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.

MEXICO CITY, October —The hundreds killed in the earthquakes in Mexico show that capitalism is deadly.
The U.S. Geological Survey predicts as many as 1,000 died in the earthquakes of September 7 and 19 in Mexico. Countless are injured or homeless, and two thousand schools are damaged. Natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes are inevitable, yet when people’s safety is a priority preventive measures can be taken. But under capitalism profits are more important than workers lives.
The earthquakes have affected several states, Morelos and Puebla as well as the Istmo de Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. These are some of the most marginalized communities of indigenous population, who have endured years of oppression and misery. They have suffered social inequality, state violence, corruption and racism. Cities like Juchitán in Oaxaca and Jojutla in Morelos look like war zones due to the devastation. The solidarity of the working-class community is a big contrast to the lack of help from the government. The rebel teachers from the Sección 22 in Oaxaca have been organizing in support of the affected communities.
Under Capitalism, Workers’ Lives Don’t Matter   
In Mexico City, many men and women workers have been killed. They worked under unsafe conditions, just like the earthquake in 1985. Many more are victims of the building contractors who, in order to maximize their profits, use cheap materials in their constructions. One case in point is Colegio Rebsamen, where the administration is, not only  guilty of bad education, but allowed dangerous conditions for its students by colluding with the constructors to endorse the school building. In Xochimilco, in the marginalized zone of San Gregorio, many families lost their homes because of the precariousness of the construction.
These tragedies are examples of how this murderous system works: workers’ lives do not matter. The capitalists’ never-ending drive for profit leads them to create cities in risk zones regardless of the danger, like in Mexico City, where floods and earthquakes destroy the fragile homes of thousands of workers, and their lives. Contamination and stress destroy thousands of lives and leaves hundreds of thousands with a bad quality of life. Capitalism doesn’t worry about having a system to prevent these occurrences, with alarms, secure constructions or a culture of prevention.
Salute to Young Leadership  
The capitalists and their governments can’t fix the tragedy, only workers’ solidarity has saved lives and embraced those left with nothing. The government intervened just to control the organization and solidarity of the working class. The youth have been at the forefront, they know that this system has given them nothing. The marines, army and police have taken control of certain disaster areas, to which volunteers have resisted, but because there was no organized fight back, they weren’t able to stop the government from coming into these areas. The working class has to organize themselves in order to smash this lethal system, no electoral party will do it.
Progressive Labor Party celebrates the thousands of youth who have mobilized to help, it shows the working class potential for social change, even with the whole capitalist system against us. The transformation of the capitalist system can only be realized if we organize a Party that will destroy it and its parasite multimillionaire elite class once and for all. The youth of Mexico are considered the industrial army reserved to fill in the jobs and fight in their wars. They have tried to present them as worthless, interested only on the superfluous, they call them “ninis” (they do not work, don’t go to school…) or “millennial’,” these are racist and anti-working-class insults, which try to hide the fact that capitalism has nothing to offer these youth.
The bosses are also coopting working-class collectivity for their nationalist purposes, turning a good thing into a bad thing. It is on the basis of human need, rather than nationality and ethnicity, that prompted the working class in Mexico to show solidarity and save lives. Nationalism remains a deadly path that seeks to sever our class.
Capitalism Is Not Forever
Capitalism will not last forever, the working class will rise and change this murdering system. We can turn the terror of the earthquake into hope for the future. A future free of oppression, death, profit, and criminal negligence. That is the message that comrades of PLP have been spreading amongst our friends in the support brigades we have participated. Our challenge is to transform the potential of the spontaneous solidarity among workers, into the reality of the power of a permanent organization for communism.

The Star-Spangled Banner and the American flag are symbols of racism, but they also represent the never-ending wars and mass destruction of U.S. imperialism. When Colin Kaepernick first ‘took the knee’ during a National Football League (NFL) game last August, he was specifically protesting the racist police killings of Black people. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color…this is bigger than football and it would be selfish … to look the other way. There are bodies in the street…and people… getting away with murder.”
But Kaepernick went further: “a system that perpetually condones the killing of people, without consequence, doesn’t need to be revised, it needs to be dismantled!”
As the U.S. rulers move ever closer to world war with it’s imperialist rivals, China and Russia, we must once again remember those cries from the young Black rebels from Ferguson. “The whole damn system has to go.” In the Progressive Labor Party, that means organizing millions of workers to build a multiracial, revolutionary movement to not only ‘dismantle’ this capitalist system, but also replace it with communism, an egalitarian society that fights to eliminate racism and sexism forever.
NFL Owners Promote Racist Patriotism and Imperialism
The NFL is a huge, profit making, mega corporation run by billionaire owners. As they lie about free speech, they have conspired to ban Kaepernick from football, hiring many lesser quarterbacks. Yet, when Army and Navy ‘honor guards’ paraded during halftime ‘shows’ the NFL was paid by the Army and Navy. As Air Force jets performed aerial shows during halftimes, the NFL collected their ‘patriotism’ money from the Air Force. Free speech is not free. It’s bought and paid for.
And the NFL is perfectly suited to promote this militaristic patriotism. You start with the Star Spangled Banner, written by a pro slavery racist, and originally attacking and degrading slaves fighting for their freedom (TheRoot, 7/7). As Edward Curtin says, it “is a celebration of war, meant to stir martial emotions.  And football is the war sport par excellence, extremely violent.... In the 1960s, Brazilian television, in an effort to distinguish football (soccer) from American football, aptly termed it “military football.” (Counterpunch, 9/27).
Build a Mass
Anti-Racist Movement
As more athletes start protesting, questions arise. How to fight racism? Trump wants all kneelers fired. LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers basketball superstar, called him a bum. Many cheered. But when Cleveland cops killed Tamir Rice and were acquitted, James said nothing. “I don’t have enough knowledge about it.” Some owners are trying to coopt the movement. They are ‘joining’ their players in a show of ‘unity.’ Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, a million dollar Trump supporter, exemplified this phony unity. He linked arms with the players and kneeled for a few seconds before the anthem was played, then they stood up. That’s no protest at all. Shortly after he announced that players who did not stand would not play. In the PLP we fight for a revolution and an egalitarian, communist world. We welcome people who hate Trump, as we encourage them to join us in the fight for communism. We welcome people who hate racism, but want to ‘improve our democracy,’ even though we think this ‘democracy’ is completely phony. We don’t welcome the racist, billionaire NFL owners.
There is a history of athletes fighting back. The communist Paul Robeson was a militant fighter against racism. The bosses blacklisted him and took away his passport, so he could not perform in Europe. Sprinters Tommy Lee and John Carlos raised their fists on the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. They were vilified, sent home, thrown off the U.S. team, received death threats and had their medals taken away. Muhammad Ali famously said that “no Vietnamese ever called me a ni**er” as he refused to go fight in the Vietnam War. The Government tried to jail him. These athletes, like Karpernick, fought back and paid a price. More must take a stand until we are millions and bringing forth an egalitarian, communist world. Join us!