Newark, NJ, February 22—More than 100 Newark students and workers rallied outside of City Hall to demand the city council pass a resolution calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire and an end to the genocidal U.S./Israeli war against workers in Palestine. We started our action off strong with a comrade leading chants of “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide” and “War on Gaza, Capitalism means we got to fight back!” “Occupation has got to go! This whole damn system’s got to go!"
As inter-imperialist rivalries are becoming more dangerously volatile and bringing us closer to World War III, liberal politicians worldwide are desperately trying to turn this militant rebellion against imperialism and genocide into deadly support for national bosses in upcoming elections. A young woman who came to the Newark rally after a month-long fight for a ceasefire resolution passed in Union City, NJ, stated, “...the ceasefire resolution has indeed pacified folks.”
Meanwhile, connecting Gaza to the struggles and fightback in the streets, where workers work, go to school, and receive services, creates an opportunity for us to build a mass communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) that has a fighting chance at rivaling imperialism. Mass fightback allows workers to build each other’s confidence that we can organize a society where we do for each other without getting paid wages. That’s communism! Bosses prefer we sit in meetings with their politicians for hours and be given false hope for laws and resolutions their bosses will never respect. They don’t want us to learn that most impor tant lesson: that the working class can run the world!
No good politicians in a racist system!
PLP members exposed to students and workers that bosses, whether liberal or gutter racist, will always betray workers. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s bestie and leader of the reform arm of the city, Larry Hamm, used the rally to get signatures for his Senatorial campaign. Then he told the workers gathered that he had to go to another event in Princeton so we were on our own in facing police blocking the doors of the City Hall chambers. But make sure we vote in November! Another mouthpiece for the Democratic Socialists urged the crowd to use ballots to fight back. One comrade cut him short and chanted, “NO GOOD POLITICIAN IN A RACIST SYSTEM.” One student holding up CHALLENGE as a protest poster chanted with us.
We learned this the hard way with the George Floyd movement. All the anti-racist and multiracial rebellion at the fascist, racist police terror was co-opted by the Democrats into voting and pushing for what seemed like a militant call to defund the police. As we marched to enter the council chambers, a line of workers were barred from going inside. We chanted, “Let us in! Let the people in!” The cops refused until a comrade explained to the crowd, “This is how capitalism works–even in one of the biggest cities in New Jersey with a Black ‘progressive’ mayor, we are blocked from entering public meetings.”
More of the crowd cheered then chanted with us, “NO GOOD POLITICIAN IN A RACIST SYSTEM!” Another PLP member explained this is a symptom of rising fascism and that liberal bosses are often the most fascist of them all. The more militant we became in giving speeches exposing how liberal democracy is leaving workers’ demands out in the cold, the more outraged workers encouraged communists to take the blowhorn. With our militant push, cops and their bosses then let everyone inside.
From Gaza to Newark: Imperialist profit and greed destroy workers’ lives
Rutgers University students drafted a ceasefire resolution weeks before and in return, Newark Councilwoman Louise Scott-Roundtree put forward the most watered-down, worthless resolution–not even mentioning Palestine or Gaza at all but calling for “world peace!” As if capitalism will ever deliver world peace!
We were all outraged at Roundtree’s duplicity, and our rage burned hotter as we listened to our fellow Newarkers blast the Council for selling workers out to racist developers, L+M. The Council handed the slum lords another 30-year tax abatement like candy canes at Christmas. At the same time, these same racist developers run apartment complexes like Georgia King Village and St. Mary into the ground, with no heat, rats, roaches, broken elevators, and harassment of the tenants by Black-led management. A comrade got up and called out the Council for selling the city off to developers: “From Newark to Gaza, we need housing, we need safe streets; from Newark to Gaza, we need schools for our kids. Stop gaslighting us for caring about our and other workers’ kids!”
No voting away a genocide
After passing all the resolutions granting concessions and tax abatements for their favorite developers, the Council passed their do-nothing-say-nothing resolution. We emboldened the courageous leadership of a student by interrupting the meeting. We shouted the politicians down, saying, “You support genocide!” Another student with us yelled, “If you’d stop bombing babies, we’d have money to save babies here!” As usual, the cops were sent in to “escort” us out.
The best thing about these current rebellions against genocide is that they are schools for communism. Communism is the only way to end the imperialist wars that threaten to engulf the planet. Then we will not only stop genocidal wars forever, but we will build a world worth living in! Join PLP!
