Washington, DC, September 30—Today the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held a rally, march, and protest in solidarity with the oppressed workers of Myanmar (formerly Burma), in particular against the genocidal campaign by the military against the Rohingya Muslim minority workers and farmers. The army has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya off their land into neighboring Bangladesh, where they meet rejection of refugee status by the Bangladeshi rulers. Ostensibly the army is acting in response to terrorist attacks on Burmese police stations by an organization of Rohingya jihadists, but the masses are made to suffer.
Refugees from many countries meet similar rejection in Europe and elsewhere, leaving them homeless and without livelihoods, as warring imperialists from the U.S., Europe, Russia, and China fight each other for oil, natural gas, and minerals over the dead and dying bodies of workers and farmers whom they mislead into believing that these wars are in their interests.
Despite the pretense that the root of this genocide is religious oppression against Muslims in a predominantly Buddhist nation, it is mainly the backing by contending imperialists, who cynically jump on any bandwagon to appear to support one group of workers over another, that drives the attacks. Land theft by the military from Rohingya farmers is an additional motivation, but many poor Buddhist farmers have also been subject to the same thefts of land, making unity between both groups against this oppression an absolute necessity for survival. Unity among all groups of workers everywhere is the only possible way to defend ourselves, while capitalists use all kinds of divisions—racism, sexism, nationalism—to set us against each other and destroy our ability to resist.
PL’ers launched our action with a bullhorn rally in a busy commercial area, handing out over 200 flyers and 50 copies of CHALLENGE. We spoke with passersby about the crisis, as well as the mission of the PLP for revolution to rid the entire world of capitalism and imperialism.
PLP members then marched to the Myanmar (Burmese) Embassy (just blocks away from Obama’s $8.1 million-dollar residence and the $5.5 million home of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner). We left our leaflets condemning the genocide on the spikes of the fences surrounding the embassy, to put the fascist regime of Myanmar (Burma) on notice that we are fully determined to build support for their Muslim and Buddhist victims and to organize millions of workers and farmers for the day that we can drive fascism, imperialism, and capitalism from the planet.
This modest demonstration is the beginning of a resistance campaign against this genocide and against the reactionary capitalist forces from China and U.S. who seek to exploit, by proxy, ethnic strife and conflict as their imperialist interests clash (see CHALLENGE, October 11, 2107). In particular, we are determined to build sufficient support around the world to force the government of Myanmar and its imperialist backers to allow the Rohingya, clinging to life in refugee camps in Bangladesh, to return to their homes and farms.
The lead speaker declared “We must remember that the source of this genocide, and indeed of every genocide, is economic imperialism. Every ethnic cleansing can be traced to attempts by capitalists to appropriate the land of workers for their own ends, and to rally one part of the working class against another to maintain the dominance of the bourgeoisie [capitalists]. Even if we can stop this genocide, and save the Rohingya from annihilation, we will see further genocide around the world until the reactionary capitalist forces are crushed, and global worker solidarity is achieved.”
We urge all workers, students, and soldiers to join this campaign by contacting the D.C. chapter of PLP at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

BROOKLYN, NY, October 10—After a McCarthy-style investigation that lasted half a year, the New York City Department Of Education’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) has declared that it cannot substantiate accusations of wrong-doing against teachers, some communists, in Park Slope Collegiate. This is a huge victory for the school and its community.
It is also continuing to investigate several minor claims against the principal and a bogus conflict of interest charge against one of the teachers.
The School that Dared to Fight
In a segregated school system of 1.1 million students, Park Slope Collegiate dared to fight racism with an organized alliance of students, parents, and staff.  It is a mainly Black and Latin school in the John Jay campus. In 2010, the DoE fought to install a segregated high school in the building: Millennium, a mainly white and Asian school. While the DoE claimed to not have money for the existing schools in the building, they had no problem starting Millennium. PSC organized against this racist divide but failed.
No matter, for nearly a decade, the students, parents, teachers, and staff continued “fighting the installation of metal detectors in their school, helped organize school assemblies to talk about police violence, and had spoken out passionately against segregation” (NYT, 5/4). For this, the DoE used a Red Scare to strangle workers’ fightback against racism.
Racist Rats in the School
While clearing the charges, the OSI released a document summarizing witness statements, which reveal that suspicions that the union leader initiated the investigation were correct. Now the staff has to face the facts that several co-workers, including the union chapter leader, tried to destroy the lives not only of their principal, but also of fellow workers.
Even more disgusting is that this was a racist attack on the students of the school, one that targeted student leaders and if successful could have destroyed a bastion of anti-racist multiracial fight back. In the case of the union representative, this lays bare where her true loyalties have always lain.
The course of the investigation has also laid bare the ugly reality that liberal politicians are the main enemy under capitalism. Even though this attack was initiated from three anti-communist staff members inside of the school, the DoE along with the liberal mayor, de Blasio and the school chancellor Farina, were silent during this attack on this integrating school while publically paying lip service to school integration. De Blasio and Farina are doing their part to uphold the state’s ranking by perpetuating racist “choice” policies for secondary schools and defending elementary school zones that deliberately segregate students in the service of home real estate values for the middle class and the affluent.
Parent-Teacher-Student Unity
Many parents that are deeply involved in this anti-racist struggle are the same constituents the politicians depend on to keep them in office. Parents who thought that their ties to these politicians would save the school from the investigation have seen their emails and phone calls mainly ignored. No amount of calls to their representatives fixed the situation, just as similar calls did not integrate the school, provide equity in the building or remove the prison-like metal detectors.
At the same time, the response in the school to the investigation has revealed the true power of the working class united. Teachers, staff, parents and students have stood up and organized like never before while this anti-racist community was attacked. Friends who have waited for communist teachers to lead the way in proposing actions before, have stepped to the foreground, spear-heading the petition to remove the chapter leader from office last year and the founding of a new leadership committee at the school. Large, visible actions outside the school, on the steps of City Hall and outside the courthouse during attempts to legally stop the investigation definitely had an impact on the decision of the uber-facist OSI to drop the investigation.
Truly integrated schools are rare in New York City, and schools that fight back against the racist policies that attempt to keep them segregated are even more rare. The John Jay Campus is a microcosm of the racist inequalities in school systems throughout the U.S.
This investigation is clear evidence that the institutions of capitalism are ready and willing to impose fascism on workers. It is also clear evidence that the most powerful way to stop their attacks is multiracial fightback. The multiracial unity this school community demonstrated led to a victory for now.
We must learn from this attack and move forward better prepared for the next one, because there will always be another.

BROOKLYN, October 10—As the students, workers, and faculty at Kingsborough Community College (KCC) are learning, this disaster of a racist profit system affects our lives at every level and can only be defeated with multiracial unity. KCC is one of the largest campuses in the country’s largest urban university system (see CHALLENGE, 9/27), the City University of New York (CUNY). While KCC’s working class is a reflection of the segregation and divisions imposed by capitalism, they’re also becoming a model of multiracial fightback.
Members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been routinely selling CHALLENGE outside of campus, and learning and organizing a great deal.
How Capitalism Runs and Ruins Cafeterias
During the summer break, the campus cafeteria changed from one private contractor Panda House to another larger company called Metropolitan Food Services. Panda House left KCC because the prospect of a paltry raise in the New York State’s minimum wage to $11/ hour became too “expense.” KCC bosses chose Metropolitan and laid off most of the former workers.
Metropolitan found itself desperate to fill shifts. Advertisements for open positions covered the cafeteria. But, they were unprepared or unable to even respond to the students who filled out job applications. So, a petition was signed by more than 600 students, workers and faculty to pressure Metropolitan into answering applicants.
This was only one example of Metropolitan’s utter lack of preparation. Running school cafeterias under capitalism is the same as every business, from your local bodega to multinational oil companies like ExxonMobil: profits first.
Bowing to the pressure of this combined force, they answered. Success was short-lived; On September 27, the Department of Health closed the cafeteria.
Kitchen Sinks Get Lost in the Sauce
Students were greeted with official closure notices on Kingsborough letterhead that merely stated the cafeteria was “temporarily closed,” and “the College is working with the cafeteria vendor to address all concerns immediately.”
“Immediately” became several days. The college replaced the cafeteria with food trucks to attempt to satisfy the roughly 8,000 full-time students, and 7,000 part-timers. The bosses provided no public explanation for the closure. As CHALLENGE has learned, the matter had to do with the changeover to Metropolitan.
During the switchover, the Panda House took the sinks that had been used for food cleaning and preparation back. They were never replaced. These sinks cost tens of thousands of dollars, and a kitchen without a sink inevitably led to health code violations.
The new cafeteria has fancy new signs and lights, but Metropolitan illustrates how capitalism’s thirst for profits affect every detail of our working-class lives. The bosses are under pressure to cut corners on ensuring things like sinks for sanitation. On a small level, they can seem like mistakes. But as a system, we find these “mistakes” are the norm under capitalism.
Fortunately, the workers continued receiving pay. The bosses tried keeping the reasons for the closure a secret, and told the workers just to clean and scrub the kitchen areas.
Universities like CUNY enable the college food service industry to squeeze $19 billion per year in profit—more than the fast food giants Burger King, Subway, and KFC. How much of Metropolitan’s slice of those profits went into hiring adequate staff and ensuring basic equipment like sinks?
Universities prefer private food vendors because the workers are almost never unionized. Consistent with capitalist cost-cutting, non-union workers make an average of 27 percent less than unionized workers (CNN Money, 2/14/15). Contracting companies like Metropolitan means CUNY avoids paying workers and providing them with benefits.
The students, workers and faculty who circulated the recent petition, however, show how masses can be organized and fight back. PLP fights to connect the cafeteria workers’ struggles with the growing fightback elsewhere on campus. The cafeteria is now open with installed sinks.
Communism: Everything Plus the Kitchen Sink
Students and workers do not need liberal Democrats to “protect” them; they need to fight back and build a mass, fighting PLP. Continue to make CHALLENGE the voice of the international working class. PLP is the only party fighting for revolution for true liberation from capitalism—communism, where the working class will abolish money and borders, and run every aspect of society to better all workers.
The bosses at KCC figured they could keep quiet about their cafeteria “mistake,” but they were wrong. The bosses’ politicians and media at the DACA press conference thought they could ignore the students and faculty calling for fightback (see sidebar), but they were wrong too! To connect and sharpen these fights, more students, workers and faculty must read and subscribe to CHALLENGE. Join the fight with PLP.

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DACA & Democrats

CHALLENGE also learned that a Sanctuary Committee on campus has been busy building unity among immigrant students and faculty, and raising antiracist politics.
On October 5, the deadline for application renewal for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students, KCC students and faculty disrupted a Manhattan press conference organized by NYC Mayor de Blasio’s office. The press conference featured a circus of Democrats promising to “protect” DACA students, from City Council member Carlos Menchaca to State Senator Jose Peralta.
Standing on chairs at the front of the room while the politicians gave news interviews, the KCC crew unfurled a giant banner that read “Defend DACA, Fight Racism,” and started chanting “They say go back, we say fight back!” DACA students in the room picked up the chant. The surprised politicians and their entourages tried to ignore the disruption.
A small army of the politicians’ aids surrounded the KCC contingent, demanding them to stop chanting. Apparently they eventually stopped, and the news and politicians treated it like they would a theatre interruption—they just continued like nothing happened.
We hope this KCC contingent returns and disrupts these Democrats with bigger numbers next time. The Democrat fakers and misleaders are no friends to any worker. Scum like senator Peralta cry with fake tears about president Trump canceling DACA. At the same time, he’s under investigation for accepting money and power in exchange for supporting pro-Trump Republicans who defeated a state-level version of the DREAM Act in 2014.

In a period of escalating inter-imperialist competition and declining U.S. presidential support, the capitalists will seize every opportunity to use tragedies such as mass shootings for their own purposes. On October 1, a gunman opened fire on a large crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas strip, killing 58 people and injuring 489 others. The brutality of capitalism is able to take this tragedy and use it to ramp up support for the police force and increased fascism.
The police have been heralded as heroes of the night and calls for increasing their presence at large events is now abundant. The ruling class has jumped on this opportunity for rising fascism: more searches, SWAT special reaction team sharpshooters in place at large events, and increased calls for a “see something, say something” atmosphere. The capitalist system is what workers really need to “say something” about.   
Innate Bruality of Capitalism
The shooter, 64 year-old Stephen Paddock, a white male, was described by the media as a retiree living a quiet life who liked country music and gambling. This is the racism of the system and its media bursting from the seams. Anytime an act such as this is committed by another “race,” the story is very different. Blame is placed on an entire “race” or religion and great lengths are taken to dehumanize the person.
In reality, although no proof has emerged of a political or religious affiliation that drove the ideology of this unthinkable act, capitalism creates monsters every day. In the hotel where Paddock eventually took his own life, police found 23 weapons, including 12 rifles with “bump stocks” which allows it to serve as an automatic weapon. In his home, another 19 weapons were found along with explosives and several thousand rounds of ammunition (CNN.com, 10/5). Only under this system of extreme alienation and isolation could an otherwise “regular guy” rationalize an action this heinous against his class brothers and sisters.
You wouldn’t know it by the amount of coverage, but this is not the only recent mass shooting. There have been 273 mass shootings this year alone (Business Insider, 10/2). Capitalism and imperialism are inherently violent. It is no wonder that the top imperialist country in the world would have a culture of violence, from movies to video games to rampant gun ownership. The U.S. working class is disaffected, insulated and living in a constant state of fear—fear of losing their jobs, healthcare, homes and more. This is all a tinder box for reactionary acts like the one committed by Paddock.
While this single incident may be the deadliest mass shooting in “modern” U.S. history, it pales in comparison to the over 1,000 mostly Black, indigenous and Latin workers murdered by the police every year in this country (The Counted, the Guardian). Not to mention that the genocide of Native workers is conveniently left out of U.S. “modern” history. This is compounded by the fact that the U.S. ruling class commits genocide on a daily basis all around the world, especially in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In March this year alone, U.S.-led coalition air strikes killed 1,484 civilians in Iraq and Syria (Newsweek, 3/31).
Altruism is in Nature
As in all crises created by capitalism, we get to see the true nature of our class. Even though the isolation and dehumanization of this rotten system creates people like Paddock, the working class is resilient. Whether a hurricane hits or a shooter takes aim into a crowd, we have seen time and again the inherent collectivity of our class. In the face of death, workers ran back into the danger zone to administer first aid or pull others out. There are countless stories of workers risking their lives for other workers.
As the working class, our humanity is directly tied to one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains. One day our class will rid the Earth of this violent system. We will create a society where everyone’s worth is valued. Our natural sense of collectivity will not only be allowed out during a crisis, but will blossom in our everyday lives. Fight for communism.