August 30, 1999
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan — An estimated 1,200 farmers organized convoys of farm vehicles, tractors, combines, and grain trucks along Saskatchewan highways Aug. 2, causing traffic delays of several hours. Farmers wanted to draw attention to the severe crisis hitting agriculture in this province and demand action from the federal and provincial governments.
Federal government statistics show that this will be the worst year for farm income since statistics were first recorded in 1926. Federal government cutbacks have meant that farm subsidies have been slashed on typical Saskatchewan crops.
Scott Steeves from the Gainsborough area said, “I have no money. My off-farm job doesn’t seem to support the farm anymore. I won’t go down without making a lot of noise.” Farmers demonstrated again in the streets of Regina, the provincial capital, Aug. 6.
August 16, 1974
MINNEAPOLIS — A broad spectrum of prominent Twin Cities movement activists has demanded that Mayor Albert Hofstede and the Minneapolis City Council open up the city’s police files for an independent investigation into charges of police surveillance and harassment of political groups.
The group charges that the Minneapolis police failed to give clear and complete answers to questions about political surveillance at a hearing of the Minnesota State Ethics Commission. The letter stated that there was a “mass of evidence” that local police departments cooperate with the FBI in its program of surveillance and disruption of political groups.
“There is a massive cover-up in progress,” Jane Van Deusen, Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of Minnesota, told reporters. The cops evaded questions regarding surveillance of the SWP.
August 22, 1949
A blow was dealt the witch-hunters when Circuit Court Judge Joseph Sherbow of Baltimore declared that Maryland’s Ober “Anti-Subversives” Law, hailed as a “model” by reactionaries, is unconstitutional.
The judge issued a permanent injunction restraining state officials from enforcing the law, which had provided for $5,000 fines and five years imprisonment for mere membership in “subversive organizations” and up to $20,000 fines and 20 years imprisonment for “subversive activities.”
The law, said Sherbow, “violates the basic freedoms guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments” to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the right of due process of law. Laws “may not intrude into the realm of ideas, religious or political beliefs, and opinions. The law deals with overt acts, not thoughts. It may punish for acting, but not for thinking.”