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Vol. 75/No. 34      September 26, 2011

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 

September 26, 1986
Under the pretext of conducting a “national crusade” against drugs, the Reagan administration and Congress have launched a gigantic attack on the Bill of Rights. On September 11 the House of Representatives passed the Omnibus Drug Enforcement, Education, and Control Act of 1986.

The act will increase penalties for a wide range of drug-related offenses and provide more funds for various police agencies and for prison construction.

The most serious attacks on the Constitution are contained in the amendments. These include: Provision for the death penalty in drug-related murder cases. Use of the military to provide “continuous aerial radar coverage of the southern border of the United States.” A modification of the exclusionary rule against illegal search and seizure.  
 
September 25, 1961
The press is trying to make out that the conflict between the Cuban government and the Roman Catholic hierarchy is religious persecution. This is simply not so. No one in Cuba—Catholic, Protestant or Jew—has been, or is being, persecuted by the Castro regime for religious beliefs.

The regime is deporting prelates and priests because of their counter-revolutionary political activities. Those priests who have not joined or collaborated with the counter-revolutionary, often terroristic, networks of opponents of workers’ Cuba are not being molested. Indeed, some have the affection and trust of the revolutionary masses and their government.

The role of the Roman Catholic hierarchy as the bulwark of counter-revolution is an old story in Latin America.  
 
December 26, 1936
The agreement between the San Diego County Vegetable Growers’ Ass’n and the local American, Mexican and Filipino Agricultural Workers’ Unions, the result of last season’s militant Celery Strike, ended in August of this year. The demands put forward by the Unions are based on 40¢ per hour minimum wage, 90 percent Union Labor in the industry, and the eight-hour day.

Several weeks ago over 3,000 bankrupt farmers from the drought areas of Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc., and their families were shipped into the Imperial Valley to provide cheap labor for the pea harvest. However, a killing frost has put about 2,000 of these out of work and many of them are being shipped to the San Diego area. The growers are lodging them in camps designed to be inaccessible to union organizers.  
 
 
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