CHICAGO, March 27 — PLP marched with teachers, students, parents and workers to stop school closings and the layoffs of 2,000 teachers. We brought a message that only communism can give our children a real future.
In late March, the Chicago School Board announced that 61 schools would be closed before the opening of the 2013-2014 school year. Most are located in black and Latino neighborhoods of the South and West sides of the city. These racist attacks will hurt black, white, Asian and Latino working-class students. When confronted about these racist closings, the Chicago school CEO stated: “It’s not racist to close schools in those neighborhoods.”
PLP has repeatedly warned of the coming wars to decide which imperialists will control the world. The U.S. ruling class will use its state power to mobilize the population for war. Squeezed by imperialist rivalries, the bosses are only interested in educating black, Latino and white working-class youth for this purpose.
U.S. rulers are trying to seize the opportunity created by the right-wing “education reform movement.” The
reformers have successfully mobilized some parents and others to attack unionized public school teachers, demanded the use of standardized tests for data-driven evaluations of teachers, and popularized the call for more charter schools and corporate privatizing of education. They are calling on state governments to institute a “common core curriculum,” which will emphasize regimentation and loyalty to the state.
Under capitalism, co-locations create smaller schools inside old school buildings, dividing students, parents, and teachers from one another and weakening their ability to organize. School closings are the order of the day for thousands of black, Latino, Asian, immigrant and white working-class children nationwide. These attacks will continue because the bosses need working-class youth to be the foot soldiers in their continuing wars, as well as low-paid workers or part of the reserve pool of unemployed workers. We will continue to bring the message of communist revolution to students, workers and soldiers in Chicago and all over the world. Capitalism is a rotten system that will be destroyed by the masses led by the PLP.
AL-ARAQEEB, April 20 — A group of Jewish women and a PL’er met with the women of this “unrecognized” Bedouin village to show solidarity with their struggle against the government’s moves to uproot them and steal their land. Most outsiders talk only with the men here, but we needed to hear the village’s women as well. The meeting was initiated by the “Unrecognized Village Team” of the broad left Tarabut movement.
Last week, “the only democracy in the Middle East,” as Israel likes to present itself, demolished Al-Araqeeb for the 49th time since the summer of 2010. This vicious policy exposes Israel as a racist state that serves Israeli and U.S. capitalists, never the working-class residents of Israel-Palestine.
Under the colonialist Prawer Plan, the Israeli government can evict Bedouins who live in “unrecognized villages” and grab their land. In these villages, the state denies the residents water, electricity, telephone, medical and educational services. All of these communities are Bedouin; no Jewish settlement goes unrecognized by the Israeli bosses. The government routinely funds the moshavim and kibbutzim, the individually or collectively owned farms settled by Jews. One government ploy is to grab Bedouin land by planting Jewish National Fund (JNF) forests on it. Every dollar people give to this Zionist organization is a dollar for theft and demolition.
In 2000, the Israeli rulers established the Ministry for the Development of the Negev (southern Israel-Palestine) and the Galilee (northern Israel-Palestine). Under Shimon Peres (now president of Israel and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize), the Ministry created Givot Bar, a settlement exclusively for wealthy Jews, on lands belonging to Al-Araqeeb.
The Bedouin residents of Al-Araqeeb hold legal title to 115 acres. The village once had a population of nearly six hundred, and none were unemployed. As in East Jerusalem, they paid taxes to the government and got nothing in return. This is the bosses’ method to pressure residents to leave for “planned” towns, the Israeli equivalent of reservations for Native Americans.
In July 2010, the village was demolished for the first time. The Israeli rulers’ media described this act of state terror as though it were a wartime operation in the occupied West Bank. Later, during the winter, the village was demolished five times in a single week. The cops ordered residents to move to a nearby cemetery to smooth the way for the land grab.
In protest, residents are holding a protest vigil. They are struggling to hang on to their ancestral land despite the violence of the U.S. real estate tycoons and the Israeli government at their service. It is important to note that the Bedouins are fighting the state’s racist, divide-and-conquer policy, not Jewish workers.
The destruction of Al-Araqeeb is part of an accelerated plan of evictions and theft of Bedouin lands in southern Israel-Palestine. Last year, the state ratified the “Law for the Management of the Bedouin Settlement of the Negev,” which expands the Prawer Plan. Its goal is to evict 30,000 Bedouin workers from their lands and force them into “planned” towns where the unemployment rate ranges up to nearly 50 percent and crime and drugs abound. Objections filed by Bedouin groups and Amnesty International failed to turn back this racist law.
Billionaire Ronald Lauder, heir to the U.S. Estee Lauder cosmetics empire, is the biggest donor to the JNF and president of the World Jewish Congress. While he fattens his profits, his servants in the JNF, the Israeli police and the Israel Lands Administration destroy Bedouin crops and evict Bedouin workers to clear their lands for luxury Jewish settlements.
The Progressive Labor Party has joined this fight against the Israeli state and U.S. real estate moguls. We fight for working-class rule, where each and every worker, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, creed or sex, will have equal rights. Under communism, all workers Bedouin, Jewish, and Arab alike — will share in the bounty produced by society.
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Student Conference: Need Multi-Racial Unity to Stop Racist Mass Incarceration
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WASHINGTON, DC, April 20 — More than two hundred people gathered at Howard University to build the fight against the racist U.S. injustice system, which jails black and Latino people far out of proportion to their numbers in the population.
Organized by the Howard University chapter of Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI), the two-day national conference gathered people from five other campus chapters. Students and friends from the community joined to learn, debate, and plan actions against the abusive, racist prison system. Progressive Labor Party members distributed more than 200 CHALLENGEs and called on people to join the May Day march in New York.
Conference organizers sponsored a Friday night movie on the refugee camps in Palestine, which are essentially open-air prisons for tens of thousands of Palestinians expelled from Israel over the last 65 years. This event underlined the importance of international solidarity in the struggle against global oppression. Other sessions focused on political prisoners who continue to resist injustice behind prison walls.
Participants raised several ideas for action. First, confront college administrations that refuse to hire former prisoners or to admit them as students. Second, demand that universities break their ties to corporations that make millions in profits by exploiting prisoners. Third, build solidarity by supporting incarcerated individuals. As SAMI launches these struggles, the ruling class’s racist plans will be sharply challenged.
Prisons are racist institutions that neither improve society nor keep workers safe. They’re part of the bosses’ strategy to divide, terrorize, and exploit the working class. As super-exploited workers, prisoners are a key source of profits for the ruling class. Smashing capitalism and abolishing anti-working-class prisons go hand in hand.
SAMI’s main weakness is its nationalist outlook. The group defines itself as a black radical student organization and requires each chapter’s leadership to be black. But nationalism limits the effectiveness of the struggle against mass incarceration and capitalism. Smashing the profit system will require multi-racial unity in intense struggle against the capitalist rulers. When organizations focus exclusively on a single “race” or group within the working class, it weakens our solidarity.
PLP is building a revolutionary communist party that fights for black, Latino, and Asian workers and students to be leading forces in a multiracial fight to destroy capitalism and its prisons. As the struggle grows, students are learning that strength comes from unity. In one of the SAMI workshops, a woman looked at some PL’ers and friends, a group of Latino and South Asian students from New York, and asked, “What are you here for?”
One comrade replied, “Most of us come from Brooklyn where two black youth, Kiki Gray and Shantel Davis, were murdered by the cops. The night of Kiki’s vigil, high school students began a powerful rebellion. They took the streets and fought the cops. We are part of that and want to build unity. That’s one of the reasons we’re here.”
People nodded in agreement and were receptive to CHALLENGE and its front-page headline, “NYPD: Wanted for Racist Murder.”
The rest of the day was devoted to performances and panels commemorating the struggles against racism and honoring a legacy of black fighters like Nelson Mandela — more evidence of the problems posed by nationalism. Once his forces seized state power, Mandela ushered modern capitalism into South Africa under a new set of black bosses. He betrayed the working class.
As communists, we need to ask where racism comes from. While it is disseminated in all aspects of society, the ruling class created racism and the phony concept of race to justify the super-exploitation of black workers and to prevent our class from uniting. We must work with people based on their politics and commitment, not their color. To do otherwise is to let the bosses win.
Students at the conference called for justice, liberation and revolution. What do these words mean? How do we organize for revolution, and what happens after the working class seizes state power? These questions were not addressed by SAMI. What black students — and all students — need is a communist party. PLP has a long-term strategy and solution for the international working class.
“Racist cops, you can’t hide. We charge you with Genocide!”
“Black cop, White cop, all the same. Racist terror is the name of the game.”
As PLP marched through Flatbush, Brooklyn, these chants filled the air. They expressed opinions held by many in this working-class, black neighborhood, which is not new to police murder. But every police murder leaves a fresh wound on the community, and these wounds never heal. The murder of Shantel Davis had roused the community. The recent murder of Kimani Gray pushed some into open rebellion. PLP was there on both occasions to give direction to the anger.
Our march was among the many marches we’ve had in Flatbush over the past eight months. But this march was about more than ending police brutality. It was about smashing this racist system. It was about creating a new world, a world where young people aren’t shot down in the streets, a world worth fighting for.
We kicked off May Day with a rally for communism. Old friends and new faces filled the crowd as we raised our red flags and began chanting. True to our creed, there were many black, Latino, Asian, and whites in the crowd. Children and parents, students and teachers, workers and soldiers — all marching for one movement. This march offered us a glimpse of both the kind of organization and world we are fighting for.
Heads turned as we marched down Flatbush, over 500 strong, with our banners unfurled. Our signs depicted our fights — to turn imperialist war into class war; to end police murder and racist deportations; to end school closings, hospital cutbacks, and factory fires. We fight against all these attacks against the working class.
CHALLENGEs were being distributed left and right, taken by shopkeepers, barbers, cashiers, school kids, grandmothers and whoever else was present. Challenges were in peoples cars, apartment buildings, trucks, storefronts and bakeries. Every car honked to show us solidarity.
“Koupe Tet, Boule Kay”
As an internationalist organization, CHALLENGE is printed in English and Spanish, as well as, to name a few, in Creole, Arabic, Hebrew, and Dari in local areas. We chanted “Koupe Tet, Boule Kay!” This Creole chant dates back to the days of the Haitian Revolution; “Boule Kaye” has been a rallying cry at our demonstrations. It originated with a command by revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, when he and his slave army fought to liberate the nation — to “cut off heads and burn houses” of slave owners. Today, this chant embodies the fury of the exploited. We are in solidarity from Haiti to New York. A struggle in Haiti is our struggle, just as a struggle in Bangladesh or El Salvador is our struggle, because it is our class — the working class — under attack. Such an international morale was alive this May Day.
We concluded with another rally and assembled into our program hall, beautifully decorated, filled with communist artwork, red banners and photographs from May Days past.
The “State of the World” speech reminded us of the many attacks on workers worldwide, of the daunting force of U.S. Imperialism. But it also reminded us of our successes in building PLP and movement in Mexico, Palestine, Colombia, Haiti, and elsewhere.
There were performances by mainly young students. The classic “Clifford Glover” song (about a ten-year-old boy killed by the cops in 1973) was updated with a rap to follow the new struggles against racist police murder. A group of high school students recited “Good Morning, Revolution” by Langston Hughes. After that, they put on a skit produced, directed, and cast by students about the NYC Bus Strike. These performances open the door to a new world of working-class culture.
Onward to a New Year of Fightbacks
The “Why I Joined” speech was given by two comrades this year, both with moving accounts detailing their personal connection to communism and the PLP. A female comrade told us of how she went from being a soft-spoken girl in the classroom to a march leader, chanting “Death to the Bosses” at full volume. After having dealt with patriarchy and religious sexism, she was awed by the female leadership in PLP. Our newest comrade detailed how he grew up with a single mother who worked day in and day out to provide for her family, only to find that it was a dead-end for workers under capitalism. These comrades helped renew our commitment to PLP and communism.
Everyone stood up for a multi-lingual rendition of the “Internationale.” The march and performances remind us why we joined PLP in the first place. Seeing comrades and friends, old and new, vigorously fighting against racism, sexism, and fascism makes this comrade want to fight as well. Happy May Day and cheers to an even more vigorous year filled with struggle! It is important not lose sight of our vision, and continue the fight for communism!
PLP members and friends joined the May Day Immigrant Rights March of 500-600 people. We struggled to bring class consciousness that unites both immigrants and citizens to reject all divisions.
A friend said, “PLP stood out due to its organization, the chants, the amazing banner and red flags. Our contingent energized the march.”
As we rallied, the banner helped us to distribute our flyers and CHALLENGEs. We chanted in English and Spanish for the whole march and sang “Bella Ciao” and the “Internationale.” We chanted for all workers’ power, not just immigrant power. We shared the sound system and chanted together with others.
We connected the racist murders of black youth and the mass deportations of immigrants:
“OPD, KKK: how many kids did you shoot today?”
“Working people have no nation, smash racist deportations!”
The march circled though the Mi Pueblo lot, the site of on-going struggle in Oakland. Its formerly “illegal” Mexican owner decorates his store with the colors of the Mexican flag. Recently he volunteered for I-9 Audits (a fascist program conducted by the Immigration Customs and Enforcements that checks the immigration status of all workers) and fired immigrant workers. A new comrade said it was powerful to have a specific target as we chanted and marched for revolution in the future.
As the march ended, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan showed up in a red dress, looking for a photo op. A comrade spotted her while another announced on the bullhorn: “There’s Jean Quan. She sent OPD to attack Occupy Oakland.” Someone near her booed, and the crowd took it up. The boos changed to the chant “Jean Quan go home.” A young black man asked to use our bullhorn and marched towards her announcing: “Jean Quan supports S-Comm!” (Secure communities, a police program.) She left!
After the march, we ate and toasted revolution and communism. From a friend: “It was sooo good to celebrate May Day with my red friends. The food was yummy and the conversation is always rich and lively.” The future is bright!
Workers worldwide continue to fight for a better life. However, if we see ourselves only as immigrants, we lose. If we see ourselves only as citizens, we lose. We belong to only one class — we are the producers of the entire world’s riches — the working class. When we unite as one class, which dismantles the rulers’ emphasis on borders, ethnicity, gender, “race,” nationality or heritage, WE WIN.