Bosses push die-hard 'Bible-thumpers'

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Staff: Amanda Chapman, Paul Colvin, Suzanne Forsyth, May May Gong, Millie Gonzalez, Mark Harris, David Kirschner, Hayden Perry, Joe Ryan, Carole Seligman, Kwame M.A. Somburu, Sylvia Weinstein.

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¡OCIALIST ACTION JGUST 1986 3 "With The Bible on The Table and The Flag Upon The Wall" was a popular country-western song played day after day on the radio when I was a young girl in the 1930s. It was a reflection, especially in the Bible-belt South, of despair over the Depression and its terrible effects on the working class.

Good Christians could only understand this massive economic crisis as the curse of God upon an ungrateful population who defied God's will by sinning.

Once again, the capitalist economic system of the United States, the strongest imperialist country in the world, is entering a grave crisis. Unemployment, hunger, inflation, and poverty stalk this nation. The living standard is falling for the working class while the wealthy live the lives of feudal lords and ladies.

ACTION Closing date: July 25, 1986 Editor: ALAN BENJAMIN Asst. Editor: MICHAEL SCHREIBER Business Manager: DON MAHONEY Circulation Manager: RALPH FORSYTH .

Francisco, Calif.

St., No. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110.

The capitalist class has no ideology to explain this crisis to the vast majority of working and poor people. Once again, its politically bankrupt leaders must wrap themselves in the flag and, with Bible in hand, raise abstract, moral questions to conceal their social and economic impotency.

Moral questions place the responsibility for society's ills on the individual rather than on the capitalist system and government —where it belongs. That's why the capitalists encourage rightwing Bible-thumpers such as Jerry Falwell to provide a morality crusade as a diversion per No.

San from the real problems of society.

In the last few months we have witnessed the issues of drug testing, the AIDS hysteria, abortion, sodomy, and porno -graphy turned into handles for a Salem witch hunt by the hypo -critical moral moss-backs of the church, the courts, and the goverment.

Forced drug testing

Fifty percent of America's largest corporations listed in Fortune magazine are now testing their workers for drug use.

One man who had worked as a machinist for 11 years, with only three days absence in that whole time, was recalled to his job after a layoff. But first he was tested for drugs. He tested positive and was immediately fired. He had smoked a marijuana cigarette one month before in his own house.

He is blackballed from the industry and also denied unem -ployment compensation. Drug testing allows employers to hire and fire at will. They can use the test to get rid of militant unionists and anyone who stands up for their rights.

One head of a large corporation stated that "employers have the right to insist on a healthy workforce." As if they would begin testing for dental plaque —firing workers who don't floss regularly!

Of course, we can't test the boss after a three-martini lunch. Yet these are the bums who cause pollution of our atmosphere. Their factories spew forth poisonous chemicals-remember Bhopal-which they refuse to filter out in their lust for profits.

The Supreme Court recently gave law enforcers the right to break into any person's bedroom to check on obedience to sodomy laws. And the Justice Department gave every boss the right to fire any worker who has AIDS or AIDS-related anti-bodies. In California the "La Roach" ini -tiative compels testing for AIDS and penalizing its victims with firing and incarceration in concentration camps.

These methods of allegedly controlling the deadly AIDS epidemic are counterproductive. It will result in potential AIDS victims hiding from medical workers instead of seeking help and advice from them to limit the spread of the infection.

Meese's anti-porn crusade For over one year, Attorney General Meese, in another front of the "moral" crusade, has had his Commission on Pornography searching every nook and cranny for "dirt."

Journalist Robert Scheer followed the pornography com -missioners around for six months. In a report in the August issue of Playboy magazine he reveals the true character of these "good people."

Scheer reports: "On one occasion a woman commissioner was talking with one of the men [commissioners], who had loudly declared his belief that mastur -bation could lead to sexual disorders. He remarked offhanded -ly: 'Of course, none of this would happen if women learned how to