Workers protests U.S. President Obama’s recent visit at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. Hypocrite-in-chief Barack Obama concluded his visit to Japan with no apology for the most deadly terrorist slaughter in the history of the world, the 1945 U.S. atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Instead, he called for a “moral awakening” and “a world free of nuclear weapons.” He laid a wreath. He embraced survivors of the racist atrocities that murdered more than 200,000 women, men and children, the vast majority of them civilians burned to death. Whenever the imperialists fight, it’s always the working class that suffers the bloody horrors.
But actions speak louder than words. In response to the sharpening inter-imperialist competition between the U.S. bosses and their capitalist counterparts in Russia and China, Obama has engineered “a $1 trillion program to rebuild the American nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years. A new Pentagon report shows that he has eliminated fewer nuclear weapons than any president since the end of the Cold War” (New York Times, 5/28). In particular, the recent development of smaller—and therefore more usable—nuclear weapons by “an economically declining Russia, a rising China and an uncertain United States…threaten[s] to revive a Cold War-era arms race…” (NYT, 4/16).
Joining Obama at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was Shinzo Abe, Japan’s hard-right prime minister, who led a successful 2015 campaign—backed by the U.S.—to “re-interpret” the country’s pacifist postwar constitution and free its “Self-Defense Forces” to engage in overseas combat. Obama’s pivot to Asia is heavily tilting toward a remilitarized Japan as a once-and-future regional counterweight to China. As a former Japanese Foreign Ministry official observed, “Abe’s approach is a kind of ‘military pacifism’ that takes war as a given” (NYT, 5/27).
When the rulers talk of peace, as Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht once noted, the workers know that war has already begun. The lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that the U.S. ruling class will stop at nothing to preserve its state power and profit. Which means the next world war is only a matter of time.
Bombing Japan to Save It—for U.S. Imperialism
For seven decades, U.S rulers have tried to justify the A-bomb attacks by maintaining they were needed to force Japan’s surrender and avoid a U.S. land invasion and a million U.S. casualties. In reality, Japan’s rulers were ready to surrender before Hiroshima:
• According to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, a board of military and civilian experts established by U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, “Certainly…in all probability prior to November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bomb had not been dropped…and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” Hiroshima Lies
• A million lives were not saved. Indeed, McGeorge Bundy, later the U.S. National Security Adviser, “confessed that he had pulled it out of the air to justify the bombings” (8/5/2005).
• By the spring of 1945, Japan’s entire industrial and military machine had ground to a halt, severing its oil lifeline. By June, U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay complained that there was nothing left to bomb in Japanese cities except “garbage can targets.”
• The arch-racist Truman’s diary referred to a decoded Japanese cable indicating Japan was about to surrender unconditionally, as “the Jap[anese] Emperor [was] asking for peace.”
• General (and future president) Dwight Eisenhower believed that Japan “was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary…and no longer mandatory to save American lives” (Eisenhower: Mandate for Change, 1963).
• General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Pacific commander, considered the A-bombs “completely unnecessary from a military point of view” (James Clayton, “The Years of MacArthur, 1941-1945,” Vol. II).
A Genocide Aimed at USSR
If overwhelming evidence shows that the genocide at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was militarily unnecessary, and that Japan was on the verge of unconditional surrender, why did President Harry Truman order the A-bombs dropped? The true purpose was to warn the then-socialist Soviet Union that the U.S. had a new and devastating weapon, and was ready to use it against any threat to the U.S. imperialists’ world dominance. The obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki signaled the beginning of the Cold War between capitalists in the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Some supporting evidence:
• On June 6, 1945, Stimson told Truman he was “fearful” that the U.S. Air Force would have Japan “so bombed out” that the A-Bomb “would not have a fair background to show its strength.”
• With the Soviet Red Army ready to enter the war against Japan by August 8, the U.S. rushed to use the bomb two days earlier, to play what Stimson referred to as a “master card”: “Let our actions speak for words. The Russians will understand them better than anything else….We have to regain the lead…in a pretty rough and realistic way….We have coming into action a weapon which will be unique” (Stimson diary).
• James Byrnes, Truman’s secretary of state, told Stimson, “The atomic bomb might well put us in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war” (Truman: Year of Decisions).
As A-bomb scientist Leo Szilard, in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes, recalled:
Mr. Byrnes did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb…in order to win the war….Mr. Byrnes’s….view [was] that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe.
—A Personal History of the Atomic Bomb, Leo Szilard, 1949.
In an implicit indictment of the liberal Democrat Truman administration, Szilard said, “If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities…we would have defined [it]…as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremburg and hanged them.”
In this era of a U.S. “war on terror” and Obama’s bald-faced lies about eliminating nuclear weapons, it’s important to remember that he represents the capitalist class that stands guilty of the genocide in Japan. To this day, only the U. S. rulers have used nuclear weapons in war. It remains for the international working class to mete out justice to the most murderous criminals the world has ever known.
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From Frisco5 to 500: Take Over Intersection, Build Confidence to Fight
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- 03 June 2016 304 hits
SAN FRANCISCO, May 31 — “We plan on being here until we get justice or we’re hospitalized,” said one of the Frisco Five hunger strikers at San Francisco’s Mission police station. Five brave members of the working class, women and men, started a hunger strike on April 20 in response to the viciously racist police murders in San Francisco (see box). The multi-racial group of fighters is inspiring working-class brothers and sisters to fight back against San Francisco’s blatant terrorization of Black, Latin and immigrant lives. Putting actions into words the #Frisco5 bravely took over City Hall on May 6 (see CHALLENGE, 6/1). The events described here are from a PLP member whose collective organizing has helped lead to the eventual city hall shutdown. The growth of this anti-racist struggle is symbolized by the fighters’ new name, #Frisco500.
After months of working in the Mario Woods Coalition (see box noting the cop murder of Mario Woods), I got to know a few of the hunger strikers and many supporters. Based on this, the Coalition asked me to organize an action at a discussion led by kkkops Adachi and police chief Suhr. I agreed and planned on using this opportunity to organize the young people in the Coalition to lead the action — it’s the youth who’ve been systematically excluded from leadership positions and responsibilities even though they are the spirit and bodies of the Coalition.
The meeting lasted all of two minutes and we shut it down. We went back into the streets where lots of the older “leaders” gave speech after speech, ranging from reformist “solutions” such as “not all cops are bad” to “we just need a new mayor.”
The crowd was large enough to block one lane of traffic on a major street. Seeing our numbers, I proposed to some of the young organizers blocking the entire street as a symbol of our power. They agreed but wanted approval from the hunger strikers. I went to the striker who I’m closest to and asked if they’d be okay with that. They agreed, but by that time we had decided to take the entire intersection of 17th and Valencia. I made a quick speech and 100 workers and students seized the intersection, chanting, “Whose streets? OUR STREETS!” and “Black cop, white cop all the same. Racist murder is the name of their game!”
The latter chant directly opposed the mis-leaders’ ideology about the cops “of color” and female cops not being our enemy. The Party continuously puts forward the truth about the racist history of police forces in the U.S., going back to 19th-century slave patrols, and how they serve a critical role in terrorizing, intimidating and dividing the working class for their capitalist masters.
We controlled the intersection. Many youth, particularly young women, stepped forward to lead a multitude of chants and show San Francisco the power we possess when organized. After an hour, we finally gave the street back. Young people talked about how “powerful” they felt and that “it was a part of healing” to organize the action.
Afterwards many of us decided to stay the night to provide security for the hunger strikers while they slept. On the strike line we had hours of political discussion, emphasizing the question of reform vs. revolution. I distributed 15 CHALLENGEs and introduced myself to this new group of young people as a member of PLP.
The youth would no longer be silenced. This group would become the leadership of the #Frisco500 and the seizing of City Hall.
*****
Police Murders in San Francisco
KENNETH HARDING, age 19 (July 16, 2013): Multiple witness state SFPD shot Harding in the back while fleeing a transit fare evasion. Cop Richard Hastings, who received a Medal of Valor for shooting Kenneth Harding, is later arrested and charged with repeatedly molesting a 15-year-old boy.
ALEX NIETO, age 28 (March 21, 2014): The SFPD killed off-duty security guard Alex Nieto, shooting him 14 times in the head and body.
MARIO WOODS age 26 (December 2, 2015): Mario Woods had 20 gunshot wounds, including six in the back, killed by multiple SFPD officers in broad daylight.
LUIS GONGORA age 45 (April 7, 2016): Homeless immigrant Luis Gongora was shot seven times and killed within 16 seconds of contact with police.
AMILCAR PEREZ LOPEZ, age 20 (March 21, 2016): A witness statement and an autopsy report show that Perez was shot a dozen times, six from behind, four times in the back, once to the head and once in the right arm. Perez-Lopez was employed, living in a small boiler room paying $300 a month in rent.
Jessica Williams, age 29 (May 19, 2016): A mother of five, pregnant at the time, shot and murdered by Sergeant Justin Erg.
Four years ago this month, Shantel Davis, 23-year-old Black woman, was brutally shot and murdered by NYPD detective “bad boy” Phillip Atkins. Shantel was at her grandmother’s researching college programs just hours before.
Shantel’s family, Progressive Labor Party, friends, residents, and community groups had protested in the streets every saturday for months, then every month—rain or shine. One of the chants were, “We will always remember Shantel. We’ll always fight for Shantel, we’ll never forget Shantel.”
In the Flatbush neighborhood, we have helped build a group called “The Justice for Shantel Davis Committee,” which also organizes an annual youth basketball tournament at Tilden Park.
In Shantel’s name, join the four-year commemoration of her life and the antiracist, antisexist fightback that grew out of this police killing.
We are meeting at the site of the killing: E. 38 Street and Church Ave, Brooklyn, NY on Tuesday, June 14 at 7 PM.
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Honey Well Bosses Say Lockout, Workers Say Fight Back
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- 02 June 2016 299 hits
Four hundred industrial workers from the Honeywell Corporation’s plants in South Bend, Indiana, and Green Island, NY, overwhelmingly rejected a company contract offer that would double their health care costs and increase the use of non-union workers. The workers make specialty aircraft wheels and brake pads for F-35 fighter planes and Boeing 747s.
Honeywell responded by locking out workers from their jobs since May 9, meaning workers aren’t allowed to work until they agree to the bosses’ contract proposals. Multi-billion dollar Honeywell is using scabs to replace strikers in order to maintain their super-profits on the backs of workers who are fighting to maintain basic pay and healthcare.
But workers are fighting back against Honeywell’s intimidation tactics! Black, Latin and white workers from the factories and nearby regions are united and standing strong. Area workers joined the picket lines and donated food to show solidarity. What is really needed is for all workers — Black, white, union, non-union and unemployed — to unite against the capitalist scum who divide and exploit workers in order to churn out billions in profits. Strikes and pickets aren’t enough to get workers their fair share because neither will destroy the profit system. Capitalists will constantly lower wages and benefits for workers. Many benefits won by strikes fifty years ago are being lost.
Since the last five-year contract, Honeywell profits increased by 152 percent while they locked out workers across the country four different times. The company invested over $27 million in the South Bend plant, making it one of its most profitable facilities. Because it successfully wrung concessions out of the United Automobile Workers union (UAW) with each negotiation and each lockout, they see no reason not to squeeze them even more.
Honeywell wants to double the cost of healthcare for workers, charging a family of four almost $7,400/year. Even worse, they want the right to increase these costs in every year of the contract. They also want to outsource more work to non-union workers while eliminating all job classifications, creating a more “flexible” workforce.
The UAW is not on the workers’ side. In March, Honeywell brought the scab replacement workers into the South Bend and Green Island factories to watch the workers doing their jobs. The UAW huffed and puffed but did nothing to stop this threat. Most of these scab workers are ex-offenders and many can’t find work due to the criminal Injustice System. So who is the UAW endorsing in the presidential election? The same politician who supported laws that greatly expanded that very racist system, Hillary Clinton!
UAW is also supporting a local politician and former kkkop who visited the picket lines for publicity. The police are instrumental in attacking and terrorizing striking workers. The police are not the workers’ friend; yet the union continues to endorse politicians favoring the police.
It’s clear that the only people who defend workers are workers themselves. We can’t rely on pro-boss unions or politicians. We can’t let them use racism or sexism to divide us. We can’t divide ourselves from non-union workers. We’re all fighting over crumbs while the capitalists devour the whole loaf! We need a communist revolution to stop all exploitation and ensure that all workers have all our needs met.
By sharpening the class war, it becomes clear that we’re up against the whole racist profit system. This will help us learn how to win. We can get a taste of the power we hold in our collective hands. That’s the difference between the union mis-leadership and ourselves. The capitalists have state power and use it to take back any reforms we may win. Let’s organize with the Progressive Labor Party for a communist revolution!
More than 150,000 workers and youth shut down France in response to anti-working-class labor reforms. The strike is hitting the bosses where it hurts the most—their profit margin and the rise of class consciousness. Strikers have also blockaded oil refineries and shut down transportation. Half of the country’s 10,000 petrol stations are either partially or completely out of fuel. Many fighters have been arrested. Protesters hurled rocks at police.
“The law eases conditions for laying off workers, strongly regulated in France. It is hoped companies will take on more people if they know they can shed jobs in case of a downturn. The law also gives employers more leeway to negotiate holidays and special leave, such as maternity or for getting married” (Nigerian Bulletin, 5/26).
Clearly, the bosses’ laws can’t and won’t protect workers. Only the working class has the power to fight in its own interests. With communist leadership, the workers of France can turn this strike against labor reforms into a battle against capitalism.
Stand up in international solidarity for the working class of France, the birthplace of the first workers’ revolutionary seizure of power, known as the Paris Commune of 1871.
