May 7, 2001
The grotesque spectacle being prepared by the Bush administration for the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the man convicted of the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, is part of the rulers’ effort to divide the working class, to erode democratic rights, and to prepare the ground for more attacks on the toilers here and in other countries.
This takes place at a time when opposition to the death penalty is growing and resistance by workers to attacks on unions and the social wage is increasing. The ghoulish march to the death chamber also comes in the wake of protests against street executions by the cops — part and parcel of how the death penalty is used in capitalist society.
Bush is building on the accomplishments of the Clinton administration in dramatically expanding the number of crimes covered by the death penalty.
May 7, 1976
“We bought it, we paid for it,” says presidential candidate Ronald Reagan about the Panama Canal in his appeals for votes. Negotiations over the control of the canal have been going on since 1964, following the uproar when U.S. forces fired into a crowd of high school students who tried to raise their country’s flag in the Canal Zone. The U.S. never “paid for” the canal. It stole it through treachery and threat of brute force.
Today, there are 10,000 U.S. troops in fourteen military bases in Panama. Their mission is to safeguard U.S. wealth and profits throughout Latin America. American soldiers embarked from Panama in 1954 to invade Guatemala, and in 1965 to invade the Dominican Republic.
The people of Panama are indignant that the main natural resource of their country — its geographical location — has been usurped. U.S. Out of the Canal Zone!
May 7, 1951
A Letter to President Truman and the Members of the Congress
By James P. Cannon
Gentlemen:
My purpose in addressing you for the third time since the Korean war began is to present three concrete proposals on foreign policy as an alternative to the policies of the Democratic Truman administration on the one hand and the Republican opposition on the other. Your differences are merely tactical. My differences are fundamental.
American troops have no business in Korea. The way to peace in Asia is to get out and let the peoples of Asia run their own affairs.
My three proposals:
1. Withdraw all American troops from Korea.
2. Recognize the government of New China.
3. Let the issue of war and peace be voted on in a national referendum of the entire American people!