December 21, 1998
Working people should condemn the government probes into the affairs of NY District Council 37 of AFSCME, which has nothing to do with “rooting out corruption” among the union officialdom. This provocative interference into the affairs of the union deepens the employing class’s prerogative to poke into the business of any union and to decide who its leaders should be.
Working people should reject this facade and demand an immediate halt to the government investigation. The internal affairs of a union belong to its members alone.
Corruption in the unions will only be ended through the course of broader labor struggles and an accompanying rise in class consciousness. The unions must be transformed into instruments of struggle and turned away from reliance on “friends” among the capitalist politicians.
December 21, 1973
Two FBI documents made public provide clear proof that government agencies have been secretly used for political persecution.
A 1968 directive from former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover lays out a “counterintelligence program” code-named COINTELPRO, designed “to expose, disrupt, and otherwise neutralize” the Socialist Workers Party, Black organizations, the Communist Party, and “New Left” groups.
This information will strengthen suits now being brought by a variety of groups and individuals against the government violation of democratic rights. This includes the $27 million suit by the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance charging government harassment over the past several years.
The “counterintelligence program” was never designed for gathering information but was strictly for disruption.
December 20, 1948
The most far-reaching and ominous military alliance in history is nearing completion in Washington.
Meeting in secret under auspices of the State Department, top diplomatic and military representatives of Great Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and other countries are drawing up an “Atlantic Pact” which aims at uniting the world’s major capitalist powers under leadership of American imperialism for a vast coalition against the Soviet Union.
The State Department has clamped a news blackout on the talks. The Atlantic Pact is the military capstone to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. The Truman Doctrine constituted a declaration of “cold” war on the Soviet Union. The Marshall Plan pumped life-saving plasma into the drained arteries of Wall Street’s capitalist allies in Europe.