Note: Challenge is biweekly in December. We return to our regular weekly publication in January 2001

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Gore-Bush Brawl: Punch Out All Bosses!

• Nazis Hiding in the Bushes
• Liberals are Real Evil

200 Years Of Racist Elections Marches On

The Two Bulls And A Frog

a href="#Auto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars">"uto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars

a href="#U.S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic">".S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic

Racist Chilean Cops Attack Mapuches

Postal Bosses, Union Shafting Workers

Philly Hospital Struggle Is Right Medicine For PLP

a href="#Classroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands">"lassroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands

a href="#PLP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs">"LP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs

a href="#Blast Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting">Bl"st Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting

Bush-Gore Dogfight Opens Doors For Russian Rulers

Thousands Attack Visit By Barak And Sharon

a href="#Intern’l Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia">"nternational Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia

Protest Racist Murder of Howard University Student

LETTERS

Solidarity Communist Style

Prison Labor Delivers the Campus Mail

a href="#‘If these ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’">‘If "hese ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’

Fight For Hearts and Minds at APHA

Wants More Internationalism

Build PLP in The Mass Movement

a href="#Pro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers">"ro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers

a href="#Crack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans">"rack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans

New Voices, Old Songs

A Discredited History

Under New Management

AFL-CIA Labor Buddies Exposed in Venezuela

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Gore-Bush Brawl: Punch Out All Bosses!

As this issue of CHALLENGE goes to press, the rulers are still feuding over the presidential election. They’re violating their own rules in wholesale fashion. At the moment, the Republicans seem to have stolen the election. But the Democrats, who have long experience in voting swindles, are proving there’s no honor among thieves.

One of the biggest lies in this election is the one that says "every vote counts." The Bush-Gore dogfight shows just the opposite. Many Florida ballots were confusing or unreadable. Others, particularly in Miami-Dade County, where a lot of black people live, weren’t counted at all. Many other people were prevented from voting through intimidation or fraud. When Gore seemed to be overtaking Bush in the recount, the Florida Supreme Court gave an unrealistic deadline and tens of thousands of ballots spit out by the machines went uncounted.

A lot is at stake—for Bush, Gore and the bosses they represent. The presidency is crucial to the biggest U.S. rulers. Key areas of contention include the approach toward Russia, domestic oil production, how best to exploit and discipline the working class, as well as others we don’t yet fully understand (see CHALLENGE Nov.29). In any event, the biggest rulers consider the White House important enough to brawl over like two dogs viciously pursuing a bone.

They didn’t seem to want this fight at the beginning. During the electoral campaign, Bush and Gore pulled many punches. In the wake of Clinton’s impeachment, the rulers appeared ready to unite once again. But with the presidential results a virtual tie, the unity collapsed quicker than a politician’s promise. The bosses are making a spectacle of themselves. Each side’s hypocritical bullshit about "democracy" can’t cover the truth about capitalism’s basic nature. This is a contest for profit and political power—who gets the most and how—and ego. The working class has absolutely no stake in siding with either camp.

Nazis Hiding in the Bushes

The Bush Republicans appeal to the most openly racist forces in the U.S. Bush himself comes from a long line of fascists. In the 1930s, Bush’s grandfather helped his own father-in-law finance Adolf Hitler through Wall Street’s Union Banking Corp. (Rogers and Mamatas, "The Albion Monitor"). Papa George used neo-Nazis Jerome Brentar, a Holocaust denier, and Akselis Mangulis who was involved in the SS-inspired Latvian Legion, in his 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns.

Baby Bush’s Texas is the death penalty capital of the world—especially for the poorest and mostly black workers—and the home of regular racist atrocities.

Liberals are Real Evil

Many people, including a large number of black workers, voted for Gore because Bush & Co. are so blatantly anti-working class. But Gore and the Democrats are no better. Voting for them is a serious mistake. CHALLENGE has repeatedly exposed the Clinton/Gore record of racist mayhem. Slave labor "Workfare," the doubling of the prison population (70% black and Latino, mostly non-violent offenders or framed outright), the dramatic increase in cop terror and the rise in anti-immigrant attacks are just a few of the current administration’s "accomplishments."

The foreign policy disagreements between Bush and Gore are apparently tactical. The two camps differ about how, when and where to draw the line about trading with U.S. rivals. They disagree somewhat about how, when and where—but NOT whether—to go to war for U.S. imperialist super-profits. When push came to shove in 1991, President Bush, Sr., launched the Gulf War to safeguard the oil riches of Exxon, which is now basically in the Gore camp. The Senate support resolution for Gulf War I was written by none other than Gore’s god-fearing V-P sidekick Joseph Lieberman. The war became a genocidal attack on Iraqi workers. Despite the rulers’ many disagreements, they all unite on the basic issue of maintaining their class dictatorship over the working class.

Bush and the Republicans may succeed in stealing this election. On the other hand, perhaps Gore and the Democrats will find a way to defeat the Bush coup. Workers will lose regardless of the outcome, if we line up behind either side. But we can do something else. We can fight to build our own Party, the revolutionary communist PLP.

The present mud-slinging exposes many internal weaknesses among the bosses. Their key strength lies in our own momentary weakness and passivity. We can change that! We can increase our commitment to the historic struggle that will bring about the profit system’s downfall. Under capitalism, your vote only helps one or another rich boss. If you join the PLP and work to build it, everything you do will count in favor of the working class. We are the revolutionary communist Party and the class of the future.

200 Years Of Racist Elections Marches On

PLP has always said that voting under capitalism is just another fraud through which the bosses who own and run the society maintain their dictatorship over the vast majority who produce their profits. This was again proven true when thousands of Florida’s black voters were denied their "right" to cast a ballot in the latest election.

A century after the Civil War, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, supposedly "guaranteeing" everyone the right to vote. Here’s what happened in the "sunshine" state, all violations of Florida law and testified to at NAACP-conducted hearings:

• Polls in black districts closed as early as 4:30 P.M., although the state closing time was 7 P.M.

• Police set up roadblocks to frighten and/or bar black voters from the polls.

• Black voters who had been registered and voted for years were told they were "not on the voter lists."

• Voters were shunted from polling place to polling place until it was too late to vote.

• Voters without Florida ID’s were turned away, even though the law says they can cast an "affidavit ballot."

• Black voters were stopped even with voter cards.

• Only black voters on the rolls with an ID were questioned about whether they had been convicted of a felony since they last voted.

• One black minister said the boxes of votes cast at his church, an official polling place, had never been picked up to this day, despite repeated requests.

• Haitian voters were threatened with deportation when insisting on being allowed to vote.

• Haitian voters were denied the help of Creole translators, despite being legally entitled to such aid. Translators holding copies of the appropriate statute, and offering such help were told to "move on" or be arrested.

• One white newswoman, a former cop, testified she saw police cars stopping black voters, asking for ID’s and challenged with, "What are you doing here?" She saw one elderly man ordered to "assume the position." When she tried to intervene, she was told to move or be arrested.

It’s obvious that despite whatever "law" the bosses might be forced to pass, all bosses use their state power to violate their own laws when it suits their purposes. Interestingly enough, so far the Democrats, those "great champions" of civil rights, haven’t lifted a finger to bring even these cases to their own courts. It only exposes "the right to vote" as just one more ploy with which the ruling class maintains its rule, to exploit the working class and safeguard its profit system.

The vaunted Electoral College—highly touted as such a democratic feature of presidential elections devised by the wondrous "founding fathers"—was based on slavery. In the original U.S. Constitution slaves were counted as "three-fifths of a person." Since representation in the Electoral College was based on state populations, the slave-owning states were awarded disproportionate power in electing a president, to convince them to ratify the Constitution.

No wonder that in 32 of the first 36 years of this "great democracy," every single president was a slave-owner from the state of Virginia.

Workers can’t "vote out" capitalism. Gore and Bush represent two sides of the same ruling class oppressing workers since 1776. We can only organize communist revolution to overthrow it.

THE TWO BULLS AND A FROG

A pair of amorous bulls stood vying
Over a heifer both would woo and service
"Misery me!" a frog sat sighing,
Eyeing their combat-timorous, nervous;

Whereat one of her croaking kin
Queried: "Good gracious, why the fuss?"
"Why?" cried the frog. "For us, that's why!
For us!

One of those two is sure to win;
And when he drives his rival out,
Far from their green and flowering fields, what then?…
Then he'll come stomping over swamp and fen,
Trampling our reeds! And us as well, no doubt!

Tomorrow we'll be dead. And why? Because here, now,
Two bulls are fighting for some silly cow!"
Frog's dread predictions came to pass.
When the bull, defeated, seeks their dank morass,

Twenty compatriots an hour croak
Their final croak: a crushing fate!
Alas, 'twas ever thus. The little folk
Have always paid for follies of the great.

The fable (above) offers an interesting insight into the error of taking sides when two bosses fight. It was written over 300 years ago by a Frenchman named Jean de La Fontaine, who lived under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. The two bulls represent rival factions of the French nobility, and the frogs are the common people.

If we reread it with Bush and Gore in the bulls’ role and the working class as the frogs, we can see that the principle of refusing to support warring rulers applies to us today. The main difference is that we don’t have to get trampled by the winner; we can choose to fight back by building our Party.

a name="Auto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars">">"uto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars

MEXICO CITY, Nov. 23 — Last week one of the major U.S. automakers, supported by the union leadership, fired 700 temporary workers and threatened more firings and a possible plant closing. The issue is the company’s ability to implement lean, modular production methods.

In several departments workers denounced their terrible experiences with these programs. "I won’t participate because it only cheapens our labor," said one, confronting his supervisor. Another worker told a group of bosses, "Even YOU are going to lose your jobs." "They lay us off anyway, so why should we collaborate?" asked another worker. The company tried to interview workers on the line. Many protesting by refusing to answer.

In Mexico and Brazil, modular and lean production have significantly increased productivity and reduced costs, especially the cost of labor. In modular production, parts of the car are sub-assembled in other factories, where wages are even lower, and shipped to the main plant for final assembly. In one factory, seats, dashboards and tires are the first modules made this way. The Pontiac Aztec is assembled in Silao, with 32 modules and hundreds of other components that are added just-in-time. This GM plant pays the lowest wages in the whole auto industry.

Making the process lean means reducing and eliminating areas that don’t directly add value to the product: maintenance, storage and transport of materials. Part of this work is delegated to the production worker on the line, like cleaning, security and detection of errors by the team in your whole work area. The bosses’ "Team Concept" tries to get workers to spy on each other, while telling us that workers and bosses are "in the same boat." At Ford in Hermosillo, workers are now "technicians."

In Brazil the modular system is even more advanced. Racist U.S. and German auto bosses are experimenting in Latin America. Autoworkers in Mexico make $2.60 an hour. In the US, they make $21; in Germany, $19. They’re in a race to use modular and lean production in all their plants to maximize their profits and impoverish the workers of the world.

Ford calls these slave labor methods "Ford Productions Systems (FPS)." In one plant, workers’ resistance has stopped them from implementing FPS for three years. PLP has organized against this system of super-exploitation through CHALLENGE, leaflets and meetings. We’ve confronted them on the assembly line, and in company meetings where they push their programs, always linking this to the bosses’ deadly competition for markets. Several workers have joined the Party and many more look to us for leadership.

To resist is important, But to smash the imperialists, we need an international movement for communist revolution. We need to build international working-class unity, and build PLP into a party of millions. This will transform the current resistance into a revolutionary torrent, which will wipe the greedy capitalists, their markets and their wars off the face of the earth! Every worker who reads and distributes CHALLENGE, and who joins a PLP study group, is on the road to fighting for a bright red future.

a name="U.S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic">">".S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic

The NAFTA treaties with the U.S. now face similar treaties with the EU (European Union) and Central America and a possible agreement with Mercosur (South American trade group), transforming Mexico from a U.S. "province" into an imperialist battleground for markets and cheap labor. Workers in Mexico produce cars at low cost for the biggest markets in the world. The battle includes trying to dominate the Latin American auto market, with a population of 400 million, where one of every nine people buys a car.

In the last five years, the auto bosses have invested more than $40 billion in new plants here. Brazil produces 3,000,000 cars annually. Mexico will match that in the next two years. Including auto parts, Mexico exported $29 billion in cars last year, making it one of the biggest exporters in the world. Auto-related trade between the U.S. and Mexico grew from $14.6 billion in 1994 to $37.6 billion in 1999. The agreement with the EU greatly reduces the tariffs on autos and auto parts. VW has announced big investments in Mexico. Nissan-Fiat will increase its investment in its Cuernavaca plant.

Racist Chilean Cops Attack Mapuches

SANTIAGO, CHILE — From 9 AM to noon on Nov. 17, 400 cops attacked the Mapuche community of Temucuicui, Chile, injuring and arresting many. The cops assaulted anyone in their way, using racist slurs, shooting in the air and shouting threats "to rape all these Indian women"; "we’re going to beat you to a pulp," etc. They chased women who took refuge in a local school. There they shot their guns in the air and repeated their racist slurs in front of the schoolchildren.

The Mapuches are waging a legal battle against Forestal Mininco, a company trying to exploit land belonging to the community. The "InJustice" System has railroaded the Mapuche demands and sent cops to attack them.

Maybe the Mapuches expected something different from the "Socialist" government of President Lagos. The latter is playing games with the Mapuches. On Oct. 12, "Columbus Day," Guido Girardi, a high-ranking government official, joined the Mapuches as they marched on Congress demanding a "law of reparations for the Indigenous people." Meanwhile, President Lagos’ wife was in Spain invited by the Borbon monarchy to "celebrate" the genocidal colonization of the "New World" by Columbus.

Our Mapuche brothers and sisters must see the hypocrisy of this capitalist government. They need to unite with all workers in Chile to fight the brutal racism, segregation and murder that has been occurring for 500 years. The PLP group in Chile invites all workers to join with us to fight for the only society that can end so many centuries of genocide—communism. Just as capitalism gave birth to modern racism, communism will give birth to a society where racism will be a crime.

Postal Bosses, Union Shafting Workers

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 29 — As of midnight last night, contract negotiations broke down between the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the 300,000-member American Postal Workers Union. The dispute now goes to binding arbitration.

Union leaders had asked for a paltry 13.5% wage increase over three years and continuation of the (inadequate) cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). USPS bosses offered NO WAGE INCREASE over four years and elimination of the COLA. Union leaders had planned on arbitration from the beginning and USPS bosses obliged.

Meanwhile, on Nov. 14 the USPS Board of Governors announced their unanimous decision to push for "regulatory reform"—full or partial privatization of the postal service affecting hundreds of thousands of jobs—classic capitalism treatment of highly productive workers. (More next issue.)

Philly Hospital Struggle Is Right Medicine For PLP

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 27 — "I’m interested in a change," said Jane. "But how do we do it?"

This question, asked by a hospital worker new to PLP meetings, opened a new Party gathering of healthcare workers. Jane is a regular CHALLENGE reader and a rank-and-file leader on her job.

"PLP studies the science of dialectics so we can understand how change happens," answered Juanita, a re-charged veteran Party member who helped organize and lead the meeting. We then discussed the recent contract struggle at Jefferson Hospital, using dialectics to understand how the workers were mobilized. "From the outside it looked like the workers wouldn’t organize to fight," added Lenny, another Jefferson worker. "That was the hope of the Jefferson bosses and the union leaders."

"Yeah, but I stayed on the workers’ ass," continued Jane.

"Yeah, you stayed on their ass," said Lenny, "but remember, we spoke with a lot of workers to see what they really thought they needed. We did some investigation. That’s how we came up with the Jobs campaign that you helped lead. Workers were more willing to fight for our Jobs campaign than the official union agenda. We got past the appearance of the workers being complacent and passive and were able to identify what they would fight for," going from "appearance" to "essence."

"Yeah, but I still had to stay on their ass," said Jane.

"You’re right," said Lenny, "We need masses of workers, but individuals can make a difference and we need leadership."

Indira, a veteran party member who normally is pretty cynical, continued the lively discussion. She described an important struggle she led among the nurses on her job. She hadn’t planned to lead these other workers, but when she showed another nurse a letter she had written about the job problem, Indira’s letter became the "spokesperson" for the other nurses. Other workers participated and, surprise, Indira and her co-workers got the boss to back down.

This meeting was significant because it involved new workers who were active in the recent Jefferson contract struggle as well as veteran Party members taking on more leadership. We have plans to invite several other new workers to these meetings. All this holds great promise for May Day.

a name="Classroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands">">"lassroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands

BROOKLYN, NY, Nov. 27 — Over 20 teachers from our high school traveled together to the Nov. 16 UFT (United Federation of Teachers) rally at City Hall. It occurred during several struggles within the school. The prolonged one is the attempt by a group of teachers to work together with 9th graders who all read well below their grade level. The school has, in fact, discarded them as "unteachable" while creating the appearance of promoting learning by organizing them into special double period teaching blocks. All the teachers in this program must fight to teach, and struggle with the youth to fight to learn every day.

This has led to many struggles over the semester. Teachers get discouraged because we’re working with students who are discouraged. Throughout it, a PLP member within the program has fought for us to maintain confidence in ourselves and our students. We have organized trips, visited parents and shared our experiences on a daily basis. We cannot abandon our youth just because it is hard work to overcome years of bad teaching.

Meanwhile, the administration began observing the new teachers, many of them thrust into the 9th grade program, and began writing "unsatisfactory" ratings. The day before the rally, our UFT chapter committee confronted the principal about this harassment of hard-working new teachers who were receiving no support from the school. Such a unified front from senior teachers in defense of new teachers was a positive development for our chapter. (Two of the "U"s were subsequently reversed).

Nearly all the teachers involved in these struggles were the ones who attended the City Hall rally. The difference between the rank and file and the UFT leadership was obvious at the rally, and provoked interesting discussions. Rather than marching, or even having speakers from different schools relate the problems we and our students face daily, union head Randi Weingarten turned it into a political rally for the Democratic Party and its next candidate for mayor. We laughed about how much it felt like the meeting with the principal the day before—us against them.

The next day we held the semester’s second UFT chapter social. Over 30 teachers and staff met for drinks and chat at a local restaurant. There we had even more political discussion, including long ones about communism and capitalism. Many of these teachers have read CHALLENGE. With weeks like this, many more questions will be asked.

a name="PLP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs">">"LP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 28 — Fifty staff members from Boys and Girls High School signed up to attend the November 16 UFT (United Federation of Teachers) rally at City Hall. The Party member at the school initiated the organizing effort, signing up 16. Many of those asked are CHALLENGE readers; others are "new" to our organizer. The union’s chapter leadership did nothing to organize the staff until the PLP’er did so. Then the Chapter Leader signed up the remaining 30 or so people in the last day or two.

It important to bring people to this rally despite—and because—the UFT was failing to fight for our students, and against the attacks on them.

Actually, the union leads the attacks on the students, supposedly to provide better working conditions for teachers. We used the occasion of the rally to fight staff passivity and struggled to bring pro-student and anti-fascist signs and literature there.

The PLP’er did just that, and fought with the Chapter Leader to organize the staff to travel together, while also putting a note in staff mailboxes calling on them to meet and go together. The Chapter Leader refused to call the staff together, leaving everyone to go their own way. The PLP’er went to the rally with two members of her department.

Many who signed to go ended up not going. We don’t know how many people did attend. The PLP’er spent the following week discussing the rally with some who did go. They felt it was good to get out and fight, but questioned about whether the union leadership’s focus on money alone was right. They would have liked more signs demanding things like smaller class size.

The rally and its politics provided an opportunity for more discussion about the Party’s pro-student ideas on schools and their role, and the mistaken frustration and anger towards students expressed by many of our friends. The rally will be the starting point in organizing for PLP’s January Schools Conference and a CHALLENGE readers group.

a name="Blast Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting"></">Bl"st Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting

BOSTON, MA., Nov. 20 — Significant headway in the fight against biodeterminsm was made here last week at the national convention of the American Public Health Association (APHA), a meeting of 13,000 health workers. Biodeterminism is the concept that our ideas and actions are determined by our genes or our brain chemistry.

For seven years, PLP members and members of the Coalition Against the Violence Initiative (CAVI) have been opposing research which claims that violence has a biological cause—abnormal brain chemistry in young minority boys. Many psychologists have also become convinced that more minor forms of children’s misbehavior—restlessness and inattention in school—are biologic.

The "disease" of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is now being diagnosed in about 10% of boys and 3% of girls, nearly all of whom are treated with the drug Ritalin. The drug companies are ecstatic about this vast new market of millions of children, and the politicians figure they can avoid improving schools and hiring more teachers by drugging millions of children into passivity.

Last year, after a long struggle, a resolution was passed by the APHA condemning all violence research which does not fully consider environmental factors. This year a session on the issue attracted an audience of over 500. A biological researcher tried to prove that genes play a role in violence, but a Harvard geneticist demonstrated that this is unscientific and unprovable. A CAVI speaker pointed out that violence in society comes not from teenagers but from the police and the military, and that Biodeterminism is a way of blaming the problems of society on workers, not on the system. She argued that the imminence of war and economic decline increases the need for social control and drew parallels between U.S. eugenics and Nazism.

CAVI is circulating a petition against biodeterminism in research and mental health. Many APHA people signed it and took more to distribute. Several promised to become active in NY CAVI. We also leafleted and spoke at a drug company-sponsored forum on Ritalin, attended a panel by psychologists skeptical about ADHD and held a reception for our new contacts.

Our task now is to reach more parents, teachers and health providers so that racist research and drugging of our children becomes a mass issue in the schools, teachers’ unions and in professional organizations. As Party members we will struggle to show people how biodeterminism is an idea necessary to fascism—to justify racism, inequality and war. Only a communist society will eliminate this idea forever.

Bush-Gore Dogfight Opens Doors For Russian Rulers

The Bush-Gore melee over the presidency has given U.S. imperialism’s main rivals an opportunity to move forward on important fronts. Russian rulers, in particular, are taking advantage of the disarray here. Their long-term goal is to unseat the U.S. ruling class as the world’s chief imperialist. Although the Russians aren’t yet ready for a military showdown with the U.S., the temporarily weakened U.S. presidency has given them major political and economic openings:

Russian oil companies are moving rapidly to close Iraqi oil deals. The latest news is about a Russian-Belarussian company, Slavneft, which plans to sign a contract this month to develop the Subba oil deposit in Iraq (REUTERS, Nov. 24). This is only one of several major contracts the Russians have negotiated to develop Iraqi oil fields.

Now the Russians have asserted themselves as Middle East "peace" brokers. On November 25, Russian president Putin announced a three-phase strategy to cut a new deal between Israeli and Palestinian bosses. This is a clear attempt to take advantage of the Clinton "peace" plan’s failure and the Gore-Bush deadlock. The Russian plan would also involve U.S. oil rivals in the European Union (EU).

On November 25, Iraqi deputy prime minister Aziz began a trip to Russia and China.

The Russians also announced their readiness to "cooperate with the new military force being drawn up by the European Union." (REUTERS, Nov. 26) CHALLENGE readers will remember that the plan for a EU military independant of NATO was one of the first decisions French, German, and other EU rulers made in the wake of the air war Clinton & Co. forced them to wage—alongside the U.S.—over the former Yugoslavia in 1999.

So the dogfight over the U.S. presidency is helping to accelerate a process of sharpened inter-imperialist rivalry that’s been under way for some time now. Increased Russian and French presence in Iraq ups the ante for U.S. bosses’ plans to drive Saddam Hussein from power and replace him with an Exxon-friendly regime. Whoever captures the U.S. presidency will have to deal with mounting challenges to U.S. world domination, particularly in the Middle East. These rivalries, in one way or another, will inevitably produce another imperialist bloodbath for oil.

Thousands Attack Visit By Barak And Sharon

CHICAGO, IL, November 13 - Tonight more than 4,000 people protested the visit of Israeli butchers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon to the University of Illinois. The enthusiasm and energy of the many young protesters was very positive. The politics of the revisionists (fake leftists) and nationalists was not. They shouted down chants against imperialism and for "Workers of the World, Unite!"

PLP members received a very warm response to our call for unity of Arab and Israeli workers to fight for communism in the Middle East. We sold about 200 CHALLENGES and distributed more than 1,000 Party flyers. We also made some new friends and have been invited speak at a forum on Palestine.

a name="Intern’l Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia">">"ntern’l Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia

"They are rats"; "That's terrorism"; "They're slave-drivers," were some of the comments angry workers made about the Bavarian Beer bosses here in Colombia. This year 80 workers have been fired, including a supervisor who refused to accept the bosses' fascist attacks.

There's an organized group of workers in the plant who daily fight the bosses' deception. For example, the bosses force us to attend meetings about "quality control, peace and labor harmony." Meanwhile, they threaten the most militant workers who rally with the union outside the plant to demand a new contract.

This offensive by the Bavaria bosses is part of a fascist assault on workers throughout Colombia. Besides the civil war and death squads murdering workers and others every day, the working class suffers from the "normal" oppression of capitalism (unemployment now affects three million workers in a work-force of 25 million).

Bavaria is part of a conglomerate which includes Avianca Airlines, insurance companies and even a brewery in Ecuador, where workers are paid less than here.

We in PLP are exposing capitalism to these workers as an international failure as far as our class is concerned. We're also trying to show workers we must not fear to struggle, that the bosses get away with all this because we're not fighting harder for our class interests. We're also using CHALLENGE to explain that the only answer to the attacks by Bavaria and Plan Colombia—Clinton's billion-dollar support for the Colombian army and the death squads—is to fight for workers' power, communism.

Red Worker, Colombia

Protest Racist Murder of Howard University Student

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Demonstrators demanding indictment of racist cop who murdered Howard University student Prince Jones, picket office of Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Horan. Horan later exonerated the cop. (See CHALLENGE stories Oct. 11 and Nov. 8, November 29.)

LETTERS

Solidarity Communist Style

On Nov. 19, some Party members helped organize a solidarity rally at the AC Transit workers’ union hall in Oakland. An LA mechanic came to describe the recent transit strike there. A local president reported on the 1st-ever strike against See’s Candy. A carpenter told us about his 2,000-member-strong union wildcat. Two Teamsters filled us in on the current Safeway strike. My friend, who’s VP of the California Nurses’ Association, had just returned from leafleting Safeway with some other nurses.

Two hotel union organizers trying to unionize the Radisson Hotel thanked the nurses for helping publicize the lack of health coverage for the hotel’s workers. The hotel organizers also reported that French workers—in solidarity with the workers here—organized against the French company loaning money to Radisson. My friend thanked the transit workers for honoring the nurses’ picket lines. Longshore workers were acknowledged for refusing to ship a Safeway container.

Organizers spoke about the ’46 Oakland General Strike led by transit workers, the ’34 San Francisco General Strike led by the longshore union, the anniversary of singer Joe Hill’s execution on that very day, the need to break the bosses’ law, the importance of multi-racial unity for our group, and so on. All the seeds of left-wing trade union organizing bore fruit that day in impassioned speech after speech for workers’ power and solidarity. I’m not telling the half of it.

We began the rally with the LA speaker who spoke about the need for communist leaders, and we ended the rally by singing the Internationale. In between, all these dedicated organizers, who have obviously been influenced by communists and their ideas, didn’t raise revolution or communism. So we have a long row to hoe and re-seed, but what an inspiring bunch of fighters we get to work shoulder to shoulder with!

A reader

Prison Labor Delivers the Campus Mail

Recently, in talking with a friend who works at Western Michigan University, he commented that campus mail was very slow, sometimes taking several days to get across campus.

"Why so inefficient?" I asked. "Well," he said, "they’ve replaced all campus workers who were handling it with an outside company."

I was surprised. I knew there was lots of "outsourcing" going on to destroy unions and lower wages in steel mills, offices, and elsewhere. This is one reason unemployment statistics look relatively low, while workers’ standard of living is basically stagnant or declining. But mailroom employees on a college campus? They don’t get paid much. How much could be saved replacing them with "outsourced" labor hired through an agency?

My friend told me he had asked why the mail was so slow and an administrator replied, "You can’t expect too much from those workers. After all, they’re tethered."

"Tethered"? That’s work release. These workers are all in jail or under the authority of the jail. Are they forced to work, like slaves? "Officially" they have the right to refuse. But if they do, they’re considered "non-cooperative," leading to longer sentences.

This is growing everywhere. Sixty years ago, the Nazi concentration camps were actually forced labor camps as well as execution chambers. Private German companies "rented" workers from the Nazi government, and company bosses could decide whether prisoners lived or died, depending on how hard they worked.

How can people continue to call the U.S. a "democracy" as it adopts more and more of the characteristics of a Nazi dictatorship? Are we reading too much into this? This is a college campus. If they’re doing it here, they are doing it in lots of other places. Forced labor under penalty of jail. Forced labor with a lot of the slave laborers coming from the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Gore "War Against Drugs." And these policies oppress not only those workers but all workers, whose wages are lowered by having their jobs replaced by this forced labor.

We should all investigate how much of this is occurring where we work and organize campaigns against it. All the "anti-China" rhetoric of some nationalist elements, including some well-meaning members of the "anti-sweatshop" movement, should be confronted with the reality of forced prison labor in the U.S. Don’t let anyone attack the forced laborers as being the "enemy of law-abiding workers who lost their jobs." Demanding that forced laborers receive wages equal to other workers might be a decent reform campaign for a start.

But as long as there’s capitalism, there is wage slavery. And as capitalism’s crisis intensifies, there will be more forced labor and other characteristics of a fascist dictatorship. Building the revolutionary communist movement is the only way to end this terror once and for all.

Red Worker

a name="‘If these ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’"></a>"If these ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’

Recently I visited relatives in Victoria, in Tamaulipas, Mexico. A university student there has been a CHALLENGE reader for some time. During my visit, she told me of her interest in the paper and about other students with similar feelings.

We spoke with one of these students who confirmed their interest in the paper and in its revolutionary politics. I suggested meeting with some of her fellow students and friends. Maybe there would be four or five, she said.

A week later she called to say a meeting would take place at the University. When we arrived, to my surprise, there were 15 students present, members of the same class, and their teacher.

Although the meeting was somewhat improvised, the students expressed great interest in communist politics. After the presentation, some asked questions like, "What’s the negative side of communism?"; "Is Fidel Castro a communist?" and so on.

Afterwards a student exclaimed, "If all of these ideas are communist, I’m a communist too!"

So I’m sending my greetings to all these students and their teacher. I hope they’re receiving the ten CHALLENGES

I offered to get to them.

A California Grandfather

Fight For Hearts and Minds at APHA

Recently I attended American Public Health Association (APHA) meetings in Boston. I went with two other people from the Coalition Against the Violence Initiative to assist and support the session against biodeterminist violence research. While there I was impressed with the participation of PLP members. The Party work was well-planned and carried out.

One morning at a breakfast meeting of PLP’ers and friends we discussed why the APHA leadership has been silent about resolutions passed against racist police violence and the effects of welfare reform on workers. We also discussed our plans for raising the Party’s ideas in sessions on the effect of racism on medical care, reform and revolution and public health in the 20th century, bioterrorism, violence research, ADHD and Ritalin.

We spoke about countering the corporatization of the APHA as exemplified by its recent statement: "APHA must be an effective leader and/or reliable partner who strives to collaborate with corporate entities as well as (others). This includes the reconciliation of ideologies that impede progress toward creating a safer and healthier world for all." I might add also countering the militarization of the APHA as exemplified by the government sponsored and funded effort to have the APHA prepare for a bioterrorist and/or other attack on U.S. soil.

Ironically, at the very same time in an adjoining room, the top APHA leadership was holding its own breakfast meeting. The fight for the hearts and minds of thousands of public health workers went on right under the noses of these corporate, military, health collaborators.

A comrade

Wants More Internationalism

I would like to suggest using the word "internationalist" on the front page of CHALLENGE. We’ve discussed it in our PLP club and with non-Party friends who read the paper. The idea is for people to see visually what we stand for. It also works great when selling CHALLENGE as we explain to workers or students on the street that we are an internationalist communist party that exists in many countries. Pushing internationalism creates an open door for discussion with prospective readers. It helped bring me to the Party. It motivates me to see people from other countries in the Party. It’s a great feeling! Despite the nationalism my bosses push, workers are naturally internationalist in time of natural disasters. We should promote it more by visually printing it in our newspaper.

One Day Red World

Build PLP in The Mass Movement

The main discussion at a recent Party meeting with workers from auto, textile, health and transportation was about the importance of involving ourselves in the mass movements. We examined our participation in the city councils of different cities in the state. Three comrades are actively involved in these councils and distributing CHALLENGE in communities where many factory workers live.

At the beginning I opposed joining these councils because I was convinced reformism wouldn’t get us anywhere. "It’s true," said a comrade, "but if we don’t’ get involved in the reform movements, how are we going to build the Party? How are we going to win the masses away from the reformists?"

Another comrade asked me, "Why do you think workers in your community want you to represent them?" I thought, if people support me it’s because they have confidence in me, so by not participating I’d be failing to take advantage of a great opportunity to build the Party. By having confidence in the people, I can struggle to win them to understand our politics and expose the anti-working class nature of the system. I can turn a bad thing into a good thing.

Another comrade in a textile factory is leading a struggle against the union leaders and the slave labor conditions there. The work is hard, the pay is lousy and the bathroom and lunchroom are filthy. He said he wasn’t afraid of being attacked since he was thinking about quitting the job anyway. But the comrades struggled with him to stay and carry out the fight in order to build the Party. "We can’t win the confidence of the workers only by starting struggles. We have to finish them," said one comrade.

To build a mass Party, we must become seriously involved in the mass movements in the factories and the neighborhoods. This discussion motivated us and gave us more confidence in our communist analysis. We feel that building the Party isn’t a "heavy load." It’s a privilege to serve the working class.

A comrade

a name="Pro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers">">"ro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers

Many PLP teachers organized for, and led teachers and other staff at a NYC United Federation of Teachers (UFT) contract rally on November 16. We distributed thousands of fliers, adapted from a CHALLENGE article, calling for pro-student demands in our contract. Many of us and our co-workers carried pro-student signs.

UFT’ers grabbed our flier. The response was terrific! While the union leadership organized teachers around their own self-interest, most educators are frustrated by our miserable working conditions and care terribly about our students. Many, especially the black and Latin workers, know first-hand how this system is destroying our young people. When push comes to shove, they want more than just money. The Party was the only group we saw with a pro-student, not just an "our-money" political line.

Now we must ensure that we don’t lose the opportunity this rally has afforded us as we immerse ourselves in the union struggles in our schools, and in our mass organizations.

A Brooklyn Teacher

a name="Crack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans">">"rack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans

A recent CHALLENGE article (11/29), "They Want To Control These Kids," reported how parents and teachers in our PLP study group are planning an offensive against the rampant drugging of our youth. Parents shared stories of their own children being "mis-labeled" with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and given harmful medication. We linked this to growing war and fascism.

At the next session, a new parent from our elementary school joined us. We also invited a guest speaker, a NYC social worker and active member of the Coalition Against the Violence Initiative (CAVI). She linked the rampant diagnosis of children as having so-called hyperactive and violent disorders to the long history of Biological Determinism. This fascist "theory" says human behavior and our social existence are primarily genetic or biological and have nothing to do with capitalism.

One parent said, "They've been trying to blame us for our problems for years." Another added, "It's easier to say it's genetic and give people drugs than to look at the whole system….It's the system that's the problem."

Everyone took more than one copy of CHALLENGE and agreed to show our article to a friend. They also took a copy of CAVI's petition against The Violence Initiative and agreed to circulate it among their friends and co-workers.

We agreed the petition would: (1) help spread this issue in a mass way and help build our group, and (2) spark conversations about the fascist nature of capitalism and why its rulers want to drug our children. We also agreed to find out how many children are, in fact, being given medication for any form of "behavioral/emotional disorder" at our school. Six parents and one teacher attended this PLP study group. We're trying to involve more teachers.

Everyone will also be asked to buy a subscription to CHALLENGE and consider joining PLP. Only a communist world, committed to the needs of the working class, will end the fascist terrorizing of our youth. We will report our progress in a future issue.

A Bronx Elementary School Teacher

New Voices, Old Songs

When John Sweeney’s "New Voices" slate captured the AFL-CIO leadership in 1995, it promised big changes. But the same people are paying the piper, and the "new voices" are singing the same old tunes.

Along with vowing to reinvigorate the national labor movement, Sweeney’s group promised a new, internationalist foreign policy. No longer would the AFL-CIO relations with unions in other countries be based on mindless anti-communism and slavish devotion to the interests of U.S. multi-nationals. They set up the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS or just the "International Center") under Barbara Shailor.

Shailor, the Machinists’ International Affairs director, can talk the talk. She said the Sweeney group was "beginning a new fight for workers’ rights across the globe" against a reborn "brutal 19th century capitalism" supported by "repressive states."

We all know what’s happened domestically. Sweeney & Co. made some changes, but class struggle trailed far behind getting out the vote for Al Gore.

However, internationally the AFL-CIO continues to work hand-in-glove with the State Department, the CIA, and other "non-governmental" ruling class organizations, except with attractive new gloves.

A Discredited History

Sweeney’s International Center replaces the four regional institutes through which the AFL-CIO used to conduct its overseas operations. But the institutes have not been forgotten by millions of workers who saw them destroy their unions, their livelihoods, and the lives of families, friends and leaders.

The American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), covering AFL-CIO activities in Latin America, was typical. The AIFLD was established in 1962 under the Kennedy administration in response to the Cuban revolution and the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Its board of directors joined then AFL-CIO president George Meany with United Fruit’s Peter Grace, Chase Manhattan’s David Rockefeller and a flock of other corporate and high-level henchmen.

The CIA/AIFLD masterpiece was the overthrow of the Allende govenment by the Pinochet fascists, who then murdered tens of thousands of leftists, union leaders and ordinary workers in Chile. The AIFLD was dedicated neither to democracy nor even to "acceptable" unionism, but simply to extending the rule of U.S. imperialism.

Many of the Institute’s projects seemed harmless: training labor leaders in leadership and academic research about the union movements in different countries. But many of the "trainees" were simply being bribed while others were recruited as agents. And the information gathered by harmless researchers wound up in CIA hands and were passed on as hit lists to fascist death squads.

Under New Management

How exactly is Sweeney’s new International Center fighting for "workers’ rights" against "brutal capitalism" and "oppressive states"? Not so easy to find out. The Center itself has no website and there’s practically nothing about it on the AFL-CIO site. Somewhat suspicious since this kind of political work is central to the AFL-CIO mission—both internationally and domestically.

The U.S. government, however, can tell us a lot about the Center’s activities because it’s paying for them. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is currently funding Center programs in dozens of countries—Cuba, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Caribbean, Bangladesh, Egypt, South Africa, the Philippines, Burma, Croatia, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, India, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Serbia and Russia. These are the same kinds of programs the same government agency once paid the supposedly discredited AFL-CIO regional institutes to carry out.

One of these grants alone was for $45 million. The goals include promoting "political and economic liberalization"—neo-liberalism—which the AFL-CIO is supposedly against!

The USAID website itself makes it clear that workers in other countries don’t believe there’s any difference between the old and the "new" AFL-CIO. The page reporting on the Cuba programs admits that.

Apparently, the source of funding for these Cuba programs has caused some union representatives to back off active participation in the Center’s Cuba initiatives.

The Center is even taking money (at least $4 million) from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), infamous for its support of the Nicaraguan contras and the El Salvador death squads. The NED now says the International Center is one of its four "core institutes" in the area of labor, open markets and political party development. One of the NED directors is Thomas R. Donahue—Lane Kirkland’s successor as President (for a few months) of the AFL-CIO. Donahue was the leading "old voice" defeated by Sweeney.

The AFL-CIO committee which established the International Center recommended it be funded "without government supervision," pointing out that the old regional institutes got a lot of their money from USAID and NED. This recommendation was quietly buried with no discussion. And not a peep of protest from any of the "New Voices"!

Clearly, any real "New Voices" will have to come from a communist-led rank and file that sets its sites on smashing imperialism and imperialism’s agents in the labor movement.

(Information from: "On Building An International Solidarity Movement," by Judy Ancel, Labor Studies Journal, Summer 2000, p. 26; Council on Foreign Relations website; Taking Care of Business, by Paul Buhle)

AFL-CIA Labor Buddies Exposed in Venezuela

Workers in Venezuela are suffering the fruits of many decades of union sellouts. For years, the main union federation (CTV) sold workers down the river. While the hacks, allied with the two main capitalist parties—COPEI and AD (Christian-Democrats and Social-Democrats)—lived la dolce vita, imitating the corrupt politicians, workers’ wages and working conditions declined.

The CTV union hacks also served the interests of U.S. imperialism and its junior partners in the AFL-CIO. The book "Workers of the World Undermined" by Beth Simms, reports that, "In Nicaragua, the Confederation of Trade Union Unity and its allies in the Permanent Workers Congress [CRT] received NED [National Endowment for Democracy] support through the AFL-CIA’s AIFLD [American Institute for Free Labor Development] for their anti-Sandinista activities prior to the Feb. 1990 election. As part of these efforts, a ‘special cadre training program’ was conducted for ‘selected’ CRT leaders. They attended classes in political action and voter participation at the George Meany Center in Maryland and the Labor University of the Venezuelan Labor Federation (CTV) in Caracas."

Now nationalist President Chavez is using the discredited reputation of the union hacks to "democratize" the union movement by "demolishing the CTV." His plan includes a December 3rd referendum to build a new union federation following the ideals of his "Bolivarian revolution" (Simon Bolívar led the war of independence against Spanish colonialism in several South American countries).

Chavez wants to build a base among workers for his brand of capitalism. In spite of his nationalist rhetoric—even selling oil to Fidel Castro, partially using a barter system—Chavez’s government hasn’t touched foreign investments in Venezuela. It keeps on paying the foreign debts to imperialist banks while capitalism still makes life miserable for workers.

The lesson workers? Don’t ally with any capitalist politicians or union hacks.

1. CAPITALISM IS THE FRAUD
   1. THE WHITE HOUSE: A TREASURE TROVE
   2. BUILDING PLP: BEST WAY TO NEGATE ALL THE RULERS
2. `EVIL' YES, `LESSER' NO
3. Did Clinton-Gore Racist Crime Law Cost Gore the White House?
4. DOGFIGHT OVER RUSSIA POLICY AND CASPIAN OIL
5. New Bi-Partisan Commission Shows All Rulers Are Gearing Towards War, Fascism
6. Electoral circus: Dead Man Voting
7. D.C. METRO DRIVERS TAKE ON WAGE PROGRESSION AND ANTI-COMMUNISM
8. Parents, Teachers, Students Agree: Guards Out!
9. Pro-Student Demands Needed In Teacher Contract Talks
10. Things Are Heating Up at Wingate HS
11. Howard Students Tell Off `Justice' Dept. Hack
12. MEN OF HONOR Dishonors Anti-Racist Struggle
13. LETTERS
    1. `THEY WANT TO CONTROL THESE KIDS'
    2. POSTAL WORKERS STRUGGLE OVER VOTING
    3. Red-baiting--The Last Refuge of Racist Scoundrels
    4. Teachers Want to Fight for Their Students
    5. Israeli Soldier's Refusal to Fight Sparks GI Debate
    6. Capitalism Causes Domestic Abuse
    7. SEIU Does the Bosses Work
    8. Electoral Cynicism vs. Revolutionary Optimism
    9. CHALLENGE COMMENT:

---

EDITORIAL

CAPITALISM IS THE FRAUD

The wrangling over the presidential election provides an important lesson in the Marxist philosophy dialectical materialism. The major bosses are strategically united in their commitment to the profit system and to maintaining U.S. imperialism's top-dog status. This unity is the main aspect of their relationship with each other. However, the rulers in the Bush and Gore camps also have serious tactical differences, based on particular competing interests. For the moment, these differences are in the forefront, proving that in politics, as in everything else, secondary aspects of a contradiction can for a time become primary, under certain conditions.

Workers need to understand all aspects of this situation. Ignoring these differences would be a mistake. Both sides in this bosses' dogfight are vying for mass support. Workers' class interests lie with neither one. Our Party's key interest remains and will remain building a revolutionary communist party--the PLP--that can overthrow the entire profit system and replace it with a society based not on the profit motive but rather on meeting workers' needs.

The current Bush-Gore stalemate reflects the profit system's inability to solve many of the contradictions it creates. The rulers are one class with certain identical interests. When they were threatened with a major enemy, a superpower like the former Soviet Union, the big bosses tried to submerge their differences or put them on hold and unite in an anti-communist crusade. Often when workers conduct militant--sometimes armed--struggle at home, even for reform demands, when the latter greatly threaten profits, the rulers put aside their disagreements and ruthlessly unleash the full force of their state power to smash strikes and rebellions. And then they sometimes disagree on how to smash the workers. But they recognize that the contradiction between capitalists and workers is sharper than any internal division within the capitalist class

In the absence of such revolutionary upsurge or class struggle, the same rulers can enjoy the luxury of competing among themselves. We shouldn't forget that their present ability to squabble internally is based on the working class's momentary weakness and passivity--and we should draw the correct conclusions.

THE WHITE HOUSE: A TREASURE TROVE

The presidency is a huge prize for the clique that controls it. Thousands of careers are at stake, from cabinet posts to Supreme Court and federal judgeships to appointments in the federal bureaucracy. Workers may not care who gets to reap this profit bonanza, but obviously the bosses do. Important partisan interests underlie the Bush-Gore camps' dueling press conferences over the Florida vote recount.

The presidency controls hundreds of billions of dollars in federal money and can award juicy contracts to competing firms in every area from military equipment to environmental protection. The forces behind Clinton didn't completely resolve many disputes with their opponents after defeating them tactically in the impeachment brawl.

One large unsettled matter concerns the future of domestic oil production. Like his father, Bush represents a shaky coalition that includes oil barons in the Eastern Establishment, the domestic oil companies and BP Amoco--Exxon Mobil's main energy rival within the oil "family"--as well as international oil equipment giant Halliburton. Permanently satisfying both sides is an impossible job. Whoever controls the U.S. presidency can use it to weaken their rivals.

For example, a big bone of contention is the potential energy windfall in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). Despite Clinton's recent release of some Alaskan crude as a tactical bone to domestic oil interests, the Rockefeller/Exxon Mobil forces, which generally backed Gore, want to maintain ANWR oil as a strategic reserve in case of war. The BP Amoco-Halliburton gang want to pump this oil for their own commercial gain. When Bush picked former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheyney as his running mate, he raised BP Amoco's hopes by promising to open the ANWR. However, by late September, the Bush camp had toned down this pledge and was calling for opening only 8% of ANWR to "environmentally responsible exploration." Evidently, this compromise satisfies neither BP Amoco-Halliburton nor the Exxon Mobil crew.

An even bigger bone of contention is U.S. imperialism's approach towards Russia's growing influence in the Caspian and Balkan regions (see article, "Dogfight over Russia Policy,"). And the partisan rivalry between the two camps also has an important cultural and ideological aspect which goes beyond even oil politics and the spoils system (see article, "Culture Wars,").

BUILDING PLP: BEST WAY TO NEGATE ALL THE RULERS

The fighting for partisan advantage between the Bush and Gore camps may continue for at least a while. Perhaps it will sharpen. Sooner or later, however, either the two factions will reach a settlement or else one side will force the other into submission. Our class must not be fooled into backing either camp. Both mean death and misery for us.

The universal laws of dialectics are at work in this process, as in every other. Opposites are locked in both unity and conflict. The secondary has temporarily become primary. The positions will once again reverse themselves. Quantity has led to quality: the tiny number of votes separating the two candidates led directly to the current fighting. The fighting will be negated--new unity, with some persistent conflict--as Clinton's Hart-Rudman Commission's hidden agenda becomes increasingly public and U.S. imperialism carries out the deadly policies it must implement to square off with its international rivals.

But dialectics isn't limited to internal struggle among bosses. It also governs the growth of our Party and the working class movement. In the class struggle, we are clearly the secondary aspect--for the time being. But we can keep our eye on the ball. We can keep exposing the class enemy and use the knowledge we gain as a weapon to sharpen the struggle against all bosses and build the PLP. We can make quantity turn into quality. As war spreads and fascism intensifies, we can win growing numbers to communism. This will remain our job, regardless of who wins the Bush-Gore wrestling match. And our Party will do its job.

`EVIL' YES, `LESSER' NO

Racism, even more than religion, is the front line of the "culture war" between the bosses backing Bush and Gore. Millions of people, including a large number of black workers, voted for Gore as an alternative to the Bush camp's open racism. This is a mistake. There is no "lesser evil" here--only evil.

Bush and the Republicans are flagrant racists, who appeal to--and try to expand--a base of bigotry. It's no accident that the racist lynching of James Byrd occurred in Bush's Texas. Bush & Co. put a fig leaf on their racism by giving the limelight to black advisors like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. This is a thin cover for the truth.

The liberal Democrats sing the same tune in a less easily recognizable key. Gore & Co. pose as the "protector" of black and Latin workers but have consciously enacted a succession of brutally racist policies. In the last eight years, the Clinton-Gore White House has led, and collaborated with, Republicans to:

• End welfare and drive millions of mainly women workers into slave-labor Workfare and low-wage jobs;

   

• Expand the criminal "justice" system and criminalize the unemployment of black and Latino working-class youth;

   

• Unleash 100,000 racist cops on the streets and give them a license to engage in racist profiling as well as the regular murder of unarmed black people;

   

• Double the prison population and developed an extensive slave labor program in prisons, under which tens of thousands of workers earn as little as 20cents an hour making profits for private corporations;

   

• Institute Operation Gatekeeper, turning the Mexico-California border into a virtual cemetery, causing the death of several hundred workers in just a few years.

•  

•  

•  

•  

When the Hart-Rudman Commission's recommendations begin to take effect, the Clinton-Gore years may come to be known as the "good old days." But the groundwork for U.S.-style fascism has been laid by a liberal Democratic presidency. Between one boss and another, there is no "lesser evil." Workers should never rely on capitalist politicians. With "friends" like these, who needs enemies...

Did Clinton-Gore Racist Crime Law Cost Gore the White House?

If Gore loses Florida--and the Presidency--it may not be because of vote fraud or Nader but rather because the Clinton-Gore Administration jailed the very people who would probably have voted for Gore if they hadn't lost their voting rights after being imprisoned for non-violent "offenses." (In most countries, non-violent offenders are "sentenced" to community service/drug treatment/small fines.) In the U.S., one loses voting rights if convicted of a crime, and most lose it even after serving their time.

There are 4.2 million current prisoners or ex-offenders who can't vote. Of that total, 1.8 million are black. Thirteen percent of all black men over 18 have been disenfranchised.

In Florida, one of three black men can't vote because of "criminal records." They are part of the 800,000 increase in prisoners in the U.S. occurring during the past eight years of Clinton-Gore and their "tough-on-crime" law that has put hundreds of thousands of black men behind bars. They have been imprisoned in far greater proportions than whites because of racist sentencing, for possession of minute amounts of crack-cocaine or because of defective legal defense or because of outright frame-ups by racist big-city police forces. (The current LAPD scandal is just the latest example.)

Black people voted overwhelmingly Democratic. So the tens of thousands of black men in Florida that might have voted for Gore couldn't because Clinton-Gore crime policies jailed them.

It is the liberal Democrats who have enforced this fascist criminal INjustice system. It is ironic that the very black people who have been their principal victims vote for them as the "lesser evil." However, the rulers' use of racism and racist terror (including the prison system), may have boomeranged, to possibly cost Gore the White House.

DOGFIGHT OVER RUSSIA POLICY AND CASPIAN OIL

A big bone of contention between the Gore and Bush camps is U.S. imperialism's approach toward Russia's growing influence in the Caspian and Balkan regions. Remember how the presidential campaign was slumbering along in October, when Bush foreign policy advisor Condoleeza Rice dropped a bombshell by saying that the U.S. should withdraw troops from the Balkans and focus on the Persian Gulf? Well, Rice is a director of Chevron oil, which just gobbled up Texaco. And although Chevron's main interest is to hold on to Persian Gulf crude supplies, Chevron Texaco also has a growing position in the Caspian.

In partnership with Russian companies, Chevron is building a pipeline to export oil from Kazakhstan through Russian territory. The buyout of Texaco increases Chevron's Caspian stake. When Clinton's Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson, traveled to Kazakhstan to bless this deal, the trip reflected "a subtle change in American policy. The United States no longer cares how Kazakh and Russian oil gets to market. American interest in the region has shifted from thwarting Russian hegemony to ensuring the oil makes it to market soon and American firms don't get trampled in the process" (Stratfor, 8/26/00).

This shift, spearheaded by the Bush camp but somewhat supported as well by the Clinton White House, can't sit too well with Eastern Establishment forces who view Russia as a long-term enemy and who, like Cold War guru George Kennan, warn against "trading with the enemy."

Cheney and Bush advisor James Baker, who was Papa Bush's Secretary of State during the 1991 Gulf War, both represent interests that stand to profit from an accommodation with Russian bosses. Halliburton has been serving Russian oil companies since 1991. Last year it formed an alliance with Moscow-based Tyumen Oil. Although Baker is an heir to Exxon and Chase Manhattan millions, he's got a foot in two camps. Like the Bushes, he tries to promote the impossible feat of promoting all U.S. oil firms. Baker's Houston law firm, Baker & Botts, represents a partnership known as the Azerbaidzhan International Operating Company (AIOC). Dominated by BP Amoco, Unocal and Russian oil firms, with Exxon holding a minor stake, AIOC pumps hundreds of thousands of barrels a day in formerly Soviet Azerbaidzhan.

So although both a Gore and a Bush White House would want to keep the guns focused on protecting access to Middle Eastern oil and agree on getting rid of Saddam Hussein, they differ sharply on major related aspects of foreign policy. Ultimately, the rulers will have to resolve this difference one way or another. Russian bosses, also significantly involved, can't indefinitely collaborate with U.S. energy barons in the Caspian and at the same time compete with them over the control of Iraqi oil. Eventually that conflict will also have to be resolved.

Gore agent in Florida, Warren Christopher, a former Secretary of State, has his feet more firmly in the Exxon Mobil camp than Bush agent Baker. Christopher's Los Angeles law firm, O'Melveny & Meyers, is Exxon's chief West Coast mouthpiece. Christopher was also on the original Rockefeller-established Trilateral Commission and served as vice-chair of Rockefeller's Council on Foreign Relations.

So the conflict over policy towards Russia can lead to further fights until one side wins out or temporary compromises are worked out.

New Bi-Partisan Commission Shows All Rulers Are Gearing Towards War, Fascism

The more objective members of the ruling class recognize the need for strategic unity with each other. As the election fight proves, achieving it isn't so easy. But forces on both sides have a limited ability to see beyond their own noses, as shown when, in 1998, the Clinton White House formed a bi-partisan "U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century." This group's composition is striking. It's known as the Hart-Rudman Commission, after former Democratic Senator Gary Hart and former Rep. Senator Warren Rudman. Eastern Members include Establishment regulars like Rockefeller agents Andrew Young and Leslie Gelb (former NY TIMES editor and head of Rockefeller's Council on Foreign Relations). Significantly, so is Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House Speaker who had to leave electoral politics with his tail between his legs after losing the Clinton impeachment fight. This group clearly includes representatives of the top factions of the big bosses.

Most important are this commission's findings. It warns: "Americans are less secure than they believe themselves to be." It predicts that U.S. soil will become "increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack" and that "large numbers" of U.S. citizens may die at the hand of unnamed "terrorists." It says that such an attack--and only such an attack--is likely to encourage the "American people to be ready to sacrifice blood and treasure." It worries about the military's inability to recruit and retain adequate personnel and also about the "growing distance between America and its military." It estimates that the United States "will be called upon frequently to intervene militarily in a time of uncertain alliances." It makes clear that the defense of Persian Gulf oil is crucial to U.S. imperialist interests.

The commission's findings are wide ranging and complex. Future issues of CHALLENGE will try to analyze all of them. One thing is absolutely clear, however, from the points cited above. Leading U.S. ruling class forces on both sides of the present Bush-Gore spectacle understand they must come together to prepare U.S. society for a long series of wars. They go further, by implying that the only way to mobilize the population to make the necessary sacrifices is to endure--perhaps even to provoke--a major catastrophe on U.S. soil that can be blamed on U.S. enemies.

The plot thickens when the Hart-Rudman crowd reveal the first elements of their plan for preparing this scenario. It is nothing short of full-scale fascism. Here is the blueprint: "Traditional national security agencies (State, Defense, CIA, NSC staff) will need to work together in new ways, and economic agencies (Treasury, Commerce, U.S. Trade Representative) will need to work more closely with the national security community. In addition, Justice and Transportation will need to be integrated more fully into national security processes" (italics ours--Ed).

The quotations above come from the Hart-Rudman's "Phase II" document. "Phase III" is due for release in March 2001, when presumably the new president will have had time to digest it. But the outlines confirm what CHALLENGE has been saying: all the major bosses are deadly serious about militarizing society, disciplining their own ranks, subduing the working class by all available means and preparing for several kinds of war. Gingrich's presence on the commission shows that the BP Amoco-Halliburton gang basically endorses this agenda. The Eastern Establishment backs it to the hilt. Jon Corzine, the Democrat stockbroker billionaire who just paid $65 million to buy himself a New Jersey Senate seat, said early in the campaign: "I would hold off on any major new defense contracts until the Hart-Rudman Commission...finishes its report and makes its recommendations" (public policy address, Feb. 22, 2000).

Despite all differences, U.S. rulers are "bi-partisan" when it comes to preparing for fascism and war.

Electoral circus: Dead Man Voting

Among other things, this election reveals the total bankruptcy of the bosses' supposed "democracy." The whole thing comes down to a handful of votes in Florida, and Florida is notorious for the dishonesty of its elections, as the media have pointed out repeatedly. But Florida is hardly alone, and the 2000 election is hardly a precedent-setter for crooked dealings at the polls.

In 1960 Kennedy's Illinois electoral machine stole votes in Cook County by registering a large number of corpses. The head of that operation was the late Chicago Mayor Daley, who just happens to have been the father of Gore's present campaign manager.

Electoral fraud and intimidation at the polls are as old as the U.S. electoral process itself. We shouldn't be surprised. The fact is that when the bosses fight, they fight dirty, even kill each other (Lincoln, McKinley, Kennedy). The current Gore-Bush recount exposes the U.S. "human rights" act abroad as a stinking exercise in hypocrisy.

D.C. METRO DRIVERS TAKE ON WAGE PROGRESSION AND ANTI-COMMUNISM

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 14--The battle for the leadership of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 is in full swing. The usual cast of crooks and sellouts are prancing about promising many good things, but the membership is not optimistic. The bright spot in this muddy field is PLP member Mike Golash, running for Financial Secretary as a revolutionary communist.

Mike is a 25-year veteran of union battles and was a leader of the dramatic 1978 wildcat strike. He has presented a clear program of struggle for the union, not empty promises. The fight over wage progression tops the list. Recently in San Francisco, MUNI transit workers with PLP's communist leadership, cut wage progression from 36 to 18 months. What's more, workers rejected nationalism and anti-communism, and became more involved in the revolutionary movement.

The fight to reduce or abolish wage progression is part of reversing the attack on younger workers, who do the same job as veteran drivers, but for $11.59/hour instead of $22.66. It takes eight years to reach the top rate. Years ago, when the older workers were mainly white and the younger ones mainly black, the fight against wage progression was an anti-racist struggle. Now almost all of the senior workers are black so the bosses divide us by age. They continue to use racist divisions by hiring mostly white technicians in the rail divisions versus black drivers in the bus division.

Mike is bringing national and global issues to the union's agenda, like police brutality, racist sterilization, the battle against sexism and the threat of imperialist war. These issues are every bit as critical--and even more critical--to the lives of union members than the usual "bread and butter" issues on the job.

The anti-communist candidate running against Mike claims that the Landrum-Griffith Act makes it illegal for communists to hold union office. Workers are turning a deaf ear to this red-baiting. Hundreds of Local 689 members have read CHALLENGE many times over the years and support Mike as an incorruptible representative of their interests.

A campaign committee of regular CHALLENGE readers and distributors is holding meetings throughout the Metro transit system. The real challenge, however, is winning workers to embrace the goal of communist revolution. Any gains made in day-to-day struggle can be reversed in an instant as long as the bosses hold power, and organize society for their profits instead of the needs of the working class. As young drivers get active in the campaign, the future will be bright for PLP and the revolutionary movement.

Parents, Teachers, Students Agree: Guards Out!

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 11 -- Efforts by Party members and friends at one alternative high school here are paying off. CHALLENGE sales have risen to 30 an issue. At least five people are distributing them. The Student Council (SC) has been revived and is addressing serious issues. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) chapter has begun meeting regularly about the upcoming contract negotiations. The Parent Association is grappling with the issues of space, staff and security. At least five people are meeting to discuss the Party's work and the coming struggle to strengthen it.

Recently at a club meeting we discussed mobilizing students to join with teachers at the UFT November 16 City Hall demonstration. One student friend of the Party led the SC meeting last week.

She proposed that students join with the teachers to argue for contract demands that are pro-student and parent as well as good for teachers. These include smaller class sizes, more teachers, more schools, better salaries for newer teachers, no increase in the length of the school day and a shorter time to reach top salaries. Several students pledged to come to City Hall.

In October a parent meeting agreed to a resolution supporting these demands and earlier last week the School Leadership Team agreed also. The UFT leadership has often rejected making the fight for smaller classes and more space, or better salaries for new teachers part of this contract fight. On top of this, an increase in School Security was met by a growing SC insistence that the new Principal keep Security out of school corridors.

The school occupies one floor of a junior high school building. Until recently, school security guards maintained a very low profile. Now they're in the hall all the time. Teachers already told the Principal at a School Leadership meeting that we want less, not more security in the school. The parents at the meeting readily agreed.

This school recently became a training center for guards but many students, parents and teachers want no part of this. One student reminded the Principal and an Assistant Principal that "young African-American men are constantly harassed by the racist NYPD." The School Security Agents have recently been using whistles in the halls to signify period change. The students at the meeting rejected the Principal's explanations. Students are also angry at Security's attempts to move them away from the street in front of the building.

As a result, the Principal has called a meeting with the students, staff and the security force to iron out the problem. But students and teachers are not likely to back down from their opposition to security forces on the school's floors. For the next few months, Party members and friends plan to focus on racism and the UFT leadership's collusion with the Board of Education bosses. While doing this we hope to clarify the need for people to join the Progressive Labor Party and make the struggle against capitalism the center of our work.

Pro-Student Demands Needed In Teacher Contract Talks

NEW YORK, Nov. 11--Schools under capitalism can never serve the working class. They will always be ruling class tools until we organize a revolution. However, we can do a lot right now to teach the working class and stimulate class struggle in the schools. We can put forward demands that will: (1) benefit students and their learning about the world; (2) expose the lies of capitalism; and (3) train working-class youth, their parents and teachers to build a movement to take power and build a communist society.

The teachers' union (UFT) leadership has made its anti-student outlook clear. Contract demands focus on more money for teachers and more school security, creating divisions between teachers and students. Their "Contract Goals" include creating streamlined procedures for removing students from class and suspending them.

PLP see things differently. By simply demanding money for themselves and attacking students, teachers can never win the support of parents and other workers that could win substantial improvements in wages and learning conditions. We have to fight for demands that large numbers of students and parents will rally around.

We want to use the teachers' contract to fight for student needs. We propose meeting with student, parent and teacher groups to put forward pro-student demands around the following issues:

1. CURRICULUM: Our goal is for students to understand and change their world. We can teach and argue for a scientific view of the world and teach dialectical materialism in a popular way. We can argue for science, for deeper study, for interrelationship among disciplines, for tackling controversial issues, for high-level skills. In this age of globalization, we need to teach about the nature of imperialism and the coming oil wars for profit. We can fight against racism and for internationalism. We can attack the one-sided, pro-imperialist nature of the curriculum, find specific examples and teach based on simple formulas.

2. MORE TEACHERS, REDUCE CLASS SIZE, IMPROVE CONDITIONS: Class sizes are too big for meaningful instruction. Black and Latin students often- fail because they are crammed into overcrowded classes. Instead of fighting for more teachers, the union is ready to accept a longer workday. We need more building space, well-maintained schools and access to books and technology.

3. RACISM: NYC students are the targets of racism, from their inferior education to the fascist rules in the schools. The ruling class is content if many students learn very little, since the bosses have no future for them except unemployment, prison or low-wage jobs. Some are needed to work in a factory, hospital or city agency. We should expose the racism inherent in the schools: fascist security, lack of access to technology, crumbling buildings, poorly trained teachers and especially the inadequate curriculum.

4. COPS OUT OF SCHOOLS: We demand schools, not jails. Racist police brutality is a feature of daily life for students, both in school and in the community. Black and Latin students are "racially profiled" and harassed. Students are arrested or "written up" by the police for mouthing off, or less! This racist terror is part of the climate of rising fascism, and military discipline in preparation for war. We say NO WAY!

5. DON'T BLAME STUDENTS FOR SOCIAL PROBLEMS: Literally millions of our students--and many adults, including teachers--are on anti-psychotic/behavioral drugs. Capitalist health care has an anti-working class outlook that says, "These students are damaged; there's nothing you can do." This has spawned mass drugging to physiologically "teach" students to be passive. The ruling class pushes drugs to blunt the class struggle. Instead of more drugs, we need more pro-student social workers and counselors to help students experiencing social problems.

6. BUILD STUDENT/TEACHER/PARENT UNITY: The best way for students, teachers and parents to get results and respect is to organize together and fight back. We should expose the dead-end, self-defeating narrow trade union outlook that ends up blaming students and parents for the problems caused by capitalism.

We are organizing groups of students and parents to advance these pro-student demands. This is how we can all "Fight to Learn-Learn to Fight!" We can recruit these working-class fighters to our Party and to see these demands as part of building the revolutionary movement. To change the world, we need to learn to read and write, compute and analyze. By teaching basic skills and the truth about capitalist oppression, we are fighting for the future of our class.

Things Are Heating Up at Wingate HS

BROOKLYN, NY, Nov. 13--Things are heating up again at Wingate H.S. as teachers, parents and students participate in the growing movement here about cutbacks and administration mismanagement. The battle lines are clearly being drawn as militant teachers, including PLP members, make our voices heard in the schools.

Our union chapter has just voted to remove the principal. Over 120 teachers signed a telegram stating our outrage at the miserable conditions our students must face. At the same time, parents are beginning to organize in the PTA. PLP is also organizing in the student government and other school clubs to fight back.

This parent-teacher-student unity is the key to fighting racist school conditions.

Howard Students Tell Off `Justice' Dept. Hack

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 11 -- The militant Oct. 25 demonstration by Howard University students at the Justice Department forced Bill Lee, chief of the Department's Civil Rights Division, to appear at the school's campus to discuss the Prince Jones issue. Prince Carmen Jones, Jr. was the Howard student murdered by a Prince George's County cop who pumped six bullets into his back. The cop was not indicted locally so the family and supporters demanded the Justice Department investigate the case for civil rights violations (i.e., the cop may have violated Prince's "civil rights"--by killing him!).

In a carefully staged presentation (the audience had to pass written questions to a panel), Lee explained how "difficult" it would be for the Justice Department to make such a case against killer cop Carlton Jones. He said first that excessive force had to be proven, and then "intention" had to be shown. In other words, if the cop "panicked" and killed Prince unjustifiably, he still could not be prosecuted for civil rights violations.Finally, Lee noted that in all the successful prosecutions of cops by the Justice Department, only the fellow cops' testimony against the suspected cop led to convictions. Lee said this was rare. He also told the students not to expect a speedy federal investigation. Indeed, since Lee will probably be replaced shortly by a new administration, the case could easily end up on hold.

Students were impatient with Lee's legal mumbo-jumbo. They understood that he was telling them little, if anything, would be done through the system. One question put to Lee concerned an earlier case in the same County. Archie Elliot, a man stripped to his shorts, hands cuffed behind his back and in a police car, was gunned down by the cops with the excuse that he "had a gun secreted in his undershorts"!

Why had the Justice Department failed to prosecute that case? Lee said they had created a simulation/reenactment and discovered it was "possible" for Elliot to have had a gun as the cop had said. (No gun was found.) Lee also noted that no police officer had offered any testimony against the murdering cop, who, incidentally, has gone on to shoot other "suspects." One angry student declared that if the Justice Department didn't deliver an indictment and conviction of the murdering cop in the Prince Jones case in a timely way, there would be "big trouble." The student, referring to the rebellions following the Rodney King case, said, "I'm from LA, and we know how to riot." After this provocative comment, Lee scurried off to a press conference while students remained to discuss the next steps in the struggle.PL members at the event continued to circulate communist leaflets showing how this murder is an example of why capitalism inevitably creates racism and produces racist police attacks on the working class--in order to maximize profits for boss es. It urged students to continue to build a mass movement on campus and in Prince George's County. CHALLENGE readers are urged to assist the petition campaign. For more information and a copy of the petition, go to the Justice for Prince Jones website:http://members.nbci.com/eawilli/Prince.htm.

MEN OF HONOR Dishonors Anti-Racist Struggle

"Men of Honor" is based on the true story of Carl Brashear (played by Cuba Gooding), the first black man to become a diver in the U.S. Navy. The story traces Brashear's growing up in Kentucky, the son of a sharecropper. When Brashear enlists in the Navy, his father makes him promise he'll do everything possible to not return to the hard life he's left. The Navy recruiter promises a wonderful career.

Brashear finds the vicious racism of 1950s Jim Crow in the "desegregated" Navy. He's relegated to a cook's position and punished for diving into the water during a "white" swim. After numerous thwarted attempts, he's finally allowed to report to a Navy diving school in Bayonne, New Jersey. Billy Sunday (Robert DeNiro), the nasty racist who trains the divers, is also from a sharecropping family. He, and all the diver candidates except one, let Brashear know right away he's not welcome in the school and will not survive its rigors. In the face of all the obstacles Sunday throws at him, and the other sailors' cowardly and openly racist acts, Brashear gains the grudging respect of some white sailors when he saves the life of a drowning white diver who is deserted by a particularly racist teammate; and later beats Sunday in a breath-holding contest in an all-white bar.

The school commander orders Sunday to flunk Brashear on the final diving test. Sunday sabotages Brashear, but Brashear spends nine hours in freezing cold water and completes the test. Sunday, despite his own racism, passes him but is immediately demoted and transferred by the school commander. The rest of the movie relates how Sunday returns to help Brashear fight his forced retirement from the Navy. Brashear has become a hero and has lost one of his legs while in action.

"Men of Honor" pushes the idea that the best way for a person victimized by racism to fight back is to grit your teeth and show you're a "better" person. Brashear "sucks up" all the abuse he gets. The idea of uniting with others to fight for class interests is nowhere to be found. Thus, the movie promotes the false idea that racism has been overcome in the past through "hard work," not sharp struggle.

Starting with the 1980s movie "Glory," and continuing in the 1990s with movies like "The Siege," the image of the heroic black cop or soldier who is loyal to the U.S. government has been a recurring theme. "Men of Honor" takes this to the next logical level--if Brashear could stay loyal to the military (and U.S. imperialism) despite all the intense racism, why shouldn't today's soldiers do the same?

As CHALLENGE has pointed out many times, U.S. bosses worry about just how loyal black and Latin soldiers/sailors will be when the next oil war comes. The families of many of those in the military have experienced racist unemployment, the racist imprisoning of millions of youth and racist welfare and other cutbacks. The rulers remember the militant anti-racist role played by many black and Latin soldiers in Vietnam. A major effort is being made in media and other cultural forms to admit some past racism in the military, while portraying "Today's Military" as having overcome past discrimination and segregation. The exposé of the 1943 Port Chicago mutiny and the racist attacks made by the Navy on black sailors is part of this pattern.

Despite serious weaknesses, seeing the movie with friends can spark a sharp political discussion. When soldiers, sailors and others grasp PLP's communist ideas, they will not only unite black, Latin, and white, men and women against the racism and sexism of the brass. They can be moved to refuse to fight for Exxon-Mobil's Mideast oil interests and turn their guns around for a class war on the warmakers to create a communist world.

LETTERS

`THEY WANT TO CONTROL THESE KIDS'

We are a small group of parents and teachers from an elementary school in the Bronx, N.Y. who have formed a PLP study group. Some parents in the group participated in several meetings, activities and tutoring during PLP's 2000 Summer Project.

Recently we began discussing the school system's "mis-labeling" children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and psychiatrists prescribing harmful doses of medication for this diagnosis. Two couples shared what happened to their own children taking various kinds of hyperactive medication. One couple explained, "They said our daughter needed Ritalin and gave her a dose that was too severe. She was urinating on herself and had the shakes. We took her off the medicine and will never put her on it again."

Another couple said their son was given a dose of medication that caused him to sleep for an entire day. They took their son off the drug and he improved drastically over the next 18 months. When the psychiatrist discovered what the parents had done, he called ACS (Child Services) and filed a charge of "neglect." At a recent hearing the charges were dropped. The psychiatrist later apologized but the mother told him she wouldn't accept his apology.

We know there are many such cases. Our study group began to discuss why children are being "drugged up" during this period of growing war and fascism. "They want everyone to be passive. They want a `quick fix' and they want to control these kids," one parent commented.

At our next study group, we will make a plan to deal with this attack on our children and talk about how imperialist war, police brutality and the entire capitalist system--not our children--are the real threats to society, not our children.

Bronx Parents and Teachers

POSTAL WORKERS STRUGGLE OVER VOTING

Workers at the post office where I work were devastated on election night when they thought Bush had won the presidency. It was difficult to tell my mainly black co-workers that both candidates were full of shit. Even the line, "Some rich guy will be President tomorrow" was not too popular. These workers believed a Bush victory would mean "a return to racist attacks." One worker said, "I better pay off my credit cards. I might not have a job next year." Another said, "Don't bother thinking about going back to school. Bush isn't going to give you any money for school." This was a different reaction than in past elections, where apathy and cynicism with the whole electoral process predominated.

The ruling class has targeted the same groups of workers that we as communists are trying to win. Many black workers and industrial workers were somewhat brought back into the bosses' electoral process this year. Most workers I am involved with, on and off the job, voted. Many passionately felt their future was at stake.

We have to fight harder to win our neighbors and co-workers to see that no bosses are on our side. I believe this time around many workers saw the Republicans as the ruling class and the Democrats as our allies. We must deepen our ties with our co-workers and engage them in more consistent ideological struggle, while fighting to lead them in class struggle against the bosses. This is how we can overcome these deadly illusions.

The one line that went over well was, "No matter who wins, the postal bosses will try to screw us in our new contract." I'm trying to build more of a fight around the contract while increasing the number of CHALLENGE readers and distributors.

One more point. I voted this time, to experience first-hand the process by which the bosses keep power out of the hands of the working class. You go in a booth and stick a pin through the names of the politicians who will rule over you for the next four years. I explained to my workmates that this is the opposite of how communism will work. Building a communist world to meet the needs of the working class will require the active participation of millions of workers in decision-making, all the time.

Postal Red

Red-baiting--The Last Refuge of Racist Scoundrels

The Purdue Calumet campus continues to be absorbed in discussion and debate over campus racism. Two professors who were criticized are still embarrassing themselves. One snatched a CHALLENGE from a student and kept it, and then made a fool of himself at a faculty meeting by demanding the university administration somehow "stop" people from criticizing him. The other called the New York CHALLENGE office about ten times demanding to know who was saying bad things about her! She read the CHALLENGE article to one of her classes and very emotionally begged her students to support her. These students, in a different course than the one where the conflict took place, reacted largely out of pity (and some out of fear) to express "support" for this professor.

Many people think it's funny that these two professors, with a long history of berating, humiliating and attacking students publicly, became such crybabies as soon as they were criticized at all. After all, one of them urged students to circulate a petition last year asking that three other professors be fired! The other says that the only way (presumably black) students from Gary can get into good colleges is through sports and that the new driveway on campus will make it easier for "drug dealers from Gary" to drop off their girl friends.

In addition, the school newspaper ran a letter from an ex-student and wannabe cop defending one of the professors and blaming all the protests on communists! Well, communists ARE in the forefront of many struggles against racism, but the hundreds of black, Latin and white students fighting racism are not being "used" by anyone! They understand how racism works and how it must be fought.

This struggle is about a lot more than a couple of professors. The university has many other policies forcing out minority and other working-class students. The Presidential election fiasco is presenting more opportunities to expose how corrupt capitalism is. Our next step is to increase CHALLENGE circulation and build a network of students who will consistently distribute the paper every week!

Red Student

Teachers Want to Fight for Their Students

At our school there has never been much interest in our union. Some teachers say our principal is a "good" liberal so we don't need an active chapter. Others have criticisms of the administration but have mainly fought individually.

However, a combination of lots of problems and many enthusiastic new teachers enabled us to push our chapter leader into calling a meeting in October for teachers to talk and plan without the principal. Despite the chapter leader's belief that there was little interest in a meeting, 30 teachers attended.

The discussion boiled down to one main contradiction: fighting for our students to learn or fighting against them to keep them "in line." Many teachers have been won to bad ideas about students. Some argued that we need metal detectors, that we need to follow even bad Board of Education rules, and that the school's problems would be solved by recruiting "better" students. This last idea is particularly dangerous. It says some students just can't learn, and teachers should give up on them and find the students who will "let us teach them."

The pro-student teachers argued vigorously against this position. We must see all of our students as members of our class who CAN learn and are worth fighting for. We must fight against the fascist conditions our students experience every day and teach them that they can lead the way for a new and better society that serves us all.

This meeting only touched the tip of the iceberg. We have a long way to go and a lot of plans to make to build a strong pro-student teachers' group at our school, but we have taken our first steps.

A Brooklyn, N.Y. Teacher

Israeli Soldier's Refusal to Fight Sparks GI Debate

I've been a soldier in the National Guard for some time now. My Party club leader showed me an e-mail about an Israeli soldier who refused to fight against the Palestinians. He asked me to show it to the soldiers in my unit and try to get them to write a letter of support.Later, after firing range, we were sitting around in the bus. I began talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pointing out that Israel is a U.S. pawn used to control Mid-East oil. The whole bus--front, back and center--started talking. I couldn't believe it. They all listened as I gave my views. It was exciting to see so many soldiers discussing the world situation.I tried to hammer home the idea that nationalism and religion are a dead-end for the working class. The Israeli and Palestinian bosses have convinced workers to kill each other for the Gaza strip. I brought up how Britain "gave" this land to Israel so the British could have a foot in the oil-rich Mid-East, and that the U.S. doesn't care that the Palestinians became refugees. The Arabs are paid less to do the same work and are denied full citizenship, just like black and Latin workers here. The U.S. ruling class caused this fighting, not differences in religion and nationality.

It was great that about forty soldiers participated in an open debate on the Party's ideas. The Israeli soldier who refused to fight impressed them. It forced them to face the fact that every soldier can choose whether or not to follow orders. It dispelled some of the cynicism that people won't risk their own necks to stand up for what they believe.

Afterwards, various soldiers approached me and said, "You really broke it down." They said they enjoyed talking with me because "we can disagree and we're still cool." Even the next day a soldier asked me to explain exactly what's happening between Israel and Palestine. With four other soldiers standing there we had another discussion. It was great.

I learned that in order to put forward the Party's ideas on a complex international event, a combination of reading CHALLENGE and struggling over the ideas in a collective is absolutely necessary. The CHALLENGE editorial was excellent preparation for my discussion. If we take the lead, soldiers will discuss more than just sex.

From all this, I identified two more soldiers to show CHALLENGE. Three soldiers in my unit are regular readers. Four of us eat dinner at a different person's house each month. Everyone looks forward to it and helps organize it. I am learning to use my small collective to organize and lead struggles. I need to do more then just have political debates. I must see myself as an organizer for communism.

Part-Time Soldier, Full-Time Red

Capitalism Causes Domestic Abuse

A recent letter to CHALLENGE linked domestic abuse of women to the exploitative conditions on our jobs, and capitalist society in general. Some men become abusive due to financial stress associated with providing for one's family (i.e., low pay, layoffs, speed-up), while others abuse because of uncontrolled anger, feeling powerless and alienated from society. Often there is also drug and alcohol abuse.

The relationships between men and women largely reflect the political and economic relations in society. The ruling class owns and controls the means of production and extracts profits by exploiting our labor. This entails pushing racism and sexism to keep workers divided and weak. Women and minorities are paid less and generally treated as inferiors. Women are portrayed and treated as sex objects, domestic servants and the physically and emotionally weaker gender in popular capitalist culture.

Nurturing and loving relationships exist despite all the trash heaped on us by capitalism. As communists, we struggle to promote healthy relationships. The contradictions between women and men, as well as labor and capital, will be resolved when communism rules the earth. Therefore, nothing is more satisfying and fulfilling in life than to involve ourselves in this revolutionary process to change the world.

CHALLENGE Enthusiast

SEIU Does the Bosses Work

A good friend recently wrote a letter to CHALLENGE about the Grad students at the University of Washington trying to organize a union and the administration refusing to recognize their right to bargain collectively. This letter detailed the poor response of my union, SEIU/CSA 925. Something happened at the Organizing Council which angered me enough to write my own letter.

I've been part of the union's Strike committee, hoping I could influence a leftward movement to support the Grad students in their strike and also prepare our SEIU members for our next contract battle. The Organizing Council (stewards, other active leaders and anyone the Executive Council invites) met on November 8. One agenda item was the leaflet the Strike Committee proposed sending to its members.

Our contract says we can support other strikes by respecting picket lines only if we feel our personal safety is threatened. The union lawyer strongly cautioned against this, saying it would be hard to prove one's personal safety was threatened, especially since these Grad students are having a "porous" picket line (letting people through). The line of the leaflet in dispute was a paragraph quoting the contract language.

I suggested that, after that quote, we say that the union would fully support anyone who made the "independent" decision not to cross the line. The dispute was whether or not the union would support these people. The lawyer said, "What if 3,000 people refused to cross the picket line. We would go bankrupt defending them!"

I could contain myself no longer and yelled, "Here, here!" I said it would be a GREAT thing if 3000 of our members refused to cross the line. Well, the union staff and leadership smacked me down. They not only are unwilling to support members who refuse to cross the line, but don't even think we should use this form of support. There will be nothing in the leaflet about any union support for members who refuse to cross the line.

This clarified for me once and for all the purpose of our union. I was wondering why the University had agreed to let them organize more employees (a big drive is occurring right now). Obviously, they can keep the workers quite passive/fearful and still maintain a vague façade of militancy. They are doing the bosses' work for them! I know CHALLENGE has said this in the past, but now I have seen it for myself.

At first I just wanted to leave the union altogether but I did a little internal struggling and convinced myself this would only be a victory for them. I plan to take some CHALLENGES to sell and use them to start conversations about the union's role and the need for a communist party to make a revolution so the workers are no longer misled by these fake leaders.

Red with anger and getting Redder

Electoral Cynicism vs. Revolutionary Optimism

Days are beginning to turn into weeks without a new president. The legitimacy of the electoral process is deteriorating in people's consciousness with every passing hour. While the ruling class would like us to believe that each and every vote counts, the reality of the election crisis is proving otherwise. Rather than a direct majority vote, ruling class representatives in the Electoral College actually choose the president. The exclusion of Nader from the debates, and the dependence of third parties like the Greens on federal money to buy mass media exposure, proves that the two-party system makes sure that outside reform efforts are impossible. These are a few of the factors weakening faith in the system.

Yet despite the emerging disillusionment, nowhere is it guaranteed that working people will automatically condemn capitalism--much less move towards communism. The election deadlock, the bureaucratic delay and the absurdity of the entire election coming down to a few votes in Florida is adding fuel to the alienation working people experience daily. Many of those who voted are certainly angry and want results, but many more, whether they voted or not, are accepting cynicism as an "answer" to their frustrations.

Without PLP's leadership, the working class will only become more vulnerable and susceptible to fascism, the only "solution" capitalism in crisis can provide. Fascism lives off of cynicism and political desperation. It's the responsibility of every communist to fight against this trend. The controversy over the presidential election provides us with a tremendous opportunity to move the tarnished hopes of the masses toward a communist revolution and the realization of our class interests.

The ruling class knows mass disappointment and distrust can lead to protest and rebellion. We must cast away all our illusions and prepare for the struggle awaiting us. As CHALLENGE has said, both Gore and Bush are preparing for war in the Middle East. Remember when President George Bush, Sr. bombed Iraq in 1991, his popularity ratings went through the roof. Without a mandate for either Bush or Gore, we can assume that the ruling class might take advantage of the political void and rally people behind a drive for imperialist oil war.

LA Student

CHALLENGE COMMENT:

Even if there was (and it appears there soon might be) a direct election, we would still live under the class dictatorship of the bosses. Only one class can hold power, and the capitalist state (government, courts, cops) is how they exercise their dictatorship over the workers. Also, while another imperialist oil war is brewing, it's not clear that this botched election will help the rulers win the masses. If anything, there will be mass cynicism and skepticism about whoever wins, and the rulers will fill the "political void." Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson and the AFL-CIO's Sweeney will be called on to lead the cheering section and deliver the workers for war.

 

a href="#The State Of The Bosses’ Union:">"he State Of The Bosses’ Union:

• Capitalism = Wealth For Few, Terror For Many
• Communism = Production According To Needs Of Working Class

Organize Mass Outrage Against Killer Cops

MEXICO CITY,FLASH: COPS ATTACK UNAM STRIKE

Brooklyn Hospital Workers Square Off VS; Subcontracting Threat

New $25 Million Computer Kills Patient

a href="#Boeing Computers ‘ Upgraded’ to Prison Labor; Click on Subcontracting = Mass Layoffs">Bo"ing Computers ‘ Upgraded’ to Prison Labor; Click on Subcontracting = Mass Layoffs

a href="#Dell Has A Better Idea—Subcontracting To Prison Labor">"ell Has A Better Idea—Subcontracting To Prison Labor

AFL-CIO Protests Prison Labor Abroad; Backs It Here

Poultry Bosses " Raffle" Workers’ Lives

European Bosses Vs. Rockefeller Gang Vs. Miami Exile Mafia Vs. Fidel

Oil War.... Exxon-Mobil-Clinton Squeezes BP Amoco

80,000 March in Berlin for Lenin-Liebknecht-Luxemburg In Spite of Police Ban

Bosses Use Math For War And Profits: Workers Need It To Change The World

One Nazi March Halted: But Others March in Berlin and Nazis Form Government in Austria

Philadelphia Hospital Part of Healthcare Battle; Union Fiddles While Workers Burn

PLP Exposes Liberal Fascist Plan for Youth; Jail or Cannon Fodder

LETTERS

A New Comrade

Red Teacher Suspended For Being Anti-KKK

Notes from Coal Country

A Different Slant on WWII

Math and Dialectics

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a name="The State Of The Bosses’ Union:">">"he State Of The Bosses’ Union:

• Income Gap Widens Between Rick And Poor
• Racist Killer Cops
• Millions In Forced Labor In And Out Of Prisons
• Millions Without Health Insurance
• Capitalism = Wealth For Few, Terror For Many

Communism = Production According To Needs Of Working Class

To hear Clinton’s "State of the Union" speech, you’d think we were living in paradise. He trotted out all kinds of statistics to portray U.S. society as a land of milk and honey with an endlessly bright future.

The truth contradicts this fiction. In the midst of an economic boom which has created unprecedented numbers of billionaires and millionaires, life is getting progressively worse for tens of millions of U.S. workers. The gap between rich and poor is widening. For example, from the late 1980’s to the late ’90s, the increase in the average family income at the wealthiest 5% rose by $50,760—115 times higher than the poorest 40% (Business Week, 1/31). The average wages for blacks and Latins present an even wider income gap. Thirty million people in the U.S. go to sleep hungry. Forty-three million have no health insurance.

The Clinton boom has been based on one orchestrated body blow after another against the working class, all of them described in CHALLENGE the last few years. The liberal Clinton has hired tens of thousands of racist cops and given them a mandate to terrorize working-class communities. Millions of workers have been thrown off welfare and forced to perform slave labor Workfare for bare subsistence. Workfare drives down all workers’ wages. A big source of superprofit in today’s economy is the bonanzas bosses are reaping from hundreds of thousands of prison laborers. The list goes on and on.

Some small business owners, professionals and some higher-paid workers may not be feeling as much economic stress right now. But don’t hold your breath forever. A lot of this is based on the soaring stock market. Forty-nine percent of all U.S. families own stock, either directly or indirectly through pension plans or mutual fund plans. Sooner or later, we can’t predict when, the stock market will go down, as it always does. And millions of workers don’t even have this unstable retirement protection.

Furthermore, many are working longer hours and have accumulated a massive amount of doubt that hides real trouble. And according to the Wall Street Journal (Feb. 1), a "grim factor is…helping improve" the unemployment figures, the nearly two million in prison (highest in the world) who "are excluded from employment calculations….Jailing so many people has effectively taken a big block of the nation’s…citizens out of the equation." On top of all that, the WSJ also reports that "Rises in many salaries barely keep pace with inflation" and "some wages have fallen despite the economic boom."

Such as it is, "prosperity" in the U.S. is based on grinding down billions around the world. As we have frequently pointed out, "global economy" is really a term used to disguise vicious dog-eat-dog rivalry for profit among the world’s major imperialist bosses. Right now, U.S. rulers are managing to stay on top of their competitors during the ongoing crisis of overproduction, which is a feature of the capitalist system. But this supremacy, along with the bones U.S. rulers are able to throw to a certain section of the working class here, comes at a terrible price. A recent World Bank report pointed out that the number of people living on less the $2-a-day increased from 2.5 billion to 2.7 billion between 1987 and 1996. There’s no reason to believe this number will stop growing.

So this is the profit system’s claim to fame. In "the best of times," a relative handful of workers in a few countries serve as a "labor aristocracy," while the vast majority live in misery almost impossible to describe. And even this small number of better-off workers, always at the mercy of the next downturn in the boom-bust cycle, have no real security. "Peace" is defined as the absence of open armed struggle between the major powers. Meanwhile, dozens of smaller wars kill millions in a prelude to the next world war, which will inevitably break out sooner or later. Capitalism can do no better than this.

Our Party has a different idea: communism. Our class can learn to run society. We can collectively define and meet our needs without the profit motive, without wages, racism and imperialist war. To do this, we must make a revolution, seize political power and learn to hold on to it afterwards. We are discovering from our collective efforts over several decades that this is a long, uphill process. It requires building a mass base among many workers, youth and soldiers to fight the bosses day after day. It is the only commitment worth devoting one’s life to, and the only goal worth living, fighting and dying for.

Our answer to Clinton’s smug lies about the "state of the (capitalist) union" should be a resounding promise to work harder than ever for a successful May Day 2000 and for a spurt in the growth of the Progressive Labor Party.

Organize Mass Outrage Against Killer Cops

ALBANY, NY, Jan. 31 — Chanting "Diallo," and counting to 41 (the number of bullets the NYPD shot at Amadou Diallo last year), demonstrators from NYC and Albany protested outside the courthouse where the cops are being tried for the murder of this African immigrant. They were also protesting police brutality in Albany. Courthouse demonstrations are good but not enough.

This whole trial is an outrage. It is the biggest case of racist police murder since the early 1980s when Eleanor Bumpurs was shot by cops evicting this black grandmother from her city housing project apartment. It is a racist outrage also that the trial was moved to Albany, three hours away from the Bronx where the murder took place. But the bigger outrage is that anti-racist workers and youth have been influenced by the pro-Democratic electoral politics intent on "getting Hillary Clinton elected Senator." That’s the reason Al Sharpton and Herbert Daughtry curbed any militant protest. They’ve openly said that their efforts are the main reason the black community has not exploded.

Anti-racist workers and youth must break with the Democratic Party and organize no-holds-barred actions against racist police brutality.

MEXICO CITY, Flash

As we go to press, scabs and cops have attacked strikers at the National Autonomous University (UNAM). Many have been arrested. Now more than ever the strikers need solidarity and support from workers and youth all over the world. More next issue.

Brooklyn Hospital Workers Square Off VS; Subcontracting Threat

Brooklyn, NY, Jan. 31 — On Thursday, January 27, workers at a Brooklyn hospital took the offensive in combating subcontracting. Fifty workers stood in the lobby protesting the hospital bosses’ hiring of low-paid workers through a subcontractor.

At about 10:00 that evening, the news spread through the hospital that non-union workers were in the lobby to clean the floor. The word was passed for all workers to meet in the lobby at the end of the evening shift.

The workers began assembling at 12 midnight. They then stopped the work from continuing. The subcontractor confronted the workers and demanded the work be allowed to proceed. A shouting match developed. It escalated into an altercation when one union worker pulled the plug from the cleaning machine. This immediately stopped the work again.

Security guards and supervisors came running to the scene to bring "order." The workers shouted at these bosses, accusing them of subcontracting to increase profits, ignoring the needs of the workers and patients. One worker exclaimed, "We’re not here to fight with the subcontractor’s workers. That’s what the bosses would like to happen—workers against workers. The workers here at the hospital make three times more than the subcontractor’s workers, with health care benefits and vacations. The subcontractor’s workers’ are not the enemy; the bosses and the subcontractors who use the workers for their own profits are the enemy!"

The dispute leading up to this confrontation was brewing for some time. Recently the hospital bosses had laid off workers in the building service department while announcing "no overtime" during December. The workers reacted by going on a work slow-down. Then, in January the bosses decided to ask a few workers to work overtime. They refused. The bosses then hired subcontractors to do the work. The workers’ felt subcontracting could spread throughout the hospital. For the first time, they decided to take direct action.

The Local 1199 union leadership is not building a fight-back campaign to stop subcontracting throughout the hospital industry. Rank-and-file workers at every hospital MUST build our own campaign against subcontracting. Many workers at this Brooklyn hospital are CHALLENGE readers and are planning to attend our May Day march in Washington.

The drive for profits and the competition between the hospitals is part of a worldwide competition between the U.S. bosses and the rest of the capitalist world. At home, the U.S. bosses must squeeze the working class to secure maximum profits. They must inevitably drag down our standard of living, depressing wages and eliminating benefits any way they can.

But there is another alternative for the working class: fight to build a mass communist PLP in the 21st century!

New $25 Million Computer Kills Patient

CHICAGO, Jan. 31 — On December 4, the new Cook County Hospital SMS computer system went "live." Minutes later it crashed, and it would be four days before it worked. With the old system gone and the new one down, labs couldn’t report results. Manual systems had disappeared years ago, and the number of lab staff and phones couldn’t handle a fraction of the hospital’s huge test volume. By December 8, the SMS computer was working, more or less, along with a manual system with runners and paper lab reports. But by then it was too late for Darlene Owens. She died of a curable disease, not helped by delays in reporting her lab results—the latest victim of that vicious system called capitalism.

Early Sunday morning, December 5, Ms. Owens, 41, came to the emergency room with chest pains. She didn’t make it to the ward until Monday around 3 AM. Her dangerously abnormal blood test result didn’t get there until Tuesday. When the family came to check on her, Darlene was off the ward for a test. Staff told them she was "not acting right," and had become "confused." Late Tuesday night the family got a midnight phone call that Darlene had died. The news was especially intense and painful. On the day of the funeral, Darlene’s mother said, "They should have told us face to face."

‘This Never Should Have Happened…’

Hospital ward staff told Darlene’s mother that she "never should have died," and that there was a problem getting needed information from the computer. The workers were quickly put on notice by the hospital bosses and lawyers not to discuss what happened with anyone. Cook County is plagued by corruption, budget cuts, short-staffing and inadequate facilities. When tragedies occur, the bosses try to cover it up or look for a scapegoat. But the County Board is to blame for this death.

Darlene had a blood disease called TTP. The critical blood test that leads doctors to that diagnosis is a low platelet count. (Platelets help blood clot.) At one point, Ms. Owens’s platelet count was nearly zero, but this crucial lab data didn’t reach the doctors in time. The new computer system was down and there was no back-up. Labs were overwhelmed with unreported results. Phones were ringing off the hook, and workers all over the hospital were running frantically from one crisis to the next.

When one worker declared, "This system stinks––scrap it!" another asked, "Do you mean SMS or capitalism?" The answer is, "Both!"

The computer system should be scrapped before it kills more patients. The lives of workers, especially black and Latin workers, mean nothing to the racist bosses. The County bosses should hear from every union and professional group, in letters, resolutions and protests, that we will not sit by while they kill our patients with their corrupt schemes.

It doesn’t have to be like this. In the 20th Century, workers in Russia (1917) and in China (1949), seized power with communist revolutions. For the short time the working class held power, life was cherished. The Soviet Union enacted the first universal free health care. We must learn from that experience, and build a mass PLP to make another communist revolution, on a higher level. We will wipe out money and abolish wage slavery. Society’s goal will be to meet the needs of the working class. Organizing a big Cook County May Day contingent is an important part of this process.

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SEATTLE, WA, Jan. 26 — The Boeing News Clip service, which usually deals solely with aerospace matters, today ran an article from the New York Times entitled, "Dell, It Turns Out, Has A Better Idea Than Ford." Computer companies and auto companies: what’s up with that?

Dell, it turns out, is all the rage among manufacturing gurus. Professor Charles H. Fine, from M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, has anointed Dell the next wave in manufacturing. He attributes the company’s success to mastery of "supply chain management." That is, its "complete flexibility about whether a particular function is performed by its own people or by outsiders." (New York Times, 1/26)

Dell’s primary suppliers provide more than mere parts. They produce complete "systems," modules that click together, like a home entertainment system. The auto industry is following suit. Primary suppliers like Delphi and Johnson Controls now make climate control systems or braking modules, entire interiors or fully equipped cockpits. Beyond lean, beyond agile, "modularity" is the next big thing!

All this has a familiar ring to us Boeing workers. Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Deborah Hopkins has initiated a company-wide program to identify those components that can be off-loaded. As Boeing lays off tens of thousands, they are building up prime subcontractors to produce whole sections of the aircraft. These suppliers pay less than half the Boeing wages, often forcing these low-paid workers to put in 12-hour days. The implications are clear. But what this article doesn’t say is even more perilous.

a name="Dell Has A Better Idea—Subcontracting To Prison Labor">">"ell Has A Better Idea—Subcontracting To Prison Labor

Dell can guarantee "just-in-time" cheap computer components because they are made with captive slave labor in Texas prisons, supplied by the infamous Wackenhut Corporation (see box). This is the ultimate in a "flexible" work force. No worry about strikes here! Prisoners are available for work during peak demand and can be sent back to their cells during lulls.

Boeing just made Dell its sole computer supplier. No doubt, Boeing felt comfortable with Dell’s corporate profile since Boeing also exploits prison labor here at Washington State Reformatory at Monroe, WA.

As we passed this article around the shop floor, some workers asked, "Is prison labor really so bad?" The company even presented it as a "community service," giving prisoners training.

In fact, prison labor is part and parcel of U.S.-style "humanitarian" fascism. The disproportionately large numbers of black and Latin prisoners are not only a source of cheap labor, but they are used to drive down the wages of the whole working class. There are many federal and state programs-all packaged in a humanitarian cover-promoting prison labor. Are we going to wait until these programs grow, as in Nazi Germany? Let’s take them on now!

AFL-CIO Protests Prison Labor Abroad; Backs It Here

AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, along with Bill Jordan, head of the anti-communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, urged the bosses at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to "commit themselves to work towards universal social justice." According to the AFL-CIO, social justice means attacking China for using prison labor, but here in the U.S. it’s a different story. The Wall Street Journal reported last Auust that, "The AFL-CIO backs the idea of inmates [in the U.S.] working but wants it done ‘carefully.’" Dell and, for that matter, Boeing have nothing to fear from the likes of this trade union movement.

Lean, modular production, super-exploitation and captive prison labor. Progressive Labor Party has a better idea: let’s bring a large contingent of Boeing workers to this year’s May Day March in San Francisco, April 29, to build a communist movement that will put the bosses’ "humanitarian" fascism six feet under!

Dell’s Better Idea

The private company, Labor-To-Industry, a subsidiary of USXX, also known as US Technologies in Atlanta, uses Texas prisoners to assemble circuit boards for Dell Computers. USXX operates under an exclusive agreement with Wackenhut Corrections Corporation; a company, which, among other things, manages privatized prisons.

In 1995, Wackenhut Corporation transferred its circuit board assembly operation in Austin, Texas, to the Lockhardt Work Program Facility in Lockhardt, Texas. Some 180 Texas State prisoners now do the work for 50¢/hour once performed by 130 workers, earning $10/hour at the Austin plant.

The Lockhardt Work Program Facility was made possible by a special federal program, the Prison Industry Enhancement Program. In order to further camouflage this slave labor program, Lockhardt Technologies, which works out of this facility, changed its name to Labor-To-Industry.

This duplicity is nothing new to Wackenhut, whose board is made up of former FBI, Pentagon and CIA officials. Wackenhut also maintained the largest privately held file on dissidents in America, reportedly over four million names, which it regularly shared with government "red squads." No doubt, these lists will come in handy to fill the corporation’s jails with prison laborers.

Poultry Bosses " Raffle" Workers’ Lives

Rx for Ducks, Death for Us

LOS ANGELES, CA.—"The ducks have doctors. The workers don’t even have a first-aid kit," said a Woodland Farms worker. There are health inspectors checking the production line to make sure all the ducks go out in perfect condition. When there’s something wrong with one, they immediately stop the whole line. But for the workers, not only is there no first-aid kit, there’s no health insurance either. When a worker gets hurt or dies, as happened when Armando died last December, the bosses yell, "Don’t stop the line. Keep working."

The workers prepare the ducks for restaurants and stores. The boss’s profit comes from this preparation and presentation. The boss views the workers’ health as one more "needless expense." To him if someone gets sick, or dies, there are many more out in the street looking for work. That’s how capitalism functions. It’s not based on workers’ needs but on bosses’ profits.

Woodland Farms’ sales are $100 million a year, but they don’t spend even $1 million on workers’ wages. This situation has created a lot of discontent among workers who have begun to form a Struggle Committee to fight the boss’s attacks. A few days ago, the Committee met and (after a delicious bar-b-que meal), watched a video where white, black and Latin workers in an Indiana chicken-processing plant were fighting the came kinds of bosses’ attacks. Then a PLP member showed a movie about the Party and talked about marching on May Day to fight these slave labor conditions.

The bosses have counter-attacked, forming their own "Security Committee." Starting in February, every month four names will be chosen to win a prize of $30. To be eligible, you must have no on-the-job reportable accidents. At year’s end, there’ll be a big raffle, among those who’ve had no accidents all year.

In the poultry industry, it’s well known that lots of accidents happen every day. With this idea of "prizes," the bosses are trying to get workers to hide their injuries. In addition to exploiting us, they risk our health and our lives. But it won’t fool us. On the contrary, it makes us more determined to expose the capitalist greed of the Woodland Farms bosses.

Centuries of hunger, exploitation and death caused by the rich, greedy bosses are enough. We know that the workers, who produce all of society’s wealth, can live in a better world. That’s a communist society, a system where a worker’s life will be the most important thing, a system where the workers will produce to fill their needs instead of the murderous bosses’ bank accounts.

Workers must bury all the bosses and their capitalist system. We workers "have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win"—a communist world without bosses. We are coming to May Day with workers from this plant.

And a 6 Year Old Boy Shall Provoke Them...

European Bosses Vs. Rockefeller Gang Vs. Miami Exile Mafia Vs. Fidel

Should Elián González, the 6-year-old boy who was the only survivor of a boat trip from Cuba to Florida, be sent back to his father in Cuba since his mother died on the trip? This apparent no-brainer question has become the center of a soap opera involving the INS, Clinton, the National Council of Churces and the Cuban government on one side, plus the right-wing Cuban exile Mafia and its supporters in Congress on the other. Is "humanitarian concern" for Eliancito (Little Elián) behind this dispute or are capitalist/imperialist interests at work?

Firstly, since when does the hated "migra" care about reuniting families? Besides other hideous racists crimes, the INS is notorious for deporting undocumented parents and leaving their children behind with no one to care for them. And is President Clinton a defender of children? His sanctions against, and bombings of, Iraq (as well as Yugoslavia) have killed hundreds of thousands of children. Not to mention the tens of thousands of U.S. kids driven into the streets with his welfare reform program. So, what’s up with these murderous hypocrites?

Clinton and the INS are doing the bidding of their masters, the Rockefeller gang, the dominant sector of the U.S. ruling class. Their embargo failed miserably and the collapse of the former Socialist bloc did not see Fidel handing them Cuba for a song. They watch helplessly as the European imperialists and the Canadian bosses take over the island. They want to reverse this. Rockefeller & Co. want to lift the embargo against Cuba and normalize relations.

They are courting Fidel by flying Elián’s grandmothers all over in private jets, sponsoring a huge pharmaceutical exhibition in Havana and having 600 Pittsburgh University students make a friendly stopover at the island. They are also using this case to curb the power and influence of the anti-communist Cuban Mafia which has begun to outlive its usefulness.

On the other hand, these anti-Castro Cubans who dream of becoming the rulers of Cuba after Fidel, are against lifting the embargo. This will spell an end to their dreams and to their cozy relations with U.S. ruling circles. With their court suit they hope to galvanize the anti-communist sentiments in the Cuban community here and of the U.S., and use it to force Congress to maintain the embargo. Mas Santos, the son of the late gusano billionaire Jorge Mas Canoso, is the mastermind behind the Elián campaign. He is also using the Elián case to defeat his enemies in a power struggle for the control of the leadership of the Cuban exile mafia.This is what lies behind the rhetoric of "family values" and "concerns" for Elián’s future under Fidel’s "communist" rule.

Fidel also has his own political and economic reasons, unrelated to Elián’s well-being. Fidel would like very much to normalize relations with the U.S. In 1995, during the worst of Cuba’s economic downturn caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc, Fidel came to New York, put on a business suit and dined with David Rockefeller. But they could not agree on a price. Rockefeller thought the collapse of the Cuban economy would topple Fidel or force him to settle for peanuts. None of this happened. The European imperialists bailed him out.

But Fidel is not totally happy with them, either. He wants to industrialize the country but the European bosses don’t want this. Cuba’s labor cost is double other Latin American countries and as yet it has no access to the U.S. market. Fidel thinks he can play the U.S. against the Europeans to get a better deal all around. He is mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Cubans in the streets to have greater leverage at the bargaining table.

Under capitalism, appearances and reality are two different things. We must look below the surface of things. Capitalists, be they socialist like Fidel or imperialist like Rockefeller, will always trade with the lives and aspirations of the working class as long as we let them. They won’t do this forever. In the U.S. and other countries we have a growing PLP. In Cuba we have friends reading CHALLENGE. The working class will rise again, this time to bury all bosses with communist revolution.

Oil War.... Exxon-Mobil-Clinton Squeezes BP Amoco

Unlike 1996, the current presidential campaign reflects a period of relative unity among the biggest U.S. bosses. Every one of the leading candidates represents a compromise between Rockefeller’s Eastern Establishment and another sector of bosses. True outsiders like Buchanan have been marginalized. But competition, which is part and parcel of capitalism, makes it impossible for the rulers to achieve absolute or even consistent consensus. The current flap over BP Amoco’s proposed buyout of ARCO (owning large holdings in Alaska and on the West Coast) shows an important crack in the big picture.

This battle features the same capitalist factions that slugged it out in the Clinton impeachment brawl. Defending the Rockefeller wing, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is blocking the deal until it can wring major concessions out of BP Amoco. BP Amoco, in turn, has hired the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis to counterattack Clinton’s FTC (Bloomberg News, 1/24). Kenneth Starr, who led the impeachment drive against Clinton, was Kirkland and Ellis’s top partner and remained on its payroll well into the proceedings. At the same time, Starr’s firm was advising Amoco in its megamerger with BP.

Clinton unleashed the FTC watchdogs because a BP Amoco-ARCO combination would create a stranglehold on Alaskan crude. Fearing a shut-off of oil imports in its next major war, the main Rockefeller wing needs a ready supply of domestic crude, but doesn’t want it monopolized by BP Amoco. BP Amoco also threatens the dominance of Rockefeller’s Chevron on the West Coast. As a condition for the takeover, the FTC demands that BP Amoco unload large amounts of ARCO’s Alaskan North Slope holdings and several of its West Coast refineries. In contrast, the government allowed Rockefeller’s Exxon and Mobil to unite without a hitch. Exxon Mobil avoided anti-trust suits by selling refineries and outlets to Tosco, which is wholly owned by Rockefeller allies such as J.P. Morgan. BP Amoco has no such allies.

Something greater than West Coast oil supplies is at stake here. The Rockefeller and BP Amoco camps have competing interests that bear directly on foreign policy. Exxon Mobil’s and Chevron’s main strategy is to hold on to cheap Persian Gulf sources at all costs. This means a war to stop Iraq’s attempts to open up its oilfields to the French, Russian and Chinese bosses. BP Amoco, however, the biggest foreign investor in Russia, is increasing its operations from Siberia to the Caspian Sea even as the Kremlin becomes more virulently anti-U.S. And unlike the Rockefeller wing, BP Amoco is ready now to cut deals with Iran’s pro-Russian fundamentalist rulers.

War—With Or Without Britain

BP Amoco stands to hinder another feature of the stronger faction’s game plan. The anti-Iraq alliance between Britain and the U.S. survives only because Shell Oil’s outlook coincides for now with that of Rockefeller & Co. Shell is Britain’s largest company and has tight financial links to the U.S.’s Eastern Establishment. It works with Texaco and Saudi Aramco in a joint venture that has become the U.S.’s number one oil importer and refiner. If the pro-Europe, pro-Russia BP Amoco faction gains the upper hand in Britain, the alliance against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein will fly out the window. But such a break-up would not make an oil war less likely. Policy-makers for the biggest U.S. bosses have often said they are willing to take military action alone, if they must.

Through heavy support from financial ally Goldman Sachs, with which it shares two directors, BP Amoco tried to buy presidential candidate John McCain early in the running. McCain has since proved so loyal to the Rockefeller Establishment that New York Times editorials have praised his honesty and Laurence Rockefeller himself has gone to bat for him in a ballot dispute. But the menace posed by BP Amoco nevertheless heightens the Rockefeller wing’s need to impose economic and political discipline on itself and others and to galvanize the working class for war.

80,000 March in Berlin for Lenin-Liebknecht-Luxemburg In Spite of Police Ban

BERLIN, Germany, Jan. 15 — About 80,000 marched today in the annual Lenin-Liebknecht-Luxemburg demonstration. The march has grown every year since 1990, climbing to 100,000 marchers in 1999. Today’s march had been scheduled for last Saturday, but was abruptly banned by Berlin’s Police Chief the night before. He claimed he was "protecting" the demonstrators from "terrorists," who supposedly wanted to attack the march with machine guns.

Nevertheless, thousands gathered and defied the ban. They were surrounded and attacked by the police. Over 200 were arrested. It was the first time the "LLL" march was banned since the end of Hitler fascism, and is the ruling class’ reaction to the growing influence within this annual march of Marxist-Leninist forces to smash capitalism.

Bosses Use Math For War And Profits: Workers Need It To Change The World

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle.
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill
But he has one defect:
He can think.

-- Bertolt Brecht, German Communist, 1898-1956

Why does the ruling class need mathematics education within the public schools? Math has at least two contradictory roles to fill for the ruling class: the teaching of mathematics and the building of capitalist anti-working class ideology.

First, but not primarily, some math skills and understanding must be taught to some members of the working class. Many jobs, including traditional ones, require certain skills. Carpenters and other construction workers must be able to take measurements to make parts fit together properly. They must know how to calculate in order to know how much material is needed to complete a job. Cooks and mechanics must understand mathematical measurements, whether fractions or metrics. Some working-class children are needed in engineering, bookkeeping, accounting, science and other jobs that require greater knowledge of mathematics.

These needs have existed for ages. Today, however, there are new needs. As manufacturing, transportation and warfare depend more and more on technology and computers, the ruling class finds an even greater need for workers with the skills necessary to use, build and repair this new technology. Soldiers must be taught skills they "should" have learned in school. In the late 1950’s the U.S. ruling class lacked enough engineers, scientists and mathematicians. They watched the Soviets launch the first satellite into space. To catch up, they were forced to spend millions on university education. Today too few workers have been taught to operate the technological tools of production or of modern military weaponry. Now Clinton and the Republican Congress have agreed to put billions into the public schools.

However, the primary role of math courses in schools is to push capitalist ideology. This includes convincing workers it’s their fault for not having "made it." Math, perhaps more than any other subject, is used to make working-class youth feel dumb, unable to learn. We who teach math have heard many students say they "just can’t do it." Many workers have been taught that math is a "mystery," to be understood only by a small elite. If workers feel they’re "too dumb" to learn math, the next step is teaching them this is why they’re poor; that bosses "must be smarter" than workers and therefore deserve to be on top. Many workers think Bill Gates is rich because he’s a genius who knows more about computers than anyone else and therefore deserves his wealth.

The rulers guarantee that black and Latin youth go to the worst schools and get the least education. This combined with the racist and anti-working class nature of the "standards" tests now flooding the country guarantees that black and Latin working-class youth will do especially poorly. Then these racist results are used to justify the racist inequalities of capitalism.

The rulers don’t want working-class youth to learn to use math to understand and change the world; to understand political economy while using graphs and other quantitative analyses of class society; to show the likenesses of most workers. They certainly don’t want us to figure out how racism lowers living standards for all workers, how much the bosses make off our labor, and how dependent the rulers are on us. A working class that understands the world, recognizes its own potential power and is led by a communist party is the ruling class’ worst nightmare. It is up to us school workers to do our part to make it a reality.

One Nazi March Halted: But Others March in Berlin and Nazis Form Government in Austria

January 27th marked the 55th anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of the 66,000 remaining inmates at the Auschwitz death camp. In less than a year it had become the deadliest of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1944, Eichmann came to Nazi-occupied Poland and in less than six weeks sent 450,000 Jews to Auschwitz, the most people sent to an extermination camp in such a short period.

A few days after the 55th anniversary date several hundred Nazis marched in Berlin to the site of a planned memorial to the victims of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. The Nazis marched through the Brandenburg gates, "an act symbolic in Germany given that the Nazi troops during Adolf Hitler’s reign once held torchlight processions through the Gate. During past neo-Nazi demonstrations, police have not allowed participants to go through the Brandenbug Gate." (Associated Press, 1/30).

There were counter-demonstrators along the way shouting "Nazis Raus!" (Nazis Out). In Goettingen, 2,000 anti-Nazis prevented a scheduled rally.. This a good way to fight these fascists. As the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said at the Goettingen anti-Nazi event, "No tolerance for racists!" (AP).

This Nazi resurgence is not limited to Germany. In the homeland of fascism, Austria, another Nazi, Jeorg Haider, is about to become part of the government in alliance with the Conservative Party. For decades, a Conservative/Social/Democratic coalition has run Austria. Several weeks ago, this coalition ended. Haider’s Freedom Party, which got 27% of the votes in the October elections is about to run Austria with the Conservatives.

Haider is not just another populist who hates immigrants, he is an open Nazi. He praised Hitler’s "work policies" and said "Austrian soldiers during World War II weren’t criminals, they were victims."

Haider’s rise to power is sharpening certain contradictions in Europe. A number of countries there were horribly victimized by the Nazis. The European Union, in order to keep its control and its "anti-Nazi" image, has threatened to isolate Austria diplomatically if Haider comes to power.

Why has Haider received so much support in Austria? Although Austria’s economy is relatively strong, and there are scarcely any open pockets of poverty as in France, Italy and even Germany, many workers and others fear the changes of capitalism nowadays. Given the worldwide crisis of capitalism, the benefits they have enjoyed (the so-called welfare state) are being threatened by privatization, globalization, etc. Haider’s Nazi populism is seen by many as a solution.

Fifty-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz by the communist-led Red Army, the job is not finished. We in PLP have learned from the fighting spirit and dedication of the millions who fought and died against the Nazis. We have also learned that capitalism must be destroyed in all its forms. Workers and their allies worldwide must fight not only for Nazis "raus" but also their masters, capitalism. The only way to accomplish this is to fight for communism, for the abolition of the wage slavery of capitalism.

Philadelphia Hospital Part of Healthcare Battle; Union Fiddles While Workers Burn

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 21 — Henry Nicholas, the President of the 15,000-member Local 1199C Health Care workers union, is calling for a Leadership Summit in March to discuss "the cost of health care and its impact on the July 1, 2000 contract negotiations."

This is the first that Jefferson Hospital workers have heard from the union leaders since contract talks broke off in November. Jefferson bosses are demanding that we start paying $10-a-week toward our health benefits. The union refused, and Nicholas declared this a "strike issue."

The union is urging us to save five weeks pay in preparation for a possible strike. So far, there have been no membership meetings about the contract. Barely 100 of the 1,100 members attended the two meetings to ratify the contract demands months ago. Those meetings were so disorganized that many thought the union leaders intentionally sabotaged them.

Nicholas says he’s a health care "revolutionary," and supports a Bradley-style single-payer national health insurance plan. This doesn’t sound too bad to many workers and union activists who hate the profit hungry HMO’s.

But health care has become a battleground for competing bosses. The for-profit HMO’s are tied to those bosses who get their profits mainly from domestic oil production and high-tech industries. The Rockefeller capitalists want to reduce the cost of health care to re-arm the military for war. They are behind "single-payer" universal health care. "Single-payer" will allow the bosses to use their control of the government to reduce health care costs by rationing. This will mean much worse medical care, especially for black and Latin workers.

Workers should not support this idea. The danger is that Nicholas will use this Leadership Summit to win workers to the bosses’ plans for fascist health care. As CHALLENGE has said, "much like the bankers and industrialists who bankrolled Hitler, Rockefeller & Co. are turning to the labor unions to build a pro-capitalist, patriotic work force."

PLP communists are fighting to bring this understanding to workers as the union contract struggle develops. We try to connect every worker’s concern with day-to-day hardships to the development of fascism and war and the need for communist revolution. We have the advantage of many years of involvement with these workers.

For example, a petition by a rank-and-file worker, Sally, is now circulating in the Housekeeping Department declaring, "It’s time to fight for our rights!" Sally is a part-timer who, like a growing number of them, are angry that the bosses stopped assigning part-time jobs by seniority. Now they pick who they want. "Let’s do something!" her petition urges.

PLP communists are struggling with Sally and her co-workers to understand how this fight is tied to developing fascism and war. Our discussions can get rowdy and sharp. But we have confidence in the workers and our ties to them.

PLP Exposes Liberal Fascist Plan for Youth; Jail or Cannon Fodder

LOS ANGELES — "Would anyone on the panel be willing to comment on the parallels between what is happening in the U.S. today and the early stages of fascism in Nazi Germany?" asked a PLP member at the Schools Not Jails Conference against Proposition 21 last weekend.

"No parallel at all," said Saul Landau, the liberal spokesman. He was brought in to tell young people that because youth fought for reforms in the 1960’s, life here is so much better now. Many groaned. They know how bad life is right now for their friends and families!

The latest attack is California Proposition 21, the so-called Juvenile Justice Initiative. It would make it easier for the INJUSTICE system to railroad minority youth into prison. It would allow the District Attorney to try young people as adults for many offenses; allow young people to be identified as gang members on the flimsiest of evidence; make more offenses felonies; and keep juvenile records open, denying young people the opportunity to change their lives after they had been convicted of a crime as a minor.

This proposition is one aspect of growing fascism. The rapid increase of the prison population (two million people in the U.S. today, more than any other country in the world), plus the high proportion of black and Latin inmates, plus the increase in prison labor and the impact of "Three Strikes" legislation all add up to a war on black and Latin working-class communities, targeting young men, but with drastic impact on entire families.

Another aspect of growing fascism is the liberals. They are focusing youth’s anger on Pete Wilson (author of Prop. 21) and his small potatoes backers, like Hilton Hotels. Multicultural nationalism—"we must understand our ‘own’ ethnic culture and be part of a rainbow American culture"—fits the liberal fascist agenda of winning more youth to fight and die for U.S. imperialism. The lie that youth activism and the electoral process can resolve the basic contradictions of capitalism is important to the liberal fascists. They are deathly afraid the youth they need in their army will understand that this system is racist to the core, can’t be reformed and will conclude we need revolution.

The army is another institution with very high percentage of minorities. The soldiers who U.S. imperialism relies on to fight its wars are the friends and brothers and sisters of the youth who are being targeted and criminalized. So at the same time they’re jaiing black and Latin youth, they must win young people to believe that the U.S. is basically "a good country with a few problems" that can be reformed. They want us to believe that the federal government is not as racist as ex-Governor Pete Wilson and his friends—if the federal government says it needs you as their "heroes" to fight and die for "American ideals," then you better do it.

At this conference, PLP members pointed out those heading this movement are leading us right down the road to war and fascism—a road that is even deadlier than the movement of Wilson and his small potatoes allies. We said instead of limiting ourselves to fighting against Prop. 21, we should fight against the entire system that’s based on racism, exploitation and war. Young people, the generation under attack, can be a revolutionary generation. They can use the guns the bosses give them to make revolution and to fight for communism.

We distributed a leaflet to the 350 people there, as well as 70 CHALLENGES. We were able to focus some discussion on the question of fascism and war, and made several contacts for May Day. Because we’ve been involved in mass organizations with teachers and youth, and because our Party has developed deep personal ties and struggle in this area, it allowed us to advance the Party’s ideas.

We ran into several people who had known us and other Party members for many years. While they’re not in the Party or even that close to the Party, they know us as principled fighters for the working class. This gave us the confidence to fight for our ideas and we discovered there were many more people open to them. As we continue to fight the bosses’ attacks, we will recruit more people to the Party.

LETTERS

A New Comrade

A friend and neighbor of mine invited me to a meeting of PLP with workers from a duck processing plant. There I heard the Party’s ideas. They seemed right to me, that you’re fighting for a world without the horrible inequalities that exist today, between the rich and the poor and the injustices that come from that.

I would have liked to talk more about the question of pollution. This is yet another problem where the poor are the most affected, because the rich have the money to move and live in places where the air is purer. They can buy "organic" food (100% natural, without chemicals) which is expensive and inaccessible to the poor.

I liked the meeting and I want the Party to grow. Count on me for future activities.

New Comrade in LA

Red Teacher Suspended For Being Anti-KKK

In following up the recent story on my suspension by the Chicago Board of Education, this is the text of what I said at their January 26 meeting.

My name is Carol Caref. I have been a math teacher with the Chicago Public Schools for 16 years. We all know there is a shortage of qualified math teachers, so it might surprise you to learn that the Board has removed me from my classroom at Chicago Vocational High School and is planning to fire me. What are they saying I did to warrant this?

One group of charges centers on my participation in a rally against the Ku Klux Klan. Anti-Klan, not pro-Klan. Would they have preferred for me to don a white sheet? Would the school board have tried to dismiss the 50,000 workers who marched against the confederate flag in South Carolina? The other group of charges are related to my being a communist. You probably thought Joseph McCarthy, the famous anti-communist senator in the 1950’s, was dead. Well, evidently, he’s been reincarnated.

What is this really about? Most of us are familiar with the reform Board’s strong-arm tactics in the schools. Scripted lessons, high stakes tests, a curriculum that’s more about indoctrination than education; the teaching of patriotism, nationalism and unquestioned support for authority. Both as a math teacher and a communist, I take exception to this. I want my students to think for themselves, to investigate, to demand proof. I want them to fight injustice and stand up for what they believe in. I don’t want them to be terrorized by the police state tactics used against them. That’s what this is really about, and that’s why their attempt to fire me is indicative of their desire to wipe out all opposition in the school system.

I am here to say to this Board, put me back in the classroom. My students need me.

Chicago Teacher

Notes from Coal Country

Thanks for sending me the new PLP video. It was really uplifting and showed how PLP can do what no other group can—organize thousands to march under the Red Flag.That’s why I consider myself a proud member of this Party and wish I could be somewhere to help build the Party with others. Maybe I can make it to the march this year. I could speak for the Coal Country Coalition from the coalfields of Western Pennsylvania and talk about how the bosses have turned it into a rural ghetto, how the only solution is workers power and not any sort of sugar coated reforms.

News: hundreds to be laid off from railroads in Altoona. At Penn State, 90 students received racist messages in their e-mail boxes, traced to Temple University. An incident in Johnstown provoked letters. A woman wrote today attacking the police over a cop who overdosed on drugs and only got a suspension with pay, while a young woman who witnessed it died mysteriously. They actually cremated her without toxicology tests and ruled it a suicide. The woman was from a wealthy family from Lancaster, had quit school, gone to Hollywood, and then mysteriously picked Johnstown to live in. According to the news, she was living on public assistance. I talked to a young woman who knew her in the Johnstown Chorale group. She said the victim was a very fine soprano but seemed troubled. She was the only witness to the cop’s overdose. The whole thing is mind-boggling. It sounds like a scene from a film on Nazi Germany where a Nazi gets involved with a woman and is found using drugs and then the woman is bumped off by the Nazis.

This CHALLENGE is a good issue. I read it cover to cover and watched the video. I read "The Hurricane" movie review but I must say there were things about "Soldier’s Story" I liked when I saw it originally as a play. The black Sarge who was shot by two black soldiers was very abusive to black GI’s and called them racist names. He really hated one black soldier who played a guitar and was a great blues singer and blamed him for holding back black people. Also, the play allowed many black actors, men and women, to perform. Many plays have few parts for black people except for "A Raisin In The Sun."

Red Rocker

A Different Slant on WWII

Although I thought that the lead article entitled "100 Years of American Holocaust" (CHALLENGE, 1/12) was very interesting, I found that I differed somewhat with what was written about World War II.

The central point is that the U.S. established itself as the moral leader of the world in helping to smash fascism. Although it is certainly true that the role of the Soviet Union has always been underplayed by U.S. and Western historians, the U.S. emerged from World War II as not only the most powerful force (e.g., witness Hiroshima) but able to withstand the tide of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism to rule the world order, especially after the demise of the Soviet Union 10 years ago.

Secondly, the alliance of the Soviet Union with the U.S. and other Western powers was not even mentioned, much less commented on and learned from.

Third, fascism was destroyed. Because of the particular nature of German fascism, people in the U.S. do not see how this country could head, in its own unique way different from the use of German fascism, toward its own brand of fascism. This historical trend in the U.S. toward fascism needs to be explained thoroughly in CHALLENGE and other publications, because of its different "look" from the fascism of World War II.

Lastly, I do not think that enough emphasis was placed on how the war was a war of destruction of certain peoples, especially of Jews and others at the expense of conducting the war, a complex war that has left a long shadow on history.

Brooklyn PLP’er

 

Math and Dialectics

Thanks for starting the series on mathematics. I’ve already found it useful in talking with students and parents. We look forward to future articles. Like other parts of science, math is based on concrete real-life experience. So learning arithmetic and other parts of mathematics can help us in the everyday situations described in the article. The working class also needs to learn math to do science, engineering, and all sorts of technical work as we take power, and even more under communism. After the Russian and Chinese revolutions, victorious workers found they couldn’t always rely on middle-class professionals. They needed to become both "red and expert." That process starts now.

A key feature of math is abstraction. Workers, in our daily lives and in our struggle to change the world, need to think abstractly as well as concretely. Studying math is one of the main ways we learn to do this. Even basic arithmetic is abstract. A small child may know her age and the numbers, but still be unable to say how old she will be next year. It’s a big step from pushing three apples together with four apples and counting seven apples, to the generalization that 3 +4 = 7. Fourteen-year-olds often have trouble figuring that the number after "x" is "x + 1." They can add and count, but this is a new level of abstraction to learn.

So even elementary mathematics is a "school for dialectics." Just learning

"the numbers" is an exercise in the relation between the concrete and the abstract. Children learning arithmetic should be getting experience with both quantitative and qualitative concepts and their inter-relationship. Add one to nine, and you get a different kind of number—one where position matters. Change the lengths of the sides of a (general) rectangle, and you can get a particular kind of rectangle with a different name (square).

Mathematics develops on increasing levels of abstraction. As it becomes more abstract, it becomes more general. It rests on a huge accumulation of concrete human experience, and therefore its abstractions are very powerful.

Since the origins of class society, ruling classes have tried to keep the power of abstract thought in the hands and minds of a few. This is central to the social division between "mental" and "manual" labor, a division we are fighting to destroy. So I think it’ s more helpful to think of learning math in terms of the inter-related concrete and abstract, than in terms of the "pragmatic" and "ideological."

I’m sure that future articles will develop these ideas further.

West Coast Teacher

Editorial: Whether Bush or Gore, Prepare for an Oil War!

Win Voters and Non-Voters Away from Capitalism!

Winning Youth at Nader Group to Oppose Racism

Proviso Teacher Strike Can Serve The Working Class

Sterilize Racist Bosses, Not Poor Women

Union Relies On Cops, Politicians

a href="#CIA -- World’s Biggest Drug Cartel">"IA: -- World’s Biggest Drug Cartel

Building blocks for revolution at Purdue Calumet Univ.

LA Teachers Must Include Demands in Favor of Students

Mid-East War Becoming More Urgent Question

It Felt Like New Blood in my Body

Postal Union Leaders Treat Rank-and-File Workers as Second Class

LETTERS

Lessons in the Life of a New Teacher

History Channel Ignores Fact that Red Saved Jews During WW 2

a href="#Battered Women—Another ‘Freedom’ Under Capitalism">Batt"red Women—Another ‘Freedom’ Under Capitalism

a href="#On Actor’s Strike">"n Actor’s Strike

Red Delegate Blasts UFT Racism on Middle East Conflict

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Editorial:

Whether Bush or Gore, Prepare for an Oil War!

As we go to press, the world’s "only superpower" is behaving more like a "stuporpower." The "recount" of the Florida votes reminds us of the 1960 elections when Kennedy beat Nixon in Illinois by some 6,000 votes, a margin created by the Daley machine (famous for "allowing" the dead to vote). Regardless of how this election turns out, workers should start planning what our class intends to do now. We live in a world of growing instability. Instability and war are built into the nature of capitalism. No politician or rulers’ policy change can alter this fact of life. We must carefully estimate events and trends, in order to better organize for the long-range fight of building our Party and winning communist revolution.

The science that guides communists in our thinking is dialectical materialism. It teaches us to look beyond appearances and try to grasp the complex essence of things as they are constantly changing. This election is a great lesson in dialectics. On the face of it, U.S. bosses lord it over the international scene. Their economy is dominant. No other military can challenge them on the battlefield. Their navy rules the sea-lanes. Their cultural domination of TV, movies and music helps them promote profit-making illusions among billions of young minds. And yet, all this overwhelming strength is accompanied by growing signs of weakness:

For all its firepower, U.S. imperialism can’t make Israeli and Palestinian bosses sign a deal. In fact, the NERW YORK TIMES warns: "The next war in the Middle East may already have started" (Nov. 5). U.S. bosses’ dream of pacifying their western flank in that area of the world so they can make oil war in the east Iraq) is turning sour in a hurry.

U.S. grand strategy is based on continuing to control cheap energy sources, particularly in the Persian Gulf. The Rockefeller-controlled Exxon Mobil-led Eastern Establishment is determined to oust U.S. oil rivals from power. Specifically, this means Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. But every move the U.S. makes solidifies a growing anti-U.S. coalition. Exxon Mobil’s Russian, French and Chinese competitors are flying to Baghdad, Iraq to make clear their opposition to U.S. policy. Even the Venezuelans, formerly under total U.S. control, have gotten into the act. When Washington launches its next oil war, it will face heavy international political, if not military, opposition.

Indonesia, in which the U.S. ruling class has a vital stake—its sea lanes command all the oil passing to Japan and Southeast Asia—could blow apart in a civil war.

The "nuclear club" is expanding, and the U.S. can’t necessarily dictate what countries like India or Pakistan will do. Nor can the U.S. determine what North Korean bosses will do with their own nuclear missiles. If they see a big profit or political advantage by peddling these deadly weapons to some U.S. rival, they may just grab it.

In the spring of 1999, Clinton and NATO waged a massive destructive air war in Yugoslavia. Beyond their humanitarian lies lay the truth of an international dogfight for control of pipelines to transport oil and gas from the Caspian region to Europe. Bombing the former Yugoslavia back to the stone age settled nothing. The oil rivalry is sharper than ever. And U.S. companies aren’t necessarily winning.

Another cornerstone of U.S. imperialism’s grand strategy is preventing the rise of Russia or China to super-power status. This plan may succeed over the short run. The Russian and Chinese rulers face many problems of their own and aren’t yet ready for a showdown with the U.S. However, these rivalries have a clear logic, and neither the Russians nor the Chinese can or will play second fiddle forever.

Much of U.S. strength is based on the current record economic boom. Even though in the "best of times," this racist society still forces tens of millions of U.S. workers to live in dire poverty, many others are relatively well off. A large middle class still exists. We’re not predicting the bottom will fall out of the economy soon, but things are bound to slow down at some time. Many signs already point to the conclusion that this high-profit paradise isn’t eternal. The stock market has stalled. The huge U.S. trade deficit isn’t lessening. If the stock market declines, foreign investment that subsidizes the deficit will probably look elsewhere for profits. The European Union rivals of U.S. corporations are grabbing market share because of their own low currency—and they have a huge trade surplus. Again, despite appearances, many giant U.S. companies, like AT&T, are in big trouble. U.S. auto companies’ inventories are so big—overproduction—that the car barons are planning to close eight of 55 plants for a week, with resulting mass layoffs.

So although U.S. rulers still sit atop their throne and may continue to do so for a while, they’re seated on increasingly uneasy ground. As the Texas-based intelligence-gathering agency Stratfor points out:" The trajectory is clear. Interests between the world’s great powers will diverge. Since each by itself is incapable of restraining the United States, many will band together, forming ad hoc and formal alliances as necessary" (November 6). This is what PLP has long identified as inter-imperialist rivalry leading to war.

Instability is inseparable from the universal capitalist scramble for maximum profit. Presently U.S. bosses are quickly finding out that it’s "lonely at the top." Their solution to this growing isolation will be a series of wars. Each is likely to kill more than the previous one. Have no illusions on that score.

As the next president prepares for the next oil war, we should ask: What can our class do to break this vicious cycle? The answer? Join the Progressive Labor Party. Become a communist. Fight for revolution. Nothing less will meet our needs.

Win Voters and Non-Voters Away from Capitalism!

The voting age population is 205,813,000. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, the total vote cast was slightly under 100 million (Gore, 48,566,000; Bush, 48,332,000; Nader, 2,653,000; Buchanan, 440,000)—about 48.6% of all those eligible to vote. This was an even lower percentage than in the ’96 presidential campaign. And this is after the bosses spent $3 billion on this election, the most in history.

As we've said, simply not voting won’t get us too far. While tens of millions are disgusted with the bosses’ electoral circus, 100 million DID vote, including tens of millions of workers and youth who wrongly think this is the way to change things for the better. Many of them are active in the very same unions and other mass organizations we’re in, and follow that leadership. These organizations’ influence goes far beyond their membership. We must win these working-class voters away from the entire capitalist electoral system and its rotten politicians, as well as winning the millions who didn’t vote, and organize all of them to take the only road that can really lead to a better world: a communist-led movement to destroy capitalism and its racism, poverty and imperialist war.

Winning Youth at Nader Group to Oppose Racism

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA—In early October, members of the Bay Area Youth PLP Club joined a mass organization—Students for Nader (SFN)—to spread revolutionary politics among youth seeking protest against the system. SFN comprises leftist students united in political dissatisfaction. It is led by the International "Socialist" Organization (ISO) and Green Party members.

Our goal was to contrast the Party’s ideas with Nader’s nationalist politics. We didn’t want to appear as "Nader haters" but we also didn’t want to blindly support Nader’s acceptance of capitalism. Life is a great teacher. We made our first mistake at the very first meeting by openly attacking Nader for cooperating with Roger Milliken (U.S. textile boss) and supporting capitalist "democracy." We were written off as "outsiders."

We then decided to build on points of unity and show support for the group’s members, without supporting Nader’s politics. These points of unity were: anger at a two-party "democracy"; knowing that capitalism puts profits over people; the belief that working people need health care and education; and fighting racism. Our point of struggle was opposing the idea that capitalism can be reformed into a kinder, gentler exploitation. Over the course of a month we leafleted, participated in teach-ins and developed friendships.

Once we felt more comfortable in the group, we "upped the ante" at the weekly meeting. We pointed out that the group was predominantly white, and that we should try to change this. We also heard racist undertones in comments from a few people. In explaining the overwhelmingly white Nader rally in predominantly black Oakland, one person said the $15 cost excluded "some people" (read: "black people"). In response, we proposed a prison labor forum highlighting racism which could attract more minority students. This turned any racist tone at the meeting into its opposite.

We invited any and all group members to help organize and plan the forum on the prison-industrial complex. Guest speakers from several campus groups were suggested, including PLP. An SFN flyer and an independent PLP flyer were distributed for the event. Our open criticism of Nader in the PLP flyer drew fire from the ISO leadership, who attempted to crucify us in front of the group for supposedly "masking" our politics and "deceiving" the group. However, those members who had helped plan the forum defended us, one saying our politics were not dishonest or hidden. To the disappointment of the ISO, the event went on.

The forum was successful, drawing 19 students and workers. Points of view and personal experiences with the prison system were exchanged and the Party’s ideas were presented in a positive way. The Party’s prison labor pamphlet proved an invaluable resource. Ten students signed up to receive more information on PLP meetings and events.

We have learned several important lessons: find the points of unity such as fighting racism and prison labor and then struggle to advance PLP’s line; be up front about where we’re coming from; try to use dialectical materialism to analyze the situation; and, most important, build close ties with those involved.

Proviso Teacher Strike Can Serve The Working Class

PROVISO TOWNSHIP, IL, November 6 ¾ Teachers at Proviso Township High Schools have been on strike since October 31. The main issues are teacher pay, higher insurance costs and a restructured school day.

Union meetings before the strike were very disorganized. The union leadership was plagued with in-fighting. They were very reluctant, unsure and contradictory. The Board seized on this and made its final offer worse than the previous one.

Most of the leadership told us they would vote against it, except for the President and another official. The President is very disliked and many union members are openly disgusted with him. At one meeting, a teacher told him to shut up because the teacher was fed up with how he was always blaming the students.

At the "emergency" Board meeting tonight, parents and students berated the Board for failing to negotiate an end to the strike. One parent also berated the teachers’ union for past racism.

Many rank-and-file teachers are dedicated to serving their students, but this is not reflected in the union demands, which represent only the teachers’ most immediate interests. This puts the teachers in a weak position to marshal support from parents and students, who are mainly black and Latino.

The pro-student teachers want to teach their students, even tutor them outside the schools during the strike, but a fight must be made to include strike demands that put the students first. Otherwise the narrow trade union demands can be seen as a racist attack on the students.

The bosses need the schools to train the next generation of workers to be passive wage slaves. They rely on the teachers for this. That’s exactly what most teachers were doing before the strike. In order to represent the mostly black and Latin working-class students, we must prepare them to understand the class forces in the world so they may change it. Presently it’s how the coming oil wars and a growing prison system threaten their very survival.

We are using the strike not only to benefit teachers, but more importantly to get to know our students and their parents better, vital to building a base in the working class. Tutoring will strengthen our ties and clearly identify us as their defenders and advocates. This will carry over after the strike.

Eventually our students, as workers, will lead a revolution. We must give them that opportunity. With state power in the hands of the working class and its Party, education will serve the working people. We can build that communist future now in the middle of class struggle.

Sterilize Racist Bosses, Not Poor Women! Oppose Racist C.R.A.C.K.

BOSTON, Mass. November 8 — Activists at the American Public Health Association (APHA) meetings here were scheduled to propose a resolution opposing C.R.A.C.K.—a fascist organization that is bribing drug-addicted women with $200 to submit to sterilization or use long-term birth control . Communists and anti-racists believe we need a society without drugs, where substance abuse is treated not promoted, and where education and jobs are open to all. It is the capitalist system which sells drugs and alcohol for huge profits and then attacks the addicts it creates.

Opposition to C.R.A.C.K. In the U.S.

Last November when Chicago community workers tore down C.R.A.C.K. campaign billboards. Healthcare workers introduced a statement condemning it to thousands of other health care workers at the APHA convention in Chicago. This July C.R.A.C.K. (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity) posted ads in Washington, D.C. buses, bringing swift opposition. Unions at Metro (transit) and a large government agency passed resolutions demanding Metro remove the ads. People stated their disgust with its racist nature in calls to a local radio talk show where the C.R.A.C.K. founder Barbara Harris was speaking. The Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association voted to oppose the ads and raise issue at the current APHA meetings.

Follow-up meetings have broadened opposition to C.R.A.C.K.’s message from its narrow focus on reproductive rights to emphasize its racist ideology and discriminatory impact as well as its wrong approach to substance abuse. In Washington, D.C., an "Ad hoc Committee Against the C.R.A.C.K. campaign" has assembled a packet of information and sample resolutions for legislators, campus activists and professionals. This Committee is planning a workshop next Spring at the National Reproductive Rights Conference. (For packets, e-mail or call (301) 779-7432.) The Committee includes feminists, substance abuse activists, reproductive rights organizations, and communists in the Progressive Labor Party.

C.R.A.C.K. Is A Racist Attack on Poor Women

C.R.A.C.K. doesn’t care about women or helping them get off drugs. It exploits myths that babies born to drug-addicted mothers are seriously damaged and can never be productive human beings. This lures well-meaning people into their fascist ideology. There’s no scientific evidence proving that crack cocaine causes malformation in fetuses (Neuspiel, 1992, 1994; Hadeed, 1989). C.R.A.C.K. also exaggerates the impact of prenatal exposure to crack cocaine while ignoring the harmful effects of smoking (Nordentoft, 1996) and alcohol use (Streissguth, 1991) on the fetus.

Women’s health needs and reproductive rights are being dismissed. One billboard says, "Don’t Let Your Pregnancy Ruin Your Drug Habit"! They’re punishing addicted women for the "crime" of being poor—ignoring the fact that many low-income women have no health care coverage or cannot find or afford the substance abuse treatment programs they’re eager to enter.

The number of uninsured women rose from 14% in 1993 to 18% in 1998. (Commonwealth Fund 1999 survey) Women with incomes below $15,000 without private insurance coverage increased from 37% to 44%. Even women with private health insurance or Medicaid find drug treatment coverage extremely limited.

In fact, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which funds 40% of such services, has cut programs for women has by almost 40% since 1994. Federal funding for drug treatment programs for pregnant and postpartum women and their children has been slashed 90% since 1995.

Meanwhile, states are prosecuting pregnant women who use drugs, extending child abuse laws to cover "fetal abuse" or "transmission" of drugs to a third "person"—the fetus. They expect doctors and other health professionals to betray their patients’ trust to police and child protective services about the patients’ drug use. This counter-productive policy generates fear of prosecution, driving women away from the very prenatal care they need. C.R.A.C.K. and these states are attacking and addressing the reproductive capacity of poor women rather than their oppressive conditions. Poverty, racism and gender discrimination often lead women to use drugs to medicate their pain (Kearney, 1994; Rosenbaum, 1997).

Fascist Birth Control Policies Have a Long History

Various U.S. laws and movements have spawned eugenics—"purifying the race" Hitler style. In the 1920's, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger sought "to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit." (Sanger, Margaret, The Birth Control Review, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 11). C.R.A.C.K. aims to entrap low-income women of color and "eliminate their problem children." Offering cash bonuses to women who "agree to be sterilized" is similar to racist William Shockley’s proposal basing the amount of cash a woman could receive on so-called "scientific" estimates of disadvantageous hereditary factors such as heroin addiction, diabetes, epilepsy and low IQs. They both want to eliminate the disadvantaged rather than eradicating the social conditions causing disadvantage.

In the 1930's, 27 states enacted compulsory sterilization laws targeting the mentally and physically disabled and those who were convicted of committing crimes. An estimated 60,000 Native Americans, African Americans, mentally and physically disabled and poor persons were sterilized because of these laws, which were eventually annulled. By the 1940's private organizations and foundations drove the sterilization movement, including the American Eugenics Society, Hugo Moore (of Dixie Cup Corporation) and the Rockefeller Foundation.

By the 1970's an estimated 100,000 to 150, 000 low-income women were sterilized annually under federally-funded programs. Many women were coerced into accepting sterilization or their welfare benefits would be withdrawn. In 1974, the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia ruled that such practices must be ended (Relf v. Weinberger). It declared the "federally assisted...sterilizations are permissible only with the voluntary, knowing and uncoerced consent of individuals competent to give such consent." The court further noted that, "Even a fully informed individual cannot make a ‘voluntary’ decision concerning sterilization if he has been subjected to coercion."

However, no capitalist court ruling can eliminate forced sterilization, much less poverty, both spawned by the racist profit system. Only communist revolution can do that.

Partial List of References

Neuspiel DR. Cocaine-associated abnormalities may not be causally related. American Journal of Diseases of Children 1992;146:278-279.

Neuspiel DR. Behavior in cocaine exposed infants and children: association versus causality. Drug and Alcohol Dependency 1994;36:101-7.

Hadeed A.J., Siegel SR. Maternal cocaine use during pregnancy: effect on the newborn infant. Pediatrics 1989;84:205-21.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). National Pregnancy and Health Survey: drug use among women delivering live births, 1992. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health publication 96-3819.

Nordentoft, M. et al. Intrauterine growth retardation and premature delivery: the influence of maternal smoking and psychosocial factors. AJPH. 1996;86:347-354.

Streissguth, A.P., et al. Fetal alcohol syndrome in adolescents and adults. JAMA 1991;265:1961-7.

Kearney, M.H., Murphy S., Rosenbaum M. Learning by losing: sex and fertility on crack cocaine. Qualitat Health Res 1994;4(2):147.

Rosenbaum, M. "Women : Research and Policy" in Lowinson, J.H., et al. Substance abuse, a comprehensive textbook, 3^rd edition. Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins, 1997, pages 654-5 and at viewed on October 9, 2000.

Union Relies On Cops, Politicians

BOSTON, MASS, October 30 — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 285 led 150 people on a march to Family Services of Greater Boston (FSGB) where social workers are striking to save their jobs and to protect client care against fascist attacks.

FSGB director Randall Rucker is trying to fire all the social workers because they’re blocking his master plan to change the way social services are delivered. He’s demanding that social workers meet a weekly quota of "billable hours"—a quota of clients who can be billed, either those with medical insurance or those with a diagnosed mental illness for which Medicaid can be billed. This would force social workers to label their clients as mentally ill in order to receive services.

This fascist trend cuts services to the working class, turns professionals against the people they serve and blames society’s problems on peoples’ alleged brain or genetic "defects."

SEIU organized the EVENT as a funeral march, "mourning the death of family services." SEIU’s leaders rely primarily on politicians as advocates. They invited Micky Roach, a former police chief and city councilman, to speak at the rally. He thanked the cops for their "patience" with the strike. But the police are working as strikebreakers, clearing the strikers from the driveway every time a van full of scabs enters. Unfortunately, the strikers have been convinced they will lose if they don’t have "friends" like Mickey Roach.

Today’s march should have been a rallying cry to spread the strike among workers in other social service agencies. Instead, SEIU narrows the strike to a labor dispute at FSGB. It refuses to expose Rucker’s racism and war against clients, or draw parallels to what is happening in other social services and refuses to activate clients in support of the strike. Until workers see through this labor leadership strategy of limiting struggles, we will be fighting one losing battle after another.

PLP members sold CHALLENGE and distributed a leaflet exposing the role of such union leaders who consciously march their members into the arms of the enemy.

Some faculty from the Massachusetts Council of Community Colleges at Roxbury Community College (RCC) marched in solidarity with the striking social workers The strike and RCC’s Administration support of FSGB management (see CHALLENGE, 10/22) have given us a political opportunity. Now at RCC a small group of faculty is meeting with PLP, discussing articles in CHALLENGE and some immediate issues.

a name="CIA -- World’s Biggest Drug Cartel">">"IA -- World’s Biggest Drug Cartel

Swiss banks just froze $48 million in secret bank accounts of Vladimir Montesinos. How did Montesinos, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori’s Rasputin, get those millions? Apparently, by using his power as chief of Peruvian Intelligence Service and as the CIA’s top man in Peru to launder millions from the very drug cartels the CIA is allegedly trying to "stop."

To those who know the CIA’s history, this is not surprising.

During the Vietnam war, the CIA-run airlines which supplied the anti-North Vietnamese among the Hmong tribes and others, also flew opium for the warlords supporting the U.S. More recently. during the Reagan-Bush years, the CIA allied itself with the Medellin drug cartel to help finance the Contras who were waging war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

When journalist Gary Webb exposed the CIA-Contras-Drug Cartel connection in the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, major newspapers helped the CIA discredit the reports. Webb was forced out and the MERCURY NEWS even apologized for the articles.

Last year, secret Congressional hearings on the CIA-Contras-Drug Cartel connection revealed some important facts about the CIA, despite "clearing" it of all wrongdoings.

CIA inspector general Britt Snider told the hearings: "In the final account it seems that the goal of overthrowing the Sandinistas was primary over the adequate treatment of potentially serious accusations against those with whom the Agency was working." Duane Claridge, who oversaw the CIA’s secret aid to the Contras in the early years of the war against the Sandinistas, reported that "the anti-drug programs in Central America were not a priority for the CIA personnel at the beginning of the 1980s."

The Congressional Report exonerating the CIA is very revealing. For example, it concludes that "the CIA as an institution, did not approve the connections between the Contras and the drug dealers…" [The key word here is "institution."] Meanwhile, CIA operatives were allowing the drug cartels to transport drugs north into the U.S. in the very same planes the CIA used to carry guns south to the contras. Garry Webb blamed this CIA connection for the crack epidemic that hit inner cities throughout the U.S. during the 1980s. While Webb was fired and blacklisted, not a single CIA or Reagan-Bush official ever lost anything for this drug-dealing.

The CIA also performed a similar task during the 1980s in the war against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. It used the drug-running Pakistani Intelligence Services to smuggle opium out of Afghanistan while supplying the "Freedom Fighters" warring on the Soviets.(Osama Bin laden, the Saudi billionaire, was one of those CIA-financed "freedom fighters."). Last year, the CIA/Pentagon and NATO allied themselves with the drug-running Albanian mafia— linked to the Albanian Liberation Army—to fight Milosevic and the Serbian army).

Today, the same story is being repeated in Colombia. U.S. rulers have sent billions in aid to the drug-running Colombian army and death squads to "wage war" against drugs. Anyone who believes this is a sure customer to buy the Brooklyn bridge.

Building blocks for revolution at Purdue Calumet Univ.

Anti-Racist Forum Draws 250

HAMMOND, IN. — "The best thing about it was the unity!" These words were spoken again and again by students from all backgrounds about the forum against racism sponsored by the Black Student Union on Nov. 3. Although the university "forgot" to set up the microphones and students had to shout, that just added to the energy and enthusiasm! Even faculty who stopped by for a while were impressed at the energy and unity. In the past, there have been many cynical comments made about how students segregate themselves, especially in the lounge, but on this day, student after student got up and spoke about their grievances against the university. The strong sense of unity deepened as black, latin, and white students all spoke about their common problems and the need to fight back. Black students even brought up the need to keep anti-racist professors, including one white professor who is being terminated. The impact of seeing black students support white professors and white students criticize the racism of other professors did more to build solidarity and trust than all the phony "diversity" workshops the bosses set up. Some speakers also tied these abuses in to the ways that capitalism is based on racism and wars, including possible military action in the Middle East.

The incident that started this protest centered around Professor "Nicky" Jackson’s treatment of a black student, but the issues soon spread to critiques of other professors, (including one who continually comments that black students from Gary are involved in drugs) as well as other serious problems concerning the way that students are being driven out of the university. Remedial math courses are often poorly taught or with classes too large and there is a new rule being set up that will cut students off of financial aid if they have to drop a few classes. The professors who were criticized are apparently furious at leaflets and the Challenge article. Students are making plans to start a petition with numerous demands and keep the pressure on with more speak-outs. Whether or not the university takes action against Jackson, there are many more problems that need to be addressed. The BSU, including members of PLP, will continue to keep building the struggle. The responsibility for members of PLP is to broaden the struggle and help develop the understanding that racism and capitalism were born together and the only way to eliminate racism is to destroy capitalism. Additionally, we are building for November 18, the big 25^th anniversary dinner celebration of the "Boston ‘75" Project, when a hundred anti-racist youth spent the summer in Boston organizing against the racist anti-school integration (busing) movement. A big turnout for that dinner will help strengthen the unity and further help develop the revolutionary movement for the bigger battles to come!

LA Teachers Must Include Demands in Favor of Students

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 7 — "Mr. Chairman. I teach high school in South Central Los Angeles," said a PLP teacher and delegate on the floor of last week’s teachers union House of Representatives meeting. "My students ask me why we’re going on strike," she continued, "and why they should support us.

"If we want their support, we need to be committed to fighting in their interests. We need to make the fight against overcrowded, under-supplied, dirty and unsafe schools and for quality public education the lead demand. We must demand that new schools be built to relieve overcrowding and to reduce the number of students per teacher. We must demand that the school police—which targets working-class and minority young people on a regular basis—be disbanded, and that the money freed up be used to hire parents to guarantee the safety of the students, and that the military recruiters—who also target our young people to fight and die for oil profits in the Middle East—be denied access to our campuses.

"If we strike for these demands, we can expect students and parents to understand our commitment to them, and to support us in our struggle. Therefore, I ask the body to consider Special Order of Business #1."

The union president had been giving his usual lackluster report on the lack of progress in negotiations when our comrade rose to make the above motion. Teachers here have been working without a contract since July. Although negotiations have been on-going, the union’s timid reluctance to sharpen the struggle indicates they’ve really been marking time until the elections. The leadership is tied to the Democratic Party and a business unionism approach, relying on "changing" conditions through passing laws and electing "friends" among the bosses’ politicians rather than on organizing the power of teachers, students and parents through class struggle. Our motion reflects a continuing discussion among teachers and students about linking the fight against police terror and imperialist war to teacher and student demands for better education.

The main people being screwed in the schools are the students. Our demands, unlike the union leadership’s, reflect that reality, and our commitment to fight for the students and for quality public education. Many people agree with the first point, about making smaller classes, more schools, etc., the lead demand, ahead of demands for higher teacher salaries. We are in a coalition with other teachers for "educational justice" which advances these demands.

More controversial, however, has been the anti-racist demand to get the cops and courts out of the classroom. It takes more struggle to win teachers to support this. An incident after school demonstrated its importance. Two middle-aged communist women teachers tried to break up a fight, eventually stopped by two young male teachers in a big brotherly fashion. Afterwards, the cops drove up and arrested half a dozen kids who were on the outskirts of the fight. This showed more clearly what we should be fighting for—the kind of working-class security Progressive Labor Party organizes to guarantee May Day, a group of workers who are strong enough and committed enough to the working class to guarantee the march and isolate and deal appropriately with any attack.

When the working class runs society, for the workers, that’s what we’ll have. Cops—including the school cops—exist to protect private property and to serve the capitalist ruling class. Part of that job is to harass and attack working-class youth, especially black and Latin youth. At this point we feel we should demand parent and community patrols at our schools, responsive to and respectful of the community they serve.

All this was in our motion. Although it was ruled out of order, the vote to consider it showed at least 25 of the 120 or so delegates present in favor. After the comrade sat down, one of the members of the Bilingual Education committee, who had been active in fighting against Proposition 21’s attacks on young people, approached her. They had a long discussion about how the cops always target minority workers and how only communist revolution can eliminate police terror.

This resolution demonstrated how the Party can be active in the labor movement, and struggle for our ideas—showing that capitalism REQUIRES racist police terror and war—and at the same time fight to incorporate student interests into the union struggle. More consistent work can recruit some honest teacher activists to PLP.

Mid-East War Becoming More Urgent Question

We are raising the nature of imperialist oil war n the classroom and with our friends, but we were not very successful in getting this into the union meeting. At this time the question of racist police terror seems more urgent to our students also. The situation in the Middle East is heating up and can soon become very urgent for these students. The bosses will try to get teachers to win our students to support the U.S. in the coming wars for oil profits. We plan to raise this urgent question increasingly with students and teachers in this current struggle.

It Felt Like New Blood in my Body

(The following letter came from a comrade who met the Party in Mexico in the 1970s and was active with PLP for many years. He moved to another country and lost contact until now.)

I come from a peasant family. Capitalism keeps people in rural areas in extreme poverty and ignorance. Life was so hard that children were not just seen as new beings to be loved and cared for, but as additional help in doing farmwork.

To escape this hell I looked for work in a textile mill in a nearby city. For seven months I went daily to the plant looking for work, without much success. I saw the company giving jobs to friends and relatives of the union hacks, compensating them for their sellouts.

Finally one morning I got lucky. A foreman came looking for a mechanic. Though not a mechanic I was so desperate I said I was. My dream came through. I learned fast. Everything was wonderful, from the smell of the machinery oil to the colors of the tints used in the textiles. It amazed me to see workers running from place to place operating the machines.

But as time went by I began to see my dream was not that perfect. I saw the spinners eating their lunch standing up while working at the same time. The oil smell and tint colors began to change to me. I saw many workers coughing a lot because of the fumes and dust. Later, I discovered that 50% of those workers had TB.

Then that I met some young people selling CHALLENGE. At first I was not interested, but seeing them selling that paper every Saturday made me curious. I asked one young seller if he was paid for doing it. I couldn’t conceive of someone selling a paper, without pay, with so much commitment, even when it was raining. His answer amazed me: "We do it because the working class is the only one that can change the course of history, the only one capable of destroying capitalism."

I became more interested when he said the ideas of communism have been written for workers—when workers grasp them and understand their exploitation, they will change the world.

I was 18 years old and those were the sweetest and most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. That day I felt very important. A fire, hope was born inside me.

I then asked workers in the plant if they knew what being a communist meant. Some said communists were anti-god, wanted to burn churches, want to turn people into slaves. These answers made me think even more.

The next Saturday I asked the CHALLENGE sellers I asked what communists did who was financing the paper. I thought that would annoy them, but one young woman looked at me with the kind of tenderness I only had felt from my mother. She said communists were people like myself and the other workers in the plant. The difference is that "we have awakened."

"Awakened from what?" I asked. She replied that we see how world history has been the history of class struggle, of how the exploited masses fight against those few who exploit them, the have-nots against the have-everythings. She added that labor power is all workers have to sell to the bosses.

She then asked me if I ever saw a boss work for his/her money. I said no, but that is what they pay us workers for. She then explained how the bosses get surplus value from our labor, that the value of what they pay us is a small fraction of the value we produce.

It was then that I decided to read "The Communist Manifesto." Although I didn’t realize what was happening to me, it was like new blood flowing through my body. I began to see things differently. I began to understand what was happening around me. Then I discussed with some fellow workers, mainly with the lowest-paid, what I was learning. The older workers were afraid to talk because they were nearing retirement and feared losing their miserable pension.

After working with PLP for several years, I moved and lost contact. But finally, after two decades, I found the Party again, and know that the Party’s ideas are needed now more than ever. Whether under the name of globalization or free markets, capitalism continues to bring misery and wars to the world’s workers. I am glad PLP is still around and will do my best to help the fight for communism.

An old comrade somewhere in Latin America

Postal Union Leaders Treat Rank-and-File Workers as Second Class

NEW YORK, Nov. 8— Last week a shop steward of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) local here reported to dozens of co-workers at several lunch room meetings the latest news on shop steward elections, the current contract negotiations (Nov. 20 deadline) and the union’s October 26 contract rally (see CHALLENGE, Nov. 8).

The steward spoke favorably of the rally’s rank-and-file solidarity and militancy, saying the greater the unity, the more can be achieved. He also emphasized his disgust at the dominance of national and regional union leaders as rally speakers. These mis-leaders came for exposure, hoping for votes in the 2001 national union elections. William Burrus, the lead candidate for APWU President, revealed his plan to "threaten" management by taking the contract to arbitration! Such "militancy" will lead to another rotten contract.

Union leaders gave little news at the rally about the negotiations, but outlined a few of management’s demands for give-backs affecting wages and job security. Many workers in the lunch rooms agreed with the steward that the union leaders should have been made to listen to more rank-and-file speakers rather than talk themselves.

The steward pointed to an APWU poster stating that less than 1/3 of postal revenues are used to pay for workers’ salaries and benefits —only 9¢ from each 33¢ stamp. Thus, postal workers deserve a raise. Well, that’s true. However, the union mis-leaders avoided a more fundamental truth: all postal revenues are earned by the collective labor of postal workers throughout the country, 33¢ of every 33¢ stamp. By grabbing 24¢ of each 33¢ stamp, USPS bosses steal hundreds of millions of dollars a year from postal workers’ labor. (The same is true for every public and private company.) It’s "The System" that makes this huge theft "legal" with their laws, protected by the U.S. government, the Supreme Court, the police, National Guard, etc.

Workers applauded when the steward said, "The millions in profits should not go to pay big salaries to managers, nor bonuses to ass-kissing supervisors." The shop steward made it clear it is his conviction "that the value produced by our work should be shared" according to need. Many nodded in agreement.

More than the usual 30 to 35 CHALLENGES were distributed this issue. This will be a vital addition to the postal workers’ understanding of the importance of a communist analysis and program.

LETTERS

Lessons in the Life of a New Teacher

I’ve been teaching in a Jersey City high school for almost two years. When I started, a district-wide teacher strike had just ended. The environment I entered was hostile and unstable. New or untenured teachers were being pitted against senior teachers. Many new teachers, like myself, were seen as puppets for the administration. If teachers stayed late or came to school earlier than the union contract stated, others would say new teachers were trying to "please" the administration.

As a communist, my role is to, (1) serve the working class; (2) unify teachers and students; (3) build and lead class struggle; and (4) build a base and recruit teachers and students to the Party. For example, I taught a class focused specifically on reading and writing skills. Students needed to pass this class in order to graduate. Unfortunately, many didn’t have the necessary skills to pass. I would come in early and stay late to help my students complete the assignments and improve their literacy skills.

Many teachers disagreed with this. "These students can’t do the assignments," said these teachers. "They’re not going to pass anyway. Why bother?"

I was disgusted and angered by these racist and anti-working class ideas. At first, I struggled with them and talked about things I was doing in my classroom, but many of them didn’t want to hear this. Soon I became cynical about these teachers. I didn’t realize I had fallen into the "new-teachers-vs.-the-senior-teachers" trap. In a nutshell, I stayed away from all but a few teachers.

I decided to concentrate on my students. I helped them complete the assignments required by the state in order to graduate. I also helped them improve their reading and writing skills. This meant I had to come in an hour earlier each day and stay at least 40 minutes after school. The administration does not want any seniors failing the class. Consequently, many teachers feel pressured to help students pass at any cost. In the past, some teachers would write the assignments for the students. This, they say, is "easier" for them. They do not have to actually TEACH or come in early or stay late.

I would discuss this situation with my students, about how racist and anti-working class these ideas are. Some mentioned other teachers who taught them and who respected them. I reached out to these teachers and shared teaching ideas with them. We are building a collective of new and senior teachers. This has helped eradicate my cynicism because I saw there were other teachers fighting to teach their students.

I am building close ties with my students. I have showed several CHALLENGE. Some have come to Party functions.

Jersey Teacher

History Channel Ignores Fact that Red Saved Jews During WW 2

It’s Nov. 7 and I’m bored to death with all the reports about the electoral circus that’s about to elect another bosses’ puppet to the White House. Suddenly, I get a fax from the History Channel (the War Channel, as some call it). It’s about a program to be aired Nov. 26. The first paragraph reads: "It is well known that over 6 million Jews were brutally murdered during the Holocaust, but few realize that 4 million Jews were saved!"

I begin to think; I get this fax on Nov. 7, the 83^rd anniversary of the most important event of the 20^th century, the Bolshevik revolution that for over three decades freed one-sixth of the world’s surface from capitalism. For sure, the History Channel will report how Stalin and the Red Army saved most of those 4 million Jews.

Wrong again. It’s another "Schindler’s List" (the movie about the Nazi boss who used 1,000 Jewish slave laborers to produce for the Nazi war machine and supposedly "saved" them). The program will depict four diplomats who used their posts to help save about 100,000 Jews from the death camps. Okay, they helped 100,000.

But what about the other 3.9 million Jews (millions more) who were freed from the Nazi butchers? Well, you won’t learn about it on the History Channel (and its very anti-communist coverage of World War II). Instead, read PLP’s special May 17, 1995 CHALLENGE supplement, "50 years Ago the Communist Red Army Defeated the Nazis").

A Comrade

a name="Battered Women—Another ‘Freedom’ Under Capitalism"></a>"attered Women—Another ‘Freedom’ Under Capitalism

A friend of ours volunteers her time at a battered women’s shelter, where women can take their families when men becomes physically abusive. Recently she was assigned to help cater a banquet honoring those who donate money for the shelter. Shelters aren’t free; nothing under capitalism is.

It would be a fine spread and she wasn’t much looking forward to it, except that she knew overall it was for a good cause. The banquet was being held at one of Chicago’s finest hotels and the honorees would be big-money people, the kind who own companies that need workers to run them.

You start thinking about these rich people, how they make their money, what they pay their workers—40 hours a week, $10 an hour, trying to support a family of five. That’s not easy. People with financial problems many times relieve the stress by trying to escape reality. That’s true with capitalism in general. Maybe we turn to drugs or alcohol. Maybe we take it out on our families. It’s a no-win route, not acceptable, one that should always be struggled against with our friends, family and comrades.

But it’s a funny circle. Working-class families under financial stress will inevitably experience more instances of domestic abuse. The mother will seek assistance at a battered women’s shelter. Lo and behold, the owner of the factory where the abuser works for subsistence wages finances the shelter!

This is not to say there will be no domestic violence problems under communism. There will be. But not nearly as many, and they will be handled differently. Capitalist exploitation causes the stress which leads to domestic violence and then builds a few shelters for a small number of the victims of their greed. We will attack the root cause of this violence, primarily the profit system that can’t provide for workers’ families. If domestic violence persists, we will continue to attack. There is no room in a communist society for abuse against women or men.

Chicago Reader

a name="On Actor’s Strike">">"n Actor’s Strike

The producers and the striking Screen Actors Guild have reached a deal. After a long walkout, the commercials contract will likely be ratified by the Guild’s membership, although with only minimal gains.

During the battle, the stars were more militant than the AFL-CIO leadership. For instance, when it became clear that the same financial barons who produce commercials own and control the TV and radio networks and therefore were not publicizing the strike, nor actors’ demands, principal players were brought to massive street rallies in major cities.

At several such mass protests the local union bosses tried, unsuccessfully, to squelch workers’ rising anger. One fine autumn day in New York, Paul Newman told a rally, "Even Charlton Heston, who is no friend of labor, said, regarding the strike, ‘They’ll have to take the smoking gun from my lifeless hand’ and the media still didn’t mention it." Others spoke of "going to jail too, with you."

The militancy shocked State union reps. The day Newman spoke, angry protestors tied up the city while thousands marched, despite directions to reassemble later. One striker told reporters she "followed a tradition a lot like the one you can see in the movie ‘Cradle Will Rock.’"

On the way we were embraced by groups of wildly sympathetic hard-hats, construction workers breaking for lunch. The strikers managed to encircle GM’s skyscraper headquarters. Some chants were changed. Instead of "Shame on GM," it became "Smash GM" and, in English and Spanish, "The workers, united, will never be defeated." These caught on, first among some jingle singers and from there the entire GM block.

A commercial contract giving performers needed residuals is fairly certain. The vast realm of the Internet was addressed superficially, with a flat rate payment. But gains should be weighed against the skyrocketing cost of living.

Typically, the union’s members were cynical. And no wonder. Aside from mass protests very little done to organize the strike. Non-union actors were used as informational pickets in exchange for the promise of union membership. This widened the gap between union and non-union even more. Reformist factions, misleaders and would-be hacks, rather than unite with other striking workers, such as the LA bus drivers, tried to vote each other out of union office. Rallies were only partially publicized or given wrong times and locations.

Of course, more needs to be done to win over actors and performing artists generally to communist ideas. Self-critically, more CHALLENGES could have been sold. Those such as the jingle singers, who expressed interest, might have been asked to get together around strike issues or, perhaps, anti-racism.

Some believe it’s far-fetched to expect anything from Hollywood or the performing arts under capitalism. A total revolution is needed to root out bourgeois notions, such as "art for art’s sake," but it’s clear that intellectual workers can indeed be won to communist ideas.

Red Delegate Blasts UFT Racism on Middle East Conflict

At a United Federation of Teachers (UFT) delegate assembly on November 1, PL members as usual distributed a communist leaflet. This one dealt with the presidential election and the coming Iraqi war. We weren’t planning to raise any new motions. However, the union leadership had placed a resolution on the agenda about the conflict in Israel/Palestine. Though the item appeared innocuous enough because it talked about the killing of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, it primarily attacked the Palestinians: "Resolved, that the UFT condemn the crimes, atrocities, desecrations and acts of terrorism committed in the present strife."

In the bosses’ press, the only people called "terrorists" are Palestinians or other Arabs. The only "desecration" is the desecration of a Jewish temple. The only "atrocity" is the killing of two Israeli soldiers and a rabbi. Therefore, behind the apparent evenhandedness, this agenda item really subtly favored the Israeli rulers. It also said nothing about the role of capitalism/nationalism and imperialism as the cause of this conflict. One PL member (with only five minutes to prepare) called for an amendment to this resolution. He changed the leadership’s resolution to read: "Resolved, that the UFT condemn the killing of Arab, Jewish and Palestinian workers by whoever kills them." Clarifying his amendment, he explained that the current struggle stems from capitalism; working-class children are dying because of the imperialist drive for oil.

Four speakers attacked the amendment. The first said it was Marxist. The second said it "muddied the water." The third accused it of "being too one-sided" because it was "more supportive of Arabs being killed." All these speeches were anti-communist. Forty delegates voted for the amendment; most voted against it and some did not vote. Of the 800 members present, approximately 60% voted for the union leadership’s motion.

After the meeting several people stopped the comrade as he walked from the hall. One African-American woman took his hand and said, "Thank god you’re back in the assembly." Another person said, "That was very brave." Still another said, "It’s a good thing somebody spoke on the matter like that."

Outside the hall, another union member told him, "You were the one who raised the amendment? Thank you. I teach Palestinian children, and it’s been very hard." She also thanked him for pointing out the cause as capitalism.

We should have been more aware of the agenda so we could have prepared properly. It is an important part of building a communist movement. In this very critical period we must look very carefully at our actions as communists. We should be more serious about our work in this assembly.

A Red Delegate