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Vol. 71/No. 26      July 2, 2007

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
July 2, 1982
The U.S. Navy has ordered a task force of 50 warships in the eastern Mediterranean to be ready for possible “rescue” operations in Lebanon.

This coincides with the Israeli regime’s decision to break its latest “cease-fire”—the June 22 one—as Israeli planes, tanks, and artillery attacked Syrian positions just south of the Beirut-Damascus highway on June 23.

All signs point to a decision by the Zionist regime to go into western Beirut in an attempt to drive out the thousands of Palestinian combatants who are lodged there.

Israeli armed forces have been regularly bombarding Palestinian refugee camps and civilian neighborhoods in western Beirut.  
 
July 1, 1957
The Negro people in the South are determined to win the right to vote. They are organized and are proceeding with mass actions to insure this right. Their determination and their confidence that the fight will be won is the basic reason that civil rights has become a national issue during this session of Congress.

In Tuskegee, Alabama, the Negro citizens have organized a mass protest against a move to deprive them of the vote. The State Legislature has passed a bill reducing the city limits of Tuskegee to exclude all Negro residential areas.

The Negroes responded with an economic boycott and mass protest meetings.  
 
July 2, 1932
William Z. Foster, Communist candidate for president of the U.S. who was arrested on July 28th in Los Angeles, while attempting to speak in a protest demonstration, was released the next day on the grounds of lack of evidence to charge him with criminal syndicalism.

The meeting at which Foster was arrested was called to protest the prohibition of a meeting where he was billed to speak and which was to protest the shooting of an unemployed worker by Captain Hynes police thugs.

Hynes had to let Foster go for the reason that he wanted to “keep peace in the city.” The real reason is of course that it is not so easy to arrest presidential candidates even though they may happen to be Communists.  
 
 
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