1. Angry Axle Strikers Slam Pro-Boss Union Sellouts
2. MURDER BY UNEMPLOYMENT
3. Latinos Among Hardest Hit
4. From Burma to China to Katrina: Capitalism, Imperialism Are Unnatural Disasters
   1. Burmese Workers' Lives
      Worthless to Bosses with
      Energy Profits at Stake
   2. U.S. Imperialists Hope High Burma Death Toll will Justify Military Strike
   3. A Sad Reversal of Red
      `Serve-the-People' Politics
5. Campus Sit-in Growing into Mass Fight Against Cuts, War
6. Rally Raps Budget Cuts, Immigration Raids, Iraq War
7. Red Chants Resound in Downtown Bogotá on May Day
8. Hospital Workers Blast Racist KKKop Killers of Sean Bell
9. Brooklyn Walkout Correction
10. Racist Anti-Immigrant Gangs Betray Anti-Apartheid Fight
11. Texas May Day Shows Workers Need Unity, Not Borders
12. Protest Fascist Minutemen at DePaul U
13. More May Day Reports from Around the World
14. PAKISTAN
15. Coal Barons, Gov't Guilty of Murdering Miners
16. FRANCE: Teachers' Strike in 130 Cities Against Gov't Cuts
17. Anti-War Solidarity Actions Sweep CUNY Campuses
18. LETTERS
    1. Lauds May Day Youth
    2. `Thumbs up for Workers' State'
    3. Working Class Has Only
       One Color -- RED
    4. Peru: Aim Workers' Anger At Class Enemy
    5. Bosses' Pawns Can't Stop
       Students From Marching
    6. CHALLENGE Carries the Day
    7. Reflections on May Day
    8. Solidarity on May Day
19. FASCIST PARTY OUT IN PARAGUAY, BUT CAPITALISM REMAINS WITH A LIBERAL FACE
20. REDEYE
    1. Israel hero sees why Arabs fight
    2. Liberals front for warmakers
    3. Drug arrests: blatantly racist
    4. U.S. runs killers in Afghanistan
    5. India: U.S. polluter won't clean up
    6. Generation has no American dream
21. Civil War's Hidden History: Women Workers Battled Gov't, Bosses
22. U.S. OIl War Sends Vets Back Jobless, Homeless, Suicidal and Dead
23. U.S. WAR CASUALTIES: 655,000 AND RISING

Angry Axle Strikers Slam Pro-Boss Union Sellouts

DETROIT, May 18 -- "Good morning brothers and sisters. First, let me say..." "No! First let ME say, this is BULLSHIT!" is the way a woman worker interrupted a UAW International rep at a standing-room-only meeting of American Axle (AAM) strikers. Over 1,000 black, Latin and white strikers packed the King H.S. auditorium to hear the UAW explain the tentative settlement to the 12-week-old strike, and to give them a piece of their mind.

"Bullshit," "Liar," "Sellout," and "Who do you work for, them or us?" peppered the two-hour meeting as UAW leaders read a 19-page summary of a four-year contract that will slash wages and benefits for current workers, eliminate 1,000 jobs and close two forges. Many of these workers are the higher earners in extended families that have been devastated by racist cutbacks and plant closings. They have fought not just for their own immediate families, but for the many others who depend on their wages.

A few workers tore up the summary and tossed it over the balcony. Workers cheered as the contract fell like confetti. One worker repeatedly warned those around him, "You better vote this down. I'm going to make more [when I'm] retired than you will working every day." A woman shouted, "Bullshit, bullshit," at UAW President Gettlefinger. When he demanded respect, another worker told her, "Go ahead. He ain't nobody!" When the UAW International VP handling American Axle rose to speak, a striker yelled, "Sit your fat ass down before I bust out the windows on your Cadillac!" He and those around him weren't playing.

Production workers' wages will be cut from about $24/hr to $18/hr. Some reclassified jobs will drop to $10/hr! Fork-lift and tug drivers drop to $12/hr. Health insurance payments will rocket to over $100-a-month with deductibles as high as $2,500 for family coverage, with less coverage overall. Pensions will be frozen, replaced by a 401(k). New hires will start at $11.50/hr, with a minimum of three years to reach "top pay" of $14.04.

For those retiring after January 1, 2009, healthcare benefits will be capped at $10,000 annually if one is pre-Medicare and $7,500 annually if receiving Medicare. For family coverage, retirees will have more than $100-a-month deducted from their pension checks and face annual deductibles as high as $1,500.

GM, the big winner in this struggle, is underwriting more than $220 million for AAM in buyouts and other expenses. The major auto bosses have been outsourcing production for decades to drive down labor and production costs. This process was greatly accelerated when Japanese and German automakers began expanding production here and grabbing big chunks of the U.S. auto market. It has accelerated even more with the shifting of auto production to China and India, driving down wages still further. This international imperialist rivalry among the bosses for markets, resources and cheap labor is bringing fascism and war to the world's workers.

The bosses are offering workers the "choice" of a $140,000 "buyout," to leave the company for good, or a $90,000 "buy-down" over four years, to accept the wage-cut. They will also get a $5,000 "signing bonus" ratification bribe.

Despite the overwhelming anger and disgust with the union leadership (or maybe because of it), the contract has a good chance of passing. Firstly, workers know that the UAW leadership won't bring back anything better. Even if they reject it, the workers are not organized to challenge the leadership for control of the strike. Without a company-wide organized opposition in the union, ready to break the laws, stop scabs, spread the strike here and in Mexico, and reach out to the rest of the working class, workers would be hard-pressed to take on AAM, GM and the UAW.

For that new leadership to emerge, workers must develop a revolutionary consciousness that rejects the choices of buyouts or buy-downs; an anti-racist international outlook that unites workers across all borders and rejects sacrificing for the bosses' profits.

During the strike, PLP renewed old friendships and made new ones. We visited workers in their homes, walked the picket lines and distributed CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets. A small number of Axle strikers attended May Day in Detroit and Chicago. Out of this bitter defeat for the workers, revolutionary communist leadership can take root. Communist ideas are the science of revolution, and class is in session

MURDER BY UNEMPLOYMENT

Capitalism kills in many ways -- imperialist wars, racist cops, inadequate healthcare. But there is a killer it generates which is somewhat hidden but nevertheless sends hundreds of thousands of workers to an early grave (millions over centuries) -- joblessness.

Unemployment is a fact of life under the profit system. In its 400-year existence, there NEVER has been a time when the working class has been fully employed. There is always a "business cycle," boom and bust, recession after recession, and periodic depressions. Capitalists by their very nature must seek maximum profits to stay ahead of their competitors. One primary tool is cutting costs. And one of the main "cost-cutters" is laying off workers, both during "downturns" and "prosperity."

Neither Obama nor Clinton nor McCain can reverse this fact of capitalism. Rather, these multi-millionaires' role is to defend and enforce that system, ensuring that the bosses firmly control the government in order to pursue maximum profits, whether at home or abroad. Unemployment cannot be "reformed" away. The bosses depend on it, for use as a club over the head of those still employed, threatening to "close the plant" and move to lower-wage areas, or simply lay them off and hire "replacements" (scabs) if they don't accede to the bosses' demands.

A 1976 Congressional study attempted to "estimate the cost in human suffering of people being out of work." (NY Times, 10/31/76) From 40 years of statistics (1933 to 1973), that study concluded that every 1.4% rise in unemployment in 1970 led directly to the death of 30,000 workers over the following five years: strokes, heart and kidney ailments, 26,440; suicides, 1,540; homicides, 1,740; cirrhosis of the liver, 870. And that's from every 1.4% rise. The true rate of unemployment now is at least 13% or more, which could mean that the 1.4%/30,000-death figure would climb nearly ten-fold, to nearly 300,000, over a five-year period!

Moreover, the study found that infant mortality rates show dramatic increases within one to two years of a recession. Johns Hopkins University professor Harvey Brenner testified that, "The national rate of suicide...can be viewed as...an economic indicator," so close is the link between joblessness and workers' violent deaths.

So while economists and pundits debate whether the U.S. is or isn't in a recession, tens of thousands of workers are dying from the disease of joblessness. This is doubly
true for black and Latino workers who, because of racism, suffer twice the unemployment rate of white workers.

So when GM, Ford and Chrysler lay off hundreds of thousands of auto workers, leading to thousands of deaths from the above causes, no murder indictments are brought against those bosses. "That's just capitalism."

Mass unemployment, and especially its racist component, is thus one of the biggest killers capitalism has created. One more reason to destroy it with communist revolution and erect a system without bosses and profits, in which everyone works to the best of their ability and commitment, a society that eliminates the word and concept of "unemployment."

Latinos Among Hardest Hit

Nazi-type raids by ICE (Immigration police) blame immigrant workers for capitalism's current crisis and terrorizes them to accept second-class wages and working conditions to pay for the bosses' crisis and endless profit wars. This two-pronged attack is aimed at ALL workers, since the entire working class is suffering rising unemployment (see adjoining article), the housing crisis and gasoline and food price-hikes.

Latino workers are among the hardest hit by capitalism's economic crisis, both in jobs and earnings, "imposing a particularly punishing toll on Hispanics....and...has given way to growing joblessness, diminishing paychecks and lost homes." (NY Times, 5/13, and all following quotes) Racism forced Latinos into the hardest and lowest-paying jobs, being among the first to be dumped by the profit system.

"The boom in American housing generated...jobs for those....doing much of the unpleasant work shunned by those with better prospects. But now significant portions of this work are disappearing." Latinos "are concentrated in an industry [construction] that is leading the downturn," slashing already meager earnings and leading to home foreclosures.

From April 2007 to this past April, "The unemployment rate among Hispanics spiked...to 6.9 percent," while "the overall jobless rate rose...to 5 percent." Of course, as the accompanying editorial reveals, these fraudulent rates are at least half the true rate. Latino joblessness probably exceeds 14%.

"For...nearly 19 million Latino immigrants...the downturn has cut significantly into earnings, dropping the share of those sending money home to families in Latin America from nearly three-fourths...to about half." So "one in 12 of the mortgages made to Latino households in 2005 and 2006 is likely to fail. Why? Because, "By 2006, 47 percent of the loans issued... [to] Hispanics were subprime, nearly the double the rate for non-Hispanic whites....Only African-Americans leaned harder on subprimes."

Such is life in these racist, profit-driven United States.

From Burma to China to Katrina: Capitalism, Imperialism Are Unnatural Disasters

The hypocrisy of U.S. rulers knows no bounds. To capitalize on the sympathies of workers everywhere concerned about the millions affected by Cyclone Nargis in Burma (also called Myanmar), the bosses are playing their "humanitarian" card in order to fend off Chinese imperialists' influence in that country in their fight over energy resources. The Clinton administration played that same card under cover of stopping "ethnic cleansing" in Yugoslavia to secure oil and gas pipelines from central Asia. That "humanitarian" effort ended with the establishment of a massive U.S. base in Kosovo encompassing 7,000 military personnel. Now it is attempting the same ploy in Burma.

Yet somehow U.S. bosses' "humanitarianism" never extended to the victims of Hurricane Katrina right here in their backyard. In covering the Burma disaster (as well as China's quake), the media downplay obvious parallels to Katrina. The same capitalist forces, unwilling to sacrifice almighty profit for public safety and with utter disregard for workers' lives, were at work in New Orleans. And there, racism, U.S rulers' favorite weapon, multiplied the death and destruction still further.

Burmese Workers' Lives
Worthless to Bosses with
Energy Profits at Stake

In Burma, of western energy companies, only Chevron and France's Total have big operations. They help run the Yadanas gas project, the Burmese ruling-class junta's largest source of income, with yearly sales topping $2 billion. When the storm struck, Chevron and Total each donated $2 million to the Red Cross, one of the very few outside groups working with the Burmese government. Such "aid" helps to ensure their continuing participation in the Yadanas deal. Chevron has a 28% share in it; Total has 31%.

Besides the 128,000 killed by the cyclone, over two million survivors risk starvation and deadly diseases like cholera and malaria. Citing "sovereignty," Burma's military dictatorship, allied with China, is blocking relief workers and supplies from other countries. By barring foreigners, even during a disaster, the ruling generals seek to limit outsiders (other than Chinese) from cashing in on the country's vast natural gas fields.

U.S. Imperialists Hope High Burma Death Toll will Justify Military Strike

While Chevron's bosses may be content with their Burma racket, the broader class of major U.S capitalists wants dominance, not junior partnership with two-bit Burmese dictators or French oil barons. U.S. rulers (along with their British allies) and their strategists seek to exploit Burma's gas and oil fields directly and drive out the growing presence of rival Chinese firms Sinopec and PetroChina. They cynically hope that the carnage in Burma will justify military intervention and lead to eventual regime change.

Britain's influential Economist magazine (5/15/08) coldly calculated that "if, say, a third of the 2m[illion] now struggling to survive in Myanmar were to die in the coming week from hunger and disease because their government refused outside" help a "crime against humanity" would result, grounds for U.S. Navy helicopters to breach Burma's borders and drop relief supplies. Warning that "the aircraft doing the dropping might be fired on unless they had military escorts, and that might lead to more fighting than anyone should want to see in a disaster zone," the Economist concludes, "the attempt is worth making."

The Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the leading U.S. imperialist think-tank agrees: "Sovereignty provides no license for inexcusable behavior. The time has come to act." (CFR website, 3/15/08) Of course, the savage 2_-year non-response to the plight of hundreds of thousands of mostly black residents of New Orleans is somehow "excusable."

U.S rulers' response to the Burma crisis reveals a trend towards cloaking armed intervention in liberal, humanitarian garb. Faced with drastic ground-force shortfalls and future conflicts bigger than Iraq and Afghanistan, they need to enlist more troops and broader public support for their war machine. Harvard professor Samantha Powers, Barack Obama's chief foreign policy advisor ("officially" fired for leaking his plan for permanently occupying Iraq, but still working behind the scenes) plots U.S. military "humanitarian" deployments in places like Darfur and Burma.

Ruling-class-led groups such as billionaire George Soro's Human Rights Watch, which backed Bill Clinton's bombing of Serbia and decries Burma's dictatorship, help win well-meaning people to the U.S. war agenda. The liberal interventionist invokes a noble-sounding U.N. principle, "the responsibility to protect." But invasions, in fact, kill workers to protect capitalists' bottom lines.

A Sad Reversal of Red
`Serve-the-People' Politics

Unlike Burma's isolationists, Chinese leaders have been very open about the recent earthquakes in Sichuan province. For now, until they build up capital and armed forces sufficient to challenge the U.S. head-on, China's bosses welcome foreign investment and thus media attention. To attract dollars and euros, they have created history's largest low-wage paradise. While reporters gush over how helpful Chinese authorities have been, profit reigns supreme and workers' needs go neglected.

Cheap construction that saved the bosses a few bucks murdered thousands of children. The NY Times reported (5/15/08), "Six schoolhouses collapsed in the city [of Juyan], even as other government buildings remain standing." A half-century ago China's leaders, striving to put communist theory into practice, made the well-being of the people the highest priority. In the 1950's Red China mobilized virtually its entire population in digging up the snails that spread the debilitating schistosomiasis epidemic. And they won millions of workers and peasants to participate in a massive construction project, mostly working by hand, which diverted the Yangtze River from centuries-old flooding.

Storms, floods and earthquakes are part of nature. But, capitalism, which, time and again fails to do what readily can be done to protect workers from these disasters while using them to justify imperialist war, must be destroyed. Building the international PLP is the one sure road to eliminating the unnatural disaster of the profit system.

Campus Sit-in Growing into Mass Fight Against Cuts, War

LOS ANGELES, CA May 8th -- May While the ruling class is trying to slam the working class with huge racist cuts in education, healthcare, and social services, the students at our university have been part of a mass fight-back against these attacks. A few weeks ago, a group of over 120 students walked out of their classes and occupied the University President's office for five hours. Students discussed the nature of the budget cuts and linked these attacks to a system that has nothing good to offer the working class. This may seem like a spontaneous action, but the anger among students has certainly been building up for a while. The Party has leafleted against the cuts, the war and the capitalist system, calling for action and the long-term struggle for revolution, and sold CHALLENGE on the campus.

Clearly, the attacks on the working class are intensifying class anger; students here have not only been angry about budget cuts but also about its links to the war in Iraq, the building of prisons as well as the massive healthcare cutbacks affecting their families, "We aren't having a real conversation about the budget cuts if we're not linking it to the war," said one student. "Politicians don't understand our suffering like we do," said another making it clear that this isn't going to be a movement for students looking to build careers as politicians, much less pander to elected officials' lies.

Over the course of a few weeks, what started out as a sit-in organized by students from a few social science classes has slowly been turning into a mass movement involving students, professors, and staff from different organizations and different departments across campus. In the course of the struggle, the administration of the university has exposed its true nature and its undeniable allegiance to the capitalist class. They have been trying to pacify us by telling us that we are "preaching to the choir" and that it's a matter of pressuring elected representatives. Meanwhile, the administration has been targeting students involved in the struggle, threatening to suspend them from school. The students' response has been to denounce this move, saying that an attack against one student is an attack on everyone involved, whether student, professor or staff.

The energetic and committed involvement of many people on our campus shows the potential for building a movement that targets the core of these attacks: the capitalist system. The Party has been active in this struggle; although we have been a bit timid about openly raising the need for communism we have been raising this with our friends and making strides to correct our timidity. Many involved in this struggle came to the May Day march and were impressed with all the red flags.

Our next goals are to increase hand-to-hand as well as mass distribution of CHALLENGE, coupled with study groups to guide our practice on campus. One of the next steps is to get the students on our campus to form alliances with the rest of the working class, who must turn these difficult times into opportunities to build for a revolution that will get rid of a system reliant on war, budget cuts, and the exploitation of all workers.

Rally Raps Budget Cuts, Immigration Raids, Iraq War

LOS ANGELES, MAY 19 - Around 250 students came to a rally against budget cuts despite the intense heat. Some speakers wanted to pressure the administration with demands, others discussed fascist attacks and ICE terror raids. Yet another speaker connected the budget cuts to the war budget, saying that the war in Iraq is against the interests of students and workers everywhere and that we should all unite against the racist cuts.

Many students are disillusioned with electoral politics and understand that wider connections must be made, not only to the prison budget, but also to the war budget. Many students chanted "No Cuts, No More, The Cuts are for the war," reflecting this sentiment. We distributed about 150 CHALLENGES and 400 PL leaflets to students. This struggle will continue.

Red Chants Resound in Downtown Bogotá on May Day

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- As reported in CHALLENGE (5/21), PLP was modestly successful in mobilizing for the union-led May Day march here of 75,000 workers and youth. Our 100-strong PLP-led group, mainly comprising young workers and students, distributed thousands of communist leaflets and hundreds of DESAFIOS. Our chants were heard throughout downtown Bogotá, promoting pro-communist internationalism and attacking capitalism, imperialism and the paramilitary death-squad fascist Uribe government here (U.S. imperialism's most loyal ally in the region). Over 20 people joined our contingent during the march.

Contrary to the unions and fake-leftists, rather than merely "celebrating" the holiday, PLP advances May Day as a day of fighting back for the international interests of the working class, not to beg crumbs from the ruling class. We don't ask the "international community" (read, the UN, human rights groups, etc.) to end the murder of workers and youth, the oppression of our class or the vicious war waged by the paramilitary death squads led by the government and its army. They have killed over 2,400 union activists in the last 20 years, some of them paid by imperialist corporations like Coca-Cola, Chiquita Brands, Dole, Del Monte and Drummond Mining.

Workers and youth are mad as hell. During the march, they attacked the internal war and the war in Iraq, the Free Trade Agreement Uribe and Bush aim to sign to exploit the working class even more. But what's lacking is a revolutionary alternative to this capitalist-imperialist hell. The trade union hacks, fake leftists and guerrillas don't offer that alternative.

We in PLP have a long way to go to provide that alternative, but we're on the right road. As Lenin said in 1905 in Russia, the cataclysm of war doesn't create revolution out of nothing. Revolutionary communists here and internationally, as well as the working class, have a lot of obstacles to overcome, but we won't get anywhere following the old recycled line of workers' management of capitalism, "people's democracy" or "national liberation." The only road for real liberation for workers and their allies is communist revolution. Join PLP and make that long road shorter!

Hospital Workers Blast Racist KKKop Killers of Sean Bell

BROOKLYN, NY, April 25 -- Hospital workers protested this morning's not guilty verdict for three plainclothes cops who fired 50 bullets into an unarmed black man, Sean Bell, leaving his bachelor party. One comrade circulated an e-mail to friends to protest outside the hospital at noon. Word of mouth spread the message.

Within an hour a dozen stood to protest. They held hand-made signs with strong messages: "Killer Cops' Innocence Means the System is Racist"; and, "Sean Bell's Murder Here, Imperialist War There, the Same Racism."

The group comprised white, black and Latino, young and old. A bystander on the street stood with us. When the hospital's Chief of Police came out to intimidate us, we stood firm. Workers unable to leave at noon sent us solidarity messages.

This action was built from a larger one called earlier in the year to support the Jena, Louisiana students, victimized by racism.

Today was the first day of demonstrating for some. Such protests must spread to every job site. Mass mobilizations of workers at the point of production and then taken to the streets have the power to spark anti-racist rebellions which, with red leadership, can build communist class consciousness and help lead to a revolution that will banish racist murders and the cops along with them.

Brooklyn Walkout Correction

(Due to our error, the following paragraphs from the page-3 article in the May 21st CHALLENGE on Brooklyn H.S. walkouts protesting the racist education budget cuts and the acquittal of the kkkops who assassinated Sean Bell were either omitted or appeared incorrectly).

One student overheard a dean calling students "idiots and stupid" for planning a walkout, and ordered "safety agents"/cops to lock them in. But student pressure forced the agents to unlock the doors.

FASCISM 101

At another school, an announcement heard repeatedly on May 1 morning warned that, "Any student who walks out of the school will be suspended for a Level III infraction." Some students were told they would get three-month suspensions while others were threatened with ouster from special programs. Teachers were ordered to report any students who walked out. Hundreds still tried to walk out, but security guards were assigned to block all exits and cops were called.

Despite all this, some students did walk. Rather than being discouraged, some students want to continue organizing. Some teachers refused to "name names." One teacher submitted a list that included famous revolutionaries and leaders of slave revolts. Another just wrote, "I refuse" on his sheet. Teachers and students plant to intensify activities with regular agitation and meetings around the Sean Bell murder and the cutbacks.

Racist Anti-Immigrant Gangs Betray Anti-Apartheid Fight

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, May 19 -- "Shock" is the expression being used after the eruption of violence on a scale not seen since the end of apartheid. "Anger at substantial immigrant populations -- fellow blacks mainly from Zimbabwe and Mozambique -- has seen at least 22 people killed in the past week since the first incidents in the northern Johannesburg township of Alexandra. The killing has now spread through the country like wild-fire..." (London Times online, 5/19)

The violent anti-immigrant pogrom has been fueled by the same lies directed against immigrants in Europe and the U.S. -- they "steal jobs, cause crime," etc. Racist gangs have employed the weapons used against traitors during the anti-Apartheid era, like "neck-lacing" (burning tires around victims' necks).

This racist violence is not "shocking" if we understand the real cause. Racism and inequality are universal aspects of capitalism, from Paris to London to New York to Johannesburg.

Since the African National Congress (ANC) took power following the dismantlement of the old apartheid regime, the lives of some black politicians and petit-bourgeois elements have improved, but life is harder for the majority of black workers. Last year, mass workers' strikes reflected this situation. "People are having to find scapegoats, this is about competition for diminishing resources.... President Mbeki has tried to de-racialise the economy but only a very small number at the top have really benefited," said Sipho Seephe, President of the South Africa Institute of Race Relations. (London Times) "Some 40 percent of the population -- 80 percent of which is black -- is little better off than at the end of apartheid in 1994."

Another important lesson is that there is no half-way solution to the evils of a worldwide capitalist system involved in endless wars, continuing economic crises and the need to divide and super-exploit more and more workers to reap super-profits. Once the imperialists and capitalists realized the old apartheid regime couldn't control South Africa's angry workers and youth, the ANC came to power. Nelson Mandela, Mbeki and Jacob Zuma (the next President) -- supported by the "Communist" Party of South Africa (with a substantial base among its most militant workers and youth because of the "C"P's role in fighting apartheid) -- became capitalism's managers. They provided some cosmetic changes but without changing the essence of racist exploitation.

Zwelinzima Vavi , leader of the COSATU union federation, spoke at a protest organized by the ANC-CP-led federation outside parliament. He said it's not the Zimbawean exiles causing the problems for poor South Africans, even blaming capitalism. But only 100 people protested, showing the lack of credibility of COSATU, which since 1994 has supported the ANC governments and its free-market capitalist policies, and now backs the new ANC President Zuma.

The racist gangs are murdering immigrant workers in the same townships where heroic battles against apartheid were waged in the past, a direct product of these sellouts' pro-capitalist policies. Now the struggle to build a society without racism and capitalism is now more difficult than ever. But it's the only struggle which will eventually extricate workers here and worldwide, out of this capitalist-created hell.

Texas May Day Shows Workers Need Unity, Not Borders

TEXAS -- May Day was a modest success for our group in this state. Our May Day dinner was organized by young teachers, workers and students with a program of speeches and music, good food and lively discussion that focused heavily on the role of education under capitalism. Later, many of us attended our city's Immigrants Rights march, where we had an opportunity to show how communist ideas and action make possible a true education in working-class politics.

At the rally we distributed over 300 flyers exposing the liberal rulers' tactics of using promises of citizenship to recruit immigrants as cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism. Our leaflet became the leading source of information for all participants and onlookers at this reformist march for immigrant rights. More importantly, as we marched with our friends, we discussed the need to smash capitalism's borders worldwide and struggle for communist revolution.

I was joined at the march by one of my students and her sister. We talked about the capitalist purpose of borders and the need for workers to unite across them. The heavy police presence also sparked discussion of police brutality and why cops were enemies of the working class; they ultimately act in the interests of the bosses, killing thousands of workers worldwide in order to instill fear and hopelessness in working people.

Afterwards we went to dinner where we sharpened our understanding of the history of the U.S./Mexico border. During dinner someone mentioned the ruling-class propaganda that, without borders, millions of Mexicans would flood "our" streets and steal "our" jobs. I explained how the existing border had been created out of the southern U.S. slaveholders' effort to push slavery further west during an historical period when Mexico had outlawed slavery. We finally concluded that what was labeled independence by the ruling class was also the enslavement of the Mexican and black workers in the South.

During the march we had received a flyer announcing a protest at a prison in another city that jails immigrant families and many U.S.-born children. My student wanted to join the protest and is currently organizing others within the school to join us. These students are writing a leaflet calling for the need to unite workers and smash the bosses' borders. It will be really exciting to travel alongside my students in support of immigrant rights and ultimately communist revolution!

Protest Fascist Minutemen at DePaul U

CHICAGO, May 19 -- PLP brought several dozen workers and students to the rally against the racist Minutemen founder Chris Simcox at DePaul University here. Simcox was invited by the right-wing DePaul Conservative Alliance. Liberal pro-immigrant students organized students to protest his appearance. But only PLP tied the Minutemen's racist ant-immigrant attacks to the bigger picture of U.S. capitalism in crisis.

The rally's high point came when a new younger friend of the Party led the crowd to denounce a sign-carrying racist who stood near us, leading the cops to whisk him away to save his skin.

Our contingent distributed almost 200 CHALLENGES and 500 leaflets, as well as making six contacts.

CORRECTION

The May 7 issue on the California Teachers Convention (page 5) said, "Delegates were urged to get 1% of their local membership to walk precincts for the November 2008 elections." Due to a typographical error, the next sentence said, "We should aim to win 100% to become CHALLENGE readers!" The original article said, "1% to become CHALLENGE readers!"

More May Day Reports from Around the World

OAXACA, MéXICO

A PLP group participated in the annual May Day march held in downtown Oaxaca. Thousands marched, particularly teachers and farmworkers, showing their disgust with the government and the capitalist system it represents.

Our group distributed 600 flyers with our communist analysis of capitalist exploitation, and we put up 100 posters walls around the march reading "A system that creates inequality, wars, racism and exploitation must be destroyed." We also distributed 50 copies of DESAFIO.

Our participation was modest, but we are already making plans to increase our efforts in future activities, including May Day 2009. The working class and its allies here, and worldwide, need a revolutionary alternative to a system which only breeds hunger, wars among drug cartels and a dim future for humanity.

PAKISTAN

Greetings from revolutionary communists in Pakistan. Our PLP group had a great May Day here, with comrades involved in many activities. Our communist ideas were well-received. We made new friends as more and more workers and their allies are becoming disillusioned with the fakers on the "left" who offer no solutions to a capitalist-imperialist system breeding endless wars for profits under the cover of religion, "democracy," etc.

Coal Barons, Gov't Guilty of Murdering Miners

When six miners died in the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah last August 6, it was no "accident" -- it was deliberate murder for profit. Ten days later three more workers died from a tunnel collapse while trying to rescue those six. All nine deaths were completely avoidable.

The mine owner, Robert Murray, claimed it was due to an "earthquake." This lie was exposed in a recent Congressional report, but don't hold your breath expecting anything will be done by the bosses' politicians to prevent future murders.

Murray's operation practices "retreat mining." This method involves removing the massive coal pillars that support the mine's roof. As miners move backwards towards the entrance, this allows sections of the mine to collapse, "the technique of doubling back to carve final profits from the coal pillars that brace the mine." (NY Times, 5/9) With coal prices soaring, the mine owners find it extremely profitable to extract every last bit of coal, over the dead bodies of the miners who dig out the coal.

In March 2007, a similar collapse occurred in the same mine, but the pillars and mine roof didn't fall on any miners. However, the Crandall bosses played down that incident, which should have led to the banning of retreat mining.

In fact, before the August disaster, miners -- including one of the six who died -- reported that sections of the mine floor had been buckling up from the intense pressure placed upon it. They said the mine bosses knew about the problem but continued operations anyway.

Then, on August 6, a series of pillars burst apart, causing a mine cave-in so powerful it registered 3.9 on the Richter scale. It killed the six miners, entombing them in the mine. Their bodies were never recovered. Three were immigrants from Mexico, forced by the bosses' racism to work on the more dangerous, unsafe jobs, a condition which then spreads to all workers. Ten days later, three more miners, working to reach the six who were trapped, were killed as well when a 1,500-foot section of the tunnel collapsed on them.

If the company had stopped this "retreat mining" after the March 2007 collapse, all these miners would be alive today. But the owners concealed the extent of that incident, leading to the August murders.

Now a big hue and cry is rising, from the Congressional report to NY Times' editorials, calling for a "criminal inquiry" and new safety laws. But the report itself upholds the legitimacy of "retreat mining." And the Mine Safety and Health Administration is notorious for being run by pro-industry appointees, who have done next to nothing about enforcing current laws. The "worst" that happens is a slap on the wrist for mine owners' violations.

Some coal bosses say domestic coal could become an "alternative" fuel to the U.S. rulers' dependence on imported oil from war-torn regions and anti-U.S. governments. Daydreaming! Modern industry and armies can't run without oil. Besides, the biggest U.S. bosses, like Exxon-Mobil, make multi-billion-dollar profits from oil; the Pentagon itself is geared to preventing U.S. imperialist rivals from grabbing control of the flow of oil. But -- oil or coal -- capitalist industries' main goal is reaping maximum profits. Killing workers, including ignoring their safety, is part of that process. Only a communist society, where workers' lives are the first priority and the fruit of their labors will be shared by the whole working class, not a few profiteers, will end this carnage.

FRANCE: Teachers' Strike in 130 Cities Against Gov't Cuts

PARIS, May 16 -- Yesterday, according to the government's understated figures, 860,000 public workers struck against job cuts and government policies dismantling public services, demonstrating in over 130 cities. It was particularly strong in education, with over half of junior and senior high school teachers and nearly two-thirds of primary school teachers on strike. Large contingents of high school students livened up the protests.

In Marseilles and five other cities, teachers' general assemblies voted to renew their strike on May 19, in some cases over the opposition of the union leaders. They hope to spark a break with the ritual 24-hour protest strike.

Longer and more intense strikes are needed to force the government to back down from the 22,900 education job losses programmed in the 2008 budget. Indeed, President Nicolas Sarkozy's reaction to yesterday's walkout was to propose new strike-breaking laws to "protect" the "right to work."

The government's onslaught on public workers -- which includes last year's elimination of special retirement plans for mainly rail workers performing particularly hard jobs -- is not driven solely by budget-balancing needs, after giving the rich tax breaks of 222 million euros ($350 million) in 2007 (to increase this year). Privatizing public services is also part of the bosses' strategy to cut wages and benefits for ALL workers.

France's 5,000,000 public workers cannot be laid off or fired for union activity as easily as private-sector workers. They form the core of the French trade union movement. About 15% of public workers belong to unions, as against 5% of private-sector workers.

Given that French bosses are competing with rivals worldwide, they need to smash the French labor movement in order to maximize profits. For instance, while from 1996 to 2007, labor costs in Germany fell 5%, they rose 20% in France. (Charlie Hebdo, 5/7/2008) Nevertheless, with inflation, real wages in France have fallen 4.2% in the private sector and 7.0% in the public sector since 1994. (Council on Employment, Income and Social Cohesion)

Furthermore, French bosses are participating in on-going wars to re-divide the world. The French expeditionary force in Afghanistan now numbers 3,200 soldiers, and France is suspected of having tried to overthrow Sudan's government (Le Canard Enchaîné, 5/14/08). The bosses need a docile workforce on the home front.

Successful extension of the teachers' strike movement would build the May 22nd national strike called by all the major unions to protest government plans to increase the number of work-years needed for a full retirement pension. Previous pension "reform" laws have already led to a 30% relative fall in pensions as against wages. Air France and rail-worker unions have joined the strike call.

While it's necessary to fight against job cuts and for decent pensions, as long as capitalism exists so will the bosses' drive to increase exploitation and launch imperialist wars. That's why workers here and worldwide must go beyond struggles to "reform" capitalism and organize for communist revolution to destroy capitalism. J

BULLETIN May 19 -- About 40,000 teachers and their supporters demonstrated in Paris yesterday. An inter-trade union federation meeting today proposed no action except to renew the call, initially launched by the French PTA, for a demonstration on May 24. It also ignores the high school students' protest movement. In short, most of the union "leaders" are doing everything they can to alienate the teachers' potential allies and keep the movement "manageable."

In such a situation, communists put forward organizing the widest possible support for striking teachers, forging the links necessary to help develop the revolutionary potential of the working class.

Anti-War Solidarity Actions Sweep CUNY Campuses

NEW YORK CITY, May 19 -- On May Day, PLP members participated in events upholding workers' solidarity at multiple CUNY campuses. One of the campus unions, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), held rallies to celebrate the West Coast longshoreman's (ILWU) plan to organize an eight-hour work stoppage against the war. We were excited by this opportunity to show how class-conscious industrial workers can fight for more political demands (for a critical analysis of the ILWU May Day work-stoppage see report on the May Day activities in the Bay Area, CHALLENGE, May 21, 2008).
At the events, we participated in various anti-war activities -- bullhorn rallies, teach-ins, film showings and literature tables -- and distributed CHALLENGE, which linked the war with the CUNY budget cuts. On one campus a dozen union members unfurled a 15-foot-long banner, "US Out of Iraq...No Attack on Iran!" in front of the cafeteria. As speakers explained the real reasons for the war on Iraq along with conditions here at home, a student called out, "What about the war in Palestine?" We invited him to join our discussion.

During another rally, a letter received early that May Day morning from the General Union of Port Workers of Iraq was read aloud (see box). Inspired by ILWU's actions in the U.S., the Iraqi unionists were planning to stop work in Umm Qasr and Al Zubair.

On a third campus, the administration refused to grant a sound permit. When speakers began to use a handheld bullhorn, campus security backed up by city cops swarmed in, threatening to arrest the chapter chair and the speaker. So much for free speech on campus.
After these city-wide campus events, many students and union members went together to the Immigrants' Rights Rally in Union Square.

From these successful May Day actions the potential exists for building a strong worker-student alliance and to recruit new members to PLP. We will continue to be involved in struggles on our campuses to make this happen.

(Excerpts from the May Day message from the Port Workers in Iraq to West Coast U.S. dock workers.)

In solidarity with the ILWU, the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq will stop work for one hour on May Day in the ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Al Zubair.

Dear Brothers and Sisters of ILWU in California:

The courageous decision you made to carry out a strike on May Day to protest against the war and occupation of Iraq advances our struggle against occupation to bring a better future for us and the rest of the world as well....[which] will only be created by the workers.... We in Iraq are looking up to, and support you until the victory over the U.S. administration's barbarism is achieved.

Over the past five years the sectarian gangs who are the product of the occupation have been trying to transfer their conflicts into our ranks. Targeting workers, including their residential and shopping areas, indiscriminately using all sorts of explosive devices, mortar shells, and random shooting, were part of a bigger scheme that was aiming to tear up the society.... We are struggling to defeat BOTH the occupation and the sectarian militias' agenda....

Long live the port workers in California! Long live May Day! Long live International solidarity!"

LETTERS

Lauds May Day Youth

I have to first start by saying it was a very good experience for my family and me. I presently work at Rikers Island. I was very moved by the kids of all ages who were in attendance. I was blessed to be in their company. Kids who don't stand for anything will fall for everything. These multi-talented kids have a view of what is going on today which they showed in their performances. It is very important they realize how this world is going to be. I have never been moved by such a young and powerful group of kids. Kids need these events to express themselves.

My family and I would like to give special thanks to the PLP teacher and his wife that invited us to the powerful May Day event. Here's to the young and powerful kids of the future!

A Bronx Worker

`Thumbs up for Workers' State'

At the PLP May Day rally in NY, people were eager to take copies of CHALLENGE as we rallied. I distributed over 25 papers to observers. Many had never heard of May Day, but they responded positively to the idea of a workers' state.  One man from Haiti talked about the starvation his family faced living there, and was looking for big changes!

At the dinner, a D.C. community organizer who attended her first PLP May Day praised the commitment and sincerity of the youth leading the program. She said, "You can tell they really own these ideas -- they are not just repeating ideas heard from others!"  Another first-time May Day marcher promised to come back next year and tell his friends about it.

D.C. Red

Working Class Has Only
One Color -- RED

We in NYC had many May Day activities. On May 1, we assembled at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn, and later went to Union Square to march against the raids suffered by undocumented immigrants. On May 3, we participated in the PLP political dinner honoring May Day.

In Brooklyn and Union Square we chanted and agitated intensely, countering the conservative political tone given by many organizations in those events for immigrant rights. Before 200 demonstrators in Cadman Plaza, one Latino immigrant spoke militantly, saying: "We must stop those SS-like raids carried out by the immigration cops in the streets and workplaces."

He also opposed the racist verdict freeing three cops who killed Sean Bell and injured his two friends with 50 shots. He also attacked the racist education cuts affecting our youth, the future of our class. He declared that the soldiers in Iraq are killing and dying for the sake of imperialism.

He concluded with a bang: "The working class only has one color: the red of the blood spilled by the Martyrs of Chicago executed for demanding their just rights. We speak one language, the one of struggle against exploitation and discrimination. Workers of the world, unite!"

This was the opposite of what others push: that voting for the Democrats gives immigrant workers "better possibilities." Some also said praying was the solution. But the bosses only listen to the "prayers" of the big corporations like Exxon-Mobil and Halliburton.

The PLP May Day political dinner was in sharp contrast, with speeches, poems and music full of communist solutions to capitalism's racism, war and exploitation. And the best part of this great evening of good food and better politics was the leadership provided by Red youth. The future of our movement is in great hands.

An immigrant worker

Peru: Aim Workers' Anger At Class Enemy

Some of us participated in the "People's Summit Linking Alternatives" carried out to coincide with the ruling-class summit meeting held here in Lima, Peru, between Latin America's rulers and the European Union's imperialists. Some 6,000 people attended the alternative summit on the campus of the Univ. of Peru at Rimac. On May 16, a mass rally was held at Lima's May 2 Plaza.

Some of us exposed the conditions of the working class. This contrasted with the main positions at the meeting, plagued by nationalist and patriotic organizations. Some even wanted to return to the ancient "collective living of Tawantinsuyo (Inca empire)." There were also relatively small pseudo-leftist organizations who still believe Peru must go through the experiences which Hugo Chávez is bringing to Venezuela or Evo Morales to Bolivia. They think Cuba is following the road of "socialist construction."

What's evident is the lack of channeling workers' discontent against their class enemy. This is the challenge facing those of us trying to build a vanguard organization of the working class. We must go beyond our enormous limitations.

Friends in Lima

Bosses' Pawns Can't Stop
Students From Marching

On May 1st 2008, a group of South Central LA high school students boarded a rented bus at a nearby college campus. But there, waiting to intercept us, were a dozen cop cars led by some administrators and the fascist District President. "You need our approval before boarding the bus." "You all don't know what you're getting into and don't know any better." "My children should be in school. That's more important." Words of obvious fascism from the administrator were shared by the District President. So, after being harassed by the bosses' pawns, we all packed into the cars of our comrades and met up with the bus at a rendevous point. There, comrades from other locations joined us as we left for the immigrant rights march as a group. We overcame the circumstances and did not let the cops or the District President stop us.

A student May Day marcher

CHALLENGE Carries the Day

On May 1st, about 22 people from our school and people from another school boarded a bus. When everyone boarded the bus we were given a red shirt and a chant sheet. On the way, we started chanting to get some practice. A block away from the march we departed from the bus and people brought carts, empty backpacks and purses just to put CHALLENGE in. When we started chanting, people looked at us. Then many of us scattered and started to distribute CHALLENGE to everyone who was interested in it. The highlight of this story is the CHALLENGE committee to get out the paper to different people. We talked about the paper. We did a good job getting out the paper, and I'm proud of us for doing this successfully without any fight or threats from any of the people we offered the paper to.

A high school CHALLENGE seller

Reflections on May Day

"This is a result of our work," my brother said, referring to workers and students with red flags meeting in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate May Day.

My brother was happy, even tearful. "This cost our Party beatings, jail, deportations, and separating families, but here's the result -- communist May Day lives -- no matter how much the bosses want to destroy it." My brother was right. If not for PLP celebrating May Day in the U.S. since the 1970s as a revolutionary holiday in the long-term struggle for communism, it would have been forgotten here.

It's gratifying to know that when there's such a celebration, the first thing workers who were members of PLP -- but are no longer active -- do is look for PLP.

My 16-year-old daughter came to the dinner and wanted to participate in the Immigrant Rights march, but she also wanted to go to school. I'm sorry I didn't struggle hard enough with her because our part of the march was the best, most militant and the reddest, qualitatively better because of PLP's presence -- those with the clearest, most profound and most political ideas, combating all nationalist, racist and anti-communist ideas.

Many in the march followed our leadership. While there were flags carried from every capitalist nation, the only flag that waved high during the whole march was the Red Flag of the Progressive Labor Party.

The street resonated with our chants -- "See this fist! Workers to Power!" and "Workers' struggles have no borders." These slogans belong not only to PLP but to the working class. They were heard during the whole march, along with "Long live communism, death to capitalism."

We were together with millions and millions of workers who celebrate our day. With thousands, and potentially millions, who follow our Party, although our numbers are modest, we represent the interests of the majority. I'm not alone. Here's my party, my class and this is my family, my people.

A Proud Communist

Solidarity on May Day

My family and I, along with a close friend, attended a May Day dinner in our community on April 26. A political skit based on communist analysis of the U.S. presidential race introduced an evening of personal stories about organizing for revolution and the history of the communist movement since Haymarket. We listened to a dramatic poetry reading and a call to expand the distribution of CHALLENGE-DESAFIO. Our voices rang through the neighborhood as we joined in singing the "Internationale" and "Bella Ciao."

We had the chance to renew old contacts and meet new comrades and friends. A Latina woman attending a PLP event for the first time said, "I never knew a white person could be so revolutionary".

The next day, my African-American friend called to tell me how impressed she was with the celebration. Commenting on the stories told by a Latina immigrant of the horrors faced in coming to the U.S. without papers, she said, "We are starting from a small group, but with the multi-racial unity we saw last night we can organize much bigger displays of solidarity with all workers, black, Latin, and white. We can defeat the [capitalist] media campaign to keep us divided!"

ON TO MAY DAY 2009
ALL POWER TO THE WORKING CLASS

West Coast comrade

FASCIST PARTY OUT IN PARAGUAY, BUT CAPITALISM REMAINS WITH A LIBERAL FACE

Ex-Bishop Fernando Lugo won the presidential elections in Paraguay, ending the 61-year reign of the fascist Colorado Party. Lugo won with the help of the Patriotic Alliance for Change, including the center-right Liberal Party, center-left parties, as well as several socialist parties including PMAS (Party of the Movement Towards Socialism, Hugo Chavez' allies) and several social movements of farmers and indigenous groups (including Tekojoja).

Many workers and activists believe that the working class will benefit from this ouster of Colorado. Not true! Lugo's win signals a change in the style of the oppressor, nothing more. His politics resemble those of Chavez in Venezuela and Lula in Brazil, who have the image of being pro-working class, but are really just another face of the ruling class. Lugo owes a debt to many capitalist elements among his allies in the Patriotic Alliance for Change and is not likely to be able to even accomplish modest reforms. Face it -- capitalism is bigger than any one candidate, no matter how sincere he or she may be about social change. It's the same in the U.S. with Obama, Clinton and McCain. Rather than build illusions in the system, workers and activists should follow the policy of "Don't Vote! Revolt!"

The big issue that Lugo will take on is renegotiating contracts involving two hydroelectric plants -- Itaipu (with Brazil) and Yacyreta (with Argentina). The Paraguayan government receives less than the typical world price for the electricity they sell and Lugo has promised that the revenue received from better deals with Brazil and Argentina will help fund social programs, including health care. (Dengue and yellow fever are now common in Paraguay). We have seen, however, time after time, that such reform promises rapidly go out the window after a "reformer" is elected, as the ruling capitalist class asserts its needs over those of the masses.

Immediately after winning the election, Lugo spoke with Hugo Chavez and said that he intends to join UNASUR, an economic bloc formed by Chavez. Then he declared his desire to meet with China, signaling an opening to Chinese imperialism to play off against U.S. imperialism and curry favor with his socialist backers in the Patriotic Union for Change. But trading one imperialist for another is not progress!

Paraguay is a geopolitically strategic country finding itself between Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia, while at the same time sitting on top of one of the world's largest supplies of fresh water -- the Guarani Aquifer. Many large and small imperialists, including Brazil, the U.S., Venezuela, China and the European Union, want a piece of Paraguay's resources and labor! Instead of playing ball with imperialists, revolutionary workers should break with all politicians and build the PLP, an independent revolutionary communist party that calls for the complete destruction of capitalism. No deals -- Lugo is just another puppet of the capitalists and their elites -- Workers must build the PLP and make revolution if the future is going to be bright!

REDEYE

Israel hero sees why Arabs fight

Were he an Arab leader, David Ben-Gurion once confessed to the Zionist official Nahum Goldmann, he, too, would wage perpetual war with Israel. "Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them?" he asked. "There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country." (NYT, 5/4)

Liberals front for warmakers

...Left-liberals such as Michael Ignatieff and Paul Berman are not much more than camp followers of the Bush administration. "America's liberal armchair warriors... are the `useful idiots' of the war on terror." "...In today's America, neoconservatives generate brutish policies for which liberals provide the ethical fig-leaf. There really is no other difference between them." (GW, 5/9)

Drug arrests: blatantly racist

Between 1980 and 2003, drug arrests for African-Americans in the nation's largest cities rose at three times the rate for whites, a disparity "not explained by corresponding changes in rates of drug use..."

Black men are nearly 12 times as likely to be imprisioned for drug convictions as adult white men.

Underscoring law enforcement's misguided priorities, fully 4 in 10 of all drug arrests were for marijuana possesion. Those who favor continuing these policies have not met their burden of proving their efficacy in fighting crime. (NYT, 5/10)

U.S. runs killers in Afghanistan

A special investigator for the United Nations on Thursday accused foreign intelligence agencies of conducting nighttime raids and killing civilians in Afghanistan with impunity.

...He was accusing the Central Intelligence Agency or American unconventional-warfare units of operating without accountability to the Afghan government or the foreign military command in the country.

"It is absolutely unacceptable for heavily armed internationals accompanied by heavily armed Afghan forces to be wandering around conducting dangerous raids that too often result in killings without anyone taking responsibility for them," he said in his report. (NYT, 5/16)

India: U.S. polluter won't clean up

Hundreds of children are still being born with birth defects as a result of the world's worst industrial disaster 23 years ago in the central Indian town fo Bhopal.

...Children's growth had been stunted, said campaigners, because there has been no clean-up of the Bhopal plant...

The disused Union Carbide factory contains about 8,000 tonnes of carcinogenic chemicals that continue to leach out and contaminate water supplies used by 30,000 people.

Dow Chemical, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, says that because the plant is on government land it is up to the state to clean it up. (GW, 5/9)

Generation has no American dream

This is a generation that is in danger of being left out of the American dream -- the first American generation to do less well economically than their parents. And that economic uncertainty appears to have played a big role in shaping their views of government and politics.

...Americans in this age group are faced with a variety of challenges that are tougher than those faced by young adults over the past few decades. Among the challenges are worsening job prospects... The top five occupations in terms of anticipated job growth: registered nurses, retail sales, customer service reps, food preparers and office clerks.

It's not hard to understand why surveys show that overwhelming percentages of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. The American dream is on life support. (NYT, 5/13)

Civil War's Hidden History: Women Workers Battled Gov't, Bosses

A People's History of The Civil War, by David Williams (published by The New Press, 2005), reveals that the U.S. Civil War was shaped, at least in part, by the resistance of the soldiers, the anti-war sentiments of the general population and the militancy of women workers, blacks, whites and native Americans. Williams' thesis is that class struggle -- the consolidation of finance capital vs. the response of working folks -- comprises the source of the conflict.

At the height of the war, women organized for higher wages with strikes and rose up against stores and government warehouses with armed struggle. Women of both the north and south began by raising their demands with petitions and delegations to Presidents Davis and Lincoln. Seamstresses from Montgomery, Alabama, wrote that as government workers, they needed more for their labors or they would perish on the $12-a-week allotment. Representatives of 10,000 seamstresses in Philadelphia called on Lincoln at the White House. All Lincoln did was ask the Quartermaster Dept. to make sure they got "the wages ordinarily paid," but the wages women got hardly provided a living.

Lacking help from either government, Confederate or Union, women began taking action for better pay and working conditions. In October 1863 a union of 1,000 female umbrella sewers in NYC and Brooklyn went on strike. They were working 18 hours a day for 6-8 cents per umbrella. In munitions factories women worked under murderous conditions: 19 killed at the Washington Arsenal; 15 in Jackson, Mississippi; 32 in a Virginia cartridge factory; and in a Richmond ordnance factory explosion 50 women died. In Augusta's gunpowder works, women walked out in Oct. `64; at Richmond's govt. arsenal, 300 women went on strike.

With Southern plantations growing profitable tobacco and cotton instead of food, small farm families were taxed to supply the army. Upon losing their husbands, brothers and sons in the army, poor southern women in particular became desperate to feed their children. In Greenville, Alabama, twenty women shouting "salt or blood" raided the depot and took what they needed. High prices were driven even higher by speculation. In Richmond, over a thousand women smashed shop doors and looted until President Davis himself came to the scene and threatened to have them shot. In Mobile, dozens of women bearing axes, hatchets and hammers ransacked grocery stores, carrying banners, "Bread or Blood." In Lafayette, women armed with guns, pistols and knives marched on a grist mill and took what they wanted.

In the North, women took to the streets as well, but to fight the draft. Poor men could not afford the wealthy men's way out of the war: $10,000 to hire a substitute. In Port Washington, LI, women led 1,000 protesters with a banner NO DRAFT, attacked the draft commissioner and broke up the draft box. In NYC, women took part in draft rebellions, grabbed stones and used their stockings as sling-shots.

These inspiring stories of our history comprise a small part of Williams' research on how the onset of the war and starvation of soldiers and their families was deliberate by Lincoln and his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. Part two of this review will reveal that Williams himself did not give up on peaceful change through the ballot box. Yet he documents well how votes for Lincoln's second term were manipulated and that legislation passed during Lincoln's watch fed only the hunger of the growing wealthy class for land and centralized banking

U.S. OIl War Sends Vets Back Jobless, Homeless, Suicidal and Dead

Politicians in both parties are constantly waving the flag over the dead and wounded bodies of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, boasting about the "outstanding job" they're doing, after having been put "in harm's way" by the ruling class's vicious imperialist war for control of Mid-East oil.

These vets are workers, so the "harm's way" doesn't stop when they return -- IF they return -- to be attacked by a capitalist class which forces workers to pay even more for their economic meltdown and wars.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ, 3/25) and the Boston Globe report surging joblessness, low wages, inadequate and denial of medical treatment and huge homelessness.

The military paper "Stars and Stripes" cited a U.S. Veterans Affairs Dept. study reporting 18% of veterans being jobless.

One quarter of all vets are earning less than $21,840 per year.

The WSJ wrote, "The [above] report found that most of the returning veterans were unable to find civilian jobs that matched their previous military occupations." So much for the recruiters' promises of joining the army and "learning a skill."

The Military.com website released a survey showing 81% of discharged vets did not "feel fully prepared... [to] enter the job market." According to Black Veterans for Social Justice, "Typically...young adults who go into the military at 17 or 18, when they return home, the same kind of economic conditions that forced them [to enlist] ...still exist or have gotten worse." (OneWorld News service, Nov. 2007) And that's what the still-to-be-passed DREAM Act (supported by the liberals and the Pentagon) has in store for immigrant youth who join the military if they come home alive -- an economy of rising unemployment, sinking wages and racism on all fronts especially affecting black, Latino and immigrant youth. Talk about "harm's way"!

To make job matters worse, the percentage of amputees is the highest since the U.S. Civil War. Up to 36% of the 1.5 million veterans of the current wars are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder -- an astounding half a million patients! Outstanding claims by vets rose from 254,000 to 378,000 between 2003 and 2006. Average waiting time for treatment is 183 days.

Is it any wonder that 1,784 returning vets committed suicide in 2005 alone?

Finally, "194,254... [are] homeless...on any given night." (Boston Globe, quoting The Alliance to End Homelessness)

These are the fruits of imperialist war. The bosses send youth off to oil-rich lands to kill other youth, and workers -- over a million in Iraq -- only to send 4,000 back (plus 500 from the Afghan war) in body bags and tens of thousands suffering amputated arms and legs, brains shattered by explosions and post-traumatic stress, racist police terror, jobless or earning poverty wages and living on the streets.

However, working-class youth will continue to join the military, and eventually millions will be forced into the armed forces when the rulers bring back some form of the draft to wage their wider wars against their imperialist rivals

So organizing for revolution among soldiers and vets, not voting for these bosses' hypocritical, disgusting politicians, is the road to follow.

U.S. WAR CASUALTIES: 655,000 AND RISING

An April 17 RAND Corporation study as detailed in "CounterPunch Diary" (5/2) by Alexander Cockburn, reports that, "The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have thus far produced 300,000 psychological casualties, 320,000 brain injury casualties, plus 35,000 (probably understated) officially reported `normal' casualties. This adds up to 655,000 US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and average of just under 101,000 Americans killed or wounded every year since the wars began." This excludes the million Iraqi; dead from U.S. imperialism's invasion. Talk about blood for oil!

Killer Kops, Kourts Wanted For Murder

Chicago May Day Dinner Unites Axle Strikers, Miss. Shipbuilders

Big Bosses, Obama Pull Plug on Wright

• Wright’s Religious Dissent Once Aided Rulers

Pushing Police State, Obama O.K.S Cops Who Gunned Down Sean Bell

Racist Profiling Sky-High

NYC Students Walk Out Over Killer Kops, Racist Budget Cuts

a href="#Howard U. Students Invade Pol’s Office, Back Katrina Victims">"oward U. Students Invade Pol’s Office, Back Katrina Victims

a href="#May Day Sees PL’s Ideas Growing in Spain">"ay Day Sees PL’s Ideas Growing in Spain

a href="#PLP’ers Make Mark At Colombia May Day">"LP’ers Make Mark At Colombia May Day

Celebrating May Day Coast to Coast

a href="#The State of the World….">"he State of the World….

a href="#Life Teaches the Reason for — and History of — PLP">Li"e Teaches the Reason for — and History of — PLP

Stay Tuned for Communist Revolution!

Los Angeles; Detroit

S.F. Bay Area: PLP’s May Day Activities Cover the Waterfront

Mexico May Day Inspires Re-commitment to PLP

May Day Spirit Spurs Seattle Summer Project

a href="#PL-led Action Hits Mexico University’s Oppressive Rules">"L-led Action Hits Mexico University’s Oppressive Rules

LETTERS

Ira Gollobin Advised Draftees Too

a href="#Don’t Let The Fascists Tell Us Who The Heroes Are">"on’t Let The Fascists Tell Us Who The Heroes Are

a href="#Shed Illusions About Imperialism’s Allies">"hed Illusions About Imperialism’s Allies

Striking Immigrant Workers Head Up Paris May Day

Anti-Fascists Battle German Neo-Nazis, Cops on May Day

REDEYE

• US racism has Obama on leash
• Gitmo liars: Brass, not inmates
• Elections: The fix is always in
• Zimbabwe, Tibet: Imperialist guilt

Marching On May Day!!

Los Angeles; El Salvador; Washington D.C.; Chicago

Killer Kops, Kourts Wanted For Murder

On the morning of April 26, the racist court system fired the final shot in the execution of Sean Bell, acquitting the three cops who murdered him on his wedding day. The killer cops walk free to kill again, after firing 50 rounds at three unarmed young black men. These events, plus the $2 billion-a-week bloodbath in Iraq, reflect what the bosses have in store for us, and why we need a revolutionary movement to smash them.

The racist judge disliked the "demeanor" of the two witnesses — the other two shooting victims, who survived the assassination — who testified against the kkkiller cops. He also didn’t like the fact that the two witnesses had prior criminal records! Yet the courts use people with records as witnesses every day. But more to the point, in this racist society, with the world’s highest prison population, overwhelmingly black and Latino, it’s becoming much more common for a young black male to be in the criminal justice system than in college.

From the time the shooting occurred, racist mayor Bloomberg and the police department were orchestrating a plan to prepare the other klansmen in blue to be ready for mass outrage. The racist mayor met with black and Latino "community leaders" and criticized the police conduct. Meanwhile, the misleaders of NYC’s workers bought into his garbage, conveniently forgetting this is the same mayor who slashed the school budget by over $100 million in one night, affecting mainly black and Latino students.

One of the main henchmen in this plot is the "former" FBI informer Al Sharpton, who told people immediately after the verdict they should respond with "non-violence." He went so far as moving any demonstration away from the Queens site of the murder and the surrounding angry community. The aim of Sharpton and other politicians is to divert people into demanding an "independent investigation" of the NYPD. Mayor Bloomberg called the original killing "deplorable," taking the liberal road, in contrast to former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s more Nazi-like tactics. This is the same Bloomberg who says he can’t pay municipal workers enough to keep food on their table (30% must resort to food pantries and food stamps).

But history shows that essentially nothing will be done to punish the killers. "It is extraordinarily hard to criminally prosecute officers who were on duty," said CUNY Professor of Police Science Eugene O’Donnell (NY Daily News, 11/29/2006).

Cops will continue to be racist goons because that’s the role they serve for the bosses. The entire judicial system is racist to the core. Over two million people are imprisoned in the U.S., 70% of them black and Latino workers, two-thirds for non-violent crimes. Ironically, the black and Latino youth who are victims of these murders are the very same people who the racist rulers want to recruit to fight and die in Iraq, killing other workers who the oil bosses exploit for billions in profits.

On the day of the verdict there were two protests, one in the morning where PLP’ers organized a picket line and led chants of "Racist cops you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!" Another rally in the afternoon sparked a spontaneous march through Queens’ streets to the murder site and the surrounding housing projects. As the marchers passed by, workers on buses, at their windows and in shops came out and chanted, in solidarity and anger over the verdict.

PLP played a small but important role in the events leading up to and following the Sean Bell verdict. We brought the message that workers can never get justice in the bosses’ racist court system and that a communist revolution is needed to destroy this capitalist system.

Chicago May Day Dinner Unites Axle Strikers, Miss. Shipbuilders

CHICAGO, IL, May 3 –– "And now I’m going to do for you what these people [PLP] did for us last year," said a returning black worker from Mississippi and one of the 7,000 strikers against Northrop Grumman and U.S. navy last year. We passed the hat and this worker returned to the stage and presented the 2 striking American Axle workers with over $1,000 we had just collected. It was a stirring show of communist-led working class solidarity and brought many to their feet. This was one of the many high points of our May Day dinner.

Our dinner tonight was attended by more than 150 workers and youth –– with a lot of new young faces. The crowd reflected the revolutionary movement we are building across all the bosses’ artificial borders. There were auto and transit workers, battle tested health care workers and professionals, college and high school teachers and students, immigrant and community activists, black, Latin and white, women and men, young and old. The program was planned and carried out by newer and younger cadre who are beginning to take the reins of leadership.

There were many other high points as well.

• A taped interview was played from two PLP Iraqi war veterans who could not be here.

• A veteran Party leader told how a PLP summer project among farm workers had changed her life and urged everyone to either attend or support the upcoming summer projects in Los Angeles and Seattle around aerospace workers and the military.

• A worker who has been through a two-year struggle against racist health cuts spoke about the need for communist revolution. "This system can’t be fixed. It must be torn down," she said.

• A teacher told how an 18-year old Chicago State University student was murdered by these racist cutbacks, when she was sent home from the ER instead of being properly examined. Instead of a "keynote address," another comrade stirred the crowd with an original revolutionary poem.

• A comedy skit skewered Clinton, Obama and McCain, and the evening ended with everyone on their feet, fists raised, singing the Internationale.

This May Day showed that despite overwhelming odds, we can build the revolutionary communist PLP. In the face of massive attacks on all fronts, from war, racist terror and mass poverty, workers and youth are seeking answers and can be won to PLP. The road to revolution will be long and difficult, but like the song says, "a better world’s in birth."

Big Bosses, Obama Pull Plug on Wright

Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a creature of the ruling class, bankrolled by the bosses with deep pockets. He began his religious career as a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School. From 1970 to 1975, the Rockefeller family paid Wright’s way through the Fund for Theological Education they had established in the 1950s. Elite universities like Duke, Yale and Princeton have invited Wright to preach. The Rockefellers’ own Riverside Church in New York opened its pulpit to him in 1997.

With his broad popular base, Wright helped Barack Obama enter the U.S. Senate. But the White House hopeful had to dump his old mentor last month. Wright’s black liberation theology, long useful to the rulers in misdirecting working-class anger, now clashes with their imperialist war agenda. While Wright offers twisted critiques of U.S. foreign policy, Obama seeks to muster support and troops for U.S. rulers’ widening wars. He vows to add 92,000 soldiers once in office. Meanwhile, Obama minimizes racism — "We’re 90% there [equality]," he tells black voters — and calls Wright:

"Divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all."

Thus, Obama not only lumps workers and bosses into one group ("us all") rather than defining them as opposing classes; he also, in effect, denies the racism directed against black, Latino and Asian workers by equalizing the "problems that confront all of us," ignoring the double unemployment rates, lower incomes and second-class schools and housing afflicting these groups brought on by the rulers’ racism.

At odds only over tactics, however, Obama and Wright serve the same war-making capitalist class. While Obama may have slipped slightly in the polls, he is feeding quite well at the contributions trough. "Through the first three months of the year, employees [that is, executives, who can afford big payoffs, Ed.] of nine major industries — from communications and defense to transportation and Wall Street — gave the majority of their donations to the Illinois senator over rival Hillary Clinton." (Wall Street Journal, 5/3/08)

Wright’s Religious Dissent Once Aided Rulers

Wright’s nationalist religious movement served U.S. rulers well near the end of, and after, the Vietnam War. By pushing electoral politics, it provided a safety valve to black workers disgusted with genocide, subjected disproportionately to casualties in the war and to imprisonment at home, and hardest hit by a permanent slide in manufacturing jobs and wages. Wright helped lead spirited rallies and demonstrations decrying racism but demanding the election of black politicians as the solution. Scores of black mayors, who, in fact, helped perpetuate the rulers’ racism, won office in major cities aided by activists like Wright.

The first official act of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, backed by Wright, was to lay off 3,000 city workers, the majority black. New York’s David Dinkins, also that city’s first black mayor, cut the budget of all vital services, especially affecting black and Latino workers while increasing only one department — the cops, the very ones responsible for a series of racist murders.

Obama, however, had higher ambitions than Wright. Though an outsider fresh from Harvard Law School and the New York business world, he gained a ready-made, mobilized base by joining Wright’s 12,000-strong Trinity congregation in Chicago before he started running for the Illinois state senate in 1996. At the time, Obama’s Project Vote effort to register black youth dovetailed with Wright’s phony militancy.

Pushing Police State, Obama O.K.S Cops Who Gunned Down Sean Bell

But, as their Iraq oil war threatens to spread to Iran and go global with China, U.S. rulers’ needs have changed. Until they can bring back the draft (and even after) they require willing recruits for their armed forces of every so-called "race." Furthermore, organized opposition, however harmless to imperialism and racist atrocities, no longer suits U.S. capitalists, who want a domestic police state. So Rockefeller protégé Wright’s usefulness has dwindled.

Freed of Wright’s baggage, Obama waves the bosses’ war-and-fascism banner openly. His immediate racist, pro-cop, pro-capitalist, anti-militant response to the clearing of the NYPD cops who murdered Sean Bell with a 50-bullet onslaught tells all. "We’re a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down," says Obama, later adding, "Resorting to violence to express displeasure over a verdict is something that is completely unacceptable and is counterproductive." Obama stood even to the right of outright warmonger Hillary Clinton, who suggested the feds "look into" the Bell case.

Obama faces racist criticism from presidential opponents hoping to make Jeremiah Wright the next Willie Horton. [In 1988, Bush, Sr.’s campaign ran ceaseless TV ads depicting Horton, a black Massachusetts man convicted of raping a white woman (a charge he denied) of being put back on the streets by Democratic candidate Dukakis after being paroled in a Dukakis-sponsored program.] Obama also is being warned by backers like the New York Times, who say the "loony" pastor hurts Obama’s election chances.

But Obama’s plight deserves no sympathy from the working class. He, just as much as Clinton and McCain, and perhaps more effectively, serves capitalists who need to expand their war-making and crack down severely on domestic dissent. Voting for any of the candidates won’t change a thing. Neither will praying or demonstrating with pampered frauds like Wright.

The profit system that ceaselessly creates war needs to be destroyed and replaced with workers’ rule. That is the ultimate goal of our revolutionary, communist Progressive Labor Party.

Racist Profiling Sky-High

The number of people subject to police stop-and-frisk actions in the first quarter of 2008 rose by more than 35,000 compared to the previous quarter, to a total of 145,098, the largest ever seen in one 3-month period. In both quarters 82% were black or Latino. And the number of bullets fired by the cops increased between 2001 and 2006.

Police stopped releasing data on the "race," gender or age of shooting human victims around the same time they begun reporting on the breed of dogs shot by cops each year. (Information from NY Sun, 5/6.)

NYC Students Walk Out Over Killer Kops, Racist Budget Cuts

NEW YORK CITY, May 3 — Students at several high schools walked out on May 1 to protest the acquittal of the kkkops who assassinated Sean Bell and against the racist budget cuts hitting NYC schools. Scores of students joined the rally at Union Square to show solidarity with the immigrant-rights May Day rallies.

A city-wide walkout was called for at a budget-cuts conference weeks earlier where scores of students gathered to plan upping the ante against Mayor Bloomberg’s recent racist attacks on NYC students. Those who’ve been meeting with PLP became the walkout’s leadership. They met with others from different schools to organize a plan; struggled with their classmates over the importance of fighting back as a class; distributed leaflets this morning at train stations most students use; and led students out school doors.

Despite intimidation by the administration and the dozen police cars and fire truck stationed at the school, most students overcame their fears and walked out.

Students displayed real solidarity and leadership, belying the stereotype that youth care only about themselves. When one assistant principal ordered teachers to lock students inside classrooms, students avoided classes the period they were planning to walk out, and instead spread the word to go to classrooms of teachers who supported the walkout.

One student overheard a dean calling students "idiots and stupid" for planning a walkout and ordering safety agents to lock them in. That student and her friends struggled with safety agents to refuse, leading most of the safety agents to support the students, even encouraging them to leave.

When the students finally reached Union Square, they heroically marched behind a banner proclaiming, "Asian, Latin, black and white, smash police terror with communist revolution," chanting, "The workers, united, will never be defeated!" They then chanted in solidarity with marching workers and gave speeches on why they walked out and why the budget cuts were racist. PLP students who led the walkout and demonstration explained the need for a communist revolution to smash capitalism. All the students cheered and helped distribute our literature.

Earlier, most students spent the entire day with the Party contingent preparing for the immigrant-rights march. During that time, the students encountered a black party who tried to tell the predominantly black group of students they needed to think about "themselves" as black people first, before anyone else. After a heated debate the discussion ended with the students chanting in their faces, "Asian, Latin, black and white, workers of the world unite!"

When the march began, many more students had joined our growing contingent and were eager to spread our communist message through city streets. As the marchers passed by, we gave out the last of 10,000 leaflets and 900 CHALLENGES and then joined them, chanting along the way.

The following day (Friday) PL students invited all those who had attended the Union Square rally to our Saturday May Day march and dinner. Now we must maintain the momentum in the school and recruit those students who have grown close to the Party. We also must organize the other students who understood the importance of taking action against racism and spreading communist ideas at the Union Square rally to read CHALLENGE regularly, join a study group and eventually join the Party.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. –– Twenty students from Howard University marched from campus to the office of Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) who has been complicit in the gentrification process of New Orleans by blocking a moderate bill that would have supposedly guaranteed one-for-one replacement of demolished affordable housing. Vitter was "unavailable," so the students sat-in, demanding action. A dozen cops were called to intimidate the students, to no avail. The students presented a petition signed by 400 students to Vitter’s aide demanding that Vitter stop blocking the bill, and the students vowed to return to his office in solidarity with public housing residents in New Orleans, while several students will also return this summer to continue the struggle in New Orleans itself. Several of these bold students joined the May Day march in New York City and brought their message of struggle against fascism to the May Day dinner.

These actions were a result of Howard University Political Education and Action Committee spending spring break in New Orleans working with "C3/Hands Off Iberville," a coalition of New Orleans activists and public housing residents fighting against the demolition of their public housing homes. Major real estate developers, with support from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the New Orleans City Council, are using the lie that Hurricane Katrina made public housing uninhabitable to demolish affordable housing and replace it with high-end condos. They already did this—before the storm!—by demolishing St. Thomas public housing and creating River Garden, with only 200 affordable of the 700 that had been promised to the community.

New Orleans gives us an early look at fascism USA. Bulldozers and police brutalize people and their homes, while the ruling class tests out strategies of social control while letting their buddies make huge profits from the "recovery." All the more reason to fight for revolution!

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Spain, May 1st — "I knew the PLP in the United States," said a Spanish youth when he got a PLP leaflet. He was happy to find out that communist political work is a lot bigger throughout the world than he thought. "Long Live May Day! Long live the working class!," we chanted today. Here and in all parts of the world, the work of the Progressive Labor Party is clear: spread the true ideas of communism far and wide.

The Workers’ Commissions unions Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and the General Union of Workers (UGI in Spanish) in Spain organized a May Day march for workers from all over, but in reality workers know that these reformists and revisionists are part of the capitalist system and that the only thing they’re good for is to try to pacify the masses. We won’t rest. We’ll keep working hard to bring the workers the real revolutionary struggle, not like these sellouts.

It was a real celebration. There were workers from all parts of the world, and we passed out many communist leaflets in the march. I believe that with a lot of concentration, our work will grow a lot. We have made ties with workers and have vowed to bring them CHALLENGE and other material to be able to build the fight to destroy this capitalist system that kills the working class and finally to implant the only solution for the international working class: THE COMMUNIST SYSTEM!J

a name="PLP’ers Make Mark At Colombia May Day">">"LP’ers Make Mark At Colombia May Day

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA, May 1 — A 100-strong contingent led by PLP participated in the May Day march here. Amid pro-capitalist reformist ideas pushed by union hacks and fake leftists as the "solution" to the pro-war policies of President Uribe’s death-squad government, U.S. rulers’ most loyal ally in the region, PLP’s internationalist communist politics stood out. Our revolutionary chants, distribution of 3,000 communist leaflets and hundreds of DESAFIOS brought many workers and youth around our contingent and joined our chants. (More next issue.)

Celebrating May Day Coast to Coast

NEW YORK CITY, May 3 — Over 800 workers, students and soldiers from the East Coast kicked off PLP May Day here with a bang. Activities spread across the city.

"The Workers, United, Will Never be Defeated" chanted nearly 200 members and friends of PLP marching through Brooklyn streets carrying red flags and banners calling for unity of the international working class and the need to smash police terror with a communist revolution. Anger over the acquittal of Sean Bell’s NYPD execution squad and billionaire Mayor Bloomberg’s racist budget cuts spurred several high schools walkouts on May 1 (see page 3) and lent an extra urgency to this year’s May Day. Passing cars responded enthusiastically to our signs, "Honk if you hate racist police murder." Over 2,600 CHALLENGES were distributed.

a name="The State of the World….">">"he State of the World….

All the events heard state-of-the-world talks, one showing why capitalism only offers a future of more war and fascism regardless of who wins the 2008 election and inspired renewed optimism by connecting the growth represented on May Day with the necessity and ability of the working class to create a communist future, without minimizing the hard reality of the difficulties in building such a movement.

At another dinner the two keynote speeches were written and delivered by young female comrades who showed polished political analysis, poise and righteous anger over the capitalist system that wages war against the working class for bosses’ profit. The speeches emphasized class struggle and the unity of female and male workers worldwide, as well as a call to combat a capitalist society mired in crisis and marked by endless wars.

And a third dinner’s speech stressed that despite what cynics say, workers can be won to fight capitalism. But these ideas don’t fall from the sky. Workers need communist leadership and need to become communist leaders themselves.

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A highlight at one celebration was hearing why comrades from three generations joined the Party: One who met a PL’er in his church was physically confronted by cops on horseback at an anti-war march, sparking the realization that democracy does not work. Everything learned over time from the PL’er then clicked; he now knew the real solution was to fight for communism.

Another joined after several hard experiences in community organizations led to the conclusion that reform doesn’t work. Although initially disagreeing with some things, after years of struggle he realized that they were necessary. Being in PLP and building a base in the working class simply became the right thing to do.

The third joined at age 12 to "be part of a group," but after two years of study groups, club meetings, summer projects and ideological struggle, fighting for communism and being a member of PLP took on a whole new meaning.

A brief history of PLP was viewed through the lens of one member’s life experience as a teacher. When NYC parents fought for more control of their children’s schools in the 1960’s, thousands of teachers followed their racist union leadership to strike against a mostly black and Latino community. This member was part of a PLP-led fight to physically open the schools as well as launch "freedom schools." One member recalled being called a racist epithet at five years old for crossing the racist picket line.

Stay Tuned for Communist Revolution!

Young people were front and center throughout the evening, from the planning to the speeches to the cultural performances, showing the Party’s growing vitality and attention to developing new leadership. A poignant skit created by a group of twenty young people highlighted youth leadership as it exposed military recruitment as a scam to win youth to fight and die in imperialist wars to defend the profit system. The skits and an open mic showcased the drive and enthusiasm youth have to grasp revolutionary ideas and make them their own.

Several veterans of PLP’s military work emphasized the importance of youth enlisting to build PLP. Many ideas were also presented on how to win veterans who return home disillusioned from receiving nothing of what they were promised and scarred by U.S. imperialist atrocities. A young female industrial worker did a great job explaining to the young people present just how powerful the workers can be when won to communist ideas.

The crowd was inspired by an outpouring of original communist music, poetry and visual art by three generations of comrades and friends of the Party. Individual comrades took the floor to give detailed answers to key questions, such as, "How will communism fight to destroy racism, sexism, and nationalism?" and "How can joining the Party change the world?"

All in all, these workers, soldiers and students assembled on a highly-charged day that both celebrated past achievements and pointed toward a challenging but ultimately victorious future on the road to a communist society. "Stay tuned!"

Los Angeles

April 26 — "The bosses can’t carry on their wars without workers producing for these wars," declared a woman industrial worker at a May Day Dinner. "We are those industrial workers! The factories are the heart of the society and they need to be the heart of the revolution. That’s why it’s so important that we organize in the factories using CHALLENGE networks….I’m an industrial worker and CHALLENGE opened my eyes to the reality of capitalism, oppression and discrimination at work….It’s very important to expand the readership of CHALLENGE so that our fellow workers can understand the racism, sexism and exploitation which we are forced to live with and can join with us in the PLP. Long live Communism!"

Another comrade explained that "Revolutions only happen if there’s a communist party with the correct ideas and a political base among workers and others, especially industrial workers." The speaker cited "the Bolsheviks [who] didn’t retreat….under fascist repression, concentrating in the factories and the armed forces…. [With] unbreakable confidence in the working class and in turn the workers’ great confidence in them, they achieved the ‘impossible’ in 1917 when the workers took power."

One speaker reported on the struggles in the colleges against cutbacks and on the Summer Project to bring communist politics to workers. Speakers highlighted the key role of soldiers in fighting to end imperialist war with revolution. At one event a high school student presented the historic importance of May Day, followed by a comrade who linked the legacy of May Day to the 1968 worker-student uprising in France, citing the decisive role of workers, the need for the worker-student alliance and the political leadership of a truly communist party like PLP. A moving poem captured outrage at the effects of capitalism as well as the desire to fight for communism.

About 300 people participated in these activities, enjoying songs and delicious international food and camaraderie. They reflected intense political struggle throughout the year to bring communist politics to workplaces, schools and friends. We concluded with enthusiastic preparations for the distribution of CHALLENGE, leaflets and flags for the May Day immigrant-rights march. J

Detroit

April 26 — Today PLP re-established its May Day tradition in Detroit with a dinner of over two dozen workers, teachers and youth, including special guests from the American Axle picket lines.

A young community college teacher gave a brief history of May Day, how the PLP re-established May Day in the U.S., and how he looks forward to marching each year to advance international communist revolution. A couple from American Axle spoke about the difficulties of the strike and how the UAW leadership was in bed with the AAM bosses and GM to cut their wages.

A third speaker talked about the acquittal of the killer cops who murdered an unarmed black man Sean Bell in NYC on his wedding day. He said that the bosses need racist police terror to enforce a future of wage cuts, poverty and war, and that the Sean bell case and the American Axle strike were two very good reasons to join PLP and build a revolutionary movement to smash the racist rulers.

This may be a small step in the big picture, but it can be an important event for the future of PLP and the class struggle in Detroit. J

S.F. Bay Area: PLP’s May Day Activities Cover the Waterfront

BAY AREA, Calif. — PLP members and friends celebrated May Day in activities throughout Northern California, providing many opportunities to advance our communist politics. Despite the limitations of liberal-led marches and rallies, workers were open to our revolutionary message. The ongoing struggle to develop newer Party members and recruit new ones remains the main limitation of our potential. Despite this we spread our communist ideas throughout all the May Day events.

In the inland port city of Stockton, Party members made contacts with longshoremen who had struck for eight hours to protest the war in Iraq. In San Francisco, by selling CHALLENGE and distributing leaflets to the dockers, significantly we brought a communist revolutionary analysis to this otherwise liberal-led march and rally. Previously, the International Longshoremen’s and Warehouseman’s Union (ILWU) had struck against the World Trade Organization in Seattle; for the framed Mumia Abu Jamal; and an "unofficial" one-day protest of an on-the-job death of one of their comrades.

These actions refute the lie that workers won’t fight around "political issues." But they’re all framed to appeal to the capitalist electoral system. This ties into those capitalists who trace the Iraq war to the Bush administration attempt to run the Iraq war "on the cheap," while undermining the overall U.S. world position. This is a far cry from the workers taking the bosses’ war head on. (See box.) Our challenge is to push beyond these limits and bring revolutionary politics to the forefront.

We also attended a rally and March in Dolores Park where a PL teacher met with former students who helped distribute our literature there.

In Oakland, PLP members joined the immigrant rights march. Those around us picked up our chants, focused on internationalism, working-class unity and revolutionary ideas. The march grew larger as it progressed and was the most multi-racial in recent years. Four student friends of the Party from a local university marched with us. Several Party members have already followed up contacts made there.

Elsewhere in the inland Bay Area, a young teacher comrade participated in a march organized by teachers against the budget cuts at their school. We hope to continue to develop this class struggle.

Transit workers, teachers and college students attended a May Day dinner this weekend. Old friends enjoyed good food, great speeches, and an afternoon of communist celebration. A conversation with an old friend revealed how the reality of life can be used to show workers that capitalism is the root of our problems. Our challenge is to present communist revolution as the answer. Overall, this May Day helped build the influence of the Bay Area Party.

Mexico May Day Inspires Re-commitment to PLP

Mexico CITY, May 1st— A group of members and friends of PLP participated in the mass May Day March in Mexico City where hundreds of thousands of workers come to show their anger against the capitalist system and its government. We distributed 15,000 leaflets and 300 CHALLENGES in which we exposed the capitalist system including the privatization of oil and the need for a communist revolution in order to build a society that meets the needs of the working class.

Our contingent marched with banners and chanted slogans like , "LONG LIVE COMMUNISM! DEATH TO CAPITALISM!’’ AND "ONE CLASS ONE PARTY, WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!" We also sang songs like "Bandera Roja" and "Bella Chao" and of course the INTERNATIONAL. We were a small militant group but we captured the attention of many marchers.

After the march we had a gathering where we talked about the day’s activities. One of the things that inspired many comrades was that many new youth participated with us who hadn’t before. One of them said that he’d participated in other organizations and that none of them had convinced him as PLP had. That’s why he asked that we keep inviting him to future meetings. We decided to have a meeting this same week to plan some activities and to maintain constant communication.

Another thing that inspired many was the participation of someone who had been inactive in the last few years. At the end of the march, this friend gave a small speech in which he talked about why it’s important to celebrate May Day and the need to continue organizing the working class, thus announcing his recommitment to the Party. Some suggested that he help organize a cadre school about political economy and help in continuing to deepen the political understanding of more comrades.

We hope that next year we’ll have a bigger contingent with more political leadership.J

May Day Spirit Spurs Seattle Summer Project

SEATTLE, WA., May 3 — "The world needs communist politics now more than ever," declared a young Party worker, our keynote speaker, at tonight’s May Day Dinner. He followed an Iraq veteran who urged all to continue fighting U.S. imperialism’s Mid-East occupation at the upcoming "Winter Soldier" events. Finally, a student leader invited the multi-racial group of students, educators, campus workers, military veterans, active-duty soldiers, Boeing workers and families to join our July Summer Project.

The keynote speaker outlined the brutal attacks from U.S. bosses preparing for wider wars, eventually World War III, how they need to attack workers at home in order to attack workers abroad. Fascist intimidations cited included 2.4 million now languishing in prisons, neglected Katrina survivors, the assassination of Sean Bell, the brutal exploitation of Latino immigrants in war factories and government immigration raids.

"Ultimately," our speaker said, "this racism is used to divide us and hide the fact that wage slavery is the curse of all workers regardless of ‘race’ and gender." Just ask the striking American Axel workers how the wage system "serves" them!

Many volunteered for our July Summer Project as we fight for "the hearts and minds" of Boeing workers whose contract expires this fall, and of soldiers at nearby Ft. Lewis (one in attendance) and McChord Air Force base.

One friend brought her husband, who "loves to talk politics." He was not disappointed. Between mouthfuls of food, we discussed how communist society could and should function, how to make communist politics primary, and how to have confidence that our Party and the working class can lead society.

Between the dinner and Thursday’s May Day immigration march we distributed EVERY CHALLENGE in the city to readers and sellers. A thousand leaflets about the communist international spirit of May Day and another about Sean Bell circulated among marchers, in Boeing shops and other workplaces, homes and classes. Friends gave generously as we passed the hat to help pay for all the literature.

A Boeing retiree we’ve known for over 30 years made a special contribution and then took extra literature for a mosque and a mostly black church. "I’m glad to see you passing the hat," he said. "This good stuff costs plenty."

On weekends prior to May Day, a team visited Boeing readers and sellers at their homes to discuss the ideas our friends were already reading in CHALLENGE over coffee (a Seattle obsession!). This helped make our dinner a modest success.

Class struggle and agitation are crucial, but without these personal ties, we will remain stuck in neutral.

We’ll expand these team visits between now and the Summer Project to bring the communist class-consciousness expressed by our young keynote speaker to many more in the area.

"Today on May Day," he concluded, "we remember that it’s the working class who built this world; we planted every field and laid every brick. All the wealth of the world was created through the labor of the working class. This world is not for us to slave in, but to master and to own. We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to win."

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MEXICO, April 16 — PLP organized a protest at a school in UNAM (Autonomous University of Mexico) against the Rules of Inscription reproduced on April 7th, in an edition of the "Rights and Obligations of the Universities" by the Administration’s Committee in " Defense of the University Students."

These rules require that only students who have finished their Bachelor’s degree in three years and with an average grade of nine (barely 10% of the students achieve this) are allowed to choose a major and their preferred school. This same rule excludes from UNAM those who finish their bachelor’s degree in more than 4 years. And for the faculty, to achieve permanent status, a professor would have to work 5 times longer (505% more) than the current plan.

The UNAM student strike of 1999-2000 demanded the repeal of this same rule. In the face of the mass and prolonged protest against the police intervention to smash the strike, the Rector declared that this rule would be suspended until it was discussed in the University Congress (that they could never organize). However, since the protests got smaller, now the government in using the Administration’s Committee in the Defense "of the university students" to remind us of their regulation. The majority of students are against this.

The PLP quickly called for a protest inside one of the schools where we demanded that the Director take the message of our anger against this ruling to his superiors. We also demanded a cafeteria for the students, improvements in the showers in the sports area, and permanent status for the "interim" professors, some of whom have been in this interim situation for 10 years, and other demands.

About 60 students came to the protest and hundreds watched it, including teachers and workers who’ve shown their support and agreement. We brought red banners of PLP and we talked abut the need to build a new type of proletarian party that fights directly for Communism.

We recognize that even though we’ve been timid in putting forward the ideas of the liberation of the working class, we’ve taken steps that have also led to the math professors demanding the same things of the school administration. We’ve also carried out a campaign to distribute copies of PLP’s Road to Revolution IV. Several professors have shown us their support and encouragement to continue fighting actively for revolution.

Greetings to all the comrades!

LETTERS

Ira Gollobin Advised Draftees Too

I was saddened to learn of the death of Ira Gollobin, a long-time fighter for the legal, political and ideological interests of the working class [see CHALLENGE, 5/7]. A personal incident can give some idea of the service he rendered to working people.

In the 1950’s, immediately after the cease-fire in the Korean War, I received a draft notice. (Military conscription still existed.) Being a member then of the old Communist Party (CP), I took the notice to my CP section organizer (local leader) and asked her what to do. She said that, as of that moment, I was dropped from membership and that no one would talk to me.

This was a period of intense government attacks on communist activists, and understandably, I felt somewhat confused at this news. I spoke to some leaders in the old movement, and, indeed, no one would talk to me. Finally, after approaching numerous people about my predicament, a friend told me of a lawyer who operated out of a storefront office on the Lower East Side, and advised political activists who were being drafted. This lawyer turned out to be Ira Gollobin.

He gave me extremely sound advice which, after entering the Army, enabled me to fend off pressures by military intelligence and other officers to become a political informer. In fact, Ira’s advice permitted me to participate in a legal and political struggle that ultimately ended the Army’s practice of giving bad discharges based on a draftee’s political activity prior to military service.

Incidentally, the section organizer who told me I was dropped from membership gave up on the working class and became a Democratic Party state committee-person. So much for the commitment of that "leadership."

Experiences like these eventually led me to help organize in Progressive Labor, an organization that has never turned its back on the working class.

An Old Red

a name="Don’t Let The Fascists Tell Us Who The Heroes Are">">"on’t Let The Fascists Tell Us Who The Heroes Are

Recently, the liberal media and people like political comedian Bill Maher on his HBO show, were telling us constantly that Valerie Plame was a hero we should all admire. She was the CIA agent outed by a right-wing politician-newsman —there’s absolutely no loyalty among these thieves.

On the Maher show, she was cheered, and when Maher asked if she had been involved in killing operations, she said yes. After all, that’s what these bloody hired killers do for a "living." They strongly front for U.S. aggression and murders worldwide, back since the end of World War II, when the CIA was formed.

Anti-communist CIA-trained mercenaries invaded Cuba at Playa Girón (the Bay of Pigs) to try to topple the Castro regime and resurrect a pro-U.S. regime similar to former dictator Batista who had enslaved the population for decades. But the invaders’ dream of local support turned into its opposite, and the population helped the Castro army defeat them quickly. (Interestingly, Havana traded the captured mercenaries for badly-needed medical supplies, and the Kennedy administration sent diet products! That’s about how far you can trust these fascists to keep their word.)

Currently there’s a growing opposition worldwide. You should examine these people who the press extols as the latest hero or spokesperson, for example the documentary film-maker Michael Moore and Barack "Archer-Daniels-Midland-Ethanol" Obama.

And the Progressive Labor Party should continue exposing these vermin.

Up-North Reader

a name="Shed Illusions About Imperialism’s Allies">">"hed Illusions About Imperialism’s Allies

I was confused by the CHALLENGE article (4/9) about the 20th anniversary of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, celebrated on March 25th in Cuba.

It described Angola’s MPLA government backed by Soviet imperialism and its satellite Cuba pitted against the U.S./South African-backed UNITA "rebels." Both were rotten, pro-capitalist nationalist organizations.

Raul Castro and the government representatives from Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa have good reason to celebrate — this victory enabled them to rule over and exploit the working class for a long time.

The article said the battle marked the beginning of the end of the hated South African apartheid regime and the myth of its army’s invincibility. But the Cuban army was not a red army like the Soviet Red Army that drove the Nazis from Stalingrad all the way to Berlin. During the 1970’s, Castro sent 13,000 Cuban soldiers to Ethiopia to support the fascist military Junta (Dergue), a Soviet puppet, helping it maintain power and murder workers.

The current rulers of South Africa, Angola and Namibia, who were the leaders of those "liberation" movements, were in bed with the imperialists then and still are. Now Cuba (where Fidel replaced U.S.-style capitalism with Soviet-type state capitalism) is turning to China because its former imperialist master, the Soviet Union, is gone.

It was South Africa’s heroic students and workers, not the Russian imperialists or their puppets, who fought apartheid with the goal of liberating the working class. But the African National Congress (ANC) reformist leadership and the revisionist (phony leftist) South African Communist Party dashed their aspirations. Capitalism and racism are alive and well in South Africa today. Under the current ANC leaders, the country’s workers are still oppressed and exploited.

The following editorial is from CHALLENGE 4/6/1988:

"Angola and Namibia are other scenes of capitalist carnage. In Angola, over 215,000 have died since 1975. The Cuban/Soviet-backed Angolan government is fighting the U.S./South African-backed UNITA ‘rebels.’ Each side is rotten to the core. The Angolan people will be oppressed no matter who ‘wins.’ In Namibia, over 5,000 have been killed in a war between the South Africans and the Namibian nationalists. This war is closely linked to the war in Angola….The record of imperialism is clear!.... Capitalism, imperialism, or nationalism breeds death and destruction. To…end these evils…you must destroy capitalism."

We can’t have illusions in any nationalist/ capitalist allies of imperialism, whether U.S., Russian or Chinese. We must win the world’s workers to fight for our own class interests: communism.

An African immigrant

Striking Immigrant Workers Head Up Paris May Day

PARIS, May 1 — It’s in the street that it happens / When something happens / A ballot in a ballot box / Doesn’t change much!

Sound trucks in May Day demonstrations across France blasted out the new song by the radical Jolie Môme theater company. Over 200,000 marched in 150 cities, demanding more buying power and condemning the government "reform" requiring 41 years’ work (instead of 40) for a full retirement pension. The demands reflected the reformism of the trade unions that organize May Day here.

Nevertheless, in Paris (30,000 marchers), pride of place was given to undocumented immigrants who’ve been striking since April 15, demanding legalization. In Marseilles, 30,000 marched behind a banner reading "May ’68, May 2008: the struggle continues." In Nantes, a student union contingent chanted their banner’s slogan: "The struggle is ... class against class!"

Today’s demonstrations kick off a month of struggle, including a coming teachers’ and government workers’ strike and nation-wide protests opposing retirement "reform." The government is cutting 11,200 education jobs.

But without revolutionary communist leadership, the May actions will likely be sold out. An April 10 agreement with the bosses on union representation will prevent small unions from blocking sweetheart contracts, making the CGT the key union player. It will use this position to sell out workers the way it sold out last November’s rail strike (see CHALLENGE 12/12/07). The right-wing French parliament will certainly ratify the agreement.

A recent poll shows unfortunately that 64% of the workers here still trust the union hacks to defend their interests. It’s up to communists to turn the disappointment that these labor fakers will inevitably generate into revolutionary anger and organizing.

Anti-Fascists Battle German Neo-Nazis, Cops on May Day

HAMBURG, GERMANY, May 1 — Large anti-fascist May Day demonstrations opposed neo-Nazi marches here and in Nuremberg. Over 4,000 people attended the kick-off rally here, and 10,000 marched. Burning barricades were erected on commuter train tracks and in streets to stop the 1,100 neo-Nazis from marching around Barmbek, the Hamburg neighborhood that was the center of the 1923 communist uprising.

The cops used water cannon to protect the neo-Nazis, whose buses were nevertheless stoned. Some were punched when the anti-fascists were able to get near them. A police car was overturned.

In Nuremberg, 4,000 protestors marched north from the city center towards the planned neo-Nazi demonstration. Some 3,000 helmeted, club-swinging cops cracked heads in trying to protect the neo-Nazis from the anti-fascist demonstrators. The cops also attacked the anti-fascists with pepper spray and water cannons. The Nuremberg mayor exhorted people to ignore the neo-Nazis.

Only 200 anti-capitalist demonstrators attended a May Day rally in Hanover, most having gone to the protests in nearby Hamburg. The Hanover rally speaker said: "It is right to demand better working conditions and higher wages, but it is wrong not to make demands that go further. We are so bold as to ask: Wherefore work? Wherefore wages? And we demand the abolition of wage labor!"

On April 30, a dozen neo-Nazi thugs attacked five immigrants in Dortmund. German anti-fascists who happened to be nearby rushed up and together with the immigrant and native-born workers routed the neo-Nazis.

In Tübingen, 600 people marched on May Day.

Heribert Prantl, writing in the conservative Sueddeutsche Zeitung, said German unions’ failure to protect workers from the consequences of the Harz IV "reforms," which notably ended benefits for the long-term unemployed, has made workers here realize they must fight, which has breathed new life into May Day.

REDEYE

US racism has Obama on leash

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert complains that the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. is harming Barack Obama’s campaign by "roaming the country with the press corps in tow, happily promoting the one issue Mr Obama has tried to avoid: race."

How can anyone — Mr. Wright or anyone else — be faulted for forcing a black candidate to address the issue of race? It’s absurd. If America will elect a black man as president only if he avoids the issue of race, then the fault lies with… American racism…(NYT, 5/1)

Gitmo liars: Brass, not inmates

A… powerful new book about Guantánamo, by an American lawyer named Steven Wax, is summed up by its title: "Kafka Comes to America."

The new material suggests two essential truths about Guantánamo:

First, most of the inmates were probably innocent all along, but Pakistanis or Afghans turned them over to America in exchange for large cash awards. The moment we offered $25,000 rewards for Al Qaeda supporters, any Arab in the region risked being kidnapped and turned over as a terrorism suspect.

Second, torture was routine, especially early on. That’s why more than 100 prisoners have died in American custody in Afghanistan, Irag and Guantánamo….

When I started writing about Guantánamo several years ago, I thought the inmates might be lying and the Pentagon telling the truth…. But over time — and it’s painful to write this — I’ve found the inmates to be more credible than American officials.(NYT, 5/4)

Elections: The fix is always in

Serious presidential candidates:….what makes them "serious" is their understanding that American politics is settled, a done deal. The deal is this: While real Republicans can drift, unchecked, to the dark side of empire and neofascism, Democrats are supposed to campaign and govern as moderate, "responsible" Republicans.

We live, in other words, in a corporate state, the basic terms of which are no longer open to debate….

All hail the (invisible) corporate state and its sacred fetishes: God, guns, flag. All hail the McWorkers of the new economy, who roll up their sleeves and vote for one smiling liar or another on their way to their second job. All hail the dearth of health care, the children left behind, the endless billions for war and most of all the fact that these matters are not — I repeat, NOT — open for discussion in this presidential election year or… the next one or the next.(Robert Koehler)(GW, 4/25)

Zimbabwe, Tibet: Imperialist guilt

Zimbabwe… was not just a British colony, but where Britain refused to act against a white racist coup, triggering a bloody 15-year liberation war, and then imposed racial parliamentary quotas and a 10-year moratorium on land reform at independance. The subsequent failure by Britain and the US to finance land buyouts as expected, along with the impact of IMF programmes, aided the current impasse.

As for Tibet… the CIA… bankrolled the Dalai Lama’s operations for many years. Such arrangements have in recent years passed to other US agencies and western NGOs…. For a US administration that has designated China as the main threat to its global dominance its minorities are still a stick that can be used to poke the dragon.(GW, 4/25)

Marching On May Day!!

Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES, May 1 — The red banners of communism waved high on Broadway in downtown LA, while PLP’ers distributed 8,000 communist leaflets and 3,600 CHALLENGES during the immigrant-rights march here. Our literature exposed the hypocrisy of the bosses and their politicians — both the liberal and conservative racists — their plans for wider imperialist war and the role of the pro-immigrant "leaders" who support deadly patriotic loyalty to the ruling class and the Democratic Party.

Fascism emerged early. Police and School District agents stopped some students from boarding a bus to go to the march, claiming "parental permission is not enough — you need permission from the District." Nonetheless, many of these students came, even more determined. Our multi-racial contingent had a strong, visible impact with our red shirts and flags, but most importantly with our chants calling for working-class unity and communist revolution.

The police, business leaders, march organizers and LAPD are congratulating themselves for their "good job." This march was smaller than last year’s, partly because the leaders are pushing voting over marching, and partly from fear instilled in workers by last year’s racist police attack in MacArthur Park and the constant propaganda about the police preparing to "handle provocateurs." In response we chanted, "Sean Bell’s killer cops mean…FIGHT BACK!"; and, "LAPD you can’t hide… We charge you with genocide!"

Street speeches, followed by slogans celebrating May Day as International Workers’ Day resonated throughout the march like: "The magic of our hands, that from nothing make everything. From the clothes, to the buildings to the cars to the airplanes. And even then, the bosses call us ignorant. We workers make everything of value in this society, that’s why we raise our fist and chant, "See this fist; Workers to Power!"

"Today millions of workers around the world march as one class against this rotten capitalist system, source of hunger, murders and wars…"

Some workers asked for and contributed money for our red flags. Others bought red shirts that call for workers’ unity and communism. The red flags contrasted sharply with the U.S. bosses’ flag march organizers imposed on workers. From the few years we’ve had contingents in the "immigrant-rights" marches, we have a presence many workers and youth now expect.

From these May Day activities, several people joined PLP. Others have become CHALLENGE distributors. The Party was strengthened and is preparing for our coming Summer Project. We will be bolder in taking CHALLENGE to our friends to help build the Project. These activities will provide communist political leadership to the working class which needs it more than ever, facing growing fascism and imperialist war. J

El Salvador

A PLP leaflet provoked anger of leaders of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the May Day march of more than 75,000 workers through San Salvador, the capital. Workers demanded rice, beans, and some proclaimed support for the FMLN Presidential candidate, Mauricio Funes. A group of high school and university students painted on the walls "Proletarians of the World, Unite!" and chanted the slogan "Capitalists watch out—here come the communists!"

As usual CHALLENGE is anticipated by the working class every May Day. The PLP distributed 530 CHALLENGES and 3,800 communist leaflets. The moment the leaflets and CHALLENGES began to be distributed, many workers came to get them. This caused a big impact because it attacked the electoral parties.

FMLN leaders in the sound trucks read a part of our leaflet and alerted workers to destroy the leaflets. This made people read the leaflet on the spot. The FMLN security said they wouldn’t allow any propaganda that was not from them, following the same repressive practices as the right-wing ruling party, pro-U.S., Arena government.

Carlos Ruiz, Mayor of Soyapango and former leader of the extinct Salvadoran Communist Party and now the FMLN, stopped a comrade and questioned him about the leadership of PLP in El Salvador. A worker responded to him "Now, we don’t only have the oppressors of the government but we also have you." An ex-combatant of the FMLN reacted angrily and told him, "I fought so that these things would no longer happen and now you are the police."

Confronted by this reaction, those from the FMLN retreated and the distribution of the paper and the leaflets continued. However, the comrades were followed and at one point a small part of their material (200 leaflets and 20 CHALLENGES) were taken. "This has to be shown to the leader of the FMLN," said a servile follower of the electoral front.

Funes stated in the closing speech "Those who have damaged private property [referring to the graffiti] are social movements." They have nothing to do with the FMLN as a political party." He, along with other FMLN leaders, also expressed his gratitude for the presence of more than 600 uniformed police during the march and promised to raise their wages.

"Today ends the romance of some comrades who held some illusions about the FMLN," said a comrade. Once more it’s been shown that the working class can’t trust these electoral parties, which are part of the capitalist system. The PLP’ers and friends activities felt stronger and with more confidence in the working class. Now our goal is to consolidate and recruit more comrades to PLP, as a step toward the communist revolution that will end the murderous capitalist system.J

Washington D.C.

May 1 — PLP members here distributed over 100 CHALLENGES and hundreds of leaflets to the 200 people that attended this year’s immigration justice rally. The rally was smaller than last year, but more than half the marchers took home a copy of our communist newspaper! Many wore t-shirts and carried banners emphasizing unity among workers regardless of country or race.

Other organizations participating in the rally focused on reforming the system with new immigration laws, better housing policies, statehood for DC, and electoral politics in El Salvador. We spoke to rally-goers instead about the working class taking power through a revolutionary struggle.

One man from Central America agreed with our analysis that elections in the US or Latin America would not serve the working class. He was thrilled to learn that there was a party that rejected nationalism and organized one party for all workers everywhere, and intends to work with us.J

Chicago, Il

May 1st – Our PLP contingent, an integrated and international group of around 50 people, raised the red flag and marched behind the banner, "Long Live Communism." We led militant chants, distributed 1,000 CHALLENGES and DESAFIOS and 2,000 PLP May Day leaflets. We handed out 500 posters that read, "Smash All Borders/Destruir Todos Fronteras," with the Party’s name and logo. A small but spirited health care contingent marched from Stroger (County) Hospital. Other Party members marched with their community and student organizations and an Iraq veterans group.

In just two years, the May Day March for Immigrant Rights has gone from over 500,000 in 2006 to maybe 15,000 in 2008. Unlike the previous two years, the bosses were not united behind the march, factories were not closed and workers were not given the day off to march. This shows that when you march under the bosses’ leadership, without a mass communist movement to challenge them, they can turn the movement off and on at will.

Other reasons for the poor turnout were increased fear and intimidation due to continuous immigration raids and deportations. Organizers warned marchers that the police attacks in L.A. last year were due to "other groups with different agendas." Mayor Daley, whose cops are murdering young black and Latino men in record numbers, shared the stage with nationalists and revisionists, rappers and folk singers.

This march underlined the need to build the Party in the bosses’ mass organizations in this period of war and developing fascism. As the Presidential electoral circus moves millions to the ballot box, we must be patiently struggling to break them away from the racist rulers. J

1. May Day: Fight Bosses' Wars and Racist Terror Workers of the World, Unite
2. Pope Heils Anti-U.S. Europe-China Bloc
   1. RULERS AIM SCANDAL AT CHURCH FOES OF U.S. BOSSES
   2. VATICAN COZYING TO CHINESE RULERS
3. THE NEW YORK TIMES: All the News They 'Forgot' to Print
4. Will Cops Go Free for Sean Bell's Murder?
5. Marine Vet: U.S. Imperialists Are War Criminals
6. Fight Racist Destruction of Harlem
7. NYC YOUTH VOW MAY 1ST WALKOUT
8. Ex-Marine Links U.S. Racism, Katrina and Iraq War
9. Building for May Day Young and Old, Across All Borders
   1. New Jersey
   2. New York
   3. Spain: PL'ers Defend Immigrant, Organize for May Day
10. EL SALVADOR: Workers Won't Win Liberation No Matter Which Presidential Candidate Win
11. Axle Strikers Holding Fast Despite UAW Sabotage
12. Calif. Teachers Fight Budget Cuts, Tax Hikes, Union Fakers
13. PLP Growth in Pakistan New Hope for Working Class
14. LETTERS
    1. Fight-Back in Mexico and on Axle Picket Line
    2. When It Comes to Racism, There's No Debate
    3. Rutgers Coalition Walks Out Against the War
    4. How Red-Led Mass Actions Stopped Foreclosures in the Great Depression
    5. 1968: How 10 Million Workers Shut Down France
15. Ira Gollobin: A Communist for All Seasons
16. REDEYEONTHE NEWS
    1. US workers losing wage battle
    2. US ally slaughters unionists
    3. People know who really runs US

May Day: Fight Bosses' Wars and Racist Terror Workers of the World, Unite

On this May Day, International Workers' Day, the international working class is under sharpening fascist attack while the drums of global war beat louder and slaughter millions. World capitalism pushes its economic crisis onto workers' backs with mass racist unemployment, wage-cuts, soaring food prices and resulting starvation. Yet masses of workers are fighting back, with general strikes and food rebellions from Greece to Egypt to Haiti to Russian Ford and Romanian Renault auto workers to Detroit's Axle strikers.

This May Day we must stand as one class, with one interest: to destroy the capitalist murderers with communist revolution and build a communist world based on production to fulfill the needs of our class. On this May Day, international workers' solidarity must meet the bosses' assault head-on, especially as they use the attacks on the world's 200 million immigrants to attack ALL workers.

Capitalism has spawned this migration across all borders. We say smash all boss-created borders. We are one class, internationally.

Capitalism created the working class, a class with nothing but its labor power to sell in order to survive. Early on, the capitalists moved millions of Africans as slaves from that continent to wherever they could produce the most profit. With capitalism's global expansion, immigration is now a worldwide phenomenon.

Capitalism's unrelenting drive for maximum profits uproots hundreds of millions of workers, forcing them into the squalor of sprawling mega slums, from Brazil to Nigeria to China, where 80 million Chinese-born migrant workers are branded as illegal. Many die crossing deserts and oceans from Africa to Latin America trying to reach jobs in the U.S. and Europe, as well as from starvation, malnutrition and curable diseases. Ten thousand died trying to cross into Spain from Africa in the last five years.

Those migrating to the more industrialized countries are not only super-exploited but are used as scapegoats, blamed for capitalism-created problems, and paid slave wages to lower the wages of all workers.

In the past, immigrant workers were on the front lines of class struggle. With global capitalism, the bosses -- by forcing this mass migration -- have internationalized the working class even more, providing the opportunity for a communist-led working class to forge the unity necessary for communist revolution. Immigrant workers are now positioned geographically and socially to help lead this fight worldwide.

Their role will become even more crucial as the imperialists' rivalry for world domination intensifies, particularly in the U.S., a declining power fighting desperately to hold its position as top imperialist while it gears up for wider Middle Eastern wars and eventually world war versus the rising powers in China, Russia and the European Union.

The U.S. rulers' fight over immigration reform concerns the tactics and strategies on how and when to wage these wars. One sector thinks these wars can be waged cheaply with a small, technologically superior military. These bosses opposing immigration reform just want to terrorize immigrant workers with deportations to continue super-exploiting them.

The liberal imperialist sector, however, needs an immigration reform that builds patriotism among immigrants through a 12-year-long path to citizenship. This is in exchange for recruiting millions of soldiers as cannon fodder in their imperialist wars and to maintain a workforce of millions of super-exploited workers for their war industries.

That's why their liberal politicians attack Homeland Security's "scattershot workplace raids" as bad economic policy. And their newspapers like the LA Times and NY Times criticize Congress and the Bush administration for endangering the ability of the bosses to achieve these aims.

These liberal rulers also use their state power to rein in their opponents like California's Orange County Sheriff Carona -- indicted for some of his many crimes in the county where the racist Minutemen were born -- and Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County, Arizona, who terrorizes day laborers.

But the vitriolic anti-immigrant stance of their opponents also serves the liberal bosses, creating the terror and despair that drives immigrant workers into the arms of their liberal politicians -- and their leaders in the pro-immigrant organizations, churches, unions and community groups -- with their pacifism and dead-end electoral politics. The main organizing slogan of the pro-immigrant organizations is, "Today we march, tomorrow we vote!"

Their leaflet announcing the Los Angeles May 1st March praises the bosses' immigration reform and DREAM Act, aimed at forcing undocumented youth into the military under the farce of "helping them go to college," which they can't afford. This "Green Card army" will eventually become the army of all, via the draft or some militaristic "national service" scheme. The slave-like conditions and low wages of indentured immigrant workers will be extended to all workers.

With Democrats Obama and Clinton, and Republican McCain, supporting their comprehensive immigration reform bill and the DREAM Act, the liberal bosses will win no matter who becomes president. But their needs are forcing them to bring together two of the most oppressed, potentially militant and rebellious sectors of the working class: black workers and youth, crucial in industry and the military -- possessing a rich history of fighting the U.S. bosses' racism -- and immigrant workers with a long history of fighting U.S. imperialism.

With PLP building international unity and a base for rebellion and revolutionary communism among industrial workers, soldiers, and students -- black, Latino, white, Asian and Arab, immigrant and citizen, men and women -- we can fight the bosses' racism, nationalism and patriotism, and unite the world's workers to destroy the scourge of capitalism forever.

The fire of May Day burns brightly in a vibrant and growing internationalist PLP! Workers of the World Unite! Fight to end racism and wars for profit. Smash all bosses' borders! Spread CHALLENGE, the internationalist, revolutionary communist newspaper! Fight for communism! Join us!

Pope Heils Anti-U.S. Europe-China Bloc

Obama got it wrong. Embittered workers don't "cling" to religion by choice. The ruling class he serves shoves it down their throats, as the media's non-stop coverage of the pope's visit reveals. The Catholic passivity Benedict preaches is -- like all faiths -- so useful to capitalists in stifling working-class anger that they made his every utterance and gesture front-page, prime-time "historic events." But nevertheless, the pope's visit is a mixed blessing for U.S. rulers. While they benefit from his spreading religious ideology among workers, they must also win mass political support for their widening wars. And, just as he did as a Hitler Youth in pre-World War II Germany, Benedict represents European bosses increasingly at odds with U.S. imperialism.

RULERS AIM SCANDAL AT CHURCH FOES OF U.S. BOSSES

His predecessor John Paul II mildly criticized the 1991 invasion of Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition that included large European contingents. At the time, Catholic bishops in the U.S. cooked up a theological justification for that war. Europe's oil majors, like Total of France and Eni of Italy, scored big deals with "rescued" Kuwait. But by the 2003 invasion, when it became clear the U.S. would not share Iraq's oil spoils with European firms, the prelates defied the Pentagon. Late in 2002, the National Council of Catholic Bishops declared, "We...find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq....[W]e fear that resort to war, under present circumstances...would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for overriding the strong presumption against the use of military force."

U.S. rulers punished the Catholic leaders severely for their heresy. Starting with the Boston Globe that year, the bosses' media let loose a flood of exposés detailing sexual abuse of children by priests, pointedly blaming bishops for enabling and protecting pedophiles. Hardly breaking news -- sex abuse has been rampant in the church for centuries. But imperialist U.S. rulers played it up to rob pro-European clergy of all credibility. Referring overtly to the abuse scandal but implicitly to geopolitics, a New York Times editorial (4/17/08) reminded pope-struck readers of "stunning failures of the overwhelming majority of U.S. bishops."

VATICAN COZYING TO CHINESE RULERS

Now, as its European backers cement ties with China's rulers, the church is following suit, increasing the likelihood of an armed U.S.-China clash over U.S. protectorate Taiwan. The London Sunday Times (2/17/08) reports, "Tempted by the prize of a historic visit to China by Pope Benedict XVI, the nation's leaders have authorised a renewed effort...to heal their rift and inaugurate diplomatic ties....
[T]he Vatican is prepared as part of an eventual settlement to move its embassy from Taipei to Beijing." The Times quoted a senior Vatican official, "There is no problem with breaking relations with Taiwan....we have a duty to spread the values of the gospel." Those "values," no doubt, embrace China's recent purchase of a $2.8-billion stake in French oil giant Total.

But U.S. rulers tolerated and even welcomed Benedict because religion hinders a rational analysis of the world's two opposing classes and prevents workers from fighting back accordingly. "Pie-in-the-sky" promises of heavenly rewards and meaningless, mystical concepts of "good" and "evil" devoid of class content can help lead workers into militaristic patriotism. Parochial schools preaching "Church and Country" furnished millions of recruits for the U.S. war machine in the last century.

Grossly underpaid teachers in one New York Catholic school union have the right response to papal pandemonium -- strike. Our Party's goal is to organize working-class militancy like this into a mass communist party that will eliminate the warmakers and their religious apologists.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: All the News They 'Forgot' to Print

The New York Times, U.S. rulers' vaunted "newspaper of record," ran an outraged three-page-plus article on April 20 exposing unethical ties between the Pentagon and retired officers working for TV networks as "military analyst" talking heads. The Times complained that, in return for deals with military contractors and other payoffs, these experts have given a favorable spin to the war in Iraq, which the Times now claims to oppose.

What hypocrites! The Times itself was one the loudest proponents of the war, with editorials backing star reporter Judith Miller's tales of immense caches of "weapons of mass destruction." The Times bosses' main gripe with the Pentagon is the latter's failure to secure for Exxon Mobil and Big Oil the six million barrels a day of Iraqi crude (about 2 mbd now trickle out) that U.S. strategists foresaw.

Will Cops Go Free for Sean Bell's Murder?

While the liberal bosses prance around and pat themselves on the back for "making change" and proclaiming the end of racism in the U.S., three cops might very well be set free for the murder of Sean Bell in November 2006. Seems like the cops and the courts never got the memo.

Bell and two friends were shot at by plainclothes kkkops after leaving a bachelor party at a bar in Queens, NY. The cops claim that Bell and his friends first tried to run them over and that one of the men inside the car appeared to be grabbing for a gun in his waist. The cops then wasted no time shooting 50 BULLETS into the car, killing Bell and injuring his friends.

The bosses enlisted the ex-FBI informer and pacifier of black workers' anger, Al Sharpton. Our class should not be led by this bosses' agent who pervasively sells the snake oil of justice under capitalism. He's done it before with Amadou Diallo who was shot 41 times by the fascist police, and Patrick Dorismond in Manhattan and countless others. The cops' main role is to protect and serve the bosses' private property and terrorize workers, especially black and Latino youth, so that they do not turn their anger into rebellion.

With the coming elections the bosses need to win black, and all workers, to U.S. imperialism to stay ahead of their rivals like China, Russia and Europe. Barack Obama and the bosses need to give them hope that the system can work for them in the face of years of slavery, Jim Crow racism, segregation, police terror, poverty like in New Orleans and after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Workers and students should organize their friends and co-workers to expose the cops' role in the racist system of capitalism. No court will guarantee workers justice.

Marine Vet: U.S. Imperialists Are War Criminals

SOUTHWESTERN CAMPUS, April 3 -- "War crimes? Heck, the whole war is a crime!" exclaimed a student and Marine veteran of the Iraq war, summing up his contempt for the U.S. imperialist agenda.

Over 175 students, teachers and campus staff applauded enthusiastically. Foregoing classes, many stayed over three hours to hear testimonials from four members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and one from Military Families Speak Out (MFSO).

One army veteran/student quoted from Nazi butcher Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg Trials, exposing how all the rulers think: "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in England, nor America, nor in Germany....But...it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along....Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

He should have said, "any capitalist country" because Soviet workers were won to fight the Nazis in their own class interests. This vet said Göring's statement brought a "chilling familiarity to our experience since 9/11."

This vet quoted Marine General Smedley Butler: "War is just a racket....It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses."

Urging soldiers to abandon blind pride, the vet noted the growth of anti-imperialist war activism, citing "the growing number of active-duty IVAW chapters."

Vets revealed their painful understanding of war crimes and the contradictions that soldiers fighting an imperialist war face daily. One ex-Marine in charge of detainees explained how he attempted to protect them from casual abuse by other soldiers. Another witnessed a whole town storm his platoon's position.

Current reports of corruption and of Iraqi recruits refusing to fight and turning over their weapons to Shiite insurgents mirrored one Marine's description of outright corruption of Sunni commanders who sold weapons to insurgents. This Marine was disgusted with the "dog and pony show" of the Iraqi military, which is clearly not motivated to defend U.S. imperialism. These experiences provoked him to ask, "What the hell am I doing here [in Iraq]."

The MFSO parent noted how his son couldn't make a decent living after high school and thus enlisted. This anti-racist MFSO member expressed dismay that after boot camp his son was trained to "hate people he never met." He said 85% of those killed in Iraq are civilians. His son suffers from PTSD after one tour in Iraq where, on burial detail, he had to collect body parts of deceased soldiers with whom he had trained. This parent stressed the need for everyone to actively oppose the war by reaching out to active-duty soldiers.

The Q and A session revealed the uneven development among these vets. One panelist opposed the war in Iraq but not Afghanistan. Asked about the draft, one vet answered, "Draft all college-age Republicans," which drew a laugh. Several vets supported a draft as a "wake-up call." That position is based more on frustration than a real commitment to national service of any kind that's promoted by the current presidential candidates. A few vets attacked imperialism as a system and opposed any wider wars or military call-up.

The potential for a revolutionary worker/soldier/student alliance was evident during these three brief hours. The panelists are part of the movement against imperialist war, which will ultimately require the fight for a world devoid of profiteers and exploitation. Such forums for political struggle are steps toward that goal.

Fight Racist Destruction of Harlem

NEW YORK CITY, April 12 -- Hundreds of Harlem residents and their supporters formed a human chain across several long cross-town blocks and then marched on the NY State Office Building, battling the gentrification of East, Central, and West Harlem, which will displace thousands of working-class residents and many small businesses. The cops tried to pen the demonstrators into a small area on the street, but they immediately broke through the barricades and took over the sidewalk. Almost all the passing motorists honked in support.

Having recently approved the take-over of West Harlem by Columbia University, the City Council's zoning subcommittee has now voted to rezone Harlem's main thoroughfare, 125th Street, and two surrounding blocks all the way across Manhattan, for luxury housing and businesses. Central Harlem is home to mostly low-income and working-class African-Americans, averaging below $25,000 annually. It's also a cultural center, home to generations of black writers, performers and artists. East Harlem (El Barrio) is a mainly Latino neighborhood, also providing housing for mainly low-income workers. This demonstration marked the first time in recent history that groups from all these areas have marched together.

For two decades, gentrification has been underway, with the renovation of old brownstones and houses, attracting African-American professionals and a growing white population. As local property values rise, Harlem can be totally gentrified within the next decade. Tenant activists estimate that half of all Harlem residents may be forced to move.

Although this show of militancy and unity was heartening, a weakness of the movement has been its looking for "good "politicians to turn things around. Some hope the new black governor, David Patterson (who replaced Eliot Spitzer), will protect their interests. But Patterson is closely tied to the other prominent black NY politicians, ex-mayor David Dinkins and Rep. Charles Rangel, who are deeply embedded with developers. Some hope City Council members will carry their banner, but the Harlem representatives have long supported gentrification. A few involved fighters are nationalist, and see this attack as only against "their own group." Most have welcomed the support of all.

Several comrades have been active in a Harlem church and community groups. We've pointed out how only a movement of rank-and-file workers and students can be relied upon to have our interests at heart, and that all politicians can only survive by doing the bidding of capitalist profiteers.

This attack on all of Harlem is based on racism of the foulest sort, hoping that not only will all NYC workers not back Harlem's struggle, but will even welcome "racial cleansing." We emphasize the role that racism plays and the necessity of multi-racial unity.

Most importantly, we must win our friends to see that gentrification, like the housing and financial crisis, the growing income gap and widening war and fascism are all part of capitalism, and therefore all our efforts should be linked to the fight against this racist system. We will continue to distribute CHALLENGE and bring some new friends to May Day. J

NYC YOUTH VOW MAY 1ST WALKOUT

BROOKLYN, NY April 16 -- More than 70 students from six different high schools in Brooklyn, Harlem and the Lower East Side joined together and held an after-school conference about billionaire Bloom
berg's promised budget cuts and how to oppose them. Six young black and Latino women representing a school's student government led the conference and electrified its closing moments unifying walkout proposals from across the room into a call for a city-wide walkout at noon on May 1st!

Students showed up ready to organize against not only the budget cuts but the increased police presence and criminalization of students that has run rampant in NYC schools. An opening talk set the political tone of the event by reminding us that the capitalist system is based on theft of the value workers produce on the job every single day. Most participants in the conference took CHALLENGE and everyone got a copy of the PL leaflet describing how debt service means that billionaires always get paid whether schools face cuts or not.

"These cuts are racist! Eighty percent of NYC school children are black and Latino, can't nobody tell me these cuts aren't racist!" one student shouted. "Bloomberg has 16 billion dollars; if he wanted to he could fix the schools' budget problems," one student stated in her speech. "The government is trying to put us down before we even get up," another student shouted. One student talked about being arrested and verbally abused by cops just for having her head outside of the window while watching a crime scene. We live in a period of growing fascism.

After breaking up into groups, students made lists of ways they can fight back against the cuts. Writing a petition, having rallies, getting the word out to more schools, letters to Bloomberg and having student walkouts were prominent on most lists. The plan is to link up with the immigrants' rights march in Union Square on May 1st.

Some students made the connection that the money that is being taken out of the schools' budgets is being used to fund the bosses' imperialist wars and burgeoning police state. PLP students spoke of learning about communism in the classroom and thinking it is a good idea. Communist politics helped defeat the all-too-common liberal error of blaming these cuts on the war alone.

Students left the room with the message that capitalism itself is to blame and that communism remains a real alternative worth fighting for. The task now is to mobilize these same young people to be organizers for PLP's May Day events this year on May 3rd and, over time, as another generation of young fighters for a communist future. J

Ex-Marine Links U.S. Racism, Katrina and Iraq War

BOSTON, April 14 -- Students, faculty and staff at Roxbury Community College (RCC), a mainly black and immigrant working-class school here, showed considerable interest in an anti-war event marking the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. It highlighted the recent Winter Soldier testimony that publicized veterans' criticisms of the war. (See CHALLENGE 3/12)

Thirty-five in attendance heard the stirring remarks of two veterans and a speech explaining that U.S. rulers went to war to control Mid-East oil. One ex-Marine said Hurricane Katrina exposed the true nature of U.S. imperialism, which allowed mostly black workers to die in New Orleans while it was killing working people in Iraq. As a black man of Haitian descent, he declared that the racism of Katrina punctured his belief in U.S. patriotism and his willingness to "serve my country."

We watched some of the recorded testimony of other veterans who described the atrocities the U.S. committed in Iraq. It was inspiring to see how Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is helping to transform soldiers -- damaged by their experiences -- into anti-war organizers. However, although IVAW is introducing veterans to anti-war politics, the organization is also injecting patriotic content into those politics, undermining an understanding of imperialism, the real cause of the Middle-East wars. This builds a movement which the capitalist class can easily manipulate as they plan wider war to protect their strategic interests in the region.

Because PLP understands the crucial role of soldiers and students in the growth of a revolutionary communist movement, we played a pivotal role in this function. Some students who had attended our May Day dinner a week earlier helped to organize the event, distributing leaflets on campus.

The speech that presented a class analysis about the war helped people make more sense of the veterans' testimony by putting their personal tragedies into a political context. Soldiers are being forced to kill and maim Iraqis in a genocidal war so that U.S. capitalism can maintain its control over oil.

This analysis inspired one veteran to expound on his previous talk. "It's RCC students and Bunker Hill Community College students who are fighting this war,' he said, "not students from Harvard and Milton Academy." Then, he called for students and soldiers to "revolutionize" themselves as a necessary step in fighting back.

By understanding the class character of the war, working-class students can see the many ways imperialism is attacking them and their loved ones, and their role in organizing resistance. This event made it clear that PLP needs to sell CHALLENGE more consistently and expose students to a communist analysis about both world events and their own reality at RCC.

Building for May Day Young and Old, Across All Borders

New Jersey

We had a very international May Day dinner in New Jersey to raise funds for the Party's big events to celebrate this working-class holiday. Twenty-six of us came -- some immigrants from 11 different countries: Jamaica, Peru, Italy, Hungary, Ecuador, the Philippines, Macedonia, Guatemala, Israel, Korea, Honduras and from Africa. There was fabulous Ethiopian and Guatemalan cooking, black-eyed pea fritters, with desserts of apple pie and brownies.

We heard stories of immigration, of untold expense and deadly injuries. Many undocumented immigrant pay smugglers (coyotes) $7,000 to $10,000 to come from Central America. There is no guarantee the immigrant will arrive safely to his/her destination and many have died either abandoned by the smugglers, crossing the desert, the river, or even
asphyxiated piled up in cargo train cars, trucks, etc.

The Río Grande is cold and deep. Many don't survive the swim. One man loaded his three children into an inflatable raft and swam with one arm, pushing the raft with the other. Another woman spent one night with two other adults in the trunk of a car, almost dying of dehydration and suffocation. Each had a story of having to leave individuals in the desert who could not walk or be carried. Two people related how Mexican workers often carried other people, children or adults, to the border who would never have survived the journey without their help.

The message was stated throughout that an international Party, the PLP, is essential to get rid of borders forever. With each horrific tale, it became more obvious that borders mean only separation of families, lowering wages, starvation and death for working people. The clear communist solution has to include doing away with wage slavery, profits and the entire capitalist class of parasites who suck the blood from workers trapped by borders. The working-class immigrants have already demonstrated the fortitude and courage necessary to win! J

NJ Red

New York

A collective of young and veteran members of Progressive Labor Party is coordinating efforts for a large gathering to celebrate May Day in New York City. We're developing both the program and our organizing around a central theme of increasing class struggle to build the Party.

Our program features young comrades, helping to develop their leadership abilities, which is already reflected in the struggle they've spearheaded against NYC's Department of Education. (See CHALLENGE, 04/09/08.) The excitement generated around this struggle has increased CHALLENGE distribution and produced potential new recruits to PLP. The energy of students and teachers and their understanding of the class struggle sharpened during this fight, which should help make our celebration an exciting one.

We will also acknowledge the contributions of long-standing members as we build for the future. A veteran of many on-the-job struggles will stress the importance of communist organizing at the workplace, linking his experiences with a call for participation in a Summer Project at some of PLP's industrial concentrations.

Finally, we plan to ask the audience four questions about communism that our friends frequently ask. We hope the May Day celebrators will participate via their answers.

May Day marks a review of the strength of our communist organizing. The efforts of comrades, young and old, will ensure it will be inspiring and successful. 

NYC May Day Collective

Spain: PL'ers Defend Immigrant, Organize for May Day

SPAIN -- We are celebrating May Day, the international working-class holiday, including distributing a leaflet outside Metro (subway) stations in a major city here. This occurs amid growing attacks by the regular and immigration cops.

A friend from Brazil was arrested at his job just for the "crime" of being an undocumented immigrant. From the U.S. to Spain, capitalism, to survive, needs repression and racism against workers by forcing immigrant workers to work for less and produce super-profits for the bosses.

A group of us went to the police station to support our fellow worker. He was lucky not to be beaten by the cops. We celebrated a small victory because he wasn't deported, just given a letter of expulsion.

Communist ideas are being spread among workers in this and other struggles. Our May Day leaflet will bring these ideas to other workers who don't know about PLP. Anarchist ideas are widespread here and there's a fear about communism because anti-communist ideas are rampant. But now PLP'ers are working in many areas of the world with the aim of winning workers to understand what's best for our class: communism. Long live May Day and the workers of the world!

EL SALVADOR: Workers Won't Win Liberation No Matter Which Presidential Candidate Win

On May 1, 1886, May Day was born in the historic struggle of Chicago's workers for the 8-hour day, in a general strike that involved 350,000 workers throughout the U.S. On May Day workers worldwide march for their common demands, projecting the solidarity and unity of the international working class.

This May Day, thousands of workers, students and farmworkers will be marching, seeking a real alternative to the hell of capitalism. The potential power of masses of workers will be there. As they have in past years, many will be fervently looking for CHALLENGE and PLP's leaflets with a communist analysis. Others will come to support the FMLN's presidential candidates. In general, the great majority hates capitalism, but still don't see how to end it and build a new society based on meeting the needs of the working class. This is our challenge.

The situation in El Salvador worsens daily. Inflation is higher than in a decade. The cost of a family's basic needs has skyrocketed, out of reach for the working class. There are more street vendors than ever. All this is caused by the capitalist system of exploitation, which is in deepening crisis. And the international environment is not favorable for the ARENA party. The recession in the U.S. economy, the increase in oil prices and of many agricultural products, and the devaluation of the dollar compared to the euro, are factors that could help the FMLN win the country's presidency for the first time.

Every five years here the people go to vote for one or another of the candidates selected by the leadership bodies of the FMLN or ARENA. These electoral parties develop programs designed to maintain the capitalist system and to try to win workers' loyalty to them and their system. In reality, workers elect the hangman who will attack and starve us.

The electoral campaign has flooded us of promises and proposals to try to sway the electorate about the advantages of voting for Mauricio Funes of the pro-capitalist FMLN or the death-squad member and ex-police chief and FBI agent Rodrigo Avila of ARENA, who owns a private security company with thousands of repressive guards.

Funes and Avila each say they will better administer the capitalist system of exploitation, whether for the local bosses and their U.S. imperialist allies who support the ARENA candidate or the rising European and Chinese imperialists, who, through Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, support the FMLN.

As bad as Avila is, Funes, a willing servant of capitalism, stands to mis-lead more workers into thinking capitalism can serve workers' needs. In reality, these rival imperialists and local bosses are only fighting to gain the upper hand so they can rob the value the workers produce.

We can't take the wrong road; there is no easy way. The working class does not need capitalist and rising pro-imperialist presidents, nor do we need to continue sustaining the fascist police. We need a whole new system, a communist system, where the priority will be the lives of the workers and their families, not the profits of any murderous bosses.

It's urgent that the workers organize for a new alternative. That's why, on this May Day 2008, we should sharpen the struggle for a Party that represents the unity of the international working class. The organization with one flag, one Party, for one class must be our slogan. Join the internationalist communist Progressive Labor Party, vanguard of the working class, that fights to unite the workers of the world.

Axle Strikers Holding Fast Despite UAW Sabotage

DETROIT, MI, April 18 -- Workers and students from Chicago drove here to picket in solidarity with the American Axle (AAM) strikers. Originally we planned to join a giant solidarity rally, but the UAW leadership cancelled it, angering the workers. But when we said we'd come to meet the strikers anyway, the workers made us feel right at home.

On strike for seven weeks, the 3,600 workers are fighting company demands to cut wages from an average $25/hr to $14/hr, convert company pensions into 401(K)s and eliminate 1,000 jobs. The strike has mainly affected production of GM pick-up trucks and SUVs. One worker told us, "AAM has diversified and we supply other car giants like Toyota." But scabbing supervisors have maintained some level of production of Toyota axles. Chrysler is unaffected since their parts come from Saltillo, Mexico, where workers make 70 cents an hour!

The strike has caused layoffs of 25,000 GM workers and thousands more in the parts-supplier plants. One worker told a story about the bosses bringing charts to a meeting to show workers who they were competing against. Of the nine names listed, seven were AAM-owned factories in other countries. He left the meeting saying, "We're in competition with ourselves!" AAM is a global corporation with plants from Mexico to China. This worldwide battle among the bosses for markets, resources and cheap labor (imperialism) is behind the AAM strike.

While talking to the workers, distributing water and CHALLENGE, every car driving by honked their horns in support of the picketing black, Latin and white workers. They're not hopeful of any agreement coming soon. Many said they would vote against any concession contract. "We've already been out here this long, there's no point in caving in now," said one.

Meanwhile, the UAW international leadership has taken the negotiations away from the local, attempting to force the same sell-out contract they've signed with the entire auto industry.

With Detroit facing decades of racist cutbacks and decay caused by the retreating U.S. auto bosses, it's easy to see the source of the anger in the eyes of these workers. They speculate about how big a buy-out will be offered and how management will try to eliminate the most senior, highest-paid workers.

Several years ago AAM tried to implement a 2-tier wage system. Detroit workers rejected it but the contract passed after the company threatened to close the Buffalo, NY plant if they didn't approve it. When they voted "yes" the plant was closed anyway. Some of the laid-off Buffalo workers ended up at the Detroit plant and are now standing among the strikers as living reminders of how AAM lied.

When we asked workers whether they'd take the buy-out, some immediately said, "No." Some were undecided. Younger workers said they'd take it, and either look for work, open a business or go back to school.

Now that GM's supply of unsold cars is dwindling, there may be pressure on AAM to settle, but GM wants this wage-cut as much as AAM. The major assemblers have been pressuring the parts suppliers to slash wages and cut costs so they can buy cheaper parts. That's why they created this system of outsourcing decades ago.

All the workers thanked us for our solidarity. We invited them to May Day and obtained contact information.

The struggle against wage slavery lasts many lifetimes. The system cannot be fixed. As one worker said, "You cannot reform evil!"

Workers, and work itself, should not be a commodity with a price tag. We should contribute what we can and receive what we need. But it will take communist revolution to build that world. Let the AAM strike remind us why we fight for communism, and strengthen our will to fight!

Calif. Teachers Fight Budget Cuts, Tax Hikes, Union Fakers

California's educational system has been under attack from a combination of racism and the drive to maximize profits. Now the capitalist crisis is making it much worse, with a state budget deficit expected to top $8 billion. Republicans want to balance the budget by cutting education, health care, and other services. Democrats want "a combination of tax hikes and budget cuts." This is a no-win situation for California workers, but liberal union leaders want workers to pay.

"If state lawmakers want to go for tax increases, they should focus on education," reported the San Francisco Chronicle, citing James Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, which includes 245 of the region's largest employers (including banks, oil companies, and war contractors). "It's a good way to get the public to acquiesce to paying more." (4/12/08)

That same day, a workshop at the Oakland convention of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) discussed "How to Talk About Taxes." "We must ... increase taxes. This workshop will analyze obstacles to convincing the public this is necessary."

This "public" is overwhelmingly the working class. From 1975 to 1998, the income of the bottom fifth of Californians declined nearly 25% while that of the top fifth increased by 66%.

So why is a labor union doing the dirty work for Wunderman and his fellow bosses?

There's a world of difference between the trade-unionist view of "labor" and "management" as bargaining partners and potential political allies versus the communist understanding that workers and capitalists are locked in a deadly class struggle.

The CFT convention gave lip service to the fight for "progressive taxation" but the truth emerged around a resolution to "support or sponsor legislation that would require the State of California to generate and allocate sufficient funds to education." An amendment was proposed, seconded and supported to add the words, "without raising taxes on working-class families."

Leading CFT'ers jumped up to object, claiming "taxes are the price of civilization" and "it's hard to separate the working class from the middle class so this wouldn't let us raise taxes on enough people." Some delegates asked why workers should pay for a government that serves the bosses and a crisis created by their drive for maximum profits. The amendment was defeated, but the sharp struggle -- which the leaders neither expected nor wanted -- was itself a victory.

At a demonstration against the cuts in L.A. a few days later, when teachers eagerly took PL leaflets, one teacher said, "All of this could be solved by taxing the oil companies." This is unlikely since Exxon-Mobil and the big coporations run the system. A revolution will eliminate the profit-hungry bosses who run these and all companies.

Most CFT delegates sincerely care about students, oppose the Iraq war, and want to promote "labor solidarity." But without a communist leadership, they are being led into the hands of our enemies. For example, a video about the 1946 Oakland General Strike (which was smashed by the AFL Central Labor Council) claimed as a "victory" the formation of a coalition of labor and community organizations that channeled energy into the electoral politics of the emerging "cold war." A presentation on the greatness of Franklin D. Roosevelt concluded with the idea that we should enthusiastically support the Democratic Party.

Delegates were urged to get 1% of their local membership to walk precincts for the November 2008 elections. We should aim to win 100% to become CHALLENGE readers! In contrast to the liberalism of unions like the CFT, the Progressive Labor Party today is working to win workers and students to fight cutbacks with the goal of turning the bosses' attacks and wars for profit into a revolutionary war for communism. We invited teachers and students and parents to celebrate May Day with us and join our Summer Project!J

PLP Growth in Pakistan New Hope for Working Class

PAKISTAN, April 15 -- New elections have changed the face of the ruling class, now a coalition of landowning capitalists (PPP), industrialists and financiers (PMLN), nationalists (ANP and BNP), racists (MQM) and fundamentalists (JUIF). They claim to be forming a government of national consensus. Their one major goal in common: exploit the working class more effectively. The pioneer of this consensus is the husband of slain Benazir Bhutto, famous for his corruption, money laundering and kickbacks.

Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani has a landowner, spiritual background and uses God to justify exploiting workers. He spent five years in jail on corruption charges. After taking office, he announced a wage increase for laborers as a ploy to earn their support; restored the right to form unions; and made many other promises which cannot be realized under capitalism. They are attempts to ward off any potential unrest.

Asif ali Zardari (chairperson of the ruling coalition) claims they are "changing the system," but his "change" would substitute a civil regime for the current military regime to better serve imperialism. The alliance of these various parties cannot last long -- their internal rivalries will destabilize Pakistan.

PPP is helping President Musharaf by continuing his policies regarding the "war on terror" and relations with the U.S. Presently U.S. officials are actively seeking support from the new government for the war on terrorism, but workers know the CIA engineered this terrorism against Afghanistan's workers and farmers in the name of the war against "communists."

Back then U.S. imperialism protected the Muslims in a "sacred" war to make Afghanistan an Islamic country. They trained Muslim youth from throughout the world for terrorism, equipped them with the latest weapons, new cars and funds and provided them full protection for an illegitimate war against the Afghan people in order to counteract the Soviet Union. Osama bin Laden was on the CIA payroll in the training sites established in northwest Pakistan.

The capitalists' thirst for profit and resources to run their war machines drives this terrorism. It helps maintain the super-exploitation of the working class. Strategically northwest Pakistan is very important for carrying out imperialist wars, so the U.S. has created, or curries favor with, these fundamentalist factions to establish its influence.

Workers need communist leadership to fight the poverty and exploitation that are vital to capitalism. Poor workers here cannot afford their daily bread. Young children pick small pieces of food from garbage. They have little clothing, no shelter, no medication if they fall ill and no job opportunities. They are living to enrich the capitalists.

Fake leftists are playing imperialism's game, using the word "socialism," but PLP's ideas give hope to the working class that this murderous system can be destroyed. PLP is growing despite our limited resources. We don't advocate socialism, nationalism, "national democracy" or "people's democracy." We are true to the working class, trying to move workers towards communist revolution in exposing inter-capitalist rivalry.

Poverty, racism, inequality, unemployment and homelessness are all inevitable products of this murderous system. We must intensify the class struggle towards the goal of eliminating the cause of these evils. We in PLP have a rich history of fighting capitalism, equipped with revolutionary communist ideas. We must win workers to join us and wage an international struggle for communist revolution.

LETTERS

Fight-Back in Mexico and on Axle Picket Line

Several of us from a NYC organization attended the Labor Notes conference in Dearborn, Michigan on April 11-13, among some 1,000 delegates from the U.S. and overseas. There was one ugly incident: instead of fighting the war-making, racist, budget-cutting bosses, SEIU and California Nurses Association hacks physically fought each other over raiding members. Otherwise we had some very useful experiences.

In a workshop about unions and community groups we emphasized the fight for immigrant rights, particularly undocumented workers who suffer from the bosses' savage exploitation and discrimination.

We also heard from a San Luis Potosí, México union leader representing more than 300 workers fired from a glass plant that makes bottles for Corona and Modelo Extra Beer, very popular now in the U.S. After a long struggle, these workers organized a union independent of the pro-boss national union, and won a 19% wage hike plus other benefits. The boss retaliated, using the excuse of the U.S. recession, closing one plant and firing militant workers, so 250 lost their jobs. The boss hired new workers and forced them to sign blank papers, used later to make them members of the pro-company national union (very common in Mexico).

The fired workers are fighting back. They brought their protest to Anheuser-Busch (A-B) in the U.S., which controls 50% of the Modelo company. A-B's workers are represented by the Teamsters. One big Anheuser-Busch shareholder is married to the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

One great experience was to be one of 200 volunteers who picketed in support of the Axle workers, on strike for two months (see page 5). They're on the line 24-hours-a-day rain, snow or shine, keeping warm by burning wood in tanks. Workers from a nearby union local brought them food. They thanked us and offered to share their food. We chanted along with the pickets for two hours and raised some money for their struggle. Most gratifying, I distributed 40 CHALLENGES with the front-page article on the Axle strike. The workers thanked me for that.

It was great to share our struggles and views with other workers. I talked to a 22-year-old Mexican construction worker who has been working in New Orleans for two months. He showed lots of leadership at the conference, recounting many experiences in his young life in fighting the exploiting, abusive fascist bosses. I spoke to him about PLP and gave him CHALLENGE to share with other workers. We exchanged phone numbers to stay in contact.

Only a unified international working class, led by PLP, can achieve power through a communist revolution. Only then we will make our dreams as workers a reality.

A Red Fighter

When It Comes to Racism, There's No Debate

I recently attended a NYUDL (New York Urban Debate League) tournament in Bronx, NY. At lunchtime, I was happy to see debaters speaking on a bullhorn about the racist incident at a debate tournament in Newark, NJ, and the importance of fighting racism. Debaters circulated petitions amongst hundreds of students, teachers, parents, and other participants of many colors and ages. The petition called to outwardly oppose racism and to fight back united against racist acts, no matter how big or how small they may seem.

I was very excited to be a part of this tournament. Anti-racist actions like these are necessary to fight back against all of the attacks the bosses perpetrate against our class. Small fight-backs help raise class consciousness and will help set the sparks for the future communist revolution; the only way we can truly have a society without racism or borders. Every time I see fellow debaters with CHALLENGE in their hands, I know that there is hope for our long fight ahead. It's what gives me strength to keep struggling, to keep telling myself that what we do counts.

A Red Debater

Rutgers Coalition Walks Out Against the War

On March 27, 2008, a week after Rutgers students had their spring break, 600 students walked out against the war. The effort was the result of months of planning on the part of local Rutgers activists involving PLP organizers.

The walkout itself, while not directly associated with the Party, provided us with an opportunity to build a base for future support. After the walkout a rally was held at the nearby Voorhees Mall. During the rally several speakers spoke about the various ways in which the war has destroyed their lives.

A mother of a fallen American soldier spoke of her pain, anguish, and anger at the folly of Bush's polices. An Iraqi native spoke of the numerous ways in which the war ravages her country every day. She gave an especially emotional story about the way in which American stray bullets from nearby firefights struck a relative of hers while she was sitting in her classroom. All of their words only affirmed the truth that we know: this war must end.

The walkout was followed by an independent movement of 300 students to march through the Rutgers campus, along the way having two sit-ins. The march went defiantly on the nearby highway, Route 18. It was an inspiring display of the disruptive and commanding force of a unified collective. This move by the students shows the power of the working class and the fact that working-class solidarity is unstoppable. The movement to end the war has undoubtedly grown stronger as a result of the walkout. Smashing the capitalist war machine is the only way to end this war and all wars. Working in movements like these are vital to establishing a network of comrades ready for the next step towards communist revolution.

Scarlet Communist

How Red-Led Mass Actions Stopped Foreclosures in the Great Depression

Over two million workers' families could lose their homes because of the subprime crisis. The bosses' media says basically nothing can be done about the foreclosures, caused by the bankers' thirst for profits. Clinton's and Obama's "solutions" merely postpone the "inevitable," proposing "negotiated compromises" between the banks and homeowners who can't afford mortgage payments. The Federal Reserve bails out failing banks and McCain says "the free market will take care of things."

But 75 years ago during the Great Depression, the working class -- led by communists -- had a better idea, and it wasn't voting.

When the marshals were evicting workers from their homes -- throwing their belongings onto the street -- or family farmers were losing their homesteads, hundreds and thousands of workers would show up on the day of the eviction or foreclosure and literally overwhelm the marshals and the cops and simply carry the furniture back into the workers' homes. A NY Times headline (Feb. 27, 1932) read: "1,500 Fight Police to Aid Rent Strike."

When bankers or realtors at auctions were bidding on foreclosed Iowa homesteads, hundreds of neighbors would show up, surrounding them, and while one farmer -- "fingering a rope" -- would menace the rich bidders, another would bid a penny for the farm. "Sold" cried the auctioneer, and then the "buyer" would return the farm to the foreclosed owner.

When a jobless worker was being denied "home relief" (welfare), 5,000 fellow unemployed would show up to make sure it was granted.

How was all this organized? In the early 1930's, when capitalism had laid off 17 million workers (one of every three workers was unemployed), the Communist Party led the organization of the National Unemployment Councils (NUC). On March 6, 1930, the Councils organized 1,250,000 jobless to take on the streets -- 110,000 packed New York City's Union Square, and were attacked by 25,000 cops whose bosses feared the start of a "revolution"; 100,000 unemployed marched in Detroit, 50,000 in Chicago and Pittsburgh, thousands more in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Cleveland.

These mass Councils stopped thousands of evictions and foreclosures cold. In New York City, 185,794 families got eviction notices in the first six months of 1932. The Unemployment Councils moved over 77,000 back into their homes. On February 1, 1932, the NY Times reported that a "crowd numbering...1,000...stormed the police" to fight the eviction of three Bronx families.

Black workers were the hardest hit and became the most active in the Councils, leading many of the anti-eviction struggles, which fought racism as a number one priority.

By 1938, the NUC had a membership of 800,000. They helped stop scabs as workers struck for unionization and the 8-hour day. There was great unity between the employed and unemployed as all saw it in their class interest to fight their struggles together.

Matthew Woll, an AFL union "leader," labeled this movement a "Kremlin conspiracy," but the NUC, with communists playing a leading role, vehemently rejected this red-baiting.

It was out of this mass ferment that the CIO organized industrial unions. It all forced the Roosevelt-led ruling class to enact unemployment insurance, welfare, Social Security, the 40-hour week and collective bargaining laws. It was workers' violent struggle that won these reforms, not voting for Roosevelt.

Unfortunately, the Communist Party got sucked into the "progressive" Roosevelt coalition instead of fighting for workers' power. The communists did not concentrate on using these reform struggles to win workers to understand that the ruling class still held state power and would use it to reverse these victories. Today, the working class is paying for this reformist error.

The anti-communist liberals and their union lieutenants have helped the bosses water down class consciousness and mass militancy. Today, racism against black, Latin and immigrant workers is rampant, while union-busting and fascist wage-cuts make workers pay for the bosses' crisis and endless imperialist wars. Meanwhile, too many workers and youth see voting for Obama or Hillary as the answer, instead of waging a mass fight-back.

Illusions die hard, but we in PLP are confident that workers and youth won't be taking it on the chin forever. We must build a mass base for our communist politics among workers, exposing the racist bosses as the cause of the problem, and their politicians and union servants as part of it. This May Day is an important step in this long road towards fighting for a communist society where workers' interests, instead of the profits of bankers and bosses, are the only priority.

1968: How 10 Million Workers Shut Down France

Forty years ago this May, a revolt by millions of French workers and students led to a general strike that paralyzed the country for three weeks, caused the government to collapse and electrified the entire world. This struggle's anniversary is noteworthy because "May 68" still has much to teach us.

The upheaval began as a student protest, similar to those occurring on a daily basis during that period throughout Europe and the U.S., although general working-class anger and a 67-day white-collar metal workers' strike in Saint Nazaire in 1967 provided the tinder for the spark that was about to come. That strike affected all the metal workers and won broad solidarity from all the workers in the city, especially from women's protest marches of 3,000 and 4,000.

On March 22 in 1968, about 150 students and others invaded an administration building at Nanterre University outside Paris to demand reforms in the university's budget. The administration called the cops and the students left the building. Protests continued, so on May 2 the administration closed Nanterre.

Four days later, 20,000 students and professors marched to the Sorbonne, Paris's main university. The police rioted, launching tear gas grenades and beating and arresting hundreds of protesters. On May 10, another mass demonstration led to a pitched battle, lasting well into the night. Again, the cops ran amok. Police provocateurs launched Molotov cocktails, providing a convenient excuse for more beatings and arrests.

By now, sympathy for the student protesters and revulsion at police brutality was spreading throughout the working class. The French "Communist" Party -- having long become a pro-ruling class puppet -- and other fake-left organizations attempted to co-opt the growing movement with a call for a one-day strike on May 13. More than a million people marched through Paris that day. The government made minor concessions, but the protests mounted.

Most significantly, they spread throughout the working class. On May 13, workers at the Sud Aviation plant in the western city of Nantes began a sit-down strike. A strike by Renault auto parts workers near the northern city of Rouen spread to the Renault manufacturing complexes in the Seine valley and the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. By May 16, workers had occupied 50 factories; by May 17, the number of strikers had swelled to 200,000. A day later, two million were on strike; the following week, 10,000,000 workers, roughly two-thirds of France's work-force, had hit the bricks.

Significantly, these strikes were not led by the organized unions, which did everything in their power to contain and reverse the movement. Police terror having failed, the labor "leadership," including the "Communist" Party, tried bribery, but the workers turned down a significant pay increase and remained on strike.

On May 30, nearly a half-million workers and students marched through Paris chanting "Adieu, De Gaulle" (Farewell De Gaulle), to express their hatred for France's president and his government.

De Gaulle had already flown secretly to Germany to enlist the support of the infamous General Jacques Massu, known for his justification of torture during France's colonial war in Algeria. De Gaulle had appointed Massu commander of French military forces in Germany, and Massu was preparing to send French regiments home to suppress the revolt.

However, the French ruling class didn't need the army. The revolt quickly subsided because of its own internal flaws. Crucial among these was the absence of leadership from a revolutionary communist party with a mass base within the working class. Only such a party could have given strategic and tactical direction to the longing angrily expressed by French workers and students for fundamental change in society. Only such a party could have raised the question of smashing capitalist state power and replacing it with a working-class dictatorship. This is the key lesson for us today, but not the only one.

The revolt occurred at a time when the concept of the working class's role in society and the revolutionary process had come under assault from a gaggle of fake-left "theorists," led by a professor named Herbert Marcuse. The millions who struck France's factories exposed the shallowness of this viewpoint and dramatically showed that the working class alone, which builds and runs everything, has the potential to revolutionize society and bring about meaningful change. This principle is just as valid today.

The events of May 68 also clearly demonstrated the key secondary role of students and intellectuals in the revolutionary process. It's no accident that the struggle began on a college campus before spreading to the factories. Despite several abortive attempts, France's student strikers failed to make a significant alliance with the millions of working-class strikers, but this failure in no way invalidates the strategic necessity for a worker-student alliance. More than anything, it highlights the absence of communist leadership.

A third key lesson is the absolute bankruptcy of reformism. The workers who rejected the salary bribe had an inkling of the right idea here; without a communist party to lead them, they were forced to fight blindfolded, with one hand tied behind their backs.

After the strike ended, De Gaulle quit the presidency, replaced by his henchman, Georges Pompidou. A host of reforms ensued. Forty years later, France remains a capitalist dictatorship. Unemployment for younger workers hovers between 20 and 25 percent and is much higher for immigrant workers. Racism, particularly against black workers from Africa and Arab workers is rampant in the land of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." France's rulers continue to seek status as junior partners in the bloody scramble among U.S. bosses and others for control of Persian Gulf oil. French capitalism is thus helping grease the skids for the next world war.

Pro-boss cynics say May 68 justifies the lie that class struggle always leads to disappointment. PLP differs. The struggles of workers and students in France two generations ago belong to our class's living history, if we absorb their lessons and interpret them correctly. In the past four decades, capitalism has solved none of the problems that led to this revolt. If anything, the problems have worsened. Therefore, more revolts are only a matter of time. In fact, now there is speculation about workers' reaction to this 40th anniversary and whether current student demonstrations and school occupations could spark another strike wave.

PLP's job remains the same everywhere: to spread our revolutionary ideas and build our revolutionary organization under any and all circumstances, so that when struggle of this magnitude once again erupts, its goal will be working-class dictatorship and its outcome will be a massive spurt in the ranks of communist-minded workers and students.

Ira Gollobin: A Communist for All Seasons

Ira Gollobin, a great friend of PLP who made an enormous contribution in the area of dialectical materialism, died from a staph infection in his blood and lungs on Friday, April 4, in his 97th year. In a lifetime of struggle, Ira was as much at home on the picket line as in the courtroom. He never stopped fighting for nearly an entire century!

In addition to authoring one of the definitive works on Dialectics, Ira had a great influence on PLP. He was present at a December 1961 meeting of a group of about 30 members of the old Communist Party (CP) who had concluded that the CP was dead as a communist organization and that it was necessary to organize a new party. Out of that meeting the Progressive Labor Movement was born six months later, and the Progressive Labor Party three years after that. Ira endorsed that outlook.

For years afterwards, he taught many classes on dialectics to leaders and members of PL and was partly responsible for the crucial emphasis PLP has placed on members studying this subject. This was probably his most important contribution to our Party. In addition, Ira was our lawyer in many government attacks on the Party, as far back as the early 1960s, and then taking the offensive against the witch-hunting House UnAmerican Activities Committee ( HUAC). Ira always agreed with our position to not simply rely on the "legal" front but to organize militant demonstrations and make a political defense (which many other lawyers told us would "hurt" our case).

In his early years as an attorney in New York City, Ira defended many victims of the Great Depression. After he passed the bar in 1935, he left New York to spend a year "seeing the country." He became a migrant worker, picking oranges and walnuts in the fields of the West, "riding the rails" with jobless workers. He said these experiences "sealed my identification with the underdog."

When distributing leaflets during a strike at Presbyterian Hospital in NYC, he met members of the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign Born and eventually this cause dominated his life as he became the country's leading immigration lawyer and a member of the Committee's General Counsel. He saved the jobs of 1,500 NYC foreign-born transit workers and enabled workers fleeing Nazi Germany and Franco's fascist Spain to be admitted to the U.S. He won a landmark decision before the U.S. Supreme Court for 300 Haitian immigrants who had been refused asylum, the government claiming they were "economic" refugees, but Ira won the case to identify them as political refugees fleeing the Duvalier dictatorship.

Over the years we sent him scores of workers with immigration problems and he successfully defended them against government attacks (money for fees was never an obstacle).

Ira was part of a generation that risked their lives to join the fight against fascism, first in the Spanish Civil War, and then against the Nazis and the Japanese fascists, a fight led by the world communist movement. Ira was more than a lawyer. Being a dialectician, he understood the necessity to practice what he preached.

Serving in the Philippines in the army when World War II ended in 1945, he led a struggle to prevent U.S. rulers from using thousands of GI's to repress the communist-led Filipino guerrilla movement (the "Huks") -- that had been crucial in defeating the Japanese -- and even to ship them to Vietnam to assist the French colonial oppressors in that country. But the GI's, having defeated Japanese fascism, were seeking to return home and wanted no part of this, looking on the "Huks" as comrades-in-arms. So Ira helped organize militant actions opposing the brass, putting 35,000 GI's into the streets of Manila on January 7, 1946. He led a 5-member committee that met with the brass to tell them the GI's would refuse to carry out this mission for U.S. imperialism. They succeeded and the GI's were shipped home over the ensuing months (although Ira and the committee were immediately flown back to the States, the brass not wanting to deal with their leadership). The "Bring the Boys Home" movement soon spread around the world. (For CHALLENGE article, see website: <http://www.plp.org/cd02/cd0313.html>

Ira was a stickler for physical fitness. In his 70's and 80's he was still running six miles a day, six days a week and was working out in the gym three times a week in his 90's. (In going through his belongings in the hospital his daughter found his gym card still in his back pocket.) He spent 20 years writing his monumental work, "Dialectical Materialism, Its Laws, Categories and Practice."

Ira was a supporter of PLP right to the end, generous in his financial donations, giving our Party five cartons of Marxist books from his personal library. The revolutionary communist movement will sorely miss Ira, but his contribution to Marxist theory and practice will live on in our members' study of dialectical materialism and the carrying out of that theory in practice, a cause to which Ira devoted his life. The best way we can honor him is to use those tools to organize a communist revolution and the emancipation of the working class.

REDEYEONTHE NEWS

US workers losing wage battle

The $20 hourly wage, introduced on a huge scale in the middle of the last century.... is on its way to extinction....

The shrinkage is sometimes quite open. The Big Three automakers are buying out [over 100,000] employees who earn above $20 an hour, replacing many with new hires tied to a "second tier" wage scale that never quite reaches $20.... and with fewer benefits.

The United Auto Workers agreed to this arrangement, accepting management's argument that it must have labor cost relief to rebound and prosper....

The auto workers weren't first. They ratified a practice that had spread... lowering earning power for new hires.

Two tiers is one tactic. Another is filling middle-income jobs with temporary workers earning less. Add outsourcing to the list.... Then there are the manufacturers who close a union plant and shift production to a nonunion one, often in the South but also in the Midwest....

Tens of thousands of workers have accepted wage cuts pressed on them by embattled employers. (NYT, 4/20)

US ally slaughters unionists

More than 2,500 union members in Colombia have been killed since 1985, with fewer than 100 cases resulting in convictions.... President Uribe's former intelligence chief is under investigation for handing over lists to paramilitaries of union leaders and other left-wing figures who were singled out for assassination. (NYT, 4/14)

People know who really runs US

Asked how much the country should be governed according to the will of the people -- on a scale with 0 meaning not at all and 10 completely -- the mean response is 7.9.... But Americans do not think this is what they are getting. Asked how much influence the people do have, the mean response is far lower: on average 4.0.

This may explain, in part, why just 19 percent say they believe the country is run "for the benefit of all the people," while 80 percent say it is "run by a few big interests looking out for themselves."(LAT, 4/4)