In the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930s autoworkers organized into the United Auto Workers (UAW) through a wave of sit-down strikes and pitched battles with local police and company goons. For almost two generations autoworkers defined what a good job was: relatively high wages, health and retirement benefits and protection against unemployment. Unionized autoworkers set the pace for other workers to improve their standard of living in the years after World War II. But over the last 30 years, the concessions and give-backs by the leadership of the UAW have frittered away these gains. Plant closings and outsourcing have slashed the number of unionized autoworkers from almost 400,000 to less than 60,000 today.

May 1, 2006 was an historic day, as millions of people, mainly Mexicanos (immigrants from Mexico), Chicanos and Central Americans, poured into the streets of United States to support the struggle for immigrant rights. Many have called this upsurge in protests a ‘new civil rights movement.’ We think that this is a very good description of the broad united front of labor, religious, community and youth organizations and the grassroots participation. Most importantly, this fight for equality and self-determination in fact represents a challenge to the monopoly capitalists that rule this country.

When the forces of reaction and racism decided to push their vicious anti-immigrant agenda, they lifted a rock, only to drop it on their own feet. Across the country, one of the most powerful waves of demonstrations in U.S. history is now unfolding. In Chicago on March 10 it became apparent something really big was in the offing; a sea change was under way. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Latinos, along with other immigrants and their supporters, filled the streets. A general strike shut down hundreds of factories and businesses. This was followed by major demonstrations; some accompanied by work stoppages – that rocked Denver, Colorado; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Georgia and Phoenix, Arizona. Then on March 25, one million people took to the streets of Los Angeles.

Fight Back! responds: Rice Should Resign!

To the Editor:

May Day is the most widely celebrated holiday in the world. Hundreds of thousands of workers, led by their unions, will march through the streets in Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines. In the socialist countries where the working people rule society – Cuba, China, Vietnam, Democratic Korea and Laos, May Day, or International Workers Day, is a national holiday. It is celebrated with huge rallies of millions. Leaders make speeches opposing war and imperialism, while praising the gains of the laboring classes who are furthering the cause of socialism.

The 10,000-plus Mexicans, Chicanos and Latinos marching through the streets of Ontario, California June 13 sent a powerful message to the Bush administration – the raids and deportations carried out by immigration enforcement will not be accepted or tolerated. This powerful display of resistance followed raids where immigration agents targeted undocumented workers at bus stops, markets and homes.

The Bush proposal on immigration does not address the real problems of the more than ten million undocumented workers in this country. It is simply a recycled version of past ‘guest worker’ programs which lock immigrant workers into poverty, without providing any real path for toward security, residency and justice.

Palestinian children are shot down and murdered by Israeli troops every week. Their blood is on the streets and their funerals are pictured in our magazines. Using U.S. guns, mortars, tanks, and helicopters, the Israeli state has killed over 400 people since September. More than 10,000 Palestinians have been wounded.

Since September 11, Israel has used the pretext of Bush's war against “terrorism” to illegally re-occupy Palestinian villages and cities in the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. In the midst of this new Israeli siege, dozens of Palestinians were killed, and thousands injured and arrested. The U.S. and Israel have begun to pressure Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority, to crack down on the Intifada (or uprising) and quell the legal resistance to Israel's military occupation.

Editors note: The following article was prepared before Israel's all-out assault on West Bank Palestinians. Since the invasion began, the Palestinian resistance has waged a heroic struggle to beat back the army of occupation. Massive demonstrations have taken place in many Arab countries, in Europe, and the in the U.S. On April 4, nearly 10,000 rallied in New York City.

President George Bush has made his long-awaited speech on the situation in Palestine. He said no more than a few sentences about the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, and the continued theft of more land to build more Jewish-only settlements. Nothing was said about Israel's war plans or the escalation of Israeli violence that has included a wave of assassinations, 24-hour curfews, checkpoints, massive arrests and the destruction of all equipment and buildings needed in the major cities of the West Bank, such as Nablus, Jenin and Ramallah.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the Israeli army to intensify its attacks. The result – a wave of assassinations, armed incursions into Palestinian towns and villages and more operations to arrest activists in the Palestinian resistance. Using any means at hand to achieve these goals, Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ serves as a pretext and cover. More than 17 Palestinians have been killed since Christmas, including three children under the age of 11 who were shot in the head.

Palestinian Prisoners' Day, commemorated throughout Palestine and by solidarity activists the world over, April 17, is a day to bring attention to the plight of all Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails and to demand their immediate release.

The ‘Wall’ which the Israeli government began constructing in June of 2002, and which lies well within the borders of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, is devastating fertile Palestinian land, cutting off even more Palestinian water resources and destroying Palestinian villages – in some cases enclosing them on three sides. Israel is illegally, according to international law set out by the United Nations, snaking its apartheid Wall up to 3.8 miles inside the West Bank’s ‘Green Line,’ the internationally recognized borders for the West Bank.

Before the death of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Nov. 11, there had been an enormous amount of speculation raised, and analysis offered, concerning the issue of succession. And now that the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Rawhi Fattouh, has been named the interim president, the speculation will continue for at least 60 more days.

Workers' rights are under attack in South Carolina. Later this summer, five members of the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) will be going on trial. Elijah Forde Jr., Kenneth Jefferson, Peter Washington Jr., Rick Simmons, and John Edgerton face up to 5 years in prison. They are changed with felony riot. In truth, they have done nothing wrong. They stood up to a union-busting shipping firm and exercised their right to picket. For that, South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon says they deserve “jail, jail, and more jail.”

Defend Equal Access to Education

The following is a statement from the Minnesota / Madison District of Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the attempt by the University of Minnesota to shut down the General College.

New York, NY – On February 25, people were outraged at the verdict of “not guilty” in the case of the four undercover police officers who shot and killed an unarmed African man. Four cops fired 41 bullets, hitting Amadou Diallo 19 times. They were acquitted.

On March 8, millions of people across the globe will celebrate International Women’s Day. Protests, events and declarations will recognize the contributions of women as leaders of progressive movements past and present and advance our demands for change in the future.

In the upcoming elections for the Palestinian Authority’s Palestinian Legislative Council in the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Ahmad Saadat, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has announced his candidacy from jail.