Vol. 80/No. 31      August 22, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

August 30, 1991

Encouraged by the U.S. government, right-wing antiabortion forces throughout the United States have mobilized in Wichita, Kansas, to deal a setback to women’s right to abortion by physically blocking access to abortion clinics in that city. Every working person, youth, supporter of women’s rights, and supporter of democratic rights has a stake in beating back this challenge.

Operation Rescue, the organization spearheading the rightist assault, has announced it sees Wichita as a test; it plans to mobilize its supporters to launch similar attacks in other cities.

The labor movement has a responsibility to respond to the challenge in Wichita and the Justice Department’s complicity with it. Labor should throw its weight and numbers behind any protest actions to support the right of women to choose and to organize a countermobilization to Operation Rescue.

August 22, 1966

Thirty-five thousand fighting airline mechanics have demonstrated that despite government strike-breaking efforts, determined, militant workers can win at least a share of what they are justly entitled to.

The striking members of the International Association of Machinists have clearly made a point that the rest of the labor movement should give careful thought to. As the Vietnam war presses the inflationary drive, the employers and government are determined to put the cost of the war on the backs of the working people. This determination is expressed in Johnson’s loaded wage guideline policy intended to freeze and roll back real wages by limiting pay raises to increases in productivity.

To force this kind of a wage freeze on the workers, the administration has been pushing for new legislation to curb the unions.

August 23, 1941

Roosevelt and Churchill’s conference was the first Supreme War Council of Anglo-American imperialism. Who is deceived by the ridiculous attempt to pass off the meeting as a “Peace Conference”? The presence of the Commanders-in Chief and military staff heads, Generals and Admirals of both powers, as well as the secrecy enveloping the conference, its deliberations and decisions, unmistakably establish its war-like character.

What hypocrisy and impudence for the rulers of the British Empire to proclaim “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they shall live,” while refusing 350,000,000 inhabitants of India the least democratic rights! Nor will Roosevelt, who failed to abolish “fear and want” in the U.S. during nine years of peace, eliminate “fear and want” from the world by as many years of war.  
 
 
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