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Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!

SOUTH AFRICAN Miners 9 COLOMBIA Peace talks 11 DPRK 10 QUEBEC 10

Southern Workers Assembly, Sept. 3.

Nuevo edicto racista en Arizona Ecuador y WikiLeaks 12

Southern labor hosts assembly:

‘Build a workers’ alliance!’Southern labor hosts assembly:

‘Build a workers’ alliance!’

By Dante Strobino Charlotte, N.C.

Over 300 Southern workers, trade unionists and community allies gathered for the Southern Workers Assembly on Sept. 3, Labor Day, the opening day of the Democratic National Convention. The Wedgewood Baptist Church was packed and supporters had to stand beside the pews. There was a feeling in the air that Southern labor was uniting to forge a his-

toric new direction, towards rank-and-file-led social justice trade unionism, particularly to challenge right-to-work (for less) laws and combat racism.

“Southern workers cannot wait for the Democratic Party and certainly not the Republican Party, to enact some pro-gressive labor laws before we can begin a serious effort to organize ourselves into a labor movement,” stated Saladin Mu-hammad, director of the United Electrical Workers Union’s Southern International

Worker Justice Campaign, in his opening remarks. “Unfortunately, this has been a serious error on the part of the U.S. labor movement for too many years.”

Donna Dewitt, retired former presi-dent of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, also helped co-host the meeting and added some remarks.

The Democratic National Conven-tion was being held in North Carolina, the least unionized state in the country,

Continued on page 6

By Monica Moorehead

Sept. 10 — The Chicago Teachers Union, in a just struggle for a fair contract, went out on strike during the early morning today fol-lowing an impasse with the Chicago Board of Education. The union announced picket lines at 675 schools and the Board of Education. (ctunet.com, Sept. 9)

The 29,000 union members, comprised of teachers and support staff, had voted over-whelmingly this summer to go out on strike if their demands for better pay and working conditions were not met.

Chicago has the third-largest school dis-trict in the U.S., behind New York City and Los Angeles, with an estimated 350,000 students. The last strike by Chicago teachers took place 25 years ago.

At 5:30 p.m., the Chicago Teachers Soli-darity Campaign made an announcement on social media about the afternoon’s soli-darity march on the first day of the strike: “Right now downtown Chicago is a red sea that cannot be divided as thousands of teach-ers and their allies march through the streets in front of and near the Board of Education. The teachers really want one thing, to deliv-er quality education for fair compensation. It’s really that simple, Mr. Mayor.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff.

CTU president Karen Lewis stated in a press release why the teachers were prepared to strike against the Chicago Public Schools: “CPS seems determined to have a toxic rela-tionship with its employees. They denied us our 4 percent raises when there was money in the budget to honor our agreement; they attempted to ram a poorly thought-out lon-ger school day down our throats; and, on top of that, they want us to teach a new curricu-lum and be ready to be evaluated based on how well our students do on a standardized test. It has been insult after insult after insult. Enough is enough.” (ctunet.com, Aug. 29)

Students, community allies ALL support

Chicago teachers on strike

The CTU is also demanding smaller class sizes, air conditioning for students and work-ers, job security and retention of health-care benefits.

Teachers & community are oneLewis and other union leaders have made

it clear that the union was forced to go on strike and that it is not a strike of “choice,” as Rahm has stated. The teachers’ demands, says Lewis, are tied to broader social con-cerns for those students who live in poverty, especially Black and Latino/a students. “We have communities that have been neglected for decades, and all of a sudden we’re ex-pecting something to happen in a vacuum. I

Continued on page 5

WW PHOTO: BRYAN G. PFEIFER

CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION LOCAL 1

Chicago teachers rally at Labor Day Sept. 3. Sign reads: “Parents and teachers united for our children.”

CUBAN 5 SOLIDARITY at Wall Street South 4

OBAMA, DEMOCRATS & WORKERS 5

CAPITALIST ELECTORAL POLITICS 8

POLITICAL PRISONERS & REPRESSION Mumia Abu Jamal Troy Davis CeCe McDonald 3

WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM

Graphic of Mumia and Troy Davis.

Photo taken by Leslie Feinberg during a

recent visit with CeCe MacDonald.

Nuevo edicto racista en Arizona Ecuador y WikiLeaks Nuevo edicto racista en Arizona Ecuador y WikiLeaks

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!

Nuevo edicto racista en Arizona Ecuador y WikiLeaks 12

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!

Page 2 Sept. 20, 2012 workers.org

In the U.S.

Chicago teachers on strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Southern labor hosts assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Demonstrate against racism in Wyandotte schools . . . . . . . 2

Fred Hampton Sr’s life commemorated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Mumia �ghts life imprisonment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Leslie Feinberg: “Free CeCe McDonald”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Atlanta remembers Troy Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

DNC protests demand freedom for Cuban Five. . . . . . . . . . . 4

West Virginia rally backs steelworkers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

U.S. tops world’s arms sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Obama, Democratic Party and working class . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Muhammad: ’What is our charge as Southern workers?’ . . 7

Capitalist electoral politics and class struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Around the world

South African workers’ stoppages spread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Quebec student struggle stops tuition hikes . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Canada rightists persecute activists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Socialist Korea looks ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Colombian revolutionaries announce peace talks . . . . . . . 11

Colombian hunger strike comes to GM’s home. . . . . . . . . . 11

Editorial

Football & gay rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Noticias En Español

Nuevo edicto racista en Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Ecuador y WikiLeaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

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

Phone: 212.627.2994

E-mail: ww@workers.org

Web: www.workers.org

Vol. 54, No. 37 • Sept. 20, 2012 Closing date: Sept. 11, 2012Editor: Deirdre GriswoldTechnical Editor: Lal RoohkManaging Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell,Leslie Feinberg, Kris Hamel, Monica Moorehead,Gary WilsonWest Coast Editor: John ParkerContributing Editors: Abayomi Azikiwe,Greg Butterfield, Jaimeson Champion, G. Dunkel,Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Larry Hales,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Cheryl LaBash,Milt Neidenberg, Bryan G. Pfeifer, Betsey Piette,Minnie Bruce Pratt, Gloria RubacTechnical Staff: Sue Davis, Shelley Ettinger,Bob McCubbin, Maggie VascassennoMundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Michael Martínez,Carlos VargasSupporter Program: Sue Davis, coordinator

Copyright © 2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of articles is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Workers World (ISSN-1070-4205) is published weekly except the first week of January by WW Publishers, 55 W. 17 St., N.Y., N.Y. 10011. Phone: 212.627.2994. Subscriptions: One year: $30; institutions: $35. Letters to the editor may be condensed and edited. Articles can be freely reprinted, with credit to Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., New York, NY 10011. Back issues and individual articles are available on microfilm and/or photocopy from University Microfilms International, 300 Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. A searchable archive is available on the Web at www.workers.org.

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CHICAGO

Fred Hampton Sr’s 1969 assassination commemoratedBy Eric Struch Chicago

This year as every year, Comrade Mother Akua Njeri, the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, the Black Pan-ther Party Cubs and their allies held a vigil for the mar-tyred revolutionary, Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. on his birthday, Aug. 30, at Ground Zero, the site of his assas-sination by a cop death squad on Dec. 4, 1969.

Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. would have been 64 this year. They call this location Ground Zero because it was the 9/11 of the proletarian revolutionary movement in Chicago’s Black community, where the cops assassinat-ed the Twin Towers of the Illinois Black Panther Party, Chairman Fred and Defense Captain Mark Clark.

Supporters and allies from all over the city and the rest of the country came here to the West Side to show their respect. The residents of 2337 W. Chairman Fred Hamp-ton Sr. Way (Monroe) even have a picture of Chairman Fred Sr. taped up in the second floor window.

Comrade Mother Akua gave a harrowing account of how the Chicago Police Department/Illinois State At-torney’s Office/FBI death squad used machine guns and pump shotguns in the terrorist attack in 1969 and how Chairman Fred Sr. was murdered execution-style after having already been hit by several shots in his blood-soaked bed.

The cops even put a gun to Comrade Mother Akua’s (then known as Deborah Johnson) pregnant belly and threatened to kill her and her unborn son. Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. described the two components of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program: military and psychologi-cal. The psychological aspect was the attempt to wipe out the historical legacy of the Black liberation movement, especially the most advanced, revolutionary proletarian

expression of it: the Black Panther Party.He spoke about the need for revolutionary organiza-

tions to have discipline and structure in order to mini-mize the damage state agents can do.

Chairman Fred Jr. has plenty of his own experience with state repression. As a young revolutionary, he was framed up in 1992 by the cops for an alleged arson that never actually even took place, and railroaded into pris-on until he was paroled in 2001. The state made two at-tempts to assassinate him in 2002 after he was released, which he described in detail in an interview with hip-hop journalist Davey D.

Despite the threats, he continues his organizing efforts with the POCC, an organization dedicated to upholding and defending the Panther legacy, and fighting for prole-tarian revolution and the national liberation of the Black internal colony in the U.S. He says the counterinsurgency has not let up but has, instead, continued to harass them.

After the vigil at Ground Zero, Chairman Fred Jr. and Comrade Mother Akua took questions from the crowd and received messages of solidarity from Workers World Party and Occupy Chicago. Everyone then made their way down to The Wall, which is a giant mural of Chair-man Fred Sr. at the corner of Madison and California, for the 2012 Streetz Party birthday celebration.

Among those there were Reginald Akkeem Berry Sr. of Saving Our Sons Ministries with a large group from his organization, and others from the Nation of Islam, Oc-cupy Chicago, Radicals Against Discrimination and the Revolutionary Communist Party. A DJ spun hip-hop and dusties [classic R&B and soul music] for the crowd.

Throwing large events like this can strain the resources of grassroots revolutionary organizations like the POCC/BPPC. Those who wish to can send donations to Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., P.O. Box 368255, Chicago, IL 60636

Demonstrate against racism in Wyandotte schoolsBy Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire

A picket line went up in front of the Wyandotte Public Schools headquarters right outside the city of Detroit on Aug. 30 in response to a series of allegations regarding blatant racial discrimination, intimidation and violence carried out against students and their parents.

The action was called by Team for Justice in conjunc-tion with the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice. Joe Hudson, who has a 13-year-old daughter in the district, is the spokesperson for the civil rights organization TfJ.

He said that African-American students and their white friends have been harassed and stalked by a con-tractual service employee at the Wilson Middle School.

Even after two personal protection orders were taken out to restrain the behavior of the employee, the same ac-tivity continued without any effort by the school district to remove the employee.

Hudson has been attacked before in Wyandotte. After he complained to police about the harassment of him and his daughter, a white man who lived next door to his home continued to walk pass the house shouting racial slurs.

“He would say, ‘You people should not be living here,’” Hudson recalled. Wyandotte is a majority white commu-nity. Eventually the man was arrested but the attempts to intimidate the family continue.

Keith Tims, a colleague and friend of Hudson, who also has a 13-year-old at Wilson, said during the demon-stration that he has witnessed firsthand the racism and violence against people who are residents of Wyandotte. Tims, a UAW member, expressed his appreciation to MECAWI for supporting TfJ’s efforts to expose and eradi-cate racism in Wyandotte.

Hudson told the demonstration that if the situation with the school had not been resolved before the next board meeting, he would put a call out for Wyandotte res-idents and others to attend that Sept. 18 meeting.

workers.org Sept. 20, 2012 Page 3

Mumia Abu-Jamal �ghts life imprisonmentBy LeiLani Dowell

As activists gear up for a Sept. 14 event in New York promoting the struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, the state of Phila-delphia has lodged another attack against him. On Aug. 15, this internationally re-vered political prisoner was illegally sen-tenced to life imprisonment.

Abu-Jamal, a MOVE Organization sup-porter and a former Black Panther Party member, is known as the “voice of the voiceless” for his continued anti-racist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist jour-nalism. After being framed and convict-ed for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Abu-Jamal spent decades in solitary confinement, as a worldwide movement coalesced to free him. In De-cember Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced that the state was no longer seeking a death sentence

for Abu-Jamal, and he was released into the general prison population.

While the state backed off in the face of continued activism in support of Abu-Jamal – and perhaps in the hope that the movement for his freedom would dissipate — it resumed its assault on Abu-Jamal’s life nine months later. Without any notice to Abu-Jamal or to his lawyers, Philadel-phia Court of Common Pleas Judge Pame-la Dembe sentenced him to life imprison-ment without parole on Aug. 15.

A press statement from the Interna-tional Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) notes that “all sentences … require a formal proceed-ing allowing the person to be sentenced the right to be heard and to challenge his sentence.” (Aug. 21) The sentencing is therefore illegal and, as with many of the state’s maneuverings in this decades-long

case, in violation of Abu-Jamal’s rights.Dembe had shown her willingness to

deny Abu-Jamal justice in the past. In 2001, she refused to hear a legal challenge regarding the racist bias of convicting Judge Albert Sabo, who was overheard by a stenographer saying that he was going to “help them fry the n——-“ before Abu-Jamal’s trial.

Abu-Jamal filed a Post-Sentencing Motion on Aug. 23. Rachel Wolkenstein, Abu-Jamal’s attorney, reports: “Mumia’s motion not only attacks his own sentence to ‘slow death row,’ but makes the consti-tutional challenge to life imprisonment without parole, solitary confinement for death-row inmates and solitary confine-ment in general. Mumia is fighting with and for the entirety of ‘incarceration na-tion.’” (Aug. 24 email)

In addition to the demand to free Abu-Jamal and all U.S. political prisoners, the

Sept. 14 event will focus on ending mass incar-ceration and solitary confinement and on closing New York’s infamous Attica pris-on. Speakers will include ICFFMAJ leader Pam Africa; Michelle Alexander, author of the book “The New Jim Crow: Mass In-carceration in the Age of Colorblindness”; activist and former political prisoner An-gela Davis; attorney Soffiyah Elijah; Jazz Hayden, a community “cop-watch” activist who is currently being framed by the New York Police Department; Marc Lamont Hill, who with Abu-Jamal co-authored the book “The Classroom and the Cell”; and Princeton University Professor Cornel West, who has been active in the campaign against the NYPD’s racist “stop-and-frisk” policies.

For more information, tickets and to sign a petition supporting the closing of Attica, visit freemumia.com.

Leslie Feinberg stays �rm:

‘Free CeCe McDonald!’By Kris Hamel

This article uses the gender-neutral pronouns hir and ze.

Leslie Feinberg, an internationally known and widely respected author, edi-tor and transgender liberation warrior, has been recharged by the Minneapolis attorney’s office for hir June 4 act of soli-darity with Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald. Feinberg was arrested and jailed for three nights without bond for hir participation in the actions outside the jail. Mass pres-sure on the county attorney resulted in Feinberg’s release and the dropping of felony charges.

McDonald, a young African-American transgender woman, was brutally at-tacked by bigots exactly one year before, yet was the only person arrested, charged and convicted in the incident. Facing two felony charges of second-degree mur-der, McDonald understandably accepted a plea offer for a reduced charge and 41 months in prison.

After McDonald’s sentencing on June 4 — her “punishment” by the state for self-defense against a racist, anti-gay, anti-transgender attack by neo-fascists — hundreds protested in the streets outside the jail. Feinberg, who struggles with late stage Lyme disease, traveled from New York state to be in Minneapolis at the sentencing and protest. Feinberg traveled in April to visit McDonald in jail, after which ze announced the rededication of hir groundbreaking novel, “Stone Butch Blues,” to McDonald for its 20th anniver-sary edition next year.

Feinberg has been ordered to appear on Sept. 13 at 8:30 a.m. at the Henne-pin County District Court, 401 S. Fourth Street, in Minneapolis. The charge, which is classified as a “gross misdemeanor,” carries with it a possible 1-year prison term plus a $1,000 fine. Supporters are urged to attend and wear purple in soli-darity with McDonald.

In the meantime, a national campaign has been initiated to demand the Min-neapolis city attorney as well as Mayor R.T. Rybak immediately drop the charges against Feinberg. Minneapolis City Attor-ney Susan Segal: email: minneapolis311@ci.minneapolis.mn.us; phone: 612-673-2010; fax: 612-673-2189. Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak: email: rt@minneapo-lis.org; phone: 612-673-2100 twitter: @MayorRTRybak; fax: 612-673-2305.

‘I am not intimidated’

Feinberg told Workers World ze would not plead guilty. “I’ve asked the National Lawyer’s Guild to help me fight this charge politically.” On Sept. 4, Minnie Bruce Pratt posted on social media the following mes-sage from Feinberg to activists:

“I travel to South Minneapolis gladly. I wrote the peoples’ verdict on the jail house wall — ‘FREE CECE NOW!’ on June 4 — the day CeCe McDonald was sentenced to prison, and on the last night she would spend in that county jail.

“My action in demonstration of soli-darity — on the one-year anniversary of the attack on CeCe and her loved ones,

and CeCe’s arrest, almost to the hour — was not furtive.

“The prosecution is aggressively de-fending the value, the ‘personhood’ of the jailhouse wall — property!

“My action demonstrates my solidarity with the lives of oppressed people strug-gling behind the walls of the jails, prisons and detention centers in mass, racist con-centration camps known as the Prison-Industrial Complex.

“The charge of Gross Misdemeanor, like the felony charge, is meant to intimi-date — to discourage actions of solidarity

in struggle.“I am not intimidated. As an anti-rac-

ist, I stand my ground — alongside war-riors who are rolling forward towards liberation, and who are double-clicking forward to freedom while confined to bed.

“To those who ask how they can help me: Please help keep the focus of my court-ordered appearances on these struggles against oppressions and injustice!

“FREE CECE NOW!!”Visit supportcece.wordpress.com for

more information on the struggle to free CeCe McDonald.

Atlanta remembers Troy Davis on Sept. 21By Dianne Mathiowetz Atlanta

“We need to dismantle this unjust system …” Troy Davis had written shortly before his execution by the state of Georgia on Sept. 21, 2011.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world had signed petitions asking for clemency. Doz-ens of well-known political and religious figures had written letters. People held demonstrations in countless cities and towns and chanted, “I Am Troy Davis!”

The horrific crime of capital punishment in the United States was made real to mil-lions in the person of Troy Anthony Davis, who could be executed for a murder with no physical evidence or forensics, no weap-on or fingerprints and where most trial witnesses recanted their testimony against him, charging the police with coercion.

Many who joined the struggle to stop his state-sponsored murder were con-vinced of his innocence by the particular facts of his case. The coldly calculated ac-tions of the “justice” system then revealed a deeper truth to them about the system’s inherent racism and class bias.

Just days before Davis’s execution, on Sept. 17, 2011, Occupy Wall Street began its historic emergence as a burgeoning new movement of the 99%, those devas-tated by the economic crisis, unemploy-ment, foreclosures, debt, discrimination and lack of opportunity. At one of its earliest marches that took to the streets

of New York in defiance of the police, people raised chants and signs for Troy Davis.

A section of Atlanta youth was deeply impacted by Davis’ fight for justice. This last year has seen these youth protest the mass incarceration, police brutality and killings through-

out the metro area and support prisoners held in deplorable conditions in Georgia’s prisons and jails.

Georgia’s prison work stoppage

They have organized protests and ral-lies in support of prisoners at Jackson Di-agnostic and Classification Center — the same prison where Davis was executed. These prisoners conducted a 45-day hun-ger strike this summer, demanding an end to extended isolation, access to medi-cal care and personal hygiene products, family visits and phone calls, and an end to guard abuse and brutality.

Many of these imprisoned men par-ticipated in the historic Georgia prisoners’ work stoppage in December 2010. Since then they have been held in solitary confine-ment, suffered physical abuse at the hands of guards and ongoing retribution for their alleged leadership of the strike action.

To carry out this work, several orga-nizations and individuals have formed Georgians for Prison Abolition. They have called for a National Day of Action against Mass Incarceration on Friday, Sept. 21, to never forget Troy Davis and to meet his last request.

In Atlanta, people will assemble at 9 p.m. at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. grave site and march to the park on Peachtree Street at Auburn. The site of the Occupy Atlanta encampment, this park’s name was changed from Woodruff to Troy Davis Park by hundreds of youth, home-less people, and peace and justice activ-ists who occupied the downtown space for weeks in October 2011.

At the minute of Troy’s execution, 11:08 p.m., his call for unrelenting action “to never stop fighting for justice” will ring out over the crowd. According to Courtney Hansen of Georgians for Prison Abolition, “Organizers intend the event to not just remember Troy Davis but to build active resistance to the system that killed him and imprisons millions more behind bars and in poverty.”

As of Sept. 9, prisoners’ families re-ported that at least 21 men have resumed a hunger strike since the prison adminis-tration has failed to address any of their grievances as promised and guards have beaten a number of them.

For the complete wording of the call, go to the facebook page for Georgians for Prison Abolition.

That same weekend in Savannah, Troy’s hometown, there will be a three-day con-ference entitled “From Troy to Trayvon: Empowering Communities to Change Criminal Justice Policies,” sponsored by Community Organized Legal Advocacy or COLA, of Savannah, and Georgians for Al-ternatives to the Death Penalty. For more information, go to www.gfadp.org.

Baltimore Pride, 2012

WW PHOTO: STEVE KIRSCHBAUM

Boston, Sept 2011

Page 4 Sept. 20, 2012 workers.org

DNC street protests hit corporate polluter, demand freedom for Cuban Five

U.S. merchants of death top world’s arms sales

WW PHOTO: SARA FLOUNDERS

Protest in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 6 builds campaign to ‘Free the Five.’

Rally backs steelworkers

By Workers World Charlotte, N.C., bureau

Downtown Charlotte, N.C., home to the national headquarters of Bank of America and regional headquarters of Wells Fargo, was buzzing with delegates and support-ers of the Democratic National Conven-tion and Democratic Party, one of the two big capitalist electoral parties in the United States.

This show did not go uninterrupted. A protest called by Rainforest Action Net-work and Greenpeace crashed the party on Sept. 5. Hundreds of protesters rallied at the offices of Duke Energy, one of the biggest polluters in the country, according to many environmentalists. Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers co-chaired the “Char-lotte in 2012” convention host committee.

DNC delegates looked on as Occupy Wall Street activists, radical environmen-talists, anarchists, socialists and commu-nists chanted into bullhorns. The march was led by a piece of Astroturf shaped like a dollar bill with Rogers’ picture in the center, symbolizing that corporate mon-ey, not human needs, defines the politi-cians’ agenda.

As the rally ended, protesters took to the streets in defiance of police orders to remain on the sidewalk. The march con-tinued through the streets, escorted by scores of police on bicycles.

An announcement during the march called on people to assemble at 5th Street and College Street at 5 p.m. in defense of

political prisoners held in U.S. jails. These include the Cuban Five, five Cuban men who infiltrated Miami-based paramilitary groups that have carried out terrorist at-tacks on Cuban civilians.

The police told demonstrators they would be required to walk on the side-walk. However, when protesters arrived at 5th Street, the rules were ignored as the marchers stayed in the street. Sheriff’s deputies and police officers tried unsuc-cessfully to shove the crowd of nearly 300 onto the sidewalks.

With chants of “Whose streets? Our

streets!” the crowd soon de-scended a steep hill leading to the heart of “Wall Street South,” where thousands of DNC delegates crowded the sidewalks.

Next: ‘Free the Cuban Five!’

Traffic stopped at the 5th Street and College Street intersection. Surprised dele gates heard calls for Pre sident Barack Obama to free the five Cuban he-roes held unjustly in U.S. jails. A “mic check” educa-tional on the facts of their case was broadcast to the public from the middle of the street, where protesters were surrounded by police.

Occupy Charlotte activ-ists and organizers who mobilized for the March on Wall Street South on Sept. 2 used social media to organize the 5 o’clock gathering highlighting the case of the Cuban Five. The event was part of the international call to action on the fifth day of every month until all Five are released and allowed to return to their homeland.

Dante Strobino, a North Carolina-based union organizer, began the rally by explaining who the Cuban Five are and how they came to be in prison for oppos-ing terrorism. Caleb Maupin, a youth or-ganizer of Workers World Party, spoke in

defense of socialist Cuba and why social-ism is needed in the U.S.

A banner with the faces of the Cuban Five was unfurled, and placards with the slogan “Obama: Give Me Five” were distributed.

Though the police pushed for the dem-onstrators to move, they remained in the intersection. During this time, Yen Ancala of Occupy Charlotte fired everyone up when he pointed to the Bank of America headquarters and expressed the crowd’s anger at this symbol of the global 1%.

When the rally finished, everyone marched down the center of the street chanting “Free the Cuban Five!”behind a banner with pictures of Gerardo Hernan-dez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guererro, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez. Other chants were in support of political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier and others trapped within the U.S. prison system.

The march ended at Marshall Park, where Occupy Wall Street activists had renewed the Charlotte encampment days earlier. No one was arrested.

The 14th anniversary of the Cuban Five’s arrest in Miami is Sept. 12. A con-cert featuring Vicente Feliu, who sings in the nueva trova style made famous by Sil-vio Rodriguez, will be held Sept. 12. A pub-lic meeting on Sept. 14 will emphasize the international campaign for justice for the Five. Both events are in Washington, D.C.

Caleb Maupin and Cheryl LaBash contributed to this article.

By Gene Clancy

The United States military-industrial complex tripled its arms sales last year as it sold $66.3 billion in weapons overseas in that 12-month period. This accounted for nearly 78 percent of all global arms sales in the world, which rose to a record $85.3 billion in 2011.

The U.S. clearly remained the world’s leading arms supplier, with nearly all oth-er major suppliers seeing declines in 2011, according to the Congressional Research Service’s annual report to Congress. These other suppliers are barely signifi-cant in comparison with the U.S. Russia, which was second highest, had only $4.8 billion in sales.

U.S. weapons dealers also continued to dominate in terms of supplying spare parts and training, and in negotiating deals for future deliveries.

Washington generates a steady stream of orders for upgrades, spare parts, and ammunition and support services from year to year, even when it does not con-

clude big deals for new weapons systems, the report said.

The U.S. often likes to pose as an “ar-senal of democracy,” but the opposite is true. In 2011, over $33.4 billion in sales — or 50 percent — went to Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, which has one of the most reactionary, repressive regimes in the world. Bahrain, which has carried out a vicious campaign against its own cit-izens, was another of the larger buyers. So was Taiwan, reflecting the Pentagon and State Department’s “Asian pivot,” which is designed to put increased military pres-sure on China.

All of this is nothing new. The U.S. has long been the dominant arms supplier in the world, even as many of its leaders accepted Nobel “peace” prizes. Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, Henry Kissing-er; former President Jimmy Carter; and more recently, President Barack Obama, have all been recipients. Each administra-tion not only sent the U.S. into wars and interventions, but also presided over huge arms sales overseas.

These arms exports are an important part of the military-industrial complex, which combines U.S. corporations, the U.S. economy, and the U.S. military and politi-cal system together into a noxious brew.

Key U.S. weapons sales in 2011 included:

• $33.4 billion with Saudi Arabia for 84 Boeing Co. F-15 fighter jets and dozens of helicopters built by Boeing and Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

• $3.49 billion for Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, an advanced missile shield, to the United Arab Emirates, and $940 million for 16 Chinook helicopters built by Boeing

• $1.4 billion for 18 F-16 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin

• $4.1 billion agreement with India for 10 Boeing C-17 transport planes

• $2 billion order by Taiwan for Patriot anti-missile batteries.These companies are also among the

largest contributors to both capitalist po-litical parties in the U.S. The five biggest U.S. arms manufacturers donated a com-bined $7.1 million to the presidential and congressional races by the middle of July, according to data analyzed by U.S. News & World Report. Of that amount, $6.8 million went to congressional candidates, with $4.2 million donated to Republicans.

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Ray-theon have given $156,182 to Obama’s re-election bid, and $116,101 to Mitt Romney’s campaign, reports the Center for Responsive Politics. General Dynam-ics and Raytheon were the lone two of the so-called “Big Five” that donated more to Romney’s campaign. Raytheon is head-quartered in Romney’s home state of Massachusetts.

Poor and working people who live in the U.S. and those who reside in the countries which receive U.S. arms shipments, have nothing to gain by allowing their govern-ments to divert socially needed resources to these merchants of death.

By Jeremy B.

People rallied Sept. 8 in solidarity with members of Steel Workers Local 5668 of Ravenswood, W.Va., who have been on strike since Aug. 5. The aluminum com-pany, Constellium Rolled Products, of-fered an unreasonable health care, wage and pension plan, which was rejected by over 95 percent of the workers.

Among other issues, the union is ob-jecting to changes the company wants to make to health care coverage that will sig-nificantly increase costs to employees and their families. The changes could more

than wipe out any wage increases the company has proposed.

The rally featured speakers such as Leo Gerard, international president of the USW, as well as local leaders from other unions such as the Mine Workers, the Communication Workers and the Service Employees. Speakers were followed up with live music from rock, folk, blues and bluegrass performers.

People traveled from other parts of the state, as well as Kentucky and Ohio, to donate food and water. Members of Stu-dents for Appalachian Socialism of Mar-shall University also attended and made a

large donation.Strikers carried ban-

ners and wore T-shirts with the slogan, “One Day Longer … Again,” a reminiscent reference to the lockout USW Local 5668 faced from Novem-ber 1991 until June 1992, when the aluminum plant was known as the Raven-swood Aluminum Corp. Inc., owned by a robber baron named Marc Rich,

WEST VIRGINIA

Continued on page 5 WW PHOTO: BRYAN G.. PFEIFER

workers.org Sept. 20, 2012 Page 5

a convicted criminal who later received a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton. Now, just as during that strike 20 years ago, the strikers have had to physically defend themselves against attacks from company goons and provocative scabs.

Talks between the company and the union are scheduled to occur this week. The strikers have made it clear they are determined to fight until they win a con-tract.

The union has held various rallies and other solidarity events at Fort Unity, the latest one being a benefit concert on Sept. 8.

Bryan G. Pfeifer, an organizer of the Wisconsin Bail Out The People Move-ment, stopped by the Local 5668 union hall called “Fort Unity” and the picket lines on Sept. 4 on his way home from Charlotte, N.C. He had spent the summer as a volunteer organizer with the March on Wall Street South and the Southern Workers Assembly.

Pfeifer dropped off donations and United Electrical Workers union signs and buttons gathered in Charlotte. He told WW, “It is inspiring to see the Steel Worker sisters and brothers and their families standing up to corporate greed and the bankers. They are standing firm but still need lots of support to win their justified demands.”

For more information and how to sup-port Local 5668: fort-unity.sctp.us/ or call 304-273-9319.

Some hard truths:

Obama, the Democratic Party and the working classBy Larry Holmes

The Republican Party is so blatantly re-actionary, so racist, so anti-immigrant, so openly hostile to women, lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and queer people, and so enthusiastic about waging war on the workers and oppressed peoples at home and abroad that it’s not hard to understand why so many feel they have no choice but to vote for the Democratic Party.

This is a big problem because no mat-ter how different the two parties appear to be (and they do appear to be different), they both represent the interests of U.S capitalism and imperialism. This prob-lem is not new. But there is something new that makes the problem even more complicated.

The incumbent president, who’s run-ning for a second term, is not only a Dem-ocrat but the first African-American pres-ident. Does Barack Obama’s race matter? Well, it wouldn’t if racism and national oppression did not exist.

Obama’s race has not altered in any way how he has dutifully acted in the in-terests of U.S. imperialism. Moreover, it is precisely because of Obama’s race that a section of the ruling class helped Obama get elected in order to put a new face on U.S. imperialism’s declining empire.

Underneath that new face there’s been a continuation of misery, exploitation, oppression and war. Under Obama, de-portations and foreclosures have skyrock-eted. On almost every issue, Obama has accommodated the capitalist assault on the working class. Under Obama, the Pen-tagon’s deadly drone war against Arab, Asian and African peoples is 500 percent wider than under George W. Bush.

However, these things don’t change the fact that Obama’s race matters, not just to the capitalist ruling class, but also to the masses. No doubt, many are deeply disap-pointed in Obama’s failure to rescue them from all the terrible things the capitalist crisis has visited upon them.

Still, the overwhelming majority of African Americans, and many others re-gardless of their race, will vote for Obama. They will vote for Obama for many differ-ent reasons, but especially out of fear of Romney, Ryan and the Republicans.

But another big reason that people will vote for Obama is the feeling that the out-come of the upcoming presidential elec-tion will represent either progress for or a stinging setback to the struggle against racism. And there’s a significant percent-age of the electorate who will vote against Obama on the basis of pure and simple racism.

Tactful skill needed to build unity

Exposing and fighting the two capital-ist parties when the Democrats are led by the first African-American president is a complicated challenge for the working-class movement.

It is a challenge especially for the more revolutionary forces in the movement who understand the need for the work-ing class to liberate itself from the trap of relying on the Democratic Party. But it’s a challenge that is possible, and all the more critical, to rise to.

To be effective under such circum-stances requires what the working-class movement should always aspire to — no matter what the race of the figurehead of U.S. imperialism is. And that’s a high level of consciousness in relationship to

the struggle against racism and national oppression.

It is not necessary to refrain from criti-cizing or exposing President Obama from the left. But generally we are not at the point where progressive white activists in this country can carry pictures or effigies attacking Obama without being mistaken for Tea Party bigots.

Such requisite anti-racist conscious-ness in no way inhibits the development of class consciousness, anticapitalist con-sciousness or revolutionary socialist con-sciousness.

Neither does such consciousness lend one iota of validation to the Democratic Party. Such consciousness does require thoughtfulness, care and tact.

How the outcome of the 2012 presi-dential elections will affect the course of the class struggle is something that will need to be assessed in due time.

But it’s not necessary to wait for that assessment to appreciate the painful les-sons for the working-class movement since Obama’s election four years ago. Back then, some hoped that Obama’s election would embolden the working class and abet the resurgence of class struggle. Perhaps such was the case in some instances.

However, overall, it would be hard to make the argument that the last presi-dential election helped the working class wake up and fight back.

There were some notable exceptions.Six months before the Occupy Wall

Street movement emerged last Septem-ber, the occupation of the Capitol build-ing in Madison, Wis., by thousands of workers and students opened a new page in the struggle against union busting and

austerity that awakened and electrified the entire working-class movement.

Eventually, it was Democratic Party politicians and their operatives in the labor movement who truncated this tre-mendous struggle and channeled it back into nonstruggle, capitalist-party-domi-nated electoral politics.

Before Wisconsin, the labor and civil rights movement’s major response to the corporate-financed surge of the Tea Party was the large but passive, Democratic-Party-controlled “One Nation” rally in Washington, D.C., in October 2010. That event was hardly mentioned in the capi-talist media.

Of course there have been many good local protests and struggles fueled by de-pression-level unemployment, austerity, union busting and foreclosures. But taken together, the fightback has not measured up to the magnitude of the attacks on the working class and the poor.

One of the factors that made the Oc-cupy movement so important was that it filled the palpable vacuum in the struggle created by the relatively weak response of the labor movement.

No matter who is in the White House next January, the number one task of the working-class movement must be to break free of the restraints that the Dem-ocratic Party has purposely imposed on its ability to fight back.

Otherwise, the working-class move-ment will be defenseless against the growing storm of capitalist crisis, cut-backs, unemployment and privations that is wreaking social havoc and destruction from Athens, Greece, to Atlanta, Georgia.

Holmes is the First Secretary of Workers World Party.

Steel workersContinued from page 4

Students, community allies all support

Chicago teachers on strike Continued from page 1

would like to see a commitment to bring-ing jobs and grocery stores … back into the communities that our children live in.” (New York Times, Sept. 10)

In typical divide-and-conquer style, the big-business-owned press is attempt-ing to drive a wedge between the teachers and staff and the communities they serve. These dangerous tactics try to give the false impression that the teachers are iso-lated from the community, when in fact they are an integral part of it.

The Sept. 3 Chicago Labor Day march and rally for “Jobs, Dignity and a Fair Contract” brought out organized labor in the thousands, along with community members and students, mainly in solidar-ity with the teachers union. Many signs in both English and Spanish had slogans such as “More school nurses, more coun-selors, more services,” “Teachers make all other professions possible,” “I support teachers because they work hard,” and “If you disrespect my teachers, you disrespect me.” The protest was a strong display of multinational unity among African-Amer-ican, Latino/a and white workers.

This strike exposes the lie that teachers are “middle-class professionals.” Teach-ers are among the most underpaid public sector workers. They, like all workers, de-serve a living wage, decent working con-

ditions and excellent benefits. Instead, teachers and all workers — and their families — are suffering amidst the most severe capitalist economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Though it may be a defensive one, the Chicago teachers’ strike involves a strong union that has taken a heroic stance against decades-long givebacks, wage cuts and intolerable working conditions.

Workers World pledges its wholeheart-

ed solidarity with the CTU and encourag-es the entire U.S. labor movement, along with community groups and progressive organizations, to do the same in every way possible.

The CTU struggle exemplifies the pow-erful saying: An injury to one is an injury to all! Their struggle is all of ours.

Moorehead is a former kindergarten teacher and past member of the Virginia Education Association.

WW PHOTO: G. DUNKEL .

Labor Day Parade, NYC, Sept. 8. CUNY unionists show solidarity with Chicago teachers.

Page 6 Sept. 20, 2012 workers.org

MARXISM, REPARATIONS & the Black Freedom StruggleAnthology of writings from Workers World newspaper. Edited by Monica Moorehead.Racism, National Oppression & Self-Determination Larry HolmesBlack Labor from Chattel Slavery to Wage Slavery Sam MarcyBlack Youth: Repression & Resistance LeiLani DowellThe Struggle for Socialism Is Key Monica MooreheadDomestic Workers United Demand Passage of a Bill of Rights Imani HenryBlack & Brown Unity: A Pillar of Struggle for Human Rights and Global Justice! Saladin MuhammadAlabama’s Black Belt: Legacy of Slavery, a Sharecropping & Segregation Consuela Lee

Available at Amazon.com & bookstores around the country www.workers.org/reparations

Southern labor hosts assembly: ‘Build a workers’ alliance!’and one of only two states that outright denies pub-lic workers the right to collectively bargain. Many in the union movement, particularly those from northern and more unionized states, have been say-ing that the convention should have never been held in a right-to-work state. In return, labor did not in-vest the millions of dollars of funds that they typi-cally make available for the DNC. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the AFL-CIO organized a major counter rally in Philadelphia in August, yet there was little to no discussion about a strategy to unionize the vastly unorganized South-ern region.

Ashaki Binta, who organizes public workers with the United Electrical Workers union in North Carolina, and Justin Flores, organizer with the Farm Labor Or-ganizing Committee, gave opening presentations. They focused on four main obstacles that work to impede the struggle against racism, sexism and working-class ex-ploitation in the South and that also severely inhibit the growth of unions: 1) the Taft-Hartley Act, which directly undermines the growth and consolidation of unions, 2) the fact of the U.S. South being the number one region in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), 3) the pro-hibition of collective bargaining rights for public sector workers and 4) the unjust Immigration policies target-ing undocumented workers.

They pointed out that 32 million workers in the U.S. do not have collective bargaining rights. Additionally, they noted that the Southern states incentive packages offer companies, domestic and foreign, a nonunion envi-ronment. The Southeast has received the highest dollar amount of foreign investment of any region. The South-ern states’ tax policies have changed within recent years to impact FDI decisions.

A clarion call for solidarity

The powerful lineup of speakers included three pan-els. The panel of workers who represent labor forma-

tions excluded by the National Labor Re-lations Act included Baldemar Velazquez, president of FLOC; Victor Alvarez, with the National Day Labor Organizing Network currently on a cross-country tour with the Undocubus; and a formerly incarcerated man from All of Us or None, speaking on ex-felons having the right to a job.

The panel addressing private sector workers included Lisa Cline, a food service worker and president of UNITE-HERE Local 23 at the Charlotte air-port; Jim Wrenn, an autoworker and president of Caro-lina Auto and Aerospace Workers Union, UE Local 150, from Rocky Mount, N.C.; Leonard Riley, a longshore worker and member of the International Longshore-men’s Association Local 1422, Charleston, S.C.; Harry Whitaker Sr., a meatpacking worker at a Smithfield plant and shop steward, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1208, Tar Heel, N.C.

During the open discussion following this panel, Clar-ence Thomas, an executive board member of the In-ternational Longshore and Warehouse Workers Union Local 10 from Oakland, Calif., made very stirring com-ments referencing Harry Bridges, an Australian-born leader of the ILWU and notable as a leader in the fight against racism on the docks.

Thomas also asked panel member Riley about the ILA’s East Coastwide contract negotiations, which are currently taking place. It appears that the negotiations may be reaching a standstill around the technology questions relating to automation that could eliminate thousands of jobs on the ports. Thomas called for sup-port for the ILA brothers and sisters. Saladin Muham-mad then stood up and addressed the crowd, calling for a resolution to be passed to support the ILA. The assem-bly adopted the proposal unanimously.

The final panel, which addressed conditions faced by public sector workers, included Angaza Laughinghouse, a state government worker and president of UE Local 150, N.C. Public Service Workers Union; Tom Anderson, a university worker and president of Campus Workers United — Communication Workers of America, from Tennessee; Nathanette Mayo, a city waste water treatment worker and recording secretary of the Durham City Workers Union, UE150; Donna Morgan, UE Local 170, West Virginia Public Service Workers Union; and Eleanor Bailey, retired American Postal Workers Union member and a leader of the 1970′s postal workers strike that resulted in collective bargaining for postal workers.

During the intermission and during dinner, cultural performances by Jaribu Hill from the Mississippi Work-ers Center; the Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble; the band from the Undocubus; and Sergio Sanchez, son of a farmworker, helped keep energy high.

The UFCW brought a powerful delegation of between 20 and 30 workers from the Smithfield plant, who brightened the room with their yellow shirts. UE also

brought about 20 workers from North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Earlier in the day before the assembly, a few dozen FLOC supporters went as a delegation to a Kangaroo gas station that sells RJ Reynolds-produced cigarettes. This action was to continue to keep public pressure on the company. FLOC is currently engaged in organizing a major campaign to win collective bargaining for migrant farmworkers who pick tobacco for the RJ Reynolds To-bacco Company across North Carolina.

After the panels, workers convened breakout sessions to discuss how to concretely build towards a Southern Labor Alliance. One of the tactics discussed was using a Rank-and-File Workers’ Bill of Rights to help unite cer-tain sectors and win better working conditions. UE150 has done this in North Carolina and was able to unite state mental health workers into a major campaign that drew in many allies over the last three years and got a bill introduced to the state Legislature.

“The Mental Health Workers Bill of Rights gives a core of standards to provide us a safe working condition, benefits and all things that impact us as workers,” stated Larsene Taylor, a healthcare technician at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, N.C. and Vice President of UE local 150. “It is like a binding contract without collective bargaining.”

UE150 is also fighting for the passage of a Municipal Workers’ Bill of Rights for city workers across the state. This most recently has helped tie together Charlotte city workers that have struggled for union recognition for the past six years and have been leading a weekly picket, the last four weeks, in the buildup to the DNC.

The United Campus Workers-CWA have also recently followed suit and created a Campus Workers’ Bill of Rights that has helped them to establish a political fightback pro-gram for their members, even without a union contract.

Workers vowed to meet again at the Southern Human Rights Organizing Conference at the ILA union hall in Charleston, S.C. on Dec. 7-9 to continue to develop the Southern Labor Alliance. Additionally, workers have vowed to publish a quarterly newsletter to help report on campaigns and struggles of Southern workers to help de-velop consciousness and tie struggles together. To learn more, visit http://southernworker.org

These states were represented at the Assembly: Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia.

The writer is a UE150 organizer and facilitator of the Southern Workers in the Private Sector panel.

Continued from page 1

Ashaki Binta WW PHOTOS: BRYAN G. PFEIFER

Donna Dewitt and Justin Flores

Tom Smith and Eleanor Bailey

Jaribu Hill

LOW-WAGE CAPITALISMWhat the new globalized high-tech imperialism means for the class struggle in the U.S.By Fred Goldstein An easy-to-read analysis of the roots of the current global economic crisis, its implications for workers and oppressed peoples, and the strategy needed for future struggle.The author is available for lectures & interviews.

HIGH TECH, LOW PAY A Marxist analysis of the changing character of the working classby Sam Marcy, with introduction by Fred Goldsteinworkers.org/Marcy/HighTech/www.LowWageCapitalism.comBooks available at Amazon & bookstores around the country

workers.org Sept. 20, 2012 Page 7

MARXISM, REPARATIONS & the Black Freedom StruggleAnthology of writings from Workers World newspaper. Edited by Monica Moorehead.Racism, National Oppression & Self-Determination Larry HolmesBlack Labor from Chattel Slavery to Wage Slavery Sam MarcyBlack Youth: Repression & Resistance LeiLani DowellThe Struggle for Socialism Is Key Monica MooreheadDomestic Workers United Demand Passage of a Bill of Rights Imani HenryBlack & Brown Unity: A Pillar of Struggle for Human Rights and Global Justice! Saladin MuhammadAlabama’s Black Belt: Legacy of Slavery, a Sharecropping & Segregation Consuela Lee

Available at Amazon.com & bookstores around the country www.workers.org/reparations

Harriet Tubman, Woman Warrior Mumia Abu-JamalAre Conditions Ripe Again Today? Anniversary of the Watts Rebellion John ParkerRacism & Poverty in the Delta Larry HalesHaiti Needs Reparations, Not Sanctions Pat Chin

Southern labor hosts assembly: ‘Build a workers’ alliance!’Rank-and-�le labor leader Saladin Muhammad:

’What is our charge as Southern workers?’

The following excerpts are from opening remarks made by Saladin Muhammad, coordinator of the Southern International Worker Justice Campaign and retired United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) international representative, at the Southern Workers Assembly, Sept. 3, in Charlotte, N.C. Read the entire talk at workers.org.

The Southern Workers Assembly is a call to action by rank-and-file workers to unite, organize the South and speak in our own name.

We want the Southern Workers Assembly to be a launching pad that begins a process of building a South-wide social movement to organize labor.

A social movement to organize labor in the South must become a major part of the human rights movement, and must be organized with the same energy and sacrifice of the Civil Rights Movement that helped to bring about some progres-sive reforms for Black and working people.

However, a human rights labor move-ment must also be a transformative move-ment that seeks to reorganize the economic, social and political relationships that deter-mine the value of labor, the distribution of the wealth created by labor and technology, and that protects the lives of the people and sustainability of the planet. Capitalist glo-balization and its impacts require that our labor movement have a basic vision of trans-formation as we organize to build power.

History has also shown that the failure of the U.S. national labor movement to make a concerted and coordinated effort to or-ganize labor in the South has been a major factor allowing the most conservative political base within the U.S. from being effectively challenged by the organized power of Southern workers. This has affected the class consciousness and confidence of Southern workers about our power to challenge corporate power, which clearly dominates and dictates the decisions and policies of the state and local governments throughout the South.

Corporate power has not only superexploited the la-bor of Southern workers, it is also responsible for the underdevelopment and negative environmental impacts on many working-class communities, especially African American, Latina and Latino, Native American and poor white, because of the billions in incentives and tax breaks that were diverted from community development to give to the corporations to locate in the South.

The massive disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina in parts of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005 is an ex-ample of what happens when corporate wants are priori-tized over the infrastructure and human needs of the people.

Now that the South has re-emerged as a major region in the global economy, where U.S. manufacturing, for-eign direct investment and finance capital are becoming concentrated — a Wall Street South — the South will be a major force in the shaping of U.S. labor and social poli-cies. Efforts to pass anti-immigration laws are developing rapidly in the South, to create another source of super-exploitation that is based on the race and ethnicity of the working class.

The U.S. prison-industrial complex, in addition to jail-ing mainly the unemployed from the Black and Latina/Latino working-class communities, provides a superex-ploited labor for major corporations. The so-called “legal status” and stigma permanently branding the formerly incarcerated, forces many to have to work for little or nothing if they can get hired at all. This is a major rea-son forcing many back into crime, and the high rates of recidivism.

Dividing the working class and the oppressed peoples in every way possible is the main strategy of corporate power. The U.S. labor movement must not see the inde-pendent, worker-led organizations and initiatives of the oppressed peoples as something that divides the work-ing class. They exist to take up the struggles against the special forms of oppression and exploitation that impact our lives, and that have not been taken up effectively within and by many of the trade unions.

The struggle to respect the right of these organizations to exist as part of the labor movement while they are also leading the fight for self-determination as oppressed peoples, must be a main aspect of the struggle against racism to be waged within the U.S. labor movement and

the working class, if we are to build a powerful and transformative labor movement inside of the U.S.

Of the 100 million people living in the South, the larg-est region of the U.S., African American and Latina/La-tino together make up close to 40 percent of the South. Fifty-seven percent or more than 20 million Black peo-ple, and 40 percent or more than 18 million Latinas and Latinos live in the South. Black and Brown unity is there-fore critical to forging and anchoring the unity of a strong Southern labor and working-class movement.

The crisis impacting labor over the past 30 years from the restructuring and globalization of the economy and the attacks on unions resulting in a loss of membership by many unions, has led to an unhealthy competition be-tween unions, which have divided the working class by fights over union jurisdictions, raiding and splits in fed-erations and national unions.

A Southern labor movement must build structures that unite workers within the same sectors regardless of the national unions or organizations they are affiliated with to democratically work out an independent plan for concentration and organizing within those sectors. It is from this base of organizing that we must win the sup-port from national and international unions for organiz-ing labor in the South.

Organizing in the South greatly needs the support of a strong rank-and-file movement within the national unions that works to build support from their local and national unions for the development and sustaining of a Southern Labor Alliance, including actions of national labor solidarity as we saw with the Charleston, South Carolina, dock workers struggle, and the Wisconsin public-sector struggle that closed down the state Capitol. Organizing the South must become a clarion call for the U.S. labor movement to go on the offensive.

Let’s get to work here today in our brief period at the Southern Workers Assembly. Onward toward a Southern Labor Alliance!

The U.S. labor movement must not seethe independent, worker-led organizations and initiatives of the oppressed peoples as something that divides the working class.

WW PHOTOS: BRYAN G. PFEIFER

Saladin Muhammad

WW PHOTOS: MONICA MOOREHEAD

ILLUSTRATION BY SAHU BARRON

Undocubus musicians.

Page 8 Sept. 20, 2012 workers.org

Capitalism at a Dead EndJob destruction, Overproduction and crisis in the High-Tech Erawill be available soon at Amazon.com and other bookstores.

By Fred Goldstein

Adapted from a talk given at the Sept. 7 New York City meeting of Workers World Party.

At the moment of this writing, the Chi-cago Teachers Union has set a splendid example for the working class during this presidential electoral season. They have refused to be swept away by the electoral tide, in which both parties are financed by hundreds of millions of dollars of corpo-rate money, and are on strike against the Chicago school administration to defend their own rights and the rights of the poor and oppressed communities of the city.

Whatever the politics of the union lead-ership, what makes this action so politi-cally significant is that it flies in the face of the stampede to the polls. This is, after all, a city whose mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is Barack Obama’s former chief of staff. And this is a time when the president is engaged in a fierce electoral battle against the right-wing Romney-Ryan ticket.

The Chicago teachers represent a sec-tor of the organized working class that has been under severe attack in recent years. In particular, they have experienced first hand the futility of relying on elections.

They have faced the so-called “Race to the Top” initiated by Secretary of Educa-tion Arne Duncan, who was formerly su-perintendent of the Chicago schools. This program is nothing but a big bribe to lo-cal officials and school boards, costing $4 billion, that is aimed at fostering charter schools, privatization of the public school system, abandoning the mass of school districts that are disproportionately Black and Latino/a, and undermining the union rights of teachers.

It is no accident that it was teachers facing similar attacks, along with students in Madison, Wis., who started the heroic two-week occupation of the state Capitol there.

This strike is a healthy antidote to the obsession with electoral politics that is being drummed up by all quarters of bourgeois society.

The ‘lesser evil’ dynamic

The traditional dynamic of capitalist politics is taking hold in an atmosphere in which the election is cast as a matter of life and death for the masses. They are being told to drop everything and throw themselves into stopping the Republican right-wing ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

To be sure, the Romney-Ryan team is thoroughly reactionary. But by focusing on this alone, the broader picture is ob-scured — namely, that the presidential election is at bottom a struggle between different factions in the ruling class to get

their hands on the capitalist state with its $3 trillion budget and win the right to parcel out the spoils to their corporate and financial cronies.

While there are important policy dif-ferences on the surface between the two parties, there is no daylight between the parties from a fundamental point of view. Both enforce capitalist rule, wage slav-ery, exploitation and oppression and fos-ter imperialist conquest and intervention abroad.

Karl Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Paris Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and re-press them in government.

The parties do look very different so-cially and economically, however. Com-paring the Republican National Con-vention to the Democratic National Convention makes the parties seem as different as night and day. The RNC was probably 99.9 percent white, with del-egates ranging from prosperous to rich, filled with business people and Chamber of Commerce types.

The Republicans flaunted a reactionary program, promising to cut programs and services for the masses and reward the rich. The convention marked a continued shift to the right.

It seems ages ago now, but even a re-actionary like George W. Bush was com-pelled to run in 2000 as a “compassion-ate conservative” and to pay lip service to immigrants, the poor communities and their failing school systems, among other deceptions.

The present ticket, however, is running with an extreme anti-abortion and anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer rights platform as its standard, in addition to threatened budget cuts and openly anti-immigrant and anti-labor policies. In his speech, Ryan even red-baited the Obama administration as be-ing “central planners,” evoking images of socialism and the USSR. Would that the charges were true!

The DNC, on the other hand, was populated by large numbers of Black and Latino/a delegates and unionists, along with liberal public figures and celebri-ties. The speakers included people from these communities, as well as a Dreamer, an undocumented young Latino. Speak-ers made progressive statements in favor of a woman’s right to choose, same-sex marriage, immigrant rights, taxes on mil-lionaires and billionaires, and so on. The contrast with the RNC could hardly have been greater.

Di�erences & similarities

But this contrast is deceiving. Con-sider that in his speech President Obama pledged to carry out Wall Street’s austeri-ty plan of cutting $4 trillion from the bud-get, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. If his cuts are not quite as drastic as those that the Republicans call for, they are still drastic and a huge attack upon the masses.

On bellicose war talk, of course, the two parties converged.

Obama’s greatest booster at the con-vention was former President Bill Clinton. This is the Clinton who threw millions of

mainly single mothers, disproportionate-ly African-Americans and Latinas, off the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program — welfare — and forced them to compete for scarce low-paid jobs to earn benefits, even as they struggled to raise children.

This is the Clinton who initiated the Ef-fective Death Penalty Act, which drastical-ly cut down the appeals process for death-row prisoners. To make the point that he was in favor of the death penalty, Clinton even left the campaign trail in 1992 to trav-el to Arkansas to witness the execution of a mentally disabled Black prisoner.

Clinton also initiated anti-terrorist laws that were later used by the Bush adminis-tration. He teamed up with Newt Gingrich to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement, which caused a full-scale ag-ricultural depression in Mexico, forcing millions to leave their land as the country was flooded with cheap corn and other products from U.S. agribusiness.

Finally, Clinton had the hypocrisy to accuse Romney of wanting to deregu-late financial firms and give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. But it was Clinton and his two Treasury secretaries, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, who did away with the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which had been enacted to limit financial speculation.

The Clinton speech, perhaps more than anything else, highlighted the deception behind capitalist electoral politics.

The openly reactionary proclamations and threats by the Republicans have set up a stampede to the camp of the Democratic Party. But this party is no less controlled by Wall Street, the giant monopolies and financiers than the Republican Party. The difference between the two parties is that the Republican base is made up of actual business owners and bosses, while the Democrats have the progressive masses and middle-class liberals as their base.

In the end, however, both parties will do the bidding of the bosses. As an example, Ronald Reagan is often denounced as the initiator of the sharp shift to the right in capitalist politics. But it must not be for-gotten that it was Jimmy Carter who began the deregulation process in transportation and other spheres that was used to break unions. And it was Carter who planned the operation, carried out by Reagan, that broke the Professional Air Traffic Control-

lers Organization. That was the beginning of the anti-labor campaign.

It was also Carter who callously de-clared that “Life isn’t fair” as he signed the Hyde Amendment, denying poor women the right to federal funds for abortion. And it was Carter who began a massive military build-up that was continued by Reagan.

Carter did not do all these things be-cause he suddenly got the ideas, but be-cause they expressed the right turn in the ruling class, in the same way that the austerity programs of both Romney and Obama express the consensus on Wall Street today. The bankers and bosses are feeling the stress of the world economic crisis, and they want to take it out of the hides of the masses.

Shift to the right: It’s not money alone

The current wisdom is that the Republi-cans and the right wing are gaining ground because of the 2010 Supreme Court deci-sion in Citizens United that corporations are people and can contribute unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns.

This argument defies historical analy-sis. The bosses in the U.S. have dominat-ed the political parties and legislatures as far back as the founding of the republic. George Washington was the richest man and the largest slave owner in the U.S. at that time. In the 19th century, legisla-tures, presidents and judges were bought and sold by the giant railroad barons, the cattle barons and the mining companies, who were granted millions of acres of land stolen from the Native people. It was all done through corruption and bribery.

Any study of the relationship among money, politics and capitalist interests, from the booming 1920s on, shows the further fusion at the top between the politi-cal machine and big business. If there was a modification of this at all, it was during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, when sections of the ruling class had to be pushed back by Roosevelt so he could avoid a brewing revolutionary upsurge during the Great Depression in the mid-1930s.

To be sure, the Citizens United ruling further widened the gap between the la-bor movement, women’s and civil rights groups, and LGBTQ organizations, on the one hand, and the corporations on the other. But the strength of the mass move-ment has never been lodged in financial resources that could influence the politi-

WW PHOTOS : BRYAN G. PFIEFER

The Occupy Wall Street South protest on Sept. 2 in Charlotte, N.C.

Capitalist electoral politics and class struggle

Two big-business partiesdo the bosses’ bidding

workers.org Sept. 20, 2012 Page 9

cal establishment, but in mobilization and militant struggle.

The shift to the right in U.S. politics began in the late 1970s. It was acceler-ated a decade later by the collapse of the USSR and has been deepened with the re-treat of the top leaders of the labor move-ment from the arena of class struggle. It is the present and temporary relationship of class forces that is responsible for the sharp shift to the right by the ruling class, not corporate money in politics — which has always been there.

Rely on resistance & struggle

The way this situation will be reversed is to reverse the relationship of forces in favor of the workers and the oppressed. Social democrats and liberals like to bait the revolutionary forces and the left, who refuse to be dragged into the elections behind an imperialist party. They are ac-cused of sitting on the sidelines and ab-staining from the inevitable and inescap-able game of capitalist politics.

But this is a false accusation. In the first place, the game of capitalist politics played by the Democratic Party — and the Republicans too — is a shell game. The workers are shown a very small prize at election time but can never lay their hands on it. The promises are accompanied by a torrent of imperialist national chauvinism and social patriotism. But the social dem-ocrats tell us there is no real struggle, so therefore we are whistling in the dark and nothing can happen outside the frame-work of capitalist electoral politics.

Revolutionaries, particularly Marxists, are not unconscious of the fact that the vast majority of the workers right now see the electoral arena as the primary, perhaps the only, arena in which they have any hope of getting their grievances redressed.

But revolutionaries have answers to the social democrats and the liberals. First of all, we definitely are in the game. But it is a different game — the game of resistance, the game of struggle, the game of fighting for our rights on the ground.

Second, the task of the liberation of the multinational working class belongs to the class itself. No section of the bourgeoi-sie will ever do that for us.

The bosses always try to take away the democratic rights of the masses when the opportunity arises. Our answer when they make the attempt — through voter I.D. laws or anything else — is to fight to de-fend those rights at all costs. But we do not hand over the keys to the political pro-cess to the very class enemy that wants to take away our rights in the first place.

And finally, we know that the present ac-ceptance of the capitalist electoral frame-work cannot forever contain the workers and the oppressed, who are being ground down on a daily basis under the class dic-tatorship of capital. The fraud of capitalist democracy will not be able to contain the people who are now suffering. Between 25 million and 30 million underemployed and unemployed are losing ground every day to debt collectors, landlords, greedy health care and insurance companies, and a thousand other capitalist bloodsuckers.

The teachers, students and communi-ty activists on the picket line in Chicago are an early testament to this. The heroic workers, students and community activ-ists who seized the Capitol in Wisconsin showed it even earlier.

Capitalism is at a dead end, and sooner or later the masses will grasp this.

In the meantime, the real game is to build a workers’ party of resistance and class struggle.

Goldstein is the author of “Low-Wage Capitalism” and “Capitalism at a Dead End.” More information is available at www.lowwagecapitalism.com. The author can be reached at fgoldstein@workers.org.

South African workers’ stoppages spreadBy Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire

The Lonmin Platinum PLC in Mari-kana, South Africa, has not restarted pro-duction at the facility where 44 workers died in August. On Sept. 10, the company reported that only 6 percent of employees came to work while thousands of rock-drill operators and others marched near the mine.

Holding sticks, spears and machetes, the workers maintained a standoff with heavily armed police with armored vehi-cles. Miners chanted, “The white men are shaking!” and “The police who shot us are shaking!” (Reuters, Sept. 10)

Four days earlier, workers demon-strated outside the Marikana mines and demanded more money in exchange for ending their wildcat strike. The rock-drill operators earn less than $500 per month for difficult and dangerous work.

Lonmin executives, the National Union of Mineworkers, Solidarity and the Unit-ed Association of South Africa — the des-ignated stakeholders in the Marikana dispute — signed a peace accord on Sept. 6. The South African Council of Churches mediated.

Two key players in the dispute — the Association of Mineworkers and Con-struction Workers Union, which NUM holds responsible for the Marikana wildcat strike, and the rock-drill opera-tors’ representatives — refused to sign it. AMCU leaders said they had no mandate to represent the workers since most were NUM members.

Joseph Mathunjwa, AMCU president, said the peace accord “flew in the face of fairness. … Our position was never taken into account. … [T]his has got nothing to do with workers going back to work or not — this is about political power. … [The strike was never sanctioned by AMCU. To hold us responsible for this is wrong.” (Mail & Guardian, Sept. 9)

AMCU was established in 1998 after some leading NUM members were ex-pelled over a disagreement involving la-bor practices.

The larger rival and parent organiza-tion, NUM, the largest affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, condemned the violent atmosphere sur-rounding the mines. NUM General Secre-tary Frans Baleni said, “The level of intim-idation is getting out of control. If needs be, Lonmin must deal with the workers threatening violence against those want-ing to work.” (Mail & Guardian, Sept. 9)

Baleni, reflecting NUM’s frustration, said its “hands were tied” if the strik-ers did not return to work. “People must embrace this peace accord and engage; enough people have died and we cannot let this continue. … We are really worried that this situation will spread and turn violent again. There are already reports of similar labor disputes at mines around the area and we need to normalize the situation as soon as possible.”

Zolisa Bodlwana, representing the striking miners, said of the talks prior to the peace accord signing, “We felt as if we were in a wrong meeting because they kept on insisting on signing the accord. We left because an accord does not help us in any way.” (Daily Maverick, Sept. 10)

Another miner, Xolani Nzuza, stressed, “We don’t want to hear anything about a peace accord. We want R12,500 ($1,500) and the closing down of the (Karee K3)

shaft.”

Unrest at Gold Fields

Gold mining industry workers have re-cently gone on wildcat strikes. Gold Fields International resolved a 12,000-miner work stoppage at its KDC East facility in early September. On Sept. 10, 15,000 workers shut down the KDC West mines.

Sven Lunsche, representing Gold Fields, said, “We haven’t been given any demands but the pattern is the same as KDC East. It is intimidation. … The strik-ers went around [Sept. 9] from hostel to hostel to prevent the others going to work.” (Reuters, Sept. 10) These strikes are considered “illegal” because they con-travene labor contracts signed between NUM and the mining companies.

Lunsche stressed that the wildcat strikes and violence in the platinum and gold mines have created turmoil in South Africa’s most lucrative export indus-tries. Lonmin, the world’s third-largest platinum producer, lost $524 million in market capitalization since the Marikana strike began in August.

Government defends National Demo-cratic Revolution’s gains

South Africa’s first nonracial democrat-ic elections in April 1994 led to the first African National Congress government in the post-apartheid era. The ANC and its allies earned the overwhelming support of the working class, youth and the poor through decades of mass and armed strug-gle against European settler-colonialism.

However, the class divisions sown by apartheid still run deep within South Af-rican society. The ANC’s negotiated set-tlement with the now-defunct all-white Nationalist Party Party rulers who, repre-sented finance capital, left the ownership of the means of production with the mi-nority ruling class.

Affirmative action programs and Black Economic Empowerment schemes brought African professionals and busi-nesspeople into administrative and owner-ship arrangements with the public sector and major industries. COSATU and other unions won — through negotiations and strikes — better wages and working condi-tions for a larger section of the proletariat.

However, these reforms were nowhere

near enough to provide an adequate stan-dard of living for the majority of African workers. Unemployment is officially 25 percent. The world economic crisis has caused a sharp rise in the cost of living and household debt among the working class.

Conditions in many mining areas have not substantially improved. The paltry wages and environmental degradation around facilities such as Lonmin only fuel workers’ discontent and anger.

President Jacob Zuma’s government sought to defend the ANC government at a recent national conference of the South African Local Government Association in Midrand. On Sept. 10, Zuma told the gathering, “We have made substantial progress in improving service delivery and extending services to our people, es-pecially the poor who were marginalized in the past. …

“No country could have produced the delivery we have made in 18 years. There is a common tendency to look at govern-ment at all levels as if those who are gov-erning have brought the problem, instead of deep seated challenges from the past. … The reality of apartheid is that large parts of the country had never had any form of local government and, as a result, the backlogs are still glaring.” (South African Government News, Tshwane)

Zuma emphasized, “Over two and half million houses have been built for the poor giving shelter to over ten million people. Six million households have gained access to clean water since 1994 and electricity has been connected to nearly five million homes.”

Yet Zuma acknowledged the tremen-dous amount of work to be done, espe-cially in Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Kwa-Zulu-Natal, Northwest, Free State and Mpumalanga. He stressed, “These should be communities where residents have water, electricity, sanitation and roads as well as recreational facilities … [and] filled with the laughter of happy children.”

The ruling ANC will hold its national congress in December at Mangaung. There, Zuma and other top party lead-ers will face elections from the provincial branches and auxiliary wings. There may be leadership challenges to current party officials, many of whom hold high-level government positions.

Internal critics say that resolutions passed at the last ANC congress have not been adhered to, which has led to growing factionalism within the organization.

Unless there is a major shift away from post-apartheid political and economic ar-rangements, the ANC government won’t be able to fulfill the mandate of its 1955 Freedom Charter and later documents that call for the equal distribution of wealth throughout the nation.

SOUTH AFRICAWhich Road to Liberation?by Monica Moorehead

Written in 1993 after a trip to South Africa

www.workers.org/books/SouthAfricaMM.pdf

How has the disintegation of the Soviet Union impacted on the struggle against apartheid?

Has the bourgeois revolution been achieved in South Africa?How does this �t with the worldwide revolution described by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the Communist Manifesto in 1848?

Order from Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., 5C, NY, NY 10011 Enclose $2 (plus $1 shipping)

AFRICA & IMPERIALISMArticles by Abayomi Azikiwe from the pages of Workers World

n Africa struggles against imperialism n WikiLeaks on U.S. role in Africa n Tunisian masses rebel n South African workers strike n Famine in the Sahel n Women at forefront of liberation struggles n Africa increases trade with China

Page 10 Sept. 20, 2012 workers.org

editorial

Football & gay rights

Sports training focuses on working together as a highly calibrated unit. If factors having nothing to do with

ability damage that unity, the team suffers.Racism is such a factor. While it has

not been eradicated in sports, there’s no doubt U.S. teams have been enormously strengthened by diversity — won through decades of struggle.

Gay baiting has also been a fixture in many sports — nowhere more than in football. But two leading players have stepped up and called it out.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, who is African-American, went public on YouTube in support of same-sex marriage. This infuriated Mary-land State Assembly Delegate Emmett Burns, who demanded the Ravens’ owner

muzzle Ayanbadejo.Another NFL player, Minnesota

Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, then posted an online reply to Burns that went viral. “Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level,” said Kluwe, who is white. He ended, “I’ve also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay mar-riage so you can take your ‘I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing’ and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it.”

Three cheers — for two athletes who spoke out for progress and the rest of their unionized co-players who stood with them.

QUEBEC

Student struggle stops tuition hikes

By G. Dunkel

The first official decree from Pauline Marois, the new Quebec premier and leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), at her victory party, rescinded the tuition increases the previous government had proposed and annulled the law forbid-ding demonstrations, especially near schools.

All the major student confederations that had led a series of student strikes beginning in March applauded Marois’ decision during their interview by Radio Canada.The most radical of the three, CLASSE, the Broad Coalition of Students and Unions, now intends to raise the de-mand for free public higher education.

These strikes shut down a number of Quebec’s community and senior colleges and brought hundreds of thousands of students and their supporters into the streets in all of Quebec’s cities, particu-larly Montreal. There were large “illegal” daytime demonstrations and more than 100 somewhat smaller, but also “illegal,” nighttime demonstrations.

All of the student confederations said that their struggles against the tuition hikes played a part in defeating the Lib-eral Party (PLQ) in the Sept. 4 elections.

However, there were other factors in the elections. The PLQ has been mired in a series of corruption scandals in the past three years. The party did a horrible job

with the economy and sold off Quebec’s resources at fire sale prices to foreign companies in the U.S. and Japan.

Ever since the PQ was formed in the early 1960s to obtain Quebec’s indepen-dence, it and the PLQ have alternated control of the Quebec government. This is comparable to how the Democrats and Republicans have alternated in the Unit-ed States.

This last election, which saw the PQ re-place the PLQ, had a few new wrinkles. The Coalition for Quebec’s Future, a cen-ter-right split from the PQ, formed in ear-ly 2011, got 27 percent of the vote. Québec Solidaire, a party that raises many pro-gressive issues from ecology to women’s rights and which strongly supported the student protests, got 6 percent. Basically, Quebec’s national assembly, its parlia-ment, is split into a bloc of thirds.

The coverage in the English-language Canadian and U.S. press concentrated on the right-wing assassination attempt against Marois, which she survived, but which killed a worker. The same media also mentioned the likelihood, which is probably not very high, of the PQ holding another referendum on independence.

The powerful student struggle has gotten very little coverage outside of the French language press. However, the stu-dents are undaunted. They won a big vic-tory, but they appear willing to struggle for more.

Socialist Korea looks aheadBy Deirdre Griswold

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea celebrated the 64th anniversary of the state’s founding on Sept. 9 with mass displays of gymnastics and flash cards at a Pyongyang stadium, in which 100,000 people participated.

As acrobats and gymnasts by the thou-sands coordinated complex routines on the field, tens of thousands of students in the stands flipped poster-size cards to cre-ate colorful scenes in sync with the action. The training and intense discipline that make these spectacular displays possible is unparalleled in the world, and sym-bolizes the determination of the Korean people to work together in unison to build their nation and their socialist society.

This was the first year that the DPRK’s young new leader, Kim Jong Un, presided over the ceremonies. Kim has shown a firm hand in bolstering the nation’s defenses.

In late August, the U.S. and Japan, the two big imperialist powers that have tried to dominate all of Korea for more than a century, carried out large-scale war ex-ercises right off the southwest coast of the DPRK, together with puppet forces from south Korea. Kim went to the island closest to where a clash occurred during similar provocations last year and told the soldiers to be prepared to retaliate and defend it with their lives if even one shot were fired by the other side.

At the same time, Kim has been stress-ing economic development to improve the lives of the people.

Blocks of new modern apartment buildings in Pyongyang, the capital, were completed in time for the anniversary cel-ebrations.

Reports from Western visitors to the DPRK say the food situation there has much improved this year, despite several damaging storms and floods. Much work has been done over the last few years to reclaim land by both irrigation and flood control, as well as the planting of new or-chards and the cultivation of crops suit-able to the climate.

The Korean press reports achievements over the past year in iron and steel pro-duction and the expansion of the vinalon industry. Vinalon is a uniquely Korean textile made from two resources abun-dant there: anthracite coal and granite. A Korean scientist found a way to create fibers from these materials that can be woven into a high-grade synthetic fabric similar in appearance to silk, but more durable and able to take color dyes well.

Ingenuity, organization and the deter-mination of the people to defend their so-cial system while adapting modern tech-nology to their needs continue to resonate from the DPRK.

Griswold has visited both north and south Korea half a dozen times, beginning in the 1970s. dgriswold@workers.org

Canada rightists persecute activists

Most quotes are from a Sept. 4 Fire This Time news release sent to Workers World by the Mobilization Against War and Occupation in Vancouver, Canada.

“At Metrotown Skytrain Station near Vancouver, Canada, transit police officers and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police assaulted, handcuffed and removed three activists who were peacefully distributing the Fire This Time newspaper. Because FTT is a non-commercial, free, social jus-tice newspaper, the officers had no legal ground to stop the distribution.

“It is clear that the aim of the assault was to intimidate and harass social justice activists, which is political targeting as FTT publishes many articles against war and in support of social justice struggles in Canada, from Indigenous rights to la-bour organizing. This was an attack on our fundamental civil and democratic rights, which include freedom of expres-sion and the right to organize and demon-strate without violence and intimidation. It is also a case of police brutality, which is a disturbing trend growing in Canada.”

The activists were roughed up by the cops but were never issued a ticket or a written document.

“This assault on our democratic rights is happening in the context of the new era of war and occupation. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. and its imperialist allies in-cluding Canada have begun a new era of increasing war and occupation; from the continued occupation of Afghanistan to

the bombing and war against Libya and now threats, sanctions and covert foreign intervention in Syria and Iran. Whenever imperialist governments like the U.S. and Canada wage brutal and devastating wars abroad, it is always accompanied by a crack-down against those who defend so-cial justice and protest war at home.”

Workers World Secretariat member Deirdre Griswold commented on this re-pression in Vancouver: “It is significant that following the Vancouver events, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, who hails from the oil-company-dominated province of Alberta and has taken a hawkish stance on the Middle East, shocked and angered many Canadi-ans on Sept. 7 when, without warning or explanation, he broke relations with Iran and demanded Iranian diplomats leave the country.

“The repression of Canadian progres-sive and anti-war activists is further evi-dence of this lurch even further to the right by one of U.S. imperialism’s main allies. Since 2006, Harper has sent Ca-nadians to die in Washington’s military offensives against anticolonial regimes across West Asia and North Africa.”

The Mobilization Against War and Occupation is participating in actions in North America called by the United Na-tional Antiwar Coalition on the weekend of Oct. 5-7 — the anniversary of the oc-cupation of Afghanistan — to protest that war and threats against Syria and Iran.

Occupy for Socialist Revolution Learn about Workers World Partyfor more information wwp@workers.orgor call 212.627.2994 workers.org

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A Marxist discussion of the way forward in the class struggle Evaluate the capitalist elections Discuss the Occupy Movement, racism and state repression,

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workers.org Sept. 20, 2012 Page 11

COLOMBIA

Revolutionaries announce peace talksBy Berta Joubert-Ceci

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples’ Army (FARC-EP), held a press conference in La Havana, Cuba, on Sept. 6 to announce the begin-ning of peace negotiations with the Co-lombian government.

Broadcast live almost entirely by CNNE (CNN in Spanish), the conference offered a unique opportunity to see and hear rep-resentatives of the FARC being treated for what they are — a belligerent force that rep-resents the oppressed masses of Colombia in their search for peace with social justice.

There was no mention of words like “terrorists” or “narcoguerrilla” so perva-sive in the commercial media. These are labels coined by the Pentagon to describe people’s armed movements. This conces-sion on its own was a victory for the Co-lombian insurgency.

Surely the verbal change was not be-cause CNNE suddenly became progres-sive and altered its position, becoming respectful of the guerrilla army. What the coverage of the conference did was show the tireless work the insurgency has ac-complished for decades, trying to bring peace to the country.

The FARC, a Marxist-Leninist organi-zation, was forced to open a guerrilla war in 1964 when the Colombian military, equipped by the United States, bombed

Marquetalia, a liberated zone in the south where the communist group had taken refuge from the anticommunist attacks unleashed by the state.

Commander Mauricio Jaramillo, the FARC delegation’s leader, was accom-panied by Ricardo Téllez, Andrés París, Hermes Aguilar, Sandra Ramírez and Marco León Calarcá. They all had been in Cuba for six months in conversation with Colombian government representatives.

Jaramillo started the press conference showing a video of Timoleón Jiménez, also known as Timochenko, the highest commanding officer of the FARC. In his statement, Jiménez thanked the govern-ments of Cuba, Norway, Venezuela and Chile for their support of the negotia-tions. He stressed the commitment of the FARC to the peace process, which he put in the context of continued persecution by the Colombian state.

“It is clear to us,” Jiménez said, “that despite the official statements of peace, the insurgency arrived at this new at-tempt at reconciliation besieged, not only by the same military onslaught unleashed a decade ago, but openly compelled by their effort to take our desire for politi-cal and social change [and exchange it for] a miserable surrender. Despite these signals, the FARC-EP keeps the sincere aspiration that the regime will not try to repeat the same pattern of the past.”

President Santos had stated that his government will continue military opera-tions against the insurgency and no cease fire will be declared. He said that only with the completion of the negotiations will the confrontation end.

After six months of initial intense “Ex-ploratory” discussions, both parties signed the “General Agreement for the termina-tion of the conflict and the construction of a stable and lasting peace.” The second phase will open fully in Oslo, Norway, on Oct. 8 and will continue in Cuba.

Agenda for the talks

The five points of discussion reached by both parties are: 1) comprehensive ag-ricultural development policy, 2) political participation, 3) end of the conflict, 4) so-lution to the problem of illicit drugs and 5) the victims (human rights and search for the truth).

These basic yet fundamental issues are at the roots of the conflict. The FARC-EP has clearly stated that they have al-ways tried to work toward peace, but one which will deal effectively with the prob-lems that gave birth to the conflict.

For example, in the first point, “Agri-cultural Development” raises possible agrarian reform, something crucial for the attainment of justice for the people of Colombia. There are many wealthy national and particularly transnational

landowning interests that oppose serious agrarian reform that would help peasants and farm workers.

In spite of all the verbal guarantees given by the Colombian government for the success of these negotiations, the talks are between enemies that are still in active war with each other. How much will does Santos’ government have to carry on the talks in a serious manner? How will for-eign interests and imperialism respond? There are many enemies of this attempt at peace, including the neofascist former President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.

An important point made by the FARC was that these negotiations do not simply concern the interests of the government and the insurgency, but a much broader effort that must involve all the people and movements in Colombia.

In fact, a task of the progressive move-ments all over the world should be to support this process, a debt that is owed to the people of Colombia. And the best first step to show support is to expose the real enemies of peace and to reestablish the proper name of the Colombian insur-gency: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples’ Army, FARC-EP and the National Liberation Army, ELN.

Next: History of peace negotiations and context of current negotiation: San-tos’ pro-business/economic interests and the Colombian progressive movement.

Colombian hunger strike comes to GM’s homeBy Martha Grevatt

Working at breakneck speed under an-tiquated conditions at the General Motors Commodores plant in Bogotá, Colombia, more than 200 workers have suffered debilitating injuries and illnesses. After being fired and left with no source of in-come, workers formed the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-workers of GM Colombia, known as Asotrecol.

On Aug. 1, 2011, the Asotrecol workers set up an encampment outside the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá. They chose that lo-cation because the U.S. government still owns 26 percent of GM. They want rec-ognition of their injuries as work-relat-ed, and they want reintegration into the workforce for those who are able to work and pensions for those unable to work as well as paid health care. A key demand is recognition of Asotrecol as their union.

On Aug. 1 of this year, 13 injured work-ers began a hunger strike, sewing their lips shut. The strike was ended when GM corporate representatives agreed to travel to Colombia for mediation. The company, however, offered only a paltry compensa-tion sum and refused to give workers their jobs back. “The insignificant funding they offered would have accomplished nothing but convert us into street food vendors,” Asotrecol stated.

Workers have sewn their lips shut again. The union’s president, Jorge Parra, is conducting his hunger strike in Detroit, hoping to get a meeting with GM corpo-rate representatives.

This reporter, a 25-year Chrysler work-er and United Auto Worker member, in-terviewed Parra on Sept. 7, near Detroit’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community center, called Affirma-tions. There, Parra had a warm exchange with LGBTQ activists, who are engaged in a rotating hunger strike to protest dis-crimination and bigotry in Michigan.

Martha Grevatt: How big is the work-force at Colmotores?

Jorge Parra: About 1,830 working two shifts.

MG: What was its peak?JP: Three or four years ago there were

2,300 working three shifts.MG: Aside from about 200 who were

injured and fired, how were the reduc-tions accomplished?

JP: The older workers are being fired. They make about 2 million pesos [$1,050] per month but newer workers make half that. For three years, they do not get a raise. Then it takes two years to reach top rate.

MG: How many cars are produced each day and how much do they cost in Colombia?

JP: One hundred and sixty per shift. The work process has one person doing what three or four workers in the U.S. would do. Cars cost from 18 million pesos to 45 million pesos [$10,000 to $24,000].

MG: Where are things now with your struggle?

JP: We hope with this trip to Detroit I’ll be able to talk directly with people in GM headquarters and try to find a solution that is just. My colleagues and their fami-lies are in a very desperate and critical situation. Three of them have lost their houses through mortgage foreclosure. One other is at risk of losing his home.

It’s hard for our families and for our kids. Those of us who felt the helplessness decided to enter a hunger strike and sew our mouths shut. This was the only way we thought we would be able to resist the violations committed against us, with the little that we still have. GM practically gave us one choice — to die on a hunger strike or to die waiting for our indifferent governments to do something for us. It is unjust for the U.S. to demand human rights when it is financing human rights

abuses by way of its ownership of GM.MG: How important is international

solidarity?JP: The international support has been

an enormous aid to us in making our struggle visible. GM is a multinational [corporation] and a large part of it be-longs to the U.S. public. The support we have found in unions and organizations and from people has been invaluable. By making public statements and taking stances, they are increasing our profile. I’m proud to be able to be here in the U.S. I’m here because our situation has become so public. I’m glad I can count on this continued support, as we keep demanding justice and our rights.

MG: Can you comment on the Free Trade Agreement?

JP: It is unjust to us that the U.S. rati-fied the FTA with Colombia. There is a

very difficult situation for unions and workers in Colombia. Colombia is not complying with the Labor Action Plan prerequisites of the FTA. When [Presi-dent] Obama came to Cartagena and approved the FTA, it was like a slap in the face to me.

MG: Is there anything else you would like to add?

JP: We continue to ask for the enor-mous help of U.S. people and unions. We ask that they send letters and emails; that they engage in acts of protest and marches; and that they talk to their poli-ticians, so that together we can demand that GM do the right thing and reach a prompt solution. We’re coming to the end of our rope in Colombia.

We urgently need the collaboration of the people of the U.S. Our lives and our families depend on it.

Left, Jorge Parra of GM hunger strikers in Colombia with Martha Grevatt at Sept. 10 Detroit meeting.

WW PHOTO: ABAYOMI AZIKIWE

Correspondencia sobre artículos en Workers World/Mundo Obrero pueden ser enviadas a: WW-MundoObrero@workers.org

¡Proletarios y oprimidos de todos los paises unios!

Jóvenes inmigrantes son blanco de nuevo edicto racista en ArizonaPor Paul Teitelbaum

Tucson, Arizona – La gobernadora de Arizona Jan Brewer promulgó la Orden Ejecutiva 2012-06 el 15 de agosto, negan-do todo beneficio público estatal y local a los/as jóvenes indocumentados/as que soliciten el proceso de la Acción Diferida para los Llegados durante su Niñez (De-ferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA) anunciado por la administración Obama en junio. La orden de Brewer fue emitida el mismo día en que comenzó la elegibilidad de DACA. Esta orden racista y anti-inmigrante es el último escándalo de Brewer, quien firmó la ley SB1070 y prohibió la enseñanza de estudios mexi-cano-americanos en Arizona.

El proceso DACA es una concesión de la administración Obama forzada por la lucha de la valiente juventud indocumen-tada que exigía la aprobación de la propu-esta de ley DREAM (“soñar”) [Desarrollo, Alivio y Educación para Menores Extran-jeros], que otorgaría la legalización a los/as niños que vinieron a los EE.UU. antes de los 16 años de edad.

Bajo el lema, “Sin papeles y sin miedo”, estos/as jóvenes se han dado a conocer como los/as “soñadores/as”. Ellos/as han arriesgado que se les deporte, han realiza-do sentadas en las oficinas del Congreso e incluso se han infiltrado en los centros de detención de la Agencia de Inmigración y Aduanas de (“ICE”, la migra) para ex-poner la brutalidad y la humillación a la que son sometidos/as los/as inmigrantes.

Bajo DACA, a la persona se le permitiría permanecer en los EE.UU. por lo cual ten-dría derecho a conseguir un permiso de

trabajo. La orden de Brewer negaría una licencia de conducir de Arizona o cual-quier otra forma de identificación emitida por el estado a los/as soñadores/as. In-cluso con un permiso de trabajo y un tra-bajo, estos/as jóvenes todavía no tendrían derecho a indemnización por desempleo.

Riqueza de Arizona: Producto de mano de obra inmigrante

Arizona ha experimentado un enorme crecimiento de la población en los últimos 50 años. En 1960, la población del estado era de 1,3 millones de personas, pero en la actualidad supera los 6,3 millones, según la Oficina del Censo de los EE.UU. Esta afluencia proporcionó inmensos ben-eficios para los bancos y especuladores de tierras, quienes financiaron la urban-ización y la construcción de viviendas necesarias durante este período.

La tarea concreta de la construcción de las casas no la hicieron los banqueros, por

supuesto, sino los/as trabajadores/as: albañiles, carpinteros/as, instaladores/as de techos y pisos, etc. Un informe pub-licado por la Universidad de Arizona en 2008 estima que los/as inmigrantes con-staban entre el 27 al 41 por ciento de estas ocupaciones de bajos salarios de la con-strucción. (Udallcenter.arizona.edu)

El mismo informe revela que los/as tra-bajadores/as inmigrantes componen el 59 por ciento de todos/as los/as tra baja dores/as agrícolas en Arizona. Cual quiera que esté familiarizado/a con la historia del sindicato Trabajadores Agrícolas Unidos está muy consciente de las terribles condi-ciones a las que los/as trabajadores/as agrícolas en Arizona fueron sometidos/as. Los/as trabajadores/as inmigrantes eran también un porcentaje importante de la industria manufacturera de textiles de Arizona y de sus industrias de servicios, como los servicios de limpieza, manten-imiento de edificios y terrenos y servicios

de comida rápida.Las inmensas ganan-

cias obtenidas por esta explotación de mano de obra inmigrante res-iden en las manos de los capitalistas y en los bancos depredadores. Los/as trabajadores/as inmigrantes enfrentan el racismo alimentado por estos explotadores, sus medios de comuni-

cación y sus agentes políticos como Brewer.

Lideresa de derechos inmigrantes habla con WW/MO

Isabel García, una abogada de Tucson, activista de derechos de los/as inmigrantes, y co-presidenta de la organización comuni-taria, la Coalición de Derechos Humanos, dijo a WW/Mundo Obrero, “Las comuni-dades en Arizona y alrededor de la nación están indignadas por la decisión insensible, ignorante e irresponsable de la goberna-dora Jan Brewer de emitir una orden ejecu-tiva para castigar a nuestros/as jóvenes y futuros/as líderes en un día que debería haber sido celebrado por todos/as”.

García elogió a los/as Soñadores/as: “Llevados/as por la creencia de que la propuesta de ley “DREAM” iba a ser apro-bada por más de una década, después de 2006, los/as jóvenes indocumentados/as decidieron expresarse con su propia voz política y mostraron sus habilidades or-ganizativas, demostrando valientemente su integridad, inteligencia, madurez y compromiso con una agenda completa de derechos humanos para todos/as.

“Ahora, luego de recibir una pequeña concesión a sus justas demandas, los/as jóvenes de Arizona tienen que con-tinuar enfrentándose a una gobernadora que está decidida a impulsar su carrera política demonizando y atacando a la generación más prometedora de la histo-ria reciente. Desde la era de los Derechos Civiles y Vietnam, ninguna generación de jóvenes ha desatado la emoción de un movimiento por la justicia social, actu-ando como precursores del Movimiento Ocupar [Wall Street] en todo el país”.

Por John Catalinotto

Ecuador, con el apoyo de gran parte de Latinoamérica, está en lo que podría ser un enfrentamiento a largo plazo con el im-perialismo británico sobre el destino del fundador de WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

En lo que fue una acción heroica, Ecua-dor le ofreció asilo político a Assange. El gobierno británico, actuando como el vie-jo imperio, amenazó con violar la sober-anía del Ecuador y asaltar su embajada en Londres. Gran parte de Latinoamérica se puso del lado de Ecuador y obligó a Breta-ña a retirar sus amenazas.

Detrás de todo ello está el intento del go-bierno de Barack Obama de perseguir a cu-alquier persona que exponga los crímenes del imperialismo estadounidense. Wash-ington, con sus aliados de la OTAN, está tratando de conquistar las partes del an-tiguo mundo colonial que todavía man-tienen cierta independencia o que quieren controlar sus propios recursos.

WikiLeaks expuso los crímenes de guerra de Estados Unidos en Irak y Af-ganistán, y muchas de las otras maquina-

Latinoamericanos/as desafían EE.UU., respaldan Ecuador en materia de asilo WikiLeaks

ciones de la política exterior de EE.UU. La organización filtró cientos de miles de mensajes de embajadas estadounidenses en todo el mundo y publicó algunos vid-eos de ataques militares en Irak.

En agosto de 2010, la presión de EE.UU. llevó a Suecia exigir que Assange fuera llevado de Bretaña para hacer frente a una investigación por acusaciones de agresión sexual. Como dice en un comu-nicado la organización británica, Women Against Rape (Mujeres contra la violación sexual): “Hay una larga tradición del uso de la violación y el asalto sexual para agendas políticas que nada tienen que ver con la seguridad de las mujeres”. (Guard-ian, 9 de diciembre de 2010)

Nadie puede creer que las autoridades suecas le habrían dado seguimiento a las acusaciones de no haber sido por la pre-sión de EE.UU. para perseguir a Assange y poner un alto a quienes denuncien los crímenes de guerra de Estados Unidos.

Assange teme — y la mayoría de la gente cree que sus temores están justi-ficados — que si va a Suecia para discu-tir las acusaciones, sería inmediatamente

extraditado a Estados Unidos. Entonces EE.UU. lo acusaría de traición por revelar secretos de este país. Él enfrentaría un en-carcelamiento prolongado e incluso una posible pena de muerte.

En vista de esto, Assange, un ciudada-no australiano que no ha podido salir de Bretaña, pidió asilo en Ecuador el 19 de junio. El presidente de Ecuador Rafael Correa, en un valiente desafío a los de-seos evidentes de Washington, le ofreció asilo basado en el riesgo de que se le im-ponga la pena capital si Assange es juzga-do en EE.UU.

Entonces, el gobierno británico no sola-mente amenazó con que le impedirían salir de Bretaña sino que, según el Emba-jador de Ecuador, asaltarían la Embajada ecuatoriana.

Como respuesta a este escandaloso de-safío a la soberanía del Ecuador, los países de la Alianza Bolivariana para América La-tina y de UNASUR, que incluye a Argenti-na, Bolivia, Brasil, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Guyana, Nicaragua, Perú, Suri-nam, Uruguay y Venezuela, se han puesto al lado del Ecuador y en contra de Bretaña

— que en este caso también significa de-safiar al imperialismo estadounidense.

En un comunicado desde el balcón de la embajada ecuatoriana el 19 de agos-to, Assange dijo: “Le pido al presidente Obama que haga lo correcto. Estados Unidos debe renunciar a su caza de bru-jas contra WikiLeaks. Estados Unidos debe abandonar su investigación por el FBI. Estados Unidos debe prometer que no va a enjuiciar a nuestro personal ni a nuestros/as seguidores/as”.

Assange también elogió al Pfc. B. Man-ning, un analista de inteligencia del ejér-cito estadounidense, a quien EE.UU. ha acusado de pasar documentos clasifica-dos a WikiLieaks. Manning, que reciente-mente se identificó como una persona trans-sexual, había sido detenido por más de un año en aislamiento en prisiones militares de Estados Unidos, bajo condi-ciones que algunas organizaciones con-sideran equivalentes a la tortura. Assange dijo que Manning es “uno de los prisione-ros políticos principales del mundo” y un héroe si hizo lo que le acusan de haber hecho. (Boston Globe, 20 de agosto).

Dos de septiembre, en Carolina del Norte a la marcha contra Wall Street del sur.MO FOTO: BRYAN G. PFEIFER