Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

Recently, a very committed and active veteran member of PLP said about a union struggle, "CHALLENGE is important. But I’m not sure that increasing the readership of CHALLENGE is the most important." We would like to respond.

The struggle over the importance of our communist press is not new to our Party or our movement. It dates back at least to 1901 when Lenin and his comrades were organizing the Bolshevik Party. Then as now, there were many who opposed the building of a Party like ours, which aims to lead the seizure of power from the bosses. Then as now, there was no Soviet Union or Red China to draw strength from, and the forces of communist revolution were small. Lenin and his comrades understood that building a militant, centralized Party that spoke with one voice was the key to leading the working class to power. The Party newspaper is that one voice.

In the Marxist classic "What Is To Be Done?" the Party newspaper was described as "the scaffolding erected around a building in construction; it marks the contours of the structure and facilitates communication between the builders, permitting them to distribute the work and to view the common results achieved by their organized labor." In other words, CHALLENGE is a mass organizer through which millions of workers can be trained politically to participate in the building of a communist world.

The ruling class and its agents are building mass movements "against" globalization and police brutality. Over the past few years, our Party has marched modestly into the enemy’s camp, to challenge them for leadership of the working class inside their mass organizations. For instance, in NYC our Party gave leadership to many workers and students against the racist acquittal of the four cops who murdered Amadou Diallo. This included small job actions and mass student walkouts.

We participated in the AFL-CIO anti-globalization demonstrations in Seattle and Washington, DC. While the union leaders shouted, "Stand Up for Steel," and hypocritically attacked capitalist China’s "human rights violations," we exposed prison and slave labor in the U.S. and put forward communism to a very receptive audience.

In the past year, transit workers, postal workers and health care workers have elected veteran PLP members to their union executive boards in NYC, Detroit and San Francisco. There are many other examples. This is a very dicey situation. On the one hand, workers feel increasingly threatened by the bosses’ economic boom and are ready to try communist leadership. On the other hand, they’re counting on us to be militant, honest fighters for "better contracts."

Therefore, the more we get involved in the mass movement, the greater the need to expand CHALLENGE distribution. The Reform River always flows to the right. The more active we are in reform struggles, the greater the pull away from revolution. Concentrating on CHALLENGE distribution is the anchor that keeps our work from drifting downstream. Winning many new readers, writers and distributors will be the engine that pushes us to the left, and allows us to sail against the capitalist tide. It is absolutely vital for our readers to know how to win that struggle between reform and revolution.

CHALLENGE helps workers understand developments in the class struggle worldwide—what’s behind the Kosovo war, the Clinton impeachment, the Giuliani withdrawal, the Gulf War, etc. Only a communist paper can give workers the ideological weapons they need to understand and therefore change the world.

Let’s make this a CHALLENGE Summer and increase the base for our paper on the job, in the schools, in the barracks and on the streets. This will require the active participation of many more workers, soldiers and youth. As Lenin said, "…there is no other way of training strong political organizations except through the medium of [the communist party] newspaper."

By next May Day, we can double the distribution of CHALLENGE. This is a pre-requisite for more mass recruitment to the Party, and larger May Day marches. The Party can’t grow without CHALLENGE growing. Readers and distributors of CHALLENGE today will be members and leaders of our Party tomorrow.

Editorial 2

Fight to Give Gore the Welcome He Deserves

LOS ANGELES, June 6— The Democratic National Convention (DNC) will be held here August 14-17. Anti-WTO (World Trade Organization) student groups, unions and immigrant rights groups are planning protests at the Convention and throughout the city.

On the convention’s opening day there will be a march for "Human Need, Not Corporate Greed." The LA teachers union is planning a march to support public education. Protest leaders say the Democratic Party should be open to all and responsive to the workers’ needs. That’s exactly the image Gore & Co. want to portray! They want workers and youth to feel the system works, that the rulers listen to us.

Some of the Clinton/Democrats’ "achievements" include putting 100,000 more racist cops on the streets to kill and jail black and Latin workers and youth; Desert Storm and the sanctions against Iraq, killing one million; bombing Yugoslavia; nearly doubling the border patrol and deporting one million immigrants; forcing women and children off welfare and into Workfare or the streets.

Students in PLP are becoming active in the groups planning these protests. Last Thursday, there was a teach-in at UCLA, led in part by students in the Direct Action Network (DAN). They said you could protest the sanctions against Iraq and still support Gore. They’re planning civil disobedience during the convention and also want to demonstrate against racist attacks on black and Latin workers.

A student in PLP questioned the tactics of sitting in the streets and letting the cops beat and arrest you. He called for demonstrations against the LAPD and prison labor, and to attack the sweatshops in the garment center, near the convention site. He described Gore and the Democrats as the party of rich capitalists, saying the system can’t be reformed to meet workers’ needs. He called for a movement to replace production for profit with production for need—communism. A professor familiar with the farm workers’ struggle also called on students to build a mass revolutionary movement.

Many angry students in DAN and other groups are open to a different point of view. A movement with no leaders, as DAN claims to be, is like a car with no steering wheel. The rulers want to win these youth to support their plan for more war and fascism under the guise of fighting for "democracy" in China and worldwide. PLP says that millions of workers and youth can learn to lead a mass revolutionary communist movement to challenge the racist dictatorship of the capitalist billionaires. As we become more involved in the planning of the protests against the DNC and get to know the students better, we’ll take the opportunity to make friends and build the long-term fight for communist revolution.

Immigrant Workers Slam Bosses and Union Sellouts

NEWARK, N.J., June 1 – A group of laid-off immigrant workers from a large industrial factory led a spirited protest here today against everything from sexual harassment of the women workers to dangerous health and safety conditions to threats and arbitrary firings.

The cry of "Este puño sí se ve, los obreros al poder" ("this fist can be seen, workers to power") rang out as the workers and a few supporters organized a picket line and distributed flyers written by themselves and the NY-NJ Factory Workers Project.

Immediately the president and treasurer of the union Local appeared, asking to speak to the "person in charge." Workers surrounded them. While the union leaders lied, saying they "knew nothing about the case" and that the workers were being "used and manipulated by those people," many more workers and students joined the picket line. "We’re the laid-off workers ‘in charge.’ But obviously you don’t know us," said one worker to the shocked president. "YOU’RE using US. You take our dues, but don’t fight. We’ve never seen you talking to us in the factory, not before, when or since we were laid off. Not until today!"

Men and women workers grabbed the bullhorn. "We’re not stupid and incapable. We are leading our fight and we welcome all support." "We are determined and united. We’ll fight to the finish whatever happens. Our fight is more for the workers who remain in the factory." "Luchar, vencer, Los obreros al poder," (Fight to win; workers to power!) chanted people joining the picket until we were 60 strong. The union president, unable to understand Spanish, slinked across the street shaking his head.

Weeks before the protest, laid-off workers met with the NY-NJ Factory Workers Project to discuss the struggle, strategy and tactics. They distributed the two leaflets the Project produced to co-workers boarding vans to the factory. The leaflets appeared throughout the plant. One worker made 150 additional copies inside. "Support the laid off workers by walking out" was on everyone’s tongue. Although the walkout didn’t happen, the boss and supervisors became alarmed.

The following day the irate union president threatened a Project organizer. "You’re going to have 200 workers walk out. You’re going to ruin the lives of over 2,000 workers! We’re not a company union," he bellowed as he read from the leaflet. "The factory isn’t a sweatshop and this globalization is of no concern."

The he called back. "This other leaflet is worse than the first. All lies. The workers could never have written a letter like this, talking about concentration camps and Nazi tactics."

"You presume a lot," responded the organizer calmly.

"I’m not saying the workers are stupid." He snapped. "You should stop and desist. Talk to me first, not some group of disgruntled workers. I’m going to have the FBI investigate you; I’m going to take you to court."

Minutes later the factory chief of personnel called. "We have a beautiful factory here. We have a clean cafeteria. The workers are always asking me for favors…"

"Excuse me," said the organizer. "I’m sure you know the union president has already called me."

"Yeah, I sent him the leaflets," he said. "So they’re upset, I knew they would be."

The workers were laid off in April for refusing to work overtime on Good Friday, a violation of the union contract. The bosses’ strategy was to get rid of documented, militant workers each holiday while replacing them with undocumented workers. Now they’re scrambling, together with the union leadership, to get a federal mediator to "resolve" the issue quickly. At the meeting with the mediator they will me met by determined, united workers who will continue to take the offensive with the five categories of demands listed above. Workers inside the factory have pledged to "take the day off" to bring vanloads to join the struggle.

PLP members are deeply involved in this movement. We met these workers through our ties with other factory workers. Because of these ties, we have been able to distribute leaflets about this fight inside other factories. We’re beginning a workers’ school with English as a second language and with political education classes. Sixty workers have already signed up. Over half are factory workers. In informal gatherings, the English school, home visits, social events, PLP meetings and workshops, there is constant interchange between workers in the Party and the workers we are asking to join about subjects like the World Trade Organization and the unions, imperialism and sweatshops, war and internationalism, communism, democracy and elections.

PLP doesn’t use or manipulate the working class. We learn from the workers. We rely on the working class to lead the class struggle, to join the Party, to learn about communism. As one laid-off woman worker said, "I’ve always been quiet, but this struggle is teaching me a lot. I won’t be quiet anymore!"

The Tale of Two Racist Chicago Boards

CHICAGO, June 7—Two recent mass militant actions in Chicago exposed the racist nature of the educational system and the rol of cops as protectors of the racist profit system.

SCHOOL BOARD

Two hundred parents, students and teachers confronted CEO Paul Vallas and Board President Gery Chico at last month’s School Board meeting. Vallas gave a half-hour talk about the Board’s fascist commitment to high stakes testing, ending social promotion, and raising reading, math, and science standards.

One parent yelled, "You have one standard for poor kids and one for rich kids." With total disdain to the workers, Vallas walked out of the auditorium. That left Chico and his supporting cast to answer why thousands of eighth graders are not graduating due to low IOWA test results (The Board insists on basing promotions solely on these test scores). All hell broke loose.

A Special Education teacher at Curtis Elementary asked the Board to do something about the "worn, outdated books my children are using." Chico’s answer? We’ll take another look at it."

This teacher is scheduled for a termination hearing June 10. PLP members Moises Bernal and Carol Caref are being fired, along with 200 other teachers who have been fired under the "School Reform" that Clinton called, "the model for the rest of the country." Over 700 mainly black and Latin students have been expelled and double that number have been suspended under their racist Zero Tolerance policies. There may be a janitor’s strike against the Board’s plan to privatize the janitorial staff to cut out family health benefits.

POLICE BOARD

Meanwhile at last month’s Police Board hearing, 80 people demanded answers about the four police shootings in the first few days of the month. Everyone who spoke was mad as hell at the cops.

One woman demanded to know why her dead son’s clothes were not returned to her. Top cop Terry Hillard told some lie and directed her to some flunky. The woman said she had already seen the flunky, who had done nothing. The place went up for grabs.

One woman had been arrested for bringing birthday cupcakes and ice cream to her daughter’s elementary school. The principal doesn’t like the outspoken mom, and told her not to bring the desserts to the classroom. When the mom defied these insane instructions, the principal had her arrested!

Others spoke about the four shootings, pointing out that all the cops who killed people last summer were either on the job, suspended or fired. None are in jail. Speakers from an anti-police brutality group were enraged over an incident where a cop was disciplined for NOT joining in on a beating of a suspect!

Throughout the hearing workers jeered, heckled, laughed and chanted. One black worker called the whole thing a racist fraud. The Party led chants and waved signs. Our presence emboldened the anti-racist forces. Speakers were cheered. Each was more damning than the last. Every cop comment was met with disbelief. The crowed jeered and booed almost everything they said.

Finally a friend of Arthur Hutchinson came to denounce the cops’ murder of this homeless man last April for holding a fork. The friend was cut off, the meeting was adjourned and people rose from their seats chanting, crying and yelling, angrier than when this fraud began. The cops had to call in reinforcements to escort the top brass out. One young Party member grabbed a sign that compared the cops to Nazis and slammed it on the desk saying, "This is what you are!"

This summer we’ll have a big opportunity to become more deeply involved in the mass movements in the schools and against racist police terror, where we can learn and grow.

AFL-CIO Dangles Amnesty To Get Immigrant Workers To Pull Gore’s Wagon

CHICAGO, IL, June 3 — Today about 600 people attended the AFL-CIO conference on Immigrant Workers’ Rights and Amnesty for Undocumented Workers. Most who attended were workers from factories, restaurants, hotels and health care workers. But the conference was completely dominated by union hacks that earn six-figure salaries, and by Democratic Party/nationalist Latin politicians.

At the main table sat AFL-CIO Executive VP Lynda Chavez-Thompson, flanked by the Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME (government workers), the heads of the Chicago Federation of Labor, the State AFL-CIO, HERE (hotel and restaurant workers) and the UFCW (meatpacking and poultry workers).

Two panels of workers "testified" to this motley crew about the racist attacks they’ve suffered at the hands of the bosses. The workers ranged from fired union organizers from Minnesota to Chicago day laborers and laundry workers. The janitors and their union leaders were noticeably absent—the conference organizers didn’t want any hint of strikes and class struggle. This phony "hearing" was aimed at winning immigrant workers to think their salvation lies in citizenship, and the way to get that is to vote Democratic in November. Most workers were not impressed.

The opportunist union hacks could not hide the contradictions of their position. They started out saying, "Whether you came here on a slave ship, to Ellis Island, or across the Rio Grande, every group has had to deal with racism, poverty and exploitation." Then they welcomed these undocumented workers "to this great country of ours"!

A local Carpenters Union official from Cincinnati said, "This country exports poverty around the world and then we wonder why people come here looking for work." Then he let the cat out of the bag. He described a program to get immigrant workers into the construction trades and said, "This is a chance for us to work with business. They need labor, and we want these new workers well represented. This program was developed by the Chamber of Commerce, is backed by General Electric and Proctor & Gamble, and is being financed by five large banks."

As the PLP flier explained, these are the same union leaders who 15 years ago attacked bosses who hired immigrants. Now due to the "booming" economy and the need for more workers, they are doing the bosses’ bidding. At the first sign of economic trouble, they will turn on these workers, just as they sacrificed hundreds of thousands of black and white industrial workers in the 1980s, granting billions in concessions, give-backs and wage-cuts. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.

PLP brought about 65 workers from school, church and community organizing. We distributed about 75 CHALLENGES, several hundred leaflets and made contact with a group of angry workers who walked out of the conference. The vast majority of the people we brought are not in PLP, so this gave them a chance to get involved with us around an issue that’s very important to them. It also gave us an opportunity to show the difference between the union hacks lining up workers for the Democrats, and PLP fighting to smash all borders and lead the working class to power.

AFL-CIO Flunkeys Want to Win Workers to Gore/War

LOS ANGELES, CA —"What do you think of amnesty?" asked Maria, a garment worker, at lunchtime. "I don’t have many illusions, but it would be good." answered Juana, organizer of many struggles in the garment shops. "I think that it will be very limited and I don’t have any confidence in the union leaders," she said.

"The bosses plan to use amnesty to build loyalty among us workers to the USA," continued Maria, "so we’ll trust the Democratic Party and also send our children to the army and to the next war."

"I don’t think there’ll be a war," answered José. "And if there is a war, I’m sending my kids to Mexico," he said, laughing.

Maria explained that during the wars in Central America in the 1980’s, many families sent their kids to the U.S. Here they met the racist terror of the cops, drugs and gangs. A ground war in the Middle East or elsewhere will be worse. We can’t hide. Maybe even the youth of Mexico and Central America will be sent to the U.S. army. She invited them to form a factory committee to participate in the campaign for amnesty and to link that fight to organizing 150,000 garment workers against exploitation. Some said they would help.

"Amnesty? But I haven’t committed any crime," said a worker from another factory. The criminals are the bosses who created the borders and who own everything. The demand for unconditional amnesty for undocumented workers has been raised for many years by many organizations, including PLP. But the AFL-CIO is spearheading the current campaign to be seen as the workers’ saviors. Actually, in the 1980’s the AFL-CIO led the fight to penalize employers who hired undocumented workers. But now in many areas of the U.S., there is a labor shortage so "legalizing" more workers is the top bosses’ plan.

The AFL-CIO’s main role is to support the plans of the Democratic Party and the bosses behind it. They’re fighting to win the loyalty of the workers to defend the direct interests of the big bosses, mainly the Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class. Undocumented immigrants feel no loyalty to the U.S. bosses, or to the Democratic Party. Rockefeller & Co. want to change this. As a reward, the bosses let the unions collect millions in dues and allow them to be their junior partners in defending U.S. imperialism.

The bosses never give anything for free. In this case, they’re organizing a movement to give amnesty to some. These workers will be in the factories, fields, construction sites, restaurants, working for the pitiful minimum wage or slightly higher, and the youth will get rifles to go off to war. This plan doesn’t just apply to immigrant workers. The top US bosses are also building movements to win the sympathy of citizen workers—white, black and Latino.

We should all participate in this campaign, immigrants and citizens. Thousands will welcome the call for amnesty. But we should, on different levels, expose the AFL-CIO role and its "humanitarian aid." We plan to build factory committees, and work within the unions and community organizations to fight for amnesty, and against racism, exploitation and war. This is part of the ideological battle for the hearts and minds of the working class. PLP members and friends will participate in this struggle to fight, learn, make friends and build PLP.

The basis of this fight will be CHALLENGE. To answer the bosses’ patriotism and nationalism with workers’ internationalism, we must use CHALLENGE. To build a movement to destroy fascism and wage slavery, we need to spread CHALLENGE and the fight for communist revolution to thousands and then millions of workers. This campaign can put thousands of workers in motion.

Let the bosses bring the workers into the political arena to win them to liberal imperialism. PLP plans to win them to the long-term fight for communism!

Democrats: No Friends of Workers

The AFL-CIO is aiming to turn out an army of campaign workers for the Democrats in November. Clinton/Gore’s main contribution to immigration has been "Operation Gatekeeper." From 1996 to 1998 the fascist Border Patrol rose 42% and is growing by 1,000 annually. This has led to the deaths of more than 1,500 immigrants trying to cross the border in the desert or mountains, and one million arrests! The fascist vigilantes in Arizona who are attacking immigrants can’t hold a candle to the U.S. rulers.

Rulers’ Dogfight Over LAPD Won’t Help Workers

Los Angeles is important for the ruling class. It’s the second largest city in the U.S., with the busiest port, largest concentration of manufacturing, biggest point of immigration and the center of capitalist culture. Its movies, TV shows, music and Internet "content" are not only massive industries, but buttress capitalism on a global scale. It has growing numbers of working-class youth who can go into the army.

That’s why the U.S. ruling class is now engaged in an internal struggle over the notorious Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). It’s a fight over how to exercise state power, since the cops are the most immediate weapon of the bosses against the workers. The LAPD is and has always been racist, brutal and murderous—especially in those Divisions in black and Latino neighborhoods! But why the calls for the Justice Department to take over the LAPD right away?

Los Angeles’ importance was brought to a head in 1992, when the city’s multi-ethnic working class rebelled in one of the largest uprisings since the Civil War. Unlike LA’s 1965 Watts rebellion, this one included blacks, Latinos, whites and Asians. The 1965 rebellion prompted many social programs, such as Model Cities. The response to 1992 was much simpler. Phase I was mass arrests, the mobilization of the National Guard and three days of curfew. Phase II still goes on: major expansion of the LAPD and police attacks on minority communities. It also features sporadic "community policing" to develop a network of police collaborators throughout Los Angeles, especially in minority communities.

The fight over control and policy of the LAPD has escalated, with a slow-moving legal investigation and major press exposés of massive police abuse at the Rampart Division and others, like the equally notorious 77^th St. police station. Over 50 cops have been implicated for shooting people, planting or faking evidence, selling drugs, lying on the witness stand and giving unofficial "awards" for police shootings.

The LAPD gang "crash" units have been singled out for attack for their brutality and their gang-style tactics. So far nearly 100 convictions have been dismissed, with LA’s legal settlement bills already estimated at $200 million and still rising because similar crimes are being exposed at other LAPD stations.

Years ago, the LAPD’s gang crash units were made a national model of policing. Then Police Chief Darryl Gates led massive arrests of black and Latino youth who "violated curfew" for things like taking out the trash at night. These tactics have led especially many black residents of LA to view the police as the enemy in a war against them.

Today’s LA Mayor Riordan and Police Chief Parks have been stalling the investigation in order to save their reputations and their control over the city. But they are losing. The U.S. Justice Department, representing the Eastern ruling class, is asserting its power over the LAPD. These imperialist butchers have a new strategy. LA is too important to leave to the crude, open suppression policing of Riorden Parks.

In the past, LA cops were praised and copied for many years for their brutality (called "professionalism"). However, the Eastern Establishment needs a base of support among black and Latino workers to defend their empire and accept low wages. The LAPD’s naked fascism needs to be no less brutal but prettied up with "community policing," accompanied by a campaign to win community leaders’ support and defense of the police.

Along with black workers, Latinos led the 1992 rebellion. They number over 1.6 million in LA, soon to be the majority of the population. The ruling class needs to establish a cadre of liberal, pro-police leaders who fight for the loyalty of these workers in both labor strife and imperialist wars, and win them to believe the Democratic Party can make capitalism more livable. They need them to send their children to the U.S. army. It’s no coincidence that a new monument is being built in LA to commemorate the Latino war heroes who gave their lives in past wars so that the USA could be the number one imperialist power in the world.

This is also why many politicians supported the recent Justice for Janitors strike here. They hope that puny raises of as little as 30¢ an hour will build up a loyal Latino section of the LA working class, as well as a reliable Latino leadership group to control "their communities."

Another immediate issue facing the ruling class in Los Angeles is the August 2000 Democratic Party Convention. Many groups, including some anti-globalization forces, which opposed the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, and some unions and immigrants’ rights organizations, will hold rallies here. Their actions will be very limited because most, including the AFL-CIO, are pro-Gore. The AFL-CIO wants no repeat of the anti-WTO riots in Seattle or of the police riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. They want to ensure the demonstrations are "patriotic."

So the Justice Department wants an immediate consent decree to manage the LAPD and prevent Chief Parks from attacking the demonstrators. They know that Parks could cause a police riot and tarnish the image of the Clinton/Gore Democrats.

Communists in PLP are involved in these upcoming activities. We are encouraging protestors at the Democratic Convention to demonstrate against racist cops, prison labor and sweatshops HERE. But the police cannot be reformed to be "nice" to workers. The cops’ job is to terrorize workers, especially black and Latin workers, to work for low wages, leaving youth the "choice" of jail or the army.

We will raise before the protestors that such police terror and penal wages will end only with the end of capitalism—and that can happen only with a revolution for communism.

(More on bosses’dogfight over the LAPD in a future issue)

40,000 Teachers Protest: Helluva of a Lesson Plan

MEXICO CITY — Over 200,000 teachers from various states have mobilized with the CNTE, an opposition group inside the union, for a wage increase and for free public education.

Some 40,000 occupied the Zócalo, the government square and demonstrated against the centers of the city’s financial and political power. Although the government and the bosses’ press have tried to discredit the teachers, workers and others have backed them. So far the teachers have won some demands.

All politicians claim that education is the key to developing Mexico. They say teachers are crucial to this goal. However, they really want an elitist educational system to meet the needs of the market and train students in capitalist ideology. Meanwhile, they’ve cut the education budget.

The result is 41 million Mexicans have not finished elementary school, 54% of secondary school youth have no access to any education and 85% of all youth can’t go to college. An elementary school teacher starts at $300 a month. Teachers’ real salaries have fallen 70%. In the last few years, more than 100 teachers have been assassinated and many more have been jailed.

The Ministry of Education says there’s no more money in the budget for teachers. But there IS money to rescue banks, an amount six times the funds allocated for education this year. The $22 million used to rescue Serfin (one of the major banks) could pay for the education of 30 million students.

PLP Offers a Better Lesson Plan: Fight for Communism

"A system that defends the banks and cuts education doesn’t deserve to exist," declared a PLP flyer. Over 8,000, along with 300 CHALLENGES were distributed to the CNTE contingent by many striking teachers and friends of the Party.

The electoral parties have tried to use the teacher’s discontent to win votes. This city’s mayor, the liberal opposition party’s (PRD) Rosario Robles, publicly blamed the federal government for not solving the teachers’ crisis. Some PRD bosses have tried to curb teachers’ protests to save the local government’s image. In Chiapas, PRD teachers burned the ruling party’s (PRI) propaganda. Yet many teachers repudiate all the politicians. Although they don’t see the necessity of a communist party to organize the working class for revolution, this only means that PLP must intensify the ideological battle.

The teachers’ struggle demonstrates the power of the masses, shown when they took over the privatized tollbooths in the Mexico City/Cuernavaca area and allowed all vehicles go through for free. It also shows us the great need to double our efforts to recruit more teachers and build the Party with workers and students, to destroy capitalism and replace it with communism.

Anti-Racist Strike of Hospital Workers

GARY, IN, June 5 — "We have workers doing the same work, side-by-side, making $2.00-an-hour less than other workers doing the same job. Now they want to add more tiers. It's not fair for the younger workers and it's not fair for the older workers."

"Wait until the nurses have to scrub the floors in addition to taking care of the patients. Maybe our strike will finally help them to organize a union!"

So spoke two striking workers at Northlake Methodist Hospital. Methodist made a $3 million profit last year, and the administrators are paid ridiculously high salaries. They offered the workers $1.00 over three years, and want a three-tier wage system.

About 450 mostly black women housekeepers, nurses' assistants, dietary and maintenance workers in Service Employees International Union Local 73 have shut this hospital down, along with Southlake Methodist in Merrillville. Garbage and medical waste are piling up and patients are being transferred, demonstrating the power of the working class. The picket lines have been spirited, with 50-100 workers covering the four entrances. Workers from many unions are supporting this strike.

PLP members distributed 85 CHALLENGES to strikers and workers passing by. Some strikers gave us their names to be visited. We are bringing college and high school students to the picket lines, and mobilizing support among postal, steel and hospital workers.

This strike opens the door to working class unity in this region where 20% of all U.S. steel is produced. Morale is high but the workers will have to hang tough to keep the hospital shut. The racist Methodist bosses are using the local newspapers to attack the strike. Scabs, cops, court injunctions and professional strikebreakers are on the way.

This strike against racism can open the door to building the revolutionary movement in Northwest Indiana, especially in the steel mills. The next issue of CHALLENGE will have information on where local unions, community, youth and student groups can send donations and letters of support.

Bosses’ Racism in the South Pacific = Troubles in ‘Paradise’ Islands

"A single spark can start a prairie fire," said Mao Zedong, referring to how a single rebellion can spread. In the idyllic South Pacific Fiji islands, this single spark is turning into a reactionary racist fire. On May 19, armed anti-Indian racists who opposed the 1997 constitutional changes that supposedly gave equal political rights to all citizens for the first time, stormed the parliament. They took as hostages many members of the multi-ethnic government, including Mahendra Chaudhry, the first Prime Minister from the Indian minority. Nearly half of the 800,000 Fijians are Indian, descendants from indentured laborers brought by the British colonialists to work in the sugar fields.

On May 29, the Fijian army reacted to this crisis by seizing executive authority from the president and declaring martial law. Fijian nationalists dominate the army.

The military has made concessions to George Speight, leader of the hostage-takers, like scrapping the 1997 constitution—so much for "equal political rights"—and promising him amnesty. But Speight is now demanding that one of the Fiji tribal chiefs who supports him be appointed president with "all executive authority."

The current situation is very similar to the fascist take-over of 1987. Then Colonel Rabuka staged a CIA-backed coup against the liberal Labour government whose aim was to make Fiji "nuclear-free" and non-aligned (meaning not siding with the U.S. in the Cold War against the former Soviet Union). Rabuka launched fascist attacks against the Indian minority. Indo-Fijians were beaten and women were raped by racist street gangs who called for "throwing Indians in the oven." The Rabuka regime fiercely attacked workers in general. In 1991, miners who had been on strike for a year were threatened with 14-year jail sentences to force them to end their walkout. Rabuka had to end military rule. He ran and lost badly in the 1999 elections.

The imperialists, particularly Australia and New Zealand, are very worried that the political turmoil in the Fiji islands might spread and threaten their investments and political stability in the South Pacific. This is already happening. On June 6, a paramilitary group called the Malaitan Eagle Force captured the prime minister of the Solomon Islands, located 1.600 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia. The rebels put up roadblocks around the capital and overran key installations, including police stations. The rebels are demanding $14 million compensation for land they lost in Guadalcanal, seat of the capital of Malaita. The rebel leaders represent people who immigrated to Guadalcanal after World War II in search of jobs and land. Twenty months ago the so-called Guadalcanal Liberation Army (GLA) forced them to abandon their homes and threatened their jobs. Some 50 people have died in the fighting in the last 20 months and 20,000 have been forced to flee their homes.

These tiny islands are important sources of profits. In the mid 1990s, garment exports, which in the past had been very small, represented 40% of Fiji’s merchandising exports, employing 25% of the workforce. Tourism is also a source of huge profits for local bosses, like millionaire Ah Koy, who owns 80% of Air Fiji. He is a friend of Speight, leader of the hostage-takers.

Turmoil Reaches Australia, New Zealand

But the turmoil is not limited to these small islands. "In New Zealand...several leaders of the indigenous Maori minority have voiced support for Mr. Speight....One radical Maori leader, Kingi Taurua, said that a Maori-led coup in New Zealand could occur if the government did not act to recognize indigenous rights. In Australia, the largest and most powerful country in the South Pacific, some leaders of the indigenous Aboriginal minority are demanding that the government negotiate a treaty recognizing the right of Aborigines to self-determination and a separate homeland." (International Herald Tribune, June 5).

A combination of racism, different capitalist bosses fighting for a bigger piece of the pie for themselves and imperialist investors have turned this South Pacific "paradise" into a modern hell of capitalist and imperialist intrigues. Capitalism is Midas in reverse: everything it touches turn into fecal matter.

Horn of Africa Blows Up

As the May 31^st CHALLENGE explained, it is capitalist and imperialist rivalry which causes war throughout Africa. The war in the Horn of Africa between Ethiopia and Eritrea reveals this deadly truth.

The nationalist leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), in Ethiopia’s two northern provinces, united to oust Ethiopia’s brutal Mengistu regime that was supported and armed by the Soviets and Cubans. They then dismantled and stole most of the factories from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, shipping some to Tigray and some to Eritrea. This TPLF/ELF alliance also enabled the Eritreans to secede once the TPLF took power in the rest of Ethiopia. This occurred with full U.S. support.

When, in 1993, Eritrea became independent, the now land-locked Ethiopians lost access to Red Sea ports. Conflict arose. In 1997 Eritrea introduced its own currency, ending use of the Ethiopian "birr." Ethiopian rulers refused to recognize the new Eritrean money. At the same time, the bosses in landlocked Ethiopia complained about the cost of access to the port of Assab in southern Eritrea. When the Eritreans occupied Badme, some barren land in western Ethiopia, the Ethiopians used that as a pretext to launch a wide-ranging war.

The same Tigray nationalist rulers who oppressed Ethiopia’s masses divided the different ethnic groups to gain advantage for themselves. They also repressed the leftist opposition and cast thousands of workers onto the street, while pushing Ethiopian nationalism to get the masses to fight for "their country." The Tigray Liberation Front now ruling Ethiopia was formed by a formerly Marxist-Leninist group. Nationalism is used on both sides to set workers against each other and keep these murderous rulers and their imperialist backers in power. Now the Russian newspaper IZVESTIA spilled the beans, revealing that Russian generals and weaponry helped Ethiopia carry on the war.

Famine is now threatening about 15 million people in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The government did not prepare for it, except in the Tigray province. Some relief from abroad is being diverted to the war against Eritrea and to help mainly Tigray. All kinds of military technology worth billions of U.S. dollars are going to both sides, while millions starve.

The U.S. ruling class is very disappointed with both Ethiopian and Eritrean nationalist rulers. The Ethiopians may change masters and U.S. imperialism may arm some other nationalist group to fight against the current regime. There can be no relief for such endless pain and death without a communist movement to win rural and urban workers, soldiers and youth to turn the guns around and smash the nationalists and their imperialist backers. Real communists will then unite all groups in the Horn of Africa to build a society based on production according to our needs. Then away with all pests (famine, ethnic divisions, etc.) will become a reality.

As we go to press, the "peace" that had been declared exploded into all-out war again. Hundreds, if not thousands, have died in this latest round of fighting.

This conflict in the Horn of Africa has been called a "civilized war" because, unlike the U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the Russian bombing of Chechnya, and the civil wars in the Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola, etc., civilians are not targeted. However, over 100,000 soldiers, sons of the working class, have been killed in two years of battle. Meanwhile, millions face famine while the nationalist rulers of Ethiopia and Eritrea fight for access to Red Sea ports.

LETTERS

Israeli Army’s "Vietnam Syndrome"

The recent CHALLENGE article (May 31) about the chaotic withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Southern Lebanon area they had occupied for many years was very good. I want to add one point.

Southern Lebanon has been called Israel’s Vietnam. It was the first defeat for the "invincible" Israeli army. It also produced anti-militarist feelings in Israel, previously almost unknown. The Four Mothers movement, created in 1996 by mothers who either have lost their sons in battle in Southern Lebanon or did not want them to die there, represents this sentiment.

The results in Lebanon, where many young Israeli soldiers died, have also encouraged young draftees to refuse service in "difficult areas." All Israeli men are drafted for three years, women for two.

Many new recruits are seeking to serve "near home" or connecting their service to civilian life. In 1998, 65% of all men of military age wanted to serve in "combat units," while only 23% of all enlisted soldiers wanted to stay near home. Today, 34% are demanding it. According to the newspaper HAARETZ, the percentage of those not wanting to serve at all in the military has jumped from 1% to 6.2%.

This also reflects Israeli racist and class divisions. Less than 30% of youth from working-class families request duty in combat units, compared to 60% from more well-to-do families who want to join these units. Those from Askhenazi (Eastern European Jews) background are more apt to serve in combat units, while Sephardic Jews and the newer Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union are not as interested in dying for "their country."

War, particularly if one is on the losing side, does tend to sharpen the contradictions in all societies, including those claiming all-class unity in the name of religion or other reactionary ideologies.

Red Moses

What Is Behind NY Times' Sudden Discovery of Racism Among Cuban Exiles in Miami

The June 7th CHALLENGE article "Kosovo Comes to Miami" described conditions in Miami quite well. The sharp divisions there between Cuban exiles and the rest of the population did not occur because of little Elián González, but were sharpened once his distant relatives kidnapped the Cuban boy.

Interestingly, the NEW YORK TIMES, the leading voice of the Eastern Establishment media, has suddenly "discovered" this division. On June 5, the second of a series entitled "Black and White—Race Relations in the U.S., described relations between two young Cuban men, recent arrivals in the U.S. One is white, the other black. They were best friends in Cuba, but once in Miami their friendship cooled. Why?

The article traces it to racism among Cuban exiles. It says that in any other major city with a large Latin population, these two young men would probably have remained friends. The article even points out that despite the poverty in Cuba, there is not much racism or inequality among blacks and whites compared to the U.S.

So why does the TIMES run such an important "Pulitzer Prize-type" article attacking Miami’s Cuban exiles?

Obviously, things are changing. Last week, at the same time an Atlanta court ruled in favor of Juan Miguel, Elián’s father, and against the distant relatives (the kidnappers) in Miami, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the head of the Black Congressional Caucus were in Havana as part of the drive by certain sections of the U.S. ruling class to end the embargo on Cuba.

The political leadership of Miami-Dade County is run by Cuban exiles linked to the National Cuban-American Foundation, a group financed by the Franjul family and other billionaire Cuban exiles who control sugar production in Florida and the Dominican Republic. An end to the Cuban embargo will hurt their businesses since Cuba is a leading sugar producer.

So the Cuban exile leadership has, for now, became an obstacle to U.S. capitalist interests who will benefit from an end to the embargo. That’s the story behind the Elián saga.

Red Che

Protestors Go AFTA Expansion of NAFTA

On June 4,, several hundred workers, students and others protested in Detroit the planned expansion of NAFTA throughout the Western Hemisphere at a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS). This protest grew out of the anger of workers and their allies against their worsening working and living conditions, as well as the growing and ever-present threat of layoffs. The proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would worsen this situation by making it easier for the bosses to shift production to wherever labor is cheaper. A member and a friend of PLP were there and explained that the only way to end the horrors of globalization is to smash the fascist capitalist system behind it.

The rally was preceded by a brutal crackdown by the Detroit cops in order to terrorize workers and youth into not fighting the bosses' attacks. Detroit bosses spent over $5 million on the cops and their riot gear. Forty-five bicyclists were arrested for wearing masks. The capitalist press had a field day in supporting this, saying the demonstrators were "terrorists," and that protesters would be arrested. This affected some people. Some friends and family told us not to go, fearing the cops would attack us.

However, at the rally our leaflets were received very positively. One person enthusiastically yelled out "smash capitalism!" when he saw it in the title. We also met with members of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, with whom we hope to work in the future. We made several contacts, including one autoworker who told us of the massive overtime and speed-up he and his fellow workers face. We also ran into two friends whom we had met at a student-labor conference last year. We pointed out the fascist nature of the cops' crackdown, their role being to protect the bosses and their property.

We’ll keep in touch with these contacts and build our work in organizations to continue fighting the bosses' attacks.

PLP College Student

Better Off with Unions or Without?

Concerning the recent letter to CHALLENGE (May 31) from "Grandmother Jones" on whether it’s better to have a union, despite rotten leadership, than no union at all’:

Historically, the quest by workers for a union was certainly part and parcel of the attempt to gain some degree of control over working conditions, etc. It was a manifestation of the class struggle.

Workers who won unions, especially with communist leadership during the Great Depression of the 1930s, demonstrated their ability to confront the bosses head-on and win. Workers died fighting for a union. But the bosses weeded out the militant, left-wing unionists during the anti-communist witchhunt of the 1950s, and installed Cold Warrior anti-communists in union leadership, such as the AFL-CIO's George Meany who bragged that he never walked a picket line. From then on most union leaders were in bed with the bosses and the unions declined.

Currently, only 14% of the workers have a union of any sort. Also, these rotten leaders did everything they could to suck the militancy out of rank-and-file workers. In the heroic miners’ strike in West Virginia against Pittston Coal in the 1980s, the United Mine Workers union leaders’ "selective strike" position defeated the strikers by forcing them to wage their courageous class war all alone.

A recent book, "Why Unions Matter," by Michael Yates, demonstrates that unionized workers receive higher wages and better benefits than non-union workers doing the same type of work. Also, the grievance procedure makes it harder to terminate a worker on a boss’s whim, as happened at the non-union place where Grandma Jones worked.

That’s why companies bust unions or simply close the plant and move to a non-union area, either the South or to Mexico, El Salvador, etc., where they are free to exploit.

It is essential for communists to support workers in their fight for a union, higher pay, benefits and safe working conditions. But they must point out that even small victories by workers do not ensure that the capitalists, in this period of growing fascism, will not turn them into a defeat down the road. Only by eliminating capitalism can workers truly gain justice and resolve the problems created by the profit system.

Lenin, the Soviet Bolshevik leader, advocated the need for a revolutionary communist party to elevate workers from trade union consciousness to communist consciousness and to provide leadership to the workers for a revolution against capitalism and the establishment of Workers Power.

Concerning Grandma Jones' other question about whether strikes would be legal under communism: it would seem that with the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and with workers power, that any problems workers faced would be resolved as quickly as possible and that strikes probably would not be necessary.

Red Rocker

Information: Print

CHALLENGE June 7, 2000

Information: 07 June 2000 1959 hits

Union Hacks Hide Capitalism as Cause of
Prison Labor: Fascism, U.S. Style
1. Social Democracy: A `Fairer Capitalism'?....
2. ....OR SMASH PRISON LABOR WITH COMMUNIST REVOLUTION
PARDONS CAN'T CHANGE RACIST NATURE OF BOSSES MILITARY
1. Officers: Paid Leave; Black Sailors: 15 Years Hard Labor
PICNIC JUMP STARTS SUMMER PROJECT
MAY DAY ORGANIZING HEIGHTENS CLASS STRUGGLE AT PHILADELPHIA HOSPITAL
MUNI CONTRACT WON'T BRAKES ON EXPLOITATION
CHICAGO YOUTH ORGANIZE AGAINST RACIST COPS
KOSOVO COMES TO MIAMI
RACIST YONKERS COPS: NYPD HAS NOTHING ON THEM
LIBERAL SCHOOL REFORMS DEFEND CAPITALISM, ATTACK STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
ANTI-KLAN PLP'ER ELECTED UFT DELEGATE
SRI LANKA: The Three Horseman of the Apocalypse--Racism, Nationalism, and Imperialism
CHINA BUCKS U.S. CONTROL OF WORLDS' OIL SHIPPING LANES
1. NAVAL EXPANSION TIED TO OIL SHIPPING LANES
LETTERS

Union Hacks Hide Capitalism as Cause of
Prison Labor: Fascism, U.S. Style

SEATTLE, WA., May 26--"Have you seen this?" said a swing-shift machinist as he waved the latest copy of the IAM JOURNAL, organ of the International Association of Machinists. "What took 'em so long?"

He was referring to the lead article, PRISON LABOR: BUSTING OUT ALL OVER AMERICA, and the editorial, PRISON LABOR AND THE FIGHT FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE. For nearly two years we've been organizing against the company's use of prison slave labor. It seems the International has finally noticed the problem.

"It's great the Party has taken the lead on this issue," he continued. It's nice to be appreciated, but now what are we going to DO?

The prison labor article was one of the longest ever to appear in the JOURNAL. It documented how many hundreds of IAM members have lost jobs to prison labor, which pays as low as 11cents an-hour. Everything from maintenance and repair work in transit, to assembling John Deere products, to building landing gear components now uses prison labor. The article even shows how the prison population has exploded, particularly among black people and the poor. In particular, it attacks the private prison companies, like Prison Reality Corp. and Wackenhut.

After stonewalling on this issue for years, has the union leadership finally "got religion"? Have they been reading Progressive Labor Party's pamphlet, PRISON LABOR; FASCISM U.S. STYLE, or one of the thousands of other pieces of literature workers have passed through the plants?

The misleaders may have, but they're still playing their role of diverting our anger into dead-end streets. After that damning exposé, their only solution is to support two useless bills before Congress and to vote against "right-wing forces." One bill would require Federal Prison Industries (FPI), the government's prison slave labor program, to devote 20% of its budget to vocational training. The other bill would mandate that FPI no longer be the "sole source provider" for the U.S. government. Of course, at 11cents an-hour FPI would always be the lowest bidder so it would get the jobs anyway.

Social Democracy: A `Fairer Capitalism'?....

"The International is not against prison labor," declared our machinist friend. "They're just against unfair competition."

His complaint goes to the heart of the matter. No less than Thomas Friedman, the NEW YORK TIMES foreign affairs columnist and one of Rockefeller & Co./Eastern Money's chief mouthpieces, has called for social democracy: "You dare not be a globalizer in this world, an advocate of free trade and integration, without also being a social democrat," he warned. (NYT, 5/19)

By social democracy, he means joining labor, government and business together to put out the fires of class struggle--even if it means an exposé or two about capitalism's worst abuses. He's more than willing to give unions an opportunity to look like heroes and even grow in exchange for loyalty to Eastern Money's foreign policy objectives. This is exactly the role laid out for the social democrats (liberal Democrats) by the ruling class.

....OR SMASH PRISON LABOR WITH COMMUNIST REVOLUTION

On the other hand, nothing says the working class must stay within the limits set down by the Rockefeller & Co./Democratic bunch. Our machinist friend showed the way when he took a handful of the Party's prison labor pamphlets to distribute to every worker with whom he discussed the union article. The next weekend a group met to plan a campaign that would mobilize the rank and file to smash prison labor, not just reform it. Look to these pages for reports on the campaign's progress, and ways you can help.

Prison slave labor is the logical outgrowth of a system, capitalism, which requires greater and greater degrees of exploitation to survive. We're not out to make prison labor more palatable, we're out to smash it, and the system that lives off it, with communist revolution.

Editorial:

PARDONS CAN'T CHANGE RACIST NATURE OF BOSSES MILITARY

Not long ago, Clinton gave a Presidential pardon to Freddie Meeks, for the Port Chicago, Calif. mutiny 56 years ago. Meeks was one of 50 black sailors who refused to work after an explosion killed 320 sailors, 202 of them black, on July 17, 1944. Clinton was responding to a campaign to clear the names of the mutineers who "rose up for our rights," according to Meeks. Clinton also knows that black soldiers and sailors are need now to fight in U.S. imperialist oil wars to protect the profits of Exxon/Mobil.

The explosion was a typical example of the racism of the U.S. military. A book by Robert Allen on this mutiny revealed the rotten conditions under which these sailors loaded munitions. Before the explosion, the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) had warned such an accident was waiting to happen because of those dangerous working conditions. The then left-led ILWU had demanded that loading munitions into a ship require at least five years experience. But the Navy ignored all of this.

Officers: Paid Leave; Black Sailors: 15 Years Hard Labor

Lt. Col. Keith Fergurson had admitted that the black sailors were not trained for this dangerous job. After the explosion, Admiral Carleton Wright threatened the black sailors with death sentences if they refused to carry out orders during World War II Fifty sailors refused to work and were given 15 years at hard labor. After the explosion, the white officers in charge of the black sailors were rewarded with 30 days leave, although none were injured.

Compare the racism of the U.S. military during that war to the nature of the Soviet Red Army while fighting and defeating the bulk of the Nazi war machine. Not only was it a very integrated army, but it did everything possible to protect the ones the Nazi SS death squads accompanying the Werchmacht (the Army) wanted to kill first. It was Stalin's standing "order of the day" to the Red Army that all Jews be removed to safety before any advancing German force could seize them.

Not all the survivors of the mutiny accepted Clinton's pardon. Jack Crittenden of Montgomery, Alabama, told the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE he was not interested: "If the pardon means freedom from being villified," he declared, "we have already being villified for a long time." He also added that Congress should approve aid to the relatives of the 320 sailors who died during the explosion. That didn't happen either.

PICNIC JUMP STARTS SUMMER PROJECT

BROOKLYN, MAY 28,2000--Over 80 high school students, parents and teachers joined us for our annual PLP Memorial Day picnic. With great food and fun sports we enjoyed a day in the park with our base. Males and females participated in sports together. Those who knew how to play the game better taught those who were just learning. We all took turns either setting up, cooking, or cleaning up as is always done at our events. As people listened attentively, two speeches were given by PLP youth. One college student explained how PLP organizes a Summer Project every year to train youth to become communist leaders. She talked about the increased attacks on working class, high school students and their connection to the growing prison system. She urged all students to participate in a summer full of political study, revolutionary action and some summer fun. Two high school students talked about their participation in past summer projects. One mentioned our trip to Flint, Michigan where we brought our communist ideas to striking autoworkers. The other student remembered our trip to Steubenville, Ohio, where we went to prevent the KKK from spreading their racist ideas. Everyone there took CHALLENGES and invitations to our Summer Project. Our activities this summer looks promising. We have many serious and dedicated students around, but we must continue and increase our efforts to consolidate these students and reach out to many more.

MAY DAY ORGANIZING HEIGHTENS CLASS STRUGGLE AT PHILADELPHIA HOSPITAL

PHILADELPHIA, May 29 -- Building PLP during a contract fight right after marching on May Day--could the timing be any better? The Local 1199C contract for 1,000 workers at Jefferson Hospital expires June 30. And PLP is in the best position yet to advance the movement for communist revolution.

This year we did our best May Day organizing. While the numbers on the May Day bus were not what we wanted, we made undeniable advances. Some members developed significantly to discuss May Day by themselves and selling many tickets. CHALLENGE distribution increased slightly. For the first time there was actually a small "buzz" at the hospital about May Day. Groups of workers were talking on their own about the March and planning to come.

But maybe most important was finally breaking down the wall in our minds that viewed May Day as somehow "separate" from the daily organizing on the job. We were busier than ever in the union and in the many job struggles. Yet we did a distinctly better job of connecting all these struggles to the need for workers to come to May Day. No longer did we see May Day as just for the smaller group of workers "close to us" who had some familiarity with PLP and communism.

With our many years of organizing and the extensive personal and political ties of some of our members, we were able to very concretely connect even with workers new to us and conduct serious struggles with them to march. For example, Luis is a part-timer interested in organizing a fight for full-time jobs. He has never discussed communism nor read CHALLENGE. From several discussions with him about the difficulties in organizing a jobs campaign, we were able to show him that participating with many other workers in the international working class solidarity of May Day would help prepare him for the ups and downs of this organizing.

Jane is a part-timer who just got a full-time job. But other part-timers are filing grievances claiming they should have received that job, making Jane feel negative. "Why aren't we more united and fighting together instead of with each other?" Jane asked a union delegate. Jane never heard of May Day. The union delegate won Jane to march by explaining that May Day was the best answer for Jane's cynicism. She would be marching with many other workers who, like her, believed in working-class solidarity.

Throughout our May Day organizing we tried to have a more mass approach while explaining to everyone the role of PLP and communism. We tried to avoid being sectarian and opportunist, with mixed results. Yet for the first time May Day became for us what it should have been, an integral part of our organizing in the union mass work. Over the next year we will deepen May Day's role in our daily work.

PLP is now involved the 1199C-contract struggle to carry May Day's red flag forward - and it's scaring the bosses and the union leaders who serve them. Before May Day, the 1199C Organizer (Business Agent) ordered all Jefferson union delegates (and any workers who might lend an ear), that they are NOT to listen to, attend any marches organized by, carry any signs made by, or do anything suggested by Fred, a long-time union delegate.

Despite these "orders," on May 22 Fred and some of the active union delegates organized almost 200 Jefferson workers, in an "underground" manner, through word of mouth, to attend a "show-of-force" solidarity lunch in the hospital cafeteria. It was so popular the union organizer was forced to "endorse" it to avoid totally exposing herself as a sellout. But the union refused to give out any 1199C hats or buttons and none of the union leaders attended. However, it was the first time such a large number of union members participated in such an action on hospital property. It was also the first time some of the action's organizers really saw the bosses' fear of large numbers of united workers.

The 1199C leaders also showed their fear of the workers. Before the solidarity lunch, 1199C had called a meeting about contract negotiations for June 3. A new union activist fought for this Saturday meeting. It would be the first time in a long while that all members would meet together instead of in staggered sessions during the week corresponding to all kinds of crazy shifts. More workers than ever planned to attend. Several declared this would be a "hot" meeting for the union leaders.

Then, a week before this Saturday meeting, some members received a mailing announcing that the starting time had been pushed back four hours! The mailing was dated May 22, the day of our solidarity lunch. Many workers suspect that the 1199C leaders heard about the success of that action and are now trying to sabotage a mass turnout for the Saturday meeting.

Through all these twists and turns PLP has had the opportunity to grow. We are tied to many workers through years of political and personal struggles. We are reaching out to newer and younger workers to fight for jobs. CHALLENGE distribution is increasing. This contract fight is heating up the class struggle a little. Our organizing in this fight can help develop a better May Day next year.

MUNI CONTRACT WON'T BRAKES ON EXPLOITATION

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 30 -- "The situation at work is like a tinder-box, ready to blow at any moment." "It's not just about money, it's about respect." At the last union meeting about upcoming negotiations, one member said: "What contract? Management does what they want."

These comments represent a tremendous and spontaneous anger among Muni drivers upon entering contract negotiations. As communist bus drivers, we must discuss capitalism's real political and economic forces attacking our quality of life and standard of living.

The ever-growing two-tier wage progression (new drivers start at 70% and wait 31 months to reach full pay) means that over that period management pays new drivers $22,000 less than drivers with more seniority for exactly the same work. Today 12% of the work force is part-time. A two-tier retirement program leaves only about 225 drivers with a livable pension while the vast majority's plan pays $1,800.00 a month maximum.

Management wants to expand efficient "rush-hour" service to the downtown business and commercial district. Think-tanks like SPUR, the Chamber of Commerce and the Committee on Jobs use the government and courts to legally enforce the increased exploitation of drivers. This means a full assault on work rules, including giving management a blank check on changing work-hours, a further weakening of rules that allow drivers time off from a stressful job and limitless use of part-time labor.

Drivers are already scrambling, at tremendous cost to personal health and family life. Many depend on the individual solution of overtime (on average 400 hours a year, or 10 extra 40-hour weeks!). One would need $27/hr to earn the same income in a 40-hour week.

Drivers are protesting the disciplining of drivers for damage to the trolley overhead lines. This is like blaming bus drivers when the vehicle's tires wear out. Many experienced drivers left the trolley division in protest. At the Metro trains' Green Division, drivers were ready to refuse a "sign-up" because of management's plan to disregard safety and re-deploy 16 drivers to a downtown line. Faced with this challenge, management temporarily backed down. At Cable Car, there is a petition about discipline and rumblings about refusal to work OT in the busy tourist period.

There is wide-spread support for another petition demanding an end to wage progression and involuntary part-time jobs.

Downtown businesses are booming. San Francisco is the gateway to trade and finance with Asia, and has "Multi-Media-Dot-Coms" galore. Our labor is vital to the profits of the big corporations whose work force we bring in and out every day. But our contract never addresses these profits, or the "free ride" big business gets from mass transit.

Any contract, no matter how good or bad, is a written agreement on how a group of capitalists will benefit from the labor of workers. Capitalism is based on this exploitation, and it's not up for discussion in contract negotiations. Labor and capital are in a constant conflict that no contract can resolve.

Of all the results we need from this contract fight, the most important is more CHALLENGE readers and distributors so that more workers can consider a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. We are ready to lead a strike to stop the bosses' attacks. But only communist revolution will end exploitation and serve the needs of the international working class.

CHICAGO YOUTH ORGANIZE AGAINST RACIST COPS

CHICAGO, IL. -- On May 24, Gonzalo Venegas and another Lincoln Park H.S. student were brutalized by the fascist Chicago police. The cops punched and spat at them for being at the school the day of a gang fight. Principal Todd had called in extra police that day because of the earlier fight. These cops kicked everyone off school grounds and out of a neighboring park. Gonzalo's "crime" was resisting this abuse.

He was taken to an isolated area and threatened by a cop who lives in his neighborhood. He told Gonzalo if he saw him again he would break his arm. Then they shoved him violently and punched him in the face. When another student who was witnessing this abuse sarcastically "cheered" them for beating on another Latino student, the cops spat at him and handed him a citation. They handcuffed Gonzalo, extra tight, and dropped him off at the park from which they had taken him. No charges were placed. The cops just wanted to brutalize and intimidate the few students who were resisting their harassment.

Lincoln Park students have been active against police brutality this year. They have several lawsuits pending against cops for a fascist search where several young female students were sexually harassed by male officers. The principal promised meetings on the situation but months have passed and nothing has happened.

Students immediately began organizing against this latest brutality. Over 50 students came to the first meeting. The principal tried to defuse the students' anger, but no one believed her empty promises since she did nothing about the previous brutality. After discussion and struggle, students decided to hold a rally at the school calling for a mass meeting with the principal to discuss these problems before the school year end.

Lincoln Park students need to understand that these cops serve the capitalist state. They bosses must force us to submit to their plans for war and fascism, to accept continuing attacks against working class youth. So far this summer the cops have already killed two young black people here and have shot at many others. This caused enough anger for PLP and the victims' families and supporters shut down last month's Police Board meeting.

It promises to be a long hot summer but we will we will never give up organizing to get rid of their murderous system.

KOSOVO COMES TO MIAMI

Miami has been "different" from any other U.S. city for many years. It is the only city in the world where one must be not only anti-communist but specifically anti-Castro as a requirement for almost everything in daily life. The Elián case (remember him?) has exposed all of this. Now one must be anti-Castro, anti-Janet Reno and anti-Juan Miguel (Elián's father).

All this has divided the city between the Cuban exiles and the rest of the population of Miami-Dade County (Anglos, African-Americans, Haitians and non-Cuban Latinos) to such an extent that many fear Miami will become another Kosovo. EL PAIS, a Madrid daily, wrote (May 28) that several people are devising a plan to halt this division. "I hope that the Balkanization of Miami won't be permanent," said Edward Foote, University of Miami president and one of the proponents of a plan to unite the residents.

However, in the city's streets, nationalism reigns supreme. "The symbols of ethnic pride are shown with pride and defiance. And frequently, with hatred....Friends, fellow workers and relatives have even stopped talking to each other," reports EL PAIS. "It has reached the point of the United Way forming four teams of professional counselor-therapists to help more than 200 companies solve ethnic problems on the job and to seal open wounds."

Miami-Dade's 2.4 million population includes 700,000 of Cuban origin, 670,000 non-Cuban Latinos, 370,000 Anglos, 145.000 Jews, 490,000 African-Americans and Haitians. The Cuban exiles, particularly the local politicians and their master behind the scene, the powerful National American Cuban Foundation, view the Elián case as part of their anti-Castro crusade. They claim it is a symbol of their "suffering" as "exiles from communism." But almost everyone else supported Elián's return to his father Juan Miguel. The INS (Immigration Service) raid to free Elián has sharpened this division even more.

There is an interesting lesson in all of this. Anti-communism and racism is a two-edge sword for those who use it. While the Cuban exiles say they "revived Miami" and turned it into what is now known as the "Capital of the Americas," most others resent the Cuban control and monopoly of almost the entire local government. (The police chief and the city administrator, both of whom supported the INS raid, either quit or were fired and replaced by Cubans). The Anglos resent the Cubans in a racist way, as just a bunch of "uppity Latinos." Meanwhile, the Cuban exiles treat the other Latinos, blacks, Haitians and even non-white Cubans just as they did in Batista's Cuba, as their servants.

For many decades, U.S. bosses used the Cuban exiles as mercenaries to wage imperialist war against communism in Central and South America and even in the Congo when leftist Patrice Lumumba was prime minister. Now many see the Miami Cubans' nationalism as "un-American" for burning the U.S. flag during the protests after the INS raid.

Meanwhile, Miami is not the "paradise" Cuban exiles paint. It has one of the highest poverty rates among major U.S. cities (particularly affecting children). Low wages are the norm. Life is generally hard for most workers (except for Elián's kidnappers who have now moved to a bigger house outside Little Havana, courtesy of some rich friends).

This "Balkanization" of Miami proves once again that you reap what you sow. Anti-communism and racism are the bosses' tools. Workers who use them are putting a noose around their necks.

RACIST YONKERS COPS: NYPD HAS NOTHING ON THEM

YONKERS, New York, May 31--The cops in this city north of New York City don't seem to be far behind their fellow NYPD goons. They've unleashed a reign of terror against the mostly Latin community around Colin Street.

Under their Zero Tolerance policy supposedly to "fight crime," cops are harassing people indiscriminately. Last night, a Spanish TV station reported that the cops beat up a couple of young men in a neighborhood Latin family. But this time, unknown to the cops, a neighbor taped their brutal attack. The TV reporter interviewed all kinds of people in the community. They all agreed that the cops indiscriminately harass and push people around. A neighborhood priest said the cops even harass little children playing in the streets.

Workers and youth in Yonkers are getting fed up with this racist terror. They need to do what workers and youth are doing in many other cities: organizing and fighting back! But it must be done without relying on liberal politicians who just tell us "vote for Hillary" and things will change. The only change these liberals are proposing is "community policing" (to get us to help the cops harass us). Yonkers cops are doing what they are paid to do: protect the racist system and attack workers. The PLP Summer Project will see youth organizing against racist terror and for communism. Join us!

LIBERAL SCHOOL REFORMS DEFEND CAPITALISM, ATTACK STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

LOS ANGELES, May 23--Over 6000 teachers marched here for clean classrooms, more books, against merit pay and for an across-the-board raise. Teachers are angry at the worsening conditions. The union leadership has mobilized this anger. Coming on the heels of the janitors' strike, this march reflects both the anger of union members and an aggressive strategy by the liberal ruling class, who need to win workers, and especially teachers, to fight for reforms and defend U.S. "democracy."

Teachers in and around PLP are involved in many levels of the union, fighting the Board of Education and the union leadership. For over a year we've opposed the union/management proposal of peer review in different union committees, allowing us to raise bigger issues about education under capitalism. We've won respect for the Party's ideas and a somewhat wider CHALLENGE readership.

The educational system's failure is well known. Racist ruling class pundits blame the working class for this failure--we either have "bad genes" or dysfunctional families--or blame a few bad teachers. As the rulers prepare for war, they are mobilizing teacher-student anger into a movement to reform education. There is a debate about this. One side says youth can't learn what's required and the standards will just punish kids, so there is also a mass movement against standardized testing, which we're also involved in. We insist that youth CAN and MUST learn, but that these tests are designed to win them to defend a racist system or flunk out. This will increase the drop-out rate and put more youth at risk of police attack.

Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, says "industrial-style, adversarial tactics" of his teachers' union must be replaced by unions that "assist in removing teachers...who are unqualified, incompetent, or burned out." So the old "F--k-the-kids, We want our money!" approach is out. Now they're fighting to "improve" the schools by firing the "bad" teachers.

Peer review puts teachers on boards alongside administrators recommending that tenured teachers be fired. Many good people are being misled, thinking this means more good teachers, committed to teaching our youth all the skills they need, and fighting for the materials with which to do it. But those very teachers, in fact, are the thorn in the principal's side. They are more likely to be victimized by such measures.

Peer review is part of a trend to tighten control over the content of education. Teachers are required to teach to national and state standards, students are tested on them, schools and teachers are ranked by the test scores, students are flunked, and teachers are given merit pay--or fired--based on students' test scores. This kind of educational system builds unquestioning patriotism, illusions, passivity, willingness to work for low wages and to send students, lock-step, off to war.

Does the ruling class really want to improve education for the vast majority of working-class youth? Look at the attacks on them by police and the judicial system! While the rulers may need to improve the skills of some students, in general the educational system educates a few people to run society. It trains the vast majority to be wage slaves and cannon fodder. Educational reform is not designed to question or change class society, just to meet its changing needs.

Do the tests on the standards guarantee that students can read, write, do math and think critically? Will the standards teach students that they will be called on to fight for profits of one of the most murderous groups of rulers the world has known? Teachers who ask students to think about U.S. imperialism, the history of racism and class struggle, will be deviating from the standards--and are likely to be recommended for "peer review" by principals who see them as "trouble-makers."

Students need to learn skills and the history of the fight against racism and oppression. We have confidence they can learn whatever they need, but it takes a fight because capitalist schools are not interested in teaching most of them. Teachers must be organizers committed to teaching needed skills to the students, as well as uniting teachers, students and parents to fight the attacks on the youth.

As the rulers move toward war and increasing fascism, they're trying to use our anger at the failures of capitalism to enlist us to demand that the government take more control. We have the opportunity to expose the racist system, fight the moves toward war and fascism, and pose what kind of educational and political system we really need. Capitalism is incapable of providing it. The solution is a communist world where production and education are organized to meet the needs of those who toil, not the profit needs of a few.

ANTI-KLAN PLP'ER ELECTED UFT DELEGATE

BROOKLYN, NY, May 29 -- Last week a PLP member at Van Arsdale H.S. here was elected to one of the union chapter's two delegate positions, after having been at the school for only seven months. How did this happen? Therein lies a communist political tale.

Last October 15, the administration at Westinghouse H.S., where this PLP'er had worked for 13 years, cut out his program and transferred him to Van Arsdale. They made this move because he had been organizing a broad rank-and-file-led union chapter that would fight for changes in the school, always with the students in mind.

At Van Arsdale he was unknown except for a few people who had previously seen him at the city-wide union Delegate Assembly meetings where he had represented his previous school. But as chance would have it, five days after he entered Van Arsdale, he was one of three people organized by the Progressive Labor Party to attack Ku Klux Klan scum at a KKK police-protected "rally" in downtown Manhattan. The fight was the lead story on all TV networks that night and in the press the next day, with this teacher's role prominently displayed.

Suddenly everyone in the school knew him--students, teachers, administration. This was both a blessing and a problem. The blessing: everyone knew the kind of person he was. The "problem": he now had to organize quickly at a school which he had just entered one week before.

That task was complicated by the fact that, (1) he had to learn new skills, teaching three completely new subjects all in a somewhat unfamiliar environment--he had only taught jewelry-making for his entire time in the public schools-- and (2) at first most of his spare time was spent in helping with the movement he had helped organize at his original school (which is continuing).

The two schools were similar in several respects: the teachers are under tremendous pressure, the students are treated like prisoners and administrators--harassed by higher administrators--harassed everyone else. In this tortuous climate, he began by distributing CHALLENGE and becoming friends with teachers and students.

With the recent police murder cases of Patrick Dorismond and Amadou Diallo in the headlines, he would wear buttons and bring literature and organizing reports to school. Some teachers thanked him for politicizing the students. He wrote a couple of articles for a local newsletter published by one of the teachers and a poem for the school on the Dorismond killing. He was asked by another teacher, a preacher who liked his anti-racist stand, to sing Amazing Grace at his church on Easter Sunday. He did this, and added three extra anti-racist verses.

In his Humanities Department, most people know him as a communist. The rest of the school knows him as an anti-racist fighter. On May First he taught May Day lessons. In English, he posed the question, "Is May Day simply a holiday to dance around the Maypole?" In Economics, "What was the 8-hour day movement all about?" In American History, "Why is the international holiday May Day an American holiday?"

He met a number of union members who wanted to run a slate against the old union officers. They talked politically among each other and formed a loose slate. Given his anti-Klan notoriety and his raising of political issues at his new school, he figured it was logical to run for delegate--having already been one at his old school.

The election was held this past week. Five people ran for two delegate positions. This communist received the highest vote. (The out-going chapter chairman got the lowest.) Of his two close running mates, one won the other delegate position and the other lost for the vacated chapter chairman's position, although doing surprisingly well.

There is much work to do. (For instance, no one came to May Day from this new school.) He aims to raise the class-consciousness at the school and to align himself with the working-class students who attend this vocational high school hard by the Williamsburg Bridge.

SRI LANKA: The Three Horseman of the Apocalypse--Racism, Nationalism, and Imperialism

Thomas Pickering, U.S. Under Secretary of State, recently visited war-torn Sri Lanka after stopping in India, and firmly said there can be no independent Tamil in the northern part of that island country at the southern tip of India. The Tamil Tigers, the group fighting the Sri Lanka army, may be on the verge of seizing the important city of Jaffna, defeating the 30,000 government soldiers protecting it.

The war between the Tamil Tigers and the India-backed Sri Lanka army has been long and bloody, with tens of thousands of deaths in the last few decades. In fact, in 1991 a Tamil suicide bomber killed India Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi (son of Indira Ghandi) for sending Indian troops to support the Sri Lanka government. India opposes an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka because, (1) it already faces a Pakistani-supported separatist movement in Kashmir in the North; and (2) it fears the rise of a separatist movement among the Tamils in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India across a narrow strait from Sri Lanka.

Why do U.S. rulers opposing the Tamil Tigers? After all, they're not calling for an end to capitalism. The Tamil leaders, like many nationalists, are taking advantage of the blatant, violent anti-Tamil racism of the Sinhalese ruling class--Sri Lanka's main ethnic group--while fighting for the privilege of exploiting their own people.

However, Sri Lanka is strategically located in the Indian Ocean. It's a key stopover for U.S. ships supplying the tiny but important Diego Garcia islands a supply base for U.S. operations in the Persian Gulf.

In addition, U.S. relations with India have changed. In the past, when India was ruled by the Ghandi-controlled Congress Party, it was armed by the former Soviet Union and had very close commercial ties with the Soviet bloc. But when Russia invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. allied with India's arch-enemy Pakistan. This enabled the CIA to use the drug-smuggling Pakistani army and Intelligence Service to arm the religious zealot guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan.

However, with the emergence in India of a Hindu nationalist government, the BJP Party, positions have changed. Today the U.S. sees India and its navy as a counterweight to China's ambitions in Asia (see page 8).

So contradictions abound. Racism, regional and worldwide rivalries among different imperialists, and splits among local bosses are all behind the war in Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands of workers and soldiers have already died in this capitalist bloodbath. It's time for working-class soldiers to rebel and turn the guns around to smash capitalism and imperialism, the causes of modern war. Revolutionary communist leadership is the key ingredient to make this happen.

In addition, U.S. relations with India have changed. In the past, when India was ruled by the Ghandi-controlled Congress Party, it was armed by the former Soviet Union and had very close commercial ties with the Soviet bloc. But when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. allied with India's arch-enemy Pakistan. This enabled the CIA to use the drug-smuggling Pakistani army and Intelligence Service to arm the religious zealot guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan.

CHINA BUCKS U.S. CONTROL OF WORLDS' OIL SHIPPING LANES

Clinton's all-out push to get China admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is based on U.S. imperialism's strategy for maintaining world supremacy. Clinton's masters have identified Russia and China as their key rivals. Preventing a strategic alliance between them has become a major goal of U.S. foreign policy.

By "normalizing" trade relations with China, Clinton & Co. hope to keep Chinese bosses dependent on U.S. technology and credits. A secondary goal is the huge profit pile to be made from dealing with Chinese businesses. Many U.S. companies have billions at stake in Chinese contracts. And there's a $50 billion trade deficit in Beijing's favor that U.S. rulers want to reverse, while still enjoying the inflow of cheap goods that helps keep costs, especially wages, down.

But wishes aren't necessarily realities. For one thing, U.S. corporations aren't the only ones interested in profiting from investment in China. For one example, if the Chinese don't like what Boeing is offering them, they can turn to Europe's Airbus to buy aircraft. For another, despite the U.S., China's rulers continue to show interest in developing strategic ties with Russia, particularly purchasing military hardware and technology. China has become post-Soviet Russia's main arms customer. The reason isn't hard to figure out. China's bosses themselves have imperial designs of eventual world supremacy, and view U.S. imperialism as the main obstacle to that. Viewed in this light, all trade maneuvering becomes understandable.

NAVAL EXPANSION TIED TO OIL SHIPPING LANES

China's evolving naval strategy reflects its growth as an imperialist power. Since January, Chinese rulers have taken several steps geared to a long-range challenge to U.S. imperialism on the high seas:

* In January, the Chinese People's Liberation Army/Navy (PLAN) conducted a combined naval exercise more than 250 miles from the Chinese coast. This maneuver is consistent with the development of a "green water capability," which would allow PLAN to operate in all areas running 3,500 miles from northern Japan south to the west coast of Borneo (northern Indonesia).

* On May 5, the Russian daily KOMMERSANT announced that Russia had sold China the aircraft carrier Kiev, a major step allowing Chinese rulers to "join the ranks of the world's power projection navies" (STRATFOR, May 5).

* On May 7, the Chinese government finalized a deal allowing the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO--the world's second-largest shipping company) to use port facilities along the key Suez Canal. COSCO has strong ties to the Chinese military and has a large interest in Singapore which stands at the southern entrance to the Strait of Malacca. Another Chinese shipping company has a deal near the Panama Canal.

The Strait of Malacca, the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal are all major world oil transit centers. The U.S. Energy Information Administration calls them "chokepoints" because "disruption of oil flows through any of these export routes could have a significant impact on world oil prices" ("World Oil Transit Chokepoints," U.S.E.I.A., August 1999).

Since the collapse of the old Soviet Union, the U.S. Navy has claimed a lock on all these and other ocean shipping routes. This domination isn't about to end immediately, but Chinese bosses clearly intend to defy it over the long run. The "green water" Chinese navy of today is slated to become a "blue water" (worldwide) navy within 20 years or so. Chinese imperialism is looking to project force in the Spratley Islands in the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca, controlling the shipping lanes in Southeast Asia, and the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the vast oil resources of the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. This means a direct challenge to U.S. supremacy on the high seas.

U.S. rulers are taking note and making plans. The Establishment media's main military writer, Thomas Ricks, says the Pentagon now considers China "a potential future adversary...It is now a common assumption among national security thinkers that the area from Baghdad to Tokyo will be the main location of U.S. military competition for the next several decades" (WASHINGTON POST, May 26).

The choice of Baghdad is no accident. China is the world's second-largest energy consumer, after the U.S. The growing Chinese navy will sharpen the inter-imperialist dogfight for Persian Gulf oil. Under these conditions, the Rockefeller-controlled Exxon Mobil's drive to force Saddam Hussein from power and replace him with a pro-U.S. regime in Iraq can only intensify.

By greasing the way for China's entry into the WTO, Clinton is only setting the stage for a higher level of inter-imperialist rivalry. An eventual armed conflict directly pitting U.S. bosses against China and Russia may lie in a fairly distant future, but wars leading up to it, like a likely oil bloodbath in the Persian Gulf, aren't so remote. Imperialism always leads to war. Nothing short of the complete overthrow of capitalism by communist revolution can end this vicious cycle.

LETTERS

Wage Slavery Southern Style

Comrades, how are you all doing? After a few years and a long trip through half of Central America and Mexico, I have ended up in the south. I returned because conditions back home in Colombia are horrendous (war, death squads, drug lords, etc.)

I am now working under concentration camp conditions in a tomato packaging plant, earning the minimum for 14 to 16 hours a day. We are almost all from Mexico, Central and South America, without any papers. We basically go from a cheap hotel to work and back to sleep in the hotel. The only "advantage" of not being in a major urban center is that here one doesn't spend too much money, so at least you can save a little bit, but basically as a slave.

I will try to write more and will see how I can get DESAFIO.

Red migrant worker

Bogota May Day: Don't Vote,
Join PLP

This 1st of May was a day of struggle against capitalism. It was also the working class's international day to commemorate the Chicago working-class martyrs who were assassinated on orders from the killer bosses. Thousands of workers got ready in the early morning to march. They lined up with flags, slogans and banners to vent their repressed anger over unemployment, hunger, the increased cost of living, massacres and the uprooting of masses due to capitalism and its politicians and death squads.

In Bogota the PLP contingent, participating with a good number of militants, led enthusiastic workers and students to play an important role. They marched with PLP's banner, sold our literature and distributed 3,000 communist leaflets. While leading chants, our red flags gave the march a revolutionary tone. Our signs read, "Long Live Communism," "Let Capitalism Die," "Down with the Damn Racist, Killer Bosses" and "Don't Vote, Join PLP."

We confronted the reformist-nationalist politics of capitalism's sellout servants, the bosses of the central unions who used this march to try to channel workers' discontent and anger into the next fraudulent election.

These apologists of wage slavery want to steer workers away from a truly revolutionary party. We posed the real alternative to workers, communist revolution to destroy this crisis of overproduction imposed by capitalism.

It was a good day, a successful march, a step forward for us. Our political alternative was greatly accepted by workers to whom we spoke. We know the road to revolution is a long one. That's why we're re-doubling our efforts to create trust with workers, deepen our ties and prepare them with communist ideas to advance their understanding so they can give leadership to next year's march.

PLP'er in Colombia

Don't Need Strikes Under Communism

In answer to "Grandmother Jones's" questions in her letter (Challenge, May 31):

1) Yes, unions are better than no unions. Unions were started by communists as a first step on the road to revolution. The most important lesson workers learned by participating in building unions and fighting the bosses is the power of class unity. Even though the bosses seem to have won their fight to corrupt and control workers' unions, the bosses can't change the essence of a union, which is organized unity of workers against bosses. Union members should join PLP and organize for communist revolution within their unions. In fact, this is the best plan to follow for a better future for workers on any job, whether there is a union or not.

2) Strikes have been a tactical move against the bosses in the past and present to gain more power and material resources for workers as well as better working conditions. I would think that in a communist society where social production is for the workers' needs and not for profit, that strikes would not be necessary. In a communist society the workers collectively plan and produce for everyone's needs equally, which should include the best possible working conditions for any worker doing any particular job as her/his contribution to the needs of the whole.

This may sound impossibly utopian on paper, but communism is a different model of society from capitalism. The basic economy, or plan, of a society determines what the super-structure, or the many relationships of that society will be. In nature, the cells determine what kind of body an organism will grow, internally and externally. In a communist society how we think about the material world and our relationship to it and how we form relationships within society to each other will be different because the basic "cells" of a communist society are different.

Anyway, this is how I see it at the moment, but every time I participate in class struggle with PLP, I learn more. For more in depth discussion, why not join a PLP study group in your community?

A Mid-West Comrade

Teachers Thrilled by Internationale

I'd like to tell Challenge readers about a small experience that was inspiring to me. It was May 1 and we were at a meeting of a teachers' coalition discussing reforming education. May 1 was on Monday and I was still pumped up from the May Day March in San Francisco.

Towards the end of the meeting a coalition member said that since this is May Day, we should have a moment of silence for workers who've been victims of the bosses' terror. I said we should sing the Internationale. We had a moment of silence and then I started singing the Internationale along with another comrade. A few others joined in.

As I sang, people were looking at me in awe and surprise. At the end everyone clapped. Several came to me and asked me to write down the words because they always wanted to learn them. I promised I would. At the next meeting, I plan to pass out the words to all the members of the coalition.

A Red LA Teacher

Europe's Bosses Dip Oily Fingers into Colombia

The editorial in the last CHALLENGE exposing the truth behind the exposé of Clinton's Drug Czar McCaffery was very helpful and insightful. It's clear that the top U.S. rulers, those who own Exxon, have a much greater immediate need to fight for the control of oil in Iraq than for the future of BP Amoco-Arco's oil in Colombia. However, as the editorial points out, there are secondary contradictions.

The war in Colombia continues. Totalfina (a French oil company) was, as of last September, Colombia's main oil producer (Petroleum Economist, 9/99), although BP Amoco was a very close second. They now each produce around 19% of Colombia's oil. In addition the FARC and ELN (the two guerrilla movements) have strong ties with European social democracy groups. Colombia's President Pastrana and his negotiators traveled to Germany to negotiate with FARC leaders there and together have an audience with the Pope. This is the same Pope, generally representing the interests of European imperialism, who gave a speech on May Day (!) calling for "justice" in the world and relief of "third world" debt.

On the face of it, it seems that--while for the Rockefeller oil empire, the main fight is certainly in the Middle East--the European capitalists are making inroads and supporting movements in Colombia and the rest of Latin America as well as Africa (as the last Challenge documented so well). That's why the U.S. will continue to fund a murderous war in Colombia while preparing for a bigger war in the Middle East.

This problem will not go away, but will deepen. The workers in Colombia face a drawn out, murderous war, which has already displaced over one million people and killed at least 100,000 with no let-up in sight! The only way out for the workers is to build the PLP with the goal of getting rid of all the imperialists with communist revolution.

To say that Russia and China are the main long-term strategic enemies of U.S. imperialism does not mean that the European imperialists are necessarily U.S. allies. If one lives in Colombia, the contradiction affecting you most immediately and horribly is the secondary one--between the U.S. and European imperialists fighting over control of that country's oil, politicians, land and state power. Of course, you're affected if the U.S. won't now be sending masses of troops to Colombia because, for the Rockefellers, IRAQ is crucial. Years of war without an end in sight will be the grim result of the current imperialist rivalry. None of them care how many workers die in their struggle for dominance.

A comrade

Red Eye Trapped in Sociobiology

Challenge may want to draw the conclusion that the Finicacial Times inadvertently reveals that communist morals are part of our make-up, but the conclusion shows the editors do not have an understanding of evolutionary biology or of the dialectics of historical materialism ("Red Eye on the News," Challenge, 5/10).

The conclusion betrays that Challenge has fallen into the trap of sociobiology and bourgeois science's attribution of human behavior as genetically determined. Sociology believes that human psychology is derived from evolution (from our biological make-up), whether it be altruism or selfishness. Both behavioral traits can be found in James Q. Wilson. The Mating Mind belongs to sociobiology. The reason, according to that book, that mates seek kindness, etc., is that those traits are favored for reproduction in sexual competition, although they bear no conscious trace to sexual competition. To believe that and to teach that is only a way of training very poor communists, communists who do not understand the sources of human behavior and communist morals.

The source of human psychology and of communist morals or bourgeois morals for that matter is in the history of social, political, economic and cultural structures and within those the relationship of classes to each other. Communist morals have nothing to do with evolution and natural selection. And sexual competition, ever since the human species came down to ground and out of the caves, is also a matter of attitudes and preferences related to the historical structures cited above.

I know it's nice to suddenly come upon something in the bourgeois press that reveals the contradictions and hypocrisies of capitalism or the validity of communist ideas. This is not it, however. In our zealousness to find such things, we must be careful that we don't expose our own ignorance of bourgeois science and of Marxism. We want to train deep-thinking Marxists and communists, not flip ones. I imagine the failure to do that in the Soviet Union in the 73 years before its downfall is the reason there are bloody few people in Russia with communist morals.

S. Agonistes

Red Eye Responds

Challenge reader S. Agonistes has written the above to say that it was a mistake for Red Eye to print a Financial Times article showing that human evolution favored kindness and altruistic behavior rather than the dog-eat-dog traits usually attributed to Darwin's theories. This reader correctly states that Marxists do not believe that human behavior is significantly determined by genes. Therefore, this article bolsters a false view.

However, many people believe that "communism can't work because Darwinism proves that humans are naturally violently competitive."

Therefore, I think it is useful to print articles which show that this interpretation of Darwinism is full of holes, even if the articles are non-Marxist.

Red Eye provides ammunition which can be used in arguments. Naturally the user should attempt to steer the discussion to Marxist conclusions. But I think it is useful to provide all sorts of toe-holds for a difficult journey.

Of course, this approach to assembling useful stories means a lot of close decisions have to be made, and this one may have been wrong. But the main question is: should Red Eye continue to print pieces which might provide a useful basis for an important discussion, even if the article is not "pure"? And if the answer is "yes," are there too many cases where non-Marxist ideas have been strengthened?

What do other readers think?

Red Eye Editor

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, May 31. 2000

Information: 31 May 2000 170 hits

Capitalism Creates Many Wars: U.S. Big Bosses’ Dogfight Over Whether Colombia or Middle East Is Primary in their War Plans

Profits At Stake In Colombia
Wake-Up Call For McCaffrey
General McCaffey’s Mass Murder in Iraq Was Part of Bosses’ War Methods

Imperialist, Local Bosses’ Endless Wars Murder Millions in Africa

Drive for Profits Ravage the Congo

Middle East ‘Peace Process’ Paves Way for Imperialist War

Venezuela: Oil Price Rise Exposes Phony Chavez ‘Revolution’

Gore. Union Hacks Fight over China Trade, But Both Sides Serve Big Bosses

Racist Giuliani Down, Many More to Go

Ohio State Workers Expose Liberal Bosses BS

El Salvador: PLP Growth: Answer to Bosses’ Bombs

From Border to Cities, Organize Against Racist Murderers!

LA Teachers Fight Back

Workers of the World Write LETTERS

SEIU Is as Bad with Other Workers As It Has Been with LA Janitors

CHALLENGE Comments

May Day: More than a March

Don’t Send the Census Form

Promises and Promises

‘These people should be killed...’

"The specter of communism is here to stay"

PLP Grows in NJ After May Day March

Less Talk More Action

Capitalism Creates Many Wars

U.S. Big Bosses’ Dogfight Over Whether Colombia or Middle East Is Primary in their War Plans

The dominant Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class continues its ruthless drive to consolidate power and cripple or neutralize its opposition. In recent weeks, CHALLENGE has described aspects of this process. The "Justice" Department’s suit against Microsoft, the general disciplining of the NASDAQ high-tech market, the collapse of NYC mayor Giuliani’s Senate campaign and Washington’s attempt to take over the LAPD figure among the most important.

The decline of four-star general Barry McCaffrey is yet another sign of the Rockefeller house-cleaning. In 1996, this killer retired from the U.S. Army. Since then he has been Clinton’s Drug Czar. He’s the main spokesman for the lie that disguises U.S. imperialism’s attempt to control Colombia as a crusade against illegal narcotics. However, he has a bloody history that goes all the way back to Vietnam and, most recently, to Exxon’s 1991 bloodbath for Iraqi oil.

On March 2, 1991—TWO DAYS AFTER THE CEASE-FIRE—when U.S imperialism’s victory in Iraq was a foregone conclusion, McCaffrey launched a massacre of retreating Iraqi soldiers and civilians and then lied about its military necessity. A long article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the May 22 NEW YORKER magazine exposes McCaffrey’s butchery and his cover-up. In addition, it charges McCaffrey with shooting down unarmed prisoners just before the needless "battle." While the Establishment has put McCaffrey on the hot seat for his disloyalty to the Rockefeller line on Colombia, there’s a relationship between the two.

U.S. rulers don’t blink at slaughtering millions of workers anywhere in the world to protect their profits and their political power. Suddenly they’ve dredged up a nine-year-old massacre as though it was unusual for U.S. imperialism to murder unarmed civilians wholesale. Colombia is the starting point for understanding the decision to punish McCaffrey’s enthusiasm for his slaughter in Iraq.

Profits At Stake In Colombia

Colombia is important to many U.S. bosses. The 50-year-long civil war, pitting a pro-U.S. fascist government against nationalist guerrillas, has taken a toll on U.S. businesses there. Fat profits are at stake. Exxon Mobil operates the world’s biggest export coal mine, Cerrejón, in Colombia. BP Amoco, Exxon/Rockefeller’s main oil rival within the U.S. imperialist orbit, has even more at risk. BP Amoco, Colombia’s largest foreign investor, pumps half a million barrels of Colombian crude oil a day—one fourth of the company’s worldwide production. Occidental Petroleum, controlled by Exxon’s arch-competitors, the Hunt Brothers, has lost $100 million in Colombia since 1995 because of the guerrilla war. Alabama-based Drummond Coal, which imports million of tons of coal from Colombia, seems to be putting most of its eggs in the Colombian basket. So the issue among the bosses is not WHETHER to defend these interests but HOW extensively, given U.S. imperialism’s’ need to extinguish many other fires around the world.

The BP Amoco-Occidental-Drummond Coal clique has enough to lose to want Clinton to risk major ground action in Colombia. Also, the expansion into South America by French oil rivals, particularly in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela, has given BP Amoco further incentive to champion U.S. troops.

Last February, Alabama Sen. Sessions, an obvious Drummond agent, went ballistic about U.S. failure to invade. He yelled at McCaffrey, but more for failure to carry out the dirty work than for lack of will. According to the GUARDIAN, McCaffrey had already demanded "operations that go far beyond what even the Colombians are pressing for, taking the U.S. to the brink of bankrolling an all-out war" (Aug. 22, 1999).

McCaffrey’s zeal to put U.S. ground troops in Colombia didn’t sit too well with his Rockefeller masters, for whom Colombia means a lot, but not everything. The Rockefeller interests want to keep Colombia under U.S. control, and Clinton is pushing for a $1.8 billion "aid" package, 80 percent of it military. But the lords of Exxon are determined to stop short of ground war. They’ll go for helicopters, but not for GIs. They’re afraid of another Vietnam quagmire, of stuck and dying U.S. troops, and they figure the risk far outweighs the benefit. Right now the Navy has ships positioned in and just outside the Persian Gulf. Iraqi and Saudi oil means incomparably more than Colombian coal to Exxon.

Wake-Up Call For McCaffrey

While McCaffrey was calling for ground war, Rockefeller loyalist Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering blasted troop deployment as a "crazy idea" (GUARDIAN). The big bosses tried to give McCaffrey a wake-up call when the U.S. government immediately arrested the wife of McCaffrey’s chief anti-drug military commander in Colombia, Col. Hiett. The charge: cocaine smuggling. She pled guilty, and the anti-drug missionary Colonel himself is facing money-laundering charges. But even this scandal couldn’t make McCaffrey straighten up and fly right. Last February, he took Occidental Oil’s pro-invasion position before a House drug subcommittee hearing. Occidental already pays the Colombian government to maintain an army base next to its oil refinery. But the Occidental bosses and McCaffrey don’t seem to trust this protection racket. McCaffrey has lined up on the wrong side of this squabble over the prizes to be defended by U.S. troops.

So the NEW YORKER exposé of McCaffrey’s nine-year old massacre in Iraq suddenly becomes national news, and McCaffrey faces far greater disgrace than the embarrassment of seeing his underling charged with laundering drug money. The Rockefellers expect obedience and they know how to punish when they don’t get it. McCaffrey and Rudy Giuliani have a lot in common.

Aside from clarifying Establishment policy toward Colombia, throwing McCaffrey to the wolves has a secondary value for the main rulers. Preparation for major land war to secure Rockefeller control of Iraqi oil seems to head the bosses’ priorities for the next presidency. This bloody profit grab will need some sort of hypocritical "human rights" cover. That’s one of the main lessons workers can learn from Clinton’s aerial "humanitarian" genocide for oil pipelines in the Balkans last year. McCaffrey can be presented as the "bad apple" whose elimination will provide cover for the next genocide.

But by committing wanton murder for U.S. imperialism in Iraq, McCaffrey was only "doing his job." All imperialists rule at gunpoint. The more their profits are threatened, the more ruthless they become. That’s why the BP Amoco/Occidental/Drummond bosses want ground war in Colombia, and that’s why the Exxon Mobil/Rockefellers want it in the Persian Gulf. McCaffrey’s disgrace merely shows the fate awaiting a hired hand who double-crosses the most powerful gangster on the block. The deeper lesson here for workers is the basic nature of imperialism and of all imperialists. Only tactical differences divide them. In Colombia or Iraq, their goal is profit, and their methods are always bloody. None of them is a "lesser evil." All of them must be destroyed by a communist-led working class revolution, no matter how long it takes.

General McCaffey’s Mass Murder in Iraq Was Part of Bosses’ War Methods

The mass murder engineered by U.S. imperialism in Iraq makes McCaffrey’s butchery look like a tea party. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the architect of the strategy of Overwhelming Force that followed U.S. ruling class policy. This policy has caused the death of over one million Iraqi civilians, and still counting.

They began with a systematic 42-day aerial and missile bombardment against a basically defenseless foe. Most targets were civilian, destroying schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters and residential areas. Towns, villages and highways were strafed indiscriminately. The first five weeks of bombardment amounted to the summary execution of 113,000 civilians, 60% children, according to the Jordanian Red Crescent Society [Red Cross]. It systematically destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure.

Over 100,000 died in the first year after the war from dehydration, dysentery, diseases and malnutrition caused by impure water, lack of effective medical assistance and debilitation from hunger, cold, shock and distress. Tens of thousands of defenseless Iraqi soldiers, cut off from food and water, were systematically killed. War criminal Schwartzkopf said immediate Iraqi military casualties exceeded 100,000.

Perhaps the most abominable atrocity occurred on what came to be called the "Highway of Death." U.S. tanks and trucks with massive shovels attached scooped up thousands of fleeing, unarmed Iraqi soldiers and civilians and buried them alive. U.S. warplanes simultaneously strafed them from the air. "It was like a turkey shoot, like shooting fish in a barrel," said one pilot. A seven-mile stretch of the highway was littered with untold thousands of indiscriminately slaughtered soldiers and civilians of all ages—Kuwaitis, Iraqis, Palestinians and Jordanians.

U.S. planes dropped napalm and fuel-air explosives on Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil wells, starting fires which polluted the entire Persian Gulf.

Cluster bombs and anti-personnel fragmentation bombs were used in Basra and other cities and towns against civilian convoys of fleeing vehicles.

The U.S.-dictated sanctions imposed on Iraq for the last nine years have prevented shipments of needed medicines, water purifiers, infant milk formula and food, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and illness and permanent injury to many thousands more.

This is the U.S. version of Hitler’s Final Solution. These champions of "human rights" who are censuring McCaffrey!

Imperialist, Local Bosses’ Endless Wars Murder Millions in Africa

Wars are raging across Africa like unquenchable fires. And like fire, it is spreading even more. The British have sent elite troops to intervene in the civil war to control the diamond mines of Sierra Leone. The armies of Uganda and Rwanda (both considered key allies of the U.S.) are at war over some border areas. The "cease-fire" announced periodically in the Congo civil war involving local nationalists and the armies of several other African countries never holds. And now the former "close comrades" ruling Eritrea and Ethiopia are warring agasin.

What’s behind this killing of hundred of thousands in Africa? First, the old European imperialists—Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal—who ruled most of Africa until the 1950s (1975 in the case of Mozambique, Angola and other Portuguese colonies) totally ruined those countries. The British ruled under the old tactic of divide and conquer and intensified ethnic divisions. The Belgian and Portuguese colonialists prevented the emergence of an educated group of Africans.

Then came the Cold War. The U.S. supported the worst kind of brutal rulers, like Mobutu in the Congo and Haile Selassie in Ethiopia, because they were virulently anti-communist and opposed the former Soviet Union. After the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, the Soviet Union began to seriously Challenge U.S. power in Africa. Pro-Soviet governments emerged in Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique, some as corrupt and brutal as the ones the U.S. supported. In Angola and Mozambique, the U.S. used South Africa’s apartheid army to support anti-Soviet groups. The Cuban army was sent to help crush the anti-Soviet groups. Cuban and Angolan troops badly defeated the South African army.

But as the Soviet Union imploded, its allies in Africa either ran (like Colonel Mengistu, now exiled in Zimbabwe) or changed sides and welcomed the former imperialists. In Angola, U.S. oil companies like Gulf Oil were operating and protected by the same Cuban troops that had fought the pro-U.S./South African forces.

Today, the contradictions have changed. Now the old anti-Soviet imperialists, France, Britain and the U.S. are fighting each other for the minerals and oil of Africa. Alliances keep shifting. Their local allies change sides. For example, the rulers of Ethiopia and Eritrea were allies fighting the pro-Soviet Mengistu regime that used to rule Ethiopia (and also ruled Eritrea). Both anti-Mengistu forces fought for "national liberation." They allied themselves with the U.S. against the Soviet forces. Now, a few years after being in power, they’re fighting each other. They’re not fighting, as some believe, for a "piece of the dessert in the middle of nowhere," but rather for control of the key Red Sea coastline, crucial to the oil tankers’ maritime route.

Says the on-line Stratfor website, "When Eritrea declared independence from Ethiopia in 1993, it took the entire coastline, including both Red Sea ports—leaving Ethiopia landlocked. Although Ethiopia’s government supported independence, conflicts soon arose between the two. They initially clashed over Ethiopia’s access to Eritrea’s two ports and inequitable trade. Though smaller, Eritrea held the upper hand over its larger neighbor. The government in Asmara (Eritrea) kept the country’s market effectively closed to Ethiopian goods, while Eritrean goods could freely enter neighboring Ethiopia. Border disputes erupted into war. Small unit skirmishes led to artillery duels, trench warfare, trench warfare and air strikes." (Www.Stratfor.com/ 5/17/).

Millions are dying in Africa because of these wars for profits and control of oil and oil routes and because of their consequences: hundred of thousands are constantly starving in Ethiopia/Eritrea. The local rulers and the imperialists are the modern Attila the Hun, the scourge of the earth. Unless the cause, capitalism and imperialism, is unearthed and buried, this unending graveyard will be filled only with workers and their families. The most important thing workers and their allies must do now is to build a communist movement.

Drive for Profits Ravage the Congo

"When the bosses talk about peace, better get a helmet" wrote Bertolt Brecht, the German communist playwright/poet. After the CIA murdered Patrice Lumumba, the leftist Prime Minister of the Congo soon after it became independent of Belgium in 1960, dictator Mobutu came to power and renamed the country Zaire. Mobutu was the CIA favorite until he outlived his usefulness after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since crooked Mobuir was sent packing, "peace" was supposed to come to the Congo. But things did not turn out that way. The allies of Laurent Kabila, who led the war that ousted Mobutu, turned against him, and a new civil war started. In August 1998, the armies of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda turned against Kabila. The armies of Rwanda and Uganda are now fighting each other. In the middle of all this, the armies of Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent troops to the Congo to help Kabila. These confusing horrors, created by capitalist ghouls, are devouring millions of poor workers so a small wealthy group of rulers can sit on golden toilet seats.

The imperialists say they have no vital interests in Africa. In reality the opposite is true. France, the U.S. and Britain are involved in Africa. And they support different groups at different times to go to war for their needs. Congo is rich in many important minerals, diamonds, copper, cadmium (used for military purposes), etc.

During July and August 1999, the warring forces in the Congo signed peace agreements and have broken them constantly. The last cease-fire violation was the massacre of 300 innocent people on the evenings of May 14 and 15 by the BANYAMULENGUE, the main militia group fighting Kabila. According to ABC, Madrid (5/21): "The massacre took place in the village of Katogata…in the region of the Great Lakes. ‘It began in the late afternoon and lasted till 5 A.M. the next day,’ reported a survivor….Men, women, children and old people were massacred…with guns, knives, etc. Many bodies were thrown into a river."

When the bosses and their goons talk about peace, don’t just get a helmet but organize to fight to smash them all before they kill you.

Middle East ‘Peace Process’ Paves Way for Imperialist War

The U.S.-backed Middle East "peace process" is rapidly becoming a "war process." Israel-Palestine, Israel-Syria and Israel-Lebanon are all heading towards more conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Barak, with the full backing of the U.S. ruling class, got elected on a promise to end the 22-year occupation of Lebanon. But the Israeli retreat from Lebanon was disrupted with the collapse of the pro-Israeli Southern Lebanon Army (SLA). Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas moved into the areas vacated by the SLA’s collapse. Seizing large amounts of Israeli weapons and ammunition, and occupying territory up to the Israeli border has "added a dangerous new element of instability to the Middle East." (New York Times, 5/23)

This is not what U.S. imperialism needs. The centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy, to the degree there is one, is to add Palestinian and Syrian peace treaties with Israel to those already signed by Egypt and Jordan. They want to "stabilize" the region in preparation for a major war against Iraq to secure Exxon’s oil profits.

For years, Syria has controlled the flow of arms to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas. Syrian president Hafez al-Assad has kept them on a tight leash, strong enough to harass the Israelis but too weak to win. Now that Israel has left Lebanon, Assad faces a dilemma. If he stops the arms flow, Israel stops bleeding and has less incentive to reach a deal with Syria. But if Hezbollah launches attacks into Israel, they will "hold the governments of Beirut and Damascus, Syria, responsible…and would not rule out retaliatory strikes." (New York Times, 5/24) The Clinton gang will press for a Syrian-Israeli peace pact, but it may be preceded by confrontation.

Meanwhile, Palestinian boss Yasir Arafat has figured out that his best bet is to let Palestinian workers rebel against Israeli occupation. Palestinian workers are getting fed up with Arafat's corruption and his vast army of 50,000 cops for three million people (four times as many cops-per-person as New York, eight times as many as in LA). Teachers in the West Bank have been striking for two months, demanding their first pay raise in four years. Arafat is using the rebellions to get workers to direct their anger against someone other than him, while he presses for more concessions from Israeli bosses.

Isreal is the dominant force in the region. Its economy is five times the size of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine combined. U.S. imperialism provides Israeli rulers with the latest fighter planes and the most sophisticated electronic gear. Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons and the most advanced anti-missile system in the world. They are still the dominant force in the region.

Clinton huddles with Israeli and Palestinian leaders practically every month, and the U.S. pours in $5 billion in aid every year. In February, Clinton went to Syria to meet Assad only to have his every request refused. U.S. capitalists are on the horns of a dilemma as one "peace initiative" after another goes up in smoke, from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia and Eritrea to Kosovo, Colombia, Congo and many more.

U.S. imperialism has had it good since 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the victory in the Gulf War ushered in a decade of economic prosperity for U.S. capitalists. But as wars spread across the world, the good times may be coming to an end. But capitalism won’t die a natural death, we have to kill it. Building a mass international PLP can help turn the next Middle East bloodbath into communist revolution.

Venezuela: Oil Price Rise Exposes Phony Chavez ‘Revolution’

When Colonel Chavez took power in Venezuela 16 months ago, he promised to end the corrupt two-party system which enforces mass inequality in this oil-rich country. Chavez promised a "revolution," ended the old constitution and its parliament and formed a new constituent assembly. For a while he got mass support from workers and their allies.

But illusions in capitalist politicians, no matter how "revolutionary" or "nationalist" they sound, are dangerous for workers. Now Chavez’s own movement is in disarray. His former "close comrade," Francisco Arias Cárdenas, an ex-military officer, is running against him, accusing Chavez of "turning the revolution into a fiasco."

What happened to this "revolution"? Although oil prices are the highest in a decade, unemployment has doubled. Fifty percent of the workforce is unemployed or underemployed. Almost 90% of the population are below the official poverty line.

All this is caused by the crisis of capitalism. The rise in oil prices is not due to an increased demand but to a cutback in production by the leading oil exporters in OPEC. OPEC member Venezuela supported this cutback. The Chavez government ordered a 20% slash in domestic production. Oil wells were closed and 8,000 oil workers were laid off. When they struck against these layoffs, the "workers’ friend" Chavez broke it. He justified this attack with the phony excuse that union leaders are corrupt (which is true). But it was the workers who were victimized.

According to Business Week (March 3), the oil production cutback is the main reason behind the fall of the Gross Domestic Product and Venezuela’s recession.

Since international privately-owned oil companies are not member s of OPEC and therefore not governed by its decisions, production was cut back only done by PDVSA, the state oil company. Production was cut by 625,000 barrels a day in 1999, but today it can be increased only by 150,000 barrels since many of the closed wells cannot be reopened. Meanwhile, international oil companies operating in Venezuela are making huge profits.

So the Chavez "revolution" has attacked workers while its oil price hike has increased profits for the imperialist oil companies (so much for Chavez so-called anti-imperialism). The lesson: only workers’ revolution, led by communists, can free workers from the yoke of capitalism.

Gore, Union Hacks Fight over China Trade, But Both Sides Serve Big Bosses

The fight between Democratic Party presidential candidate Al Gore and the AFL-CIO over the China trade agreement is immersed in a myriad of contradictions. The AFL-CIO has endorsed Gore for President but simultaneously opposes the Clinton Administration policy on giving China permanent normal trade relations. Gore backs the Clinton policy but looks to the AFL-CIO for major support.

In general, Sweeney & Co. backs the Rockefeller wing of the ruling class but they also must retain a certain level of a base among the rank and file. They’re using their opposition to the China trade pact as a"job-saving" ploy, agreed to concession after concession to the ruling class on the job issue for decades, watching auto plant after still mill close.

Gore spoke at a UFCWUnited union gathering and was given a standing ovation despite his support for Clinton’s China policy. The New York Times reported (May 23) that "the audience appeared to be…forgiving of his pro-China position." Said one union political worker from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, "We’re not naïve….On the vast majority of issues, we’ll stand with him and he’ll stand with us."

Just as there are divisions within the ruling class, so too are there divisions among the union bosses, depending on their onstituencies. The Teamsters, Steelworkers’ and Autoworkers’ unions are vocal in their opposition to the China Trade Pact, and to some extent Gore, while others –like the UFCW—still support Gore. The UAW is "hinting" they might switch from Gore to Ralph Nader, who is financed by racist textile billionaire Milliken. This billionaire also finances Reform Party Presidential candidate Pat "I-Love-Hitler" Buchanan. Hoffa’s Teamsters are flirting with supporting Buchanan.

However, one thing is certain: the Democratic Party and Sweeney & Co. are on the same side when it comes to serving capitalism and screwing the workers. Just as with NAFTA (supported by Clinton-Gore and opposed by the AFL-CIO), the labor honchos –for the most part--and the Rockefeller-dominated Democratic Party will continue to remain thick as thieves.

Temporarily, they have opposing positions on the China Trade issue. But in the final analysis, both their positions serve U.S. imperialism. Gore is fighting to open up China for US imperialism rather than allow the Japanese and Europeans to be the main investors there. By pushing anti-Chinese sentiment and anti-communism (even though China is not communist but capitalist), the unions are really building deadly nationalism, which serves to tie workers to U.S. imperialism.

Racist Giuliani Down, Many More to Go

"There is joy from Flatbush to Harlem to the South Bronx" a black worker said when he heard about Mayor Giuliani’s fall. But, as we reported in last week’s CHALLENGE, workers have to temper that joy with the reality that Giuliani’s foes not only include anti-racist workers and youth, but also sections of the ruling class that saw him serve the wrong masters. Let’s take a look at one of those masters Giuliani served.

All of Giuliani’s major policies as NYC mayor came from his masters at the Manhattan Institute (MI). The latter’s founding funders included both Rockefeller’s Chase Bank and it’s rival Citicorp. This tactical alliance lasted through Giuliani’s first term. Each group of bosses wanted drastic reductions in NYC social services and a corresponding increase in police terror. Meanwhile, they wanted to pump up real estate values, profit from tourism and attract corporate investment.

The MI’s expertise in anti-working class savagery long pre-dates Giuliani’s arrival in City Hall. Rudolph/Adolf merely picked up the baton:

• In 1984, the MI funded the publication of Losing Ground, the racist tract by Harvard’s Charles Murray that "many people believe begat welfare reform" [i.e., fascist Workfare—Ed.] (New York Times, 5/12/97). CHALLENGE readers may remember Murray as the co-author of the viciously racist The Bell Curve. This modernized Nazi scribbling pushed the Big Lie about "genetic" causes to "explain" the difference in IQ scores between black and white children and called for dumping affirmative action policies. Shortly after the book’s 1994 publication, the MI-sponsored a luncheon in Murray’s honor (www.accuracy.org).

• By 1990, the MI was already promoting "theories" about crime and "quality of life," which Giuliani soon advanced in his first racist mayoral campaign in 1993. These ideas led to the infamous "zero tolerance" policy pursued by Giuliani’s first police commissioner, William Bratton.

• The MI provided the intellectual ammunition for Giuliani’s attacks against open admissions at New York’s City University and also laid out the justification for privatizing NYC hospitals. According to the New York Times, it is the "brains" behind Giuliani’s policies "…on such issues as the city’s tax structure, economic development, education policy, policing and quality of life." (5/12/97).

• Giuliani proudly proclaims his respect for his racist mentors at the MI. He told the New York Times that he had found [the MI publication—Ed.] City Journal "enormously helpful. I’ve read it for years. It produces…very good ideas" (5/12/97).

Now the Rockefellers have decided on a tactical approach different from the open racism of Giuliani and the MI. But workers shouldn’t make the deadly error of falling for the next "lesser evil" liberal substitute. As previous CHALLENGE articles have shown, for example, Rockefeller-backed "community policing" is hardly a "kinder, gentler" form of bosses’ dictatorship than Giuliani’s "zero tolerance" terror. "Community policing" will mean even more arrests, more long jail sentences and more violence directed against workers and working class youth in particular. In the last analysis, terror is always the name of the game the rulers must play to hold power over us.

Ohio State Workers Expose Liberal Bosses BS

COLUMBUS, OHIO, May 22, 2000 — Two thousand workers from CWA (Communications Workers of America) Local 4501 just tentatively concluded a three-week strike against the bosses that run the Ohio State University and OSU Hospitals here. OSU is one of the country’s largest universities, employing thousands workers. Thanks to the racist sexist capitalist system, a disproportionate number of black and women workers are funneled into the lowest-paying jobs. The strikers included janitors, maintenance workers, housekeepers, dietary workers, bus drivers and other categories and were led by liberal, Democratic Party sellouts. However, several lessons can be learned from this strike:

• The workers are beginning to see through the union’s phony leadership. It was militant workers who pushed for a $2 across-the-board raise for everyone rather than settle for a 4% increase.

• The workers saw the need for militant multiracial unity of workers, students and other allies to counter the bosses’ tools. Many students occupied Bricker Hall (the administration building) to show support for the strikers. Much of the student leadership came from minority student groups. The university bosses tried their best to encourage students to scab and were successful to a certain degree.

• Workers and students saw how the liberal university bosses, who blather about "diversity," really operate. They wanted the union to agree to less of a raise for the hospital workers. Surprise, surprise, these workers are mainly women and minority and are some of the lowest-paid on campus. Rank-and-file union militants (many of whom are women and minority) vocally opposed this move. To the liberal bosses "diversity" means inviting liberal speakers to hawk their books on campus while simultaneously trying to enforce a racist and sexist wage scale.

• All the contradictions of capitalism can be seen inside the university. Liberal President Kirwan makes $275,000 per year plus extras. The salary of is second in command, Provost Ed Ray, rose from $177,000 last year to $219,000 this year (a 24% hike). This pattern saturates Kirwan's administration. Like the big capitalist bosses in the larger society, they reward themselves handsomely while crying budget constraints when poorly-paid workers try to make ends meet.

The liberal university bosses threatened to punish professors who cancelled classes out of support for the strikers. They took out full-page ads in the student paper to get students to report any professor who did not "fulfill obligations". So much for academic freedom and freedom of speech. Shades of Hitler!

Area Party members and friends must be better organized, bolder and more ready to provide communist leadership to workers and students. We must ensure that the most advanced workers see the larger picture. Success cannot be measured in how much we win from the bosses economically. We will never win enough to have a decent life under capitalism. Winning is getting more workers to see the need to destroy capitalism with communist revolution if we are to create a society in which workers share all the fruits of their labors.

El Salvador: PLP Growth: Answer to Bosses’ Bombs

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador—"When the bosses talk of peace, get ready for war." So began the discussion in a new Party club of university students.

Last May 10 this slogan described events here exactly. Thousands of bombs stored by the bosses’ army in the center of San Salvador exploded in the middle of the night. The military claimed a grenade went off accidentally, causing the explosion. It damaged and destroyed the homes of 800 workers who live in the neighborhoods near the barracks. Three people died and dozens were injured. Others remain exposed to the bad weather. Sonia Vilma Sanchez, 40, mother of three, was the first to die.

The Defense Minister said there are seven more arsenals located here, without mentioning those hidden in the rest of the country.

"In peacetime, why do they need to keep huge quantities of weapons?" asked a student. Because they are part of the war against the working class to enforce the bosses’ profit system of poverty and to put down workers’ rebellions, as well as potential staging grounds for U.S. imperialist adventures (Nicaragua). The armed forces torture and murder.

Workers shouldn’t forget this explosion. We shouldn’t believe fairy tales that the rulers’ army is for "democracy and peace" and will cease its attacks on workers and students.

Now more than ever we need to organize PLP clubs, build the understanding that capitalism won’t fall by itself, that millions of workers need to fight for a new communist society.

PLP is the working class’s only weapon to destroy the ruling class by armed revolution. This is the only guarantee of a successful communist revolution and the building of a society that produces for workers’ needs.

This group of students has read and studied CHALLENGE for some time. But the latest events in El Salvador, the possibility of imperialist war, and the economic crisis of world capitalism, spurred three of these youth to take the important step of joining PLP.

On this occasion, these youth declared:

"I’m willing to fight for the communist cause no matter what the consequences."

"As long as Marxist ideas continue to be the ideas of PLP, I will be in the Party and fight for them."

"We must continue fighting to organize many more of our class brothers and sisters. We have to build more party clubs. That’s our main job."

From Border to Cities, Organize Against Racist Murderers!

LOS ANGELES, CA—Last Sunday, May 20, another undocumented immigrant worker was shot to death in Brownsville, Texas by the racist Migra (Immigration Service). The 25-year-old Mexican youth committed the "crime" of wanting to find a job to survive and to help his family. Instead he found death at the hands of the fascist policy of both Clinton and the "shoot-to-kill" Barnett brothers of "shoot to kill."

This worker’s death can be added to others in Sasabe, Arizona. On May 18, four youth were ambushed and shot by two racists on horseback armed with high-powered rifles. According to Miguel A. Palofox, survivor of the shooting, the other four fell before him and when he regained consciousness , bleeding, the other four bodies were nowhere to be found. According to these fascist vigilantes, this is only the beginning since, according to the newspaper LA REFORMA of Mexico, "in a meeting of racists in the border town of Sierra Vista, where ranchers, the Ku Klux Klan and Glen Spence of Voice of Citizens Together participated, the next step will be to put anti-personnel mines in the area."

Twenty-five years ago in Douglas, Arizona, George Hannagan stopped a group of undocumented workers crossing the border at gunpoint. He tied them up and, before turning them over to the Migra, burned their feet.

In the last five years Operation Gatekeeper, under the Clinton Administration, has killed more than 1,500 workers. This has forced many desperate workers to try to cross through these ranches of racism and death. These racist executions of black and Latino workers, both at the border as well as by the police in the big U.S. cities like LA, Chicago and New York are part of the growth of fascist terror to super-exploit the working class. These racist vigilantes are part of a movement against the liberal bosses. But the liberal fascist rulers are #1 in racist murder!

While the fascist vigilantes in Arizona murdered undocumented immigrants, the fascist LA County Sheriffs murdered 34-year-old Richard Garcia in East LA on May 20, just a few blocks from where they murdered Ricardo Close a year ago. They shot and killed Richard in front of his sister, brother and mother who had just asked the police to help him because he was depressed. Richard had had a small fight with his brother and was running away. The cops never told Richard to stop running. They just shot him, both family members and other witnesses said. PLP members have visited the family to express our anger and offered to help organize a demonstration. Our offer was gratefully received and we were invited back.

PLP is urging workers in unions and students in campus organizations to plan demonstrations and take up the fight against these fascist attacks and to join the long-term fight against this fascist system that rules through terror, lies and exploitation!

LA Teachers Fight Back

LOS ANGELES, Ca, May 23—About 6,000 teachers demonstrated today at the school board for a wage increase and against the board’s divisive merit pay proposal, which would tie pay increases to students’ test scores. They also demanded the right to grieve dirty, ill-equipped classrooms. A group of teachers passed out PLP leaflets attacking the new school plans like peer review, showing that this will be used to guarantee the retention of teachers who are loyal to this racist system. This system is attacking the students every day while it prepares more oil wars. Our leaflet called on teachers to unite with parents and students to help students fight to learn and learn to fight this racist capitalist system.

(Full story next week.)

Workers of the World Write LETTERS

SEIU Is as Bad with Other Workers As It Has Been with LA Janitors

I read with interest the May 24 CHALLENGE interviews with some of the striking janitors in Los Angeles and their criticism of SEIU (Service Employees International Union).

I was a member of this union in Western Pennsylvania for a number of years. I was local President, shop steward and was one of the rank and file chosen to re-write the constitution after the Sweeney Trusteeship thing.

Firstly, I can honestly say I was used by that union’s head honcho, who was primarily interested in feathering her own nest and later went on to a higher-paying position. Most of the workers were so disgusted with this official and the union’s inaction in helping with their problems that often very few would show up at meetings. This led to cynicism. But the blame rests with the union leadership, who operate in a top-down dictatorial fashion.

When I would go to Harrisburg with other workers once a month to work on the new constitution, hot shots from the top would be there to monitor us and usually dictate what they wanted in that constitution. At night we would sit in our hotel rooms and talk about what a farce the whole thing was, how we were merely puppets. After the constitution was re-written, nothing changed.

So I have seen the same sort of corruption and sellout leadership as those janitors. Still, I have worked at non-union jobs and it is better to have some kind of union. At least, you have some protection from the bosses. At a non-union job, I witnessed people terminated for no reason and replaced with a friend of the bosses.

But I still wonder what workers' power will mean, how workers will have more control under communism at the workplace. Will they have the right to strike if they feel important issues are being ignored on their jobs?

Finally, I was at my first May Day march on May 6, and felt a sense of hope for turning this mess around and getting rid of this rotten killing machine called capitalism.

Grandmother Jones

CHALLENGE COMMENTS: Grandmother Jones raises some interesting points: (1) working in a union place is better than not having a union, even though the union hacks are so rotten; (2) would workers be able to strike under communism if their grievances on the job were not met. What do our readers think?

May Day: More than a March

For me the bus ride to Washington, D.C. is as exciting as the May Day march itself. It's wonderful to hear people speak about their lives, especially young people. This year I was moved when one fellow apologized for his sexist actions, and one woman, in turn, was self-critical about feeding into his behavior. The incident reminded me that the bus ride represents communism today in that people get closer through struggle, collectivity and good leadership. But what motivated me to write this letter was a deep appreciation of how the Progressive Labor Party learns from history, applies lessons to current struggles and provides a realistic vision for our future—like no other organization.

Many of us have sat on union-sponsored buses where no one is encouraged to speak. The implication is that the union leaders have all the answers. They are never self-critical or ask the masses to evaluate a demonstration. When do they talk about the need for unity with other unions or immigrant workers? And forget about making the link to working class history or rebuilding all society! Only our party takes the noble lessons of the Paris Commune, the story of the first May Day, the Russian and Chinese revolutions—all spoken of on the bus. We marchers are prepared with a tangible sense that the red flag we carry came from the hands of millions of other workers.

Other so-called "leaders" tell us, "look to a higher power; just live one day at a time." On the contrary, we know that our days are welded to the years where our brothers and sisters tried to build communism. The PL videos on welfare and education seen on the bus show how our power can only come from relying on workers alongside us. It is we who must lead, recruit and make plans for tomorrow based on today's lessons.

We asked ourselves on the bus, what is communism? No better time than in a group discussion to bring out our questions about the collectivity the bosses have taught us to fear. This year one young man who sold CHALLENGE on the march talked about how he was taunted, "Don't you know you could die for communism?" We talked about the Vietnam Syndrome that showed the world how fighting for the dollar bill was defeated by communist heroism.

All this is to say that we often take for granted the unbeatable methods of dialectics by which our Party learns from the past and gives to the present and our future. Confidence in the working class is renewed on the May Day buses but equally so is our commitment to PLP.

A New Jersey Comrade

Don’t Send the Census Form

"Did you receive your Census form?" I asked my friend as I filled my tank at the gas station. "I didn't send it in," I continued "Why should I designate race? We're all equal. We all need good services in Oakland."

"You're so right" he replied. I said, "Under capitalism the fascist institutions of the State serving the ruling class—like the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and the INS (Immigration Service)—and use the census information to tighten control on workers in the U.S. police state."

"It could be different," my friend said. "Yes, under communism we would use the census to provide equality for all workers," I said. "Check out our newspaper CHALLENGE. We just had our May Day march!" "It’s even in Spanish," my friend replied.

"It could even be in Chinese if you would write us a story" (my friend came to the U.S. from Taiwan). "I’ll check it out," he said.

"There’s more to come," I replied. "See you next time!"

Keep up the good work in CHALLENGE.

Oakland Comrade

Promises and Promises

The Presidential elections in the Dominican Republic replaced talk about baseball for a while among Dominican immigrants here in New York City. Opinions were divided but most people wanted a change in government and hoped that the social-democratic Dominican "Revolutionary" Party would win and "improve conditions" among poor people back home.

Hipólito Mejía, an agricultural businessman, won in the first election round, equaling the combined total of Danilo Medina, the candidate of the current ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) and of 94-year-old Joaquín Balaguer (president several times in the past).

The Hipólito Mejía victory was a rejection of the current government led by the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). The PLD won four years ago, "promising" it would modernize the country and improve the lot of working people. The PLD considered itself a "national liberation" party and a cadre organization (you couldn’t just sign up but had to prove yourself first). But as soon as the PLD came to power, it adopted free market reforms (neo-liberalism), privatizing many state-owned enterprises. These policies enriched local and foreign investors and the top officials of the PLD While the Dominican economy grew by 8% a year, the highest in Latin America, nothing trickled down to the masses. So the rich got richer and poor got even poorer.

Now people have the illusion the new President will funnel some of this growth to the masses. But that’s not the way capitalism works, no matter who’s elected. In the past very little trickled down; now almost nothing does. The PRD, the new president’s Party, was in power twice between 1978 and 1986. Then corruption was rampant, including universal repression of workers and youth. In early 1981, a mass rebellion erupted against the PRD, opposing IMF austerity "reforms," making the poor even poorer. The PRD sent in the Army to crush the rebellions, murdering hundreds.

Workers and their allies do not understand that the state is the dictatorship of the capitalist class against workers and their allies. The phony left in the Dominican Republic, that used to be rather large, contributes to the illusion that something can be gained from lesser evil politicians. But the fact is no President will better conditions for the working class because all parties follow capitalism’s profit system. Elections in the Dominican Republic are mainly a fight between rival sections of the ruling class over which one will control the state, and nowadays which imperialist power to serve (the U.S. or the Europeans). Workers end up losing no matter who’s elected. Nothing less than a communist party, as PLP is, can win workers to this understanding.

Juan Pueblo

‘These people should be killed...’

....So says Professor Peter Singer talking about children with defects.

I found out a week before his visit that this Nazi-like professor from Princeton would be speaking at my university. In that week I took final exams (I'm still a student and also working full-time), wrote a flyer (with my oldest sister’s help), passed out about 550 flyers on campus (aided by a multi-racial group of 13 co-workers, family members and friends), and raised consciousness of the true issues at the event itself.

When I first heard about this event, with little time to prepare, a co-worker volunteered to get more information from the Internet for the flyer opposing Singer's views. He also enthusiastically helped distribute the flyer.

One of my co-workers brought three family members to the protest. She had been debating on whether to come, not seeing the difference one person would make. When I explained the dangers of pacifism, she agreed to participate. She later paid for more copies of the flyer after we ran out during the protest.

About 500 people came and everyone wanted to read our flyer. After Singer's speech, I attacked him, explaining that his ideas would lead to death for the poor, while wealthy families with disabled children can pay for help. Then many others attacked his ideas.

As a PLP member I was able to get input from other comrades. Sometimes I can see "a wrong" but have trouble expressing the "why." Our ability to ask questions openly within the Party without feeling one is dumb is crucial and very supportive.

The following are excerpts of the flyer distributed at Cal State University, Bakersfield:

"Who is Worthy of Life?

According to Peter Singer, some lives are not worth living. Children with Downs' Syndrome, mental retardation, disabilities, infants born with birth defects, etc., should be non-voluntarily killed since they, "are not rational and self-conscious and so not persons," as he explains in his book Practical Ethics. This is only a part of Singer's dangerous agenda, which Hitler named and practiced as eugenics.

Lies like these are used for rationing services for the poor. If a person is less worthy of life, why continue to provide tax dollars to help them live healthy lives? If services are cut, those affected the most will be minorities and poor whites. Some say, "If you don't like his ideas, don't go hear him speak." [But] if you don't show opposition whenever a Nazi racist like Singer comes to talk, then you are allowing others to listen and be won over to their ideas. You are allowing fascism to grow.

Human life is not valued by this system. There are millions of homeless in the U.S., millions more starving across the world, but in March 1989 The Wall Street Journal described overproduction in many U.S. industries. As a result, [tens of thousands] were laid off. Overproduction does not mean more was produced than was needed. It means more was produced than could be sold for profit. We have the capacity to feed and house the entire homeless and hungry population, but this would not bring profits to the capitalist system. Greed runs this system, not respect for human life.

If there were a God out there, He would want a better system for us. A system that does not live and survive off everything bad and evil in human beings. He would want us to rise up and create a society where we live in equality, where everyone gets according to need; a system where nobody is forced to work in order to eat, but instead is motivated by their commitment to their children, to their community, and to the betterment of their collective society. A system where human beings are valued not because of the worth of their production, but simply because of the worth as a HUMAN BEING.

Singer and his ideas are dangerous. They reflect the worst of a bloody profit system.

[Editor’s Note: "That better system" described in the above leaflet is called communism, which is what we in PLP fight for. But we agree with Prof. Singer that "...people should be killed," but not the ones he mentioned....]

"The specter of communism is here to stay"

The specter of communism is here to stay. We saw it and felt it in our May Day march in Washington D.C. Years ago Karl Marx said, "Communism is already acknowledged by the bosses’ power to be itself a power among the working class." An example of this was seeing Asian, Latin, black and white young people taking leadership on the march.

Our youth are sick and tired of this capitalist system which cannot provide a community without drugs, an educational system which can't teach solidarity and sharing and streets without police brutality. That's why many youngsters decide to pick up the red flag of communism and march on May Day with PLP.

When I was marching. I saw this young black man carrying the bullhorn during the whole march. It was a hot, sunny day, but it didn't stop the comrade who was teaching English to an Hispanic woman comrade who only spoke Spanish. This is communism taking power.

A New York City Worker

PLP Grows in NJ After May Day March

In the wake of a better May Day effort, two more people have joined our workers’ club. In addition, two friends of the Party attended our last club meeting. We discussed what it means to be a member of PLP, and its role in the current period.

A new member described the importance of an organization like PLP. He said there’s no other organization like our Party because we’re not afraid to speak the truth. Another comrade, a member for a few years, said for a long time he didn’t agree with communism. Now he sees the need for it, but because of family problems, he is limited in what he can do. But this comrade has taken steps to secure his family situation and, in the long run, to contribute more to the Party’s work. One of our friends, an ex-member, said the May Day march had helped bring him back around the Party.

Our club is beginning a dialectics class for new and newer members. We need to constantly return to the study of dialectical materialism. Dialectics can teach how to do work inside mass organizations. This work has posed lots of barriers for our Party, but is also the key to our advancement during this difficult and complex historical period.

All in all, our club members and friends have more confidence in the Party. We also see more clearly the growth of war and fascism. If we advance our line more strongly in the mass organizations, the working class will respond positively and our Party will grow.

Garden State Red

Less Talk More Action

In response to NYC comrade's letter in CHALLENGE (5/24), I agree—the decline in May Day numbers can't be ignored. The working class is a cautious bunch, with good reason. They’ve been told lies all their lives. Believing the lies has caused disastrous results for them. As the old song says, "You're telling me all the things your gonna do for me. Well, I ain't blind and I don't like what I think I see." If the Party's plan is to take our revolutionary message to the streets, we'd better be able to withstand the scrutiny of the working class.

What distinguishes us from other political organizations? You can be sure that the working class is asking this question about PLP. We'd better have something substantial to offer them rather than idle talk about "all the things we're gonna do for them."

The Party is not a social club. Building ties with people is important, but building people’s commitment to communist revolution is more effective in the long run. We can't be just a bunch of rocks heating up in the sun. We'd better be a Party of hatching communist revolutionaries. We have to be involved in class struggle daily whether it's within our collectives, on the job or while working in mass organizations. We must learn by practice and teach others by example how to build the Party for revolution. It isn't our job to help people climb social ladders as some reformist organizations do, but to help people climb out of the hold of the capitalist slave ships, which are sinking, and organize a mutiny.

California Comrade

Information: Print

CHALLENGE May 24, 2000

Information: 24 May 2000 181 hits

What Bosses' Debate on Gun Control Hide:
Capitalist Violence Kills Million
Arizona Vigilantes Ape Racist Anti-Immigrant of Shoot To Kill of President Clinton
Big Bosses Tell Racist Giuliani to Zip It
IPO Another Capitalist Swindle
Postal Workers Fight Firings
Albright You Can't Hide (in Your Limousine). We Charge Youth With Genocide
Black Workers Denounce Police Terror in Pa.
Parents and Teachers Defend PLP Teacher
Demonstrate May 22nd at the Board of Education 125 South Clark (Clark and Adams) 5:00 PM--the last day of the hearings.
CHICAGO COPS ON A SHOOTING SPREE
DETROIT COPS: ARMED AND DANGEROUS
(Do Not Attempt to Apprehend Alone!)
Janitors' Experience: Rulers' Democracy: Another Weapon Against Workers' Struggles
A Ford in Your Future Means More Bosses' Profits, Less Jobs for Workers
1. Nationalism: Deadly for Autoworkers
Social Democrats: Frontment for the Fourth Reich
LETTERS

What Bosses' Debate on Gun Control Hide:
Capitalist Violence Kills Million

On May 13, nearly a million women gathered in 65 cities throughout the country, the bulk of them in Washington D.C., to demand more gun control from the government in what was labeled as the Million Mom March. Many workers and youth have been outraged by the ruthless killings by fascists in Columbine, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 13, and other shootings that have left many children dead and injured.

On the surface, this movement seems to be organized by caring mothers who really do want to end gun violence. But in essence this "mom" movement is being pushed and endorsed by the Establishment. Donna Dees-Thomases, who refers to herself as a housewife and mother of two young children, was inspired to organize the march by watching the horrific television footage of a neo-Nazi attacking young children in a Jewish-run daycare center in Granada Hills, California.

Dee-Thomases is not the ordinary mom she proclaims. According to the May 15th WALLSTREET JOURNAL, she was a former publicist for Dan Rather and now works for David Letterman. She is also the sister-in-law of Susan Thomases, who just happens to be one of Hillary Clinton's "closest friends, long-time political strategist, heavy-handed enforcer and frequently attorney of record."

The Million Mom March is an apparent attempt to continue the attack on the capitalist rivals of the Rockefeller camp by co-opting the anger and despair that many workers have about the increasing violent killing of youth by guns.

While the Clinton Administration is crying crocodile tears for the victims of gun violence, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has rebuilt itself from the ashes of its own political mess created by the Oklahoma City bombing and its ties to the fascist, racist militia movement. Now led by the fascist actor, Charleton Heston, the NRA is claiming over three million members, even in the wake of the Columbine massacre.

These rival forces are attempting to win millions to their fascist movements, especially during this election year.

Workers and youth should understand that guns are not the enemy as the liberals say. It is who is shooting who that determines the enemy. U.S. rulers, among all capitalists, are responsible for more untold millions of deaths by guns than any other group or individuals. Their cops increasingly murder black and Latin youth across the country. None of these gun control movements are fighting to reign in these racist cops.

The bosses use guns and bombs to destroy and kill millions during wars and have no problem using them. In Kosovo and continuing in Iraq, U.S. bombs killed hundreds of thousands of workers, including mothers and children and left millions homeless. On May 14, U.S. and British planes bombed civilian targets in southern Iraq, injuring nine people, including one child.

The bosses portray violence as something divorced from class interests--that it's "evil" and "mean" people who do it, rather than being inherent in capitalism. When a worker gets laid off and lives day to day, it's violence. According to a Congressional report, every 1.4% increase in U.S. unemployment leads directly over the subsequent five years to 30,000 worker deaths from stress-related diseases and suicides When workers in maquilladoras are forced to work 13 to 18 hours a day, that's violence. When young girls even younger than 10 are forced into slavery for labor or sex all over the world, it's violence. All such forms of violence are committed against the working class every day.

Communists don't oppose guns. The bosses will never surrender their riches or their system to the working class that produces that wealth without an armed struggle. We will have to use guns and other weapons against the bosses in a violent revolution. That's why we say, "Turn the Guns Around, Shoot the Bosses Down." But that can only be achieved by a movement of tens of millions of workers and youth fighting for a communist world, the only thing that can free us from capitalist class violence. Join PLP today!

Arizona Vigilantes Ape Racist Anti-Immigrant of Shoot To Kill of President Clinton

LOS ANGELES, CA, May 20--A group of racist ranchers in Cochise and Douglas, Arizona called "concerned citizens" have unleashed a "witch hunt for immigrants." The group is led by Don and Roger Barnett, together with members of the Ku Klux Klan and Glen Spence, head of Voice of Citizens Together (VCT) from Los Angeles. In a recent interview with the daily "USA Today," the Barnett brothers said they are "prepared to kill Mexicans."

These racists are using the Internet, the press and TV to recruit fascist volunteers to hunt immigrants who try to cross the border in search of a job to survive. Last May 3^rd the Barnetts and two women, all on horseback, with bloodhounds and armed with rifles and pistols, invited ABC TV to see how they enjoy themselves terrorizing immigrant workers. That day nine workers were followed and captured. After threatening to kill them, and raining insults on them, they were turned over to the fascist INS. In this same area the body of another immigrant was found with rope marks on his neck and signs of having been tortured.

"The Mexican Government will not allow U.S. citizens to hunt Mexicans," said Rosario Green, Secretary of Foreign Relations. These hypocritical bosses don't say they themselves are also part of the same problem, caused by the poverty to which they have subjected the workers. How many people has the Mexican government killed in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, etc? We shouldn't expect any help from these exploiters and their killer cops!

In the U.S., nationalist groups and politicians are calling for the defense of the Mexicans and demanding the fascist federal government stop the Barnett brothers. But Clinton is responsible for "Operation Gatekeeper" which has led to the deaths of more than 1,500 immigrants in the last five years. Barnett and his fascist gang are babies compared to the terrorist history of the Migra [immigration service] in Texas. Barnett and Clinton are birds of a feather!

The AFL-CIO, along with immigrants' rights groups, is calling for general amnesty for undocumented workers. They are organizing a massive campaign to support the Democratic Party and asking that they support a general amnesty. But what do the Democrats and the U.S. ruling class want in return? Our sons and daughters in the army to kill and die for the interests and profits of the bosses led by Rockefeller. In addition, they want us workers to passively accept the bosses' exploitation and racist police terror.

Our alternative? First, we must organize class struggle at work, in school, in the unions and mass organizations; organize work stoppages, demonstrations, resolutions and strikes against these racist acts. We need to show our fellow workers who are our friends and who are our enemies. CHALLENGE is crucial to showing all workers that such actions are in their interests. They are one step forward in building a revolutionary communist movement which will destroy borders, exploitation and imperialist wars.

A few years ago in LA, the fascist VCT received a little of what they deserve--the fists and sticks of black, white and Latino workers and youth, led by PLP. Let's fight to prepare our class massively to destroy all these Barnetts, Migra, police terror, exploitation and all the capitalists, with communist revolution.

Big Bosses Tell Racist Giuliani to Zip It

Workers are very happy to see New York City's racist mayor, Rudy Giuliani, sink like the Titanic. But, before we sing victory let's see the real iceberg that is sinking Rudy. Some of his strongest backers, including the NEW YORK TIMES and WALL STREET JOURNAL, have told him to drop his Senate campaign. The media are making a big deal about his prostate cancer and an even bigger one about his private life. But the fall in Giuliani's fortunes isn't due mainly to illness or a sordid little drama of marital infidelity. Behind it lies a shift in ruling class attitudes toward the economy.

The big bosses have a major stake in New York City. It's still the nation's biggest city and the world's most important financial center.

When Giuliani became mayor in January 1994, he had three key assignments. The first was to complete the task, started under his liberal Democrat predecessors, of attacking workers' living standards. He did this through fascist Workfare, layoffs and a variety of racist, union-busting, service-cutting tactics, to forestall resistance to these attacks.

Second, in the name of "reducing crime," he was ordered to continue and intensify a reign of police terror on large sections of NYC workers, particularly in the most oppressed black and Latin neighborhoods. He has certainly done this, even though liberals are now hypocritically complaining that he has been much too openly racist in defending police murders of black and Latin workers. However, they are certainly not opposed to this police terror, and in fact have advanced the Rockefeller-backed policy of "community policing," hardly a "kinder, gentler" form of bosses' dictatorship than Giuliani's "zero tolerance" terror. "Community policing" will mean even more arrests, more long jail sentences and more violence against workers and particularly working-class youth.

Thirdly was to make sure the major banks and financial houses reaped windfall profits from the longest bull market in the stock exchange's history. Until recently, he succeeded here too.

Rockefeller Wants Tighter Control

But the worm is turning. The Rockefeller wing of the bosses wants to bring the markets under tighter control. Recent CHALLENGE articles have described the motives behind the rulers' disciplining of maverick giants like Microsoft's Gates and the new "dot.com" billionaires. Giuliani's decline is related to this process.

Part of the stock market's rise is due to the so-called IPO (Initial Public Offering) craze. IPOs are a gimmick to raise billions for financial houses that float the capital for stocks entering the market for the first time. This is a highly speculative business. IPOs create huge profits for investors without making the companies themselves profitable. (See box.) Amazon.com is a prime example. This is a recipe for a crash, and the Rockefeller banks don't want such a crash.

Giuliani's main loyalty isn't to the Rockefeller banks but rather to the bosses that back the Manhattan Institute (MI), his key "think tank." This bunch includes Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Crédit Suisse, and Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney. They are the top underwriters for IPOs for 1999. Rockefeller's Chase and J.P. Morgan are not to be found on the MI's trustee list. In comparison, Crédit Suisse has more than 250 IPOs completed or pending. Chase has 11, J.P. Morgan seven and Rockefeller Securities none. As long as the markets were fairly steady and rising, the Rockefellers went along with Giuliani's masters, but everything has limits. The MI bosses can't see beyond speculative greed. The Rockefellers have a world to and need internal stability. In political and economic strategy, the Giuliani and Rockefeller camps diverge.

An International Fight

A second point is the question of government interference in international markets. The MI crowd, driving for immediate profits, wants to be able to invest anywhere, including Russia and China, without U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund oversight. Rockefeller rival and IMF foe Walter Wriston (former head of Citibank) leads the pack. Goldman Sachs serves as chief financial advisor to BP Amoco, Rockefeller-Exxon Mobil's main rival. BP Amoco is Russia's largest foreign investor. Other MI trustees have big bucks riding in Russia. And MI board member Maurice Greenberg, AIG's boss, has grand plans to peddle insurance to workers in Russia and China. This wheeling and dealing doesn't necessarily jibe with the liberal Rockefeller position of treating Russia and China as strategic enemies.

The liberal salvos at Giuliani are just the first line of assault in this latest bosses' dogfight. New York's Republican governor Pataki, who until now has had a foot in both camps, just crossed over to the Rockefeller side. On May 3, the $91 billion New York State Teachers' Retirement System fired two of its money managers, Manhattan Institute trustees Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. and Citibank Global Asset Management, prominent Manhattan Institute backers, for "poor performance" (BLOOMBERG NEWS). Both the WALL STREET JOURNAL and the NEW YORK TIMES have called for Pataki to replace Giuliani in the Senate campaign. The Manhattan Institute, once chummy with Pataki, now despises him for toeing the Rockefeller line (CITY JOURNAL).

ROCKY'S `SONS' RETURN TO FOLD

There's more. A recent TIMES editorial was highly critical of IPO-factory Bear Stearns for its plan to "restructure" NYC's Metropolitan Transit Authority debt. It just so happens that Bear Stearns's chief agrees with Rockefeller arch-rival Wriston about abolishing the International Monetary Fund. And Rockefeller "prodigal sons" are coming back to the fold. Morgan Stanley, bitten by the IPO high-tech bug a couple of years ago, now warns about high technology stocks and recommends investing in "old economy" companies (REUTERS, April 27). Finally, longtime Rockefeller gunslinger Paul Volcker--who presided over the indictment of the Rocky arch-rival Hunt Brothers' illegal stab at cornering the silver market in the late 1970s--has also taken up his master's arms. Volcker heads a commission looking into the role of Swiss banks in hiding loot the Nazis stole from Jewish victims of Hitler's genocide. Two of the commission's biggest targets, Crédit Suisse and UBS, are represented at the Manhattan Institute.

So the attacks on Giuliani's are clearly tied to Rockefeller efforts to discipline the markets and swat down upstart rivals. There's no "lesser evil" here. Giuliani's a vicious, anti-worker racist. However, his liberal opponents are just as bad, if not worse. In fact, the Rockefeller Chase Bank gave initial funding for the Manhattan Institute when it was founded in 1978 by future Reagan CIA chief William Casey. And the Rockefeller strategy of preparing for oil wars and major imperialist bloodbaths down the road will lead to the death of more workers than Giuliani's cops and his BP Amoco and MI allies have in store for workers. The shifting sands of alliances among the rulers--for war and exploitation to see who gets the most profits--should serve only to increase our commitment to the working class and to the victorous fight for communism.

IPO Another Capitalist Swindle

In an Initial Public Offering (IPO) a big investment bank, like Goldman Sachs, underwrites--that is, buys up shares in a new company--and then sells them to the public for the first time. The start-ups, today mainly Internet schemes, usually have few assets and show no profit. But to make their own profit from selling the shares, the underwriters promise that the new firm will revolutionize business and become the next Microsoft. The "public" part of IPO is a lie. The underwriter gives first crack at the new stock to banks, insurance companies, pension funds and other ruling-class-controlled high rollers. Then, by generating hype, the underwriter lures in the small investor with the promise of a quick buck. The stock's price skyrockets. But the bubble eventually deflates or explodes.

Everybody would be happy and getting richer were it not for two sobering realities. First: the shares are worthless. Their market price may be dozens or even hundreds of times the company's real value. In fact, some companies, like Amazon.com, may actually lose money even though their soaring stock prices make billions for a few of the shareholders. The current high tech market downslide was triggered in part by bankers and insider technology executives dumping their own shares early and letting the small investor take the hit. Second: the main wing of the ruling class sees this mania as a gross waste of capital heading for a crash that will severely harm the long-term profit rate of Establishment firms. That's why Greenspan raised interest rates again this week in order to cool off the market and avoid a general crash. And that's why the Rockefeller wing is forcing a return of capital to the so-called "old economy" companies.

Postal Workers Fight Firings

CHICAGO, IL, May 11 -- Over 50 letter carriers met last Saturday to fight the firings of four carriers at the Hyde Park Station. After receiving an "anonymous tip," postal bosses fired 12 carriers for throwing mail in the dumpster behind the station. Charges were dropped against eight, leaving four out on the street.

Management dumped the mail. They do it all the time. When they get caught, they blame the workers. Carrier after carrier told how they had been harassed, written up, fired and spied on by postal bosses. Several said they had to go out on stress-related leave and were now on medication. The horror stories were endless.

Management's drive to become more competitive with UPS and FedEx has led to intense speed-up, harassment, intimidation and cutbacks. They've made billions in profits over the last five years from the blood, sweat and tears of the workers.

The workers at the meeting were nearly all black and they were not falling for the bosses' nationalist trick of using black bosses to harass them. A non-postal worker in the audience asked, "What percentage of these supervisors and union representatives are African-American?" The meeting's leader answered, "99.9!" Another worker half-jokingly added, "It's black on black crime!"

The union meeting tonight was a packed house of angry workers. A motion was made to have a demonstration at the Postmaster's Office, and it passed unanimously. The local President tried to derail the will of the workers with some mumbo-jumbo about "the process...to select a committee...blah, blah, blah." But workers want to do it with or without official union backing. We got about ten names and phone numbers after the meeting. WE will be the committee.

These struggles give us an opportunity to build ties among workers who want to fight back. Our politics of "Revolution, not Reform" can be like a breath of fresh air. Workers know how bad we're being treated, but it's not so clear why, or what we can do about it. We must view every fight against the boss as a way to increase the circulation of CHALLENGE and win workers to become leaders of the Party.

Albright You Can't Hide (in Your Limousine). We Charge Youth With Genocide

BERKELEY, CA, May 10 --No one knows how Secretary of State Madeleine Albright got invited to speak at the Univ. of California commencement here. It was announced suddenly, with only a week's notice. But everyone knows how she left--lying in the back seat of a limo, hiding from the demonstrators!

Hardly a moment in her speech was not interrupted. Despite Federal security agents checking all who entered the open-air theater, four anti-Albright banners were smuggled in and unfurled. Fifty-nine protesters were ejected.

Outside, pickets had leafleted and agitated among the graduates and their families as they had lined up to enter the stadium. A couple of PLP'ers exposed Albright's role as a servant of Exxon-Mobil and the Rockefeller ruling class, while pointing out that only communist revolution can liberate workers. Several people gave us their names and some deep discussions ensued.

However, the demonstration was organized by forces that only demanded lifting the UN sanctions against Iraq. Yes, the sanctions should be lifted. They spell death for the Iraqi working class, killing almost two million, mainly workers' kids. But to imply, as the organizers did, that lifting the sanctions would free the Iraqi working class spreads dangerous illusions.

Sanctions or no sanctions, all workers in the Mid-East are under a death sentence because the imperialist rivalry to control the region's oil is getting sharper and more desperate by the day. Death by sanctions; death by depleted uranium bombs; death by an Iran/Iraq war; death at the hands of the Taliban (fighting to secure oil pipelines through Afghanistan). Inter-imperialist rivalry kills the working class in many ways.

Even some imperialists want to end the sanctions because they block deals made with Saddam Hussein. And they will cut their deal in the United (against-the-workers-of-the-world) Nations. Yet workers in the Mid-East and elsewhere will not escape this death sentence until we build a revolutionary communist movement--the PLP--capable of putting power in the hands of the working class. That's the message we brought to the demonstration and are carrying today to the new friends we met there.

Black Workers Denounce Police Terror in Pa.

Johnstown, Pa., once a thriving steel town, is now based upon a Wal-Mart economy, with some sweatshop-like factories and fast food restaurants, all low-paying and lacking job security. Recently there has been a layoff epidemic in the city, located in the coalfields of Western Pennsylvania. Johnstown is remembered for the 1889 flood that killed 2,000 people, caused by a dam breaking at the Hunting and Fishing Club owned by robber baron steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie and other capitalist exploiters. (See "The Johnstown Flood," by David McCulloch).

Also, recently the city's black citizens have been waging a battle against police harassment and terror. Last year, the cops arrested a mentally ill black man and placed him in a holding cell. When he was found dead, the cops claimed he hanged himself with his own socks. They would not release the report to the local press.

On May 11, 100 black citizens of Johnstown met with city officials, presented overwhelming evidence of racial profiling, brutality, excessive force and false arrests and demanded the resignation of the Chief of Police. Jack Daniel, a black man and former Johnstown resident, now a vice-provost at the University of Pittsburgh, stated it was more than just racial profiling but "pure racism, racism, racism. The evidence included:

& A black man, a church deacon, charged that two cops unjustly stopped two young black males on their way home from a church revival in Pittsburgh;

& Toni Smith, a 66-year-old black woman, described how one night police crashed through her door without warrant searching for her grandson, rushed upstairs, battered down the young man's door and dragged him down the steps by his shirt.

& John Walker, Jr., a black man, told the story of his two college educated daughters and a friend being arrested by cops for driving a van with New York plates. The young women were jailed but were later released by a magistrate since there were no real charges against them. The young women were traumatized by this blatant cop terror.

& Another black man said he overheard police one night stating they were headed for Kernville, a black section, "to round up some n----rs."

Many others told similar stories of while city officials listened silently. But there are a number of problems with this fight-back. Firstly, white workers should be involved as they also have been victimized by the cops during past strikes; unity is necessary here. Secondly, it should be realized that under capitalism and developing fascism the cops exist to terrorize the oppressed and workers. So even if the Police Chief is fired, it won't solve anything since the problem is not one chief but the system of racist capitalism.

As a CHALLENGE has pointed out, the only way to halt racist police terror is through workers' revolution. Still, it's positive that Johnstown's black residents are standing up to the cops, as many did--along with white workers--against the KKK rally there last August and drove the scum out of town.

Parents and Teachers Defend PLP Teacher

CHICAGO, IL May 11 -- "The defendant will have you believe that this hearing is about his communist politics, but it's not. What it is about is the proper role of a teacher to involve students in a personal crusade, take them to political rallies for his own ideas. Mr. Bernal has a long history, and we will prove this dating back to taking students to protest the Gulf War. Also, that Chicago Vocational Career Academy [CVCA] was fertile ground for Mr. Bernal because it is 99.9% low-income black youth that attend the school." That's how Board of Education lawyer David Hemmingway opened the hearing to fire PLP member Moises Bernal.

The day before the hearings started, students, teachers and parents demonstrated in front of the Board, exposing this kangaroo court and Mayor Daley's racist "school reform." Moises was pulled out of school in January 1999. PLP member Carol Caref was pulled out of the same school in January 2000. The Board claims this is not about our politics, but after three days of testimony that's all it's about. The Board is out to get us for being anti-racists and revolutionary communists, for taking students to demonstrations against racist police brutality and the KKK.

Ringmaster Russell-Williams, a rabid anti-communist teacher and sponsor of the school Bible Study group, led their circus of witnesses. She echoed the Board's lawyer, describing CVCA as 99.9% low-income black students, some not even having bus fare to get to school. She testified that students feared Moises because he became "highly animated when discussing his beliefs." But even she admitted he was a competent teacher.

Then came four CVCA students. Russell-Williams had given their names to Board investigators, who interrogated, coerced and promised them rewards to testify. Russell-Williams was present during at least one of the interrogations. She was the key to getting everyone under the Board's big top. But even they testified he was a good teacher who cared about his students.

Their last witness was a known liar who said Moises spent five and six days a week with her son, but that she had never met him or talked to him. She had written a letter requested by the principal, which was used to investigate Moises and remove him from class.

Over the next two days we presented our case. The political struggle with our friends to defend the Party was very important and rewarding. Parents and students testified that Moises was a caring and committed teacher. One mother attacked the principal for ignoring her repeated concerns about lack of teachers and books.

A student described organizing a walkout because she had no biology books or teacher for a whole semester. When a sophomore, she complained to the principal that a security guard had sexually propositioned her. She even gave his name. The principal said she would investigate. Now the student's a senior and still hasn't heard a word. A young man testified how much he appreciated the various political discussions in the classroom, and how Party club meetings were challenging. The parents and students who testified were inspiring examples of the support we enjoy in the school and community.

We are reaching out to teachers, parents and students in the Chicago Teachers' Union, Board of Education public meetings, youth groups, PTA's, Local School Councils, classrooms and more. Reverend Paul Jakes, a liberal leader of the anti-police brutality movement testified about the role of young people in the civil rights movement. A dissident union group whose newspaper has a circulation of 5,000 readers is covering the case. We are broadening out the struggle and learning how to be communist leaders in the mass movement. Victory is not in the hands of the hearing officer. It's in ours. Building a stronger fighting PLP is the real victory.

Demonstrate May 22nd at the Board of Education 125 South Clark (Clark and Adams) 5:00 PM--the last day of the hearings.
CHICAGO COPS ON A SHOOTING SPREE

CHICAGO, IL, May 15 - Chicago police have shot four people in 10 days. Michael Taylor died Saturday. Police shot the 20-year-old on Friday, when "they saw what they thought" was a drug deal near West Harrison Street. Taylor ran when police tried to handcuff him. The cops claim they killed him after he pulled a gun on them. But Taylor's family said he did not have a gun and no drugs were involved. Witnesses say police shot him while he was trying to get up after falling. They say he ran out of fear because in 1998 police beat him after pulling him over.

On May 3, the cops killed 39-year old Joseph Zagar on his porch. They claim they "mistook" the battery pack he was holding for a gun. On May 9, 23-year old Antonio Blandin was shot in the arm after a traffic stop. A day later, police shot a man in the legs after being stopped on the South Side.

For some mothers, Mother's Day was spent holding photos of their imprisoned sons outside the Cook County Criminal Court building. Justice Is Blind/Mothers Against Injustices called for a federal probe of the city's criminal justice system. Congressman Danny Davis, Rev. Paul Jakes, Jr. and 25 friends and family of Michael Taylor also called for a federal investigation, and the creation of a civilian review board to investigate police shootings.

Investigations and review boards will not stop racist police terror. Never has, never will. Under the last seven years of the Clinton gang, the prison population has doubled. Nearly one in four young black men is either in jail, on probation or awaiting trial. Many, if not most, black and Latin workers and youth understand the futility of asking the fox to guard the hen house.

More to the point, the police are the armed thugs of the ruling class. Their job is to terrorize workers and youth into accepting a future of mass poverty, racist cutbacks and imperialist war, especially as the bosses boast of unprecedented wealth. The system of capitalist wage slavery created these cops. Only communist revolution will end racist police terror.

DETROIT COPS: ARMED AND DANGEROUS
(Do Not Attempt to Apprehend Alone!)

DETROIT, MI, May 15 -- Detroit's cops are the deadliest in the U.S. One is 20 times more likely to be killed by cops in Detroit than in NYC, and 10 times more likely than in Los Angeles. "These are Vietnam kind of numbers," said Detroit lawyer Juan Mateo. "Cops are shooting people and getting away with it."

Many of these racist atrocities will sound familiar. In August 1998, Cora Bell Jones was shot dead in her home. Arthritis, deafness, poor vision and senility hobbled the 79-year-old great-grandmother. She was trying to defend her great-grandson who was being chased by the police, and her daughter who had been knocked out of her wheelchair.

In November 1997, 40-year-old autoworker Hong Leong, with a history of mental problems, was murdered. The cops claim they "fired in self-defense." But 12 of the 16 shots hit Hong IN THE BACK and palm of his hand.

Detroit is home to one million workers, about 80% black. Over the past 20 years the downsizing of the auto industry has devastated Detroit. The old downtown is a graveyard of empty office buildings. Only two factories remain within the city limits, GM's Hamtramck Assembly and DaimlerChrysler's Jefferson Assembly plant. These two factories opened while dozens closed. The new Jefferson factory has half as many workers as the old one, and is out-producing it.

The average income in Detroit has probably been cut in half in this period. Factory jobs have been replaced by janitorial and food service work in the new gambling casinos and the new luxury-box-filled Tiger Stadium, playgrounds for the rich.

These attacks have been carried out at a terrible cost of broken homes and families, closed hospitals, collapsing schools, homelessness, prisons bursting at the seams and almost one police killing a month for the past 10 years.

In the 1960's Detroit's workers were left out of an "economic boom." Unemployment, poverty and racist police terror combined to spark the 1967 Detroit Rebellion. In July '67, Detroit exploded into flames as an armed working class, many of them recently returned Vietnam veterans, turned their guns on the rulers.

In 48 hours the Detroit police force was pinned down in their precincts and out of action. The National Guard was called in, and in another 48 hours, they too were defeated. It finally took units of the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions being diverted from Vietnam to retake control of the city. Thousands of workers were arrested and dozens were killed, but many cops never lived to see the rebellion crushed. In it's wake, the shaken auto bosses hired 100,000 black workers.

But things have changed. The Vietnamese no longer inspire the masses to fight U.S. imperialism. The old communist movement has been defeated. Rather than high expectations, there is mass cynicism. And the auto bosses don't have 100,000 jobs to deliver. But the hatred of the workers for the racist rulers and their cops is constant. Even a small communist movement, dedicated and immersed among the people, can lead many. Building a mass PLP must be our answer to this current wave of police terror. Dark night shall have its dawn.

Janitors' Experience: Rulers' Democracy: Another Weapon Against Workers' Struggles

LOS ANGELES, CA. May 17 -- The following interview is a compilation of talks with different groups of janitors after their recent three-week strike.

Q: Do you know about the convention of your international union, SEIU [Service Employees International Union]?

A: No. They never tell us anything about such things. They only talk about them to the few workers they trust. They'll probably say our struggle was a great victory for unionism and for the janitors. But the truth is the opposite. The workers here are very angry with the leadership and with the results of the strike. That's why they haven't told us anything about the convention.

Q: How was the strike?

A: There was a good side. There was a lot of unity among the workers. A lot of women with their children marching and picketing in the rain, or until the middle of the night. These things gave the feel of workers in struggle. Many people used the little money they had to buy food for their fellow strikers. In these struggles, there's an opportunity for rank-and-file leaders to emerge and for them to become real revolutionary leaders, fighting for workers' power.

Q: What did you think of the marches and the militancy?

A: There was a lot of militancy by the rank and file but it was limited by the union leadership. They concentrated more on bringing Democratic Party politicians rather than relying on the rank-and-file workers. They had us march all over the city instead of concentrating on keeping scabs out of our buildings. There were workers and their children whose feet were bleeding, and they came back the next day to keep marching, because they felt they were fighting for something important for themselves and their families.

Q: How is the morale of the workers now?

A: Some are more or less OK. But we feel betrayed. When we decided to strike we said we were fighting for a $1/hr increase for all of us. The somewhat higher-paid workers got only 60cents/hr as of May 1st. The rest of us were sacrificed even more. They gave us only a 30cents increase and we don't get that until October, so overall it's only 15cents/hr averaged out over the first year.

Q; What's happening with the scabs?

A: That's a big problem, because we don't want them in our work locations. But in several buildings, the owners are giving them preference, and the union says it will "take time" to get them out. We think they made a deal, between the companies and the union leaders not to touch these traitors. But we're going to keep fighting against what we think is bad in the union. We also intend to find out what happened to the more than $2 million that some churches and others donated for the strike that was never used.

Q: What do you think of CHALLENGE newspaper?

A; We like it because it tells the truth and teaches things that the union never even mentions, things that are important to our lives.

Conclusion:

The history of the leadership of LA SEIU Local 1877 (janitors) is full of corruption and support for the capitalist system. Mike Garcia is the current president. He wasn't elected by the members, but imposed by then SEIU President John Sweeney in 1995. That year, a group of Latino, black and white workers challenged the sellout leadership of Jim Zellers, President of SEIU Local 399. The reform slate was elected to 21 of the 25 positions in the union leadership. They immediately called a meeting and tried to clean house. But Zellers was unwilling to remove his henchmen and he refused to accept the changes and the will of the membership.

The meeting turned into a fist fight between the old and new leadership. Zellers called the cops to kick the newly-elected leaders out of the union hall, saying they "threatened" him. Then he called Sweeney and asked him to prevent the keep the rank and file from taking control of the union. At the time Sweeney was running for president of the AFL-CIO under the slogan "union democracy." He put Local 399 under the "friendly leadership of the International," completely ignoring the new leaders elected by the members. He installed Mike Garcia from northern California as union chief. Days later, Garcia and Sweeney split the union into two Locals, 399 and 1877, dividing the workers by wage level and splitting the unity of the more militant workers.

This experience showed some workers what PLP had pointed out, that there can be no democracy for workers under capitalism. That's why the fight for workers' power must be the long-term fight for communist revolution. The AFL-CIO's role of is to win the workers to support the mperialist war policies of the liberal Rockefeller wing of the U.S. rulers, and get them to accept racist exploitation as the only way. PLP's goal is to win workers to fight to take power to end racist exploitation and imperialist war with communist revolution.

A Ford in Your Future Means More Bosses' Profits, Less Jobs for Workers

LONDON--Tens of thousands of autoworkers are being laid off, sped up or "transferred" as the European auto industry struggles to reduce its productive capacity. Ford is at the center of this "restructuring."

Current over-all European productive capacity is 21 million cars per year. But production is 14.4 million. One-third of the productive capacity is unused. Ford in Europe has the capacity to produce 2.2 million cars, but last year sold only 1.65 million. It netted a profit of $28 million on sales of $30 billion. "Totally unacceptable," says Ford's European CEO. Its "future growth depends on capturing market share from its rivals." (London FINANCIAL TIMES, May 13)

But Ford is losing market share. "The European Automobile Manufacturers Association said that new car sales in Western Europe fell by 7% in April. Ford was hardest hit with sales dropping 17.7 percent. And while European new car sales reached a record 15.1 million vehicles last year, Ford's share of the market slipped to 9.09 percent from 9.87 percent in 1998." (NEW YORK TIMES, 5/13)

To cut costs by $1 billion, and productive capacity by half a million cars, Ford is wiping out nearly 15,000 jobs and closing plants in Britain, Belgium, Poland, Portugal and Belarus. British workers will take the brunt of these cutbacks. Ford's Dagenham plant, will close sacking 2,750 workers. Last year the union agreed to the closing of Ford's Halewood plant "to save the Dagenham plant." This year they agreed to boost annual productivity to 62 cars per worker.

To further complicate matters, the auto industry is consolidating. The big fish are eating the little ones. Daimler bought Chrysler. Ford now owns Jaguar and Aston Martin of Britain, Volvo of Sweden and will pay $2.9 billion for BMW's Land Rover sport utility vehicle. As production is merged into fewer, more productive factories, more plants will close and more workers will be thrown out like garbage.

Capitalism can make your head spin. While factories are being closed across Europe, Ford will spend billions to upgrade their existing plants, and build new ones, that produce more with fewer workers. Ford said it would invest $500 million to expand its Dagenham diesel engine center, and $3 billion in its British plants over the next five years. This is to destroy jobs, not create them. The capitalist dream is to have one worker sitting at a computer running an entirely automated assembly plant. And even then they would try to cut her wages.

The toothless pro-capitalist union leaders are worse than useless. They cling desperately to the bosses' promises and look on workers at the "other" company as their enemy. In Britain they also view workers in Germany, Poland and Portugal as their competitors and blame them for their loss of jobs.

Production for profit is what causes the chaos and anarchy that leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. Workers across Europe know all too well that this leads to World Wars and unthinkable destruction. As long as we labor under the system of wage slavery and production for profit, this is how it must be. The only solution is communist revolution, and production to meet the needs of the international working class. Autoworkers across Europe and around the world can answer this crisis by smashing all borders and waging international strikes and strike support. We can build a mass international PLP to organize the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist beast.

Nationalism: Deadly for Autoworkers

Time was if you got a job in auto you were made in the shade, relatively speaking.

Today, if you get hired, your job hangs on international currency rates, how cheaply you will work and nationalist slogans pushed by the unions.

"Save British jobs," the unions cried at a big march on April 1st in Birmingham, "Save British manufacturing industry!"

The march came as Honda had just cut 50% of its workforce at Swindon. Rumors were circulating about Nissan threatening 2,000 jobs at its plant in Sunderland (affecting some 10,000 supply jobs) and, of course, Ford Dagenham was about to close. The strong [[sterling]] (pound), it was claimed, had priced British-made goods out of its biggest market, Europe.

Worse still, it appeared all 24,000 jobs at Rover would be lost, affecting some 50,000 supply jobs. A buyer has come through at the last moment and will save most of the Rover jobs but the April 29th GUARDIAN reported that the West Midlands area has lost 30,000 manufacturing jobs in manufacturing since September 1998.

Get a job in auto today and one is on the front lines of inter-imperialist rivalry. You cannot be indifferent. Trade union hacks and their nationalism lead us into one side or another of the bosses. There is another choice: workers' internationalism and communist politics. That is the road PLP offer, join us!

Social Democrats: Frontment for the Fourth Reich

May 9 marks the 55^th anniversary of ending Hitler's Third Reich and the raising of the red flag over Berlin's Reichstag by the communist Soviet Army. The Soviet Union lost up to 30 million people doing most of the fighting against Hitler's war machine. The Red Army fought 507 German divisions plus 100 divisions of their fascist allies, almost 3.5 times more than the Western Allies combined!

Last week the German army renamed an important military base after a Wermacht (German Army) sergeant who risked his life saving a couple of hundred Jews. Previously the base had been named after a general who began his career during World War I and then served Hitler during World War II. This was reported as a "change in the mind" of German capitalism from the old militarist mentality.

Meanwhile, a commission restructuring the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) proposed reorganizing all troops into a rapid deployment force capable of intervening overseas. After WWII, the German military, so discredited by the atrocities committed by Hitler, was supposedly reorganized mainly as a defensive force, forbidden from fighting overseas. But during last year's NATO/U.S. air war against Yugoslavia, the Bundeswehr fought as part of NATO.

Under the new proposal the military draft will end. Instead a professional force of 210,000 troops will be set up; 140,000 will be part of a "crisis reaction force for foreign actions," with Kosovo the testing ground for this new force. It reflects the growing influence of German imperialism in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

But interestingly, support for this change comes not so much from the old-fashioned reactionaries, but from the Greens, the "peace" party. They, in coalition with the Social Democrats, run the government. The Greens were known as a pacifist, environmental, anti-nuke organization, and claim this "restructuring" will abolish the draft. What they don't say is if the German bosses need more soldiers, they'll reinstate the draft. As a matter of fact, the new plan calls for a token conscript force of 30,000.

The Social-Democrats since before World War I have always been imperialism's best friend. In Germany they have served their masters well. During WWI, the Social-Democrats (SPD), calling themselves "a workers' party," voted for war credits for the bosses' military. The Bolsheviks, the revolutionary movement led by Lenin in Russia, was the only force in Europe to oppose the war and strongly attacked the Social-Democrats. The SPD played the same role in Germany as the Democratic Party do in the U.S., to lead the workers to support the ruling class. The Bolsheviks called for turning the imperialist war into a revolutionary war to destroy capitalism (which is exactly what they did in Russia). After WWI, the Social-Democrats were vital to the German bosses crushing the workers' uprising led by German communists.

During the 1920s and early 1930s, the KPD (the German Communist Party) had to fight the SPD, which ran the labor movement. The KPD never broke the SPD's hold on key sections of the proletariat. The KPD mistakenly encouraged reliance on parliamentary elections to take power, totally underestimating the rise fascism and the German ruling class. Their slogan was, "After Hitler, Thaelmann" (head of the KPD).

While today there is no communist Soviet Union, workers are not starting from scratch. We have the experiences of past communists, their great achievements as well as mistakes. As all the imperialists prepare for their constant wars, workers must also organize for these bloody battles ahead.

LETTERS

A Father-Son Conversation: Why March on May Day?

As I was preparing to go to Washington, D.C. for PLP's annual May Day march, my thirteen-year-old son asked me why I was marching. He said I had gone to numerous May Days with seemingly no results (i.e., revolution). On top of that, I had no reason to march since I have a "good" job and a house. His question made me think of my first May Day march in Boston 1975.

My sixteen-year-old sister and I had just gotten off a May Day bus from Washington, D.C. The D.C. marchers were the first to arrive at the staging point, a vacant shopping center. I recall seeing dozens of police cars and motorcycles filling over half the parking lot, waiting for the march to begin. Our attention was drawn to a ridge a few hundred yards away to our right. I was 21 and very naive. We could see people approaching with what appeared to be hockey sticks. I thought to myself, this is summer, why would anyone be carrying hockey sticks. My innocence was quickly shattered when I realized these people also had baseball bats and were about to attack us.

My sister grabbed my shirt and clung to it like there was no tomorrow. She said, "I want to go home!" I told her the buses had left and we couldn't go back. We then heard a thundering voice from the sound truck directing the security volunteers to "Go! Go!" and stop these attackers from getting too close to the marchers. The security force sprang into action. They ran up to the attackers and engaged them in battle. It became obvious in only a few minutes our security force would be victorious.

The whole time the police were just sitting and waiting to see the result of this confrontation. When the racists were being bloodied and scattering, the police decided to intercede. They started up their cars and motorcycles, raced to the battle scene, and proceeded to attack mostly our forces. At the same time, a police car cruised by my sister and me. The cops were grinning and one of them was giving us the "finger" as they went by. I realized then how much the cops hated our cause and us. There were cops in combat fatigues who approached us too, but quickly withdrew as the buses from NY and other cities started arriving.

Bus after beautiful bus, filled with May Day marchers, seemed to form an endless line, as we cheered with joy. The security force that had just won the battle of Columbia Point was welcomed back with open arms. As the marchers disembarked, the story of the battle was recounted from the sound truck for all to hear. The marchers were electrified upon hearing how the battle was fought and won.

The Party had organized a very successful march that led to the recruitment and consolidation of many new comrades (including myself). I am not the first to say that achieving communist revolution consists of many small and large battles, including the process of struggling with our friends over many issues, like their participation in May Day. May Day is step on the long, arduous road to revolution.

While it is true many workers in the USA own a house (as long as the mortgage is paid), and a number have relatively good-paying jobs, the majority live "paycheck to paycheck." If I lost my job, I could lose my house; a trauma experienced by many workers, especially in the auto and steel industries.

Under capitalism, workers have no assurances for a fulfilling and happy life (all too often, quite the opposite) because our destiny is in the hands of a few billionaires. Their system demands constant profits, which means exploitation of our labor. They have the power to decide when to go to war, whether to use nuclear weapons, and whether our young people are drafted or go to prison. They guarantee the worship of the dollar bill. The capitalist future includes imperialist wars, fascist terror and continued oppression for the profit god.

I choose a different scenario. I choose a future based on sharing everything our labor produces. I choose to have confidence in the leadership and cadre of the communist PLP. I hope some day that you join me.

Midwest Red

Weaker Sex Myth Means Big Bucks for Growers

The bosses push the line that women are the weaker sex, not to give them better treatment but to exploit them more. This idea of the weaker sex has been publicized so widely that many workers, women and men, have accepted it.

On the fields of Delano, CA, in the winter of 1965, the growers hired women to pick grapes to try to break the farm workers strike. The growers formed "Mothers Against the Strike," led by the wives of contractors and growers. They promised better treatment and higher wages to the women they hired. Of course this was a big lie.

Today women working in the fields are as super-exploited as ever. Many women in Delano work in the packing plants and produce profits for their owners. But they are actually hired by contractors, who also grab part of their wages.

These doubly-exploited women are also forced to sign a paper allowing the company to fire them without cause. The bosses have also installed cameras in the plant to spy on the women, to insure they're working fast enough. This weaker sex myth means super-profits for the bosses.

Men and women workers must unite to fight this oppression. The same bosses who super-exploit women workers to lay off and/or lower wages for men workers. Join the PLP the only organization that unites men and women workers to eliminate the system requiring this exploitation: capitalism.

Veteran of the 1965 Farm Workers Strike

What Needs to Be Done?

I just read in CHALLENGE about the May Day marches. It was encouraging to know that 60 people joined PLP and 70 expressed interest in Party study groups on the May 6th Washington march. It was good to know a new Party club has begun in Texas. The development of the Party's relationship with janitors in Los Angeles is significant, as well as PLP's May Day mobilizing in the Dominican Republic and Mexico. The letters from various May Day marchers were inspiring.

However, I think it would be incorrect to be overly positive. The "modest turnout of 1300" people in the Washington march, which represents a decline over the last two years, should concern us. A "modest" turnout on May Day demands that we change and improve our efforts.

I think each Party club and section should make a sober analysis about the "turnout." I think each comrade should ask himself or herself, "What are your goals and expectations for the Party in general and for yourself in particular?" The Party must grow and everyone must help!

I think each club should make plans to at least double its membership, to consolidate new members and to develop new organizers and leaders among workers, youth and professionals. Whatever criticism and self-criticism and adjustments are required to do this, we must do it.

While it is uplifting to meet people at May Day who agree with communism, we can not allow ourselves to underestimate the effort it takes to win these and many others who are confused or unsure about communism and whether it will work.

The magic of the May Day moment doesn't by itself produce the type of plans and build the courage and commitment necessary to build the Party all year round. I recognize and appreciate the positive lessons from this May Day. I fight to have full confidence in the working class. But I don't think that communism and the Party's future is automatically secured. I don't think the Party leadership or CHALLENGE should contribute to anyone's illusion that this is true.

NYC Comrade

Learning a Lot

As a PLP member, I learn many things each time I march on May Day. It helps me understand that my job is to organize for international communist revolution. Capitalism appears to be good for everyone, but this is an illusion. It kills people or causes them to live in misery and poverty all their lives for the "good" of the bosses. It can never be reformed, or remade into a good society. Capitalism can't provide for everyone because it produces for profits, not people's needs.

Our work to build revolution can start with something as simple as asking your friends to look over a copy of CHALLENGE. Perhaps they will come with you to a forum, study group or rally in your community. Every person's collective work in the Party is unique, but equally important to the working class and our future. It all starts with your choice to accept the job or not. We cannot be neutral in this struggle. Either we remain part of the problem, or become part of the solution.

Members of PLP stand up for communism and rock the capitalist boat. It may scare those around us when we do. But the bosses are killing us in the streets and storming into our houses like Nazi troopers whenever they please. Our work for communist revolution and the daily effects of capitalism will show people we are telling the truth, so push on. There is plenty of "on-the-job training" available from comrades who know your true value and potential as a member of the working class. Choose your side, the communist side. On May Day 2000, I want to say welcome to the PLP. You won't regret your choice. Let's get to work.

Hammond, Indiana Red

`Amen!' to May Day

Whoopee! In 26 years of Party membership this is the first May Day I've underestimated the turnout from my immediate group. We thought that, at most, 12 would come from our church and soup kitchen, but 18 came. Everyone participated in the march and rallies and a lot handled the multiple bus break-downs in mature working-class fashion, by directing anger at the capitalist system.

Most important, two adults and one student indicated they wanted to join PLP, and three more people agreed to distribute CHALLENGE. We must decide which collectives will be most appropriate for our new comrades, and where to help them concentrate their efforts in sharpening class struggle, in Workfare, police terror and/or youth-schools work.

These developments have come through five years of increasing participation in many aspects of the church's life, but concentrating on the soup kitchen, base-building, trying to politicize relationships and, in the last year, guaranteeing the distribution of 16-20 CHALLENGES. As a result of this exciting activity, three professionals and one auto worker who couldn't go to May Day may now become regular readers. None of them is a church-goer but they respect the fact that we try to lead class struggle there.

I also met five more people (two artists, two teachers and a nurse) at a regional denominational social justice meeting. They liked aspects of our ideas they've seen in our church newsletter. These are modest but encouraging developments. We are beginning to learn how to work within, and the raise, the limits that now hold back the working class and us.

In struggle, Amen!

Red Churchmouse

Information: Print

CHALLENGE June 21, 2000

Information: 21 May 2000 173 hits

Turn Strike Struggles Into Schools for Communism
1. GENERAL STRIKES ARE NOT ENOUGH
General Strikes Erupt from Africa to South America
IS THE MILITARY TRYING TO ABOLISH SEXISM?
Methodist Hospital Strike...
OUR UNITY WILL SOON BE TESTED!
Workers Wary of AFL-CIO `Shampaign' for Amnesty
1. "LEADERS BUILD PATRIOTISM AND NATIONALISM
2. `HUMANITARIAN' WORDS, FASCIST DEEDS
For a Brief Period The Statue Stood for Liberty--from Slavery
Rockefeller Forces Plot
Hostile Takeover of LA Bosses
Capitalism: Murder Inc. in Africa
1. Africa's First Mini World War
Can the Army Be All It Can Without Sexism?
School Election Opens Doors for Left
Peer Review a Cover for Attacks Against Students, Teachers
LETTERS

Editorial

Turn Strike Struggles Into Schools for Communism

Workers in several countries are fighting back militantly against increased bosses' attacks. Massive general strikes occurred in Uruguay (June 8) and Argentina (June 9). A two-day general strike is slated for Ecuador June 15-16. In Africa, Nigeria was hit by a general strike protesting the government increase of fuel prices. (For details, see below).

GENERAL STRIKES ARE NOT ENOUGH

As communists we in PLP support these workers' struggles while rejecting the union leaders and opportunists behind them who mislead them and who generally serve different groups of bosses. For example, in Argentina, the union federations are led by members of the Peronista Party (founded by General Perón, a Hitler admirer).. For almost a decade, Argentina was ruled by Peronista President Menem, who relentlessly attacked the working class.Until this system that thrives on the misery of the working class is smashed, workers will continue on the treadmill of constantly fighting the bosses' attacks, while winning very few, if any, of these battles. And the bosses, holding state power, eventually take away even these small victories. Even should these strikes become a mass uprising throwing the current rulers out of office, exchanging one president for another--as has happened twice in Ecuador in the last two years and hundreds of times under capitalism--the essence of the system, a bosses' dictatorship over workers, remains.Revolutionary-minded workers must turn these struggles into schools for communism. This means, among other things:

* Building Class Solidarity. In the U.S., unity in struggle against the bosses has gone mostly downhill ever since Reagan busted the 1981 air controllers strike. All boss-fostered divisions that emerge in strike actions--white against black, Latin and Asian; men against women; citizen against immigrant; young against old; one nationality against another--must be fought. Working-class unity is an essential ingredient without which revolution is impossible.

* Battling scabs and cops. In the course of militant class struggle, workers can learn the class nature of the government (state apparatus). It's not neutral. It's a class weapon of the bosses against the working class. From this can come the understanding--with communist leadership--that the bosses' state dictatorship cannot be changed by "electing the good guys" but must be smashed and replaced by a workers' state: the dictatorship of the proletariat.

* Relating strike demands to the political needs of the working class. Immediate economic struggles often open the door to explain how racism and imperialist war are behind the bosses attacks on the working class. Overcoming boss-inspired racism unites the working class, again an essential ingredient in preparation for revolution. Organizing against the bosses' war plans, especially in the war industries and the military, could rock the rulers back on their heels and reveal just how weak they are without working class support or passivity.

* Building a mass PLP. Finally, and most important, PLP members and friends in every strike and general strike must fight to win strikers to the need to join the Party and build a mass revolutionary workers' communist party . That is the only road to a society where production is based on the needs of the working class. For workers, this is the true victory of any strike or general strike.

These are some of the ways such struggles can become schools for communism.

General Strikes Erupt from Africa to South America

* On June 8 in Uruguay, the PIT-CNT (the union federation) organized a 24-hour general strike coinciding with the 100th day of President Jorge Battle's government, protesting his economic policies. Uruguay's unemployment rate is 12%. The strike opposed huge budget cutbacks, aimed mainly at the workers, and a privatization law which will sell off even "efficient state-owned agencies." The strike was partially successful. Several workers were arrested for stoning 21 scab buses.

* On June 9, the three different trade union federations in Argentina united to call a 24-hour general strike against mass firings of government workers. The strike was 85% effective. Over 100 scab buses were burned. President de la Rúa is in a bind. He's about to visit Wall Street seeking more investments in Argentina, but the imperialist bankers (through the International Monetary Fund) are demanding even greater government cutbacks to force it to pay for its already huge foreign debt.

* "A general strike in Nigeria against increased fuel prices has left banks, schools and hospitals across the country closed," reported BBC news (June 8). The strike began on June 7 after rebellions erupted in several cities protesting the increase. Although Nigeria is a big oil producer, and the world price of oil is at its highest in many years, only Shell Oil, Chevron and local bosses and politicians benefit from this bonanza.

* In Ecuador, "The national teachers' union and public health workers began the week with new protests....The trade union federations have called for a general strike for the end of the week. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) is meeting on June 13 to decide whether to join the call for a people's uprising." (INSIGNIA newspaper, June 12).

A few months ago, similar uprisings led by CONAIE stormed the parliament when the soldiers protecting it opened the doors to the protestors. The politicians inside ran for their lives. CONAIE and dissident military officers briefly established a government. Army generals, guided by the U.S. embassy, dissolved it a few hours later, forced President Mahuad to resign and installed Vice-President Noboa as president. Noboa has continued Mahuad's anti-working class economic policies (including replacing the Sucre with the dollar as the local currency) and now is facing a similar threat. As in Nigeria, oil profits end up in the imperialist/local bosses'/politicians' pockets.

IS THE MILITARY TRYING TO ABOLISH SEXISM?

Charges of sexual harassment brought by the highest-ranking woman in the military, Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, against her former commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Larry G. Smith, have been upheld. Kennedy has stated that in 1996 Smith tried to fondle her after a meeting at her Pentagon office. At the time she did not report it, but when Smith was assigned to handle all complaints of sexual harassment in the military, she said she felt compelled to bring these charges.

Why did Kennedy, who is retiring in June, decide to come forward now? Was it a combination of a guilty conscience for not having said something earlier plus Smith's promotion? Or did she feel that with her retirement she wouldn't have to worry about the effect on her career? Or did others encourage her to come forward to make a political statement? It's still unclear, but some things are very clear.

Kennedy received a lot of support after making the charges. Counter-charges brought against her by a friend of Smith's were dismissed within a few days. This kind of speed is rarely seen in the Pentagon. Secondly, shortly afterwards Kennedy spoke at a public banquet sponsored by several groups closely associated with the military. She urged military women to come forward with complaints of sexual harassment. This event received front-page coverage in the NEW YORK TIMES.

Integrating women into the armed forces has been huge problem for the military which they are desperately trying to solve. Since the Gulf War the military could not function without the women who comprise 30% or so of its forces. Without women volunteers they would probably need a draft, which would create more political problems for them.

The military is also committed to integrating women because it affects the U.S. rulers' strategy of maintaining their position as the dominant capitalist power. This requires preparation for large-scale war and constant deployment of troops worldwide. The ruling class needs liberal politicians to win the population to support war, large and small. Therefore, they must have a military that is large and integrated.

The military can't fully fight the sexism within its ranks without exposing the sexist nature of the society these soldiers are being asked to die to protect. Can they afford to reveal that capitalist culture is saturated with sex and destructive relationships from which the ruling class makes billions while taking young people's minds off rebelling? As young workers become more disillusioned and alienated by capitalism, more sex and decadence are offered to distract them.

Can they expose the fact that capitalism needs the billions of dollars netted by U.S. bosses from paying low wages to woman workers around the world? Yet their own need to protect more of their empire is forcing U.S. bosses to use more women in the military. Promoting more woman to generals, even supporting more women who complain about sexual harassment, won't solve the problem of sexism.

Among enlisted soldiers sexism in the military cuts both ways. On the one hand, sexism is a huge problem for working-class soldiers. Relationships between men and women in the military are strained. All the problems of a sexist society are magnified by the young age of the soldiers, the uneven ratio of men to women and the lack of good role models for healthy relationships. But the main problem is political and inherent in a profit system.

Although sexism is not inherent in our communist movement, it does exist and we are held back by the sexism of capitalism. But the communist movement is not bound by sexism. Not only do we not need it but it also acts as a brake on the unity needed to destroy capitalism. Through political struggle and practice we can overcome sexism to unite soldiers to fight for communism.

While there have been many ups and downs, the communist movement has a positive history of fighting sexism. Women played huge roles, as soldiers and organizers, in both the Soviet and Chinese revolutions. The Cultural Revolution in China explicitly sought to fight sexism in the movement and bring more women into leadership. PLP has made strides in developing women leaders. But this, like the entire struggle for revolution, is a long hard fight--500 years of capitalist ideology won't change easily in any of us.

PLP members in the military are trying to develop healthy communist relations between soldiers, relationships based more on class-consciousness, helping each other and uniting against the brass and the bosses. Over the last few months we've had some positive developments. In one mostly black National Guard unit, a young white woman soldier has earned the respect of her fellow soldiers by taking on the female First Sergeant who was giving favors to soldiers who slept with her. Our comrade fought over many little things, such as which barracks were given to soldiers on drill weekends and favoritism in duty assignments to cronies of the First Sergeant. She has also raised bigger political issues, about the war in Kosovo and racist police killings.

By doing such things and being a principled person, over the last few years she has developed a few soldiers who read CHALLENGE and has built a small base for communist ideas. This is an example of fighting sexism in the military, one that gives us hope for the future.

Methodist Hospital Strike...
OUR UNITY WILL SOON BE TESTED!

GARY, IN, June 14 -- The strike against Northlake and Southlake Methodist hospitals is in its third week. Morale is high for the 650 mostly black women housekeepers, nurses' assistants, food service and maintenance workers in SEIU Local 73.

On June 8, almost 1,000 workers and youth turned out in the blistering heat to march arm in arm with the strikers. Workers were outraged when Gary mayor compared giving a city permit for the six-block march to granting a permit to the Ku Klux Klan!

The large number of marchers and the constant blast of truck and car horns showed the overwhelming support of workers in this area. The usual gaggle of union hacks and politicians addressed the rally, declaring to the heavens, "We're with you all the way!" Some came with checks in hand for the emergency fund, used to prevent the utilities from turning off the strikers' gas and electricity.

A strike leader and 20-year veteran gave a chilling account of what life is like for her and her son on a Methodist paycheck. A letter from a nurse was read to the rally. Nurses are not in the union and are working 12-hour days. She described the unsafe and unsanitary conditions inside, and told how the security guards were trying to intimidate nurses from talking to strikers. She concluded by saying, "We are all with you." Now would be the time to add "union recognition" for the nurses to the list of demands, and pull them out as well. A black woman doctor declared her support for the strike at a rally right in front of the main entrance.

The unity and morale of the strikers is about to be tested. The bosses have brought in professional strikebreakers and a court injunction is not far off. When it comes, the big-shot union leaders and politicians will tell us to obey it. We must be prepared to defy any injunction with even greater mass picketing. This will up the ante. Strikers will face arrests, but that can be turned against the bosses with even more support from steelworkers and other hospital workers in the area.

This strike is an opportunity to learn how to take power. The bosses rule through a class dictatorship: their property, their cops, their courts, and their laws. Racist and sexist super-exploitation, driving wages down and productivity up, are what's fueling the "economic boom" in every industry. Capitalism is a system of wage slavery. Everything is produced for profit.

As long as the bosses hold power we will have endless wars, racism and poverty. Communist revolution will build a world where everything is produced for the needs of the working class. We invite every Methodist striker to join the revolutionary communist PLP and build a movement that can lead our class to power.

Workers Wary of AFL-CIO `Shampaign' for Amnesty

LOS ANGELES, CA, June 10--More than 20,000 immigrant and citizen workers attended a rally sponsored by the AFL-CIO leadership to demand unconditional amnesty for undocumented workers.

The AFL-CIO and Democratic Party, both controlled by the Rockefeller wing of the ruling class, have a long history of racism against immigrant workers. While many workers hope this campaign will bring them relief from the racist Migra (the U.S. immigration department), the Rockefellers have something else in mind. They're pushing amnesty to get workers beholden to them and more likely to fight their imperialist wars. They also want workers tied to the electoral process and to the AFL-CIO traitors.

A limited amnesty may well win over large sectors of the immigrant community. More than 70% are between 18 and 35--army age. One of every five children born in the U.S. are from immigrant families.

At the rally, workers chanted, "Workers' struggles have no borders"; "Up with workers, down with Clinton." A few chanted, "Migra Cochina racista y asesina." [Immigration cops: filthy racists and murderers."] When some leaders chanted, "People, united...," one worker led those around her to chant, Workers, united..." Several workers agreed we must sharpen the struggle against the bosses in the factories and gave her their names and addresses.

Outside, PLP members sold and distributed over 600 CHALLENGES and more than 3,500 communist leaflets. As workers streamed inside, PLP rallied, denouncing Clinton, Gore and the capitalist system, the source of racist exploitation, and "Operation Gatekeeper," which has murdered 1,500 immigrants at the border. We called for revolution to destroy wage slavery and borders so the workers who produce all the wealth will use it for their own needs.

A couple of union leaders tried to turn the crowd against us, saying we were "against the workers" because our leaflet attacked the AFL-CIO leadership. But then a worker took the bullhorn to say many "legal" workers are paid starvation wages; "amnesty will not end exploitation." He asked why the AFL-CIO didn't organize the power of garment and farm workers and all workers in California to strike for unconditional amnesty and decent wages and conditions. He called on workers to organize on the job against racist exploitation. The union leaders slunk away.

"LEADERS BUILD PATRIOTISM AND NATIONALISM

Union honchos began the event with a group playing popular Mexican music. Thousands started chanting, "Mexico, Mexico." But Christina Vasquez, garment union International Vice-President led a group of youth who recently became U.S. citizens in the Pledge of Allegiance to U.S. bosses. Behind them was a sea of U.S. flags. Then union leaders and politicians spewed their love of the U.S. and their "support" of immigrant workers.

Farmworkers' union leader Arturo Rodriguez said workers who are legal residents "are free to improve their lives." AFL-CIO Executive Vice-President Linda Chavez Thompson said that the "clause that punishes employers who employ undocumented workers, made into law in 1986, was a failure. The employers manipulated the system. That's why they're changing their strategy." A video about the Statue of Liberty said it stood for protecting immigrants in the past which should be the case again.

`HUMANITARIAN' WORDS, FASCIST DEEDS

"This is a circus," said a garment worker who brought his family and other workers. Another declared, "I'm going to fight for amnesty, but I'm not going to support a war! They're going to have a serious problem if they want to send us." Although many understood the union leaders are "humanitarian" in word and fascist in deed, the bosses are still fighting to win many thousands to support their plans for war and fascism.

Garment workers, farm workers and janitors came in groups while 4,000 workers were organized by different churches under the Metro Alliance. The field is open for us to work more deeply with them and win many to our revolutionary outlook.

Party members plan to discuss the event with their co-workers, explain the bosses' plans and organize committees in the shops and factories as well as in the churches to oppose the bosses' daily attacks. We'll fight to bring more workers and students to the next mass rally. This work and CHALLENGE are vital in giving workers the alternative to the Democrats and AFL-CIO "leaders." Only CHALLENGE exposes the hypocrisy of these "humanitarians" who need workers as cannon fodder to fight for their empire. Either we win workers to the long-term fight for workers' power or the bosses will win them to fight and kill other workers for the bosses' bloody oil profits.

For a Brief Period The Statue Stood for Liberty--from Slavery

It's called the Statue of Liberty for a reason. It was not presented to the U.S. to celebrate mass immigration. The "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses..." part was added years later.

The statue was given to the U.S. by a Republican club in France when Republicans were left-wing parties advocating the overthrow of monarchies. It honored the defeat of slavery. In fact the first statue had a broken chain in her hand and was a black woman!

This apparently was too radical for the U.S. government which asked for the modifications we see today. And no black people were allowed on the island for the opening ceremony. The Statue is a clear example how the rulers rewrite history.

Later the same French Republican club struck a medallion honoring John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry and presented it to his widow.

Rockefeller Forces Plot
Hostile Takeover of LA Bosses

The Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class, which owns Exxon-Mobil, the Chase Bank, many media outlets--led by the NEW YORK TIMES--and controls the Democratic Party, is organizing a many-sided offensive to attack its rivals. For this, these imperialists must win as many workers as possible to their side. Their plan is to drape themselves with a "humanitarian, anti-racist, pro-immigrant, pro-labor" flag.This is why the Rockefeller-directed U.S. Justice Department is punishing Bill Gates' Microsoft, to bring it under the control of the Rockefeller Eastern Establishment. This offensive is also behind the drive for community policing and the fight to take over the schools as well as the launching of mass movements led by the AFL-CIO.

An important part of this offensive is the fight to control Los Angeles, the country's second largest city. The top Eastern bosses are disciplining the LA ruling class and fighting to win over black and Latino workers to support Rockefeller/Exxon war plans for control of Middle East oil. This is the cheapest, most plentiful and accessible oil in the world. Corporations that dominated policy in LA include: McDonnell Douglas, absorbed by Boeing; ARCO, taken over by Exxon rival BP Amoco, (limited somewhat by the Justice Department), and UNOCAL, being attacked by the AFL-CIO for its ties to the Rockefeller enemies ruling in Myanmar (Burma) and Afghanistan.Eli Broad, owner of Sun America, has been a member of LA's ruling elite. He is a friend of Mayor Riordan. It was at his home that a donor connected to the Chinese government arranged to make a large contribution to the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to influence U.S. policy toward China. Both Broad and McDonnell Douglas were willing to do business with China without any limit on technology transfers. This position was strongly opposed by the Eastern rulers, who see China as a long-range strategic enemy and competitor for control of Middle East oil. The Rockefeller Empire depends on control of Middle East oil to limit their competitors' supply of this key resource. The biggest LA-based oil firm, the Hunt brothers' Occidental--a Rockefeller/Exxon enemy--gets much of its crude from Libya, labeled a "rogue" nation by the U.S.. Rockefeller's plan for a likely ground war in Iraq, and need to win the workers to support this bloodbath, do not fit into the LA oil barons' plan. The AFL-CIO is pushing hard in LA to build a cadre of liberals loyal to Rockefeller's plan.

In other arenas, the traditional LA rulers are under attack. Their companies have been taken over or limited. The LAPD has served the LA rulers by enforcing racist terror to guarantee low wages and immediate profits. Now the Eastern Establishment is pushing for community policing which, while continuing to terrorize workers would also try to win workers to support the cops and see the Federal Government as "humanitarian."

The LA rulers have been anti-union, unwilling to use unions to win the workers to support U.S. imperialism. They sought only to terrorize workers and pay the lowest possible wages. They have preferred to hire undocumented immigrants and use the threat of deportation over the heads of thousands of garment and other manufacturing workers rather than legalize them. The Rockefeller plan is to make more workers legal residents and citizens and bring them into organizations controlled by the Democratic Party.

Roy Romer, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is being appointed LA schools Superintendent, despite the LA Times' editorializing against this Rockefeller loyalist. The Justice Department push to take control of the LAPD and the AFL-CIO's Amnesty campaign are part of a fight to win workers to see the Rockefeller liberals, the Democratic Party and the unions as their saviors from racist exploitation. Nothing could be further from the truth!

While all bosses are murderous exploiters, the Rockefeller liberals are the most dangerous. They control state power in the U.S. They've killed more workers than Hitler. They are the ones planning ground war in the Middle East soon for oil profits and stand ready to wage World War to save their empire. We can't trust or support any capitalist rulers. Our strength lies in uniting the workers in both the short run and the long run to fight for workers' power through communist revolution.

Capitalism: Murder Inc. in Africa

Some people think that Challenge exaggerates the cruelty of capitalism. In fact, the reality of capitalism is much worse than words in a newpaper can express.

Recently we have reported on wars in Africa (5/31, 6/14 issues). We've shown how deadly imperialism, capitalism and nationalism have been for the exploited African masses of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Angola, Liberia, etc. But we underestimated how many lives the profit system has destroyed. According to surveys reported in the NEW YORK TIMES, 200,000 deaths were attributable to acts of violence, while the vast majority were due to the war-related collapse of the region's health infrastructure and delivery of its health and nutrition services. In total, 1.7 million have died in the Eastern Congo because of the war.

An example of how the competing nationalist rulers have turned the Eastern Congo into a cemetery is the latest fighting between the armies of Rwanda and Uganda. A week of heavy artillery fire totally destroyed Kisangani, a city of 500,000 in the northeast Congo. Its victims were mainly civilians.

Until recently these two armies were allies in a war against Congo's President Kabila. Uganda trained and armed a Tutsi-led Rwandan force to fight against Rwanda's former government, led by the Hutu ethnic group elite, which had killed hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis supporters of the Uganda-based exiles. The U.S. army was behind the Uganda-Rwandan Tutsi forces. Uganda's president was trained at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and basically was considered an officer in the U.S. Army.

Meanwhile, the French military had also armed racist Hutu militias of the former Rwandan government which were murdering hundreds of thousands of Tutsis.

After the old pro-French Hutu rulers of Rwanda were defeated, the new rulers and their Ugandan backers invaded the Congo to oust the aging dictator Mobutu, who already had become useless for U.S. imperialism. (The CIA had installed Mobutu in power in the 1960s to side with the U.S. during the Cold War against the Soviet Union.) Mobutu's ouster opened the door for the current President Kabila to take power, aided by the armies of Rwanda and Uganda.

Africa's First Mini World War

But soon after Kabila took over, the rulers of Uganda and Rwanda decided to retain control of the Eastern Congo. Kabila reacted by supporting guerrillas opposed to both armies. Troops from the armies of Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe are in the Congo defending Kabila against the armies of Uganda and Rwanda, a mini-world war centered in Africa. Meanwhile, these "allies"--Rwanda and Uganda--are waging their own war within a war for the control of the destroyed Kinsagani, center of the diamond-rich northeastern Congo.

These constantly shifting alliances between different nationalist and ethnic forces all turn on control of the Congo's rich mineral wealth. The eastern Congo has some of the world's biggest diamond mines. Billions are at stake for those who control these minerals. That is the name of the game for all capitalists--profits, no matter how many must be murdered to amass them.

Can the Army Be All It Can Without Sexism?

School Election Opens Doors for Left

BROOKLYN, NY -- "You mean you think it's a good thing to be attacked?" asked a co-worker in discussing the union election at a Party member's school. Our member has a history of union activity, having been a delegate for three years and run for overall union rep (chapter leader) twice, as an open communist. In this latest election it really became clear there were two sides: the class collaborationist slate--work with the boss, "we're all in this together"--and the class struggle side.

Although she was reluctant to run for chapter leader because it might take away too much time spent with students, she did agree to run for a delegate position, in alliance with two other teachers who'd been vocal and active in union struggles throughout the school year. One ran for chapter leader, the other for another delegate spot. They made it clear in our campaign literature that they'd each been involved in leading struggles in the school--for students as well as for staff--something the bosses' slate could never claim.Shortly before the election tremendous struggle emerged about our comrade's communist politics. Some teachers waged a real fight against anti-communism--"What does it matter she's a communist, look at all she's done for us"--showing some understanding that anti-communism was being used to stop class struggle in the school. (The next step is to win people to understand how being a communist relates to what we do.)

Meanwhile, the administration, in violation of Federal labor law (what else is new?), was warning people not to vote for her.

The administration's slate stood for working with the bosses. After all, they said, our school is the "beacon of hope" for its community. The incumbent chapter leader says his role is to be the liaison with the principal, instead of leading struggle to force the principal to supply copying and other materials we've needed all year, or to force the principal to meet with the union committee.

Our member received 83 votes out of 156 voters, over 50%. That wasn't enough to be elected since the three candidates on the bosses' slate received over 100 votes.

Many staff members were really upset our member wasn't elected. However, communists don't measure victory in electoral votes. This attack, and the clear alliance of forces create excellent opportunities. While our member hasn't consistently won people to attend Party events, or even to stand up to the bosses with her, this election campaign creates new openings. She's now in a better position to win people to form a caucus to organize in the school. And she's made it clear that the chapter needs to fight to support students in their struggles to pass the exams necessary to graduate.There is real interest in the caucus, but now to make this a real victory, she needs to win people to join the PLP Summer Project. Our Party section here has already planned a teacher study group and a fund-raising party for our fired teacher PLP'ers in Chicago. If our comrade can bring her friends, that's really winning!

Peer Review a Cover for Attacks Against Students, Teachers

"I'm against peer review," an older teacher in Los Angeles told a comrade who was giving her the CHALLENGE with an article on educational reform. "I don't think I'm a very good teacher--I sure don't have the energy I used to--and I don't want them to be able to get rid of me."

"Well, I know I'm a good teacher," replied the comrade, "and I've been written up for fighting for the students and for teaching the truth about the class struggle--but the pretext has been leaving my keys on the desk and being across the hall getting chalk when the tardy bell rang. And when we had a teacher here who was openly sexist and racist and refused to teach, he always got good evaluations. It took the unity of parents, teachers and students to get rid of him. The administration has never gone after teachers like that."

This is a small part of many discussions we've had this week about educational reform and peer review. The PLP teachers' club made a good effort and distributed 75 CHALLENGES to teachers this week, including seven by a friend of the Party who in the past had only gotten out one. All of us have learned a lot in this process.

At an after-school union meeting to discuss the vote on peer review, several activist teachers and CHALLENGE readers told of being pressured for standing up for students and for teaching about the fight against racism. They understood peer review could be an administration weapon against them as well. Another activist said the union should act as a defense attorney, defending all teachers no matter how they teach. A Party teacher disagreed, recounting the fight to fire the teacher who both refused to teach the students and who sexually harassed women students. In discussions following the meeting, most agreed we shouldn't defend teachers don't teach and who have openly racist and sexist behavior.

The older teacher quoted above is actually a dedicated teacher who has good rapport with the students and has defended their right to read CHALLENGE. With few exceptions, teachers in inner city schools care very much about their students and work hard to do a good job. But the problem is deeper and much less obvious. Many unintentionally sell the students short. Many students sell themselves short. Racist underestimation of students is part and parcel of the capitalist system in which we live. To fight with the certainty and commitment that everyone can learn requires a sharp understanding of the racist nature of capitalism.

For example, several of us tutor students to pass the tests required for graduation. It's an important part of showing students we care about them. We sit with a few students at a time and really try to listen to their problems--for example, with specific math operations. It's very important to know exactly the obstacles students face in understanding the operation and to develop enough rapport with the student to overcome feelings of sham. One student told us, for example, he was embarrassed to ask for help with math class because he'd have to admit he didn't understand. Establishing trust, paying very close attention to the specific problem and tutoring a few students at a time are keys in helping students pass these tests.

It's too easy and wrong to place the failure of the educational system at the feet of a few bad teachers. The problem runs throughout the whole profit system. Capitalism has always sold the working class short. The system systematically denies necessary resources to working-class students--especially black and Latino--while it also spreads racist lies, saying, "they can't learn." Parents are justifiably angry. Today, the ruling class needs to win students defend the bosses' profit system. While increasing the skill levels of a few students, it must also tighten controls over the schools and gear them up for industry and war. They use peer review to direct their fire against the teachers, and to control them.

Parents, students and teachers can see through this sham, especially as we raise these issues with them. CHALLENGE and PLP are vital in showing the real problem: schools organized to perpetuate a racist capitalist system--and the solution: organizing parents, teachers and students to fight to learn as we learn to fight for communist revolution. We have a long way to go and a lot to learn and to teach as well. Our discussions in the Party are very helpful.

LETTERS

Writers Wanted

I want to commend CHALLENGE for raising the importance of a communist paper and its distribution. The discussion of the role and the need for a communist newspaper is vital and long overdue. With that I'd like to encourage the discussion to go forward and advance the paper and its use by making some criticisms.

The issue is more than distribution, as important as that is. The issue is making CHALLENGE a mass newspaper in line with the idea of a mass party. To quote the editorial, "CHALLENGE is a mass organizer through which millions of workers can be trained politically to participate in the building of a communist world." But in its last paragraph something very important is left out, "Readers and distributors of CHALLENGE today will be members and leaders of our Party tomorrow." What about writers? How can workers and others politically participate as active, creative and wise leaders if they don't shape those ideas and communicate them in writing? And if they don't, who will? Our class needs all the leaders it can develop and workers, once they have the confidence, want to lead. Not being able to put your thoughts in writing, not being able to fully contribute to the fight for communism, erodes confidence. It makes us "employees", even in a good cause. In the fight for communism it means defeat.

Next, by putting a straw man up and knocking him down the editorial does not advance the discussion. The "very committed and active veteran member of PLP" is quoted as being unsure that increasing the readership of CHALLENGE is most important. Well what is their opinion as to what is? If someone as committed and experienced and active has a different take on the situation, shouldn't we hear the whole argument, or at least its main points? Or does doing communist work over time mean you just get more doubts? It's not my experience. Is this the message we want younger comrades to get?

Finally, the argument that distribution is most important has been made many times in the past, (the distant past), yet the circulation of the paper is at one of its lowest points. Maybe there is more to the problem. I believe that base-building and the integration of CHALLENGE in that process is the direction that growth, in all its aspects, lies. So while I commend the editors for starting the discussion, we've got to get deeper. Let's uncover the problem and its answers. We've got a world to win.

Another Veteran Comrade

Capitalism Strikes Out

With the Mudville Nine (Stockton, CA. team) vs. the San Jose Giants, minor league baseball comes to Lodi twice this year. The game started at 10:30 A.M and I thought it would be a good way to spend the morning.

Why do I like baseball? I remember playing it in the parks or in the streets until it got too dark to see the ball. You appreciate the skill it takes to hit a curve ball, or the surprise of the quickness of your own reflexes, when that bullet line drive actually ended up in your glove. You can remember the camaraderie of the players. If you played sports, the memories make going to see a game enjoyable. But capitalism corrupts and ruins everything it touches.

I went early to see batting practice. What I saw was a battering ram of fascist culture. I noticed all the school buses at the entrance to Zupo field. The stands were filled with junior high kids and a few paying adults. It was a promotional game sponsored by Lodi's biggest employer, General Mills, under the name H.L.A.Y. (Here's Looking At You). There were demonstrations by the Lodi Police K-9 Corps, showing police dogs viciously attacking victims (drug dealers), explaining to the students the dogs are not trained to bite but to take a victim down and keep him there.

If the police dogs are not enough to terrorize you, then General Mills brings in the U.S. Army National Guard. In comes the green army helicopter, landing in the center of Zupo field. Out comes McGruff, the crime dog, waving at the kids from a distance. An Army captain makes a speech about "just saying no" and he and McGruff return to their helicopter.

When the helicopter takes off it does a ground-level sweep from right to left field, facing the unsuspecting fans.

Many students were organized to leave the game after the 4^th inning, once they had seen the "important part."

It is vital for our class to read and distribute CHALLENGE. This is where we learn that the highest levels of the U.S.Army (General McCaffery's henchmen) organize the drug shipments from Columbia and other countries to be distributed to our children on the streets. (CHALLENGE, May 31) CHALLENGE exposes the true nature of the police, to terrorize and control workers and especially black and Latin workers.

CHALLENGE allows us to see these subtle demonstrations of fascist terror for what they are. It also can show us a future with communist revolution--a healthy baseball game.

Lodi Red

Communists Must Lead Struggles of Immigrant and Citizen Workers United

I thought the two articles in the June 14 CHALLENGE about the AFL-CIO campaign for amnesty for undocumented workers were very important.

The capitalists are constantly looking for ways to raise profits by increasing the workers' productivity and lowering wages. In the U.S. there's an "economic boom," in part because of a fascist labor policy based on a combination of factors: contracting out, part-time or temporary work at lower wages with no benefits, super-exploitation of undocumented workers, forced labor of Workfare workers and prison slave labor. In many places workers exist in all these categories, side by side.

The resulting "competition" among workers lowers wages and constantly increases productivity, read speed-up. In this time of lower unemployment in the U.S. the bosses and the government fear workers will seek higher wages and the unions will lose control of them.

The unions are fully aware of this. The amnesty campaign, as the CHALLENGE articles pointed out, is aimed primarily at winning the allegiance of immigrant workers to the electoral process in general, and to the Democratic Party and its war plans in particular, especially as the rivalry between the capitalists of different countries intensifies.

The demand for limited amnesty is a bribe and a cover, a defensive measure so that the AFL-CIO leaders will be able to control the workers without having to unite them to really fight on the shop floor, nor to oppose all the elements of U.S. fascist labor policy.

That's where the revolutionary communist PLP comes in. Communists have always tried to lead workers onto the offensive in the class struggle, strategically and tactically. Communists organize and lead daily and long-term struggles in the factories and on the job, uniting all workers--citizen, documented and undocumented, unionized and non-unionized. Communists put teeth into international solidarity, both in word and action.

A communist-led working-class movement against imperialist war must grow directly out of these class struggles. Communists and our base functioning inside the unions and other mass organizations is the best way to expose the true role of the AFL-CIO. Communists can bring the lessons of communist history the workers and make them conscious of how capitalism works and why the international working class needs power.

NYC comrade

They Don't Eat Meat, They Eat Children!

I know this headline sounds cruel, but it really fits certain groups tending to attract people looking to escape the madness of this system and falls into something even worse. After all, Hitler not only called his movement "national socialist," but also preached "healthier living." He was a vegetarian and a supporter of healthy living, except for million of Jews, Gypsies and Soviet people. Anyway, this is about those annoying orange-robed followers of the Hare Krishna sect. Former students of this movement are suing it for $400 million for sexual and emotional abuses.

The suit claims that in the 1970s and '80s more than 1,000 children were affected, some as young as three years old. Their lawyer said it covers "the most unthinkable abuse and maltreatment of little children we have seen." Children were physically abused, scrubbed with steel wool until they bled, untreated for malaria, hepatitis, etc. Younger girls were given as brides to older men who donated to the sect.

Krishna was brought to the U.S. by a swami at the height of the Vietnam war and civil rights movement. For sure, he had the support of the U.S. government. Many turned away from militant anti-war and anti-racist actions to join the sect. Those who tried to escape the fight against capitalism and imperialism ended up providing flesh for this pedophiliac movement.

Krishna buster

Dayton Transit Workers Reject Contract Twice

I read the recent CHALLENGE article about the struggle of MUNI transit workers in San Francisco, and want to relate a struggle by transit workers in Dayton, Ohio.

For the second time in two months, ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) Local 1385 has rejected a contract recommended by union leaders. The contract not only provided for a miserable wage "hike" of 2.8%, it also called for a FOURTH wage tier. This would allow the bosses to pay "combination" drivers $11.02 an hour instead of the $19 an hour paid to regular drivers.

The union hacks were counting on the older drivers endorsing this sellout at the expense of the younger and newer drivers being paid $8 an hour less. But the senior drivers upset the hacks' applecart with an old-fashioned example of working-class unity, refusing to accept a contract on the backs of their younger brothers and sisters.

Union leaders act the same way from Sand Francisco to Dayton and beyond. They serve the bosses, and line their own pockets, at the expense of the working class.

Red Rider

Page 768 of 772

CHALLENGE, June 14, 2000

Editorial:

Doubling CHALLENGE Distribution Is Trouble for Bosses

Editorial 2

Fight to Give Gore the Welcome He Deserves

Immigrant Workers Slam Bosses and Union Sellouts

The Tale of Two Racist Chicago Boards

SCHOOL BOARD

POLICE BOARD

AFL-CIO Dangles Amnesty To Get Immigrant Workers To Pull Gore’s Wagon

AFL-CIO Flunkeys Want to Win Workers to Gore/War

Democrats: No Friends of Workers

Rulers’ Dogfight Over LAPD Won’t Help Workers

40,000 Teachers Protest: Helluva of a Lesson Plan

PLP Offers a Better Lesson Plan: Fight for Communism

Anti-Racist Strike of Hospital Workers

Bosses’ Racism in the South Pacific = Troubles in ‘Paradise’ Islands

Turmoil Reaches Australia, New Zealand

Horn of Africa Blows Up

LETTERS

Israeli Army’s "Vietnam Syndrome"

What Is Behind NY Times' Sudden Discovery of Racism Among Cuban Exiles in Miami

Protestors Go AFTA Expansion of NAFTA

Better Off with Unions or Without?

CHALLENGE June 7, 2000

Union Hacks Hide Capitalism as Cause ofPrison Labor: Fascism, U.S. Style

Social Democracy: A `Fairer Capitalism'?....

....OR SMASH PRISON LABOR WITH COMMUNIST REVOLUTION

PARDONS CAN'T CHANGE RACIST NATURE OF BOSSES MILITARY

Officers: Paid Leave; Black Sailors: 15 Years Hard Labor

PICNIC JUMP STARTS SUMMER PROJECT

MAY DAY ORGANIZING HEIGHTENS CLASS STRUGGLE AT PHILADELPHIA HOSPITAL

MUNI CONTRACT WON'T BRAKES ON EXPLOITATION

CHICAGO YOUTH ORGANIZE AGAINST RACIST COPS

KOSOVO COMES TO MIAMI

RACIST YONKERS COPS: NYPD HAS NOTHING ON THEM

LIBERAL SCHOOL REFORMS DEFEND CAPITALISM, ATTACK STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

ANTI-KLAN PLP'ER ELECTED UFT DELEGATE

SRI LANKA: The Three Horseman of the Apocalypse--Racism, Nationalism, and Imperialism

CHINA BUCKS U.S. CONTROL OF WORLDS' OIL SHIPPING LANES

NAVAL EXPANSION TIED TO OIL SHIPPING LANES

LETTERS

Wage Slavery Southern Style

Bogota May Day: Don't Vote, Join PLP

Don't Need Strikes Under Communism

Teachers Thrilled by Internationale

Europe's Bosses Dip Oily Fingers into Colombia

Red Eye Trapped in Sociobiology

Red Eye Responds

CHALLENGE, May 31. 2000

Capitalism Creates Many Wars

U.S. Big Bosses’ Dogfight Over Whether Colombia or Middle East Is Primary in their War Plans

Profits At Stake In Colombia

Wake-Up Call For McCaffrey

General McCaffey’s Mass Murder in Iraq Was Part of Bosses’ War Methods

Imperialist, Local Bosses’ Endless Wars Murder Millions in Africa

Drive for Profits Ravage the Congo

Middle East ‘Peace Process’ Paves Way for Imperialist War

Venezuela: Oil Price Rise Exposes Phony Chavez ‘Revolution’

Gore, Union Hacks Fight over China Trade, But Both Sides Serve Big Bosses

Racist Giuliani Down, Many More to Go

Ohio State Workers Expose Liberal Bosses BS

El Salvador: PLP Growth: Answer to Bosses’ Bombs

From Border to Cities, Organize Against Racist Murderers!

LA Teachers Fight Back

Workers of the World Write LETTERS

SEIU Is as Bad with Other Workers As It Has Been with LA Janitors

May Day: More than a March

Don’t Send the Census Form

Promises and Promises

‘These people should be killed...’

"The specter of communism is here to stay"

PLP Grows in NJ After May Day March

Less Talk More Action

CHALLENGE May 24, 2000

What Bosses' Debate on Gun Control Hide:Capitalist Violence Kills Million

Arizona Vigilantes Ape Racist Anti-Immigrant of Shoot To Kill of President Clinton

Big Bosses Tell Racist Giuliani to Zip It

Rockefeller Wants Tighter Control

An International Fight

Union Hacks Hide Capitalism as Cause of
Prison Labor: Fascism, U.S. Style

Bogota May Day: Don't Vote,
Join PLP

What Bosses' Debate on Gun Control Hide:
Capitalist Violence Kills Million

Demonstrate May 22nd at the Board of Education 125 South Clark (Clark and Adams) 5:00 PM--the last day of the hearings.
CHICAGO COPS ON A SHOOTING SPREE

DETROIT COPS: ARMED AND DANGEROUS
(Do Not Attempt to Apprehend Alone!)

Methodist Hospital Strike...
OUR UNITY WILL SOON BE TESTED!

Rockefeller Forces Plot
Hostile Takeover of LA Bosses