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Italy ..(continued from page 1)the state "use the iron fist" against antiwar protesters. Undeterred, dockers inLivorno have made clear that they haveno intention of loading this material onthe ships. On Sunday, February 23, military convoys were again brought to a haltin a nationwide railway strike by theORSA union, which is part of COBAS(Rank and File Committees). Althoughthis strike was over economic issues andworking conditi ons, it shows th at everysuccessful fight for the workers' classinterests now breaks a cog in the imperialists' war machines., Several unions have issued statementspromising action against moving militarycargo. The FlLT issued a statement that"railroadmen must not be used to drive orunload weapons shipments" and that "alllegitimate union actions will be undertaken to prevent any strategic support toan illegitimate war" (Liberazione, 22 February). The Tuscan branches of the FlLTand theCGIL (the union confederation towhich FILT is affiliated) have announcedthat railway and port workers will boycottthe transportation of arms. Following thedeclaration by Minister of Defense Martino that the ports would be used to provide logistical support to the war, theFlLT in . Genoa, Italy 's largest port,declared their "maximal vigilance so thatno collaboration, either direct or indirect,will be given to the warmakers." A leade rof the powerful metal workers union,FlOM, announced that "if, as they say, thearmed intervention should happen aroundMarch 5, there'll be an immediate popularmobilization including also' strike action."

In appealing for defense of Iraq againstimperialist attack, we have stressed thatabove all this means class struggleagainst capitalist rule in the imperialiststates. The potential strength of the labormovement lies in its strategic ability toshut down the economic production anddistribution of goods. In mobilizing itspower, not simply in protest demonstrations but in political strike action againstthe war, the Italian transport workers, aswell as Scottish train drivers (see articlethis issue), have pointed the way forwardfor workers in the U.S. and elsewhere inthe world.In 1969, Livorno railworkers went onstrike against the Vietnam War andreceived a medal from the Vietnamesefighters made of metal from a downedU.S. warplane. Italian workers were alsoin the forefront of struggle against theBalkans War in 1999. Over a millionworkers joined in a one-day politicalstrike initiated by the syndicalist COBASaround the slogan "Not a life, not a lira forthis war." COBAS at the Fiat auto plantsand elsewhere were also instrumental inlaunching a fund drive for Yugoslav workers after the Zastava auto plant in Kragujevac, Yugoslavia was bombed anddestroyed by NATO. IC L sections participated actively in the Zastava fund drive,which provided a useful vehicle for work

ing people to take a concrete stand againsttheir own imperialist butchers.In response to the actions by the traindrivers, the right-wing government of Silvio Berlusconi (an ally of Bush and acrony of British prime minister Blair) hasthreatened to call out troops to move themilitary convoys. It is notable that thistask would not be entrusted to the regularconscript troops, but to elite military

Women and Imperialist War

TROTSKY

This year as we commemorate International Women's Day, March 8, the U.S.imperialists are about to launch a devastating attack on semicolonial Iraq. In the massive protests internationally against theimpending war, we have called for militarydefense of Iraq and for class struggleagainst the imperialist rulers at home. Asseen in the following draft resolution to a1915 International Socialist Women's conference, Lenin' s Bolsheviks fought to trans-form mass sentiment against the slaughter of

LENIN

World War I, a war between the imperialist powers for redivision of the world, into astruggle for workers revolution against the capitalist order.This war is an imperialist one, caused by the struggle between the ruling classes ofvarious countries for a division of the colonies and domination of the world market, and

by dynastic interests. It is a natural continuation of the policy conducted by the class ofcapitalists and the governments of all countries ...The horrible suffering caused by this war awakens in all women, especially proletarian women, a growing desire for peace. Declaring war on all imperialist war, the conference at the same time believes that if this desire for peace is to be transformed intoa conscious political force, working women mus t well realise that the propertied classesare striving for nothing but arlnexations, conquest and domination, that in the epoch ofimperialism wars are inevitable, and that.imperialism threatens the world with a seriesof wars, unless the proletariat musters enough strength to put an end to th e capitalistsystem by the final overthrow of capitalism. Every working woman who wants toshorten the period of suffering connected with the epoch of imperialist wars, muststrive to have her urge for peace develop into indignation and struggle for socialism.The working woman will attain her aim in this struggle only through a revolutionarymass movement, and a strengthening and sharpening of the socialist struggle.

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, - V. I. Lenin, "Draft Resolution of the InternationalSocialist Women's Conference" (June 1915)

! . . ~ ! ! . ~ ! ! ~ ~ ~ ' ! . f ! ! ~ l ! . ! EDITOR: Alan WildeEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael DavissonPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff ThomasEDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Karen Cole, Paul Cone,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, JosephSeymour, Alison SpencerThe SpartaciSl League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-weak interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 31B, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 7327862 (EdHorial), (212) 7327861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 13n, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Email address: vanguerd@liac.net.Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at !'few York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 13n, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or etters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is 25 Fepruary.

No. 798 28 February 2003

Corrado Pedon/lnfophotoVicenza, Italy: Train shipping military eqUipment for U.S. war against Iraqblocked by trade unionists and antiwar activists.engineers units. This points to the deepunpopularity of the war, which some 75percent of the Italian population opposes.Berfusconi's gambit could well backfire.The Italian working class should massively resist any efforts at strikebreakingby the military and the fascist guard dogsof the capitalist class. Key to this is theformation of workers defense guards.Moreover, workers must oppose not onlythe dispatch of American troops andmateriel to Iraq, but Italian militarism aswell. The government recently rammedthrough an increase of funding for theItalian expeditionary force to Afghanistanand dispatched another 1,000 Italiantroops there and extended other militaryoperations abroad, particularly in theBalkans. Not a penny, not a person for theItalian imperialist military! .However, there is a considerable gapbetween the felt desire to struggle againstthe war on the part of many Italianworkers and the reformist perspectiveoffered by the trade-union leaders andmass workers parties. Citing anti-unionlaws that strictly regulate strike activity,the trade-union tops are seeking to wriggle out of any sharp confrontation withthe state. In 1999, the rail union leadership called of f a strike because the "left"government at the time was supportingthe Balkans War. One union engineerchallenged the union leadership: "We arechained to 'anti-strike' laws. We cannotafford to let a co-worker be jailed for conscientious objection, but if the nationaland regional [union] secretaries take thelead, we are ready to follow" (Liberazione, 23 February) .Instead, the secretaries of the two largest union federations, theCGIL and theCISL, formally requested a meeting withthe government to discuss "what is supposed to be transported and to get guarantees for the safety of the transport workers." Any attempt to arrive at "groundrules" for transporting war materials withthe Berlusconi government can only herald a sellout. Some union leaders li ke former CGIL head Sergio Cofferati, whopraised the railway workers, have embraced the concept of "civil .disobedience," the better to dissolve the crucialproletarian centrality of these actionsagainst the war into an undifferentiated popular mass protest. CGIL leaderGuglielmo Epifani declared himself "infavor of political struggle against the military convoys but against obstructing therailway." A spokesman for the civil disobedience protesters retorted that "In theend they were overruled by their ownmembers. In fact it is the railway workers, the members of their union whosupported us and supplied the information on the plans to move the trainsloaded with American arms" (La Repubblica, 23 February). Elected workers'action committees are necessary to putthe power of the unity and discipline ofthe workers movement behind these antiwar actions, particularly as the union topsthreaten to leave the militants out to hangby themselves.Fausto Bertinotti, the leader of the leftreformist Rifondazione Comunista (RC),recently declared that "it is now possibleto think about a European general strikeagainst the war." But a general strike

would mean a decisive confrontation withthe capitalist order, posing the question,"which class shall rule?" This is notwhat Bertinotti and RC really have inmind. Thus, RC recently published anarticle headlined "Paris-Berlin, the Axisof Peace." In reality RC fights not to getrid of capitalism and replace it with proletarian rule, but simply wants to get ridof the Berlusconi government and replaceit with a more "left" bourgeois government whose foreign policy is alignedagainst Washington. Bertinotti seeks tomanipulate and exploit the combativemilitancy of the Italian proletariat forRC's own parliamentary ambitions, andnot to satisfy the workers' class interests,as any examination of RC's role proves.Prior to the Balkans War, RC gave defacto support to the "Ulivo" government,a popular-front coalition of the socialdemocratic Democratici di Sinistra andopenly bourgeois parties. RC helpedenact the racist anti-immigrant TurcoNapolitano laws and other attacks onworkers' rights and supported the dispatch of Italian troops to Albania.Many of the auto workers at Fiat whopolitically led the proletariat in taking aside with the victims of imperialism's warin the Balkans by launching the Zastavacampaign have lost their social power andtheir livelihoods as Fiat axed tens of thousands of jobs as part of the worldwideeconomic retrenchment. RC's responsewas to appeal to the reactionary Berlusconi government to nationalize Fiat. Predictably this had no impact whatsoever,inasmuch as the purpose of capitalist governments is not to preserve jobs for workers, but rather to preserve profits for thebosses. Just as today it appeals against theuse of NATO bases in It aly on the groundsthat it undermines "our own national sovereignty," the RC campaign on F iat soughtto whip up nationalist sentiment againstthe possibility that Fiat would be boughtout by General Motors, an American finn.As if the Italian bosses were one bit betterthan their American counterparts!Particularly in Italy, workers fed upwith parliamentary betrayals have turnedtoward the syndicalist COBAS, which onoccasion have engaged in exemplarypolitical struggles against war, as in theZastava campaign. But the differencebetween militant trade unionism or evenradical syndicalism, on the one hand, andgenuine Marxism is that the latter seeksnot only to mobilize workers in politicalstruggle against war, but to raise the consciousness ofthe proletariat to the understanding that it has the power to get ridof the system of capitalist exploitationand imperialist plunder through socialistrevolution. Militants engaged in actionsagainst the war should broaden thisinto a struggle against capitalism itself.Down with the scourges of unemployment, racism and imperialist war! For asliding scale of hours and wages-Jobsfor all with no cut in pay! Smash the antiimmigrant laws-Full citizenship rightsfor all immigrants! Down with Italianmilitarism! For workers independencefrom the capitalist state-Down withpopular-frontism! Above all what is necessary is a Leninist vanguafd party, forgedthrough relentless struggle against thereformist misleaders like Rifondazione.

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Capitalism, Gun Control,Racism and WarBy Laura DeMatteis

Writer and filmmaker Michael Moorehas made a bang in theaters internationally with his funny and compelling newdocumentary, Bowling for Columbine, araw examination of guns in Ameri,can culture. Moore's ironic and provocative styleis well known from his earlier acclaimedfilm Roger and Me-roasting GeneralMotors for the company's devastatingmass layoffs of Midwest auto workers inthe 1980s-as well as his recent bestselling book lampooning the Bush administration,:Stupid White Men and OtherSorry Excuses for the Nation.Convinced that Americans are guncrazy, Moore tries to uncover the reasonwhy the U.S. has over 11,000 gun-relateddeaths a year, more than any other country. Bowling for Columbine is dedicatedto victims of gun violence, and its title isa satirical reference to the bowling classattended by the two infamous Columbinekillers the morning before shooting uptheir high school. In the movie, Mooreinterviews Lockheed Martin executives,fascistic paramilitary militiamen, thepatriotic and reactionary NRA presidentCharlton Heston, an impressively eloquent Marilyn Manson (whose music wasscapegoated in the media for the Columbine shootings) and travels to Canada,painting it as an idyllic "haven" fromviolence.Moore seems quite aware of many ofthe problems of American capitalism.The movie touches on poverty, racismits roots and media perpetuation-aswell as crimes of U.S. imperialism underboth Republican and Democrati,c presidencies. Notable in the current era ofpost -9fll raging patriotism, a short montage graphically portrays a litany of crimesof the U.S. government, ending with animage of the World Trade Center attackwith the caption: "Osama bin Laden useshis expert CIA training to murder 3,000people." This scene, more than anythingelse, really ruffled the feathers Of thebourgeoisie. So the New York Times (11October 2002) published a scathing reviewcommenting on the scene's caption: "Theidiocy of this statement is hardly worthengaging; it is exactly the kind of glibNY Times

28 FEBRUARY 2003

'distortion of history that can be taken as awarrant to dismiss everything Mr. Moorehas to say."Though Bowling for Columbine astutely comments on the problems ofAmericansociety, the movie's suggested solutionsare all wrong. Moore concludes that whatmakes America so uniquely violent is a"culture of rear"-a fanatical paranoiainflamed by the media. But such fear cantake hold only to the extent that it feeds. on a brutal social order. Although himself,a lifetime member of the NRA, Mooreends by advocating, ilt least for now,restricting access to guns while pushingto make the government and corporationsmore humane and less violent. Moore'spolitics prevent him from seeing thelarger truth-that American "democracy"can only be violent, racist and classdivided because at its core is a systembased on exploitation and racial oppression: capitalism.Certainly, today a climate of fear and

Left: Newark

hysteria is being whipped up by the capitalist rulers who use the cry of "nationalunity" to justify their, bloodthirsty waraims against Iraq and the intensificationof repression of i m m i g r a ~ t s , blacks andlabor. The U.S. capitalist staleis a killingmachine equipped with nuclear weaponswhich relies on trigger-happy racist copsand death chamber executions to terrorizethe population at home. It's no wondermany Americans-not just right-wingersbut immigrants, blacks, workers-fearbeing disarmed. And in the interests o f theworking class and all the oppressed, theright to bear arms needs to be defended.Today minorities and working peopleare the special targets of the violencespawned by American capitalism, as theyare starved by ghetto poverty and a lackof jobs, incarcerated under the pretext ofthe "war on drugs" and sent off to be cannon fodder for American imperialist war.It is a reflection of the decades of bipartisan attacks and desperate living condi-

ghetto upheaval, 1967.During wave of ghettoexplosions, Spartacistsfought for militantdefense of inner cities,sought to mobilizeworking-class solidarity.

tions of the urban masses that homicidestatistics for 2002 show heavily black andimmigrant Oakland at more than 100 andcentral Los Angeles at over 650. In onepowerful scene in Bowling for Colum-bine, overlapping segments of newscasters repeating. "black male" and clips fromthe television show Cops illustrate howthe "war on drugs" grotesquely glorifiespolice violence and paints black people aspredatory criminals. And one of the funniest moments in the film shows a seriesof newscast excerpts sounding the alarmabout an invasion of "Africanized" beescoming north from Latin Americaunlike the tamer, friendlier "European"variety, the "Africanized" bees are dangerous, aggressive and uncontrollable.The media certainly uses racist stereotypes of the black urban poor as criminals in an attempt to justify police occupation of the ghettos. Yet the media doesnot produce a racist society. The ownersof the media are themselves capitalistswho seek to perpetuate the domination .oftheir class, whose rule is based on a system that is racist from the ground up.Capitalist Violenceand Black Oppression

In the end, Moore misses the most fundamental answer to the question "Why isAmerica so violent?" that he spends thewhole movie pursuing. In fact, there issomething very unique to American capitalism: the special oppression of blackpeople, directly linked to the violent legacy of chattel slavery. In an insightfularticle entitled "Deadly Symbiosis," UCBerkeley sociology professor Lotc Wacquant reminds us that the subjugation anddispossession of blacks in the U.S. haspersisted through four major institutions:slavery, the Jim Crow system, the urbanghetto, and now, the expanding prisonsystem. We say that in the U.S. blacksconstitute a race-color caste, forcibly segregated socially but integrated into thecapitalist economy at the bottom. Withthe de-industrialization Moore chronicledin Roger and Me, blacks who were oncerelied upon as a "reserVe army" of laborwhen needed for industry have beenincreasingly deemed a surplus populationby the ruling class; thrown out of work andcontinued on page 6

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IN THE UNITED STATI!S COURT OF APPEALSror Ihe SECOND CIRCUIT

--------------xUNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE,SL, poe Protest

Big Apple Police StatePetU ....A _ ~ .-.

The CITY OF NEW YORK; MICHAELBLOoMBERG. Mayorof ... CItyotN .. Y .. .RAYMOND KELLY, CommIssioneroltbe NewYo", CIty - 1 l e J > a r t m e n ~ . ~ .

Derendants-Ap))dlees.

03-7130

-------------------------------xAPPeal from Order Entered by The United States District Court.

Southern Districtof New York

BRIEF OF SPARTACIST LEAGUE ANDPARTlSANDEFENsECOMMmnrnEAS AMICICURIAE IN SUPPORT OF

PETmONER-APPELLANT,We reprint below a slightly shortened amici curiae(friends of the court) brief filed by the Spartacist Leagueand Partisan Defense Committee in the U.S. Court ofAppeals for the Second Circuit in New York City onFebruary 11. Submitted in support of the United forPeace and Justice coalition's appeal of a lower courtdecision upholding the NYPD's prohibition of a protestmarch past the United Nations on February 15, our briefpredicted, "In criminalizing any march that day, thegovernment is preparing an outright provocation virtually guaranteeing that not a few protesters will end upb e a t e ~ and bloodied by the NYPD."Those who made it to the rally site on February 15were herded into tightly controlled police pens. Manywho attempted to navigate the maze of police' barricadesto get to the protest were d i r ~ c t e d by cops i n ~ o streets thatwere then sealed off. A videotape released by the demonstration organizers at a February 18 press conferenceshows mounted police backing horses into the crowds,cops pummelling demonstrators with nightsticks andpenhed-in protesters being pepper-sprayed. Some 300protesters were arrested. The following day, cops in SanFrancisco arrested 46 protesters at an antiwar demonstration of 200,000 there.As the PDC wrote in a February 15 letter protestingthe NYC arrests: "With cops armed with machine gunsroaming the city's streets and the subways, the courtsand their armed police thugs were hoping to intimidatepeople into staying home today. But they failed. Over500,000 demonstrators defied the cops and courts andcame out to express their opposition to the slaughter thegovernment is planning in Iraq, joining millions of antiwar protesters across the globe. We demand: Free all theprotesters now! Drop all the charges!"

I. STATEMENT AND THE INTEREST OFAMICI CURIAE

The Spartacist League is a Marxist political organization with a history of almost forty years of activity in theUnited States, including running candidates for publicoffice, holding classes and public forums on Marxist history and international and domestic politics, initiatingand participating in protest demonstrations against government policies, and publishes a bi-weekly newspaper,Workers Vanguard, and a theoretical journal, Spartacist.The Spartacist League seeks to educate workers and theirallies to build a workers party which fights for a socialist future.The Partisan Defense Committee is a class-struggle; -non-sectarian legal and social defense organizationwhich champions cases and causes in the interest of thewhole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the views of the Spartacist League.The Spartacist League and Partisan Defense Committee file this motion and brief because they are tenaciousdefenders of their own legality and of those democraticrights won through bourgeois revolutions and revolutionary wars-the parliamentary partisans in the EnglishCivil War, the U.S. Revolutionary War, the French Revolution and the American Civil War. Amici intend toparticipate in the protests against the Iraq war set forFebruary 15, 2003 in New York City and support thePlaintiff-Appellant's appeal of the District Court's rul-

Transit workers at NYC protest.4

ing upholding the City's abrogation of the democraticright to march in protest of the United States government's impending war against Iraq.Amici have filed lawsuits as well as engaged indecades of political activity against prior governmentattempts to criminalize the expression of First Amendment rights by falsely targeting opponents of governmentpolicy as terrorists. The Spartacist League successfullysued the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1983after' the FBI changed its Guidelines, designating political organizations as "domestic security terrorist organizations." As a result of that lawsuit, the FBI withdrew itswitchhunting "defihition" of the Spartacist League. OnFebruary 9, 2002 amici initiated the first labor-centeredunited-front protest in the U.S. against'the USA-Patriot

Act and the government's anti-immigrant witchhunt,which has been conducted in the name of the "waragainst terrorism." Amici have long understood and prop-

New York City,February 15:As hundredsof thousandsturned out

despite ban onantiwar march,cops attackedp r o t e s t ~ r s , arrestingsome 300.

agandized that if political opponents of the governmentand government actions are put in the category of "terrorists," this defines them as "outlaws" of civil society,providing the state with a license to suspend democratiCrights, crimina lize' political activity, and ultimately toengage in legalized murder. It was the fate of the BlackPanther Party (BPP) to be deemed a "terrorist" organization by the FBI, and it was subjected to a government COINTELPRO campaign of harassment, surveillance and prosecution; government agents killed some 38members of the BPP.Amici Spartacist League and Partisan Defense Committee' file this brief in support of the right of opponentsof the United States' impending war on Iraq to march inprotest of government policies. As the United Statesgovernment prepares to launch an imperialist war ofplunder against Iraq in the name of "freedom," the District Court below banned not only the projected marchthat would pass by the United Nations, but effectivelyendorsed the Nt:w York City Police Department's rightto ban any protest march at any time in the streets ofManqattan. The Court asserted that it "will not secondguess or substitute its judgment for that of the NYPD,"thereby leaving the Police Department as the arbiterof democratic rights, including the fundamental FirstAmendment rights of speech and assembly, and criminalizing protest against the government.This controversy over the right to march in oppositionto the government's impending war against Iraq arises inthe context of a wholesale government assault againstdemocratic rights following the September 11, 200 1 murderous attacks on the World Trade Center. The Bushadministration with bipartisan support has since engagedin a so-called preventative and pre-emptive global "waragainst terrorism." From the USA-Patriot Act to new FBIGuidelines to the proposed "Domestic Security Enhancement Act," the government is engaged in a wholesaleevisceration of democratic rights, including granting toitself the authority to detain terrorist suspects or potential material witnesses indefinitely, spy on individualsnot suspected of committing crimes and use secret "evidence" and deny terrorist suspects legal counsel. Con-

RACHEL R WOLKENSTEINAttorney forAmic;CUI'itu67 WaD Street, Sldte 2411New York, New York 10005(212) 406-4252

comitantly, the government has relegated to it self the soleand legally unchallengeable right to indefinitely imprisonU.S. citizens, without counsel and without judicial hearing or review. Internationally, the U.S. has kidnappedforeign nationals suspected of terrorism, imprisoned suspects indefinitely and authorized assassinations, overriding international conventions and its own longstandingban on a s ~ a s s i n a t i o n s . The District Court's ruling upholding the City's banon the protest march is a frontal assault on the FirstAmendment right of speech and assembly and an ominous escalation in the government's crackdown on therights of the population in the name of the "war on ter-

ror." The federal government itself has intervened and inan extraordinary move declared in the District Courtthat it would take legal action if the Court ruled allowing. the march.One has only to look at the photo of police at TimesSquare armed with semi or perhap& fully automatic rifleswhich appeared on the front page of the February 11 NewYork Times and the referenced article, "AdministrationGives Advice on How to Prepare for a Terrorist Attack,"for a vivid picture of how New York City is being turnedinto an armed camp, while government officials brazenlyadmit there is no evidence of an "imminent threat." Thisis a concretization of the fact that the government's "waron terror" is a war on the populace, focused primarily onimmigrants, the labor movement and minorities-andanyone who protests government policies.The "war on terror" began domestically with a roundup and imprisonment of immigrants of Near Easternand South Asian descent. Then it was declared that acitizen determined to be an "enemy combatant" could bestripped of fundamental constitutional rights includingthe right to counsel and a triill and be effectively disappeared. The latest plan, contained in the expansion of theUSA-Patriot Act, is to strip citizenship from anyone thegovernment deems to be "aiding terrorists."As popular opposition to the impending war againstIraq mounts, the government isn't stopping there:Wh enthe longshoremen's union on the West Coast was lockedin a showdown with union-busting shipping bosses, thegovernment intervened to threaten that any strike actionby the workers would be a threat tQ "national security"and then brought down the Taft-Hartley law effectivelyagainst the union. When New York transit workers votedto go on strike, the media screamed that transit workerswere launching a ~ ' j i h a d " and the strikebreaking TaylorLaw was invoked. Firefighters who lost over 300 oftheir comrades trying to save people in the World TradeCenter are declared a "clear and present danger to theUnited States" in a letter signed by Republican Housemajority leader Tom DeLay because they are unionized.In the aftermath of the destruction of the SovietUnion and capitalist restoration, the United StatesWORKERS VANGUARD

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government has asserted itself as the unquestionablesupreme military power in the world: To carry out itsimperial designs abroad, now concentrated on wagingwar against Iraq, the government needs class and socialpeace at home. In order to accomplish these ends it isattempting to regiment the population through an ideological "national unity" crusade and war propaganda.Seizing on the criminal attack against the World TradeCenter, which killed thousands of innocent civilians,the government launched this "war against terror,"which has led to smearing all government opponentsand actions in opposition to government policy asthreats to national security and criminalizing dissent.Pursuant to Rule 29 of the Rules of the Second CircuitCourt of Appeals amici c;,riae have concurrently filed amotion for leave of this Court for permission to submitthis brief.

II. LEGAL ARGUMENTA. The Primacy of First Amendment RightsThe First Amendment rights are intertwined and indivisible; and in class society, reversible. The First Amendment is a unified totality, the "text is indeed both generaland absolute. In one sentence it separates church andstate and guarantees free opinion." (See Mitchell Franklin, "Infamy and Constitutional Civil Liberties," LawyersGuild Review, Vol. XIV, No.1, p. 3 (1954).) The FirstAmendment is the "keystone of our Government, ... thefreedoms it guarantees provide the best insurance againstdestruction against all freedom," stated Mr. JusticeBlack, dissenting in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S.

494,580 (1951). The First Amendment is unified in itsvarious clauses by the central liberty of freedom of theindividual in ~ a t t e r of thought and conscience whetherthe concerns are political, religious or social. The legalforce of the First Amendment applied only to the federalgovernment until the defeat of slavery on the battlefieldsof the Civil War provided the legal basis for a nationalAmerican state. Legally this was codified in the Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, subordinating the state governments to these democratic principles. (See Gillow v. New Yor.k, 268 U.S. 652 (1925),Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940).)As Marxists, amici curiae recognize that the contraction of constitutionally protected rights is rooted in theclass nature of the capitalist state. Harold Laski explainsin his treatise, The State in Theory and Practice (1935):

"... how accidental was the union of capitalism withdemocracy. It was the outcome, not of an essential harmony of inner principle, but of that epoch in economicevolution when capitalism was in its phase of expansion. Ithad conferred political power upon the masses; but it wasupon the saving condition that political power should notbe utilized to cut at the root of capitalist postulates. Itwould offer social reforms so long as these did not jeopardize the essential relations of the capitalist system.When they did as occurred in the post-war [World War I]years, the contradiction between capitalism and democracy became the essential institutional feature of Westerncivilization."Constitutional history demonstrates that particularlywhen the populace is being prepared for war, the protections of the First Amendment are denied to the populace.The Bill of Rights was less than a decade old in 1798when war hysteria prompted the Federalist-dominatedUnited States Congress to enact the Alien and SeditionActs. Constitutional challenges to the Acts were generally precluded in the federal courts. During World War I,

Ugato/Philadelphia Bulletin1970: D ~ . l r i n g FBI's murderous COINTELPRO cam-paign, Philadelphia cops dragged Black Panthersonto the street, forced them to strip and searchedthem at gunpoint.the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918were passed and then upheld by the U.S. Supreme Courtin Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). In 1940Congress, concerned with the increased possibIlity of theUnited States entering into World War II, passed theAlien Registration Act (better known as the Smith Act).The first to be prosecuted for their opposition to theimpending interimperialist war were the Trotskyists ofthe Socialist Workers Party. The convictions for conspiring to overthrow the government by force and violence28 FEBRUARY 2003

"War on Terror" Witchhunt Against Palestinian Activists

On February 20, U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft announced the indictment of Professor Sami AIArian and seven others on racketeering conspiracycharges. According to the Feds, AI-Arian, a Kuwaitiborn Palestinian who had been wiretapped for nearlya decade, is now reputed to be the North Americanleader of the fundamentalist Islamic Jihad. He andthree others residing in the U.S. were arrested. In a 24February letter to the Justice Department, the PartisanDefense Commitee demanded that all charges againstSami AI-Arian and the others be dropped and that theybe immediately released. The letter stated, "Dr. AIArian has been targeted solely because he is anIslamic scholar and is outspoken in his defense of thePalestinian people against marauding Zionist terror . ..This is a thought-crime prosecution pure and simple."This is the culmination of a long state vendettaagainst AI-Arian and his family. Last summer, a mediaabetted campaign of vilification led to death threatsand the loss of his tenured position at the Universityof South Florida. One day after his firing, AI-Arian'sbrother-in-law, Mazen AI-Najjar, was deported toLebanon on the pretext of overstaying his visa. In1997, AI-Najjar had been rounded up 9Y the INS andheld on secret evidence for three and a half yearsunder the 1996 "Anti-Terrorism Act" signed into lawby Democratic president Clinton.AI-Najjar's struggle against the Kafkaesque lawwon widespread support and international publicity,with Amnesty International declaring him a politicalprisoner. Former CIA head James Woolsey testifiedbefore the Senate for the law's repeal. In the summerof 2001, the "Secret Evidence Repeal Act" spon-

sored by Congressmen David Bonior, John Conyersand Tom Campbell-and supported by Bush duringthe 2000 presidential campaign-was near passage,only to fall victim to the anti-Arab witchhunt usheredin by the September 11 attack on the World TradeCenter.Ironically, AI-Arian was instrumental in turningout Muslim support for Bush in the 2000 election,possibly providing the margin of victory in the keystate of Florida. The following June, AI-Arian wasone of the members of the American Muslim Council invited to the White House to be briefed on theadministration's "faith-based initiatives." A weeklater his son, an intern for Congressman Bonior, waspart of a delegation of Muslims to the White Housebut was ejected from the grounds by Secret Serviceagents, prompting a walkout by the others.The indictment of Dr. AI-Arian marks a watershedin the obliteration of protections under the FourthAmendment. The sole "evidence" against him are wiretaps obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). That law formally limited the useof wiretaps to "gathering intelligence," barring themfrom being used as the basis for prosecution since theFourth Amendment prohibits search or seizure with. out probable cause that a crime is being committed.But last November, the secret FISA appeals courtruled that the newly passed USA-Patriot Act erasedany such restrictions. The indictment of Dr. AI-Arian,the first since the FISA appeals court ruling, is a dangerous precedent which would allow the governmentto tap the phones or break into the houses or officesof anyone of us. It must not go unchallenged!

,were affirmed by the Court of Appeals, Dunne v. United posed by an unorganized, large scale march threatenStates, 138 E2 d 137; and the Supreme Court refused the City's interest in maintaining public safety." Thereview, 320 U.S. 370 (1943). The internment of Ameri- Court further declared that the march would be "simplycan citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, too large for the NYPD to adequately secure the safetyKorematsu v. United States, 320 U.S. 214 (1944) is a of United Nations Headquarters" and endorsed thenotorious example of trampling on democratic rights of testimony of a top NYPD official that "i f somebody incitizens during wartime. Post-World War II, during the the group had a device, I don't know how we would beMcCarthy anti-communist witchhunts, members of the able to stop it with that amount of people." The presump-Communist Party were convicted under the Smith Act, tion is an equation of antiwar protests with a nest ofDennis v. United States, 341 U.S. (1951). terrorists ... .The attacks on the First Amendment and on the rights With well over 100,000 likely to tum out in New Yorkof citizenship are reflections of the tendency toward City on February 15, the NYPD intends to herd the pro-state bonapartism, part and parcel of the drive toward testers into a series of tightly controlled pens. Based onwar. The U.S. imperialist government wants the capacity the newspaper reports on the "preparations against ter-to conduct its wars and military adventures as well as rorist attack" taking place in New York City, the protest-deal with the threat of class or social struggle at home ers will be placed under armed guard by the NYPD,without the encumbrances of Congressional approval, with little or no intercourse between the various policejudicial oversight, or even the theoretical nod toward the pens. This wi:ll not only have the effect of chilling anddemocratic expression of the populace. In the cUtTent, intimidating the protest, but will create chaos and disor-post-September 11 "wa r against terrorism" period, as der. In criminalizing any march that day, the governmentthe U.S. government prepares for war against Iraq, the \, .. is preparing an outright provocation virtually guarantee-evisceration of First Amendment rights proceeds at a .lng that not a few protesters will end up beaten andrapid pace. A core component of this diminution of bloodied by the NYPD.- democratic rights is the move toward unfettered power In bowing to the judgmen t of the NYPD the Courtby the executive branch, a move toward state bona- below has relegated to the police therole of sole arbiterspartism. Such a move toward a police state relies on a of the exercise of elementary and fundamental constitu-compliant judiciary. tional rights. This is consonant with the rationale of a.., police state; consonant with a growing body of judicialB T ~ e D I s t r l c ~ C!>urt s R ~ f u s a ~ to ~ r a n t decisions which adopt the government's unsupportedP l a l l l ~ l f ~ s a Pr.ehmlllary I n J u n c t I ~ ) l l Violates allegations in matters they deem to be "national secur-PlallltIffs' ~ I r s t Amendment R I ~ h t s and ity," ignoring the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.Constitutes Irreparable Injury Plaintiff-Appellant is entitled to a preliminary injunc-

The Federal District Court ruling not only denied the tion enjoining Defendants-Appellees from depriving theapplication by the United for Peace and Justice coalition United for Peace and Just ice coal ition and all thoseto march by the United Nations but also effectively who join them the right to march in protest againstendorsed the NYPD's right to ban any protest march at the impending war against Iraq ....any time in the streets of Manhattan. The court rulingbaldly stated that "The Court will not second guess orsubstitute its judgment for that of the NYPD." Thelinchpin of the Court's decision is the full acquiescenceto the rationale by the NYPD representative: "TheCity's concerns with respect to crowd control are exacerbated by the added security concerns since September11, 2001. The nation and the City are currently at thesecond highest secllrity alert, a fact that the NYPD musttake into account in determining the level of risk. Thepolice can more effectively monitor crowds for terrorthreats at stationary rallies than they can crowds movingin a procession."With war imminent and popular opposition continuingto mount, the government is sending a message that thosewho protest against the war are potential terrorists andtherefore antiwar protest can be deemed criminal.In explaining why marching rights given to organizersof "cultural events" like the St. Patrick's Day Parade areoff-limits to antiwar protesters, the Court below explicitly terror-baited the planned demonstration, dismissingsome 360 organizations as just so much rabble, stating"the Court finds that the heightened security concerns

CONCLUSIONThe fundamental proposition of the First Amendmentis to constitutionally safeguard free speech. There is nomore urgent time to do so than now. The NYPD banagainst this political protest march constitutes an intimidation tactic by the government against those who

would demonstrate their opposition to government policies. The alternative presented by the City-putting tens, of thousands of people into tightly controlled pens surrounded by heavily armed police-is a recipe for policeattacks and violence against the antiwar protesters. TheDistrict Court decision acquiescing to the NYPD ban ofthe February 15 march on the grounds that it is a securityand "terror" threat is an open declaration that any opposition to the United States government's war movescan be criminalized as potential "terrorism." It must bereversed.Respectfully submitted,RACHEL H. WOLKENSTEIN

Dated: New York, New YorkFebruary II , 20035

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Columbine...(continued from page 3)into prison. At the same time, anti-blackracism is wielded by the exploiters toweaken and divide the working class as awhole. What the capitalists fear aboveall is the spectre of an aroused, classconscious, multiracial working class, sincelabor has the objective self-interest andpoWer to overthrow the capitalist system.Bowling for Columbine attempts toaddress the origins of black oppression ina witty cartoon history of the U.S. by oneof the creators of South Park where gunsare the weapons of paranoid white folks,from Pilgrims fleeing the British crown tosettlers killing Indians they fear, to slaveholders surrounded by blacks in the antebellum South. But it was the arming of200,000 ex-slaves and free black men fromthe North fighting with the Union Armythat helped turn the tide in the Civil War-the Second American Revolution-andsmash chattel slavery.Yet soon after, the promise of blackfreedom was betrayed by the Northerncapitalists, the radical reforms of Reconstruction were reversed, and the reactionary institution of official Jim Crow segregation triumphed. Disenfranchised blackswere stalked by KKK terror and lynchings. Today, the barbaric death penalty isthe Jim Crow lynch rope made legal. Ascommunists, we fight for a third AmericanRevolution to finish the Civil War, for asocialist revolution that would smash theracist system of capitalism. Our aim is tocreate a society which will lay the material basis for full social and political

equality for blacks. Such a r ~ v o l u t i o n canonly be led by a multiracial vanguardparty capable of linking the struggles ofthe black ghetto masses with the socialpower of labor.As the movie's history cartoon shows,the racist rulers have always been petrified of black militancy and-just likethe former slaveholders-tremble withfright at the image of blacks with guns.In the 1950s, Robert F. Williams was oneof the many black ex-Marines who camehome to American discrimination andfought back by organizing black selfdefense squads against KKK and policeterror. Because he was a heroic blackfighter championing the right to bear arms,Williams was framed up by the FBI anddriven into exile in Cuba.Later, black soldiers returning fromVietnam, disillusioned by the dead-endpacifism of the liberal civil rights leaders, also saw the need to be armed inorder to fight racist repression. Manyended up joining the Black Panther Party,which although far from Marxist politics,rejected the electoral, pro-DemocraticParty mainstream road of the civil rightsmovement and hoped to achieve blackfreedom through revolutionary struggleat home. The ruling class respondedwith murderous terror under the FBI'sCounter-Intelligence Program (COIN-6

Library of CongressBlack troops in Union Army helped turn tide in war to defeat Southernslavocracy.TELPRO), which killed and jailed scoresof Panthers. One former Black Pantheris the well-known award-winning journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who, as anadvocate of black self-defense, was blatantly framed up by the state, railroadedto death row, and is currently facinghis twenty-first year in prison. The prosecutor in his "trial" argued on politicalgrounds that he be put to death, citingJamal's having quoted Mao Zedong's truism that "political power grows out of thebarrel of a gun."Anti-black racism has historically beenused by the ruling class to keep the work-

:P."iii"

Hospital inBelgrade, Serbia,bombed by NATOin 1999 war underDemocraticpresident Clinton.Moore notesthat Columbinemassacre occurredduring U.S.bombingcampaign.

ing class divided. Today, with the countryplunging deeper and deeper into reces~ i o n , the bourgeoisie has declared an allout war against the black and workingpoor through massive unemployment,deteriorating schools, and the strippingaway of social services. Meanwhile, asindustry after industry is milked dry byprofit-hungry capitalists, for every joblost on the assembly line a new placein the prison system is created. In theU.S., where more people are behind barsthan anywhere else in the world, nearly.one-third of all black males in their 20sare either in prison, on parole or probation.

that house where her six-year-old sonfinds his uncle's gun-the gun which wastakerr to school and which was used in thetragic shooting. And, since the victim waswhite and he is black, there is an uproarcalling to hang the six-year-old boy.Above all this scene shows the effectsof the brutal "workfare" program, pushedforward during the Democratic Clintonadministration to mark "the end of welfare as we know it." In 2002, more andmore destitute women and children weresimply dumped off welfare, job or not, forexceeding the five-year lifetime "dropdeadline." Workfare programs, promotedas the road to permanent employment,leave the destitute with only two options:slave-labor 'jobs" or a life on the streets.As poverty increases, single mothers suffer tremendously from deadly cut-offs inhousing and medical aid. And workingclass black women-triply oppressed bytheir class, race and sex-are especiallyhard hit along with their children. As wewrote in "Genocide U.S.A." (WV No.463,2 1 October 1988):"[Workfare] is not welfare reform, it's aplan to tum the ghettos into vast cemeteries-because there are no jobs to get.The aim of this legislation is to see to itthat layers of the minority populationdie, because this decrepit capitalist system no longer needs them."The Capitalist State:Worst Enemy of the Oppressed

The attacks on welfare are part of abroader reactionary rollback of gains thatwere won during the rise of industrialunions in the 1930s and the civil rightsmovement of the 1950s and '60s. Theseimportant gains were not bestowed fromabove by a benevolent government butwon through mass integrated social struggle. Yet a lot of radical youth todaybelieve that capitalism and its politicianscan ultimately be pressured to be more"socially conscious." Disillusioned withthe Democrats, some tum to Ralph Nader's

Green Party which poses as a "left" alternative third party through its criticisms of"corporate greed" and the death penalty.Many fans ofMichaelMoore-himselfanactive supporter of Nader and the GreenParty-share the ideology that change insocietyoan be achieved through electoralpressure politics.Moore is honest-he doesn't claim tobe a Marxist. But as Marxists we knowthat the capitalist state is the executivecommittee of the ruling class, made up ofthe police, courts, military and prison system-the special armed bodies of menwhose job it is to protect capitalist property from the many whose blood andsweat make the profits for the few. Theonly way to make real social gains permanent and irreversible is not by votingfor a different bourgeois politician but bymobilizing the working class to take statepower in its own name, in the interests ofall the working masses and oppressed.While Bowling fo r Columbine is bitingtestimony to the state of the violent chaosof modern American capitalism, the biggest problem is what Moore appearsto advocate as a solution: gun controllegislation. The movie is literally-emotions aside-disarming. The intent ofgun-control legislation is not to "fightcrime," but to ensure that only the capitalist state has access to arms. It leavesguns in the hands of the cops, criminalsand crazies (including fascists), whileworkers, blacks, minorities and thepoor are left defenseless. If some of thewomen and men who work at abortionclinics were armed, knowledge of thatfact might put the fear of god into thebiblethumping "right to life" thugs. Likewise, the criminal hijackers from the September 11th World Trade Center attackmight have been stopped dead had anyone had a gun, but none did. We Marxistsuphold the right to self-defense from thestandpoint of defending the interestsof the workers and oppressed against theoppressors.Gun Control Kills Blacks

Bowling fo r Columbine's pro-guncontrol "corporate responsibility" campaign comes when Moore demands thatKmart take their handgun and assaultrifle ammunition off its shelves. He doesthis after discovering that two victimsfrom the Columbine massacre were crippled by bullets, still lodged in their bodies, that were purchased at Kmart. Kmartcaves in, phases out its ammo, andMoore is jubilant. The British SocialistWorkers Party (SWP)-a reformist outfitformerly allied with the American International Socialist Organization and whichstill shares the same fundamental politics-wrote in a review of the movie thatthis scene "shows the power of protest"(Socialist Worker [Britain], 23 November2002). Such enthusiasm over this actionis a not-so-back-handed endorsement ofgun control. While pretending to be onthe side of the "underdogs" in one big,bad, profit-gouging world, the "socialist"

One of the biggest attacks on blackpeople in the recent decade has beenthe destruction of the welfare system,painted vividly in one of the m,ost powerful scenes of Bowlingfor Columbine. Thescene begins when Moore returns to hishometown of Flint, Michigan, and discovers another school shooting: this time,a six-year-old girl has been killed by aclassmate. The movie goes on to tell thereal story of a single black mother who isforced to slave in "workfare" programs inorder to work off her welfare check andmust work two jobs, commuting 80 milesa day and leaving little time for her tospend with her kid. Evicted from her.home and still unable to pay rent, she isforced to move in with a relative. It is at In wake of Columbine massacre, U.S. high school students face heightenedrepression, security guards and metal detectors.

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SWP is standing against the right ofworking people and the poor to defendthemselves.What would have happened had thestriking miners in Ludlow, Colorado in1914 not had guns? After the state militiamassacred several striking miners andtheir families, some 1,000 workersarmed by the United Mine Workersfought back bullet for bullet, to thebosses' horror, for ten days. But Bowlingfor Columbine seems to skip every chapter in U.S. history in which the oppressedtook up arms to battle their oppressors. Aquick montage in the movie shows theU.S. carpet-bombing Vietnam, but themovie shows nothing of the heroic struggle of the armed Vietnamese workers andpeasants who in the cpurse of a socialrevolution defeated on the battlefieldthe mightiest imperialist power in theworld. In America it was the revolutionary struggle against Britain which produced the principle of the "right to keepand bear arms," codified in the S!!c=ond Amendment to the Constitution. Andevery attempt to unravel it has been a calculated counterrevolutionary act on thepart of an imperialist ruling class.

In fact, right now the bourgeoisie

would love to see the population disarmed in order to better carry out its"war on terror" domestically and abroad.The whole history of gun control is thestory of the bourgeoisie trying to quellany resistance to their rule, particularlyin periods of social struggle. In 1934,the U.S. government banned automaticweapons when workers entered into amassive strike wave in the midst of theGreat Depression.' Three decades later.in the 1960s, New York City passed alaw against carrying "longarms" in publicspecifically to disarm Malcolm X. Andwhen the ruling class saw the Black Panthers arming themselves, the federal guncontrol act was pushed forward to wardoff black self-defense against racistpolice. Gun restrictions ensure only thatracist armed cops have free rein in theghettos and barrios against a vulnerable,unarmed popUlation. Indeed, ,this is whatis meant when we say that gun controlkills blacks.So the question of gun control boilsdown to: do you trust the state to havethe monopoly of weapons? Corporatebigwigs and editors-in-chief of bourgeoismedia outlets who preach gun controlknow that there will always be an armedman at hand for their protection, be it thehired hand of security guards or thepolice who protect them and their property. In the U.S., racist cop brutalityagainst the oppressed is no aberration,but rather an American custom-in thewords of 1960s black militant H. RapBrown (to howls of ruling-class outrage),"Violence is as American as cherry pie."Just recall the LAPD unleashing theirversion of "to serve and protect" on Rodney King in 1991, or the recent Oakland28 FEBRUARY 2003

"Riders," police thugs named after themurderous nightriders of the KKK. Andthe list of victims is long: Tyisha Miller,a 19-year-old black woman shot to deathby the police in the middle of an epilepticseizure; Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant g u n ~ e d down in a hail of 41 bulletsby the NYPD on his doorstep; PatrickDorismond, a 26-year-old black fatherblown away by an undercover narc whiletalking on his cell phone; TimothyThomas, chased into an alley and gunneddown by Cincinnati cops under the pretext of petty misdemeanors, to name afew. And the list increases every day.Imperialist War orSocialist Revolution

Obviously, disarming the cops is noton the agenda of the gun-control junkies.Better yet, how about disarming the Pentagon? Such a feat requires a social revo-lution, in which the ruling class is expropriated and its state shattered.In one ironic scene in Bowling, anexecutive of Lockheed Martin, the largestproducer of weapons of mass destruction,stands in front of the plant's ballistic missiles while commenting how Columbinemight have been prevented with a little

Petrograd, 1917:Red Guardswith bariner,"Long Live theUniversal Armingof the Peopleand the WorkersFirst of All."

"anger management." Just one of thesemissiles can carry between 12 to 24 warheads, each warhead with up to eighttimes the explosive power of the A-bombdropped on Hiroshima during the SecondWorldWar. It's not a question of mmoralsources o(profit for greedy war-industrycorporations, but of the fundamentallyimperialist character of capitalism in itsdecay. The U.S. government, dead set onbeing the superpower of the world in thequest for markets and domination, spendshundreds of billions of dollars a year inits military budget and its nuclear weapons have the capacity to wipe out theworld several times over.But disarming the imperialist bourgeoisie clearly raises questions of whoand how, questions Michael Moore cannottouch. It was the triumphant BolshevikRevolution in 1917, the first and onlyworkers revolution in history, whichended the Russian capitalists' bloody participation in the interimperialist slaughterof World War I - the first blow of aninternational workers revolution that hadthe potential to end this capitalist horrorfor good. It is only the workini class, theproducers of the wealth of society, that iscapable of putting an end to war for goodby overthrowing the imperia.list warmongers, taking power, and instituting anegalitarian socialist order.

I f there is one thing Bowling for Col-umbine fancies about America, it'sCanada. According to the movie, Canadahas just as many guns per capita as theU.S. but has a far lower murder rate.Interviewing a local mayor in Canadawho speaks about the need for healthcare, welfare and other social programsas the means to alleviate violence in

Canadiancops brutalizedemonstrator. during Quebecanti-globalizationprotest, 2001.

2:lQ)a:

society, Moore opines that this is a country with politicians who make sense.Bel).ind this "kinder, gentler" facadeconditioned by the existence of a socialdemocratic party, albeit a right-wing variant-is the brutal reality of capitalistausterity attacks against the workingclass, poor and homeless and police terror against immigrants and minorities inCanada. I f you want it taste of gun control Canadian style, look at the army ofcops and troops that was unleashedagainst Mohawk Indians who took uparms to defend their land rights in 1990in Oka, Quebec. In 1970, the Englishchauvinist suppression of the nationalrights of the Quebecois was enforcedwith the military occupation of Quebec,deploying army troops and tanks in thestreets and rounding up hundreds oftrade-union leaders, leftists and otherswho were thrown behind bars.Capitalist Canada's foreign policy isdifferent from the U.S. not from anymoral or social superiority but onlybecause it has qualitatively less weightto throw around, acting instead as an appendage of U.S. capitalism. Here Canadian imperialism plays a useful role inproviding the cover of "peacekeepers" forthe brutal depredations of U.S. imperialism from the Near East to Intq toAfghanistan. Behin9 Canada's "nice guy"mask are troops like those of the Canadian Airborne Regimept who systematically tor tured and kined, Somali teenagers during their "peacekeeping" murder

BOSTONMonday, 7 p.m.

March 3: "War on Terror" Equals Waron Immigrants, Blacks and Labor:The Marxist Understanding of theCapitalist StateBU School of Education, Room 212605 Commonwealth AvenueInformation and readings: (617) 666-9453or e-mail: bostonsyc@yahoo.com

CHICAGO. Alternate Tuesdays, 7 p.m.

March 4: Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!No Illusions in the RaCist, CapitalistState and Its Courts!University of Chicago, Cobb Hall

5811 S. Ellis, Room TBAInformation and readings: (312) 563-0441or e-mail: spartacist@iname.com

LOS ANGELESAlternate Saturdays, 2 p.m.

March 1: The Fight Against CapitalistCounterrevolution in the USSR andEastern Europe3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215(Vermont/Beverly Red Line station)Information and readings: (213) 380-8239

or e-mail: slsycla@cs.com

,

mission in that country.Bowling for Columbine's conclusionthat America is simply too riddled withfear to have an armed citizenry is a statement of despair that only alibis the capitalist rulers' desire to obtain a completemonopoly of armed force. And so long ascapitalism exists, its rule will be maintained by armed violence. Even though theperiod looks grim, social struggle couldrapidly change the political climate. Toreverse the erosion of social services, tooppose the U.S. rulers' wars of depredation and to defend civil liberties demandsthe mobilization of the multiracial working class.There can be no end to unemployment, exploitation or racism withoutuprooting the entire capitalist order andreplacing it with a planned, socialisteconomy capable of building a classlesssociety. For a revolution to be won, thework of a conscious, organized vanguardparty-like the Bolsheviks who led theRussian workers to power in 1917-must lead the working class in a fightagainst all forms of oppression, especially, in this country, the special oppression of black people. Of course, havingguns is no. magic talisman against theendemic violence of decaying capitalism. But, as stated in the TransitionalProgram by Trotsky: "The only disarmament which can avert or end war is thedisarmament of the bourgeoisie by theworkers. But to disarnl the bourgeoisiethe workers must arm themselves .".

NEW YORK CITYTuesday, 7:30 p.m.

March 4: The Fight for BlackLiberation: Key to the AmericanSocialist RevolutionColumbia University306 Hamilton HallInformation and readings: (212) 267-1025or e-mail: nysl@compuserve.com

TORONTOWednesday, 6:30 p.m.

March 5: Capitalism and Women'sOppression-For Women's LiberationThrough Socialist Revolution!University of TorontoSidney Smith, Room 1085100 St. George StreetInformation and readings: (416) 593-4138or e-mail: spartcan@on.aibn.comVANCO VER

Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m., March 11: Build a RevolutionaryWorkers Party! Break With the NDP!University of British ColumbiaStudent Union Building, Room 211Information and readings: (604) 687-0353or e-mail: tllt@look.ca(In the event of a UBC Teaching'Assistant strike.call for location change.)

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~ ~ , \ . . , ~ \ . . ~ , ~ , , , , , (continued from page 12)drive to destroy the Soviet Union and thedeformed workers states of East Europenow adopt an "antiwar" posture that is little more than window-dressing for thenational interests of their own capitalistruling classes.Anti-Imperialism Abroad MeansClass Struggle at Home!

From San Francisco to London andParis, the- banners of our revolutionaryinternationalist contingents called formobilizing the working class in struggleagaiQst their imperialist rulers at home.Protesting the deployment of the IrishArmy in Shannon Airport to protect U.S.warplanes from antiwar protesters, a 13February leaflet by the Spartacist GroupIreland geclared: "What would be effective is strike action by airport workers andthe rest of the Irish workers movementagainst the use of Shannon Airport for thetransport of war materiel and troops."Such action had already been taken by ,15 Scottish railway drivers who refusedto transport munitions to a NATO weapons depot. More recently in Italy, transport unions, together with antiwar activists, blocked the railway line being usedto transport military equipment to CampDarby (see article, page 1). In Australia,the Construction, Forestry, Mining andEnergy Union has announced that building workers in Sydney will walk off thejob immediately upon the outbreak ofwar. Leaders of five major unions in Britain have also warned of possible industrial action when war breaks out.But to mount a genuine class-struggleopposition to this imperialist war requiresa program of uncompromIsing proletarianindependence from one 's "own" capitalistrulers. And such is decidedly not the policy of even those trade-union leaders whoare now calling for labor action. Rather,their invocations of proletarian struggleare aimed simply at effecting a parliamentary "regime change" in their own countries, keeping the working class chained tothe rule of the capitalist exploiters in itssocial-democratic face.This is manifest in the case of Italy'sRifondazione Comunista (RC), which talksof a general strike against the war whilemaking clear in a statement issued after theFebruary 15 protests that RC's real purposeis to again pla ya role in a "left" parliamentary coalition government, as it did in themid '90s. RC declares: "Let the argumentsfor peace and democracy win in parliamentas they have already won in the country atlarge. Take the responsibility to representthe will of the majority of Italian citizens.Restore a positive role and social dignity toour country." _Striking an orthodox posture, an articlein Proposta (January 2(03), newspaperof the centrist outfit headed by FrancoGrisolia, declares that the task of the working class "is to defend Iraq against theimperialist slaughter" and that "the task ofthe communists was and is to counterposeto imperialist war class war and a revolutionary perspective-the only way to putan end to all war, as it is the only way tostop the social system, capitalism, whichbreeds war." Left unsaid anywhere in the

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article is the need for the instrumentality" ' ~ " " ~ ' ' i ~ : ' ' ~ : ~ u 't>.~ ~ ~ ~ , ' b . , ~ ~ ~ -tionary party. This is hardly surprisingconsidering that Proposta is, and has longbeen, firmly ensconced as the loyal opposition in RC. As Lenin wrote in Socialism

and War in the crucible of World War I:"Unity with the opportunists actuallymeans subordinating the working class totheir 'own' national bourgeoisie . .it meanssplitting the revolutionary proletariat of allcountries."Similarly in Britain, the reformist andcentrist left provides cover for the socialchauvinism and parliamentarism of the

relentless sublugation of colonial India?~ " t 1 > ~ ~ ~ " Q - n ~ ~ " . : n " g \ ) ~ " e T t l I D . " e m tilClement Atlee, which marshaled Britishtroops and bombers for the slaughter ofover three million Koreans during theKorean War? The government of HaroldWilson, which dispatched British troopsto Northern Ireland in 1969? The government of James Callaghan, which imposedthe wage-slashing Social Contract on thecombative British unions in the late 1970sand enforced such racist immigration policies as virginity tests for Asian womenarriving in Britain?The Labour Party has always served

Need a New Workers' Party". "the ~ u e s -\lOn O'inre-akmg trom anour-overboththe war on Iraq and the war on theunions-is now concretely posed" (Work-ers Power, December 2002). They evenallow that "it needs to be a revolutionaryparty." But falling back on the excuse that"many workers don't yet agree with theneed for revolution," they argue that "inthe best case scenario" a new workersparty needs to be built by the very lefttalking bureaucrats and Labour MPs whoare now campaigning to "reclaim" theLabour Party!As our comrades of the SpartacistLeague/Britain wrote in the front-pagearticle "Fight British Imperialism ThroughClass Struggle at Home!" in the currentWorkers Hammer (Winter 2002-2003),many hundreds of which were sold at theprotests in London and Glasgow:"Today we fight to break the ideologicalchains that bind the working people,minorities and radicalized youth to theOld Labour programme of pressuringdecaying British imperialism. Proletarianrevolutionary opposition to war, in aconscious way, requires a split from theopportunist currents in the worker&movement. The central task remains the construction of a multiethnic revolutionaryworkers party modelled on the BolshevikParty of Lenin and Trotsky that led theOctober Revolution in Russia."For Proletarian RevolutionaryInternationalism!

EspartacoMexico City, February 15: Grupo Espartaquista contingent carries sign (atright) reading: "Unconditional Military Defense of North Korea! For Its Right toHave Nuclear Weapons!"

The call for the February 15 demonstrations emerged from the European SocialForum in Italy last fall. Preceding thatevent, the bulk of European fake socialists-RC, the LCR, the SWP and WorkersPower--co-signed a declaration appealingto the European bourgeois rulers to opposeAmerican imperialism. It read:rade-union tops and Labourite socialdemocrats. The outpouring of up to twomillion people in London on February 15is a stunning measure of the growinghatred for "New Labour" prime minister Tony Blair, more popularly knownas "Bush's poodle" for his loyal serviceto U.S. imperialism. Left-talking tradeunion leaders, dubbed the "awkward

squad," who are behind the calls forlabor action were prominent speakersfrom the platform. But this massivemobilization is now being seized uponto channel growing opposition to theLabour Party into ... the Labour Party!In the aftermath of the February 15demonstration, Labour Against the War,the creature of "left" Labour MPs JeremyCorbyn and George Galloway, initiated amass campaign urging unionists, antiwaractivists and others to rejoin the LabourParty and "return a Labour governmentthat uses diplomacy and developmentrather than bombs in the search for conflict resolution." Mick Rix, head of theASLEF rail workers union, got thunderous applause from the crowd on February15 when he invoked the action taken bymembers of his union in refusing to transport armaments in Scotland. But likeCorbyn, Rix urges "all trade unioniststo join the Labour Party and fight for policies that put peace and our public services first."These Labour "lefts" all hark back to"real Labour." Just what are they referringto? The Labour Party which joined in a .coalition with Winston Churchill's Toriesto pursue the aims of British imperialism during World War II, including the

the interests ofBritish imperialism againstthe working class at home and the working people and oppressed abroad. Thepresent massive discontent in the ranks ofthe unions with the Blair government provides a real opening toward breaking theproletarian ranks of the Labour Partyaway from its pro-capitalist leaders (notjust Blair but also the so-called Labour"lefts"), a strategic task in forging a proletarian revolutionary party in Britain.Within days of the antiwar protests,the reformist and centrist left went intooverdrive in a campaign to "Drive BlairOut!" as the Socialist Workers Party(SWP) declared in a Socialist Worker (22February) banner headline. Providingone of the more chemically pure statements of what's behind the bureaucrats'call for "labor action," an article titled:"We Can Get Regime Change in Britain"says, "Now we have to cause such turmoil that Blair is forced from office." Ineffect, this is a call to replace B'lair withhis chancellor of the exchequer (treasurysecretary), Gordon Brown, his chief rivalin the Cabinet.

The right centrists of Workers Powergive a more militant gloss to the idea of"regime change." This was spelled out inan article titled "Break with Blair-We

"Those who show solidarity with the people of Iraq have no hearing in the WhiteHouse. But we do have the chance toinfluence European governments-manyof whom have opposed the war. We callon all the European heads of state to publicly stand against this war, whether it hasUN backing or not, and to demand thatGeorge Bush abandon his war plans."Far from advancing a struggle for "peace,"these putative leftists promote the resurgent nationalism and chauvinism in Europethat paves the way for a future interimperialist war.In Germany, the organizers of the Berlin protest openly demanded that the government of Social Democratic (SPD)chancellor Gerhard Schroder and Greenforeign minister Joschka Fischer "use allpolitical means to oppose this war." It certainly is a topsy-turvy world when theFourth Reich of German imperialism isbeing portrayed as a major force for"peace." As our comrades of the Spartakist Workers Party (SpAD) wrote inthe mobilizing leaflet for their contingent: "The German bourgeoisie is attempting to merge the opposition to warin the population-a result of Germanylosing two imperialist world wars and anexpression of mistrust in the SPD/Green

Web site: www.icl-fLorg E-mail address:vanguard@tiac.netNational Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860Boston Los Angeles OaklandBox 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604(617) 666-9453 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 563-0441Public Office:Sat. 2-5 p.m.222 S. Morgan(Buzzer 23)

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Scottish Railway Drivers Refuseto Transport Armamentsparty Indeed, Lenin wrote his pamphlet"Left-Wing" Communism-An InfantileDisorder to win leaders like Gallacherand MacLean to the Communist International. The Bolsheviks' perspective wasthat only workers revolution could endimperialist war. That's the perspectivewe uphold today.In bringing the munitions trains to agrinding halt, the Motherwell ASLEFworkers' action points the way forward,demonstrating the social power. of theworking class. It is the labour of workersthat manufactures the armaments, thattransports and loads them, and it is theworking class that has the capacity tobring the whole capitalist economy to agrinding halt. There is much discontent inthe British proletariat and more broadlythroughout society, both with economic .conditions and with the war. Concertedunion action against the war is needed.Every successful strike, every workersmobilisation against the war plans, everyreverse for the imperialists represents aset-back for their war drive and a blowstruck in the interests of workers at home.

The following article by the SpartacistLeaguelBr-itain is reprinted from WorkersH a m m e r ~ N o . 183 (Winter 2003).In early January, in a dramatic politicalaction against the threatened war on Iraq,two'rail workers in Motherwell, membersof the union ASLEF, halted a freight trainW O l l K E l l S l I A M M E R ~ loaded with tanks and munitions destinedfbr the Gulf. When over a dozen moredrivers, employed by the EWS freightcompany, also refused to move the cargo,Ministry of Defence officials were foreedto transport it by road to its destinationthe NATO munitions depot at Glen Douglas on Scotland's west coast-where itwas eventually loaded onto the Ark Royalwarship bound for the Gulf region.As revolutionary socialists who standfor the militm:y defence of Iraq in theimpending war, we salute the courageousaction of the Scottish railway workers.Their refusal to move the armamentspoints the way forward to the kind of

government-with resurgent Germannationalism reflecting the ambitions ofthe German capitalist rulers to competewith their U.S. and Japanese imperialistrivals over carving up the world's naturalresources and to redivide their spheres ofinfluence."In his speech to the Berlin protest, RolfBecker, an activist from the German public sector union in Hamburg, took the leaders of the DGB trade-union federation totask: "We must remind the DGB leadership that they unconditionally said yes towar against Yugoslavia from the first dayon ... We ask the DGB leadership: Is the notoday only a no as long as the governmentsays no?" The SPD/Green governmentaided in the 1999 bombing of Serbia anddeployed the Bundeswehr in the Balkans-the first significant German military force to be sent abroad since the Naziera-and also sent troops as part of theimperialist occupation forces in Afghanistan. As the SpAD leaflet declared:"SchrOder and Fischer are Balkan butchers! Bundeswehr out of the Balkans,Afghanistan and the Near East! Not a man,not a cent to this imperialist arniYf.'The left groups whO now join the pacifist chorus of "give peace a chance"were singing a different tune during theU.S.-led NATO war against Serbia in1999. Then it was "give war a chance,"as they appealed to their imperialist rulers to bring "human rights" and "democ-

I S P A R T A C J S T I ~ --.....

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class struggle that needs to be waged.by workers here against the capitalistrulers and the Labour government inorder to give content to the defence ofsemicolonial Iraq against the imperialist warmongers. To their credit, the localleadership of ASLEF have backed theworkers involved. The drivers' actionshould have the full support of the unionand of the entire working class. It follows similar recent working-class antiwaractions, such as that of Japanese dockworkers at 'Sasebo who in 2001 refusedto load armaments and military suppliesonto Japanese navy ships aiding the waron Afghanistan. During the 1999 U.S.!BritainlNATO war against Serbia, ItalianCOBAS unions organised a one-millionstrong political general strike against thewar. Fiat workers, who today battle plantclosings in Italy, organised a campaignof material aid-a campaign which allsections of the ICL actively supportedfor their class brothers and sisters atthe Yugoslav Zastava car plant, which hadbeen bombed by the imperialists.The Motherwell railway workers also

racy" to the Balkans. The LCR in Franceand leading British SWP member AlexCallinicos signed a statement openlycalling for imperialist military intervention in Kosovo. They merely objected toU.S. imperialism leading the charge andinstead called for this to be carried outunder the auspices of the Organizationfor Security and Cooperation in Europeor the United Nations. For its part, Workers Power and its League for a Revolutionary Communist International supported the Kosovo Albanian separatistswho were then pawns of U.S. imperialism. Workers Power even co-sponsored ameeting with pro-NATO speakers fromBosnia and Kosovo and participated in a"Workers Aid to Kosovo" demonstrationin London which was shot through withNATO flags and placards screaming,"NATO Just Do It."In Australia, the Laborite left and.trade-union bureaucrats campaigned forthe intervention of Australian imperialisttroops in East Timor in 1999. At the February 15 protest in Sydney, the SpartacistLeague/Australia, which opposed thatintervention from the outset, carried abanner declaring: "Australian Military. Get Out of the Persian Gulf, East Timor!Hands Off Indonesia! Defend IraqAgainst USIUN/ Australian Imperialis tAttack!" In Britain, we prominently featured the call for British troops out ofNorthern Ireland, while the protest organizers prominently featured former LabourNorthern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam-who deployed the British Army tooccupy a Catholic area of Portadownin 1997-as a platform speaker. In Canada, our comrades raised the demand"Independence for Quebec!" and foughtagainst the English-Canadian chauvinismof the NDP social democrats.It is important that millions of peopleprotested the war against Iraq. 'In NewYork City, despite a court order banningprotesters from marching and with thecity turned into a virtual police occupation zone under the Bush administration's"terrorism" alert, hundreds of thousandsdefiantly came out to show their opposition. In San Francisco, the SLIU.S., theSpartacus Youth Clubs and the LaborBlack League for Social Defense organized the Revolutionary InternationalistContingent under the slogans: "For classstruggle against U.S. capitalist rulers!Defend Iraq against imperialist attack!Down with the UN starvation blockade!"Our lOa-strong contingent was joined

stand in the tradition of Red Clydesideduring World War I when Scottish engineering workers waged strikes thatcaused major disruption to the war effort.They defied the chauvinist war frenzy,and as today this meant defying Labourpoliticians and union officials. Leaderssuch as John MacLean refused to bow tothe state and insisted on pursuing theclass war during the imperialist war, andwere jailed for this. Later, in May 1920London dockers refused to load the shipSS Jolly George with weapons for waragainst the fledgling Soviet workersstate. The "Hands off Russia" campaignachieved mass support among Britishworkers who, like the working people ofthe whole world, were electrified by theBolshevik October 1917 Revolution. Theleaders of ~ e d C1ydeside, John MacLeanand Willie Gallacher, were revolutionary syndicalists, who led militant strikesthat challenged the capitalist systembut could not overthrow it. From 1914the Bolsheviks insisted on the need tosplit from the social-chauvinist Labourites, to build a revolutionary vanguard

by a number of youth who were attractedby our signs and chants pointing to theneed to break with the Democrats, theother capitalist party of war and racism,and for a revolutionary struggle againstthe capitalist system. The contingentstopped as we reached the entrance to therally site, where our bright red flags withthe internationalist symbol of hammerand four could be seen and our chantsheard by all who passed by. This embarrassed the demonstration organizers inANSWER, the vehicle of the WorkersWorld Party (WWP) for class collaboration. The WWP was fearful of raising anydemands that might alienate their bourgeois liberal coalition partners, who thinkthat war with Iraq is not at the momentin the best interests of U.S. imperialism. ANSWER marshal,s unsuccessfullyattempted to s top our' chants and to ISOlate us from the other demonstrators byholding yellow "caution" tape in, front ofour banner and literature table. It is clearthat these fake socialists want to suppress

The fight against imperialist war is thefight against the capitalist system thatbreeds it. Today this means the international proletariat has a stake in defendingIraq, taking a side with it against U.S.and British imperialism. This perspective is bound up with a political struggleto win the proletariat to consciousnessof the need to be truly independent ofthe capitalist order and to forge a Leninist party in counterposition to Labouritereformism

the views of revolutionaries while ensuring the presence of Democrat after Democrat on the official speaker's platform.Would-be leftists internationally makemuch of their role in building the broad''unity'' of the antiwar movement. But asJames Burnham, a leader of the WorkersParty, then the American Trotskyist organization, argued in his 1936 pamphlet"War and the Workers":"To suppose, therefore, that revolutionistscan work out a common 'program againstwar' with non-revolutionists is a fatal illusion. Any organization based upon sucha program is not only powerless to preventwar; in practice it acts to promote war, bothbecause it serves in its {)wn way to upholdthe system that breeds war, and because itdiverts the attention of its members fromthe real fight against war. There is only oneprogram against war: the program/or revolution-the program of the revolutionaryparty of the workers."The ICL is dedicated to forging the worldparty of socialist revolution that can eradicate the scourge of capitalist imperialismaround the globe.

Defend Iraq Against U.S. Imperialist AHack!Down With UN Starvation Blockade!

Speaker: Amy Rath, Spartacist League,former editor of Women and RevolutionSat., March 8, 4 p.m. Sat., March 15, 3 p.m.Centro del Pueblo Britannia Community Centre474 Valencia St., San Francisco 1661 Napier St.

(16th and Mission BART) (off Commercial Drive)For more informat ion: (510) 8390851 For more information: (604) 6870353BAY AREA VANCOUVER

Saturday, March 15, 5 p.m.University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC)Circle Center (CCC) Room 613, 750 S. Halsted St.CHICAGO For more information: (312) 563=0441

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Defend Iraq.(continued from page 1)the U.S. and Europe. At the same time,the working class and oppressed peoplesthe world over must defend the strugglesof the Iraqi people against the Americaninvaders.The main focus of wrangling betweenthe U.S. and France is over an additionalUN resolution explicitly authorizing animmediate war. Such a resolution isparticularly important to British primeminister- Tony Blair, whose lapdog-likeservility to Bush has provoked massivepopular opposition, indeed revulsion,espt(cially in his own ruling Labour Partyand the trade-union movement. The Bushgang is hoping that France, Russia andChina will abstain rather than exercisetheir veto power in the Securi ty. Council. But even American neocolonies likeMexico are balking at endorsing a U.S.war against Iraq.For 12 years, the self-proclaimed"world's only superpower" has waged aone-sided war against this small, s e m i ~ colonial Near Eastern country. The 1991Desert Slaughter campaign was accompanied by economic sanctions, both "legitimized" by UN resolutions, which haveresulted in the deaths of a million and ahalf Iraqis from malnutrition and disease.The "disarmament" of a relatively industrialized Third World country like Iraqmeans not only the slaughter of tensor hundreds of thousands of people butthe continued devastation of industry andinfrastructure. Chlorine for water purification and pumps for irrigation and sewage are among the wide range of itemsdeemed by Washington to have militaryuse and thus banned by the UN starvation blockade. As Dilip Hiro notes in hisbook Iraq: In the Eye of he Storm (2002):"Due to the broken-down pumps, thesewage spills over into rivers, the sourceof drinking water. And that leads to suchillnesses as typhoid and dysentery, whichreached epidemic proportions in 1997."Also banned as "dual use" items areseeds, pesticide, fertilizer and spare partsfor farm machinery-even textbooks,writing paper and medical vaccines, thelatter because they contain trace amountsof a potential chemical weapon.Now Bush Jr. is intent on finishing thejob begun by his father and continued byhis Democratic successor Bill Clinton.Why? The usual answer, especially onthe left, is that the U.S. wants to getcontrol of Iraq's oil fields, which containthe second-largest petroleum reserves inthe world after Saudi Arabia. "No Bloodfor Oil!" is a main slogan of the antiwarprotests. But the U.S. could buy everybarrel of oil produced by Iraq for a fraction of the projected cost-from $50 to$200 billion-of an invasion and occupation. The men who run Wall Street andWashington want Iraqi blood no less thanthey want Iraqi oil. They want to send amessage, especially to their main imperialist rivals, that they have the militarypower and the will to use it regardless ofwhat the rest of the world says or does.Defend Iraq against imperialist attack!Down with the UN starvation blockade!All U.S.lUN troops out of he Near Eastand Persian Gulfregion!Rifts in the Western ''Alliance''

The recent political fireworks andmutual recriminations over Iraq signaldeeply rooted and long-developing tensions between American imperialism andits main European capitalist rivals anderstwhile anti-Soviet Cold War allies.From the White House and Congress toTV and radio talk shows, the Americanruling class is whipping up popular hostility especially toward France. Prominentpoliticians, Democrats as well as Republicans, are calling for punitive measuresagainst French and German imports. Pentagon generals are talking about reducingU.S. troops stationed in Germany andtransferring them to the now-friendlierclimes of East Europe and the Balkans.The right-wing New York Post ran a doctored photo of the UN Security Councilon its front page depicting the French10

and German delegates as weasels. InNorth Carolina, one restaurant has evenchanged french fries to "freedom