revolution

France. Three thousand Gaullist police unexpectedly swarmed into a French watch factory Tuesday, outsting striking workers who had occupied the factory two months earlier and started operating it themselves.

The Paris government ordered the police into the Besancon factory without informing the local Socialist mayor, surprising the 50 workers guarding the plant during the night.

They were herded out without incident, but 10,000 people in appeared at a demonstration later in the day and it was clear that the issue is not settled.

Workers seized the plant in June after it was sold to multinational corporation which threatened to cut back its work force and production. They have managed it ever since, holding daily mass meetings to decide company policy and selling new watches to the public at wholesale prices.

Other French workers are expected to support their comrades in Besancon if the government offensive continues. The watchworkers were starting to build socialism, and the right had to use force to protect its lie that only businessmen can manage industry.

United States of America. The show kangaroo trial of eight Vietnam Veterans against the War continues in Gainesville, Florida. Seven Vets and one sympathizer are accused by a couple of unstable informers of conspiring to use slingshots and bows and arrows to disrupt the Republican Convention last year.

The trial is the most obviously repressive of a long string of attempted political lynchings orchestrated from the White House. As in the past, no illegal acts were commited, only an alleged conspiracy.

The Vets are really on trial because they fought against a criminal war that they had participated in. Most of them were members of elite units in Vietnam--Marines, paratroopers, squad leaders. They hate their past with the same passion they once pursued it. They are the real heroes of Vietnam--perhaps its only ones on the American side. At this moment in time, they are the best people in America.