Fight gov’t campaign against constitutional rights we need!
https://themilitant.com/2021/02/06/fight-govt-campaign-against-constitutional-rights-we-need/
Vol. 85/No. 6
February 15, 2021
Statement by Joe Swanson, Socialist Workers Party City Council At-Large
candidate in Lincoln, Nebraska, Feb. 3.
Facing rising joblessness and boss assaults on our wages, hours and
working conditions, working people need to defend the political rights
we have wrested from the capitalist rulers over decades of struggle so
we can come together to fight to protect ourselves and debate how best
to chart a class-struggle road forward. We face a frontal assault on our
rights being led by the Democrats, the liberal media and the
middle-class left.
Whipping up a hysteria over a purported “fascist coup” or “insurrection”
that Democrats claim was organized by Donald Trump at the Capitol Jan.
6, liberals are moving to strengthen conspiracy and “domestic terrorism”
laws and the powers of the FBI — the capitalist rulers’ political
police. They do so by spouting American patriotism and the need to
protect our “sacred” government institutions.
What they are attempting to shore up is the mailed fist of capitalist
exploitation and oppression at a time when their economic and social
system is in crisis. “America” is class divided, and the rulers
increasingly fear that working people more and more see that they and
their political parties have no “solutions” that don’t further load the
costs of the crisis of their system on us. Politics today is
increasingly class against class.
Biden’s “Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act” would unleash more spying by
Washington’s cop agencies and use of undercover agents against workers,
Black rights fighters and other political opponents.
Some bosses are firing anyone they can connect to the Jan. 6 actions —
whether at the mass, pro-Trump rally outside the Capitol or the
short-lived foray inside. Meanwhile, cops pursue thought-control
“conspiracy” charges to frame up whoever they can get away with.
Bosses at internet companies are more and more shutting down the
accounts of those whose political views they disagree with.
Liberals are trying to use the hysteria and disregard for the
Constitution to deal blows to their main bourgeois opponent, Donald
Trump, and his alleged “accomplices” in the Republican Party.
The show-trial impeachment of Trump on “incitement to insurrection”
passed the House with no witnesses, no evidence and no defense permitted.
All restrictions on political rights by the capitalist class and its
government, regardless of who is initially targeted, will always end up
being used against militant workers, to deal blows to working-class
struggles, our unions and political parties.
Workers’ use of rights to free speech and to organize have been crucial
to advancing our struggles, from the mass battles that built the
industrial unions in the 1930s to the Black-led working-class movement
that tore down Jim Crow segregation.
Working people and our unions need to speak out against every attack on
rights we use and need, regardless of who is in the White House.
Last year the Socialist Workers Party successfully fought attempts by
Washington state authorities to disclose personal details of the party’s
electors. Disclosure laws are tools the rulers use to expose anyone
backing working-class parties to retaliatory attacks by the government,
cops, rightist thugs and “thought police” on the right and left.
In 1973, my party launched a political campaign and lawsuit that exposed
decades of FBI spying and “dirty tricks” against the SWP, the labor
movement, fighters for Black rights and others. The party’s victory in
that case dealt a blow to the rulers’ political police, including a
decision that stands today that the party’s revolutionary program and
activities were protected by the Constitution. It set an example and
provided gains that could be used by all fighters for workers’ rights,
opponents of Washington’s wars and our unions.
Building a working-class movement capable of defending all those
exploited and oppressed by capital and leading millions to overthrow
capitalist rule and establish a workers and farmers government
necessitates resolute defense of constitutional rights.
Fight for cut in workweek, no cut in pay to stop layoffs!
Working people in the U.S. face an economic and social crisis with
millions of jobs closed down and bosses attacking the hours, wages and
working conditions of those still on the job in a drive to crush their
competitors and…
US rulers’ ‘administrative state’ seeks to control workers’ lives
Starting out his presidency by issuing a swath of executive orders, Joe
Biden, like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump before him, is
strengthening the administrative state, an intrinsic part of modern U.S.
capitalist rule. Through thousands of federal…
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Also In This Issue
Car caravans demand: ‘End US embargo against Cuba!’
Number of contributors to ‘Militant’ appeal grows!
Help put SWP candidate Joe Swanson on the ballot!
Will Biden unravel openings for toilers in the Middle East?
Protests continue in Russia, demand ‘Free Navalny!’
Amazon workers’ union drive in Alabama gains support
India farmers continue protests against new gov’t laws
On the Picket Line
Minnesota refinery workers win support in fight for safety, jobs
Gas workers in UK strike against boss moves to cut pay
Books of the Month
How SWP, Teamster leaders fought gov’t frame-up in 1940s
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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--
Emmett F. Fields “ Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do
not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is
an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively,
fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.
” ― Emmett F. Fields
