Workers World News Service (17.09.01)

WW Article I

NO TO WAR FRENZY!
Workers World Party statement

The massive and stunning attacks Sept. 11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon pose tremendous challenges to the working class and the progressive movement in this country and around the world. The U.S. capitalist ruling class and its political establishment are now preparing a warlike response that can only lead to more suffering and deaths.

In times of crisis like this, the workers individually mobilize with great selflessness and sacrifice to save lives, aid the wounded and distressed, and try to return life to normal. People of many nationalities work shoulder-to-shoulder in an admirable spirit of cooperation and caring, in the same way they respond to natural disasters.

However, there is no politically independent, mass working-class movement in the United States at this moment that can make its own investigation and evaluation of what happened and why. Even the corporate press and media are being restricted more and more in where they can go and what they can say. The people are left totally dependent on the imperialist government for information, analysis and a course of action.

Under these conditions, it would be irresponsible at this time to jump to conclusions as to what political forces were behind these attacks. Many, many times in the past, going back to the battleship Maine in this country and the Reichstag fire in Germany, bogus explanations have been fabricated by the authorities in order to line up the population behind a course of aggression.

It should be remembered that the 1964 congressional resolution giving a blank check to the Johnson administration for the Vietnam War was passed 98-2 after a fabricated "attack" on U.S. warships in the Tonkin Gulf that was later exposed in the Pentagon Papers.

On Sept. 12, a resolution passed the U.S. Senate 100-0 that gives the present administration the same kind of unrestrained authority to wage war and to finance the Pentagon with whatever funds it requests. In the context of the present capitalist economic downturn, everyone should understand that this means with Social Security funds--the trillions of dollars set aside from workers' earnings for their retirement--more than anything else.

The pronouncements of U.S. leaders from President George W. Bush on down make it clear that the government's priority is to restore the image of unchallenged U.S. hegemony in the world by unleashing its powerful military somewhere. There can be no doubt that the targets will be peoples in oppressed countries where the mass sentiment is already one of anger at past U.S. aggression and extreme exploitation.

If this happens, it could unleash a witch-hunt against anti-war forces in this country and against immigrants whose national origins are similar to the peoples under attack.

The progressive movement must stand firm on its principles in these trying times. It must fight for the right to seek and tell the truth to the people and not be swept along in a torrent of chauvinism and war frenzy.

The representatives of the military-banking-industrial establishment have no answers. They can only make the situation worse as the system they defend spreads poverty and instability around the world.

The movement must seek to implement a program of class solidarity among workers of all nationalities, religions, genders and sexuality. It must continue to combat national oppression, racism and bigotry of all kinds.

It must counter the reactionary vision of Fortress America, with its inane but dangerous "missile shield" and rapid militarization of society, with the struggle for a truly humane, democratic, just and equitable world run by the working people.

http://www.workers.org

Workers World News Service

WW article II

OUR SISTERS AND BROTHERS IN THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

Like millions of others who live in New York City, the staff of Workers World newspaper has been directly affected by the attack on the World Trade Center. Alongside our sisters and brothers, the workers and oppressed people who make up the vast majority of this city's population and who make this city run, we are deeply pained by the magnitude of death and suffering.

We are workers. We get up every morning, ride the subways, clock in at jobs around the city, and when we finish working for the bosses we volunteer our labor to produce this newspaper. As New York workers, we have been touched by these events.

One of Workers World's editors worked at the World Trade Center. We are so glad that he left for his job late on Sept. 11. He was relieved when he finally learned that his co-workers had gotten out alive.

The niece of another of our editors worked on the 80th floor of one of the twin towers. She ran down 80 flights with hundreds of others, barely making it out of the building before it collapsed.

Among Workers World Party's members and friends is a United Airlines flight attendant whose union sisters and brothers are among the dead.

Others of us are still waiting for word of missing friends and relatives.

Along with all this, the events have caused logistical and technological problems in producing the newspaper this week. DSL Internet lines in lower Manhattan are not functioning. Phone lines have worked intermittently. Transportation is difficult.

We will get this newspaper out, as we do every week. We will use our voices to resist the flood of chauvinist propaganda and calls for military strikes against the people of oppressed nations. But we do so not just as writers and editors, activists and fighters. We do it as an authentic part of the working class of New York City. We feel the pain.

--Shelley Ettinger

WW article III

Via Workers World News Service

World Trade Center workers
COMPENSATE VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES!

By John Catalinotto, New York

After the catastrophe that hit 50,000 workers at the World Trade Center Sept. 11, killing perhaps thousands of them, there has been much media repetition of the "need to pull together."

Those working at the two World Trade Center buildings were a cross-section of the U.S. working class. Black, white, Latino, Asian, Arab, immigrant and born here, everyone could be found enjoying the music at the summer lunchtime series in the now non-existent plaza between the buildings.

The enormous infrastructure of the twin towers demanded a full maintenance staff, from electricians to air- conditioning experts, communication technicians, cafeteria staffs, and janitors, along with an enormous clerical staff receiving widely varying salaries.

One particularly diverse group was the staff of the Windows on the World restaurant. They came from Bangladesh, Syria, Iran, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Cuba, Algeria, Ivory Coast. They worked on the top two floors of World Trade Center Number 1.

Not that it was one happy relationship with management. In the week before the tragedy, Port Authority electricians were protesting that their wages were 27 percent lower than the area average. And one of the major employers in the building, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, had just announced a half-hour increase in the workday without a pay increase.

The scenes shown on television of the burned and bloodied people win the sympathy and solidarity of anyone who sees them. For those who moved quickly in barely controlled panic down dark stairwells for dozens of floors, perhaps fighting sprinklers on the way down, then narrowly escaping the collapsing building, such solidarity is well deserved.

For those who were even unluckier, who were trapped by fire or tons of steel and concrete, deep sympathy is normal and just.

The career politicians and corporate media, however, conceal another agenda in their appeals for "pulling together." They demand not so much solidarity as more powers and funds for the military, police and secret services of the U.S.

If pulling together were really their goal, their first objective would be support for the rights of the surviving workers and meeting the needs of the dependents of those who died.

Some of the more fortunate workers undoubtedly already have job benefits and security. All should have it. The benefits included below should be the basic minimum:

* For those who perished in the fire and collapse, a minimum of $100,000 lump-sum payment to dependent survivors, plus whatever Social Security is due.

* All emergency and continuing medical care covered by a special fund set up by the federal government.

* Jobs guaranteed for two years by companies that continue to exist, salaries guaranteed for two years for companies destroyed by the fire, followed by an extended period of unemployment insurance and retraining.

* Relocation expenses for those living far from any new center of work.

In addition, this city should implement a massive hiring of the unemployed to clear and rebuild the area.

At the site of the disaster and at the hospitals around Manhattan, there was a wonderful display of spontaneous solidarity with the victims. That solidarity was not always repeated between boss and worker.

A worker in a building across the street from the twin towers told Workers World she was forced to spend two hours trapped in a cellar to escape the cloud of poisonous smoke and rubble, then fled miles uptown on foot. She didn't appreciate it when her boss asked her to report to a New Jersey location for work the day following this ordeal.

Workers in 2 World Trade Center were evacuated when the other tower was attacked, then were quickly ordered back to their jobs. They were in the elevators when their building was also hit. They were then evacuated a second time. Some didn't get out of the building before it collapsed.

http://www.workers.org

WW article IV

Via Workers World News Service

Statements on the attacks
PALESTINIAN GROUPS DENY RESPONSIBILITY

By John Catalinotto

While the ruling-class media has been quick to blame specific nationalities and religions for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it has done little to publicize the statements of organizations under suspicion.

Four Palestinian groups--Hamas, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Islamic Jihad--deny responsibility for the attacks.

"Naturally the United States position regarding our conflict with Israel is totally biased in favor of Israel, but we have nothing to do with these aircraft attacks in the U.S. because our military battle is against the Zionist enemy,'' Maher al-Taher, a PFLP politburo member, said.

"We, as nationalist Palestinian forces, are launching our struggle on our land against the Zionist aggression."

There had been an Aug. 29 report that the PFLP was planning attacks against the U.S. following the killing of the PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa in an Israeli missile attack on his office in the West Bank. Taher denied these reports.

The media gave wide publicity to an anonymous caller who informed Abu Dhabi television the DFLP was behind the attack. But Ali Badwan, a member of the central committee of the DFLP, told Reuters his group opposed attacks on civilians.

"Our policy calls for focusing the Palestinian efforts against the Israeli occupation forces and the armed Zionist settlers," he said.

"We are not concerned with any actions outside the Palestinian territories. Our legitimate struggle is directed against the Israeli enemy and the settler cliques," he said.

Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Authority, also criticized the attacks and expressed his sympathy with the U.S. population.

"We are completely shocked. It's unbelievable," Arafat said. "We completely condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey my condolences to the American people, to the American president and to the American administration, not only in my name but on behalf of the Palestinian people."

CUBA OFFERS AID

In a Sept. 11 statement, the Cuban government went so far as to offer assistance:

"The Government of the Republic of Cuba has received with grief and sadness the news of violent surprise attacks which took place, this morning, at civilian and official facilities in New York City and Washington DC, and which have caused many casualties.

"The position of Cuba against all kind of terrorist actions is well known. We cannot forget that for over 40 years our people has been victim of such actions, promoted from the territory of the United States itself. Due to historical reasons, as well as ethical principles, the Government of our country fully rejects and condemns the attacks committed against the above-mentioned facilities, and expresses its sincerest condolences to the American people for the distressing and unjustifiable loss of human lives caused by such acts.

"In this bitter hour, our people is in solidarity with the American people, and expresses its absolute willingness to cooperate, to the extent of its modest resources, with American health and humanitarian institutions in taking care of, and rehabilitating the victims of today's events."

The South African Communist Party, the Portuguese Communist Party, the Belgian Workers Party, the Philippine organization Bayan, the Calcutta-based All India Anti-imperialist Forum, Sinn Fein and many other liberation or communist groups expressed condolences with the U.S. population. Many of these groups also warned of the dangers that the Bush administration would either embark on new aggression against sovereign countries or would eliminate protest rights within the U.S., or both.

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