Former President Bill Clinton came toPresident Bush’s defense on Iraq in Junewhen he echoed administration claims

that the United States has no imperialist ambi-tions in Iraq. Clinton’s statement during aninterview with Time magazine proved againthat the Democratic and Republican partiesare indistinguishable when it comes to promot-ing and defending capitalist interests.

Although Time’s interview with Clinton hadnot hit the newsstands before this issue of ThePeople went to press, advance copies circulat-ed to many media outlets enabled them tobroadcast stories or carry articles summariz-ing Clinton’s remarks.

Most of these stories concentrated on theformer president’s criticism of the abuses atAbu Ghraib prison and on the administra-tion’s timing in launching the war. Clintonobviously meant his comments to boost thechances of President Bush’s presumed Demo-cratic rival for November’s elections, Sen.John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Clinton, however, went a step further byechoing earlier claims by President Bush andhis White House national security adviser,Condoleezza Rice, that the United States hasno imperialist ambitions in Iraq.

President Bush famously disavowed anysuch interest four months before the war began.

“We have no territorial ambitions, we don’t seekan empire,” he said in November 2002.Condoleezza Rice made a similar assertion inthe following exchange from an interview withZDF German television in July 2003.

“Q: Dr. Rice, let us start with a question to theacademic/teacher Condoleezza Rice. Strugglingto find a comparison in history for America’sposition in the world now, people have come upwith the Roman Empire, as in comparison.There’s an obvious difference: America doesn’tstrive to acquire foreign countries. But beyondthat, would you, as an academic, accept the com-parison?

“DR. RICE: I wouldn’t accept the compari-son to the Roman Empire, of course, becausethe United States has no imperial ambi-tions....” (Emphasis added)

Dr. Rice clearly sidestepped the distinctionher interviewer tried to draw between territo-rial expansion and economic imperialism. Sheknows, or should know, that American capi-talism has a long history of imperialist inter-vention in Latin America, for example, andthat the extension of its empire in that part ofthe world rarely involved permanent militaryoccupation or territorial annexation.

As noted in an article marking the 50thanniversary of the U.S.-inspired invasion of

Established in l89l

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Published by the Socialist Labor PartyVOL.114 NO. 2 JULY-AUGUST 2004 $1.00

U.S. Imperialist RecordImperils Iraq’s Future

The National Executive Committee of theSocialist Labor Party adopted the followingstatement on June 14 and ordered its publi-cation in this issue of The People.

—Editor

Millions of workers in America and aroundthe world were horrified by the torture andabuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiersat the Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison. For some,these outrages committed by American sol-diers challenged their ideas about what Amer-ica is supposed to stand for; for others, thesehorrendous acts only confirmed their worstfears of what America has come to represent.

Ruling-class elements, politicians and othersupporters of capitalism and class rule alsoexpressed indignation over the conduct of thesoldiers involved. But theirs were the voicesof hypocrisy.

The initial reaction of the Bush adminis-tration to these blatant acts of brutality wasto blame them on rogue elements in the mili-tary while asserting that torture “was thewrongdoing of a few,” words that didn’t wash.A 6,000-page report authored by Maj. Gen.Antonio Taguba outlining torture and abusesin Iraqi prisons run by the U.S. Army wasissued to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeldmonths ago, absolutely confirming what ad-ministration sources denied.

The CIA and other agents who actuallyinterrogated prisoners may have committedunspeakable acts. They were undocumentedand conducted in secrecy. Recent reportsrecord 33 deaths in detention in Iraq andAfghanistan. Most, allegedly, were relatedto “heart problems,” but nine were due tohomicide, of which six were due to “bluntforce injuries” and one to multiple gunshotwounds.

This all flies in the face of the statementPresident Bush made last year on behalf ofUnited Nations International Day inSupport of Victims of Torture that the U.S.is “committed to the worldwide eliminationof torture and we are leading this fight byexample,” challenging all other nations “inprohibiting, investigating, and prosecutingall acts of torture and in undertaking toprevent cruel and unusual punishment.”

In fact, the Bush administration has delib-erately made a policy of rejecting the GenevaConventions on treatment of prisoners. Hisgeneral counsel for the Department ofDefense, William J. Haynes, signed off on thelegality of withholding Geneva Conventionprotections for detainees at the U.S. prisonfacility at Guantanamo Bay.

NEC Statement

Torture:An Imperative Of ImperialistDomination

Court Order Helps IBMSquelch Toxics Study

By Bruce CozziniA scholarly study that was barred as evi-

dence from the IBM toxics suit at San Jose,Calif., earlier this year will not appear in a sci-entific journal as scheduled because the authoris involved with other suits against the com-puter-making firm.

The author, Boston University epidemiolo-gist Richard Clapp, received access to IBM’semployee mortality data as an expert witnessfor the plaintiffs in the trial. He and coauthorRebecca Johnson analyzed mortality datafrom 33,370 former IBM employees and work-place histories for more than 18,000 deceasedworkers for the years 1969 to 2001.

According to their analysis, the IBM workerssuffered cancer rates higher than the generalpopulation. Their study showed that the 7,697male workers “who had died of cancer werebetween 23 percent and 62 percent more like-ly to have died from cancers of the kidney,brain, blood and skin.” (Science, May 14) The1,667 IBM women “were 20 percent more like-ly to have died from kidney cancer.”

For those who had worked at least a monthat one of IBM’s chip manufacturing plants,results were dramatically higher: Men “were62 percent to 79 percent more likely to havedied from kidney, skin or brain cancer, andfemale workers were 112 percent more likelyto have died from kidney cancer.”

IBM attorney Robert Weber called the paper“junk science,” and a “litigation-producedstudy in which lawyers supplied key data andgave instructions on how the study was to bedone.” Clapp, however, noted that IBM fur-nished the data and that he and Johnson onlydesigned the study, chose the statistical soft-ware and analyzed the data IBM had supplied.

The IBM lawyers succeeded in blocking useof the study in the trial. Before the trial start-ed, Judge Robert Baines blocked jurors fromseeing the report, claiming it did not prove thelink between workplace exposure to chemicalsand cancer, and calling it “simply irrelevantand...highly prejudicial.” With the study gone,the suit against IBM had little chance, and

(Continued on page 8)

(Continued on page 8)

Textbooks and‘PoliticallyCorrect’ History

Page 2

Countering The Threat To Liberty

Page 3

Ronald Reagan:Death of aSalesman

Page 12

Visit our Web site at www.slp.org(Continued on page 10)

Editorial:DegradingThe Oceans

Page 4

Victor Reuther:He AcceptedCapitalism

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New York’sAbu Ghraib

Page 9

By B.G.

L ike any other capitalistic enterprise, bookcompanies are in business to make money,and unless their income exceeds their

outgo they will not be in business very long. It used to be the practice for publishers of

American history texts to publish one versionfor schools in the North and another version forschools in the South, manipulating such thingsas slavery and the Civil War to suit the preju-dices and serve the purposes of either northernor white-dominated southern school boards. Nowthere is a tendency among schoolbook publish-ers to accommodate every prejudice between oneset of covers by producing history texts that will beacceptable in all parts of the country. This is ad-mittedly a daunting task, the publishing indus-try’s equivalent of being all things to all people.

Classconscious workers and Socialists willfind it difficult to empathize with the industry’smarketing problems, if only because the key tounderstanding the history of this or any othercountry—the class struggle—is not even a con-sideration. Nonetheless, it is interesting towatch how publishers perform their dance.

To keep a market and make a profit, one text-book company eliminated mention of widespreadprostitution in the frontier West because onesouthern member of an influential school board ob-jected to portraying the seamy side of frontier life.

Frances FitzGerald, in her 1979 book AmericaRevised, dealt with this problem and gave, forone example, a prosouthern view of the MexicanWar presented in school history textbooks. Shesaid that since the 1950s, “New England chil-dren, whose ancestors heartily disapproved ofthe Mexican War, have grown up with heroictales of Davy Crockett and Sam Houston.” Why?Apparently not because Davy Crockett died atthe Alamo in 1836 during the Texas War ofIndependence and a dozen years before the Mex-ican War of 1848–1850, or any similar fine pointof historical accuracy. No, not that, but becausecertain Texans having a voice in deciding whatis “suitable” and what is not demanded it, andbecause Texas was and remains the secondlargest buyer of textbooks in the nation afterCalifornia. Issuing separate editions for Texas,or for various other states or regions, wouldreduce profit margins. Call it the publishingindustry’s version of the Texas Reel.

A more recent book, Jonathan Zimmerman’sWhose America? (Harvard University Press,2002), enlarges on FitzGerald’s themes. In early20th-century school textbooks, history was usedas a means of Americanizing the many immi-grant children coming into the public school sys-tem. Presentation of the American Revolutionwas done in such a way as to minimize theantagonism of some American colonists towardEngland and to emphasize support for the revo-lution in England. It was part of an effort,according to Zimmerman, to get children to acceptAmerican culture and the English language.When Irish-Americans came to dominate the pol-itics of certain cities in later years, they demand-ed a more anti-British outlook in history texts.Multiculturalism later became popular, andimmigrants such as Thaddeus Kosciusko, Casi-mir Pulaski, the Marquis de Lafayette, Friedrichvon Steuben and Haym Solomon had to beincluded for their contributions toward Americanindependence.

In today’s textbooks, no race, ethnic group orgender can be presented in any way that mightbe seen as stereotyping. Mexicans must not bepresented as farm laborers, Jews must not bepresented as capitalists, African Americans mustnot be presented as maids or athletes. (JackieRobinson is an exception to this rule because ofhis role in breaking the race barrier in sports.)

All races and ethnic groups must be presented inuniformly positive, even heroic, terms, regard-less of what role individuals from various ethnicbackgrounds may have played in grinding downand bleeding the working class, which also iscomposed of all these elements of humanity.

So, then, what is really missing from all thiscontroversy over how to depict American histo-ry is the class struggle. Efforts to gloss over theclass struggle, or to ignore it entirely, are as mis-leading as stereotyping all African Americansas compliant victims of racial prejudice. Suchefforts produce as many misleading myths, shedas little light and spread as much darkness as inthe past.

Romanticizing the cavalry unit known as“Buffalo soldiers” to establish a more positiveimage of the contribution of African Americansto the westward expansion and development ofthe United States, for example, does more thansimply gloss over the horrific treatment of Afri-can Americans as plantation slaves and industri-al wage workers, or the part many African Amer-icans played in trying to build labor unions andpolitical movements of the working class.

Indeed, the role that the “Buffalo soldiers”played in crushing Native American resistanceto that westward expansion, in fulfilling capi-talism’s imperialist ambitions towards Cubaduring the Spanish-American War and of actingas the guards at the infamous “Bull Pen” con-centration camps, where striking miners andtheir families were herded at the behest of themining capitalists, may run counter to the pre-ferred depiction of everyone as being heroic, butit corresponds to historic fact.

Similarly, the fact that many women of thecapitalist class opposed the women’s suffragemovement because they perceived any expan-sion of working-class suffrage as a threat totheir class interests and privileges is rarelynoted by any textbook on American history, yetit too corresponds to historic fact.

A group known as Texas Public PolicyFoundation has strongly attacked what it feels isa simple-minded glorification of all minorities ineducation today. They want textbooks to tell howAfrica’s chiefs helped round up slaves for sale inAmerica. They also want the role of Europeanswho were opposed to slavery to be included inthe story. In addition, they want texts to down-play the role of President John F. Kennedy andAttorney General Robert F. Kennedy in promot-ing civil rights and note that they did not givesupport to the civil rights movement at impor-tant times.

They are right to want all these things be-cause they are all true. Nonetheless, what theywant misses the historical forest for the histori-cal trees. These things are true because materi-al compulsions and class interests made thempossible, or even inevitable. However, they

appear as so many random, seemingly inexpli-cable events vulnerable to “spin” because theirhistoric roots in the ever-unfolding class struggleare hidden from view.

2 THE PEOPLE JULY-AUGUST 2004

Do You Belong?Do you know what the SLP stands for? Do you under-

stand the class struggle and why the SLP calls for an endof capitalism and of its system of wage labor? Do youunderstand why the SLP does not advocate reforms of cap-italism, and why it calls upon workers to organize SocialistIndustrial Unions?

If you have been reading The People steadily for a yearor more, if you have read the literature recommended forbeginning Socialists, and if you agree with the SLP’s callfor the political and economic unity of the working class,you may qualify for membership in the SLP. And if youqualify to be a member you probably should be a member.

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De Leon examines every major argument—proand con—on the union question, traces confu-sion on what unions can and cannot accom-plish to its source in the American Federation ofLabor, and outlines the general principles onwhich genuine and effective working-classunions can be built. One of De Leon’s best.

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We renewed Mr. FitzGerald’s subscription forhim, but we have a stack of similar requests fromindigent prisoners. We can’t afford them all, butyou can help them out by sending a $5 contribu-tion to our Prisoner Subscription Fund. Send toThe People, P.O. Box 218, Mountain View, CA94042-0218.

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By Ken Boettcher

P eople who oppose the Patriot Act (we areamong them) sometimes equate it withfascism (we do not). The Patriot Act and

certain other state measures implanted in thecountry’s laws over the last 30 years or moremay have a fascist “look and feel” about them,and few who are crushed under the iron heel ofoppression care much about the brand name ofthe boot that holds them down. Nonetheless,fascism is no more a string of right-wing orreactionary measures (such as the Patriot Act)than socialism is a string of “left wing” and “pro-gressive” ones (such as Social Security or unem-ployment insurance).

Fascism is an oppressive form of government,to be sure, but not all forms of oppressive gov-ernment are fascist and fascism is not simplythat. Fascism is a product of the streets and thegutter, of poverty locked into a petty bourgeoismindset of brutish social ignorance. Fascistshated capitalism until capitalism found a usefor them and bought them off (or thought it did)with money and state power.

Nevertheless, antidemocratic and unconstitu-tional measures such as the Patriot Act pose amajor threat to our liberties as Americans andour rights as workers to resist exploitation andother capitalist antisocial conduct. ConsiderAttorney General John Ashcroft’s now infamousattempt to paint Patriot Act protesters as traitorswho give aid and comfort to the enemy—a primeconstitutional qualification for treason—when hesaid, “To those who scare peace-loving peoplewith phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this:Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode ournational unity and diminish our resolve.” Anunnamed White House spokesperson quoted inan article on the Web site capitolhillblue.com putit even more directly last year before the attackon Iraq. “The president,” the source said, “con-siders this nation to be at war, and, as such, con-siders any opposition to his policies to be no lessthan an act of treason.”

Thanks to the Patriot Act, the HomelandSecurity Act of 2002 and executive orders by thepresident, the attorney general and others, aswell as judicial decisions that back them up, theU.S. government has many more tools in place tomore rapidly establish a totalitarian state. Moredraconian measures like the Domestic SecurityEnhancement Act—sometimes referred to asPatriot Act II, a kind of Patriot Act on steroids—are now working their way through Congress.The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year2004, a chunk of Patriot Act II that PresidentBush quietly signed into law last December whilethe media distracted us with reports of SaddamHussein’s capture, grants the FBI new andunprecedented powers to obtain records fromfinancial institutions without a court order andwithout having to prove just cause.

This wave of repressive measures, contrary toAttorney General Ashcroft’s arrogant assertion,

has already produced far more than “phan-toms” of lost liberty. According to an AmericanCivil Liberties Union (ACLU) document, “8,000Arab and South Asian immigrants have beeninterrogated because of their religion or ethnicbackground, not because of actual wrongdoing.”

“Thousands of men, mostly of Arab and SouthAsian origin,” the document continues, “havebeen held in secretive federal custody for weeksand months, sometimes without any chargesfiled against them. The government has refusedto publish their names and whereabouts, evenwhen ordered to do so by the courts.”

“The press and the public have been barredfrom immigration court hearings of thosedetained after Sept. 11 and the courts areordered to keep secret even that the hearings are

taking place.”Further, the ACLU document notes, “Pres-

ident Bush has ordered military commissionsto be set up to try suspected terrorists who arenot citizens. They can convict based on hearsayand secret evidence by only two-thirds vote.”And, it adds, “American citizens suspected ofterrorism are being held indefinitely in mili-tary custody without being charged and with-out access to lawyers.”

By mid-2003, the Justice Department’s owninspector general’s office had issued a reportthat considered credible at least 34 complaintsof civil rights and civil liberties abuses, includingcharges that some immigrants in federal deten-tion centers had been beaten. Earlier this year,

Countering the Threat to Liberty

JULY-AUGUST 2004 THE PEOPLE 3

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The People (ISSN-0199-350X), continuing the WeeklyPeople, is published bimonthly by the Socialist Labor Party ofAmerica, 661 Kings Row, San Jose, CA 95112-2724.

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4 THE PEOPLE JULY-AUGUST 2004

National Secretary: Robert Bills

Published by the Socialist Labor Party Established in l89l

VINCITLABOR OMNIA

Life on Earth began in the primeval oceans. Land-dwelling species emergedlater. With continental drift and the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea,oceans and seas developed different ecosystems.

With their myths of ocean and sea gods, ancient peoples recognized theimportance of oceans, although with prescientific understanding. Even todaysurprising little is known about the oceans.

Nonetheless, alarms have been sounded recently about the degradation ofthe oceans. The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy has drafted a 450-pagereport. According to the Los Angeles Times, problems include: “seafood con-taminated with bacteria and chemicals such as mercury and dioxins; urbanrunoff laden with oil, trash and human waste; farm runoff that causes bloomsof algae that suffocate all life and create oceanic ‘dead zones’; sea temperaturesthat are killing coral reefs and spreading water-borne viruses.”

Perhaps redundantly the Times continued, “The report lays blame on a vari-ety of human activities.” Translated from the “objectivity” of the bourgeoismedia, that means that in a few centuries profit-driven capitalism has jeop-ardized eons of evolution.

James D. Watkins, a retired Navy admiral, who headed the commission,said: “Everyone agrees the oceans are in trouble. We know if we don’t get mov-ing now, in 10 years we may not be able to recover.”

The recommendations of the commission, which included oil, shipping andfinance capitalists, government bureaucrats and scientists, are similar tothose of the Pew Ocean Commission, whose members were more tilted towardenvironmentalists.

However, the concurrence does not mean that anything meaningful will bedone. First of all, the U.S. commission believes its 200 some recommendationscould be put into effect for $3 billion. That sum is unimaginable for any work-ing person, but a drop in the bucket compared to the $166 billion for the con-quest and occupation of Iraq. Capitalism has its priorities, after all.

Second, the Times reported that the commission recommended thatPresident Bush “set up a National Ocean Council, appoint a White Houseassistant to lead it, and bring order to the chaos of 20 federal agencies thatimplement 140 federal laws related to America’s [sic] oceans.” The sameGeorge Bush who denies that burning fossil fuels has anything to do with glob-al warming!

Letting George do it alarms Roger T. Rufe Jr., president of the OceanConservancy. “My fear is that he would do the old lipstick-on-the-pig routine,”Rufe said. “Pick a few minor things in the report, call it his clean-oceans ini-tiative and make it look like he’s done something significant.”

That is not a bad description of Bush’s MO. But Bush is not the problem.Capitalism is. The mess the oceans are in is the result of profit-driven capi-talism and its social economic planning.

That some minions of capitalism are alarmed about what their system hasdone and is doing underscores the seriousness of the problem. But to expectreal restoration of the oceans is unrealistic. De Leon observed that the capi-talist rules not only in the shop but also in the “legislatures and capitols of thenation. He buzzes around them and accomplishes political results. He gets thelaws passed that will protect his economic class interests, and he pulls thewires when those interests are in danger....”

When capitalist interests clash, the most powerful will prevail. While thecommission recommended stricter regulation of the commercial fishing thathas depleted fish populations, it would weaken the federal law that protectsmarine mammals from various activities like mapping sea floors with sonar.Mapping with sonar would facilitate seabed mining and, likely, oil production.The U.S. Navy is developing extremely powerful sonar to detect the vessels ofenemy capitalist classes.

Many years ago a factory caught fire in New York City and more than 160young women were immolated or leaped to their deaths. Capitalism’s responseto that disaster was similar to capitalism’s response to the impending envi-ronmental disaster that degradation of the oceans foreshadows today—itappointed a commission to investigate and make recommendations. “Bosh!”said Daniel De Leon. “Bosh!” because everyone knew the source of the prob-lem, and everyone knew that more such disasters would follow regardless ofwhat the commission found and recommended, and regardless of what newlaws the ruling class might enact to “regulate” itself. De Leon added:

“There is but one commission that can ‘investigate’; but one grand jury thatcan ‘indict’; but one trial jury that can convict in the premises—that commis-sion is the socialist movement, that grand jury the socialist organization, thattrial jury the industrially organized useful labor of the land, marshaled on thepolitical and the economic field.

“That commission need not wait to be appointed—social evolution hasappointed it; that grand jury need not wait to be paneled—science has paneledit. The two have ascertained the facts, drawn up the indictment, and namedthe culprit—capitalism. As “to the trial jury, it still lags behind, thoughassuredly drawing together.

“Investigate!?—Bosh! The hour calls for conviction and sentence.”Unfortunately, the working-class “jury” is still out on capitalism. If it does-

n’t bring in a “guilty” verdict on capitalism soon, nature is likely to pass sen-tence on us, “one and all.”

—P.D.L.

Rapid Transition(Daily People, Feb. 16, 1905)

It is a truism, but one that cannot be repeated too often, that the form ofgovernment reflects the material conditions that the respective governmentis intended to safeguard. As the political movement of labor is bound to be areflex of the trades union organization which constitutes its base, so, like-wise, systems of government cannot choose but reflect the stage of economicdevelopment of which they are the flower. This principle explains the systemof “checks and balances” upon which the Constitution of the United Stateswas constructed. Capitalism, then in its infancy, neither needed nor wanted acentralized administration. What on the field of trade was known as “compe-tition,” found in politics its equivalent in “checks and balances.” Accordingly,no branch of the government, the executive least of all, was entrusted withcontrolling power. All the three branches—executive, legislative and judicial—were coordinate. They mutually checked one another, just as in old Rome thetwo Consuls were elected to do. But the times have changed; that is to say, thematerial interests that government is born of have since assumed a developedbody. How far the development has gone may be measured by the practicalchange that the Constitution has undergone, or to be more accurate, is rap-idly undergoing.

Within the last four years the executive, under President [Theodore]Roosevelt, has, in six noted instances, wiped out the legislative branch. Itrepealed the Spooner Act on Nicaragua; it assumed legislative function in thematter of Pension Order No. 78; it struck out, by the theory of “constructiverecess,” the function vested in the Senate to confirm appointments; it seizedand exercised, in the matter of Panama, the House’s exclusive privilege todeclare war; it put, in the matter of the Indian School Fund, a rider on the actof Congress which prohibited appropriations for sectarian purposes, andturned the act into exactly the opposite; finally, latest to date, it excluded, inthe matter of Puerto Plata, San Domingo, the prerogative of the Senate as acoordinate treaty-making power. The transition is rapid; and trustified capitalis compelling submission on the part of the Senate and the House. From beinga power, checked at every motion, the executive is becoming, if it has not yetbecome, the sole governmental power in the land. Concentrated capital at thetrust stage of today, needs and wants a “checked and balanced” executive aslittle as Imperial Rome, having grown giddy with conquest, needed or wantedtwo mutually checking Consuls. These continued to be elected as a matter ofform, of custom and to save appearances—the same as with us, the Senateand House will soon continue to meet wholly as a matter of form, of customand for the sake of saving appearances. In Imperial Rome, the emperor’s will

VOL.114 NO. 2 JULY-AUGUST 2004

Degrading the Oceans

A De Leon Editorial

PresidentialPower

The expansion and concentration of capital forced theexpansion and concentration of presidential power to meet the needsof capitalism’s plutocracy. Increased executive powers have drawn theteeth from the “checks and balances” concept of government.

wwhhaatt iiss ssoocciiaalliissmm??Socialism is the collective ownership by all the people of the factories, mills,

mines, railroads, land and all other instruments of production. Socialism means pro-duction to satisfy human needs, not, as under capitalism, for sale and profit.Socialism means direct control and management of the industries and social servic-es by the workers through a democratic government based on their nationwideeconomic organization.

Under socialism, all authority will originate from the workers, integrally unitedin Socialist Industrial Unions. In each workplace, the rank and file will elect what-ever committees or representatives are needed to facilitate production. Within eachshop or office division of a plant, the rank and file will participate directly in for-mulating and implementing all plans necessary for efficient operations.

Besides electing all necessary shop officers, the workers will also elect represen-tatives to a local and national council of their industry or service—and to a centralcongress representing all the industries and services. This all-industrial congresswill plan and coordinate production in all areas of the economy. All persons electedto any post in the socialist government, from the lowest to the highest level, will bedirectly accountable to the rank and file. They will be subject to removal at any timethat a majority of those who elected them decide it is necessary.

Such a system would make possible the fullest democracy and freedom. It wouldbe a society based on the most primary freedom—economic freedom.

For individuals, socialism means an end to economic insecurity and exploitation. Itmeans workers cease to be commodities bought and sold on the labor market andforced to work as appendages to tools owned by someone else. It means a chance todevelop all individual capacities and potentials within a free community of freeindividuals.

Socialism does not mean government or state ownership. It does not mean a statebureaucracy as in the former Soviet Union or China, with the working classoppressed by a new bureaucratic class. It does not mean a closed party-run systemwithout democratic rights. It does not mean “nationalization,” or “labor-manage-ment boards,” or state capitalism of any kind. It means a complete end to all cap-italist social relations.

To win the struggle for socialist freedom requires enormous efforts of organiza-tional and educational work. It requires building a political party of socialism tocontest the power of the capitalist class on the political field and to educate themajority of workers about the need for socialism. It requires building SocialistIndustrial Union organizations to unite all workers in a classconscious industrialforce and to prepare them to take, hold and operate the tools of production.

You are needed in the ranks of Socialists fighting for a better world. Find outmore about the program and work of the Socialist Labor Party and join us to helpmake the promise of socialism a reality.

(Continued on page 10)

JULY-AUGUST 2004 THE PEOPLE 5

When Victor Reuther died on June 3, at age92, John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, eulogized him as “one of the most

imposing and inspirational figures in the develop-mental years of the labor movement....” Reuther,he said, “ranks among our movement’s heroes.”

Sweeney also alluded to the sit-down strikes of1936–1937 to embellish his tribute to the last ofthe three Reuther brothers. The sit-downstrikes caused General Motors, andeventually the entire auto industry, toaccept the United Auto Workers Unionas the exclusive bargaining agent forautoworkers. “Together with his broth-ers, Walter and Roy, [Victor] built theUAW into a powerful force for socialgood,” Sweeney said.

Ron Gettelfinger, president of theUAW, was no less effusive. “The entireUAW community is saddened by the lossof Victor Reuther, a pioneer of our unionwhose passion for social justice and tal-ent as an orator energized and mobilizedearly sit-down strikers,” he said.

Conspicuous by their absence, howev-er, were tributes from such ruling-classsources as the president of the UnitedStates and the Wall Street Journal tomatch those given to Victor Reuther’solder brother, Walter, 34 years ago.

When Walter Reuther died in an air-plane crash in 1970, President RichardM. Nixon described his death as “a deeploss not only for organized labor but alsofor the cause of collective bargaining andthe entire American process.” PresidentGeorge W. Bush, however, had nothing similarto say about Victor Reuther, at least nothingthat was appropriate for posting on the WhiteHouse Web site.

The New York Times and the Wall StreetJournal did take notice of Victor Reuther’s pass-ing, as did the Detroit Free Press, the Los AngelesTimes and many other news outlets. Most con-fined themselves to obituaries that highlighteddetails of his life, but none of these approachedthe tribute the Wall Street Journal had paid tobrother Walter.

“At a time when many liberals were disen-chanted with the labor movement,” the Journallamented after the former UAW president’s fatalplane crash, “the United Auto Workers presi-dent was a symbol of enlightened unionism andsocial activism that’s not easily replaced.”

Why the capitalist press did not dwell on VictorReuther’s passing as it had on his older brothermay be explained by its preoccupation with thepassing of former president Ronald Reagan; or itmay be explained by the weakened condition ofthe so-called labor movement of today.

The reason for the Sweeney and Gettelfingertributes to Victor Reuther may, on the other hand,seem obvious to those whose understanding ofAmerican labor union history is founded on myth.One such myth surrounded the Reuther brothers’role in the sit-down strikes 67 years ago. Victorand Walter Reuther in particular were regardedas excellent orators, and both were UAW organ-izers when the most important of the auto sit-down strikes occurred in 1936–1937. Their pres-ence on the scene is indisputable, but their role in“organizing” and “leading” the workers whostaged the strikes is not.

In truth, the sit-down strikes were sponta-neous actions taken by desperate workerswhose collective intelligence and class instinctsled them to adopt what, to them, was a new tac-tic. No one “organized” them and no one “led”them. Other workers, in Europe, in the rubberplants of Ohio and in smaller auto parts plantsin Michigan, already had tried them with somesuccess. The autoworkers were disgusted with

the ineffectual American Federation of Labor,and the newly organized Congress of IndustrialOrganizations was fully prepared to take advan-tage of their rival’s discomfiture and the work-ers’ discontent.

General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and the othermajor auto-producing companies of the period,were fiercely determined to keep the unions out

of their largest assembly plants. It was a tumul-tuous time, however, with the country locked inthe depths of the Great Depression and the rul-ing class having good reason to fear that work-ing-class discontent would mature and growinto something more ominous for them thansimple trades union demands for better wagesand working conditions. Alfred M. Sloane, pres-ident of General Motors, demonstrated hisunderstanding of the larger issues and stakesinvolved in the sit-down strikes. In January1937, when workers were occupying GM’sFisher 2 plant in Flint, he placed a full-pageadvertisement in Detroit area newspapers inwhich he asked: “Will a labor organization runthe plants off General Motors Corporation orwill the management continue to do so?”

Some workers also understood the implica-tions of staying put inside the production plantsrather than pouring onto the streets where theywould be vulnerable to attack by company goons,scabs, police and the National Guard. The lead-ership of the UAW and the CIO also understoodthe situation. At one point, CIO President JohnL. Lewis blustered about joining workers at theplant to die fighting off the National Guard thatthe state’s governor had deployed at the insis-tence of the auto companies. What he was after,however, was “recognition” of the UAW-CIO anda “collective bargaining” agreement with GMand the other auto-making companies.

The stakes were high and the companies didnot flinch at violence. The Reuther brotherswere young organizers sent in by the UAW totake charge of the strike. “On Jan. 11, 1937,”according to the Detroit News, “the Reutherbrothers organized a sit-down strike at the GMFisher 2 plant in Flint. After a pitched three-hour battle with police, in which strikers weregassed and shot with buckshot, the workersrouted the police with water hoses and make-shift industrial-sized slingshots, hurling two-pound metal hinges....”

Perceptive readers may stop to ask: “What’swrong with this picture?” The answer, of course,is that the battle did not take place inside the

plant where the sit-down strike was on, but out-side—and that’s where the Reuther brotherswere. The “Battle of the Overpass,” as the DetroitNews called it, took place all right, and WalterReuther subsequently received a severe beatingat the hands of company stooges and scabs, butthat had nothing to do with organizing or leadingthe sit-down at GM Fisher 2.

Truth is that despite John L. Lewis’blustering, the leadership of the UAW-CIO opposed the sit-downs because theyalienated the companies and complicat-ed rather than helped UAW-CIO effortsto lead GM to the bargaining table.Homer Martin, UAW president at thetime, made this clear in January 1937when the “Battle of the Overpass”occurred, when he said: “We have nevergiven anybody orders to sit down.” Truthis that Victor Reuther and his brotherswere UAW organizers sent in to takecharge of the strike by leading workersinto channels that the UAW-CIO leader-ship regarded as more constructive. TheReuther brothers failed at that. Whatbrought the automakers to heel was theknowledge that the only way to dislodgethe workers was to send the NationalGuard into the plants. Amajor bloodbathseemed to be in the offing, but the possi-ble consequences such a massacre wouldhave for the auto capitalists and theirprecious system posed a risk that was toobig to take.

The sit-down strikes were “successful”in two important respects. They forced

the auto industry to recognize the UAW as the“bargaining agent” for auto industry workers,which was the end all and be all of what theUAW and the CIO were after. That, in turn, gavethe U.S. Supreme Court the “courage” to outlawsit-down strikes as a “high-handed proceeding,without shadow of legal right.” In short, the sit-down strikes were intolerable violations of capi-talist private property rights, and with the tacitif not explicit consent of the CIO and UAW, thecourt mustered up the nerve to deprive workersof an important and effective tactic in theirstruggles with capital.

The UAW-CIO “leadership” quietly acceptedthis, and Victor and his brothers went on to leadthe UAW down the, to capitalists, acceptablepath of “collective bargaining.” Hence, the capi-talist accolades for Walter Reuther 34 years ago.Hence, the tributes paid to Victor Reuther byJohn Sweeney and Ron Gettelfinger. Hence, thedeplorable condition the labor movement findsitself in today and why it must be rebuilt, fromthe ground up.

Victor Reuther and his brothers were men ofunquestionable personal courage. Victor andWalter Reuther in particular suffered greatlyfrom the brutal beatings they received duringthe sit-down strikes, and both survived attemptsat assassination in later years.

We may readily concede that the three broth-ers were sincere and honest men at the time ofthe sit-down strikes, and perhaps until the end oftheir lives. They understood from first-handexperience just how ruthless capitalism could be.

Ultimately, however, they were reform-mind-ed men whose activities during and after the sit-down strikes betrayed a fundamental lack offaith in the working class. They were self-pro-fessed “social democrats” who understood thefact of the class struggle, but who nonethelessrejected the revolutionary objectives of thesocialist movement. These are facts, and it takesnothing away from their reputations as coura-geous men to recognize that, in the end, theyaccepted capitalism and rejected the underlyinglogic of a genuine labor movement.

Victor Reuther A man of proven personal courage who understood the class struggle, but who ultimatelyrejected socialism and accepted capitalism

Olive M. Johnson was editor in chief of ThePeople from 1918 until 1938. The People was aweekly publication back then, but the party waspoor—poorer even than now—and its povertyallowed for only one editorial assistant to helpthe woman in charge.

Johnson had contributed many articles toThe People before the National Executive Com-mittee asked her to accept the editor’s post, butshe had no formal training as an editor or as awriter and she was understandably reluctant totake on the task. To make matters worse,she suffered from tuberculosis, anailment that would plague her untilthe end of her life.

Johnson was, however, a remark-able woman of considerable intellectu-al and moral strength, and despite theailment that tormented her body andoccasionally interfered with her work,she persevered for 20 years. She earnedand she deserves the same notice ofaccomplishment on behalf of the socialistmovement as some of her better-knownEuropean counterparts, such as EleanorMarx-Aveling, Clara Zetkin, AlexandraKollantai and Rosa Luxemburg. Indeed, itwould be difficult to single out anotherAmerican woman who contributed asmuch to the socialist cause.

Johnson died 50 years ago, on June 16,1954, at age 82. Her life and her accom-plishments deserve more than a passingmention in The People, of course, and wehope to pay a more fitting tribute in ournext issue. Here, however, it is an earlierdeath—the assassination 75 years ago ofthe Italian Socialist Giacomo Matteotti,and Johnson’s editorial treatment of it—towhich we most want to call attention.

In 1922, Italy was in ferment. Factory occupa-tions and other events made it appear that thecountry was on the verge of a socialist revolution.With that fear to prompt him, King VictorEmmanuel III invited the former “Socialist,”Benito Mussolini, to form a new government andrestore “order.” Bent on seizing state power,Mussolini already had led his black-shirtedFascists in a triumphant March on Rome. Hecould not resist the aura of “legitimacy” thatVictor Emmanuel’s overture held out to him,however, and he quickly accepted the king’s offer.

Nonetheless, Il Duce’s ability to seal his grip onstate power was still uncertain by 1924. Con-ditions during those early years forced Mussolinito retain certain democratic forms. Italy’s Social-ists, Communists and bourgeois democrats con-tinued to occupy many seats in the national par-liament, where they resisted fascist encroachmentsand, much to the chagrin of Mussolini’s expectantfollowers, dared to speak out in opposition to fas-cist corruption despite intimidation and threats.

Matteotti was leader of the Italian Socialists.He also was a millionaire, and he may naivelyhave believed that his status guaranteed himimmunity from fascist violence. On June 10,1924, he delivered a speech in parliament inwhich he promised to return the next day withproof of corruption at the highest levels ofMussolini’s government.

Matteotti “disappeared” that night. It tookpolice two months to discover his body in a shal-low grave near Rome, but few ever doubted thatFascist thugs had murdered him. Johnson sum-marized what many believed Matteotti haduncovered in a news brief printed in the WeeklyPeople of July 12, 1924:

“More and more information is leaking out asto the reasons that caused the Matteotti assassi-nation. It is a regular Teapot Dome affair. Mat-teotti was ready to charge that Sen. [Mario]Corbino [Bear], minister of national economy(apparently the Italian equivalent for secretary of

the interior) had imitated our own [Secretary ofthe Interior Albert B.] Fall by handing over to theSinclair Oil concern over 400 square miles of oillands in Emilia and Sicily without any guaran-tees. Whether Corbino got a black satchel full ofcash for the favor the report does not say, but itmay be inferred that there must have been some-thing in it for Corbino and his fascist gangbecause Sinclair is no piker, but always willing toact up to the principle that one good turn deservesanother.”

The assassination of Matteotti and Italy’s ver-sion of the Teapot Dome scandal threatened totopple Mussolini from power, but his opponentsin parliament made the fateful mistake ofresigning their seats in the belief that new elec-tions would result in a resounding defeat for theFascists that would send them packing. At thatpoint, however, the blackshirts confronted Mus-solini and demanded that he either put an endto the democratic charade and prove himself theIl Duce they wanted by declaring himself dicta-tor or they would find someone else who wouldlive up to their expectations. He did not disap-point them.

It was against this background, while eventswere still unfolding in Italy, that Johnson wroteher editorial “Government by Assassination.”She could not project herself forward to our time,when the leaders of such “democratic” states asIsrael and the United States would publiclyimply, condone or declare abduction and assas-sination to be acceptable government policies, soshe looked back into history for comparableexamples. She knew what crimes capitalism wascapable of committing. The massacre of millionsof workers in one world war was still fresh in theminds of everyone, but the second great massacreof the 20th century was still years off. Matteottiwas among the first of capitalist fascism’s “dis-appeared.” Capitalism has many political guis-es, however, and if the puny oil deposits of anItaly were motive enough for murder in 1924,imagine the strain Iraq’s massive oil reserveshave placed on the “Christian” consciences of ourcapitalist ruling class in 2004.

Government by AssassinationBy Olive M. Johnson

(Weekly People, July 5, 1924)

In the good old times murder seems to havebeen a necessary auxiliary to “good” andstable government. The king, the caesar,

tribune or dictator, whatever the good tone ofthe moment required that “his majesty” shouldcall himself, if he was a man of “strength” and

“character” and expected to rule long enough tobe remembered at all in the pages of history,whether he ascended the throne “legitimate-ly”—someone having accidentally forgotten tokill him off—or “illegitimately” by usurpationand murder, immediately started his career bykilling off in his own favorite manner anyclaimants and rivals that dared to be alive atthe moment, and after that he upheld his now

“legitimately” established rights by apply-ing the same approved and effective

method to any grumbler against hisgood and benevolent rule that dared toraise his head, i.e., if the grumbler wasof high standing, noble and importantenough to be worthy of so honorable adeath. If he wasn’t he was simply mas-sacred along with a few hundred or afew thousands of his fellows.

This method of establishing legitima-cy, and of making and perpetuatinggood government has gone slightly outof fashion, since, with the advent of theprinting press, mankind took thewicked notion of writing contemporaryhistory, not always flattering to the“majority” of one man who by “con-sent” or tradition held the title of“head of government.” The last enthu-siastic advocate of the methods heredescribed, in Western civilization andin a country important enough toloom big in history, was “Bluff KingHal” of pre-Elizabethan England.Elizabeth, the worthy daughter of“Hal,” practiced it to be sure, but

not with approved spirit and bravado. Mussolini, in our own day, appears to

be attempting to revive the institution of gov-ernment by assassination. The old Romanemperors, the Fascist chief’s historical ances-tors, were particularly enthusiastic practition-ers of the assassination method of establishingfirm and stable government. Mussolini,undoubtedly looking upon himself as “thenoblest Roman of them all,” could scarcely beexpected to fail to revive this noble ancientinstitution if a good occasion should presentitself. Having subdued the recalcitrant mobs,Socialists, trade unionists and the like, mosteffectively by castor oil and the mailed fist, itwas not to be expected that this modern son ofa Nero should sit pretty and take sauce fromone of his own size.

Deputy Matteotti, a Socialist, and “unfortu-nately”—for the Fascists—also a multimillion-aire and one of Italy’s powerful, rose in theChamber and accused the government oftremendous graft and mismanagement, andgave notice that he would return the followingday with absolute proofs. He did not appear, forthat night he was foully and brutally mur-dered—for the sake of good and stable govern-ment, of course.

But the “firm government” assassins had for-gotten to remember that there are severalobstacles to reviving first-century good govern-ment tactics in the 20th century. Some of theseobstacles are newspapers, who are hungry forsensation even to the damage of stable govern-ment; the telegraph; the wireless; internationalrelations tinctured by modern “Christian”hypocrisy; and to a certain extent, also a riotousnotion of “democracy” which has gotten abroadin many lands, thanks to the printing press andother modern superfluities. The assassinationof Deputy Matteotti has produced a repercus-sion throughout Italy and the world that ismaking the good government of the black-shirt-ed dictator rock to its foundations.

To become the “noblest Roman of the all,”Mussolini has evidently been born some 19centuries too late.

6 THE PEOPLE JULY-AUGUST 2004

Giacomo Matteotti Fascist blackshirts murdered theSocialist leader 75 years ago to coverup Italy’s own ‘Teapot Dome’ Scandal

Mussolini sitting on Matteotti’s coffin.

Fifty years ago, the United States instigated aninvasion of the tiny Central American republic ofGuatemala. The politicians who occupied Washing-ton in 1954 still had not developed the same open con-tempt for common decency as the set that occupy ittoday. They lacked the audacity needed to take publicresponsibility for their actions. They were still at thesneak-thief stage of hiring other people to do their dirtywork. Two later examples of this moral turpitude werethe U.S.-instigated overthrow and assassination ofChilean President Salvador Gossens Allende in the1970s and the still later Iran-Contra affairin the 1980s. Nonetheless, U.S. sponsor-ship of the invasion of Guatemala was an“open secret” that was freely discussed inthe press. The United States inspired,financed and armed the invasion. It was notthe first, and would not be the last, exampleof U.S. intervention in Latin America. Theexcuse in 1954 was “communism,” but thereal reason was U.S. displeasure withGuatemala’s decision to exercise sovereigntyover its own territory. That decision rancounter to the interests of the UnitedFruit Co. Bananas, not communism,caused the United States to seek “regimechange” in Guatemala 50 years ago.

More stains than stars have come to“adorn” our country’s flag since privateinterest came to replace the common wel-fare as the guiding principle of the coun-try. The leading article from the WeeklyPeople of July 3, 1954, helps us toremember how and why one of thosestains, now too many to count, came tobesmirch what some now sadlydescribe as Old Gory.

Press Tries to Hide the TruthHand of United States Is Seen in the Aggression

Nine-tenths of what appears in the capitalistpress on the war in Guatemala is lies andhypocrisy. Taking its cue from Washington,

the press treats the invasion of the tiny CentralAmerican republic as if it were an uprising inspiredby popular resentment against the government ofPresident Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, which, although,not communist, is Communist-supported. But allthe world knows that the self-styled “Army ofLiberation” of Col. Carlos P. Castillo Armas invadedGuatemala from bases in the U.S.-dominated“republic” of Honduras, and that it has the encour-agement of the U.S. government, and is probablyfighting with arms supplied by the United States.

At least one prominent newsman, who is notedfor his contacts in high places in the U.S. govern-ment, has strongly hinted that the aggression wasinstigated, if not actually organized, by the head ofthe American Central Intelligence Agency. OnJune 20, James Reston, chief of The New YorkTimes bureau in Washington, made the followingrevealing observation in a dispatch to his paper:

“John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, seldomintervenes in the internal affairs of other countries,but his brother Allen is more enterprising.

“If somebody wants to start a revolutionagainst the Communists in, say, Guatemala, it isno good talking to Foster Dulles. But AllenDulles, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, isa more active man.

“He has been watching the Guatemalan situa-tion for a long time.”

Post Admits ‘We Have Intervened’The New York Post, June 21, was completely

candid in admitting that the United States has ahand in the aggression. First, arguing that com-munist influence in the Arbenz government jus-tifies American intervention, the Post stated edi-torially:

“We have intervened....No austere disclaimerscan hide our role, and we shall win little worldesteemby refusing to admit the complexities of ourstand. We have plainly encouraged the rebels, and

we render ourselves a trifle ludicrous by joining ina solemn call for a ‘cease-fire’ as they start march-ing.”

Why Intervention?The question is not “Is America intervening?”

but “Why is America intervening?” The Post says it is to “counter” the “interven-

tion” of Soviet Russia. It deduces such Russian“intervention” from the fact that the CommunistParty of Guatemala supports the Arbenz regime

and the regime accepts its support. And Com-munists, it correctly states, are subservient to theKremlin.

It is significant that, except in those LatinAmerican states whose dictators are virtual pup-pets of the United States, such as Nicaragua andthe Dominican Republic, there are few LatinAmericans who accept this as the reason for U.S.intervention. According to the American press, itis the “Communists” of Mexico, Uruguay, Chileand other Latin American countries who are rais-ing the cry of Yanqui imperialism, but the factsgive this the lie.

In Mexico, for example, although the govern-ment has apparently given its tacit blessing to theaggression, there is a broadly supported non-Communist pro-Guatemalan movement. Gen.Cardenas, ex-president of Mexico and perhaps thecountry’s most influential single individual, haswritten a letter to the press sharply protesting theAmerican position. A Mexico City dispatch to theChristian Science Monitor, June 15, states that “asizable and important sector of public opinionranging from a prominent group of individualswho have organized themselves as the Society ofFriends of Guatemala to, surprisingly, theextreme right-wing Sinarquista Party” supportsthe Guatemalan regime. In large advertisementsplaced in the Mexican press, the Society ofFriends of Guatemala said:

“Mexico knows well attacks against its sover-eignty realized in past epochs by foreign interestsnot disposed to tolerate that the country acquireits economic independence—but just as Mexicowas accused of communism because it did not tol-erate the petroleum companies exercising a tri-bunal above the tribunals of the republic, so alsonow Guatemala is accused of communismbecause it does not tolerate that a foreign compa-ny disavows the judgments of the Supreme Courtof Guatemala.”

This is a reference to the Guatemalan SupremeCourt’s decision upholding the law confiscatingland formerly owned by the United Fruit Co.,which was lying idle.

Finally, to emphasize the anticommunist natureofthe voices raised against Yanqui intervention, the

Roman Catholic-supported Sinarquista Party ofMexico “sharply criticized the United States forsending arms to Guatemala’s neighboring coun-tries ‘under the pretext of protecting a democracythat does not exist and a security that is not men-aced, and in reality for defending the illegitimateinterests of North American monopolies that haverobbed the riches of brother peoples.’” (ChristianScience Monitor, June 15)

Again, the allusion is to the American-ownedUnited Fruit Co., whose control of the railroads

and electric power system of Guatemala,not to mention the banana industry, gives itan unwholesome power over the country’seconomy.

The enterprise of this company in exploit-ing Guatemalan labor, and its skill in cor-rupting public officials and securing specialadvantages for itself, were directly responsi-ble for the success of the reform movementthat put and has kept the Arbenz regime inoffice, and that has given it an overwhelmingmajority in the legislature.

Colonialism—American StyleApologists for American capitalism boast

that the United States rejects imperialismand colonialism. The fact is that the UnitedStates rejects the kind of imperialism andcolonialism that subordinates other coun-tries to the political rule of Washington. Thisis the old-fashioned imperialism and colo-nialism that enabled three or four Europeanpowers to control vast areas of the world formore than a century, and that is rapidlydying today.

The imperialism and colonialism of theUnited States do not require political subor-

dination. They are more subtle. They control acountry by economic means—chiefly by becom-ing the main customer for the country’s chiefexports, which are usually raw materials. Such acountry is highly vulnerable to economic coer-cion. It may have nominal “sovereignty” and“national independence,” but a mere fluctuationin the price of its products in the American mar-ket can create a national crisis.

Moreover, the United States is interested in hold-ing economically subjugated countries in a state ofeconomic “colonialism.” The press boasts loudly ofAmerican “aid,” and of the tremendous benefitsthat allegedly accrue to Latin American countriesfrom American investments, but the facts showthat most of this “aid” and most of these invest-ments were for the purpose of expanding raw-material production, hence they left the countriesinvolved as economically dependent and vulnera-ble as ever.

How Washington Learned of the‘Communist’ Menace

There is little doubt that the present American-blessed—if not American-instigated—aggressionis the consequence of a series of developments thatgrew out of an attempt by the Arbenz governmentto escape from this pattern of economic colonial-ism. Its struggles to curb United Fruit, not the factof Communists in the Arbenz regime, are whataroused Washington to the “Communist” menace.Powerful allies of United Fruit in the Eisenhoweradministration did the rest. The legitimate gov-ernment of Guatemala was denied the right ofbuying arms in the United States to protect itselffrom foes plotting against it, and when it obtainedthese arms from behind the Iron Curtain the mostsinister inferences were drawn. The Arbenz gov-ernment was preparing to defend itself, and thisseems to have enraged the American ruling classwhich doubtless hoped that, like other anti-impe-rialist Latin American governments, this onemight be overthrown by a cheaply purchased coup.

It is not a communist threat, even thoughscheming Communists are involved, but capital-ist greed that is responsible for the bloodshed inGuatemala.

JULY-AUGUST 2004 THE PEOPLE 7

Guatemala A U.S.-backed ‘revolution’ toppled its democraticallyelected government 50 years ago and ushered indecades of dictatorship and violence

AB CAP for The People

was lost. And there are still about 200 lawsuitsagainst IBM that could be affected by thestudy if it were published.

Joseph LaDou, guest editor of MedicalClinics of North America, the journal that hadaccepted Clapp’s study for publication, had adifferent view. LaDou, director of the Universityof California-San Francisco’s InternationalCenter for Occupational Medicine, noted thatfour peer reviewers had read and approved thestudy for publication before it had to be with-drawn. LaDou commented, “I wanted this inthe journal because it’s the most definitivecancer study” until now in the computer man-ufacturing industry, noting that IBM’s actionwas a “serious disappointment to our scientif-ic and academic freedom.”

But this is not about academic freedom. It isabout corporate control and, above all, profit.Capitalist enterprises own not only the tools ofproduction that workers must hire themselves

to in order to make a living. They also own theproduct of the workers’ labor and the informa-tion that is involved in production and thataffects the safety and even the lives of thoseworkers. If the truth had come out connectingcancer to workers’ exposure to chemicals, IBMmight have had to pay for the damages its toxicwork environment had caused and institute

new procedures and modify its production facil-ities, all of which would have affected profits.

Workers will have a safe environment onlywhen they own and manage industry demo-cratically in a socialist society. Then they willget the full fruits of their labor without beingsubjected to hazards they cannot control oreven know about.

the inspector general’s office issued anothersemiannual report that documented more than1,000 complaints of civil rights and civil libertiesabuses received by the department over a six-month period. While the report contended thatno Justice Department employees engaged inmisconduct, it conveniently failed to address thequestion of abuses by other arms of federal, stateor local government.

Moreover, while the Patriot Act and the rest ofthis wave of repressive measures have beenbilled as weapons against terrorism, the JusticeDepartment has already used their provisions inother cases not involving terrorism. MarkCorallo, a Justice Department spokesman, madeit clear that the department plans to continue touse the new tools against U.S. citizens as well asimmigrants and foreign citizens. “If a tool that islegal and constitutionally valid is good enough touse against organized crime or drug dealers, itought to be good enough to be used against ter-rorism. Conversely, if it’s good enough to be usedagainst terrorists, it ought to be used againstother kinds of criminals.”

It is not yet true that the United States is in thegrip of fascism. What is true is that the ruling cap-italist class and its political representatives havein the past three years voted themselves a vastnew array of patently unconstitutional weaponswith which to protect their interests whenever

they choose to do so. While it may be that thecountry is slipping into a sort of new Dark Ageswith respect to human rights and liberties, thereis still time to fashion a real response capable ofhalting the country’s slide toward totalitarianism,rooting out its cause, and establishing permanentprotections against the possibility of fascism everagain rearing its ugly head.

Benjamin Franklin admonished in 1755,“Those who would give up essential liberty topurchase a little temporary safety, deserve nei-ther liberty nor safety.” No freedom-lovingAmerican worker should be willing to bargainaway our rights and liberties in exchange fordubious promises of safety from terrorism.

The task before us is not a small one. Thethreat of fascism or some other form of totalitar-ianism cannot be ended by tossing the Bushadministration out of office. It cannot be votedout of existence. It must be uprooted anddeprived of the social soil in which it thrives—the conditions of privation and constricted eco-nomic opportunity wrought by capitalism andcapitalist-class rule.

The capitalist system is inherently nationalis-tic, imperialistic and militaristic. Its ruling classhas material incentives to divide workers byrace, ethnicity and religion. All it takes is severeeconomic hardship, social strife, or both—condi-tions that are inevitable under capitalism—tobring these ingredients together and foster the

growth of fascism or some like-minded right-wing movement. The attendant longing for“order,” and the capitalists’need to preserve theirrule, can then bring it to power. The GermanWeimar Republic actually voted to give Hitlerthe dictatorial power he sought. A future PatriotAct could amount to the same thing here in theUnited States, should the U.S. ruling class feelthreatened enough—or should no oppositionarise to the kind of “creeping fascism” thatpresently confronts us.

Society has reached a point where capitalism isincreasingly incompatible with freedom and democ-racy. To save capitalism, freedom and democracymust eventually be destroyed. To save freedom anddemocracy, capitalism must be destroyed.

Succinctly put, to reverse the trend towardrepression, to defend our rights from attack andto make democracy a reality in every sphere oflife, the working class must organize to end cap-italist control over the means of life and with itthe political supremacy of the capitalist class.

The only cure for the fascist threat inherent incapitalist-class rule is the forging of a classcon-scious workers’ movement for socialism that suc-cessfully establishes a socialist economic democ-racy—a rational social system that can providefulfilling economic opportunity for all and pro-duction for human needs and wants rather thanfor the profit of the minority capitalist class.

Every classconscious worker who can seewhat is at stake had best heed the alarm, rousethemselves and join the struggle to educate andorganize our class for socialism—while there isstill time to do so.

. . . Threat to Liberty

8 THE PEOPLE JULY-AUGUST 2004

(Continued from page 3)

Guatemala elsewhere in this issue: “The imperialism and colonialism of the

United States do not require political subordi-nation. They are more subtle. They control acountry by economic means—chiefly by becom-ing the main customer for the country’s chiefexports, which are usually raw materials. Sucha country is highly vulnerable to economic coer-cion. It may have nominal ‘sovereignty’ and‘national independence,’ but a mere fluctuationin the price of its products in the Americanmarket can create a national crisis.”

President Bush and Dr. Rice notwithstand-ing, American capitalism’s imperialist objec-tives in Iraq are transparently obvious. Anylingering doubt on that score surely evaporatedwhen the Bush administration’s handpickedinterim government took office on June 3.

The man chosen as prime minister and leader

of that government is Ilyad Allawi, a formerpolice spy for Saddam Hussein and one-timeCIA operative. According to another Time mag-azine report, Allawi’s connections to the CIAhave made him one of the least popular of allpossible appointees to the post among Iraqis.

“Why do Iraqis have such a poor opinion ofAllawi? Sadoun al-Dulame, executive directorof the ICRSS [Iraq Center for Research andStrategic Studies], pointed to one reason: ‘Everynewspaper that has reported about his appoint-ment has mentioned his CIA connection.’Although Allawi has sniped at the U.S.-ledcoalition in recent months, it’s his ties toLangley that seem to have registered withIraqis. (His organization, the Iraqi NationalAccord, is funded by the CIA.) ‘He’s a CIA man,like [Ahmed] Chalabi,’ said Raed Abu Hassan, aBaghdad University political science post-grad.‘In this country, CIA connections are political

poison.’ It doesn’t help that the Shiite Allawi isalso a former Baathist, and a returning exile.Many Iraqis are scornful of politicians who leftthe country during the Saddam era.” (June 1)

None of this prevented former Clinton fromechoing the current administration’s claimsabout the United States having no imperialistambitions in Iraq during his interview withTime. According to CNN.com, Clinton said:

“I have repeatedly defended President Bushagainst the left on Iraq, even though I think heshould have waited until the U.N. inspectionswere over.”

“Clinton,” CNN added, “said he did notbelieve that Bush went to war in Iraq over oilor for imperialist reasons but out of a genuinebelief that large quantities of weapons of massdestruction remained unaccounted for.”

Clinton’s remarks make it clear that workerswho oppose war and U.S. intervention abroadwill have to look beyond the Democratic Partyto stop capitalist imperialism. They will haveto look to themselves.

. . . Iraq ‘Sovereignty’(Continued from page 1)

. . . IBM Study(Continued from page 1)

Democracy:Past, Present and Future

By Arnold Petersen

This pamphlet shows what democracy meantto the slave-owning class of ancient Athens, whatit means to America’s capitalist class and what itwill mean to the emancipated workers undersocialism.

80 pages—$1.50 postpaid

NEW YORK LABOR NEWSP.O. Box 218

Mountain View, CA 94042-0218

Capitalism and UnemploymentTraces the socialist approach to a

problem capitalism has never beenable to solve.

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By Michael JamesA recent catalog for a mail-order company car-

ries a sales pitch from the president and CEO.He claims that his products “fight the war onaging.” He further boasts that he designed hispills, lotions, creams or whatever “to help youtake arms against aging.” The CEO keeps hismilitaristic metaphor going by calling his prod-ucts “artillery” in this dubious war on aging.

Why should The People concern itself with theway capitalists choose to hustle their products?Because choosing war as a metaphor in a salespitch shows how deeply and thoroughly mili-tarism shapes and distorts human conscious-ness in this society.

The Center for Defense Information (CDI) saysthat the Pentagon spent $329 billion in 2002alone. The CDI, according to Harper’s Magazine,says that is “more than China, Russia, Japan,Iraq, North Korea, and all other NATO countriescombined....” “The American military is now thestrongest the world has ever known,” the CDIadded. “We now substitute military solutions foralmost everything, including internationalalliances, diplomacy, effective intelligence agen-cies, [and] democratic institutions....”

The War Resisters League confirms thatnearly 50 cents of every tax dollar paid goes tothe Pentagon, thereby diverting virtually half ofthe public treasury from education, health care,infrastructure, parks, libraries, children, theelderly, the environment, etc., to antisocial andinhumane uses.

A clever bit of public relations wordplaymakes this outrage more palatable. In 1947, theDepartment of War changed its name to theDepartment of Defense. It sounds better, does itnot? It sounds so much more benign, even nec-essary, to spend all those billions on “defense” ina hostile world. A professor of English andexpert on euphemisms calls this name change

“the doublespeak coup of the century.”The Center for Teaching Peace in Washington,

D.C., sums it up this way: “The United States isone of the most warlike societies on the planet....”

Noted historian Howard Zinn agrees. “Nonation in the world possesses greater weaponsof mass destruction than ours,” he wrote, “andnone has used them more often, or with greaterloss of civilian life.”

Marx explained capitalist foreign policy thisway: “The need of a constantly expanding mar-ket for its products chases the bourgeoisie overthe whole surface of the globe. It must nestleeverywhere, settle everywhere, establish con-nections everywhere.”

Two popular slogans related to American cap-italism’s current military enterprise in Iraqreveal the depth of false consciousness amongthe American working class.

The first is “united we stand.” This phrase isan absurd denial of the reality of class divisionin America. Anyone who thinks America isunited is very divorced from classconsciousness.

In the 1990s, for example, an average CEOwas paid $13.1 million–roughly $36,000 forevery day of the year. Figures for the year 2000show CEO pay as 458 times that of the averageproduction or nonsupervisory worker, drastical-ly up from 96 times as much in 1990.

To put the proverbial salt in the proverbialwound, most of the highest paid CEOs duringthe period 1994 to 1999 were noted for their lay-offs of workers. Income inequality is just asymptom of the disease, of course. The arbitrarypower to deprive workers of their livelihoods ismore to the point. Capitalist society, with a priv-ileged and degenerate few perverting produc-tion and distribution for their own enrichmentwhile the many scramble for economic andsocial stability, can never be united.

The second slogan, “support the troops,” is an

invitation to U.S. workers to function as cheer-leaders while the capitalist class pursues its ownclass interests abroad. What characterizes goodcitizenship, however, is allegiance to class, theability to think critically and the existentialdetermination to question autocratic or authori-tarian power. Therefore, cries of “support thetroops” are nothing less than a total abdicationand surrender of all three of these essentialcharacteristics of good citizenship. It is anembarrassing admission of an almost eager will-ingness to be misled, swindled and betrayed.

The slogan “support the troops” is a manifes-tation of the human trait Marx found mostrepugnant: servility. American soldiers shouldbe serving their own class interests at homeinstead of serving corporate interests abroad.

This country celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.day every year. Dr. King was a fierce critic of mil-itary spending even though that portion of hismessage has been largely whitewashed. On April4, 1967, in a speech at Riverside Church in NewYork City, Dr. King pointed his finger at “thegreatest purveyor of violence in the world today—my own government.” He concluded, “A nationthat continues year after year to spend moremoney on military defense that on programs ofsocial uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Well, corporate U.S. militarism has drasticallyincreased since Dr. King spoke. Perhaps hewould now conclude that America is spirituallydead. Militarism may be a spiritual sickness but,more precisely and materially, war is simply partof conducting capitalist business. American capi-talism romanticizes, mystifies and glorifies war.The truth is much more banal yet sinister: thesearch for profit simply requires muscle. Zinnconcludes, “If the world is destroyed, it will be awhite-collar crime, done in a business-likeway....” This does not have to be our future. TheSLP has a plan for peace.

JULY-AUGUST 2004 THE PEOPLE 9

War as Metaphor

By B.G.The recently revealed scandal of humiliating,

terrorizing and torturing of Muslim prisoners byAmerican guards in the Abu Ghraib prison inBaghdad has a parallel, on a more moderatescale, in U.S. prisons after the Sept. 11, 2001,attack.

It was almost immediately after that eventthat the government began rounding up andincarcerating persons with Arabic names and fol-lowers of the Muslim religion. These individualswere held in federal detention, sometimes formonths, while federal investigators questionedthem and checked out details of their lives, workand associations in the United States. They obvi-ously were all considered guilty until proveninnocent. While incarcerated, they were oftensubjected to abuse by their prison guards.

A federal lawsuit brought by lawyers for EhabElmaghraby and Javaid Iqbal, two Muslim menformerly held prisoners in the MetropolitanDetention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., details thesevere abuse they underwent by their guards forseven months before the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI) finally cleared them of anyterrorist links or wrongdoing and released them.

Two New York Times articles by NinaBernstein on May 5 and May 7 described bothmen’s claims of how they were continuallyinsulted as “terrorists” and “Muslim bastards.”They said that guards beat them, slammed theirheads and bodies against walls, frequentlyshackled and dragged them across the floor,freely kicked and punched them, then refusedthem medical treatment. They also said thatguards subjected them to numerous stripsearches and body-cavity searches. Upon one

occasion, guards shoved a flashlight into EhabElmaghraby’s rectum, causing bleeding.

Not only did guards deny medical treatmentto detainees after beating them, the guard incharge also denied prisoners any access tolawyers.

Fortunately for the truth, the former wardenfor the Metropolitan Detention Center inBrooklyn, fearing that mistreatment of prison-ers might occur in the aftermath of Sept. 11, hadrequired videotaping of all Sept. 11 detaineeswhen they were moved out of their cells.

Hundreds of these video and audiotapes havebeen recovered and detail the brutality of theguards against all Muslim detainees. Thesetapes are now being used by Inspector GeneralGlen A. Fine of the U.S. Justice Department asevidence of the abuse at the federal DetentionCenter in Brooklyn. As The New York Timesreported on May 7, Fine issued “two scathingreports” detailing abuse at this detention center.

For some unknown reason, the JusticeDepartment has decided not to prosecute any ofthe prison personnel accused of these abuses.The Federal Bureau of Prisons, however, hasnow begun its own investigation into the actionsof the prison officers against the detainees,which may possibly result in action against theguards.

Javaid Iqbal, subsequently cleared by the FBIof any terrorist connection, is now back inPakistan after a decade of working as a peacefulcable technician on Long Island in New York.His pursuit of the so-called “American dream” ofequality, prosperity, liberty and justice for allcame to a crashing halt. He has been tragicallymade aware that his name, his ethnicity and his

religion do not automatically qualify for that“dream.”

Of course, names like Smith, Jones, Brown orO’Brien don’t buy workers much, either, not evenwhen their names denote an English or Irishheritage, much less when they betray that theirancestors borrowed “their” names from some19th-century plantation dandy. But when itcomes to war, U.S. capitalism has a nasty habitof singling out certain folks for “special treat-ment.” What the persecution of Arabs andMuslims in the United States since Sept. 11proves is that all that talk we hear about WorldWar II-style detention camps being a thing of thepast is just that—talk, and empty talk at that.

Talk is cheap, cheaper even than a worker’swages, but sometimes it seems to have a mes-merizing effect on workers when it comes fromslicked-down, clean-shaven politicians, profes-sors, preachers and profit-grubbing “pillars ofthe community.”

Capitalism is a criminal system. Hence, itgives opportunities to criminals—those withuniforms, bludgeons and guns, and those withexpensive suits and leather chairs to park theircarcasses in while they scheme ways to squeezemore profit out of working-class hides.

It’s time to put an end to it.

New York’s Abu Ghraib

This publication is available in microform from University MicrofilmsInternational.Call toll-free 800-521-0600. Or mail inquiry to: University Microfilms International, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346

To further evade the Geneva Convention pro-hibitions against torture the administration hasalso taken to “outsourcing” torture. So-calledhigh-value suspects are being sent to clientcountries that practice extreme torture tech-niques, such as removal of fingernails and dunk-ing victims in tanks of water. Participants arereportedly Egypt, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Jordanand even Syria, the latter having been cited as aworldwide sponsor of terrorism by the UnitedStates. Astounding? Not at all.

The base hypocrisy of the Bush administrationrests upon a long tradition of past administra-tions, both Democratic and Republican. Theyhave been unified by capitalism’s imperialist driveand incessant search for markets and sources ofraw materials that mandate torture as an instru-ment of military coercion.

Indeed, as the mantel of imperialist worlddomination has successively fallen from Franceand Britain to the United States so have the bru-tal tactics that accompany military control anddomination. The ferment, constant rebellionsand uprisings among the peoples of the MiddleEast during Anglo-French colonial dominationfollowing the arbitrary geographical divisions ofthe Ottoman Empire now confront Americancapitalism as a latter-day extension of those re-bellions.

Consonant with American capitalism’sdecades of leadership among capitalist states inits persistent efforts to subvert nationalist move-ments and governments that oppose commercialand political domination, the School of theAmericas (SOA) was established at FortBenning, Ga., in 1946. It is run by the U.S. Armyand funded by the United States. It is the biggestterrorist training camp in the world. The SOA’spurpose is to train Latin American dictators,murderers and torturers in “appropriate” tech-niques of getting rid of any opposition thatthreaten capitalist interests in the Americas. Ithas trained over 60,000 military goons, dictatorsand high-level government agents, and in con-cert with the CIA, it developed the torture tech-niques used during the Cold War and the war inVietnam.

The SOA, now called the WesternHemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation,is a CIA and militarist school of murder andmayhem. The anti-insurgency techniques fos-

tered by this institution have apparently nowbecome standard practice for extracting infor-mation and meting out punishment to those inIraq and Afghanistan—terrorist or not—whoalign themselves with a rebellious populationresisting the imposition of imperialist rule.

Bush’s desire to “Change the World” to one inwhich American capitalism is more secure in itsdominance requires force, as we are seeingtoday in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threat offorce elsewhere around the world. As resistancearises, capitalist forces will deal with it ruth-lessly. The tactics of individual or small groupresistance characterized as terrorist, suicidebombings, etc., will continue to be used byAmerican capitalism as an excuse to employ itsown far more effective forms of terror—massivemilitary assault, torture and even the abroga-tion of civil liberties in America itself.

The American working class will pay the priceas always. Our sons, fathers, wives and daugh-ters have again been plunged into a seethingferment that fosters ruthless and barbarousconduct toward a distant and impoverished peo-ple in the interests of capitalism. In the cause ofcapitalist wars, our youth are being trained notonly as killers but now torturers as well. If theworking class does not act to end capitalism,capitalism will destroy us, both physically andmorally.

The National Executive Committee of theSocialist Labor Party of America unequivocallycondemns the use of torture. Its use by the rul-ing class of U.S. capitalism in its imperialistadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq is only thelatest indication that the choice faced by theworking classes of the world—capitalism orsocialism—is really a choice between barbarismand civilization.

. . .De Leon

10 THE PEOPLE JULY-AUGUST 2004

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became law, Consuls or no Consuls; so today intrustified America, the executive is becoming thesole administrative wheel.

There are those, who, looking at President Roos-evelt’s course, pronounce him a jockeyer of the land.Insofar as Roosevelt is blissfully ignorant of thesocial evolution of which he is but the momentarytool, and characteristically delights in the show ofsafe despotism, the epithet is just. Taking, however,a broader survey of the field, Roosevelt is but theexponent of a social and economic evolution thathas reached and is now undergoing its period ofrapid political transition—the transition of the con-servative form of our bourgeois republic’s existenceinto its political revolutionary form, into the stageof unbridled despotism.

A question of deep interest, at this season, is this:How far and how deep does the acclaim reach withwhich the Catalina of the approaching AmericanCaesar is being now greeted by washed and un-washed mobs? Or whether the cheers that arereported to “rend the welkin” wherever Mr. Roos-evelt appears, are of the nature of those that “rentthe welkin” when the present shivering czar was“hailed by his devoted subjects” only seven monthsago, or of those that were gotten up to order whenKing Edward of Great Britain was recently “wel-comed by his loyal Irish subjects” in Dublin.

(Continued from page 4)

. . .Torture(Continued from page 1)

Adiscussion of the fundamental difference between procapitalist unionism and

socialist unionism. By Nathan Karp.

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He’s No LincolnThe California Legislature is considering a

measure to increase the state’s minimum wage.Speaking in opposition, Assembly member TonyStrickland said: “Not every job in California issupposed to be able to provide for a family offour.”

Was he right or was he wrong? Let’s see.The minimum wage in California is $6.75 an

hour. Wash clothes, sweep floors, wait on tables—it’s $6.75 an hour. That’s useful work, we’d say.

California Assembly members don’t get theminimum wage. Last we heard, a run-of-the-millmember pulled in $99,000 a year and, accordingto one source, “those lawmakers in leadershippositions can make up to $113,850.”

That breaks down to about $48.00 an hour onthe low side and about $55.00 on the high side fora 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year. But theAssembly doesn’t meet eight hours a day, fivedays a week, 50 or 52 weeks a year. From 1991to 2000, it met on 1,628 days. That breaks downto 163 days a year and a three-day “workweek.”It breaks down to a $607.36 “workday,” or $75.92an hour.

Is Mr. Strickland’s $76 opinion worth morethan the labor of the $6.75 hour the worker?

Abraham Lincoln said:“An honest laborer digs coal at about 70 cents

a day, while the president digs abstractions atabout $70 a day. The coal is clearly worth morethan the abstractions, and yet what a monstrous

inequality in the prices!”So you see, Mr. Strickland was right after all.

He just picked the wrong job.

Better Medical Care It’s no secret that rich capitalists receive better

medical care than workers, of whom an increas-ing number lack any health care coverage.Community Medical Centers in Fresno, Calif.,has made this class bias its publicly proclaimedpolicy with its “Friends of CMC Program.”

While CMC is trying to keep some detailssecret, “friends” appear to be those who donate atleast $10,000. Officials assert everyone willreceive the same medical treatment. But“friends” will have preference for private roomsand a 24-hour hotline for questions about hospi-tal stays. Some other San Joaquin Valley hospi-tals send their donors get-well cards and flowers.

Is care really equal? “I’m sure the medicaltreatment is relatively [our emphasis] similar,but there is a difference being in a private roomcompared to a shared room. It can affect yourability to sleep,” said Kathleen O’Connor, ownerof a health care marketing and strategy compa-ny. “Health care isn’t just about medical proce-dures; there is more around it that helps apatient heal and get well.” She continued, “Majordonors get better attention.”

Don’t Forget Munitions Makers War is good for business, not just for control of

foreign resources, markets, exploitable labor andstrategic territory to protect those interests. It’salso good for capitalists who produce weapons.The Associated Press reports: “American soldiersare firing so much ammunition that the mili-tary’s largest supplier of bullets can’t keep up.Tanks that log 800 miles a year in peacetime [rel-ative, of course] are grinding through that manymiles in a month, wearing out their treads.”

The AP was short on details about the bottomline. But with increased hiring, production linesrunning around the clock and small-caliber bul-let usage more than doubling since 2001, busi-ness and profits are booming.

—N. Malleus

JULY-AUGUST 2004 THE PEOPLE 11

hammerblows

ACTIVITIESCALIFORNIA

Discussion Meetings—Section San Fran-cisco Bay Area will hold the following discussionmeetings. For more information please call 408-280-7266 or e-mail slpsfba@netscape.net.

Oakland: Saturday, July 17, 3–5:30 p.m.,Rockridge Branch Library, Community Room (2ndfloor), 5366 College St. (corner of College & Manilasts.). Moderator: Frank Prince.

San Francisco: Saturday, June 26, andSaturday, July 24, 1:30–4 p.m., San Francisco MainPublic Library, ground floor conference room, Grove& Larkin sts. Moderator: Robert Bills.

Saratoga: Saturday, July 10, 1:30–4 p.m.,Saratoga Public Library, 13650 Saratoga Ave. (exitHwy. 85 at Saratoga Ave. and proceed toward the cityof Saratoga). Moderator: Bruce Cozzini.

OHIO

Cleveland: Section Cleveland will have a litera-ture table at the Slavic Village Harvest Festival onSaturday, Aug. 28, 1–9 p.m., and on Sunday, Aug. 29,12 noon–9 p.m. The festival is located on Fleet Ave.,from E. 49th St. to E. 65th St. (Cleveland’s south side).

Discussion Meetings—Section Clevelandhas scheduled the following discussion meetings. Formore information please call 440-237-7933.

Columbus: Sunday, July 18, and Sunday,Aug.15, 1–3 p.m., Columbus Public Library,Conference Room #3, 96 S. Grant (at Oak Street).

North Royalton: Sunday, June 27; Sunday,July 25; and Sunday, Aug. 22, 1–3 p.m., at the homeof R. Burns, 9626 York Rd.

OREGON

Portland: Discussion Meetings—SectionPortland holds discussion meetings every secondSaturday of the month. Meetings are usually held atthe Central Library, but the exact time varies. Formore information please call Sid at 503-226-2881 orvisit our Web site at http://slp.pdx.home.mind-spring.com.

Two Views on ‘Economic Freedom’(Weekly People, July 17, 1954)

The New York Times, in an editorial July 2, onthe decision of the Alexander Smith Carpet Co.to close its Yonkers plant permanently, thusleaving some 2,200 workers economicallystranded, has given us what amounts to a defi-nition of “economic freedom.” The plutocraticmouthpiece said:

“We Americans deeply prize our economicfreedom. Just as we allow a new company toenter any lawful business anywhere, withoutthe by-your-leave of any government agency, soalso we do not put restraints on an old companyfrom withdrawing from a business when it ceas-es to make a profit.”

This concept of “economic freedom” is pecu-liarly a capitalist concept. It reminds us of thesouthern slaveowners’ definition of “liberty” towhich Abraham Lincoln referred in hisBaltimore speech, April 18, 1864. Said he:

“The world has never had a good definition ofthe word ‘liberty,’ and the American people, justnow, are much in need of one. We all declare forliberty; but in using the same word we do not allmean the same thing. With some the word ‘lib-erty’ may mean for each man to do as he pleas-es with himself, and the product of his labor;while with others [specifically the supporters ofslavery] the same word may mean for some mento do as they please with other men, and theproduct of other men’s labor. Here are two, notonly different, but incompatible things, called bythe same name, ‘liberty.’And it follows, that eachof the things is, by the respective parties, calledby two different and incompatible names—‘lib-erty’ and ‘tyranny.’ ”

What Lincoln says here of “liberty” may alsobe said of “economic freedom.” “Economic free-dom,” as conceived by The New York Times is,plainly, the freedom of capitalists to exploit wagelabor. It is concerned exclusively with the “free-dom” of capital. But to those who define “eco-nomic freedom” another way—as, say, the rightof workers to appropriate the full social value oftheir product, and to have collective control oftheir tools—the Times’ “economic freedom” isdespotism.

In the enlightened future, when man livesunder a system in which the means of social pro-duction are owned socially and managed demo-cratically, and production is carried on for thebenefit of all instead of for the private profit of afew, there will be no more confusion over thedespotism of capitalism than over the despotismof chattel slavery.

2255507755110000years ago

(April 10–June 11, 2004)Press Security Fund

$300 each Irene Schelin, Section Cleveland (In memo-ry of Joseph Pirincin); Anonymous $294.15; Chris Dobreff$275; Roy K. Nelson $200; Gerald M. Lucas $190; $100each Anthony Econom, Irene Louik, Linda Minkes, T.Klepper, Walter Vojnov; Phillip Colligan $95; $90 eachGene Borelli, S.J. Banilower; Section Cook County, Ill.$87.64; Robert Ormsby $75; Tony Marsella $70; $50 eachDmitre Eloff, Frank Kennedy, Harvey Fuller, JackBlessington, Jerome D. Toporek; $45 each Donna Meyer,Jane Christian, William H. Nace; Anonymous $41; $40each Gene Simon, Jay R. Aiken, Tillie A. Wizek; TimothySweeney $30; $28 each Lawrence Hackett, WilliamRickman; George E. Gray $26.

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Total: $4,129.99

SLP Sustainer FundJoan M. Davis $800; Bernard Bortnick $300; Chris

Dobreff $200; $150 each Robert Burns, Robert Burns (Inmemory of Katherine Kapitz); Carl C. Miller Jr. $140;Lois Reynolds $100; Robert Hofem $60; Michael Preston$50; Section San Francisco Bay Area: William Kelley $40;$30 each Jill Campbell, Steve Littleton, Clayton Hewitt,Richard A. Aiken (In memory of John W. Aiken); ArchieSim $25; George E. Gray $20; Section Wayne County,Mich., $15; Lois Kubit (In memory of Conrad Gutermuth)$10; George Gaylord $1.

Total: $2,181.00

SLP Leaflet FundJoseph J. Frank $10; Richard Wilson 6; Clayton Hewitt

$5; Walter Bagnick $4.Total $25.00

Genevieve Gunderson Memorial FundKarl Heck $200; Paul D. Lawrence $20.Total: $220.00

Daniel De Leon Sesquicentennial FundRichard F. Mack $30.00 (Total)

Socialist Labor PartyFinancial Summary

Bank balance (March 31) . . . . . . . . . . . . .$248,766.48Expenses (April-May) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23,025.79Income (April-May) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,140.39Bank balance (May 31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234,881.48Deficit for 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 46,504.08

Funds

VINCITLABOR OMNIA

JULY-AUGUST 2004

By Ken Boettcher

T he death of former President RonaldReagan provided a prime opportunity forthe capitalist-owned media to again pol-

ish the propaganda skills they so skillfully usedduring his two terms in office to create and boostsupport among the working-class majorityfor Reagan—a debased and cravensalesman for the material interests ofthe tiny minority capitalist class.

The media circus surrounding hisdeath and funeral could not surprisethose familiar with the relationshipReagan enjoyed with the capitalist mediaduring his lifetime. It was precisely thefawning attitude of the capitalist mediathat produced Reagan’s moniker—the“Teflon President.” No scandal seemedto touch him—not surprising since themedia industry was unwilling to dig toodeeply while the man was serving capi-talist-class interests so well.

There were plenty of actions andpolicies during Reagan’s two adminis-trations that should have attractedthe attention and criticism of anymorally responsible media. They allreceived some attention, to be sure,but always as “controversial,” or asincidental asides in a larger picture.

•He extended military and finan-cial support for dictators and deathsquads in El Salvador, Hondurasand Guatemala even as he lament-ed “foreign support for terrorists”in Central America.

•He ordered the illegal imperialistinvasion and occupation of Grenada atthe behest of a regime long noted for its humanrights abuses.

•He increased military aid for the brutalHaitian thug Papa Doc Duvalier, and refusedpolitical asylum to thousands of Haitianrefugees fleeing Duvalier’s repression.

•He violated his oath of office and made amockery of the separation of powers clauses ofthe Constitution in the Iran-Contra affair bylawlessly ignoring a congressional ban on sup-port for the murderous Contras in Nicaragua.

•He gave military aid and other assistance toother dictatorships in Chile, the Philippines,Argentina, Indonesia, Turkey and elsewhere.He supported the apartheid regime of SouthAfrica, the reactionary Taliban in Afghanistan,and Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war.

•His administration formulat-ed a plan for imposing martial law in the UnitedStates in the event of a “severe crisis” under theFederal Emergency Management Agency, orFEMA. It successfully lobbied many states to setup voluntary State Defense Forces to spy on dis-sidents and political opponents and to participatein the implementation and enforcement ofFEMA’s plans, which called for suspending theConstitution, turning the government over toFEMA, and appointing military commanders,

conscripting labor, and outlawing strikes andeven the advocacy of the right to strike.

•His administration spearheaded an acceler-ated attack on the wages and working conditionsof all workers by crushing an air traffic con-trollers’ strike and other strikes during itstenure. It cut spending on social programs and

thereby compounded the misery anddespair of the poor and disadvantaged.

It dumped thousands of mentalhealth patients on the streets byclosing federally funded mental hos-pitals—and then cruelly claimedthat the homeless were “homeless bychoice.” It even promoted ketchup asa vegetable that could be used to sat-isfy federal school lunch standards forour children.

•Reagan engaged in nuclearbrinkmanship, saber rattling and mas-sive arms buildup, which his supporterssay was responsible for the end of theCold War. While it risked the safety of allhumanity, it hardly brought down whatReagan called the Evil Empire. Thatwas a process which began of its ownaccord at least a decade before Reaganas a result of the Russian bureaucraticstate despotism’s own internal economiccontradictions—and the efforts ofMikhail Gorbachev to resolve themthrough reforms that outpaced his abili-ty to throw up defenses against theirresults. And—it should be added—whatever ended the “Evil Empire,” itfailed to touch the other ugly head of“communist” totalitarianism, China.

Few of these transgressions againsthuman decency even got a mention in the cap-

italist media upon Reagan’s death. Apparentlycapitalism’s defenders in the media believe bynot mentioning them they might successfullybury the transgressions themselves along withthe physically and spiritually diseased body oftheir dead hero. The record shows who RonaldReagan really was. History will judge him as anenemy of the working class, a true salesman forcapitalist interests and a vicious servant of capi-talist reaction.

Death of a Salesman

By Paul D. LawrenceSometimes capitalists do the right thing, or

seem to, although the pursuit of profit still moti-vates them.

Consider two recent examples. About 225power utilities, out of some 2,000 nationwide,have tree-planting programs. They often giveaway trees to homeowners and renters whoplant and maintain them. Second, a company inHanford, Calif., is recycling garbage bags, plas-tic food take-out containers and packaging“peanuts.” These plastics were not easily recy-clable before. The result is a low-sulfur diesel oil,which is less polluting than regular diesel fuel.

Noting these facts, however, is not to praisecapitalism. The profit motive usually causessocial problems rather than lessening them. Theprofit motive is at work in both cases.

For utilities, trees mean shade, which inwarmer climates such as California’s SanJoaquin Valley results in lower temperaturesand less demand for power. Selling less of theircommodities is not paradoxical. The rate of prof-it depends on the amount of capital invested, notthe volume of sales. Reducing, at least some-

what, the demand for power reduces the needfor new power-generating plants, which areextremely costly. We can leave the exact calcula-tion of profit, etc., to the utility capitalists. But ifthey are giving away trees, they at least believemore profits will be generated.

In addition, trees reduce pollution and carbondioxide, one of the gases responsible for globalwarming. Generating power is notorious for pro-ducing pollution and carbon dioxide. Plantingtrees could help utilities to escape controlling pol-lution. Sometimes the Environmental ProtectionAgency and other regulators do enforce measuresagainst pollution, although often as the result oflawsuits by environmentalists.

Plastic Energy-Hanford obviously is seekingprofits. It is the first company in the nation toengage in this sort of recycling. The CaliforniaIntegrated Waste Management Board made a $2million loan to the company. Recycling will diverttrash from landfills. The company, of course,expects to profit by selling the low-sulfur diesel oil.

The Fresno Bee reports that employees of theKings Waste & Recycling Authority will pickthrough trash by hand to recover recyclable mate-

rials. The company apparently gets the waste free.If capitalists can sometimes do the right thing

for the sake of profit, imagine what would bepossible under socialism. Let’s narrow the focushere simply to pollution. The useful producers ina socialist society will have every incentive toreduce pollution to the barest minimum techno-logically possible. Their health is what pollutiondamages; their environment is what landfillstear up to dispose of waste, etc. After thus reduc-ing pollution to the minimum, socialist societywill similarly have the same incentives to reducethe impact of that remaining minimum.

Tree planting and recycling of plastics for low-sulfur diesel fuel are only some examples ofwhat a socialist society will do routinely—andfor the benefit of all its members.

The Socialist Labor Party is not utopian. Itdoes not presume to draft detailed plans of whatsocialist society will do. The decisions will bethose of a socialist society in which all productiveproperty is collectively owned and democratical-ly controlled and operated by the useful produc-ers. The examples cited here simply give thebarest hint of what socialism will be able to do.

Righteous for a Buck

AB CAP for The People