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From Labor Action, Vol. 6 No. 46, 16 November 1942, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Dear Editor:
I have been reading the space-filler about Basis of Jewish Question in your October 19 issue. What it’s all about is too much ink.
From what I know and have seen I believe the Jewish people have always been taking good care of themselves. What is there here in the United States to stop them?
Personally I know many kickers about Jews are jealous of the luck the bunch have.
I believe a lot and a couple miles more of the reason of class scraps come from the mental punk condition that everybody ought to be equal, no one should have more than the others. If I’m happy, why should not the others? What hell right has one to pile and the others not? Awful what this country is coming to
and in the cities where lots have not and have not much else to holler about except what luck the other bunch have.
The whole cause of the class fights is too many punks and who do not know some are better, happier, smarter, richer, dumber, sadder, fatter, nicer. Bologna. Say, who started the fight. Call a cop.
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Brooklyn Reader |
This reader is wrong in his belief that the Jewish people as a group are any better off than any other group. He is judging by the exceptions, not by the rule. If he will take a walk through any Jewish working class section, he will soon see that the Jewish workers are no better off than Irish, Italian or any other group of workers in the American melting pot.
The scrap against the Jews is not a class scrap but a phony race scrap which the bosses keep going in order to ward off from themselves the class-scrap punches that the workers should be handing out to them. The bosses spread the flim-flam about the Jews being better off.
The punks in our population are not the workers who think they are entitled to happiness, but those who stand in the way of the people’s happiness are the punks. Yes, the punks are the class that takes and keeps as private property what all the workers produce and have a right to enjoy.
Say, would you call the guys, who went out on strike to win the eight-hour day and were plugged with bullets by the bosses’ deputies and by the National Guard, punks? Would you call the auto workers, who fought like all hell to get their union established and recognized, punks? These were class scraps.
It’s true that, by nature, some of us are fatter, some nicer, some smarter, some sadder. But, you know, in one fundamental respect we are all alike – our bodies and our minds must have the things that give life and happiness. But when Mr. Grace of Bethlehem Steel pockets over $537,000 a year in salary, plus large amounts in interest and dividends and other income – and the rest of his class does likewise – we have the kind of inequality that nature has nothing to do with. That’s the kind of inequality the class struggle aims to do away with. For that fight all workers must unite – Jewish, Irish, Italian, Yankee. We hope you’ll be with us. No need for a cop.
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Susan Green |
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Last updated: 11 September 2014