BROOKLYN, NY, June 30 — Thirty marchers took to busy streets of Church Avenue today, chanting “Racist kkkops means you gotta fight back!” and “NYPD, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” This was the third week PL’ers joined with family, friends and neighbors of Shantel Davis in angry protest against the June 14 racist murder of this young woman by an undercover NYPD detective. “Wanted” posters made from the front cover of CHALLENGE (7 /5) were held high throughout the march. When PL’ers brought them to the corner they were grabbed up quickly. Promises were made to bring many more next Saturday. Marchers also eagerly took CHALLENGES, and many came back for more to make sure their friends got them.

Previous marches to the local kkkop precinct travelled along quiet streets with few bystanders along the way. But this time the march along Church Avenue, a very busy commercial street, was greeted by workers in stores and people on the sidewalks joining in our chants and raising fists in the air in solidarity with the marchers. As we approached the precinct, we marched strong into the street, ignoring the kkkops’ attempt to push us into a barricaded pen.

Speeches from local politicians and church leaders asked only for an apology and recognition from NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly. But PLP was there to make it clear that it’s not just a few bad kkkops, that the problem is capitalism and that only fighting for communism can end racist police murder and a system that doesn’t provide jobs or education for the working class. People in the community see the connections between various attacks on the working class, notably to the demonstration held earlier this week at the nearby Downstate Hospital, facing cutbacks and layoffs. One friend of the Davis family, when talking with a PL’er, realized that if the “brotherhood” of kkkops is always protecting each other and covering for murder after murder, then “something much bigger has to change.” PLP will continue to participate in this fight against police attacks on the working class.

On Saturday, July 7, those who have been fighting against the Bronx police murder of Ramarley Graham will be joining the march in Flatbush. Join us.

BROOKLYN, June 28 — “This is my hospital! They can’t close it!” a patient declared to hundreds of picketing SUNY Downstate Medical Center workers. Workers flooded out of the hospital to join patients and community people for a lunchtime rally against threatened massive layoffs and the possible closing of this central Brooklyn hospital.

Speakers addressed the racist nature of these cuts in a mostly black community where people already lack access to care, and spoke of the damage that the layoffs would do to the community’s economic health. It’s no coincidence that the cops’ racist murder on June 14 of 23-year-old Shantel Davis occurred only blocks from here. Inadequate health care, massive unemployment, and police killings all reflect the capitalists’ racist outlook that the lives of black and Latino workers have little or no value.

The Downstate rally was organized by Occupy Wall Street’s Healthcare for the 99%, the First Unitarian Church and workers from three unions inside the hospital: United University Professions (UUP), Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), and Public Employees Federation (PEF). These workers mobilized friends and coworkers to get the word out. The three unions’ leaders refused to endorse the rally, but all showed up when it was clear that many workers would be there. These misleaders defend the system and work to contain workers’ anger. They refuse to mobilize mass action.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to use Brooklyn as a guinea pig to show his bosses in the finance and insurance industries that he can strip healthcare to the bone while shedding workers from the state payroll. One proposal on the table is to move all inpatient care to downtown Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital (LICH), an institution that has been driven into the ground by its wealthy and powerful Manhattan parent network, Continuum Health Partners. After LICH was acquired by Downstate at fire sale prices in 2010, its workers came under control of a newly created private entity. If Cuomo can prove to the big bosses that he can successfully force these cuts on workers, it could boost his possible bid for the U.S. presidency in 2016.

According to one disturbing idea pushed by state politicians and union officials like Phil Smith, UUP’s president, the way to save Downstate is to close LICH. Under capitalism, hospitals are moneymaking entities that compete with each other for insurance dollars. In the face of continual state funding cuts, the heads of various other Brooklyn hospitals would certainly like to see Downstate fold, and to have workers and patients fight with each other. But advocating that workers and patients of other hospitals be left out in the cold is a losing strategy! All hospital workers and patients must unite against all the hospital bosses and their bought-and-paid-for politicians.

Some workers who helped organize the Downstate action were disappointed by the worker turnout. Even so, this was possibly the largest action at Downstate in recent history. It also had the most inter-union, multiracial, and worker-patient-community unity. 

Speakers from Progressive Labor Party tied the fight against school cutbacks, racist police murders, and imperialist wars to the struggle at Downstate. They pointed out that while we must fight each attack against us, our victories will be small and temporary as long as the capitalist ruling class controls the media, the government and the purse strings. Become a regular reader of CHALLENGE to learn how we are aiming to win the ultimate fight against these bloodsuckers!

BOSTON, May 23 — Faculty, staff, and alumni of Roxbury Community College (RCC) demonstrated today at the Boston Globe headquarters, charging the newspaper with reporting racist lies to discredit the only predominantly black, Latino, and immigrant college in Massachusetts. The action was organized by PL’ers and friends. Our signs read: “Boston Globe: Racist Mouthpiece for the 1%” and “Boston Globe: Leading the Charge to Attack Public Education.” Many hundreds of motorists saw our signs and dozens honked in support of our anti-racist message.  

Over the previous two weeks, the Globe had printed several columns, articles, and editorials slamming the college administration for mismanaging financial aid for students, under-reporting crime statistics, and refusing to cooperate with businessmen who wanted to start a job-training program at the college.

While there is truth to some of these charges, the long history of mismanagement at RCC is the fault of bosses much higher up than the college’s president, Terrence Gomes, who is retiring under pressure.  It reflects the racist neglect of working-class students by the capitalist class in Massachusetts and its servants in the state government. Decades of mismanagement and corruption at RCC has damaged generations of students and made the college more vulnerable to cutbacks.  

The timing and manner of the Globe’s attack illustrates how all capitalist media are tools of the same bosses who want to transform the community colleges into job-training centers that serve local corporations.   Driven by the global economic crisis to maximize profits, the capitalists need all their schools, from kindergarten through college, to serve the economy more directly and efficiently.  They need rigid educational tracks to produce a small number of highly skilled professionals, a larger number of workers with narrow skill training, and another large number to fill the ranks of the unemployed and the military.  In line with this plan, some schools will be eliminated and others restructured to give workers less. 

Although most RCC faculty and staff are highly committed to fighting for students’ education, many have illusions about the role of the administration and the college itself. They need to understand the class role of RCC as a capitalist institution that helps to perpetuate racist inequalities.  President Gomes has made close to $200,000 a year to serve the needs of local capitalists. One important part of the president’s job is to maintain social control by pretending to represent the interests of students, faculty, and staff.

Because of liberalism, which obscures class differences, many faculty and staff side with “good” bosses like Gomes. These alliances render workers unable to fight in our own interests. As capitalism descends more and more deeply into crisis, and rulers build fascism to hang onto their power, they rely on liberalism to keep our class divided and weak. 

The liberals will parade before the workers as the “peace” wing of the ruling class and offer themselves as the lesser evil to vote for, as against the more open fascists. The liberals then turn around and enact exactly what the bosses need — president Johnson expanding the war in Vietnam and Obama’s post-election 30,00 troop  increase in Afghanistan, among others.  

When the newspaper articles first appeared, many faculty thought that defending the college and its administration was an anti-racist response. The demonstration at the Boston Globe presented a pro-working class alternative to the liberal line of uniting with the administration.  PL’ers at RCC need to work more consistently to build a unified base for faculty, staff, and students while exposing the dangers of reforms.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is the 12,000-member-strong organization of immigration lawyers. Several friends of PLP have been participating for several years in local chapters and at the national conventions, working in a mass professional organization which is led by liberals in the ruling class.

At the 2011 AILA convention, thousands of immigration lawyers were suckered by Obama’s top immigration cop’s announcement that his Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and attorneys would use “prosecutorial discretion” to stop deportations of non-criminals. Instead, racist round-ups and deportations increased to its highest level yet. Prosecutorial discretion meant that the ICE might be nice in a few instances, but that fascist attacks on immigrants would get worse.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the AILA welcomed prosecutorial discretion and convinced themselves that taking whatever crumbs the government gives is better than fighting back harder against racism. These leaders let Obama publicize his new policies from their convention. Now, after a year of “prosecutorial discretion,” it is clear that asking Obama to use more “discretion,” means pretending to fight but really just begging for mercy.

This year the same thing is happening again. During the 2012 AILA convention, Obama announced “prosecutorial discretion” to give “deferred action” to younger immigrants. (See next issue) “Deferred action” means postponed deportation.

Once again, the immigration lawyers’ leaders are acting as if it is a gift from god. But the promise of “deferred action” is dangerous. The young immigrants will have to identify themselves (endangering their relations) and pass a security clearance. Even then, they will only receive a letter saying the government won’t try to deport them right away and a work permit for two years. If things work out, they will have a “chance” to join the army and fight in the Middle East. No one knows what will happen if Romney gets elected or if Obama changes his mind. No legal residence or citizenship is included, or even mentioned in the new proposal. The government can still deport each applicant and their families whenever it chooses!

At this year’s convention, the sellout past president offered an “open forum” promising urgent discussion on how to combat anti-immigrant legislation in states like Alabama and Arizona. Not surprisingly, the audience microphones were turned off and no questions were allowed. The main guest speaker was the racist attorney general of Utah, who demanded that the audience write letters to congressmen, organize “lobby” days at state capitols and ask big business to help immigrants, the same useless tools that haven’t worked for years. The Utah attorney general bragged that his state’s law is “anti-immigrant lite.”

Meanwhile, two speakers from community activist organizations didn’t show up, possibly because they were uninvited by the organizers. Later, at a general membership meeting, one attorney demanded that the microphones be turned on in the sessions and that open discussion be permitted, instead of just increasingly top-down dominance by leaders whose only answer is voting. 

This year, after years of struggle in the organization, many immigration lawyers protested their leaders’ kiss-up approach to the Obama administration. One group voted to demand that the leaders stop begging for crumbs and start fighting harder for better laws.

But fighting for “better” capitalist laws instead of crumbs like prosecutorial discretion cannot help in the long run. This is because the world economic crisis means that the United States and each of its international competitors are fighting each other in a downward spiral in which all workers suffer more, racism increases and the capitalist system can’t easily pretend that the government is there to help the people. Liberal misleaders must promise improvements, even as things get worse and people see the truth.

This problem for the rulers was evident in the speeches of the sellout convention leaders. The president-elect admitted her shock that “prosecutorial discretion” increased deportations. She admitted that she was “speechless” and “couldn’t explain it” and that “prosecutorial discretion” had turned out to be an “empty promise.” She was frozen in her role as sellout liberal leader, like a deer caught in the headlights, because she admitted spending months “giving ICE (the immigration police) a chance” to make prosecutorial discretion help immigrants. But Obama used it to do the opposite. She claimed that Obama would “really really keep his promise” with the new deferred action policy despite his racist lies about prosecutorial discretion throughout last year. 

This is important for our class because it shows the weakness and fear that liberal leaders have when their pathetic begging approach cannot deliver. Hundreds of immigration lawyers and millions of immigrants now see that immigration law in the Obama era is filled with empty promises. The so-called “liberal” system can be exposed for what it is — an increasingly fascist engine to increase the threat of deportations and force everyone to work for less, with the undocumented at the bottom.

As workers come to understand this, these liberal leaders can be rejected. Immigrants’ and citizens’ unity can battle the development of fascism now by mass protesting in the immigration courts, at the detention centers and at the border, in a movement which has the revolutionary destruction of capitalism and its politicians as its goal and the creation of an anti-racist, sharing communist society as the result.

The revolutionary alternative is important to consider right now, because the other alternative is clear: voting or begging the bosses to make their cops be nicer is like asking your prison guard to treat you better in the death camp. If you think it might happen, you may have already lost the fight.

Making AILA fight harder and avoid liberal traps is a long, hard job. The rulers are presently in almost complete control of the organization. One of our weaknesses has been lack of regular work in local chapters to bring more of our political ideas to the members and bring those members closer to PLP. Increasing activity on the chapter level will involve more members in discussing how liberal reformist leadership helped the Obama administration make things worse for immigrants this past year.

Countries’ borders are born in capitalist wars with no regard to workers’ interests. Whichever capitalist army is stronger decides where the border is. Workers are an international class. We have no borders.PLP's communist answer to the bosses' exploitation of immigrant workers and all workers is: smash all borders!