BY SARAH KATZ
CHICAGO - At the Mexican Day Parade in Chicago, supporters
of the Socialist Workers campaign met a group of students from
Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, who were interested
in hearing from socialist candidates. They set up a meeting
for me to come speak to their group, the Left Student Network.
Eleven students attended the September 28 event.
I opened the discussion with brief remarks about how communists see the world today, starting with the accelerating resistance of workers and young people to the crisis of capitalism.
One student raised that he thinks the main problem in the world today is the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He pointed to the apparent financial control that it has over developing nations. We discussed how the IMF is one of the tools of capitalism, not a power in and of itself. It is used by the biggest banks of the imperialist countries to keep the so-called "emerging nations" in continued debt and suck ever greater wealth out of these countries into the coffers of world finance capital.
Another student asked if my co-workers know about my campaign and what their reaction is. I described how the campaign brochure had been passed around the lunch table one day. Most of those co-workers are from Yugoslavia and are excited to see a socialist running for office.
We also talked about the hypocrisy of the U.S. government, claiming to be fighting "terrorism" by bombing Sudan and Afghanistan. One student pointed out that the so-called terrorist training bases in Afghanistan were built by the U.S. government when they supported militias in Afghanistan against Moscow and the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
After further discussion I asked the group if they were interested in participating in activities together with the Socialist Workers campaign. I pointed to the upcoming Militant Labor Forums happening at the Chicago Pathfinder Bookstore, the current strike by coal miners in southern Illinois and the September 11 rally they were building, as well as the tour this month of Norberto Codina, editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, a Cuban magazine of arts and culture.
When the meeting ended several students stayed to continue the discussion and look at the literature table of Pathfinder books we brought with us. One of the organizers of the event is interested in having us back at the campus to set up a literature table and have a class on a Pathfinder book.
Back in Chicago, through the Militant subscription drive, we've met a number of young people who are interested in Che Guevara. They have recently read one of the books written by Jon Lee Anderson or Jorge Castañeda on Che Guevara, and are curious about their descriptions of Che's political life and character. This prompted the topic of the Militant Labor Forum for October 9, "Che Guevara: Myth vs. Reality." Betsey Stone, one of the panelists, took up a number of the myths and slanders both books have helped to perpetuate, including the allegation that Fidel Castro sent Che to die in Bolivia. In conjunction with this, the YS has organized classes on the Pathfinder pamphlet Socialism and Man in Cuba and will continue with the article "Socialism: a viable option" by Cuban communist José Ramón Balaguer in New International no 11.
Sarah Katz is a YS member in Chicago and Socialist Workers candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Illinois.
BOSTON - Some 40 supporters of women's right to choose abortion gathered here October 4 to protest the so-called "Respect Life March," a benefit march for area anti-choice groups, including Operation Rescue Boston.
The protest action was a kickoff for a month of activities, sponsored by the Abortion Access Project, demanding access to an abortion for all women who want one.
Those protesting the misnamed Respect Life March honored the people who have died as a result of anti-choice policies and violence. Signs and chants highlighted the real price paid in women's lives that attacks on abortion rights cost. Protesters held signs which read: "Over 200,000 women died from illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade." Roe v. Wade is the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States in 1973. The ruling was a result of the women's liberation movement in the early 1970s.
"Spring Adams was murdered by parental consent laws," and "Rosie Jiménez was murdered by the Hyde Amendment, October 3, 1977" were other signs held by protesters. Though abortion had been made legal in 1973, Jiménez died at the hands of a back- alley abortionist because the 1976 Hyde Amendment cut off federal Medicaid funding for safe abortions.
One of the most popular chants among the protesters, young women in their majority, was: "Right to life, your name's a lie. You don't care if women die!"
The anti-choice walk drew several thousand marchers from throughout Massachusetts who gathered in the public commons before marching through the city in contingents with banners, many from high school and university student clubs and churches.
One of the pro-choice protesters, Rebecca Gerstein, said that she was there because a woman's right to choose abortion is a cause that she believes in. Of the march she said, "It's horrifying to see that many people. I wish we had more. I think what will defend women's rights in the long term is more people."
María Guerrero told the Militant as she was purchasing a copy of the paper that she was there because she "was sick of just sitting around and saying I was pro-choice, and not doing anything."
Upcoming events in Boston to mark October as "abortion access action month" include a mobilized pro-choice presence in front of the Planned Parenthood Clinic when Operation Rescue is demonstrating there; a film premiere about the ongoing struggle for safe, legal abortion in Pensacola, Florida, after the 1995 slayings of abortion providers there; a nursing students for choice conference; and a rally co- sponsored by the Association of Haitian Women to demand health- care access (including abortion) for all women.
Elena Tate is a Young Socialists member in Boston.