TEXAS, July 7—The Progressive Labor Party organized 50 workers and youth against capitalist borders during a summer project here. The focus of our fight was a call to unite against racist borders and anti-immigrant racism. We strengthened our commitment to multiracial unity of the working class and the struggle for communist revolution to destroy capitalism.
Every year, PLP and friends join to fight collectively in an area of focus—to connect struggles, grow our organization, and develop young leaders. Throughout the week, we demonstrated, volunteered, distributed CHALLENGE and leaflets, engaged in workshops and discussions and strengthened our relationships with each other.
Internationalism on July 4
After the protest against the new concentration camp in Carrizo Springs (see front page), we took the fightback to the Texas-Mexico border. July fourth in the United States is a day of hyper nationalism and morid hypocrisy. PLP comrades countered the bosses fake holiday by staging a militant anti-July fourth demonstration, and distributing communist literature to workers and shop owners around the international pedestrian bridge.
Many stopped to read CHALLENGE right then and there. Several joined in on our march through the streets and at the corners where we stopped to chant and hear speeches prepared by our comrades—a call to unite all workers and smash all borders!
Again, PLP’s commitment to international solidarity was proven by rallying directly at the border—connecting with workers who cross back and forth between the two countries on a daily basis. We urged them to take our message back to their families both here and in Mexico and beyond.
Solidarity with migrant families at the shelter
Throughout the week, PLP volunteered at a local shelter that housed migrant families who made the hellish journey from Mexico, Central America, the Congo, and Haiti. As many as 300 arrived every night. We served meals, played with children, and listened to many migrants share their experiences (see letters, page 3). We helped some make travel arrangements, for their journeys are far from over. Many are going to meet family already here—some are going to cities and states they never heard of.
Still, many are going to cities where they will face more racism, poverty, and exploitation. We ached for them, as they come to the U.S. with immense hope in having a chance at a new life. Ultimately, we learned from our fellow brothers and sisters, as their very presence once again shows the power workers hold in demonstrating their ability to defend themselves even in the harshest of conditions.
A week of learning
PLP also took to the streets in Texas, distributing CHALLENGE and leaflets to Toyota factory workers, passersby, shoppers, and shelter volunteers. We focused on spreading our sphere of influence and developing young leaders. Throughout the week, we engaged in discussions and workshops to increase and strengthen our understanding of intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry, its dependence on racism and nationalism to divide the working class with borders, and to prove further, the heightening danger of fascist liberalism.
We fortified our understanding with direct experience to take back to our schools, our jobs and our communities. We ended the week with a real Texas barbecue celebration, sharing our impressions and lessons learned from the week.
Rising fascism and liberals are main danger to workers
While liberal politicians may cry “keep families together” to appear concerned with the humanity of migrant workers and families seeking refuge, merely keeping families together in a detention center is a complete sham. They use the suffering of the migrant workers for their own cynical purposes. Just like president Donald Trump and his conservative cronies, U.S. liberal bosses have high stakes in exploiting the working class—they just use smoke and mirrors to do so. They want workers to forget that it was Barack Obama who deported more migrants than any other president. Obama authorized the construction of detention camps for children at the border. Obama created DACA to target Latin youth for military recruitment.
Thus, we cannot ignore that it is Obama’s racist legacy that Trump’s anti-immigrant administration is built upon. While Trump’s administration uses open racism to mobilize its political base and fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, we must acknowledge that intensified racism, nationalism, and use of “law and order” to terrorize workers are strategies employed by a number of Democratic presidents—Obama, Clinton, Carter—and are a hallmark of rising fascism.
Worldwide, bosses are sliding towards wider war and the various national bosses are moving towards more fascism amid growing volatility. But, liberal fascists continue to insidiously mislead workers into believing they have our best interests at heart when they are agents of a violent system. They seek not to alleviate the exploitation of the working class, but to subdue workers with meaningless reforms. They seek not to unite workers in multiracial unity, but instead keep workers divided through identity politics. Time and time again, liberals screw workers over for power, profit and control. The working class shouldn’t be fooled!
Communism means no racist borders
Our work in Texas this week reflected what communism means—workers’ power, no racist borders, and no workers forced from their homes and families to find work. Our work this week reflected our dedication to building and strengthening PLP—and our fight to smash capitalism for good. We must unite and fight the increasing mass arrests of undocumented workers, ICE police raids on homes, jobs, military bases, bus stations and highways, mass detentions and deportations.
Same enemy, same fight, workers of the world unite! ¡El mismo enemigo, la misma lucha, los trabajadores del mundo se unen!
CARRIZO SPRINGS, TX, July 3—“Smash racist deportation, working people have no nation!” This international chant resounded as multiracial and multigenerational contingent of Progressive Labor party (PLP) members marched in firm formation towards a newly opened concentration camp for children, a site only 12 miles away from the Crystal City concentration camp that held Japanese, German, and Italian families during World War II. They joined liberal organizers of the protest, who kicked the protest off in a pacifist fashion: mini banners, carrying gifts of bookmarks and teddy bears, all while urging protesters to decorate a fence a hundred yards from the entrance to this Carrizo Springs child detention facility.
Liberal pacifism vs. communist militancy
It was clear that there was tension between liberals, identity centered organizations and PLP when sing-along sheets with “This Little Light of Mine” and “De Colores” were passed out. We knew that singing “This Little Light of Mine” was just a means of steering working-class anger into passivity—telling people to hold out for hope that things will change, rather than calling upon them to join in multiracial unity to defeat and destroy capitalism. PL’ers were immediately critical when these pacifist song-sheets were distributed, and when the leadership of the rally moved to sing them someone in the crowd yelled out, “WHY? NO!”
As the liberals stumbled to answer, members PLP sang “The Internationale,” the communist working-class anthem, while distributing CHALLENGE and communist leaflets. PLP won the crowd over with our anthem, our chants, and our speeches, exposing the politricks of both Republican and Liberal bosses and politicians to use racism to divide the working class and super-exploit migrant workers crossing the border, for their political and financial gain.
We called upon everyone to unite and fight back against capitalist bosses. The capitalist media has been supposedly uncovering the injustices at the US-Mexico border, but the end game is basically to push workers in the U.S. into the dead-end path of voting our way into a better world. But we know better, and in an effort to spread PLP’s line around building a united international working class, members took to protest against a new children’s detention center in Carrizo Springs, Texas.
The squalor in these concentration camps is a holdover from the Obama era but the media focus from outlets controlled by main wing finance capital is new, as they seek to build mass movements to attack Trump, the number one threat to their decades-old blood-soaked world empire.There were approximately 100 people in attendance, including PL’ers from New York, Chicago and New Jersey.
Part of communist training
This trip to the detention facility at Carrizo Springs was a part of a week-long summer project in Texas (see page 8).
We greeted the Toyota Factory workers with communist literature, protested racist deportations again at the border crossing of Laredo and volunteered in migrant shelters nearby.
Three leaflets were written and translated in one day for use through the week.Study groups and forums helped a new generation of young leaders achieve greater unity and understanding of how inter-imperialist rivalry is driving divisions in ruling classes worldwide and the danger that liberal misleaders backed by main-wing finance capitalists planning World War III present the gravest danger to the international working class.
Thugs in blue try to intimidate
In addition to the contradictions of the liberals, the police, true to fascist form, broke their promises to work with the rally organizers and proved that they were there to serve the bosses. From the jump, there was a heavy police presence. From kkkops standing among us in the crowd with Blue Lives Matter patches on their sleeves to squad cars cruising up and down the dirt road, whirring police sirens and ordering us to clear the already cleared pathway.
They cruised slowly up and down the main dusty road in front of the center in large black SUVs, inches away from protesters. They periodically interrupted the speakers with sirens and admonishments to “clear the road” and operated a drone over the crowd to identify demonstrators. Although we abided, police still called tow trucks without warning and ordered more officers to the ground, blocking both ends of the road in military fashion. At the close of the protest, three people were arrested and two cars were towed.
Leave the flags where they belong...in the gutter
When the contradictions of liberals are pointed out and acknowledged, especially by communists, workers and youth lean further left. Several dozen hand-held American flags the rally organizers planned to distribute went un-used, as the political tone we established made it clear that US nationalism and patriotism would not be well received by the crowd.
Workers won to these ideas will carry out mass murder overseas and, in the end, endorse a border regime of biometric fascism that will make Trump’s border wall look like child’s play as long as it adheres to the liberal fantasy of the “rule of law.” Due to our ability to boldly inject a communist alternative to the liberal misleadership on display, working class internationalism achieved a small but important symbolic victory over nationalism and patriotism, as the U.S. flag remained on the ground, where it belongs, like the flags of all bosses’ nations.New forces committed to raising the red flag of the revolutionary international working class were forged over the past week!
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Letter: Student and teachers fight back to end racist random searches
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- 12 July 2019 351 hits
The school board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) just voted to end the racist “random search” policy that has been dehumanizing our youth since 1993. For 26 years, working class students of color were pulled out of class every day and faced intrusive searches that subjected them to the culture of criminalization that capitalism creates. Basic items would be confiscated such as markers, highlighters, white out and/or body spray. However, the LAUSD did not end this policy because of the annoyances it brought upon these students every day. They ended it because of pressure from anti-racist students, teachers, parents, and community members who fought against it for many years.
To fight the bosses is educate our youth
As a teacher and member of Progressive Labor Party (PLP), this struggle for me started about five years ago when a resolution was put forward in the teachers’ union. This resolution proposed taking a stand against racist police brutality and it passed. As a result, the union’s Racial Justice Committee was formed. Instead of this newly formed committee being a group that simply talked about racism, there was a struggle to take direct action against racist policies in schools, such as the aforementioned random search policy. We joined together with other students and community members and developed a long-term plan that consisted of educating ourselves about these issues by developing student curriculum, organizing forums, passing out flyers, and pushing for the union to fight to end random searches. This committee took direct action in the form of rallies, marches, and packing school board meetings.
There was a lot of resistance from educators worried about “safety,”and many also had racist ideas about Black and Latin students. There were also some problems that developed within the committee itself. For example, after Trump was elected, there was a serious debate over whether or not the fight against racism is also a fight that benefits white workers.
The ideology of “white privilege” was brought forward to contradict the communist view that the white working class’s interests would be served by fighting racism, as it would break down the fabricated barriers that stop all of the working class from fighting together.
Some members agreed with us and have since been interested in reading Challenge. Small issues such as lack of commitment and attacks from the administration slowed us down, but we continued to fight together and develop unity. The struggle continues with the skeptical teachers, but the few committee members who read Challenge agree with us on many points and consider themselves to be on our side.
Don’t fall for the bosses’ reform game
The bosses attempted to reform their racist policies by suggesting safe school programs such as comprehensive restorative justice, psychologists, therapists and counselors, and the Safe Passage program. However, through strength and determination, our committee pushed for the LAUSD to end this policy entirely.
Although a great victory for our students, it’s important to understand that reforms, no matter how progressive, will never eradicate the racist nature of this system. As long as capitalism remains, the need to criminalize and oppress working class youth will continue. In fact the bosses always seem to give us an inch to later cut off a mile, such that the next safe school policy they come up with may be more racist and fascist.
The education system itself is set up to teach youth to accept the bosses’ control or face dire consequences. However, this fight will not end until we take down the capitalist system and replace it with a better system for working people, a communist system that teaches the working class our history and science, and truly educates our youth, so that they can help build a better world for all. The struggle continues!
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Wayfair workers lead the way; reject liberal fascist bosses’ trap!
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- 12 July 2019 321 hits
BOSTON, MA—Hundreds of workers at Wayfair Inc. walked out against their company’s sale of beds for an immigrant detention center that housed children at Carrizo Springs, Texas (the same detention center where the PLP held a summer project protest, page 1).Strikes and protests by workers against fascist detention centers can help build the movement to destroy capitalism. This fightback is a good example of what workers should do and we as a class must be wary of political misleadership that will not lead us to the only solution to destroying fascism: communist revolution.
Workers organize; bosses co-opt
When the workers realized that Wayfair was selling beds to BCFS, a contractor who supplied the immigrant concentration camps, about 550 of them signed a letter of protest. They made several demands: no more business with BCFS, donate profits to help reunite immigrant families and institute a code of ethics so this wouldn’t happen again. The billionaire CEO Niraj Shah, a son of immigrants, rejected the demands and the workers decided, in the end, to have the walkout.
One of the walkout leaders was Maddie Howard, a Democratic Socialist. No surprise then that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, both Democratic Socialist congressional representatives, supported the action with AOC tweeting: “[t]his is what solidarity looks like — a reminder that everyday people have real power, as long as we’re brave enough to use it.”
Through this struggle, many Wayfair workers have begun seeing through the so-called apolitical nature of big business. Some of them said, “If this is how the free market works, I don’t like it.”
They also saw how workers make the system run: if we withhold our labor, the fascist machine can’t function. These insights are powerful when taken to their final conclusion: workers can run society in our interests without the need of the bosses’ capitalist system! Then and only then will there be no borders and no children dying in concentration camps.
Liberal bosses the main danger
Instead, the Democratic Socialists and the big liberal fascists they have tied their movement to offer misleadership. They mainly criticize Trump’s overt and gutter style of fascism. They don’t point out that Barack Obama, the deporter in chief, built these concentration camps and imprisoned entire families including women and children. The liberal fascists built these cages! And, they just voted to fund even more camps and more cages. More children will die. The liberal fascists don’t push Trump’s border wall. They push an even more dangerous option: biometric screenings, drone surveillance and better technology at the border. This means more death as desperate immigrant workers will take riskier routes through deserts to avoid these traps.
These big liberal fascists push the ideas of reforming capitalism. They try to convince workers that this despicable and inhumane system can be made to function for us. That as U.S. imperialism ravages the world with bombs, hunger and chaos, it can be taught to respect human rights! That we can have “just” borders.
This is why the Progressive Labor Party warns the working class: the big Liberal Fascist wing of the ruling class and the parties they control are our biggest threat. They will try and mobilize us to support their brand of fascism as they mobilize our young people in their multi-cultural, multi-gendered Armed Forces for the upcoming wars against their ascendant and resurgent rivals: China and Russia.
“7K or strike” was the chant heard outside in the hallway after a group of CUNY (City University of New York) faculty walked out together after a heated union meeting on Thursday night . Numerous militant speakers rose to talk against tuition hikes, for improved wages for adjuncts(part timers), and for a strike. Part timers, who receive poverty wages and are the majority of the teaching staff tried to get a resolution passed that would delay the contract vote until the fall. While unsurprisingly, the union leadership of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) was able to squash that resolution, they got a taste of what an organized fightback looks like. PLP members and friends are part of this 7K or Strike Campaign and have organized our students to sign solidarity statements with the adjuncts.
What CUNY and the union leadership would like is for us to meekly accept continued starvation wages for part-time faculty and racist tuition increases for students. They would like for us to channel our furious anger at the crumbling infrastructure and decreasing services into pointless lobbying trips to Albany. They would like us to view the fact that, according to a recent survey, 48 percent of CUNY students are food insecure, 55 percent are housing insecure and 14 percent are homeless, as unavoidable parts of a capitalist system that we are powerless to change.(NYT 5/2 Tuition or Dinner?)
But workers and students, not just in CUNY but around the world continue to put the fight-back on display, illustrating the enormous potential of the working-class. With communist leadership and discipline, we have the ability not just to change capitalism, but to smash it altogether. That is the message that members and friends of PL are bringing to CUNY students and workers.
CUNY Board of Trustees: racist goons
For all the hardship experienced by the faculty and staff at CUNY, the group that the racist CUNY Board of Trustees have targeted most viciously is the students. Their so-called “rational” tuition plan has seen tuition increase every semester since 2011. Yet, knowing full-well the statistics cited above about student food insecurity and homelessness, and knowing that most CUNY students have to watch every penny, they just voted to raise tuition by $200.
Good capitalists that they are, the CUNY Board has also invented the myth that the tuition increase is necessary to pay for “future labor costs.” The CUNY annual budget is around $3.5 billion dollars. The notion that the small percentage increase needed for labor contracts must come from student tuition is idiotic. It’s a purely political tactic, precisely designed to weaken student-faculty solidarity. Meanwhile, the silence coming from the PSC is deafening. Fearful that it will jeopardize whatever awful contract is offered by CUNY, they have sold out students in the most brazen way by refusing to condemn the tuition increase. Here also, the $7K or Strike campaign has revealed the collaborationist nature of the PSC leadership,by boldly calling out the tuition increase as racist.
PSC leadership sows disilusion
Beyond selling out the students, the PSC continues its campaign to disarm and disillusion its members. The writing is on the wall: the CUNY Trustees and Albany politicians continue to strangle the CUNY budget, and that’s with the racist $200 tuition increase. Yet the PSC leadership asks its members to continue the same failing strategies over and over - beg and plead with politicians, travel to Albany, testify at hearings. At multiple union meetings across the university system activists have implored the PSC leadership to develop an alternate plan – a strike plan. Yet at tonight’s meeting, even the most mild resolution – to delay any vote on a potential contract until after the summer break, giving the rank-and-file a chance to collectively discuss it – was attacked by the leadership and soundly defeated. They have systematically weakened any kind of union militancy and then have the nerve to declare that the contract timing is “fragile” and that we should not fight back.
The fight for $7K and the fight against tuition increases are critical, but history teaches us an unflinching truth: Reforms made under capitalism are fleeting - and replacing a president, a congressional representative, a governor, mayor or union president will never create a world where all workers can live with dignity in their jobs and at home. The U.S. ruling class faces an intractable need to discipline the working class and prepare for greater global conflict.
This need has not arisen because Trump is president or Republicans control the Senate or Cuomo is governor or Bill Thompson is Chair of the CUNY Board and certainly not because Barbara Bowen is PSC President. No, this need arises from the laws of imperialism and inter-imperialist rivalry. And it is this need that filters down to our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions. It is this need that drives Cuomo and DeBlasio to strangle the CUNY budget and to raise tuition. None of these characters is relieved of their responsibility in heaping racist misery on workers to a greater or lesser degree. But replacing them is not the answer. We must replace the capitalist system that feeds and is fed by them. And that requires a communist revolution.
