NEW YORK CITY, March 8 — Today, International Women’s Day, more than 350 City University of New York (CUNY) faculty and staff, at a mass meeting called by the PSC (Professional Staff Congress)-CUNY union, denounced “Pathways,” a scheme for faster graduation imposed by the CUNY Administration. It would standardize and gut the academic quality of basic required courses.  Many speakers — a majority women — pointed out that this is a sexist move against the 2/3 of students who are women, a racist attack on the 3/4 students who are black and Latino, and a nationalist attack on the large percentage of immigrant and undocumented students.  

Even conservative business profs showed outrage at this insult to their working-class students, calling out “the subtle racism of low expectations.”  Other speakers expressed solidarity with K-12 teachers who have already been hit hard by standardized, dumbed-down curriculums, pushed nationally by the think-tanks and government agencies of the capitalist class.  The mood was angry and ready for action; we all felt the need to stand up for our students and defend our efforts to teach them well; there was power in our common outrage.

The union is organizing an online petition (2,500 signers in the first two days, 500 in the first hour), two major lawsuits defending both faculty control of curriculum and students’ right to a quality education, and grassroots faculty action to organized non-compliance.  Student speakers said they would stand by us in this fight to repeal Pathways — “a pathway to ignorance,” the Queens College student newspaper called it.  We need to reach many more students, because the opportunist bosses are appealing to their desire to graduate sooner, downplaying their loss of science labs and languages.

The CUNY Board of Trustees meeting April 30 is the deadline for killing Pathways, and there will be an action at the Trustees’ meeting.  It was pointed out that Benno Schmidt, the ruling-class figure who heads the Board, is also a chief investor in a new private school, Avenues, which boasts of graduating students fluent in two or three languages — while Pathways cuts required language study to a single semester. 

A PLP flyer, “Pathway to Ignorance or Road to Revolution?” supported organizing a militant fight, and showed how Pathways, like the tightening of control over K-12 teachers, was “another step on the road to fascist control of all workers as the ruling class prepares for war with other imperialists…The decline we see at CUNY simply reflects this decline of the [U.S.] empire.”

 While fighting the CUNY bosses we have to fight too for the egalitarian communist society for which workers have dreamed of and fought for centuries. Academic freedom fights in the 20th-century U.S. were often led by communists like the Anti-Fascist Committee at City College in 1938. But there will be no lasting freedom for any workers without communist revolution. The many young profs without tenure who spoke out courageously for their students tonight have a proud communist tradition to carry forward.

U.S. rulers are hypocritically decrying the slaughter raging across Syria while they seek to intervene there in the guise of “humanitarianism.” But Syria’s regime has a history of savagery that stretches back decades, and it never seemed to bother Washington before. Now that their Russian rivals are backing Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. rulers suddenly care. Why? They see an opportunity to strike a blow against their Russian adversaries in this oil-rich region.

There’s a general consensus among U.S. imperialists that ousting the Syrian ruler would deal a heavy blow to his allies in the Iranian ruling class and their regional ambitions. This would help safeguard both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the crown jewels of U.S. bosses’ energy-based empire.

But U.S. ruling-class politicians, think tanks and media disagree on how best to profit from Assad’s bloodshed. Their options include “diplomacy” (which, after it failed, could justify an invasion), arming the opposition, or direct, Libya-like military action (another “humanitarian” invasion).

While we can’t predict exactly what Obama will do, any of these scenarios will prove deadly for workers. Thousands of our class brothers and sisters in that region will be killed, not to mention U.S. GI’s. U.S. workers will be attacked with more cutbacks to pay for yet another war. Muslim workers in the U.S. will inevitably be targeted with racist attacks. 

An attack on Syria also has strong potential to widen U.S. oil wars to global dimensions, given the sharpening conflict with Russia as a Syrian ally.

U.S.- and Saudi-led war-making interests recently sent former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on a deliberately doomed UN-Arab League mission to Syria. Royal Military College professor Houchang Hassan-Yari said, “I’m not really sure if Annan is going to be successful.... [T]he UN Security Council is paralyzed with Russia and China using their vetoes to block a resolution condemning the regime. If new attempts to reach a resolution fail and the Syrian government continues its violent crackdown, there may be no other avenue to go down except military” (Canadian CTV, 3/10/12).

How Far to Go for Regime Change?

A “hit now” faction in Congress is already looking down this avenue. On March 6, Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham urged: “The United States should help organize an international effort to protect civilian population centers in Syria through airstrikes on Assad’s forces....This will first require the United States and our partners to suppress the Syrian regime’s air defenses in at least part of the country.”

But Stratfor, an influential global intelligence group, counsels waiting: “The situation in Syria — whether through the loss of territory, massive defections from the regime or the loss of Russian support — will have to change before Washington implements any of the plans it has prepared.” Stratfor’s analysts gained increased credibility of late when a cyber-hacking attack revealed that Exxon Mobil and the Pentagon are among the firm’s major clients.

A more urgent recommendation for U.S.-driven regime change comes from the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Jonathan Tepperman, managing editor of CFR’s Foreign Affairs magazine, wrote in the New York Times (3/8), “The only sure way to quickly stop the killing and replace the Assad regime with something better would be to do what few have been willing to advocate so far: start a serious military operation to topple the government.”

Syrian Invasion No Piece of Cake

Tepperman leaves unsaid the vast anti-Russian mobilization that would be required by a “serious” operation. The Kremlin supplies sophisticated fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries to Syria. It maintains a naval base at Tartus on its Mediterranean shore, facing Israel. Invaders also would have to contend with a Syrian army of 330,000. 

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s newly re-elected strongman, bluntly promises retaliation if U.S.-led Syrian initiatives run counter to his plans to restore the Russian empire. “No one,” says Putin, “should be allowed to employ the Libyan scenario in Syria...I hope very much that the United States and other countries will...not pursue the use of power in Syria without UN Security Council sanctions.”

Putin refers specifically to U.S. economic grabs in the global imperialists’ sharpening rivalry: “It appears that with the Arab Spring countries, as with Iraq, Russian companies are losing their decades-long positions in local commercial markets and are being deprived of large commercial contracts. The niches thus vacated are being filled by the economic operatives of the states that had a hand in the change of the ruling regime” (RIA Novosti, 2/27/12).

Back in the U.S., war hawk Paul Wolfowitz — a primary architect of Bush, Jr.’s attempt to run the Iraq slaughter on the cheap — claimed that arming Assad’s opponents could work: “Strengthening the Syrian opposition is not an obstacle to a peaceful end to this conflict. To the contrary, it may be the only way to achieve one” (Wall Street Journal, 3/6/12).

Another Blowback?

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had reservations: “We really don’t know who it is that would be armed. Are we supporting Al Qaeda in Syria? Hamas is now supporting the opposition. Are we supporting Hamas in Syria?” (CBS News, 2/26/2012). She pointed out that both Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri and the leaders of the Islamic resistance movement in Palestine expressed their support for the Syrian rebels. Clinton and other U.S. ruling class operatives remember that arming anti-Soviet “insurgents” in Afghanistan led to the emergence of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda and resulted in a Taliban takeover.

But regardless of their differences, all U.S. presidential candidates (with the exception of the unelectable Ron Paul) are backing one form or another of anti-Syrian war-making. All of them are ready and willing to escalate tensions with Iran and Russia en route to a broader war. Our class cannot support any of these capitalist factions. We must strive in all of our mass organizations to expose all the bosses, both liberal and right-wingers, whose wars kill millions of workers. We must link the class struggle in all areas to the need to eliminate the entire capitalist class.

Only communist revolution can end imperialist war, mass unemployment, racism, sexism and the horrors that the profit system visits on our class. That is what PLP fights for. Join our Party!

Account of an Iraq War veteran:

On March 11, at least one U.S. Army Staff Sergeant walked off his base, entered three separate homes and killed 16 unarmed Afghan civilians in cold blood before returning to his base and turning himself in. Some witnesses report they heard multiple troops. However, the U.S. military insists it was only one soldier. Until now, the U.S. military has not released any details about the intent behind the killings. But from my experience in the U.S. military, I’m sure that racist indoctrination by U.S. imperialism is at the heart of it. 

When I deployed to Iraq in 2004, the instructors taught my unit to call the local workers “Hajji.” The word is actually a religious title for Muslims who completed their pilgrimage to Mecca. But, the military used it as a racist slur to breed hostility between coalition troops and civilians. It is comparable to the racist term “gook” the U.S. military used during the Vietnam War.  

Our trainers told us it was okay to run over children on the roads or to shoot someone throwing an object, even if it was a rock. These Iraqis, my instructors explained, would use kids strapped with bombs to attack convoys. Since “you never know what hajji may do,” you should use lethal force if you feel threatened. 

An Army friend of mine, James, was on a Small Kill Team (SKT) that followed orders to shoot and kill anyone outside after the U.S.-imposed curfew. Many people in his unit believed that the SKT would help the Iraqis “remember” not to plant anti-U.S. roadside bombs.

Most troops in James’ unit had lost buddies to insurgent attacks. Almost every anti-U.S. attack fed the rage-filled racist lie that all of the Iraqis were responsible because they knew who the anti-U.S. forces are. But James understood racist lies because he knew lots of people in PLP and actively fought against putting the racist blame on the working class in Iraq. 

Like myself, James avoided using the term “hajji.” Instead we spoke to our fellow troops about how imperialist rivalry is to blame for all the bloodshed on all sides. In one instance James, a medic, actively worked on an Iraqi National Guard soldier that his fellow medics refused to work on because he was an Iraqi. Keens, one of James non-medic friends pitched in to try to save the Iraqi soldier’s life even though Keens generally followed the Army’s racist script.

The Iraqi soldier died of his injuries. But what shook Keens the most was the racist behavior of the other medics. James’ anti-racist actions showed Keens there was beter way to respond to the Army’s racism and Keens apologized profusely for days to the troops in the Iraqi National Guard unit attached to the U.S. unit. It’s action around communist ideas like these that can one day transform a racist imperialist army into an anti-racist communist one.

It may turn out that the Army Staff Sergeant who committed this latest racist rampage was a long-time Nazi and has had mental problems. Early reports indicate that his current deployment in Afghanistan was his fourth, following three in Iraq. The Staff Sergeant suffered from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, revealing that imperialism injures working-class military occupiers as well as the civilian occupied.

One soldier’s individual rampage is just a symptom of the larger rampage of imperialist rivalry. The generals, politicians, corporate bosses, mullahs, imams, emirs and sheiks ON ALL SIDES push workers — including lower-ranked enlisted coalition troops and the rank-and-file insurgents — to kill and die for the rulers’ profit. Each boss uses racism to blanket each and every one of the opposing forces’ populations as the enemy, including fellow workers. 

The imperialists’ fight to dominate energy-rich areas has launched “small wars” that have killed millions of workers over the past several decades. Workers only hope for justice in war is to organize class war for communism, especially among working-class troops. It will take troops with communist ideas like anti-racism to win working-class troops, insurgents and civilians in the front lines to unite as a class against the bosses.  

The Staff Sergeant responsible for these racist deaths hurt U.S. imperialism’s goal of cutting a deal to keep a large U.S. presence in Afghanistan past 2014. More and more Afghans now want the U.S. out. U.S. imperialism’s racist ideas helped nurture the attacks in the first place. Inter-imperialist rivalry for energy resources in the region means the occupation will continue. 

Drone strikes have killed uncounted thousands in Afghanistan, mostly civilians. But instead of prosecutions against drone commanders and ending the use of inaccurate technology like aerial strikes, U.S. bosses chalk up civilian deaths to “collateral damage.” Last month the U.S. Army admitted to burning Korans in Afghanistan, a symbol of U.S.’s racism to many workers in Afghanistan. 

Obama simply responded with an apology, not action to rid the U.S. military of racist anti-Muslim ideas. The architects of racist mass murders like the 2004 U.S. military attacks on Falluhja, Iraq, where thousands of civilians were systematically murdered, are celebrated as military leaders. But when these same imperialists face unauthorized slayings of dozens by mini-racists they put on show trials to save face.

The U.S. Army is likely to push for a harsh punishment against this soldier to limit Afghan protests to a minimum and to strike a U.S.-friendly deal with the Afghan government to maintain a long-term military presence. However one low-ranking Marine was the only troop convicted for the largest U.S. military atrocity against civilians to go to court, the killing of 24 civilians in the city of Haditha, Iraq in 2005. The convicted Marine’s punishment was a demotion and a pay cut! In the prison torture scandal of Abu Gharib, not one officer was convicted of any criminal wrongdoing.

While the perpetrator of this most recent atrocity will face some punishment, only workers’ revolution against capitalism can smash the imperialist masters that make these relatively small atrocities possible.

BROOKLYN, NY, March 8 — Hundreds of workers left Downstate Hospital, on our lunch hour, eager to blast the Democratic Governor Cuomo’s closing of this vital, viable hospital along with nearby Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, the only adult state psychiatric facility in Brooklyn. The three unions, CSEA, PEF and UUP, finally rallied against the attack. 

For several months, workers have been demanding union leadership to halt the proposed closings. This week, on very short notice, we spread the word and workers were excited to be there. The rank and file organized the only chants. Union “leaders” called for more emails. Politicians shouted they wouldn’t vote for the restructuring, but it’s the Governor’s prerogative — no Legislature voting is involved.

No real change has ever come from e-mails or phone calls to politicians or bosses. The civil rights and labor movements made advances only with strikes, rebellions and masses of people in the streets. To stop these attacks masses from the community, the churches, and many other union members from Kings County Hospital across the street must be involved. 

The community is still unaware of the pending closing. When rank-and-file union members have leafleted the community informing residents of Cuomo’s plan, people are shocked and ask what they can do. Unfortunately the union flier only calls on people to phone their opposition to an AFL-CIO recording that will forward their message to Cuomo, the very politician the union chiefs helped elect.

Workers at the rally were skeptical of the politicians’ promises. When a union leader said CSEA represents 300,000 state workers, one worker commented, “With that number of informed, unified members, something surely could be done to stop this!” One worker remarked that mental health care has already deteriorated so much that there are more psychiatric cases in Rikers Island prison than in all state facilities!

A Racist Attack

A serious campaign is needed and this is a ripe opportunity. The avalanche of attacks against the working class here by the big capitalist players in New York State are kicking us workers when we are down and showing NO mercy. This is a racist attack. In this borough of 2.5 million, the majority of them black and Latino workers who experience 20 percent poverty with 40 percent uninsured, there is half the number of acute-care hospital beds per capita as across the river in Manhattan.

Cuomo, in the face of Brooklyn’s health crisis, decided to cut state funds for Downstate in half. He and his appointed policy-maker, Stephen Berger, the CEO of a multi-million-dollar slash-and-burn firm, want to close hospitals, tear up our pension plans and bust the unions. There is a heist going on by Cuomo, his Department of Health, and local corporate forces represented by Berger and Brezenoff. The latter is CEO of Continuum, which bankrupted Long Island College Hospital, forcing the state to pick up the bankruptcy note in a non-disclosed partnership.

These times are both similar and different to the Great Depression. Unemployment was also high then, but now U.S. rulers are seriously trying to slash workers’ living standards to compete with other world capitalists. They’re also allotting 60 percent of taxes for their war machine to protect their empire. The rich get richer and workers get poorer.

This capitalist system will always prize profits and world domination over workers’ needs. Become a regular CHALLENGE reader and join with PLP to learn how to break the control of the capitalists and destroy their system with communist revolution.