March 8, 1999
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Some 150 people marched here Feb. 9 to protest the Security Intelligence Service amendment bill now before Parliament. The SIS is the government’s domestic spy organization. The purpose is to give SIS agents the “power to enter places, and, in appropriate cases, to install a device or remove material from a place.” It also retrospectively legalizes break-ins that have already occurred.
On July 13, 1996, SIS agents broke into the home of Aziz Choudry, a spokesperson for the anti-free trade group GATT Watchdog. The break-in was discovered by university lecturer David Small, who stumbled on the agents in Choudry’s house and noted down their license number as they escaped.
Small called for a review of the SIS. “Individual civil liberties are being removed and the powers of the state strengthened,” he declared.
March 8, 1974
At his Feb. 25 news conference President Nixon announced that the energy crisis was over. Meanwhile, the lines at gas stations are growing longer across the country. Those forced to rely on cars for transportation sit long hours waiting for gas. On top of the fuel situation, prices climb steadily in the supermarkets.
With its eyes on the growing indignation of the American people, the Senate approved the Emergency Energy Bill. Sen. Henry Jackson, sponsor of the bill, said, “We are having fist fights in gas stations and we will soon have riots in the streets unless we pass this legislation.” Other senators, and “experts” who testified before congressional committees, said it would lower gas prices by only one or two cents.
Working people must look elsewhere than the Democratic and Republican parties for a program to answer the energy crisis.
March 7, 1949
Liberal Democrats, backed by Northern Democratic big-city machines hungry for the Negro vote, forced into the 1948 election platform a plank offering glittering promises to the Negro people. Truman was no sooner elected than he smoked the pipe of peace with the Negro-hating Dixiecrats. Congress has been in session for two months and the administration has not yet introduced a civil rights legislative program.
The Truman Democrats want a compromise with the Southerners, not a showdown struggle in support of the Negro people. No good can come to the Negro people from such a policy.
It is therefore necessary to find another medium to carry on the political struggle for civil rights. That need dictates the organization of an independent mass party based on an alliance of the Negro people and the whole working class.