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WfJRltERS ''IN(}II'IRI) 0No.8S8

anThe occupation of Iraq is

not going well for U.S. imperialism. For that matterneither is the occupation ofAfghanistan. :>10re than 2.000Amcricans have forfeitedtheir li \ es in Iraq, \\ hile overIOO,UOO Iraqis have beenkilled a, a rcsult of the warand occupation. i\loq AmeriL'ans arc nO\\ aware that theexprcssed reason for the occupation-the "dcmocratilation" of Iraq-is as mucha hallucination as were the"\\eapons of mass destruc

t",

Corbistion" that se n cd as a pretext for the \var.

The indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter"Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice over his role in outing CIA agentValerie Plame has been seized on by boththe bourgec)is press and the Democrats asa way to hide their complicity in the savage destruction that ha s been visited onthe social fabric of Iraq and the peopleswho inhabit it. The Nel l ' York Times wouldhave us believe that it was s\,indled by itsreporter Judith Miller. who fed its readersthe Bush administration' s war lies aboutIraq. The Democrats, so the story goes,were at the mercy of the gargantuan liesconcocted. in the main, by Vice PresidentDick Cheney. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the evil one. Karl Rove.

This is self-sening hogwash, as wedetailed in "Judith Miller and Bush Disinformation-Big Lies and ImperialistWar" (WV No. 856, 1..J- October). To datethe main imperialist executioner of theIraqi peoples was Bill Clinton, backed bya United Nations embargo. The stanationblockade, mainly during his eight yearsin office, killed a million and a half Iraqis. The hundreds of UN monitors of Saddam Hussein's military capabilities. whooperated as spics for the U.S., were fullyaware, and assuredly cOlllmunicated totheir maqers, that Iraq was incapable ofany coherent military action againq theU.S. Thus, to sell the \\ ar to the public, anoutrageous and fantastic myth was constructed linking Sacldam Hussein to AlQaeda and endc)\\ ing the Iraqi military\\ ith nuclear capability. The hourgeoisp r e , ~ \\as ~ l \ \ a r e ufthe re,dit:-. \\ere theDemocrats, \\ ho nevertheless \ (lted o\er\\ helmingly for the \\ ar.

The "discmen" that Bush, Chene\-.- -Rumsfeld et al. lied ranb \\ ith the discmer) of Sno\\ in Antarctica. Tn fact. liesare the l) i l the imperialists use to facilitate their sa\ ageries. \\'e noted in "BigLies and Imperiali-t \\-ar" that the 196..J-"Gulf of T()llkill illc'i dent" \\ as a rahriccltilllllksigned t() scil the escaldtion l)t l.S.

II 45

7".'25274118103011117

f ) c @ Q q U ~ C - 7 0 1 11 November 200Sar rimesisoemeanors

The Libby ImbroglioImperialist war criminals and liars: Dick Cheney with George W. Bush; 1. LewisLibby, Cheney's former chief of staff.involvement in the Vietnam War. Lastweek it was reported that the governmenthad suppressed a 2001 National SecurityAgency finding which demonstrated thatthe "incident"" was a lie.

The Democrats' current protestationsabout Bush's lies are simply due to thefact that things haven't worked out inIraq. Commenting on the im'estigationsinto the Bush administration, Frank Rich

"war on terror"-a war armed with measures that frontally attack not only immigrants but the democratic rights of blacksand all working people.

As a capitalist party, the Democrats arededicated to the fundamental interestsof U.S. imperialism, which launchedthe Iraq invasion to assert its unchallenged domination over this oil-richregion and the globe, The reformist and

Break with the Democrats-For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!

wrote in the Nell' York Times (30 October),"We're a long way from putting togetherthe full history of a self-described 'warpresidency" that bungled the war in Iraqand, in doing so, may be losing the waragainst r ~ l d i c a l Islamic terrorism as well."This is the standard Democratic Partycriticism of the Bush White House: that itcannot be trusted to defend U.S. interestsaround the world and to prosecute the

liberal left that dominates the antiwarcoalitions hangs on to the coattails of theliberal imperialist opposition, searchingfo r more rational ways of maintainin'gthis profoundly irrational system. AsMarxists, our standpoint is the need tomobilize the multiracial proletariat instruggle against the imperialist rulers,both Democratic and RepUblican. TheSpartaci,t League took a side for the

mi litary defense of Afghanistan and Iraq against theU.S. and allied imperialists,at the same time standingin irreconcilable politicalopposition to the reaL'tionaryTaliban and the capitalistregime of Saddam Hussein.Today \\-e call for the immediate and unconditionalwithdrawal of all U.S. troopsfrom Iraq and Afghanistan.As we wrote in "Big Liesand Imperialist War":

"Growing opposition in theU.S. population to the Iraqoccupation, re\'ubion over the government's role in the death and destructionof black people and the popr after Hurricane Katrina. a m ~ e r at the attack> on fundamental demoZratic r i ! ! h t s ~ t h e situation "peaks to the burning need to build aworkers party that would organize classstruggle against the U.S. capitalist rulers.The fight against imperialist war cannotbe separated from thl: struggle agaillstthe capitalist system that breeds suchv,ar. Only when the multiracial proletariat seizes power from the blooddrenched, arrogant capitalist rulers canwe begin to speak of a \V llrld ridof imperialist \\ ars and occupatil1l1s andoffering material ,ecmity and social justice for aU:'

Bosses' Class War AgainstU.S. WorkersE,en as Bush wa s faced with tens of

thousands of protesters during his tripto Argentina, the U.S. press corps kepthounding him about the Plame il1Vestigation. Growing sections of the U.S. bourgeoisie are running out of patience with thechallenged president, as clearly expressedin the New York Times (8 Novemher) editorial. "President Bush's Walkabout":

'After President Bush's disastrous \i sit toLatin America, it's unnerving to n:aliLethat his presidency still has more thanthree years to run. An administration IV ithno agenda and no competence \Iould behard enough to live with on the d(1l11cslicfront. But the rest of the \lorId sil11plycan't afford an American gO\ ern me II thisbad for that long.... -"The central problcm is 110t Karl Ro\e nr

COnrinlfl'd Oil f lage 9

AP phctosLeft: U,S, troops brutalize Iraqi civilians in Falluja, November 2004, Right: Hurricane Katrina survivors in New Orleansabandoned by racist capitalist rulers.

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"Intelligent Design"Reactionaries11 October 2005

To the editor:knew that there was nothing good aboutthe U.S.'s international campaign against"modern-day slavery:' claiming that women immigrants were being massively coerced into prostitution by sinister bordercoyotes. As we said in "Anti-Immigrant.Anti-Woman, Anti-Sex: U,S./UN CrusadeAgainst 'Sex Trafficking'" (Spartacist No.58, Spring 2004), '''redeeming the enslaved' means unleashing the cops andcourts in a multiple attack on immigrants,women and sex."

It was gratifying to see the referenceto the Seattle-based Discovery Institute asa leading force behind the obscurantistdogma of Intelligent Design in yourexcellent article. "The Evolution Wars:Religious Reaction and Racist Oppression-Hail Charles Darwin!"(WVNo. 854,16 September). This think tank of ultrarightist Christian billionaires first came tomy attention when I was researching theanti-woman U.S'/UN crusade against "sextrafficking" for Spartacist. Bush's director for the State Department's Office toMonitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons is John R. Miller, who was Chairman of the Board of the Discovery Institute through 2003. When I learned that. I

"Hail Charles Darwin" rightly focuseson the racism of the creationists, whosedogma includes such nonsense as the separate creation of the human races (whichare 'in fact expressions of social relations,not biological ditferences). But proponentsor Genesis as science, of course, includewomen in their very long list of the geneti-

The 1917 October RevolutionUnder the leadership of Lenin an d Trot-

sky's Bolshevik Party, the workers of Russiasei::.ed power on 7 November 1917 (25 Octo-be r in the old Russian calendar), proclaim-ing the death sentence of the ol d capital-ist order. Addressing the Petrograd Sm'iet(workers council) 011 the day' of ~ ' i c t o r Y J l m i d the continuing carnage of he interimperialistWorld War 1, Lenin emphasi::.ed the interna-tional perspective of the socialist revolution.

TROTSKY Fighting to forge parties Oil the Bolshevik LENIN'model, the International Communist Leagueis committed to the struggle for new October Revolutions throughout the world.

Comrades, the workers' and peasants' revolution, about the necessity of which theBolsheviks have always spoken, has been accomplished.What is the significance of this workers' and peasants' revolution? Its significance is,first of all, that we shall have a Soviet government, our own organ of power, in whichthe bourgeoisie will have no share whatsoever. The oppressed masses will themselvescreate a power. The old state apparatus will be shattered to its foundations and a newadministrative apparatus set up in the form of the Soviet organisations.From now on, a new phase in the history of Russia begins, and this, the third Russianrevolution, should in the end lead to the victory of socialism.One of our urgent tasks is to put an immediate end to the war. It is clear to everybodythat in order to end this war, which is closely bound up with the present capitalist system, capital itself must be fought.We shall be helped in this by the world working-class movement. which is alreadybeginning to develop in Italy, Britain and Germany.The proposal we make to international democracy for a just and immediate peacewill everywhere awaken an ardent response among the international proletarian masses.All the secret treaties must be immediately published in order to strengthen the confidence of the proletariat.Within Russia a huge section of the peasantry have said that they have played long

enough with the capitalists. and will now march with the workers. A single decreeputting an end to landed proprietorship will win us the confidence of the peasants. Thepeasants will understand that the salvation of the peasantry lies only in an alliance withthe workers. We shall institute genuine workers' control over production.We have no\\/ learned to make a concerted effort. The revolution that has just beenaccomplished is evidence of this. We possess the strength of mass organisation. whichwill O\'ercome eyerything and lead the proletariat to the world revolution.We must now se't about building a proletarian socialist state in Russia.Long li\e the world socialist revolution' (Stor/llY applause.)-v . I. Lenin, "Report on the Tasks of the Soviet Power." 7 NO\ember 1917

I' _. ------- - - ~ l ~ ~ / I I. KflJRIlERI "NI"'RI : ~ L f ~ .- ' ~ I

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Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League of the U.SD,REC,OR OF PA.RTY P'JBlJCA.TIONS Rav B,scx,::Dr'OR A.lan V,ddeEDITOR YOUNG SPA.RTA.CUS PA.GES. Rosema-y Pale',queCIRCULA.WJN MIINA.GER Susan "ullecEDITORIA.L BOil.RO Helene Brosius trr.anaging edltor,. Kathleen HarriS ,letters editor'~ _ . i n d a Jarreau {prOGUctloli manager!, Bruce Andre. Jo n Bruie. Helen Cantor. Paul C o ~ e George Foster. Walter Jenn,ngs. James Robertson. Jose;Jh SeymcU"The Sparta:ls; League ,s the U S Section of the Internatlorai Communist League(Fourth InternationaLs!)Workers Val7QJard IISSh 0276-0746:, 0 0 J l l s ~ e c DhNe2k1y except s k l P p l n ~ Lhrl';2 3.itern2 f E 'ssue5 ;,.., June Jui:," a'IG

~ h e second ISSue In June anc tr,e : e . s ~ 'n ~ e : e r r ' D e r Dy the Soanac's'Broadway. 318 New York NY 10007 i212, 732-7862 f!::dltor,2.I,1 (212\ 732-78S"(BUSiness) Address ail corresponoence to Box 1377 GPO. New York, NY 10116. E-mali adciress. v a n g u a ~ d : ; } I t ; a c . ~ ! e t

Domestic subSCriptions 510,00'21 Issues. Periodicals postage paid at NeVI, York NY POSTMASTER Send addrESSchanges to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377 GPO. New York. NY 10116.Opinions expressed In Signed articles or letters do not necessanly express the edltonal VieWpOintThe clOSing date for news In thiS issue is 8 November.

No. 858 11 November 2005

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cally unworthy. It is fitting that Millerwent from the Discovery Institute to running Bush's anti-trafficking crusade, whichhas as b ~ a d e r goal beefing up the credentials of the "family values" anti-sexwitchhunt. Women's abortion rights andpeople's right to a sex life free of government snooping-these are in the cross hairsof this ongoing government campaign.

Politically thoughtful research is arequirement for a communist newspaper.Miller's presence as the head of the U.S.Trafficking Office was a tipoff that thiswas a highly politicized operation aimingto recast sin and sex in "human rights"terms. According to this coalition of cops.the evangelical right and right-wing bourgeois feminists, all prostitution is "sexslavery." The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women defines prostitution as "gangrape" and argues that it should be illegal.We Marxists oppose all laws against"crimes without victims" like prostitution,

Lettersgambling, drug use and drinking as grossgovernment interference in private life.I would take any words coming fromJohn R. Miller and his political associateswith a boulder-size grain of salt. Therefore, I think the reference to workers"enslaved" in Brazil in a caption in Work-ers Vanguard No. 818 ("Lula's PopularFront Turns Sc rews on Workers,"23 January 2004) is mistaken. The source for thiswas Kevin Bales, a major supporter of theUN anti-trafficking program. Instead, thearticle could have spokcn of "slave-like"conditions for these workers. We believein the political precision of words, andslavery is illegal in Brazil. The politicaltask is not abolition of the slave system,but the fight for unionization of these hideously exploited workers. Thus the difference between the terms. seemingly semantic, has real programmatic implications.

Comradely,Amy Rath

From New Orleans ReaderI November 2005Dear WV,

I am a New Orleans evacuee recentlyreturned, and a WV supporter. I greatlyappreciated the first WV article on Katrina, the "man-made disaster." and awaitresumption of mail or Internet to readmore. Here is what I am seeing since myreturn.The feds, state and local authorities.having first attempted negligent homicideagainst the 20 percent of the city population with no car to evacuate in, are nowseeking to prevent their return. The racistcodewords of the day are "permanentlyreduced population" and "changed demographic." You can read it in the bourgeoispress and hear it on the street. The pow

ers that be want a smaller, more affluentand whiter town post-Katrina.The black poor and working class arebeing told "don't come back," by meansof closing the public hospitals, publicschools, public housing, libraries, parksand keeping them closed. The old jobs arewiped out, and the new jobs are going toout-of-staters. The blackest parts of townare denied utilities or are outright closedoff at gun point.Right now the part of town being repopulated is the strip of land along theMississippi River, the 20 percent of townthat has electricity and commerce. Itincludes Audubon Park, Tulane, Uptown,the Garden District, Central Business District and the French Quarter. These mostlywell-to-do areas were protected fromflooding by the old earthen levees dating tothe 1700s.The other 80 percent of the city floodedwhen the concrete walls of the modernmade canals broke due to fault) designand engineering. This included my neighborhood Gentilly, Mid-City, Lakeyiew andthe overwhelmingly black New OrleansEast and Low er 9th Ward. These area, arestill without power and are largely unin-

habited. Homeowners have begun to gointo all but the 9th Ward during daylighthours to haul their belongings to the curb,knock out all the walls, and begin rebuilding their flooded homes.The Lower 9th Ward is closed off bythe National Guard. It is, or was, virtu:lily all poor and black, mostly workingpoor such as city employees. dock workers, hotel workers. Fats Domino was rescued from the floodwaters there and losteverything in his home.9th Ward residents were the last to beallowed back in to "Look and Leave." Thefirst ones in made the horrific discovery ofthe decomposed remains of 21 elderlyloved ones, missed in the house-to-housesweep. After that. access was suspended,and now only 20-minute hus tours of thearea are permitted.

The City peremptorily and prematurelycondemned Charity Hospital, a huge andsolid structure built in the 1930s, notout of safety concerns but to eliminatehealthcare to the poor and discouragetheir return. In the process, two medicalschools and a Level One Trauma Centerare gone. State legislators seek to moveCharity out of N.O. Meanwhile Charityand LSU have set up a valiant little TentCity outside the shuttered UniversityHospital, serving 100 patients a day.The local and state School Boards have

closed the N.0. public schools for theschool year, effectively preventing thereturn of all the fami I es attached tothose children. Only union-busting "charter schools" that cater to the well-off arebeing permitted to open. The state SchoolBoard President said they certainly donot plan to re-open the "failing schools,"which were all the rest. By contrast. theharder-hit St. Bernard Parish publicschools are opening in NO\emher.All the public housing projects. Hoodedor not. are closed. HANO, the Housing

con Tin lied Oil poge 11

, ci.i'>\tMerwin/NY TimesHurricane Katrina evacuees in angry meeting with officials in Houston.Survivors have waited months for government aid.

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Twentieth Annual poe Holiday AppealFree the Class-War Prisoners!This .year's Holiday Appeals mark the20th year of the Partisan Defense Committee's pmgram of sending monthly stipends as all expression of solidarity tothose imprisoned fbr standing up toracist capitalist repression. This pmgramrevived a tradition illitiated by the International Labor Defense under James P.Cannon, its founder and first secretary(1925-28). The PDC sends st ipends to 17class-war prisoners.Mumia Abu-Jamal: America's foremost class-war prisoner, former BlackPanther Party spokesman. well-knownsupporter of the MOVE organization andaward-winning journalist known as "thevoice of the voiceless." On December 9,Mumia enters his 25th year of incarceration for a killing that the cops know he didnot commit. Mumia was framed up for the

1981 killing of Philadelphia police officerDaniel Faulkner and sentenced to deathexplicitly for his political views. Overfour years ago. Mumia's attorneys submitted to the courts the sworn confession ofArnold Beverly that he. not Mumia, shotand killed Faulkner. But to the racists inblack robes of both the Pennsylvania andU.S. felkral judiciaries. a court of law isno place for evidence of the innocence ofthis lighter for the oppressed.This year the Pennsyl vania courts dis-

Mumia Abu-Jamalmissed Mumia's third appeal for postconviction relief. With the U.S. SupremeCourt devoted to the racist death penalty,and with his tinal federal appeals inmotion. Mumia remains on death rowlocked down in a cell the size of a bathroom. It was because he spoke for theoppressed. such as those left to die in'Jew Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane

BUNDLES AVAILABLE!Evidence Explodes Frame-Up:Declarations and affidavitsof Mumia Abu-Jamal,Arnold R. Beverly, Rachel'.Volkenstein ana othersprove that death row politica!r: -Isoner Mumla Abu-Jamal !san Innocent man.i:Jucilsrea September 2001Bundles: ,inciuoes oostage)i G COCles - :55

2E.' ;,:;ooles - $10~ ; : \ 9 i e copy; $.30 (32 pages);J,-cer f ' ~ , - . ~ . " pay _0:Pa!l::a- :_:;fsrse :;cmmittee

I 20 . Sex 09, Cenci Street Staticn

i

Katrina, that Mumia faces the ultimate incapitalist repression: the racist death penalty. Workers. immigrants, minorities andall opponents of racist oppression muststrengthen their efforts to free Mumia now!Abolish the racist death penalty!

Leonard Peltier is an internationallyrevered class-war prisoner in America. Hisincarceration for nearly three decades

j,, I ",'f ,:-li ReichmanLeonard Peltier

hecause of his activism in the AmericanIndian MO\ement has come to symbolizethis country's racist repression of its nativepeoples. the sl\f\ivors of centuries of geno.:idal oppression. Peltier's frame-up trialfor the de,;ths of two marauding FBI agentsin \\ hat had become a war zone at theSouth Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation 30years ago shows what capitalist " j u ~ t i c e " isall about. As in the case of \1umia and theother class-war prisoners. Peltier's casedemonstrates there is no justice in the capitalist COllrtS. Although the lead gmernment,lttorney has admitted. "We .:ant provewho shot those agents." and the courts haverepeatedly acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct the 61-year-old fighterfor Native Americans is still locked away.This year federal authorities transferredPeltier from Leavenworth to the TerreHaute penitentiary. where he was throwninto solitary and denied medicine. He wascruelly transferred again. tinally ending upin USP Lewisburg in Pennsylvania. FreeLeonard Peltier now!

Jamal Hart. Mumia's son. was sentenced in 1998 to 15 1/2 years on bogusfirearms possession charges. Hart wastargeted for his prominent activism in thecampaign to free his father. AlthoughHart was initially charged under Pennsylvania laws. which would have meant aprobationary sentence. Clinton's JusticeDepartment intenened to have him

P"'1r ' ii l l l De f e l l e: 0 c : : :OIl.... .. .i Sep!ember2001 Pamphlet S.50

Mumia Abu-JamalIs an Innocent Manl

.', ~ ' : liiWfwEWE I> [moon".fi. f.:JttE-IIP!

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WV PhotoSpartacist literature table at September 24 San Francisco antiwar demonstration.

The success of the 2005 Workers Van-guard subscription drive is a tribute to thehard work of the comrades and sympathizers of the Spartacist League and SpartacusYouth Clubs. The six-week sub drive fromlate August through early October nettedmore than 1,500 subscriptions to WV, 76subscriptions to Espartaco, the newspaperof the Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico,Mexican section of the International Communist League, and 102 subscriptions tothe press of other ICL sections. Altogether,these sales represent 3,335.5 points, whereeach full WV sub is two points, an introductory sub is 0.5 points, and a sub to otherICL publications is one point. This finaltally is 120 percent of the cumulative quotaof 2,790 points, with every local organization surpassing its quota.The annual sub drive is a majornational campaign to widen the readership of our biweekly Marxist press. Thousands of hours were spent preparing andcarrying out the work. Comrades traveledwidely to take part in protests and meetstriking workers, man campus literaturetables and organize "Meet the Marxists"events. Subscription renewals, representing an extension of the political relationship with our readers. also were sought. Inconjunction with the sub drive, comradeshelped build a series of united-front rallies, initiated by the Partisan DefenseCommittee, against government repression. highlighting the cases of MumiaAbu-Jamal, Lynne Stewart and AssataShakur (see WV No. 855. 30 September).WV is a vehicle for introducing youthand workers, along with black people.immigrants and other oppressed layers.

to a revolutionary M a r x i ~ l program. Therole of the c o m m u n i ~ t p r e ~ s was delineated in the 1921 O r g a n i 7 a t i o n ~ 1 l Guidelines adopted at the Third Congre" ofthe Communist International. which codified the experience of the BolshevikParty that led the working class to pO\\erin the October Revolution of 1917.Emphasizing the importance of subscriptions, the Guidelines observed: "Use mustbe made of every situation in which thereis increased motion among the workersand where political or social life is further inflamed by any sort of political andeconomic events." During the sub drive,WV, in its content and distribution, served4

our intervention into expressions of socialdiscontent and class struggle-above allthe reaction to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the growing oppositionto the occupation of Iraq as seen atdemonstrations across the country onSeptember 24. As well, comrades madetrips to intersect strikes by the NorthwestAirlines AMFA mechanics and cleanersand Boeing lAM workers.Our new readers will find that WV ishard-hitting and polemical. We strive forclarity and forthrightness when presenting our revolutionary views, in opposition to the liberal-reformist program ofother groups claiming to be socialist. Onerecent subscriber wrote to us: "Most (suchas the Peoples Weekly World, and theWorkers World) simply talk about issues,and how these problems are products ofcapitalism. In the Workers Vanguard, youguys directly relate the situation to the

writings of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky."That's right. The opportunist politicsof the reformist left shift with the prevailing winds of liberal bourgeois publicopinion, steering opponents of imperialistwar. racism and exploitation to the doorstep of the Democratic Party. In contrast,we are guided by the program and principles of our revolutionary forebears as wefight to forge a workers party to lead thestruggle for socialist revolution. We areproud of our political history. makingavailable back issues of our journal ofrecord through sales of bound volumesof WV and other publications.An incident that spoke to the value weattach to our revolutionary continuity tookplace on one of two "l'\orthern Tour"trips in the Pacific Nortl1\\est. Our comrades found a statuc of Lenin in Fremont.Washington, defaced by an a n a r c h i ~ t symbol and anti-communist expletive writtenin spray paint. So they purcha,ed paintremover and scrubbed clean the statue ofthe leader of the world's first successfulproletmian revolution, prompting a workerfrom a nearby restaurant to come outsideand thank us for a job well done.

We carry forward the banner of theOctober Revolution, not least by defending tooth and nail those gains alreadywon by the international proletariat. Ourprogram for the Chinese, North Korean,Vietnamese and Cuban deformed work-

ers states is unconditional military defense against imperialism and capitalist counterrevolution and for proletarianpolitical revolution to oust their Stalinist misleaders. Our literature in relationto China, including our latest Chineselanguage pamphlet, drew interest fromChinese students.New Orleans: Racist Atrocity

When a wave of revulsion swept thecountry at the government's response to thedisaster in New Orleans, we shifted gearsand expanded our trips to the South. While

~ . $ Y - :

PhotoFremont, Washington: Comrade onNorthern Tour cleaning statue ofLenin defaced by anarchist andright-wing graffiti.we certainly ran into outrage at the racistcontempt for black life shown by Republicans and Democrats alike. this anger didnot take the form of organized mass proteston the streets. Those angered by what happened in New Orleans tended to see noother way to help the victims than as individuals, such as donating money and theirtime, because no collective protest was

organized. The pro-capitalist union misleaders did nothing to mobilize labor'spower to fight for what was needed, likejobs at good union wages and massive public works projects. This situation underscores the crying need for a new. classstruggle union leadership. committed tomobilizing labor's power independent ofthe capitalist state and politicians.Our articles and placards on NcwOrleans attracted people to our literaturetables on campuses and at workplaces andneighborhoods across the country. Ourcharacterization ofNew Orleans as a racistatrocity was polarizing and showed howdeepgoing the racial divide is in this society. White liberal students from coast tocoast commonly disagreed with us anddenied that the crimes against the people ofNew Orleans had anything to do \vith race.In contrast. the mostly black students atschools like Chicago State University andNorth Carolina Central University gave avery different reception to the paper. Muchthe same was true among working people.On the Boeing picket lines. black workerswere keenly aware of the racism. but somewhite workers thought the problems weredue to "bureaucracy" or "just Bush." InNorfolk, we sold over 120 papers to thepredominantly black ILA longshore union.Our New Orleans material stopped them intheir tracks, and our "Feds: Hands OffILA!" article (WV No. 854, 16 September) denouncing the Justice Department'sattack on the union clinched sales.New Orleans generated interest in whata socialized planned economy wouldlook like and often was a jumping-offpoint for us to describe our programmore fully. especially the centrality tothe American socialist revolution of thefight for black rights. The Gulf Coast disaster graphically demonstrated that blackpeople remain an oppressed race-colorcaste segregated at the bottom of thissociety. However, blacks also remain astrategic component of the industrial proletariat and are unionized at a higher ratethan white workers. We fight for revolutionary integrationism, premised on theunderstanding that black freedom requiressmashing the capitalist system and constructing an egalitarian socialist society.Notably our comparison of the lackof preparation and criminal response bythe U.S. government to the hurricaneswith the success of the Cuban deformedworkers state in repeatedly safely evacuating masses of people was especiallyappreciated by immigrant and black students. Additionally, our article on the1955 lynching of Emmett Till and thefight for black liberation-also the subject of a well-attended sub drive forum inChicago-attracted readers early in thecampaign.Bush and IraqLast year's sub drive took place in thelead-up to the presidential elections, whenmany youth were swept up by "Anybodybut Bush" fervor. The reformist left seizedon anger over the Iraq war and occupationto promote standard-fare Democratic Party"lesser evilism." What we intersected thisyear was colored by Bush's re-election.Northern Tour comrades noted that looking to the U.S. rulers to protect "humanrights" or even to "save the trees" has losta lot of luster in the Bush years.But the Democratic Party is no friendof the oppressed. exploited and downtrodden of the world! The struggle toeradicate the pO\erty and wars producedby the profit-driven capitalist systemmust begin with understanding the needfor the complete and unconditional independence of the proletariat from allagencies of the capitalist class. includingits Democratic and Republican parties.For a generation of youth force-fed the"death of communism" myth. we motivated subscriptions by explaining howMarxism remains the only program thatcan effectively fight to end capitalist exploitation and oppression through socialist revolutions worldwide.

We also came across forces reinvigorated by the victory of the fundamentalistBush regime. Texas State University-Sancontinued on page J JWORKERS VMlGUARD

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Philly Transit StrikeBeats Back Bosses' AssaultNOVEMBER 8 -A solid one-week strikeby over 5.000 transit workers broughtPhiladelphia subways. buses and trolleysto a halt and beat back a union-bustingassault by the Southeastern PennsylvaniaTransportation Authority (SEPTA) againstworkers' pensions and access to affordable health care. Importantly. both Phillytransit unions-Transport Workers Union(TWU) Local 234 and United Tramportation Union (UTU) Local l594-walkedout together. And yesterday. they walkedback into work together. While the contract proposals. which workers will bevoting on. contain some compromises.the strikers successfully fended off themost onerous demands of the SEPTAbosses.This strike by predominantly blacktransit workers should help steel theresolve of other workers under attack.not least New York City transit workersin TW U Local 100 whose contract expires on December IS. Hours after theannouncement of a Philly settlement, officials of Pittsburgh's Amalgamated TransitUnion Local 85. which has been withouta contract since July. authorized a strikevote that will go to the membership onNovember 20.According to press reports, the tentative contracts have won 3 percent annualwage increases over the next four years.as well as pension increases. The unionsalso secured some stipulations againstarbitrary company discipline. SEPTA haddemanded that workers pay 5 percent ofhealth insurance premiums, which, at current rates, could reach over $60 0 peryear.While holding of f this demand. the uniondid concede that workers pay I percent oftheir base wages into their health plan.

The first Labor Black Leagues wereformed as a result of the Spartacist League-initiated, 5,OOO-strong labor/black mobi-lization that stopped the Ku Klux Klanfrom marching in Washington, D.C inNovember 1982. We stand for mobilizingthe masses of minority and working peo-ple in militant integrated struggle againstIf You Stand For-1 Full rights for black people and foreveryone else in jobs, housing andschools! Defeat the racist assault onaffirmative action! For union-run minority jo b recruitment and training programs! For union hiring halls! Open upthe universities to all- for open admissions, free tuition and a full living stipend for all students. Free, quality, integrated public education for all!2 A fighting labor movement-picketlines mean don't cross! D e f ~ a t policescabherding and strikebreaking throughmass pickets and union defense guards!For sit-down strikes against mass layoffs!Fight union-busting; keep the capitalistcourts out of the unions! Organize theunorganized, unionize the South! Jobs forall-for a shorter workweek at no loss inpay with full cost-of-living escalatorclause! Cops, prison guards and securityguards out of the unions!3 Fight for women's rights! Defendabortion clinics! Free abortion on demand; free, quality 24-hour childcare!Equal pay for equal work! For free, quality health care for all!11 NOVEMBER 2005

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'wv PhotoOctober 31: TWU Local 234 members on picket line in strike against SEPTA.And although union negotiators held theline against SEPTA's demand to eliminateretirees' prescription drug plan. theyagreed that workers hired after the newcontract goes into effect would lose thisbenefit when they become eligible forMedicare.In the face of SEPTA's attacks and avicious anti-union propaganda barrage bythe city's bourgeois press, transit workersstood solid and united. With the strikecosting the region'S businesses as muchas $1.5 million a day, Democratic Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell intervenedto get a deal worked out. It was the determination of the transit workers on thepicket line. demonstrating their socialpower, that beat baek SEPTA.

the brutal system of racist oppressionthat is capitalist America. Initiated byand fraternally allied with the SpartacistLeague, a multiracial revolutionary Marx-ist organization, the Labor Black Leaguesare part of the revolutionary rrrovementof the workers and oppressed against thebosses and for socialism.4 Full citizenship rights for all immigrants; everyone who made it into thiscountry has the right to stay and livedecently! Stop deportations! No to racist "English only" laws! Down withanti-Hispanic, anti-Semitic, anti-Arab andanti-Asian bigotry!5 Defend the separation of church andstate! Full democratic rights for homosexuals! Down with the anti-sex witchhuntcops and courts out of the bedroom!Down with all laws against consensualactivities such as "crimes without victims" like pornography, gambling, drugs, and prostitution!6 Mass labor/blacklHispanic mobilizations drawing 00 the power of the unionsagainst the racist terrorists. Stop theNazis! Stop the KKK!7 Abolish the racist death penalty! FreeMumia Abu-Jamal! Free all victims ofracist capitalist repression! No faith in thecapitalist courts! No to gun control! Defend victims of cop terror a n d ~ r a C i s t policeframe-up! No illusions in civilian reviewboards or community control of the police!Down with the racist and anti-labor "waron drugs"! For decriminalization of drugs!For class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and

From Northwest and United Airlinesto the Delphi auto parts manufacturer,the capitalist exploiters in this countryare on a union-busting tear. In the face ofthis assault, the trade-union tops' strategy has been to sacrifice hard classstruggle in favor of impotent appeals to"friends of labor" politicians in the twocapitalist parties. especially the Democrats. To answer the capitalists' attackson working people, what's needed is a- fight by the labor movement for jobs forall at union wages, for free mass transitand free health care for all, for labor/minority mobilizations against racistattacks. To carry out this struggle, theunions must fight for the rights of blackpeople and all the oppressed. In Philadel-

social defense; support the work of thePartisan Defense Committee!8 U n c ~ n d i t i o n a l opposition to everyattempt to abolish welfare! Down withslave-labor, union-busting "workfare"schemes! Fight any and every attemptof the government to take away or cutback even more social programs suchas Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,public health and aid to education andhousing! For a massive program of public works-high-quality integrated housing, schools, libraries, hospitals for theworking people and the poor!9 Down with the chauvinist poison ofprotectionism! For international workingclass solidarity! Support revolutionarystruggles of working people abroad!Defend the deformed workers s tatesCuba, Vietnam, China and North Korea-against capitalist restoration and imperialist attack! For proletarian politicalrevolution to oust their Stalinist bureaucracies! For labor action against U.S.imperialist war moves and military adventures! For the right of independence forPuerto Rico! U.S. troops out of PuertoRico and the Caribbean!10 Down with the Democrats and Republicans! For a revolutionary workers party

phia, this immediately raises the needfor the unions to champion freedom forMOVE supporter and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. who was framedup and sent to death row in 1982 for themurder of a Philadelphia cop that he didnot commit.

The "city of brotherly love" is one ofthe most racially polarized cities in thiscountry. where notoriously racist and corrupt cops enforce the brutal oppression ofblack people, Hispanics and the poor. Asa measure of the racial polarization. mostwhite workers we spoke to on the picketlines did not defend Mumia. while blackworkers overwhelmingly unde rstood that.as one put it. "He got railroaded." Onestriker recalled his own experience ofbeing arrested for armed robbery simplybecause he happened to be walking neara crime scene. However. many of thesestrikers expressed illusions in the cops asanother sector of labor. Grotesquely. during the 1995 transit strike. the union topsappealed to the sinister Fraternal Order ofPolice (F.O.P.) for "support," hailing thecops as "brothers" even as the F.O.P. wason a rabid, nationwide effort to whip upsupport for Mumia's execution.The cops. along with the courts, prisons and the military, form the core of thecapitalist state, which exists to defen d thecapitalist order of exploitation and racialoppression. The same racist police forcethat helped frame up Mumia would also

be the ones called out against strikingworkers to enforce anti-union injunctionsor impose scabherding by the bosses. Thecapitalists' frame-up system targets militant strikers and fighters for black rightsalike with one aim: to terrorize workersand minorities into submission.

The labor movement needs a new.class-struggle leadership that breaks fromthe policy of reliance on capitalist politicians and the bou rgeois state. To mobilizelabor's social power in its own interestsand on behalf of the oppressed requiresthe forging of a multiracial workersparty committed to ending capitalist rulethrough socialist revolution .

""". 51IARPlON/AC/U::.DF:ftND h / 1,/"R1611J5"1. '

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that champions the cause of all the oppressed! Finish the Civil War! Those wholabor must rule! For a workers government to take industry away from its racist,incompetent and corrupt owners! RebuildAmerica on a socialist planned economy!-Join theLabor Black Leagues!Membership pledge: $3/year unemployed;$IO/year employed. For more informat;o.l:CHICAGO (312) 563-0441Labor Black Struggle LeagueBox 6938, Chicago, IL 60680LOS ANGELES (213) 380-8239Labor Black League for Social DefenseBox 29574, Los Feliz StationLos Angeles. CA 90029NEW YORK (212) 267-1025Labor Black League for Social DefenseBox 2502, Church St. StationNew York, NY 10008OAKLAND (510) 839-0851Labor Black League for Social DefenseBox 29497Oakland, CA 94604

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relan eor

We reprillt beloll' all article firstplIhlished ill Spartacist Ireland No. t)(AutulIlnAl/inter 20()5), pllhlication of theSpartacist Croup Ireland, Irish sectionof the International COllllllllnist League.The article is based on an SCI fein/illheld in Duhlin in April 2005.

SPARTACIST I R E L A N ~ I want to start off by talking about arecent excellent book by Ray Kavanagh, 'Mamie Cadden: Backstreet Abortionist(Mercier Press, 2005), which tells thestory of Nurse Mamie Cadden, who provided abortions in Dublin from the late1920s to the 1950s. The story of herwork and her persecution tells us a lotabout the nature of the clericalist capitalist state in Ireland. It also shows how theclericalist state was consolidated andhow the Catholic church attained a dominant role in society: not immediatelyat independence but through a processextending over decades.As in Nurse Cadden's time, the 1861Offences Against the Person Act still crim

inalises abortion on the island of Ireland,buttressed in the South by the EighthAmendment to the Constitution whichfollowed the [anti-abortion] 1983 referendum. In Britain, the 1967 AbortionAct legalised abortion-a huge advancefor women's rights. Today over 6,000women each year having an abortion inBritain give an address in the Republicof Ireland and a further 1,000-plus givean address in Northern Ireland. Therewere huge demonstrations here in 1992over abortion rights and the struggles ofthat period were responsible for bringingabout significant changes for women and

6

ortiongays. However, abortion is still totallyillegal.Mamie Cadden was born in the U.S. toimmigrants from [County] Mayo in 1891but returned to Mayo with her family atthe age of four. Mamie moved to Dublinin 1925 and qualified as a midwife, ahighly skilled and, at that time, highlyrespected profession. In 1929, just a couple of years after qualifying as a midwife, Mamie established her own maternity nursing home. At the time, Dublinhad up to 50 such private nursing homes.These homes were a challenge to theCatholic church which, with the cooperation of the capitalist state, was attempting to establish a monopoly in the fieldof medical care, especially in relation towomen, reproduction and sexuality. RayKavanagh notes that "the nursing-homeswould have had a far more liberal andwoman-centred ethos than the religioushospitals." It was this struggle of thechurch to establish absolute control overwomen's sexuality which was to shapethe rest of Nurse Cadden's life.The 1920s were a relatively prosperous and hopeful time in Ireland afterindependence and the Civil War [1922-23] and before the economic depressionof the 1930s. The latter coincided withthe deeply conservative premiership ofEamon de Valera and its nationalist protectionist economic policies. Lack of jobs

:Jo()CD0.""

Above: For decades,women and girls wereforced to work inbrutal conditions inMagdalene laundries.Left: Dublin cops escort"fallen women"in religious processionin 1950s. Catholicchurch and Irish stateoften forced womeninto seclusion.

led to mass emigration, mainly to Britain.Married women were barred from manyworkplaces, in 1935 contraception wasbanned and in 1937 women's role in thehome was enshrined in the Constitution.Kavanagh describes Nurse Cadden's attitude towards these anti-woman attacks:"All the men thought that women shouldbe scrubbing and cooking in the kitchen,having a baby each year until they diedof thrombosis or high blood pressure ...Well, that was not for Mamie Cadden,she would fight them all, as she had allher life."Nurse Cadden's nursing homes (firstlyin Ranelagh and from 1931 in Rathmines), like others of the day, providedvarious services for pregnant women,including adoptions (which were unregulated at the time and viewed with suspicion by the church) and care of womenwho had suffered complications frombackstreet (or self-administered) abortions. Illegal abortions may also havebeen performed in the nursing home, butwere not the main focus of the business.These activities brought much attentionfrom the gardaf [national police], butMamie's first serious run-in with ,the lawoccurred in the summer of 1938, whenshe was charged with child abandonmentover the case of a baby found abandonedin Meath shortly after Mamie had beenseen in the area. In fact. with contraception and abortion both being outlawed andthere not even being any regulated adoption service, cases of child abandonmentand infanticide were frequent.As part of the investigation. the garden ofthe nursing home was dug up and theremains of a foetus were discovered, Thisbecame the source of one of the enduringurban myths about Nurse Cadden: thatthere were the bodies of more than a dozen dead babies buried in her garden. In factthis was the only set of remains ever foundthere. Margaret Berkery had been admittedto the nursing home in February 1938 suffering from severe bleeding after she triedto terminate her pregnancy by drinkingliquid ergot [a potentially poisonous fungus]. The stillbirth was buried in thegarden. Kavanagh describes how "Mamiewas totally unrepentant: 'You cannot saythat was a child,' she said when confrontedby the gardaf with the find, 'it was afoetus' ."

The trial on the child abandonmentcharges (and two additional charges ofhaving demanded money under false pretences for arranging adoptions) draggedon for months. When Mamie was foundguilty in May 1939, she was sentenced toone year's hard labour. Moreover, shewas struck off the registry of midwivesand was left financially ruined by herlegal fees. When she was released fromprison in 1940, she was in desperatestraits but was determined to rebuild herlife. She began providing various medical

procedures, including cures for c o n s t i ~ pation and dandruff. but especially illegal abortions. There were a lot of illegalabortions being carried out in Dublin atthis time. even more because of the travelrestrictions introduced during World WarII which limited the ability of women totravel to England.At the same time, with its new Constitution in force, the Irish bourgeoisiereally had the wind in its sails and carried out a concerted crackdown on abortion services. Kavanagh explains that:"The early I 940s was to see the greatestonslaught against abortion in Irelandsince the foundation of the state. eventshardly unconnected with the start of

National ArchivesCourageous nurse Mamie Cadden in1938 at time of first jailing.the episcopate of John Charles McQuaidwhich had commenced in 1940. He was adeeply conservative prelate especially inmatters relating to women's fertility andsexuality. Abortion was to be expungedfrom the face of Catholic Ireland:'

Many backstreet abortionists were prosecuted in this campaign. Cadden was aparticularly significant figure and targetfor the new rulers of Ireland because. asKavanagh notes:

"She was startlingly different too from[the abortionist] Dr James Ashe. Whereashe was on the top of the social scale withDublin's upper echelons in his client list,Mary Anne Cadden was truly the abortionist to the new independent Irelandto de Valera's Ireland. Since her timerunning the nursing-home in Rathminesher patients haa included the wives offarmers. gardaf and shopkeepers-in factthe emerging Irish middle- and lowermiddle class."Nurse Cadden was arrested in 1944 andcharged with "intent to procure the miscarriage" of Ellen Thompson, She wasagain found guilty and in April 1945 sentenced to five years imprisonment.

After completing her second prisonsentence in 1950, Nurse Cadden againset up a medical practice providing abortions and other services. Now, followingthe anti-abortion crackdown of the 1940s,she was Ireland's only well-known abortionist. Approaching 60, her health wasfailing and she operated in only a singleroom flat where she could see no morethan a few clients a week. Over the nextseveral years, two of her clients died of anair embolism during an abortion. Legalabortion in a hospital or clinic is a quitesafe and routine medical procedure, butthe chance of complications (includingWORKERS VANGUARD

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deadly emboli,ms) is much higher in abackstreet abortion. even when the abortionist is. like Nurse Cadden. a trainedand conscientious medical professional.After the second of these tragic incidents.the death of Helen O'Reilly in 1956.Nurse Cadden was arrested. Indicative ofthe changed political climate. she wascharged with the murder of O'Reillyrather than merely prO\iding an abortion.As the arresting officer. SuperintendentGeorge Lawlor. said: "This is a breakingof minds. and r m going to break Cadden:'The case was based on circumstantialevidence and contradictory testimonies.but the state was determined to find Cadden guilty. She was faced with the fullforce of the state, the church and the sinister and reactionary Knights of Columbanus. Noting that "e\'ery day during thetrial two priests attended and sat in thepublic gallery facing the jury:' Kavanaghcaptures what likelihood Cadden had ofa fair trial:

"The enormou, power of the pries!;' inthe Ireland of the time can only be imagined now in a more secular age but backthen only the very brave or t h ~ very foolhardy \v(JlIld go :Igainst the priests. Suchgreat and once powerful men as )\'oelBrowne. the Minister of Health or CharlesStewart Parnell. the leader of the IrishParty. were to realise this to their cOsl. ...It w ~ ) u l d have taken a verY brave Catholic indeed in 1956 to ,i t front of twopriests for ten days and not come up witha verdict that would have satisfied them:'

Nurse Cadden was duly found guilty andthe judge gleefully sentenced her to death.When the sentence was pronounced andthe judge intoned: "and may the Lordhave mercy upon your soul," she snappedback: 'Well. I am not a Catholic. Takethat now." She was a very brave woman.As a small diversion: Noel Brownewas mentioned in that quote from Kavanagh. In the late 1940s, as Minister forHealth, Noel Browne attempted to introduce a limited free health programme forchildren and pregnant women, the Motherand Child Scheme. This provoked outrage from the bishops and the Catholicmedical establishment. As Browne describes in his autobiography, Against theTide, Archbishop McQuaid "consideredthe health scheme an encroachment bythe state on the church's role, which heconsidered to be, among much else. 'todetermine and to control the social attitudes of the family in the Republic, especially in the delicate matters of maternityand sexuality'." The church crushed thescheme and Browne was hounded out ofthe government. Labour Party leader andmember of the Knights of ColumbanusWilliam Norton sided with the churchagainst Noel Browne and the Mother andChild Scheme.

Cadden's death sentence was commuted. but she was ruled insane and livedout her remaining days in the CentralCriminal Lunatic Asylum in Dundrum.It's not clear why she was ruled insane.but it is revealing that the East Coast AreaHealth Board still refuses to release herfile for the reason that "the release ofthese records would not respect the rightsto privacy of third parties." Cadden wasin a position to know the intimate detailsof the hypocrisy of the clericalist state:

--- ---

Right: 1992 massprotest in Dublinsupportingteenager's rightto travel to Britainfor an abortion,known as theX Case. Below:Recent protest byAlliance for Choiceoutside the Dail(parliament).

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she had information on priests, bishops,garda! and no doubt politicians too. Butas a "criminal lunatic" her accusationscould be dismissed. Like all inmates ofthe Dundrum asylum she was buried in acommon grave when she died in 1959.Kavanagh eloquently sums up Cadden's life and work, "Perhaps she was themo"t hated woman of twentieth-centuryIreland by those who deplored her profession and her ethics. But what of the thousand plus women who ca me to her in desperation when all else had failed them?How many mothers' lives did she save?Which of those women has ever condemned her? How many are living todaybecause of her intervention')" Indeed,Mamie Cadden provided a valuable service to thousands of women. While hermotivations remain obscure (aside fromearning a living-her services were notfree), we Marxists honour her as a realfighter against the church and the consolidation of the clericalist state.Class Society and theOppression of Women

In the 19th century, Karl Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels explained thatwomen'S oppression is rooted in the classsystem. The class system today, capitalism, is based on the private ownership ofproductive property by the capitalists andtheir exploitation of the working class. Itis important for the capitalists that theirprivate property be passed on to their"correct" heirs and therefore that womenbe kept sexually monogamous. This. andthe need to raise the new generation ofwage slaves. is the basis of the family sys-

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Ireland ...(continued from page 7)

As mentioned earlier. abortion waslegalised in Britain in 1967-a key gainfor women. Since 1967 there have beennumerous attempts to restrict and attackthis legislation. including most recentlya campaign to restrict abortions to 20weeks. Any restrictions on late-term abortions will disproportionately affect youngwomen and Irish women. who tend tohave later abortions because of the difficulty in getting money together and arranging travel. We and our comrades inthe Spartacist League/Britain oppose allrestrictions on abortion rights and fightfor free abortion on demand.While many of the attacks on the 1967Abortion Act in Britain have. so far. beenseen off [rejected). they show an important feature of capitalism: gains forwomen and the oppressed can be wonunder capitalism but the bourgeoisie constantly attempts to reverse them. Everystruggle for democratic rights. if it is to 'lead to the liberation of the working classand oppressed. must be infused with a'nunderstanding of the need to bring downthe entire system of capitalist class rule.Our task is to build the revolutionary

W. E. Debenhamworkers party that is so urgently neededto lead the working class to powerthrough socialist revolution.Class Struggle andWomen's Rights

The period when abortion was legalised in Britain was a different historicalperiod from today. marked by socialstruggles inspir ed by the civi I rightsmovement in the U.S. and also aimedagainst the U.S.'s long. losing VietnamWar. In the midst of the Cold Waragainst the Soviet Union, a generationwas inspired by the heroic battles of theNorth Vietnamese and guerrilla leaderslike Fidel Castro and Che Guevara inCuba, wh6 successfully challenged theU.S. empire. These events affected Ireland too: for example, the civil rightsmovement in America was the directinspiration for the Northern Ireland CivilRights Association.These social struggles were the basisfor winning a wide range of social gains.In Southern Ireland, the "special position" of the church was removed fromthe Constitution following a 1972 referendum. Women got increased access toboth the pill and the coil. The Catholicchurch was alarmed at these marks ofprogress and liberalism and the Knightsof Columbanus started organising a backlash, leading to the anti-abortion referendum held in 1983 which brought aboutthe Eighth Amendment [which makesabortion unconstitutional].

The Spartacist group in Ireland wasforged during the struggle for abortionrights in the late 1980s and early 1990s.In 1989 the [Dublin] Trinity StudentUnion published a phone number fromwhich abortion infonnation could be obtained. The anti-abortion bigots of SPUC8

[Society for the Protection of UnbornChildren] targeted and hounded anyonethey deemed to be responsible, even goingso far as to try to get the Student Unionleaders jailed. The students were defended by Senior Counsel. Labour SenatorMary Robinson. We intervened in thesestruggles' to fight for free abortion ondemand and sought to show how the fightfor women's liberation must be linked tothe overthrow of capitalism.In November 1990 Mary Robinsonstood for President and was supportednot just by the '"government in opposition"-Labour and Fine Gael-but byone of the government parties itself. thePDs [Progressive Democrats]. Despitebeing involved in the defence of the Trinity students. Robinson declared duringher election campaign that she had '"donemore practical work than any other Irishpolitician to stop Irish women going forabortions" and admitted that she herselfwas against abortion. Socialist Worker[Irish Cliffite newspaper] and the Militant (now the Socialist Party [in Ireland])told workers and fighters for women'srights that they should vote for Robinsondespite the fact that she was supported bysome bourgeois parties and was againstabortion. They were sowing illusions thatsomehow having a liberal facade was

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Friedrich Engels' 1884 Origin of theFamily, Private Property, and theState pointed to basis of women'soppression in development offamily system and private property.going to change the character of theclericalist Irish state.In 1992 the courts moved to bar a14-year-old from travelling to Britain foran abortion in what became known asthe X Case. Huge protests on the streetsassured that the young woman was allowed to travel to Britain for an abortion.It was significant that the state \vasforced to make the concession that abortion could be permitted on the groundsof risk of suicide. It's also important tonote this was achieved through socialstruggle. There were expectations at thetime that there would be some advancement of abortion rights, but more than adecade later women still can not getlegal abortions in Southern Ireland. Eversince the X Case. anti-abortion bigotshave sought to overturn even this modestadvance and Youth Defence is still on thestreets most Saturdays with their macabre placards. Youth Defence is an antiabortion group harbouring a fascist corewho have physically attacked workersdemonstrations and fighters for abortionrights. They should be swept off thestreets by workers and fighters againstwomen's oppression.Tribune of the People

The most prominent leader of the"pro-choice" movement today is TrinityCollege academic. barrister and LabourParty politician Ivana Bacik. She was aleader of Trinity Student Union at thetime of the SPUC campaign againstabortion information in 1989-90 and seesherself as following in the footsteps ofMary Robinson. Bacik wrote a book lastyear entitled Kicking and Screaming:Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century(O'Brien Press, 2004), which describesthe various legal reforms which have

Spartacist League joined 2,000 others in defense of Washington,abortion cl inics against Operation Rescue bigots, January 1992.transformed Ireland into what she calls"a much more progressive and diversesociety. a symbol of economic successfor all small states in Europe." The highpoint of her conclusion on reproductiverights is that:

"Pending the removal of Article 40.3.3[added by the Eighth Amendment] byreferendum. limited legislation should beintroduced providing fo r the conditionsunder which a pregnancy may be terminated, that is. where its continuanccposes a threat to the life of a pregnantwoman-the long overdue legislationunder the X case test. This measurewould at least address the needs ofwomen in the most desperate circumstances. In the longer term. more fundamental. broader change is necessary toensure the real needs of women in Ireland are met."Bacik sets as her baseline that it shouldn'tbe legal for women to be left to die whileblithely postponing women's "real needs"to "the longer term."

In Bacik's whole book on the legal insand outs of the Irish Constitution, youwon't find one straightforward call forabortion rights-a clear capitulation tothe Labour Party. Moreover. treatingabortion as just a legal issue denies thatwomen's oppression is intrinsic to Irishcapitalist society. Even if through somemighty struggle we \von the right tofree abortion on demand. who wouldperform the operations? Until hospitalsare liberated from the church. doctorswill be threatened with being struck off[which effectively bars them from practicing] (as they constantly are today)even if abortion were legal. Since NurseCadden's time to today. the church. thestate and the Medical Council have colluded to restrict women's control overtheir own fertility and sexuality.In 2004. Bacik was a Labour Party

candidate for the EU [European Union]parliament. but Labour, tied as they areto the bourgeoisie and Catholic church,are opposed to waging a campaign forabortion rights. When Labour's delegateconference in 2001 voted by a sing levote for the "right to choose," this wasoverturned by the national executive.Today, Labour says it is in favour of legislation permitting abortion in only verylimited circumstances: risk of suicide."significant injury" to the woman. or ifthe foetus has no chance of being bornalive. Labour is a bourgeois workers party. which has a working-class base buta thoroughly pro-capitalist leadership.Along with the t r a d e ~ u n i o n bureaucracy.Labour is the main agency within theworking class pushing class collaboration. i.e . tying the working class to theirexploiters. This can be seen through theirperennial policy of entering governmental blocs with one or another capitalistparty, their pushing of subsequent '"socialpartnership" deals as well as their refusalto fight for abortion rights and indeedrights for Travellers [indigenous nomadicpeople] or any section of the oppressed.What is needed is to build a party likeLenin and Trotsky's Bolshevik Party inRussia that will provide the politicalleadershi p for the worki ng class to takepower in its own name. This means aparty which stands as a tribune of all theoppressed and fights to mobilise theworking class to champion the rights ofwomen, Travellers and immigrants. Thebourgeoisie tries to divide and rule. butthe fact is that the oppression of all thesegroups is rooted in the capitalist system.The working class can liberate all humanity, if it is led by a party that fightsfor all the oppressed. For women's liberation through socialist revolution!.--- SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S.--Local Directory and Public Offices

Web site: www.icl-fi.org E-mail address:vanguard@tiac.netNational Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860BostonBox 390840, Central Sta.Cambridge, MA 02139(617) 666-9453bostonsyc@yahoo.comChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, lL 60680(312) 563-0441chicagospartacist@sbcglobal.netPublic Office:Sat. 2-5 p.m.222 S. Morgan(Buzzer 23)

Los AngelesBox 29574, Los Feliz Sta.Los Angeles, CA 90029(213) 380-8239slsycla@sbcglobal.netPublic Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m.3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215New YorkBox 3381, Church St. Sta.New York, NY 10008(212) 267-1025nysl@compuserve.comPublic Office:Sat. 1-4 p.m.299 Broadway, Suite 318

OaklandBox 29497Oakland, CA 94604(510) 839-0851slbayarea@sbcglobal.netPublic Office:Sat. 1-5 p.m.1634 Telegraph3rd FloorSan FranciscoBox 77494San Francisco, CA 94107slbayarea@sbcglobal. net

TROTsmST LEAGUE OF CANAOA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE OU CANADATorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138spartcan@on.aibn.com

VancouverBox 2717, Main P.O.Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2(604) 687-0353tllt@look.caWORKERS VANGUARD

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War Crimes...(continlled from page 1)

Treawrv Secretary John Snow or eyenDonald 'Rumsfeld: the defense secretary.It is President Bush himself:'Compounding Bush's current problemsare former H o u ~ e majority leader TomDelay's indictment for financial shenanigans and investigations into Senatemajority leader Bill Frist. who is suspected of simi lar transgressio ns. TheRepublicans are concerned that. given theoccupation's unpopularity. their hold onthe Senate and House may be in dangerin next year's Congressional elections.Republicans as well as Democrats arecalling for greater restrictions on the FB I'sability to procure and indefinitely retainbusiness and personal records in "terrorism" investigations without a judge'sapproval. The Republicans rebelled againstBush as the Senate voted unanimously fora measure outlawing the torture of prisoners. This has not stopped Cheney fromdoggedly pursuing an official waiver forthe CIA on the use of torture. With theEuropean Union now investigating reportsof secret CIA prisons in Poland and Romania-part of a worldwide prison complexfor some of the thousands of "terror" suspects "disappeared" by U.S. imperialismin the last four years-the U.S. rulers haveever more reason to WOlTy that their pretensions to pursuing democracy abroad arebeing shredded.Fearing that the weakness of the Bushregime might soften its resolve to stackthe Supreme Court with anti-abortion,anti-civil-rights zealots. the religious rightrose up to quash the candidacy of HarrietMiers. prompting Bush to select a candidate from the Catholic right, SamuelAlito, whose record of racist. sociallyreactionary and pro-big-business courtdecisions is unambiguous. This comes afterthe installation of the arch-reactionaryJohn Roberts as Chief Justice. The conservative core of the party, answering to itswealthy constituents, is taking an ax toMedicaid and Medicare while holdingdear the tax cuts for the rich. Those Republicans who are dependent on more plebeian elements for their re-election areseeking to persuade the oil companies,which are presently gouging the population and recording enormous profits, toprovide a little free natural gas, perhapsduring the holidays, for the "poor people."While the abandonment of New

4#>1>'-.

. -.

LauraSpartacist-initiated contingent at March 2003 antiwar rally in New York City.Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina starkly exposed the raw reality ofrace and class in capitalist America, theadministration's abysmal efforts in thewake of Rita and Wilma illustrated thatthere's not much that anyone can expectfrom government in today's Americanot organized evacuation from disasternor access to necessities like water andgasoline. One can. however. expect thatHalliburton will be in charge of any givenrecovery effort. Even in brother Jeb'sFlorida, thousands of the victims of previ-0us hurricanes live on giant, featurelessparking lots in sardine can-like mobilehomes waiting for the next storm to peelback the tin roofs.All this while ordinary working peopleare being hammered by draconian cuts inhealth benefits and the disappearance ofpensions. While bankruptcy procedureshave been sharply curtailed for those whohave next to nothing, the same proceduresare used by the bosses to slash paychecksand benefit packages of their unionizedworkers. I f the Delphi auto parts manufacturer succeeds in its attempt to usethe bankruptcy courts to cut union wagesby 63 percent, this would further encourage employers to transform the current assault on workers into a wage- andbenefit-slashing Armageddon.U.S. workers are prone to see them-

selves not as members of the workingclass, with interests that are counterposedto the capitalists, but as part of a "middleclass" that lies somewhere between abjectpoverty and unimaginable wealth. Notso America's rulers, who know there isa working class from whose exploitation they derive their profits, and whoseek to increase profits through speed-up,layoffs and wage cuts.There are a number of historical sourcesfor the political backwardness of the u.s.working class. that is, for its inability torecognize its class identity in oppositionto the capitalist class. The primary andday-to-day barrier to the forging of aworking-class party is the special oppression of black people as a race-color caste.If the good industrial job has been slaughtered, it is to no small degree black workers who are throw,n into unemploymentand the grinding poverty of the ghetto. Ifeducation and health care are going downthe drain for most everyone, it's been thisway in the ghettos for decades. What KarlMarx said almost 150 years ago is everybit as true today: "labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in theblack it is branded."For Working-ClassIndependence!

Spartacus Youth Club ClassesNormally, the stark incompetence ofthe White House and pervasive social discontents would suggest that the party inpower would do well to pack the chinaand look for deals on moving vans whilethe opposition, in this case the Demo

crats, might begin investigating the D.C.housing market. A recent Pew ResearchCenter survey, however, revealed thatDemocratic leaders in Congress had adismal 32 percent approval rating whileBush's rating has dropped below 40 percent. Both the excessively venerable WaIter Cronkite and New York Times columnist Bob Herbert have recently suggestedin the Times that the Democrats should atleast appear to articulate differences withthe RepUblicans.

BAY AREAWomen's OppreSSion, theFamily, and Capitalism: AMarxist Perspective on How toFight fo r Women's LiberationFriday, November 18, 5 p.m.San Francisco State UniversityCesar Chavez Student Center, Rm. T-153Information and readings: (510) 8390851or e-mail: sycbayarea@sbcglobal.net

CHICAGOThe Bolshevik Revolution: Howthe Working Class Took PowerTuesday, November 29, 7 p.m.

University of ChicagoCobb Hall, Room 104, 5811 S. Ellis Ave.Information and readings: (312) 563-0441or e-mail: chicagospartacist@sbcglobal.net-. .LOS ANGELES' ..Women's Oppressionand the FamilySaturday, December 3, 2 p.m.

3806 Beverly Blvd" Room 215(Beverly/Vermont Red Line Station)Information and readings: (213) 380-8239or e-mail: slsycla@sbcglobal.netNEW YORK

The State and RevolutionWednesday, November 16, 7 p.m.Columbia University

Hamilton Hall, Room 703Information and readings: (212) 267-1025or e-mail: nysl@compuserve.com

11 NOVEMBER 2005

BOSTONThe Russian Revolutionof 1917: How the WorkingClass Took PowerThursday, November 17, 7 p.m.Boston UniversityGeoroe Sherman Union, Room 322775 Commonwealth Avenue(BU Central stop on Green Line B)

Information and readings: (617) 666-9453or e-mail: bostonsyc@yahoo.comTORONTO

The Struggle fo r WorkingClass Leadership Today:Break with thePro-Imperialist NDP!Build a Revolutionary Party!Wednesday, November 16, 6:30 p.m.

U of T, Sydney Smith, Room 2128100 St. George StreetInformation and readings: (416) 593-4138or e-mail: spartcan@on.aibn.com. ._ VANCOUVERThe Russian Revolution: Howthe Working Class Took PowerThursday, November 24, 5 p.m.UBC, Student Union Building, Rm. ~ 1 ~ Information and readings: (604) 687-0353or e-mail: tllt@look.ca

Visit the te l Web Site:www.ic/-fi.org

For decades, it was the norm that theDemocratic Party, as the capitalist partythat sought the votes of working people,at least pretended to address their concerns, promising a less savage and heartless social contract. This was the legacy ofthe 1930s New Deal under Franklin D.Roosevelt, which proposed a set of palliative reforms in an attempt to deflect anupsurge of class struggle. Instead of leading to the formation of a workers party,the titanic labor battles of the time werechanneled by the Stalinist CommunistParty and other union misleaders intosupport for Roosevelt's Democratic Party.Since that time. it has been primarilythrough the instrument of the DemocraticParty that the trade-union officialdom haschained the workers to the capitalists andtheir state.During Biil Clinton's two terms aspresident, he continued the work of hisRepublican predecessors in taking an axto many of the social programs set upunder the New Deal. Following years of

rollback of the gains of the civil rightsmovement of the 1950s and '60s, it wasleft to this consummate hustler to convince black people that he felt their painas he pushed the death penalty and signedthe death warrant for welfare. And it wasduring his regime that the criminal speculation and Ponzi scheme "investments"by the dot-com industries attracted themonies available to the giant pensioninstitutions with the result that, when thebubble burst. the pensions of many working people became so many worthlessscraps of paper.The Democratic Party has the sameclass interests as the Republicans. TheDemocrats ma'y still wrap their programdifferently to appeal to their voters. forexample over social issues such as abortion rights. Whereas the Republicans areopen in their contempt for labor andblacks, the Democrats continue to posture as "friends of labor," the better toposition themselves to contain outbreaksof class struggle. But given the low levelof class and social struggle, there issimply no current moti-vation for theDemocrats to offer up the N e ~ Deal rhetoric that some of their liberal ideologuesdemand. Furthermore, ruling-class politicians. Democrats included, will notlightly tamper with the imperial presidency. Nevertheless, bourgeois opposition to the Bush administration may welldeepen if, for example, the Iraq occupation gets further bogged down or thedomestic economy worsens.Any labor movement worth its saltwould use the travails of the WhiteHouse to mount a fightback against themassive assault on working people. Why,for example, given the attacks on healthbenefits and the declining number ofthose covered by any such insurance, arethe unions not fighting for some form ofnational health insurance? This directlyraises the question of labor's leadership.Marxists understand that the existingleadership of the trade unions is the representative of the capitalist order withinthe working class. Residing in the mostpowerful imperialist country on the planet, this labor bureaucracy not only concedes the "right" of the capitalist rulersto a profit but supports their aspirationto dominate their imperialist competitors. This is just as true of Andy Stern'sChange to Win Coalition as it is of JohnSweeney's AFL-CIO officialdom. Bothseek "partnership" with the Americancapitalists. The labor tops' class collaboration is exemplified by their "America First" protectionism, pitting theU.S. proletariat against its class brothersand sisters overseas, and their role aslieutenants of U.S. imperialism in subverting struggles of working people inthe semicolonial world.A primary symptom of the abject condition of the working class is the steep declinein union membership, to the point that currently less than 10 percent of the workforce in the private sector is organized. The-responsibility for that decline lies squarelywith the generations of the labor bureaucracy in the period following World War II,continued on page 10

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IFor Socialist Revolul;. iin Ihe Baslion Iof World Imperialism! 'Organizational Rules and Guidelinesof the Spartacist League/U.S.

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War Crimes...( continued from page 9)from the anti-Communist union tops of theMcCarthy era to the current lot, many ofwhose only experience with struggle hasbeen to pass the bar exam.The burning need for class struggleis inextricably linked to fighting for thepolitical independence of the proletariatfrom the capitalists' political parties andgovernment agencies. What is required isa new, class-struggle leadership of labor.The crucial task is to break labor from theDemocrats and to forge a revolutionaryworking-class party that shares no interest with the bosses but rather seeks theoverthrow of their system and the establishment of workers rule.For a SocialistPlanned Economy!

The counterrevolutionary destruction ofthe Soviet Union, a degenerated workersstate, in 1991-92 removed the one seriousobstacle to U.S. military dominance andencouraged the capitalist rulers everywhere to drive down workers' living standards and slash social benefits. No reformwon by U.S. workers in the class Battlesof the 1930s has been spared from theincreasing attacks of the profit-gorgedbosses, who perceive themselves as destined to rule a worldwide American empire. The USSR stood as a living examplethat the overturn of capifalist rule and the

France ...(continued from page 12)who is still widely hated by undocumentedimmigrants and by ghetto youth, whomhe liked to refer to as sauvageons (littlesavages). He introduced new laws enabling charges to be brought against anyonefound helping undocumented workers."h e harking back of the PS and PCF to: ospin and Chevenement's "neighborhood police" days is a deadly omen forimmigrants and youth. It was Jospin's copswho killed Habib Ould Mohamed in Toulouse in 1998, provoking a riot for threefull days in the Le Mirail neighborhood,which was quelled by a massive mobilization of the riot police, exactly as Sar-.kozy/de Villepin are doing now. Again, inApril 2000, a neighborhood patrol killedRyad Hamlaoui near Lille, provokinganother wave of unrest.The PCF issued a special statement(l'Humanite, 4 November) on Clichydemanding: "Place the police at the service of the whole nation, which meansdemocratization, training, neighborhoodresidency and adequate funds." LO's editorial on Clichy mentions immigration orracism only once, in order to warn thatSarkozy's antics will "encourage morerepressive attitudes among the police andracism among many of its elements." Asif putting a different top cop in charge andthrowing a few "bad apples" off the forceWOUld. create "good" French cops. Allthese reformists are trying to rehabilitatethe police in the eyes of oppressed youth,thus promoting deadly illusions in thebourgeois Republic. The police cannot bereformed to serve the population. Promoting the lie that they can be reformed iswhat distinguishes reformists from revolutionaries, Like the other armed bodiesof men that constitute the core of he state(prison guards, the army), their functionis to protect private ownership of themeans of production by the capitalists.The capitalist state has a legal monopoly onweapons in order to inaintain the capitalistsystem: the police are the guard dogs of thebOllrgeoisie, not "workers in uniform."Police, prison guards, out of the unions!PCF, LCR: Architectsof a New "Popular Front"

In its statement, the PCF speaks accusingly of Sarkozy: "The government hasshown that it is incapable of guaranteeingpublie o r d ~ r . " 1'he PS and PCF are usingthe current riots in order to refurbish theirmuch-tarnished credentials and presentthemselves as those Who are more capa-10

building of a collectivized, planned economy, even in the rather miserable circumstances of backward Russia, could provide all with a job, a place to live, basichealth care and a decent education, something that no capitalist society has achieved.This was the product of a successful workers revol ution-the October Revolution of '1917 led by the Bolshevik Party.Despite the subsequent degenerationof the workers state under the political rule of the parasitic Stalinist bureaucratic caste, the International Communist League defended the Soviet Unionagainst all attempts at capitalist counterrevolution, whether of imperialist or domestic origin. We fought for a workerspolitical revolution to oust the Stalinistbureaucracy, which daily undermined thegains of the October Revolution, andreplace it with the rule of workers s o v i ~ ets (councils). That is our program forthe remaining deformed workers statesChina, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba.The current" situation in the U.S. steelindustry is a clear example of how thecapitalist profit system differs from aplanned economy under workers rule.In 1980, some 400,000 workers wereemployed in U.S. steel plants and produced about one ton of steel per workerevery nine hours. Today, only 120,000workers are similarly employed and produce a ton of steel every two hours. Undercapitalism, which is geared toward maximizing the profits of the tiny class ofexploiters, this increased productivity has

fueled unemployment, the contraction ofwages and benefits and the savaging ofthe pensions of union retirees. Under asocialist planned economy, this transformation would be a good thing, shorteningthe workday while increasing the potential social product available to society as.. a whole. There is no reform that canbridge these counterposed social systems.The fight to forge the American revolutionary proletarian party requires theexposure and denunciation of those wholead the workers onto the path of reformof the murderous and anarchic imperialist order. This includes the likes of theInternational Socialist Organization andWorkers World Party, whose efforts center on pleading with the Democrats tobeat imperialism's sabers into the plowshares of jobs and social benefits. Mostrecently, they raised this appeal in leaguewith the anti-Semitic, anti-woman, problack-capitalism demagogue Louis Farrakhan, supporting (critically or not) hisreactionary "Millions More March" inWashington, D.C. last month. Attractingsupport from Bill Clinton and an array ofblack Democrats-as well as a handful of"progressive" union officials-that marchwas called to commemorate Farrakhan's1995 rally for "atonement," which blam{!dblack people for their own oppression.The groundwork for the current attackson the well-being of all was preparedwith a frontal assault on black people.The deindustrialization of the Northeastand Midwest has been especially devas-

AP

tating in this regard, since unionizedindustrial jobs were central to the fragileeconomic base of the segregated blackcommunities. Budget cuts slashed socialwelfare programs, capped by Clinton'sL996 "reform" all but eliminating welfare, and hit particularly hard at blackworkers in public services. In short, anything that could be characterized asaddressing the needs of the black population became a target. The loss of jobs wasaccompanied by skyrocketing incarceration of young black (and Latino) men,largely under the banner of the "war ondrugs." The intensification of state repression included a speedup on death row, campaigns for draconian mandatory sentencingand the construction of myriads of prisons.Black oppression, with its profoundand pervasive ideological effects, is fundamental to the American capitalist order.Obscuring the class divide, racism andwhite supremacy have served to bindwhite workers to their capitalist masterswith the illusion of a commonality ofinterest based on skin color. A proletarian revolutiomiry party simply cannotbe forged in the U.S. without linking thefight for black freedom to the fightagainst all exploitation and oppression. Itis necessary to recruit those who recognize the depravity of U.S. imperialism tobecome fighters for the forging of a multiracial working-class party-a U.S. section of a reforged Fourth International,which is the indispensable instrument forthe victory of socialist revolution.

Left: High school students expelled from schooJ for wearing headscarves in 2003. Right: Paris cops evictimpoverished African immigrants from living quarters in rundown bui lding in September. French proletariat must fightanti-immigrant, anti-Muslim reaction.ble of maintaining order in the largelyminority neighborhoods, and thus can berelied upon by the bourgeoisie to run thebourgeois state more smoothly.At bottom, the issue for the PCF is topush forward a new coalition, includingwith bourgeois parties like the Greens,Chevenementistes and Left Radicals, towin the 2007 elections. And the LigueCommuniste Revolutionnaire (LCR) aswell as LO (albeit more indirectly) arehelping them out. The "left," includil}gthe PCF and the pseudo-Trotskyists fromthe LCR and LO, are sharing a platformon November 8 in Paris with two littleChevenementiste bourgeois parties, MARSand, MRC, supposedly against the privatization of the EDF electricity monopoly.Thus; the LCR and LO promote i l l ~ s i o n s that youcan fight the capitalist onslaughtby uniting with capitalist parties!DO,V)fn With the R ~ c i s t Campaign "Against Terrorism"!In early October at Charles de GaulleAirport; baggage h a n d ~ e r s went on strikefor permanent hiring of casual workersand for'higher wages (following the pri. yutization of Air France under the previ-ous g,wernment of Jospin/Buffet). Thestrike was broken by the government,using Vigipirate and a supposed terroristthreat posed by luggage not being sorted.This shows very concretely what we havebeen saying for years: Vigipirate targetsall immigrants and minorities, as well asthe working class as a whole. It may bewielded again in coming weeks if a major

strike gets underway at the French railway.LO has from Day One refused tooppose Vigipirate and this goes hand inhand with its leading role in pushing the. racist campaign to expel young womenwearing the he.adscarf from school. InFrance, Islam is a religionof he oppressedand of the ghettos. The headscarf represents a reactionary social program thatconfines women to the home in a positionof servitude. The expUlsion of Muslimgirls from school can only reinforce theirisolation and oppression and fuel racismagainst all immigrants. We oppose tlleseracist campaigns and defend the girlswho wear headscarves against the bourgeois state. Instead of that, LO welcomedChirac's law banning the headscarf, aracist law that is part and parcel of thedaily. harassment against Muslims, andLO spokesman Arlette Laguiller evenlinked arms at a 6 March 2004 march ofwomen from immigrant neighborhoodswith Nicole Guedj (then-Secretary of Statefor prison construction from Chirac'sUMPparty) !. LO does mobilize on behal f of undocumented immigrants, just as many bourgeois liberals do who believe the FrenchRepublic should be able to integrate thoseimmigrants who often have been in Francefor years and have raised families in thiscountry. However, racism against ghettoyouth runs deep and goes to the core ofFrench capitalism, serving to profoundlydivide the working class. LO consciouslyevade,S the issue, talking only of "poorneighborhoods," avoiding the key ques-

tion of racial oppress'ion. What is neededis to forgti the revolutionary unity of theworking class, starting with workersmobilizations against racist police terror.We fight to build a multiethnic revolutionary workers party, committed to leading the proletariat of this country insocialist revolution.

UBOLCIIEVldN"17'_ ...- - 1!,8!_

PCF, LCR etc. magouillentpour un nouveaucc front populaire

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Subs'criptionDrive... "(continued. from page 4)Marcos was crawling with'some 35 evangelical Christian groups, and religiousreactionaries descended on the Universityof North Carolina-Chapel Hill when wewere there. Creationist cretins who wereout in force in Texas were incensed by ourdefense of science and evolution. One ofour most popular sub drive articles nationwide was "Hail Charles Darwin!" (WVNo. 854, 16 September). In Oregon, wewere warmly received by some for ourdefense of the right of gays to marry, as aninitiative against it was on the state ballot.Comrades reported that opposition tothe occupation of Iraq has clear