NEW YORK CITY, October 15 — More than 90 people filled the room to “Defend the CUNY Six--Drop the Charges Now!”  Others were barred from entering by campus security. As reported in the last issue of CHALLENGE, students demonstrating against General David “Death Squad” Petraeus teaching at the City University of New York (CUNY) were attacked by the NYPD on September 17. A panel composed of two students, two professors, and an Iraq war veteran addressed students and their supporters. They denounced the militarization of the community and explained how U.S. Imperialism must be defeated. While the audience responded well to the speeches, little practical plans were put forward.
An anti-war veteran of the 1960’s struggles gave the most concrete remarks. He stated, “The best defense is a good offense!” Because of the week-by-week demonstrations, Petraeus has been forced to teach his
Monday seminars in a bunker-like environment with underground garages. PLP and friends must resume these demonstrations wherever he hides, wherever he goes. More importantly, we must build a large citywide anti-imperialist movement on every one of the CUNY campuses because most CUNY students do not yet know about Petraeus, and the foul deeds of the U.S. military and the CIA.
More than that, Progressive Labor Party must be at the forefront of this struggle, calling for communism — a system without wages, imperialist wars, racism, and sexism — as the only solution to the terror capitalists rage against workers and students, domestically and internationally. PLP should use this momentum to build for their International College Conference to Smash Imperialism on November 8 and 9, as it will provide a real alternative to building illusions of a safer capitalism. The conference will engage friends in critical questions, such as what is the relationship between imperialism and fascism; how do we build an antiracist and antisexist movement on campus; why is a communist party, PLP, necessary to building, sustaining, and advancing a communist world.
The veteran suggested that we concentrate our forces next week on a particular campus. For example, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) center is at City College. Despite strong faculty opposition voiced at a Town Hall meeting at the College of Staten Island, the Provost continues to connive to bring in ROTC (see CHALLENGE 10/16). Progressive forces from CSI must be brought together with folks from the three campuses where ROTC has already been instituted:  City College, Medgar Evers, and York.
At any rate the students are determined to fight on. They have received letters of support from the Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY). Money has been raised to replace broken glasses and to pay for legal expenses. The workers in PSC will raise more money if needed. But the students alone cannot sustain the struggle by themselves. They need to build strong relationships with faculty and other campus workers, and with soldiers and sailors as well. History shows us that during the course of the struggle against the murderous Vietnam War, both soldiers and students alike rebelled against imperialism. And the majority of the U.S. working class was won to see that slaughtering workers in other countries was not in their interest.
Today the task of building an anti-war movement is more difficult than in the 1960’s because we live in a period of developing fascism.
Police terror against black and brown youth has increased. The union movement has been decimated. Thousands of people remain in detention even though they haven’t been charged let alone convicted. More undocumented immigrants have been deported under Obama’s reign than in any other point in history. Every day new reports come out of increased government spying on civilians at home. Why is all of this happening now? U.S. capitalists are on a collision course with capitalists from China, Russia and other countries. (Russia has a naval base in Syria). To prepare for future conflicts the U.S. government plans a stronger military with more black and Latino officers being trained in ROTC on NYC campuses. The ruling class also plans to develop more and more patriotism among workers and students. Well, we are not going to go along with this program! With communist ideas and practice, fight back!