Date: Tue, 22 Oct 96 11:43:52 UT
From: "Ang " <uls-AT-msn.com>
Subject: M-G: RE: Contras/CIA-LA Times leads us astray!


It's not only the LA Times leading us astray.  The New York Times had a full 
page, 6 column, article yesterday attempting to discredit the story.  It was 
entitled "Though Evidence Is Thin, Tale of C.I.A. and Drugs Has a Life of Its 
Own", basically arguing that "Pivotal Figures of Newspaper Series May Be Only 
Bit Players".  When the New York Times doesn't want to look like it's ignoring 
a story, they'll do one of these stories about the reception of a story:  
"C.I.A. Story Strikes Chord - A Newspaper series suggesting that the Central 
Intelligence Agency fostered the spread of crack cocaine has drawn wide 
attention."  This article should be available on their free website at:
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/front

				Ang

----------
From: 	owner-marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU on behalf of neil
Sent: 	Tuesday, October 22, 1996 3:11 AM
To: 	marx-gen
Cc: 	Curt; dave; l.n. proyect
Subject: 	M-G: Contras/CIA-LA Times leads us astray!

dear friends,

The first in the LA times 3 parter on the history of the cocaine business in 
So.
Central LA began 10/20/96.
I read part 1. One has to bear in mind that even this series would not have 
been
printed had it not been for 
evidence uncovered by a couple apparently  relatively  honest  reform
journalists from the San Jose Mercury News and later excerpts in   the LA
weekly journal New Times  which took the LA Times to task for not just 
honestly
reprinting  the G. Webb investigation printed in the Mercury News  and stop  
its
own stonewalling about the "alleged" (LA Times view-NC) CIA- contra cocaine
dealer  connections.
This is  background that the LA times omits entirely so far.  

THe current series so far seems a well reaserched ostensibly "objective"
smokescreen the pro-CIA
Times has cleverly whipped up to throw cold water on the anger and disgust 
felt
by thousands and thousands
of So. LA mainly working class  residents and others too.

The LA Times tries to  evade the issue of the CIA-contra dealings spelled out 
in
the Mercury News pieces.
IT does this by showing that  there were/are  independent drug gangs / 
business
operations that dwarf the CIA/Contra/Blandon's and the drug lord "Freeway 
Ricky
Ross" out fits. So what! Even if this is true and the CIA/contra ring  only 
had
2% of the market at its height, would that still not in itself still  make 
this
a 
heinous merderous operation? What about all the Times pious malarky editorials
about "getting tough with dangerous criminal drug gangs"?

Seems the Times is all "law and order" and for  using  the mailed fist on
"violent gangs" as long as these
are street toughs and corner racketeers from  inner cites. But when the CIA
gets caught (again!) with  smoking guns and drug money for its  corporatist
market  operations , well then , one is just to look the other way or give
a couple loose cannons 50 push -ups and couple laps!!

THe capitalist media is a  major enemy and demobilizer  of the workers. This
episode further  shows we need  the presses of real oppositionist  marxist and
socialist journalism to get needed info. to the masses. Corporate  Liberal  
and
neo-liberal sheets have as their major ineterest in the defense of capital .
This is why they  stoop to any form of smokescreen and otherwise create
distractions to cover up for the CIA. Outfits like the CIA and its  contras- 
and
LA Times evasions and cover-ups for the bourgois state  are all
necessary task-forces for the  continuance of   corporate-banker domination.

LA  Workers Voice  is a tiny marxist fraction of theory and action . It came
out of forces that are ex-MLs.
LAWV upholds the basic tenets of marxism . But its  method is not  talmudic.
But we are openly  hostile
to trends that are class collaborationist . The workers struggles have to be
kept on its own class terrain or 
bourgeois and refromist forces force will derail  them.
We are  "critical" of many  Leninist prescriptions/capitulations after  the 
post
WW1 rev.  wave was defeated by reaction..
We prefer the Leninism of the "State and revolution" type. We uphold much of 
the
left-communism trend
of Pannekoek, Gorter, Bordiga, S.  Pankhurst, J. Mc Lean, R. Luxembourg, etc.
but are critical even of these
greats too!
In, short , we think marxism is both  theory and a guide to mass action as 
well.
It must be continually updated,
let the chips fall where they may,even if we ourselves smetimes  will get
scorched!
We don't claim to have all the answers , but we are studying and trying to get 
a
grip on the nature of the world economy and the needed tactics of the workers 
in
the "Globalist' age of capital in decadence.

In south central anti-cocaine/CIA struggles, we don't have a united front with
other left trends i n the existing motion.. I was just pointing out that other
trends, Maoists-RCP,and Stalinos- PLP, et. al. whom we have deep differences
with are also active and I do  not want to imply we were the "vanguard" of
anything big now nor do we even ever try to bogart the movements  in any way. 
We
want to be a integral part of building the struggles though. We are still a
small educational-agitational  group, but we have allies in a few cities and
countries.

The level of class struggle is still quite low, weak and disunited
organizationally and politically here in the US generally. The bourgois
take-back offensive is now whacking not only flesh but bone. But the class
response has been sporadic and weak - mainly still under reform trend
domination..
But there is growing frustration, anger , alienation and discontent a mongst
wide sectors inside the class.
When things bust loose again , it is really hard to say which way things can 
go,
but it is safe to say sparks may fly in the next couple of years possibly.

Neil


Neil



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