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.

 

1. DOCKERS REBEL
   Black and White Longshoreman Battle 600 Cops
2. Red Leadership = Put Workers on Road to Revolution
   Dockers Rock Class Struggle Rolls
3. Ecuador: Presidential Musical Chairs Plays Bosses' Tune, Diverts Mass Uprising
   1. PLP Red Flags Raised During Mass Struggle
4. Taking State Power = Key to Workers' Victory
5. Racist Research a Smokescreen for Liberals Attacks on Youth
   1. Racist-Based Research, Isolated From Society
6. CHALLENGE Sparks Debate Among L.A. Garment Workers
7. Welfare "Reform" Hits Workers Too; Alliance Needed
   1. THE WELFARE SQUEEZE
8. Salvador Strikers Must Organize Against Boss-Union Gang-up
9. Brooklynn Hospital Workers Sick of Bosses' Layoff Disease
10. Truth Swept Away in `Hurricane' of Lies
    `The Hurricane' and the Injustice System
11. French Bosses Dre$$ing Leaves Bad Taste in Rocky's Mouth
12. UNAM Stikers Must Break with all Bosses
13. AOL-Time Warner: Old Money.Com
14. Letters
    1. Red Parent Gives Bosses Principle an "F"
    2. Go Postal Against Racist Conditions
    3. In Memory of Charles T. Morris 1927-1999

---

DOCKERS REBEL
Black and White Longshoreman Battle 600 Cops

CHARLESTON, South Carolina, Jan. 21 -- A multi-racial rebellion of 600 black and white longshoremen sent three cops to the hospital here yesterday when the workers fought 600 police protecting 20 scabs who were working the jobs of union dockers. For several hours in the early morning of January 20, this city's waterfront resembled a battlefield as workers hurled everything they could lay their hands on at the bosses' cops and state troopers. Eight workers were arrested for "trespassing."

The dispute leading up to yesterday's rebellion has been simmering for years, from Charleston to Houston, New Orleans, Baltimore and other southern ports. Stevedoring outfits were offering scabs to shipping companies at lower-than-union rates to load and unload cargo. Union members in the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) here had deep fears their jobs were threatened. Finally they decided to take direct action.

Starting last month, a Danish shipping firm, the Nordana Line, contracted for scabs to unload its ships. Members of ILA Local 1422 have been working Nordana's ships for 22 years and had even given concessions to keep its work. But now Nordana was refusing to negotiate over its use of scabs.

Then, on January 2, union longshoremen stormed the terminal where a Nordana Line ship was docked, overturning equipment and roughing up some scabs, forcing the ship to leave early without its full cargo. By January 19, with another Nordana ship headed into port, the situation boiled over.

At 5:00 P.M. on Wednesday, the 19th, a force of 600 city cops, State troopers, deputies from the Charleston County Sheriff's Office and the departments of two other near-by cities began assembling at the State Port Authority terminal where a Nordana ship was slated to dock. Buses filled with cops followed by armored vehicles passed through terminal gates. A helicopter circled overhead. More than 200 of the cops wearing riot helmets and carrying clear plastic shields and long wooden clubs formed a line along the terminal entrance.

As the cops waited, 1,000 longshoremen held a closed-door meeting at 6:00 P.M. in their union hall near-by. Many declared they "were fighting for their jobs."

An hour later the Danish freighter Nordana Skodsborg appeared, and 20 scabs went aboard to start working. Soon two union pickets appeared in front of the 200 cops guarding the terminal.

At midnight, 600 longshoremen returned to the union hall for another "meeting." Soon they were streaming out, moving towards the terminal chanting, "ILA! ILA! ILA!" and carrying signs, bottles and wooden clubs. They marched right up to the line of 200 cops, inches away, waving signs and shouting threats.

Immediately a hailstorm of rocks, bricks, logs, and other missiles rained down on the cops. The Police Captain was hit by a railroad tie and sent to the hospital for seven stitches. At 12:15 A.M., the dockers knocked over a police floodlight, plunging the area into darkness. While the police helicopter circled with its spotlight, the rebellious workers continued their barrage.

Then two State Highway Patrol squad cars were driven directly into the rear of the crowd of angry longshoremen, dropping shock grenades and slamming into one worker. The other squad car was pelted with debris. At 12:45 the cops ordered the crowd to disperse or be arrested. They fired guns containing bean-like projectiles at the retreating workers, although some held fast and overturned a TV van. The cops then fired tear gas, moving the workers back to the union hall. By then the rebellion had ended, and at 7:00 A.M. the Nordana ship was loaded and sailed.

While the workers had failed to halt the scabs, they did put the ruling class of Charleston on notice that they would no longer take the robbing of their jobs by scabs lying down. Expecting the workers' challenge, South Carolina Attorney-General Condon answered back with the fascist announcement of what he described would be "a comprehensive plan for dealing with dock workers' violence" that involves "jail, jail and more jail." He said "union members who don't like our right-to-work laws" will not be allowed to "riot in the streets."

But as one union longshoreman who has worked the docks for six years told the Charleston Post-Courier, "This is not the first time jobs have been chiseled away from us. Something has to be done."

Editorial

Red Leadership = Put Workers on Road to Revolution
Dockers Rock Class Struggle Rolls

There are many lessons to be learned from the multi-racial rebellion of 600 longshoremen in Charleston, SC. One is that the class struggle, the life and death conflict between bosses and workers, between those who own everything and those who produce everything, rages daily. No matter how much the bosses blabber about "good times" and record profits, the real bottom line is that their enormous wealth comes directly from their ability to squeeze more and more out of the working class. The South Carolina State Attorney-General said it plain, that "union members who don't like our right-to-work laws," will face "jail, jail and more jail."

They always try to obscure the class struggle, up to and including the recent march of 50,000 against the racist Confederate flag in Charleston. The open racist politicians refer to this flag of slavery as "white heritage." The liberals opposing the flag are hypocritically trying to turn the masses' anti-racist sentiments into votes for Gore & Co. This is the same crew that ended welfare, filled the prisons with black men (to become slave laborers) and have launched dozens of military strikes around the world to advance U.S. imperialism. The dockworkers, perhaps somewhat inspired by the recent march against racism, have turned the spotlight back on the class nature of society. Black and white workers, fighting black and white cops, led by a black police chief!

Another lesson is, there are limits to everything. While the bosses literally get away with murder, this won't last forever. The Charleston dockworkers prove again that the working class is filled with anger, capable of rocking the bosses and their cops, and is open to much more, including the building of a mass revolutionary movement for communist revolution.

The fact that the bosses continually commit their crimes does not mean they have won the working class to all their plans. Although they have a huge arsenal and can kill a lot of people, they haven't overcome the "Vietnam Syndrome." They fear they may have an unreliable army that is leery about fighting, as well as a working class that has to be threatened or bribed with temporary or shallow improvements, to be taken away at a later date. When workers realize this, often they choose to fight back, many times massively. This is the history of the working class throughout the world. Just look at some of the larger events in only the last third of this century, even just here in the U.S.

* In Newport News, VA. In 1967, 15,000 black and white shipbuilding workers took over the waterfront in a mass rebellion for a decent contract and against the blood-sucking merchant/loan sharks who were bleeding them dry.

* Pick-ups in their fight for equal treatment against the racist city bosses, scabs, cops and the National Guard.

* In 1970, a quarter million black and white postal workers shut down most mail delivery from New York to San Francisco, defying Nixon's wage freeze and forcing him to call out the National Guard.

* In Detroit in 1973, 200 black and white autoworkers, led by the Workers Action Movement and PLP, organized the first sit-down strike since the 1930's, fighting unsafe conditions at Chrysler's Mack Avenue plant.

* In Washington, D.C., in 1978, over 1,000 rank-and-file miners, representing tens of thousands on a nation-wide strike, seized their national union headquarters, demanding ouster of their sellout president.

* In New York City, in 1980, 30,000 black and white transit workers struck all subway and bus transportation, bringing the city to a halt in fighting for a decent contract

* In 1989, 25,000 rank-and-file miners in ten states wildcatted to back striking Pittston miners fighting benefit cut-offs of retired and disabled miners and scabs stealing their jobs. They burned scab trucks, exploded company offices, surrounded company buildings with thugs inside and defied federal injunctions.

* In Los Angeles in 1990, hundreds of mostly Latin janitors fought attacking L.A. cops in a struggle to defeat the bosses' contracting-out swindle.

Now this century begins with the dockers' rebellion in Charleston. Workers are still choosing the option of fighting back. But an essential ingredient has been missing in these mass working-class struggles: turning them into a revolutionary solution to our class's problems. We saw a glimmer of that in the recent election of a PLP member to the executive board of San Francisco MUNI transit workers as their contract approaches. But all these struggles, while heroic and directed against a variety of ruling class forces, are still attempts to change conditions within the bosses' profit system, capitalism. Unfortunately, this keeps workers on the treadmill of reform. Holding state power, the bosses always find a way to wipe out these reforms.

We need to opt for the revolutionary solution--overthrow of this oppressive system and its replacement by communism, led by the communist PLP. There has never been, nor will there ever be, anything else that will end bosses, profits, sellouts and a wage system that forever keeps the workers of the world in all levels of misery. Then and only then will the working class determine what to produce and how to share according to need.

If we are to have a more significant impact on a rising wave of struggle that Charleston may be signaling, we must be more deeply immersed in the unions, churches and other mass organizations, so we can lead more class struggle while fighting for the political leadership of the working class.

Ecuador: Presidential Musical Chairs Plays Bosses' Tune, Diverts Mass Uprising

QUITO, Ecuador, Jan. 25 -- This past weekend witnessed a mass uprising led by the indigenous group CONAIE, supported by military officers. Thousands of workers, peasants and youth, most of them Indians, took over the Congress when the soldiers protecting the politicians inside sided with the protestors. The politicians fled like chickens and the protestors formed a new government: a triumvirate formed by a colonel (later replaced by a general), a lawyer and a CONAIE leader. The triumvirate called for President Mahuad's resignation. A few hours later, General Mendoza, after talking with the U.S., betrayed the other two, sided with the Military High Command and deposed the Junta. They then forced Mahuad to resign and named Vice-President Noboa President.

Ecuador, like many other countries in Latin America, is ripe for revolution. The 12 million people here Ecuador can no longer live in the old way. The country is on the verge of hyper-inflation, the average wage is under $10 a month, throwing most people into abject poverty, and it has had six different governments in three years. But a REAL revolution--to overthrow capitalism--needs a mass communist party. That is the missing ingredient in Ecuador.

All this might be an acute, but not unique, example of what is happening in most of the world today. It is a direct result of the crisis of overproduction, which sharpens the capitalist-imperialist dogfight over who is going to control the world's markets, cheap labor and natural resources (especially oil).

Oil is Ecuador's main export. Overproduction has kept oil prices low for several years (until recently when its main producers agreed to curtail production by about five million barrels a day). For Ecuador this has meant billions in lost revenues, drastic cuts in social services, high unemployment and hyper-inflation. To make matters worse, the European Union (EU) has barred imports of Ecuadorian bananas, the country's second main export. This is also because of overproduction (the EU can get more than enough bananas from its ex-colonies) as well as a reflection of inter-imperialist rivalry: U.S. companies own Ecuador's bananas.

The political in-fighting is also a product of the rivalry between the U.S. and EU imperialists for control of Latin America. Deposed Harvard-educated President Jamil Mahuad was a U.S. lackey. He favored imposing the U.S.-controlled IMF austerity programs (to bleed the workers dry to pay U.S. bankers). He also wanted to privatize the government-run industries (oil, electricity, mining, etc.) so the U.S. bosses could buy them cheaply, and he made the U.S. dollar the country's currency (which helps U.S. bosses compete against the Euro).

The organizers of the first coup represent those Ecuadorian bosses who want to ally with European imperialists. Colonel Lucio Gutierrez, Antonio Vargas and Carlos Solorzano were the original triumvirate that deposed Mahuad. Gutierrez represents the middle officers of the armed forces who are populists and nationalists (anti-U.S.) like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. They are against U.S.-pushed neo-liberalism, and sympathize with the reformist indigenous and workers movements.

Antonio Vargas, the leader of the indigenous movement CONANIE, is against the IMF, privatization and the "dollarization" of the currency. Izquierda Democratica (a social democracy party) supports the demands of the indigenous movement.

But this movement is no threat to capitalism. The leaders are using the just aspirations of the Indian masses and anti-racist forces to pursue their personal goals and those of the bosses. As Vargas puts it: "We don't demand anything; all we want is to change the country....eliminating all the corruption that exists. We are an absolutely pacifist movement and I think that thanks to it, a civil war was averted. We never attacked private property....[and] will show that the people could get power without voting and without violence, thanks to their will expressed in the streets."

The second coup saw the U.S. bosses recouping their lost ground. With threats of isolating the new regime and the backing of the armed forces' high command, they installed Vice-President Gustavo Noboa as President. Noboa will continue implementing Mahuad's program, especially his "dollarization."

U.S. bosses have temporarily recovered the upper hand here. But the situation is very fragile. Two factors will certainly intensify: the anger and hatred of the masses, and the inter-imperialist dogfight. Ecuador's problems are not unique. Peru's are similar. Venezuela is drifting further away from the U.S., and so is war-torn Colombia. Ecuador and Peru are crucial to the U.S. bosses' plans to invade Colombia, if need be. Both are proving to be very unreliable. This might force the U.S. to go it alone. This is a sharpening situation.

Instability and capitalists' desperation do not bode well for the working class. No imperialists or capitalists, be they European, Asian, Latin or U.S., will benefit the working class. No politicians or pseudo-revolutionaries, be they Gutierrez, Vargas, Mancayo or Chavez, can lead the working class to its liberation.

PLP Red Flags Raised During Mass Struggle

The PLP grouping here participated in the protests led by the indigenous group, organizing a student march in solidarity with the struggle against the rulers and calling for communism as the only solution. We raised our red flags in the mobilizations around the university, attacking all forms of capitalism (free market and otherwise), in spite of being attacked by opportunist reformist forces for openly raising the fight for communism.

The PLP grouping here has a huge task ahead of it. We can and must grow in the middle of this deepening crisis and provide the missing ingredient workers and peasants need to get out of this living capitalist hell: communist revolution.

Taking State Power = Key to Workers' Victory

QUITO, Jan. 26 -- The PLP in Ecuador participated in the Indigenous-led revolt which shook this country last week (see adjoining article). These are the lessons we've learned, which apply to workers, peasants, soldiers and students worldwide:

* Capitalism is falling apart everywhere, but it won't collapse unless we build a mass communist movement to bury it.

* The bosses' armies are not as faithful to capitalism as it may appear; many soldiers can be won to fight for a workers' society.

* Only a mass, armed revolutionary struggle can establish a new social order benefiting the interests of workers and peasants. We must never negotiate with the class enemy. If we don't take power when we can, we lose.

* The mass media are tied lock, stock and barrel to the capitalists; they lie and distort our struggles to favor their masters.

* By themselves, the Indigenous people (30% of the population) cannot achieve emancipation. They need the support of the rest of the working class. The hammer and the sickle represents the unity of workers from the cities and the countryside.

* Communist revolution is the only road towards workers' emancipation.

* It doesn't matter how many times the bosses change presidents or economic models under capitalism, workers will always be exploited as long as the bosses rule.

* The so-called democracy of capitalism is actually the class rule of the bosses. It can never act for the majority of people.

* Only when the working class led by a communist party leads the revolutionary movement will we achieve emancipation for our entire class.

* Only a communist society--where production is geared to the needs of the masses of people--can benefit the interests of workers and peasants.

* We need an international mass communist movement, uniting workers, students and soldiers of all ethnic groups and countries, to free us from

the living hell of capitalism.

Racist Research a Smokescreen for Liberals Attacks on Youth

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 24 -- Candida's and Jose's daughter, Maria, went to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center here complaining of being tired. She ended up in a panic disorder study at New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). Researchers promised her $75 and a counselor if she "helped" them in a study. Maria, who has no history of psychiatric disorders, waited two months for the counselor's name.

Researchers didn't send consent forms in Spanish, though Candida and Jose speak very little English. They obtained Candida's consent by phone, then signed her name on the consent form. The mother, who was at work, requested that the lab part of the test be postponed until she could be there. But she was told that they wanted to complete the test in one day so that her daughter wouldn't miss school. Maria was then surprised and frightened when she was subjected to a 15-minute "carbon dioxide" test to see how quickly she would panic. Researchers were studying the "association between abnormalities of ventilatory physiology and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents."

The article about the study, titled "Ventilatory Physiology of Children and Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders," was published in February 1998. The first name listed among the researchers is none other than Daniel Pine, one of the NYSPI researchers (together with Gail Wasserman) of the fenfluramine study on 6-10-year-old black and Latin boys. Under "Subjects and Methods" the authors write: 15 children or adolescents without psychiatric histories "were recruited to the study through advertisements." "Subjects were evaluated through parent interviews by one of three clinicians..." All subjects and their parents were then "clinically interviewed by one of three child psychiatrists..." During the carbon dioxide challenge "parents remained in adjacent rooms..." Proper procedure, slick, but all lies in Maria's case and probably in others.

Racist-Based Research, Isolated From Society

Many of the researchers at NYSPI, located in the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center complex, are from Columbia University. This institution, heavily backed by the Rockefellers, is a bastion of liberal education. It presents one-sided, racist or lying conclusions, like: 20% of children in the U.S. are mentally ill during sometime in their lifetimes. Violence, aggression and hyperactivity are primarily biologically or genetically determined. Medication and therapy are preferable but medication alone is preferable to therapy alone.

Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center has instituted clinics and "teen screens" in the public schools in NYC, mainly in the largely latin and black District 6 in Upper Manhattan and in high schools in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. NYSPI's Dr. Timothy Walsh patronizingly speaks of their "obligation to help the community" and the "strong support of people in the community." Those people are mainly school administrators and some local politicians and professors.

To some degree, the clinics and surveys provide basic health services. But other aspects are dangerous for the working class. One is mass "diagnoses" of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in children. When Juana's son, Roberto, was "diagnosed" with ADHD she protested and wanted information before putting him on the widely prescribed drug, ritalin. The counselor in his elementary school in District 6 then threatened to call child services to report her for child endangerment. Afraid, Juana complied. Since then she has investigated her child's needs and is ready to speak out about how she was treated. She has contacted local activists.

Teen screens, or surveys, in high schools are also being used to "identify" students with so-called violent, aggressive or negative disorders. One Bronx high school student, whose only "behavioral disorder" was that he didn't pass two classes, was referred to a study at NYSPI. Teachers at that school protested, the "teen screen" was dropped for the moment and the father angrily removed his son from the proposed study at NYSPI.

Activists in NYC have been protesting these studies for a number of years, pointing out the bogus science involved, the racist nature of the research, the abuse of consent and the danger to the subjects. We have spoken at a number of organizations and churches. On January 16, parishioners at a NYC church debated the issues following a service at which one activist was the speaker. On February 14 we will speak at the social justice group of a large church. We are building support in District 6 and have been asked to speak at a leadership meeting of PTA presidents in the district and at a local PTA meeting in an elementary school.

Communist members of the Progressive Labor Party are consistently giving leadership. We point out the fascist nature of the studies and why liberal institutions are their main backers. We insist on relying on the working class to fight back. We go to legislative hearings and court cases. But we warn that it is a dangerous illusion to believe that the new rules and legislation currently being proposed in Congress and backed by institutions like NYSPI and Columbia University will protect research subjects. Fascism can present itself cloaked in liberal sentiment and design. We discover its content in the stories of Maria, Roberto and the Bronx high school teenager. These children and their families, as well as other workers and professionals, are now acquainted with the PLP. They are learning the value of communist leadership and why the working class must one day destroy capitalism with its racism and fascism.

CHALLENGE Sparks Debate Among L.A. Garment Workers

LOS ANGELES, CA -- When the bell rings at 7:30 AM, work officially begins at Jeans Inc. a garment factory. Some workers, facing the worst conditions and dreaming of big fortunes have already been doing piece-work for an hour. Those who now arrive at the official starting time find no work and must wait for more to be parceled out. The foreman and his assistant don't organize a sharing of the work, nor do they care about those who arrive on time. Their only concern is guaranteeing the profits and orders of the boss.

During breaks you can routinely see small groups of workers in the parking lot. At first we only focused on jokes, personal comments and sports in one of these groups. As some months passed, the discussions became more political; communist ideas began sparking big debates. Who said workers aren't interested in communist ideas? If they could see how long and emotional these discussions are!

"We workers are the creators of all the wealth, even though we're poor," said a PLP comrade. "That's true, but we don't have anything because we're stupid," answered Joaquin with a cynical tone. "No, friend, poverty is created by capitalism," another worker replied. This was the start of a long discussion.

Days later the comrade brought copies of the CHALLENGE editorial which detailed the millions of deaths caused by U.S. imperialism during the past century. He told them to read it slowly and they'd talk about it afterwards.

The next day the discussion continued. "This article only talks about the deaths caused by this country, not the others," said Carlos referring to the other imperialists. The PLP'ers agreed that all bosses are murderers, that only a communist society can change things. "We need a society without money or borders, where production will be based on the needs of the workers and not profits, since these are the things that cause wars which kill workers."

Manuel, who was listening attentively, said, "This is kind of crazy." "No," Carlos interrupted him, "I think it's intelligent. The only thing is it's negative. What you have to do is think about yourself and your kids and stop going around defending others who in the end won't appreciate it." Another worker commented, "No, he has an ideal, and with this ideal, it's possible to do anything."

These political discussions have united us more as workers and have created the opportunity to distribute more CHALLENGES. Now these discussions are planned and sought out. The comrade constantly brings in articles from the bosses' papers and from CHALLENGE, which will tend to spark discussion and debate. The next step toward recruiting these workers to PLP and communist revolution is to invite them to march on May Day, May 6, in San Francisco.

Welfare "Reform" Hits Workers Too; Alliance Needed

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 24 -- U.S. bosses have a plan to win workers here to patriotic support for their imperialist aims. Their main tactic is to aim workers' anger over sweatshops, prison labor and the poisoning of the environment everywhere but inside the U.S. In that way, the ruling class--which has murdered and enslaved more workers than any other imperialist--hopes to win our hearts and minds.

PLP has a plan as well. We want to fight against the politics of accommodation with the growing threats of war and fascism in the unions and increase the level of struggle against the bosses' attacks. In that process, we can unmask the liberal politicians and their friends in the mass movements and prove them to be the main front for the bosses' goal: fascism and war. We need to relate big issues like world war and fascism to the nuts and bolts of union contracts and to the policies we're ordered to carry out on our jobs.

In NYC, the contracts of some 300,000 city workers are about to expire. Workers are angry after a five-year pact that allowed racist Mayor Giuliani to replace 20,000 union-rate city jobs with slave labor Workfare. Some 40,000 men and women are being forced to work off their welfare grants. That contract froze workers' wages and benefits for two years and enacted give-backs. Workers see danger in the mass removal of needy families from public assistance rolls. The billion-dollar surplus in the city coffers comes directly from these attacks on the working class.

Angry workers didn't want to knuckle under to these attacks. For example, teachers in the UFT voted down a tentative contract. AFSCME DC 37 workers did as well. However, the leadership of the 120,000-member district council rigged the vote count and declared the contract "ratified." Without a strong communist-led movement in the unions, the bosses and their junior-partner union leaders had their way.

Communists need to give leadership in these contract fights. Workers don't want to forgo pay raises to fill up the bosses' war chests. They don't want their social service jobs to be used to force the homeless and unemployed into slave labor Workfare programs. Communists can unite with other workers around these issues. We can start by building strike committees in the offices and schools where we work. We can propose union-wide strike mobilization committees in our unions and/or in union caucuses. We can fight for contract proposals to end Workfare, prohibit below-union wage interim job proposals, and protect workers who refuse to sanction or illegally close welfare cases. Within union Political Action Committees we can build the fight against New York State's Taylor Law which makes any strike by government workers illegal. We can explain why this is a fascist law and why the demopublican politicians and union leaders want it.

Communists in the PLP have long understood that in schools, welfare offices, city hospitals, etc., government workers must unite with the working class people they serve. Be it teachers and students, welfare workers and clients, hospital workers and patients-in this class unity is the power to defeat the bosses. Nowhere is the need for this unity clearer than in the "welfare industry" where an attack on welfare clients is also an attack on welfare workers. If the figures in the adjoining box make it clear that these new and harsher measures have been affecting NYC welfare clients, then mass layoffs (which are hitting New Jersey welfare workers in Essex County) are likely to affect NYC welfare workers soon.

Before World War II, when the Nazis were building fascism in Germany, the civil servants played a pivotal role. They enforced racist fascist laws, bought into the bosses' ideology and sent their sons to willingly fight and die for fascism. Workers in the U.S. can make a different choice. With leadership from the PLP, we can become a bastion of struggle against the bosses' fascistic attacks. We can start fighting for our class needs by joining together to march with our international brothers and sisters on May Day, and by joining the PLP in building a Red Army to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a communist society.

THE WELFARE SQUEEZE

In 1994, 14.5% of all welfare clients sought fair hearings because they felt unfairly treated by NYC's Human Resources Administration; 89% of such hearings were won by clients that year. By 1999, 44.9% of welfare caseloads sought fair hearings and still 83% won their appeals. In 1993, 27.3% of new applicants were rejected for assistance. In 1999, this had risen to 51.7%. Finally, welfare rolls in NYC dropped from 1.1 million to 600,000 in the last five years. Of this number perhaps 70% were children (NYC Management Reports, 1999).

Salvador Strikers Must Organize Against Boss-Union Gang-up

SAN SALVADOR, -- "Señor Flores, don't fire my daddy!" exclaimed an eight-year-old child at the press conference of the 221 employees fired from the ISSS (Salvadoran Social Security Institute). But of course, his plea was ignored. For the bosses, workers are only part of their profit machinery; we're just commodities they hire and fire at their convenience. These 221 workers were fired because the bosses had personal differences with them and used the strike as the excuse to get rid of them.

It's been more than two months since the strike of 10,000 workers at Social Security began. The first demands were to follow the agreement signed on December 8, 1998, which promised a pay hike. The bosses have shown one more time they're at war against the working class. They'll sign a thousand agreements, and ignore them when it suits their class interests.

A little history: elections for union leadership had been scheduled for December 16, 1998. Oscar Aguilar (an anti-communist lieutenant of the bosses) had felt threatened by a new group of militant workers who opposed the openly sellout nature of the union. Aguilar's leadership group, planned, together with the boss, had planned to stop them.

Eight days before the election, Aguilar and the then Social Security Director, Dr. Castillo, announced a "big victory" for the union, a pay increase. And on the 16th,--surprise, surprise--Aguilar & Co. won the union election.

Then the new Social Security director of Social Security arrived, along with another surprise, the bosses had planned for the workers. The new director declared management had never signed any agreement for a pay increase. They no longer needed the support of the union, which had played its role of pacifying the workers.

Now, almost three months into the strike, a Social Security worker says, "The only thing that keeps me going in this struggle is the desire to get the fired workers their jobs back. The union leadership has sold out, and only used us to keep their jobs." It's hard to fight the cynicism that workers fall prey to because of these unions, but we must be clear that the unions are capitalist tools to keep the workers under their control.

The present Social Security director claimed that both the workers' union and the doctors' union have agreed to privatization in many documents. She says she's surprised that now they say they're against it.'

The workers and doctors of Social Security have carried on this reform struggle conscientiously, but have been led by sellout, pro-capitalist leadership. We must stop following that road, being easy prey for the bosses because of such traitorous leadership.

PLP has always supported workers' struggles but has always said the only solution to the crisis of capitalism is to fight for workers' rule, where there are no bosses. The agreements between unions and bosses are only one form of delivering the lives of the workers into the hands of the capitalists and their system of profit and exploitation.

Brooklynn Hospital Workers Sick of Bosses' Layoff Disease

BROOKLYN, NY, Jan. 24 - Last month at a Brooklyn hospital, over 200 workers marched to the Top Dog's office (CEO) declaring our refusal to accept even a single layoff. When he heard the workers were on their way, he became "invisible." But the message was clearly delivered to his secretary.

The bosses had listed 40 workers for layoffs. Their explanation? The hospital was in "financial trouble." In this case, the layoffs had nothing to do with Medicaid cuts, which were rescinded. It had everything to do with competition between hospitals for profits.

In this hospital, health care workers are told every day to take care of crowded wards and keep a safe and clean environment for the patients. A committee was established and leaflets were distributed informing the workers about the bosses' plan. So far, the committee has found jobs for some workers in other hospitals. The remaining workers threatened with layoffs were placed in other hospital departments.

Meanwhile, the Local 1199 union leadership was working jointly with the New York Hospital Association bosses to expand the Health Reform Act and bar any cuts for three years. However, this would not stop hospitals from laying off workers, merging or closing altogether. They're still capitalists, competing against each other for profits.

Despite "poverty" cries, the hospital CEO's got huge salary increases last year. To top it all, they're subcontracting work out and bringing in low-paid workers. That's where working jointly with the bosses gets you, a "promotion" to lieutenant of the capitalist class.

In the last few years the capitalist health care system faced many crises, with more to come. The federal Balanced Budget Act of 1997 included $3 billion in Medicare cutbacks to hospitals in New York State. The HMO's denied reimbursement for health care services, claiming that many were not medically necessary. The growing number of uninsured workers has passed 43 million.

The drive for profits and the competition between the hospitals, the insurance companies and the capitalist-run government places profits perilously above patients' needs.

But there is another alternative for the working class: fight to build a mass communist party in the 21st century to lead a communist revolution. Then we'll have a health care system for the entire working class without wages and profits.

Truth Swept Away in `Hurricane' of Lies
`The Hurricane' and the Injustice System

Almost every Hollywood movie is politically bad. Almost without exception the working class is shown as stupid, crooked, laughable, and/or immoral. So when a movie deals with racism and the U.S. "justice" system, hold on to your wallet.

A lot of people think "The Hurricane" is a good movie. As far as acting, photography, drama, it's okay. But this is supposed to be an historical political film, and using history and politics as measurements, the movie fails dismally. In fact, it's a lie.

Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, a ranking boxer in the 1960's, was arrested and convicted for murdering three people in Paterson, New Jersey. A young fan, a bystander, was also sentenced with Carter to life in prison.

I lived near Paterson then. Everyone knew the case was a frame-up. It was during the strongest period of civil rights and anti-imperialist war protest, and politically Carter was considered a pretty decent, outspoken guy. A perfect target for the cops.

Few believed he would ever get out. They knew the case was fixed against him, as it is against so many, especially young black men.

Through the years, Carter's lawyers got him a new trial and tried to appeal his convictions. After over 20 years, long after it was proven that the cops' "evidence" was manufactured and testimony was lied and paid for by the cops, it was too scandalous a case to be ignored. It had support from famous people like Bob Dylan. The convictions were overturned. Whatever other political considerations, it had become too embarrassing to ignore.

The Hurricane, though brings in alternative versions of these facts. In the film, several people from Canada take up Carter's cause and force the legal system to release the two convicted men.

But though he did have supporters all over the world, all the facts had been known for years. There was no real new evidence found, because the state really didn't give much of a damn what most working class people know too well: there is rarely justice for the working class.

Norman Jewison, the director of this movie, smeared romance and mystery over very bald-faced facts. (In a recent Nation magazine, one of Carter's lawyers, who worked for free for years to get Carter out, presented convincing evidence that the Canadians had nothing to do with the overturning of the case. They were just supporters, like many Carter had had for years.)

This distortion may be excused by the needs of drama. But why did the movie lie? Because if the frame-up actually was known all along, then the government kept these two men in jail against all the phony "rules" only the rich really ever benefit from.

Hollywood leaves us with the conclusion that, in the long run, "the system works." Even if it took 20 years, he got out. But anyone with any degree of political smarts knows Hurricane Carter is not the only prisoner convicted for something he didn't do. There are people in jail who are guilty, but there are tens of thousands who were simply caught in the injustice system. The movie tries to convince us we live in a country where rules matter. (And once Carter was released, what happened to the people who framed him? Nothing, because it wasn't "a few racist cops" who did it; it was the system itself!)

Nothing that appears in a film is an accident; it's no accident that the American flag is shown flying over the courthouse when Carter is freed.

This director seems addicted to lying. Back in 1967, the height of the civil rights era, just after Carter's conviction, the director made "In the Heat of the Night." Cops and sheriffs all over the country were killing and beating demonstrators. Guess who the surprise hero of the movie turned out to be? Right, a racist southern cop, who came to realize he had to support the black people he hated. Oh, give us a break!

Another one of his films was "A Soldier's Story," a truly horrible movie which claims that rampant racism in the U.S. army during the 1940s also was cured by a vigilant "justice system." I'm not making this up.

But it's not this one director. The problem lies in a system that robs us of our working class histories and its heroes.

We have to learn and tell our own story.

French Bosses Dre$$ing Leaves Bad Taste in Rocky's Mouth

The new year is barely a few weeks old and rivalry among imperialist bosses for control of Persian Gulf oil and gas has already sharpened significantly. Now it's the French energy barons who are thumbing their noses at Exxon Mobil and U.S. domination in general.

On January, 14, French military chief Pélissier announced a plan to hold a series of military exercises along with the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, during the first half of February. The bosses of all these Gulf countries are trying to break away from U.S. rule. French oil and gas companies have interests that differ sharply from Rockefeller's. The major French companies, Total and Elf, want to end U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iraq. These sanctions have murdered a million Iraqis, mostly children, since 1991. But that's not the concern of the French oil companies. They want the sanctions ended because they're anxious to take full advantage of multi-billion dollar investment deals they inked several years ago to rake in oil profits from both Iraq and Iran. U.S. competitors China and Russia also have a stake in similar deals. The French arms industry is now the Persian Gulf's third biggest supplier.

These arms sales make fat profits for French death merchants. But the contracts are mainly connected to French strategic energy interests. Because French oil giants have a large investment in Qatar's South Pars gas fields, France and Qatar signed a "defense co-operation agreement" last October, which will station French military forces in the region.

These joint military exercises and agreements like this one aren't harbingers of peace. The fight to control Persian Gulf oil, which is still the cheapest and most plentiful in the world, is getting sharper. Of course, the French military machine isn't capable of taking on the U.S., and the exercises don't mean that a major showdown is imminent among the big imperialists. But, like other recent developments, these events indicate a very general long-range trend.

The scramble for oil super-profits increasingly pits the U.S. against every other major capitalist power. The French-led joint exercises planned next month are both straws in the wind and an attempt to test the waters. U.S. rulers aren't going to sit idly by while Exxon Mobil's most important competitors from Russia and France scheme to hack away at U.S. command of Persian Gulf energy.

The build-up toward an inevitable military confrontation between the U.S. and other imperialist powers is a slowly maturing process. It won't happen overnight. However, renewed oil wars in the Persian Gulf are another matter altogether. Every one of the four major U.S. presidential candidates has foreign policy advisors who advocate U.S. ground action to take over Iraqi oil. This is the biggest hidden factor of the current primary campaign. Imperialism always leads to war. Rockefeller's next expedition, to make Iraq safe for Exxon, and to keep France's Total and Russia's Gazprom out, can't lie too far in the future.

UNAM Stikers Must Break with all Bosses

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 24 -- The referendum organized by the Administration of UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) on the future of the 9-month old UNAM strike is a fraud in the purest "PRI" (ruling party) style. It was organized to justify repression against the students. The government reported that the students "voted overwhelmingly" to end the strike. They used coercion and inflated figures to get the result they wanted.

The CGH (Strike General Council) countered with a mass meeting to demonstrate that the strike continues to have the support of hundreds of thousands of workers, students and teachers in Mexico City. The striking students declared that they won't give in and will continue to defend their demands. It's expected that in the coming days the State will act to violently break the strike.

PLP urges U.S. students to organize rallies against the fascist attacks on the striking UNAM students. We fight for working-class internationalism.

Five of the student demands involve stopping the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of working-class students. The sixth demand, for a representative body to run UNAM, reflects the fight between various capitalist groups who are fighting over the University.

This fight over UNAM reflects the struggle for power among the bosses in the upcoming presidential election. It's becoming clearer that this struggle revolves around two conflicting ideas about the university and the country. One is the free-market model maintained by the current rulers, who have been joined by the liberal PRD. The PRD has stopped being the leading representative of the nationalist bosses' sector. They now support the privatization advocated by the neo-liberals and their imperialist cohorts.

The PRD is now doing the capitalists' dirty work that was traditionally done solely by the PRI. The PRD is leading campaigns to disqualify students, defending the proposals of the Dean of the University and preparing the ground for repression of the strikers. The PRD is also trying to show its imperialist partners that it, the PRD, is more trustworthy and efficient in privatizing the Metro (Mexico City subway) and in beginning the privatization of the electric company. It's no accident that Juan Sanchez Navarro, powerful businessman and the PRD's ideological leader, has given his support to PRD candidate Lopez Obrados for Mayor of Mexico City. This makes it likely the PRD will continue to govern here.

The nationalist option, abandoned by the PRD, has been adopted by other activists in the strike leadership body. The group of advisors to the student leadership body continues to try to frame this strike as one " "in service of the nation." They talk of the broad struggle against the technocrats in power who serve the World Bank and the IMF. This rampant nationalism is a trap for the working class. It means fighting to liberate ourselves from one group of capitalists only to fall into the clutches of another equally criminal group of exploiters. These nationalists attack the World Bank to make themselves and their allies look good. But they want to control state power themselves, and to mislead students and workers into supporting them.

The student strike can win a big victory if students understand that scientific education serving the workers can only be achieved by getting rid of all capitalists and imperialists. Then more students will concentrate on organizing together with the workers to fight for communism. This is the alternative offered by PLP. Join us! There's no "lesser evil" capitalism or imperialism. Free Market capitalism or nationalism (state capitalism): they're both deadly for the workers of the world!

AOL-Time Warner: Old Money.Com

America Online recently bought out media giant Time Warner. And Charles Schwab, an investment firm working largely through the internet, has taken over the blue-blooded U. S. Trust.

While it may seem that high-tech upstarts are making big inroads into the Eastern Establishment, the opposite is true. The main Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class actually came out on top in these deals. The biggest capitalists are tightening their grip on the economy and the media so that they can better compete with their foreign rivals and, when the time comes, go to war against them.

The New York Observer (1/17) declared Time's chief Gerald Levin the clear winner: "Mr. Levin has maneuvered America Online's pretty-boy chief executive, Steve Case, into becoming the Wall Street poster boy for Time Warner itself. And this in turn, Mr. Levin hopes, will enable Time Warner to shed its image as a media dinosaur and reposition itself as a `new media' Internet company. He'll still effectively control the company in spite of Steve Case's title as chairman of the board."

Significantly, AOL-Time will have its headquarters in New York, under the watchful eyes of the bankers, and not in Virginia where AOL is based. The move targets Time Warner's overseas competitors. The day after it was announced, a German AOL director quit. He represented the German media giant Bertelsmann,which has been battling Time for control of Britain's $20-billion EMI recording operations. Time has just taken it over.

Time Warner stands squarely in the Rockefeller camp. "Saving Private Ryan," which said that killing and dying for U.S. imperialism was sweet and beautiful, typifies Time Warner's message. The merger gives the rulers' main wing millions more outlets for such murderous lies.

In both the Time-AOL and Schwab-U.S. Trust combinations, the supposed "acquirers" wind up losers by grossly overpaying for their "prey." As analysts discover the truth of the new arrangement, AOL's stock is falling and Time's is rising.

On U.S. Trust, the Observer (1/24) notes: "It was a sale that was not a sale. The old bank serving the let-them-eat-cake class now gets to have its cake and eat it, too. San Francisco-based Schwab is paying a whopping 64 percent premium for the company, yet U.S. Trust is retaining its name, its workforce, its board of directors and its New York headquarters. Founded in 1853, U.S. Trust is America's oldest trust company. It managed the fortunes of the Astors, Whitneys and Rockefellers."

Beleaguered as they may be, the heirs of these robber barons remain in power. Our Party's goal is to remove them through the ultimate hostile takeover, communist revolution.

Letters

Red Parent Gives Bosses Principle an "F"

A couple of weeks ago, another parent and I talked to the principal of our sons' high school. I am the president of our PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Association) there, and because of previous struggles that the PTSA has waged, I make it a practice to almost never speak with the principal.

The discussion started off about a fundraiser the PTSA is organizing for the students' scholarship fund. It then veered toward the topic of our next PTSA meeting, standardized testing. I expressed to her the frustration that parents felt when they picked up their children's last report cards. Our students still are not doing well in math and science.

I asked her about tutoring programs for the students. She said she provided tutoring on Saturday, but no students showed up, so it was a waste to pay teachers to just sit around. "The parents are not making their kids come, so what can the teachers do?"

I told her she could not just blame the parents. I didn't think there are any parents out there who want their children to fail. We must to find some way to get the students the help they need and the PTSA wants to help in whatever way we can.

The only thing she could enthusiastically come up with was for our PTSA to organize a student trip to Cook County Jail to impress upon them that this is where they could end up if they don't watch out. Sandy (the other parent ) immediately told her, "I expose my sons to positive experiences, not negative ones." The principal unenthusiastically agreed to have a table at report card pick-up to sign students up for tutoring on specific dates. Can you believe she trains new principals?

After leaving her office, the principal-in-training (who attended our discussion) approached me when we discovered we have a mutual friend in the PTSA from his previous high school. He said he thought our conversation with the principal was interesting. However, he thought she was right about not expecting the school system to change.

I told him they were both absolutely wrong. "There is a political and ideological fight going on in the schools as well as throughout capitalist society. We as parents should instill in our children the idea never to accept the status quo. That's the principal's job. Our job as parents and my role in this PTA is to fight for our children to learn how to change the world, and to involve ourselves in fighting inside these schools. You never know when people will understand what's really happening, especially as contradictions sharpen."

He then responded by saying, "So you're a `smoke eater'?" I looked at him and said with a slightly light-weight attitude,"What's a smoke eater?"

"Well," he said, "I had a friend who was a teacher and his role in the school was to suck up all the smoke so everyone could see clearly." I looked at him more thoughtfully, this time dropping the attitude and replied, "Yes, I guess so. We will have to talk again." This conversation really made me appreciate our responsibility as communists in the mass movement.

Midwest Smoke Eater

Go Postal Against Racist Conditions

I was talking to a friend the other day, a black worker who works at the Postal Service's Irving Park processing center in suburban Chicago. He's thinking of trying to find another job because of the horrible conditions.

He told me that the bosses there ordered all the NTE custodians (89-day employees) to work their 8-hour shift as custodians, then work another four hours MANDATORY OVERTIME on the mail. When they finish at 3 A.M., there's no bus service back to the city.

His analysis is correct--the bosses are able to get away with these attacks because many of these NTE's are young black and Latin workers who desperately need these $7/hour jobs to survive. The union refuses to represent them, so they're stuck. "Do what you're told or get fired, there's 1,000 other workers waiting for your job," is what the mostly black racist supervisors tell them.

However, there is something we CAN do. Number one is to get our newspaper CHALLENGE to as many workers as possible. That's the only way workers will understand why these attacks are happening. Second, we need to spend time with the workers, build strong ties, personal and political. Third, we must be active in the union, to be able to help lead all the struggles and conflicts invovling these postal workers. This way, we can expose the union leaders not merely as sellouts, but as active agents for the bosses.

Chicago Postal Worker

In Memory of Charles T. Morris 1927-1999

Charles T. Morris died of a heart attack on November 1. His life was an inspiration to all who knew him and an example for working people everywhere. Born to black working class parents in New Orleans, Charlie's family moved to Oakland, California when he was still a boy. Due to financial necessity, he bad to leave school and get a job to help support his mother Thus began a struggle against racism and adversity, which he faced with courage throughout his entire life.

He was drafted by the Army to fight in the Korean War as a young man. He fought with all black 24th Infantry Division and spent most of his time in heavy fighting on the battle lines. He saw a lot of death and had to kill others himself in order to survive. He seldom spoke of his experiences there, being of a very modest and unassuming nature. He was in the Army when Truman issued his order desegregating the Armed Forces. He participated in some of the many rebellions that the black soldiers organized to protest the discrimination they faced.

He came home, married and raised a family. He worked two jobs most of his adult lift, retiring from his day job at Alameda Naval Air Station after 37 years, while working at Del Monte Cannery on the night `tuft for 27 years. All through these years he fought back against racist discrimination, filing (and winning ) many grievances on the job. At one point, after the war, he was attending some dances that were organized by the Communist Party of the USA and as a result the FBI came knocking on his door. They produced pictures of Charlie at the dance. They told Charlie that these people were communists. He was unimpressed and kept going to the dances anyway. The FBI kept coming back. Finally they asked him if he owned a .38 caliber revolver. Charlie was contemptuous . He said, "Why do you ask me that question? You already know the answer. I have a .38 and it's registered-- that's how you got the information in the first place." So the FBI agent said, "We want to know why you own this gun." Charlie's answer came right back, "Because I_m a black man living in America." After that, the FBI stopped coming.

At his funeral, a long line of people got up to speak about how Charlie had helped them. He became a surrogate father for the kids next door after their father died. He did chores for people all the time--people who were struggling to survive in his neighborhood. He was especially good with youth, always advising them to work hard, get their education, and stay out of trouble. He was a loving father to his children. He drove his grandchildren to school and picked them up every day. It became clear from the many people who spoke at his funeral that Charlie was a beacon of strength to all who knew him.

Charlie's qualities reflect the best that is in the working class--borne of centuries of struggle against oppression if you neded help, Charlie was there. You didn't have to ask him. He was a man of his word. He asked nothing for himself. He met his responsibilities faithfully and without fail. He was kind and gentle, but if you needed correcting he would tell you so in a straightforward manner.

We will miss Charlie Morris. And we'll take inspiration from his example.

 

May Day 2000: Let's Bury Capitalism in the 21st Century with Communist Revolution

a href="#Rocker Pitches Rulers’ Racism, Workers Hit Back">"ocker Pitches Rulers’ Racism, Workers Hit Back

Big Media Megamerger = Keep Workers UNinformed

Chicago Communist Teacher Under Fire, Fight Racist Board of Ed

46,000 March Against Confederate Flag of Slavery and Racist Lynching

a href="#Workers Rebel in Haiti Against Murderous U.S. ‘Democracy’">Wo"kers Rebel in Haiti Against Murderous U.S. ‘Democracy’

Rulers Send Army to Attack Mass Strikes in India

Learning Math Helps Understand and Transform the World

AFL-CIO Anti-China Policies Cover for Prison Labor in the US

FMLN Wants to Become Next Hangmen of Workers in El Salvador

Welfare Layoffs Plus Mass Cutbacks = More workfare

The More You Learn The More You Can Learn

LETTERS

Challenge, Good Bedside Reading

TV Promotes Nazis

More on 'Cradle Will Rock'

Millions for (Sports) Stadiums, Nickels for Houses

How to Win MLA Members to Subvert Bourgeois Culture

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Editorial 1: May Day 2000 --

Let's Bury Capitalism in the 21st Century with Communist Revolution

The first MAY DAY in the 21st century symbolizes the turning of this century into a fight for a communist revolution. May Day is that day of the year when our Party mobilizes all our working-class brothers and sisters worldwide under one flag—the red flag of workers’ power. We demonstrate our needs and demands, especially our commitment to bury capitalism in this century.

It is a great building time for the Party of the working class. Many workers and students join the Party on or around May Day. It is the living proof of a multi-racial organization fighting for communism. May Day is also a time when we organize social events—visiting our friends, raising money on our jobs and organizing campaigns to help raise political and financial support for our working class international holiday.

The bosses all over the world celebrated the emerging 21st century with a display of fireworks, in an atmosphere of music and dancing in the streets. The bosses’ "resolutions" were for "peace and prosperity" for the capitalist system, but the reality reveals the conflicts within world capitalism. The political, economic and military competition among the capitalist countries is growing sharper, leaving millions of workers in poverty, millions homeless and dying from starvation. With the fights for markets and raw materials around the world, we can surely see that this century opens with inter-imperialist rivalry as the dominant contradiction. This will inevitably lead to a third world war.

In the U.S., conditions for the working class in the 21st century will worsen. We already see more subcontracting and slave labor programs lowering workers’ living standards. The bosses are expanding an even cheaper source of labor—imprisoned workers. By the year 2005, they aim to have hundreds of thousands of prisoners—possibly one million—producing for bosses’ profits.

Meanwhile, as the genocidal racist attacks on black workers continue, we will see even more black workers imprisoned in the 21st century. However, as millions of working-class brothers and sisters enter the U.S. this century, we can build a mighty tidal wave of multi-racial internationalism. We will march on May Day as one army under one flag and led by one Party to build the fight for communist revolution that will fight the rulers’ fascist attacks.

Editorial 2: a name="Rockr Pitches Rulers’ Racism, Workers Hit Back">">"ocker Pitches Rulers’ Racism, Workers Hit Back

On December 27, an Atlanta Braves pitcher, John Rocker, showed his racist, fascist face when he was interviewed for Sports Illustrated. Rocker lashed out against "too many foreigners" on New York City streets speaking different languages and then spewed forth some more racist filth.

The firestorm of debate that followed in the media has tried to isolate Rocker as ignorant, stupid and moronic. Baseball commissioner Selig "sentenced" the pitcher to be examined by a psychologist. This labels racism as a "mental illness."

Is racism "psychological" or a problem of "ignorance"? Absolutely not! Under capitalism, racism is the bosses’ main weapon to divide workers. The Rockefeller-led ruling class in the U.S. uses racism to super-exploit millions of black, Latin and Asian workers, which acts to limit white workers’ wages. Rocker’s rantings come from all the racism that exists in capitalism. And Rocker isn’t the first in the last several years to have a "slip of the tongue."

• In 1994, liberal President Francis Lawrence of Rutgers University said that black and Latin students don’t do well on the SAT exams because of their "inherent genetic inferiority." Coincidentally, The Bell Curve, by Nazis Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the rage for all the fascists and liberals, was the book arguing the same thing.

• CUNY President Herman Badillo just last year told an educational conference that Mexican and Dominican youth are filling school space and learning nothing because they are mostly from the mountains and rural areas and, in the case of Mexicans, mostly Indians, "with no history of education." (N.Y. Post, 9-23-99)

• Just a few weeks ago, Queens College President Alan Swenson, regarding student’s low testing scores said, "S--t in, s--t out."

The bosses’ drive for profits and control of markets, competing fiercely against other imperialists, requires the open police brutality of the NYPD and LAPD who kill and terrorize black, Latin and immigrant workers like Amadou Diallo, Roberto Close and Tyisha Miller. They need the imprisonment of two million workers and youth (two thirds black or Latin). They need the racist sterilization of Chicago mothers addicted to crack, and they need the imprisonment of homeless workers in NYC.

These racist attacks keep the working class divided and not fighting back, helping to keep profits up.

Words don’t exist in a vacuum. They just don’t pop into the head of racists like John Rocker. He, like others, has been won to believe that black, Latin and Asian workers are "inferior" to white workers. He’s of the same stripe as the murderous Ku Klux Klan, the NYPD or the Clinton Administration which forces millions of workers into slave labor Workfare programs.

Whenever a racist word is uttered, PLP and our friends will be there to attack it. Whenever fascists like the Ku Klux Klan rear their racist heads, we’ll be there to smash them. And whenever bosses launch racist attacks on our class, in the shops, schools or communities, we’ll be there to expose and fight it.

Why? Because we want to unite the working class to build a new society—communism—that will smash racism once and for all. There’s no such thing as "worker-friendly" capitalism, which the liberals promise every Martin Luther King Day. Racism will never be destroyed under capitalism. The bosses require it to remain in power and they will never give it up until they’re smashed. We should organize our friends, co-workers and fellow students to march on May Day to show the bosses that the workers united will never be defeated and that the working class, led by Progressive Labor Party, will end racism once and for all.

Big Media Megamerger = Keep Workers UNinformed

Now More than Ever, CHALLENGE Must Be Your Newspaper

AOL and Time-Warner’s recent megamerger will create another huge monopoly in the mass media. What the bosses have done to the other news sources (newspapers, TV, Radio), they are now rushing to do to the internet. For capitalism, "free press" means freedom to spread lies and distortions of the real world, while making huge profits. News reporting, as distorted as it used to be in the past, has now given way to treating all news as entertainment. The mainstream mass media is making the National Enquirer looks like a serious paper.

But that is the job of the capitalist press: keep workers misinformed and distracted from the real cause of their problems.

There is an alternative: CHALLENGE-DESAFIO. The job of this newspaper (and its internet version at www.plp.org) is the opposite of AOL-Time, etc. It is to show workers the real nature of capitalism (racism, exploitation, war, sexism, inequality, etc.), and the solution: organize to smash it and build a worker-led world where production and distribution are according to need for the working class (communism), not profits for a few (capitalism).

CHALLENGE’S main problem is that we are too small; we don’t reach millions and millions of workers to counter the bosses’ media lies. That is a problem every reader can help solve. Here are some suggestions:

(1) Buy a sub for a friend (only $15 a year).

(2) Order a weekly bundle to distribute 5, 10, 20 or as many papers as you can among fellow workers and students.

(3) Show our web page to your fellow workers and students who have access to the internet.

(4) Send us your letters, comments and articles about local struggles, as well as pictures and cartoons.

Make CHALLENGE-DESAFIO your source of news for the new millennium. Write to us at PO Box 808, GPO, Brooklyn, NY 11202, or e-mail us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Chicago Communist Teacher Under Fire, Fight Racist Board of Ed

(This is a copy of a letter I sent to students and teachers at my high school, CVS (Chicago Vocational H.S.), to let them know about the Chicago Board of Education’s plans to fire me.)

January 14, 2000

Dear Friend,

Yesterday I was on the bus ready to go on a field trip when I was asked to report to the principal’s office. She informed me that the Board was coming to serve me with papers and I had to wait there and couldn’t go with my students on the trip. The Board (Paul Vallas) told me I was to report downtown. There I found out that this Wednesday, Jan. 19, they plan to suspend me without pay. Sometime after that they want to fire me.

In my opinion, they are firing me because I am a communist. I am a good teacher and the schools need math teachers. But they are willing for the students to suffer because they want to make sure that only the ruling class viewpoint is in the schools. Communists are organizing to overthrow the capitalist system. Paul Vallas and his flunkies don’t care whether or not students learn to think on their own, or make decisions based on hearing different ideas. No, they want to make sure the students are indoctrinated with patriotic ideas.

There are seven charges against me. Three of them involve a former CVS student who attended an anti-KKK rally with me and hundreds of other people in Beloit, Wisconsin. She was arrested at the rally, although she never had to go to court and nothing happened to her. Her guardians knew where she was going, but the Board still says I’m responsible and should be fired for what happened over a year ago. Three of the charges are about distributing communist literature and encouraging students to go to meetings and rallies. The last charge is totally ridiculous. It says I had coed sleepover parties at my house. I’m sure they will be forced to drop that charge because it is a complete lie.

What’s happening is not just about me. It’s connected to a whole trend in society towards a police state, or fascism. They’re locking people up, especially young black men, constantly. They’re making it illegal to stand on the street corner. There’s an increase in racist groups like the Klan. Lots of companies are merging and becoming bigger and more powerful, at the expense of the working class. Wages are going down. Homelessness is growing. Those in power want to get rid of communists, who are organizing against this fascist government. But they won’t stop just with just going after communists. Today it’s me and another CVS teacher, Mr. Bernal (his termination hearing, on similar charges, is Jan. 25, 26, 27). Tomorrow who knows what teacher or students they’ll go after?

If you would like to discuss this more, please call me at home. Some students and teachers are writing letters to the Board or circulating petitions protesting its efforts to fire me. If you decide to do that, please send me a copy of the letter or petition. I intend to fight them. I want to teach, and I want to be at CVS. If you want to help me, give me a call.

Love,

Carol (Ms. Caref)

46,000 March Against Confederate Flag of Slavery and Racist Lynching

COLUMBIA, South Carolina, Jan. 17 — To the tune of We Shall Overcome, about 46.000 marchers sang "The flag is coming down today." The largest march in this city’s history united veteran organizers of anti-racist marches and young people who had never marched before. Some 10% of the marchers were white workers and youth. They were demanding that the Confederate flag be removed from the state capitol building. The turnout surprised even the NAACP, which organized the demonstration.

The flag, which was used by the pro-slave Confederate States during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, is a symbol of the worst racist scum (KKK, neo-Nazis, etc.) The few thousand racists who rallied here a week before in support of flying it claimed it represents "Southern Heritage." But to anti-racists—black and white—it is like the Nazi Swastika; it’s a symbol of racist lynching.

The Other Bosses’ Flag Is Also Racist

But during the march today, the NAACP waved another symbol of mass murder and terror, the Stars and Stripes of the U.S. bosses. Under this flag, the U.S. has committed atrocities all over the world, murdering tens of millions (see CHALLENGE, 1/12, for a history of U.S. imperialism’s crimes). The NAACP is trying to use the anti-racist anger of workers and youth to win them to die for the Stars and Stripes when their masters in the Rockefeller wing of the ruling class go to war to protects their oil profits.

Workers have only one flag: the red flag of revolution for workers’ power—communism. That’s the flag we’ll be waving high on May Day. We in PLP invite all those anti-racists who hate slavery and racist terror to march with us in Washington, DC and San Francisco on May 6 for a world without capitalism—the cause of racism.

a name="Workers Rebel in Haiti Against Murderous U.S. ‘Democracy’"></">Wo"kers Rebel in Haiti Against Murderous U.S. ‘Democracy’

FORT LIBERTÉ, Haiti, Jan. 15 — Remember when Clinton ordered U.S. troops to invade Haiti and depose the military butchers in power there. Clinton said he was bringing "democracy" back to Haiti’s poor workers and peasants. Clinton’s buddy, Jean. Aristide, the liberal priest-turned-politician, was returned to power. He had been overthrown a few years earlier by the military. Several years have now passed. Most of the U.S. and UN troops have now left, and conditions for most people here have gone from bad to worse.

This week, this city, near the border of the Dominican Republic, witnessed a mass rebellion after one of the few remaining U.S. soldiers shot and killed a 14-year-old youth. A UN military vehicle was burned and several cops were injured along with many civilians.

It all began after one of the "zongledó" (night burglars), who control the nights here, robbed a motorcycle. The local cops responded and, as usual, shot the owner of the motorcycle. Angry demonstrators stoned the police station. UN military personnel shot at the demonstrators. A U.S. soldier, part of the UN forces, shot and killed a local youth among the protesters. Others protesters were also shot by the UN troops.

Now, according to the Dominican Republic’s newspaper, the Daily El Nacional (1/16), "This town is practically in the midst of social convulsions. Many of the social services are paralyzed, including transportation through its streets and roads (which are regularly in such bad shape that it is quite a task traveling through them)."

Next time someone proposes an imperialist invasion to "help the people," think about Haiti. Nothing short of fighting for communism can ever help the masses anywhere.

Rulers Send Army to Attack Mass Strikes in India

NEW DELHI, India, Jan. 19 — The government called out the Army and Navy to confront striking dock, power and oil workers as well as state and postal employees, all are part of the biggest strike wave in recent times.

Port workers, who handle a quarter of a billion tons of cargo per year, brought shipping activity in eleven ports across the country to a complete halt. The Army and Coast Guard moved in to scab. The workers are demanding a 106% wage increase.

The government of the state of Uttar Pradesh began firing striking power workers and hiring scabs as that walkout entered its sixth day. Over 2,000 workers have been arrested, but the strike intensified and the state’s electric power crisis has escalated, threatening service across the entire north of India. The Army has taken over power stations.

Oil workers have struck to force implementation of a recommended wage hike and postal workers are planning a nationwide strike in March for the same reason.

A walkout by thousands of state workers in Jammu and Kashmir entered its second month. They are demanding back pay and benefits due them, Troops have moved into the large cities. The Indian rulers did not hesitate to use the troops fighting pro-Pakistani separatists in this area to scab. Over 300 strikers have been arrested.

India has long been touted as a "great Asian democracy," but as always under capitalism, when workers attempt to fight for a little better life, the ruling class brings the full weight of its state apparatus to bear on the class that produces its profits. Is there any better "advertisement" for communism?

Learning Math Helps Understand and Transform the World

In mathematics as in all areas taught in schools under capitalism, there is a major contradiction between what we as the working class need to learn and what the ruling class needs for the schools to accomplish. Understanding the role of mathematics involves at least five major questions:

Why is the study and understanding of mathematics important for the working class?

Now that the Rockefeller-led Old Money forces are solidly in charge, what does the ruling class especially need for the working class to learn, or not learn, in studying mathematics and how is math education used to build racism and anti-working class ideology?

Why do students in the U.S. find learning mathematics so hard, even compared to students from other countries?

How should we as communists teach differently and what results should come from that difference?

How will mathematics be taught under communism?

Each of these questions contains many others.

Why Is Mathematics Important?

If asked this question (or why is arithmetic important), many, if not most workers, would reply, "So that you don’t get cheated by the boss or store owner." I remember as a child watching my mother sitting at the kitchen table on payday adding up her hours and production (she was paid partly by piece-work) to be sure her paycheck was "right." She had no calculator, just pencil and paper. But while she was certainly no revolutionary, like most workers she understood that a boss would cheat you out of your hard-earned pay. Of course, communist politics makes clear that the boss lives by stealing what is produced by—and rightfully belongs to—the working class.

The working class needs to understand mathematics both for the immediate and pragmatic reasons as well as for the more long-range and ideological ones. It is important for workers to be able to calculate our paychecks, know how much change we should get from a store, have some idea of what we are paying when we buy on credit and to do other day-to-day survival mathematics.

For many jobs today, including those in transit, manufacturing and other places that are crucial for communist organizing, getting the job requires passing a math test. We want workers, including young comrades, to have a chance to pass these tests and get these jobs.

It is important for workers to read and write CHALLENGE articles and flyers and other information that will help in gaining an understanding of the world and how to change it. For the same reason it is important to understand math. Charts and graphs give quantitative analyses of things that are happening in the world. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes. Likenesses and differences in world events are sometimes made clearer by using numbers. Today the schools are not teaching many working class youth the basic understanding and skills needed to do the above.

The study of mathematics can also be part of the study of dialectics. As discussed in a CHALLENGE article a few years ago, calculus was developed as a way of quantifying and understanding change. In the study of different geometric figures and their properties, students see the importance of likenesses and differences. Later in discussing the role of communist teachers, we will analyze this more deeply. (To be continued)

AFL-CIO Anti-China Policies Cover for Prison Labor in the US

LOS ANGELES — "When I was in Seattle, I saw a sign that said, ‘Is prison labor OK in the U.S. and not in China?’ Where I work, they use prisoners to clean the buses. Those jobs used to go to full-time union workers. The AFL-CIO leadership said that they support prison labor here as long as it's done ‘fairly.’ There’s nothing fair about paying someone 23 cents an hour to do work that was done by a full-time, paid union worker."

This statement caused quite a stir at the meeting of the Fair Trade network. It was part of a debate in which one of the participants said, "We must make opposition to China’s entry into the WTO [World Trade Organization] the issue of the year. If China is admitted to the WTO, it will lower labor standards for the whole world." Another person shot back that the U.S. bosses are responsible for lowering labor standards all over the world. We shouldn’t end up blaming Chinese workers supporting the U.S. bosses’ plans for a war for world domination.

Another person declared, "We can’t let the AFL-CIO leadership build a racist campaign against China in the name of U.S. workers. There are more people in prison per capita in the US than any other country in the world."

The group decided to hold a forum about this issue before deciding on its position. An article in the Los Angeles Times (1/12) bolsters the "fair traders" position. It claims that in the upcoming congressional debate about trade with China, the AFL-CIO will be fighting not only for protectionism but also for needed reforms and independent unions.

Prison labor is growing in the U.S. by leaps and bounds. Workers need to sharpen the fight against prison labor here, especially its racist character—two-thirds of prisoners are black or latin. We must expose the "human rights" lie behind the fake concern about conditions for Chinese workers. "Independent" unions mean pro-U.S. unions. The truth is that from China to the US, the problem is capitalist greed for profits. Chinese socialism led back to capitalism. The solution is not tariffs and trade wars, which ultimately lead to shooting wars. The solution is to re-build the international communist movement to destroy the profit system from Shanghai to LA.

FMLN Wants to Become Next Hangmen of Workers in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, Jan. 18 — The campaign has begun to "elect" the new hangmen who will tighten the noose around the workers’ necks. In March, mayors and deputies will be elected for a three-year period—2000-2003. According to the latest polls, the FMLN (the former guerrilla movement) has a big lead in the campaign for mayor of the capital city while the ARENA party has a small lead nationally in the elections for deputies. The polls predict even lower overall voting than in last year’s presidential elections, when 65% of the population stayed away.

"The FMLN is one more instrument of the system, and the capitalists must be very happy since the FMLN candidates run for office as leftists and rule as rightists," declared Dagoberto Gutierrez. Gutierrez is ex-commander of the FMLN and has been replaced by Shafick Handal in the leadership of the FMLN because of his "extreme leftist" ideas. The FMLN’s participation in the elections is now old news, and the expectations that were generated by the FMLN in the mayoral and deputy elections have brought nothing but disillusionment. Their only accomplishment was to legitimize the arms with which capitalism kills the working class.

The electoral parties are having trouble fooling the workers. They have launched a fierce campaign in all the media to win people to vote. Politicians of the right and of the phony left are hugging old ladies in the marketplaces and kissing children in the slums. Their actions are ridiculous and grotesque, these candidates, who have never in their lives eaten in the market place, much less lived in a slum.

The electoral parties represent the interests of different groups of bosses, the pro-U.S. imperialists or the pro-European imperialists. But the essence of all of them represents capitalism. It doesn’t matter which party wins; the workers always lose. Privatization, super-exploitation, poverty, hunger and repression are parts of the process by which the local or imperialist bosses squeeze their profits out of the working class.

To end this capitalist hell, workers—voters and non-voters—must join the Progressive Labor Party and help organize a real communist revolution, which sets the working class free once and for all.

The communist Progressive Labor Party has been trying to win workers to see that there are no "lesser evil" candidates—that elections, and those who participate in them, only serve to maintain this rotten system. We are telling our class brothers that this system’s problems are structural. As long as the wage system exists, there will be no change.

Workers, students and teachers, join the Marxist -Leninist study groups of CHALLENGE, the organizing newspaper of the Progressive Labor Party.

Don’t Vote! Organize for Communist Revolution!

Welfare Layoffs Plus Mass Cutbacks = More workfare

NEWARK, NJ, Jan. 18 — The development of fascism in the welfare system has given PLP one more chance to present our communist alternative. Essex County, NJ, contains the extremes of wealth and poverty in this "boom" capitalist economy. The three largest cities in the county—Newark, Irvington, East Orange—are all mostly black, with high unemployment. Despite the fact that Essex has many wealthy suburbs, the county also has 25% of the total number of welfare families in the State (30,000 as of 1994).

Now comes "Work First, New Jersey"(WFNJ). Clinton’s welfare law, signed in 1996, contained many attacks. But WFNJ goes the feds one better. WFNJ limits a family to 12 months of emergency shelter payments no matter how long that family is on welfare! So in New Jersey, 1998 and 1999 have seen an orgy of benefit terminations, mass "sanctioning" of clients who miss appointments, cutoffs of emergency shelter payments, and wholesale denials of benefits to immigrants. This was particularly true in Essex County.

Thousands of families have been slashed from the rolls. Many of those adults are working in $6- and $7-per-hour jobs with no medical benefits. Now Treffinger, the Essex County Executive, has announced the layoff of 66 welfare workers, 62 of whom are black. Racist Treffinger says that the welfare bosses did such a good job cutting families with children off welfare that they no longer need these "surplus" welfare workers. But he made sure his political hacks were hired from the outside into welfare department management positions just before the layoffs were announced.

Unfortunately, when WFNJ was first passed, many welfare workers were fooled into supporting it, or at least passively accepting its racist, anti-client provisions. Let this be a lesson to all welfare workers: WHEN YOU

Help The Bosses Attack Clients, You Are Slitting Your Own Throats

Welfare workers should draw a line in the sand and refuse to carry out all Nazi-like policies such as mass sanctioning, helping to take kids away from their parents, and forcing clients onto slave labor Workfare. (Will these laid-off welfare workers themselves now be forced onto welfare, be put on Workfare, then into their old jobs to work for their welfare checks?)

A PLP member and some friends attended a rally against racist layoffs called by the union and the local NAACP. He spoke briefly, and promised to bring out more workers to support this struggle against racism. The Party will make this struggle part of our developing campaign in welfare in the NY-NJ area. Welfare cutoffs and slave labor Workfare are part of the bosses’ fascist drive to lower wages and beat their competition.

Only communist revolution can put an end to a system which must create mass poverty in order to save the profits of the bosses. Communism will eliminate capitalist laws like WFNJ and never again allow one group of workers to be used as a club over the heads of the whole working class.

The More You Learn The More You Can Learn

BOOK REVIEW: The Myth of the First Three Years: A New Understanding of Early Brain Development and Lifelong Learning by John T. Bruer

There is a common myth about child development: a child’s first three years are a window of opportunity for learning. This determines the child’s ability to think, reason and learn, as well as its artistic abilities, throughout its entire life. If you miss this opportunity the child’s intelligence will be stunted for life.

This myth affects funding for public education, both pre-school and Kindergarten through 12th grade. It supplements the equally pervasive myth that intelligence is limited by what you inherit from your parents. Most parents, teachers and psychologists are influenced by both these myths.

Bruer is a neuroscience researcher. His book explodes the myth that there is anything special about the first three years in terms of windows of opportunity, except for the basic sensory functions of sight, hearing, etc. He confirms the report in the December 1, 1999, issue of CHALLENGE that learning is a lifelong property of the human brain, and shows that almost nothing has a window of opportunity that closes at a certain point in life, let alone in early childhood.

Only those brain functions that are common to the entire human species, such as sight, hearing, and other basic sensory functions, have windows of opportunity that close at a certain point. If a baby is blind or deaf, it may never develop normally, even if the vision or hearing are later corrected (other than exceptions like Helen Keller).

However, for all brain functions that are specific to different cultures--such as speaking particular languages, music, math, reading, writing, science, philosophy, political understanding, etc.--there are no critical periods. These culture-specific brain functions remain available for learning and modification throughout life, and indeed improve as one gets older.

There is no fixed capacity. The more you learn the more you can learn. Rather than being like a bucket that gets filled to a certain capacity, intellectual ability is something that can constantly be expanded.

Bruer identifies three strands to the myth: (1) relationships among rapid nerve and synapse (connections) formation, 2) critical periods of development and learning, and 3) enriched environments. The first is part of neuroscience and the other two behavioral science.

Bruer shows there is no support from neuroscience for any links between the rapid nerve/synapse development (which goes on from a couple of months old to maybe 2 to 16 years, depending on the part of the brain) and critical periods of learning or effects of enriched environments, despite repeated claims to the contrary in the media and in professional journals. He shows that learning takes a great leap forward not during, but at the end of, the rapid nerve/synapse formation, but when it finishes.

In fact, following a stable period from about 2 to 8 years old, the predominant change in the brain is pruning, i.e., shedding unnecessary nerves and synapses. Learning after this stable period involves as much reducing the number of connections as increasing them, if not more so. Less is more. The myth that larger brains are more intelligent is just another lie.

While Bruer doesn’t say so, a ruling class that needs to transfer money from, say, education to war, needs a myth to win the working class’s acceptance. A myth that says that the schools can do nothing to improve a child’s learning capacity after age 3 clearly marks school-funding as a waste. The ruling class is willing to put a few more crumbs into pre-school programs like Head Start in exchange for cutting much more massive funds for K-12.

The myth further justifies keeping workers in boring, repetitive, low-paying jobs since their "mental capacity" can't do anything more challenging anyway. A lie with more widespread and vicious effects is hard to imagine. And if the working class can be sold on the idea, all the better for the ruling class, since workers then have no one to blame for their oppressive conditions.

Bruer does not point out that the myth has severe racist connotations. The myth holds that since black and Latin children in the U.S. are most severely deprived of funding in the early years, they will therefore be the "least intelligent." The myth also says that the environment of the U.S. white middle-class is what all children need. This implies that all other societies are less intelligent. Blinded by their own myth, the U.S. ruling class was taken completely by surprise when Vietnamese peasants crushed the vaunted Special Forces in the 1960's and '70s. (Their answer was to slaughter millions. That also didn't work.)

Liberals like Hillary Clinton and the New York Times (1/16) push for more funding for the formative period—the first three years—while hiding behind the myth in order to support the cutting of funds for older children. Professional liberals are the main enemy of the working class because they appear in the guise of friends of the workers’ children.

The idea that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks may or may not apply to dogs, but it most certainly does not apply to people. This is very good news for a communist movement that hopes to win the entire world’s working class to a new outlook, and away from our capitalist upbringings. Belief in this outlook should help all, but especially, communist teachers to be among the leading forces fighting for the teaching of math, reading, writing, and all basic skills for children of the working class. Communists in general, even without neuroscience, know that people are capable of change throughout life. The destruction of the myths reviewed here is a powerful confirmation of the communist philosophy of dialectical materialism and one of its primary concepts that there is constant change in all things.

LETTERS

Challenge, Good Bedside Reading

Here is a donation ($20) for the newspapers that you have been sending me. I know its not much, but hopefully later I can send more. This is the best paper that I have read for a long time. PLP reports the honest truth. I am still learning about socialism, so I am a little slow in responding to the great articles in CHALLENGE. I go to bed reading CHALLENGE. I would be interested in a study group at CSULA. It is easier for me to get there, and I am a student there too.

In Comradeship

B

TV Promotes Nazis

Last week I watched a TV documentary on Nazis in America showing George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the U.S. Nazi movement. There is a campaign to make the viciously anti-communist McCarthy look good. The show described how the American Nazi Party was a big supporter of McCarthy. The supposed "historians" and "intellectuals" like Buckley, who are reviving McCarthy as a hero, are merely revealing more about themselves. They are fascist scum just like Rockwell & Co.

The film also had a lot about the Aryan Nation Compound and the racist vermin who visit there, many of them young people who are well-indoctrinated in Nazi ideology and then follow it to carry out acts of terrorism. We looked up the National Alliance on the internet and saw its suggested reading list, including three books by Solzhenitsyn. The best-selling book these days is "The Turner Diaries" by William Pierce, head of this group and a friend of the deceased Rockwell.

These guys are waiting in the wings to carry out, in their own words, "the biggest ethnic cleansing" in history. The rulers will keep them there as they may need them, while pretending to be "against" them. An article in today’s paper talks about the growing gap between rich families and the so-called middle class families and the working poor and others. The economic boom mostly helps the rich, but look out when the blast goes up to the top.

RR

More on Cradle Will Rock

(The last issue of CHALLENGE contained this paper’s review of Cradle Will Rock. The following letter is a young comrade’s comments)

Cradle Will Rock criticizes culture under capitalism. Politically this makes it a good movie to see with one’s friends. Of course, since we’re dealing with Hollywood, it’s important to consider why a movie like this is considered "safe" enough to release, and therefore also note the negative aspects.

Here are some of the good aspects: first, the movie portrays individual leftists in a positive way. The characters played by Hank Azaria, Emily Watson and John Turturro to stand by what they believe, put on a play intended for the "masses" and risk their memberships in the union. Other actors followed their example and joined in. In the case of Watson and Turturro, they were willing to risk losing their own homes/shelter for their principles.

Second, the movie has a subplot containing a ventriloquist skit done by Bill Murray’s character. The skit is symbolic because it shows how artists are merely mouthpieces for the ruling class. In addition, the destruction of the Diego Rivera mural demonstrates how the ruling class attempts to control and dictate much of what we produce. They make us dependent on them because they pay us. Through its characters, the movie makes it clear that, armed with political consciousness and support, people will fight back and change their attitudes about communism.

Lastly, the movie depicts historical alliances that have existed between the ruling class and fascists like Mussolini. A steel boss buys paintings from Mussolini’s mistress, played by Susan Sarandon, and so funds fascism in Italy. Sarandon has sold out, is openly aligned with Mussolini and is called a "Jewish fascist."

Some of the negative aspects: first, the film is a liberal criticism of censorship of art and freedom of expression. As communists we must make it clear that capitalism censors anything with leftist content to preserve the status quo. Culture under capitalism is produced, fashioned and funded in the interests of the ruling class. For example, government cutbacks of 20% throw many out of work; the army shuts sown the theater scheduled to show The Cradle Will Rock; and actors and musicians participating in the banned play will lose their union cards.

Revolutionary art is meant to inspire workers to fight back. This threatens the ruling class and is considered dangerous.

The movie portrays unions as mostly positive structures with poor leadership. In the movie the actors are threatened by their union but the play that they perform suggests unions as a necessary structure in order to win workers’ rights. Today we view unions as compromising workers’ demands to preserve capitalist institutions.

Another play in the movie reduces class struggle to a question of morality. It’s a play for children about a beaver that is kicked out of his dam, not because it represents the capitalists but because it’s "different"—it’s greedy. Also, the whimsical wife of the steel capitalist who objects to his ties with Mussolini is shown supporting the actors’ protest, suggesting that there are "good" and "bad" capitalists.

The original play The Cradle Will Rock was intended for masses of people but the movie appeals to a much narrower audience. A lot of the dialogue is historically related, referring back to a period of time that few people today know much about. Scenes are constantly shifting, making it difficult to follow. In addition, the movie is being shown in very few theaters.

In summary the movie is liberal. It says change the system by "degrees" or fight for reforms like unions or for better unions. We need to point out that everything under capitalism is measured by how profitable it is, even human labor. The movie also shows art as the sole form of protest. As communists we know that this will only "rock the cradle." Communist revolution will bring the cradle down and create a culture produced by and enjoyed by the masses.

NJ H.S. Student

Millions for (Sports) Stadiums, Nickels for Houses

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s all-news radio station KYW recently reported that newly-elected Mayor John Street to triple the after-school program budget from $1.4 million to $4.2 million. Mayor Street explained that finding the funds to do this "would not be easy" but he "wanted to assure everyone that the necessary hard decisions would be made to make it possible."

Then, a few minutes later, during sports, it reported that Philadelphia had agreed to reimburse the Eagles football team for the upgrading their practice facility if no agreement on a new stadium had been reached by November. A city spokesperson said, "finding the $23 million reimbursement would not be a problem."

Perhaps Mayor Street should talk to this person. He might find it much easier to find the extra $2.8 million that he needs.

On a more serious note, this is just one more indication that capitalism will never serve the interests of the working class. Finding money to build sports stadiums is never difficult but finding money to deal with homelessness, unemployment, lack of health care, etc., is always "impossible." This is not an accident. Nor is it due to who is mayor or who runs the City Council.

Capitalism only does what produces profits. Sports stadiums, riverboat gambling, luxury housing, etc. generate big bucks for a small number of financiers but housing for the homeless generates no profits. It is an honor to be part of the process of smashing this rotten system and replacing it with egalitarian communism.

Pennsylvania Reader

How to Win MLA Members to Subvert Bourgeois Culture

The Challenge (12/22/99) article on the Modern Language Association (MLA) annual convention in Chicago and the Radical Caucus indicated that the Caucus will initiate some reform struggles. This indeed proved true. A set of Radical Caucus proposals to the MLA delegates assembly dealt with trade unionism, working conditions, salary improvements and continuing MLA vigilance against racism.

The CHALLENGE article says such reform issues are not revolutionary, not geared to replacing capitalism with communism. It then says the PLP members’ greatest achievement at the MLA convention will be to win more people to PLP and to fight for communism. It doesn’t give a clue how this is to be done at the MLA convention. The convention, as far as I can tell, is left with a grand effort, publicly at any rate, to adopt a series of reform issues. Reform issues are important when working with large numbers of people. It is not, however, the only part of that task.

Over 10,000 teachers and professors of literature and language attend the MLA convention annually. The sessions organized by the Radical Caucus and by the Marxist Literary group drew a little over 100 people. While this group may have a wider influence than its numbers suggest, its numbers aren’t substantial. More important, it cannot be substantial based on most MLA members’ primary interest in coming to the MLA Convention each year and or their primary interest all year long.

The way to win teachers and professors of literature is through what the thousands at the convention are interested in, subverting the whole process of producing ideology from within. This can’t be done by struggling for trade union, living condition and salary issues.

These are necessary struggles for other reasons. They do not address the heart of the ideological matter. The latter is ultimately the conflict between the bourgeois and Marxist approaches to literary analysis and evaluation.

The Radical Caucus and the Marxist Literary Group need to develop a profound way of tackling literature and language and how they function. That way is not simply condemning art because it does not call for joining PLP and fighting for communism. Nor is it simply condemning art for not explicitly and favorably presenting the working class and/or does not explicitly present the brutalities of racism.

Most art produced under capitalism is permeated with bourgeois ideology, whether deliberately or unconsciously. But art produced under capitalist rule also symbolizes, reflects and represents the many contradictions (cultural, social, class, "race") that characterize capitalist politics and culture. That is true even where the art is most abstract or appears to be most distant from history and politics.

A Marxist analysis should be able to dig out these contradictions in a sophisticated and convincing way, that will open the eyes of a host of those who attend the conventions.

MLA members are trapped in their own contradictions They have fallen for the weird and inflated bourgeois methods of analysis that obscure the bourgeois origins of the literature they are interested in. Still they are dissatisfied with the rarefied nature of their conclusions. They recognize how much of what they do is silly and subject to easy satirizing, as newspaper accounts of their annual meetings do quite regularly.

Still, they are not dumb. They will respond, in many cases quite readily, to analyses and evaluations from a truly dialectical and historical approach, a Marxist approach. On the other hand they will laugh off the oversimplifications that pretend to be Marxist.

A sound Marxist approach is only the beginning. It must be taken into as many sessions of the MLA convention as possible. It’s foolish to restrict it to Radical Caucus or Marxist Literary Group sessions.

We must tackle from the inside the notably strained and silly attempts most professors use to deal with literature and from inside the literary interests that make up the practice of their careers on a daily basis. This will subvert directly the schemes of bourgeois culture and open up professors and English teachers to the revolutionary alternative.

The Marxist approach to literature along with the respect we acquire as fighters concerned with day-to-day exploitation and oppression makes a powerful force for revolution and communism.

S. Agonistes