Vol. 80/No. 9      March 7, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

March 8, 1991

Working people and defenders of women’s rights should oppose the attempts by numerous state governments to push back and curtail a woman’s right to choose abortion.

Participants at the recent Young Feminist Conference registered the scope of this assault and pointed to the need to defend abortion rights through visible protests.

The fact that more than 700 people, most of them young, attended the conference is one reflection of the potential to fight the attacks and push them back.

Gains made in limiting access to abortion not only constitute a setback for women, but the working class as a whole.

March 7, 1966

The purge launched by Indonesia’s reactionary generals in their efforts to crush the Indonesian Communist Party has virtually drenched the country in blood. Consider the report in the Jan. 29 London Economist:

“Estimates of the number of killings since October range from 87,000 — officially admitted by the president — to gossip of 350,000. Ghoulish rumours of log-jams of bodies in the rivers of Solo and Malan have reached Jakarta but there is no official confirmation or denial. Army sources estimate the deaths of between 185,000 and 250,000. In the East Java district of Malan a welfare organization has registered 400,000 children orphaned since October.”

March 8, 1941

Militant strike action has brought victory to the workers at the huge Lackawanna plant of Bethlehem Steel. It shows that the workers, through militant action, can defend their rights against the whole caboodle of bosses.

This victory, as well as the Allis-Chalmers strike, the International Harvester strike, and many other battles now going on in the war industries, show that the workers have not been overly impressed by the patriotic ballyhoo of the bosses. These strikes show that millions of workers have already grasped the fundamental idea that the government’s war preparations are no reason why the workers should forego their right to strike to improve their conditions.  
 
 
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