Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

NEW YORK, NY, Oct. 7 —Today the Minutemen rallied to spread their racist, anti-immigrant filth in front of the Mexican consulate in Manhattan. Earlier in the week they had also spoken at Columbia University in the face of student outrage (see article page 3). This latest organizing effort shows their seriousness in building their racist movement within the U.S. The fact that they were allowed to rally at a major, liberal Ivy League university and in the streets of Manhattan within a week shows the support these gutter racists are receiving from the ruling class in their continued effort to develop U.S. fascism.

A multiracial group of about fifty anti-racists, including a contingent of PLP teachers and students, chanted down the racist Minutemen at the Mexican consulate. With chants like "Power to the Workers, Death to the Fascists" and "The Workers, United, Will Never be Defeated," the anti-racists took leadership from PLP. The anti-Minuteman rally had both strengths and weaknesses. We distributed CHALLENGE to the protesters and to passers-by who stopped to show support.

Many high school and college youth took leadership in leading militant chants and speaking on the bullhorn. When the police told the anti-racists to shut off the bullhorn, while allowing the Minutemen to use theirs, the youth became even angrier and led the crowd in chanting even louder. Any illusions these students may have had about the cops’ role were fractured when they saw how the cops allowed the racists to speak while arresting one of the anti-racists just for standing too close to the barricade. Despite the cops’ attempts to discourage the anti-racists, we were still going strong when the Minutemen left, accompanied by the cops who protected them.

To the disbelief of many of the protesters, the Minutemen had a few black and Latino people in their rally. These individuals, having been won to support the ruling class’s racism, are becoming traitors to the working class. They help spread the big lie that unemployment, low wages and cutbacks are caused by other workers and not by the bosses’ drive for maximum profits and their war budget. All workers must see that racism divides and weakens the entire working class. It produces super-profits for the bosses — paying one group of workers less and lowering the wage level of all workers. Their racism is as venomous and dangerous as that of any neo-Nazi or KKK’er. These traitors to their class are an invaluable help to the ruling class as it builds up fascist oppression of the workers.

Although the anti-racists nearly doubled the number of Minutemen, our forces were still too small. U.S. workers still have a long way to go in understanding the dangerous role that groups like the Minutemen play in galvanizing anti-immigrant attacks. This lack of class consciousness weakens workers’ ability to unite to smash these racist goons and their capitalist masters. The ruling class counts on this lack of class consciousness in hoping to win workers — who hate the Minutemen’s racism — into the liberal immigrant rights movement. This movement builds U.S. nationalism among the immigrant youth who the rulers need as cannon fodder in their endless imperialist wars.

Communists have always been in the forefront of the fight against all forms of racism. Today, we must redouble our efforts to win all workers to the only struggle that can end racism, from Baghdad to NYC, and build a society without borders based on the needs and desires of most of world’s workers: communism.

France: Sit-Down Strikers Demand Rights for Undocumented Workers

CHILLY-MAZARIN, FRANCE, Oct. 13 — Immigrant and French-born industrial laundry workers made French labor history when they staged a one-week sit-down strike here, demanding papers for their undocumented fellow workers.

Management triggered the strike of 160 when it sent pink slips to some of the 22 undocumented workers at the Modeluxe laundry, whose customers are Paris hotels. On Friday, Sept. 29, all the undocumented workers struck in solidarity. The following Monday, all the workers — most are immigrants from Mali and Senegal — occupied the laundry in a solidarity strike.

Management at U.K.-owned Modeluxe first tried sweet-talking the workers. On Monday they said the government agreed to legalize four of the undocumented workers. The sit-down continued. On Wednesday they promised to win legalization for all the undocumented workers because the company needed the workers it had tried to fire! The sit-down continued.

On Thursday morning, the bosses talked tough, producing a government document saying no more workers would be legalized, and telling the workers they couldn’t win and should return to work. But the workers held fast. That afternoon, the company had the cops violently break the picket line and brought in scabs. Despite cops and scabs inside the laundry, the sit-down continued.

On Friday morning, the bosses brought in rent-a-cops with dogs to intimidate the workers, and started loading laundry carts onto a semi-trailer truck brought over from the U.K. — a clear threat to shut down the laundry altogether. Still, the workers continued their sit-down.

Finally, the company got a court order for the police to expel all "outsiders" from the laundry. At midnight the workers decided they couldn’t protect their undocumented mates from arrest and deportation, and ended the strike. They won payment for three of the days of the sit-down.

The undocumented workers are continuing their struggle for legalization, protected from arrest by union activists. Unfortunately, they’re relying on union bureaucrats and fake leftist elected officials. This fight shows that the real power to win legalization lies in the workers’ ability to shut down production.

Anti-immigrant racism is growing, from Europe to the U.S. The only way to eliminate the bosses’ borders once and for all is to destroy capitalism and its racism by fighting for communism.

Iraq Body Count Shows U.S. Imperialists Are Mass Murderers

U.S. imperialism stands guilty of mass murder. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have just published a study "Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq" in the British medical journal Lancet. They found that the U.S.-led oil war killed more than 650,000 Iraqis between March 2003 and June 2006.

"Coalition" forces’ bullets and bombs directly caused one-third of these deaths. Sectarian warfare resulting from the botched occupation is responsible for the rest. The pace and scale of the carnage are staggering. Violent deaths have doubled every year since fighting began. The war has wiped out 2.5% of Iraq’s population. By contrast, during World War II, Britain lost 0.94% of its population, France 1.35%, China 1.89% and the U.S. 0.32% (less than one-third of one percent). Iraq’s 2.5% loss would translate into 7.5 million deaths in the U.S. today.

Liberal Warmakers Backed Anti-Bush Study

Johns Hopkins and the Lancet are by no means trying to start an anti-war movement. They’re both liberal, ruling-class institutions. Hopkins houses the School for Advanced International Studies, an important imperialist think-tank. The Lancet belongs to Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed-Elsevier, which shares top officers with Shell Oil. Their publication of the death toll at this time has two purposes. First, it’s one of many pre-election "October Surprises" designed to punish Republicans for bungling the invasion and help elect more effective war-making Democrats. Second, the report builds support for the U.S.’s endless wars for profit by suggesting that they can somehow be sanitized. The researchers end by calling for "an independent international body to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian standards" in order "to lessen the tragic human cost of future wars." They assume there will be "future wars."

Bosses’ Vietnam Lesson: Hide The Atrocities

While the rulers release the deadly numbers, as disturbing as they are, they keep a tight embargo on images and eyewitness accounts of the slaughter that might spark widespread anti-war outrage. The bosses learned a lesson from Vietnam. After losing that war, the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that if they could do it over again they would change three things: use far more troops; officially declare war and thereby make anti-war activity treasonable; and shut down the media coverage that regularly broadcast graphic pictures of U.S. atrocities.

Fallujah Massacre: Standard U.S. Operating Procedure

Despite the photo ban, however, and the embedding of reporters handpicked by the Pentagon, news of U.S.-inflicted horrors has leaked out. On November 16, 2004, Radio4Houston aired a program (available online) called "Fallujah: A Sea of Rubble and Death." Consisting of interviews with U.S. soldiers who had been there, it proves that, for the U.S. war machine, atrocities are standard tactics, not aberrations. (Like systematic prison torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and recent brass-sanctioned rape murders and mosque shoot-ups, the bosses try to portray their policy as the work of "bad apples.")

First, the soldiers said, the Air Force "softened up" this city of 300,000, considered an insurgent stronghold, with a month of indiscriminant bombing. One veteran spoke of seeing a fetus that a U.S. bomb had torn from its mother’s womb. Next, the U.S. top brass ordered the city evacuated but then did a double cross. After a few, but not nearly all, women and young children got out, U.S. officers forced everybody back in, labeling males under fifteen years old "combatants." Then came the command to U.S. troops to eliminate the combatants. U.S. soldiers and Marines, the veterans said, went from house to house exterminating whomever they met. The head of Fallujah’s hospital said U.S. Marines killed 600 Iraqis, "most of them women, children and the elderly," in the first week after entering the city. (AP, 11/4/04) U.S. military hospitals, under orders, refused to treat those whom the invaders merely maimed.

‘Macbeth’ Hoax, Whether Farce Or Tragedy, Aids Warmakers

The rulers have taken extraordinary steps to discredit such exposés, however rare. Earlier this year, a young man calling himself "Jesse Macbeth" appeared in an alternative media video claiming to be an ex-Army Ranger who had killed over 200 non-combatants, including children, in Iraq. But "Macbeth" was a fake. He had never even been to Iraq. Pro-Bush media, led by Fox, jumped all over the hoax as "phony propaganda." It really doesn’t matter whether "Macbeth" was a well-meaning but misguided war opponent or Bush & Co.’s willing stooge. The media now treat all soldiers’ war crimes admissions with serious skepticism, even as the Lancet shows the "coalition’s" killing rate rising continually.

The Lancet report tallies the body count, which will explode into the millions in the coming, global conflict, most likely with China, but fails to charge the guilty-as-sin U.S. ruling class with genocide. It also neglects the more than 2,700 slain working-class U.S. GI’s and untold Afghan victims. Justice will come only when workers organized in a party such as ours indict, convict and punish the murderers in a communist revolution.

Oaxaca Struggle Shows Workers’ Revolutionary Potential

OAXACA, MEXICO, Oct. 17 — "What’s needed is a voice for communist revolution. The electoral political parties only defend the bosses’ interests and legitimize the injustice and inequality of the capitalist system that kills miners, teachers and students," said a striking teacher during a meeting with workers, students and teachers.

The teachers’ four-month battle in Oaxaca shows the potential of workers organized in struggle. Masses of people in Oaxaca showed their solidarity by erecting barricades in all the streets to repel police attacks. Workers armed with poles, machetes, rocks and Molotov cocktails take turns during the nights guarding the barricades.

Teachers have seized some radio stations while other workers warn the teachers about the presence of cops and call on the community to build solidarity with this movement.

Teachers and workers nationwide and internationally have supported the struggle in Oaxaca. On Oct.16, dissident teachers from 31 states and Mexico City threatened to form a new national union leader to protest fascist national union leader Elba Esther Gordillo’s plan to scab on the Oaxaca teachers.

Although the militant workers, teachers and students have made great sacrifices in this struggle, it may not achieve its stated goal, the ousting of the governor. Capitalism, the basic cause of our problems, will be affected but not destroyed. A new governor, controlled by the same system, would be just as bad or even worse than Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

But this struggle shows that we workers are capable, committed organizers who can achieve real communist workers’ power when the masses are won to that goal. It can serve as a school for building communism, exposing the system, and understanding our enemy, the ruling class and its State (all politicians, judges, laws, etc.) and the rulers’ servants in the church and the media.

Recently, young students from Oaxaca went to a northern city where the militancy and solidarity of the University students greatly inspired them. They’re asking that workers and students from across the country travel to Oaxaca to share experiences and ideas on class struggle and revolution.

That weekend in Oaxaca was a moving experience as young people openly asked to become active participants in the Party. International solidarity encouraged comrades from Oaxaca to expand their struggle to build a communist society. These movements are full of danger but also create great opportunities to bring our political ideas to the workers and build a mass PLP. Meeting new friends and bringing them these politics are the biggest victories communists and the working class can achieve in this struggle.

On Oct. 9, when the march of over 5,000 teachers and their supporters from Oaxaca reached Mexico City, PLP’ers distributed 300 CHALLENGES — spurring excellent political discussions — as well as 2,000 communist leaflets calling on teachers, students and workers to join the fight for communist revolution in order to end poverty wages and all the attacks on our class. It declared that an attack on the Oaxacan teachers is an attack on all workers and called for building PLP to unite workers internationally.

Bosses Battle for Mexico’s Oil

Billionaire Carlos Slim — Latin America's richest boss (see CHALLENGE, 10/18) — has a strategy to privatize Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex for himself and the Mexican capitalists in his group. His plan confronts two apparently contradictory tendencies among the nation's politicians and ruling class. One is a privatization scheme as envisioned by President-elect Felipe Calderon and his group, which would benefit mainly the U.S. and foreign investors. The other idea is the "no-privatization-at-all" slogan advocated by Lopez Obrador's populist movement and the capitalists supporting him.

During the July presidential election, the Mexican Employers' Association — of which Slim and many in his group are members — endorsed Felipe Calderon. Slim and his gang didn't oppose this endorsement. However, they refused to add to their Chapultepec Pact program, a provision demanded by Lopez Obrador stating that PEMEX and its oil reserves not be sold to national or international investors.

It seems the ideal situation for Slim & Co. would be to have Calderon's government seriously undertake the sale of PEMEX to U.S. and foreign investors and then have Lopez Obrador — after making a deal as the nationalist/capitalist and big buddy of Slim — mobilize the millions behind him to fight for the slogan, "If PEMEX must be sold, better to Mexicans than to foreigners!"

Lopez Obrador, who calls himself "the president of Mexico by the will of the majority," has staged numerous, enormous rallies protesting the results of the July election which was decided in favor of Felipe Calderon. Millions of poor workers and others strongly support Lopez Obrador, hoping that his "the-poor-people-first" program will solve their many problems. But he's nothing but a demagogue who supports capitalism. He wants to throw a few crumbs to the workers in order to guarantee the stability of Mexican capitalism and win the allegiance of the workers to one sector of the Mexican bourgeoisie fighting another over resources and the value produced by workers. Liberal nationalist politicians always end up allying with, and serving, the interest of one or another sector of the national bosses and one or another imperialist butcher. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, the worst enemies of the working class.

Liberals Attack Pervert ‘Pol’ Foley to Advance War Agenda

Uncovering a scandal on the eve of elections — the "October Surprise" — is a time-honored, tried-and-true tactic of the ruling class. The latest suspect, Mark Foley, a Republican representative from Florida, faces accusations of having sexual affairs with teen-age House pages. What the dominant, liberal wing of U.S. capitalists wants is not Foley’s atonement for his sins but a House majority of Democrats who they hope will be better able to mobilize the millions of mostly working-class troops they require for their ever-intensifying military conflicts.

In Foley’s follies, the liberals hope they’ve found a means to strip the Republican Party of much of its conservative religious voting base. Amid the GOP’s troubles, the liberal New York Times has been running a blockbuster series attacking religious groups’ abuse of their exemption from taxes and other regulations. Calls for Republican House speaker Dennis Hastert’s resignation accompany "shocked" liberals’ prosecution of Foley. Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney’s recent guilty pleas to ostensibly unrelated bribery charges help round out the picture.

Foley’s saga recalls the liberals’ recent revelation of rampant child molestation among Catholic priests. Like the page abuse, the rulers had known the dirty secret for ages. They blew the whistle at the start of the latest war in Iraq, when U.S. priests were preaching the Vatican’s pro-European, anti-U.S. line. Chastened, these clergymen have since changed their tune. Bishops now hand out U.S. flags to potential military recruits at immigrant rallies.

We shouldn’t be fooled. What shapes the liberals’ moral posturing over Foley is a need to employ massive armed force to combat rivals for control of the world’s sources of profit.

‘Free Speech’ for Racist Minutemen Means Fascism for Working Class

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 11 — One week ago, Columbia University’s Young Republican club invited Jim Gilchrist, founder of the racist Minutemen (MM) to speak at this Ivy League center of ruling-class education. This is another big step in developing U.S. fascism, part of the rulers’ attempts to build mass support for their ideology.

Hundreds of workers and community residents picketed outside of this student-only event, chanting anti-Minuteman slogans, including, "Hitler Rose, Hitler Fell; Minutemen Go to Hell!" and "Las Luchas Obreras No Tienen Fronteras" "Workers Have No Borders"). Inside — after a previous MM speaker, a black politician, had spoken for almost an hour — Gilchrist was spewing his anti-immigrant garbage for a few minutes when students from the Columbia Chicano Caucus marched onto the stage and unfurled a banner reading, "No Human Being is Illegal." A scuffle erupted as the MM and their supporters grabbed and tore the banner while punching and kicking other anti-racist students who attempted to get on stage. Then 80% of those in the hall began chanting their support of the anti-racists’ action. This ended the program.

During the protest, PL’ers reached many with our ideas via chants, posters, buttons and the sale of CHALLENGE. We salute the courage of those who confronted the racists inside the hall. However, many students who were disgusted with the MM racism still support the notion of absolute free speech. One Chicano student leader defended her organization’s actions saying, they have not "...interfered with anyone’s free speech. We simply expressed our right to freedom of speech."

But when the KKK came to NYC several years ago, PL’ers clobbered them BEFORE they could get started. Imagine if the racist MM had been physically attacked by the students and run out of the hall! That would have given the fascists pause before they continued to spew their filthy message.

Now "liberal" Mayor Bloomberg and the bosses’ mass media are attacking the anti-racists’ protest as an "outrage." They’re the same ones who support imperialist wars worldwide and racist exploitation of workers everywhere. Columbia U. President Bollinger is threatening action against the student protesters.

Under capitalism there is no "free" speech, only speech with money and power behind it. The ruling class will use its might to promote its real agenda and attack those who oppose it. We should support the Columbia students against any charges against them and use this opportunity to raise with our friends and within our unions, campus clubs, churches and community organizations the need to unmask the MM and their fascist paymasters.

‘Freedom’ for Nazis Led to Death for Millions

I met with a dozen progressive high school students to discuss immigration. These students are sympathetic to immigrants and repulsed by Pat Buchanan and his anti-immigrant rants.

One student mentioned the Columbia protest; many had read the NY Times article and, predictably, put forth the civil liberties position. Then I asked them to consider the following:

Hitler wrote that in the 1920’s, when the Nazis were still relatively weak, their opponents could have crushed them in the streets. By the early 1930’s they were too powerful and it was the Nazis who would crush their opponents.

So what if the anti-Nazis had physically attacked and crushed the fascists in the streets in the 1920’s and thereby prevented their growth? There’s no question that would have violated the Nazis’ "free speech" and "right of assembly." But it might have saved the lives of millions who the Nazis later murdered.

In a situation with contending rights — i.e., the "rights" of fascists to speech and assembly vs. the rights of Jews, leftists, gays, gypsies and others to live — don’t we have an obligation to choose one over the other?

Anti-Racists Drown Out KKK At Harper’s Ferry

HARPER'S FERRY, WV, Oct. 14 — PLP mobilized half of 50 protestors, including students, workers and active-duty military personnel, in a militant, multi-racial demonstration against the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. These fascists dared to defile the sacred anti-racist site where John Brown's multi-racial band of 21 carried out their bold raid against slavery in 1859 that effectively set the U.S. Civil War in motion.

Chanting, "Death to the Klan, Power to the Workers," the Party-led group confronted over 100 cops brought in from five jurisdictions to defend the fascists. The cops fronted a line of nose-to-tail police cars, which in turn was in front of an impassable railroad trestle, which in turn was in front of a temporary metal barrier surrounding the fascists. Obviously they were determined to protect the Klan scum from anti-racist justice.

Nevertheless, our chanting and militancy drowned out the fascist rally of four robed Klansmen flanked by 15 uniformed Nazis. Several local residents of this mountain community joined us, and many tourists were aghast to see the Klan in this National Park. Our spirited protest awakened the activism among some of our friends, and bodes well for the growth of PLP.

Cook County Hospital:

Whether Dems or G.O.P., All Roads Lead to Racist Cutbacks, War

CHICAGO, Oct. 15 — Cook County Health System workers are learning the hard way that the liberals are paving the road to fascism. On September 28, Cook County Board President Bobbie Steele (a black woman Democrat) called for 10% budget cuts ($100 million) from all department heads. This will mean layoffs, service cuts and clinic closings.

Just six days earlier, FBI agents raided the County's human resources bureau and four hospitals in a crackdown on corrupt political hiring. The racist rulers must squeeze out every dollar, including clamping down on their corrupt underlings, to maintain their empire and prepare for larger wars to come. Democrat and Republican roads all lead to racist cutbacks.

In July 2006, a Northwestern University report stated, "The Cook County health care system is facing an impending crisis," and warned of cuts in federal Medicaid money, the escalating costs in healthcare and the rise in uninsured and underinsured workers. The County "does not have a structure…to navigate the emerging health care crisis," and a "Blue Ribbon Commission" is needed to oversee the County President.

One meeting was organized where professional health care workers were limited to discussing what they thought should be cut, like certain prescription drugs to patients. There was no mention of the $6 billion-a- month war in Iraq that is draining federal funding.

On the other hand, chief medical officers, doctors and nurses unanimously oppose the cuts, recognizing the devastating effects they will have on the mostly black, Latin and immigrant patient population. They felt that doctors and nurses should stand with other healthcare workers and the community/patient population. This could set the stage for a struggle against the cutbacks and an opportunity to strengthen the base for PLP.

These budget cuts will worsen the health of an already ailing population burdened with poverty and illness. But it will be even more deadly if healthcare workers are won to fight under the leadership of the Democrats for a policed "health" system in line with a fascist war economy.

The goal of the Northwestern report and Democratic post-9/11 "yearnings" are to win workers and the community to fight for the bosses’ war budget health system, just as they have mobilized millions of immigrant workers and youth to march behind the Democrats’ war agenda. The ruling class wants more troops, a cheap labor war economy and a racist, patriotic population. Democrats only criticize Bush for failing to win the population to their fascist plans.

Only by persistently and patiently fighting for our revolutionary outlook in the mass movement and at work can we win workers to join PLP. Many of our co-workers see these racist cutbacks are directly related to the war in Iraq. But they don’t see fighting for communism as the solution, yet. Our job is to build a base for communist revolution with our co-workers as we fight these racist budget cuts, expose the farce of the upcoming elections, and fight the fascist restructuring of the County health system.

Florida Teachers Mass on Highways, Rallying for Pay Raises

MIAMI, Oct. 11 — "More than praise, we need a raise," chanted thousands of schoolteachers across Dade County as they rallied along major highways and at district headquarters demanding raises on a par with neighboring counties. "I’m a single mom," said Santa Melendez, "and I have to work a second job to help pay the bills. No matter how hard we work, it’s still not enough." Teachers said they can’t afford to live in the county where they teach. Nearly 2,000 didn’t go to school to attend the rallies.

Workers Nix Union Hacks’ War Contract, Strike Goodyear

DETROIT, MI., Oct. 5 — Today more than 12,000 workers struck 16 Goodyear Tire & Rubber plants in the U.S. and Canada. Whether they know it or not, striking workers are taking a stand against a war economy that is forcing down wages and benefits to finance billions for war and fascist Homeland Security. The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) union authorized the strike after 40% of the workers rejected a tentative agreement between the union and the company. As in auto, steel, aerospace and other industries, workers have suffered decades of mass layoffs and concessions. And the patriotic union leaders boast of their being partners in this process.

Goodyear is continuing production at its non-union facilities and using management as scabs to try to keep the struck plants operating. The walkout could affect U.S. auto plants, which depend on just-in-time delivery and maintain a very low inventory of tires.

Workers are striking against Goodyear’s demands for wage cuts for new hires and against increased attacks on pensions, medical coverage and working conditions. Goodyear also wants to close two factories in Alabama and Texas, wiping out 2,000 jobs.

This summer, the USWA accepted concession contracts with the other big three tire companies. The union agreed to cut starting pay for new hires to $13/hour. But Goodyear demanded even more, including cutting wages for new hires to $10/hour. Meanwhile, Goodyear CEO Robert Keegan made over $7 million in 2005.

Like the auto and steel bosses, Goodyear wants to drastically reduce labor costs and the amount it pays out to tens of thousands of retired workers and their dependents.

The USWA absorbed the United Rubber Workers union in 1995 after the sellout of a ten-month strike of 2,300 Bridgestone-Firestone workers and the destruction of tens of thousands of union jobs in the tire industry.

Millions of workers are being forced to pay for the bosses’ plans for racist, endless imperialist wars and fascism. This is the immediate and long- range future capitalism has for the world’s workers. PLP offers a different future: fighting for a communist society without any bosses and their wars for profits.

Chavez’s Anti-Bush Rhetoric Hides Nationalist Reformers’ Exploitation

One day after George Bush addressed the United Nations to defend the bloody policies of the U.S., Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blasted the "imperialist policies" of the U.S. In a comically rich speech, he called Bush the devil, proclaiming that "he could still smell the sulfur" of the evil one. He later said, "Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world."

Republican and Democratic leaders (like New York’s Charles Rangel) came to the defense of Bush because they considered it an insult to the whole country. Many on the "pseudo" left as well as workers around the world have praised Chavez’s criticisms of U.S. imperialism, believing he gave a voice to the people.

But if Bush left the scent of the devil, Chavez left the scent of a rat. Chavez’s "revolution" represents only the interests of local capitalists and imperialists who compete with the U.S. to control and exploit the workers of South America. Venezuela is a member of the Chinese- and European Union-supported MERCOSUR that is just the other imperialists’ alternative to the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade of Americas. Later in the speech he proposed giving more power to the Secretary General, repressing the veto and expanding UN membership. These proposals reform the United Nations (take power away from the larger capitalists like the U.S.), not destroy it as a defender of class oppression.

Chavez proclaimed, "Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceana. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision." This vision of reformed capitalism may work better for nationalist capitalists as well as imperialists friendly to them, but workers will only see a new dawn’s light if we reject Chavez’s "reformed" capitalist siren call.

Anti-War Teach-In Reveals U.S. Imperialist Atrocities

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 — At a recent documentary screening on a campus here, students saw first-hand the brutality and murderous violence of U.S. imperialism’s current profit war in Iraq. The film revealed the aftermath of the U.S.’s April 2004 military offensive in Falluja. Viewing the graphic footage of civilian casualties and heartrending interviews, many of the 50 students attending turned their eyes away several times in disgust. Some couldn’t believe that the atrocities depicted in the film — including the killing of two young children by U.S. snipers — were true.

A teacher said that when she was in college during the Vietnam War, she couldn’t believe the stories of U.S. atrocities because "we were taught that Americans are the ‘good guys’ and the enemy is always evil." But in reality, she said, imperialism breeds brutality, torture and misery for ALL workers. Nationalism only blinds us from the truth, lying that we have more in common with our oppressors at home than with our working-class sisters and brothers worldwide.

One student declared that the film exposed the anti-Arab racism used by the bosses to justify their Mid-East oil wars. It gave a human face to the 600,000 Iraqis who have died since the U.S. invaded Iraq. While the ruling class speaks of "fighting terror" and "spreading democracy," the film showed that the main victims of imperialism’s genocidal violence are workers and students — especially the most vulnerable, like children and the elderly.

Another student pointed out that just as it’s poor U.S. workers who are sent to fight and die for imperialism’s profits, so it’s the workers, students and poor of Iraq and Afghanistan who also suffer, fight and die. Imperialism, regardless what flag it waves, is only interested in "spreading democracy" for multi-nationals like Exxon-Mobil and their rich capitalist shareholders. No bosses’ state has the interests of workers, soldiers and students in mind.

The teacher urged students to ask why these wars are being fought in the first place and who really benefits from them. There’s a connection between the killing in Iraq for the U.S. capitalist class’s domination of energy resources and the recent attacks on U.S. workers, like cuts in pensions, benefits and wages, and the closing or outsourcing of factories, from Ford and GM to Boeing. We need a multi-racial, international movement to fight imperialism’s root source, the racist profit system of capitalism. Communism, based on production to meet the needs of the international working class, is the answer to capitalist-caused slaughter.

The teach-in sparked great one-on-one discussions outside, and future plans for more campus teach-ins and actions. From these new contacts and discussions, we plan to extend our CHALLENGE networks and study groups, and win more students to PLP’s revolutionary communist politics.

Plan to Fight Anti-Immigrant Attacks, Expose Liberal ‘Reform’ Tool for War Recruiting

NEW YORK, Oct. 2 — CHALLENGE always points out we are living in a period of expanding imperialist war and developing fascism as U.S. rulers aim to maintain their super-power status. To further this goal, they are using immigration reform to implement a police state to squeeze more profits from the working class and provide more cannon fodder for their imperialist wars.

They have already militarized the U.S./Mexico border. Several towns have changed their ordnances to deny undocumented immigrants housing leases. Some Border State sheriffs have erected tent jails to detain immigrants awaiting deportation hearings. Young immigrants are told they can become citizens by joining the U.S. military. Racist militia groups like the Minutemen are welcomed to patrol the border and immigrant communities.

PLP will participate in a conference on "embracing the immigrant," inviting members of mass organizations we participate in, students and all our friends to this event.

The conference wants to put U.S. immigration issues into the framework of "human rights" and to explain how to "access legal, health, social and work services and rights." Although not a stated goal of the conference, it assumes acceptance of ruling class-sponsored "immigration reform" as the way to realize the "American Dream."

In PLP study groups with our friends and using CHALLENGE, we’re preparing to introduce proposals for fighting back and bringing aspects of our revolutionary communist ideas to conference participants. We know many people will be open to our ideas while others will try to stifle us. One key point we’ll try to present clearly is our analysis of the historical period and why "immigration reform" is a tool in the liberal Democratic Party’s war chest.

Our fight-back plan includes proposing that educators and social, health and legal providers plan non-compliance with laws mandating we reveal the identities of undocumented immigrants. Churches should become sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants, following the lessons of those who resisted the Fugitive Slave Act prior to the Civil War. We must establish networks like the Underground Railroad to support undocumented immigrants and fight racist groups like the Minutemen and practices like raids and deportations. We also should organize a U.S.-Mexico cross-border demonstration to build international working-class solidarity and unity.

On a deeper level — that exposes the nature of capitalism and imperialism — we must question the reasons for borders, and warn workers of the danger of racist and nationalist divisions, while explaining the historical necessity for revolutionary change to address the root causes of poverty, repression and war. For example, the NAFTA "free trade" agreement has given the multi-national corporations a green light to cut jobs and lower wages across the border, widening the gap between the super-rich and the poor in both Mexico and the U.S.

Finally, the Party’s goal is to raise communist consciousness, win many workers to the Party and expand the networks of CHALLENGE readers, as well as strengthen veteran communist leaders and develop new ones on the long road to communist revolution.

Lynne Stewart Sentence: Judge’s ‘Compassion’ Masks Stepped-up Fascism

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 16 — Today sentences were handed down to radical lawyer Lynne Stewart (28 months) and her co-defendants, paralegal Ahmed Sattar (24 years) and translator Mohamed Youssary (20 months). We applaud the thousands of people who wrote letters backing Stewart and participated in rallies, and in support meetings in unions, community and religious organizations. But we should not have the illusion that these were the reasons for Stewart’s and Youssary’s relatively short jail sentences. While sectors of the government disagree on how to apply their fascist rules, they all agreed on a sentence that would represent their class interests.

For example, "a message of deterrence has already been sent loud and clear…no further deterrence is needed," said one of Stewart’s lawyers. She has already lost her right to earn a living as a lawyer, thus sending the chill of terror to any attorney who might defend an enemy of U.S. rulers. Now, through Judge Koeltl’s sentences, the same government that is implementing greater fascist measures can simultaneously appear "compassionate."

No terrorist act resulted from the actions of Stewart, Sattar and Youssary. However, terror in the form of imperialist war, attacks on immigrants, homelessness, etc. occurs every day under capitalist class rule.

We should hail and spread the fight of Oaxaca workers and Columbia University students who have fought back against capitalism’s systemic terror. PLP pledges to build on the efforts to support Lynne Stewart by building a base of workers, students and soldiers committed to destroying the capitalist system.

Students Rally vs. Military Recruiters at Career Fair

NEW YORK, NY, Oct. 12 — "Recruiters, you liars, we'll set your asses on fire" students shouted today as they rallied against military recruiters and the war in Iraq outside a City College of New York (CCNY) career fair; 300 leaflets with a reprint of a CHALLENGE article were given out and over 50 newspapers were distributed.

The CCNY police circled the protest, showing its force. Last year they had arrested and beat students at another career fair. CUNY students continue to oppose the war; several new students participated.

Perhaps the best feature was the collective decision-making, with students struggling over what tactics to use. PLP'ers advanced its outlook through chants and discussion.

LETTERS

Learning Communism in the School of Life

Several years ago, I lived in the mountains where unemployed poverty-stricken farm workers live. With PLP's help, I moved to the big city seeking a job as well and to engage in political work in the maquilas (factories). It was a new world for me, full of obstacles.

Now I'm a young worker with a lot of anger against the capitalist system. During my participation as an active member of PLP, it's been difficult learning to bring communist ideas to others. I've been in the Party for five years, but because I didn't know how to write, I've been unable to improve my political work enough, nor could I find work in the biggest factories — they require a high school diploma.

However, I'm resolving this. I work among a lot of young workers. Little by little I'm understanding more profoundly why we fight. This motivates me to keep recruiting more people to the Party. It led me to start school two years ago. I'm now in the third grade and learning to read and write, so I can read Party documents.

Sometimes it isn't just important to know how to read but also to get ideas from the other comrades because the Party is necessary for all the world's workers. That's why some of my fellow workers and friends read CHALLENGE. I invite them to mass activities where we participate as the Party.

Our meetings have helped me learn. They explain why we fight and why it's necessary for workers to awaken out of the darkness of capitalist ideas. I want more Party schools here to learn more communist ideas.

A young worker comrade

Working on Many Fronts Post-May Day

Since May Day, our PLP club has been involved in various struggles, but with the same focus of building for communism. We brought our base of friends to the defense of comrades who were on trial for supporting day laborers in Farmingville, Long Island. We struggled with those who attended the trial not to view the victorious verdict as a sign that "the system works" but to understand how, in any arena, communists fight the bosses with mass action and political struggle.

We’re also raising two ideas in mass organizations to which we belong to further our solidarity with immigrants: (1) drafting a resolution that attacks all proposed legislation as further intensification of super-exploitation, and of expanding war; and (2) organizing an international cross-border solidarity rally in Laredo Texas.

One goal this fall is having a conference on "Racial Justice and Ecological Survival." The main theme will be indicting world capitalism as the cause of ecological disaster and imperialist wars. The recent discussions about the PLP document "Road to Revolution 4.5" is helping in organizing this event by making communist politics primary in the workshops.

We’ve also met regularly with a coalition that’s fighting to reopen our neighborhood health clinic. It has exposed the City as a racist murderer, using their own figures on deaths from asthma, cardiac-pulmonary disease, cancer and AIDS. In the past four months, we’ve lost three African-American activists to heart attacks: two in their sixties, one in her thirties! We’re planning our own health fair on the steps of the clinic building and possibly to take it over.

Last April a cop murdered one of our friends’ son and we’re working in one mass organization to sharpen the courtroom struggle as well as to win the family to PLP’s politics.

One of our members has lost her family’s HRA housing subsidy and we’re trying to build support for her at the hearings and a possible fight with the landlord. We will pack the courtroom.

However, overall we must do better in following up our May Day participants, using CHALLENGE in ways that engage their particular concerns and to win them to distribute the paper and raise funds to support it.

Red Churchmouse

Under Capitalism, Workers Can’t Celebrate ‘Independence’

PLP wrote and distributed a leaflet during the Sept. 15 Independence celebrations, exposing the hypocrisy of "Independence Day," and calling for a struggle for true revolutionary liberation under communism. Today the rulers force teachers and students into parades to celebrate this date which has no real significance for the working class since we continue as wage slaves, whether under European or U.S. empires.

Historically in Central America, like elsewhere worldwide, workers have been subjected to all kinds of racism and exploitation. After the imperialist invasion by the European kingdoms starting in 1492, a great repression and massacre of the indigenous peoples began when they resisted the plunder of their lands and excessive, brutal working conditions. The empires aimed to accumulate great wealth.

After hundreds of years of Spanish oppression, a movement for liberation arose, which was used by phony leaders who represented a particular powerful economic sector. Their role was to pacify the angry masses.

In 1821 a false independence was established through commercial agreements in which Spain’s rulers gave power to these opportunist local leaders. Workers can achieve total liberation only through a communist system, building our Party and organizing the working class for the complete elimination of the capitalist system and its oppression and wars. Fight for one class, one flag and one Party, the PLP.

A Salvadoran Comrade

U.S. Killed Nearly 3 Million North Koreans

There’s nothing communist about North Korea. It explicitly abandoned Marxism-Leninism in its constitution of the early ’90s. Its official ideology is "Juche," based on nationalist self-reliance. The capitalists call North Korea "communist" to paint all communists with the same brush.

Chinese and South Korean capitalists are investing in North Korea’s "Free Economic Zones." That’s one of the reasons China — even though it condemned the recent nuclear test — is reluctant to endorse the U.S. and Japan’s full embargo.

The nuclear test is a direct reaction to the failed Bush administration policy of shunning negotiations and threatening North Korea with war and regime change. North Korea had abandoned its nuclear weapons program until the Bush administration started threatening it as being part of the "Axis of Evil," while invading another "Axis," Iraq. There’s no doubt: people in the U.S. and worldwide are far less safe than five years ago.

U.S. rulers, not North Korea, are primarily to blame for this situation. In 1994 North Korea signed an agreement with the U.S. to suspend its nuclear weapons program and allow international inspections and monitoring of its nuclear facilities. In return, the U.S. agreed to cease military threats against North Korea, to supply fuel oil to replace the lost nuclear power, and to help build two modern atomic power plants.

But beginning in 2002, the Bush administration slowly gutted the agreement. It branded North Korea as part of an "axis of evil," threatened war, ended the shipments of fuel oil and the construction of nuclear power plants, tightened a long-standing economic embargo, and obstinately refused direct bilateral talks. The White House even threatened the limited use of nuclear weapons in a regional conflict with North Korea.

The context of all this goes back more than 50 years. Republican and Democrat administrations have refused to sign a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War and still maintain 37,000 troops in South Korea. They are the aftermath of the U.S. killing machine that during the Korean War (1950-1953), according to U.S. Air Force General Curtis Le May (quoted on PBS’s website), the U.S. "killed off…20% of the population….more than two million….civilians." The final total was actually nearly one-third of the nine million North Koreans. In all of World War II, the U.S. lost less than one-third of one percent of its population. Using bombs and napalm, Le May said the U.S. "eventually burned down every town in North Korea…and some in South Korea too."

With such a history, from 50 years ago and currently, no wonder when the Bush administration geared up for war on Iraq, North Korean officials were worried about the U.S. attacking them. Predictably, the North Korean government responded by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, expelled atomic energy agency inspectors, and began to develop nuclear weapons.

For eight years (1994-2002), direct negotiations with the North Korean government reduced the threat of nuclear proliferation and war on the Korean peninsula. So why do Bush administration officials say it’s "impossible" to negotiate with North Korea? They, and their neoconservative allies, are calling for sanctions, isolation, and even military threats to impose "regime behavior change." This is the same recipe that brought on the disastrous Iraq war, and will only deepen North Korea’s resolve to develop nuclear weapons, potentially setting off a new nuclear arms race in the region.

Of course, the nuke non-proliferation treaty is a sham. In addition to the main imperialists, Israel, Pakistan and India are also nuclear powers. Even the Russians have halted destruction of their strategic nuclear weapons since the U.S. is about to achieve nuclear supremacy for the first time in 50 years, capable of destroying Russia’s and China’s nukes with a first strike. So North Korea’s minute nuclear arsenal is really no threat to the U.S.

With few exceptions, much of the mainstream bosses’ media is echoing the White House claims that "negotiations won’t work," the same role they played in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

A Comrade

Students Occupy, Close College for the Deaf

I recently visited the protest at Gallaudet University — the nation’s only federally-funded university for deaf people — where hundreds of students this week expanded their occupation of the main classroom building, now closing down the entire campus by blocking all entrances. The students are well-organized, with grills to cook food, tents at all entrances and substantial support from the faculty.

Students are condemning racism and discrimination in the selection of the new university president and are demanding that the president-elect, Jane Fernandez, step down before she even takes office! Many black students are involved in the protest and there is a lot of interaction between black and white students.

Several years ago, a similar campaign (called the Deaf President Now Movement) resulted in the appointment of Jordan King as president, who was very popular with the students. His provost has been appointed by the Board of Trustees to succeed him, with his support.

Students have now turned against him for what they view as a betrayal of the deaf community’s interests, throwing juice on him at an event held to honor him. Yesterday he turned the situation over to the cops and washed his hands of it all, proving that when push comes to shove, even the most progressive-seeming president will hide behind the rulers’ state power and the cops.

The students claim that the search committee did not consider a particular deaf African American candidate, and so was racist, and that the president-elect (who is also deaf) fails to fully appreciate "deaf culture." Some proponents of deaf culture claim that the deaf community, due to its particular social experience related to deafness, is more internally compassionate and caring than other communities.

The students want to maintain American Sign Language (ASL) as the primary visual and written communication mode. ASL is a different language with its own grammar rules. For example, ASL inverts the noun and verb in a sentence, such as "The store, I go." The new president, an English professor, wants students to write in Standard English instead of ASL. The students reject this view, and also object to the fact that she both signs and speaks.

The students have been attacked as "spoiled" and their faculty supporters have been called "manipulative." These are the standard baseless attacks made on those who seek to "fight the power." However, despite the students’ boldness, I fear their emphasis on deaf culture isolates them from the rest of the working class, and is another form of "identity politics" (such as feminism and nationalism) which divides the working class into separate groups aligned with their own rich, bourgeois members. Identity politics hinders working-class unity in the struggle against capitalism.

Such nationalistic responses develop because people face real discrimination and feel the need to fight back. Deaf people have often been stigmatized and considered mentally retarded. All workers need to fight the discrimination against any worker and help unite us all against capitalist oppression. We also condemn any police action, repression or punishment of these brave students, whom we want to win to a revolutionary communist outlook.

A Comrade

FLASH! Cops Arrest 133 Students

Oct. 16 — As we go to press, President King Jordan of Gallaudet University called the cops to arrest 133 deaf students in order to re-open the campus. But demonstrators, including those released on bail, have maintained their militancy and determination. Four have begun a hunger strike, and over 70 "deaf tent cities" have been erected worldwide as deaf advocacy organizations are supporting the students while the Gallaudet administration and Board of Trustees become increasingly isolated. Stay tuned!

REDEYE on the News

Afghans’ life worse since US came in

At best Afghans consider their government to be non-existent, at worst they see it as a corrupt, unscrupulous criminal organization. "Never in the history of Afghanistan has corruption been so bad, at every rung of the ladder,…."

….Half the population is suffering from malnutrition and just over a third of all children have been vaccinated. Every 30 minutes a woman dies from complications giving birth….

To judge by the account of villagers in the south, the Taliban are free to roam wherever they please. Yielding to Taliban propaganda, public opinion is increasingly in favor of the foreign forces’ departure….

"When the Americans arrived, the whole population supported them," recalls Noor Ali, a teacher in Kandahar. "But they lied to us and we are no longer interested in development and rehabilitation. We just want peace and security." (GW, 9/28)

Senior decides jail is better than $5/hr

A man who could not find steady work came up with a plan to make it through the next few years until he could collect Social Security: He robbed a bank, handed the money to a guard and waited for the police….

"At my age, the jobs available to me are minimum-wage jobs," Mr. Bowers, who will turn 63 in a few weeks, told the judge….

Prosecutors had considered arguing against putting Mr. Bowers in prison at taxpayer expense, but they worried he would do something more reckless to be put behind bars.

"It’s not the financial plan I would choose, but it’s a financial plan," the prosecutor, Dan Cable, said. (NYT, 10/13)

Stunned by detainee innocence, GI quits

In a court-martial here on Thursday, an Army judge sentenced Sergeant Clousing to 11 months in confinement for going AWOL….

Arriving in Iraq in November 2004, he said he was stunned at the number of Iraqis he was assigned to interrogate who were either innocent or disgruntled citizens resentful about the American occupation. He said he told his commander: "Your soldiers and the way they’re behaving are creating the insurgency you’re trying to fight. It’s a cycle. You don’t see it, but I’m talking to the people you’re bringing to me…."

…Sergeant Closuing took his misgivings to his superiors. They sent him to a chaplain, who showed him in the Bible where God sent his people to war….

Sergeant Clousing said he could not file for conscientious objector status because he could not honestly say he was opposed to all war. After several months of soul-searching, he went AWOL. (NYT, 10/13)

US big biz likes China workers as slaves

To the Editor:

Now our Chamber of Commerce and some major American Corporations are fighting against a new labor protection law in China ("China Drafts Law to Empower Unions and End Labor Abuse; Opposition Voiced by U.S. and Other Corporations," front page, Oct.13).

Makes you proud to be an American, no? (NYT, 10/15)

US teenagers not joining evangelicals

…Evangelical Christian leaders are warning one another that their teenagers are abandoning the faith in droves….

"I’m looking at the data," said Ron Luce, who…founded Teen Mania, a 20-year-old youth ministry, "and we’ve become post-Christian America, like post-Christian Europe. We’ve been working as hard as we know how to work…but we’re losing." (NYT, 10/6)

$20 million victory party skipped

Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nation’s capital "for commemoration of success" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, the money was not spent. (NYT, 10/4)

Free market brings misery to poorest

Globalization brings wealth and opportunity to many people around the world. But to poor slum dwellers in the failing state of Ivory Coast, it has brought horrible sickness and death after hazardous waste, shipped nearly halfway around the world, was stealthily dumped in backyards around Abidjan….

…The waste…could have been safely disposed of earlier in its journey. But Trafigura, the Swiss trading company that leased the tanker, balked at paying European prices. Instead, 85,000 people ended up seeking medical treatment, and at least eight have died….

Dangerous cargos will find the course of least resistance, least cost, and least regulation, scarring the lives of some of the world’s poorest, worst governed and most defenseless people. (NYT, 10/4)

Physical abuse often underlies sexism

Violence against women by their live-in spouses or partners is a widespread phenomenon, both in the developed and developing world, as well as in rural and urban areas, the most comprehensive and scientific international study on the topic has confirmed….in interviews with nearly 25,000 women at 15 sites in 10 countries….

Most partner abuse is hidden, and only a tiny fraction is reported to the authorities…..

In the United States…about 25 percent of women said that they had been physically or sexually assaulted by a spouse, partner or date.

In the World Health Organization survey, one-fifth to two-thirds of women interviewed said that it was the first time they have ever spoken of the abuse to anyone…. (NYT, 10/6)

Expert: FBI forced terror confession

The Hayats were United States citizens; Umer Hayat drove an ice cream truck in Lodi. His 19-year-old son, Hamid, was a sixth-grade dropout.

In 2003 the family traveled briefly to Pakistan for Hamid’s marriage….

In the summer of 2005, when Hamid returned to Lodi, the F.B.I was waiting for him. Interrogated along with his father for 15 hours in separate rooms without a lawyer, they were both later arrested. Hamid was charged with attending a jihadi training camp — something both he and his father confessed to after the nonstop interrogation….

James Wedick, a recently retired and much decorated F.B.I. agent agreed to review the interrogation tapes…. "I was shocked," he told Frontline…Hamid changed his story only after the constant badgering….

"They more or less answered the way the bureau wanted them to answer," Mr. Wedick said. "All they wanted to do was go home….The trial judge barred Mr.Wedick from taking the stand….

The younger Mr.Hayat, convicted of material support of terrorism and lying to the F.B.I., faces a possible 39-year sentence and has filed an appeal….

In the end there was no terror cell….The Lodi case, a showcase trail in the Bush administration’s war on domestic terrorism, was largely created out of whole cloth. The country was never in danger from the Hayats but may well be entering a dangerous period of unnecessary and abusive prosecutions… (NYT, 10/10)

The Great Anti-Fascist Battle In London’s East End, 1936

October 4 marked the 70th anniversary of a great battle against fascism — the "Battle of Cable Street" in London’s East End. Stories of that day are still talked about amongst the British working class.

For 300 years the East End of London had been a passageway of poor working-class immigrants into Britain. In 1936 the area’s population was largely Polish and Russian Jews, Irish Catholics and non-immigrant English working class. Most streets were a crooked tangle. Tiny houses were crammed together — 18th century industrial housing with flush toilets out the back. Many people worked on the nearby docks and in small factories, garment sweatshops and open air markets.

At that time, Sir Oswald Moseley’s Blackshirts — the British Union of Fascists (BUF) — was by far the largest fascist grouping of many that were growing in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. They had close ties to Hitler. Moseley’s group sent committed fascists into the East End to beat up and terrorize Jews. They wanted to divide the Jews from all the other immigrant groups. They labeled Jews "tyrants of international banking." On the streets, fascists would scream "kill the kikes" and "get rid of the yids." Amid a severe depression, Moseley’s movement was growing among the unemployed, white collar workers and small businessmen.

A lot of Britain’s upper and ruling class funded the BUF. Some of Britain’s big newspapers — the Daily Mail, Evening News and Sunday Dispatch — promoted it. Even the recently crowned King (Edward VIII) had wealthy fascist friends in Britain, France and Germany. The police often turned a blind eye to the fascists’ beatings of Jews. Communists and trade unionists — many themselves Jews — led the attack on the fascists in the streets.

Moseley decided to show his strength by marching 10,000 uniformed Blackshirts and thousands of supporters directly through the Jewish/Irish neighborhood. Police Commissioner Sir Philip Game ordered his cops to "support the march."

October 4th dawned bright and sunny. Ten thousand police were assigned to protect Mosley’s fascists. The official Jewish leadership advised workers to stay indoors and not show aggressiveness to them. But up to 500,000 people from the East End and other parts of London came to stop the fascist march. Mass and individual acts of heroism flooded the streets of the East End. The names of Cable Street, Gardener’s Corner and Aldgate joined the list of great working-class battles.

At Mile End (an East End street), a woman marched shouting, "They shall not pass!" and headed towards Aldgate. By the time she reached it thousands were following her. At Cable Street, jeering and singing crowds tried to breach the wall of cops to get at the fascists. The police attacked using nightsticks while mounted police charged the crowd. The horses stumbled from children hurling marbles under their hoofs and bursting bags of pepper under their noses. Women threw the contents of chamber pots from windows. The Nazis screamed, "The yids, the yids. We gotta get rid of the yids." But the people chanted, "They will not pass!"

The masses erected barricades (see photo top right). A truck was turned on its side to block the street; old mattresses, bricks and pushcarts were thrown on top. An Irish anti-fascist bus driver drove his double-decker bus across the road, forming a barricade between the police and the anti-fascists. It was later pushed on its side. Red flags hung from windows. The army of fascists demanded the police escort them through the masses of people.

At Cable Street the massive wall of people held their ground and only retreated to pick up bricks or bottles to throw at the cops and fascists. Soon wounded police, fascists and protesters were carried off. The anti-fascist forces were so aggressive that a myth grew declaring that the police had surrendered to the crowd. One recently married young electrician who was hit in the face with a nightstick would talk about it proudly 30 years later.

The fascists were under a constant hail of bricks, bottles and stones. As the crowd continued to fight, over 100 anti-fascist fighters were arrested, but still the police could not move the masses who held the cops within a vise grip. One demonstrator was moved to tears seeing bearded Jews and Irish dockworkers standing together to stop Moseley, saying "I shall never forget that as long as I live!"

At 4:15 the Police Commissioner canceled the BUF’s right to march. But now the police had to save them from being killed by the crowd. They surrendered Cable Street and attempted to escape two blocks away to Gardener’s Corner where they could leave the East End. The BUF hastily turned at Gardener’s Corner, but the anti-fascists — waiting for them — shouted, "Get them!" and crashed through police lines. They then chased the fascists out of London’s East End.

Later that night an elderly woman asked a bandaged fighter if he had been at that day’s battle. Fearing her disapproval, he denied being there. To his surprise and joy she said, "A curse on you that you did not fight this day." To him it sounded like a Shakespearian quotation.

For days people celebrated throughout London. The fascists continued to try to organize, but now much of the ruling classes withdrew their open support (many began to view Hitler as a rival imperialist threat) and it was clear that workers wouldn’t be easily won to fascism. In early December, Edward VIII abdicated, having been king for only 10 months. The official story stated he left "to be with the woman he loved," but among the working class it was common knowledge that he was forced out because of his open fascist ties.

From this battle we can see the working class should never give in to nationalist leaders. Both Jewish and Irish community and religious leaders tried to convince the masses not to fight the fascists, fearful of "causing more problems." But if the fascists had not been fought at Cable Street, they would have been a much stronger ally of Hitler inside Britain during World War II.

The constant communist-led anti-fascist organizing over many years led to the understanding and empowerment of the working class. That’s why today PLP leads the fight against the racist Minutemen and warns about the danger of the liberals’ road to fascism (see front page).

Dare to struggle — dare to win!

References

Benewick, R.: "A Study of British Fascism, Political Violence and Public Order." The Penguin Press, London 1969.

Hutt, A.: "British Trade Unionism — A Short History." International Publishers, New York 1953.

Ratner, R.: "The 50th Anniversay of the Battle of Cable Street." Spotlight Magazine, October 1986.

Rudkin, W.A.: "The Growth of Fascism in Great Britain." George Allen and Unwin, London, 1935.

Shermer, D.: "Blackshirts: Fascism in Britain." Ballantine Press, New York, 1971.

Thomson, D.: "England in the 20th Century." Penguin, Baltimore, 1965.

Walvin, J.: "Passage to Britain." Penguin, Harmonsworth, Middlesex, 1984.

Forward to Communism:

Reds Led Resistance Inside Nazi Death Camps

Book Review: Against All Hope: Resistance in the Nazi Concentration Camps 1938-1945, by Hermann Langbein, Paragon House Publishers, New York, 1994 — Part 1 of 2

After fighting fascism in Spain (1936-1939), the author was imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. He was a leader of the Auschwitz Combat Group resistance. His book dispels the lies that camp victims let themselves be passively slaughtered and showed that escape was not the main form of resistance.

The resistance mainly took the form of daily saving of lives, political study groups, sabotage and assassination of camp guards. Rather than individual heroism these were collective, painstaking efforts, led mainly by communists in highly secretive fashion and under the worst, murderous, dehumanizing conditions. They proved that even under the worst of conditions communists can still sustain their organization. Langbein says, "Communists...in contrast to men [sic] of liberal views...were used to absolute party discipline and were almost the only ones who were the enemy’s match as far as means and methods were concerned [p. 76]."

Initially criminal prisoners were responsible for enforcing discipline, keeping order and carrying out all commands. These so-called Greens (the color of their assigned badges) often received favors for killing and viciously whipping the "undesirable" political prisoners (so-called Reds) and Jews. As the Nazis invaded more countries and imprisoned more people, the SS (the Nazi organization that ran the camps) attempted to divide prisoners by nationality, but communists found many sympathizers and comrades from every country represented.

Slowly, Reds replaced Greens as senior block or barracks inmates by exposing their corruption, killing those who were demoted and seizing on the Nazis’ desperation to "manage" the hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Inmates kept roll call records, had responsibility for work assignments, and arranged hospital duty and transfers to other camps. (Incidentally, the Nazis used punch cards contributed by the U.S. company, IBM.)

Once positioned in a critical area, Red prisoners had some ability — although at high risk — to determine where people would go or who would appear or "disappear" from the rolls, often by assigning names of prisoners who had already died. Not all Reds or Jews were eager to engage in subterfuge or in deciding who might be saved at the expense of another. One Jewish woman, Vera Alexander, hesitated to become a block clerk, for then she would be subject to SS scrutiny. However, finally she did accept, and said, "Sometimes I was able to conceal in the block women who had been sentenced to death...At other times I was able to hide sick women so that they escaped the selection [for killing -- p. 49]."

From Ravensbrueck, a concentration camp mainly for women, three Jewish women were deported to Auschwitz for execution for their underground activities for the Communist Party. But the resistance organization in the women’s section of Auschwitz successfully protected them [p. 84].

(Part two will discuss the efforts of the underground camp resistance to hinder the Nazi war effort, the resistance’s mistaken reliance on the Allies for their rescue and finally the post-war failure of the international communist movement to organize for the overthrow of capitalism.)

PLP History: Championing Internationlism

Thirty-six years ago, on Oct. 24-25, 1970, NYC witnessed an historic internationalist event not seen in recent memory: over 2,500 workers and students from fraternal communist parties from Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. marched from Manhattan’s Lower East Side nearly four miles all the way to 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue, chanting, "Workers Power!" and "Fight for Socialism!" — slogans not heard on the city’s streets for 40 years. (This was prior to PLP’s more advanced outlook adopted in 1982 of "Fight for Communism.") It was a forerunner of PLP’s eventual international declaration of "One flag, one Party, one class."

The marchers surrounded the blocks containing the Canadian Consulate, protesting the Trudeau government’s "War Measures" attack on Quebec’s workers. Thousands of onlookers stopped to listen as the marchers sang the workers’ anthem, The Internationale. Many joined the march.

The participants came from many Canadian cities, and from Buffalo, Rochester, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New England and from all five boroughs of NYC and were addressed by representatives of PLP, the Socialist League of Puerto Rico — the famous poet, Juan Antonio Corretjer — and the Canadian Party of Labor.

The weekend was capped off with a dinner attended by 2,200. Many declared it one of the most inspiring events of their entire lives.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Oct. 18, 2006

Information: 18 October 2006 125 hits

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1. GOVERNORS CHANGE BUT OPPRESSION REMAINS THE SAME
Capitalism and U.S. Imperialism Still the Biggest Terrorists
THIS MONTH IN PLP HISTORY
Pro-Cop Union Hacks' Pacifism Undercuts Hotel Workers
PLP'ers Spread Red Ideas In Transit Union Election Campaign
NYC Teachers Support Oaxaca Strikers
Mexico's Rulers Fight Over Oil; Workers Must Smash `em All
1. Banff or Chapultepec -- A Bosses' Dogfight
LA Teachers Back Oaxaca Strikers
French Bosses' Mouthpiece Sees Fascism Growing in U.S., U.K.
Want to End Imperialist Wars?
Shed Illusions of `Peaceful' Capitalism
Lynne Stewart Case -- Legalizing Fascist Terror
`Brides' March Against Domestic Violence
LETTERS
Which side are liberals on?
REDEYE
NAACP Red-Baiters Betrayed Pro-Communists Du Bois, Robeson
1. Serving Imperialism
2. Rely On Bosses Or Workers?
Hungary: Free-Market `Socialists' Vs. Gutter Fascists
New Liberalism Paves the Way to Fascism:
Communist Politics Needed To Thwart Bosses' War Plan

WAR NEEDS DICTATE HARVARD ADMISSION CHANGE
Racist Rulers Target Working-Class Youth To Be Misleaders

Don't look for egalitarian or humanitarian motives behind Harvard's recent move to ease admissions for the "disadvantaged." This cradle of the A-bomb, napalm and racist eugenics remains the leading ideologic support for U.S. capitalism and its war machine. Harvard dropped its early admissions policy, which favors the wealthy, because U.S. rulers, facing intensifying imperialist competition, require a broader pool of talented, loyal cadre.

As global conflict approaches, they need leaders who can win the working class to the ideals of "service and sacrifice" that prevailed during World War II. Today's middle- and upper-class Ivy League products aren't doing the job. They tend to pursue narrow, selfish interests like getting rich or, if rich already, indulging in wasteful pastimes. So Harvard and its growing list of imitators seek to train a few misleaders from working-class backgrounds for influential positions in government, business, education, law, medicine, the clergy and (the bosses' fondest dream) the military.

DIE-HARD RACIST IMPERIALISTS SHAPED POLICY MOVE

Harvard's admissions change originated with its ex-president Larry Summers, who lost his job last Spring when, despite strenuous efforts, he failed to win faculty approval for restoring on-campus officer training. As Clinton's second Treasury Secretary, Summers had attacked millions of workers, largely black and Latin, by helping dismantle Welfare in order to shift precious capital to U.S. military adventures.

Final approval for ending early admissions came on Sept. 11 from the university's governing board, led by Robert Rubin and James Houghton. Rubin, who heads Citigroup, the biggest U.S. bank, is vice-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Rockefeller-organized think-tank that drew up plans for invading and occupying Iraq with massive force and criticizes Bush for deploying too few troops. Rubin preceded Summers as Clinton's treasury boss. Houghton, a CFR director, sits on the boards of both Exxon Mobil and J.P. Morgan Chase, imperialist firms that benefit greatly from U.S. war efforts.

SCHOLARSHIPS BRIBE WORKERS INTO BETRAYING THEIR CLASS

In opening the door a crack wider to working-class students, Harvard and the others hope to generate in them life-long gratitude to the ruling class. The bosses already have such a program in place on the secondary level in New York City. Called Prep for Prep, it conducts a talent search of public schools, places promising black and Latino students in private schools at vastly reduced or no tuition, helps them enter elite colleges, and encourages them to "give back" by donating to their alma maters or working for the Wall Street firms that fund the scheme. Harvard and J.P. Morgan Chase are the top destinations for Prep for Prep protégés.

Summers understood this priceless payback for two-bit "generosity" in 2004 when he abolished tuition for students of parents making less than $40,000 (since raised to $60,000). In recent decades, Harvard had accepted some talented working-class students but saddled them with "work-study" (bright, poor students scrubbing the toilets of privileged, mediocre ones) and exorbitant loans. Summers knew that degradation and debt might not make working-class alumni particularly loyal to the ruling class.

FAKE IVY LEAGUE EGALITARIANISM MASKS GENOCIDE

Harvard has a long history of such phony democratization that serves U.S. imperialism. In the 1920's, shortly after vast cash infusions from the Rockefellers' General Education Board had ensured their control of Ivy League colleges (Ivies), Harvard started relying more on College Board "aptitude test" scores and less on prep school headmasters' recommendations. The tests, originally designed to identify "officer material" in World War I, qualified many Jewish applicants, whom dismayed old-liners soon limited by quotas. (The Harvard-led pseudo-scientific eugenics movement excluded almost all black candidates, however.)

Before, during, and after World War II, Harvard president James Conant insisted on the SAT test as key to a U.S. "meritocracy." "Merit-based" access to the Ivies catapulted working-class children into positions of authority in the rulers' apparatus, including military commissions. Conant boasted in 1933 that "any man with remarkable talents may obtain his education at Harvard whether he be rich or penniless...." But history lays bare "reformer" Conant's true class allegiance. He led the development of two of U.S. imperialism's most feared civilian-targeting terror weapons: the atomic bomb and napalm.

Make no mistake, the rulers don't mean to replace the well-to-do completely or even largely at the elite schools. Nor do they intend to open higher education to the bulk of the working class, but rather to only a tiny percentage. It won't work. President Franklin Roosevelt was able to win workers to his World War II agenda not by ennobling a few workers but because the communist movement, which then led millions, mistakenly joined a "united front" with the ruling class to fight fascism. (The communists didn't recognize that workers and bosses had different interests in fighting the Nazis.)

No such situation exists now. The vast majority of young workers lack leadership and can expect only a low-paying dead-end job, unemployment, jail, or a stint in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's our Party's task to organize workers in their own class interests. We need to keep on exposing lethal ruling-class traps, like Harvard's latest scam.

WHAT LIBERAL BOSSES REALLY WANT -- WARTIME MOBILIZATION

The following is a September 18th letter to the New York Times from Wall Street financier Jeffrey Paley, a Prep for Prep donor, Kerry campaign backer, generous Harvard alumnus and son of CBS founder William Paley.

"It is beyond me why Democrats haven't asked President Bush why -- if he really believes that the struggle against radical Islam is comparable to the war against Hitler and that "staying the course" in Iraq is essential to a victory in the war on terrorism -- he hasn't mobilized the country to maximize the American war effort.

"Instead of lowering taxes, why hasn't he raised them to pay for this "life-and-death struggle"?

"Why hasn't he reinstated the draft to increase our troop strength? Why hasn't he instituted draconian measures to free us from our dependence on Middle East oil?

"Why has he refused to change his policies or leadership to correct his administration's obvious mistakes so that it can fight the war more effectively?

"If President Bush really believes what he says, he is scaring us without really calling us to action."

DUMP ALL BOSSES!
Oaxaca Workers Defy Threats

OAXACA, MEXICO, Oct. 2 -- Hundreds of barricades are up, the fires are burning, radio stations and office buildings have been seized, the workers have taken over the city and are guarding the entrances and their encampment in the Zócalo (city center). A march of thousands is headed for Mexico City, 340 miles away to demand the ouster of the State's governor. But dumping one politician, no matter how rotten, won't change the racist capitalist exploitative system.

With Navy helicopters flying menacingly overhead and the Army threatening to attack with tanks and special forces, there is fear, but even more, there is anger and hatred against the politicians, police and the capitalist system.

A few weeks ago, on one of the many seized radio stations, a complete CHALLENGE article was read about the struggle in Oaxaca. Thousands heard about the need to build a base for communist revolution.

A PLP poster pasted on the walls in the center of Oaxaca proclaims, "We support the teachers' struggle...A system that can't provide education or decent jobs must be destroyed with a communist revolution." Posted at the beginning of the 4-month teachers' strike, it is still there.

The city continues to be occupied by the teachers, farm workers and workers in general, organized by the teachers' union (SNTE, Section 22) and APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca). The militancy and bravery of the workers are immense. Many people go to their homes after work to prepare food and coffee for those who are living in and guarding the encampments. Meetings and discussions at different levels occur at all hours among the 70,000 teachers and hundreds of thousands of supporters from the entire state of Oaxaca who've joined this struggle.

Harassment by State police and death squads has been constant. A fascist mobilization of 2,000 police and busloads of soldiers in surrounding towns are preparing to attack if the teachers and the APPO leaders refuse to agree to the government's deal by an Oct. 4 deadline. The government claims it is offering some concessions if the teachers and supporting workers end the occupation.

GOVERNORS CHANGE BUT OPPRESSION REMAINS THE SAME

This struggle's demands -- better conditions, changing some state election laws and ouster of the governor Ulises Ruiz -- are demands to reform the capitalist system. Even though the bosses and some reform leaders say we shouldn't talk about anything except the "demands" so as "not to endanger the struggle," in reality workers, teachers and students DO want to talk about alternatives, mainly the one that will guarantee a winning struggle against the capitalist system of oppression that puts our whole class in the gravest danger.

No matter how this struggle ends, capitalism will remain. The teachers have a great responsibility to develop the new waves of young students who will go to the factories, fields, classrooms and, importantly, to the army with the red ideas of taking power and running society in the interests of the workers. -- there's no "intermediary" road. Large sections of the army, along with city workers and farm workers, must be won to the fight for workers' power. A majority of the soldiers being mobilized are sons of these very workers and farm workers, sons who went to schools where they were taught by the very same teachers now on strike.

As the poet and revolutionary Flores Magon declared, "A heart and a gun aren't enough." Workers need to fight for revolutionary communism. Members and friends of PLP are organizing -- and must continue to organize -- actions in unions, schools and factories to support the struggle here. We are one international working class.

The PLP has the opportunity to grow out of this struggle, as long as we fight for the idea that the only solution to workers' problems is to get rid of all the bosses and their politicians. (See articles pages 3, 4.)

Capitalism and U.S. Imperialism Still the Biggest Terrorists

The fifth anniversary of 9/11 spawned a huge outcry in the U.S. While grief by family members of those killed was certainly legitimate, the programs flooding the airwaves were simply an attempt by the U.S. ruling class to drum up support for its imperialist wars. The bin Laden-type fundamentalist bosses have killed and are killing thousands of workers (including many Muslims), from 9/11 to Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Madrid, London and Mumbai, India. But all that is dwarfed by the millions U.S. imperialists and global capitalists have slaughtered. All these bosses are enemies of the working class.

The U.S. government's hypocrisy is further exposed by its stonewalling and often outright refusal to help tens of thousands made seriously ill from inhaling the deadly toxins in downtown NYC, after being told it was "safe" to return.

The U.S. ruling class used the heightened nationalism following 9/11 to launch long-standing plans for invading the Middle East, first Afghanistan and then Iraq. With racist disregard for the lives of Muslim workers, the U.S. massacred about four times as many Afghan workers and 85 times as many Iraqi workers in these wars and occupations than the 3,000 killed on 9/11. At least 200,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, plus nearly 30,000 Iraqi troops and 2,700 U.S. GIs.(1) Millions of Iraqi workers who managed to survive lost family members, homes, health and access to food/water. All this so Big Oil could secure the Middle East's second largest oil producer and control the faucet of energy flowing to Europe and China.

The drive for maximum profits inherent in capitalism has always led the bosses to fight for power globally. U.S. conservative and liberal -- Democrat or Republican -- rulers only disagree on how best to organize the bigger wars the U.S. bosses need to maintain their dominance.

Through bombing and invasions, U.S. imperialists have targeted Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Kuwait, Panama, Iraq, Libya, Grenada and Lebanon, to name a few in recent years (see website for fuller list).(2) They recently added thousands to the death toll through support for Israel's attack on Lebanon (Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid). U.S. bosses are the only ones to have dropped nuclear bombs, killing over 300,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WW II when Japan was ready to surrender.(3)

Each death wrought by U.S. imperialism deserves as much mourning as the lavish dedications given those who perished on 9/11. Each worker this system has killed had a name, a family and a life stolen from him or her. The rulers' racism that treats "foreigners and non-whites" as expendable defines capitalist warfare's mass murder as merely "collateral" damage.

Internationally, capitalism is a system of deadly consequences that fails to meet working peoples' most basic needs, especially across Africa and much of the underdeveloped world -- 28 million working-class children die each year from easily curable diseases and another 17 million die from malnutrition.(4) Racism guarantees pharmaceutical and food bosses high prices and maximum profits over these millions of dead bodies. Still further, capitalism manufactures products that intrinsically have negative effects on workers and our health, such as cigarettes, drugs and munitions. Under capitalism, workers die so bosses can thrive.

Within the U.S., the world's wealthiest country, a half million people are homeless, and thousands more are threatened with homelessness due to rising rents and racist gentrification. Such gentrification in New Orleans is the aftermath of the murder and displacement of thousands of black workers to provide a more profitable financial order. Meanwhile, growing fascist repression, characterized by racist police terror against black, Latino, Arab and Muslim workers, endangers ever more lives. And now Congress has legalized torture as a method of interrogation.

We must remember the millions of revolutionaries in China and Russia who died fighting the Nazis and Japanese fascists to defend their own society, not the profits of capitalists. The current communist movement -- while learning from their weaknesses -- stands on the shoulders of these revolutionary workers.

Communists strive to share society's benefits and burdens, including those produced by war. During WW II, for instance, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's own son was captured and perished in a Nazi concentration camp. Compare that to the children of U.S. politicians who provide token military service at most.

Every day the working class takes casualties from capitalist wars for profits; perish from curable diseases; are drowned in the wake of broken levees; police and money-hungry gangs shoot us; we're poisoned by cigarettes or other drugs pumped into our communities. The Progressive Labor Party is organizing workers in many countries to build a communist movement. As the bosses start ever more wars at our expense, workers led by PLP must organize to destroy them and their murderous system. That's the only way to end once and for all the daily terrorist attacks on our class!

Footnotes:
(1)www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html
(2) www.neravt.com/left/invade.html
(3) Asahi Shimbin, "The Spirit of Hirshima," Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
(4) Abaana.org

THIS MONTH IN PLP HISTORY

In the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, threatening atomic war, only the 3-month-old Progressive Labor Movement (predecessor of PLP and not yet a revolutionary communist party) was indicting U.S. imperialism. When Kennedy and Khrushchev eventually settled the conflict, the U.S. "Communist Party" newspaper's headline was, "Thank God there's Peace!" But PLM's slogan was "Hands Off Cuba!"

When the UN General Assembly was meeting on the crisis in New York, eight PLM members managed to avoid security and sat in the audience. At the appropriate time, they rose from their seats and with two members on each end warding off UN cops, the six in the middle unfurled a big banner with the "Hands Off Cuba" slogan, creating a huge stir throughout the hall. Eventually they were kicked out. It set a good precedent for PLP's future militant anti-imperialist actions

Since it occurred on the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, it became known as the "Yom Kippur Rebellion."

(We invite readers to contribute to these historical articles.)

Pro-Cop Union Hacks' Pacifism Undercuts Hotel Workers

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28 -- Hundreds of hotel workers and 2,000 supporters marched today in support of a drive to unionize the mostly immigrant workforce at 13 hotels near LAX airport. The LA Times front page built the demonstration as "A plan for very civil disobedience," praising the close cooperation between the union and the cops.

Three hundred people were peacefully arrested for sitting in the street blocking traffic. Union leaders of UNITE-HERE, the LA County Federation of Labor and the "Somos America" ("We are America") coalition worked with the police to "choreograph" it. Many workers agreed that the staged arrests were nothing more than a "show."

Personal information of volunteer arrestees was given to the police in advance. "The police are workers just like we are," said UNITE-HERE leader Maria Elena Durazo, head of the County Federation. "We should cheer for the police because they're here to protect us!"

But when workers strike, the cops' role is to beat and arrest them while protecting scabs and the bosses' profits, stolen from exploited workers. Government is not "neutral"; it's a tool of capitalist class rule. Registering workers to vote is "democracy's" scam; it hides the class dictatorship run by the bosses.

Our PL leaflet stated, "Arrests staged for the media will not stop racism, exploitation, or wars for profit. For that, we need the long-term fight for workers' power with communist revolution."

Workers were glad to support striking Oaxaca teachers, responding to our PL flyer inviting them to demonstrate on their behalf. PLP sold 200 CHALLENGES and distributed 900 communist leaflets. Students from Mecha and from a nearby Catholic University also gladly took our literature.

One union activist grabbed our sign reading, "No Deportations -- No Slave-Labor Bracero Program -- No Green Card Army for U.S. Imperialism." "I'm taking this," she said, "and bringing it home with me." Another worker borrowed a sign, "La Clase Obrera No Tiene Frontera" ("The Working Class Has No Borders") and walked backwards with it so other marchers could learn the new chant as his co-worker led it over a bullhorn.

When racist Minutemen showed up, Durazo declared that "the Minutemen aren't our enemy"! PLP'ers and others chanted against these fascists who were protected by cops on horses while Durazo's monitors told people to ignore the racists. But some workers joined PL-led chants against the police despite monitors telling them to stop.

Today's action marginalized the hotel workers themselves. Official posters said, "I am a human being" -- signs with specific grievances against the hotels were left back in the union office.

This demonstration exposed the liberals as paving the way for fascism. Durazo and other "new cold-war liberals" are playing a deadly role in the labor and immigrant movements, fighting for a cadre of loyalists to work for the bosses. These misleaders tell workers the organizing campaign is to win a little more money, health benefits and "respect." But their real goal is winning workers and students to passivity, to support the police and "comprehensive immigration reform." They want to build patriotism while keeping workers in poverty and taking their youth to fight widening imperialist oil wars for the bosses' profits.

"Experts" cited by the LA Times crow that "the close cooperation with law enforcement reflects a more powerful and mature labor movement." But it's actually designed to make the bosses more powerful, not the workers. They tell workers to rely on religious leaders, politicians and the media instead of on their potential strength as a class.

While workers involved in this campaign haven't openly broken with the rotten leadership, our patient and consistent work will build a base for revolution and win many to oppose their class-collaborationism with communist politics. PLP'ers and our friends are fighting to expand the distribution of CHALLENGE-DESAFIO and other PLP literature through networks we build within these boss-led organizations.

PLP'ers Spread Red Ideas In Transit Union Election Campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 2 -- In December, Metro's Amalgamated Transportation Union (ATU) Local 689 will elect new officers. PLP member and local president Mike Golash is running for re-election and the campaign is building a broader base for PLP through the distribution of CHALLENGE and a better, more consistent PL study group. This is creating more leadership at Metro around the Party's ideas.

Other activities are also building a base for PLP. Mike led a group of 689 members at the ATU Canadian-American conference that challenged the idea of solving workers' problems through electing politicians.

Conference speakers were fixated on electoral politics as the strategy for the workers' movement. Members from different locals shared stories of supporting different candidates, who, once elected, attacked the unions, but they still stuck to the idea of changing society through elections (Just like the "anti-war" politicians who always wind up voting for the bosses' war budget).

Other speakers analyzed the decline in union membership and skyrocketing healthcare costs. A 689 woman declared, "They all have the right idea of the problem, but no solution!" She said that all politicians have the "same agenda" and that we should not support any of them.

The annual crab feast kicking off the PLP union campaign was a huge success with 70 people attending (our biggest turnout in 20 years) including 20 Metro workers.

A Howard University student inspired the listeners with a talk about New Orleans. She provided a clear class analysis, focusing on the need to change the entire system. She also compared the destruction in New Orleans to capitalism's devastation of parts of Chicago and D.C. One Metro worker said, "My wife is now determined for all of us to go down there."

Mike and other candidates spoke on the need to build the workers' movement by relying on the workers, not politicians. One young comrade declared, "We need more class consciousness!"

Other workers are already taking the lead. One young comrade has hosted two cookouts, drawing many Metro workers, some seriously committed to the campaign's ideas and others interested in communism. Twenty-five Metro workers (including many young ones) came to the first one and all took CHALLENGES. Some youth were uncertain about distributing the paper at a "social event," but the workers welcomed this exposure to communist politics. The paper sparked many great discussions, especially around New Orleans and the racism of capitalism. Metro comrades are now able to follow up with these new readers.

Primarily older workers, retirees and Metro workers attended the other cookout. One young worker who had attended conferences with Party members but had never discussed our ideas one on one, stayed afterwards to discuss communism and revolution.

The struggle around the union election will intensify as the self-serving opportunistic right-wingers sharpen their knives and their lies. Win or lose the election, the PLP is already winning at Metro because of our growing base and the growing class consciousness of the workers.

NYC Teachers Support Oaxaca Strikers

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 21 -- Today over 150 workers from schools and colleges here rallied at the Mexican Consulate to support the Oaxaca teachers' rebellion. United Federation of Teachers (UFT) rank-and-filers and members of UFT'ers to Stop The War, including PL'ers, organized the demonstration after one teacher -- who'd been to Oaxaca recently -- petitioned the union leadership to sponsor it to build solidarity with the strikers. However, they and the City University faculty union leaders refused.

The rally was endorsed by PLP and some phony "leftist" groups. One positive result of the leadership's refusal was the absence of support for the Democratic Party. The pickets' chants expressed strong, pro-working-class sentiments at times. The speeches, however, ranged from one given by a PLP'er -- explaining the need for communist revolution to solve workers' problems -- to rambling talks by other groups. CHALLENGES and PLP leaflets were distributed and some contacts were made. The rally was broadcast live to a Oaxaca radio station so workers there could receive the support instantaneously.

The effort to get the union hacks involved did force UFT President Randi Weingarten to write a letter of support. Now members of UFT'ers to Stop The War will bring a resolution to this month's Delegate Assembly to demand substantial support -- money, a letter-writing campaign and an article in the union newspaper. PLP members will distribute a leaflet explaining the need for communist revolution and for international workers' solidarity.

More importantly, we'll bring this campaign into our schools. While leaflets were placed in teachers' mailboxes, and the issue was raised at one school's union meeting, we didn't fight to bring co-workers and students to the rally. One issue needing more struggle in this campaign is winning people to more open advocacy of anti-imperialism.

Mexico's Rulers Fight Over Oil; Workers Must Smash `em All

"The oil doesn't belong to the government, not even to the Mexican State, it belongs to the nation, to the motherland, and the motherland cannot be sold, it must be defended."

This was Andres Lopez Obrador's reaction to a September conference in Banff, Canada, of top political, military and corporate leaders from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. They discussed integrating the North American defense systems, national security, immigration, military production and control over the continent's energy reserves. This "Deep Integration" was first formulated in 2005 by "The Independent Task Force for North America," sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, the top think-tank for the main wing of the U.S. ruling class.

At a rally in Mexico's Pemex City in the oil zone of Tabasco, Lopez Obrador called the above-mentioned meeting a plot to "design a new Mexico," privatizing its energy sector. When he said that Pemex -- Mexico's state-run oil company -- was not for sale, thousands cheered. This increases his popularity among Mexico's masses and widens the divide among its rulers, reflected in their dogfight over the presidential election's results -- mainly a dispute over Pemex's privatization. This in turn is driven by sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry, rising fascism and preparations for world war. The fight among Mexican rulers pits the sector wanting integration into "Fortress North America" versus those seeking better deals with other imperialists.

At stake is the fate of U.S. imperialism as the dominant world power -- based since 1945 upon its strategic control of oil, resting on the four pillars of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Venezuela. The 2001 U.S. invasion of Iraq accelerated the erosion of this strategy. It exposed U.S. military weakness, emboldening nationalist forces in energy-rich countries like Iran and Venezuela to thumb their noses at U.S. rulers and look for better deals with U.S. rivals. It further destabilized the Middle East, possibly jeopardizing future guarantees of safe delivery of gas and oil to themselves, much less to their allies. Thus, "energy security" is now the major concern of the world's bosses.

Add to this scrambling for oil China's ever-growing thirst for energy to maintain its economic growth and Russia's emergence as the world's main energy broker, it's a situation that eventually only war can resolve. No wonder U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld gave a key speech to this meeting on "military-to-military cooperation." Present were the U.S. commander for NorthCom (in charge of homeland defense), the Canadian Minister of Defense, and representatives from Lockheed Martin, Chevron, PEMEX and Suncor Energy (a Canadian oil and gas giant) and dozens of other high-ranking participants.

Further aggravating the U.S. dilemma, from 1970 to today its domestic oil production sank from 9.4 million barrels of oil daily (mbd) to 4.7 mbd, while consuming over 20 mbd. At this rate, the U.S. would run out of oil in ten years. Currently, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela are the four top exporters of oil to the U.S. But some Canadian bosses are making huge energy deals with China; Saudi Arabia is becoming increasingly unstable; Venezuela is drawing closer to China, Russia and Iran; and if Mexico doesn't invest in exploration to discover new fields, it will run out of oil in ten years. Therefore, the urgent need of U.S. bosses to privatize PEMEX, supported by Felipe Calderon, the newly-elected president, and his gang.

Banff or Chapultepec -- A Bosses' Dogfight

But Carlos Slim -- Mexico's and Latin America's richest capitalist, worth $30 billion -- says Mexican capitalists, not U.S. imperialists, should own Mexico's oil, like Telmex, a state-owned telephone company that was privatized; Slim now controls 94% of the fixed phone market and 76% of the mobile. Although Slim wants private Mexican owners and Obrador wants state Mexican ownership, they both agree the country needs a "new economic model," not the U.S.-backed neo-liberal model. Pushing his interests, Slim has organized 300 of the richest Mexican capitalists behind his economic "Chapultepec Pact" program. Obrador -- who represents a group of nationalist capitalists and wants to guarantee the stability of the profit system -- refused to endorse this program unless it barred selling PEMEX and its oil reserves to national or transnational investors. Slim and his gang refused to add this provision.

Yet, Slim and Obrador do agree on investing heavily in refineries and petrochemical plants to create jobs and to use the $15 billions saved annually to finance the exploration guaranteeing PEMEX's future revenues. Obrador, however, wants PEMEX to continue its more than 40% contribution to the federal budget and even use some of it for social control programs, a la Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. A Slim-Obrador agreement would constitute the most powerful and dangerous enemy of Mexico's working class.

Alongside this vultures' squabble is the rising militancy of Mexico's workers, in mass struggles in Atenco, the Sicartsa steel mill and Oaxaca, producing an explosive situation. There is danger that politicians like Obrador might channel workers' anger into a movement supporting Slim or another gang of Mexican bosses in their dogfight (or side with one or another imperialist butcher seeking world domination). But there is opportunity for PLP to take our message of communist revolution more consistently and boldly to the working class -- participating in class struggle, building a base, expanding our CHALLENGE networks and recruiting new members. Mexico's workers must not be trapped into choosing between U.S. bosses' or local bosses' ownership of oil. Oil and all resources and value produced by workers must be in our hands, benefiting our class. We must destroy the bosses' nationalism with workers' internationalism by joining and building PLP and fighting for communism.

LA Teachers Back Oaxaca Strikers

LOS ANGELES, OCT. 3 -- International workers' solidarity shone as 150 LA teachers, workers, students and others from Oaxaca demonstrated at the Mexican consulate, supporting the struggle in Oaxaca and protesting the military build-up there. The action was endorsed by the LA teachers' union.

A woman from Oaxaca reported how teachers there had repelled a goon attack and that military academy students had joined the teachers' march.

The crowd applauded a statement from PLP in Oaxaca declaring that all capitalist politicians -- Mestizo, indigenous, democrat or right winger -- guarantee the exploitation of the working class and therefore workers need communist revolution. Many asked for CHALLENGE. The demonstrators sang "Venceremos" (We will win) and the "Internationale."

French Bosses' Mouthpiece Sees Fascism Growing in U.S., U.K.

A "systematic seizure of power" is progressively doing away with "liberal democracy" in the U.S. and the United Kingdom says Philip Golub's dispassionate analysis in the September "Le Monde diplomatique." Golub is a journalist and teaches at the University of Paris-VIII; "Le Monde diplomatique" is a key forum in which the French ruling class hammers out its ideology and communicates it to French elites.

In both the U.S. and the U.K., the executive branch has marginalized the legislative and judicial branches of government and acquired near-dictatorial power. Golub cites a series of British laws from 2003 to 2006 which allow the Home Secretary to use a star chamber to lock people up, undermining the right of habeus corpus. And Parliament almost passed a "law for the abolition of Parliament" this year.

In the U.S., "the executive branch...engages in preventive wars, [and] kidnaps, tortures and indefinitely imprisons, without trial, anyone who has been identified by presidential decree as an `illegal combatant.'" Moreover, the White House's military tribunals constitute "a parallel `judicial' system."

Golub derides President Bush's assertion that fragmented, stateless al-Qaeda is trying to "establish a radical Islamic empire stretching from Spain to Indonesia" as laughable, except that such warnings are made to justify establishing a dictatorship that was decided on before 9/11. He says Congress and the judiciary have slowed but not stopped the process.

But Golub has no clue as to why this is happening. He sees it as part of "a blind neo-free trade and neo-conservative advance" to impose "regressive social `reforms' and increasingly repressive disciplinary and security measures" on society. This move to "sovereign dictatorship" is supposedly the fault of Tony Blair and George Bush, who are both apparently inspired by an obscure early-20th-century reactionary German political theorist, Carl Schmitt. (Can anyone imagine Bush reading the works of Carl Schmitt?)

While Golub lays all this on Bush & Co., he fails to see that the liberal/Democrat wing of the U.S. ruling class also wants absolute control over the working class, but only differs on tactics. They've voted for virtually all of Bush's proposals, only "opposing" those parts that would eliminate their own cushy jobs or that are so blatant that they make it more difficult to win workers to support a police state and imperialist war.

As PLP has explained, the move to fascism (a word Golub politely refrains from using) is imposed by ruling classes around the world as the only way to discipline society while preparing for world war.

To Golub's credit, he includes France among the "countries [where] barely legitimate executive branches have been governing for years without -- and often against -- popular approval." However, his article's emphasis on developments in the U.K. and the U.S. may feed "patriotic" anti-Anglo-Saxon fears in France, which could help the French ruling class justify its own drift to fascism.

Communist revolution is the only way for the workers of the world to do away with capitalism and the fascism that it produces.

Want to End Imperialist Wars?
Shed Illusions of `Peaceful' Capitalism

This summer, hundreds gathered for the annual Veterans for Peace conference (VFP). There were powerful testimonials by veterans from the Spanish Civil War to the current Iraq invasion, along with workshop topics ranging from Hurricane Katrina to violence against women in the military. At many times participants blasted the racist, sexist and imperialist nature of capitalism. But these moments were steered towards pacifist, liberal and pro-U.S. programs, which only serve the capitalist class.

Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada of Fort Lewis, the first U.S. military officer to refuse to serve in Iraq, told a packed audience that if soldiers realized what the U.S. constitution meant they would throw down their weapons -- "no president could ever again initiate a war of choice." It was the one of the few calls for soldiers to organize against the war but was still wrapped in liberal "democratic" reformism -- the solution is in the constitution (the system).

A sizeable contingent from Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) attended the conference. They were multi-racial, had a growing female membership and have invaluable first-hand experience in Iraq. Many reported their disgust upon returning from Iraq and seeing U.S. youth preoccupied with the superficial trappings of "American Idol," MTV and pop culture. Other IVAW members criticized IVAW itself for confining its campaign to the war in Iraq, ignoring the war in the streets of working-class inner-city neighborhoods where some IVAW members were born and raised.

However, many in the IVAW leadership encourage voting for "anti-war" candidates, political lobbying, and bolstering their images in the capitalist media. Several IVAW members have formed a political action committee to back candidates that say they will bring the troops home. And one IVAW member said that organizing to stop the war from the top down (electing people to office) is just as important as organizing from the bottom up.

Most at the conference are honestly motivated by wanting to see a world free of sexism, racism, and imperialist war. To achieve such goals, Progressive Labor Party is uniting workers, students and soldiers worldwide to make revolutionary communist war on the bosses. Violence can be oppressive and destructive when used by the ruling class to protect its profits -- from the genocide killing three million in the Congo, to the murderous war in Afghanistan, to the war between Hezbollah and Israeli rulers (killing workers on both sides), to the murder of striking workers in Oaxaca -- but it can also be liberating and constructive in the hands of an organized working class to destroy the oppressive system of capitalism. Relying on the bosses' old tricks of electoral politics or fighting for reforms to make capitalism "work better" will never free workers from the chains of the bosses' system.

Lynne Stewart Case -- Legalizing Fascist Terror

NEW YORK CITY -- October 16, 2006, marks a key event in the development of U.S. fascism. On that day attorney Lynne Stewart will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Koeltl. Stewart was convicted of "material support for terrorism," "conspiracy" and breaking "special" prison rules. The U.S. government wants to imprison her essentially for life -- it's asking for a 30-year sentence for this 66-year old woman with breast cancer.

Communists in PLP see the handwriting on the wall. While we may not agree with Stewart's politics, we know her conviction and jailing will embolden the bosses' government. It will scare some opponents of this system, lawyers and others, away from vigorous advocacy and action. That's exactly what the ruling class wants as it prepares for more and wider wars to control oil and defeat its imperialist rivals.

The latest Kafkaesque twist in this case came in response to Stewart's motion to suppress evidence that may have been obtained under a wiretap by the National Security Agency (NSA). The prosecutors filed a "secret" response to the motion with the judge. They sent a hit man who specializes in "secrecy" issues to tell the judge that no information in the government's response should be divulged to the defense lawyers. The judge has reserved decision.

Stewart's conviction was payback for her many years of successfully representing unpopular anti-government clients. During the trial, she was cross-examined about her anti-capitalist views. In his closing remarks, the prosecutor equated Stewart's advocacy of the need for violence to overcome capitalist-inspired racism and sexism with Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

At least 75% of the evidence at trial was offered against Ahmed Sattar, a paralegal who accompanied Stewart on prison visits to her client, Sheik Abdel Rahman. Sattar did have extensive ties to the right-wing fundamentalist Islamic Group (IG). The evidence included wiretaps of 85,000 separate faxes and conversations over a period of seven years, and a videotape of Osama bin Laden supporting the Sheik. Stewart knew nothing about Sattar's close ties to IG, but her motion to have a separate trial for herself and the interpreter -- who also went on the prison visits -- was denied. Stewart has repeatedly said that she rejects IG's politics. The interpreter was also convicted although all he did was translate.

Unfortunately many, including Stewart, have illusions about how fast fascism is growing in the U.S. and worldwide. In fighting to overthrow the capitalists, revolutionary communists discount this reality at our peril, and the peril of the working class.

These illusions are somewhat reflected in an appeal for leniency that Stewart wrote the judge on September 26. In it she says, that in representing a convicted terrorist, "a lawyer might need to tread lightly....My only motive was to serve my client as his lawyer. What might have been legitimately tolerated in 2000-2001, was after 9/11 interpreted differently and considered criminal. At the time I didn't see this. I...understand it now." She also wrote that, "Those who know me best, as a mother, a family member and a lawyer, know that I am not a terrorist." (NY Times, 9/29)

This case presents PLP and the working class with an opportunity. Despite mass protests against the invasion of Iraq, millions who still support it today have become convinced it was a war to control oil. Many more are seeing through the lies behind homeland security and "anti-terrorism" laws. The Stewart case shows why workers must go beyond reform to smash the bosses' class dictatorship.

PLP members have been working hard to activate anti-fascist workers within unions, churches and community groups. An important action would be a mass mobilization of many workers, students and soldiers on October 16 to support Stewart. A rally will be held at 8AM at Centre and Worth Streets in Manhattan, followed by a mass presence in the courtroom at 9AM for the sentencing.

`Brides' March Against Domestic Violence

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 26 -- With signs reading "Daddy, please, don't kill my mom," and "Domestic violence is a worldwide problem," dozens of women dressed as brides marched from Upper Manhattan to the South Bronx to East Harlem. Others chanted, "She is not your property, she is your companion." The brides were joined by "bridegrooms" dressed in black.

It was the 6th annual march of Brides against Domestic Violence honoring Gladys Ricart, who was murdered by a jealous ex-boyfriend during her wedding ceremony with another man.

Although there has been a slight decrease in domestic violence in Upper Manhattan -- just one murder this year compared to two last year and 2,732 reported cases of violence, 18.8% less than last year -- there are still too many.

The politicians who joined the march are part of the problem. They usually support many of the cutbacks imposed by the bosses to pay for their endless wars, affecting working-class women and their children. In effect, domestic violence is caused mainly by the sexist nature of capitalism, where women are seen as sex objects, "inferior" to men, as well as a source of cheap labor.

LETTERS

DESAFIO `Big Hit' Under Open Fascism

Recently I visited my family in a Latin American nation. Fortunately I was able to meet with some comrades there. With death squads looming and military check-points nationwide, the oppression and danger is very real. They described the repression, especially in the biggest working-class neighborhood. The night before the President was inaugurated for a second term, 200 homes were "visited" by paramilitaries searching for revolutionaries. Luckily for our comrades, friends gave them fair warning.

With such open repression, some might think our comrades should have an "easier" time recruiting workers to PLP. While this open fascism exposes the brutal nature of capitalism to workers, providing opportunities to advance communist politics, it's also extremely dangerous. One wrong move could mean death, frightening many workers into passivity. Many are caught in a frantic struggle just to put food on the table. Some comrades must walk half a day to make a meeting; families share one issue of DESAFIO.

In our press and our meetings, we often remind ourselves that historically the communist movement has grown under any and all conditions. With all their limitations, our comrades in this country prove the truth of that slogan.

During one get-together I asked what they thought about DESAFIO, and if they had suggestions for improvement. They replied that DESAFIO was a big hit with their base because besides its great politics, it was written so clearly. They also loved the paper's internationalism. Their one criticism was not enough articles about Latin America, which was given as a self-criticism. They promised to write more about their struggles and lessons of how to build the Party under such fascist conditions.

With hard work, and our truly revolutionary solution for the problems inherent in this exploitative, racist system, we will surely destroy capitalism with communist revolution.

A Comrade

NY Times: `Pro-Democracy' Military Coup in Thailand

Usually, military coups are associated with overthrowing an elected government and imposing a police state. The "pro-democracy" U.S. ruling class supposedly is opposed to such coups. But history reveals this is not quite the case, as in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile on 9/11/73 by the bloody fascist coup of General Augusto Pinochet, with plenty of help from Henry Kissinger and the CIA. In April 2002, a CIA-backed coup briefly overthrew Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. The new "government" tried for 48 hours to impose a police state, but mass mobilizations and military supporters reinstated him. Now there's a similar example in Thailand's military coup.

According to U.S. propaganda, a democracy is a government elected by the people and for the people. Well, not exactly. The NY Times Bangkok correspondent reports in an article entitled "Thailand Reinterprets the Rules of Democracy Again" (9/21): "The generals billed it as a pro-democracy military coup, and although they had ousted one of the most popular prime ministers in Thailand's history, most commentators here tended to agree." The Times continues that the coup was "non-violent" because the deposed Prime Minister was out of the country.

Deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra was unpopular among certain sections of the Thai ruling class and lost the support of the King. Shinawatra was also corrupt and was recently the target of "pro-democracy" protests. But he was also hated by some bosses because he had tried to institute social reforms never seen before there -- a cheap health care system, some development programs in rural areas, etc. This made him very popular among the people. But, as usual, reforms under capitalism never last too long.

However, his bigger sin was apparently his lack of success against Islamist groups in the country, part of U.S. imperialism's "war on terror." Some 1,000 people have been killed since 2003.

An Internationalist Comrade

Warning: Capitalist Schools Can Make You Sick!

The first few weeks in my large urban high school in New Jersey have been a nightmare for students and teachers alike. A traditionally stable school with innovative programs, motivated students and dedicated teachers has deteriorated in a short period into something quite different. Overcrowding, under-funding and administrative mismanagement has led to a situation that must be seen to be believed -- all manifestations of growing fascism. Many teachers have concluded that the administration cares nothing about the education of our students, but only about controlling them and "keeping them in line."

This became fairly apparent recently. One department became particularly chaotic, with too few teachers to cover classes, including regents classes, most of which still have no textbooks and won't get any until next month -- maybe. Some teacher schedules were changed up to six times and room changes are still occurring. There are flagrant violations of the union contract, with all kinds of pressures on the teachers to produce lesson plans, decorate their rooms, etc., amidst this mess. Some students left their classes upon learning their teacher was being switched...again!

Suddenly, things got so bad that ten teachers in one department became physically sick and couldn't report to work. The administration must have thought it was organized since they plastered the names of the absent teachers in several offices and demanded they teach some fascistic discipline lessons that were slated to be taught the day before. We would like to think that at least they're concerned about students preparing for their regents, but that's not the case whatsoever.

We are learning valuable lessons every day about how fascism is growing in the schools and how we must do much more to oppose it. Filing grievances and organizing union meetings, while necessary for us to participate in, will not cure our problems. We must continue to build Progressive Labor Party amongst teachers, parents and students as the beacon of the working class for a future where some day there will be real education!

PL Teacher

New Orleans Summer Project Inspires More Struggle

In mid-August a small group of us from Massachusetts, mostly high school students, went to New Orleans to participate in PLP's Summer Project. It had a big impact! To see and feel the extent of the destruction on black workers' lives and how little had been done to help, unraveled the confidence many young people had in the government. They witnessed the gross inequities in the levee system -- the 14-inch wide wall in the working-class neighborhoods versus the big-as-a-football-field levees in the rich areas. When comparing this to the mass media's coverage of Katrina, they realized how world events get spun to keep us all ignorant, distracted and self-absorbed.

The young people realized that political awareness starts with experiences like this one in New Orleans. This motivated them to share their experiences with their friends, to help them develop politically and care about the tragedy for these workers.

Upon discussing what we accomplished, they realized that their own political development as leaders was the most important one. In these volatile times, this kind of response from young people should give us all hope for the future of our class fighting back.

Boston Red

Recently a comrade reported on his trip to New Orleans. A slide show depicting the destruction still existing there inspired all who sat and listened. Days of planning led to an event commemorating the one-year anniversary of Katrina. We aimed to unmask the racism still prevalent a year later, exposing the harassment and lack of aid for black workers trying to rebuild their homes. Workers, local students and teachers worked side-by-side preparing for the event.

We erected a booth with banners reading, "Stop the War on the Poor in New Orleans." We distributed leaflets and accepted donations for Katrina survivors, giving donors buttons saying, "Make Levees Not War" and "FEMA Kills."

We reached many students and had some good conversations. A National Guard soldier related his New Orleans experience and disagreed with the leaflet's statement about the Guard harassing the city's residents. He said he only wanted to help them.

We quickly explained we were not attacking individual soldiers such as himself, but rather the military institution. We said New Orleans residents told us these complaints directly. We also gave examples of individual soldiers who showed true compassion for workers and residents despite the constraints of the uniform, stealing bottled water from military barracks for volunteers helping to rebuild homes there.

We tried to explain the contradiction between the military's role in protecting rich people's property and the natural impulse of working-class soldiers to help their brothers and sisters rebuild their lives. He thanked us for clarifying our position and we shook hands in solidarity.

Another student, disturbed about the Blackwater mercenaries sent to and still present in New Orleans, wondered who they were. We replied that -- just like in Iraq -- New Orleans had become a testing ground for establishing a police state. He began to understand the similarity between the war on the workers in Iraq and the harassment of workers in New Orleans. Throughout the day, many more were made aware and won through such conversations.

Overall our efforts advanced both the politics of our group as well as the student body. Collectively we spread awareness of the harassment and neglect of residents of the lower 9th Ward, linking the struggles of New Orleans workers to workers everywhere.

We also exposed capitalism as the root of the racism and inequality in New Orleans, and won more women and black and Latino workers to the struggle for social justice. We plan on repeating such activities with the students, workers and soldiers we met.

Our job as PL'ers is to direct the general concern for social justice into an international struggle for communist revolution. The success of the button sale shows that most students, workers and soldiers want to help other people in any way possible. By participating in fundraisers and similar events, we're able to initiate dialogue about the roots of inequality with those around us, leading to the possibility for change.

A young comrade

Commemorating the first anniversary of Katrina, our group of comrades organized a slideshow presentation and discussion about our recent trip to New Orleans. Many attending were new friends we had met at a recent university fundraiser for Katrina survivors. Others were workers and students we know; many have received CHALLENGE.

Rather than lecturing, our goal was to create dialogue, keeping it loose to encourage commentary.

The presentation provoked wide discussion. We had a great exchange about how the fascism in New Orleans following the hurricane symbolizes fascism's growth nationwide (like the proposed 700-mile electrified border fence aimed at Mexican immigrants). Further, we directly connected capitalism's racist practices at home with imperialism abroad. Coincidentally, the 9/11 anniversary was the day after. We discussed nationalism and how New Orleans shows that bosses and workers don't share the same interests.

One new friend, a history teacher, linked racism in New Orleans to that seen in public education. He described the government's racism in breaking its promise to help black workers there to reclaim their homes as a mirror image of their false racist promises of increased aid for black students in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). With several teachers attending, this was a particularly important connection. PL teachers joined in and provoked a much broader discussion of how capitalism spawns policies like NCLB.

Although the group's politics were mixed, the discussion demonstrated that students and workers possess an intimate and basic understanding of inequality under capitalism. Comrades were enlightened by the comments and understanding of our student and worker friends, while our friends were able to further develop communist ideas.

Currently we're working with these friends on other political issues around the city. Since this event we've had promising follow-up conversations and plan to continue them, along with similar future events.

Southern Reds

Which side are liberals on?

An adjunct instructor teaching at Roosevelt University in Chicago found out, the hard way. In the fall of 2005, Douglas Giles was criticized by his department chairperson for allowing open questions and discussion in his World Religions class. She was particularly concerned about topics dealing with Zionism, Palestinians, Islamic beliefs about Jerusalem, or anything that could open up the Zionists to criticism. She also made racist comments about Palestinians and chastised Giles for letting Muslims speak in his class. Finally, she warned him not to tell anyone about their conversation.

Giles reported all of this to his union. The union filed an academic freedom grievance, and shortly afterward Giles was told by Roosevelt that he would receive no more assignments. This October 16, 2006, the day before his grievance goes to arbitration, members of his local and other locals of the Illinois Education Association (IEA) are organizing a forum/town hall meeting called "Academic Freedom Under Fire." This will be held at Roosevelt University, 18 S. Michigan Avenue. Union locals, professional organizations and student groups have been urged to attend.

This racist attack on Douglas Giles and his students is linked to the bosses' need to secure control over world energy resources. The liberal Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class uses Democratic and Republican politicians, labor misleaders, and academic "experts" to win us to support their wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran (coming soon). Douglas Giles refused to toe the pro-imperialist line and Roosevelt U., supposedly a bastion of liberalism and pro-labor sentiment, dealt with him swiftly. Instead of taking his department chair to task for her racist attacks on Palestinians and Muslims, they actually defended her comments as an "academic discussion" in which she was "defending her position passionately."

On October 16, it will be interesting to see how Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association (NEA), Giles' parent union, will address the forum. Reg is a former president of the IEA and an alumnus of Roosevelt U. Will he link the attack on Giles and his students to developing fascism in the U.S., and to the imperialist "war on terror" abroad? Or, will he simply bemoan the unfortunate actions of his alma mater and urge us all to vote Democratic on Nov. 7?

As a wild guess, we don't expect Reg Weaver will agree with PLP and call for revolution to end capitalism, the cause of fascism and imperialism. That's a job for us -- members and supporters of PLP. The attack on Giles and his students has provided us with an opportunity to open the eyes of our co-workers and our students to the real motives of their "friendly" liberal politicians, labor leaders, and school administrators. Let's guarantee the presence of Challenge and sharp political discussion at the October 16th forum.

REDEYE

Iraq `might be worse than under Saddam'

Nearly 7,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in the past two months, according to a UN report just released -- a record high far greater than initial estimates had suggested....

The UN's special investigator said torture was "totally out of hand" and might even be worse now than under Saddam Hussein. (GW, 10/5)

Imperialists never stop stealing

...Biopiracy [is]...a new form of "colonial pillaging" in which western corporations reap profits by taking out patents on indigenous materials from developing countries and turning them into lucrative products. In few cases are the benefits shared with the country of origin....

The US-based Edmonds Institute has published a report listing more than 30 examples of western medical, horticultural and cosmetic products that it said were "pirated" from Africa. (GW, 9/26)

Prostitution now a budget asset!

Greece will find it easier to bring its budget deficit below the European Union's 3 per cent of GDP ceiling.

Greece suddenly found itself 25 per cent richer yesterday after a surprise upward revision of its gross domestic product, the fruit of a change to national accounts designed to capture better a fast-growing service sector -- including...prostitution and money laundering. (FT, 9/29)

Suicides up in capitalist-democracy India

BHADUMAR, India -- Here in the center of India, on a gray Wednesday morning, a cotton farmer swallowed a bottle of pesticide and fell dead at the threshold of his small mud house....

His death was by no means an isolated one....

Across the country in desperate pockets like this one, 17,107 farmers committed suicide in 2003, the most recent year for which government figures are available....

...86.5 percent of farmers who took their own lives were indebted -- their average debt was about $835... (NYT, 9/19)

US free enterprise brings doom to Iraq

...At its heart Blood Money is the tale of how Washington left a country desperately in need of rebuilding to the whims of money-hungry private contractors....

"After three years Iraqis have less power in their homes than under Saddam. Hospital neonatal units lose electricity, and doctors watch children die... (NYT,10/5)

Millionaires, eat your heart out!

...For the first time since it was set up in 1982 Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans contains not a single [non-billionaire].

...cuts in taxes for the wealthy have accounted for a large part of the surge. Twenty-five years ago there were only 13 billionaires on the list... (GW, 10/5)

Liberty and justice for all -- who can pay!

In the fall of 2004, Terrence O' Donnell...was running hard to keep his seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. He was also considering two important class-action lawsuits....

...Justice O' Donnell's campaign accepted thousands of dollars from the political action committees of three companies that were defendants in the suits. Two of the cases dealt with defective cars, and one involved a toxic substance....

...Every justice in the 4 to 3 majority had taken money from affiliates of the companies. None of the dissenters had done so, but they had accepted contributions from lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Justice O' Donnell voted for his contributors 91 percent of the time....

The justices almost never disqualified themselves from hearing their contributors' cases.

...30 states are holding elections for seats on their highest courts this year. Spending in these races is skyrocketing, with some judges raising $2 million or more for a single campaign...(NYT, 10/1)

NAACP Red-Baiters Betrayed Pro-Communists Du Bois, Robeson

Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955; By Carol Anderson; Cambridge University Press

"Eyes Off the Prize," Carol Anderson's fully-researched account of the post-World War II anti-racist movement tells a cautionary tale. It chronicles how the NAACP, the largest anti-racist organization of the time, was led astray to support U.S. imperialism at the expense of oppressed "minorities." Unfortunately, Anderson refuses to follow the logic of her own research: that capitalism needs racism to survive. Her anti-communism blinds her to the only viable solution: communist revolution.

The NAACP's capitulation has hogtied anti-racist forces up to the present day. Lined up against this sellout stood the black left. W.E.B Du Bois and William Patterson, supported by the Soviet Union and the U.S. Communist Party, attempted to frame the fight for racial equality in terms of international human rights. "Human rights," according to Anderson "had the language and philosophical power to address not only the political and legal inequality that African Americans endured, but also the educational, health care, housing and employment needs that haunted the black community."

Du Bois led the mass campaign to bring the "elegant" and incontrovertible NAACP human rights petition "An Appeal to the World" before the newly-formed United Nations. Patterson followed up with the equally persuasive Civil Rights Congress petition We Charge Genocide. The U.S. State Department and their agent at the U.N., Eleanor Roosevelt, conspired to squash these petitions and persecute the authors.

The State Department enlisted the NAACP leadership in this crusade. Executive secretary Walter White, along with Roy Wilkins and Thurgood Marshall, orchestrated Du Bois' expulsion from the very organization he helped found. Under their leadership, the NAACP refused to defend Du Bois and Patterson (and their friend Paul Robeson) against these attacks.

Serving Imperialism

White went even farther. After a secret meeting at the State Department, "White eagerly published a `Progress Report' on civil rights, which he encouraged Eleanor Roosevelt to use whenever the Soviets [attacked] American racism." White's fidelity to Eleanor Roosevelt, his one-time fellow member in the liberal anti-communist Americans for Democratic Action, would continue throughout his political career.

Even the president of the Indiana State Conference of NAACP Branches, Willard Ransom, criticized the `Progress Report" for hypocritically claiming that the standard of living for blacks approached that of whites in the face of horrific violence against blacks and for supporting imperialist exploitation.

Bowing to U.S. imperialism, the NAACP from now on would limit its fight to civil rights, abandoning more expansive human rights. "Civil rights, however," writes Anderson, "did not then and does not now have the language, the tools and the means to address the systemic issues that haunt black America." The civil rights focus on legal and voting rights, not social and economic rights, suited the propaganda needs of the U.S. Empire.

Rely On Bosses Or Workers?

This betrayal speaks to the limits of reform. White & Co. focused on what reforms were to be had under McCarthy-era capitalism. It led them into the arms of the powerful, who demanded allegiance to U.S. imperialism.

On the other hand, the human rights campaign exposed imperialism. Du Bois, Patterson and Robeson served the anti-racist cause well, facing expulsions and persecution with courage. The black left's revolutionary communist vision showed how to end racism, inspiring their political work. Their principled opposition to the prevailing politics of the biggest anti-racist reform organization of the time is worth emulating. This was symbolized by Du Bois officially joining the Communist Party in 1945, saying becoming a communist "was the logic of my life."

Dismissing revolution, Anderson puts too much faith in the pious pronouncements of international bodies. Ironically, her reformist ideology leads her back to the same red-baiting for which she condemned the NAACP leadership. To her, the black left's "courage and intellect could have made a lasting, significant contribution," if only they would have jettisoned their communist sympathies and allies.

Perhaps Anderson dismisses revolution because she never considers the power of the working class. In truth, the politics of our class will determine everything. If we are to end this racist scourge, we must struggle for tactics -- as did the black left -- that advance the revolutionary will of the working class.

Hungary: Free-Market `Socialists' Vs. Gutter Fascists

A confidential admission by Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany to his Socialist Party members of Parliament that he had lied to the people about the sorry state of the economy was leaked on the internet, causing mass violent protests demanding his resignation.

Some 10,000 demonstrators rallied in front of Parliament calling for "a new 1956," the anti-communist rebellion against the then pro-Soviet government. Gyurcsany's party formed from members of the old pro-Soviet ruling class who have now become free-market capitalists. When the Soviet bloc collapsed 16 years ago, Hungary's government-owned industries were grabbed cheap by local bosses from the old state-capitalist system and by imperialist corporations.

On Monday night, Sept. 18, thousands of demonstrators went to a TV station demanding publication of an anti-government statement. Police tear gas and water cannons repelled the protestors, but after lengthy street battles they seized the station for several hours. Their anti-communism was evident in their damaging a monument in front of the station honoring the Soviet Red Army that liberated Hungary from the Nazis. The right-wing FIDESZ Party --which ruled from 1998-2002 -- and its fascist goons were trying to take advantage of the situation to build anti-communism.

But the fact is that the ruling Socialist Party and their buddies in the Alliance of Free Democrats, are as much free-marketeers as the right-wingers. Gyurcsany's coalition government continued the same capitalist policies of the previous right-wing government. The rulers' harsh austerity measures against workers are required by the Maastricht Treaty in order to introduce the Euro by the year 2010 and put Hungary in the Eurozone economic sphere. These attacks include price and tax increases, wage cuts, payments for medical services, higher charges for college students, and so on. A PLP'er asked a woman who returned to her native Hungary last year how she found it. Her first reaction: "I have never seen so many beggars." This is the essence of capitalist "democracy," where workers are made to pay for the bosses' economic plans no matter who runs the government.

Hungary is now basically dominated by German and Austrian capitalism. (Hungary was part of the old Austrian-Hungarian empire which, along with Germany and Turkey, fought France, Britain, Tsarist Russia and the U.S. during World War I.) But Russia still has much influence in its economy.

About 80% of Hungary's natural gas is imported from the Russian Federation. Moreover, Hungary is a decisive hub for Russian gas supplies to Balkan countries like Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. During last January's Russo-Ukrainian gas supply crisis, Hungary was, as expected, among those countries that suffered immediately from a gas shortage, ended only by a deal between Kiev and Moscow.

Russia's president Putin plans to expand its Gazprom company's European network by using Hungarian territory as a gateway to reach southwestern Europe. So if an openly anti-Russian government comes to power, Hungary's energy needs might suffer Moscow's wrath.

The anti-communist rebellion against Gyurcsany' s capitalist lies shows once again that when workers follow pro-boss leadership, they ultimately side with one group of rotten bosses against another equally rotten gang. Workers in Hungary and internationally need real communist leadership, one based on learning from the achievements and mistakes of the old communist movement. Without it, workers will always be used by different sets of bosses.

New Liberalism Paves the Way to Fascism:
Communist Politics Needed To Thwart Bosses' War Plan

Part III

(Part II, October 14 CHALLENGE, exposed the political battle emerging in the bosses' mass organizations that's trying to win the working class to a war agenda, specifically the Machinists union campaign to ensure that U.S. arms factories can produce the weapons the rulers need for possible future wars with Russia and/or China.)

The "new liberalism" discussed in previous articles does not rule out fascism. Quite the contrary, it paves the way for fascism with an ideological attack centered on racism, nationalism and support for imperialist war. New liberalism wants the reform movement to generate political acceptance of, and sacrifice for, bigger wars to defend the bosses' empire.

This presents a contradiction. Some worksites have unions. Many workers, students and soldiers still look to reformist organizations, despite mixed feelings. "New liberalism" will maintain mass organizations even as the bosses consolidate the fascism necessary for their imperialist war plans.

We resolve this contradiction by participation, not absenteeism. The central question is how we participate.

We'll be unable to stop the march down this road, or even impede its progress, unless we win rank-and-file political rejection of the reform leadership. To accomplish that, many more must be inspired by communist politics. As Lenin said, those communist politics must be brought from outside the reform struggle.

We could risk becoming unwitting stalking horses for the bosses' imperialist plans if we allow reform to dominate our struggle. We (temporarily) might make these organizations seem more legitimate to workers. But we'll never develop the necessary flexible tactics unless we truly realize that these reformist organizations represent the class enemy.

The current struggles against new liberalism illustrate a general truth: reform and revolution stand in dialectical contradiction to each other: reform will never spontaneously lead to its opposite, revolution.

CHALLENGE editorials must continue to expose the bosses' plans for bigger and bloodier wars and emphasize our class outlook opposing racism while combating nationalist poison. Articles reporting class struggles should echo these communist-inspired politics, not building reformist and capitalist illusions present in these class battles, but answering them with communist ideas. Writing and discussing these articles develops leadership among newer, younger comrades and friends and helps veteran members as well. But all this is meaningless without robust networks of CHALLENGE sellers and readers.

Communist Revolution: Only Answer to Imperialist War and Fascism

As the bosses consolidate this "new liberal" fascism necessary for their imperialist war plans, PLP and our class can do something new. Unlike the old socialist movement, we say communist revolution -- not a "united front against fascism" alongside non-existent "good" capitalists -- is the only viable answer. We're beginning to do this, consolidating some -- not enough -- new black and Latin communist industrial leaders:

* LA transit workers' increased CHALLENGE distribution makes the worksites "comfortable for communist discussion";
* The new Washington, D.C. Metro transit union leader spends "much of his time selling and mobilizing CHALLENGE readers and sellers" which supports our political work in the union (see page 3);
* New aerospace workers led our workers conference;
* Veteran non-union garment workers brought scores to the recent immigration marches under the banners of our anti-imperialist politics;
* Groups organized around CHALLENGE entered the last Boeing strike inspired by our anti-racist, internationalist communist vision;
* Chicago hospital workers confronted their union mis-leadership over anti-immigrant racism;
* An East Coast teacher used a CHALLENGE network of over 50 readers to recruit ten new members to PLP, which in turn increased the network to over 100.

These modest examples, and others, help forge a politically-motivated working class which can answer imperialist war and fascism with communist revolution. Winning political leadership is difficult with many twists and turns. The fight is long-term. Nonetheless, this vision is worth a lifetime of struggle.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, October 4, 2006

Information: 04 October 2006 122 hits

Ford Assault on Workers Triggers Mass Racist Job Cuts

Detroit Auto Workers Veterans of ‘67 Anti-Racist Rebellion

Expose Liberals’ ‘Anti-War’ Masquerade

Morgan Heir Lamont Lets Imperialist Cat Out Of The Bag

World War III And Webb’s Web Of Deceit

Vets Err In Backing Murderer Murtha

Racist Recruitment Killing Black, Latino, Immigrant Youth

Desperate Brass Sign Up Nazis, Ex-cons, 42-year-olds

School ‘Reform’: Rulers Train Students for Exploitation and War

L.A. Workers Kick Racists Out of Labor Day Rally

'From Oaxaca to LA, Workers Will Win!'

Indigenous Workers Protest Attacks In Oaxaca

Oaxaca Teachers Reject Sellout

AFL-CIO Hacks Betray Detroit Teachers Anti-Racist Strike

New Orleans Industrial Workers United vs. Racism

New Orleans Today: Not Just A Tourist Destination

Capitalist Weapons of Mass Destruction: Water Terrorism

War and More War on the Agenda Political Battle Emerging in Mass Organizations

Fight Bosses’ Ideology

Racist Reign of Terror At Chicago Hospitals

Liberals' Vote Ploy Masks Plan to Win Immigrants to War-Fascism Agenda

Ex-Boeing Hitman Targets Ford Workers

LETTERS

Honor Marx and 'Internationale'

Afghan Women Fight U.S. Bosses, Warlords

CHALLENGE comment

Harvard Terrorist Would Nuke Millions

No Racist Survivors

Young Industrial Workers Take Leadership of West Coast PL School

Remembering Comrade Floyd Crawford

REDEYE

Pols sabotage N.Orleans black workers
Job cut is too small, says Wall St.
Most workers get no layoff insurance
Goering showed the way on Iraq war
Hooking kids and African Americans on nicotine
All presidents talk nice, then make war
US putting ‘freedom’ on back burner

‘Fight Club’ Teaches Politics Of Defeat

Lumber Bosses and Their Government Destroy the Environment and Jobs

1,000 Navajos March Against Racist Crimes

Ford Assault on Workers Triggers Mass Racist Job Cuts

DETROIT,MI, September 17— Ford’s second "Way Forward" plan to eliminate about 45,000 jobs and 16 factories in the U.S., Mexico and Canada by 2010, is not just a restructuring of the auto industry. Rather it is a realignment of competing imperialists for markets, resources and cheap labor that will lead to new wars and make current imperialist slaughters look like a tea party.

Wall Street’s reaction was "Not good enough," and Ford’s stock dropped 12%. The plan was criticized for not moving fast enough to cut jobs, like GM’s buyout program that slashed 35,000 jobs more than two years ahead of schedule.

In the wake of the great Detroit anti-racist rebellion of 1967 (see box below), 100,000 black workers were hired by GM, Ford and Chrysler. Now we’re witnessing the reversal of that reform, and the undoing of 70 years of class struggle.

This is devastating communities across North America with job losses and tax-revenue cuts. For Michigan, already having the highest jobless rate of any state in the U.S. — and the center of Ford’s operations — it will be like a Katrina hitting the working class with overwhelming force.

Ford will also shut or sell 17 Visteon parts plants in the U.S. and Mexico that it took over in October 2005 in an effort to prevent the parts maker from going bankrupt. Visteon was spun off from Ford in 2000.

The United Auto Workers union is collaborating as if it was part of the company’s Board of Directors (at Chrysler it is!). After unprecedented give-backs last year in health benefits and pensions, it has negotiated local concessions that undermine whatever remains of work rules, job classifications, health and safety provisions and protection against speed-up and forced overtime.

Ford’s buyout offer to all 75,000 UAW hourly workers will wipe out union jobs and replace them with low-paid younger workers not entitled to the same health care, pensions and other benefits.

Capitalism Puts The Screws On

Ford’s worldwide automotive operations lost $3.9 billion last year, nearly 20 times worse than the $200-million loss in 2004. July 2007 will mark the beginning of national contract talks for Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler. The bosses and their loyal UAW junior partners will have plenty more cuts to make then.

David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research, said Ford must also cut health care costs and supported reopening local contracts. Those locals surrendering the most will supposedly keep working. This is known as "whip-sawing" one local against another. Cole said this gives Ford "more flexibility" and makes a "huge impact on the cost structure."

On September 9, UAW Local 600 at Ford’s Dearborn complex voted 2-to-1 in favor of a "competitive operating agreement" that will outsource non-production jobs, enforce a severe attendance policy, allow the use of temporary workers and replace the 8-hour day with four 10-hour days. Workers were told that if the contract was rejected the company would move production to other plants. Local 600 President Jerry Sullivan said, "We’re trying to be as cost-competitive as possible."

A similar contract was accepted by UAW Local 588 at the Ford Stamping plant in Chicago Heights. One worker said, "It’s really weird. Fights and complaints [against Ford] are way down. I’ve never seen it like this. People are worried whether they will have a job."

One worker at the Ford Assembly plant in Chicago, UAW Local 551, described three older white local union leaders "counseling" 25 young laid-off black workers. This underlines the inherent racism in these attacks, which hit black and Latin workers first and hardest.

This onslaught shows that capitalism can never meet the needs of the workers; whatever you win is fleeting as long as the bosses rule. We need to seize all the factories and mills and smash the bosses’ state with communist revolution and produce for the needs of our class. Over the next year we will build PLP in the auto industry as the main way to prepare for the coming struggle, and to honor the heroes of the 1967 Rebellion.

Detroit Auto Workers Veterans of ‘67 Anti-Racist Rebellion

Next July marks the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion against racism, perhaps the greatest anti-racist rebellion of that time and the greatest act of international solidarity with Vietnamese workers and peasants who were fighting U.S. imperialism.

Many autoworkers participated in the armed uprising against racist police terror and racist unemployment. Many were Vietnam vets who knew how to use their weapons. Within 48 hours the racist Detroit police were out of bullets and pinned down in their stations, as was the Michigan National Guard. It finally took President Lyndon Johnson diverting units of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions from Vietnam to crush the rebellion. Dozens were killed, hundreds were injured and thousands were arrested and held on Belle Isle Park because the jails were full.

This struggle terrified the racist rulers. The legacy of these integrated, mostly black working-class heroes will not be lost if we build a base for PLP among autoworkers that will lead to a revolutionary solution.

Expose Liberals’ ‘Anti-War’ Masquerade

Fifty-eight percent responding to the latest CNN poll oppose the war in Iraq. That translates into over a hundred million against the U.S.-led slaughter. This rising anti-war sentiment holds both hope and danger. Many millions share aspects of our Party’s condemnation of the profit system and the bloodshed and racism it ceaselessly generates. They perceive the gross immorality of killing, maiming and dying for the benefit of Exxon Mobil and Halliburton. Racist atrocities in the hellholes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo disgust them. As war’s horrors become evident, opportunities to win large numbers of people to a revolutionary, communist outlook increase.

Unfortunately, however, liberal politicians are trying to turn mass opposition to Bush’s Iraq war into support for even broader military action. Larger-than-usual primary turnouts and heightened public interest in the November elections reflect a trend harmful to the working class. Every elected official represents one group or another of capitalists. The liberal anti-Bush forces in — or running for — Congress speak for the Eastern Establishment. This is the Exxon Mobil-J.P. Morgan Chase-Rockefeller faction that has the greatest interest in protecting and projecting U.S. imperialism globally through armed force.

Morgan Heir Lamont Lets Imperialist Cat Out Of The Bag

Ned Lamont, heir to the J.P. Morgan fortune, provides a case in point. He beat Joe Lieberman in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary by attacking his Bushite "stay-the-course-in-Iraq" stance. But in a recent speech at Yale Law School, Lamont reassured future Wall Streeters of his devotion to U.S. imperialism. While calling for a withdrawal timeline, Lamont "also said that some troops should remain in Iraq for humanitarian efforts and that others could be redeployed elsewhere in the Middle East." (NY Times, 9/14) Lamont echoes retired general William Odom, who proposes that the U.S. leave Iraq momentarily in order to regroup and gather allies for a massive invasion of the entire Middle East. The Times was careful to note that Lamont "did not rule out military action" against Iran. And alluding to U.S. rulers’ current recruiting shortfalls and their failure to mobilize the nation for war, Lamont stressed the need for more military "readiness."

World War III And Webb’s Web Of Deceit

Another Democrat sporting the phony "anti-war" label is James Webb, a Senate candidate from Virginia. An Annapolis grad and Marine Vietnam veteran, Webb has dedicated his life to the U.S. war machine. As Navy secretary under Reagan, he oversaw plans to build a 600-ship fleet (a project launched by Carter). Earlier as assistant "defense" secretary, Webb had "directed considerable research and analysis of the U.S. military's mobilization capabilities" (Webb’s campaign website). Webb is cynically garnering votes by saying U.S. forces should get out of Iraq. But the old warmonger hasn’t suddenly turned peacenik. He has far bigger fish to fry. Webb identifies Russia and China as "issues which demand our strategic focus." More specifically, Webb sees a grand anti-U.S. axis forming from the Middle East to the Far East. "I’ve been saying for 20 years that China was pursuing a strategy with the Muslim world designed to destabilize the United States and to improve its access to oil." Thus, says Webb, the U.S. "requires mobile forces...in other places around the world."

Vets Err In Backing Murderer Murtha

The leaders of Iraq Veterans Against the War seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for the liberals’ lies. They say they "stand behind" Pennsylvania representative John Murtha, the first in Congress to demand a troop withdrawal. They make a serious political error by ignoring Murtha’s class allegiance and his imperialist ulterior motives. Like Odom (and General Wesley Clark, Clinton’s bomber of Serbia), Murtha favors a tactical retreat from Iraq followed by a major counter-offensive in the Mid-East or elsewhere. "The policy of "staying the course"...in Iraq is hurting our national security" (Murtha’s website). Murtha’s says, "Redeploy to rebuild our military. Redeploy to meet future threats. Redeploy to strengthen America."

No matter what they say to get elected, politicians once in office cannot and will not forsake the needs of the capitalists they serve. (See Red Eye, page 7 on "Presidents Make War") The Senate’s unanimous 98-0 vote on Sept 6th to spend an additional $63 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan blows the cover off liberals’ pacifist posturing. The Iraq vets, and other working-class forces deceived by the fake anti-war rhetoric, should know that they, not their Congressmen, are crucial to the solution. History shows that rebellions by soldiers and strikes by workers can slow imperialist war’s deadly march for a time. More importantly, soldiers and workers, united in a communist party, can turn imperialist war into a revolution against the imperialists themselves and their profit system. This is the ultimate goal of PLP.

Racist Recruitment Killing Black, Latino, Immigrant Youth

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 13 — While it’s become widely known that the military is concentrating its recruitment efforts in black and Latino neighborhoods, the most telling statistic reveals the results of this effort: of the 38 New Yorkers killed in Iraq, 33 — 87% — were Latino (21), black (8) or Asian (4).

These figures were reported in a 3-part series by Eva Sanchis in this city’s Spanish-language newspaper, El Diario-La Prensa, and summarized in an article in the NY Daily News (9/2). "A large number of the dead are immigrants." No wonder the liberal wing of the ruling class is so eager to pass legislation to entice immigrant youth into the army, possibly the biggest new source of cannon fodder for their imperialist oil wars.

These deaths grow out of the racism that puts most of the Armed Forces’ 26 recruitment centers in black or Latino neighborhoods: three of five in the Bronx are in the South Bronx, half of the six in Manhattan and six of eight in Brooklyn are in these neighborhoods, and all four in Queens are in immigrant communities. Yet not one center is located "in the upper East Side, the richest neighborhood in the city, which is 77% white and has a per capita income of $67,010" and where "only seven people enlisted in 2004," reports Ms. Sanchis.

Although 51% of city residents are Latino and black, 70.4% of the recruits in 2004 were from these two groups (37% Latino and 33.4% black), according to "Defense’" Dept. figures published by the American Friends Service Committee. "Poor young people need work, training, scholarships, but these are so scarce that they join the military," says a Friends Service representative, "not realizing that this is an institution created for war and not an employment program."

The rulers are going full speed ahead in trying to induce immigrant youth to die for the bosses’ system:

• A Bush "executive order allow[s] non-citizens to apply for citizenship after only one day of active-duty military service," to draw from an "estimated 50,000-65,000 undocumented…young adults." (July Senate testimony by Under Secretary of Defense David Chu) Chu extolled the DREAM Act which would give such youth the "opportunity" to join the military and obtain "conditional permanent-resident status."

• Recruiters are establishing booths in "cafeterias in high schools across the nation." (Boston Globe)

• Enlistment bonuses up to $40,000 are offered to immigrant youth who possess documents, an amount exceeding the 2005 per capita income of Latinos ($14,483) or black workers ($16,874), and even white workers ($28,946).

One El Diario reader, a Dominican father, wrote the paper: "My only son was seduced three months ago and joined, but by what I read in his letters he is tired of the Army. I don’t know where they are sending him. The sergeant who recruited him told me that it would be for only three months.

"From the day he left I have been in great pain; he is my only son…."

Such is the racism employed by the U.S. ruling class that sends these youth to kill tens of thousands of their working-class brothers and sisters in Iraq who are victims of the same racism, all in the name of the rulers’ desperate drive to dominate the world’s oil supplies. But based on these youths’ experience with racism and unemployment at home and a bosses’ war abroad, working with them and winning them to PLP’s ideas can turn them around to fight the brass, not their fellow workers. That’s the step towards winning them to a revolutionary outlook, and that’s our goal.

Desperate Brass Sign Up Nazis, Ex-cons, 42-year-olds

Given the failings of the U.S. military in meeting its recruiting goals, the rulers are becoming more desperate, leading to an army that will hardly resemble the "crack" cohesive force necessary for the endless wars to maintain their dominance over rival capitalists. As will be seen below, possibly only a draft will supply the cannon fodder needed. But that will only create more opposition among masses of people already disgusted with Iraq and Afghanistan. The rulers’ desperation is reflected in the following:

• The Army Reserves raised its maximum enlistment age from 35 to 42 and the regular Army upped its active-duty enlistment eligibility to 42.

• Next, ex-convicts: An army recruiter hanging around a Dallas-area job fair told the Houston Chronicle he was "looking for high-school graduates with no more than one felony on their record."

• Recruiting Nazis: The Southern Poverty Law Center reported "large numbers of neo-Nazis" in the military, quoting a Defense Dept. investigator that, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don’t remove them…"

The neo-Nazi magazine "Resistance" is "urging skinheads to join the army and insist on being assigned to light-infantry units" in order to prepare for "The coming race war and ethnic cleansing" until "the alien races are driven into the countryside [to be] …hunted down…" (NY Times)

• The "back-door" draft: "Marine commanders have taken the extraordinary step of drafting back into uniform those who have left the ranks," the so-called Individual Ready Reserves (IRR). (Boston Globe) "Approximately 14,000 soldiers on IRR status have been called to active duty" by the Army. (CBS News)

• The Army’s desperate need for officers has reached the bottom of the barrel in promoting captains: a high-ranking army officer told the LA Times, "Basically, if you haven’t been court-martialed, you’re going to be promoted to major."

• Hungry for re-enlistments: "Maximum bonuses [have] been raised to $60,000 for marine" re-enlistees in critical specialties. (Stars and Stripes newspaper) Additionally, there are "life-changing" bribes of promised benefits between $23,292 and $71,424 for active-duty and reserve personnel "to help pay for college" (if still alive when college comes around).

School ‘Reform’: Rulers Train Students for Exploitation and War

Working-class parents send their children to school to learn skills needed for productive lives. But the ruling class has other plans — to use the schools so they can more effectively exploit the lives of all workers. Control of the schools aims at creating racist and sexist divisions among young people. The rulers depend on these youth to create their profits and fight their imperialist battles.

Federal and state legislation forces curricula on teachers that emphasizes the nationalist ideas rulers hope will win students to fight for the U.S.

The smaller or charter schools, pushed in many cities, are another way for the rulers to win young people. When the principal knows their name, students may be convinced that such a school deserves their loyalty and trust. This can build a sense of all-class unity, that workers have more in common with bosses of their "race" or nationality than they have with other workers. Such loyalty wins U.S. workers to fight Iraqi workers on behalf of U.S. bosses, rather than uniting them with all workers to fight all bosses.

Meanwhile, the overcrowding, boredom and poor treatment students get at most schools can be converted into the discipline of the military life the rulers have in store for them. Because of the racism inherent in capitalism — super-profits to be made by paying black and Latin workers less — such students suffer in the worst schools, having the most metal detectors and the fewest books. As fascist conditions increase, more students find school to be a prison-like box through which they must pass on their way to unemployment, prison, the military or, if lucky, a job creating profits for a boss. The schools’ testing and tracking systems enforce divisions among students and encourage them to believe they are to blame for their current and future roles in capitalist society.

Ruling-class representatives at every level claim to be "reforming" the school system. At state and national levels, this has meant legislating more testing for children, rebuilding districts on a "business" model and creating smaller, more easily-controlled schools. But despite the sunny rhetoric used by the proponents of these reforms, racist and fascist conditions still apply in most working-class schools. High school graduation rates are low enough for Education Week (6/22/06) to consider them a crisis. In this case "reform" doesn’t mean that schools are being fixed to do more for our working-class children. Rather, through mandatory testing and regimentation, schools are being reorganized for the ruling class to better "train" our children to become docile, willing to be exploited at work and sacrificed in ongoing oil wars.

We workers want our children to grow up with knowledge and skills. The ruling class fosters ideas that will lead them to use those skills for the profit and war-making needs of the capitalist class. As we fight for communism, our goal is for children to learn to think creatively and use their skills to build a worker-led society that’s in THEIR class interest.

L.A. Workers Kick Racists Out of Labor Day Rally

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 5 — Union members and other workers showed their militant anti-racism here yesterday when they kicked the anti-immigrant Save Our State group out of the Labor Day celebration at Banning Park in Wilmington, a working-class area near the port of Long Beach.

While workers assembled to show their readiness to fight for economic justice for all, regardless of immigration status, the small Save Our State group shouted their anti-immigrant racial hatred. These racists say that immigrants are "taking over" the U.S. and "stealing citizens’ jobs." But as one young black woman worker explained, "It’s the government and the rich elite who are draining the U.S. economy. Their lies have caused hundreds of thousands of innocent workers to die fighting for [the bosses’] oil profits!"

The bosses’ newspaper, the LA Times, ABC-TV Channel 7 and the Spanish TV misrepresented the Labor Day action when they proclaimed that "the police escorted the protesters…across the street…" Actually, when an ever-growing number of workers confronted the racists on a small hill near the edge of the park, the 10 or 12 Save Our State demonstrators needed police protection to keep from getting slaughtered.

Union leaders tried to divert the workers from attacking the racists, urging us to return to the nearby area where they and Democratic politicians were giving their Get-Out-the-Vote speeches. But young Latino men, organized for security by the Labor Day sponsors, refused and confronted the racists, blocked their advance and drowned out their shouting with pro-labor chants. When more and more workers discovered that Save Our State, an organization closely allied with the fascist anti-immigrant Minutemen, had dared to bring their racist message to the rally, the crowd grew into hundreds, and pushed the racists down the hill toward the street. No speeches by Democratic Party representatives and union officials could stop the workers from pushing these racists out of the park.

Progressive Labor Party members participated in expelling the anti-immigrant group, whose main interest was getting media attention. While the media wants immigrants to think that U.S. workers support nationalist groups like Save Our State and the Minutemen, CHALLENGE has reported the continuing militancy of U.S. workers who fight for the international working class. We join our brothers and sisters worldwide in the struggle against the growing fascism of capitalist rulers.

The workers saw through union leaders’ efforts to prevent them from attacking open racists. With PLP leadership, they escape from the union leaders’ dangerous trap of supporting the U.S. Senate’s "lesser-evil" immigration bill. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act — with six Republican sponsors and one Democrat (Kennedy) and backed by Bush —"promises" citizenship to immigrants if they agree to be docile, never complain or strike and fight in the bosses wars for profits. We must hit hard at the wolves in sheep’s clothing (union and nationalist misleaders) who continue to support this legislation to win immigrant workers to die for the U.S. flag as "patriotic" citizens.

'From Oaxaca to LA, Workers Will Win!'

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 2 — Chanting "From Oaxaca to LA, the workers will win" ("Desde Oaxaca a LA, los obreros vencerán"), a group of workers and youth marched in the Labor Day Parade today carrying signs backing the teachers and their supporters in Oaxaca, Mexico. Several workers from Oaxaca excitedly joined us while others on the sidelines shouted our slogans.

We made speeches to the crowd about the mass struggle of the teachers and other workers in Oaxaca against the government and the capitalist system. We called for international solidarity against the Mexican government’s increasing attacks on the workers in which teachers and their supporters have been killed, arrested and kidnapped. This shows the true fascist nature of capitalism, whose goal is the exploitation of the working class. That’s why workers need communist revolution to end this bosses’ dictatorship.

We can combat these attacks by building PLP to put our class on the offensive. Many at this march bought CHALLENGE and eagerly took PLP leaflets which explained that revolution, not voting for "lesser-evil" politicians — as union hacks on both sides of the border ask workers to do — is the only answer to the bosses’ war and fascist attacks.

Several activities are planned to spread support for our sisters and brothers in Oaxaca, one being a march of teachers, including PLP’ers.

Indigenous Workers Protest Attacks In Oaxaca

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 16 — A coalition of indigenous workers, many from Oaxaca, marched to the Mexican Consulate here to demand an end to attacks on Oaxaca’s teachers and their supporters. Almost everyone was glad to get CHALLENGE from a group of PL’ers who joined them. While some chants supported the liberal presidential candidate Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador, there were lively discussions pointing out that no electoral party can change the nature of capitalism. Many wanted to stay in touch with the PL’ers about coming marches backing the Oaxaca strike and mass protests.

Oaxaca Teachers Reject Sellout

OAXACA, MEXICO — Striking teachers rejected sellout attempts by some leaders of the teachers union and the APPO (the mass group which has taken over the city) to end the strike which has been the backbone of the struggle. While the deal included a sizeable wage increase for the teachers (the demand that initially sparked the movement), the struggle has gone beyond that, now including political demands. So when leaders of the APPO and teachers union tried to sell the deal to the rank and file and end the strike, the sellouts were expelled from the assemblies. The teachers showed they won't be bought by some economic crumbs and that the struggle will continue, despite government threats to send in the Federal Police and the Army to take back the city.

We in PLP support the teachers and their allies. We're trying to move the fight-back more to the left, into a school for communism, beyond demanding the ouster of Oaxaca's fascist governor or to support Lopez Obrador in the dogfight among Mexican bosses. We aim to build the PLP and fight for a system where workers and their allies rule, which can only be achieved through communist revolution.

AFL-CIO Hacks Betray Detroit Teachers Anti-Racist Strike

DETROIT, MI Sept. 15 - About 9,000 members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) returned to work, ending their 16-day strike against the Detroit Public School Board (DPS). On September 13, thousands of strikers packed Cobo Hall to hear the terms of a three-year contract. They voted to return while holding ratification votes at their schools.

The UAW and AFL-CIO leadership never mobilized an ounce of support for the strike, and the DFT never called them or the International leadership on it. In the end, the strikers had nowhere to go but back to work, never having mobilized the parents and students which could have greatly expanded the struggle. One poll reported pro-teacher sentiment at 72%.

Teachers chanted, "Books, Supplies and Lower Class Size!" on mass pickets surrounding Board offices They defied a court order to return to work, enjoying the overwhelming support of parents and the 130,000 students. (More than 50,000 students have left the system in the last five years.) Over 80% of the students are black and more than half live below the poverty line. Like NYC transit workers before them, the strike had an anti-racist character and was a breath of fresh air.

At one high school a male mentoring club had just returned from taking students to do volunteer work in New Orleans. During the strike they carried home-made signs criticizing the bloody occupation of Iraq instead of concentrating on cities like New Orleans and Detroit.

While the hundred of billions are spent on imperialist war in Iraq, Detroit reflects a system with nothing to offer black youth but prison or the military. The children of Vietnam vets feel no loyalty to the bosses and even less like killing and dieing for them. The bosses withhold money for public education, especially for black youth, but have endless tax breaks and subsidies for casinos and sports stadiums.

School CEO Walter Coleman, who makes $220,000 a year, and the Board demanded teachers take an 11% pay-cut over two years to fill a $105 million deficit with $89 million in concessions and threatened 2,000 layoffs if they didn't get them. Instead, the strikers settled on a pay freeze this school year, with "raises" of 1% in 2007-08 and 2.5% in 2008-09. Next year's raises will be the first since 2003. Teachers hired before 1992 will pay 10% of their health insurance costs as newer hires already do. And they will lose three days' pay for preparation days canceled by the strike.

Detroit may be the country's most segregated city, similar to Soweto in apartheid South Africa. The population has shrunk from almost two million in the early 1950's to less than 800,000. Newly-released U.S. Census figures show Detroit as the country's second most impoverished city. Thousands of vacant and crumbling homes stand like monuments to the decline of the U.S. auto industry, the collaboration of the union leaders with the bosses and the effect of the collapse of the old communist movement which has hurt workers’class consciousness worldwide. Detroit is a Katrina in slow motion, a victim of inter-imperialist competition among auto companies over the past 30 years.

Schools are old and in disrepair. School libraries are few, broken windows are many. At Miller Middle School, their new principal "welcomed" students back to their first day of school with police pat-downs and metal detectors. Michigan graduates only 30% of its black male students, and almost 80% of white males. In Detroit the numbers are even worse. The mostly Latino southwest side graduates about 13% of all students, black, Latin and white. There are few supplies and teachers spend tens of thousands of dollars from their own pockets for books, copies, paper, even toilet paper for their students.

But this battle is just one round in a long fight, and it has opened new doors to building PLP.

New Orleans Industrial Workers United vs. Racism

Part II

(Part I reviewed the united struggles of black and white workers after the Civil War.)

Now a new element had emerged — the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) which had begun organizing in New Orleans on an anti-racist, internationalist basis. They provided ideological leadership as well as organizational and material support. The modest growth of the organized Left in the 1907 dock strike was even more significant than the reform victory.

One white union leader — using the racist language of that era — described the change in his consciousness: "I fought in every strike to keep black labor off the dock. I fought until in the white-supremacy strike your white-supremacy governor sent his white-supremacy militia and shot us white-supremacy strikers full of holes.... There was a time when I wouldn't even work beside a n-----... You made me work with n-----s, … and finally got me to the point where if one of them ... blubbers something about more pay, I say, ‘Come on, …let’s go after the white bastards.’"

The lumber bosses tried to use black workers to break a 1910 strike by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. Their racism backfired as the union integrated and then affiliated with the IWW, proclaiming that, "No longer will we allow the Southern oligarchy to divide and weaken us on lines of race, craft, religion, and nationality."

In Katrina’s aftermath the bosses are again pushing racism in a thousand ways. As 19th century bosses tried to use the super-exploitation of black workers to "divide and conquer," today’s rulers similarly pit immigrant against black workers. New Orleans remains a mainly working-class city (see box). Once again we need to organize as one united working class — this time, for communist revolution.

After the Russian Revolution, many IWW members rejected the anarcho-syndicalism of their early years and became communists. (The IWW thought that seizure of the factories and proclaiming the "workers republic" in itself would create the revolution, neglecting to advance the necessity for the working class to smash the rulers’ state power.)

In 1921, the Communist Party USA was launched. The Progressive Labor Party has learned much from the victories, and more from the weaknesses, of that communist movement. We fight for black and Latin workers to take the lead in organizing multi-racial class struggle, and also — most importantly — in winning workers, students and soldiers to our Party with the goal of smashing the bosses’ state. Millions of workers already know that capitalism can’t be reformed to meet our needs. When these workers take communism to heart, we can abolish the racist wage system and build a new society based on the principle, "from each according to commitment — to each according to need."

(See Eric Arnesen, Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class and Politics, 1863-1923; (1991), though his analysis differs from PLP’s.)

New Orleans Today: Not Just A Tourist Destination

The Port of New Orleans remains central to the economy of the city and the nation. In 2003 it handled an annual average of 11.4 million tons of general cargo. Its 28 million square feet of facilities included a new state-of-the-art container terminal. Although containerization and automation have slashed the workforce, in 2003 the port still accounted for 107,000 jobs, $2 billion in earnings and $231 million in tax revenue. Meanwhile, one-fourth of all U.S. oil production is based in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana’s offshore oil and gas industries generate $5 billion in annual federal revenues.

The bosses need this oil industry and this port to carry out their plans for rebuilding their military and preparing for broader imperialist war. Repairing the damage done to these facilities by Katrina is much more important to them than fixing workers’ neighborhoods, or even gentrifying downtown. We must organize New Orleans’ industrial workers — black, Latino, Asian and white — to fight the bosses and their bloody war plans.

Capitalist Weapons of Mass Destruction: Water Terrorism

(Editor's note: With this issue we begin a feature that exposes the innumerable weapons of mass destruction generated by the profit system. We invite our readers to contribute material for this box. Please limit your submission to 150 words.)

Every year two and one-half million people die worldwide from polluted water or a lack of water. As pointed out on the radio program "To the Point" (WNYC-NY, 8/25), this is truly a weapon of mass destruction. Capitalists are not only rapidly privatizing water supplies and reaping millions in profits (especially in Latin America) but they're fighting over the supplies, from the Mid-East to the Western U.S. Some predict such conflicts could lead to war.

As the above program reported, one-third of the world's population — two billion people — live with too little water.

Combine capitalism's profit motive with its planlessness, and you have a prescription for a crisis which mostly affects the poorest workers on every continent. It will take communism — when profits, bosses and exploitation are eliminated — that will plan to distribute this most vital resource unpolluted, according to need.

War and More War on the Agenda Political Battle Emerging in Mass Organizations

(Part II of 3-part series. Part I reviewed the liberals’ call for strategic "redeployment" — a tactical retreat from Iraq to regroup for bigger and bloodier wars to protect the U.S. bosses’ increasingly challenged grip on Mid-East oil.)

Recently, a friend at work told me he was alarmed at reports that China had leapt 30 years ahead by "stealing" U.S. military secrets. Naturally, we discussed this propaganda about "stealing," but it started me thinking. Not too long ago every "expert" predicted the U.S. wouldn’t have to worry about China for at least 50 years. Let’s see: 50 minus 30 equal 20. That’s not too far away!

A bipartisan roundtable of industry leaders, the Pentagon and leading foreign policy strategists — hosted by the International Association of Machinists (IAM), a key industrial union — condenses the timeline. They worry that in seven years, 15 at most, the U.S. will not have the surge war manufacturing capacity to meet a challenge from a "near peer competitor." That’s Pentagon-speak for Russia and/or China, with tacit support from some European nations. They will issue a completed report as the next president takes office. Meanwhile, every IAM local and district is pushing this roundtable’s formula for class collaboration backing U.S. imperialism.

Nobody can predict the timeline with absolute certainty. Nonetheless, the bosses are sufficiently worried that they’ve decided to move this debate from the private think-tanks and government offices to the general public. We can expect the ruling class to use every tool at its disposal to galvanize political support for its broader imperialist plans: including the government, laws, media and culture. In this battle for the "hearts and minds" of the working class, the various mass organizations and unions are key battlegrounds.

Using organizational models like the anti-communist Americans for Democratic Action (discussed last issue), the bosses aim to enlist prominent reform organizations in their campaign for broader political acceptance of bigger bloodier wars — up to and including world war. Their new liberalism envisions a network of union, church, immigration, student and soldier groups and nationalist movements promising "positive" reform of capitalism, but delivering patriotism and imperialist war. They want this network to corral any opposition should the working class start to mount any serious anti-imperialist resistance — particularly if inspired by communist class-consciousness.

Fight Bosses’ Ideology

The IAM’s sponsorship of the "Surge Roundtable" is but one example. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) just announced support of Israeli butchery in Lebanon. The "pro-immigrant" organizations support the Senate immigration bill providing virtual slave labor for the arms factories and new recruits for the armed forces. Even anti-war groups among soldiers and their families offer Lt. Watada as an example to follow. He refused go to Iraq, but volunteered to serve U.S. imperialism anywhere else, including Afghanistan. The list of betrayals grows every day.

We avoid confronting the groundwork being laid in mass organizations for bigger imperialist war at our class’s peril. To date, we’ve been fairly good at linking the billion-dollar cost of the Iraq war to cutbacks for workers. But the preparation for war goes deeper. We must confront the political preparation of the working class and the ideological attack included in that preparation. Racism and nationalism are key weapons in the bosses’ arsenal, setting us up to attack other workers. There have been increased attempts to split black from Latin workers, two groups that can provide leadership to the whole working class. Building a base to challenge the "new liberal" leadership in the mass organizations on the questions of racism, nationalism and ideological support for U.S. imperialism is the order of the day.

Racist Reign of Terror At Chicago Hospitals

CHICAGO, IL, September 11 — Racist and fascist terror are on the rise for workers at Stroger Hospital, the CORE Center and throughout the Cook County Health Bureau. Today 75-year old Augustin Sotomayor, a recent stroke victim, was dragged from his car by Stroger cops. He was waiting to pick up his wife who works at the CORE Center, across the street from Stroger Hospital.

Augustin’s wife Manuela has worked for the County for eight years. Many other workers, patients and visitors witnessed her husband being beaten and thrown to the ground by two black hospital cops after they asked him if he "was Mexican" and if he was "legal." While hospitalized at Stroger, he was charged with "resisting arrest" and "battery"!

Cook County security, like the Chicago police, is off the leash. A few months ago, a black female ward clerk with 10 years on the job was dragged off an elevator and to the security office at the other end of the hospital. Her child was waiting in the car while she picked up her paycheck. The cop claimed he "couldn’t see her ID badge," which she was wearing.

In another incident, a black female nurse was attacked by security and dragged to their lock-up while she was getting her paycheck. Both black women were given suspensions by the racist Stroger bosses. If the unions had organized mass protests and job actions supporting these women, Augustin might not have been attacked.

Racist terror on and off the job is aimed at intimidating workers into accepting rotten jobs and a future of endless wars and growing poverty. In the past six months, a retired Chicago police commander was found guilty of torturing defendants into confessions. Yet he continues living comfortably, retired on his city pension because it happened "too long ago" to punish! A 14-year-old black youth was recently shot by the cops in the Cabrini Green housing project for "holding a B-B-gun." Last week, four cops in the Special Operations unit were indicted for breaking into homes, kidnapping and robbery. This week, a Latino family sued the city after the cops shot their son 16 times last year, killing him. There are countless other examples, large and small.

Meanwhile, the County and the SEIU are trying to secure a contract based on a racist war budget that will leave black and Latin workers further behind. Over 80,000 jobs and as many as 40 plants will be eliminated as GM, Ford and Delphi retreat in the face of increasing competition. And the Iraq war, already lost, continues to deteriorate and spread.

The only way out of this mess is building a base for PLP and communist revolution. As we fight every attack, our ties to the workers will deepen and the political struggle can sharpen.

Liberals' Vote Ploy Masks Plan to Win Immigrants to War-Fascism Agenda

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 17 — The efforts of mass organizations to win workers' support for the liberal bosses' plans for war and fascism are becoming broader, more crucial and active. The main slogan of a five-day "National Latino Congress" here — Sept. 6-10 — was "March Today, Vote Tomorrow."

Speakers included Latino/a elected officials — LA's Mayor, corporation heads and union leaders like Linda Chavez Thompson, AFL-CIO V-P, Mary Elena Durazo, LA County Federation of Labor president and Nativo Lopez of the Mexican-American Political Association. This Congress's neo-liberal leaders are organizing an all-out campaign to win workers and youth to elect Democrats to Congress, and push the Senate's Comprehensive Immigration Bill (see Labor Day article, page 3), the message being that Democrats will pass laws putting more immigrants on the "path to legalization."

The Conference leadership said now is the time to show "We are America " by getting out the vote, not the time to march. Their "path to legalization" is designed to create a docile workforce and a patriotic military. It's part of the bosses' plans for building fascism.

They're also saying that workers should join unions to achieve "the American Dream." Tiny wage increases (being eaten up by inflation and rising health care costs) were touted as big victories, while union leaders bragged that these reform fights make them the best-equipped to turn out Latino voters.

This conference is part of a carefully thought-out strategy to win us to fascism using a liberal cover. This strategy, outlined by the liberal think-tank Brookings Institution in "United We Serve," stems from U.S. imperialism's need to mobilize immigrant workers and their children to believe in and fight for that "American Dream." It was advanced in a paper entitled "National Security and Immigration Policy," created by a task force on immigration that began meeting shortly after 9/11. It was initiated by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. They met with "counter-terrorism" experts to reform the U.S. Immigration System to further the nation's "security." They included current and former top officials of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Hart-Rudman Commission.

Their report examines the need to win immigrants to give information to the government; to greatly increase quotas for both skilled and unskilled workers; the importance of immigrants serving in the military; and the value of "Allowing the undocumented to secure drivers' licenses [which]…registers them in what is effectively the nation's largest law enforcement database" (p. 45) — an important screening tool.

The report asserts that if the government legalizes "those who are here and are coming here for valid purposes, we can concentrate law enforcement resources on the few bad actors." This document emphasizes the need for comprehensive immigration "reform," and reflects U.S. rulers' needs to both win over and control immigrant workers and their offspring.

These ruthless U.S. imperialists and their agents who are trying to win workers' support for wider imperialist war and exploitation in the production of weapons are wolves in sheep's clothing. They are the enemy of the working class. Voting for one or another "lesser-evil" capitalist politician who backs bosses' wars aims to lock us into these murderers' plans. They must be combated by workers united around a clear understanding of this enemy and the need for revolution.

PLP will participate in these movements to expose the bosses' plans and win masses of workers to oppose these neo-liberal imperialists with a mass movement of workers, students and soldiers fighting for power and a communist world.

Ex-Boeing Hitman Targets Ford Workers

"The United States has no divine right to our standard of living. That’s what we believe in. That’s capitalism." (Tacoma News-Tribune, 7/3/2002) Those are the words of Alan Mulally the new president and CEO of Ford. He was justifying firing 50,000 aerospace workers and selling factories to low-wage producers as Boeing’s chief of Commercial Airplanes. Apparently, the "standard of living" thing doesn’t apply to him. He gets $18.5 million up front, $2 million in salary, four million in stock options and 600,000 restricted stock units.

After Mulally’s first Ford board meeting, the company upped to 16 the number of plants on the chopping block. And you thought things couldn’t get any worse!

Richard Gephardt, formerly the UAW’s favorite Democratic Congressman, urged Mulally to take this job, "for the good of the country." In return, Mulally appointed Gephardt to the board of Spirit AeroSystems, the new owners of the former Boeing Wichita plant.

Spirit fired 1,300 Boeing workers when it bought the plant, reduced wages 10%, hired new workers at even lower rates and reduced pensions and medical benefits. Mulally threatened to "take the division apart" if the unions did not agree to these cutbacks.

He blackmailed Washington State into $3.2 billion in corporate tax breaks to retain the 787 jet assembly. Black workers were hit hardest when he slashed the blue-collar work force and then he pressured the state to cut (mostly Latin) farm workers’ unemployment benefits and gut workers’ compensation to finance this tax-break. He moved lower-paid subcontractors into the assembly plants and moved more work overseas or to new domestic subcontractors, often former Boeing plants.

Throughout this attack, Mullally said the International Association of Machinists (IAM) was "absolutely aligned and attuned" to the bosses’ plans. "We’re looking at being partners in creating value — or adversaries…fighting over an ever-shrinking pie," warned IAM strategic-resources director Steve Sleigh. (Business Week, 8/08/2002)

As Ford CEO, Mulally made his first call to UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who called him "a great choice." The UAW has some Boeing workers and the two have conspired against them in the past.

The racist rulers plan to cut auto workers’ wages and benefits to boost profits and to keep war production at home. Changing exploiters at the top only takes us from the frying pan into the fire. The change we need is a change in systems. We don’t need new bosses; we need communist revolution!

LETTERS

Honor Marx and 'Internationale'

Highgate is a village on the northern edge of London. Karl Marx was buried in Highgate Cemetery. This summer our family of seven stopped to visit Karl. Four of us stood by the grave with our fists raised and sang The Internationale in English, Spanish and poor French. People walking by heard us and made these comments:

"It’s wonderful to see real communists singing The Internationale," said a middle-aged German man. "It is sad that communism has died." We assured him that, just as history has not ended, neither has the struggle for communism. He seemed surprised at our answer and brightened.

Near Marx’s grave many revolutionaries, communists and others — some exiled from their homelands — are also buried. While we were singing, two elderly ladies who were looking at the moving inscriptions on the gravestones circled around and then returned the same way to continue to listen to our singing. They seemed very happy and walked off arm in arm.

A young Chinese couple carrying a bouquet of flowers stopped when they heard us singing The Internationale for the second or third time. They asked if they could take a picture with us — being photographed with a communist at Marx’s grave was what they wanted. They were very excited and said they would show the photos to everyone. They had promised their father they would place flowers on Marx’s grave while in London. They asked us to visit China.

Others didn’t come as close, but stood, listened and watched. Nowhere was there an angry face. From this experience it seemed the ideas of Marx and Lenin are very much alive.

The following day two of us visited an ex-miner and his wife in the county of Kent. During the 1984-85 coal strike they had come to the U.S. He’s now a construction worker. He said he always sings on the job. When he sings The Internationale, he’s always asked to repeat it and the other workers always join in. Most recently this happened with a Ukrainian worker, singing together right there on the construction site. He said to us that if things started popping again, he’d jump right into the battle.

In the past, The Internationale and communists made a difference in the world, and will make a difference in the future.

An ex-Londoner

Afghan Women Fight U.S. Bosses, Warlords

The Sept 9th assassination of Hakim Taniwal governor, of the southeastern province of Paktia, recalls Afghanistan's bitter past while exposing its shattered present. This is a country whose infrastructure has been destroyed by 30 years of war and is ruled by U.S. imperialists and their warlord allies, many of whom are government officials. Corruption is rife, fed by U.S. dollars and the drug trade (Afghanistan supplies 87% of the world's heroin). Private militias outnumber the national army; kidnappings and extortions are commonplace. Women suffer extreme subjugation at the hands of the fascist fundamentalists who control all aspects of life. The resurgence of the Taliban has only worsened the situation for the oppressed population.

Yet amid such horrific conditions, working people are fighting back. Hakim Taniwal, who was assassinated by a Taliban suicide bomber, was a progressive voice in the current Karzai government. He had been a sociology professor at the University of Kabul, with close ties to the leftist government that ruled from 1979 to 1992. He left Afghanistan in 1996 when the fundamentalists came to power. He found asylum in Australia, but retained some of the ideas from his past of working for a more equitable society. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, he returned to help rebuild the country. He was a down-to-earth man known for his honesty who tried to better the lives of the people, challenging the corruption — reasons why he was singled out and murdered

Much of the fight-back today is led by militant women who risk their lives simply for opening schools for girls. Still they carry on, helping their sisters — 90% of whom are illiterate — learn to read and write, acquire skills and inspire them to rise up against the horrors inherent in the profit-driven system of capitalism that are so starkly visible in Afghanistan.

Workers everywhere should support the people opposing that system.

An Afghan Friend

CHALLENGE comment: We stand in solidarity with those militant women who are fighting against the U.S. imperialist and fascist fundamentalist oppressors of the workers and farmers of Afghanistan. Imperialism and fundamentalism are part of capitalism and cannot be reformed. The Karzai government represents that system. The government that ruled the country from '79 to '92 was allied with the Soviet regime, which decades before became state-capitalist.

Harvard Terrorist Would Nuke Millions

If anyone doubts that cleanly-groomed Harvard-type men and women would hesitate to murder millions of workers, think again. An opinion column appeared in my local newspaper written by Harvey Simon, "a former Harvard University national security analyst."

Simon says (no children’s game) that politicians and the military must decide whether to continue the old Cold War approach with countries like North Korea that won’t be deterred by threatened U.S. nuclear retaliation. It may not work, says Simon, because heads of those states "may refuse to believe the United States would kill millions in retaliation." Simon clearly thinks that killing millions of innocent civilians with nuclear war is just another day at the park.

He explains that, "The traditional theory of nuclear deterrence was grounded in the World War II era, when civilian populations were bombed without mercy." In an apparent oversight, Simon neglects to mention that only Germany, Japan, the U.S. and Britain bombed civilian populations without mercy; the Soviet Union never engaged in such genocide against workers.

Simon goes on: "The Second Cold War, however, arrives at a time when precision strikes that minimize ‘collateral damage’ are considered politically necessary. U.S. war planners must consider whether they can any longer plausibly threaten to kill millions, if not tens of millions, of innocent people. And if they can’t they’ll have to find new ways to keep the peace." It’s all the same to Simon — the politicians and generals should make up their minds.

The media uses the term "terrorist" only for those who kill tens, hundreds or thousands of innocent people. For those who would kill millions, the proper term is apparently "former Harvard University national security analyst." Or "president," or "senator," or "congressman/woman."

Saguaro Rojo

No Racist Survivors

On September 14, the CBS-TV "reality show" Survivor was beginning a season with segregated teams of Asians, Latinos, blacks and whites competing against each other. Many anti-racist people and organizations are protesting, hoping CBS will cancel this racist trash. PLP members are among them, organizing in churches and unions against this racism.

Past episodes of Survivor were anti-working class, sexist and just plain stupid, promoting individualism. But now the TV bosses are pushing something even more dangerous since their system is in trouble and their economy is facing challenges from their imperialist rivals. Because the bosses cannot give workers jobs and vital services, they want to use racism to divide and rule. They’re pushing racist shows and movies in pop culture so we don’t unite and fight back.

For example, there’s a racist — stereotyping the people of Kazhastan — and anti-Semitic "comedy" movie staring Sasha Cohen of Ali G. fame. Cable station VH-1 has a racist "reality" show starring William Drayton (formerly of Public Enemy).

At the airport where I work, U.S. and Ethiopian workers have circulated an anti-racist union resolution attacking Survivors’ executive producers and writers as racist. Our resolution was sent to the local CBS affiliate and CBS headquarters in NYC.

While Survivor presents nothing specifically related to our jobs, workers live in a bigger world, not in a cultural vacuum. We’re struggling politically with workers for multi-racial unity, pointing out how CBS is insulting the memory of fighters like John Brown, Harriet Tubman and Lucy Parsons. The only solution to the racist bosses’ TV and culture is uniting all workers to fight for a communist revolution. When we cancel the bosses, there’ll be no survivors.

Airport Red

Young Industrial Workers Take Leadership of West Coast PL School

"I've learned a lot about leadership in preparing for this school. Communist leadership is about building more such leaders by example and providing opportunities for others to step forward," declared one young industrial worker of his experience preparing for PL's recent West Coast two-day school. "I wanted to keep discussing dialectics all day," said another.

This school was very positive for everyone. It helped our young industrial workers better understand their responsibilities as Party leaders, deepened and reinforced everyone's understanding of dialectics, and demonstrated our Party's commitment to building for communist revolution among this vital group: the industrial working class.

A club of young industrial workers that had never been given such a big responsibility organized this effort. At times they felt overwhelmed, spending too much time on logistics and not enough concentrating on bringing co-workers to the conference. More could have been brought, causing these young leaders to analyze their relationships with their friends. Yet ultimately, collective struggle brought the club members closer together as they demonstrated their commitment to building the Party among the industrial working class.

A young comrade opened the school with an in-depth report on the world situation and also described his efforts inside and outside the factories. He stressed creativity in bringing communist politics to industrial workers, relating it to whatever interests them; building relationships on and off the job, saying these workers will eventually lead us to other workers. This has helped him expand his CHALLENGE network among his co-workers, their families and their friends.

A presentation on dialectics was a good introduction for some as well as a chance for others to sharpen its application. More time could have given everyone more of an opportunity to struggle over these ideas.

The next day a veteran PL'er gave a great report on immigration "reform" and its relation to imperialist war. He explained how the bosses need to mobilize millions of immigrants and their children to fill the military and war industries and that the ruling class's liberal wing is leading this effort through immigration "reform": building a "green-card army."

Another veteran PL'er described the bosses' and their union lackeys' push to prepare for more imperialist war by rebuilding the rulers' war-manufacturing capacity, forcing long hours and low wages on jobs in the needed skills and moving these workers into war plants.

The presence of Party and veteran industrial leaders reinforced the young comrades' belief that PLP recognizes the vital role industrial workers must play in the struggle for communist revolution. The article "Armed Insurrection" describes how Russian industrial workers produced the weapons for — and filled the ranks of — the army in the fight against Nazi Germany in World War II. In 1968 in France, while students initiated an extremely militant movement, it became much more powerful once the industrial working class shut down the country. No wonder the U.S. ruling class feels the need to snare millions of workers into producing and dying for U.S. imperialism.

The current situation presents great opportunities and places a great responsibility in our hands: to build a base for communism among those workers with the power to stop capitalism dead in it's tracks. In response to that, one young comrade concluded, "Well, we have about 40 to 50 years of organizing left in us so we should be able to get much better at this stuff." With more experience and struggle we will develop more young leaders with the same commitment to transform workers influenced by capitalist ideas into strong fighters for communism.

Remembering Comrade Floyd Crawford

(The following are excerpts from a eulogy by a PLP member delivered at the funeral service for Floyd Crawford, who died on September 3, 2006.)

I met Floyd about 24 years ago. Floyd was not what one would call a "big talker," but through the years we discovered that this appearance of a quiet person masked the essence of someone who had lived for three quarters of a century and from that experience knew a lot more than one gleaned from first glance. We both had lived through and shared some of the same historical events, the Great Depression, wars and the like. [Floyd was drafted near the end of the Korean War, into the Army Air Force.]

Floyd was never much of a dancer while my wife Esther was terrific on that score, but when we were at the same affair together, Floyd would nevertheless ask my wife to get out on the floor with him.

We knew Floyd best as a proofreader of DESAFIO. Somehow Floyd had managed to teach himself Spanish. So when we asked him to help out by proofreading DESAFIO, he was happy to volunteer.

For the better part of the last 20 years, Floyd would come from his home in Garfield, NJ, all the way to our NYC office on Tuesdays, the day before we went to press, by which time nearly all the Spanish translations would be ready. Floyd would be there right on time, like clockwork, spending all day examining every minute detail of the Spanish.

Floyd didn’t merely spot typos or mis-spellings. Often he would challenge the meaning of an article’s translation, if he felt it didn’t correspond to the English version. He understood many of the nuances of the language. This was all the more remarkable because the bulk of the translating was done by our editor whose native language was Spanish, as was true of our other translators around the country.

Floyd would often catch an historical — or even geographical — error involving events he had lived through. So because of Floyd’s efforts, our paper was much more readable in Spanish and somewhat more historically accurate in both languages.

Year after year Floyd attended our May Day marches as well, and made generous financial contributions to our Party. On Tuesdays, he would always treat the CHALLENGE staff to lunch. Floyd and I usually shared a meal (we didn’t eat as much as the young ones) and he would invariably first ask me to choose the part of the chicken I wanted, to go with the rice and beans.

Floyd always seemed conscious of his health and what he ate, so much so that one of our members, a nurse, said she was jealous of his discipline when it came to food. So it was somewhat ironic that when we began to notice something was wrong with him physically, he would slough it off, saying he was O.K. He resisted our efforts to convince him to seek medical help. I think it was finally his dentist — who witnessed this deterioration from visit to visit — who persuaded him to have his condition diagnosed.

Floyd’s contribution reminds me of a scene in the movie "The Seventh Cross." Spencer Tracy played an escapee from a Nazi concentration camp, and was hiding out with the help of others. An old waiter from a delicatessen comes to deliver his food. Hidden beneath a sandwich are some forged papers to help get him out of Germany. Tracy was overcome, that the old man would risk his life to help someone he had never met. So the old man told Tracy this story.

He was filling the sugar bowl at the tables in the restaurant when he accidentally spilled some. Along came hundreds of ants, each one seizing just one grain of sugar to move it to a safe haven. The old man watched in amazement when soon the entire pile of sugar had been moved, one grain and one ant at a time, to another spot.

The old man told Tracy that one ant could never have accomplished that feat by itself, but each one, playing its role together with all the rest, was able to complete the task. And that was how the old man viewed his small role in helping Tracy to escape and carry on the anti-Nazi resistance.

Floyd, like all of us, made a seemingly small but consistent contribution to producing our paper and reaching tens of thousands with our communist ideas. Without each one of us contributing to the "whole," we can never produce that "whole." Truly, what each one of us does, counts.

We must always remember Floyd in this light, as a dear comrade who never failed to do his part in making that "whole" greater than the sum of its parts.

REDEYE

Pols sabotage N.Orleans black workers

Douglas Brinkley, Tulane University historian who wrote the best selling account of "Katrina, The Great Deluge," is worried that even now the White House is escaping questioning about what it is up to (and not) in the Gulf. "I don’t think anybody’s getting the Bush strategy," he said when we talked last week. "The crucial point in that the inaction is deliberate—the inaction is the action." As he sees it, the administration, tacitly abetted by New Orleans’ opportunistic mayor, Ray Nagin, is encouraging selective inertia, whether in the rebuilding of the levees ("Only Band-Aids have been put on them"), the rebuilding of the lower 9th Ward or the restoration of the wetlands. The destination: a smaller city, with a large portion of its former black population permanently dispersed. (NYT, 8/26)

Job cut is too small, says Wall St.

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker….will reduce its work force by 10 percent and cut $5 billion in costs….

But its shares declined in extended trading as Wall Street digested the news that the job reductions were not as large as many had expected. Intel said it would cut 10,500 jobs… (NYT, 9/6)

Most workers get no layoff insurance

Currently, because of tight state eligibility requirements and because a growing number of workers do not have long-term, full-time jobs, unemployment insurance is paid to just over a third of those who are laid off, government data show and coverage is less likely among the lower-income workers who most need it. (NYT, 9/14)

Goering showed the way on Iraq war

Reichmarshall Hermann Goering articulated the…strategy during his 1946 Nuremburg war crimes trial. "Naturally, the common people don’t want war," he said. "…(But) the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to a danger. It works the same way in any country." (Gene Lyons, Ark. Democrat-Gazette, 9/4)

Hooking kids and African Americans on nicotine

The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of almost 10% from 1998 to 2004, with brands most popular with young people and minorities registering the biggest increases and highest nicotine content, according to a study.

Nicotine is highly addictive, and…the higher levels theoretically could make new smokers more easily addicted and make it harder for established smokers to quit….

Boxes of Doral Lights, a low-tar brand made by RJ Reynolds, had the biggest increase in yield, 36%....Kool lights increased 30%. Two-thirds of African American smokers use menthol brands. (GW, 9/14)

All presidents talk nice, then make war

George W. Bush is not the first president to lead us into war with less than the truth, if not outright lying….

President William McKinley in his war to seize the Philippines said he had heard "the voice of God" and "there was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them." We need do little more than substitute "democratize" for "Christianize" all the world, regardless of the method used….

Woodrow Wilson, after campaigning on the slogan, "He kept us out of the war," lost little time in asking Congress for a declaration of war after his inauguration of a second term.

…Franklin D. Roosevelt…maneuver[ed] this country into…action, despite such re-election statements as, "I have said it before, but I shall say it again and again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

…Lyndon Johnson…calling himself the peace candidate,…assured us, "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves?" Never mind, we lost 58,000 disproving that one. ( Gade Gusch, Liberal Opinion Week)

US putting ‘freedom’ on back burner

Officially, the…administration is undaunted. Unofficially, it is shelving the "freedom agenda". This month Mr. Bush is expected to extend a warm White House welcome to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, who has banned opposition parties and muzzled the press – but who runs a strategically placed, oil-rich country. The Saudi and Egyptian governments are once again being treated as key allies…. (FT, 9/5)

‘Fight Club’ Teaches Politics Of Defeat

Our PLP club has some youth around it and has just restarted our "movie day," watching an important/popular Hollywood film and then analyzing it using communist politics. We selected the influential 1999 film "Fight Club."

We first reviewed the origin of the book on which the film was based and then discussed the film’s cultural importance. Author Chuck Palahniuk interviewed men in bars, asking them how they viewed the world and their place in it. The end result was "Fight Club."

We soon discovered that the film, which stays very true to the book, had a more profound impact on the men in the group than on the women. We discussed how the movie is essentially a boy’s fantasy simply acted out by adults. We noted how both we and people we knew had watched this film dozens of times over the years and how it had affected our lives.

Our most humorous reaction was the realization that after the movie was released, every high school in the country must have had its own fight club. Understanding the film’s importance and lasting impact led to a serious discussion about a film that otherwise might have been dismissed as a simple pop culture artifact of the ’90’s.

Taking a balanced approach, we first noted what the film got right. This sparked an analysis of worker alienation in society and its causes. This particular theme is well-portrayed. It inspired a review of the structure and nature of capitalism, how it alienates workers from their labor, leaving a hole to be filled with empty consumerism.

Then someone pointed out the irony of a major motion picture selling for twenty bucks (if you’re lucky) discussing the emptiness of consumer culture. Although seemingly a silly comment to break the seriousness of the moment, it later provided a basis to ask, "If this film is so revolutionary, why did capitalist culture-makers release it?"

Outlining what went right in the film prepared us for the much longer discussion about what went wrong. Re-capping the earlier themes of the book’s creation led to considering the movie’s sexism, and then sexism in society as a whole. One PL’er explained that no revolution will get very far when it excludes half the population.

The film’s sexist ideas are perfectly captured in the line, "We are a generation of men raised by women; I wonder if another woman is really what we need." This provoked an examination of how the film mirrors sexism in the real world.

The evening’s longest conversation centered on the film’s anarchist messages and its Great Man Theory — whether individuals led people to change through great spectacles or whether mass organizations created change through study, discussion and action. The debate on whether political meaning can be derived from single random acts, like smashing a coffee house, was a heated one. PLP’ers noted how actions devoid of context do not move people because the action has no inherent politics. We considered how mass movements win people over slowly through political struggle.

A PL member then analyzed the difference between communism and anarchism (the two main outlooks among the viewers). Anarchists believe political consciousness appears spontaneously whereas communists believe political consciousness and revolutionary ideas must be worked on and refined. While this debate might not have moved everybody to join PLP, it did move people further left as they realized the limitations of anarchism.

After spontaneity was refuted, everyone was ready to attack the film’s Great Man theory. The idea that individuals, rather than mass organizations, create social change was thoroughly discredited, leading to examining capitalist individualism, something we all must struggle with daily.

Finally we returned to asking, "If this film is so revolutionary, why did capitalist culture-makers release it?" The answer was that the movie is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It used people’s identification with the emptiness of capitalism and worker alienation to teach the politics of defeat. The film’s core lessons are that sexism and mindless violence are good, and that organizing, study, discussion and collective action are bad. If we take this film’s advice and refuse to develop our politics — hoping some great action will develop them for us — and rely on a "great leader" to rescue us rather than fight to develop the collective power of the working class, then we will truly be lost.

Lumber Bosses and Their Government Destroy the Environment and Jobs

BITTERROOT VALLEY, MONTANA — This Valley in western Montana is considered a "high desert" land, making wildfires inevitable during the summer months. These fires endanger rural workers and the environment surrounding them. This danger exists mostly due to the bosses’ quest for profit by manipulating previously-burned forest lands.

The late summer of 2000 was a tremendous wildfire season here, burning more than 300,000 acres throughout this Valley alone. The vast majority of burned areas were prone to fire because of high levels of road-building and logging during the previous 40 years, mostly because of timber-industry development. Much of the 300,000 acres was previously clear cut by Darby Lumber Co., the majority of it approximately ten miles from nearby communities.

To protect the company and cover its own faults, the U.S. Forest Service has introduced — and is using propaganda to promote — the "re-burn" theory, that has yet to be scientifically proven. This theory says trees burned by fires in the past would fall down and create conditions for "catastrophic" fires. It created an excuse for Darby and other companies to profit from removing fallen timber from the forest. All this while suggesting their logging is "saving" both the forests and the rural communities around them from these fires, making it appear that they and the Forest Service are protecting the people’s best interests.

However, according to scientists there’s no evidence that fallen or decaying trees pose a higher risk of burning than standing ones. In fact, evidence points to the opposite: logging burned areas increases the risk of fires, and the rate at which they spread, for as long as eight years. This is partly because trees and other forest life cut down and removed actually clears a path for fires to burn and spread.

Due to the "re-burn" theory and its hype by the lumber companies and Forest Service, fear has convinced workers and others that the logging should continue. Meanwhile, years after that fire season of 2000, $16.2 million of restoration funding for that season is missing — neither the Forest Service nor any other department can account for it. Very little watershed and road repairs have been completed. Jobs are down because of damage to fisheries in the valley and to water sources. And that damage can create great health risks because of the harm to the fish people consume and contamination of the water.

The U.S. Forest Service is not filled with your friendly "Ranger Rick" and "Smokey the Bear" types. They’re an extension of the government, and work to protect the bosses just like any other branch. The profit nature of capitalism destroys both the environment and the working class affected by that destruction.

1,000 Navajos March Against Racist Crimes

FARMINGTON, NM, Sept. 17 — One thousand Navajos marched here on September 2 to protest both the latest racist attacks on their tribe members as well as memorializing past violence going back to 1974. On June 4, three white racists brutalized a Navajo man, William Blackie, 46, shouting racist slurs at him. Six days later a white cop killed a 21-year-old Navajo youth, Clint John. His family is filing a wrongful death suit against the cop, the police department and the city.

These attacks reflect widespread racism directed against Native Americans here for decades. In 1974, three white teenagers bludgeoned and burned three Navajo men to death and were "sentenced" to reform school. Four years later, Duane Yazzue, president of the Shiprock chapter of the Navajo Nation, was shot by a white hitchhiker and lost an eye. In 2000, two white racists bludgeoned a 36-year-old Navajo woman to death. George Arthur, a Navajo Nation delegate, was beaten by racist white youths who tried to set him on fire. No one was charged in the attack.

Mr. Yazzie said many other crimes against Navajos went unreported. Mr. Arthur said, "We can tolerate certain aspects of life. But not when it comes to our dignity." (NY Times, 9/17)

While the Navajo Nation has sought federal government help in prosecuting these racists, the fact that the attacks continue unabated indicates that looking to a racist government that kills millions of black, brown, Latino and Asian people won’t end the racism against Native Americans. Only ending capitalism, the source of this racism, will do the job.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, September 20, 2006

Information: 20 September 2006 118 hits

PLP’ers Lead Confrontation vs. Racist Minutemen; Upstage Liberals

Imperialists’ Fierce Rivalry Leading to: World War III

PATCO Firings Marked Massive AFL-CIO Scabbing

When Wages Fall and Profits Rise, It's Capitalism

Class Struggle Amid Growing Fascism in Oaxaca Strike

LA Workers Oust Racist and Attack Mayor's War Agenda

Racist Bosses Turn Katrina into Fascist Carnage

Workers and Youth Ante Up, Now Need Revolutionary Politics

Workers Have Militant Anti-Racist History

U.S. Rulers' Education 'Reform Part of Plan for World Domination

The 'Cap and Gown' Road to War

There's No Ford in These Workers' Future

LETTERS

Pro-Boss Union Hacks Help Dump 3,500 Workers

Airport Workers Back Oaxaca Strikers

Evil, Yes; Lesser, No

Reforms Won't Beat Fascism, Only Reds Will

Trial by Fury Hits Bosses’ Courts

A Worker’s Questions Sparks A Communist Response

Hundreds of Millions, Not 'Great Men,' Created Science

Bosses Plot to Gain Workers Support for Bigger Wars

Detroit And Gary Teachers Strike Against Racist War Budgets

Redeye on the News

Lebanon: part of U.S. war plan for Iran
Israel cluster-bombs just before truce
Phony unions for China’s Wal-Marts
9/11 Motive was U.S. policy, not religion
Iranians know U.S. is no liberator
Capitalist China texts: No class struggle!

PLP’ers Lead Confrontation vs. Racist Minutemen; Upstage Liberals

MAYWOOD, CA., Aug. 27 — The cry "Queremos un mundo sin fronteras" ("We want a world without borders") rang out as hundreds confronted the racist Minutemen when they appeared in a nearby town whose residents are overwhelmingly working-class Latinos. The racist group’s intent, protected by the cops, was to "punish" the small city for a recent declaration made by its liberal mayor that his town should be seen as a "sanctuary" for immigrants.

A protest countering the Minutemen drew several hundred community residents. The mayor decided to stage an event at a nearby local church, to take place at the same time as the protest, calling for "peace and unity" and encouraging residents to register to vote.

PLP helped lead the fight against the racists, sparking anti-racist chants and sharing our bullhorn with residents who were clearly outraged at the Minutemen. When some Minutemen tried to break through the crowd of anti-racists, PLP led the charge in confronting the racists.

To keep workers from militantly protesting, liberals tried to lure residents to the mayor’s church event, a "Citizenship Fair." A priest from there showed up at the anti-racist protest chanting "unity, unity…" in Spanish, calling on demonstrators to go back to the church.

A group of youth who apparently had come from playing soccer seemed unsure of what to do. A PLP comrade confronted the priest, declaring that we needed to militantly confront the Minutemen. The soccer players decided to stay. A group of students chanted, "No basta resar, hay que luchar!" ("It’s not enough to pray; we have to fight!"). Most of crowd took up the chant. The priest, having failed, left.

Eventually, the mayor himself appeared with a huge sound system to appeal to the protestors. Once again a comrade confronted him with a speech about how liberal members of the ruling class promise citizenship in exchange for an indentured servitude-type "guest worker" program and loyalty to the U.S. imperial agenda.

A student cited the importance of confronting the racists on our streets and not being fooled by liberal immigration "reforms" that Democrats, unions, and churches propose as solutions. These "reforms" aim to swell the military’s ranks with immigrant youth for U.S. imperialism’s future oil wars, while also creating a vast pool of loyal slave labor for the bosses’ factories. Many booed the mayor; others waved at him to leave.

Some nationalists raised the Mexican flag on the Post Office flagpole, trying to raise a cheer. A comrade noted that the Mexican flag represents racism, exploitation and capitalism. Some anti-racists attacked the flag-raising as support for the murderous Mexican government. Behind the chant, "Abajo Banderas, Afuera Fronteras!" ("Down with Flags, Away with Borders!"), workers and students fought these nationalist ideas, saying that workers only need the red flag of the international working class.

A small group of Mexican nationalists attacked that chant and tried to silence the bullhorn but the students stood their ground and the nationalists backed off. A comrade’s speech pointed to the Minutemen’s U.S. flag as the flag of U.S. imperialism, while the Mexican flag represented the interests of the Mexican bosses who are killing teachers and their supporters in the mass struggle in Oaxaca. All bosses’ flags stand for racism and exploitation. Only the red flag represents the working class worldwide in its fight for liberation from capitalism.

Militantly participating in the fight against anti-immigrant racism provides the opportunity to build revolutionary class-consciousness, teaching us to rely only on ourselves and our working-class brothers and sisters to fight for our interests, not on our most dangerous enemies — liberal politicians and nationalists.

At this demonstration the strength and importance of PL’s leadership was clear. Had we not been there with the workers, many would have been swayed to go to the church. A close friend said, "Where else, and from whom, are workers going to hear these ideas?" Fighting the nationalists deepens the understanding of our friends that we need workers’ internationalism and communist revolution.

Imperialists’ Fierce Rivalry Leading to: World War III

"Combustible fault lines [that] could trigger a third World War" are deepening throughout the Middle East warns Richard Holbrooke, a leading liberal U.S. strategist. (Council on Foreign Relations — CFR — website, 8/31) Regional feuds embroiling Syria and Lebanon, Lebanon and Israel, Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan and Afghanistan and Pakistan could spark global conflict "like Serbian Gavrilo Princip’s bullet in 1914," says Holbrooke. [The trigger for World War I]

The Dialectics Of ‘Necessity And Chance’

A devoted servant of U.S. imperialism, Holbrooke helped plan Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Vietnam genocide and Clinton’s bombing of Bosnia and Kosovo. But this dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, who once ran Wall Street’s Lehman Brothers investment house, unwittingly provides a Marxist dialectics lesson on necessity and chance. In this case, the necessity is that, to maximize profits, various sets of capitalists organized as nations must compete for the world’s resources, markets and labor. This competition, as Lenin pointed out, inevitably leads to war, eventually to world war. "Chance" represents the many different possibilities for war. The U.S. is on one collision course with China over oil and on another with Russia over dominance in Europe. We can’t predict precisely when, how, or where WW III will erupt. Its form and timing depend on a host of contingencies. We can, however, examine the forces at play and identify possible flashpoints.

Iran Now Chief Regional Threat To U.S. Oil Control

The U.S. vs. China and the U.S. vs. an alliance of Russia and Europe appear the most likely scenarios. All these bosses have vast military potential and increasingly clashing geopolitical interests. Fault lines are emerging in the Middle East, where the U.S. has an inexorable need to maintain a chokehold on oil supplies. As far back as 1992, Bernard Lewis, a Princeton-based "adviser to presidents," wrote that the U.S.’s main strategic goal was "to prevent the emergence...of a single regional power that could dominate the area and thus establish monopolistic control of Middle Eastern oil." (Foreign Affairs; Fall, 1992). The U.S. invaded Iraq twice when Saddam Hussein threatened to become the dominant local power in the Persian Gulf. Now the chief regional threat comes from Iran, which has close ties to both China and Russia. China, with its rampant energy thirst, has negotiated multi-billion-dollar gas deals with Iran. Russia is boosting Iran’s anti-U.S. influence by helping build its nuclear reactors, thus greasing its weapons program.

To the benefit of China and Russia, Iran is winning prestige well beyond its borders. Iranian-backed Hezbollah fundamentalists — another group of aspiring bosses — hold sway over much of Lebanon, after the bloody Israeli-U.S. attempt to crush them failed. As for Iraq, because of Bush’s bungled occupation, "Iran has now superseded the U.S. as the most influential power there." (Chatham House, August 2006) Saudi Arabia, home to the world’s greatest oil reserves, is also becoming a hot spot in the rivalry. China gets most of its oil imports from Saudi Arabia, which has long been the private preserve of U.S. companies. For now, Saudi crude reaches China without U.S. Navy interference. But tensions will soon heighten when China launches its own blue-water fleet.

Russia-Europe Alliance Blossoming

Bosses in Western Europe are rapidly tilting away from the U.S. In keeping with Putin’s policy of strategic business deals, Russia just bought a big chunk of European arms giant EADS, which owns Boeing-Lockheed rival Airbus. The Times of London (8/30) understatedly cautions, "The prospect of a Russian state interest in Europe’s biggest aerospace group may make the Pentagon pause before placing orders. Russia is no longer a Cold War adversary, but neither is it seen as a wholly reliable or benign ally....Russia still presents a formidable challenge to the West: its arms sales to the developing world are huge and of crucial importance in volatile areas such as the Middle East."

In the energy sector, "Europe is clamouring to become ever more dependent on Russian gas. A new pipeline will run from close to St. Petersburg along the Baltic seabed to Germany." (London Times, 9/3) Defying U.S. interests, France hopes to become China’s top fuel broker. The French firm Total holds contracts to develop Iran’s enormous South Pars oil and gas fields.

Imperialists Will Start World War Iii....

All the conditions for World War III are not yet in place. China’s and Russia’s outmoded militaries are at the moment no match for the U.S. war machine. But an infusion of European technology could quickly change that equation. We cannot pinpoint the act of war, as CFR planner Ted Carpenter did in "America’s Coming War with China" ("a Chinese submarine attack" on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Taiwan Strait on June 2, 2013). Korea, the Caspian region and the Mid-East are just as probable. But we can say with deadly certainty that imperialist rivalry, inherent in the profit system, slaughtered hundreds of millions in the 20th Century and stands to outdo that horror in the 21st.

...Communist Soldiers And Workers Can Finish It

Ultimately, victory and defeat in war are determined not by technology but by politics, the motivation of those who do the actual fighting. The main ideas motivating soldiers in all armed struggles today are reactionary and anti-working-class: racism, nationalism and religion. This situation will not last. As the horrors of imperialist carnage increase, opportunities will increase for our Party to win workers, soldiers, and sailors to revolutionary communism, the only outlook worth fighting for.

PATCO Firings Marked Massive AFL-CIO Scabbing

August 5, 1981, marked somewhat of a turning point in the modern U.S. labor movement. On that day President Ronald Reagan fired 11,355 air controllers who had struck two days earlier and defied his 48-hour back-to-work ultimatum. The workers, members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), driven by inhuman hours and working conditions, were demanding shorter hours, increased work staff and wage hikes. Ironically, PATCO was one of only two unions that had endorsed Reagan in the 1980 elections. Their "reward"? Permanent dismissal, blacklisting, seizure of the union treasury and union decertification. Four leaders were jailed, convicted of felonies — striking against the government — fined and stripped of their civil rights. So much for "democracy" and a "friend in the White House."

Ten thousand military air controllers were hired to replace them (only 846 were allowed to return).

Such a fascist attack could not have happened without the complete cooperation of the sellouts that ran the AFL-CIO. Had the pilots, mechanics, baggage handlers and flight attendants refused to cross the PATCO picket lines, the entire airline industry would have been shut tight, and it wouldn’t have been so easy for Reagan to get 150,000 workers to replace them.

But at the very moment that Reagan was announcing the firing, United Auto Workers union president Douglas Fraser, at the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Chicago, was denouncing the strike, declaring that "it could do massive damage to the labor movement." (This was the same Fraser that used 1,000 goons, many of them KKK members from UAW Local 22, to bust the first sit-down strike in auto since the 1930’s when in 1973 PLP led a shutdown of Chrysler’s Detroit Mack Avenue plant over safety issues.)

What did do "massive damage" was these labor fakers’ ordering all other airline workers to cross the PATCO picket lines. One month later, 500,000 U.S. workers descended on Washington in a Solidarity Day demonstration, but the AFL-CIO "leaders" had already given their definition of "solidarity" by helping Reagan crush this strike.

Prior to this, workers who crossed picket lines were universally labeled scabs. Now the term "replacement worker" came into fashion. Instead of fighting this strike-breaking maneuver, the labor "leaders" sought — unsuccessfully — to get Democratic-controlled Congresses to ban it. So much for relying on "friends" in Washington.

While this class collaboration had been preceded by mass layoffs resulting from the attack on NYC workers in the 1975 "fiscal crisis" — under Democratic Mayor Abe Beame, and later the Democratic president Carter’s government bailout of Chrysler — the 1981 strike-breaking of PATCO marked an even more decisive turn down the road of mass layoffs, huge pay cuts, billions in concessions in auto, steel and other basic industries, and destruction of social welfare programs. This continues now with the layoffs and pay cuts at GM, Ford and Delphi.

From 1950 to 1980, major strikes averaged 300 per year. Since 1980 that average has sunk to 46. In 1955, the AFL-CIO had 15 million members; now it has only 6 million. Only 7.8% of private sector workers are in unions now, the lowest percentage in 105 years.

The U.S. ruling class faces a crisis at home and abroad. Internationally, China is becoming a leading threat to U.S. imperialism, while the latter’s drive to control Middle East oil supplies — necessary for its world domination — are leading it into the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan, killing tens of thousands of workers along the way, not to mention those of working-class GI’s.

Corporations that must seek maximum profits to compete with their rivals cannot but help grind down the working class on behalf of the bosses’ "bottom line," and their labor lieutenants are greasing their path. By defending the capitalist profit system in an era of growing fascism, these labor misleaders must inevitably sell out the working class. There’s no more room for even temporary reforms. So the PATCO strike-breaking ushered in an intense attack on the entire working class.

Now the bosses are increasingly super-exploiting immigrant workers as well as using them as cannon fodder for their troop-short imperialist armies. But a labor "leadership" saturated for decades with racism — not having fought the mass layoffs in the basic industries in which the bulk of the victims were the "last-hired" black workers — is in no position to win the rank and file to fight anti-immigrant racism.

The after-effects of the PATCO strike-breaking and the class collaboration of the labor misleaders cry out for anti-racist red leadership of the working class. Militant and class conscious workers should join PLP to lead this fight against the bosses. We must up the ante of class struggle beyond the level of reforms — which, if forced to grant, the bosses can use their state power to always take away, as with PATCO. We must turn these struggles into schools for communism, winning workers to understand that only a communist revolution can solve this eternal problem of being on the losing side of the never-ending treadmill of capitalism.

When Wages Fall and Profits Rise, It's Capitalism

The way the capitalist economy functions never fails to prove what Karl Marx, the founder of communism, discovered over a century ago and what every worker knows in her or his gut: the capitalist class’s profits come from the working class’s labors. The latest figures (all quotes from NY Times, 8/28) clearly demonstrate this and show how capitalism is divided into two classes: workers and those who profit from them. They also show how the bosses continually drive workers’ wages down to increase their profits. Consider:

• "Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product [GDP] since…1947" when the government first started compiling this data. Meanwhile, "corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s," producing "the golden era of profitability," according to the UBS investment bank.

• "The most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor’s share of national income," says Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs’ economists.

• Since 2001, the "growing share of the economy to go to companies instead of workers’ paychecks" has cost the working class $660 BILLION, stolen by the bosses directly from workers’ labors.

The Times reports that the U.S. is in "the first sustained period of growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers." Why? Because as hourly wages for U.S. workers have decreased since 2003, "productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour…— has risen steadily over the same period." In other words, workers are working harder for lower wages, so — surprise — profits are skyrocketing.

On top of this is capitalism’s racism which produces super-profits for the bosses by paying black and Latino workers even less, lowering all workers’ wages — a condition which the pro-capitalist union hacks help to maintain by their defense of the profit system.

In a clear description of the existence of two antagonistic classes, the Times quotes political analyst Charles Cook as pointing to "two economies out there…" He says that one of these economies serves "the people who have benefited from globalization,…greater productivity and higher corporate earnings."

"And then there’s the working stiffs who just don’t feel they’re getting ahead despite the fact that they’re working very hard. And there are a lot more people in that group than the other group."

As Marx pointed out, when workers put in 8 hours on the job, the value produced in the first few hours covers their wages; the rest of the shift produces profits for the boss. The harder the boss can force the worker to work, and therefore the more value the worker produces, the less time it takes for the worker to produce the value of his or her wage and therefore the more value (profit) goes into the boss’s pocket. Marx called this the surplus value produced by the workers for the bosses.

As the bosses find themselves hard-pressed to pay out $8 billion a month to carry out their war in Iraq and protect their control of oil supplies in the Middle East, the tighter the squeeze they are driven to force upon workers at home (not to mention the more workers, Iraqis and GI’s, they kill in the process).

The only solution is a society with ONE class, the class that produces all value, the working class. When the working class controls what value they produce and how they produce it, we will be able to distribute resources according to need instead of allowing a small group to steal the value produced by our sweat. When workers control production they will be able to make decisions based on the common good, rather than on constantly increasing profits in the face of competition. That’s communism. Only revolution can eliminate the horrors of capitalist exploitation and endless imperialist wars. Join PLP and fight for it.

Class Struggle Amid Growing Fascism in Oaxaca Strike

Oaxaca, Mexico-Sept 2006-The three month old teachers' strike by Section 22 of the Education Workers' Union (SNTE) has become a mass movement against the cuts in the schools, demanding the resignation of the PRI governor. Hundreds of thousands are supporting the70, 000 teachers and other school workers who went on strike to demand a wage increase and better conditions for the students. Section 22 of the SNTE has been the most militant and active section of the Mexican Teachers' Union for many years.

After the defeat of the police forces sent by the fascist Governor of Oaxaca Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO) to remove the strikers and their supporters from the Central Plaza, on June 14, organizations of farm workers, housewives, university students, the Front of Democratic Unions of Oaxaca (FSODO) and workers in general, repudiating the repression and angry at the injustice of the capitalist system, joined in solidarity with the teachers' struggle, forming a collation to lead the struggle, called the Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People (APPO).

In demanding higher wages for the teachers, better schools for the students, and the resignation of the Governor of Oaxaca, workers, students, and farm workers have basically taken over the city, including temporarily controlling several radio stations. Government offices are not functioning, the tourist center of the city has been converted into an encampment where thousands of teachers and their supporters are camped out. Many businesses, hotels, and restaurants are closed. In the city of Oaxaca there are burned out cars, streets blocked with rocks or burning tires. Police and paramilitary units have killed workers in the darkness of the night. This isn't Beirut or Baghdad. It's Oaxaca.

In the face of a series of actions carried out by the teachers and popular movement, the bosses and the PRI state governor have implemented a Machiavellian plan in the style of the Mexican and South American dictators from the 1960's and 1970's. Since their plan for massive repression temporarily failed, beginning on August 6 they began to implement a fascist "dirty war", selective repression, a "witch hunt", kidnapping and jailing leaders, indiscriminate assassinations, physiological harassment and persecution of the activists using paramilitaries in civilian clothes, delinquents freed from prison, and different agents in their service, using the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) for brutal mass repression .

At stake in this struggle are not only the reform demands of the teachers and other workers, but also involved is the fight among the Mexican bosses and the imperialists over the privatization of PEMEX vs. nationalist Mexican bosses controlling some of these oil profits; control of electrical energy (CFE), education, water, the historical centers, and how to put into effect the Plan Puebla Panama. All the bosses electoral parties, the PRI, PRD, and PAN, are directly or indirectly involved in this struggle.

The class struggle is sharpening in Oaxaca and throughout Mexico. The big bosses along with opportunist politicians are lining up with one side or another depending on their interests. The fascist federal government, led by Vicente Fox and his gang, have not wanted to openly participate in the repression or any solution to the problem in Oaxaca, as they government did in the mines of Michoacán. The PRI Governor tried to involve the fascist PAN government by inventing the lie that guerilla groups were involved in this struggle, but the Federal representatives immediately said that there was no proof of this and that this was a state wide teachers' problem. The PAN has thus far refused to save the unpopular PRI's fortunes in Oaxaca.

The current demands for the resignation of the PRI Governor and to improve the schools leaves the capitalist system in tact, with its brutal exploitation, repression and racism, deepening through all of Mexico. The working class of Oaxaca has gotten a taste of the potential power in its grasp. Limiting the struggle to reform capitalism allows the fascist state to continue to exploit and hunt down workers. Capitalism is the cause of the problems of the oppressed and exploited working class, the class of the teachers and all the workers.

PLP's role in this struggle is to show workers that the current struggle among the bosses over the control of the wealth created by the working class can and must be converted into a workers' struggle for power through the long term fight for communism. The workers of Oaxaca are among those in the forefront of the fight against the imperialist bosses. With modest steps in pointing out the workers' potential to take power and run society in our own interests, PLP can help create the conditions for the workers to actually take power and build a communist society that can meet the needs of the working class. Our communist press, study groups and actions need to reach as many workers students and farm workers as possible.

Capitalism and imperialism have led the Oaxacan workers to fight against the bosses' inevitable attacks. The situation is full of potential. It's difficult but not impossible to build a mass revolutionary communist party of the working class capable of destroying the enemy, the whole capitalist system, For this the participation of all sectors of the working class is needed, along with international solidarity. The success or failure of the movement in Oaxaca should be seen in the advance of communist ideas and practice because that is the only way to guarantee the destruction of the real source of our problems, the system of capitalism and imperialism. We must build the PLP among all the workers of the world to bury all the oppressors and their murderous system in order to build the system that will meet the needs of our class: COMMUNISM.

PLP calls on all workers to organize support for the struggle in Oaxaca, condemning the attacks on the teachers and their supporters while showing that whether the resources of Mexico are in the hands of one set of national bosses or in the hands of another set of imperialists and their local accomplices, the working class loses. The road to victory lies in supporting the militant teachers and showing that the actions they have taken can be expanded, in the long run, to actions against the whole racist, imperialist capitalist system and to power to the working class!

LA Workers Oust Racist and Attack Mayor's War Agenda

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 23 — Over 3,000 city workers — members of the Engineers and Architects Assn. — held a two-day strike to demand higher wages and benefits. Mayor Villaraigosa "offered" between zero and 2% increases. The union leaders had no serious plan nor even tacit support from other LA unions.

But the dead-end tactics and politics of the union leaders are only part of the story. The other part is that many of these strikers eagerly took CHALLENGE and a PLP leaflet. They expressed anger at the supposedly "progressive" Mayor who is cutting all City services while spending more money on jails, surveillance, police and City Council salaries.

Many agreed that the Democrats, like Villaraigosa, are just as pro-war as the Republicans — with different tactics. Recently Villaraigosa spoke at an Israeli consulate rally, supporting that fascist government’s attack on the Lebanese people. Coupled with his support of the Iraqi war means Villaraigosa cannot support the workers of Los Angeles or anyplace else, no matter what his rhetoric.

Workers had a sign listing the Mayor’s crimes. Many agreed with PL’ers that his support of both wars is his biggest crime. Villaraigosa was co-chairman of Kerry’s 2004 platform committee for the Democratic National Committee when he helped ensure that nothing was said opposing the U.S. war in Iraq.

One woman picket was holding a racist sign stating that the Mayor has no money for City workers but plenty for "illegal aliens." A PL’er asked a striker why that sign was permitted. After looking for the picket captain, the striker, already angry about the sign, confronted the woman, telling her the sign was not welcome because it divided the workers. Another worker who was picketing yelled at the racist, "The workers are one class!" Other strikers joined in and took the racist sign from the woman.

A PL’er said the sign was also a lie. The source of the cuts isn’t immigrants — it’s the war, Homeland Security and the capitalist system. The worker who yelled at the racist said he used to read CHALLENGE 30 years ago and was glad to see it again. The strikers thanked the PL’ers and took papers.

Many of these strikers were born here while others are immigrants from around the world. They were all angry, very open to our communist newspaper and to discussing the source of the attacks on them — a good sign.

Racist Bosses Turn Katrina into Fascist Carnage

In the year since hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the bosses’ local, state and national governments have turned a capitalist disaster into a fascist outrage. That is the inherent result of a system based on racism and war. U.S. rulers have refused to commit the resources to rebuild New Orleans, but have concentrated on keeping most displaced workers in exile and harassing and attacking those who have courageously returned.

A year ago, working-class neighborhoods were flooded out when levees that had repeatedly been declared inadequate failed to stem the hurricane’s force. Workers were given 24 hours to evacuate. Those with no independent means of transportation were forced to stay behind and suffer without food, water and sanitary facilities. The bosses’ previous refusal to fund the reinforcement of levees (while billions were "found" for imperialist oil war in Iraq) led to this failure to meet the most basic needs of workers and turned a hurricane into an on-going disaster. That’s capitalism.

One year later the bosses continue to attack the workers here, refusing to allow the poorest, mostly black workers to move back into their communities. Residents of the Lafitte and Iberville Projects have had their windows and doors sealed with steel plates and caged in with a barbed-wire fence. Workers whose homes were destroyed by 20 feet of flood-water have been given unrealistic deadlines for houses to be repaired or else be bulldozed. These workers are deliberately being prevented from returning so that the bosses can replace workers’ houses with casinos and high-income homes and apartments, all to benefit real estate speculators.

Increased fascism is the major tactic for keeping workers out and terrorizing those looking to return. Jet fighters fly overhead during the day while police helicopters carry out surveillance at night. Military police harass workers. The Blackwater security force — the same thugs being used in Iraq — has been hired to protect the bosses’ private property in and around the Ninth Ward, making it clear that residents are not welcome to return. The bosses’ vicious response stems from their fear workers will revolt against racist exploitation. The face of fascism is ugly and clear in New Orleans!

Trying to defeat working-class unity, the bosses have introduced a "guest-labor" program, with immigrant workers brought in to work for as little as $18 a week. Black workers here lost homes and were denied adequate relief funds. Now the bosses won’t hire them at decent wages to rebuild their own city, another inevitable product of capitalism’s racism.

This fight for jobs has created a racist, hostile environment that the ruling class needs and wants. Most workers are treated like prisoners penned up in barbed-wire-fenced trailer parks with security checkpoints for poor black and white residents or concentration-camp-style housing for immigrant workers. These workers need multi-racial, revolutionary communist ideology to recognize that the bosses, not each other, are the real enemy.

The many organizations in the city helping residents gut homes and move back into their communities only seek to reform capitalism, not to replace it with a system without racism and exploitation. PLP’ers volunteered to gut houses as well, but we also discussed racism, sexism, imperialist war and class consciousness with local residents and other volunteers. All comrades who participated in the New Orleans Summer Project displayed great collective leadership and total dedication to the working class.

Hundreds of CHALLENGE-DESAFIOS were distributed to workers at the oil refinery, in the remaining housing projects and to the super-exploited day-laborers. Most who accepted the paper strongly agreed with what we had to say, stating that they’ve always known the capitalist system was the problem.

We will continue to raise communist ideas in this ravaged city because the bosses are nowhere near finished terrorizing its workers, anymore than they’re about to end their imperialist war in the Middle-East. The volunteers who’ve joined with workers trying to reclaim their homes are showing the selflessness that is the foundation of communist cooperation. We must seize on this example and on the workers’ anger and build a movement aimed at destroying this profit system that turned a hurricane into ongoing fascist oppression.

Workers and Youth Ante Up, Now Need Revolutionary Politics

While the media portrays young people and workers as cynical, uncaring, even violent, tens of thousands of young people and workers, multi-racial, women and men, volunteered to help their brothers and sisters in New Orleans who were uprooted by the devastating policies of capitalism. They devoted their time, sweat and tears to gutting and rebuilding homes. They didn’t do it for money or special treatment. They saw the abandoned ruins, the decay and the pain on workers’ faces. They showed that workers and youth care about their class.

But it cannot end with just volunteerism.

Capitalism cannot be changed and disaster awaits the working class because the ruling class’ main concern is profits and control of markets. Rebuilding houses is a band-aid on a bleeding wound that is killing our class. We need to develop a protracted struggle among workers and volunteers in New Orleans that includes: (1) Building class consciousness — the idea that we, black, Latin, Asian and white, are part of the exploited class of workers used by the international rulers; (2) Fighting racism and nationalism as the main ruling class tools to divide and conquer workers; (3) Winning workers to the communist Progressive Labor Party — an organization that mobilizes for a complete change of system, not built upon the exploitation of one class by another. Until then, any short-term victories our class manages to squeeze out of the bosses will be reversed. Participating in the class struggle, we can develop ideas and minds that will change the future.µ

Workers Have Militant Anti-Racist History

New Orleans workers have given our class some amazing stories of multi-racial working-class unity. In the fight to return and rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, much can be learned from this history.

An 1865 united strike of black and white waterfront workers terrified New Orleans’ bosses, who fought this unity with racism and violence. During the 1873 depression, Democrats called on New Orleans bosses to "give preference to white over black labor." Starting in 1877, hundreds of black workers in Louisiana were tortured and lynched by mobs instigated by white landlords and bosses.

In 1887 the Knights of Labor organized a strike of nearly 10,000 Louisiana sugar workers (90% black). The state militia fired on the strikers, murdering 30 and wounding hundreds.

Then in November 1892 the New Orleans waterfront again exploded when thousands of teamsters, packers, and scalemen — black and white — organized a "Triple Alliance" demanding union recognition. Following their lead, other workers also organized bi-racial unions — usually separate black and white locals working together. The more advanced locals were multi-racial. Twenty-five thousand other workers — from railway porters to musicians — joined in an eleven-day general strike, one of the largest in U.S. history.

The bosses’ furious race-baiting failed to break the strikers’ unity, but the strike ended under the threat of federal military intervention. The militant, but reformist, trade-union movement was not prepared to confront the bosses’ state power. And the cotton union leaders (black and white) became the bosses’ junior partners. They refused to shut down this key economic sector, crippling the general strike and sending it down to defeat. Workers bitterly denounced this treachery, but in the absence of anti-capitalist political leadership they were unable to respond effectively.

New Orleans workers were also sidetracked by the Populist Party’s electoral politics. Initially challenging both Democrats and Republicans at the polls with an interracial alliance of workers and farmers, the Populists soon decided to ally with the "lesser-evil" Republicans and quickly caved in to racism.

Thus, in the mid-1890’s, the bosses used racism to divide and then smash the dockworkers’ unions. They provoked white workers into an anti-black strike, then imposed wage-cuts and work-rule changes that hurt white workers as well as black. Meanwhile, Homer Plessy’s brave effort to desegregate New Orleans streetcars was crushed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson which said that the U.S. Constitution permitted segregation. Another terrible racist riot in 1900 took a large toll among black workers.

Still, by 1902, the cotton unions had begun to rebuild interracial unity around demands that guaranteed a significant proportion of jobs for black workers, though the rules still favored whites.

When the interracial Brewery Workers Union was expelled from the openly racist AFL in 1907 they struck. Black waterfront locals supported them, along with some white labor delegates. Later that year, black and white workers together shut down the entire port for three weeks, winning many of their reform demands.

(Next issue: the emergence of the Industrial Workers of the World.)

U.S. Rulers' Education 'Reform Part of Plan for World Domination

(The previous article - August 2 - detailed the ruling class's liberal wing's division of labor among its various foundations, assigning specific aspects of "reforming" education directed at winning working-class parents to support its imperialist goals. These aspects include: training superintendents, senior administrators, teachers, school board members, parent groups, etc. The foundation sponsors and member include Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, GE, IBM and the presidents of the two teacher unions.)

The last time U.S. capitalism donned an anti-racist mask was to launch the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s, spurred by their rivalry with the Soviet Union. The masses in newly-independent African countries hated South Africa’s apartheid, which they identified as a step-child of Jim Crow segregation in the southern U.S. Consequently, U.S. rulers found themselves becoming isolated in areas like the United Nations while their Soviet rival reaped the benefits.

U.S. rulers responded with President Truman’s order to end segregation in the Army and court decisions "declaring" the end of public school segregation. Once this integration movement was released, however, the anti-racist anger of black workers took hold and through "ghetto" rebellions, anti-racist militancy and strikes — in the Army and in industry — the entire working class began flexing its muscles.

Forced to retreat somewhat, the capitalists re-grouped and then counter-attacked. Drugs and mass incarceration became their favored weapons, as U.S. rulers marched to their customary racist rhythm. The defeat of slavery had been followed by lynching and Jim Crow segregation. Now Jim Crow was replaced by mass imprisonment. A 1994 report titled "Cellblocks to Classrooms" noted, "...Society now spends about $2.8 billion to higher educate black males and $10 billion to lock them up."

Now this same capitalist class wants to drastically alter this trend. Driven by their bid to retain world "primacy" (as defined by the Rockefeller Council on Foreign Relations), they’ve taken direct control of K-12 education. A July 30th Los Angeles Times article calls Bill Gates "the nation’s superintendent of schools!" It points out that "with the ability to handle more than $1 billion [every year]... the Gates Foundation looms larger than even the U.S. Department of Education, which by comparison, has only $20 million in truly discretionary funds."

Bill Gates is no Lone Ranger. The education takeover is part of a deliberate ruling-class action involving co-coordinated foundation grants, major corporate sponsorship and armed forces representatives (retired generals, admirals and so on). Its urgency hints at the desperation the leaders of U.S. imperialism sense about the world. On the one hand, they want to reverse the sharpening trade wars, which they’re currently losing; on the other, they need to strengthen their military capabilities for the series of wars they project as necessary to maintain their "primacy" in Eurasia and that may well lead to world war.

In 2005, New York University issued an education report (funded by the Rockefeller Foundation) titled "With All Deliberate Speed." "According to the National Center on Education and the Economy," the report claimed, "by 2020, the US will need 14 million more college-trained workers than it will produce. Nowhere is college participation lower than among African-Americans and Hispanic youth; nowhere is the potential to meet our nation’s needs for college graduates greater."

It continues: "If this nation is to defend its long-term vital interests, [they call it world "primacy"; we say "world domination" — Ed.] we will continue to need a large pool of well-educated people who wish to volunteer [especially if college debts will be forgiven? — Ed.] to serve their country. Yet each year 1.2 million of our students do not graduate from high school, the majority of whom are minority [black and Latin—ed.]. If this dropout rate continues unabated over the next ten years, a total of twelve million young people in America will be unable to serve in our armed forces."

It’s clear: black and Latino college graduates are vital. The report continues: "The racial fragmentation of the American military in the Vietnam era had a profound impact on our nation’s military leaders. As a result our military leaders have made a deliberate commitment in the past 30 years to create a diverse officer corps that is of the highest standards."

The generals may understand that racism is the Achilles’ heel of U.S. imperialism, but affirmative action in their officer corps won’t fix their problem. Anti-racism springs from a deep commitment to value and respect of all workers internationally. Imperialist armies inevitably march to destroy and subjugate the masses. Imperialist armies can’t fly the flag of anti-racism with any conviction for long. They didn’t in Vietnam, in Grenada or in Panama and they certainly aren’t flying it in the Middle East.

On the other hand, communists champion both the education of the working class (workers can rule society) and the necessity to fight racism — without the unity of the world’s workers we are nothing. Furthermore, whenever U.S. capitalists have donned anti-racist masks they have unleashed forces they’re unable to control.

In the coming political storms we can expect new opportunities to advance the fight for communist revolution, especially among our youth. The generals might count on an extra twelve million young people "to serve in their [imperialist] armed forces"; we’ll bet on recruiting an extra twelve million young people "to serve the working class" and build a new communist revolutionary movement.

The 'Cap and Gown' Road to War

Because capitalist wars are prepared in secret, it’s easy to mis-read think-tank reports. When "With All Deliberate Speed" refers to U.S. industries projected need for 14 million college-trained workers by 2020, it conjures up more or less innocent images of commerce, trade and manufacturing. Coupled, however, with the International Association of Machinists' (IAM) Surge Report, it reveals the present K-12 education reforms as really war preparations.

"To President Franklin D. Roosevelt," the IAM report begins, "surge meant a ‘swift and driving increase in our armament production.’" The report then outlines how the U.S.’s shrinking industrial base threatens its capabilities to meet military surge requirements:

• One-third of the bullets used in Afghanistan and Iran are made overseas.

• The U.S. can no longer manufacture main battle tanks.

• The tungsten used in M-16 bullets can be found only in China.

• The Swiss government recently refused to sell component parts to Honeywell because the Swiss did not agree with the U.S. military stance in Iraq.

Anyone wanting more details should Google IAMSurge. The point is, it’s fatally easy to mis-read the deadly war intentions of U.S. imperialism.

There's No Ford in These Workers' Future

DETROIT, MI, August 18 — "You just have the feeling that all the air is going out of all four tires as well as the spare. You’re in a time of discontinuity and a sea change is at hand," said James P. Womack, co-founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute. He was responding to Ford’s slashing production by one-fifth for the final three months of the year, the deepest cuts since th 1980’s.

Ten plants in the U.S. and Canada will close temporarily, affecting supplier plants and other auto-related businesses. Ford workers who have transferred to new plants from the recently closed St. Louis assembly plant are getting a chilling feeling of déjà vu. With rising gas prices, more than half the cuts will come from the F-series pick-up truck, which constitutes almost one-third of Ford’s sales.

The production cuts come as Ford, GM and the UAW are eliminating over 60,000 jobs, closing more than two dozen plants and cutting billions of dollars in costs. Ford has already lost $1.5 billion this year. In July, Toyota passed Ford in monthly sales for the first time, to become the No. 2 auto company in the U.S. market (Ford is still ahead for the year). GM and Ford’s combined U.S. market share sank to an all-time low, 52%, while Asian companies took 42%, their biggest share ever. Chrysler sales slid 37% from last year and GM sales dropped by 22%.

Mark Fields, president of Ford’s Americas group, said the battle for the U.S. market is now among the

Global Six; GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Currently U.S. bosses are retreating while Asian bosses take the offensive. Tens of thousands of autoworkers are being given a check and then thrown overboard by the UAW to keep the U.S. bosses afloat. If they survive the fall they’ll find themselves standing on line with thousands more for $10-an-hour jobs.

Ultimately, the inter-imperialist rivalry for markets, resources and cheap labor can only be resolved through world war. The bosses must rely on the very workers they are brutally attacking to pull this off. That is the contradiction they cannot resolve. But we can. We can’t stop the fascist bloodletting of jobs and healthcare, but we can consolidate and expand a base for PLP among auto workers. We can unite with workers in supplier plants, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, VW and more, here and worldwide.

The auto bosses’ global rivalry has brought the international working class much closer together. Steeled in struggle and building a mass base for CHALLENGE and PLP will prepare the leadership for workers to take power with communist revolution.

LETTERS

Pro-Boss Union Hacks Help Dump 3,500 Workers

SABMiller, the German-based company operating in 40 countries acquired Bavaria Brewery, intensifying the attacks against the workers that had begun when Bavaria was solely owned by the multi-millionaire Santo Domingo family. It has pushed through a rotten contract because the sellout union leaders’ passivity enabled the bosses to take advantage of the lack of a real union. Mass layoffs, unjustified sanctions against workers and ideological pressure led to constant persecution of the workers.

The union’s executive committee did everything possible to curtail any workers’ fight-back, leaving them at the mercy of company fascism. The hacks sold their souls for a few crumbs for themselves, including loans from Bavaria, for their cooperation. According to rank-and-filers, one hack even got a commission for every sold-out worker! Now the company is trying to decertify the union altogether.

Workers are paying dearly after years of producing profits for Bavaria. One worker with cancer of the eye was fired and now has no pension. Other workers suffer horrible conditions until the company decides they’re no longer needed. Meanwhile, the judicial system completely supports Bavaria — 95% of all cases brought to the labor court are settled in the bosses’ favor, bankrupting the losing workers.

Again, the bosses’ state serves the capitalists, not the workers. Workers can expect only state terror in this bosses’ dictatorship. Over several years, 3,500 Bavaria workers have lost their jobs through the collaboration among the company, their lawyers and judges and the union hacks. We’re now part of the army of the unemployed, without a regular wage, forced to become street vendors to try to make ends meet. Many of these workers have died of heart attacks and even committed suicide, leaving families in total misery.

That is what capitalism has brought to hundreds of millions of workers worldwide in this age of endless wars and growing fascism. The billions Clinton and Bush sent to the Colombian army and government to fight "narco-trafficking" have been used to attack workers. More drugs are produced now in Colombia than before Plan Colombia began in the mid-1990’s.

We in PLP are fighting the passivity and demoralization of many workers here. We’re using CHALLENGE-DESAFIO to bring them our communist politics, emphasizing the need to smash capitalism and struggle for a society without bosses — communism. That’s the road for workers to battle for their class interests and against all their tormentors.

Comrade in Colombia

Airport Workers Back Oaxaca Strikers

Revolutionary greetings from a group of airport workers in a major U.S. city. Because of fascist Homeland Security we cannot say where we work. We’re from the US, Mexico, Central America and Africa, readers and distributors of CHALLENGE, where we learned about your struggle. The news media makes no mention of your 70,000-teacher strike, or the 300,000 supporters who have defended the movement against the police. They purposely black out the largest strike in North America because they fear the example you might set for workers here.

We’re sad to hear of the police murder of our brothers and sisters. Many black and Latino families here have suffered at the hands of the police as well. You are all heroes for fighting back against the government and their killer cops.

At our airport, most of us are new CHALLENGE readers and learning about communism. We like many things in the paper and have some disagreements and many questions. But we urge you to seek out the PLP in Oaxaca. If anyone can help you, they can.

Your struggle is an inspiration to workers worldwide. We have sent a resolution to our union supporting your strike. Fight on brothers and sisters!

A Group of Airport Workers

Evil, Yes; Lesser, No

An editorial on the Sept. 6 CHALLENGE front page refers to "Vietnam War criminal Lyndon Johnson who ran against pro-war Barry Goldwater" in warning that "lesser-evil" liberals are many times even more dangerous than outright reactionaries.

In the 1964 presidential elections, the liberals were falling all over Democrat Johnson as the candidate who would "save" us from the Republican Goldwater’s "finger on the nuclear trigger." The Democrats ran an ad — since selected as the "best" political ad of all time — which first depicted two little 3-year-old toddlers holding hands while walking into a sun-drenched forest, followed by the scene of a huge atomic mushroom cloud. The implication was clear: vote for Johnson and our children’s future is secure; vote for Goldwater and all you’ll get is war.

Johnson won in a landslide, and what happened? The 16,000 "advisors" Kennedy had sent to Vietnam was upped to a half million by Johnson. Based on the Johnson administration’s "report" that North Vietnamese "gunboats" had attacked U.S. ships in the Tonkin Gulf off Vietnam’s coast, the so-called Tonkin Gulf resolution swept through Congress authorizing Johnson to launch all-out war against the Vietnamese. (Shades of Congressional authorization for Bush’s invasion of Iraq!) But as it later turned out, the Tonkin Gulf "incident" was an outright lie. There had never been any attack.

The upshot was nearly 10 years of war, three million Vietnamese killed, 58,000 dead U.S. soldiers, tens of thousands wounded, napalming of civilians, blatant massacres of Vietnamese women and children, carpet bombing of North Vietnam — U.S. aircraft dropped more bombs on Vietnam than were used in all of World War II! — Vietnamese forests "defoliated" by U.S. Agent Orange. For decades afterwards thousands of U.S. soldiers developed cancer and many died from the effects of Agent Orange, while thousands of their children were born deformed.

In April 1965, Johnson ordered over 30,000 Marines to invade the Dominican Republic when a popular uprising was aimed at toppling a corrupt murderous military Junta. In 1967, about to order the 82nd Airborne to Vietnam, instead Johnson ordered them to "invade" Detroit to crush an anti-racist rebellion against police terror.

Johnson did exactly what the liberals were warning Goldwater "would do" if he became president. So much for the fraudulent electoral "solution" of voting for the liberal "lesser evil."

Old-time PL’er who remembers

Reforms Won't Beat Fascism, Only Reds Will

In a discussion with some friends who believe in reforms I explained why I dismissed reformism and embraced revolutionary communism. I said I supported communism not only because it’s a better idea but also because in the absence of a communist revolution, fascist barbarism would prevail, inciting genocide against Jews and black workers. This is not a prophecy but a position based on the study of history.

I said the failure of a workers’ revolution in Germany had opened the door to Nazism. The fact that vendors at the Clearfield, Pa. County Fair had been selling KKK and Nazi items and that blatant racists were enlisting in the armed forces to receive military training for a race war in the U.S. shows these guys are dead serious. The only real way to defeat fascism was to build a mass communist movement. Forget about liberal-reformist peace rallies which accomplish nothing. Fascism is growing here. To deny it is to capitulate to it. I think they definitely were considering what I had to say.

Red Coal

Trial by Fury Hits Bosses’ Courts

"Getting arrested is the easy part," commented one of my co-defendants back in the summer of 2005. "The hard part is waging a struggle around the case." He was referring to the trial of three anti-racists who were declared not guilty for having defended the rights of immigrant day-laborers in Farmingville, NY. That victory taught some important lessons for myself and others.

First, we should always try to fight the bosses and their fascist court system. During the case, some people suggested that we take the easy way out by accepting a bad deal, which the District Attorney quickly withdrew. However we developed a defense committee, raised funds and brought the case up on our jobs, in our unions and other mass organizations, and among circles of friends and families. This seemed like a more difficult road to travel, but ultimately we saw it as the only way. Instead of building cynicism among the defendants and within PLP, we learned about expanding limits and turning a bad thing (getting arrested) into a good thing — winning our friends and co-workers to fight against fascism, using the strength of the collective.

This trial is just one example of the increased ruling-class intimidation of the working class. Being fearful means understanding how hard the bosses will fight to preserve their system. However, surrendering to this fear is our worst enemy. Taking the offensive meant confronting our fears and helping to lead the Progressive Labor Party and our friends and families. There was nothing like being a co-defendant and witnessing, day after day, a courtroom filled with comrades, friends and family members (not to mention those waiting in the hallway for the next available seat). It takes a lot of people in many different places, working collectively, to develop such consistency.

Finally, we never know who we'll meet as we fight and reach out to the working class. A previous CHALLENGE article mentioned someone from an immigrant rights group who urged us to keep up the fight because she understands that the attacks against immigrant workers will only get worse. Two weeks later she called to tell us that the Suffolk County Police Department had falsely arrested 21 immigrant workers affiliated with a local and very active immigrant rights organization. She invited us to a picnic which was very spirited; workers were cordial and sympathetic to our recent struggle. She introduced me as one of the co-defendants in the Farmingville case and explained, "We have a lot to learn from these guys." Some workers, including a NYC transit worker, took copies of CHALLENGE. We're looking forward to continuing the struggle against fascism and deepening our ties with workers everywhere.

Farmingville Defendant

A Worker’s Questions Sparks A Communist Response

After a long night in our noisy factory, my friend Sarah and I went to talk in a nearby restaurant. We’ve done this before, but this time was somewhat more advanced politically. Sarah had seen CHALLENGE and we’d talked about revolution and the difference between socialism and communism. I thought she knew what PLP was about, but actually she didn’t. While waiting for our food, she asked, "I know you said the Party has people around the world, but what exactly are you organizing for?"

Thinking before I spoke, I said we’re organizing for revolution but we’re not ready yet; we need more masses of workers won to the politics of communism. She thought this was a dream, but that didn’t stop her from more questions.

"So how does it work? Is there a leader? What do you guys do?" No co-worker had ever asked such questions so directly. Seizing the opportunity, I replied, "Being a Party member means something different for each individual, depending on their work and commitment. There are leaders, and Party decisions are made by discussions in clubs and committees throughout the party so that everyone is involved in developing our political outlook. We think it’s better to include everyone, rather than just listen to a few leaders."

"I feel kind of ignorant about these things," remarked Sarah. "I want to know more about your group. Do you think I have anything to offer to the Party?" Sarah teaches classes regularly in her church and has organized a system of rotations that started with no participation and is now at 80% in less than a year and a half, so her question surprised me. "Look at what you’ve done in your church," I said. "And remember the time we organized the shop to confront the manager last year? Most of those people would have never gone if I was the only one saying it. People respect you for your ideas and your actions."

"You know," she said, "I never thought of myself that way, but you’re right."

"Sarah," I went on, "a lot of people told me the people in our shop would never come together, but they did because we worked together." This led me to explain that we all have different skills and when we team up we can become a more effective force. One conversation won’t change her mind completely about revolution being a dream but something I told her seemed to make it slightly more attainable. "It’s like setting up one of our machines at work. It may seem impossible sometimes but when we have the right tools, a good plan and the help of a friend, then we can do what we thought we couldn’t."

This conversation with Sarah reflects the plan my club has been developing, starting with building relationships in our shops around communist ideas and CHALLENGE. We’re trying to develop ourselves as leaders so over time people like Sarah will come closer to the Party as friends, eventually join and then help develop others to take the same path. It’s important to find ways for our friends and recruits to play this role. They will discover skills they never thought they had and be encouraged to continue developing for future roles in organizing for PLP. Sarah is excited about our next event which we’re organizing together, providing lessons to be learned and gains made.

Next Sarah must be won to a "school" we’re organizing containing politics and teaching work skills. This will show her one way we work in the Party. A study group we’re planning after that can help develop her political understanding. To reach these goals I plan to continue to bring communist politics to the forefront of our daily struggle with her and others.

Hundreds of Millions, Not 'Great Men,' Created Science

Book Review: A People’s History of Science, by Clifford D. Conner, Nation Books, New York, 2005.

Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?

- Bertolt Brecht, "Questions From a Worker Who Reads"

Paying tribute to the history of world communism, PLP often says, "If we see this far, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants." This refers not only to the well-known individuals who founded our movement, but also to the tens of millions of unknown workers who fought for that movement. We stand on the shoulders of giants not only in the political arena, but in all areas of human knowledge, especially science. Communist theory developed from a scientific outlook, and most human progress depends on scientific discovery, so this is an important area to examine.

Conner describes this aspect of the history of science. Hundreds of millions of slaves, serfs and workers, over tens of thousands of years, who worked with both hands and brains, discovered and invented nearly everything that we take for granted today. They were craftsmen, artisans, engineers, toolmakers, blacksmiths, miners, peasants, sailors, midwives, healers, food gatherers, cooks, shepherds, and workers in literally thousands of other trades and professions.

Official science history says the "giants" are the "Great Men of Science" (virtually all said to be men) who worked mainly with their brains, and often on impractical projects. But the separation of manual and mental labor is a false notion created by ruling-class ideology. Everyone who works with their hands necessarily also works with their brains.

To their credit, some famous scientists, like Galileo, have acknowledged their debt to manual/brain laborers for the inventions and discoveries that formed the foundation of their own work (though most have claimed all the credit for themselves). However, science historians generally grant the intellectuals full credit for their incremental contributions, as though arising magically from isolated contemplation, and as though thousands could accomplish the task of hundreds of millions.

Conner guides us through practical work over the last several thousand years. Who, for example, invented the compass, printing press, spinning wheel, mechanical clock, suspension bridge, oil drilling techniques, steel, pottery, gunpowder, iron plow, ship rudder, agriculture, food preservation? Who discovered oxygen, algebra, decimal notation, navigation techniques? It was unnamed laborers, collectively, as this understanding was needed in their practical work. Yet particular — usually European — individuals are given the credit. Johann Gutenberg, for instance, is known as the inventor of the printing press. But movable type was invented over 400 years earlier, and the first iron printing press over 200 years earlier in China. In every case, Conner peels away the "great man" mythology to reveal realities of collective work by ordinary workers who helped create each famous discovery.

Prince Henry "the Navigator" of Portugal in the early 1400’s is credited with finding ways of exploring the world by sea, but he was a notorious thief of techniques and knowledge possessed only by sailors. His countryman, Ferdinand Magellan, in the early 1500’s, given credit for being the first person to sail around the world, relied on his navigator, a Filipino sailor named Enrique, whom he bought in a Malaysian slave market. And Magellan didn’t even complete the journey, killed by Enrique’s enraged allies in the Philippines when they arrived there. When the English captain James Cook explored the South Pacific in the 1700’s, he used Polynesian sailors who knew how to navigate to islands hundreds of miles away just by reading the wind, waves and ocean swells.

Conner also describes how the world’s ruling classes have controlled what science is allowed to develop and how those discoveries are used. Over the ages, these rulers have stolen from the working classes not only our labor and our dreams, but even our contributions to the understanding of the universe and our inventions that drive their profits. He shows clearly that the rulers could not survive without the workers. The (unintended) value of Conner’s work for revolutionaries is to help convince us, if we have any doubts, that the working class not only can run the world without the capitalists, but in fact has always created humanity’s advances behind the scenes.

Bosses Plot to Gain Workers Support for Bigger Wars

It’s not every day the bosses reveal their goals and strategy so clearly. The latest issue of Foreign Affairs, mouthpiece of the rulers’ premier think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), puts their cards on the table in a series of front-page articles. The ruling class must be worried about U.S. imperialism’s future.

In "What to Do In Iraq: A Roundtable," the magazine lays out big money’s strategy for the coming period. Five foreign policy heavyweights contribute, including Leslie Gelb, former New York Times international columnist and past CFR president. Each contributor presents his own tactics, but all favor some variation of strategic "redeployment": a tactical retreat from Iraq to regroup for bigger and bloodier wars to protect the U.S. bosses’ increasingly challenged grip on Mid-East oil.

"The Military’s Manpower Crisis" by Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute starts by bemoaning the short supply of infantry soldiers, but ends with a twist. After criticizing the administration for neglecting recruitment and retention of ground troops in favor of expensive "transformational" weapons systems, Kagan concludes: "but simply killing the transformational programs would be unwise." Beefing up recruitment and financing fancy new weapons will be expensive, but "…the absolute size of the defense budget, its percentage of the total U.S. budget, and its share of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] are ultimately irrelevant. What matters is whether or not the money is sufficient to pay for the kind of military the United States needs in order to prevail in current and future conflicts." "Current conflicts" refer to immediate needs in the Middle East; "future conflicts" include wars with what the Pentagon calls "near peer competitors," like China and Russia with tacit support from many European nations.

The foreign policy gurus vent their frustration with the Bush regime in "The End of the Bush Revolution." They note, "…The Bush doctrine has run up against reality and become unsustainable." But not before, "…squandering U.S. legitimacy, breaking the domestic bank, and getting the United States bogged down in an unsuccessful war." They are particularly concerned that, "Washington now lacks the reservoir of … domestic support to pursue other key national interests."

New Liberalism Modeled on Old Liberalism’s Anti-Communism

The front-page review of two books entitled "Authentically Liberal" by former U.N. representative Richard Holbrook offers a plan to regain this domestic support. Challenge already described how one, "The Good Fight" by Peter Beinart, advocates a new liberalism to develop a racist "warrior culture." Beinart and Holbrooke use the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), organized in 1947, as an organizational model to build this new liberal warrior culture.

"These liberal anti-communists [of the ADA] provided the seminal thinking and political muscle during the most creative period of U.S. foreign-policy making in history," writes Holbrooke. "In addition to [Senator, Vice-president and Presidential candidate] Humphrey, the ADA’s founding generation included Eleanor Roosevelt; [Kennedy administration historian and economist] Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. [and] John Kenneth Galbraith; [and] the great union leaders Walter Reuther and David Dubinsky…On domestic policy, members of the ADA were unabashed New Dealers…and on civil rights, they were well ahead of their time. But on foreign policy, the ADA members broke ranks declaring opposition to communism overseas, and its refusal to cooperate with communists at home. They altered American history and committed themselves to a new liberalism."

This "authentically liberal" plan reflects the bosses’ imminent need to move support for bigger wars and aggressive U.S. imperialism from think-tanks to mass organizations and broader political acceptance in the working class. (Next issue: the implications of this strategy).

Detroit And Gary Teachers Strike Against Racist War Budgets

DETROIT, MI, September 5 — As we go to press, the strike of 9,500 teachers and other school workers in the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) against the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) system is in its second week. "It's not just the money we're striking for," said a Central High English teacher. "We don't have supplies we need to educate the students."

Meanwhile, at the annual Labor Day Parade here, the AFL-CIO leaders turned their backs on the teachers, never once offering support for their strike. They turned the event into a campaign rally for the Democratic Party, whose two main Michigan politicians — Detroit’s Mayor Kilpatrick and the state’s Governor Granholm — threatened the teachers with a strike-breaking injunction and huge fines. The union hacks’ support for the Democrats puts them in head-on collision with the needs of the workers being victimized by those same Democrats.

The racist school bosses are demanding cuts of $88 million from teachers' salaries and benefits to cover a $105-million deficit. They rewarded administrators with raises and bonuses while DPS lost about 50,000 students over the last several years. The schools are in shambles while teachers dig into their own pockets to buy supplies and toilet paper for their students. According to the National Center of Education, Michigan graduated only 39% of black males during the 2003-2004 school year compared with 78% of white males. More than 80% of Detroit’s 129,000 students are black; two-thirds live below the poverty line.

Parents, Bus Drivers Back Gary Strikers

On September 1, more than 1,400 teachers and other school workers ended their one-week strike in Gary, Indiana. The school board vowed to break the strike, but parents supported the teachers and school bus drivers refused to cross the teachers’ picket lines.

Teachers have been without a contract since December 2004, and had not struck since 1984. There are 16,000 students in the district, down from 22,000 a decade ago. Like Detroit, the students are overwhelmingly black and live in poverty.

Gary and Detroit have both been decimated by the struggle among international steel and auto bosses for markets, resources and cheap labor. The students are the children and grandchildren of retired steel workers who’ve had their pensions and health care stripped away, and of laid-off auto workers who are lining up for $10-an-hour jobs with no benefits. The teachers, if not their union leaders, are clearly on the side of their students. A permanent war budget has written these students off. To the bosses, they are cannon fodder at best. (More next issue.)

Redeye On The News

Lebanon: part of U.S. war plan for Iran

According to a Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments, Israel has advised a plan for attacking Hezbollah — and shared it with Bush Adminstration officials well before the July 25th kidnappings….

"The White House was more focused on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel."

"The Israelis tolds us it would be a cheap war with many benefits," a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. "Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran." (New Yorker, 8/21)

Israel cluster-bombs just before truce

The United Nations yesterday described as "shocking and immoral" the fact that Israel dropped over 90 per cent of its cluster munitions in Lebanon during the last three days of the conflict – when it was already clear there would be a cessation of hostilities….

102,000 unexploded small bombs continued to maim and kill people every day.

"Civilians will die disproportionately again, after the war….It’s an outrage." (FT, 8/31)

Phony unions for China’s Wal-Marts

The All-China Federation….in China ….In-house unions are established automatically…in many foreign enterprises such as Wal-Mart.

"Both sides will sit down to find the right person to head the union – there is no election….

China’s unions are welcomed, unlike their militant counterparts in other countries, because they operate unashamedly as partners of the management rather than as the representative of labour.

"We will never take a simplistic measure like launching a strike…." (FT, 8/26)

9/11 Motive was U.S. policy, not religion

The most comprehensive examination of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was conducted by the 9/11 commission….

Talking to the detainees….the staff found that religious orthodoxy was not a common denominator.…Instead, hatred of American foreign policy in the Middle East seemed to be the key factor….

"I believe they feel a sense of outrage against the United States….They identify with the Palestinian problem, they identify with people who oppose repressive regimes and I believe they tend to focus their anger on the United States." (NYT, 8/20)

Iranians know U.S. is no liberator

Iran’s constitutional revolution of 1905-11 was a national struggle for democratic government….But its democratic roots were stamped upon by Reza Pahlavi, a soldier backed by the British….

Almost 30 years after Pahlavi crowned himself shah in 1925, the Iranian people had another go at establishing democracy. From 1951-53 they backed Mohammad Mossadeq…who nationalized the Iranian oil industry….

But this democratic experiment was again thwarted, this time after Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and …the Central Intelligence Agency’s Middle East Division, backed by the British, engineered a coup to overthrow Mossadeq and put Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Pahlavi’s son, on the Peacock throne….

For Iranians, democracy is not a new idea but an ongoing struggle…twice stamped out by western powers….

George W. Bush’s description of the US as "freedom-loving" is regarded as mere words….

Instead it is regarded in Iran as being in ruthless pursuit of its own interests, be those security of oil supplies or the promotion of its…arms program…. (FT, 8/31)

Capitalist China texts: No class struggle!

When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops…Communist revolutions….

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette.

Nearly overnight the country’s most prosperous schools have shelved the Marxist [framework] that has dominated standard history texts since the 1950’s….

The French and Bolshevik Revolutions, once seen as turning points in world history, now get far less attention….

Some….speculated that the Shanghai textbooks reflected the political viewpoints of China’s top leaders….

Mr. Jiang’s "Three Represents" slogan aimed to broaden the Communist Party mandate and dilute its traditional emphasis on class struggle. (NYT, 9/1)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, September 6, 2006

Information: 06 September 2006 127 hits

Whoever Wins Mexico's Election, Workers Lose
Liberals Cry `Out of Iraq' To:
PLOT MORE WAR
Lamont: A Billionaire Pedigree
Liberals' `Just War' Image Hides Racist Cause of Atrocities
Big Oil Ordered Iraq War;
Neo-Cons Just Followed Orders
`Peace Truce' Will Lead to Wider Wars
Victory Against Anti-Immigrant Kangaroo Court
As Copper Bosses' Profits Soar, Miners Strike
NYC Workers' War Contract Signals Need
to Mobilize vs. Profit System
Combine Re-building Tasks with Revolutionary Ideas
Class Outlook Takes On Divisive Black Nationalism
Racist Gov't Devastates More People Than Katrina
CHALLENGE Welcomed Amid Bosses' Attacks on Returnees
Oaxaca Teachers' Movement Holds Potential PLP Growth
Black Workers, Youth Hit Streets Over Racist Cop Killing of 14-Year-Old
Racist `Community Policing' Murders Newark Black Man
CHALLENGE Spurs Debate on Mid-East War
At Brooklyn Hospital
Deportation Raids Don't Intimidate Protestors
LETTERS
1. Multi-nationals Dangerous for Farm Workers
2. Winning Evangelicals To Oppose Iraq War
3. Anti-War Churchgoers Expose Pro-War Liberals
4. Rebel Soldiers Help Katrina Victims
5. Raising PLP's Ideas At Pro-Immigrant March, Union Convention
Ted Kennedy, AFT Leaders: Partners in Racism and Imperialist War
Spain: Anti-Franco Resistance Inspired World's Workers
`Popular Front' Did Not Lead to Revolution
Workers and Peasants Practiced Communism in the Chinese Revolution

Whoever Wins Mexico's Election, Workers Lose

MEXICO CITY, August 12 -- "Vote by Vote," demanded hundreds of thousands of supporters of liberal presidential candidate Andrés López Obrador in the streets of the capital and in many other cities nationwide. With huge demonstrations, seizures of streets, blocking bank entrances and even the stock exchange, many workers, students and people in general think the government's Institute of Federal Elections will give the Presidency to Lopez Obrador of the Party of Revolutionary Democracy over the right -wing party candidate Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN). This election dispute is a fight between various Mexican bosses to control the profits from oil (including oil giant PEMEX), minerals, energy, telecommunications and health care .

In these struggles and in discussions, Progressive Labor Party has strengthened new communist youth participating in these activities. These youth have distributed leaflets and CHALLENGE, attacking elections as a sham and calling for building a communist revolution. The workers have responded positively, although with much ideological struggle.

Workers around the world should oppose the capitalist electoral farce used to maintain the political system. Workers are won to think that by voting for one candidate or another capitalism can get better for workers, something that has never occurred in the history of capitalism.

Every presidential candidate represents one sector or another of the ruling class. The openly fascist Calderón has promised "jobs for all" and new foreign investments. Unemployment, however, is essential for capitalism because it uses the unemployed to pressure those who have jobs to work more for lower wages.

Other bosses like López Obrador use different tactics. His much more deadly battle slogan is to "defend the poor." But he has won the support of big capitalists. Using his populist image, he's evicted the poorest people from the center of Mexico City to make space for the historical center project led by Carlos Slim (Mexico's richest man and third richest in the world).

Slim owns TELMEX, of the Carso group, and much of the country's real property. Instead of expanding the metropolitan transport system, including the subway, he invests in road construction to promote private cars, benefiting corporations like Ford, GM, Volkswagen, Nissan, etc.

No electoral party anywhere will respond to the real interests of the working class. These ruling-class politicians look for solutions to their crises within the system, not to change it. The only solution for the working class is to eliminate capitalism, its markets and profits, and establish a society in which no one is exploited or oppressed. The great challenge is to organize ourselves with all the millions of the world's workers and students, not to chant "vote by vote," but "worker by worker" to forge a communist revolution and end this murderous capitalist system.

Liberals Cry `Out of Iraq' To:
PLOT MORE WAR

As killing fueled by U.S. imperialism rages and intensifies from Beirut to Baghdad to Kabul, Ned Lamont won the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary over incumbent Joe Lieberman on an "anti-war" platform. Lieberman backed the war in Iraq and ran for Vice President with Al Gore in 2000.

Their slugfest boils down to a dispute merely over the tactics for accomplishing U.S. rulers' two overriding tasks: battling increasingly militant Islamic forces for control of the Middle East and its oil and mobilizing the nation for a future conflict with a rival superpower. Lamont, in fact, poses the greater danger, because his phony "Out-of-Iraq" message can trick workers into supporting the rulers' agenda for broader wars.

George W. Bush's bungling is worsening matters for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. The first U.S.-backed United Nations resolution aimed at ending Israel's war on Hezbollah quickly proved a deadly farce. Within hours of its first passage, Israeli air strikes murdered dozens more Lebanese civilians. The more U.S.-made bombs Israel drops, the more leverage Hezbollah and its Iranian backers gain. Even though there is a cease-fire now, that's no guarantee that the carnage will end anytime soon. Israeli leaders will pursue their self-interests no matter what Washington demands. Elsewhere, an increasingly lethal insurgency bordering on civil war prevents Exxon Mobil from pumping Iraqi crude. The Taliban remain at large in Afghanistan. And al Qaeda may have inspired a possible plot by British terrorists to try to blow up U.S. airliners.

This dismal picture has an important section of the ruling class saying it is time for Plan B: tactical retreat from Iraq followed by regrouping and a massive re-invasion of the entire Persian Gulf region by a wide U.S.-led coalition.

Lamont's exit timetable meshes with plans put forward by General William Odom, who complains that Bush's Iraq fiasco has the U.S. "paralyzed in managing the region from the eastern Mediterranean [Israel, Lebanon, and Syria] to Afghanistan." (Bloomberg Television, 8/11) Odom foresees a vast occupying force that includes European troops under U.S. command. "Upon our withdrawal, our allies will be far more likely to respond constructively to a U.S. bid to design a joint strategy for restoring regional stability in the Middle East." (Nieman Watchdog, Harvard University, 7/17)

Another anti-Bush general, Wesley Clark, who carried out Clinton's genocidal bombardment of Serbia, praised Lamont's success in steering workers down the dead-end road to the polling booth and patriotism. "Lieberman's defeat shows that the public is now engaged in politics." (Wall Street Journal, 8/10) Clark reassured Journal readers that Democrats, including Lamont, indeed had the more effective war plan. "The truth is the Democratic Party -- elected leaders, party regulars, and the big-time donors -- pretty much agree on the failures of the administration, and even on the policies that need to be adopted, like stronger diplomacy and more reliance on allies and international organizations, coupled with a willingness to fully fund, rearm, strengthen, and use America's armed forces."

As for galvanizing society for world war, Lamont has a less heavy-handed approach than Lieberman. Lieberman co-founded the Democratic Leadership Council, which in a recent book, "With All Our Might," espoused an openly-militarized Democratic Party and putting the economy "on a wartime footing." The ruling class dreams of both. But there's a hitch. As enlistment figures and opinion polls show, not many people so far, especially among traditionally Democratic voters, buy blatant militarism. Lieberman's voter base among munitions workers at Sikorsky and Electric Boat may do so, to a certain degree, but among the general public "Vietnam-Syndrome" mistrust of the Pentagon prevails. So Lamont tries the back door to fascism. His big push is for health care reform, which has two ulterior motives: tightening government control of a key industry and getting people to view the state as "protector."

For anyone who wants the bloodshed to stop, following Lamont and his ilk is a big mistake. "Peace" candidates turn out to be deadlier war-makers than "hawks." Look at President Woodrow "He-Kept-Us-Out-of-War" Wilson of World War I infamy or Vietnam War criminal Lyndon Johnson, who ran against pro-war Barry Goldwater in 1964. Votes only legitimize the imperialist butchers. The end of profit-driven wars lies outside the electoral system, down a long road of struggle to destroy capitalism itself.

Lamont: A Billionaire Pedigree

Ned Lamont's miraculous rise from nowhere bears all the signs of a full-court press by the liberal Eastern Establishment. First is his impeccable capitalist/imperialist pedigree. Lamont's great-grandfather Thomas W., a partner of J.P. Morgan, helped write the financial parts of the post-World War I Versailles Treaty in favor of the U.S. Next come liberal flunkies Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who stumped for Lamont among black workers in New Haven and Bridgeport. Moveon.org helped get out Lamont's middle-class vote. Internet-based Moveon was created by Larry Rockefeller and others in an attempt to limit the damage from Clinton's impeachment. The liberal New York Times endorsed Lamont in a July 30 editorial. A week later, it ran a column by Thomas Friedman entitled "Time for Plan B."

Liberals' `Just War' Image Hides Racist Cause of Atrocities

The U.S. Army's rape and torture of innocent people in Iraq should not be a shock to us. The extensive investigation and media coverage of 21-year-old Steven Green, the former private awaiting trial for the alleged murder and rape of an Iraqi family in Haditha, Iraq, is merely an attempt to re-mold the image of the U.S. military and scapegoat the lower-ranking troops.

This is not a case of a few "bad apples," but an inevitable consequence of imperialist war. Atrocities and genocide occur when working-class youth of one imperialist army is conditioned to view the "enemy" as inferior using nationalism, racism and sexism. So when the bosses' media starts decrying the very behavior it needs to field an army committed to its plans, we must look closely at, and understand, what the ideological differences among U.S. rulers mean for the working class.

Sections of the ruling class are furious at Bush & Co.'s method of handling the war, which is growing increasingly unpopular at home. The Bush administration's failures have energized the liberal wing of the rulers who are desperate to: (1) unite U.S. workers behind the war; and (2) divide the Arab peoples against each other. The liberals want to distance themselves from the Bush gang and prefer to win workers over to the notion of a "just war," that U.S. global dominance is not only necessary, but desirable for us and the world. They will spend time and money winning workers to the goals of U.S. imperialism -- domination of the world's resources, especially oil, and of cheap labor -- and will work with rulers from other countries to build the image of a "multilateral," international consensus on this agenda.

Yet the splits among U.S. rulers are purely tactical; they all agree with the greater imperialist goals. The liberal wing is angry at the Bush crowd's incompetence and recklessness in trying to run this war for oil on the cheap, economically and politically. The liberals and the Bush gang alike were mistaken in believing the war could be won as quickly as in 1991. However, the Bushites neglected to plan a long-term ideological campaign to win over U.S. workers and are now paying the political price. Here increasing numbers of working-class people are turning against the war; in the Middle East, various Arab groups have not only united against the U.S. but are being driven into the arms of Iran and China, two of the U.S. rulers' main competitors in the region.

To save the mess that Bush & Co. have made, the liberal sector of the U.S. ruling class will try to win over as many people in the anti-war movement as possible. Some in that movement are militantly opposed to imperialism, so the liberals want to channel their energy and militancy into various political campaigns within electoral politics instead of opposing imperialism itself.

Others reject the war because of individual acts of murder and gutter-racism such as the Abu-Ghraib prison tortures and the Haditha massacre, without rejecting the ruling class's greater imperialist goals. By attaching these crimes to Bush & Co. -- not tracing them to the inevitable consequences of capitalism itself -- the liberals will attempt to restore the image of "honor" and "integrity" to the U.S. armed forces, legitimizing this imperialist butchery as a "just war." However, the liberals' image neglects the military's long-standing complicated relationship with fascists such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. After the white supremacist Aryan Nations' graffiti was discovered in Baghdad recently, Scott Barfield, a gang detective with the U.S. Department of Defense, told the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Intelligence Report": "It's not epidemic, but there is plenty of evidence we're talking numbers well into the thousands [of fascists], just in the Army.... Only two have been discharged."

The liberals' hopes to build the "just-war" image to U.S. workers and the world hide the disgusting reality of their reliance on racism to fight and win wars. The liberals are in a tricky and contradictory position, wanting it both ways: the honorable "just-war" imagery reminiscent of World War II on the one hand, and committed killers loyal to imperialism on the other.

The rape and murder of the Iraqi family is a horrifying addition to the daily terror not only in Iraq but in much of the rest of the world. As long as capitalism exists there will inevitably be workers dying from imperialist wars and/ or workers dying in the aftermath of disasters such as New Orleans. Workers should not support any sector of the ruling class, especially now that the liberals are on the offensive against Bush and trying to seize the anti-war feeling.

The Progressive Labor Party fights the ruling class no matter how much it hides its savage plans for the working class. Imperialism is necessary to capitalism. Ending imperialism means ending the nationalism, sexism and racism that keep the bosses' profits flowing. PLP unites workers, students and soldiers internationally to fight for communist revolution and dump this barbaric system into the garbage can of history.u

Big Oil Ordered Iraq War;
Neo-Cons Just Followed Orders

By now -- as CHALLENGE pointed out early on -- most people agree that the invasion of Iraq was about oil, not about "weapons of mass destruction" or "bringing democracy to the Middle East." But now it's coming out that the most powerful ruling class interests, especially among the oil sector, were plotting for such an invasion because of Saddam's "manipulation of oil markets," a "destabilizing influence...to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East." (As quoted from a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report, in "Armed Madhouse -- Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf," by Greg Palast.) It was Big Oil, not the neocons, who conceived this war; the latter were just the instrument that carried it out, however ineptly.

Palast was able to get hold of a 323-page State Department report entitled, "Options for Iraqi Oil," which, according to Palast, "was crafted in Houston under the tutelage of the oil industry," organized by the James A. Baker III Institute. A former Secretary of State under Bush, Sr., Baker has as his "clients" the Rockefeller-owned Exxon Mobil (the world's largest oil company), the Republican National Committee and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Palast says the State Department report shows that Big Oil's decisive motive for invading Iraq was not so much its oil -- "the last thing the oil industry wanted from Iraq in 2001 was a lot more oil" -- nor "Saddam's affection for euro currency nor even panic over oil supply." Rather it was the fact that, "Tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil." Iraq was a "swing producer" of oil. "Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week he's "supporting the Palestinian Intifada" and he cuts off oil shipments, spiking worldwide oil prices. Then he forgets the Intifada and pumps to the maximum allowed under the UN's Oil-for-Food Program, causing oil prices to plummet.

Up and down, up and down -- "Saddam was out of control." And "control is what it's all about," one oilman told Palast. "It's not about getting the oil, it's about controlling oil's price." Within days of Bush's November 2000 election, the Baker Institute warned: "In a market with so little cushion to cover unexpected events, oil prices become extremely sensitive to perceived supply risks. Such a market increases the potential leverage of [an] otherwise lesser producer such as Iraq...."

Falah Aljibury, an advisor to the Wall Street investment house Goldman Sachs, the Baker/Council on Foreign Relations group -- and host to the State Department's invasion-planning m'eetings in February 2001 -- told Palast that, "Iraq is not stable, a wild card." Saddam Hussein was, almost alone, setting the weekly world price of oil. He was driving the oil barons bonkers. So Rockefeller's CFR concluded it was time for a "military assessment," stating: "Saddam Hussein has demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon to manipulate oil markets.... [The] United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq, including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments."

This CFR/Baker report was delivered to the Pentagon by Dr. Edward Morse, chairman of the "Joint Task Force on Petroleum of the James A. Baker Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations." Palast reports that it was also "handed directly to Vice-President Dick Cheney" who "met secretly with CFR task force members...to go over the maps of Iraq's oil fields." Cheney than used the Baker/CFR recommendations "as his own plan" to "take out Saddam." (Interestingly, Palast says, "The cash for drafting the extravagant report that was so protective of OPEC and Saudi interests" came from none other than "Khalid al-Turki of Saudi Arabia...")

For all this, tens of thousands of Iraqis had to die, as well as thousands of GI's (and tens of thousands wounded and maimed for life). Still another reason to fight for communist revolution, to destroy the monster of capitalism.u

`Peace Truce' Will Lead to Wider Wars

After much haggling in the UN, particularly between France and the U.S., a "peace truce" has been imposed in the Israel-Lebanon war. Supposedly, the IDF (Israel "Defence" Forces) and the Hezbollah guerrillas will obey it. But the ceasefire has as much chance of making it as a cockroach in a chicken coop. Eventually, French troops will lead a UN "peacekeeping force" in Southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, several lessons can be drawn from this war:

* Israel's touted military invincibility has been heavily damaged -- 114 IDF soldiers killed in one month. Hezbollah and most observers are calling this a major defeat for the IDF. The NY Times (8/16) cited Hezbollah's "hard-won reputation as the only Arab force that fought Israel to a standstill." Already, the blame game is causing big rifts inside the Israeli ruling class about "Who lost Lebanon?" It's also led to rifts inside the White House. According to a Seymour Hersh New Yorker article, Dick Cheney, Bush and his national security advisor Elliot Abrams backed Israeli's failed blitzkrieg, but Rumsfeld wasn't 100% sure and Secy. of State Condi Rice was borderline.

* It has also caused rifts between the U.S. and the European bosses. A year ago, France and the U.S. united to kick the Syrians out of Lebanon and installed a "democratic" government in Beirut. Now U.S. rulers backed the Israeli air war which destroyed that whole U.S.-France plan.

* Bombings per se don't win wars, even though they cause huge damage (1,000 Lebanese killed, nearly all civilians and almost a million displaced from their homes; Lebanon's infrastructure smashed to smithereens by the Israeli Air Force). But still, Israel suffered a major defeat in the ground war at the hands of the well-trained and committed Hezbollah guerrillas.

* The U.S, Israel and their allies in the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have been exposed as the real Axis of Evil. Meanwhile, given the Israeli failure to destroy Hezbollah, its Iranian and Syrian backers have emerged as winners.

* The White House-Tel Aviv plan to bomb Iranian nuclear bunkers -- Israel has acquired a load of U.S. bunker-buster bombs -- must now be rethought. If the air war failed in tiny Lebanon, Iran, with 70 million people, much bigger and more powerful, could create a lot of problems for the U.S. in Iraq as well as for Israel in Lebanon and in Palestine's Gaza and West Bank. The U.S. liberal rulers' drive for more ground troops for all these potential wars will now be pushed more intensely. U.S. imperialists will need millions of soldiers to protect their oil empire from their rivals (Iran and its allies in Russia and China). Will a military draft follow?

Many in recent international anti-war demonstrations have been chanting "Hezbollah" as a response to the U.S.-Israeli fascist war-makers. This is a deadly mistake. Hezbollah is a reactionary organization which wants to impose an Iranian-type anti-worker fundamentalist system. From Teheran to NYC to Baghdad to Tel Aviv, workers, students and soldiers must organize to turn these wars into revolutionary struggles to get rid of their cause: capitalism and imperialism. That's the goal of the communist PLP. Join us!

Victory Against Anti-Immigrant Kangaroo Court

After the month-long trial of three anti-racists (see CHALLENGE, 8/16), Judge Toni Bean, her voice quivering, mumbling and hesitating between each word, gave her verdict. She surveyed a courtroom packed with supporters for the defendants. High school students and teachers, clergy from an activist church, trade unionists, family, friends and members of a Farmingville area immigrant support group squeezed into the courtroom listening to her every word, with more supporters outside for lack of space.

This is not what Suffolk County bosses intended when they relentlessly pursued a trial of the three anti-racists arrested on July 16, 2005. Local politicians get elected exploiting racism and anti-immigrant hatred. They were determined to be tough on anti-racist supporters of immigrant workers.

These bosses, however, underestimated the working class when organized for class struggle. PLP members, who had participated in the original demonstration, acted, understanding that an attack on any worker is an opportunity for struggle in which communist ideas flourish and new members can be recruited.

For nearly a year communists publicized this case -- and the courts' racist, fascist character -- in countless mass organizations. Resolutions were raised in several unions. Fundraisers were organized involving many new people. Contacts were made with the pro-immigrant organizations within Suffolk County. Attorneys were hired who live and work in the area but willing to take a stand in support of anti-racist protests. This struggle exposed thousands of workers to the case.

With the steady, dedicated effort of many comrades, hundreds of workers attended the month-long trial. The Judge, the prosecution and even the court officers were very aware of the daily presence of this multi-racial force. They're used to operating in private, their courtroom an inner sanctum never feeling working-class anger. Well, we brought in the light.

Everyone joining us in court found it unnerving and enlightening. People were shocked at the arrogant, racist treatment of everyone called before the Judge. Many who had promised to attend for just one day returned again and again to stand by the defendants. As one high school student told her teacher on the long drive home one day, "Now I understand what you mean by state power!"

Listening to Judge Bean's verdict we knew the essential purpose of the trial -- to terrify workers and keep them out of Suffolk County -- had been defeated. Whatever the verdict (though we are delighted it was "not guilty") the victory was ours. We had exposed the illusions many people had about "civil rights." We had recruited new members to PLP and to study groups and had developed and strengthened the leadership of the defendants who came through the process with a deeper commitment to the working class.

Outside the courthouse after the verdict, a woman from an immigrant rights group explained why all that we had done was so necessary: "I'm glad to see this victory today," she said, "for there are more battles coming. Soon it might be illegal to allow an undocumented worker to stay in your house. I'm sorry to say it, but there are bad things coming."

This worker understands the long road ahead. Our job is to bring her, and all workers, into PLP to help build the fight for communism.

As Copper Bosses' Profits Soar, Miners Strike

CHILE -- On August 7, 2000 miners struck La Escondida, the world's largest private copper mine, mostly owned by two UK-Australian companies, BHP and Rio Tinto. La Escondida produces 8% of world production. The miners are demanding a 13% wage increase and a 16 million pesos bonus ($29,400). The bosses' final offer was a 3% wage "hike" plus a $5,500 low-interest loan, which amounts to a wage-cut since the loan will be re-paid from that 3%. The bosses also offered a $15,600 lump-sum bonus.

The strike has impacted commodity markets. A prolonged disruption threatens copper availability worldwide when supplies are already tight.

The miners say soaring global copper prices, which have boosted mining profits, justifies their pay demand. The mine owners have invoked "force majeure," a procedure which gives them legal protection from being sued if they fail to live up to delivery contracts, such as for copper concentrate.

The Socialist Chilean government has sent riot cops to intimidate miners and their demonstrations. These bosses are worried since this company represents 2% of the country's economic output. The bosses' press has joined the anti-worker attacks, saying the miners are already the "best-paid" workers in Chile (El Mercurio, 8/8). But the bosses are making out like bandits, reaping super-profits from growing world demand, particularly from China. The workers' demands represent only 1% of the mine's profits since 2005. And recently, high school students in Chile waged militant protests fighting the cops for their own demands. The "Socialist" government has been exposed as just another capitalist State.

Other workers are looking to follow these miners in setting their own bargaining goals. "It looks likely that there could be copy-cat action, especially in Mexico and at other mines in Chile," said John Meyer, a mining analyst at Numis Securities in London. "This could be quite long-running, which is why the market is taking notice of it." (London Financial Times, 8/9)

Even though the strikers halted 60% of La Escondida production, it's using 2,000 contract workers to get out the remaining 40%. The strikers must win these contract workers to join the walkout. They can forge this unity by fighting for permanent jobs for these contract workers.

The miners need international solidarity from workers who face the same bosses' attacks: they make huge profits but want workers to make more sacrifices while the bosses use contract workers to divide us all and lower everyone's wages.

Capitalism has proven to be a dead-end worldwide even for the so-called high-paid. Workers must learn from struggles like these that without our labor power, the bosses cannot produce anything. Workers don't need bosses; they need to turn these struggles into a school for forging a revolutionary leadership to fight for communism.

NYC Workers' War Contract Signals Need
to Mobilize vs. Profit System

NEW YORK CITY, August 11 -- "When the hell will she retire?" is the endlessly repeated question among workers in AFSCME's District Council 37. "She" is Lillian Roberts, the overtly corrupt and autocratic executive director of DC 37, the City's largest municipal union, with 120,000 members. The Council leadership negotiated a thoroughly mediocre deal with the City, after 13 months without a contract. Frustration is near universal within the union over the Roberts' regime's endless petty power plays, open collaboration with billionaire union-busting mayor Michael Bloomberg, and shameless sponging of union dues.

But the rank and file must see the contract struggle not just as ridding ourselves of one corrupt misleader but as a fight against capitalist attacks, war and rising fascism. With U.S. rulers facing stiff competition worldwide, they're looking to smash even the few organized workers that still have even meager benefits. These cuts finance defense of their empire. In reality every contract is a war contract.

The union misleaders' job is to stifle struggle, not lead it. They paint Bush as the sole source of all workers' problems and rally behind the Democratic bosses. None of them ever criticize capitalism, even supposed "militants" like the Transit Workers' Roger Toussaint or Andy Stern, head of the recent split-off from the AFL-CIA. They still treat unions as a business.

The DC 37 contract is nearly as bad as the last one. Disgust with the leadership is still entrenched. The union leadership put nothing on the table for the workers during the entire ten-month negotiations. Instead, Roberts orchestrated a sham behind-the-scenes vote to "endorse" Bloomberg's re-election and then threw millions in dues money into his $70-million campaign.

True to form, they went hat in hand to the City and didn't hold a single rally or work action, or reach out to any other workers for support. In effect, the new DC 37 contract is a pay-cut, falling below inflation, and continues the same two-year, two-tier wage system for new hires they shamelessly agreed to last time, while pension and health benefit cuts wait in the wings.

The lack of mobilization against the City infuriated many workers, especially in the wake of the City's $5 billion surplus and last December's militant three-day transit strike which shut down the city. Although many workers were ready for action, the union refused to lead any fight-backs in the face of on-going cuts, like surrounding City Hall, holding daily pickets, organizing workers to slow down, walk off the job or strike despite the state's fascist Taylor Law banning them. Nor did they expose how the City bosses use their surplus to benefit big business and developers while maintaining long-standing cuts and layoffs. And the Council certainly didn't expose the squeeze on workers to pay for the oil war in Iraq.

With the industrial unions increasingly in the bosses' hip pocket, the ruling class is stepping up its attack on municipal unions. Last year government workers in three states lost collective bargaining rights, bringing the total to 15. As with United Airlines and GM, civil service pensions are being gutted. This isn't about a regime change in DC 37, it's about fighting the brutal effects of the profit system. It's about the City bosses and the union uniting to preserve capitalism and squeeze the city workers. Workers have no "friends in high places" on either side of the bargaining table.

Moving the struggle forward means PLP'ers and other militant workers expanding the contract struggle to fight the brutal oil war, not pinning our hopes on yet another corrupt union election. We must mobilize workers against racist cuts, against slashing school lunches to fund war profiteers and against the profit system -- the cause of all our problems. Turning the struggle into a "school for communism" would be the biggest victory workers could win.

Combine Re-building Tasks with Revolutionary Ideas

A group of students and teachers from LA had a great experience in New Orleans gutting houses, organizing residents and having a CHALLENGE sale. It revealed the great potential for bringing the paper to workers here.

This city gives us an opportunity to build the international working-class movement for communism. From the detention camps where thousands of residents are held in trailers surrounded by barbwire and armed government patrols, to the thousands of furious residents whose houses the government is seizing, residents and volunteers need communist vision, practice and politics along with involvement in the day-to-day organizational, survival and rebuilding tasks.

In barely half an hour, volunteers distributed 42 CHALLENGES to black and Latino immigrant workers at a local building and construction store. They donated over $13. Few refused the paper. Many angry workers agreed that capitalism is the problem. The more areas CHALLENGE reaches -- while we involve ourselves in the day-to-day rebuilding tasks -- the more ahead of the game we'll be. Ideas can become a material force to change the world. So discussions about the role of racism, nationalism, fascism, the government and working-class unity are very useful. While we were only there briefly, this work must continue and deepen. Without debates about the nature of the State, imperialism, and the abolition of wages, people will become bogged down on the treadmill of reform and oblivious to a revolutionary solution.

One young volunteer from LA Said, "I learned a lot of things about how the government works in New Orleans and what the system does. The government was late in helping the impoverished. They didn't provide any aid and stole the communities' money. If I go back, I'll take lots of CHALLENGES and information on what the government is doing. I'll help show people what to do to fight back. I'll tell them that when we fight as a group we're unstoppable. I would really like to see the people join and destroy the system."

Class Outlook Takes On Divisive Black Nationalism

My experience in New Orleans had its ups and its downs. From sweating while banging down walls, to crying from heart-breaking stories, to ideological struggles, at the end of the day I had a wonderful awakening experience.

The first day blew my mind away. We went on a levee tour that contrasted the 8-foot levees in the working-class neighborhood to the double walls of the wealthier neighborhoods. The orientation of the mass organization we were working with began with a question: "what does leadership look like?" After everybody gave their input, the leader of the meeting asked why no one said black in their definition of leadership. I figured it was the same reason no one said white: race doesn't matter when it comes to true leadership. He elaborated on why black leadership is good, beginning to piss me off with his Black Nationalist point of view. We had spoken about Black Nationalism before the trip, but I didn't expect it to be so blunt and open.

After orientation, we were off to the hard work of gutting homes and canvassing. I was extremely excited to be canvassing, but when that sun hit me and I began to feel dizzy, it wasn't as exciting anymore. We took an opportunity to talk to immigrant workers we met on the street. Using my knowledge of Spanish, I asked them about their living situation in New Orleans. They told us they get paid about $100 every week when they work, but work is not guaranteed. We spoke to them about capitalism causing their current situation and explained the ideas of communism. They seemed open to the ideas and gratefully accepted CHALLENGE. This day I felt that I actually did some good.

One night during debriefing, a debate started on what affected us primarily, race or class and what people meant by "us." Was "us" just blacks or was "us" the working class. That's when the ideological struggle between communist ideas and black nationalist ideas sharpened. I expressed my class ideas while learning more about the shallowness of the Black Nationalist point of view. I was trying to make the point that unity around race is not going to defeat capitalism, but that only by uniting as a class can we truly smash racism and capitalism.

A few days later we had a mass sale of CHALLENGE in public housing. Residents told us that they took back their homes without the government's permission. That's what I like to hear. I basically had an amazing time in New Orleans and learned tremendously. I wouldn't have traded this experience for the world. I encourage every CHALLENGE reader to join PLP and go down to New Orleans and get involved in the fight against racism.

High School Projecteer

Racist Gov't Devastates More People Than Katrina

The gutting of the house was awesome. We were all excited to empty the place to prevent it from being bulldozed, so my partner and I gutted two rooms in a day. We should have gutted every other day and gone organizing on the alternate days because both were really important.

When we went into the neighborhood, people related how the government didn't help them during or after they were flooded. Some agreed with us and said things like the government is "a "piece of shit."

One unemployed worker who was staying with his mother said he had a "beef with the government." Before the flood he was a renter and the government wasn't giving him any money. He didn't own a home so he knew the government didn't want him back -- what importance is a renter in New Orleans' poor neighborhoods?

Many young people made the connection about the lack of help and having deadlines for gutting their houses. One guy felt the government wants to bulldoze their houses and claim the homeowners' land. His friend agreed but he didn't want to fight for anything because the results would be the same -- nothing.

Another man who didn't live in the house he was gutting was strongly against the government. He, along with a few others volunteered with, and attended Survivor Council meetings where residents discussed their problems and results they sought.

I learned it wasn't Katrina that devastated people and their communities as much as it was the racist capitalists who left people to suffer, many with no financial help from FEMA. I understand more why we cannot rely on this capitalist system changing for our benefit. If PLP'ers stay in New Orleans for a longer period, we could really sharpen the ideas many workers and students already have, possibly winning them to our communist ideas.

A young comrade

CHALLENGE Welcomed Amid Bosses' Attacks on Returnees

After an exhausting day of "gutting" a home in New Orleans's Lower 9th Ward, a few comrades sold CHALLENGE at a housing community downtown. The residents were happy to receive the paper and were eager to discuss their struggle to survive after the hurricane.

According to the residents, Military Police have been patrolling the community since they arrived in June. Although they were originally stationed in New Orleans to "protect" the 9th Ward, they seem to be patrolling poor black neighborhoods all across the city. On any given night, MP's can be seen interrogating youth and giving them full cavity searches.

Upon finally arriving home this summer, residents claimed that they were forced to pay nine months back pay for rent. Almost immediately after the hurricane the bosses decided that the housing community was livable and yet failed to notify the residents. Many residents could not afford their payments and were forced onto the streets. Considering the community is located near the French Quarter, it is clear that the bosses want to bulldoze the community to build more expensive apartments.

This is another example of the racist bosses' persistent attack on the poor returning to their homes in New Orleans. The ruling class is vehemently attempting to remove black-working class communities. Yet their attacks have been met with powerful resistance. Many of the residents receive CHALLENGE and have joined the fight against ruling-class oppression of workers. The oppression in New Orleans resembles that of capitalist imperialism all across the world. Support for communism grows as more and more workers receive CHALLENGE. Eventually the working class, with communist leadership, will eliminate the ruling class and destroy capitalism forever!

Oaxaca Teachers' Movement Holds Potential PLP Growth

OAXACA, MEXICO, Aug. 14 -- After almost three months of struggle by 70,000 education workers -- initially for a wage increase and better conditions for the students -- now hundreds of thousands have joined the movement. They're demanding the Governor resign, while many question whether changing one politician for another is enough. Some blame the whole capitalist system for the oppression of the workers.

Here, and world-wide, the system uses all its ideological weapons: the bosses' media, religion, their educational institutions and the whole state apparatus to oppress us. But when workers begin to break these chains, question the system and organize to fight it, the rulers show their true fascist nature -- outright violence through their control of the police and the army. Young PLP'ers have brought communist ideas to many teachers through CHALLENGE and leaflets. (Full story next issue.)

Black Workers, Youth Hit Streets Over Racist Cop Killing of 14-Year-Old

CHICAGO, IL, August 11 -- Last Monday (8/7) the racist Chicago Police Department shot a 14-year-old boy, Ellis Woodland Jr., in the Cabrini Green neighborhood. While Ellis is surviving in critical condition at a local hospital, the police are claiming they shot in "self-defense," since the boy had been playing BB guns with friends. However, many from the neighborhood said Ellis was already on his knees when the cops fired five bullets in his direction with the intent to kill. This action is part of the ongoing police terror in Cabrini, from which the city is looking to displace public housing residents.

Black workers and youth responded by taking to the streets. Many workers understood the importance of young people standing up and fighting back. This is a much safer tactic than simply trying to avoid the cops' continued attacks. On Wednesday hundreds took to the streets, despite a heavy police presence, to challenge the cops.

On Thursday, when many young people again marched, PLP members joined their ranks. CHALLENGES and leaflets condemning the police as tools of the ruling class who will always carry out racist terror were well-received around the neighborhood and within the march. Many took up our chants: "White cop, black cop, all the same! Racist terror is the name of their game!" and "Racist cops get off scot free, while workers live in misery!"

The march continued to city hall where the mayor sat in his office and refused us entry. When PLP'ers returned to the neighborhood on Friday, young people had developed a better understanding of the system we live under. "Yeah, I think Mayor Daley is racist," said one. The politicians and police act for the rich. This small rebellion has instilled in many the sense that we'll need to overthrow capitalism in order to really improve workers' lives.

Racist `Community Policing' Murders Newark Black Man

NEWARK, NJ July 30 - A 26-year-old black man was murdered by a plainclothes Newark cop. Eyewitnesses, including a 10-year-old girl, saw the cops shoot Chakhan Nance when he was down on the ground and handcuffed. The cops claim that that Nance was a drug dealer who drew a gun. Everyone knows this is a bald face lie. Neighbors said that Nance looked out for local kids and would sometimes walk them home at night (Star-Ledger, 7/31/06).

This killing closely follows the inauguration of Mayor Corey Booker, 37, who became the top politician of New Jersey's largest city. The Star Ledger, voice of the big bosses like Prudential Insurance, backed Booker. Like Barack Obama, Booker is being touted as a young, black political superstar for the bosses.

Booker's key campaign promise was to fight crime. As soon as he took office, he announced a "safe summer" initiative, flooding the streets with cops. His supporters called for a major "community policing" offensive. Community policing plans have always been used tactically by the bosses to convince workers to participate in and feel responsible for the fascist oppression going on in their neighborhoods instead of getting angry at the "outside" forces of a traditional police department.

Newark happens to be the home of community policing guru George Kelling, who teaches at Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. Recall that Kelling wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the shooting of Amadou Diallo by NYPD cops was justified. This happened just before the jury let all of the murders off. Two years ago, Kelling went further by linking his "Counter-terrorism Information Sharing Consortium" with the latest "homeland security" plans of the ruling class.

The killing of many young people in Newark over the past eighteen months has given Booker, the cops, and ultimately the rulers, the pretext they need to put Kelling's ideas into practice. It is true that we should be struggling with our young working-class brothers and sisters not to fall into gangs and drug dealing. These activities are anti-working class, and spring from the bosses' idea of "me first and screw everybody else".

But we must remember who the real criminals are as we fight to involve these young people in positive political and social activities. The reason young people are caught in this hell with all bad choices is because of the racist, profit-driven greed of the bosses. After a mass exodus of manufacturing and other jobs from urban areas, the bosses left these cities to rot with lousy health care and jobs, deteriorating housing and schools and wide-scale police terror. These horrible social conditions have borne the poisoned fruit of gang activity and drug dealing as a false solution to this misery.

Youth are the future. In contrast to the capitalist system now oppressing them, communism will not beat down working-class youth. We will make them the centerpiece of our plan to overthrow this monstrous system, and build something much better for humanity. Kellings of the world beware: our day will come.

CHALLENGE Spurs Debate on Mid-East War
At Brooklyn Hospital

BROOKLYN, NY -- At a hospital here, workers friendly to PLP responded to the latest crisis in the Middle East by increasing CHALLENGE sales. Workers contributed $80, $10 coming from a part-time environmental services worker who's a regular reader. A leaflet based upon CHALLENGE editorials analyzing the war was also distributed.

A call for a union meeting to discuss the current crisis encountered problems in finding a common time and place. So we went to each of our departments and raised the issue with our co-workers. Many were confused about the reasons for the war between Israel and Hamas in Palestine and Hezobollah in Lebanon. Getting their information from the capitalist newspapers and TV newscasts, workers couldn't understand the underlying crisis. The leaflet helped clarify it.

A few workers stated that the politicians are always misleading us to support their views about the Middle East crisis. Surely, the politicians' interests don't represent the working class.

A few Jewish workers argued heatedly about the right of Israel to exist as a state. One worker cried, "Israel wants to live in peace." Another replied, "The Palestinian workers also wanted to live in peace." Still another worker stated that the only road to peace in the Middle East is the destruction of the profit wars for oil.So far, several workers expressed interest in joining a study group to learn more about PLP and the role of the past communist parties in that region.

Deportation Raids Don't Intimidate Protestors

HEMPSTEAD, L.I., NY, Aug. 7 -- "No human being is illegal" read signs carried by dozens of residents here during a protest against raids by government immigration and custom agents. Several area workers have been arrested during these raids and face deportation. The agents come with photos of people they're looking for. If they don't find them, others without "proper" documents are arrested anyway.

One demonstrator said that since these raids occurred, people fear even taking the bus. That's why protesting against these fascist, racist raids is so important, to show that terror won't stop workers from fighting back. (See article on Farmingville for PLP's analysis of the fight against racist anti-immigrant terror.)

LETTERS

Multi-nationals Dangerous for Farm Workers

Recently we visited a Mazahua community in the northern part of the state of Mexico. A farm worker agreed with us that we need a change in the economic system, since this one exploits and impoverishes farm workers.

Multi-national corporations like Wal-Mart are forcing a group of small producers here to sign a document mandating that their products be sold only in Wal-Mart stores, preventing them from finding best market price. Is this the "liberty of the free market"? The capitalists threaten not to give an allotment for starting production of organic products not yet planted if you don't give in to their price. These are products the multi-nationals already want to buy.

Some think that unity of the community can stop this. But the reality of the profit system is that the bigger fish eat the smaller ones.

What happens when those who supposedly should support these same producers are pressured from above or by their bosses to convince the producers to give in? Where is the independence of the farm workers or of the indigenous towns that the government always brags it's defending? The reality is, big capital rules, whether national or foreign.

University students have a great responsibility to farm workers, and not because some of us study nursing, mechanics, teaching, communication, sustainable development, etc. Without an understanding of what's happening, we'll be used to trap our communities and present them on a silver platter to the bosses, enabling them to continue to exploit farmworkers through the multi-nationals.

Students, just because we sit in an armchair, are we learning? Is life still rosy? Is the moon made out of cheese? What's happened to critical thinking, and the consciousness to fight for a world where everything is for everyone? Mystical, cosmic vision won't help us much, the god of the wind will not emancipate us, but the power we can build among all of us will. Long live Communism!

Young red student

Winning Evangelicals To Oppose Iraq War

In May, 17 members of our small conservative church openly called for immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq/Afghanistan and against any attack on Iran (letter, CHALLENGE, 6/6)). We mailed letters to 150 other churches of the same denomination in our area (rather than to the bosses' politicians), asking them to join us.

One woman in our group took leadership and suggested that we hold a public forum (on June 27) to broaden the effort.

Hard work by the whole group, including ads in the weeklies, lots of fliers posted ("Who Would Jesus Bomb?"), refreshments and paid child care drew an integrated audience of nearly 100 people, mostly from the surrounding community. The panel included an imam from a neighboring mosque, the woman rabbi of a nearby synagogue, a woman soldier from Iraq Veterans Against the War, and a woman church member whose fiancée just returned from Iraq. One of the church's two pastors was moderator.

Considering the extent of anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic attacks in the U.S., the presence of a Muslim and a Jew speaking against the war in this church made a strong anti-racist statement. Also, the forum benefited considerably from the strong presence of women panelists. A lengthy period of questions and discussion followed, with all panel members engaged by people from the audience afterwards.

We're proud that a strong voice in the church on the war has now been heard, involving the community in a small but significant way. Although the forum's tone was pacifist, the racist, imperialist nature of the war was exposed. The original group of 17 has grown somewhat since May. All receive CHALLENGE regularly.

Red Churchgoer

Anti-War Churchgoers Expose Pro-War Liberals

I'm a comrade working in the social justice section of a large, inter-racial, politically "liberal" church. Days after the Israeli bombing of Lebanon began, the senior minister preached about good and evil, weakly referring to Israel, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the U.S. in this vein.

My friends and I began talking about a response to the killing and to highlight key political ideas, such as the role of oil and imperialism in the Mid-East, the political consequences of U.S. occupation of Iraq and Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the negative role of nationalism and religion in the region. We proposed a forum about the situation to the minister in charge of our section, to be held the following week, and requested an announcement in the church bulletin and from the pulpit. Foreseeing this was unlikely to happen, we distributed 400 notices about the forum after service.

The following Sunday the senior minister preached about God as our "soul's roommate," not mentioning the Mid-East. Some people in social justice were dismayed. I responded that his silence indicated his support for the ruling-class position coming from Congress and both Democratic and Republican politicians.

The Sunday of the forum the senior minister mentioned a growing "conflagration that could lead to nuclear war" without naming the U.S. or any particular place in the Mid-East. Then he introduced his invited guests, referring to their "important contributions" -- Democrats Charles Rangel and Nancy Pelosi (who supported the House vote the week before to give India nuclear technology and information).

Following the service over 40 people attended the social justice forum at which comrades and friends effectively put forward our political perspective. The group agreed to organize a larger forum in the fall and to picket the U.S. Mission to the UN the following week.

A small group did picket the Mission, holding signs saying, "Stop the wars in Iraq and Lebanon"; "U.S. Out of the Middle East"; "No attack on Iran," and others. The police reacted quickly to our group because we hadn't "asked for permission in advance." In other words, the police hadn't been able to barricade us and divide us from the mostly friendly passers-by. They will no doubt call the church to "request" advance notice next time.

The contradictions between the church higher-ups and our political ideas will sharpen. Comrades working in ruling-class organizations and institutions can expect a long and difficult struggle as many people begin to question what's happening in the world, draw political lessons from the strengths and weaknesses of the old communist movement and realize that communism is not dead. PLP'ers' consistent efforts to raise our ideas and give political leadership in many arenas will lead to smaller and larger victories along the way to overthrowing capitalism worldwide and fighting for a communist society.

A Comrade

Rebel Soldiers Help Katrina Victims

Although it has been almost a year since hurricane Katrina hit, New Orleans still looks like the cities currently being devastated by the imperialism in the Middle East. With police and National Guard patrolling the desolate streets, graffiti-marked homes saying "Baghdad" and "FEMA Kills" remind residents and volunteers that New Orleans is still a war zone.

Recently a group of volunteers organized a "gutting block party" to help gut homes in order meet a deadline set by the city that threatens to seize and demolish the homes.

Despite the vacant streets and a lack of electricity or running water, the local community center was alive with volunteers and residents celebrating a revival of working-class solidarity. The aroma of good food and the echo of music flooded the streets as everyone geared up to gut homes.

To the dismay of many, the National Guard showed up to inspect the celebration. While many were angered by their presence, one PL'er struggled with two soldiers about what the organization was doing. Soon the soldiers became eager to help, and eventually brought water and ice that they stole from their barracks. This act of insubordination demonstrates the potential to win soldiers to the PLP to help fight for communism. The more soldiers are won to fight for communism, the fewer workers will die for the bosses' profits.

Gutting homes proved to be even more trying. Many homes had not been entered since Katrina. In some, the debris was so great that the doors would not open. Many residents requested that sentimental items such as photos be recovered, but once inside it became clear that the destruction left little to nothing that was recoverable. The destruction was a living testament to the fact that capitalism, whether it is in the Middle East or in New Orleans, destroys the lives of workers.

In the end, there wasn't much that could have dampened the spirits of the clean-up effort. Working side-by-side with the residents provided inspiration by reminding everyone of the direct impact they were having on the lives of their working-class brothers and sisters in New Orleans. Despite the alienation felt by many of the Katrina survivors trying to rebuild their lives, alienation paled in the face of working-class solidarity that day. PL must continue to work directly with residents bringing not only their communist message, but also their willingness to share in the hard work of rebuilding the lives of workers in New Orleans.

Southern Red

Raising PLP's Ideas At Pro-Immigrant March, Union Convention

On July 19, three of us, teachers in the same union, joined the rally at the end of the latest march for immigration reform in Chicago. Over 10,000 workers and youth listened to Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez, who wants to be mayor, and others speak in favor of legalization for all undocumented immigrants and suspension of all deportations.

The crowd was much smaller than the 400,000 who marched May 1. However, it had the same patriotic display of thousands of U.S. flags and a speakers' platform loaded with labor leaders and Democrats. More marches are being planned for September in Chicago and on the East and West coasts. We need to prepare now to be part of these mass, multi-racial marches of workers and to have a clearly identified Party presence to expose the liberals' plans to lead us to more fascism and war.

Self-critically, we didn't have a PLP contingent there with red flags, revolutionary chants and speeches, leaflets and CHALLENGES, as we did on May 1. We must seize these opportunities to reach out to masses of workers with our revolutionary line.

We were at this rally to sharpen the contradiction between reform and revolution. I raised this issue within my union's executive committee and with friends in two other locals. As elected delegates to our recent national convention, we fought to get our union on record in opposition to "any immigration policy that further militarizes the U.S. border, hinders workers' abilities to organize, imposes high fees and fines on those seeking legalization, pushes immigrant youth into the military as a path to legalization and citizenship or criminalizes individuals or groups who support or assist immigrants regardless of their status." Although this was not adopted, it showed that by continuing the struggle and sharpening our communist line within it, we can return stronger to the next convention.

Given the limits of the convention, we were still able to explain the need for communist revolution to many delegates, held a small dinner/forum which included three new delegates and distributed 200 CHALLENGES. About 2,000 leaflets placed immigration reform and other struggles in the context of the inter-imperialist rivalry: main contradiction moving events in the world today.

Whether it's immigration reform, education reform, or the Iraq war, the U.S. ruling class must bend every aspect of society toward maintaining its current dominant position among the world's capitalist powers. Workers will never gain this understanding from the liberal Gutierrez, who wants to guarantee the continued exploitation of immigrants for cheap labor and to increase the number of immigrant youth in the military. No matter what legislation is adopted, immigrants and citizens alike will be sacrificed to keep U.S. bosses the number one super-power. PLP can only bring this understanding to other workers if we're embedded in this movement, fighting for our politics.

After our convention experience, we needed no convincing to join the July 19 marchers. At the final rally, we used the time during the speeches to discuss two letters in the July 19 CHALLENGE. They described the New Orleans Summer Project, including how imported immigrant labor is being used there to pit black and Latino workers against one another. Afterwards we made plans to invite other friends and co-workers to a meeting to bring them into our discussion. Introducing communist ideas into our reform struggles now will make next year's convention an even greater opportunity to build our Party.

Red Teacher

Ted Kennedy, AFT Leaders: Partners in Racism and Imperialist War

[The last issue described the anti-imperialist struggle at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention.]

When Peace and Justice Caucus members heard that Senator Ted Kennedy would speak, many argued that, "He's so popular, we can't demonstrate against him." A few called him "anti-war" although he votes for every war-spending bill. Most thought he was "not very strong" on immigration. But Kennedy's special role is to get immigrant youth into the armed forces. At the AFT convention he put a liberal face on the AFT leaders' pro-imperialist policies. Right after his speech they trotted out their "special order" supporting Israel's attack on Lebanon.

The Kennedy family has carried out and supported every imperialist adventure since JFK sent 16,000 "advisors" to Vietnam to jumpstart the Vietnam War. Ted Kennedy backed Clinton's bombing of Kosovo. Criticizing Bush for not taking sufficient advantage of 9/11, he called for "multi-lateral" imperialism in order to project U.S. power far into the future.

Kennedy's AFT convention speech was mostly "motherhood and apple pie" -- higher minimum wage, women's rights, etc. But he emphasized his solidarity with AFT founder Albert Shanker, who led a racist "strike" in 1968, pitting mostly white teachers against black and Latino working-class parents. Kennedy also praised former AFT President Sandra Feldman, a member of the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations.

One AFT member recalled that, "When the racists were organizing against school integration in Boston 30 years ago and PLP was fighting them in the streets, Kennedy met with them and concluded they weren't racist at all."

Unfortunately, many delegates thought Kennedy's position on immigration -- reflected in Resolution #1 -- was also "motherhood and apple pie," a dangerous illusion! Said Kennedy (May 2006):

"60,000 immigrants are fighting in the U.S. armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan today....The [immigration] reform debate is [about]... the even stronger America we hope to become....[O]ur military leaders ... are recruiting a diverse fighting force to think in new ways as we deal with our dangerous world." He has bragged that his immigration bill would send many more immigrant youth into the military. He also supports:

* Doubling the U.S. border patrol within five years and using more National Guard troops to police the borders;

* Fortifying U.S. borders with fences, high-tech devices and vehicle barriers, and placing permanent checkpoints on highways inside the U.S.;

* Biometric ID for immigrants and a universal electronic eligibility system for all U.S. employers;

* A "guest worker" program to provide cheap labor for the bosses;

* A "path to citizenship" so filled with obstacles (thousands in fines, requirement of continuous employment, etc.) that few will gain it, but will build patriotism among immigrants;

* Denying legalization to anyone who belongs to a "totalitarian" [read: communist] party or whom the Attorney General "believes" (no evidence required!) to be a "terrorist" or a relative of a "terrorist"; and,

* The DREAM ACT which offers the bait of citizenship for undocumented youth who join the military.

Kennedy's stance reflects a critical shortage in the U.S. military. "The long-term neglect of U.S. ground forces has caused serious problems in the Iraqi and Afghan campaigns. If not corrected,... this neglect will cause even worse problems in the future." (Frederick Kagan, Foreign Affairs, 6/2006)

The number of non-citizens in the military has nearly tripled since 1999. Non-citizens are half as likely as the U.S.-born to leave before completing their enlistment.

Kennedy notes that "immigration will be the only source of growth in the prime age labor force in America in the next two decades." Of the 36.6 million 18- to 24-year-old potential recruits nationwide, about 1.5 million, or 4%, are legal residents but not citizens. About 400,000 undocumented youth are also in that age group. "No doubt many would be willing to serve for some set period in return for one of the world's most precious commodities -- U.S. citizenship," wrote Council on Foreign Relations fellow Max Boot ( LA Times, 2/2006)

Paul Bucha, Congressional Medal of Honor Society President, sums it up:

"[T]here is a standard by which to judge whether America is correct to maintain a generous legal immigration policy: Have immigrants and their children and grandchildren been willing to fight and die for the United States of America? The answer... remains a resounding `yes.'"

Young immigrant and black soldiers face racist treatment from the brass, who also bombard them with racist stereotypes of workers from other countries to justify killing as acceptable. Communist leadership within the ranks will build the fight against racism, help sharpen these contradictions and point the way forward to revolution.

Along the way, no task will be more important than tearing the sheep's clothing off liberal wolves like Ted Kennedy.

Spain: Anti-Franco Resistance Inspired World's Workers

(Part I described the Asturian Miners revolutionary uprising and commune in October 1934, which was viciously crushed by troops led by the fascist general Francisco Franco.)

On July 18, 1936, less than two years after the Asturian miners' insurrection, Franco and other fascist generals led an attempted coup against the Republican government elected five months earlier. This led to the bloody three-year-long Civil War.

The Republican government was a united front composed of social-democrats, liberals and leftists, including the PCE (Communist Party of Spain). At the beginning of the war, the PCE was relatively small, but it correctly stated that the government's hesitation to jail and punish the fascist generals like Franco, responsible for the bloody repression of the Asturian miners, was one reason for the attempted coup. The PSOE (Socialist Party) was the main force in the government. It was a social-democratic party which treated the fascist forces with kid gloves. It did nothing to purge the Franco-led Colonial Army which brutally put down rebellion in Spain's African colonies. (See box on the Popular Front.)

During the Civil War that followed the failed coup, nearly a million people were killed. The fascist Axis (Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy) helped the fascist forces with all their might. Mussolini sent up to 70,000 Italian troops to fight alongside Franco. The Nazis sent Franco its latest weapons (including Stuka dive-bombers and pilots to fly them) to test their latest weapons and its blitzkrieg war strategy, later used against the rest of Europe and the Soviet Union during World War II.

Only the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent Mexico's nationalist government of Lazaro Cárdenas (which had nationalized its foreign-owned oil companies), helped the Republican side. Thousands of communists, socialists and other anti-fascists from 70 countries volunteered to fight in the International Brigades alongside the Republican forces, 2,500 (mostly communists) coming from the U.S. in the Lincoln Brigade.

Meanwhile, the Western "democracies" -- supposedly "neutral" -- really helped the fascists. France closed its borders, forcing the Soviets to send help on ships, which were attacked and many sunk by Mussolini's submarines. Franco's forces got all the supplies they needed through Portugal, the latter being ruled by fascist dictator Salazar. The U.S. "neutrality" did not stop Texaco from selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil to Franco's army.

Many, including Trotskyites, anarchists and others, have always attacked the Soviet Union's role during the Civil War. But the fact is that without Soviet help, the war would probably have been lost much earlier. The Soviets supplied 750 fighter planes to the Republican side (200 built in Catalonia in the middle of the war). These planes were crucial in the important battle of the Ebro River.

After three years of heroic defense by the workers of Spain and their internationalist supporters, the fascists won. The imperialist "democracies" that helped Franco were also helping Hitler, hoping he would destroy the Soviet Union. But after taking most of Europe from 1939 to 1941 with relative ease, Hitler hoped to do the same with the then communist-led Soviet Union. He organized the largest invasion force in history, a four-million-strong army, including troops from many other European countries (including Franco's Blue Legion) to try to crush the Soviets. After initial Nazi successes, the Soviet Red Army and masses of people fought back, and, at the Battle of Stalingrad the entire German 6th Army was encircled and surrendered to the Soviets in February, 1943. They then defeated the Nazis in the battle of the Kursk Salient, involving over 7,000 tanks, the largest such battle in the history of warfare. After the Soviets defeated the bulk of the Nazi war machine, the Allies finally launched the Second Front in France on June 6, 1944, fighting a much-weakened Nazi army.

Although the workers and allies of Spain lost to Franco's fascist hordes, they showed the world that fascism could be taken on. Their example inspired all the anti-fascist forces which, led by the Red Army, eventually crushed the Nazis.

`Popular Front' Did Not Lead to Revolution

In February, 1936, Spain's leftist parties formed a so-called "Popular Front," which included communists in the capitalist government. The Popular Front advocated that -- with the advent of fascism and imperialist war -- communists should form an alliance with social-democrats and some "good" bosses to preserve capitalist democracy and peace. That meant communists gave up fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and limited the fight against fascism to what the social democrats agreed to.

In Spain, this ruled out an alliance of the anti-fascist forces with the anti-colonial rebels in Spanish Morocco, to avoid offending French colonialism. It meant going along with the social-democrats' half-hearted and incompetent leadership of the war. They were more anxious to hold back communists than to defeat fascists. It meant not organizing guerilla war in fascist-held areas. Thus, the communists didn't try to take power, even when there was no other hope to defeat fascism. So, in this first "trial run" of the Popular Front, signs were clear that this strategy cannot achieve communist workers' power, the only way to defeat capitalism -- the cause of fascism -- once and for all.

Workers and Peasants Practiced Communism in the Chinese Revolution

Communism means a society where people work for the collective welfare and get back what they need from society, and in which classes have been abolished. To accomplish this goal fully will require a long period of working-class power. Marx and the majority in the old communist movement believed that even beginning to move toward this goal -- by immediately ending the wage system that is inherited from capitalism and distributing according to need -- should also be put off to the distant future. Some communists, however, argued for replacing wages immediately with distribution according to need.

During its fight for power, the Communist Party of China (CPC) did just that within the Party, Red Army, and CPC-run factories, distributing food, clothes and incidentals mainly on the basis of need -- the so-called "supply system." They did, however, allow small differences based on rank or assignment [1]. The Japanese army observed, "If [a captured Chinese soldier] willingly gives the good food to others and quietly takes the worst, generally he will be a Communist."[2]

Several years after the CPC victory, they returned to wages. While many resisted this decision, CPC leaders believed that the promotion of production should be their main goal, and that the only way to promote production was to ally with local capitalists and rich peasants -- a policy called "New Democracy." New Democracy ended up by strengthening pro-capitalist forces and leading to the future restoration of capitalism, as alliances with the enemy always does.[3]

To achieve their goal, the CPC attempted a massive increase in industrial production with the "Great Leap Forward," and large-scale people's communes were formed. Many included communal meals, a step in the direction of distribution according to need. Inspired by the communes, Mao and other party leaders discussed returning to the supply system:

"Why must we grasp a wages system? This is offering concessions to the bourgeoisie .... For a long time [our Party] has implemented the free supply system. From several tens of thousands of persons it grew to several million, right up to liberation.... In work everyone was industrious and in warfare all were courageous. There was absolutely no reliance on material incentives, but rather a reliance on the drumbeat of revolutionary spirit." [4]

The idea that the communes could lead to communism was also discussed in the press in 1958. The People's Daily published an article calling for the return of the supply system,[5] and a big Shanghai paper argued that the idea that communism leads to laziness is a capitalist and feudal point of view.[6] Despite the promise of the people's communes, the Great Leap eventually led to a famine in which many people died. This failure was based in part on mistakes in economic planning by the left-wing forces and in part on floods and drought, and was used by the right-wing CPC leaders to attack the Great Leap as a whole and to undermine egalitarianism in the peoples' communes.[7]

In May 1966, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) began and "was officially directed against" the "few" people in the party and the government who were "taking the capitalist road." Many workers, students, and peasants fought to overthrow the revisionist "red bourgeoisie" that was running China, and some wanted to go directly to communism.[8] In 1967, worker activists in Shanghai, moving in the direction of distribution according to need, demanded an end to the division into permanent and part-time workers, and demanded "equal pay for workers irrespective of individual productivity."

After years of mass movements, including some armed struggle, the Left was defeated in the GPCR. Deng Xiaoping, chief of the CPC capitalist-roaders came to power in 1978, dismantled the communes, and restored capitalism in China.

Despite this defeat, the experience gained from the monumental struggles of Chinese workers, students and peasants show us the way forward to communism: Distribution according to need, which necessitates the abolition of wages, is not only possible, but nothing else can prevent the rise of a new capitalist class and rid the world of capitalism -- forever.

Footnotes:
[1] Mark Selden, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China, Cambridge: Harvard University, 1971, pp. 152 - 157.
[2] Kitahara Tatsuo, Japanese army specialist on communism, quoted in Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War, 1931-1945, New York: Pantheon, 1978, p. 94.
[3] See the PLP article "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the Reversal of Worker's Power in China," http://www.plp.org/rr3/gpcr.html.
[4] Miscellany of Mao Tse-Tung Thought (1949-1968), Joint Publications Research Service, JPRS 61269-2, 20 Feb. 1974, vol. I, p. 233.
[5] L. Dittmer, Liu Shao-ch'i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Berkeley: University of California, 1974, p. 186.
[6] "Disprove the `Communism Breeds Laziness' Theory," Wen Hui Bao, October 23, 1958, translated in Survey of China Mainland Press, #1900.
[7] F. Teiwes and W. Sun, China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians, and Provincial Leaders in the Unfolding of the Great Leap Forward 1955-1959, Armonk: M. E. Sharp, 1999, pp. 213 - 222.
[8] See "Whither China?" by the "Ultra-Left" group Shengwulian, in K. Mehnert, Peking and the New Left, Berkeley, University of California, 1969.
[9] J. Daubier, A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, New York: Vintage, 1974, pp. 124 - 131; J. Domes, China After the Cultural Revolution, Berkeley: University of California, 1977, pp. 85 - 88.

Page 735 of 772

CHALLENGE, Nov. 1, 2006

Anti-Racists Confront Minutemen

France: Sit-Down Strikers Demand Rights for Undocumented Workers

Iraq Body Count Shows U.S. Imperialists Are Mass Murderers

Liberal Warmakers Backed Anti-Bush Study

Bosses’ Vietnam Lesson: Hide The Atrocities

Fallujah Massacre: Standard U.S. Operating Procedure

‘Macbeth’ Hoax, Whether Farce Or Tragedy, Aids Warmakers

Oaxaca Struggle Shows Workers’ Revolutionary Potential

Bosses Battle for Mexico’s Oil

Liberals Attack Pervert ‘Pol’ Foley to Advance War Agenda

‘Free Speech’ for Racist Minutemen Means Fascism for Working Class

‘Freedom’ for Nazis Led to Death for Millions

Anti-Racists Drown Out KKK At Harper’s Ferry

Cook County Hospital:

Whether Dems or G.O.P., All Roads Lead to Racist Cutbacks, War

Florida Teachers Mass on Highways, Rallying for Pay Raises

Workers Nix Union Hacks’ War Contract, Strike Goodyear

Chavez’s Anti-Bush Rhetoric Hides Nationalist Reformers’ Exploitation

Anti-War Teach-In Reveals U.S. Imperialist Atrocities

Plan to Fight Anti-Immigrant Attacks, Expose Liberal ‘Reform’ Tool for War Recruiting

Lynne Stewart Sentence: Judge’s ‘Compassion’ Masks Stepped-up Fascism

Students Rally vs. Military Recruiters at Career Fair

LETTERS

Learning Communism in the School of Life

Working on Many Fronts Post-May Day

Under Capitalism, Workers Can’t Celebrate ‘Independence’

U.S. Killed Nearly 3 Million North Koreans

Students Occupy, Close College for the Deaf

FLASH! Cops Arrest 133 Students

REDEYE on the News

The Great Anti-Fascist Battle In London’s East End, 1936

Forward to Communism:

Reds Led Resistance Inside Nazi Death Camps

PLP History: Championing Internationlism

CHALLENGE, Oct. 18, 2006

WAR NEEDS DICTATE HARVARD ADMISSION CHANGERacist Rulers Target Working-Class Youth To Be Misleaders

DIE-HARD RACIST IMPERIALISTS SHAPED POLICY MOVE

SCHOLARSHIPS BRIBE WORKERS INTO BETRAYING THEIR CLASS

FAKE IVY LEAGUE EGALITARIANISM MASKS GENOCIDE

WHAT LIBERAL BOSSES REALLY WANT -- WARTIME MOBILIZATION

DUMP ALL BOSSES!Oaxaca Workers Defy Threats

GOVERNORS CHANGE BUT OPPRESSION REMAINS THE SAME

Capitalism and U.S. Imperialism Still the Biggest Terrorists

THIS MONTH IN PLP HISTORY

Pro-Cop Union Hacks' Pacifism Undercuts Hotel Workers

PLP'ers Spread Red Ideas In Transit Union Election Campaign

NYC Teachers Support Oaxaca Strikers

Mexico's Rulers Fight Over Oil; Workers Must Smash `em All

Banff or Chapultepec -- A Bosses' Dogfight

LA Teachers Back Oaxaca Strikers

French Bosses' Mouthpiece Sees Fascism Growing in U.S., U.K.

Want to End Imperialist Wars?Shed Illusions of `Peaceful' Capitalism

Lynne Stewart Case -- Legalizing Fascist Terror

`Brides' March Against Domestic Violence

LETTERS

DESAFIO `Big Hit' Under Open Fascism

NY Times: `Pro-Democracy' Military Coup in Thailand

Warning: Capitalist Schools Can Make You Sick!

New Orleans Summer Project Inspires More Struggle

Which side are liberals on?

REDEYE

Iraq `might be worse than under Saddam'

Imperialists never stop stealing

Prostitution now a budget asset!

Suicides up in capitalist-democracy India

US free enterprise brings doom to Iraq

Millionaires, eat your heart out!

Liberty and justice for all -- who can pay!

NAACP Red-Baiters Betrayed Pro-Communists Du Bois, Robeson

Serving Imperialism

Rely On Bosses Or Workers?

Hungary: Free-Market `Socialists' Vs. Gutter Fascists

New Liberalism Paves the Way to Fascism:Communist Politics Needed To Thwart Bosses' War Plan

CHALLENGE, October 4, 2006

Ford Assault on Workers Triggers Mass Racist Job Cuts

Capitalism Puts The Screws On

Detroit Auto Workers Veterans of ‘67 Anti-Racist Rebellion

Expose Liberals’ ‘Anti-War’ Masquerade

Morgan Heir Lamont Lets Imperialist Cat Out Of The Bag

WAR NEEDS DICTATE HARVARD ADMISSION CHANGE
Racist Rulers Target Working-Class Youth To Be Misleaders

DUMP ALL BOSSES!
Oaxaca Workers Defy Threats

Want to End Imperialist Wars?
Shed Illusions of `Peaceful' Capitalism

New Liberalism Paves the Way to Fascism:
Communist Politics Needed To Thwart Bosses' War Plan