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Big Fascists pay big price for Small Fascist Trump’s impeachment
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- 26 October 2019 595 hits
The Trump withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria is ratcheting up the fight between the Big Fascist and Small Fascist U.S. ruling class factions. The Big Fascist liberal bosses’ move to impeach and discipline Trump and his ilk is continuing to expose the weaknesses in the institutions of the capitalist state. Trump is being further unmasked as a self-serving opportunist who has cut a deal to serve his Small Fascist masters, as well as himself. Segregationist architect of mass incarceration Joe Biden is also being exposed as being personally corrupt, as his son Hunter has been given free rein to cash in on the family name.
The in-fighting is lifting the curtain from the bosses’ institutions. Both sides are laying bare the cynical blackmailing and leveraging that goes on behind the scenes every day. No U.S. president going forward will be able to lead unencumbered by skepticism about personal corruption and being owned by one set of bosses or the other. As the house of the U.S. ruling class is being engulfed in escalating battles between fascist factions, our class’ way forward is to advance in the face of fear and reject whatever bribes or false hopes are offered by either section of these murderers. We must fight for communist revolution and workers’ power.
The damage to the rulers’ image caused by impeachment speaks to the desperation of the Big Fascist liberal bosses to regain control of the presidency. Over the last 70 years, tremendous power has been concentrated in the White House. The Trump presidency has amounted to a sustained assault on the institutions—the CIA, NATO, the UN—holding up a U.S.-imperialist-led world order that has been in place since the end of World War II. Over that entire period, the power concentrated in the White House has only grown, making it the grand prize of U.S. ruling class power. The U.S. ruling class has become the most powerful and deadly in history in the ecosystem of these institutions.
This situation served the big fascists well when they had more complete control of the system. More recently, the big fascist liberal bosses saw a stronger president as a way to control the small fascist domestic bosses. A move in that direction, buried in the Hart-Rudman report (2001), was a proposal to undercut the power of the House of Representatives, where the Small Fascists had won control of many districts, with the formation of a national steering committee made up of the president and the leadership of the House and Senate.
As the Small Fascists gained strength and took control of the Senate, the Big Fascists saw the presidency as their line in the sand. In 2016, in anticipation of Hillary Clinton getting elected, the major liberal academic expert on the U.S. presidency, University of Chicago’s William Howell, called for more power to the office: “Yes [the president should have more power]…because …Congress channels short term local interests” (U of Chicago Big Brains podcast, ep. 27).
Now, with the Small Fascists in control of the White House, Howell, and the rest of the Big Fascists who back him, have changed their tune, saying:
“There are some powers that the president…has…that should be curtailed…The president’s ability to politicize the Justice Department is deeply problematic. The president’s pardon power is deeply problematic, and the president’s unilateral powers are a mixed bag” (U of Chicago Big Brains podcast, ep. 27).
Liberal patriotism is a cover for growing fascism
The Big Fascist liberal bosses know they may be biting off their nose to spite their face by tearing down the institution. “Democrats may regret…wounding the presidency when Mr. Trump’s successors grapple with the rise of China as a global power, Russia’s revanchism [Ed.–retaliation to regain lost territory], Iran’s quest for regional hegemony and North Korea’s nuclear proliferation” (NY Times, 9/24).
If the Big Fascists can regain the White House, they may try to remake the institution. Don’t be surprised if they move towards the Hart-Rudman proposed gang of fascists-at-the-top model or some other revamping to cement their hold on power.
The inability of the Big Fascist liberal bosses to be assured control of the White House and the delegitimizing of the presidency is a major setback for this fascist faction. Historically, the U.S. bosses have relied on the president to be the face of the ruling class in sending the working class to kill and die for the bosses’ interests. More and bigger wars are on the horizon as the bosses in China and Russia press U.S. imperialism around the globe. An illegitimate president poses huge political problems for the bosses.
To rebuild confidence in their decrepit capitalist system, the Big Fascists are trying to use the liberal movements they lead to incite the fascist slogan: “country first.” But falling for their promise of unity across class lines with the Big Fascist liberals will be devastating for the working class around the world. Our slogan must now and forever be: “power to the working class, fight for communism.”
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Big Fascists in Action – U.S. Immigration Policy
Big Fascists are the liberal/imperialist/finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class. Their plan is to usher in a broader and more devastating multicultural fascism, to discipline their enemies in the ruling class, and attack the working class in preparation for wider wars against their imperialist rivals.
Immigration is just one window into how dangerous the Big Fascists are. When a fascistic surveillance machinery system called SBI (Secure Border Initiative) was deployed in the Tuscon, Arizona area from 2006 to 2011, migrants were funneled into steep desert terrain that made the area southwest of Tuscon a ‘land of open graves’ with over 1,200 working class migrants perishing over the period SBINet was in place (thehill.com, 2/11/19). Today’s Democrats, while posing as pro-immigrant in contrast to Trump’s border wall, have supported proposals for a similar ‘smart-border’ wall that will “combine remote sensors, integrated fixed towers, drones and other intelligence assets” and “create a technological barrier too high to climb over, too wide to go around and too deep to burrow under,” in the words of Rep. James Clyburn, the #3 Democrat.
Real-ID is another example of the Big Fascism of the liberal, finance capital-led wing of the U.S. ruling class. Liberal-led mass organizations have pushed hard for undocumented workers to have government-issued ID in sanctuary cities. In 12 states and Washington, D.C., the undocumented have been granted driver’s licenses. Now it turns out that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is using this documentation to gather intelligence for raids in Washington State (NYT, 10/3/19). Soon everyone who wants to fly on a plane must have some sort of nationally-approved ‘Real-ID.’ As well-meaning workers in the mass movement fought for the ‘right’ of ‘ID for all,’ the Big Fascists are lining up all of society for a government-issued standard form of identification that denotes one’s immigration status.
Trump has built a mass racist anti-immigrant movement. To call it “small fascist” does not diminish its danger to our class. Meanwhile, the Big Fascists are mobilizing the anti-racist, pro-worker aspirations of the anti-Trump forces into a movement that will attack workers with even more dangerous assaults than Trump has yet been able to muster. Workers are being given two options, both fascist. PLP’s job is to offer a third—communist revolution.
CHICAGO, October 23—The Chicago Public School education workers, numbering 30,000, are on strike against racist learning conditions affecting over 300,000 students, the majority of which are Black and Latin. A multiracial and inter-generational mix of education workers and supporters held daily pickets, rallies, marches, and teach-ins. This shows the potential of working-class unity and strength in one of the most segregated cities in the U.S.
We are learning to fight against capitalist racist schools and fighting to learn how only a communist education can provide a quality education for students. This bold antiracist fight is in constant risk of being sold out. Like all reforms, the struggle is compromised when the working class trusts bosses and union misleaders who ultimately serve the system.
Class struggle in session
Education workers launched the strike on October 17. Teachers remixed popular songs like Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” to fit the contract fight. At one school, teachers did a flash mob to block traffic. Facebook has been overflowing videos from pickets showcasing working-class creativity. Still, others led marches through neighborhoods to spread class consciousness. Workers from other unions and community organizations joined the actions and added their own character to the pickets.
Student-parent-worker unity
The strike galvanized young teachers and inspired veteran and retired educators to continue fighting. At a solidarity rally, a young Progressive Labor Party (PLP) teacher blasted the racist attacks in education on Black students and educators through defunding and continued school closings.
There has been immense support from students, parents and other workers in the city. The bosses tried to drive a wedge between teachers and parents, but failed. Students and parents have been on the picket-line unapologetically standing with teachers. At the schools where PL’ers have been organizing, we helped with door-knocking and community outreach. It was essential for the strike to continue building mass support among education workers, parents, and students.
Communists from the international Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought solidarity to strikers. Strikes can be schools for communism and demonstrate the potential power of the working class. We are actively working within the strike, seeking to push the limits beyond the reform goals. We fight for the line that a worthy education for the masses is a pipe dream under this racist profit system.
Smash racism and limits of union reformism
At its heart, the strike is an antiracist movement against despicable racist conditions that are the norm within schools under capitalism. A racist law passed in 1995 severely limited what teachers in Chicago could strike over.
But, as a result of fightback (against police terror, deportations, and gentrification), the struggle to improve conditions in the schools has expanded beyond just economic demands. The demands reflect the idea that the teacher’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions—staffing of social workers and nurses, smaller class sizes, a path to affordable stable homes for thousands of students, and more.
The liberal trap
No matter how well-intended these demands, the bosses will not protect working-class students. Democrats and Republicans have both waged war on undocumented students and workers through mass detention and deportations. And with Chicago’s move to become a “global city” (read: resegregation and gentrification), more displacement of Black and Latin workers is sure to follow (The Atlantic, 3/28/18).
The contract must be understood within this context: the liberal mayor Lori Lightfoot is already celebrating $250 million dollars of “transformative change” that will be coming to exploited communities on the South and West sides (Chicago Sun Times, 10/22).
Neither the racist mayor Lightfoot nor the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) leadership will ensure antiracist learning conditions for students. Such is the nature of capitalist institutions. Rather, the union leadership will accept some minor reforms, then funnel the rank-and-file back into the classroom. The union bosses will continue to lead workers into the camp of the pro-capitalist liberal misleaders like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Jesse Jackson.
Nothing fair under capitalism
The rallies call for a “fair contract,” but nothing is fair under capitalism. The term “fair contract” hides the inherent exploitation and predatory nature of capitalism. By definition, workers cannot keep the true value of their labour. Without wage theft, there is no profit for the bosses. This profit system is the foundation of education for our working-class children.
Yet the struggle for a new union contract is pushed by the union misleadership as the pinnacle of fightback. Never mind that bosses will violate any contract when it suits them, because they hold state power (and use the police, media, courts, and military to exert that power).
If the contract is violated, what is the union misleadership to do? Push past the limits the bosses have set or push workers into legal arbitration? They will assure us our issues will be addressed in the next fight. Workers are then disarmed of their potential militancy and the capitalist reform treadmill goes on.
Fight to learn, learn to fight
History shows advances in education for the masses was made in revolutionary periods with communists and workers in charge. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union transformed a largely illiterate agrarian society to an advanced industrialized nation within the span of a generation. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, the world witnessed the largest literacy campaign in human history. Millions of young students travelled from the cities to the countryside to break down barriers between manual and mental labor.
It’s this revolutionary legacy that the communist PLP seeks to learn from and build upon. Workers, students, parents—join our international fight. Fight to learn, learn to fight!
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MARYLAND—Ten cops from three jurisdictions surrounded and murdered Leonard Shand, a 49-year old Black worker on September 26. Despite years of struggle against racist police terror (which led to two separate Department of Justice civil rights consent decrees directed at the police department), the County continues to be another glaring racist failure of capitalism.
While the Black and white liberal misleaders tried to whitewash the racist actions of the police, members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) called for these killer cops to be convicted for murder. Antiracists at the meeting agreed with this idea.
What does justice for Leonard look like? It looks like revolution, because a vicious system of racist repression won’t stop until the working class makes a revolution to abolish this capitalist system. Police in a capitalist society have a job to do: protect the bosses’ private property and power by terrorizing and dividing the working class through daily racist intimidation and violence. Leonard Shand is the latest target of this state terror. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is similarly used as an intimidating force against immigrant workers. PLP will continue to be in the forefront of every battle against brutality and intimidation by the police and ICE, while always pointing to the need for multi-racial, anti-racist, communist revolution to end such oppression permanently.
Vigil, conviction, and revolution
Forty protesters and family held a vigil where the kkkops gunned down Leonard Shand. The police murder and the whitewash was already underway: the police department that committed the crime will be in charge of conducting an investigation.PLP distributed CHALLENGE and the flyer condemning the racist murder. We also made connections with protesters, thus expanding the base for revolution against the racist capitalist system.The next steps in this fight are to intensify the campaign to convict these cops for murder and recruit more fighters into the struggle for communist revolution.
City’s hypocrisy reveals the failure of identity politics
The police are continuing an intense public relations campaign to protect the killer cops. Henry Stawinski, Prince George’s County Police Chief, publicly complimented the officers for their “wisdom” and “correct procedure.” Hyattsville Mayor Candace B. Hollingsworth and Police Chief Amal Awad—both Black, women, and pro-capitalist misleaders—tried to create a false narrative that the police acted appropriately at the community meeting, justifying the cops’ murderous actions.
This exposes the failure of identity politics. One might be hesitant to criticize these liberal misleaders because they are Black women. But the mayor and chief’s justification of this racist murder prove that multiracial capitalist apologists are still capitalists. The working class needs Black women leaders for communist revolution, not capitalism. Many appreciated the PLP flyer that verbally confronted the mayor and police chief over their efforts to whitewash the cops’ actions.
A second vigil and rally will be held on October 25, and the movement to demand justice in this case will continue. As our comrades in Baltimore declare at the West Wednesday rallies, “We won’t stop, can’t stop, until killer cops are in cell blocks!” And that day will arrive when the working class seizes power and abolishes the reign of capitalism.
NEWARK, NJ, October 2 — Workers in Newark are clapping back against Mayor Ras Baraka’s liberal fascist politricks and the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is participating in the crusade. At a State of the Water Town Hall event, workers blasted the mayor’s team of panelists for dodging questions around whether or not the lead-infested water is currently safe enough to drink. As a result, workers sent in letters to CHALLENGE exposing how the ruling class attempts to make workers feel shamed for challenging politicians’ inadequate attention to the world’s aging infrastructure and its effect on working class people’s living conditions.
Nationalism divides workers
Instead of apologizing for his administration’s negligence and outright lies, Baraka staged a dog and pony show at the event. “Don’t come for my wife, don’t come for my city! Talk about me! Talk about my shoes! The pants I’m wearing,” he preached as the crowd roared in applause. This is the role of these fake “radical” politicians. Rather than organize workers to fight capitalism and the capitalist class that forces workers to be poisoned with lead, Baraka and other liberal politicians will take the bullets for the rulers. He then deflected attention from himself but drew hatred to the Newark Water Coalition, one of the working class movements in the city, claiming their allegations were merely a smear campaign against the city. But workers who eventually joined the Newark Water Coalition were the first to flag the lead in Newark’s public schools originally in 2014. Yet, when members of the coalition spoke out at the meeting, the room booed, some yelling “take your check and go” as if they were simply paid agitators. It was evident that Baraka’s goal was to amplify the tension in the room and maximize the spirit of nationalism in Newark when he shouted out as protestors were being escorted by police that one of the leading organizers of The Newark Water Coalition wasn’t from Newark but the surrounding town, West Orange. Yet, regional nationalism in Newark isn’t strong enough to guarantee workers’ faith in Baraka.
The bosses’ politicians pick and choose when to rally workers behind nationalism. Newark is one of the largest hubs in the state of New Jersey for education, jobs, health care, and other vital necessities. Our needs as workers, regardless of where we lay to bed, demands that we are interconnected with workers in Newark. Baraka sees the involvement of workers in the greater Newark region as a threat. We as communists see solidarity between workers regardless of where we live as a growing necessity over time.
Beware of opportunists
“We have no confidence in this administration to provide us with our basic human right to clean water. Their negligence has already harmed us” (Star Ledger, 9/18).
With the major capitalists putting Ras Baraka on blast through news channel mouthpieces like The Star Ledger and The New York Times, Baraka needs to prove that he can win the working class in Newark to carry out the demands of the ruling class - gentrification and nationalism. Still he knows that some of his rivals are using the water crisis in Newark to get themselves on the bid.
Liberals lies a toxic poison
In the way the phony Baraka called a stop to protests against charter schools on his first day in office, he’s now practicing a more sophisticated tactic to simmer down the fiery spirit of working class people today. This time through billion dollar grants from the state, press releases on the day of major protests and high class Town Hall events.
Communism is the formula, PLP is the key ingredient
This water situation in Newark is a case study for the limits of politicians and why we need a communist revolution led by PLP, not another cycle of voting out the next Democrat or Republican both sets of traitors will never own up to their deceit and it’s in the best interest of workers to stop expecting them to. What’s driving this fight against Ras is people’s criticism of his leadership but we must remember that Baraka is not the root of our problems; he is only the face representing the profits he works to protect. In order for workers internationally to truly grow and thrive, systems upheld by capitalism need to be smashed completely.
Although he is only the face, we must call out liberal fascist politicians like Baraka for leading working class people down a road of poverty, criminalization, displacement and further divisions. Yet, we must also acknowledge that a new breed of opportunists will run against Ras and try out the same tricks liberal politicians use once they’re elected into office. Rather than bowing to the belief that politicians who make their claim to fame through grassroots campaigns are here to save us, join a study group and fight with PLP today!
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MTA & Union misleaders derail workers on track to strike
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- 26 October 2019 877 hits
NEW YORK CITY— Over 100 transit workers and supporters rallied today in a show of unity and opposition to the racist MTA bosses and the givebacks in their contract proposal. Working over five months without a contract, this rally was also a criticism of the do-nothing union leaders. They tell the members nothing about the contract except that negotiations are ongoing. Many workers are fed up.
With this rally we exerted a little working class power. Mainly rank and file members led it from several different departments. They spoke about the deplorable working conditions on the job. They spoke of plantation justice which means heavy punishments for the smallest infractions, mostly caused by the bosses’ speed up of train service. They spoke of the need to build rider and MTA worker unity against the MTA bosses and Governor Cuomo. After the rally, over 50 workers marched into the ongoing board meeting of the bosses and the room of suits became very uncomfortable. They started shuffling papers and fidgeting in their seats, and all their talks ended with how they have respect for the workforce. One worked yelled LIES! As they continued their presentation it was met with workers openly responding, “That’s a LIE!, which company?” There were jeers, boos and laughter.
We need frequent and bigger actions like this, not only to win our demands, but also to get off the capitalist treadmill of constantly fighting just to keep afloat. The MTA bosses are after our pay and benefits again. Their contract demands attack our health benefits, our sick and vacation time, and our job security. This further angered workers. As we fight for a better contract, we must also fight to get rid of this capitalist system once and for all. Workers cannot only organize rallies and strikes; we can run all of society. That’s communism. Join the fight.
This rally originated at departmental union meetings. A proposal was passed to have a rally and action on September 25 in front of the MTA headquarters and attend their monthly board meeting after. However, the union leadership rejected the proposal and countered with a rally on October 30th at 5pm, citing the need for more time to organize the entire union. Many members questioned this move, since the MTA headquarters is empty by 5pm, and so the opportunity to confront the people who drafted the contract demands and sit in on the negotiations would be lost. What is clear to many members is that TWU Local 100 is not a fighting union. So, workers decided to stick with the September 25 rally and confrontation.
At the rally one speaker made a key point that workers’ wages are always up for negotiation but the MTA bosses always pay the debt service to the banks. It’s the banks and bondholders who control both the MTA and politicians like Cuomo. The MTA will raise fares, demand more from the workers, skimp on upkeep, and cut services in mainly Black and Latin neighborhoods, all so they can pay the banks. That’s capitalism and it has to go. The rally also had politicians who are running for local offices. They pledged to support the MTA workers, but as one worker said, “they seem fake and this what they always do to build for their campaigns.” Rank and file workers are already disgusted with liberal governor Cuomo— even though the union leadership refused to criticize him one bit—as they see him as the guiding hand behind the racist attacks on the work force.
We see the boss together not alone
One thing that was even clearer to us is that everything boils down to dollars and cents. As MTA workers we regularly joke about just being a number to the bosses, but in the board meeting the actual cost was fitted perfectly on a PowerPoint. You slip, trip or fall? You went out on comp, got assaulted at work, leave; all of it had the dollar amount and arrows going up or down explaining whether cost was going up, down, or neutral. The idea is to keep costs down, while keeping productivity and profits up.
The takeaway message from the day was that these guys are coming for blood and we have to prepare ourselves for that fight. Progressive Labor Party comrades in the workforce are pushing for more actions around the contract, and a fight against the racist scapegoating fare-beater campaign and the increased police presence on the subways and buses. Coworkers are open to talk more about the contract and what it would take for transit workers to get a better deal. More and more people are bringing up the idea of a strike. Building workers confidence in the working class is a long necessary fight and will continue during contract negotiations and after. It is an opportunity to win leadership for the working class, and to build for a communist society.
