptable to have the Democrats back in the White House. (See article on page 2.)
It is this connection -- between Clinton and the establishment of money and power -- which will determine what kind of policies will be carried out by Clinton and the Democrats.
Prepare "to be disappointed"
No sooner had Clinton won than the word went out from the Democrats, the people should not get their hopes up too high. As a Clinton spokesperson put it, "Labor, minorities, environmentalists, blacks, Hispanics, women, retired people, you name it, all see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And somebody is going to be very disappointed."
For example, Clinton had promised that his first priority would be to launch a jobs program. But already his advisors have stopped speaking in that tone. While we won't know for a few more weeks what his actual plans will be, we do need to note that instead of the promise of a jobs program, the Clinton team is emphasizing that we have a "deeply troubled economy" and people should realize that there are no "quick fixes."
Liberalism on the cheap
What we have in essence is a White House and Congress representing liberalism on the cheap. Clinton will indeed carry out measures which will move away from some of the hardline reactionary positions of the Reagan-Bush years, but the main changes he will carry out are those that don't cost much money and which don't arouse much opposition from powerful vested interests.
Thus his team has let the word out that there will be more minorities and women in top posts, and certain measures which Bush stubbornly opposed will now be repealed. For example, Clinton is expected to end the gag rule on abortion counseling in federally funded clinics and to authorize research using fetal tissue. He will also tinker with various ethics rules in the federal government.
But what of the substantial issues like jobs, health care reform, homelessness, the desperation of the inner cities? Action on such issues costs money and requires confronting entrenched interests. We are not likely to see much progress there.
While "change" was the campaign slogan, look for "sacrifice" to be the coming theme
What were vague promises during the campaign are tending to be vaguer still now that the elections are over. More and more, we are hearing from Clinton advisors that cutting the deficit has to be at the top of the list.
The deficit is a huge burden on government finance. In the Reagan and Bush years, the total federal debt climbed to over $4 trillion from under $1 trillion in 1981. Most of this debt was incurred by cutting taxes on the rich and the corporations and by exploding military spending, which made many a military contractor fabulously rich. And each year now, $200 billion is paid out in interest to bankers and other wealthy financiers.
But when it comes to cutting the deficit, who will bear the burden: the rich or the poor? When the Clinton team talk of "sacrifice," rest assured they mean that it is the ordinary people who will bear the brunt of deficit-reduction belt-tightening.
A capitalist government
It is the wealthy who have the pull. The Clinton government is a capitalist government. It is businessmen and the rich who have access to the White House. Just look at the transition team appointed by Clinton. It is headed up by Warren Christopher and Vernon Jordan, who are both millionaire corporate lawyers.
Besides direct access to the new regime, the capitalists have other weapons to discipline their government if it strays too far. Above all else, the financial markets.
Just a few days after Clinton was elected, the Wall Street Journal reminded him in a front page article that the bond markets hold veto power over his fiscal plans. The federal debt is so large that the holders of government bonds, here and abroad, have enormous weight in influencing policy. What they are principally concerned with is any potential threat of inflation which would lower the value of their investments. So the Journalarticle pointed out that if the bond markets see any of Clinton's plans as potentially inflationary, they could dump U.S. treasury bonds, driving up long-term interest rates, and plunging the economy back into recession.
Not surprisingly, Clinton made it clear he understood where he stands. He told the Journal, "I have given a lot of thought to the need to assure central banks, foreign leaders, and the world markets."
Imagine what this implies about the economic system we live in. Hang the needs of the hard-pressed people. What comes first is the highest return on investment for the wealthy who own government bonds.
Where does this leave the working people?
Unlike the financiers and corporate bosses, the working people have no pull on Clinton. We will not be represented in the cabinet or the other high councils of power. Living on selling our labor power, we have no markets to discipline the White House in our favor.
The media will point to AFL-CIO leaders or black elite politicians like Jesse Jackson who will no doubt get invited to White House sponsored committees and banquets. But these leaders who speak in the name of the working people don't represent our interests. Their role is merely to keep us loyal to the Democrats, to make sure that we are quiet.
While it is the harsh truth that unlike the capitalists the working people do not have their own powerful voice or vehicle, this doesn't mean that this situation has to continue. If we don't want to be pushed that much further back, if we want to defend our interests, we have to build those voices and organizations to represent us.
Clinton is not our savior. To win change in our favor, we must build an independent movement of the workers and poor.
Expectations and prospects
Although Clinton campaigned on a program of reduced expectations and is trying to calm expectations down further, the fact remains that many working people's hopes have been raised by the Clinton victory.
What will happen when these expectations remain largely unmet? Will mass aspirations melt and dissipate into disillusion and cynicism? Or can the hopes of the masses be channeled in the direction of renewing mass struggle as the vehicle for serious change? Progressive activists must work in favor of the latter.
Clinton is fond of comparing his administration with that of John Kennedy who was elected in 1960. Kennedy too called for change away from the political stagnation of the 50's. While Clinton remembers Kennedy's image, we remember his actual policies -- such as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, pussyfooting around with racist politicians in the South, and launching the Vietnam war.
And we remember that people who had hopes in JFK soon came to grips with the realities of what they would soon denounce as the hypocrisy of "corporate liberalism." And many sprouts of mass struggle and political awakening would emerge across the landscape of America.
The hope for change today rests not on Clinton but on the prospect of a new movement of working people recognizing the need for independent mass politics and putting forward a socialist alternative to this profit-driven mad society.
[Cartoon.]
Police brutality is a plague across the land. With the memory of the Rodney King beating still fresh, the Los Angeles police last month struck again, murdering 18-year-old Latino youth Efrain Lopez. On November 5, Detroit police beat unemployed black worker Malice Green to death with heavy flashlights. Then on November 19 in New York City, where the police murder of Jose Garcia led to big protests this summer, a supposed black criminal was shot on sight by the cops before he could explain he was an undercover cop.
This is some of the routine police cruelty we report on in this issue. For blacks, Latinos and other poor working people, police harassment is a daily fact of life.
Don't expect any change under Clinton. All he wants is 100,000 more police on the streets.
Indeed, harassment has continued under Democrat and Republican governments. True, Reagan and Bush smiled on it. But Democratic city administrations with black mayors in Los Angeles, New York and Detroit direct police departments that keep beating people's heads in. Not just the clash of workers versus boss, but even racism is a class question. The working class blacks and Latinos take it on the neck, while the black bourgeoisie joins the call for more police.
Racism and sadistic beatings are not just accidents. They are not the product of some mysterious psychological disorder. Behind the police stands the racist power structure. The wealthy capitalists in this country live off a system that gives them fabulous wealth at the expense of cutbacks for all workers and double misery for the inner cities. Exploitation is responsible for mass unemployment, homelessness and crumbling schools. And the capitalists love to keep some violent police and right-wing sickos around in order to have a whip over the working class.
Oh yes, the politicians have made some gestures about curbing killer cops. They swear they will no longer tolerate police violence. They said the same last year. And the year before. And the one before that. But the beatings and killings continue. And they're getting worse.
Meanwhile rallies in Detroit have protested the killing of Malice Green. In Los Angeles, residents marched on the police station to confront the murderers of Efrain Lopez.
These marches have given voice to the voiceless, and form to the outrage in the communities and among the activists.
But it is necessary not just to protest, but to get organized. The workers and minorities must learn how to build durable movements to confront their oppressors. Every act of police oppression must be condemned not only in the communities and schools, but throughout every work place. Every cutback in the conditions of life must be confronted as well, until a united class struggle emerges against the terrible conditions of life under the take-back offensive of the 80's and 90's.
To hell with relying on the system whose first and last word is keeping the oppressed down! Agitate among the people in communities, schools and work places and create organized links among the anti-racist fighters.
And if the system is to be really hurt, then millions of workers must start to wonder: why tolerate a system that breeds police terror as a chronic disease? A system that considers tens of millions of blacks, Latinos and others living in the inner cities to be expendable? The more workers begin to question the legitimacy of the present system, the stronger will be the movement against racism and police oppression. And only when this system is swept away and replaced by socialist production for the benefit of all, will there be an economic system compatible with durable equality and freedom for all workers.
[Photo: Protest at Detroit's 3rd Precinct police station against the murder of Malice Green, November 15.]
In Germany the occasional racist assault on foreigners has now become a wave of fascist terror. Working in conjunction with a government offensive against the right of political asylum, neo-nazi groups have come out into the open across the country to lead violent assaults on political refugees as well as other immigrants and minority groups.
An anti-nazi resistance is also emerging. Activists are struggling to mobilize an effective movement against the neo-nazis. But anti-racist action comes up face to face with the fact that the government and the mainstream opposition support limiting the rights of refugees. The movement to stop fascist terror can only develop by confronting the German establishment. In this paper we carry a number of articles on the recent events in Germany. (See page11-12.)
A plague of reactionary violence
Right-wing terror has hit Germany like a plague for the last two years, since reunification. The federal government keeps statistics on racist assaults, and in 1990 there were less than 300; in 1991 the number ballooned to almost 1,500; and so far in 1992 there are over 1,700. These are cases of people violently assaulting other people where the only motive seems to be racial/cultural difference.
As a result of these attacks, so far in 1992 close to 1,000 people have been injured, and 16 people have died. This includes the three Turkish women (a grandmother and two young girls) who died in a firebomb attack November 23. It includes a leftist militant stabbed to death by nazis in a Berlin subway station November 20. And it includes a man murdered by skinheads in the western city of Wuppertai November 13. This man, drinking in a bar, got into an argument with some skinheads; he denounced their views, calling them "Nazi pigs," after which they beat him up and then set him on fire. In this they were assisted by the bartender, who joined in because he thought the victim was Jewish.
Anti-Semitism is a component part of the nazi resurgence. People have been attacked on the street simply because someone thought they were Jewish. Over 360 cases have been recorded this year of desecrations of Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and holocaust memorials.
Many of the recent assaults have occurred in eastern Germany, and much of the media coverage has focused on the demoralization of people in the former East Germany and how that has served as fertile ground for neo-nazi recruitment.
But the phenomenon is not limited to that area. In fact over 60% of the racist assaults have occurred in western Germany. And fascist terror is experiencing a rapid growth in other countries as well, both in Eastern and Western Europe. In Italy the fascist Lombard League campaigns against "illegal immigrants" -- not only from other countries, but even against southern Italians moving to northern Italy! Europe is going through hard economic times, and racist and nationalist movements are springing up everywhere to spread hatred and bigotry among the masses. Minorities are being scapegoated for the ills of the capitalist system.
This context must be kept in mind. The bourgeois politicians and media never tire of repeating that Germany really does have a significant "refugee problem." And there are people on the move throughout Europe. But the "refugee problem" is only an excuse for the nazis. "Solving" that problem through immigration controls or whatever will only whet the nazis' appetite, not satisfy them.
The hypocrisy of the establishment
Every time the nazis would firebomb a hostel, Chancellor Kohl of the Christian Democratic Party would make another speech bemoaning the number of refugees flooding into Germany. Kohl launched a campaign to get rid of Article 16, Germany's constitutional guarantee of the right of political asylum. And in mid-November, after Rostock mobs attacked Vietnamese refugees, he got the opposition Social Democratic Party to agree. So today Germany's two major parties, which together control well over two-thirds of the parliament, are on record as striving to appease the nazis; it only remains for them to work out the wording of the change.
What does this show? That the German establishment has in fact embraced one of the chief goals of the nazis. This isn't simply a result of appeasement. The German bourgeoisie has long wanted to impose immigration controls; today it has found the nazi terror as a suitable pretext to carry this out.
But Kohl has found that coddling the nazis has its disadvantages. His government has come in for criticism at home and abroad for doing little against the nazi revival. And anti-racist activists have begun to mobilize a movement in the streets. A left-wing revival is the last thing the German establishment wants to see.
Under pressure, the German government has belatedly begun to take some measures against the nazis. On November 27 Kohl announced a new initiative directed against some of the nazi groups. One group was banned, and 60 right- wing extremists were arrested. No doubt this will have some effect in cutting back the terror: like childish, unprincipled bullies, the nazi groups tend to shrink into inactivity when seriously confronted.
But at the same time Kohl is maintaining a drive against the militant left, and pushing forward with his limitations on immigrants. What kind of victory over the fascists is it when you pressure their groups but accept their demands?
A threat to the well-being of all workers
Today it is refugees and immigrant workers who are under attack. Leftist defenders of the victims of racism are also being targeted. But sooner or later the attack on the weakest sections of society will rebound on the whole working class.
German workers are already facing a harsher future ahead of them. Public sector workers waged a nationwide strike last year and were able to defeat the government's attempted cutbacks. But with recession in the German economy, the government is sure to press for more and more cutbacks. Moreover, the outlook for industrial workers is even bleaker, with plans for the elimination of thousands of jobs in auto and related industries.
If the working class allows itself to remain outside the struggle to defend the immigrants, or if it allows itself to focus on the so-called "foreigner problem" as the German establishment wants, then it will only make itself that much weaker.
The workers cannot afford to quibble over the precise quota numbers of refugees as the bourgeois politicians are. They must defend full rights for all people resident in Germany, with continued full rights of asylum.
Only the working class has the numbers and strength to give a thorough thrashing to the evil Hitler worshipers who have re-emerged from the sewers of capitalist Germany.
[Photo: Hundreds of thousands of Germans march against racism on the 54th anniversary of the Nazis' 'Kristallnacht' rampage against Jews.]
Conventional wisdom says that in a democratic society elections register the will of the people. And we are told that Clinton won because he reflected the yearning of the majority of voters for change.
But that is a half truth.
The majority of voters did indeed want change. In casting 62% of their votes for either Clinton or Perot, they delivered a stinging repudiation of George Bush. Most of the anti-Bush votes went to Clinton. Change was his major theme, and he promised action on the sick economy -- that is what the masses were most concerned about.
However the U.S. is a capitalist democracy. And elections do not simply register the wishes of the masses. In this society based on profit and money making, money happens to be the deciding element. No one without access to large bundles of money can expect to have their voice heard in the political process. They wouldn't be treated seriously by the news media, owned and controlled by huge corporations. Indeed, the fact that Perot, an independent candidate, managed to get himself recognized in the political mainstream had everything to do with the fact that he is a billionaire and could spend $60 million on his bid.
In the final analysis, whoever wins the White House must have the allegiance of the ruling class in this society, of those who own and run the banks, industries, and other big businesses of America.
Shift in business sentiment towards Clinton
Clinton won because the yearning of the masses for change coincided with a loss of confidence among the ruling class in George Bush. For 12 years the capitalists were overwhelmingly behind the Republican Reagan-Bush team. While both the Republican and Democratic parties represented the interests of the rich, and received their main funding from the wealthy, most of the corporate largess went to Reagan and Bush and not their Democratic challengers.
This time it was different. Bush did start out with most of the support from the billionaires, but this did not last. By the end, Clinton had won the support of a whole slew of CEO's and Wall Street tycoons, and a great portion of corporate funds flowed into the Democratic campaign's coffers.
As the Wall Street Journal proclaimed in an article on November 19, "Crowd of Usually Stalwart Pro-GOP Industries Stopped Feeding Elephant as Clinton Surged." This article analyzed so-called "soft money" contributions, which are donations made outside federal elections laws. It revealed that this summer there was a "stampede of corporate money" into the Democratic Party. And much of this came from industry groups which had traditionally backed the Republicans, such as investment and securities; oil and gas; pharmaceuticals and health; beer, wine and liquor; and insurance. Such corporate money had all along been given to both parties, but this summer there was a demonstrable shift towards the Democrats.
What was the final outcome by the time of the elections? The majority of corporate CEO's stuck with the Republicans, but a larger section than usual went for Clinton. Meanwhile, the shift of corporate money towards the Democrats reflected that as a whole the ruling class decided that a Clinton administration might or might not be preferable, but it would be acceptable.
Why did this shift take place?
One reason is that big business realized that Clinton was doing a better job in the campaign. They found that Bush was blowing it, as he ran a campaign without much spirit or vision. Hedging their bets and backing a potential Democratic winner would position business interests best to win favors from the future administration. Meanwhile, some business interests found Bush's do-nothing economic approach wanting, especially in the face of the severity of the ongoing economic crisis. Some among them, such as key figures in Silicon Valley, endorsed Clinton's plans for government intervention because they felt that it would best serve their economic interests. And finally, it should be noted that some of the capitalists were turned off by the right-wing orgy at the Republican convention, believing that this showed Bush to be too much of a captive of the right wing of his party.
However, the shift towards support or acceptance of Clinton wouldn't have taken place if he had not cast his image in a particular way.
"A new kind of Democrat"
The key to winning the confldence of the business class was Clinton's claim to be "a new kind of Democrat." The Democrats had to prove to the rich that they had forsworn the old liberalism, that they were no longer "tax and spend" Democrats, that they would be fiscally conservative. In other words, the Democrats had to prove that they had accepted the basic concepts of Reaganism: restraining social spending, providing subsidies to the capitalists, being ready to use force to preserve U.S. imperialist interests around the globe.
Clinton's choice of Gore as his running mate was one of the most important signals to the wealthy that he was going to be"a new kind of Democrat." Gore had a strong record as a conservative Democrat. He had supported Bush loyally on the Persian Gulf war.
As well, Clinton took a number of steps signaling his distance from the traditional voter base of the Democratic Party, such as blacks and union members. And he joined in welfare-bashing, a well-worn theme politicians use to endear themselves to conservative voters.
These steps won not only support from the wealthy, but they also won for Clinton the allegiance of those voters among the middle classes and even among conservative workers who warmed to his promises for action on the economy but had soft ears for the demagogy against the poor and minorities. These included the so-called "Reagan Democrats."
In the end, Clinton managed to win many of these voters. He was also able to retain the traditional Democratic constituencies with his promises of change, even if many workers, blacks, and Latinos were not too excited by him. And he was also able to win most young voters, who are anxious about a society which does not seem to offer them much hope for the future.
What will come of the people's expectations?
Most of the voters who supported Clinton wanted change. It may have been a vague idea of change, but they were hurting from years of Reaganism.
However, Clinton was able to win the White House not because he represented the people, but because he won acceptance by the business interests. He can deliver the image of change perhaps, but not the real thing.
Still, hopes have been aroused. The attitude of many to politics in the coming months and years will revolve in part around these expectations and what Clinton will or will not deliver.
1992 did not turn out to be a good year for the political forces of the extreme right. Despite much fanfare early in the year, the presidential candidacy of former klansman and nazi David Duke quickly fizzled. Pat Buchanan's bid for the presidency also did not fare too well. And George Bush, whom the right wing eventually rallied around, lost the elections.
But this doesn't mean we can now rest easy. Don't expect the reactionaries to disappear from the political scene. In fact, the political forces which focus on bigotry against women, gays, and minorities are regrouping themselves for a revival. And since these forces offer themselves as the cutting edge of the drive to hold down the working people, you can bet that such forces will receive support from important sectors of the capitalist establishment.
The different sections of the political right are now busy trying to sort out where to focus their future efforts. But it appears that the religious right wing has decided that its aims will be best served by pushing the war on homosexual rights.
The November elections were already seen as a battleground by them. There were a number of state and local amendments and ordinances pushed by the right wing to prohibit anti-discrimination laws for homosexuals or to reverse previously passed laws protecting gays.
The religious right did manage to push through some of these laws, such as in Colorado and Tampa, Florida. The new Colorado law repeals gay rights laws in Denver, Boulder and Aspen.
However, in Oregon the "Abnormal Behaviors Initiative," an amendment to the state constitution, was defeated. This amendment would have required that public schools teach that homosexuality is "abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse" as well as linking homosexuality to sado-masochism and child molestation. The defeated amendment would have also banned any measures outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation. The main sponsor of this campaign was a group called the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) which included religious right-wingers such as Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, Operation Rescue, Eagle Forum and the Coalition of Women for Traditional Values.
This right-wing campaign has fostered and encouraged an atmosphere of gay and minority bashing. This has resulted in an anti-gay ordinance getting passed in Springfield, Oregon and an increase in violence against gays, women, and minorities statewide. One example of this violence was the attack by racist skinheads, who firebombed a house in Salem, Oregon killing a black lesbian and a white gay man.
After the defeat of the Oregon initiative, its backers now want to return with an initiative based on the Colorado model. And indeed, the religious right wants to use the Colorado victory as a launching pad to pass similar laws countrywide.
Various details of the strategy of the Christian right against homosexuals was described in the November 25 edition of the Wall Street Journal. It quoted Ralph Reed, Jr., an executive of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, explaining the strategy of increased organizing of the religious right on a local level. He said, "The pro-family movement focused on the Oval Office for a decade, we achieved mixed policy results and we became a target of the national media. Now we're working at the state and local level, where fewer people are watching." He estimated that 5,000 Christian Coalition members have received political training at their headquarters in Virginia Beach. He hopes to train 5,000 to 10,000 more and open training centers around the country. The whole idea, he says, is to elect evangelical Christians to school boards and state legislatures. "That's where the future is." And "That's where the decisions on gay rights, on abortion, on drugs and street crime will be made."
This increase in electoral organizing is also affecting the Republican Party where the religious right is attempting to take over local and state organizations of the Republicans to push their agenda. Several state and local Republican organizations are now in the control of the religious right.
Activists who want to oppose the bigoted politics of the right wing will face new challenges in the coming years. In this regard, it is important to remember that mass mobilization is crucial to turn back the right-wing drives. Operation Rescue has sought for years now to block clinics and shut them down; but mass clinic defense has repeatedly turned the tables on them. And similarly the real battle on gay rights will be won or lost among the masses of people.
Are all people created equal? Not according to the federal government. It is sponsoring one study after another to prove that some people are biologically or genetically flawed. In the name of combating violence, or of finding people specially at risk, it is preparing to label people inferior, and to set up screening programs. And you can bet it is the inner-city youth, the minorities, and the rebels who will be singled out.
Today the scientists and politicians involved don't talk of the children to be screened as being inferior. But that is what they are trying to prove: that the poor and oppressed peoples have been genetically or biochemically programmed for violence and crime. And they are already proposing mass screening of the population.
This is racism in the name of science.
Making scientists and medical officials into an arm of the police
The latest report came out in mid-November, appropriately enough on Friday the 13th. It was a massive four- volume report from the temple of establishment science, the National Research Council (NRC), research arm of the National Academy of Sciences. It held that biological and genetic factors should be looked into in order to understand the causes of violence.
Mind you, the NRC didn't mean that one should see whether the generals and politicians who have plunged this globe into two world wars in this century should be declared inferior. Nor did it mean seeing whether killer cops get their bad disposition from chronic health ailments. It meant that inner-city youth, minorities and the poor should be regarded as biologically and genetically flawed. It was a call to label them inferior in the name of "science."
This report was commissioned by three different federal agencies in 1988 in the name of finding ways to reduce the wave of violent crime in the United States. Any way will do, so long as it doesn't involve alleviating poverty and hopelessness. No, the point is to keep people pacified while they live under intolerable conditions. So the Justice Department sought to bring the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control into the work of policing the underprivileged.
And indeed, one of the recommendations of the report is to label young children who have "risk factors." This is to be done in the name of aiding the children. But all it means is screening youngsters and putting another mark against their name. If the government has never provided full funding for the effective and well-liked Head Start program, is it now going to lavish time and money on millions of eight-year-olds, screened as likely violent criminals?
The Youth Violence Initiative
Meanwhile, weeks before the NRC report had been presented, the federal Department of Health and Human Services was already proposing a five-year plan along similar lines. It too aims to screen inner-city and other disadvantaged children, and to carry out research into biological causes of violence.
Critics charge that the program involves research into trying to prove that there is a genetic or biochemical flaw in inner-city children. As well, the critics say, it involves further psychiatric experiments for social control through drugs. The Department of Health and Human Services is already funding such research. For example, Dr. Frederick Goodwin, head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), would be involved in the The Youth Violence Initiative. And under his directorship, the NIMH is already studying such plans as using lithium to medicate children labeled as violent.
Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist who is director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry, says that "I think this means turning the inner city into a Third World market for drugs. I don't think that's an exaggeration." (Detroit Free Press, Nov. 2.) He has described the program as a whole as a "holocaust." (DFP, Oct. 23)
Jungle fever
By the way, the Dr. Goodwin mentioned above let slip one of his pet biological ideas earlier this year. In a speech in February he compared inner- city children to violent and hypersexual monkeys in a jungle. He had to apologize, saying that when someone talks about "primate studies and then makes the link to inner cities, unfortunately it carries the connotation that there goes someone making a link between blacks and monkeys." (Detroit News, Feb. 23)
At that time, Dr. Goodwin was head of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration. In the controversy over his jungle views, he was shifted to head of the National Institute of Mental Health, making him the nation's top psychiatrist. It is officials like Dr. Goodwin who will take part in the "The Youth Violence Initiative."
On November 14 a thousand pro- choice activists came out to defend Boston's women's clinics from the antiabortion fanatics of Operation Rescue (OR). They divided themselves up among four clinics. Then they found that OR had gone to the Crittleton-Hastings House in Brighton, and they converged on the 50 OR blockaders. Although OR had a big banner proclaiming "CLINIC CLOSED!" in fact the clinic stayed open.
Most of the pro-choice forces were new people, and many were college students who came in organized contingents from various campuses. The clinic defenders' lines were lively, with slogan- chanting, singing, the forming of lines for the clinic patients to go through, and pushing and shoving of OR zealots.
The MLP-Boston distributed an issue of Boston Worker proclaiming "No peace for Operation Rescue! No faith in Clinton! Build an independent movement of working women!" In discussions over the leaflet comrades found' an atmosphere of euphoria over Clinton's election. There is a widespread hope that things will ease off a bit after years of the Reagan-Bush winter. The support for Clinton isn't very deep, and attempts by some forces to float slogans in support of Clinton/Gore didn't succeed. But in this situation, it is important to persist in organizing the working people and activists to rely on their own action. This will not only keep up the militant defense of women's rights, which the Democrats have always sought to squash, but prepare conditions for activists to take an independent political stand when the Clinton program is revealed in action.
In the general elections of Wednesday, November 25, the Irish people also voted on three amendments to the constitution concerning abortion rights. Since 1983 Ireland has had rigid provisions in its constitution that prevent anyone even talking about abortion, unless it is scare propaganda against abortion. It was even forbidden to give information about clinics in other countries. But on November 25, the Irish people said "enough!"
About three-fifths of the voters approved two amendments that provide a tiny bit of relief: one allows the spread of information about how to get an abortion in other countries, and the other guarantees the right to travel to other countries for an abortion. Thousands of women each year had defied Irish law anyway, and traveled to England for abortions. These amendments will make things a bit easier for such women.
The third amendment
The third amendment was defeated by a two-thirds margin. Already in Poland, where the government is considering jailing doctors and women involved in abortions, and on some American news shows, this is being used to say that the Irish people oppose abortion. But it isn't so simple. The third amendment was a confusing proposition that was opposed by both anti-abortion and pro-choice activists.
The third amendment said that abortion will be allowed to save the life of the mother. But it explicitly said the health of a woman doesn't count, just her life. And it also explicitly ruled out taking into account the possibility of the woman's suicide. Now, the question is, would this amendment have actually made abortions easier in Ireland?
The following facts should be noted:
The 1983 anti-abortion provision in the constitution already grudgingly acknowledged "the equal right to life of the mother." Thus abortions to save the life of the mother were presumably already legal -- in theory anyway, although actually getting one was another matter. The issue was that earlier this year the Supreme Court of Ireland was faced with a notorious case where the government was trying to prevent a pregnant 14-year- old rape victim from getting an abortion in England. The Supreme Court, faced with a massive outpouring of anger on the part of the Irish people, ruled that she could get an abortion because she had pondered suicide, and hence her life was in danger.
In this situation, the Irish government put forward the now-defeated third amendment to reverse the Supreme Court ruling. According to one reporter: "...the government introduced the new referendum in the hopes of changing the constitution again and putting Ireland back on the record as being against abortion." In his words, the government threatened before the vote that if the third amendment did not pass, "it will have to implement legislation confirming a Supreme Court ruling that essentially allows abortion on demand." (Detroit Free Press,Nov. 23) Well, the government's characterization of the Supreme Court ruling might be rather exaggerated. But it is clear that the government didn't intend to legalize abortions. Let suicidal women hang, but the Irish government wasn't going to allow another loophole in its anti-abortion stance.
The most rabid anti-abortion forces opposed the third amendment anyway, as well as the first two. The third amendment explicitly talked of allowing abortion when the mother might die, and they won't agree to a single abortion for any reason. Let the mother die, so what. That's their "pro-life" position. On the other hand, pro-choice activists also campaigned against the third amendment. It offered them nothing, and was insulting and degrading to women. And, on November 25, it also failed to pass.
[Photo: Dublin rally defies law by advertising phone no. for abortion information.]
A number of churches are in a tizzy over women priests. Their refusal to allow women priests is one of the graphic signs of the inferior position to which they have relegated women for hundreds of years.
In November, the Church of England (Anglicans) voted to allow female priests, but not bishops. Even this partial step threatens to split the church, and the Catholic Church is hoping to pick up some of the 1,000 priests who are threatening to resign -- by appealing to their anti-woman prejudice. Meanwhile national branches of the Anglican Church in 11 other countries already allow some women priests.
The Catholic Church in the U.S. is also debating the status of women. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops couldn't, this November, reach the necessary two-thirds agreement on a pastoral letter on women which has been nine years in preparation. Each new draft of the letter slowly restores old strictures against women and women's rights. Most of the bishops oppose ordaining women, but many believe that one shouldn't say so very loudly for fear of offending their congregations.
Real equality of women will come through their taking full part in overthrowing the present system of economic and political exploitation of workers, minorities, and women, and instituting a just, socialist system. Women must have a full and equal part in running all the affairs of society. We don't think that religion has anything of value for women. But let all working women, whether religious or atheist, whether Catholic or Protestant, Islamic or Jewish, unite in a movement for the emancipation of working women and men from exploitation, bigotry and prejudice.
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Justice for Drywallers, a six-month organizing drive and strike, won an important round last month. About 4,000 independent drywallers in Southern California won union rights and a new contract which improves their pay and provides their first health benefits.
Over the past ten years, the Southern California construction companies have driven the carpenters' union out of drywalling, eliminated benefits, and slashed pay from a piece-work rate of about 10 cents down to 4 cents for cutting and installing each square foot of sheetrock. The drywallers, who are now mostly Mexican immigrants, were frequently cheated out of overtime pay and other wages.
On June 1, hundreds of the drywallers walked out on strike with the cry "Si, Se Puede!" ("Yes, we can!") Each day they spread the strike by setting up picket lines at new construction sites and calling out the workers there.
Frequently there were confrontations with security guards and local police.
More than 600 workers were eventually arrested and dozens were turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and deported.
But the strike continued to grow, eventually 4,000 workers' strong. Mass protests against the repression by the Los Angeles Police Department were joined by janitors, hotel and restaurant workers, and others involved in organizing drives.
The new contract was signed by the Pacific Rim Drywall Association (PRDA), which consists of contractors in Los Angeles and five other Southern California counties. It provides for the workers' first health plan as well as a pay raise -- from 4 cents a square foot to 7.5 cents a square foot (still shy of the previous wage rate). As well, the bosses' association agreed to drop all charges and lawsuits against the strikers.
Justice for Drywallers gives other unorganized workers an example for what can be done when the resolve is strong enough. "Si, Se Puede!"
[Photo: Latino drywallers during their strike in Southern California.]
In October, Trinity Industries hired special security thugs and attempted to bring strike-breakers into their Bessemer, Alabama plant. But 400 striking steel workers blocked the plant gates and wouldn't let the scabs cross. The riot-clad security thugs attacked the strikers with tear gas, but were unable to open the plant.
After this confrontation, Trinity was able to get a court injunction limiting pickets to 10 strikers a gate. And on November 2, it again tried to run scabs through the picket lines. But this time 500 strikers and their supporters showed up. They again blocked the gates and kept the plant shut down. The steel workers were joined on the picket line by miners, asbestos workers, auto workers, and communications workers.
Trinity is the largest rail car manufacturer in the U.S. About 800 workers have been on strike since mid-September. They are fighting for higher pay and against Trinity's demand that workers foot more of the cost for health care.
Since October 16, workers at Versatronex in Sunnyvale, California -- in the heart of the Silicon Valley -- have been on strike. This is the first electronic industry strike in over 40 years of Silicon Valley history.
Forty-eight workers -- mainly Latina women -- walked out after the firing of Joselito Munoz, who had been chosen the spokesperson when the company agreed to hear the workers' grievances. The workers lack health benefits and, like many electronics workers, they are exposed to hazardous chemicals. The Versatronex workers have not had a raise in two years. A worker with 11 years on the job is lucky to make $6.75 per hour.
Versatronex, which produces circuit boards, has hired scabs at $2.00 higher than the previous work rate.
The Versatronex strikers demand the rehiring of their spokesperson and recognition of their union. The company in the meantime has hired the notorious union busting firm of Littler, Mendelson, Fastiff and Tichy.
There is daily picketing at Versatronex. The workers have also picketed some of their computer company customers.
In Tacoma, Washington, 200 clerical workers ended a two-week strike in late October. This was the first major walkout by Tacoma city workers in 20 years and the first ever by the city's clerical workers.
During the strike, the clerical workers enjoyed strong solidarity from other city workers, many of whom refused to cross picket lines. About 900 other city employees -- mostly electrical workers --stayed out for the duration.
The clerical workers won union representation and a contract. But the City of Tacoma once again failed to fulfill a five-year-old promise to bring the clerks' pay up to county standards. The contract the workers settled on was shy of their expectations, but their organization has created the potential for further struggles.
General Motors announced on November 6 that its Job Bank will run out of money by mid-January. There are presently 21,000 auto workers in the program. When the bank runs dry they will lose their benefits and be forced onto unemployment. What is more, there are tens of thousands of additional workers who are presently facing layoffs from GM's declared plans to close 21 factories. Now these workers have lost even the promise of job protection.
The Job Bank was GM's promise to "guarantee jobs" in the 1990 contract.
The UAW leaders claimed that cooperating with GM's productivity drive, instead of fighting the auto monopoly, had led to the best job protection ever won. But now it's two years later and the UAW hacks' promises have gone bankrupt. Giving GM concessions and class peace won't save jobs. That simply leads to bigger cuts.
Instead, the auto workers must build up a rank-and-file movement to force jobs or full pay and benefits out of the auto bosses.
All three of the U.S. auto companies are preparing for war against the rank- -and-file workers in the period leading up to next September's expiration of the UAW contract.
The Wall Street Journal recently revealed that on October 20; officials of GM, Ford and Chrysler met in Chicago and received a briefing from Caterpillar on the status of its relations with the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). Officials from John Deere, J.I. Case and Komatsu also participated in this session.
Caterpillar smashed a strike by 14,000 workers last spring when UAW officials capitulated to company threats and ordered the workers to return to work without a contract. Since then, Caterpillar has imposed wages and conditions of its own choosing, fired workers who had a militant role in the strike, canceled the collection of union dues, and other outrages.
The auto industry is listening very carefully to the lessons of Caterpillar. Auto workers beware.
In New York City, over a year has passed since trackworker Eric Jackson was hit by a train after "clearing up" in the tunnels for the train to pass. The location that he stepped into to allow the train to pass -- though provided precisely for that purpose -- did not have sufficient clearance. There are scores of such places around the Transit Authority system without "No Clearance" markings as required. Jackson was injured because the Transit Authority neglected vital safety regulations.
The train hit Jackson into the wall. He came out of it with massive contusions, a burnt knee, and a solid concussion after collapsing into the trackway when the train had passed. Miraculously, he was not dragged and mangled. That, however, was precisely the nightmare that became etched in his mind and prolonged his recovery. While doing battle with grueling nightmares, massive headaches, mental seizures, loss of vision, etc., Eric Jackson was made penniless and threatened with termination by the Transit Authority.
One month after the accident, the Transit Authority's medical department forced Jackson back into the tunnels for full-duty work. Within two weeks, Jackson passed out on the tracks and he has not been able to work since. Despite being immobilized by fear at the sight of subway tunnels, haunted with nightmares of the accident, and plagued by terrible headaches, the Transit Authority expected Eric Jackson to put in a full day's work in the tunnels. When he couldn't work, they complained that he had missed clinic appointments ordered by the Transit Authority's medical department The Transit Authority removed Jackson from injured status and declared him to be absent without leave (AWOL), leaving him without a penny. They finally brought termination charges against him.
At a Transit Authority hearing, the termination penalty was upheld. So far, the results of this case show that the Transit Authority can almost get away with murder and then punish the victim. And how are the Transit Workers' Union (TWU) leaders defending the worker? As far as the union bigwigs are concerned, Eric Jackson's story should remain another of the Transit Authority's better kept secrets. (Taken from the October 8, "New York Workers' Voice," paper of the MLP-New York.)
On November 5, the Detroit police murdered Malice Green, a black 35-year-old unemployed worker.
It all began when two white plainclothes cops stopped Green's car when he dropped off a friend near a suspected drug house. Accusing him of hiding drugs in his clenched hand, the cops jumped in his car and started pummeling the 130- pound unarmed man.
The beating left blood in Green's car, and he was dragged out of it. By then at least five other cops had arrived: four white patrolmen and a black sergeant supervisor. Some of the newcomers helped beat Green, while the others watched approvingly.
Green was smashed in the head with heavy flashlights in front of horrified onlookers who pleaded with the police to stop. But the police wouldn't even stop when EMS (Emergency Medical Service) workers arrived on the scene. The force of their blows was such that brain matter was found in a pool of Green's blood on the pavement.
Outrage
Outrage over this murder spread rapidly. It was one police atrocity too many. The site of the murder at 23rd Street and Warren Avenue was turned into a shrine. A retired postal worker painted Green's portrait there on an abandoned building. Memorials to Green and condemnations of the police decorate the same wall. 300 people gathered there for a candlelight vigil on November 10, and the next day thousands of people visited the funeral home where Green's body lay.
The protests continued. On Sunday evening, November 15, there was a rally at 23rd and Warren Avenue. Shouting "Join the march, join the fight, avenge Malice Green tonight!" and "No justice! No peace!" they marched several miles down the middle of the street, growing in number to 150. Slogans rang out, like "No faith in [Police Chief] Knox, jail the killer cops" and "Malice Green means fight back, killer cops mean fight back!" Dozens of people from the community joined the march along the way. Many more came out on their porches and held their fists high. As well, some 20 cars lined up behind the march and formed a horn-honking caravan.
The march rallied at the 3rd Precinct, home station of the cops who killed Green. Speeches denounced the police, and an MLP speaker exposed the role of the Democratic politicians. Meanwhile, the police tried to stay out of sight, turning off most lights and hiding in the darkened station.
A few days later, on November 18, a speakout was held at the murder site. The 50 demonstrators were spirited, and shouted "Justice for Malice Green!" Passing motorists paused to express solidarity.
More actions are scheduled around the time of the December 14 court hearing for the accused police.
A show of concern
Meanwhile, the authorities are afraid of an explosive situation. The establishment openly worried about the example of L.A.'s reaction to the Rodney King verdict. So Mayor Coleman Young and Police Chief Knox put on a show of concern. Right after the murder, the cops were suspended without pay, and Police Chief Knox held a press conference to show how upset he was over the incident. Later, on November 16, charges were laid against five of the officers involved, ranging from second-degree murder on the two original officers to involuntary manslaughter and neglect of duty on the lone black officer, who was the officer in charge at the scene.
The murder of Green took place against the background of police racism and cruelty in Detroit. In 1990, Detroit paid out more money to settle brutality charges than even Los Angeles with its nationally notorious police. Although Mayor Young, Detroit's first black mayor, promised to end police brutality when he was first elected 20 years ago, the cops have continued to beat the people. Under Young, there has been a black police chief and many black officers have joined the force, but racist brutality continues.
Neither the ruling class nor the black establishment are going to stop racism. It is up to the working class to stand up against racism and police state brutality.
[Photo: Memorial at the site of Malice Green's murder.]
On November 19, Derwin Pannell, a black undercover cop in New York City, experienced firsthand the racism of his own police department. Pannell was working undercover with his white partner, Kenneth Donnelly, in the city subway when they chased down a woman for allegedly evading the $1.25 subway fare. Pannell trained his gun on such a dangerous criminal, while his partner went through her pocketbook. Over a $1.25 fare. But this routine outrageous behavior toward ordinary people was soon overshadowed.
Three white New York Transit Authority cops came on the scene. They saw a black man with a gun and assumed a robbery was taking place. They didn't make the slightest effort to find out what was going on, or to warn the suspect. Instead two of the white cops, John Napolitano and Robert Green, unleashed a barrage of 21 shots at Pannell. They shot and shot and shot, emptying the magazines of their guns, one using a six-shot revolver and the other a 15-shot nine millimeter semi-automatic. Only then, forced to stop for reloading, did they realize that they were aiming at a fellow officer. By then, Pannell had been grievously wounded in his neck and had taken at least two other shots in his bullet-proof vest. He is in critical condition, possibly paralyzed for life; without the vest, he would have been dead.
Because a cop was the victim, and black and Latino cops are threatening to refuse undercover work, the police officials apologized and wrung their hands over this "tragic case of mistaken identity." Apparently they think it's fine to kill first and ask questions later -- so long as the black or Latino being riddled with bullets isn't a cop.
Indeed, this time the police officials couldn't give the usual justifications for murdering the suspect. Clearly Pannell had not threatened the transit cops, nor had he acted violently towards them, nor had he ignored warnings (there were none). Pannell had been shot instantly and in cold blood, until the white cops had run out of bullets. Standard operating procedure, apparently.
A reporter, Craig Wolff, spoke to a number of black and Latino cops. One after another they spoke to him of the many times that, while working undercover, white cops had assumed they were criminals. Be dark-skinned and dressed wrong, and you're automatically a target. One cop, identified only as Officer Michael K, said: "Let's face it, when I'm down there the white cops see me like I'm a mutt. I hear them, that's what they call the teenagers who wear their pants low and their caps backwards. When I'm in the hang-out pose looking for fare beaters, I dress that way." (New YorkTimes, Nov. 22)
Another black cop, who only used the nickname "Strong," had been marked by other cops as a suspect three times in the last year. Only once, he said, did the other police bother to follow the rules and issue the warning "Police! Don't move!"
The real issue isn't that a cop happened to be the victim this time. The issue is that when the police see a black or Latino, they shoot first and ask questions later.
The following article was distributed at work places and at the street rally of November 18. It is reprinted from the November 17 issue of "Detroit Workers Voice," paper of the MLP-Detroit.
Workers unite! Fight the racist system!
Malice Green was bludgeoned to death by the Detroit police on November 5, even though he was unarmed. The cops claim they acted correctly because Green was allegedly concealing some "crack" in his hand. This charge is dubious. But even if Green had some drugs, was that any reason to beat him to death?
This racist murder shows what the "war on drugs" is all about. The "war" has nothing to do with solving the unemployment, poverty and racism which lie behind the problem of drug abuse in our cities. Rather, it is primarily a campaign of police terror against black people, Latinos and other working people.
The racist murder also shows that it's time to fight back. Workers -- black, white and Latino -- let us link arms to demand justice for Malice Green and build up a movement to fight this whole racist system.
Mayor Young and Chief Knox are part of the problem
The heads of the NAACP and other "respectable" black leaders are praising Mayor Young and Police Chief Knox for acting quickly to bring charges against four of the cops involved in the murder of Malice Green.
But are Coleman Young and Chief Knox really so concerned about justice? No, they are just afraid that the anger of workers and poor people will burst out like it did in L.A
If they were really concerned for justice they would have gotten rid of the racist cops like Nevers and Budzyn long ago.
Coleman disbanded STRESS, but kept the killer cops
It should be remembered that Coleman Young campaigned and was elected mayor in 1973 on the promise that he would put a stop to police brutality and eliminate STRESS, the notorious Detroit police squad of assassins. At that time demonstrations against STRESS made the rich capitalists in Detroit fearful of another rebellion like 1967. Mayor Young's role was to calm down the black people of Detroit.
After his election he disbanded STRESS, but he kept the racist killer cops. Take Larry Nevers, one of the killers of Malice Green, for example. He was a member of STRESS who was notorious for killing a 21-year-old woman in 1973 by shooting her in the back. He has had at least 25 formal complaints of police brutality against him during his career and is hated on the southwest side for his harassment and strong-armed tactics against young black people. But rather than dumping such racist brutes, the city government has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle some of the brutality complaints.
Of course under Coleman Young the majority of the police force is now black. But whether black or white the police are trained to have contempt for ordinary working and poor people. And that's led to innumerable cases of brutality over the years, like the exposure of the police use of cattle prods on people.
The fact is that the police are an instrument of the rich ruling class to hold down the workers and poor people. Instead of standing against racism, the police end up supporting it. Remember when white racists beat up two black men outside of Harpo's nightclub in the fall of 1990. When protest demonstrations were held, Coleman Young sent his cops to harass and arrest the anti-racist demonstrators. Meanwhile, the racists eventually got off with little more than a slap on the wrist.
Police part of drug problem
As well, all too often the cops who are supposed to be standing up to crime and drugs are actually involved themselves.
Former Police Chief Hart is doing a 10-year sentence in federal prison for embezzling police funds earmarked for use in the "war on drugs." Detroit police were caught giving protection to drug runners at the city airport. And just days ago a Detroit cop was caught transporting large amounts of cocaine in New Jersey.
Down with the racist system!
Now that four cops have been charged for the murder of Malice Green, Mayor Young, NAACP leaders and others are shouting "the system works."
But these charges were only brought this quickly because angry protests began to break out, and because the rulers feared Detroit would erupt in rebellion like L.A. If we hope to see these cops convicted, then it is essential to keep up keep up the protests.
What the murder of Malice Green, like the beating of Rodney King, proves is not that the system works, but that it is racist through and through. To establish true justice in this country, the working people must organize mass protests and build up a strong mass movement against the whole racist system.
The acquittal of four of the cops who beat Rodney King set off the Los Angeles rebellion. So even the federal government felt compelled to make a show of concern. The Justice Department announced that the police would be retried, this time for violation of federal civil rights laws. The trial is set for this coming February 2.
But can the same racist system that set up the beating of Rodney King, and was only embarrassed because the beating was videotaped, actually convict the cops involved? Don't count on it.
Judge prohibits evidence of racism
Already U.S. District Judge John Davies has ruled out evidence of the racist nature of the assault on King. For instance, shortly before Officer Laurence Powell helped pummel King, a police computer recorded his racist comments referring to a black family as "gorillas in the mist." Judge Davies agreed this remark was "clearly a statement with race and racist content." Yet he ruled it was irrelevant to the government's case and could not be entered into evidence.
But if the racist motives behind the bloody beating are not relevant in a civil rights case, then what is the point of civil rights laws?
The judge also tossed out evidence that showed the involvement of the officers concerned in earlier police brutality. He will not allow mention of the fact that Officer Koon falsified a 1986 police report, omitting mention of the use of excessive force. Nor will he allow mention of the fact that Officer Briseno had stomped a suspect in custody in 1987 in similar fashion to his later stomping of King. Nor did he find relevant an incident in which Officer Powell was accused of beating a suspect who had been handcuffed and placed in a police car.
The prosecution's case is sent to the defense lawyer
Moreover, the prosecution's case was further compromised by someone in the Justice Department itself. It recently came to light that the prosecution's trial plans were mailed to Officer Powell's attorney. The cops now have the complete plans on how the government will argue, what evidence it will use, what it considers the weak points in its case, and how it intends to compensate for these weaknesses.
The chief prosecutor in the case, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights John Dunne, admits that this "casts such a shadow over the integrity of the Justice Department." But the prosecutors are persisting in the fiction that no real damage was done.
Don't hold your breath
It's clear, however, that the the Justice Department is half-hearted, and has people in its ranks who want the cops to get off. And why not? The prosecutors and the police department work hand in hand, and depend on mutual confidence and support. At most they will blame a few scapegoats, while maintaining racist brutality as standard operating procedure.
If the courts have so much trouble convicting the cops in such an obvious case of brutality such as the beating of Rodney King, isn't it clear that the legal system has little to do with justice? If a videotaped beating by a gang of heavily armed and trained officers of a defenseless motorist can be justified in court as "self-defense," isn't it clear that the laws and courts are stacked in favor of continued brutality?
If the workers and minorities are to preserve any rights at all, if we are to oppose the growing racism and the increasing use of police state measures, we must organize in protest of every case of racist brutality and injustice. No reliance on courts and politicians! Justice for Rodney King!
In the wake of the rebellions following the acquittal of the racist cops who beat Rodney King, the police commission of Los Angeles sponsored a committee to study why it happened. It recruited William Webster, ex-director of the FBI and CIA, and Hubert Williams, head of an association of police officials, to head up the study. In late October, the Webster Commission issued its report.
The Webster Commission says a word or two about horrible social conditions in the inner-cities. But its emphasis is that the response of the L.A. police to the uprising was too slow and disorganized. It recommends more efficient coordination between city officials and the police, and it demands more detailed plans for putting down civil disturbances. In essence, it reasons that since the poor will always be with us, the police should be prepared to periodically shoot them down.
It does note that the "anti-gang" and "anti-drug" units have given the police a bad reputation. But it doesn't recommend any serious curb on police brutality, and it doesn't even call for abolishing the specially notorious units. It only recommends shifting the assignment of police forces a bit, putting more weight on foot patrols.
In fact, it recommends a new tax to pay for hiring more police. Terrific. More police. This is the final word of the ruling class for the solution of all social problems. No matter how little money there is for the schools or health clinics or prenatal care, there will always be money for more police and jails.
The Webster Commission shows that the L.A city government is looking forward to a period of further disturbances. It believes that conditions will continue to deteriorate, and so it hired a commission of law enforcement officials to tell it how to put down rebellions more quickly and efficiently. It is now up to the working class and the inner-city communities to figure out how to get organized in a quicker and more efficient way to fight back against economic devastation and police tyranny.
Early the morning of November 9, the mother of Efrain Lopez called on the Los Angeles police to help restrain her distraught son. Now the 18-year-old Latino youth lies dead, gunned down by the cops in cold blood. The grieving mother laments: "I called police to control him at that moment, not to kill him."
When two cops arrived at the Lopez house that morning, Efrain held a broomstick in his hands. He was wearing only his underwear. According to witnesses, Efrain swung once and then one cop shot him. Shot him nine times. If the police had an ounce of compassion for the Latino youth, they would have made a real effort to defuse the situation. Instead they blew him away.
Afterwards, the police tried to cover their tracks. Efrain was a gang member, they cried. And they said they had found cocaine "rocks" near him, and that he had been high. Evidently this is all the cops feel is necessary to justify their role as judge, jury and executioner. This shows the attitude of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) toward blacks and Latinos. The life of the common people is cheap. Standard police procedure is a sufficient excuse for ending it.
But not everyone feels the same way as the police. 200 people came out two days later, on November 11, to denounce the police as "racist and murderers" for killing Efrain Lopez. They came from the L.A community of Pacoima, where Efrain had lived, and from some college campuses. They protested before the Foothill Division police station, the home base of the cops who had shot Efrain down.
Following the rebellion after the Rodney King verdict, the notorious racist, Police Chief Daryl Gates, had been replaced by a black police chief, Willie L. Williams. There were promises aplenty of reforming the LAPD. But the case of Efrain Lopez shows that, for the LAPD, racist murder continues to be business as usual.
The savage beating of Rodney King showed the brutality towards blacks that has long been the lifeblood of law enforcement in America's second largest city, Los Angeles. Another example from L.A. has recently come to light with the recent firing of eight Los Angeles sheriffs deputies for an incident that took place two years ago.
In 1990 these eight cops beat a black kidnapping suspect to death with their flashlights. This is the same weapon of choice as used by the Detroit police in their murder of Malice Green last month.
It took until earlier this year for the police officialdom to fire the cops involved. And even then, they sought to keep the case quiet, evidently fearing mass anger over the revelation of the fatal beating. But the case hit the news when it appeared in a study of police behavior by a retired judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court who found a "deeply disturbing" pattern of excessive force and brutality by the police.
The news reports make no mention of any criminal charges against the cops. So even though the sheriffs deputies have been fired, they apparently got away with murder.
[Photo:Nov.19, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. 150 demonstrators denounced the appearance on campus of former LAPD chief Daryl Gates. Gates was paid $10,000 to debate a lawyer from the ACLU about police brutality. He also made remarks supporting the Detroit police who killed Malice Green. Outraged anti-racists stormed Hill auditorium to try to confront Gates himself.]
Spike Lee's long-awaited movie, Malcolm X, has just been released and is being viewed by large numbers of people, especially African-Americans. It has won wide acclaim, even by such members of the cultural establishment as Siskel and Ebert, who gave it a double thumbs-up rating. What does this movie have to say about Malcolm as a fighter for black rights and a revolutionary leader?
The film chronicles Malcolm's childhood, his rise from street life to a minister of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, his personal life, his split from the Muslims, his visit to Mecca, and his assassination. The movie illustrates many of the crucial events of Malcolm's life. It shows how Malcolm overcame great obstacles to become, not a money-grubbing entrepreneur, but a leader of the oppressed people's struggle.
The movie portrays Malcolm as an uncompromising fighter against racist attacks on black people. In a powerful scene, Malcolm leads the men of a Muslim mosque and the local black community to face down the police at a precinct station where a black victim of police brutality is being held. Under Malcolm's leadership the people are disciplined and obviously ready to fight "by any means necessary" and it is the police who are intimidated.
This incident takes place while Malcolm is still part of Elijah Muhammad's organization. But later, after the split, Malcolm reiterates his stand. He has just returned from Mecca and, at a press conference, he announces that he no longer views all whites as the enemy but is willing to work with those who will seriously fight racism. Hoping that Malcolm has wimped out from fighting racist violence, a reporter asks him if he has changed his position on guns. Malcolm answers that blacks should only lay down their guns when the police lay down theirs.
Thus Spike Lee's film illustrates part of the meaning of Malcolm's famous slogan of fighting racism "by any means necessary": that it meant a tit-for-tat struggle against racist attacks, including militant self-defense.
And Malcolm's stand reverberated in the black struggle of the 1960's. Malcolm refused to join the ranks of the "riot-stoppers" who talked about doing something but retreated in horror when the masses fought back against their oppressors. Those upset with "turning the other cheek" looked to Malcolm and other militants. And he was one of the spiritual fathers of the great wave of black rebellions that reached full steam in Watts in 1965 and swept through Cleveland in 1966, Detroit in 1967 and went nationwide at the time of Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968.
Only hints
But Lee's movie provides only hints of the full range of Malcolm's views. For in saying "by any means necessary," Malcolm meant far more than self- defense, as crucial as that was. Malcolm reiterated continually that what he meant was revolution; he meant the overturning by the oppressed masses of all the forms of oppression and exploitation which burdened them. In fact, he opposed capitalism itself, calling it "vulturistic" and declaring that "it is impossible for a chicken [American capitalist society -- WA] to produce a duck egg [a non-racist society -- WA]." And Malcolm strove to link the black struggle in America with the African liberation struggles and with the revolutions in Asia, especially the Vietnamese people's struggle. Malcolm identified with the worldwide revolt of the oppressed and exploited masses. These are among the most important messages which Malcolm left for the struggle today.
Lee does give a glimpse of Malcolm's revolutionary nature by showing him using the occasion of John Kennedy's assassination to point out that the violence which the U.S. government has been using against the people of other countries had come back to haunt it ("chickens come home to roost"). This told the leaders of the white capitalist establishment that Malcolm meant to rock the whole boat, to overturn the whole applecart. And Lee shows Elijah silencing Malcolm as a Muslim minister for this.
Yet in dealing with Malcolm X's split with Elijah, the movie dwells mainly on jealousy among the Nation of Islam's top ministers. There was this, of course, but the main reason for the split lay in Elijah's allegiance to the establishment (he restrained the Muslims from taking part in the freedom struggle) and Malcolm's desire both to fight and overthrow it.
With the revolution
The film shows a good deal about Malcolm X, much of it accurate. But let it be an introduction to the examination of Malcolm's work, for there is much more to Malcolm's views than the film shows. There are many possible scenes of Malcolm speaking and agitating, which could have added power and depth to the Malcolm of the movie and showed the full role that he actually played in his time.
We reprint a small fragment from Malcolm below, in order to let the reader get a picture of Malcolm's search for the path for the liberation of the black people. It is not to copy every solution that Malcolm gave, or echo whatever he said. Frankly, we think about revolution somewhat differently than Malcolm X did. We start from the standpoint of the class struggle of all workers; this was not how Malcolm looked at it. But we think that the working class can only be revolutionary, it can only truly unite workers of all nationalities, when it champions the cause of all those who fight against racism and oppression. It is precisely those with the spirit of Malcolm X we seek to unite with. And we note too that Malcolm X was notable for his ability to learn from what was going on, to evolve in the light of new experience. Malcolm spoke passionately of the problems of his time. With the same passionate spirit, we must look to the questions raised by the struggle today.
Malcolm X breathed fire against the ruling establishment of his day, and worked for the revolution. Let us be inspired to keep up the fire against the establishment of today, and to search for the path to unite all workers in the struggle for revolution.
(The following quotes are not a balanced, selection, but lay stress on some aspects of Malcolm's later thinking that are not shown in the film. They are all taken from the collection Malcolm X Speaks.')
First, what is a revolution? Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that many of our people are using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking careful consideration of what this word actually means, and what its historic characteristics are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a revolution, the objective of a .revolution, the result of a revolution, and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise another program, you may change your goal and you may change your mind.
...you don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution....
Revolution is in Asia, revolution is in Africa, and the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think he'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is? You don't know what a revolution is. If you did, you wouldn't use that word.
Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I'm going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. (Message to the Grassroots, November 10, 1963, pp. 7-9)
...it's impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg -- even though they both belong to the same family of fowl. A chicken just doesn't have it within its system to produce a duck egg. It can't do it. It can only produce according to what that particular system was constructed to produce. The system in this country cannot produce freedom for an Afro- American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system, period. It's impossible for this system, as it stands, to produce freedom right now for the black man in this country.
And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, I'm quite sure you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken!...
It's impossible for a white person to believe in capitalism and not believe in racism. You can't have capitalism without racism. And if you find one and you happen to get that person into a conversation and they have a philosophy that makes you sure they don't have this racism in their outlook, usually they're socialists or their political philosophy is socialism. (A symposium on the Harlem "Hate-Gang" scare, May 29, 1964, pp. 68-9.)
You can't operate a capitalistic system unless you are vulturistic; you have to have someone else's blood to suck to be a capitalist. You show me a capitalist, I'll show you a bloodsucker. He cannot be anything but a bloodsucker if he's going to be a capitalist. He's got to get it from somewhere other than himself, and that's where he gets it -- from somewhere or someone other than himself. (At the Audubon, December 20, 1964, p. 121)
I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think that it will be based upon the color of the skin, as Elijah Muhammad has taught it. (A TV interview, January 19, 1965, p. 216.)
It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of black against white, or as a purely American problem. Rather, we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter. (From Columbia Daily Spectator, February 19, 1965, p. 217.)
So when the day comes when the whites who are really fed up -- I don't mean these jive whites, who pose as liberals and who are not, but those who are fed up with what is going on -- when they learn how to really establish the proper type of communication with those uptown who are fed up, and they get some coordinated action going, you'll get some changes. You'll get some changes. And it will take both, it will take everything that you've got, it will take that. (At the Militant Labor Forum, January 7, 1965, p. 207.)
I think young people here can find a powerful example in the young Simbas in the Congo and the young fighters in South Vietnam.... (An interview, Young Socialist, March-April 1965, p. 222.)
This fall the members of the Marxist-Leninist Party attended their 4th Congress. This national assembly, the highest authority in the party, addressed a series of problems confronting the party.
The collapse of Soviet revisionism in Russia and Eastern Europe and the end of the cold war has brought a series of changes in the world. As well, changes in Western capitalism have been accumulating in recent decades. At the same time, the study being conducted by the party on the theory of socialist revolution and the experience of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia has posed a number of new theoretical problems or raised old problems in new ways. (See the Aug. 20, 1991 issue of Workers'Advocate Supplement for an enumeration of some of these problems.)
These changes in the world and in the party's thinking have given rise to a myriad of opinions within the party. Since the 4th National Conference held in 1990, a number of controversies have broken out within the Party and a party-wide debate was begun last year. These discussions did not resolve existing disagreements but provided an exchange of opinions which may help to orient further study of these matters.
Despite the potentially divisive controversies, the congress united. It passed a resolution on the role and tasks of the MLP in the present difficult situation (reprinted below). It agreed to resolve disagreements by deepening the party's study of the current situation, the Bolshevik revolution, and communist theory. It also authorized a cutback in the frequency of the publishing of Workers' Advocate and the Supplement in order to help alleviate the overwork in the central apparatus and open some room for theoretical work and providing deeper analysis in the papers. As well, it elected a Central Committee, decided to hold another congress within two years, and took other practical decisions.
The difficulties facing the MLP have not magically disappeared with the holding of the 4th Congress. But the measures it decided on create the basis for preserving revolutionary Marxism-Leninism so that a mass communist party of the working class can be built up once the revolutionary movement revives.
The 4th Congress confronts the crisis that has engulfed our party. In analyzing that crisis, and discussing the different possibilities for the future, it sets out the tasks needed to strive to preserve this revolutionary Marxist-Leninist trend in the present difficult situation.
Conditions for the party crisis
The crisis facing our party is based on a number of conditions, including:
* The protracted ebb of the revolutionary movement in this country.
* The reactionary offensive of U.S. imperialism on the working class in this country and abroad in the face of its own economic crises and decline.
* The storm of liquidationism towards party-building and renegacy towards the revolutionary movement by the revisionist, trotskyist, and other opportunist trends.
* The crisis of revolutionary theory itself arising from the changes in the domestic and world situation and our deeper study of the experience of the revolutionary socialist movement of the working class.
Manifestations of crisis in the MLP
The most important manifestations of the crisis in the party include:
* The reduction in the size of the party. This is due to small recruiting of new members combined with a steady loss of forces from demoralization, personal crises, and passivity. This situation has required the party's work to be gradually scaled back, carried on at a slower pace, and done in a more concentrated way.
* The loss of a series of bases of concentration in workplaces and communities. And increased difficulties in creating and maintaining a pro-party trend among workers at places where we have been able to maintain concentrated work.
* A weakening of the ideological cohesion of the party which has broken out in a wide-ranging internal debate over various questions of the party's theory and tactics.
The conception of our party
We have always held that for the working class movement to succeed in revolution it must not only be organized in a series of diverse organizational forms. It must, also, build up its own independent party -- a party of revolutionary action, bound to the masses, and guided by the scientific socialism of Marxism-Leninism.
In 1980, although we had by no means yet established a mass party of the workers, we declared the founding of the MLP. This step was taken because, above all, the trends among the wave of activists that had emerged in the revolutionary movement and the fight against revisionism in the 1960's had been sorted out, the trend of neo-revisionism had become exposed, and revolutionary Marxism-Leninism had become a consolidated and objective trend with supporters among the workers and among sections of activists. The aim of the MLP was to build up this trend so that, eventually, a truly mass communist party could come into being to lead the working class in revolution.
Although originally we had thought the MLP was being founded in favorable conditions in which a new revolutionary wave was imminent, it was soon discovered that we faced a particularly difficult situation. What ensued has been over a decade of arduous revolutionary work in the face of the onslaught of the bourgeoisie, rampant liquidationism, and a continuing ebb in the revolutionary movement. Instead of growth, we have had to pay constant attention to combating over-extension and over-elaboration of our work, and we have faced a sharp battle to preserve the very idea of building a vanguard party of the working class.
Today, although the size of the MLP has been reduced and its base among the masses somewhat weakened, it remains an objective revolutionary trend. It continues to carry out revolutionary agitation in the working class. It still organizes in particular workplaces, is part of the motion among definite sections of the workers, and is connected with various militant workers who assist the party's work in various ways, although not necessarily in every individual local area. It also remains a significant anti-reformist pole in the mass movements in several cities and, in certain places and at certain times, it is able to provide guidance for certain movements. It continues to slowly deepen its theoretical work and summation of experience to provide a theoretical basis for the socialist revolution of the workers. And it does what it can to encourage the emergence of a new international of workers' communism.
Whether it has been in the protests that broke out against the imperialist war in the Mid-East, or on the front lines of the resistance to the reactionary anti-abortion bigots, or in the outpouring of anger at the racist verdict in the Rodney King affair, or in other struggles, there has been no other trend bringing to the fore the class issues involved, organizing among the workers themselves to bring them into action, and encouraging steps towards an independent class movement and the forging of the workers own revolutionary vanguard party.
Prospects for the future
The MLP is the product of the revolutionary movement of the 1960's and its fate has always been linked to the revival of a mass revolutionary movement.
Conditions have been ripening for another mass upsurge throughout the 1980's. The recent riots against racist police brutality, the confrontations at clinics in defense of women's rights, the street battles against the war on Iraq, and such things as the mass disgruntlement over the presidential elections are all indications of the sharpening class contradictions.
At the same time there are a number of countervailing factors holding back a new wave of struggle. These include, among others, that the unity of the bourgeoisie for the time being leaves little opening for the emergence of stable mass movements; that the working class is being destabilized by a restructuring in the economy -- including workplace shutdowns and mass layoffs -- in which the new lines of development are just emerging; that the workers' movement is also being disorganized by the reformist union bureaucracy and other "respectable" leaders; that the revolutionary alternative remains extremely weak and unable to offer an independent pole in most instances.
In this situation, we can no more predict now than we could in 1980 when and how a new revolutionary movement will break out.
If a new mass revolutionary movement is forestalled for another period of time, it is possible that the MLP will not be able to survive as the trend it presently represents. Should that occur in the future, comrades then will have to decide what to do. But today all efforts must be put into the work to preserve this trend.
Even with a revival of the revolutionary movement, the fate of the MLP is not automatically secure. The immediate effect of a new upsurge of the masses will be to intensify the pressures on the MLP, a severe test of whether it can play its role in bringing into being a truly mass revolutionary vanguard party of the working class.
Nobody owns such a class party. Nor can it be defined in advance exactly how such a party will come into being. We can only prepare for such an eventuality by steadfast revolutionary work to combat revisionism and opportunism, to develop our communist theory, to link it to the workers' movement and other mass struggles, and to infuse the class conscious workers and revolutionary activists with party concept.
Tasks of the MLP
Today we face an arduous struggle simply to preserve the MLP. That is not an end in itself but is, rather, a struggle to sustain the vital features of our trend so that it can play its proper role in an eventual revival of the revolutionary movement.
Above all, the preservation of our trend requires work:
* to maintain our national press, without which we cannot have a national, party-type of organization;
* to continue to build local ties with definite sections of the masses of workers and oppressed, without which we will lose our roots and face the danger of turning into just another sect;
* to find the way to restore internal cohesion, without which it will eventually become impossible to maintain the national press or build up local ties among the masses.
These tasks, in turn, require that we gradually carry out certain essential theoretical work to help settle controversial issues among us, deepen the fight against revisionism and opportunism, and orient the party in the new conditions that we face.
Today the revolutionary movement from the 1960's has passed away. And a new revolutionary movement is yet to come into being. The 4th Congress dedicates itself to the struggle to preserve revolutionary Marxism-Leninism in this difficult situation so that in an eventual new wave of mass upheaval a mass communist vanguard party can be built up to lead the working class, and around it all the oppressed masses, to the victory of workers' socialism.
Los Angeles schools are being ruined by increased class size, lack of sufficient school buildings, cuts in salaries -- you name it, they suffer from it. The corp orate rulers of California think education for workers and minorities is a waste of money that could better be used on their luxuries. The teachers, parents and students are getting angry.
So far, mass resistance is still small. But the rumblings down below keep growing.
October 14: There is a one-hour protest picket at 10th Street Elementary School in a Latino neighborhood. 150 parents, students and some teachers come out. They demand better education and more funding, and chant "Education yes, cutbacks no!" And they call Governor Wilson a lot of choice, well-deserved names too numerous to repeat here. Supporters of the MLP pass out a Spanish-language leaflet.
October 20 and 21: The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) vote on whether to authorize a strike if there is no better offer from the school board. They face a wage cut of almost 13%, cuts in health insurance coverage, forced furloughs, and 33 minutes unpaid time each day. This is a result of the budget deal that Republican Governor Wilson and the Democratic-controlled legislature boasted didn't cut funding to the schools.
Supporters of the MLP distribute a leaflet "Strike against ALL cutbacks!" It said in part: "The unity of classified and certificated workers in common struggle is essential. The union sellouts and bosses love the slogan 'every group of workers for themselves -- the devil take the hindmost' and here (they) do practice what they preach!"
89% vote for the strike authorization. If they walk out, there is the possibility that it might touch a nerve, and gather real support, especially in some hard-hit pockets in East and South Los Angeles.
November 5: Superior Court Judge Stephen 0'Neil issues a temporary restraining order against the state-ordered cuts in teachers' pay (but lets the cuts in health and conditions stand). He rules on the basis of a provision of the state education code that has been routinely violated in the past (that teachers' pay cannot be cut after the start of the school year on July 1). However, his order allows cuts in the pay of other school staff, thus splitting up the school employees. And he is to make a final ruling on November 25, thus putting off a possible strike until the end of the year and threatening to break its momentum.
The stage is being set for the intervention of a "County School District Arbiter" with the approval of the union leaders.
November 14: The Save Our Children Coalition holds a rally, under the slogans "No more education cuts! Full funding for education in 1993-94! Close all unfair tax loopholes!" 200 students, parents and a few teachers march from the steps of City Hall to the State Office Building in downtown Los Angeles. 70% of the participants are Latino. The unions, PTAs, and other supposed advocates of schools and children boycott the event because their leaders prefer backroom maneuvering with the politicians. Speakers, especially one from SCAN, (School/- Community Action Network), denounce the splits and divisions caused by the heads of the various school employee unions.
November 18: SCAN has been holding meetings, and this one is particularly lively. There is a discussion of the situation inside UTLA, where the top leaders are swinging an axe against all those who disagree with the concessions they are negotiating under the table with the school officials. SCAN is planning a new action of teachers, students and parents, with support from some militant bus drivers. Meanwhile UTLA won't lift a finger to call a mass action against the cuts because it would interfere with the backroom deals of its leaders.
The pressure is building up in the Los Angeles schools, and parents, school staff, and students are getting more inclined to struggle.
Columbus day was supposed to be a big deal this year, the grand 500th anniversary. At the beginning of the year, articles appeared in all the major press organs. But by Columbus day itself, the bloom had faded. The record of the genocidal holocaust against the indigenous peoples of the Americas had been exposed by the year-long spotlight on Columbus. Protests and counter-demonstrations marked Columbus day throughout the U.S., Latin America and some other countries. Even at the Seville World's Fair in Spain -- Expo '92, a $2.2 billion production originally planned as the centerpiece of the "Year of Spain" centered on Columbus -- it was thought better to sideline Columbus.
Columbus day has been mortally wounded; it will never be the same.
In the U.S. demonstrations took place in a number of cities.
Denver: Native American activists organized for weeks against the planned Columbus day parade. The parade sponsors offered to let them and their organizations take part in the parade with black armbands, but the activists didn't think there should be any parade at all to glorify racism and genocide. On Oct. 12, Native Americans, students, and others rallied at the Civic Center to stop the parade, which was then canceled; Columbus day was reduced to a cultural event at a fairgrounds. The activists held a victory celebration and their own cultural event.
Chicago: Activists planned for both an alternative parade and to protest the official parade. The Columbus Day organizers sought to cool things off by inviting the Native American Center to march at the head of the official parade, which it did. But other left-wing and indigenous people's organizations kept up the heat.
Columbus Day began with several activists throwing red paint on an offensive frieze. There was also a Columbus monument which looked ok at first, but had red dye in the water so that, when its fountain was turned on, the statue spouted blood.
300 activists took part in the alternative parade, chanting slogans and doing stickering. Three were arrested for putting a cardboard street sign over the existing one to rename it after a black and a Puerto Rican political prisoner. As well, over 100 protesters jeered the official Columbus Day parade.
San Francisco: The traditional coronation of "Queen Isabella" this month was disrupted with catcalls.
Berkeley, California: City officials canceled Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.
Washington, D.C.: on Oct. 11, the Native Congress of American Indians held a rally to mark the 500th anniversary of the day before the arrival of Columbus.
Some actions took place in Europe as well. In Columbus's home town of Genoa, Italy 20,000 people marched in protest. An organizer of this action declared: "We are protesting the celebratory and false tone which the northern countries of the world have developed about the discovery, or rather conquest, of America by Christopher Columbus."
Latin America saw widespread protest and even bloodshed. Most governments saw fit to tone down the holiday or ignore it. But indigenous peoples, oppressed and discriminated against, staged protests throughout the region, as did some other activists.
Mexico City: A big meeting took place on Columbus day, with indigenous people from all over North and South America.
Ecuador and Bolivia: Tens of thousands of Qechua-and Aymara-speaking peasants went to the capitals to protest.
Ecuador: For several days, indigenous people occupied land, and they set up roadblocks along the Pan-American Highway. Two were killed and dozens wounded.
El Salvador: 500 indigenous people marched in the capital, San Salvador, to protest Columbus day.
Dominican Republic: For months the Dominican people have been denouncing the Dominican government for spending millions of dollars on a 10-story high monument to Columbus to attract tourists, while the people are starving. Indeed, many poor people lost their homes to the construction of this tourist trap. On September 20, the Dominican government gunned down three people and wounded two more in order to disperse a demonstration denouncing both Columbus and the monument. More bloodshed continued in the following weeks. But protesters defied the police and continued their campaign until Columbus day, calling Columbus "the exterminator of a race" for wiping out the indigenous population of the island, Hispaniola, which the Dominican Republic is part of.
The Pope however came to the Dominican Republic anyway, arriving on Oct. 11, ignoring the blood of the murdered demonstrators. While regretting the "excesses" of Columbus, he claimed to be distinguishing between the colonization of the Americas and their evangelization. But these were one and the same, and he even praised the Columbus monument as symbolizing the "crusade of the cross planted in the land" of the Americas (New York , Oct. 12). But local bishops, who must live in Latin America rather than returning to Italy, took a more diplomatic stance. Bishops in Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala asked indigenous peoples to pardon the church for the atrocities of the colonial era, while the Catholic Church of Bolivia refused to take part in Columbus Day at all.
Throughout Latin America: Statues of Columbus or Queen Isabella were attacked in some countries.
[Photo: March in Chicago against the commemoration of Columbus, Oct.12.]
Many progressive people in Germany are coming forward in defense of refugees under right-wing attack. They are declaring "I too am a foreigner." Despite the danger from nazi terrorists, activists have taken up defense of refugee hostels and the organizing of street actions against the right wing's virulent racism. Many of these activists have been injured themselves, and a few have even been killed.
The developing anti-racist movement encompasses a number of forms of struggle and organization.
In the first place, there are refugee support groups that help new arrivals apply for political asylum, find housing, deal with the language, etc. Many nationality groups have their own such organizations. Because of the shortage of housing in Germany, many refugees are put up by churches and similar organizations.
Secondly, there is hostel defense. As long as refugees are housed in segregated centers, these buildings remain an easy target for right-wing extremists. In many places activists have signed up to serve on defense committees for the hostels. When danger threatens, phone trees alert the activists, and they form defensive pickets around the hostels.
Thirdly, there are political demonstrations in support of the foreigners. Besides the much-publicized monster rallies of November 7-8, there have been many smaller marches and meetings. The left has not only demonstrated against the racist violence, but it has also opposed the amending of Germany's constitution to restrict the right of asylum. This was raised, for example, in a militant anti-racist demonstration of some20,000 leftists and immigrants in Berlin on November 4.
Fourthly, there are direct confrontations with the fascists. The lead in this is being taken by militants who come from the old Berlin squatters movement. These activists are more and more coming forward to battle the nazis. The weekend of November 21-22 there were numerous battles between rightists and left militants in many places, especially in eastern Germany. In one battle, in a Berlin subway station, one leftist was stabbed to death and another dozen people seriously injured. When police came and began arresting people on weapons charges, the leftists rioted against them. The next day some 2,000 leftists marched in Berlin to denounce the nazi murder. There were also battles that weekend in Brandenburg and in Rathenow, where fascist thugs attacked a leftist squatters' commune.
Besides facing the nazi thugs, leftist militants are also faced with government persecution.
In Rostock, the police stood by during the attacks on refugees but were quick to suppress demonstrations in support of the refugees. Leaders in government and the media generally equate right-wing and left-wing violence, equating those who try to murder immigrants with those who step up to defend the immigrants. The government claims that it is for suppressing all of these "extremists." However in practice it has tended to go lightly on the rightists while harshly suppressing the left. Even at the end of November, when the government finally began a roundup of some nazis, Chancellor Kohl continued to warn leftist militants that they will "face the full force of the law."
[Photo: Placards demand defense of Article 16, which allows asylum for refugees.]
On the weekend of November 7-8 over half a million people poured into the streets of Germany to demonstrate their opposition to racist violence. Some 350,000 came to a rally in Berlin. Meanwhile 150,000 people attended demonstrations in Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg and Frankfurt. And another 100,000 demonstrated on November 9, the anniversary of the Nazis' Kristallnacht rampage against the Jews in 1938.
But while these large rallies showed something of popular revulsion against racism, they were organized as exercises in hypocrisy.
The rallies were called by the major bourgeois parties to suggest that they are opposed to the nazi resurgence. Chancellor Helmut Kohl had been roundly criticized internationally for being slow to condemn the violence, so his Christian Democrat Party was anxious to lay to rest fears that it was condoning fascist revivalism.
But the government's emphasis is on the whipping up of sentiment against the political refugees and other immigrants, and it has added to that the denunciation of leftists who organize defense of the refugees. Hence the main slogans against racist attacks were the most minimal possible, simply decrying violence and brutality. The official leaders would not even endorse slogans denouncing xenophobia (hatred of foreigners.)
Nonetheless many democratic people took the opportunity to come out and show their hatred for the nazi skinheads. The bourgeois politicians were overwhelmed by the response. For the rally in Berlin they had expected a turnout of 50,000 people, but instead some 350,000 came out. Thousands of young people came out, including entire school classes.
A massive display of bourgeois hypocrisy
The march was billed as a national day of unity. At the head of the march were the Christian Democrat leaders of the government (Kohl and other parliamentary leaders), along with the president, Richard von Weizsaecker; leaders of the Social Democratic Party, the main opposition party; bishops and church leaders; and leaders of trade unions arm in arm with representatives of employer federations.
At the rally site, march stewards ripped down banners critical of Chancellor Kohl. Christian Democrat supporters carried placards in the march that read "Against extremism -- from left and right!"
Activists show their contempt for hypocrisy
Despite the mealy-mouthed official themes, many people came to demonstrate their contempt for the mainstream politicians. Groups of progressives carried banners ridiculing the politicians, for example: Hypocrites of all parties, unite! and The cynicism of your politics is beyond belief. Referring to Kohl's threat to impose emergency decrees to "stem the tide" of immigrants, a banner read Conservatives and fascists work hand in hand - forward to emergency laws. And condemning the deportation ("exporting") of Gypsies, another said Racist politicians demonstrate for German exports.
When Chancellor Kohl was first spotted in the streets, he was pelted with eggs. And when SDP leader Bjorn Engholm appeared, he was greeted with cries of "Murderer! Murderer!"
The single speaker at the rally was President von Weizsaecker. Much of what he said was drowned in a chorus of boos and jeers. His speech came to a stop when leftists pelted him with eggs and tomatoes, at the same time chanting "Hypocrite!"Police stormed into the crowd with flailing clubs to suppress the activists. Weizsaecker then finished his speech behind a cordon of police shields, through a chorus of whistles and catcalls.
Politicians still blame the immigrants
Weizsaecker made it clear, when he could be heard, that he was not there to support the immigrants. Against the cries of "hypocrite" Weizsaecker declared, "We...will prevail against troublemakers and loudmouths," and went on to insist, "We politicians have the urgent duty to create a system that channels and limits immigration...." Weizsaecker claimed that refugees were "taking advantage of Germany," and insisted, "Of course it's not possible to keep on living together without friction. Living conditions and economic interests are too diverse." Weizsaecker called for more action by the police, who "could no longer stand passively to one side in the face of the hair-raising slogans of right-wing radicals and left-wing troublemakers."
This theme, of equating right-wing and left-wing "radicals and troublemakers," was taken up in a big way by the media after the rally. Those who rally to the defense of victims of racist attacks are thrown into the same pot with the fascists who initiate such attacks. Indeed, the main emphasis after the rally was the supposed great danger to German democracy posed by the left. The mayor of Berlin called for "effective action against left-wing extremism." In turn, SDP leaders denounced the mayor -- for not effectively deploying the police against the leftists.
But if there is to be effective action against the nazis, it will come from left-wing activists mobilizing in the streets and building a mass movement against racism. It certainly won't come from the establishment which is thoroughly hypocritical in its hand-wringing over racist attacks.
[Photo: Demonstration in Moelln condemns the murder of three Turkish people.]
The worst single episode of recent nazi violence in Germany occurred on November 23, when three people died after firebombs were thrown into their homes. The killings occurred in the northern town of Molln, 25 miles east of Hamburg. Two houses 500 yards apart were simultaneously attacked in a well planned pre-dawn assault. The buildings were occupied by Turkish families who had lived in Germany for years.
Burned to death inside one building were Bahide Arslan, 51, her granddaughter Yeliz Arslan, 10, and Ayse Yilmaz, 14, a relative visiting from Turkey. The grandmother had lived for many years in Germany, while the granddaughter was born in Germany. Six other family members were hospitalized.
Mass demonstrations immediately broke out in various German cities denouncing this murderous assault. Hundreds of people went into the streets in Berlin, and 1,000 leftists and Turks rioted in Kreuzberg. A march that evening in Berlin drew hundreds of people with banners that said "Nazis Out" and "Down with Fascism." The funeral for the dead drew tens of thousands on November 27.
The outcry against these murders was so huge that the federal government finally moved to involve itself in the investigation, something it has been reluctant to do in the other 1,700 racist assaults this year. The government made the flimsy justification that now it could act because anonymous callers claiming responsibility for the attack shouted "Heil Hitler" over the phone. Germany's president even threatened to break up nazi organizations, which would be fine with most people. One fascist group was banned and dozens of nazis arrested.
But the racist violence is encouraged by Germany's failure to provide full and equal rights to all its residents. Indeed, the murders of the three Turkish people highlighted the fact that racist violence is today not just being aimed at new refugees but long-time immigrant communities as well.
More than 1.6 million people of Turkish descent live in Germany, many of them second and third generation residents. Their parents and grandparents came to Germany on guest worker programs at a time of severe labor shortages during the industrial boom years of the 60's and 70's. In many cases the Turkish nationality people have managed to hold onto jobs and achieve a certain amount of integration into German society. But even being born in Germany does not guarantee German citizenship. Official, legal discrimination makes it possible for demagogues to direct people's fears and frustrations toward scapegoats and to incite violent attacks.
Among the many refugees streaming into Germany from Eastern Europe are the Roma people, the so-called Gypsies. Social disruptions and inter-ethnic battles in their home countries have forced tens of thousands of these people to flee their homes. In particular, fascist elements in Romania have unleashed a reign of terror against them.
The Gypsies had hoped to find refuge in Germany. But instead they found persecution. Fascist groups there are targeting foreign refugees. And the German government decided to single out the Gypsies when they began clamping down on refugees.
Without waiting for a change in the refugee laws, the German government decided to arbitrarily deport the "Gypsies. But the Romanian government refused to accept them. So Germany offered crisis-ridden Romania a bribe of 30 million Deutschemarks to take them. A treaty between Romania and Germany to that effect was signed in October and took effect November 1.
The German rulers have no shame. They blithely ignore the memories that are evoked by this pact. During the Hitler era the German government rounded up Gypsies from all over Europe, including Romania, and shipped them off to concentration camps where 500,000 of them were exterminated.
Article 16 of Germany's postwar constitution was deliberately inserted as a guarantee that post-fascist Germany would become a haven for refugees instead of a center of persecution. But today Germany's political leaders have decided to do away with this guarantee. And in the case of the Gypsies, even before any formal change to Article 16, they are simply ignoring it.
This persecution also extends to anyone who dares to speak out in support of the Gypsies. On October 18 police troops in Rostock savagely suppressed a demonstration that was called to oppose the Germany-Romania deportation pact.
The demonstration was called by a group of French Jews called the Sons and Daughters of Deported Jews. They oppose the idea of Germany taking up the persecution and deportation of minorities once again as it did in the 30's. They chose Rostock as their rallying point, apparently because of the attack on foreign refugees that took place there in August.
During the August attack on a refugee hostel, Rostock police stood around and watched while townspeople threw rocks and firebombs at the hostel. But the pro-Gypsy demonstration was treated differently. This time the police were very active; they attacked the demonstration, arrested 46 people, and hit the organizers with a long list of charges.
This speaks volumes about the real attitude of German political leaders to ethnic minorities and political refugees. Yes, they claim to be for democracy and human rights, and even organized some demonstrations in early November against fascist terrorism. But their persecution of Gypsies and anyone who supports them shows their real hatred for foreigners, to the extent of flouting their own constitution.
Racist violence against foreigners has also broken out in Spain. Recently, in Madrid, a poor woman worker from the Dominican Republic was murdered by what looks to be a fascist death squad. This happened just days after Dominican women rioted against police attempting to harass them.
The murder victim, Lucrecia Perez Martos, was shot to death in her home on November 13 by four masked gunmen. A man with her was also wounded. Perez Martos had been working as a maid in the middle-class suburb of Aravaca, but had been laid off and had moved into an abandoned video parlor.
A demonstration denouncing her murder took place on November 19 in Madrid. Thousands of people, both native Spaniards and immigrants, marched through the city. The march showed the sentiment of the masses to oppose racist violence. But the march was headed up by representatives of Spain's major political parties, who are directing governmental attacks on immigrants.
In recent years, Spain has more and more become the destination of people from poor countries in Latin America and Africa seeking jobs. Today the government is trying to stop this influx, and fascist groups use this opportunity to try and float their poison.
A short time before the murder, Aravaca was the scene of a riot against governmental harassment of immigrants. Thousands of women from the Dominican Republic work in Aravaca as babysitters, cooks, and maids. On their days off these women gather in the local town square to relax and talk. On Sunday, November 1, hundreds of these women were gathered in the square when policemen trooped in and began harassing them. Eventually the cops decided to arrest four women on suspicion of being undocumented immigrants. They tried to take the women away, but others in the square came to their rescue. Two hundred women attacked the cops, throwing bricks and rocks at them. Seven patrol cars were damaged, and four cops injured.
The murder of Perez Martos appears to be a case of fascist revenge for the Dominican women's refusal to bow down to racist harassment. But the establishment politicians are hypocritical when they denounce fascist violence. They are responsible for state terror against immigrant workers, and such policies create fertile grounds for fascist violence.