MEXICO, February 16—In December, intent on projecting an image of control over the health crisis, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), presented a vaccination plan for the country.
The first stage would consist of immunization of all healthcare workers, and the second, would pursue vaccination of 15 million older adults concluding in March. Until yesterday, only a little more than 700 thousand people have been vaccinated, which does not even cover all employees in the health sector (Expansion Politica, 2/10).
On display is the liberal deception of AMLO's self-proclaimed fourth transformation, which in reality has taken advantage of his power to maintain his party’s position and to militarize the country by deploying the National Guard. The only transformation that will serve the needs of the working class is communist revolution.
Just as the pandemic unmasks capitalism's reign of terror, the vaccine program demonstrates capitalism’s complete inability to meet the working class’ basic needs.But more deeply it reveals that under capitalism profits matter more than workers’ health. Capitalism cannot hide its criminal nature. Today it is more evident that it’s a matter of life and death to fight for communism: a society that serves the workers, where our health is a social priority not a profit margin.
Capitalism gutted healthcare system
Mexico’s national healthcare system claims to guarantee access to health care for all those living in the country. But in reality, for 40 years the health structure has been abandoned to give rise to privatization turning healthcare into one more commodity of the capitalist system. The Covid-19 crisis made this situation even more visible, demonstrating the mercenary nature of the system. Today hospital saturation of 100 percent and a massive rate of infection continues to devastate the working class (Milenio, 2/8). This crisis intensified recently in January. Given the overflow of hospitals and the near impossibility of finding oxygen tanks due to excessive pricing, many infected people suffered the disease untreated from home (New York Times, 2/9).
The same corrupt incompetence defines the “vaccination strategy.” The politicians closest to the president, like Marcelo Ebrad, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced with great fanfare the contracts with Pfizer and AstraZeneca for the acquisition of their vaccines. Two months later Mexico’s vaccination coverage is abysmal. Ebrad is one of the leading candidates to succeed López Obrador along with Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mayor of Mexico City. Both try to present themselves as the most competent officials to face the pandemic, but they can’t escape the reality of an overwhelmed healthcare system.
The AMLO government claims to have contracted for more than 200 million doses of vaccine, but to date, not even 1 percent of the 125 million inhabitants of the country have been vaccinated. The government says it has 10,000 vaccination brigades made up of the military and the so-called servants of the nation. But these brigades, whose 12 person teams include only two healthcare workers, are more likely to solicit the vote for Morena, the ruling party, and create a National Guard presence on the streets than provide vaccinations (Mexico Daily News, 1/6).
Bosses turn vaccines into a commodity
Under capitalism vaccines, like housing and food, are commodities rather than a human necessity. Pharmaceutical hace increased several times over their market value. As a result, vaccine distribution will be motivated primarily by purchasing power rather than disease prevention. Under capitalism this will undoubtedly mean that the poorest sections of the working class will be last to receive the vaccine. Once again, capitalism has demonstrated its inability to manage this crisis.
The Covid-19 pandemic has made it clear that workers are disposable under this system where the only thing that matters is the profits of the capitalists. The consequences are lethal for the working class with almost 2.4 million deaths in the world by February 13 (World Health Organization). Mexico ranks third in the world with 171,ooo official deaths and many more uncounted. The management of the pandemic has been a disaster in Mexico, as in the rest of the world. The Progressive Labor Party continues to call on workers to reject the deception that elections can lead to workers power and change this exploitative system. Let’s fight for workers’ power, communism.
HAITI, February 14—The Haitian working class is once again facing a political and economic crisis, mired in widespread violence unleashed by an emboldened president. There were mass demonstrations over the last year demanding that President Jovenel Moïse step down on February 7, the end of his constitutional mandate, culminating in a nationwide general strike that shut everything down. But this was not enough to force Moïse out.
The U.S. and other imperialists support this criminal because he is useful to them. Haiti was crucial in the U.S. ouster of Venezuela from the Organization of American States (OAS) and Moïse continued the opening of Haiti to foreign business interests. The arrogant Moïse celebrated his success by travelling to the Jacmel carnival festivities on February 8.
The anti-government demonstrations are being led by the opposition parties who have positioned themselves as reformers of Haitian society. While many of the people involved in the anti-government movement believe they can improve conditions, the main opposition groups, led by judges and government reformers, are looking to be the new Haitian ruling class. Supporting a new lesser-evil capitalist ruling class will not liberate the working class.
This has been tried over and over. Haiti has had numerous governments in the 28 years since the end of the Duvalier dictatorships, with only two presidents serving their complete terms (Reuters, 10/11/19). But the same capitalist exploitation and corruption remains.
We are working to build Progressive Labor Party and the struggle for communist revolution as we fight back against the attacks of the Moïse government.
These days there is even more widespread instability as Moïse has armed street gangs and militias to create an atmosphere of mass terror. There are assassinations of known opposition organizers and a kidnapping spree of opposition organizers as well as ordinary workers. Many have been fired for speaking out against the government. The life of workers here continues to be pure misery. There is raging inflation and an unstable currency exchange rate. With massive un- and underemployment, Haitian workers depend on remittances from their families abroad. In 2019, $3.55 billion was transferred, up from $1.5 billion in 2011 (tradingeconomics.com).
Those 2019 remittances accounted for 36 percent of Haiti’s GDP. But today, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of these remittances are falling off. March 2020 alone saw an 18 percent decline in remittances when the U.S. lost more than 700,000 jobs (Haitian Times, 4/20/2020).
Deepening ties to workers
The Party in Haiti is using the current capitalist crisis to deepen our ties with our base among workers and students. Because of the widespread atmosphere of terror created by the pro-capitalist forces, we are tasked with coming up with creative ways to continue to meet with our friends, sharpen our discussions and respond to their questions about our line. We are also becoming more creative in putting our line out in a mass way under the current conditions. Furthermore, we are strengthening our own resolve as communist revolutionaries.
Some of our newer comrades and friends are not yet steeled in fighting the bosses on many fronts. We are trying to address their own unease and conflicts, pointing out that our strength and courage comes from relying on our collective wisdom and experience of our Party. We are learning from those revolutionaries who have preceded us, and from our class. We understand the dangers that we and the working class face from our capitalist enemies, but we are not standing down. We will face our class enemy and grow our Party in the process.
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD, February 11—Six months of antiracist organizing have led the county’s Board of Education (BOE) chair to unilaterally cancel the meeting that would vote on whether or not to remove cops out of schools. The rebellions after the racist murder of George Floyd ignited a local campaign to get armed police out of our county schools Capitalism uses police as agents of social control in our neighborhoods, jobs, and schools, using their power to put our kids into a school-to-jail pipeline.
“COUNSELORS NOT COPS!” has been the rallying cry of antiracists here. Progressive Labor Party (PLP), in helping lead the fight against racist police brutality in the county since the 1970s, plays a significant role in this campaign.
The BOE chair used the pretense of “investigating contracts” to cancel the meeting. The chair, intimidated by the struggle, was trying to intimidate angry residents and the board members who will vote to remove SROs (School Resource Officers). This is what “democracy” under capitalism looks like. But we are not backing down!
Cops in schools make students unsafe
The campaign against SROs began with a virtual program in August featuring many antiracist supporters of PLP. A group of public health advocates also joined with MORE in launching the program.
Many factors go into making schools unsafe for Black and Latin students. At the program, public defenders showed the disparate number of arrests of Black students. In past years, the school, not the police, would have handled disciplinary problems. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “Nationally, Black students are more than twice as likely as their white classmates to be referred to law enforcement” (7/9/2020). A criminal record jeopardizes a student’s financial aid, college admission, and future jobs.
Instead of an environment of support, the school’s priority is to create an atmosphere of racist intimidation. Police outnumber nurses and social workers in schools. Instead of racist cops, the mass campaign demanded more mental health resources.
While resources are important and needed, additional support staff won’t solve the stresses and racism of capitalism. Smashing capitalism through communist revolution and erecting an egalitarian, collective society will eliminate this psychologically damning system.
Beware of liberal wolves
The antiracists ratcheted up the campaign with an online petition, an informational website, and a letter writing campaign to the BOE.
However, in an earlier meeting, the BOE voted 8-6 to keep cops in the schools. Alvin Thornton, a Howard professor and “progressive” educational organizer, who had previously created policy for equity in educational funding, actually voted with the majority to keep the cops. Beware of liberal wolves in sheep’s clothing!
The anti-SRO campaign continued into the election season. Two new members who favored removing the SROs were elected and a new chair was appointed. Other groups in the county held additional programs and rallies during this time. A letter to the editor written by a PLP member had 26 organizations sign on to the campaign.
In response to the growing campaign, the CEO of the school system created an online survey of teachers and County residents about the SRO program. A PLP member exposed the bias in the survey, which led to a widely-distributed criticism of the survey on Facebook and email lists.
Three days before the vote, we again produced a virtual program on Zoom and Facebook. One speaker, a teacher of 29 years, explained how she had shifted from believing in Zero Tolerance Policies to supporting Restorative Justice efforts, which treat students with unmet behavioral needs like human beings who are growing during high school.
Members of the campaign worked closely with the advocates on the School Board, holding weekly meetings and working through committees so that it was ready for a vote on February 11. Several had signed up to testify at this now-cancelled meeting.
It is clear that communists can have an antiracist effect on the mass class struggle. However, class struggle in and of itself is not enough (see historical article on page 7). We must also win people to join, support, and promote communist ideas and PLP.
The willingness of the capitalists and their agents to use police for social control was evident to the political base of PLP. They agreed that if the BOE approves this policy, racist repression in the schools would continue.
The role of the Black politicians who lead the county is also obvious. From County Executive Angela Alsobrooks who blocked the reopening of the murdered-by-cops Archie Elliott III case (CHALLENGE, 7/25/2018), to Vice President Kamala Harris, a vicious prosecutor who sought to arrest parents for truant children, the election of “progressive” Black politicians are hollow “victories” for this Black majority county. These politicians use identity politics to pacify working-class fightback and further racist policies.
Defeat racist propaganda
Years of attacking Black and Latin youth have led some residents to accept the racist ideas from the capitalist media. Many parents who have bought into this false ideology are afraid of sending children to public schools. Black, as well as white and Latin, families sometimes share this fear. Instead of trusting students, helping them mature, and developing more collective approaches to discipline, the solution arising from racist ideas is to hammer them with police.
Building a different society requires reimagining education and restorative justice, providing real learning opportunities, and supporting students with higher needs.
But capitalism has no interest in providing that kind of education for our class. Schools are a sorting hat for the next generation of class relations—managers, goons, mouth pieces, and apologists for capitalism; the researchers and scientists working in the interest of profit and imperialism; the workers; the reserve army of workers; and the soldiers. The role of school is training students to accept, obey, and internalize the rules of this exploitation-based society.
Only a communist society that values all children can offer a future that encourages all students to learn and master skills and contribute to everyone’s quality of life.
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Germany: how fascism developed in a liberal democracy
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- 18 February 2021 538 hits
Germany in the 1920s was a liberal democracy. Within a few years, that same society was killing millions of workers led by the Nazi Party. The causes of the holocaust, resulting in nearly 12 million people systemically killed, were a response to capitalism in crisis and showed that the only future for our class, the working class, is a communist revolution.
If we fail to understand this fact and instead accept liberal myths of Adolf Hitler’s evil as the cause, we will not understand how liberal capitalism today will follow down a similar path as German liberalism of the 1920s.
The communist economist R. Palme Dutt in 1934, five years before the start of World War II and eight years before the mass cremations started, understood the needs of capitalism in crisis to destroy not just excess machinery and food that starving people could not afford to buy, but to destroy the people themselves.
“For war is only the complete and most systematic working out of the process of destruction. Today they are burning wheat and grain, the means of human life. Tomorrow they will be burning living human bodies”(Fascism and Social Revolution, Dutt). Dutt was prophetic in predicting the ovens of the holocaust, yet his prediction wasn’t based on the evils of Hitler, but on the needs of the capitalists.
Capitalism in crisis needs fascism
German capitalism in the 1930s was in extreme crisis. The German ruling class was defeated in World War I and the Great Depression that ravaged the capitalist countries at the time had caused massive unemployment as factories sat idle because the working class was unable to buy anything. Milk and wheat were systematically destroyed rather than given away to starving people. Dutt correctly pointed out that those decisions had nothing to do with some existential “evil” but everything to do with the capitalists trying to prop up food prices. Systematically killing people was the predictable next step for a society that saw the working class as expendable.
The politics of Nazism and the mass acceptance of the holocaust intertwined with the needs of capitalism. The politics and the actions fed off of each other. The politics of fascism grew more openly barbaric as the crisis and chaos of the system sharpened. Liberals became fascists because lacking confidence in the possibility of anything other than capitalism, they desperately sought to justify, or at a minimum ignore, what was happening.
The understanding of how liberalism becomes fascism is desperately relevant today. We need look no further than present-day New York to see before our own eyes tens of thousands of workers left to die from the coronavirus. The capitalists put their resources into propping up the stock market instead of protecting the working class. Thousands died while the Dow Jones hit record heights.
Liberal politicians pave the way to fascism
The capitalists acting to protect their interests was predictable. The bigger problem was the acceptance by so many of the daily lies told by politicians like Andrew Cuomo that there was little else that could’ve been done. As the bodies piled up in freezer trucks, Cuomo, promoted by CNN, the New York Times, and the like, fed us lie after lie. The acceptance of Cuomo as the hero of New York City liberals is the warning we should all heed. In the deadly drama that played out of a terrified middle and upper class looking for something to latch onto, we saw how today’s liberalism becomes tomorrow’s fascism.
Hitler became the driving force in German politics after the 1932 election when the Nazi Party received 37 percent of the vote (Who Voted for Hitler, 1980). The Nazi strongholds in that election were in the wealthy neighborhoods of Germany’s most liberal cities.
“It is a point of some irony that the educated upper- and upper-middle-class populations, who react so enthusiastically to the claims of mass-society theories, should themselves have been the victims of a process that they, with such evident disdain, assume to be moving other people. In this case, it would appear that the demagogues, with some aid from the media, had considerable success in moving the upper- and upper-middle class masses” (Who Voted For Hitler).
Workers: reject fascism with communism
While it is easy for many people to see the obvious and call Trump a fascist, the bigger threat to the working class is in large numbers of wealthy liberals defending the coming atrocities of war and extermination when carried out by one of their own champions such as Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. The bosses will spare no expense in hiring proxies to try to bring the working class along to comply with our own destruction.
The lesson of the German Holocaust and what we are seeing now is the folly of following the ruling class. The path forward in the face of capitalism’s crisis is with the working class and the fight for communist revolution.
Gorman’s poem whitewashes U.S. history
I don't like poetry stuffed with cliches. And, as a communist, I detest the deeply hypocritical American Exceptionalist doctrine that the United States is the standard-bearer for freedom and justice around the world. So while the mass media have been swooning over Amanda Gorman's delivery of her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the January 20 Presidential inauguration, I have been gritting my teeth.
Advocate of liberal multiculturalism were overjoyed that this young Black woman proclaimed the U.S. to be "benevolent but bold, fierce and free," and that the legacy of "our forefathers" who "first realized revolution" is one worth celebrating. But the poem's central metaphor of "the hill we climb" recalls the famous "City on the Hill" invoked by Puritan John Winthrop before the "settlement" of Boston in 1630 (and subsequent genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of Massachusetts).
This image of the U.S. as a glorious model for the rest of the world to look up to and worship has over the centuries figured as the supreme expression of American Exceptionalism. The "City on the Hill" would be repeatedly invoked in the 1980s by none other than quintessentially racist and imperialist Ronald Reagan. The metaphor announced in the poem's title is hardly politically innocent.
The media's talking heads just *loved* Gorman's poem because it reaffirmed the false–but oh so consoling–belief that the U.S. was not and is not based upon racist exploitation and oppression; that U.S. "democracy" is alive and well; that, in the wake of the Donald Trump years, "we" will "raise this wounded world into a wondrous one."
Gorman's delivery of the poem on the steps of the Capitol did the job "Hamilton” has done on Broadway over the past several years—namely, to whitewash U.S. history.
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Bosses’ forum admits the threat of world war
Both Russian and Chinese leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, made statements at the Davos World Economic Forum that the growing threat of trade wars and conflicts points to a heightened likelihood of war on a global scale. From Syria and Iran to Afghanistan, from the South China Sea to Venezuela, from Africa to Haiti, political, economic, and military conflicts are taking on more ominous threats to humanity.
The pandemic and its ensuing economic crisis sharpened contradictions between the three great imperialist powers of today: the United States, Russia, and China. U.S. economic and military power, while still dominant, is quickly receding as its rival China expands its economic grip on world commerce. It has successfully extended its influence in Africa, Latin America, and Asia with its infamous ‘Belt and Road Initiative.’ As a result of this new pressure, U.S. imperialism is desperate to resort to military conflict while it still has the upper hand. The split in the ruling class between the imperialist finance capitalists and domestic capitalist rivals has yet to be resolved.
Progressive Labor Party says workers’ blood should not be shed in support of the power struggles, both internal and global, of these capitalist scum. Their interest is furthering the accumulation of profits through never-ending exploitation of workers, unsafe working conditions and ultimately, another global war that will threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of workers on six continents.
It is our responsibility to educate our working-class brothers and sisters of the serious nature of this real threat and share that the only real solution to our problems is a communist revolution led by the international Progressive Labor Party.
Concretely, this also means distributing and discussing the content of our Party newspaper CHALLENGE. We must increase party-led study groups to recruit many, more workers to build PLP into the mass leadership of our class. We must take off our blinders and realize opportunity and necessity have synthesized to build the mass party we have talked about for years. We cannot rest on our laurels. The rise of fascism, racism, and global war requires our total effort.
Ask each reader to join a party study group. Be creative. Write for CHALLENGE. No matter how “feeble” you think your skills are, write the articles. Your comrades are here to help. Recruit, Recruit, Recruit! Smash imperialist war with the communist revolution!
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Connection between Capitol Insurrection and Imperialist Tactics
The premises of the invasion of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6 were near reenactments of the false ideologies used to justify U.S. imperialist wars.
Much has been made, by the mass media of every stripe, of the violent and racist (Confederate flag laden) invasion of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6. Thousands acted in a threatening manner toward anyone in their path, based on two elements:
First, repeated lies that led to their belief that the election had really been stolen and that Donald Trump had actually gotten more votes but that they had been deliberately miscounted by members of both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and
Second, they thought that something they wanted, but which was not in their interest – namely Trump’s victory—was being threatened.
The Capitol insurrection is parallel to the following. First, mainly working-class soldiers are sent to invade other countries under the influence of their belief in the repeated lies that the U.S. is the world’s greatest democracy and the freest country, and it has the responsibility to deliver democracy to every other country in the world, and second, they believe that invading other countries is done in order to protect the homeland from invasion and to keep all of us in the U.S. safe.
This is the way that U.S. imperialism is able to convince our class, the working class, that it is in our interest to take part enthusiastically in their “heroic” missions.
In reality, Trump lost the election, his victory (like that of any capitalist politician) would be against the interest of his supporters, and U.S. imperialist wars are not to defend the homeland and our families but rather for the purpose of making and keeping the world safe for U.S. capitalist profits. This is also against the interest of the working class everywhere in the world, including in the U.S.
Many participants in the invasion of the Capitol were trained by the U.S. military and believe in a mission that really is intended by its organizers to save U.S. profits and believe in the idea that Trump is their savior.
It is further the case that under an exploitative system that is capitalism is in place, no politician or political party—including the liberals and Democrats, not just Trump and the Republicans—can possibly act in the interests of the working class since they must all act to preserve the system. And that is always going to be against the interests of the victims of that exploitation that defines the essence of the capitalist system.
