Imperialist Oil War Massacres Thousands: Dems Push Bush For More Troops In Iraq

a href="#Uprisings Threaten Oil Barons’ Plans">"prisings Threaten Oil Barons’ Plans

a href="#PLP Says: Liberals — ‘Evil, Yes!; Lesser? No!’">PLP "ays: Liberals — ‘Evil, Yes!; Lesser? No!’

a href="#Bushites Can’t Conquer Iraq ‘On The Cheap’">Bush"tes Can’t Conquer Iraq ‘On The Cheap’

Liberal Rulers: Bush Failed to Use 9/11 to Build Pro-war Police State

a href="#Subway Sit-down Strike Beats Bosses’ Attack">"rgentina: Subway Sit-down Strike Beats Bosses’ Attack

Racist Firings Stopped!

a href="#May Day Dinner Honors PLP’s Historic Anti-Nazi March">"ay Day Dinner Honors PLP’s Historic Anti-Nazi March

a href="#Workers Who Abuse Women Fall into Bosses’ Trap">"orkers Who Abuse Women Fall into Bosses’ Trap

Health Care: A Class Question

a href="#PLP Revolutionary May Day Answer to Liberals’ Motorcade Diversion">"LP Revolutionary May Day Answer to Liberals’ Motorcade Diversion

Revolution Is Only Solution to Workers in El Salvador

Workers Fight Anti-Immigrant Attacks on Day Laborers

a href="#‘Community Policing’— A Racist Killer in Liberal Clothing">‘Com"unity Policing’— A Racist Killer in Liberal Clothing

a href="#Profiteers Riding High in ‘Jobless Recovery’">Pr"fiteers Riding High in ‘Jobless Recovery’

a href="#More Rulers’ Robbery — Tax-free Corporations">Mo"e Rulers’ Robbery — Tax-free Corporations

CIA Created Worldwide Terrorism

Expose Anti-Stalin Lies About Spanish Civil War

LETTERS

GI Says Buddies Are Not Gung-ho

The Alamo: A Pro-Slavery Film

I Feel Good!

a href="#Kerry’s No Peace-nik">"erry’s No Peace-nik

Peruvian Women Prisoners Write

Oppose Fascists At St. Lawrence University

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

• Bush: Era of peace begins
• Imperialism loves Kerry
• The same old capitalism
• US could be forced out
• Bosses feel free to rob us
• US bosses bankroll Hitlers
• $tadium yes, school$ no
• ‘Progressive’ taxes ain’t

---

Imperialist Oil War Massacres Thousands:

Dems Push Bush For More Troops In Iraq

Hundreds if not thousands of Iraqis, many of them innocent civilians, along with many GIs, have died or been wounded in the latest round of fighting. The U.S. bosses have taken a page from the Nazis and Israel’s Sharon in imposing "collective punishment," using tanks, helicopters and planes to massacre the people of Fallujah, a city of 300,000.

Many are happy to see the Bush gang eat their arrogant declaration of "victory" proclaimed almost a year ago. But in reality the leadership of the Iraqi insurgency is no friend of workers. The nationalists, jihadists and Shiite clergy don’t fight for the liberation of the working class.

On May Day in 1959 over one million workers and others marched in Baghdad waving red flags. But instead of fighting for workers’ power, the old "Communist" Party supported the "progressive nationalist bourgeoisie." This eventually produced Saddam Hussein, killing thousands of reds along the way, with the help of a CIA hit list.

Today, the much weaker CP of Iraq is part of the U.S.-led Provisional Government. The only way out of this imperialist-capitalist hell for Iraqi workers, and all workers, is to rebuild a revolutionary communist movement. That’s the goal PLP fights for, so no worker is forced to choose sides in the current gang warfare for control of Iraqi oil.

The present anti-U.S. uprisings in Iraq seem to confirm that the Bush crowd grossly miscalculated the obstacles it would face in conquering that country and pacifying it for oil investment. Initially, Bush & Co. estimated that Sunni forces loyal to Saddam Hussein had been smashed after the U.S, military had contained their October-November 2003 Ramadan offensive. Sunni resistance against U.S. Marines around Fallujah proves this was wishful thinking.

But the Sunni nationalists represent the lesser Iraqi threat to U.S. oil supremacy. The bigger danger comes from the forces under Shiite leadership (the Shiite population is by far the majority in Iraq), and a classic double-cross the imperialists have tried and apparently failed to carry out has now increased this danger.(See below)

After invading Iraq and ousting Hussein in 2003, the Bushites bet that the U.S. military could occupy the country and U.S. companies could rebuild its oil industry with no help from other imperialists and little help from Iraqi collaborators. This was another blunder. CHALLENGE has written extensively about how Bush’s go-it-alone policy has sharpened inter-imperialist rivalry and delayed the oil bonanza that was one of the main reasons for the invasion in the first place.

But Bush & Co. figured they could also do without inside help from the Shia hierarchy, particularly a guarantee from Shia religious bosses that they wouldn’t threaten the U.S. conquest militarily.

The Sunni guerrilla offensive in the fall changed that wishful thinking. Seeing with hindsight that they were under-manned, the U.S. imperialists cobbled together a quick deal with Iraqi Shiite big shots and their Iran backers. Bush’s Iraq viceroy, Bremer, promised that the Shia could hold elections, which the Shia political machine assumed it would win. The elections would install a Shia government that would allow the U.S. military to stay indefinitely and protect U.S. oil interests, in return for a share of the loot. The Shia VIPs were to promise that they wouldn’t lead an uprising that could seriously compromise the U.S. occupation.

Once the Sunni insurgency seemed to die down, Bush-Bremer tried to back-stab their new Shia buddies by calling for an un-elected "coalition" government to take power on June 30. This would include Kurds as well as Shia and Sunnis. In other words, the double-cross would remove the Shia bosses from the position of local dominance they thought the U.S. had promised them.

CHALLENGE is forced to rely on the capitalist press for most of the information we try to analyze. From what we can tell, however, the current Shia uprising seems to reflect an attempt by the main Shia leader, holy roller al-Sistani, and his buddies in Iran, to prove that the U.S. can’t conquer Iraq and make it safe for the oil companies, (1) without cutting al-Sistani in on the deal; (2) without backing off the June 30 "coalition" pipe-dream double-cross; and (3) without making concessions to Iranian rulers.

The loose-cannon Shiite cleric al-Sadr, whose forces are doing most of the present anti-U.S. fighting, has far less power than his bigger internal rival, al-Sistani. At the moment, al-Sistani may well be playing a cat-and-mouse game with the U.S., using al-Sadr as a threat of more havoc to come if the U.S. doesn’t alter its plans for post-war Iraq in favor of al-Sistani and his pals in Teheran. Al-Sistani’s forces could probably overwhelm al-Sadr’s, but at the moment, al-Sistani is giving his junior partner/competitor a long leash.

We can’t predict the outcome of this diplomatic and political wrangling. However, certain realities are clear:

The U.S. occupation is facing a crossroads. Either the imperialists cut a deal with the al-Sistani Shiite power elite, or else the U.S. may face "losing the peace, and with it the war." (Anthony Cordesman, "The Implications for the Current fighting in Iraq," Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/8)

But U.S. imperialism’s need to dominate the world via control of Persian Gulf oil is absolute. Presently, U.S. rulers have accomplished only part of their goal: their occupation has succeeded in denying Iraqi oil to their French, Russian and Chinese rivals. But until the military can ensure a calm investment climate, the U.S. majors, led by Exxon Mobil, can’t rebuild the Iraqi oil industry and make it serve U.S. imperialism’s grand designs. Therefore, "the strategic reality of U.S. forces in Iraq is permanent" (Stratfor, 4/8). Leaving Iraq is not an option.

Moreover, the U.S. doesn’t have enough current military force in Iraq to crush a wide Shiite insurgency and deal at the same time with the remnants of Sunni opposition. Even if the U.S. manages to concoct a deal with al-Sistani and the Iranians, it will be built on sand, like all pacts among forces whose main interest is maximum profit. Therefore, regardless of the immediate results produced by today’s fighting and haggling, more U.S. troops will eventually have to be sent into Iraq and throughout the Persian Gulf.

Wider war — much wider war — is inevitable. None of it can serve the international working class. The only war in our interest is a class war, the workers’ armed struggle that sets the conquest of state power for revolutionary communism as its goal.

We must never lose sight of this purpose. The difficulty of the present period and of the days that lie ahead must never alter our resolve to fight for our class’s deepest aspirations and for the only future that can eliminate the curse of imperialist war. On May Day 2004, we will reaffirm our commitment to communism and to our conviction that our class will ultimately win.

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The intensified fighting in Iraq has dealt a serious setback to the investment plans of U.S., British and other oil barons. The Iraqi oil ministry has had to postpone until October 2004 a "landmark" conference of international oil companies originally set for April 18-19 in Basra. Presumably this conference would have attempted to strike a deal that might have placated Russian, French and other imperialists the U.S. and British bosses have tried to ace out of Iraqi oil profits. Basra was picked because of its "relative calm" compared to the Baghdad region. But now even Basra has become insecure, proven by the recent kidnapping of foreign mercenaries there. Imperialist "peace" is truly an oily graveyard. (Energy Intelligence World Watch, 4/9)

a name="PLP Says: Liberals — ‘Evil, Yes!; Lesser? No!’"></a>"LP Says: Liberals — ‘Evil, Yes!; Lesser? No!’

Bush’s bloody stumbling in Iraq has reinvigorated U.S. liberal politicians and, most particularly, the presidential campaign of Democrat John Kerry. Even a number of liberal Republicans, formerly Bush loyalists, are getting into the act. Under no circumstances must we allow our justified class hatred of the Bush murderers to mislead us into backing these liberal politicians as "lesser-evil" solutions to imperialist war. Kerry agrees with Bush’s strategic goal of securing Iraqi oil for U.S. imperialism: "We cannot walk away…We should not abandon our mission." Kerry’s disagreement is purely tactical. He wants to reverse Bush’s tax cuts to raise more money for the military and a "homeland security" police state. He calls for some oil profit-sharing deals with other imperialists as a way to share the military burden. Most significantly, he complains that the U.S. "hasn’t stationed enough troops in [Iraq] to maintain order." (Speech at Brookings Institution, 9/30/03; Daily Times, 4/7/04). Once again, PLP says about the liberals: "Evil, Yes! Lesser? No!"

a name="Bushites Can’t Conquer Iraq ‘On The Cheap’"></a>"ushites Can’t Conquer Iraq ‘On The Cheap’

Now important Republicans and the traditionally Republican military brass are beginning to distance themselves from the Bush-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz dream-land view of conquering Iraq on the cheap. Conservative Republican newspaper scribbler Robert Novak takes Rumsfeld to task for underestimating the number of troops needed to conquer and hold Iraq. He recalls last year’s warning by former Army Chief of Staff Shinseki that the real commitment would be "several hundred thousand" for Iraq alone. This doesn’t count those required to pacify Afghanistan and, now, to launch operations in Pakistan. Novak cites plans by the current U.S. command structure in Iraq to demand that Rumsfeld send more troops. But this will be more easily said than done. (Chicago Sun-Times, 4/8)

Novak’s views are echoed by Republican Senators Lugar and Hagel and by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Republican think-tank that helped bring the current Bush White House into power, as well as by the generals in Iraq. The N.Y. Daily News reports (4/12), "General John Abizaid’s decision to press for bulking up U.S. firepower [in Iraq] is a polite but unmistakable rebuff to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who for months has rejected sending more troops to Iraq in a campaign year.

"‘…Abizaid is really…confronting Rumsfeld,’ a senior Pentagon official [said]. ‘He’s not going to let the election calendar determine what he needs to do the job.’"

This infighting among big bosses must not delude us into choosing sides among them. They all back imperialism. They all want to conquer Iraqi oil. They all plan wider war, and they will all fight to the last drop of working-class blood in order to secure U.S. world domination. Our goal remains to smash every last one of them.

Liberal Rulers: Bush Failed to Use 9/11 to Build Pro-war Police State

The liberal politicians and media are raking Bush over the coals for failing to anticipate the 9/11 terror attacks. They are reviving the old Watergate refrain about "what did Bush know and when did he know it." This finger-pointing is a diversion; workers shouldn’t be taken in by it. As CHALLENGE showed more than a year before 9/11, the bipartisan Clinton-appointed Hart-Rudman commission warned about a "catastrophic" terror attack on U.S. soil. Hart-Rudman didn’t think it could be prevented. Most importantly, Hart-Rudman demanded that the attack provide an excuse to militarize the government, prepare the country for war and establish a police state.

The Clinton administration did very little about al Qaeda, despite warnings about an al-Qaeda attack planned inside the U.S. Bush continued the Clinton policy of relative inaction.

The liberals’ main complaint has less to do with a Bush policy that didn’t prevent 9/11 than with Bush’s squandering the opportunity to build a pro-war, pro-police state mentality among the population and, especially, to militarize the government: "The most serious charge that can be leveled against Bush is…that he did not drastically reshape his administration for war after Sept. 11." (Stratfor, 3/26)

Well before 9/11, Hart-Rudman talked about needing a "Pearl Harbor" mentality. After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt cleaned house in his cabinet and prepared the conditions for direct U.S. entry into World War II. This is why the liberals have given Bush a failing grade for 9/11.

We should have no illusions on this score. The liberals don’t want to prevent terror. They want to turn the U.S. economy, government, military and society at large into a well-oiled terror machine to keep U.S. imperialism on top.

The only answer to the horrific future scenarios — if they are allowed to succeed — is the growth of our Party and of the international movement for communist revolution.

a name="Subway Sit-down Strike Beats Bosses’ Attack">">"ubway Sit-down Strike Beats Bosses’ Attack

Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 10 — A sit-down strike by hundreds of subway workers, with the support of riders and mass organizations, shut down the lines here and forced the boss-union gang-up to restore the 6-hour day for ticket vendors and re-hire 100 fired workers. Some workers slept and ate at the workplace, refusing to leave. Pablo, a conductor on Line B, echoed the feelings of most workers, saying, "We were not afraid because we were united for the same goal and wouldn’t return until everyone was taken back."

This tremendous struggle occurred amid a "recovery" welcomed by the world’s capitalist investors and bankers. Twenty-seven months ago, the economy had collapsed. On Dec. 20-21, 2001, tens of thousands of workers, unemployed and youth surrounded the Presidential palace, forcing President de la Rúa to flee for his life in a helicopter. The "R" word was in the air — the rulers feared a workers’ revolution. But the key ingredient was missing: a revolutionary party to lead it.

The workers and their allies continued fighting but the ruling class recovered, helped by the union hacks. When Peronista Kichner became President, he crafted a "recovery" based on cutting workers’ wages and selling huge amounts of wheat, meat and other products to China. The "recovery" rests on weak foundations, and workers continue to fight.

The four-day subway strike in early April followed subway workers’ rejection of the sellout by the UTA union, which signed a deal with the Metrovías (subway) bosses forcing ticket vendors to work 7 hours a day. All subway workers had worked a 6-hour day for a long time, except during the military dictatorship of the mid ’70s and early ’80s and during the free-market crooked Menem presidency — a Clinton buddy — of the early ’90s. The union hacks and the bosses tried to divide workers by forcing just ticket vendors to work the extra hour. It would have been an opening wedge to attack all workers. But led by rank-and-file union delegates, they united and struck. When the bosses tried to ban the Delegate Group leading the strike, and fired 100 strikers, their re-hiring became another key demand.

Stop Scabs

Strikers slept on the subways and blocked the tunnels despite being threatened by the cops. When the bosses tried to use supervisors as scabs to run some subway lines, the strikers blocked them by sitting on the rails. The bosses cut off the water to the stations seized by strikers and tried to get riders to blame the workers. Despite the summer heat, the workers stuck it out, supported by the public.

"The workers’ feeling during the strike was tremendous," said Christian, a rank-and-file delegate. "Some were here on the subway for four days, sleeping and eating there, seeing their children….Some were here all the time, others rotated, but there was always a good amount of strikers….

"The UTA leadership signed for seven hours, behind our backs and despite our potential for struggle. The union also gave the bosses a blank check by agreeing to ticket-vending machines, which will lead to more lost jobs."

He added: "The UTA leadership came to Line B and tried to convince workers this was a good deal, but they refused to accept the union’s arguments."

After several days, the company gave up and accepted the rank-and-file’s demands. The Metrovías bosses, the ministry of Labor and the UTA were forced to accept the rank-and-file delegates as the real voice of the workers. The plan to break this group failed. The victory broke the national government’s "labor reform" plan, a scheme giving the bosses more power to do whatever they want.

Workers, when united, can win some struggles. But we live in an age of growing capitalist crisis and endless wars. The economy’s "recovery" won’t last too long. The bosses will attack again. The burning question facing workers worldwide is how to turn their struggles into schools for communism, building a red leadership and a Party capable of finally putting an end to this capitalist hell. That is what PLP is striving to build internationally. Join us!

Racist Firings Stopped!

Chicago, Il April 6 — "We Don’t Need Another Union…We Need A Revolution!" That’s how one 20-year Stroger Hospital veteran responded to those who want to replace SEIU Local 73-HC with another union. The road to revolution is long and hard. To travel it requires a lifetime commitment, a long process of ups and downs.

The planned racist firing of seven black Respiratory Therapists, scheduled for March 31, has been stopped, for now. We had hundreds of discussions, collected over 100 signatures on petitions, held a forum of over 50 students at Malcolm X College, marched on the bosses’ office and more. Amid all this, the STROGER CHALLENGE newsletter played an important role. The growing momentum moved the union to schedule meetings with the bosses and distribute stickers protesting the firings. On March 30, the bosses backed down.

Also that day, more than 70 workers from Stroger, Oak Forrest, Roseland, Michael Reese and Northwestern Hospitals attended a union meeting and gave the local leadership an earful. One worker interrupted a presentation about Kerry and the Democrats with the challenge: "How long are you going to talk about this politician junk? I need to get some things off my chest about the job." Another said, "You got a problem with [STROGER CHALLENGE]? I passed them out all over the place. You want one?" Workers from other hospitals told her, "We need this at our hospital, too."

The bosses are trying to terrorize us in preparation for our upcoming contract fight. At least momentarily, the tables have turned. When hundreds of STROGER CHALLENGE newsletters appeared throughout the hospital, it was the workers who were fighting mad while the bosses were gripped by the fear factor.

The therapists’ victory shows that fear and passivity can be defeated. New members, especially black women workers, gave leadership to the struggle. They stood up to anti-communist attacks and are emerging as leaders on the job and in the Party. The PLP club struggles over everything, from estimates of people to how to criticize the union leadership. Often there are sharp disagreements and heated discussions, but they’re conducted in a comradely way. Frequently someone says, "You know I love you, but…"

Everyone contributes to the STROGER CHALLENGE newsletter and is developing a regular CHALLENGE readership. The club is eager about building May Day. We’re getting stronger, but there’s still a very long way to go.

Although there’s no revolutionary communist center to stop the imperialist war in Iraq or the fascist Homeland Security police state, and the majority of the world’s workers live in poverty, workers can emerge from these "Dark Ages" by building the communist PLP. We won’t win every fight, but we grow stronger by fighting. Public hospitals like Stroger face racist cutbacks and widespread firings, suspensions and harassment. Every fight can make us stronger for the next big class struggle: our contract fight next fall.

To take on the bosses, cops, courts and the racist profit system they serve, we must learn and apply revolutionary theory in struggle, and lead the workers to reject the bosses’ many traps — racism, nationalism, fear, passivity, or relying on ruling-class politicians. We must have confidence in our co-workers, and the patience to win them to join and build PLP. A strike against racist attacks on workers and patients can build a strong PLP at Stroger and beyond. The stakes are high. There’s not a moment to lose.

a name="May Day Dinner Honors PLP’s Historic Anti-Nazi March">">"ay Day Dinner Honors PLP’s Historic Anti-Nazi March

CHICAGO, IL, April 3 — Some 150 workers, students and youth joined our May Day dinner, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the May Day march in Marquette Park. This historic event was the culmination of a militant fight against the racist Nazis who terrorized both the white community of Marquette Park and the surrounding black neighborhoods. While we remember the victories of the integrated group of men and women who fought the Nazis at their national convention in 1977, stormed their headquarters in 1978, and the 700 black, Latin, Asian and white communists and anti-racist fighters that swept them from the streets on May Day 1979, we continue to build the revolutionary communist PLP in a period of escalating imperialist war and racist/fascist oppression.

For some, the day began with a tour of the historic sites and battlegrounds that gave birth to May Day. Our red tour guides gave passionate accounts, narration and the last speeches of the Haymarket Martyrs who were sentenced to death. We stopped at Ashland and Blue Island, still an industrial area here, where the police attacked striking workers with clubs and bullets on May 3, 1886. We stood at the alley where the bomb was thrown near Haymarket Square the following day and touched the still-standing Zeph Hall, where Haymarket leaders Albert and Lucy Parsons went, after the cops began their attack. We ended at Waldheim Cemetery, where the Haymarket Martyrs are buried, to toast them, sing the Internationale, and leave PLP’s red flag raised high on their monument. On the tour and at the dinner, we wore red ribbons that read "Haymarket Square 1886, PLP May Day 2004."

This momentous workers’ struggle, including a general strike of 350,000 workers for the 8-hour day, shut down Chicago. This led the International Workers Association organized by Karl Marx to adopt a resolution, presented by the AFofL representative, to celebrate May Day on May 1st worldwide.

About 40 veterans of the 1979 march attended, some from out of town. Some, although no longer in the Party, proudly remember their militant participation. One white couple who lived in Marquette Park at the time is now friends with the Party and regular CHALLENGE readers. "I am a Quaker and a pacifist," said the wife, "and while I don’t agree with everything the Party says, I thank you for running the Nazis out of town."

There was a skit by older and younger Party members, re-enacting scenes from the 1979 march. Youth took the lead in providing revolutionary culture. Two high school students performed revolutionary poems and raps. Two Langston Hughes poems were performed; one by six students from Chicago Vocational H.S., the other by students and a professor from Chicago State University.

The main Party speaker, a student at Malcolm X College, described the growing instability facing U.S. imperialism in Iraq and worldwide, as well as the difficulties facing the working class in the current "Dark Ages" brought on by the defeat of the old communist movement. His mother, who was injured and arrested in the 1978 raid on Nazi headquarters, introduced him, symbolizing the passing of the torch to a new generation of revolutionary leaders in PLP.

In these difficult times the Party can grow, and ultimately we will win. For example, three black women Respiratory Therapists from Stroger Hospital attended the dinner, straight from a sharp anti-racist struggle that saved their jobs (see article on left). The dinner raised about $1,000 for this year’s May Day march, and, with some hard work in the time remaining, will translate into more May Day marchers and new recruits to PLP.

a name="Workers Who Abuse Women Fall into Bosses’ Trap">">"orkers Who Abuse Women Fall into Bosses’ Trap

Mexico — Capitalism has successfully contaminated the indigenous cultures with its male chauvinist ideology. This poison is permeating family life. Domestic work is undervalued by both men and women. It is left to the women in rural areas, where they lack facilities that exist in the cities. Just starting a fire to heat soup mean lots of time and work as does taking care of the chickens and growing vegetables.. Water must be taken from far-away wells. Washing is a huge chore as is taking care of numerous children, In addition, women’s lives are always subject to their husbands’ opinions, about how many children to have, etc. Wives must ask their husband’s permission to get medical care.

[Various quotations below are true stories based on conversations with indigenous women in Sierra Negra, Puebla.]

"I am really hurting but Serafín says I shouldn’t go to the doctor, that God is going to punish me because it is a sin and the Bible doesn’t say anything about women getting their breasts examined."

For peasant families just having daughters is a great calamity because of the belief that women are incapable of working the land — "they’re not strong, or will end up leaving with their boyfriends." It’s believed only men can work the land, should go to school, do whatever they want, be promiscuous, etc.

"The baby girl was born yesterday, and all Serafin said, ‘another girl? You shithead!"

The super-oppression of women isn’t exclusive to farmworkers. Some 500 women have been killed in Ciudad Juárez in the last few years, many of them working in the maquiladoras there. They’ve been killed because they’re women. Millions of women are victims of domestic violence throughout Mexico. Capitalist culture creates the kind of climate which makes the lives of women, and all workers, worth very little.

"When I went to get water from the well, I also washed my feet and face. Just when I bent to take water, I felt someone touch my behind. I cried and fought, but I couldn’t stop him from being on top of me, covering my mouth so not one would hear me. I tried to close my legs, but I had no more strength. His breath smelled of alcohol and his eyes were red, and ‘his thing was quite hard.’ He hurt me bad."

But that wasn’t all...

"When I got home without my sandals, with my blouse and skirt all torn off, I told my parents, crying my eyes out. They said I was a whore. Was that the reason they were sending me to High School? My mother was crying and accused me of provoking Meliton (the one who raped me). My father hit me so hard that my mother had to defend me but said: ‘Stop Serafin, you are going to go to jail because of this whore. Let’s hope Melitón wants her now."

Capitalism is indeed the highest form of oppression of women. And this doesn’t just happen in Mexico or Afghanistan; it’s true all over the capitalist world. But workers who fall for sexism or racism must understand they’re just helping the system keep all of us down. We need to unite and fight for a society where these abuses won’t be tolerated, and where the cause of workers’ alienation from each other is destroyed. Join the PLP and fight for a world without bosses — for communism.

Health Care: A Class Question

The working class clearly has no choice with either single-payer health care or Jointly Managed Trusts. In this period of escalating imperialist war and fascist repression, the "health" plans our union leaders are pushing are really death plans for the working class.

Recently, one of the state’s largest public employee unions held a forum on health care. A representative of one of California’s Jointly Managed Trusts (JMTs) said 49% of those responding to a state-wide poll said the current health system needs fundamental repairs; 31% felt the system must be rebuilt from the ground up. At this meeting 55% of the workers polled said the system needs fundamental repairs and 45% said it needs to be completely rebuilt.

Are Jointly Managed Trusts the answer?

After activists at this forum declared the U.S. health care system in critical condition, the union recommended JMTs. In such a trust, employers and unions jointly contract with insurers for health and drug plans. But these activists were warned, Trusts are joint ventures. If things go wrong, "you can’t point any fingers because the State union organization appoints half of the trustees." Placing health care into JMTs and removing employee benefits from the collective bargaining arena means the state union wouldn’t have to support workers’ struggles.

The misleaders say collective bargaining generally deals with only the contribution portions to be paid by employer and employee. Some locals have 100% employer-paid health care. But under JMTs the state organization is pushing for no strike clauses to further control local struggles. They would rather pour all our hard-earned money into kissing legislative ass. In some locals, the state organization gets 96% of monthly dues. Member-run locals must stretch the rest to counter aggressive employer attacks.

What About Universal Health?

Bills pushed by liberal California politicians and unions are currently being touted as progressive solutions to the health care crisis (see CHALLENGE, 3/31). But they provide empty promises. In "normal" times, capitalism is incapable of providing health care that workers need. Amid deepening war and fascism, the rulers are playing fast and loose with the truth about health care. The working class will get universal health care only by eliminating the profit system with communist revolution. Then society will be organized to meet the needs of the very workers who produce all value.

Senate Bill 2 would have employers pay 80% of health insurance premiums or pay a tax for the uninsured. SB 921 (Kuehl), The Healthcare for All Californians Act, is the latest attempt at instituting state-wide, single-payer health care. This bill would still require co-payments and deductibles, would limit eligibility, and would ration care. If this or a similar "universal" health care bill passes, health care will be assumed by a nearly bankrupt state government, which will further pare benefits in a budget crisis, and leave businesses off the hook. Again, low-wage workers and the unemployed would bear the brunt of the cutbacks. Racist inequality would deepen. In our union, some members are pushing hard for this bill, while the state union is encouraging local chapters to adopt JMTs.

The fight for the health of ALL workers depends on fighting racism. After all, the bosses and union hacks are now trying to reduce the health care all workers receive to the level of care black, Latino and immigrant workers have suffered all along. In the long run, the only way to create decent health care for all is to fight to eliminate the system which makes huge profits off racism and our misery.

a name="PLP Revolutionary May Day Answer to Liberals’ Motorcade Diversion">">"LP Revolutionary May Day Answer to Liberals’ Motorcade Diversion

LOS ANGELES — For several years, the liberal immigrants’ rights groups and union leaders have organized an annual march celebrating May Day. They call it "Immigrants’ Workers’ Day." When May 1 fell on a week-day, they marched in the evening downtown. Thousands of workers participated. The leadership called for drivers’ licenses and a "piece of the American dream" for immigrants. But this year, when May 1 falls on a Saturday, when thousands more could have participated, when there is growing anger about the war and the cut-backs, they cancelled the march. Instead they’re organizing a bus/car caravan to several "key points," like Schwartzenegger’s Santa Monica office. They want to make immigration an election issue, to oppose Bush’s plans and support the legalization plan of — and build support for — for the Democratic Party.

They claim they’re not marching on Broadway LA because most marchers would be immigrants, who don’t vote. They want to talk about voting and for liberal reform on the buses. They say they need "media coverage," that the bosses’ press won’t cover a march in downtown LA. They maintain these workers aren’t organized, that they only come out for the day. Many are garment, construction and other industrial workers.

These leaders fear workers could adopt ideas of class struggle and revolution. They want leaders who will direct workers toward the bosses’ media and flunkies. They’ve invited politicians to speak and listen to demands for drivers’ licenses and legalization. Many leading Democrats support this plan as a way to win immigrants’ loyalty to U.S. bosses, to work for low wages in key industries and support imperialist war. These mis-leaders pose as friends of the working class, but are building patriotism to help the bosses win immigrants to willingly send their children into the army. Hundreds of workers and students will participate in this caravan and its day-long activities. All those planning to ride the buses have to reserve a seat ahead of time.

PLP will march to celebrate May Day, international workers’ day, on Broadway, in the center of the garment district, welcoming garment and all workers and students to join. We’ll be where some of the lowest-paid workers work. The racism directed against garment workers affects all workers and students.

We’ll march in an area of capitalist exploitation where a movement can grow, which has the potential to lead to thousands in the fight against the bosses, their murderous imperialist wars, and their racism and exploitation that attack the world’s workers. We invite those who want to fight the bosses’ system to march with us. We’re building the long-term fight to end its evils with internationalism and communism — workers’ power.

Our future doesn’t depend on the liberals or the capitalist politicians, Democrats or Republicans. Our future depends on winning the workers to fight for our class interests. PLP’s ideas, will reach thousands of workers and students through leaflets, CHALLENGE, discussions at work and after work, rallies at school, in many conversations and in class struggle.

May Day helps us sharpen the struggle against racism and imperialism and their agents in the mass movement. May Day gives us the opportunity to strengthen our friendships with co-workers and students. Let the bosses and their henchmen try to keep immigrants and citizens, black, Latin, Asian, Arab and white, from uniting against murderous capitalism. No matter how long it takes, the international working class will make PLP’s ideas their own, defeat imperialism and build a communist world.

Revolution Is Only Solution to Workers in El Salvador

San Salvador, El Salvador — After the right wing ARENA party won the March 21 presidential election, the bosses’ press unfurled an orgy of anti-communism. But this doesn’t change the miserable situation of the working class here. Unemployment, poverty, lack of health care, education and other services continue running rampant like mosquitoes in garbage. The bosses are incapable of meeting workers’ needs because their system is based on profits that can only be reaped by increasingly impoverishing the "half dead and half living" Salvadoran workers (as described by the revolutionary poet Dalton).

Even with an intense campaign of falsely labeling the fmln "communist," over 800,000 voted for them, a 59% increase compared to the last election. Many workers voted this way as a form of "resistance" to the capitalist system and to the bosses who have exploited and massacred our class for years.

Others thought the FMLN had a weak campaign, and that maybe if they had been bolder, they would have won. But won what? To change the name of the party that rules the country? To try to put one corrupt group in prison? Change the currency from the dollar to the colon? Negotiate more with the European imperialists? None of this changes conditions for workers because the underlying problem and the laws of capitalist exploitation remain. The capitalist laws, courts, army, police, production for profit and private ownership of the factories and fields stay alive and well in the hands of the bosses.

Unfortunately, many oworkers see no other alternative to making their strength felt except through voting. The collapse of the old communist movement left many with the false hope that "maybe this time" bourgeois democracy will allow the workers to direct their own future. But there’s more chance of a turtle walking to the moon than there is of the bosses freely and peacefully allowing workers to run the capitalist system.

But despite this mishmash of "democracy," "free elections," fascist repression, anti-communist lies and illusions of the phony left, many workers deepened their understanding of communist ideas. This was an opportunity to expose not only the fascist ARENA but the liberals of the fmln as well — their elections cannot break the chains of exploitation and poverty. To liberate ourselves from this capitalist hell, "one vote" will not do. We need a real communist revolution which ends the capitalist dictatorship and installs the dictatorship of the workers, with the means of production in the hands of the workers and we produce to meet our needs, not the bosses’ profits.

Our party and its communist ideas represent the interests of the international working class. We rely on the strength and understanding of the workers, not on negotiations or deals with bosses. The struggle between wage slavery and liberation is one to the death. The bosses understand this; the workers must understand it too. More than ever we need to win workers to read and distribute CHALLENGE, organize study-action groups, win our friends in mass organizations to the Party’s ideas and to generate a massive presence at the May Day March.

Workers Fight Anti-Immigrant Attacks on Day Laborers

Freehold, N.J. — U.S. bosses have always fanned the flames of anti-immigrant sentiments. They continue using 9/11 as a pretext to keep immigrants terrorized into accepting ever lower wages and lousier working conditions. This small, working-class town has become the latest in a series of cities nation-wide witnessing vicious attacks against Latino day laborers. Some attacks are orchestrated by racist groups — Sachem Quality of Life and PEOPLE — and have members with neo-nazi ties.

Freehold has a significant Latino population. In the past the town council had permitted the day laborers to gather each morning at a "muster zone" for potential employment by contractors. This zone is a narrow strip of muddy land near the railroad tracks. In December, the Mayor and the council closed it down, saying they would ticket any worker going there and the Immigration Service would be called in. A predominately African-American Baptist Church offered their building to the day laborers for several months. The workers, together with a group of local residents — the Monmouth County Residents for Immigrants’ Rights — organized meetings, meals and classes. They refused to allow the workers to be driven out of town,.

A lawyers’ group sued in federal court on the workers’ behalf. The town’s attorney told the judge the case had been settled, that the laborers could use the muster zone. Yet the very next day, the Mayor announced he had "discovered" that the land was really owned by New Jersey Transit and the laborers couldn’t use it. This astonished even the federal court judge. She ordered the zone to be made available. The workers have gathered there, but amid a heavy police presence, complete with video-cameras. The town is still attempting to find ways to "legally" exclude them.

It’s important for workers to stop nationalism from dividing immigrants from each other based on their country of origin. This is a key element of fighting fascism. It may appear that the ruling class is "favoring" non-Muslim immigrant workers (particularly Latinos), not forcing them to register at INS offices. Bush has "offered" Mexican workers his phony "guest worker" proposal. But meanwhile, the wages and working conditions of two million migrant farmworkers (most of them Mexican and other Latinos) are as bad as those of 50 years ago. Thousands of Mexicans have died crossing the Mexican-U.S. border as have other immigrants crossing the treacherous Mona Canal separating the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico. The bosses will use anti-Muslim and anti-Latino racism to help build their police state and to ensure a steady stream of workers terrorized into accepting low-paying, dead-end jobs with no benefits. Workers worldwide have the same class interests.

While this struggle has displayed working-class unity between immigrants and non-immigrants, yet essentially these workers are struggling for the right to be exploited. Victory for them now is just the ability to stand on a muddy piece of ground waiting for a contractor to hire them for a day’s poverty wages. Workers won’t truly have won until we have a system where labor is not a commodity — communism. As the struggle amongst immigrant day-laborers continues, PLP will be there to back them, raise our ideas and win workers to the need for revolution.

a name="‘Community Policing’— A Racist Killer in Liberal Clothing"></a>"Community Policing’— A Racist Killer in Liberal Clothing

Newark, Nj — People’s Organization for Progress (POP), a community group here, sponsored a forum on "Community Policing." POP has long concerned itself with police brutality and usually responds to such incidents with protests and calls for reforming the police department or local government. Instead of advancing the liberal reform line, speakers sought a more radical response to police brutality and growing fascism.

Most of those on the panel tied the recent national increase in police murders and the building of fascist homeland security to "community policing," a relatively new ideology of "law enforcement." Cops are told to be highly aggressive and take the offensive against whomever they view as "criminals," overwhelmingly black and Latin youth. The latter are labeled "vultures" and "barbarians" in Rutgers Professor George Kelling’s book, "Fixing Broken Windows." When the racist killer cop Tom Ruane shot the defenseless Michael Newkirk in the head last year, Newark police admitted they were responding to a "quality-of-life" crime. This reveals that community policing is dangerous to the working class.

One speaker said the "broken windows" theory and the cops’ focus on stopping "quality-of-life" crimes stem from the same group of racist and fascist theorists that produced the vile book, "The Bell Curve." Kelling is this group’s main villain. While it’s important that workers support efforts to run them out of town, we must direct our anger against the capitalist system as a whole. The bosses have a material incentive to spread racist ideas — super-profits. The only way to destroy them is to destroy the bosses and their exploitative system.

Amid imperialist war, mass layoffs, and major cut-backs in social services, the ruling class must crack down more severely on workers’ dissent, using the fascist Homeland Security. Community policing is the local face of this nationwide attack. Kelling and his cronies want to link all levels of law enforcement more closely, from the FBI all the way down to the local precinct. They’re putting thousands of cops in the schools and have enlisted the support of local religious leaders in their effort to mislead the working class.

This community policing theory is basically a product of liberal politicians. Its main advocates are former liberal NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton, now LAPD chief, and Kelling. At the height of the protests against the police murder of Amadou Diallo, Kelling basically called the killing a casualty of the war on crime. We must wipe out the system that needs to criminalize and murder our youth, perpetuates racist ideologies and divides us against ourselves. Comrades in all areas must fight community policing and point to communist revolution as our response to it.

a name="Profiteers Riding High in ‘Jobless Recovery’"></">Pr"fiteers Riding High in ‘Jobless Recovery’

U.S. corporate profits are at the highest percentage of income growth in history, while workers’ wages/benefits account for the lowest share of income growth ever, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, (N.Y. Times, 4/5) The lengthy title of its report says it all: "The Unprecedented Rising Tide of Corporate Profits and the Simultaneously Ebbing of Labor Compensation — Gainers and Losers from the National Economic Recovery in 2002 and 2003." The profits stolen by the tiny group of bosses accounted for 41% of the growth in national income in those two years while the compensation of over 130 million workers amounted to only 38% of national income growth.

This increasing disparity between the bosses’ profits and workers’ wages is intensified by the war economy. The "Defense" Dept. budget is nearly half a trillion dollars annually, and this does not include the $150 billion allotted for the invasion/occupation of Iraq. This money is used to kill thousands of workers and their families in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as U.S. soldiers. Bombs, bullets and missiles are automatically destroyed in their "consumption." Military bases, aircraft carriers and the planes they launch cannot be used to feed and clothe workers. But their construction means billions in profits for the Boeings and Halliburtons that produce them, and for the oil companies who fuel them. These war profits are paid from workers’ taxes.

Much of this swollen corporate income is a result of the increased productivity, fewer workers producing more. The bosses invest more capital in machinery and technology to increase production with fewer workers, and lay off the rest. So less workers are producing more value for the bosses, increasing profits. There are "fewer payroll jobs now than there were when the recession ended in November 2001." (NYT, 4/5) Now the war production industries that normally pay higher wages are sub-contracting chunks of their production to low-wage companies, and to prison labor, both here and abroad.

‘Figures don’t lie but liars

can figure…’

Now along comes the latest government statistics that report 308,000 new jobs being created in March. It seems the government had removed 321,000 jobs from January’s count and added 153,000 to the March total! "Without this ‘birth adjustment,’ as the government calls it, the new jobs figure in March would have been a very ordinary 155,000." (N.Y. Post, 4/6) In fact, N.Y. Times "Economic View" columnist Louis Uchitelle writes (4/11), "Never mind that private employers added 277,000 jobs in March….It was somewhat of a mirage. Most of the…jobs were canceled out by a decline in total hours worked and total weekly pay."

Furthermore, nearly all of that so-called increase in jobs in March results from one-time factors — 47,000 grocery workers in southern California whose strike ended and 71,000 construction workers who returned to work with the end of winter weather. These "increases" won’t be repeated. One semi-conductor manufacturing worker who lost his job five months ago told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), "[We’re] going backward in the American dream."

Still worse, "Many of [these new]…jobs have been low-paying," in industries whose rates are "$8.88 an hour on average. Manufacturing, where employment was unchanged in March after 43 straight months of decline, pays $16 an hour." (WSJ,4/5)

Racism also fuels the productivity-driven "recovery." Black and Latin workers who suffer double the unemployment rates of white workers, and whose family income is less than 70% of white workers, are hit even harder by this jobless, productivity-driven "recovery."

The pro-capitalist AFL-CIO union leaders are worse than useless. They collaborate in the war economy by supporting the increased productivity squeeze on the workers. Their private-industry membership has declined to 9%, the lowest in 70 years, while continuing to support "lesser-evil" Democrats. Instead of organizing massive fight-backs, they tell workers to vote for Kerry, another defender of capitalism, while the bosses give us imperialist wars, racism and mass unemployment.

The value from trillions in profits that workers produce for the tiny class of billionaires who strive for world domination could provide a decent life for the international working class and free us from capitalism’s killing machine. March on May Day to help build for a communist revolution that will put the working class in the saddle.

a name="More Rulers’ Robbery — Tax-free Corporations"></">Mo"e Rulers’ Robbery — Tax-free Corporations

There’s no end to how the ruling class’s government enables the bosses to steal from the working class. Now we’re told that, "More than 60% of U.S. corporations didn’t pay any federal taxes for 1996 through 2000, years when the economy boomed and corporate profits soared." (Wall Street Journal, 4/7) The WSJ also reports that, by 2003, corporate tax receipts "had fallen to just 7.4% of overall federal receipts, the lowest rate since 1983 and the second lowest rate since 1934," in the depths of the Great Depression.

What makes up the difference to finance the government’s expenditures? Taxes paid by the working class, including the surplus paid by workers into the Social Security Fund which is used to pay for the skyrocketing war budget. All these loopholes and tax credits have transpired in both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Bosses’ stealing from workers is a "bi-partisan" policy.

bin Laden’s Mentor:

CIA Created Worldwide Terrorism

Reporter: Would you apologize for failing...in the events leading up to 9/11?

Bush: The person responsible for the attacks was Osama bin Laden.

And who created Osama bin Laden?

CHALLENGE has cited U.S. rulers as the source of worldwide terrorism, beginning with the Carter administration’s $3 billion CIA mobilization of a jihad movement in 1979 to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. As we have reported, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda emerged from this imperialist Cold War adventure.

Now Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan-born political scientist and cultural anthropologist, confirms this in his new book, "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror." He proves that the spread of terrorism has nothing to do with Islamic culture or the "clash of civilizations" but rather grew out of U.S. imperialism’s Cold War foreign policy.

Because of the collapse of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, and caught in the resulting wave of popular anti-war feeling, the ruling class shifted its strategy from direct military intervention against "communism" to support of low-level insurgency by private armed outfits and indirect backing of violent right-wing groups. The U.S., says Mamdani, decided "to harness, or even cultivate, terrorism in the struggle against regimes it considered pro-Soviet." (N.Y. Times, 4/12)

"The real culprit of 9/11," he says (as the Times paraphrases), "is not Islam but rather non-state violence in general, during the final stages of the stand-off with the Soviet Union….Using third and fourth parties, the CIA supported terrorist and proto-terrorist movements in Indochina, Latin America, Africa and…Afghanistan."

Mamdani writes that, "The real damage the CIA did was [in]…the formation of private militias — capable of creating terror." And "The best-known CIA-trained terrorist, he notes dryly, is Osama bin Laden." (NYT)

In its pro-Apartheid policy of "constructive engagement" with South Africa, it helped sustain two proto-terrorist organizations" — in Angola and Mozambique — that were armed and trained by the South African Defense Force…. Drawing on the same strategy…the U.S. supported the Contras in Nicaragua and then created, on a grand scale, a pan-Islamic front to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan…. The Afghan jihad was created by the United States." (NYT)

The result, says Mamdani, was "the formation of an international cadre of uprooted individuals who broke ties with family and country of origin to join clandestine networks with a clearly defined enemy." Voila, September 11!

"The strategy of proxy warfare continued even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the U.S. looked…to sponsor low-intensity conflicts against militantly nationalist regimes." (NYT paraphrasing Mamdani)

Now events have come full circle in Iraq as the U.S. rulers resort once again to direct intervention. But now they must deal with both Al Qaeda attacks internationally as well as Islam insurgent counter-attacks inside oil-rich Iraq, a magnet for bin Laden forces as well.

The chickens have clearly come home to roost.

Expose Anti-Stalin Lies About Spanish Civil War

Many stories about purported "communist massacres" during the Spanish Civil War (SCW) have been circulating for years. Their constant repetition influences many people, but not one of them has been proven. (See CHALLENGE exposé of one flagrant example, "Anti-Communist ‘Research’ Uncovered," 4/2/03).

No one interested in the truth should accept anti-communist and anti-Soviet stories. PLP’s criticisms of our predecessors in the Communist International under Joseph Stalin’s leadership are based on what Communists actually DID, not on lies told about them. The following exposes another such lie, appearing on a mailing list devoted to this war.

In the film "Extranjeros De Si Mismos," Lance Rogers, British veteran of the International Brigades, says he saw André Marty, head of the Comintern’s international effort to defend the Spanish Republic against the Fascists, killing a group of young Spanish volunteers coming from the Brunete battlefield in July, 1937. "Their crime was to be shell-shocked and crying hysterically. Lance, said Marty, got his gun and shot them one by one in front of his horrified eyes." Rémy Skoutelsky, a French researcher, proved this was a lie. Marty had been in Moscow from May until December 1937.

But the same researcher referred vaguely to "the crimes of Stalinism in Spain." At this point another list-member replied as follows:

"I’d like to ask Prof. Skoutelsky: What were the ‘crimes of Stalinism’ in Spain?"

By the same token, "What were the ‘good deeds’ of ‘Stalinism’ in Spain?"

I’ve never seen a truthful account of any "crimes" by the communist movement in the Spanish Civil War. Until we see convincing evidence, the term "crimes of Stalinism in Spain" becomes nothing but scurrilous anti-communist propaganda.

As for the "good deeds" of "Stalinism" — meaning, the Communist movement — in Spain, they were many, weren’t they? There would have been NO international movement for the defense of the Spanish Republic, no International Brigades, Soviet advisors, and military materiel sold to the Republic, were it not for "Stalinism."

Therefore, we should be celebrating, rather than criticizing, "Stalinism" on this list.

Then there’s the use of the term "Stalinism" itself. This term is used by enemies of the Spanish Republic; by Fascists, overt and covert; by Cold-War defenders of imperialism — i.e., of imperialism’s mass murder and horrendous killing levels of exploitation; and, in general, by anti-communists. It’s a term implying ONLY "crimes," not "virtues."

The term "Stalinism" has no analytical value — none. It’s a term of abuse, masquerading as analysis.

Members of the Communist Parties associated with the Comintern did not normally refer to themselves as "Stalinists." It’s quite wrong, and out of place, to use that term any place where objectivity and truthfulness are valued.

A Comrade

LETTERS

GI Says Buddies Are Not Gung-ho

My friend returned from Iraq on a short family leave. Before he left for Iraq the first time, he wasn’t sure the real reason for the invasion was control of oil and oil profits. He thought Weapons of Mass Destruction might be found. "Now I know its about oil," he told me recently. All he saw on his convoy from Kuwait through Iraq were oil wells. "Everyone else knows it too," he said, adding, "everybody misses their families and doesn’t want to be there."

All his friends are trying to get home on leave. Technically everyone should have that opportunity, but it doesn’t work that way. When soldiers first arrive in Iraq, they’re put on a list. However, by the time their turn comes up, their deployment has often already ended.

He returned home after not having been in Iraq too long. He said some U.S. soldiers were hit by mortars lobbed into their camp. He also described sitting around a lot, and just taking care of basic duties. I had a hard time understanding that until I read that a Senior Pentagon Advisor said (New Yorker (3/7/04), "We’re entering a period of transition in Iraq. We will not be conducting a lot of ops, and so you redirect and exploit somewhere else." According to that article, "somewhere else" is Afghanistan and Pakistan where the U.S. government is sending more Special Forces to try to capture Osama bin Laden before the coming election.

My friend says none of his friends are "gung ho." His fellow soldiers wanted to know why the U.S. press made such a big deal about Jessica Lynch and not about the soldiers who died trying to help her. I said I wasn’t sure but thought they wanted to use her as a symbol of a U.S. white woman victimized by "terrible Iraqis," saved by the U.S. army. Except she herself acknowledged she wasn’t a hero, that others were more heroic. She thanked not only her fellow soldiers but also Iraqi doctors and nurses who helped her. He thought this was right.

He and his friends are clearly more open to questioning the whole system. After all, it takes them away from their families and makes them targets so that Exxon Mobil can guarantee the highest oil profits and control of the market, no matter what the cost in the lives of the Iraqi and U.S. working class.

A reader

P.S. This conversation and letter preceded the current offensive. I’m sure my friend’s situation, like that of all workers and soldiers in the area, has become more critical as imperialism attacks them even harder.

The Alamo: A Pro-Slavery Film

Concerning racism, the cultural front is very important. The rulers use their control of the mass media, books, etc. to promote this weapon in their war to divide the working class. In 1993, Harvard professor Sam Huntington wrote "The Clash of Civilization," portraying the growing imperialist-capitalist struggle for the control of oil, particularly in the Middle East, as a "clash" between "anti-democratic" Islam and "civilized" Western imperialism. Now he’s written a new racist book, "The Hispanic Challenge to the USAr," attacking Latin American immigrants, particularly Mexicans. He says their growing number "threatens" the U.S., that they will eventually try to re-unite Texas and California with Mexico.

The latest weapon in this racist cultural attack is the movie "The Alamo." This is the third "Alamo" film. The last one appeared in 1960, a megaoproduction by John Wayne. Even D.W. Griffith, the director of the 1915 pro-KKK "Birth of a Nation," produced his own "Martyrs of the Alamo.". All these movies are based on a racist myth that turned the fort’s defenders into heroes and "good guys."

To Mexicans and blacks, the Alamo’s defenders were no heroes. They basically fought to make Texas a slave state. An article in Counterpunch.com by Don Santina, a film historian and author of the Academy of Motion Picture Archive’s monograph "The History of the Cisco Kid in Film," reveals the truth about the Alamo.

Jim Bowie was one of the more notorious defenders of the Alamo. Hollywood has always portrayed Bowie as an adventurer but he was actually a slave-trader. Alter the War of 1812, the Bowie brothers (Jim and Rezan) entered the slave-trading business with the pirate Jean Lafitte. They used their profits to buy a Louisiana sugar plantation, employing slaves. Ten years later, they sold the plantation along with its 82 slaves for $90,000 (a large sum then, and even now).

Jim took his share to Texas and joined white settlers led by Stephen Austin in a fraudulent scheme to acquire thousands of acres from the Mexican govt. When the Mexican and U.S. governments fought, Bowie sided with those wanting no deal with Mexico but rather a "Republic of Texas." This scheme basically brought slavery to Mexico in 1821. By 1825, slaves formed 25% of Austin’s colony. By 1836 there were 5,000 slaves.

The white settlers aimed to get rich in Texas using slave labor. But the Mexican government was planning to abolísh slavery. In March 1836, the slaveowners declared Texas "independent" and established their own Republic. This occurred while the Mexican Army was attacking the Alamo. The defenders of the Alamo fought and died on behalf of this slave Republic of Texas. That’s the part of the Alamo story Disney won’t tell us.

Rex Red

I Feel Good!

"I feel good" are the words of singer James Brown. Well, I wanted to sing them when I heard the news of the respiratory therapy workers at John Stroger Hospital. They won. The workers will not be fired because of the certification requirement. They won because PLP showed the way. The limits imposed by pro-boss unionism were broken. Multi-ethnic unity was advanced.

Why not celebrate this victory of the workers by making it the best PLP May Day ever!

Red Pharmacist

a name="Kerry’s No Peace-nik">">"erry’s No Peace-nik

The "Anybody-But-Bush" lesser-evil ideas advanced by many anti-war activists are very misleading. Democrat Kerry is closely affiliated with the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), a hawkish group placing "the bold exercise of American power" at the center of "a new Democratic strategy, grounded in the party’s tradition of muscular internationalism."

In his book "A Call to Service," Kerry says, "The time has come to revive a bold vision of progressive internationalism" that adopts "the toughest-minded strategy of international engagement and leadership forged by Wilson and Roosevelt…and championed by Truman and Kennedy in the Cold War." He sees military force as the solution to meeting the challenges to U.S. political and economic superiority by their imperialist rivals.

In a speech at UCLA, Kerry criticized Bush & Co. for being "armchair hawks." He said, "I don’t fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror...I believe he has done too little," (La Ganga, LA Times 2/28) and he called for another "40,000 active service troops" in Iraq. Compared to the death tolls racked up by Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, the 50,000 Iraqis, 10,000 Afghans and nearly 600 U.S. soldiers murdered in Bush’s imperialist adventures must seem negligible to Kerry.

He said, "Allies will give us more hands in the struggle, but no president would ever let them tie our hand or prevent us from doing what must be done...As president, I pledge to you, I’ll never wait for a green light from abroad, from any other institution, if our safety and security are legitimately at stake." (Blum, "Counterpunch," 3/2).

In October 2002, Kerry and his fellow "New Democrats" voted for Bush’s imperialist war in Iraq. But now Kerry claims Bush mis-led Congress and the public, even though before that vote former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter informed him of the absence of WMD’s and any immediate Iraqi threat to the U.S. Stephen Zunes reported, "members of Senator Kerry’s staff have acknowledged that the senator had access to a number of credible reports challenging the (Bush) Administration’s tall tales regarding the alleged Iraqi threat." (Common Dreams.org, 3/01/04).

Even so, two days before the vote Kerry’s speech to the Senate repeated many of Bush’s lies. He maintained Iraq was "attempting to develop nuclear weapons" and "unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents." He even suggested "Iraq…is capable of quickly producing and weaponizing…anthrax for delivery on a range of vehicles such as bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers, and covert operatives which could bring them to the United States homeland." ("Counterpunch," 2/28/04)

Kerry lied to justify the war for the same reason as Bush: profits. Kerry and Bush have their tactical differences, but both serve the U.S. ruling class which is hell bent on war and fascism to control the world’s resources, especially oil, and its markets. (See CHALLENGE, 3/31 on Kerry’s ruling-class supporters.)

Kerry supported FTAA fast track negotiations, and backed Clinton’s racist and devastating Welfare "Reform" Act. Saying, "We can’t afford not to fund homeland security," Kerry has endorsed the fascist tactics of the Dept. of Homeland Security. He promises to "strengthen…intelligence and law enforcement…to provide…the best chance to target and capture terrorists before they act." (Blum) In addition, Kerry and Democrats like Harlem’s Charles Rangel are laying the political groundwork for a military draft. Like Welfare "Reform," U.S. rulers find the Democrats most suitable to implement a draft.

Instead of choosing between two racist, fascist warmakers, PLP presents workers and youth with the alternative of eliminating the capitalist profit system — thesource of the problem — with communist revolution. March on May Day on May 1.

A Comrade

Peruvian Women Prisoners Write

Greetings to Progressive Labor Party and through it to the workers in and close to you.

Because of the internal war in our country, we’ve become political war prisoners, accused of being affiliated with the PCP (the Communist Party of Peru). We’re fighting for a political solution to the problems caused by this war.

Because of the imperialist policies of neo-liberalism, the working class and the people of oppressed countries as well as that of the U.S. are being attacked severely. This makes it necessary to unite all of us to continue in the struggle to transform this system of exploitation and opression into one where justice and liberty reigns.

We reiterate our dedication to continue this struggle and our solidarity with all those on the same road.

We hope this to be the beginning of an exchange of opinions in the pursuit of our goals.

Warm Greetings,

Women Political and War Prisoners, Chorrillos, Lima, Peru, March 2004.

CHALLENGE Responds: Thanks for your letter. We certainly hope for the freedom of all workers and youth jailed for fighting against the capitalist system worldwide. We believe that capitalism — whether free market, state or whatever name it takes — will never bring freedom and justice to the workers of the world and its allies. In this period of endless imperialist wars, growing fascist repression and capitalist crisis, more than ever the only political solution to class warfare is for workers and their allies to destroy capitalism and fight for a society without any bosses: communism.

Oppose Fascists At St. Lawrence University

In the early hours of February 27, a student working late in the Sociology building at St. Lawrence University (SLU) here in Canton, NY noticed several flyers taped to Professor Bob Torres’ door. One was titled "Reverse-Racism Exists on this Campus." The other called for Dr. Torres to be sanctioned (fired).

They seemed to be prompted by Dr. Torres’ personal blog (on-line journal), which contained an entry titled "Fascist, Racist College Republicans." It was a response to the College Republican National Committee’s "My Party Too Minority Recruitment Manual," a racist tract that characterizes Latinos as "emotionally driven" and repeatedly refers to them as "these people."

In reality, the posters were prompted by Dr. Torres’ Race, Class, Gender course, his anti-racism both in and out of the classroom and because he’s Latino. One member and two former members of the SLU College Republicans posted them. They were slipped under the doors of all faculty and taped on the office door of his wife Jenna, who teaches Spanish, in an act of cowardly racist intimidation.

That same morning, anti-racist students responded with a leaflet denouncing this racist attack and calling for action against those responsible. On the back of the leaflet were excerpts from the racist "Minority Recruitment Manual." Students began organizing a "Rally Against Racism" to "Defend Bob and Jenna Torres," and distributed a new leaflet titled "Reverse-racism: The Racist Myth."

The administration, including the head of Multicultural Affairs and a new Associate Dean — who herself had been the victim of a racist attack when she was promoted to that position — began coddling the racists. Each time the College Republicans went running to these two administrators, leftist students, some of whom were entirely uninvolved, were harassed and intimidated. This was particularly true with two students who worked in the mailroom. The liberal College Democrats attacked the racist manual, but defended the Republicans.

More than 100 students attended the Student Center rally. A Sociology professor cited how far fascism has progressed in the U.S., declaring we must fight back now. "Don’t catch the last train out of Warsaw," he said. A student described the racist attacks on Bob and Jenna, attacked the SLU College Republicans for developing a political movement with its own paramilitary wing, and called for the expulsion of those who put up the racist posters. He said we must turn the tide against racism.

The College Republicans went national with the issue, resulting in a Wall Street Journal editorial by a prominent fascist at the National Review, portraying conservative students as "victims" of liberal faculty. The university president has reaffirmed Dr. Torres’ "right" to "freedom of academic speech," but is taking no action against those involved in the racist poster campaign. Returning from spring break, everything is quiet; the issue remains just beneath the surface. It will arise again soon. The battle lines are drawn. Some students have formed an informal group to fight back, and the battleground has expanded all the way to the College Republican-run student government. You can visit Dr. Torres’ blog at www.bobblog.net. and post a statement of solidarity with Bob and Jenna.

A Student

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

Bush: Era of peace begins

Mr. Bush portrayed the economy as recovering….

"The march to war was a difficult period for our economy," he said. "We’re now marching to peace." (NYT)

Imperialism loves Kerry

Both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush started from a common point: The U.S. must not shrink from the challenge, wither in Iraq or elsewhere. Though he condemned what he described as a failed policy. Mr. Kerry declared that having gone to war, we have a responsibility to keep and a national interest to achieve….

Mr. Kerry…promised an expanded army, an expanded alliance in Iraq and a long list of benefits for soldiers….

[The] choice should be about how the U.S. can win the crucial battles now underway — not whether they should be fought. (Washington Post, in GW, 3/25)

The same old capitalism

When Lincoln Steffens traveled the country in the early 1900’s, most Americans blamed government corruption on immigrants and the poor. But after two years of putting big-city politics under a microscope, he disagreed.

"In all cities, the better classes — the business men — are the sources of corruption," Steffens wrote….

"The Shame of the Cities," one of the great works of American muckraking, turns 100 this spring, but it speaks uncannily to our times….

Wherever he traveled, Steffens found that businessmen of old American stock were deeply involved in the local corruption. (NYT, 4/5)

US could be forced out

Some officials, though, say they fear that time is running out. The real deadline, said one Pentagon planner, is not the June 30 date for passing sovereignty to a new government in Baghdad that has yet to be chosen, but "the point of vanishing consent from the Iraqi people."

Pentagon officials and military commanders acknowledge they do not have the trust and confidence of many ordinary Iraqis….

A senior official…said some members of the new Iraqi Army and police forces had as little as nine weeks of training but had been put in jobs that took years to learn….

Some officers are getting scared. Others are siding with anti-coalition forces, or have run and fled or just not shown up. (NYT, 4/12)

Bosses feel free to rob us

Drew Pooters said he was stunned by what he found his manager doing in the Toys "R" Us store in Albuquerque….altering workers’ time records, secretly deleting hours to cut their paychecks and fatten his store’s bottom line….

Mr. Pooters quit, landing a job in 2002 managing a Family Dollar store…. One day he said his district manager told him to use a trick to cut payroll: delete some employee hours electronically….

Experts on compensation say that the illegal doctoring of hourly employees’ time records is far more prevalent than most Americans believe….

Family Dollar…Pep Boys…Taco Bell…Wal-Mart…[and] Kinko’s…erased time….

Many of these employees are making $8 an hour. (NYT, 4/4)

US bosses bankroll Hitlers

Mohammed Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and Mobutu Ses Seko ripped off up to $50 billion from the impoverished people of Indonesia, the Philippines and Zaire….protected by Western governments who turned a blind eye to their criminal activities in exchange for support during the cold war.

Mr. Suharto, regarded as a bulwark against communism in Asia, stole as much as $35 billion….

Mobutu cleverly used the threat of an invasion from the then Marxist government of Angola….

Western multinationals must take responsibility for allowing corruption to flourish….

Bribery of local officials by Western business is still widespread. (GW, 4/7)

$tadium yes, school$ no

[New York] city can’t afford to fund some of its most basic services.

For example, the bathrooms in many of the public schools are a scandal. Toilets are broken and filthy. Ceilings leak….

I guess it’s a matter of priorities. The mayor can’t find the money to pay the city’s…teachers what they deserve but he sure can come up with the cash for a stadium….

Unable to bear the thought of a billionaire with an unmet want, Mr. Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki were only too happy to figure out a way to make this stadium happen.

The city that can’t fix the bathrooms in its schools will put up $300 million for this foolhardy project and the state will put up $300 million more. And that’s only the beginning. (NYT, 3/29)

‘Progressive’ taxes ain’t

Conservatives often cite these statistics: the top 5% of taxpayers pay 57% of federal income taxes, the top 1% [pay] 36%, and the bottom 80% a trifling 17%.

But this argument ignores the payroll tax, which finances Social Security, as well as excise taxes on things like liquor or tobacco. These take their biggest bite, proportionally, from lower-income Americans. Income tax will account this year for 42% of federal revenue, the payroll tax 41%. If you count the payroll tax paid by employees (which economists generally agree comes out workers’ wages), four in five workers pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. (NYT, 4/11)

1. BUSH OR KERRY?
   TWO SIDES OF SAME WAR COIN
2. SAN FRANCISCO MUNI DRIVERS CONFRONT
   HOMELAND SECURITY TERRORISTS
3. Navy Red Confident Sailors Can Be Won to Oppose Bosses
4. Winds of War: Getting `Drafty'
5. CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
6. Boeing 7E7 Giveaway Shows:
   Workers Must Fight Bosses' Dictatorship
   1. Democracy at Work!
   2. Opening up Minds
   3. We Can Learn From Past Mistakes and We Can Win!
   4. Mussolini Would Have Been Proud
7. The Further Balkanization of Kosovo
8. DEFEAT THE COOK
   COUNTY `FEAR FACTOR'!
9. No Matter the Pay,
   It's Wage Slavery
10. MASSES MARCH AGAINST WAR IN IRAQ
    KERRY-BETTER-THAN BUSH ILLUSION WON'T DEFEAT IMPERIALISM
11. March Spurs Students to Organize for May Day
12. West Coast ComradeWorkers Ahead of Anti-War Misleaders
13. Hamas Was Built by Mossad to Counter Intifada
14. PL Students Expose Capitalism As Source of Sweatshops
15. Salvador Election Circus Over, Workers' Problems Remain
16. Italy, World War 2:
    REDS DEFEATED NAZIS, CAPITALISTS KEPT CONTROL
17. Workers Can't Take Sides in U.S.-Euro Dogfight
18. LETTERS
    1. Everything We
       Do Counts
    2. `White Skin Privelege' Theory Boosts Racism
    3. UAW, `CAT' Bosses Partners-in-Crime
    4. CHALLENGE comment:
    5. Gov't Terrorists Attack Immigrant
       Airport Workers
    6. WRONG CARTOON
19. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Democracy in action
    2. Poor have more distress
    3. Powell soothes dictators
    4. Eco-spiel aims at workers
    5. Haiti exposes US lies
    6. Chicago schools' no-pass fails
    7. More troops to Africa
    8. Gov't twisted 9/11 to Iraq

---

BUSH OR KERRY?
TWO SIDES OF SAME WAR COIN

Democrats openly supported invading Iraq as long ago as 1998. Al Gore made forcible "regime change" a key plank in his 2000 presidential platform. But now the dominant, liberal wing of U.S. rulers is pushing the election-year big lie that the current mess is all George Bush's fault. That's the phony message coming from the reports of the 9/11 Commission, especially from Richard Clarke's testimony and best-selling book "Against All Enemies,". Clarke, a terrorism advisor to Reagan, Bush, Sr., Clinton, and Bush, Jr. says the Iraq war seriously hinders the fight against Al Qaeda. But the rulers' chief gripe with Bush is that he went to war with insufficient resources and preparation. With more and bigger wars on the horizon, U.S. imperialism needs a president who can round up more allies abroad and militarize the masses at home.

Thomas Kean and Viacom, pillars of the U.S. imperialist establishment, put Clarke's criticism of Bush on the front page. Kean is the aristocratic, Rockefeller Republican ex-governor of New Jersey who heads the 9/11 Commission (see box page 2). Viacom, whose Simon and Schuster unit published Clarke's book recently elected liberal big shots William Cohen and Joseph Califano to its board. As Clinton's "Defense" Secretary, Cohen supervised the U.S. Air Force's slaughter of thousands of Serbians. Califano was Lyndon Johnson's domestic affairs advisor, a job that often entailed using armed troops against anti-war protesters and rebelling black workers. Today, he calls for restoring the draft. [See box page 2.]

Clarke blames Bush and Clinton for not preventing 9/11. But the 1999 Hart-Rudman report makes it clear that, as much as they feared a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, U.S. rulers actually hoped that such an attack would "galvanize" people and make them "ready to sacrifice blood and treasure" in the rulers' interest. Bush's shortcoming -- for the rulers -- was his half-hearted response. He blew a chance to institute full-blown fascism. In May 2001, Bush hired Richard Falkenrath, a Harvard professor, as his top terrorism expert. In late 2000, Falkenrath wrote a list of recommendations in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack that makes the Patriot Act look tame. He said the government would have the authority to:
*Impose a state of emergency, including curfew;|
*Compel people to remain in one location or move to another, including temporary detention;
*Use the military for domestic law enforcement and population control;
*Seize community or private property;
*Compel individuals to be quarantined;
*Censor and control the media;
*Liberalize standards for conducting searches and seizures;
* Compel civilian public servants to work.
Bush followed only part of the liberals' fascist game plan. Kerry appears more eager. Supporting either would be a lethal mistake for workers. A more rational choice is to join and build the Progressive Labor Party, which is dedicated to destroying the murderous ruling class that Bush, Kerry, Kean and Clarke all serve.

SAN FRANCISCO MUNI DRIVERS CONFRONT
HOMELAND SECURITY TERRORISTS

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- "What does a terrorist look like?" asked the teacher at MUNI's Security Awareness Class. "George Bush," answered a PLP bus driver. MUNI made these classes mandatory for all workers in October, November and December 2003. Total Security Services International (TSSI) and Battelle Memorial Institute (Battelle), two mercenary-style outfits in the lucrative field of Homeland Security, ran the classes. The teachers all have resumés with the Delta Force, and covert operations with U.S. and British imperialism. Battelle recently made retired Gen. Charles Wilhelm (38 years in the Marine Corps, commander of the U.S. Southern command) head of their Homeland Security Division.

MUNI has also joined an FBI-run anti-terrorist information system. The PLP driver kept hammering away: "Are you going to turn names over to the FBI of anyone who says things you don't like? You worked in covert operations for British intelligence, didn't you? What is [your] position on racial profiling of Muslims? Do you think that strikes by transit workers should be considered acts of terrorism?"

In another class, the teacher used a series of statistics about deaths and bombings that had occurred on busses. A PLP driver challenged him: "Do these figures include how many people the Israeli Army has killed, or how many children died from U.S. sanctions in Iraq, how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan?" "I did not make these figures," the teacher squealed. "Battle produced them. I'm neutral...We don't do racial profiling..." Yet every statistic and visual was about the Middle East.

He told a story about actor James Woods feeling very uncomfortable on a flight with three Middle Eastern men because they seemed very nervous and walked around the plane. After 9/11, the FBI came to see him and he identified three of the hijackers.

Another driver responded in disgust: "I don't believe that story. I'm always nervous when I fly. Some passengers act like they are suspicious of me because I'm black. In racist America, anyone non-white on a plane gets `the eye.' This government has been terrorizing black people for hundreds of years. That is the real terror we've got to watch out for."

Many workers complained that these ridiculous scenarios had nothing to do with the real security issues at MUNI: no lighting at terminals at night or around drivers' bathrooms, no station agents in some MUNI Metro (subway) stations and much more. "The main thing is the budget cutbacks," said one worker.

MUNI applied for a $2.4 million grant from the Department of Justice in compliance with the Homeland Security Department to conduct a "Security Awareness Training Program." That could buy a lot of bathrooms! Market researchers estimate that 170 companies are competing for their share of the $100 billion Homeland Security pie. The recent bombings in Madrid show there's no way to protect mass transit from terrorist attacks, so this money is a total waste, except for building fear. One driver commented, "To stop this threat of attacks against us, you have to change our foreign policy...and that would take a revolution."

U.S. rulers need to squeeze the working class to pay for their world empire. To compete with Europe, Russia and China, they need a passive, divided work force that will give up wages, medical and pension benefits. They want to make workers forget who the real enemy is. A fearful and passive work force helps the bosses impose a police state like the Patriot Act.

Someone said, "I wish I had said something in class because the teacher made derogatory comments about Irish people. I wish I had gone to the class you were in." Other comments ranged from, "I hate these people. They are such fascists," to "This is like Nazi Germany." Our leadership gave confidence to many who already oppose growing fascism and U.S. imperialism. This, along with our other struggles and political involvement with drivers, is helping to spread the Party's influence.  The stage is set for a sharper fightback when our contract expires in June. Stay tuned.

Navy Red Confident Sailors Can Be Won to Oppose Bosses

The fight against capitalism/imperialism has entered a new stage. The ruling class is incorporating identity politics into its basic line. I've seen this in my Navy training. Much of civil rights, women rights, and even gay rights are becoming official Navy doctrine. I've been trying to show my fellow sailors how misleading this can be.

Unlike the past, the military is using many aspects of the social justice movements of the last 50 years. It's celebrating Black History and Women's History month; integrating almost every form of religious worship for its troops; reinforcing both white and black nationalism -- all to better carry out the ruling class's imperialist designs. Any division among politicians today is just over tactics needed to help the ruling class maximize its profits.

We must win workers away from all forms of nationalism; fight religious ideas which obscure our understanding and often divide us, using materialist analysis -- all to unify our class. We must see ourselves as workers, as soldiers of the working class, not as black or women or Latino soldiers.

We must win workers in the military away from the narrow viewpoint one of our officers expressed recently, of supporting the Republicans because they give us pay increases (not that the Democrats would be any improvement).

Since I've had some great experiences with workers in the Navy. I've even been able to get CHALLENGE to some of them. Here are six examples of worker/soldiers we can win:
* As a child participated in Equal Rights Amendment marches with his mother. Has a sister fighting for Dennis Kucinich. Liberal politics, but winnable.
* An atheist who was kicked out of his mother's house for denouncing God. Was raised a Mormon.
* Participant in a five month fight against Wal-Mart and scabs to help his mother win her job back. Went to jail several times as a result.
* An anti-capitalist who loves Lenin.
* A Louisianan who had friends in the Klan. Did not understand at first why we need to study Black History. At end of boot camp, he had grown to like a black peer (me!) who openly espoused the teaching and learning of the history of black workers' struggles and wanted to stay in touch with me.
* Former nazi in high school, but has changed a lot, learned from the movie "Bowling for Columbine." Very much questions the system, the reasons for invading Iraq. Thought Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond were not racists, but changed his mind upon hearing Thurmond had a black child with the family servant. Unsure about his winnability, but he sure hates the system!

Black workers in general have been the most distrustful of the system, joined the Navy to escape jail, poverty and lack of opportunity. Double consciousness must be fought -- there should be no eating of imperialist pie in exchange for our loyalty to their system. We must destroy it and get the entire pie for the world's workers.

The potential to win workers -- within the most powerful military on earth -- to a working-class movement is there. We must keep our eye on the ball. On to May Day! Navy Red

Winds of War: Getting `Drafty'

The question, "Will the draft be restored?" has three answers: probably not right now; in the near term, perhaps; and in the long term, surely, but not in its old form. Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institute recently wrote an essay called "The Need to Increase the Size of the Deployable Army." Weighing the draft's unpopularity, both with the public and among generals who would have to command unwilling troops, O'Hanlon concludes, "the draft is not the answer." But, he concedes, "Some day this assessment could change, [after] a sustained period of high casualties in Iraq or another place. At that point, to maintain a viable military, the nation might have no option but to consider the draft." Endorsing John Kerry's fascist "Army of Patriots" scheme, O'Hanlon favors "mandatory national service of some kind, with the military being one option from which individuals could choose."

The Pentagon is already on the job. "Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, said planning for a possible draft of linguists and computer experts had begun last fall after Pentagon personnel officials said the military needed more people with skills in those areas...The agency already has in place a special system to register and draft health care personnel ages 20 to 44 in more than 60 specialties if necessary in a crisis." (San Francisco Chronicle, 3/13/04)

The U.S. military, the mightiest and deadliest in history, has an Achilles' heel. Ultimately, it will not be able function without working-class draftees who have no interest in serving it and are likely to rebel against it

CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

Who would have thought that the chairman of the 9/11 Commission mandated to investigate the terror attack on the World Trade Center has business ties to the brother-in-law and alleged financier of Osama bin Laden?

Commission chairmanThomas Kean is a director of the Amerada Hess oil company, which is a partner in the Hess-Delta Corporation, a joint venture established in 1998 for the development and exploration of oil fields in the Caspian Sea region. Hess-Delta is also an equity holder in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhon oil pipeline. Hess's partner in this venture, Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia, is owned by powerful Saudi financier Khalid bin Mahfouz, bin Laden's brother-in-law. According to 1998 Senate testimony by then-CIA director James Woolsey, bin Laden is married to bin Mahfouz's younger sister.

In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. Treasury Dept. froze the assets of 150 Saudi individuals, companies and charities suspected of providing millions of dollars to al Qaeda. But bin Laden's brother-in-law Mahfouz was exempted.

Kean, a "moderate Republican," became Bush's choice to head the 9/11 Commission after Henry Kissinger was dumped in a "conflict-of-interest" embarrassment for representing companies like ExxonMobil doing business with Saudi oil firms.

Kean is a member of the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations, and was selected because the former Governor of New Jersey was "close to the families of the 9/11 victims, an important credential to the White House." (Scripps-Howard News Service, 12/17/02) The Baltimore Sun (12/26/02) hailed him as one who "lacks obvious conflicts of interests."

But a $1 trillion law suit filed last August by families of the 9/11 victims lists Khalid bin Mahfouz, Kean's business partner, as an alleged "financier" of al Qaeda.

Boeing 7E7 Giveaway Shows:
Workers Must Fight Bosses' Dictatorship

Washington State Governor Gary Locke said the recent $3.2 billion giveaway to Boeing demonstrates the state is "open for business in a way we have never been before." Just how open we'll never know because Locke sealed the records. Nevertheless, a few leaked details show the state plans to dole out our tax dollars to big business "six ways to Sunday," exposing the government's class nature as it has "never been before."

Democracy at Work!

Apparently, liberal Democrat Locke paid Deloitte Consulting $715,000 to formulate the bribe to land the Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner assembly plant. Boeing is a $5 million client of this same firm. Deloitte and Touche, another arm of the New York-based Deloitte financial empire, is the company's outside auditor. Together, the Deloitte companies have made over $50 million in fees from Boeing since 2001, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Seattle Weekly, 2/18). Who better to give the state "objective, independent" advice than Boeing's own paid consultants?

"Not only did the [state] do all we asked them to do, they also fixed other things," bragged Deloitte's local boss Tom Captain to the weekly Mercer Island Rerporter (Business Week, 3/18). The "other things fixed" include kicking mostly-Latin farmworkers off unemployment compensation in an atrociously racist fashion; weakening workers' compensation; and secret deals to fund a Boeing training center, reinforce the runway so the company can fly in outsourced sub-assemblies and pave a road to a proposed subcontractor plant near final assembly. Our tax dollars are literally paving the road to cheap labor.

To ward off complaints about this sweetheart deal, the state is also paying for state employees to advise Boeing how to defend itself against lawsuits and take advantage of other lucrative loopholes in the state tax code.

Opening up Minds

Last year, the Boeing union leadership campaigned in support of the company's demands, rallying under the slogan, "We Can Do It!" "These might as well have been Deloitte and Touche rallies," said an angry Machinist, when the news broke about these consultants. Two shop stewards were particularly mad. They had honestly supported the union leadership, despite all our misgivings. Now they felt betrayed.

The capitalist crisis of overproduction in aerospace, as well as the rise of imperialist competitors like Europe's Airbus and others, has forced the bosses' hand. Their need to maximize profits has now become obscenely apparent. The ugly face of class dictatorship, embodied in governmental power, has been more openly employed.

Many workers, like these two shop stewards, are now more open to our communist politics. The bosses' naked use of state power to finance their profits can help lead to the communist-led movement necessary to defeat this boss-government-consultant gang-up, but only if we build a base for PLP and CHALLENGE. Economic crises and corruption by themselves can lead to mass cynicism and workers marching behind yet another set of politicians.

We Can Learn From Past Mistakes and We Can Win!

The old communist movement collapsed because of concessions to capitalism. One was the incorrect notion of separating the state apparatus from the Party, undermining the understanding that government is the embodiment of class dictatorship. Despite heroic efforts and great accomplishments -- like the organizing of industrial unions -- ideological weaknesses like this eventually did in the old movement.

Now we must build a movement, no matter how long it takes, that holds no illusions about class dictatorship and the government, which the rulers hide behind pious hosannas to democracy. There is no answer short of smashing the bosses' dictatorship with the rule of the working class led directly by its Party.

Last year, the bosses and their labor union lieutenants had their "We Can Do It!" campaign, with devastating results. This summer, the union will compound this mis-leadership by campaigning for John Kerry, spreading the illusion that workers can "vote the bosses out of power." We must answer with a bold campaign -- in the union and on the shop floor -- that lays bare the bosses' dictatorship. The ball is in our court!

Mussolini Would Have Been Proud

As we go to press, the Seattle Times (2/27) reports, "Boeing received pledges from the state's leading politicians to help it smooth the way with its employees to implement radical changes to its production processes that would enable it to produce the 7E7 with fewer workers and at unprecedented speed.

"Gov. Gary Locke, Sen. Maria Cantwell, Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Norm Dicks, all Democrats, pledged to help Boeing navigate the changes with its workforce in a letter to Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Alan Mulally on Sept. 15.

"`Finding new ways to improve efficiency and productivity will require a true partnership between labor, Boeing and the state of Washington,' the letter said. `We understand that the discussions needed to achieve these goals could prove challenging. Each one of us stands ready to assist in making sure these innovative ideas are realized.'"

In the years leading to World War II, the Italian fascist leader Mussolini installed what he called "a corporate state." The Democrats' vow to form a labor misleader/company/state cabal to speed us up so Boeing can cut jobs would have made Mussolini proud.

The Further Balkanization of Kosovo

During the 1999 bombing of the former Yugoslavia, Clinton-Blair-Gen. Wes Clark-Chirac-Schröder & Co. claimed they were making war against Milosevic and the Yugoslav government because Serb nationalists were carrying out "ethnic cleansing" against Albanians in Kosovo. But the real cause of the war was Milosevic and his gang's plans for an oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian region to Western Europe, which conflicted with U.S. and Western Europe bosses' plans. However, just like Bush's WMDs, the ethnic cleansing of Albanians was exposed as a big lie. The Albanians in Kosovo began to flee en masse when U.S.-NATO planes dropped their bombs.

Kosovo is nominally part of Serbia and Montenegro but has been administered by the local UN mission since the 1999 war. It's now home for 7,000 U.S. military personnel at Bondsteel, one of the largest U.S. military bases overseas.

Serbs comprise only 10% of the Kosovo population; the rest are Albanians. In mid-March, racist riots erupted in Mitrovica and Pristina, 28 people died and 500 houses and 42 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed. Some 3,500 Serbians were forced to flee their homes.

Major Tim Dunne, a Kfor (UN forces in Kosovo) spokesman, said the mob violence had been carefully orchestrated. "We stopped numerous buses carrying men aged 18 to 40 from going to Mitrovica," he told the London Telegraph (3/29). The troops believed that the men [Albanian nationalists] were being bussed in to take part in the unrest.

The violence flared when three Albanian children drowned after allegedly being chased into a river by Serbs. Unrest spread quickly. One UN official said the "subsequent disturbances all over Kosovo, and their prolonged nature, point to widespread orchestration."

There are doubts over how the children came to drown. Suspicions grew that the blame had been wrongly placed on Serbs, an allegation made by a fourth child who survived. Yet during the violence a UN spokesman, Derek Chapple, said that police had no conclusive evidence. On March 24, senior UN mission officials ordered Chapple "moved to other duties" because he may have been "too frank."

The Albanian nationalists in Kosovo -- all coming from the Kosovo Liberation Army, the drug-running gang used by the U.S./NATO during the 1999 war -- are trying to divert Albanian workers and youth there from the fact that five years after "victory" unemployment is even higher, as privatized factories are barely producing and social services have been cut. Meanwhile, the coalition govt. of Kostunica, the Serb leader picked by the imperialists to dump Milosevic (now on trial in The Hague), has no answers either. The imperialists rejected the Serbian army offer to go to Kosovo to "restore order." Then the Serbian govt. backed rallies to "support Serbs in Kosovo" drew only a few thousand, mostly non-workers.

And the European Union's "solution" is to Balkanize Kosovo even more, dividing Serbs and Albanians into "cantons."

So nationalism has spawned unemployment, imperialist war and ethnic cleansing to the workers throughout the former Yugoslavia. After defeating the Nazis occupation, the Partisan movement led by Tito was able to unite all the ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia. When Tito was alive, the various extreme nationalists were held in check. But, unfortunately, Tito was one of the first Eastern European "communists" to turn to state capitalism and then to private capitalism. When the Soviet Union imploded, the imperialists -- led by Germany -- used their "national liberation" movements (many led by WW II Nazi collaborators) in the various republics of the former Yugoslav Federation to divide them even further into "independent" countries. Slovenia and Croatia, the first to break away, are now basically German spheres of influence.

The seeds of working-class unity were destroyed by this deadly combination of fake leftists, nationalists and imperialists. Once Tito died, all hell broke loose. Milosevic and all the other nationalists in the former Yugoslavia used nationalism to build their base and profits. Workers in the former Yugoslavia need to unite and rebuild an internationalist communist Party to smash all the nationalists and their imperialist backers.

DEFEAT THE COOK
COUNTY `FEAR FACTOR'!

CHICAGO, IL, March 19 -- Today a delegation of about a dozen workers and doctors marched on the offices of Respiratory Therapy Director Frank Brown and hospital administrator Yogi Mahendra. We delivered petitions with more than 100 signatures demanding they stop the scheduled racist firing of seven black, licensed Respiratory Therapists and Technicians, scheduled for March 31. The petitions also demanded upgrades for the certified Indian therapists. Only after we waged a mass campaign supporting these dedicated long-term workers, forced by Stroger bosses to pass a certification test at the end of their careers, did the union start to act more aggressively.

The attacks and struggles we face go far beyond Stroger Hospital. U.S. bosses are on a mission to remain as top dog of the imperialist gang, and the international working class is being ground up in its wake.

Stroger Hospital bosses are trying to "shock and awe" workers with more write-ups, suspensions and firings. "Other duties as assigned," is the order of the day. These increased attacks signal the opening of our contract fight, and mean more racist attacks on patient health care.

The Nursing Dept. is leading the way in write-ups for being sick. After transferring from the Emergency Room, where patients wait up to 48 hours for a bed, Med-Surg. Divisional Director Greg Murphy is wreaking havoc, firing two workers and planning more. Labor Relations boss Lavender is bolder than ever in firing workers, backed up by former SEIU union rep.-turned Labor Relations Manager Jim Dyson. In fact, former Local President Pia Davis and former Vice President Tom Brem have been well rewarded for years of loyal service to the bosses, working in management for Cook County Administration.

The majority of the world's workers live in abject poverty, facing wars and famines. In the U.S., retired steel workers are losing their pensions and health care and over 45 million live with no health insurance, as public health care providers like Stroger are whittled down to nothing. This is how the rulers are paying for their occupation of Iraqi oil fields and building a fascist Homeland Security police state.

Only communist revolution can wipe out racism, imperialist war, fascist terror, poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease. We're the ones who do the work and create all value. Building the PLP is the best way to prepare for all the battles ahead, to develop confidence and trust in each other so we can shut Stroger down when our contract expires in November and smash the bosses' fear factor.

FLASH -- As we go to press, County bosses have backed down and the terminations of the black Respiratory Therapists have been canceled! At a meeting of SEIU Local 73HC tonight, angry workers blasted the union leadership for failing to fight for them and defended PLP and the STROGER CHALLENGE newsletter. Workers from other hospitals said they need a CHALLENGE newsletter at their worksites. More next issue.

No Matter the Pay,
It's Wage Slavery

NEW YORK CITY, March 26 -- Chanting, "$5.15 Is Not Enough," dozens of immigrant workers and immigrant rights activists rallied at City Hall yesterday, campaigning to change the state minimum wage. One worker declared, "The minimum wage doesn't cover anything. Poverty is going up...Everything's being cut back, and for what? For war. We don't want war."(El Diario-La Prensa, 3/26) The demonstrators said a raise would directly benefit more than 165,000 immigrant workers here.

A study by the Fiscal Policy Institute for the New York Immigration Coalition says the hourly minimum wage should be increased to $7.10. But just to reach the government's "official" poverty line of $18,000+ a year for a family would require a $9.00 hourly rate.

The minimum wage goes to the heart of capitalist exploitation. Low wages for some workers depress the wages of all, allowing the bosses to make super-profits out of the labor of the entire working class. Racism hurts ALL workers.

But a higher minimum wage won't end capitalist exploitation. Even the highest-paid workers have faced devastating attacks on wages and benefits as well as suffering speed-up to increase productivity while losing millions of jobs. All of these attacks, and many more, are paying for the imperialist occupation of Iraq and the fascist Homeland Security police state.

Low-wage immigrant workers make up 62% of the city's estimated 267,000 workers currently earning less than $7.10 an hour. The largest immigrant employer is the restaurant industry, with some 125,000 workers, many at or below today's minimum wage. A large number are home-care attendants.

"We know that immigrants are the people...at the base of the service industry," said Ana Maria Archila, executive director of the Latin American Integration Center. She added, "They are the people that bring food to our tables, that clean our houses, that take care of our babies and...are less covered by protections."

The state's minimum wage matches the federal rate, $5.15. Neither has been raised in five years. James Parrott, an economist who prepared the study, said the purchasing power of the current minimum wage is actually 40% below what it was when it was first enacted. That means it has actually dropped to $3.10 an hour in terms of purchasing power! Meanwhile, profits for U.S. corporations jumped 29% in the last quarter, the "biggest jump in almost 20 years" (Wall Street Journal, 3/26). That's capitalism: the bosses get richer and the poor get laid off!

The study identified Dominicans as the largest bloc of low-wage immigrant workers, 18% of the total of the 377,200 earning below $10 an hour. The next-largest blocs were Mexicans (13.7%), Chinese (6%) and Jamaicans (5.7%).

As much as we need it, a decent wage won't end wage slavery, fascist terror or imperialist war. The union leaders and immigration rights organizers will use the fight for a higher minimum wage to line workers up behind Kerry and the Democrats, and their plans for U.S. imperialist world domination.

We can use this fight to show that under capitalism, based on profits, racism and exploitation, workers can NEVER receive more than a small fraction of the value we create. Most is siphoned off in profits by the bosses, bankers and landlords. Workers can only be free by fighting for a communist society that will abolish wage slavery. Join immigrant and citizen workers on May Day to march with the PLP for a society without any bosses and where production serves our needs.

MASSES MARCH AGAINST WAR IN IRAQ
KERRY-BETTER-THAN BUSH ILLUSION WON'T DEFEAT IMPERIALISM

I was at the New York City March 20 anti-war march, part of the international day of protest on the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. According to the organizers and even right-wing newspapers, there were some 100,000 protesters. Having been at the Feb. 2003 march to the UN, just before the war began, I know this one was considerably smaller. So were other marches around the world. Part of this decrease stems from many people who consider themselves "progressives" and were adamantly opposed to the invasion, feeling conflicted about what should happen now.

I helped my union organize for the march, leading to lots of discussions. Many people who marched last year now feel the U.S. must stay to "clean up the mess it caused." Many believe withdrawing troops now would lead to a sectarian bloodbath. The U.S. occupation, while based on lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction and about "ties to terrorism" and which shouldn't have happened, is now "temporarily necessary," they say, to allow formation of a "representative government."

Many of these people, some who consider themselves leftists, not liberals, would prefer that the UN replace the U.S. occupation with a "multi-national peacekeeping force." This resembles Kerry's position, maintaining the occupation but "internationalizing" responsibility. One could clearly see at this year's rally and march that the bulk of the anti-war movement will be backing Kerry for President. Signs about "Bush's War" and "Regime Change Begins At Home" were abundant. Some posters were witty -- "Let's Not Elect Bush Again in 2004." What's interesting is the virtual absence of visual support for Nader, and the real antagonism that many "on the left" have toward his candidacy because they feel he'll hand Bush the election.

Approaching November, the feeling will grow that Bush must be defeated and we should therefore mute criticism of Kerry. Many of our friends, while agreeing with our criticisms of Kerry -- he voted for the war, the Patriot Act, NAFTA, dismantling welfare ... the list is long -- believe Bush is "much worse," especially on "social" issues and must be dumped.

We need to address this liberalism -- illusions about "building democracy in Iraq," the United Nations, the Democratic Party -- in our literature, in study groups and maybe a column in CHALLENGE directly responding to these oft-heard positions. At the same time, realistically we know that many of our friends and co-workers may very well vote for Kerry. So, while we should patiently explain why we don't think that's a solution, we should also continue working with these friends to build a mass movement to oppose the rulers' attacks on our class.

A Red Marcher

March Spurs Students to Organize for May Day

On March 20, several local anti-war coalitions organized a march against the U.S. occupation of Iraq and called for the government to "bring home the troops." Thousands of demonstrators expressed their anger against the war in Iraq as well as the billions being spent to fund U.S. imperialism with the consequent cutbacks in healthcare, education and other social services The dominant sentiment was frustration with the Bush administration, blaming Bush for lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and his blatant anti-working class domestic policy. Many thought the solution was to replace Bush with Kerry.

PLP participated, distributing hundreds of CHALLENGES and thousands of leaflets. We agreed with the anger at Bush but pointed out that he's only an agent of the U.S. capitalist ruling class, which includes both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

The U.S. ruling class invaded and occupies Iraq to push their imperialist agenda. The billions spent on it shows their seriousness about pursuing their class interest at the expense of the U.S. and Iraqi working class. But replacing Bush with Kerry wouldn't solve the problem; it would simply change the face of the U.S. ruling class.

Our leaflet said that Kerry favors sending 40,000 more troops to Iraq. It's capitalism that must be replaced, requiring a revolutionary communist movement that fights to destroy it. In our leaflets and conversations we also explained that an important step towards this goal was marching on May Day. Several high school students participated with the PLP contingent. They were inspired by the positive reception to our leaflets and CHALLENGE. One student said this event gave her more energy to build for May Day.

West Coast ComradeWorkers Ahead of Anti-War Misleaders

A group of us at the March 20 anti-war march in New York City distributed Party's literature. A high school student, another comrade and myself quickly distributed and sold 115 copies of CHALLENGE and about 250 leaflets. We easily could have distributed double that amount.

I was impressed with how receptive the marchers were to the words I kept repeating in a bold voice as they passed: "This is CHALLENGE, the revolutionary communist newspaper. It's not just Bush, it's the capitalist system. You can't vote out capitalism. They have these elections, but afterwards, the capitalists always remain in power. We need revolution; we need workers' power."

People's eyes lit up as they stopped to take one and make a donation. On many occasions, they heard me and came over to request the paper. While a couple of people said, "We must get rid of Bush first," many more said, "You're right; it's the system."

Maybe I've missed a change among the workers by not having mass-distributed CHALLENGE in a while, but workers are more receptive to our paper! This is especially encouraging given the barrage of propaganda by the Democratic Party-led anti-war movement that's trying to steer working-class anger into these dead-end, pro-capitalist elections. My experience today shows me that the working class is more advanced than these misleaders. It gives me confidence in the road to revolution ahead.

Red Teacher

Hamas Was Built by Mossad to Counter Intifada

Thousands marched in Gaza protesting the Israeli murder of the leader of Hamas by a missile fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter. Sharon wants to destroy Hamas before withdrawing Israeli troops from the Gaza strip. This is creating more instability and war. Just as the CIA originally groomed bin Laden, Hamas was built by Mossad, the Israel secret police. The latter used Hamas to counter the 1980s Intifada rebellion in the Occupied Territories and to oppose the leadership of the nationalist but secular PLO.

PL Students Expose Capitalism As Source of Sweatshops

ATLANTA Feb. 15 --Two comrades attended the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) national conference here. Besides meeting people and distributing literature, our other main goal was to win support for our proposal against university support for war and racism. Our proposal explained that the universities' essential function is to defend capitalism through the production of racist ideology and new weapons.

The Party has struggled at national and local USAS gatherings. We've advanced the need for anti-racist class struggle and communist revolution, versus the liberals' calls for "embarrassing" particular corporations and voting for the Democrats. This conference was no different.

Panel presentations included militant U.S. labor struggles around the 8-hour work-day and the current violence against union leaders at Colombia's Coca Cola plants. The common thread of capitalists using violence whenever necessary to maximize their profits was clear. Some students responded warmly to our championing the necessity of workers seizing power to end sweatshop conditions. We exchanged contact information with nearly everyone we met.

Not all was friendly. USAS invited AFL-CIO officials who lauded the unions and called for Bush's removal. We exposed these misleaders' sellouts of workers' struggles and support for wars against workers abroad.

At an all-black panel of union officials, a black comrade challenged the panelists claim to be anti-racist when the unions they run support the racist oil war in Iraq. Perhaps a fourth of the 300 students present applauded. A handful talked with us afterwards and we made more contacts. We used a leaflet and CHALLENGE to show that neither Kerry (the unions' choice) nor any other politician will stop imperialist war.

Before the plenary session to vote on proposals we had distributed 50 copies of our anti-war/anti-racism resolution to ensure rank-and-file USAS members would see it. At two previous conferences the USAS leadership prevented similar proposals from being discussed.

At the plenary, one comrade argued for the importance of our proposal, especially its campaigns against military research and recruitment on campus. The 70 remaining conference participants raised many questions, mostly about the details of its implementation rather than its politics. Unfortunately, eight of our nine contacts had already left for home. Our proposal was defeated by a large margin.

Even though it was voted down, we did get nearly everyone to read and consider its ideas and actions. Through personal conversations and bold distribution of over 100 pieces of literature, we spread revolutionary communist politics. We'll continue to advance the Party's ideas in our local USAS clubs and invite our contacts to May Day.

Salvador Election Circus Over, Workers' Problems Remain

SAN SALVADOR -- "I'm not going to vote because whoever wins, he won't change the situation," remarked a worker here. Like her, one-third of the eligible voters didn't vote in this electoral farce. Yet, more than two million people did. Millions of workers still have the illusion we can achieve a better life for ourselves and our families through elections.

Under the capitalist system there is no such thing as "democracy" or "free elections." There is only a dictatorship of the ruling class. The group of bosses led by the ARENA party and their friends, the U.S. imperialists (especially the Bushites now) used all their tricks to terrorize the population with lies and threats. U.S. representatives said that if the fmln (the leaders of the former guerrilla group) won, Salvadorans in the U.S. ran the risk of massive deportations of Salvadorans, ending the $2 billion+ they send to help maintain their families in El Salvador.

The bosses' press launched anti-communist attacks against the fmln and Shafik Handal and his gang -- who were never communists -- because these wannabe capitalists were allied with the Salvadoran capitalists who ultimately want to separate themselves from the U.S. imperialists and ally with their European rivals. In seeking this alliance, they aren't concerned with the workers' well-being, but want a bigger cut of the wealth Salvadoran workers produce.

One of their demands was to return the country's currency to the colon instead of the dollar. The U.S. wants to "dollarize" Latin America. The Europeans would like to "euro-ize" it. This is part of the fight over which currency will dominate the world. Also, the fmln supported the agricultural landlord oligarchy who are bankrupt and losing out to the industrial capitalists in their fight for dominance. Both groups of bosses have spilled rivers of workers' blood.

The misnamed "leftists" of the fmln never attacked capitalism as the main enemy. Instead Shafik Handal said capitalism could be improved. He promised deals with European and U.S. imperialists to benefit Salvadoran workers. With friends like this, we don't need enemies. Whether workers voted or didn't, they can see that in this farce, whichever political party gains power, the bosses are always the winners and the workers are the losers.

"The conditions for a new war continue to exist," said a Salvadoran farmworker. (LA Times, 3/22) But this time it must be a class war for real communism, a society based on production for the needs of the working class. We cannot achieve that goal through capitalist elections. We must build PLP as the real communist alternative to the misery and wars of the profit system. That goal can only be won through a revolution for workers' power.

Italy, World War 2:
REDS DEFEATED NAZIS, CAPITALISTS KEPT CONTROL

In our last issue we described how at the end of World War II, the communist-led Resistance had seized all of northern Italy, defeated 14 German divisions (which had taken over for the fading Mussolini fascists) and controlled the region's major cities. Yet the communists did not attempt to lead the working class to the revolutionary seizure of power. The reasons lay in the nationalist errors and weaknesses of the old communist movement. Its ultimate collapse was a defeat the international working class is still paying for.

U.S. and British imperialism, although allied with the Soviet Union, viewed Italy as "their province." To prevent the communists from running post-war Italy, they wanted to insure that the Nazis surrendered to U.S. and British forces, not to the communist-led Resistance, and that the Resistance would be disarmed.

The capitalists feared communist revolution and even viewed Mussolini as the "alternative to a Communist Italy." In his memoirs, Churchill wrote, "Even when the issue of the war [Allied victory] became certain, Mussolini would have been welcomed by the allies."

Despite the successes of the Resistance in the North, the main objective was not communist revolution but to have the Communist Party of Italy (CPI) "accepted" in a "parliamentary democracy." Since the mid-1930's, the international communist movement had pursued the "United Front Against Fascism," opportunistically uniting with the "liberal" sections of the ruling classes against the "reactionary" wings, especially against Hitler. During this struggle within the world communist movement, Palmiro Togliatti defeated the more militant wing of the CPI who had sought a more revolutionary course. He spent the early years of the war in Moscow but returned to Italy on March 26, 1944 to direct the Party, and carry out that policy, in the waning year of the war.

To the CPI, the Resistance was a tool to defeat fascism, not to make revolution. Togliatti advocated "national liberation" to free Italy from fascism. The seizure of power in the North was "suicide," given the presence of the Allied armies in the South, which Togliatti feared would attack the Partisians if they pursued revolution in the North. "The Italian road to Socialism" led the CPI to join the royal "anti-fascist" government the Allies had established in the South, a policy backed by Stalin and the Soviets in the name of unity with the Allies. Togliatti told the Party in June 1944:

"...the insurrection that we want has not got the aim of imposing social and political transformations in a socialist or communist sense. Its aim is rather national liberation and the destruction of Fascism. All the other problems will be resolved by the people tomorrow, once Italy is liberated, by means of a free popular vote and the election of a Constituent Assembly." (Quoted in Paul Ginsborg: "A Contemporary History of Italy," Penguin Books, 1990; p. 43)

The CPI proposed a continuation of the wartime unity of all forces that wanted a "democratic and progressive Italy." (Ginsborg, p. 43) Many communists in the North felt it was wrong to postpone advocacy of revolutionary goals. Many of them figured that when the Allies left, Togliatti would pursue those goals. They continued fighting and defeating the Nazis, leading to the take-overs described. But pressure from the Togliatti leadership combined with a threatened denial of arms and supplies from the Allies led them to drop their demands and sign onto the "Protocols of Rome" in December 1944, agreeing not to pursue an independent revolutionary state in the North.

The Allies promised money, food, clothing and arms in exchange for the CPI subordinating itself to the Supreme Allied Command (Eisenhower), following orders of the military government both before and after liberation. The two-stage strategy -- liberation first, social and political reform (not revolution) later -- "caused them [the CPI] to dissipate the strength of the Resistance and of worker and peasant agitation. As a result they were completely outflanked by the Allies and by the conservative forces in Italian society." (Ginsborg, p. 47)

The U.S. and Britain vigorously pursued their imperialist interests. They told the Resistance to "lay low" in the winter of 1944-45 and began reducing arms shipments to them (although the Partisans captured many weapons from the Nazis). Allen Dulles, head of the OSS (forerunner of the CIA), met secretly with the commander of all Nazi forces in Northern Italy in Switzerland in March 1945. Dulles told them to remain in position and surrender only to U.S.-British forces, while maintaining all public utilities and essential services. However, thousands of German soldiers fled, and the Nazi generals wound up surrendering to the Resistance (see last issue).

But within four weeks of the Nazi surrender, two-thirds of the Partisans turned over their weapons to the U.S. and British armies and gave up their rule to the military government. The Allies remained in Italy until the end of 1945 to re-establish a police force they controlled, drawn mainly from wartime fascists.

The degeneration of the CPI is now history. "Sharing" power in a capitalist state means subordinating communist revolution to capitalist dictatorship. Communists who try to "share power" with capitalists will discover that capitalists NEVER share power with communists. Nationalism and cooperating with the "liberal" wing of the ruling class guarantees the maintenance of capitalist rule. Smashing the bosses' state apparatus and erecting a communist-led workers' state is the only road to workers power.

(A future article will discuss: the imperialists' sabotaging of the Soviets' fight on the Eastern Front; the Vatican's post-war role in helping the U.S. save Nazi war criminals; the CIA/Vatican/Mafia anti-communist Axis and the deal with Lucky Luciano to open up the drug trade via Italy to the U.S.; the rebellion of U.S. GIs in Italy against being sent to fight the Cold War in Asia; and how the Communists' opportunism blunted the revolutionary struggle in the name of the "United Front" against Hitler and led to the defeat of the old international communist movement, even as the Soviets virtually single-handedly smashed Hitler's armies.)

Workers Can't Take Sides in U.S.-Euro Dogfight

The defeat of Aznar's right-wing Popular Party in Spain after the terrorist bombing in Madrid and the victory of the PSOE (Socialist Workers Party of Spain) have scared the pro-U.S. rulers in Europe (Italy, Poland and even Tony Blair). Zapatero, Spain's new Prime Minister, is threatening to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq unless the UN oversees the occupation. Influenced by events in Spain, on March 20 two million marched in Rome and other cities against the war, the biggest of the worldwide protests held that day. Italy's Prime Minister Berlusconi not only is confronting a massive anti-war movement, but also rising working-class militancy.

A general strike on March 26 -- the third against Berlusconi in a year -- filled the piazzas of Rome, Milan and other cities with workers and pensioners protesting his pension "reform," which will raise the retirement age.

All this occurs in the context of the imperialist rivalry shaping world events. The building of a new international communist movement to prepare workers, soldiers and youth to fight all the bosses and crush them all with revolution is the only way out of this endless wars/fascist hell. Slowly PLP is being built in many areas. The following are excerpts from a CHALLENGE flyer distributed by PLP comrades in Italy.

*******************

Economic rivalry between the different capitalist nations is growing. This contradiction won't be solved by negotiations, but by war. The U.S. is the shark inside the imperialist aquarium, but all the others are not just watching; they're organizing themselves. The European imperialists are preparing to face the U.S. economically and militarily. Central to this competition is the control of oil, still the engine of the world economy.

We shouldn't be tricked by "left" reformist governments who promise a "new deal." They'll be the same or worse than Berlusconi. The "left" government favored bombing Yugoslavia. The DS (Left Democrats), led by former "Communist" Party of Italy leaders, refuses to sign a parliamentary resolution to get Italian troops out of Iraq, saying it will hamper future "peacekeeping" activities in Kosovo and Afghanistan. DS chief Fassini was booed and physically kicked out of Rome's March 20 anti-war protest by angry workers and youth. Meanwhile, Bernitoni, head of the RC group that "re-founded" the CPI, is no better. He's adopted a Gandhi-type pacifism, opposing any militant workers' violent struggles, saying they're as bad as the bosses' or terrorists' violence.

The workers suffering the most now are in the Middle East, but eventually European workers will be affected with wage cuts and military destruction. Many workers are being called to the army and losing their lives fighting for the capitalists in Iraq. They're dying not only at the front but also of cancer afterwards from depleted uranium that's poisoning thousands.

Anti-Americanism is powerful in the pacifist/anti-globalization movement. This movement views France as an ally, seen by the fake left as a "good" capitalist country, the example of bourgeois opposition to U.S. imperialism. But this "opposition" is merely capitalists fighting each other over Iraq, a contradiction between these two capitalist leaderships. We shouldn't support these French capitalists who are a leading, murderous imperialist class. Anti-Americanism is not an answer. It means siding with European imperialists and dividing us from U.S. workers. This is a mistake. U.S. workers will organize movements like their fight against imperialist war in Vietnam.

LETTERS

Everything We
Do Counts

The 1991 Persian Gulf War reinforced my commitment to communist revolution. It was the first -- but not the last -- time I witnessed the power of imperialism, sending over a half million troops and state-of-the-art weapons of mass destruction to invade a country for profit. It moved me to action. I thought of all my friends and family who had received CHALLENGE before, or who might accept it if I offered. I wrote them an open letter and began mailing them papers which I have continued to this day. I have kept in touch with some of those folks in other ways, and some I haven't seen since. CHALLENGE remains our only connection.

Recently I paid a surprise visit to one of these old friends. I had invited her to May Day events several times with no success. Once I asked her if she would distribute more papers and she agreed to distribute two on her job. I didn't know if she still reads the paper, or what happened to those extra papers. I feared she would ask me to stop sending them.

We had an emotional reunion and spent several hours lovingly recalling old times of political anti-racist struggle, and how my old stomping grounds had changed. After a while, one of her co-workers stopped by, and she introduced him as one of the people who read CHALLENGE. I discovered he loved the paper. He spoke of the oppressive conditions in his country, Micronesia (a little-known group of islands in the Pacific Ocean), and the need for revolution worldwide.

When I asked if he knew anyone he could give the paper to, he said there were many, but he was afraid due to his immigration status. We worked out a plan and he asked for ten more. I now mail my old friend 13 papers instead of three.

I spent over ten years without contacting my friend, having my subjective doubts -- those are my weaknesses. But the ten years of my friend reading the paper and distributing it to others is her strength, and the strength of CHALLENGE. Our paper has a life of its own, when we put it into the hands of the working class.

Red Baby Steps

`White Skin Privelege' Theory Boosts Racism

Recently two PLP members were invited to speak to a class at a state university on "white skin privilege." There's been much controversy on this campus about this topic. Some professors teach this idea while other professors and students are fighting against it. "White skin privilege" says whites are privileged because of their skin color and benefit from racism directed at non-whites. This theory is dominant in "left progressive" circles that deal with the issue of racism.

The PLP speakers explained that this dangerous theory ignores the nature of racism. The capitalist class has developed racism to justify the super-exploitation of black and Latino workers and divides them along racial lines. Thus, racism weakens the entire working class and allows the ruling class to oppress and exploit ALL workers, including whites.

Many in the class agreed but argued that racism still affects non-whites differently than whites. For example, if a white worker and a black worker were applying for a job, the white worker would have a better chance than the black worker. The PLP speakers agreed but pointed out that the white worker was still a worker and would be exploited at his job. They added that this example exposes the fact that "white skin privilege" shifts the focus away from the real benefactor of racism, the capitalist.

Another student who supported the "white skin privilege" theory argued that racism is so strong and ingrained in our lives that it's just something we must learn to live with. But since this dangerous theory obscures the class nature of racism, it actually cannot fight racism.

As long as capitalism exists, racism will have an economic and social necessity to exist. However, if we build a revolutionary movement to destroy capitalism, we'll eliminate the origin of racist ideas and practices. In building a movement against capitalism, we must and can fight racism to unite the working class.

 Most students thanked the PLP speakers for coming and said they now had a better understanding of racism and the need to fight it. The class's professor told other colleagues to invite PLP speakers to their classes. But he questioned whether it was possible to build unity to fight racism.

It's clear that the "white skin privilege" theory is being pushed and has a strong effect but it can be taken on by presenting a revolutionary alternative. We will write more about the fight at this school against "white skin privilege" as we fight the racist budget cuts which are a direct result of the war in Iraq. In this way we plan to unite more students against this racist murderous capitalist system.

Two PL comrades

UAW, `CAT' Bosses Partners-in-Crime

Underlying the hype about the recent strike vote by UAW members at Caterpillar lurks a grim reality: it ain't gonna happen! Strikes have been plentiful at Caterpillar and helped secure nearly every contract, but that's a bygone era when the UAW leaders had just enough leadership quality to listen to rank-and-file demands. UAW mis-leadership has digressed via "Quality Circles," "Employee Involvement Programs" and "Partnerships," into a species that requires neither vertebrae nor tolerance for resistance. UAW bureaucrats now view themselves as partners in helping the employers remain "competitive," even if it means lowering the standard of living for its members and assisting the industry in the wholesale slashing of their jobs.

UAW's history at Caterpillar has darkened in the last decade, in particular the ill-fated 1992 strike. The UAW walked out without a battle plan and voluntarily returned when scabs gave CAT the edge by crossing picket lines. Skilled Trades Unions aided CAT, performing maintenance on machinery allowing production to continue, further weakening the strike. The dispute lasted six years before a concessionary contract was reached. The betrayal of the members' sacrifices has left them with bitterness that will endure for generations.

When the UAW struck in 1992, Caterpillar sued the UAW over having to pay UAW reps that served on the shop floor in their "partnership." That suit may have meant the end of thousands of pork-chop positions throughout the UAW. The auto industry uses them to keep members in line and the UAW uses them to control elections, votes and the continuance of their lavish lifestyles, huge salaries and perks.

Also, more than 250 members were discharged during the dispute. Some never returned but the issue was dear enough to the membership that the contract was voted down twice.

At the 1995 AFL-CIO convention, UAW International President Yokich was questioned by Decatur UAW members about settling without protecting the fired heroes. He responded, "I am not going to hold up a contract for thousands of UAW members for a few hundred discharge cases." Yokich got an earful prior to being rescued. While Local 751 in Decatur was smaller than 974 in Peoria IL, the percentage of no-votes was high enough to twice turn down the contract until language was included to return most of the discharged members.

That result was due mainly to rank-and-file members who leafleted at plant gates, revealing the UAW sellout attempt. Despite 450 NLRB violations against Caterpillar, the UAW surrendered, dropping all the charges and allowing scabs to remain on the job. Caterpillar dropped their lawsuit.

When workers returned, CAT and the scabs made the workplace a living hell. The York, Pa. parts plant was closed and the work moved to North Carolina. Parts workers' wages were so low that UAW members in Denver, Colorado became eligible for food stamps. Caterpillar retirees suffered huge losses in benefits. During the CAT dispute, workers at John Deere suffered a concessionary settlement. The UAW claimed "victory" in those disputes.

After the CAT struggle, the UAW agreed to spin-offs of the parts divisions at Visteon and Delphi at Ford and General Motors. That devastated UAW wages; thousands of UAW members lost their jobs. The CAT parts division was an omen of things to come.

Caterpillar has slowly divested itself in Illinois. Thousands of jobs have been out-sourced to small parts suppliers and many have been moved south. Decatur CAT workers once numbered more than 5,000. Today, less than 1,600 remain. The "circus" is on between Caterpillar and the UAW but it amounts to little more than street theater. Strike? I seriously doubt it!

Decatur War Zone Vet

CHALLENGE comment:

Thanks for your letter. This demonstrates that the class collaboration between the bosses and their labor lieutenants has hit high-paid industrial workers by laying off thousands permanently and increasing the productivity of those remaining, working them still harder for lower wages. This is one of the leading causes of the "jobless recovery." On the one hand, the bosses need workers in war industries to produce the weapons required to launch their imperialist adventures. But at the same time, they're squeezing these same workers to reap maximum profits, in the name of patriotism -- "support the war against terror."

The real terror is the attack on workers such as at CAT, as well as on the entire international working class, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Illinois. Industrial workers in the U.S must unite with their brothers and sisters worldwide -- not with their own bosses and union misleaders --to fight imperialist warmakers, the enemy of workers everywhere.

Gov't Terrorists Attack Immigrant
Airport Workers

At our airport, two well-liked workers from El Salvador were fired because their green card information wasn't being processed fast enough. They were used as an example to control everyone else. The government and the bosses use "the war on terrorism" to intimidate and harass immigrant workers, randomly checking employee records.

We've been trying to get our working-class sisters reinstated, gathering information to help them and relaying it to the SEIU union office. SEIU is providing a lawyer. Our effort has been multi-racial and internationalist, involving black and Latin workers, who are native-born U.S., Salvadoran and Mexican. CHALLENGE is being distributed.

Through this struggle, I can show workers that as long as capitalism exists, bosses will have power to hire and fire workers. Under communism, workers will run the workplace and society in our interest. Worldwide communist revolution, from San Salvador to Chicago to London, will eliminate the bosses' racist and fascist attacks. March on May Day!

An airport comrade

WRONG CARTOON

In the March 31st CHALLENGE, a cartoon adjoining the health care article (page 4) could give the wrong impression that white workers benefit from racist medical care. We believe all forms of racism hurt ALL workers. Only the bosses benefit from racism, reaping super-profits and weakening working-class unity.

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

Democracy in action

As Jay Leno noted, the choices in the presidential election range all the way from a rich, white guy from Yale to a rich white guy from Yale. (NYT, 3/20)

Poor have more distress

Residents of the city's low-income neighborhoods suffer the highest rates of emotional distress, new Health Department figures show....

"We know there is a close correlation between poverty and mental health," said Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden....

The statistics, which also break out figures by ethnic groups, say a shocking 10 percent of Hispanic high school students attempted suicide in the past year....

...36 percent of New Yorkers who have jobs report significant emotional distress. For the unemployed, the figure is 60 percent. (NY Post, 3/24)

Powell soothes dictators

Kuwait, March 29 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sought this weekend to allay the furor in the Middle East over the Bush administration's proposed democracy initiative for the region, assuring the leaders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that there was no intention to impose reforms on their countries....

A resolution calling for democratic reform...stirred an uproar when a copy was leaked to an Arabic-language newspaper. (NYT, 3/21)

Eco-spiel aims at workers

Listen to any politician and the spiel goes something like this: "We must become more flexible and dynamic. Rigidities in the economy must be eliminated so that we can be more competitive when facing the new global challenge...."

Translate...into plain English. "We must become more flexible [accept lower wages] and dynamic [enjoy fewer in-work benefits]. Rigidities [trade unions and welfare states] must be eliminated so that we can be more competitive [companies can make bigger profits and pay less tax] when facing the new global challenge [if you don't like it buster, there are plenty of people ...willing to take your job]." (MG, 3/31]

Haiti exposes US lies

This coup [in Haiti] sends a chilling message to leaders across the world. Turns out all that rhetoric about supporting democracy as a centerpiece of U.S. policy is just words, not policy.

This administration values governments that protect private investment and stability for U.S. multinationals. Stable dictatorships are preferred to unstable democracies....

[It's] all for elections, but only if they come out the right way. (Tribune Media, 3/2)

Chicago schools' no-pass fails

The Chicago Board of Education voted yesterday to ease some of the strict promotion requirements that have served as a model for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to end social promotion in New York City's schools.

The action in Chicago came in anticipation of new research expected to show that Chicago's seven-year effort to end social promotion had not raised test scores for third graders and in most cases resulted in lower test scores for sixth graders....

The Chicago board voted yesterday to create an intensive reading program for schools with large numbers of failing students that would include full-day kindergarten, smaller classes in lower grades and mandatory summer school. (NYT, 3/25)

More troops to Africa

US special forces have arrived in several north African countries over recent months amid Pentagon warnings that the region runs the risk of becoming an al-Qaida recruiting ground and a possible back door into Europe....

US army's 10th Special Forces Group are [sic] already installed, or are due to arrive, in Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger to train their armies in anti-terrorism tactics and to improve coordination with the US military....

US generals...have been touring the region looking for temporary bases and airfields to use in possible operations in Africa. (GW, 3/24)

Gov't twisted 9/11 to Iraq

Very early on the morning of Sept. 12....Mr. Clarke, President Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, writes:...

"I expected to go back to a round of meetings examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were....Instead I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq...."

"I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. `But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this.'

"`I know, I know, but...see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred....'"

The president wanted war with Iraq.... (NYT, 3/26)

 

Kerry: Another Candidate of the Big Bosses

a href="#200 More Workers’ Lives Blown Away In Spain By Bosses’ Endless Wars">20" More Workers’ Lives Blown Away In Spain By Bosses’ Endless Wars

a href="#‘Jobless Recovery’ New Feature of Bosses’ Boom- Bust System">‘Job"ess Recovery’ New Feature of Bosses’ Boom- Bust System

Collapse of Old Communist Movement Gives New Life to Capitalism

Hit Racism of Warmaker, Strike-breaker U. of Chicago

a href="#Anti-Racist Struggle Helps Workers Fight Bosses’ Ideas">"nti-Racist Struggle Helps Workers Fight Bosses’ Ideas

Protest Racist Cop Murders in N.J.

a href="#Bosses’ Health ‘Reforms’ Won’t Solve Workers’ Needs">Bosses’ "ealth ‘Reforms’ Won’t Solve Workers’ Needs

a href="#Phony ‘Leftists’ Help IBM Shift Low-Wage Hi-tech Jobs to India">Ph"ny ‘Leftists’ Help IBM Shift Low-Wage Hi-tech Jobs to India

a href="#Red Ideas Strengthen Garment Worker’s Resolve to Fight Boss">"ed Ideas Strengthen Garment Worker’s Resolve to Fight Boss

The Battle For Marquette Park

Rulers Now Sending Grandpas to Iraq

a href="#Ford Profits Spill Workers’ Blood">"ord Profits Spill Workers’ Blood

a href="#GI Says Army’s ‘Psychotic’ Cases Are Really Anti-War Views">GI S"ys Army’s ‘Psychotic’ Cases Are Really Anti-War Views

a href="#The WW2 Communist-led Insurrection That Defeated the Nazis in Northern Italy —Part I">"he WW2 Communist-led Insurrection That Defeated the Nazis in Northern Italy —Part I

Memories of World War 2: Living Through the London Blitz

LETTERS

Learning by Doing At Pro-Aristide March

Object and Organize

China & U.S.: Whose $ Are Helping Whom?

a href="#‘The Passion’ and ‘DaVinci Code’ Book Mirror Church Split">‘The P"ssion’ and ‘DaVinci Code’ Book Mirror Church Split

From Altar Boy to Communist

Atheist Says Class Struggle Primary

• Challenge Comments

Red Eye On The News

• Liberals are capitalists too
• Iraq war is not vs. terror
• Greenspan overlooks poor
• Kerry won’t calm Mid-east
• US has low-wage future
• US trained Haitian army to kill Haitians
• Unions can’t fix capitalism

• ---

Kerry: Another Candidate of the Big Bosses

U.S. workers have lost 2.7 million jobs since 2001. Presidential hopeful John Kerry blames "Benedict Arnold" corporate executives for moving the jobs overseas and proposes stiff tax penalties for "offshoring" corporations. But Kerry is a complete hypocrite. Like George Bush, Kerry both serves, and belongs to, the capitalist ruling class. Its interests are fundamentally opposed to those of the working class. Capitalists relentlessly seek maximum profit, whether it entails exploiting cheap labor in China and India or spilling workers’ blood to secure Mideast oil. A Kerry administration would be just as deadly to workers as Bush’s has been.

When Kerry and his AFL-CIO backers, in effect, demand "American jobs for American workers," they are blaming other workers (along with a few CEOs) for unemployment here. While doing nothing to fight U.S. joblessness, his "anti-corporate" baloney — supported by Sweeney & Co. — is designed to build nationalism to get workers to support war and fascism, to fight for "our" jobs, "our companies" and "our" country — meaning the bosses’ class interests.

Even the capitalists steering Kerry’s campaign fear that workers will see right through his blatantly phony anti-corporate stance. Says James Neal, an investment banker on Kerry’s national finance committee: "It would behoove him to tone down the rhetoric on Benedict Arnold CEOs. … CEOs are doing what they’re supposed to do: maximizing growth for their shareholders. To criticize them as being unpatriotic is not consistent with the values of a democratic [that is, capitalist — Ed.] society." (CBS news, 3/11) By "shareholders," Neal means the financial institutions (banks, mutual funds, etc.) that hold controlling interests in most major U.S. corporations.

The same finance capitalists who are directing firms to cut U.S. payrolls while squeezing super-profits out of workers here and overseas are bankrolling Kerry. "Executives at Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have contributed over $186,000 to Kerry’s coffers. In his Senate career, Kerry can count Goldman, Citigroup, Time Warner and FleetBoston Financial Group among his top all-time donors." (CBS)

Don’t expect Kerry to relieve unemployment if he wins. The economy looks pretty good to the rulers. "Corporate profits as a share of national income are at an all-time high...up $223 billion in the past year, according to the latest data from the Commerce Dept." (Business Week, 3/12) But workers face the uncertainty, dislocation, and poverty that go along with joblessness.

Racism compounds these problems for black and Latin workers — double the unemployment rates, a higher percentage suffering poverty, higher rates of disease along with less health insurance coverage and subject to fascist attacks by racist police. Kerry’s pro-racist record includes approving Clinton’s destruction of welfare and blaming the victims for their poverty: accusing them of "shift[ing] from self-reliance to indulgence and dependence…,from public accountability to…abdication and chaos."

The root of the problems is that the capitalist class, which puts profits above human life, rules society. Tinkering with economic policy or electing this or that candidate won’t end the worldwide exploitation of workers. The only thing that can is the working class’s seizure of state power through communist revolution.

Bush-Blair Buddy Kicked Out:

a name="200 More Workers’ Lives Blown Away In Spain By Bosses’ Endless Wars"></">20" More Workers’ Lives Blown Away In Spain By Bosses’ Endless Wars

MADRID, SPAIN — Over 1,600 workers and youth were the latest victims of the "war on terror" — over 1,400 injured and 200 killed, including immigrant workers from South America, Northern Africa and Eastern Europe. This tragedy again proves that terrorism is a deadly enemy of the international working class. Whether it was ETA, the Basque separatist group, or an Al Qaeda-affiliated group(AQ), these terrorists kill innocent people, just like the big imperialist terrorists they claim to oppose.

Perhaps even politically deadlier than the carnage itself, about 11 million people marched nationwide against terrorism the following day, behind Spain’s Prince of Asturias, Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, the French foreign minister and other European rulers. The Socialist Party (PSOE), who won the March 14 elections, the opportunist left and the union leadership supported this all-class call for "national unity." They misled the angry masses to march behind these "good guys" whose attacks on workers far surpass the terrorists, including racist laws against immigrant workers in their own countries, pension cuts plus much more. Many immigrants killed in Madrid had no rights because of the racist "Ley de Extranjería" (anti-foreigner law). Pro-immigrant groups say many relatives of the immigrant victims fear claiming their remains because of the racist law, made even tougher in December.

But even at the "national unity" march, the mood of the masses began to change. When now-defeated Prime Minister Aznar appeared next to the Prince of Asturias, thousands booed them both. The next day, tens of thousands of angry workers and youth protested at Aznar’s right-wing Popular Party (PP) headquarters, chanting, "We want the truth, down with the war, no blood for oil." There were confrontations with the police, who tried to disband some of the protesters, labeled "illegal" by the government. The masses chanted, "The PP government is illegal."

This anger turned into a rout of Aznar’s PP, who just before 3-11 was a sure winner. Aznar’s attempt to first blame ETA for the bombing to assure electoral victory backfired. All the evidence soon pointed to a Qaeda affiliate, and several suspects have been arrested, supporting this connection.

Zapatero, the PSOE candidate, seemed surprised at his Party’s victory. But basically the masses, lacking any serious revolutionary communist leadership, voted for what they thought was the anti-war Party, the social-democrats. The PSOE — which represents pro-European anti-Bush/Blair capitalists in Spain — is saying if there’s no UN resolution supporting the occupation of Iraq, it will pull out the troops. But the masses are in no mood to be fooled again, and the now "lesser-evil" PSOE might become the opposite. Again, the best victory workers and youth can have from this struggle is to build a revolutionary communist movement. Nothing short of that can end imperialist war.

Aznar deployed some 1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq which lead several hundred more troops from El Salvador, Honduras and Dominican Republic. Aznar sent the troops even though 90% of the population opposed the war. On February 15, 2003, 10% of the population joined tens of millions worldwide in the biggest coordinated international protest ever, against the pending war.

The terror attack also exposed the Bush/Blair lie that the occupation of Iraq made the world safer from "terrorism." The fact is this is a war for markets and oil. The Bush-Blair-Aznar gang is trying to give Exxon, Halliburton, BP, Shell and Repsol a bigger piece of the oil pie in Iraq and the Persian Gulf. The AQ types represent Saudi and other Arab bosses who want the oil bonanza for themselves instead of sharing it with U.S. and British oil giants. Remember, these same forces, led by bin Laden himself, worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. and its CIA in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet occupation of that country.

Religion and "democracy" are just a cover for profits. Workers and youth must reject all these terrorists and fight for a communist world, without any bosses.

a name="‘Jobless Recovery’ New Feature of Bosses’ Boom- Bust System"></a>"Jobless Recovery’ New Feature of Bosses’ Boom- Bust System

The "jobless recovery" may reflect a new feature in capitalism’s boom-bust cycle. A combination of greater productivity, shipping jobs overseas to low-wage areas and the increasing use of temporary workers could cut short the recently reported economic growth and send the "recovery" into a tailspin.

This has an especially racist character to it since black and Latin workers, suffer double the jobless rates of white workers. These groups, along with women workers, are more concentrated in temporary, part-time and low-wage jobs, and endure even longer periods of unemployment.

This has nothing to do with whether Bush or Kerry is in the White House. It has everything to do with a system based on each boss’s need to make maximum profits or fall by the wayside to domestic or foreign competitors. The profit system cannot be reformed. It must drive down the cost of labor, causing permanent massive unemployment. Democrats and Republicans both defend the capitalists’ class dictatorship, including imperialist war to dominate international rivals.

As long as there is no revolutionary communist movement to stop them, the bosses, with the help of their union leaders, can survive any crisis and continue to get away with murder. While the Soviet and Chinese revolutionaries had many weaknesses, they did throw out the capitalists and their liberal and nationalist defenders, and eliminate unemployment until their internal weaknesses caught up with them. The collapse of that international communist movement was a devastating defeat for the international working class which we are still paying for today.

‘That’s the way it is’

"Normally," as the economy grows, so does employment "At no other point since World War II has the economy grown for such a long period without adding jobs at a healthy pace…Never before has the American economy seen such a prolonged divergence between economic growth and job creation." In fact, in six of the last eight months, the labor force has contracted. "In most recoveries, exactly the opposite occurs." (N.Y. Times, 3/6 — all subsequent quotes from the March 6 Times unless otherwise indicated.)

Compared to "the early 1990s, at the same stage of the [business] cycle…non-farm payrolls had already SURPASSED their previous peak." Now, "total non-farm payrolls remain almost 2.5 million BELOW their pre-recession peak." (London Financial Times, 3/9) Employment industry executive John Challenger told MSNBC (3/4), "Real job creation at the scale [of] the 1990s is impossible…It doesn’t matter what you do — that’s the way it is."

‘Squeezing Blood Out of the Existing Workforce’

One reason for the lack of jobs is the vast increase in workers’ productivity — producing more with fewer workers. The vice-president of the American Management Association told the New York Times, "The goal of companies is not to hire." Says the Times, "Executives are focused…on fattening profits to push up stock prices…Since they cannot raise profits by raising prices [during]…low inflation, they are doing it by suppressing labor costs — getting more output from the existing workforce." The chief economist at a N.Y. economic research firm told the Times, "To the extent that companies can squeeze another drop of blood out of their existing workforce, they’re doing it."

‘Like a stomachache that won’t go away’

Jobs are also being shipped overseas. In the past, companies "invested in new machinery, computers and other capital goods…The capital goods manufacturers…added workers, who then spent their salaries on goods and services, and employment rose in those sectors, too…But a growing portion of the spending is going abroad, creating jobs in other countries rather than the U.S." Dave Doolittle, who works at an Electrolux refrigerator plant in Michigan that’s moving to Mexico, told the Times, "It’s like a stomachache that will not go away."

Another factor is the widespread use of temporary and part-time workers. Temporaries do not get benefits like full-time workers, and "The most important benefit…is that they can easily be dismissed if business conditions turn sour." (Financial Times, 3/9) Of the 290,000 jobs added since April 2003, 215,000 are temporaries. Without the 32,000 temporary workers hired in February, private sector employment would have fallen. About 250 of the 800 workers at GM’s Locomotive plant in Chicago are temps, despite having worked there for six years!

Temps are the fastest-growing segment of the workforce, "who can be brought in and sent away as demand fluctuates…Companies…think of staff more like inventory, keeping things to a minimum." (FT)

The 4.3 million part-timers who want full-time jobs, but can’t find them, have grown by one million since January 2000. Considering all these factors, no wonder there’s a "lingering fear…that the weak labour market itself could start to undermine the economic recovery." (FT)

So what is to be done? Follow the AFL-CIO hacks whose only plan is to spend $44 million of workers’ money to help dump Bush and elect Kerry, another millionaire warmaker? He won’t change much for workers. But building a mass base for PLP among all workers, including the unemployed, can go a long way to rebuilding a new international communist movement. And organizing black, Latin, Asian and white workers, soldiers, citizens and immigrants, men and women, young and old, employed and unemployed, to march on May Day with the Communist PLP is a good start to end this new "dark age" of mass joblessness, endless wars and racist/fascist terror the profit system has heaped upon us.

Collapse of Old Communist Movement Gives New Life to Capitalism

The "jobless recovery," the ability of U.S. rulers to boost profits by firing millions of workers, is an economic phenomenon with political origins. Key to this success for the bosses is the collapse of the old communist movement into capitalism and the subsequent disintegration of the capitalist Soviet empire, which once presented a real threat to U.S. imperialism.

Tremendous gains in productivity, from high technology and the "offshoring" of jobs to low-wage locales like India and China, are fattening U.S. firms’ bottom lines as never before. A weak, corrupt, pro-capitalist U.S. labor movement has immeasurably aided corporations in slashing millions of jobs and cutting wages. In the 1930s, when the Soviet Union served as a beacon, and U.S. unions had some red leadership, workers countered such attacks with violent strikes. Today’s labor hacks barely peep. U.S. companies now exploit cheap labor in China and India. This would have been unthinkable before China embraced the profit system, or when India was a staunch ally of Soviet imperialism.

The same factors help Western European bosses. Volkswagen recently won a 5% pay cut from a formerly militant union in Spain by setting up plants in lower-wage Eastern Europe, now a part of the European Union. The Red Army once freed the workers of Eastern Europe from Nazism. Then, in one of history’s greatest political setbacks, these lands became vassals of a capitalist Kremlin. Now they are again subject to Western European bosses. Recalling how he threatened a German metalworkers’ union, Daimler Chrysler boss Jurgen Schrempp echoed Hitler, "We were very clear in the talks. We said, ‘We have Poland. We have Hungary. We have the Czech Republic’" (Wall Street Journal, 3/11/04).

The dismal political situation worldwide does not make our party’s task to preserve and build the communist movement, any easier. It does, however, make it all the more necessary.

Hit Racism of Warmaker, Strike-breaker U. of Chicago

CHICAGO, IL, March 5 — "Brick by Brick, Wall by Wall, Police Brutality’s Got to Fall!" That’s what 75 students and members of local churches and community groups, black, Latin, Asian and white, chanted outside the University of Chicago (UC) Police headquarters today. It was the third and last stop on their march protesting the beating of a black student by University cops.

UC, the "Harvard of the Midwest," is a major weapon in the arsenal of U.S. imperialism, fascist Homeland Security, and racist terror. It’s a warmaker, strike-breaker and racist slumlord. Its murderous alumni include Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the leading war criminals of the current Iraq War, and Attorney-General John Ashcroft, enforcer of the fascist Patriot Act. Their police force, with arrest powers, patrols the campus and surrounding neighborhoods, from 39th to 64th Sts., and from Stoney Island to Cottage Grove.

On January 24, student Clemmie Carthans was walking to meet a friend after a party when he was stopped by UC cop Jenkins. "What are you doing around here?" Where do you live? Why are you out so late?" Clemmie answered this racist interrogation and the cop moved on. When Clemmie met his friend, a white woman, they hugged and Jenkins ran up behind them yelling, "Ma’am, are you alright? Are you OK?" Even though they both said they knew each other, Jenkins called for back-up, and soon Clemmie was beaten, in handcuffs, and in the back of a squad car. After being subjected to almost an hour of racist abuse, the cops removed the handcuffs and said, "You’re cool. Go home!" Clemmie replied, "I’m not cool. My hands are bleeding, my mouth is busted and you’re going to hear from me again!"

The demonstration began at the Administration building, where a delegation presented petitions with over 800 signatures demanding University action against their cops. It marched to the site of the actual beating for another rally, and finally to police headquarters, where a preliminary police "investigation" found that nothing ever happened!

The racist assault on Clemmie is what neighborhood youth get as a steady diet. Recently about 200 mostly black and Latin workers were fired from UC Hospitals for parking in the wrong lot! Contract negotiations are underway for both the Hospitals and the University, covering thousands of workers. While University President Randall boasts about having raised half of a $2 billion fund drive, the bosses are shredding campus and hospital workers’ health care and job security. Meanwhile, the bankers and billionaires who have been trained by, are tied to, and run the UC, are moving full speed ahead with imperialist war and fascism.

PLP will use all of these struggles to rip the "liberal" mask off this "ivory tower." Communist revolution will destroy universities like this, and the murderous profit system they serve. A UC presence on May Day will be the next measure of our success.

Building PLP:

a name="Anti-Racist Struggle Helps Workers Fight Bosses’ Ideas">">"nti-Racist Struggle Helps Workers Fight Bosses’ Ideas

CHICAGO, IL, March 15 — "I really underestimated the hold that the bosses’ ideas had on the union leadership." Those remarks by a Stroger Cook County Hospital worker reflect how the struggle to stop racist firings here is spreading the fight against racism, overcoming dangerous illusions and building a stronger PLP. The bosses are threatening to fire eight licensed, high-seniority black respiratory therapists on March 31 if they fail to pass a useless "certification" exam.

We’re not only struggling to defeat the bosses’ racist attacks against workers and patients but we’re also fighting the bosses’ ideas within our own ranks. A good sign is that at a PLP club meeting, 11 workers and professionals took more than 125 May Day tickets to begin organizing their friends, families and co-workers.

The inaction of the new "reform" leadership of SEIU Local 73-HC only whets the bosses’ appetite. The misleaders refused to finance or even "loan" the workers money for a weekend review class. The "best" they could do was request an extension of the March 31 deadline, which the bosses quickly refused.

Meanwhile, PLP organized a forum of 50 students at nearby Malcolm X College to support the therapists. One teacher brought a class of respiratory therapy students. We’re organizing professionals and students to tutor the therapists in their homes to help them pass the exam. Meanwhile, workers are collecting more signatures on a petition demanding an end to the racist firings, to be presented to the bosses in the near future. We’re struggling with the workers to more boldly confront the bosses and union leaders, relying primarily on the regular readers and distributors of CHALLENGE.

This campaign is one of a thousand battles that can be waged here. The workers face endless attacks and patient care is a racist horror. This is the "shock and awe" that will set the stage for the coming contract fight in the fall.

Public health and all vital social services are being gutted to pay for the continued occupation of Iraqi oil fields and the fascist Homeland Security police state. Patients wait 48 hours in the Emergency Room for a bed, or over 24 hours in the Pharmacy for a prescription. This reflects how racism is the cutting edge of fascism and imperialist war.

The heat of class war and political struggle will help us deepen our ties to new and future members of the Party. From this fight we hope to bring a bloc of County workers to the PLP Dinner on April 3, celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the integration of Marquette Park. (See p. 5)

A few weeks later, Carol O’Neal, a dietician and chief steward who was fired last year for being "behind in her paperwork," will have her arbitration hearing. More than 100 workers rallied to her defense then, facing down Chicago and Hospital cops. We plan to give them more of the same, and build a bigger and bolder May Day. No matter what happens on March 31, PLP and the workers will be stronger than before.

Protest Racist Cop Murders in N.J.

JERSEY CITY, NJ, March 15 — Clearly understanding his role in the racist and anti-working-class judicial system serving and protecting the bosses’ system, Weehawken cop Alejandro Jaramillo pled not guilty today to killing high school student José Luis Ives last July 16. That night the now-suspended cop Jaramillo brutally beat the youth unconscious. He died after being in a coma for eight days.

The hearing lasted 10 minutes while the parents of José Luis and 30 supporters were searched at the courthouse entrance, delayed long enough to prevent their presence in the courtroom. The angry parents said the judge should have waited until they were allowed inside. Outraged at this, they held a protest outside the courthouse. Judge Kevin Callahan set April 29 for another hearing to review the evidence.

Cop Jaramillo senses victory following the dropping of charges the week before against the four cops who caused the death of Santiago Villanueva. In 2002, when Villanueva suffered an epileptic attack at his factory job in Bloomfield, the cops said they "thought he was on drugs," so instead of helping him, they choked him to death. The cops got away with racist murder because the judge used a technicality, saying no one could identify by name or badge number the cop responsible for this murder. This means cops now have another license to kill with impunity — "group murder." A protest against this murder was held outside the Newark courthouse. More actions are planned.

(Next issue: How cops and their allies are using Community Policing to carry out their racist agenda, including the role of Rutgers’ Professor Robert Kelling and his book "Broken Windows" in this campaign.)

a name="Bosses’ Health ‘Reforms’ Won’t Solve Workers’ Needs"></a>Boss"s’ Health ‘Reforms’ Won’t Solve Workers’ Needs

CALIFORNIA — "People with employer-based health insurance feel that universal health insurance would give us a lower standard of care," the union rep told a chapter meeting. "But employer-based health care is on the way out. If SB2 [requiring employers to pay for insurance] is voted down in November, and if the grocery workers lose their fight to maintain company-paid insurance, it’ll be gone. Conservatives are calling for a ‘consumer-based’ plan with individual health savings accounts and tax credits. [Democratic state senator] Sheila Kuehl’s universal health insurance bill will be the only alternative."

"So we’re between a rock and a hard place," a worker responded. "Privatization will mean more inequality and worse health care, but Kuehl’s plan will lower the standard of care too. Labor shouldn’t get suckered into supporting the Democrats’ ‘lesser evil’ health plan. We need a better response." Heads were nodding, but nobody voiced what most needs to be said: This health care crisis is caused by capitalism, and the only solution is revolution.

"Whose problem is health care?" asked business writer Daniel Gross (New York Times, 1/8/04) Ours, obviously. Sixteen percent of U.S. workers and their families have no health insurance. That includes 20% of black families and 34% of Latino/as. For insured workers, rising costs and shrinking benefits are major contract issues.

It’s also a problem for U.S. bosses. "American manufacturers’ costs exceed those of [their] counterparts," Gross writes. "One of the main culprits is health care." U.S. corporations, especially large industrial firms, pay more for health costs compared to capitalist rivals. They "compensate for higher health care costs by holding down growth in wages" and cutting retirees’ benefits, but that’s not enough. "Health reform is a fiscal imperative," said a senior official of the National Economic Council in the mid-1990s. That means: make the workers pay, either individually or as taxpayers.

Bosses’ Reforms Mean Rationing for Workers

International capitalist competition is a big reason why U.S. bosses can’t reform their way to better health care for the working class. They must fight to maintain profits while pouring all the money they can find into the military.

U.S. bosses will focus health care expenditures on guaranteeing a workforce for war production and the military. The rest of us — including retired and disabled workers, the unemployed and those with jobs not directly related to imperialist war-making — will find health care strictly rationed according to the bosses’ needs. That’s the real meaning of "health care reform."

Big insurance companies, tightly linked to the giant financial institutions through which the rulers rule, will have a large say. (The Clintons’ first choice for Attorney-General, while pushing health reform, was insurance-company lawyer Zoë Baird.) Some bosses, such as the very profitable drug companies, will be reined in for the "greater good" of the ruling class as a whole. But the working class — black and Latin workers especially — will be the big losers.

Liberal Politicians, Union Officials Mislead Workers

How can the racist rulers build national unity and get workers to sacrifice "blood and treasure" for continual war on behalf of a system that cannot even provide decent health care? That’s the liberals’ job, singling out particular companies or industries but never indicting the capitalist system as a whole. Politicians complain about drug companies or malpractice lawyers, while the AFL-CIO calls for "affordable health care.

Last year, California Democrats outvoted Republicans and passed Senate Bill 2 ("Pay or Play"), requiring companies to pay 80% of workers’ health insurance premiums or else pay a tax to help care for the uninsured. When the California Chamber of Commerce challenged SB2, claiming it would be a hardship for small businesses, large corporations (more often unionized) responded: "We have to pay for benefits, why shouldn’t they?"

Meanwhile, Kuehl is fine-tuning SB 921, which would set up a state-run single-payer health insurance program. A 1999 state-mandated study concluded that "under a single payer health insurance system, California could afford to cover all California residents at no new cost to the state" by incorporating existing programs like Medical, negotiating economies of scale, decreasing use of expensive emergency rooms for primary care, and getting physicians to ration care. Other cost controls include postponement of new benefits, cancellation for inappropriate provider utilization, co-pays and deductibles, and eligibility waiting periods. That’s the real purpose of SB921, which states bluntly that, so far, "efforts to control health care costs and growth of health care spending have been unsuccessful."

Fight Racist Health Care ‘Reform’

Health reform advocates say they want to help workers lacking any health care. In the short run, they might gain a little from SB921. But it really would reduce benefits for most workers while intensifying racist inequality and rationing. Black and Latin workers, forced into the hardest and most dangerous jobs, and pushed into the most crowded, polluted, and unhealthiest neighborhoods, have the greatest health care needs. Rationing would hit them the hardest.

The capitalists are jockeying over how to organize their profit-saving, racist health-care rationing system. Wherever the issue arises — in unions, schools, workplaces and professional associations — we must fight cuts in care while exposing capitalism’s inability to provide decent health care for the working class. We must organize to destroy this racist system that is incapable of meeting the workers’ most basic needs.

a name="Phony ‘Leftists’ Help IBM Shift Low-Wage Hi-tech Jobs to India"></">Ph"ny ‘Leftists’ Help IBM Shift Low-Wage Hi-tech Jobs to India

India’s government announced that IBM is planning to double its work-force in Calcutta to 4,000 by December, making it the second largest IBM workforce after Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley. This is part of IBM’s globalization plan to better compete with other computer and software companies.

IBM wants to take advantage of the huge pool of engineers and other technical staff available in Calcutta, which, like those of Bangalore, work for a fraction of the wages received by similar workers in the U.S. and Western Europe.

Recently IBM announced it will export 4,700 jobs overseas. This is adding to the debate in the U.S. electoral campaign over outsourcing, even though it represents just a small number of the millions of job lost in the U.S. the last few years. It’s the productivity drive that’s causing job losses here, which increases the bosses’ profits by using fewer workers to produce more. (See pages 1, 2.)

An important factor aiding IBM’s move to Calcutta is its government (and that of the West Bengal state where the city is located), run by the so-called Communist Party of India — CPI(M)— ("Marxist"). These fake leftists are now guaranteeing a stable workforce: "Calcutta is an unusual choice…. Until recently, the city best known as the home to the late Mother Teresa wasn’t a hot destination for software companies, while West Bengal was better known for its long-serving Communist government and labor strikes." (Wall Street Journal, 3/12/04)

But the WSJ added that this is now changing`; the CPI (M) government is "discouraging unions from striking."

These phony leftists are acting as agents of the bosses. Interesting enough, the CPI (M) and other such groups here used to portray themselves as "defenders of Indian capitalism" against imperialist competition. One reason IBM is increasing its Indian operation is to "match cost advantages enjoyed by their smaller Indian rivals." (WSJ).

For many years, CHALLENGE has criticized fake leftists like CPI (M) for being revisionists (acting for the bosses inside the working class). Day by day these traitors sink even lower. It’s time for workers to join us in rebuilding a new revolutionary communist movement based on fighting all the bosses and building a society without capitalism, where production serves the needs of the working class.

a name="Red Ideas Strengthen Garment Worker’s Resolve to Fight Boss">">"ed Ideas Strengthen Garment Worker’s Resolve to Fight Boss

"I want my pay now," I yelled at the factory owner while pounding my fist on the table. I had never done anything like this, and I was afraid. "I’m changing," I said to myself, but I felt good. I felt strong.

I’m a garment worker and a single mother. All my life I’ve been passive. I don’t know why. I’ve always been afraid to confront the bosses or contradict others. Many times the owner has made me cry and feel alone. Before I thought this kind of "humility" was a virtue. But now I want to teach my children that they shouldn’t be the way I was; they should fight back and not fear confronting anything.

Some years ago I met a co-worker, a communist friend, who always talked to me about workers’ struggles, about organizations that fight for change, etc. Although we stopped working in the same factory, we continued being friends. She always told me, "We must fight back; we can’t give in. We workers are strong." I believe her consistency helped me change.

The day of the confrontation, the owner had changed the pay day from once a week to once every 21 days. When I told her I had to pay my rent, she said, "That’s not my problem." Like water that finally boils over, everything my friend had told me flooded my mind. I reacted with such strength and conviction that the boss got nervous and started to cry! Then she asked me to forgive her and started praying to a saint, saying she would no longer treat the workers badly. I don’t believe her, but at least now I’m not the same. We’re organizing in the factory and fighting together with the other workers, who were very happy to hear about my action.

I’m learning about communist ideas. For example, recently we went with some other workers to the city center. When we were returning on the bus, we started discussing a book about political economy, commodities, use value and exchange value. I don’t understand a lot about these things, but what I’m learning seems good. Also, for the first time, I participated in a study group about dialectical materialism. Now I feel more secure and have more confidence in the Party and in communist ideas.

A garment worker who is changing

The Raid On Nazi Chicago HQ, April 7, 1978:

The Battle For Marquette Park

In Part I of this series, we described the long, racist history of Marquette Park. The segregated Southwest Side neighborhood was a bastion of racism, with a large population of resettled Nazis from Lithuania, the Ukraine, etc., plus cops and city workers.

Black workers had been segregated to the east, but a growing number of black auto and steel workers, teachers, city and county workers, were leading a migration west.

Early in 1977, the Nazis announced plans to march in Skokie, IL, a Jewish suburb with more than 7,000 Holocaust survivors. Virtually every a day newspaper or TV stories appeared about the Nazis and their leader, Frank Collin.

A movement quickly sprang up to "Keep the Nazis out of Skokie." The "liberal" ACLU intervened to defend the Nazis’ "right to free speech," and took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in their favor. The Nazis reaped millions of dollars in free publicity while racist attacks on black workers increased near the Marquette Park area. Between the media, the ACLU and unending racist attacks, the Nazis built up an aura of invincibility. It was then that PLP decided to smash them on their home turf, to stop them from spreading their racist filth and to end the violent attacks on black workers.

On July 2, 1977, PLP organized 150 black, Latin and white workers to demonstrate in front of Nazi headquarters during their "National Convention." Surprised by the PLP advance security team, the Nazis and police rushed out, to be quickly beaten down. A picture of a uniformed Nazi being beaten over the head by a multi-racial group became very popular here.

But the media never tired of covering the Nazis. The fascists still talked of marching in Skokie, but PLP warned that their intention was to strengthen their hold on Marquette Park, where the city had banned all demonstrations.

In 1978, a plan was developed to attack the Nazis in their headquarters. The fascists had made an annual ritual of bombing and attacking Englewood’s black workers on Hitler’s birthday, so we decided to attack their weekly Friday night meeting on April 7.

Members and friends of PLP volunteered for the raid. Very serious thought was given to this dangerous action. While some disagreed and others were fearful, a committed group of 20 men and women was organized.

On that evening, this group gathered at a comrade’s house and dedicated the action to: (1) The millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis, especially those of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; (2) The black workers of Englewood, especially those who fought the Nazis’ attempt to march there; and, (3) The Red Army soldiers who destroyed the Nazis at Stalingrad and saved the world from fascism.

PLP’ers arrived at the Nazi headquarters armed with bats, ax handles and pipes. We gained entry with a simple trick. Two white women knocked on the door, pretending to be students. They asked if they could come in and listen. When the door opened, the 20 attackers pushed their way in and immediately set upon the Nazis.

Many of the 30 Nazis and supporters fled out the back door. Many of those remaining were beaten down. One Nazi had his skull fractured; another had his arm broken. Bats and clubs were flying everywhere, as racists dropped like flies.

On a prearranged signal we left, leaving the Nazi office in a shambles, with "PLP" proudly painted on the front of the building. One Nazi started shooting down the block, grazing one comrade. Another comrade, Susana Findley, was injured and accidentally left behind in the commotion. She had bravely run to the back of the room, and unknown to the rest us, was injured and unable to retreat.

While in the hospital, she was charged with several felonies. A judge threw out the charges due to conflicting testimony from several Nazis, but the State’s Attorney re-indicted her and tried her. PLP organized a nationwide campaign to support her, including demonstrations at every court appearance. Eventually she beat the charges.

The raid’s effects were felt immediately. The next Friday night, Nazi headquarters looked more like Hitler’s bunker. The fascists had barricaded themselves inside; only their members were allowed in. Supporters feared being seen near the office. It was the second nail in their coffin. May Day 1979 would finish them off.

(Part III — The May Day March in Marquette Park)

Rulers Now Sending Grandpas to Iraq

Staff Sergeant James Brown, a 53-year-old grandfather of seven, standing guard at Fort Irwin, Calif. Like many reservists and National Guard soldiers, he was activated to be deployed in Iraq, forced to leave his job at a seed company.

The bosses’ endless wars impel them to call up even granddads, and there’s no end in sight. CIA director George Tenet, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, presented a "bleak vision of a war on terrorism without end, in which even the destruction of al-Qaeda would not make America safe." (The Telegraph, London, 2/25) — all this to protect the profits of Exxon, Halliburton, Chase Morgan & Co., from Baghdad to Kabul to Port-au-Prince. This is the future capitalism offers all workers. Let’s organize to fight for a world without bosses and their wars. Join the communist PLP and march with us on May Day.

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MEXICO CiTY—Four months ago, Cándido Rivera was being treated in Ford’s medical service department, sick with a chronic gastrointestinal illness. The company, claiming production was slow, let him go. They couldn’t care less about this worker.

Without a job Cándido went to a public clinic and was immediately diagnosed with stomach cancer. They removed part of his intestines and stomach. Now, Cándido is close to death, with no health insurance. For 18 years, this worker gave his life to Ford. Now they reward him with unemployment and no health care.

The medical service at the Ford Plant in Cuautitlán, Mexico, is more than inefficient; it’s criminal. Their main "diagnosis" is "don’t send a sick worker home, give him an aspirin and order him back to the assembly line." The company keeps a medical record for each worker. When they detect one with a serious illness, they get rid of him.

Whether medical negligence or premeditated murder, Ford is responsible for the possible death of Cándido and of many other workers. The plant’s deadly chemicals and fumes cause many workers’ illnesses, and Ford’s fascist medical policies worsen them.

Toyota had replaced Ford as the world’s No. 2 auto producer. In capitalism’s dog-eat-dog competition of capitalism, particularly in this era of endless wars and economic crises, Ford must intensify the exploitation of its workers to compete with its rivals. Murdering workers is just another by-product of making Ford more competitive. The criminal capitalist system must be crushed by workers, to build a society based on production for our needs, not for the bosses’ profits. The communist PLP fights for that society.

Many workers have been visiting Cándido on his death bed. He’s a kind man, loved by his fellow workers because he’s been a fighter. He always showed his class hatred against capitalist exploitation. His fellow workers will never forget him. We will honor him by winning more autoworkers to fight for communism.

a name="GI Says Army’s ‘Psychotic’ Cases Are Really Anti-War Views"></a>"I Says Army’s ‘Psychotic’ Cases Are Really Anti-War Views

Nine soldiers in my National Guard unit are either en route to Iraq or are already there. Although they all volunteered, the imminent threat of everyone being activated has destroyed the already low morale of myself and many other troops. To prevent soldiers’ personal objections to deployment from becoming politicized, a psychiatrist spoke to us about coping with combat-induced stress.

Her talk was disturbing because it implied that soldiers who freak out during combat situations are somehow personally weak and dysfunctional. I remarked that soldiers who become stressed out by the genocide against the Iraqis and the senseless murders of fellow soldiers are hardly being irrational. Many of the "psychotic" cases of stress in Iraq are actually intense — though unformulated — political objections to the invasion.

Though I received a warm reception from several soldiers, the psychiatrist quickly co-opted my statement by mentioning that she too, an Army officer, personally disagreed with the war. But to convince us that even cynical soldiers must carry out orders, she told us she would cope with her disagreements and carry out her duty, as should all soldiers.

I thought I had lost the debate, but some soldiers saw through this officer’s pacification strategy. One approached me later and told me she liked what I said, and that the officer basically told us to shut up and follow orders. Another soldier turned around and said he agreed that the officer basically ignored the question of politically induced stress.

My unit failed to convince the soldiers to turn political objectives to the invasion into personal, "private problems" that the Army could solve. For many, the idea of "coping" was clearly another way of forcing us to fight and die for a war we’re not won to fighting. The military will face increased resistance from soldiers like me who voluntarily or forcefully become activated.

Red GI

a name="The WW2 Communist-led Insurrection That Defeated the Nazis in Northern Italy —Part I">">"he WW2 Communist-led Insurrection That Defeated the Nazis in Northern Italy —Part I

One of the least publicized events of the Second World War was the communist-led mass insurrection that threatened a working-class seizure of power in Northern Italy in the spring of 1945. From June 1943 to 1945, the Communist Party of Italy (CPI) grew from 5,000 members to 1.7 million. Its most important base was in the industrial north where it led the anti-fascist Resistance movement. By the end of 1943, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS-forerunner of the CIA) classified the Resistance as a primarily revolutionary political movement, not a military one.

Early in 1944, with the U.S. and British armies fighting in Italy’s south, the CPI, the Socialist Party and the smaller leftist Action Party formed the Committee of National Liberation of Northern Italy (CLNAI). The communists were the largest and leading section. By March 1945, the OSS estimated the armed Partisans of the CLNAI at 182,000, with 500,000 potential recruits, overwhelmingly workers and peasants. They were tying down 14 German army divisions.

The communists led this movement partly because of "their outstanding record of resistance during the fascist era, but even more from being the Italian representative of Communist Russia. Russia’s charisma in this period cannot be overstressed. Tens of thousands of Italian workers looked to Russia for their model and to the Red Army for the decisive contribution to the creation of Communism in their own country. Stalin was a working-class hero, Togliatti [CPI chairman] his trusted emissary in Italy." ("A History of Contemporary Italy," by Paul Ginsborg; Penguin Books, 1990; p. 54)

"In Arezzo, for example, the Psychological Warfare Branch reported:….The support of the majority of people who style themselves Communists seems to derive from the success of the Russians against the Germans. People say that Communism must have something in it if it can produce such results." (Report No. 29, Aug. 5, 1944, quoted in Ginsborg, pp. 466-67)

In the North, workers were starving between the cold and mass unemployment. In the late winter of 1944, the Resistance organized nearly a million workers in mass strikes, lasting eight days in the industrial city of Turin. All this, in the teeth of the Nazi army which had taken over military operations from the fading Mussolini fascists.

The Resistance was growing by the tens of thousands. In fact, "where the Partisans had gained complete control, they set up their own republics:…Carnia in the northeast with 150,000 inhabitants, Montefiorino in the central Apennines with 50,000…, Ossola in the extreme north with 70,000. " (Ginsborg, p. 55) In August, the Tuscan Partisans took control of Florence north of the Arno.

The Nazis struck back viciously, massacring whole villages, transferring entire workshops with their workers to Germany. They took 15 political prisoners into Milan’s piazza, executed them and left their bodies for the entire day as a "lesson" to the population.

But on April 10, 1945 the Communists issued their famous Directive No. 16, ordering the Resistance to prepare for armed insurrection. Between April 24-26, Genoa, Turin and Milan rose against the Nazis.

In Genoa, the Partisans faced two full German army divisions. The Germans had mined all bridges and tunnels and the entire port area, and prepared the industries for demolition. The Partisans defied the threats and began the insurrection at 4 AM on the 23rd. By 10 AM they had seized city hall, the telephone exchange, police headquarters and the prison. Clandestine action squads mushroomed from 5,000 to 20,000 men and women, young and old, armed with weapons seized from Fascist forces. The Germans threatened to kill 20 women and children if not allowed to leave. The Partisans then said they’d execute 1,000 German prisoners in their hands and all those taken thereafter. Then the Germans heard a reserve division had been surrounded by Partisans in the mountain and had surrendered so they were forced to give up as well, It was the first time in Italian history that a fully-equipped army corps had laid down its arms to "civilians."

The Partisans occupied the auto factories in Turin and drove the Nazis from that city.

On April 24, the 3rd Garibaldi Brigade stormed the fascist barracks on the outskirts of Milan while fighting began in and around the factories. Both groups coordinated their actions, and Milan was seized in two days. Mussolini had been there, but fled towards Switzerland with his Nazi SS escort, disguised as a German soldier. On April 27, the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade blocked their path. Il Duce was recognized, taken prisoner and shot, defying Allied requests to the contrary. He was hung by his heels, along with his mistress and other fascist leaders, in the very piazza where the Nazis had executed the 15 political prisoners.

By May 1 the Resistance had freed all of northern Italy. They executed up to 15,000 fascists and Nazi collaborators. The CLNAI was in full control of the state apparatus. The U.S. and Britain now had a problem. "How to take physical possession of northern Italy, for revolution in the wake of fascism was for them merely the prospect of a Pyrrhic victory," [one that’s too costly].

(Next issue: why there was no communist-led revolution in Italy after the war).

Memories of World War 2: Living Through the London Blitz

The sidewalls at the end of the cellar gave way. Masonry collapsed, though the structure held. We could still hear reverberations of the bomb in our ears. The dank, evil-smelling drains suddenly opened, emitting an awful smell. Our eyes and ears were filled with what seemed to my young eyes as a million rats, running and shrieking without fear, from one broken wall to another. Masonry was still falling. My grandma, ever ready, lit another candle, replacing the one blown out by the blast. She began singing an old music hall song, "She’s My Lassie from Lancashire." This was civilian life in Britain during World War II.

After a cold, miserable night huddled in the broken-down cellar, we returned upstairs — my mum, my brother, my grandma and me. The "all-clear" had sounded very late, but we waited, fearing what was destroyed above. The old Victorian house still stood on Calcott Road, but nearby houses had been destroyed. The air raid wardens, neighbors and police were looking for people under the rubble. They brought out Mrs. Greene, looking like a smashed, flattened doll. They took out others, all dead. Their house had taken a direct hit.

People soon went about their daily routine. Grandma made tea, and mum made powdered eggs with toasted, gray-looking bread and margarine. We ate and talked about the bombing the night before.

* * * * *

Britain entered the war on September 3, 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland. I was a young child. My mother, my brother and I, along with the majority of London’s children, left the city for farms, small villages and seaside resorts throughout Britain. People in more rural areas "guest-housed" city families to save the children. We lived in Dorset. We all had our ration cards, our new identification cards and our newly-issued gas masks. Mine hung around my shoulder. After we hadn’t been attacked in about six months, people began to drift back to their London homes. We did too. This was the "Phony War." Britain and France were waiting and hoping for Hitler to attack the Soviet Union.

In the latter part of 1940, the Blitz started. Daily air raids on the south of England involved hundreds of Nazi bombers. At first they attacked military installations, the docks and the hundreds of small factories producing airplane parts. But soon the terror bombing began, mostly at night, on the working-class homes in the surrounding areas. This frightening daily terror profoundly affected me. When air raid sirens wailed, people ran for the cellar, if they had one, or any shelters they could find. Air-raid shelters had been built on many streets. Many people took shelter in the subway system. The London Underground was built deep under the city’s clay and bedrock. We could hear waves of bombers flying over every day, and dogfights between the Royal Air Force and the Nazi Luftwaffe. The ground would shake. We heard terrifying loud noises, fire engine bells and shouting in the streets. We sat terrified during each bombing wave, hoping the next bomb would miss us. Soon we got used to it.

Thinking of those years, all I can picture in my mind’s eye is rubble everywhere, streets littered with bits of broken airplanes, downed trees, destroyed houses. Everyone had black window shades so the city’s lights could not be seen from the air. I remember bright moonlight piercing through a little pinhole in my bedroom nightshade, as I wondered if Hitler could see my room through that little opening. The bombing continued off and on for a number of years.

After listening to the radio news, my family would always talk about the hoped-for death of Nazism. My father was attached to the Navy; my uncle Joe joined the Army. Right away he grew a mustache, in the style of Joseph Stalin. When we first saw him in his uniform, my grandmother exclaimed, "You look like Uncle Joe!" My uncle beamed. Joseph Stalin and the Red Army were well regarded in our household, and many working-class families. We would always ask, "Uncle Joe, are you going to kick Hitler?" and he would laugh. My uncle’s experiences during the Second World War turned him into a communist, and he joined the Communist Party.

From Red Mate

LETTERS

Learning by Doing At Pro-Aristide March

Recently some comrades, including two high school students, attended a pro-Aristide rally in Brooklyn. As we joined the rally, people grabbed our leaflets, translated into Creole, which attacked Aristide and capitalism for the poverty in Haiti. One woman shook our hand and thanked us for being there. Others read our signs — "Workers of the World, Unite," and "Workers Need to Dump Capitalism" — and nodded agreement.

We had distributed about 30 leaflets when one woman handed it back to us, screaming, "I don’t want this." Another man followed her lead. Soon there was a small but angry group yelling at us to leave, calling us "C.I.A." for our politics opposing Aristide (who Clinton returned to power in 1994 with 20,000 U.S. troops) and the Tontons Macoute "rebels" (put in power by Bush’s Marines). For a while we sold CHALLENGE across the street and then headed for a forum on Haiti we had organized. Unfortunately at this morning rally we were a small, mainly non-Creole-speaking group.

As our forum was starting, we heard the Haitian demonstration march by. We now had a larger group of about a dozen, some of whom spoke Creole. The youth at the meeting decided that since the forum was about Haiti we should join the march. We made signs in Creole which read "Capitalism is the Problem" and went out with our remaining 470 leaflets from the morning.

The demonstration had grown to several hundred. As we joined it, we received a much better response. We sold many CHALLENGES and distributed most of the leaflets. One young person said that another man even danced with him. Although there was still some disagreement with our ideas, many people agreed that the capitalist system and its cronies were responsible for Haiti’s chaos and poverty.

Although ultimately three of the organizers asked us to leave — because we dared to criticize Aristide and the "rebels" as agents of capitalism and imperialism — we accomplished our goals. The youth, especially the two who had been with us in the morning, saw many workers responding positively to the party’s critique of capitalism and to our solution, communism, even while we were being attacked. The youth also saw the importance of being part of the action and bringing our message to the working class as opposed to just talking amongst ourselves. We were all excited about our actions that day and about our coming May Day organizing efforts.

Brooklyn Comrade

Object and Organize

Sgt. Camillo Mejía of North Miami, Fla. has caused quite an uproar. His National Guard unit declared him AWOL when he failed to report for duty. He had come home from Iraq in October, on leave after having served there for five months. He's refusing to return to Iraq, declaring himself a Conscientious Objector (CO). He is remorseful over a shooting in which several Iraqi civilians were killed. "This is a war over oil," he said, "and I don't think any soldier should enlist to fight for oil." He added that he was ready to go to jail for his beliefs.

Mejía first reported to a Massachusetts Air Force base where he declared himself a CO. They ordered him back to his unit, the 1st Battalion of the 124th Infantry Regiment in Florida. Upon his arrival at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, he declared himself a CO while being supported by his mother, an aunt, his lawyer and Oliver Perez, who served with him in Iraq. "I fought alongside him in many battles," said Perez. "He is not a coward. He is a brave leader and should not be jailed." (El Diario-La Prensa, NYC, 3/17)

Mejias, an immigrant from Nicaragua, spent three years in the Army and five in the National Guard. He was studying at the Univ. of Miami when he was activated for duty in Iraq. Like many other soldiers, he is part of the potential weak link in the U.S. bosses' war machine. Two more soldiers in a medical unit in Iraq have also declared themselves COs and want to be sent home. These soldiers increasingly are realizing that the rulers' endless wars only serve the interests of Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, Texaco, Shell, etc.

Although their courage is to be admired, it would be more productive to stay in and fight to win other soldiers to organize against the profiteering bosses' wars.

A NYC Reader

China & U.S.: Whose $ Are Helping Whom?

Recently I attended a meeting where workers were analyzing the Party’s work. It began with a report about inter-imperialist rivalry, a presentation about petro dollars and euros. The reporter said that, the U.S. has the world’s most powerful military, it’s also the number one debtor nation. Another participant said that China is now the world’s number one exporter and is investing here, helping finance the U.S. deficit.

Then another worker, who’s very active on his job, thanked the comrades for their reports. "This will really help me on my job," he said. "A lot of my friends think the U.S. is funding China. They think that’s one of the reasons for the attacks on our benefits. But it’s just the opposite. China’s helping fund the U.S. debt."

This worker is fighting to bring an entire world view to his friends. The more he and they do that, the more the workers respond with more questions and discussion, and the more they read CHALLENGE.

A Comrade

a name="‘The Passion’ and ‘DaVinci Code’ Book Mirror Church Split"></a>‘T"e Passion’ and ‘DaVinci Code’ Book Mirror Church Split

Some time ago, CHALLENGE ran an article on the visible struggle within worldwide Catholicism over the growing child abuse scandal. It argued that this battle reflected underlying inter-imperialist tensions, especially the drive by U.S. bosses to undermine the allegiance of U.S. Catholics to the European-papacy-run Church. This is relative to all the hoopla about Mel Gibson’s box office smash, "The Passion of the Christ," and the best-selling book, "The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown.

Gibson’s movie revives the medieval passion play that focused almost exclusively on the torture and brutalization of Jesus, the son of God according to the Christian theology/mythology. The passion plays were popular during Europe’s Black Plague and the 100 Years War, an era of widespread misery among much of the population. Perhaps the graphic depictions of torture and execution somewhat mirrored real life and provided some solace to people living amidst massive exploitation, disease and death.

But some passion plays blamed Jews for Jesus’ death. This spawned notorious anti-Semitic writings and ultimately racist attacks on Jews. Gibson’s movie promotes this anti-Semitism.

It’s hard to know where this stuff fits into the broader politics and ideology of Catholicism. The Catholic Church, under Pope Pius XII, made all kinds of deals with the Nazis before, during and after World War II. Church officials helped many Nazis escape to South America. Gibson’s father, Hutton Gibson, is a long-standing Nazi-defending holocaust-"denier." Gibson belongs to a fundamentalist Catholic sect that’s even to the right of the Vatican, and rejects Vatican II (when the Church adopted the position that Jews were not responsible for Jesus’ death). So the Gibson movie reflects a particularly vicious, racist and fascist brand of Catholicism.

In "The DaVinci Code," the Church is the bad guy, especially the secretive, conservative Opus Dei group that figures heavily in the plot. The book shines a positive light on a pro-feminist tendency within Catholicism which says that Mary Magdalene was really the political companion and lover of Jesus and a leader in her own right of a movement that was far more egalitarian and pro-woman than the dominant, more conservative tendency. The conservative church attacked Mary Magdalene as a prostitute and forbade the ordination of women, excluding them from power. The Holy Grail was not a cup but actually the documentation of Mary Magdalene’s true historical role.

There’s lot’s more to the story (it’s not a bad read), but this book promotes the idea that the Catholic Church, governed by the Vatican, is a reactionary force that has long suppressed progressive forces and ideas. This fits right in with the anti-child abuse movement and further reinforces the split within worldwide Catholicism.

These cultural phenomena are very much on people’s minds these days and can make for valuable political discussion among our friends and co-workers. Readers who know more about it, or have had some recent discussions, should write in.

Mid-Western Comrade

From Altar Boy to Communist

The article "Did Jesus Exist?" (CHALLENGE, 3/17) has caused some disagreements among friends. Even some religious skeptics believe there was a Jesus. I was raised as a Catholic, educated by nuns in early childhood and was an altar boy. I believed there was a Jesus who went through Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection. Hell, I even participated as a Roman soldier in a Holy Week procession marking the crucifixion. But after being involved in the anti-war, anti-racist struggles of the ’60s and early ’70s, and studying historical and dialectical materialism, I began to understand.

First of all, the whole idea of dying and returning from death during Harvest time began with the gods of Ancient Babylon (modern Iraq). Christianity copied this and many other ancient pagan rites from the Roman Empire (like Christmas).

The name Jesus (Joshua in Greek) was used by many rebel leaders in ancient Judea. The Talmud mentions one from about 100 B.C. But there was no Jesus as portrayed in the Bible and by Gibson. The REAL question is, are the New Testament Gospels basically historical? The Gospels are the New Testaments’ sources for the life of Jesus. The writings of "St. Paul" — himself probably not a real person — do not discuss Jesus as though he was an historical person. No, the Gospels are theology. The book by Price, "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man," debunks the idea that Jesus Christ existed.

Most people with religious beliefs want a better world, a society without war, oppression and racist terror. They are the victims of the collaboration of capitalism with the religious establishment, from Rome to Baghdad to New York City. They can and will be won to fight for a better world since their interests contradict those of their religious leaders. But we must wage ideological struggle with them about the anti-working-class ideas pushed by the rulers — racism, individualism, sexism, patriotism and religion. We must fight the idea that the more you suffer now the better you will be in the after life (like the Passion or the Islamic jihadists say).

A. Teo

Atheist Says Class Struggle Primary

In CHALLENGE’s "Did Jesus Exist" article (3/17), the author makes good points about the Mel Gibson Christ film being used to promote anti-Semitism and U.S. imperialism against Islamic fundamentalists. But the title and article make the arrogant claim that a man who hundreds of millions of workers see as a symbol of their resistance to oppression and who died for his people — simply never existed!

According to the article, "There is historical evidence for…even James, ‘the brother of the Lord,’ called Jesus’ brother in the Book of Acts, but NOT for Jesus." But that statement raises the question, if there is historical evidence for the existence of Jesus’ brother, how could Jesus not have existed? Whether Jesus existed or not, a more important question is, does PLP win Catholics to the Party by opening up a debate on issues like this or by, for instance, showing how the Pope and his Church are aiding imperialists to oppress Catholics?

Billions of people are born into families and societies that accept religion’s mythology but many were able to engage in revolutionary and workers’ struggles. One relevant example is devout Irish Catholics who rejected religious non-violence and learned how to organize and fight against British imperialism. Then they came to the U.S. and used that experience to defeat cops and bosses’ goons and organize the Transport Workers Union (TWU). Mike Quill, union president when it was a mostly Catholic union, said, "We never heard a peep out of the Bishops when we were slaving 12 hours a day and being abused by the bosses, but now that we have a strong union and a 48-hour work-week, the Bishops say we are all communists and going to hell."

I think unity will be earned and more will be learned through class struggle than from debates on mythology.

TWU Catholic turned red

CHALLENGE COMMENTS: Thank you for your letter. As the article says, there is historical evidence for a man named James but not for Jesus. The Book of Acts, which is not history but rather theology/mythology, says this man called James was the brother of Jesus. But again, the Book of Acts and the entire New Testament is not history. They were written one to two centuries after Jesus was supposedly crucified. To make the claim that Jesus didn’t exist isn’t "arrogant" but a matter of scientific and historical analysis. All serious historians know there was no historical Jesus.

But the letter’s main point is that saying Jesus did not exist is not a good way to win people who believe in Christianity to our politics. This raises two questions:

Since 9/11 and the priests’ child abuse scandal, the whole question of religion has become an even more prominent part of the ideological/cultural barrage pushed by the rulers and their media. "The Passion of the Christ" has been seen by tens of millions of people here in the US and worldwide. Religious fundamentalism has become a weapon of war, fascism and racism from the Middle East to Middle America. It would be very opportunist of us not to participate in the ideological debate on this question.

The second question involves organized religion. CHALLENGE has a long history of exposing the Pope, the Ayatollahs, the child-abusing priests, and both the Christian and Muslim Fundamentalists. PLP’ers are active in churches and church-based religious organizations where we debate all these issues with many people, always based on fighting war, racism, fascist terror, and so on. The world communist movement has always attacked religion in all its aspects (since Engels’ "The Origins of Christianity" and many writings by Lenin and others). Historically, communists have attacked religion ideologically and the pro-capitalist church hierarchy while never attacking people with religious beliefs. On the contrary, when we expose organized religion and its concepts, we’re better able to win people involved in class struggle to our politics.

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

Liberals are capitalists too

To the Editor:

Emblazoned across the cover of the Feb. 15 Book Review, as an introduction to your review of "The Working Poor," is the most consequential falsehood in American political culture. "Millions in America are employed but remain poor. Why? No one likes it this way; not liberals, not conservatives."

The sad fact is that they both like it this way. If they didn’t, they would do something about it…rather than continue to reap the (illusory) benefits of cheap labor. (NYT, 3/7)

Iraq war is not vs. terror

The Bush administration…baffled the world when it used an attack by Islamic fundamentalists to justify the overthrow of a brutal but secular regime….

The truth is that Mr. Bush [was] eager to invoke 9/11 on behalf of an unrelated war…. By the summer of 2002, bin Laden’s name had disappeared from Mr. Bush’s speeches. It was all Saddam, all the time.

This wasn’t just a rhetorical switch; crucial resources were pulled off the hunt for Al Qaeda, which had attacked America, to prepare for the overthrow of Saddam, who hadn’t. (NYT, 3/16)

Greenspan overlooks poor

Mr. Greenspan’s view is that household balance sheets are "in good shape," and perhaps stronger than ever, because the value of people’s homes and stock portfolios have risen faster than their debts….

Other analysts have begun to dispute Mr. Greenspan’s benign view of rising household debt….

Mortgage foreclosure rates, personal bankruptcies and credit card delinquencies have been rising steadily and at record levels. Most of that stress has taken place in lower-income families, which is why it has not made a big impact on aggregate data about national wealth. (NYT, 3/16)

Kerry won’t calm Mid-east

Mr. Kerry…sought to assure the attendees that he was as strong a supporter of Israel as Mr. Bush….

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League…. said that Mr. Kerry "came very close to where the president is" on several fundamental positions. "There was very little room between him and Bush," he said. (NYT, 3/1)

US has low-wage future

Bush’s own labor department reports that of the 30 occupations that will account for the highest job growth between now and 2010, two-thirds require minimal skills….freight movers, home health aides, janitors, waitresses, security guards, office clerks, and cashiers. The number one job-creator for America’s future? Restaurants, including fast food…. All of these jobs pay pitiful wages. (Jim Hightower)

US trained Haitian army to kill Haitians

The question of the Haitian Army also overshadows the country’s future. Mr. Aristide dissolved it in 1995, the armed rebels have announced its resurrection. The army was created by the American military after it occupied the country and imposed martial law in 1915….

Mary A. Renda, author of "Taking Haiti," an award-winning history of the American occupation, said the Marines created "a military that was intended to be used against the Haitian people."

Many Aristide loyalists are still hiding from rebel death threats and many elites support…the reconstitution of the army, which has always served the elites at the expense of its poor. (NYT, 3/7)

Unions can’t fix capitalism

Today, South Africa’s underclass is bigger than ever. Counting those who have given up the search for work, unemployment has jumped to more than 40 percent….

"If things go on like this, we could experience a new struggle, a class struggle," said Sample Terreblanche, an economist….

At a new marine park in Durban last month…10,000 people showed up to apply for 300 openings….

In other developing countries, legions of unskilled workers have kept down labor costs. But South Africa’s leaders, vowing not to let their nation become the West’s sweatshop, heeded the demands of politically powerful labor unions for new protections and benefits. According to a study conducted in 2000 for the government’s finance department, South Africa’s wages are five times higher than Indonesia’s, even though its workers are only twice as productive….

Investors….weigh…those factors…in deciding where to build plants. (NYT, 3/13)

1. Haitian workers need to dump all oppressors
   1. Why Impoverished Haiti Is Important
2. Trillions Stolen From
   Baby Boomers' Social Security
   To Pay For Bosses' War
   1. How the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Poorer
3. How to `Save' U.S. Jobs?
   Put `em in Jail!
4. TEACHING ABOUT EXPLOITATION
5. Sold-out Grocery Strikers Call
   for Class Solidarity
   1. Strike Unity Used to Spread Red Ideas
6. `Quality Work' Leads to Mass Layoff At Delphi Mexico Plant
7. Transit Workers Fight War Budget Service Cuts
8. Profits Behind `Concern' For Some Workers' Health
9. Health Care `Reforms' Aid Big Business
10. Home Attendants `Zoned for Slavery'; Need to `Zone' Bosses for Extinction
11. Finally, NY Times Admits Soviets Won World War 2
12. Parmalat Milks Brooklyn Workers Right Out of Their Jobs
13. Nurses `Win' Overtime Reform,
    Bosses Close Hospital
14. `The Passion of The Christ'
    Gibson's Anti-Semitism--Bosses' Lethal Weapon
    1. A Two-Hour Torture
    2. DID JESUS EXIST?
15. LETTERS
    1. Kerry Liberal
       Warmonger
    2. Army Uses High
       College Costs to
       Trap Enlistees
    3. O'Casey:`Communism is the Way'
    4. Urges Better Editing
    5. Fighting Hospital's Racism
    6. WHY ARE UNIONS
       FAILING?
16. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Gates' son probes charity
    2. GI quits US aggression
    3. On US TV, he finds WMDs!
    4. Profits before kids' health
    5. CIA protected Mexico nazi
    6. Imperialists bled Haiti
    7. Did 9/11 suit US war plan?

---

Haitian workers need to dump all oppressors

The capitalist hypocrisy of the Bush gang knows no bounds. The same bunch that invaded Iraq to "bring democracy" there now has stormed into Haiti to support a coup d'etat by the former death squads which terrorized the Haitian masses over a decade ago. Even before the UN gave its support to a "peacekeeping force," U.S. Marines invaded Haiti again, just like in 1888, 1891, 1914, 1915,1994.

Aristide, who BIll Clinton installed in power with 20,000 U.S. troops in 1994, was now given the "choice" by the U.S. ambassador to leave the presidency either on a Lear Jet or in a body bag. Now the drug-dealing death-squad "rebels" (CIA-armed via the government of the neighboring Dominican Republic) are in Port-au-Prince. The workers and youth who "welcomed" these murderers are cutting their own throats.

The White House disliked Aristide for many reasons -- maybe for being too close to one of the Bushites' many worst enemies, the liberal Clinton gang; or for bringing hundreds of Cuban doctors to work among the poor (Miami's Cuban exiles, crucial to Bush winning Florida in November, helped finance the armed "rebels"). All this despite everything Aristide did to serve imperialism and capitalism: signing a sweetheart deal with the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund; allowing construction of free trade zones that super-exploit workers; and even profiting off the drug trade. But the White House responded by cutting aid packages, enforcing embargoes and rumor-mongering.

U.S. imperialism funded all sectors of Aristide's opponents. The bosses never quite trusted him to serve their interests, even when Clinton restored him to power in 1994. They gave money to the whole spectrum of political opposition: from Hubert DeRonceray's right-wing, pro-Duvalier party, all the way to Gerald Charles-Pierre's "left" OPL (which split from Aristide's own Lavalas party), as well as to the "civil society" represented by industrialist-sweatshop millionaire Andy Apaid. According to an OPL member in the U.S., in the last few weeks the State Department told the political and civil opposition in the "Democratic Platform" not to negotiate power-sharing with Aristide. Thus, his last-ditch attempts to save his skin were constantly rebuffed by the political opposition.

The so-called rebels directed by Guy Philippe (a former Aristide police officer) and Louis-Jodel Chamblain -- a former army officer and death-squad leader responsible for the murder of over 1,000 Haitians during the 1991 coup ousting Aristide -- practically walked in and took over cities and towns throughout northern, northeastern and eastern Haiti, meeting little if any resistance.

What happens next remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: this is a dogfight between different groups of capitalists and their puppets. The French bosses hated Aristide because he demanded repayment of money Haiti had given France as reparations after the anti-slave rebellion that defeated Napoleon's army. France took advantage of a weakened Haiti to force compensation for losing its richest possession. Now France, which clamored for Aristide's ouster before Bush did, has a foothold in its old colony. Racism also unites Chirac and Bush; both want to bar "an influx of Haitian refugees -- the Bush administration to Florida...and France to its Caribbean provinces."(NY Times, 3/3)

At the same time, France will be better able to compete with the U.S. in part of the latter's Latin-American turf. Contradictions will sharpen among the imperialists.

For the impoverished working masses, it hardly matters who comes next: whether it's the "U.S. candidate," Marc Bazin (former World Bank official and Finance Minister under Baby Doc Duvalier); or Leslie Manigat ("elected" president by the military junta that ruled after the fall of Duvalier); or some other clown who will be allowed to serve only at the discretion of the U.S. and other imperialists. It also doesn't matter what comes next: the expected re-constitution of the Haitian Army (a tool to repress real workers' rebellion) led by the old TonTon Macoute officer corps; or an extended foreign occupation.

The Haitian urban and rural workers and youth have a long history of rebelling against their oppressors. Two centuries ago they kicked out the French slaveowners. Then they defeated Napoleon's powerful army. More recently they sent "Baby Doc" Duvalier packing to Paris. They forced Clinton to bring back "reformer" Aristide in 1994 when U.S. bosses feared a more radical mass uprising against the Gen. Cedras death-squad regime. Now that the death squads are back in power, Haiti's exploited masses must carry the struggle even further: uniting with their brothers and sisters in the Caribbean-Latin America region and elsewhere to crush the endless cycle of misery capitalism creates. Pick up the red flag and join the Progressive Labor Party in building a mass international communist movement.

Why Impoverished Haiti Is Important

Haiti, the Hemisphere's poorest country, has been devastated by corrupt repressive regimes and the austerity measures of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, which have destroyed its agriculture. Haiti is important because, (1) it's located near Cuba and can serve as a back-up U.S. military base for Guantanamo to protect the oil tankers coming from Venezuela (whose President Chavez is also on the Bushites' hit list) and the oil refineries in Trinidad-Tobago; and (2) Haiti is now a trans-shipment point for 14% of all cocaine headed to the U.S. from South American drug cartels.

This drug money provides billions not only for the cartels, but also for the banks (many in Florida) which launder the money; and for the drug gangs (including the CIA-backed armed "rebels" now occupying Port-au-Prince). The drug money is also used to re-pay Haiti's huge debt to international lenders stemming from IMF-World Bank policies.

Trillions Stolen From
Baby Boomers' Social Security
To Pay For Bosses' War

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is calling for an increase in the Social Security retirement age to 67 while cutting benefits, all to cover the soaring federal deficit created by the war budget and the $1.7 trillion tax cuts for billionaires scheduled between 2001 and 2010. He says that's the only way to pay for the "Baby Boomers" retirement that will start coming due in eight years. But Social Security taxes generate a huge surplus over benefits paid out.

Each generation of workers pays Social Security taxes to support the previous generation's retirement. According to the bosses' law, those taxes are supposed to go into the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for current and future retirees' pensions.

But in 1968, faced with a skyrocketing deficit caused by the billons spent on the Vietnam War, the Johnson administration started transferring the Social Security surplus into the general budget (labeled the "Unified Federal Budget"). Allen Schick of the Brookings Institution says, "This is illegal. By law, Social Security is excluded" from the general budget. But, "in practice, it is included." (N.Y. Times, 1/31/95)

Between 1968 through the year 2012, U.S. imperialism will have been paying for its war machine by stealing over FIVE TRILLION of these surplus dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund.

Every Democratic and Republican administration has taken the surplus generated by Social Security to "lower" that year's deficit, mainly caused by the multi-billion dollar war budget. Clinton's Federal budget "surplus" was "a mirage," according to a N.Y. Times editorial (11/9/98), "due to a big surplus in Social Security...which was spent on other things."

According to South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings, if these annual Social Security surpluses had remained in the Trust Fund, just starting from 1999 it would have created "a $3.2 TRILLION reserve in 2012 when payments to retiring baby boomers will start to exceed revenue." (N.Y. Times, 11/9/98)

A ruling class bent on endless imperialist wars to preserve capitalism and maintain world domination is sacrificing the retirement of current and future workers. The trillions in oil and war profits come from the value produced by our class. If the workers who create that value controlled it, retired workers could live healthy lives, confident that their needs would be met. But that will only happen when capitalism's thieving system is destroyed by communist revolution.

How the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Poorer

During the Reagan years, Greenspan headed a commission that established the Social Security Trust Fund to "guarantee" the revenue for the future baby boomers' retirement. But the "guarantee" was a scam. The Social Security surpluses were still siphoned into the "Unified Federal Budget."

Based on his recommendations, huge increases in Social Security taxes were pushed through. While Reagan was reducing income taxes for millionaires, workers' payroll taxes were climbing. In fact, 75% of U.S. taxpayers pay more in Social Security taxes than in income taxes.

Since 1983, U.S. workers have paid $1.8 trillion more into Social Security than the Fund has paid out. "This year Americans will pay about 50 percent more in Social Security taxes than the government will pay out in benefits." (NY Times, 2/29/04) This was supposedly Greenspan's way of the baby boomers paying for their retirement in advance. But this "$1.8 trillion....[in] advance payments have all been spent....running the federal government." (NYT, 1/29/04) Essentially this was a way of increasing taxes on workers' income to be used to pay for the ever-expanding war machine, a thievery that continues to this day.

Another rip-off of Social Security is the wage cap. As of 1995, the Social Security tax of 7.65% was taken out of all earnings up to an annual maximum of $61,200. A married couple earning $60,000 a year, pays an annual Social Security tax of about $4,600 (7.65% on $60,000). But a boss earning a million bucks a year pays the same $4,600, because he is only being taxed on the first $61,200 of his income. That means the boss's Social Security tax rate is really only one-half of 1% of his million-dollar salary ($1,000,000 divided by $4,600). That's how the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed.

How to `Save' U.S. Jobs?
Put `em in Jail!

"It's like bringing little islands of the Third World right here in the heartland of America," said Oregon Univ. professor Gordon Lafer, author of a study on prison labor. "You get the same total control of the workforce, the same low wages and it does nothing for the inmates." He was talking about capitalism's most "cost-effective" way to keep jobs here in the U.S. -- by shifting them into prisons.

And he added, the "convicts don't benefit much from the training for jobs that no longer exist in America because they have all gone overseas or into prisons."

As part of a national trend, Oregon is recruiting companies that would otherwise move offshore, like Michigan-based Perry Johnson, Inc., to create a "niche where the prison industry could really help the U.S. economy." So said the state's director of the agency that recruits for-profit businesses to prisons.

Perry Johnson chose the Snake River penitentiary near Ontario, Oregon, because it's half the cost of moving to India. Here it pays workers $30 a week for 40 hours -- 75cents an hour -- without fear of strikes, demands for wage increases or health care or worries about workers making it to work on time. Oregon and many other states are now making garments and furniture, two industries that have largely moved offshore, for as little as 12cents-an-hour!

But use of prison labor is not merely a cheap labor device to reap racist super-profits. Under fascist laws like the Patriot Act, the growing use of prison labor borrows a page from Hitler's slave labor book, to win the general population to accept a future of fascism and war -- and concentration camps for all those who oppose the bosses' system.

TEACHING ABOUT EXPLOITATION

The CHALLENGE article (2/18) on the exploitation of manufacturing baseballs will be used and re-used in my classroom. I still remember the excitement I felt when I first grasped Marx's theory of exploitation. At the time, like this article's writer, I remember thinking how complicated it was.

Here was an idea that could sustain revolutionary activity for a lifetime, but how to present it? Another teacher solved my problem by sharing this lesson plan with me.

We begin by making a bar-graph comparing the average gap between a CEO's salary and a manufacturing worker's wages. A U.S. CEO's pay is 34 times larger. ("Towers Perrin, Worldwire Total Remuneration," November 1999, quoted in "Teaching Economics as if People Mattered"). If a bar-graph representing the factory worker's wage is 1/2-inch tall, the CEO's bar would be 17 inches tall. We need two sheets of paper stuck together to accommodate it.

Then we turn to our role modeling. We are a small auto parts factory making seats for GM cars. Ten students are recruited to "work" in the factory. Most agree that at $20/hour they're earning "good money." To be hired, however, they must agree to work 8 hours a day and make 8 car seats in those 8 hours, as well as do quality work since these seats sell for $250 each. They sign on the dotted line. (I deliberately use a "good-paying" job because liberals continually equate the idea of exploitation only with the lowest-paying sweatshops).

We fast forward to the end of the day. Using play money I go down the line of production workers. Did they work 8 hours? Did they make 8 seats? Did they do quality work? "Yes, yes, yes," they reply and I give each one $2,000 (8 x $250).

Then I produce the contract they signed. They all agreed to work for 8 hours at $20 an hour, or $160. I go down the line again. They can keep "their" $160 but must return to me "my" $1,840. As you can imagine, even though its "play" money there's always some students who don't want to give it all back!

After much cajoling I end up with "my" $18,400 (10 workers times $1,840 each). Of course, it's not all "mine." I must give the banker thousands in interest, the landlord thousands in rent and pay the suppliers thousands for the raw materials and energy. I'm "lucky" if I end up with "only" $5,440 for the day (34 times the factory worker's pay)!

Is that fair? What would be fair? Can any wage be fair? I point out how some of the student-workers didn't want to give any of their money back to me, the owner. Were they right? We break into groups to discuss this and then (groan) write up our conclusions. (They will be the subject of a future article.)

[Editor's Note: A Business Week on-line story, 4/21/03, presents 2003 figures. The average CEO makes $7,400,000 a year. If the average worker is paid, say, $30,000 a year, that would mean the CEO's now make 247 times the average worker.]

Sold-out Grocery Strikers Call
for Class Solidarity

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, March 1 -- "They're all thieves, the companies and the union [leaders]," Ralph's store cashier Carlos Beltran told the LA Times (3/1) "They're just sticking it to us." He was reacting to the five-month grocery strike of 70,000 workers that just ended here, part of a growing fascist attack on all workers, as U.S. imperialism tries to make workers pay for its endless wars to dominate the world's markets and oil supplies. The workers approved a new three year contract but many boycotted the vote. "It was take it, or there's the door," said Beltran.

The main strike issues were health benefits, pensions and a two-tier wage system. Current workers will pay higher co-payments for health benefits. Wages and benefits for new hires will be cut. Creation of a low-wage force becomes an incentive for the bosses to eliminate the higher-paid workers. No strikers were happy with this settlement. Some said it was worse than the bosses' original offer. But because workers saw no other alternative, the pro-capitalist union leadership was able to jam it through. The union leaders accept capitalism, war and fascism as being as "natural" as rain. But that's definitely not the whole story.

There were modest but important political developments. Many PLP members and friends went to picket lines with their unions and with water, food and literature, but not consistently enough. We underestimated the importance of winning our friends by supporting this strike while exposing the bosses' attacks as part of a broader political one.

The potential was evident at one store, where strikers were especially open and enthusiastic to our several visits. One worker had organized fellow strikers to go to the union hall demanding that the union resume picketing at Ralph's and at the food distribution centers so that Teamsters wouldn't drive the food to the struck markets. The union told Ralph's customers to shop, even though the bosses had locked out the workers. The union leaders claimed they had to pull the pickets because Ralph's was the only nearby store where customers could buy food. They were doing the bosses' work for them.

At this store, we interviewed the picket captain, a black woman with 28 years on the job. During the strike, she learned that no job is secure in this society. She said the union leaders had not prepared them for a long strike and that it was a bad idea to pull pickets from Ralph's. She said Ralph's shared its profits with the struck stores. This did not surprise her. "They're united," she said. "We have to be united."

Seventy percent of the customers supported the strike (the companies claimed they lost $1.5 billion), but "many people are living in a fantasy world," the picket captain said. "They think this could never happen to them, but it will. The scabs think of `me, me, me.' They need to learn class solidarity," she declared.

Another woman striker with 14 years at the store said that, while the strike had been very hard on her family, she and her husband used it to teach their children about the nature of the system. "We could only buy them food, nothing extra. They've learned that the things they need don't fall from the sky. We have to work very hard for them."

This Mexican worker explained that the strikers had become "family" -- black, Latin and white; that neither the bosses nor the union leaders would be able to destroy this unity. She said the "middle class" is disappearing; there will only be rich and poor. "The poor grow the corn, make the clothes, do everything. We don't need them [the rich bosses]. They need us." When asked if the poor could live without the rich, including eliminating the rich, she replied, "Yes, we can do that too," agreeing that only a revolution could make that happen.

Another 17-year veteran striker got $14,000 behind during the walkout. He called the scabs cowards, explaining that the strikers weren't fighting only for themselves but for all workers whose health benefits are endangered. He said workers should have organized to stop the scabs, even though "its against the law." When workers first organized against the scabs, the company videoed the strikers, to arrest them. This worker said from now on the rank and file would be more active in the union. The bosses' laws and cops are there to guarantee their profits.

Several strikers condemned the union's big rallies where politicians posed as the workers' saviors. That money should have been used to maintain strike benefits. The Democrats offer no solution, just empty promises. Strikers stressed the importance of teaching class consciousness to all youth and workers, that we're all part of one working class.

PLP intends to deepen our friendship with these workers, bring them CHALLENGE regularly, and invite them to join PLP. They must help teach the rest of the working class the need for class consciousness, unity and to fight for a communist society in which those who create all value use it to meet the needs of the working class, not the profits of the rich.

Strike Unity Used to Spread Red Ideas

Here's my telephone number, call me"; "We did it!"; "I'm ready for the next struggle," emotional workers told a comrade after more than 100 workers stopped production and confronted the boss. They were demanding reinstatement of a worker fired that morning for protesting the lowering of the piece-rate. Several women took key leadership, including pulling the electricity on several machines, forcing those working on them to support the work stoppage. Facing this pressure from angry workers, the boss gave in, rehired the worker and even asked "forgiveness" for pushing and firing the worker.

A few days later, a 40 year old co-worker unfortunately died of a heart attack after work. When the boss refused to permit the workers to attend the funeral and say their final farewell to their co-worker, more than 80% of the workers stopped working, left the factory and went to the funeral. For the boss, making profits is everything.

Stopping production twice in a week wasn't easy for the workers. They had to overcome the fear of being fired and any lack of confidence that their co-workers wouldn't support them. But class solidarity and class hatred of injustice and exploitation overcame these obstacles.

Our PLP garment industry collective has discussed how to draw out and put into practice the revolutionary communist lessons of this struggle. The first strike over the piece-rate protest and firing creates the opportunity to expose capitalism and its murderous wage system enslaving us our whole lives. We can advance the goal of eliminating wage slavery and its wage system, in a communist society where we all produce and receive according to our needs.

The second strike fostered solidarity with our late co-worker. This tragedy exposed capitalism as a killer of thousands of workers on the altar of its bloody profits. Garment workers have no health insurance or decent working conditions. This friend and co-worker leaves a family at the mercy of poverty, without life insurance or a pension. Under communism, workers' health and well-being will be primary.

These struggles show a small but important advance in the revolutionary ideas of a group of co-workers with whom we've had hundreds of lunch-time political discussions over the last three years. Building on small changes will lead to bigger ones. We can now make a qualitative leap with some of the CHALLENGE readers and a group of friends who discuss the ideas in the paper. This can lead to an expanded readership and recruitment of new comrades to the long-term struggle for workers' power. The push of fascist repression in the factories opens the door to building the Party and spreading its ideas.
West Coast Red Worker

`Quality Work' Leads to Mass Layoff At Delphi Mexico Plant

MEXICO CITY, March 2 -- Being one of the most productive workforces in Mexico got 1,463 workers fired at the U.S-owned Delphi plant in Delicias, a small city in Chihuahua state. The factory manufactures electric wires and cables for cars. They're productive -- "The work at the plant is of good quality," boss Xochitl Diaz told La Jornada (2/29) -- but not "competitive" says Delphi, the area's largest employer. They are among the "best paid" in the region: 70 pesos (about $6) a DAY.

Delicias, a city in a semi-desert area, was built 70 years ago. Delphi has been operating there for almost 20 years. Now, as part of the bosses' worldwide drive to " compete" for maximum profits, the Delphi workers -- and the thousands more who depend on them and on doing business with the company -- are out on the street.

Many workers think the plant is being moved to China, where labor is cheaper. But actually Delphi's setting up shop in another area of Chihuahua state, where workers earn even less.

The Delicias workers' contract provided for an 800-peso monthly bonus (some $73) if they didn't have more than one unjustified absence.

When the union presented the workers with the bosses' demand to eliminate the bonus or there'd be no new contract, the workers rejected it, knowing the contract wouldn't guarantee anything, including their jobs. For the first time in its 25-year existence in Mexico, the world's biggest auto parts company didn't sign a union contract.

Delphi is the second largest private employer in Mexico, with 35,000 workers in 24 plants (second only to Wal-Mart). Delphi employs 192,000 workers in 171 plants worldwide.

Since the U.S. economy fell into recession in the second half of 2000, hundreds of thousands of maquiladora jobs have been lost in Mexico's border states. Delphi plans to eliminate jobs in Mexico and worldwide, mostly in the U.S.

Capitalism is a system only interested in maximum profits, not in the lives of workers. They want us to blame workers in China, Detroit or in nearby Sinaloa or Sonora. But this is just a bosses' weapon to provoke us to fight each other instead of their system. Workers need international unity to fight a capitalist system hell-bent on endless wars and "job-cutting competitiveness." The communist slogan of "Workers of the World, Unite!" is now more important than ever.

Transit Workers Fight War Budget Service Cuts

Transit workers and riders in a West Coast city are locked in a state of constant war with both the local transit bosses and capitalism. Management plans a third round of service cuts, just in the last fiscal year. From last June to December, service was cut 16% and 118 workers were sacked. Fares rose and transfer use was reduced in September.

Only a mass union petition campaign (initiated by a PLP member and led by the rank and file) that tied the December cutbacks to the Iraq war budget prevented even worse cuts. The union leadership pulled the plug on that campaign when the transit bosses agreed to "defer" 40% of the cuts until 2004. Well, 2004 is here and the bosses have become tongue-tied. "Defer" is no longer in their vocabulary.

While the working class will fight the cuts and layoffs -- as we always have -- more of us should be promoting communist revolution as the ultimate solution to this never-ending series of attacks. A war economy takes $400 billion of workers' taxes for the U.S. military and $357 billion for interest on the federal debt. Nearly $150 billion has been spent on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, so far, to make it "safe" to steal oil profits. And $38 billion for Homeland Security threatens workers who fight back. Recently, two county sheriffs' officers, identifying themselves as agents of Homeland Security, visited a union hall where workers were involved in supporting grocery strikers. This is fascism. Since when does a grocery strike threaten "national security"? When it threatens the security of capitalist profits!

To fund this brutality, no working-class service will be spared. It now takes a student from a downtown high school three buses and two hours to get to her East side home. The bus line that ran by her house was eliminated and another was cut in half. She often gets home too late to help her mother, who's recovering from surgery. This is an added stress to the recent public health cuts. Her school district is under state trusteeship and has planned closing five elementary schools. For workers and students, capitalism is a nightmare!

In the months ahead, transit workers will have many opportunities to develop communist leadership in the class struggle. We must unite riders and workers to battle the transit bosses on March 2 when they vote on their war cuts. During this struggle we will invite many to come to May Day. On May 1 workers can join transit and other workers and youth in Los Angeles to build PLP and the revival of the world communist movement.

Also, this July 1 three contracts in this metropolitan area expire. All districts threaten workers with cuts in medical coverage and jobs. We will organize to unite transit and other workers and urge them to join PLP for the long-term fight to destroy the system that needs fascism and war.

Profits Behind `Concern' For Some Workers' Health

Capitalists invest in medical care and public health programs for many reasons: (1) To keep workers healthy enough so profits continue rolling in; (2) So workers are physically able to serve in the military; (3) To preserve the health of the bosses; (4) To avoid infectious epidemics that would undermine workers' health and threaten the bosses; (5) To generate profits from certain medical care sectors (drugs, equipment, some services); (6) To show that the system "works"; and (7) Provide concessions to workers' rebellions. This article will deal with point #1.

In the mid-19th Century, Edwin Chadwick and other members of the English ruling class passed the Sanitary and Factory Acts to improve conditions in the factories and working-class districts. These acts dramatically improved life expectancy in England.

Chadwick and the British rulers enacted these measures to keep the lid on epidemics that could threaten the rich and as a reaction to rising labor militancy reflected in the Chartist movement. But the primary reason was their concern that the English working class was being worked to death, and productivity and capital accumulation were threatened. Chadwick explained this in his "Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain":

"The depressing effect of adverse sanitary circumstances on the labouring strength of the population, and on its duration, is to be viewed with the greatest concern, as it is a depressing effect on that which most distinguishes the British people, and which...constitutes the chief strength of the nation -- the bodily strength of the individuals of the labouring class."

Decades later this public health "urge" came to John D. Rockefeller and U.S. bosses. (See "Rockefeller Medicine Men" by E. Richard Brown.) In the early 20th century, Rockefeller and his agents discovered that the inefficiency and "proverbial laziness" of workers in the southern U.S. were caused by anemia due to the hookworm, a parasite that enters the body through the soles of the feet. They established programs to eliminate it in the south and in many tropical countries targeted for investment. Although the Rockefeller programs did not completely eradicate the disease, they did control it in many areas.

They said the hookworm program was important "on account of the direct physical and economic benefits resulting from the eradication of the disease and also on account of the usefulness of this work as a means of creating and promoting influences."

Frederick Gates, a principal Rockefeller advisor, wrote that the stocks of cotton mills located in the parasite-infected counties of North Carolina were worth less than mills in other counties "...due to the inefficiency of labor in these cotton mills, and the inefficiency of labor is due to the infection by the hookworm which weakens the operatives. It takes by actual count about 25% more laborers to secure the same results in the counties where the infection is heavier." It also meant 25% more housing, machinery, more capital and higher operating costs, and "this is why the stocks of such mills are lower and profits lighter." Many internal Rockefeller documents described the extent of hookworm infection and the loss in labor productivity. Increased productivity generally followed treatment programs in each area.

So the Rockefeller parasites declared war on the hookworm parasites to protect their profits. It was just good business. Under communism, medical care and public health programs will truly meet the physical and psychological needs of the international working class.

Health Care `Reforms' Aid Big Business

A New York Times article (2/8) supports CHALLENGE's claim that big U.S. bosses support some sort of government-sponsored health care plan in order to reduce their own health care expenses. It's based on a study released in December by the Manufacturers Alliance and the National Association of Manufacturers.

In terms of wages compared to total value added in manufacturing, the study found the U.S. "more competitive" than Canada, Germany, Britain and South Korea. But if "structural costs" are included, the cost of doing business in the U.S. rises 22.4%, exceeding costs in these other countries. One of the main "structural costs" is health care. "And the solution," reports the Times, "may be something that has traditionally been anathema to corporate chieftains: bigger government."

In all these other countries, both public and private money pays for health care. But U.S. businesses pay a larger chunk than their European and Asian counterparts. In Canada, the private sector spends 2.8% of gross domestic product on health care. In the U.S., the private-sector figure is 7.7%, and this falls mainly on big employers like GM, which covers the health care of 1.2 million people, costing $4.5 billion.

One way U.S. bosses deal with this is eliminating retiree health care. In 2003, only 36% of large companies (500+ workers) provided a retiree medical plan to at least some retirees not eligible for Medicare, down from 50% in 1993. But now a major strategy is to support government-sponsored health care, like the prescription drug benefit enacted last summer, and have taxpayers foot the bill.

It's not clear what type of government-sponsored health plans will evolve. Some advocate a single-payer system, as in Canada. The majority of businesses seem to favor some sort of tax credits -- rather than employers providing benefits, consumers would buy health care. But no matter what type of system emerges, the effect would be "to transfer the financial burden from companies to American taxpayers." (NYT) It won't be surprising to see major sections of the ruling class opt for increasing taxes. This is another reason why many of them disagree with Bush's tax cuts -- they run counter to the ability to deal with the exorbitant healthcare costs (not to mention the money needed to maintain the bosses' war machine).

So all the new health care "reforms" are designed to take some of the burden off business, not to help workers. There's good reason to expect that the overall level of health care will continue to drop. After all, the bosses will likely need those taxes for other things, like prisons, Homeland Security fascism and wars. Communism is the real antidote to a health care system that fails to meet workers' needs.

Home Attendants `Zoned for Slavery'; Need to `Zone' Bosses for Extinction

World imperialism has essentially contracted out and "outsourced" much of the labor in the world -- the working class has been "zoned for slavery." That's the title of a video I've often shown to ESL classes I teach in NYC, a film about workers in a free trade zone in Honduras.

While not exactly the same, my students have also been "zoned for slavery." They're home attendants, part of the 80,000-member Homecare Division of Local 1199-SEIU. Other thousands of attendants and home health aids here aren't unionized. Almost all are immigrant women workers.

Said one of my ESL students:

"I don't understand why an agency...in the union pays $6.65 an hour. In special cases (persons [for whom]... everything has to be done in bed, who don't use pampers, defecate on the sheets which must be cleaned, in addition to the usual cleaning, cooking and washing) home attendants are paid $7.65 a hour. Extra hours in these cases pay $7.73 an hour. Extra hours (overtime) are after 45 hours...[not] after 40 hours. They don't pay sick days and personal days and we have to work a certain number of hours to get medical insurance. I know of persons who work 72 hours a week, 6 days, 12 hours a day, with 2 or 3 children. They can't dedicate themselves to their children and they kill themselves working, destroying their health and neglecting their children.

"To me it is necessary to get more knowledge about this kind of work....but it is bad what I see.... I would appreciate it if these irregularities (among which you have spoken are persons who work 24 hours and are only paid for 12 hours) come to light and...that we do something to better the situation."

The union has an apartheid system. Home attendants work 12 hours for straight pay and 24 hours for 12 hours pay with a small night differential. Workers in the Hospital Division work 8-hour shifts with an hour paid lunch and time and one-half after 8 hours, supposedly the "law" in the U.S.

There are plans to expose and fight these conditions for home attendants. In my classes workers have written letters and testimonies, like the one quoted above. I and some of these home attendants will attend a "Freedom Ride" conference sponsored by union, community and immigrant groups to present our case and expose 1199's duplicity and hypocrisy.

One student is a union delegate; we'll try to persuade others to become delegates so we can better organize home attendants on a grassroots, struggle level. I'm in a social justice group of churches and community organizations that's organizing a forum for International Workers Day about globalization and free trade, at which several home attendants will speak. From this we'll propose some local actions.

We plan to consolidate two PLP study groups into one, combining social justice activists and home attendants. Hopefully this will strengthen both groups and EXPAND the network distribution of CHALLENGE from its current level of 30. As more workers join PLP, we can further develop them into politically conscious communist organizers in the unions, churches and groups to which they belong.

One of the "debate" issues in the Democratic Party primaries is free trade agreements. This "debate" is phony, manufactured to obscure the fact that "globalization" -- imperialism, which Lenin called the highest stage of capitalism -- has already consolidated power into the hands of a few capitalists who dominate all production: banking, industry, service, the media and military contracts. Loss of jobs in the U.S. while the U.S. occupation of Iraq is grinding down, terrorizing and killing Iraqi workers into submission to become yet another free trade zone, are permanent features of imperialism, as are endless wars. PLP members in the anti-globalization movement should concentrate on uniting workers internationally and fighting against "zones for slavery."

Ultimately imperialism cannot turn the clock back. Workers must "zone" it for extinction. A politically conscious, organized and internationally united working class can fight back constantly while re-building the international communist movement. Learning the lessons of the past movement and preparing the working class for the revolutionary seizure of power to build a new communist world that will abolish wage slavery and the imperialist profit system remains our road to liberation.

Finally, NY Times Admits Soviets Won World War 2

For 40 years, CHALLENGE and PLP have championed the heroism and achievements of the Soviet Union, its Red Army and its leader Joseph Stalin in saving the world from Nazi fascism in World War II. During that entire period, the Western imperialists, especially U.S. rulers, have degraded or even ignored the Soviet role, emphasizing and glorifying the U.S. and Britain as the heroes of North Africa and the Western Front, making movies about D-Day and Patton and Eisenhower which didn't even mention the titanic battles in the East.

Now suddenly the leading spokesman of the U.S. ruling class, the New York Times, has "discovered" the Soviet role in previously "unpublished archives" -- as if they were heretofore unknown. In an article (2/21) entitled, "A Job for Rewrite: Stalin's War and Hitler's Downfall," the Times begins with the picture of World War II that the paper itself has painted for decades: "A plucky Britain refusing to bow to the Luftwaffe's blitz, Patton and Rommel dueling in the North African desert, the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge -- these tend to dominate American's conception of the Allied defeat of Germany.... The decisive impact of America's erstwhile ally was often deliberately underplayed in the West for political reasons."

Then it admits that, "Military historians have always known that the main scene of the Nazis' downfall was the Eastern Front, which claimed 80% of all German military casualties in the war.

"The four-year conflict between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army remains the largest and possibly the most ferocious ever fought....The front extended 1,900 miles (greater than the distance from the northern border of Maine to the southern tip of Florida) and German troops advanced over 1,000 miles into Soviet territory (equivalent to the distance from the East Coast to Topeka, Kansas). And they clashed in a seemingly unrelenting series of military operations of unparalleled scale; the battle of Kursk alone...involved 3.5 million men.

"In short, the war fought on the Eastern Front is arguably the single most important chapter in modern military history."

It repeats "the conventional view" (without mentioning the Times' role in spreading that view) that "Soviet tactics and performance were leaden and unimaginative." Now, citing the "latest findings," it says "the Soviets' brilliant use of encirclement and what they called `deep battle' -- extremely rapid, far-reaching advances behind the enemy's front lines -- constituted the most innovative and devastating display of "operational art" in World War II. Soviet operations...were far superior to those of the German Army at its best."

Did this have anything to do with the nature of the first communist state, with the leadership of Stalin and the Communist Party? One couldn't conclude that from reading the Times' article. Although the headline refers to "Stalin's War," he's not even mentioned in relation to the defeat of the most powerful army the world had seen up until that time. In issue after issue, in nearly every section of the "paper of record," year after year, Stalin is depicted as "worse than Hitler." But in tracing the gigantic development of the Soviet Union, even that arch imperialist, Winston Churchill, was forced to admit that, "Stalin came to Russia with a wooden plough and left it in possession of atomic weapons." All in less than 20 years!

The Times and the bosses' media generally do not want workers to relate communist ideas and leadership to this monumental achievement that almost single-handedly saved the world from fascism. Had Hitler been able to conquer the Soviet Union, millions of people in Britain and the U.S. would have been killed. There probably would never have been a "baby boomer" generation.

Yes, in this first attempt to establish a communist state, amid all the achievements, serious errors occurred, many of which CHALLENGE has pointed out in our attempt to build on the positive aspects of the USSR while trying to avoid its weaknesses and develop a more successful road to communism. We must rely on the international working class to advance to that goal, even as we applaud the contribution of the Soviet Union, its Red Army and its leader Stalin that brought us as far as they could go. (For a full analysis of WW2 see the CHALLENGE Supplement of May 17. 1995)

Parmalat Milks Brooklyn Workers Right Out of Their Jobs

BROOKLYN, NY, March 1 -- The international crisis of capitalism has many facets. Milan-based milk giant Parmalat is the latest billion-dollar company to be affected, fueled by the corruption of its bosses. The tentacles of Parmalat's Enron-type fraud have reached 450 Brooklyn workers who, along with thousands worldwide, may lose their jobs.

The NY Daily News (Feb. 25) reported: "The bankruptcy filing of Parmalat USA, a division of scandal-tainted Italian dairy company Pamalat Finanziaria, raised doubts yesterday about the future of its Sunnydale Farms plant on Stanley Avenue in Brooklyn.'This company will be sold and the new owners might close Brooklyn and operate in New Jersey,' said a local dairy industry source. `Brooklyn has a high cost of doing business.'"

The source said a number of suitors are interested in buying Parmalat and its two subsidiaries, Farmland Dairies, which distributes milk in the New York area, and Milk Products of Alabama. A deal could be announced in a few weeks.

While workers could lose their jobs, Parmalat bosses won't lose much. A federal judge approved a $17.5 million loan from GE Capital to allow the company to continue operating during the bankruptcy period. Parmalat expects to double that loan next month.

Company founder and former chairman Calisto Tanzi has been jailed, along with six other former executives after Parmalat failed to document $11 billion missing from its accounts. The Milan-based parent company filed for bankruptcy in Italy in December.

Nurses `Win' Overtime Reform,
Bosses Close Hospital

Capitalism's drive for profits and reformist leaders' attempt to cover it up are central to the struggle of workers and patients at Philadelphia's Medical College of Pennsylvania (MCP) hospital. Last December, MCP nurses struck the Tenet Healthcare Corporation, mainly over mandatory overtime. For many years the nurses' contract had allowed this practice. An MCP nurse could be forced to work up to 16 hours a day to fill staffing shortages, with double time for the extra hours. This provision frequently discouraged the bosses from ordering it.

When Tenet moved to lower mandated overtime pay to time and one-half, the nurses balked. Citing studies proving mandatory overtime increased errors, the nurses insisted on eliminating the practice altogether. Tenet tried to smear the nurses as "disrupting patient care" but the latter won the public to realize that the strike was over patient safety.

The strike was as ineffective as are all strikes run by AFL-CIO sellouts. They made no serious effort to stop scab agency nurses from crossing the picket lines. Philadelphia labor leaders and some Democratic Party politicians gave little meaningful support, merely lip service. Union workers from Local 1199 crossed the lines.

Tenet then laid off many of these workers just before Christmas and blamed the nurses, winning these workers to do the same. Meanwhile, the 1199 leadership remained silent. Michael Nutter, the district's Democratic councilman, took Tenet's side. He attempted to paint the strikers as "overpaid and greedy," ignoring the real issue -- patient safety.

Despite this mis-leadership, the nurses eventually won concessions. Mandatory overtime would end by June. Then, while the nurses were celebrating, Tenet announced the hospital would be closed in March. These backstabbing bosses had repeatedly lied to the nurses' negotiating committee, assuring them there was no plan to close the hospital.

The MCP hospital has a rich history in Philadelphia. It was founded by Quaker abolitionists over 150 years ago as a medical school for women. This hospital serves a black and Latin working-class community of 70,000. It's an important trauma center, but Tenet's bosses couldn't care less. They claim MCP is draining $5,000,000 a month from their profits. And under capitalism, profits -- not workers' health or jobs -- is the bottom line.

Hospital workers and community residents are fighting to keep this important hospital open, a movement in which our PLP collective is participating. The struggle relies heavily on legal tactics and is controlled by Democratic Party politicians, including Nutter, who sold out the nurses. These misleaders, of course, don't expose capitalism as the cause of the healthcare crisis. However, angry workers do understand that this hospital closing is a racist attack on them on behalf of Tenet's profits.

By advancing our Party's line in this battle, we aim to win these workers to realize that only the destruction of capitalism can end such racist attacks. Building a communist world is the only way to fulfill all their needs!u

An MCP worker

`The Passion of The Christ'
Gibson's Anti-Semitism--Bosses' Lethal Weapon

Culture wars can lead straight into shooting wars. The furor over Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic new movie, for instance, hinges on the politics of U.S. imperialism. "The Passion of the Christ" squarely blames Jews for the crucifixion rather than the Romans who were the only ones who could carry out such punishment. So the liberal U.S. media are in a front-page, prime-time frenzy, worrying that "Passion" will "whip up intolerance," "harm Christian-Jewish relations," or -- and this is the real concern -- "incite anger or violence toward Jewish individuals or the State of Israel." (Orange County Register, 2/18) Presently, the main U.S. rulers, whom the liberal media serve, rely on Israel to police the western flank of their Mideast oil empire, while they themselves are at war at its heart, Iraq, and its northern fringe, Afghanistan. The liberals fear that Gibson's film could turn public sentiment against the Israeli stormtroopers who help guard Exxon Mobil's profits.

"Passion's" backers have some interests that conflict with U.S. imperialism. Newmarket Films, the outfit distributing the movie in North America, is controlled be Helkon Media of Germany. European capitalists have long chafed at U.S. support for Israel and U.S. domination of Mideast oil. The U.S.-Europe rivalry also explains why Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls declared that the Pope had given "Passion" a pontifical thumbs-up. "It is as it was," Navarro-Valls quoted the Pope as saying after a private screening. Navarro-Valls is a leader of Opus Dei, a secretive, right-wing Catholic sect funded by anti-U.S. European capitalists.

But don't think for a minute that the main, liberal wing of U.S. capitalism is fundamentally opposed to anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism remains a powerful weapon in the rulers' arsenal. They dust it off when they need it. Anti-Semitism has been particularly helpful to the main wing in bringing fascistic discipline to the business world. The rulers set the stage for the current prosecution of Enron, Worldcom, and the rest over a decade ago by demonizing and jailing financiers Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Dennis Levine and Martin Siegel, who happened to be jewish. Books from mainstream publishers bore ominous titles like "Den of Thieves," "Predators' Ball" and "Barbarians at the Gate" and decried the "greed" of Wall Street investors. Gibson's movie would prove useful, should the rulers require a similar purge in the future. And there's no guarantee that Israel's pro-U.S. rulers will stay in power forever. If Israel were to cease being Washington's lackey, any tempering of anti-Semitism in the U.S. would vanish. That's why the liberal media have chosen to publicize rather than suppress "Passion," even as they criticize it.

A Two-Hour Torture

Esthetically, "the Passion of the Christ" is a two-hour torture of the audience. It alternates between stereotypical Jew-baiting and an agonizing, graphic focus on pain and death. A viewer who can recall reading a Catholic geography book saying that "the Jews are the most sorrowful people on Earth because they abandoned Jesus" -- in a classroom adorned with only a crucifix, will know just where Gibson's repulsive ideas and images come from. His Catholicism goes back to the days before Vatican II, when declining membership forced the church to liberalize briefly. Some opportunist church leaders then went so far as to say that aspects of Marxism, short of workers' holding state power, of course, were compatible with Catholicism. They called the mix "liberation theology."

But now, under John Paul II, the pendulum has swung back. The pre-Vatican II church's condemnation of Jews -- which it only recently retracted -- and its mystical, medieval symbols glorifying suffering, are what Gibson projects onto the screen. (By the way, the earliest symbol of Christianity was not the torturing cross but a fish, representing the weekly meal that members used to share.)

Not a single Jewish character gets a sympathetic portrayal. Jews are either pompous high priests, conspiring to safeguard their own privileged position, or mindless rabble. Christians, however, from the Marys to the disciples, are beatific. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, comes across as a philosophical man, deeply conflicted. In reality, Pilate was a relentless hard-liner who so antagonized the masses of Jerusalem by forcing Roman state religion on them that he was recalled by the Emperor. Gibson ignores this opposition to the Roman empire as well as the early Christians' egalitarianism.

Gibson preaches filth; that's for sure. But the liberals are no better. Their pleas for tolerance mask an agenda of intensifying fascism and war.

DID JESUS EXIST?

If Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ," was about Allah, the Taliban could have made it. What's more, these two hours of torture are based on myth. What's real is the $117 million it made for Gibson in the first week.

These profits were spurred by mass free publicity from the media, the controversy it caused, and organized religion's purchase of millions of tickets. Besides being gory ("The Passion according to Marquis de Sade" says Newsweek), it revives the old anti-Semitic lie that the "Jews killed Christ." It could become the next Protocols of Zion, the forgery created by the Tsar's secret police a century ago and distributed worldwide by Henry Ford, used to carry out pogroms against the Jews in Russia, Eastern Europe and finally the Holocaust (denied by Gibson's father).

It's graphic depiction of the torture and crucifixion of Jesus could translate into, "it is good to suffer to save U.S. imperialism from anti-Christian forces like the Islamic fundamentalists."

Unfortunately many people treat all this as "historical fact." It's assumed that Jesus' crucifixion is an historical event, the truth of which needs to be uncovered (and then depicted). But history is not on the side of this myth.

When the Roman Empire ruled the Middle East there were at least several "Jesuses," a Greek name corresponding to "Joshua." The New Testament is written in Greek.

In the Old Testament, Joshua was the great general of the Jews who wiped out the Canaanites, so many rebels assumed the name of "Joshua," or "Jesus" in Greek.

There are a number of these known to history, but NONE at the time of the Biblical story of Jesus. Not one. There is historical evidence for King Herod, Pontius Pilate, even John the Baptist, even James "the brother of the Lord," called Jesus' brother in the Book of Acts, but NOT for Jesus.

Modern scholarship suggests there was some kind of historical figure behind the "Jesus" figure -- probably a rebel of some kind, or several of them. But the "Jesus" stories in the New Testament are mythical.

Some helpful information is available at these webpages: The Jesus Puzzle -- this writer, Earl Doherty, is a respected non-religious scholar of the period.

Jesus and the Jewish Resistance, Hyam Maccoby, is a Zionist, but knows his stuff. He takes the "Rebel" viewpoint. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man -- this is about the best short thing around. Price is brilliant, and a former Fundamentalist who was led by the evidence first to skepticism, later to atheism.

Price's latest book, also called "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" (Prometheus Press), is terrific, scholarly, full of humor, well-written, and the best thing in print. To listen to a lecture by Price, go to this page. (You'll need "RealPlayer") The Quest for the Historical Jesus

Price also has a very scholarly book, "Deconstructing Jesus."

Finally, see the articles in the current Communist Magazine on religion and in the old PL Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 2, Summer-Fall 1981, pp. 59. It's a review of Maccoby (see above), with lots of historical information, though it's over 20 years old now.

A final note: Christianity began making a big deal about who killed Jesus when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome. This changed the ideology of the early Christians, the one Engels compared to young communards. Constantine turning Christianity into the official religion meant that the ordinary Christian was to be fatalistically in the hands of their priest who was ordained by the state. This is not irrational; it's class ideology to serve Rome's rulers.

LETTERS

Kerry Liberal
Warmonger

Our paper has long and consistently warned of the greater danger of the Democrats, partly because of the illusions they sow among the working class.

Democratic Party front-runner John Kerry spoke recently at a nearby university campus. A friend dragged me along. I must say it was an eye-opener for the mostly anti-Bush, anti-war crowd in the auditorium.

Kerry began by criticizing the war effort, calling Bush and his administration amateurs and "armchair hawks." He promised a "stronger, more comprehensive strategy for winning the war....than the Bush Administration has ever envisioned."

Kerry, faulting Bush repeatedly, declared, "I believe he has done too little," and called for adding 40,000 more active-duty army troops in Iraq. Because the U.S. is already in Iraq, it must finish its work there, he said. (This sounds exactly like Nixon's policy on Vietnam that Kerry supposedly opposed in 1971.)

On Homeland Security (aka the police state), this liberal proposed that domestic police and intelligence agencies be consolidated under the CIA in order to "break down barriers between national intelligence and local law enforcement." In this vein, he criticized Bush's tax cuts to the rich for endangering Homeland Security--"we can't afford not to fund Homeland Security."

My friend was a little shell-shocked, like many in the audience, when they heard this liberal warmonger speak.

I made sure my co-worker had several CHALLENGES in his hand when we left. Now that he has heard war and fascism advocated from the horse's mouth, CHALLENGE's communist analysis shines through the fog of illusions.

A West Coast comrade

Army Uses High
College Costs to
Trap Enlistees

I was recently leaving school when I noticed a large recreational vehicle parked just off campus. It was loaded with video equipment and flashing displays. I thought it was just another expensive advertisement for a car company or a soft drink, but then I noticed two Army recruiters standing next to it. One of their brochures, printed in Spanish and in English, showed a serious-looking young man repairing a helicopter engine. It promoted the idea that the Army provides an invaluable education for army recruits to get a technical job after leaving the military. It also stated that then one could get up to $25,000 towards a college education.

This slick display designed to recruit working-class urban youth from my campus made me ponder why the Army needs to pay for its soldiers' college education once they get out? Why isn't it free?

Many of my students come from public high schools which haven't prepared them for college. They struggle through their classes while holding down one or even two jobs. One had to take a job over an hour away in order to pay for school. Tuition costs are skyrocketing, way up this year and rising again next year. Meanwhile, federal and state programs are now forcing students on financial aid to severely limit the number and variety of courses they can take. No more liberal arts classes for students on financial aid. Free college education died when the ruling class discovered it could get away with charging people for such public services. To most of my students free college education is as exotic an idea as free health care. They've never seen it, so it's hard for them to imagine it.

When I talk to my students about having a free education, it's a concept that, like free health care, resonates with them. I tell them we must organize and fight for this right. But when the ruling class forces us to work harder and harder to survive, it's difficult to become organized. PLP members must help to educate and organize workers and students to see the patterns of capitalism and become communist organizers themselves. Communism means free education, free health care, a secure retirement. Communism means everyone shares in the wealth our class produces.

A College Teacher in Brooklyn

O'Casey:`Communism is the Way'

Readers might be interested in some parts of a letter from the great Irish playwright Sean O'Casey to a good-spirited (socialist) religious friend (in March 1942):

"While I believe that Socialism (I'd rather say communism) will inevitably come, I don't think it will come trotting up to us as readily as you seem to think. Wasn't it Lenin who said `Communism won't come to us as a scheduled train comes, puffing up to time, into a first-class [train] station.' There will be a big fight for it....

"Communism, so far from being the end, is but the beginning. I look for it, not that we must rest from our labors, but that we may begin them. They have begun in the USSR; we haven't been able to start yet. No one can determine now how we can prevent things from being mismanaged or abused under Socialism; that must be evolved during the transition period, out of actual experience....

"But be assured, the struggle when Communism comes will not be less, but greater; but achievement will be certain....The big thing now is the terrible economic immorality under which we live and suffer and die. That controlled, all other things will reach a healthy and vigorous level....And, to me, Communism is the gateway."

Urges Better Editing

One of the most important organizing tools we have as a Party is our newspaper, and an important aspect of CHALLENGE is how it's edited. Editing is very difficult and the CHALLENGE editors do a great job, such as for the review of "What Is To Be Done?" submitted a few weeks ago. The opening sentence was changed to: "The struggle against reformism is a life-and-death question for the world's workers." Not only did this draw out the essence of what the author was saying, it also sharpened the line. This type of editing is both helpful and necessary.

Unfortunately, sometimes editing can distort the message an author is attempting to transmit. For example, in an article from Challenge (2/18/04), entitled "Internationalism Trumps Nationalism at MEChA Conference," the original article didn't say that internationalist politics overcame deep-rooted nationalist ideologies. In fact, an extremely nationalist rap group performed at this conference the same night as the woman who spoke. This confusion was not completely the fault of the editor, since the article didn't include enough of these signs of the continuing presence of nationalist politics.

It's imperative that the dialectical nature of base-building be taken into account when writing to CHALLENGE. There are two mistakes we can make when analyzing our struggle. One is to trivialize the obstacles that we must overcome. The other is pessimism about the potential for growth within our base. Both these mistakes are dangerous to our Party's development.

Before submitting this article, the city committee discussed whether or not to say that what happened "showed the potential to win many of these young people." This became a sharp political struggle over whether or not it was truly possible to win large numbers of these young people to the Party over time. We decided it was possible and to put "many." Our experience over the last year showed we should not become pessimistic about the potential towards winning these young people.

In fact, we've already gone a long way towards developing a solid base in MEChA within a relatively short period of time. One example: a resolution proposed by a PL member against the war in Iraq was passed unanimously in the region. One young woman (who is now closer to the Party) stood up for use of the word "Fascism" within the resolution.

Yet we know that to win these people will take a lot of hard work and intense struggle. When CHALLENGE decided to print this headline and to change the first sentence to state that "working-class internationalism won out over nationalism and liberalism," it seemed to say we had already overcome nationalism. This trivialization of obstacles can be dangerous. We want our base to know that CHALLENGE prints the whole dialectical truth. I'm confident that our team of editors will continue to do just that.

Comradely, Editing the Editor

Fighting Hospital's Racism

A group of friends were discussing the situation of the respiratory therapists in the John Stroger Hospital (formerly known as Cook County Hospital). A group of respiratory therapists, mostly Indians, were certified in their field but were never promoted. They had less salary so they filed a grievance. The higher grade (16) respiratory therapists, mostly black, are being made to pass a certification test by March 31 or lose their jobs.

This mess was done by a right-wing leadership of SEIU Local 73 HC which was ousted after highly contested elections. The new more "progressive" leadership has done little about the situation.

There was an article in the past CHALLENGE. and also a flyer put out by the friends and members of PLP. Both were excellent.

The main thing we have to do it to break down the barriers of racism which help the capitalists. In the now gone House Committee of Un-American Activities a man was accused of being a member of the communist party. The Committee asked the accuser how he knew the man was a communist. The accuser answered that the man invited his black and Hispanic friends to his apartment.

Reading and writing about anti-racism is certainly important. We must put it into practice. It is important and it is fun to learn about other cultures.

The bosses give the impression that they favor one ethnic group above the other. In most cases, they do not favor all the members of each ethnic group.

We must talk to those that are not bought off. In some countries there are strong leftist movements and talk about communism is not out of this world. The ethnic barriers must be broken. If a situation is hot, the chance of success is great. Under normal situations, it is a long but rewarding process.

If we get even a paragraph in the native language of another language of the ethnic groups, that is a success.

In the early days of PLP in the hospital, we made some multi-ethnic dinners with each person bringing a dish from their respective country.

Theory and practice in fighting racism and capitalism are inseparable. Read CHALLENGE. Go beyond the labor union limits.

A red pharmacist

WHY ARE UNIONS
FAILING?

The NY Daily News is running articles exposing some corrupt union leaders and making that the reason why union membership is nose-diving, with almost 90% of the workforce non-union. But the cause of this decline is not a few "bad apples." Rather it's the majority of "good leaders" who also collect six-figure salaries and CEO-style pensions and expense accounts while their members are losing millions of jobs, pensions and health benefits.

Unions were born in labor's struggle against capitalist bosses who enslaved them. Unions grew to the extent they forced the bosses to back off on some of the oppression and give workers a little more of the vast wealth that was stolen from them. At a crucial point in that struggle, the labor movement split between communist workers who wanted to continue the militant fight against the bosses, and business unionists who wanted to ban communists from the unions, discourage strikes, become the bosses' lieutenants and accept the system that exploits us all, in exchange for a slice of the capitalists' pie. These class collaborationists won that battle and turned unions into businesses profiting "leaders" who negotiated sellout contracts, raised dues and made members pay for their lavish life-styles so they could mingle as "equals" with the corporate bosses.

Today workers are back to square one because corporate and union capitalists can only be successful by accelerating the oppression of the working class. The challenge for the working class is to build the class struggle against the ruling class and capitalist wage slavery while fighting for a communist world based on workers' needs. And the challenge for the Party is the nurturing and development of communists who can rise to that task.

Union Activist

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

Gates' son probes charity

Capitalist....philanthropist...[Bill] Gates...tells a story about his four-year-old son Rory. "We were putting together these kits for homeless people -- you know, where you put in the toothbrush and toothpaste -- and Rory says: `This is really nice, Dad, but if these people are homeless, why don't we give them homes?'
"It's kind of a good question...." (GW, 2/18)

GI quits US aggression

When his unit was ordered to Iraq, he refused to go....
Private first class Hinzman left the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, taking his wife and son to Canada....He is battling the US military in the Canadian courts....
On the telephone from Toronto, PFC Hinzman said: "I signed up to defend my country, not to carry out an act of aggression." (GW, 3/3)

On US TV, he finds WMDs!

The Israeli...nuclear weapon...figure now is estimated to be between 100 and 400....
There was a funny bit on American television during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and frenzy over possible "Weapons of Mass Destruction." A Syrian diplomat was being questioned by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press about whether Iraq had shipped WMDs to his country for hiding. No, the Syrian said. But Russert pressed on and his guest said: "Yes, there are such weapons in the Middle East, and I can lead you to them."
"Where, where are they?" said Russert, who was getting excited.
"They're in Israel!" said the Syrian.
Russert changed the subject. (Universal Press Syndicate, 2/13)

Profits before kids' health

The W.H.O [World Health Organization] has drafted a "global strategy on diet, physical activity and health...."
The plan has provoked an outcry from the American food industry -- especially the Sugar Association....
The administration and sugar industry...seem particularly disturbed at W.H.O.'s proposals that countries be urged to limit advertising, especially ads directed at children, encouraging unhealthy diets.... (NYT editorial, 1/2)

CIA protected Mexico nazi

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 19 -- The former chief of Mexico's secret police, Miguel Nazar Haro, was arrested here on charges of kidnapping a leftist leader 29 years ago,....during Mexico's "dirty war" against the left, which lasted from the 1960's to the 1980's. Hundreds...were arrested, tortured and killed by state agents....
[Nazar Haro]...was an important liaison for the CIA during the 1970's and early 1980's, providing the United States with information on leftists throughout Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, American officials say.
The CIA blocked his indictment by federal grand jury in San Diego in 1982....
The CIA argued successfully that the importance of the information gleaned from Mexico's secret police overrode the interests of United States law enforcement. (NYT, 2/20)

Imperialists bled Haiti

One of the things all Haitians can agree on is their pride in Toussant L'Ouverture, who led the slave rebellion....
From the outset Haiti inherited the wrath of the colonial powers, which knew what disastrous example a Haitian success story would be....
Haiti is a reminder of how Western `democracies' have willfully amassed their wealth on the backs of impoverished dictatorships.

So Haiti lurched from coup to coup....
France, backed by the US, later ordered Haiti to pay 150 m[illion] francs in gold as reparations to compensate former plantation and slave owners as well as for the costs of the war in return for international recognition. At today's prices that would amount to 18 b[illion]. By the end of the 19th century, 80% of Haiti's national budget was going to pay off the loan and its interest, and the country was locked into the role of debtor nation -- where it remains today. (GW, 3/3)

Did 9/11 suit US war plan?

American investigators were given the first name and telephone number of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers two and a half years before the attacks on New York and Washington, but the United States appears to have failed to pursue the lead aggressively, American and German officials say....
The earlier information about Mr. Shehhi could have taken investigators to the core of the Qaeda cell at a time when the plot was probably in its formative stages, according to testimony in Germany.... (NYT, 2/24)