Obama’s invasion of oil-rich Libya marks U.S. imperialists’ first major use of their phony “Responsibility To Protect” (RTP) excuse for waging wider wars. The RTP doctrine, adopted at a 2005 UN summit, despite China’s and Russia’s objections, eliminates capitalist national borders as obstacles to imperialist intervention. The invaders have only to assert that they’re “rescuing the locals.”

Bombing and missile raids by the U.S. (with junior partner Britain and temporary ally France) supposedly aim at saving Libya’s citizens from dictator Qaddafi, under RTP. But the wave of Mideast rebellions made U.S. rulers and their imperialist allies shaky over maintaining the oil deals they’ve made with each other and Qaddafi over past years.

Obama was very ready to allot hundreds of millions for this latest war while cutting billions from education and social service budgets, causing massive layoffs of teachers and other government workers. The initial U.S. Navy attack with 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles alone cost nearly $100 million. As of March 29, the Pentagon had spent $550 million in the first ten days.

The upsurge that spread from Tunisia to Algeria to Egypt, where thousands of workers struck for higher wages and against mass unemployment as they did in Iraq — and continues to spread throughout the region — made the oil-thirsty imperialists nervous. Therefore, the U.S.-led campaign focused on protecting the Libyan assets of oil giants Exxon Mobil, Marathon, and Occidental (U.S.); BP (U.K.); and Total (French). At this writing, NATO air strikes were helping pro-U.S. rebels seize two oil refineries and a strategic export terminal. On March 27, they captured two oil-export ports.

Of course, the U.S. chose not to “rescue” protestors in Bahrain, the base of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and allowed its government and invading Saudi troops to kill hundreds to ward off any rebellion that might eventually threaten Saudi’s oil fields, the world’s largest.

In a March 24 article, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), U.S. imperialism’s top think-tank — bankrolled by Exxon Mobil-JP Morgan Chase — trumpets U.S.-led killing in Libya as “A New Lease on Life for Humanitarianism.” Its author, war criminal Stewart Patrick, who helped shape Afghan strategy in Bush, Jr.’s State Department, called RTP, as executed in Libya, the “biggest challenge to state sovereignty in three and a half centuries.”

Patrick was referring to Obama’s effective trashing of the long-lived 17th century Treaties of Westphalia. Those Treaties had enshrined the existence of capitalist nation states and defined invasion — the rulers’ ultimate means of sorting out differences — as war.

But today, after the demise of the old communist movement, U.S. bosses, though in decline, temporarily enjoy unequaled ability to project military force anywhere on earth. So Obama & Co. claim the RTP right to selectively invade any country, cloaked as “saviors” rather than aggressors. Patrick writes, “it [RTP] makes a state’s presumed right of non-intervention contingent on its ability and willingness to protect its citizens and threatens collective, timely, and decisive action if it does not.”

Liberal Rulers’ ‘Responsibility To
Protect’ = License to Invade and Kill

In addition to the elite, Rockefeller-backed CFR, the lethal, hypocritical “responsibility-to-protect” pretext has a champion in Human Rights Watch.  HRW, a mass organization founded and funded by billionaire swindler and Rockefeller ally George Soros, lures well-meaning people to liberal causes that aid U.S. imperialism. In a March 25 web article praising both the Libyan invasion and RTP, Human Rights Watch approved killing civilians:

“Opposing forces may attack a military target that is making use of human shields, but it is still obligated to determine whether the attack is proportionate — that is, that the expected loss of civilian life and property is not greater than the anticipated military advantage of the attack.” Oil facilities, presumably, meet the callous cost-benefit test. HRW also urges U.S. “humanitarian intervention” in Ivory Coast’s violent presidental dispute in which China and the Western imperialists back opposing sides.

U.S. Bosses in War Policy Disarray: Isolationist Tea Partiers vs. World War III Imperialists

But not all U.S. capitalists embrace Obama’s North African foray. In fact, fearing opposition from forces lacking imperialist interests (personified by Tea Partiers), Obama did not consult Congress before raining missiles on Tripoli.  More importantly, to some power brokers within the dominant imperialist wing of U.S. rulers, Libya pales beside bigger worries:

“We clearly have much more vital interests to protect in Yemen and Bahrain [neighbors of the U.S. oil empire’s cornerstone Saudi Arabia — Ed.]” says Rockefeller Brothers Fund trustee and former State Department planner Nicholas Burns. (Boston Globe, 3/22/11) But, says Burns. “We have no choice now but to lead in order to save Libya from its dictator and to redeem U.S. power, credibility, and purpose in the Middle East.”

Richard Haass, CFR president and advisor to mass murderer of Iraq War I, Colin Powell, looks even farther down the road to his masters’ ultimate requirements. On Libya, he expressed doubts (CFR website, 3/21/11) about “committing the United States to another costly foreign intervention at a moment we owe it to ourselves...to get our economic and military houses in order so we can meet our obligations at home and be prepared to meet true wars of necessity (North Korea for one) if and when they arise?” Haass speaks not so indirectly about U.S. imperialists’ needs to militarize the nation for all-out war with China (North Korea’s enabler).

Supporting oil-thirsty Pentagon-backed Libyan rebel leaders as “freedom fighters” — however courageous the rank and file is — leads down a political dead end. Rather workers must build for the ultimate destruction of the profit system that constantly produces regional resource wars, like Libya, as preludes to global inter-imperialist conflict.

That’s why PL’ers and our supporters must expose the racist exploitative profit system and its oppression at every turn, in factories and unions, among GI’s and in schools, churches and all mass organizations. More important, we must up the ante of the class struggle in these areas, escalating and leading the anti-racist fights against the ruling class and its lackey politicians.

Consequently, as the class struggle intensifies, the rulers will strike back with their state power (as they’re doing in the Mideast and in Wisconsin). This can be used still further to turn the class struggle into a “school for communism.” This means winning workers and their allies to see that the system cannot be reformed and to understand that building PLP and it’s goal of organizing a communist revolution — that will end the capitalists’ deadly dogfights and put the working class in power — is the only road to follow.J

‘Rebels’? or Racists?

“Libyan Rebels Accused of Targeting Blacks, reads the headline in the March 4 Los Angeles Times. The article reports that, “Many innocent Africans and black Libyans have faced detention, beatings or intimidation while being accused of accepting money to fight for Qaddafi.” They “are actually black Libyans or Africans who have been living in Libya for years….

“Africans recently interviewed in Benghazi said they had been threatened, beaten and driven from their homes by gunmen calling them mercenaries.”

“A spokesman for the rebels’ ‘military council’ said about 150 men were being held at several locations in and around Benghazi.”

Another LA Times article (3/24) headlined “Libyan Rebels Appear to Take A Leaf from Qaddafi’s Playbook” reported that, “For a month gangs of…gunmen have roamed the city, rousting Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from their homes and holding them for interrogation as ‘suspected’ mercenaries or ‘government spies….’

“The prisoners and detainees were… [imprisoned in] dank cells that stank of urine and rot — the same cells that once housed some of the dissidents now aligned with the rebel movement…”

Not too much “democracy” here.



MADISON, WISCONSIN, March 5 — Arriving at midnight on March 3, I went to the Capitol early the next day. The streets were packed with people carrying picket signs, some from their unions, some homemade. Inside the Capitol rotunda a tremendous spirit of solidarity and joy filled the air. A group of boilermakers and pipefitters wearing hardhats entered to applause.

One of their leaders took over leadership of the chants. “Hey-hey, Ho-ho, Governor Walker has got to go! Union Power; Worker’s Rights” reverberated through the hall.

I asked if I could make some remarks. When I said I was from the Bronx, people chanted, “Thank you, thank you!”

I replied, “No, thank you, workers of Wisconsin. All over people are rooting for you who are on the front lines leading the struggle against attacks on working people.” I explained that on my campus we had a Support Wisconsin Day and showed them the stickers my local, the Professional Staff Congress, was distributing throughout NYC.

Class War

“Too many people have struggled and died for workers’ rights. There’s no way we will allow these gains to be erased.” Pointing to a Teamsters Local sign saying, “Stop the War on Workers,” I declared, “Class war was being waged against the working class. We must organize ourselves to make class war against the bosses. We should live to see the day when there are no more rich over us to exploit us!” The crowd agreed.

The next day, Saturday, tens of thousand encircled the Capitol. Private-sector unionists, non-union workers and even small businessmen were there to support the public-sector workers. People refused to be pitted against each other by the bosses’ lies that public-sector workers were “riding a gravy train” at the expense of the taxpayers.

Many in the crowd wore red in solidarity but the leadership’s politics was anything but red. The main speaker, Michael Moore, explained correctly that there wouldn’t be a “budget deficit” if Walker hadn’t granted tax breaks to the wealthy as soon as he was elected. Moore explained that a very small group of rich people was getting richer and that they bribed the politicians.

But, as Moore did in his documentary movies, he upheld the Democratic Party as the savior of the people. He led a chant, “Fab Fourteen, Fab Fourteen!” praising the Democratic State Senators who had left the state to try to prevent Walker and the Republican State Senators from passing a bill denying collective bargaining rights to Wisconsin’s public-sector workers.

Dems, G.O.P. Agree on Cuts

But both parties’ politicians in Wisconsin and nation-wide agree that workers must take deep cuts. For example, the Democratic Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, recently terminated the entire teaching staff; and NY Democratic Governor Cuomo has won support from Republican and Conservative politicians with his austerity budget.

So what needs to be done? In Wisconsin, many union leaders are calling for “recalls” to create elections to oust Walker and the Republican State Senators, replacing them with Democratic Party politicians. On the other hand, the South Wisconsin Central Labor Council is considering a general strike against Walker’s union-busting and budget-cutting.

Phony “leftist” parties distributed literature calling for a general strike, too. But only the Progressive Labor Party is calling for the building of a revolutionary movement as well as a general strike. General strikes improve class consciousness and are opportunities for the working class to realize its own tremendous strength, but only revolution will eliminate the capitalist class permanently and put the working class in the driver’s seat. 

CHICAGO, March 21 — Hospital workers on the picket line noticed an older man marching with them shaking his fist as they all yelled, “They say cut back, we say FIGHT BACK!” He was wearing a hospital gown under his coat. The dozens of hospital workers, community members and students protesting in front of Stroger Hospital of Cook County had attracted some patients, too. The protest was sparked by the plans of the County Board to close two of the three hospitals in Chicago’s public system, turning the patients out to fend for themselves.

PL’ers at the hospital, meeting with Coalition Against The Cuts in Healthcare (CATCH), had heard the most dramatic aspect of this particular cutback at a meeting weeks earlier. A nurse from Oak Forest Hospital, one of the hospitals about to be closed, described the plight of patients in the chronic ventilator unit, some of whom had been living there attached to breathing machines for many years. “They’re more like family than patients to me,” she explained. “We’ve been together for years.” These patients had been given a deadline of the end of the month to find themselves a nursing home to be transferred to. “This unit is closing,” they were told.

“I’ve known many patients from here who left for nursing homes,” said Michael Yanul, an Oak Forest ventilator patient with muscular dystrophy who tells his story on YouTube. “They all died. And that’s what frightens me.”

‘Administrative Euthanasia’

Hospital workers showed up at board meetings, calling the planned hospital closures murder and pointing out the racist nature of this attack on facilities serving mostly black and immigrant patients. One doctor pointed out the similarity of these deadly cuts to the way the Germans freed up hospital beds in preparation for World War II by gassing the chronic patients in public hospitals in a program they called “euthanasia.” The doctor suggested the label “administrative euthanasia” to describe the County’s cut-back plan.

The nurse from the CATCH meeting testified before the County Board Finance Committee and held up pictures of patients slated for eviction from the ventilator unit. “These people can’t be here to speak for themselves and so I told them I could tell their story here. Closing this unit is tantamount to murder!” When she finished speaking the hundreds of people in the jammed meeting room stood up and applauded. When she came to work the next day, she was sent home on “administrative leave” for “violating the patients’ confidentiality.”

Others who had heard this nurse at the CATCH meeting were furious and started circulating a petition defending her. They also went to support her at her disciplinary hearing, but her union, wishing to avoid “interference by radicals,” arranged with management to move the hearing 30 miles away to another venue at the last minute.

Solidarity Backs Nurse

Three other hospital workers came up with another way to show their solidarity. They went to Oak Forest Hospital during visiting hours and talked with staff and patients on the long-term vent unit. Both staff and patients wanted to help the nurse who was wrongly accused of “violating patient confidentiality.” The ventilator patients gladly agreed to sign consent forms to be photographed again for the purposes of getting their story out at an upcoming CATCH demonstration in front of Stroger Hospital. One man, David Moreno, paralyzed from the neck down, held the ballpoint pen in his teeth to make an “X” on the consent form.

The afternoon of the picket line, teachers brought along their high school students to learn first-hand about the nature of health care in Chicago. Once a hospital worker explained the story behind the huge faces (the patient photos had been made into 3-foot posters) he said, “They’re doing that?! Putting those people out, when they are on breathing machines? Give me that poster!” This youth had one of the strongest voices leading the chants. (Hear and see the demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLtc_DyJ5X4.) The demonstration involved a number of our friends and long-time CHALLENGE readers. One doctor who participated was later called into his boss’s office for questioning but once he showed the signed consent forms, the matter was dropped.

On March 21st the Illinois Health Facilities Board held their meeting to decide whether or not to grant a permit for the closing of Oak Forest Hospital of the Cook County Health System. Two busloads of hospital workers and community members sat and stood all around the large meeting room holding protest signs with pictures of the long-term patients. The protesters were silent at first but then, the same nurse (“They’re more like family”) stepped out and asked for permission to address the Board.

‘Are you going to kill these people?’

When she was denied, the number of voices protesting increased. “Are you just going to kill these people?” “How come you can find money to give the administrators raises but you can’t afford to care for patients?” The Chairman had to recess the meeting to restore order. In the end, the Facilities Board decided to deny Cook County permission to close Oak Forest Hospital, telling them to return in six months with a clear plan that would avoid harm to uninsured patients in Cook County. The protesters cheered.

We all know this is not the end, but it gives us time to organize a bigger fight-back for the next round. From the perspective of communists involved in this fight, it has energized our collective, activated some who have been passive and helped develop several less-experienced comrades. One friend, a health worker who has met with our PLP club, said, “What I like about you guys is that you actually do stuff.”

Recruiting new Party members in the struggle is our best strategy against the fascism that is taking shape in health care as it is throughout the U.S. in this run-up to the next World War. We’ve got our work cut out for us, but there are lots of workers out there who, like that nurse, will show their hidden leadership qualities as events unfold. 

Recently we had a forum on political economy and the current crisis.  At this forum there seemed to be some confusion about three concepts: how the bosses realize their profits, the crisis of overproduction and the tendency for the rate of profit to fall.  These three important ideas deserve to be understood individually and in their dialectical connections.

The realization question is an important basic concept in Marxist political economy.  Marx posited that while economic value is created in the production process by human labor, this does not put money in the hands of the boss.  That is, the boss has to actually sell products in the market to translate into the money form the surplus value (profits) produced by workers being paid less than the value their labor adds in the production process. 

A major problem is that workers are not paid enough to purchase everything that they make.  This is the realization question.  There are numerous ways that the bosses deal with this issue.  The bosses can buy up a lot of goods themselves. They can extend credit to the working class, which forces the workers to work off their debt in a kind of credit-card-slavery.  Most important, though, the bosses answer the realization question through competition and expansion.  The bosses look to find new “markets” by trying to undercut their competitors or by selling their goods to new people who have never had access to them before.  This is part of the initial drive toward imperial expansion.

Crises of Overproduction

Crises of overproduction are a periodic but consistent part of the capitalist system.  They are seemingly easy to understand: the bosses produce too much stuff, can’t sell it all and then many go out of business.  In order to survive, bosses compete to maximize their profits by expanding production to steal market share from their competitors.  All capitalists are doing the same thing — making more than their “fair share” of goods — leading to way too many goods being produced. 

These goods are now devalued as they sit unsold.  Companies collapse, workers are laid off and factories are shuttered.  These types of crises can begin industry specific, but they often (as now) expand into nationwide recessions and sometimes (as in the 1930s) to worldwide depression.

The tendency for the rate of profit to fall is a much more difficult concept to understand.  As argued above, the capitalists’ profit comes only from paying workers less than the value that their labor power produces in value.  The capitalists’ rate of profit is the amount of that “surplus value” they pocket as a percentage of their total investment (in machinery, raw materials and labor). If the amount of the total investment increases and the number and degree of exploitation of workers remains constant, the rate of profit falls.

The dog-eat-dog nature of capitalist competition makes increased investment in machinery as against labor inevitable.  Bosses must make their production more efficient and less costly or their competitors will be able to undersell them.  Mechanization and automation can give one boss at least a temporary edge and allow him to sell more of his products and increase his own profits.  Others will soon imitate the more “efficient” boss, though, and soon the playing field will be leveled. However, now all the capitalists’ total investment has increased and their profit percentage has decreased.  This process goes on over and over again as long as capitalism exists.

If the capitalists’ rate of profit must fall and fall, it is fair to ask why (in the face of this “self strangulation”) capitalism doesn’t just collapse of it own weight.  The answer lies partly in the actions bosses take to increase the level of exploitation of the working class and partly in the periodic destruction of capital (in depressions and war). But in reality, capitalism can never end unless a revolutionary party exists to lead the working class to overthrow it.

If workers can be paid a smaller percentage of the value they produce, then that extra surplus (profit) can offset increased investment in machinery.  Moving auto workers $30+/hour jobs from Detroit to the $8 wage levels in the South and Southwest is one capitalist answer to their falling profits. Attacks on government workers and cutbacks in education, health care and pensions also allow capitalists to increase how much they can profit off the working class by reducing how much they have to pay in the taxes and fringe benefits that keep their rotten system running.  All this has increased the level of racist and sexist exploitation — yet another bosses’ strategy to prop up profits (and keep workers divided).   

An even more important strategy of the bosses is to transfer and expand production in imperialist ventures around the world. Wages race to the bottom of a few-dollars-a-day-starvation level, making workers misery the price to be paid for the capitalists’ drive to survive.  Overthrowing this system with communist revolution is indeed the only answer.

The capitalists find, though, that even these desperate measures to squeeze every dollar possible out of the world’s working class isn’t enough to keep the profit levels high enough for their system to function.  Even fascist measures can force wages down only so much until workers can no longer survive and reproduce.  Eventually imperialism has expanded into all corners of the world and there are no more new workers to be exploited at lower and lower wage levels (a situation, for the most part, that capitalists increasingly face today).

Imperialists Resort to War

When this happens, rival imperialist powers resort to the deadly destruction of world war to expand their areas of potential workers to be exploited and reverse their falling profit rates.  A secondary result of these wars is the destruction of vast amounts of machinery and capital investment (and millions of workers’ lives). The surviving bosses are then able to re-establish high enough rates of profit to again jump-start capitalist production. Capitalism can only survive by destroying worker-soldier lives so that other workers can be forced into a dead end system of exploitation.

As Marxists we strive to understand the world.  When we reach a better understanding of economics we can explain why the problem for workers is not a bad boss or a rotten politician. The competitive nature of capitalist competition forces all bosses to sharpen the oppression of the working class.  Gaining a greater understanding of the real political economy of capitalism can put the working class one step closer to realizing that reforming capitalism into a “fair” system just isn’t possible.  Only an egalitarian communist world can put an end to the poverty, wars, racism and sexism of the bosses’ rule.