-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 10, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FROM A UAW LOCAL PRESIDENT:
"WORKERS SHOULD NOT SUPPORT THIS WAR"
[The following letter on the current war was sent by the
president of a UAW local in Detroit to the UAW
International Executive Board and President Stephen P.
Yokich in early December. It was also mass distributed to a
UAW Region 1 leadership meeting of several hundred local
union officers.]
Dear Brother Yokich and members of the International
Executive Board:
The war against Afghanistan holds great dangers to workers,
our families and our unions. The politicians and mass media
promote the war, declaring it will "end terrorism." But the
labor movement should know better than to support this war.
Remember how on Sept. 10 most people in this country saw
George Bush and his appointees as labor haters, racists,
anti-women, anti-gay bigots, pro-big business and a vote-
stealing gang? UAW's Solidarity magazine was filled with
articles exposing Bush & Co. Did Sept. 11 change their
character?
No one can seriously argue that Bush cares anything for the
working people of this nation. He has hijacked the horror of
Sept. 11 to ram through his anti-labor, anti-people program.
No wonder UAW President Stephen Yokich noted that, "even
before the dust had settled in lower Manhattan, some
conservatives and corporate executives were trying to
exploit this national crisis" (Solidarity, November 2001, p.
4).
With almost no opposition Congress voted to let Bush raid
Social Security for military spending. Fast Track for the
Free Trade Area of the Americas bill is being pushed in
Congress even though it has nothing to do with domestic
security, and will hurt workers in the U.S. and Latin
America. The "Patriot Act" was rammed through curtailing
long cherished civil liberties.
Attorney General Ashcroft (the guy who admires the slave-
driving Confederacy) is in charge of our civil rights! That
should make us all nervous. Racist murders have occurred;
places of worship have been attacked; racial profiling is
being defended; over 1,000 people have disappeared into jail
with no charges. Strikers have been vilified as unpatriotic.
Ashcroft intends to intensify surveillance of peaceful,
legal organizations committed to peace and social justice.
The Bush Gang is giving billions in bailouts to the airline
industry and the stock-jobbers on Wall Street. But when it
came to helping the airline and aircraft workers who have
lost their jobs, Bush & Co. said "NO!"
So what is the war really about? A top oil executive
testified before Congress back in 1998 that the oil industry
wanted to put a pipeline through Afghanistan and needed a
more pliable regime in Kabul. The big oil companies and
Bush, who serves them, are out to grab the vast oil wealth
of the former Soviet Central Asia. This is a war for OIL
PROFITS and profits for the military-industrial complex.
The war has nothing at all to do with terrorism. The U.S.
government trained, financed and armed bin Laden and the
Taliban to overthrow a progressive, secular government. Anti-
union death squad regimes around the world keep getting U.S.
support. September 11 hasn't changed U.S. sponsorship of
terrorist training at the Army School of the Americas
("School of the Assassins") at Fort Benning. It hasn't
changed the U.S. plans to send $7 billion to Colombia where
death squads have murdered 4,000 union leaders in the past
15 years! It hasn't changed U.S. policy to starve the
civilian population of Iraq even though the UN has shown
that nearly 1 million children have died as a result of U.S.
sanctions.
It is a sad commentary that most U.S. labor leaders were
slow to oppose the Vietnam War. We must not be silent now.
Labor must join the youth, church leaders and community
leaders who are demanding an end to the bombing and an end
to this war. Calls to patriotism cannot mask the real intent
of Bush & Co. to crush civil rights, fill the pockets of the
super-rich and destroy the labor movement. We should not
help them. We need money for jobs, education and health
care. We need a foreign policy based on justice for all
people and nations. Only this can remove the roots of
international violence.
I urge the International Executive Board to take a stand
against Bush's war.
Sincerely,
David Sole
President, UAW Local 2334
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
------------------
This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service.
To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
