October 26, 1998
The most effective way for workers, farmers and other democratic-minded people to respond to the killing of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard by antigay thugs is to join in public protests against this crime and demand full civil rights for gays and lesbians.
As the instability of the world capitalist system increases, social tensions and political polarization continue to mount. Attorney General Janet Reno has stepped up calls for new “hate crimes” laws in the wake of Shepard’s killing.
Working people should oppose these laws. Every move to give greater powers to the cops and courts will be used against the working class and its organizations. No additional legislation is needed to make assault, battery and murder illegal. Officials shed crocodile tears over Shepard, while they demand more restrictions on democratic rights.
October 26, 1973
New information has come out of South Africa on the struggle of Black miners at the Anglo American Corporation’s Western Deep Levels gold mine. The miners’ protests, which led to the murder of eleven workers by police last month, have won a promise of major wage increases for Anglo American’s 120,000 African employees.
The struggle is part of an upsurge of actions by Black workers and students in South Africa and Namibia. The government has found it difficult to crush these struggles through repression. This is because of the power of Black workers in industry, more and more in skilled and semiskilled positions. The government has been forced to grant some concessions.
A sign of the breadth of the struggle was the announcement of a second wage increase before the end of the year.
October 25, 1948
The debate between Farrell Dobbs, presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, and Norman Thomas, presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, held in New York Oct. 17, was an important event in the 1948 election. The audience was estimated at 1,000.
Dobbs sought to prove that only the socialist program of Marxism can lead humanity from poverty, fascism and imperialist war to peace, freedom and abundance. Thomas praised the democracy he sees in America: “It is a capitalist country in which the workers can win a great deal by pretty orderly processes.”
Dobbs ended the debate, “Norman Thomas doesn’t believe that the workers have the power to make a revolution and that’s why he falters and leans back on the American State Department. He’s got no faith in the working class. We have unbounded faith.”