Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

The Bush administration shows signs of increasing obedience to the liberal, imperialist wing of U.S. capitalists. Bush, for example, replaced "cheap hawk" Rumsfeld with Gates, who vows to add 91,000 soldiers and marines. But Bush’s latest attempt to execute the main rulers’ war plans, sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq, is a band-aide that falls far short of a long-range strategy needed by U.S. imperialism.

Liberal spokesmen have pounced on Bush’s plan. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution calls it "the right thing to try—as long as we do not count on it succeeding." (Washington Post, 1/14/07) Zbigniew Brzezinski, advisor to former President Jimmy Carter, condemns it as "a political gimmick of limited tactical significance and of no strategic benefit...insufficient to win the war militarily." (WP, 1/12/07) Democratic war criminal Wesley Clark says "too little, too late." (Independent, 1/7/07) Barack Obama chimes in, "you’re going to need one hundred thousand more, one hundred and fifty thousand more." (New Yorker, 1/15/07) What U.S. imperialism requires of Bush is an Iraq stable enough to pump great quantities of oil and a U.S. mobilized for ever deadlier wars. He isn’t getting either job done.

Turmoil Stems Flow Of Crude Oil

U.S. rulers invaded Iraq with dreams of raising its crude production to six million barrels a day. But fighting keeps the level around two million, well below the pre-war high of 3.5 million. So it’s no accident that Bush’s stabilization surge coincides with the framing of a new Iraqi law that hands the country’s oil wealth on a silver platter to U.S. and British firms that agree to build up wells, pipelines and refineries. "Under a system known as ‘production-sharing agreements’, or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil....companies will be able to recoup 60 to 70 per cent of revenue; 40 per cent is more usual." (Independent, 1/7/07)

But, with Bush’s scheme doomed to fail, "the majors...won’t start work for years...because of the disastrous war," said one oil executive. The liberal New York Times says Bush "needs to concentrate enough forces in Baghdad to bring some security to streets and neighborhoods." (editorial, 1/9/07) It sweats out the "nightmare" of "millions of Iraq’s people and its oil fields falling under the tightening grip of a more powerful Iran."

It’s Liberals’, Not Just Bush’s War

Amid the surge uproar, some myths deserve busting. One is that the Iraq war sprang solely from the deluded minds of evil "neo-cons," who cooked up the lie that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The push for invasion in fact came from the dominant liberal wing, the chief proponents of the WMD fabrication being the New York Times and the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The Times hammered away at Hussein’s supposed cache in editorials and in articles by its then star reporter Judith Miller. The CFR sponsored Richard Butler’s book, "The Greatest Danger," which claimed that WMD-armed Hussein was worse than Hitler. The CFR published occupation plans months before the invasion. Furthermore, controlling Mid-East oil formed a big part of the rulers’ 1999 Hart-Rudman recommendations for maintaining U.S. supremacy well into the 21st Century. Another illusion portrays Democratic politicians as opposing "Bush’s war." Ted Kennedy promises he will organize to cut off funding for it. Don’t bet the rent. The last Senate war appropriations vote in November was a 98-0 slam dunk.

Rulers Need Full Mobilization Spurred By 9/11 Repeat

Two main factors contribute to the Iraq fiasco. First, Bush opportunistically serves the tax-cutting interests of his voter-donor base instead of getting them to sacrifice for U.S. imperialism. He even passed up 9/11’s golden opportunity for militarization in favor of business as usual. And in 2002/2003, when the CFR was urging a long build-up to a massive onslaught against Iraq, Bush pulled off an initially cheap invasion with "off-the-shelf" troops and equipment. A quagmire ensued with costs now reaching into the trillions, infuriating the liberal rulers.

Second, the Vietnam Syndrome has hampered U.S. rulers’ military recruiting for decades. That war laid bare to millions the murderous essence of U.S. imperialism. Very few people now join the armed forces willingly. It would probably take another Pearl Harbor- or 9/11-style attack, handled by a president more like Roosevelt than Bush, to change this pervasive anti-military attitude.

Given U.S. rulers’ inescapable needs — clashes with Iran soon and China later are clearly in the cards — it would be a mistake to rule out such an event. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman and a host of liberal followers, like Harvard’s Graham Allison and the CFR’s Stephen Flynn, continue to warn of one every chance they get. Without a galvanizing moment, U.S. rulers will have to resort to a draft or its twin — identical in all but name — national service.

It was encouraging that national service proved so unpopular during John Kerry’s 2004 campaign that he was forced to effectively drop it from his platform. Most people, especially the working class, oppose the bosses’ war-making. But passive disagreement is not enough. What remains is to build a mass movement with the only workable solution for profit-driven wars — revolutionary communism.

Hundreds March In Oaxaca

OAXACA, MEXICO, Jan. 13 — Five hundred workers and youth marched from the town of Miahuatián to the nearby jail demanding the release of members of APPO (Organization of the Peoples of Oaxaca) still imprisoned. Local and state cops attacked the marchers, beating and arresting several of the protesters.µ

U.S. Gunboat Diplomacy Aims At Iran

The rulers’ quagmire in Iraq is complicated by the surge of Iran’s influence in the Mid-East, which is probably the reason for what the NY Times (1/14) labels "classic gunboat diplomacy" — Bush has appointed an admiral to oversee the U.S. military in the region for the express purpose of using naval power to threaten Iran. A second aircraft carrier group has been shifted to the Persian Gulf, doubling U.S. air and sea power. Each one contains 14,000 military personnel, 85 aircraft, two guided missile cruisers, two destroyers, a frigate, two submarines and a supply ship. "Naval heft meant to intimidate," says the Times.

Fearing Iran’s reaction to a U.S. attack, involving an Iranian blockage of the narrow Strait of Hormuz through which much of the world’s oil passes, Navy minesweepers are also on call to deal with Iran’s possible use of mines to blow up tankers. But a Council on Foreign Relations Iran specialist thinks this will not cow Iran but rather strengthen its rulers’ anti-U.S. stance within the country. (NYT, 1/14)

A footnote: during the Vietnam War, rebellions by U.S. sailors on six of the seven aircraft carriers in those waters sabotaged the ships, sending them back to San Diego for repairs, effectively putting them out of action and helping to force U.S. rulers to give up their imperialist adventure there.µ

U.S. Gunboat Diplomacy Aims At Iran

Rulers’ Wars Spur Tighter Control of U.S. Schools

A new proposal to redesign the U.S. educational system was recently introduced by the "New Commissions on the Skills of the American Workforce." In order to remain top dog, and prepare the working class for a future of imperialist war, the ruling class recognizes the vital need to overhaul the U.S. educational system and build nationalism.

The plan proposes national board exams in the 10th grade to track students into preparation for selective colleges or direct placement in community or technical colleges. This would give the ruling class tighter control of what is taught and how it is taught, while still allowing principals some on-site control as a facade of local power. This national centralization of the curriculum is crucial for patriotic indoctrination. If students and workers in the U.S. believe that their enemies are foreign workers, then the bosses can more easily convince them to kill and die for U.S. imperialism. Such nationalism is needed to win masses of young people to actively support imperialist wars and make sacrifices at home like lower wages, pensions and health benefits.

Like statewide exams and the SAT’s today, these new national board exams would be racist and anti-working class in nature. They would essentially produce an apartheid system, forcing mainly working-class blacks and Latinos into technical schools, which would inevitably provide free or cheap labor to profit-hungry corporations. Also, many students who did poorly on the exams would blame themselves, and not this racist system, for not making it into college.

As CHALLENGE has pointed out many times, the U.S. ruling class is fighting to remain the world’s top imperialist. Strategic control of Mid-East oil distribution is primary in achieving this goal. The war in Iraq is a failing attempt to secure its position. There will be many more imperialist wars abroad and tightening control at home as the rulers fight desperately to keep their position. The ruling class needs a few more educated workers who can help U.S. companies compete, and many more technicians and soldiers to produce war materials and fight hi-tech wars to keep the U.S. the number-one imperialist.

This new proposal, "Tough Choices or Tough Times," was written by a bipartisan panel including some major ruling-class figures like the head of the missile producer Lockheed Martin and members of the Brookings Institution, a major U.S. foreign-policy think-tank, along with members of prestigious universities. The composition of the panel demonstrates that the main goal of this proposal is not to make all students critical thinkers for the students’ sake, as it claims. Why would a missile producer be needed for that? Instead this panel reveals the seriousness with which the ruling class views the creation of an educational system that serves their corporate needs, especially the need for war in a time of growing crisis.

The proposal justifies itself with statistics that will surely be used to scare U.S. workers into believing that their standard of living is declining because of other workers in the world. It compares the U.S. unfavorably to China and India, which can produce lots of educated workers willing to work for low wages. The U.S. ruling class wants its workers to believe that this is why they are making lower wages every day. It would be a huge blow to the bosses if workers understood that capitalism’s basic need to maximize profits always forces them to pay workers less and less. Fear is used to win U.S. workers to ally with the U.S. ruling class to beat the world, winning many soldiers in Iraq to kill their Iraqi brothers and sisters.

Just as the rulers have a plan for us, we also have a plan for them. The rulers will try to maintain their control in the world by causing more death and misery for the international working class. We must deepen our own education about the rulers’ capitalist system. We must get involved in class struggle against all their racist, anti-working class plans with the goal of winning our friends to the understanding that only communism, a system run by workers, for workers, can end working-class misery around the world. Teachers must teach their students to use a class analysis to understand the world. Understanding that no matter where workers live, our enemies are the capitalists who oppress us, is the only way to combat nationalism. Students must point out patriotic lies whenever they are taught. Teachers and students must help organize protests and walkouts against military recruiters in schools, racist cop murders, metal detectors and any other attacks on our class. We must also develop and increase CHALLENGE networks among our base until it becomes the paper of the masses. This process will provide a real education where we, the working class, will truly benefit.

Report Reveals Genocide vs. Oakland’s Black Youth

ALAMEDA COUNTY, CA. — On Dec. 14, the Oakland Tribune ran a startling headline: "Youth’s Number #1 killer: Murder," referring to a report issued from Alameda Public Health director Arnold Perkins. It says the homicide rate for County youth, ages 15 to 24, is 21 per 100,000. California’s rate is 17 per 100,000.

The report only focuses on Alameda County but the World Health Organization’s (WHO) figures reveal U.S. capitalism in a miserable light. WHO says the rate of youth homicide in the world is 9.2 per 100,000. In France, Germany and Britain the rate is .6, .8 and .9 respectively. That means youth in Alameda County get murdered at a rate 35 times higher than these European countries.

However, the most explosive statistic is buried in the middle of the report. Black males between 15 and 24 are murdered at a rate of 186 per 100,000. Genocide, or ethnic cleansing, are the only words that can describe this state of affairs. It means that black males in Alameda County are 310 times more likely to be murdered than youths in France!

Alongside Hurricane Katrina, the latest cop murder in New York City (50 bullets to assassinate Sean Bell, an unarmed black man) and a prison population in which 70% of 2.2 million are black and Latino, this report, in effect, condemns U.S. capitalism as one of the world’s most racist nations.

It’s not that Oakland is some backwater city forgotten by capitalism. Its international seaport generates revenue from $25 to $50 billion per year. The city itself produces some $100 billion annually. A decade ago Walter Shorenstein, major kingmaker in the Democratic Party, invested $100 million in its downtown and ex-California governor Jerry Brown, has just completed two terms as mayor. He has been replaced by another Democratic Party "star," Ron Dellums.

Capitalism has not ignored Oakland. Rather it has created the conditions that cause this genocide against black youth. Decades of racism: double unemployment rates (quadruple among youth), extortionate slum housing, decrepit schools, police terror, imprisonment for non-violent "crimes" (which receive rehab, not jail terms, in most countries), drugs injected into black neighborhoods — all this and more has dumped tens of thousands of black youth onto capitalism’s scrap heap and left them with a future of hopelessness. It is to their credit that so many of them have participated in rebellions against the profit system.

PLP urges everyone to expose this genocidal murder rate in their unions, churches, schools and Army units, and direct workers’ anger against the racist system in order to build a revolutionary new society where the communist ideas of sharing and collectivity replace the capitalist notions of dog-eat-dog competition. Expanding CHALLENGE distribution and deepening our plans for May Day events could be central to such plans.

Rulers’ Video Spying Builds Fascist War Society in NYC Schools

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 13 — "I worked in the court system, so I know what cameras are," said a new teacher at this urban high school campus, shocked at the administration’s plans to install almost 100 cameras in our building and treat students like criminals. In the shell of a previously large school, four mini-schools have become incubators for fascism, enabling the U.S. ruling class to exert ever tighter control on its youth to prepare them for an ever-expanding war economy. Therefore, they need to get teachers to march in step. In our school, this campaign has: (1) increased pressure that manipulates teachers’ dedication to students; (2) harassed teachers who don’t fall in line or fit their plans; and (3) increased surveillance.

Surveillance and Social Control Builds War Society

Increased school security was occurring even before 9/11, but now it’s exploding. Because the great majority of students in big-city schools are black and Latino, and the system’s racism relegates these students to second-class citizenship who the rulers can use for low-paying jobs and cannon fodder in their imperialist wars, this new technology has started here and will be increasingly used nationwide.

It began with metal detectors in predominantly black and Latino schools, which has spread to the suburbs. Now it includes iris (eye) scanning and "non-cooperative" (automatic) tracking systems using radio frequency identification (RFID). The bosses have equipped 75% of new public schools with video surveillance systems (NY Times), costing hundreds of millions of dollars. The U.S. "Justice" Department is even doling out grants for these projects, although school crime has been declining for over a decade. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg trumpets his desire to view — from his headquarters — centralized video data of every school in the city.

Have the bosses suddenly become concerned about students’ well being? Not a chance. If they really cared about students, they’d lower the class sizes from 34 to 20, and lighten the workload of already overburdened teachers. These surveillance measures are part of creating a high-pressure culture where everyone is watched and is a potential suspect.

This culture is decidedly anti-working class and anti-communist. The content of the curriculum teaches loyalty to the bosses’ version of history: patriotism to the bosses’ flag and racism towards "foreigners" against whom the bosses want to go to war; justification for all U.S. rulers’ imperialist wars; pacifism; and omits how workers and oppressed black slaves fought capitalism’s oppression. It also teaches anti-communism with a vengeance. (See a future issue.)

Our latest union contract — which attempts to bribe teachers with chump change while doing absolutely nothing to help students — has led to another administration offensive against teachers. Their new buzzword is "empowerment schools," but they’re all about enslavement. Several teachers in our school have been victims. One veteran teacher was observed three times in a week and given two unsatisfactory observations because he dared tell an administrator that the newest battery of standardized tests was a waste of time. He teaches an advanced math class with 36 students; one-third has failed the state’s basic math exam and another third speak English as a Second Language.

The teacher knows their skills. The problem is teaching them under these conditions! But rather than improving conditions, the administration pressures us to work even harder, and then makes it appear as our "fault" when students cannot perform on the tests.

This is the same manipulation that recruits young people to join the military to "make a difference," the same harassment and terror that criminalizes immigrant workers and "disciplines" black and Latin youth with cops jailing them or killing them in the street. Cameras don’t mean the bosses are paranoid; they’re simply protecting their murderous system!

Communist Leadership Is Essential

PLP has been giving leadership in this struggle. We’re publicizing these cases widely, rallying other teachers to publicly support their besieged colleagues, while linking these attacks to the bosses’ drive toward building a society on a permanent war footing. We’ve begun to expose the issue of cameras and are organizing campus-wide meetings to begin to organize support from teachers as well as students and parents.

One obstacle is the lack of class consciousness. Firstly, teachers are caught up in the day-to-day struggle to prepare their classes and tend to their students as best they can. Many also believe the schools can be reformed, that the answer is "better education." They underestimate the ruthlessness of U.S. imperialism in crisis. Others hope to avoid trouble by keeping their head down and placating the administration. These small schools create more incestuous relationships between teachers and administrators. A group of teachers who read CHALLENGE can be instrumental in struggling with their colleagues over the politics of these school "reforms."

We need to involve students much more directly in this struggle. Our Party and our friends must resolutely build a base opposing these accelerating attacks, exposing the bosses’ plans, challenging them wherever and whenever we can and, in the process, recruiting more members. Capitalism is providing us with plenty of opportunities to grow.

PL’ers Campaign Vs. Imperialist Wars in NYC Teachers Union

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 10 — Hours before the Bush speech announcing U.S. rulers’ latest 21,500 troop "surge" in Iraq, a resolution opposing the Iraq war as imperialist and the presence of military recruiters in high schools was voted onto the agenda of the next meeting of the thousand-member United Federation of Teachers Delegate Assembly here. The delegates also voted overwhelmingly to fund UFT buses to take teachers and their families to the January 27th national anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C.

Certainly many years of anti-war activity by PLP and other forces at both local and national union meetings have not gone unnoticed by the union leadership. As the political winds against the war turn into a gale UFT president Weingarten is smart enough to jump on the bandwagon.

But let’s not fool ourselves. This is the same Weingarten who seems to kiss NYC billionaire mayor Bloomberg for the cameras every chance she gets. The affection is more than symbolic. Labor "leaders" today play the role not only of negotiating the terms of our exploitation as workers but of actively mobilizing workers in the interests of U.S. imperialism and its expanding wars across the greater Middle East from Somalia to Afghanistan. (See page 4.)

The rulers are trying to take honest anti-war sentiment among the masses, both in and out of uniform, and re-load it into an analysis that justifies this policy.

PLP’ers in the Delegate Assembly refuse to be used by the rulers and their agent Weingarten in this fashion. We organize to fight current escalation in Iraq and Somalia while our understanding of imperialism points to larger wars looming on the horizon. Our resolution declares that "imperialist war is unjustifiable" and we plan to defend this language on February 7th whether we win or lose the vote against recruiters in schools.

We are winning when a thousand teachers must confront the Iraq war as imperialist and find themselves nodding their heads in agreement with an openly communist speaker.

We are winning when we distribute upwards of 300 CHALLENGES to delegates each month and when we bring red students and their friends to the Delegate Assembly to remind these teachers who they really work for.

Reform "victories" smaller than these are quickly turned into their opposite by rulers bent on getting war in the Mid-East "right" the next time. Our communist victories in the mass movement belong to our class alone and bring workers’ revolution that much nearer than it was before.

Katrina Hitting Cook County Healthcare System — The ‘Levees’ are Breaking!

CHICAGO, IL, Jan. 13 — "When I look at my patients in the waiting room, that’s me sitting out there," declared an angry black nurse at the Cook County Ambulatory Screening Clinic. She had just given a moving talk to a room full of about 40 health care workers and professionals, community and church organizers, meeting to build a mass fight-back against the deadly racist cuts in the County Public Health Bureau. She described being homeless herself during her 32 years with the County, living in an abandoned building years ago. She was outraged at racist Dr. Robert Simon, the County bosses’ hatchet man. (See box)

Workers came from many worksites and classifications — doctors, nurses, clerks, patient transportation and more. Some long-time employees of 20 plus years related their individual struggles, being homeless and raising children, and their anger and willingness to fight these cuts, for their patients as well as for themselves.

This capped off a very busy week of struggle, confronting the racist bosses and challenging workers’ passivity. On January 11, over 250 patients were told their prescriptions would not be filled because they lacked proper ID! When workers raised holy hell, this policy was at least temporarily dropped.

To make interest payments to the banks, the County wants to close two-thirds of the clinics and slash 6,500 jobs to close a $100 million hole in federal funding due to the $2 billion-a-week oil war in Iraq. The Chief Medical Officers of the County Health Bureau first responded to proposed budget cuts saying, "the fiscal crisis…is due to the cancellation of the federal Medicaid Intergovernmental Transfer (IGT) amounting to a loss of $100 million annually… Without [these] cuts…the Bureau would be within its budget today." (September 27, 2006)

The union leaders want to be "part of the process." First they ratified a contract that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Then they gave hundreds of thousands of dollars and work-hours to elect black County Board President Todd Stroger and all the other Democrats. They got their contract, raised our dues and got their politicians, while we and our patients face a racist storm more deadly than Katrina, resulting in increases in preventable diseases and deaths.

Not one politician, including Barak Obama, has said one word to stop these cuts. PLP has always said that the Democrats and the liberals will be the main builders of fascism. This is a good example.

Workers are now trying to build momentum and blow past the union leaders. A pledge is being circulated, where County workers vow to serve our patients regardless of cutbacks and fascist policies. We’re planning to attend four budget hearings and build for a mass march on the County bosses on January 29 called by the nurses’ union .

We’ll organize our patients to fight back, targeting the clinics that are on the chopping block. The County serves tens of thousands of uninsured workers, 85% of them black and Latino. This struggle holds great potential for building the Party and the movement for communist revolution, which will guarantee that no worker goes without medical care.

Minimum Wage Produces Maximum Profits

The Democrats are making a big deal about their legislative agenda for the "first 100 hours" of the new Congress, and their centerpiece seems to be "raising" the minimum wage. This is one of the biggest hoaxes being perpetrated by the ruling class.

The current minimum wage ($5.15/hr) in terms of real wages, taking inflation into account, is 33% BELOW what it was in 1968. Since the last "increase," in 1997, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has FALLEN 20%. If the Democrats’ bill becomes law, the nominal minimum will rise 70¢ an hour, to $5.85, still below 1968 in real wages. By the time it "rises" to $7.25 in 2009, inflation will have taken still another bite in this "increase."

So this legislation will not even match the buying power of the minimum wage in 1968! And that’s an "increase"?

Here’s some comparisons:

• If the minimum wage had risen at the same rate as gas prices since 1972, it would now be $13.33 an hour;

• Since 1997, Congress has hiked its own pay EIGHT times, and now stands at $168,500 per year (not counting health and pension coverage);

• Corporate profits have skyrocketed 244% since 1968, as the minimum wage fell 33%;

• In 2005, the highest CEO was raking in as much income as 23,288 minimum-wage workers combined. (McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 12/1/06)

Racist exploitation has made things even worse for black and Latino workers, whose poverty rate is 20%; that is, one in five fall below what the government says is the poverty line. A minimum-wage worker earns $10,712 per year, BELOW that poverty line, which itself is nowhere near what could be called a living wage.

No matter what the minimum wage rate becomes, under capitalism it is impossible for any worker to earn a "fair wage" because that would mean workers would receive the full value of what they produce — leaving NO PROFITS for the bosses. Capitalism functions on the bases of wage slavery: pay workers as little as the bosses can get away with so they can maximize profits. They are driven to this goal by the foundation stone of capitalism: competition. Every boss must strive to outdo his/her competitor or face going out of business. The most exploitative survive. The rest go under. This competition on a global scale leads to imperialist wars as the ruling classes of each country fight their rivals to control the resources and cheap labor necessary to their survival — with U.S. bosses trying to maintain their position as top dog.

It is the workers who suffer the evils created by such a system — poverty wages, job insecurity and mass unemployment, all intensified by racism for black and Latino workers in the U.S. and other such victims of racism in the rest of the capitalist world. And, of course, it’s the workers who make up the armies and sustain the casualties that result from the rapacious bosses’ battles for the biggest share of profits internationally.

The working class will only gain its "fair share" when we abolish the bosses’ wage system through communist revolution, eliminating the bosses altogether, enabling workers to collectively share what we produce according to our needs. That’s PLP’s goal. Join us.

France: The Worm Has Turned

"As France sensed and feared, the war in Iraq has triggered upheavals whose effects have not yet ceased to unfold. This adventure has exacerbated the divisions between communities and undermined the very integrity of Iraq. It has compromised the stability of the entire region, where every country is now concerned for its security and its independence. It has given terrorism a new field into which to expand."

That’s French president Jacques Chirac’s January 5th condemnation of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Is Chirac now a "dove" and friend of the anti-war movement? Don’t bet on it.

Chirac is motivated by (1) his own self-interest, and (2) the interests of the French ruling class. Chirac is accused of corruption and abuse of power from his time as mayor of Paris (1977-1995). Only his presidential immunity (which will end in four months) is keeping him out of court.

Chirac’s arch-rival, interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, is the conservative candidate for president. Sarkozy needs Chirac’s support and it’s easy to guess that the price of that support will be keeping Chirac out of jail if Sarkozy is elected president. To ensure that Sarkozy agrees to pay that price, Chirac has been demonstrating his capacity to damage Sarkozy’s campaign.

One particularity of France’s government system is that foreign policy is reserved to the president. Since Sarkozy is known for his pro-Bush positions, Chirac can sting Sarkozy by walloping Bush. Thus, staying out of jail — not opposition to imperialist war-making — is a major reason for Chirac’s attack on Bush.

Secondly, the French ruling class is probably reevaluating its position. According to the satirical weekly "Le Canard enchaîné" (1/10/07), French diplomats and spies in the U.S. have been sending alarming messages home for months. A high-ranking officer in the French embassy in Washington writes that, "The Iraqi police and military are unable to hold the country," necessitating a surge in U.S. troop numbers. Selecting Admiral J. Michael McConnell as Director of National Intelligence and General Michael Hayden to head the CIA appears to be part of the big bosses’ growing militarization of society in preparation for endless future wars. A military, one might add, that is frustrated at pursuing the fantasy of victory in Iraq. Chirac, and presumably the French ruling class, have decided it’s time to distance themselves from the Bush team.

An additional concern of French bosses is the threat to France’s Total Oil Co. which "is ready to join a $2 billion Iranian energy project…to develop part of the giant Azadehan oilfield," (London Times, 5/9/06) that could be wiped out by a U.S. attack on Iran. In December 2002, four months before the U.S. invaded Iraq, a French general told the Pentagon that 15,000 French troops and 100 warplanes would be available in the event of war. And on January 7, 2003, speaking at the Ecole Militaire, President Chirac told his troops to prepare for action in Iraq. So what happened? Chirac wanted a piece of Iraqi oil wealth in exchange for his support, but Bush said no. The U.S.-UK occupation of Iraq basically nullified French energy investments previously signed with Saddam Hussein.

As CHALLENGE predicted (8/16/06): "If the French bosses think it’s in their interest, they will again break with U.S. imperialism, and again pose as ‘friends’ of the anti-war movement. No imperialist is truly against spilling workers’ blood in endless wars for control of the oil that fuels their profit machines. Wars can’t be fought by allying with one imperialist gang against another. It can only be done by ending its causes — capitalism and imperialism — and by building a mass revolutionary communist movement."

N.J. Workers Need More than ‘Pressure’ to Win

TRENTON, NJ, Dec. 11 — Over 25,000 state workers demonstrated at the State capitol building opposing proposed pension and benefit cuts. This is the second time members of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), Communication Workers of America (CWA), and other unions united to fight the proposed cutbacks. This large demonstration reflects workers’ determination to fight. But these union misleaders are trying their best to convince the thousands of angry workers that lobbying and voting will change the minds of these government officials, that the government will look out for workers’ interests if given enough pressure.

According to a recent report, New Jersey is approximately $30 billion in debt. It also has the nation’s highest property taxes, averaging $6,000 per year, along with a sales tax that Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine increased to 7%. Many lawmakers are blaming State workers’ pensions and health benefits for the high taxes and debt, while ignoring hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and on "Homeland Security," plus the tens of millions in tax cuts over the last decade to various NJ companies, from Alta Pharmaceuticals to Verizon.

Corzine initially told the legislature to "solve" the high property taxes and growing debt, knowing that would include cutting pensions and creating a two-tier system that would force new employees to pay into a retirement fund. After seeing that thousands of workers would descend on Trenton, Corzine then forced the legislature to delete such provisions, insisting that he will "work it out" with the unions at the bargaining table.

This exposes the true relationship between the Democratic Party and the pro-capitalist unions, which many workers believe are defending them. NJEA President Joyce Powell told the thousands of demonstrators that, "We will fight until the Legislature does the right thing." No doubt, but the "right thing" for them is to help secure and increase their profits and imperialist power worldwide by cutting workers’ pensions and health benefits. And, just like the United Auto Workers (UAW), the NJEA and CWA will be working with the bosses behind closed doors.

PLP distributed leaflets and CHALLENGE at the rally, urging workers to see the class nature of this battle. The leaflet described the shortfalls of reforms, and how, throughout the 20th century, workers have given their lives to improve their conditions, only to see these reforms taken away later. PL also linked the attack on NJ State workers to the major cuts and layoffs suffered by workers at Boeing, Delphi, Ford and Northwest Airlines.

We also raised the battle in Oaxaca between workers and the state. One teacher, while talking to a crowd of Communication workers, pointed out that the state has always taken the bosses’ side against the workers, and Oaxaca is a perfect example of how they will use violence against the workers to hold onto their power — that only a government run by and for the working class will provide for workers’ needs worldwide.

This struggle in NJ is part of the global attack on workers, stemming from the sharpening contradictions between the imperialist powers. Believing that any capitalist government will give in to peaceful protests blinds workers to the nature of state power and who currently holds it. Through patience and perseverance, workers can be won to communist ideas and the true nature of the bosses’ politicians and unions will become clearer to our class worldwide.

Lesson Learned from Oaxaca Struggle

OAXACA, MEXICO — In the final six months of 2006, the Oaxacan workers’ and youth’s struggle inspired the international working class. Yet, the main lesson for PLP’ers and workers in general is the need to build a mass revolutionary communist party whose goal is the long-range fight for communist revolution. We must sharpen the ideological struggle with fellow workers and their allies who have illusions about "lesser-evil" politicians and a "reformed capitalism" that could somehow serve workers. CHALLENGE must be used massively in waging that political struggle to forever break the capitalist chains of racist super-exploitation, police repression, imperialist rivalry and wars and fascist bosses/politicians.

In any reform battle — even monumental ones like Oaxaca — workers and their allies must measure winning or losing in terms of building a mass PLP and creating communist class consciousness among the masses.

In the heat of the street battles, and taking advantage of the great discontent of the masses and their lack of revolutionary leadership, the bosses’ liberal press, electoral parties and opportunists of all political stripes built as leaders opportunists like Flavio Sosa, leader of APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca), Rueda Pacheco, head of Local 22 of the Teachers’ Union, and many others in APPO’s leadership.

Sosa was the founder of the PRD, (Partido de la Revolucion Democratica). He worked on the electoral campaign of ex-President Fox and received financial aid from the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled for 60 years) Governors of Oaxaca, including the fascist Ulises Ruiz. He recently allied with the capitalists of the PRD, led by ex-PRI member Lopez Obrador. Opportunists like Sosa and populist politicians like Obrador inject their poisonous capitalist political line into the mass movement to prevent workers from breaking the capitalists’ chains.

Popular Power and Commune?

Some aspects of the struggle — like expelling the cops from the city, seizing public buildings, erecting barricades and electing new public officials in some towns — were seen as proof of popular power. But the truth is capitalism kept operating as usual, with very minor interruptions. Businesses, banks and factories continued their exploitation. APPO pushed respect for the bosses’ constitution, while begging the federal government (Fox and his gang) to intervene in Oaxaca to restore social peace.

Many pseudo-revolutionaries called it the Oaxaca Commune. But the Commune that Marx speaks of in his book, "The Civil War in France," was completely different. The Paris Commune destroyed the French bosses’ state apparatus in the city and built their own government.

From the experience of the Parisian proletariat, Marx concluded that the working class needs its own party to lead it: the Communist Party. Today that lesson is more valid than ever. The experiences of the spontaneous struggles of workers, no matter how massive or heroic, show that without the leadership of a revolutionary communist party our class cannot liberate itself from its racist oppressors.

Therefore, winning for the working class means joining and building its Party, increasing its network of CHALLENGE readers, multiplying the Party’s study groups and massively spreading its communist ideas. Only this can guarantee a truly massive communist leadership — composed of workers, teachers, farm workers and students — capable of leading the exploited and oppressed masses to the seizure of power and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

But PLP understands that the political line to which the masses are won is crucial to attaining this goal. Therefore, the Party has the very important and essential role of exposing and defeating the ideas of the class enemy within the mass movements and of guaranteeing that revolutionary communist ideas will be primary.

We need a Party that will hoist the Red Flag of the proletariat, not the bosses’ nationalist rags. Such a Party will need to be politically active to win members and sympathizers among all the oppressed and exploited sectors of society, especially within the working class, among farm workers, and in the military (composed of working-class youth). Building such a Party, the PLP, should be the number one priority. It is also the best answer to the bosses’ fascist attacks.

The lessons of the struggle of our Oaxaca class brothers and sisters will help the international working class to better fight to defeat capitalism. Communism, not socialism, is our goal because we are confident that the world’s workers can learn from the past and fight directly for a society without wages, exploitation, borders or bosses.

Cops’ Murder of Salvadoran Youth Exposes FMLN ‘Peace’ Pact

SAN SALVADOR — This month there was a celebration of "15 years of the peace agreement" between the government and the FMLN, following 12 years of civil war and more than 150,000 deaths. Apart from supposedly creating jobs and well-being, one of the main achievements was allegedly to create professionalism in the PNC (National Civil Police), composed of ex-soldiers and ex-guerillas.

Today, 15 years later, we have unemployment rates, criminality and poverty never before seen. ARENA (the Party in power) and the FMLN agree the police must be an apparatus of repression against the working class so they want to expand the PNC budget, to buy more weapons and equipment for the police to carry out their job — oppressing the working class.

Recently the police from the Tenancingo station, in the department of Cuscatlán, beat up 22-year-old mason Oscar Vanegas, who died days later. This police station has been accused of more than 82 acts of mistreatment and abuse. These killer cops were cleared of any charges, since, said the judge, it wasn’t possible to determine whether all or some of the killer cops had administered the blows that killed young Vanegas!

PNC police chief Rodrigo Avila said, "It could be that the person didn’t die from the blows, but the fact that they mistreated him has been shown in evidence." This declaration only caused more indignation and anger among many workers. The family and many friends confronted the cops, yelling "Killers! Murderous dogs!" against the Tactical Unity Police (UTO) who guarded their partners in crime. The UTO fascists were armed with UZI submachine guns and M-16 assault rifles and threatened the family of the youth, telling them, "He deserved it and if you don’t be quiet, you’ll be next."

The young Vanegas is one more in the long list of these cop murders. But the working class won’t forget. Both these jackals (PNC) and their superiors, the big bosses, will get the justice of the international working class.

This is capitalist "democracy" and its "peace" in full view. We can’t wait for justice from the same hangman who beats us. The bosses and their social fascist government (ARENA-FMLN) cannot create decent jobs or improve workers’ living conditions. Therefore, they keep the masses oppressed through police terror and death squads.

This murderous capitalist exploitative system cannot be reformed. It must be destroyed. But that can’t happen through elections or reforms, but with a real communist revolution. CHALLENGE must be spread to more workers and create communist consciousness among thousands of urban workers, farmworkers and students to build a mass revolutionary movement that will end this capitalist hell once and for all.

Somalia Another Front in U.S. Racist War for Oil

Somalia has become still another U.S. bosses’ imperialist and racist war operation. U.S. rulers are now at war against Sunni Muslims in Iraq, Pushtan Muslims in Afghanistan, black Muslims in Somalia and soon possibly against Persian Muslims in Iran.

An AC-130 U.S. plane flew from the Pentagon Central Command base in Djibouti south to the Somalian town of Ras Kamboni, near the Kenya border to attack alleged Al Qaeda targets. First it was reported the "terrorist leading the bombing" of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzaniai in 1998" had been killed. Later, it appeared the dead were all Somali civilians, including children.

So 14 years after 18 U.S. Army Rangers were killed in Mogadishu when their two Black Hawk choppers were shot down, the U.S. is back at war in Somalia. U.S and British Special Forces were actively helping the Ethiopian troops which invaded Somalia to topple the Union of Islamic Courts government.

Somalia is not only a key country because oil tankers pass its coastline (see CHALLENGE, 1/17), but Somalia itself has a huge oil potential. Before Bush, Sr.’s "humanitarian invasion" of Somalia in the early 1990’s, four major U.S. oil companies (Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips) were allocated an area comprising nearly two-thirds of the country for oil exploration. This occurred just before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions were hoping that the Bush, Sr. Administration’s decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia would also protect their multimillion-dollar investments there. (See raceand history.com forum, Dec. 2001)

Besides serving the U.S. bosses’ interests, Ethiopian rulers also need a seaport since Ethiopia became a landlocked country after Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1991. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is a vicious ruler; his troops slaughtered hundreds protesting electoral fraud in 2005. But the White House is not calling him "the butcher of Addis Ababa." No, now he’s an "ally in the war against terror."

Workers and youth from Addis Ababa to Mogadishu to Nairobi need to unite and break with their local bosses, warlords and the imperialists, and build a mass revolutionary fight to end the hell of wars and hunger. The communist ideas of PLP must be brought to these workers.

LETTERS

‘Be a Communist, today and tomorrow . . .’

A young friend visited me recently and we talked about things in general. He listened attentively and learned about my sad view of life. I believe we carry a garbage dump on our backs because of the insensitivity and hunger for power of the big international capitalist monopolies. My friend was wise enough to give me a copy of CHALLENGE. Later he introduced me to his father, "an old member of PLP."

Through his constant political activity and the many long hours we spent in ideological debate, plus the literature he gave me, I began to acquire class consciousness. Now I have the responsibility of fighting alongside my brothers and sisters to destroy this damn capitalist-imperialist society.

Today, I am a PLP member. I hope many of you CHALLENGE readers who are not do the same, so we can finally win a bright future for our entire human race. Be a communist today and tomorrow.

We live in a very depressed and poor area near Bogotá, Colombia, where unemployment and poverty are part of daily life for thousands of families displaced by violence of the state. Year after year, the bosses’ government and its goons — paramilitaries, stoolpigeons and military death squads — murder hundreds of workers and youth, accusing them of being "subversives."

Despite all this repression, our groups distribute CHALLENGE hand to hand here. We struggle with some readers to consolidate a study group, helping to build our revolutionary party in this area.

A PLP’er, Colombia

Link Immigrant Raids to Black Slavery

Recently I was teaching "The Narrative of Frederick Douglass" to my freshman high school literature class and discussing the abolitionist movement.

When the climax of the Narrative occurs and Douglass escapes, he’s ecstatic about how free he is. He also says he had to do a lot of hard work that nobody else wanted to do — shoveling coal, rolling oil barrels and chimney-sweeping.

I remarked that these were dirty jobs and required a large amount of labor, but that escaped slaves had no recourse; they were in constant danger of being "deported" back to the Southern slave-masters. The escaped slaves had to work at whatever jobs they could get and be "happy" to get that job. I reminded my students that the federal government protected private property, and that slaves were private property.

Many students had the misconception that the U.S. government was anti-slavery, when in fact — according to the recent NY Historical Society slavery exhibition — 38 cents on every dollar from the cotton industry flowed through New York City banks. I said that Karl Marx showed how cotton fueled the industrial revolution by feeding the textile mills of England with raw resources as part of the primitive acquisition of capital. I explained that the abolitionist movement was composed of working-class people who risked harm in order to fight a system they knew to be unjust.

Several students connected this to undocumented workers having to work at whatever jobs that they can get while constantly fearing immigration raids, much like the slaves had to fear the slave-catcher. The class began to understand the link between the exploitation of undocumented workers and the need of the ruling class to use fear and terror to force workers to do undesirable jobs, but more importantly, to drive down the wages of the entire working class.

I concluded with a discussion of how the bosses use racism to get the workers to blame "immigrants for taking their jobs" instead of blaming the bosses or the systemic racism necessary to capitalism. Several students said we need "a new abolitionist movement." I’ll be making sure they get CHALLENGE.

Red Teacher

Halloween Graffiti Gets Anti-War Treatment

My nephew and his friends organized a Halloween graffiti painting, reading "STOP THE WAR." I supported them but cautioned them to be careful.

Our brothers and sisters are confronting the cops and fascist goons worldwide, just as our youth face them here in the U.S. They’re learning that this fascist capitalist system leads to more oil profit wars. The bosses don’t care if soldiers on both sides and civilians are dying.

The anti-war painting was a great step forward for my nephew and his friends since they now understand what war is and about the aims of the bosses who are killing youth like them. They know we must stop the war by organizing ourselves to fight for a communist system. We’ll soon invite them to meetings to talk more about politics and to get them to help us organize and celebrate May Day, 2007.

A Red Uncle

Work in ‘Appeal’ Movement to Win GI’s to PLP’s Politics

The letter entitled "Sharpen Political Struggle in GI Appeal Movement" (CHALLENGE, 1/17) makes some good points about the pro-capitalist politics of David Cortright, the person who the writer says is behind the GI Appeal for Redress movement. We definitely must sharpen the struggle against the patriotic, pro-imperialist politics of the GI Appeal and other reformist movements, all of which are led by the ruling class, and/or its agents.

But the writer then adds, "… it would be wrong to conclude that the main, or only, way to work with GI’s or to build an alliance between GI’s, students and workers, is by using Cortright’s appeal for redress or tailing his politics." None of the recent letters in CHALLENGE about this movement have been uncritical of it.

Secondly, right now this Appeal movement seems to be the largest one involving active-duty soldiers opposing the war (albeit with bad politics). NY Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote (1/4): "In a devastating critique of the war, the newsweekly Army Times led its current edition with the headline: ‘About-Face on the War — After 3 years of support, troops sour on Iraq.’ The article detailed a Military Times poll that found, for the first time, "‘more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it.’"

This shows that the "all-volunteer military" has not totally gotten past the Vietnam Syndrome: there’s still lots of anti-war feeling among soldiers. It also shows that the main voice of the U.S. ruling class (the Times) is trying to turn the growing number of anti-war GI’s into a weapon to fight for the rulers’ own endless war agenda. We’d be making a major mistake if we didn’t concentrate our modest forces on working in what seems to be the biggest anti-war movement involving active-duty soldiers, even if it is led by imperialists who disagree with Bush’s conduct of the war. Not to concentrate on this one just leaves thousands of GI’s without any real anti-imperialist alternative to liberal patriotism. And that would be a major political error on our part.

An Unpatriotic Red

Fight to Unite Black, Latino, Arab Workers

On November 11, over 250 students, educators and members of the South Side community participated in a Conference Against Racism and War at Chicago State University. PLP members participated in this conference to help make clear the connections between imperialist war, racism and the need for communist revolution.

The keynote speaker addressed the need to win black and Latin workers and youth to take the lead in any anti-war movement by fighting racism and linking the two struggles. He pointed out that immigrant workers and youth who participated in the mass immigration rights movement, and the mostly black striking teachers in the Detroit and Gary public schools, and their students, overwhelmingly oppose the war.

An Iraqi speaker described the devastation that has resulted from the U.S. invasion. There was also a panel of male and female, black, white, and Latino military vets against the war. Workshops ranged from racism in the public schools, the racist prison system, Oaxaca, and racism and healthcare disparities.

Students who had never before been involved in political activity, took leading roles in organizing these events. There was a great deal of participation between students and faculty both in the planning of the conference and during the actual event. Others who were not able to attend donated money for food. One of the best things to develop out of the conference is that more faculty members want to heighten the political consciousness of the students. Even students who came mainly for extra credit said they would like to participate in future actions.

At the end of the conference, an Arab participant commented on the racism he has experienced since the 9/11 attacks. A black man commented, "Now you know how we feel." A PLP member talked about the difficulty that she and others had in organizing residents in her mostly black neighborhood to fight against attacks on Muslim businesses and residents in the area in recent years. This reflects the contradiction faced throughout the conference: nationalism vs. internationalism and multi-racial unity to combat racism.

A comrade passionately reminded the group that we must not allow ourselves to be divided by the racist and nationalist ideas that only serve the ruling class.

We distributed hundreds of CHALLENGES and PLP leaflets and made contacts with those who were interested in fighting against racism and the war, on and off campus. Building a mass PLP among college students and their professors is crucial to moving ever closer to communist revolution.

CSU Red

Red Farmworker Organizing in Projects

Holiday Greetings! The revolutionary political activity from PLP is spurring us to gather many more workers to our side. I'm trying to build the Party in government projects, where the authorities have threatened tenants with eviction if they take our communist newspaper CHALLENGE. These attacks are similar to those in Escondido, CA, where they want to refuse apartments to undocumented workers.

Conditions are clear and brazen under this disgusting profit system. That's why workers of the world must sweep away the rulers' politicians and their racist trash that affects our class. From every struggle should come one more nail in the coffin of each exploiter. Our consciousness must grow with revolutionary ideas.

I'm a farmworker comrade who wants to see more struggles in every corner of the earth where PLP exists, including organizing our brothers and sisters in the armed forces not to die in the wars for the rich oil bosses. I'm sending $27 for the CHALLENGES I've just received. I continue to make copies of the leaflets to distribute.

A problem with my foot hurts when I walk but soon I hope to be well and continue distributing the latest CHALLENGES. Thank you for the understanding you have brought me.

A Comrade Farmworker, San Joaquin Valley, California

Bosses Speed Up, Injure Homeless Worker

I met a family here in California's San Joaquin Valley in which the daughter injured an arm on a job where she suffered speed-up on long shifts, working for Quebercor World (USA) Inc. in Merced. It's been more than four years that she's been unable to work and she's pursuing her case legally. She's seen several doctors, but there's no hope for recovery.

The Social Security Office told her she had to wait six months just to see if they could help her. The only thing the bosses have for this young woman is harassment. This is capitalism's answer worldwide, because the bosses are driven by their thirst for super-profits, not caring how many workers die of hunger, cold or illnesses the bosses cause, or in wars for oil.

This worker is jobless, homeless and with little food or medicine, still one more reason why workers must unite to fight for a society without racism, without borders, without capitalism, without rich or poor, for a communist society to sweep away once and for all this hell called racist capitalism. Long Live Communism!

Thank you CHALLENGE for your literature which is so realistic, representing the interests of the workers of the world.

A Reader

Women: Dead in El Salvador as a result of Capitalism

I read the article in Challenge about the death of women in Latin America. In El Salvador, day after day, violence increases for the entire working class due to the mounting poverty. Fewer are getting richer, without a thought that some workers are dying of hunger. The deaths rise when the unemployment goes up which adds to more crime and prostitution.

In El Salvador, women, historically, have always been thought of or used as a reproducing machine, and not as a person with the same rights as a man. The Salvadoran woman is in a battle, a very fierce one without guns or tanks.

The fact is that today 90% of the people who work in factories are women and single parents. The Salvadoran woman is tired of living in the shadows; today she is opening her eyes to the evolving world. They are on strike, fighting for higher salaries, but also for their rights, as human beings.

Even most churches and religions prohibit women from participating in any activity of the service. Also, they don’t let them have any opinions. They only serve by the orders of men. Meanwhile, some women are killed in domestic confrontations with their male life-companions.

It is clear that for women to get out of this situation where this exploitative and racist system condemns them, it is necessary to fight alongside men for a communist system. To continue to try to reform capitalism, where they are discriminated and not recognized with the same credibility as a man, neither serves women nor the working-class men of El Salvador.

A Comrade

Clinton’s Racist Welfare Reform’s Deepens Poverty

The media portray conservative Bush as a Republican Party failure and the liberal Clintons as our saviors, representing the better days when the federal budget was balanced, for example. In truth there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans who both serve the bosses first, last and always. The Clintons "reformed" welfare under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 which a wealth of statistics ten years later shows to be nothing more than an attack on poor families.

The US ruler’s racism against blacks and Latinos (two to three times the unemployment rate, lousy housing and medical care, lower wages all around) have caused them to need public assistance way out of line with their percentage of the US population. The US ruler’s sexism has made women (and the children they must care for) the vast majority of those in the direst need. Women are forced into minimum and below minimum wage jobs (in addition to the unpaid labor of raising their children with almost no child care facilities being available) and black and Latino women face the worst of both worlds. Then the ruler’s media blames the "welfare crisis" on blacks, Latinos and women in order to deflect attention from the capitalist profit making system which has forced millions of white workers into poverty, needing public assistance to survive. Racism and sexism hurt the whole working class, even as they hurt those directly affected the most.

Under Clinton, automatic eligibility for Medicaid was separated from cash assistance and food stamps. Requiring more paperwork (sometimes exceeding thirty pages) for Welfare employees and recipients has discouraged many from even applying for Medicaid. Families who are denied welfare are often left unaware that they still qualify for Medicaid.

The policy changes have resulted in national declines in all public assistance programs. Children under age 19 make up the majority of people who became uninsured as a result of welfare reform. Of the 1.25 million people who lost Medicaid between 1995 and 1997, almost two-thirds were children (Families USA, 1999).

In New York City, the welfare caseload has achieved a 42-year low. Medicaid enrollment is at its lowest level since the 70s (Kronebusch, 2001). But, these decreases in welfare and Medicaid enrollment are not the result of increases in decent paying jobs, as politicians and the media would have us believe. Many people moved from welfare to jobs (often temporary) that don’t offer any health benefits. Others are forced into "workfare jobs" that pay less than the minimum wage, replacing workers who then face the same cycle of poverty and lost medical benefits.

With the new Deficit Reduction Act copayments of up to 20% for the cost of a service or drug can be imposed. States now model Medicaid to look and act as an HMO. There are tighter restrictions for the many elderly who use both Medicaid and Medicare. Lower reimbursements have led many doctors to limit the number of Medicaid recipients they see, or to refuse to take Medicaid at all.

More than half of the people that would have been enrolled in Medicaid had Clinton not "reformed" it, became uninsured in 1997.

Working people pay more and more for their healthcare, while Democrat and Republican politicians lavish 4.5 billion $s a month for imperialist oil war in Iraq. Capitalist rulers will never be satisfied until every dollar possible is squeezed out of the working class. We will only be satisfied when workers take power and squeeze the bosses right out of existence.

REDEYE

Saddam: quick kill hid US treachery

What was the executioners hurry? Why was Saddam condemned for one of his lesser crimes, ignoring the far larger ones….

…It was…essential to stop him revealing secrets about the West’s past enthusiasm in supporting and arming his regime. Hence he was tried on the relatively minor charge of killing 148 people in the village of Dujail after a plot to assassinate him. Far better to put him away safely for that than risk his exposing western hypocrisy, treachery and double-dealing. (GW, 1/18)

The decider decides for Iraqis

To the Editor

Executive summary of President Bush’s speech to the nation on Wednesday: we’re going to do what Iraq wants, whether the Iraqis want it or not. (NYT, 1/13)

Falsely labeled terrorist? Court no help

The Supreme Court refused on Monday to intervene in the federal prosecution of seven Iranian refugees for providing financial support to an opposition group in Iran that the State Department has designated as a terrorist organization.

…The court said, "it does not matter whether the designation is correct or not." The crime occurs, it explained, when someone gives support to such an organization, whether or not properly designated as a terrorist group. (NYT, 1/9)

Bush: It’ll work, because it has to!

"I said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out," the president told the Congressional leaders, according to two officials who were in the room. Pressed on why he thought this strategy would succeed where previous efforts had failed, Mr. Bush shot back: "Because it has to."

Somalia another US phony war on terror

Undeterred by the horrors and disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With US backing, Ethiopian troops have invaded Somalia in an illegal war of aggression….

As with Iraq in 2003, the US has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism. The real goal of course is to gain a direct foothold in another highly strategic and oil-rich region by installing a client regime in Somalia….

The Islamists are not angels. But their collective pool of terror acts is dwarfed by the terrorism of the warlords that the US has been supporting… (GW, 1/11)

Cops lie to get warrant, kill woman, 90

A narcotics team that shot and killed an elderly woman while raiding her home lied to obtain the search warrant, one team member has told federal investigators….

The officers falsely claimed that a confidential informant had bought $50 worth of crack at the house….

Kathryn Johnson, whose age has been reported as both 88 and 92,.…quickly became Exhibit A for complaints of excessive force by the police, prompting packed, angry town-hall-style meetings, accusations of systematic civil rights violations and calls for civilian review of police shootings in Atlanta….

Ms.Johnson’s relatives…have maintained that she had nothing to do with illegal drugs….No cocaine was found… (NYT, 1/12)

‘Iraq vital,’ so US threatens to leave!

To the Editor

The president’s speech included an internal inconsistency that rendered it impossible to believe that he was serious in his reason for sending additional troops to Iraq.

If one truly believes that Iraq is critical to the safety of the United States, as he said, how can the United States set standards for the Iraqis to meet, and if they don’t meet those standards, our troops will leave the Iraqis on their own?

If one believes the president, Iraqi failure to meet those standards should mandate our keeping our troops in Iraq, forever if necessary… (NYT, 1/12)

North African Arabs Saved Jews From Nazis

The ruling classes in Israel and across Arab lands are constantly trying to separate Jewish and Arab workers, spreading the lie that they have nothing in common and "hate each other" — are mortal enemies. For this reason for 60 years these rulers have kept the fact well hidden that at the time in history when millions of Jews faced fascist extermination, Arab workers came to their aid in the middle of the Holocaust.

From the fall of 1940, when Hitler conquered France, to 1943 when North Africa was liberated by Allied forces, the Nazis, Mussolini and the fascist collaborators of Vichy France erected 104 concentration and labor camps in North Africa to which they shipped Jews from Europe as well as the persecuted half million Jewish citizens from the former French and Italian colonies of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. (Aside from an off-hand remark about a concentration camp near Casablanca in the famous film of the same name — starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman — there’s been virtually no mention of their existence in North Africa, much less about Arab-Jewish unity.)

The Nazis had seized these colonies and put the French fascists in charge, under Marshal Petain. He had made anti-Semitism state policy. The Jews became slave laborers, building weapons, roads and airports, working in broiling heat until they dropped. The fascists then employed Arabs as guards at these camps, with French commanders in charge who tried to get the Arabs to torment the prisoners.

According to a well-researched book, "Among the Righteous — Lost stories from the Holocaust’s long reach into Arab lands," by Robert Satloff, in a chapter entitled. "The Arabs Watched Over the Jews,":

"At every stage of the Nazi, Vichy and Fascist persecution of Jews in Arab lands, and in every place that it occurred, Arabs helped Jews. Some Arabs spoke out against the persecution of Jews and took public stands of unity with them…. Some Arabs shared the fate of Jews and, through that experience, forged a unique bond of comradeship…. They bravely saved Jewish lives, at times risking their own in the process. These Arabs were true heroes." And further:

"…Unusual expressions of comradeship between Jewish and Arab internees at Vichy labor camps buoyed the spirits of imprisoned Jews. At Cheregas-Meridja, in the Algerian desert, Vichy banished thousands of Jews who had enlisted in the French army to fight Germans…. The camp also housed Arab prisoners, interned for their opposition to French colonial rule. There, a Captain Suchet, the commandant,…tried to incite tensions between Jews and Arabs. He failed, however, when the bond of their common Fascist enemy proved stronger…."

When the fascists tried to incite Arab pogroms against the Jews, Muslim religious leaders like Shaykh el-Okbi issued "a formal prohibition on Muslims from attacking Jews." When Vichy officials tried to enlist Arabs to become conservators to seize Jewish property, and reap windfall profits, "Despite the economic difficulties faced by Arabs during the war, they refused to take advantage of Jewish suffering for personal gain…. not a single Arab in Algiers…accepted Vichy’s offer."

The author points out that, "These Arabs never received public recognition for opening their hearts to Jews facing persecution…." His painstaking research into archives and memoirs found the names of "Arabs who helped save Jews from pain, injury and…death." One farm owner, Si Ali Sakkit, took in 60 Jews who had escaped from a nearby concentration camp during the battle for Tunis and sheltered them until Allied troops captured the area.

There is much more to this story, but it certainly challenges the tales spread in the bosses’ media about the inability for Arabs and Jews to work together. This is the product of the nationalist and religious divisions fostered by the rulers to prevent the working-class unity that ultimately will overthrow capitalism/imperialism.

The fact that this book, and one by Jimmy Carter attacking Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians, are being publicized in the media may very well represent an effort by a section of the U.S. ruling class to push Israeli bosses to reach a compromise with some Palestinian bosses — especially since the Iraq quagmire has weakened the U.S. position in the region.

Even "two states" — one ruled by Israeli bosses and one ruled by Palestinian bosses — will not free Jewish and Arab workers from capitalist exploitation. Only communist revolution can do that.

One of the achievements of the old international communist movement was to unite Jewish, Sunni, Christian, Shiite and other Middle East-North African workers. Today, a new communist leadership must be forged, learning from that unity and overcoming that movement’s errors. That’s the only road to liberate workers from Baghdad to Tel Aviv to Morocco.

PL’ers Launched Anti-Vietnam War Movement

While you won’t find it in the bosses’ media, it was the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) — forerunner of the PLP — that initiated the anti-Vietnam War movement as a mass phenomenon. At a conference at Yale University in the spring of 1964, which discussed ways of opposing the war, the PLM’s chairperson called for mass anti-war marches on May 2 of that year. The Conference approved the resolution and on that date, thousands marched against the war in New York City, while smaller gatherings were held in San Francisco, Seattle, Madison, Miami, San Juan, Puerto Rico and other cities.

The outdoor protest rally at 110th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan that kicked off the day was the largest single demonstration against the U.S. invasion held in the U.S. up to that point. Five hundred then marched five miles down to Times Square and over to the UN. Soon May 2nd Committees were springing up on many campuses throughout the country.

Meanwhile, the Student League for Industrial Democracy — the youth section of a right-wing social democratic group, the League for Industrial Democracy — had drawn up a manifesto in Michigan putting forward ideas on "democratizing" capitalism while denouncing the Soviet Union. From this, the SDS (Students for A Democratic Society) was born. Soon it called for a mass march on Washington opposing the Vietnam War. To everyone’s surprise, on April 17, 1965, 25,000 protesters descended on the nation’s capital. It was the beginning of a series of mass protests that eventually were to reach a million students and workers rallying in Washington.

As PLM and later PLP saw this growing response, it called on its members to leave the May 2nd Movement and join and build SDS, despite the fact that the organization’s leadership was, in effect, pro-capitalist. Some of the leaders of M2M opposed that idea, saying that SDS was not as "pure" as M2M. But PL felt there were thousands of students that could be influenced in a leftward direction over the issue of the war. PL helped organize chapters on scores of campuses across the country and became part of the leadership in many. As the movement grew, hundreds of students joined PL to fight for revolution, not just against this particular war.

While much of the movement advocated slogans like, "Stop the War in Vietnam" and "Bring the Troops Home" — and later, "Stop the Bombing" — PL’ers fought for an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, pro-working class program, calling for "U.S. Imperialism to Get Out of Vietnam Now!" Gradually PL’ers began to win over a majority of the SDS membership to a Worker-Student Alliance outlook, based on fighting racism and imperialism. PL’s anti-racist platform enabled it to play a role in many of the black rebellions that occurred in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.

It was out of these activities that PL grew and eventually began recruiting workers as well as students. Very little of this would have occurred had PL’ers stayed within the narrow confines of the May 2nd Movement. (Future articles will discuss PL’s activities in SDS, including organizing a Worker-Student Alliance and opposing student draft deferments in order to work within the military.)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, January 17, 2007

Information: 17 January 2007 118 hits

Saddam Hussein: Born In the CIA
And Then They Left Him Hanging
Another Fiasco -- Execution Backfires
WORKERS REJECT PLEA FOR SILENCE
50,000 MARCH AGAINST RACIST KILLER COPS
2006: Workers Fight Back Against Bosses' Attack
PL Teachers Lead Fight vs. Bosses' School 'Reform' for War
Welcome CHALLENGE at Rally Opposing Anti-Immigrant Raids
Winning Young Workers to Turn Bosses' Recruiting Upside Down
Cop's Vietnam Torture Tactics Used on Chicago's Black Men
Students Tie War in Iraq to War on New Orleans Workers
Youth Spread Internationalist, Anti-Racist Pledge Among Marines
U.S. Oily Fingers Behind War in Somalia
U.S. Imperialists Follow Nazi Footsteps...Again
'Social Programs' Aim to Win Workers' to Capitalism á la Chávez
CHAVEZ'S SHOPS FOR LOYALTY FOR WAR
LETTERS
REDEYE REDEYE
PLP History: Harlem Rebellion Grand Jury and Reform vs. Revolution on the Railroad

Saddam Hussein: Born In the CIA
And Then They Left Him Hanging

Amid all the thousands of words spewing forth from the U.S. press and TV about the life and times of the executed butcher Saddam Hussein, there's one little item missing: before Saddam became a threat to U.S. oil profits and to their Saudi-Kuwait lackeys, he was the virtual creation of U.S. rulers and its CIA (just like the CIA-sponsored Osama bin Laden later became a U.S. enemy).

The story begins in 1958 when Abdul Karim Qasim led a coup that year to overthrow the British-installed monarchy. U.S. rulers viewed him as a threat to reliable oil exports, because he was pro-Soviet and would upset the U.S.-organized anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact -- an alliance of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Britain and the U.S.

In 1959, the UPI reported that Saddam, then in his early twenties, became part of a U.S.-directed plot to assassinate Qasim. The killing failed and Saddam was wounded in the attempt. Middle East expert Adel Darwish said the move was done "with the full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for the CIA and Egyptian intelligence. Saddam then fled to Cairo, and was put on a stipend by the agency.

In February, 1963, the military wing of the Baath Party (which Saddam had joined) overthrew and killed Qasim. Roger Morris, a former U.S. National Security Council staffer, said that the U.S. (during the Kennedy administration) played a significant role in this coup and that it was mostly funded "with American money." Historian Hanna Batatu reported that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi communists. The Iraqi CP had organized one million May Day marchers in 1959 and was the largest communist party in the Mid-East, but made the mistake of allying with a "progressive" nationalist (Qasim), which helped lead to its downfall. Saddam was brought back from Cairo as an "interrogator" and soon rose to the head of Baath Intelligence. Thousands of communists named by the CIA were killed.

Then, after that government was overthrown by Qasim officers, the Baathists came to power again in another coup, orchestrated by the CIA (during the Johnson administration). Reuters reporter David Morgan wrote: "In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt...led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious protégé in 1979. `It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary,' Morris says."

The U.S. specifically promoted the Tikritis to dominance among the coup-makers, which included al-Bakr and his cousin, Saddam Hussein, who quickly became the power behind the throne. When the Khomeini forces overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran in 1979, the CIA and U.S. rulers had one more reason to turn to Saddam to counter this new "enemy."

Saddam invaded Iran in 1980. In December 1983, the Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to meet with Saddam and his foreign minister Tariq Aziz. A U.S. State Department summary of that meeting stated that, "The two agreed the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests: peace in the Gulf, keeping Syria and Iran off balance and less influential, and promoting Egypt's reintegration into the Arab world."

This meeting had come after Saddam had used chemical weapons to kill tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds, which obviously was no bar to the developing U.S.-Iraqi relationship. In fact, the Reagan administration worked to prevent the UN from censuring Saddam for his use of these WMDs.

It was during the Iraq-Iran war that U.S. rulers went all out to help Saddam. Former National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher affirmed that, in a secret National Security Directive, "The United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice...and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required." This included cluster bombs.

UPI reported that, "During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACs surveillance aircraft to aid...Iraq's armed forces....According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Feo peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days."

This is not even the complete story but there would have been no Butcher of Baghdad without the three decades of nurturing by U.S. rulers and the CIA. (For more see http://www.plp.org/comm03/1saddamncia.html)

Another Fiasco -- Execution Backfires

Everything the U.S. bosses do in Iraq is turning into its opposite. While Saddam's execution was timed for the beginning of a Muslim holiday to exacerbate the growing chasm between Shiites and Sunnis (Saddam was a Sunni), it has mainly transformed Saddam into a martyr in the Arab world. The execution has caused so much repulsion worldwide that the Bush administration is now trying to blame its Iraqi puppet government for hurrying the hanging -- as if the U.S. occupation forces don't control that regime. Meanwhile, while many in the U.S. thought they "voted for troop withdrawal" from Iraq, the opposite is looming. Bush is planning to send 30,000 more troops. And the Democrats will surely vote for the extra billions the Bush gang is asking for the fiasco there.

WORKERS REJECT PLEA FOR SILENCE
50,000 MARCH AGAINST RACIST KILLER COPS

NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 16 -- A PLP contingent of 40 members and friends turned a liberal misleaders' "silent march" protesting the NYPD's recent racist murder of a young black man, Sean Bell, into a militant, chanting outcry by thousands against police brutality.

Tens of thousands of workers and students disrupted the usual holiday shopping as demonstrators filled Fifth Avenue from 58th to 34th Streets. The march was organized by former FBI informer Al Sharpton and endorsed by dozens of other liberal misleaders. It was part of the Democratic Party's long-standing effort to pacify the working class. This time they tried to muzzle the demonstrators' anger with a silent protest labeled, "Shopping for Justice." But workers and students weren't buying this strategy. While the liberals at the front of the march tried moving the demonstration down a slippery slope of pacifism, the Progressive Labor Party steered it in a militant direction from the inside.

The PLP contingent distributed over 1,200 CHALLENGES and over 2,000 leaflets to workers hungry for revolutionary ideas. We boldly put forward a communist analysis of the cops' racist murder, linking it to the millions of others slaughtered by the very system that produces these KKKiller cops, from Queens, NY to South Africa. One demonstrator agreed, "You're right, getting rid of Kelly [NYPD Police Commissioner] isn't gonna' stop these racist cops! The whole system's gotta' go!" (See Red Eye on the News, page 7, item 2) He then took eight CHALLENGES and distributed them to all his friends waiting to march.

After passing out most of our literature, we began to lead chants: "Black cop! White cop! All the same! Racist murder is the name of the game!"; and, "Asian, Latin, black and white! To smash police terror we must unite!" Soon one of the liberal demonstration's organizers tried to silence our bullhorn by accusing us of "disrespecting" the leadership's request for a silent protest. Just then another demonstrator, 20 feet ahead of us, began yelling, "No more silence! We've been silent for too long!" PLP'ers and other demonstrators then began to join our chanting, "No more silence! No more silence!"

This was a pivotal point in the demonstration and there was no turning back! From beginning to end, thousands of demonstrators began to chant all the way down Fifth Avenue. PLP'ers had changed the nature of the demonstration for the rest of the day. These liberals weren't going to silence the anger of the working class!

Our ability to influence thousands of demonstrators with the idea of fighting back inspired both us and our friends. Other groups took up our chants and a high school student in our contingent realized this and enthusiastically yelled, "Hey, that's our chant!" Another student declared, "People are really feeling what we have to say!" Towards the end of the march we were surrounded by approximately 200 people marching and chanting with their fists in the air.

This was exactly what Sharpton and the Democrats didn't want. They want to silence working-class anger, hoping to win thousands of young workers and students to die for the U.S. oil empire in the Middle East. These liberals know that racist terror at home will make young black men even less willing to fight and die in the rulers' endless wars, so they use "safe" methods of "civil disobedience" and blame some "bad cops" instead of the entire racist system. We must counter this with the message of a fight for workers' power!

Although many marchers thought disrupting the profits of these multi-million-dollar Fifth Avenue shops was a good idea, the premise of seeking justice under capitalism and pacifying workers' anger only perpetuates fear and a cynical attitude towards the only true fight for justice -- the struggle for communism.

We should not underestimate the power of the working class. We can draw important lessons from history. A racist cop's murder of a 15-year-old unarmed black high school student led to the 1964 Harlem Rebellion (See CHALLENGE, 1/3/07). Thousands took to the streets in a militant fight-back, not only against cops and their brutality, but also against racist living conditions and rampant unemployment. Thousands of workers and youth have the same anger today, but it's constantly misdirected by the liberal Democrats and Sharpton-like sellouts.

We must expand our efforts to win workers and students in mass organizations away from the liberal message that capitalism can be changed by supporting and voting for the "right" politicians. With this long-term perspective, such efforts can lead thousands of workers to embrace communist ideas and take leadership in future struggles opposing racist outrages against our class.

If we patiently develop that kind of leadership, these thousands of workers on Fifth Avenue could not only shut down all the stores in mid-Manhattan, but also paralyze the entire city with a massive anti-racist strike, sending a message to masses of workers worldwide that the idea of workers' power is alive and well! Towards that goal, PLP will continue to call on workers and youth to channel their anger against the very system -- capitalism -- that breeds these racist killer cops and spills the blood of workers like Sean Bell. March with us under the red flag in the struggle for a better world, the fight for communism!

2006: Workers Fight Back Against Bosses' Attack

Last year began with the tragic deaths of 11 miners in Sago, West Virginia, victims of their bosses' criminal negligence. The year ended with the racist assassination of Sean Bell by the New York City police, who serve to protect capitalist property and terrorize workers. Between the bookends of these murders, the year was filled with evidence of the system putting its rulers' needs above workers' lives. But we also witnessed a glimpse of the fact that not only do workers fight back but that they can be won to run the world for the good of those who produce all value.

U.S. rulers' problems mounted to new heights in 2006: outright civil war in the Iraq quagmire, a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, a defeat for U.S. ally Israel against Lebanon's Hezbollah, a defiant Iran gaining strength and now an emerging war in Somalia. Wars like these, with their ever-growing death tolls for workers -- over 650,000 Iraqis and over 3,000 GI's killed and tens of thousands wounded and maimed -- are always part of capitalism, but this level of instability in the Mid-East also indicates a major challenge to continued U.S. control of oil profits. The U.S. position as the top imperialist power in the world is being threatened by expansionary rivals like China and Russia who are making alliances that could endanger U.S. dominance.

Amid looming threats to their worldwide supremacy, U.S. rulers have been retooling tactics at home as well as abroad. Democratic Party politicians have taken office with the hope of being able to win workers' loyalty and better enable the rulers to control the growing chaos in Iraq and prepare for increasing inter-imperialist rivalry. Workers are being asked to accept more police-state conditions governing our daily lives. Bags are searched on subways, surveillance cameras have been installed on street corners and "universal service" is being proposed to solve the crisis of the all-volunteer military.

Inside the U.S., rulers attempted to "reform" immigration. As blatantly racist organizing by anti-immigrant groups like the Minutemen spread nation-wide, some politicians favored keeping immigrants out of the U.S. But the more dangerous reformers were the ruling-class liberals who plan to "legalize" undocumented immigrants by putting their youth into the military to fight and die for imperialism. The danger of the liberal bosses comes from their ability to win workers to "work with the system," and in this case they did. Millions of workers in every major city marched for immigrant rights behind the red, white and blue.

Progressive Labor Party brought CHALLENGE and its internationalist, revolutionary ideas to these liberal politician-churchled events, just as we took on the disgusting racism of the Minutemen and their kind from the West Coast to the East Coast. In Farmingville, Long Island, we openly fought our battle against anti-immigrant racism in the courtroom after arrests at a street rally in defense of migrant workers harassed by racists.

Mass participation in immigrant rights rallies is one among several examples of the anger of workers fighting back against the injustices of the system this year and of what communists can learn and accomplish within those struggles. This year's May Day celebration took place inside massive anti-war marches in U.S. cities, bringing a revolutionary communist message to those protests. Some GI's in Iraq have refused to simply accept their roles as killers, petitioning Congress with a statement against the Iraq war. However, we must struggle sharply with these anti-war soldiers over the petition's call for patriotism -- allegiance to the bosses' government -- and apparent readiness to fight in other imperialist wars.

While the rallies, marches and petitions all put forth liberal, patriotic politics in general, PL'ers were still able to join with workers in struggle to build a base for internationalist, anti-imperialist politics and at the same time expose the pro-capitalist politics of the leadership of these movements. In a positive indication that this kind of struggle for communist ideas moves our class forward, several Metro transit workers in Washington D.C. joined our Party amid a comrade's re-election campaign for the union presidency.

We have seen inspiring evidence of how workers and students will fight back against capitalist oppression. In the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, sparked by a teachers' strike, workers and their allies rebelled and took over the city of Oaxaca for six months, and fought local and federal cops. But the reformism of the struggle's leadership misled it, calling for a "lesser-evil" governor to replace the hated repressive governor Ulises Ruíz. Many also have illusions that the social-democratic opposition party of the "legitimate President" of Mexico, López Obrador, is the answer to the pro-U.S. National Action Party which succeeded (and is now allied with) the PRI, rulers of Mexico for 60 years.. PLP brought ideas about turning the battle into a school for communism and forging a mass revolutionary party to eliminate all the bosses.

We also learned a great deal from the struggle of our class brothers and sisters in New Orleans this year. Comrades traveled from all over the U.S. to the hurricane-devastated city. We saw first hand the destruction caused by the historical and on-going racism of the capitalist system. We learned about serving our class by collectively helping in the gutting and rebuilding process. And we gained experience fighting for communist ideas in the middle of reform movements. PLP is continuing to send members and friends to work with these embattled workers.

The events of this year have shown us the deadly logic of a system driven by profit, the danger of the liberals' false promises and the potential of our class when roused by anger. As communists, we know that while anger is necessary, it is even more important that we bring communist ideas of collectivity and anti-racist internationalism to every struggle. Capitalism cannot be reformed, but must be destroyed by communist revolution that will build a new future where workers control their own labor for the benefit of their class. We call on all our readers to join our fight to change the world.

PL Teachers Lead Fight vs. Bosses' School 'Reform' for War

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 13 -- "What! Take away our right to vote on schedules? I'm walking out now. I'm not even waiting for a strike vote!" declared a teacher at an area-wide union meeting about the district's give-back demands. "And they want to eliminate shared decision-making if our test scores are too low!" said another. "This is part of what I would call growing fascism," a comrade explained later to colleagues, "consolidating control in the hands of the state as the capitalist class prepares for war."

After five years of No Child Left Behind, inner-city schools like ours are in dismal condition, with vast numbers of kids not learning basic skills because of years of racist mis-education. PL teachers are dedicated to the principled struggle for all kids to learn. But the ruling class is reforming education to meet their need for patriotic soldiers and workers with the bare minimum math and English skills.

While teachers still have the right to vote on schedules, we've been fighting against the bosses' school "reforms" and their attempt to impose a schedule forcing students to take four classes at a time over four eight-week "semesters." This means more classes in every school year but fewer hours in each class.

We told the union's city-wide House of Reps that this will restructure instruction to serve the ruling-class agenda, sacrificing the study of science and history, shifting resources so any student below grade level takes double blocks of English and math. Bill Gates' "Second-to-None" grants require this "4x4" schedule. Two schools' teachers here have fought this corporate take-over, rejecting this new schedule. It's been forced on other schools.

Teachers at our school have battled 4x4, but the principal pushes it, winning many teachers to feel this is the only way to teach reading and math. But if the bosses mainly wanted to improve basic skills, they would fund smaller classes. Teachers have fought for decades to get 15-student maximum class size for remedial students. The district, however, increased average class size to 38.5 students.

A social studies teacher remarked, "What all these unsavory forces want is to eliminate a broad-based, well-rounded education. They want basic skills, and nothing more.... Encouraging students to think about history...will be out the window." Even when the ruling class allows the teaching of more social studies and science, their curricula pushes their ideology, not critical thinking.

In the union, we explained that focusing on remedial reading and math while shortchanging science and history was part of the rulers' plans for war. We argued for standing firm on teachers having schedule choice in local schools. Teachers nodded as we showed that the same ruling class which has been fast-tracking kids from schools to prisons now wants to give them just enough skills to function in the military or war production. An elementary school teacher said, "This is what scripted instruction has done to elementary. They don't care if kids know history or can analyze problems scientifically -- they just want them to read well enough to follow instructions and know enough math to operate the machines."

The bosses' agenda means reorganizing society for the long-range fight to maintain U.S. supremacy over their capitalist rivals. PLP teachers' victories come when we show our colleagues that inter-imperialist rivalry is driving these changes. Without this perspective, workers can believe that the bosses really want to improve education. Our sharper political discussions lay the basis for more CHALLENGE sales and recruitment.

Even more important is the political preparation of our students. The bosses need young industrial workers and soldiers for their war machine. The working class needs young comrades in those exact strategic locations to organize to take state power. As we expose the bosses' use of school reform to prepare for wider imperialist war, we're preparing our young comrades to play the historic role of turning imperialist war into a revolutionary struggle for a communist society.

Welcome CHALLENGE at Rally Opposing Anti-Immigrant Raids

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 19 -- Over 30 spirited demonstrators organized by the new D.C. Committee for Immigrants' Rights picketed Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office here. On December 12, ICE agents raided Swift Company sites in six states and arrested 1,286 workers, claiming they "stole people's identities." Workers were arrested and detained; many face deportation. These raids resemble those in the 1930's Nazi Germany when the fascists criminalized entire groups, rounding them up at their homes and jobs and blaming them for Germany's problems.

Demonstrators chanted, "Stop Racist Deportations, Working People Have No Nation!" and, "Deportaciones, No! Amnistia, Si!" Workers gave speeches in English and Spanish.

Despite some hesitation, many ICE workers took fliers and agreed with the need for workers from all countries to unite for common goals. Latino construction workers from a site across the street, inspired by the rally, joined the picket line, welcomed CHALLENGE and the Committee's fliers and spoke out.

We should all be in the streets demanding an end to these raids and the profit-driven system that benefits from exploiting immigrant workers.

Winning Young Workers to Turn Bosses' Recruiting Upside Down

"Only twelve more hours to go Tony."
"Yeah I know, tomorrow and Friday too." Tony replies.
"I wonder what the hours are like for the workers in the factories in China," Joe asks.
Walter interrupts, "Hey you guys know all that work that is going to China is coming back don't you?"
"Oh yeah, how come?" asks Joe.
"Because, man, the U.S. isn't stupid," Walter answers. "Believe me, we're the middle class and they can't survive without the middle class."

Of course that's what the ruling class would like us to believe. However, it's the manufacturing industries that are vital for a capitalist nation bent on war. The old model of high concentrations of workers in a few giant factories is declining. The new trend for war production here is smaller sub-contracted shops. So when the liberal press talks about Boeing's plant closings, those jobs aren't disappearing; they're simply being moved to a cheaper production site. In fact "7 out of 10 outsourced production jobs stay in the U.S." (L.A. Times) and 96% of military production remains in the U.S. Right now the ruling class can't expand production fast enough because these sub-contracted shops can't keep up. The bosses' increasing dependence on these shops makes them key areas in which PLP can plant the seed of revolution. These workers have the most power to affect the ruling class's profits, since they can halt the production that is the source of capitalist wealth and imperialist wars.

A pamphlet -- "Surge" -- published by the International Association of Machinists, a major war industry union, presents the U.S. rulers' assessment of their "War Production Capacity and Military Power." One of its main points is recruitment of young workers and students to "loyally serve their country" by working in these factories.

A front-page article entitled, "Factory Shift: Manufacturers struggle to fill highly paid jobs," describes how a university student rejects a scholarship and instead attends a community college's "two- year technical training program" sponsored by the company to which he applied. The big carrot? The article says he will earn $58,000 annually upon completing his training, "more than his college-educated brother..." In reality, most production workers usually make around $9 to $10 per hour -- $20,000 per year -- and that's with some schooling. This article is a clear recruiting call from U.S. bosses for high school and college students to re-think their future and join the industrial workforce.

The ruling class has also begun its recruitment campaign for immigrants to join the military and/or work in factories. Its call for "immigration reform" actually signals increased exploitation and use as cannon fodder.

A PL club of young industrial workers has taken an aggressive approach to winning young workers to use this rulers' campaign as a vehicle to win workers and youth to the Party's ideas, including a Weekend Workshop on getting these types of jobs. With continued effort and leadership, these young workers can learn how to turn the factory reform struggles into schools for communism. Join us!

Cop's Vietnam Torture Tactics Used on Chicago's Black Men

CHICAGO, IL, Dec. 16 -- As the war in Iraq spins more violently out of control, the racist police here at home are on a killing spree. Two weeks after the Chicago police killed 22-year-old Michael Smith, the NYPD executed 23-year-old Sean Bell in a barrage of 50 shots. Both men were unarmed, but capitalism treats the unprovoked murder of young black men as "collateral damage" in the war against the poor and black section of our class. Capitalism in crisis has to resort to more fascistic brutality to keep our class in line. So the "first black President," Bill Clinton put 100,000 more cops on the streets while the prison population doubled, 70% of whom are black and Latino.

The police murder of Michael Smith comes just months after four Chicago cops were indicted on charges of home invasion, drug dealing, kidnapping and a long list of other charges. They were part of an elite police unit, similar to those involved in the killings of Smith and Bell, who shake down drug dealers for money, tip them off when a bust is coming and take out rival dealers. These racist terrorists are being charged for their attacks on black working-class youth only because their out-of-control corruption doesn't serve the ruling-class's police-state agenda. Growing fascism must discipline all ranks of society, including sections of the ruling class and their police death squads who don't toe the line.

This is nothing new. From the 1970's to the 1990's, Jon Burge terrorized the black South Side community. Electrical shocks to the genitals with home-made torture devices, being shocked with cattle prods, burnings, mock executions, pistol whippings and beatings with flashlights were just some of the ways that Burge and his cops tortured black men in police custody. Long before Abu Grahib, Burge learned his torture tactics while serving U.S. imperialism in Vietnam, torturing information out of Vietnamese workers and peasants. Burge and his Gestapo tortured "confessions" out of over 100 black men and a 13-year-old boy, also a victim of electric shock to his genitals, during this twenty-year terror spree.

Jon Burge will not be prosecuted for his crimes. He continues to live comfortably on his police pension. Former state's attorney and current mayor Richard Daley prosecuted many of the torture victims, to build his reputation and lay claim to City Hall. Burge's racist outrages were "justified" because he did his job to control and terrorize the working class.

As fascism increases in the U.S. and the inter-imperialist rivalry shifts into high gear, we will see more Jon Burges in Chicago, more Ramparts in L.A., and more 50-shot killings in NYC. But if we do our job, the new Nazis will end up like the old ones. However, this time we must make sure they never come back.

Students Tie War in Iraq to War on New Orleans Workers

Recently, a group of students on a Southern California college campus held a forum commemorating Katrina's first anniversary. Both students and faculty attended this student-led event. Some speakers were students who helped with the reconstruction for working-class families in New Orleans last summer.

The students offered a sharp class analysis of the situation in New Orleans. They contrasted the government's utter neglect of the working class's attempt to recover their houses with the immediate reconstruction and improvement of the profit-producing hotel and tourist industries, among others. The students stressed that one reason why the workers in New Orleans (and just about any city) are unable to meet their basic needs is because the ruling class must invest in controlling the vast Middle-Eastern oil reserves through imperialist wars in competition with their rivals.

The students exposed the capitalist drive for profits in Baghdad and in New Orleans. They also condemned the government for sending Blackwater mercenaries and the National Guard into New Orleans to terrorize working-class youth, beating back righteous class anger.

An impressive presentation was a "virtual levee tour," a slide show taking the audience through the city's two different levee systems. The audience was horrified to see the working class being "protected" by short and weak brick walls while the rich neighborhoods are surrounded by levees larger than football fields consisting of steep slopes and remote-controlled flood gates. Students emphasized that the levees are only a painful and shocking symbol of the gross racist inequalities existing between the workers who produce wealth and the bosses who for centuries have exploited the labor of our class to fill their own pockets.

A black student from Louisiana participated actively in the discussion, expressing his respect for the group for holding such a sharp event. He said that everything presented was accurate, and reiterated that although most people affected by Katrina are black, there are white, brown and Asian workers who are still suffering. "You're right," he said. "This is an attack on the working class by the government." He took leaflets to share with his friends in both California and Louisiana.

The working class is hungry for a class analysis. However, if such events do not make communist politics primary -- both in the process and ultimately -- it's impossible to sustain a winning long-term plan for our class. With expansion of CHALLENGE networks and a commitment to building relationships based on communist politics, it is possible to win workers to the long-term fight to destroy capitalism once and for all and create a communist society that fulfills workers' needs.

Youth Spread Internationalist, Anti-Racist Pledge Among Marines

"The war is wrong. That's why I got out. I believed the recruiter that I would be a cook--I ended up as a combat escort in a Humvee. Nobody should be over there," a black ex-marine told visiting students.

The response to our revolutionary ideas was better than a year-and-a-half ago. We students went to a town near a Marine base to talk to over 50 young marines about the imperialist war. We brought a pledge that called on soldiers to act in anti-racist, international solidarity against the imperialist war in Iraq. Although nervous at first, we quickly got into serious conversations.

There were two groups of marines. Those who had been in longer and had experienced Iraq were more open to conversation and agreement. The newer recruits agreed less, still believing the patriotic indoctrination they undergo. However, they listened to us with interest.

One marine said, "Do I feel like being over there is worth it? No!? [The Iraqis] have been living this way for a long time. [We] don't have the authority to go over there and tell them their way of life is wrong."

Another said, "We are there to protect the freedom of people." We responded, "There are many regions from Africa to Asia lacking freedom. A lot of that misery is caused by U.S. rulers. The only reason the U.S. has troops in Iraq is to control its oil." We compared this war to Vietnam, adding that politicians are talking about needing a draft to win this seemingly endless war for oil profits. "The draft will never happen," answered the young marine, "because they don't want people that don't want to fight."

A Latino marine, walking hand-in-hand with his five-year-old son, stopped to talk: "I have been in the Marines for many years, but I'm not going to reenlist because I have been treated in a racist way by my superiors."

Another showed us his bandage-covered arm, saying, "I was injured by a bomb in Iraq. I'm ambivalent: I think we should be there, but I also think we shouldn't because of all the deaths and everything that has happened."

Not everybody thinks the same. One marine said, "If you want to know what it's like, you should go over there. The Iraqis killed my friends. They should all die." He was in the minority, but we saw how the bosses use racism to misdirect soldiers' anger. When your friends are dying, you're going to be angry either at the Iraqis or at the U.S. bosses who put you in harm's way for their bloody oil profits. Class-conscious soldiers, influenced by PLP, can play a crucial role in exposing the dangers of patriotism, the lie that U.S. Marines have more in common with U.S. bosses and their politicians than with Iraqi soldiers and workers. We told everyone that the oil companies' profits were not worth a drop of their blood, their lives or the lives of Iraqi workers.

The students on this trip saw that they can talk to young soldiers and Marines. One student noted about a Marine, "He just graduated from high school; he's only 19 years old." After overcoming shyness and some feelings of intimidation, the students had many conversations with marines. We included many points, always trying to approach the idea that the soldiers, if organized, have the power to help lead a movement to end imperialist war with revolution for workers' power.

Every one (except the guy who wanted to kill `em all) took the pledge and promised to think about it. The students plan to continue these visits, bringing communist ideas and building relationships with individual marines, in order to have a real impact on the long-term fight for communist revolution.

U.S. Oily Fingers Behind War in Somalia

Thousands of Ethiopian troops using MIGs(fighter planes), tanks, artillery and helicopters invaded Somalia, routing the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) from Mogadishu, the capital city. Thousands have died in the fighting. One of the Ethiopian troops' first acts was to secure the compound of the former U.S. embassy -- the biggest in Sub-Saharan Africa before 1993 when the U.S. was forced to leave Somalia. They were preparing the ground for the U.S. return here. The U.S.-backed Ethiopian invaders have now returned to power the weak warlord-supported interim government which had only controlled the city of Baidoa after the UIC routed it last June10.

The UIC is aided by Eritrea, which from 1998-2000 waged a bitter war with Ethiopia over a still-disputed border. Thousands of Eritrean troops are in Somalia helping the UIC. Saudi Arabia (a "staunch" U.S. ally financing the Sunni insurgency in Iraq), Sudan and Yemen are helping the UIC, along with Jihadists from across the Middle East who see the struggle here as part of their "holy war" against the U.S. and its allies (in this case, Ethiopia).

The UIC is also allied with Ethiopian insurgents of the Ogaden National Liberation Front -- from the ethnically Somali Ogaden region -- and the Oromo Liberation Front, which represents Ethiopia's largest ethnic group and is fighting for independence. As CHALLENGE (11/29) reported: "The Ogaden region bordering Somalia sits on an unexploited gas field. The Malaysian oil giant Petronas has bought three concession blocks there. Ethiopa's rulers fear a resurgent Somalia will seek to annex Ogaden. The area's likely coming war is, in part, gas-powered."

But this is much more than a holy war or a proxy war among local ruling classes; it's mainly part of the inter-imperialist dogfight shaping world events. In the past this area has been ruled by France, Britain and Italy. When U.S. rulers tried to take control in 1993, under the guise of sending "humanitarian" aid to hungry Somalians, they were routed, following the famous "Blackhawks down" incident when two U.S. copters were shot down during a fierce battle in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. Their captors paraded the chopper's 18 U.S. Army Rangers through the city's streets.

The strong imperialist interest in Somalia involves its coastline, which lies along the maritime routes taken by oil tankers crossing the Horn of Africa; 15% of the world's maritime traffic passes along that coastline. NATO had sent boats in the recent past to protect oil tankers from pirates based in Somalia.

As this series on Africa has stated, all this continent's conflicts are shaped by inter-imperialist rivalry. China is now becoming a major player there, investing heavily in all areas, particularly in the key energy industries. The U.S. is exploiting human rights violations in Darfur to counter China's big investments in Sudan's lucrative oil fields. Ethiopia's Prime minister Meles Zenawi also has his sights set on attacking Sudan. When Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia, it left the country landlocked. Eritrea now has a strategic port on the Red Sea. That port's closing would affect Libya, Egypt, Germany and France, Eritrea's leading commercial traders.

The current battles in Somalia might become a protracted war as the UIC and Jihadists turn to guerrilla warfare. Again, the U.S. and its allies -- in this case, Ethiopia's rulers -- might descend into a quagmire á la Iraq.

Even thought the Islamists are in retreat, contradictions in the region are now worsening. The Ethiopian army wants to leave Somalia as soon as possible to avoid a guerrilla-type quagmire, but Ali Mohamed Ghedi, the Prime Minister of the weak interim Somalia government, "says that heavily-armed soldiers from Ethiopia would be needed for months." (BBC World News, 1/2/07)

The fact remains it's Ethiopian soldiers and the youth of Somalia who are dying. (The UIC shut Mogadishu's schools to recruit young fighters.) Many Ethiopian workers and youth hate their rulers, who have imprisoned and killed anti-government protestors. The potential exists to turn the war into a massive revolutionary struggle to oust imperialism and the local bosses, but only if there is communist leadership to carry that out.

U.S. Imperialists Follow Nazi Footsteps...Again

CHALLENGE has reported how U.S. rulers have used Nazi personal and organizational models to staff and organize their government after World War II. Now faced with preparing for a "long war," U.S. rulers are again looking to Nazis for lessons. In the Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ), a magazine published by the Department of Defense for the Joint Chiefs, U.S. rulers examined the battle for Stalingrad to find its enduring lessons. However, they failed to study the political will and military organization of the Red Army. Instead they turned their attention to the Nazis and how they would have been victorious if only they followed U.S. rulers' strategies.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hanley argues, "The Germans could have succeeded at Stalingrad if they had some of our ideas of joint operations and, of equal importance, our high standards in regard to professional integrity." In particular, the article notes the collection of battle-tested divisions of the Nazi army and asks, "Where did this collection go wrong? How could talented leaders blunder on such a massive scale?" Lt. Col. Hanley makes it clear that U.S. rulers need to heed the lessons of the Nazis' defeat so as to ensure the U.S. will not make the same mistakes. "We study the battle for Stalingrad from the German point of view so that 50 years hence, students of military campaigns will not be asking similar questions about U.S. performance in whatever major clash of arms awaits us."

In the same issue of JFQ, Army Lieutenant Colonel Stephen R. Dazell helps guide U.S. rulers' preparations for future combat operations. The colonel emphasizes that, as in Iraq, future U.S. conflicts will likely be in cities, especially shantytowns and urban slums in developing countries, where the military will have to learn how to fight "three-block wars" similar to the battle of Stalingrad. The author explains, "It will no longer be possible to think of cities as obstacles to be by-passed or key terrain to be seized in a single move. In the course of a conflict, a series of three-block wars will extend incrementally over the region, with low-level conflict flaring up repeatedly in areas behind the `front line' on our tactical maps."

The military will have to handle civilian and reconstruction operations. The chain of command will have to rely more on working-class troops to think strategically in combat while making tactical decisions. While still wielding a powerful grip on U.S. troops' minds, they will never learn lessons to defeat communist movements. The bosses are seeking Nazi-like commitment from vast numbers of troops. The longer the Iraq fiasco continues, the more problematic such commitment becomes.

The ruling class has been forced to turn to "new liberal" arguments to shore up soldiers' patriotism, even couching it in anti-Iraq war rhetoric, masking their fascist intentions. Exposing their plans and winning soldiers to fight for their class interests is crucial, now more than ever. As rulers depend more on the working class, PLP's ability to influence events on the battleground can have a greater impact in building a red army for a class war. What we do counts.

'Social Programs' Aim to Win Workers' to Capitalism á la Chávez

As pointed out in CHALLENGE (1/3), the inter-imperialist struggle over South America is sharpening. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is a creature of this rivalry. He has tremendous popularity among the world's oppressed masses because he spits in the eyes of U.S. bosses.

Many view his Bolivarian revolution as an answer to the hell imposed by free-market capitalism, pushed mainly by the U.S. and its junior partners. They believe the alternative is the "new ideology" of Chavez and the local anti-U.S. rulers. Phony leftists, who never fought for communism, have embraced this ideology and wind up allying with anti-neoliberalism politicians like Chavez, Brazil's Lula, Mexico's Obrador and their imperialist backers. This strategy is lethal for the working class. For workers to smash all our enemies -- local bosses, all the imperialists and their pseudo-left agents -- communist politics must become primary.

Chavez also understands that politics is essential to motivate Venezuelan workers because opposing the U.S. and allying with other imperialists eventually means war. He knows that his "window of opportunity" is based on the U.S. disaster in Iraq/Afghanistan and on the fact that, as Elliot Engel, the high-ranking Democrat on the subcommittee of Western Hemisphere affairs, says "...it is counterproductive to try to punish countries with populist leaders, especially with China and other countries making inroads in the region." ("Latin American Advisor," 12/04/06).

But these conditions won't last forever, so Chavez is arming. Also, Brazilian bosses want MERCOSUR members (the South American common market) to form an "anti-imperialist" shield -- a NATO-like group -- in 2007 to defend the region's natural resources and prevent foreign military intervention.

CHAVEZ'S SHOPS FOR LOYALTY FOR WAR

Using part of Venezuela's oil profits, Chavez has created social programs in health care and education and Mision Mercal provides food at a discount of 20% to 70% to nearly half the population. Primary-care clinics and 30,000 Cuban doctors attend to the poor. Some also have access to all levels of education. Venezuela's poverty rates have declined from 49% to 37% under Chavez. This still leaves over ten million poor, while many bosses and hacks in his movement have become fabulously rich -- the stock market gained 129% in 2006, one of the world's highest.

Nevertheless, with these crumbs and a revolutionary-sounding program for construction of "socialism in the 21st century," Chavez hopes to win the loyalty of the Venezuelan workers, similar to Castro in Cuba. But Chavez also wants to assure the bosses and imperialists who support him that this is just rhetoric to fool the masses.

Shortly after his re-election he declared, "There is no space in Venezuela for any other project that is not the Bolivarian Revolution," and, "We don't want the dictatorship of the proletariat that Marx spoke of." During his last visit to Russia he stated, "We need to bring the invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of the state together in an economic system where there is as much of the market as possible and as much of the state as necessary."

His hero is Simon Bolivar -- a rich Venezuelan slave-owner who, in the early 19th century, fought Spain on behalf of South American bosses' independence and dreamt of Latin America's unity. On this ideological basis, plus phony anti-racism, Chavez is building a 300,000-soldier army and a two-million citizen militia.

No capitalists or imperialists will ever serve workers' needs. Neither will patriotism/nationalism in any form. Mountains of workers' corpses have been piled high under these banners. Our class must reject patriotism, nationalism and any type of socialism.

Communism must be our goal. Masses of Venezuelan workers desiring and even fighting for change will not in and of itself make such a revolution. Communists who see the need to build such a red-led party must introduce these ideas as their primary duty to their class. Venezuelan workers need to join and build the PLP!

LETTERS

Collectivity, Not Capitalism, Worked in Seattle Storm

After midnight December 15th a windstorm in Seattle knocked down an estimated 1,000 trees and took out power for nearly half the 3.5 million residents. At least 13 died mostly from carbon monoxide poisoning as they tried to keep warm with propane or generators during the twenty-degree nights. A 28-year-old and a family of four with two small children were among the casualties, while over a hundred were treated in emergency rooms for inhalation of toxic fumes. What a condemnation of capitalism's anti-collective nature! There was no need for anybody to die like this in a crowded city.

When a falling tree brought down our electric lines, we were forced to spend 8 nights at friends and comrades. We became unexpected guests at extended family birthdays and other social occasions, where everybody talked about the storm.

It wasn't long before people began to complain and their anger grew when they thought about Katrina or Iraq. The utility companies were arguing over who was going to pay for repair work while thousands remained without power or phones. "Imagine going through this for years in Iraq while bombs were dropping," said a bakery worker.

Some reminisced about the tighter neighborhoods of their youth. Others pointed to workers who spontaneously helped out. We saw some of this collective potential in our neighborhood. Our neighbors drove us around and lent us cars (ours were crushed by the tree). They warmed us and ran extension cords from their houses so we could dry our flooded basement since their power was restored before ours. We met even more of our neighbors during the first days as it was warmer in the street -- where small multi-racial groups congregated -- than in our individual homes.

A young comrade got more to the heart of things when he criticized the ideology of the "me generation." It's really a question of communist political leadership.

When the technological infrastructure collapsed, what was true all along became crystal clear. The organization and politics of the working class is key. This holds true be it the imperialist army in Iraq or Seattle's freezing citizens.

The spontaneous outpouring of help from workers, past and present, shows the potential for communist motivation, but not the actual fact. We need a "political general staff" for our class to reach its potential. We need a Party to lead a communist revolution.

Once the question was presented in this way, the electrical maintenance workers at my job designed life-saving, reasonably-priced solutions. "Why not have neighborhood centers that are wired underground with well-ventilated backup generators," they proposed. "Under communism, the Party would organize neighborhood and worksite political committees that could check on everybody and get them to these shelters if necessary," I added. The storm showed once again that fighting for communism is a life and death question.

Shivering in Seattle

EU Bosses Extend Beyond Western Europe

The CHALLENGE article (1/3/07), "Iraq Study Group Shows ..." says, "These nations are part of growing anti-U.S. energy and arms alliances, including China, Russia and French-led Western Europe."

Europe hasn't been split into East and West since around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 -- 17 years ago.

With the European Union already including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and planning to gobble up Romania, the reference to "Western Europe" is not just an anachronism but underestimates the threat European bosses represent for U.S. bosses.

A reader in Europe

Sharpen Political Struggle in GI Appeal Movement

A letter -- Link GI Petition Campaign To Red Ideas -- in the last issue of CHALLENGE characterizes Cortright's solutions as "reformist" and asserts that, while the line in the Campaign to Appeal for Redress is "weak," we must work in this movement. This characterization of the appeal for redress and of Cortright's politics significantly understates the danger of both.

In this period of expanding war leading to World War III, any appeal to soldiers based on patriotism and reliance on the U.S. government is a serious danger to the working class. Such patriotism sets soldiers and the working class up for more wars, and blinds both to its potential as one international working class able to fight for their own interests. The Appeal is based on nationalism, with not a word of anti-racism or internationalism.

The Ford and Rockefeller foundations have funded Cortright because they fear an anti-imperialist, anti-racist movement in the military, especially at this time when the Iraq invasion has been labeled a failure. He is a paid analyst for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Communicators' Task Force on U.S. Global Leadership. He cannot be dismissed as a run-of-the-mill reformist.

Communists should work in the movements the bosses are using to win our class to the imperialists' side. But we must be sharply critical of the danger of patriotism in these movements. Reformist movements built and publicized by the bosses historically are meant to tie the working class to the imperialists. Struggle is primary over unity. The most important challenge we face is sharpening the struggle against the enemy ideas in the mass movement. We should not critically support their leaders or line.

Also, it would be wrong to conclude that the main, or only, way to work with GI's or to build an alliance between GI's, students and workers, is by using Cortright's appeal for redress or tailing his politics. Every avenue has to be aggressively pursued to build an anti-racist, anti-imperialist alliance between workers, students and soldiers that can lead to turning the bosses' wars into a war for workers' power. There are many ways to do this.

Those working in Cortright's movement have the job of winning their friends away from the dangerous politics of the imperialists and the brass, some of whom -- for example, Ohio Democrat Congressman Kucinich -- support this petition. During the last presidential campaign, this "anti-war" politician urged his supporters to back Democrat John Kerry, who argued for national service and patriotism in the interests of the U.S. imperialists.

Our tactics in the reform movement do matter. However, they must be consistent with, not contradictory to our strategy to build the fight for internationalism and communism. Underestimating the dangers of nationalist reformists undermines the fight for communism and gives a longer life to the deadly imperialism we seek to destroy.

A comrade

Israeli Kibbutz: Socialism or Fascism?

Much has been made for almost 100 years of the alleged socialist experiment in Israel -- the Kibbutz. This has been an idealist experiment, without private property on a given farm and where the children are raised collectively by Kibbutz members, not just by their own individual parents. Sounds good? In some ways, it could be. However, this system has two major flaws.

(1) However economically progressive it appears, those Kibbutzin that have had collective farmland could only sell their products in the capitalist system, characterizing Israel's economy, and, of course, Israel is part of world capitalism.

(2) The Kibbutz movement has always been a major contributor to the Israeli Army (IDF). Of course, Jews worldwide have viewed the IDF as bastion of defense for themselves, especially in Israel as well as the world over.

"Never Again!" certainly has been the voice of reassurance for Jews that the Holocaust will never happen again. But in reality, Israel is so closely allied with U.S. economic and political interests, that it has become a violent military state vis-à-vis its neighbors, especially toward the Palestinians. The story of David (a Jew, according to the Bible) and Goliath (a Palestinian), has been reversed, with David now the pitiless aggressor, and Goliath, the intended victim. Gaza, one of the Palestinian territories, has become a giant prison, and the West Bank constantly suffers one Israeli military incursion after another.

There's nothing rational about Israel's fear for its own survival. The children of the Kibbutz, who leave home to first join the Army and then afterwards pursue their careers, have unwittingly been manipulated by historical events into oppressing all working people in the Western part of the Middle East.

Red Ex-Kibbutz member

Airport Workers Fight Anti-Muslim Racism

On November 21, six Muslim clerics were profiled as possible terrorists and thrown off a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. They were handcuffed and interrogated for five hours by Homeland Security, the FBI, the Secret Service and other police agencies, all for the "crime" of speaking Arabic and looking like they were from the Middle East!

This incident sparked outrage among anti-racists. At the airport where we work, union members wrote, distributed and supported a union resolution condemning US Airways' racism, and sent them a copy.

At the same time, over the Thanksgiving weekend, Northwest Airlines ramp workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul participated in job actions against the threatened outsourcing of their jobs. Daily work stoppages lasted for a few hours with workers rallying on the tarmac. Again, workers at our airport endorsed a resolution supporting the Northwest workers, the immigrant Modelux workers at DeGaulle International Airport in Paris, and the ongoing battle in Oaxaca, Mexico. The resolution was distributed to the workers and copies are being sent to the Northwest and Modelux workers. A PLP leaflet linking all these struggles to the attacks against African immigrant workers at our airport was circulated by CHALLENGE readers and distributors. It said that from Paris to Oaxaca to Minneapolis-St. Paul, the international working class needs communist revolution.

Airport Red

Use the Internet to Spread PLP's Ideas

CHALLENGE seems to be embracing the internet. In addition to citing the PLP website (www.plp.org) in the masthead, more articles refer readers to other websites. In the November 29 issue, the article on Metro transit from D.C. ends with a reference to the Local 689 website. The letter on medical fascism under the Nazis cites an online version of a museum exhibition. In the November 15 issue the editorial page refers readers to PLP's analysis of the 1956 anti-communist Hungarian revolt.

The editors are to be commended for linking the print version of CHALLENGE with the internet, which is increasingly used by many younger workers, students, professionals and soldiers worldwide to get all or most of their news these days. In addition, many periodicals and professional journals now have a section that summarizes online articles that might be of interest to readers.

CHALLENGE should consider a regular section or box that contains internet references to websites, blogs, You-Tube videos and other online material that can help communicate the Party's ideas and spread the truth about capitalism and workers' struggles around the world. Also, we should consider posting articles as they come in, especially around timely events like strikes, upheavals, AIDS Day, etc., rather than waiting until they appear in the print version.

A Reader

GI `Appeal' Fails to Indict Imperialists

The Washington D.C. Peace Center -- a Quaker-led pacifist anti-war and anti-racist organization -- decided to honor the GI's who started the Campaign to Appeal for Redress from the Iraq War. A co-worker of mine who is heavily involved in the Veterans for Peace Organization suggested the name of one of the Appeal's organizers (also a friend of mine) to attend to get an award. But he couldn't go, so he sent a Marine buddy, Marcus, instead. I organized some co-workers to attend to show him support.

I also prepared a flyer explaining the Appeal, to encourage discussion and to remind workers and GI's that the U.S. government is the enemy of both of them and the Iraqi people, while outlining things people attending the event could do to help. Marcus knew no one there other than me and didn't know what to expect. He was very touched that we organized the flyer and the support.

I was disappointed in the affair itself. The Peace Center gave awards to about 24 groups and individuals. Few could speak and they were quickly shuffled on and off the stage. In fact, a group of awardees (including Marcus) were not even given their certificates on stage, being told, "OK, now get off the stage, we're running behind schedule."

I was pleased that a group of my co-workers felt it important enough to give up their Saturday night to attend. One read the Appeal and was disappointed to see how reformist it was. (The Appeal stated that its signatories were "patriotic Americans" who were proud to serve their country, and, while calling for the troops to be brought home, offered no insight into the cause of the war, such as U.S. imperialism, control over the oil, etc.).

I agreed that sharpening the political struggle among these anti-war GI's was needed, along the lines suggested in the flyer. Marcus enjoyed the conversation with my co-workers; all received CHALLENGE.

Our next step is to get a resolution passed at the next union meeting calling for participation in the Jan. 27th Anti-War March in Washington, D.C. and assembling a contingent of my local to attend.

D.C. Red

Paraguay: Electing Reformist Bishop No Solution for Workers

Paraguay is the center of many struggles and of a growing U.S. military presence to counter its rivals in South America. Some of us are struggling to win people to the idea of one international working class, fighting for the needs of our class under one Progressive Labor Party. We distribute some CHALLENGES, have a PLP study group and engage in some struggles.

Paraguay is South America's second poorest country and one of the most corrupt in the world. But there is a lot of fight-back against the bosses. Recently nurses and doctors struck; the National Farmers Front (Frente Campesino Nacional) frequently occupy land and block major highways in demanding more land; and retired teachers are fighting for their well-deserved retirement pay.

Last November, the owners of supermarket Ycua Bolanos were tried for the August 2004 deaths of 400 people. These workers were burned to death when the owners locked supermarket doors during a fire. Their only defense? Preventing looting!

These vicious capitalists received sentences of only five years, about 4_ days for each murder. Workers rebelled against this injustice and for an entire day clashed with police, liberating the entire inventory of two other supermarkets owned by the murderers. The battle was so intense that police were left throwing rocks at the protestors.

Electoral struggles are intensifying contradictions within the reform movement. Voter fraud was widespread in recent elections for mayors and city councils, enabling the right-wing Colorado Party to triumph nation-wide. This party has ruled Paraguay for 70 years, led by dictator Alfredo Stroessner from 1954-1989, who gave asylum to Nazi war criminals, like Joseph "The Angel of Death" Mengele, after the Red Army crushed the Nazis. Stroessner was supported by the U.S. bosses because he was a staunch anti-communist.

Continuing this fascist tradition, Paraguay has begun military exercises with U.S. help to counter Venezuela's agreement to support Bolivia militarily on its border with Paraguay, should Bolivia need assistance. U.S. troops are stationed in the Chaco Desert, site of the Mariscal Estigarribia Airport.

Those opposed to the current rulers have mounted an "anything-but-Colorado" campaign against current President Nicanor Duarte Frutos for the 2008 presidential election. The main opposition candidate is former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, who has launched a social-democratic movement (Tekojoja in Guaraní, the language spoken by most people, along with Spanish ). Workers are already organizing protests and fight-backs against Frutos and the Colorado Party.

Is this reformist movement the answer to the Colorado fascists? Our revolutionary communist politics have stimulated debate. Some progressive youth and some workers have bought CHALLENGE. A PLP Study-Action Group has begun, focusing on the need to build a mass communist movement.

However, Bolivia's Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) has recently expanded to Paraguay (PMAS), and claims that Bolivian-Venezuelan socialism, not communist revolution, is the solution. Several PMAS members have become frustrated with this socialist reform strategy and like PLP's revolutionary communist message.

Paraguay has a rich history of struggle under the leadership of the old communist movement in the 1960's under Oscar Creydt and the famous guerilla leader Agapito Valiente, as well as the armed struggle of the M14 Movement and FULN. Marxist ideas are not new to Paraguayans. We hope to add a new chapter by putting the fundamental principle of Marxism -- revolution for communism -- into every struggle we enter. The working class in Paraguay is ready for change.

Red Guarani

REDEYE REDEYE

`New' Iraq Plan: Stay in and grab oil

The Iraq Study Group report....was hardly a prescription for abandoning the U.S. military project in Iraq.... James Baker was at pains to repeatedly point out....that the report "makes clear we're going to have a really robust American troop presence in Iraq and in the region for a long, long time...."

And...it said: "The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise."

In short, the Baker-Hamilton report was a fall-back position for U.S. military intervention -- and for using American firepower on behalf of U.S.-based oil companies ... (Norman Solomon, Creators Syndicate, 12/18)

Killer cops given every chance to fix a story

In a typical shooting incident where the police know who was involved but not how the shooting happened, investigators are trained to immediately separate and question suspects and participants, preventing those involved from getting together and devising a shared story....

In the 1997 Abner Louima case, preferential treatment bought time for the few bad officers to meet in the basement of the precinct and concoct a story.... In 1999, immediately after Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times, instead of isolating the four officers, their union delegates accompanied them -- as a group -- to the hospital so they could be treated for ringing in their ears. They spent the next several hours together.

Eventually a narrative emerged....

Of course, we don't know yet what narrative will be offered by the officers who fired their guns in the Bell case. But we do know that before they utter a single word on the record, they will have had the opportunity to...review every finding of the crime scene unit.... (NYT, 12/24)

The Real Global Threat is Profit System

To the Editor:

....Faced with the prospect of environmental catastrophe,...

There is no point in throwing money at the symptoms while the disease goes unchecked.... And the problem, the disease...is...an economic system whose one yardstick is profit. (GW, 12/21)

Gov't wants a whiter, richer New Orleans

Sixteen months have passed since the apocalyptic flood that followed Hurricane Katrina. More than 13,000 residents who were displaced by the storm are still living in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Another 100,000 to 200,000 evacuees -- most of whom want to return home -- are scattered throughout the United States.

The undeniable neglect of this population fuels the suspicion among the poor and the black, who constitute a majority of the evacuees, that the city is being handed over to the well-to-do and the white....

The federal government has not come close to meeting the challenge of this overwhelming humanitarian crisis. (NYT, 1/1/07)

(No headline needed)

A top strategist at the Pentagon says the war on terror could take 100 years.Today, President Bush warned against setting these time-tables. (Jay Leno)

Many Chinese remain proud of revolutionary surges

During the Cultural Revolution, many, many citizens rushed to join in voluntarily. Indeed, many Chinese today can still recall the initial sense of euphoria, liberation, and exhilaration that accompanied their participation in the movement....

It is, in the sense, their event -- not something they simply suffered through, but rather something they own....

As outsiders,...it becomes very easy for us at once to view contemporary China as a repudiation of the past and to wait expectantly for the citizenry to cast off the government that victimized them in the past and still lionize Mao Zedong in the present. Yet for Chinese citizens, just as the Cultural Revolution is their own, so, too, is Mao Zedong and the Chinese Revolution more broadly. Their revolution's track record is undoubtedly ambivalent, encompassing the full gamut from exhilarating liberation to grotesque calamity, but -- still in the process of unfolding.... (Harvard Magazine, January)

DESERTER'S BOOK EXPOSES BRUTAL RACIST U.S. WARMAKERS BUT MISLEADS ANTI-WAR SOLDIERS

U.S. Army private Joshua Key, who fled to Canada rather than return to Iraq, has written a moving and politically instructive account of his experiences. Key's memoir, "The Deserter's Tale" (as told to Canadian journalist Lawrence Hill), shows a poor, white, working-class young man from Oklahoma practicing anti-racism and internationalism while defying the brass in the midst of war.

Unfortunately, however, Key's admirable conscience and courage wind up down the drain. Blaming the war on Bush & Co. and not on the profit system, he mistakenly thinks he can hide out in Ontario until things blow over. History shows that individual desertions do nothing to limit capitalism's endless parade of wars. However, organized armed mutinies, rebellions, and mass fraternizations between "enemy" armies can prove tremendous advances towards communist revolution.

Key destroys the liberals' "white privilege" myth as he starkly describes growing up destitute in a two-room trailer. The homes he later raids in Iraq are "far more attractive, spacious, and comfortable." He manages to hold off "a string of Army recruiters" until after high school. But when Key and his wife, working as pizza deliveryman and waitress, can't feed their children, he finally falls prey to the "poverty draft." The lying recruiting sergeant assures Key that the Army will assign him to a "non-deployable" unit that builds bridges at bases in the U.S. Shortly after enlisting, however, Key finds himself in Colorado preparing for combat in Iraq.

SAVAGERY IN ABU GHRAIB AND FALLUJAH: OFFICIAL U.S. POLICY, NOT `BAD APPLE' ABERRATION

Before shipping out, Key receives a thoroughly racist indoctrination: "Our commanders taught us to demonize and hate Iraqis and Muslims." Key's training shows that racist brutality is the official policy of U.S. military officers and the politicians directing them. While GI's should have refused orders to murder and torture in Fallujah, Haditha, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, nevertheless those orders came from the top.

Says Key: "Our commanders told us that Americans were the only decent people on the planet and that Muslims and terrorists all deserved to die. One day, all three hundred of us lined up within the bayonet range, each facing a life-sized dummy that we were told to imagine was a Muslim man. As we stabbed the dummies with our bayonets...one of our commanders shouted into a microphone: `Kill. Kill. Kill the sand n-----s.'"

Key recalls a favorite marching chant of the drill instructors, "One shot. One kill. One Arab. One Asian." It reveals U.S. rulers' early attempts at motivating troops for racist slaughter beyond the Middle East.

When Key arrives in Iraq, he sees that racist terror is indeed the Army's standard operating procedure. The brass tell GI's to treat every Iraqi as an enemy. Key's squad has the job of raiding houses in search of terrorists and rounding up every male over five feet tall for detention and likely torture. Key does his best to avoid the worst abuses. Under orders, he beats some Iraqis but kills none himself. He even makes friends and shares his rations with a few locals. Officers reprimand Key for "fraternizing with the enemy." But other GI's fall for their commanders' racism. Two outrages stand out. They disgust Key and help him decide to run. A U.S. soldier decapitates four innocent Iraqis with machine-gun fire and then kicks the heads around like soccer balls. Later, a soldier shoots to death a seven-year-old girl whom Key has been providing with food.

INSTEAD OF DESERTING, GI's SHOULD ORGANIZE TO SMASH IMPERIALIST WARMAKERS

Granted a brief leave back to the U.S., Key makes up his mind to move with his family to Canada. At this point, the story sours politically. Although Key bravely faces the risk of prison as he eludes the Army officers tracking him, his individualistic solution offers no help to the Iraqis he once befriended. The Pentagon reports over 8,000 desertions since the war began. But the killing only accelerates.

Key also errs in counting on Canada to take him in. It may yet return the Key family to the U.S. Long gone are the days when Canada's Trudeau government, cozying up to Western European and Soviet bosses, welcomed thousands of deserters from the Vietnam War. The imperialist tide has since turned. Today, Canadian Navy destroyers police the Persian Gulf for the benefit of Exxon Mobil and Chevron, while Canadian troops fight under U.S. command in Afghanistan.

Sad to say, Key's tale does not serve the working class, despite its sincere anti-racist, anti-officer views. In fact, it aids the ruling class in several ways. Key never indicts imperialism -- that is, the need of U.S. rulers to control the Mid-East and its oil at all costs -- as the root cause of the Iraq war. By portraying Key as a sympathetic hero, it steers others down his dead-end road. Key examines but one side of the all-important question of ideology. He knows that the bosses use racism to get GIs to do their dirty work. But he ignores the opposite: The Vietnam Syndrome still haunts the U.S. bosses. There are reports that Robert Gates' recent visit to Iraq included dealing with a military mutiny by the U.S. Army VI Battalion in Anbar province, where they refused to obey orders, preferring not to leave their base in Ramadi, the provincial capital * (see webpage below for more info). There is great potential for PLP'ers to win many black, white, Latin and Asian GI's to anti-racist, internationalist and anti-imperialist ideas through our communist politics.

(NOTE: "The Deserter's Tale" is due to be published by Atlantic Monthly Press next month. CHALLENGE obtained an advance copy, on which this article is based.)

*http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20061225&aricleId=4261

PLP History: Harlem Rebellion Grand Jury and Reform vs. Revolution on the Railroad

The PLP history column on the Harlem Rebellion (CHALLENGE, 1/7) reminded me of my own participation in that struggle, especially its reference to "daily picket lines" of the Grand Jury that had been convened to conduct a witch-hunt against the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM).

Whenever a PLM member was subpoenaed, he or she would ask friends and co-workers to join the picket line on the day we were to appear. I had worked on a railroad for ten years before our entire roster was laid off when our jobs were subcontracted out. Many found work elsewhere. When the Grand Jury subpoenaed me, I contacted many of my ex-coworkers, explained the circumstances to them (including being a communist in PLM) and asked them to join the picket line.

These workers had known me as an organizer of militant, anti-racist rank-and-file actions, for which they had elected me Local president. But throughout those ten years they had not known (so I thought) that I was also a member of the "Communist" Party ("C"P). That Party had instructed us not to tell anyone we were members or discuss communist politics with them because it would "isolate" us. This was the era of the Cold War and McCarthyite witch-hunts. (This, of course, was one of the reasons many of us left the "C"P and formed PLM and then PLP.)

The day of my appearance arrived and I was shocked to see about 20 of my former co-workers had responded to my calls. They had taken the day off from their new jobs to join a communist picket line for the first time in their lives. It was then that I realized the enormity of my mistake in not trying to raise communist ideas with my co-workers. Had I done so, over a ten-year period, there's a good chance I would have been able to recruit some number of them. And now, after we had all been laid off, and many had found other jobs, we would have had "ready-made" communists at GM, the Transit Authority, Ford and other places where many of them now worked.

In fact, this is the way the bosses help us spread communist politics: bring us together into one work situation, give us the basis to recruit, then lay us off and force us to go elsewhere where we can repeat the process. Thus, if we do our job as communists, the bosses help our Party grow! This is part of what Karl Marx referred to when saying that "the capitalists create their own gravediggers."

But there is also the other side to this process. We must immerse ourselves in these workers' day-to-day reform struggles, fighting for many demands which we know capitalism will either deny us or, if we manage to win them, will eventually take away. After all, they have state power. But if we don't, as Lenin said, get down in "the muck and mire" of the class struggle, then we will not have laid the basis for them to listen to us and our ideas and eventually become communists themselves.

So we must do both -- spread our red ideas amid participation in the daily struggle, even if we disagree with the reform road the workers may have chosen. In my case, it meant, for instance, warning the workers that going to the Labor Board for a "neutral" decision in our fight is an illusion, but still going with them when we couldn't convince them. (Of course, there are limits, such as refusing to scab to help break other workers' strikes.) But when workers take actions which contradict their class interests, we will not be in position to wage a struggle with them against such actions -- they are less likely to listen to us -- if we haven't been involved in those daily reform fights.

If we don't stick with them and participate in the struggle they have chosen -- even though we disagree and express those disagreements -- we will end up "in glorious isolation." And if we take part in the daily reform struggle, even very militantly, but do not spread our communist ideas and attempt to recruit them, we will end up without a Party.

Old-time Comrade

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, December 13, 2006

Information: 13 December 2006 144 hits

GI's, Iraqi Workers Have Same Enemy
Imperialism, Nationalism Massacring Tens of Thousands
1. BUSH ERRORS SPARKED INSURGENT BACKLASH
2. BUSH GANG: WIPE OUT THE NATIONALISTS, LIBERALS: PREPARE FOR BIGGER WARS
3. LIBERALS SEEK UNIVERSAL `SERVICE,' WAR DECLARATION
RACISTS NYPD MURDERS AGAIN:
50 MORE REASONS
History Shows GI's Can Be Won To Fight Warmakers
1. ANTI-IMPERIALIST SOLDIERS
2. IRAQ
Red-Led Russian Soldiers, Sailors Turned Their Guns on Bosses
Fight the Bosses, Not Each Other -- Students Lead Anti-Racist Struggle
ORGANIZING AGAINST IMPERIALIST WARS INSIDE THE MILITARY
NYC Teachers Must Sharpen Class Struggle, Reject Contract Bribes
Don't Be A Sucker for Bosses' Schemes
Transit Union Election Scheming Shows Need For Red Leadership
Protest Police-State Attack on UCLA Iranian Student
U.S. Pols, Profits Behind Africa's First `World War'
Racism Killing Immigrant Construction Workers
Savage Fascist Assault on Oaxaca Rebels Shows Capitalism Can't be Reformed
LETTERS
1. Racial Injustice and Ecological Survival
2. GI Families Got Folded Flags; Bosses Get Billions
3. U.S. Ambassador, FMLN in Bed Together
4. ESL'ers Link Profits To Global Warming
Auto Bosses Invade Old Socialist Bloc
--At 1/5 The Wages
Sammy Scheer
1954- 2006
REDEYE REDEYE
1. Capitalism, not culture, is black oppressor
2. US aims to overthrow elected gov't
3. US needed rubber, bought Brazilian slaves
4. `Anti-terror' database logs war protests
5. `9/11 terror' swung jury against detainee
DVD Review:
`World Trade Center' Movie Promotes Selfless Service for U.S. Fascism
Bosses' Culture Root of Worldwide Mass Murder of Women
PLP HISTORY: Anti-Vietnam War PL'ers Whack HUAC

GI's, Iraqi Workers Have Same Enemy
Imperialism, Nationalism Massacring Tens of Thousands

Is it "sectarian violence" or "civil war?" The politicians' and pundits' debate deliberately obscures the class nature of Iraq's spiraling bloodshed. But a communist analysis indicts the profit system for mass murder there. Nationalist strife led by Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish bosses over political power and oil is joining U.S. imperialism as a major killer of Iraqi workers. Trapped by dead-end nationalist "identity politics," many are committing atrocities in the name of their own religious or ethnic group. But by slaughtering their fellow workers, they're only helping to install a Shiite, Sunni or Kurdish ruling class that will continue their oppression and ally with one imperialist gang or another.

These militia leaders are all dyed-in-the-wool capitalists. Moqtada al-Sadr, Mahdi Army chief, draws his base from Baghdad's Shiite slums. But his wealth comes from oil. His faction controls the transport ministry, which runs pipelines and ports. After the recent Sunni assault on Sadr City, Sadr flexed his economic muscles by shutting down the key oil terminal at Basra. Earlier this year, Sadr sent two companies of working-class fighters to Kirkuk, many to their deaths, to wrest that oil-rich region from Kurdish bosses' hands. Warlords from Saddam Hussein's Sunni sect resent being stripped of state power and the oil profits that flowed from it. Kurdish chiefs, in turn, view the petroleum and population of the North as theirs alone to exploit.

BUSH ERRORS SPARKED INSURGENT BACKLASH

U.S. rulers had planned to control Iraq after the invasion by tripling crude production to six million barrels a day (mbd) and installing leaders of the three main factions as junior partners of Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell. But Bush & Co. bungled the job by sending too few troops to secure the oilfields. They disbanded the Iraqi army and police who might have been better able to force the would-be oil barons to comply with the U.S. deal. A vicious cycle has developed instead. With an insufficient U.S.-led coercive apparatus, rival warlords have stepped up their attempts to seize oil facilities. Western oil companies, out of safety fears, refuse to send the engineers and equipment needed to increase production, which has, at times, fallen below the pre-invasion level of two mbd. Greedy Iraqi bosses then fight more bitterly for pieces of a shrinking profit pie and waste the lives of tens of thousands of the people they pretend to serve. Exxon's reluctance grows still further.

An article in the Times of India (10/1/06) offers insights into Iraq's oil-fired infighting; "The biggest oilfields in the country are in the Shia south, and the rest are in the northern Kurdish region. There is no oil in the Sunni triangle in the middle of the country....The new Constitution of Iraq was long delayed because of heated debates on sharing oil revenue. One constitutional provision says that oil belongs to the people of Iraq in all regions. Yet, the Constitution also gives autonomy to the three regions Shia, Sunni and Kurd. This fuels Sunni fears that the other two regions will ultimately hog all the oil."

BUSH GANG: WIPE OUT THE NATIONALISTS, LIBERALS: PREPARE FOR BIGGER WARS

As the mounting carnage chokes Iraq's oil pump, hamstrung U.S. imperialists are momentarily pursuing a deadly three-pronged policy: use U.S. troops to kill the nationalist insurgents; have the so-called Iraqi government do the job; and then watch the competing nationalists kill one another. On Nov. 25, U.S. forces killed 22 insurgents, and a few civilians at a bomb factory. Iraqi security killed 47 Sunni gunmen the same day. Recently Sunnis and Shiites have been trading car bombs, grenades, kidnappings, and lynchings at a record pace. The New Yorker magazine (11/27/06) quotes a senior U.S. intelligence official as saying, "The White House believes that if American troops stay in Iraq long enough -- with enough troops -- the bad guys will wind up killing each other."

Establishment liberals think they have a better plan than the Bush gang. Despite the phony talk among Democrats and James Baker's Iraq Study Group of withdrawal and of dealing with Iran, a consensus is emerging for a "big push, " a reinforcement of U.S. troop strength to wipe out both Sunni and Shia nationalists in Baghdad and elsewhere. Abandoning Iraq is simply not an option for U.S. rulers. And Iran's ayatollahs have no interest in yielding to U.S. demands. Anthony Cordesman, strategy chairman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a major Establishment policy-shaper, says, "The worst solution is still an `exit strategy.' If Iraq can be made to work at any level, it will be worth...making a long-term commitment.... An Iraq divided or in a power vacuum affects a region with 60 per cent of the world's proven conventional oil reserves and 37 per cent of its natural gas. A de facto victory for Sunni Islamist extremists will challenge every moderate regime and political movement in the Middle East." (Financial Times, 5/3/06)

Shiite nationalism poses just as big a threat. Seventy percent of Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves, the cornerstone of U.S. imperialism, lie in the Shia-dominated Gulf shore. Both the Saudi royal family and its U.S. backers are paranoid about the possibility that these Shias, abetted by Iran (and now Iraq), will secede and take the oilfields with them.

LIBERALS SEEK UNIVERSAL `SERVICE,' WAR DECLARATION

A U.S. failure to counter Mid-East nationalism today will set back its efforts to combat imperialist rivals down the road. Recent editorials in the liberal Establishment's New York Times has alluded to the general military mobilization U.S. rulers need to reverse their downslide. The Nov. 26 piece gave the Pentagon the task of "figuring out why the Bush administration's military plans worked out so badly and drawing lessons for future conflicts." While rejecting the word "draft," the Times (11/21) praised politicians who said "the United States should require all young people to devote a year or two to service after high school or college." The bosses' "newspaper of record" had earlier (11/19) called for "a Congress willing to resume its proper constitutional role in debating and deciding essential questions of war and peace." The Times thus appealed to newly-elected Democrats to help win the public to the imperialist agenda and seriously consider legitimizing it with a declaration of war.

U.S. rulers and their nationalist opponents must resort to racism and phony- anti-imperialism to recruit the foot soldiers they require to protect their profits. The class interests of GIs and al-Sadr's militiamen, however, are identical. They lie in rebelling against their "leaders" and building a party that can replace imperialist and nationalist bloodshed with communist revolution.

RACISTS NYPD MURDERS AGAIN:
50 MORE REASONS

QUEENS, NY, Nov. 28 -- Once again, NYC KKKops have murdered execution style. Police fired 50 bullets at a car carrying three unarmed men -- two black and one Puerto Rican -- who had just left a bachelor party in Jamaica, Queens. Twenty-one shots hit the car, killing Sean Bell, and injuring the other two. Bell was to be married to the mother of his child later that day. Adding insult to this racist action, cops handcuffed the injured men while they received emergency care at the hospital. The bullets sprayed through the street hit windows, other cars and even a lamp in one man's living room.

The brutality of this murderous attack recalls the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, shot 41 times by cops while reaching for his wallet. As with Diallo, the police are now searching for "evidence" to justify their murder.

Many more workers and children have been brutalized and killed since then and, as this latest killing shows, will continue. The cops have proven once again to be hired goons of the rulers who rely on racist terror to try to prevent workers and youth from fighting back. Racism is used by the bosses to divide all workers and to make billions in extra profits from the lower wages paid to black, Latino and immigrant workers.

On Nov. 26, a vigil organized by Democratic Party "activist" and FBI informer Al Sharpton to cool community outrage turned into an angry protest when demonstrators demanded the heads of the killer cops and of Police Commissioner Kelly. But the aim of Sharpton and other politicians is to divert it into demanding an "independent investigation" of the NYPD. Now, even NYC Mayor Bloomberg is "deploring" the incident, taking the liberal road in contrast to former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's more Nazi-like tactics. This is the same Bloomberg who says he can't pay municipal workers enough to keep food on their table (30% must resort to food pantries and food stamps).

But history has shown that essentially nothing will be done to punish the killers. "It is extraordinarily hard to criminally prosecute officers who were on duty," according to CUNY Professor of police science Eugene O'Donnell (NY Daily News, 11/29). Cops will continue to be racist goons because that's the role they serve for the bosses. The entire judicial system is racist to the core. Over two million people are imprisoned in the U.S., 70% of them black and Latino workers, two-thirds for non-violent crimes. Ironically, the black and Latino youth victims of these murders are the very same people who the racist rulers want to recruit to fight and die in Iraq, killing other workers who the oil bosses exploit for billions in profits.

PLP members and friends were on the streets distributing leaflets at City University of NY campuses, on jobs in hospitals and schools and in the Flatbush, Brooklyn neighborhood. The 25,000 member retirees association of D.C. 37 voted to send a letter of condolences to the families of the victims and criticize the unnecessary use of force by the NYPD. Our message is that workers and youth will get no justice under this system. Just like the KKKops walked free after their brutal beating and/or murders of Rodney King, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo and thousands of others, they will probably walk free again. The only way to end these racist murders is to arm our class with communist practice and ideas for revolution. Only then will we, the working class, have a world free from murderous cops and the bloody system that they serve.

History Shows GI's Can Be Won To Fight Warmakers

GENERAL,
your tank is a mighty vehicle.
It shatters the forest and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect; it needs a driver.

GENERAL,
your bomber is awesome.
It flies faster than a hurricane and bears more than
a hundred elephants.
But it has one defect; It needs a mechanic.

GENERAL,
a man is quite expendable.
He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect;
He can think.

--Bertolt Brecht

Imperialist rivalries always lead to war, whether direct attacks against each other or smaller ones between their clients. These rivalries will eventually lead to World War. Bosses on all sides need to turn millions of workers into soldiers. Communist revolution needs these soldiers and sailors to fight the bosses. PLP members and friends must win soldiers to "turn imperialist war into class war" for workers power.

One of capitalism's weakest links is its difficulty in fielding a reliable army. Since World War 1 to the present, working-class soldiers inside the ranks have rebelled against their wars.

ANTI-IMPERIALIST SOLDIERS

While millions were being killed in World War I to protect bosses' profits, during Christmas, 1914, British and German troops declared their own battlefield truce, cementing their comradeship with a soccer game. Russia saw masses of soldiers and sailors help turn that imperialist war into history's first successful working-class revolution (see box). In 1919, West Coast longshoremen refused to load munitions being sent to the U.S. military in Siberia trying to crush the Russian Revolution.

In 1945, when World War II ended, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers, led by left-wing GI's, organized mass protest demonstrations when ordered to stay in the Philippines to fight a communist-led resistance movement there, forcing the brass to send them home.

During the Vietnam War, thousands organized an anti-war movement inside Vietnam and aboard aircraft carriers, publishing 144 underground newspapers and posting bounties on officers marked for execution and fragging many. At one point, sailors' sabotage put six aircraft carriers out of commission, to be returned to San Diego for repairs; 503,000 soldiers deserted.

In June 1971, Marine historian Colonel Robert Heinl wrote an assessment in the Armed Forces Journal entitled, "The Collapse of the U.S. Army": "The morale, discipline and battle-worthiness of the US armed forces are, with few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States."

In Oct. 1971, black sailors led a major rebellion on the USS Kitty Hawk against orders to return to Vietnam -- including hand-to-hand battle with Marines trying to smash their shipboard meeting. They had published an anti-war newspaper, "Kitty Litter." The carrier was essentially removed from war duty.

Vietnamese workers and peasants, lightly armed, with no air support, but greatly inspired by anti-imperialist and red ideas, took on helicopter gunships, tanks, heavy weapons, napalm and horrific bombing attacks, and endured tremendous hardships to wage a successful guerilla war. They demonstrated the triumph of political commitment over technology. Unfortunately, the nationalist leadership of Vietnam has turned that victory around, making the country currently a haven for imperialist investments.

IRAQ

During current imperialist oil wars, the soldiers' role will be crucial. So far, they have mostly followed orders to kill other workers in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, there have also been small signs of resistance. In 2004, the Army's 343rd Quartermaster Company refused its orders. Many GI's with anti-war feelings have refused redeployment. However, most resistance has been individual acts without anti-imperialist class-consciousness that would threaten the rulers' plans.

The liberal Democrats have long condemned Rumsfeld's refusal to field an army capable of securing Mid-East oil. Now that they control Congress, they're already calling for "more representative" armed forces to fight future wars. Their main difference with the Bushites is how to wage profit wars more "efficiently."

Without a committed military, the bosses cannot hold and expand power. Conversely, a revolutionary-led armed working class and a red army is essential to winning state power, as the Russian and Chinese revolutions demonstrated (see box).

War cannot be waged merely by a handful of politicians sitting in offices pushing buttons that release devastation. Imperialists need millions of patriotic soldiers and workers in war factories to fight for the bosses' interests instead of their own. Rebellions by these workers and soldiers would inspire workers everywhere to sharpen the class struggle to destroy capitalism.

Only communist ideas will give soldiers the ability to liberate themselves and the working class from the rulers and their endless profit wars. In the past, communist ideas have inspired soldiers to side with the working class and refuse orders to kill for imperialism. We in PLP are fighting to make this happen again. Join us.

Red-Led Russian Soldiers, Sailors Turned Their Guns on Bosses

In 1917, rebellion among hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers and sailors (who literally turned their guns on the bosses) helped establish working-class power. The Bolsheviks (Russian communists) had been organizing inside the military since 1903. They led rebellions in the Navy during the 1905 war with Japan, including the famous insurrection on the battleship Potemkin. Sailors seized the ship to support workers in Odessa rebelling against the Czar.

By 1917, Bolsheviks had developed a pro-communist class base in large sections of the army and navy. Virtually the entire Black Sea fleet, the largest section of the Russian Navy, took the side of the working class. Large units of the Russian Army led the march on St. Petersburg that toppled the old ruling class.

In World War II, while Europe's capitalist armies rolled over with barely a fight, the Soviet Red Army, committed to defending workers' power, smashed the Nazis. In Asia, the Chinese Red Army led the fight against fascist Japanese aggression and crushed the old rulers of China to build a workers' state.

Fight the Bosses, Not Each Other -- Students Lead Anti-Racist Struggle

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, Nov. 24 -- The layoff of 4,000 Volkswagen workers here and threatened closing of the 5,400-worker plant contains the potential of a general strike.

Since Nov. 17, VW workers -- many of them immigrants -- have been on strike and have occupied the Forest plant around the clock to prevent the company from shipping out finished cars and dismantling machinery. Workers used burning barricades to block the major highway leading out of the city to the Veret suburb while picketing workers from other industries were surrounding the plant.

Thousands of jobs in subsidiary and supplier plants will be wiped out, a catastrophe in a region already suffering from an official 21% unemployment rate. "For each job at the plant," declared Nico Cue, a metal workers union leader, "you have to reckon two jobs outside the plant. So 12,000 jobs are at stake." (In the U.S., with 30 times Belgium's ten million population, this would mean a loss of 360,000 U.S. jobs.)

Strikers have been sharply critical and political. One said, "The European trade unions are nothing more than puppets....doing nothing about social issues." Another referred to the war in Iraq, declaring, it's "a war...[for] big business. Generations will suffer because of it....This is one reason I am standing here,....for them, not just for myself."

Ibisi Ramadam, an Arab workers and a five-year veteran of the assembly lines, referring to the huge joblessness, said, "Now there will be 4,000 more.... I don't know if one can trust them [the unions]....The problem is the capitalist system."

VW bosses say they must shift the entire production of the Golf model to Germany as a cost-cutting maneuver to compete against global competition. Their lieutenants in Germany's largest union, IG Metall, are cooperating to the hilt. They've already agreed to a 4-hour increase in the VW work-week without full compensation in the plant to which Golf production is being shifted, while VW is in the process of cutting 20,000 jobs throughout Germany.

VW bosses have literally bought off union representatives on the Works Council in Germany. The Council's former head raked in an annual "bonus" of 693,000 euros [over $800,000] over and above his regular salary. Works Council members also received luxury trips, including visits to brothels. These union "leaders" collusion knows no shame.

Workers at all VW plants across Europe are being affected, but the European Works Council refuses to organize a united struggle against the company offensive, seeking rather to pit one plant or location against the other. Belgian unionists are accusing the German auto union of betraying themselves and other auto workers throughout Europe. VW's attempt to appease the Belgian workers by promising to shift production of the Polo model from Pamplona, Spain to this Golf plant was rejected by the workers here, one saying, "They are trying to play off one workforce against another."

While the Belgian government has been acting "concerned" about the layoffs, when receiving advance notification from VW about the cuts, VW said the government "promised us their support." (Frankfurter Rundschau, 11/21)

VW strikers have been marching to company headquarters, to a company garage and to subcontractors. The local union leader has promised new demonstrations every day, building up to a major national demonstration on December 2. Rank and filers have been criticizing the leadership for not sharpening the struggle.

Meanwhile, labor action in Belgium continues to grow. Railway workers protesting new work schedules, struck Antwerp's main station, halting two-thirds of all rail traffic; 1,500 government workers (hospital and social services) demonstrated outside the Treasury here, demanding a [[currency]]20 monthly increase -- most now earn less than [[currency]]1,000 a month; and air controllers and technicians held a one-hour strike in two cities against lousy working conditions.

At the root of the attacks on the VW workers is capitalism's worldwide auto company rivalry, all bosses trying to capture as big a share of the market as possible, leading to overproduction and then cuts in labor costs. GM and Ford workers in the U.S. are suffering the consequences of the system's anarchy of production. And all these trade wars are helping to stoke military wars, the ultimate "solution" to inter-imperialist rivalry.

Right now, auto workers must unite internationally against this onslaught which pits one company's workers against all the others. The key is to turn these struggles into one pointing to the real solution -- destroying a system based on profits which takes out its losses on workers' backs, and erecting a working-class-run system without profits and bosses, based on serving workers' needs: communism. That's PLP's goal.

ORGANIZING AGAINST IMPERIALIST WARS INSIDE THE MILITARY

Recently, a forum on anti-war organizing within the military took place in our area. For those who see themselves as revolutionary or anti-imperialist, the forum raised issues such as: What should soldiers organize for? And, who should soldiers ally with in the movement against imperialist war? Related to these was how soldiers should organize in the military.

After opening comments from the organizers, two petitions were read to the approximately 100 people in the audience. The first was the "Appeal for Redress" being circulated among soldiers in Iraq and at military bases elsewhere. That petition identifies each signer as a "patriotic" American who "respectfully" urges politicians to bring the troops home.

The other petition, being circulated within the National Guard and Reserves, calls on Congress to guarantee that when these soldiers are called to active duty they not suffer any loss of job income as a result of the deployment. Neither petition indicates politicians from both parties supported the war. Neither party supports pulling U.S. soldiers out of the Middle East. That's because the main concern is controlling the region's oil.

After the petitions were distributed to the audience, three soldiers spoke about having opposed the war to many of their fellow soldiers while in Iraq, using the internet as well as person-to-person contact. They communicated with each other during their time in Iraq. At least one was brought up on charges for his anti-war organizing. Their comments showed they were sincere, resourceful and courageous.

Two of the three soldiers said that they were fighting for the principles established in the U.S. Constitution. One referred to the "Founding Fathers" in positive terms, although the third soldier commented that slavery and voting restrictions were their legacy. All three soldiers appeared to favorably view the fight to "restore democracy" both inside and outside the military.

After that, members of the audience spoke. All praised the soldiers for their boldness and fighting spirit. Two people sharply attacked the U.S. Constitution. One said the main thing the Constitution protects is the property of the ruling class, not "human rights." He called on soldiers to identify their interests with those of the working class, and said that imperialist wars will never end until the system that causes them is brought down. He was strongly applauded by the audience.

In response, one of the forum organizers said that if a mass movement of soldiers was ready to go to Washington to restore the Constitution, he would be there. His comments implied uncritical support. This "leftist" also promoted the movement for "democracy" within the military.

The bosses' Constitution and their whole legal system are designed to maintain their power and keep all challenges within their ground rules. Organizing within the military against imperialist wars is against those rules. PLP believes that soldiers will eventually reject misleaders who have no confidence that soldiers, like workers, can, as the German communist playwright Brecht said, realize their revolutionary potential. Soldiers can and will opt for armed struggle against capitalism, both inside the military and out. That's the only way to stop the sacrificing of workers' blood on the altars of the profit system.

NYC Teachers Must Sharpen Class Struggle, Reject Contract Bribes

Educators in New York City witness crimes on a daily basis: racist patterns in illiteracy and innumeracy; a testing regime designed to reproduce capitalist social inequality; overcrowding, resulting in frustration and student fights; graduates forced into uniform by an economic draft and sent to fight and die for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.

The U.S. ruling class needs to prevent teachers and students from fighting back against these crimes and instead to win them to willingly fill their places in the system as it prepares for continuous war.

New York's teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), recently made a deal with the City for a new contract that includes a 7% pay raise, a $750 signing bonus and no give-backs on benefits. For the first time in many years an agreement was reached before the contract deadline and without major concessions by the union. Many teachers hailed this settlement as a victory. But this contract is not designed to benefit teachers and students at all; it does not recover any concessions given away in previous contracts nor does it address the real needs of working-class students.

No amount of money put into the schools can change their role under capitalism, but the rulers hope that by spending a limited amount they can divert workers from the inherent inequalities of the system while more efficiently winning students to capitalist ideas. This contract bribes teachers in an attempt to win their loyalty to the system, not to the students and parents who are their class brothers and sisters.

Throughout many years of patient work at the UFT Delegate Assembly and at annual nationwide conventions, PLP teachers have exposed the liberals, including the union leadership, as the main danger to the working class. They try to deceive us into ignoring or even supporting imperialist war and growing fascism. CHALLENGE is known by a good chunk of the thousand-plus delegates who attend the monthly meetings of NYC union reps.

So, when at the November 8 Delegate Assembly a PLP teacher took UFT president Randi Weingarten to task for suggesting that the Democratic sweep of Congress meant "we are going to bring our troops home from Iraq," silence fell on the hall; she was forced to eat her words. Two subsequent PLP speakers took the floor exposing the union's "Safe Secure Schools" initiative as a thinly-veiled racist attack on students. They declared a contract which does not put students first should be rejected.

This struggle is being built in individual schools as well. In one high school a chapter chairperson returned energized by the anti-war and pro-student speeches and made a point of reporting them to the rank and file. He is urging teachers to reject the contract. At that school the "Safe Secure School" initiative is on the agenda for the next union meeting. At another school, where a communist delegate was elected last spring, CHALLENGE distribution among teachers has spiked moderately in the wake of this fight.

These struggles in individual schools can lead to a more profound fight against the ruling class's goals. Teacher strikes in Detroit and Oaxaca point the direction for teachers, one of intensifying class struggle and rejecting class collaboration. We must cultivate the revolutionary seeds we plant with strong collectivity, planning and leadership. When teachers, parents and students are won to communist politics on various levels amid these struggles, the workers of the world are winning. The Progressive Labor Party is working toward that goal. Join us!

Don't Be A Sucker for Bosses' Schemes

The recent teachers' union contract represents a different ruling-class plan for teachers than for other workers. The current fiasco in Iraq exposes a serious long-term weakness: U.S. workers are not committed to sacrificing for the "greater good" of U.S. capitalism. They need teachers to shape loyal subjects for U.S. imperialism. This may require paying us off with raises and even the appearance of "improved" working conditions in which to indoctrinate the youth with patriotism.

U.S. rulers answer this crisis with both force and deception. Racist attacks on black and Latino students will continue apace and form the backdrop to every educational "reform"; yet it's easy to be deceived. New York courts have just ordered the state to pay an extra $2 billion (down from $4bn) into the school system. The news media is peppered with reports on falling science and math scores. But these reports invariably place competition between the next generations of U.S. and particularly Asian students front and center. Cynical whining about an "achievement gap" between black and white youth in the land of chattel slavery, Jim Crow and worsening segregation today hides a reality -- black workers are still crucial to every major industrial and military operation of U.S. imperialism and cannot be totally written out of the economy, driven toward rebellion by a school system that targets them for educational destruction. This is true for Latino workers and youth as well.

PLP calls on teachers to undermine the bosses' project. In a "teacher's fight" we must remember that the main group under attack in the schools is always the youth. Based on this understanding, unbreakable unity between teachers and students can be built. In unity with revolutionary industrial workers and soldiers, teachers can play a key role in the fight to destroy world imperialism.

Transit Union Election Scheming Shows Need For Red Leadership

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 22 -- A host of candidates are challenging Roger Toussaint, head of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 in the union's current presidential election. All the phonies vying for that post were either opposed to last year's strike or propose appealing to the newly-elected Democratic politicians for a "fair shake." None propose to organize the rank and file for mass struggle against the capitalist class that depends on mass transit to keep its profits rolling in.

Toussaint himself is not even a "lesser evil" among this motley crew. A militant rank and file forced a massive illegal strike which shut the transit system, showed the potential strength of the working class and enjoyed enormous support from the worker-riders. Yet Toussaint agreed to a contract that included a payroll-deduction for health benefits, a wage "increase" lower than the inflation rate -- amounting to a wage CUT -- surrendering of the important December contract expiration date, and a secret deal during the 3-day strike that wasn't revealed to the membership until this past November. The rank-and-file rejected this contract because it attacked all workers health and pension benefits nationwide. They are still without a contract a year later.

Neither Toussaint nor his presidential opponents will organize transit workers for anti-capitalist class struggle. None will expose the role of the Wall Street banks which reap hundreds of millions in profits from the interest collected in loans to keep the transit system afloat. And none of these labor fakers do very much, if anything, to unite the workers who ride the subways and buses with those who operate them.

Compare that with the communist leadership given the transit workers in Washington, D.C.'s Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 by the slate led by its PLP president. Not only do they advocate striking and other militant actions to fight for demands and defend against give-backs but they organize and prepare the rank and file for just such struggles. During such a strike, they would expose the role of the bosses' state in using the cops, National Guard and Army to try to smash workers' militant actions -- there's no such thing as a "neutral" government under capitalism.

Communist leadership tries to build anti-racist unity and solidarity within the working class -- among black, Latin, Asian and white workers; young and old; men and women; city-wide and throughout the transit industry. Red leadership shows how the bosses squeeze the workers' lives to pay for imperialist wars in Iraq and elsewhere. Communist leadership thus helps workers learn that their struggles can only be won by destroying the profit system of capitalism. Through this process of struggle and education, transit workers are recruited to PLP, the organization that can lead the working class towards that goal.

Communist leadership cannot guarantee victory in reform demands since the capitalists run the government and armed forces, but it can lead a vigorous fight against racism as the most urgent need of the working class to cement its solidarity as a class.

For example, under red leadership Local 689 forced the transit bosses to reduce the number of years it takes young, mainly black workers to reach the top wage rate, thus beginning to reverse the racist, cost-cutting, divisive attack on Metro's labor force to which the previous leadership had agreed.

Contrary to the communist approach of mobilizing the rank and file for struggle, the TWU hacks lead the workers into the arms of the bosses by depending on liberal politicians who represent those same bosses. All NYC mayors, whether Democrat or Republican, have always enforced the strike-busting Taylor Law against municipal workers. Thus, the reformist Toussaint leadership, rejected political lessons of the 1965 transit strike when the workers broke the anti-strike law.

New York transit workers need red leadership and communist ideas to wage a fight for their class interests, to see that no matter what gains they can wrest from the bosses, the latter with its state power, laws and system based on profits will always be able to take them away, just as they're attempting to do now with their hard-won health benefits. To guarantee permanent victory, PLP must win transit workers to the anti-capitalist struggle for communism so that our class can conquer political power through revolution and rule in its own interests.

Protest Police-State Attack on UCLA Iranian Student

LOS ANGELES -- On Nov. 14, Mostafa Tabatabainejad -- a student of Iranian descent -- was studying at UCLA's main library when he was attacked by the racist campus police with a taser gun. Outraged at this racist police brutality, several days later hundreds of UCLA students and faculty -- organized by Muslim student groups and others -- marched across campus protesting the attack.

Security personnel had approached Mostafa asking for his school ID, since it was past 11 PM. Initially he refused to cooperate, maintaining they were singling him out based on his Middle Eastern appearance. Eventually, Mostafa agreed to leave the library, but as he did so, campus cop Terrence Duren arrived and attacked him with a taser gun. (LA Times, 11/17) Since 2001, Duren has been the subject of two other use-of-force complaints. (LA Times, 11/21)

This assault on a student of Middle Eastern descent by racist university police exposes the cops' role under capitalism to be to enforce racist oppression and maintain the racist status quo, whether at school, work, or in our neighborhoods. That this incident occurred at UCLA in particular is especially significant in light of black students' recent protests of the school's racist admissions policy. Since Afirmative Action ended, the black student population has plummeted across the University of California system, but especially at UCLA where the 2006 incoming freshmen class of nearly 5,000 students includes only 96 black students. (www.newsroom.ucla.edu)

This incident also betrays the universities' role under capitalism. Despite claiming to be "a place of learning" and of "freedom of speech," it is, in fact, where much of the racist ideology that justifies fascist oppression and imperialist wars abroad is created. UCLA is home to professor emeritus James Q. Wilson who, at Harvard in the early 1980's, co-authored the "Broken Windows" theory with George Kelling which called for zero tolerance strategies for dealing with crime in the inner cities. (Atlantic Monthly, March 1982)

In other words, this theory would intensify the level of racist oppression already experienced by Latino and black workers in urban centers. NYC's Mayor Giuliani put it into practice in the 1990's with his chief of police Bratton, who's now using it in L.A.

Additionally, these strategies have played well into the development of a police state since 9/11. The attack on this UCLA student is but one example. More recently was the brutal slaying of Sean Bell (his minivan shot 51 times) by undercover cops in Queens, NY (see front page).

The increased anti-Muslim, anti-Middle Eastern racism generated in the U.S. is the same kind used to justify the genocide being committed by U.S. imperialism against our working-class brothers and sisters in the Middle East. From there to L.A., workers and students need to unite against racist terror and the capitalist system that spawns it.

U.S. Pols, Profits Behind Africa's First `World War'

Madeleine Albright, Clinton's Secretary of State, labeled the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Africa's "first world war." She should know. Her government and U.S. companies were deeply involved in this war which has killed more people than any other conflict since World War II. Tied to this war are such ruling-class figures as Presidents Bush, Sr. and Clinton, black politicians like Andrew Young and Vernon Jordan, and corporations like Chevron-Texaco, Royal Dutch-Shell and Coca-Cola.

It began a decade ago when forces led by pro-U.S. Uganda and Rwanda overthrew former dictator Mobutu. At the end of the Cold War, the CIA dropped Mobutu (just like it dropped Osama bin Laden), so he became a French imperialist agent. According to Lancet, the British Medical Journal, over three million have died in this war (some estimate nearly 10 million).

Despite a ceasefire reached two years ago, the killings continue between supporters of former rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba and President Kabila's government troops. Bemba is disputing Kabila's electoral victory in the second round of the presidential elections.

As reported last issue (11/29), conflicts in Africa are called "tribal" and "ethnic," but they really involve control of the continent's mineral wealth. The Congo is three-fourths the size of Western Europe.

The plundering by imperialist companies and their regional warlords of diamonds, gold, columbium tantalite (coltan), niobium, cobalt, copper, uranium and petroleum has taken a giant step forward. Some $6 million in raw cobalt alone -- an element of super-alloys essential for nuclear, chemical, aerospace and arms industries -- exits the DRC daily.

A Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2005 report, "The Curse of Gold," exposed Ugandan officials' and multi-national corporations' smuggling of gold through local rebel militias. The western companies targeted by HRW were Anglo-Ashanti Gold, a company headquartered in South Africa, and Metalor, a Swedish firm. But HRW didn't report that Anglo-Ashanti is partnered with Anglo-American, owned by the Oppenheimer family, and with Canada-based Barrick Gold (described below). London-based Anglo-American Plc. owns a 45% share in DeBeers, another Oppenheimer company, infamous for its near monopoly of the international diamond industry. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, a director of Anglo-American, is a director of Royal Dutch/Shell and a member of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's Advisory Board. The report also suppressed the most damning evidence discovered by HRW researchers -- that Anglo-Ashanti sent its top lawyers into eastern DRC to aid arrested rebel militia leaders.

Bush, Sr. served as a paid advisor for Barrick Gold. Vernon Jordan, a Clinton lawyer, also served on Barrick's Board, a client of the lobbying group of another black politician, Andrew Young, former Mayor of Atlanta and Clinton's U.S. UN ambassador. Young was a key organizer of the U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council. In October 1994 Clinton picked him to lead the Southern Africa Enterprise Development Fund. Young's lobbying group has among its clients Chevron-Texaco, Coke, Monsanto and the governments of Angola and Nigeria.

In Congo's Katanga (Shaba) province, militias and racketeering are linked to criminal networks of businessmen, including Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, Billy Rautenbach, John Bredenkamp, and Marc Rich. U.S. diamond magnate Maurice Tempelsman has profited from Katanga concessions since the Kennedy era. Lawrence Devlin, the old CIA station chief of Lubumbashi under Eisenhower, maintained Tempelsman's criminal rackets with direct ties to Zaire's former President Mobutu, and was subsequently employed by Tempelsman.

The Congo is also rich in coltan ore, whose refined product is tantalum. The U.S. is entirely dependent on foreign sources for tantalum, an enabling technology for capacitors essential to aerospace weaponry and every pager, cell phone, computer, VCR, CD player, P.D.A. and TV. U.S. import records show a dramatic jump in purchases from Rwanda and Uganda during the time they were smuggling tantalum and cobalt out of the Congo.

So while U.S. rulers make a big deal about the situation in Darfur (where China is extracting oil), they keep a low profile on the Congo. (Information from an article in Znet magazine by Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski.) More in a future issue.

Racism Killing Immigrant Construction Workers

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 21 -- "His dream was to save money and go back home," said construction worker Julio Jara. But that dream was shattered forever when his brother, 25-year-old Clever Jara, fell 17 stories to his death near Union Square in Manhattan. The Ecuadorian immigrant was putting up netting to prevent bricks from falling during repair work on the building's façade. Witnesses said wind gusts may have caused him to slip from the building's ledge.

Twenty-four construction workers died in the city last year, "making it New York's most deadly profession, according to a federal Labor Department report." (NY Daily News. 11/2) "At least 98 construction workers in the city have been killed since October 2001, most of them in mishaps involving safety regulations or building codes." (Daily News, 11/5)

A good many of the construction workers repairing building facades here are Latino and other immigrants, forced to work under hazardous conditions in order to support their families, both here and in their home countries. Amid a building boom, scofflaw developers are allowed to "self-certify" themselves, so they simply ignore safety and pursue profits. When 27-year-old Arturo Gonzalez was struck and killed last year by an 800-pound steel girder, the Buildings Department "fined" the realtor and owner the grand sum of $1,400!

The racism of building contractors like Town Restoration -- the company fixing the above façade -- was evident in their ignoring safety precautions for these predominantly Latino immigrant workers. The company didn't have the proper permit for the project, maintained no on-site supervision and apparently had not provided Clever with the proper training for the job, given the absence of such certification. Workers trained for the rigs were not on the site.

According to the latest OSHA "report card" on construction-site deaths, 86% occur on non-union jobs. And the vast majority of these jobs involve immigrant laborers and therefore many cases are unreported. "When a union guy is injured, reports are filed," according to immigrant lawyer David Perecman, but when it involves undocumented workers, "the boss tells them if it still hurts in the morning go to the hospital and tell them you tripped and fell."

Alongside this is the racism of the construction unions which historically have refused to admit or organize black and Latino workers, so now the chickens come home to roost -- thousands of construction workers are unorganized and prey to the bosses lowering wages and conditions for all workers.

While anti-immigrant hysteria is whipped up against workers like Clever Jara, they end up sacrificing their lives for profiteering bosses who figure they can get away with it because such workers are "expendable" -- more evidence that a system that produces such needless deaths must be destroyed.

Savage Fascist Assault on Oaxaca Rebels Shows Capitalism Can't be Reformed

OAXACA, MEXICO, Nov. 28 -- Supported by thousands of federal troops, soldiers, judges, courts, jails and the Mexican bosses' Constitution, the fascist murderous governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, declared: "There will be no pardon" for the striking teachers and their working-class supporters who fought the bosses for six months. Immediately he launched a witch-hunt against thousands of leaders and members of APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca).

Hundreds of houses were raided, APPO offices were burned down and hundreds were arrested. beaten and tortured. Hundreds more were arrested after Ruiz goons and federal troops occupying Oaxaca viciously attacked a November 25 APPO march.

Many of those arrested are in federal prisons outside Oaxaca. The entire capitalist state apparatus has been used to smash the Oaxaca rebels.

Workers and their allies are learning from these experiences about the fascist nature of the bosses' "democratic" mask to curb any mass fight-back.

Unfortunately, the APPO leadership (some of whom had illusions that the federal troops would control Ruiz's local goons) is just fighting to reform capitalism -- to get rid of Ruiz, for "more democracy," etc. Many workers and others also have illusions that Lopez Obrador and the opposition PRD are their friends. Obrador declared himself the "legitimate President" following the fraudulent "election" that made Calderón of the ruling PAN party the new President. All these politicians represent different versions of which capitalist and imperialist faction best to serve and how to best exploit workers.

The struggle in Oaxaca has revealed much about the class struggle; the need to fight racism against indigenous people; the militancy of teachers, urban and city workers and students; and the importance of international solidarity. But the main lesson is that capitalism cannot be reformed.

The only liberation for workers and their allies will grow from fighting for revolutionary power to build a communist society without any bosses and their racism. We need a mass PLP rooted in the working class to step up this struggle, from Oaxaca to L.A. to Karachi. And then workers and their allies won't "pardon" any bosses and their goons.

LETTERS

Racial Injustice and Ecological Survival

This fall our church, along with our interfaith coalition, sponsored a conference about sharpening the struggle against racism and imperialism by exposing how the rulers are destroying the world eco-system, leaving working people totally vulnerable to the resulting devastation. The participants were an interesting multi-racial mix of over 70 workers and students. The event grew from political discussions of our production of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" last winter as a fund-raiser for Katrina victims.

For almost 40 years, the ruling class's ecology movement has focused on separating mainly white, "middle class" workers and students from the most exploited of our sisters and brothers with the line "Love the Earth; Ignore (or Screw) the Workers." In sharp contrast, the scholar-activist who keynoted our morning gatherings, showed how the essential nature of capitalism is to exploit both workers and the resources of the environment to the MAXIMUM in order to extract the highest possible profits from every economic activity.

Because this brutal system is now universally dominant worldwide, he explained that both increasingly deadly wars for resources and markets, AND the worst predictions of ecological collapse are inevitable under capitalism. While the speaker was very knowledgeable, it was clear from his presentations and discussions that he's been very active with workers and students most of his life, in Central America, South Africa and the U.S.

Students and teachers led a workshop about their experiences as volunteers in New Orleans this summer. They explained how the nationalist and reformist orientations of the sponsoring organizations divided and demoralized workers and students, exposed how volunteer work was being co-opted for bosses' profits, and described how the capitalists' roadblocks to rebuilding the entire city, excluding many life-long residents, proves that communist revolution is the only answer.

Parents made an inspiring presentation of their ongoing struggle to ensure that black and Latino children had every opportunity for admission to the city's few more effective schools. They were very open to linking their work to the larger movement (of which PLP is a part) to expose capitalist education as racist and imperialist, and to broaden the struggle to include more parents, teachers and students. We will apply these lessons in a meeting to fight the local city college's move to destroy a multi-racial educational complex that is already meeting kids' needs in a better way. Our PLP club is discussing how to make revolution primary in our presentation.

In two sharp workshops on immigrant-citizen solidarity, one minister movingly told about her church's courageous work to provide sanctuary for immigrant day-laborers and to support their efforts to organize against the worst forms of exploitation. A teacher-comrade then explained how the rulers' movement to attack immigrants is part of a larger ruling-class effort to build a mass base for much more repressive fascism to control ALL workers and to militarize the country for vastly expanded imperialist war. She made a well-received proposal that we push our mass organizations to organize a solidarity demonstration spanning the Mexico-U.S. borders.

Finally, one of our leading comrades, a black worker, gave an inspiring speech about the racist health crisis facing our community and how the city health department admits this but will not ask for funds to reopen our health center, despite RECORD corporate profits in the city.

We recruited several more workers to this struggle. Most important of all, ten more workers and students have become regular CHALLENGE readers, and we expanded our Party study group. This is the most vital work: convincing our friends and ourselves that none of these extreme difficulties can be resolved without communist revolution, and more concretely, what that will mean for our families, our friends and the thousands more friends we plan to make.

Red Churchmouse

GI Families Got Folded Flags; Bosses Get Billions

I've been in the active-duty army for four years and spent a year in Iraq. The problem is not just the way the military is run. More body armor, more troops, or pulling out from the cities is not going to make imperialist war safer for the working class. Civilians suffer the most deaths and injuries and they're not issued any protection by anyone. Pulling out of the cities would only make it easier for commanders to rain artillery down on innocent workers.

"Better" commanders would not improve the occupation for our class. As long as we're fighting wars for the profit and power of a capitalist class, our lives will be on the line in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the next stop in the "war on terror" - all for the imperialists' benefit, not ours.

Some troops pay the ultimate price and are given extraordinary honors, medals, and some receive citizenship posthumously. Those of us who survive gather to grieve and pay our respects. Military ceremonies make people think that troops die for something, like serving our country or our brothers and sisters in the combat zone. While the fallen did die for something, it's not freedom or something like that. It's for the U.S. bosses' money and power. Soldiers' loved ones receive folded flags and the bosses receive billions.

Knowing that our comrades died for no good reason is hard to swallow. While our feelings for the people who've passed are overwhelming, military funerals are just there to make people feel better about the war. The truth is they can replace any of us. All they need is more troops. To the capitalists, we're just bodies -- we're useful when alive to fight their wars, and a quick write-off when we expire.

If you survive, they tell you the VA is there for you. But they cut the budget for the VA, close down hospitals, and second-guess your injuries. Nightmares, flashbacks, anger, guilt and inability to function may haunt you the rest of your life but VA services don't live up to the hype. The capitalist rulers need our tax dollars from the VA to pay for their wars. They question your claims and make getting expensive treatments difficult. It's cheaper to get fresh young bodies to fill your place than to fix broken troops.

Ads and recruiters say join the army to have a career but machine gunners, tank mechanics, and Nuclear Biological Chemical specialists are only useful to the military. Civilian employers are looking for civilian experience. Uncle Sam will not help you find a job. Somewhere between 30% and 50% of the homeless are veterans, but the recruiter didn't tell you that. Unemployment is high today but it's even higher among veterans, especially blacks, Latinos, immigrants and the poor. Did you see any recruiting commercials mention that one? You might not have joined if you did. Then again, you may not have had a real choice.

Capitalism is behind all these things. Solving capitalist-created problems for good -- a war we and our class don't benefit from; harassment by the leadership; injuries caused by the profit wars; getting everyone decent employment; re-uniting all troops with our loved ones back home -- solving all this depends on ending class society, sweeping away imperialism with communist revolution. Nothing less can honor and avenge the deaths of our class brothers and sisters.

Red Vet

U.S. Ambassador, FMLN in Bed Together

The U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Douglas Barclay, surprised many with a speech openly ordering President Tony Saca to fight corruption throughout his government.

Barclay stated that Salvadorans "have the right to feel secure in their home and public places, not only those who can pay private security guards." This representative of U.S. imperialism mainly wants to "take the criminals off the streets and put them in the jails," meaning an upgrade in their police force, with better-paid agents, bigger jails, special courts and emergency taxes. He also reiterated that business owners must pay the taxes they owe.

This urgent need for national unity and political will among the rulers forced businessmen, politicians and the government to propose a series of new repressive laws against the entire working class, including an "anti-terrorist" statute, Barclay's fascist aim.

And those happiest with this call were none other than the former guerrillas now-turned-electoral-party FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front). Ironically, FMLN spokesperson Sigfrido Reyes said the ambassador's speech must have been written by a member of his party! FMLN leaders were satisfied with the ambassador's statement, adding, "We share in the urgent call for unity to resolve this problem...what the ambassador has stated is what we've been proposing in the matter of security."

Clearly the FMLN, ARENA and all the other electoral parties are defenders of capitalism and its profiteers, both the imperialists and the Salvadoran bosses. This exposes the dangerous illusion that the FMLN is the option for the working class. PLP understands that a party of the working class never would advocate a fascist state to fight social injustice, poverty and unemployment. Neither executioner, Barclay or Saca, will solve our problems. The solution is to uproot capitalism, this oppressive and exploitative system, organizing and fighting for a real communist revolution.

PLP'er, El Salvador

ESL'ers Link Profits To Global Warming

My ESL classes recently participated in a project about global warming. Three hundred students from 20 different classes prepared 30-minute presentations for the 4-hour event. These classes are part of the Education Program of Local 1199, Homecare Division, in New York City.

The project reflected the union's emphasis on Democratic Party candidates and issues, specifically Al Gore and his book. Most of the ideas about solutions to global warming from the union and the classrooms dealt with individual responsibility in limiting the use of fuels, hair sprays, air conditioners and other pollutants.

I presented a number of questions to my class: "Are we all the same in creating global warming?" "Who are the biggest users of coal, oil and natural gas?" "Why do they use so much fossil fuel?" "Why do big corporations turn a blind eye to global warming?" "Remember New Orleans. The consequences of global warming have been and will be catastrophic. What are governments doing, or not doing, to protect people?"

My students debated the answers to these questions, in English and Spanish. One student responded that, "we are people at the bottom. The people at the top are guilty of the greatest pollution, as they seek profits and exploit us. As long as capitalism exists, we can try to make the situation better, but we won't be able to solve the problem." "I agree with you, Jasmin," I responded. Many students applauded.

On the day of the project after my class finished their presentations in English, four of my students spoke in Spanish about solutions, Jasmin included. A teacher in the audience said, "I guess we need a revolution."

"That's right," I said. After the presentation several students in the audience came up to speak to my students. "What they don't say" said one student, "is the U.S., the richest country in the world, is the biggest polluter." "That's capitalism," said Jasmin.

Jasmin has become a CHALLENGE reader and will attend her first PLP study group Saturday. Yes, communist leadership makes a difference.

A comrade

Auto Bosses Invade Old Socialist Bloc
--At 1/5 The Wages

The fall of the Berlin Wall has proven to be deadly for millions of well-paid jobs in Western Europe and the U.S. The entry of countries in the former Soviet bloc into the European Union is proving a bonanza for Western and Asian auto companies. As tens of thousands of auto workers are laid off in the U.S., Britain, Germany, Italy and France, thousands of workers are being hired in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic -- at one-third to one-fifth the wages in Western Europe and the U.S.The French automaker Peugeot Citroen has just opened an $890 million factory in Trnava, Slovakia, while closing its plant near Coventry in Britain. The Czech Republic could nearly double its production to over a million cars in the next four years. "Carmakers from Europe, Asia and the U.S." are "pouring billions of dollars of fresh investment into local factories" in Eastern Europe. (NY Times, 11/25) Even further eastward, GM just opened a plant near St. Petersburg, Russia to assemble the Chevrolet Captiva, a mid-size SUV. Hyundai is building a huge new assembly plant in the Czech Republic and Ford is moving production of its subcompact Ka from Spain to southern Poland, where Fiat is also setting up shop.

So capitalism is marching full tilt into the old socialist bloc. Meanwhile, it pits these low-wage workers against the higher-paid ones in Western Europe and the U.S. Capitalism's bottom line, searching for ever-higher profits, always trumps workers' lives. All the more reason for auto workers to unite across all borders against their common enemies among these companies.

Sammy Scheer
1954- 2006

"It's O.K. to mess up, but never to give up."

That lesson is what one of Sammy Scheer's teenage nieces said she learned from knowing her uncle. That's how all who knew and loved him would sum up his life -- no matter what circumstances you find yourself in, no matter what problems might beset you, no matter what mistakes you might make, never give up.

Sammy tragically died of a heart attack recently at the age of 52. He had the good fortune to be born into a family that was filled with love and communist ideas. His father, Morty, was one of the founders and his mother Phyllis was a member of the Progressive Labor Party. It is a testimony to Sammy that no matter what situation he faced, he never forgot what he learned from those two wonderful parents and from his Party.

In the early seventies, Sammy attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and became known as a great anti-racist fighter. He joined the Challenge Corps, PLP's youth group, and helped organize anti-Vietnam war marches and demonstrations. He became a leader of high school students and inspired many throughout the city.

On weekends, Sammy loved to take friends to Wo-Hop, a favorite local Chinese restaurant where people could sit for hours and talk and laugh. Sammy had tons of friends.

As a teenager, he began singing and playing the guitar with friends and at various political events. He was an accomplished guitarist with a melodic voice. He loved to sing songs about class struggle, love, about people fighting back, as well as about the beauty he saw around him. His favorites were Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan as well as coal mining songs and those on the PLP record. He did a mean rendition of "Clifford Glover," describing the murder of a black youth in Brooklyn and how the cops got off.

Sammy was a long-time member of the PLP. As a young man in New York, Sammy was the comrade you could count on. He organized on construction sites, facing threats to his life by right-wing goons. He strongly defended comrades under attack and defended many youth in Brooklyn in demonstrations against police brutality. He would fly from Houston to Washington to march in our annual May Day celebration.

Even as he helped raise his own two children, Rebecca and Matthew, he looked on all the other children that crossed his path as deserving of the same attention.

He continued to impart his ideas to his extended family, friends and co-workers. His wife Cyd told us that one of the things she most appreciated in Sammy was his ability to turn many of her family members in an anti-racist direction, overcoming the racist ideas that surrounded them from having grown up in the South.

One of his co-workers, a black man, spoke at his memorial service in Houston with great reverence. He said that Sammy's "world outlook" treated him in a way that he hadn't experienced with other white people in the South. Another co-worker, of Iranian descent, said much the same thing, relative to being treated as a human being with similar aspirations, not as someone "different" or "foreign."

Sammy became a hospital worker in New York and continued in that job after he moved to Houston, organizing throughout. All those who spoke at the memorial service in Houston kept returning to one universal description of Sammy: he was a "good guy." Often this comes across as a cliché, but in Sammy's case he truly was a "good guy," in the deepest sense of those words.

Sammy will be very much missed, but in the manner in which he lived his life he has bequeathed to us an understanding we all should treasure: yes, it's O.K. to mess up, but we must never give up.

REDEYE REDEYE

Capitalism, not culture, is black oppressor

For, decades, scholars and opinion-makers have been seduced by cultural explanations for economic problems. Recently, comedian Bill Cosby has caught the bug, leading him to inveigh against aspects of black culture he views as intimately linked to problems among African-Americans, from poverty to crime and incarceration.

Cosby is merely the latest and most visible in a long chain of cultural critics. Researchers Charles Murray (before turning to genetic explanations) and columnist Thomas Sowell have been making the "bad culture" argument about African-Americans for decades....but....

Black poverty fell 10.6 percentage points from 1993 to 2000 (from 33.1 to 22.5 percent) to reach its lowest level on record. Black child poverty fell an unprecedented 10.7 percentage points in five years (from 41.9 percent in 1995 to 31.2 percent in 2000).

The "culture of poverty" argument cannot explain these trends. Poor black people did not develop a "culture of success" in 1993 and then abandon it for a "culture of failure" in 2001.

What really happened was that in the 1990s, the job market finally tightened up to the point where less-advantaged workers had a bit of bargaining clout....

The record is clear: When economic opportunities are available to black Americans, they take them. When opportunities are scarce they fall behind, and culture has very little to do with it. (Washington Post, 11/13)

US aims to overthrow elected gov't

The US is arming Mahmoud Abba's Fatah organization for a confrontation with Hamas that risks plunging Gaza into all-out civil war. It wants thousands of rifles to be sent to Fatah from Egypt and Jordan and is seeking to persuade Israel to permit the Badr brigade, a pro-Fatah militia stationed in Jordan, to cross into Gaza. (GW, 11/23)

US needed rubber, bought Brazilian slaves

Men were needed in the Amazon, 3,000 miles away, to harvest rubber for the Allied war effort, he was told, and it was his patriotic duty to serve.

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, Mr. Dos Santos and hundreds of other poor Brazilians who were dragooned into service as rubber soldiers are still in the Amazon....

"We were duped, and then abandoned and forgotten,".....

The program originated in an agreement between the United States and Brazil. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had cut the United States off from its main source of rubber, in Malaya, and President Roosevelt persuaded Brazil's dictator, Getúilo Vargas, to fill that strategic gap in return for millions of dollars in loans, credits and equipment....

More than 55,000 people, almost all of them from the drought-ridden and poverty-stricken northeast, were sent to the Amazon.....

The work was exhausting, dangerous and unhealthy:...nearly half perished before Japan surrendered in September 1945.

"...Guys died of malaria, yellow fever, beriberi and hepatitis..." (NYT,11/23)

`Anti-terror' database logs war protests

An anti-terrorist database used by the Defense Department...included intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches, libraries, college campuses and other locations, newly disclosed documents show.

One tip in the database in February 2005, for instance, noted that "a church service for peace" would be held in the New York City area the next-month. Another entry noted that antiwar protesters would be holding "nonviolence training" sessions at unidentified churches in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

"Veterans for Peace is a peaceful organizations,"...[one] entry said, but added there was potential that future protests "could become violent." (NYT, 11/21)

`9/11 terror' swung jury against detainee

A California man whose arrest, detention and prosecution raised questions about the limits of government antiterror powers after Sept. 11, 2001...was detained 10 days after the attacks...

Federal prosecutors said he had lied about his association with...hijacker, Khalid al-Midhar....the judge removed on claims of bias.

When the case finally reached trial this year, the jury spent six days in heated deliberations but remained deadlocked, with a single juror voting not guilty.

But in a shark reversal of sentiment, a new jury of nine women and three men took less than seven hours over two days before finding Mr. Awadallah guilty....

One major difference between the two trials was the emotional response to the Sept. 11 attacks....

This time, jury said they kept those feelings out of the jury room. (NYT, 11/18)

DVD Review:
`World Trade Center' Movie Promotes Selfless Service for U.S. Fascism

On the surface "World Trade Center" ("WTC") is a beautifully produced movie that tugs on your heart strings. Beneath the surface "WTC" pushes pro-cop, super patriotism, pro-war messages along with healthy doses of religious mysticism and sexism, each of which the U.S. ruling class needs to pave the way for increased fascism.

"WTC" follows two NYC Port Authority policemen who respond to the 9/11 attacks and get caught under the rubble of the World Trade towers. Much of the movie focuses on rookie officer Jimeno and Sergeant McLoughlin talking while trapped.

Like many films and TV shows about police, "WTC" tries to show that these thugs are really "just workers" too. The movie wants viewers to sympathize with cops who it claims are underpaid, insufficiently trained and lied to by the bosses. While everyone who works under capitalism struggles, workers should not feel bad for class traitors, like cops and scabs, who survive by making the rest of our lives worse. "WTC" obscures the role of police under capitalism. It is their job to carry out racist attacks against black and Latino youth as well as attack and jail workers who fight back.

Even if you don't like cops, there are times the movie forces you to root for the cops to return safely. The movie often cuts to scenes with Jimeno's pregnant wife and both officers' small children. Seeing these scenes makes you want to feel bad for two cops who were harassing homeless people and racially profiling teens in the first few scenes.

"WTC" also attempts to inspire the working class to serve U.S. bosses and fight in imperialist wars. People in various countries are shown saddened and horrified by the 9/11 attacks seen on their TVs. "WTC" gives the impression that people worldwide empathize with the U.S. government and support whatever actions it takes in response to 9/11 (and that they will even throw flowers at U.S. invaders!)

The whole movie follows Jimeno and McLoughlin because they are multi-racial poster people for national service. The U.S. ruling class has failed so far to use 9/11 to mobilize the working class to join the military, police or perform other types of national service.

One hero in "WTC" is a U.S. Marine who only refers to himself by his rank, never giving his first name. The movie emphasizes "the mission" over the character's own self-preservation. As the Marine is walking around the rubble of the towers, he tells someone over his cell phone, "A lot of good men will have to avenge this." At the end of the movie you learn that the Marine re-enlisted and served two tours of duty in Iraq. "WTC" constantly tries to rehash feelings and anger about 9/11, using examples of selfless service, to inspire patriotic fervor and allegiance to the U.S. government.

Throughout "WTC," different people talk about avenging "them," "those bastards" and "the evildoers." But the movie never mentions who "they" are and doesn't discuss the root causes of 9/11, leaving viewers no alternative but to believe that the "war on terror" is justified.

"WTC" uses religion as an ideological prop for its pro-war message. The Marine is supposedly called to NYC by god. When he reaches the rubble he looks at the smoke from the ruins and proclaims that god put up a curtain to shield everyone from what they're not prepared to see. However the anti-scientific director omits the smoke's most significant effect -- hazardous pollution that is still killing 9/11 rescuers and lower Manhattan residents -- and instead emphasizes religion. The message is: don't question things because god works in mysterious ways.

"WTC" also aims to win the U.S. working class to sexism. "WTC" focuses on the cops' wives falling apart. "WTC" didn't spend time showing how hard these women worked to raise their children and keep their households together. Instead, "WTC" shows other male relatives comforting the wives while they're hysterical.

Many things happened at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Many of them showed the potential for a communist society -- working-class people helping each other and addressing each other based on need, not money, "race" or gender. But the U.S. ruling class wants to channel workers' instinct to help each other into supporting war and fascism. "WTC" helps them do just that.

Bosses' Culture Root of Worldwide Mass Murder of Women

On Nov. 25, activities and marches in many cities worldwide celebrated the International Day of Non-Violence Against Women. The day memorializes the 1960 murder of the three Mirabal sisters by goons of Dominican dictator Trujillo.

In El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, Central America, there were mass marches and other public actions protesting the countless murder of women in the last few years. Marchers in El Salvador also protested discrimination against, and sexual harassment of, women workers.

Violence against women is an international epidemic which has worsened in this period of endless wars, fascist terror and drug gangs:

* Recently, four prostitutes were brutally murdered and thrown in a ditch near Atlantic City, NJ.'s glittering casinos. A serial killer is suspected.
* In Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, hundreds of women have been killed and raped in the last few years and the killers have never been brought to justice.
* In El Salvador, 314 women have been murdered from January to August this year, compared to 305 for the entire 2005. Most have gone unsolved.
* In Honduras, some 500 women have been killed in the last three years -- 11% by their husbands or boyfriends and 23% killed by criminal drug gangs. The number of women murdered in Guatemala is even higher.

The sex slavery trade is another major cause of worldwide violence against women. It's a $12 billion-a-year business, second only to the drug trade, involving over one million women and young girls, mainly from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Eastern Europe. It is estimated brothels make $15,000-a-year profit from each one of those women.

Many of the November 25 activities against these "feminicides" called on the authorities to do something about them. This is like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop. The only measures the rulers will take are more police-state attacks against workers in general (see letter from El Salvador, p. 6). Others tend to blame men in general for these crimes, instead of the culture of capitalism which depicts women as sexual objects and creates the basis for this onslaught.

Communists must redouble our efforts to fight this anti-women culture and the male supremacist attitudes it builds, showing how the rulers turn men and women workers against each other, weakening our entire class, while reaping huge profits from the super-exploitation of women workers.

CAPTION FOR PAKISTAN PICTURE

In Pakistan, women had to fight against sexist Hudood laws that restricted them from confronting men who had raped them. These laws required a woman to have 4 male Muslim witnesses to prove she was raped or face adultery charges herself for making such a claim. Women activists won a law that would allow them to bring these charges to secular courts instead. These crumbs to the struggle against sexism won't outlaw the extreme oppression of women.

PLP HISTORY: Anti-Vietnam War PL'ers Whack HUAC

Cries of "U.S. get out of Vietnam!" resounded through the halls of Congress on August 16, 1966 when members of the year-old Progressive Labor Party challenged the anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee's (HUAC) attempt to crush the expanding anti-Vietnam War movement. Police dragged anti-war witnesses kicking and screaming from the hearing room while their constant shouting interrupted the HUAC session (see above photo).

The witchhunt coincided with President Lyndon Johnson's and the U.S. ruling class's escalation of the imperialist war against the workers and peasants of Vietnam. The rulers subpoenaed a half dozen PLP members, figuring they could split the movement through a red-baiting attack on its most advanced section. But HUAC only succeeded in exposing itself, helping PLP to spread our communist ideas. The mass media was forced to report our activities and photograph our militancy.

As HUAC announced it would sponsor legislation that "would make it a crime to aid anyone engaged in hostilities against the United States," (NY Times, 8/17/66), hundreds of demonstrators streamed into Washington on a mid-summer work-day to protest the witch-hunt.

When the first "friendly" witness, Philip Luce -- a stoolpigeon and former member of PL -- took the stand, a PLP member stood up and yelled, "Let's stop this fink testimony and get the U.S. out of Vietnam!" The cops immediately dragged him from the hearing room as he continued to scream, "U.S. get out of Vietnam!" to much applause. A photo depicting the PL'er with his mouth wide open shouting that anti-imperialist slogan appeared on the front page of every major newspaper in the country.

With signs painted in the halls proclaiming, "Whack HUAC!" the committee was made to look like Keystone Kops in newspaper cartoons and soon lost its effectiveness, eventually being disbanded. The PLP-led action helped spur the anti-war movement to greater and more advanced heights, influencing many to drop the liberal "Stop the bombing" slogan and adopt PLP's answer: "U.S. Imperialism Get Out of Vietnam Now!" It also put the nail in HUAC's coffin, which the ruling class abandoned as causing more trouble than it was worth to them.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Nov. 29, 2006

Information: 29 November 2006 125 hits

Dems Aint No Doves

Rumsfeld Out, But Workers No Better Off

Beware Liberals Like Spitzer Bearing Pro-War ‘Reforms’

PL’ers Building Base for Communism in D.C. Transit

Chile: Miners’ Solidarity With GM Strikers Paying Off

Pakistan: PL’ers Expose All Bosses, Aid Quake Victims

Salvador Hospital Strikers Block Streets, Confront Cops

Oaxaca: ‘Reform’ Capitalism No Solution for Workers

Back Oaxaca Struggle

Cops Save Minutemen From Anti-Racists’ Wrath

Red Ideas Make Headway at Public Health Convention

Racist French Rulers Use ‘Terrorist’ Lies to Fire Airport Workers

Oil Resources Behind Darfur Deaths, Wars in Africa

LETTERS

Liberals’ Petition Misleads Anti-War GI’s

Need Alternative to Liberals' GI 'Appeal'

Danger, Opportunity in GI Movement

Wider Wars Behind School ‘Reform’

Medical Murder: From Hitler to Israel to U.S.

Campus’ Action Exposes ‘Justice’ Roberts

The Deaf Must Unite With Their Class

REDEYE

Nigeria’s workers rely on armed force
Capitalist-run world swims in sewage
Who are the worst terror-killers?
Voters know they’re just flipping a coin
‘Demand for profit’ = world hunger
They work to save legs — if you’re rich
Unemployment low? This crowd says no
Short-Circuiting Soldiers’ Political Potential

Book Review: Short-Circuiting Soldiers’ Political Potential

God Save The Queen Because The Working Class Definitely Shouldn’t!

War And Fascism Still Order Of Day For Decades

Dems Aint No Doves

The newly-won Democratic control of Congress is being hailed by many as a win for everyone. While workers and soldiers are distraught over the war, the Democrats have slithered into public consciousness as the "anti-war" party. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and not one worker should believe any of these snakes as they make grand plans for the future of U.S. imperialism.

The main wing of the ruling class, the Rockefeller/Eastern Establishment, is angered by the Bush administration’s bungling of the war which has lost the hearts and minds of the working class. They understand that after 9/11 the Bushites had a perfect opportunity to win millions of U.S. workers to goosestep to their imperial whims — first with Afghanistan, then with Iraq. But in the last five years, the recruits have not flocked to fight for the U.S. Instead, the body bags have piled up, and lives of workers here have increasingly worsened as the bosses move jobs to cheaper markets and steal from healthcare and pensions.

In the build-up to the Iraq war, some Democrats fought for a multilateral solution that would involve bosses from U.S. "allies" in the occupation. Instead, Bush and his neocons thought they could bully their way into controlling the entire Mid-East, first Iraq, then Syria and Iran. This unrealistic goal dismissed any possible opposition from their rivals in Europe, Russia and China, not to mention within the U.S. With its "Shock and Awe" war, this administration thought it could scare the world to its knees.

U.S. bosses are now trying to figure out how to chart a course in Iraq without losing its oil and military bases, and regroup for more effective imperialist wars for control of the region’s resources. They have called in Rockefeller old-schoolers James Baker and Lee Hamilton to help them with their fumbled war and control rising imperialists like China and Russia.

Historically, Democrats have never been any more "anti-war" than Republicans. During World Wars I and II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Presidents were Democrats. During the 1990’s, Democrat Bill Clinton enforced sanctions and continuous bombing of Iraq that claimed the lives of more than half-a-million children and bombed the hell out of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, he dismantled welfare and created fascist slave-labor Workfare. Under this "first black president," the prison population exploded, jailing millions of mostly black and Latino men, while putting 100,000 more cops on the streets.

The bosses need the Democrats now to get U.S. workers and soldiers to wave the U.S. flag. Rahm Emanuel, a Congressman from Illinois and former Clinton policy advisor (pictured above with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer), has declared that "we need a new sense of patriotism and responsibility that unites us in a common purpose again." In "The Plan," Emanuel proposes that the Patriot Act be used to promote "universal civilian service" to guarantee that "all Americans . . . serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation, and community service." Although he claims this would not be a draft, its intention is to win workers to becoming a Gestapo-like force for the ruling class, "citizens who can meet the needs of the nation at home."

During the Cold War years, the bosses could win many workers to the illusion that the U.S. was the greatest country in the world. The challenge for them now, as they fight to stay on top, is to have an army of millions who support U.S. imperialism and fascism at home, especially because they know they must spill workers’ blood to guarantee their profits in the short and long term.

Workers and soldiers must not be won to these misleaders. At every opportunity, communists should expose the lies and actions of the liberal rulers and their tools. They pose a greater danger to our class than open fascists because they pose as "friends of the workers," aided by their lieutenants running the labor movement. These liberal Democrats cast a line baited with false promises of universal healthcare, education and jobs for all; hoping that workers will swallow their poisonous ideology when we bite at those few reform crumbs they offer. The liberals can only guarantee that capitalism will continue and pave a new road to fascism for years to come.

The Progressive Labor Party advances what communism means: fighting for one flag, one class, one party. No concession should be given by workers to the capitalists. Only the working class, organized with communist politics, can turn the war plans of the bosses into a revolution for a society answering workers’ needs.

Rumsfeld Out, But Workers No Better Off

Drenched with the blood of hundreds of thousands of working-class Iraqis and Afghans, Donald Rumsfeld deserves our hatred. But his recent ouster, like the Democrats’ electoral triumph, should bring no cheers. In no way does it change the objective conditions underlying U.S. military action. The global rivalry for profit that requires U.S. rulers to wage oil wars while preparing for World War III is only sharpening. Rumsfeld’s replacement, Robert Gates, could, in fact, prove a more lethal warrior. He more directly serves those U.S. capitalists who have the greatest need to defend their empire by armed force. With Gates in charge, the liberal imperialist Establishment wing of U.S. capitalism tightens its grip on war policy.

On Iraq Policy, Gates Swings With Rulers’ Whim

Hand-picked by former secretary of state James Baker, a JP Morgan and Exxon Mobil heir, Gates is part of the Iraq Study Group (ISG). Anticipating November’s anti-Bush vote, the ISG cooked up bi-partisan Iraq "solutions" that actually entail stepping up the killing. The liberal New York Times endorsed an ISG option in its November 12th editorial, "one last push to stabilize Baghdad.... [t]hat would require at least a temporary increase in American and Iraqi troops on Baghdad streets." The U.S. butchered thousands when it tried to "stabilize" Fallujah a year ago. The carnage in Baghdad, twenty times more populous, would be all the more horrifying.

Many call Gates a hypocrite because he, as a CIA agent during the 1980’s Iraq-Iran war, supplied information to Saddam Hussein. But this episode only proves his loyalty to the Establishment. At the time, its cynical strategy for controlling the Mid-East and its oil was to weaken both Iraq and Iran by encouraging each side to slaughter as many of the other’s citizens as it could.

Gates: Die-Hard Establishment Warmaker

Gates is an important cog in the Establishment’s policy-making machine. In 2004, with Zbigniew Brzezinski, he co-chaired the Council on Foreign Relations’ Iran Task Force. Bankrolled by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and overseen by Exxon Mobil’s Mid-East advisor, Suzanne Maloney, it concluded that the U.S. must treat Iran as a perpetual rival. Iran, it said, competes head to head with the U.S. for energy supplies and politico-military influence in the region and is forging worrisome ties to China, Russia and Western Europe. But, recognizing U.S. military powerlessness due to troop shortages, the Gates panel urged a course of "selective engagement," a combination of talks and threats, for now. Gates’ unwritten but obvious conclusion was that the U.S. must marshal larger forces.

Liberals’ Unfinished Job #1: Mobilizing 300 Million

Failure to even attempt to reach that goal doomed Rumsfeld. He represented a large sector of U.S. capitalists unwilling to subordinate their bottom line to war needs. They included small businesses, domestically oriented firms, and executives at huge companies who did not fully grasp the long-term game plan. [See Spitzer article, page 2] After the election, the imperialists seem to have the upper hand. We cannot predict just how they will try to organize their sorely-needed mobilization. But the Democratic Leadership Council, led by re-elected Hillary Clinton, is already pushing for compulsory national service and an immediate addition of 100,000 soldiers.

Under such circumstances, real political victory for workers lies outside the polling booth — in building a working-class communist party that can eventually put a revolutionary end to the profit system and the endless wars it causes.

Beware Liberals Like Spitzer Bearing Pro-War ‘Reforms’

Eliot Spitzer, New York State’s governor-elect, is one of the top cops in a rapidly hardening financial police state. Facing a near- and long-term future of ever costlier combat, U.S. rulers need to impose wartime discipline on their fellow capitalists. Under the liberal pretext of "corporate reform," Spitzer, as the State attorney general, forced hundreds of companies, large and small, to comply with U.S. imperialism’s agenda. His efforts in the country’s capital of finance have had nationwide impact. For example, Sarbanes-Oxley, the federal law that requires a strict auditing of corporations, resulted largely from Spitzer’s dogged application of New York laws in the service of U.S. imperialism.

Spitzer Targets Bosses Who Block War Agenda

Spitzer’s prosecution last year of insurance giant AIG’s boss Maurice Greenberg, for example, has major foreign policy implications. Spitzer drove Greenberg out of his chairman’s suite by charging him with improprieties in managing a family foundation. But, in the rulers’ view, Greenberg’s real crime was his ties to China’s bosses, with whom AIG has a sweetheart deal. It alone can operate wholly-owned subsidiaries in China. Greenberg is a director and big funder of the Council on Foreign Relations. With tensions between the two nations mounting, Spitzer discredited "soft-on-China" forces at U.S imperialism’s most influential policy think-tank. His investigation into bid-rigging had already booted Greenberg's son Jeffrey from his post as chief executive of insurance broker Marsh & McLennan, which also has extensive operations in China.

A full-scale U.S. war effort will require centralized government control of finance and industry. Knowing that, Spitzer doesn’t shy from swatting down the most prestigious firms and families when they clash with broader ruling-class interests. He slapped a $2-billion fine on JP Morgan Chase for its involvement in the Enron scandal and a $2.6-billion one on Citigroup for aiding WorldCom. Enron had imperiled U.S. capitalism by cornering the West Coast gas market and temporarily withholding energy from entire towns and factories, including war plants. In WorldCom’s case, Spitzer helped the rulers wrest a big chunk of the U.S.’s strategic communications infrastructure from Bernie Ebbers, a politically unreliable upstart with few ties to the Establishment.

Liberals’ Police State Hits Workers Hard, Too

Spitzer’s shaping up of wayward corporations goes hand in hand with a wartime crackdown on workers. In purging China hand Greenberg from Marsh & McLennan, Spitzer greased the way for Michael Cherkasky, his old boss at the Manhattan DA’s office, to become Marsh’s CEO. Cherkasky heads Kroll, a firm that specializes in homeland security fascism and became a part of Marsh in 2004, while Spitzer was prosecuting Marsh. Kroll advises the government on border control. It sifts bank data for terrorist activity.

The Supreme Court chose Kroll to oversee the Los Angeles Police Department, which has a habit of provoking rebellions inconvenient for war-bent rulers. Kroll took on William Bratton (now LAPD Police Chief) as a partner during his brief private sector stint. Among Kroll’s many police department clients, he spread Bratton’s "community policing" gospel, which calls for a network of pro-cop stool-pigeons based in churches and other local organizations. Spitzer himself has helped institute Bratton-blessed, cop-led Neighborhood Watch programs across New York State.

Spitzer now promises to rid the State Capitol of lobbyists who sell policy to the highest bidder while ignoring the capitalist class’s greater needs. The New York Times, endorsing Spitzer’s "clean-house" campaign, invoked Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller, Establishment imperialists all, as models for him to follow. Spitzer heeds his masters’ voice. His transition team includes Peter Goldmark, longtime head of the Rockefeller Foundation. Pro-war "reformer" Spitzer is no better than the rest of the wolves in sheeps’ clothing let loose by the election.

PL History: 1963: PL Busts Travel Ban to Cuba

In the summer of 1963, the year-old Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) — forerunner of the PLP — defied the U.S. government and broke its ban on travel to Cuba. Fearful that the Cuban revolutionary experience had great appeal to U.S. youth, especially black and Latino workers, and might spark revolutions throughout Latin America, the Kennedy administration wanted to isolate Cuba with an economic boycott (still in force) and this travel ban. Anticipating the U.S. rulers’ invasion plans, the PLM had distributed tens of thousands of leaflets, held street rallies and unfurled the first "Hands Off Cuba" banner in UN galleries. (See CHALLENGE, 11/1)

After the U.S. Bay of Pigs invasion failed miserably, PLM boldly announced it would break the travel ban. Of 500 students who applied, 75 were chosen and planned to fly to Cuba via Canada. But the latter government, in collusion with the U.S., refused a landing permit for the plane.

Then, figuring the FBI, CIA and State Department would send agents into our ranks, we publicly announced a plan to go via Mexico, even telling that to the student applicants. But actually, we flew thousands of miles to Europe and back to Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast, duping the U.S. spy agencies.

Upon returning, the students refused immigration officials’ demands to hand over their passports. More than 50 PLM members and friends were hauled before a Grand Jury and either cited for contempt or indicted on "conspiracy" charges, facing up to 20 years in jail. A national campaign was launched to defend the student travelers.

The best answer to the attack was organization of still another trip, with 84 of 1,000 applicants going. After a fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court, all charges were dropped. Many students joined the PLM during this struggle and PLM emerged as a new vigorous force in the emerging Left movement in the U.S., which later helped propel PLP into the forefront of the anti-Vietnam War struggle.

All this occurred at a time when the newly-organized PLM viewed the Castro leadership as socialist revolutionaries. However, eventually Castro became a supporter of the state-capitalist Soviet Union, impelling PLP to understand that Castro could not be viewed as a revolutionary communist.

Nevertheless, breaking the travel ban in that era did carry out the maxim, "Be bold; dare to struggle, dare to win!"

PL’ers Building Base for Communism in D.C. Transit

WASHINGTON, D.C. Nov. 13 — The election campaign for a PLP-led slate of officers is heating up here in Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689. The transit industry is of strategic importance to U.S. working-class struggle — transit jobs can’t be outsourced, like steel and auto. When transit stops, as in the NYC 2005 strike, the economy and profit-making are severly affected. Therefore, building PLP at Metro and in other basic industries is of critical importance.

While there’s growing militancy in transit nation-wide, there’s still too little communist leadership to channel this militancy in a communist, class-conscious direction. Nevertheless, transit unions in Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have all fought militantly to resist cuts and maintain living standards despite the bosses’ determination to drive them down.

Here in D.C., the bosses are especially vulnerable to transit strike action. It would disrupt the economy, especially if led by communists. It could be seen as a rebellion and harshly attacked by the bosses’ state power — cops, National Guard, even the Army, the courts and jail threats and subject to media lies.

A strike would shut down the U.S. government and military headquarters at the Pentagon, and lead to escalating repression by the bosses. Communist leadership in the union can prepare workers for such a development, and fight now to build industry-wide and city-wide solidarity to up the ante in the class struggle. Such sharpening struggle would be welcome, since it would provide fertile ground for masses of workers to see the need to smash the entire capitalist system and replace it with workers’ power and communism.

The key step towards this goal is the choice, by more and more workers, to join PLP and help build the long-term struggle for revolution, using their strategic position at Metro. The San Francisco transit workers’ union elected a PLP’er Recording Secretary. The Metro union here elected a PLP’er President. Hundreds of delegates at the international ATU convention cheered the floor speeches of revolutionary workers. Thousands of New York City transit workers braved fines and jailings in a bold strike last year, and continue to thirst for militant and possibly even revolutionary leadership.

Transit workers have demonstrated recently that they’re beginning to understand the power in their hands and the need to use that power for their class. But only with the leadership of PLP will such potential be translated into a revolutionary force.

(For up-to-date developments in Local 689, check out the website — http://www.atulocal689.org/)

Chile: Miners’ Solidarity With GM Strikers Paying Off

ARICA, Chile, Nov. 7 — Over 150 GM strikers marched through this northern city last week, after 97% of the members of the Union of General Motors Workers rejected the company’s miserable "final offer" and walked out. The workers are demanding an immediate 8% raise; a back-to-work bonus of 1 million pesos (US$1,900); and abolition of a work-rule change affecting current seniority and work assignments that would force workers to perform more than one job. Flexible work-rule changes and the use of subcontractors attack the job security and lower the wages of all workers, part of the bosses’ plan worldwide to make workers pay for the effects of their fierce war-like competition.

A union leader told La Estrella de Arica, a local daily: "They are lowering our wages every day. A few weeks ago GM brought in 90 workers at a monthly wage of 170,000 pesos (US$323), well below the norm of 220,000 pesos (US$ 418)." For the first time since it opened in 1970, GM hired women but at the lower wage-rates.

In contrast to its slump in the U.S. and Canada, GM has doubled last year’s production of pick-up trucks in this plant to 30 units per day. Since September, the company began producing the new 2007 Chevrolet D-Max pick-up truck, very much in demand by the country’s growing copper-mining industry here — because of China’s heavy need for copper — as well as for export to Venezuela. So workers are demanding a bigger share.

In solidarity, the La Escondida miners’ union helped the autoworkers in their negotiations with GM. The GM workers had supported the miners’ recent 25-day strike. Mostly owned by the UK-Australian BH Billiton company, La Escondida’s profits have risen 153% to $1.1 billion.

Workers from Detroit to Arica need more of this kind of solidarity to counter GM’s and all bosses’ "divide-and-rule" tactic which weakens workers’ struggles. Even more, workers must learn the need to build an international revolutionary movement to end capitalism’s wage slavery. That’s PLP’s aim. Join us!

Pakistan: PL’ers Expose All Bosses, Aid Quake Victims

(The following is a report sent to CHALLENGE from comrades in Pakistan.)

Fundamentalism:

Pakistan is a paradise for terrorists now that the government has signed an agreement with the fundamentalist clerics to keep them in their federally administered tribal area, Waziristan. However, U.S. forces are doing whatever they think will aid their survival in Afghanistan. The fundamentalist leadership claimed that U.S./NATO forces attacked that religious school (madrassa), killing 84 and injuring many more in Bajure.

It is very clear to workers that these terrorists are strengthening the capitalists, enabling them to remain in this territory. These terrorists, who the CIA, Saudi Arabia and local bosses organized, trained and financed to fight the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, now have another task — to protect capitalism in this region by spreading divisive prejudices and producing chaos in this society, using suicide bombers to kill innocent people.

Nationalism:

The murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti devastated Balochistan. Nationalist forces actively destabilized the government, attacking public places, killing security personnel, organizing demonstrations and detonating bombs, grenades and missiles. Insurgency in Balochistan is not new. Nationalism is its driving force — there are more than 12 parties/groups fighting for their "turf." One is the Baloch National Liberation Army, engaging in military operations.

Feudalists are very strong in Balochistan also. The government claims they’re opposed to development in this region and therefore are spreading terrorism to discourage investment there. The feudalists and the government are battling for control of Balochistan’s huge resources. In this military fight between feudalism and capitalism, the capitalist bosses seek an empire with their own conditions but feudalists want a piece of the pie.

Privatization:

The government’s Privatization Commission is taking huge kickbacks by actively selling all the factories under state control to various capitalists.

Recently it virtually gave the Pakistan Steel Mill (PSM) to these private exploiters, strengthening their control over huge industries, to counter any working-class revolutionary struggle.

The PSM, completed under the former USSR in 1978, cost 25 billion rupees but was sold for 30 billion, although the currency exchange rate is now six times higher! Just before privatization the management spent 500 million rupees for new vehicles and 200 million on its roads — a nice gift for the new bosses. In three years, PSM reaped 20 billion rupees profit but is being sold for 21 billion while owing the workers 23 billion. No wonder the workers fear being fired. (Current exchange rate is 60.7 rupees to one U.S. dollar.)

Politicians Serve the Capitalists:

Pakistan’s political parties are fighting for control. If barred from the government, fundamentalists threaten other bosses with terrorism that would harm U.S. interests in this region. The Muslim Leagues oppose anyone who rules on behalf of U.S. imperialists. The Pakistan People’s Party is trying to convince the U.S. bosses that it can easily fulfill their agenda because they have the masses’ support. The revisionists (fake leftists) are indirectly doing the bosses’ dirty work while advocating "socialism."

Trade Unions’ Role:

The government has banned teachers’ unions in Sindh and fired their leaders. We must fight to win many workers to the need to join the fight for communism, because without a Party truly working for communist revolution they cannot eliminate these capitalist rulers.

The bosses are using the union leadership fakers to protect their profits. The union leaders are being bought off with homes, cars and money. Many workers who seek better wages and conditions fear being fired if they oppose this leadership.

2005 Earthquake:

It’s been more than one year since the devastating earthquake that killed 80,000, injured over 135,000 and left more than 3.2 million homeless across Pakistani-administrated Kashmir and the northwest province. Yet, because of the lack of planning, nepotism, dictatorial dealing with humanitarian organizations and corruption, the government has still not provided shelter for all the homeless. More than 80% are still in tents, facing problems like protection and security.

Although the government is supposedly compensating the homeless, this process is so complicated it leaves survey teams open for bribery. The poverty-stricken with no money for bribery have received nothing.

PLP has collected money, food and other needed items from our friends and delivered them to these deserving people. PLP has exposed the bosses who want to keep everything they can collect from the donors in the name of the affected people. Communism is the only system which can assist people in any emergency, free of discrimination.

Our Struggle:

We are determined to expose the crisis of capitalism in Pakistan, analyzing the world situation and aiming to win millions into our ranks, to lead an international communist revolution. All the evils of capitalism that exist here — high prices, no health facilities, education or clean water, fundamentalism, political chaos, exploitation in factories, harassment, inequality, injustice, nationalism, sexism and racism — give us the opportunity to build PLP. We are the real fighters against capitalist oppression worldwide, having the capability of uniting the working class into a single international communist party — PLP.

In Pakistan the geo-political and socio-economic conditions provide fertile soil for our struggle against the exploiting ruling class, helping us to recruit new workers into our Party.

Salvador Hospital Strikers Block Streets, Confront Cops

SAN SALVADOR, Oct. 27 — The 125,000 workers of the Social Security Institute Union (STISS), striking for a $100 monthly raise, have paralyzed operations of clinics and hospitals. When the Order Maintenance Unit police (UMO) took over the hospitals, the strikers responded by taking control of the surrounding streets, blocking the capital’s main thoroughfares and paralyzing traffic. This led to a confrontation between the police and the workers. By today, even more hospitals and clinics had joined the general strike.

The government has offered $20 a month. Nolasco Perla, director of the Social Security Institute (ISS), said these workers "are some of the best-paid workers in the country." While he may be one of the best-paid, earning $5,250 a month, most workers receive only $300.

"We hope that, when president Tony Saca returns to the country, he will reason with the director of Social Security," said the union leader. One doctor then declared, "These reforms will not solve the lack of medicine and instruments in the hospitals, even less so with our leaders sold out to the right-wing."

The strike is 15 days old and jurisdiction is now in the hands of the Ministry of Labor, an institution controlled by the ARENA Party fascists. They, as always, declared the strike illegal, provoking even more ruthless attacks, including salary cuts, jailings and police repression.

The workers are displaying courage and determination, inside and outside the hospitals, confronting the police and the sellout leaders. They deserve a better future and better strategies for struggle. Therefore, we are redoubling our efforts to build CHALLENGE networks to become the basis for new struggles, not only for $100 raises but for revolutionary struggles for a communist society where all the power and everything we produce will be for the working class.

Oaxaca: ‘Reform’ Capitalism No Solution for Workers

OAXACA, MEXICO Nov. 15 — "Even though we’re returning to teach, the struggle continues, mainly our revolutionary struggle," said a teacher here. She says that most of the State’s teachers (in small towns and rural areas) are returning to schools to begin classes and talk with their students and parents about the five-month struggle.

Hundreds of thousands marched on Nov. 2 and a week ago hundreds fought the federal troops and repelled their attack on Radio University. But this week the troops have reopened the UABJ (Benito Juárez Autonomous University).

In this city there is still uncertainty because of the repressive conditions. Thousands of local and federal police and paramilitaries occupy the city. It’s not known exactly when teachers will return here.

Meanwhile, APPO (People of Oaxaca Popular Assembly), with many internal divisions (more next issue) continues demonstrating and threatens to erect more barricades and organize mobile brigades if Governor Ruiz doesn’t step down. It has formed a state council with over 260 leaders of organizations, including the teachers union (SNTE Section 22) to draft a new Oaxaca constitution as a way to pressure the state and federal government.

PLP continues to struggle for our politics to shatter the illusion that there can be a pro-worker "reformed democratic capitalism" (as "the people’s President" López Obrador and his PRD party proposes as an alternative to PAN, the ruling party, and its allies in the PRI, the Party of the hated Oaxaca governor). López Obrador and his PRD, which has met with the APPO leaders, wants a capitalism that invests in programs for social control (as pushed by the World Bank), including investing in education and oil infrastructure. They say it’s "more efficient" and better at winning workers to sacrifice for the "national interests" — in effect, for the entire capitalist class. The PRD represents a sector of Mexican rulers who seek deals (including over profits from the government-owned oil company Pemex) with China and other imperialists rather than exclusively with U.S. bosses. Workers have nothing to gain by taking sides in this bosses’ dogfight.

The federal troops are in Oaxaca to guarantee the dictatorship of capital. Our aim is to show how the massive fight-back can become a school to build a mass PLP and fight for the dictatorship of the working class: a communist society without any local and foreign bosses and where workers’ needs are the only priority.

Back Oaxaca Struggle

NEW YORK CITY

Nov. 13 — 100 teachers and students organized by the Professional Staff Congress union at CUNY (City University of New York) held a spirited rally today here in support of the striking Oaxaca teachers. Many leaflets and CHALLENGES were distributed.

El SALVADOR

"Fraternal and revolutionary greeting to the teachers of Oaxaca whose organization and courage in confronting capitalism we admire," declared a teacher here in El Salvador. "Capitalism impoverishes and exploits teachers worldwide."

We’ve discussed the struggle of the Oaxaca teachers in meetings with hundreds of teachers, based on the ideas of class struggle, internationalism, exploitation under capitalism, and the need for communist revolution. In some meetings we proposed to support the teachers in demonstrations and in articles in the teachers’ union newspaper ANDES. PLP, using CHALLENGE, has linked this struggle to the fight among the imperialists.

"We won’t forget that the teacher who is fighting back is also teaching," said another teacher here. We’ve been in the streets marching with these same slogans and now it’s our class brothers and sisters in Mexico who are in struggle. Teachers play a key role in the fight against capitalism. They’re trained to teach the ideas of the system to keep exploitation and oppression alive. But when they decide to teach the ideas of struggling for a communist society, they become a powerful force.

They can help sow the seeds of revolutionary ideas to millions of future workers and soldiers, those who will be in the forefront of organizing a communist revolution.

From El Salvador to Oaxaca, the working class has no borders!

Comrades in El Salvador

Cops Save Minutemen From Anti-Racists’ Wrath

MAYWOOD, CA., Nov. 11 — Hundreds of angry anti-racists confronted the racist Minutemen today when they demonstrated here to protest the city’s status as a "sanctuary" for undocumented workers. A huge police presence protected the Minutemen from anti-racist anger meting out severe punishment. Many said angrily that if it were not for the cops, they would give the Minutemen what they deserve.

A group of youth hung one of several effigies of KKK-Minutemen from a lamppost as the crowd cheered. Although the cops eventually took it down, the crowd beat the other effigies.

Many joined lively chants against the Minutemen and the cops, including, "Este puno si se ve — los obreros al poder!" ("See this fist — workers to power!") as they shook their fists at the Minutemen and the cops.

At one point a supposed "demonstrator" began handing out Mexican flags (there was only one such flag before that). He was quickly identified as a Minuteman trying to divide the crowd, creating an image of anti-racists being loyal to the flag of the Mexican bosses. People yelled "Saquenlo" ("get him out of here"), chased him and threw his flags on the ground. One anti-racist demonstrator was arrested. The crowd became angrier and taunted the cops.

A PL comrade passed the hat for the arrested anti-racist fighter. Spectators and demonstrators contributed $300 on the spot. The arrested man’s friends thanked us as we chanted "Same enemy, same fight, workers of the world, unite!" Over 200 CHALLENGES were distributed (all we had). The red PLP flag of the international working class waved proudly throughout demonstration.

Red Ideas Make Headway at Public Health Convention

BOSTON, Nov. 13 — While last year's annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Philadelphia produced a noisy demonstration, PLP’s "quieter" one-on-one activity this year can prove more valuable in the long run.

There was some action this year — like when the Boston cops (complete with police wagon) shut down the activists’ breakfast and Katrina slide show. Or when we dodged Convention Center Security to keep distributing flyers after being chased from several locations. But such moments were not the most important ones for building PLP.

A more passive atmosphere this year possibly resulted from delegates hoping a Democratic Party Congressional majority would end the Iraq war and boost funding for public health. (The elections occurred right in the middle of our meeting.) But PLP’ers from five cities sought conversations with friends ready to move somewhat beyond electoral politics. We made some real progress with some.

One friend — who had e-mailed a comrade a reminder to file his absentee ballot before leaving for Boston — ended up subscribing to CHALLENGE and to The COMMUNIST magazine. She had only seen the paper once but because of joint efforts in anti-war activity with this comrade for the past two years she was confident enough to seriously consider the Party's ideas and literature. Our relationship will continue after the Convention.

Advocating communist ideas in a mass way made possible other conversations. A Party flyer that laid out the Democrats’ war plans (using their own website) was passed out before the opening plenary, attended by thousands. Party speakers raised various aspects of the Party’s line at the podium in various sessions or from the audience. These included the need for soldier rebellions against imperialist war and the need to build a multi-racial movement to fight racism.

Other Party ideas — such as the need to violently combat the bosses’ attacks to bring about fundamental social change — were raised individually. One such sharp exchange with a good friend ended with the comrade asking, "So, do you want me to stop sending you the paper?" "No," the friend replied, "I don't agree with everything but keep sending it." Then the comrade was given a $40 donation for the sub and postage. The struggle continues.

Racist French Rulers Use ‘Terrorist’ Lies to Fire Airport Workers

PARIS, FRANCE, Nov. 10 — Last week the Roissy deputy prefect announced security clearances had been withdrawn from 72 Muslim airport workers over the past year. As a result, most of the workers lost their jobs. This racist attack was underscored by an Oct. 21 statement by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. Referring to the loss of security clearances by an initial group of 43 workers, he said, "There’s no question of it being a case of us just not liking their faces. There are precise grounds which led us to forbid their presence at the airport." But it seems the workers’ "crime" is very precisely their faces — or their religion.

The context of this attack goes back four years ago when Jacques Chirac was re-elected French president in a campaign in which all candidates beat the law-and-order drum. Now next year’s presidential election has probable candidates Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and right-wing "socialist" Ségolène Royale again spotlighting "crime" and "terrorism." In the background, as inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens, the French bosses are looking to discipline workers with new repressive measures. This racist attack on these 72 workers, mostly baggage handlers, can eventually be used against many of the 80,000 workers at the Roissy-Charles De Gaulle airport — Paris’s largest single employer.

Most of these workers are accused of "being connected" to Salafism, a branch of Islam. ("Le Figaro", 11/10) The deputy prefect, Jacques Lebrot, claimed the workers had "fundamentalist tendencies that are potentially terrorist" and were linked to "the Islamic scene."

Right-wing deputy Alain Marsaud swiftly called for a law to speed up revocation of security clearances. Before becoming a deputy, he was a board member of the scandal-ridden Compagnie Générale des Eaux, whose chairman was fined one million euros for lying.

When eight workers sued to force the prefect to disclose the evidence against them, it revealed the weakness of the government’s charges. On Nov. 8, the government restored security clearances to two workers, and today the court conveniently declared it had no jurisdiction in the case. The dossiers compiled by the central unit for "fighting terrorism" (which Marsaud headed in the 1980s) will remain secret.

No wonder. The police interviews, which French law requires before a security clearance can be revoked, don’t seem to have been very professional. The newspaper "Le Canard enchaîné" (11/8) revealed part of the procedure. Karim K., holding a security clearance for ten years, was asked: "Do you feel comfortable living in France?" He ought to — he was born here to a French mother and an Algerian father! When a cop suggested that his Saudi Arabia trip wasn’t for sight-seeing, Karim replied that he had gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca — and asked if the police were going to question all Christian workers who had gone on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Security company employee Hervé B. is a French convert to Islam. In March 2005 his company congratulated him for having intercepted firearms. Last April, he was part of the security team protecting Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy but still lost his security clearance.

The French bosses’ past laxity regarding corruption and air security exposes their hypocrisy. After the 9/11 attacks, Air France contracted with the Pretory guard company for in-flight security. Of 648 guards employed on France-U.S. flights, 173 had a police record and 20 had done hard prison time. ("Le Canard enchaîné," 11/18) Not so surprising, considering Pretory’s personnel recruiter had been sentenced to a 17-year prison term for armed robbery! And last July Air France boss Jean-Cyril Spinetta persuaded the judges not to charge him with money laundering and misuse of company property because it would hinder Air France’s merger with KLM!

Unfortunately, Roissy airport workers’ unions are pretty spineless. A Nov. 7 inter-trade union meeting agreed only to publish a joint leaflet; have their respective lawyers "work together"; and have a delegation meet the do-nothing minister for equal opportunity, Azouz Begag. They couldn’t agree on strike action and tabled the matter until the next meeting, Nov. 17.

The airport workers need to follow the Modeluxe laundry workers’ example (CHALLENGE, 11/1 and 11/15). Their one-week sit-down strike — which united all workers, French-born and foreign-born, documented and undocumented — forced the Essone department prefect to grant residence and work permits to ALL 20 of the undocumented workers.

Comparing the experiences of the Roissy and Modeluxe workers, it’s clear that winning workers’ demands doesn’t go through the bosses’ courts, but rather through workers’ unity at the point of production. Ultimately, eliminating the bosses’ courts, prefects and ministers will abolish capitalist exploitation once and for all.

Oil Resources Behind Darfur Deaths, Wars in Africa

Wars are spreading throughout Africa

• Somali Islamist movement fighters clashed with the interim government on Nov. 11 for the second time lately. "Militant groups and 11 countries are funneling the military aid needed for a full-scale war into Somalia, widening the threat of conflict into the Horn of Africa and beyond…" (Reuters, 11/10)

• In Kinshasha, Congo, armed clashes erupted between supporters of President Kabila and his opponent in the recent presidential election, Vice-President Jean Pierre Bemba. Kabila is ahead in the election’s second round. Over four million people have died since war erupted in the Congo in the late 1990’s, involving many nearby countries.

• In Darfur, the violence continues between government-supported militias and their opponents in the South of Sudan.

Said the Observer (London, 11/12): "This epidemic of war is as destructive as those of AIDS and malaria. But the chief fuel to this flame is not an innate aggression by Africans, as many commentators suggest. Tragically, in most cases, it is the blessings bestowed by nature on the continent and the strong desire of economically powerful outsiders to get them. Ethnic and religious rivalries are real, but too often serve as a smokescreen." (The Observer, Nov. 12).

For example, in Sudan the fighting is said to be among "Arabs and Africans" (both groups are African and black). But it’s oil that’s really behind it. U.S. bosses, black politicians and many liberals like actor George Clooney are focusing on the deaths in Darfur, but the reality underlying this "concern" is the China National Petroleum Corporation’s purchase of the rights to Block 6, the largest oil and gas field still controlled by the central Sudanese government, which lies mostly in Darfur.

"Production costs are believed to be a bargain, 22 cents…a barrel, and with Rolls-Royce Marine reportedly supplying tens of millions of dollars worth of pumping equipment this summer Block 6 production is alleged to have risen from 10,000 to 40,000 barrels a day," says the Observer. "Earlier this month China’s President Hu Jintao spoke forcefully in support of Sudan’s right to sort out Darfur as it saw fit, while his oil-thirsty country is now Sudan’s main military supplier. The signals from China’s recent summit with African leaders are that the Chinese will only push harder in future to gain their share of the spoils."

The conflict in Somalia is also labeled a religious struggle between Muslims and Christians (Ethiopia supports the interim government, opposed by a Muslim coalition). But what’s unpublicized is that the Ogaden region bordering Somalia sits on an unexploited gas field. The Malaysian oil giant Petronas has bought three concession blocks there. Ethiopa’s rulers fear a resurgent Somalia will seek to annex Ogaden. The area’s likely coming war is, in part, gas-powered.

The racists, who blame it all on African "savagery," point to the slaughter in Rwanda. "But there, too," reports the Observer, "one of the most under-reported tensions behind the conflict was the shortage of valuable grasslands." French and U.S. imperialists’ fight over resources also had their hands in this massacre.

The wars in the Congo were fought over diamonds, cobalt, gold and other precious minerals (with many imperialist companies financing the fighting). The wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia were again for diamonds, financed by foreign companies.

(A future article will review how many U.S. companies and investors — from George W. Bush to liberals like Clinton’s former U.S. ambassador Andrew Young — had their hands soaked with the blood of the millions who’ve died here, and how the only way out of this slaughter is to build an internationalist communist movement to break with all forms of tribalism, warlords and imperialists.)

LETTERS

Liberals’ Petition Misleads Anti-War GI’s

A subcommittee of my peace group builds support for anti-war resisters inside the military, along with groups like Iraq Vets Against the War and Military Families Speak Out. We were excited about the "Appeal for Redress" for military personnel to tell Congress to end the war, but there was much in it we disliked. The petition says nothing about getting out of Afghanistan or anywhere in the Middle East. Some of us wouldn't want to ask anti-war military personnel to self-identify as "patriotic Americans proud to serve the nation in uniform." Such language sets soldiers up for the next war - maybe, someone said, for World War III.

We created a "pledge" calling for ending the war and occupation of Iraq and everywhere else. It asks soldiers to follow their conscience and refuse to commit war crimes or fight for the corporate empire. Some were nervous about such strong language. Others are very enthusiastic and plan to take a mass approach with the pledge. Some members of the peace group dislike that; one leader is pushing the Appeal. The group has adopted our Pledge but this struggle will continue.

Working on the Pledge has provoked some sharp and useful political discussions in the committee, in the whole group and in private conversations. Taking it to friends in other groups, and directly to those most affected will spark even more discussion.

It will help this struggle if CHALLENGE is more consistent about the danger posed by liberals within the military anti-war movement.

The letter "GI's Begin to Opt Out" (CHALLENGE, 11/15) correctly states that "the ruling class is preparing a trap.…The Democrats…have a more sophisticated plan for waging imperialist war." Exactly for that reason, the same article is wrong to describe the "Appeal for redress" as a "blow to the solar plexus" of the military brass. Top brass were among the first to say that "staying in Iraq [with the Bush administration strategy] will not work" (in the words of the Appeal.) The group "West Point Graduates Against the War" declares, "the deceitful connivances of the current administration have resulted in a war catastrophic to our nation's interests." The Appeal's patriotism and reliance on "our leaders" in Congress push the identical lie that working-class soldiers have the same "national interest" as the imperialist rulers. We must sharply counter this lie or we, too, run the risk of leading troops into the Democrats' pro-imperialist trap.

Wherever there are people angry about the war, we can fight for aspects of revolutionary ideas, like international working-class consciousness and refusing to obey orders that are against our class interest.

A Comrade

Need Alternative to Liberals' GI 'Appeal'

The article "GI's begin to Opt Out" (CHALLENGE, 11/15) is very true and a good sign that many soldiers are against the war and want it to end. That shows there's lots of potential in directly working with soldiers. But I was disturbed by the article's claim that the "appeal for redress" signed by 1,000 soldiers was "hitting the military brass like a blow to the solar plexus." I'm confident we can explain the errors of patriotism in the appeal to soldiers. However, the article gives too much credit to the appeal, sponsored by liberals with strong ties to the ruling class.

The liberal politicians' agenda is to manipulate the anti-war anger of soldiers, using patriotism to set them up for the next war. One thing must be clarified: capitalism needs war. Politicians scream "let's get out of Iraq" because things are utterly ugly and they see no way to win with the current plan. There is definitely a need to end unjust, imperialist war; however, there are other places these same politicians would gladly send troops.

Any appeal that begins with "As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform," betrays the justified anti-war anger of soldiers. We should expose the goals of the liberal rulers. As soon as we can win over our base, we should propose an alternative statement for soldiers that's not patriotic. Sending petitions to Congress is fruitless and we should not confuse soldiers by encouraging them to send polite complaints to government officials.

The writer calls the appeal a "blow" and at the same time calls for communist revolution. The latter is an enormous blow. The article does acknowledge the sophisticated plan of the liberal ruling class accurately. We might not be able to get 1,000 troops to sign on to revolution now, but by criticizing the appeal and encouraging an alternative, we will make significant advances.

Red Iraq Vet

Danger, Opportunity in GI Movement

It's good to see the considerable activity and discussion about PLP's work with soldiers and their families. The recent article (CHALLENGE, 11/15) on the "Appeal for Redress" reflects the ongoing fight to build the Party within movements and struggles led by the ruling class. For us they contain both dangers and opportunities.

The "Redress," like virtually all organized class struggle in this period, is simultaneously a "blow" to the bosses and a temporary victory for them. The Oaxaca strike and rebellion, the supportive demonstrations by U.S. AFT chapters, the activities by Military Families Speak Out and IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) — two organizations formed by AFL-CIO and Democratic Party operatives — all provide opportunities to build a base for communist ideas in them while we're involved in whatever struggle is being organized. At the same time they're all led by the ruling class for the purpose of mis-leading workers. This is true regardless of whoever these groups' nominal local leaders are.

The Redress reflects rank-and-file soldiers' discontent with an imperialist war. Currently that discontent is being organized into a petition campaign led by the liberal rulers.

Given that the Redress is happening and over 1,000 soldiers have signed on to it, the main question is how we can take advantage of this development. Naturally, to the extent soldiers are following the liberal bosses, the Redress represents continuing victory for the capitalists. It's only when soldiers and workers can break away from following these enemies and follow communist leadership that the nature of the struggle can change.

This is true in one way or another — short of communist revolution — about every strike and struggle, no matter how militant or anti-imperialist the slogans, although the latter can raise class consciousness.

It would be an error not to participate because it is patriotic, any more than we would say don't participate in a strike or pro-immigrant demonstration just because the union or community group leads a march with an American (or Mexican) flag or recites the Pledge of Allegiance. Appealing to Congress builds as many illusions and creates as much opportunity as demanding a raise or amnesty or a new governor. What matters is what we do to build the Party in any of these struggles.

We should support the soldiers signing the petition, out of class solidarity. At the same time, as an organization, we should do what the writer says in criticizing the patriotism and raise more militant and politically sharper points, win people to communism and recruit to the Party from many angles, from within and without, loudly and one on one.

If people get soldiers to sign other statements, that's great too. To do all these things we must get deeply involved in this struggle and stay involved in every way possible.

red vet

Wider Wars Behind School ‘Reform’

As teachers in a PLP-led study group, we take teaching seriously. We want the best learning environment to teach the truth about class struggle and to prepare our students to fight for communism. They need to be able to read, write and think critically using historical knowledge, analysis and dialectical materialism.

But the schools are designed to serve the needs of the ruling class. This contradicts the ILLUSION that schools are an agency of upward mobility, that reforming capitalist schools would give working-class kids a better life. We want students to have a better life, not to drop out or do drugs, but we know that school reform is not designed to improve life for working-class kids.

Twenty years ago Party teachers helped fight for books, clean classrooms, pencil sharpeners. In those days, as long as we had our class under control, nobody knew or cared what we taught. Things have changed. It would be a mistake to mainly concentrate on the same old fight for better conditions; we must recognize the changing needs of the ruling class in the current crisis. There are now millions of dollars in additional funding, standards, standardized tests, small learning communities, and many more books. Obviously, the oldest school buildings in black and Latino communities still have moldy classrooms and falling-down ceiling tiles. In the growing imperialist crisis, the rulers need to pay closer attention to the inner-city public schools.

The ruling class wants to standardize instruction so that students receive a basic educational level of competence in reading, math, science, and social studies. They are particularly concerned with "the very poor, who drop out of high school and are therefore ineligible for the military." ("Was Kerry Right?" LA Times Op-Ed 11/3). It is precisely to prepare for wider war that the bosses are reforming education. Their rivalry with emerging imperialist powers is accelerating, and the ruling class needs to organize every aspect of society, including the schools, to lay the preparations for inevitable conflict.

Every major liberal think tank and foundation has united in this endeavor. A 2005 New York University report titled "With All Deliberate Speed", quotes retired Army Generals worrying about the high dropout rate harming military enrollment and predicts that the U.S. will need 14 million more college-trained workers by 2020, mostly to work in the war industry. A capitalist class that has spent decades pushing a racist program of drugs, social neglect and mass incarceration now faces the absolute need to change its educational plans to recruit, win and train a significantly larger sector of its inner-city youth.

One education reform has been the move to small schools which are often "school to work" programs (which serve the needs of industry), service-based programs (which train kids to be cops or otherwise serve the system) or "social justice" schools. The latter involve some of the most committed activists, but are an important part of the liberal rulers' plan to win the working class to patriotism and loyalty to the system. In these schools we spend a lot of time in meetings with our colleagues. There, and with our students, we try to expose the illusions fostered by community projects to register voters, the liberal patriotism that misdefines the fight against racism as "expanding who is an American" and the environmentalism that asks students to blame themselves for global warming. But most importantly, we fight to expose the bosses' need for war.

This month's Rethinking Schools magazine article by liberal apologist Alfie Kohn bemoans the bosses' plan to win global competition by "sending children home with packets of worksheets." He asks why we can't be allowed to educate kids to be enthusiastic and proficient learners, instead. Unlike the idealistic Kohn, we communists see that war is on the capitalist agenda and school reform is part of that. We need to expose this and win students, parents and teachers to fighting, not to reform public education for WWIII, but to build a movement to turn the bosses' war into a revolutionary war for workers' power. Only in a communist society can Kohn's dream of enthusiastic, proficient learners become a reality. Working-class students will be motivated to learn by fighting to organize society to meet our class' needs rather than to kill and die for the bosses' profits.

Reddish Teachers

Medical Murder: From Hitler to Israel to U.S.

The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., has been presenting an exhibit entitled "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race." It finally agreed, after much opposition, to bring this exhibition to the country that created the Nazis, and show it in Dresden. It was the rise of pro-Nazi groups in Germany today that convinced the Museum to do so. The exhibition displays some 400 documents, objects and photos of how Hitler’s fascist regime tried to create a "master race." Doctors and scientists played a key role, murdering thousands of children and adults considered "unfit to live" once they were catalogued as mentally ill or physically disabled.

Prior to the "Master Race" plan becoming a deadly killing machine, a joke pervaded Germany on how the "Nazi Pure Aryan" was "blonde like Hitler, tall like Goebbels and slim like Göring," Nazi leaders who were dark-haired, short and fat. But it was no joke. From 1939 to 1945 euthanasia killed 5,000 German children and 200,000 adults. It was part of the Holocaust slaughter of millions of "subhumans."

"It did not happen overnight," said Antje Uhlig, the exhibition’s director. She told the Mexican daily La Jornada (10/25): "Using the social prejudices already in place and based on the Eugenics movement, the Third Reich used research in human genetics to decide which human being was ‘valuable’ and which one was not…"

The Nazis popularized the eugenics theory British scientist Francis Galton wrote in 1883. His ideas spread internationally, including to the U.S., using horse-breeding principles to "improve" the human race through artificial selection of "the fittest." In 1930, the Dresden Hygiene Museum (site of today’s exhibition) opened on the subject of human sexuality. After Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, it became the cornerstone of Nazi medical propaganda.

Upon the Nazis’ seizure of power, they enacted a law "guarding" against genetically inherited diseases, the judicial basis for euthanasia and the Holocaust.

While the law forbid abortions for Aryan mothers, whom the State idolized, still some 400,000 men and women with any one of nine Nazi-defined "hereditary illnesses" were sterilized, all according to "law."

Many doctors and scientists used this and other laws to execute horrendous human experiments. Joseph Mengele, the "Angel of Death," was the best-known of these doctors for his experiments at the Auschwitz death camp. But there were many others. Even before the war, Paul Nietzche, a Dresden psychiatrist, advocated death for the "incurably ill." He started the euthanasia program "Aktion T-4" after the 1939 invasion of Poland. It began with new-borns and then expanded to include adults. Doctors and nurses were ordered to register disabled children with genetic defects. A prestigious Berlin pediatrician, Ernst Wentzler, was one who had the final decision on who was to be killed. One picture in the exhibition shows a health crew smiling to the camera in a crematorium.

This exhibition of the past is very much related to the present. Copying the Nazis, four senior Israeli doctors were just arrested for illegally experimenting on thousands of elderly and mentally disturbed patients — including some survivors of Nazi concentration camps! — without their consent. Thirteen patients died during or shortly after one experiment.

Today, in the U.S. cutbacks in social and health services, racist medical practices and the drive for maximum profits by hospitals and HMO’s has caused the deaths of untold numbers of people who cannot afford medical care here. The bosses bribe many medical professionals to participate in these attacks, giving them relatively higher living standards than other hospital workers and most workers. Communist medical professionals have a long history of fighting the rulers’ racist attacks and strive to unite with other healthcare workers.

Nazi medical science was no aberration, but a product of a racist war-making profit system, which easily can be repeated here.

An online version of the exhibition can be seen at: http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine

An irate patient

Campus’ Action Exposes ‘Justice’ Roberts

Recently chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts visited my college campus. His lecture was considered by many faculty and students to be a high point of the fall semester. What these people seemed to forget was that Roberts is not above politics; he was picked by Bush and confirmed by both parties in Congress to advance the interests of U.S. imperialism abroad and fascism at home. He is presiding over a court, which has signed off on the torture of innocent people in Guantanamo, and all over the world; which may soon seek to limit a woman’s right to abortion; and which seems determined to usher in the re-segregation of public schools.

At first I wasn’t sure whether people on my campus would be open to a demonstration attacking such a respected political figure. At our first meeting, only six other students came. It was a good opportunity for us to discuss how the Supreme Court functions to legalize fascism, racism and sexism. On the day of the demonstration, we came prepared with anti-fascist chants, soon 35 students and towns-people joined the demonstration. It was a good turnout for a school that is often considered apathetic. We distributed CHALLENGE and leaflets, and we learned that even small private colleges have people who want to ally with workers if they are given the chance.

Red Student

The Deaf Must Unite With Their Class

Since a comrade reported on the situation at Gallaudet University, the protesting students have won their battle to force the university trustees to dump their choice to succeed the retiring president.

This was a real victory for the students, but their movement contains serious contradictions. As the comrade reported, they want American Sign Language (ASL), to be primary at Gallaudet. ASL is a very different language from English and does not have a written form (the comrade did not realize this). Some of these students reject other forms of communication used by deaf people, including simultaneously signing and speaking, as incompatible with their notion of deaf culture. As the comrade rightly notes, this is a kind of identity politics, like feminism or nationalism, that separates its proponents from workers in general by emphasizing the "difference" of being deaf instead of concentrating on building class unity against the capitalist culture which does oppress the deaf in special ways. The many other deaf people, who need or prefer to use speech or English-based signing as well as ASL, are attacked as less pure and the capitalists who profit from all divisions within the working class are let off the hook.

I am myself a deaf person who lives in the mainstream (where I must use speech and lip reading to communicate). I admire the fierce energy of the Gallaudet protesters, which could go a long way toward overcoming the real, physical barriers that separate those without hearing from those with, and intensifying the common struggle against capitalism and its evils. I am saddened that far too much of that energy is being diverted into dead-end, even more isolating identity politics.

A Supporter

REDEYE

Nigeria’s workers rely on armed force

Last week militants seized more oil workers, one British and one American. More that 50 have been kidnapped this year….

The conflict has degenerated into a crisis threatening to halt oil production in the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter. Production this year is down by about 600,000 barrels a day….

"If we don’t use violence, we can find it difficult for the government and the companies to attend to our needs," said Earnest Tonye, a young militant in Port Harcourt. "It works. When you are quiet, nobody cares about you if you are dying."

At the heart of anger is what they see as decades of exploitation. Last year the Nigerian government earned about $45bn in oil revenue while more than 70% of Nigerians live on less than $1 a day. (GW, 11/16)

Capitalist-run world swims in sewage

Every year, more than two million children die of diarrhea and other sicknesses caused by dirty water and a lack of "access to sanitation."

…More than a third of the world’s people — 2.6 billion — have no decent place to go to the bathroom, while more than a billion get water for drinking, washing and cooking from sources polluted by human and animal feces.

At any time, almost half the people in developing countries have one or more of the main illnesses associated with inadequate water and sanitation….They are plagued by diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, trachoma and parasitic worms….

"Life-saving investments in water and sanitation are dwarfed by military spending,"… (NYT, 11/10)

Who are the worst terror-killers?

The overwhelming majority of people killed or maimed by cluster bombs are civilians and a significant number of those are children, according to an unprecedented study….The full extent of the damage caused by unexploded "bomblets" will probably never be known, it says….

Cluster bombs have been used in most major conflicts since Vietnam. Nato aircraft dropped them over civilian areas during the Kosovo conflict, British forces fired Israeli-made cluster weapons around Basra in 2003, and the Israelis fired them at Lebanon this summer….

In some areas of Iraq casualties from cluster weapons account for between 75% and 80% of all casualties. (GW, 11/16)

Voters know they’re just flipping a coin

Many voters, however, were willing to take a chance on unknown quantities.

In St. Louis, Floyd Butcher said he was not aligned with either party but would vote for Claire C. McCaskill, the Democratic challenger to senator Jim Talent.

"I’m sick of hearing Talent lie about McCaskill and sick of hearing McCaskill lie about Talent," Mr. Butcher said. "But we’ve had Talent for years now and we know that he did not do a lot for us. McCaskill may be just as bad, but at least we don’t know that for a fact." (NYT, 11/8)

‘Demand for profit’ = world hunger

Figures from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organiastion (FAO) show not a reduction but an increase of…undernourished people since 1996. The figure, now at more than 850 million, is testament to how current global policies are consigning the hungry to stay hungry….

The report says that neoliberal economic policy has encouraged the elimination of small-scale food producers. Farmers and indigenous peoples are seen as "residues" of history — whose disappearance is inevitable….

The message of the report is that small-scale farmers — the majority of growers in the world — want radically different policies from those being promoted by their governments. The call is for policies to start from the perspectives of food producers and consumers rather than the demand for profit. (GW, 11/9)

They work to save legs — if you’re rich

Economically and socially marginalized groups…get the shortest shrift in the amputation lottery. Among diabetics in North America, Hispanics and African Americans are 1.5 to 2.5 times more likely than whites to undergo lower limb amputations. (NYT, 11/7)

Unemployment low? This crowd says no

A new candy store that would be opening in Times Square needed workers. Starting pay was $10.75 an hour.

But by midmorning yesterday, a huge, swelling discontented crowd of job seekers was…filling the air with curses.

The crowd put a human face on jobless statistics at a time when the city’s unemployment rate, 4.5 percent in September, was the lowest since 1988.

Several thousand people — mostly young, black and Hispanic — had shown up to apply for fewer than 200 positions, only 65 of them full-time jobs. They came, they said, because of a phrase that had leapt out of the advertisements for the jobs: "on-the-spot hiring." But there were too many people clogging the sidewalk outside the building on Eighth Avenue between 35th and 36th streets where the company was conducting interviews, and everyone was abruptly told to go home and mail in the job applications….

Many had arranged for baby sitters, traveled from other boroughs and New Jersey, and lined up as early as 1 a.m.,…. (NYT, 11/4)

Short-Circuiting Soldiers’ Political Potential

Book Review: "Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance during the Vietnam War," By David Cortright, Haymarket Books, Chicago, 2005

The new edition of "Soldiers in Revolt," David Cortright’s 1975 survey of the Vietnam era GI movement fits well into U.S. rulers’ plans for a larger Army with Nazi-like commitment to prepare for bigger and bloodier wars ahead. As more and more workers, students and soldiers oppose the war in Iraq, Cortright’s ideas will be used to mislead the anti-war movement.

"Soldiers in Revolt" chronicles an impressive sequence of GI revolts, but then distorts these insurgencies with identity politics, faith in democratic reform and patriotism.

Soldiers Fight Back

Hundreds of thousands of troops rebelled during the Vietnam War with 250 anti-war, anti-racist committees and "underground" newspapers distributed illegally on bases and ships, in stockades and on the front lines.

The "less sophisticated, often violent means" [Cortright’s words] soldiers employed were even better. Outraged by the beating of a black soldier, the Ft. Bragg stockade erupted on July 23, 1968. Black and white GIs held out for over 48 hours before surrendering to armed troops from the 82nd Airborne. In early November 1972, the U.S.S. Constellation witnessed "the first mass mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy." We should all be so "unsophisticated"!

As Cortright reveals, the Pentagon admitted 47% of active-duty soldiers participated in organized resistance or rebellion during the height of the GI movement in 1970-71. The imperialists’ worse nightmare would be soldiers won to revolutionary communist class-consciousness leading widespread Armed Forces rebellion.

Two Traps: Identity Politics and Democracy

But even the descriptions of rebellions must be read with care. The Progressive Labor Party’s single mention vastly downplays our military work. Knowing better, U.S. counter-intelligence officer Taylor testified (House Internal Securities Committee, Vol. II, 1972) that "other organizations were being overshadowed by . . . PLP in the 6th Army."

Cortright distorted the Party’s work in the mass anti-racist fight-back at Ft. Lewis led by three comrades, black, Latin and white. His nationalist and identity politics led him to describe the struggle as mostly whites supporting blacks, while maintaining "blacks normally stood alone in resisting racial abuses."

In fact, we built a multi-racial group (a slight majority were black) that fought racism and genocidal war on a class basis. Fifty CHALLENGE readers, writers and sellers, with the aid of thousands of leaflets and pamphlets, spread the word: racist attacks hurt all GIs! The brass did "their best to scare white GI’s away from fighting racism," according to an internal PLP report. "We succeeded in gathering some of the most militant, serious fighters, black, Latin and white around the Party by concentrating on the fight against racism." A number eventually joined.

Cortright pushes "democracy," devoting 85 pages to his plan to secure a volunteer army based largely on democratic reforms. "Voluntary recruitment…can only work in a…democratically structured armed force…."

Within those 85 pages, only one paragraph criticizes imperialism. The anti-racist struggle is reduced to "proud young blacks…fight[ing] for their rightful share of democratic freedoms." PLP, on the other hand, exposed capitalist democracy as a bosses’ dictatorship founded upon racism and imperialism. Soldiers’ experiences made them sympathetic to this analysis.

Another Trap: Bosses’ Patriotism

Cortright’s analysis has developed into a sophisticated defense of a "benign" U.S. imperialism. His August 2002 article "Stop the War Before it Starts" (The Progressive Magazine), favors building a movement that "ride[s] the patriotic wave and offer[s] forward-looking solutions that uphold the best traditions of American democracy." He raised more than $300,000 for Win Without War, promoting it as "mainstream and patriotic." He bragged that ads and press releases featured an American flag. Its mission statement began with "We are patriotic Americans…" ("A Peaceful Superpower: the Movement against War in Iraq")

The biggest imperialists finance Cortright. He heads the Fourth Freedom Forum funded by the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The new edition of his book contains a postscript in which he advocates a legalistic approach, explaining how he tried to sue the army. He further describes the new liberal coalition he wants to build to reform the army.

Cortright knows how the "Vietnam Syndrome" can affect soldiers. He’s already pushing GI "anti-war" petitions (for redress) to Congress starting — once again — with "As a patriotic American…" His patriotism sets up soldiers for the next war, preempting class consciousness.

PLP will continue military organizing to win soldiers to wage revolutionary class war against the imperialist warmakers, recruiting soldiers to the workers’ side. A revolution to smash this racist, capitalist system requires the active support of vast numbers of troops. Political friendships made in the military will help pave the long road to communism. "Soldiers in Revolt" may be worth reading for the stories of GI unrest, but Cortright’s politics, then and now, make a mockery of these brave soldiers’ struggles.

God Save The Queen Because The Working Class Definitely Shouldn’t!

I watched the movie "The Queen" with a friend from work and her reaction was "you know, Mrs. Blair in the movie was right, the Queen definitely does freeload off of the people with thirty million dollars in taxes coming in to support her." As if all capitalists don’t! The toilets in the Hilton hotels are scrubbed by underpaid workers not Paris Hilton. Whether absolute monarchy or bourgeois democracy, workers maintain the rulers’ thrones and mansions!

"The Queen" covered the time period shortly after Princess Diana died in 1997 and Tony Blair assumed the position of Prime Minister of England. Like another movie out right now, "Marie Antoinette," these movies are just trying to humanize workers’ oppressors, while ignoring their daily crimes against the working class. Even though around the world racist police terrorize, beat and kill workers regularly, the bosses want us to shed tears when one of them dies.

During her lifetime Princess Diana called for many reforms such as reducing the spread of AIDS, uncovering buried land mines in war-torn countries, and providing aid for starving children. While she was practically elevated to sainthood by the capitalist press, Diana was nothing more than a liberal apologist who thought charity and photo-ops would cure the working class of those above-mentioned ills. Her supposed heart of gold captivated many workers, but all the actual gold she wore had been extracted by suffering mine workers around the world. When she died workers lost little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

In Europe, many monarchies consolidated their wealth with the capitalists as they came to power and now are collaborators with the ruling class. In Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth advised Tony Blair. Far from a figurehead, she uses Blair as a messenger and enforcer for the agenda of the entire ruling class. You see this in the movie when Elizabeth questions Blair on his plans. The scene ends with the conversation trailing off as he mentions education reform, not getting into how Blair has pushed the imperialist war in Iraq and racist attacks on Muslim workers.

Tony Blair listens as Elizabeth concludes that the people needed their Queen to be there for them and that she is well known for keeping her feelings private. The message of the movie is that heads of state (be they queen, prime minister or president) cry just like we cry and that they are really people too. However rulers don’t cry because handcuffs dig into their wrists, nightsticks sting their cheeks, or their relatives die from poverty!

For the most part power and privilege have taken on a new appearance; the people who wield them don’t have crowns on their heads, just suits and flags. Yet no matter which master sits on top, workers will get screwed. Capitalism, feudalism, and slave societies all have concentration of power in the hands of the few at the expense of the masses. Tony Blair may have been part of the "Labor" party, but the working class only finds itself laboring endlessly for the profits of the ruling class. It is up to the working class to seize power through communist revolution and establish a system based on everyone’s needs.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, November 15, 2006

Information: 15 November 2006 121 hits

OAXACA REBELS BATTLE FASCIST TROOPS
1. Support Spreading
RULERS TRY TO FOOL WORKERS WITH PHONY IRAQ `EXIT' SCHEMES
1. Oil-thirsty Liberals Seek More Mid-East Killing, Not Less
2. Baker-Hamilton Brain-Trust Imperialist to the Core
3. DEMS PUSH MILITARISM
Imperialist Rivalries Dictate Latin American Elections
1. Latin American Elections Reflect Splits in the Ruling Classes
2. BRAZIL
3. ECUADOR
BUILDING COMMUNIST CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AMONG D.C. TRANSIT WORKERS
Students Oppose Military `Career Fair,' Challenge University Intimidation
FIGHTING HIV and AIDS, FIGHTING FOR REVOLUTION!
PL'ers Fight for Real Communist Politics at Conference
Bronx Postal Workers Battle Layoffs, Closings
Auto Bosses' Rivalry Puts Brakes on Ford, GM
1. Here is evidence that the Big Three is no more:
Corruption Inc.: NYC Central Faker Council Robs Workers Blind
Sit-down Striker Fights Anti-Immigrant French Bosses
RED YOUTH BUILD PLP IN MEXICO
LA Workers Back Oaxaca Rebels
LETTERS
1. Is PLP Against `Better Schools'?
  1. CHALLENGE Comment:
2. Racism Won't Fly With Airport Workers
3. Workers Back Anti-Klan Protesters
Nicaraguan Election Exposes Opportunists' Betrayal
PLP HISTORY:
Miners' Rebellion Launched PL's 44 Years in Class Struggle
REDEYE
1. First nukes in Korea came from U.S.
2. Climate issue is handy for ruling class
3. Elections aren't fooling many people
4. New Love for sugar daddies: Democrats
5. China and India see wars over energy
6. TV ad speeds up child's development
7. North's rulers also got rich on slavery
Book Review:
U.S. Britain Betrayed Death Camp Inmates
In Memory of Sam Chestnut
Nov 26, 1943 - Sept. 26, 2006
Book Review:
Murder Mystery With Working-Class Hero

OAXACA REBELS BATTLE FASCIST TROOPS

OAXACA, MEXICO, Oct. 29 -- Today, thousands of fascist federal police with tanks and bullets invaded this city of rebellion. Protestors reinforced their barricades with burning busses, some with full gas tanks. Thousands of workers with bags of rocks, with poles and Molotov cocktails waited for the police. Then the cops were met with a barrage of rocks. Fighting was hand to hand.

Other police used 80 buses to open the roads but youth ran alongside cutting their tires and burning some -- busses and police. Two older people with rock-filled bags on their shoulders ran from a barricade to an opening, bringing the rocks to the youth.

At one barricade led by women, demonstrations captured 12 unarmed young soldiers dressed in civilian clothes, detained them and later turned them over to the military.

Others wrongly waved the Mexican flag to try to slow the attack. But this flag -- which President Fox holds to his chest -- represents the bosses, not the workers.

By day's end, smoke and tear gas filled the city. Four workers were killed, with hundreds injured and arrested. The working class in general joined the struggle: teachers, workers, students and farm workers. It was a lesson for future struggles.

The city fell into the fascists' hands, but the spirit of struggle is freer than ever. This was one more battle in the long war against capitalism. Thousands of these now experienced fighters are open to a broader vision of the revolutionary struggle, not just for crumbs or capitalist reforms but also for control of all state power through a real communist revolution.

Oaxaca is one of Mexico's poorest states, with a large indigenous population and a reputation for rebelliousness. Control over Oaxaca is crucial for the bosses to prevent opposition to their project linking the Pacific Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico -- part of Plan Puebla Panama, (see box page 5) with great potential for tourism as well as an important transportation hub. Oaxaca is a source of cheap labor forced to migrate to the U.S., Mexico City and northern Mexico. The bosses fear that the racism, poverty and rebelliousness provide fertile ground for the revolt to spread.

The competing rulers have both political and economic motives for smashing the movement. Ex-governors Carrasco and Murat want to preserve control of state power and guarantee their profits. Elba Gordillo, the top hack of the SNTE (National Teachers' Union) -- and right hand of Mexico's newly-elected president Calderón -- wants to control the militant Oaxaca SNTE Section 22. Governor Ulises represents another ruling-class faction and uses violence to maintain his position.

While these murderers vie for power, the workers are repressed and killed. Ulises has held on because the other groups can't agree. He has the support of most of the PRI party which fears losing control of Oaxaca State to other electoral parties.

The fascist repression reveals the true face of Fox, Calderón, Abascal (Interior Minister) and the PAN, Fox's party. Although having tactical disagreements with PAN, López Obrador and his opposition PRD party showed their pro-boss class interest by their tepid response to the government's criminal actions. All of them are sworn enemies of the working class. We should never trust any of them or the capitalist system that they defend by murdering workers.

The PLP has played a modest but important role in the movement in Oaxaca, including distribution of CHALLENGE, the spreading of communist ideas and mass actions of support nationally and internationally. New friends are closer because of the Party's boldness in the struggle and its communist analysis of events.

We workers will only succeed when we organize in a party to take state power for the working class, not just to remove a gangster like Ruiz so the bosses can replace him with another puppet. We need communist consciousness over the long run to destroy the bosses' state power and establish a communist society where the decisions are made by the organized working class.

For the comrades who have fallen in the struggle and the thousands who have fought valiantly, the PLP commits itself to redouble our efforts to bring the fight for communism to every corner of Oaxaca and the world. We call on you to march under the Red Flag of the international working class.

Support Spreading

Four hundred thousand teachers from the CNTE (a national dissident group inside the Teachers Union) called for a work stoppage against the fascist police assault on the five-month struggle in Oaxaca. Protests have spread throughout Mexico and in Los Angeles, New York City, London, Madrid and many other cities. Political conditions for bringing communist ideas to the masses are maturing. PLP is helping to organize support actions in the U.S. and Latin America while presenting the goal of communist revolution.

RULERS TRY TO FOOL WORKERS WITH PHONY IRAQ `EXIT' SCHEMES

More than 100 GI's lost their lives to U.S. imperialism in Iraq during October. The puppet Iraqi government has given up trying to count its own dead citizens. Meanwhile, Establishment liberals are cynically trying to parlay disgust at the mounting carnage into a Democratic Congressional electoral victory and tighter control of U.S. foreign policy for the Bush regime's remaining two years. The dominant liberal wing of U.S. capitalism forced Bush to make a public admission of mistakes over Iraq at his October 25 press conference. Bush, dropping the "Stay-the-Course" slogan, welcomed the forthcoming recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), headed by Republican James Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton. Behind its misleading "phased withdrawal" rhetoric, the panel's report reflects the rulers' need for intensified warfare in the oil-rich Middle East.

Oil-thirsty Liberals Seek More Mid-East Killing, Not Less

The ISG report, slated for post-Election Day publication but leaked to the press in mid-October, presents two main options, "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain." The former would focus U.S. troops on wiping out insurgents in Baghdad (population 5,000,000), an operation that would make November 2005 U.S.-led massacre in Fallujah (population 400,000) look like a tea party. The latter meshes with calls by Rep. John Murtha and a host of Democratic Congressional candidates for a tactical retreat of U.S. forces from Iraq followed by an all-out re-invasion of the entire region. The re-deployers don't want all the troops out, however. The U.S. has built 14 permanent military bases near Iraq's oil fields, pipelines, and major cities.

The ISG also recommends negotiating with Iran and Syria. Such talks would be classic gunboat diplomacy. The U.S. Navy has recently dispatched two strike groups, including the aircraft carrier Enterprise, to the Persian Gulf. And, under the guise of monitoring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S.-led NATO is conducting a massive naval build-up in the eastern Mediterranean.

Baker-Hamilton Brain-Trust Imperialist to the Core

Though hailing from Texas, ISG co-chairman Baker serves the imperialist Eastern Establishment. His law firm, Baker Botts, has represented Exxon Mobil and its predecessors for over a century. The Texas Commerce Bank, started by Baker's grandfather, is now part of JP MorganChase. As papa Bush's Secretary of State, Baker rounded up allies for the first Iraq war. Even before the second one began, the Baker Institute he founded teamed up with the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations to produce "Guiding Principles," a 32-page document on how to conduct the occupation. Bush & Co. failed to heed it. Hamilton, the ISG's other leader, sports equally impressive imperialist credentials. A Hart-Rudman commissioner, he helped draft U.S. rulers' plans for maintaining their supremacy well into the 21st Century by implementing a police state to mobilize the nation for ever larger wars.

DEMS PUSH MILITARISM

Whatever success liberals may have in exerting influence over the White House and getting Democrats elected won't benefit the working class one bit. Rumsfeld is indeed a war criminal. But firing him, as the liberal New York Times demanded (10/24/06), would only advance the imperialists' deadly agenda. The militaristic mobilization that liberals really want comes through loud and clear in the latest issue of "Blueprint," published by the Democratic Leadership Council, headed by none other than Hillary Clinton. Its lead article, "The Plan: Big Ideas for America," says, "All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service. This is not a draft -- nor is it military. Young people will be trained not as soldiers, but simply as citizens who understand their responsibilities in the event of natural disaster, epidemic, or terrorist attack." The phony "anti-militarism" soon yields to imperialist warmongering when the article later says, "We need to fortify the military's `thin green line' around the world by adding to the Special Forces and the Marines, and expanding the Army by 100,000 more troops."

The state of affairs that necessitates the rulers' Baker-Hamilton intervention presents the working class both with the danger of more lethal wars and the opportunity to organize against them. Simply put, Bush faces the task of mobilizing, people who don't want to be mobilized. The Clinton-appointed bi-partisan Hart-Rudman Commission report demands a sacrifice of "blood and treasure" for U.S. imperialism -- the "treasure" meaning higher taxes, not tax cuts. But capitalists with less imperialist aspirations -- who comprise part of Bush's voting base -- do not want war taxes eating into their profits. More importantly, the vast majority of workers are unwilling to give their lives for Exxon and JP MorganChase in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else. In such times, our Party can and must build a working-class anti-imperialist war movement with the outlook of eliminating the profit system through communist revolution.

(Disciplining both capitalists and workers is crucial to the rulers' war plans. Next issue will analyze future New York governor Eliot Spitzer, the so-called "Sheriff of Wall Street," and the growth of the U.S. police state.)

Imperialist Rivalries Dictate Latin American Elections

It's election season across Latin America, and capitalist elections can mean both nothing and something. Capitalists spend billions on them to try to settle disagreements within their class and to win the allegiance of workers, who are led to bank their hopes of a better world on electoral change.

Elections provide a dialectics lesson in appearance and essence. Capitalism trains us to think superficially. The bosses celebrate elections, saying our voices matter. Politicians make big promises, but after the fuss of expensive elections, the working class always loses out. Using dialectics, however, we can learn to see beyond the appearances the media present and analyze the essential nature of the elections: no matter which politicians win they serve the bosses, not the workers.

Latin American Elections Reflect Splits in the Ruling Classes

Venezuela is a key oil producer which the U.S. once considered its backyard. Many workers see Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez as a courageous anti-imperialist leader; he survived a U.S.-backed 2002 coup and called Bush the "devil" in a recent UN speech as part of his now troubled bid for a Security Council seat. But he is only anti-U.S. (or merely anti-Bush), not a real anti-imperialist. Challengers to U.S. imperialism like China, India, Russia and Iran are investing heavily in Venezuela's oil. Venezuela is now shifting oil exports from the U.S. to China and India (in the first seven months of 2006, U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil declined 13% compared to the same period in 2005). Russia's Gazprom and Lukoil are now investing heavily in Venezuela oil and gas. Russia also just signed a billion-dollar deal to sell modern weapons to the Venezuelan Armed Forces. Also, a section of the local ruling class is making huge profits because of the oil price boom, while workers have gotten just a few crumbs. The support for Chavez by U.S. imperialist rivals symbolizes the relative decline of U.S. influence in Latin America, even though U.S. Big Oil and banks are still making big bucks in Venezuela. Chávez looks like he'll win the December presidential election. His slogan is "Ten Million Votes Down Their Throats." Chavez's discredited opposition, pro-U.S. factions of local rulers, has united around Manuel Rosales who supported the 2002 U.S.-backed coup against Chavez, later calling it a "mistake" in a "moment of confusion."

BRAZIL

In Brazil, the nation with the world's sharpest social inequality, the current "Workers'' Party president "Lula" da Silva won re-election with 60% of the votes in the second round, defeating the more pro-U.S. candidate Gerardo Alckmin. Workers supported Lula, an ex-metalworker and unionist, because of his reputation as a "working-class fighter." In 2002, when Lula was first elected, this appearance of being "pro-worker" worked, and did again today despite the corruption surrounding his Party.

But Lula basically represents the Sao Paulo bourgeoisie (the most powerful in Latin America) and Petrobras (the oil monopoly owned jointly by the state and private local and foreign investors). Since 2002, Lula has not changed the sharp social inequality or racism in this mostly non-white country. He didn't even withdraw Brazilian troops from Haiti after the U.S.-led invasion ousted Pres. Aristide. But Lula has bolstered Brazil's economic ties with China, selling it soy, iron ore and meat worth billions, while Brazilian workers suffer deep social spending cuts. By 2003, the total value of trade between the two countries was $36 billion; it's projected to reach $100 billion by 2010.

ECUADOR

A November run-off election in Ecuador features billionaire Alvaro Noboa, who favors close ties with the U.S. and Rafael Correa, a young professor. Noboa is the strike-breaking owner of many banana plantations utilizing child labor. Univ. of Illinois-trained economist Correa again is seen as the "lesser of two evils" by many, but he is just another capitalist tool. Correa's "leftist," campaign is based on diverting oil, Ecuador's main export, from the U.S. and into Asia. A section of the local rulers wants Correa to cash in on the opportunities with U.S. rivals. This doesn't mean Correa will end the poverty and racism suffered by urban and rural workers (many indigenous). He doesn't even plan to end the dollarization of the currency which plunged workers into more poverty a few years ago when it was adopted. According to one of his colleagues: "Correa is against the status quo, but that doesn't make him a Marxist or a messianic leader like Chavez" (NY Times, 10/16). The Times admits, "That may be why some prominent financiers and businessmen have backed him." Correa is in essence representing the bosses seeking to change the "status quo" of U.S. domination to some other imperialist bloc. And to the working class of Ecuador, he's a mortal enemy.

The shifting of Latin American ruling-class alliances away from U.S. influence and towards major rivals represents an area of concern for U.S. imperialism. The capitalists' constant rivalry for natural resources, markets, and labor is leading to imperialist wars world-wide. Our job as communists is not to build illusions about "lesser evil" bosses but to seize the opportunity to turn their wars into revolutionary struggles. That is why we aim to build a mass communist international PLP. A first step is to expand the CHALLENGE networks, to win workers to communist politics. Imperialism may seem invincible now, but in the long run it is vulnerable. There are two classes in this world: workers and bosses. What matters is which class wins, not which capitalist.

BUILDING COMMUNIST CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AMONG D.C. TRANSIT WORKERS

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 21 -- PLP study groups and growing youth leadership are helping consolidate the Party among Metro transit workers. Broader political education events train this emerging leadership and bring more revolutionary ideas to a wider circle of workers.

In this spirit, Local 689 held the third annual Committee on Political Education (COPE) Conference. Both younger and senior workers engaged in intense discussions about the Iraq war, the challenge of rising healthcare and pension costs and the need for militant actions, including strikes, to advance our class's interests. Significantly, not a single politician was invited.

Before Metro workers elected a communist president, there were no COPE conferences. Instead, the union would host a dinner/dance party and invite politicians as keynote speakers. The effect of those events was deadening. It deepened the reliance of union members on politicians and solidified the alignment of the union leadership with the bosses' politicians. The recent COPE conferences have broken with the politicians, struggled for higher levels of class consciousness and analysis on the part of rank-and-file workers, and brought an environment that helps create more revolutionaries. That's a worthwhile goal for the future of our class!

This conference's discussion about Iraq followed the viewing of a short video of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech "Beyond Vietnam" in which King drew parallels between the war in Vietnam and racism in the U.S., and questioned pacifism after seeing workers struggling to survive in U.S. ghettos and on the front lines in Vietnam. This sparked a lively discussion about whether Democratic politicians actually want to end the war. We said no, they're lying as usual! U.S. imperialist interests are too great in Iraq for the bosses to give up in that area -- Democrats have the same goal as Republicans on this issue (with slightly different tactics).

Preparing to fight the looming cuts in health coverage and pensions requires mass, conscious mobilization, not reliance on the union president to be a "clever negotiator." Past union history has turned off many workers and led others to rely on favors from the union officers instead of militant struggle. The current communist president concluded the discussion of the bosses' attacks and past inadequate responses with a clear call to prepare for a mass strike when the contract expires in 2008.

Students Oppose Military `Career Fair,' Challenge University Intimidation

CALIFORNIA, Oct. 29 --Last week, over 70 students marched back and forth through a Southern California campus fair filled with military and police recruiters chanting, "La Migra, La Policia, La Misma Porqueria!" ("The Border Patrol, the Cops, the Same Crap!") and "Political Repression Means Fight Back!" They were protesting police infiltration, military recruitment and imperialist war. As part of a growing trend, the university administration is trying to suppress militant, anti-imperialist activism through intimidation, police surveillance, and by limiting "free speech zones." The university career fair was a "Who's Who" of local police, border patrol and all the armed forces, reflecting the rulers' efforts to build war and fascism.

People readily took over 75 CHALLENGES, many especially interested in articles about Oaxaca and the war in Iraq. PLP's paper brought a welcome note of communist internationalism to the event.

Several months ago, a policewoman had infiltrated an immigrants' rights campus organization. She attended meetings, claiming to be a student. She later openly bragged about her stoolpigeon activities when she and another cop were arresting a student in a campus protest opposing the invasion of Lebanon.

This revelation opened students' eyes, leading many to see the university's real function as an institution to win students to the ruling class's ideology and to build fascism. Many were outraged and spurred to protest in last week's march.

University administrators tried to quiet and coerce the students to end their march. Some even argued that the "nice people with badges" were here "to give the students jobs."

Even many non-demonstrators were surprised at the array of employers: the border patrol, 11 different police and sheriff departments and the military. The push to recruit to such jobs on this working-class campus reflects the ruling class's need to replenish its army for wider wars, to continue its racist attacks at the border and in the cities. At the rally, one student speaker condemned the school's erecting a new criminology lab in partnership with the LAPD, while at the same time the war rages, student tuition keeps rising and cutbacks shrink the number of classes. Another speaker called for unity of students, workers and soldiers to build a revolutionary movement.

One point of debate among the activists was whether the demonstration should emphasize "free speech" or the fight against imperialism and racism. The free speech issue has arisen on other campuses as the rulers move to suppress an anti-imperialist movement. However, many are seeing that the fight for "free speech" contradicts building a revolutionary movement.

For example, while students spoke attacking the administration, one organizer felt it important to present the "other side," to allow a pro-war Republican to speak. Capitalist "free speech" means allowing such rights for racists like the Minutemen or the KKK, who shouldn't be allowed to spew their racist, nationalist garbage anywhere! The bosses allow "free speech" for those who support the ruling-class agenda, while attacking and suppressing those who oppose it.

Neither the university administration nor the capitalist state is neutral. As their wars spread, they will use their state power to try to stop the revolutionary movement. Only our long-term fight to destroy this capitalist system with communist revolution can end imperialist war and racist police terror. Recent campus events have led to deeper discussions about the system and the need for communism and the PLP.

FIGHTING HIV and AIDS, FIGHTING FOR REVOLUTION!

Washington, DC, Oct. 21--Today, over 50 comrades and friends in the anti-racist struggle against HIV and AIDS assembled at the Washington Highlands Library in the heart of Washington, D.C.'s impoverished black community to fight for more resources and programs to battle the HIV and AIDS epidemic here.

Washington, D.C. has the worst incidence of AIDS in the U.S. D.C. health providers estimate that five percent of the population and ten percent of the city's black men are HIV positive, with the infection rate for women climbing quickly. Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 47 percent of gay black men have HIV, an outrageous number. The epidemic is further fueled by substance use from heroin to cocaine, untreated mental illness and social stigma against AIDS patients.

PLP'ers bring a revolutionary communist perspective to this struggle. The capitalists and imperialists commit mass murder by creating conditions in which millions contract the disease worldwide. The root causes of the spread of AIDS include the capitalist creations of wars, poverty, housing segregation, sexism and disruptive jobs that displace and fracture families. Capitalists also profit from drug-pushing in the cities and save money by denying mental-health care and substance-use care to workers ravaged by capitalism. On top of this, capitalist culture produces stigma and religious ostracism about the disease, as well as individualistic consciousness that says that public health need not deal with this disease because it's a personal issue and the fault of the individual anyway!

PLP'ers have been working in the coalition of HIV and AIDS activists to carry out grassroots organizing for the past year from the Washington Highlands Public Library. Ward 8 Democrats also meet there monthly to advance their misleading reform rhetoric, so we are reaching many young people and politicians with our sharper advocacy and anti-capitalist analysis.

The Disparities Committee of the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association (MWPHA) has led politically sharp outreach activities every third Saturday, not only distributing condoms and testing information, but also petitioning for jobs and services and involving those most affected.

Participating at today's speakout along with MWPHA were Metro Teen AIDS, the Condom Project, Unity Health Care, and Family and Medical Counseling Service, RAP, Inc., and the Whitman Walker Clinic. D.C. Fights Back is a new activist HIV group that led efforts to make local politicians defend their basically nonexistent response to AIDS during the recent mayoral and city council elections. This week MWPHA voted to make this their advocacy program for the next two years, which should deepen the mass character of the campaign against HIV and AIDS.

Reform demands such as condoms in the schools and on the buses, needle exchange with drug rehab, jobs and increased funding for Ryan White (AIDS treatment legislation) and AIDS Drug Assistance Programs, are sharp struggles that lead to intense political discussion and analysis with public health workers, community residents and politicians. These debates and struggles will not change the root cause of the problem, however. So it is crucial that these activists, many of whom already understand that capitalism is the culprit, join the PLP to fight to topple the entire capitalist structure. PLP'ers continue to meet one-on-one with students and young workers, as well as with the patients and community workers. A Party study group is in the works.

PL'ers Fight for Real Communist Politics at Conference

AMHERST, MASS., Oct. 28 -- Members and friends of PLP participated in this weekend's triennial conference of "Rethinking Marxism" at the University of Massachusetts here. The conference focus was "Rethinking Communism." Communism certainly invites lots of rethinking. The record of the 20th century communist movement urgently requires analysis and reassessment. This conference only partially met this requirement. PLP, more than any other force, pressed for urgent discussion and debate.

One session, on "red pedagogy," addressed being a communist teacher in a working-class college: how to break down barriers between theory and practice and how to inspire students to view action against inequality as integral to their growth as thinking beings. Other sessions debated current U.S. domestic and foreign policy. In one, prominent liberals and neo-Marxists stressed the necessity to "defend democracy" as the bulwark against emerging fascism and anguished over the votes stolen by the Republicans in 2000 and 2004. PLP members and friends emphasized the theft of wages intrinsic to capitalism, as well as the theft of jobs under Democrats because of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement, implemented under Clinton).

Other sessions reviewed the history of the communist movement. The record of the Stalin era -- as demonically caricatured in Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech" of 1956 about was subjected to more positive, if critical, review. The return of capitalism in China was strongly criticized, and anti-communist rants about the supposed "disasters" of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were challenged.

Revolutionary communist politics were of great interest to some, but many others were pulled to the right by neo-Marxism. Some cited as gospel truth the ideas of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who say that "oppositional trans-class global `people'" have replaced the working class and that it's no longer necessary to organize a revolution to overthrow the capitalists' state. Others were influenced by the economic analyses of the group from the journal "Rethinking Marxism" (conference sponsors), who state revolution is "unnecessary" because elements of communist production "already exist under capitalism," and need only be brought to fruition.

The irrelevant academic nature of the "Marxism" advocated by the conference's sponsors emerged during the large plenary meetings, which completely evaded all questions on the theory and practice of communism. In the closing plenary, supposedly devoted to the topic "Rethinking Communism," this betrayal of the conference participants came out sharply. Speakers droned on about bourgeois philosophy, vaguely red-baited the 20th century communist legacy, and offered no analysis whatsoever about what to do.

PLP members and friends, and others in the audience, roundly attacked them. The former stressed the imminence of fascism, the growth of racism (domestic and international), and the need to rebuild the communist movement. A PLP member outlined our analysis of the historical failures of socialism -- seen in hindsight -- and the need to fight directly for communism by building a mass party around that line.

PLP members and friends who boldly challenged the inadequacies of neo-Marxism were warmly congratulated by various conference participants. PLP'ers distributed 350 Party flyers and many people bought PL material from our literature table, leading to many fruitful contacts. Without PLP's presence at the conference, it would have been a far tamer affair, constituting no threat at all to the bourgeois sources that fund it.

Bronx Postal Workers Battle Layoffs, Closings

BRONX, NY, Oct. 26 -- Postal workers picketed the Bronx GPO at 149th St. and the Grand Concourse protesting the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) plan to close 139 processing centers nationwide by Nov. 18. Similar actions occurred in Newark, NJ, Georgia, Texas and elsewhere. Workers could lose their jobs and customers will suffer even more delays in services and deliveries.

Postal workers collected signatures among area residents to send to Senators Clinton and Schumer stating that the transferring of operations to Manhattan will cause delays at three important local mail centers; will delay mail deliveries to residential and commercial customers; and the job losses will have a devastating effect on local Bronx businesses.

Interestingly, Clinton and Schumer have done nothing to save these jobs and services but they continue to vote for more funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for even more troops to be sent there, to be paid for partly out of cutbacks like these. The cuts have a racist character, affecting mainly black and Latino residents of the Bronx.

The USPS has held no public hearing to inform the community of the cutbacks. The Bronx Coalition to Save Postal Offices is organizing its own community hearing for 12 noon on Sat., Nov. 18, in Lincoln Hospital's auditorium, 234 E. 149th St.

The Bronx GPO operation, employing 250 workers on three shifts, would be transferred to Manhattan's Morgan General Mail Facility, benefiting mainly corporations and big businesses.

Auto Bosses' Rivalry Puts Brakes on Ford, GM

DETROIT, MI -- "All the old rules of the game are gone," said James P. Womack, co-founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute. He was referring to the deepening crisis of the domestic U.S. auto industry.

The fact that autoworkers may very well be seeing through their union's surrender to the bosses' crisis is evident in some Ford workers' reactions to their leaders' "solution." At a recent PLP Communist Workers' School, a Ford worker reported that his local leadership circulated a survey to get an idea which buyout options workers were taking. Many of the surveys came back with "FUCK YOU" written on them.

Here is evidence that the Big Three is no more:

*Ford lost $7.2 billion through September and could lose $10.6-billion this year, matching GM's losses last year. Ford is closing 16 factories, eliminating 40,000 jobs and will not make a profit in North America until 2009. After having been "#2" to G.M. for 70 years, Ford will now fall behind Toyota in the U.S. market. After the current round of job cuts, there will be more Toyota workers in the U.S. than Ford workers.

*G.M. is cutting 30,000 jobs and closing a dozen plants. It is about to be passed by Toyota as the biggest auto producer in the world. G.M. just introduced the Chevrolet Aveo subcompact, built for it by its South Korean partner, Daewoo.

*The Chrysler Group reported a $1.5 billion loss for this summer, more than twice what it expected. DaimlerChrysler is pairing with the Chinese automaker Chery to build a subcompact car.

*Bankrupt Delphi, spun off by GM to become the world's largest parts supplier, will eliminate nearly 75% of its U.S. work- force through buyouts and early retirements by the end of this year. It intends to slash the wages of the few remaining workers in half.

*As GM, Ford and Chrysler continue to retreat, the foreign competition is investing billions of dollars in U.S. factories, hiring thousands of workers.

*The United Automobile Workers (UAW), as always, is a loyal servant and junior partner to the bosses in this bloody restructuring. It negotiated the job eliminations at GM, Ford and Delphi sending a signal to the workers to get out before 2007 contract talks, when things will get even worse. They granted health care concessions to G.M. and Ford, and are now in similar talks with Chrysler.

The carnage at GM, Ford and Delphi reflects the increasing challenges to U.S. imperialism. While they shed 100,000 jobs and close over 40 factories, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and a host of parts suppliers from Europe and Asia are opening new plants. While the "old rules of the game" may be gone for the domestic U.S. auto industry, the rules of capitalism are firmly in place. Iraq is a window to the future of what the bosses have in store for us. That is how the bosses settle their fights for markets, resources and cheap labor.

Just as we cannot avoid fascism and war, we cannot stop these attacks. But we can fight the bosses, expose the union leaders and build a larger base for PLP. When the union leadership at Ford got back the workers' reaction to the afore-mentioned survey (see above), they concluded that the workers weren't taking Ford's crisis seriously. We think it's a sign of life. And by deepening our personal and political ties, we will try to make the most of it.

Corruption Inc.: NYC Central Faker Council Robs Workers Blind

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 24 -- Enron and Halliburton have come to this city's labor movement, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. Brian McLaughlin is president of the NYC Central Labor Council -- the country's largest such council -- comprising members in 400 local unions. And how did he lead them? By organizing solidarity and strikes among these one million trade unionists? By uniting black, Latino, white and Asian workers? Not quite.

Rather he has just been indicted on federal racketeering charges, embezzlement, receiving bribes, fraud and money laundering. He stole over $2 million from the Council, the State Assembly (he's a Democrat Assemblyman), from his own re-election campaign funds and as bribes from street lighting contractors.

His annual union income of $263,000 in salaries and expense accounts was not quite enough to finance his life style. So he took $95,000 from donations to union-sponsored Little League baseball teams to pay his rent. He used subordinates as personal servants to take his dog to the vet and trap rodents in his basement. He stole $330,000 from his campaign funds to pay for a rehearsal dinner for his son's wedding and for his country club membership. And the money from street lighting contractors bought an $80,000 Mercedes-Benz for his wife and paid his son's college tuition.

As one official put it, the extent of his theft was "stunning in its breadth and scope," lending "new meaning to the term `hand in the till.'"

While posing as a "friend of the workers," McLaughlin "provided pivotal early support for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election," (NY Times, 10/18) helping elect the very same billionaire who tried to break the NYC transit strike.

Why would the bosses' government indict such a friend? Apparently when the corruption gets so deep, they choose to use such sacrificial lambs to discredit honest trade unionists and stop the siphoning off of funds they need for their own exploitative purposes.

But then again, what should one expect from a trade union movement that's run like a business, aping the bosses with whom these labor fakers are negotiating one sellout contract after another? Yet McLaughlin's thievery is measured only in the low millions. It's small change compared to the tens of billions stolen from workers by the likes of the Rockefellers, Morgans, auto and steel barons, Halliburtons, Boeings and the rest of the really big bosses.

These labor lieutenants of the capitalist class, who support politicians who enforce anti-strike laws against city workers, are enemies of the working class.

Once workers begin using communist ideas to organize on behalf of their own class interests, they will dump these traitors into the garbage can of history.

Sit-down Striker Fights Anti-Immigrant French Bosses

CHILLY-MAZARIN, FRANCE, Oct. 27 -- "To my friends in the United States, I say that you must not let yourselves be exploited. If you do not struggle, you'll probably remain undocumented all your lives. I encourage you and everyone else in their struggles."

That's the message from one of the undocumented workers here at the Modeluxe industrial laundry. When the company moved to fire some of its 22 undocumented workers (in a workforce of 160), all of the laundry workers responded with a one-week sit-down strike (see CHALLENGE, 11/1).

"It's very important to struggle for your legalization," the worker (who wished to remain anonymous), said in an interview with CHALLENGE. "The bosses don't want their workers to be legalized so as to exploit them. You must not allow the boss to be the only one to act. If you depend on the boss to intervene for your legalization, it will never happen.

"The main thing for the boss is that the work gets done. You have to mobilize all the workers. In union there is strength. You have to go on strike. A factory that does not operate for one, two, three days is a very bad thing for the boss.

"It will work. You must never accept working in bad conditions. Struggle will bear fruit one day. You must not keep your heads down too much. You have to expose the problems. You have to tell people exactly what the conditions are. You'll find that there are many people who are opposed to the exploitation of undocumented workers."

This worker knows exactly what he's talking about. He and the other undocumented workers -- immigrants from Mali, Senegal, and Guinea -- were employed at the laundry for five years. When the police raided the factory in Dec. 2004, the CGT trade union intervened to demand the legalization of the workers. The prefect (the local representative of the French state) and the Modeluxe bosses schemed to dangle the promise of legalization before the workers' noses, asking them and their union to assemble dossiers [backgrounds].

Meanwhile, the exploitation continued. "They formed a special `third team' made up of the undocumented workers," said the worker we interviewed. "We were under pressure to do twice as much work as the others, even though we got paid 300 euros a month less. "They set us a special rate of 250 pieces, only to make us work harder. It was impossible to meet. When we couldn't meet the quota, they called us `sheep' to let us know they considered us to be savages or animals."

"We had to work from Monday to Saturday because we were undocumented. We could not refuse overtime. It was a new form of slavery. When you went to the toilet, the boss followed you. You could only stay in the toilet for five minutes. If you stayed longer, you got a warning letter."

The one-week sit-down strike ended on Oct. 7, with everyone winning pay for three of the strike days and with the legalization of four workers. The 18 remaining undocumented workers continued striking until the company fired them on Oct. 20.

To pressure the prefect, the undocumented workers attended a negotiating session with co-workers from the laundry and other supporters -- a crowd of 200. But the prefect stonewalled, saying only undocumented workers "with French relatives" could be legalized. Firstly, this is untrue; secondly, one of the undocumented workers is the brother of one of the legalized workers. They have the same French relative!

"We did not come to France to be bandits, we came to work," the undocumented worker told CHALLENGE. "But this government is encouraging the bosses to exploit the workers with its policy of labeling some workers `undocumented.'"

This battle proves the communist idea that workers' struggles have no borders. The fight against racism to unite all workers and for a revolutionary society without bosses is universal, from France to Los Angeles.

The 18 undocumented workers are planning more actions to pressure the prefect to legalize them. Solidarity messages can be addressed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

RED YOUTH BUILD PLP IN MEXICO

MEXICO, Sept 6 -- A group of young students met in a university in the north of Mexico--along with PL'ers from the center and south--to commemorate the 7th year anniversary of our student organization.

We have helped spread PLP's ideas through meetings and study groups with many students, using agitation, and propaganda through a student paper that denounces the injustices and exploitation of the capitalist system. We also distribute Challenge and invite students to join the fight for communism.

The first day of activities we painted a banner with the communist fist in the main library where all could see. We passed out the student paper in one of the walk ways where the majority of students pass, playing the music of Victor Hara and Jose de Molina (two famous Latin-American protest singers).

One of the students invited from the south took the microphone and spoke about the struggle in Oaxaca and denounced the role played by the media (TV, radio, bosses' press) in this capitalist system. The activity in the University was welcomed by many students interested in knowing more about the student organization and joining it. A student from this University, originally from Oaxaca, proposed that we be more active in informing the population in the north about the struggle in Oaxaca and the next day the group had a small forum in the town square to inform people about the struggle and to pass out more literature.

That night we met, including the new comrades, to analyze and criticize our activities. Organization and planning are vital to win more people to the fight for communism and we took steps to improve the security of all the comrades in the following day's activities.

During the second day of activities security guards wouldn't let us use the electricity for our sound system. We did not let that stop us. We used signs to call attention to the struggle in Oaxaca and distributed Challenge. We talked with many people during our demonstration and met a person interested in knowing more about the movement. We talked about the class struggle and the importance of building a working class party, the PLP. At the end of this discussion, he gave us his address to visit him and bring him information about the movement through Challenge.

At the end of the activity, we were self critical about the need to be more organized in the future. These errors hurt us, but our activities also strengthened the unity and commitment of the PLP members to continue the struggle. We need to invite more people to join our revolutionary communist movement and also give leadership to two comrades who joined the party the day before.

We invite our young student comrades to follow these examples because we learn both from our errors and from our successes. Students, workers, teachers and intellectuals can learn to organize and build the communist party that truly fights for the interests of the working class, the PLP. Join us!

LA Workers Back Oaxaca Rebels

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28 -- A group of workers from Oaxaca held a fund-raising event here to support the striking teachers in Oaxaca. They invited other workers, including PLP members, one of whom brought copies of the last two editions of CHALLENGE. After one worker read the articles about the Oaxaca struggle and about the fight between rival imperialists and their Mexican capitalist allies over the state-owned oil company Pemex, he told the PL'er to put the papers on a table in the front of the room so everyone could get them. He said, "This tells us what's behind the struggle."

The workers watched the movie "Venceremos" which gave some history of the struggle in Oaxaca against the Mexican government. It showed farmworkers being kicked off their land (for a pittance) so that a high-speed railroad could be built across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This is part of the Plan Puebla Panama, to integrate the economies of the U.S., Mexico and Central America. Farm workers who resisted felt the brutal force of the Mexican government.

The movie showed the courageous teachers' struggle resisting the government attacks, and the mass support for them.

After the movie, a woman from Oaxaca said that when she was a child she had no shoes to go to school. She received her first pair from her teacher. A worker from Central America, moved by the film, was reminded of the struggle in that region. He called for internationalism, for all workers to support the struggle in Oaxaca. He said workers in El Salvador went through similar attacks and finally took up arms against the bosses, but unfortunately their leaders didn't have the unflinching goal of destroying capitalism and putting the workers in power. Today that FMLN leadership is part of the Salvadoran ruling class which oppresses the workers. He was warmly applauded when he pledged to organize friends and co-workers behind the struggle in Oaxaca. Another worker from Oaxaca linked the struggle there to the war in Iraq.

Everyone was invited to upcoming events and a hat was passed to help those in need in Oaxaca.

LETTERS

Is PLP Against `Better Schools'?

Four teachers in a PLP-led discussion group met about the CHALLENGE series on education reform. We found the articles informative and provocative. We agreed that billionaires who donate to schools are doing so for control. Apparently, schools run locally rather than centrally -- as in other countries -- are a problem for U.S. capitalists. Money and control from billionaires enables the capitalist class to standardize education.

But we don't agree with the sentence: "Much of this `reform' is aimed at winning and mobilizing working-class parents and students, especially black and Latino families in big cities, to support `better education' with the sinister underlying plan being to win them to support the racist, imperialist U.S. bosses, the source of the very racism that continues to viciously attack these same families."

We don't understand how this would happen. Families want better education for their students, but getting it doesn't make them automatically support the bosses. For one thing, the education is still not that great, even if it's somewhat better than before the large donations. Perhaps this point wasn't explained sufficiently. Is it that the money is used for better propaganda within the schools about how "great" is the U.S. government and "way of life"? We know the schools for the working class will always be substandard under capitalism. However, families want their children to learn to read and to be prepared for a relatively decent job. Many schools fail at this.

We also discussed a lot about small schools, where three of us teach. We see advantages in getting to know the students, building community and being able to handle problems quickly because of the school's close-knit nature. We see disadvantages also, but don't understand how attending a small school leads students to believe in "all-class unity," as the article states.

School reform is, and always has been, a complicated issue. The ruling class wants it for its own reasons, and the working class wants it because they believe it will give young people a better future. Many workers feel school reform should be even more widespread. Too many children languish in schools where education is an afterthought. Are we (PLP) against "better" schools? It's true that the rulers want more control over the schools and need a more educated population in order to help maintain the profit system. However, it's also true that they don't want to educate everyone.

Reddish Teachers

CHALLENGE Comment:

Thank you for your questions and comments. We welcome other readers to participate in this discussion, which will always improve our political ideas.

The ruling class hopes to use school reform in several ways to win workers to support them. One is, as you suggest, reforming the curriculum to better present the ideologies necessary to imperialism in the current crisis: nationalism and "community service." They also hope to win parents and students to participate in the electoral process, to care about the politicians' educational policies and therefore feel they are a part of the system rather than feel the need to fight back. They want to channel workers into fighting for more reformed schools instead of for a new world.

But just because the bosses are implementing this plan doesn't necessarily mean workers will be won to the extent the bosses need; and it is part of PLP'ers' job to win our friends to see how education reform serves the bosses' real needs.

The liberal reformers who started small schools are now warning that their "movement" has been co-opted by "less progressive" forces. The experiences of many comrades and our research into small schools nationwide show that the rulers are using small schools to build loyalty to individual schools -- in effect, trying to build loyalty towards the administration, which represents the bosses. The rulers hope this all-class unity on a small scale will be a first step towards a working class that more fully supports the entire imperialist program.

We do want better education for working-class youth, to have the best conditions and learn the skills they need. But we must never let fighting for the reforms that one section of the ruling class advocates interfere with our analysis of the bosses' goals and our determination to destroy their entire system. Any reform achieving something positive for some students can and will be taken back when it no longer suits the rulers' needs. Only revolution can solve the problems of the schools.

Racism Won't Fly With Airport Workers

Airport workers had a week of intense struggle against the racist bosses. The last time workers were this angry was when the bosses wanted us to scab on the Northwest mechanics' strike in 2005.

Most African workers are kept in part-time jobs and resent this racism. The only full-time positions for these workers are on 3rd shift, and that's only as a result of previous fights. The bosses target Ethiopian workers to avoid paying full-time benefits like vacation pay and medical insurance, but now these workers want to fight for jobs on all shifts.

Our PLP study group has been struggling over these issues. We discussed the need to fight for communist ideas and not just limit the struggle to trade union demands that leave the bosses in power to take back any concessions we may win and to pursue their agenda of war and fascism. Internationalism, anti-racism and revolution have to be put front and center.

When the local president was finally pressured to show up for a meeting, the bosses tried to keep the U.S.-born workers from attending so the African workers would feel politically isolated. Racist foremen and supervisors acted like fascist goons. The racist ploy failed when two U.S. workers entered the meeting, although other U.S. workers were prevented from attending to give support to their African brothers and sisters. The local steward explained to the African and Latino workers what the bosses had done and how they fear multi-racial and international unity. The African workers then angrily demanded justice, embarrassing the do-nothing local president.

After the meeting and for the rest of the shift, the racist bosses tried to intimidate workers. The next day they had an emergency meeting with the big bosses because their attempts to intimidate workers failed miserably.

Within this fight we are struggling against nationalism, especially among a few Latino workers. Also, more workers are reading CHALLENGE than ever before. Workers of the world ARE uniting!

Airport Red

Workers Back Anti-Klan Protesters

As reported in CHALLENGE (11/1), a militant anti-Klan/Nazi rally took place in Harper's Ferry on October 14. Some who confronted these racists wrote some brief notes about the event.

"While distributing CHALLENGE in the town, I met a woman and her mother from Panama who live in Virginia. They were very angry...[about] the Klan and were sorry to have missed the chance to rally with us. They loved the CHALLENGE headline showing how opposition to the Minutemen was the same fight since the racists have been active in Manassas and Herndon, Virginia. They took some papers and thanked us for being there."

"At Harper's Ferry, the KKK was allowed to use a sound system always denied to INCAR (International Committee Against Racism) rallies over a 15-year period of yearly events honoring the fight against racism at John Brown's Fort. The massive police presence and their attitude toward anti-racists made it clear to me and new friends who came that the federal government was happy to support the KKK to get out their message."

"HAVE A GREAT WHITE DAY!" That's how [the Klan rally] ended, although I'm not sure if the audience could oblige. Their appearance and speech pattern spoke of poor backgrounds, of hard times. But they cheered anyway. "White Power!" And I, a young black man dressed in baggy jeans and a tilted baseball cap, stood in the middle of the cheers -- tensely waiting for one to cross the line, surprisingly unafraid if one did, and bewildered at how familiar I found the sound of blind hatred and convicted jeers that blamed another 'race' for their problems."

"I was talking to a woman who lived in the area and came to the Park with her children ranging from 11 to high school age. She was unhappy to find out that the Klan was able to rally [here]. She took one of our anti-Klan flyers and thanked us for coming to protest the racists."

"This was my second demonstration against the Nazis and Klan. I didn't care for the chants so I talked to other people in the crowd instead. I approached one Klan supporter who had a confederate flag and asked her why she liked them. She said she supported "Southern Pride." Just then the Nazis started shouting "Heil Hitler." I asked her what, exactly, did Hitler have to do with "Southern Pride." No answer, of course."

Our answer will continue to be clear: mobilize the masses to crush the racists wherever they rear their ugly heads.

D.C. Comrade

Nicaraguan Election Exposes Opportunists' Betrayal

The Nov. 5 election in Nicaragua is a vivid example of the corruption and betrayal produced by armed struggle without a communist goal.

Whether capitalists fight in wars or in the political arena, their ultimate goal is control of the surplus value produced by workers. Participating in the bosses' electoral charade only perpetuates this robbery. But waging armed struggle to end capitalism's wage slavery, racism and wars without a revolutionary party fighting for communism, only leaves capitalism intact.

In Nicaragua, after 13 years of valiant armed struggle against the U.S.-backed Somoza regime, the Sandinista Front for National Liberation took state power in 1979. Tens of thousands of workers died in the process; 30,000 more died in a decade-long fight against the Contras, the counter-insurgency fascist army trained and financed by U.S. rulers to topple the Sandinistas.

Finally, "peace" came when the Sandinistas held national elections and Sandinista president Daniel Ortega lost to Violeta Chamorro, a leading oligarch. Both the Sandinista "revolutionary" rule and the following 16 years of conservative rule only benefited the old Nicaraguan ruling class, the Sandinista leaders and their capitalist backers.

The Sandinista leaders waged armed struggle to become the new capitalist rulers of Nicaragua. Thus, one of their first acts in power was to seize the mansions, Mercedes-Benz and other Somoza properties. In 1990, in their last weeks of power, they and their allies took personal possession of all the property expropriated by their government. Known as the "Piñata," it made them all multi-millionaires, including one that is now one of the richest men in Central America.

But the corruption gets worse. Ortega's running mate in the election is Jaime ("The Godfather") Morales Carazo, once the Contras' top political negotiator. Now, many of these butchers of thousands of workers are helping elect Ortega.

Ortega also made peace with Roman Catholic Cardinal Obando y Bravo, a strong supporter of Somoza, the Contras and a rabid anti-Sandinista. He also made a deal with ex-president Arnoldo Aleman, giving both of them a lifetime appointment to the National Assembly, meaning lifetime immunity from prosecution.

Amid this wealth and corruption, workers live in poverty and squalor, over 80% on less than $2.00 a day. More than 800,000 children can't attend school. Workers survive on the money sent back by hundreds of thousands who are forced to immigrate, mainly to the U.S., where they are super-exploited by the same bosses that helped create and perpetuate these horrendous conditions.

Yet, despite the rivers of blood U.S. imperialism has caused, it may be losing its grip on Nicaragua. Ambassador Paul Trivelli and the State Department tried unsuccessfully to organize the opposition to Ortega behind its candidate Montealegre. U.S. bosses oppose Ortega because he represents Nicaraguan capitalists looking for a better deal from other imperialists. As Salvador ("The Little Jackal") Talaveres -- an ex-contra butcher/president of the Nicaraguan Resistance Party and Ortega supporter -- puts it, "Seven thousand of our wounded war veterans are neglected. We have been working in these [conservative] alliances, but what's in it for us?" He said the U.S. "has not considered even a small budget to help the heroic fighters who served them." (LA Times, 10/29/06)

This group of bosses is hoping Chinese and Japanese imperialists will be more generous than U.S. bosses. There are plans to build two ports and a connecting high-speed transatlantic train financed by these other imperialists. The Ortega group also hopes to get them to invest in a canal with capacity for 250,000-ton ships, twice what the expanded Panama Canal can handle. These might be pipedreams or they might come alive because of the inter-imperialist rivalry. In either case, intensified exploitation, fascism and war is all that capitalism can offer the working class. But, as years of armed struggle in Nicaragua show, the workers are capable and willing to fight for their class interest. They only need the vision of communism and a party to lead them. That's PLP's task and in particular of our comrades in Central America.

PLP HISTORY:
Miners' Rebellion Launched PL's 44 Years in Class Struggle

During a rank-and-file miners' armed rebellion across three states in the winter of 1962-63, the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) -- forerunner of the Progressive Labor Party -- cut its eye teeth on what was to become their participation in a long line of working-class struggles. While the fledgling PLM, just six months old, had no base among the miners, it decided that organizing a national solidarity campaign among as many U.S. workers it could reach was the order of the day.

Black and white miners were united in a strike against inhuman working conditions and $25-a-week starvation wages. The mine owners launched terror attacks against the strikers, using cops and local governments to bring in scabs. The miners armed themselves to battle the bosses.

The struggle was centered in Hazard, Kentucky, where 500 "roving pickets" would go from mine to mine to oust the scabs at gunpoint. If they were unable to stop the operation, they would dynamite the mine. Black and white workers, armed, in wildcat rebellion terrified the coal bosses.

PLM organized a Trade Union Solidarity Committee (TUSC), headed by a PLM member (a railroad union local president), to ship food and clothing -- including toys for the miners' kids -- from several cities. It raised money for a mimeograph machine enabling the strikers to publish their own local paper. The TUSC persuaded a NYC Teamster local to donate a trailer and a driver to ship a load of relief supplies to Hazard. The strike of the armed miners had become a national issue. In zero degree weather, nearly 1,000 people attended a mass meeting at a Manhattan church to hear the miners' leader Berman Gibson. PL Magazine ran an interview with Gibson (CHALLENGE was not yet born).

When the bosses realized communists were organizing this solidarity effort, they went nuts. "Communism Comes to the Mountains!" screamed an 8-column front-page banner headline in the Hazard Herald. PLM had told Gibson we were a revolutionary communist organization early on and he was unfazed by this.

However, seeing that armed rank-and-file wildcatting miners were working with communists, Kennedy liberals and assorted social-democrats and "C"P'ers stepped in with big bucks and their own "Solidarity" committee. They red-baited the small PLM and the TUSC. Eventually Gibson couldn't stand up to the anti-communism and turned to the liberals. After many months, the strike petered out.

However, this militant working-class struggle set the tone for PLM and PLP, impressing upon us the crucial role of basic industrial workers in the fight for communist revolution, especially the unity of black and white within that. It gave us confidence in the Marxist understanding that the working class was the revolutionary class with the potential to overthrow capitalism in an armed struggle defending its class interests. It therefore pointed the way to the necessity for communists to build a base among this key section of workers.

REDEYE

First nukes in Korea came from U.S.

There is more than 50 years of history to Pyongyang's attempt to gain a nuclear weapon, triggered in part by threats from Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower to use nuclear weapons to end the Korean War.

In 1957 the US placed nuclear tipped missiles in South Korea... (GW, 10/26)

Climate issue is handy for ruling class

To the Editor:

...The negative effects of climate change will build over a long period and are unlikely to produce a universal catastrophe. However, today, and for decades, the negative effects of poverty, hunger, disease and war have killed and may kill millions, but these phenomena...are effectively being forgotten as climate change dominates political debates. (FT, 10/10)

Elections aren't fooling many people

"Politics," she said, "are for silly people. Those ads come on television and I reach for the remote."

I asked if she was planning to vote on Nov. 7.

"No," she said. "That stuff really turns me off".

If you pay close attention to the news and then go out and talk to ordinary people, it's hard not to come away with feeling that the system of politics and government in the U.S. is broken....

Not even the most faithful voters were confident that their ballot would make any substantial difference. (NYT, 10/30)

New Love for sugar daddies: Democrats

Corporate America is already thinking beyond Election Day, increasing its share of last-minute donations to Democratic candidates and quietly devising strategies for how to work with Democrats if they win control of Congress....

...A lot will hold their powder for now," said Brain Wolf, deputy executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "But after the election, we will have a lot of new friends." (NYT, 10/28)

China and India see wars over energy

Chinese see their country catching up with the US in terms of global influence within 10 years....

Large majorities in India and China said they believed a conflict over energy resources was likely in Asia. Majorities also said countries had a right to go to war to ensure adequate energy supplies. (FT, 10/12)

TV ad speeds up child's development

...The pediatrician was about to conclude 6-year-old Michael's annual checkup and asked if his mother had any further questions. "No," she replied, and then felt a forceful tug on her arm as Michael blurted out, "Yes, we do, Mom. Ask the doctor if Viagra is right for me."

...He was merely following instructions given by a gray-haired person in a white coat in a TV ad. (Consumer Reports Health/NOV.)

North's rulers also got rich on slavery

...In the North, a number of universities have ties to slavery. Harvard Law School was endowed by money its founder earned selling slaves in Antigua's cane fields. And at Yale, three scholars reported in 2001 that the university relied on slave-trading money for its first scholarships, endowed professorships and library endowment.

...It's pretty widely agreed on that Brown [University] would not be where it is if it were not for slave money....

At least one of the Brown brothers, John, a treasurer of the college, was an active slave trader.... (NYT, 10/19)

Book Review:
U.S. Britain Betrayed Death Camp Inmates

Against All Hope: Resistance in the Nazi Concentration Camps 1938-1945, by Hermann Langbein, Paragon House Publishers, New York, 1994 -- Part 2 of 2

In part 1, we saw how the communist-led underground resistance in the Nazi death camps was able to organize under the noses of the camp guards and save lives. In this part we discuss sabotage against the Nazi war effort and escapes, as well as what we can now see were major political errors of the communist movement.

After 1942, the majority of prisoners were assigned to arms factories. "[D]irect sabotage, such as the damaging of machines or weapons, was possible only in isolated instances. In general, methods had to be employed that were hard to detect. These methods could be found because the technical and organizational know-how of the German civilian foremen, masters and engineers was so scanty that they were often dependent on the specialists among the inmates [p. 311]." A few examples: "...grenades...failed to explode. Frequently machines broke down because of defects. Inmates...found a way of damaging the mechanism of guns...after they had already passed inspection [p. 306]." "During the final inspection there were greater opportunities for passing large numbers of improperly dimensioned parts or for putting the right parts on a junk pile to be scrapped [p. 309]."

As the Nazis were being overrun in 1945, mainly by the Soviet Red Army, the SS was ordered to murder all camp inmates before the Soviet or U.S. troops arrived. The high command wanted to leave no witnesses who could inform the outside world about their massive crimes against humanity. Knowing of this plan, the prisoners attempted escapes to ward off imminent mass extermination.

Contact with partisans (guerrilla forces organized against the Nazis) and sympathy of local people outside the camps both increased in the later years of the war. Fugitives from Auschwitz received support, and news from Polish resistance organizations was smuggled into the camps. But the resistance relied increasingly on other contacts, such as the Red Cross and "allied" news media for getting information out to the world, such as maps of the camps and details about mass murders.

In July 1944, two Jewish inmates, Arnost Rosin and Czeslaw Mordowica, escaped and handed documents to the press, the Pope, and the governments of the U.S. and Great Britain [p. 258]. Communist groups inside the camps, it would appear, too often relied in error on the "allied governments." During an uprising by Jewish inmates in Treblinka, August 2, 1943, Yankel Wiernik escaped and with the help of his Polish friends, wrote down his experiences. Copies of his report were sent to London and the U.S. However, instead of bombing the railroads to the camps, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) fire-bombed the German city of Dresden, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Another example of the tragic reliance on these so-called "Allies" came when the Nazis marched prisoners from the Neuengamme camp onto ships, in order to hide the evidence of the death camps. The RAF bombed and sank the ships on May 3, 1945, resulting in the deaths of 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners.

We can see with hindsight that communist prisoners and their leadership in the international communist movement made major political errors before and during World War II: a) they relied on capitalist governments to gain support and save lives, with tragic results, and b) by failing to oppose nationalism both within the camps and outside -- though many nationalities did resist in unity -- they failed to organize the resistance groups into one international working class party that made communism the primary goal.

The cost of this failure was the prolonged life of the bloody rule of capitalism and its inter-imperialist wars for cheap labor, markets and oil. Sixty-one years after the end of WW II hundreds of thousands of working-class civilians are being murdered by U.S. and British rockets in Afghanistan and Iraq, and by Israeli rockets in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon.

The illusions about cooperation with capitalism played a major role in the downfall of the old communist movement, and helped prevent a qualitative advance toward communism. Nevertheless, the heroic struggle of communist-led prisoners should inspire us to fight for the communist revolution that will defeat fascism permanently.

In Memory of Sam Chestnut
Nov 26, 1943 - Sept. 26, 2006

Sam was a comrade and friend in the Bay Area PLP transit collective. He worked 30 years at MUNI RR in San Francisco driving trolleys and trains until forced to retire due to a work\stress-related stroke.

Sam's life was symbolic of many black workers here. His parents migrated to SF in search of work and lived in the Bay View Hunter's Point projects. After his time at the Post Office, Sam found many childhood friends who were all looking for that good union job. Here being black meant working for MUNI.

The stress and grind of driving, killer schedules and long hours combined with institutional and politically-inspired racist stereotyping made high blood pressure, strokes, and heart attacks endemic among MUNI operators. A 30-year study of "Stress & Hypertension" clearly documented this connection but management and the union, TWU Local 250a, did nothing to change it. In fact, conditions are worse.

Sam loved his family, friends and co-workers. He was especially proud of his son Jeremy. He laughed, partied and embraced people from all different backgrounds. At his Memorial, co-workers and friends remarked over and over about his kindness, his support "for doing what's right." He helped organize family and social groups to go to Yosemite and Santa Cruz. Union dances were another opportunity to defy the African American union leadership who pushed black nationalism in order to maintain control over their "private domain," the MUNI workforce.

Sam came under special, vicious attack for his friendship and activity with "the white boy, communist." May Day was another big event in his life. While Sam loved many, he hated every aspect of the demeaning, racist system he faced every day.

After study groups on political economy and dialectics, Sam said, "I now read between the lines in the newspaper and see the real significance of what's going on." Below are excerpts from a report Sam gave at a PLP workers' conference on how he dealt with racism, sexism and individualism in a mass organization. They are a fitting memorial to his contribution to class struggle and the development of communism.

"For years I worked outside the organized labor movement, having very little use for reforms to solve the problems of a crumbling system. I had very little success in promoting communist ideas; the effort was frustrating and slow.

In June 1998 I had a chance to work with a group of working-class people...that formed...[qround] safety concerns in our community following the death of a 9-year-old child....At our first meeting, 23...neighbors attended. The mood quickly changed from safety issues to people venting their anger at both management and employees. A core group of six people with different levels of political understanding were picked to...organize the fight against unfair rent increases, unlawful evictions and bad maintenance. I was accepted as a member of the core group...because I was a known communist.

Most members...used racist terms when talking about maintenance workers, who are all Latino. I struggled with my core members to understand class; how capitalism uses racism to divide and exploit the working class.... [I asked] them, "who are you more alike, the maintenance workers or the politicians and bankers...trying to evict us?"

[As a] result, racist terms will never be used at core meetings and...will be challenged at all community meetings....

Being a communist, I felt like a counter-puncher trying to answer each question with a communist analysis...to show the contradictions not only in their question but also in their answers. This [continued]... inside and outside meetings, at my house, at the store...anywhere we ran into each other....

I've found it very rewarding being a communist working inside a reform group. People's goals are geared more to the short term. It's perfect for me in trying to develop peoples' understanding of the capitalist system, trying to teach them to be critical thinkers ...to see and understand contradiction."

Book Review:
Murder Mystery With Working-Class Hero

A Race Against Death, Timothy Sheard

Looking for a murder mystery whose hero is a worker instead of a cop? Try this one!

Lenny Moss is a maintenance worker and shop steward in a Philadelphia hospital taking on the bosses at every turn. Lenny works collectively with six other characters to solve the mystery. The book steers clear of stereotypes -- the workers have good hearts, burn with righteous anger over injustice, but have plenty of human faults and failings too. Sometimes Lenny wants to just give up and lead a quiet life, but his sense of duty to his co-workers keeps him going.

The story turns on the murder of a doctor who has been performing unsafe late-term abortions on poor black women. A white medical student joins black medical students, who in turn team up with the hospital workers, to find and interpret clues. The unfolding story brings out issues of black nationalism, multiracial unity, and love and concern for fellow workers. Lenny's firm principles, which include multiracial unity and service towards the workers he represents, as well as his refusal to be intimidated by management, earns his co-workers' trust. The police detective refers to this by saying, "You're the guy that hears everything in this place."

Management's knee-jerk cruelty, indifference and coldness is glaring, correctly reflecting some basic truths about the U.S. workplace. The book doesn't have a Hollywood ending, but justice gets served for this moment in time.

The author will be speaking at the annual "Thanks for Fighting Racism" Dinner in the Washington, D.C. area on November 18 at 6 pm. If you're in the area, give us a call at 301.779.7432 and join us.

Page 734 of 772

CHALLENGE, Jan. 31, 2007

Bush Steps Up Iraq Slaughter But Liberal Bosses Demand WIDER WAR

Turmoil Stems Flow Of Crude Oil

It’s Liberals’, Not Just Bush’s War

Rulers Need Full Mobilization Spurred By 9/11 Repeat

Hundreds March In Oaxaca

U.S. Gunboat Diplomacy Aims At Iran

Rulers’ Wars Spur Tighter Control of U.S. Schools

Report Reveals Genocide vs. Oakland’s Black Youth

Rulers’ Video Spying Builds Fascist War Society in NYC Schools

Surveillance and Social Control Builds War Society

Communist Leadership Is Essential

PL’ers Campaign Vs. Imperialist Wars in NYC Teachers Union

Katrina Hitting Cook County Healthcare System — The ‘Levees’ are Breaking!

Minimum Wage Produces Maximum Profits

France: The Worm Has Turned

N.J. Workers Need More than ‘Pressure’ to Win

Lesson Learned from Oaxaca Struggle

Popular Power and Commune?

Cops’ Murder of Salvadoran Youth Exposes FMLN ‘Peace’ Pact

Somalia Another Front in U.S. Racist War for Oil

LETTERS

‘Be a Communist, today and tomorrow . . .’

Link Immigrant Raids to Black Slavery

Halloween Graffiti Gets Anti-War Treatment

Work in ‘Appeal’ Movement to Win GI’s to PLP’s Politics

Fight to Unite Black, Latino, Arab Workers

Red Farmworker Organizing in Projects

Bosses Speed Up, Injure Homeless Worker

Women: Dead in El Salvador as a result of Capitalism

Clinton’s Racist Welfare Reform’s Deepens Poverty

REDEYE

North African Arabs Saved Jews From Nazis

PL’ers Launched Anti-Vietnam War Movement

CHALLENGE, January 17, 2007

Saddam Hussein: Born In the CIAAnd Then They Left Him Hanging

Another Fiasco -- Execution Backfires

WORKERS REJECT PLEA FOR SILENCE50,000 MARCH AGAINST RACIST KILLER COPS

2006: Workers Fight Back Against Bosses' Attack

PL Teachers Lead Fight vs. Bosses' School 'Reform' for War

Welcome CHALLENGE at Rally Opposing Anti-Immigrant Raids

Winning Young Workers to Turn Bosses' Recruiting Upside Down

Cop's Vietnam Torture Tactics Used on Chicago's Black Men

Students Tie War in Iraq to War on New Orleans Workers

Youth Spread Internationalist, Anti-Racist Pledge Among Marines

U.S. Oily Fingers Behind War in Somalia

U.S. Imperialists Follow Nazi Footsteps...Again

'Social Programs' Aim to Win Workers' to Capitalism á la Chávez

CHAVEZ'S SHOPS FOR LOYALTY FOR WAR

LETTERS

Collectivity, Not Capitalism, Worked in Seattle Storm

EU Bosses Extend Beyond Western Europe

Sharpen Political Struggle in GI Appeal Movement

Israeli Kibbutz: Socialism or Fascism?

Airport Workers Fight Anti-Muslim Racism

Use the Internet to Spread PLP's Ideas

GI `Appeal' Fails to Indict Imperialists

Paraguay: Electing Reformist Bishop No Solution for Workers

REDEYE REDEYE

`New' Iraq Plan: Stay in and grab oil

Killer cops given every chance to fix a story

The Real Global Threat is Profit System

Gov't wants a whiter, richer New Orleans

(No headline needed)

Many Chinese remain proud of revolutionary surges

SAVAGERY IN ABU GHRAIB AND FALLUJAH: OFFICIAL U.S. POLICY, NOT `BAD APPLE' ABERRATION

INSTEAD OF DESERTING, GI's SHOULD ORGANIZE TO SMASH IMPERIALIST WARMAKERS

PLP History: Harlem Rebellion Grand Jury and Reform vs. Revolution on the Railroad

CHALLENGE, December 13, 2006

GI's, Iraqi Workers Have Same EnemyImperialism, Nationalism Massacring Tens of Thousands

BUSH ERRORS SPARKED INSURGENT BACKLASH

BUSH GANG: WIPE OUT THE NATIONALISTS, LIBERALS: PREPARE FOR BIGGER WARS

LIBERALS SEEK UNIVERSAL `SERVICE,' WAR DECLARATION

RACISTS NYPD MURDERS AGAIN:50 MORE REASONS

History Shows GI's Can Be Won To Fight Warmakers

ANTI-IMPERIALIST SOLDIERS

IRAQ

Red-Led Russian Soldiers, Sailors Turned Their Guns on Bosses

Fight the Bosses, Not Each Other -- Students Lead Anti-Racist Struggle

ORGANIZING AGAINST IMPERIALIST WARS INSIDE THE MILITARY

Saddam Hussein: Born In the CIA
And Then They Left Him Hanging

WORKERS REJECT PLEA FOR SILENCE
50,000 MARCH AGAINST RACIST KILLER COPS

GI's, Iraqi Workers Have Same Enemy
Imperialism, Nationalism Massacring Tens of Thousands

RACISTS NYPD MURDERS AGAIN:
50 MORE REASONS

Auto Bosses Invade Old Socialist Bloc
--At 1/5 The Wages

Sammy Scheer
1954- 2006

DVD Review:
`World Trade Center' Movie Promotes Selfless Service for U.S. Fascism