Dal settimanale comunista "Workers World", pubblicato a New York
Like millions of others who live in New York City, the staff of Workers World newspaper has been directly affected by the attack on the World Trade Center. Alongside our sisters and brothers, the workers and oppressed people who make up the vast majority of this city's population and who make this city run, we are deeply pained by the magnitude of death and suffering.
We are workers. We get up every morning, ride the subways, clock in at jobs around the city, and when we finish working for the bosses we volunteer our labor to produce this newspaper. As New York workers, we have been touched by these events.
One of Workers World's editors worked at the World Trade Center. We are so glad that he left for his job late on Sept. 11. He was relieved when he finally learned that his co-workers had gotten out alive.
The niece of another of our editors worked on the 80th floor of one of the twin towers. She ran down 80 flights with hundreds of others, barely making it out of the building before it collapsed.
Among Workers World Party's members and friends is a United Airlines flight attendant whose union sisters and brothers are among the dead.
Others of us are still waiting for word of missing friends and relatives.
Along with all this, the events have caused logistical and technological problems in producing the newspaper this week. DSL Internet lines in lower Manhattan are not functioning. Phone lines have worked intermittently. Transportation is difficult.
We will get this newspaper out, as we do every week. We will use our voices to resist the flood of chauvinist propaganda and calls for military strikes against the people of oppressed nations. But we do so not just as writers and editors, activists and fighters. We do it as an authentic part of the working class of New York City. We feel the pain.
Shelley Ettinger