Vol. 80/No. 5      February 8, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

February 8, 1991

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a massive outpouring of opposition to the criminal war unleashed by Washington against the people of Iraq, more than 125,000 people converged in this city January 26. It was by far the largest national demonstration against the war and followed by one week a January 19 protest of some 25,000 people here.

Simultaneous antiwar marches were held in many other U.S. cities, Canada, Britain, Germany, New Zealand, and elsewhere. The action here, and a West Coast march in San Francisco, mobilized a broad range of organizations and individuals, showing the potential of the antiwar movement to mobilize opposition in the streets to the slaughter the U.S. government has opened.

Protesters began to assemble in the mall on the west side of the U.S. Capitol, where Congress, less than two weeks earlier, voted to go to war against Iraq.

February 7, 1966

[President] Johnson’s decision to resume bombing of north Vietnam marks a new stage in the escalation of the Vietnam war. It demonstrates conclusively that the so-called “peace offensive” was nothing but a maneuver intended to lull antiwar sentiment in the United States and the world. Even during the “peace offensive,” the U.S. escalated the war in the south through intensified bombings of villages and homes with jellied gasoline fire bombs, a massive troop buildup, and large-scale troop actions. Johnson now intends to intensify the war still further in both north and south Vietnam, sending ever greater numbers of American boys to kill and be killed in this unjust and counterrevolutionary war.

We urge everyone who is against this war to speak out and act now to oppose this new escalation.

February 8, 1941

ELIZABETH, N.J., Feb. 2 — Another big open-shop corporation has been set back on its heels by union strike action. 1600 workers of the Phelps Dodge Copper Products Corporation, employed in the Baywater plant here, return to work tomorrow morning after the company acceded to the strikers’ demands that an NLRB election be held in the plant immediately and that the company agree to negotiate a union contract.

The Baywater plant was shut down last Friday morning, after the company refused to consider union demands for opening of contract negotiations.

Company officials were howling that 30 million dollars in war contracts are being worked on in the Baywater plant. In addition they claimed that the strike tied up production of orders to other manufacturers with war contracts totaling over $200 million.  
 
 
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