Vol. 76/No. 19 May 14, 2012
May 15, 1987
On May 5 the first phase of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 went into effect.“Control” is the relevant word in the title. “Reform” was included to prettify it, to suggest an improvement in existing immigration law. But any suggestion that it’s a change for the better as far as working people are concerned is a fraud. The law’s purpose is to institutionalize within the U.S. working class an entire sector with no rights, a sector of “illegal” pariahs.
Those branded illegal will continue to be subjected to ripoffs by rent-gouging landlords, E-Z credit merchants, bribe-hungry agents, and cops.
The undocumented are not “aliens.” They are an integral part of the U.S. working class. The blows aimed at them divide working people and strengthen the hand of the employers and their government.
May 14, 1962
“Seven innocent unarmed black men were shot down in cold blood by Police Chief William Parker’s Los Angeles city police. One … is now dead, murdered in cold blood by police bullets; another is paralyzed; five others are hospitalized from bullet wounds and are also in serious condition.”These statements were made by Malcolm X, second in command of the national Muslim movement, who flew to Los Angeles after police opened fire on a group of Muslims outside their temple near midnight April 27.
Malcolm X pointed out that if today the police are shooting down the Muslims, tomorrow they will be shooting down other groups of Negroes. Malcolm X claimed that Muslims are never armed and never provoke a quarrel but are prepared to defend themselves if attacked.
May 1, 1937
The heartening success of the rank and file pluggers of the San Francisco branch at selling Labor Action upon the waterfront and in the workers’ districts demonstrates once again the truism that a revolutionary press is built by the ordinary rank and filers with enough brass anatomy to get up in the cold city dawn to shout the headlines of a workers’ newspaper on the streets.Heroic ability to sacrifice for a revolutionary press—that is a prime quality of the workers who are building Labor Action. They understand the need for a West Coast organ to express revolutionary socialism. Their contributions are heavy blows against the capitalist exploitation which oppresses them.
To those sterling comrades who were born in the poverty of the working class and who understand the task of achieving socialism, Labor Action this May Day salutes you.
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