Vol. 80/No. 18      May 9, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

May 17, 1991
The devastation that is unfolding in Bangladesh — where at least 125,000 have died and tens of thousands more will — is being portrayed as a “natural” disaster that nothing much can be done about. This is false. The toilers of this flood-stricken country are suffering a social disaster produced by capitalist relations on the land and exploitation of semicolonial countries by the imperialist banks and lending agencies.

Millions of toilers in immediate danger of deadly diseases and the 10 million made homeless are denied massive aid needed from imperialist countries. Vast numbers of the dead could have been saved if a fraction of the billions spent by Washington and its allies on the slaughter of the Iraqi people had been used to aid the victims. Yet Washington has so far contributed only $125,000.

May 9, 1966
WATTS, Calif. — Philip Bently Brooks, Negro father of four, was freed April 26, after a jury declared him innocent in the shooting death of a deputy sheriff during the Watts uprising of last August.

Deputy Ronald Ludlow was killed during the disorders when the shotgun of his partner Deputy William Lauer discharged, striking him in the stomach. He was the only white person killed in the Watts revolt.

Brooks, Joseph Lavine Jr., and Harold Potts were driving in Watts when approached by the deputies. After one deputy shot the other, the three Negroes were dragged from their car, beaten, carted to the jail section of the county hospital and charged with murder, although none had a weapon or touched the trigger that fired the fatal shot.

May 10, 1941
LONDON — The Labour “Leaders” in the War Cabinet would like to believe the working class is solidly behind the imperialist war and that they acquiesce in the repressive measures. Figures in the “Ministry of Labour Gazette,” comparing industrial disputes in 1940 and 1939 tell a different tale.

Government legislation has declared strikes illegal, and strikers can be charged with sabotage. In spite of this there were 914 strikes in 1940 involving 300,500 workers as compared with 940 in 1939 involving 337,300 workers.

As the trade union bureaucrats frown on all strikes in this “period of national crisis,” the leadership of these strikes has devolved on the rank-and-file committees and especially on the Shop Steward movement, which is coming to the fore as the leaders of militant struggle.  
 
 
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