PHILADELPHIA, September 15 — “Racism? You’ll never stop it, never!” declared a retired hospital worker, echoing a pessimism many workers feel. But the promise of communist revolution is that the overthrow of capitalism removes the reasons racism exists. The lower wages paid to black, Latino, and immigrant workers generate billions in extra profits that the bosses can’t do without. Racism also allows the bosses to divide the working class. Communist revolution against the class- and profit-driven system of capitalism is the first step in building the world without racism that most of us want.

At a meeting between the nursing bosses and the nurses, a black nurse with long years of service at a large teaching hospital spoke up against laying off the nursing assistants. Shortly afterwards, she was fired. Hospital workers were shocked and outraged.

The fight against the firing of this veteran black nurse shows how we can’t back down from fighting racism and that the bosses will increasingly use fascist terror. As in other cities, the bosses at this hospital are increasing their attacks on patient care and the hospital workers. On at least one hospital floor, the bosses terminated all the nursing assistants.

PLP members have a long history at this hospital and immediately organized against the firing. We described the firing as racist and an example of fascist terror to scare the workers, especially nurses. We tied this racist firing to the recent police murder of the son of another black co-worker and described both as examples of fascism on and off the job.

Some workers, however, thought we shouldn’t mention that the nurse is black or that the firing is racist. This opinion was expressed by both black and white, mainly nurses. Their main concern was that mentioning that the nurse is black and bringing up racism might alienate the doctors who also wanted to fight the firing. Working-class union members, on the other hand, saw the firing as clearly racist and agreed with our response. And interestingly, the nurses who disagreed with us about the firing being racist nonetheless participated in the actions we called for.

When our organizing became evident, the bosses tried to defend the firing by claiming that there was more involved than we knew, which supposedly justified the firing. Most workers thought this was a lie. So-called “friendly” nursing bosses repeated this claim but never offered any evidence. Yet even this pathetic defense illustrates a bigger truth.

It’s the bosses who kill and hurt more patients, who cut healthcare funds, benefits and staffing and who close hospitals. Of course they won’t be fired. Under capitalism, the rich bosses hold state power and run the government. Only communist revolution can give these real criminals the “pink slip.”

A week ago, the fired nurse was re-hired. But now the bosses are going after the workers whom they think led the fight for the fired nurse’s job. Today, the bosses alleged that narcotics were “diverted” by another nurse, Wesley, who was ordered to have a Breathalyzer and urine test and leave the hospital. The results of the urine test were negative.

Wesley did not “divert narcotics.” Wesley does have a long history of building multi-racial unity to fight for better conditions for patients and workers. Wesley did support organizing against the racist cop killing of the son of another hospital worker. Wesley did help organize the fight to reinstate the fired black nurse.

The hospital workers know Wesley well and did not waiting for the test results. The day after Wesley was ordered off the premises, a leaflet appeared all over the hospital calling on workers to demand that Wesley be brought back to work immediately. Workers are calling Wesley to offer their support.

Although the nurses are not unionized, Wesley has strong ties with Local 1199 union members. The leaflet urges them to call on the union and organize members to defend Wesley. The nurses who worked in the unionization drive with Wesley are urged to demand that the nursing union also support him.

As long as the bosses hold state power and remain in control, they will overturn any victories we might win. In 2012, the hospital bosses want union give-backs in benefits and pension that will hurt this 1199 local, which that is primarily black. These cuts will be as deadly as mass lynchings.

This experience shows that the bosses will fight us tooth and nail when we fight to protect a worker’s job or protest against a racist police killing. Let’s get off this capitalist merry-go-round and instead organize all our fights, big and small, with the goal of overthrowing capitalism once and for all. Capitalist racism and fascist terror can end — but only with communism. Join PLP.

Obama’s Ground Zero remembrance left out two names tied intimately to the 9/11 atrocity and its deadlier aftermath: Gary Hart and Warren Rudman. Just two years before the attack on the World Trade Center, the two ex-senators had co-chaired a top-echelon ruling-class panel that envisioned terrorist attacks “galvanizing” the U.S. for imperialist war abroad and fascist measures at home. Launched by President Bill Clinton in 1998, the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (better known as the Hart-Rudman Commission) studied ways to ensure U.S. global dominance through the following 25 years.

Democrat Hart and Republican Rudman, along with other high-ranking politicians, generals and admirals, proposed a sweeping militarization of government and of society at large. At the time, the rulers’ media kept Hart-Rudman largely under wraps. CHALLENGE, however, repeatedly exposed its deadly schemes well before 9/11. Ten years on, Hart-Rudman’s shortcomings and successes for the bosses are worth assessing. They help us gauge our class enemies’ need and their ability to conduct mass slaughter.

In 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor turned mass U.S. opposition to “foreign wars” into mass support for U.S. entry into World War II. On September 11, 2001, terrorists struck New York and the Pentagon after the FBI and CIA apparently failed to connect the dots from existing intelligence. Ten years later, there is no shortage of theories to challenge the official narrative: Did U.S. rulers deliberately ignore warnings of the 9/11 strikes? Were they actively complicit in planning the attacks? We may never know the true story, but it’s clear that the bosses saw the usefulness of a 9/11-type incident to rally U.S. workers behind a drive for war and fascism:

[T]he United States should assume that it will be a target of terrorist attacks against its homeland....Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers....If the stakes rise in such a fashion, one thing is likely to become vividly clear: The American people will be ready to sacrifice blood and treasure, and come together to do so, if they believe that fundamental interests are imperiled (Hart-Rudman report, 1999).

The hijackers, who cloaked al Qaeda’s oil-profit motive in religion, represented only a few thousand sworn U.S. enemies. They hardly matched the 1941 menace of Nazi Germany and fascist Japan and Italy, an Axis of millions that waged world war across Europe and Asia. Within the U.S., this global assault spurred huge voluntary enlistments and acceptance of a military draft, resulting in an armed force of 14 million in a U.S. population just one-third of today’s total. By comparison, the flurry of post-9/11 flag-waving accomplished relatively little: the fascist Patriot Act, plus a series of racist attacks against Arab and South Asian immigrants. U.S. rulers continue to rely on an economic draft for their war machine, with unemployment impelling youth to enlist for the lack of jobs.

Recalling the fleeting wave of 9/11 patriotism, the rulers’ New York Times mouthpiece echoed Hart-Rudman in lamenting, “People wanted to be enlarged, to be called on to do more for country and community than ordinary life usually requires....to be absorbed in some greater good....But America has not been enlarged in the years that have passed” (9/10/11). In sum, the attack failed to generate the popular response that Hart-Rudman had anticipated.

Anti-Government Bosses’ Tea Partiers Hinder Obama’s Fascist Effort….

Opposition to new or restored taxes, hardened by the New Depression, has dashed the Hart-Rudman vision of capitalists gladly parting with their “treasure.” This reflects the battle between two factions within the U.S. ruling class: the Rockefeller-led wing that maps long-range strategy to keep U.S. imperialism on top through wars for the oil interests it represents; and its current adversary, domestic capitalists like the Koch brothers, who organized and funded the Tea Party and are driving the Republican Party away from any bipartisan strategy.

In opposition to Obama, the bosses who don’t profit directly from U.S. military action overseas are thwarting Hart-Rudman’s prescription for more centralized control over members of the ruling class. They are blocking government regulations to discipline capitalists and bankers who intensified the current economic crisis in their drive for short-term profits. They’re also resisting Obama’s bid to increase taxes on the wealthy to help pay for the enormous cost of imperialist wars.

….But As H-R Detailed, Potential Grows for U.S. Military Action in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China

On the other hand, Hart-Rudman has proved effective in helping to fabricate pretexts for invading Iraq in 2003, and possibly Iran in the near future:

U.S. policies could fail to prevent more serious threats from arising, and the United States might then increase its military presence either to support a beleaguered Israel, to contain the rise of a regional hegemon [Iran], or prevent certain countries [like Iraq] from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. From such a failure the United States would risk, or go to, war.

Ex-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal was a major backer of Osama bin Laden during the latter’s U.S.-led anti-Soviet Afghan campaign in the 1980s. He now issues alarms against U.S. rejection of the Palestinians’ bid for statehood in the United Nations: “American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region. Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has” (New York Times, 9/12/11).

Hart-Rudman foresaw loss of leverage over Saudi Arabia as an intolerable catastrophe:

An anti-American regime in Saudi Arabia, one so antagonistic that it would refuse to sell its oil abroad, is not very likely. But were it to come to pass and be allowed to stand, it would represent a major blow to the liberal economic order brought into being after World War II.

From Afghanistan to Libya, subsequent U.S. invasions, backed by a shifting array of allies, reflect Hart-Rudman’s insistence on locking up hydrocarbon sources:

[U]ninterrupted supply of oil from the Persian Gulf, and the location of all key fossil fuels deposits will retain geopolitical significance....The United States will be called upon frequently to intervene militarily in a time of uncertain alliances.

Hart-Rudman’s prediction of likely World War III scenarios completes its picture of U.S. rulers’ looming concerns:

Interstate wars will not disappear over the next 25 years. Developed nations will be loath to fight each other, but as proven in 1914, neither the bonds of interdependence nor a taste for affluence can guarantee peace and stability indefinitely. Major powers—Russia and China are two obvious examples—may wish to extend their regional influence by force or the threat of force.

What Hart-Rudman Did Not Foresee

But Hart-Rudman neglected to consider the working-class backlash to the U.S. rulers’ wars. Workers at first seemed to support Bush’s “shock-and-awe” attack on Iraq, based on the fraudulent allegation that Saddam Hussein’s regime had developed “weapons of mass destruction,” including nuclear weapons. But as this became exposed as a lie, and U.S. and Iraqi civilian casualties mounted, a majority in the U.S. turned against the war. Initial support for the attack on Afghanistan also has fizzled after 10 years of grinding conflict with no end in sight.

Resistance to these wars has been heightened by the “Great Recession,” another factor Hart-Rudman didn’t account for. Workers now see trillions spent for imperialist wars while tens of millions of unemployed walk the streets and social programs are cut or scrapped altogether.

For the working class, meanwhile, all is not lost—not by a long shot. The main U.S. capitalists have yet to ensnare most workers in their ideology of militaristic imperialism. Restoring the draft remains extremely unpopular. Enlistments of young black workers have declined despite that group’s 46 percent unemployment rate. Meanwhile, racist police attacks continue to rage against black and Latino youth. This is the “democracy” they’re being asked to defend?

Communist Leadership Crucial

The most critical obstacle to Hart-Rudman’s fascist vision will be the fight-back of the working class, both in the U.S. and internationally. While workers have remained relatively passive in countering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the fascist attacks on their jobs and living conditions, there are encouraging signs of renewed resistance. We can see this domestically in the Philadelphia hospital workers’ fight against racist firings (see page 1), or in the leadership given by Progressive Labor Party to the Stella d’Oro strikers last year in the Bronx, or in the militant defense of their jobs by West Coast longshoremen against the shipping bosses (see page 1).

Internationally, PL is spreading communist politics in a score of capitalist countries on five continents. The Party has been active in the mass strikes and demonstrations of workers in Pakistan (see page 4). In Haiti, PLPers are building the Party there to combat rulers’ ideas that divide the working class (see page 8). PL is also playing a role in workers’ struggles in Mexico and Israel/Palestine.

In the scheme of things, these are small glimmers of resistance in a dark night of mass racist unemployment, unchecked attacks on wages and healthcare, and genocidal imperialist wars. PL has a long way to go in building communist-led class struggle, but the potential exists for a true international communist party. Our job is to win workers worldwide to the opposite of Hart-Rudman: to the communist outlook that rulers fear most. Profit-driven terrorism, racism, unemployment and war will end only after our class—the working class—seizes power for itself and hoists the red flag of revolution

NEW YORK CITY, August 23 — Chanting “Jobs center is a phony, all their talk is baloney,” comrades and friends joined once again with community forces to picket Columbia University’s (CU) bogus Employment Information Center.  The struggle against Columbia’s racist takeover of the surrounding Harlem community sharpened both in militancy and political understanding with demands that the University immediately hire 2,000 Harlem residents to replace the jobs destroyed by expansion.

Other demands include not building the planned Level 3 biohazard lab right under 125th St. and maintaining affordable neighborhood housing. PLP’s base has grown enough to start new chants that expand the politics of this struggle: “ExxonMobil, Columbia U, took Iraq and Harlem too,” and “Racist Bollinger you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” (Bollinger is Columbia’s president.)

In conversations and at meetings since May Day, we have been struggling against liberal ideas within the community coalition that has fought CU for years.  After betrayals by the local politicians and the courts, many now see that building a movement from the bottom up is what is needed. Party members are also emphasizing that CU is run by a board composed of 75% ruling-class bankers whose wars for oil and gas are murdering thousands worldwide and lead to the racist cuts and unemployment here that hasten sickness and death for our sisters and brothers in Harlem.

We are planning to step up the attack on CU on September 24 by marching from the Employment Center, through the neighboring housing project, to the campus and to Bollinger’s mansion, which cost $23 million to renovate. We will end with a picnic in Morningside Park to commemorate the victory of students, workers and community residents against Columbia’s plan to build a gym there in 1968.

Making CHALLENGE sales a central part of expanding this struggle will help us win workers and students to the vital strategic goal of communist revolution.

At 11:30 PM on Friday, September 9, I received a call from a fellow transit worker informing me that, after more than two years without a contract, United Transportation Union (UTU) drivers at LA Metro were to vote on a new contract Sunday at 1 P.M. None of the drivers had any idea if it was a “good” or “bad” contract. The UTU leadership told them absolutely nothing except, “Show up Sunday and vote!”

By Sunday morning we’d been able to rally a small crew of friends and comrades to meet at the hotel where the vote was to take place. We brought leaflets (calling for a NO vote on the mystery contract) and the latest copy of CHALLENGE. We met drivers in the multi-level parking lot and by the time they entered the meeting room every driver had a flier, a CHALLENGE, or both.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be turned away when I tried to enter the voting “Ballroom” (I’m not a driver) but my fears were foolish. As soon as I entered, I realized that the union leadership had a lot more to worry about than me. They were faced with nearly a thousand angry, shouting, hooting drivers demanding facts about the new contract, which the drivers all assumed was going to be a sell-out. It went on and on. Security couldn’t do much. Even though the drivers were physically threatened, they refused to sit down, to shut up, or even to vote for the new contract.

At a coffee shop afterward, two bus operators said the union General Committee never got control of their meeting. A few hours after we got home, a driver called to say it was thumbs down on the contract: 365 to 206.

This experience reminded me that it is always a good idea to be ready to act — even on very short notice. The worker who called was glad to see that we had shown up to oppose the contract vote. The connection of the bus drivers’ no vote, the recent Verizon workers’ walkout, and the possible Southern California supermarket strike made it easy to approach drivers, sell CHALLENGE and urge a NO vote on the contract. On a minor note, all of us agreed it was a good way to spend 9/11.

Now comes the hard part — following up on the contacts we collected and working to be a communist presence in the ongoing transit struggle in L.A.