CHICAGO, October 22—When Reginald Sanson was shot dead on August 25 at age 25, he became one of 2,465 shooting victims in Chicago and one of 370 killed in this carnage this year as of September 28 (Chicago Tribune, 9/28/15). The capitalist bosses’ media constantly cries out against gun violence, whether it be a mass shooting by a single maniac or the daily trauma of an individual lost. But they rarely tell us much about the victims, especially Black or Latin victims. These are the same bosses who back their killer cops with military-grade hardware, and who are actively planning to kill millions of workers in the next imperialist war. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds!
Reggie was murdered on the 5000 block of South Dorchester Avenue, two blocks from Barack Obama’s home in Hyde Park and one block from Kenwood Academy, where Reggie earned top grades and excelled in baseball and basketball. He was a positive force and a pillar of strength, always willing to help others. His death was a shock for his community—a neighborhood that borders the wealthy University of Chicago and has borne many other tragedies.  
The capitalist ruling class has no solutions to offer us. As the liberal bosses urge stricter gun laws, the right-wing bosses call for more arrests and harsher jail sentences.  Both Democrats and Republicans want more cops, the leading source of racist violence against Black and Latin workers!  Any new policy will only hurt the working class even more.  Never do the bosses’ politicians address the real cause of worker-on-worker violence: capitalism.  
Capitalism and Despair
Substandard schools and the lack of decent jobs create a culture of hopelessness. When workers cannot provide for their families, they are vulnerable to individualism, desperation, drugs and violence.  Chicago has the highest official Black unemployment rate—25 percent—of the five largest U.S. cities (2013 U.S. Census). This compares to a Latin unemployment rate of 14 percent and a white jobless rate of 7 percent. Unsurprisingly, Chicago is also one of the most segregated cities; nearly 75 percent of Black Chicagoans live in a neighborhood that is at least 90 percent black.  
Over the past few decades, Chicago’s working class was dealt blow after blow as thousands of manufacturing jobs left the city.  Five thousand city workers have been laid off since 2009, 40 percent of them residents in predominantly Black ZIP codes. With 50 school closings last year alone, 1,691 school workers have been laid off over the same period. As the Center for Law and Social Policy has documented, people who live in areas with concentrated poverty are more likely to experience violence and to be victims of violence (http://mic.com/articles/126199).
All of these jobs were lost under two Democratic mayors, Richard M. Daley and Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel.  What will liberal Emmanuel do about gun violence?  He plans to hire more police administrative staff, to free up 300 more mad-dog cops to put on the streets. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy wants tougher penalties for gun possession.  Both of these “solutions” will lead to more police interactions, harassment, and violence against Black and Latin workers, and more incarcerated young men. Meanwhile, shootings are up and the CPD has made 25 percent more gun-related arrests this year over the same period last year.  
Capitalism Needs Racism
No Chicago politicians are talking about the racist crisis in the public schools or racist mass unemployment. Their capitalist system requires racism, both to divide workers and to super-exploit Black, Latin, Asian and immigrant workers on the job.  The high levels of poverty, unemployment and violence in the Black community neatly fit the rulers’ racist narrative. The ruling class says that these deaths prove that our lives don’t matter because “they’re killing each other.”  But we know this is a racist lie!
Workers know that each death matters.  They refuse to buy into the lie that the victims—including Reginald Sanson—are all gang-bangers. Reggie’s community knew differently. More than 200 people turned out for a vigil the day after his murder. Reggie could have contributed so much to society, but his life was cut short by the violence created by this racist, capitalist system.  
Reforms Versus Revolution
While improved education and more jobs would make many individuals’ lives better, all reforms have limits under capitalism. They can never include everyone, and they last only until the bosses’ next economic crisis.  To keep the working class in line, the capitalists need impoverished, unemployed workers as potential threats to the ones with jobs.  Any reform that keeps the capitalist ruling class in power will continue to oppress us. The only solution to gun violence will come when we turn the guns around—when we smash the bosses with communist revolution!  Join Progressive Labor Party and work toward a society where workers like Reggie can live long and productive lives.

CHICAGO, October 21— Workers at Cook County’s Stroger Hospital are continuing their uphill fight to save pediatric services. Closing these hospitals is racist, sexist murder. Working together within this hospital struggle, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends are also raising the potential for a new communist world.
The mostly Black and Latino workers we’re rallying have historically been the mass base for PLP. The response of most of them is the same: “What? Close Pediatrics at the County? They can’t do that!” Doctors, nurses and public health professionals have taken to the streets with flyers and petitions. Many who read our leaflets volunteer to help, invite us to speak at their churches or take extra literature. Despite the stream of phone calls into the office of the killer politician responsible, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, we get only hollow promises. The racist Preckwinkle has done nothing to restrain the administration as it moves ahead inexorably to grind down the department that cares for Chicago’s working-class Black and immigrant kids. Why should she? She serves the bosses, not working-class children.
Public hospitals in most cities have been closed or privatized, as the capitalist bosses lie about “better quality” and “more efficient” healthcare. In reality, this is a racist attack on workers! These changes are driven by profit, not health. As full-service hospitals shut down and are replaced by scattered urgent care centers, families must travel outside their neighborhoods to find more than basic care. Specialized teaching and children’s hospitals are not found in working-class neighborhoods. Using them forces families, especially low-income or single-parent families, to make wrenching decisions: Stay with my sick child in the hospital or keep my job? Pay for transportation or pay for food? Moreover, children treated at the big teaching hospitals are less likely to get adequate follow-up care if they’re families are insured by Medicaid.
Care Under Communism
How would medical care for children look under communism? One hint comes from examining medicine in China in the 1950s and 1960s under socialism, at the time seen as a halfway house to communism. Workers there developed a system that valued health and safety. The revolution raised the life standards of the masses. A million peasants and youth, known as barefoot doctors, were trained to provide healthcare in rural areas. Over a span of ten years, workers doubled the life expectancy in rural China and cut the infant mortality rate in half; diseases like syphilis were eliminated. Millions of workers were saved from premature and avoidable deaths from poverty, malnutrition and a lack of healthcare. This advance was possible only under a worker-run society.
Today, with the Chinese revolution reversed and market capitalism restored, workers in China—like those in Chicago—once again suffer under disastrous health conditions. That is why PLP fights directly for a communist revolution, with power resting in the masses of workers worldwide through Party leadership.
Capitalist Healthcare Makes Workers Sick
According to a report published by the Commonwealth Fund, the U.S. ranks lowest in healthcare compared to other large capitalist countries. There are two reasons: 1) the U.S. bosses’ aim to remain the world’s top imperialists limits their investments in domestic matters like healthcare, education, and infrastructure; 2) vicious U.S. racism, with its foundation in the enslavement of Black people and the genocide of indigenous people, enables the bosses to keep the working class oppressed and divided—for now.  
After a recent inspection at Stroger Hospital, the Joint Commission found a number of deficiencies, especially in documentation and equipment. Now people are wondering if the administration’s ultimate goal of closing and privatizing the facility may be at hand.
The trend to cut everything in the public sector— schools, hospitals, housing — is part of the capitalist ruler’s strategy to conserve and centralize resources for the next big imperialist war.
The movement against budget cuts must be built and communists must be in the thick of it. But we will not be able to stop the imperialists from destroying millions of lives in the next war. What we can try to do is strengthen our ability to fight and develop ties with others who fight with us. Our only real victory is recruiting fellow fighters to PLP to help build a new world.
Communism will eliminate the primary source of chronic illness, the stress brought on by racism, sexism and oppressive conditions of work and life. The tension of life under capitalism increases the risk of all common chronic diseases, from high blood pressure to cancer. Under communism, the standard of health literacy and healthcare will be raised for everyone. Building a society based on cooperation and sharing instead of competition and exploitation would reduce the need for many medical treatments. But when these treatments are needed, people would get them for free, at a uniform high standard. Fighting for that new world is the only real treatment for the disease of capitalism.

Newark, NJ, October 20 — A new school year brings new lessons for those involved in the class struggle around education. The first lesson is that the bosses are increasing their attacks on students and teachers. On top of shutting down schools, laying off more aides and support staff, forcibly transferring teachers, and keeping students from attending their neighborhood schools, the latest round of attacks are the budget cuts imposed on schools in the beginning of this school year. Principals were told to plan on spending only about 25 percent of their budget from June, which was already the result of another round of cuts. Former Superintendent Cami Anderson helped create the crisis by taking a $40 million surplus and turning it into a $70 million deficit.
As a result, class sizes have increased, special needs students are neglected, and older, decrepit buildings are becoming more dangerous for students and teachers.
Which brings us to the second, and more important lesson. Having the correct political line in these struggles will strengthen the working class, while an incorrect line can set us back. How could we be in this terrible position after students, parents, and teachers put up a courageous fight against the proposed reforms by then Superintendent Anderson?  Mainly because of the popular line of the movement: Get rid of Anderson and get local control of the schools.
There is no question that Anderson, and state control of the schools, is a problem. But without a bigger picture of how capitalist schools against the interests of working-class students, the ruling class is able to pacify workers. Regardless of who runs them, schools do not exist to give workers’ children a real education. In reality, the bosses set up students to drop out because they need a reserve of unskilled workers to maintain unemployment and keep wages low.
More specifically, the bosses underfund and under-resource Black and Latin schools. It should be no surprise that these budget cuts are especially intense in Newark, a city where 85 percent of residents are Black or Latin and where one-third of the population lives in poverty. Under capitalism, schools are just another tool for the bosses to maintain racism and keep their profit system running.
Replace One Foe With Another
Cami Anderson was just a figurehead fulfilling the capitalist bosses’ needs. At the end of the last school year, to pacify angry parents, teachers, and students, Governor Chris Christie fired Anderson and replaced her with Christopher Cerf, the one who hired Anderson in the first place and supported her anti-student reforms. Even so, the fightback against budget cuts died down. With the exception of one rally calling for local control, the streets were empty. There were no rallies from the Newark Students Union, the Newark Teachers Union, or any community groups. In fact, the teachers’ union sent out an email shortly after the cuts that their meeting with Cerf was “positive” and “productive.” This shows how unions, the politicians, and bosses work together to attack the working class.
Despite the lack of fightback, there are still students and teachers looking to organize against these budget cuts. PLP’ers distributed CHALLENGE and held study groups to win workers to the outlook that it doesn’t matter who runs the schools and to see the need to organize for communism. One teacher said, “We need to reach out to parents about what is happening.” Groups of teachers put out a flyer distribute at Back to School Night. Parents who came to hear about their children’s classes were informed about the latest attacks. Many have promised to attend the first PTA meeting.
Students are getting more politicized by sharply worsening conditions. As a result of cafeteria workers being fired, students are now leaving lunch 15 minutes late because they couldn’t get their food in the 40-minute lunch period.
In short, many are beginning to see that things have not gotten better, and that relying on politicians or the union leadership will not get them anywhere.
PL members are holding student study groups and actions to increase the level of class struggle that temporarily died down. With our political ideas and our experience with our co-workers and students, we hope to increase our base and membership so that these lessons become clearer to the millions affected in Newark and beyond.

The recent airstrikes in Syria by Russian imperialists, their first military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since 1979, is a blow to U.S. influence worldwide and brings conflict between the two nuclear powers ever closer. To shore up Syria President Bashar al-Assad, a junior partner of the Russia-Iran alliance, President Vladimir Putin has deployed air and naval forces and is threatening to send in ground troops. In moving to expand its influence in the oil-rich Middle East, Russia is targeting U.S.-backed, anti-Assad rebels like the Free Syrian Army.
For the U.S. ruling class, stakes are high. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared that the U.S. would use military force as needed to defend “vital national interests” in the Persian Gulf. Thirty-five years later, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, is pushing for “strategic boldness” against Russia in Syria: “The U.S. has only one real option if it is to protect its wider stakes in the region: to convey to Moscow the demand that it cease and desist from military actions that directly affect American assets” (Financial Times, 10/4/15).
The U.S. bosses’ fundamental problem is that Russia’s bosses have an equal stake in the Middle East—and a far longer history of imperialist conquest in the region. It began in 1772, when forces under Catherine the Great “bombarded, stormed and captured Beirut, a fortress on the coast of Ottoman Syria….Catherine’s successors saw themselves as crusaders, with Russia destined to rule Constantinople and Jerusalem” (New York Times, 10/9/15). Today, though Russia’s regional influence nosedived after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin still banks heavily on Syria and its Mediterranean port of Tartus, Russia’s only naval base beyond its borders.
Even as the Central Intelligence Agency funneled powerful anti-tank weapons to anti-Assad insurgents (NYT, 10/13/15), Barack Obama denied the U.S. rulers’ need to confront Russia militarily: “We’re not going to make Syria into a proxy war.” Obama’s blatant lie points to U.S. unpreparedness for the next broad global conflict; the bosses certainly are willing to kill millions of workers in the name of profit, but they aren’t yet ready. At the moment, they face two obstacles: the resistance of smaller U.S. capitalists (represented by the Koch brothers and the Tea Party) to pay more taxes to support a major invasion, and mass working-class opposition to restoring a military draft.
Whether they live in the U.S. or Russia, in China or India or Pakistan, workers have no stake in inter-imperialist conflicts. Capitalist warfare turns workers into refugees, cannon fodder, or “collateral” civilian casualties—like the dozens of doctors, staff, and patients slaughtered October 3 by the U.S. Air Force bombing of a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The communist Progressive Labor Party urges all workers to fight on the one side that will fight for them: the international working class.
Russia’s Real Targets
On October 8, the top think tank representing U.S. finance capital, the Council on Foreign Relations, analyzed Russia’s ambitions: “The Russian Navy’s initial firing of twenty-six cruise missiles from ships in the Caspian Sea into Syria yesterday generated little effect on the Syrian battlefield—but that may not be the primary objective” (CFR website). Author Sean Liedman, a Navy captain and CFR “military fellow,” identified the real targets for this show of force:
    *The international community, which now sees clearly that the U.S. monopoly on long-range, precision-strike weapons is over.
    *The U.S. ruling class. The Russian bosses’ show of high-tech force displayed their naval capability and the will to employ it, a clear challenge to their super-power rival.  
    *Europe and NATO. Any fixed target in Europe can be struck by the Russian Navy, which has more freedom to maneuver than an equivalent ground force. Coming after the annexation of Crimea and the Russian rulers’ backing of the separatist rebellion in Ukraine, the attack in Syria signals a growing threat to retake former Soviet states—including current NATO members that the U.S. has vowed to defend by force.
*The working class in Russia. Russian bosses have long used grandiose displays of military might to build reactionary nationalist fervor—and to distract workers from a failing state capitalist economy.
Choking Off Saudi Oil?
Oil Price, an industry insider journal, outlined Moscow’s designs on Persian Gulf energy supplies, the grand prize for global capitalism: “Putin’s moves in the Middle East could …enhance the attractiveness of Russian crude and natural gas supplies” (10/4/15). Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states, the U.S. rulers’ main allies in the region, depend on one of three routes through the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea to ship their oil and liquefied natural gas. All three routes contain a “choke point”: the Suez Canal, the Mandeb Strait, or the Strait of Hormuz. Moreover, the Russian military says it is now flying up to 30 sorties a day from its new airstrip In Latakia, Syria’s main port on the Mediterranean (New York Times, 10/12/15). By adding a forward airbase to its existing naval presence, Russia—in concert with Iran, the Assad regime in Syria, and possibly Iraq—could gain the capability to disrupt shipments from both Persian Gulf and Red Sea terminals.
U.S. rulers face an uphill battle to mobilize the support they need to take on Russia militarily. Their own ranks are in chaos. As the Republican Party flounders to find a new Speaker for the House of Representatives, Obama’s Democrats are divided over the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement designed to counter China’s expanding influence along the Pacific Rim. Meanwhile, disaffected U.S. workers will not easily be won to accept a new draft, an essential element for the next major ground war.
Workers should be aware, however, that U.S. rulers and their competitors will use any means necessary to build their imperialist agendas. Racism, sexism and nationalism are among their main weapons as they battle over the world’s resources. But the bosses’ battles are not ours. The only cause worth fighting for is a revolutionary communist society, led by PLP, to smash war, imperialism, racism and sexism. Join us!