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A socialist newsweekly published in the interests of working people
Vol. 64/No. 32August 21, 2000

 
25 and 50 years ago
 
 
August 15, 1975
James Eagle, one of the four Indians the FBI says it was looking for on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation last June, has been charged with the deaths of two FBI agents. The two agents and one Indian were killed in a June 26 shoot-out on the reservation.

Eagle, nineteen, had been the target of an intensive FBI search for several weeks before the shootings. He and his family are well known on the reservation as American Indian Movement supporters.

Eagle had turned himself in on July 9 for the earlier charges. On July 25 he was rearrested, and he now faces two counts of murder.

The charges against Eagle are based on an FBI claim that two prisoners who had been incarcerated with Eagle told agents he had admitted to the shootings.

The complaint filed against Eagle alleges he gave the two prisoners a detailed account of the deaths of the two FBI men, down to the caliber of the weapons used.

However, the version of the deaths detailed in the complaint contradicts what is known about the incident. It parallels instead initial reports put out by the government immediately after the Pine Ridge shooting, most of which later turned out to be false.

Eagle's frame-up is only the latest in a long series of charges the government has been busily fabricating and prosecuting against Indian militants in the past several years. The purpose of these changes is to crush the struggle by Indian people for their rights.  
 
August 14, 1950
Congress has launched a two-way war drive against the American people's standard of living. One thrust aims to impose the overwhelming burden of huge new taxes on the workers. The other seeks to "contain" wages while opening a breach for advancing prices.

The House and Senate are buzzing with schema to soak the workers for most of the $5 billion of "interim" tax increases, that Truman has demanded as the first down-payment on his undeclared war in Korea and expanded militarization program.

Truman's proposals are already heavily weighted in favor of the rich and the war corporations. He has asked for $3-1/2 billion more in personal income taxes, with the rate of increase on the lowest incomes double that of the highest. He did not even mention excess profit taxes.

The Senate has moved to safeguard the rich even more. The Senate Finance Committee eliminated from the proposed tax bill a section providing for a 10 percent withholding tax on dividends. They hold the position that it's all right to impose withholding taxes on workers' wages--but not on a main source of income for the rich. This is just a hint of the kind of tax bill the Democratic-controlled Congress has up its sleeve.

 
 
 
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