Labor and the fight against imperialist war

Scan page 16

Why I joined Socialist Action it you like this papel, For forums, classes and other activities, contact the Socialist Action • SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1991 15 The day after Washington launched its murderous war against the Iraqi people on Jan. 16, the current president of the AFL-CIO, Lane Kirkland said, "The American labor movement stands in full support of our country and of the men and women in our armed forces and their courageous efforts to bring this conflict to an early and decisive conclusion."

Kirkland and many other top labor officials have jumped onto George Bush's Desert Storm war wagon without a blink of the eye. They support U.S. domination of the Persian Gulf, claiming it is in "labor's" best interests.

During the Vietnam War, nearly three decades ago, a similar falsehood was told by then-AFL-CIO President George Meany. In fact, Meany took an even more hawkish stance against the Vietnamese workers and peasants fighting for their self-determination. He openly attacked those in the unions who spoke out against that bloody war.

But 1991 is not 1965. Many working people, including those active in their trade unions, immediately joined protests against Washington's new war of domination. Tens of thousands of unionists marched Jan. 19 and 26 in massive rallies in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

An organized trade-union contingent of over 5000 participated in the San Francisco Jan. 26 protest. According to Gretchen Mackler, an activist in the Peace and Justice Caucus of the California Teachers Association, some 32 By DAVID I am writing to outline the reasons behind my resigning from the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) and ending my active supporter status in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). I would also like to explain the reasons I decided to join Socialist Action in November 1990.

I have been an active member of the SWP and YSA for nearly three years and a supporter for almost a decade.

After being recruited into the SWP in Kansas City, I learned a tremendous amount about my class, its history, and the world in a way never presented before. For that I will always have respect for the comrades who befriended me and led me to revolutionary politics.

After transferring to Chicago in september 1080 ), I began to notice that a defined layer of "seasoned comrades" seemed to maintain an attitude that they controlled the branch and the YSA chapter.

Branch executive committee members maneuvered everything from YSA fundraisers to forums to sales to who got to go to Cuba and who didn't. This extended into social gatherings and frequently Record sales for The January 1991 issue of Socialist Action was our largest selling issue by far since we began publishing seven years ago. The press run was an unprecedented 8000 copies—including an updated mid-month edition that hit the streets two days after the United States began bombing Iraq.

The San Francisco branch of Socialist Action led the way last month, selling over 1600 copies (not counting bookstore and news stand sales). At the Jan. 19 antiwar demonstration in San Francisco, labor unions marched behind a banner, "Labor for Peace" and "Labor says: Bring the Troops Home Now."

Unionists included communication workers, machinists, painters, electrical workers, teachers, office workers, state and city workers, hospital workers, janitors, oil workers, retail clerks, iron workers, garment workers, carpenters, and auto workers.

Significantly, the central labor councils of San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties all endorsed the Jan. 26 march and rally.

Even before the terror bombing began, nine international presidents came out for a peaceful resolution of the crisis instead of war. While they wrongly called for sanctions against Iraq, their opposition to Bush's policy reflects the antiwar sentiments among working people.

"Polls" will change

Much of the "public opinion poll" support for the war is shallow. Most working people hope the war will be quick and relatively bloodless for U.S. soldiers. As the costs rise in both U.S. deaths and hatred toward Washington by Arab and other people around the world, combined with a worsening economy, the "polls" will change.

What is most significant about labor's response to the war is how fast it has developed. It took several years before any top union official criticized the Vietnam war, much less joined public protests. At the probed into personal affairs such as where "new" comrades should live in relation to ex-members of the Party.

It took me until this late date to realize how undemocratically the SWP is run.

The SWP deploys a preferred layer of members throughout its branch system to keep everything in check with the all-powerful National Office. In this the leadership openly confirms that it does not have confidence in its own membership to function at a daily rhythm.

Trials and expulsions replace discussion and the open exchange of ideas.

I had a difficult time maintaining a fraction job not only because I am new to industrial employment but also because I had no idea how to integrate myself into a book salesman to puzzled co-workers.

I found it bizarre selling Maurice Bishop books to my co-workers when we were fighting direct attacks from the boss threatening our union. The reformist NJM was not on their minds. Keeping their union jobs was.

Since joining Socialist Action I now recognize the blatant nationalist flag waving carried out in the Socialist Action branch members sold 650 papers. And one week later, on Jan. 26, they sold 690 papers and 48 subscriptions.

Branches in other parts of the country likewise report that the January issue of Socialist Action received a fantastic response at antiwar events. Twin Cities branch members, for example, sold over 400 newspapers at antiwar rallies and outside high schools in the area. Baltimore Socialist Action, one of our smaller branches, sold about 325. Nice going!

Malik Miah Jan. 26 several labor officials spoke.

Moreover, organizing continues. The Mobilization coalition in San Francisco has an ongoing labor committee that is planning educational activities and other protests, particularly linking the high costs of war to the government cuts of social programs.

The relatively high percentage of Blacks and other minorities in many unions and the disproportionate number of Blacks in the military place special emphasis in tying together social and economic issues to the war.

There is a "Vietnam Syndrome" among working people. There is more than the knee-jerk patriotism fed to us by the Pentagon propagandists through CNN and the prowar news media.

As the truth becomes known, it will become clear to many that this is a war of domination by an SWP. After vacillating several times on Nicaragua's FSLN, then finally completely changing its line, the role the SWP played in wrapping itself in nationalist Sandinismo alienated a lot of members.

Now, the ANC is the "SWP Flag of the Year." The nationalist ANC leadership is already speaking of a mixed economy-Mandela is negotiating with apartheid and the armed struggle has been largely abandoned.

I had hoped the SWP would have learned something from the social-democratic death of the FSLN government. Apparently not.

Leaving revisionism

At an antiwar rally on Oct. 20 in Kansas City, I bought a Socialist Action newspaper. The article by Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard entitled "SWP Abandons Revolutionary Traditions as it Breaks from the Fourth International" played a major role in my decision to leave the dizzying revisionism in the SWP to the clear, thought-out, and consistent line of Socialist Action.

When the SWP dropped out of the Fourth International it sent a clear message to me as a young revolutionary.

It said to me that the SWP leadership does not have the confidence to fight for its ideas or program within the Fourth International because it cannot convince its own membership of its reasons to leave it.

As Miah and Sheppard's article says, the English-only Militant is the only press these robotic "Communist Leagues" can distribute. This is lock-step centralism that reflects not the Leninist strategy of party building, but a monolithic, supercentralist conception of a world party.

Their reformist antiwar line, the Cuba fetish, the constant analyzing advanced capitalist country-the United States-against the Iraqi and Arab peoples. That is, it is an imperialist war; a war to control the entire region and impose pro-U.s. regimes, as Washington did in Panama and Grenada.

There is a potential for labo not only join but lead the new tiwar movement. U.S. soldiers workers in uniform. They are ones fighting and dying in sands.

Workers at home are the ones paying for it in our tax dollars, fewer jobs, higher costs, and a lower standard of living. There are millions of workers who are homeless and some 38 million without healthcare insurance. Conditions will get worst as the country slides into a depression.

War and recession are powerful radicalizing factors. The new impeof the Eastern strike, and the mass expulsions by the Barnes leadership have led me to Socialist Action.

Since Jack Barnes has taken the reins, the SWP has gone off on a sectarian, revisionist and nearly social democratic tangent that must be stopped by the membership.

By joining Socialist Action I will be continuing my education and training as a Trotskyist revolutionary in a much less rigid and confined party.

I regret that the SWP has for the second time banned Socialist Action from its bookstores.

While in the SWP and YSA, I often was curious as to why the Spartacist League and Fourth and Pathfinder Bookstores when they let in the Stalinist CP, social democrats, and supporters of the ruling parties. I believe I know now.

They cannot defend the purges of Baltimore P.O. Box 16005 Baltimore, MD 21218 Boston P.O. Box 1046 GMF Boston, MA 02205 (617) 497-0230 Chicago P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657 (312) 327-5752 Cincinnati P.O. Box 21015 Cincinnati, OH 45219 (513) 272-2596 Cleveland P.O. Box 6151 Cleveland, OH 44101 (216) 429-2167 • to anare the the Detroit P.O. Box 32546 Detroit, MI 48232 Los Angeles P.O. Box 862014 Los Angeles, CA 90086 (213) 660-2891 Minneapolis P.O. Box 14087 Dinkeylown Station Minneapolis, MN 55414 (612) 430-1476 For information about other areas, contact the national office of Socialist Action at (415) 821-0458. look us up!

branch in your area! rialist war against the people of the Persian Gulf cannot win. The Arab, Palestinian, Kurdish, and Iranian peoples will prevail.

Moreover, their just struggles will propel U.S. working people into successful fights against union-busting, racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression and exploitation. These are the political stakes unleashed by Operation Desert Storm.

Kirkland, therefore, is correct in one sense. The American labor movement does stand 100 percent behind our men and women soldiers in the Persian Gulf. But he is wrong to say that labor stands with George Bush.

Workers want peace. As long as the Iraqi people continue to stand firm in defense of their country, the antiwar movement will grow and become an important factor in helping to defeat Washington's dirty their own membership that resulted in the formation of these organizations in front of their cadre.

The latest "fink book" campaign against Malik Miah is a pretext to close the doors on Socialist Action also.

I am excited and ready to advance Socialist Action as Trotsky's party and mine. I will also defend it against the slanderous charges hurled against it by the SWP leadership.

Unfortunately, by doing this I also will be prohibited by the SWP leaders from remaining friends with a number of comrades in the SWP as I am banned" because of my decision to join Socialist Action.

I urge all members of the SWP and YSA to join Socialist Action today! The present crash-and-burn course of the SWP will only result in more trials, expulsions, and an even further retreat into a political dead-end.

Now York P.O. Box 20209 Ca. 693 Columbus Ave.

New York, N.Y. 100:

San Francisco 3435 Army St., Suite 308 San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 821-0458 Seattle P.O. Box 1182 Bothell, WA 98041

Scan page 17

SociAList Actial

----- pull-quotes -----

Internationalist Tendency (FIT) were "banned" from public forums