June 17, 1996
The statement below was released June 5 by James Harris, Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, and SWP vice-presidential candidate Laura Garza.
Our campaign calls on the labor movement and every democratic-minded human being to organize protests demanding an immediate end to the raids by la migra in New York garment shops, Midwest packinghouses, and other factories across the country.
The goal of the raids by the INS cops is not to stop “illegal” immigration but to create a pariah layer of workers who are forced to accept poverty wages and inhuman working conditions. The bosses seek to use these attacks as a way to drive down the value of labor power of the working class as a whole.
As always when the bosses attempt to deepen divisions among our class they go after those they think will get the least support and solidarity.
June 18, 1971
Every state in the U.S. has laws on the books limiting or denying a woman’s right to abort an unwanted pregnancy. And every day countless women face the terror and the frequently deadly consequences of illegal abortions.
Under the pressure of the burgeoning women’s struggle for the right to abortion, legislatures and courts around the country have recently had to reconsider, and in some cases modify, these statutes.
Most state abortion laws have been on the books since the 1850s. They vary widely in their provisions and prescribed punishments. During the last four years, legislatures in 15 states have liberalized their laws.
While women have begun to win some victories, the battle is far from over. Our struggle for our rights has shown itself to be a powerful one, but our adversaries have shown themselves to be stubborn.
June 15, 1946
Bread — the proverbial staff of life and mainstay in the diet of the poor — this week virtually disappeared from groceries and bakeries. Grain speculators, big flour mill operators and baking corporations, with the aid of the government, imposed a bread famine upon the working people in order to extort still greater profits.
There were breadlines last week in major cities of the richest capitalist nation in the world. Grain speculators and flour monopolists are hoarding huge stocks of wheat and flour in anticipation of rising [government-controlled] prices. A black market in bread has begun to flourish.
Even the pretense that this victimization of the American workers has meant food for the hungry abroad has disappeared. To the misery of hundreds of millions of famine-stricken people around the globe, has been added the imposition of a bread famine at home.