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Japan would be forced into a "fairly early attack" to seize British Malayan rubber and Dutch Indonesian oil, and that an attack on the U.S. Philippine colony was "certain." (13) The New Deal wanted and expected not only an all-out war for the Pacific, but a "surprise" Japanese attack as well. Their only disappointment on Dec. 7, 1941 was that instead of concentrating on the Philippines, the Japanese military struck first at Hawaii. There was no question of "self-defense" there. The Pacific war was the mutual child of imperialist competition and imperialist appetites. To President Roosevelt the prize was worth the risks. China was his first goal, just as it was for Japanese imperialism. A friend of the President recalls: "At the White House, the making of FDR's China policy was almost as great a secret as the atom bomb. " Roosevelt saw that the sun had set on the old European colonial rule in Asia, and that the dynamic expansion of the small Japanese Empire proved how weak and rotten European power was. In his mind, he saw that if China were nominally free but under U.S. hegemony (via the Kuomintang regime), it could be the center for Amerikan takeover of all Asia.* because the war was also a patriotic war of national defense in some nations. Both China and the U.S.S.R., invaded and partially occupied by Axis Powers, made alliance with competing imperialists of the Allied Powers. There is nothing surprising or incorrect about that. Taking advantage of this the revisionists claimed that democraticminded people in all nations should therefore support the Allied Powers. But why should the anti-colonial movement in an oppressed nation that was invaded and occupied by the U.S. (or France or Great Britain) support its own oppressor? One might just as well argue that the Chinese people should have supported the Japanese occupation during WWII because Mexico was oppressed by U.S. imperialism (in fact, the Japanese Empire advanced such lines of propaganda). Contrary to the revisionists, World War I1 was not a war of "democracy vs. fascism," but a complex struggle between imperialist powers, and between capitalism and socialism. The New Deal was prepared to do whatever necessary to modernize and stabilize U.S. imperialism's home base, because it was playing for the biggest stakes in the world. In the Pittsburgh Courier's words: "The stake is the right to EXPLOIT the darker peoples of the world. " British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, after meeting with Roos.evelt and his staff, wrote a British general in some alarm: "I must enlighten you about the American view. China bulks as large in the minds of many of them as Great Britain. " (14) Some confusion about the nature of the Second Imperialist World War has arisen among comrades here *FDR was always appreciative of China's potential value because of his family's direct connection. Roosevelt often mentioned his family's long "friendship" with China - on his mother's side, the Delano family fortune was made through a leading role in the opium trade in 19th century China. 3. The War On The "Home Front" As Euro-Amerikan settlers gathered themselves to conquer Asia, Europe, Afrika, and hold .onto Latin Amerika, they started their war effort by attacking the oppressed closest at hand - those already within the U.S. Empire. In Puerto Rico, the colonial occupation tightened its already deadly hold on the masses, so that their very lives could be squeezed out to help pay for the U.S. war effort. It is to the eternal honor of the Nationalist Party, already terribly wounded by repression, that it resisted this imperialist mobilization as best it could. The Nationalist Party denounced the military conscription of Puerto Rican youth, who were to be cannon fodder f ~ the r same U.S. Army that was oppressing their own nation. On the eve of Selective Service registration in 1940, the Nationalist Party declared: "If Puerto Ricans are the first line of defense of democracy in America, we claim the right to fight in the front line and for that reason we demand that democracy b~ a reality in Puerto Rico, recogniz- ing our national sovereignty. " (15) The newspapers on the Island were afraid to print Nationalist statements for fear of U.S. prosecution - a fear that the U.S. Government said was well founded. (16) Some members of the Nationalist Party began openly refusing to register for the draft. Juan Estrada Garcia told the jury when he was tried that his concern was for "the masses who live dying of malaria, hookworm and tuberculosis for lack of food." (17) This was a just concern. Puerto Ricans had the highest death rate in the Western Hemisphere, thanks to the "Yanki" occupation that robbed them of everything needed for life. Every year 3,000 died from tuberculosis alone out of a population of 2 million. Over half were totally destitute, on relief. (18) 80% of the population had hookworm, and the life expectancy was only 46 years. Small wonder, when even those lucky ones who had jobs didn't earn enough to ensure sur- 94 vival - in 1941, the jibaros (the sugar cane workers)
labored for an average of only 14 cents per hour. (19) The war effort only intensified the misery. The relative prosperity that delighted Euro-Amerikans with the war was reversed in Puerto Rico. Starvation grew much worse. The New Deal W.P.A. jobs program closed down in 1942. Unemployment more than doubled. With food shipments deliberately restricted, prices soared 53% in less than one year. A Presbyterian woman missionary wrote Eleanor Roosevelt, the U.S. President's wife, in despair from Mayagiiez: "The children in this region are slowly starving. " (20) U.S. Governor Winship made it clear that the New Deal's policy was not only to help subsidize the war effort out of the misery of the Puerto Rican people, but to use starvation to beat them into political submission. In his 1939 report, Winship proudly announced that the colonial administration was already extracting millions of dollars from starving Puerto Rico for the coming war. Ten million dollars worth of valuable land had been given by the puppet colonial legislature free to the U.S. Navy for a naval base. Puerto Ricans had paid for dredging out <strong>San</strong> Juan Harbor so that it was deep enough for U.S. battleships. New U.S. Navy repair docks in <strong>San</strong> Juan were also paid for involuntarily by the Puerto Rican people. Further, local taxes had also paid for the construction of new U.S. military airstrips on Culebra, Isla Grande, Mona Island and elsewhere. In desperately poor Puerto Rico the local taxes collected by the imperialist occupation forces were used for their own military needs rather than clinics or food. This policy was actually quite common for WWII: for example, both the Nazi and Japanese armies also forced the local inhabitants in conquered areas to support military construction for them. (21) The U.S. imperialists were in good company. While it may have seemed like bad propaganda to so obviously increase misery among the Puerto Rican people, the New Deal believed otherwise. It was economic terrorism. U.S. military officials said that the Nationalist resistance to the draft had been broken. They admitted that the reason hungry Puerto Ricans were submitting to the draft was that even army rations were 'pay and food exceeding prevailing Island wages. " It appeared to tR military, however, that only one-third of the eligible men could be used due to the widespread physical debilitation from disease and malnutrition. (22) Still, Amerika's "War to Save Democracy" was off to a good start. The war further accelerated the trend towards set-
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The minority puts a dogmatic view i
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U.S. imperialism would rather that
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The final point we must make is tha
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carpenter would earn in a day. When
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while the evil planter and the Lond
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society of settlers. The large majo
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11. STRUGGLES & ALLIANCES The popul
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, . , in short what wee did in that
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more nearly fascistic. Bacon was th
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"democracy" through wresting their
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111. THE CONTRADICTIONS OF NATION &
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The Charleston conspiracy of 1822,
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IV. SETTLER TRADE- UNIONISM 1. The
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Cherokee Nation on "Trail of Tears
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taxation and other measures to give
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gospel truth by most settlers that
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their places as barbers and servant
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is a historic engineering achieveme
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Chinaman always have something to e
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While marching through a region, th
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off the former plantations at bayon
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hostility, can be expected of two-t
Page 46 and 47: the early 1830's, continued and gat
Page 48 and 49: dustries, trades, and nationalities
Page 50 and 51: Irish, (2) German, and (3) many sma
Page 52 and 53: On the other hand, there is the ten
Page 54 and 55: ed bribery: "The truth is this: dur
Page 56 and 57: narionally-disrincf strata (literal
Page 58 and 59: 2. Settler Opposition To Imperialis
Page 60 and 61: His political thought was that wher
Page 62 and 63: fine and resumed his post as U.S. c
Page 64 and 65: workers from Southern and Eastern E
Page 66 and 67: and "Break up the narionalisric, ra
Page 68 and 69: While the I.W.W. was backward in ma
Page 70 and 71: As the Great Powers were drawn into
Page 72 and 73: The I.W.W. publicly criticised thos
Page 74 and 75: Magon once angrily wrote his brothe
Page 76 and 77: The authorities did not move to "re
Page 78 and 79: VII. BREAKTHROUGH OF THE C.I.O. It
Page 80 and 81: danger, because alcohol was needed
Page 82 and 83: Millions of settlers believed that
Page 84 and 85: President Roosvelt privately said i
Page 86 and 87: importantly, to break up the rising
Page 88 and 89: colored men whom they could guarant
Page 90 and 91: practiced segregation on a broad sc
Page 92 and 93: VIII. IMPERIALIST WAR & THE NEW AME
Page 94 and 95: This remarkable editorial was accur
Page 98 and 99: tler reunification. The stormy conf
Page 100 and 101: Afrikans and Asians on the West Coa
Page 102 and 103: strategy to its limits, the U.S. Em
Page 104 and 105: I t I In 1921 the African Blood Bro
Page 106 and 107: secretly organizing in Tallapoosa C
Page 108 and 109: Negro is the goat of the STFU. " Al
Page 110 and 111: The support movement took many form
Page 112 and 113: These agricultural workers paid $8.
Page 114 and 115: the whole Afrikan population within
Page 116 and 117: with a Negro World was five years a
Page 118 and 119: "(5) The U.N.I.A. is chiefly compos
Page 120 and 121: ming themselves and preparing to ta
Page 122 and 123: workers would have to wear an arm b
Page 124 and 125: strike down the Afrikan Nation - an
Page 126 and 127: Asians or Chicano-Mexicanos or Afri
Page 128 and 129: and resisters. But this popular cur
Page 130 and 131: who had once started it. In the ear
Page 132 and 133: activists, former Communist members
Page 134 and 135: Campos. Afterwards, Foster wrote a
Page 136 and 137: Toure related this to the fact that
Page 138 and 139: XII. THE GLOBAL PLANTATION 1. The P
Page 140 and 141: presidents..five secretaries did th
Page 142 and 143: The maquilas do not constitute any
Page 144 and 145: The shortfall only exists because a
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For Every Party, There's a Morning
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While there are numbers of Euro-Ame
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suming things and owning things, no
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estricted crafts rose at a rate 3 t
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collection, swimming pools, better
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children. For them the flavor is so
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XIV. TACTICAL & STRATEGIC The settl
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Since Afrikan miners were perhaps 2
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man, would ask of you to dispel1 ai
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Coal From South Africa Apartheid in
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Besides, he continued, to be overly
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INTRODUCTION 1. AU references to di
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26. ROGER W. SHUGG. Origins of Clas
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162-166. 16. FRANCIS PERKINS. The R
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6. New York Times. September 18, 19
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BALTIMORE, APRIL, 1968 - I'm not go
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