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   Vol. 69/No. 37           September 26, 2005  
 
 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
September 26, 1980
MIAMI—The Democratic and Republican parties alike are ignoring the needs of the Black community, Andrew Pulley charged during his two-day tour here. The Socialist Workers presidential candidate hit hard on the issues of jobs and police brutality as he spoke at a campus meeting, over a popular radio call-in show, and at a campaign rally.

Both Ronald Reagan and James Carter “support a ‘law and order’ that results in the murder of Blacks in the streets from one end of this country to another,” Pulley told the campaign rally.

“From Birmingham to Boston, from Minneapolis to Miami, from Portland to Philadelphia, all the cops have to do is claim the comb in the bother’s pocket looked like a gun. Or that he looked like he might be dangerous. Or that while the cops had the brother on the ground his gun accidentally went off.”

This area has seen bitter confirmation of Pulley’s words. Shortly before the socialist candidate arrived, a federal grand jury voted not to indict the Hialeah cop who killed Black youth Randy Heath one year ago.  
 
September 26, 1955
The recent eight-day strike of the independent International Longshoreman’s Association against the bi-state New York-New Jersey Waterfront Commission was an event of great symptomatic significance. It was a political strike against government interference in the unions.

The dock workers learned to rely more and more on their own solidarity in action on the picket line and less and less upon capitalist politicians, union bureaucrats and “impartial” priests and government arbitrators. This lesson was driven home over and over again. When the bi-state Waterfront Commission was established by law for the alleged purpose of abolishing “crime” on the waterfront, the longshoremen were suspicious. And with good reason.

From the beginning, crime and racketeering on the waterfront were part of the “system.” Corrupt capitalist politicians, union labor skates and the shipping bosses were its main props. The dockers were its main victims.  
 
October 1, 1930
The unemployment situation in this period of depression following the period of overproduction and crisis of American capitalism brings forth a problem of greater magnitude than the unemployment accompanying the classical crisis of capitalism in its growth stage.

Unemployment is the most pressing immediate problem of the American workers and every class conscious organization, reform group and the capitalist vanguard is vitally concerned with its solution; the working class with one aim and the capitalist class with the opposite aim.

The aim of the workers vanguard is to utilize this issue to strengthen the position of the working class and consolidate the ideological change taking place in the ranks of the workers. The aim of the capitalist class is to stem the tide, throw out enough crumbs to prevent this ideological crystallization and maintain their tottering equilibrium a little longer.  
 
 
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