For this year’s holiday honoring Dr. King, we are printing 3 commentaries on King’s political thinking that are important for understanding today’s situation – Fight Back! editors
In 1967, exactly one year before Dr. King was assassinated, he made an impassioned plea to stop the War in Vietnam. “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor in Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hope at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”
Fight Back! interviews Carlos Montes on the next steps in the struggle for immigrant rights. Montes is a veteran leader in the Chicano liberation movement and is an important leader in the struggle for immigrant rights.
May 1st, International Workers Day, is a day of struggle. Around the world, working people will march against imperialist war, to defend the rights of immigrants and to fight to protect their jobs and communities. Here in the United States, May Day has been reborn as millions of Chicanos, Mexicanos and Central Americans, as well as other immigrants and their supporters, have poured into the streets to demand legalization, and an end to raids, deportations and militarization of the border.
For this year’s holiday honoring Dr. King, we are printing 3 commentaries on King’s political thinking that are important for understanding today’s situation – Fight Back! editors.
May Day is a day to stand up and fight back. Millions will take to the streets – from Los Angeles to Mexico City, to Manila, to Moscow and points in between – placing demands on the rich and powerful and to look forward to a day without exploitation or oppression.
‘You have to make a commitment, if we want to make changes’
On July 5, writers for Fight Back! interviewed Dolores Huerta. Huerta is a longtime organizer best known as a co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW). She is vice president and secretary-treasurer emeritus of that organization, and currently heads the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
Ten years ago, John Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO. Supporters of his New Voices slate rallied to oust the stale leadership of his predecessor, Lane Kirkland. Under Kirkland, workers had seen 20 years of declining wages, benefits and working conditions. For 20 years, attacks by the capitalists had come down, and the defenses put up by the unions failed to turn them back. In fact, most unions hadn’t fought at all.
In addition to the internal debates over the future of labor, there are two struggles over foreign policies that will happen at the July convention of the AFL-CIO. One is a campaign underway to get the AFL-CIO to break its ties with the National Endowment for Democracy. A second is to end AFL-CIO support for the state of Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestine.
Currently, as the top AFL-CIO officials discuss the future of the labor movement, management is attacking one of the few remaining densely unionized, high wage sectors. Airline workers are suffering a devastating attack on wages, pensions and work rules that are gutting union contracts over 50 years in the making. In the last several years, by using the bankruptcy courts and under the threat of financial liquidation, management has slashed billions of dollars out of airline workers’ pockets.
