Issued: July 1970
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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More and more revolutionary young people are militantly taking up the fight for the right to organize politically and waging tit-for-tat struggle against the fascist authorities whose survival depends on preventing the spread of revolutionary ideas. On July 23 two young communists, Jack Ailey and Michele Shubert, will stand trial before the fascist court of East Cleveland for defending the people’s right to organize and to distribute revolutionary literature. This kangaroo court, like all the lackey courts, uses “legal” trickery to back up police violence and support fascist repression by the Nixon-Agnew government. True to the gangster logic of the monopoly capitalists and their lackeys, these young revolutionaries are charged with “trespassing” – when the only trespassing committed was police violation of their democratic rights – and with “resisting and abusing an officer for defending themselves against a vicious attack.
In every instance the courts serve to maintain the power of the U.S. ruling class and its exploitation of all working and oppressed people. If the CTS strike had continued, the bourgeois courts would have used injunctions and the Hitlerite “Ferguson Act” to break the strike. When Tri-C students protested last February against racist administration policies and were attacked by riot police, the fascist court tried them for “assault.” When Bobby Seale, chairman of the Black Panther Party, spoke the truth at his “conspiracy” trial, the fascist judge had him bound and gagged and sentenced him to years in jail for “contempt.” Thus the logic of the bourgeois courts is: all rights to repress the people, no rights to rebel. The logic of the people is that all these anti-fascist fighters are in the right and it is the courts that must answer for their crimes.
These two comrades are determined to denounce the fascist court, expose its political nature as a tool of mounting fascist repression, and bring out the truth. On July 9 comrades Jack and Michele were visiting bus barns to distribute American MASS LINE and QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAO to the striking Cleveland transit workers. It Hayden station nearly every driver bought MASS LINE and many detailed revolutionary discussions were held. All this drove the fascist station manager into a frenzy and he invoked the “sacred rights” of “private property” to call the police. Comrade Michele denounced this lackey, saying that the people’s democratic rights come first, and that communists have no intentions of asking permission to make revolution. Several workers spoke up to defend our comrades, one of them saying that the manager was so upset because Black and white people were uniting politically. When the blustering of the E. Cleveland police also met with firm denunciations, they violently attacked our comrades, who fought bravely, giving them back blow for blow, and continued to denounce and struggle against them even inside the jail.
Now the fascist E. Cleveland police are trying to prevent political discussion and sale of MASS LINE in Forest Hill shopping center. They regularly threaten the revolutionaries with arrest and try to intimidate people who count on buying their weekly MASS LINE there. But these cowardly attempts are doomed to failure as more and more people come forward to support the right to organize. Everywhere progressive and anti-fascist people are seeing the Paper Tiger nature of U.S. monopoly capitalism and its fascist government and are taking up the practical tasks of organizing: TO UNITE ALL THOSE WHO CAN BE UNITED TO COMBAT THIS GROWING FASCISM!
Come to the trial (Thursday, July 23, 10 a.m., E. Cleveland Municipal Court, I4340 Euclid) and DENOUNCE THE FASCIST COURT!
American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) • P.O. Box 5221, Cleveland, 0. 44l0l Tel: 861-6949
DENOUNCE THE FASCIST COURTS!
IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL AGAINST REACTIONARIES!!
DEATH TO FASCISM!!
DEFEND THE DEMOCRATIC RIGHT TO ORGANIZE!!
DOWN WITH ALL HARASSMENT OF PROGRESSIVE AND ANTI-FASCIST PEOPLE!!
LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO, LEADER OF THE WORLD ANTI-FASCIST, ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE!!