ORANGE COUNTY, NEW JERSEY, March 31 — “Bail out the people, not the banks!” 

”You can’t rob the bank, but the bank can rob you!” 

“Don’t evict  Susie Johnson: Shame, shame, shame!”  

These were just some of the vigorous chants heard on a quiet street in Orange, NJ when 35 committed protesters managed to block the eviction of an 80-year-old woman who has been a victim of predatory lending. The sheriff’s deputies were powerless to carry out their appointed task of removing this elderly woman, suffering from diabetes and incipient Alzheimer’s disease, from her little house.  

The financial records of Mrs. Johnson’s mortgage were “lost” in 2004.  She asked again and again to have the paperwork restored to her. Without her being informed, her mortgage was then bundled and moved from bank to bank. Although she obtained a reverse mortgage, this was snatched from her (that’s right — she was not allowed to make payments on it!) and sold by Wells Fargo to Chase. Mrs. Johnson was informed a year ago that she was being evicted for nonpayment.

Sexist, Racist Eviction

These kinds of scams are depriving millions of people in the U.S. of their homes. The pattern of predatory lending is especially sexist and racist: black women are five times as likely to have been offered predatory loan contracts than equivalent white men with identical financial profiles.  This is not to say that most white men — other than those at the top — are benefiting from the system either.

The protesters outside Mrs. Johnson’s house came from a range of organizations participating in the New Jersey “Coalition for jobs, peace, justice, and equality.” Various labor unions, tenants’ rights organizations, anti-foreclosure groups, women’s organizations, and civil rights groups are working together around a series of demands seeking to protect the working class — especially in urban centers — from the ravages of the current financial situation. There is definitely no end to the “recession” in Newark and its nearby suburbs. 

The coalition displays a number of the weaknesses and contradictions that accompany liberal formations.  While people generally distrust the government, there are plenty of illusions that a “good sheriff” will not carry out his/her duties, if enough popular pressure is applied. 

The “banks” tend to be separated out from the rest of the capitalist system. But the people in the coalition are a multiracial group of committed activists. When one speaker spoke about the long-term as well as immediate goals of our movement — including establishing a social system whose purpose is to produce fully realized human beings rather than profits — she received warm applause. 

PL’ers need to root themselves in movements like this one in New Jersey, to participate in the struggle for immediate gains, to make friends, to build a movement that can target capitalism as the “real enemy” of the great majority of the world’s people.

NEW YORK CITY — Evil, yes; lesser, no. That was the point PL’ers  and friends made about Barack Obama at a recent discussion in the Professional Staff Congress (PSC). The PSC is a local of City University of New York (CUNY) professors and staff within the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). After a delegate in our local proposed a resolution to criticize the AFT’s endorsement of Obama, we took the opportunity to explain that all politicians under capitalism, regardless of their appearance or label, are the capitalists’ servants. 

 The first order of business was a discussion about the recent attack led by Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic governor, on the wages and pensions of New York State’s public workers.

The retirement age has been raised, forcing workers to put in more years for lower benefits. More of them will be funneled into the 401(k) system, a highly unstable retirement plan that depends on the stock market — and which wiped out millions of workers’ pensions after the 2008 market crash. 

Since taking office last year, Cuomo has also imposed a three-year wage freeze on 120,000 state workers, who now also must pay more for their health premiums — an effective wage cut. 

Meanwhile, the governor has cut billions from public schools and health care, leading to layoffs of teachers and hospital workers. At CUNY, which absorbed a $103-million cut, student tuition will rise $300 for each of the next five years, an overall increase of 37 percent! 

By leading this anti-worker attack, Cuomo has demonstrated that all politicians everywhere — be they Democratic, Republican, Labor, Center-Left, or Socialist — serve the bosses. There are no “lesser-evil” politicians or bosses.

The delegates in attendance were rightly critical of Cuomo and his racist plan, one of the worst attacks hitting New York’s public workers in a long time. There was unity about the need to take action and fight back against it, and Cuomo’s “Democratic” label did not matter. Later, when we were discussing the resolution criticizing the AFT’s endorsement of Obama, it became clear that “lesser-evilism” is still a powerful ideology. The delegates’ arguments and our responses:  

Myth: Obama will give us more room to operate as a progressive union. 

PL’ers pointed out that Obama has passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which gives the police the right to detain any person indefinitely and without legal representation. He signed H.R. 347, a law that makes it illegal to enter a public space if a Secret Service agent is present. This law is directly aimed at stifling protests and demonstrations. 

Myth: Obama needs to be defended because he is black and his presidency is a blow to U.S. racism.

As the housing crisis has disproportionately affected black families, wiping out generations of slowly built-up savings, Obama has done nothing about it. He has responded weakly or not at all to the recent epidemic of racist police murders. He has expanded the racist wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. He has said nothing about racist unemployment, education or health-care that continues to afflict black and Latino workers in disproportionate numbers.

Myth: Democrats are not as viciously and openly anti-woman as Republicans.

Obama has deported more than one million immigrants, more than George W. Bush ever did, separating countless mothers from their children and wives from their husbands. Furthermore, he has said nothing about the attacks on women coming from the Republicans. Most federal employees earning less than $50,000 are women. In 2010, Obama ordered federal salaries frozen for two years.  

Myth: Obama is not as anti-education as the Republicans. 

We challenged this claim at the microphone by noting that he supported the wholesale firing of teachers in Rhode Island. The president and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, are squarely behind the charter school movement and the racist attack on public education. Obama supports merit pay for teachers, a way of blaming educators for the fact that the education system fails so many students.

Another aspect of the discussion reflected the long-term struggle that PL’ers have undertaken in our union. Not a single delegate tried to defend the actions of Obama or the Democrats. Not a single delegate disputed the facts that showed Obama to be a servant of capitalists and the overseer of a violently racist system. In fact, a principal officer in the union admitted that both Democrats and Republicans are both parties for capitalists.

These views are the results of years of hard work to inject communist ideas into union debates and to constantly struggle for greater class consciousness and militancy. Our task now is to use this space we’ve created to recruit new PLP members. 

This is never an easy task. Though there was enthusiasm for the Occupy movement within our union, much of that energy was channeled into the idealistic notion that sniveling politicians would be swayed by the demonstrations into “doing the right thing,” like voting for stricter regulations and more oversight of banks. This lie must be exposed!

Electoral politics is a dead-end for workers. Our strength lies not in our ability to influence politicians, but in the fact that an organized working class doesn’t need them or their CEO masters! We must expand the limits of our thinking about what is possible. Our members and friends have decided to meet before each PSC delegate assembly to plan how to carry on the struggle within the meeting and expand the limits of ourselves, our Party and our class.

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!