This past week U.S. president George Bush took another step along the lines carved out by his predecessor William Clinton with the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security. The further militarization of the country and ability to use U.S. military forces at home is a long sought after goal of the ruling class. They are preparing for big class battles with working people that they know are coming down the road.

In both the United States and United Kingdom, the superwealthy ruling minority and their political parties will try to convince workers, farmers, and youth to "sacrifice" for the war effort. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stated that "more people may be lost," signaling the rulers' willingness for workers and farmers in uniform to get killed in combat. The bosses will push speedup and set aside safety practices won by workers in struggle, resulting in more deaths on the job, such as those of miners in Alabama. Thousands of other workers and farmers will lose their lives and limbs to the bosses' relentless speedup drive.

The notion that "we" need to "sacrifice" is being used to justify restrictions on the job, increased security checks on workers at airports or other "sensitive" industries, unlimited detention of immigrants, layoffs done under "war emergency" conditions so employers can get around contractual obligations to workers, pressure to settle strikes and contract struggles to "back the war effort," and moves to deport people based on their political beliefs and associations.

Most of all, the bosses want to do everything in their power to limit the ability of workers to organize, discuss, and mobilize in their own interests.

This week's issue of the Militant contains a number of examples of working people and youth continuing their resistance and refusing to subordinate their class interests to the imperialist war drive and assaults at home, whether they be the working people protesting the acquittal of the cop who killed Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, grocery store workers on strike in New Jersey standing up to war pressure to maintain their picket line, or meat packers and miners refusing to sacrifice their lives and limbs to the bosses' profit drive.

Building on this resistance to the imperialist war at home, workers and farmers can join in demanding: End the imperialists' war against the Afghan people! Stop the assault on workers' rights!
 
 
Related articles:
Imperialist forces move to border of Afghanistan: Stop the war drive!
Did September 11 mark 'new stage of world history'?
 
 
 
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