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Vol. 73/No. 2      January 19, 2009

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
January 20, 1984
On Dec. 27, 1983, U.S. Steel Corp. announced a devastating new wave of plant closings and permanent layoffs. The nation’s largest steel corporation will cut its steelmaking capacity 16 percent by closing eight plants completely and cutting back operations at many others. Some 15,400 steelworkers will lose their jobs for good.

The impact of the decision will be widely felt, as some 30 different U.S. Steel operations will be affected. In addition to the toll on steelworkers and their families, entire cities and towns that are economically dependent on the steel industry will be hard hit.

Sharp international competition in the steel industry is an important fact in the crisis of profits that U.S. Steel and others are trying to solve at steelworkers’ expense.  
 
January 19, 1959
The Belgian government is slated to issue a policy statement today promising some form of eventual “self rule” for the Belgian Congo. Meanwhile it is moving swiftly in an effort to crush the long-smoldering Congolese independence movement that dramatically broke into the open Jan. 5 when colonial police forcibly broke up a native political rally in the capital city of Leopoldville. Mass unemployment and the recent conference at Accra calling for freedom and a United States of Africa gave powerful impetus to the demand for an end to colonial rule.

The police attack on the rally, under pretext it was “unauthorized,” brought two days of bitter demonstration and battle. Crying “Belgians go home,” the Congolese threw up street barricades against the machine guns of the colonial forces.  
 
January 20, 1934
There is a Fascist movement in America. It is small. It is inconspicuous. It lacks popular protagonists. It has no spokesmen in the accredited capitalist press. It is unknown to most American workers. It does not possess state power and is not represented in any governmental office.

But it is growing and it disposes of finances, freely given from some undivulged source.

To our knowledge, the outstanding Fascist organization in the United States is the Silver Shirts of America with headquarters at Asheville, North Carolina. The literature and form of organization of this outfit, the men in the leadership and the people in back of it, give us the impression that the Silver Shirts are no fly-by-night gathering like the late but unlamented Khaki Shirts of Philadelphia.  
 
 
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