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| COMMUNIST |

PARTY

ANTI-
FASCISTS

Common Market freedom works.

Editonal comment.

hen the Socreds and their

Chamber-of-Commerce _back-
ers wail about “labor troubles”
frightening away “investment;
capital” and giving B.C. a “black
éye”, they miss one of these optic
discolorations of their own mak-
ing, already becoming world-
famous.

The picture of Tom Clarke, first
vice-president of IWA Local 1-217
being chewed up by a police dog
on the Allied Engineering picket
line. That picture, already repro-
duced in scores of North Ameri-
can labor papers, is now hitting
the front pages of the internation-
al labor press. A “black eye”
certainly, but not of labor’s mak--
ing.
Police dogs chewing up Black
workers in  Verwoerd’s racist
Africa, chasing peace or anti-
Nazi demonstrators in Adenauer’s
_ West Germany, or harrying Negro
workers in the U.S. “Deep South” -
is commonplace. But in “demo-
cratic” Canada, in B.C., “Oh, sure-
ly not”?

To our everlasting disgrace it is
“surely YES”, with Tom Clarke,
symbol of Canadian labor becom-
ing internationally famous—and
the-powers-that-be at monopoly’s
“wailing wall” equally infamous.

* *

Pacific Trib
acific iripune
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Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH
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Portrait of a PA seeuaiils

mayorality candidate Bill “Garb-
age’ Rathie, waving the Pacific
Tribune and vociferating,
elected I’ll sweep this rag off the
streets!’
Josef Strauss and Der Spiegel?

‘Tf I’m

Another case of Herr

Build the NDP

he hard lessons of recent weeks
‘i organized labor in B.C., to
which must now be added the
harsh sentences of prison terms
and heavy fines imposed by the
courts on union pickets on trump-
ed-up charges of “unlawful as-
sembly” and “violence”, point up
the burning need of even greater
labor unity; a unity capable of
throwing back the mounting at-
tacks of government and monop-
oly agencies upon labor’s economic
standards and basic rights.
Reaction in Tabor’s ranks from
“far right” and “far left” is gener-
ally unanimous on one score; that
responsible leaders who speak for
labor should not go to the monop-
oly press or to the Chamber-of-
Commerce to air internal disagree-
ments as did NDP provincial lead-
er Robert Strachan. And especial-
ly at a time when labor is engaged
in bitter strike struggles for eco-
nomic survival, harassed my pre-
judical court injunctions, and
defending itself before the courts
to preserve its right to strike and
picket with maximum unity.
Unquestionably the NDP lead-
er got off “on the wrong foot” and
in doing so showed himself an
easy mark for Socred-Liberal anti-
labor and anti-NDP ‘“‘needling’’.
Such political capitulation to the
parliamentary hucksters of big
monopoly wins nothing for the
NDP, but does make the urgent
job of winning united labor polit-
ical action to advance the NDP
as the next government of B.C.

-much more difficult.

The worst possible result, now
evident in some quarters, would
be condemnation of the NDP b
cause of the ill-considered sta
ments of its. provincial lead
Labor should not permit that
happen, since .that is precisel
what the Socred-monopoly en
mies of labor hope and work fo

The NDP in B.C. is labor’s on
sure “alternative” for sweepi
the Socreds into political limb
come the next election. With th
objective given top priority, grea
er union affiliation and union su
port of the NDP is essential
ultimate victory. What labor and
the people have in commo
through an NDP victory at the
polls, is of far greater importan
than its “differences” with thi
or that NDP leader.

The prime need at the nome
is united labor political actio
within and in support of the ND.
thereby ensuring that labor’
united struggles on the picket line
finds its echo in the Legislatu
through the voice of an ND :

zovernment.
With the provincial session

the legislature scheduled to op
in Victoria in January the im
mediate job before labor is to figh
for changes which would sweé
Bills 42-43 from the statute book’
and restore to the people the ri
resources of the province.
Greater labor unity, with th
NDP as its political expressi0
can achieve that goal. But on
by greater labor unity and strug

gle.

rtment, Ottawa,
oo postage. in cash.

HEN UBC philosophy profes-
W sor Dr. Peter Remnant told
a sizeable student rally on the
campus a couple of weeks ago tnat
there is “no proof in the Bible that

God exists’ he sure uncorked a
touchy controversy.

The flood of “letters-to-the-edi-
tor” pro and con in our most “de-
vout” monopoly press are only a
small part of the wordy avalanche
let loose by this professorial orbit
into theological space. Church lea-
ders have been notably silent on
the subject. The thinking segment
of the campus are searching the
books for confirmation or other-
wise. Others, the more light-head-
ed have already disposed of the
Prof as ‘‘a nut.”’ That is always the

most popular escape from reali--

ties,

We didn’t hear the Doctor’s dis-
sertations on ‘“God’’ and the ab-
sence of biblical proof of his exist-
ence or otherwise, and so had to
rely entirely on the sewer press
(not much to rely on to be sure?)
for our information on this contro-

versial lecture. It should be noted,

en pasSant as the Frenchmen say,
that the monopoly press “‘believes’’
implicitly in “God’’. How, other-
wise, could it retain such a halo of
“virtuosity” while peddling faise-
hood in bulk?

For ourselves (and who doesn’t

know that the Communists are a
most “godless” people, in sewer
press jargon?) we thought the Prof.
dealt a bit superficially with the
subject. Any debate predicated on
the thesis that “there’s nothing in
the Bible to prove there is a God,
can also be turned around to
“prove” the opposite — and of
course is. Particularly where emo-
tional or “spiritual” concepts are
embeddedin a “faith” or a belief,
which neither requires nor per-
mits any factual substance.

In the early days of the flower-
_ing of socialist philosophy and
ideology, professional “god-punch-
ers” like Bob Ingersoll, Joseph
McCabe and scores of other “ra-
tionalists” held forth on the sub-
ject “about it and about.” But like
the Persian philosopher Omar
Kayyam, “evermore came out by
the same door, as in (they) went.”

Generally speaking however,
the contributions of such eminent
people and movements centered
more around capitalism’s urgent
need of a “god’’ to justify its ex-
ploitation of ‘man by man’’, rath-
er than the existence (or other-
wise) of such a Deity.

Some of the earlier books of this
century on this interesting topic,
such as Bishop Montromery
Brown’s BaniSh Capitalists From
The Earth and Gods From The
Skies or Robert Blatchford’s God
And My Neighbor and others, sup-
port Dr. Remnant’s_ contention.
but don’t go very far beyond sur-
face manifestations. Blatchford’s

~ main thesis rests on the idea that
since ‘“‘God’”’ made everything from
an Al Capone to a trigger-happy
nuclear maniac, his “being” and
wisdom was much over-rated, if

indeed he existed at all? BishoP
Brown records the horrible trav~
esty which an exploiting capital]
ism has made of “god” in order 0]
better profit from its ruthless e¥
plotation. ,

Later works of this century
such as Grant Allen’s Evolution of
the idea of God, or Sir James G
Frazer’s Golden Bough, both much
more historical, ‘evolutionary
and scientific in their philosoph'
cal depth and persepectives, woul Al
have served Dr. Remnant muC»
better in his lecture to UBC stu
dents; not to ‘‘prove’’ the non-eX
istence of God, but to provide 2
scientific starting point on the eV]
olution of gods in general and th}
“Christian”? one in particular.

The Golden Bough by one %&
Briiain’s (and’ perhaps the world sg
greatest anthropologists, _ tracing
Man’s evolution from far |
back in the mists of time, an ev9”
lution which sees primitive ma?
seeking to “explain” natural phe”
omena by supernatural ‘reason
ing” and “taboo”; tilling the prin
itive soil which gave birth to the
idea of kings, rulers, priesteral
and gods,

Thus, not from the Kremlin, but
from the Golden Bough its fin@
conclusion; that the priesi>-aft a?
gods of primitive man with thes?
of December, 1962, “is an unbrok-
en chain.” We would commend thé
Golden Bough to Dr. Remnant, to
UBC students and to others. No!
as a “yes” or “no” answer to th
existence of a Deity, but as a ser
ous scientific guide to His origi”
and evolution, and which, as DF
Remnant correctly states, can not
be found in that most widely intel
preted of all books — the Bibl

_and for payment

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