BRONX, NY, July 28 — On July 19, hundreds rallied and marched on Bronx’s 47th precinct demanding the conviction of Richard Haste, the cop who murdered black teenager Ramarley Graham in his own home on February 2. This was the 18th consecutive weekly vigil commemorating each of the years young Ramarley was alive. Once again Ramarley’s parents were militantly out front.
Due to consistent mass, multiracial pressure, Bronx District Attorney Johnson finally indicted Haste, but only on manslaughter charges. The masses have been demanding murder indictments, not only for Haste but for all racist kkkops who supported him.
PLP comrades and others have also called sharply for indictments of Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly, the primary ruling-class architects of the racist terror that has slaughtered one black worker every other month in NYC since last November!
Beginning with our brother Ramarley’s funeral, week in and week out a growing number of PL’ers and friends have become deeply involved in working closely with workers in the neighborhood and in mobilizing our friends for regular mass actions. Because of the trust we’ve developed, we’ve been increasingly able to raise our ideas for multiracial unity against fascist terror, reliance on the working class, not politicians and for communist revolution as the only solution.
Each week PLP distributed CHALLENGEs and PLP leaflets en masse while also regularly carrying a Party banner. During most marches people have often shouted, “Give the teacher the mike!” and one young comrade has led chants against fascist genocide and for fight-back uniting women and men, workers and students, black, Latino, Asian and white.
But nationalists, pseudo leftists, lawyers, preachers and politicians have also constantly hammered various pro-capitalist, opportunist positions, confusing many honest protesters. In effect, they’re laying down the gauntlet for us to widely expand our own leadership in class struggle, with mass CHALLENGE sales and deepening ties with everyone we bring to and meet in the struggle.
This final vigil, march and rally showed clearly how the bosses are working overtime to co-opt and derail anti-fascist struggle. The Nation of Islam speaker urged everyone to kiss the backside of the system: “Do not be disrespectful to those in power above us. We need more strong politicians.” And, in effect, he complimented our work and presence with blatant anti-communism: “We are here only for young Ramarley and his family. Do not try to attach your agenda to this
agenda!”
The New Black Panther Party speaker passionately summoned black people alone to rise up in self-defense, ending with the chant, “Black Power, Black Power,” picked up by some in the crowd. But that refrain rang particularly hollow, given the thoroughly multiracial make-up of the hundreds rallying outside Ramarley’s home.
However, PLP’s deepening involvement in this fight and principled struggle for PLP’s ideas guaranteed our opportunity for rebuttal. Immediately one young PL’er spoke, contradicting virtually every reactionary point the nationalist had pushed! He concluded with a call for unity with the lockout of Con Ed workers, then leading the sharpest fight against the ruling class that organizes fascist terror. He challenged every anti-racist present to join the protracted struggle for communist revolution.
After the rally at the precinct, many participants marched to the Graham family’s church for another rally where capitalist bigwigs were the featured speakers. Led off by the bosses’ media personality Al Sharpton — who years ago informed on black leaders for the FBI — they focused on diverting us into the suicidal gutter of electoral politics. Brooklyn Councilman Williams warmly introduced City Comptroller Liu who unabashedly pushed his mayoral bid.
These are the same politicians who hadn’t shown their faces previously or at the demonstration that night and had pushed for a silent Father’s Day demonstration on 5th Avenue. Imagine if that march had had the militancy of those led by Ramarley’s family!
However, ultimately the working class is very sharp. If we redouble our efforts, more and more will respond to PLP’s ideas and join to bury this racist ruling class. While listening to the crap emanating from the pulpit, a comrade quietly slipped a CHALLENGE and a PL leaflet into the hands of a middle-aged black worker. During several speeches he quietly read the entire leaflet, then folded it carefully, placed it in his backpack along with the CHALLLENGE and walked out of the church with his cane — another of the system’s victims who may join capitalism’s gravediggers for the most joyful funeral in history.
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Angry Parents, School Workers Condemn Racist Budget Cuts
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- 01 August 2012 268 hits
CHICAGO, IL, July 11 — Progressive Labor Party and angry teachers, students, parents and workers came out to Kennedy-King College for one of the three planned Chicago Public School (CPS) budget meetings for the 2012-2013 school year. The racist proposed budget didn’t do much of anything to meet the needs of children in Chicago, just like all other school budgets in working-class communities. It was evident that the budget in Chicago, like many places around the U.S., had significantly less money to use for our students.
The imperialist needs of the U.S. ruling class to maintain oil profits in the Middle East has led to millions of deaths of our working-class brothers and sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan and the wholesale destruction of social services and education domestically. The presentation lasted about thirty minutes, and the board then announced that there would be two hours for the public to speak and ask questions.
The auditorium was ringed by about 12 CPS and Kennedy-King security officers. One by one, teachers and parents and school workers came up to the microphone to angrily denounce the cuts. Teacher after teacher told of over 160 schools with no libraries in them, while Chicago Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard makes over $250,000 a year, plus bonuses. A janitor said they should stop layoffs, reporting that the remaining janitors are being over-worked, which leads to unhealthy and unsanitary conditions for our children.
Parents spoke about the CPS’s disrespect of the teachers and the students. Our children’s schools don’t have heat in the winter or air conditioning in the summer as temperatures reach 100 degrees outside and 110 degrees inside. There’s no money for arts and science programs, but plenty for Chicago KKKops and metal detectors to make the schools resemble a prison.
Parents and community members saw that the funding for local public schools goes down but money for the failed charter school system goes up. As they took the mic to address the racist school board, almost every speaker had CHALLENGE in their hand, received from PL members outside the door.
We talked about how capitalism, no matter who is in charge, can never truly educate our children and fulfill the needs of the working class; only communism can. One comrade exposed the CPS’s attacks:
Not only will these cuts hurt every child attending a public school in the city of Chicago, but these budget cuts are racist. Is there one school on the Gold Coast [rich area of Chicago] getting a budget decrease or that has no library or proper heating…No! Are any of your children in any of these charter schools or any public schools on the South or West Side?...No! And why are 95% of the charter schools and school closings on the Southside and the Westside? Does it have something to do with the fact that the Westside and the Southside are majority black and Latino? So this school board is RACIST!
We brought a communist message to the meeting that wasn’t there before. It was no longer about just increasing spending on public school children or supporting this tax or that candidate in the dead-end electoral system.
Instead, the community heard the message that if you truly want change that you must smash capitalism and fight for communism. Joining PLP is the first step toward a society that educates every child and provides them with a safe environment and a better future in which to grow.
DETROIT, MICHIGAN, July 30 — Comrades from the Midwest and East Coast joined thousands of teachers at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention in Detroit to expose the dangers of supporting the ruling class liberals. New and veteran comrades joined together for four days of forums, leafleting, selling CHALLENGEs, and meeting teachers nationwide. The peak of our Summer Project was direct political action at the AFT against Vice President Joe Biden (see box).
Capitalism Destroyed Detroit
On the first night, a comrade from Detroit held a meeting to talk about the current state of Detroit. Many of the people of Detroit relied jobs in the automotive industry. Due to the collapse of the auto industry in the 1980s and the recession that followed in the 1990s, factories closed down and many workers were laid off. The initial cut-backs disproportionately affected black workers. The unions in these factories did not fight back against these racist layoffs. As a result, white workers were attacked and lost their jobs as well.
According to our comrade from Detroit, the factories were moved down South and to Mexico where the labor is cheaper and union activity is low. It was a move clearly to maximize profits. Whatever happens to the workers left behind is of no concern to the auto bosses.
Due to the recession, Detroit has suffered greatly. The automotive plants closings led to a sharp decrease in tax revenue. As a result, Detroit ‘sresidents have had to deal with high taxes and cuts to public services such as the fire department, transit system and its schools.
As we drove through the streets of Detroit, we saw the aftermath of the destruction for ourselves. Many of the buildings were either run down or abandoned. Supermarkets are located beyond city limits. There were areas where there was nothing but huge fields of overgrown grass. Some comrades went to Henry Ford high school to do a CHALLENGE sale and noticed that the football field, tennis courts and track field were covered with weeds and overgrown grass.
Fighting Racism in and out of the Classroom
The planning and execution of the Summer Project from the youth leadership of PLP led to the distribution of over 1,500 CHALLENGEs and over 5,000 leaflets that exposed how the capitalists have destroyed Detroit; how the “liberal” Democrats are just as dangerous as the Republicans; and how Diane Ravitch is a ruling-class tool and an enemy of the working class.
Many people, visitors and AFT delegates alike, took notice of our literature and held discussions with us. As the convention went on, some people eagerly took the next piece of literature or could be seen reading CHALLENGE intently. In addition, we received 242 signatures on a petition supporting the struggle in New York to find justice for Shantel Davis, a 23-year-old black woman who was murdered by NYPD detective Philip Atkins.
A forum was held on the limits of unionism, showing the advancements in education past communist revolutions have made. There was also discussion about how the communist revolution PLP is organizing for will be setup to meet the needs of all students.
The horrors in Detroit and the attacks on our children’s education are just a few of many reasons why capitalism fails the working class. What workers need is communism, an egalitarian society based on need, not profit. Progressive Labor Party fights for this goal. Join us in our struggle!
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ATTACK BIDEN!
On the day of Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival, we formed two groups. One stayed outside the hall,distributed CHALLENGEs and a leaflet titled “Democratic Party Attacks Education Workers.” Young PL’ers marched up and down, holding signs reading, “Don’t’ Vote. Revolt!” while chanting loud enough for workers inside and outside to hear.
The second group passed security and snuck a big banner inside that read, “Obama, Biden, Romney: Education Reform for Imperialism. Fight Back with Communism!” With the banner unfurled, we marched together through the convention hall, chanting, “Democrats and Republicans, all the same. Racist terror is the name of their game!”
The Secret Service and Detroit police grabbed our banner. We pushed back to stand our ground. Young PL’ers seized the banner back, raised it high, all chanting. While they were shoving us out the building, we were chanting even louder, “Racist Biden you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide!” We chanted for all of the workers Biden and Obama have murdered worldwide in the name of U.S. imperialism, but the union leadership edited this out of their video. PLP was a striking group of young multi-racial teachers and students in a crowd of majority white delegates.
New comrades stepped up to take responsibility for the Party. There was a qualitative difference in many of our newer comrades after this Project. Many commented on how they realized we have no choice but to fight.
One student used the word fascism to describe the conditions for workers worldwide. He said he had never been taught that word in school and now sees exactly what fascism means.Everyone came away from the weekend politically stronger and more committed to advance the fight for communist revolution.
BROOKLYN, NY, July 16 — Shouts of “Save our patients! Save our jobs!” rang out as hundreds of workers, with red t-shirts flashing in the hot sun, picketed yet again to protest downsizing and layoffs in the Downstate inner-city hospital. Inside, state politicians, SUNY and Downstate bigwigs met. When they came out, the politicians found themselves on the hot seat about racist cuts in jobs and services. Within a week hundreds of pink slips were sent out between the Downstate and Long Island College Hospital campuses of SUNY Downstate.
Are We Winning?
Can we win this fight against powers from Albany to Wall Street? In the 1960s, mostly black women hospital workers decided they were no longer going to stand working for $40/week, below poverty-level wages. For years they organized, picketed, struck, defied courts and police (and sometimes 1199 union leaders) and went to jail, but finally won union representation, a living wage and benefits. Now it looks like the bosses want to push us — still predominantly black, Latino and women workers — back to subsistence wages.
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes you Stronger
There is another kind of victory we can win under capitalism if we have the will to engage in the kind of all-out struggle those workers did. We can become a more savvy, active and united working-class force. Getting involved in this struggle can expand our limits, get us out of our ruts. It can help us identify our enemies: the wealthy and their politicians, courts, cops, media and union hierarchies. It can help us identify our friends. At our June 28 rally, we united workers, the community and three different unions. This multi-racial unity consisted of women and men, black, white and Latino, from professional and non-professional departments.
Taking a step further, we can look beyond our own hospital to see that our fight is the same as that of workers and patients at Brookdale, or Cook County in Chicago.
Taking another step we may feel kinship with the struggle of the ConEd workers who were locked out because they refuse to accept give-backs or even the struggle in our neighborhood against the racist police murder of 23-year-old Shantel Davis mere blocks from our hospital. We could come to realize that workers in Haiti, Egypt, Nigeria or China are fighting the same struggle.
Take It To Another Level
Right now you are reading CHALLENGE, the newspaper of the revolutionary communist PLP. CHALLENGE does not waver from pointing out the enemies and friends of the working class.
We keep our eyes on the prize of finally overthrowing the wealthy ruling classes of the world to run things as the working class, for the working class. Read CHALLENGE regularly. Help distribute it to friends, family and co-workers. Write for it. Join a CHALLENGE discussion group. Contact us at PLP.org.
WASHINGTON, DC, July 24 — Several thousand workers and students from around the world marched to the White House today to demand that bosses and politicians take the steps needed to stop the racist AIDS epidemic worldwide. PL’ers distributed about 2,000 CHALLENGEs and communist pamphlets, arguing that the bosses and politicians would never serve the workers’ needs. Communist revolution is the only path to victory against AIDS. Many people responded with interest and were pleasantly surprised to meet serious revolutionaries. Many asked us to contact them for further discussions.
The “We Can End AIDS Mobilization” united a multi-racial group of activists led by people living with HIV attending the International AIDS Conference. Organizations mobilized thousands of workers to travel to DC to march along with thousands from Uganda, South Africa, Kenya, the Russian Federation, and many other countries in an inspiring display of international solidarity.
Nevertheless, a revolutionary strategy will be needed to stop the epidemic. The bosses may wish to limit the spread and severity of the disease when it actually debilitates its workforce, but their relationship to profit always prevents solving the complex HIV/AIDS epidemic. Capitalism reinforces the epidemic every day. AIDS activists must turn away from piecemeal, NGO-driven, partial if well-meaning initiatives, and tackle the even harder task of making communist revolution if we are to succeed in eradicating HIV/AIDS.
The march demanded cheaper HIV drugs, taxes on stock transactions to pay for HIV programs, needle exchange programs, stable affordable housing, reproductive rights for women, and an end to mass imprisonment of blacks, Latinos, and immigrants. En route to the White House, the march made stops at UPS to condemn its bosses’ homophobia. We also protested Wells Fargo in response to the local campaign of the Criminal Injustice Committee of Occupy DC that attacks the bank’s investments in profit-making prisons and support for mass incarceration.
The demands of the march could achieve small improvements. The targets (UPS, Wells Fargo, and the White House) are certainly among the enemies of the working class. But the AIDS epidemic will only end when workers abolish capitalism and take power. An egalitarian communist society will provide the conditions of life and the power to allocate resources to care for workers’ health.
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, thrives in the cesspool of capitalism’s racism and poverty. It disproportionately affects people who are poor, imprisoned, use drugs, sell their bodies, and are gay. It is a major destabilizer of black communities. The bosses’ neglect of this disease is racist to the core, both in the U.S. and worldwide.
In the U.S., black men and women account for close to half of all new HIV infections. Data shows that this is not a function of personal behavior but a function of racist attacks, including incarceration, homelessness, unemployment, stigma and segregation. The marchers raised these issues which are largely missing from UN reports and plenary speakers at the AIDS conference.
The “war on drugs” that criminalizes drug possession and uses stop-and-frisk profiling techniques and imprisons so many black men and women also drives the HIV epidemic. The discrimination against homosexual people or drug users create shame and fear that keep people from seeking care and from advocating for social change. The fighting spirit of the marches broke down these barriers and brought everyone into the struggle, including thousands of unionized women who capitalism forces to sell their bodies in India. They were not allowed into the U.S. but rallied at the same time in India. The march provided a small glimpse of a mobilized international working class.
What the working class needs is a revolutionary party to organize against and to smash capitalism – the cause of this racist AIDs epidemic – once and for all. Progressive Labour Party is doing just that. Join us!
