Gary Striker
Montpelier, Vermont  
 
Fascism and big business
Thank you for the informative article about the nature of fascism (“Fascism: A way to maintain capitalist rule” in October 9 issue). I understand you are discussing how employers as a class would use fascism to hold on to power, but I had an experience with an individual boss at my first job at a machine shop in Washington State.

The owner talked a good line about how “the little guy gets messed over” and how he supports “the working man.” The truth was far different.

When somebody came in to be interviewed for a job, the boss would go to his office where the interview took place and uncover a collection of old LP records. At the very front of the records he would place an album of World War II German marching music. The album had pictures of fascist leaders and swastikas. When somebody asked, he would say, “It helps to screen out weirdos and troublemakers.” If someone complained he would not hire them. The shop was made up of all white workers.

This idiot may not have been in any fascist group. But using such symbols to get control defines a fascist.

E.G. Monroe
Piscataway, New Jersey  
 
Immigration prisoners abused
Ruth Mory, the wife of Moisés [Mory], a Peruvian undocumented immigrant being detained since May 2004, sent an e-mail dated Oct. 19, asking for help. In her e-mail, she states that 21 undocumented immigrants are or have been made to stand naked for hours at the Seneca County Jail in Tiffin. The detainees are going through this abuse in the Seneca County Jail gym to try and force them to sign voluntary deportation documents so they can be deported as soon as possible. Bibles and other reading and writing materials have been denied to them including deodorant, according to Mory from West New York, New Jersey.

When contacted last Wednesday, Seneca County Sheriff Thomas Steyer denied the allegations, but says that they use the gym on occasion to house detainees (undocumented immigrants). At the moment, he says that there are at least 63 undocumented immigrants from at least 20 countries.

When asked if Moisés Mory-Lamas was in the county jail, he refused to give out any information about him and referred El Conquistador newspaper to Greg Palmore from U.S. ICE in Detroit.

The Department of Homeland Security in the Ohio region has received our e-mail of inquiry into the allegations and are looking into it. WTOL TV is now requesting to interview Mory’s husband, according to a WTOL-TV Channel 11 representative in Toledo.

H. Nelson Goodson
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The above appeared October 27 in El Conquistador, a weekly bilingual newspaper in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, along with a reprint of the article "Imprisoned for a year without a hearing, unionist fights deportation," from the March 14, 2005, Militant.  
 
 
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