May 15, 2000
When Elián González was found adrift off Florida last November, “the proper procedure would have been to immediately return the child to his country of origin,” Cuban president Fidel Castro told a rally in Havana on May Day. That is how Washington would have proceeded had the child been from anywhere in the world but Cuba.
The U.S. government refused even to respond “to the diplomatic note demanding the return of the child as requested by the father,” the Cuban president said.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service demanded to travel to Cuba to meet with Juan Miguel González in his hometown to determine his fitness as a father. What imperial arrogance! Cuban sovereignty and the Cuban revolution have been the issues underlying Washington’s use and abuse of a six-year-old.
May 16, 1975
Evelyn Reed, feminist, Marxist anthropologist, and author of Woman’s Evolution, will appear with Prof. Walter Goldschmidt at the University of California at Los Angeles for a debate on her feminist challenge to academic anthropology. Goldschmidt is head of the UCLA departments of anthropology and sociology. The debate signals a major recognition among anthropologists that Reed’s work warrants attention.
Woman’s Evolution challenges the anti-evolutionary assumptions currently popular in the field and champions the position that women — through the matriarchal stage of human development — led the transition from animal behavior to human civilization.
The debate is the next leg of a five-month tour. Throughout the school year Reed will be touring major cities in the United States and Canada.
May 15, 1950
Truman’s Supreme Court last week struck a mortal blow at the Bill of Rights by upholding the constitutionality of the Taft-Hartley Act’s “non-communist affidavit” provision. The Loyalty Board and Loyalty Oath have invaded our school system to stifle all semblance of academic freedom.
The Taft-Hartley oath will have the most evil effect on the ranks of the organized labor movement. Under its provisions union members are deprived of the right to elect officials who they feel can best represent their interests regardless of political belief.
With the Supreme Court placing its approval on the Taft-Hartley oath, organized labor will become the target of intensified reaction. Only the firm belief in militant independent working-class methods and the will to engage in struggle to the end can avoid catastrophe.