Vol. 77/No. 20 May 27, 2013
May 27, 1988
In a reactionary blow to the constitutional right to privacy, the Supreme Court ruled May 16 that once you put your garbage out for collection, the cops have free reign to root through it.According to the court majority, such intrusive actions do not violate your Fourth Amendment right not to be subjected to illegal search.
“Trash covers” — as the cops call their investigations of garbage — are standard operating procedures in attempts to disrupt the political activities of individuals and organizations that the government doesn’t agree with.
The decision to sanction “trash covers” is a blow to the right of working people to be left alone free from government interference. And it’s a reminder that unless we fight to extend, strengthen, and defend our rights, we will lose them.
May 27, 1963
May 22 — The events in Birmingham have precipitated a new wave of mass demonstrations in cities across the South, including Knoxville and Nashville, Tenn., Greensboro and Durham, N.C., and Cambridge, Maryland. In addition, the well organized, militant boycott movement in Jackson, Miss., is preparing “intense direct action” if desegregation is not begun “forthwith” in Mississippi’s biggest city.In Cambridge, Maryland, a fighting leadership and a militant local rank and file, aided by student demonstrators from several states, have won a significant victory. The latest round of demonstrations began six weeks ago and were stepped up May 13. The jails were bulging as a result of the “jail until victory” policy of demonstrators led by Miss Gloria Richardson, chairman of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee.
May 28, 1938
Memorial Day marks the first anniversary of the police-murder of ten workers and the wounding of many others in South Chicago during the strike against the Republic Steel Company.The dramatic newsreel of the events gave a shocking and all-too-familiar picture of a peaceful picketing demonstration of striking workers being attacked with guns and tear gas bombs by a bestial police force. The private and public thugs of capital, those in civilian clothes and those in uniform, are a direct and brutal threat not only to the rights of the workers, but to their very lives.
The only defense of the workers and their rights is self-defense. The only one labor can rely upon is itself! The only shield that labor can create against strikebreaking thugs, strikebreaking police—the assassins of the workers—is a WORKERS’ DEFENSE GUARD, organized by the masses themselves.
Front page (for this issue) |
Home |
Text-version home