WASHINGTON, DC, April 9 — “Racist murder — tear it down! The prison system — tear it down! The justice system — tear it down! THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM — tear it down!”

These chants echoed from Howard University students marching through the community to join over 300 anti-racist marchers protesting the racist murder of Trayvon Martin. It followed two weeks of organizing that began on March 24 when over 2,000 people mobilized in response to a social networking call for action from three Georgetown University students, assembling in front of the District Building that houses the corrupt City Council.

The speakers at that initial rally, while emotional and passionate, were generally disappointing politically. Five deejays from local radio shows spoke along with several ministers, representatives from other organizations and the corrupt chair of the City Council. None had a plan of action.

At the end of the rally, PLP members and friends spoke on their bullhorn and attracted about 200 people. We called on people to come to an organizing meeting at a local church the next day. We addressed revolution, communism and the link between the racist injustice system and capitalist exploitation. Many participants cheered, others nodded in agreement and 20 people signed up to be organizers.

Twenty-three people came to the organizing meeting the next day and planned a major community event for April 4, the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose murder sparked widespread rebellions throughout black communities across the U.S. These rebellions won jobs for black workers, but have been largely eroded ever since. Over 150 people came to April 4^th event, marked by strong speeches and a commitment to action.

The following Saturday, April 7, over 300 people marched as part of the “million hoodies” march. A highlight was the feeder march of over 40 Howard University students who took to the streets in the community with bold chants and banners on their way to the main event. It was then that residents and passers-by cheered the students’ “tear-it-down” chant and gave clenched-fist salutes to these young activists.

At all these events, PL’ers distributed hundreds of CHALLENGES and PLP flyers analyzing the murder of Trayvon as a product of capitalism’s racism and its criminal Injustice system. PLP looks forward to bringing more of these new young organizers into the revolutionary movement.

Workers and students on our campus had not shared each other’s problems in a long while, but on the Day of Action against cuts to public education this would change. 

“Hi everybody,” began one worker. “My co-workers and I are here to begin organizing with students. We face the same enemies. The university bosses who raise your tuition attack us too. Our contract is almost up and we have zero faith in the union’s leadership. Worker-student organizing has succeeded in the past and it can work again.”

Students enthusiastically and overwhelmingly supported the call to build tangible solidarity with rank-and file-workers. As anxiety gave way to excitement, an energetic exchange of ideas followed. The group discussed future organizing possibilities while bearing in mind workers’ concerns about their union. They would meet again in a week. 

Meanwhile, union officials monitored the group and reported the workers and to their higher-ups and fired the organizer who facilitated the initial meeting. Then workers were harassed for criticizing the union leaders.

A week later the Worker/Student Alliance met again. The union hacks crashed the meeting and began making excuses for their errors. 

But the decision of union officials to target and fire organizers, along with their lack of transparency, and the resulting instability they’ve triggered are deliberate. These things are happening just months before contract negotiations begin but due to the officials’ unwillingness to listen to workers, the union is in shambles. With the union leaders’ lies exposed, the workers repeatedly asked them to leave and students supported the call. 

Once the hacks left, the group discussed the struggles ahead. Cuts to public education may lead to layoffs and benefit reductions for workers as well as course cutbacks, tuition hikes and mounting debt for students. The cuts are racist as they will disproportionately harm working-class, immigrant, Latino and black communities. Students and workers on and off campuses are fighting these attacks but have a long way to go. 

Recognizing that workers and students have collective power and common cause is only the beginning of a process that can possibly intensify on May Day 2012 by supporting the call for a general strike. Ultimately the struggle all students and workers face is against capitalism. Militant reformism cannot change the essence of capitalism, but struggles against the cuts, with communist leadership, can help educate workers and students to fight for a different world, a communist world.

While the cuts ravage social services across the board, the ruling class allocates billions for imperialist wars and prisons. Confronting and fighting imperialism and the state is eventually where the fight against the cuts will have to focus if we’re to build a new world. To fight the cuts we must fight imperialism.

Locally, it’s likely the university will pit workers against students. The union bosses may even facilitate that process by settling a contract at the expense of student grievances. For them, “solidarity” means securing their bottom line — “The union’s interest uber alles”(above everything else), even workers and students. 

Furthermore, expect racism from the university whose service workers are approximately 70% Latino, and from the union who readily disregards worker input. 

“What are we fighting for?  Who are our targets? What do we hope to accomplish?” Group action will answer these questions. One thing, however, is already clear; this is an alliance of rank-and-file workers and students determined to remain autonomous from the union and its lies, limitations, opportunism, and weaknesses. Onward comrades!

LOS ANGELES, April 7 —The continuing scandal at Miramonte Elementary School shows the systemic racism within the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Two teachers were arrested in late January and early February for child sexual abuse, the district reacted by removing the entire faculty and staff from the campus.

The administration of Miramonte had ignored the complaints of parents and students about the abusive teachers for years. Their refusal to listen to immigrant students and their parents exposes the administration’s gutter racist attitude towards the community.

Miramonte is the second largest elementary school in the state and was still on year-round schedule, which the district knows hurts student learning (they changed to regular schedule after the scandal). In recent years, Miramonte has been treated by the district as a temporary holding place for many teachers, as younger teachers get pushed out of positions due to layoffs and seniority reassignment.

It is clear that the removed staff had nothing to do with the scandals at Miramonte, but the district is trying to pretend that it cares. 

However, we know better. LAUSD has a racist attitude towards the immigrant and black communities here. PL’ers handed out a flier in the neighborhood. Many parents of Miramonte students responded really well when we said, “From Miramonte to the teacher layoffs resulting in overcrowded classrooms to the custodial layoffs resulting in filthy schools, LAUSD has seen the L.A. working class as its enemy.” Some parents gave us their numbers to try to organize a community meeting in order to fight back.

Comrades took the same flier to the displaced Miramonte staff.  While they got a good response, many teachers seemed nervous of speaking out against the District. Unfortunately we missed a small rally some parents had had in support of their teachers and staff the day before. We hope that our contacts will help us stay on top of such events in the future. Staff, parents and students must unite and condemn the racism of LAUSD and the capitalist education system. 

The teachers’ union and the staff unions have done little to help these teachers. The teachers’ union had us wear a ribbon to remember the teachers. The District clearly is using this to attack teachers, going through files and using any excuse to remove teachers while they push for furlough days and have laid off 9,500 teachers.

We can see that politicians and bosses especially attack the working class whenever they face an economic crisis. This capitalist economy can’t provide for the safety and education of our students and ensure safe working environments for a full complement of staff. We don’t need it. If our schools were run not by the racist LAUSD but by the working class, who care for their children, then they would be safe and receive a truthful and pro-worker education. 

The ruling class, bosses of the biggest banks and oil companies along with their politicians, will never give us that. They need an education system that teaches obedience and minimal skills so that working people will never question their system. 

Only a communist society based on the needs of workers, not the profits of bosses, will have the interests of our students at heart. And that requires a communist revolution.

PARIS, April 6 — Hunger, poverty and unemployment are the lot of millions in France — and the upcoming presidential elections won’t change a damn thing.

According to an April 3 opinion poll, Socialist candidate François Hollande will beat right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round of presidential elections on May 6 by a 54% to 46% vote.

On April 4, Hollande announced that in his first 50 days in office he would: freeze gas prices for three months, allow people who had worked continually for 41 years to retire at age 60 and raise the back-to-school allowance by 25%.

Over the summer, he pledges to put a surtax on banks and oil companies, a 75% tax rate for incomes over 1 million euros (US$1.3 million) and reinstate the inheritance tax on big fortunes.

And in the fall he promises measures to stop profit-boosting through layoffs and downsizing, and to introduce worker participation on big-company boards of directors, rent control and to create 150,000 jobs.

Sound too good to be true? It is!

Hollande simultaneously announced that: “We’ll need all forces for the country’s recovery. That’s why, the day after the presidential election, I’ll meet with the top 40 companies on the Paris stock exchange, even if many of their directors didn’t vote for me. I’ll tell them: ‘You’re the spearhead of the French economy. We need you, and you need the government. We have to take up the challenge of France’s recovery together.’”

That means the Socialists will run France with and for the capitalists, as they have always done. Hollande will take orders from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a November 28 report, the OECD called for a third austerity plan to cut 8 billion euros (US$10.5 billion) from the government budget, on top of preceding plans which cut 19 billion (US$25 billion).

Conservative French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet told BBC Radio 4 that Hollande “will have to have sort of more wide-ranging cuts. Half the people in his immediate entourage already acknowledge this. They will not say this in public, but his economic policy is not going to be very different from Sarkozy.”

On April 10, 2010, the IMF reported that past “successful” budgetary adjustments have taken seven years on average. It wants the current austerity programs to continue at least that long.

So the Socialists are only going to worsen conditions for the working class, the hungry and the jobless, a racist move since a disproportionate number are of Arab or African origin. Considering who the Socialists are, that’s no surprise. In his 2010 doctoral thesis on the party, Socialist Party analyst Thierry Barboni indicated that:

     • In 2000, 88% of the members on the party’s National Council were elected officials. Not one member was a worker. Thirty-four percent were executives and academics, 36% worked in intermediate occupations (such as health care professionals) and 12% were top civil servants;

     • The party organization in the 10th arrondissement of Paris reflected the party membership generally: in 2006, 69% were middle-ranking and top executives;

     • He who pays the piper calls the tune. In 2006, 25% of party finances came from dues paid by elected officials, and 38% from state financing controlled by the central party apparatus.

It doesn’t matter who’s elected, Sarkozy or Hollande. Either way, another austerity plan is in the works. Conditions will worsen for:

     • The 8.2 million people (13.5% of the population) living below the poverty line, on less than 950 euros (US$1,244) a month. (French statistical bureau report, 3/2012);

     • The 4.9 million jobless (17.3% of the working population) (Unemployment office report, March 2012);

     • The 3.7 to 7.1 million people (6.0% to 11.5% of the population) who are malnourished, of whom 10% have symptoms of scurvy, 25% suffer from hypertension, and 56% are overweight or obese. (Brest symposium, 12/2007)

Here in France, and around the world, dreams of voting to reform capitalism are exactly that — dreams. The only way to eliminate the poverty, hunger and unemployment caused by capitalism is to organize a revolutionary communist party to overthrow it.