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   Vol. 69/No. 38           October 3, 2005  
 
 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
October 3, 1980
The Iranian revolution is under attack.

The Iraqi regime has launched an invasion of Iran, accompanied by intense bombing of heavily populated Iranian cities.

[President James] Carter said he is “consulting” his allies about possible action in the Persian Gulf. According to the September 25 New York Times, the consultations involve “the formation of an international naval force” to take “preventive action” to keep the Gulf and Strait open.

The fleet would consist of warships from the U.S., Britain, and France.

The U.S. threats are not intended to deter Iraq, which started the war. They are aimed directly at Iran.

Washington’s moves and the escalating military assault by Iraq’s rulers are directed at the gains that Iranian workers and farmers have won since the shah was toppled in February 1979.  
 
October 3, 1955
The anger of the Negro people over Mississippi’s brazen acquittal of the fiendish lynchers of 14-year-old Emmett Till boiled over in massive protest meetings, such as have not been seen for decades, in the major cities of the country.

The tremendous response, which everywhere far surpassed the expectations of the meetings’ sponsors, showed the depths to which the Till lynching has stirred the Negro people. The thousands standing in the streets were not merely listening to speeches; they were physically demonstrating to the racist rulers of the South, to the ruling class of the U.S., and to world opinion their wrath over the Till lynching. For this atrocious child murder and its endorsement by the government of Mississippi epitomizes the brutality and mockery of justice that constitutes America’s Jim Crow system.  
 
October 1, 1930
The outcome of the German elections has been a violent—though not unexpected—political shake-up, an indication of the rapid shifting of class forces that has been taking place for some time. The enormous Fascist victory and the quite substantial gains of the Communist Party are only the beginning of a radical trend which German politics will follow in the days to come.

We may yet witness many vacillations in the degree of influence of the Fascists and the C.P.G. [German Communist Party] during the course of developments, but with the increasing enslavement of the German proletariat through unemployment, taxation and wage cuts; with the progressive impoverishment and declassing of the small bourgeoisie due to the ruthless attempt of the capitalist class to force the burden of the reparations on the lower classes, the dilemma: Fascism or Communism, is definitely on the order of the day in Germany.  
 
 
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