Truckers protest

Recently two teams of supporters of the Militant went out to truck stops in the Des Moines area. Truckers, most of whom are owner-operators, were very interested in the protests that have occurred on the East Coast as a result of the recent increases in fuel costs. Most of the truckers we talked to owned their own rigs but worked for one company.

One told us that if it weren't for the income his wife was bringing in he would not be able to continue in this job. Another, who lives in Kansas but works for a company in Iowa, was sympathetic to the protests. He told us that he had participated in a strike of truckers in Houston, Texas, in the early 1990s and that they had won their demands by shutting down the port there.

It seems as though the situation of owner-operators is similar to family farmers who contract out to big producers. This is especially true for hog and chicken farmers who take all the risks of production but who are beholden to the processors like Smithfield, IBP, and Perdue.

Several truckers pointed to the actions of French truckers who set up blockades across the country on January 31. An operator from Minnesota said, "We really need a national strike like they had in France but we're kind of a hard group to organize."

Edwin Fruit 
Des Moines, Iowa  
 

Rural unrest in China

Militant readers may be interested in an item from the February 9 issue of the South China Morning Post. According to columnist Willy Wo-Lap Lam, an internal assessment by the Chinese Communist Party counted more than 2,000 "riots" and "violent demonstrations" against rural authorities in 1999. Several million participated in peaceful rural protests, such as sit-ins and petitions to Beijing.

Wo-Lap reported that estimated rural joblessness is 200 million, out of a rural population of 900 million. He termed it a "time bomb that could explode with disastrous consequences."

The full article is available for a nominal sum at www.scmp.com. (Use the site's "advanced" archive search, with the byline and date.)

Dave Morrow 
Oakland, California  
 

On anti-immigrant rally

The article in your March 13 edition about a recent anti-immigrant rally involving [ex-Klan leader] David Duke ("Residents oppose racist, anti-immigrant rally") gave a good sense of the opposition that emerged spontaneously in the area to the racist demonstration.

As the article notes, the major Hispanic and civil-rights organizations directed their energies toward discouraging people from showing up, based on the false hope that by ignoring the racist mobilization--which in this case represented the early stages of an effort to organize a sustained anti-immigrant campaign--the problem would disappear.

Thus, the unorganized counter-demonstration was a very positive example of the willingness of broad sections of the working-class, immigrant, and youth populations to fight racist scapegoating, as well as an example of the importance of the battle of political ideas and programs among fighters for social justice.

John Cox 
Carrboro, North Carolina  
 

Prison study group

I am incarcerated in the Southport Correctional Facility. This is a Special Housing Unit in which we are all locked down 24 hours a day with the exception of one hour a day exercise in a single-man dog cage these neo-Nazis call the yard. We are unable to earn prison wages as we are not allowed to work, and lack funds. We do have an informal study group in need of progressive literature and a subscription to the Militant would be of great help. In struggle.

A prisoner 
Pine City, New York  
 

Inmate needs 'PM'

I request a prisoner's subscription to the Spanish-language Perspectiva Mundial. I am having someone else write this letter for me. English is not my native language. I am currently incarcerated, and therefore indigent. Some prisoner here exposed me to several copies of the Militant and I enjoyed the coverage of the events in my native Cuba. I would like to follow this coverage in Spanish. I would greatly appreciate if your office would begin sending me a prisoner's subscription to Perspectiva Mundial.

A prisoner 
Hagerstown, Maryland  

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