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Workers World Newspaper 55 W. 17th St. #5C, NY, NY 10011 PAKISTAN The shooting of Malala 8

Oct. 25, 2012 Vol. 54, No. 42 $1workers.org

Elecciones EE.UU. EDITORIAL Leyes anti-latinos/as 12

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!

By Kris Hamel

From Illinois to southern California, Walmart workers are fighting back against one of the most notorious union-busting corporations in the United States. They are walk-ing out against unfair labor practices and protesting the working conditions and low pay foisted upon them by the largest retail corporation in the world. These courageous workers, not members of any union, are organizing for dignity, respect and better working conditions for them-selves and their coworkers, families and communities. They are gaining the support and solidarity of working people and the oppressed throughout the U.S.

First, a two-week strike of Walmart warehouse work-ers began in southern California on Sept. 12. The work-ers and their allies then marched 50 miles demanding Walmart pay them stolen wages, rectify health and safety violations, and deal with discrimination and sexual as-saults on the job. They won their strike when Walmart agreed to address health and safety issues, hold inspec-tions and take responsibility for working conditions.

Just a few days after that strike began, warehouse workers at Walmart’s largest distribution center in North America, in Elwood, Ill., went out Sept. 15 on an unfair la-bor practice strike. These workers toil under brutal con-ditions, as temps, often earning less than $200 per week. On Oct. 1 the striking workers were joined by trade union activists, religious leaders and community activists who marched on the distribution center and shut it down for the day. Seventeen people were arrested for “obstructing a roadway” by police in full riot gear. They were eventu-ally released. (Chicagoist.com, Oct. 2)

After a three-week strike in Elwood, the warehouse work stoppage came to an end when Walmart agreed to stop illegal retaliation against workers who speak out against bad working conditions. The victorious workers returned to work with full pay for all days they were out on strike.

One-day walkout in Los Angeles area, an historic �rstIn an historic first, workers from nine Walmart stores

in the Los Angeles area staged a one-day walkout on Oct. 4. Hundreds of Walmart workers and their supporters picketed outside the Pico Rivera, Calif., store with signs reading, “On Strike for the Freedom to Speak Out” and “Walmart Strike Against Retaliation.”

Walmart store workers are called “associates” by the company in an obvious attempt to obviate their status as workers who deserve rights and decent wages and condi-

tions. While Walmart workers in other parts of the world are unionized — the company first relented in 2006 to a union-organizing effort in China — workers at Walmart at U.S. warehouses and stores labor under venomous anti-union rules and practices.

“For over a year, Walmart retail workers have been coming together to call for change at Walmart,” said Venanzi Luna, a Walmart worker and member of OUR Walmart who took part in the walkout. “Through our worker-led Organization United for Respect at Walmart, workers like myself have been calling on the company to address issues with scheduling, benefits, wages and above all, respect in the workplace.

“But instead of being responsive,” Luna asserted, “Walmart has lashed out at us for speaking up. The com-pany is trying to silence and intimidate us through unfair disciplinary actions, cutbacks in hours and even firings. We’re on strike to protest these illegal attempts to silence us.” (forrespect.org, Oct. 4)

The Los Angeles walkout and Pico Rivera protest were organized by OUR Walmart, which is backed by the Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW). Unionized Walmart workers from Africa, Great Britain, Latin America and Canada have met with Los Angeles Walmart workers to coordinate support for the interna-tional struggle against Walmart.

“Energy around the calls for Walmart to change its treatment of workers and communities has been build-ing,” according to OUR Walmart’s website, forrespect.org. “In just one year, OUR Walmart, the unique work-

With labor & community support

Low-wage workers take on Walmart

Top, NYC protest, Oct. 12. WW PHOTO: G. DUNKEL Above, Port-au-Prince, Haiti demonstration, Sept. 30. PHOTO: LIONEL FORTUNÉ/IPS

STOP RACIST TERROR!New York City ➏ East Baltimore ➐Chula Vista ➎ & Oakland, Calif. ➐

ORGANIZE THE SOUTH!No KKK monument 3

Solidarity with immigrants 5

FREE CECE MCDONALD 2, 3

Continued page 4

SYRIA more war threats 8 PUERTO RICO people’s victory 9 LIBYA & SOUTH AFRICA 11

U.N. TROOPS OUT OF HAITI! 9

Page 2 Oct. 25, 2012 workers.org

Workers World 55 West 17 Street New York, N.Y. 10011

Phone: 212.627.2994

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Vol. 54, No. 42 • Oct. 25, 2012 Closing date: Oct. 16, 2012Editor: Deirdre GriswoldTechnical Editor: Lal RoohkManaging Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell,Leslie Feinberg, Kris Hamel, Monica Moorehead,Gary WilsonWest Coast Editor: John ParkerContributing Editors: Abayomi Azikiwe,Greg Butterfield, Jaimeson Champion, G. Dunkel,Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Larry Hales,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Cheryl LaBash,Milt Neidenberg, Betsey Piette, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Gloria RubacTechnical Staff: Sue Davis, Shelley Ettinger,Bob McCubbin, Maggie VascassennoMundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Michael Martínez,Carlos VargasSupporter Program: Sue Davis, coordinator

Copyright © 2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of articles is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Workers World Party (WWP) �ghts for socialism and engages in struggles on all the issues that face the working class & oppressed peoples — Black & white, Latino/a, Asian, Arab and Native peoples, women & men, young & old, lesbian, gay, bi, straight, trans, disabled, working, unemployed, undocu-mented & students.

If you would like to know more about WWP, or to join us in these struggles, contact the branch nearest you.

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In the U.S.

Low-wage workers take on Walmart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Summer: A youth in the struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

‘Prosecution fears support for CeCe’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Community protests monument to KKK leader. . . . . . . . . . .3

Curfew law put on hold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Hundreds join trans march . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Grain Handlers to lock out longshore workers. . . . . . . . . . . .4

‘Mic check’ solidarity with grocery workers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Support for Walmart union organizing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Anti-Latino/a laws ignite the South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Border Patrol guns down mother of �ve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Victory for anti-stop & frisk activist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Heated debate on racist police abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

NYC transit o�ers higher fares, more racism . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Justice for Anthony Anderson Sr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Cop killer of Alan Blueford won’t be charged . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Paul Ryan’s lies: The truth about ‘central planning’ . . . . . . 10

Around the worldWhat’s happening in Ecuador?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

U.S.-NATO driven to wage war on Syria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

What’s really behind the attack on Malala Yousafzai . . . . . .8

Haiti: Cholera & hunger meet militant resistance . . . . . . . . .9

People win battle with Puerto Rico Power Authority. . . . . .9

Libya becomes focus of U.S. election. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

South African truckers end strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

EditorialAnother war prize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Noticias En Español

Elecciones EE.UU.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Leyes anti-latinos/as. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Summer

A youth in the struggleSummer is an activist with the Revolutionary

Students Union in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she lives with her partner Wilden and their daughter. Along with student organizing, Summer and Wilden have worked in support of workers’ rights and in the anti-war movement.

I grew up Mormon in the very conservative state of Utah. It was taboo to even talk about politics around my family because it would somehow “ruin our family rela-tionships.” Despite this, towards the end of high school I was exposed to radical left-wing politics through some friends of mine and started my journey to activism.

I came to political activism in college by becoming in-volved in an anti-Walmart campaign that was going on in Salt Lake City. Our goal was to provide the public with information about the exploitation of workers and union busting by this giant capitalist corporation. During this campaign, for the first time in my life, I began to rec-ognize that life under capitalism is a constant struggle between people who work for a living and those that get rich off exploiting them.

The Marxist term for this is the “class struggle” — the working class struggling against the capitalist class. One point that really resonated with me at this time was the conclusion that the capitalist system always puts profit before people. My partner Wilden and I soon became involved in the growing anti-war movement that was forming around the time of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. We traveled to a huge anti-war rally in San Francisco in January 2003, where 100,000 peo-ple came out to oppose the U.S. threats of war!

With our political consciousness growing, we were

less and less satisfied with the analysis of mainstream media. Wilden and I began attending a revolutionary book club and discussion group in Salt Lake City. We also started working with a local peace coalition, helping to organize anti-war events in our area.

We took a little time off from political work to have a little girl named Violet, and after a couple of years we became politically active doing immigrant rights work and fighting against repressive Arizona-style legislation in Utah.

Wilden and I contacted many left-wing groups, but the one that impressed us the most was Workers World Party.

WWP has a long history of working with working-class and oppressed people to build community power and fight for our collective interests against the capi-talist class. We believe that the only way to have real liberation and equality is to overthrow capitalism, and that the only way to overthrow capitalism is through solidarity and organizing in the working-class and op-pressed communities.

This outlook is directly tied to our understanding of Marxism and the application of Marxist analysis to the world today. We hope you join us in the streets and in our communities to see what we mean by put-ting Marxism into action!

‘Prosecution fears support for CeCe’The following was written by Leslie

Feinberg on Oct. 7. For more on the struggle to free CeCe McDonald, visit workers.org.

In this message, I report my trial date and the details of the plea deal that the Minneapolis city attorney’s office has put on the table.

At my pretrial hearing on Sept. 28, the date of the opening of my jury trial on a third-degree misdemeanor charge was set for Dec. 12.

That is not a speedy jury trial! I am ready to stand trial today. But the court has declined to schedule my trial in October, LGBTQ/+ History Month, or in November, the month of Trans Remembrance events in the U.S.

The scheduling of my trial for mid-December serves to bury publicity about the prosecution of an act of solidar-ity with CeCe McDonald.

A new year of struggleIn the U.S., the last two weeks of December are a time

when students, teachers and school staffs are busily working and then schools close down for winter breaks. Workplaces and government offices shut down for win-ter holidays and New Year’s Day on the Gregorian calen-dar. Many people travel and communications via work and social media often slow down.

I am pressing to reschedule my trial date for mid-

January — to begin a new year of struggle on the activist calendar.

A recent show of force at the St. Cloud, Minn., prison on Sept. 15 dramatically demonstrated that the 1%, and the criminally unjust system that maintains its rule, wants to thwart the growing support that CeCe McDonald’s struggle is inspiring.

Supporters rode together in a group motorcy-cle ride from Minneapolis to St. Cloud to visit McDonald that day. When they arrived, St. Cloud officials had locked down all the prisoners. SWAT teams were posted at ev-ery entrance, and all those who traveled to visit their loves ones were barred from spending precious time together.

Message to prosecution: ‘No deal!’

I thank Bruce Nestor and the National Lawyers Guild for your legal support.

The Minneapolis city attorney has put a plea bargain on the pretrial negotiating table. Here are the details as I understand them:

If I would plead “guilty” my sentence will be “stayed” — no jail time beyond the three days I already spent in lockup; one year probation; three to five days of commu-nity service. I would have to pay financial “restitution”

Continued on page 3

PHOTO: ASHLEY ANDERSON

Summer

Free CeCe McDonald

workers.org Oct. 25, 2012 Page 3

for property “damage.”After my arrest, I was held without

bail for three days on a felony charge, which threatened five years behind bars. After mass outcry, the felony charge was dropped.

Now I’m being threatened with one year in jail.

But the prosecution is willing to make more time in jail go away if I’ll just “con-fess” my “guilt.”

My message to the prosecution is: No deal!

I want a speedy jury trial in which I can declare — not “plead” — that I am not guilty of any wrongdoing.

The action in which I delivered the peo-ple’s verdict — writing “Free CeCe Now!” on the county jail wall that held her — that was my “community service.” I was demonstrating my responsibility to CeCe and to many communities to take action against injustice.

One thing is clear: The repressive forc-es have the strength to hold me incommu-nicado behind bars, but they don’t have the power to stop the support for CeCe McDonald from widening and deepening.

Organizing solidarity

As I write, transwomen of color are be-ing lynched in cities across the U.S. and tortured in the prison-industrial complex.

CeCe McDonald is surviving this war.In honor of her ongoing struggle, I’m

making an open call for photographs for a slide show dedicated to “Free CeCe” in the no-cost author edition of “Stone Butch Blues.”

The slide show is titled, “This is what solidarity looks like.”

Please consider making “Free CeCe”

group photographs at October LGBTQ/+ and November Trans Remembrance events with a sign or other message of support for CeCe McDonald.

Every day between now and the opening of my trial I will try to post at least a pho-to a day from the “Free CeCe” slide show on social media, to build solidarity with CeCe’s struggle and to thank the photogra-phers for their permissions. I will also post photos in search of the photographer/s in order to give full photo credit.

Download permission forms at iacenter.org/lgbt/cecemcdonaldpictures. Send photos/permissions to transgenderwarrior@gmail.com or via social media.

I’ll write more, when I can.Free CeCe now!

SELMA, ALA

Community protests monument to KKK leaderBy Dianne Mathiowetz

The struggle to stop the construction of a monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest, first grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and the man credited with building the white supremacist group into a national force, has put a spotlight on Selma, Ala., largely known today for its role in the Civ-il Rights movement.

Forrest made his fortune as a slave trader before the Civil War and led the establishment of the violent hate group which has terrorized Black communities and others for decades. As a Confederate general, he ordered the outright murder of hundreds of surrendering Black federal troops and women at Fort Pillow.

In 2000, Cecil Williamson, a life-long segregationist and current City Council president, co-founded Friends of Forrest and oversaw the erection of a statue dedi-cated to Forrest in a city park. The statue was put in place five days after the first Black mayor of Selma, James Perkins Jr., took office. Public protest forced the re-moval of the statue to the city cemetery, where some Confederate war dead are buried.

Following the disappearance of the statue this summer, Friends of Forrest planned to replace it with a 12-foot monu-ment surrounded by an iron fence, night lighting and 24-hour security. The cem-etery is in the Black community of Selma.

On Sept. 25, Selma residents, led by Malika Sanders-Fortier, marched from the Edmund Pettus Bridge to a City Coun-cil meeting. They presented a petition with more than 325,000 signers from across the country denouncing the con-struction of a statue in honor of a well-

known killer of Black people.By a vote of 4 to 0 with two abstentions,

the Council stopped work on the monu-ment, pending a decision on the owner-ship of the land. Williamson continues to subvert the will of Selma’s Black com-munity, now alleging the plot of land is privately owned by the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Legacy of struggle

During the Civil War, Selma was a center of munitions manufacturing criti-cal to the secessionist confederacy. Like much of the South, which was under Jim Crow segregation for decades, a small but entrenched political and economic white elite governed with a harsh hand, backed up by the violence of groups like the KKK. Selma’s Black residents were subjected to night raids by robe-wearing Klansmen, beatings, lynchings, arson, rapes and the ever-present threat of job loss and home eviction.

Nevertheless, a movement for voting rights emerged led by the Dallas County Voters League, which struggled against the literacy tests and poll taxes that kept 99 percent of the city’s Black residents from voting. Student Nonviolent Coor-dinating Committee organizers came to Selma in early 1963, and by 1965, 3,000 people had been arrested in protests and attempts to register to vote.

On Feb. 26, 1965, Jimmy Lee Jackson was killed by an Alabama state trooper following a Civil Rights protest. Days later, 600 people set off on a march from Selma to Montgomery, determined to end the racist segregation that ruled their lives. After crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a Confederate briga-

dier general, they were met by an army of police and state troopers who tear-gassed and beat the crowd. That day, March 7, 1965, has come to be known as Bloody Sunday. Four days later, Rev. James Reeb, a Boston minister who came to sup-port the struggle, was beaten to death on a downtown Selma street in broad daylight.

Undeterred, two weeks later on March 21, some 3,200 marchers started to Mont-

gomery, their numbers swelling to more than 25,000 upon arrival at the state capitol four days later. That night Viola Liuzzo, a Michigan mother drawn to the Civil Rights movement, was murdered by Klansmen as she was shuttling marchers back to Selma.

For more information on the current struggle in Selma, visit grassrootsdemocracy.net.

Continued from page 2

RHODE ISLAND

Curfew law put on hold

By Workers World Rhode Island bureau

Joined by constituents and community organizations, the 11th Ward city council-man, Davian Sanchez, announced on Oct. 4 that he has placed his proposal for a youth curfew in Providence, R.I., on hold. Instead, Sanchez said he will introduce ordinances to improve youth employ-ment and recreation, and ban practices that can lead to racial profiling.

“The goal of the curfew ordinance was to reduce violence in the city and make the city safer for our youth,” Sanchez stat-ed. “However, after meeting with youth, parents and community groups, I have decided that the best way to achieve this goal is to work toward bettering relations between police and youth, and creating more positive spaces and activities for youth in the evenings.”

“When you see how a curfew works, and how much it costs, it doesn’t make sense,” said Joseph Buchanan of Rhode Island Black PAC, one of the groups that has been meeting with Sanchez. “We’d rather spend the money on programs for youth, instead of police overtime, lost wages, courts and lawyers.”

Bill Bateman of the Rhode Island Un-employed Council said, “Don’t tell us there’s no money! Over the last 10 years, Providence was robbed of $680 million

by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and $500 million by the Bush tax cut. Be hon-est and say, ‘There’s no money for you.’”

Sheila Wilhem, a parent and Direct Ac-tion for Rights and Equality member said, “My kids have suffered from constant racial profiling and police harassment. A curfew would only make things worse for them and all of our youth. They need jobs and recreation, not [hand]cuffs and curfews.”

Franny Choi of the Providence Youth Student Movement told Sanchez that youth diversions would be more effective and less expensive. “With real community support,” she said, “youth can pull them-selves out of the cycle of violence — even lead the charge to end it. Labeling them as criminals only fuels the problem.”

Rochelle Lee of the RI Rosa Parks Hu-man Rights Committee added that “racial profiling and criminalization of youth are a part of a new ‘Jim Crow’ we are fighting to abolish.”

Those in attendance at the press confer-ence included members of the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, the Rhode Island Latino Political Action Committee, the Mount Hope Neighborhood Association, the SOS Save Our Schools Coalition, the Rhode Island Peoples Assembly and the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union.

Hundreds join trans marchThe second annual Philly Trans March

Oct. 6 was dedicated to Kyra (Kruz) Cor-dova, a 27-year-old Philadelphia trans-gender woman who was active in the Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative. Cordova was found shot in the head on Sept. 3. A $25,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person re-sponsible for her murder. Several family members also spoke about the unsolved murder of Stacey Blahnik, a 31-year-old African-American trans woman mur-dered in 2010.

Speakers raised the case of Cece McDon-ald, a young African-American transgen-der woman incarcerated for manslaughter after an incident in Minneapolis that be-gan when she was violently attacked be-

cause of her race and gender. Well-known author and revolutionary, Leslie Feinberg, has dedicated the 20th-anniversary edi-

tion of her book, “Stone Butch Blues,” to McDonald and the struggle to free her.

—Report and photo by Joe Piette

WW PHOTO: BILL BATEMAN

Page 4 Oct. 25, 2012 workers.org

Grain Handlers to lock out longshore workersBy Clarence Thomas

This lightly edited article was written for the Port Workers United newsletter in Oakland, Calif. Thomas is a third-generation member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, and co-chair of the Million Worker March movement, who actively sup-ported ILWU Local 21 in their battle with the new high-tech grain export terminal in Longview, Wash.

As a consequence of the January 2012 negotiated Export Grain Terminal con-tract for International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 in Longview, Wash., dockworkers and the Pacific

Northwest Grain Handlers Association negotiations are headed for a showdown. In fact, the Grain Handlers are expected to lock out longshore workers on Octo-ber 24 at six Northwest grain terminals in Portland, Ore.; Seattle, Tacoma, and Vancouver, Wash.

These grain negotiations are setting the stage for the 2014 longshore contract negotiations, which will impact big mon-ey issues like pension and welfare.

The Northwest grain terminal employ-ers are demanding EGT concessions like the 12-hour shift, bypassing the union hiring hall, ability to fire any longshore worker without cause, and more than 700 other union busting demands.

The employers have re-tained JRG Services Inc., a division of Gettier Security, a replacement workforce and special operations firm. This is not the first time Gettier has been used against ILWU members. In the 2010 Bo-ron, Calif., three-and-a-half-month lockout of more than 500 ILWU Local 30 borate miners, Gettier provided secu-rity and transported scabs for the inter-nationally notorious Rio Tinto corpora-tion, a global mining and metals giant.

The Grain Handlers include some of the largest agribusinesses in the world, such as Cargill and Louis Dreyfus Com-modities Inc. They control and monopo-lize the world’s food supply chain. They have a global strategy which is driving

the grain negotiations in the Pa-cific Northwest. Their aim is to cut costs and increase production at the expense of hard fought long-shore working conditions.

Nearly half of the grain in the U.S. expected to be exported — including wheat, corn and soybeans — will be handled by Northwest terminals.To win this struggle, it will take

ILWU rank-and-file unity along with an unprecedented alliance such as that which was formed during the ILWU struggle against EGT. That alliance in-cluded Occupy, labor, community and grassroots social justice movements.

Plans are underway to organize boat pickets on the Columbia and Willamette rivers during the lockout. ‘Mic check’ solidarity

with grocery workers

On Oct. 13, a 13-person multinational group from “99-Pickets” with Labor Oc-cupy Wall Street and Brooklyn’s Kensing-ton OWS took action to support Golden Farm Grocery workers in New York City. They delayed lines of store shoppers, cus-tomers who declined to boycott the store as the picketers requested. The boycott will continue until the boss negotiates the union contract and gives back pay — minimum wage and overtime — to these immigrant workers.

The workers’ supporters offered pay-ments in pennies to buy groceries, then couldn’t decide on purchases, and changed them at the last minute or stalled on paying. Others handed shoppers fliers about the workers’ plight. John Dennie

and this writer insisted that seniors pay lower rates and offered pennies as pay-ment. The irritated managers took their baskets off the cashiers’ counters.

Finally, activists gathered near the cash registers for a ‘“mic check!” They left chanting, “We’ll be back and we’ll be stronger! We won’t take it any longer!”

The “99-Pickets” members loudly ex-plained why everyone should support the grocery workers’ struggle — which is get-ting daily support from Communities for Change and the union they voted to join: Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Local 238. Reportedly, owner Son-ny Kim and the union will meet within days.

—Report and photo by Anne Pruden

Philadelphia

Support for Walmart union organizing

Close to 50 Food and Commercial Workers union members, Occupy Philly and other labor activists assembled at the front doors of Walmart, off Aramingo Avenue in Philadelphia, on Oct. 10. They handed out fliers in support of “OUR Walmart,” the worker-led organization of the giant retailers’ “associates.” Most shoppers were enthusiastic in taking fli-ers, some saying it’s about time the work-ers there were unionized, with some even signing petitions.

After leafleting for 45 minutes, a group

of a dozen activists entered the store to give the manager a letter addressed to Walmart’s chairman of the Board of Di-rectors, Rob Walton. Signed by some of the community activists who had been leafleting outside, the letter asked the most profitable chain store in the world to cease “trying to silence and intimidate those who speak out through unfair dis-ciplinary actions, cutbacks in hours and even firings.” The manager took the let-ter, promising to give it to his superiors.

—Report and photo by Joe Piette

PHOTO: DELORES THOMAS

Clarence Thomas

ers’ organization founded by Walmart Associates, has grown from a group of 100 Walmart workers to an army of thou-sands of Associates in hundreds of stores across 43 states.”

The organization notes that as Walmart workers face many horrible conditions, “the company is raking in almost $16 billion a year in profits, executives made more than $10 million each in compen-sation last year. Meanwhile, the Walton Family — heirs to the Walmart fortune — [is] the richest family in the country with more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of [U.S.] families combined.”

Strikes, protests spread further

Soon after the southern California walk-out and mass protest, Walmart workers walked out on strike Oct. 9 in at least a dozen cities and surrounding areas, includ-ing Dallas and Austin, Texas; Seattle; Los

Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, Calif.; Miami and Orlando, Fla.; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago, ac-cording to Dan Schlademan, director of the UFCW’s Making Change At Walmart cam-paign. Walmart workers also walked off the job in parts of Kentucky, Missouri and Minnesota. (huffingtonpost.com, Oct. 9)

On Oct. 10, hundreds of workers and their supporters gathered outside the Bentonville, Ark., Walmart headquarters where the annual investors meeting was taking place. The company has acknowl-edged the workers’ legal right to strike over unfair labor practices, but says it will only talk to “associates” on an “individu-al” basis, not as a group. (ABC News)

Now Walmart worker-organizers are beginning plans for a strike on the busi-est shopping day of the year, so-called “Black Friday,” the day after “Thanksgiv-ing” when Walmart cash registers ring up 4,000 sales per second. A walkout on this

day could potentially have severe financial repercus-sions for the company.

The fear that this grass-roots, worker-led organizing might spread further seems to have struck a deep chord in the capitalist ruling class in the United States. Major big business media like the New York Times and ABC News and other news outlets were forced to report on these developments.

The opening salvo began in February 2011 when workers under attack in Wis-consin occupied their State Capitol to try to save public sector jobs and unions. Their struggle electrified workers and community members everywhere. Then in September 2011 the Occupy Wall Street movement started when youth, with no prospects and no future other than low-wage slavery and high debts, began to

organize, occupy and fight back around the U.S. Now, more low-wage workers of many nationalities, many of them women workers, are taking the lead, organizing, speaking out and fighting back against the largest retail corporation in the world.

For more information, photos and videos on this growing struggle, join the Organization United for Respect page on Facebook.

Chris Fry contributed to this article.

Continued from page 1

PHOTO: ORGANIZATION UNITED FOR RESPECT

No business as usual at Golden Farm Grocery.

Low-wage workers take on Walmart

workers.org Oct. 25, 2012 Page 5

Anti-Latino/a laws ignite the SouthBy Lamont Lilly

In its original format, Alabama’s Bea-son-Hammon Act, HB 56, granted school resource officers the right to badger fifth graders on the basis of their immigration status. The Alabama Legislature, which passed HB 56 in June 2011, made Ala-bama the only state in the country requir-ing public school administrators to verify immigration data for new K-12 students.

However, in August of this year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the student provision of HB 56, declaring it unconstitutional and a legal breach of Plyer vs. Doe, which mandates that states provide an education to all children re-gardless of their immigration status. The court also struck down Georgia’s HB 87, a state proposal to criminalize “the transporting and harboring of illegal im-migrants.” The statute, a proposal with no parallel within U.S. federal law, had “anti-Latino/a” written all over it.

When initially proposed, HB 56 and HB 87 were sold as valuable pieces of legislation that would boost local econo-mies by cracking down on the presence of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. Conservatives billed such bigotry as a quick fix to unemployment and poorly performing schools.

Instead, such rogue policies were a complete setback to civil rights and due process. In Alabama, children of all ages were deterred from attending school and pursuing their education. Many with-drew out of fear that their families could be deported if questioned about their im-migration status. According to the U.S. Justice Department, more than 13 per-cent of Latino/a children withdrew in the one year that HB 56 operated, before federal intervention. Instead of teaching geometry, classroom instructors were forced to fish for birth certificates.

As for those local economies and de-creasing unemployment rates, Alabama’s number-one industry, agriculture, was decimated. We’re talking about an agri-cultural sector accustomed to generat-ing more than $5.5 billion per year. In-dustries dependent upon migrant labor,

like Alabama’s poultry operations, were devastated. Small farming operations were brought to a halt, as valuable work-ers were scared indoors. Others simply migrated for the purpose of mere safety. Such complications have also been used as justification for not paying temporary workers — hired and then fired a month later, and with no pay to show for it. Many Latinos/as, documented and undocu-mented, have refused to report crimes, as any potential scrutiny by local law en-forcement could initiate an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation.

Though portions of these bills were repealed, human rights supporters have continued to sound the alarm, for this branding of social control affects all poor and oppressed people by creating fear and frustration through alienation.

Recently, the state of Alabama has challenged the ruling of the 11th Circuit’s three-judge panel and has asked for a new hearing. Though particular provisions were found to be outright unconstitu-tional, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, state of-ficials are arguing that federal courts over-stepped state jurisdiction. Unfortunately, it seems that, like Arizona, Alabama is po-sitioning itself to take its immigration law all the way to the Supreme Court.

For those of us who are U.S. history buffs, one can’t help but draw a direct correlation to Gov. George Wallace’s stand against federal authorities in the 1960s. His hard-line stance for segre-gation against the U.S. Supreme Court aroused racists nationwide.

In addition to federal judges, HB 56 has also caught the attention of President Barack Obama. Even he has gone on re-cord stating that “it’s a bad law.” But then again, the Obama administration deport-ed 396,000 immigrants last year.

While members of Congress, federal judges and state legislators continue to debate, human rights defenders welcome the progress, limited though it may be, that has been made. We know, however, that those of us who despise such racist bigotry must continue to raise our voices. Deleting a few provisions isn’t going to be enough here, not while racial profiling still runs rampant.

When traffic stops and roadblocks be-come immigrant obstacle courses, ethics become a serious matter of legal concern. If justice fails to prevail in this case, such structural hate could begin to blanket the entire southern Black Belt, setting new

precedents for states like South Caro-lina, Georgia and Arkansas.

In response to this yearlong battle, im-migrant rights activists have stayed the course. Protesters have deployed an ar-ray of tactics, such as rallies and commu-nity forums, teach-ins and street block-ades. DREAM activists and immigrant youth have conducted walkouts. Work-ers and adult cooperatives have orga-nized major strikes. Latino/a customers have chosen to boycott local businesses, while tens of thousands have convened in solidarity. Organizations such as the Steel Workers union, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Immi-grant Justice League have joined forces. The NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center are also on board. The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham,

Ala., — the same church bombed by rac-ists in 1963 — has served as a rest haven and planning headquarters.

The bottom line is that HB 56 is a law that continues to ostracize and divide, conjuring fear and heightening the level of innocent victims and false arrests — perpetuating a complete violation of civil liberties. These anti-Latino/a acts aren’t merely a matter of disenfranchisement. Latino/a immigrants are being denied the right to even exist in some states, to barely breathe without some “officer of the law” riding their backs with an iron boot.

True, the recent rulings by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals represent some progress, but there should be no compro-mise with laws that encourage hate. For those of us who are abreast of such rac-ist regulations, let us spread the word and continue to organize. For those of you who are learning of such injustice for the first time, join the movement’s noble cause. We the People say, “Freedom for all!” and “Down with HB 56!”

Lamont Lilly is a contributing editor with the Triangle Free Press, columnist for the African American Voice and local organizer with Workers World Party. He resides in Durham, N.C.

Border Patrol guns down mother of �veBy Carl Muhammad Chula Vista, Calif.

Approximately 300 people gathered in the city of Chula Vista, seven miles from the Mexican border, on Oct. 1 to mourn the killing of Valeria Munique Tachiquin Alvarado by a plainclothes Border Patrol agent. “Munique,” as friends and family called her, died on Sept. 28 under a hail of bullets from the thus far unidentified agent.

The vigil for Munique was held near the murder scene, where a memorial was erected. The event was organized by the American Friends Service Committee and lasted about two hours. Mourners lit candles and chanted, “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” and “¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!”

Family members spoke to the crowd, thanking them for their support. Maria Puga, the widow of Anastacio Rojas, at-tended the vigil and spoke in support of the Tachiquin and Alvarado families. For-ty-two-year-old Rojas was brutally beat-en and tasered to death by Border Patrol agents at the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing in 2010.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol offi-cials claim an agent was serving a search

warrant on an unidentified male when Munique intentionally ran him down with her car, striking the agent hard enough to cause him to flip onto the hood and wind-shield. The agent claims he was “dragged” several hundred yards on the hood before firing six to 10 bullets into the windshield.

Eyewitnesses gave an entirely di�erent account.

“As the car was backing up, the officer was on the street walking towards the car and discharging [his weapon],” said eye-witness Prince Watson. Other witnesses say they observed the car movingly slowly in reverse away from the plainclothes agent. Witnesses also said he was not displaying his badge, nor did he identify himself as a Border Patrol agent.

Gilbert Alvarado, the husband of the slain mother of five, demanded answers. “My wife got killed for no reason,” he said during an interview with local media. “Where is the evidence my wife threat-ened a trained officer? I want justice.”

Munique’s father, Valentin Tachiquin, said the community support meant a great deal to him and his family. “It gives me power to continue on, seeing such a lovely outpouring of love for our family and for Munique.”

What’s happening in Ecuador?

Latin American immigrants and other activists attended a meeting at the Soli-darity Center in New York City on the rev-olutionary process unfolding in Ecuador. The International Action Center’s Latin America-Caribbean Solidarity Committee hosted the Oct. 13 bilingual meeting.

Members of the Alianza PAIS (Patria Altiva I Soberana; Proud and Sovereign Nation Alliance) de Ecuador used power-point projections and videos to support their talks. They explained the history of the struggle in Ecuador, recent advances and plans for the future. President Ra-

fael Correa founded the Alianza PAIS in 2006; its stated goal is to transform Ec-uador so it represents “socialism of the 21st century” and is in harmony with nature and protective of this Amazonian country’s unique biodiversity.

In the spirit of Latin American solidar-ity, the meeting was chaired by a member of Honduras USA Resistencia, and an up-date on the recent reelection of Pres. Hugo Chavez was given by a member of the New York Bolivarian Circle “Alberto Lovera.” The photo shows the speakers and part of the audience.

— Michael Kramer

WW PHOTO: JOHN CATALINOTTO

Page 6 Oct. 25, 2012 workers.org

Jazz Hayden

Victory for anti-stop & frisk activistBy Dolores Cox New York

Joseph “Jazz” Hayden no longer faces fourteen years of imprisonment for bo-gus weapons charges in his arrest last December.

Hayden has been filming the New York Police Department’s illegal stop-and-frisks in his Harlem community. To date this year, there have been more than 600,000 young Black and Latino men stopped, questioned and frisked for just walking, standing, sitting, driving or entering residential buildings because of their skin color, and not in the commis-sion of a crime.

Dozens of supporters representing sev-eral social justice organizations rallied in front of Manhattan Criminal Court on Oct. 11 to stand by this Black activist at his hearing and fill the courtroom. They held signs saying “Innocent.” Pressure had also been put on District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s office nationally and internation-ally. Thousands of people organized and fought to keep Jazz free — and won!

Hayden’s case was adjourned in con-templation of dismissal. He will be on probation for six months and was ordered to do five days of community service. He

agreed to plead guilty to the charge of dis-orderly conduct/reckless driving. He was ordered to pay a $125 “surcharge” for the violation, which he paid upon leaving the courthouse.

Ironically, having already performed

“community service” for years via his “cop watch” beat, Hayden will be relegated to “stuffing envelopes” for five days.

The reason for Hayden being stopped and arrested by the cops proved to be highly questionable. The NYPD had no

sound basis for Hayden’s case. It was a rac-ist setup, an attempt to silence Jazz and intimidate others who may be exercising their First Amendment right to dissent and film so-called public servants on the job. The D.A. admitted that he had insufficient evidence to support the charges. And it be-came evident in court that his arrest was retaliatory.

After the hearing, supporters chanted, “This is what victory looks like!” Hayden stated he intends to continue his commu-nity activism, exposing the NYPD, and to speak out against police brutality, illegal stop-and-frisks and racial profiling in Har-lem and elsewhere.

Hayden repeatedly thanked everyone for their continued support, saying it has helped inspire him to do what he’s been doing. “We must continue to apply pres-sure to correct the entire system. This is to be our focus. Without a demand and orga-nizing, there will be no justice, no fairness, no change,” he stated. He added, paren-thetically, that he witnessed three stop-and-frisks on his way to court. And that he stopped and spoke to the victims, giv-ing them support, and showing them that someone cares. He urged everyone to do the same whenever they witness injustice. For more info, go to allthingsharlem.com.

WW PHOTO: ANNE PRUDEN

Jazz Hayden, giving victory sign, and supporters Oct. 11.

In NYC council meeting

Heated debate on racist police abuseBy Kathy Durkin

Racist police practices were the focus of a struggle within the New York City Council on Oct. 10.

A six-hour public hearing took place that day in the body’s Public Safety Com-mittee on the Community Safety Act in-troduced by Brooklyn Council member Jumaane Williams. Its four bills aim to curtail rampant, often brutal NYC po-lice stop-and-frisk practices, barring il-legal searches; allowing people to refuse searches; banning racial and other profil-ing; requiring police to produce IDs and “justify” the stops; and instituting inde-pendent oversight of the police.

Williams, who is an African American,

was wrongfully arrested at the West In-dian Day Parade in Brooklyn last year. Police shoved and hit him at Occupy Wall Street’s anniversary rally in September, even though he identified himself as a Council member.

Community leaders, advocates and residents testified on stop-and-frisk po-licing. Djibril Toure, from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, recounted his search by Brooklyn police for no reason, and told of others, beaten while frisked.

Robert Jackson, Harlem Council mem-ber, emphasized the growing anger of Af-rican-American and Latino/a communities at these police actions. He cited an audio-tape of police racially slurring a youth, and then demonstrated a police frisk. As the

crowd applauded, he said, “It’s not working and it needs to be totally reformed. People are suffering.” (New York Times, Oct. 11)

Council member Peter Vallone, the hearing’s chairperson, assailed the bills. He attempted to stifle the righteous out-rage at police behavior by Jackson and other African-American Council mem-bers, their allies and the audience, by banning “outbursts.” He declared, “This isn’t a forum to make speeches.”

Bronx Council member Helen Foster courageously countered, “That should ap-ply to the chair, who has made his speeches and made clear how he feels. … I don’t work for you. I am not one of your boys. You will not talk to me like that. … If [Vallone’s] father were an 88-year-old, who’s being

pulled over and called ‘boy’ and fitting a de-scription, then it would be different.”

For two hours, amid supporters’ cheers, speakers challenged Michael Best, who represented absent Mayor Michael Bloom-berg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Unsurprisingly, they vehemently reject any restrictions on the police.

Last year, NYC police conducted 685,724 stop-and-frisks; 87 percent targeted African Americans and Latinos/as. Half were youth. The New York Civil Liberties Union web-site reports stop-and-frisks have increased 600 percent during the Bloomberg admin-istration, with “discriminatory profiling” of “people of color, immigrants, the LGBT community … [public housing] residents, young people, the homeless and others.”

Dominated by the banks

NYC transit o�ers higher fares, more racismBy Tony Murphy New York

On Oct. 15, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority announced the fourth round of fare hikes in four years. Dur-ing that time the MTA has also been on a cutback frenzy. Dozens of station booths have been demolished. The transit agency has made it harder for people with dis-abilities to qualify for Access-A-Ride.

Charged with running public transpor-tation, the bank-owned MTA has become a poster child for how drastically capital-ism is unable to provide people with the most basic services.

One of the things making a fightback campaign on this issue difficult is that after four years, the fare hikes and cuts seem inevitable, an impression the MTA and its allies in the New York media are only too happy to promote.

At fare hike public hearings in 2009,

politicians lined up to take the micro-phone and denounce the hardship that increased fares would impose on people.

At the last round of fare hike public hearings in late 2010, the politicians were gone. And while this gave activists and transit workers the ability to dominate the hearings, the fare hikes and cuts went through anyway.

Fightback campaign exposes MTA’s racist politics

However, a fightback campaign against the MTA has already begun — against the racist ads targeting Muslim people that the MTA ran on behalf of arch-racist Pa-mela Geller.

The deliberateness with which the MTA promoted war and racism highlights how thoroughly public transportation has been hijacked by the 1%. And it obliter-ates its spokespeople’s protestations that their “hands were tied” by a court deci-

sion ordering the ads to be run.That order gave the MTA board 30

days to do two things: one, review its “ap-pellate options,” meaning decide whether it would appeal the ruling; and two, revise its own guidelines governing noncom-mercial, that is, political ads. The board of bankers and real estate players refused to do both. The MTA’s hands were not “tied” but “sat on.”

Thus the ads went up in the New York subway system on Sept. 24, during the second week the U.N. was in session and at the height of the media hysteria against Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York. The placement of the ads begat another media flurry in which the racist language of the ads was repeat-ed over and over.

By the end of that week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up a cartoon of a ticking Iranian bomb before the U.N. General Assembly.

The MTA board’s complicity in the pro-war, anti-Muslim media campaign was then underscored by the new steps it ad-opted for future noncommercial ads. At its Sept. 27 board meeting, the board adopted new guidelines which would “untie” the MTA’s hands in prohibiting speech.

But the new guidelines did not prohibit speech of the Geller variety on the basis of being racist and/or offensive. The new guidelines prohibited ads that “would im-minently incite or provoke violence or oth-er immediate breach of the peace.”

In other words, in the wake of the rebel-lions against U.S. embassies sparked by the crude anti-Muslim YouTube trailer, the MTA used, as the basis for future prohibi-tions, the media’s racist caricature of the Muslim community as volatile.

The MTA has long played a role in the bogus “war on terror,” as SWAT teams armed with submachine guns and accom-panied by attack dogs regularly patrol the

workers.org Oct. 25, 2012 Page 7

S P E C I A L G U E S T S P E A K E R S :

Jeralynn Blueford and Adam Blueford parents of 18-year-old, Alan Blueford Jr., unarmed and fatally shot by the police May 6 in Oakland, Calif. On Sept. 18, these parents, other family members and supporters shut down an Oakland City Council meeting demanding Justice for Alan Blueford.

Jack Bryson, father of two sons who were with 22-year-old, unarmed Oscar Grant when he was fatally shot by a BART officer on Jan. 1, 2009 in Oakland; activist with Oscar GMovement, Occupy Oakland and Justice for Alan Blueford campaign

Open floor discussion to follow presentations

SAT AT A OCT 272 pm – 4 pm SHARP55 W. 17th St., 5th floor, ManhattanRefreshments at 1:30 pmRead more on these important struggles at workers.org. Call 212-627-2994for more information.

SolidaritySolidaritySolidaritywith thewith theSolidaritywith theSolidarityvictims and their familiesvictims and their families

FIGHT ALLPOLICE TERROR!

A, father of two sons who

22-year-old, unarmed when he was fatally shot

by a BART officer on Jan. 1, 2009 in Grant

Occupy Oakland and lan Blueford campaign.

n to follow

lan Blueford Jr.

Join these speakers & other victims of police violence including Ramona Africa, survivor of the 1985 MOVE house bombing in Philadelphia, at a public forum,

SUN OCT. 28 4 p.m. – 8 p.m.RiVERSidE CHuRCH, 490 RiVERSidE dR.For information, call Sandy Jones at 302.545.7023 or Jack Bryson at 510.355.6046 or go to www.facebook.com/events/368722873209314/

Ramarley Graham, unarmed 18-year-unarmed 18-year-old killed in the old killed in the bathroom of his bathroom of his Bronx home Bronx home Feb. 2 Feb. 2 by the NYPd.

subway. Since 2001, the New York Police Department, re-cently joined by the airline industry’s Transportation Security Administration, has conducted racist-profiling spot checks of people’s bags and backpacks.

And when the anti-war International Action Center recently attempted to buy ad space for anti-war mes-sages of solidarity, the MTA reneged on the agreement it made, pushing back the date several times and insisting on ridiculously large disclaimers. The MTA’s stance could not be more consciously political.

Make banks pay for public transportationAnother factor helping the new struggle

against fare hikes could be the new sub-way station the MTA opened at Barclays Center, Brooklyn’s new basketball arena. After closing stations all over New York, somehow a new $76 million station was opened by what the media refer to as the “cash-strapped MTA.”

This shows the domi-nation of the MTA by the banks. The new stadium is named after the scan-dal-ridden Barclays Bank, which financed it through Forest City Ratner Compa-nies, run by real estate de-veloper Bruce Ratner, who razed people’s homes so he could build 16 skyscrapers.

If Barclays can finance a new station, Wells Fargo can finance a reduction in fares. Citibank can finance

the expansion of services for the disabled, and Chase Manhattan Bank can finance the rebuilding of station booths.

As the Republic Windows and Doors workers did in 2008 — when they got Bank of America, the true power be-hind their bosses, to cough up the cash they were owed — New York riders can demand that the banks, the true power behind the MTA, pay to rebuild public transportation. The MTA is not “cash-strapped.” The money is there.

East Baltimore Peoples Assembly

’Justice for Anthony Anderson Sr.’By Betsey Piette Baltimore

On Oct. 13, community activists along with friends and families of victims of po-lice brutality gathered for the East Balti-more Peoples Assembly for Justice for An-thony Anderson Sr. The outdoor assembly took place on the vacant lot by a makeshift memorial marking the spot where Ander-son was brutally killed in front of family members by three Baltimore undercover police officers on Sept. 21.

The police claim that Anderson “choked and died after trying to swallow a bag of drugs” was exposed as a lie on Oct. 2 with the release of an official autopsy showing Anderson died from a ruptured spleen caused by “blunt force trauma” that broke as many as ten ribs. No drugs were found in his system.

The Baltimore Peoples Assembly, or-ganized earlier this year in response to growing police terror, conducted its own investigation of witnesses who described how the police ran up behind Anderson, grabbed him around the knees, hoisted him in the air and brutally slammed him to the ground.

Anderson was the thirteenth person killed by Baltimore police since January 2012. The city has paid out nearly $17 million over the last two years in police brutality settlements. It spent another $10.4 million defending lawsuits in court. Meanwhile, much needed recreation centers are being closed because the city claims it lacks funds.

Gathering participants from as far away as Virginia and Pennsylvania, the East

Baltimore Peoples Assembly was the sec-ond such community gathering this year to address the growing epidemic of police abuse in Baltimore. As with the first As-sembly in June, the moving testimony from community members was a clarion call to action.

The Rev. Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon, a BPA organizer and president of the Bal-timore chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, opened the rally in what he called “the Anthony Anderson Field.” Witherspoon told those gathered, “We know why we are here. Black women are being strip searched on the streets; drug dealers are being robbed by mem-bers of the Baltimore Police Department. Every single month we’ve been at a vigil or a rally for someone killed by the police. Our communities are under assault and we won’t take it anymore!”

Marcella Holloman described the kill-ing of her son, Maurice Donald Johnson, by Baltimore police at her home on May 19. Holloman called the police when her mentally ill son began to exhibit erratic behavior. Since Johnson’s episodic illness was registered in the police data base she expected they would take him to the hos-pital for treatment. But rather than wait-ing for an ambulance, the two responding officers entered Holloman’s home where Johnson was sequestered and shot him three times.

Renee Washington, whose fiancée was brutally beaten and killed by three Bal-timore police officers in 2001, told the crowd, “The police are not in our neigh-borhoods to protect us. They are here to take us out, one by one, the men first.”

Nakia Washington, whose boyfriend was killed in March by police who shot him six times in the chest, condemned the BPD’s practice of giving paid leave to officers under investigation for brutality. “The cops kill a Black man and they get a paid vacation — what kind of message is that?” Washington said. She urged people to speak up about what’s happening in their communities. “It won’t stop happen-ing unless you stand up.”

The outraged community has called for the jailing of the three Baltimore police officers — Todd A. Strohman, Gregg Boyd and Michael Vodarick — who killed An-derson and then lied about it.

Members and friends of the Anderson family were at the EBPA. Anderson’s younger brother, Leon Anderson, de-scribed his own experience with police harassment while driving-while-Black. “It doesn’t matter where I am in Baltimore. Every time I turn around the same po-lice officer is giving me a traffic ticket. We need to come together and put an end to this madness.”

Sharon Black, a BPA organiz-er, urged people to come out on Oct. 17 when BPA activists will confront the Police Department over the confirmation of An-thony Batts as Baltimore’s new police commissioner.

As chief of police in Oakland, Calif., Batts presided over nu-merous problems of police bru-tality and abuse. In January, U.S. District Judge Thelton Hender-

son warned that the Oakland Police De-partment would be placed under federal control unless the Department sped up the pace of its reforms. Black told those assembled, “We need to give Batts the kind of welcome that he’ll know that po-lice brutality and terrorism will not be tolerated in Baltimore City.”

She urged people to carry cameras as they patrol their communities to record police harassment and terrorism. “We have the power to take back our commu-nities, to get the occupiers out — from the rich running things in City Hall to the pit bull police they’ve put out in our streets. We demand community control now!”

WW PHOTO: JOE PIETTEEast Baltimore, Oct. 13.

Travesty of justice

Cop killer of Alan Blueford won’t be chargedBy Terri Kay Oakland, Calif.

In an Oct. 3 letter written to Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announced her findings that “the evi-dence does not justify criminal charges against Oakland Police Officer Masso.” Masso is the Oakland Police Department officer who killed 18-year-old Alan Blue-

ford, an African American, on May 6, just before he was scheduled to graduate from Skyline High School.

The shoddy DA report, published on-line at tinyurl.com/cvb7j23, fails to ques-tion many disturbing aspects of the case, including why Alan and his friends were stopped in the first place. The police re-port was finally released to the Blueford family at the Oakland City Council meet-ing on Oct. 2, after months of demands

for its release. In it, the excuse for stop-ping the youths comes down to loose baggy pants and one of the young men reaching to his hip “as if to check for a weapon” — or could it have been to pull up his pants, as Alan’s mother, Jeralynn Blueford, said her son frequently did.

In the DA report, Officer Masso’s state-ment that he fired at Alan while Alan was standing is taken for fact, but accord-ing to the Oakland Police report, 11 out of 12 witnesses said that Officer Masso first fired at Alan when he was lying on the ground. This important discrepancy isn’t even mentioned in the DA’s report.

As a matter of fact, the angle of bullets, as reported in the coroner’s report, also only re-leased after months of demands, has strong indications that Alan was already lying on the ground when he was shot. The claim, which the DA supports, that Masso was in fear for his or others’ lives is not substantiat-ed by the facts. The DA’s report also makes no attempt to ratio-nalize the scatter of shell casings and the report that a gun was found 20 feet from his body.

There are clearly enough unanswered questions to dem-onstrate that the DA had no intent to conduct a fair and im-partial investigation. The Justice for Alan Blueford Coalition will be holding a press conference this week. J4AB is considering the possibility of asking for in-

vestigations by the California Attorney General, the United States Attorney and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

In addition, as a community response to the widespread practice of racial profil-ing, which targeted Alan Blueford and his friends in the first place, J4AB is organiz-ing a Bay Area Families March Against Racial Profiling on Saturday, Nov. 10, beginning at noon at 14th and Broadway in downtown Oakland to bring together families of victims of police brutality and murder as a call to end the racial profiling which criminalizes Black and Brown men.RESIST ANOTHER WAR

NO to Racism & Anti-Muslim BIGOTRY–Tool of 1% RuleWe–the 99%–need Unity & Solidarity!

Help place more anti-racism messages in public places by donating at:

www.iacenter.org/adThis is a paid advertisement sponsored by International Action Center. The display of this advertisement does not imply MTA’s endorsement of any views expressed.

Page 8 Oct. 25, 2012 workers.org

U.S.-NATO driven to wage war on SyriaBy Ray Duprey

Turkey’s war jets forced down a civil-ian airliner flying from Moscow to Da-mascus. Thirty-five Russians and Syrians were passengers on the Oct. 10 flight, endangered by the action. U.S. spokes-person Victoria Nuland immediately supported Turkey’s act of air piracy. Also, some 150 U.S. special troops moved into Syria’s southern neighbor, Jordan.

NATO and the major European NATO powers, Britain, France and Germany, have supported Turkey against Syria de-spite Turkey’s aggressive moves. It is ap-parent that NATO is edging toward direct military intervention against Syria. Tur-key, which had also moved 250 tanks to the Syria border, is spearheading the in-tervention.

A week earlier, the Turkish parlia-ment voted to approve military opera-tions across the Turkish-Syrian border, and soon after began “return” fire in the form of mortar-shelling of Syria. There has been no proof that Syrian troops fired the first missiles, and even a Turkish newspaper, Yurt, reported that the mor-tar round that hit Akcakale was of NATO design and was given to the Syrian rebels

by the Turkish government, according to the Oct. 9 Russia Times.

Turkey has been supplying and shel-tering these rebels. It is easy for them to later turn around and incite reaction by using NATO-made weapons on NATO countries.

Any rational-minded person would re-consider shelling a neighboring country a knee-jerk reaction for six days straight even as the facts begin to appear and the speculation decays in front of our very eyes. If these actions appear irrational, they must be driven by powerful forces.

In his 2012 book, “Capitalism at a Dead End,” Fred Goldstein analyzes with perfection the current economic issues that are the cause of military adventur-ism. Since World War II, the U.S has used war and the military budget to stimulate its economy, and also to expand capitalist plunder and exploitation of cheap labor.

The capitalist hunt for the highest profit was the driving force behind wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti and, perhaps soon, Syria. In 2011, the CIA funded and trained Libyan oppo-sition forces, and NATO bombed Libya. This brought about a bloody civil war that is still to this day not resolved fully,

and caused a widespread ripple effect of instability throughout Northern Africa. Even now, European countries are pre-paring to intervene directly in Mali in northwest Africa.

Under present conditions, the pervad-ing motive to chase the highest rate of profit drives the individual NATO ruling classes’ interests, leading to aggressive actions by the state apparatus of each NATO country, that is, its army.

It is obvious, with the growing capital-ist crisis in Europe and the downturn of the United States’ own economy, that the imperialists have targeted Syria as the next step in a long line of steps they have taken since the fall of the Soviet Union eliminated the imperialists’ most power-ful opponent. The goal of this aggression is capitalist domination of the planet.

On Oct. 10, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed the deployment of U.S. troops in Jordan for alleged “hu-manitarian needs.” Recently, 12,000 troops from various NATO nations con-ducted military drills in Jordan.

Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria

The dominoes are falling into place, much as they did in Libya and in Yugosla-

via. The imperialists are using the same pretext — “humanitarian needs” — once again. NATO is driven to conduct “mili-tary operations,” in other words, to wage war on Syria, all in the name of “democ-racy” for the Syrian people. Even with the facts against them and continuing to mount against them as the conflict con-tinues, NATO moves closer to the point of openly marching into Syria.

What makes this drive unavoidable, as Goldstein points out, can be found in Karl Marx’s explanation of the law concerning the declining rate of profit and capitalist accumulation. Unable to regenerate capi-talist profits by peaceful means, the U.S. and European imperialist powers seek plunder through war. Conquest of Syria opens another door, they believe, to seiz-ing the natural resources of the Middle East, that is, oil.

It is of the utmost importance that we stand in opposition to these imperialist wars, which devastate the nations that are the targets of the “interventions.” We must stand against both the military interven-tions and the economic warfare through sanctions. No more Imperialist wars!

The writer is a revolutionary youth activist in Detroit.

What’s really behind the attack on Malala YousafzaiBy Deirdre Griswold

The horrible, near-fatal shooting of a young Pakistani schoolgirl, reportedly by members of the Taliban, has focused world attention on the conflict between the armed Islamic group and Pakistani advocates of education for women. Ma-lala Yousafzai, 14 years old, was shot in the head and neck while on a school bus, according to her classmates. She has been flown to Britain to receive medical atten-tion for severe damage to her skull.

The daughter of a teacher, Yousafzai has been an outspoken advocate of schooling for girls since she was only 11, producing a blog and giving many interviews. She has gained worldwide attention and praise, especially from Western politicians and public figures. This is reportedly why she was singled out for attack.

Her family lives in the Swat valley area of Pakistan, a beautiful mountainous area that attracts many tourists. However, most of the people living there are very poor. Many sympathize with the Taliban, which has been resisting foreign interven-tion in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Until very recently, the Swat valley had a higher rate of literacy than the rest of Pakistan and there were many schools for girls. What has happened there to strengthen the influence of the Taliban, which takes an extremely reactionary po-sition on women’s rights?

Factors behind Taliban’s in�uence

The poor people of the Swat valley in particular have suffered greatly in recent years.

In 2009, the Pentagon, fighting a full-scale war against the Taliban in neigh-boring Afghanistan, pushed the Pakistani Army to carry out an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley that resulted in the displacement of 2 million residents. Many wealthy Pakistanis moved out of the valley temporarily while the fighting was going on, leaving the poor to suffer the brunt of it. (Guardian, May 11, 2011)

Farmers in the valley were among the 3.5 million Pakistanis who had already been made homeless by a disastrous

earthquake in 2005.Then, in 2010, the worst floods in his-

tory swept through the river valleys of the northwest, causing more than a thousand deaths and widespread homelessness. The pain of those suffering turned to an-ger when government assistance failed to arrive.

“The anger of the flood victims poses a danger to the already struggling gov-ernment, now competing with Islamist movements to deliver aid in a region with strong Taliban influence,” CBS News re-ported on Aug. 3, 2010. Thus, even after being targeted by a major military cam-paign just a year earlier, the Taliban were strong enough to provide assistance to flood victims who had received nothing from the government, thus earning them greater popularity.

Meanwhile, the U.S. had begun tar-geting the valley for its drone attacks on suspected members of the Taliban. The pilotless planes carried out devastat-ing missile strikes on what often turned out to be family gatherings — weddings, birthday celebrations — killing children, women and men.

All these factors — the natural disas-ters, the U.S. war in Afghanistan and its impact on Pakistan, the government cor-ruption that is so glaring when citizens are homeless and starving while relief funds fail to materialize — have com-bined to actually strengthen the political influence of a movement that is socially

reactionary but is also self-sacrificing and relentless in its resistance to foreign domination.

‘Stop imperialist intervention’

The Pakistani bourgeoisie and military have long been important allies of U.S.-Anglo imperialism. For decades during the Cold War, the military ruled Pakistan outright, receiving billions of dollars in U.S. aid while crushing any opposition, especially from the left and the working class.

In neighboring Afghanistan, however, a leftist revolution in 1978 brought to power a secular, democratic government that attempted to institute land reform, canceled the debts of the peasants, and championed women’s rights, ending the bride-price and opening up schools and medical care to all. One of its leaders was Anahita Ratebzad, a Marxist and founder of the Democratic Organization of Wom-en of Afghanistan.

After the revolution, women became 70 percent of the teachers, 50 percent of the civil servants and 40 percent of the doc-tors in Kabul. (Journal of the American Medical Association, 1998)

What happened to this great achieve-ment for women? The Carter administra-tion, reeling from the revolution in Iran that toppled the Western-backed Shah and also closed a strategic U.S. base there, began looking for other countries in the region from which to launch its high-al-

titude spy planes over the Soviet Union. It settled on Afghanistan. The CIA spent billions of dollars pulling together a coun-ter-revolutionary army that launched a clandestine war against the progressive regime, which then had to turn to the So-viets for support.

In the long war that followed, the U.S. bankrolled, armed and trained the most reactionary, anti-woman, pro-landlord forces in Afghanistan in order to bring down the leftist government, overturn its many reforms and use the country as a military base in the region.

Among those on the CIA’s payroll were Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. No one disputes this.

It is not the imperialist West that is go-ing to rescue young women like Malala Yousafzai from oppression. And it is not Islam, even in its fundamentalist form, that is responsible for her shooting.

Neighboring Iran, an Islamic state, to-day has the highest female-to-male ratio of primary school students in the world, according to UNESCO. And women make up more than 60 percent of Iran’s uni-versity students. Yet it is under Western sanctions and war threats because of the popular 1979 revolution that broke the neocolonial grip of U.S. and British oil companies.

To support the women of Pakistan and Afghanistan, we must demand: U.S. out! No war, no drone attacks — stop imperial-ist intervention!

GAZA: Symbol of ResistanceA book of articles from WW, edited by Joyce ChediacThe story of how Gazans withstood blockade and bombardment only to stand tall, refusing to give up the right to determine their own lives and to choose their own government; how Gaza’s courage inspired a worldwide sol-idarity movement determined to break the blockade and deliver aid; exposes the forces behind the punishment of Gaza, and how a growing people’s media is breaking the mainstream media’s information blockade.

Joyce Chediac

WAR WITHOUT VICTORYSara Flounders“By revealing the underbelly of the empire, Flounders sheds insight on how to stand up to the imperialist war machine and, in so doing, save ourselves and humanity.”

– Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, Pres. of U.N. Gen. Ass., 2008-2009, Foreign Min. of Nicaragua’s Sandinista gov. 1979-1990

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workers.org Oct. 25, 2012 Page 9

HAITI

Cholera & hunger meet militant resistanceBy G. Dunkel New York

As famine lurks throughout Haiti and cholera daily kills the weak, the very young and the old, the response of the Haitian people has been growing militan-cy. In massive numbers they have taken to the streets to demand an end to the cor-rupt regime of President Michel Martelly.

The Haitian people want an end to the U.N. occupation force, called Minus-tah, which brought cholera to Haiti less than two years ago. The cholera epidemic has been traced to Minustah’s infectious waste deposited in Haiti’s largest river, Artibonite.

Minustah — a smokescreen for the im-perialist powers, especially the United States, Canada and France — operates like any other occupying army. Under the direction of its U.N. commander, Ma-jor General Fernando Rodrigues Goulart from Brazil, Minustah engages in rape, pillage and arbitrary arrests, detentions and murders, with nothing stopping them. Minustah’s troops are all soldiers from oppressed countries, who get paid far less than their colleagues in the impe-rialist armies.

The U.N. occupation of Haiti and its unwillingness to acknowledge its respon-sibility for the cholera epidemic, which has killed nearly 8,000 Haitians and sick-ened over half a million, remains a hid-den issue in the United States. The racist demonization of the Haitian people in the big-business press is a contributing fac-tor. Outside of the Haitian community, in Latin America and the Caribbean, there is growing mass resistance to their coun-tries’ participation in Minustah.

A significant delegation of Latin Ameri-can trade union leaders asked the U.N. not to extend Minustah’s mandate. The delegation included Pablo Micheli, Gen-eral Secretary, Argentine Trade Union

Confederation; Julio Turra, National Executive Committee representative of United Trade Union Central of Brazil; David Abdulah, Secretary General of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union of Trini-dad; and Fignolé St. Cyr, of the Centrale Autonome des Travailleurs Haitiens.

This delegation met with U.N. leaders on Oct. 11, the day before the U.N. Secu-rity Council was scheduled to vote on the extension. They also addressed a protest rally, organized by a coalition of Haitian community and political groups in New York, on the day of the vote. Micheli noted in his talk that during the same day thou-sands of workers were protesting the pres-ence of Argentinian soldiers in Minustah in front of the Argentinian parliament. Turra said there were also a number of smaller demonstrations in Brazil.

Haitians, participating in the demon-stration, were visibly heartened by the in-ternational support their struggle had ob-tained. However, the Security Council did extend the occupation for another year.

Famine due to capitalist market

Even workers in Haiti with a stable job covered by minimum wage laws — a minority since most workers, especially women, are in the informal sector — have trouble covering the rising cost of food. According to the government’s Haitian Institute of Statistics and Data Process-ing, inflation was 1 percent just for the month of August. These official figures don’t reveal the real costs for poor people, who can afford to buy only small quanti-ties of food. The World Bank reports that the price of rice, the main staple Haitian food, was up 1.31 percent in September.

A 2009 bill raising the minimum wage from $1.69 a day to $4.82 a day went into effect Oct. 1 this year, according to Haiti’s Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Jo-sefa Gauthier. For a family of four to just survive in Haiti, it is generally accepted

that $12.50 a day is needed. The Martelly government has announced that it in-tends to buy 300,000 sacks of rice from Japan and dump them on the market. “The government decision to subsidize rice ‘dumping’ is a direct consequence of the protests of people who have seen their cost of living rise,” rice farmer and peas-ant leader Nesly Voltaire in the Artibonite told IPS. (ipsnews.net, Oct. 1) The gov-ernment could also have given the money to Haiti’s rice farmers to produce locally, which would mean the masses would have easier access to rice. In the meantime, the Japanese rice is yet to be seen.

The 80 percent of Haitians who live on less than $2 a day are hungry because they don’t have enough money to buy food, which is sold for a profit, not based on need. If you don’t get enough calories, it is practically impossible to do a full day of hard work without collapsing.

The demand for food was a constant refrain in the massive, militant demon-strations held throughout the country in September, which were only intensified by Martelly’s pro-imperialist policies. The demonstrations in October have been just as militant and more harshly repressed.

On Oct. 5, when Martelly and the U.S. ambassador were en route to inaugurate a new road (of less than a mile) that the U.S. Agency for International Develop-ment had funded in the port city of Petit Goave, a small group of motorcyclists rec-ognized them and began shouting slogans like “Down with Martelly! Down with cor-ruption! Martelly must go!”

Bodyguards fired large amounts of teargas, beat some protesters, burned their motorcycles, and killed some of the farmers’ animals. Facilia Hyppolite, 80, was asphyxiated by the tear gas.

On Oct. 7, in Port-au-Prince, the capi-tal, and Gonaïves, Haiti’s third largest city, thousands of protesters came out, waving the red cards soccer referees give

to players who have committed a foul and must leave the game. They intended to give these cards to Martelly.

There were also major protests in the southern city of Les Cayes, where Sen. Moïse Jean-Charles, a leader in the pro-tests in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, spoke.

On Oct. 8, in Fort Liberté, a port in northeast Haiti, “One person was shot dead, three others injured, and a police substation burned. This is the final toll of a demonstration. … Jean-Baptiste Bien-Aime, Department du Sud-Est senator elected from [former President Preval s] Inite party, who is on the spot, says the police shot at the demonstrators and used teargas to disperse them because they had blocked the National Road.” (Radio Kis-keya, recorded by BBC Monitoring Ser-vice, Oct. 8)

Bien-Aime explained that the whole population of Fort Liberté, both propo-nents and opponents of Martelly, were opposed to the government’s decision not to build port facilities there, a devastating blow to its economy. Demonstrators were also outraged that the cops shot and killed Georges Delius, who happened to be pass-ing by the demonstration on his way to work with a shovel in his hands.

The presence of Minustah exists to pro-tect Martelly from the righteous anger and heroic determination of the Haitian people. The way the Haiti press is report-ing the current protests appears to be an extension of a similar period when no amount of repression stopped the Haitian masses from forcing the brutal former Haitian dictator, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, out of power in 1986.

The Defend.ht website covered the incident at Petit Goave, along with a number of other news services from Haiti. Defend.ht also has extensive videos, in Creole and French, focused on the protests.

PUERTO RICO

People win battle with Power AuthorityBy Berta Joubert-Ceci

Puerto Rico’s people won a vital envi-ronmental struggle when acting Presi-dent of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) Josué Colón publicly withdrew a request for a permit to allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to con-struct a 92-mile-long gas pipeline. Puerto Rico is barely 106 miles long and 37 wide.

Since right-wing, pro-business and pro-statehood Gov. Luis Fortuño raised the proposal two years ago, strong voices opposing the project immediately began organizing to defeat the project.

The ‘tube of death’

PREPA provides electricity, mainly generated by oil-fired units, for the whole island. One gas-producing plant owned by the foreign transnational, Ecoeléc-trica, and located in the southern city of Peñuelas, provides 13 percent of Puerto Rico’s gas.

In 2010, Gov. Fortuño declared an en-ergy crisis in the island to pressure for his pipeline proposal, which he called the “Green Way”. It would have taken gas from Peñuelas, crossing to the north through the Central Mountain range and end in three generating plants along the

northern coast, ending in San Juan.“Green Way” is an outrageous name

considering the tremendous environ-mental destruction the pipeline would have provoked as it was to cross impor-tant aquifers that provide water to the south, rivers, protected forests areas with biodiversity, etc. It would have affected the climate and exacerbated risks from tsunamis, corrosion, floods, fires, earth-quakes and landslides, affecting directly more than 200,000 people. Additionally, it would have required the expropriation of at least 400 parcelas (plots of land) (See casapueblo.org)

Studies also showed that the project, which was proposed as low-cost alterna-tive green energy, would not lower utility bills to the consumer.

Some $80 million of the $800 million public-money budget have already been spent. Even before the project was ap-proved, Fortuño had already spent sev-eral millions in advertising and consul-tants, paid to his business allies.

Since Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony, any struggle on the island is also for indepen-dence and self determination. Washing-ton’s and U.S.-based corporations’ role is all over this project, and USACE was an accomplice. In an article last June, Casa

Pueblo — the environmental organization that initiated the struggle — said, “Gov. Luis Fortuño told a newspaper this week that his administration will not withdraw the application for a permit for the pipe-line because USACE has recommended not to stop obtaining such approval.” (pr.indymedia.org)

The project has also underscored the corruption that has plagued the Fortuño administration since its beginning, in-cluding payments to lobbyists and con-tractors.

People’s struggle

In spite of the millions wasted by the government on publicity and consultants, however, the unity and perseverance of the people finally won. Casa Pueblo, a 25-year-old environmental activists’ or-ganization located in the center of Puerto Rico, did an outstanding job in research-ing, exposing and organizing the people around the island.

With the help of local and foreign sci-entists, engineers and environmentalists, Casa Pueblo published thorough investi-gations and promoted popular participa-tion. It mobilized throughout the coun-try with full participation of all social progressive organizations and parties,

unions, community, women and stu-dents groups. It reminded many of the peoples’ struggle against the Navy bomb-ing in Vieques.

This mobilization was a significant step forward for the class struggle. The mili-tant UTIER union represents PREPA’s workers and was an important part of the resistance; its public position on the energy crisis reflected a deep political un-derstanding of the situation.

In his presentation during a pipe-line hearing, UTIER President Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo placed the situation within the context of the global capitalist crisis and climate change. Stressing that in Puerto Rico, “The current government has decided to deal with the challenges posed by this crisis by implementing neoliberal measures that not only do not serve the fundamental problems but that put all the weight and cost of the solution on those who have the least, increasing the gap between the economic sectors of the country.”

Both Casa Pueblo and UTIER call for the involvement of the people in the de-sign of a new direction for the environ-mental policies and sustainable energy production.

Page 10 Oct. 25, 2012 workers.org

editorial

Another war prize

Paul Ryan’s lies:

The truth about ‘central planning’By Caleb T. Maupin

During his speech at the Republican National Convention, Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan at one point referred to the Obama administration as “cen-tral planners.” In doing so, he insinuated that President Obama was implementing economic policies similar to those of the Soviet Union, People’s Korea, Cuba and other countries engaged in socialist con-struction.

This accusation is, of course, outra-geous. Obama has in no way altered the capitalist economic setup of the United States. The banks, industries and media of the U.S. economy remain under pri-vate, for-profit ownership.

Even health care, which Obama campaigned for on a reform platform and ad-dressed in the Affordable Care Act, re-mains squarely in the hands of insurance companies, pharmaceutical cartels and for-profit hospital corporations.

Ryan’s accusation is also based on a false premise, namely, that “central planning” as implemented in the USSR and other socialist countries rendered negative results.

Central planning enabled USSR to defeat Nazis

The Soviet Union, which inherited a huge, underdeveloped, agrarian society after the 1917 revolution, was the first country to implement central planning. The Soviet Union had socialist goals, and the “commanding heights” of the econ-omy were held under state ownership and control. In 1928, the Soviet Union launched the first of its five-year plans.

Unlike in capitalism, where the profit motive guides management decisions, these five-year plans involved labor unions, Communist Party leaders, tech-nicians and workers’ councils, who came together to rationally plan economic ac-tivity.

Maurice Dobb, an economics lecturer at the University of Cambridge, exten-sively documented the results of the five-year plans in his work entitled “Soviet Economic Development Since 1917.” (In-ternational Publishers, 1948)

He showed that by 1938, having built the world’s largest hydroelectrical power plant at the Dnieper dam, the amount of electrical power in the Soviet Union was seven times what it had been 10 years earlier. Coal production had also mul-tiplied by three and a half times during that period.

In 1938, the Soviet Union was produc-ing more tractors than any other country on earth. The Soviet Union also led the world in locomotive production.

In capitalist countries, huge increas-es in production mean more profits for capitalists. But this huge industrial ex-pansion rendered great results for the USSR’s people. During this period 20 new tramway systems were built in Sovi-et cities, along with 80 new bus systems. The number of hospital beds per capita in rural areas doubled as millions gained access to medical care for the first time in their lives.

Central planning in the USSR led to the creation of thousands of new high schools, trade schools and universities that provided free education. Soviet in-dustry, along with enormous human sac-rifice, enabled the USSR to defeat Nazi

Germany in World War II. The USSR survived for another 45 years, trying to recover from that horrendous war, while keeping up with a U.S. arms race that threatened it with nuclear annihilation, before imperialism succeeded in pulling down the planned economy.

Tremendous gains in Cuba, north Korea

Cuba stands as a shining example of the superiority of central planning.

Immediately after the 1959 revolution, the Cuban government mobilized a mass campaign against illiteracy. By 1962, even before Cuba had nationalized all the vital industries of the country, which had largely been owned by U.S. capitalists, il-

literacy had been abolished.Jonathon Kozol, the world-

famous educator and activist, wrote a glowing book entitled

“Children of the Revolution” that docu-ments the amazing results of Cuba’s cen-trally planned educational system.

Cuba’s centrally planned health care system provides Cubans with the highest life expectancy in Latin America. They also have a lower infant mortality rate than in the United States. (CIA World Factbook)

In addition to providing for the health care needs of its own people, Cuba also exports more medical aid around the world than any other country. Cuba also sends many teachers abroad as part of a world literacy program.

During the Korean War, the U.S. killed millions of Koreans and destroyed every building above one story in the north. With some Soviet aid, the north Ko-rean government rebuilt the country by implementing central planning. Korea tripled its gross domestic product from 1953 to 1956. Such rapid economic re-covery astounded world economists. (“Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S. Foreign Policy” by Martin Hart-Landsberg, Monthly Review Press, 1998)

During the “arduous march” period in the mid-1990s, there was great suffering in People’s Korea due to flooding and the loss of trade with the former Soviet Union. But even during this period the socialist government made sure no per-son was ever homeless.

In contrast, the U.S. calls itself the richest country in the world, yet it has millions of homeless people, something People’s Korea never had, even when drought followed by floods brought widespread crop failure. (“North Korea, Another Country” by Dr. Bruce Cum-mings, New Press, 2003)

If Obama were indeed implement-ing “central planning” in the U.S., as the right-wing contends, things would un-doubtedly have improved for working people here.

To create a planned economy, capital-ism must be replaced by socialism. The result would include full employment for all, with health care and education avail-able at no cost. The ultra-rich owners of the means of production — who are much fewer even than the 1% — would be overthrown, and the 99% would hold all economic and political power.

Paul Ryan is greatly mistaken in his accusations. Change of this kind has never come about as the result of an election, especially an election of a party — the Democratic Party — that itself up-holds and defends capitalism. It always requires a revolution.

It has always been problematic that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded from the legacy of a Swedish industrialist whose

millions came from munitions that made the late 19th and 20th century wars the most deadly in human history.

In 1973 the prize was awarded jointly to Vietnam War criminal Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese resistance leader Le Duc Tho. Tho turned it down.

The Nobel committee did it again in 1993, awarding the prize jointly to apart-heid’s Frederik Willem de Klerk and the long-imprisoned African leader Nelson Mandela.

Now comes news that the Nobel com-mittee has awarded the prize this year to, of all things, the European Union. The EU has come to be despised and hated not only by the 500 million people who live in the 27 nations that belong to the organization, but by additional millions who have been on the receiving end of the imperialism and militarism wielded by its most powerful capitalist states.

Panos Skourletis, spokesperson for Syriza, the main opposition party in Greece, spoke for the majority of opinion around the world: “I just cannot un-derstand what the reasoning would be behind [the decision of the Nobel com-mittee]. In many parts of Europe but especially in Greece, we are experiencing what really is a war situation on a daily basis, albeit a war that has not been for-mally declared. There is nothing peaceful about it.” (Guardian, Oct. 12)

The EU has been the driving force be-hind moves to rescue the giant European banks from the economic crisis of 2008 by forcing draconian austerity mea-sures on the working masses of Europe. Member nations such as Ireland, which were reluctant to rescue their banks, were forced to accept high-interest “bailouts.” In other cases, the local national ruling classes have temporized, but ended up accepting the EU’s “help.”

This always came at a price: cuts in

social programs, higher taxes on poor and working people, massive layoffs and wage cuts. Sovereign countries were forced to accept EU dictates. As a result, most of the smaller countries of Europe are mired in recession with no hope of recovery. The Nobel prize itself has been reduced to $1.2 million from $1.5 million. The Nobel Foun-dation has said its investment capital took a sharp hit in the 2008 financial crisis.

When the masses of people have pro-tested, they have been met by parliamen-tary huckstering, and when that didn’t work, naked police repression was used. But it doesn’t stop there.

After the downfall of many of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, the EU leaders pursued an aggressive economic imperialism in these now “free” countries. Where there had been stable planned economies, rampant unemploy-ment, economic insecurity and the rise of criminal enterprises such as human trafficking accompanied the theft of state property on a monumental scale. Many formerly public enterprises were not only privatized, but ownership was transferred to large financial institutions located in the leading countries of the EU, such as Germany and France.

The European Union has always been considered to be the not so hidden step-child of NATO — the military partnership between the U.S. and European capital-ists whose crimes and interventions, many of them far from Europe, are well known. The dropping of tens of thousands of bombs on the former Yugoslavia, the brutal war against Libya, and the bloody invasion and occupation of Afghanistan are only a few examples.

Most recently, the EU has been an important source of war fever whipped up against Syria. Threats, intimidation and secret armed intervention have been ac-companied by increasingly shrill calls for outright war.

Alfred Nobel’s munitions seem to have more influence than his “peace prize.”

A revolutionary YOUTH’S VIEW

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One year after Gadha� assassination

Libya becomes focus of U.S. electionBy Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire

One year since the brutal assassina-tion of former Libyan leader Col. Moam-mar Gadhafi, the Republican Party is us-ing Libya’s political crisis in an attempt to defeat President Barack Obama in the Nov. 6 election. Both U.S. ruling-class par-ties backed the 2011 war against this oil-producing nation that had maintained the highest standard of living in Africa.

Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. personnel died in an assault on U.S. government buildings in Benghazi, which was the birthplace of the counterrevolutionary war against Libya in February 2011. The Obama ad-ministration sought to link this assault with protests of the vicious “Innocence of Muslims” film.

Information soon reached the public that there was no such demonstration outside the U.S. buildings. On “Face the Nation,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Gra-ham charged the administration — which had repeated the story for a few days — with “trying to sell a narrative, … that in the Middle East, the wars are receding and al Qaeda has been dismantled” and the embassy attack “undercuts the narra-tive.” (cbsnews.com, Oct. 14)

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on the same CBS program said the Repub-lican criticism was designed to damage Obama’s reelection prospects. Obama has refrained from making additional

comments on the Libyan attacks leading up to the Oct. 16 debate.

After passage of United Nations Secu-rity Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973, the U.S., NATO and its allies in the region began a seven-month bombing campaign on March 19, 2011. By late October, NATO had flown 26,000 sorties and dropped at least 9,600 bombs on this country of ap-proximately 6 million people.

Millions of Libyans were impacted by the war through the deliberate destruction of the nation’s infrastructure. Along with a naval blockade imposed against the Gad-hafi government, Western banks seized over $160 billion in Libya’s foreign assets.

News reports have estimated that from 50,000 to 100,000 people were killed during the war. Thousands of Libyans and foreign nationals were imprisoned by the rebel forces, and many remain impris-oned today.

The war has left the country without an effective political, legal, economic and security system. Armed militias roam the streets of the cities and towns as well as the outlying areas. The initial National Transitional Council regime that the im-perialists imposed failed to control the militias.

Since July’s sham elections, the Gen-eral National Congress has been unable to appoint a government due to infight-ing and political intrigue. Corruption is rampant. The U.S.-backed regime has targeted select militias and requested and sometimes forced them to disarm.

Today both the Republican and Dem-ocratic parties maintain their commit-ments to turn Libya into an outpost for the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, transnational oil firms and inter-national bankers.

The current dispute between the two ruling class parties stems from imperial-ism’s incapacity to subdue Libya and fear within Pentagon, CIA and State Depart-ment circles that the entire operation will soon unravel.

Bani Walid under siege

One of the regions never subdued in 2011 was the city of Bani Walid in Libya’s west. People there maintain a strong op-position to the rebel regime, and were credited with arresting a counterrevolu-tionary charged with fingering Gadhafi for liquidation on Oct. 20, 2011.

The military forces have laid siege to Bani Walid and are shelling the city. The U.S. State Department, which last year claimed its intervention was based on concern for Libyan civilians, has said nothing about the looming humanitarian crisis there.

In Gadhafi’s home city Sirte, which NATO bombs destroyed in 2011 in an effort to drive out and assassinate the Libyan leader, the current rebel regime has imposed a curfew. Several gun battles have taken place in Sirte since Sept. 25, and there is tremendous solidarity with the people of Bani Walid.

Even the Saudi Gazette reported, “Sirte

has a reputation for being home to a sig-nificant number of pro-Gadhafi loyalists.” (Oct. 15)

The current regime is holding thousands of political prisoners from the Black popu-lation, namely, Africans from other parts of the continent. It has also detained several leading members of the previous govern-ment under extremely harsh conditions.

Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, is being illegally imprisoned inside the country. Seif, whose trial was recently postponed, is still under indictment by the Interna-tional Criminal Court on false charges filed during the 2011 bombing campaign. The ICC appears to be satisfied to allow the continuation of his detention in Libya and eventual staging of a trial where no viable judicial institutions exist.

One year after the proclaimed imperi-alist victory, and that of their puppets in the region, the masses of Libya’s people are far worse off than they have ever been since the Italian colonial era. This follows the same pattern of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia — and it is developing in Syria.

Imperialism has nothing to offer the oppressed nations and the international working class as a whole except underde-velopment, political repression, economic exploitation and impoverishment. Wheth-er in the so-called developing states and regions or within the industrial countries, capitalism is in terminal decline. The only solution to this crisis lies outside the exis-tence of this exploitative system.

Labor actions spread as

South African truckers end strikeBy Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire

The 43,000-strong truckers’ strike ended on Oct. 11. An agreement with the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, a Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) affili-ate, resulted in 27 percent pay increases over three years. This was announced by the Road Freight Employers’ Association, which had already reached an agreement with three smaller unions, which claimed to represent 15,000 workers.

The Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) was elated the strike had concluded. General Secretary Den-nis George noted, “While we are mindful of the cost to the economy and the lives lost in this strike, we are convinced that the sector will now rebuild itself to the advantage of the greater South African economy.” (fedusa.org.za, Oct. 12)

Meanwhile, labor unrest is continuing in other sectors of the work force.

Tahir Sema, spokesperson for the South African Municipal Workers Union, said, “The congress and the central executive committee have agreed on a strike. We are waiting for the provinces to decide on a date and a strategy to be used during the strike. … Guateng [Province] is preparing a meeting. It will come out last because of its sheer size.” (thenewage.co.za, Oct. 15)

The national strike began in North West Province, when on Oct. 12, 3,000 workers took to the streets in the Bonjala Region. Municipal workers in Limpopo Province also walked off the job.

In North West Province, SAMWU is de-manding the resignation of several politi-cal appointees and municipal managers and the prosecution of some managers for corruption. COSATU, the nation’s largest

labor federation, with which SAMWU is affiliated, issued a statement charging “unacceptable favoritism, nepotism, po-litical interference in administrative mat-ters and rampant corruption … in mu-nicipalities in the North West Province.” (cosatu.org.za, Oct. 12)

SAMWU wants the South African Local Government Association to implement a wage curve that would create salaries more equitable for all workers. The union says that up to 300,000 workers could be involved in the national strike; this would paralyze municipal services throughout the country.

Mining strikes & terminations continue

Gold Fields halted all production on Oct. 15 when 8,500 workers refused to go into the mines. The corporation reported that nearly 20,000 of its 26,700 employ-ees at the KDC West and East gold mines were involved in wildcat strikes through-out the industry. (Reuters, Oct. 15)

Gold Fields says it has lost 65,000 ounc-es since the strike began, while AngloGold reports weekly losses of 32,000 ounces, and Harmony says it is daily losing 20-25 kg of gold at its Kusasalethu mine.

Meanwhile, striking workers have re-jected another pay increase offer by mine owners.

According to Swiss News, “Since Au-gust, 75,000 miners have downed tools in often illegal and violent walkouts that are hitting economic growth and inves-tor confidence and raising questions about President Jacob Zuma’s leadership shortly before a leadership election in the ruling African National Congress (ANC).” (swissinfo.ch, Oct. 15)

In retaliation for the wildcat strikes, Anglo American Platinum dismissed 12,000 workers earlier in October. The

Gold One, Atlatsa Resources and other mining corporations have also dismissed employees for their involvement in “un-protected strike actions” — those not authorized by officially recognized labor organizations.

Bond rating agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s cut South Africa’s cred-it worthiness on Sept. 27 and Oct. 12, re-spectively. Finance Minister Pravin Gord-han said that the ratings downgrade came as a “surprise,” since the strikes have yet to strongly influence the government’s revenue and budget plans.

“There is no evidence that this will throw us off course,” Gordhan said on Talk Radio 702.

Despite independent worker actions outside of COSATU and other unions, COSATU’s Mpumalanga branch and the National Union of Mineworkers issued a joint statement on Oct. 12 defending the movement’s many gains. It pointed to a “well planned, highly funded campaign by some mine bosses and counter-revo-lutionaries to destabilize and reverse all the revolutionary gains achieved by NUM and COSATU over the past thirty years.

“NUM has brought unity, defeated apartheid laws, and tribalism in the min-ing, construction and energy sector. The NUM has improved the working condi-

tions of workers in the industry from conditions close to slavery to conditions where workers have the power to bargain through their unions.” (cosatu.org.za)

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Leyes contra latinos/as indignan al surPor Lamont Lilly

En su formato original, la Ley Beason-Hammon Alabama HB 56 otorgaba a los oficiales de recursos escolares el derecho de acosar a los/as estudiantes de quinto grado por su estatus migratorio. La Legisla-tura de Alabama que aprobó la ley HB 56 en junio del 2011, convirtió a Alabama en el único estado del país en que los administradores de las escuelas públicas verificarán los datos de inmigración de los/as nue-vos/as estudiantes desde los grados infantiles hasta el grado 12.

Sin embargo, en agosto de este año la Corte de Apelaciones del 11º Circuito revocó la disposición es-tudiantil de la HB 56, declarándola inconstitucional y una violación judicial de Plyer vs Doe, que establece que los estados proporcionen una educación a todos/as los/as niños/as, independientemente de su estado migratorio. Asimismo, el tribunal revocó la propuesta HB 87 de Georgia. Una propuesta de este Estado para criminalizar “el transportar y refugiar a inmigrantes ilegales”. El estatuto, una propuesta sin paralelo den-tro de la ley federal estadounidense, tenía palpables designios “contra la población latina”.

Cuando inicialmente fueron propuestas, las HB 56 y HB 87 fueron presentadas como valiosas piezas de legislación que podrían impulsar las economías locales al tomar medidas enérgicas contra la presencia de in-migrantes indocumentados/as que en traran a Estados Unidos. Los conservadores estadounidenses formular-on tal ley racista como una solución rápida al desem-pleo y al bajo rendimiento de las escuelas.

En su lugar, estas horribles políticas fueron un completo revés a los derechos civiles y al debido pro-ceso judicial. En Alabama, los/as niños/as de todas las edades fueron disuadidos/as de asistir a la es-cuela y continuar su educación. Muchos/as dejaron de asistir por temor a que sus familias pudieran ser deportadas si se les interrogaban sobre su estatus migratorio. Según el Departamento de Justicia de EE.UU., más del 13 por ciento de niños/as latinos/as se retiraron en el año que la HB 56 estuvo vigente, antes de la intervención federal. En lugar de enseñar geometría, los/as instructores/as en el aula se vieron obligados/as a encontrar certificados de nacimiento.

En cuanto a las economías locales y la disminución de las tasas de desempleo, la industria número uno de Alabama, la agricultura, fue diezmada. Estamos hablando de un sector agrícola acostumbrado a gen-erar más de $ 5,5 mil millones al año. Las industrias que dependen de la mano de obra inmigrante, al igual que las operaciones avícolas de Alabama, que-daron devastadas. Las operaciones pequeñas de cul-tivo cesaron, ya que los/as valiosos/as trabajadores/as se quedaban en sus casas atemorizados/as.

Otros/as simplemente emigraron simplemente por seguridad. Estas complicaciones también se han uti-lizado como justificación para no pagar a los/as traba-jadores/as temporales/as —contratados/as y despedi-dos al mes siguiente sin remuneración alguna. Muchos/as latinos/as, documentados/as e indocumentados/as, se han negado a denunciar los delitos, ya que cualquier escrutinio por la ley local puede iniciar una investig-ación de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas.

Aunque partes de estos proyectos de ley fueron derogadas, los/as defensores de derechos humanos han seguido sonando la alarma, ya que esta marca de control social afecta a todos/as los/as pobres y oprimidos/as, creando miedo y frustración a través de la alienación.

Recientemente, el estado de Alabama ha impug-nado la decisión del panel de tres jueces del 11º Cir-cuito y ha pedido una nueva audiencia. A pesar de que unas disposiciones en particular resultaron ser abiertamente inconstitucionales en violación de la cláusula de Igual Protección de la Enmienda 14, las autoridades estatales están argumentando que los tribunales federales sobrepasaron la jurisdicción es-

tatal. Por desgracia, parece que como Arizona, Ala-bama se está posicionando para llevar su ley migra-toria hasta la Corte Suprema.

Para aquellos de nosotros/as que somos aficiona-dos/as a la historia de Estados Unidos, no podemos dejar de establecer una correlación directa con la postura del Gobernador George Wallace en contra de las autoridades federales en la década de 1960. Su postura de línea dura en pro de la segregación y en contra de la Corte Suprema de EE.UU. estimuló a los racistas en todo el país.

Además de los jueces federales, el HB 56 también ha llamado la atención del presidente Barack Obama. Hasta él ha hecho constar que “es una mala ley”. Sin embargo, la administración de Obama deportó a 396.000 inmigrantes el año pasado.

Mientras que miembros del Congreso, jueces fede-rales y legisladores/as continúan debatiendo, los/as defensores/as de derechos humanos agradecen el avance, por limitado que sea. Sin embargo, sabemos que quienes despreciamos tal intolerancia racista, debemos continuar protestando. Eliminar algunas disposiciones no va a ser suficiente, siempre que la discriminación racial siga desenfrenada.

Cuando las paradas de tráfico y los bloqueos de carreteras se convierten en cursos de obstáculos para inmigrantes, la ética se convierte en un asunto de gran preocupación jurídica. Si la justicia no puede prevalecer en este caso, el odio estructural podría empezar a cubrir todo el sur, estableciendo nuevos precedentes para los estados como Carolina del Sur, Georgia y Arkansas.

En respuesta a esta batalla que ha durado un año, los/as activistas pro derechos de inmigrantes se han mantenido firmes. Los/as manifestantes han imple-mentado una serie de tácticas, como manifestacio-nes y foros de la comunidad, seminarios y bloqueos callejeros. Activistas que apoyan el propósito de ley DREAM, los/as SOÑADORES, y jóvenes inmigran-tes han realizado paros. Trabajadores y cooperativas para adultos han organizado importantes huelgas. Los/as clientes/as latinos/as han decidido boicotear a las empresas locales, mientras que decenas de miles han respondido con solidaridad.

Organizaciones como la Unión de Trabajadores del Acero, la Unión Americana de Libertades Civiles y la Liga de la Justicia para Inmigrantes han unido sus fuerzas. La NAACP y el Southern Poverty Law Center también se encuentran a bordo. La iglesia Bautista de la Calle 16 en Birmingham, Ala., — la misma iglesia bombardeada por racistas en 1963 — ha servido como un refugio de descanso y planificación de la sede.

La conclusión es que la HB 56 es una ley que estim-ula el ostracismo y la división, conjurando el miedo e incrementando la cantidad de víctimas inocentes y falsos arrestos, perpetuando una completa violación de las libertades civiles. Estos actos anti-latinos/as no son una simple cuestión de privación de derechos civiles. A los/as inmigrantes latinos/as se les niega hasta el derecho a existir en algunos estados, a apenas respirar sin que algún “oficial de la ley” esté a sus es-paldas atemorizándole.

Es cierto que las recientes sentencias de la Corte de Apelaciones del Circuito 11º representan algunos pro-gresos, pero no debe haber ningún compromiso con las leyes que fomentan el odio. Para aquellos/as de nosotros/as que estamos al corriente de tales regla-mentos racistas, no dejemos de correr la voz y seguir organizando. Para aquellos/as de ustedes que están aprendiendo sobre tal injusticia por primera vez, únanse a la causa noble del movimiento. Nosotros el pueblo decimos, ¡”Libertad para todos/as”! y ¡”abajo con la HB 56”!

Lamont Lilly es un redactor colaborador de la Triangle Free Press, columnista de la African American Voice y organizador local del Partido Workers World/Mundo Obrero. Reside en Durham, Carolina del Norte.

El Partido Workers World-Mundo Obrero expone que no miremos a las elecciones capitalistas para propiciar los cambios que los/as trabajadores/as, los pueblos oprimi-

dos, las mujeres, la comunidad LGBT, jóvenes, ancianos/as e inmigrantes necesitamos tan desesperadamente en este país.

Las elecciones presidenciales intentan obliterar el hecho de que esta es una sociedad de clases altamente estratificada, con la mayor brecha en riquezas de cualquier país desarrollado. A pesar de tanta habladuría sobre la “clase media”, es la clase capitalista — un minúsculo porcentaje de la población — quien posee y controla la enorme riqueza. En el otro polo está la clase trabajadora, la gran mayoría de la población, cuyas destrezas y esfuerzos construyeron la economía pero quienes están bajo ataque en todos los frentes.

El proceso electoral, tan dominado por el dinero de la clase dirigente, no permite ni un susurro de esta monumental verdad entrar en los llamados debates. La discusión sobre el capitalismo está “fuera de la mesa” con ambos republicanos y demócratas, aún cuando el desastre social causado por la crisis económica capitalista tritura las vidas de decenas de millones. Las elecciones en Estados Unidos son altamente antidemocráti-cas, incluso comparadas con las de otros países capitalistas donde los partidos ganan escaños en parlamentos según una base proporcional. Aquí en EE.UU. el “ganador lo toma todo”, lo que significa que los partidos políticos progresistas que no reciben financiamiento corporativo no tienen ninguna posibili-dad de tener candidatos electos.

Con menos de un mes hasta el día de las elecciones, una campaña de propaganda enormemente cara y omnipresente está en marcha para convencer al pueblo de que la forma en que vote determinará el curso de los acontecimientos en los años venideros. Se trata de responsabilizar a las masas de los ataques que vendrán sobre cada beneficio social ganado durante años de lucha.

Aunque no proveen soluciones concretas a las cuestiones vitales de puestos de trabajo, cuidado universal de la salud, educación, encarcelamiento masivo y brutalidad policial, y la influencia del complejo militar-industrial-financiero sobre la política exterior y el presupuesto, los candidatos de los dos partidos capitalistas hacen parecer que todo depende de quién sea elegido. Nunca mencionan el papel central que han tenido los movimientos de lucha de masas en cambiar la historia.

Al mismo tiempo, mucha gente creyó genuinamente que dieron un paso progresista cuando eligieron a Barack Obama como presidente en 2008. Para los/as blancos/as que votaron para él, fue una medida sin precedentes no solo de apoyar la igualdad en general, sino de aceptar el liderazgo afroamericano en el país. Para los/as afroamericanos/as, la esperanza se elevó sobre lo que aparentemente era la culminación de la larga lu-cha contra el racismo y la opresión nacional con una votación histórica por el primer presidente afroamericano — a pesar de la supresión siempre presente del derecho a votar.

Desafortunadamente, las elecciones del 2008 no cumplieron con ninguna de estas cosas. Continúa el mismo estableci-miento racista. Las cárceles aún están llenas con 2,5 millones de reclusos, casi todos/as gente de color y blancos/as pobres. Los jóvenes negros y latinos en barrios empobrecidos son detenidos, arrestados y cada vez más son ejecutados donde viven por la policía. Los/as inmigrantes indocumentados/as son deportados/as a un nivel sin precedentes. Las mujeres pierden terreno por la reducción de puestos de trabajo en el sector público, otro efecto del declive capitalista — y aumentan los ataques contra la anticoncepción y el derecho al aborto. Y la guerra contra los sindicatos se hace cada vez más fea, ya que tanto las empresas privadas como los organismos guberna-mentales trituran los contratos en los que los/as trabajadores/as y sus familias han dependido.

Fue la esperanza y el deseo de unidad lo que impulsó a Obama a la Casa Blanca. Los líderes del Partido Demócrata despertaron esta esperanza y luego la destruyeron al llevar a cabo los dictados de los grandes bancos y corporaciones. Pero el sentimiento progresista de las masas no está muerto. Ocu-par Wall Street es un reflejo de eso. Puede ser renovado con una verdadera lucha fuera de la arena electoral.

No importa quién salga electo; serán los/as trabajadores/as construyendo alianzas con sus comunidades, tal como hicieron los sindicatos en Wisconsin y más recientemente los/as mae-stros/as en Chicago – no siguiendo como de costumbre, que se moverán hacia adelante nuestras luchas. Para llegar allí debemos romper con los dirigentes capitalistas y sus partidos políticos y tratar de construir órganos de poder popular independientes.

POSTURA PARTIDO

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