the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jul 18, 2005
The official toll of the July 8th London bombings is 54 dead and more than a hundred wounded, but the final numbers will be greater. The bombings paralyzed the British capital for an entire day, creating an interminable ordeal for millions of workers left without transport in the greater London area.
These blind and ignoble acts of terrorism can only arouse revulsion. The fact that their authors claimed the bombs were a response to the war led by the British army in Afghanistan and in Iraq changes nothing about this matter.
The terrorists didn’t take on the state institutions defending British imperialism, nor the war-mongering politicians and generals, nor the big business magnates who profit from the war.
On the contrary, the terrorists attacked the working population. They placed their bombs on three subway trains and a bus at the height of the morning rush, when each was packed with workers going to work.
It didn’t matter to them that the British workers never had a say in Blair’s war policy! They didn’t care that British workers from the beginning vigorously demonstrated their opposition to this dirty war!
The authors of the bomb attacks in London made a political choice by aiming at the working population, seeking to sow terror in the population, hoping that the blood of the victims and the fear of the survivors would be enough to force the Blair government to change its policy. They relegate the population to the role of cannon fodder, caught in a bloody escalation between rival military apparatuses. This is true of the London terrorists, just as it is for the Baghdad terrorists, who each day assassinate dozens of the unemployed whose sole crime is to seek work from the only bosses who hire–the army and the police.
Terrorism is a politically ineffective policy against the powerful state machines of imperialism. Far from reinforcing the camp of the oppressed people that it claims to defend, terrorism threatens to reinforce the position of the imperialist leaders who demagogically use it to sway public opinion in favor of their wars. No one should forget that the attacks on the World Trade Center allowed Bush to impose the invasion of Afghanistan and then of Iraq on the U.S. population.
We can hope that British workers do not fall into the trap that Blair tries to set for them today, the one that Bush used against workers in this country.
Today, we should have learned enough about this bloody business so we don’t rally once again around Bush. If today there is a much larger pool of people ready to become suicide bombers, their existence has been nourished by Bush’s criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush and Blair have become the main recruiting sergeants for fundamentalist terrorism.
Contrary to what Bush, Blair and other imperialist leaders claim, the worse scourge today isn’t terrorism coming from fundamentalists. The worst scourge is the state terrorism of the big powers, used against all the peoples of the world, including against us in our own countries. Behind this state terrorism stands a system of exploitation which nourishes poverty, oppression and despair around the world–the breeding grounds of terrorism and religious fundamentalism.
It is more urgent than ever to rid the planet of this system, this capitalist system.
Jul 18, 2005
Barely a month passes without some L.A. cops gunning down innocent people in a poor, working-class neighborhood–only to walk away with impunity, with the full protection of their bosses.
Could it get any worse? It actually did. The cops did run amok again. This time their victim was Suzie Lopez, an 18-MONTH-OLD girl from Watts!
The cops are now trying to justify this terrible crime by blaming it squarely on the girl’s father, Jose Raul Pena. Suzie and Pena were killed by a SWAT team after a two-and-a-half-hour standoff. The cops say Pena had a history of violence and abuse, including child abuse. They say he was armed and on drugs during the standoff. They say he had been randomly shooting in the street, and he was using his daughter as a hostage. They say they had no choice but raid the car dealership Pena and his daughter were trapped in.
Everything the cops say about Pena may be true. But that still doesn’t mean they had no choice!
They DID have a choice. Suzie’s mother, who obviously knew Pena better than the cops, had talked to Pena on the phone and was pleading with the cops not to shoot. The cops knew Pena was alone with Suzie in the dealership, surrounded by dozens of cops. They had already waited two and a half hours; they could have waited longer, however long it took. If they didn’t wait, it means they had no concern for the baby girl’s life.
A reckless driver who hits and kills someone is charged with second-degree murder, or at least manslaughter. These reckless cops who killed a baby girl in cold blood, however, got patted on the back instead!
Only hours after the shooting, LAPD chief William Bratton was in front of the cameras, conveying his sympathies ... not with the baby girl’s family, but with her murderers!
And who was lined up behind him, rushing to defend the trigger-happy cops, saying they "didn’t want this to happen"? None other than Antonio Villaraigosa–L.A.‘s new mayor who ran his election campaign claiming that he understands the people because he grew up in a working-class, Hispanic family himself!
Since the shooting on July 11, Watts residents have been coming out practically every evening to protest the murders. It sure has happened before, and more than once, that people’s outrage over police brutality has triggered big protests. In any event, it is only at times of large, sustained protest that brutal cops have faced any kind of discipline, and that people in poor, working-class neighborhoods have seen any easing of the police brutality that they are subjected to on a daily basis.
Jul 18, 2005
Test scores released last week show an improvement in student performance at the early elementary school level.
The tests, part of a study called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Long Term Trends, have been given to 9, 13 and 17-year-olds every few years since the 1970s. In the latest test, given in the 2003-2004 school year, reading and math scores for 9-year-olds went up significantly from the previous results, taken in 1999–especially among minority students.
The Bush administration was quick to jump on this result and claim it as a success for his "No Child Left Behind" program.
But this rise in test scores can’t possibly have resulted from "No Child Left Behind"–because that program hadn’t even started until the last year of the 4-year period between tests.
In fact the improvement in test scores reflects greater emphasis on pre-school for three and four-year olds and efforts made to lower elementary class sizes in the 1990s.
These initiatives took an investment of money and resources, which went especially to the lower elementary level. Much less was invested at the later elementary and high school levels, and the most recent test results reflect that. Test scores at those levels, which were already abominable, did not improve at all between 1999 and 2003.
So if we want to improve student performance at all levels, we need to invest more resources–at ALL levels. But everything the federal and state governments are proposing moves in the opposite direction.
"No Child Left Behind" punishes schools with low test scores by cutting their funds. On top of that, state governments across the country are slashing THEIR schools’ budgets. And now the new federal budget is slashing funds for Head Start–the ONLY federal program that has actually been shown to help student performance.
Bush and the other politicians may talk about leaving no child behind–but their actions say they are willing to leave a whole generation of children behind.
Jul 18, 2005
On June 21, an estimated 11,000 people rallied at the Capitol Building in Lansing, Michigan to demand that the state spend more money on education. Teachers, parents and students came from all across Michigan–many on buses. This was said to be the biggest protest in Lansing in 20 years. They want a new law that would increase school funding yearly by five% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
That’s not much. It would barely allow a deficient school’s budget to tread water from year to year.
But it was apparently too much for the Michigan legislature. Democrats offered no help, and Republicans in the legislature said they’d consider raising the school budget only if teachers pay for it. To make the point, they introduced bills to change the statewide teacher retirement plan from a guaranteed pension to a 401(k) and also cut teacher retiree health benefits.
Are the legislators proposing to cut tax breaks to their corporate buddies to pay more for schools? No way. Are they proposing to cut their own salaries and pensions to help pay? Not on your life–they just voted themselves big pay raises, just like they do every year!
How dare these smug self-satisfied creeps tell teachers they have to pay for better schools! As if teachers don’t pay already to cover holes in school budgets every day–when they take from their own money to pay for classroom supplies and even toilet paper!
Right now, teachers who retire with a salary of $60,000 get only about $27,000 per year in pensions. But they’d get even less with a 401(k), where nothing is guaranteed.
This is nothing more than a petty, mean-spirited attack on teachers who dared to raise their voices and make public support for schools an issue.
Jul 18, 2005
Imagine the surprise of numerous environmental scientists when they re-read their reports after Philip A. Cooney got through with them.
Cooney, a former White House staff member, repeatedly "edited" those reports. The scientists who researched and wrote them had shown a clear, direct link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming. Once Cooney finished with them, though, those conclusions got lost.
Cooney is not a scientist himself. Before he was a White House staffer, he was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group. These distorted reports are used by the Bush administration to justify loosening regulations on fossil fuel emissions.
And if those scientists were surprised by what happened to their reports, imagine the shock of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) researchers who recently opened up their report on the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands. They discovered that its conclusion was the opposite of what they thought they’d found!
Instead of their previous conclusion that increased grazing would have a "significant adverse impact on wildlife," the final version of the report stated that it would be "beneficial to animals."The Bush administration used the edited report to relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands.
Erick Campbell, a retired BLM state biologist who co-authored the report, said, "This is a whitewash; they took all of our science and reversed it 180 degrees. They rewrote everything. It’s a crime."In capitalist society, science gets pushed aside when there’s profit to be made!
Jul 18, 2005
While the baseball All-Star game was being played in Detroit, the fire department let a fire burn on in the nearby Jeffries East public housing project.
Firefighters at the Alexandrine station, who had been ordered to respond only to emergencies connected to the All-Star Game, sat out the fire. Instead, fire engines had to come from as far as five miles away to put out the fire. At least six apartments were destroyed and as many as eight more damaged. The vice president of the firefighters’ union said that the damage could have been limited to two apartments had the firefighters from the Alexandrine station responded.
The fire commissioner Tyrone Scott claims to have no knowledge of the order not to respond. In typical bureaucratic fashion, he says only that he is "investigating" the matter.
Investigation be damned–light a finger under his tail and that of all the other officials who played a game while homes burned.
A resident of one of the damaged apartments, Lucy Huntley, put it this way, "I may live in the projects, but I’m not a bum. To Kwame Kilpatrick, the All-Star Game is important. To me we are important. The All-Star Game wasn’t on fire, was it?"
Jul 18, 2005
On July 1st, a large demonstration of more than 10,000 immigrants took place in the Stockyards area of Chicago. The demonstrators were mostly Hispanic workers, mainly Mexican, but also from Central American countries. Their signs said things like, "Your justice isn’t so just," "We are workers not terrorists," "Stop deportations," "Amnesty at a national level," "No discrimination, we are workers," and "All illegals pay taxes." A number of signs referred to children born in the U.S. who are citizens while their parents are not; these parents are in danger of deportation. Other signs referred to couples kept apart by repressive immigration laws.
Though the demonstrators were overwhelmingly workers and many of their signs spoke of being workers, those who organized and spoke at the rally were clearly something else.
This demonstration was called for by a disc jockey nicknamed "El Pistolero" of Spanish language station 105.1 FM and supported by his rival "El Chokalate," of 107.9 FM.
The radio stations that did the most to call out the marchers are themselves big business. 105.1 FM is owned by Univision with 66 radio and 28 television stations and 1.8 billion dollars in sales. 107.9 FM is owned by the Spanish Broadcasting System with 156 million dollars in sales. Not only do these companies get their revenues from the advertising dollars of some of the biggest companies in the country, reflecting their interests; their news broadcasts are as slanted as those of Fox News.
The speakers were Democratic Party politicians like Congressman Luis Gutierrez and others who may oppose the Bush administration, but were fervent supporters of the Clinton administration. During Clinton’s presidency deportations and other policies led to deaths among immigrants crossing the border. The politicians were there to get votes in the Hispanic community.
Thousands of workers who turned out protested and articulated their demand for respect, amnesty, and full legal rights, as immigrants and as a part of the working class. But they should have no illusions in those who sought to use them.
Jul 18, 2005
Toward the end of June, the Supreme Court found it perfectly "constitutional" for local governments to take over private property from individuals, then hand it over to developers and other business interests to use for their own profit. The particular case involved a decision taken by New London, Connecticut, to expropriate 115 homes and small businesses, handing over the property to a developer. The developer planned to construct a five-star hotel, luxury condominiums and office buildings right near a Pfizer plant. Pfizer execs, as well as the wealthy businessmen and doctors who visit Pfizer, will no doubt be pleased by the convenience!
As for the people whose homes were stolen? They’re outraged, as well they should be. But these 115 ordinary people count as nothing to a Supreme Court that defends the interests of big business.
Oh certainly, the court said they should be "compensated." But what does compensation matter when your neighborhood is gone, your friends thrown to the winds? What does compensation mean when your kids are forced into another school?
The communists are always accused of wanting to take people’s own personal property from them. It’s not true. What the communists want is to expropriate the factories and workplaces built by the labor performed by generations of workers–expropriate the workplaces and plough the profits back into the service of the people who do the work.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in the service of the capitalists who exploit generations of workers, would steal everything it can from working people, handing it over for the benefit of big business.
There’s a world of difference between the two!
Jul 18, 2005
The summit of the eight richest countries–the U.S., Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, Canada, Japan and Russia–ended on July 8th with Tony Blair enthusiastically speaking "of the enormous advances" made for Africa.
In reality this summit was a duplication of those that preceded it: a long litany of generous declarations and forgotten promises.
Five years ago, 189 countries in the United Nations pledged to reduce poverty in half by 2015. Nonetheless, poverty continued to grow since that promise was made. Today poverty remains one of the most important scourges of the planet, with 400 million people living on less than a dollar a day in Africa alone!
The G8 summit has now promised to double the amount of aid furnished by the G8 countries and other donors to the poorest countries–an increase of 50 billion dollars over the next 10 years. Experts claim that at least 50 billion dollars more is needed every single year just to cut poverty in half.
Not only did the representatives of the great powers ignore this reality, they didn’t even bother to talk about how the money would be raised. They will discuss it later. Once again, there are only empty promises.
Summit meetings of representatives of the great powers are the pretext for a display of high-sounding sentiments, which are pure hypocrisy. While seeming to aid the poor countries, the rich countries continue to loot them and impoverish them. The small amounts of money going to the poor countries eventually will return to the rich countries themselves, in the form of orders for their manufacturing companies and for weapons to hold down the impoverished populations. In the meantime, the natural wealth of the poor countries will continue to be drained into the bank accounts of the big companies with their headquarters in the rich countries.
Jul 18, 2005
The U.S. House of Representatives has now voted on a resolution calling on the Bush administration to devise a plan for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. While 300 Congressmen may have voted against such a request, 128 voted for it. And the very fact of the vote is itself significant. It was the first time Congress dared express even this timid question on the war.
It means Congress is feeling pinched by the growing opposition in the population to this war. That opposition has grown from month to month as the casualty figures among U.S. troops mount. Officially, the dead now number more than 1,700, and the seriously injured more than 13,000. Unofficially, of course, it’s much more. As for the cost in money–which is really the cost in what is not done in this country–the bill for this war has now officially passed 300 billion dollars.
These figures are only a cold reflection of a reality felt in ever wider circles of the working class. It’s our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and friends whose blood is being spilled. They are the ones who come back with memories of attacks on civilian populations, and whose lives are forever changed.
So yes, there is a revulsion for this war–and all the more so since many returning soldiers are disgusted by what they were forced to do to a civilian population.
The vote in Congress means the politicians have their antennae up. But it doesn’t mean that Congress is about to do something to put a halt to this war. Most of the representatives who voted for the "withdrawal" resolution almost immediately voted more money for the war. The vote on additional money for the Pentagon was 398 to 19, with 16 not voting.
No, Congress is not about to put on the brakes. But the fact they try to quiet our opposition by offering such a vote should tell us something important. The working people today who express opposition to the war, the returning soldiers who speak out–we have more than enough forces, if mobilized, to bring this war to a halt.
Jul 18, 2005
The Italian justice department issued an arrest warrant for 13 CIA agents formerly working in Milan. These CIA agents had grabbed an Islamic imam in February of 2003, taking him to a U.S. air base and then sending him to Egypt for "questioning" by the Egyptian authorities.
The imam, Abou Omar, was tortured in the Egyptian prison; his health was so severely ruined that he was released in April of 2004. Then the Egyptian authorities re-arrested him a month later for mentioning his torture in telephone calls. Since February of 2005, his family has had no news of him.
The demand of the Italian government to extradite the CIA agents to Italy for arrest has been ignored by U.S. authorities. Omar’s medical records, which show clearly what he went through, somehow managed to disappear between Egypt and Italy.
In carrying out this operation, the CIA agents didn’t bother to hide who they were, paying for luxury hotels in Milan and Venice on credit cards. Several days after the kidnapping, they claimed the imam had fled to Bosnia. To explain his disappearance, they started a rumor that he was fed up with his wife!
The whole episode with the imam shows the methods of the U.S. intelligence services, making clear they were authorized at the highest levels. With the excuse they are hunting terrorists, they feel free to do anything, without concern for legalities. Nor do the Egyptian authorities bother to hide their participation in what is called "extraordinary rendition." The Egyptian prime minister admitted his government had been involved in at least 60 or 70 such kidnappings.
This past January, President Bush claimed that "torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture." This direct lie was rebutted in two articles published in The New Yorker the following month. The writer Jane Mayer outlined a secret program begun ten years ago, during the Clinton administration–long before September 11th. Mayer interviewed a former CIA agent who wrote a book about these matters and helped set up the "extraordinary renditions" program in 1995, arranging for Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Jordan to do the dirty work for the U.S. government. A law expert cited by Mayer estimated at least 150 people have been "rendered" in the last three years, not counting those detained at Guantanamo or in Iraq and Afghanistan. Omar is hardly alone in his treatment.
But none of this stops the U.S. government from pretending to give lessons in democracy to the entire world. Condoleezza Rice had the nerve to tell Arab governments they needed to become "more democratic," on her recent tour of the Middle East.
Jul 18, 2005
Several hundred people in Nicaragua marched to the capital, Managua, where they have been camped out in front of the National Assembly for the last two months. They are workers from the banana plantations who have been exposed to Nemagon, a pesticide which is known to cause very serious diseases. Some of these workers are nearing death as a result.
Nemagon was invented in the mid 1900s in the United States. Dow Chemical produced and commercialized this product which is used by a number of agribusinesses, including Standard Fruit Company. It effectively combats organisms that attack the roots of banana plants. It also produces larger bananas. And it is not at all costly. So it was a dream come true for the companies in this field.
But ever since 1958, studies on animals in laboratories showed that Nemagon was toxic. These studies were kept secret. Finally, in 1975, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared that this product produces cancer. In 1977, a number of Americans who worked in the production of this chemical were shown to have become sterile. In 1979, Nemagon was banned in the United States.
Nonetheless, Nemagon continues to be used–first of all in Nicaragua, but also in Equador, Israel, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Spain and the Philippines–and even in the United States.
Nemagon produces diseases of the skin, of various organs, various cancers and it causes both mental and physical deficiencies in children. These problems are transmitted even to the next generation, as this poison penetrates reproductive cells.
The companies that produced and used this poison knew perfectly well what they were doing: they coldly calculated to let people suffer and die so that profits could continue to flow.
How many victims have there been? Tens of thousands, no doubt. In Nicaragua alone, the number is estimated to be at least 20,000.
The Nicaraguan Parliament, beholden to the United States, does nothing about this situation. It pretends that the couple hundred suffering people camped out in front of the Assembly don’t even exist.
In 2002, a Nicaraguan court did condemn three American firms, ordering them to pay several hundred million dollars to some 500 workers. The companies, however, have never paid the money and have no intention to do so.
Broken lives and an environment that will remain ravaged for hundreds of years–the fruit of capitalism’s drive for profit.
Jul 18, 2005
After five years of profitability, General Motors (GM) lost money in this year’s first quarter. GM immediately began a media campaign against its hourly workers, claiming that the company was having big problems, and workers should start paying more for their health care.
Someone representing the workers’ interests would have laughed this gambit off the court. Auto is always a cyclical industry. Companies prepare for these cycles far ahead of time, and in fact, GM was sitting on at least 55 billion dollars in ready cash when it made its ridiculous demand.
GM has NOT been too worried about money. Over the past five years it has seen fit to give one man, CEO Rick Wagoner, more than 57 million dollars compensation! And then they dare attack the health care of workers whose labor provides every penny of corporate gain?
But instead of giving this proposal the public horse laugh and ridicule that it deserved, the United Auto Workers (UAW) leadership promised to study the situation ... and look at GM’s books.
Simply by agreeing to study the situation, the UAW gave undeserved credibility to GM’s claims. And to look at the books–well, which books? Does anyone imagine that GM will voluntarily provide its actual accounts to the union? No more than they would provide their actual accounts to the IRS!
No, whatever books the UAW will "study" are books already arranged to GM’s liking. Everyone knows this. So, why go through the charade–unless as a way to reinforce GM’s position? Unless the union leadership is trying to soften up the workers for some sort of concessions–after the usual "careful study," of course.
Workers have too often seen this sort of con game. President Gettelfinger declared in the last contract negotiations that there would be "no cost shifting" on health care. The workers later discovered that the contract included extra costs–co-pays, deductibles, and restricted services–shifted onto them.
In an interview, Gettelfinger indeed noted (and understated) GM’s huge cash reserves. He also revealed another card. He said, "Let’s just assume for a moment that we do make a determination that there’s something to be done. Certainly, we’re not going to be the only ones." It’s a sign that the same old con is in play. Workers are being set up for yet more concessions–if GM thinks they can swing it.
GM is measuring how the rank and file respond. On this measurement will depend how far they play out the game–or even whether they abandon it entirely. Is their con game going over well enough, one more time? Or isn’t it? How much trouble is GM looking at?
The outcome depends on how forcefully the rank and file lets it be known that they are sick and tired of being conned, in games they always lose. It depends on how clearly and forcefully the workers find a way to say, "NO MORE CONCESSIONS! NO WAY!"
Jul 18, 2005
Hundreds of millions of dollars have disappeared from the Ohio Workers’ Compensation fund in the past year.
Two-hundred fifteen million dollars were "lost" in a risky Bermuda hedge fund managed by a Pittsburgh-based investment company, MDL Capital Management.
Bureau of Workers’ Compensation officials continued to pour tens of millions more dollars into the fund, even as the money was bleeding out the other end. And they continued to sing the praises of MDL and its president, Mark Lay. Lay himself gained more than two million dollars in fees from the fund.
On top of that, almost five million dollars have been lost from two American Express investment funds. Another 12 million dollars invested in two "rare coin funds" is missing. These funds were controlled by Tom Noe, a big fundraiser for Bush. Noe is under investigation, accused of funneling money to the campaign through illegal means.
Of course, Democrats in Ohio’s legislature have been quick to make political hay out of the scandal, pointing out that all this money disappeared in a Republican-controlled bureau under a Republican governor. Several Republicans in the bureau have resigned or retired.
But have the Democrats cried out for all those responsible to be arrested for massive theft and fraud? Have they demanded that the money be replaced by any means necessary, to cover the needs of millions of Ohio workers?
Not on your life. They’re joining the Republicans in state after state, suggesting that there is no money to pay for the services and programs the population needs.
Whether it’s the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Bureau, or politicians handing out huge tax breaks to corporations, or Detroit’s Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (a Democrat) taking vacations to the Bahamas on city money–all these politicians see government money as their own private slush fund, for them and their rich friends to swim around in.
Jul 18, 2005
Some SEIU union workers at Cadillac Place in Detroit recently won a group grievance related to parking costs. These workers went from free parking at the old Labor Building to the high prices at the Cass Lot about a block away. They won a financial settlement only because they pushed.
Of course, no boss or politician ever says, "You did the right thing–organizing and sticking together made us give you something." But the fact is that anytime workers stand together, refusing to accept an attack, something is gained.
Jul 18, 2005
Sandra Day O’Connor submitted her resignation from the Supreme Court, and William H. Rehnquist is severely ill. The political class in Washington, D.C. is atwitter over the prospect of President Bush appointing a new justice.
The Supreme Court’s job, theoretically, is to interpret and enforce the Constitution. But are the political chatterers discussing this?
Well, no. They are debating how George Bush might use it to throw a bone to his voting base. Bush’s election strength has largely rested on that small part of the voting population which fervently holds reactionary religious views on issues such as abortion, science, and gay rights. Will Bush reward his voting base? And if he doesn’t, will some of that base be disappointed enough to desert him and his party? Clearly these are the dominant considerations–which puts to lie all the high-sounding sentiments about the Constitution!
The myth of the Supreme Court is that it interprets the laws of the land based on the Constitution, and that it protects individual rights granted in that Constitution. No, it doesn’t. The Court provides nothing but a fig leaf for political agendas and the political maneuverings of the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class.
Only in the sense that the Constitution was itself a bourgeois document does the Court "uphold" it today.
If the Court did its mythical job and upheld individual rights, it would not have taken until 1865 to formally end slavery, nor until 1870 to guarantee ex-slaves the right to vote. It would not have taken until 1954 to formally strike down segregated education. It would not have taken until l973 to formally grant women some right to control what happens to their own bodies.
All through those years, the legal leanings of the justices were irrelevant, as was the political party of the appointing Presidents. Those rights were formally granted only in the face of movements which were pushing to take their rights–whether legally granted or not!
If anyone believes you can tell how a justice will vote by who appointed them, look at Roe v. Wade, which allowed some abortion rights. The court voted seven to two in favor. One of the justices voting against had been appointed by the Democratic President, John F. Kennedy. Six of the seven voting in favor had been appointed by Republican presidents!
It’s the social situation, the presence or absence of popular pressure, that drives Supreme Court decisions. In the face of a popular movement, the court makes decisions calculated to reduce popular pressure and thus stabilize the bourgeoisie’s social order. In the absence of such movements, the Court proceeds to take away whatever gains might have been previously pried from the bourgeoisie’s grasp.
No Supreme Court justice will fight for us. We must fight for ourselves.
Jul 18, 2005
It has been revealed that President Bush’s senior advisor Karl Rove was the person who leaked the identity of an under-cover CIA agent to the press two years ago. Now there’s a lot of agitation in the media that Rove should resign, that he even may go to prison.
Why is this whole issue being stirred up now? If this matter were so critical, if this leak really jeopardized not only the lives of secret CIA agents, but the very "national security" of the country, as has been said, why was it not pursued two years ago?
In fact, as soon as the CIA agent was identified in an article by journalist Robert Novak, Rove was publicly mentioned as the likely source for the leak. In any event, it was obvious that the leak had come from the White House as retaliation against the agent’s husband. This man, a former U.S. ambassador, had exposed Bush’s lie about Saddam Hussein trying to buy uranium in Niger.
If this issue wasn’t pursued two years ago, it’s because the people who really call the shots–the top bureaucrats who run government agencies and the ruling class they serve–wanted the war on Iraq to proceed unhampered. And if they have decided to pursue the issue now, it’s probably because they want to send a warning to the Bush administration.
What exactly makes the ruling class unhappy–that we don’t know, because they don’t discuss such things openly. But we do know that strings are pulled behind closed doors. It has happened before; it has even led to the removal of a president. Nixon was certainly not the only politician who committed illegal acts and lied about it. If he got pushed out of the presidency, it was for other reasons–reasons that were not discussed publicly.
The U.S. ruling class wants the U.S. president to carry out its agenda. Today that agenda includes running the war in Iraq and making changes in Social Security so that the ruling class can put its hands on some of that huge fund without interference. Bush has certainly pursued that agenda, but in ways that stir up a lot of opposition. So this whole commotion about Rove may be a warning to Bush that he needs to carry out the agenda without stirring up so much opposition in the population.
It remains to be seen whether Karl Rove will go or stay. But if he goes, it will not be because he lied. And whether he goes or stays, the lies of the Bush administration will not stop. Nor will the attacks that Bush, and the presidents before him, have been carrying out on working people at home and abroad, in the interests of the U.S. ruling class.