Vol. 74/No. 39      October 18, 2010

What the White House proposal boils down to is that the World Bank and individual banks would increase their loans to semicolonial countries by $29 billion over the next three years. In exchange the debtor countries must show they are pursuing "policies for growth."

A different proposal for how to deal with the debt crisis is being discussed throughout Latin America and elsewhere: cancel the debt.

Cuban President Fidel Castro has been leading an international campaign to win support for this proposal.  
 
October 17, 1960
The International Union of Electrical Workers' strike against General Electric is more than a run-of-the-mill dispute. It is the central struggle by organized labor to beat back the anti-union offensive of big business.

At the end of the war in 1945-47 the corporations tried to smash the union movement. They were beaten back by victorious and determined strike actions.

Instead of seeking to break them, the industrialists contrived to housebreak the unions by making small concessions from the superprofits they were raking in. They were assisted in the task by the increasing bureaucratization and conservatism of the top union officials.  
 
October 19, 1935
The flare-up in Ethiopia is rapidly taking on the proportions of a world conflagration. It is now evident that we are confronted not merely with a case of national rape but with a major inter imperialist struggle.

Great Britain and Italy are at each other's throats in a fight for control of the Mediterranean.

Fascist Italy at last embarked upon the conquest of the much heralded new Roman Empire. The Mediterranean is the indispensable gateway to empire. British imperialism, in control of the Mediterranean for generations, must maintain control of the route to her plundered possessions in India, Australia and Far East as a matter of self-preservation.  
 
 
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