Editorial: Liberal Democrats Derail Anti-Racist Rage: Cops Get Away With Murder, Again

• The Federal Government Is Not on the Side of "Justice"
• The Cops Cannot Be Reformed
• What Communists and Militant Anti-Racists Must Do

NYC Welfare Work Stoppage Plans March Against Diallo Verdict

a href="#‘Praying won’t stop police killings’">‘Pra"ing won’t stop police killings’

Newark March Links Professor Kelling Theories to Police Terror

Diallo Verdict Is Changing Mood in Campus

Brooklyn High School Roundup

Racist Frame Ups Is Regular LAPD Work

Rising Class Unity Among Boeing Strikers

Beware Of Liberal Politicians And AFL-CIO Misleaders Bearing Gifts.

a href="#Postal Workers’ Union Election Opens Doors And Trapdoors">"ostal Workers’ Union Election Opens Doors And Trapdoors

Chicago Postal Workers Fight Police Terror!

Pinochet: Another Pawn in Imperialist Rivalry

El Salvador: Health Care Strikers Take Back Centers from Cops

LETTERS

U.S. Rulers, Racist Murder Inc.

Diallo Verdict Raised at Injustice Conference

On Being a Student and Capitalist Education

Youth Experience at Diallo Trial in Albany

PRD Is No Allied of Students in Mexico

Faculty Should Strike Because Getting into Trouble is Good!

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Editorial:

Liberal Democrats Derail Anti-Racist Rage

Cops Get Away With Murder, Again

It should have been a no-brainer. Obviously, the 41 shots fired by four NY Police Department (NYPD) cops at African immigrant worker Amadou Diallo (he was hit by 19 of those bullets) was not "a tragic mistake." It was racist murder carried out by cops following Mayor Giuliani’s Zero Tolerance policies. (As we go to press, another black man was killed, shot in the head, by cops a couple of blocks away from where Diallo was mudered a year ago. Again, local politicians came to the area to calm down angry protestors against this latest killing).

The "justice" system is not blind; it is racist to the core. Never in NYC has a cop being jailed for homicide while on duty. Only one was convicted for manslaughter. Very rarely do cops pay for killing black or Latin workers and youth. The four cops were guaranteed a not guilty verdict from the outset, because both the prosecution and defense agreed that they were "just doing their job," just as the Nazis said at the end of World War II, they were "just following orders."

The racist verdict outraged millions. Mass protests were held in NYC and elsewhere (see articles in this issue). Many are now seeing clearly the racist nature of the cops and the "justice" system. This is good, but much more needs to be done to strengthen the movement against racist terror and its cause, capitalism.

Most of the demonstrators blame it all on NYC Republican Mayor Giuliani, correctly calling him a fascist, even a clone of Hitler. They understand that the four cops who murdered Amadou Diallo were "doing their job" of terrorizing black and Latin workers and youth. In the last few years under Giuliani’s "Zero Tolerance" police policies, "every year tens of thousands"(NY Times, 2/29) have been harassed, beaten and arrested by the cops, and scores have been killed, based on the color of their skin.

The liberal Democrats, like Al Sharpton, Congressmen Charles Rangel, José Serrano, former NYC Mayor David Dinkins, Dennis Rivera, head of the hospital workers union Local 1199 and a big shot in the NY Democratic Party, have done all they could to turn the anti-racist protests into a movement to elect Hillary Clinton NY Senator over Giuliani, and Gore or Bradley president (or whoever becomes the Democratic Party candidate).

These liberal Democrats have also strained to keep the anti-racist protests peaceful, to avoid the 1992 mass rebellions, when the cops brutalized Rodney King in LA and got off. Before the verdict they held "peace" vigils in the area where Diallo was killed.

The Federal Government Is Not on the Side of "Justice"

Now these politicians build peoples’ hope that justice could still be served through the Federal government’s Justice Department. This is the same Clinton administration which paid for the hiring of 100,000 more cops nationally under the guise of "gun control"; the same government which ordered mass racist cutbacks in social services; the same Federal government which has bombed and murdered many thousands in Iraq and Yugoslavia. Building illusions that the Federal government could be on the side of "justice" is also a way to build patriotism for "our" government among those who will be needed to fight Exxon-Mobil’s next oil war in the Middle East. It is hard to convince black and Latin youth to fight and die for Rockefeller oil billionaires when they are being abused and killed by the NYPD, LAPD, etc.

 

The Cops Cannot Be Reformed

All the liberals, from the New York Times (Feb. 29 editorial.) to Sharpton and Hillary Clinton are calling once again for "police reform." By this they mean adding more black and Latin cops. However, the Klan in blue is still the Klan in blue, regardless of the uniform wearer's skin color. Under the profit system, the police serve as the rulers' first line of defense against the working class. This can never change as long as the bosses remain in power. The police can't be reformed. Racist cop terror against our class can't be voted away. It will disappear only when the working class wins state power through armed struggle and communist revolution.

What Communists and Militant Anti-Racists Must Do

The liberal Democrats can only derail the movement to the extent workers and youth let them. We must fight the negative influence these liberals have on the mass movement. That means getting deeply involved in all the mass movements of workers and youth, and influencing masses of people with the communist understanding of the way capitalism and its state work. The cops, the courts, the entire system serve and protect the bosses. And they MUST be racist, because capitalism since its birth has been based on racism. First it was slavery, and now it’s racist wage slavery: the bosses making hundreds of billions a year in extra profits from paying less to black, Latin and Asian workers. Racism also keeps workers divided, preventing them from uniting against the bosses’ attacks.

If we don’t get deeply involved in the unions, community, church and school organizations, building a political and social base among as many workers and youth as we can, we will be unable to defeat the bosses’ agents who now derail all struggles.

Some in PLP are already doing that kind of work in the mass movement. We raised calls for work stoppages in several places (see page ??? on the Feb. 28 work stoppage at a NYC welfare office), linking it to the march on May Day. But many more comrades and other honest anti-racist workers and youth need to do that.

In the coming weeks we can spread the idea among workers and youth that capitalism is racist to the core and no reforms can change this system, including the cops’ role as racist goons for the bosses. Organizing alll militant anti-racist workers and youth to march with PLP on May Day and recruiting them to PLP is the best way to avenge the brutal murder of Amadou Diallo and all other victims of racist terror and capitalist misery.

NYC Welfare Work Stoppage Plans March Against Diallo Verdict

BROOKLYN, NY, Feb. 28 —"We’re going to have a special union meeting at 11:00 this morning. Everyone stop work and come up to the third floor. We’re going to discuss the Diallo murder case verdict and how we should respond to it."

That’s how a red shop steward called a meeting of workers at a NYC child support welfare office. Members of two AFSCME locals, Workfare workers, per diem office temps and workers employed by the wildcat contract agency all attended. This meeting of about 100 workers showed the most unity in this office in years. Only a few workers did not attend.

Together we decided to demand that our union leaders call a one-day walkout protesting the Diallo verdict, organize a lunch-time demonstration in the downtown Brooklyn shopping area, boycott companies that helped pay the costs of the defense of the four murderers, contact the U.S. attorney’s office and contact local politicians to protest the acquittal of cops Murphy, Carroll, Boss and McMellon.

Although differing strategies were proposed, we wanted to maintain maximum unity and allow workers to participate in the way they thought was most appropriate. Most workers were happy that it wasn’t "business as usual" on the job today. The non-AFSCME workers attending, not used to this kind of open meeting, applauded at the end. We were taking steps to continue the fight

Flash: On March 2, the day after the police shot another black man several blocks from where Diallo was killed, some 25 workers walked off their job from the Child Support office and, along with hospital workers and people from the area, marched in downtown Brooklyn against police terror. More next issue.

a name="‘Praying won’t stop police killings’"></a>"Praying won’t stop police killings’

BRONX, NY, Feb. 25— "Hell no! We are tired of praying while the police go on killing us. We need to be angry! Praying will not stop the cops!"

That was the fury vent by working-class woman at a handful of black ministers and one white priest attempting to divert an angry group of demonstrators protesting the "not guilty" verdict for four racist cops who murdered African immigrant worker Amadou Diallo in cold blood. Members and friends of PLP joined several hundred outraged residents of this working-class Soundview section of the Bronx where Diallo lived and was murdered, taking to the streets moments after the Albany jury announced its decision. That result and the ferocity of this racist crime—41 shots aimed at an innocent and well-liked man—had left many in a state of shock and disbelief. They marched to a near-by police precinct but were fended off by the cops. Then it was back to block where Diallo was murdered. Cops flooded the neighborhood, to be met with angry defiance and obscenities. Several people had to be pulled away from physically charging the Klan in blue.

It was when the demonstrators demanded that the cops leave the community that the ministers and priest descended upon the crowd and invited the protesters to form a "circle of prayer." And it was then that the courageous woman vented her rage at this spectacle. Others joined her in shouting down the praying. The youth present began to chant. Even some gang members joined the protest. The clergymen failed to pacify anyone.

The cops and their undercover informants planted in the crowd did not deter the workers’ anger. Some local residents managed to evade the police line, organizing a small march across from the barricade. This action surprised the cops, who were trying to contain the crowd behind the barricade. These cowardly cops were nervous, not knowing what to expect from the working class here. Nonetheless, they were prepared to terrorize people engaging in any decisive organized action. Cold-blooded Mayor Ghouliani had announced ahead of time that the cops would "respond" to any "breaking of the law."

This trial has taught many not to expect one iota of justice from the bosses’ racist courts. Workers may be starting to realize what many workers learned from communists around the world: the best protection against state fascism is our class unity, reliance on each other and mutual hatred of the oppressive ruling class. (

PLP aims to win the working class to destroy capitalism and its countless atrocities of war and racism. Workers and youth need to join our movement. To avenge the death of Amadu Diallo and scores of similar brutalities, become a RED—join PLP and get others to do the same. Only then can we totally destroy this murderous ruling class.

Newark March Links Professor Kelling Theories to Police Terror

NEWARK, NJ, Feb. 28 — About 30 workers and Rutgers students rallied and marched here protesting the acquittal of the four NYPD murderers of Amadou Diallo. Two days before over 200 workers and youth marched downtown demonstrating against the Diallo verdict. PLP members sold over 120 CHALLENGES at that march.

Today’s rally began at the newly-built Rutgers University "Law and Justice Center." This is the headquarters of Professor George Kelling, hired by the Giuliani administration to help institute the NYPD’s "community policing program."

Designed to intensify the oppression and imprisonment of unemployed young black and Latin men, Kelling's program fostered the police-state atmosphere in NYC that made the execution of Diallo inevitable. Fueled by billions from Clinton's government, Kelling's ideas are being spread into many major U.S. urban areas like Newark, targeting black and Latin communities.

After several speeches at the Law Center attacking Kelling, the criminal injustice system and capitalism, we marched to the federal government's office building, several blocks away. Chants of "Racist cops, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!"; "Amadou, could be you"; and "The cops, the courts, the Ku Klux Klan, all a part of the bosses plan" filled the air of downtown Newark.

As we marched, many people either raised their fists, joined our chants or held up their wallets along with us. (The four cops claimed Amadou's wallet "looked like a gun"). As one onlooker observed: "Wouldn’t you reach for your wallet in the belief that you were being robbed if you were an African and four white strangers approached you waving guns and yelling at you to stick your hands up?"

This comments and others reveal the mass anger at this racist, fascist verdict. We in PLP and others who came to this rally need to see the real possibilities for organizing large numbers against racist police terror, against the fascist program aimed at preventing urban rebellions by locking up black and Latin youth. This feeds an ever-growing enslaved prison labor pool, providing maximum profits for the bosses.

Resisting The Cops

From the federal building we moved to the Plaza and rallied near a giant bosses’ flag, the stars and stripes. Soon federal cops ordered us off of their "government property." Local cops told us we couldn’t use our bullhorn. We held firm and pressed the limits, refusing to stop our rally until WE were ready.

Many people saw the cops’ role in trying to suppress our anti-fascist action right under their symbol of "freedom and democracy." As the cops tried to grab our bullhorn, a speaker explained clearly that the bosses’ real flag is the dollar bill. The rulers will use force to terrorize the workers in order to protect their profits. The speaker said that just as it took armed struggle involving millions to smash chattel slavery, even more millions would be needed to smash the current system of wage slavery and put state power in the hands of the working class.

The party moved into action with more urgency. Now we need to continue the hard, day-to-day, work that can help move masses of workers and students into motion against cop terror, mass imprisonment and slave labor. This coordinated effort can result in the biggest mass May Day turn out from NJ in years, and recruitment to PLP.

Diallo Verdict Is Changing Mood in Campus

I teach in a school hundreds of miles from New York City. I’ve been discussing the Amadou Diallo case in my classes since the day of the verdict. Before the verdict was announced, I wrote Diallo’s name on the board in two of my classes and asked the students if they knew who he was. Only a few knew much about it. So I summarized the story. In both classes the students were furious.

A student said the Diallo murder was worse than the beating of Rodney King and wondered if people would rebel if the cops were acquitted.

I read to the students a few sentences from an article in the February 24th New York Times It report that Bronx borough president Ferrer had convened a meeting of clergy, and that they had walked through Bronx neighborhoods telling residents "God would want them to act" non-violently, so that they could "close the rifts between the police and residents."

This was the last straw. One student, who is from New York and had participated in a demonstration against the killing, denounced the ministers and especially singled out ex-Congressman and Minister Floyd Flake. Two other students said today was just like under slavery: the oppressors used ministers to control the people. Another student was even more blunt. He said, "Sometimes you’ve gotta throw some rocks and bottles at the cops or burn down a couple of buildings."

At the beginning of class, students had been restless. They would have preferred to be outside on this beautiful sunny Friday with 75-degree temperatures. But once the discussion started, everybody got involved; no one was in a hurry to leave.

On Monday and Tuesday, following the verdict, I discussed the case in all four of my classes. All the students were extremely angry and intensely interested, both those who were surprised by the verdict and those who weren’t. In my two upper-level courses, where previously I had had considerable discussion about racism, capitalism, fascism and communism, the discussion worked its way from the specifics of the Diallo case to the broader trends in society. We went from the Street Crimes Unit in NY to Kelling’s community policing strategy to two million people in prison to the LA cops corruption scandal to the innocent people on death row in Illinois to Prop 21 in California that will put many more young people in prison. We discussed Prop 21 as a "head start" program for prisons.

Some students came to my office to tell me that they want my help in planning a forum or rally. They have a lot of good ideas and are moving forward.

Nearly all of my 160 students are black, and this issue has moved them like no other recent issue. I think the mood is changing, and the opportunities will increase. I distribute about seven CHALLENGES each week among these students, and I hope to increase that soon. I know that circumstances are different at different colleges, but the general trend can probably be felt everywhere.

Red Prof

Brooklyn High School Roundup

Wingate

This promises to be an exciting week at Wingate H.S. The Monday after the Diallo verdict many Social Studies teachers suspended business as usual and taught lessons about the racist murder. Many of these discussions focused on how students could become activists, and what kind of activities to organize. Things heated up Tuesday when a group of teachers put up posters around the school urging everyone to wear black on Wednesday to protest the verdict. The principal demanded the posters be taken down, and guards went around the building, including classrooms, removing them. As quickly as the posters came down they went back up again. There was an exciting meeting after school of PLP students who are eager to organize a mass demonstration. Plans include circulating "Guilty" stickers throughout the school and a picket line outside.

Erasmus

Erasmus students and teachers are outraged and angry about the Diallo verdict. PLP students met after school Monday to plan a walkout protesting of the verdict. Our newest comrades committed themselves to leaflet, organize their friends to wear stickers and make speeches in the lunchroom. Several teachers discussed the verdict in their classes and agreed to support the students’ actions. Dozens of students have agreed to wear stickers and to walk out.

Boys and Girls

In some classrooms at Boys and Girls HS lessons have been suspended for discussion of the Diallo verdict. Students came to a teacher’s classroom eager to talk because the verdict has angered them so much. Students are writing a petition to circulate in school. Some teachers have changed the petition into a resolution that teachers can sign and have the union delegates and chapter leader bring to next week’s city-wide UFT Delegate Assembly. Meanwhile, we will begin distribution of "Guilty" stickers.

John Jay

The week at John Jay High School started with discussions in many classes about the Diallo verdict and what response we should organize. Monday after school over 100 students remained outside the building chanting, "It's only a wallet, not a gun" at the cops who are lined up there every day to "patrol."

New members of PLP at the school have eagerly started to organize a student walkout and protest. One PLP’er had another student approach her to ask if she would be part of the walkout. This blew her away! Word and interest had spread that quickly through the building.

"I'm glad you introduced me to communism," she excitedly told her teacher. "This is really the way to change the world."

Robeson

Students are calling for, and organizing, a forum on the Diallo verdict.

Westinghouse

The students and many teachers are angry about this verdict. The students and teachers are taking as many "Guilty" stickers as can be produced. The Phoenix council of students and teachers is meeting to talk about turning this anger into action. Staff members are supporting the student walkout.

Murrow

Organizing a walkout at Murrow has been going great. On Monday, five students met after school to plan it. We’re also trying to combine all schools having walkouts in a large student demonstration in Downtown Brooklyn. We’ve written a flyer and are distributing stickers. The response in general for walkout is very positive.

Racist Frame Ups Is Regular LAPD Work

LOS ANGELES, March 1 — The ongoing scandal at the LAPD Ramparts precinct is exposing the cops as murderers, thieves and liars. The neighborhood around Ramparts is made up of Latino immigrants. Rafael Perez, a cop-turned-informant, has revealed that he and his fascist buddies planted evidence (drugs and guns), shot victims and routinely lied to put victims behind bars for years. He reported that the Ramparts cops had the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) deport at least 160 people for being "gang members" even though the cops knew they were not. These victims were witnesses to LAPD crimes and were deported so they wouldn't testify or expose the cops' lies.

One of those being held for deportation is Alex Sanchez. He was a witness to the fact that 15-year-old Jose Rodriguez was with him at a meeting and could not have committed the murder the cops accused him of. Even more importantly, he was a community activist who organized meetings at a local church to end gang in-fighting. For this, he was constantly harassed and threatened by the Ramparts cops until they had him deported.

The unraveling of this scandal has different government agencies pointing the finger at each other for crimes they all commit every day. The Feds have come in to "clean up" the LAPD. Meanwhile, Chief Parks and DA Gil Garcetti (famous for prosecuting all "Three Strikes" cases to the limit) are accusing each other of being too slow to act.

The real agenda here is to bring the LAPD under the firm control of the Rockefeller wing of the U.S. rulers. These bosses want to "reform" the LAPD in order to fool us into thinking they’re on the anti-racist side. But Clinton, who represents the Rockefeller interests, beefed up the border patrol to deport more workers and put 100,000 more killer cops on the street.

While some of the victims will have their cases reviewed and could be released from jail after serving years for crimes they didn't commit, we shouldn't have illusions this will change the racist nature of the cops. The FBI and the Attorney General's office are investigating the cops. But the same FBI told INS agents to cooperate with the Ramparts cops as they arrested and deported witnesses to police crimes. It was the FBI whose agents infiltrated the KKK in the 60's and instigated the burning of black churches to terrorize civil rights organizers. The Federal Government is just as racist as the LAPD, and has been responsible for the deaths of infinitely more people in the rulers’ fight to defend their empire.

It's a bigger illusion to think that the LAPD will stop using racist terror against the working class just because this scandal is being exposed. They'll fire some people and set up a new review board to "supervise" the cops. Even if the bosses want to curb the more outlandish gang-style CRASH units, the fact is they need the cops to terrorize youth and workers, especially black and Latin youth. Therefore, they’ll carry out racist terror against the working class. That's their job. After the 1992 rebellion, when the cops who beat Rodney King were acquitted, the Christopher Commission was established to "reform" the LAPD. Now there are even more cases of racist terror—this time against Latino immigrants.

PLP is organizing a demonstration at the Ramparts police station to condemn these racist cops and their cynical attacks. They are a product of the capitalist system. Capitalism is racist to the core. The bosses fret that they must "clean up" the LAPD so people will have confidence in the system. We must not fall for the liberals' assurance that capitalism will reform itself. The way to deal with the Ramparts cops, the Diallo verdict, Proposition 21, expanding prisons and prison labor is to march on May Day and build the revolutionary movement for communism, workers' power.

Rising Class Unity Among Boeing Strikers

SEATTLE, WA., Feb. 28 — Striking members and friends of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) ringed the Downtown Four Seasons Olympic Hotel picketing the Boeing Board of Directors meeting. Last weekend negotiations broke down when the company insisted on medical give-backs and "merit" raises, both of which have already been rejected—twice!

The negotiations were preceded last Wednesday by a march of 2,500 to Corporate Headquarters in Tukwila, WA. These workers seem to have been mobilized solely about economic issues. Nevertheless, whenever Boeing workers do battle with Boeing bosses over "economic" issues, the political ramifications soon reveal themselves.

The key provision of the proposed contract deals with "merit" raises. For example, the company proposes to give engineers raises from a pool of money representing 8% of their salaries the first year and 4.5% each of the next two years. The increase for Techs will be less. Not only will the amount you actually get depend on the whim of your boss, but a large portion of the pool, if not the majority, is reserved for software engineers and others the company deems vital. In order to hold onto these employees who command higher salaries in today’s economy, Boeing is perfectly willing to sacrifice the rest.

Boeing’s chief competitor, Europe’s Airbus, plans to build a number of new commercial jets. Boeing’s strategy, on the other hand, is to ring the last ounce of profit out of existing programs. They plan to lay off and cut to the bone.

Boeing’s "people strategy," as the bosses refer to it, is to split a few privileged elite from the rest of the technical workforce. Most engineers and technicians will get next to nothing as the company diverts the funds from the pool to their privileged few. Much to the bosses’ surprise, the technicians and engineers have responded with a spontaneous, albeit limited, class unity.

Beware Of Liberal Politicians And AFL-CIO Misleaders Bearing Gifts.

When it became apparent that the SPEEA strike was for real, Bill Bradley and Al Gore made a beeline for the picket lines. Last Sunday, Gore kissed a few babies on the line, but refused to speak before the crowd lest he seem to encourage their class consciousness. This pathetic show didn’t deter the SPEEA Executive Director Charles Bofferding from declaring "friends" in high places, like Gore, would pressure Boeing to settle.

Tomorrow, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney was scheduled to visit the lines. He, like his pal Al Gore, wants to divert this new-found class consciousness into support for the liberal bosses who run the Democratic Party. A quick look at the Boeing Board shows it is precisely these same bosses, the main section of the old Eastern money crowd, who run Boeing. So much for friends in high places!

We in Progressive Labor Party have a different strategy—to follow class consciousness to its logical conclusion, communist revolution. The development of revolutionary workers is the great promise of this strike.

Our party has joined the lines, organizing supporters from the factory floor, the schools and other work-sites to build on this class consciousness. When striking Boeing workers and their working-class supporters march on May Day, in San Francisco on April 29, they will take a crucial step in fulfilling the promise of this strike.

a name="Postal Workers’ Union Election Opens Doors And Trapdoors">">"ostal Workers’ Union Election Opens Doors And Trapdoors

NEW YORK CITY, Feb. 28 — PLP is participating in the upcoming New York Metro-Area Postal Union (NY-MAPU) elections. In this campaign, we will use CHALLENGE to expose workers to broader issues affecting our lives, and try to convince them of the necessity of fighting back, joining PLP, marching on May Day and building a revolutionary communist movement.

One key issue is the threat of privatization. The work at ten Priority Mail centers around the country has been contracted out to Emory Air Freight, along with the sale of postage on the Internet to a few private companies. Privatization reflects the larger pattern of anti-worker attacks by U.S. bosses. Specifically, the loss of full time industrial jobs coupled with the dramatic increase of part time and temporary jobs, and the growing use of prison labor and Workfare. A ruling class that must allocate billions for war to control Mid-East oil necessarily must cut costs of workers’ benefits at home.

At the February 23rd regular membership meeting, over 100 workers were nominated to compete for 32 full- and part-time positions as officers and trustees. A PLP member was invited to run for "Trustee" on the CANDIDATES FOR CHANGE slate (CFC).

NY-MAPU has over 10,000 members. It is the largest local of the American Postal Workers’ Union (APWU). For almost 20 years it was tightly controlled by President Josie McMillian. She was hand-picked to succeed Moe Biller after he was elected President of APWU. Her leadership was characterized by the "file-a-grievance" strategy, even though the grievance procedure is stacked for management. She was rarely opposed, even as workers became increasingly dissatisfied with the leadership.

In 1997 a group of six rank and filers and one experienced shop steward were ruled ineligible to run against the top union leadership. This insurgent CFC group won an appeal to the Department of Labor. Last Spring, McMillian was forced to hold an election. The arrogant full-time union leaders did little campaigning. The CFC campaigned vigorously on a platform of making the union serve the members, and won a surprising victory by an average of about 55% to 45% of the 3,500 ballots cast.

Immediately, the defeated leaders and the remaining part-time officers who ran unopposed in the election began disrupting the membership and Executive Board meetings to thwart the new leadership. The CFC persevered with support from some shop stewards and many newly-involved rank-and-file union members.

While McMillian dropped out of the picture after her loss, the old leadership planned to regain control of the union in the March/April 2000 election. But they could not agree on details and broke into a few different slates.

The new leadership cut the exorbitant salaries of all full-time union officers, and used union funds for the first ever NY-MAPU picnic. They also exposed the improper use of union funds, which could lead to criminal charges against the old officers.

PLP disagrees with some CFC strategies. For example, they rely heavily on the Courts to "enforce the contract." Firstly, the contract overwhelmingly favors postal management; secondly, the acquittal of the four NYC cops in the racist murder of Amadou Diallo once again reveals a legal system stacked against workers. A system run by and for profiteers cannot, by definition, favor workers, whether in contracts, courts or racist police actions. The bosses establish this apparatus to protect their own class interests.

The CFC has also injected religion into union meetings. Nonetheless, it has the support of many honest rank-and-file workers who want to fight the bosses, and has formed a full slate of nominees.

The campaign has begun in earnest with mass leafleting at the huge Morgan, JAF and Bronx GPO postal buildings. Distribution of CHALLENGE has increased, including to several members of the CFC slate. (More in future issues.)

Postal Workers Fight Police Terror!

CHICAGO, Feb. 28 — The cops who killed Amadou Diallo get away with murder. The Chicago cop who murdered Northwestern University senior Robert Russ last June, gets a 15 day suspension (postal workers are suspended for two weeks for calling in sick or being late too many times)! The bosses are letting their fascist cops know that it’s open season on black and Latin workers and youth.

At the Chicago post office, we’re organizing against these racist murders. The parents of Robert Russ are both postal workers, who worked hard all their lives to give him a chance to "make it" in this capitalist world. Two weeks before graduation, he was gunned down by "Chicago's Swinest." PLP members and friends at the post office collected money and signatures of support, which we presented to the family.

We are trying to have Robert's mother speak at our monthly union meeting. We’re collecting signatures on a resolution condemning the killer cops, so it can be raised on behalf of many workers. Most workers have long ago written off the union as the bosses' best friends. It is hard winning them to see why we want to raise this resolution. Although there is a lot of truth in that, the union is the mass organization to which workers turn, to fight the boss. Our Party must be fighting inside the union, to expose the dead-end of reformism, and, through struggle, to win through struggle, workers who are open to communist ideas.

Pinochet: Another Pawn in Imperialist Rivalry

On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende, ushering in an orgy of fascist terror and murder, leaving thousands dead and tortured. But Pinochet was not alone Behind him was IT&T, Kissinger and Richard Nixon, along with the biggest bosses of Chile and the heads of the Catholic Church.

Twenty-seven years later, we in Chile have not forgotten the Pinochet terror. For over a year this dictator has been under arrest in Britain but still hasn’t paid for his crimes. Millions have been spent by his defenders and prosecutors with no real movement. Why? Everyone knows he’s guilty of mass murder. Was Pinochet arrested while in London for surgery for other reasons? Are the rulers of Spain, Britain and France—his main accusers—now anti-fascist? Of course not. The European imperialists are as much butchers as the U.S.

The fact is, the European rulers are using Pinochet as a pawn in their rivalry with U.S. imperialism. Recently the Wall Street Journal reported that Europe is now challenging the U.S. as the leading investor in Latin America. The arrest of Pinochet is being used by the Europeans to portray themselves as "more concerned" about human rights than the U.S. which instigated Pinochet’s bloody coup (just as U.S. bosses pretend "concern" for "human rights" around the world to "expose" their competitors in the World Trade Organization).

If we workers, youth and the thousands of victims of Pinochet’s terror want Pinochet, Kissinger and all the murderous bosses to pay for their crimes against the working class, we need to fight for a world without any bosses, for communism. The PLP Club in Chile is contributing its efforts towards that goal.

Comrades in Santiago, Chile

PS: After sending this letter, Pinochet was released from London for "medical reasons" and is being sent back to Chile. Again, workers shouldn’t expect justice from any capitalist.the8e

Health Care Strikers Take Back Centers From Cops

SAN SALVADOR, Feb. 29 — Striking doctors and workers at ten community clinics of the ISSS (Social Security Institute) here were evicted by rifle-toting cops who crept in during the early morning hours. The cops were ordered in by the ISSS director who had sworn previously never to do that.

The ISSS bosses plan to militarize all the struck clinics and hospitals, using the army as scabs. But the strikers have upped the ante to stop more police actions. They told other workers, "If any administrators come to remove medicine from the pharmacy, or for anything else, call us."

Strikers at the Zacamil medical center re-took the center after being evicted by the cops. Yesterday workers barred hospital administrators from the building. Strikers at the MQ (Surgery Medical Hospital), largest in the ISSS system, took over the main streets of San Salvador. When the anti-riot cops appeared, the strikers blocked the streets with ambulances.

The ISSS workers and doctors have had mass support from other workers. "I’m not going to a military hospital," said an angry patient, referring to the ISSS bosses’ use of military clinics and hospitals to provide scab health care. The ISSS has also used paramedics and untrained soldiers to pose as doctors to scab.

We in PLP support these heroic strikers. But these doctors and health care workers must see the contradictions that cause their strikes. Capitalism and its health care are deadly for all workers. It says, "if you don’t have money, you don’t get care." This causes the suffering of patients and health care workers.

Many strikers are beginning to learn this through PLP’s activities. CHALLENGE is being read by many. "Every week I download CHALLENGE and read its excellent articles on the strike," said a young doctor. "Several workers discuss those articles." A hospital worker also hit by the CHALLENGE "bug" told us, "PLP is a Party with a very well-defined line against capitalism. That’s what we workers need."

We in PLP are trying to become the international Party of the working class, fighting to end the cancer of capitalism with communist revolution.

CHALLENGE

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LETTERS

U.S. Rulers, Racist Murder Inc.

I happened to catch a short video clip about the verdict in the trial for Amadou Diallo tonight. It was the first time I'd heard the news. While mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters cry real tears, one of the murderers is taped crying crocodile tears on the witness stand while the same outrageous message can be heard in the background: People of the working class are "fair game" for brutal, racist cops everywhere.

If we listen to their explanations, Amadou Diallo's murder was a "mistake" made in the "war against crime". This so-called war against crime only exists in the bosses' media. The real criminals are trained, protected and paid by the bosses to sell out their class and keep the wage slaves in line. This is systematic murder of working class youth by the bosses' goons.

Perhaps the bosses think they are "conditioning" us to accept the murders of our brothers and sisters everywhere in the world with their media hype about "rising crime in our schools and in our communities" and "violation of human rights" in "foreign nations". I hear them: Step out of line and we blow you away. Nothing gets in the way of our profits.

The U.S. bosses are afraid that we will repeat our struggles of the past when the working class here rose up in organized solidarity against racist oppression and imperialist war for profits. Even then, some fought for communism. If the bosses' want to believe they have us in check, that's ok. In reality, there is a social movement in the world that will never accept anything less than the complete freedom that only a communist society can guarantee for the international working class.

Working class brothers and sisters should hit the streets and march against racist police terror in every community across the U.S. Show the bosses that we are unified and will never be intimidated by their fascist attacks on our class no matter how long, in how many ways, or how often they attack us. If you've reached a point of zero tolerance for racist police terror, read Challenge and join a PLP study group in your community and learn what lurks behind the thin veneer of the "war against crime". Learn why racist police brutality and police states are a necessary evil of capitalism. Learn why, as a unified class, we have a solution--communist revolution. The only way to eliminate an effect is to eliminate its cause. Join us wherever you are in the world in our marches on May Day 2000 against capitalism.

Indiana Reader

Diallo Verdict Raised at Injustice Conference

As we were driving to a conference on women and the criminal "injustice" system, a friend and I heard about the acquittal of the racist murderers who killed Amadou Diallo. We arrived in the middle of a session, and did not know anyone there. But we were both mad as hell, so when the session ended 15 minutes later, I told the conference organizers about the verdict and suggested the conference speak out against it. They seemed open to the idea, but hesitant about doing anything.

But during the conference break, another woman (whom I was told was completely outraged about the verdict) stood up on a bench and announced it to everyone. Since some people did not hear her, I rose after her and repeated it. By then the place was buzzing.

The next session was about the "Prison-Industrial Complex." During the discussion period, I commented on the crisis of U.S. capitalism as the root of both the rapidly growing prison system and the trend toward war. A few minutes later, a different woman (who said she represented a community center) read a statement that she and others had drafted. It said: "We hereby express outrage at the verdict exonerating the four police officers that murdered Diallo and resolve that there should be an immediate investigation into the mishandling of that investigation. We are infuriated at the actions taken by the City of Claremont [where the conference was held] concerning the [police] murder of Irvin Landrum, Jr. We demand that justice be sought and realized concerning the misconduct of the Los Angeles Police Department Rampart 77th Division, and all other existing corruption."

A student volunteered to type it up, and the next day it was on the table for people to sign. I think they’re sending it as a letter to the newspapers.

I am planning to stay in touch with several of the activists I met at this conference. But for me the biggest "plus" was the effect on my friend. She really liked what happened, though she says she is too shy to do anything like that. She was especially pleased when I told her (truthfully) that without her I would not have had the confidence to speak up when I did, and might not have gone to the conference at all. When I asked whether my comments at the session made sense to her, she said, "You always make sense."

On the way home, we made a plan to bring materials from the conference to our union meeting. We intend to raise a resolution that the union take some real action to implement its stated position against Proposition 21, the fascist measure that would expand California’s "Three Strikes" law and allow prosecutors to try 14-year-olds as adults.

California Reader

On Being a Student and Capitalist Education

In response to "Red Bengal’s" letter to CHALLENGE (2/23):

You are struggling with the most vital questions of your life. As a student, I felt much as you do now. But that was 40 years ago. The USSR had just launched sputnik, the first satellite, which scared the U.S. bosses silly. They felt a panic to catch up, so they decided to start a mass campaign to train engineers. Suddenly they wanted myself and hundreds of thousands more (white male) students to be rocket scientists.

Even though I did poorly in school through lack of effort, I was continually given "another chance." This continued through college. I even got a scholarship my senior year. Of course, life as an engineer wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. I alternated between 60-hour weeks and unemployment for about a decade until I couldn’t take it any more. But with my degree I was able to get a job teaching, which I liked much more.

Today, things are different. The education I was able to get basically tuiition-free now costs tens of thousands of dollars. Though the bosses still need some engineers and technicians, this whole industry is now much more efficient, mainly due to the computer. They need fewer scientists, engineers and technicians (as a percentage of the workforce) than when I graduated.

I give you that personal history to make these points. First: you need math and science to think well enough to make things happen that you want. The bosses understood that—that’s why they trained me in math and science. As members of the working class, we need those skills to make a revolution. The struggle for communism is long and protracted, and science is our most powerful tool for understanding reality. We need it and we must learn it.

Second: the bosses fill our heads with a lot of crap in school, as you correctly point out. But mixed in with all that crap are elements of the tools we need. We must plow through the garbage to find what we need. This takes incredible stamina and determination, especially now that the bosses see less and less reason to teach most of us the skills to learn how to think. Those skills are reading, math and science.

I don’t remember most of the math and science I studied. But I can analyze information. I can separate disciplined analysis from bullshit. And I can communicate effectively. It was these skills which left me open to a communist analysis of the world. I am living proof of the reason why the capitalist class doesn’t want to educate workers beyond the point they need to, in order to exploit our labor.

Yes, it’s hard and it’s frustrating. But out of this struggle we’ll grow strong. Nothing worth doing has ever been easy. Don’t fall for the bosses’ line and take "the easy way out." You’ll only be hurting your self and your class, the working class.

A Communist Student, Parent, Teacher

Youth Experience at Diallo Trial in Albany

Today three PLP members (two teachers and a student) came here to protest (before the verdict) at the trial of the four cops who murdered Amadou Diallo. We joined two busloads of mostly workers who were organized by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a liberal legal reform group, and others.

We'd hoped to go with at least nine other students from our recent communist camping trip. But when only the three of us could (or would) go, we debated whether it was "worth it." But since we had told all of our students, friends and many co-workers we were going, we felt we had to go. We brought about 50-60 Challenges with us.

On the bus, in talking to several people sitting around us. We found why some had come. One worker said because she'd been "out there" during the civil rights movement, and felt this protest was continuing the fights that had begun back then. Others were there because they were fighting for their kids—young black men like Diallo. One woman argued that we, as teachers, should strike for our students.

In our experience, liberal groups and unions often try to stop us from distributing CHALLENGE, but that never happened on this bus. We met great people, and the limits were only ours.

Once here, we joined a rally across the street from the courthouse. In front of a platform with a mike there were around 175 protesters, some holding signs and some distributing leaflets.

We sold many CHALLENGES and spoke to many angry people. Most of the speakers were reverends or priests; their speeches tended to be religious and passive. However, some speakers were angry workers, ready to fight, with fairly class-conscious ideas.

A comrade who had signed up to speak said it’s not just a few bad cops, it's the whole system. He presented the big picture and tied everything into the need for communist revolution.

We continued to sell CHALLENGES, and on the return bus made several contacts. We had distributed about fifty papers, and made many friends. Most important, we won the struggle with ourselves not to stay home because there were only three of us, and to lead with a revolutionary communist line.

Because of our doubts, we had left our bullhorn and signs at home, all of which would have been useful. But overall it was a great day. We regretted leaving our new friends with whom we'd argued and laughed, but that, too, was a lesson—to always have confidence in our class.

A Brooklyn High School Student

PRD Is No Allied of Students in Mexico

Recently the people of Tepatepec Hidalgo, Mexico were brutalized by cops sent by the state of Hidalgo (one of the poorest in Mexico) to the town of Mexe to oust students guarding the Rural Normal (a school over 100 years old). The students were trying to prevent the government from closing the school. The police attack on the students and the general population unleashed a furious worker/student counter-attack that drove out the police, re-took the school and paraded 65 of the cops (many in just their underwear) in the town square, tied together by rope. (See CHALLENGE, March 1.) What happened here inspired us and showed the need to organize and do everything possible to support the struggle of the masses.

This provided one more example of the need to build a new society. Capitalism gives us no alternative but to win workers and youth to take up arms and fight for communist revolution.

The PRD (the liberal opposition party) is acting sympathetically to the students of the Rural Normal school and population of Mexe, supposedly "bravely" supporting them, but really only to solicit votes for the 2000 presidential election. We know very well that the PRD is in no way interested in the students’ well-being. On the one hand they helped the government seize City University (UNAM) and jail many of the UNAM student strikers. On the other hand they act as if they support what happened in Mexe.

This, dear comrades and friends, shows us that any party that fights for capitalist democracy, that participates in the capitalists' electoral contests, that represses and supports repression of the working class, is an opportunist party. It is not fighting for the workers’ class interests.

We should organize international support for these jailed students and for the many who participated in the struggles in UNAM and Mexe whose whereabouts are unknown. Now more than ever, we need to organize and explain the role of education under capitalism, sell CHALLENGES and distribute leaflets. Our best weapon is the understanding of, and reliance on, the working class. We must work now to prepare the road to communist revolution.

To be a revolutionary is to be a radical and to be radical is to get to the roots of the problem.

Mexican Student

Faculty Should Strike Because Getting into Trouble is Good!

As I walked across campus carrying my picket sign on February 22, I was told, "Don’t get into trouble!" Those words were spoken with real working-class solidarity and concern. For this was the first time in at least 12 years that picketing had been called at this southwestern college. The faculty had authorized a week-long informational picket line to publicize their two-year struggle to win a new contract. The pickets had started the day after a rousing rally, which brought together faculty, students, staff and local unions fighting similar struggles. The primary issues in the contract fight were a retroactive wage increase, paid office hours for part-time instructors, and increased funding for classroom instruction.

I, too, wondered if I would "get into trouble." One of the first things we learn in capitalist society is that it is bad to get into trouble, whether with our parents, our teachers, the principal, our supervisor, or with anyone who has the authority to punish us. And who could punish us more than our boss, who has the authority to fire us and make it difficult for us to find another job? Our parents may want to protect us, our teachers may want to make sure we graduate, but the boss has none of theses concerns; s/he is driven by economic and political interests, not by love. So yes, "getting into trouble" is particularly dangerous on the job.

My walk across campus carrying a picket sign could have been seen as a job action, expressly forbidden in our staff contract, and might have led to disciplinary action. What it did do was enable me to talk to several students about the faculty’s contract demands, and about the importance of confronting the administration with anger and determination. It also allowed me to think about the need to increase our struggle against the ruling class. Not to struggle, not to "get into trouble" allows the ruling class to accelerate its devastating oppression of the working class. Communist theory and practice has taught us that to not push in every way we can for the victory of the working class is to allow capitalism to increase its grip on our lives and in fact to kill us! In order to build a movement capable of overthrowing capitalism, we must fight against police terrorism, Klan demonstrations, and hate crimes. We must carry picket signs across campus and put them in prominent display in our offices, regardless of "no-strike" clauses. We in the Progressive Labor Party have a responsibility to "get into trouble" and to help our working class brothers and sisters to do the same.

Red Professor

WELFARE WORKERS ENDORSE MAY DAY;

May Day Resolution Passed by SEIU Local 371 Delegates Assembly

BROOKLY PLP YOUTH BRING COMMUNISM TO DIALLO TRIAL IN ALBANY

MEXICO: WORKERS SEIZE SCHOOL, 65 COPS; THREAT TO ‘BURN’EM,’ FREES JAILED STUDENTS

IMPRISONED UNAM STUDENTS CONTINUE STRUGGLE INSIDE JAIL

HITLER ALIVE IN HAIDER’S AUSTRIA;

NEWARK WORKERS AIM ACTION AT DIALLO KILLER COPS

BOEING WORKERS’ POWER MUST AXE BOSSES CONTRACTS

H.S. STUDENTS AIM WALKOUTS AT PROP. 21, RACIST ATTACK ON YOUTH

LIBERALS’ ‘END SANCTIONS’ PLEA COVER FOR GULF WAR II

FAIR TRADERS IGNORE RACIST U.S. PRISON LABOR

DC SCHOOLWORKERS: DEFY THE INJUNCTION! STRIKE!

BEWARE OF AFL-CIO HACKS BEARING AMNESTY ‘GIFT’

CONTRADICTION AROUND IMMIGRANTS IN THE ROCKEFELLER CAMP

LETTERS

Jail Can’t Defeat Unam Striker: Jailed striker writes to CHALLENGE

Diallo Murder: A Question Of Class

‘Practice Is Great Teacher...’

Multi-Racial Unity Goes To Church

Teaching Dialectics In Math Class

Bosses’ Solution Healthcare Not

Bush’s Texas: Death Row, Inc

---

WELFARE WORKERS ENDORSE MAY DAY;

PLP URGES WALKOUTS IF DIALLO COPS GET OFF

NEW YORK CITY-Feb. 16 — The Social Service Employees Union (SSEU) Local 371 Delegates Assembly voted tonight to urge its members to participate in May Day events, including the PLP May Day march in Washington. The resolution called for the Local to purchase up to 50 bus tickets for members, family and friends. (See adjoining box.)

PLP members raised two issues at the Delegates meeting. We put forward our May Day march in a mass way, calling for an official endorsement. We also raised the idea of workers taking mass action if the four cops on trial for killing Amadou Diallo get off.

Prior to tonight’s meeting, we had many discussions about the Diallo murder, as workers listened to live radio broadcasts of the trial. At one office, a worker urged calls be made to the Bronx D.A. to complain about the poor prosecution case. PLP’ers pointed out that the D.A. couldn’t properly attack the murderous police without also attacking the whole legal system. As CHALLENGE has reported, the fascist community policing strategy advocated by George KKKelling is what led to the killing. That, not just the 41 shots by four racist cops, was part of the reason why Amadou was murdered.

We discussed what to do if the cops were found not guilty or convicted on lesser charges. One worker said a federal case should be started. He pointed out that black workers have never been treated as equals, citing the pre-Civil War section of U.S. Constitution that counted black slaves as "3/5 of a person" (in order to increase Southern representation in Congress).

A PLP comrade concluded that we shouldn’t rely on the bosses’ government for "justice." Rather we should prepare to stop work and hold mass demonstrations. "What would happen if the members of AFSCME District Council 37, SEIU, and Local 1199 all walked off their jobs?" he asked. This electrified the discussion. All agreed this would be a great action against racist police violence. It led to further questions of why the union has been silent about the trial. The PLP member who is the delegate from the office where the discussions were held promised to raise this at the Delegates Assembly.

Before that meeting, a PLP delegate, along with a retired former delegate, sold 45 CHALLENGES and engaged many rank-and-file delegates in discussions. After the usual long speeches by the officers, none of whom mentioned the Diallo trial, a PLP delegate quickly rose to call for each delegate to hold local work-site meetings on the Diallo murder. If the cops get off, he said delegates should urge workers to walk off their jobs.

This idea was first discussed in Party meetings, then among workers on the job, and then brought to the delegates of the 15,000-member union. This call for immediate action on the Diallo murder was followed by the May Day resolution. Thus, our May Day march was seen by the delegates as a logical way to participate in the struggle against the racist capitalist system that murdered Amadou Diallo.

May Day Resolution Passed by SEIU Local 371 Delegates Assembly

WHEREAS, May Day is the international holiday of the working class; and,

WHEREAS, May Day demonstrates the fighting unity of the working class; and,

WHEREAS, members of this local have traditionally participated in May Day events; and,

WHEREAS, issues like the threat of war, prison labor and slave labor Workfare, police brutality and racism affect all members of this Local and must be fought; therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED that SSEU Local 371 urges its members to participate in May Day events, including the March on Washington organized by the Progressive Labor Party; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this Local purchase up to 50 bus tickets for members, family and friends who wish to attend.

BROOKLY PLP YOUTH BRING COMMUNISM TO DIALLO TRIAL IN ALBANY

ALBANY, NY, Feb. 22 — Communist-led youth piled out of cars and vans driven by teachers who are members and friends of PLP in central Brooklyn. We rocked the spot. Our signs read, "NO JUSTICE FOR WORKERS UNDER CAPITALISM," "FASCISM MEANS FIGHT BACK" and "THE ONLY SOLUTION IS COMMUNIST REVOLUTION." They couldn’t be missed in the 150 person demonstration. Seventy-five CHALLENGES were distributed.

As two Albany cops stepped into the crowd we led chants and speeches demanding they depart immediately. We told the world that while some may seek justice, we speak for those who seek vengeance.

The speakers from the stage suggested that we "not worry about them [the cops]." What’s the point of a rally protesting the cops’ murder of Diallo if we’re not supposed to "worry" about the police? One speaker from Brooklyn Tech who called for students to join mass organizations and walk out of their schools to protest the cop invasion of school security was a bright point. But the bankruptcy of the leadership of the demonstration became more evident as the rally wore on. They refused to allow a PLP member to speak. Upon returning to our contingent, numbers of youth suggested we return to the stage as a group and demand the right to speak. The leadership was concerned the PLP member might "incite" the crowd and barred us from speaking. At this point our youth were very angry.

The liberals are right about half the story: we communists seek to both incite and educate the crowd. Sharpton and the other liberal mis-leaders seek to pacify and mystify the crowd.

The majority of our youth have only known the Party for a few months, but they saw the real deal at today’s rally. They led sharp struggle against the liberal mis-leaders and for their communist Party. A sharp young comrade compared the mis-leaders to the house slaves (tied to the master, yet still a slave), while we, the Brooklyn youth, represented the field slaves who have only a world to win.

As many speakers in Albany lamented the "miscarriage of justice" inside the Appeals Court, we responded: "Let them do their thing in the courts...we’ll do our thing when we get back to Brooklyn."

Many thousands of angry workers and youth are watching this case closely. PLP will work in the schools and communities to focus a part of this tremendous energy into the positive and only solution: marching on May Day for communist revolution.

MEXICO: WORKERS SEIZE SCHOOL, 65 COPS; THREAT TO ‘BURN’EM,’ FREES JAILED STUDENTS

HIDALGO, Mexico, Feb. 20 — Thousands of farm workers, workers and students in Tepatepec, Hidalgo captured 65 cops and re-took the National Rural School of Mexe. Two hours earlier it had been seized by the police sent from the state capital. The cops’ were disarmed and their cars were burned. Those cops who weren’t able to run away met with popular justice. They were tied up with the ropes they used to arrest workers, undressed and taken to the town’s central plaza. The population sent an ultimatum to the governor: "If you don’t free the jailed students, the cops will be burned." Hours later the governor let hundreds of students go free. They had been in jail for months for the "crime" of occupying the school to stop the government from closing it. The rulers tried to justify this by saying there was no academic excellence.

"We need these kinds of actions in the factory to confront the company and their union thugs," was a general comment by many auto workers who joyously celebrated with joy the Mexe rebellion. "We can follow their example to get rid of all the bosses," proposed another. The set the workers thinking.

For decades, students and graduates of this school have taught the farm workers and community here and throughout the state of Hidalgo to read and write. They’ve also politicized the workers. That’s the real reason the rulers are trying to close the school. These militant students believe in the fight for socialist revolution. The communists of PLP have concluded that the socialist revolutions in Russia and China maintained key aspects of capitalism, like the wage system and division of labor that led to the return of capitalism in those countries. We call on these socialist students and the workers of Mexe to take an ideological step forward and help advance the fight for communism, where the wealth created by the working class will be distributed "from each according to his/her commitment, to each according to his needs". That’s the only way that the working class can maintain power and prevent capitalism from returning.

IMPRISONED UNAM STUDENTS CONTINUE STRUGGLE INSIDE JAIL

Meanwhile, in nearby Mexico City, the fascist judge handling the cases of the 260 students jailed after the 9-month UNAM strike, presented a huge broadside of charges under capitalist laws that condemned 16-year-olds as "terrorists." He declared, "The students will not be freed because they are a social danger." In doing so, he carried out the exact wishes of the top bosses to punish the strikers under phony charges.

"They can jail us but not our consciousness!" is the united cry of all those in jail. [See Letter p. 6] This spirit of struggle has spread to the other prisoners who also chant slogans with the strikers. Ever since the students were arrested, thousands of people have camped day and night in front of the jail demanding their freedom. Shouts of struggle from the outside are answered from those inside.

All this has put the authorities on the defensive. They’ve had to give unusual treatment to those who have been arrested. Now the other prisoners are demanding the same treatment. The discussions, assemblies and even study groups that were begun during the UNAM strike have been transferred inside and in front of the prison. "I already felt like a communist," said one 17-year old when he heard an explanation of communism after just being freed from jail when he heard an explanation of communism.

HITLER ALIVE IN HAIDER’S AUSTRIA;

Goose-Stepping German Bosses Next?

VIENNA, Feb. 19 — Over 100,000 people marched here today to denounce fascism, racism and the new coalition government, which includes pro-Nazi Jörg Haider’s Liberal Party. The march occurred in the Plaza of Heroes, the same place where thousands cheered Adolf Hitler in 1938 during the official confirmation of Anchluss (when Austria joined the Third Reich).

The Vienna march was part of an international campaign against racism and fascism. Smaller marches took place in other European cities as well as a protest in front of the Austrian consulate in New York City. It’s good for so many people to protest fascism and racism. However, many of these protestors don’t want to recognize that racism, fascism and capitalism go together.

For example, Austria’s Social Democratic Party—which ruled the country before pro-Nazi Haider and the Conservative Party formed a new government last month—is the same party that in the past enforced many of the anti-immigrant attacks which Haider now pushes. Many of the international celebrities at the Vienna march, like French philosopher Bernard Henry-Levy, are very right-wing and anti-communist and feel that Haider and the Conservatives in Austria "exposed" their own conservative politics for what they are: fascistic.

But more important is what’s happening in Germany. The corruption scandal surrounding former Prime Minister Kohl and his Christian-Democratic Party (CDU) has discredited both. An interview in the Argentine daily "Página 12" with Alfred Bauer, an Austrian anti-fascist exiled in Buenos Aires since the 1938 Anchluss, describes how the CDU’s collapse could lead to the formation of another right-wing party. However, this time it would be openly pro-Nazi, uniting all the smaller neo-Nazi groups in Germany now that the CDU umbrella is discredited.

He also warns about the "revanchist" elements in Germany: "It attracted my attention the trip made to Berlin by Haider and Schuessel (the conservative who shares power in Austria)….While most of the attacks against Haider come from France and Belgium, Germany defends him. It must be understood that the real power in Germany, the monopolies or big capital, is trying to aggressively recover from the defeat it suffered in 1945. It wasn’t just the Nazis who lost in 1945; German imperialism lost, too. Up to now with Khol, and without any serious resistance from the SPD (German Social-Democrats), these monopolies are doing very well. Kohl was able to swallow East Germany and extends their power eastward. But now they will need a more aggressive tool, and I see what is happening in Austria coming to Germany."

We in PLP don’t believe that history simply repeats itself. The Fourth Reich that German bosses are dreaming about will not exactly duplicate Nazi Germany. But it will have the same goal: grab as much power for German big capital as possible. Sharpening rivalry among the world’s imperialists means war. All mass, anti-fascist movements must have this understanding: capitalism makes war and fascism inevitable. The only alternative is to build a mass revolutionary communist movement to destroy capitalism.

NEWARK WORKERS AIM ACTION AT DIALLO KILLER COPS

NEWARK, NJ, Feb. 21 — Workers here are angry about the possibility that the four cops who murdered Amadou Diallo may go scot free, or be convicted on lesser charges, getting a "slap on the wrist." We in PLP are planning to mobilize this anger when the verdict comes down. A Party member pointed out that Diallo, a black immigrant worker, had to slave twelve hours a day as a street vendor only to be shot down like a dog by the Klan in blue That’s something no jury verdict can cure.

Our demonstration will attack Rutgers professor George KKKelling, whose "community policing" strategy is being used by politicians to win workers to actively support a racist police state. Two months after the execution of Diallo, Kelling was featured in the NY Daily News and Wall Street Journal, basically calling for not guilty verdicts in this case. Kelling and his followers have been funded and built by the liberal section of the U.S. ruling class.

The demonstration will end at the federal building here. Clinton made the hiring of 100,000 "community policing" cops a centerpiece of his program for "fighting crime." Hundreds of thousands have been added to the prison population as a result of this and other bosses’ programs. One-fourth of all prisoners in the world are now in U.S. jails. Racist cop terror, prisons and prison labor, welfare slave labor—these are the faces of U.S.-style fascism. Our Party’s job is to organize communist revolution to put fascism and its backers under the ground. This demonstration is a step toward that goal.

BOEING WORKERS’ POWER MUST AXE BOSSES CONTRACTS

SEATTLE, WA, Feb. 18 — As the Boeing SPEEA (Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace) strike enters its second week, our Party can be proud of the dozens we’ve organized in the plants to join the picket lines in solidarity. Hundreds more have spontaneously joined the lines. This coming week, our Party will mobilize our members, friends and co-workers in the schools and in other unions to join the lines. Meanwhile, some blue-collar Boeing workers refused to run scab programs or work with scab techs or engineers. All this is happening without the aid of the Machinists’ union (IAM) leadership. These small but significant acts of class solidarity are happening, in many cases, despite the downright opposition of the union hierarchy.

The strikers have won the grudging respect of the blue-collar workers (Machinists). It isn’t every day that 19,000 workers walk out and stay out even though only 12,000 are in the union. The strikers’ resolve and the solidarity we’ve organized have changed the climate somewhat in the shops. Opposition, such as there was, to our active support of SPEEA members has become less vocal.

Class Struggle Helps Create Leaders

One argument expressed by some Machinists opposing the campaign to (eventually) honor the SPEEA picket lines is, "They [SPEEA] crossed our lines [in a previous IAM strike]." "But," another Machinist answered, "We’re the big brothers here!"

Blue-collar IAM workers have had more experience in class struggle and strikes. Little by little, these struggles have changed how we workers think and relate to one another. When the engineers and technical workers marched through the plants and drummed on their desks with pencils, they were doing more than just imitating our tactics of "Rolling Thunder." The strikers were benefiting from the blue-collar workers’ greater understanding of the true nature of class relations.

It stands to reason that production workers will lead the struggle for working-class unity and to end the division between "mental" and "manual" labor. Our practical participation in class struggle—and for some of us, revolutionary struggle—has equipped us with greater knowledge in this arena. Who, but the more advanced, will lead?

This lesson can be applied to our class as a whole. Black and Latin workers are the most exploited and oppressed. This oppression has taught many of these "minority" workers invaluable lessons that will benefit our whole class. Fighting racism does more than unify our class; it allows all workers to benefit from the most militant leadership.

As we build unity between unionized white-collar and blue-collar workers, we should remember that more than 50% of each Boeing plane is produced by low-paid subcontractors. Boeing even uses prison slave labor. We have to unite with, and take leadership from, these super-exploited workers if we are to build a fighting force capable of battling this global giant.

Working Class Power Or Contracts?

The union leadership says we can’t honor the picket line because of the contract’s no-strike clause. They’ve even tried to convince workers to use scab programs or work with scab labor "because of the contract," although many workers have drawn the line there! "There’s the law, the Company policy and the contract. If one doesn’t get you, the other will," insisted a woman on the shop floor.

Under capitalism, we are wage-slaves. The contract only spells out the terms of our enslavement. The tiny class of capitalists invented the law, the state and contracts (with the help of union leaders) to exploit the vast majority. The power of a unified strike would benefit the vast majority of Boeing workers. So the bosses use the contract and their laws to impose their will on the rest of us. To end this domination, we have to assert the will of our class. "If we honored those lines," said an IAM member at the last union meeting, "that would be the end of that damn ‘no-strike’ clause!"

Ultimately, it all comes down to power. Do we, the working class the vast majority, exercise our power? Do we unite with the leadership of the most exploited of our class brothers and sisters to forge a revolutionary party to smash the power of the bosses’ state and all its legalities? Do we absorb the lessons of class struggle to wield ourselves into a Red Army that can build a communist future, where collective labor will smash elitism and privilege? A contingent of Boeing workers at this year’s May Day march in San Francisco will lay the groundwork for a positive answer to those questions.

H.S. STUDENTS AIM WALKOUTS AT PROP. 21, RACIST ATTACK ON YOUTH

"Fighting against these racists attack will train us to become revolutionary leaders of our class…."

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 21 — This last week here, high school and college students, teachers, comrades and friends of the Party participated in a lively forum on California’s Proposition 21 (known as the "Juvenile Gang Crime and Prevention Initiative"). If passed the proposition will allow for the increased wholesale incarceration of youth, particularly working-class youth of color, into adult courts and adult prisons by placing the decision of whether to try a juvenile as an adult into the hands of the prosecutor. But it doesn’t stop there.

The Proposition will also expand the current "3 Strikes Law" which has played a major role in California’s huge prisoner growth. In many cases it will lower the limit on what is considered a felony (thus making it easier to get a "strike") and create new felonies as well.

Prop. 21 also includes new powers for police repression, allowing them to: wiretap suspected "gang members," create and expand databases on people they "consider" gang members, and make some "gang-affiliated" crimes punishable by death. Prop. 21 even prevents the courts from sealing a juvenile’s record, making it almost impossible for someone who was involved in the courts as a youth to ever find a job.

A community activist spoke about the fight to amend the 3 Strikes Law, saying that control in prisons is becoming a guide for control in schools. One student pointed out that at his school if more than three students are walking together, they are considered a "threat" and separated! A student said, "The schools are becoming mini-prisons." The rulers are afraid of youth, especially the most oppressed.

Panelists and audience members at the forum connected the Proposition to the educational system, prison labor, racism, and ruling class interests under capitalism. They showed that this Proposition is not about the ballot box or the interests of a few evil government "right-wingers," but rather, it is a logical byproduct of an inherently racist system based on exploitation and oppression. Thus when participants raised the need for direct action in the streets and in our communities, local high school students took leadership by suggesting walkouts at their school. Plans were made to start coordinating the walkouts. People committed themselves to take the struggle further by joining PLP in some upcoming demonstrations and educating their friends, students and co-workers.

"This generation is being attacked more and this generation will produce leaders for revolution," said one participant. We talked about the ongoing scandal at the Ramparts Police Station. This is the tip of the iceberg, showing that the racist cops’ job is to put thousands of people in jail by lying, planting evidence and murdering thousands in cold blood. Participants said that a system that uses terror, forces youth into prison, and gives the army as the alternative, is a system that has to go. We need a revolution for communism. Many took tickets and vowed to build for a big April 29th May Day March in San Francisco to answer these attacks.

LIBERALS’ ‘END SANCTIONS’ PLEA COVER FOR GULF WAR II

The U.S. bosses’ Big Lie, "War = Peace," has taken on a new twist in recent weeks. The focus is Iraq.

On February. 1, 70 Congressmen sent Clinton a letter demanding the removal of economic sanctions begun by U.S. imperialism in 1991. The leaders included California Republican Campbell and Michigan Democrats Conyers and Bonior—all liberals, like most others on the list.

The sanctions were designed to make Saddam Hussein bow to U.S. wishes. CHALLENGE readers know the Iraqi working class has been the main victim. The cost in human terms has reached genocidal proportions: more than one million Iraqis have died since the elder Bush began the blockade in 1991. The majority of these deaths are children under the age of five. Sanction-related hunger and disease kill more than 4,500 children every month (UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF).

So how come all these U.S. politicians are calling for ending the sanctions? Have these liberals suddenly had a change of heart and decided a ground war to take over Iraqi oil is no longer necessary? Don’t believe appearances. People over 50 remember that the same Kennedy liberals who had begun a war of mass murder in Vietnam in the early 1960’s suddenly started singing "Give Peace a Chance" a few years later when they realized the U.S. military was going to be beaten on the battlefield.

Something similar is happening in Iraq, on a smaller scale. A million dead Iraqi workers and children, as well as daily terror bombings by the U.S. and British haven’t done the trick. Saddam Hussein remains in power and continues to thumb his nose at the U.S. The sanctions and bombings have been a political fiasco. The liberals now recognize this. These repulsive hypocrites, who supported all of Bush/Clinton’s murderous tactical policies until recently, also understand that murdering Iraqi babies isn’t exactly compatible with the "human rights" cover U.S. imperialism has been trying to use to hide its aggression (remember Kosovo and Clinton’s "humanitarian" air war?).

The liberal politicians who front for the Rockefeller oil companies haven’t budged an inch on the goal of removing Saddam Hussein. This is clear to anyone who reads the fine print of the bosses’ media. For example, Ohio Rep. Kucinich told a February 16 press conference: "It could be argued that the sanctions have in fact strengthened the regime and weakened the people who would be needed to overthrow the regime." (Dow Jones Newswires) The letter’s signers make a point of saying they oppose only the economic warfare. Though decrying the sanctions, they stand squarely behind military action against Iraq. Overthrowing a government as firmly in control of the state apparatus as Saddam Hussein’s can’t be done from the air. And overthrowing Saddam Hussein has become one of the Rockefeller interests’ main aims. "Blueprint"—the Democratic Leadership Council’s magazine—leaves little to the imagination. The DLC, which promoted Clinton and backs Gore, speaks for Rockefeller. Here are its winter 2000 marching orders: "Urgent planning must begin now [for] Saddam Hussein’s ouster. Now that we have defined [this] as our goal, every day that he remains in power is a setback for U.S. interests, prestige, and credibility." (article by Robert Satloff)

As CHALLENGE said two issues ago, all four of the presidential candidates have foreign policy advisors who are pushing for Gulf War II. As the campaign heats up we should expect a torrent of Big Lies about defending "human rights in Iraq," neutralizing Saddam Hussein’s "weapons of mass destruction," and bringing "democracy" to the Persian Gulf. But the truth is that liberal bosses’ only concern here is Exxon-Mobil’s "right" to control the world’s cheapest source of oil. As our Party kicks its May Day organizing into high gear, we must continue to expose the truth behind the rulers’ hypocrisy, to sharpen the class struggle and to show workers that only communist revolution can end the bloodbaths for oil and profit that imperialism makes inevitable.

WITH ‘FRIENDS’ LIKE THESE WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?

The liberals leading the charge to end sanctions and prepare for ground war in Iraq include politicians with close links to the AFL-CIA. Democrats Bonior and Conyers, for example, get their main backing from the labor unions. Bonior is an ally of Jay Rockefeller. He works closely with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think-tank hoping to mobilize working-class support for Rockefeller policies. The EPI is closely linked to the Brookings Institute, one of the liberals’ most hawkish foreign policy mouthpieces. Last year Bonior helped implement a "community policing" project that has cops working inside schools in his district. As for Conyers, he has long carried out the assignment of trying to convince Detroit’s working class to back U.S. imperialism. Other congressional signers of the petition to end sanctions include such Establishment bootlickers as NY’s LaFalce and Major Owens, Ohio’s Strickland, Texas’s Jackson-Lee and, of course, Illinois’ Jesse Jackson Jr. With "friends" like these, who needs enemies?

ROCKEFELLER NEEDS WAR FOR CHEAP IRAQI OIL

Four years ago, John Deutch headed the CIA. He led the Clinton administration’s efforts to overthrow Saddam Hussein through a combination of murderous economic sanctions and aerial terror bombing. After nine years of this campaign, Saddam is still in power. Now Deutch is being raked over the coals in the liberal media. His supposed crime? Conducting CIA business from his home computer!

On the face of it, this is a joke. Why would a former CIA director show up as a bad boy on the front pages of the New York Times for the equivalent of sending job-related e-mail from his house? Actually, Deutch is a "fall guy," taking the rap so that the big criminals over him can keep their business going.

The real deal is related to the liberal bosses’ need to punish others who carried out a flawed policy. Deutch represented a faction that wanted to dislodge Hussein without a ground invasion. It didn’t work.

This tactical difference reflects a somewhat deeper conflict among the rulers. Deutch is now on the board of Schlumberger, an international oil equipment firm currently helping service Iraqi oil rigs. His present job isn’t exactly in tune with the Rockefeller position of ousting Saddam Hussein. Deutch isn’t the only former U.S. government big shot "guilty" of offending Exxon. President Bush’s Defense Secretary Dick Cheney is in the same boat. Cheney helped Bush murder 500,000 Iraqis during Desert Storm in 1991. Now he’s CEO of Halliburton, a Dallas-based oil equipment giant fulfilling a huge contract to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry.

Iraqi oil is the world’s cheapest to produce. Therefore, it reaps the biggest profit. And whoever controls the cheapest source of a commodity controls the market, especially during a glut. Rockefeller’s oil empire is threatened by its lack of control over Iraqi oil.

For Iraq’s oil industry to get completely back on its feet (it could more than double its current daily production of two million barrels), Iraqi bosses need the U.S. oil equipment industry for the job. Deutch’s Schlumberger and Cheney’s Halliburton can make a fast few billion bucks by helping Iraqi bosses reach that goal.

But Rockefeller’s oil empire (Exxon-Mobil and Chevron) can’t permit that to happen if it doesn’t control Iraq’s oil, which is the case now. In fact, currently Rockefeller’s oil companies are buying up one-third of Iraq’s production in an attempt to gain some measure of control over Iraqi oil. However, because the sanctions policy prohibits U.S. oil companies from making direct purchases, "The Chevrons and Exxons of this world have to buy from the Russians, the French, and the Chinese traders…" (International Herald Tribune, Feb. 21) This means Rockefeller & Co. must pay even more for this Iraqi oil, and pay it to their chief competitors to boot!

As long as Hussein holds power and makes deals with Exxon’s international rivals, the Rockefeller interests must prevent Iraq from reaching its capacity. But meanwhile Halliburton, Dressler-Rand, Ingersoll (Cheney has ties to all three), as well as internationals like Deutch’s Schlumberger are looking to make the fastest buck they can, re-building Hussein’s oil industry.

The dominant Rockefeller interests can’t accept having to enrich their chief international competitors in order to get at cheap Iraqi oil. Nor can they continue permitting Halliburton or Schlumberger to build up Saddam Hussein at Exxon’s expense. So the Rockefeller interests have no choice but to plan Hussein’s ouster in the only way possible: a ground invasion by U.S. troops.

The current presidential campaign will see this set of contradictions sharpen and shake out as the rulers prepare for the next stage of their struggle for world domination. But the most likely outcome will be another war to plant the Exxon flag, with its star$ and stripe$, in the Iraqi desert.

FAIR TRADERS IGNORE RACIST U.S. PRISON LABOR

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 22 — Nearly two dozen people attended our PLP club forum on the Fair Trade movement. Several contacted us afterwards to continue the lively discussion. Two comrades who participated in the "Battle of Seattle" last November said the Fair Trade leadership was building a movement to support U.S. imperialist wars, in the name of "freedom and democracy."

One person argued that there wasn’t enough evidence that the U.S. would become embroiled in major wars, and that trade treaties such as the WTO might prevent trade wars from becoming shooting wars. We said that the historical record proves that the capitalists violently attack each other, as well as the working class, in their competition for maximum profits. The past 140 years has seen an unending series of wars, including World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Kosovo, and hundreds of others. The speakers pointed out that the internal contradictions among the capitalists caused the collapse of the WTO meeting, not the anti-WTO demonstrations.

We criticized the labor leaders, environmentalists and consumer advocates for crying crocodile tears over prison labor in China. Several people said it sounded like we were defending exploitation in China, and that people who oppose China’s abuses deserve support, not condemnation.

We agreed that Chinese workers are suffering terrible exploitation. In fact, during the late 1960’s and 1970’s, PLP broke with the Chinese Communist Party over its return to capitalism, and predicted the exploitative labor conditions currently condemned by the Fair Traders. But PLP advocates another communist revolution in China, while U.S. imperialist reformers collaborate with the exploiters of prison labor here. The AFL-CIO "carefully supports" the use of prison labor in the U.S., and has done absolutely nothing to stop Boeing’s use of prison labor at the Monroe State Reformatory. When U.S. troops invade foreign countries, they wear uniforms made by prison labor.

We were criticized for "condemning" the tens of thousands of workers and students who demonstrated against the WTO. We differentiate the angry, honest demonstrators from the conniving leaders who are in bed with the ruling class. We were inspired by the big turnout in Seattle, which also inspired our friends to come to our forum.

However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Millions of German workers and students joined the Nazis to fight against corruption and unemployment in Germany and surrounding countries. How can we compare this movement to the Nazis, who were openly racist and anti-Semitic? The leaders of the Fair Trade movement stress "national sovereignty," and the dangerous idea that bosses and workers in an industry need government protection. They ignore or "carefully support" prison labor here, among overwhelmingly black prisoners.

Someone else said that we don’t seem to have any plan for moving people from their present reform beliefs to revolution; no way of getting "from point A to point B." We were on the streets of Seattle, and we are involved in mass organizations, to expose the Fair Trade movement, struggle against racist oppression, and win masses to communism. By moving people into struggle around our ideas, such as opposing racist prison labor, we expose the true allegiances of the reformist leadership, and show the fundamental need to destroy the profit system.

A campus worker brought two co-workers to the forum. One told how she had first met our comrade during the Gulf War. At a union meeting, the chapter president made a motion for a day honoring U.S. troops. Our comrade proposed a day to honor those who refused to fight, and defended her position despite heated attacks from the local leadership and several patriotic members. Her co-worker heard about it and figured our comrade was someone she wanted to meet. Through her, she met the other worker. This kind of consistent communist work in mass organizations, over years, is a critical part of going "from A to B."

We need all of our friends to bring PLP’s analysis into mass organizations. Based on the tremendous interest in our speeches, leaflets and CHALLENGE among the masses in Seattle, it’s a good time for doing so. The ideological struggle generated at our forum, and the growing Fair Trade movement, is a growth opportunity for PLP. Progress can be measured in how many of these militant fighters march with us on May Day.

LA Comrades

DC SCHOOLWORKERS: DEFY THE INJUNCTION! STRIKE!

WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 19— Angry public school workers in the courtroom let out a collective, "NO!" Judge Zeldon shot back, "There will be silence in my courtroom," as she extended the temporary restraining order (TRO) until March 3. The TRO basically makes it illegal for workers to even breathe the word "Strike" or "Job Action." A hearing on ordering a permanent injunction was set for February 28. The union and school management have met twice in contract negotiations, but the bosses refuse to give back any wage concessions lost from 1997-99.

We drafted a Party leaflet calling for a strike on March 4, defying any court injunction. We’ll use this at the next two union meetings to counter the judge’s intimidation tactics. At the last union meeting, we distributed about 30 CHALLENGES with the article about the District of Columbia Public School (DCPS) workers and handed out many leaflets before the meeting. Workers read the article and asked for fliers to pass out to co-workers. It is very isolating to have only three or four maintenance workers at a school, and many say they never see the union on their job. Some were so ill-informed, they thought they were voting on a new contract!

Letting the union hacks know their feelings about the injunction, workers inside the hall shouted at union leader Feaster, "When are we going to jail?" "What’s going to happen March 4?" The workers were more agitated than at the last meeting. When one of the union hacks handed Feaster a copy of our leaflet, he read the whole thing out loud. He denied having a "cushy job," but said his retirement package was so good, he could leave anytime he wanted! However, he stayed on for another term, he said, because some members had asked him to. Feeling the heat, Feaster called on the goons to remove a non- DCPS employee out of the union hall and off the premises.

We want to win more workers to write, produce and distribute PLP and strike literature in the schools. This includes teachers who can distribute literature to maintenance workers. We are also trying to win teachers to show up in solidarity at the next union meeting.

The fight for communist revolution is an uphill battle. But we are raising communist politics in this contract fight to show how the system works. DCPS workers can use these ideas as a weapon against the bosses and union sellouts. Even more, we can win some of these workers to march on May Day and see the need for a communist revolution to end this rotten system.

BEWARE OF AFL-CIO HACKS BEARING AMNESTY ‘GIFT’

LOS ANGELES — The recent call by the AFL-CIO for "Unconditional Amnesty for Undocumented Workers" for the six million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has created a torrent of questions among thousands of garment workers here. "When the bosses need low-paid workers, they open the border a little more," said a garment worker. But with this call for "amnesty," the bosses are thinking about filling something in addition to the factories and the fields. They want to use immigrant workers to fill the army, the unions and their campaigns to support the imperialist bosses. In essence it’s another step in building fascism in the U.S.

The new AFL-CIO policy seems to contradict its position for the last 100 years and its position during the 1986 campaign for the law which treated immigrant workers as criminals. The hacks accused immigrants of being strike-breakers, stealing jobs and causing many other of society’s problems. It was the AFL-CIO that pushed for the law to fine employers who hire undocumented workers. Why have they changed their line?

The AFL-CIO leaders are not really responding to the interests of the working class, but rather to their agenda of bringing workers into the camp of the main wing of the U.S. ruling class, Rockefeller, Inc. Firstly, today the economic and political situation confronting these bosses differs from that of the 1980’s. Currently, U.S. bosses feel their economy is growing and they need low-paid workers. But they also need to control them politically. Today, they view their main problem as the fight with European and Asian imperialists for markets and cheap labor. War in the short- and long-run is their solution. And war, despite all the hi-tech weapons the bosses flaunt, still needs foot soldiers to fight and control territory.

The AFL-CIO, always loyal to the U.S. bosses’ plans for war and fascism, wants to play an important role in winning the confidence and loyalty of the workers here to get them to accept low wages and send their children into the army. The call for unconditional amnesty is part of that plan. According to studies, the majority of Latin immigrants are between the ages of 17 to 34. Other studies show that Latin males are the group currently most willing to stay in the army. The army desperately needs more recruits.

CONTRADICTION AROUND IMMIGRANTS IN THE ROCKEFELLER CAMP

The New York Times (2/22) editorialized against a general amnesty. The liberal rulers need to keep using the Migra as a club over the heads of immigrant and all workers to force them to accept low wages. But the union hacks still have their own agenda, even inside the Rockefeller camp and will wage this campaign.

PLP members will get involved in this struggle, putting forward our politics of amnesty for all workers and to smash the bosses’ borders with communist revolution. By getting involved with many workers in this fight, we can win many to fight the bosses, the hacks and join PLP.

We will tell workers that whether or not this campaign is successful in winning amnesty, we will still be oppressed by capitalism, through low wages, racist police and INS terror, sending our youth to fight the bosses’ wars to die and kill other workers. We will also fight for the unity of all workers, immigrant and citizens, black, Latins, Asian or whites.

Building a communist PLP to fight for a society where production corresponds to workers’ needs is the only way to eliminate the "undocumented" label. PLP’ers will fight to organize factory committees to build a garment workers’ contingent for the May Day march in San Francisco demanding amnesty for all workers, "deporting" the bosses and hacks to the land of no return!

LETTERS

Jail Can’t Defeat Unam Striker: Jailed striker writes to CHALLENGE

Comrades,

Two hundred sixty students, teachers and workers of UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico], members of the CGH (the General Strike Counsel) are imprisoned in the Northern Jail of Mexico City due to the fascist repression led by Zedillo and the capitalists he represents.

Far from smashing the student movement, we’ve stayed strong and firm in defense of education for all people and against the capitalists and their imperialist partners who repress us today. We understand that fascism is growing daily. We live in inhuman conditions inside the jails, and outside as well. Here inside we see how the evils of capitalism are sharpening. The capitalists claim that the jails are "centers of social rehabilitation." But it’s one more form of oppression. We also know that it’s not human nature to be violent and criminal. It’s capitalist exploitation, poverty and oppression that corrupts society and drives some to petty crimes. Our struggle has been understood and supported by many of the regular prisoners.

Yesterday the guards beat, robbed and tear-gassed prisoners who demonstrated in support of us. This gives us the responsibility to be more committed in organizing among the prisoners. We’re planning a protest against the prison authorities. We’ll be participating in cultural committees with other prisoners. I’ve had good discussions with my fellow prisoner-strikers. We will overcome the anti-communism among some of them, ideas the capitalists prejudices that the capitalists push every day.

Striker Jailed for Class Consciousness

Note from CHALLENGE: To help the jailed students we urge people to send donations, resolutions and letters of support to GPO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202

Diallo Murder: A Question Of Class

The murder of Amadou Diallo a year ago by four cops has outraged many decent anti-racists in New York and elsewhere. This creates the opportunity to start these people thinking about the nature of our society in class terms.

I recently began working with a community organization that actively attempts to combat racism. However, they view the problems of society in terms of "fairness" and "justice." Most people in this group believe racism can be overcome within the framework of capitalism. The Diallo case enables me to talk with them about cops not merely as individuals who act in a racist manner, but who—given their role as guardians of the ruling class—did what they were supposed to do. This case enables me to talk about the class nature of society.

It seems to me that a substantial part of our activity as communists in this period should consist of involving ourselves in, and leading, the struggles of working people around many issues, which in and of themselves may not be revolutionary. We must get to know these honest people and offer a revolutionary way of thinking so they can understand these problems are not solvable aberrations, but rather inevitable and constant under capitalism. The problems can be solved only by communist revolution.

Old NY Red

‘Practice Is Great Teacher...’

Once again our camping/cadre school in Connecticut was a great success. Many east coast high school students, teachers and parents attended last weekend. Our slogan, "Learn to fight and fight to learn," was definitely carried out.

The weekend began with a very uplifting speech on the necessity of patience, urgency and a good dose of class hatred in the life of a Communist. It was very inspiring to see so many young people taking PLP so seriously. We all received a small taste of what communism will be like. Young people arose early to make breakfast, clean up and start our meetings on time. Everyone worked collectively to make sure things went smoothly.

We all read, discussed and struggled over the article,"On Practice" by Mao Tse Tung. Everyone learned that in order to understand anything there must be practice and an attempt to change it. No one can truly know what a pear is until it is tasted, just like no one can truly understand class struggle without participating in and leading it. Everyone made plans to return to their areas and organize class struggle at all levels to protest the racist murder of Amadu Diallo by four fascist New York City cops. This Cadre school was a big step towards realizing the Biggest May Day March in years.

Brooklyn Comrade

Multi-Racial Unity Goes To Church

We have had some modest victories at the church where we have been members for about seven years. One was a multi-racial unity party (we called it the Unity 2000 party) in January. Nearly 75 people attended on a cold, snowy night for a potluck dinner and a dance in the sanctuary to the music of a DJ. It was the kind of multi-racial crowd I have seldom seen except at PLP events. At one point about 30 people of all ages, including the minister, the custodian, long-time and new members, teenagers (including one on crutches) and elementary school kids were dancing and clowning around while most of the others watched.

The prevailing analysis of racism in our denomination is "White Skin Privilege." This means that all white people, not capitalism, are responsible for racism. Therefore, the way to fight it is for white people to "confess" (to paid trainers) and repent. Since all black people are victims of racism, they can’t be racist, from killer cops to budget slashing politicians. The multi-racial unity party was, in part, a way to combat this flawed analysis.

We introduced the idea of this party into one of the committees we lead and sought co-sponsorship by another committee in which we participate and which is led by a close friend. She suggested we get even broader co-sponsorship. The Religious Education Council agreed to support it also. Eventually, we had nearly one-third of the families in the church committed to doing something for the party. Many said we should make this an annual event.

We have also been working with other church members to fight Chicago’s new anti-loitering law, as well as the school superintendent’s continued enforcement of the "no-beeper" law for public school students, even though it was repealed by the City Council. We are trying to extend discussions on the class nature of racism in two committees into church-wide discussions (including a discussion of the book, "Learning To Be White"), and to involve our church in the campaign against racist sterilizations of drug addicts.

One might ask, "How does this build the Party?" We distribute an average of six CHALLENGES every week. Over the years, one person has joined the Party, and others have attended various Party activities, or mass activities under the Party’s leadership. We have a small study group that meets infrequently, and have raised communist ideas about the wars in Kosovo and Iraq, and police brutality. Sometimes we wonder how we will lead large numbers of people under the Party’s line. There’s plenty of room for improvement, but the main thing is, organizing our lives around the people we’re trying to lead.

‘Does The Chicken Ever Cross The Road?’ Teaching Dialectics In Math Class

A report about the Party’s work among teachers emphasizes the importance of bringing communist ideas into the classroom. Part of the report dealt with how teachers could introduce dialectical materialism into math classes.

An article entitled, "The Dialectics of Mathematics," appeared in CHALLENGE (9/21/88).It was based in part on a book by Soviet communist mathematicians. The article makes two major points: (1) Math is very dialectical. The laws and categories of dialectical materialism operate throughout the world of numbers, shapes, and formulas; and, (2) mathematical ideas reflect the real world. They didn’t drop out of the sky or arise from the brains of a few geniuses. Math’s ideas grow out of humanity’s practical needs and real life struggles. Some highlights of that article are:

(1) Counting, and the simplest arithmetic involves dialectical categories like likeness and difference, general and particular. Suppose you’re counting cars in a parking lot. The cars are alike in having a gas combustion engine and four wheels (that’s part of what makes them "cars"). But cars also differ in color, size, age, rust, etc. When you just count cars, you focus on the general, not the particular.

(2) Math involves abstract concepts (things outside the material object itself). When you count, you focus on the general (the abstract). This is called abstraction. Workers handle abstract ideas every day (counting, adding, subtracting). Abstraction is not something reserved for professors with lots of advanced degrees.

(3) Early humans went through this abstracting process over many thousands of years. They progressed from concretely counting, "one, two three logs," or adding "one log plus two logs makes three logs," to the abstract mathematical concepts of—and symbols for—numbers (1,2,3) and addition (1+2=3).

(4) Similarly in geometry: humans took geometric forms from nature: a circle, the crescent of the moon, the straightness of a ray of light or a tree, etc. They worked out more general, abstract notions of these figures when they had to manufacture objects more regular in shape (cutting stones, stretching bowstrings, etc.). In measuring fields and estimating their area, for example, early humans developed the more general and abstract notions of geometric shapes and formulas for calculating areas.

(5) How do you divide three eggs evenly between two children? Simple. You make scrambled eggs. This illustrates an important dialectical category in mathematics: discrete—limited, confined—(the simple eggs) vs. continuous (the expanded "smooth scrambled eggs).

6) Does the chicken ever really cross the road? First it has to go half way. Then it has to go one half of what’s left. Then it has to go half of that quarter that remains. And so on. It appears the chicken never gets there. But in fact, the chicken does cross the road. This illustrates the dialectical concept of finite vs. infinite. The sum of the infinite (unending) series of finite (definite endings) fractions, ½+1/4+1/8… is the finite quantity 1—that is, the chicken finally crosses the whole (one) road.

Marx, Engels, and Lenin all wrote about mathematics or the process of abstraction. Excerpts from these communist leaders could be used in the classroom. Integrating dialectical materialism into math classes is just one example of how communist theory will become the intellectual property of billions of workers.

Midwest Math Teacher

Bosses’ Solution Healthcare Not

Several years ago some of our Party members joined a liberal group that’s demanding universal healthcare. We thought the growing healthcare crisis might become a mass issue. The organization’s growth proved us correct, but we may have been right for the wrong reasons!

Our club leader believed universal healthcare would become a mass issue because of the widespread anger among workers at the lousy healthcare system under capitalism. He thought a struggle would grow from the needs of the working class. It now appears that there WILL be a mass struggle around this issue, but it is arising from the needs of the main wing of the ruling class.

The Party pamphlet on healthcare reform points out that the "Old Money" Eastern Establishment capitalists have a desperate need to gain control of the healthcare industry. This sector of the economy is a major drain on the profits they need for war preparations. They will build a movement for universal healthcare in order to gain government control of healthcare and institute rationing.

Our discussions paid off at the next general meeting. One of the liberal leaders of this group reported on his experiences at the Families USA Conference. He said there is now a groundswell of support for universal healthcare—that we are no longer viewed as the political opposition but are now "part of the mainstream of American political thought."

Party members along with other people in this group jumped into this discussion. We introduced aspects of the Party’s ideas. We won support for a continuing discussion of what this group means by the slogan "universal healthcare." We saw that most people in this group do not want to build a movement that is co-opted by the bosses to serve their own profit interests. Our Party discussions made us realize we will not be able to stop this co-optation merely through agitation. We will have to build a base around our ideas. We would like anyone with ideas on universal healthcare to contact us through the CHALLENGE office. Thanks.

Philadelphia comrades

Bush’s Texas: Death Row, Inc

A friend and a member of the Socialist Party USA gave me a copy of The Socialist, his organization’s magazine. This party has broken with its social-democratic past, and now speaks out against liberal reforms. It is advocating a grass roots movement to overturn the capitalist system. Although PLP would not agree with everything this group stands for, the ruling class hates them.

On December 9, Socialist Party member James Beathard was executed by the state of Texas. George W. Bush, the bloodthirsty governor of Texas and presidential candidate, signed the death warrant. Beathard was convicted of helping his friend kill the friend’s parents in 1984, although the friend stated plainly that Beathard was innocent.

Texas is now a killing machine, and leads all states in executions. Bush also signed a death warrant for a mentally retarded man. Bush has used execution as a tool to further his political career. While on Death Row, Beathard counseled other death row inmates and talked about the racist, anti-poor nature of the death penalty.

I think that it is important for communists to know about this since it was known by Bush that Beathard was against capitalism and that Bush wanted him dead primarily for that reason. This is another example of the growth of fascism, and it demonstrates that in "human rights" capitalist America that those who stand up against this system are viewed as enemies to be destroyed, framed and killed, just as the Nazis had trade unionists, socialists and communists rounded up and killed or placed in death camps. All were forced to wear a red badge, regardless of their particular socialist or communist convictions.

Prisons are being built rapidly, and-as PLP has pointed-out, more people will be placed there. It is highly likely that the filthy rich ruling class will attempt to use them to jail opponents of capitalism. Thus, the necessity of building a mass party now to fight against fascism and capitalism.

James Beathard was killed and died as a socialist opponent of this capitalist system. He did not back down, and I think that his execution by fascist killer George W. Bush should be known. Smash Fascism with Workers’ Power.

Road Runner

Boeing Strike: Shutdown The Warmarkers

Solidarity With Boeing Strikers

Pogrom In Spain: Fascism Spreading Across Europe

a href="#BIG BOSSES GROOM LATEST ‘HERO’—McCAIN:">Big "osses Groom Latest ‘Hero’—Mccain: War Criminal Favors Gulf War Ii

a href="#OIL WAR II IS NEXT U.S. PREZ’S NUMBER 1 JOB">"il War II Is Next U.S. Prez’s Number 1 Job

Rethinking Education Under Capitalism

a href="#PLP RAISES RED FLAG AT BOSSES’ T.U. CONFERENCE">"LP Raises Red Flag At Bosses’ T.U. Conference

a href="#SWEENEY’S ‘GLOBALIZATION’ GARBAGE SOURS DOMINO STRIKERS">Swee"ey’s ‘Globalization’ Garbage Sours Domino Strikers

Imperialist Dogfight Over Colombia:

a href="#DOMINICAN YOUTH: DON’T ‘PRAISE THE LORD,’ BUILD PLP">Domi"ican Youth: Don’t ‘Praise The Lord,’ Build PLP

a href="#SALVADORAN WORKERS FED UP WITH FMLN, LINKS TO ‘EURO-IMPERIALISTS’">Sa"vadoran Workers Fed Up With Fmln, Links To ‘Euro-Imperialists’

a href="#THE MOVIES OF LUIS BUÑUEL SHOW: ART AND CLASS STRUGGLE DO MIX""The Movies Of Luis Buñuel Show: Art And Class Struggle Do Mix

LETTERS

Communist Youth Page In the House

Goodyear Flattens Italian Workers

Red Youth Hates School: What to Do?

Cradle Red, But Not Red Enough

Moved By "Hurricane"

a href="#It’s Capitalism That’s ‘Genetically Dysfunctional’">It’s C"pitalism That’s ‘Genetically Dysfunctional’

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

PA HS Student Fights Anti-Communist Brainwashing

a href="#That ‘Beep’ You Heard On Your Pager Was Racism">Th"t ‘Beep’ You Heard On Your Pager Was Racism

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BOEING STRIKE: SHUTDOWN THE WARMARKERS

SEATTLE, WA, Feb. 10 —"When the fighting Machinists honor the SPEEA picket lines, it will bring this strike to a quick and successful conclusion," declared an IAM (International Association of Machinists) member addressing tonight’s union meeting. He had finished, but the debate was just starting.

Nineteen thousand SPEEA (Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace) workers went on strike yesterday against the Boeing Company (the largest war plane producer in U.S,) in what many are calling the largest white-collar strike in U.S. history. This surprised Boeing since only 12,000 in the bargaining unit of 22,600 are actually members of the union. Technical workers, who comprise slightly less than half the bargaining unit and earn salaries similar to blue-collar IAM workers, led the way. Many had had worked in the shops and participated in strikes before. Even so, the vast majority of Engineers, who average about $57,000/year, also walked.

Everyone expected the Machinist contract, signed last fall, to set the pattern. Despite raking in billions in profits, Boeing had other plans. Since the mergers with McDonnell Douglas, parts of Rockwell and now Hughes, the company signs dozens of contracts with different unions; sometimes even different locals of the same union sign different contracts at different times. The crisis of overproduction is particularly sharp in aerospace. The battle amongst the world’s aerospace firms, intensified by this crisis, takes on political dimensions, as this industry is crucial to war production. Boeing decided it needed to set a new pattern. It picked SPEEA in Seattle as a good target because it is a union with no history of militancy or strikes, and the fact that it is Boeing’s second largest union means its defeat would have a big impact on thousands of other Boeing workers.

Despite the ominous implications for the next IAM contract fight, the IAM leadership has been conspicuously absent from the many expressions of solidarity. Teamsters and railroad workers are refusing to cross the picket lines. When one member at the meeting called for the IAM to honor the pickets, he was called a hothead by the leadership. Other members and shop stewards jumped to his defense.

"They’re labor, damn it," said another speaker at the union meeting. "I’m proud they got the smarts to walk, but they’re new at this. We have the obligation to teach them how it’s done!"

The union leadership cited the "no-strike" clause in the IAM contract to justify our crossing the picket lines. "What will it take to get rid of that clause?" shouted another member from the floor.

"You’ll have to strike for six months," answered the hack.

"O.K., let’s strike for six months!" shot back the fighting Machinist.

Another union official tried to divert the conversation. "I’m not going to talk about SPEEA," he started.

"Then sit down!" shouted yet another member.

Another, older shop steward, who was not inclined to shout out his opinion, approached the member that started this brouhaha. "I’ve been coming to these meetings for 20 years," he began by way of introduction. "I’ve got respect for that union official, but he shouldn’t have called you a hothead."

"Oh, don’t worry. I’ve been called a lot worse," our friend assured him.

"Yeah, but, still, he shouldn’t have called you that. Anyway, you are right! If we all honored that picket line that would be the end of that damn ‘no strike’ clause!"

Up The Ante

Meanwhile, rank-and-file Machinists are taking matters into their own hands. We’re joining the line at lunch. As the strike goes on, more blue-collar workers are participating: bringing coffee, snacks and pizza along with our own picket signs. Some of the picketers swear they are going to have to go on a diet after this strike is over. Our party is proud of helping organize some of the more regular trips to the lines.

The IAM has a tradition of marches through the plants as contracts come up. Our Party helped initiate those marches. We should organize such marches to the plant gate in support of the strikers. No doubt, we’ll develop other imaginative ways to build strike support.

In order to "up the ante," rank-and-filers are circulating a union resolution for members to sign linking prison labor and unity in the working class——uniting white and blue collar, different jobs, different wage grades, mental and manual labor—to the need to honor the picket lines and May Day. This may not be the easy road, but the alternative is to sit back and get used to crossing picket lines!

Contradictions Within The Working Class

Many Machinists are upset about crossing the picket lines. The union leadership and even some confused members are looking for excuses to justify their actions. SPEEA’s motto "No Brains, No Planes" doesn’t help any—even thought SPEEA announced on their Web page they didn’t mean to offend blue-collar workers. "The Engineers will have to get off their high horse if they are going to get real support," warned one rank-and-file leader.

Capitalism separates mental and manual labor. The boss justifies exploiting blue-collar workers more by promoting this conflict. To further divide us, the capitalist, in true racist fashion, makes sure few black and Latin workers become Engineers.

The capitalists believe their ideas are the most important element in production, not the sweat and smarts of the working class. But without the latter, there would be no production. Only a communist revolution can resolve the contradiction between mental and manual labor. Collective labor, with each contributing according to their commitment to the working class, will replace college degrees on the wall.

Building working class unity, in struggle with the most exploited leading, will help prepare us to take power. Therein lies the potential for success in this strike.

Why Communists Always Want To ‘Up The Ante’

As we’ve struggled to build support for the SPEEA strikers among our fellow workers, some honest and sincere friends have asked us, "Why do you communists always want to promote more class struggle to ‘up-the-ante?’"

You can’t learn everything from books. Practice is primary. As the working class engages the bosses in sharper and sharper class struggle, our class learns how to gain and hold power. We learn how to resolve contradictions within our class—racism, sexism, mental and manual labor—to bring a higher level of unity to our battle with the capitalists. We learn who’s our friends and who’s our enemies in these struggles. We deal first-hand with the reformist traps.

Labor peace is an illusion. Whether we fight back or not, the bosses’ need for maximum profits forces them to continually attack the working class. They are continually upping the ante. So our upping the ante becomes a question of survival. Indeed, building a revolutionary communist party becomes the clearest expression of the needs of the working class.

SOLIDARITY WITH BOEING STRIKERS

SEATTLE, Feb. 16 — Blue-collar workers throughout Boeing have "adopted" the picket lines near their work buildings. Some are spontaneous expressions of support. Others are more planned—complete with "Adopt-a-Picket-Line" posters in the plants to recruit aid and around-the-clock shadow organizations to get the material to the picket lines. "You guys have really showed us about solidarity," said some picketers to IAM members joining the lines at lunch. "We want to do more," the factory hands answered. We all agreed that the real way to take on the bosses would be for all of us strike together.

POGROM IN SPAIN: FASCISM SPREADING ACROSS EUROPE

EL EJIDO, Spain, Feb. 15 — "What nerve the European Union has in criticizing us. Look at the pogrom against North Africans in Spain," wrote an Austrian newspaper. It was right: racism and capitalism go hand in hand all over the world. Hundreds of racists, organized by fascists, went on a pogrom against Moroccan and other North African farmworkers in El Ejido. The three-day racist rampage took place after a mentally ill Moroccan supposedly killed a Spanish woman. The immigrant farmworkers reacted with a strike that shut down production here. Eventually, the bosses and the government made a deal with the workers, which included replacing homes lost in the pogrom, investigation of the pogrom, normalization of the immigration status of many of these farmworkers, etc.

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WAR CRIMINAL FAVORS GULF WAR II

The "McCain insurgency" is the bosses’ latest gimmick for drumming up interest in the 2000 presidential campaign. In 1996, more than half the electorate stayed home rather than vote for Clinton or Dole. This lack of participation in the profit system’s electoral circus has the rulers worried. They want our enthusiastic support for the office-seekers who help them exploit us, oppress us, and lead us into oil wars.

In the wake of the Clinton scandals, more people than ever have become cynical about politicians. The bosses understand this. They’ve decided to misrepresent McCain as the "anti-Clinton," a man of "character" and "integrity." Well, let’s take a closer look.

John McCain is the son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals. During U.S. imperialism’s war of genocide in Vietnam, he was a Navy attack pilot. His squadron carried out daily terror bombings against Vietnamese civilians. In other words, McCain is a mass murderer. His plane was eventually shot down, and he spent several years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. After World War II, of the handful of Nazis—not nearly enough—who got the death penalty for war crimes, some had committed fewer atrocities than McCain. But of course, for U.S. rulers, McCain is a "war hero."

This background gave McCain his start in politics. At first, he flirted with the "New Money" crowd who wanted to horn in on the Rockefeller financial empire. Remember the "Keating five" and the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s, which threatened hundreds of thousands of workers’ life savings? (Eventually workers’ taxes will help pay for the more than one TRILLION dollars this fraud will wind up costing.) McCain was involved in all that up to his eyeballs. But then he figured that the Establishment offered him a better future, so he cast his lot with, and supported, the military-industrial complex barons who stood to reap billions from NATO expansion.

Next, McCain saw the wisdom of joining the Rockefeller camp’s campaign to launch the next ground war for oil in the Persian Gulf. In fact, as late as March 15, 1999, he gave only lukewarm support to the U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia, calling instead for action against Saddam Hussein. This is a straight Rockefeller position.

But McCain wasn’t yet entirely won over to the Exxon Mobil camp. The BP Amoco faction of the rulers managed to dangle a few carrots to woo him temporarily away. Only two weeks later, at the end of March, Wall Street brokerage giant Goldman Sachs managing director John Thain became McCain’s fundraising chairman. Goldman is BP Amoco’s main financier. The firms share two board members. On April 13, McCain demanded ground troops to protect BP Amoco’s Balkan pipeline project.

But last summer, "shifty John" the prodigal son returned to the fold. The McCain campaign began benefiting from donations pouring in from Rockefeller-affiliated money houses like Brown Brothers Harriman, Merrill Lynch, and Fidelity. Rockefeller mouthpiece Henry Kissinger hosted a New York reception for McCain’s book launch in September. Early this year, Laurence Rockefeller, Jr. personally ensured McCain’s appearance on the New York State presidential primary ballot. Laurence and his father are the Rockefellers most closely associated with the "environmental" movement. CHALLENGE readers may remember that the liberal environmentalists provide the point of attack against the domestic Oil Patch barons’ attempts to compete with Rockefeller energy companies.

As we reported last week, McCain, like the other three candidates, is now pushing for the next Gulf War to protect Rockefeller oil. He may have bounced around in the past, looking to sell himself to the highest bidder, but he seems to have found religion, and he knows his lines.

This election is about finding the candidate, Democrat or Republican, who can line up the most working-class support for the Rockefeller agenda of liberal fascism, imminent oil war, and eventual world war. This week, McCain’s presidential chances appear to be improving. But regardless of who winds up in the White House, our job as a class is not to be fooled by any of these stooges for the big bosses. Millions have already stayed home on election day. But staying home isn’t enough. This vicious system has to be destroyed; merely ignoring it only allows it to continue.

The best vote a worker can cast is for a commitment to the struggle for communist revolution. The only way to make this commitment is to join the Progressive Labor Party. The best way to start is to march with our Party for communism on May Day 2000.

LEADING MOUTHPIECE FOR BOSSES SPILLS THE BEANS:

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Last week’s CHALLENGE editorial demonstrated that Gore, Bradley, Bush and McCain all have foreign policy advisors urging U.S. imperialism to launch its next Middle East oil war as soon as possible. Every day evidence mounts that Gulf War II is already front-burner priority for the next president. The New York Times is leading the way, with daily articles, editorials and op-ed pieces warning about Saddam Hussein and his "weapons of mass destruction."

The Boston Globe, wholly-owned by the Times, reflects the thinking of the Rockefeller foreign policy inner circle. A February 13 Globe editorial called Saddam Hussein’s continued "defiance" of U.S. rulers "the most flagrant and protracted failure of President Clinton’s foreign policy." It accused Clinton of trying to "ignore, obscure and represent the threat from Saddam." It ended by demanding that the Iraqi ruler "be forced to permit weapons inspections or be removed from power," and demanded that Gore, Bradley, Bush and McCain make "the failure to contain [Saddam] a central issue in the current presidential campaign."

There are barely microscopic differences among the candidates on this matter. The Rockefeller interests aren’t going to allow their Russian, Western European and Chinese rivals to make separate deals for cheap Iraqi oil. The 2000 presidential campaign will blow a lot of hot air to mobilize working-class support for a new version of "humanitarian" genocide in the Persian Gulf. U.S. rulers are already the greatest mass murderers in history. They’re about to add to their record. Our Party must organize now to lead mass opposition against this imperialist slaughter whenever it breaks out.

RETHINKING EDUCATION UNDER CAPITALISM

CHICAGO, Feb. 16 — "As communist teachers, we have the responsibility to go beyond the curriculum to educate today’s youth," said a PLP teacher at the education conference held here January 22-23. High school students, parents and teachers from New York and Chicago focused on the crisis in the public schools, the role of communist teachers, and developing high school youth as mass leaders in the face of growing fascism.

A PLP member active in the schools as a parent gave the first report. She focused on the long-term struggle for communist revolution. Although inevitable, the process has been slowed by the defeat of the old communist movement. While U.S. bosses face many serious contradictions, for the moment they face no mortal threat either from a revolutionary working class or other imperialist powers. The rulers’ ability to get away with murder, from wiping out welfare to bombing Iraq and Yugoslavia, gives the bosses room to maneuver. Despite their temporary strength, they have failed to win workers and youth to be loyal storm troopers. We can build a mass PLP, but we’re in for a long hard fight.

Another PLP teacher reported on the need to integrate communist politics into our classrooms, while teaching literacy and educating our youth. This is vital for a mass PLP and a communist future. To maintain their system of wage slavery, the bosses’ schools are training working-class youth to be non-thinking. In Chicago, teachers have been forced to use scripted lesson plans. We need critical thinkers, curious and hungry for knowledge.

A comrade who recently finished her student teaching gave a third report, on increasing fascism. It’s dangerous, she said, to be passive in the face of metal detectors and cops in the schools. When she was a high school student eight years ago, the first metal detectors were put up in her school. Her class responded with anger and rage in protest. She said, "Now students don’t respond at all…they just accept it on daily basis." Others pointed out that high school students are subjected to random searches, with little or no protest from anyone. This passivity is due in part to the bosses creating racist hysteria about "unsafe schools" and "dangerous youth."

A young comrade from Curie HS said she was suspended for three days for taking pictures of her friends in the hallway. A student from Morgan Park HS reported he was accused of being a terrorist for bringing a carpenter’s mask to school to show his friends. "They thought I was going to bomb the school!"

Several Brooklyn youth said they’d been mistreated by some teachers and administrators because of how they dressed. Two other students said they disliked going to school. One said it was too stressful. The other felt that teachers were not interested in teaching.

This part of the conference ended with the question, "What can we do to educate our youth in this period of developing fascism?"

The next day students and teachers met separately. We agreed to create a CHALLENGE youth section, written by young comrades and addressing issues they face. Teachers also agreed to stay in touch, sharing ideas and lesson plans—particularly to improve our raising of communist politics in math and science classes while still teaching the curriculum. And we vowed to have more conferences like this.

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SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 14 — "We have to organize workers all over the world," declared a worker from Latin-America. "The capitalists are global. We need a great leader and that is a communist party. I came here looking for a communist party."

"You have found one," replied a PLP member.

That exchange occurred at a PLP forum held during a lunch break at the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union and Independence Rights.

Attended by workers from many countries, the forum was in sharp contrast to the Conference, which talked defense, defense, defense for three days. "Defend the International Labor Conventions (the ILO)." "Defend trade unions and democracy." "Defend ‘National Sovereignty!’" It detailed the global attacks on the working class, but only rarely did a maverick speaker explain their cause—capitalism.

Coming from 70 different countries, each delegation was given time to present its issues. Every militant or class conscious idea was applauded. An African speaker pointed out that every year, U.S. bankers suck $35 billion out of Africa, saying that capitalism and imperialism had to be smashed. Revolutionary ideas kept breaking through in the workshops, too. A delegate from Brazil spoke of the origin of racism in the birth of capitalism and slavery. A delegate from India explained how all Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) were agents of imperialism.

The biggest applause came when a garment worker from LA spoke. She explained how 150,000 garment workers in LA sweatshops remain unorganized through no fault of their own. Groups of workers repeatedly approach unions like UNITE! and repeatedly the unions fail to follow through. Most sweatshop owners are Korean, and the workers come from many countries. She described organizing a struggle that united these workers.

This was not a speech of complaints and statistics. Here was a leader who was changing the balance of forces. Small of stature, her head barely above the podium, we were thinking, "If she can do it, we can do it too!" She introduced a petition that attacked prison slave labor in the U.S. and the AFL-CIO for supporting it. She got a standing ovation and the entire conference chanted, "Obreros, Unidos! Jamas Seran Vencidos!" ("The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated!")

When the conference opened the next day, the reactionary leadership condemned the petition for "slandering" the AFL-CIO. The petitioners asked for five minutes to defend their message, but were denied. So much for "Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights."

Also, by this time security was following us. PLP was the only force to raise the crisis of overproduction. We showed how the death, destruction and impoverishment of the world’s workers were caused by capitalism, and only a communist revolution could liberate us.

Even a reactionary conference can open up opportunities to meet militant and political workers, and build the PLP. We set up an "unofficial" literature table and sold CHALLENGE while leafleting for our forum. We raised our May Day demonstrations in the workshops and with individual delegates. We were able to involve many friends in this conference, and this helped them understand how the Party fights for our politics in the mass movement. Everyone who helped us was energized. One worker joined the Party.

At the forum, a veteran worker said he liked PLP and CHALLENGE, but didn’t agree with abolishing wages. A production worker with several years seniority replied, "[The conference organizers] want to restrict us to fight within the system. But we will still be wage slaves. We go to work every day and give the bosses the creative part of us that could be developed. But we in PLP fight for that creative part. Our liberation will mean being able to develop all the things a human being can be."

No wonder the agents of capitalism follow us. When workers like the unionist from India, and the LA garment worker grasp these ideas, the revolutionary movement will become an unstoppable material force!

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"Hey, Sweeney, Here’s your globalization, right here in Brooklyn":

Domino Sugar Workers Holding Out in 8-Month Strike

BROOKLYN, NY, Feb. 15 — "We were out there and we were cold. Our feet were cold. Our hands were cold. Sometimes the way the wind whips off the river, it feels like 35 below. The only thing that kept us going was we didn’t want them to think the cold was going to stop us. They’re always looking for weakness."

So stated Domino Sugar striker Robert Shelton, one of 300 workers who have been out for eight months against Domino’s parent company, the British "global" conglomerate Tate & Lyle, one of the world’s largest sweetener producers. In an extraordinary display of working-class unity, not one worker has crossed the picket line.

With all of AFL-CIO president John Sweeney’s blather about "fighting globalization’s effects abroad," he, the NYC Central Labor Council and the workers’ own union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, have done zilch for these workers, victims of the globalization Sweeney is always crying about. The Labor Council, "representing" two million union members, has contributed the paltry sum of $9,000.

The workers are from a myriad of backgrounds (see "Red Eye" column, page 7). Through scorching summer sun and fierce winter winds blowing off the East River, the workers have held fast against company demands to lay off 100, virtually abolish seniority, eliminate full-time job guarantees, and slash sick pay and holidays—"in order to compete globally." The company is using a small number of scabs but the strikers say normal daily production of 4,000,000 pounds has been cut 90%.

Last week another Domino refinery in Louisiana was struck which might pressure the company, but the Brooklyn strikers’ unemployment insurance runs out later this month. They need all the help that rank-and-file workers can give them.

The magnificent class unity displayed by these workers answers the bosses’ lie that workers are somehow "different" because of their color or capitalist-created "nationalities." All workers belong to one class, the one that’s exploited by the ruling class. The strength of these strikers, once combined with the fight for commnist revolution, will be able to destroy the wage slavery profit system that has put them in their current bind.

IMPERIALIST DOGFIGHT OVER COLOMBIA:

EUROPEAN BOSSES INVADING U.S. ‘BACKYARD’ AS INTER-IMPERIALIST RIVALRY INTENSIFIES WORLDWIDE:

U.S. BOSSES DIVIDED OVER ITS COLOMBIA’S POLICY

Last week the U.S. Congress started debating Clinton’s $1.3 billion aid package for Colombia, including $955 million for military assistance. Up to last week, it seemed that the U.S. ruling class has opted for the "military card" to deal with the Colombian "drug problem" and its 40-year old civil war. But, like in all major foreign policy issues facing U.S. bosses, contradictions abound.

The New York Times (2/13), Rockefeller’s main mouthpiece, criticized this military card for not being "a realistic strategy to fight illegal drugs or…to establish peace and stability. Instead it risks dragging the U.S. into a costly counter-insurgency war…Peace talks….represent the best solution to both the drug problem and the war."

The NYT/Rockefeller position stems from the need to concentrate most of their military efforts in the Persian Gulf. Control of the Middle East oil is crucial for Rocky’s Exxon-Mobil oil empire.

Contradiction Within U.S. Ruling Class Itself

But other U.S. bosses don’t see the Middle East as strategic for their interests. Their priority is protecting their interests in Latin America now. Their outlook is more of a "Fortress America." They listen to "Republicans in Congress…..warning that the Clinton White House risked ‘losing’ Colombia to rebel groups…." They understand the strategic importance of Colombia. (Stratfor, an internet news service, 1/28) puts it this way:

"As Colombia’s troubles spill across its borders and drug logistics intersect with U.S. oil supplies and the Panama Canal, the ability of the U.S. to ignore the problems is limited. Indeed as global great-power rivalries increase, the willingness of the other great powers to use these conflicts as a means for containing the U.S. cannot be discounted. The northern tier of Latin America (Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador and Peru) is more dangerous than it appears."

Even within the Rockefeller camp there is both disagreement and a changing of positions. After all, Clinton is a Rockefeller man. But his aid plan, if approved, "will end the peace negotiations between the rebels and the government and re-ignite the war. Ultimately, the plan does little more than pave the way for greater U.S. involvement." (Stratfor (01/28).

According to Stratfor, the government doesn’t appear to want a peace settlement right now. First, it could give the guerrillas permanent control of the demilitarized zone. U.S. officials claim that this area is a major producer of coca and a main cocaine corridor for Bolivia and Peru. So the drug problem would not be solved. Second, allowing the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—its major guerrilla movement) a free range in this area, which borders Venezuela’s oil fields, would leave that country vulnerable to FARC’s incursions. Venezuela is a major U.S. oil supplier. Oil, not drugs, is at the heart of this conflict.

But such a peace treaty now would give the European-backed FARC a major say in the Colombian government. This would have an important impact in Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Mexico, where some sectors of their ruling classes want to dump the U.S. bosses and ally with the Europeans. Allowing European influence at this level has always been unacceptable to all U.S. bosses. Yet the Rockefeller gang is advising Clinton to support the European bosses’ brokered peace process! This might not be so easy to win.

Contradictions Within Colombian Ruling Class

Of course, all these contradictions reflect on the Colombian ruling class. One week President Pastrana is in the U.S. lobbying for money for his Peace Plan. And later Colombian officials announced in Sweden (2/9) that an "… end to Latin America’s longest conflict was closer than ever before, after secret talks with the country’s main Marxist guerrilla force." After Sweden they will convene "in Norway, and travel together to Italy, Switzerland and Spain." (Reuters 2/9) The peace accord claims it would also eradicate drug trafficking from Colombia.

Can’t Omit One Main Aspect Of The Contradiction

Even though U.S. bosses claim to be "top dogs" in the imperialist world, their competitors are not accepting this quietly. The European imperialists are taking advantage of U.S. bosses’ worldwide. They can see their difficulties in (1) grappling with their "Vietnam Syndrome;" (2) in trying to fight on two fronts, Iraq and Colombia, simultaneously; and (3) trying to organize a regional army capable of invading Colombia.

Understanding all this, the Europeans are gaining ground, intensifying their efforts throughout Latin America. They supported a failed coup in Ecuador last month. They are on the brink of brokering a peace accord in Colombia. They support several Salvadoran ex-guerrillas in office. President Chavez in Venezuela leans toward the Europeans. European bosses broke into the energy field in the ’70s and are now major producers of oil and gas in South America. They now surpass the U.S. in investments in Latin America.

The Rockefeller gang’s advice to Clinton to support the European peace process is a retreat, possible a strategic one. The rest of the ruling class may disagree or be unwilling to accept it.

Only Communist Revolution Can End Imperialist Rivalry And War

But whether Clinton’s aid plan is accepted, rejected or modified, one thing is certain: the inter-imperialist rivalry in Latin America will intensify, eventually leading to war. If the plan is approved, "In two years ….. the U.S. will be forced to send more money or more troops—or both." (Stratfor 1/28).

If not approved and the European peace process succeeds, eventually U.S. bosses will need to counterattack. If they can’t do this through elections (U.S. anti-drug Czar McCaffrey holds that the guerrillas could not win at the ballot box) or by their death squads exterminating ex-rebels, they will once more start their genocidal war.

But that is their concern. Ours is to build a mass communist PLP to eliminate all contradictions within and between all the capitalists by eliminating them all with communist revolution.

a name="DOMINICAN YOUTH: DON’T ‘PRAISE THE LORD,’ BUILD PLP"></a>"OMINICAN YOUTH: DON’T ‘PRAISE THE LORD,’ BUILD PLP

PLP Youth Win Fellow Youth to the Party

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC—A PLP youth club here agrees with the idea that writing for CHALLENGE about our Party-building is very important. Here is our first attempt.

For several months we have been working with some workers and students, discussing our newspaper DESAFIO-CHALLENGE and "Jailbreak" (PLP pamphlet on Dialectical Materialism), to win them to become communists.

In our last meeting we talked about religion and the role this idealist philosophy plays. We discussed how it has helped the rulers and exploiters throughout history make us believe that the rulers’ wealth and the masses’ poverty is a divine decision (God’s will).

With that in mind we agreed to go to church, not to "praise the Lord," but to build the Party among the many young men and women there. We want to explain to them the real reason why there are poor and rich and that we will only transform the world by building a communist society led by Red workers and youth.

We have also made a plan to help the party sell DESAFIO and distribute leaflets at factories. We are also planning a camping trip to help build May Day among many youth. We are clear that we are the future of the working class, and that by winning more workers and youth to PLP the day will come sooner when capitalism will be a thing of the past.

a name="SALVADORAN WORKERS FED UP WITH FMLN, LINKS TO ‘EURO-IMPERIALISTS’"></">SA"VADORAN WORKERS FED UP WITH FMLN, LINKS TO ‘EURO-IMPERIALISTS’

SAN SALVADOR — On Feb. 12, about 200 people came to a meeting in San Miguel that opened the FMLN’s (former guerilla group) national electoral campaign. On the same day the other political parties, the PDC and ARENA launched their activities. All were similar: a low turn-out and a lot of speeches. That’s because the working class lacks interest in demagogic speeches that don’t meet the needs of our class. All these electoral parties have government positions supporting the economic power of the bankers. They all have the same objectives: exploitation and repression of the working class, serving the profit system.

A veteran FMLN member at the meeting said, "None of the candidates have a revolutionary ideology. They’re all opportunists!" This is the feeling of many people who’ve been "forgotten" by the FMLN’s old and the new leadership. "They only call you when they need to fill the chairs in their meetings. This is lousy," said another ex-guerilla fighter. Such comments are common.

At this meeting we met an old member of PLP who had emigrated years ago. He was happy to again meet with PLP members and agreed to attend the next meeting of our PLP club/study group.

PLP has said for many years that there’s no lesser evil—whether it’s a government led by the FMLN, financed by European imperialism, or a government of ARENA supported by U.S. imperialism, it’s just more of the same exploitation.

Capitalism’s job of super-exploiting the working class is being distributed more "equally" among the different electoral parties. Today we see more mayors and deputies from the FMLN challenging the old ruling class to see who can exploit our class more and better. The World Bank, the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the European Economic Community are the ones making the rules of the game in these elections. Whichever party wins, we workers lose.

Therefore the question arises: will these elections resolve the poverty, crime, unemployment, etc., to which the workers are subject? The meeting’s small turn-out and the election results confirm the answer: "No!" The capitalist system can’t give workers any more, and we workers know elections won’t solve this. The only solution to the problems of our class is organizing the fight for communism, being led by PLP.

Our class’ alternative is not voting but to fight this deadly situation we face. This May Day we must take our communist message to the thousands of workers celebrating our international workers’ day. We’ll be there to say that only under a communist system will we live better, and only with PLP’s leadership will we achieve our goal.

a name="THE MOVIES OF LUIS BUÑUEL SHOW: ART AND CLASS STRUGGLE DO MIX""THE MOVIES OF LUIS BUÑUEL SHOW: ART AND CLASS STRUGGLE DO MIX

The Oscar nominations were just announced. This year’s Academy Awards show won’t have last year’s controversy, when PLP and many others picketed Elia "The Rat" Kazan being given a special award. Kazan is an example of the point of this letter.

The reason that 95% of today’s movies suck in form and content is because there is no good social content. Despite all the crap the public is fed about how politics and art don’t mix, the best art is art that is political. Kazan stopped making good movies when he squealed on his fellow communists and gave their names to HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee).

In my opinion, there are presently very few good movie directors and even those are not great compared to Eisenstein, Buñuel, etc. The latter were inspired by the great working-class political struggles of the first half of the 20th Century: the Bolshevik revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the anti-fascist struggles, the Chinese Revolution, etc.

This leads to my point: to honor Luis Buñuel on the 100th anniversary of his birth (February 22, 1900). Although Buñuel began as a surrealist, and his movies were greatly influenced by this, in 1932 he broke with this movement and joined the Communist Party of Spain (PCE).

El Cultural, El Mundo’s literary magazine (Madrid 2/13) reprinted the letter Buñuel sent to Andre Breton, the French poet and the father of surrealism, where he said, "I did not believe in the possibility of an apparent violent contradiction between the surrealist and the communist discipline. But the latest events have shown that these two activities are incompatible…It is impossible today to maintain a ‘closed’ concept of poetry above the class struggle. This word ‘closed’ is what makes me disagree with you. The subversive value of poetry outside of this class content will only be subjective..."

Buñuel used his talent on the side of the working class and the fight against fascism. His film, Las Hurdes (1932), was banned because it exposed hunger in rural Spain. It was made soon after he broke with surrealism. In 1937 he was sent to Hollywood by Spaon’s Republican government—which was fighting the Hitler-supported Franco forces—to advise U.S. filmmakers about the Spanish Civil War. Then the order came from Washington not to make these movies (the Roosevelt administration, although offically "neutral," actually helped Franco). During World War II Buñuel worked in Hollywood, turning Nazi propaganda into its opposite, anti-Nazi films. When the Cold War began in 1946, he was fired and went to Mexico.

While in Mexico, Buñuel made "Los Olvidados" which describes capitalist poverty as a horror for young people. His film "Viridiana" (made in 1961 in Spain by deceiving Franco’s censors) is one of the best movies ever made exposing the Catholic Church and feudalism. One of the scenes in "Viridiana" satirizes Leonard Da Vinci’s Last Supper. It was a superb movie. Indeed, Luis Buñuel was a superb artist for the working class.

Rex Red

LETTERS

Communist Youth Page In The House!

YO! YO! YO! This is a call out to all the youth in and around the Party, from Coast to Coast, from the U.S. Midwest to Central America, from Mexico City to Santiago, Chile, and anywhere in between. Voice our opinions, struggles, questions, criticisms, reviews about movies, music, books, etc. Whatever you are feeling needs to be known. The PLP is starting a new Youth Page made for and by youth. You can send in artwork, poems, letters, raps, etc., basically how you feel like expressing yourself. Send us everything you have.

Youth Page Collective

Goodyear Flattens Italian Workers

Politicians and bosses always tell us to defend the national economy and the companies we work for. They never stop demanding sacrifices to "save our jobs." The deeper the economic crisis, the bigger the sacrifices they demand, so "our company" can compete in the global market. In this way, the bosses tie us to our bosses, build a nationalist "culture" and prepare us for the logical conclusion of capitalist competition: war for markets and higher profits. Communists, contrary to reformists and union leaders, reject this defense of the bosses’ economy and their state.

A current example is Goodyear’s intention to close its plant in Italy. For several years, Goodyear has pushed for more productivity among its Italian workers, who have improved production techniques, enabling the plant to function better. The bosses have pitted its Italian workers against their fellow Goodyear workers in Germany, France and Poland.

But in spite of higher productivity and sacrifices, Goodyear will close in Italy. This again, has taught us the hard way that: (1) capitalist competition, and defending "our" company and "our" country, are harmful to our interests; (2) when workers sacrifice for the company and the rulers, only the bosses benefit; the workers lose; and, (3) when workers are loyal to "their" company, we end up competing with our fellow workers in other countries. Again, the bosses win and we lose.

When workers increase productivity in one company, we hurt our fellow workers and ourselves.

When the British coal miners struck in 1983, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher bought scab coal from Poland. This helped defeat the strike. Today coal miners in Poland are also losing their jobs and being attacked by the return of open capitalism. The answer to globalization, and the attacks of capitalism, is organizing international unity of the working class to destroy capitalism.

A Comrade, Italy

Red Youth Hates School: What To Do?

I’m a high school student from Chicago. Like other Party areas, we have been having a big struggle about the role and importance of schools. I’m a red diaper baby [a child of a communist] and it’s been my personal practice for a long time to pretty much disregard the necessity of school. Now that I’m in high school and the Party has been waging this huge campaign for students to do well in school it has become very hard for me to change.

There are a few reasons why this transition has been so difficult for me: 1) I really don’t want to change, and 2) I still don’t see the relevance of some of the subjects that they teach us in school (Algebra, Trig, Chemistry, etc.). Like most of my classmates, math and science are the most difficult for us. We don’t see how they relate to our daily lives or our futures. So we don’t apply the time and effort it takes to pass these classes. My teachers in both of these subjects have been feeling the frustration that we have been feeling for a long time and it saddens me to see that they are "burning out" at a rapid pace. Both of these teachers would really like to see their students understand the concepts that they are trying to teach us, but most of the students in these two classes find the curriculum extremely difficult, and most end up failing.

The struggle being waged with me is that as communists, we need to be able to understand this capitalist system, what they teach, and how to defeat them. I agree we need to understand the system, and how to defeat the bosses. But most of what they teach is lies, and what they don’t lie to us about I don’t feel we need to understand in great depth. For instance, I agree that we need to know some forms of math and science, but I don’t think that most of us need to know how to balance a chemical equation (Chemistry) or Algebra Trig altogether. I say most of us because only some of us will become astrophysicists and nuclear scientists.

I know some other students agree, and some others think I’m wrong. I would like to hear both sides so please write back. I wrote this letter to get some feedback and to start some debate about the school system and how other people feel about it.

Red Bengal

Cradle Red, But Not Red Enough

The recent movie "The Cradle Will Rock" was a welcome change from the crap that movies and TV usually offer, a well-meant, beautifully done telling of the ‘30s, the depression, and left-wing art. Unsurprisingly, the movie was attacked by much of the press, notably the New York Times pimp Walter Goodman, who wrote a snide review, predictably attacking Tim Robbins for making the movie at all. (Robbins wrote a really good reply to the Times, Jan. 23.)

I’m grateful for any movie that attacks capitalism, and especially the murderous Rockefeller family, as was done here, and if it shows leftists in a good light, so much the better—how often do we get that treatment? How we’re normally treated is through lies and attacks.

The Challenge review properly noted that neither the movie nor the play of the same title was communist art. I would like to further emphasize the point. Both the movie and the original play are good, they told fine and significant stories.

But we should keep perspective, even while we enjoy the film—it’s too easy to settle for crumbs, calling some movie that may be sympathetic to the working class "revolutionary," when it’s just…sympathetic to the working class.

Twenty years or so back, I saw a production of the play "The Cradle Will Rock," probably off-Broadway. It was touching and exciting, but I most remember one interchange between the big capitalist Mr. Mister and the union organizer Larry Foreman. Mr. Mister is telling the workers how great everything would be if they only stopped fighting for a union. "There will be nurseries for the kiddies, swimming pools, cars," that sort of thing.

Larry Foreman comments, "I thought we just wanted a union."

But isn’t that the whole problem with trade union politics? If the bosses in good times (if they’ll ever come back: much of the industrial base has been laid off) did manage to build a municipal pool, a nursery, etc., would Larry Foreman have been satisfied? I hope not.

The reality is there’s no "fair share" for the working class, and no body knows this better that the bosses, who are taking the largest percent of the wealth since capitalism started. The cliché "The rich get rich and the poor get poorer," should properly be "The rich get rich because the poor get poorer."

Let’s not lose sight of our goal: To take it all away from the rich so society may be run by and for the working class.

I was happy to see "The Cradle Will Rock," and as Challenge noted people should take their base to see it and discuss it afterward. But remember it’s essentially a romantic look at an era when the bosses screwed up their system and then further tried to exploit the workers by throwing them on the streets to starve.

The play more or less suggested that, but of course it didn’t go one step further and say we need a revolution and communism to keep the ruling class from ever making a comeback, as they have done in Russia and China.

North Country Comrade

Moved By "Hurricane"

That I loved "The Hurricane" is only important when one considers why. This movie made me angry at racism (a positive thing, I would say). Nor would I attribute this to an alleged state of politicization that I have put myself through, as many of my friends got the same message who would see themselves as "good liberals."

Secondly, nothing was mentioned in the review of the movie about relationships. This movie moved me deeply, and that is important politically. There was no mention of the Afro-American youth who turned his life around by his contact with Carter.

It does concern me as someone who gets so much out of CHALLENGE that the review seemed a little bit created by a rigid standard of what is politically correct. Of course the movie is capitalistic and not revolutionary—that, at least in my mind, does not mean it is not an important movie.

Brooklyn PLP’er

a name="It’s Capitalism That’s ‘Genetically Dysfunctional’"></a>It"s Capitalism That’s ‘Genetically Dysfunctional’

Last Sunday, I gave a talk about racist psychiatric testing of inner-city youth to a congregation in Virginia. Over the past year I have done this for nine other churches and organizations. Usually I just speak extemporaneously and refer to notes. This time I read from letters, testimony and a prepared text. The presentation, while much more complete in details, came out too one-sided. While generally open and appreciative, the audience got the impression that I was against all psychiatric research and treatment, which is not the case.

Time and again, as a patient advocate as well as a parent, I have seen children (and adults) who suffer genuine mental illness (usually caused or exacerbated by capitalist society) and who benefit from treatment, including medication. But these represent only 2-3% of the population, not 18-20%, as the medical establishment claims. Fueled by a drive for drug-company profits, and more importantly, by a need for tighter and tighter social control, the ruling class, especially its dominant Rockefeller segment, is steamrollering the idea that all mental "dysfunction" is genetic and biological. They claim the primary example of this lies in inner-city youth who rebel against inhuman conditions of housing, education and medical "care."

This dangerously fascist position must be opposed by all patients, educators and health workers. In my speaking rounds I have met dozens of honest people who want to understand this phenomenon more deeply and to fight back against it in some way. Our chief job is to sharpen struggle and friendships with them in a way that explains the overall perspective of the Progressive Labor Party and to recruit as many of them as possible.

Red Churchmouse

The Life And Times Of Hank Greenberg

If you’re a movie-goer who’s also interested in the history of sports and politics, go see this documentary about a great ball player. Greenberg was born into an immigrant Jewish family and lived in the Bronx, New York. He was one of a very few Jewish baseball players and was subject to rampaging racism because of his religion. He came to the Detroit Tigers in 1934. That city was a hotbed of anti-Semitism.

The movie depicts the arch pro-Hitlerite, racist and anti-Semite Henry Ford who, along with GM and Chrysler, ran Detroit; the fascist "priest" Father Coughlin and his Nazi rantings; and a Madison Square Garden in New York City filled with German Bund followers.

Hank Greenberg was a great home run hitter who hit in the clutch with a high batting average. He vehemently fought anti-Semitism which took a lot of guts when such racism was the rule in baseball as well as the country as a whole. He once entered the Chicago White Sox clubhouse after a particularly vicious vebal attack from their dugout and Challenged all those John Rocker types to admit which ones had showered him with this racism. Not one of those spineless cowards opened their mouths.

When Jackie Robinson broke the color ban in 1947, Greenberg—in his final season—was involved in an accidental collision with Robinson at first base. Greenberg helped Robinson up and encouraged him to answer back the way Greenberg had: by showing these racists up with great play on the field. Robinson later acknowledged that Greenberg was one of the few white ball players who had publicly shown support for him.

When Greenberg returned from the army after World War II, he said he had come to the conclusion that all religion was harmful, that it divides people and even leads to mass murder.

The film’s photography is excellent. Many parents and grandparents brought their offspring to see it. Given that the ruling class censors so much history, when many people are unaware of the role of the Henry Fords in those days, I strongly recommend this film.

Former Bronxite

PA HS Student Fights Anti-Communist Brainwashing

I am a high school student at a school in Pennsylvania and I have some problems learning math. I read the article on math in CHALLENGE about how others have trouble too. This week the students were told that the teacher of the week was a math teacher. The announcement said that her favorite book of all times was "The God That Failed," which I learned was a bunch of essays from people against communism. Some students thought the book was about religion, and the teacher was saying "God failed." I thought that was funny. That book is hardly read by anyone. The annoucement also said that her favorite movie was "The Hunt for Red October," based on a book by Tom Clancey, who I read gives talks at the CIA.

Then they said her advice to students was to make your own choices to succeed or someone will make them for you. Then it all made sense. She was always giving me dirty looks. (I wear a hat with a red star on it.)

Last week she reported me to the office saying I had been grabbing girls in the hall and hit one on her butt. The letter was sent to my parents, and I was given detention. She tried to picture me as a sexual harrasser of girls. That is just crazy. She doesn’t like me ’cause she is a fanatic anti-communist. No wonder people would have trouble learning from the old witch.

Also, a history teacher who saw my hat told me that his buddies died fighting people like me. I don’t advocate communism in school but I raise questions and I make mostly good grades. I told him it wasn’t a communist hat, and that was the truth ’cause I bought it at a record store in a mall.

These people are nuts in the head when it comes to communism. They don’t call those who are racist and some with shaved heads Nazis and bother them. Just wanted to let this be known.

Student Against Capitalist Brainwashing

a name="That ‘Beep’ You Heard On Your Pager Was Racism"></" />"hat ‘Beep’ You Heard On Your Pager Was Racism

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to CHALLENGE readers that our schools are becoming more like jails every day. One of the more obvious manifestations are the metal detectors now required in all high schools. Some schools, primarily those in the so-called "high-crime" black and Latin neighborhoods, have had them for a long time and always keep them on. Other more affluent, largely white magnet schools only recently started using them occasionally. Over 1,000 students per year have been arrested during these various metal detector checks.

If these students were carrying weapons, like. knives or guns, these arrests might be justified. But over 90% of these arrests were for the heinous crime of carrying a pager! The Chicago City Council decided in 1988 that pager-carrying students were gang-banging drug dealers and should be hauled off to jail. This law is racist in that it only affects the mainly minority Chicago School District, and not the white suburbs where students carry pagers without any repercussions.

In the winter of 1998, this was raised at a city-wide high school PTA meeting. At that time, while some of us pointed out the fascist, racist nature of this law, others still felt it was necessary to insure the safety of our children. During that year we struggled with various PTA members to change their minds, and by early 1999, the city-wide PTA voted for the City Council to repeal this law. The School Board was asked to join in the request to repeal this law, but they refused. During 1999, as more and more white students were arrested because of increased use of metal detectors at the magnet schools, pressure grew to repeal this law. Finally this month, the School Board joined in the PTA’s request to repeal it.

At last week’s City Council education committee meeting, Chicago School CEO Vallas testified that mainly "good" kids are getting arrested, and he didn’t think that was necessary any longer to maintain safety of the schools. However, he wants to continue to ban pagers from school, with students being suspended and pagers confiscated, under the school's Discipline Code. All of the Alderman agreed that allowing pagers in school, even if they are turned off, would be a disruption to the education process. They felt no exceptions could be made, because that would open "a can of worms." While Vallas and the Aldermen want to be tough on kids who carry pagers, they didn’t seem to care that Vallas’ pager went off three times during his testimony! The PTA agreed to carry on the struggle to allow pagers in the school.

Page Me

1. DIALLO TRIAL PROVES:
   LIBERAL RULERS BIGGEST BACKERS OF RACIST COP TERROR
   1. GEORGE `KILLER' KELLING:
      ARCHITECT OF POLICE TERROR
2. 400 PROTEST NJ KILLER KOP
3. BOSSES USE STATE POWER TO END UNAM STRIKE
4. OAKLAND'S RACIST POLICE STATE
5. CAMPAIGN AIMS TO KNOCK OUT THREE STRIKES LAW
   1. BLINDFOLDING THE JURY
6. LA YOUTH CENTER PLANTING FLOWERS OF REVOLUTION
7. D.C. SCHOOL WORKERS FIGHT INJUNCTION; FOLLOWING BOSSES' RULES IS DEAD END
8. OPEN WORLD CONFERENCE CAN'T CLOSE OUT CAPITALIST CRISIS
   1. Capitalism, Crisis and War
   2. Reform or Revolution?
9. The Masses Love An Anti-KKK Fighter
10. HITLER'S CLONE HAIDER'S TAKEOVER THREATENS EUROPEAN BOSSES BLOC
11. "They Shall Not Pass...."
12. LETTERS
    1. UNION HACK: `LOBBY';
       UNION RED: `FIGHT'
    2. THE ABC'S OF PLP IN MLA
    3. RED H.S.'ER TELLS ALL
    4. U.S. BOSSES `MOST' IMMORAL
    5. Y2K RX = NG
13. HURRICANE'S POLITICS LED TO FRAME UP

---

DIALLO TRIAL PROVES:
LIBERAL RULERS BIGGEST BACKERS OF RACIST COP TERROR

The trial of the four cops who murdered Amadou Diallo last year has put racist police terror on the front pages once again. In a display of racism that matches the murder, the trial was moved to Albany, because the cops couldn't get a "fair trial" in the Bronx, the scene of the racist crime. The bosses moved the trial to get it out of the way with minimum disruption. The cops may get off with a slap on the wrist, or they may be sentenced to hard time, like the torturer of Abner Luima. They certainly won't get the death penalty they deserve.

We must prepare now to lead strikes, walkouts and rebellions, all aimed at the centers of state power if they are let off the hook. Every PLP club must make a plan to give mass leadership to these actions.

The Diallo case proves again that the profit system relies on racist police violence for its very survival. The police serve as the first line of defense in the class war between bosses and workers. Their job is to keep the rulers in power, protect private property and maintain the system. This can only be done at gun-point. In a very real sense, the cops who executed Diallo were "just doing their job."

Some try to make Giuliani appear as the designer of cop terror. He got elected NYC Mayor in 1993 by appealing to racism. He brags about having reduced street crime. But fascist cop terror was unleashed long before Giuliani's arrival at City Hall. And it was conceived, launched and funded by liberals.

One of the chief architects was a Rutgers professor,George Kelling, who is also affiliated with Harvard. He concocted a "community policing" scheme to organize worker support for the cops, and has been funded and promoted by the U.S. Justice Department, the National Institute of Justice, and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In 1993 Giuliani hired Kelling as advisor on police matters, and an aide to liberal Police Commissioner Bratton. Arrests went through the roof. Complaints about police brutality soared by 40 percent between 1993 and 1996.This was the general climate in which the four NYPD cops shot Amadou Diallo. They were part of an élite "Street Crimes Unit," which boasted: "We own the night."

Despite apparent tactical differences, the rulers are mainly united in the Kelling approach. Former FBI informer Al Sharpton has gone on record as a supporter of "community policing." Sharpton's key role is to divert worker militancy into an electoral, reformist dead-end. He and his sidekick, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, have taken credit for keeping things cool in NYC during the recent spate of racist murders by the NYPD (interview on Fox's show "Good Morning New York," 1/31). The bosses are happy to see Sharpton-Daughtry take a few buses for orderly protests in Albany. The last thing they or Sharpton, Daughtry & Co. want is a wave of militant strikes and rebellions that could make masses of workers more open to revolutionary communist politics, and a mass May Day march.

Workers must not fall for the lie that the capitalist police can be reformed or improved through the recruitment of more black and Latin Klansmen in blue. There are no good cops and no good bosses. The Rockefeller-led ruling class, its government, courts, politicians, media, paid ideologues like Kelling, and, most importantly, its Sharpton/Daughtry-style agents within the working class--all have Amadou Diallo's blood on their hands. Racist cop terror in the service of capitalist dictatorship and profit will end only when an armed and communist-led working class seizes state power. Every worker and youth outraged by the murder of Amadou Diallo and racist police terror should march with PLP on May Day. Mass May Day marches full of communist-led anti-racist fighters will bring us closer to communist revolution, and working class justice.

GEORGE `KILLER' KELLING:
ARCHITECT OF POLICE TERROR

As early as 1982, Kelling called for the police to "reclaim" urban areas by taking severe action against the pettiest "crimes." His article, "Broken Windows," in the Atlantic Monthly magazine identified black teenagers and homeless workers as the "principal threats to public order." Kelling published a book, Fixing Broken Windows, which says that the end of the "rights-oriented legal tradition" (i.e. fascism) was a fair price to pay for public order. "Community Policing" has been adopted by liberal politicians across the country. After his re-election, Clinton sponsored a phony "gun control" law designed to give most of its $16 billion to local governments to hire 100,000 more cops.

After Diallo's murder, the Wall Street Journal (3/23/99) and New York Daily News (3/26/99) gave Kelling a forum to justify police brutality. Tsk, tsk, he wrote, Diallo's death was a "tragedy," but it was understandable. After all, the cops, who thought someone was shooting at them, had a right to respond. Anyhow, continued Kelling, such "tragedies" are a necessary price to pay for a "successful policy of policing." The main danger, he warned, was that criticism of the NYPD could "hurt the war on crime."

400 PROTEST NJ KILLER KOP

JERSEY CITY, NJ, February 8 -- About 500 workers and youth crammed into Bethesda Baptist Church today, angered about the brutal death of 15-year-old Michael Anglin at the hands of a Jersey City cop. PLP was there to distribute leaflets, sell CHALLENGE and support our fellow workers and youth.

On January 28, police chased a stolen van filled with teenagers and young men. When the van finally stopped around 11:30 p.m. at Bayview and Arlington Avenues, it crashed into another police car that had just pulled up. Vincent Corso and his partner cop began to arrest a couple of the youths. The cops said that Michael struggled with Corso when Corso's gun "accidentally" went off, shooting Michael in the head.

At first, the cops said that in the scuffle Michael tried taking the gun away from Corso. But then community eyewitnesses said the cop shot the youth from a distance, exposing the police department's tale. The cops even tried lying to Michael's mother, RoseLee, by saying that her son was "killed in a car accident," an obvious attempt at a cover-up. To add salt to a fresh wound, the cops wouldn't let the family see Michael's body for a long time.

At the church rally several reformist leaders and clergy members spoke about the injustice of this killing. The Rev. Herbert Daughtry as well as others spoke about the need for more black and Latin police officers and that an "independent agency" needs to investigate the police department. These mis-leaders want us to believe that the police department can be reformed to serve the working class when the job of the cops is to serve and protect the racist system: capitalism.

As fascism develops, PLP will continue to raise the specter of communism through winning workers to demonstrate against the racist killing of members of our class. The rulers need to terrorize workers and youth to keep them in line and not rebel against the increasingly oppressive system which only guarantees prison, unemployment and terror. We need to win workers to fighting for communism now as the only answer to the racist murders of our brothers and sisters.

BOSSES USE STATE POWER TO END UNAM STRIKE

MEXICO CITY, Feb 7--Thousands of police and military took over the 40 schools of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) system where students have been on strike for nine months. More than 1,000 people were arrested. At this writing, 500 have been released, but over 400, including strike leaders, are still under arrest facing serious charges. There are warrants out for more.

After the police action, thousands of students, parents, and workers took to the streets to demand freedom for all those who have been arrested.

Throughout the strike, the rulers responded to the demand for free universal education with brute force and mass arrests. These fascist attacks show that capitalism is a rotting system incapable of giving workers children the chance for a higher education. The "support" for the bosses built inside and outside the university to justify the rulers' barbaric act shows the increasing development of fascism. This fascism is no accident. During its crisis, capitalism must try to repress the anger of millions. But this growing fascism has not immobilized these courageous students.

The entire ruling class--the bankers and businessmen, President Zedillo, Labastida (presidential candidate for the ruling PRI party), the university bureaucracy, the opposition PAN and PRD parties, the Catholic Church hierarchy and the mass media--launched furious attacks, urging outright repression to break the strike. Fascist goons ("porros"), paramilitaries, thugs and military police were never as effective as the "demo-fascists," pro-democracy in word and fascist in deed. These apologists for capitalism fanatically built support in a thousand ways among the population to justify this repression. Carlos Fuentes, and other famous liberal intellectuals and writers like Monsivais, Poniatowska and Portilla met with the government politicians in their crusade to end the strike. These fascist wolves in sheep's clothing were exposed.

For nine months, the university bosses and the government kidnapped and raped students, burned and pillaged the school buildings and launched daily attacks by goons and fascist gangs. But it's the jailed students who now face serious charges of plunder, robbery, sedition, terrorism and riot. This is capitalist justice. This is the state of "law" which maintains this capitalist system. It's corrupt and anti-working class to its very core. The university was supposedly "autonomous"--until the students fought to change it. Then the fascist rulers broke their own rules and took it by force.

During these nine months on strike, thousands of students have lived through fascism. From their own experiences, they've felt that this system has to be destroyed. Butt they lack the understanding that communism is the solution. Scientific and free pro-working-class education for all can never be achieved under capitalism. We need a communist society, where the working class holds power. Capitalism, whether in its neoliberal form or its public, state-capitalist form, is the mortal enemy of workers and students.

This repression will not end the student movement in Mexico. Other universities have opened their doors to the strikers to continue the struggle. UNAM will continue to be occupied by troops for weeks or months; the bosses fear the students will re-take it. But the mobilizations won't stop.

However, the student movement must overcome its illusion that democracy and nationalism will solve its problems. Both are mortal traps. They only strengthen the very rulers who are attacking us. One sector of Mexican bosses wants to build nationalism in its war against the imperialists for markets. They want to turn the anger of the students at the UNAM changes to build support for themselves. Students must reject this deadly nationalism and follow the road of fighting for communism. They need to accept the leadership of the working class to be able, in the long run, to destroy those who repress and jail us today, along with smashing their state power. Every student and parent who joins PLP will bring this day closer.

One faculty advisor to the strikers has argued that, "The conservative sector [the government] speaks of academic quality as their banner, but there are various definitions of academic quality. They postulate it as a university with a small number of students, very well selected, which means from the upper classes. They want to educate 10 to 15% of the workforce and make the rest technicians. The debate is closely related to Mexico's role in the world economy." (LA Times, 2/6/00)

Currently, 14% of Mexicans from 20 to 24 receive higher education, which is far below the average of 45% to 50% in developed countries. But whether Mexican bosses do the bidding of U.S. capitalism or keep more of the profits for themselves, it will not change the lives of students and workers in Mexico. All the bosses--Mexican, U.S., or European--are the enemies of all workers.

The strike was called when UNAM authorities moved to impose tuition beyond the reach of working-class families; an entrance exam, which would keep even more working-class students out of the university; and exercise more direct control over the curriculum.

Capitalist education exists to prepare each new generation for the roles needed by the bosses, whether it's the national bosses or the imperialists. It's based on lies --in all countries. Youth need the kind of education to prepare us to fight for a future without fascist exploitation. That kind is not taught by the bosses. The conflict between the needs of the rulers and those of the working class will lead many to join in the fight for communist revolution, when they are given the choice.

OAKLAND'S RACIST POLICE STATE

OAKLAND, Feb. 8 -- Oakland's bosses have unleashed a war of terrorism against black workers here. Their target has been any young black man who has had contact with the criminal INjustice system. By appearing to "fight crime" and provide "safe streets," Mayor Jerry Brown and the police are attempting to win Oakland workers to their fascist program.

In the latest attack, on January 28, the Joint Fugitive Apprehension Strike Task Force, made up of Oakland police, state parole agents and U.S. Marshals, invaded an apartment on 87^th Avenue in East Oakland. According to a witness, a black man, Charles Hill, 26, was chased into a closet, shot 18 times and died. Since Brown appointed his new police chief; Richard Word, last July, police sweeps have been instituted in areas of high drug activity in communities which are mostly black and Latin.

What's behind Brown's war of racist terrorism? Profits and social control of the working class. Brown has stated that there are billions to be made in Oakland, which can be turned into the "Silicon Valley" of the East Bay. The gentrification of San Francisco's South-of-Market and Western Addition areas serve as a blueprint for Oakland's corporate bosses. Their plan is to push thousands of black and Latin workers out of the city.

Inspired by Clinton's financing 100,000 new cops into communities nation-wide, Brown is providing a massive police presence. Brown's capitalist bosses plan to lure the white middle class back to Oakland with new housing, condos, lofts and businesses. This means skyrocketing housing prices and rents--and big PROFITS.

Oakland workers have had a proud history of militant fight-back against the ruling class, from general strikes to the Black Panthers' struggle against police oppression.

PLP members are active in PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland), an Oakland community group active in Police-Community Relations. PUEBLO's reform leadership receives funding from the ruling class. But there are many rank-and-file members open to PLP's ideas. We have distributed CHALLENGE widely. Several PUEBLO members have attended PLP forums. We are planning a study group with PUEBLO members on Lenin's "State and Revolution."

Continually, PUEBLO's reformist leadership tries to divert all efforts into working within Oakland's CPRB (Civilian Police Review Board). Studying Lenin's work will help greatly to clarify the role of the cops and the State as servants of the racist bosses.

We are at the beginning of a long, hard struggle in the building of class and communist consciousness. We have made a few small steps forward.

CAMPAIGN AIMS TO KNOCK OUT THREE STRIKES LAW

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 7 -- This past weekend the California Three Strikes Project met to organize its campaign against the Three Strikes Law. The Project wants to amend the law to include only violent offenses. The California law, passed as Proposition 184 in 1995, provides mandatory 25-years-to-life sentences for three felony convictions, even if they are non-violent. The third one can be for anything--like stealing a loaf of bread.

Project speakers explained that this law was designed especially to sentence non-violent felons to life in prison. (California has built 21 new prisons just to house the victims of this law.) Many pointed out the racist nature of this law and the whole prison system. (Seventy percent of the state's prisoners are black or Latin.) They also said out that under California law "three strikes" can arise from one incident.

We distributed about 40 CHALLENGES. One of us said California has more people in prison than most countries, and that the U.S. has two million people in prison, more than any other nation in the world. We suggested that besides churches, we should go to unions and college student groups with the Project's petition to change the vile Three Strikes Law. "Three strikes" and the expanding prison labor it produces are attacks on the whole working class.

Many people asked for our upcoming pamphlet on prison labor to get these facts in writing. A PL'er said, "I'm a high school teacher and the Three Strikes Law has robbed the lives of many of my ex-students. We have to continually push the limits by fighting against these attacks. Now they're pushing Proposition 21 which would extend the attack to our youth, treating 13- and 14-years-olds as adults in court. We're committed to our youth. We can't let the system win--we must win."

Then a man came up to say, "I liked what you said a lot. Keep up the good work." We gave him the last copy of the prison labor pamphlet draft we had and exchanged phone numbers. This should be the start of a good friendship.

A few days later we participated in a workshop called "Prison 2000: Slavery in the 20th Century and the Prison Industrial Complex." This was one of eight workshops organized at a conference called "Strategies for the Development of African-American Men and Boys" organized at Southwest College. The workshop leader was the same person who had led the meeting to change the Three Strikes Law. Here we distributed all 60 CHALLENGES we had--and more people wanted them.

After the presentations, one of us read a quote from the upcoming PLP prison labor pamphlet about the extent of prison labor in the U.S. and asked what people thought. One person said, "Yes, it's all true. And the worst is that the same companies that employ prison labor have laid off high-paid workers." "Yes", said one of the workshop leaders, "all of this is directly related to making more and more profit. All of this is about the new modern slavery and we have to use all our efforts to fight it."

When the workshop ended, one of us announced having made 20 copies of the draft of the pamphlet in question. They went like hot cakes. We made a sign-up sheet for those who didn't get a copy but wanted one when it was formally printed. Ten more people gave their name, address and phone number to get one. We also invited all those present to a PLP forum about Proposition 21 and the fight against fascism.

The fact is, amending or even repealing the Three Strikes Law might slow down the increase in racist imprisonment and slave labor but it will never end it. The prison system based on profits and racism, twin evils of capitalism. It's capitalism that must be "repealed"--destroyed, to be replaced by a sharing, profit-free system, communism.

We invited all those at the workshop to a PLP forum about Proposition 21 and the fight against fascism.

BLINDFOLDING THE JURY

By law, juries are not told about a defendant's previous convictions, so they may think they're sentencing someone to a year or two for some minor, non-violent offense like stealing a bicycle. Then it turns out to be a third offense--unknown to the jury--and the judge is mandated by law to put the offender in prison for 25 years to life!

LA YOUTH CENTER PLANTING FLOWERS OF REVOLUTION

LOS ANGELES -- Last summer some LA high school and college students went to Seattle for the PLP summer project. In one of the study groups a young comrade spoke about the youth center in NY. She described their tutoring programs to help students with their tests and homework, and fun activities like pool and foosball, as well as a CD player, to entertain young people. This inspired the LA comrades to build a similar youth center here. It's located between the two high schools where we have the most student friends.

We are helping youth with tutoring. In LA, high school students must pass several competency tests to graduate. Two, in English (Sr. Write) and Math (Topics), are difficult to pass. Sometimes this denies a diploma to students who have completed all their graduation requirements because they cannot pass these tests. This discourages them; they drop out of school, making it harder to get a job. Therefore, we have decided to offer tutoring specifically focused on helping students pass these two tests. One student said he likes the math tutoring because he feels it will help him succeed in school. He especially likes the one-on-one tutoring, where a tutor is right there to help him when he gets stuck. Some of our tutors are LA district high school teachers. Students often help each other in different areas.

The youth center is also politically oriented. We have a study group every other Thursday. We've begun by studying political economy. We learned how capitalism started with primitive accumulation. One young person said she understands that we're studying real history, that isn't taught in school. She's learning about the nature of exploitation, how the bosses don't pay what a worker's labor is really worth. She sees how her parents struggle to put food on the table, and this helps her understand what capitalism really is.

Another student said people who don't know about communism have a blindfold over their eyes. This youth center offers people a chance to take that blindfold off. Students here feel comfortable to say what they believe, ask questions and explore ideas without feeling repressed.

We plan to expand our youth center to include dozens of young people in the coming months. Last November we planted a seed. Each day we water that seed and watch it grow. That seed is part of the flower of communist revolution.

D.C. SCHOOL WORKERS FIGHT INJUNCTION; FOLLOWING BOSSES' RULES IS DEAD END

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan 29 -- The Washington D.C. public school employees have not had a raise for 13 years nor a contract since 1996. They gave up 12% in raises to show what team players they were and to help prevent other D.C. government workers from losing their jobs. The other employees eventually lost their jobs. Obviously this was a big mistake because they believed the lies the D.C. government told them. Now they are out more money including a $1,700 bonus that was given to other D.C. government workers represented by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

Janitors, engineers, maintenance and cafeteria workers are the lowest-paid workers in the school system. Nearly 18 months ago they voted to strike and as a result of that pressure they received $6,000 in back wages for overtime. On January 16, the workers voted 470 to 4 to strike again. D.C. school superintendent Ackerman got a temporary restraining order (TRO) for 10 days which was supposed to expire January 31. At the status hearing January 20 Judge Zeldon claimed not to even know about the hearing that day! The judge set another hearing for February 15 a week after negotiations will have begun.

The attorney representing Teamsters Local 639 actually agreed to the TRO extension for another 10 days instead of stating, "We don't want a TRO, we want to be paid!" Judge Zeldon told him she would extend it for as long as she wanted. So the TRO is extended until February 15.

The Teamsters Locals 639 and 730 encompass many bargaining units. The union president calls all the shots. In talking to the workers, a PLP'er raised the idea that the members could force the president to take certain actions. The president calls meetings when he has something to tell them.

Workers are angry and upset, but it is unclear what they will do. They realize that, because of the weather, the time to strike is now. If the boilers break or the weather ices up, it will help pressure the school superintendent to give the workers the raises they're entitled to.

The Party has made some contacts. We also know a few school workers. We will be trying to meet with these workers to plan strategy for the next union meeting. One possibility is to break the permanent injunction which is sure to be put into place. Since they have had some exposure to the Party's ideas, we will keep struggling with them to be more active.

Superintendent Ackerman is not playing. Knowing that the teachers would probably honor the picket lines and that she couldn't get enough contract engineers to cross the picket line, D.C. government went to court. Ackerman will plead that a permanent injunction is necessary to protect the children. She does not really care about the children in D.C. public schools. If she did, she would not have laid off hundreds of maintenance workers last year. At Wilson High School 12 janitors were reduced to two. At the Kramer Annex in Southeast, staff was cut in half. Deal Junior High has only one janitor. A teacher reported that classrooms, restrooms and hallways are filthy because of lack of staff to clean them. It is becoming more of a prison environment every day.

We will have a public sale of CHALLENGE at the next union meeting. One worker has been getting the newspaper regularly and has been involved in discussions about capitalism, communism, the need for revolution and the importance of marching on May Day. We have not yet won her to agree to come to May Day. We have struggled with another worker extensively over these ideas. He has come to some events and participates in the lively discussions.

The other strategy is to win these workers closer to the Party, to get them to see that playing by the bosses' rules will get them nowhere. Public CHALLENGE sales at the union meeting will help spread the ideas and generate more contacts.

We also need to struggle with our friends who are teachers in the D.C. public school system to support the strike, read CHALLENGE and march on May Day. The ultimate goal is to make a revolution and destroy this capitalist system which is creating the substandard schools, a bosses' education and horrible working conditions.

OPEN WORLD CONFERENCE CAN'T CLOSE OUT CAPITALIST CRISIS

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 1 -- Hot on the heels of the battle in Seattle comes the Open World Conference. Meeting here Feb. 11-14, some 200 union delegates from other countries, including China, will join possibly an equal number from the U.S.

The unions have mobilized thousands of workers recently, especially around issues of foreign trade. "We are in a death struggle against NAFTA...and against the corporate `free trade' agenda," says Jack Henning, Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. At the same time these union bosses have remained silent about imperialist wars, like the bombing of Yugoslavia.

Capitalism, Crisis and War

We are in a death struggle all right. But NAFTA and "corporate free trade" are symptoms, not causes. The capitalist crisis of overproduction has cut the union movement to pieces worldwide. In the U.S., the passage of Workfare, the racist imprisonment nearly of 2% of the workforce, and the increasing use of prison labor has hurt the working class at least as much as "corporate free trade."

China's ex-leader boasted, "To get rich is glorious!" Capitalism, not communism, has brought death and starvation to hundreds of millions. These trade unions function within the rules laid down by the bosses. They accept capitalist-created political borders ("nations") and capitalist wage slavery. They can't protect workers here or there. Only communist revolution can do that. That's the vital message PLP is bringing to this Conference.

Capitalist overproduction and falling rates of profit have created three big protectionist trade blocs: Japan, NAFTA and the European Union. They have raised the specter of nationalism and are now preparing for wars and more wars. Unions alone cannot and will not handle the forces unleashed by this crisis. Conference organizers recognize this and want to build a "Labor Party" to tame the atrocities of capitalism. But capitalism cannot be tamed. It must be destroyed and replaced with workers' power.

Reform or Revolution?

At the moment, workers remain unconvinced. They are being challenged, though, to make up their minds. For PLP members, this Conference provides us with an opportunity to advance the crying need for a revolutionary May Day. Imagine Boeing workers (facing some 53,000 layoffs) rubbing shoulders with Korean workers who have organized general strikes....Trade unionists fighting prison labor in China meeting trade unionists who are fighting prison labor here....Garment workers from Saipan meeting garment workers from LA!

Imagine all this and it is not hard to see the revolutionary slogan, "Workers of the World, Unite! Fight for Communism!" come alive. This Conference can help build PLP-led May Day marches here and influence the political demands in May Days around the world.

March on May Day, Saturday, April 29, in San Francisco. Contact PLP: 1-800-330-9953.

The Masses Love An Anti-KKK Fighter

(On October 23, three anti-fascist workers organized by the Progressive Labor Party, and cheered on by 8,000 supporters, invaded a NYC Klan rally and smacked two of these Klan scum, cutting short their police-protected racist filth. (See CHALLENGE, Nov. 4, 1999.) The following are just a few stories about what happened to one of the three Klan Klobberers, in the weeks and months after that action.)

I had been a teacher at one high school for 14 years and had been transferred to another school a week before the incident.

Afterwards hundreds of students from both schools showed their sympathies and appreciation. They demanded my autograph (often on photos from the newspapers). Wherever I went in both schools, students would shake or pound my hand. Students on the street would run over to greet me. I was physically lifted and carried in my old school by the security officers who shouted my name while hundreds of students gathered around and cheered. I was told I was a "legend."

At the teachers union Delegate Assembly and at smaller union meetings, teachers constantly congratulated me. I always had copies of articles from CHALLENGE and from the bosses' press to give them. Classes became period-long discussions about the Klan and violence. Many saw violence against the Klan as a good thing.

A couple of teachers who edit newsletters in their local areas asked me to write an article about fighting the Klan. They printed it. In my new school, people asked me to run for chapter chairman. A page in the yearbook was saved for me in that school. Two gang leaders there told me if I had any problems, I should call on them. In the building where I live people were surprised and amazed. They were very kind in their discussions.

I went to the shop where I had bought my shoes two weeks before to buy a pair of shoelaces (the police had given me the wrong ones when I was released). When the shop owner discovered I was one of the people who smacked the Klan, he gave me the laces for free and told me to hit another one so he could give me another pair. Around Christmas, I went to a demonstration against slave labor. Several people (old and young) came out of the crowd and shook my hand, saying they recognized me and thought what we had done was wonderful.

I am still receiving "pounds" (punch/love-taps) from the students I see every day. Sometimes I meet former students from my old school on the train or elsewhere. They always come over to shake my hand, and talk about the Klan Klobbering. Most of the time I give them PLP literature and other articles about the anti-Klan action.

All three of us wrote to friends and relatives asking for donations to our legal defense fund. The response was overwhelming. It just about covered our expenses. Friends of mine who live in other countries and had seen me on television phoned each other from one country to another to talk about what happened.

At Christmas I was invited to the house of the son of an old comrade who has retired to Florida. When I was about to leave, the son made a speech to his 60 guests about the Progressive Labor Party, the anti-racist action of his friend and how wonderful it was. Children who live in his building, with whom I had actively worked for many years, and who had come many times to May Day, are now teenagers and older. A crowd of them grabbed and hugged me and cheered. It didn't seem to stop.

It is our Party's view that our friends judge us by how we lead our lives. As a communist and anti-racist, and I have always tried to organize for the PLP. I have always tried to treat my co-workers with dignity and respect. For every small act I've been part of, I've received back 10,000-fold.

Long live the struggle to smash racism. Long live the working class. Fight for communism.

A Brooklyn comrade

HITLER'S CLONE HAIDER'S TAKEOVER THREATENS EUROPEAN BOSSES BLOC

The formation of a coalition government in Austria between fascist Jörg Haider's Freedom Party and the Conservative Party shows once again that although the Nazis lost World War II, fascism is not dead. The reason? Capitalism and fascism are birds of a feather.

There are several important points behind the rise of this fascist-directed coalition government:

* Even though the new coalition government kicked out the Social Democrats, which, along with the Conservative Party, ran Austria since WWII, Haider's policies differ little from those of the Social Democrats. The term "Überfremdung" ("too many foreigners"), taken from the Hitler's Third Reich, is used by Haider to attack immigrants. But before Haider, the Social-Democratic Mayor of Vienna used it. Though Haider has praised the Nazis' SS Waffen as "men with honor," he "is not the first Austrian politician to court the Nazi vote. Several members of the government of Bruno Kreisky, Austria's most respected post-war chancellor, were former Nazis." (Financial Times, 2/6-7) In the 1980's, Kurt Waldheim, former UN head, became Austria's Prime Minister although by then it was well-known he served in Hitler's SS.

* The 14 countries of the European Union want to isolate the new Austrian government, not because of its openly fascist outlook, but because Haider is more like Le Pen in France and Buchanan in the U.S., who represent nationalist capitalist forces against globalization. They threaten the formation of a European capitalist bloc aiming to compete with the U.S capitalist bloc.

* Finally, an important historical lesson: Austria, like many other Western European countries, has never really dealt with its Nazi past. One million Austrian soldiers (of a total 1941 adult population of about five million) served in Hitler's war machine. Nazi SS Colonel Adolph Eichmann, who headed Hitler's "final solution" of exterminating the Jewish population, ran that mass murder from Vienna. Yet, after the war, the Western capitalist countries treated Austria not as a Nazi ally but as a victim of the Nazis. In 1938, Austria joined Hitler's Third Reich voluntarily.

Austria may have been the most prominent case of allying with Hitler's Germany, but basically big sections of the ruling class in the major capitalist countries (Vichy France, Mussolini's Italy, parts of the British ruling class and royal family) were "fifth columnists," meaning they sided with the Nazis. Top U.S. bankers and industrialists met with their German counterparts in "neutral" Switzerland during WWII. Only the communist-led Soviet Union was able to crush their own fifth columnists before the war, and therefore defeat the Nazis, while nearly all of Western Europe became part of the Third Reich.

Our final lesson is: destroy capitalism and its creation, fascism, once and for all. The international working class must finish what the Soviet Red Army started during WWII. That means fighting for communism. That's what PLP fights for today. Join us!

"They Shall Not Pass...."

(The following article was written by a PLP comrade who is a World War II veteran and was a participant in the events described below.)

When I was discharged from the Army after World War II, I was recruited into the Communist Party (CP). After a stint in the American Labor Party, (a CP-led left-wing electoral party), the CP assigned me to join the Jewish War Veterans (JWV). The JWV CP club was small. However, two exceptional mass workers more than compensated for its size. The other four club members, including myself, were modestly active. My main task seemed to be driving the others around to their destinations.

Soon we were planning for a JWV national convention in Atlantic City, NJ. The main issue was the rearming of West Germany. U.S. rulers wanted West Germany to play a crucial role in stopping and rolling back the advances of the Soviet Union in the late Forties and early Fifties.

Our club decided to focus on preventing the JWV from adopting a resolution endorsing the rearmament of West Germany. An important part of the ruling class's strategy was to get the JWV--whose members were both Jewish and veterans--to approve this resolution, which might influence many beyond the JWV to support the rulers' goals.

Our CP club worked long and hard to win convention delegates to vote against the resolution. Led by our twin aces, we covered every JWV post in the country, and all the leading activists in these posts. Given that there were over 1,000 posts, this was a huge job.

By the time the convention began, we had a plan and had done some spade work. The U.S. State Department got the-then famous Admiral "Bull" Halsey to address the convention in order to win delegates to pass the resolution. Although Halsey was a "war hero," his speech backing the resolution fell on deaf ears. Panicked by this defeat, the State Department dug up what they figured was their "ace-in-the-hole" to get their Nazi resolution passed. That very night they flew the U.S. High Commissioner for West Germany, John J. McCloy (a Rockefeller investment banker), over from Europe to address the convention.

When McCloy was introduced and began to speak, many delegates stood up and, according to our plan, raised their right arms with clenched fists and started shouting the Hitlerite slogan, "Sieg Heil!" Soon all 3,000 delegates were on their feet joining in with the Nazi salute. Needless to say, the resolution to re-arm West Germany got nowhere.

This occurred on a Saturday. On Sunday, the New York Times ran a front-page picture of the delegates giving McCloy the Nazi salute.

Our club, within the limits of the its weak political line, had accomplished its mission. The hard work, the connections, the base-building paid off. Being in the right place at the right time can succeed when linking the mood of the masses to the work of the Party.

LETTERS

UNION HACK: `LOBBY';
UNION RED: `FIGHT'

Recently my union held a training session for new delegates (stewards). I am a long-time delegate, but as my wife was elected for the first time this year I went with her. The training was mostly about grievances, but in the morning some of the union's officers addressed the delegates.

A lot of it was pretty dry. Then the Vice-President for Legislative and Political Action decided to briefly explain how U.S. unions became involved in the political process. According to her at first it was illegal for unions to even exist, and throughout U.S. history, restrictive laws hamstrung Labor's attempts to organize. So U.S. labor leaders decided to organize workers to vote for candidates favorable to labor. Their success has resulted in all the gains that U.S. workers have won.

The VP concluded by emphasizing the importance of union members becoming involved in the political (read electoral) process. Her viewpoint was seconded with considerable enthusiasm by a number of delegates from the floor.

I decided I could not let her line go unchallenged. I took the floor to point out that the gains won by U.S. workers resulted from illegal strikes and insurrections, in which many workers fought and died. It was this violent struggle, and the threat of even more widespread struggle, that caused the bosses to grant some of the workers' demands.

The VP had mentioned that the big drug companies have been able to defeat any attempts at price controls because they give huge sums of money to both the Republican and Democratic parties. I jumped on this and questioned how much chance the unions had of winning many politicians to our side, since it is money that drives all political campaigns. I argued that our best hope for making gains was organizing to fight on the job and in the streets.

I received some applause, and learned later from another delegate that a number of people had been unhappy with the VP's one-sided presentation. They were glad I had spoken and agreed with much of what I said. However, whatever my reception, the importance of this training session is another example of labor's main line in this period: globalization and corporate greed are the main problems facing workers; the "answer" is to organize to vote for politicians friendly to labor.

Combating this rotten line on our jobs and at meetings like this is our repsonsibility. As we deepen our ties with fellow workers and activists, our response must go further to show that the main problem is the capitalist system itself, and that workers' problems cannot be solved until we destroy this entire system and replace it with communism.

Union Red

THE ABC'S OF PLP IN MLA

I'm mostly in agreement with S. Agonistes' analysis (CHALLENGE, Jan. 26 letter) of PLP's activities in the Modern Language Association (MLA). Here is a review of our communist activities and some ideas about how to improve our work at future MLA Conventions.

On the first official of this past convention, nother Chicago member and myself were responsible for organizing the mass distribution of Party and Party-friendly literature. We set up a table which included CHALLENGE, a flyer announcing an MLA session on "The Battle of Seattle: The Symbolic Action of Resistance," and a handout giving the reform and revolutionary side of the question. Many people were open to our ideas. We ran out of flyers and handouts and distributed 45 CHALLENGES within an hour.

At the Delegates Assembly meeting, in the discussion on Campus Bigotry--academic racism symbolized by the MLA's support of the Ezra Pound Society--a Party member raised the need to attack the academic racism in the MLA itself. (Ezra Pound was a poet who was convicted of treason for making anti-Jewish propaganda broadcasts for Mussolini fascism during World War II.)

Finally, for the first time in MLA history, we had a politically correct PLP session on the Battle of Seattle as symbolic action, featuring a steelworker who had gone to the anti-WTO union demonstrations. He presented a moving narrative of his experiences there. I spoke on the need for an explicit literature of revolution. We then had a lively discussion of the contradictions between reform and revolution, between literature and politics. One of the high points of the session was an open call for communist revolution by a young black high school student. Some 18 people took part.

Starting now, we must learn to use our limited resources in a better way: waging ideological struggle against the bosses' ideas in this, the world's biggest ideological organization: feminism, racism, multiculturalism, anti-communism (the Slavic Studies sessions), fascism (the Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot groups), etc.

Next year we must demonstrate against liberal bosses' mouthpieces like Noam Chomsky who was an honored guest at one of the MLA's special sessions. Chomsky pushes sociobiology. His "structural linguistics," crudely translated, means we have a gene for speaking and writing language. If you have poor language skills, it indicates you have poor genes. He also supports the rights of Holocaust "deniers" and is a vicious anti-Communist who defends capitalist evil by "critiquing" it.

We must circulate more Party literature. We spend too much energy preparing economist and reformist resolutions, watering them down to fit some of our friends' views, and then fighting to have them put on the agenda only to see them not voted on. We should join the general literature studies groups where ruling class ideas are raised. We should research the MLA Sessions book to locate exponents of the bosses' more openly Nazi ideas or their generally dangerous liberal ideas so we can organize against them. We must recruit more to PLP and to study-action groups.

This is the way to fight the bosses' control over the thoughts of English teachers, who are on the cutting edge of the ideological struggles going on in capitalist society.

Fight for communism; power to ALL workers.

Prof. Eric D. Redd, member, MLA

RED H.S.'ER TELLS ALL

I am a high school student at a school in Pennsylvania and I have some problems learning math. I read the article on math in CHALLENGE about how others have trouble too. This week the students were told that the teacher of the week was a math teacher. The announcement said that her favorite book of all times was "The God That Failed," which I learned was a bunch of essays from people against communism. Some students thought the book was about religion, and the teacher was saying "God failed." I thought that was funny. That book is hardly read by anyone. The annoucement also said that her favorite movie was "The Hunt for Red October," based on a book by Tom Clancey, who I read gives talks at the CIA.

Then they said her advice to students was to make your own choices to succeed or someone will make them for you. Then it all made sense. She was always giving me dirty looks. (I wear a hat with a red star on it.)

Last week she reported me to the office saying I had been grabbing girls in the hall and hit one on her butt. The letter was sent to my parents, and I was given detention. She tried to picture me as a sexual harrasser of girls. That is just crazy. She doesn't like me 'cause she is a fanatic anti-communist. No wonder people would have trouble learning from the old witch.

Also, a history teacher who saw my hat told me that his buddies died fighting people like me. I don't advocate communism in school but I raise questions and I make mostly good grades. I told him it wasn't a communist hat, and that was the truth 'cause I bought it at a record store in a mall.

These people are nuts in the head when it comes to communism. They don't call those who are racist and some with shaved heads Nazis and bother them. Just wanted to let this be known.

Student Against Capitalist Brainwashing

U.S. BOSSES `MOST' IMMORAL

There were many important issues raised in the letter from "Brooklyn PLP'er" (2/9) which commented on a January 12 editorial entitled "100 Years of American Holocaust. I will limit myself to only some of them:

The letter states that, "The U.S. established itself as the moral leader of the world in helping to smash fascism." Yet, in fact, the letter also refers to the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, which the editorial noted killed (along with the Nagasaki bombing) 250,000 Japanese civilians, at a time when Japan was already negotiating to surrender. Even U.S. generals (Eisenhower, Marshall) said it was unnecessary. Many Western historians have agreed the U.S. dropped these bombs as a warning to the Soviet Union to "toe the line" in the post-war world. One could argue this atrocity was possibly the most immoral act ever committed.

The letter says "the alliance of the Soviet Union with the U.S." and the West "was not even mentioned." Actually it was referred to in the editorial in the sense that this "alliance" was peculiarly one-sided. That is, the U.S. and the West did all it could to push Hitler to the East to destroy Soviet socialism, postponed a Second Front in Western Europe for two years in the hope that Hitler and the Soviets would kill each other off, and re-Nazified Germany immediately after the war ended (as well as the above-mentioned "warning" via the A-bomb). The fact that the Soviets and the West were fighting a common enemy militarily occurred only because Hitler went West before he went East, double-crossing the U.S., Britain and France.

Thirdly, "Brooklyn PLP'er" says "fascism was destroyed." The combination of the re-installation of Nazi Party members in positions of power in West Germany, the use of Nazis by the West to combat the post-war USSR, the emergence of fascism in many countries around the world--Chile, Argentina (two nations to which the U.S. and Britain helped many Nazis to flee), Central America, South Africa, the U.S. attempt to enslave Vietnam, the current pro-fascist wave in France (LePen), Germany (Nazis marching in Berlin), Austria (Hai supposedly der), Italy (the pro-Mussolini descendents), the forced labor pressed upon hundreds of thousands of the 2,000,000 prisoners in U.S. jails---all this would indicate fascism is alive and kicking in the world today.

The letter writer makes a good point in saying we need to constantly explain the different "look" of fascism in the U.S. as compared to Germany. Other questions raised in the letter (the "destruction of certain peoples," the leadership role of the Soviet working class and Red Army in World War II) have have been dealt with in many issues of CHALLENGE over the past few years.

Retired Brooklyn PLP'er

Y2K RX = NG

I want to add something to the January 19 letter on Y2K. As the writer stated, the problem arose because programmers in the ' 60s and '70s used only the last two digits to indicate the year (65 instead of 1965). This was done to save computer memory which was very expensive then. But "expensive" is a capitalist notion. Computers developed under communism would have no such thing as "high prices" for anything or even prices at all!

Furthermore, programmers knew using only the last two digits of a year would eventually cause a problem. Some very authoritative articles in the mid-1980's made this even clearer. So the idea that "no one knew about Y2k" is pure baloney. But once the capitalists had invested their money in incorrect software, they were scared to be the first (or only) ones to change it because: (1) the problem wouldn't show up for quite some time, and (2) the money spent now to correct the problem might put them out of business!

So the capitalists took their usual course of action: wait until the last minute, declare a "national emergency," be sure that everyone was in the same boat so that no (dis)advantage would result from making the changes, and get "the government" (that is, the working class's taxes) to pay for a lot of the upgrades.

However, most people don't realize that the "solution" used by virtually all large companies was not a permanent one. To really solve the Y2K problem large databases had to be redesigned to be consistent with a four-digit year. In most cases, this was again determined to be "too expensive" and only in exceptional cases were such changes made.

To make all two-digit years act as if four-digit years were being used, a method, known as windowing was employed. The century was divided into two segments, one from 2000 to 2030 and the other from 2031 to 2099. This so-called fix will create another Y2K crisis in 2030 and we can be sure that, once again, "government" funds will be used to correct it.

Thus the Y2K crisis is a purely capitalist one. Its incorrect solution under capitalism is part of the very same problem. This doesn't even deal with the fact that most of the errors that would have occurred were again purely capitalist ones: incorrect dates on bills, erroneous insurance calculations, etc.

Once again, capitalism proves itself incapable of dealing with even a relatively simple situation.

Pennsylvania Reader

HURRICANE'S POLITICS LED TO FRAME UP

In the CHALLENGE (2/2), I wrote a review of the movie "The Hurricane." Because I was attempting to criticize the distortions of the movie, I didn't fully acknowledge that the boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter had been a radical and powerful voice in the '60s, calling for self-defense against cop killings, as well as an active supporter of anti-apartheid fighters, including the murdered Steve Biko. Carter's was a vocal and strong voice, and this was certainly the main reason he was attacked, arrested, framed, and kept in jail for over 20 years. I apologize for the oversight.