- Union Hacks Hide Capitalism as Cause of
Prison Labor: Fascism, U.S. Style - PARDONS CAN'T CHANGE RACIST NATURE OF BOSSES MILITARY
- PICNIC JUMP STARTS SUMMER PROJECT
- MAY DAY ORGANIZING HEIGHTENS CLASS STRUGGLE AT PHILADELPHIA HOSPITAL
- MUNI CONTRACT WON'T BRAKES ON EXPLOITATION
- CHICAGO YOUTH ORGANIZE AGAINST RACIST COPS
- KOSOVO COMES TO MIAMI
- RACIST YONKERS COPS: NYPD HAS NOTHING ON THEM
- LIBERAL SCHOOL REFORMS DEFEND CAPITALISM, ATTACK STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
- ANTI-KLAN PLP'ER ELECTED UFT DELEGATE
- SRI LANKA: The Three Horseman of the Apocalypse--Racism, Nationalism, and Imperialism
- CHINA BUCKS U.S. CONTROL OF WORLDS' OIL SHIPPING LANES
- LETTERS
Union Hacks Hide Capitalism as Cause of
Prison Labor: Fascism, U.S. Style
SEATTLE, WA., May 26--"Have you seen this?" said a swing-shift machinist as he waved the latest copy of the IAM JOURNAL, organ of the International Association of Machinists. "What took 'em so long?"
He was referring to the lead article, PRISON LABOR: BUSTING OUT ALL OVER AMERICA, and the editorial, PRISON LABOR AND THE FIGHT FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE. For nearly two years we've been organizing against the company's use of prison slave labor. It seems the International has finally noticed the problem.
"It's great the Party has taken the lead on this issue," he continued. It's nice to be appreciated, but now what are we going to DO?
The prison labor article was one of the longest ever to appear in the JOURNAL. It documented how many hundreds of IAM members have lost jobs to prison labor, which pays as low as 11cents an-hour. Everything from maintenance and repair work in transit, to assembling John Deere products, to building landing gear components now uses prison labor. The article even shows how the prison population has exploded, particularly among black people and the poor. In particular, it attacks the private prison companies, like Prison Reality Corp. and Wackenhut.
After stonewalling on this issue for years, has the union leadership finally "got religion"? Have they been reading Progressive Labor Party's pamphlet, PRISON LABOR; FASCISM U.S. STYLE, or one of the thousands of other pieces of literature workers have passed through the plants?
The misleaders may have, but they're still playing their role of diverting our anger into dead-end streets. After that damning exposé, their only solution is to support two useless bills before Congress and to vote against "right-wing forces." One bill would require Federal Prison Industries (FPI), the government's prison slave labor program, to devote 20% of its budget to vocational training. The other bill would mandate that FPI no longer be the "sole source provider" for the U.S. government. Of course, at 11cents an-hour FPI would always be the lowest bidder so it would get the jobs anyway.
Social Democracy: A `Fairer Capitalism'?....
"The International is not against prison labor," declared our machinist friend. "They're just against unfair competition."
His complaint goes to the heart of the matter. No less than Thomas Friedman, the NEW YORK TIMES foreign affairs columnist and one of Rockefeller & Co./Eastern Money's chief mouthpieces, has called for social democracy: "You dare not be a globalizer in this world, an advocate of free trade and integration, without also being a social democrat," he warned. (NYT, 5/19)
By social democracy, he means joining labor, government and business together to put out the fires of class struggle--even if it means an exposé or two about capitalism's worst abuses. He's more than willing to give unions an opportunity to look like heroes and even grow in exchange for loyalty to Eastern Money's foreign policy objectives. This is exactly the role laid out for the social democrats (liberal Democrats) by the ruling class.
....OR SMASH PRISON LABOR WITH COMMUNIST REVOLUTION
On the other hand, nothing says the working class must stay within the limits set down by the Rockefeller & Co./Democratic bunch. Our machinist friend showed the way when he took a handful of the Party's prison labor pamphlets to distribute to every worker with whom he discussed the union article. The next weekend a group met to plan a campaign that would mobilize the rank and file to smash prison labor, not just reform it. Look to these pages for reports on the campaign's progress, and ways you can help.
Prison slave labor is the logical outgrowth of a system, capitalism, which requires greater and greater degrees of exploitation to survive. We're not out to make prison labor more palatable, we're out to smash it, and the system that lives off it, with communist revolution.
Editorial:
PARDONS CAN'T CHANGE RACIST NATURE OF BOSSES MILITARY
Not long ago, Clinton gave a Presidential pardon to Freddie Meeks, for the Port Chicago, Calif. mutiny 56 years ago. Meeks was one of 50 black sailors who refused to work after an explosion killed 320 sailors, 202 of them black, on July 17, 1944. Clinton was responding to a campaign to clear the names of the mutineers who "rose up for our rights," according to Meeks. Clinton also knows that black soldiers and sailors are need now to fight in U.S. imperialist oil wars to protect the profits of Exxon/Mobil.
The explosion was a typical example of the racism of the U.S. military. A book by Robert Allen on this mutiny revealed the rotten conditions under which these sailors loaded munitions. Before the explosion, the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) had warned such an accident was waiting to happen because of those dangerous working conditions. The then left-led ILWU had demanded that loading munitions into a ship require at least five years experience. But the Navy ignored all of this.
Officers: Paid Leave; Black Sailors: 15 Years Hard Labor
Lt. Col. Keith Fergurson had admitted that the black sailors were not trained for this dangerous job. After the explosion, Admiral Carleton Wright threatened the black sailors with death sentences if they refused to carry out orders during World War II Fifty sailors refused to work and were given 15 years at hard labor. After the explosion, the white officers in charge of the black sailors were rewarded with 30 days leave, although none were injured.
Compare the racism of the U.S. military during that war to the nature of the Soviet Red Army while fighting and defeating the bulk of the Nazi war machine. Not only was it a very integrated army, but it did everything possible to protect the ones the Nazi SS death squads accompanying the Werchmacht (the Army) wanted to kill first. It was Stalin's standing "order of the day" to the Red Army that all Jews be removed to safety before any advancing German force could seize them.
Not all the survivors of the mutiny accepted Clinton's pardon. Jack Crittenden of Montgomery, Alabama, told the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE he was not interested: "If the pardon means freedom from being villified," he declared, "we have already being villified for a long time." He also added that Congress should approve aid to the relatives of the 320 sailors who died during the explosion. That didn't happen either.
PICNIC JUMP STARTS SUMMER PROJECT
BROOKLYN, MAY 28,2000--Over 80 high school students, parents and teachers joined us for our annual PLP Memorial Day picnic. With great food and fun sports we enjoyed a day in the park with our base. Males and females participated in sports together. Those who knew how to play the game better taught those who were just learning. We all took turns either setting up, cooking, or cleaning up as is always done at our events. As people listened attentively, two speeches were given by PLP youth. One college student explained how PLP organizes a Summer Project every year to train youth to become communist leaders. She talked about the increased attacks on working class, high school students and their connection to the growing prison system. She urged all students to participate in a summer full of political study, revolutionary action and some summer fun. Two high school students talked about their participation in past summer projects. One mentioned our trip to Flint, Michigan where we brought our communist ideas to striking autoworkers. The other student remembered our trip to Steubenville, Ohio, where we went to prevent the KKK from spreading their racist ideas. Everyone there took CHALLENGES and invitations to our Summer Project. Our activities this summer looks promising. We have many serious and dedicated students around, but we must continue and increase our efforts to consolidate these students and reach out to many more.
MAY DAY ORGANIZING HEIGHTENS CLASS STRUGGLE AT PHILADELPHIA HOSPITAL
PHILADELPHIA, May 29 -- Building PLP during a contract fight right after marching on May Day--could the timing be any better? The Local 1199C contract for 1,000 workers at Jefferson Hospital expires June 30. And PLP is in the best position yet to advance the movement for communist revolution.
This year we did our best May Day organizing. While the numbers on the May Day bus were not what we wanted, we made undeniable advances. Some members developed significantly to discuss May Day by themselves and selling many tickets. CHALLENGE distribution increased slightly. For the first time there was actually a small "buzz" at the hospital about May Day. Groups of workers were talking on their own about the March and planning to come.
But maybe most important was finally breaking down the wall in our minds that viewed May Day as somehow "separate" from the daily organizing on the job. We were busier than ever in the union and in the many job struggles. Yet we did a distinctly better job of connecting all these struggles to the need for workers to come to May Day. No longer did we see May Day as just for the smaller group of workers "close to us" who had some familiarity with PLP and communism.
With our many years of organizing and the extensive personal and political ties of some of our members, we were able to very concretely connect even with workers new to us and conduct serious struggles with them to march. For example, Luis is a part-timer interested in organizing a fight for full-time jobs. He has never discussed communism nor read CHALLENGE. From several discussions with him about the difficulties in organizing a jobs campaign, we were able to show him that participating with many other workers in the international working class solidarity of May Day would help prepare him for the ups and downs of this organizing.
Jane is a part-timer who just got a full-time job. But other part-timers are filing grievances claiming they should have received that job, making Jane feel negative. "Why aren't we more united and fighting together instead of with each other?" Jane asked a union delegate. Jane never heard of May Day. The union delegate won Jane to march by explaining that May Day was the best answer for Jane's cynicism. She would be marching with many other workers who, like her, believed in working-class solidarity.
Throughout our May Day organizing we tried to have a more mass approach while explaining to everyone the role of PLP and communism. We tried to avoid being sectarian and opportunist, with mixed results. Yet for the first time May Day became for us what it should have been, an integral part of our organizing in the union mass work. Over the next year we will deepen May Day's role in our daily work.
PLP is now involved the 1199C-contract struggle to carry May Day's red flag forward - and it's scaring the bosses and the union leaders who serve them. Before May Day, the 1199C Organizer (Business Agent) ordered all Jefferson union delegates (and any workers who might lend an ear), that they are NOT to listen to, attend any marches organized by, carry any signs made by, or do anything suggested by Fred, a long-time union delegate.
Despite these "orders," on May 22 Fred and some of the active union delegates organized almost 200 Jefferson workers, in an "underground" manner, through word of mouth, to attend a "show-of-force" solidarity lunch in the hospital cafeteria. It was so popular the union organizer was forced to "endorse" it to avoid totally exposing herself as a sellout. But the union refused to give out any 1199C hats or buttons and none of the union leaders attended. However, it was the first time such a large number of union members participated in such an action on hospital property. It was also the first time some of the action's organizers really saw the bosses' fear of large numbers of united workers.
The 1199C leaders also showed their fear of the workers. Before the solidarity lunch, 1199C had called a meeting about contract negotiations for June 3. A new union activist fought for this Saturday meeting. It would be the first time in a long while that all members would meet together instead of in staggered sessions during the week corresponding to all kinds of crazy shifts. More workers than ever planned to attend. Several declared this would be a "hot" meeting for the union leaders.
Then, a week before this Saturday meeting, some members received a mailing announcing that the starting time had been pushed back four hours! The mailing was dated May 22, the day of our solidarity lunch. Many workers suspect that the 1199C leaders heard about the success of that action and are now trying to sabotage a mass turnout for the Saturday meeting.
Through all these twists and turns PLP has had the opportunity to grow. We are tied to many workers through years of political and personal struggles. We are reaching out to newer and younger workers to fight for jobs. CHALLENGE distribution is increasing. This contract fight is heating up the class struggle a little. Our organizing in this fight can help develop a better May Day next year.
MUNI CONTRACT WON'T BRAKES ON EXPLOITATION
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 30 -- "The situation at work is like a tinder-box, ready to blow at any moment." "It's not just about money, it's about respect." At the last union meeting about upcoming negotiations, one member said: "What contract? Management does what they want."
These comments represent a tremendous and spontaneous anger among Muni drivers upon entering contract negotiations. As communist bus drivers, we must discuss capitalism's real political and economic forces attacking our quality of life and standard of living.
The ever-growing two-tier wage progression (new drivers start at 70% and wait 31 months to reach full pay) means that over that period management pays new drivers $22,000 less than drivers with more seniority for exactly the same work. Today 12% of the work force is part-time. A two-tier retirement program leaves only about 225 drivers with a livable pension while the vast majority's plan pays $1,800.00 a month maximum.
Management wants to expand efficient "rush-hour" service to the downtown business and commercial district. Think-tanks like SPUR, the Chamber of Commerce and the Committee on Jobs use the government and courts to legally enforce the increased exploitation of drivers. This means a full assault on work rules, including giving management a blank check on changing work-hours, a further weakening of rules that allow drivers time off from a stressful job and limitless use of part-time labor.
Drivers are already scrambling, at tremendous cost to personal health and family life. Many depend on the individual solution of overtime (on average 400 hours a year, or 10 extra 40-hour weeks!). One would need $27/hr to earn the same income in a 40-hour week.
Drivers are protesting the disciplining of drivers for damage to the trolley overhead lines. This is like blaming bus drivers when the vehicle's tires wear out. Many experienced drivers left the trolley division in protest. At the Metro trains' Green Division, drivers were ready to refuse a "sign-up" because of management's plan to disregard safety and re-deploy 16 drivers to a downtown line. Faced with this challenge, management temporarily backed down. At Cable Car, there is a petition about discipline and rumblings about refusal to work OT in the busy tourist period.
There is wide-spread support for another petition demanding an end to wage progression and involuntary part-time jobs.
Downtown businesses are booming. San Francisco is the gateway to trade and finance with Asia, and has "Multi-Media-Dot-Coms" galore. Our labor is vital to the profits of the big corporations whose work force we bring in and out every day. But our contract never addresses these profits, or the "free ride" big business gets from mass transit.
Any contract, no matter how good or bad, is a written agreement on how a group of capitalists will benefit from the labor of workers. Capitalism is based on this exploitation, and it's not up for discussion in contract negotiations. Labor and capital are in a constant conflict that no contract can resolve.
Of all the results we need from this contract fight, the most important is more CHALLENGE readers and distributors so that more workers can consider a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. We are ready to lead a strike to stop the bosses' attacks. But only communist revolution will end exploitation and serve the needs of the international working class.
CHICAGO YOUTH ORGANIZE AGAINST RACIST COPS
CHICAGO, IL. -- On May 24, Gonzalo Venegas and another Lincoln Park H.S. student were brutalized by the fascist Chicago police. The cops punched and spat at them for being at the school the day of a gang fight. Principal Todd had called in extra police that day because of the earlier fight. These cops kicked everyone off school grounds and out of a neighboring park. Gonzalo's "crime" was resisting this abuse.
He was taken to an isolated area and threatened by a cop who lives in his neighborhood. He told Gonzalo if he saw him again he would break his arm. Then they shoved him violently and punched him in the face. When another student who was witnessing this abuse sarcastically "cheered" them for beating on another Latino student, the cops spat at him and handed him a citation. They handcuffed Gonzalo, extra tight, and dropped him off at the park from which they had taken him. No charges were placed. The cops just wanted to brutalize and intimidate the few students who were resisting their harassment.
Lincoln Park students have been active against police brutality this year. They have several lawsuits pending against cops for a fascist search where several young female students were sexually harassed by male officers. The principal promised meetings on the situation but months have passed and nothing has happened.
Students immediately began organizing against this latest brutality. Over 50 students came to the first meeting. The principal tried to defuse the students' anger, but no one believed her empty promises since she did nothing about the previous brutality. After discussion and struggle, students decided to hold a rally at the school calling for a mass meeting with the principal to discuss these problems before the school year end.
Lincoln Park students need to understand that these cops serve the capitalist state. They bosses must force us to submit to their plans for war and fascism, to accept continuing attacks against working class youth. So far this summer the cops have already killed two young black people here and have shot at many others. This caused enough anger for PLP and the victims' families and supporters shut down last month's Police Board meeting.
It promises to be a long hot summer but we will we will never give up organizing to get rid of their murderous system.
KOSOVO COMES TO MIAMI
Miami has been "different" from any other U.S. city for many years. It is the only city in the world where one must be not only anti-communist but specifically anti-Castro as a requirement for almost everything in daily life. The Elián case (remember him?) has exposed all of this. Now one must be anti-Castro, anti-Janet Reno and anti-Juan Miguel (Elián's father).
All this has divided the city between the Cuban exiles and the rest of the population of Miami-Dade County (Anglos, African-Americans, Haitians and non-Cuban Latinos) to such an extent that many fear Miami will become another Kosovo. EL PAIS, a Madrid daily, wrote (May 28) that several people are devising a plan to halt this division. "I hope that the Balkanization of Miami won't be permanent," said Edward Foote, University of Miami president and one of the proponents of a plan to unite the residents.
However, in the city's streets, nationalism reigns supreme. "The symbols of ethnic pride are shown with pride and defiance. And frequently, with hatred....Friends, fellow workers and relatives have even stopped talking to each other," reports EL PAIS. "It has reached the point of the United Way forming four teams of professional counselor-therapists to help more than 200 companies solve ethnic problems on the job and to seal open wounds."
Miami-Dade's 2.4 million population includes 700,000 of Cuban origin, 670,000 non-Cuban Latinos, 370,000 Anglos, 145.000 Jews, 490,000 African-Americans and Haitians. The Cuban exiles, particularly the local politicians and their master behind the scene, the powerful National American Cuban Foundation, view the Elián case as part of their anti-Castro crusade. They claim it is a symbol of their "suffering" as "exiles from communism." But almost everyone else supported Elián's return to his father Juan Miguel. The INS (Immigration Service) raid to free Elián has sharpened this division even more.
There is an interesting lesson in all of this. Anti-communism and racism is a two-edge sword for those who use it. While the Cuban exiles say they "revived Miami" and turned it into what is now known as the "Capital of the Americas," most others resent the Cuban control and monopoly of almost the entire local government. (The police chief and the city administrator, both of whom supported the INS raid, either quit or were fired and replaced by Cubans). The Anglos resent the Cubans in a racist way, as just a bunch of "uppity Latinos." Meanwhile, the Cuban exiles treat the other Latinos, blacks, Haitians and even non-white Cubans just as they did in Batista's Cuba, as their servants.
For many decades, U.S. bosses used the Cuban exiles as mercenaries to wage imperialist war against communism in Central and South America and even in the Congo when leftist Patrice Lumumba was prime minister. Now many see the Miami Cubans' nationalism as "un-American" for burning the U.S. flag during the protests after the INS raid.
Meanwhile, Miami is not the "paradise" Cuban exiles paint. It has one of the highest poverty rates among major U.S. cities (particularly affecting children). Low wages are the norm. Life is generally hard for most workers (except for Elián's kidnappers who have now moved to a bigger house outside Little Havana, courtesy of some rich friends).
This "Balkanization" of Miami proves once again that you reap what you sow. Anti-communism and racism are the bosses' tools. Workers who use them are putting a noose around their necks.
RACIST YONKERS COPS: NYPD HAS NOTHING ON THEM
YONKERS, New York, May 31--The cops in this city north of New York City don't seem to be far behind their fellow NYPD goons. They've unleashed a reign of terror against the mostly Latin community around Colin Street.
Under their Zero Tolerance policy supposedly to "fight crime," cops are harassing people indiscriminately. Last night, a Spanish TV station reported that the cops beat up a couple of young men in a neighborhood Latin family. But this time, unknown to the cops, a neighbor taped their brutal attack. The TV reporter interviewed all kinds of people in the community. They all agreed that the cops indiscriminately harass and push people around. A neighborhood priest said the cops even harass little children playing in the streets.
Workers and youth in Yonkers are getting fed up with this racist terror. They need to do what workers and youth are doing in many other cities: organizing and fighting back! But it must be done without relying on liberal politicians who just tell us "vote for Hillary" and things will change. The only change these liberals are proposing is "community policing" (to get us to help the cops harass us). Yonkers cops are doing what they are paid to do: protect the racist system and attack workers. The PLP Summer Project will see youth organizing against racist terror and for communism. Join us!
LIBERAL SCHOOL REFORMS DEFEND CAPITALISM, ATTACK STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
LOS ANGELES, May 23--Over 6000 teachers marched here for clean classrooms, more books, against merit pay and for an across-the-board raise. Teachers are angry at the worsening conditions. The union leadership has mobilized this anger. Coming on the heels of the janitors' strike, this march reflects both the anger of union members and an aggressive strategy by the liberal ruling class, who need to win workers, and especially teachers, to fight for reforms and defend U.S. "democracy."
Teachers in and around PLP are involved in many levels of the union, fighting the Board of Education and the union leadership. For over a year we've opposed the union/management proposal of peer review in different union committees, allowing us to raise bigger issues about education under capitalism. We've won respect for the Party's ideas and a somewhat wider CHALLENGE readership.
The educational system's failure is well known. Racist ruling class pundits blame the working class for this failure--we either have "bad genes" or dysfunctional families--or blame a few bad teachers. As the rulers prepare for war, they are mobilizing teacher-student anger into a movement to reform education. There is a debate about this. One side says youth can't learn what's required and the standards will just punish kids, so there is also a mass movement against standardized testing, which we're also involved in. We insist that youth CAN and MUST learn, but that these tests are designed to win them to defend a racist system or flunk out. This will increase the drop-out rate and put more youth at risk of police attack.
Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, says "industrial-style, adversarial tactics" of his teachers' union must be replaced by unions that "assist in removing teachers...who are unqualified, incompetent, or burned out." So the old "F--k-the-kids, We want our money!" approach is out. Now they're fighting to "improve" the schools by firing the "bad" teachers.
Peer review puts teachers on boards alongside administrators recommending that tenured teachers be fired. Many good people are being misled, thinking this means more good teachers, committed to teaching our youth all the skills they need, and fighting for the materials with which to do it. But those very teachers, in fact, are the thorn in the principal's side. They are more likely to be victimized by such measures.
Peer review is part of a trend to tighten control over the content of education. Teachers are required to teach to national and state standards, students are tested on them, schools and teachers are ranked by the test scores, students are flunked, and teachers are given merit pay--or fired--based on students' test scores. This kind of educational system builds unquestioning patriotism, illusions, passivity, willingness to work for low wages and to send students, lock-step, off to war.
Does the ruling class really want to improve education for the vast majority of working-class youth? Look at the attacks on them by police and the judicial system! While the rulers may need to improve the skills of some students, in general the educational system educates a few people to run society. It trains the vast majority to be wage slaves and cannon fodder. Educational reform is not designed to question or change class society, just to meet its changing needs.
Do the tests on the standards guarantee that students can read, write, do math and think critically? Will the standards teach students that they will be called on to fight for profits of one of the most murderous groups of rulers the world has known? Teachers who ask students to think about U.S. imperialism, the history of racism and class struggle, will be deviating from the standards--and are likely to be recommended for "peer review" by principals who see them as "trouble-makers."
Students need to learn skills and the history of the fight against racism and oppression. We have confidence they can learn whatever they need, but it takes a fight because capitalist schools are not interested in teaching most of them. Teachers must be organizers committed to teaching needed skills to the students, as well as uniting teachers, students and parents to fight the attacks on the youth.
As the rulers move toward war and increasing fascism, they're trying to use our anger at the failures of capitalism to enlist us to demand that the government take more control. We have the opportunity to expose the racist system, fight the moves toward war and fascism, and pose what kind of educational and political system we really need. Capitalism is incapable of providing it. The solution is a communist world where production and education are organized to meet the needs of those who toil, not the profit needs of a few.
ANTI-KLAN PLP'ER ELECTED UFT DELEGATE
BROOKLYN, NY, May 29 -- Last week a PLP member at Van Arsdale H.S. here was elected to one of the union chapter's two delegate positions, after having been at the school for only seven months. How did this happen? Therein lies a communist political tale.
Last October 15, the administration at Westinghouse H.S., where this PLP'er had worked for 13 years, cut out his program and transferred him to Van Arsdale. They made this move because he had been organizing a broad rank-and-file-led union chapter that would fight for changes in the school, always with the students in mind.
At Van Arsdale he was unknown except for a few people who had previously seen him at the city-wide union Delegate Assembly meetings where he had represented his previous school. But as chance would have it, five days after he entered Van Arsdale, he was one of three people organized by the Progressive Labor Party to attack Ku Klux Klan scum at a KKK police-protected "rally" in downtown Manhattan. The fight was the lead story on all TV networks that night and in the press the next day, with this teacher's role prominently displayed.
Suddenly everyone in the school knew him--students, teachers, administration. This was both a blessing and a problem. The blessing: everyone knew the kind of person he was. The "problem": he now had to organize quickly at a school which he had just entered one week before.
That task was complicated by the fact that, (1) he had to learn new skills, teaching three completely new subjects all in a somewhat unfamiliar environment--he had only taught jewelry-making for his entire time in the public schools-- and (2) at first most of his spare time was spent in helping with the movement he had helped organize at his original school (which is continuing).
The two schools were similar in several respects: the teachers are under tremendous pressure, the students are treated like prisoners and administrators--harassed by higher administrators--harassed everyone else. In this tortuous climate, he began by distributing CHALLENGE and becoming friends with teachers and students.
With the recent police murder cases of Patrick Dorismond and Amadou Diallo in the headlines, he would wear buttons and bring literature and organizing reports to school. Some teachers thanked him for politicizing the students. He wrote a couple of articles for a local newsletter published by one of the teachers and a poem for the school on the Dorismond killing. He was asked by another teacher, a preacher who liked his anti-racist stand, to sing Amazing Grace at his church on Easter Sunday. He did this, and added three extra anti-racist verses.
In his Humanities Department, most people know him as a communist. The rest of the school knows him as an anti-racist fighter. On May First he taught May Day lessons. In English, he posed the question, "Is May Day simply a holiday to dance around the Maypole?" In Economics, "What was the 8-hour day movement all about?" In American History, "Why is the international holiday May Day an American holiday?"
He met a number of union members who wanted to run a slate against the old union officers. They talked politically among each other and formed a loose slate. Given his anti-Klan notoriety and his raising of political issues at his new school, he figured it was logical to run for delegate--having already been one at his old school.
The election was held this past week. Five people ran for two delegate positions. This communist received the highest vote. (The out-going chapter chairman got the lowest.) Of his two close running mates, one won the other delegate position and the other lost for the vacated chapter chairman's position, although doing surprisingly well.
There is much work to do. (For instance, no one came to May Day from this new school.) He aims to raise the class-consciousness at the school and to align himself with the working-class students who attend this vocational high school hard by the Williamsburg Bridge.
SRI LANKA: The Three Horseman of the Apocalypse--Racism, Nationalism, and Imperialism
Thomas Pickering, U.S. Under Secretary of State, recently visited war-torn Sri Lanka after stopping in India, and firmly said there can be no independent Tamil in the northern part of that island country at the southern tip of India. The Tamil Tigers, the group fighting the Sri Lanka army, may be on the verge of seizing the important city of Jaffna, defeating the 30,000 government soldiers protecting it.
The war between the Tamil Tigers and the India-backed Sri Lanka army has been long and bloody, with tens of thousands of deaths in the last few decades. In fact, in 1991 a Tamil suicide bomber killed India Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi (son of Indira Ghandi) for sending Indian troops to support the Sri Lanka government. India opposes an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka because, (1) it already faces a Pakistani-supported separatist movement in Kashmir in the North; and (2) it fears the rise of a separatist movement among the Tamils in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India across a narrow strait from Sri Lanka.
Why do U.S. rulers opposing the Tamil Tigers? After all, they're not calling for an end to capitalism. The Tamil leaders, like many nationalists, are taking advantage of the blatant, violent anti-Tamil racism of the Sinhalese ruling class--Sri Lanka's main ethnic group--while fighting for the privilege of exploiting their own people.
However, Sri Lanka is strategically located in the Indian Ocean. It's a key stopover for U.S. ships supplying the tiny but important Diego Garcia islands a supply base for U.S. operations in the Persian Gulf.
In addition, U.S. relations with India have changed. In the past, when India was ruled by the Ghandi-controlled Congress Party, it was armed by the former Soviet Union and had very close commercial ties with the Soviet bloc. But when Russia invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. allied with India's arch-enemy Pakistan. This enabled the CIA to use the drug-smuggling Pakistani army and Intelligence Service to arm the religious zealot guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan.
However, with the emergence in India of a Hindu nationalist government, the BJP Party, positions have changed. Today the U.S. sees India and its navy as a counterweight to China's ambitions in Asia (see page 8).
So contradictions abound. Racism, regional and worldwide rivalries among different imperialists, and splits among local bosses are all behind the war in Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands of workers and soldiers have already died in this capitalist bloodbath. It's time for working-class soldiers to rebel and turn the guns around to smash capitalism and imperialism, the causes of modern war. Revolutionary communist leadership is the key ingredient to make this happen.
Thomas Pickering, U.S. Under Secretary of State, recently visited war-torn Sri Lanka after stopping in India, and firmly said there can be no independent Tamil in the northern part of that island country at the southern tip of India. The Tamil Tigers, the group fighting the Sri Lanka army, may be on the verge of seizing the important city of Jaffna, defeating the 30,000 government soldiers protecting it.
The war between the Tamil Tigers and the India-backed Sri Lanka army has been long and bloody, with tens of thousands of deaths in the last few decades. In fact, in 1991 a Tamil suicide bomber killed India Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi (son of Indira Ghandi) for sending Indian troops to support the Sri Lanka government. India opposes an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka because, (1) it already faces a Pakistani-supported separatist movement in Kashmir in the North; and (2) it fears the rise of a separatist movement among the Tamils in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India across a narrow strait from Sri Lanka.
Why do U.S. rulers opposing the Tamil Tigers? After all, they're not calling for an end to capitalism. The Tamil leaders, like many nationalists, are taking advantage of the blatant, violent anti-Tamil racism of the Sinhalese ruling class--Sri Lanka's main ethnic group--while fighting for the privilege of exploiting their own people.
However, Sri Lanka is strategically located in the Indian Ocean. It's a key stopover for U.S. ships supplying the tiny but important Diego Garcia islands a supply base for U.S. operations in the Persian Gulf.
In addition, U.S. relations with India have changed. In the past, when India was ruled by the Ghandi-controlled Congress Party, it was armed by the former Soviet Union and had very close commercial ties with the Soviet bloc. But when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. allied with India's arch-enemy Pakistan. This enabled the CIA to use the drug-smuggling Pakistani army and Intelligence Service to arm the religious zealot guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan.
However, with the emergence in India of a Hindu nationalist government, the BJP Party, positions have changed. Today the U.S. sees India and its navy as a counterweight to China's ambitions in Asia (see page 8).
So contradictions abound. Racism, regional and worldwide rivalries among different imperialists, and splits among local bosses are all behind the war in Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands of workers and soldiers have already died in this capitalist bloodbath. It's time for working-class soldiers to rebel and turn the guns around to smash capitalism and imperialism, the causes of modern war. Revolutionary communist leadership is the key ingredient to make this happen.
CHINA BUCKS U.S. CONTROL OF WORLDS' OIL SHIPPING LANES
Clinton's all-out push to get China admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is based on U.S. imperialism's strategy for maintaining world supremacy. Clinton's masters have identified Russia and China as their key rivals. Preventing a strategic alliance between them has become a major goal of U.S. foreign policy.
By "normalizing" trade relations with China, Clinton & Co. hope to keep Chinese bosses dependent on U.S. technology and credits. A secondary goal is the huge profit pile to be made from dealing with Chinese businesses. Many U.S. companies have billions at stake in Chinese contracts. And there's a $50 billion trade deficit in Beijing's favor that U.S. rulers want to reverse, while still enjoying the inflow of cheap goods that helps keep costs, especially wages, down.
But wishes aren't necessarily realities. For one thing, U.S. corporations aren't the only ones interested in profiting from investment in China. For one example, if the Chinese don't like what Boeing is offering them, they can turn to Europe's Airbus to buy aircraft. For another, despite the U.S., China's rulers continue to show interest in developing strategic ties with Russia, particularly purchasing military hardware and technology. China has become post-Soviet Russia's main arms customer. The reason isn't hard to figure out. China's bosses themselves have imperial designs of eventual world supremacy, and view U.S. imperialism as the main obstacle to that. Viewed in this light, all trade maneuvering becomes understandable.
NAVAL EXPANSION TIED TO OIL SHIPPING LANES
China's evolving naval strategy reflects its growth as an imperialist power. Since January, Chinese rulers have taken several steps geared to a long-range challenge to U.S. imperialism on the high seas:
* In January, the Chinese People's Liberation Army/Navy (PLAN) conducted a combined naval exercise more than 250 miles from the Chinese coast. This maneuver is consistent with the development of a "green water capability," which would allow PLAN to operate in all areas running 3,500 miles from northern Japan south to the west coast of Borneo (northern Indonesia).
* On May 5, the Russian daily KOMMERSANT announced that Russia had sold China the aircraft carrier Kiev, a major step allowing Chinese rulers to "join the ranks of the world's power projection navies" (STRATFOR, May 5).
* On May 7, the Chinese government finalized a deal allowing the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO--the world's second-largest shipping company) to use port facilities along the key Suez Canal. COSCO has strong ties to the Chinese military and has a large interest in Singapore which stands at the southern entrance to the Strait of Malacca. Another Chinese shipping company has a deal near the Panama Canal.
The Strait of Malacca, the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal are all major world oil transit centers. The U.S. Energy Information Administration calls them "chokepoints" because "disruption of oil flows through any of these export routes could have a significant impact on world oil prices" ("World Oil Transit Chokepoints," U.S.E.I.A., August 1999).
Since the collapse of the old Soviet Union, the U.S. Navy has claimed a lock on all these and other ocean shipping routes. This domination isn't about to end immediately, but Chinese bosses clearly intend to defy it over the long run. The "green water" Chinese navy of today is slated to become a "blue water" (worldwide) navy within 20 years or so. Chinese imperialism is looking to project force in the Spratley Islands in the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca, controlling the shipping lanes in Southeast Asia, and the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the vast oil resources of the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. This means a direct challenge to U.S. supremacy on the high seas.
U.S. rulers are taking note and making plans. The Establishment media's main military writer, Thomas Ricks, says the Pentagon now considers China "a potential future adversary...It is now a common assumption among national security thinkers that the area from Baghdad to Tokyo will be the main location of U.S. military competition for the next several decades" (WASHINGTON POST, May 26).
The choice of Baghdad is no accident. China is the world's second-largest energy consumer, after the U.S. The growing Chinese navy will sharpen the inter-imperialist dogfight for Persian Gulf oil. Under these conditions, the Rockefeller-controlled Exxon Mobil's drive to force Saddam Hussein from power and replace him with a pro-U.S. regime in Iraq can only intensify.
By greasing the way for China's entry into the WTO, Clinton is only setting the stage for a higher level of inter-imperialist rivalry. An eventual armed conflict directly pitting U.S. bosses against China and Russia may lie in a fairly distant future, but wars leading up to it, like a likely oil bloodbath in the Persian Gulf, aren't so remote. Imperialism always leads to war. Nothing short of the complete overthrow of capitalism by communist revolution can end this vicious cycle.
LETTERS
Wage Slavery Southern Style
Comrades, how are you all doing? After a few years and a long trip through half of Central America and Mexico, I have ended up in the south. I returned because conditions back home in Colombia are horrendous (war, death squads, drug lords, etc.)
I am now working under concentration camp conditions in a tomato packaging plant, earning the minimum for 14 to 16 hours a day. We are almost all from Mexico, Central and South America, without any papers. We basically go from a cheap hotel to work and back to sleep in the hotel. The only "advantage" of not being in a major urban center is that here one doesn't spend too much money, so at least you can save a little bit, but basically as a slave.
I will try to write more and will see how I can get DESAFIO.
Red migrant worker
Bogota May Day: Don't Vote,
Join PLP
This 1st of May was a day of struggle against capitalism. It was also the working class's international day to commemorate the Chicago working-class martyrs who were assassinated on orders from the killer bosses. Thousands of workers got ready in the early morning to march. They lined up with flags, slogans and banners to vent their repressed anger over unemployment, hunger, the increased cost of living, massacres and the uprooting of masses due to capitalism and its politicians and death squads.
In Bogota the PLP contingent, participating with a good number of militants, led enthusiastic workers and students to play an important role. They marched with PLP's banner, sold our literature and distributed 3,000 communist leaflets. While leading chants, our red flags gave the march a revolutionary tone. Our signs read, "Long Live Communism," "Let Capitalism Die," "Down with the Damn Racist, Killer Bosses" and "Don't Vote, Join PLP."
We confronted the reformist-nationalist politics of capitalism's sellout servants, the bosses of the central unions who used this march to try to channel workers' discontent and anger into the next fraudulent election.
These apologists of wage slavery want to steer workers away from a truly revolutionary party. We posed the real alternative to workers, communist revolution to destroy this crisis of overproduction imposed by capitalism.
It was a good day, a successful march, a step forward for us. Our political alternative was greatly accepted by workers to whom we spoke. We know the road to revolution is a long one. That's why we're re-doubling our efforts to create trust with workers, deepen our ties and prepare them with communist ideas to advance their understanding so they can give leadership to next year's march.
PLP'er in Colombia
Don't Need Strikes Under Communism
In answer to "Grandmother Jones's" questions in her letter (Challenge, May 31):
1) Yes, unions are better than no unions. Unions were started by communists as a first step on the road to revolution. The most important lesson workers learned by participating in building unions and fighting the bosses is the power of class unity. Even though the bosses seem to have won their fight to corrupt and control workers' unions, the bosses can't change the essence of a union, which is organized unity of workers against bosses. Union members should join PLP and organize for communist revolution within their unions. In fact, this is the best plan to follow for a better future for workers on any job, whether there is a union or not.
2) Strikes have been a tactical move against the bosses in the past and present to gain more power and material resources for workers as well as better working conditions. I would think that in a communist society where social production is for the workers' needs and not for profit, that strikes would not be necessary. In a communist society the workers collectively plan and produce for everyone's needs equally, which should include the best possible working conditions for any worker doing any particular job as her/his contribution to the needs of the whole.
This may sound impossibly utopian on paper, but communism is a different model of society from capitalism. The basic economy, or plan, of a society determines what the super-structure, or the many relationships of that society will be. In nature, the cells determine what kind of body an organism will grow, internally and externally. In a communist society how we think about the material world and our relationship to it and how we form relationships within society to each other will be different because the basic "cells" of a communist society are different.
Anyway, this is how I see it at the moment, but every time I participate in class struggle with PLP, I learn more. For more in depth discussion, why not join a PLP study group in your community?
A Mid-West Comrade
Teachers Thrilled by Internationale
I'd like to tell Challenge readers about a small experience that was inspiring to me. It was May 1 and we were at a meeting of a teachers' coalition discussing reforming education. May 1 was on Monday and I was still pumped up from the May Day March in San Francisco.
Towards the end of the meeting a coalition member said that since this is May Day, we should have a moment of silence for workers who've been victims of the bosses' terror. I said we should sing the Internationale. We had a moment of silence and then I started singing the Internationale along with another comrade. A few others joined in.
As I sang, people were looking at me in awe and surprise. At the end everyone clapped. Several came to me and asked me to write down the words because they always wanted to learn them. I promised I would. At the next meeting, I plan to pass out the words to all the members of the coalition.
A Red LA Teacher
Europe's Bosses Dip Oily Fingers into Colombia
The editorial in the last CHALLENGE exposing the truth behind the exposé of Clinton's Drug Czar McCaffery was very helpful and insightful. It's clear that the top U.S. rulers, those who own Exxon, have a much greater immediate need to fight for the control of oil in Iraq than for the future of BP Amoco-Arco's oil in Colombia. However, as the editorial points out, there are secondary contradictions.
The war in Colombia continues. Totalfina (a French oil company) was, as of last September, Colombia's main oil producer (Petroleum Economist, 9/99), although BP Amoco was a very close second. They now each produce around 19% of Colombia's oil. In addition the FARC and ELN (the two guerrilla movements) have strong ties with European social democracy groups. Colombia's President Pastrana and his negotiators traveled to Germany to negotiate with FARC leaders there and together have an audience with the Pope. This is the same Pope, generally representing the interests of European imperialism, who gave a speech on May Day (!) calling for "justice" in the world and relief of "third world" debt.
On the face of it, it seems that--while for the Rockefeller oil empire, the main fight is certainly in the Middle East--the European capitalists are making inroads and supporting movements in Colombia and the rest of Latin America as well as Africa (as the last Challenge documented so well). That's why the U.S. will continue to fund a murderous war in Colombia while preparing for a bigger war in the Middle East.
This problem will not go away, but will deepen. The workers in Colombia face a drawn out, murderous war, which has already displaced over one million people and killed at least 100,000 with no let-up in sight! The only way out for the workers is to build the PLP with the goal of getting rid of all the imperialists with communist revolution.
To say that Russia and China are the main long-term strategic enemies of U.S. imperialism does not mean that the European imperialists are necessarily U.S. allies. If one lives in Colombia, the contradiction affecting you most immediately and horribly is the secondary one--between the U.S. and European imperialists fighting over control of that country's oil, politicians, land and state power. Of course, you're affected if the U.S. won't now be sending masses of troops to Colombia because, for the Rockefellers, IRAQ is crucial. Years of war without an end in sight will be the grim result of the current imperialist rivalry. None of them care how many workers die in their struggle for dominance.
A comrade
Red Eye Trapped in Sociobiology
Challenge may want to draw the conclusion that the Finicacial Times inadvertently reveals that communist morals are part of our make-up, but the conclusion shows the editors do not have an understanding of evolutionary biology or of the dialectics of historical materialism ("Red Eye on the News," Challenge, 5/10).
The conclusion betrays that Challenge has fallen into the trap of sociobiology and bourgeois science's attribution of human behavior as genetically determined. Sociology believes that human psychology is derived from evolution (from our biological make-up), whether it be altruism or selfishness. Both behavioral traits can be found in James Q. Wilson. The Mating Mind belongs to sociobiology. The reason, according to that book, that mates seek kindness, etc., is that those traits are favored for reproduction in sexual competition, although they bear no conscious trace to sexual competition. To believe that and to teach that is only a way of training very poor communists, communists who do not understand the sources of human behavior and communist morals.
The source of human psychology and of communist morals or bourgeois morals for that matter is in the history of social, political, economic and cultural structures and within those the relationship of classes to each other. Communist morals have nothing to do with evolution and natural selection. And sexual competition, ever since the human species came down to ground and out of the caves, is also a matter of attitudes and preferences related to the historical structures cited above.
I know it's nice to suddenly come upon something in the bourgeois press that reveals the contradictions and hypocrisies of capitalism or the validity of communist ideas. This is not it, however. In our zealousness to find such things, we must be careful that we don't expose our own ignorance of bourgeois science and of Marxism. We want to train deep-thinking Marxists and communists, not flip ones. I imagine the failure to do that in the Soviet Union in the 73 years before its downfall is the reason there are bloody few people in Russia with communist morals.
S. Agonistes
Red Eye Responds
Challenge reader S. Agonistes has written the above to say that it was a mistake for Red Eye to print a Financial Times article showing that human evolution favored kindness and altruistic behavior rather than the dog-eat-dog traits usually attributed to Darwin's theories. This reader correctly states that Marxists do not believe that human behavior is significantly determined by genes. Therefore, this article bolsters a false view.
However, many people believe that "communism can't work because Darwinism proves that humans are naturally violently competitive."
Therefore, I think it is useful to print articles which show that this interpretation of Darwinism is full of holes, even if the articles are non-Marxist.
Red Eye provides ammunition which can be used in arguments. Naturally the user should attempt to steer the discussion to Marxist conclusions. But I think it is useful to provide all sorts of toe-holds for a difficult journey.
Of course, this approach to assembling useful stories means a lot of close decisions have to be made, and this one may have been wrong. But the main question is: should Red Eye continue to print pieces which might provide a useful basis for an important discussion, even if the article is not "pure"? And if the answer is "yes," are there too many cases where non-Marxist ideas have been strengthened?
What do other readers think?
Red Eye Editor
