I returned to Derry for the Bloody Sunday commemoration in January 2000. On the Thursday before the march and rally, the RUC attempted to arrest several young activists who were building the march, leafleting and selling buttons on Ship Quay St., the main shopping area.

Within moments several hundred people rushed to the aid of the arrested youths and liberated them from the cops. A couple of hours of street clashes ensued until the police were pulled back to their barracks.

This year the Royal Ulster Constabulary was conspicuous by its absence. No tommy-gun-toting paramilitary cops hanging out in front of the shops; I noticed they were gone, but can't say I missed them. At the march and rally, security and traffic control were arranged by republican volunteers and community activists, and of course things went fine.

The absence of a cop presence may seem like a small thing, but it is a graphic measure of the political advances made by the Irish freedom fighters and the political space the British have been forced to cede.

Roy Inglee
Newark, Delaware
 
 
Energy crisis I
Doubled or tripled utility bills have started arriving in the mail--on top of already soaring rents and gasoline. This morning one of my younger co-workers at the steel mill here piped up in our breakroom discussion that the government should take over the running of the gas and electric utilities. "These are things that are too valuable to be run for profit by a few rich people," he said. "And it really goes for all vital services like hospitals, which were supposed to provide health care but are only run to make profits." We all mulled this idea over together throughout the day.

It shows how timely the Militant's news coverage on the electricity "crisis" is and the demand that the power companies be nationalized under workers' control. I told my co-worker that the speaker at the Militant Labor Forum the evening before had the same proposal.

Later we came back to the conversation and started discussing other segments of production that should be nationalized, such as food production. The same co-worker said he thought the government should provide farmers with tractors and other expensive items so they don't have to go into debt just to grow food.

In times like these I think of Fidel Castro's comment at the turn of the millennium to the effect that great crises also create great solutions from the working class.

Ellen Haywood
Pittsburg, California
 
 
Energy crisis II
As California state officials take measures to ensure that the burden of the state's energy crisis falls upon working people, they are also using the opportunity to bolster the powers of the police.

Under the banner of "energy conservation," Gov. Gray Davis's bailout of California utilities empowers state and local police forces to fine businesses up to $1,000 per day for what a cop determines is "excessive outdoor lighting" of a shop, store, or workplace.

While up until now the loudest protests against Davis's scheme have come from automobile dealers, who claim that the hundreds of lights illuminating their cars day and night are necessary to protect their merchandise, it is only a matter of time before reports of cops' racist, arbitrary, and violent enforcement of the law come in. The fines will also be a handy weapon available to landlords and real estate sharks against those current occupants of storefronts and other building spaces they deem an obstacle to lucrative "redevelopment" and "gentrification" plans.

Press and government mouthpieces for the capitalists are using the energy crisis to slander working people not only as wasteful, but as criminal as well. The California state assembly is now discussing legislation that would double penalties for crimes committed during blackouts, and inform police in advance of areas where power is to be cut off so that they can flood that area with cops.

Jim Altenberg
Oakland, California

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.

Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
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