Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

The British Union of Fascists, in its short definition of fascism, declared, "We believe in the co-operation of all classes, in the solidarity of all units of a nation, and in justice. And in the mystery of patriotism." ("The Blackshirt," No. 34, 1933)

United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger, at the conclusion of the contract negotiations with the Big Three automakers and their parts-maker spin-offs, said, "Since the start of these negotiations, one of our goals has been to bring this industry together." (New York Times, 8/20)

United Auto Workers (UAW) contracts with the Big Three automakers set the pattern for major manufacturing contracts throughout the nation. One of every 10 jobs in the U.S. is auto-related. This fall the New York Times declared that the UAW negotiations signaled a "new strategy" for labor. "Even corporate executives are acknowledging that labor’s first concern has changed from demanding more…to making sure that companies survive," the Times reported.

Unions at G.M., Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Delphi, Visteon, Goodyear and Verizon have all agreed to a wage freeze. Hundreds of thousands of industrial workers have seen their plants sold or spun off, and wages cut drastically. Last spring, the UAW agreed to cut hourly wages from $26 to $16 when DaimlerChrysler sold an auto-parts plant to Metalydyne. Knowing a good thing when they see it, Metaldyne agreed to allow the UAW to organize their ten remaining non-union parts plants.

Even worse, 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last three years, hitting black workers in auto, steel, aerospace and textiles especially hard. This has led to a widening of the wage gap between black and white workers, and increased the poverty rate among black workers at more than twice the rate of their white brothers and sisters.

"They’re like sharks that smell blood in the water," observed a Boeing Machinist, referring to the industrial bosses. "No amount of concessions will satisfy them." Alan Mulally, Boeing’s Commercial Airlines chief, said Washington State’s business climate still "sucked," even after the state, with the union’s blessing, cut unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation, and gave Boeing a $3.2 billion tax break. David Groves, of the Washington State Labor Council, thinks Mulally’s broadside is part of a campaign to gut what is left of workers’ comp. "Unions are still not giving up enough to make their employers truly competitive in the global market," threatens the New York Times.

A Labor Strategy for Constant War

The leaders of the major industrial unions have always served the bosses’ interests. Their "new strategy" reflects the increasing challenges to U.S. industrial leadership. U.S. rulers aim to maintain their imperialist dominance through the control of Mid-East oil, a strategic resource. This requires unending wars, like the occupation of Iraq.

Two keys to continuing this bloodbath are the control of industrial workers and soldiers. These two groups, where black and Latin workers are concentrated with white workers, can also spearhead our liberation from this racist, imperialist nightmare.

After World War II, the union leaders maintained their control over us by delivering economic crumbs. Simultaneously, the bosses used their government, laws, cops and courts to persecute communists and other anti-racist, class-conscious opponents.

Now that financing endless wars is the priority, and Europe and Asia are challenging U.S supremacy, even the crumbs have been taken off the table. Today, the main role of the union leaders is to win us to class-collaboration and nationalism, paving the way for even sharper attacks. So the UAW "give[s] the automakers a green light to shut 12 assembly plants" and calls it a plan to save jobs (New York Times, 8/20).

Historical Precedent

This "new" strategy is not really new. In March 1933, as fascism began in Nazi Germany, the German unions declared, "The trade unions are fully prepared, even beyond the field of wages and working conditions, to enter into permanent co-operation with the employers’ organizations."

British communist R. Palme Dutt wrote, in "Fascism and Social Revolution":

"The whole propaganda and line of [the pro-capitalist union misleaders] confused, weakened and battered down the class-conscious socialist outlook of those workers under its influence, prevented the spread of revolutionary Marxist understanding, fostered semi-fascist conceptions of nationalism, imperialism and class collaboration, and thus left the masses an easy prey to fascism."

Fascism doesn’t emerge out of the blue. The bosses and their labor lieutenants who lead the industrial unions will try to maintain the traditional organizational forms of liberal "democracy," but with a more pro-imperialist, nationalist, class-collaborationist essence.

Historical Responsibility

To repeat the mistakes of the past would be unforgivable. We must answer "labor’s new strategy" with a renewed commitment to anti-racist class struggle, exposing the industrial union leaders’ betrayal of the working class at every turn. Every union meeting, strike or grievance on the shop floor, every campaign involving our fellow workers provides another opportunity to build a revolutionary communist outlook among industrial workers. We must let no opportunity pass to expose the racist, capitalist system and its inevitable drive to war and fascism.

Class struggle combined with patient base-building and increased ideological debate, spurred on by the increased circulation of CHALLENGE, can build a mass base for PLP. The fight will be long and hard, but revolution is inevitable. Armed with revolutionary communist ideas, black, Latin and white workers can sweep labor’s "new strategy" into the dustbin of history, and fulfill our historic mission to smash the bosses’ endless wars and racist exploitation with communist revolution. Start today! Read and discuss CHALLENGE articles on industrial workers.

To Fight Fascism, Terminate Lesser Evil Politics

On October 11, many Californians voted for either Davis or Schwarzenegger out of the belief that their choice represented the lesser evil. But both candidates have solid evil credentials.

The winner, Schwarzenegger, came from former governor Pete Wilson’s anti-immigrant camp. He is sexist, has ties to Nazis and was very friendly with Enron and the energy barons who milked California of $9 billion. But Davis also took Enron money, voted for de-regulation and cut many vital programs. Those who voted against either Schwarzenegger or Davis as a vote against fascism seemed to be saying, "If fascism is capitalism without the democratic mask, let’s keep the mask!"

The capitalist rulers use elections to fight out their tactical differences. For the working class, elections are an "empowerment" gimmick to make workers feel they’re part of the decision-making process. Yet their voting has no bearing on strategic decisions, which are made by capital in the privacy of their board rooms, carefully shielded from public scrutiny. Elections cannot stop the drive towards war and fascism because they cannot solve the capitalist structural problems of declining profit rates, overproduction, increased competition, exploitation and war. Fascism is capitalism in this acute crisis.

The Democrats’ lesser-evil claim — to stop or slow the drive towards war and fascism — was exposed in this election. Aligning with them is aligning with one of the major forces ushering in war and fascism. Lesser evilism presents class enemies as friends. After all, it was Clinton who killed welfare and bombed Yugoslavia, commanded by current Democratic candidate General Wesley Clark.

In a recent pre-election forum, we presented these views and noted that the U.S. ruling class’s response to 9/11 brought it closer to a point of no alternative other than war abroad against its competitors and fascism at home.

Many students at the forum largely agreed. Several left with bunches of CHALLENGES. Some older adults thought Democrats would help workers and minorities. We replied that capitalism in crisis has less and less carrots for workers, mostly sticks. Some thought multilateralists were better than unilateralists. Someone else reasoned that if you’re an Iraqi, there’s no difference in being shot at by one army or several armies.

The Democrats’ program includes cutbacks, prison construction (their $40 billion baby), the Hart-Rudman Commission’s Department of Homeland Security, putting more "troops on the ground" in the Middle East, and centralizing health care and energy under the Federal government.

Both major parties favor military mobilization and related domestic repression. No ballot-box strategy can prevent a series of escalating post-Iraq wars. While it’s useful to participate in electoral groups as long as we develop a base exposing the whole system, voting Democrat instead of Republican won’t work because Democrats champion the above program.

The Greens, represented by Nader, favor cutting one-third of the Pentagon budget by eliminating weapons systems which the brass thought were unnecessary. The military’s basic role remains. Similarly, the leading California Green, Peter Camejo, wants to maintain the occupation of Iraq via the UN. He’s silent on the underlying U.S. agenda, oil.

There are two choices for anti-fascists: make peace with a fascist regime or pursue an activist — and ultimately revolutionary communist — approach. We cannot wait for the legal structure of fascism that combines Patriot Acts I with II and an expanded Department of Homeland Security.

Fascism will be defeated by the development of a revolutionary communist party among workers, soldiers, students and others, a massive task, but do-able. "A journey of a thousand miles," our revolutionary Chinese comrades used to say, "begins with a single step." Organize your friends and co-workers with CHALLENGE. Defeat fascism with communist revolution!

Grocery, Transit Strikers Battle Over Health Cuts, Give-backs

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 20 — The transit and grocery workers’ strikes over the issue of health care are entering their second week. Grocery workers would have to pay 50% more for their health benefits, while MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) management wants mechanics to pay $200 a month more and cut retiree benefits by 75% (the union offered worker payments of $80 more each month, which management rejected)! The bosses also want service workers to do mechanic’s work for $9 an hour less and contract out millions of dollars of work to companies paying poverty wages. In January, MTA plans to increase bus passes by $10 a month. Workers have called these give-backs a "war tax," since transit funds have been cut to pay for the war in Iraq.

When 2,200 ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) mechanics and service attendants struck the third largest transit system in the U.S., they had been without a contract since Sept 30, 2002. About 6,200 transit workers in three different unions are honoring the picket lines. MTA workers are divided into four unions while LA mass transit as a whole is divided into a dozen different locals.

AFL-CIO leaders say they support the strike, but Teamsters are driving for Foothill transit and the Dash lines and other transit company workers are running expanded routes. No worker should be doing the work of the struck MTA. Some rank-and-filers are fighting to unite mechanics and drivers, other transit workers and the riding public. But AFL-CIO union leaders, rather than organizing a city-wide general strike, try to keep us tied to the profit system, and divert us into voting Democrat as the "solution" to these attacks.

Students have been distributing CHALLENGES on the picket lines, along with a PLP leaflet saying, "A system that cannot provide decent health care should be destroyed." We’ve had many sharp and friendly talks with workers about the strike, revolution and communism.

At one location, a General Manager was bragging to a group of workers that he had insulted two PLP students. One worker told him, "You have no right to harass anyone who comes to support our strike." This led to a sharp discussion on the pros and cons of communism.

A supervisor said, "Immigrants come here from all over the world. They don’t go to the communist countries." A worker answered, "If the U.S. is the best, why are there so many homeless and why do workers have to work in terrible conditions like in Wal-Mart with low wages and no benefits?" Another added, "Capitalism in Central and South America and Africa forces the majority of people to live in the worst conditions. The U.S. government has a lot to do with that." The discussion sharpened, appearing to become physical. The manager who started out puffed up left with his mouth closed, knowing that a group of workers rejected his anti-communism. We plan to return with more supporters. We think the strikers will greet us and exchange strike experiences.

At another transit division, a group of students and teachers joined picket lines with signs calling for "Health care for all"; "Don’t raise the bus fare"; and "An attack against workers is an attack against us." Students have been seriously affected by the strike, but see the attack on the workers as an attack on them. The strikers were elated, having many good conversations. One striker wants to keep in touch with PLP.

Winning more workers to become CHALLENGE sellers is one important Party goal in this strike. A Party friend brought another worker to a garment district rally where they distributed over 1,000 leaflets. He’s read CHALLENGE for years and is overcoming his frustration with the passivity of other workers by becoming active in the fight against the transit bosses and capitalism itself.

Another young worker who has come with his friends to May Day marches for the last few years, agreed to talk about the strike to a group at a local college. "I’m not sure about speaking in front of people, but I’ll give it a try." Exactly the right attitude! The same young worker wants to start a study group with some of his friends.

These two strikes have put the issue of health care front and center for workers throughout southern California. Over 43 million workers in the U.S. have no health insurance and the bosses are attacking those who do. Some union leaders call for "national health insurance," but their plan would save billions for the huge steel, auto and other corporations by removing health care costs from their declining profits and shifting it to workers’ taxes. Either way, workers will be getting less while paying more. This racist, imperialist system is in crisis, and will not provide decent health care for workers. Our health and lives depend on building a mass revolutionary communist party.

There seems to be more activity than Party members can handle, a good problem impelling us to rely on more people. We plan to emerge from these strikes with a bigger, more active PLP, more people fighting for workers’ unity, and more people reading and distributing CHALLENGE. Our task is to steer this anger and militancy down the road to communist revolution.

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Student: "We came to show that your fight is our fight and if you lose, we all lose." (He handed the striker a flier and a CHALLENGE.)

Striker: "You’re a communist?"

Student: "Yes. We represent the future of the working class. Capitalism is grinding down the standard of living of the entire working class. Whatever cuts in health care and benefits you suffer, we’ll suffer too."

Another Striker: "You’re right about that. But what does communism have to do with it?"

Student: "You guys are very powerful. You have the power to shut down the whole city."

A third worker: "The government doesn’t have the money to pay health benefits and higher salaries but we at least have to defend what we have."

Student: "Yes, because they are spending billions on war in Iraq. Workers create all value but we don’t control any of it. Imagine committees of workers organizing and deciding everything, what to produce and how — for our own class."

First Striker: "I don’t think that can happen."

Student: "It already happened in Russia and in China. We can learn from their success and their mistakes, see what they did wrong and correct it."

Striker: "That’s going to take a revolution."

Student: "Yeah, and revolution is a long process. It starts in these strikes and in discussions like this."

Garment Workers Back LA Strikers

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 20 — "If the bosses can attack the transit and grocery workers so hard, what will they do to us?" remarked a garment worker here. "Even though this transit strike is hard on us because we all use public transportation, we must back the strike and organize to fight against the garment bosses too."

The majority of the more than 100,000 garment workers here use buses to get to work. Despite this inconvenience, most workers support the strike, some passively by not saying anything against the strikers, others by declaring, "This is what we need in the garment industry, so they’ll stop exploiting us." Public transportation is actually a government subsidy to the garment bosses and big clothing stores, all of whom pay poverty wages, which don’t permit these workers to buy cars, a necessity, not a luxury, in LA. So this government-run bus system gets these workers to the bosses’ shops.

Some transit strikers joined garment workers and students for a protest rally in the center of the garment industry. They called for multi-racial unity between citizens and immigrants against the racist bosses and their attacks on the whole working class, demanding health care for all, and calling for organization of the unorganized.

PLP distributed thousands of leaflets exposing capitalism — based on super exploitation and war — as incapable of providing decent health care for the working class. While we support the fight against every cut in benefits, the long-term fight must be for communist revolution and a society who’s very essence is the well-being of the workers.

We’ve sold hundred of CHALLENGES, calling on garment workers to join the strikers and not support a fake reform like minimal "national health care" paid from workers’ taxes. We championed the building of a mass revolutionary movement. The sharpening of the political struggle has sparked new CHALLENGE networks among garment workers and an atmosphere of struggle in preparation for CHALLENGE dinners.

NYC Teachers Hit The Streets!

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 21 — Twenty thousand teachers and parents protest at City Hall rally against Mayor’s bureaucratic maze of new rules and codes that dictate everything down to the placement of chairs and desks while doing nothing to reduce class size. These new rules have given way to overcrowded rooms and worsen work conditions. Negotiations are at a standstill over a new contract to replace the one that expired May 31.

Rotten Auto Contracts Betray Future Generations

DETROIT —Facing an increasing threat from Japanese and European competition, the UAW, the Big Three auto makers and their former auto-parts subsidiaries Delphi and Visteon broke with tradition and signed five contracts in five days covering about 302,500 active workers and nearly 370,000 retired workers. The deals include a two-tier wage system for new hires at Delphi and Visteon, the two giant parts suppliers spun off from GM and Ford in 1999 and 2000, formally ending the 70-year commitment to "equal pay for equal work." This will hit black, Latin and women workers first and hardest, and accelerate the slide to lower wages and benefits for all.

A UAW International VP called the new contracts, "remarkable achievements given the state of the economy, outsourcing, jobs moving to Mexico and China and the tremendous downward pressure on wages and benefits." He said we must be "realistic" about the times, and that "in this period, confrontation would not help."

What’s less remarkable is the union trying to win workers to unite with the racist bosses "in this period" of increasing inter-imperialist rivalry, widening war and increasing fascist terror.

The UAW maintained current health-care benefits, 30 and Out retirement at any age, and pensions, but will pay for them with a wage freeze, job cuts, plant closings and increased productivity.

Referring to the two-tier system, one Delphi worker called it a "sellout of the next generation," and said, "When the company goes to these workers a few years down the road and tells them they can’t afford a pay raise because of the retiree costs, this will come back to haunt those who voted for it." Thousands of higher paid Visteon and Delphi workers will be offered transfers back to Ford and GM to make room for "second-tier" new hires.

Ford will close four U.S. factories and announced 7,700 job cuts on the day the contract was ratified. Days later, Delphi Corp., the world’s largest automotive parts supplier, said it will cut 500 salaried jobs by the end of the year. In addition to the two-tier wage system, the new four-year contract could allow Delphi to close or sell some plants.

Toyota, Honda and BMW are expanding production with non-union workers and suppliers while GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler are losing domestic market share.

Through August, Detroit’s Big Three held 63% of the U.S. market, down from 64% in 2002 and 75% in 1980. Toyota outsold Chrysler in August for the first month ever and is building a new truck plant in Texas with plans to pass DaimlerChrysler for good within two to three years.

According to the Harbour Report, an annual study on auto productivity, GM, the most profitable of the Big Three, earned $701 per vehicle in North America in 2002 while Toyota earned $1,214. Labor costs are lower at the non-union transplant factories, and the workforce is younger, so there is a much smaller cost for pension and health-care. GM has 2.5 times as many retirees as active workers in the U.S.

The chairman of UAW Local 594 in Pontiac, Mich. said UAW leaders are hoping that "working in partnership with the Big Three will take away any reluctance [of the non-union auto makers] to welcome them in." But if collaborating with the bosses meant more members, the UAW would be about 100 times its size rather than half of what it was in 1980.

From the racist bashing of Japanese imports in the 1970’s, to the Chrysler concessions, GM and Ford plant closings of the 1980’s, which crippled cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Flint, and Pontiac, the UAW leadership has been fiercely loyal to the racist profit system. With their numbers shrinking, they are out to prove they can still play a vital role for U.S. imperialism. "In this period," these are war contracts that show the racist face of industrial fascism. We are dug in for the long haul, confident that black, Latin, women and white autoworkers remain a key force for revolution and with patience and struggle, are open to building a mass PLP.

Stand Up Against Steel Bosses

WHEELING, W.VA., Oct. 8 — Wierton Steel announced plans to cut 950 of 3,500 jobs and eliminate pension and healthcare benefits for 10,000 former workers and their dependents (New York Times 10/8). The USWA (United Steel Workers of America) will cry crocodile tears over these losses, but this is what it means to "Stand Up for Steel [Bosses]!" (SUFS) This is the industry consolidation the union supports.

On Sept. 20, SUFS rallies were held in Pittsburgh, Detroit and Gary, IN. cities devastated by racist unemployment due to the sharpening challenges to the U.S. auto and steel industries. The rallies were to demand that Bush maintain the current steel tariffs, to give the steel bosses more time to consolidate and restructure (about 36 have declared bankruptcy in the current crisis). The tariffs of up to 30% on imported steel have increased costs and raised protests from other sectors, like the auto industry and the UAW.

But not all steelworkers are marching to the bosses’ tune. Over 500 voted against the latest contract at Wheeling-Pittsburgh, a 5-year restructuring as W-P comes out of bankruptcy (the contract passed 1,875-545). And workers in Logansport, IN recently rejected their latest contract offer. None of these workers were featured speakers at the SUFS rallies.

The steel industry, like auto and aerospace, is caught in a crisis of overproduction and overcapacity. Steelabor, the USWA paper says, "There is still a glut of excess steel and over-production in the world market. Some estimates have put the number at more than 240 million metric tons of excess world-wide capacity." Mergers of steel giants in Europe and rapidly expanding production in China and eastern Europe are adding to the glut, which will globalize poverty and unemployment for steel workers.

The Brookings Institution, a liberal Eastern establishment think-tank, says part of the solution is to ditch the old integrated mills requiring large workforces and expensive coke plants and blast furnaces (only integrated mills can make the steel used for outside car panels). Mini-mills like Nucor produce 50% of the country’s steel, using scrap steel, electric furnaces and non-union workers. Brookings says this must be increased.

Only under capitalism can the production of "too much" steel, which could be used to make life better for workers worldwide, become the cause of widespread poverty. The crisis of overproduction is caused by the contradiction between thousands of workers who produce the steel and a few rich capitalists who own the mills and decide how the steel will be distributed, based on what’s good for their profits. Only communist revolution can resolve this contradiction. Then the working class will produce, own and distribute the steel based on our needs.

During the Great Steel Strike of 1919 — headed by the great communist leader, William Z. Foster — every steel worker in the U.S. was on strike. Strike bulletins were printed in 35 languages. That movement was inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution that had led the working class to power in the Soviet Union two years earlier, for the first time in history. We are a long way from that now. But the struggles of steelworkers remain fertile ground for building a new communist movement that, unlike SUFS, will know no borders.

Miners March With Dynamite: One Down, A Whole System to Go

BOLIVIA, Oct. 20 — "One down, many more to go." President Lozada became the fourth South American President to flee in the last several years (Fujimori from Peru, Mahuad from Ecuador, De la Rua from Argentina and now Lozada). The mass mobilizations of workers, peasants and students, led by miners armed with dynamite sticks, forced Lozada to flee. Just before escaping to Miami, Lozada sent tanks against demonstrators, killing many more and heightening their anger.

The indefinite general strike, begun on Sept. 29 by the Labor Federation (COB) under rank-and-file pressure, widened. Tens of thousands of protestors jammed La Paz and all major cities after the latest massacre. Thousands of miners from the Hunani region marched towards La Paz armed with dynamite sticks to "defend the people." In a striking display of working-class unity, soldiers refused orders to shoot the masses, scaring the bosses. On Oct 17, as the miners began their march, U.S. Ambassador David Greeley met with Vice-President Mesa and "solved" the crisis by dumping millionaire Lozada, long-time U.S. lackey.

The new government is weak. Already opportunists like Evo Morales, one of the main anti-Lozada leaders, is biding his time to figure out his next move. The ruling class will use this time to reorganize itself.

The rulers’ $1.4 billion deal that sparked the rebellion was to allow Pacific LNG (a British Gas-controlled consortium) to send gas to Chile for liquification, then ship it to Mexico, to be turned back into gas and then sent to the U.S. The Bolivian government would get only $40-70 million. This will probably be reworked with some minor changes.

The bosses will get away with their plans, and the misery and suffering of workers and their allies will continue. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries on the continent.

At mass celebrations after Lozada’s fall, thousands of workers and their allies swore to continue the struggle. Many called for a mass revolutionary Party. That’s the missing ingredient to turn the struggles into a school for communism. PLP is fighting to build an international communist Party to end the hell of capitalism once and for all.

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Iraq is not the only war. Every day, the class war rages. Over three million jobs have been lost since January 2001; more than 15 million workers are either unemployed, working part-time, or have quit looking for non-existent jobs. Over 44 million workers and their families have no health insurance. In one UAW region, 29 plants are closing and union membership has dropped from 180,000 in 1980 to 66,000 today.

•In one plant, a 500-member "independent" union voted to affiliate with the UAW in 1996. Rather than negotiate a contract, the company formed a "free" union. In January 2003, the UAW won a bargaining order from the NLRB, but because of the huge turnover rate, the core of union activists had shrunk to just 10-15 workers. They have struggled to raise union membership to just over 50% since March, and are still without a first contract.

•A chain of 18 plants making fiberglass parts for Ford and GM and hoods for semi-trucks was bought by a new owner who wanted $18 in hourly wage and benefit concessions, to end the defined pensions and to end health care for retirees, even though a contract was still in effect. Last December, 1,800 workers at one plant began a health and safety strike. The company took $10-$12 in hourly concessions, announced the plant closing (without giving the required 60-day notice), and refused to negotiate a plant-closing agreement. As of October 1, retirees lost all health care benefits and the company is closing four more UAW plants, moving the work to non-union plants in the U.S. and Mexico.

•At a factory in a "Right-to-Work" state that makes parts for Electrolux, 3,000 workers are threatened with suspensions and firings for wearing pro-union T-shirts. The company said that a union newsletter could not be distributed on company property, so the workers organized plant gate distributions at shift change. The company stopped that, ordering security guards to confiscate all union literature. Recently, 200 workers were hired and most joined the union, pushing union membership to about 90%.

•156 workers struck for 27 weeks to stop a plant from closing and moving their work to China. For over 40 years this company made more than half of all the highway pavers used in the U.S. They also make small construction equipment being used in Iraq. They were bought out seven years ago and the union was notified last winter that there would be no new contract. For six months, not one worker crossed the picket line or missed picket duty. One worker described the support rallies as "the biggest held in this county since Grant organized the Union army." The plant closed, but the workers were able to get $1.7 million in severance pay and health care included in the pension plan.

•A United Technology (UTC) plant that makes parts for the aerospace industry locked out 850 workers in a contract dispute in a city with the highest unemployment rate in the state. UTC is a billion-dollar corporation and owns defense contractors like Pratt-Whitney and Sikorski helicopter. The company wanted to slash health care, raise insurance premiums 15% a year, eliminate retiree healthcare and outsource work. After three weeks, the company announced it was taking replacement applications. The workers turned most applicants away and flooded the office with their own "applicants." After six weeks, the workers gave in, "accepting" a 5-year deal that ends retiree healthcare for those retiring after 2008. Their numbers had dropped to 680 and more will be retiring.

•An organizing drive is underway at three Textron plants, another billion-dollar company that owns Bell and Cessna. The workforce has dropped from 2,000 in 1999 to about 800 today, with the work moving to non-union plants in the U.S., Mexico and China. Workers have active committees in all three plants with workers from nearby factories helping with rallies and house calls. Elections are coming soon. One worker said, "We’re ready for a battle."

•On another organizing drive at a company making parts for Maytag, Frigidaire, John Deere and Mitsubishi, workers earn between $8-$8.50/hour, work 7-day weeks, and must pay $70/week for their health insurance. Seven workers have been fired over health and safety and workers’ compensation issues.

•Contract talks will open with Catepillar in December. The company said it is "preparing for negotiations, and permenant replacements."

Multiply these struggles by the tens of thousands. Add to them the largest prison population on earth (more than 2 MILLION, mostly black and Latin young men) and the round-ups of thousands of immigrant workers, many held without charges or deported for minor visa violations, and the face of fascism becomes a lot clearer. It’s not just the face of Bush, Rumsfeld or Ashcroft, but the racist face of capitalism and wage slavery!

The bosses have a big problem; they need the loyalty of those they’re attacking and they aren’t making any friends. The working class is not rolling over for fascism. The union leaders want to use these struggles to elect the Democrats, which will only lead to more fascism and war. With patience and persistance, building unbreakable ties and spreading CHALLENGE, we can turn these struggles into a mass base for communist revolution. But we have to be in it to win it.

Boeing Workers Fed Up With Pro-Boss Rallies

AUBURN, WA., Oct 17 — The Boeing Machinist Union (IAM) rallied today, lobbying for production of the new 7E7 jet in Washington State and for the purchase of the 767 aerial tanker now held up in Congress because of a scandal over Pentagon /Boeing collusion to overcharge the government. Billed as a demonstration "to keep our jobs in Washington State," a few hundred union officials, shop stewards and sprinkling of rank-and-filers heard IAM District President Mark Blondin list the "achievements" of the union’s "We Can Do It" campaign. After Blondin finished listing what we gave the company, one shop steward remarked, "If this is the way we are going to deal with the company, we might as well rename our next contract negotiations, ‘giftings!’"

"Airbus is the enemy," began Blondin. "We want to partner with the company, but partnership is a two-way street."

The company needed unemployment insurance reform so we got it for them, he continued. "We can do it!" he exclaimed. The same with a tax-paid pier in Everett, workers’ compensation reform, $3.2 billion in tax "relief" and a myriad of other gifts: "we can do it, we can do it, and we can do it." He praised the Governor for bringing together opposing interests to hammer out legislation that protected our laid-off members from unemployment insurance cuts, a bold-faced lie since a freeze was instituted. Even more importantly, he failed to mention that the unemployment reform bill included a racist attack on the State’s poorest workers, denying unemployment insurance altogether to seasonal workers, like farm laborers.

Alan Mulally, Boeing Commercial Airline chief, responded to this largess by announcing that the State’s business climate still "sucked." The bosses are never satisfied.

Who Cares About Racist Unemployment When We Can Have Good Press?

When workers complained about these concessions at the pre-rally union meeting before the rally, the misleaders said we had to be "positive," get behind this plane and "get good press."

"Who cares what happens to the cranes in Everett," remarked one official, referring to the complaint that the company was eliminating crane operator jobs.

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, rank-and-fillers wrote their own rally leaflet entitled, "35,000 Laid-Off Workers Demand: No Concessions, Jobs Now!" We circulated and posted hundreds in the plants. "Ask the laid-off about being positive!" said one enthusiastic leafleter, ruefully.

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"We’re witnessing the beginning of the end," commented a disappointed union member, surveying the rally.

"This is way past the beginning!" answered his shop steward.

The current crisis of capitalism highlights the hacks’ inability to deliver jobs, or even mount a significant fight-back. They’ve been revealed as racist apologists for the company.

The same crisis that has forced the union misleaders to reveal their true colors has depleted our ranks, making it more difficult to launching campaigns free of the misleaders’ pro-capitalist politics. Nonetheless, our experience has shown there is a great reservoir of class hatred ready to be tapped if we take the initiative. Our network of CHALLENGE readers can turn, over time, into "the spark that ignites the prairie fire."

March Against Domestic Violence

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 15 — Carrying pictures of victims of domestic violence, dozens of people marched in Upper Manhattan chanting, "No more violence against women." So far this year, 16 have died from such attacks. The marchers, many of them young women, gathered in front of the Pediatrics Emergency room of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where many of the victims come for treatment. A City Council hearing revealed that last year over 220,000 cases of domestic violence were reported

The demonstrators marched to 181st St. and St. Nicholas Ave., where a minute of silence honored the memory of Melissa Pérez, found in a closet in January, murdered by her boyfriend. A poll of young women 14 to 17 reported that 40% knew someone who had been beaten by a boyfriend. The most famous victim in the area was Gladys Ricart, who was murdered several years ago on her wedding day by a jealous former boyfriend, a "successful local businessman."

Capitalism is based on all forms of violence against workers, particularly women, who carry the double burden of being exploited on the job and doing most of the housework and child-rearing. Many workers ape the sexist violence of the system and its music and culture which degrade women. This should not be tolerated.

Environmentalism: A Communist Perspective, Part Three:

Workers Starve, Profits Rise

Throughout the world, famine is a major problem and increasing rapidly. Many wonder how this can happen on a planet abundant with nutritional food sources. Examining the contradictions of capitalism answers this question. Capitalist "logic" means paying farmers not to plant but to destroy crops to keep supplies low and prices high. It also means that millions of pounds of healthy and nutritious grains are wasted on cattle and other livestock instead of using them to end world hunger. In the U.S. alone, 77% of the country’s corn supply is fed to livestock; only 2% is eaten by people. Four million acres of U.S. farmland is used to produce vegetables while 56 million acres produces hay for livestock. The bosses have chosen to support and supply an unhealthy meat-based diet rather than a nutrient-rich, healthier and more abundant plant-based one because meat is a more profitable commodity. This capitalist approach to food production wastes natural resources, destroys the environment and starves workers worldwide.

Through control of state power and agencies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, the bosses drive under local food production with cheaper, subsidized imports. This forces agriculture-rich "third world" countries to become dependent on foreign food imports while simultaneously producing grain to feed the livestock whose meat is sold back to them at prices most super-exploited workers can’t afford. For example, in Bangladesh, where famine and malnutrition are common, enough grain was grown in 1979 to supply each person with 2,200 calories per day; yet its agricultural potential was hardly tapped. Pressure from imperialist powers drove under local, diversified food production in favor of an import-based food economy and an export-based grain economy — grain that would go to feed livestock. The result was that millions of workers and peasants needlessly endure starvation conditions there and worldwide.

Millions of people do not know the process their food goes through to get to their plate and what effect it has on workers and their environment. Dyes, additives and preservatives pollute the foods we eat. Usually, these foods are produced under wasteful and unsanitary conditions. The meat and dairy industries are among the worst offenders. To generate a single pound of beef, cattle must be fed 16 lbs. of grain and 5,000 gallons of water, not to mention the 400 gallons of water needed to produce the grains. Grazing herds of cattle destroy forests and eco-systems, leaving their waste behind to pollute the ground and then be washed away by rainwater into rivers, lakes and drinking water. That is, if they are even allowed to graze. Most livestock are housed in factory-farms covering 60 acres of land with 20-acre waste pits. They’re crammed into tiny cages, unable to move, covered in their own vomit and excrement, and fed a steady cocktail of drugs to keep them docile and "healthy." In some cases, they’re fed the pureed remains of dead or slaughtered cattle, a destructive "cost-efficient" practice which has led to an epidemic of Mad Cow Disease among humans. From these conditions the cheap mass-production of meat products supplies fast-food and franchise businesses.

The bosses claim a plant-based diet doesn’t satisfy the nutritional standards humans need to survive. They say daily consumption of their products will help you become lean, fit and healthy, although actual studies show that a high meat and dairy diet are linked to obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, colon cancer and osteoporosis. Antibiotics, hormones, and steroids injected into mass-produced livestock also help increase cancer risks. Also, improper handling can spread deadly diseases such as E.coli and salmonella poisoning. Yet a mostly vegetable diet with some organic meats would eliminate the need for unhealthy, mass-produced meat and dairy products, and would greatly reduce the risk of disease. Vegetables have no known links to diseases and can supply the nutrients and vitamins we need to survive. Above all, the transition to a plant-based diet — impossible under a profit system — could free up millions of tons of food to feed undernourished and starving workers around the world.

Recently, the bosses have spread the lie that food shortages result naturally from poor crops, claiming that high-tech, genetically-modified plants are the solution. Many staple crops such as corn, wheat and soy are now grown from modified seeds altered to resist damage from pesticides. Despite the fact that tests have proven modified plants are unhealthy and pesticides downright deadly, the use of modified seeds and pesticides continues to increase rapidly, mainly because these products reap huge profits for the bosses.

So why continue to feed ourselves with un-safe food when a better source is more widely available and environmentally friendly? With so many workers starving and unhealthy, animals suffering and the environment being destroyed, we must consider a healthier, more reliable food source. Sections of the bosses’ media will hypocritically print advice on a proper diet and exercise while capitalism saturates us with the opposite in the way of polluted food, obesity through empty calories and unhealthy mass-produced meat and dairy products that prevent masses of people from having bodies fit and healthy — all because the bosses are interested in only one thing, maximum profits.

Interestingly, the Chinese Revolution developed a health system that not only wiped out many diseases plaguing past generations but also greatly reduced others resulting from unhealthy diets. Now, with capitalism restored in China, location of the world’s largest Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, heart disease is climbing.

Under communism, workers will finally have control over their diets. Free from the bosses’ lies and terror, workers will be able to rationally plan agricultural production to meet human need.

Sources:

Lappe, Frances Moore. Diet for a Small Planet. New York; Ballantine, 1991.

McMichael, A.J. Planetary Overload. London; Cambridge UP, 1993.

Robbins, John. The Food Revolution. Boston; Red Wheel/Weiser, 2001.

Molotov Remembers Anti-Revolutionaries in Soviet Union

Over two decades before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Progressive Labor Party documents analyzed the victory of the pro-capitalist forces in the USSR and the restoration of capitalism there and in China. These failures, despite important successes and accomplishments of the old communist movement, allowed us to understand that socialism — a compromise between communism and capitalism, supposedly an intermediate stage before the establishment of communism — cannot work. Instead of leading forward to a classless society, socialism inevitably leads back to capitalism, with all its miseries. The book, "Molotov Remembers : Inside Kremlin Politics," (by Felix Chuev, Chicago, 1993), shows how — in a limited way — one leader of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU) understood and resisted the pro-capitalist politics in that party. This book is a series of conversations between V. M. Molotov and journalist Felix Chuev, from 1968 to 1986.

Molotov was an active communist for over 4 decades. He held leading party and government positions, and was a trusted associate of Stalin for most of that period. After Stalin’s death, he was involved in an attempt to remove Khrushchev for his anti-revolutionary policies, but was defeated, removed from leadership, and expelled from the party.

Molotov considered Stalin to have been a great leader of the working-class movement, and defends most of his policies as correct, acknowledging that "grave errors" were also committed. The most interesting interviews are those in which Molotov explains his disagreement with Stalin and with the pro-capitalist politicians who succeeded him. One persistent theme is the need to promptly abolish money and commodity relations, and to take concrete steps to eliminate classes under socialism. Molotov continued to accept the idea that distinct stages are needed prior to communism: a transitional stage, a socialist stage, and then communism. He insisted, however, that money, commodity relations and social classes be abolished under socialism (pp. 382-4, 394, 403). He claims that he tried — unsuccessfully — to get Stalin to put these policies into the 1936 Constitution and then into Stalin’s 1952 book, "Economic Problems of Socialism" (pp. 205-6, 392, 398-9). Abolition of classes is the main task of socialism, he said. It can’t be postponed.

The CPSU claimed that the wage system and inequality were needed as a "material incentive" (i.e., higher pay) to get people to work hard and build up the economy. Although Molotov does not say that material incentives had never been legitimate in the USSR, he argues that they must be abolished. He proposed six substitutes: (1) competent and scientific planning of production; (2) socialist competition of different organizations and workplaces with each other; (3) selection of personnel; (4) a social orientation, so that all organizations work toward a common goal; (5) international socialist economic integration; and (6) the party’s ideological education, covering all internal and external policies (pp. 371, 381). He proposed elimination of material incentives for workers and that government officials not be paid more than the average worker (p. 380).

Despite these insights, and his interesting comments on many other subjects — collectivization, the anti-Nazi war, the "purge trials, etc. — and given the benefit of hindsight, we should note some limitations of Molotov’s views. Although he said that "Khrushchevism is the bourgeois spirit," and attacked the anti-revolutionary policies of the Soviet leaders and the growing inequality in the USSR, Molotov did not see that capitalism had already been restored. He still held out hope that the CPSU could move forward to communism. He did not see that the wage system and class structure of socialism cannot lead to communism. It’s also worth noting, however, that some of the hard-won lessons PLP was learning in the 1970s and ’80s were also being learned by some people in the USSR. (See the documents, "Road to Revolution III" and "Road to Revolution IV" for the full story.)

Soviet Defeat of Japan in 1939 Shaped World War 2

"Officially," World War II began in Sept. 1, 1939 with the Nazi invasion of Poland. But to many, the war started when the Japanese fascist army occupied Manchuria, China, in 1931; or in 1936 when the Hitler-Mussolini axis helped fascist General Franco overthrow the Republican government of Spain; or even when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1937 (see CHALLENGE, 10/22), murdering one million. To this list, we must add the Khalkin-Gol war. "World War II began here," said retired Mongolian Col. Zhavzanglin Yadmaa (quoted by Rafael Poch de Feliu, reporting for La Vanguardia, Barcelona, and reprinted in Lainsignia.org). This war is largely ignored or unknown. The 500-page World Almanac of WWII devotes one paragraph to it. Yet this short-lived war had an important influence over the outcome of WWII.

The Japanese fascists aimed to capture Mongolia and Siberia, to control the Soviet Union’s rearguard and facilitate the Nazi invasion from the West. "Stalin considered Mongolia a vital zone for his defense and communication systems against a Japanese attack against Siberia and the Soviet Far East, says Mongolian historian Tsedendambyn Batbayar. "Soviet leaders, were determined to teach the Japanese military a lesson if they attacked Mongolia.…Then the Soviets could concentrate their efforts on the European front."

In 1927, Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka, one of the architects of the invasion of China, announced that the Russian Far East and Mongolia had to be conquered. In 1935, when the fascist Axis powers signed an anti-Komintern pact vowing to crush the Soviet Union and the international communist movement, Soviet-Japanese relations deteriorated. In 1937, Stalin sent 30,000 Red Army soldiers to Mongolia. Axis agents in the Mongolian army and government were purged. Without these measures, the Japanese fascists’ plan would have succeeded, just as the Nazis did in Western Europe.

On May 11, 1939, the Japanese army attacked Mongolia, an invasion which the Western powers refused to condemn. Many Western ruling-class forces — including Henry Ford and many in the British royalty — wanted the fascists to crush the Soviet Union. It wasn’t until they saw Hitler & Co. wanted everything that they took action, and even then waited until 1944 to invade Europe when the Soviets had already defeated the bulk of the Nazi army (and might have liberated all of Western Europe). Even during the war itself, GM, IBM and Wall Street bankers were doing business with Nazi Germany.

The Soviet army, led by Gen. Khuzov, counter-attacked, routing the Japanese invaders before Hitler invaded Poland. The struggle in the East was a prelude to the major battles of World War II, integrating the use of tanks, artillery, aircraft and infantry for the first time in modern warfare. The Soviets flew 500 planes and fielded 500 T-34 tanks, a training ground for later use against the Nazis. Some 30,000 soldiers died on both sides. The Japanese lost 660 planes and took over 60,000 casualties. The Soviet-Mongolian forces lost 207 planes and 18,500 soldiers. They were also led by Gen. Choybalsan, nicknamed "the Stalin of Mongolia" for his role in defeating the fascists.

This war witnessed real cavalry charges, as distinct from the WW II mythology about Polish cavalry attacking Nazi tanks, more fiction than fact. Tens of thousands of Mongolian horsemen played a crucial role in defeating the Japanese army. "We attacked them with sabres in hand, rifles with bayonets, wearing gas masks, fearing the Japanese would use poison gas," says 88-years old retired Mongolian Col. Cegengiin Dorzh. He commanded 6,000 horsemen. They loved their horses and tried to protect them with their very lives. Col. Dorzh adds that, "The cavarly never launched frontal attacks.…Our enemy was very powerful, well armed and had the experience of having conquered Korea and Manchuria. They also used mercenaries, like the remnants of the White Army, the anti-communist Russians who waged a civil war against the Bolsheviks in the early 1920s in Siberia and the Soviet Far East." Dorzh’s cavalry lost 400 men.

Today, a decade after the implosion of the Soviet Union, Mongolians still revere the Red Army and the leadership of Stalin in their liberation. They would have faced the same fate as China, where the Japanese fascists killed millions of innocent civilians. Racism against Mongolians is entrenched in Western and capitalist culture; the racist legends about Genghis Kahn and the Mongol barbarians still exist. The Japanese fascists’ defeat in Mongolia forced them to sign a non-agression pact with Moscow. Then Japan’s rulers attacked the French, British, Dutch and U.S. colonies in the Pacific, leading to Pearl Harbor. After finishing off the Nazis, the Red Army defeated the bulk of the Japanese army in Manchuria just when the U.S. was dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a warning to the victorious Soviets that a "Cold War" was beginning.

The Mongolia war also disproved another anti-communist myth, that the Soviet leadership was "unprepared" for the Nazi invasion. This myth was enhanced by the Nazis’ early victories in their 1941 invasion. But unlike Western Europe, where Quislings (pro-Nazi traitors) helped the Nazis conquer, these traitors were destroyed in the Soviet Union before and during the invasion. The defeat of the Nazis at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43 was the turning point of WW II. After that, the Red Army drove relentlessly all the way to Berlin. The committed communist-led Red Army accomplished virtually by itself what the capitalist armies could not.

Capitalism Breeds Unemployment: 22 Million Jobs Lost Worldwide

How come there is so much talk about a "jobless recovery" in the U.S — that is, the economy is growing while unemployment remains high?

Unemployment ALWAYS exists under capitalism. Even in the 1990s "boom," millions were unemployed. But the "boom" lays the basis for the bust, for recessions/depressions.

Capitalism is a planless productive system, in search of maximum profits. To beat out competitors and stay in business, companies produce far more than the market can sustain. Procter & Gamble built new factories in the ’90s with the anticipation of reaching $50 billion in sales but only reached $43 billion. "We overbuilt capacity," said P&G’s president A.G. Laftley. (New York Times, 10/19) "Struggling to get rid of this costly glut,…companies…shut plants and lay off workers….

"The glut of boom-era investment …continues to litter the economy with underused factories." (NYT) Right now U.S. manufacturers are using less than 73% of their capacity.

This is a worldwide phenomenon. "Countries everywhere…are struggling to reduce excess capacity. ‘We’ve got too many steel plants in the world, too many auto companies,’ says [the] chief economist for Asia at J.P. Morgan Chase." (Wall Street Journal, 10/20) Each company builds new plants with the aim of outdoing its competitors, eventually littering the world with underused factories. From 1995 to 2002, a study of 20 large economies "found that from 1995 to 2002, more than 22 million jobs in the manufacturing sector were eliminated, a decline of more than 11%." (WSJ)

As Karl Marx pointed out, each capitalist not only lays off "excess" workers, but invests more heavily in new technology to try to increase productivity, that is, produce more with less. The Wall Street Journal (10/20) confirms this: "Gains in technology and competitive pressure have forced factories to become more efficient, allowing them to boost output with far fewer workers." While 22 million factory workers were laid off worldwide, "global industrial output rose more than 30%. (WSJ)

In the U.S., 15 to 20 million workers search for non-existent jobs. Meanwhile in the past 2½ years, "The productivity growth rate jumped to an annual rate of more than 4%…firms were able to increase output by 10%…without hiring any new workers or increasing the average hours worked per week," says Reagan’s former Chairman of Economic Advisors, Martin Feldstein. (WSJ, 10/13) During the second quarter of this year, productivity rose at an annual rate of 7% as fewer workers work harder and produce more. This is real exploitation.

Bush’s tax cuts, approved by Democrats and Republicans alike, are accelerating this process. By cutting capital gains taxes and taxes on dividends, corporate investors are given more money to pay for new technology and equipment, which intensifies productivity growth. This results in more layoffs and does not create new jobs for the millions entering the labor force for the first time. The less workers, the less profits, the more the rate of profit drops, driving the bosses to invest in still more technology which results in more layoffs, and so on.

The racist bosses super-exploit black and Latin workers to shift the crisis onto the backs of the working class. They use racism to pay these workers 30%-40% less than white workers, netting the rulers nearly $250 billion annually — the difference in median family income between these two groups — and lowering the wages of white workers as well. Black and Latin workers also suffer twice the jobless rate of white workers. This racism has always been the key to the profit system, used to divide and weaken the working class.

The bosses get away with their attacks as long as we workers let them. We must launch intense struggle against the racist bosses and their labor leaders who serve them. Out of that fight, in which PLP must immerse itself and help lead, workers can be won to understand that capitalism, racist unemployment, poverty and war go hand in hand. Only communism can provide for the needs of the working class, eliminating the anarchy of production for profit and creating jobs for all to produce for the collective enrichment of our class.

LETTERS

Health Care, Capitalist Style

A young woman came into my clinic with mouth sores and severe joint pain, barely able to walk. She suffers from systemic lupus erythematosis (SLE), a terrible disease of the immune system, which disproportionately affects African-American women. Treatment exists and is often quite effective. In fact, until recently my patient had been responding well to several medications prescribed by a private physician. Then she was laid off, losing her health insurance. She soon ran out of her medications. Within weeks her SLE symptoms returned with a vengeance.

As a primary care provider in a public clinic serving a mostly black and Latin working-class community, I see some of the best and the worst health care under capitalism. Our clinic staffers work themselves to the bone. The number of patients has expanded tremendously in recent months, but people still work with amazing politeness and caring. There’s a limit to the number of patients who can be seen in a day, but still they keep coming, with uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes and cancer, often seriously ill after years of medical neglect. Many lost their insurance when they lost their jobs. Black and Latin workers, the last hired and first fired, are the worst off.

Over 43 million people in the U.S. have no health insurance. Every year 18,000 workers die prematurely because of poor health care. Why? The reasons are many, but ultimately boil down to the bosses’ insatiable drive for profits. Racism plays a major role. Black workers are the first to die from a stroke or lose a leg from diabetes under this racist system.

Recently an insured patient receiving private care came to our clinic to get medicine not covered by his insurance. I indicated I wanted to help him, but could not copy his prescriptions so he could get them through our clinic. He became slightly angry, declaring he had worked his whole life in the steel mills and was entitled to health care, including medication. I felt bad. He was correct. I worry about my patients. They could become part of the 18,000 who end up dead. They are workers — unemployed, ill or retired. They produced profits for the capitalists, but they can’t have health care because the capitalist system now considers them "superfluous," expendable. During wartime it’s even worse. U.S. rulers would rather spend $87 billion for their empire in Iraq than on workers’ health care.

These minority workers represent the most oppressed. Many already recognize that bosses and workers are enemies. This understanding can put them on the road to becoming communists. Under capitalism, health care is delivered only crumbs at a time to quell potential anger. Much energy is spent seeking these crumbs, making it harder to think about a collective way out of this horrendous situation.

Red Doc

Priests in the Class Struggle

Padre Rogelio Cruz, a Salesian priest from the Dominican Republic, came to New York recently on a visit hosted by Padre Luis Barrios, an Episcopalian priest very much involved in the struggles of poor working people in the city and a fervent anti-war activist. These priests believe as Father Barrios noted in his weekly column in NYC’s El Diario-La Prensa, "Father Rogelio reminds us of what two historical figures wrote. First, St. James, who told us: ‘Don’t say you have faith; show me what you are doing and I will tell if you have faith.’ The other was Karl Marx, the father of communism, who declared, ‘It is not just a question of explaining the world. The point is to change it.’"

Padre Rogelio has organized the people, particularly the youth, of the poor working-class neighborhood of Cristo Rey in the capital city of the Dominican Republic, protesting the constant blackouts there (electricity was privatized, sold at bargain prices to Spanish-owned energy companies, which have worsened the blackout problem). He has organized against the corruption of all recent governments, including the current one led by President Hipolito Mejia, and their anti-people deals with the IMF. He has also constantly denounced the rash of police murders of young people and led militant marches and protests. He’s been attacked by the police, the government and Cardinal López Rodriguez of the archdiocese of Santo Domingo. They are threatening to exile him to Madrid or Rome.

There are many honest priests and religious people like Father Rogelio and Barrios, all followers of one version or another of Liberation Theology. Some years ago, I was in a PLP study group along with a Cuban-born priest like these two, who was expelled from another Latin American country for organizing peasants, and a former theological student who instead of becoming a priest joined a Communist movement in his native country. We were studying Engels’ "Anti-Dühring," a critique of the German philosopher Dühring in which Engels outlined the laws and categories of dialectical materialism. We discussed idealism vs. materialism, the origin of religion and how it is used as opiate of the masses. But ultimately, the former priest just couldn’t break with the idea that humans created God, never agreeing that the universe is eternal and that therefore there couldn’t be an eternal God.

These militant priests are honest fighters and could become allies of a revolutionary communist movement that is actively organizing among the masses. This is even more important today when the bosses — from bin Laden to Bush ("appointed by God to fight Satanic Islam," according to U.S. General Boykin) — are cloaking their oil wars as a jihad. But a struggle must be waged about these priests’ idealism, and how to really change the world.

A Teo

Pro Sports A Diversion?

My Friend: "Aren’t you excited about the upcoming baseball playoffs and World Series?"

Me: "Yes, a little bit, but there are a lot

more important things happening in the world."

But I must "confess," the first thing I did the following Saturday was to turn on the TV to watch the Giants-Marlins game. When you grow up playing baseball and other sports, you’re continually sucked in to watching them on TV and getting excited about a home run or the great catch.

I go to a gym and enjoy working out. I also enjoy talking sports and having political discussion with my friends. I get CHALLENGE out to a number of them.

Many of these workers think capitalism "with all its faults" is the only game in town. I raise the communist alternative. What would gym life be under communist equality? It would be free and accessible to all workers. We would not have professional sports with superstars like Barry Bonds or Lance Armstrong. We would have intramural games where all workers could participate, without all this competitive and dollar-driven nonsense. This would be a better world!

Sports Comrade

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, October 22, 2003

Information: 22 October 2003 362 hits

Vietnam Syndrome Still Haunts U.S. Bosses
AWOL GIs Shock and Awe Brass
GI in Iraq: Brass Are F@#$%! Us
RULERS WANT HEALTHY WORKERS . . .
FOR ARMS PRODUCTION, WAR
Putting Aside Your Fears In Time Of Need!
What You Do Counts
Freedom Rider Challenges Hacks' Pro-war Patriotism
Bolivia is Burning, Again
Free Market and State Capitalism --Two Sides of the Same Coin
China: New World's Maquiladora
Jobless `Recovery': Fewer Workers Working Harder for Lower Wages
UMASS Prof Framed by Patriot Act
CalState University Trustees `Option': Terminate Higher Education
Fascism 101: Become A Stoolie for the LAPD
AFGHAN WOMEN FIGHT U.S./WARLORD OPPRESSION
IL Duce No Lesser Evil Führer
LETTERS
RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Vietnam Syndrome Still Haunts U.S. Bosses
AWOL GIs Shock and Awe Brass

Sagging morale and rising desertions among U.S. troops have raised the specter of the Vietnam Syndrome haunting the U.S. imperialist military brass in Iraq. Even according to Rupert Murdoch's rabidly pro-war N.Y. Post (10/5), "Morale among...war-weary GIs...[is] so low that a growing number of soldiers -- including some now home on R&R [rest and rehabilitation] -- are researching the consequences of going AWOL [absent without official leave]." "I'm going to shoot myself in the foot," said one soldier, referring to his "solution"for getting home. "There is no morale here," another wrote his aunt. "The leadership doesn't care about us. I don't want anything to do with this mess anymore."

The GI Rights Hotline, a national soldiers' support service, reports a 75% increase in calls over the last three months, from 2,000 to 3,500, over 100 from soldiers or their families asking about penalties for going AWOL. Many come from those on 15-day leaves, some saying they won't return. "Some...are so desperate that they have called directly from the war zone...when they can get satellite-phone access or after waiting in line for hours in the desert for a military phone." (NYP) They complain about the length of the campaign, the rough desert conditions and the rising death toll.

The brass is so worried about desertions that they're encouraging soldiers to take their R&R leaves in Germany, "to avoid temptation stateside." Says Hotline coordinator Teresa Panepinto, "They're concerned these people are going to come home and not go back."

Lt. General James Helmly, commander of the 205,000-member Army Reserve, warned about an exodus of active and reserve forces if the U.S. fails to get other countries to supply troops in Iraq. Corporal José Alvarez, now on duty in Iraq, told his wife he will not re-enlist. "I'm definitely getting out," he wrote her. "To heck with the Army." "He hates it," says his wife Wendy from her home on the base at Fort Hood. "He basically has given up."

During the Vietnam War, over 500,000 GI's deserted and open rebellion erupted among thousands of soldiers and sailors, "fragging" (shooting) their officers and sabotaging aircraft carriers, putting them out of action. This was the last straw leading to the U.S. defeat, with its overwhelming hi-tech advantage no match for an intensely committed Vietnamese guerilla army.

Vietnam showed that soldiers' commitment to a cause, especially the troops on the ground, is crucial in achieving military victory. All the "smart bombs" in the world are no substitute for a committed infantry.

One reason for the initial Nazi sweep through Europe in World War II was their highly committed army. But it was the still higher commitment of the communist-led Soviet Red Army that eventually overwhelmed and smashed Hitler's legions.

All the "shock and awe," "hi-tech" warfare, and "pinpoint bombing" are no match for sinking morale among an increasingly uncommitted ground army. How widespread troop dissatisfaction will become remains to be seen. But the Vietnam Syndrome is alive and well in Iraq.

GI in Iraq: Brass Are F@#$%! Us

A friend of mine received this letter from her son. She told me, "You've got to put this in your paper!" He joined the reserves to pay for college and ended up in Iraq. His letter reflects the growing awareness among working-class soldiers that imperialist wars are not in their interests.

To my Mother, Brother and family:

I love you all and miss you all very much. I cannot express the remorse I am having and also the clarity I am experiencing. I will make it home, sound mind, sound body. I am keeping the faith and I have also witnessed the darkness come to light. You read this and be the judge.

We received a letter informing us that we have been extended. These people are full of shit. We have pulled duty without our ballistic [bullet-proof] vests. Active duty infantry [has] tanks all over the place. We only have humvees, duces and five-tons. The weapons we have are M16A2 rifles, SAWS and one .50-caliber. They have also taken away our atropine injections [emergency antidote for poison gas].

In short, we don't even have enough force to protect ourselves, (let alone our assigned objective). We're not protected or supported here by our government or the officials appointed over us.

We are being extended so that we'll be staying longer than the active duty units. On top of this, they are not paying us the right amount of money. Most of the soldiers here are missing out on one or two semesters of school. Jobs will be lost because of this extension. We are here longer because of the election year. They don't want to upset the voters, and can't get the support of other countries to send troops here. We were to go stateside and do one year (there). But our commander...pushed for us to come up here. We believe it's so he can make colonel -- being in war for six months is one of the qualifications he needs for promotion.

Family, please write and pray for me and the people here. We're getting fucked over. Mom, write to Congress addressing the problems I have listed. Also write to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (even though we know they have no power), just to get the word out.

This mother's plan "to get the word out" was to bring her son's letter to CHALLENGE. Growing "clarity" like this soldier is experiencing, spells danger for the oil-hungry U.S. capitalists and the military brass that do their bidding. The bosses' worst nightmare is young soldiers like this with guns in their hands and rebellion in their heads.

RULERS WANT HEALTHY WORKERS . . .
FOR ARMS PRODUCTION, WAR

On October 2, a New York Times editorial decried the "health insurance crisis." It lamented that 43.6 million workers lacked insurance, 10% more than two years ago. Electing a Democrat would help relieve the problem, the Times said. "At least six candidates competing for the Democratic nomination have put forth health insurance plans of one size or another." When the media, politicians and other liberal spokesmen for the leading U.S. capitalists worry about workers' health, watch out. For the bosses, health care is an instrument of social control.

The rulers need a healthy working class for two basic purposes: profits in their industries and fighting their wars. The latter is becoming increasingly critical for U.S. bosses. Military analysts at Stratfor.com (Internet intelligence service) note that the U.S. faces a severe troop shortfall in its open-ended conflict with Al Qaeda and other Islamic militants: "The United States is engaged in a global war, but its personnel policies have not adjusted to that reality." What's needed in the short term, says Stratfor, is "a large expansion of the armed forces" (9/29/03). Even now to cover 100 U.S. bases worldwide and especially down the road, confronting China, Russia or Europe will require millions of additional troops.

The rulers fear, however, that workers' worsening fitness may limit the deadliness of the U.S. war machine. A little-publicized branch of the Defense Department called the Industrial College of the Armed Forces is responsible for planning the wartime mobilization of U.S. industry. In its most recent report on the health care sector, the ICAF warned, "militarily, the failure to mobilize and field a healthy workforce could negatively impact our ability to project force and form alliances, hence compromising national security. Furthermore, a strong military force requires a healthy population from which to draw potential recruits." But, said the colonels and captains at the ICAF, "about 16% of Americans...are without health care coverage." The warmakers' conclusion might as well have come from a Kennedy, or a Clinton or one of the Democrats running for president: "The U.S. does not presently have a carefully formulated and executable national health care strategy. In our opinion, ensuring national security requires devising and implementing such a strategy."

The ICAF report called for "universal access to medically necessary care." It also launched a National Focus on Wellness and Prevention -- Healthy Lifestyles, with an emphasis on childhood obesity. This effort has actually brought about minor reforms in the food served at McDonald's and in schools. Keeping children healthy seems a noble goal. But the capitalists are interested only in producing cannon fodder. Their real motive here emerges in a Pentagon-backed study dubbed "Too Fat to Fight" published in the American Journal of Medicine (10/15/02). It found that "if the U.S. military needed to recruit substantial numbers of young men and women into their forces quickly...at least 13 percent of young men and 17 percent of young women of prime recruitment age would fail the weight requirements of all four services." Carlos Crespo, a co-author of the study, patriotically declared, "Obesity is not just a public health issue, it's a national security concern."

The Times expects health care to "become a significant issue in the presidential campaign." But don't be taken in by the candidates' liberal promises. The capitalists' concern for workers' well-being leads to the battlefield and the grave.

Communists want good health for the working class. But that means decent living conditions, job security and a medical policy of disease prevention. The profit system can never achieve these goals. It creates the opposite. The best way to guarantee a healthy future for our class and our descendants is to join the Progressive Labor Party and the fight for communism.

(Next article in this series on the state of the working class: Why and how the rulers plan to "educate" the working class for war and fascism.)

Parents Defeat School
Bosses' Frame-up of PL Teacher

BRONX, NY, Oct. 7 -- Approximately 50 parents at an elementary school here rose up to defend a PL teacher from a vicious attack by the school administration and scored a great victory. The parents' actions were part of a continuing fight with the same fascist administration and their many attempts to force students and teachers to recite the bosses' pledge of allegiance. (See CHALLENGE, 3/19/03) That battle -- which the administration lost -- resulted in two new recruits to the Party and solidified the multi-racial unity of parents and teachers.

In early September the principal broke up all the school's teaching teams, leaving many in an unfamiliar environment, including the PL teacher's classroom in which the pledge fight occurred. The principal deliberately disrupted these productive, and very successful, teaching partnerships to divide the instructional staff, a move which hurt the students the most.

Following this attack, on a recent Friday, the PL teacher received an answering machine message charging him with "corporal punishment"-- hitting a child. The family filing the complaint has a history of creating problems with other teachers. The administration knew this family would do something to make the PL'er's job difficult, setting up a volatile situation.

That weekend, eight parents met as a "defense" committee to take the offensive against the manufactured charges. They agreed to issue a leaflet first thing Monday morning exposing this attack and calling on the community to defend this hard-working, respected teacher. They vowed to picket outside the school and escort him to his classroom, never leaving him alone. The committee called other parents that weekend, aiming to build a mass presence outside the school.

On Monday morning, parents and members of PLP were ready to fight! An initial group of eight more than doubled after 20 minutes of leafleting. Parents dropping their children off to school were angry, asking how something like this could happen to such a good teacher. Many volunteered to help defend him. Six joined the defense committee.

The principal and union representative tried to dissuade the demonstrators from leafleting. When the principal approached some demonstrators, they demanded, "What are you doing to our teacher?" The principal said she knew nothing about the situation, being "out of town." Then one parent confronted her, declaring, "We know you're lying! We've got a copy of the answering machine tape....You know what's going on." The principal, frustrated, then left. Later the parents heard she had called the cops.

Then the union rep tried to trick the demonstrators into leaving the premises and return at 9:20 a.m. (when the streets would be empty). They ignored her, continued to hold their signs, distributing approximately 300 leaflets and dozens of CHALLENGES. One parent took a stack of leaflets and distributed them to another school down the block. Those parents and teachers were outraged at the attack and told the parent they supported the PL teacher 100 percent. (See adjoining letter.)

When the PL teacher arrived, the parents hugged him. One PLP leafleteer told him, "These parents are pissed off!" Ten parents escorted him into the building, one parent saying, "We're not leaving until we know you're alright."

When he entered his classroom the union rep tried to convince him to stop the demonstration (as if he was controlling the parents). She said no phone call was placed charging him with corporal punishment, that he was "blowing things out of proportion," hiding the fact that an investigation was underway. When the union rep was questioned about the cops coming, she replied they were called to protect him from the child's father, but it was learned later they were most likely looking to arrest him. When three cops arrived they actually asked, "Do you know where this teacher is? We were told to come and get him." However, they didn't arrest him because the school administration, seeing the parents guarding the PL'er's classroom, feared a massive protest inside the school.

There were now 20 parents outside his door, where one parent gave an impassioned speech expressing outrage against the administration's attack on this teacher. She called on the parents to unite and fight. Then the parents began to chant, "Let us in! We want to see our teacher! We want our teacher!" The door opened and the parents of his current class greeted him with hugs of support. Seeing he would be allowed to teach his class, they left the hallway, moving to the front of the school.

The union rep returned, "assuring" them that nothing would happen to him. While the union rep acted all along "within the limits of the union rules," the comrades and parents didn't trust her, refusing to leave until the three cops outside his door also dispersed. The cops took off at 10:00 a.m. so the parents left at 10:30.

The victory was clear. Nobody was taking the PL teacher out of the school that day. The administration was forced to speed a quick in-house investigation as opposed to a dragged-out trial. A 30-minute investigation revealed that the incident never occurred.

The next morning the mother arrived with her child and confessed to the PL teacher that the child had made up the whole story. The mother wrote a letter confessing the lie and declaring the PL teacher innocent.

While the administration has the power of the capitalist state behind it, the Progressive Labor Party has something more powerful, the power of its base in the working class! Experiences like this remind us that relying on our class can keep us on the road to building a communist society, where education serves the interests of working class children and their families.

Putting Aside Your Fears In Time Of Need!

Dear CHALLENGE,

There were lots of parents outside the school to support Mr. S. I myself was at another school in the community giving out flyers defending him. I stood in shock when parents and teachers read the flyer and said, "NO WAY...MR. S.; I DON'T BELIEVE IT!" This assured me that Mr. S. is somebody well-known and respected in the community. I myself have never given out flyers before. At first my fears got hold of me, but when you believe in something, you know you can do it. When a friend becomes family, you will do anything to help them out.

Sincerely
A Bronx Parent

CHALLENGE
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struggling to change it!

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What You Do Counts

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Oct. 7 -- Recently a union leader in my plant surprisingly, and for the first time, asked us to support the volunteers for the "Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride" headed for Washington to back immigrant workers' rights. I've been working here many years. Many of my co-workers read CHALLENGE and the Party's communist leaflets. Seeing this as a good opportunity, my department organized more than a dozen workers to support the protest. We received Party leaflets explaining why the politicians and liberal union sellouts are behind the pro-immigrant campaign. Some workers knew that several years ago the AFL-CIO leaders were attacking immigrant workers for supposedly "stealing jobs" from citizens. Now they treat us like heroes in a movie. During the next week the leaflets appeared in many places, amid much discussion.

Convinced the bosses are trying to win workers to fascist patriotism and their imperialist wars, I returned the following week determined to win workers to a communist outlook and advance the struggle to the next level.

The discussion began on Monday at 7 a.m. A Russian immigrant worker greeted me in Russian, calling me "comrade." Both of us were whistling the Internationale when my Russian friend said to a Central American worker in Spanish, "Revolution!" and he answered, "Until death!" Then I told another worker that some Chicago workers who, fed up with waiting for a new contract, are organizing to disqualify the old sellout union and join Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition." "Really?" he replied. "They're going from bad to worse. I hate that guy because when I was a driver and we fought for a better contract, he arrived and then left us in even more hot water. What he's looking for is money." There were comments about the bosses using Jackson to repress future rebellions.

Currently our union is negotiating a new contract. Everything indicates we're stuck in quicksand. The bosses want mechanics and maintenance workers to pay $200 a month for health insurance (we currently pay $6) and retirees to pay $375 a month, and want us to "accept" a wage "increase" of 1% the first and second years. The bosses and the union advocate "United We Stand" -- united in attacking the working class.

Then the conversation shifted to the role of the Democrats and the Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some said he's anti-worker and if elected will develop fascism. But under Democrat Davis, we workers are also facing huge cuts. By now six workers were in the discussion.

Someone said at least Schwarzenegger wouldn't be corrupted. Others answered "not true," that some bosses backed him because he represented their interests; he openly said he was anti-union and would give concessions to bosses moving to California.

Another worker declared, "I'm against this bastard but still think too many workers abuse workers' compensation." Others labeled this a bosses' lie to justify cuts in our benefits, that it's the bosses who are robbing us. For example, how much does a worker at Level 2 get compared to a worker at Level One, doing the same work? How much money do the bosses pocket in two years of "progressive wages" (paying different levels different wages)?

Still another worker warned we're being attacked "because the Board of Directors is half Democrats and do nothing for us, despite all the money we give to their campaigns. We workers must defend ourselves. Our strike should be militant." Some recalled the armed strikes of the coal miners. A worker said, "We can't retreat. We have to defend ourselves."

Then an Asian worker commented, "A lot of the newer workers aren't even interested in what's happening in the union." "That's not their fault," replied another worker, "it's our fault. We workers with more understanding must teach the rest that it's the workers who have the power to move this society. The current crisis is a crisis of the system and we must participate in the workers' movement to strengthen the working class."

We discussed the maquilladoras in Mexico and China, the war in Iraq and the coming of World War III. But the most important thing growing out of all this was five workers agreeing to join a study group about communist ideas.

An immigrant worker

Freedom Rider Challenges Hacks' Pro-war Patriotism

The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride was very enlightening. I traveled on a bus from the Midwest and we were welcomed everywhere.

From the beginning, the ride was filled with speeches from union sellouts and politicians. They had prior warning that a group of racist Nazi thugs would hold a counter-rally, and they worked with the police to ensure the dozen fascists were well protected. Despite this, one Nazi was beaten to a pulp on the train ride home. The conductor held the door open as the Nazi was thrown off.

The politicians and union hacks pushed patriotism to try to win us to support fascist Homeland Security and imperialist war. The bus captains made sure that every time we stopped everyone carried a small American flag amid patriotic rhetoric. Many people asked me why I refused to carry a flag. I explained that the flag represents murder, racism and exploitation. They praised my conviction but they all carried a flag.

The most powerful speeches came from the riders themselves, mostly undocumented workers and students. There were fourteen nationalities, mostly young students trying to get the Student Adjustment Act/Dream Act passed. Most came from community organizations, churches and unions. The discussions focused on the issues at hand and what we were going to do along the way: a rally here and there, lunch with community or church organizations.

On the last two days, we talked with Congressmen about legalization, the Student Adjustment Act and the Clear Act (a law making any local government organization act as the federal Immigration Service), becoming very knowledgeable about these points. Most people were hopeful about winning our demands but knew it would be difficult. Even if we "won," we couldn't change much. Most realized that even if all undocumented workers were "legalized, the problem will persist because there will always be workers looking for a better life.

Our time together made us feel like a family, sharing thoughts never shared before. Myself and my co-worker who traveled with me discussed imperialism, PLP, and how this event was pushing patriotism to sucker us into supporting imperialist wars and fascist Homeland Security. The politicians and union leaders want us to think voting will solve the problems, yet we all know this isn't true.

This was a "base building" ride. I met all these wonderful people who want to change the system. Even though they think we can do it through elections, they all want to fight. Many were undocumented and were demanding their status be changed.

If we work correctly, these are future communists. Our unity, based in struggle against capitalism, enables us to wage the sharp, long-term ideological struggle necessary to build a mass PLP. I could have been more aggressive with CHALLENGE, but I'm confident I can sharpen the struggle, win new readers and, sooner rather than later, new members of PLP. We have a long road ahead, but the future looks bright for communism.

Bolivia is Burning, Again

BOLIVIA, Oct. 6 -- This country, one of the poorest in Latin America, is again burning with mass rebellions. In February, demonstrations of up to 80,000 attacked the government's "impuestazo" (a wage cut by means of a big tax hike on salaries). The army shot many when they demonstrated in La Paz, the capital city.

The current struggle began with protests against the selling of Bolivian gas deposits, the second largest in Latin America, to an international consortium called Pacific LNG, formed by BP, Repsol-YPF and British Gas. The gas will go through a pipeline to the Chilean port of Iquique (Bolivia lost its seashore in a war with Chile in the 1870s).

There the gas will be liquefied and shipped to Mexico, where it will again be turned into gas and exported to the U.S. The Bolivian government's "share" of this $1.3 billion-a-year deal will be only $40 to $70 million.

On Sept. 20, army troops shot at farmworkers, students and teachers blocking roads in the Andean region of Warisata, killing five (including an 8-year-old girl). This sparked a mass movement.

On Sept. 29, rank-and-file pressure forced the COB (Labor Federation) to call an indefinite general strike, which has been a partial success in its first week. One of the main demands is nationalization of the gas industry. Another is the resignation of President "Goni" Lozada, a U.S.-educated multi-millionaire, hated by the masses.

But the movement has many weaknesses. First, nationalization has never worked here. In 1952, the mining industry was nationalized and land reform imposed. But this "nationalist revolution" turned into its opposite, and the mining industry was privatized again. Miners and all workers are now more exploited and poorer than ever.

Second, the movement is weak in fighting the racism suffered by the majority indigenous population, super-exploited for 500 years. Many want to return to the old, pre-capitalist communal ways, but this is impossible. Society moves forward. Only communist revolution can liberate indigenous and all workers, not replacing President Lozada with some "lesser evil" capitalist politician, while capitalism remains intact.

This requires building a revolutionary communist party. In the February rebellion, the system could have been taken. But the union leaders and other anti-Goni politicians like Evo Morales did their best to prevent this outcome. The same thing will happen now. Revolutionary leadership can unite workers and their allies to defeat these traitors.

The young workers drafted into the army could be a big factor in this struggle. The National Association of Parents of Conscripts demanded the government pull the troops out of the Andean region after the shooting on Sept. 20. Most of these soldiers are poorly fed and mistreated by their officers. Revolutionary leadership could win soldiers to support the general strike and refuse to fire on strikers, as well as build unity with workers in Chile.

Workers and soldiers, united under revolutionary leadership, can destroy the system that has oppressed us for so many centuries.

Free Market and State Capitalism --Two Sides of the Same Coin

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 1 -- Led by the Electrical Workers Union (SME), thousands filled El Zócalo, the plaza outside the Presidential Palace, to denounce President Vicente Fox's plans to privatize the energy and electrical industries. Fox was cursed, denounced and ridiculed in chants, signs and speeches. But equally hated by the marchers was Ms. Elba Gordillo, leader of the National Teachers Union (SNTE) and also the most powerful PRI politician in the Congress. (The PRI is the former ruling party and now in the "opposition.") She was called a "killer of teachers" -- when she ran the union directly, several dissident teachers were murdered -- and a sellout for collaborating with Fox's privatization plans for the oil and electrical industries and public services like education and health. "Daughter of Fox" many called her.

The SME represents nationalist feelings among workers and a group of bosses. The "opposition" Revolutionary Democratic Party leader and former presidential candidate, Cuauhémoc Cárdenas, was one of the few speakers at the protest, saying that state capitalism is "better" than the free market variety. The bosses and their union hack allies fighting for "state capitalism" don't do it to protect workers, but to control the exploitation of the rich state-owned monopolies like PEMEX (the oil giant) for their own private profit and benefit. Workers will be exploited no matter which group of local bosses or imperialist vultures controls the means of production.

Contrary to fake leftists and union hacks, we in PLP call on workers to fight to abolish wage slavery -- capitalism in all its forms -- and fight for a society where workers produce to satisfy their needs.

China: New World's Maquiladora

Job elimination has been the main "achievement" of Mexico's President Fox. In July, employment in the maquiladora industry (foreign-owned plants mostly near the U.S. border that import parts to assemble in Mexico for re-export) fell by 2.3%. The National Statistics Institute of Geography and Information reported that maquiladora employment overall had dropped from one million workers in early 2001 to 821,500 by last July. (Financial Times, 10/2)

The slowdown in the maquiladoras began with the U.S. recession and an overvalued peso, but now another capitalist country where labor is even more exploited than Mexico has worsened the situation. Since workers are paid even less in China, it is cheaper to produce there even with the lengthy transportation to the U.S. market. And just as CHALLENGE has reported the misery brought by the maquiladoras to young women workers in northern Mexico -- including hundreds of women from the maquiladoras murdered in Ciudad Juarez -- the same is happening in China.

The N.Y. Times (10/2) reported on young girls being super-exploited and cheated of their pitiful wages in a maquiladora-type cosmetic factory in northern China. "These girls' ill-fated foray to work at Daxu Cosmetics and their attempt to flee one moonless night in May illustrate how even rudimentary workers' rights lag far behind job creation and profits in China's surging economy."

The defeat of communism in China has been a nightmare for tens of millions workers like these young women.

Jobless `Recovery': Fewer Workers Working Harder for Lower Wages

Despite the wishful thinking by the Bush administration, a jobless recovery is the name of the game. There are three million fewer jobs today than when "Dubya" took power in January 2001. "Based on 220 million people of working age today, there should be at least 134 million jobs. Surveys report...fewer than 130 million jobs. Just to return to some form of normal state, employment would have to increase by 4 million. That is the `job gap.' It is the sum of jobs that have been actually lost plus those that growth should have added since the beginning of 2001."(London Financial Times, 10/1)

Over the next year, the number of people of working age will grow by 2.75 million, 61% of whom will need jobs. So closing the job gap involves not only creating jobs for those already unemployed but also creating another 150,000 per month for these new workers entering the job market.

The Bush administration and especially some textile manufacturers blame China for the job losses. They are demanding China adjust its currency to make Chinese goods more expensive, slowing Chinese exports to the U.S. market and therefore reduce the transfer of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China where workers are more super-exploited.

But Marx explained the real problem over 150 years ago: in the quest for maximum profits, each company tries to capture as much market share as possible. They build new factories which in turn leads to overproduction of the means of production. Since more is produced than the market can bear, the excess factories are closed and mass layoffs ensue, as the bosses shift their losses onto the backs of the workers. Then they use this army of unemployed as a club to drive down the wages and increase the productivity of those still working.

Capitalism will never create jobs for everyone (except during World War II when 14 million workers were drafted into the military). Even in the "boom years" of the '90s, joblessness was higher than reported because "discouraged" workers, those on welfare and those imprisoned (more than two million, mostly black and Latino men) aren't counted as unemployed.

In the past, workers laid off in recessions were re-hired when the recession ended. But today's "recovery" is mainly based on increased productivity, meaning fewer workers are producing more while wages drop and many laid off workers are not re-hired. Ford recently celebrated their new four-year contract with the UAW by announcing 3,000 job cuts on the day the deal was ratified.

The Bush administration also claims tax cuts have helped the recovery. While some workers who received a few hundred dollars may have used them to buy school supplies for their kids, the major cuts were in capital gains taxes. These are designed to raise savings and lower the cost of capital, not to increase consumption. As the cost of capital falls, companies invest more in automation, which "drives output per worker sharply upwards. Over the past two years labor productivity has gone up by more than 4% a year, roughly twice the average of the previous five years." (FT)

The Bush administration hoped seizing Iraqi oil would boost the recovery. The war is helping some companies make big profits (particularly those associated with Bush, Cheney & Co.), but the war has created other problems. Iraqi oil production is well below expectations, partly because of continuous sabotage of oil pipelines. U.S. bosses may have to share the Iraqi oil bonanza with France's Totalfina, Russia's Lukoil and other imperialist oil companies as the price for getting international aid in rebuilding Iraq.

The Democrats are using unemployment as an election issue. But the Clinton boom of the '90s was based on the speculation of the "new economy." This "dot.com" bubble burst before 9/11, and contributed to the current problem. The real Clinton "boom" was the rapid expansion of slave labor Workfare and prison labor, and the creation of low-wage jobs. Currently over 30% of all U.S. jobs pay wages below the poverty line.

Capitalism and unemployment go hand in hand. This system offers workers and youth a future of endless wars, jobless recoveries, racist and fascist terror. Such a system must be smashed. Workers produce all value. We don't need bosses. We need a communist society where production is based on workers' needs.

UMASS Prof Framed by Patriot Act

BOSTON, MASS., Oct. 5 -- On Nov. 6, UMass and Roxbury Community College Professor Tony Van Der Meer will be tried for assault and battery on a police officer and resisting arrest. The charges stem from an incident at UMass-Boston last April when anti-war students were passing out leaflets quoting Martin Luther King's condemnation of the Vietnam War. A near-by military recruiter shouted ugly racist smears ("You should be shot in the head, too") at the students and Prof. Van Der Meer, who came to the students' defense. Van Der Meer, a black man, was then tackled, arrested and shackled by the UMass police, while the white military recruiter walked away scot free.

Freedom of speech has always been a sham under capitalism because the bosses use their media to control which "speech" is heard. And the courts have always sided with the police. But now, since passage of the Patriot Act, District Attorneys and judges are increasingly refusing to use their discretion to dismiss cases involving protests against racism and fascism. This has motivated Van Der Meer to use his case as " a vehicle to inform people about how our so-called constitutional rights are being violated" as well as build the movement against the war in Iraq. He wants people to understand that this attack "is really happening to them, too." The government is "chiseling away our rights," and the attack against him could become a "precedent to deny others their rights."

Professor Van Der Meer uses his classroom to "try to help working-class students empower themselves." He sees education as a "process of social transformation rather than a way for students to better commodify themselves". He views his role as a professor at a working-class university as helping to "make new human beings in this society".

The D.A.'s office has offered to dismiss his case if Van Der Meer doesn't press charges against the UMass police and the National Guard's recruiter. Van Der Meer courageously refuses to make this deal. Once the criminal case has been resolved, he wants to take the offense and expose the "injustice system" for squashing dissent, which "has become a criminal act in this post 9/11 society."

PLP applauds Van Der Meer for his willingness to oppose growing fascism. We're mobilizing to support him, just as everyone around the country should actively defend those being victimized by the Patriot Act -- Muslims, South Asians, Arabs and political activists. In these struggles, communists must win others to a mass approach rather than relying on liberal politicians, who try to keep us passive until it's too late to fight back. We must not compromise our commitment to sharpen the class struggle. If politicians, loyal to the capitalist system, legitimize us, we're selling out the working class.

CalState University Trustees `Option': Terminate Higher Education

Working-class students, professors and staff in the California State University System (CSU) are under attack. The largest public higher education system in the U.S., serving nearly a half million students, increased student fees 10% last January and another 30% in July, in anticipation of a $200 million cut in the system. In early August, the California Legislature cut $345.2 million, leading Chancellor Reed to eliminate 2,300 faculty jobs, lay off countless part-time instructors, close a large number of classes, slash outreach and recruitment, freeze wages, and cap enrollment for next year, denying 30,000 eligible graduating high school students enrollment into the CSU system. (www.calstate.edu/BudgetCentral/index/html).

The Chancellor, Trustees and State Legislature are servants of corporate profit. Eleven of the twenty Trustees are CEO's of corporations, including Robert Foster, CEO of Southern California Edison. The others are lawyers and real estate developers. Only one is a CSU professor.

Next year looks even worse. All state agencies must cut 20% from the 2004 budget. Recently the Board of Trustees said this cut would mean one of four options: 1) turn away 100,000 students; 2) cut 54,000 courses; 3) raise student fees by 90%; or 4) lay off nearly 7,000 faculty.

But students and faculty are fighting back. At one campus, students and faculty organized a large demonstration against the budget cuts and fee increases. In the face of continual threats by the administration, the demonstration linked the budget cuts to the "war on terrorism" and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout the day, over 2,000 students heard speakers, watched guerilla theater, music and poetry. We marched through the campus chanting, "Money for books and education, not for war and occupation," and "Fee increases and layoffs mean you got to fight back." We distributed over 200 CHALLENGES.

The overall campaign includes classroom presentations about the budget cuts, fee increases, war and occupation. This is helping build the anti-budget cut, anti-war coalition. Over 50 students have joined the campaign in the past two weeks, with more contacting the organizing group every day. The next step is to intensify day-to-day political struggle for a revolutionary position. Most importantly, CHALLENGE distribution helps PL members advance a sharp communist analysis within this struggle.

The CSU crisis reflects the deepening crisis of capitalism, whether run by Democrats or Republicans. The ruling class cuts healthcare and education while pumping billions into an occupation that will never "liberate" anyone. They create the crisis, and then balance it on the backs of the working class.

A system causing endless wars for profits, racist cutbacks and crooked politicians must be replaced by one serving the needs of workers and their families: communism. Join PLP!

Fascism 101: Become A Stoolie for the LAPD

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6 -- "This is what fascism looks like!" said a teacher at a public high school here last week. On Tuesday, lawyers from the L.A. City Attorney's office spoke to the faculty meeting, outlining the new neighborhood "block project." In conjunction with the L.A.P.D. under Police Chief William Bratton, the Federal "Weed and Seed," two federal agencies and the State Police, the city attorney's office will target "quality-of-life crimes," youth gangs, graffiti and drugs. On Wednesday, drug-sniffing dogs were brought on campus, and students and teachers in several classes were ordered into the hall while the cops took the dogs around to sniff all the purses and back-packs -- supposedly for drugs. On Thursday, students in the leadership class (student council) were called from class to an urgent meeting with the L.A. City Attorney and told they were to be snitches for the LAPD.

Many people are angry about this increase in police presence. They're beginning to organize against it, both in school and in the union. Some parents are wondering why they've not been told that their children's belongings are being searched. Teachers are angry that students would be used as informers on city workers -- such as if trash collectors are doing their job. Students are angry about being searched and treated like criminals.

The "Weed and Seed" program -- created after the LA rebellion protesting the acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney King -- targets young black and Latino males, calling them "weeds," and jails them. This program, started by George Bush Sr., was fought in Seattle. The lessons of that fight are being studied here. It was supposed to create urban enterprise zones to "gentrify" the inner city. The only "seeding" in our neighborhood is a tiny amount to pay for a new football scoreboard at the school and for some of the tutoring already going on. Like "community policing," Weed and Seed's real goal is to win one section of the community to trust the police and other city officials rather than our class, and to pit older residents against the youth, who are all seen as "weeds" -- or criminals.

Last year Bratton declared war on the gangs, and in one weekend the cops killed six civilians. Two victims were students at this school -- passengers in a car the police shot at when the driver didn't stop fast enough. Many students were angry; they protested, but community agencies strove to deflect the anger into prayer vigils.

This year, two students were killed near the school in a drive-by shooting. Quickly Bratton was on TV, announcing the arrest of gang member "suspects." The following week, the city attorney was at the school rolling out the LAPD/City Attorney/Weed&Seed block project. The ruling class takes our pain and our fear, a fear caused by their system, and uses it to build a fascist police state. After all, the gangs became a serious problem after drugs like crack cocaine were made available in huge amounts by the same rulers who then use the turf war over drug "territory" to terrorize all the youth in these neighborhoods.

While the big gangsters in the White House and Congress recruit young people to fight their class brothers and sisters in Afghanistan and Iraq, the little gangsters in the neighborhood recruit young people to fight their class brothers and sisters in the next street for control of drug trade and turf. Young people must be won to fight for our own class -- the working class -- against those who would win us to risk our lives and to kill our class brothers, in the Middle East or on the next block. The solution to imperialist war, unemployment and racist police terror is a working class movement uniting us against these fascist attacks and against the whole capitalist system that needs fascism when it's in crisis.

More people are open to reading CHALLENGE, to see how this attack fits into the rulers' plans to win youth and their parents to look to them for protection, to militarize the neighborhoods and all of society in preparation for more war. Growing awareness of their plans can lead to a fight against them and to many seeing that the long-term solution to this crisis is communist revolution.

Environmentalism: A Communist Perspective
A Capitalist Nightmare

This is part two.

Since 1940, North Americans have consumed a larger share of mineral resources than the combined total of all human beings who previously lived on the planet. At present rates, many scientists predict that most natural resources will be depleted by the end of the century.

The "Consumer Societies" of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan produced a tremendous rise in consumption and living standards after World War II. However, because of increasing international competition and continued economic crises, workers today are forced to rely increasingly on credit and loans to maintain consumption. Today, the average U.S. household debt makes up 95% of disposable income (the amount remaining after paying for all neccessities).

The U.S. population consumes an average of over 124 lbs. of material per person per day, excluding water. The U.S. population tripled since 1900, while consumption of raw materials rose 17-fold. With less than 5% of the world's population, the U.S. consumes 33% of the world's paper, 22% of its oil, 23% of its coal, 27% of its aluminum, 19% of its copper, and accounts for 24% of carbon dioxide emissions. Even so, 30 million U.S. workers, including 12 million children under the age of 12, go hungry each day.

By comparison, the poorest fifth of the world population -- over 1 billion workers -- live on less than a dollar a day. Under this racist, imperialist system, the richest one-fifth of world population accounts for 86% of private consumption, while the poorest fifth only accounts for 1.3%.

In the past 50 years, suburban sprawl has led to even more racist segregation of housing, polluted vital watersheds and destroyed valuable farmland. Urban congestion has also worsened. There are currently 24 cities worldwide with a population exceeding 10 million. This vast and concentrated population is producing mountains of garbage and oceans of sewage.

The typical person in the U.S. discards nearly a ton of trash per year, consisting of 39% paper, 13% yard trimmings, and 10% plastics and food waste. Industrial waste is even worse. The production of one laptop computer generates 4,000 times its weight in waste. Because recycling is unprofitable, much of this waste ends up in landfills near low-income neighborhoods. Built-in product obsolescence, sales packaging, and overproduction have added to the heap. U.S. bosses have been among the worst offenders, cutting corners on fuel emissions, waste reduction and recycling programs to maintain profits.

Trees, crops, soil and water are being consumed faster than they can be replenished. Since 1970, pollution and intensive production techniques have led to a 50% decline in freshwater ecosystems, a 30% decline in marine ecosystems, and a 10% decline in forests, resulting in soil erosion, plummeting fish stocks and an extinction rate nearly 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than normal. Drinkable water is disappearing so rapidly that many speculate it will soon replace oil as the most sought-after commodity.

Consumerism is a product of capitalism's need to create reliable markets for its immense overproduction of goods and services. It builds bourgeois individualism. With the elimination of capitalist competition, production will be centralized and rationally planned. As goods and services are socialized, individual consumption levels will decrease. With centralized housing communities, all major services (food, health, entertainment, etc.) will be centralized and made more efficient, reducing individual consumption.

Parasitic industries like advertising and packaging will disappear. Labor will shift to developing recycling programs to clean up the environment and provide reusable resources for future generations. Eventually, the automobile industry will be replaced by a cheap, efficient and clean public transportation system to serve centralized housing and production.

As the need for large pools of cheap labor is eliminated, industry will spread out more evenly near housing communities connected by a web of public transportation. All workers will enjoy healthy, un-congested, stress-free environments close to nature. Above all, in this classless society, workers will collectively determine what goods and services we need, how they will be made, and how they will be distributed.

However, such achievements will have to first overcome the huge havoc and destruction wrought by imperialist world war. Communist revolutionaries will have the monumental task of re-building huge chunks of the world's production, but in ways that create the kind of changes described above.

Sources:
1."Overcoming Consumerism."
http://www.verdant.net/index.htm.
2. Tilford, David. "Why Consumption Matters?." Sierra Club. 2000
http://www.sierraclub.org/sustainable_consumption/tilford.asp#cost.
3 "World Population, Development, and ResourceConsumption."http://classes.maxwell.syr.edu/geo315/Students/web%20page/02500.htm.

AFGHAN WOMEN FIGHT U.S./WARLORD OPPRESSION

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- Two years ago Oct. 7, U.S. rulers began the bombing "liberation" of Afghanistan, including the supposed liberation of women. Here are the results.

We now see girls, ages 10 to 17, crowd into a small room, at the top of a mud-walled house, in a dusty village outside Kabul. A teacher writes basic sentences on a blackboard. They read from their only text book. Across Afghanistan, women of all ages, forbidden education during the Taliban years (1995-2001), are eagerly studying, often in primitive schools set up by non-governmental organizations, staffed by dedicated poorly-paid women. "We're here to learn so we can be independent," said one eager 13-year-old.

But going to school can still be risky; almost two years since the fall of the Taliban, schools have been fire-bombed and students and teachers threatened. Women face similar difficulties working outside the home. Many need the permission of husbands and fathers in all decisions, sometimes even to leave the house. In a women's prison a 16-year-old told of her "crime": running away from home to escape an abusive uncle. Imprisonment of girls and women attempting to escape forced marriages and abusive husbands and other extreme forms of oppression like kidnaps, attacks and rapes are ongoing.

Fascism takes different forms around the world and in Afghanistan it operates under the guise of religion, with women as its major target. The country's history over the past 25 years is one of terror, death and destruction, with women's fate tied to the political climate. In personal stories over and over again women told of the brutality of the Mujahedeen (trained by the CIA to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan) who equated communism with women learning to read and write and other basic rights. The CIA and their Pakistani and Saudi buddies used Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets in the 1980s.

Over one million Afghans were killed in this imperialist war. When the holy warriors took over, the bloodletting continued. The Taliban religious fanatics were created by the Pakistani army to oust the mujahedeen gang of religious fascists who took over after the Soviets left.

The post-Taliban government headed by U.S. puppet President Harmid Karzai is a façade and only rules in Kabul. (Karzai is a former executive of Unocal oil which wanted to construct a pipeline through Afghanistan.) Power in much of the country is in the hands of the fundamentalists, the familiar old warlords to whom the Bush administration gave cash and weapons in return for helping oust the Taliban in 2001.

The country is still reeling from the war years. The only social movement is that of the women. Kabul, like the rest of the country, has no electricity during the day, no street lights, no traffic lights. Mountains of rubble, and uncollected garbage, picked over by the desperately poor, are everywhere. Buildings are covered with bullet and rocket holes. People make homes on the ground floors of bombed buildings, collapsed floors precariously hanging over their heads. Jobs are scarce. Iraqis can learn from events in Afghanistan what U.S. "democracy" has in store for them.

The government has no money, supposedly getting less than 20% of the international aid. Much of it goes into the pockets of the warlords. There are some very large mansions being built for a wealthy few but there is very little reconstruction going on. There are still hundreds of thousands of internal refugees living in very primitive conditions. Many people are traumatized by the atrocities they lived through in the past two decades. That was what was so extraordinary about these women. They told the most horrific stories of unspeakable violence but still had the courage to stand up and make demands.

Today women are mobilizing despite the current dominance of the fundamentalists and with the Taliban staging a comeback in the south and east. Recently women from around the country came up with demands to be included in a new constitution. Priorities were education, health care and equal pay. They called for criminal charges to be brought against men for domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Their demands may seem mild and some of the women understand that change takes more than having demands made into law, but after living through two decades of inhuman abuse and in a current atmosphere of continuing violence, these small steps take on heroic proportions.

Ironically, the "holy warriors" had it right. Only communism can free women from capitalist-religious oppression.

IL Duce No Lesser Evil Führer

A recent N.Y. Times article reported that the term fascism means different things to different people. But fascism has a definite meaning: it is capitalism without its mask of "democracy." Open terror is the name of the game.

Many try to distinguish between different forms of fascism. Some say Mussolini's in Italy was "soft" compared to Nazi Germany. Last August 27, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's right-wing Prime Minister, said Il Duce (Mussolini), "never killed anyone. The most he did was send people to a long vacation in confinement." In the U.S., we hear similar lies from the Neo-Nazi "historic revisionists" who claim Auschwitz and the holocaust is a "Jewish invention."

Mussolini was only "softer" than the Führer (Hitler) because capitalism in Italy was much weaker. In some ways, Italian fascism was as much a warmaker and killer as the Nazis. Mussolini arrested all his opponents and killed many. He was part of the fascist Axis (with Germany and Japan) during World War II (WWII). He also launched his own criminal wars. Heinz Dieterich, a Latin-American political analyst, wrote in Rebelion.org (Sept. 27) that Il Duce would say, "In order to stay healthy," a country must wage war every 25 years or so.

Mussolini's wars in Africa killed over one million. In October 1935, with no provocation, and violating all international treaties (a la Bush in Iraq), Il Duce sent 650,000 troops to attack Ethiopia, a very poor country run by feudal Emperor Haile Selassie. France and Britain, particularly the latter's Winston Churchill (strongly sympathetic to Il Duce), tolerated this invasion. The fascist pilots used toxic mustard gas to kill civilians, bombing hospitals and other civilian targets (as Clinton and Gen. Clark did in Belgrade in 1999 and Bush did to Baghdad). They burned hundreds of villages and shot the residents, even those who surrendered after being promised amnesty. Many prisoners were saturated with oil and burned alive. The racist invaders had explicit orders to murder 10 Africans for every Italian soldier killed. Anyone considered an intellectual was systematically slain, including elementary school teachers. Three hundred monks and 1,000 deacons were murdered when weapons were found in Ethiopia's most famous monastery. The Vatican kept totally silent, as it did during the holocaust several years later, claiming it "wasn't strong enough" to denounce these atrocities.

One difference between fascism in Italy and Germany was the development of the Italian Communist Party. While the KPD (the German CP) was crushed by the Nazis, the Italian CP grew under fascism. It used to say, "Mussolini killed us and killed us until there were two million of us." One of PLP's founders who served in the U.S. Army in Italy at the end of WWII tells how the red flag, hammer and sickle and "Viva Stalin" were painted on every wall left standing in Italy's cities, towns and villages. The communist guerrillas captured, executed and hung Il Duce and his mistress.

But after the war, the Italian CP made the fatal error of not taking power when it could have tried. Instead it entered the capitalist electoral circus and went the way of all parties that abandon the goal of workers' power. This tragic error, which prolonged capitalism, is a mistake we in PLP will avoid as we fight against the fascism and wars of world capitalism today.

LETTERS

Chicago Teachers Veto Contract;
Strike Possible

Chicago Teachers Union delegates voted 402 - 289 advising members to reject a proposed 5-year contract, setting the stage for a possible strike. The membership votes on October 16. The school system's predominately black and Latin working-class students attend overcrowded schools, in classrooms with 30 or more students. Administrative abuses make teachers' jobs even more difficult. The proposed contract doesn't resolve these issues.

Many teachers and ESP's (Educational Support Personnel) are ready to walk out. Some want to strike to gain respect. Others believe teachers and ESP's will get a better deal by striking. PLP distributed fliers saying, "During a strike, we get a taste of power. We get an opportunity to bring together the strength of our membership."

The union leadership argues that this is the best we can do, that striking will hurt our cause. The deal includes a 4% raise for 5 years, or 20%, although at least half the raise is offset by increased health insurance costs and a longer school day. The other half will be eaten up by inflation, so actually it's no raise at all. The leadership says these are hard times economically, that parents won't support the union if members reject this contract. But parents want their children to get a good education and would support a strike for smaller classes.

Teachers, ESP's, parents and students are all angry at the hundreds of billions the government spends on war, on raises for themselves, on fancy sports stadiums and on tax cuts to the rich, while never having enough for the schools. But the servants of the racist capitalists spend tax money to guarantee profits. They set up schools to brainwash students into believing that capitalism is great, educate some for their own purposes, and prepare most for the army, low-wage jobs, prison or unemployment. They want to achieve this at the least possible cost.

Teachers are the country's biggest group of voters. The union leaders are pushing for legislation to win smaller classes and urging more members to contribute to the political action fund. Instead of pinning their hopes on the capitalist electoral system, teachers need to join the fight for a society where education serves the needs of students, teachers and all workers instead of a few racist bosses and bureaucrats. That is the goal of the communist PLP.

A strike is an opportunity for teachers and ESP's to challenge the capitalists' control of education and consider what it would take to give students the schools they deserve. PLP members will be there to give leadership to a strike while struggling with strikers, students and parents to read and distribute CHALLENGE, the voice of communism.

Red Teacher

Union Hacks A Bad Brew

I'm saddened but not surprised by the situation suffered by the Bavaria brewery workers here in Bogota, Colombia. I'm one of the many fired by the company. I participated in many militant struggles, marches, meetings and other actions against the bosses who tried to take everything our predecessors had won in a century of struggle. Now the union leaders have given up everything.

The hyenas who run the company tried to blind us with all kinds of capitalist lies, like "United, We Are More," and "Good Ideas Will Be Rewarded." But the workers were not swallowing this crap, so the bosses bought off the weakest link: the union's executive committee. The hacks signed a contract behind our backs which divides the workers and supports the bosses' fascist attacks.

Boss Ricardo Obregón took advantage of this sellout and began firing workers while sanctioning, pressuring and slandering those who remained on the job. Only 90 are left of the 550 that worked here. Now the union leaders are busy running for office in the local city government, telling workers to vote for them as the "answer" to their problems.

There are still some rank-and-file workers trying to resist the attacks, without any support from the union hacks. PLP members are using CHALLENGE to show how the attacks of the bosses and the union leaders' betrayals are part and parcel of capitalism worldwide. Workers needs to understand that we belong to an international working class which needs to rebuild the communist movement and fight for a society without bosses and their lackeys.

Red Worker

Killing Kids A Capitalist Scourge

We have seen the pictures of the children warriors in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, etc. who die and kill in the civil conflicts waged by local warlords for control of the diamonds, cobalt, oil and the rest of the mineral wealth of Africa. But violence and death are not limited to African children. UNICEF (the UN Fund for Children) reports that 3,500 youth under 15 are killed each year in the so-called developed countries.

The U.S., Mexico (a member of the Organization for the Economic Development and Cooperation, which groups the 30 top economies of the world) and Portugal lead the pack. The infant mortality rates of these three countries are 10 to 15 times higher than the other developed countries. France and Belgium follow.

Eighty percent of child murders occur at home. The biological parents (fathers and mothers equally) are the culprits. Stress because of poverty, work problems, drugs, alcohol and other social diseases caused by capitalism are the main causes. Thirty to forty percent of fathers who treat their children violently also beat their spouses.

UNICEF correctly calls this a failure of society and calls on governments to do something to reduce and eliminate these murders. But how can societies based on wars and racist and sexist super-exploitation eradicate this? We have all seen horrific news stories of children beaten or starved by their parents, while the social services that are supposed to protect children are cut back in this age of endless wars and capitalist crisis.

For the sake of the children, we've got to destroy capitalism, the cause of this violence, and fight for a communism.

A Concerned Parent

`When the workers unite, the bosses tremble!'

In one of our garment worker meetings in LA, a woman mentioned how she was forced to change factories, with two days of work unpaid. The boss told the woman she wouldn't pay her for the two days because the worker hadn't written down the work she did the way the boss wanted. As always, the bosses blame the victim so they can continue super-exploiting us. The workers at the meeting were indignant and began planning action.

A few days later, during her lunch break, a comrade went to the new factory to visit the worker who had been robbed of her wages. Other co-workers joined the discussion and decided to go to the other factory to demand the approximately $100 that the boss owed the worker.

This same day a group of six workers confronted the boss to demand the pay. At first, the boss denied owing the worker money and started yelling and blaming the supervisor for the problem. But when she saw the workers' anger and determination, the frightened boss paid the $100.

The worker and her supporters left elated at being able to achieve a small victory, and mainly at seeing the strength workers have when they unite. "When the workers unite, the bosses tremble," said one worker. Garment workers are the most super-exploited, but have a long tradition of struggle. These small battles help us build revolutionary spirit to organize our fellow workers. They make us feel stronger as a class and as communists. Let's go forward, comrades. Let's continue organizing more massively, not only for wages that have been stolen from us but to end wage slavery and profits, for communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

A garment worker comrade

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

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

Foreign money will exploit Iraq

Iraq's new finance minister, Kamel al-Gallani, announced a sweeping liberalization of his country's economy . . . . The plan, already approved by L. Paul Bremer III, the American in charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority, is extreme -- in fact, stunning. It would immediately make Iraq's economy one of the most open to trade and capital flows in the world, and put it among the lowest taxed in the world, rich or poor. . . .

It would allow a handful of foreign banks to take over the domestic banking system. . . . Moreover, the radical laws have been adopted without a democratic Iraqi government to discuss or approve them.

One would have thought that the failures of swift and sudden free market changes in Russia in the 1990's would have made even extremist economists cautious. . . .

[A]s has been characteristic of such shock therapy in the past, the new economic planners have not included provisions for social programs. . . .

Its consequences, as in Russia, could be widespread cruelty. (NYT, 10/2)

Oil shapes decisions on Iraq
. . . . It's a Russian ambition to have a role in Iraq.

There is a great deal of speculation in Moscow these days that Russia would agree to send troops to help the American-led coalition in Iraq if the Bush administration moved to protect Russian oil interests in that country. (NYT, 9/27)

Pro-worker laws are a con

The federal No Child Left Behind law of 2002 may go down in history as the most unpopular piece of education legislation ever created. . . .

The law allows students at schools labeled failing to transfer out. . . . Everyone knows 40 in a class is not sound educationally.

And yet, that is precisely what has happened in New York City. The mayor and the chancellor -- who have been quite restrained in their comments about the law -- said yes to all 8,000 federal transfer requests, contributing to the worst overcrowding of city schools in years.

Now it turns out that about a third of the 8,000 transfers -- children often traveling over an hour to attend crowded schools -- have been moved from one school labeled failing under the law to another failing school.

But principals of small high schools, like Louis Delgado of Vanguard in Manhattan, say transfers have devastated them this year. Vanguard went to 440 students from 330. . . . Until this year, he had 22 to a class; now it is 30. "We've had more fighting in one month than we did all last year," he said. (NYT, 10/1)

Newton thought dialectically

What Newton perceived was . . . . everything is process; life and death, growth and decay, collapse and regeneration. "All things are generable." We tend to think of Newton as the great conservator, the law-giver, but in fact he was a radical and a revolutionary. (GW, 9/17)

Lessons of S.A. `terror' wars

The argument goes that war is war and both sides do hellish, demonic things that cannot be examined fairly in peacetime.

This is a dangerous argument. On a numerical basis alone, it does not stand up. In Argentina leftist guerillas in a 20-year period were responsible for an estimated 600 deaths, compared with the state's 15,000 killings and disappearances. In Chile the military was responsible for an estimated 3,000 deaths while around 150 members of the security forces were killed. In the Peru the Shining Path is blamed for a larger proportion of deaths, but the state is held responsible for around 20,000.

. . . .Murders and torture were carried out under the authority of the state. . . . Once a state suspends its laws and excuses its actions on a threat of terrorism, the slope is a slippery one . . . . (GW, 9/17)

Patriot Act = ethnic profiling

The Patriot Act . . . allowed the FBI to pull records from libraries and book stores, defined "terrorism" to include direct action by protesters, widened the use of wire-tapping on phone calls and emails and paved the way for the mass internment without charge of several thousand foreign nationals. The most vulnerable are Arabs, Asians and Muslims.

"Essentially this is the most massive case of ethnic profiling since the internment of Japanese Americans during the second world war," said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor. (GW, 9/17)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Oct. 8, 2003

Information: 08 October 2003 379 hits

General Clark: Warmaker Liberal Style

a href="#AFL-CIO Patriots Use Immigrants’ Fight to Back Rulers’ War">AF"-CIO Patriots Use Immigrants’ Fight to Back Rulers’ War

FASCIST ALERT!

Capitalist Politicians Deadly Road for Freedom Riders

Fighting Racism in Hospital Helps Build PLP

a href="#Woman Warns Killer Kops: ‘You’ll pay for this!’">Woma" Warns Killer Kops: ‘You’ll pay for this!’

GI in Iraq Wrestles With Cannon Fodder Role

a href="#Anti-Globalists Don’t See Capitalism As Root of Super-exploitation">"nti-Globalists Don’t See Capitalism As Root of Super-exploitation

a href="#‘Third Way’ Won’t Solve Salvadoran Workers’ Problems">‘Third"Way’ Won’t Solve Salvadoran Workers’ Problems

a href="#Environmentalism: A Communist Perspective — Part I">"nvironmentalism: A Communist Perspective — Part I

a href="#‘Twelve Months That Changed the World,’By Larry Lesueur; Borzos, 1943">Re"ders Review: ‘Twelve Months That Changed the World"

a href="#‘The Years Of Rice And Salt’ By Kim Stanley Robinson">Re"ders Review: ‘The Years Of Rice And Salt’ By Kim Stanley Robinson

NJ Symphony: $$$ for instruments, pay-cuts for musicians

a href="#Communist PLP’s Answer To Capitalism’s Chamber of Horrors">Co"munist PLP’s Answer To Capitalism’s Chamber of Horrors

"The Foolish Old Man Who Removed The Mountains"

CHALLENGE Fundraising Dinners

LETTERS

NYC Union Hack Helps Close School

Tenants Fight Back Against Bronx Slumlord

a href="#Strategy for GI’s">"trategy for GI’s

How Can We Practice Communism under Capitalism?

Red Leadership in Mass Organizations

State Hospital Sickens Workers

CHALLENGE As An Organizer

Bosses Closing VA Hospitals While Casualties Soar

Win Immigrants to Communism

a href="#Leni Riefenstahl, Art for the Führer’s Sake">L"ni Riefenstahl, Art for the Führer’s Sake

General Clark: Warmaker Liberal Style

Just three days into his campaign, a Newsweek poll declared war criminal Wesley Clark the Democrats’ front-runner for president in 2004. The media blitz promoting the four-star general’s candidacy represents an important step in the liberal U.S. rulers’ drive to mobilize society for wars of ever-increasing scope. The U.S. military already faces a troop shortfall in Iraq; invading Iran or North Korea will require hundreds of thousands of soldiers that the Pentagon does not yet have; confronting China, Russia, or an anti-U.S. European coalition in the coming decades will take millions. To help fill that need, Clark 2004 aims to stir up patriotic war fervor in a humanitarian guise.

Clark’s run immediately received the blessing of E.J. Dionne, who heads the liberal Brookings Institution’s "United We Serve" project. As CHALLENGE has reported, "United We Serve" is part of a major ruling-class effort to channel the surge in public spirit that followed Sept. 11 into a program of universal national service, mainly in the military. Dionne asked a leading question in the Washington Post (9/21/03), "In the wake of 9/11, which ‘experience’ is more relevant — Clark’s in foreign policy and war, Howard Dean’s as a chief executive, albeit of a small state, or the extensive legislative experience of most of the rest of the field?"

The liberal media present Clark as a rational, "humane" alternative to the warmongering Bush crowd. But very little separates mass murderer Clark from the current crew of butchers:

• Clark volunteered for duty in Vietnam (where he was wounded) and not only supported U.S. imperialist aggression there but said "we" could win that war by going "all out."

• In the 1980s and ’90s, Clark was commander of refugee camps in Miami and Fort Allen, Puerto Rico, incarcerating Haitians fleeing the U.S.-backed fascist Duvalier dictatorship and its successor. U.S. government documents obtained by the Haitian Refugee Center revealed that the refugees were packed together under appalling conditions and were sprayed repeatedly and indiscriminately with highly toxic chemicals. Soon male inmates began to develop female breasts and female refugees were subject to a much higher rate of cervical cancer than the rest of the female population. Clark was chief of operations at the U.S. Navy internment camp at Guantanamo, Cuba, in charge of this whole operation.

• Clark became supreme commander of NATO under Clinton. In 1999, when the Serbian dictator Milosevic tried to upset U.S. control of the world’s oil trade with his own pipeline deal with the Russians, Clark directed a massive bombing campaign that killed and maimed tens of thousands of civilians. A Spanish pilot, Capt. Martin de la Hoz told the Spanish weekly newspaper "Artículo 20" (6/14/99): "There was a…coded order from the North American military that we should drop anti-personnel bombs over Pristina and Nis. All…missions…were planned in detail, including attacking planes, targets and type of ammunition by U.S. high-ranking military authorities…. They are destroying the country," the F-18 pilot said, "bombing it with…toxic nerve gases, surface mines dropped by parachute, bombs containing uranium, black napalm, sterilization chemicals, sprayings to poison crops and weapons of which even we still know nothing about." While they protected Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco, Clark and Clinton claimed to be saving ethnic Albanians. Clark’s "humanitarian" high explosives (Weapons of Mass Destruction?) blasted homes, schools, hospitals, trains and busses.

• In that same war, when the Russians landed troops at the Yugoslav airport in Pristina, Clark ordered the commander of British forces to drive the Russians out, causing the British general to reply, "I’m not going to start World War III to satisfy your ego."

•Clark has long-standing ties to the liberal establishment. In February, months before announcing, he made a pilgrimage to the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, a leading think-tank, along with Brookings, for U.S. imperialism. In his speech there, Clark told the main rulers what they wanted to hear about using the UN to gain allies for U.S. military adventures and covering warfare with the fig leaf of "nation-building." Clark also bragged that he had become a CFR member in 1974 on the recommendation of Nelson Rockefeller himself. From 1975 to 1976, Clark was a White House Fellow under the Ford-Rockefeller regime.

•Since his retirement from the Army in 2000, Clark has kept busy aiding the liberals’ agenda of war and fascism. He often appeared on CNN calling for a larger, more deadly U.S.-led force in Iraq. He served on the Markle Foundation’s Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. In October 2002, it issued a report calling for massive electronic eavesdropping and data collection to facilitate the jailing of "enemies." The surveillance plan Clark helped create goes even farther than the drastic schemes devised by Admiral Poindexter and Attorney General Ashcroft.

Clark’s campaign may or may not succeed. But the remaining candidates are all just as eager to carry the battle flag of U.S. imperialism. Not one serves the interests of the working class.

a name="AFL-CIO Patriots Use Immigrants’ Fight to Back Rulers’ War"></">AF"-CIO Patriots Use Immigrants’ Fight to Back Rulers’ War

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 — Hundreds of CHALLENGES and 1,000 PL leaflets were distributed at a rally here while the AFL-CIO was busy building patriotism and giving out mini-U.S. flags to hundreds of its rank-and-file members. After a speaker sang the U.S. national anthem and a small group started chanting "USA, USA, USA!," a CHALLENGE seller said in a loud voice to those nearby, "To hell with ‘USA! USA!’ Whether we live here or in Mexico, we’re nothing but exploited workers! The bosses and their flags have done nothing for us!"

Then workers in the laborers’ union asked him for a stack of communist leaflets to take back to their local. They bought his last CHALLENGE. A group of UCLA students also asked for leaflets —which attacked racism and imperialist war and called for communist revolution — to take to their friends.

Some unionists talked to their fellow workers at the march, most of them in unions, linking the cutbacks with the war budget. Their information sheet began, "Uncle Sam has a problem: military recruitment." A woman in the Laborers’ union said, "Oh, this is so right. When my son applied for a special loan for school, they told him he had to register for the army to get it!"

The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride organizers say its purpose is to fight for immigrant workers’ citizenship. The LA rally began with Maria Elena Durazo, sellout leader of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Union, calling for a "moment of silence as the colors are raised and our national anthem is sung." She praised the Latino veterans who raised the flag, stressing patriotism and respect for the U.S. military.

Since last year MIWON (Multi-Ethnic Immigrant Workers’ Organizing Network) and the AFL-CIO have been organizing for immigrants to receive citizenship and driver’s licenses. A local Democratic Party honcho, Gil Cedillo, has been stressing these demands since 1998. The California State Legislature recently passed a bill (SB 60) allowing immigrants with a federal Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) to apply for driver’s licenses. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service requires the payment of taxes on any earnings regardless of immigration status. This makes the TIN a de facto recognition of the presence of large numbers of "illegal" immigrants in the U.S. economy, forced to contribute their labor power to U.S. bosses for poverty wages. An amendment SB 60 removed a requirement for a high-tech fingerprinting system.

Some politicians say the bill almost declares amnesty for "illegal" immigrants, "covering up terrorists" working in the shadows of California industry. This bill’s backers include the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the LAPD and some insurance and auto executives.

The AFL-CIO leadership, a pawn of the liberal ruling class, changed its fierce anti-immigrant position to try to seduce immigrant workers, using citizenship status and driver’s licenses. They’re helping the rulers’ drive to ensure no one in this country is "un-accounted for," as they continue to hunt down Middle Eastern, South Asian and Arab people. They want to maximize use of racial profiling.

Of course, many honest people want to fight for the rights of immigrants and are attracted to this movement. But the leaders are trying to win immigrant workers to patriotism/nationalism, key components in the growth of fascism. This ideology makes it easier for those in power to use immigrants for war and fascism.

Many students and workers to whom CHALLENGE sellers talked, and who took more leaflets and papers to pass out at their locals and schools, were disgusted by the flags and nationalist/patriotic rhetoric. It’s crucial to work with them in this movement, especially in the unions, at school and in the military. They’re open to rebelling against the bosses’ imperialist wars and fascism and joining PLP.

FASCIST ALERT!

JERSEY CITY, Sept. 23 — As the Freedom Rides head into New York City on October 4, a local fascist, Hal Turner, is trying to rally members of the Aryan Nation, Ku Klux Klan and the National Alliance to protest the Ride when it stops at Liberty State Park here on the 3rd. Turner is a racist who broadcasts a shortwave radio show and has been ranting against immigration reform.

In the last few years, racist attacks on immigrants in the New York metro area has increased: In Farmingville, Long Island, day laborers have been terrorized and fire-bombed; racist police terror has murdered SantiagoVillanueve and Jose Ives.

Members of Progressive Labor Party will be supporting undocumented workers in these actions but we want workers to realize that workers have no nations. Nations and borders are set up by the bosses to claim exploitation rights over as many workers as possible.

The international working class must unite to fight back against the rulers of capitalism. And PLP will be there to defend and protect our class against fascists like Turner and his cronies. Our Party has a rich history of fighting against anti-immigrant groups like Voices of Citizens Together in California and of fighting neo-Nazis right here in NJ— a history that will surely continue.

Capitalist Politicians Deadly Road for Freedom Riders

QUEENS, NY, Sept. 20 — Today 250 people (mostly Asian and Latin immigrants) marched to build for the Oct. 4 mass rally at Flushing Meadow Park, the final stop of the Freedom Ride for Immigrant Rights. The Freedom Ride organizers expect 100,000 people at that final rally. Obviously there are many workers who want to fight the horrendous racism suffered by immigrants, documented or not. Since 9/11, the harassment of immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America has taken a giant step forward.

Most people at today’s march and rally were rank-and-file janitors and hotel, restaurant and domestic workers. The event was organized by three unions — SEIU, 32BJ (building workers), HERE (hotel and restaurant workers) and UNITE (garment workers) — as well as a dozen or so community groups. Many of the union organizers were young and politically progressive. One was a former student of a PLP teacher and agreed to speak to the teacher’s class about the October 4 rally. The speakers from the community groups — like the Latin American Workers Project and Workers Abaaz, which organizes South Asian domestics — seemed very working class and committed to fighting the terrible conditions their members face daily.

Despite the movement’s working-class base, the leadership is committed to a legalistic strategy wedded to the Democratic Party. The AFL-CIO leadership is clearly the main organizing force behind these local actions and the October 4 rally. Brian McLaughlin, the president of the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and a NYS Assemblyman, was one of the main speakers. The rest included a Congressman, another assemblyman, and a City Council member, all Democrats. They all boasted of their "struggle" for local laws that would guarantee language access and immigrant confidentiality policies, but said new national laws were also needed.

However, the leadership of the movement has not demanded any specific legislation in Congress for amnesty or family reunification, so it appears doubtful there’ll be any legislative victories soon. Instead, the immigrant rights movement will be used by the AFL-CIO as part of its campaign to defeat Bush in 2004 and elect a Democratic Congress. The union officialdom intends to use the growing working-class anger over economic decline and the costs of empire to put the Democrats back in power. Meanwhile, the patriotism of the movement’s leadership serves the Pentagon’s current plan to recruit more soldiers for the bosses’ endless imperialist wars (see CHALLENGE editorial, 10/24).

It’s good that we in PLP participate in this movement to bring our communist politics to those wanting to fight racism, and point out that as long as capitalism exists there will be racist/fascist terror, wars and super-exploitation. We must champion the need for class unity of foreign-born and native-born workers, the need to reject capitalist borders — just as capital ignores borders — and embrace labor internationalism. Workers of the world, unite!

Fighting Racism in Hospital Helps Build PLP

Last month a multi-racial group of union housekeepers marched into the CEO’ s office of this large East coast teaching hospital demanding the bosses fire a nurse who had publicly humiliated a housekeeper and refused to apologize.

Here’s the story: a nursing unit received a lunch of pizzas and sodas as a "prize" from the hospital. The unit clerk invited Ann, the unit housekeeper, to have a slice. As she was leaving the unit’s "break" room with her pizza, nurse Jane, a clinical specialist, demanded to know why Ann was in the break room, because "you steal." This confrontation happened in front of patients, co-workers and nursing students. Ann is black, the nurse is white. The latter’s comments stunned everyone. Ann has worked at the hospital 28 years and is no thief.

Initially the bosses tried to smother this incident and the racism it represents. When they learned we were organizing, they tried to get the nurse to apologize. She refused.

In the past, PLP’ers would immediately issue a flyer attacking this racism and calling for multi-racial unity and communist revolution. Then, after a big controversy for a few weeks, it would blow over. At times we’d have demonstrations across from the hospital with a handful of the more committed workers. Maybe one or two workers would come closer to PLP and our CHALLENGE distribution might increase a little.

Our leadership often drew an apology or forced the racist to quit. The mainly black union workers liked our attacks on racism, but continued to see the mainly white nurses and doctors as their "enemy." But the nurses and doctors would view it as an attack on them for being white. The conflict between the mainly white nurses and the mainly black union members remained as bad (or worse) than ever. While the workers stayed divided, the capitalist attacks on patient care continued.

Now we’re trying a different approach. What we used to do from the outside we can now do from within the union. The workers recognize us as bona fide union leaders and so do the bosses. We can lead a march through the hospital itself into the bosses’ office. We can organize union committees and meetings enabling us to work with more and more workers. We’re not marginalized, but mainstream.

A union committee was organized to direct Ann’s case. A grievance was filed. The committee participated in, or heard reports from, the many meetings with the hospital bosses. Contingency plans include petitions and a union leaflet. The leaflet, accepted by the union committee, attacked the nurse’s elitism and racism because it undermined the unity needed by nurses and union members to fight the attacks on patient care. The leaflet also linked the U.S. war budget to those attacks.

Before its "official" distribution, some union members saw it and liked it so much they immediately copied and distributed it. The flyers were hung everywhere on the nurse’s floor.

The union committee now plans a more general campaign against the divisive environment created by the bosses and their healthcare cuts and will bring this fight into the regular union labor-management meetings. This will help us focus on the bosses’ war budget’s attacks on patient care.

Our union organizing leads to sharper political struggle with more workers, discussing how racism and equality are the basic issues here. Why does the nurse, with her Masters Degree, refuse to apologize to the black housekeeper even though many think she should? Many believe it’s because Jane thinks she’s better than Ann.

This leads to more general discussion about how many of the newly-graduated, mainly white nurses don’t respect the experience and knowledge of the mainly black support staff; some of whom have worked there over 20 years. Meanwhile, we are struggling with the nationalist, anti-white feelings of the black workers at the highest level ever.

We also point out how the nurses’ capitalist education teaches elitism, racism and sexism. And most importantly it enables PLP’ers to explain that we participate in such fights because capitalism is based on such inequalities and the working class needs the equality of classless communism. One such discussions led to a young worker joining PLP.

We’re learning as we proceed. We constantly try to guard against being opportunist, liberal or reformist. Our barometer will be the number of new Party members and new CHALLENGE readers we develop. We’ll keep readers informed as this fight continues.

a name="Woman Warns Killer Kops: ‘You’ll pay for this!’"></a>"oman Warns Killer Kops: ‘You’ll pay for this!’

I attended a demonstration on Sept. 17 during the hearing in Newark, NJ, for the cops who murdered Santiago Villanueva, a Dominican immigrant from Upper Manhattan. When he suffered an epileptic attack while working in a Bloomfield, NJ shop, the cops answering the 911 call saw him suffering the seizures. But instead of helping him, the cops acted in their usual racist manner — allegedly "thinking he was on drugs" — attacked and handcuffed him, causing his death.

The hearing, already postponed from two months before, was a waste of time since the main judge was absent. The cops asked for another extension. While this was happening, a woman surprised everyone, rising to yell at the cops, "You’ll pay for this." The presiding judge threatened the woman with arrest if she did it again.

There was a rally outside where the same woman voiced her anger at the cops, comparing them to Hitler’s Nazis. She invited all to return to next month’s hearing. Everyone promised to bring more people then.

An Upper Manhattan Worker

GI in Iraq Wrestles With Cannon Fodder Role

This summer a family member was sent to the Middle East, as were many other men and women from working-class families. He’s the eldest, and as with many fatherless working-class families, the eldest son carries a father’s burden. Needless to say my entire family was crushed by the news that their father-figure would soon be at war for reasons that could not be seriously justified by Bush, Congress or the bosses’ puppets in the U.S. media. In one of our last conversations before his deployment he said "Man, I don’t want to kill any of those people, and I hope it doesn’t come to that." This is a contradiction that family members in the military are forced into by the bosses’ capitalist system of deepening perpetual imperialist war.

"This is a working-class man," I said to myself as I thought of my brother at war with my Arab working-class brothers; he will assess this contradiction as a working-class person and come to a working-class conclusion. Several weeks later I heard from him. He was still working through this contradiction. He said he felt like "...a sheep getting herded around the third world." But he was glad to be getting a few days of R&R (Rest & Relaxation) away from his "Bedouin cell." Yet, still no answer to his contradiction.

The next time I heard from him he was much clearer about his feelings that this war is not in his interests. He found that the military’s idea of "R&R" for working-class troops is a "swimming pool in the middle of the desert with the sun beating down on your head." And contrary to the terrorist profile the U.S. media stamps onto Arabs, he found "these people have their own culture, their own world." Finally, realizing he didn’t belong on the bosses’ side, he said "I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I feel like an intruder."

This is where many of the troops are mentally. They’re looking for answers to contradictions staring them in the face. It’s our responsibility to provide answers to our class brothers and sisters. When we had last gotten together, I had given our brother material on imperialism and inter-imperialist rivalry. This information will be increasingly important to him in the coming months.

I’m writing this with the hope it may inspire readers to initiate this kind of communication with their family members overseas. These are our soldiers, not the bosses’; we must win them to communism and PLP and to refuse racist, destructive and self-destructive orders. Only through communist revolution will these contradictions truly be resolved. Workers, Students, Soldiers, Unite!

I’ll keep CHALLENGE readers up-to-date on the progress made by this brother of ours.

A Red Student

a name="Anti-Globalists Don’t See Capitalism As Root of Super-exploitation">">"nti-Globalists Don’t See Capitalism As Root of Super-exploitation

The Cancun, Mexico, meeting of the World Trade Organization was a failure before it started. "Little or nothing can be done to change subsidies and custom duties," said the World Bank’s Uri Dadush, even before the meeting began.

This is the third international gathering of world rulers organized during the Vincente Fox regime. All have failed. This meeting collapsed in a few days once the imperialists of Europe, Japan and the U.S. totally rejected the poorer countries’ demand that they lower subsidies to farmers.

Amid the growing crisis of world capitalism — marked by endless wars and super-exploitation of workers — and intense imperialist competition for markets, resources and labor, very few concessions can be given to the smaller capitalist countries.

In Mexico one million farmworkers lost their jobs when corn was imported. Throughout agriculture, 7 of 10 workers are unemployed, victims of the crisis of overproduction and capitalist competition.

In Mexico, different imperialists are fighting each other to find local investment partners in the energy industry. Local bosses’ associations like CONCAMIN and CPARMEX and their political allies in Mexico’s Congress are divided over privatization. But they’re united on super-exploiting the workers. Whether privatized or public, the energy bosses won’t serve the needs of the working class (consumers or energy workers). Workers’ needs can only be satisfied by abolishing private property altogether. This fight would put our class on the offensive.

The antiglobalist movements in Brazil, Mexico and worldwide believe hunger and other disasters caused by the profit system can be alleviated without destroying capitalism in all its forms. The globalists John Sellers (Ruckus Society) and Kevin Danaher (Global Exchange) want, "To build a local movement to defend democracy." But this will only perpetuate capitalism and its exploitation. They mislead millions who want to fight for fundamental changes.

Capitalism is the problem; workers must destroy it by taking state power through communist revolution, led by their Party, PLP. That’s the only way to end unemployment, exploitation and misery in the cities and the fields. Join PLP.

a name="‘Third Way’ Won’t Solve Salvadoran Workers’ Problems"></a>‘T"ird Way’ Won’t Solve Salvadoran Workers’ Problems

San Salvador, El Salvador — "These guys [leaders of the fmln, former guerrilla movement] from San Salvador think they can get us to do anything they want," said a farmworker about the current 2004 presidential electoral campaign. "We come from a war in which the main thing we cared about was the liberation of the working class from the yoke of capitalism. We knew what our goals were. Today these electoral opportunists want to use us for their personal benefit while we who built the FMLN sometimes don’t have enough to eat." (The fmln in small letters is the current electoral party. In capital letters it stands for the previous armed group.)

On September 19, hundreds of workers organized by the fmln, in unions and social organizations, marched down the main streets of the capital against the privatization of health services and to support the fmln candidate for president, Shafick Handal. Many city workers, farmworkers and students honestly believe the fmln is a good option to resolve workers’ problems. But the truth disproves this.

The capitalist system worldwide is bankrupt. The big capitalists must resort to imperialist war, fascism and the super-exploitation of the working class to resolve their crisis. El Salvador isn’t isolated from this misery. The fmln fights to get the crumbs left over by the bosses, but the working class needs the whole pie. As a class, we produce everything and we should receive everything to meet our needs. Even though the fmln promises to oppose privatization, they also invite European and U.S. capital to invest here, and exploit us. These corporations demand maximum profit and insist on privatizing or cutting back services, which the fmln will go along with.

But there are thousands of workers who reject this electoral circus. Some refuse to participate in these marches, even though many see the struggle against privatization as a good one against the capitalist system. Unfortunately, with or without privatization, the workers’ services and wages are being cut.

We don’t have to accept the "lesser evil." There is another alternative. Not the "third way" that Handal pushes, but true liberation of the working class through communist revolution. The 12-year guerrilla war was only one battle in this long war.

The bosses use elections to fool us, to try to avoid a real workers’ revolution. Under the rules of the electoral game, we must kneel before the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund, before the imperialists, whether they’re U.S. or European.

PLP’s goal is to stoke the fires of workers’ anger, not put them out. Our fight within the unions and mass movement is to win the workers to take power through a revolution for communism. Join PLP.

a name="Environmentalism: A Communist Perspective — Part I">">"nvironmentalism: A Communist Perspective — Part I

Many people today believe the excuses given by the bosses and their lackeys that environmental problems are due to a combination of overpopulation, technology and limited resources. This idea is nothing new. In the 1790’s, political-economist Thomas Malthus concluded that the population was growing faster than the food supply. His solution? Kill off the "extra" people through war and disease. Today, the Earth’s six billion people are multiplying faster than ever. Yet it’s estimated that under the right system of production and distribution, and with existing technology, California’s agricultural production alone could feed the entire planet.

In the past century, capitalism has:

•Intensified global warming and the risk of climate-based disasters. At present rates, global temperatures will rise an average of 4.5ºF. in the next century, compared to a rise of only 1.8ºF. in the past 10,000 years!

•Recklessly mismanaged food and water resources to produce more profitable (but less healthy) foods for western consumers, leading to widespread man-made famines. The meat and dairy industries alone squander 5,400 gallons of water and 16 lbs. of grain and soy to produce 1 lb. of beef.

•Irresponsibly used up non-renewable resources. Since 1940, North Americans alone have consumed more than all humans in history, leaving behind a trail of un-recycled waste from personal and industrial consumption.

If the bosses continue the exploitation of our labor and environment, the results may be catastrophic. But they hide the truth by telling workers that environmentalism eliminates jobs, by spreading propaganda that pollution is strictly an "individual problem," or by minimizing or denying the impact on the environment. The bosses aim to pit workers against the environment and convince workers to clean up "their" messes.

Though these problems have received much attention since the environmental movements of the 1970’s, many of the groups involved lack an analysis of capitalism that would provide people with an understanding of the root cause of environmental problems and their connection to socio-economic inequalities. For instance, the various "Green" parties confuse many people. These groups target individual corporations as the cause of environmental disaster, letting capitalism as a system off the hook. Their demands are virtually impossible to achieve because the law of capitalist competition forces every corporation to sacrifice workers and the environment in order to make profit. Their advocacy of environmental and economic reforms spreads the illusion that workers’ lives can be fundamentally improved under capitalism.

Then there are the "radical" environmental groups that advance the idea that humans are the problem. They believe there’s a contradiction between human need and the environment. They use anarchist "direct-action" techniques to boycott companies and forcibly prevent things like animal testing, logging and deep-sea trawling. But their strategies have had few results beyond raising awareness of the problem. Their solution is a return to primitive, less-intensive, low-tech forms of production. In the name of animal rights and saving the environment, their solution would mean the death of billions of humans due to extremely low productivity.

Communists understand that environmentalism is fundamentally a question of social organization and development. Overpopulation or technology are not the root causes of these problems. Like slave and feudal societies before it, capitalism imposes limits on social development. Capitalists talk only of "sustainable growth" — meaning a future of endless profits and exploitation. While workers toil to make profits for the ruling class, billions are denied access to the vast array of goods and services they create. Wasteful and profit-driven forms of capitalist production and consumption wreak havoc on the environment under normal conditions, not to mention the severe waste and destruction caused by constant economic crises and imperialist wars. The result is that capitalism causes man-made shortages while destroying our health and environment.

Capitalism is creating a social and environmental nightmare. Only a communist society can take us beyond capitalist limits and avert environmental catastrophe. Communists must think in terms of a sustainable economy, where human need and a healthy environment complement each other. What’s good for the environment is good for workers! A rationally- planned economy run by workers and founded on production for human need will bring an end to the inequalities, wastefulness and damage caused by capitalism. If used responsibly, the Earth’s resources can sustain communist society on Earth well into the future.

(The remaining three sections of this series will discuss Consumerism, Diet and Energy, with a communist critique of capitalism’s toll on workers and their environment and will outline a communist solution to the environmental and social misery inflicted by the bosses.)

Readers Review:

a name="‘Twelve Months That Changed the World,’By Larry Lesueur; Borzos, 1943"></">‘T"elve Months That Changed the World,’By Larry Lesueur; Borzos, 1943

I found this book interesting and inspiring. On Oct. 12, 1941, American correspondent Larry Lesueur set sail from Scotland for sub-zero Archangel. [This was the port in the Soviet Union, above the Artic Circle, that received supplies for the Soviet war effort. — Editor]

Lesueur said, "The opportunity to see Russia for the last time under Soviet Communism was the greatest adventure that the tottering world had left. No reporter, I felt, could possibly turn it down!"

One of Lesueur’s jobs was to broadcast war news from the Soviet Union back to the U.S. In Kuibyshev he met Miss Burrows, an announcer, a gray-haired black woman born in Harlem. She spoke Russian with a decided American accent, and addressed Lesueur as "comrade." Miss Burrows began the broadcast of Soviet war news with the traditional words, "Workers of the world, unite!"

In May of 1942 Lesueur prepared to return to New York. He met a Soviet officer in Moscow and asked him, "What about Stalingrad?" "He looked at me long and proudly: ‘Stalingrad will never fall!’" [The Soviet victory over the Nazis at Stalingrad, a five-month battle, was the turning point of the Second World War — Editor]

If you pick up this short (345 pages) well-written book, you won’t want to put it down. I didn’t!

Oakland Comrade

a name="‘The Years Of Rice And Salt’ By Kim Stanley Robinson"></">‘T"e Years Of Rice And Salt’ By Kim Stanley Robinson

A drawback in contemporary literature is its general lack of revolutionary depth. It’s refreshing to find a novel that actually has a critique of the oppressive capitalist system and a kind of rewrite of the Communist Manifesto. Kim Stanley Robinson’s current novel "The Years Of Rice And Salt," asks what if the black plague had utterly decimated the population of Europe, and Islam and China were the world’s sole dominant civilizations?

The story’s leading characters are reincarnated throughout about 1,000 years of history and tell their stories. This hocus pocus was actually pretty well done, but without the materialistic view necessary for a complete understanding of the world around us.

I like the way Robinson attacks the Sufis for turning Islam into a vehicle to control the populace. He illustrates how religion was used to galvanize the people to fight wars not beneficial to them. He shows how the sultans and rulers continually warred with each other over land and resources, putting the burden on imperialism as opposed to anti-European nationalism and other racist ideas. Robinson’s enemy is imperialism, sexism, racism, slavery and war.

In one chapter, two of the central characters write books. One can best be described as a "Vindication On The Rights Of Woman" and the other a type of Communist Manifesto. Seeing actual Marxist ideology in a mainstream book was both refreshing and alarming. Since the bosses’ popularize revolution in order to control it, I become alarmed when I see revolutionary speech in a novel. But after finishing it, I think it’s a novel we can read and use to help win others to fight for communism. Since we fight against the same enemies as those in the novel, and he uses a scientific, practical type of centralism as the ultimate model of government, this book could be a great help to our movement.

The novel teaches some of the fundamental belief systems of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism that can help us understand these religions and identify with workers who follow them, enabling us to spread the seeds of communism amongst the fertile soil of the religiously oppressed proletariat.

His line is by no means completely consistent with PLP’s. But this book helps to illustrate the failure of imperialism and its offspring of racism, sexism, classism, et al, and at the same time advances Marxist ideology as the solution to these problems. This should give us a firm foundation upon which to build our Party. So if you’re looking for an entertaining read that actually attacks the great evil of imperialism, this is the book for you.

Red Reader

$$$ for instruments, pay-cuts for musicians

The gala opening of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra…seemed particularly fitting…. The orchestra…acquired a collection of 30 priceless historic stringed instruments….

The orchestra had plenty to celebrate tonight…. [having] signed a new two-year contract the day before. This…involved a pay cut for the musicians — something that…is likely to figure in the contract negotiations of more and more American orchestras in coming months. (NYT, 9/12)

a name="Communist PLP’s Answer To Capitalism’s Chamber of Horrors"></">Co"munist PLP’s Answer To Capitalism’s Chamber of Horrors

The Progressive Labor Party believes that communist revolution offers the only answer to the terrible problems confronting billions of workers around the world. In 2003, these problems include:

•Grinding poverty, which forces nearly half the planet’s population to live on the equivalent of $1-$2 a day;

•Wars for profit and world domination, which turn working-class youth into cannon fodder for the greedy rulers;

•Mass unemployment, which the rulers use cynically to discipline workers and hold down wages;

•Police-state terror, whose primary purpose is to prevent workers from organizing to fight in our class interests;

•Racism, which doubly impoverishes non-white workers with twice the jobless and poverty rates of white workers, thereby lowering conditions for ALL workers, and in the U.S. keeps over two million people in jail (the highest in the world), 2/3 of them black and Latin males.

•The special oppression and degradation of women, which, along with racism, the bosses need to super-exploit our class and keep us divided;

•A "me-first" culture of selfishness and cynicism, which misleads us into believing the lie that since things will never change, our best bet is the callous scramble for individual success.

Of all these abominations, the last is the worst. The profit system’s ideology keeps us imprisoned in this society’s chamber of horrors. Only by learning to reject capitalist ideas, capitalist values and capitalist philosophy can we throw the capitalist monkey off our collective backs. History shows that sooner or later, people rebel against poverty, terror and degradation. But if the rebellion doesn’t take a road leading to fundamental change, then even the broadest, most militant mass movements are doomed to fail.

Only communism can bring fundamental change. Only the working class, spearheaded by industrial workers and soldiers, has the potential to make this change by carrying out revolution and seizing state power. But the working class won’t organize itself spontaneously. A unique political party, a communist party, is required to lead this process.

The Progressive Labor Party exists for this reason. In our 40-year history, we have led many struggles, made many mistakes, learned a lot and witnessed the gravest defeat the international working class has ever suffered. The collapse of the old communist movement has left the world’s workers temporarily without a center and a magnet. The retreat to "free-market" capitalism in once-socialist China and the former Soviet Union has given U.S. imperialism a blank check to do its dirty work. The mayhem Bush & Co. are spreading in Iraq and Afghanistan and Clinton’s 1999 aerial war of terror in the former Yugoslavia serve as sorry examples.

But cynicism and despair aren’t the answer. Nor must we fall for the deadly illusion that a "lesser evil" politician can bring us anything but more of the same. The alternative to Bush isn’t Howard Dean, Gen. Wesley Clark or any other "white knight" the bosses try to pass off as the savior of the moment.

The alternative to Bush and the system he represents is communism, a qualitatively different system. To bring it about, the Progressive Labor Party is trying to become a qualitatively different party.

We are a Party of the working class. We consider ourselves Marxist-Leninists. Marxism is a living science. The defeats of the past were due to serious errors committed by the once-great Communist Parties of the former Soviet Union, China, and other countries. We criticize these errors and strive to learn from them. We live under a dictatorship of the bosses. Following Marx, Lenin, and other giants of the world communist movement, we continue to endorse the concept in which the working class rules, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, creating a society in which production serves the needs of all workers instead of the profits of a few bosses. This remains our long-range goal.

Our outlook is international. We believe in the idea of "one class, one goal, one flag, one Party."

We aren’t a debating society. Learning to make revolution and to seize state power requires constant practice. In politics, class struggle is the main form of practice. As we engage in all kinds of struggle, big and small, we analyze our activity and attempt to identify our errors so that we can avoid repeating them and strengthen ourselves collectively in the process. Our measure of success in all our events and actions remains the growth of our Party through recruitment and the spreading of its ideas, primarily through the circulation of CHALLENGE-DESAFIO.

Making revolution requires winning hundreds of millions of workers to fight for it. This process in turn demands that our Party develop deep, solid personal-political relationships with workers and others. In 1968, we adopted a policy of "Building a Base in the Working Class." That policy is as valid today as it was then.

Building the Party, correcting errors and winning workers require a collective approach. This society tries to overwhelm us with individualism and to drown us in subjectivity. A PLP leader remarked years ago: "If you could bottle and sell subjectivity, we’d all be billionaires." Only communist collectivity, called "Democratic Centralism," and the communist method of criticism/self-criticism can help move us beyond bourgeois navel-contemplating. We have to learn to view the Party as the main thing in our lives and the working class’s needs as paramount over our personal needs and desires. This isn’t easy, to say the least. Capitalist thinking remains programmed into us 24/7. Only the Party can lead us over a very long time to make the necessary changes in our outlook.

The working class needs a Party, and its Party needs leaders. Communist leadership must be tested, committed and capable. It must be humble and approachable in dealing with Party comrades and workers. It must also be ruthless and shrewd in dealing with the class enemy and any threat to the Party from without or within. We are developing such a cadre of leadership. We still have a long way to go.

Finally, revolution requires a long-range outlook. A year, a decade, or even an individual lifetime doesn’t provide an accurate gauge of strategic victory in the class struggle. We are dealing with the strongest, most murderous ruling class in history. Our class has sustained a severe body blow. Class consciousness remains at a low level. The bosses appear able to inflict harm at will. Yet we must not view things statically. We must not fix on things as they are at the present moment. The specter of communism continues to haunt the rulers. The lull in strikes, class struggle and rebellion is temporary. The self-defeating poisons of nationalism and religion will not mislead workers forever. Our Party and its ideas can provide the antidote.

We have a job to do: to bring revolutionary class consciousness into the mass movements and win political leadership of workers and others.

In February and March of 2003, before and during Bush & Co.’s invasion of Iraq, millions upon millions of workers and others mobilized on every continent for the largest single-event demonstrations in history. They were protesting against a particular imperialist war. However unclearly, they were also seeking an alternative to imperialist war in general. Without knowing it yet, these millions, along with millions more not yet in motion, are victims of capitalism in search of a communist party. We can and will learn to make the PLP the beacon that guides them in the historic struggle to destroy this obscene system.

"The Foolish Old Man Who Removed The Mountains"

In June1945, Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, told the following fable at the end of a party congress. It still holds value for revolutionaries and workers today.

An old man lived in northern China long ago and was known as the Foolish Old Man of North Mountain. His house faced south and beyond his doorway stood the two great peaks, Taihang and Wanwu, obstructing the way. He called his sons, and hoe in hand they began to dig up these mountains with great determination. Another greybeard, known as the Wise Old Man, saw them and said derisively, "How silly of you to do this! It is quite impossible for you few to dig up these two huge mountains." The Foolish Old Man replied, "When I die, my sons will carry on; when they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons, and so on to infinity. High as they are, the mountains cannot grow any higher and with every bit we dig, they will be that much lower. Why can’t we clear them away?" Having refuted the Wise Old Man’s wrong view, he went on digging every day, unshaken in his conviction. God was moved by this, and he sent down two angels, who carried the mountains away on their backs.

Today, two big mountains lie like a dead weight on the Chinese people. One is imperialism, the other is feudalism. The Chinese Communist Party has long made up its mind to dig them up. We must persevere and work unceasingly, and we, too, will touch God’s heart. Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. If they stand up and dig together with us, why can’t these two mountains be cleared away?

CHALLENGE

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LETTERS

NYC Union Hack Helps Close School

"We can’t trust the unions any more, honey," a veteran teacher told me. She’s right. The unions are in cahoots with the bosses. And the working class certainly can’t trust the bosses to take care of us as the rising tide of fascism militarizes this country for war.

This tide is growing in education, as reflected at my high school. The latest attack was the "restructuring" of the school, another word for "closing." The main high school will be converted into six smaller schools in the same building. This will increase the number of administrators and create a "cleaner bureaucracy," according to the "positive" spin woven by our union chapter representative. The 6-fold increase of administrators will enable them to more closely monitor what’s taught in the classroom.

The announcement about the closing came in a meeting in the auditorium. Teachers were shocked as we had been told as recently as that very morning that the school "had a chance to remain open," if we "worked harder to increase the state standardized scores." The crowd grew angry, since many of our staff already had been "excessed" (read: "laid off").

One veteran teacher furiously attacked the principal, the superintendent and the education system attempting to remove our jobs. The arrogant superintendent replied, "This is the way it is and I can’t change it." Feeling the anger, he asked the union chapter leader to help out.

Standing side-by-side with the principal and superintendent, the union leader attacked teachers "who were lazy and didn’t teach" as a major reason for these moves. He was trying to divide us.

Then one worker attacked the union "representative," the first of a rising tide of working-class rage vented against the administration. The superintendent mentioned that he had told the principal about the school reconstruction three hours after he’d heard about it. But the principal had informed us that very morning we still had a chance to keep the school open — an outright lie!

We then were told that nobody would lose a job "this year," unless school registration declined. When we asked what we could do if we can’t get a position in one of the new small schools the answer was, "That’s your prerogative." In other words, it’s our problem.

The microphone was freely passed between the principal, the superintendent and the union chapter leader, displaying a coziness with each other, on the same side against the workers.

I spoke and used the example of another "reorganized" school. I indicated the school’s staff would now be divided and fractured, and that the expanded administration would use sorely-needed classrooms for office space. The meeting ended shortly afterwards. The general feeling among my co-workers was one of betrayal, that the union wouldn’t help us.

Then in the hall talking to my fellow workers, the union leader attacked me for "making people scared of losing their jobs." He was trying to cover for each concession made to the bosses. His verbal assault implied he knew much more than he was willing to share with us. The union "leaders" keep the bosses’ secrets from the workers.

I will continue to build ties with the staff, both teaching and janitorial, and will distribute more CHALLENGES to those who are leaning towards PLP, to be able to recruit them. I will also struggle to raise the class-consciousness of the workers, to make clear that this rotten system cannot be reformed – it must be smashed!

A comrade in teaching

Tenants Fight Back Against Bronx Slumlord

Landlords lease space to maximize profits from renters. They service buildings to the degree it’s profitable. If they can get away without paying for services, they will. In my six-story building in the Bronx, NY, the landlord is refusing to fix the broken elevator. Dozens of black, white, Muslim, Albanian, Caribbean, Asian, Latino, Russian and other working-class residents of two neighboring buildings signed a petition for a rent reduction and had a meeting with a woman from a housing non-profit group, to take the landlord to court.

But the elevator was only the tip of the iceberg. The landlord owns six adjacent buildings, including mine, and there are over 1,000 violations. The non-profit group didn’t know exactly how many because the computer records don’t register above 999!

Two of the buildings’ elevators have been broken for months and three residents are in wheelchairs. The landlord has only one super with a staff of three for all six buildings. During the blackout the emergency lights didn’t work. The roof leaks. The trash compactor chute doors are gone. Lights and safety mirrors are missing in the hallway and many apartments need numerous repairs.

Even if we win a rent reduction and repairs are made, under capitalism, we’re still dependant on the landlord for maintenance and services. Substandard housing compels the working class to fight for better living conditions but this is only a short-term solution. The landlord may slack off his obligations again if he can get away with it and he’ll always be profiting from our rents and from building workers’ wages. A long-term solution is communist revolution led by PLP, where workers will rid the world of landlords and establish living conditions, maintenance and building services according to our own needs, not the landlords’ and other bosses.

The fact that a multi-racial, international group of tenants has organized to fight back shows that workers can unite against the bosses. Because of long work and school hours, it wasn’t until I helped collect signatures that I really talked to anyone in my building. Now I plan to sell CHALLENGE and talk with my neighbors about organizing a long-term solution to broken elevators, missing lights and leaky roofs.

Neo

a name="Strategy for GI’s">">"trategy for GI’s

CHALLENGE correctly predicted the war in Iraq and that the bosses’ drive for control of Middle East oil is the underlying cause of the war. Recent articles have pointed out some tactical differences between Bushite neo-conservatives and Eastern Establishment bosses, while at the same time emphasizing that all these bosses support U.S. power and control in the Middle East.

CHALLENGE has clearly distinguished our Party’s communist line from the various revisionist-nationalist positions of other "left" groups. Rather than pandering to the military ("we support the troops") or writing off all GIs as hopelessly reactionary, our paper tries to win soldiers and sailors to an anti-racist, anti-imperialist and ultimately communist outlook. Recent articles include racism in the military, organizing in the army, and increasing dissatisfaction with the extended deployments in Iraq.

But I wonder if we’re not missing an opportunity to advance a communist position on the Iraq war and other imperialist adventures. During the Vietnam War, PLP distributed a pamphlet entitled, "Turn the Guns Around." That slogan may not have been the clearest (it could mean shoot yourself in the foot so you’ll be sent home). But the basic idea was a sharp expression of communist politics. That is, the most politically advanced and concrete expression of opposition to imperialist war is for soldiers to organize, turn their guns on their officers and link up with communist-led workers engaged in strikes and insurrections. This isn’t an idle fantasy. It happened during the Russian Revolution. I don’t think we’ve emphasized this enough in our headlines, articles and pamphlets around Iraq.

"Turn the Guns on Senior Officers" is one suggestion. (Maybe we should cut junior officers, e.g., those coming out of ROTC, some slack. Maybe.) Other slogans could include "Revolutionary [Communist] Mutiny" or "[Communist] Fraternization With the Enemy." Whatever the wording, we want to distinguish ourselves from the liberal-revisionist position of "Bring the Boys Home." Some version of the old "Turn the Guns Around" makes that distinction and points toward the vital role that soldiers and sailors will play in communist revolution.

Red Vet

How Can We Practice Communism under Capitalism?

Recently my wife and I were talking with friends whom we’d known for nearly 20 years. I’m retired, my wife and friend are laid off and my friend’s wife is still working. She said, "We’re all going to have to be more collective in these hard times." I asked, "How would we do that?" She replied, "We recently took in my brother and sister when they were unemployed and didn’t have a place to stay. We tried to share the house, meals and space. But it’s hard."

I remembered 25 years ago, I lived in a cooperative union housing development in San Francisco) established in the early 1960s by the ILWU (Intern’l Longshoreman and Warehouse Union) and HUD (U.S. Housing and Urban Development). It was moderate income and, multi-racial. Most members took a progressive, somewhat collective outlook on child care, education and other community problems. You could only accrue $1,000 in equity each year on your apartment. Unfortunately, after I moved members voted to take the equity off.

Money is another problem under capitalism. Several of us in PLP were discussing retirement. When I said, "I put my company retirement into an IRA" it provoked many questions and some sharp comments. Recently, like many workers, I had to dip into my savings.

You wish to be communists, but the reality is we live under capitalism. So what do you do? It would be good to hear from other CHALLENGE readers on this.

Keep up the good work in CHALLENGE-DESAFIO.

A West Coast comrade

Red Leadership in Mass Organizations

An earlier article on South Africa saying the anti-Apartheid struggle was "co-opted by black rulers" missed the point. It overlooked the fact that the African National Congress (ANC) was a bourgeois nationalist umbrella organization, including the South African Communist Party as a leading and active member. The valiant struggle put black capitalists in power while allowing capitalism to resume its exploitation without the problem of international sanctions, and leaving black workers in misery. This same umbrella coalition approach also preserved capitalism in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Does anyone know of literature showing what it was like for communists working in those or other umbrella groups? What pressures did other members of the umbrella groups exert? Did the Soviet Union actively discourage communists from pursuing a revolutionary line, or was it more a lack of revolutionary perspective? Did Communists worry about being overwhelmed in these movements but were unable to prevent it?

This could be useful since we’re trying to do revolutionary work in mass organizations whose perspectives are fixing or reforming capitalism. Obviously, some things have changed. There’s no longer a Soviet Union facing Western capitalists. And the Party is not a partner in the mass organization, though we are trying to exert leadership in various caucuses and even establish branches of mass organizations. Some historical guidance, either positive or negative, would be useful.

West Coast Comrade

State Hospital Sickens Workers

I work in a New York State hospital, where new buildings are being erected with new offices, new security systems and more sophisticated computers; with loads of money being paid to contractors.

Meanwhile, workers’ salaries are ridiculously low; retirees’ jobs are not replaced; the bosses don’t replace workers on vacations or taking sick days, forcing others to work twice as hard; and now you must pay more for doctor visits.

A cleaning worker with eight years experience earns $23,000 a year; a supervisor in the same area gets $34,000; a departmental head, $60,000; and the president is paid more than the rest combined. The bosses get the most money and do the least. (That’s how capitalism works.) In this hospital students perform dangerous experiments in the labs, some even risking death. Last December, a lab worker took his own life, jumping from the eighth floor. A co-worker said, "Who can take these low wages, lousy treatment, and many demands made on us? This is no life..." Our biggest problem is job cuts, putting more pressure on those remaining.

In the end, the bosses have nothing good to offer workers, only war and misery. The military gets tens of billions while health, education and housing are reduced to rubble. But workers have a different plan. We’re bringing communist ideas to workers, discussing war, imperialism and fascism. We’re increasing the number of CHALLENGE readers and will struggle ceaselessly to organize a system where workers can live without exploitation or oppression. Capitalism and all its lackeys must be destroyed.

A Brooklyn comrade

CHALLENGE As An Organizer

When I was a union leader in Latin America, my union received CHALLENGE regularly. It was a bit difficult for me to understand how a communist party inside an imperialist country could have such organized ideas. I liked the ideas of one party, one class, one flag, proletarian internationalism and the direct struggle for communism, although this last idea wasn’t as clear to me. I contacted Party members which increased my knowledge of the political line.

If it wasn’t for CHALLENGE I would have never met the Party and these ideas. Today I’m an active member and struggle every day to organize more workers around our ideas. In my case CHALLENGE was a political organizer. I know there are many other workers who are tired of this miserable system of misery and would welcome PLP’s revolutionary ideas.

A while ago we talked to a worker who we met at a march. He barely knew how to read or write. When he joined our study group and didn’t understand many things — like the Russian or Chinese Revolutions, he would study these events five and ten hours a week. One day we attended a PLP training school and this worker was making the main report. Other workers asked him which university he had attended and he replied, "The PLP university"; "everything I know, I learned in the Party." Nowadays he’s an outstanding leader, loved by his co-workers, an organizer for communist ideas.

CHALLENGE is a paper that teaches revolutionary, political ideas, analyzing the past and present with the goal of advancing to a communist future. In our study groups and discussions we must help each other in the readings of dialectics and politics to advance understanding of our ideas.

A comrade

Bosses Closing VA Hospitals While Casualties Soar

I was invited to testify for some veterans' groups at a New York City Council hearing to prevent the closings of veterans' hospitals here and around the state. This would dump all their patients into an already overcrowded Brooklyn facility.

Although I had protested outside City Hall many times, I had never been inside. I arrived early to get through any "terrorist" red tape. I was escorted up an opulent circular marble staircase past aristocrat-like statues and furniture placed on a plush red velvet carpet leading to the Council chambers. Its ornate dome made the room look like a palace.

As the first called to testify, I said veterans' hospitals should be expanded, not closed. NYC supplies the largest percentage of GI's in Iraq, suffering the greatest number of casualties, which the government has grossly under-reported. I said we should focus on the real reasons for the war. I quoted a soldier in Iraq who declared, "There is no reason for us to be out here! We're protecting the oil is all, and as for the war supposedly ending, it hasn't." I suggested that one sure way to protect veterans' health was to bring the troops home now, fight for jobs and against the closings of veterans' hospitals.

Another veteran said that although they were 9% of the U.S. population, they comprised 35% of the homeless, attesting to the lack of care for the emotional wounds of their war trauma. He predicted many veterans' deaths if the hospitals close. The wait for a doctor's appointment is now six months or more. There's an even longer wait, overcrowding and inaccessibility for disabled veterans who now would be forced to travel long distances, discouraging them from seeking help and increasing their depression.

A member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War recited a chant they use when marching against the war: "If they tell you to go, there's something you should know; they wave the flag when you attack; when you come home they turn their back." He said, "It is hypocrisy to wave yellow ribbons and say you 'support the troops' and then close hospitals that the wounded and disabled would need. They did it to the atomic vets after World War II [those ordered into the A-Bomb testing area as an "experiment" - Editor]. They did it to Vietnam veterans sick from Agent Orange/dioxin. They did it to the veterans of the 1991 war with Gulf War Syndrome." He asked, "Will they be able to do it again?"

As I was leaving the hearing it suddenly hit me that the place looked just like the Winter Palace I had seen in the movies about the Russian Revolution. I started to envision thousands of unemployed, veterans, immigrants and city workers charging up the marble stairs and smashing all those symbols of this bloody capitalist system.

Korean War vet

Win Immigrants to Communism

The CHALLENGE editorial (9/24) on the "Freedom Ride for Immigrants" unmasks the warmaking and fascist plans of the bosses and their lackeys. But it omits PLP'ers experiences in the last 30 years of giving political leadership to the immigrant section of the working class in the shops and the fields. Every Party effort in spreading communist politics among immigrants has been supported by these workers. The editorial didn't show the Party's potential for giving communist leadership to these mass movements promoted by the bosses. Nor does it take into account the views of workers involved in them or present a plan for the latter's political advancement.

Immigrant workers are attracted to the Freedom Ride and other similar events built by the politicians because of their desperation and vulnerability. But our practice has shown that these workers are winnable to our ideas. To win them we need many ingredients. An analysis of the situation is necessary but not sufficient; we need to take their conditions and struggles seriously, so they can take our communist politics seriously. Despite any disagreement with our ideas, through a process of developing close ties with them, sooner rather than later they will seek our leadership and our Party. This is my experience in many years as a communist organizer in the labor movement.

Where will the millions of workers that will join the Party come from? Mainly from the mass organizations and movements manipulated by the bosses and their politicians. The bosses' ability to impose their politics is partly because we don't make enough of an effort to win the masses to our ideas - underestimating the workers' potential and overestimating the influence of the sellouts. If we try and fail to stop the bosses' plan, at least we'll win many workers to the party.

If the bosses' plan is to win immigrant workers to become cannon fodder, this gives us an opportunity to win more soldiers to communism. Day after day immigrants die, victims of unemployment, racism and the Immigration Service. According to official figures, 430 immigrant workers die each year, more than have died in Iraq so far. What have we done to build a movement against these murders?

The Freedom Ride can be transformed into a movement against this racist genocide and against imperialist war. The goal of this letter is to encourage those comrades in the Party who are seriously trying to give leadership with our communist ideas inside the mass movement led by the capitalists.

An immigrant worker

a name="Leni Riefenstahl, Art for the Führer’s Sake"><" /"Leni Riefenstahl, Art for the Führer’s Sake

The German moviemaker Leni Riefenstahl, who made films that glorified Nazism, died this month at 101. Some bourgeois critics praised her work as high art, trying to distinguish it from her fascist politics. But for communists, the issue isn’t whether to deny or dispute anyone’s talent but in each instance to resolve what’s primary. Of course talented people like Riefenstahl can have fascist politics. It doesn’t negate their talent, but it shouldn’t elevate that talent to an artificial equality with the political ramifications of their work. What’s primary about the movies "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia" is not their cinematic artistry but the fact that they were clearly Nazi propaganda films, just as what’s primary about "Potemkin" is not the Soviet director Eisenstein’s brilliant film-making but the fact that he used his brilliance to serve the revolution.

Actually, the one inspiring thing is that Riefenstahl never managed to live down her Nazi connections; the almost 60 years she spent saying she was "just an artist" didn’t really convince anyone. Even though she mounted a career as a still photographer, she was never able to work in film again. And even her still photography depicted the same sort of fascist glorification of certain types of physiques — in photos of people in the Sudan — as she exhibited in "Olympia." In the U.S., D. W. Griffith, despite using many innovative techniques, never lived down the blatant pro-KKK bigotry of his movie "Birth of a Nation," and his "reply" film "Intolerance" never obliterated the taint of racism.

A couple of years ago, PLPers in LA joined others to protest the presenting of a special Oscar to Elia Kazan. He never totally lived down naming names to McCarthy, even though "On the Waterfront" is accepted as a great film (it conveniently glorifies Marlon Brando’s character for naming names, albeit naming criminals to the police). The point is that Riefenstahl, Griffith, Kazan and others like them always had — and under capitalism will have — followers willing to make a rather artificial separation between art and politics, and between art and the artist, and who will acknowledge their artistic accomplishments and political failings at the same time.

We can’t fall into that trap. A good line in a bad movie once said that what defines who we are is not our abilities, but our choices. These people chose to use their talent to serve fascists. That must be condemned, and condemned as primary over whatever talent they may have had. It might become a little more problematic with artists whose work didn’t have a blatantly political message but who had reactionary personal lives, like Salvador Dali, who had close relations with Spain’s fascist Franco.

But when intellectuals under capitalism decide to put their ability and training at the service of reactionary and oppressive ideas, the artificial separation of art and artist becomes nothing more than a rationalization for selling out. Riefenstahl was a pig, and we need to point that out consistently. With people trained in bourgeois intellectualism, that precise wording might not win them over, but that’s the essence of it. Riefenstahl shilled for the Nazis, and even if she did it well, ultimately that’s what counts (and, in one sense, makes it even worse). Her lame excuses, and her movies, could never — and hopefully will never — obscure that.

A Moviegoer

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Sept. 24, 2003

Information: 24 September 2003 383 hits

$87 BILLION FOR WARS
While Racist Unemploymewnt Rages On
`Freedom Ride' Ploy to Win Immigrants as Cannon-fodder
Kissinger's 9/11:
`73 Coup in Chile
Cops Protect Fellow Nazis--Again
Voting Can't End Capitalism's Racist Nightmare
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Make Communism the Voice of the People
Internationalism Elects PLP Steward
Support the International Communist Newspaper:
CHALLENGE
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IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE
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LETTERS
1. Rulers' Lies Help Sicken 9/11'Heroes'
2. `Recruit Locally,
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3. Social Action on Church Calendar
4. Racist LAPD To Use Licenses vs. Drivers
5. School Bosses' Job: Control Discontent
6. Liberals Let
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Bronson's `Death Wish' Movies Reinforce Rulers' Racism
RED EYE ON THE NEWS
1. 28% pay cut for less-skilled
2. Many prefer a life of equality
3. Pope ordered sex cover-up

$87 BILLION FOR WARS
While Racist Unemploymewnt Rages On

A funny thing happened to George W. Bush on his way back from the aircraft carrier where he announced the end of the major fighting in Iraq. UN headquarters in Baghdad was destroyed, police headquarters was attacked and more GI's have been killed since Bush's Hollywood theatrics than before. In Iraq, thousands are protesting in the streets, the lights aren't working, the oil isn't paying for the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq, and apparently Islamic terrorists are tripping over themselves to join Saddam's Ba'athist remnants to "bring it on" to U.S. imperialism. Meanwhile, Bush's "road map to peace" was torn to shreds in an explosion of suicide bombers and Sharon's missiles. And the Taliban and al Qaeda's holy warriors are back in control of chunks of Afghanistan.

Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, former chief of the U.S. Central Command, the headquarters for U.S. military operations in Iraq and the Middle East said, "There is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together. We're in danger of failing." (Washington Post, 9/5)

On top of this, the U.S. economy is plagued by soaring deficits,two days before Bush's speech another 93,000 jobs disappeared. U.S. troops and their families are less than enthusiastic and the F.B.I. is warning that more terrorist attacks may not be far off. "mission accomplished" is starting to look more like "mission impossible."

Against this backdrop, Bush went on TV September 7, to start his search for an additional $87 BILLION to continue the occupation of Iraq. With hat in hand, the "Go-It-Alone" gang is on its way back to the U.N. as well as to old Saddam Ba'ath army members who want to rebuild a security force.

According to the New York Times (editorial, 9/8), "Washington has been compelled to recognize that it cannot succeed in securing Iraq alone and badly needs much more United Nations help. Yet the White House still resists paying the necessary price of accepting broad U.N. authority over rebuilding Iraq's institutions and economy.... Realistic negotiations are needed with France, Germany and Russia over the terms of a new Security Council resolution that could open the door to expanded international peacekeeping forces and financial help with the huge reconstruction costs that lie ahead."

This is what was at the heart of the squabble among the bosses before the invasion, whether to create a U.S. empire by ruling alone, or whether to lead a World War 2 FDR-style "grand alliance" except this time with France, Germany, Russia and the U.N. The main wing of the U.S. ruling class is regaining the upper hand in this fight, but that's only half the battle.

At least as important is the fact that Bush has failed to win the working class, inside and outside the armed forces, to sacrifice for Exxon Mobil's oil profits. "While Mr. Bush is getting more specific about the numbers, he has yet to really tell Americans that they will have to make sacrifices to pay the bill." (NYT, 9/8) The main wing of the ruling class is pushing hard to win the population to a sense of duty and sacrifice so that U.S. imperialism can kill millions more in unending wars to keep the profits flowing. The Bush bashing will escalate to a fever pitch up until the 2004 presidential elections, but workers should beware the siren's song.

On October 25, there will be a mass March on Washington to End the Occupation of Iraq. Like the King-Dream march last August and the upcoming Immigrant's Freedom Ride, the main wing of the ruling class is hoping to use the anti-racist, anti-imperialist sentiments of the masses and lead them to the voting booth. Through the Democratic Party and the unions, the churches and community organizations, campus and student groups, they hope to mobilize the working class to support their deadly plans.

On our jobs, in our schools, communities and barracks, we should begin mobilizing for this march to challenge the rulers for the political leadership of the masses. By mobilizing our co-workers and students to participate under the political leadership of PLP, we can have a big impact on the march and those we bring to it, helping to energize the movement for communist revolution.

`Freedom Ride' Ploy to Win Immigrants as Cannon-fodder

The "Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride" is a campaign conceived by the liberal wing of the U.S. ruling class to win the "hearts and minds" of millions of immigrant workers and others to a more inclusive patriotism. It's organized by a coalition of unions, business, churches, students and Democratic and Republican officials. Patriotism is central to winning the population to willingly sacrifice "blood and treasure" for the U.S. bosses' wars for world domination and control of oil. Patriotism is also crucial for implementing the fascist Homeland Security.

But 11 million undocumented workers -- the coalition's estimate -- cannot feel patriotic when they are excluded from citizenship. Neither can their millions of U.S.-born children and relatives nor the legal residents who resent anti-immigrant bashing.

The liberal U.S. bosses think this must change because "...hard-working, taxpaying immigrant workers cannot become full participants in this country without a national commitment to legalization." ("United We Serve: National Service and the Future of Citizenship," published by the Brookings Institute, a liberal bosses' think-tank) Their Freedom Ride coalition proclaims: "The goal of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride is to help draw a new map to the road to citizenship."

Immigrant workers and their U.S.-born children are a substantial part of the U.S. population, comprising 40% or more in major cities like Los Angeles and Miami. They also play a key role in industries from agriculture to services to manufacturing. Now U.S. rulers need to integrate them more aggressively into the military.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. bosses' position as the world's number one imperialist power is increasingly being challenged. Both Republican and Democrat officials openly state that the U.S. must crush that opposition. Military supremacy with its huge expenditures and control of Middle Eastern oil are crucial to their strategy. This means war and more war.

But the U.S. military is already stretched thin. Anger is growing as GI's face stiffening resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. The liberal U.S. rulers are calling for "more boots on the ground" to control Iraq's oil and to expand the fight for U.S. domination of the Middle East. Where will these soldiers come from?

One source is the millions of undocumented workers they're planning to "legalize," the millions to whom they'll grant citizenship and millions more of their sons and daughters. The vast majority are Latin Americans. Statistics show that the group currently most willing to "re-up" is Latino males. "United We Serve" suggests that "National service...could be part of a renewed discussion about the need to acknowledge the contributions immigrants make to American society. Why not make a two-year commitment to national service one pathway to legalization? Union leaders and employers together could identify eligible current and future workers for screening by appropriate authorities." (p.85)

National Service is the liberal bosses' program to move the U.S. population to "civic action," to sacrifice for the "national interest" like serving in the military and in Homeland Security. "National service is essential to democratic citizenship," states "United We Serve." It also suggests that 3.8 million felons could become full citizens again by completing two years of national service, yet another ploy to force mainly black workers, victimized by the bosses' racist cops and injustice system, to serve in the military and Homeland Security.

Even if all demands for immigrant workers were met, they would not be freer in the "land of opportunity." Almost 50% of all Latino families live below the official poverty level and earn the lowest wages. Many lack medical care. This is the future U.S. bosses have in store for all U.S. workers.

Under the guise of demanding "good things" for undocumented workers, the union hacks and politicians (who were the most virulent anti-immigrant spokespersons), are trying to seduce immigrant workers and their well-meaning supporters into goose-stepping for the U.S. bosses and fighting their imperialist wars. We should not fall into this trap. Patriotism is an ideology invented by capitalism to serve its needs for war and fascism. Workers owe allegiance to no boss and no country.

The working class has no borders which is another capitalist invention to stake out the territories and pit workers who they control and exploit against each other. Our interest lies in unifying the international working class under one flag, one Party and one political line in order to overthrow this racist murderous system and build a communist society based on serving the needs of our class. We will participate in the Freedom Ride to urge participants to join PLP and fight to end the profit system and its exploitation of all workers. We are confident that immigrants and their children who are pushed into national service will be won to fight against the bosses' imperialist war and fascist homeland security and for communist revolution.

Kissinger's 9/11:
`73 Coup in Chile

Early in August, the leadership of the CUT (Labor Federation) organized a general strike here in Chile, but in a way that wouldn't really affect the interests of the ruling class. On TV, Martínez, head of the CUT, said the strike wasn't against the government but against the "economic model" imposed on workers and the companies that were taking advantage of it to attack the working class. Martínez exposed himself as a class traitor and a liar since the government supports the economic model. No wonder the working class is confused and demoralized.

September 11 is also a sad day for workers and their allies here in Chile. Three decades ago on that day a group of terrorists trained and backed by the U.S. ruling class caused the murder of thousands [and the torture of hundreds of thousands]. No, it wasn't Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda fundamentalists trained by the CIA and its Saudi and Pakistani buddies to wage anti-communist jihad against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. This time the terrorists were anti-communist Christian fundamentalists led by Chilean General Pinochet, the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, right-wing Cuban exiles from Miami and other fascists.

They were all directed and financed by the CIA and Henry Kissinger (Richard Nixon's National Security chief and soon-to-become his Secy. of State). The coup overthrew the democratically-elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende. Among the murdered were some U.S. citizens (as depicted in the movie "Missing" starring Jack Lemon). It was just prior to this coup that Kissinger had observed he saw no reason why "a certain country" [Chile] should be allowed to "go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." (Harper's Magazine, Feb. 2001)

Pinochet and Kissinger are still around and haven't paid for their terrorist crimes. Lagos, Chile's current President, is a right-wing "socialist." He's not even interested in pro-working class reforms as was Allende. Rather he's one of Bush's best allies in the Southern Cone.

The "far left" from Allende's time has also changed. In the pre-coup years, The Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), was the biggest and most militant group. Pinochet's fascist secret police (DINA) killed MIR's leader, Miguel Enríquez in a shootout a year or so after the coup. Now the "new" MIR doesn't mention workers' power or even revolutionary socialism. It defends liberal diversity and multi-culturalism. Some of the "old MIR's" former leaders want the group to disband, saying "things have changed." Enríquez's son is now senior partner of a production company. I heard him recently on TV; he sounded like an up-and-coming CEO.

All these politicians and sellouts are now just interested in making sure capitalism functions smoothly without the disruptions of the Allende or Pinochet era. Political marketing is now their MO. Meanwhile, conditions for most workers are going from bad to worse, as the general strike showed, despite the CUT leaders' treachery.

Comrade in the Southern Cone

Cops Protect Fellow Nazis--Again

INDIANAPOLIS, IN, Aug. 24 -- Over 200 anti-racists protested against the 30 Nazis on the statehouse steps today. The young and vigorous anti-racist crowd enthusiastically followed PLP chants such as, "Death, Death, Death to the Nazis! Power, Power, Power to the Workers!" PLP members sold 120 CHALLENGES and distributed 250 leaflets. The anti-fascist youth listened to our communist speeches and said they were glad we were there, even people who disagreed with us. One young man in dread-locks told his friend, "That's it, that's the paper." Turned out he had been reading it on and off for years. A Latin youth gave us $5 for DESAFIO. A student told us he would print the PLP leaflet in his school newspaper. Although the Nazis were allowed to plug their loudspeakers into the Indiana State Capitol Building, the cops prevented CHALLENGE sellers from entering the rally site with our literature.

This particular group of fascists had organized among disaffected young people here for months. They advanced a strong anti-immigrant message both here and in Berwyn, Illinois in June, where PLP-led forces beat down several Nazi supporters. The anti-immigrant message is one that the fascists and capitalist ruling class have always used, but have intensified since Sept. 11, leading to dire consequences for the working class. People of Middle Eastern/South Asian/Arab descent have borne the brunt of anti-immigrant attacks, as have Latin immigrants. The capitalists benefit from these racist divisions among the working class, fueled by the Nazis as well as mainstream politicians. The bosses lay off workers and shut down plants and then get workers to blame each other for what the bosses have done.

Since 9/11, the U.S. government has forced all immigrants from certain countries to report to the Immigration Service. Thousands have been held and/or deported in this racist round-up. Yet not one member of a racist militia group was subject to this kind of treatment after one of their members blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, killing 167. Racism will never be ended as long as capitalism exists, and capitalism will never be destroyed if we don't fight racism. That's why PLP continues to lead the attack against racism in all its forms, and is always there when the Klan and Nazis come to town.

After the demonstration, the police led the crowd on a circuitous route, using their horses and tactical teams to divide the anti-racists into smaller groups, leading many to see more clearly the racist purpose of the Klan in Blue. Our task is to channel the enthusiastic spirit of these and other young people into the building of a mass revolutionary PLP which can end this racist capitalist system once and for all.

Voting Can't End Capitalism's Racist Nightmare

WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 23 -- Today thousands of anti-racists marched to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, considered a turning point in the civil rights struggle. It was marked by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, and, combined with the militant black rebellions of the 1960s, led to the passage of civil rights legislation. Today's march organizers were launching a voter registration movement to kick out Bush and the Republicans as the way to stop increasing racist attacks.

In contrast to this official "vote Democrat" line, PLP organized for this event around revolutionary ideas, pointing to capitalism as the source of racism, calling for a mass, violent revolution against the profit system. Fighting racism is central to such a movement. We distributed thousands of flyers and hundreds of CHALLENGES at Howard University and the surrounding community, exposing the losing strategy of relying on the bosses' politicians.

Today we marched from Howard U. to the Lincoln Memorial assembly point with the By Any Means Necessary movement, which recently had organized major protests at the Supreme Court against the attack on affirmative action. Our banners and slogans were very popular with other marchers as our militant contingent joined the protesters on the Mall.

Another PLP contingent joined with the People's Coalition for Police Accountability in circulating a petition and leaflet demanding the firing and indictment of racist Prince George's County cop Charles Ramseur, who shot an unarmed young black man in the back, paralyzing him for life. Over 250 marchers signed the petition. Hundreds more flyers and CHALLENGES were distributed.

PLP's militant, grassroots, revolutionary strategy contrasted with the ineffective and misleading electoral strategy of the event's speakers. A great number of marchers were open to revolutionary, militant ideas, similar to the 1963 march.

In 1963, the Democratic Party, the Kennedy's and the unions, which used their funding to control the agenda of the major civil rights organizations, toned down the politics of the march. Mainstream civil rights leaders like King accepted this situation because of their limited reformist politics.

The leadership of that march rewrote the speech of John Lewis, then leader of the more militant SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), to keep the speeches free of any revolutionary spirit. Ironically, on that very day, Kennedy signed legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress breaking a nation-wide railroad strike.

Malcolm X labeled the event the "Farce on Washington." He declared that the mass of black workers and youth were militant and revolutionary, saying the '63 march could have been a pre-revolutionary activity, sparking militant actions to shut down the country. He argued that this movement had been hijacked and derailed by the Liberal Establishment's control of the main civil rights organizations.

PLP hails the bold spirit of the 1963 marchers and identifies with the anti-racist, activist spirit of today's participants. We supported the militant black rebellions in the 1960s as the way to go. (PLP members were arrested and accused of being behind the 1964 Harlem Rebellion.) But the mis-leadership of this current movement is still trying to co-opt our brothers and sisters into dangerous electoral and legislative traps. Act to spread revolutionary ideas within the mass movement so that racism can finally be crushed with communist revolution!

Building a Revolutionary Party:
Make Communism the Voice of the People

Communists aim to become tribunes of the people, particularly the working class. Making communism the voice of the workers has been a challenge at this large healthcare institution. Years ago we began with one organizer advancing the outlook of building a mass PLP and making CHALLENGE a newspaper read by, and speaking for, thousands of workers here. That remains a difficult goal, but progress has been made and lessons have been learned.

Base-building is the key ingredient. Developing close personal/political ties with many workers, built around CHALLENGE and leadership of class struggle, has led to several black and Latin workers joining the Party, and an expanded CHALLENGE circulation. Being socially and politically involved with the workers raises everyone's morale and enriches our "personal" lives while building the Party.

In the early days, Party organizing was based mainly on socializing with workers at lunch, after work, in bridal and baby showers, funerals, cabarets, picnics, sporting events, alcohol and drug abuse interventions and exploring other opportunities to build solid ties with the workers as we gained confidence in each other.

After years of struggle, our CHALLENGE distribution dramatically improved when we recruited a black worker who made this her mission. She helped recruit another black worker and they led a struggle to increase CHALLENGE circulation. CHALLENGE is the thread that ties together our base-building and class-struggle fights.

Years of communist activity in the union involves us in almost all aspects of the workers' fights: grievances, contract negotiations, organizing and participating in marches on personnel and CEO offices. In 2002 we linked the fight against the Iraq war to the bosses' effort to take back our pay raise. During that fight, non-Party workers boldly posted PLP flyers everywhere. ["Fight all OIL WAR cuts! Fight for Communism!"] PLP members and our base have been continuously at the heart of almost every struggle.

Now workers want to know what the Party thinks on almost every question affecting them. We have friendly relations with a broad spectrum of workers -- from ex-Marine Corps sergeants to members of the Nation of Islam. A recent hiring wave of part-timers brought in many younger workers. Many veteran workers have introduced them to the PLP delegate. Our most immediate task is recruiting and developing these younger black, Latin and women workers.

An important part of our plan will be to link the bosses' endless oil wars to the fights on the job. Our August PLP newsletter exposed how the billions of tax dollars spent on the bosses' military could provide healthcare for virtually the entire working class. Future CHALLENEGE articles will describe our experience in pursuing these goals.

Internationalism Elects PLP Steward

Cleaners in an SEIU local elected a PLP member for shop steward this August. These workers come from many different nations -- Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Somalia, etc. Many fled from economic and political oppression caused by U.S. imperialism, only to face anti-immigrant racism here. A supervisor physically assaulted a Somali worker, sparking a grievance against this racist pig. Somali workers are singled out for racist attack because they're Muslims in the post-9/11 U.S.

The workers who are regular CHALLENGE readers played a big role in getting our comrade elected. Many papers are distributed at this job. We are trying to reach as many international workers as possible. While electing a PLP member is good, the best response to the racism and wars of capitalism is for many of these workers to join PLP and to bring our revolutionary communist politics to their friends and relatives, from San Salvador to Mogadishu to Chicago to NYC to Managua.

The only way we will get justice for our class and an end to racist oppression is through communist revolution.

A Comrade

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U.S. `Democracy' Hits Iraq -- Arrest Jobless Marchers

On July 29, hundreds of unemployed workers, led by the Union of the Unemployed (UOTU), marched to the office of the U.S. puppet Governing Council to demand jobs and unemployment benefits. The UOTU is Iraq's fastest growing labor organization. At least four million Iraqi workers are unemployed in a country of 25 million (equal to 46 million unemployed in the U.S.). They erected a tent encampment outside the council's gates, and refused to disperse as U.S. troops had ordered. At 1:00 A.M. the troops attacked the workers and arrested 21, including Union leader, Kacem Madi.

The UOTU says it will continue its demonstrations. One arrested Union member, Ali Djaafri, 58, said his experience was "very humiliating. At no other time during the occupation has my resentment towards the U.S. soldiers been that strong."

Millions of Iraqi workers are facing extreme poverty brought on by the Bush gang's pre-emptive invasion. Many used to provide vital services like health and education, working for government-owned enterprises that have been closed down and slated for U.S.-directed privatization.

The Bush administration has given contracts to U.S. corporations with long anti-labor records. All have fought unions and 8 of the 18 have no unions. They include Stevedoring Services of America, which helped lock out the West Coast longshoremen last year, and MCI Worldcom, which used bankruptcy and fraudulent records to wipe out retirement savings for thousands of their workers, along with $2.6 billion in public pension funds.

Haliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root are using subcontractors that bring their own workforce into Basra for repairs and reconstruction while experienced Iraqi workers are frozen out. The head of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions declared, "War makes privatization easy: first you destroy the society and then you let the corporations rebuild it."

When Bush, Rumsfeld and "presstitutes" like the New York Times' Thomas Friedman talk about "bringing democracy to Iraq," they mean the capitalist brand that criminalizes workers demonstrating against unemployment.

Workers everywhere should support their Iraqi brothers and sisters. We should raise the issue in our unions and hold protest actions at federal buildings.

Prior to the CIA-engineered coup in 1963, which later brought Saddam Hussein to power, Iraq had a vibrant communist-led labor movement. Iraqi workers have a long history of supporting communist politics. However, the Iraqi Communist Party has long since become a reactionary force, even joining the U.S.-puppet Iraqi Governing Council. We don't know the politics of UOTU's leadership, but Iraqi workers must rebuild the revolutionary communist movement to fight the U.S.-UK occupation forces, Hussein's Ba'athists, Islamic fundamentalists and all imperialists. This Herculean task is the only way out of the endless bloodbath spreading across the Middle East. It is the only way the international working class will be able to eventually destroy the war criminals in the White House and Wall Street and establish a worker-run communist society, free of profits and bosses.

China's Capitalist `Success' Rooted In Slave Wages for Millions

In 1971, China's Mao-Zedong wined, dined and starting doing business with Kissinger and Nixon, the so-called ping-pong diplomacy, so named because the deal-making was preceded by a "cultural exchange" involving competition between U.S. and Chinese ping pong teams. CHALLENGE said it opened the doors to capitalism in China and called it a tremendous betrayal of the international working class, particularly those in Vietnam who were being bombed "back to the stone age" by U.S. bosses.

Many attacked us, saying "how dare PLP criticize Mao and the Chinese communists," but history has proven us correct. China is fast becoming the manufacturing center of world capitalism. The Boston-based New Balance company now manufactures 6 million pairs of shoes -- 60% of its total annual production -- in China.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Snow just visited Beijing to pressure the government to "float" its currency, the yuan, which is now pegged to the dollar and was told, "Tough luck!" The Chinese bosses know well that a low-valued yuan, combined with the super-exploitation of Chinese workers, are enabling profits in what they call "market socialism" -- capitalism -- to bloom.

Some companies like healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson, Wal-Mart, and Ikea are riding the Chinese boom while others are being left behind, particularly the Southern-based textile industry and some smaller scrap metal outfits. Cheap imports from China are hurting these industries, causing mass layoffs here. Even should China float its currency, increasing its value, it will still have a major weapon: the world's largest pool of low-paid workers. The Wall Street Journal (9/4) says this is the main threat "not only [to] manufacturers in the U.S., but also those in Mexico, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in Asia."

Mexico's maquiladora industry is being hit hard. China's super-exploitation of labor, coupled with the world economic crisis and its damaging effect on the U.S. market -- which has consequently decreased its imports from Mexico -- has led to the loss of 250,000 jobs in Mexico in the last 12 months.

Ironically, by not "floating" the yuan, China's bosses are helping to keep the U.S. economy afloat. China's huge trade deficit with the U.S. and its consequent accumulation of dollars has led China to buy U.S. treasury bills, "helping the savings-short U.S. economy [to] keep spending and investing, and keeps U.S. long-term interest rates from rising."(WSJ)

But capitalism, even "market-socialism" style, has its limits. Already, China's capitalism is "overheating," mainly in the banking and housing business. (New York Times, 9/4)

Eventually the deal-making diplomacy which betrayed the Vietnamese workers fighting U.S. imperialism, will turn into a trade war and another shooting war. This is the nature of the capitalist beast, whether labeled free market, globalization or "market socialism." Our job is to rebuild the international communist movement, from Beijing to Detroit, learning from the strengths and mistakes of the old movement, and fight for a world without any capitalists. Join the PLP!

Heat Deaths = Capitalist Murder

The recent heat wave in Paris and other European cities was the worst in decades. But it wasn't just uncomfortable. It was deadly. The media focused primarily on France where literally thousands of "excess" deaths occurred, meaning death rates were much higher than usual.

The exact figures for this public health catastrophe have been hard to come by. First estimates were between 1,500 and 3,000 deaths. The most recent estimate, based on funeral home reports, is over 13,000.

Most deaths occurred among older people, from their 70's to 90's. Some were living alone, without air conditioning. But one report suggests that half of these deaths occurred among nursing home residents. What are we to make of such a catastrophe occurring in a developed country at the beginning of the 21st century?

Heat death is common in many countries. Every summer in the U. S., for example, some older people die from hyperthermia (extreme elevation of body temperature). Numbers vary, depending on how bad heat waves are in various cities.

But heat death is completely preventable. With adequate hydration (i.e., drinking enough liquids) and cooling, no one has to die from hyperthermia.

The technical knowledge exists to prevent these deaths. But capitalism fails to provide the basic living conditions -- the right kind of housing, air conditioning, social supports, and emergency medical services -- that could prevent thousands of hyperthermia deaths each year.

Yes, sometimes it gets hot. The question is, when this happens what do the bosses' governments do to ensure that older people, living alone or in nursing homes, get the fluid and cooling they need? And you can bet that in France few of these older persons came from society's upper echelons. They were likely to be retired workers, shopkeepers or farmers. The ruling class takes care of its own, even in the worst of "natural" heat waves.

Government officials hypocritically blamed families and doctors for going on vacation. Everyone knows that a large percentage of French people take long vacations in August -- vacations, incidentally, that workers fought for. So how come provisions weren't made to increase hospital staffing and monitor conditions in nursing homes? How come the public health system didn't make arrangements to look in on older people living alone?

The fact is, under capitalism these elementary preventive measures are not high priorities. In their absence, when extreme "natural" conditions occur (heat waves, earthquakes, floods), people die.

Over 150 years ago, communist leader and theoretician Frederick Engels described the early deaths faced by Irish and other workers in the early 19th Century as "social murder." The heat deaths in France and other developed countries are another example of social murder. The profit-hungry bosses have caused these deaths just as surely as if they had sent these older workers to gas chambers or bombed their nursing homes.

Capitalism has a long, miserable history of failing to protect workers against natural disasters. The best "public health" measure to prevent social murder is communist revolution. Under communism, older workers will not die alone -- dehydrated, disoriented and burning up in apartments and nursing homes. Communism can and will provide housing conditions with built-in, round-the-clock social supports so that heat death becomes one more atrocity of the past.

Chicago County Hospitals are Really Sick

Chicago, IL, Sept. 9 -- Since the Members First reform slate was elected to lead SEIU Local 73 Health Care Workers Union last July, management has been testing the strength of this new leadership.

In the County Hospital system, the bosses are taking workers to pre-disciplinary hearings and firing people for being sick or making work errors that result from working under-staffed and under stress. Meanwhile, many vacant positions go unfilled, slated to be eliminated at the end of this budget year. Many workers who recently retired under the Early Retirement Initiative have not been replaced. Instead the bosses use Temporary and Agency workers. Favoritism is used in making promotions. Union members are in an uphill struggle trying to protect the few rights we have in our contract.

Mt. Sinai Hospital defaulted on its mortgage payment and laid off the engineers in favor of a sub-contractor. When workers marched on the boss and explained how they had dedicated their working life to this hospital, the CEO replied, "You were paid well for that work."

At the brand new Stroger Hospital (formerly Cook County Hospital), patients wait for days in the emergency room until a bed is available or they are transferred to Oak Forest or Provident, far from where most of them live. Many are stressed out from waiting so long and some have psychological issues. There are too few beds for medicine and surgery patients. Many patients must wait overly long in the recovery area because their beds were given to someone else while they were in surgery.

The Pharmacy often runs out of medications. Patients are sometimes discharged without their medications, forcing them to go to a drugstore and pay full price -- which they can't afford -- which is why they come to Stroger in the first place. Many patients wait in the Pharmacy 18 to 24 hours because they can't afford another round-trip carfare.

Countless grievances are being filed, but capitalism can never meet the needs of unemployed, sick workers who have been used and abused by the system. While Bush seeks another $87 BILLION to tighten his oily grip on Iraq, County hospitals will always be understaffed and the union will always have more fights than it can possibly handle.

We need more direct work actions instead of waiting weeks and months under the grievance system. In the struggle for decent health care for our patients, a safe workplace and jobs that can provide for our families, we can help workers understand capitalism and learn how communism will provide jobs and health care for all. Several CHALLENGE readers are participating in PLP study groups. The union is one avenue through which workers can fight back under capitalism. PLP is the blueprint for the communist world that will provide for all workers' needs.

FROM THE FLINT
SIT-DOWN TO UAW, INC.

FLINT, MI, Sept. 2 -- The United Auto Workers (UAW) union unveiled a $350,000 monument commemorating the great Flint sit-down strike in which workers seized and occupied General Motors plants for 44 days and nights from December 1936 to February 1937. At the Labor Day ceremony, UAW President Gettelfinger described how the strike was preceded by more than a year of agitation and organization by "union activists," both inside and outside Flint, and called the historic strike "a watershed event...that paved the way for better wages, better working conditions and better lives...across the United States." (Oakland, Mich. Press, 9/2)

All too true. But this labor faker neglected to mention that the strike was led by communists. Six of the seven members of the in-plant Strike Committee were members of the Communist Party and the two "activists" leading the organizing outside the plants, Bob Travis and Wyndham Mortimer, were militant left-wingers closely associated with the communist leadership.

But the UAW turned into its opposite a long time ago. By the early 1940's, the Communist Party's own opportunist reformism made it easier for a pro-capitalist leadership to take over the UAW. Today, the "union" is more like UAW, Inc. As of March 31, 2003, the UAW had a net worth of $1.1 BILLION. The General Fund had a cash balance of $59.7 million and the International Union earned a total of $10.8 million on investments in the previous three months. The Strike Fund alone was worth almost $820 million.

The Flint Sit-Down, which broke the laws and took on the cops and National Guard, sparked tremendous growth in a time of severe economic crisis, organizing four million industrial workers in the next four years. However, under generations of patriotic pro-capitalist junior partners, the UAW has lost 750,000 members since 1979 and today is trading wages and benefits in exchange for the bosses agreeing to sign "neutrality" clauses giving the union new members.

It's no wonder the pro-boss union leaders want to hide the leading role communists played in organizing basic industrial workers. This is one of the clearest examples that reform doesn't lead to revolution. As PLP expands our base among industrial workers, we will lead workers to go all the way and destroy this system of wage-slavery with communist revolution.

(See the PLP website, wwwPLP.org, for the complete text of the pamphlet, The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike Against GM.)

Politicians' Electoral Tricks Won't Solve Salvadoran Workers' Problems

EL SALVADOR -- The capitalist crisis here has plunged the working class into a bottomless pit filled with unemployment, hunger, disease, desperation and death. This crisis is caused by the greedy murderous bosses in El Salvador as well as the international crisis of overproduction created by world capitalism. Coffee and cotton producers here can't find buyers because the market is shrinking and is filled by others. Privatization is intensifying which is part of the drive for maximum profits, creating still more unemployment and misery. The only thing keeping the economy somewhat afloat is the $2 billion Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. send home.

In the coming presidential election, both the candidates of the right-wing ARENA party and the liberals of the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), say they can solve these problems. But until capitalism is destroyed, no matter who's in power, workers' problems will remain, under a system in which production is based on exploitation, and profits will continue to line the pockets of the bosses.

Shafik Handal, FLMN presidential candidate, says, "Capitalism has many good things to offer us. Only under a law of free competition can Salvadoran businesses develop better." This statement smacks of any common bourgeois politician. But Handal and the FMLN promise "revolutionary change" that will free the Salvadoran working class from capitalist super-exploitation.

Decades ago Handal, ex-leader of the now defunct Salvadoran Communist Party, rejected communism as the road to working-class liberation. He says we can take "good" things from capitalism to create a "third alternative system." But capitalist exploitation cannot be resolved by magic or politicians' tricks. Only a world run by the working class for our own class interests can free us from the evils of the profit system.

Handal hasn't stopped screaming to the four winds about the "benefits" of national capitalism and of the many friends the FMLN has among both the U.S. and European imperialists. With this outlook, the FMLN and Handal look for electoral alliances with right-wing parties like the PCN (Party of National Conciliation). In '70's and '80's the PCN "disappeared" and tortured thousands of city workers, farmworkers and students. With friends like this, the workers don't need enemies.

The political cynicism and opportunism of the MLN, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Workers' Party of Lula in Brazil and Chavez in Venezuela are incapable of resolving the worsening problems of the working class. Much of this ideological retreat stems from the demise of the old communist movement led by the former Soviet Union and China, which fought for socialism. When these countries returned to open capitalism, it created disillusion and confusion among the world's workers. But if was capitalism that failed, not communism. The science and goal of communism continue to be the hope of millions of workers.

In El Salvador, the rest of Latin America and throughout the world, millions died fighting for a future without exploitation or capitalism. The mud thrown on them by people like Handal, Lula and Ortega will not stop the fight for real communist revolution.

Contrary to the electoral parties, PLP says that elections and reforms won't stop the bosses' fascist attacks and wars. Communists in PLP worldwide will intensify the exposure of these capitalist wolves in sheep's clothing and fight for the masses to take the future into our own hands, to destroy all capitalist exploiters along with their henchmen.

A Taste of Communist Struggle

SEATTLE, WA., Sept. 5 -- "Last time I came here was in '99," said a young student, a machinist trainee, at our monthly Party study group. "There were many more workers driving into the Boeing plants, a lot with big pick-ups. There aren't so many workers now, but they're more interested. I got out all of my [communist] leaflets and had only one CHALLENGE left." This young student joined a few out-of-town guests and over twenty workers and students -- members and friends, many in mass organizations of one kind or another -- for a continuing discussion on the PLP documents Road to Revolution III and IV in the middle of our 4-day, end-of-summer, mini-project. "Yeah, he was bold!" added a newer comrade in admiration.

This session focused on the lessons of the Russian Revolution. Two new leaders prepared a "time line" of the revolution so all would have the facts at hand. Veteran comrades added additional historical information. Then a co-leader of the youth club asked everyone to name at least one positive thing and one weakness about that historic event.

The struggle intensified. Will the racist, imperialist media determine the ideology of the working class? ...Or will CHALLENGE and bringing our communist politics to class struggle ultimately carry the day? Which is primary: what the bosses do or what we do? What are the limits of struggle today and what will determine the ultimate direction of history? What type of organization should we build: a revolutionary communist party based on class politics or a collection of nationalist organizations allied around identity politics? Should we really focus on industrial workers and soldiers, as the Bolsheviks did?

We tried to answer these questions in practice. We distributed three hundred copies of the most recent Boeing CHALLENGE article at the plant gates and within the factory. The ensuing discussions with workers reminded us of the importance of a broad communist presence at all times, not just at contract time or during union elections. We followed up the next day selling papers and leafleting to soldiers and their families. Some GI's took papers and leaflets to distribute in the barracks, arranging to stay in contact. The last day we visited Boeing workers and others interested in the Party. All told, we sold over 200 copies of the latest CHALLENGE (during the project and the two weeks proceeding) and distributed hundreds more communist flyers to soldiers, students and Boeing workers.

Everyone liked the project, including the late-night social activities. The project served to "whet the appetite" for more communist struggle. Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!

Patriotism A Killer For U.S. Workers

VALPARAISO, IN, July 30 -- "We're giving our enemies our defense technology and your 225 jobs." That's what U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., said, and he's the liberal! Visclosky was speaking to 150 workers protesting the closing of the Magnequench plant, which produces rare-earth magnets used in U.S. imperialism's deadly "smart bombs." Magnequench, Inc. bought the magnet-making factory about two years ago and is now relocating the operation to China. The plant will close Sept. 30.

The rally was organized by United Steelworkers of America District 7, who, along with the Democrats, turned a rally for jobs into a rally for war. Union organizer Mike O'Brien called Magnequench President Archibald Cox, Jr. "a traitor to this country," by moving the plant to China.

Layoffs at the plant began in mid-July, when about 30 workers were dumped. Frances Arney, single mother of four, lost her job at the start of a second round of layoffs. "Today they let me go after six years and 40 days," she said. One more day would have meant an additional $125 and another month of health insurance coverage.

Democratic Party politicians and the union leaders are totally impotent in the face of mass layoffs and racist unemployment, so they wrap themselves in the bosses' flag and cry, "Treason!" But it's all a cynical attempt to take workers' anger and turn it into more patriotism and war fever. As far as "giving away the war machine," forget it. U.S. imperialism has a long history of "trading with the enemy." (See the book by the same name.) U.S. bosses were entertaining a Japanese trade delegation when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and dozens of U.S. corporations, including Ford and GM, had factories up and running inside Nazi Germany all during WWII. In fact, they received money from the Marshall Plan for any factories that were accidentally bombed by U.S. pilots!

Mass racist unemployment and factory closings are reasons to reject patriotism, not embrace it. Many workers already grasp this. One sign at the rally read, "U.S. and Chinese Workers...United in Poverty." We will expose the Democrats and union leaders and build a movement that knows no borders, for international communist revolution.u

Industrial Workers Key to Bosses' War Machine--WIn Them To Communism

(With this article, CHALLENGE begins a series on the role of the industrial working class in the struggle against imperialist war and for communist revolution.)

When the liberal media bemoan the fate of industrial workers, watch out. The crocodile tears mean the bosses are planning to get us into a mess even worse than the horrors of racist unemployment. As CHALLENGE has regularly pointed out over the last several years, U.S. rulers' need to dominate the world will lead to a series of ever-widening wars.

These wars have already begun. The U.S. military is bogged down in open-ended occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. More conflict is on the horizon. The politicians are squabbling about the number of soldiers required for present and future imperialist invasions. The political blowhards will make a big issue of this question during the 2004 presidential campaign. Regardless of the tactical details, millions of young U.S. workers face a future under arms.

But besides the battlefield component of the imperialists' war machine. there's also the industrial component. Millions of workers are needed at the point of production to provide the hardware of warfare. The discrepancy between this need and the reality of today's mass manufacturing layoffs highlights one of the profit system's sharpest economic contradictions. On the one hand, capitalism's boom-bust cycles make unemployment inevitable. On the other hand, the system demands a huge workforce to produce the tanks, airplanes, bombs and ships required by an imperialist military.

Mobilizing For War

The rulers are acutely conscious of this problem, in both its historical and contemporary dimensions. In 1924, they created the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) to train military officers, government officials, and business executives "in the field of national security." Previous ICAF leaders read like a civilian and military Who's Who of U.S. imperialism. The ICAF currently focuses its attention on "material acquisition and logistics," in other words, mobilizing the economy for warfare. It has an entire department of Grand Strategy and Mobilization. The sobering conclusions of its Industry Surveys for the year 2000 add a new dimension to the liberal rulers' complaints about the ineptitude of the Bush crowd's economic policies. According to this report:

U.S. aircraft industry dominance "has eroded to the point that necessitates vigorous action...to preserve this vital element of national power";

"There are not enough people in the education pipeline to meet the high-technology engineering requirements of the electronics industry." The big high-tech military bosses are so desperate for new recruits that Raytheon sends its "female engineers to Girl Scout meetings to promote the engineering field for women," and "the defense electronics section of Northrup Grumman has a "mentor program for under-privileged high school students in Maryland that includes free college tuition";

"Steel remains vital to the United States economy and its military." But the ICAF wizards recognize that the steel industry hasn't been profitable. To meet security needs and help the steel bosses make profit, corporations must "divest themselves of...legacy costs" like "long-term employee benefits and liabilities" -- in other words, cut the pensions of hundreds of thousands of retirees, as in the recent bankruptcy-takeover scam at Bethlehem Steel;

"The construction industry is facing an unprecedented nationwide shortage of skilled and semi-skilled labor." It needs "240,000 workers each year to replace those that are retiring or leaving." The ICAF's approach of dangling carrots to win new high-tech workers turns into a stick where construction is concerned: "Calling up reserves or drafting civilians will be policy options if the threat is severe enough."

War Industries Face Deficit

A related 1999 report by Inforum, a University of Maryland think-tank, underscores the ICAF's worries. Entitled "Constraints to Increased U.S. Defense Spending," it warns that for two "full-scale" conflicts like Iran and North Korea, the "required commitments of manpower, ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles, and ammunition could be much larger than...at any time since World War II." The report goes on to predict a 750,000 deficit between the number of workers available and the number needed in key war-related industries between 2003 and 2005. Below is a partial breakdown:

Shipbuilding and repairing . . . .174,000
Engineering and architectural services. . . . . . . . . 118,000
Aircraft and missile parts . . . . . .101,000
Aircraft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73,000
These figures cover only the workforce needed to supply the military for action against Iran and North Korea. They don't begin to approach the millions more the bosses will require to conscript for war production when the inevitable struggles take place between the U.S. and other major imperialists.

Despite today's layoffs, the idea that the U.S. profit system no longer needs a large industrial and manufacturing workforce is an absurd illusion. Industrial workers are more crucial than ever to society. As Karl Marx explained 150 years ago, the growing numbers of unemployed constitute a "reserve army," which the bosses plan on drafting either directly into the military or else into war production under police-state conditions. When the liberal politicians talk about unemployment, this is their real agenda. The racist slave-labor "Workfare" scheme of the liberal Clinton administration was an important step in this direction.

But the same working class which the bosses need to generate their profits, build their war machines and fight their wars has the potential to shut down the war machine, turn the guns around, and smash the racist warmakers. Only two classes can hold political power: the capitalists or a communist-led working class. Our Party's chief priority remains winning industrial workers and soldiers to fight over the long haul for communist revolution.

(Next: Why are the liberal rulers suddenly so concerned about workers' health and the low level of math and science education in the U.S.?)

GENERAL, YOUR TANK
IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE

It smashes down forests
and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.

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

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

Bertolt Brecht, German Communist Poet and Playwright

CIA -- Criminal
Intelligence Agency

The CIA...recently graduated the largest class of new officers in [its] history.... Many are assuming fake identities and heading overseas. Their job will be to steal secrets....

It is difficult work, says Steven Aftergood, a longtime observer of the CIA with the Federation of American Scientists.

"Basically, what you're trying to do...is to persuade the other fellow to betray his country, to commit a crime, and to run the risk of severe penalty." (Associated Press, 8/22)

LETTERS

Rulers' Lies Help Sicken 9/11'Heroes'

Sometimes truth sneaks into the bosses' media, especially local outlets. In this case, our Oakland channel interviewed the leaders of a well-known search-and-rescue squad from nearby Menlo Park. These guys (I think they're all firefighters) are trained and equipped to fly anywhere in the world to help in major earthquakes and such. Of course, they helped in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Their leader said that since their return from 9/11, three-fourths of them are sick! He said at times he'll cough "like a 70-year-old with lung disease." Triggering this story was the announcement that the Bush administration ordered the EPA to say the air at Ground Zero was safe, when they knew it was anything but!

My point is, these are their best guys. These are their American Heroes. Even so, it means nothing to our rulers to lie outright, and consign them to possibly lingering deaths.

The reporter closed this sad story by asking the leader if he would ever again trust the government. "Never," he shot back.

PL should get to these guys. The seeds of revolution are falling to earth all around us, in places we might not think of looking. Husbandmen [cultavators] are needed, to nurture, weed and water. The fruit will appear.

Bay Area Reader

`Recruit Locally,
Think Globally for Communism!'

This summer I visited a Middle-Eastern country and had discussions with some young people, ranging from the latest music and movies to politics. For the most part, these youth were very aware of their position as members of the working class.

During one discussion, I mentioned how people seemed to have more "material" possessions than on my last visit. One youth agreed -- more cars, more televisions and clothes -- but with these things had come car theft, home break-ins and muggings. When I asked how this could happen with all the police patrols, one young man replied, "The police are not here to protect us. They're here to protect the president and businesses and to put down any rebellion or demonstrations." A young woman agreed saying, "Yeah, one time when my parents called the cops because they thought a thief was breaking into a neighbor's home, the policeman's response was, `Go check it out yourself.'" I noted that it must be a global job description for cops because it's the same in the U.S.

When discussing what must be changed, most thought it needed to be in the country's leadership. The current president has been in office since 1987, and has just announced that "for the good of the country, and in the interest of all citizens," he's "willing" to run for re-election next year.

When he first came to power. he said he'd only run for one term -- four years. True to form, he's a liar like all politicians worldwide. I raised the idea that just changing presidents wouldn't be enough. A change in the system is needed. Capitalism is running things here. For things to get better for workers, capitalism must be destroyed.

When I asked what they thought of communism, one young man replied that communism had failed and doesn't work. I said it wasn't communism that had failed, it was capitalism that failed in those countries that were-called communist. Communist leaders have made errors in the past but communism is the only system that serves the interest of the working class. As evident in our daily lives, capitalism only serves the interest of the rulers.

Most agreed that capitalism didn't serve them, but another youth asked, "Why should I give up all I have so someone else could have something?" His friend asked, "What do you have to give up?" We all had to laugh at that, even the person who asked the original question. I added that capitalism gives us the illusion that we have so much, when in reality workers have very little or go into debt just to acquire a few things.

The conversation moved to the war in Iraq. Most understood that U.S. rulers want to control the region's oil. I agreed but added that U.S. rulers want world domination; control of oil is only one step towards that goal. They also want to control the olive groves in this country, and any other markets in their imperialist drive for world supremacy. Most agreed but admitted they hadn't thought of that before.

Interestingly, the question of Muslim fundamentalism never came up. The only time we talked about religion was when they asked me why I didn't believe in any religion. The ones I spoke to ranged from Muslims who go to the mosque every Friday to say their prayers to a few who didn't believe in God at all.

When I asked if we could stay in touch once I returned home, to talk more about change -- maybe I could send them some literature -- they all liked the idea of staying in contact, but not to discuss politics. They feared the government would read their mail or investigate them. I agreed we must be cautious, and if I could think of a way that would be safe I'd let them know. We exchanged E-mail and home addresses and promised to at least stay in contact to discuss music and movies.

On my return home, I thought more about how correct the Party's line is, that we need a worldwide movement for communism. The liberals say, "work locally, think globally." We need to recruit locally and build globally, for communism!

NY Red

Social Action on Church Calendar

I joined a church a year ago that has less than 200 members, is very active, is a bit conservative, but has members who are politically progressive. In working on a number of tasks I've made dozens of new friends and acquaintances. Some are quite close and take CHALLENGE. From among our church "small group" we've formed a separate bi-weekly discussion circle we call Think/Speak/Act (T/S/A) to which some others have come occasionally.

Though often focusing on theological topics, the discussions are often political. We usually connect the ideas with concrete problems which our neighbors face, many of whom are very poor. We hope to become the nucleus of a church committee to organize social action in our community.

Recently, after our "small group" studied the relationship between Christians and Jews, six members of the discussion circle attended a synagogue service to meet people there. Also, knowing that since 9/11 many Muslims have been targets of racist attacks, two of us attended a service at a local mosque where we met some of its members and leaders.

We're currently planning to "partner" with a family in or near our church that needs help at home. One member of T/S/A and I went to an anti-war rally in January, and recently watched the movie "Bowling for Columbine." He and I often discuss national and world politics.

Another close friend told me last Fall, before he knew I'm a communist, that on a trip 32 years ago to the Soviet Union he gained a new, clearer understanding of the slogan, "From each according to ability, to each according to need"! He said that while touring the countryside, a guide explained that the billboards they saw weren't advertising a product, but were signs praising the excellence or special effort of some nearby worker. He said this deeply impressed him. And although he recently told me, "I'm not a revolutionary," it's clear he has the spirit and desire for fundamental change that millions more will have in the future.

A Pennsylvania comrade

Racist LAPD To Use Licenses vs. Drivers

Some of us went to a rally sponsored by the unions and churches in downtown LA to support the right of immigrant workers, regardless of status, to have a driver's license. We sold many CHALLENGES to the hundreds present. But we were surprised that one of the main speakers was racist LA Police Chief Bratton, of "community policing" fame. He said that he and the LAPD favored this measure because it would help tremendously with law "enforcement." Not surprisingly, Gov. Davis supported it also. Then the California Legislature passed a law allowing all immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. While such a license is a necessity. it also helps locate people for the bosses.

A reader

School Bosses' Job: Control Discontent

I'm active in my union and write a summary of the monthly city meetings which I distribute to the members at my school. I wrote the following letter in response to a disagreement with my statement that the administration doesn't fight for education.

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

Thanks for your comment. It's nice to have some feedback on these reports.... One reason I issue these comments is to get people to think about what's going on and why, and to get a dialogue going.

I agree with you . . . that the administrators of this school work very hard (but certainly not [at] every school) but only in the limited way you mean it, not in the bigger picture that I meant.

Individual school administrators (such as ours) may work very hard within the limits set up by the school district, but these limits of money and personnel insure that we can't meet the needs of teachers and students.

We need a lot more time, money, personnel and resources to do that and to deal with the issues confronting our students. Sufficient resources will only come...when a big campaign is waged to force the school district to do it. Even then, other schools will begin to make demands on the school district, which it will not be able to meet within the limits...[set] by the government. This campaign, then, must take on a bigger scope -- a state and national reprioritization of resources. The whole system will have to be radically changed to put people first.

My point is that people (even if well-meaning) are limited by the resources the system allocates to schools (and to other human services...). A campaign is necessary to increase those allocated resources.

"Leaders" who do not lead this struggle (and this especially includes union "leaders") are providing a disservice to the people they are "supposed" to lead.

Union leaders "should" be playing this role. However, the role of the Administration is expressly not to play this role.... Their job is to control the discontent, not lead the struggle to meet the needs of the discontented.

Thanks for your response,

A union activist

Liberals Let
Bush Off Hook

People who think voting for liberals will solve their problems should ponder this: Democrats claim they were against Bush's help-the-rich tax cuts. Now Bush is asking Congress for $87 billion more deficit as things go wrong in Iraq. But not a single Democrat says, "O.K., if you want the money, repeal the fat-cat tax cuts."

Why no such logical demand? Because they're all part of a government by profiteers -- capitalism.

Ancient Red

Bronson's `Death Wish' Movies Reinforce Rulers' Racism

Charles Bronson, who died on August 30, was best known for his five (!) "Death Wish" movies. Along with the Clint Eastwood "Dirty Harry" series, these films were part of the conservative backlash against the legal reforms of the 1960's, in which criminal suspects were afforded some minimal protection, at least on paper if not always in practice. (The 1966 Supreme Court Miranda decision is probably the best known.)

Such movies were the cultural expressions of this right-wing backlash. They argued that those arrested ("probably guilty" anyway, they claimed) had "too many rights," that the police were being handcuffed in their efforts to protect the public, and therefore crime was rising. Bronson's character is a liberal businessman who sees his wife and daughter raped (his wife dies), and decides to take matters into his own hands when the police can't solve the crime.

To avoid the charge of racism, the rapists and criminals in "Death Wish" are mostly white. But sales of the book that the film was based on skyrocketed because of the movie's popularity. Written by a third-rate novelist, Brian Garfield, the book is thoroughly racist. The criminals in the book, including those who attack the wife and daughter, are black or Latino. The white businessman assassinates a series of low-level street criminals, not the original attackers. The novel's main character, really a neo-Nazi, is sympathetically portrayed. He looks around at the people on a NYC subway car and thinks half of them should be physically eliminated.

In the novel's last pages, taking place in Harlem at night, the protagonist murders a young black boy whose crime (get ready for this) was throwing rocks at a passing subway train. He then turns around and sees a white cop staring at him. The cop has witnessed the murder, but the murderer can't bring himself to shoot the officer ("we're on the same side"). Then the cop turns his back, in a show of solidarity with the racist murder. End of novel.

There are far more effective movies with the same theme, that the police should be allowed to use brutal methods to bring criminals to justice. In my opinion, the most skillful is "L.A. Confidential," set in the 1950's. Russell Crowe plays the thuggish Bud White, who murders an unarmed black man without losing the affection of the audience because he is rescuing a Mexican woman who has been raped and tied up. Guy Pearce is the officer who wants to play by the rules and seeks to clean up the corrupt, racist L.A. police force. Ultimately, he is won over to Bud White's strong-arm tactics, but it's "acceptable" because the target now is no longer black males but the corrupt, murderous white police officials and D.A.

The movie is well-acted and brilliantly directed, and wants us to believe that the new L.A. police will combine both brains and respect for the law (the Pearce character) with necessary force (Crowe), and that's what the public wants and needs. Even though the black characters in the movie are innocent of the diner murders of which they're accused, they're guilty of the rape and so the audience shouldn't mind when the law-abiding Pearce and the thuggish Crowe combine to blow them away without the annoyance of a trial. Support for racism and fascist police tactics have reached higher artistic heights than the now, largely forgotten, "Death Wish" movies.

A Comrade

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

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

28% pay cut for less-skilled

The real problem is what has happened to the least skilled -- and least paid -- workers. From 1979 to 2001, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the real earnings of men without high school diplomas fell by a horrifying 28%. For women, whose pay was already lower, the decline was still 9%. (NYT, 9/7)

Greed system must be smashed

The Triangle Waist Company fire...killed 146 garment workers on the afternoon of March 25, 1911.... As David Von Drehle makes clear in his outstanding history, "Triangle," the overwhelmingly young, female victims of the fire -- at least 123 were women, and of these at least 64 were teenagers -- were betrayed by the greed of their employers....

Girls who worked 84 hours a week for as little as $7 were immolated because their bosses kept stairway doors locked to prevent theft....

The fire followed close on the heels of "The Uprising of the 20,000,"an epic four-month strike....

The shop owners tried to crush them by hiring pimps and prostitutes to attack their picket lines, "as a way of saying that the strikers were no better than whores themselves." The police, controlled by the owners' allies in Tammany Hall, then arrested the strikers for disturbing the peace, roughed them up and hauled them before Tammany magistrates who fired and jailed them....

One of the factories...was the Triangle, whose owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, had led the resistance to the strike....

The booming new business of ready-to-wear clothes....turned on the smallest efficiencies and on "sweating" every cent out of labor costs.

One of these efficiencies was arson. Everywhere that Blanck and Harris went, fire seemed to follow -- four of them between 1902 and 1910, at three different locations....

They did not start the fatal blaze that March 25, but as Von Drehle points out, the need to burn off excess stock periodically meant that no fire precautions had been taken -- no sprinklers, no fire drills....

Blanck and Harris managed to beat a manslaughter rap with the help of a smart lawyer and a tainted judge. They made $60,000 from the fire -- more than $400 per dead worker -- and two years later were caught locking another stairwell door in yet another firetrap factory. (NYT, 9/7)

Many prefer a life of equality

Mr. Cai expressed a common ambivalence about China's recent history....

"Life was poorer under Mao, but it was also more equal," he said. "These days there's more rich and more poor. Overall, I think it was better under Mao." (NYT, 7/29)

Honored historian stays red

Mr. Hobsbawm is...a committed communist who never really left the party (he let his membership lapse just before the collapse of the Soviet Union)....

He [is] an emeritus professor at the University of London and holds countless honorary degrees around the world, from China to Sweden....

In "Interesting Times," he praises aspects of Communist Russia and argues that in some countries, notably the former U.S.S.R., life is worse now than it was under the Socialist system....

Mr. Hobsbaum does...a section explaining why he did not abandon Communism in 1956.... He says he was strongly repelled by the idea of being in the company of those ex-Communists who turned into fanatical anti-Communists. More important, perhaps,...he was...tied by an almost unbreakable umbilical cord to hope of world revolution, and of its original home, the October Revolution, however skeptical or critical of the U.S.S.R." he writes.

"Let's put it this way.... I still think it was a great cause, the emancipation of humanity. Maybe we got onto it the wrong way,...but you have to be in that race, or else humanity isn't worth living...."

He commands a loyal following, particularly in Latin America.... At a literary festival in Parati, Brazil...[he] was accosted by fans demanding his autograph as he walked around town. (NYT, 8/23)

Pope ordered sex cover-up

A confidential order issued by the Vatican 40 years ago instructing Roman Catholic bishops to conceal cases of sex abuse is set to reignite controversy over the church's treatment of suspect priests.

The document, On the Manner of Proceeding In Cases Of The Crime Of Solicitation, and bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII, threatened those who spoke out about the inquiries with excommunication. (GW, 8/27)

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Sept. 10, 2003

Information: 10 September 2003 351 hits

To Our Readers

This is a three-week issue of CHALLENGE. Our next issue will go to press on September 10.

CHALLENGE is having a fund-raising campaign. Contrary to the lying bosses’ media, we report and analyze events from a communist-working class point of view. Any contribution helps. Make checks or Money Orders to CHALLENGE PERIODICALS and Mail to:

PO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11002, US

Forty Years after the ‘Dream’: Capitalism Is Still a Racist Nightmare

a href="#Liberal Bosses’ Hitler Youth Plan:">"iberal Bosses’ Hitler Youth Plan

After Blackout, Liberal Calls For Centralized Control

Calif. Recall Chaos Hinders War Drive

a href="#Under Capitalism ‘Workers have as much security as a pig at a barbeque’">Un"er Capitalism ‘Workers have as much security as a pig at a barbeque’

Endless Barrels of Red Ink

Preparing European Public Opinion for War (against the U.S.?)

Jailing The Unemployment Problem

UMass Bosses and Cops Hold Ph.D in Racism

a href="#LA Summer Project Unites Students, Workers, GI’s">"A Summer Project Unites Students, Workers, GI’s

LA Transit Worker-Rider Unity Can Fight Contract Cuts, Fare Hike

a href="#Union Leaders Pose As ‘Fighters’">Un"on Leaders Pose As ‘Fighters’

a href="#Bumpy ‘Rides’ for Immigrant Workers">Bu"py ‘Rides’ for Immigrant Workers

Maynard Jackson Ensured His Place By Betraying His Base

While Iraq Erupts, Taliban (and drugs) Are Back in Afghanistan

a href="#Mid-East: Bush Snatches Defeat From Jaws of ‘Victory’">Mi"-East: Bush Snatches Defeat From Jaws of ‘Victory’

A-Bomb Holocaust Shows U.S. Rulers Champs At WMD

LETTERS

a href="#Verizon Worker: ‘I Can Hear You Now’">Ve"izon Worker: ‘I Can Hear You Now’

Black Out the Bosses

Discussing Communist Ideas In The Classroom

Hotels Clean Up From Immigrant Labor

Working Class Needs Communist Power

Broken Worker? Get Another!

Forty Years after the ‘Dream’

Capitalism Is Still a Racist Nightmare

Forty years ago this week, more than 200,000 anti-racists converged on Washington, D.C., to hear Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech. Workers and youth came with their unions, churches and student organizations to build the fight against racism and for equality.

A new stage of the struggle was just beginning. A month after King’s speech, four young girls were murdered by the Klan in the Birmingham church bombing. Nine months later, a multi-racial group of three civil rights workers investigating the burning of a black church in Mississippi were killed by the racists. Thousands of others were brutalized by police dogs and fire hoses. Millions were inspired to move into action. Mass struggle created mass heroism. No one was left untouched.

Forty years later, all workers need to revive the mass struggle to end racism and gain equality. But we can’t achieve these goals under capitalism, which turns dreams into nightmares. The capitalist profit system is bound by the fiber of racism. Only communist revolution can end this racist system. And building an integrated, international, anti-racist movement is the key to making communist revolution.

The world is very different than it was in 1963. In many ways, racism is worse today. Over 2,000,000 people are imprisoned in the U.S., more than any other country in the world. Half are black men, most convicted of non-violent crimes. Nearly one of four young black men in the U.S. is in jail or on probation or parole. Almost every week brings a new shooting of black workers and youths by big-city cops.

The unemployment rate, at a 20-year peak, remains twice as high for black workers than it is for whites. Furthermore, it’s increasing at twice the rate for black workers, with better-paying factory jobs taking the biggest hit. Social programs are under intensifying attack, especially since Clinton, "the first black President," abolished welfare. Millions have been forced into either prison labor or Workfare. The public schools keep failing one generation after the next.

The increase of immigrant workers has led to new forms of racist terror, from vigilante border patrols to mass round-ups and deportations under the guise of "fighting terrorism." U.S. bosses aim to rule the world through unending wars and a fascist police state at home. On the one hand, Bush uses Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell to justify the latest imperialist attack on workers across the globe. On the other hand, black, Latin, and white working-class youth are used as cannon fodder to secure the profits of Exxon Mobil, Chase and Citigroup, Halliburton, etc.

The demise of the old communist movement has left the international working class defenseless in the face of unprecedented capitalist poverty and misery. For example, during the heroic 1967 Detroit Rebellion against racism, the Chinese Communist Party announced to the world its support of black workers and youth fighting racism in the U.S. saying "It is right to rebel." In contrast, when workers rebelled against a racist police murder in Benton Harbor, Michigan last June, Jesse Jackson raced to the scene to declare, "Our fight is not with the police."

Jackson, Al Sharpton, and other lightweight mass "leaders" want to use our anti-racist anger to elect the Democrats. But the liberals can’t solve our problems, and in fact are more dangerous. In the face of growing war, exploding police terror, mass deportations and a rising fascist state, they want us to remain too passive, too cynical, and too afraid to take matters into our own hands. They want to throw dust in our eyes to keep us dreaming.

That’s the challenge for PLP members and others who want to build a mass, anti-racist, revolutionary communist movement. On our jobs, in our schools and unions, in our churches and community organizations, we must take on the racist bosses more aggressively. We must sound the alarm that war and fascism are all this system has to offer, and that every struggle, whether big or small, must build the revolutionary communist PLP.

We don’t need to dream. We need to wake up.

a name="Liberal Bosses’ Hitler Youth Plan:">">"iberal Bosses’ Hitler Youth Plan:

‘Service and Sacrifice’

(The following is based on a discussion at a recent meeting of the PLP steering committee).

For several years, the liberal wing of the most murderous ruling class in history has been campaigning for "service and sacrifice." This effort is kicking into high gear just in time for the 2004 presidential election circus. Workers should expect the worst.

The liberal presidential candidates, and the think-tanks defining their agenda, are attacking the Bush White House on two fronts. First, they believe Bush squandered an opportunity to take proper advantage of the 9/11 terror attacks to turn U.S. society into a fascist police state. They despise his half-baked effort to build fascism on the cheap.

Second, they condemn Bush’s underestimation of the need to entice or force large numbers of workers into the military. Ruling the world requires a much larger, more politically committed land army than the U.S. can presently field. The liberals complain that the present military can’t even pacify Iraq. The bosses need to win millions of U.S. workers and others to decades of war but so far Bush is coming up short.

The arguments dividing Bush and his liberal critics turn on how best to meet the needs of U.S. imperialism. None represent the needs and interests of the international working class. They’re all our class enemies, but the liberals represent a deadly trap, especially because they claim to be "on the workers’ side" and use the AFL-CIO to push this idea.

The Brookings Institution is one of the liberals’ most important strategy factories. They’ve released a book entitled "United We Serve: The National Service and the Future of Citizenship" which calls for suckering millions of young people into a form of pro-war, fascist "team spirit." The authors and editors make clear the connection between "homeland security" and future imperialist wars.

One asks: "Would Pearl Harbor have been a defining event if it had not been followed by national mobilization and four years of war that altered the lives of soldiers and civilians alike?" Then President Roosevelt used the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to mobilize 14 million U.S. workers and youth into the military for World War II combat duty and tens of millions of men and women into the factories for armament production, for a war the bosses had planned all along.

Bush flunked a similar test: "In the immediate wake of September 11, the administration’s failure to call for any real sacrifice from citizens fortified my belief that the terrorist attack would be the functional equivalent of Pearl Harbor without World War II, intensifying insecurity without altering civic behavior." (Walter Galston, Maryland University professor and Clinton’s deputy assistant for domestic policy; italics ours.)

Most of the leading Democratic 2004 Presidential candidates and a number of important Republicans are jumping on the United We Serve bandwagon. This is not a purely partisan squabble. Arizona Republican John McCain, the Vietnam War "hero" criminal, has nothing but contempt for the "business-as-usual" attitude espoused by many Republicans after 9/11. Rudolph Giuliani, NYC’s mayor then, urged people to express their patriotism by coming to New York and taking in a Broadway show or going to a restaurant. McCain emphasizes that ruling the world requires more mental toughness than it takes to go on a tourist binge: "We failed many Americans when they said, ‘What can I do to fight this threat…?’ and we told them…they should take a trip or go shopping. I don’t think that was the right response." (From July 30 press conference to promote United We Serve). McCain wants to offer $15,000 in college tuition to anyone who signs up for 15 months in the military: "If it’s anything we’re short of today…it’s soldiers…it’s security."

Michael O’Hanlon, a Brookings bigwig, warns that the only way U.S. imperialism can field enough troops to occupy Iraq through 2004 is to take "the unthinkable step of sending back...people who returned from there a year before." (L.A. Times, 8/12) He fears this will discourage reenlistment and predicts that in the short term, "the Army [will]…need to generate two to four fresh brigades for Iraq, and another couple in Korea." And this refers only to the current hotspots: Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan and perhaps Liberia. What of Iran and what of the still far off but inevitable wars with China, Russia and other major imperialist powers?

The rulers are sitting on the horns of a dilemma. They have assembled the most destructive military machine in world history, and, within limits, can use it at will. But the more they use it, the more they need to replenish it and keep using it. This means men and women under arms, in the millions and eventually tens of millions. At the moment, the U.S. working class is far from being politically committed and the Bush team seems at a loss to win them. The liberals have identified the problem and defined their goals but so far haven’t managed to inspire too many people.

Another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, whenever it comes, will give the ruling class another chance to make up for Bush’s 9/11 fiasco. Whether or not they succeed is another story. Bush and Giuliani didn’t start a stampede to military recruiting stations. The potential for McCain, Kerry, Dean, et al. to do so, remains to be seen. One thing is certain: no red, white and blue version of the Hitler Youth can meet the needs of U.S. workers and youth.

The bosses can never succeed in fooling or winning over everyone. Exposing the hideous truth behind the mask of "service and sacrifice" and honing our taste for struggle can, over time, help expand these opportunities. All of that requires multiplying the circulation of CHALLENGE, organizing among the mases of workers, soldiers and youth (particularly among those who join the new "service" groups) to counter the fascist patriotic ideology of the bosses. A mass communist PLP is the only way to fight to end the horrors of a system based on endless wars for profits of a few bosses, mass racist/fascist terror, mayhem and extreme poverty for billions worldwide. Join and build the PLP!

After Blackout, Liberal Calls For Centralized Control

Blaming the states and individual utility companies for the recent blackout, New Mexico’s Democratic governor Bill Richardson and former Clinton Energy Secretary said the federal government should dictate U.S. energy policy. He wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times (8/16), "[F]ederal and state governments need to set aside their differences and work together. Over the last decade...the tension between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and state regulators has increased substantially.... States must recognize that the regulatory commission has an important role to play in ensuring the well-being of the grid and all electricity consumers."

The Northeast Blackout cost U.S rulers dearly. They can’t afford the closing of 50 North American auto plants or the shutoff of 750,000 barrels per day in oil refining capacity or the multi-billion-dollar losses in commerce they suffered last week. The Feds gave Enron a death sentence for its role in California’s outages in 2001, among its other sins. State boards and local utility companies may yet pay for the Blackout of 2003. In the 1930s, the Nazis ruthlessly punished wayward businesses and centralized control of German industry in preparation for world war. What Richardson proposes is in fact part of a fascist, war-time mobilization of a key U.S. industrial sector.

Calif. Recall Chaos Hinders War Drive

An important political struggle is raging behind California’s recall election circus. At stake is state power and the way the rulers will wield it in this period of intensifying fascism and war. As it attempts to mobilize the nation for ever deadlier wars, the dominant, liberal wing of U.S. capitalists needs tighter control over society. For them, it is crucial that California’s internal politics not hinder their imperialist agenda. Since California produces one-seventh of the U.S.’s gross domestic product, much of it in war-related high-tech and aerospace industries, this is also a fight for control over this state’s economy.

But forces outside the Establishment are using the recall mechanism against California’s Democratic Gov. Gray Davis for their own ends. Darrell Issa, an independent electronics tycoon and now a Republican congressman, bankrolled the recall petition. Issa represents upstart capitalists who focus on their own short-term profits rather than on the long-term needs of U.S. imperialism. In Congress, for example, Issa is working to require that components for rebuilding Iraq’s communications system come exclusively from U.S. companies, including his. Liberal U.S. rulers, meanwhile, desperately needing allied troops for the Iraqi occupation, are willing to toss bits of the reconstruction bonanza to foreign firms.

This more powerful group of U.S. capitalists opposes the recall effort. Warren Christopher, Clinton’s first Secretary of State, heads a blue-ribbon team that seeks to block the recall, or, failing that, to elect a liberal. The group also includes California AFL-CIO chief Art Pulaski. Christopher is senior partner at O’Melveny & Myers, a law firm that counts such imperialist heavyweights as Exxon Mobil, JP Morgan Chase, and Lockheed Martin as its top clients. Christopher has also served as vice-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Rockefeller-led policy factory that has been hounding George Bush to send more troops to Iraq and crack down on homeland security. Clinton himself has rallied to Davis’s side and Democratic Governors are contributing to his campaign.

Taxes, California’s $38 billion deficit, and Davis’s handling of Enron’s hijacking of the state’s electricity in 2001 are the immediate issues here. (Davis also reneged on a previous campaign promise to pass a law granting drivers’ licenses. Now he’s promising it once again.) But a deeper concern is the shape of government itself. Like most smaller capitalists, Issa & Co. favor local rule. In a campaign statement, Issa complained, "Our federal government has grown dangerously large and powerful. It consumes an alarming portion of the national income, and has thrown the net of federal control over nearly every aspect of our lives....It is time to send power back to the people by returning the federal government to its constitutional boundaries and leaving it up to the people — acting through their state and local governments — to decide what level of government action or inaction best suits their needs."

But for over 40 years the main rulers have been contemplating consolidation. In 1960, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund issued a 465-page blueprint for U.S. society titled "Prospect for America." It questioned, "whether the present geographical boundaries between the states are anachronistic" and "whether the federal government needs more centralized power than it now has."

We can’t foretell who will win the recall/election scheduled for October 7. But it’s interesting how Establishment financier Warren Buffett seemed to torpedo Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lead in the polls recently. Buffet became Arnold’s economic adviser and immediately called for higher property taxes, a move that terminated the candidate’s credibility among the Republican right. It is certain, however, that this fight, which stretches far beyond California, will not end with the vote. It is also clear that neither the new "States’ Rightists" nor the liberal imperialists are friends of the working class.

a name="Under Capitalism ‘Workers have as much security as a pig at a barbeque’"></">Un"er Capitalism ‘Workers have as much security as a pig at a barbeque’

Hundreds applauded at our last factory meeting as our co-workers condemned layoffs and management’s greed. But the plant manager warned, "You don’t have an entitlement to a job."

We were furious. We average at least 25 years on the job — junior employees have all been laid off. Nonetheless, we knew he spoke the truth. How did it happen that after 25 years producing profits for the company, we can be dumped at a moment’s notice?

Under capitalism, workers have as much security as a pig at a barbeque. Even so, these are particularly dangerous times. The coals are red hot and the bosses are ready to serve us for dinner.

Endless Barrels of Red Ink

The U.S. ruling-class plan to dominate the world through control of oil requires a bigger war budget. In January, the administration upped the Pentagon’s budget 25%, and that didn’t include the $70 billion cost of the Iraq war, nor the $4 billion/month for the occupation. Adding insult to injury, the Pentagon colluded with Boeing to hide the cost of a new fleet of aerial tankers. They set up an Enron-like "virtual company" to own the tankers so the $17 billion expenditure wouldn’t appear on anybody’s books. (Los Angeles Times, 5/24) Of course, we workers will foot the bill. Who knows what else the Pentagon is hiding?

Adding these costs to the Defense Department’s "official" budget of $396 billion this fiscal year plus monies for homeland "security" produces a total approaching $561 billion, a 75% increase this year alone!

Half-a-trillion dollar war budgets are a political fact-of-life. No matter what the short-term economic outlook, these exploding war budgets will require escalating attacks on the working class, particularly among those in basic war industries. The Pentagon’s Defense Science Board called for incentives to cut costs (i.e., jobs) and consolidate production facilities (i.e., sell and/or destroy whole plants). "We [must] incentivize [sic] defense companies to go after cost and restructure their operations," said Boeing chair Philip Odeen, (Aerospace Daily, 2/3/01) "Competitive outsourcing could be the answer." A $100 billion here, a $100 billion there — pretty soon, you’re talking real money.

Beware Of Bosses Bearing Gifts

The bosses are attacking health care, pensions, wages and jobs to sustain their imperialist empire. More importantly, they want to destroy our class-consciousness.

When workers challenged the plant manager’s call for more productivity, he warned, "If you, like me, want to see your pension, we have to make the company succeed. We have to bring down costs." According to this capitalist logic, we should sacrifice the worker next to us on the offhand chance the company will let us live out our lives in something other than dire poverty.

If we accept this logic, today’s stark reality means the bosses will continue beating up our class. Our union has accepted this path, supporting the company’s demand for cuts in workers comp. and unemployment benefits, in the hope of getting a few jobs on the proposed 7E7 aircraft. (see Challenge, 7/9)

Reform politics in a system desperate to maintain imperialist dominance always implies attacking other workers.

On the other hand, this stark reality opens up opportunities for the revolutionary-minded. Many will see that the only sensible solution is to develop revolutionary, communist consciousness amid every struggle. Nothing less will serve our class brothers and sisters!

Inter-Imperialist Rivalry Drives Up Cost of Military Superiority

U.S. military expenditures will continue to escalate due, in part, to challenges from imperialist competitors. Russia is now the biggest arms exporter. China continues to modernize its armed forces. France’s Defense Minister Alloit-Marie insists: "European industrialists must unite to resist [U.S. military superiority]." (La Monde, 6/14)

The $200 billion spent on super-secret spy satellite programs over the last four decades illustrates the enormous cost of maintaining military superiority. Despite this huge outlay, the U.S. government’s spy satellite infrastructure is reaching the end of its useful life. Costly failures over the last two years have made the system particularly vulnerable. (U.S. News and World Report, 8/11) Boeing is considering abandoning the rocket business altogether, leaving Lockheed-Martin the sole U.S. company capable of launching spy satellite replacements. Meanwhile, China and Russia are developing increasingly sophisticated and inexpensive launch capabilities.

The European Union (EU) is building its own, more advanced satellite system, despite concerted attempts by the U.S. to sabotage it. In addition, the EU plans to roll the quasi-independent European Space Agency into the EU government apparatus, making military systems the agency’s top priority. (Flight International, 7/8)

"Staying ahead of the Joneses" has become an increasingly expensive affair.

Preparing European Public Opinion for War (against the U.S.?)

Over half of Europeans believe the U.S. is a danger to world peace, according to a recent poll among 16,000 people in the European Union (EU), both current and future members.

Most believe the White House’s "war on terror" is illegitimate and want the EU to strengthen its own defense and security measures, without relying on the U.S. Tens of millions of Europeans protested the U.S. war against Iraq; this poll reflects that mass feeling.

In France and Germany, EU powerhouses, youth from 15 to 25 fear the U.S. imperialists’ "preventive war" policies will lead to another world war. Over 70% of Europeans believe the U.S. is a negative force in the struggle against poverty and for the environment. Most Europeans also don’t trust NATO. The end result of this poll is that most Europeans want the EU to strengthen its military power to counter the U.S.

Since the implosion of the old Soviet Union, the imperialist alliance of Europe and the U.S. has deteriorated and is now shattering because of the war in Iraq. So the European imperialists are turning the "peace" movement into a pro-war movement against the U.S.

Peace and capitalism don’t mix. The only way to fight all imperialist warmakers from Washington to Paris to Berlin is to fight the cause of war: capitalism.

a name="Hi-tech Bubble Burst: ‘My only dream is to get a job’"></">Hi"tech Bubble Burst: ‘My only dream is to get a job’

The hi-tech "American Dream" of the 1990s has turned into a 21st century nightmare for tens of thousands of workers whose salaries were relatively high. Here’s a sample of how the "upwardly mobile" have gone way downhill:

• In early 2001 Craig Heier, 43, an engineer, was a telecommunications consultant at $150,000 a year, dreaming of early retirement. His wife, Karen, said, "We felt the sky was the limit. We though we’d be set for years." Now, after two layoffs, and job-hunting since last February, Heier laughs about retiring early. "My only dream right now," he says, "is to get a job."

• At age 25, Alex Valich was a senior art director at Bikini.com, making $90,000 a year. In late 2000 the company crashed, Valich was laid off, and by the following summer he landed a job as manager of a skateboard park at $27,000 a year.

• James Richter of Cumming, Ga., was making $94,000 a year at Nortel Networks. But his upward trend crashed, he was laid off and after six months of job-hunting got hired at barely half his previous salary and says he’s "back to pre-college financially," saying, "Even though I’ve lost ground, I know people out there who have no ground at all any more." (All quotes from the Wall Street Journal, 8/13))

These are just a few of the thousands of high-paying hi-tech jobs that disappeared when the stock bubble burst and along with it, the salary bubble. This group of "skilled, well-educated" and only recently highly sought after workers are part of the "downwardly mobile" who have found they’re worth a lot less now. They may never again reach their "pre-bubble" levels.

Of course, their plight is nothing compared to the bulk of the 2.7 million workers whose jobs have disappeared since the recession began in March 2001. This recession is supposed to be "officially" over, but it’s the first "recovery" since World War II in which jobs continue to fall 20 months into the "rebound." The previous record was 13.

According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (8/15), labor market conditions are the worst in almost 20 years. Non-farm payrolls have been dropping at a rate of 50,000 jobs a month since the "recovery" began. But, he says, "Just to keep up with population growth, the U.S. needs to add about 110,000 jobs per month." This means the unemployed are increasing at a rate of 160,000 a month. If that’s "recovery," what would a recession mean?

While the ruling class spends billions on war after war, and hands over even more billions to the richest 1% via tax cuts and war/occupation contracts, nearly 20 million unemployed are being killed by capitalism’s built-in recession/depressions. A Congressional study of "the cost in human suffering of people being out of work," (New York Times, 10/31/76) concluded that when unemployment rose just 1.4% in 1970, it led directly to the deaths of over 30,000 workers in the following five years from stress-related ailments, suicide and homicide.

Dr. Harvey Brenner of Johns Hopkins Univ. testified before that Congressional Committee that, "The national rate of suicide in the U.S. can be viewed as an economic indicator," so close is the link between joblessness and workers’ deaths.

So if a 1.4% rise in the unemployment rate equals 30,000 deaths, imagine the resulting deaths over the following five years after the unemployment rate climbs to the 15% it is now — that’s the TRUE rate when adding in the millions not counted by the government who’ve given up looking for non-existent jobs, who work part time because they can’t find full-time jobs, who are part of the two million in prison and who are on welfare because there are no jobs.

Now part of the "aristocracy of labor" has joined those blue collar workers whose standard of living has been downsized for the sake of profits for a few bosses. Capitalism needs mass unemployment and downsizing workers to survive. But workers don’t need bosses. Our aim must be to unite the over-one hundred million still working with the 20 million unemployed to fight for a society where production serves the needs of all workers. That’s called communism.

Jailing The Unemployment Problem

According to a study by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, there were 5.6 million adults who were either in prison or had served some time in federal and state prisons at the end of 2001. That’s 2.7% of the 210 million adult population. Two-thirds of these prisoners were convicted of non-violent crimes, mostly drug-related, who would not be sentenced to prison in most industrialized countries. A huge number are unskilled and would probably add to the jobless figures were they not in jail. "The growing number of ex-prisoners means more people have difficulty finding jobs because they have felony convictions." (New York Post, 8/18)

UMass Bosses and Cops Hold Ph.D in Racism

DORCHESTER, Mass. — "Can I get a few more of those?" "Great to see you doing this!" Black workers eagerly took our PLP leaflet, bought CHALLENGE, and welcomed our multi-racial contingent at their neighborhood courthouse as we protested the racist arrest of Tony Van der Meer, a black UMass-Boston professor of Africana studies. The professor was tackled, arrested and shackled by police after a face-off with a military recruiter, who told him and a student they "should be shot in the head [for their views]." At the time, they were promoting a two-minute moment of silence in remembrance of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

This arrest reflects the increasing racist, patriotic culture of U.S. imperialism and its main racist arms: the police and the military. To expand and maintain its profit empire, the U.S. ruling class is transforming — both economically and ideologically — the schools, factories, laws and society. Since 9/11, fascism is intensifying, spreading racist terror against Muslim, black and Latin workers. The Patriot Act extends police powers to spy and intimidate, helping the bosses further crush worker and student dissent.

Universities have always played a key role defending the ruling class and capitalism, which generates racism and imperialism. U.S. rulers use universities for military research, to train military officers and, most importantly, as recruiting grounds for soldiers. To win students to support war and racism, professors are urged to teach pro-American, pro-war, anti-working class ideas and policies. Since 9/11, professors like Van Der Meer, who oppose all this, are under attack. University police such as the UMass campus cops have been working with the FBI to investigate Middle Eastern professors. Furthermore, colleges must cooperate with the military to be eligible for federal funds.

Professors, students, and staff on every campus should unite against all aspects of universities’ support of U.S. imperialism. The ruling class is trying to prevent development of an anti-imperialist, worker/student movement. They need students and young workers to fight and die in their wars for profit. We must not let our campuses be havens for war-makers!

We have raised this idea in meetings of Van der Meer’s defense committee.

In organizing for his pre-trial hearing, some friends wanted to present his situation as an attack on free speech. They doubted workers could understand a more complex political analysis. But when building for the rally on the streets of Dorchester, they found the opposite was true. While not every worker agreed with us completely, none were confused by the explanation about rising racist police terror, developing fascism and imperialist war. These mostly black workers were open to struggle and ready to fight back.

Our rally preparation paid off. Of nearly 60 attending, PLP members and their growing base had a large multi-racial presence. One comrade gave a well-received speech linking the war in Iraq to the war on our campuses. Our chants increased the rally’s militancy and our literature challenged fellow protestors and observers politically.

The charges against the professor remain. He faces up to five years in prison.

We’ll continue our work in the defense committee and fight to bring a sharp political analysis of this struggle to the workers of Dorchester and the students and workers at UMass-Boston. What if thousands of workers came to his November trial? We are raising the importance of building a multi-racial, worker-student movement against military recruitment at UMass-Boston.

We must rely on the power of our class, the working class to end capitalism with communist revolution. It’s the only way to train ourselves to run society in our interest, and wipe out racism, war and police terror forever.

a name="LA Summer Project Unites Students, Workers, GI’s">">"A Summer Project Unites Students, Workers, GI’s

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19 — This year’s Summer Project was very successful in helping PLP’s youth understand the importance of revolutionary communist theory and practice. By bringing communist ideas to the working class, we learned that we need theory to guide our political action. We went out to garment, transit and hospital workers with CHALLENGE, discussing unemployment, health care and the war in Iraq, as well as exchanging ideas about the war with GI’s.

Our weekly study group discussed PLP’s Road to Revolution III, to analyze the strengths of the past communist movement and the weakness of not having enough confidence in the working class’s ability to learn revolutionary communist ideas. We also discussed the need to build a mass communist party to lead workers, students and soldiers in the struggle against fascism and imperialism, and for communism.

In our regular CHALLENGE distributions among workers, our discussions revealed how angry and frustrated the working class is right now and why our Party can and needs to grow. Some transit workers, whose contract expires soon, responded to our leaflet and CHALLENGE with a clenched fist in support.

We also visited GI’s to discuss the war in Iraq. At first we encountered some hostility, but as we continued our exchange of experiences with them, it became clear we agreed more than we disagreed. Once when we approached a group of soldiers, one of them reacted irritably, telling us he thought the war in Iraq was a good thing and that he was happy to be part of it. But when he finished, the entire group around him said they disagreed with him and were open to talking with us. At another location, many GI’s eagerly took literature. One soldier said he had missed the birth of his child because he was deployed for a year in the first Gulf War. He was also angry about the cuts in veterans’ benefits.

We are also teaching ESL classes to immigrant workers who want to learn English. This has been one of the Project’s best experiences. Discussing revolutionary politics while seriously teaching English is helping us build a strong and necessary alliance between students and workers. We also participated in a rally organized by unions and churches for "immigrnt rights," where one of the speakers was liberal police chief Bratton, With racist "friends" like this, who needs enemies?

We organized a forum on fascism, studying how it develops from capitalism and how to fight it, concluding that fascism reflects capitalism in crisis. Therefore, uniting with certain sections of the ruling class that seem "less evil," such as the Democrats, is a mistake — they are part of the same capitalist ruling class that needs fascism to control workers. We decided we need to be in a united front at all times with angry workers, students and soldiers.

As the end of the summer project approaches, we must take advantage of the momentum we’ve gained and make long-term plans to continue this political work in our high schools, universities and workplaces. In this period, with war in Iraq, the development of fascism and cutbacks in vital public services, meeting this challenge is an urgent necessity.

LA Transit Worker-Rider Unity Can Fight Contract Cuts, Fare Hike

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19 — The growing capitalist crisis and needs of the U.S. imperialist war machine is affecting all U.S. workers. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is attacking transit workers’ health insurance while planning fare increases for riders. The transit bosses want service attendants making $12-$15 an hour to pay $160 a month for health insurance. "A" mechanics would pay the same although they make nearly $24 an hour. The ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) leaders offered membership payments of $80 monthly (up from $6). The company rejected this. In the last contract, they attacked our pension plan. Currently there’s a 60-day no-strike injunction, expiring Oct. 12 — making a full year without a contract.

The bosses also want workers who must use buses to get to work, to pay higher fares, raising monthly passes by $10 for workers who earn the minimum wage! The union leaders want transit workers to ignore, or even support, this attack on workers and students who use mass transit.

MTA bosses claim if we accept these cuts now then "we won’t have to deal with it year after year." The union leadership agrees. The president wrote, "We have to take the hit," and "When the stock market comes back, as it always does, things will be better."

But these are pro-capitalist bed-time stories. The history of capitalism is one of slumps, crashes and enormously expensive imperialist wars launched to prolong the life of their system. These crises always come at the expense of everything the working class has fought for. Yet many workers remain passive because they don’t think our class can make revolutionary change.

Recently a group of workers had a long discussion about these problems. One asked, "Do you think a small group of us can do it?" This skilled worker was simultaneously expressing both his doubts and hopes. Using CHALLENGE to bring our revolutionary politics to more workers will show him and all of us how a small group can grow and affect the thoughts and actions of many more workers who have similar doubts and hopes.

a name="Union Leaders Pose As ‘Fighters’"></">Un"on Leaders Pose As ‘Fighters’

The union president is calling on shop stewards to organize the membership for a strike, starting with informational picket lines during rush hours. The union leaders have a plan, but it’s not in our interest and it doesn’t include fighting fare hikes. We should be reaching out to bus riders and inviting them to the picket lines. It doesn’t include the service attendants earning $12 to $15 an hour who are being attacked twice as hard by increased medical costs.

The union leaders want to win mechanics to a narrow, self-interest view. This follows the union urging mechanics to cross the drivers’ picket lines during their 2000 strike (many mechanics joined the lines).

We have an opportunity to fight for unity between riders and ALL transit workers, and show that workers have the potential to fight for communism and run society in our own interests. We can mobilize workers to "test the limits" politically, fighting to unite workers and to wipe out this capitalist system based on profits for the few at the expense of workers, from LA to Iraq!

a name="Bumpy ‘Rides’ for Immigrant Workers"></">Bu"py ‘Rides’ for Immigrant Workers

CHICAGO, IL, Aug. 9 — Today about 2,000 workers rallied to support the Congress Hotel workers’ strike and build the Immigrants Freedom Ride organized by the AFL-CIO to demand legalization or amnesty for undocumented immigrant workers. From Sept. 27 to Oct. 4 it will bring participants together in one national campaign. Other demands include drivers’ licenses for undocumented workers as well as a fight for the Dream Act, which would give students who graduate from high school with good grades, residency papers for at least six years so they can go to college. The union hacks are using this movement to elect Democrats next year. Also, "legalized" undocumented workers are fertile ground for unionizing, but the union honchos want to use this to win them to pro-boss patriotism.

At the rally we heard speeches from many community organizations, mostly about how bad Bush has been to immigrants, which is true. But they failed to mention that the Clinton era had the most deportations, when the pretext of terrorism didn’t exist.

The AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party want us to believe that the problem is Bush, that if we vote Democrat things will be better. They want to hide the fact that the problem is the capitalist system, of which they’re an integral part. They want us to forget that Democratic presidents started the Vietnam and Yugoslavia-Kosovo wars.

Being part of the Freedom Ride gives us an opportunity to meet many workers and students who want to make a difference in the struggle to unite immigrant and citizen workers. Many of them understand that fighting for immigrant workers is a fight for all workers. We need to point out that anti-racist multi-racial unity is crucial. Where Latino immigrants make up a quarter of the workforce, the bosses use this to pay ALL workers $2,400 less per year. (Wall Street Journal, 8/19) Racism hurts the entire working class.

Even if we win our demands, workers will still get the raw end of the deal. With Patriots Act I and II, we’re guaranteed a future of terrorism against workers and students, especially immigrant workers. Workers have nothing in common with the bosses. We have everything in common with workers worldwide. The only way to guarantee the interests of the international working class is to smash all borders with communist revolution. We must immerse ourselves in this and other mass movements to create class consciousness and strengthen our ties to the working class so eventually millions of people will join PLP to destroy capitalism and its imperialist wars.

Maynard Jackson Ensured His Place By Betraying His Base

Maynard Jackson, Jr., Atlanta’s first black mayor, died this summer. I knew him and his family personally from 1952 to 1996. He graduated Morehouse College in 1956, and became a lawyer partly for the AFSCME city workers union in Atlanta. He was a part of a group of young Turks, black and white, who were inspired by the Civil Rights Movement.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Jackson decided to run for U.S. Senate against one of the country’s most powerful racists, Herman Talmadge. I became one of his speechwriters. Even though Jackson received only 15% of the vote, he won in Atlanta. Then in 1973 he became the city’s first black mayor, with the support of thousands of newly-registered black workers, organized by AFSCME and other grass roots supporters, financial backing from black professionals in the New South’s middle class, and some of Atlanta’s "Big Mules" (the big bourgeoisie).

But the Big Mules had billion-dollar plans for Atlanta: cutting social services to balance the city’s budget; expansion of Atlanta to some of its closest suburbs; reconstruction of the existing airport into a major international hub; a major building program to reconstruct downtown Atlanta; and improving public transportation between the city’s economic core and its all-white suburbs.

During Jackson’s first year in office, AFSCME set out to negotiate a contract with their former attorney. The union had contributed big money and manpower to his campaign. Jackson would have to choose between the predominantly black sanitation workers, looking to recoup long-delayed pay hikes, and the Big Mules’ plans to cut social services.

Jackson played the race card to turn public opinion against the workers and eventually smash their strike. He went on TV with Martin Luther King, Sr., and blamed the strike on the "white man" who controlled the union. This decision to use black nationalism to attack black workers exposed Jackson as a dedicated follower of capitalist dictatorship.

Under his administration, the Atlanta school board decided to trade school-busing desegregation for "separate-but-equal" funding. He disguised this by having the famous anti-Jim Crow black liberal and former president of Morehouse College, Dr. B. E. Mays, Jr., preside over the process.

Jackson’s reign witnessed the rise in black unemployment and the elimination of black neighborhoods for urban renewal and gentrification, including the destruction of the last black community near downtown. Billions of dollars were sucked from social services to pay for grandiose building projects in downtown Atlanta.

In the early 1980’s, Jackson covered up the racist nature of the Atlanta child murders. First he denied there was a serial killer targeting young black men and a few young black women. Many Atlanta residents, black and white, feared these were Klan killings, not simply some serial killer. There was also talk that white cops might also be involved, since racist police brutality continued under Jackson’s administration.

As the murders continued, the potential for a black rebellion was imminent, particularly after a suspicious explosion at a community center. A mother of one of the victims led the opposition to his handling of the situation. To enable residents to let off steam, Jackson’s agents endorsed a major demonstration against the murders organized by Atlanta University Center students, but all of us had to swear not to criticize the Jackson administration or mobilize the black working-class community for the march, since it might cause "trouble." Also, we could not march in the areas of the killings. The PLP-led International Committee Against Racism (INCAR) participated in this march. Eventually, the cops arrested and convicted a black man for the killings, based on dubious circumstantial evidence.

As the result of all this treachery, Jackson eventually became the most important black Democrat in the South, the first black director of the Democratic Party’s Voter Institute, a major leader in the Democratic National Committee and the National Conference of Democratic Mayors.

There’s a kind of tragedy in the way some in the class of ’56 chose the capitalist road and became the oppressors we once hated. But such is the nature of liberalism. The best intentions will eventually turn into their opposite because they support the profit system. The bosses will never do anything, no matter how "just," which threatens their class dictatorship. The only real solution is communist revolution. And so I feel anguish at the memory of our old friendship and anger at Jackson’s betrayal of the working class he was supposed to "serve."

While Iraq Erupts, Taliban (and drugs) Are Back in Afghanistan

The Bush administration, which swore to crush Al Qaeda, seems to have forgotten about that aspect of its "war on terror." The hunt for Saddam Hussein (or rather for the vast Iraqi oil fields) took precedent. As Time Magazine reported (8/4), "Bush hadn’t mentioned Osama bin Laden’s name in months, but he said recently that the U.S. was ‘slowly but surely dismantling bin Laden’s terrorist operation.’ As the hunt for Saddam Hussein intensifies, some U.S. officials are suggesting that the focus on the former leader of Iraq has come at the cost of eliminating the eccentric Saudi millionaire behind the 9/11 attacks…. Last fall, as the U.S. began planning the invasion of Iraq, Washington shifted many of its highly classified special-forces units and officers who had been hunting bin Laden in Afghanistan, moving them to Iraq, where they performed covert operations before the war began. By December many of the 800 special-forces personnel who had been chasing Al Qaeda for a year were quietly brought back home, given a few weeks rest and then shipped out to Iraq."

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda (AQ) seems to have expanded its operations. Many of its holy warriors are now in Iraq, attacking U.S. and British soldiers. Groups linked to AQ are growing in Indonesia. And in Afghanistan itself, the U.S. puppet government of Karzai seems to control only the presidential palace in Kabul, heavily protected by CIA-hired mercenaries. Now NATO has replaced Germany as commander of the "peacekeeping" forces, basically operating in Kabul. Warlords control the rest of the country, most of them loyal to their pockets, some loyal to Iran and most waiting to see which way the wind is blowing. And it seems to be shifting towards the Taliban, which according to Stratfor.com (8/7): "…has now regained control of most of Zabul province in southern Afghanistan. This marks the first time that Taliban fighters — in concert with Al Qaeda forces — have retaken a province since being ousted from power by the U.S. military in Nov. 2001. It also underscores the stalemate between the U.S.-backed Afghan forces and the Taliban."

Zabul is of strategic and military importance because it cuts off U.S. forces stationed to the south in Kandahar from the bulk of U.S. and NATO forces located to the north towards Kabul. It also helps the Taliban to gain control of other provinces.

The U.S. might counter-attack, but the growing resistance movement in Iraq is tying up U.S. forces that could be used in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan (whose Intelligence Service is still influential with the Taliban, which it created in the early 1990s) will probably increasingly support the anti-U.S. forces to counter India which, along with Russia, is arming the 80,000-strong forces of Dostum, Afghanistan’s Interior Minister, head of the former Northern Alliance and no friend of President Karzai.

The "war on terror" is going as badly as the "war on drugs." The Wall Street Journal (8/11) reported that the Russian general in charge of fighting drugs is blaming the U.S. for the growing heroin and opium trade in Russia and Europe. Most of it comes from areas controlled by pro-U.S. Afghan warlords. "Gen. Viktor Cherkessov said…that drug production in Afghanistan has increased ‘catastrophically’….Over the past year, the U.S. hasn’t curtailed production — a situation about which Russian officials…express outrage."

So "Top Guns" Bush and Rumsfeld have basically exposed the U.S. as a "stuporpower," although a dangerous one. They will kill tens of thousands of workers and youth worldwide — including young GIs used as cannon fodder — in the U.S. bosses’ drive for world domination. A system based on endless wars for profits must be destroyed, not by reactionary "holy warriors" (many of them trained by the CIA and their now-distant allies in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), but by revolutionary war to create a new society without any bosses: communism.

a name="Mid-East: Bush Snatches Defeat From Jaws of ‘Victory’"></">Mi"-East: Bush Snatches Defeat From Jaws of ‘Victory’

George "Bring ‘em on" Bush and his Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz gang promised that the fall of Saddam Hussein would be a big blow to terrorism and "stabilize" the entire Middle East. Since Bush’s aircraft carrier show on May 1st declared the war "over," what hath Dubya wrought?

Resistance is growing daily in Iraq. Bush & Co. has turned the country into an expanding haven for al Qaeda-type terrorists, exactly what they said they were invading Iraq to eliminate.

The UN’s Baghdad headquarters was just bombed and its chief killed, along with 16 others.

Riots are spreading in the north and south protesting lack of electricity and water.

Oil pipelines are being blown up.

GI’s are dying daily; pretty soon more will have been killed "after" the war than during it. "Put 148,000 troops in 120-degree heat...with their water rationed, 6,000 miles from home, where they can be ambushed at any moment. Then cut their pay…. Oct. 1…soldiers will lose $75 a month…and their dependents will lose $150 in ‘family separation allowances’ [which] discourages enlistments and re-enlistments and fuels the ‘bring them home’ movement some military families have started." (Palm Beach Post, 8/19) For what? As private Mary Yahne wrote Seattle KIRO Channel 7 TV, "There is no real reason for us to be out here!!!! We’re protecting the oil is all." (8/14)

Meanwhile, the highly-touted Bush/Blair Middle East "road map to peace" is full of potholes with daily clashes and bombings in the West Bank and in Jerusalem.

Now, Stratfor.com’s intelligence analysis service says (8/7) that the Taliban is on the move in Afghanistan, having "regained control of most of Zabul province."(See adjoining article).

Finally, Stratfor reports (8/17) that in Saudi Arabia, world’s largest producer of oil, "the Saudi monarchy is rapidly crumbling" and when the ailing King Fahd dies, "his death will lead to internal chaos." Stratfor says that this decline — unemployment is at 40% — is accompanied by the rise in strength of bin Laden’s al Qaeda forces which has growing support inside the country and is "consolidating its ability to operate in the kingdom."

While Stratfor declines to predict the fall of the Saudi regime, it says, "Its decay is a sign of increasing turmoil in the Middle East and within the Muslim world in general. The collapse of the House of Saud will aggravate instability in the Middle East exponentially. The U.S., besides trying to deal with…al Qaeda, Iraq, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will have to address not only the problem of oil supply but also Saudi Arabia’s political instability."

It doesn’t seem as if Bush will be landing on any aircraft carriers in the near future.

A-Bomb Holocaust Shows U.S. Rulers Champs At WMD

Amid all the reports about Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), one should remember that the only rulers to ever use nuclear WMD were those of the U.S. In dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the U.S. ruling class murdered a quarter-million Japanese civilians in a matter of seconds, injured hundreds of thousands more, and left future generations with everlasting genetic effects.

The rationale for this genocidal attack ordered by liberal Democratic President Harry Truman was to end the war without having to invade Japan and thereby "avoid one million casualties." Over the years that has been exposed as a falsehood topping even Hitler’s Big Lies. (In fact, Stanford historian Barton Bernstein found that declassified military planning documents produced a worst-case invasion scenario of 46,000 deaths.) As will be shown below, (1) the Japanese fascists had already been defeated and were suing for peace prior to that August attack; (2) it was absolutely unnecessary militarily to drop the Bomb (much less two); and (3) rather than ending World War II, that atomic holocaust was actually the U.S. bosses’ opening shot of the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Now along comes New York Times liberal columnist Nicholas Kristoff quoting Japanese sources as claiming that that country’s military was so committed to "fighting to the last man" that it was only the use of the Bomb that enabled Japan’s "peace faction" to force a surrender without a land invasion of that island country. So Kristoff concludes that "the greatest tragedy of Hiroshima was not that so many people were incinerated in an instant, but that…the alternatives were worse." Were they?

By 1945, Japan’s entire industrial and military machine had ground to a halt. That spring, its oil lifeline had been severed. On March 9, 1945, "100,000 to 200,000 men, women and children died…when the U.S. 20th Air Force doused Tokyo with jellied gasoline; all told, in the months before Hiroshima, bombs killed up to 500,000 in Japanese cities and left 13 million homeless." (U.S. News & World Report, 7/13/95) U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay complained that there was nothing left to bomb in Japan except "garbage can targets." Japan could no longer defend itself.

In early 1945, U.S. rulers knew Japan was trying to surrender. The chief historian of the U.S. Regulatory Commission, Samuel Walker, wrote that "the consensus was that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan….Alternatives to the bomb existed and…Truman and his advisers knew it."

On May 5, 1945, the U.S. intercepted and decoded a cable from the German ambassador in Japan, sent to Berlin, stating: "Since the situation is…hopeless, large sections of Japan’s armed forces would [favor] an American request for capitulation even if the terms were hard." (NY Times, 8/11/93, p. 9)

A 1946 report by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, after examining the intelligence information available to the White House in 1945, concluded that, "certainly prior to 31 December 1945…Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped…and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

Truman’s own diary — released in 1979 — indicated he knew from decoded Japanese cables they were about to surrender unconditionally, requesting only that the monarchy be retained. Truman referred to the intercepted intelligence as the cable from the "Jap Emperor asking for peace." He wrote on July 17, 1945, that he believed the Soviets — as promised by Stalin at the May Potsdam Conference — would "be in the war by August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about." (It was a week earlier.)

Even General Dwight Eisenhower, later to succeed Truman as President, told Secy. of War Stimson at the time that, "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary….whose employment…[was] no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."

But the Truman Administration didn’t want Japan to surrender before the Bomb could be used. On June 6, 1945, Stimson told Truman he was "fearful" that before the A-Bomb was dropped, Japan would have been so "bombed out" by the U.S. Air Force that the Bomb "would not have a fair background to show its strength." "Show its strength" to whom? Certainly not to Japan, already defeated and frantically trying to surrender.

The object of this "show of strength" becomes clear when learning that U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes told the atomic scientist Leo Szilard that the bomb’s biggest "benefit" was not its effect on Japan but rather "rattling the bomb might make Russia more manageable."

U.S. rulers murdered over a quarter million Japanese civilians and tortured endless future generations with genetic defects solely as a warning to the Soviet Union, which didn’t have the Bomb at that time. The dropping of the A-Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, rather than being the last act of World War II, was actually the first act in launching the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Certainly it is the U.S. ruling class that is the master of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

LETTERS

a name="Verizon Worker: ‘I Can Hear You Now’"></">Ve"izon Worker: ‘I Can Hear You Now’

I’m a Verizon employee and bought a CHALLENGE newspaper from one of your members while working in front of her house. I really liked it and thought you had the right idea about how the bosses make their profits from our sweat.

My company doesn’t want to pay for our health care nor guarantee our job security. They want to work us 16 hours a day when they need us and then be free to lay us off when they don’t. My union doesn’t want to strike to force the company to guarantee us our jobs and health care. The union is more afraid of the company than the company is afraid of us. We’re caught in the middle between the company bosses and the union bosses.

Your newspaper was very good and made me feel that maybe there is a chance for us some day. Here is some money for a subscription. I will read it every time. Thank you for taking our side.

A Verizon worker

Black Out the Bosses

The Blackout of 2003 affecting 50 million people is my fourth major blackout in NYC (1965, 1977 and 1996, the latter affecting Upper Manhattan only). This time I was lucky enough to be home. While watching CNN’s comments on Dubya’s "gung-ho" speech to some Marines in San Diego, boasting about capturing a leader of an Indonesian group linked to Al Qaeda, suddenly the TV flickered and then went blank. I checked the fuses in my apartment when I heard a lot of noise from people in the street. "Terrorism" was the NYPD’s first reaction as they put heavily-armed units into action. "Blame Canada" was the second reaction, but it turned out to be capitalist greed and inefficiency as usual.

Nothing worked, not even the cellular or electrically-powered cordless phones. I finally found an old-fashioned one, enabling one of my daughters to reach me. She was returning from the beach, stuck in a train far from home. She had to sleep at a friend’s house. Without subway service to get home, two friends of my other daughter had to sleep over in my house.

Most people throughout the affected areas tried to help one another. This was the communist side of people, even if it meant making personal sacrifices, contrary to the greed of the utility bosses whose only concern is their immediate profits. The politicians, as usual, concentrated on covering their behinds by blaming someone else while lying through their teeth.

A few hours after the blackout began, NYC Mayor Bloomberg announced the subways would be running the next day and everything would be fine on Friday. But the subways didn’t operate until Saturday and thousands didn’t get electricity for 30 hours.

We must take advantage of the masses’ cooperative spirit to build our movement, emphasizing that the bosses’ "me-first" individualism is a loser. This is important, to counter the liberals running the main wing of U.S. capitalism who also understand the masses’ collective nature and want to use it to build a "serve-the-nation" fascist mentality. Black out capitalism with communist power!

A survivor of still another blackout

Discussing Communist Ideas In The Classroom

This past spring I showed the new 27-minute PL May Day video (also on DVD) in four of my high school classes. It includes interviews, many of them with young people, and marchers expressing their feelings about communism, police brutality, racism, imperialism and revolution.

Afterwards students were enthusiastically bursting with opinions, questions, agreements and disagreements. It was exciting! Among all my teaching years, this classroom experience was one of the best, particularly because I think effective classroom work is not so much being a "teacher," but more so a "choreographer of learning." We should be engaging students to collectively help lead the learning process. In that sense, the May Day video was excellent, sparking vigorous debate.

To minimize a legal attack by the school administration, and until fascism becomes more full-blown, one should know that court decisions have created four criteria when dealing with controversial ideas in the classroom: 1) The content must be at the maturity level of the students; 2) The ideas must be relevant to the curriculum; 3) Both sides of the controversial issue must be included; and, 4) The teaching materials cannot be obscene.

On students’ maturity level: a 1976 court case — Wilson v. Chancellor — decided a teacher was well within his [so-called] First Amendment rights to have invited a communist, among other political speakers, to a political science class at the high school level. The court said the school board could not justify the banning of a communist speaker "by contending that political subjects are inappropriate in a high school curriculum. Political subjects are frequently discussed at…schools throughout the country…"

On relevance: communist ideas are often highly appropriate, even in relation to the curricula established by capitalism. The major work of literature I was mandated to teach this past spring was published in the early 1950s, during the McCarthy period. The novel’s theme was focused on attacking communism. There’s really no way to understand the novel without some understanding of communism.

On presenting both sides of a controversial issue: I looked up Joseph McCarthy on the internet and found an abridged version of one of his anti-communist harangues which could fit on the front and back of one sheet. We read that and then watched the May Day video. Then we discussed and debated everything.

The video is not obscene, so that makes point four irrelevant.

The other main court decisions establishing the four points regarding the teaching of controversial ideas are: Keyishian v. Board of Regents, Albaum v. Carey, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Keefe v. Geanakos, Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, Thomas v. Board of Education, Bertot v. School District No. 1, Sindermann v. Perry, and Ramsey v. Hopkins.

Our youth need to understand as much as possible about communism, just as young folks in the past needed to know everything they could about how to successfully fight and defeat slavery. We should do everything we can to ensure that we don’t become disseminators of the enemy’s ideology or, simply participate passively in the nefarious function of capitalist schools, which mainly lays the basis for re-creating the same inequality and exploitative class structure in the next generation.

I strongly encourage all teachers to show and discuss the May Day video in their classes during the upcoming school year. Dare to struggle. Dare to win!

Red Teacher

Hotels Clean Up From Immigrant Labor

This will not be news to you or your readers but my travel experience recently is just another example of the vicious exploitation of workers. I stayed at a "major brand" hotel in Harrisburg, Pa., and saw the use of immigrant labor from poor countries as chambermaids, porters, waiters, barkeeps, etc.

Over three days on my floor with perhaps 100 rooms, only two "maids" were allotted to clean, remake and spread linen on the beds, and toilet-clean the rooms. Upon returning to the hotel from sightseeing each day at 5:00 P.M., these two workers would still be struggling to finish the burdensome cleaning. There are lots of details: bathtub, basin, fresh towels, making beds, replacing amenities (coffee, tea, etc.). This hotel chain is saving money by using only two employees on each floor. I tried to ask one if she was unionized but she was too frightened to talk.

So this is the bottom line our capitalist hotel chain follows: maximize the share-holders’ profits (my nightly room rent was $138, and "discounted" at that) by over-working poor captive-labor immigrants who have no alternative to working for these vicious slave-drivers. If I were running that hotel, the floor-load would have probably been 25 workers.

I wrote my feelings to this hotel chain. In the future, I will boycott all hotels, staying only in private B&B’s or guest houses. I hope all other sympathetic comrades will also boycott major hotel chains since they follow the same "slave-driver" principles.

NKS

Working Class Needs Communist Power

The blackout of ’03 reveals that the most powerful imperialist country, with the greatest wealth, industry and military power in the world, cannot provide the basic necessities of life to its workers. As millions fought to survive, many in dark subway tunnels, trapped in elevators and high-rise buildings, the stock exchange conducted business as usual, with plenty of power, along with protection from cops toting machine guns.

Over the last 20 years, many have pointed to the critical need for more power generators to meet ever-rising demand but the electric utilities, like all capitalist corporations, answer only to the need for more profits. When denied rate increases, instead of building more generators they milked profits by cutting back on preventive maintenance and safety and getting their boss-controlled government to de-regulate and privatize their systems. This "allowed managers to…chase higher returns in businesses other than providing power…. [including] some…overseas operations." (NY Daily News, 8/16) All this resulted in the further neglect of their systems.

The utilities are locked together in a grid to share power when demand is higher in some areas. But for years demand has exceeded the capacity almost everywhere. The system is currently a disaster waiting to happen again and again. Whenever laws were passed preventing utility bosses’ rate-gouging, they countered by letting their systems rot, knowing full well that their government will hike taxes and electric rates to pay for the building of new equipment, as will likely occur now.

So the blackout of ’03 becomes another investment bonanza for the utilities at workers’ expense and suffering. The bosses hold political, electrical and all other power and use it to reap huge profits, regardless of the cost to workers’ lives. Workers everywhere must use this latest outrage against our class to step up the fight not only for electric power but for communist power which will serve all our needs and end the rotten profit system.

Retired comrade

Broken Worker? Get Another!

CHALLENGE has reported on unsafe conditions in many factories around the world. Here, too, the bosses treat us as nothing more than tools to use up and get rid of. They don’t make working conditions safer for us. They expect us to perform hazardous job duties without proper equipment. If we refuse, they say: "If you don’t want to do it, there’s the gate."

Our union is not helping us fight for better working conditions either. The president is clearly in office to advance himself alone, not us workers.

Recently we had a coal-leak fire that went from the 5th to the 8th floors. A union steward told us to put the fire out at the source with wet towels! (Spraying it with the fire hose would have atomized the pulverized coal and exploded.) Instead of dropping load on the generating units in dangerous situations such as these so we can fight fires and deal with emergencies more safely, management aims to keep the unit on line at all costs, even if it cost workers’ lives.

We stress to people that these are not "our" jobs, that the bosses use us in their jobs at their convenience, giving no thought to us or our families. The moment we’re no longer valuable to them they’ll try to dump us. If we get injured, their attitude is: "Broke one? Get another."

Now the bosses are trying to privatize our pension like Enron did to its employees. We can’t trust the bosses or their misleaders in the union. They’re the ones feeding off our labor and sweat. Our situation here in particular and in the world generally will only improve when we organize to destroy capitalism.

A Shop Comrade

Page 774 of 797

CHALLENGE, November 5, 2003

a name="AFL-CIO’s ‘New Strategy’ Apes Hitler’s Unions"></a>AF"-CIO’s ‘New Strategy’ Apes Hitler’s Unions

A Labor Strategy for Constant War

Historical Precedent

Historical Responsibility

To Fight Fascism, Terminate Lesser Evil Politics

Grocery, Transit Strikers Battle Over Health Cuts, Give-backs

a name="Talkin’ the Talk and Walkin’ the Walk on the MTA Picket Lines"></">Ta"kin’ the Talk and Walkin’ the Walk on the MTA Picket Lines

Garment Workers Back LA Strikers

NYC Teachers Hit The Streets!

Rotten Auto Contracts Betray Future Generations

Stand Up Against Steel Bosses

Miners March With Dynamite: One Down, A Whole System to Go

a name="Workers’ Anger Rising in Auto Plants">">"orkers’ Anger Rising in Auto Plants

Boeing Workers Fed Up With Pro-Boss Rallies

a name="A System That Can’t Provide Jobs Must Be Obliterated">">" System That Can’t Provide Jobs Must Be Obliterated

March Against Domestic Violence

Environmentalism: A Communist Perspective, Part Three:

Workers Starve, Profits Rise

Molotov Remembers Anti-Revolutionaries in Soviet Union

Soviet Defeat of Japan in 1939 Shaped World War 2

Capitalism Breeds Unemployment: 22 Million Jobs Lost Worldwide

LETTERS

Health Care, Capitalist Style

Priests in the Class Struggle

Pro Sports A Diversion?

CHALLENGE, October 22, 2003

Vietnam Syndrome Still Haunts U.S. BossesAWOL GIs Shock and Awe Brass

GI in Iraq: Brass Are F@#$%! Us

RULERS WANT HEALTHY WORKERS . . .FOR ARMS PRODUCTION, WAR

Putting Aside Your Fears In Time Of Need!

What You Do Counts

Freedom Rider Challenges Hacks' Pro-war Patriotism

Bolivia is Burning, Again

Free Market and State Capitalism --Two Sides of the Same Coin

China: New World's Maquiladora

Jobless `Recovery': Fewer Workers Working Harder for Lower Wages

UMASS Prof Framed by Patriot Act

CalState University Trustees `Option': Terminate Higher Education

Fascism 101: Become A Stoolie for the LAPD

AFGHAN WOMEN FIGHT U.S./WARLORD OPPRESSION

IL Duce No Lesser Evil Führer

LETTERS

Chicago Teachers Veto Contract; Strike Possible

Union Hacks A Bad Brew

Killing Kids A Capitalist Scourge

`When the workers unite, the bosses tremble!'

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Foreign money will exploit Iraq

Oil shapes decisions on Iraq. . . . It's a Russian ambition to have a role in Iraq.

Pro-worker laws are a con

Newton thought dialectically

Lessons of S.A. `terror' wars

Patriot Act = ethnic profiling

CHALLENGE, Oct. 8, 2003

General Clark: Warmaker Liberal Style

a name="AFL-CIO Patriots Use Immigrants’ Fight to Back Rulers’ War"></">AF"-CIO Patriots Use Immigrants’ Fight to Back Rulers’ War

FASCIST ALERT!

Capitalist Politicians Deadly Road for Freedom Riders

Fighting Racism in Hospital Helps Build PLP

a name="Woman Warns Killer Kops: ‘You’ll pay for this!’"></a>"oman Warns Killer Kops: ‘You’ll pay for this!’

GI in Iraq Wrestles With Cannon Fodder Role

a name="Anti-Globalists Don’t See Capitalism As Root of Super-exploitation">">"nti-Globalists Don’t See Capitalism As Root of Super-exploitation

a name="‘Third Way’ Won’t Solve Salvadoran Workers’ Problems"></a>‘T"ird Way’ Won’t Solve Salvadoran Workers’ Problems

a name="Environmentalism: A Communist Perspective — Part I">">"nvironmentalism: A Communist Perspective — Part I

Readers Review:

a name="‘Twelve Months That Changed the World,’By Larry Lesueur; Borzos, 1943"></">‘T"elve Months That Changed the World,’By Larry Lesueur; Borzos, 1943

a name="‘The Years Of Rice And Salt’ By Kim Stanley Robinson"></">‘T"e Years Of Rice And Salt’ By Kim Stanley Robinson

$$$ for instruments, pay-cuts for musicians

a name="Communist PLP’s Answer To Capitalism’s Chamber of Horrors"></">Co"munist PLP’s Answer To Capitalism’s Chamber of Horrors

"The Foolish Old Man Who Removed The Mountains"

CHALLENGE

Saturday, November 1st

LETTERS

NYC Union Hack Helps Close School

Tenants Fight Back Against Bronx Slumlord

a name="Strategy for GI’s">">"trategy for GI’s

How Can We Practice Communism under Capitalism?

Red Leadership in Mass Organizations

State Hospital Sickens Workers

Vietnam Syndrome Still Haunts U.S. Bosses
AWOL GIs Shock and Awe Brass

RULERS WANT HEALTHY WORKERS . . .
FOR ARMS PRODUCTION, WAR

Chicago Teachers Veto Contract;
Strike Possible

Oil shapes decisions on Iraq
. . . . It's a Russian ambition to have a role in Iraq.

$87 BILLION FOR WARS
While Racist Unemploymewnt Rages On

Kissinger's 9/11:
`73 Coup in Chile

Building a Revolutionary Party:
Make Communism the Voice of the People

Support the International Communist Newspaper:
CHALLENGE

FROM THE FLINT
SIT-DOWN TO UAW, INC.

GENERAL, YOUR TANK
IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE

CIA -- Criminal
Intelligence Agency

`Recruit Locally,
Think Globally for Communism!'

Liberals Let
Bush Off Hook