From The Archives -Occupy May Day 2012 Poster- Down Tools! Down Computers! Down Book!- All Out On May Day 2012

Click on the headline to link to an Occupy May Day 2012 poster

ON MAY DAY 2012- OUR FLAG IS STILL RED- HONOR THE HAYMARKET MARTYRS

THIS YEAR MARKS THE 126TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MAY DAY HAYMARKET FRAMEUPS. HONOR THE MEMORY OF AUGUST SPIES, ALBERT PARSONS, ADOLPH FISCHER, GEORGE ENGEL, LOUIS LINGG, MICHAEL SCHWAB, SAMUEL FIELDEN, OSCAR NEEBE- CLASS WAR VICTIMS OF AN EARLIER TIME. ALSO REMEMBER LUCY PARSONS WHO CARRIED ON THE STRUGGLE FOR VINDICATION AFTER HER HUSBAND’S EXECUTION. LET US REDOUBLE OUR EFFORTS TO FREE TODAY’S CLASS-WAR PRISONERS.

Politically, the writer of these lines is far distance from the politics of the Haymarket Martyrs. Their flag was the black flag of anarchism, the writer’s is the red flag of socialism. Notwithstanding those political differences, militants must stand under the old labor slogan that should underscore all labor defense work now as then- "An injury to one is an injury to all." Unfortunately that principle has been honored far more in the breech than in the observance by working class organizations.

Additionally, in the case of the Haymarket Martyrs today’s militants must stand in solidarity and learn about the way those militants bravely conducted themselves before bourgeois society in the face of the witch hunt against them and their frame-up in the courts of so-called bourgeois ‘justice’. Not for the first time, and most probably not for the last, militants were railroaded by the capitalist state for holding unpopular and/or dangerous (to the capitalists) views. Moreover, it is no accident that most of the Haymarket Martyrs were foreigners (mainly Germans) not fully appreciative of the niceties of 19th century American ‘justice’.

This same ‘justice’ system framed the heroic anarchist immigrant militants Sacco and Vanzetti in the early 20th century and countless other militants since then. As we struggle in the fight for full citizenship rights for immigrants today we should keep this in mind. Although, as we know, this American system of ‘justice’ will not forget the occasional uppity ‘native’ political dissenter either.

Most importantly, we must not forget that the Haymarket Martyrs at the time of their arrest were fighting for the establishment of a standardized eight hour work day. It is ironic that 126 years later this simple, rational, reasonable demand should, in effect, still be necessary to fight for by working people. All proportions taken into account since the 1880’s, a very high percentage of the working-class still does not have this luxury- given the necessity of two wage-earner families, two job wage-earners, dramatic increases in commute time in order to gain employment, unpaid but mandatory work time (note especially the Walmartization of labor time) and a high rate of partially or fully unemployed able-bodied workers.

To do justice to the memory of the Haymarket Martyrs this generation of labor militants must dust off another old labor slogan that used to be part of the transitional demands of the socialist movement- 30 hours work for 40 hours pay. TODAY THIS IS A REASONABLE DEMAND. Obviously such a demand cannot be implemented in isolation. To even propose such a demand means we need to build a workers party to fight for it. Moreover, and let us not have illusions about this; this capitalist state does not want to and will not grant such a demand. Therefore, we must fight for a workers government. That would be a true monument to the memory of the Haymarket Martyrs.

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now! -From The BBC-"The Radicalization Of Bradley Manning"- A Play

Click on the headline to link to a BBC entry on a play based on Bradley Manning's life.

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/stand-with-accused-wikileaks-whistle-blower-bradley-manning-during-the-april-24-26-hearing
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We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.

From the American Left History Blog, March 28, 2012

Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Fort Meade Maryland On Wednesday April 25th At 8:00 AM - A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner

Markin comment:

Last year I wrote a little entry in this space in order to motivate my reasons for standing in solidarity with a March 20th rally in support of Private Bradley Manning at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia where he was then being held. I have subsequently repeatedly used that entry, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner, as a I have tried to publicize his case in blogs and other Internet sources, at various rallies, and at marches, most recently at the Veterans For Peace Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade in South Boston on March 18th.

After I received information from the Bradley Manning Support Network about the latest efforts on Private Manning’s behalf scheduled for April 24th and 25th in Washington and Fort Meade respectively I decided that I would travel south to stand once again in proximate solidarity with Brother Manning at Fort Meade on April 25th. In that spirit I have updated, a little, that earlier entry to reflect the changed circumstances over the past year. As one would expect when the cause is still the same, Bradley Manning's freedom, unfortunately most of the entry is still in the same key. And will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Brother Manning until that great day.
*****
Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Fort Meade , Maryland on April 25th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led war in Iraq. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

Of course I will also be standing at the front gate of Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25th because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient for my standing at the front gate at Fort Meade on April 25th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an additional reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a citizen-soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this comment after all is about brother soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came”.

Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me get through the tough days inside. So on April 25th I will be just, once again, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, Brother Manning, are a true winter soldier. We were not able to do much about the course of the Iraq War (and little thus far on Afghanistan) but we can move might and main to save the one real hero of that whole mess.

Private Manning I hope that you will hear us and hear about our rally in your defense outside the gates. Better yet, everybody who reads this piece join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to high heaven against this gross injustice-Free Private Bradley Manning Now!


An injury to one is an injury to all, ANTI-IMPERIALISM, anti-militarism, frees all class-war prisoners, free Bradley manning, PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE

From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-For International Labor Solidarity Action!-New Zealand: Auckland Port Bosses Wage War on Union Dock Workers

Click on the headline to link to the International Communist League website.

Workers Vanguard No. 999
30 March 2012

New Zealand: Auckland Port Bosses Wage War on Union Dock Workers

No Reliance on the Capitalist Courts!

For International Labor Solidarity Action!

The following article was written by the Spartacist League of Australia.

MARCH 26—For more than six months, Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) Local 13 has been engaged in a battle with the union-busting Ports of Auckland Limited (POAL), which is dead set on casualising the workforce on the docks of New Zealand’s largest container port. This showdown is part of an offensive by shipping bosses and capitalist governments worldwide to break dockers unions. Ripple effects from the outcome are sure to be felt all around this island nation, which is highly dependent on shipping, across the Tasman Sea in Australia and beyond. At stake is the very existence of MUNZ—historically one of the most powerful and militant unions in New Zealand, with a membership that includes a sizable number of Maori, the brutally oppressed indigenous population.

Auckland port bosses have decreed that if workers want to keep their jobs they must accept an end to regular shifts and concede complete flexibility in rostering (scheduling). In response to a raft of such ultimatums issued by POAL especially since the expiration of the Local 13 collective agreement in September, the union called a series of short strikes. Fed up with management’s intransigence, MUNZ workers downed tools on February 24 for three weeks and began to picket the port. Port traffic dried up to a trickle. On March 7, the port declared that 292 workers, including 235 striking MUNZ members, would be sacked and their jobs outsourced to three stevedoring companies. In response, unionists and others across the country and internationally—themselves suffering the ravages of the capitalist economic crisis—have rallied to the defence of the embattled MUNZ workers.

A March 10 rally in Auckland organised by MUNZ and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) drew thousands of dockworkers and their backers, including dockers from Lyttelton and Wellington, as well as nurses, firefighters and manufacturing workers. A contingent was fielded by the Meat Workers Union, which is itself fighting a union-busting drive by beef and lamb processor AFFCO. Joining the rally from overseas were a Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) contingent, Australian Electrical Trades Union workers and members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in the U.S. Spartacist League of Australia supporters in attendance reported a palpable desire among workers at the demo and on the picket line to strike back against these anti-union attacks. In the middle of the rally, there was great applause after 50 Maori union militants spanning generations commenced a haka—a traditional war dance meant to overawe and terrify the foe.

Amid the outpouring of support for Local 13 wharfies (longshoremen), on March 21 POAL agreed to temporarily halt contracting out jobs for four weeks and resume negotiations with MUNZ. But this was a ruse. The very next day, as MUNZ members were preparing to return to work, a POAL statement declared that the port would continue to employ contract stevedores—i.e., scabs—for the next two weeks. POAL’s plan is to then indefinitely lock out the workforce with, in the words of POAL chairman Richard Pearson, the aim of “maintaining an existing right to move to a competitive stevedoring system.” This provocation was followed on March 23 by Pearson’s violence-baiting picketers for “intimidation and threats of physical violence” against the scabs who are doing his dirty work.

If the POAL bosses get their way, conditions at the Auckland port will match those at the notoriously hazardous, privately owned Port of Tauranga, a POAL rival located at Mount Maunganui on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Management at Tauranga has succeeded in fragmenting the workforce into competing units employed by several stevedoring companies. Two of these outfits set up company unions to better control workers and keep out MUNZ and the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU). Workers at the different companies are played off against one another, driving down wages far below Auckland levels. Work is heavily casualised, with high turnover, and already dangerous working conditions are getting worse. In less than two years, three workers have been killed on the job. Workers say they hold back from reporting frequent accidents and injuries for fear of being blacklisted.

This union-busting assault can be turned back. The strength of the proletariat lies in its numbers, organisation, discipline and, above all, in the fact that through its labour it uniquely makes the wheels of profit turn in capitalist society. The union has found plenty of allies, both domestically and internationally. But union power has been kept in check by a Labour Party-loyal leadership whose overwhelming fealty is to New Zealand capitalism. POAL is owned by Auckland Council Investments Limited, the investment arm of the city council, which in turn is presided over by Labour Party mayor Len Brown.

A February 3 MUNZ and NZCTU “Port of Auckland Dispute Fact Sheet” declares that “union members are committed to the success of the company, and to building on the performance improvements already achieved.” Such class-collaborationist rot pushes the lie that there can be a partnership between the exploited and their exploiters. In negotiations, the union has agreed to givebacks amid the port’s drive for more “flexibility.” Even under the previous agreement, 20 percent of workers are casual, with no guarantee of work, while 27 percent can count on only 24 hours a week and the entire workforce can be rostered to work any shift, night and day, seven days a week. Predictably, POAL’s response to the givebacks and the grovelling has been to demand more of the same.

The situation cries out for a class-struggle fight, up to and including a national port strike. In response to the bosses’ divide-and-rule schemes, there needs to be a struggle to organise the unorganised—beginning with Tauranga—and fight for uniform wages and conditions at the highest level on an industry-wide basis. Victory to the Auckland dockworkers!

No Reliance on the Capitalist Courts!

Dockworkers elsewhere in New Zealand have been eager to aid their class brothers and sisters in Auckland. Union workers at Wellington and RMTU members at Tauranga refused to handle ships loaded by scabs in Auckland until they were ordered to do so by New Zealand’s Employment Court. Similarly, port workers at Lyttelton announced that they would not service a scab-loaded ship. But while that ship was at sea, the court at Christchurch ruled that it must be worked as usual, and it was unloaded when it called. In each case, the union tops bowed to injunctions issued by the bosses’ courts. Meanwhile, MUNZ president Garry Parsloe has treacherously sown illusions in the very same Employment Court as a tool in the union’s fight against POAL.

Any reliance on the capitalist courts can only disarm and derail workers struggle. The courts, including the arbitration courts, and cops are core components of the capitalist state, which exists to defend the interests of the class enemy. Union struggles that get tied up in court die there.

One need look no further than what happened with the Australian MUA’s fight against the union-busting Patrick Stevedores outfit in 1998. With the backing of the Liberal/National Coalition government, Patrick sacked its entire unionised workforce, sparking a massive show of union power. We wrote at the time that a solid nationwide strike shutting down the ports was necessary (“Smash Bosses’ Union-Busting Offensive in Australia!” WV No. 689, 24 April 1998). But the union tops demobilised labour action, counterposing faith in the courts and the election of a Labor government. The Australian High Court eventually ruled against Patrick’s termination of the whole workforce. But this didn’t stop Patrick from getting rid of hundreds of MUA members and blacklisting others.

New Zealand Labour Party leader David Shearer joined the March 10 rally in Auckland, his posture as a friend of the wharfies made easier by the fact that Labour is currently in opposition. There should be no illusions that the Labour Party represents the workers’ class interests. Labour is a bourgeois workers party, based on trade unions but with a leadership every bit as committed to preserving production for private profit as the National Party, the Greens and other capitalist parties. When in power, Labour directly administers the government on behalf of the capitalist exploiters. Class-conscious workers will not forget the Lange Labour government and its Thatcher-like Finance Minister Roger Douglas, who in the 1980s carried out union-busting privatisations the length and breadth of the country, savagely destroying jobs and living conditions.

In Auckland, MUNZ leaders have repeatedly made appeals to Labour mayor Brown and turned to him to end the lockout, with Parsloe declaring, “Governance at the Ports of Auckland is out of control. It’s time for the mayor and council to step in and sack this board, and replace them with a group who are willing to run this important asset properly” (New Zealand Herald, 22 March). The role of the mayor and other Labour Party politicians is to subordinate workers to the capitalists and their state. As one sign carried at the March 10 MUNZ rally expressed: “Len Brown Is a Scab.”

However much the trade-union bureaucrats might pretend that “Ports of Auckland belongs to the people of Auckland and should remain a public asset that benefits all of us,” the reality is that POAL is a for-profit company owned by the Auckland Council and managed “at arm’s length.” Overseen by Brown, the council, a local capitalist government, takes no second seat to any private facility in its rapacity. Having raked in almost $25 million in after-tax profit from the port last year, the council has projected doubling POAL’s current return on equity from around 6 percent to 12 percent in the next five years. To achieve this largesse, POAL aims to savagely increase the exploitation of all port workers.

Workers of the World, Unite!

MUNZ has received statements of support from unions around the world, and more than 100 MUA and other unionists have rallied outside the New Zealand Consulate in Sydney in solidarity with the Auckland port workers. But what is crucial is international solidarity action—particularly refusal to handle scab cargo. Giving a taste of such solidarity, workers organised by the MUA in Sydney refused to unload the Maersk Brani container ship, which had been loaded by scab labour in Auckland, for 48 hours.

The working-class internationalism required to maintain determined solidarity actions overseas is undermined by the flag-waving patriotism symbolised by the New Zealand, Australian and U.S. flags carried at the March 10 rally. Such flag-waving imbibes the lie that workers have common interests with their “own” bourgeoisie. And in this case, the flags called to mind the ANZUS alliance under which the U.S. and Australian militaries slaughtered millions of workers and peasants in counterrevolutionary wars from Korea to Vietnam. In his speech at the rally, the MUA representative condemned outsourcing to “low-wage countries.” This is protectionist poison—a call for workers to adopt the interests of capitalists at home against their overseas competitors, specifically those of Pacific Rim countries with non-white populations.

Workers in Australia and New Zealand do have an internationalist labour tradition. Following World War II, as Dutch and Allied imperialists sought to move troops and supplies into Indonesia to shore up colonial control, Australian and New Zealand waterfront workers, alongside Indonesian, Chinese and Indian unionists, conducted “black bans” of Dutch shipping—a boycott known as the Black Armada—in support of the renewed Indonesian independence struggle. The maritime unions several times slapped bans on shipping war matériel intended for use against the Vietnamese Revolution, and in 1996 the MUA launched bans against Indonesian shipping in protest against the Suharto regime’s arrests of union activists there.

For a Revolutionary Workers Party!

In recent decades, the New Zealand working class, its organisations and allies have been weakened by relentless attacks carried out by the capitalist rulers, including under Labour. Now with POAL targeting MUNZ, the bosses throughout the country smell blood, aiming to escalate attacks against the proletariat and the oppressed as they drive to remove any obstacle to their unbridled pursuit of profit.

To transform the unions into instruments of class struggle on behalf of workers and all the victims of the capitalist rulers requires a leadership that begins from the understanding that the interests of labour and capital are irreconcilably counterposed. Such a leadership would oppose union-busting privatisations and fight for complete independence from the capitalist state and against illusions in arbitration.

A fighting labour movement could attract allies amongst broad sections of the population. Already on hearing of POAL’s lockout, 300 students rallied in Auckland in support of the wharfies, with 60 joining the workers’ picket line. In fighting unemployment and poverty and championing struggles against discrimination, the unions would draw support from youth, women and other oppressed sectors. No less important is the fight for full citizenship rights for all immigrants, particularly those from Asian and Pacific Island countries who are subjected to racist victimisation.

With its significant Maori membership, the MUNZ bridges a key fault line in New Zealand society. Like Australia, the history of New Zealand is marked by deep-going xenophobia and racism. However, unlike Australia, where the Aboriginal population suffered near-genocide through European settlement, New Zealand was officially founded on the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi signed by the British Crown and Maori chiefs, although Maori land was later stolen through the Maori Wars. Today, almost 15 percent of the population are Maori. They suffer a special oppression reflected in almost every aspect of society, including highly disproportionate levels of unemployment, homelessness and poverty, and are targeted for racist state abuse and terror. Nevertheless, similar to black people in the U.S., Maori form a critical component of the New Zealand proletariat. A key to the struggle to overthrow New Zealand capitalist rule will be the fight for full equality and justice for Maori people, including restoring stolen land. Future Maori communist leaders will be in the forefront of the revolutionary struggle.

The New Zealand proletariat needs a multiracial revolutionary party. Such a party will be built through a political struggle to split the working-class base of the Labour Party away from the pro-capitalist tops. Under the red banner of communist internationalism, such a party will unleash the power of the proletariat leading behind it all the diverse sectors and layers of society devastated by capitalism in the struggle to expropriate the profit-gouging rulers in a thoroughgoing socialist revolution. Those who labour must rule!

All Out In Solidarity With The Farmworkers-OB Stands in Solidarity with Coalition of Immokalee Workers In Quincy (Ma) Today April 12th At 12 Noon

Markin comment:

An injury to one is an injury to all applies with special force with the beleaguered farmworkers.


OB Stands in Solidarity with Coalition of Immokalee Workers

April 10th, 2012 · mhacker · Passed ResolutionsNo comments


The following proposal was passed at the General Assembly of Occupy Boston on April 7, 2012:


To continue the success of groundbreaking agreements with food retailers, Occupy Boston stands with the Decolonize to Liberate Working Group, in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in their quest for adoption of the Fair Food Program by “Giant Supermarkets” to eliminate modern day slavery in the daily violation of basic human rights, including physical and sexual abuse, and exposure to pesticides, in order to harvest the food on our plates. Occupy Boston will utilize its resources to spread the word and get people to Stop and Shop headquarters on April 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM to join in the action to demonstrate our commitment to human and worker rights.
***********
Upcoming Events:

•
Justice for Farmworkers! Picket, Delegation and Theater at Stop & Shop Headquarters, Thursday, April 12 at 12pm, Stop & Shop Corporate Office Headquarters, 1385 Hancock St., Quincy.

Just days before the Ahold (parent company of Stop & Shop) Shareholder Meeting, please join farmworkers and Fair Food allies in calling on Stop and Shop to join the Fair Food Program!

For decades, Florida’s farmworkers faced poverty wages and daily violations of their basic rights — including physical abuse, sexual harassment, and in the most extreme cases, modern-day slavery — in order to harvest the food on our plates. Today, however, a new day is dawning in the fields. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) — an internationally-recognized farmworker organization — has reached groundbreaking agreements with ten of the world’s leading food retailers, including McDonald’s, Subway and Trader Joe’s. Hailed by the New York Times as “possibly the most successful labor action in the US in twenty years,” the Fair Food Program establishes a worker-designed code of conduct in the fields and requires retailers to pay one more penny per pound for the tomatoes they buy to go directly to the workers who picked them—all of which is monitored and enforced by the independent Fair Food Standards Council. Supermarkets like Ahold leverage their high-volume purchasing power to demand the ever-lower prices that result in farmworker exploitation. By refusing to partner with the CIW, the steps the company has taken fall far short of the substantive, verifiable and enforceable standards that the situation requires, consumers expect, and others within the industry have embraced.

Join farmworkers and Fair Food advocates in demanding that Ahold uphold human rights and join the Fair Food Program! More information: www.ciw-online.org, Contact: elena@interfaithact.org; 650.678.9127

All Out In Solidarity With The Farmworkers-OB Stands in Solidarity with Coalition of Immokalee Workers In Quincy (Ma) On Thursday April 12th At 12 Noon

Markin comment:

An injury to one is an injury to all applies with special force with the beleaguered farmworkers.

OB Stands in Solidarity with Coalition of Immokalee Workers

April 10th, 2012 · mhacker · Passed ResolutionsNo comments


The following proposal was passed at the General Assembly of Occupy Boston on April 7, 2012:


To continue the success of groundbreaking agreements with food retailers, Occupy Boston stands with the Decolonize to Liberate Working Group, in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in their quest for adoption of the Fair Food Program by “Giant Supermarkets” to eliminate modern day slavery in the daily violation of basic human rights, including physical and sexual abuse, and exposure to pesticides, in order to harvest the food on our plates. Occupy Boston will utilize its resources to spread the word and get people to Stop and Shop headquarters on April 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM to join in the action to demonstrate our commitment to human and worker rights.
***********
Upcoming Events:

•
Justice for Farmworkers! Picket, Delegation and Theater at Stop & Shop Headquarters, Thursday, April 12 at 12pm, Stop & Shop Corporate Office Headquarters, 1385 Hancock St., Quincy.

Just days before the Ahold (parent company of Stop & Shop) Shareholder Meeting, please join farmworkers and Fair Food allies in calling on Stop and Shop to join the Fair Food Program!

For decades, Florida’s farmworkers faced poverty wages and daily violations of their basic rights — including physical abuse, sexual harassment, and in the most extreme cases, modern-day slavery — in order to harvest the food on our plates. Today, however, a new day is dawning in the fields. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) — an internationally-recognized farmworker organization — has reached groundbreaking agreements with ten of the world’s leading food retailers, including McDonald’s, Subway and Trader Joe’s. Hailed by the New York Times as “possibly the most successful labor action in the US in twenty years,” the Fair Food Program establishes a worker-designed code of conduct in the fields and requires retailers to pay one more penny per pound for the tomatoes they buy to go directly to the workers who picked them—all of which is monitored and enforced by the independent Fair Food Standards Council. Supermarkets like Ahold leverage their high-volume purchasing power to demand the ever-lower prices that result in farmworker exploitation. By refusing to partner with the CIW, the steps the company has taken fall far short of the substantive, verifiable and enforceable standards that the situation requires, consumers expect, and others within the industry have embraced.

Join farmworkers and Fair Food advocates in demanding that Ahold uphold human rights and join the Fair Food Program! More information: www.ciw-online.org, Contact: elena@interfaithact.org; 650.678.9127

All Out For The Verizon Workers In Boston- Thursday March 22 -5 PM: Meet at Dewey Sq.

Click on the headline to link to the IBEW Local 2222 website

March & Rally to Stop Corporate Greed

By Website Editor

Created 03/11/2012 - 1:47pm


Verizon has made tens of billions in profits and its top executives walked away with $283 million in the last four years. But when it comes to the 45,000 workers who make Verizon's success possible, suddenly the company cries broke.

Verizon has sent thousands of American jobs overseas, and wants to outsource even more jobs, gut pensions, charge current and retired employees thousands of dollars more for health benefits, and cut disability benefits for workers inured doing their jobs.

Join us for a national day of action in support of good jobs and the U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act.

Thursday, March 22

5PM: Meet at Dewey Sq.

5:30PM: March to Verizon Wireless

6:00PM: Rally at 185 Franklin St. in Boston

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source URL:
http://ibew2222.org/march_%2526amp%3B_rally_to_stop_corporate_greed

All Out For The Verizon Workers In Boston- Thursday March 22 -5 PM: Meet at Dewey Sq.

Click on the headline to link to the IBEW Local 2222 website

March & Rally to Stop Corporate Greed

By Website Editor

Created 03/11/2012 - 1:47pm


Verizon has made tens of billions in profits and its top executives walked away with $283 million in the last four years. But when it comes to the 45,000 workers who make Verizon's success possible, suddenly the company cries broke.

Verizon has sent thousands of American jobs overseas, and wants to outsource even more jobs, gut pensions, charge current and retired employees thousands of dollars more for health benefits, and cut disability benefits for workers inured doing their jobs.

Join us for a national day of action in support of good jobs and the U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act.

Thursday, March 22

5PM: Meet at Dewey Sq.

5:30PM: March to Verizon Wireless

6:00PM: Rally at 185 Franklin St. in Boston

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source URL:
http://ibew2222.org/march_%2526amp%3B_rally_to_stop_corporate_greed

From The Partisan Defense Committee Newsletter- January 31, 2012

We are currently winding up our 26l Annual Holiday Appeal activities. Fund raising took place in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Chicago, Toronto and New York. While it is too early to give a full accounting of the results from these efforts, some of which took place in January, we can report that thousands were netted in these successful activities. We would like to thank our supporters for making this important program a success and keeping alive the necessary solidarity with those who have stood up to racist capitalist repression and imperialist depredation.

As we were building for this year's Holiday Appeals, the Philadelphia District Attorney in December announced his office's decision to stop its long-standing efforts to seek Mumia's legal lynching. Subsequently he was transferred from death row to vindictively onerous conditions at SCI Mahanoy in the Pennsylvania prison system. As Mumia, himself described it in his greetings to the Holiday Appeals, he now considers himself on "'slow' Death Row." The text of the greeting is printed in Workers Vanguard'No. 994 (20 January).

The significance of our stipend program was expressed in greetings from Mumia and nearly all of the sixteen prisoners. Tom Manning sent a letter replete with heart-rending details of the numerous and serious medical conditions he is facing as exemplified by the fact he was suffering mini-strokes even as he was writing. Jaan Laaman's letter thanked us for the many years we sent a holiday gift to his son who recently passed away. Hugo Pinell sent inspirational greetings from Pelican Bay Special Housing Unit, the focal point for two hunger strikes in the California penal system. Many warm letters of appreciation were received from the class-war prisoners known as the MOVE 9, all of whom have been turned down for parole over the last three years.

In the New York fundraiser held at the CWA Local 1180 Hall, trade unionists, students and PDC supporters heard from Ralph Poynter, husband of Lynne Stewart. He read a statement from her in which she said, "I want to thank you with my heart for your consistent, never-failing support of political prisoners. Many other groups do so only when there is some momentous event to trigger their memories. PDC has always remembered and remembers all of us." The gathering also heard from Francisco Torres, the last of the San Francisco 8 to finally have his charges dismissed earlier in 2011. Noting the torture that was used against his codefendants in the 40-year vendetta against the former Black Panthers, he said, "Torture is in the DNA of America."

One of the highlights of the evening was the speech of PDC Staff Counsel, Valerie West in remembrance of the life and struggle of Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt). As you will recall Geronimo passed away in Tanzania last June. For nearly a decade West was part of the legal defense team, with attorney Stuart Hanlon. In 1997, after 27 years in the California dungeons, this innocent class-war prisoner and former Black Panther was finally freed, having been framed for a murder the cops knew he did not commit. Her personal reminisces, motivated by the PDC's non-sectarian defense for those cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people, made for a powerful presentation. The entire text of that speech can be seen in Workers Vanguard No. 994.

Films To While the Class Struggle By- What Is The Left? - “Guerrilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst”

DVD Review

Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst, Patty Hearst, Cinque, Bill and Emily Harris and other members of the SLA, 2004

Some films reviewed in this space are offered with the idea that viewing them will given the reader, especially the younger reader or those who are not familiar with the tumultuous events of the period, a fairly positive sense of what it was like to live through the turbulent 1960s and the early 1970s, the high water mark for the last time that we had the “monster” of American imperialism on the run, or so we thought. A prime example of that type of review was one that I did a while back on the Black Panthers. Another more recent one was the animated/ documentary film footage provided in Chicago 10. Other film reviews are offered to be more thought-provoking or just plain provocative. The film under review, Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst, is of the latter type.

This film does a good job of presenting the actual events around the kidnapping of the Hearst newspaper heiress Patty Hearst by the upstart and then unknown Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in the waning days of the militant leftist movement with the practical (in American terms) withdrawal from Vietnam War, through archival film footage, interviews and commenting by surviving members of the organization, reporters who covered the event, officials who were involved in the investigation and others with something to say about the matter. The startling, and perhaps sometimes bizarre train of events is well documented: the inexplicable murder of the Oakland Superintendent Marcus Foster; the kidnapping of UC/Berkeley college student Hearst; the ransom demand of food for the hungry of Oakland in exchange for her release that ran amok; the abrupt change in the case with the apparent adaptive conversion by Hearst to the SLA cause, a serious of robberies including one in which a teller was killed; the massive, seemingly never-ending, on-going hunt for the SLA in the aftermath of that action: the widely viewed in real time police assault on an SLA “safe-house” that netted the leader, Cinque: the off-handed capture of new leaders Bill and Emily Harris and Patty Hearst; and, the subsequent trials, including Patty’s commutation of sentence. All in all, if you want a refresher course on the case it is all there for you.

However, above I characterized this as a thought-provoking film, and for my purposes that means what are the lessons to be learned from the experience, if any. I have tried to telegraph that concern by the phrase in the title “What is the left?” and by the way I presented the story line in the last paragraph. So what is my problem some thirty odd years after the dust has settled on the case, which also preoccupied me at the time as well. Just this. Was the defense of the SLA a matter of a leftist's duty to those of us on the left who take such matters seriously?

Among the things that this reviewer stands for, in addition to adherent to the teachings of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky and their progeny can be summed up in the slogan of the old Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW, Wobblies)- “an injury to one, is any injury to all”. I, thus, stand in that tradition, that of the old Communist Party-led International Labor Defense and of later groups like the one I support today, the Partisan Defense Committee. The premise underlying that slogan is that it is very much in the interest of the international working class and of the left that we defend, and defend vigorously and with all the resources we are able to muster, every individual militant and group that falls under that umbrella. Going back to that period I defended, for example, such groups as the Weatherman (Weatherpeople?) and other guerilla-oriented organizations on the American left, whole-heartedly fought under the banner of the United Front Against Fascism to defend the Black Panthers against the governmental onslaught that they faced, and the brothers and sisters of what became known as the Ohio Seven. I did not defend, nor call for the defense of the SLA.

Why? Not of the leftist groups listed above were exactly popular in the broader population so that is not the question. The serious question that I faced at that time was this- Who are these people? Weathermen I knew, some of its sympathizers personally. I knew their political history, where they came from and their foibles. Panthers, after the thaw in their heavy black nationalist period when whites could again talk to young blacks without having to watch their backs stayed at the commune that I lived in back in those California days. And were gladly welcome. Believe me I knew who they were and where they came from. I could go on and on about the local collectives, communes, etc. that sprouted up like wheat in those days.

But as the late Hunter S. Thompson noted toward the end of his drug-crazed saga of weirdness and blow back, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, there was a point in the very late 1960s where one could sense that the victory that seemed so near, and so righteously fought for, was slipping away. I might have held onto the dream a little longer that others, and than I should have but there you have it. And that is the point. Others who faced that same sense that we had “lost” or that exemplary actions or whatever would turn things around started to get a little crazy. To speak nothing of isolating themselves and staying isolated from the harsh realities of Nixon’s America. Some went to the country or the commune, others dropped away. Still others went back to the ancient tradition of nihilism.

That is the way that I looked at the actions of the SLA. The group had no known history, as a group. When it surfaced it had all the verbiage of anti-imperialism that many students and leftists spouted at the time. Hell, I had a girlfriend then who, in the end, was nothing but a garden-variety pacifist who had the whole lingo down better than I did at the time, a time when I was just turning to Marxism. Hell, in some towns in this country you couldn’t get anywhere on campus, even campaigning for some useless bourgeois candidate on the make without the obligatory “right on” or other gesture signifying the language of “youth nation”.

Moreover, on the Patty Hearst action and subsequent bank robberies seemed well beyond the pale. Especially the logic of kidnapping Patty on the basis of her biological relationship to her family. Left politics cannot work that way. If they get in our way that is one thing, the Hearst kidnapping is another. Nothing was right here. I will not belabor the point but this organization seemed like nothing so much as one of those nihilistic groups that Dostoevsky castigated in the mid-19th century or like the remnants that turned bandit and lumpen after the defeat of the Russian Revolution of 1905. To finish up. Would I help the authorities in their manhunt for the group? Hell, no. Did I defend them, like some others did by hiding them out or raising monies for their defense? No. But let me tell you this. At that time I was not sure that I was right, I was queasy about placing them outside the left. Reviewing this film still makes me feel I made the right decision. But I am still queasy about it. You probably will be too.

We Have Some Unfinished Business From The 1960s- Free "Love And Struggle" Author David Gilbert

Click on the headline to link to a website with information on American poltical prisoner David Gilbert.

Markin comment:

We Have Some Unfinished Business From The 1960s- Free "Love And Struggle" Author David Gilbert says it all. Free David Gilbert Now! Free All The Class-War Prisoners!

Justice on Trial: Lynne Stewart's Appeal-by Stephen Lendman

Friday, March 02, 2012

Justice on Trial: Lynne Stewart's Appeal

Justice on Trial: Lynne Stewart's Appeal-by Stephen Lendman


Lynne's case highlights American judicial unfairness. Her wrongful indictment, prosecution, conviction, sentencing, and harsher re-sentencing sacrificed her on the alter of upholding wrong over right.

On February 29, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit arguments were heard on her behalf. She wasn't there, but supporters packed the courtroom as she hoped. More on the hearing below.

Criminal justice includes law enforcement involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and incarcerating those found guilty of crimes following rule of law standards.

Doing so requires proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors bear the burden, or they're supposed to. Judicial fairness can't exist without it. In America, it never did and doesn't now.

Moreover, US law gives jurors no reasonable doubt guidance. Prosecutors take full advantage. Innocent victims suffer unjustly. America's system is inherently unfair. Nothing's done to fix it.

The American Bar Association's Model Code of Judicial Conduct preamble calls for:

•"An independent, fair and impartial judiciary," calling it "indispensable to our system of justice, (composed of) men and women of integrity;

•Judges....at all times (ensuring) the greatest possible public confidence in their independence, impartiality, integrity, and competence; (and)

•standards (of) ethical conduct, (including) overarching principles of judicial ethics (and fairness), consistent with constitutional requirements, statutes, other court rules, and decisional law, and with due regard for all relevant circumstances."

•Above all, it requires truth, impartiality, and judicial fairness upholding fundamental rule of law standards.

Merriam-Webster defines fair as:

•"marked by impartiality and honesty;


•free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism;

•conforming with the established rules; (and)

•free from favor toward either or any side."

Often, American justice excludes them all. Lynne said when she began practicing law, she collected cartoons and clippings relating to it "and the absurdity of the legal system."

One of her favorites was a "smarmy, grinning lawyer leaning over his desk and saying to a client 'You have an excellent case, Mr. Jones. Now just how much justice can you afford??' "

That's the root injustice issue, she said, but it's worse than that. People of color, the poor, disadvantaged, and accused Muslims get no justice at all. Neither does anyone federal and state prosecutors target to convict. In Lynne's case, it was for doing her job honorably and responsibly for decades, including defending unpopular clients.

When lawyers defend ones authorities want to convict, they risk running afoul of the law. As a result, Lynne's wrongfully serving 10 years. Paul Bergrin's in the fight of his life for the same reason.

Moreover, thousands of political prisoners languish in America's gulag for challenging US injustice, supporting right over wrong, or praying to the wrong God.

Constitutionally protected rights don't matter. Yet they're supposed to require probable cause for arrests and prosecutions (Fourth Amendment), as well as freedoms:
•
from unreasonable searches and seizures (Fourth Amendment);

self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment);

double jeopardy (Fifth Amendment);

cruel and unusual punishment (Eighth Amendment);

excessive bail or fines (Eighth Amendment);

speedy, public, fair trials (Sixth Amendment);

an impartial jury (Sixth Amendment);

right to competent counsel (Sixth Amendment); and

from being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments).

When prosecutors and courts, including appellate and Supreme Court, permit exceptions or ignore rule of law standards, freedom no longer exists. America's war on crime (especially on elicit drugs) eroded numerous protections.

Post-9/11, they've practically disappeared altogether. America's spurious war on terror takes precedence. Everyone's vulnerable to terrorism charges, conspiracy to commit it, or threatening national security other ways.

Secret evidence is withheld. Defense counsel can't challenge it. Defendants are convicted by accusation. Jurors are intimidated to go along even when no crime or intent to commit one exists.

As a result, justice is unfairly denied. America's poor and disadvantaged get none. Neither do those challenging state and/or corporate crimes. In contrast, white collar offenses are rarely punished. Those caught red-handed at most pay fines too small to matter and rarely serve prison time. Occasional exceptions prove the rule.

A former corporate felon once said only little people pay taxes. They also comprise the vast majority in America's gulag. In fact, a small fraction of prosecutions are for white collar crime. Few top officials are convicted, today virtually none, especially those guilty of the grandest of grand thefts.

America's criminal justice system protects them. Mostly little people are targeted, including many innocent ones. America's drug and terror wars punctuate how unjustly.

Elicit possession accounts for over half of America's prison population. Those imprisoned represent a 20-fold increase since 1980. Their numbers exceed those incarcerated in 1980 for all offenses. They're the most significant reason for America's 700% federal prison population growth.

Post-9/11, Muslims became America's target of choice. They've been ruthlessly vilified, hunted down, rounded up, detained, isolated, denied bail, tried on secret evidence, convicted on spurious charges, and given long sentences as war on terror scapegoats for political advantage.

Illegal entrapment's commonly used. Guilt or innocence doesn't matter, just the illusion that America is safer when, in fact, every victim assures greater insecurity, injustice, and fear. Many wonder who's next. Today, no one's safe, especially Muslims and those outspoken for justice.

In contrast, Wall Street and other corporate crooks continue to plunder and steal with impunity. One's hard pressed to name a single corporate official ever given hard time or capital punishment. Innocent Blacks, Latinos and Muslims face them often, as well as disproportionately longer sentences for many offenses little more than misdemeanors at best.

Moreover, street crime's inconsequential compared to high-level white collar ones harming millions. For corporate crooks, crime pays. Wall Street's business model features it.

As a result, America's criminal justice system is grossly discriminatory, inequitable, biased, and unfair. None's worse in Western society.

In Manhattan alone, said Lynne, "there is a litany of wrongs perpetrated in each and every Courthouse" in sight. She saw it firsthand defending unpopular clients, then unjustly against herself.

She was tried in the same Foley Square federal court that unjustly framed, convicted, and sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death. At an earlier time of hysteria, it was done vengefully for allegedly conspiring to violate the WW I era 1917 Espionage Act.

Today, for America's 99%, the wheels came off the wagon, said Lynne. Only a just replacement can fix it - "a different economic system that will in turn mend the legal system because it will be forced to serve the People, not" wealth and power interests alone.

Lynne's Appeal

Arbitrary injustice must end. Freeing Lynne and others like her is vital. On February 29, Herald Prince Fahringer argued for her in appellate court. He said one of America's most cherished freedoms is being "allowed to speak freely. This case puts that principle to a very great test."

He called using her First Amendment right against her "highly hazardous." In fact, he added, comments made "on the steps of the courthouse (have) much wider latitude." He urged the justices not to go "down that road (because) no one will be able to comment after a sentence for fear that the same thing could happen to them."

Justice Robert Sack challenged him saying, "I'm not sure that freedom of speech means absolute immunity from the consequences of what you say."

Judge John Walker asked, "How else do you get a window into the character of the defendant?"

Fahringer responded, calling Lynne's comments ambiguous, adding:

"If it's ambiguous under the First Amendment, you have to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt."

On March 1, New York Law Journal contributor Mark Hamblett said Fahringer "ran into a dubious (three judge) appellate panel" as he argued for reversing Lynne's grossly unfair sentence.

Expect months perhaps before they rule. Their earlier decision against Lynne was harsh. She has an uphill struggle, especially in today's climate of fear and injustice.


Nonetheless, she's upbeat, saying if she serves her full 10 year term, she'll emerge as she entered, her "principles unsullied and strong!!"

She thanked supporters for cards, letters, books, contributions, and mostly for believing in her just cause.

"It is being remembered that counts," she said, "and you all keep me alive!! Shoulder to Shoulder, Onward to Victory!!"

She's already vindicated by friends, family, and legions of worldwide supporters aware of her lifelong struggle honorably for equity, justice, fairness, and rule of law standards without compromise. It doesn't get any better than that.


Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.




Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.




http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.



posted by Steve Lendman @ 12:27 AM

“We don’t want the word peace connected with the word veteran”-paraphrase of a remark by an official parade organizer- “Oh ya, well well watch this”- All out for the Smedley Butler Brigade Veterans For Peace -initiated Saint Patrick’s PEACE Parade on Sunday March 18th in South Boston

Click on the headline to link to the Smedley Butler Brigade Facebook page.

Markin comment:

As if I needed any extra push to join in this VFP action I have reposted a blog that pretty clearly explains why I am always ready to march with the VFPers.
Re-posted From American Left History- Thursday, November 11, 2010

*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!

Markin comment:

Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.

Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.

Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.

But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the ‘street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
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From Veterans For Peace:

Saint Patrick's Peace Parade

Peoples Parade for Peace, Equality, Jobs, Social and Economic Justice

Saint Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland was a man of peace. Saint Patrick's Day should be a day to celebrate Saint Patrick and the Irish Heritage of Boston and the contributions of the Irish throughout American history. In Boston the parade should be a day to celebrate the changes in our culture, the ethnic, religious diversity, points of views and politics of our great City of Boston. For on Saint Patrick's Day we are all Irish.

Saint Patrick Day parades have been held in Boston since 1737 (Unofficial parades). In 1901 Evacuation Day was declared a holiday in the City of Boston. Because of the coincidence of the proximity of the two holidays the celebrations were combined and for the past forty years the Allied War Veterans Council have been organizing the Saint Patrick's Day Parade, turning what should be the celebration of Saint Patrick, the Irish Heritage and History into a military parade.

In 2011, the local chapter of Veterans For Peace, the Smedley Butler Brigade submitted an application to march in the traditional Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Veterans For Peace is a national veterans organization with 130 chapters across the country. The Smedley Butler Brigade has over 200 members locally. It's members range from veterans from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq and the Afghanistan War. All Veterans For Peace wanted to do was to march in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and carry their flags and banners. Their application was denied by the "Allied War Council". When the organizer of the parade, Phil Wuschke, was asked why their application was denied, he stated, "Because they did not want to have the word peace associated with the word Veteran". They were also told that they were too political, as if the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and other activities surrounding the parade are not political.

Veterans For Peace subsequently filed for their own permit for the Saint Patrick's Peace Parade. Seventeen years ago, the gay and bisexual community (GLBT) had also applied to march in the parade and like the veterans were denied. GBLT sued the Allied War Council and the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, resulting in the Hurley Decision, named after Wacko Hurley, the ruler supreme of the parade. This decision states that who ever is organizing the parade has the right to say who is in and who can be excluded from the parade, no questions asked. Even though the City of Boston will spend in excess of $300,000.00 in support of this parade, they have no say in who can be in the parade. The Saint Patrick's Day Parade should be sponsored by the City of Boston and not a private group, who have secretive, private meetings, not open to the public and who practice discrimination and exclusion.

In the case of Veterans For Peace, if you are carrying a gun or drive a tank you can be in the parade, if you are a veteran of the US Military and carrying a peace symbol, you are excluded. Once Veterans For Peace had their parade permit in hand the first group they reached out to was the gay and bisexual community in Boston. "You were not allowed to walk in their parade seventeen years ago, how would you like to walk in our parade" The response was immediate and Join the Impact, one of many GLBT organizations in the Boston area enthusiastically joined the Saint Patrick's Peace Parade, the alternative peoples parade. Because of another Massachusetts's Court decision the "Saint Patrick's Peace Parade" had to walk one mile behind the traditional parade. With only three weeks to organize the parade when it stepped off this little parade had over 500 participants, grand marshals, a Duck Boat, a band, veterans, peace groups, church groups, GBLT groups, labor groups and more. It was a wonderful parade and was very warmly welcomed by the residents of South Boston.

This year, once again, Veterans For Peace submitted an application to the "Allied War Council" for the inclusion of the small "Saint Patrick's Peace Parade" into the larger parade. Once again the Veterans were denied;

"Your application has been reviewed, we refer you to the Supreme Court ruling on June 19,1995your application to participate in the March 18,2012 Saint Patrick's Day Parade had been denied"

No reason given as to why, just denied. This should be unacceptable to every citizen of Boston, especially the politicians who will be flocking to the Breakfast and Roast on March 18th. This kind of exclusion should not be condoned nor supported by anyone in the City of Boston, especially our elected political leaders.

Just in case the Allied War Council has not noticed, South Boston is no longer a strictly Irish Catholic community. In fact the Irish are no longer a majority in South Boston. The community is much more diverse in 2012 in ethnicity, life styles, religion, points of view and politics then it was forty years ago. Times have changed, the City has changed, the population has changed, social norms have changed. People are much more accepting of those that may be different, have a different religion, customs or ideas. We are a much more inclusive society, everyone that is except the antiquated Allied War Veterans.

It is time for the Saint Patrick's Day Parade to be inclusive of these differing groups. It is time for the Saint Patrick's Day Parade to be reflective of the changes in our culture. It is time for this parade to include groups of differing life styles, points of views and politics or the City of Boston should take back this parade. There is no place in Boston or anywhere in this country for bigotry, hatred, censorship, discrimination and exclusion. This should be a day of celebration, for all the peoples of the great City of Boston to come together, to celebrate Saint Patrick and our Irish History and Heritage. In 2012 this parade should be inclusive and also celebrate what makes us Americans, what makes this country great, our multi-ethnic diversity, differing life-styles, religious affiliations, differing politics and points of views. All of us should wear the green, no one should be excluded, since on Saint Patrick's Day we are all Irish.

From The “West Coast Port Shutdown” Website-This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Support The Late January EGT Ship Blockade Action In Defense Of The Longview, Washington Longshoremen!

Click on the headline to link to the West Coast Port Shutdown website.

Markin comment:

We know that we are only at the very start of an upsurge in the labor movement as witness the stellar exemplary actions by the West Coast activists on December 12, 2011. As I have pointed out in remarks previously made elsewhere as part of the Boston solidarity rally with the West Coast Port Shutdown this is the way forward as we struggle against the ruling class for a very different, more equitable society. Not everything went as well, or as well-attended, as expected including at our rally in solidarity in Boston but we are still exhibiting growing pains in the post-Occupy encampment era which will get sorted out in the future.
******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!

*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was this high in the American labor force. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. This is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work. Work that would be divided through local representative workers’ councils which would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work. Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as implement “30 for 40” so that it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.

Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy.

Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought.

Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize. Simple-No more Wisconsins, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, or bourgeois recall elections either. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.

Guest Commentary

From The Transitional Program Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours

Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

* Defend the independence of the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008 labor, organized labor, spent around 450 million dollars trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The results speak for themselves. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea then was (and is, as we come up to another presidential election cycle) that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement.

The hard reality is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. The most egregious recent example- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks last summer when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits. That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments period for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor from Obama on down.

This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio. That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go.

*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reaches it final stages, the draw down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we must recognize that we anti-warriors failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006). As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in Libya) continue we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan!

U.S. Hands Off Iran!- American (and world) imperialists are ratcheting up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war well before the dust has settled on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partner, Israel) in Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalist in our own way in our own time.


U.S. Hands Off The World!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another of their junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.


Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets (let’s see, right now winding up Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get my drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Free Quality Healthcare For All! This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs.

Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards!
This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle class as well.
Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget and the bank bail-out money), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis.

Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while services have not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!

Stop housing foreclosures now! Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want. We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble has also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Karl Marx was right way back in the 19th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to immiserate the mass of society for the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.

Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.

Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power. We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!

Guest Commentary from the IWW (Industrial Workers Of The World, Wobblies) website http://www.iww.org/en/culture/official/preamble.shtml


Preamble to the IWW Constitution (1905)

Posted Sun, 05/01/2005 - 8:34am by IWW.org Editor

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

Hey, Brother (Comrade) Have You Seen Starlight On The Rails- A Short Note On Political Salutations

Markin comment


Dialogue: [Markin] “Hey, comrade that was good point that you made about finally breaking with the Democrats. It’s good that others are seeing that we can’t get anywhere politically without acting on our own.” [Mr. X, formerly known as comrade] “I am not your comrade. My comrades are only those who are members of the Internationalist Marxist-Leninist Communist League Of The Just And Pure Of Heart.” [Markin] Okay, then brother you still made a good point. [Mr. X, formerly known as comrade and brother] “You are not my brother. My sisters and brothers are only those who are supporters of the Internationalist Marxist-Leninist Communist League Of The Just And Pure Of Heart.” [Markin] Okay, sir.

*******
Alright, alright this is not Brechtian finely-spun didactic wordplay and is a little ham-fisted to boot. But it brings up an important point about how we of the “movement” and here I speak of the broad left-wing currents, nationally and internationally, identify with each other. Ham-fisted or not this above dialogue, based on a real experience, brought to mind the comrade or brother (sister as well, of course, but since this involved two males let me use the brother as an all-inclusive stand-in) controversy up close and personal.

If we were still solely under the sway of the French revolution then we would be able to dismiss this issue with a quick neutral “citizen” and be done with it. But that was a couple of hundred years ago and society has in the meantime become much more class-divided and politically diffuse. In the 19th century you can still read of anarchists and socialists of various hues designating each other as comrades without embarrassment, or a second thought. The 20th century really brought matters to a head. One could not in the general left-wing socialist and communist movement after World War I continue to call those socialists who supported that war comrades, especially in places like Germany where they were complicit in murdering comrades Luxemburg and Liebknecht. A blood-line had been drawn. Later a river of blood separated Stalinists and Trotskyists. And so on until we get to Mr. X’s exclusive Internationalist Marxist-Leninist Communist League Of The Just And Pure Of Heart example. Something is surely organically wrong when such a designation applies to only ten or twelve people in a multi-billion world.

The use of brother (and remember sister, okay) is more problematic. Brothers in Christ, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” “greetings, sister and brother union members,” “oh, brother,” and solidarity brother all express some sense of commonality without overt political kinship. And that was really my sticking point with the inscrutable Mr. X. Sure there are political differences, perhaps wide political gulfs, between member of the “movement” but a mere recognition that we are on the same page, or at least in the same book should arouse certainly brotherly sentiments. Right?

By the way, Mr. X that point about breaking with the Democrats this year is worthy of more that a “sir” designation. A lot more.

From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent—Free Him Now!-Drive to Execute Mumia Halted- Mumia Must Not Die In Prison!

Click on the headline to link to the International Communist League website.

Markin comment on this article:

I wish to emphasize the point made in the article (bold-faced below) about “not forgetting” our class-war prisoners a situation highlighted today by Mumia’s case. Once the death penalty is not hanging over the heads of our brothers and sister whole layers of former sympathizers head for the hills (or the next radical or liberal chic cause). That has been transparently the case with Ruchell Macgee, Angela’s Davis’ co-defendant around the George Jackson events back in the early 1970s, who has languished in jail for over thirty years. (The American Communist Party played its usual despicable role purposefully putting his case on the “back–burner” to highlight the more glamorous and palatable Davis case.) The same is true for George Jackson‘s San Quentin Six comrade, Hugo Pinell, who has languished in the California prisons of over forty years. Enough. Free all our class-war prisoners! They must not die in prison!

From James Cannon:

“The workers who had rallied to Mooney and Billings were soothed by the sinister argument that imprisonment for life was, in any event, better than execution. They were told that we would have to be satisfied for the while with one victory, and that the final release of the two fighters would be won later. But after ten years there remain only a few who still keep alive the memory of these buried men and who are pledged to continue the work for their freedom.”
*******


Workers Vanguard No. 993
6 January 2012

Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent—Free Him Now!-Drive to Execute Mumia Halted

After 29 years and 363 days, Mumia Abu-Jamal no longer lives under the executioner’s shadow. On December 7, Philadelphia district attorney Seth Williams announced that his office was dropping efforts to execute America’s foremost class-war prisoner. While this brings to an end a legal lynching campaign that began with Mumia’s arrest and false conviction for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, Mumia remains condemned to spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole, despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence.

In a recent letter to the Partisan Defense Committee, Mumia aptly characterized his new home at the Mahanoy Correctional Institution in Frackville, PA, as “‘slow’ Death Row.” A Black Panther Party leader in his youth and later an award-winning journalist, Mumia has spent over 40 years fighting for the oppressed. He must not be forgotten and left to rot in prison hell! Trade unionists, radical youth and fighters for black rights must demand: Freedom now for Mumia Abu-Jamal!

The state forces that have tried for decades to silence this powerful voice for the oppressed are certainly not going to forget him. Appearing with Williams when he made his announcement were prosecutors who helped railroad Mumia to death row, officials of the Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.), long the spearhead of the drive to execute him, and F.O.P. mouthpiece Maureen Faulkner, the slain policeman’s widow. Spewing the venomous racism that has motivated the persecution of Mumia, Faulkner described him as a “seething animal” and ranted, “I am heartened by the thought that he will finally be taken from the protected cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind; the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons.” This is the voice of the cops who stop and throw black youth against the wall for “walking while black,” who have consigned generations of young blacks and Latinos to prison hell in the “war on drugs,” who carry out street executions with impunity.

For Mumia, being “cloistered” on death row the past 30 years has meant confinement almost 24 hours a day in an eight-by-twelve-foot cell, severe limits on phone calls, separation from visitors by thick Plexiglas and, until recently, being manacled during visits. Mumia has been unable to embrace his wife Wadiya or bounce grandchildren on his knee. In 1985, Mumia learned that the Philly cops and the Feds, on orders from black Democratic mayor Wilson Goode, firebombed the Osage Avenue home of his comrades in the predominantly black MOVE back-to-nature commune, killing eleven people, including five children. A little over a decade later, Mumia saw his son Jamal Hart railroaded to prison for 15 years by the Clinton administration on bogus gun-possession charges—retaliation for Hart’s prominent activism on his father’s behalf. Until Jamal Hart’s release last year, prison regs even prohibited Mumia and his son from corresponding with one another.

As described in the Partisan Defense Committee statement printed below, Mumia is an innocent man who was subjected to a racist and political frame-up. For three decades, police, prosecutors and government officials of both the Democratic and Republican parties have been screaming for Mumia’s head. From the right-wing tabloids to the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Times, newsrooms across the country have treated the prosecution’s lying account of Faulkner’s killing as gospel.

Court after court has refused to even consider the massive amount of evidence proving Mumia’s innocence. In 2001, Mumia’s attorneys presented in state and federal courts the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that “I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.” At the time of Faulkner’s killing, the Philadelphia police were under three corruption investigations by the Feds, encompassing virtually the entire chain of command that oversaw the “investigation” of Faulkner’s death.

First taking up Mumia’s defense in 1987, the PDC and the Spartacist League made his case known to a wide range of death penalty abolitionists, student groups, black activists and the labor movement through publicity and protest. From the beginning, we have fought for the understanding that the power of labor must be brought to bear to win Mumia’s freedom. Indeed, it was an outpouring of protest internationally including trade unionists that helped win a stay of execution for Mumia in August 1995.

Mumia had become a central focus of the fight to abolish the racist death penalty. His black skin and meager means are the demographic of most of those selected for death row. At the same time, Mumia’s radical political activism incensed the bourgeoisie. And with Faulkner’s shooting, the cops and prosecutors saw the opportunity to place Mumia in the company of executed labor militants and radicals—from the Haymarket martyrs in 1887 to Joe Hill and Sacco and Vanzetti early last century.

As Marxists, we oppose the barbaric institution of capital punishment on principle—for the guilty as well as the innocent. The death penalty is the ultimate sanction of a “justice” system that is not only stacked against workers and the poor but also, in a society founded on slavery and maintained on a bedrock of black oppression, racist to its core. The manifest unfairness of Mumia’s trial, the racist and political motivation for his conviction and sentence, the outrageously biased court proceedings—all provided a focus for death penalty abolitionists. Most compelling and magnetic, however, was the voice of the man known as the “voice of the voiceless.” Mumia’s incisive, compassionate and compelling commentaries from death row, which appeared in black press across the country, inspired thousands upon thousands to demand that such a man not be executed. Mumia’s writings spoke as well to the humanity of those he encountered behind prison walls and on death row.

While placing no faith in the rigged “justice” of the capitalist courts, we have also advocated pursuing all possible legal proceedings on Mumia’s behalf. The legal issue that removed Mumia from death row was the unconstitutional jury instructions issued at his 1982 trial, which did not allow jurors to freely consider mitigating circumstances weighing against a death sentence. This issue was first raised in a 1990 legal memo by PDC attorney Jonathan Piper to Steven Hawkins of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, then part of the legal team. This was the basis of a 2001 decision by Judge William Yohn, who overturned Mumia’s death sentence while upholding his frame-up conviction. After the Supreme Court in October let stand Yohn’s ruling, which mandated a new sentencing hearing, the D.A.’s office called a halt to the execution drive.

It has been many years since thousands took to the streets for Mumia. Now, as the PDC declared in its December 10 statement, “the state authorities hope with the latest decision that Mumia’s cause will be forgotten and that he will rot in prison hell until he dies. This must not be Mumia’s fate.” In 1927, James P. Cannon, the first national secretary of the International Labor Defense, warned of the lessons of the cases of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, labor leaders falsely accused of murder in 1916. In 1918, Mooney’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison, the same sentence as Billings’. Cannon wrote:

“The workers who had rallied to Mooney and Billings were soothed by the sinister argument that imprisonment for life was, in any event, better than execution. They were told that we would have to be satisfied for the while with one victory, and that the final release of the two fighters would be won later. But after ten years there remain only a few who still keep alive the memory of these buried men and who are pledged to continue the work for their freedom.”

—Labor Defender, July 1927

The frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal was not some aberration in American “justice” but the workings of a legal system that defends the rule and profits of the capitalist class through repression of the working class and oppressed minorities. Following the Philly D.A.’s decision, the New York Times (12 December 2011) ran an editorial demanding that the state of Pennsylvania now move to abolish its death penalty. The liberals at the Times have long opposed capital punishment while favoring life without parole as a “humane”—and more frugal—alternative. While the editorial was titled “The Abu-Jamal Case,” it pointedly said nothing about Mumia’s case beyond the issue of improper jury instructions. The hard truth of Mumia’s case—the frame-up of and death sentence for an innocent black man who stood out as an eloquent opponent of racist U.S. imperialism—cuts too close to the bone of what the capitalist state is all about.

For the liberals, removing Mumia from the sanction of death vindicates their belief in the ideal of American justice. But in no way can this be seen as just. In continuing to publicize Mumia’s case and pursue the fight for his freedom, we seek to imbue the multiracial working class with the understanding that it must destroy the monstrous, racist machinery of capitalist repression root and branch and erect in its place a workers state, in which those who labor rule.