"EDITORIAL

The nuclear war menace confronting
humanity has been given deadly new im-
petus recently by U.S. ruling circles. By
word and deed the Reaganites lurch to-
ward their final irrational blunder, a nuc-
lear war to save the world from commu-
nism, and set the USA on a world dictator’s
_ throne.

The stance of the White House, the Pen-
tagon and the military-industrial complex
is all misconceived. It is all based on the
lunacy that, Hollywood-like, the good-guy

leaders untouched by the devastating
climatic, biological and enviornmental
_ Stoking the furnace of hatred and
ey. Reagan told an audience Dec.
12, that U'S. imperialism had “tried turn-
at hag swords into ploughshares hoping
others would follow. Well, our days of
weakness are over.” .
That is the vilest deceit. The USA has led
the world in the nuclear and conventional,
iological and chemical arms spiral, at least
‘since 1945 — and every record proves it!
~The human race, North America, Cana-
da, our cities and rural communities, our
north, are looking at the reality of facing
-Reaganist radiation death in which there
waite neither present nor future genera-
tions. Eternal silence. ;
The outlook of U.S. imperialism was ex-
: sed by its chief spokesman, the ir-
rational President Reagan when he brag-
ged that the U.S. military forces “are back
on their feet and standing tall” — where
they are bringing mass death and disaster
Lebanon; wiping out the social gains of
the.Grenadians; announcing their planned

Speeches from Thrones, in Canada,
ordinarily allow quite a lot of leeway for
government manoeuvring during the
Srey session. The one delivered
Dec. 7 is no exception in that regard.
_There’s a place in it for hopes; there’s a
place for doubts.

_ Mideast policy

brutal regime in Israel, intensifies all as-
_ pects of an offensive against Syria. In short,
- Washington is turning life to horror in the
_ whole region. And the U.S./Israeli joint ef-
_ forts to destroy the Palestinian people and
_ their organization, the Palestine Liberation
Organization coninues its blood-stained,
genocidal course.

- Canada’ emerging policy on the Middle
East is encouraging, therefore, both for
what it can contribute to a Middle East
peace, and for moving to uphold what the
United Nations and many of its members

have every right to self-determination, and
to territories stolen from them by Israel.
_ Prime Minister Trudeau has set up a
cabinet sub-committee on the issue,
_ headed by External Relations Minister
_ Jean-Luc Pepin. It is to be hoped that the
outcome will be a firm policy along the lines
of remarks made by Trudeau, that the
PLO must have a role in resolving the ques-
tion of a Palestinian homeland, and that
- Israel must halt and reverse its settlement
_ program in occupied territory.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 21, 1983—Page 6

~ Oppose U.S.

Americans would survive a nuclear war, its

Mass peace action

_ White U.S. naval guns pound Lebanon, -
the U.S. administration, in league with the |

have asserted, that the Palestinian people.

war menace

invasion of El Salvador; harassing
Nicaragua with paid thugs-turned-mer-
cenaries; and sponsoring in billions of dol-
lars the South African apartheid regime
which tortures, kills, and exacts racist
abominations against the majority Black
population of South Africa.

Terror, racism and fascism wherever its
bloodletting keeps it in power, is fully
bankrolled and militarily backed by the
United States of America!

Now we are told that there will probably
be a U.S. rape of El Salvador in 1984.
Former Canadian cabinet minister Warren
Allmand, MP for Notre Dame de Grace —
Lachine East, one of the Canadian mem-
bers of parliament who visited Central
America, revealed that U.S. officials pic-
tured a U.S. invasion of El Salvador from
Honduras, but not an invasion of
Nicaragua before the U.S. presidential
elections next November.

It is quite clear that U.S. imperialism is
engaged in unprovoked aggression for
political, resource, strategic and military
gain. It tries its best to “assign” some of the
dirty work to its “allies”. But there is no
reason for Canadians to accept such an
assignment — whether it be Cruise testing,
fending for the USA at the UN, or im-

poverishing our people to make NATO a

greater nuclear threat to humanity. Nor is
it acceptable for the Canadian media to
help in the U.S. brainwashing plot. _

Just as nuclear extinction of the human
race would embrace all of us, so the unity
and actions of people of every persuasion
are needed in the struggle to prevent nuc-

yn needed

The portion dealing with peace offers
hope. The fact that this is in the throne
speech is encouraging; that fact that it fol-
lows upon a month of intense peace lobby-
ing by the prime minister fosters a certain
amount of confidence in its seriousness.

But what of the Cruise testing? What of .

the manufacture of missile parts in Cana-
da? What about the government’s com-
mitment to NATO and NORAD, which the
USA battles mightily to hold onto as vehi-
cles for its war policy? Are the peace pro-

sals, as one ultra leftist group claims, “a
sideshow to divert attention from U.S. mili-

-tary action”?

These questions must be devastating to

_those who shun people’s action and put all

their reliance on parliamentary procedure.
They should not be so devastating to those
who have confidence in the people, in mass
action, in political struggle, as well as the
parliamentary battle.

The peace content in the throne speech
is positive in the final analysis because it is
not the be-all and end-all of the peace
struggle.

All the initiative, strength and unity the
peace movement can muster is called for
‘now when, assuming the Trudeau initia-
tive to be sincere, there is a greater than

ever chance to make gains in disarmament.

and detente. “And if it is not sincere?” the
questioners ask. Then we should be able to
say to ourselves: We did not relax our
struggle for one minute, we did not miss a
single opportunity to advance the cause of
preventing nuclear war. Our goal still lies
ahead.

RONNIE CLAUS
HICH OF THESE

Flashbacks

25 years 50 years

CLC CONDEMNS.
CMA’S PROPOSALS

“Right-to-work” laws mod-
eled on U.S. state legislation
and advocated by the Cana-
-dian Manufacturers’ Associa-
tion in a brief to the cabinet
was condemned outright by
Claude Jodoin, president of
the Canadian Labor Con-
gress on Dec. 3.

He urged the CMA to
“better devote attention to
the present’ growing
unemployment” instead.

The labor official’s state-
ment said:

“The submission made by
the Canadian Manufacturers’
Association seeking changes
in federal labor legislation is
obviously designed _to
weaken the role of trade
unions in their efforts to
obtain for their membership
a fair share of industry’s
profits...” .

Tribune,
December 15, 1958

EIGHT LEADERS
IN SOLITARY

TORONTO — Tim Buck,
Tom Ewen, Sam Carr, Mal-
colm Bruce, John Boychuk,
Matthew Popovich, Tom Hill
and Tom Cacic — eight
working-class leaders serving
a total of 37 years because of
their political activities in the
labor movement have been in
isolation in the “hole” at
Kingston for a full month.

Two weeks ago the offen-
sive of the government shar-
pened when the eight work-
ers were deprived of all visits.
A wall of silence has been
built around the case and the
capitalist press is boycotting
allnews of the eight men. _

Prison regulations provide
even more drastic punish-
ments including flogging.
These political prisoners are
in solitary, isolated at least
232 hours a day.

The Worker,
December 16, 1933

Why should a bank have a right to claim an after-tax profit on
what it does, amounting to $282,550,000 for the year ended Oct.
31?. That’s what the Bank of Montreal did. That’s up from
$257,046,000 a year earlier. How long before we nationalize them
and use the money for people, not tycoons?

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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