War, Racist Cutbacks Still Hitting All Workers

History Of GI Rebellions

• a href="#History of Revolt — U.S. Military in Vietnam">"istory of Revolt — U.S. Military in Vietnam

a href="#100,000 Iraqis Massacred for U.S. Bosses’ Control of Oil">"00,000 Iraqis Massacred for U.S. Bosses’ Control of Oil

GI Off to Iraq with Red Ideas

Union Election Opens Debate on Power

• Political Base-Building Will Lead To Real Power
• a href="#Democracy vs. Workers’ Power">"emocracy vs. Workers’ Power

a href="#Judge Wipes Out Miners’ Jobs, Health Care">"udge Wipes Out Miners’ Jobs, Health Care

a href="#NYC Workers Back GI’s Who Refused Suicide Orders">"YC Workers Back GI’s Who Refused Suicide Orders

a href="#Youth Hear Voting Can’t Change Society">"outh Hear Voting Can’t Change Society

a href="#PL’ers Bring Reds Ideas to Profs’ Strike Actions">PL"ers Bring Reds Ideas to Profs’ Strike Actions

a href="#Who’s Really Paying for the Guard? A Lesson in Surplus Value">"ho’s Really Paying for the Guard? A Lesson in Surplus Value

San Francisco Hotel Strike: No Room for Scabs

A Single Step in the Long Journey Toward Revolution

PLP Leads FIght Against Military Recruiters in H.S.

PLP Exposes Police Brutality at Red Sox Celebration

a href="#China’s Rebelling Workers Need Red Leadership to Dump Exploiters">"hina’s Rebelling Workers Need Red Leadership to Dump Exploiters

a href="#Sudan’s Oil Fuels China-U.S. Imperialist Rivalry">"udan’s Oil Fuels China-U.S. Imperialist Rivalry

• Sudan and World Oil Supplies: A Comparison

LETTERS

New Wind Blowing Against the War

a href="#Daughter, PLP and CHALLENGE ‘get me through the day’">Da"ghter, PLP and CHALLENGE ‘get me through the day’

Profits vs. Patient Care

Back Reservists Who Disobeyed Orders

Traitor General

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

• Plan another war for oil
• Capitalism hurts health
• Pakistanis see oil motive
• Say goodbye to promises
• What’s ‘left’? Nothing much

• ---

Whether You Voted for Bush or Kerry, It Won’t Stop

War, Racist Cutbacks Still Hitting All Workers

As we go to press, Kerry has conceded the election, one showing a tremendous polarization in the U.S., but it’s the wrong one. Too many workers and their allies were suckered into believing voting for Bush or Kerry would change their lives. Actually, Kerry inspired virtually nobody because fundamentally his positions were the same as Bush’s.

Instead of being pro-Bush or pro-Democrat, workers, students and soldiers must become pro-communist, anti-imperialist war, anti-racist, anti-budget cuts and anti-fascist. The polarization must be between workers and their allies against the ruling class, which controls both parties. The differences between the two parties are tactical, on how to continue the quagmire in Iraq, which has murdered 100,000 Iraqis and over 1,100 GIs to make sure Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, & Co. control Iraq’s vast oil wealth. They differed on how to administer the war budget which will continue to attack workers and youth at home. PLP’s modest actions on election day point to the road workers and students need to follow:

NEWARK, NJ, Nov. 2 — A multi-racial group of workers, soldiers and students rallied and marched in front of the downtown Newark Army recruitment center (next to a polling station) from 4 to 5 p.m. on Election Day. Two young soldiers held a sign that supported the 343rd Company, which had refused to obey orders in Iraq. We also received very supportive waves from two of the soldier-recruiters.

Spirited chants included: "Bush, Kerry, You can’t hide, We charge you with genocide!"; "No Matter Who Wins The Election, The War Will Still Go On!"; and, "1-2-3-4, We Won’t Fight Your Oil War!" Many passing cars honked in cadence with our chants.

PLP members, friends and supporters leafleted the area. Capitalist elections are important for the ruling class, who use them to deal with conflicts among themselves, and to dupe workers and others into having "faith in the system." In a communist society, run by and for the working class, we’ll fight imperialism, not workers of other countries.

This excellent action encouraged many working-class people making deliveries and exiting the nearby office buildings; impressed the soldiers and potential recruits with our militancy and multi-racial unity; and inspired those who attended to keep the struggle going.

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 2 — PLP collectives held two vigorous rallies opposing the bosses’ election day orgy of patriotism, in Brooklyn and the Bronx, selling nearly 900 CHALLENGES and distributing over a thousand leaflets. Brooklyn’s banners read, "Elections Can’t Fix Capitalism" and "Bush, Kerry = More War." They drew lots of attention and debates. Although many workers still have a lot of illusions about voting, the failures of capitalism are evident. We didn’t get a single hostile response from the mainly black and Latin workers passing our rallies. We made three contacts on the street and sold ten CHALLENGE subscriptions in one school in the last two days.

The Bronx demonstration at a military recruiting station denounced the presidential election as a lose-lose situation for the working class and its allies. We urged workers and students to reject both candidates as puppets of the ruling class, and to join with PLP to build a communist future.

We linked the imperialist oil wars to the cutbacks in education, healthcare and jobs. One person told us the military was taking our children to commit genocide in the Middle East. Others said they voted for Kerry because they hated Bush, not because Kerry could solve our problems. We must continue to organize struggle against the ruling class as we fight the "lesser evil" position. We will follow up the several contacts made and maintain a consistent presence and CHALLENGE sale in this community.

History Of GI Rebellions

The Pentagon recently acknowledged that 843 former soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) failed to report for duty as of Oct. 17. Approximately 37% of a total of 2,288 soldiers have refused to notify the military of their whereabouts. The army is "still working to establish contact." While rarely called back to active duty, the members of the IRR are highly skilled, formerly active soldiers who were honorably discharged. If over one third of them refuse to deploy, the army’s mission will be seriously undermined.

Recently the San Francisco Chronicle reported on a Stars and Stripes survey which found that half the troops described their unit’s morale as low, and one-third believed their mission had little or no value. Many perceived themselves as sitting ducks, sacrificed for questionable reasons.

Perhaps the most stunning recent news came from actions taken by the Army’s 343rd Quartermaster Company. Virtually one whole platoon of 19 soldiers refused to obey orders to deliver fuel without adequate protective escort, from Tallil to Taji, Iraq. Quickly attempting to put a spin on the combat zone refusal, a court martial offense, Major William Ritter of the 81st Support Command declared, "It was not a mutiny." The major no doubt had his political and public relations orders, but when soldiers, en masse, refuse to carry out a direct order, it is mutiny. One soldier, a 20-year-old from Vicksburg Mississippi, via e-mail, "Asked his mom to find out what the penalties were if he refused [to carry out orders] or if he ‘struck a superior officer.’"

Truck convoys are increasingly the targets of Iraqi insurgents who seek to undercut already stretched supply lines. Recent captures of foreign nationals have included truck drivers. Supply runs are increasingly dangerous as the insurgency accelerates. The 343rd’s refusal to obey orders is further evidence of weakening morale, which, if it spreads, could seriously undermine the U.S. military’s ability to sustain its occupation of Iraq.

The history of the U.S. soldiers’ resistance and rebellion in Vietnam shows that morale weakness and sporadic resistance can become a full-scale movement against racism and imperialist war itself. Russian history has shown that over time this can lead many to draw revolutionary conclusions and act on them. These developments are not guaranteed, but the potential is there.

a name="History of Revolt — U.S. Military in Vietnam">">"istory of Revolt — U.S. Military in Vietnam

By 1971, the U.S. military could no longer sustain its military objective in Vietnam because soldiers, marines, sailors and members of the Air Force were refusing to fight, committing sabotage, standing up together against racism, and some were even attempting the assassination of their own officers. David Cortright, himself a Vietnam veteran, extensively documents the GI revolt in Vietnam. In 1992, he explained that new information revealed that the revolts in Vietnam were even more widespread than he first reported. "Low-ranking GI’s organized more than 250 anti-war committees and underground newspapers….The resistance within the ranks resulted in a severe breakdown in military effectiveness and combat capability. By 1969, the army had ceased to function as an effective fighting force and it began to disintegrate rapidly. The very survival of the armed forces depended upon withdrawal from Indochina." ("Give Peace A Chance," p. 116)

In a major essay for Foreign Affairs (April 1972), Morris Janowitz, a military sociologist, wrote, "The military establishment, and especially the ground forces, are experiencing a profound crisis in legitimacy due to the impact of Vietnam, internal racial tension, corruption, extensive drug abuse, loss of command and operational effectiveness, and widespread anti-military sentiment…"

By December, 1972, Col. Robert Heinl, the dean of military historians, argued in the Armed Forces Journal that morale in the Navy was in crisis: "In addition to mounting incidents of shipboard sabotage and other . . . [attacks] and disorders short of mutiny, the Navy has undergone at least five and probably six episodes…which fully qualify within the legal definition of mutiny."

Dave Cortright in "Soldiers in Revolt" (1975) details a highly credible exposé of U.S. soldiers as critical to the U.S. ruling class’s failure to win the Vietnam War. Citing another article by Heinl, Cortright notes the Colonel’s scathing critique of U.S. military breakdown. "The morale, discipline, and battle-worthiness of the U.S. armed forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States." (Armed Forces Journal, June 1971)

Cortright traces the "GI movement" that opposed the Vietnam War as it erupted first within the Marines and Army whose troops bore the brunt of fighting and took the greatest casualties. However, as the Pentagon altered its primary reliance on army and marines to a strategy of air assaults and naval bombardment from 1970-73, the resistance exploded within the ranks of air force and naval personnel as well.

This change of U.S. military strategy and the ineffectiveness of troops on the ground was a direct result of the heroic, committed fight of the Vietnamese workers and peasants who — along with the Cambodians and Laotians — suffered some five million deaths in defeating the almighty U.S. imperialist war machine. Unfortunately their heroism has been betrayed by the "market-socialism" rulers now running the country, welcoming Nike, Ford, Sony and other capitalists to super-exploit Vietnamese workers.

Clearly, the anti-war movement at home influenced military personnel tremendously. However, Cortright refutes the widely assumed belief that college-educated, more privileged draftees spearheaded the resistance. In fact, the least privileged soldiers — especially black and Latin working-class soldiers, and also white-working class soldiers (many enlistees) — led the most heroic mutinies of the armed forces by the late 1960’s and early 1970’s until the war’s end. According to Cortright, "the Army’s own survey shows that more than half of all soldiers during 1970-1971 became involved in some form of resistance activity—a remarkable and unprecedented level of disaffection."

(This is the first article in a series on the history of revolts in the U.S. and Russian armies. Next: Critical mutinies during the Vietnam era.)

a name="100,000 Iraqis Massacred for U.S. Bosses’ Control of Oil">">"00,000 Iraqis Massacred for U.S. Bosses’ Control of Oil

"The death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is probably about 100,000 people, and may be much higher…. More than half the deaths reportedly caused by the occupying forces were women and children. Air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths."

So wrote a team of researchers in Britain’s leading medical journal, The Lancet (10/29/04), only partly revealing the genocidal horror of U.S. imperialism’s latest oil war. The Lancet team didn’t look at deaths from diseases related to disrupted water and sewer facilities or from malnutrition in besieged cities. But the report underlines a central truth about U.S. — and all capitalist — rulers: when major sources of profit are at stake, they quickly resort to the mass destruction of human life. And it doesn’t matter who occupies the White House. The 14-year U.S. campaign for Iraq’s oil riches has been a war crime from its inception, through Republican and Democratic regimes. Atrocity has proved the rule rather than the exception.

We can expect more indiscriminate killing. As this is written, U.S. forces are preparing all-out assaults on Fallujah and Ramadi. In attacks typical of the current phase of the war, U.S. planes shower bombs, rockets and machine-gun fire on a city, "softening" it up for trigger-happy ground troops, who often can’t tell insurgents from non-combatants. Many Iraqis, including children, women and other civilians, get blown to bits immediately. Others suffocate in the rubble of their homes. Still more are maimed for life. These horrific tactics serve two purposes for U.S. rulers. One is their military need to control major population centers. The second is sheer terrorism: the rulers are demonstrating to all rivals, present and potential, the ruthlessness of the U.S. war machine.

The U.S.-led bid to wrest control of Iraq’s oil from the tyrant Saddam Hussein started with a UN-sponsored embargo in 1990. Food and medicine shortages soon began killing the very young, old and infirm. Gulf War I came in 1991. In addition to combat deaths, including massacres of Iraqis by U.S. forces, the invasion caused typhoid and cholera epidemics that a visiting team from Harvard’s School of Public Health called "apocalyptic" in their devastation. The Pentagon had deliberately targeted water and sewage treatment systems. As a result, "more than 46,900 children died between January and August 1991." (New England Journal of Medicine, 9/24/92)

But that war, while safeguarding Kuwaiti crude for Exxon Mobil and the rest, fell short of capturing Iraq’s vast reserves. So the sanctions continued, killing 350,000 Iraqi children under the age of five between 1990 and 2000, according to Columbia University researcher Richard Garfield. Bill Clinton intensified the carnage with bombardments and missile attacks recalling the Nazi World War II air raids on Britain.

But the rulers’ killing fields lie not only in Iraq. The U.S. military set a terroristic tone early on in Afghanistan when its airborne gunships wiped out a wedding party. And U.S. brass looked on approvingly while their Northern Alliance henchmen machine-gunned prisoners locked in shipping containers. U.S. world domination and wanton mass murder go hand-in-hand.

U.S. rulers now speculate about taking out Iran or North Korea. James Lindsay, vice-president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the leading U.S. foreign policy think-tank, coldly foresees rivers of blood: "Every military scenario I’ve seen about a [U.S.-led] war in the Korean Peninsula says an awful lot of people are going to get killed, and it won’t be necessarily restricted to North Koreans, it could be South Koreans, it could also be Japanese, as well." (CFR publication, 10/13/04)

As Lenin said, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. In it, groups of capitalists — organized into nations — compete via armed force for markets, resources and labor. Imperialists created genocide — systematic extermination — as their most effective weapon. With the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq strengthening; with bin Laden re-emerging; with Iran threatening to go nuclear, Saudi royals on a tightrope and Russian, Chinese and European bosses waiting in the wings, the capitalists’ fight over control of the Mideast’s oil is far from settled. Iran and China are near a "huge oil, gas deal. . . .The deal shows global energy needs are complicating U.S. security interests." (Wall Street Journal, 11/1)

The working class in Iraq, the Middle East and worldwide will continue to pay in blood until workers and youth realize that capitalism and wars for profits go hand in hand. GIs are beginning to oppose the war, disobey orders or refuse to report for extended duty. The way out of this endless butchery is to unite workers and soldiers and turn the imperialist wars into a revolutionary struggle for communism: workers’ power.

GI Off to Iraq with Red Ideas

One of the hardest things to realize as a communist is that I’m actually going to war, for a cause with which I completely disagree. Yet this journey opens the door for more intense Party work and experiences.

Many soldiers are asking themselves why the U.S. is in Iraq at all. The link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and the pretext of WMD have long been debunked. In a conversation with some fellow soldiers, amid disagreement over deployment of troops to Iraq, and criticism of U.S. intentions seeking Iraq’s oil, one soldier told me that she was glad she wasn’t with a couple of patriotic gung-ho’s. This occurred on the very first week of my deployment, reassuring me that there must be many more soldiers feel as we do.

Another time walking with some friends around a town, we saw a sign reading, "End the war for oil." They all said, "Right on!"

Nevertheless, even when soldiers are dissatisfied about being away from family, put in danger’s way and not totally agreeing with the cause of the war, there’s a sense of powerlessness among soldiers. However, history teaches us that, while the imperialists set the theater for war, but the outcome is in the hands of soldiers.

This is a different experience for me because everyone is forced into this war. We will face danger, and primary to all is survival. But the objective as a communist does not change. Seeking to build a base, I must lead more political discussions and bring my ideas to my friends. Although the situation can be intimidating, we must not underestimate the power of soldiers in a strong anti-imperialist collective. As tension rises, political struggle must intensify. Building a strong base is the first step.

My journey is just beginning. There have been lots of heated discussions over assignments by the brass. Dangerous assignments have angered many soldiers. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Red Soldier

Union Election Opens Debate on Power

Nearly 40% of the workers in a basic industrial local voted for a PLP member for delegate to the union governing body. He received more votes than any other "opposition" candidate, and would have won if not for a fixed election procedure. This positive showing intensified the struggle on the shop floor, in the union and in our Party. How we gain power has become the subject of debate.

Some opposition candidates focused on illegal and undemocratic aspects of the election process. The current procedure began in 1948 to stymie the efforts of communists and other left-wingers during the reactionary McCarthy period. This industry is crucial to the bosses’ imperialist ambitions and the ruling class wanted to make sure the union leadership was firmly in its pocket.

Since then, these misleaders, with generous financial help from the company, have fixed the electoral system, enabling them to run the union for many years. For instance, there are hundreds of union appointees — many actually paid by the company according to the contract — whose jobs depend on their support of the incumbents. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Already charges have been filed against some union full-timers who unlawfully campaigned for the leadership while on the clock. Other locals introduced resolutions to eliminate "block voting." Under this scheme, members must vote for a pre-determined number of candidates, even if only a few opposition candidates are running — forcing supporters of the opposition to vote for incumbents as well. According to the misleaders’ own calculations, our comrade would have won the election if union members were allowed to vote only for those candidates they wanted.

Political Base-Building Will Lead To Real Power

Whether or not these appeals amount to anything, we can’t forget what got us here in the first place. Unlike the other opposition candidates and the union machine, our campaign focused on the imperialist war in Iraq and racism. We based our campaign on confidence that workers would understand the links between these "big" issues and conditions on the shop floor.

"What are we here for, if not to talk about the big issues, war and racism?" argued an African-American woman worker at one of the shop meetings preparing for the election.

Not only did they understand, but they acted on it. Dozens helped distribute nearly 7,000 campaign flyers, which exposed the bosses’ plans and the union misleaders’ list of promises and "happy talk." Workers linked the attacks on our jobs to the Iraq war and racism.

Another black worker gathered his friends in his area for an extended discussion on how the Iraq war was hurting us all. He angrily protested the death and destruction of Iraqi civilians. We reminded him that a decade earlier he had supported Reagan’s invasion of Grenada.

"You see where supporting imperialism anywhere gets you," said our comrade who has known him for a long time. He agreed. Facts are stubborn things and imperialism never changes its spots. If we can’t win the argument now, we will eventually!

a name="Democracy vs. Workers’ Power">">"emocracy vs. Workers’ Power

Focusing on "democracy in the union" would sell these workers short. More importantly, it would spread the illusion that democracy and elections can ever lead to power for the working class. Democracy is a tactic used by the ruling class and their labor lieutenants to legitimize the bosses’ dictatorship. For instance, they invoked the sham of democracy to justify their imperialist oil grab when all their other pretexts were exposed.

Our goal is to prepare our class to take power with communist revolution to establish the dictatorship of the working class. Tactically, we must focus on deepening the political beachhead we made during the election campaign. A campaign to support the reservists who refused orders in Iraq fits the bill. How much longer will we allow the bosses to order our destruction — either in the factory or on the battlefield?!

The bosses democratic shams are no match for a working class armed with communist political understanding. No matter what happens with this election or any other, building a base for communist revolution remains the measure of our success.

Boss Admits, ‘That’s our system’ —

a name="Judge Wipes Out Miners’ Jobs, Health Care">">"udge Wipes Out Miners’ Jobs, Health Care

In the latest example of capitalism screwing workers, the real war by terrorists has come home to about 3,800 miners and their dependents in West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana who saw their company-financed health insurance "vanish[ed] with a swipe of Judge William Howard’s pen." (New York Times, 10/24) The bankruptcy judge granted the request of Horizon Natural Resources to terminate its union contract and just like that, the miners’ "guaranteed health insurance" was gone.

The terrorist bosses and their judge dealt a death blow to miners in their forties and fifties who "suffer health problems related to lifetimes of labor underground." At the same time, their sons and daughters and thousands of Iraqis are dieing at the hands of the same ruling class attacking the miners here. Carl Leake, retired after 31 years of making profit for the Horizon-owned Cannolton mine, with a "rock-solid promise of health insurance for life" (NYT), is now facing a $200,000 bill from his wife’s breast cancer treatment.

The judge and Horizon voided the union contract and its health benefits to sweeten the deal for financier William T. Ross to buy Horizon. Ross is the same banker that has bought up "bankrupt" steel mills like Bethlehem and LTV. Ross’s crocodile tears are a perfect indictment of capitalism: "I very much sympathize with the [miners]…It’s awful that these people are displaced. Unfortunately that’s our system…" (NYT) Exactly!

Now thousands of miners are bracing for new bankruptcy filings that will void even more union contracts, lay off miners and cancel their health insurance. All the useless United Mine Workers (UMW) leadership can do is hold Kerry rallies, since they have long abandoned the militant tradition of hundreds of thousands of coal miners who fought for and won these benefits. And just as the Clinton administration didn’t lift a finger to save the steelworkers in the 1990s, neither Kerry nor Bush will come to the aid of these miners and their families.

These miners, steelworkers and all workers must return to their militant tradition of mass fight-back, but this time turning them into schools for communism. Indeed, the fight for communism — a society without profiteers like Ross and his bosses and politicians — is a life and death struggle for the working class.

a name="NYC Workers Back GI’s Who Refused Suicide Orders">">"YC Workers Back GI’s Who Refused Suicide Orders

New York City, Oct. 20 — AFSCME’s Local 371 Delegate Assembly voted overwhelmingly to support the following resolution: "Resolved, that a letter of support be sent to the 18 Army Reservists of the 343rd Quartermaster Company who refused to carry out what they deemed to be a suicide mission."

U.S. armed forces are being asked to fight and possibly die for the aims of U.S. imperialism. The refusal of the 343rd shows that there are many who don’t want to do that. Hopefully many more refusals and other types of rebellions will follow, and be more political — opposing the war as imperialist. Meanwhile, widespread support can nullify punishment of these brave reservists.

The resolution originated the previous day when retired members discussed the incident at their monthly meeting. One member reported that a leaflet passed out by PLP members supporting the rebelling soldiers at the Oct. 17 Million Worker March received widespread approval. The retirees agreed that such rebellions would hasten the departure of U.S. occupiers from Iraq. They debated and then voted to authorize the long-time union activist to introduce such a resolution at the Local’s Delegate Assembly.

Tonight, before the meeting started, many delegates (who have long read CHALLENGE) were advised of the resolution and asked to support it. After the retiree explained the motion on the floor, it was moved and seconded by many voting delegates. (A retiree cannot make, or vote on, a resolution.) It passed with only one dissenting vote.

a name="Youth Hear Voting Can’t Change Society">">"outh Hear Voting Can’t Change Society

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Nov. 1 — Last week our PLP college club organized a successful fund-raising dinner, initiating a lively political discussion on the presidential elections, the war, and its effects on workers and students. The first speaker said we shouldn’t be fooled by the recent "get-out-the-vote" campaigns enlisting a host of celebrities to encourage people, especially young workers and students, to vote. She explained that the ruling class uses these campaigns to diffuse people’s anger towards a war that intensifies racist unemployment and cutbacks in education and healthcare.

"They tell you that people struggled and died for the right to vote," she continued, "but that was because they thought it was the only way to change society." She then explained that no matter who’s elected, their role is to carry out the ruling class’s agenda of war and fascism.

The next two speakers focused on the war in Iraq, the U.S. imperialist plan, the possibility of a draft and the GI’s who refused orders. Many students expressed concern about being drafted. However, they were encouraged when one speaker related a conversation he’d had with some students. He had been talking about how the only way to end imperialist war was to organize a communist revolution against capitalism. When one student said, "But they have the military and the guns," another countered, "I’ve never seen a boss walking around with a gun." Then the first student realized, "Oh, wait, we have the guns. We are the soldiers who they train with guns."

At the dinner, one student — reacting to this story — said she felt good being around people who were organizing to fight these attacks on young workers. Another person emphasized that the 19 GI’s who refused their dangerous orders were a good example and a sign of things to come.

The last speaker pointed to the importance of fund-raising for PLP and CHALLENGE. She explained that PLP is the party of the working class and doesn’t receive funds from corporations or ruling-class foundations. The affair raised over $200, half of the college club’s goal. Several students signed up for study groups and subscribed to CHALLENGE.

In other recent events here, a section of a teacher’s union passed a resolution supporting the GI’s who refused orders in Iraq. A teach-in on the draft at a local college was very well-attended with good discussions about imperialism and how to fight it, and the need to reach out to people in the military. At another college forum on the war, there was enthusiastic support for sending letters to the GI’s who refused their orders.

A lively, well-attended house forum discussed the imperialist war, the election and the draft — both the economic and racist draft as well as general conscription. Three students presented information about the war, the economy, racism and the need for communist revolution. Many of the youth stayed late into the night, making plans to bring anti-imperialist and communist politics into groups on their campuses.

When one said the generals in Iraq wanted to fight the war well and that’s why the reservists got publicity, another pointed out that the imperialists and the soldiers have opposing interests. The imperialists want to expand the war for oil profits and win the loyalty of the soldiers, while the soldiers and their families want to end the war sooner and return safely. These activities show there’s a lot of potential to win youth to become active members of a fighting PLP.

a name="PL’ers Bring Reds Ideas to Profs’ Strike Actions"></">PL"ers Bring Reds Ideas to Profs’ Strike Actions

CHICAGO, IL — On October 19, 750 full-time professors at the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) struck for the first time in 26 years, protesting increased workloads and class-size, and cuts in salary and health benefits. The walkout by Local 1600 of the Illinois Federation of Teachers directly affects the 60,000 working-class students they teach, and indirectly the 90,000 others taught by part-timers (two-thirds of the faculty). PLP is fighting to turn this contract struggle into a fight against racist attacks on public education and the 150,000 mostly black, Latin, women and immigrant young worker-students.

The Party has been active on a few campuses for three years and developed a small base. PLP members joined the picket lines to distribute CHALLENGE, a leaflet about the elections, and to support to the striking teachers. On the first day, we helped organize the entire first-year Physician Assistants class at Malcolm X College to join the picket line instead of taking an exam. The next day we sold about 30 CHALLENGES and distributed fliers at the Malcolm X and Harold Washington campuses, getting into many discussions about communism and the presidential elections. We met many old friends and made six new contacts.

We spent most of the afternoon with four students, discussing the strike and talking politics. We all went to a Strike Solidarity Committee (SSC) meeting, including 17 other students from all seven city colleges. PLP’ers presented a communist analysis of the strike, explaining how racist cuts in education and health care are financing the imperialist war in Iraq and fascist Homeland Security. Plans were made for two demonstrations and we persuaded the group to think about building unity with other workers, such as the CTA transit workers who just received 1,000 layoff notices.

On the third day, the Student Government Association (SGA) organized a pro-administration student rally against the strike. They claimed "neutrality," yet made anti-strike signs and had Chancellor Wayne Watson and his entourage present. Watson makes $219,000/year and has free family healthcare for life.

The SSC organized students and teachers to join this rally and confront Watson and the SGA. About six SGA members, the Chancellor and about 75 other students and teachers were in the park when about 30 students and teachers from Malcolm X College marched to the rally chanting, "Cut-Backs Mean We Got To Fight Back!" We were organized and militant, and everyone joined our chant. When Watson was booed in front of the TV cameras, he scurried off like a rat.

We held our own rally at which a Stroger-Cook County Hospital worker spoke in support of the strike, telling students and teachers they may be needed to support County healthcare workers who are in contract negotiations. The students shouted their support. We distributed more CHALLENGES, leaflets, and made more contacts. After the rally about 12 students came with us to Daley College to spread the word.

Another rally was organized for City Hall. While the Local 1600 leadership said the main goal was to pressure Mayor Daley into mediating their contract, nearly 450 teachers and students chanted, "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated," and nearly 60 students made their way to a sit-in outside Daley’s office. The building shook with militant chants. We discussed the possibility of getting arrested and the role of the police as servants of the ruling class.

The union tried to convince us to leave while students on the outside organized more teachers and students to support the sit-in. The union leadership sent "messengers" telling us that we had won, and that the union and administration were back negotiating. The sit-in ended after a very sharp division between those who wanted to continue and others who insisted on leaving. But when we returned to our campuses we found that they lied to us — there were no new negotiations.

There has been a lot of struggle about how to circulate CHALLENGE in a mass way, how much time to spend on strengthening the SSC, and that building the Party is primary, building personal ties and using the paper.

More students are making the connections with the increasing war budget, homeland security and the militarization of the Chicago Public Schools. More students are taking responsibility for the rapidly growing Strike Committee, while we focus on building the Party. There are many contradictions working in mass organizations, but with a strong collective, we have the potential to build a CCC Party club out of this struggle.

a name="Who’s Really Paying for the Guard? A Lesson in Surplus Value">">"ho’s Really Paying for the Guard? A Lesson in Surplus Value

"The pay for a guard to watch our cars in the company parking lot shouldn’t come out of our pockets. Let the bosses pay!" said a worker emphatically. "I agree," said another. That’s how it started, or in this case continued — one of the many discussions and political debates occurring daily in this pants factory.

This grew out of a worker’s car being stolen from the parking lot. Since then, the parking lot gate has stayed locked. If one needs to go there, he must ask for, and return, the key. The boss is also replacing a fence around the lot. All this makes it more difficult to steal cars but doesn’t prevent minor damage, like broken windows or stolen stereos.

A worker who wrongly argued that we should pay the guard’s salary did so because he and others have newer cars and don’t want them damaged. But the other worker disagreed, saying, "Let the boss use the guard watching us so we won’t steal the pants watch the lot instead." Another worker added, "It’s true, the boss doesn’t care about our belongings. The guard watching us also guards the smaller parking lot, where the boss and his confidants park their cars."

"Well," argued the worker who wanted the workers to hire a guard, "the boss is doing a lot to even give us free parking. In the downtown area, the workers must pay for it and it’s expensive."

Another worker challenged this: "It’s true they allow us a place to park, but only because it serves their interests. In the downtown area, most workers use the bus and don’t need parking. Cars are the only guarantee we’ll get to work."

"But." said the worker arguing for the workers to pay, "the boss is spending lots of money. Rent here alone is costing him $27,000 a month."

"What, he doesn’t have money?" asked the other worker, a little sarcastically. "And the thousands of dollars he puts in his pocket every week made off our sweat? Some other time we’ll discuss this question at its root, about surplus value. Now let’s see approximately how much we produce in profits for the boss.

"He gets $9 for each pair of finished pants. The most he spends on wages and costs for these pants is about $4, leaving him a minimum of $5 profit per pair. When there’s enough work, we make an average of 3,000 pairs a day. That means the boss keeps an average of $15,000 a day, $75,000 a week, not counting Saturdays, which we sometimes work. That’s more than enough to pay the rent, the guard, better wages and give us many benefits we don’t have."

"Well," said the other worker, "it’s a good talk but its time to start work. We’ll continue later."

The conversation ended but not the process of politicization of the workers. We’ve had talks about the presidential elections, the war, capitalism versus communism, etc. These and several work stoppages are creating a political environment where workers are more open to our communist ideas and more willing to express them and their anger in militant actions against the boss, his foreman and his guard.

San Francisco Hotel Strike: No Room for Scabs

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3 — Four thousand hotel workers struck here for two weeks and now are locked out indefinitely. Hotel bosses want to jack up workers’ health insurance payments from the current $10/month to $270/month! Bosses’ profits come before workers’ needs.

The strike is an inspiring fight-back. But the workers will get shafted if the union continues to emphasize reliance on Democratic Party politicians and "winning public opinion." The Mayor even walked the picket line for a few minutes, hypocritically declaring "support" for the workers, "support" which depends on workers’ pacifism and obeying the bosses’ laws. Once workers try to stop scabs and shut down the hotels, these politicians will disown us pronto.

Under capitalism, laws protect the bosses, not the workers. Their cops and courts defend the bosses. Strike-breaking is legal, shutting the hotels is not. The cops have even ticketed drivers for honking support for the strike.

The union’s diversity clause, to force hotel bosses to hire black workers — an anti-racist position unusual in today’s union movement — and its goal of a joint contract expiration with other locals around the country both build workers’ unity. But this position is rendered meaningless by its reliance on politicians and the bosses’ laws, and refusal to organize violent opposition to scabs.

Strikers welcomed PLP’ers who joined the picket lines, raising ideas based on working-class solidarity and militancy. Young PL’ers led chants like, "Down with the Scabs, Power to the Workers!" and "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated!" We confronted scabs twice, yelling the chants in their faces, but this didn’t stop them. Workers’ anger was starting to boil. The PL’ers said the strike is important for the entire working class, and that capitalism never provides for the needs of the working class.

PLP workers in transit (MUNI) also advanced working-class solidarity, and brought co-workers to picket. Even after they left, some of their solidarity posters were still being carried by strikers and stuck on lampposts: "SAME ENEMY, SAME FIGHT — MUNI AND HOTEL WORKERS UNITE!"

This solidarity was just a tiny taste of the power workers would have if united as one working class. If thousands of city, hospital and construction workers, teachers, janitors, and students flooded the picket lines, it could strike fear in the scabs and shut the hotels. This, plus the leadership of communist ideas, could bring us one step closer to workers seeing they have the power to smash capitalism and its "legal" exploitation.

A Single Step in the Long Journey Toward Revolution

BROOKLYN, NY — When the bosses go to war, the working class pays.

So we organize a fight back at this grossly overcrowded high school here. A group of teachers get together because they’re really fed up. The huge number of oversized classes is the final straw. Add to this the local union chapter’s inactivity. The infrequent meetings turn into no more than a place to complain. No actions are organized.

But our small group forges ahead. We have several meetings. We reach out to the parents at several PTA meetings. Students get involved. Several petitions are circulated. We call for an informational picket line outside the school and get an excellent response. Over 30 teachers participate, 20 to 30 parents and, of course, students lead the way; 150 participate during the 50 minutes. One student after another reads a prepared speech, linking the budget cuts to the war. Students lead the demonstration with their enthusiasm and militancy.

The next day I’m talking to a friend about the teacher-contract talks and the sellout the union leadership is promoting. He says something like: "I don’t know if we can get much more. These are bad times." I think about that for a minute and he’s right. These are very hard times for the working class. Budget cuts. Government deficits. Corporate bankruptcies. Cancelled pension plans. All governments are having some sort of fiscal crisis and they can’t provide many essential services for the working class. Even the big corporations are crying "broke." Of course, it’s only the working class that is suffering. The CEO’s are still raking in million dollar paychecks.

OOPS! There’s one major exception to U.S. economic problems. The rulers seem to have no problem funding their imperialist war in Iraq.

So how does our struggle against overcrowding and for smaller classes fit into this larger world picture? The U. S. ruling class (big business) is directing all monies toward imperialist war. They want to control the planet’s oil supplies, protect profits and rule the world. They don’t care about the education of young working-class students. That includes Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein.

So we’ll have to keep up the fight for a long time. We need more small victories to show that students, teachers and parents can stand up to the school bosses when we’re united. But to maintain the fight we need to train fighters for the working class. This is just one battle, with many more ahead. Communists are dedicated to carry this fight to its conclusion. Join us.µ

PLP Leads FIght Against Military Recruiters in H.S.

BROOKLYN, NY, Oct. 16 — A healthy dose of revolutionary communism was brought into a "Peace Fair" organized by the Brooklyn Parents for Peace when PLP students and teachers led a workshop on military recruiters in our schools. The need for revolution was placed front and center by a young comrade who linked budget cuts to imperialist war and the need for a movement opposing military recruitment in our schools.

A petition demanding all charges be dropped against the 18 U.S. soldiers in Iraq who refused orders was signed by about 30 participants. This campaign should be pursued much more vigorously.

An error many people make fighting on this issue is a tendency to write off the working-class youth that wind up joining the military. But the rulers’ economic draft will continue forcing some young people into the military. More importantly, our class brothers and sisters who join the military have the potential — and the necessity — to play a revolutionary role. We must understand the opportunity as well as the danger when young people decide to join the military.

We need many more young people at such events. While our high school youth do advance the Party’s ideas in speeches and are taken seriously by adults, it’s even more critical to bring the students and teachers in our schools to events where we can take the lead. We don’t welcome the bosses’ wars and we want military recruiters out of the schools. But we also know that opening the eyes of youth in and out of uniform to the need for, and possibility of, communist revolution lays the foundation for a red army of workers and youth to smash imperialist war for good.

PLP Exposes Police Brutality at Red Sox Celebration

BOSTON, Oct. 30 — Today, over three million fans celebrated the Red Sox Major League baseball victory, its first since 1918. But at least one family was mourning, not celebrating. A week before, after the Red Sox’ incredible comeback defeated their archrival N.Y. Yankees for the American League pennant, crowds gathered outside Fenway Park. After a bottle was thrown at a cop on horseback, the police fired pepper spray bullets into the crowd, killing a female college student.

The girl’s father was outraged, so the Police Commissioner visited the family to keep them quiet and save face. One Boston newspaper printed a large front-page color photo of the girl lying in a pool of blood. The media portrayed it as an unfortunate tragedy caused by drunk, irresponsible college students. They barely mentioned that the cops fired into the crowd.

A protest against police brutality was called for the Sunday game. When we arrived, about 30 people — some anarchists, students, "Marxists," the Green Party and others — were waiting with a petition to ban the use of pepper spray guns until the cops had "adequate training" to use them. They were out of sight of all the fans and street traffic.

While the protesters began making signs for the murdered student for a vigil outside Fenway Park, PLP members and friends crossed the street and began leafleting in front of the subway station as the fans poured onto the street. We explained how the murdered student had just been standing in the crowd, and how the cops were eager to use the new weapons originally used for crowd control during the Democratic National Convention. We said the militarization of the police was an aspect of rising fascism during wartime. Then we unfurled our banners that read, "No Police State Here," and "Police Serve the Ruling Class, Not the Working Class — Join PLP!"

The response from entering fans was far from positive. Many didn’t want anything to spoil the moment" for which they had been waiting for 86 years. Some even said the murdered young woman "deserved it." But communists have the duty to spread the truth no matter how unpopular it might be at the moment.

The following day PLP was mentioned in the Boston Herald, the city’s conservative newspaper, with a photo of our "No Police State" banner, and a quote from a comrade who said he wouldn’t feel "endangered by a Red Sox celebration. I think my life would be endangered by cops with weapons." The same comrade was also called by WRKO and put on the air by two right-wing talk show hosts. The comrade stood his ground, exposing how the cops had shot at another fan 13 times, just for sitting on the outside wall of Fenway Park. He also said the police shoot at people all the time in black and Latin neighborhoods. The murder of the young college student is another aspect of how racism hurts all workers and students.

We distributed a few hundred more leaflets in Cambridge, where we often sell CHALLENGE, and received a much better response. We must continue to tell people the true role of the cops and to organize against the growing police state here.

a name="China’s Rebelling Workers Need Red Leadership to Dump Exploiters">">"hina’s Rebelling Workers Need Red Leadership to Dump Exploiters

[Ed. Note: All of the facts in the following article were taken from the Toronto Globe & Mail, Oct. 20.]

Huang Benlin is one of some 200 million Chinese peasants who have moved from their impoverished villages to the cities in the biggest migration in human history. They are the muscle of China’s "economic miracle." They build the skyscrapers and expressways, make the cheap export goods, drive the trucks and lug the steel and cement that has created the boom for China’s bosses. They do the toughest and dirtiest jobs. Their labor has transformed China into becoming "the factory to the world."

Huang has suffered 24 years of low wages, exploitation and cruel bosses. His trucking company boss has refused to pay him owed wages (about 550 US dollars) from a year of hard labor in Beijing’s construction zones. He lost in court when his boss bribed the judges. So now, "In the cramped dormitory room where [he] spends his nights…violence is on his mind."

"I’ll scout out his place," says Huang, and then "come back at night to destroy the trucks,…smash them with heavy tools… [and] ambush the trucks on the road."

Violence between workers and bosses is increasing in the desperate world of China’s migrant workers. "We feel like slaves," says Huang. "We have to obey our bosses or we won’t get our money….It’s like being a prisoner."

Migrant workers suffer an apartheid-like system, denied city residence permits, living a semi-legal or illegal existence, arrested by the cops, easily exploited, without medical insurance, unemployment or housing benefits, or education rights for their children. Living in controlled compounds, sleeping in crude dormitories shared with 15 or 20 other workers, they must beg for permission to go outside.

They earn as little as $1 for a 12-hour day, often working 6 and 7 days a week, sometimes for days and nights without a break, most being paid as little as $60 a month — much of which pays their room and board and fees for permits they need in order to work. Without any organization to protect them, their choice is either unaffordable law suits or violence if a boss refuses to pay them wages due them. More than 70% of migrant workers are owed an astounding $15 billion in unpaid wages, primarily in the construction sector.

According to the Globe & Mail, a "Sociologist notes that the unpaid migrants can be accurately described as slaves, since they toil…for nothing more than a dormitory room and a couple of meals a day. If so, China has at least 10 million slaves."

Now a growing number of unpaid workers are protesting. "Hundreds have blockaded or picketed their employers….At a factory in Guangdong province, about 6,000 workers rioted for 36 hours…when they didn’t get [their] pay…"

The growing army of alienated migrants feels a deep anger at their exploitation. They are often desperately lonely, far from their families. Mr. Huang is just returning home for the first time in two years. In his two-story mud-and-cement house, there is no running water, no heat, no telephone and only a few naked bulbs for light.

His wife tends their cotton and wheat crops, raises their children and works at a noodle factory for $2 a day in her spare time. She wants him to drop his legal action and stay home, but Mr. Huang disagrees. "He is determined to keep fighting. He believes that an explosion is coming — and it might engulf more than just his former boss…. ‘We common people, the laborers, have done a lot to improve China’s economy….a lot more than the officials. If the injustices continue, we common people will be very disappointed. And our tactics could change.’"

Workers in China do need to get organized, but not with the the so-called "human rights" activists, led by U.S. imperialism — nor with the Falung Gong sect we now see across the U.S. preaching against "rights violations" in China but ignoring the U.S. bosses’ wholesale violations of workers’ rights worldwide. These groups help prepare the U.S. masses for the coming war the White House knows it must wage against its imperialist rivals in Beijing.

We in PLP believe the development of this rampant capitalism in China, bringing hundreds of millions of peasants into the urban workplace, is a perfect example of what Karl Marx said in The Communist Manifesto: "What the bourgeoisie…produces, above all, are its own gravediggers." This grave will only be dug when a true revolutionary movement arises, a mass communist party of hundreds of millions, that will lead the working class to destroy capitalism and build a society in which workers like Mr. Huang will collectively distribute all the value they produce to the members of their class according to need.

[In our next issue, we will publish an eyewitness report from two recent visitors to China.]

a name="Sudan’s Oil Fuels China-U.S. Imperialist Rivalry">">"udan’s Oil Fuels China-U.S. Imperialist Rivalry

The article in CHALLENGE (10/20) explained how the battle in Darfur in Sudan reflects the rivalry of imperialists at each other’s throats over control and production of the country’s substantial oil reserves. China, in particular, needs huge amounts of oil imports to sustain its rapidly growing capitalist economy and seeks to profit from this industry as well. Meanwhile, significant conflicts continue among the traditional imperialist rivals — the U.S., France, Germany, Japan and Russia — over oil, especially in the Middle East. This is behind the current hue and cry over human rights violations in Sudan.

Sudan’s government estimates it has 3 billion barrels of petroleum reserves, with more than a half billion of currently proven reserves. Because of its expanding oil industry, it has recently been given "observer" status in OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries).

A key factor in world oil markets is the importance of marginal additions or reductions to world supplies. Recently such fears of marginal changes because of uncertainty in world events has the price of oil soaring to over $50/barrel from its previous range in the $20’s. This increases the importance of Sudan’s role. In a parallel sense, U.S. oil companies are aggressively investing in Equatorial Guinea, with approximately the same level of reserves as Sudan. Shell, Chevron-Texaco and other major oil companies already control Nigeria’s oil wealth, Africa’s largest producer. (Oil worker unions are calling for an indefinite strike for Nov. 16, protesting fuel prices hikes.).

But China is the major investor in, and buyer of, Sudanese oil and other energy industries. As a rising, aggressive imperialist power, China is challenging the U.S. and other imperialists worldwide, especially in resources, and has gained a powerful foothold in Sudan.

Chevron carried out the initial exploration for Sudanese oil in the early 1960s, discovering several oil fields in the South. But Chevron and its competitor Totalfina (French) both withdrew from these fields because of civil war-induced insecurity. After Chevron lost over $1 billion, Arakis, a Canadian firm, took over its rights and formed a consortium in 1996 called the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) acquired 40% of GNPOC. The balance was held by Petronas of Malaysia, Arakis and a Sudanese firm.

Eventually Arakis’ 25% share was bought from another Canadian outfit by India’s national oil company, ONGC. Further exploration by a coalition of Japanese, European and Middle Eastern firms began in 2000 in northwest Sudan, reaching into the Darfur region. That oil field extends under Darfur and into Chad, which has already begun developing oil fields in that region.

China’s current oil development rights in Sudan also include territory in southern Darfur. It has also invested substantially in the oil refineries at Khartoum and is planning to build a pipeline from western Kordofan (just east of Darfur) to that refinery. A Chinese firm is building seven electricity sub stations and 1,000 miles of transmission lines, while another Chinese company is covering 75% of the costs of a new electricity generation dam on the Nile River. Thus, China is showing a clear interest in building up the infrastructure of Sudan to better meet China’s rapidly growing energy needs.

U.S. hostility towards the Sudanese regime has been strong ever since the 1989 coup which brought an Islamic government to power. Remember, Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical company, lying that it was producing chemical weapons. Sudan also sheltered Osama bin Laden for six years. Rigid U.S. sanctions against trade with Sudanese firms has explicitly banned involvement in the oil industry, leaving the field wide open to Chinese, Indian and Malaysian firms. Thus, the U.S. alliance with rebel groups in the south and west of Sudan aims at replacing the el-Bashir government with a pro-U.S. regime so that China and other imperialists can either be expelled or brought under U.S. imperialism’s thumb. The pious hypocrisy of U.S. imperialists like Colin Powell about genocide in Darfur is simply part of their strategy to replace the Sudanese government, not because they’ve suddenly become "humanitarians." Already, the U.S. military is building a beachhead inside Sudan by ferrying several hundred Rwandan troops to Darfur as part of an African "peacekeeping" force.

There’s no magic potion to end the "oil curse," the war and devastation suffered by workers living in oil-producing regions. Only destroying all local and imperialist bosses, and creating a society based on workers’ needs, not on profits, can end this imperialist curse. What better reason than this to build a mass, international communist PLP now!

Sudan and World Oil Supplies: A Comparison

The world contains about 1.3 trillion barrels of proven reserves, 57% in the Persian Gulf region, including 115 billion in Iraq. Sudan’s share of reserves of three billion barrels is small but important. It estimates that by next year it will be producing a half million barrels per day, a significant increase from its current daily level of 345,000 barrels. Iraq’s peak daily production over the last 25 years has been three million barrels, while current Persian Gulf daily production is about 23 million barrels, 32% of the world’s total. Sudan’s level of production is approximately similar to Colombia’s.

LETTERS

New Wind Blowing Against the War

On Oct. 30, I participated in a small but spirited integrated march of black, Latin and white workers and youth against the war in Iraq called by a local Manhattan anti-war group. I helped distribute the "U.S. Out of Iraq" leaflets throughout the activity.

I’ve given out leaflets and sold CHALLENGE in this neighborhood for many years, but this is the first time in a long time I saw so many people willing to take an anti-war leaflet and also express their hatred of the war and of Bush. From the hundreds of leaflets I passed out in front of the hospital where we started and through the crowded streets we marched, the number of people who expressed support for the war could be counted on one hand.

One older fellow told me, "We got to stay and fight in Iraq," but when I asked him if he was willing to send any young person in his family to fight in Iraq, he replied, "After Bush send his twins there."

Of course, many people hope Kerry beats Bush, but our leaflet explained clearly that Bush and Kerry just represent different tactics carrying out the Iraq war. It called on people to organize instead of voting for any politician.

Siempre Rojo (Always Red)

a name="Daughter, PLP and CHALLENGE ‘get me through the day’"></">Da"ghter, PLP and CHALLENGE ‘get me through the day’

Having finished picking corn in the Mid-west [see CHALLENGE 10/20], I’m going state to state searching for another job. I’m trying to save enough to return home south of the border to my 12-year-old daughter whom I miss so much and who cannot accept not seeing me for so many months.

"If I stay with you we will starve," I told her. "Yes daddy, and when you leave we stay alone, and loneliness also can kill you," she responds.

"Damn capitalism!" I say to myself. I hate it, and must get rid of this demon, this hell. But I must calm down and understand that the devil the bosses and their religious servants have invented is in reality capitalism, crueler than the Satan they use to scare us. There will come a day when all the devils that kill workers will be just ancient history.

The work I do is harsh. One must break the Guiness World Record on daily hours worked since $5.25 an hour for 40 hours a week won’t get you too far.

I’ve traveled throughout the U.S., from warm Florida to the cold Mid-west, working on everything from packing corn to arranging flowers in cold rooms. This is the real hell migrant workers must suffer, long periods away from their loved ones. And while we’re super-exploited, unable to earn enough to satisfy basic needs, our bosses get richer and richer.

The contractors who send us from state to state are modern-day slave-traders, doing the dirty work for big agribusiness, hiring undocumented immigrants, retirees and others, and promising us "good working conditions," putting us in rundown trailers, unhealthy labor camps, and sometimes in fourth-rate motels, five to a room.

This year was different: many citizens, immigrants with papers, former professionals and others are now doing this work. The economy is so bad that many are no longer shunning "work for illegal aliens."

Capitalism strangles the working class. That’s why we must become the gravediggers of this system. And the bosses are helping dig their own graves by turning into proletarians many who never dreamed they’d be doing manual labor. Besides my daughter, PLP and CHALLENGE are the only things helping me get through this hell. But the day will come when the working class will become the masters of the universe.

Red Corn

Profits vs. Patient Care

As a clerical worker employed at a major East Coast teaching hospital, my primary responsibility is providing administrative and secretarial support to emergency medicine doctors. Recently the department chairman announced the arrival of a new attending physician (Dr. X), who would head an "expedition medicine" unit giving medical support to two "high end" travel agencies, of which he’s medical director.

These 2- or 3-week expeditions will transport participants to famous and remote parts of the world in a private Boeing 747 containing 90 first-class seats for passengers with a crew of 15. The aircraft offers a sophisticated kitchen and chef. A team of academic experts will lecture on diverse topics — anthropology, art history, history, archaeology, biology, economy, geology, geography, photography — and provide a framework for the region being visited. Cost per person ranges from $14,000 to $50,000!

Itineraries include developing countries (in Asia, Africa and South America) where medical care is substandard due to economic problems, dilapidated facilities and a shortage of educated medical workers and supplies. This underscores the obscene inequality imperialism creates: the wealthy elite have access to exclusive healthcare anywhere, anytime (even airborne), while one Washington State-based physician led a medical mission in Kenya (2003) that had a patient who walked from Tanzania for three days, carrying her child on her back, just to see a North American doctor. (www.evergreenhealthcare.org/showpage.asp?sec=2668i.artid=4266)

Physicians accompanying these expeditions receive special "perks" — expense-free participation in activities and a significant discount for their spouses. Hospital administrations enabling doctors to take such junkets eventually cut and speed up staff. They sacrifice the smooth running of the hospital and patient care by leaving the emergency room without sufficient personnel and/or pressure other attending physicians to add shifts to an overburdened schedule. Recently the department offered an extra $800 in desperation to fill one particular shift. All this demonstrates the hospital’s empty commitment to providing quality health care to patients who truly need it and corrupts the ethics of medical professionals, encouraging them to emphasize their own self-serving interests over social responsibility.

In a true communist society led by PLP, healthcare will exist to improve the quality of life, based on need, not on make profits. Hospitals will serve the working class, not rich bosses. Patients won’t be sent home or onto the streets while they’re still sick. There’ll be no one with power over healthcare workers and trying to bribe them to scrimp on patient care. Fight for communism!

East Coast Comrade

Back Reservists Who Disobeyed Orders

When the news broke about the reservists who refused to carry out a convoy mission in Iraq, I raised the issue in my peace group, which had been talking about reaching out to U.S. soldiers. We quickly drafted a statement of support denouncing the cruelty of this order, saying the platoon should be honored, not punished. The statement emphasized that instead of sending more equipment and troops to Iraq, the U.S. government should bring the troops home and end the unjust war.

Copies of this statement are being sent to the news media, but what really excited the group was the possibility of sending it to military families.

Several good conversations have already resulted. "The empire is near the end when its mercenaries refuse to fight," one person said cheerfully. He’s not entirely right — it will take a growing, serious revolutionary organization to defeat U.S. imperialism — but this is the first time that so many people in our group have grasped the importance of taking our anti-war message to workers in the military.

When a shortened version of the statement was circulated at our church, 50 people signed it, adding comments like, "Thank you!" and "More power to you!" One told me, "I wish that all the troops would do the same thing." They, too, were excited about communicating directly with military families. After all, in 1971, 55% of the U.S. military were in active or passive rebellion against the war in Vietnam, leading to the end of that U.S. imperialist intervention.

We said the Democrats were making it a campaign issue, portraying Bush as an ineffective warmaker, implying that Kerry would have sent even more troops into battle with more equipment. Early in 2003, after much discussion, our church overwhelmingly approved a statement opposing the impending war as "unjustified and immoral." Now it’s almost an article of faith that we vote for Kerry, even though he’s promising to wage this unjustified and immoral war "more effectively."

Many people were happy to sign the letter to the reservists because they saw it as a real action against the war, even though many will probably vote for Kerry. They hope electing an alternative to Bush will end the war. But others are thinking that reaching out to soldiers is more solid.

Several friends wouldn’t sign the letter because it called for withdrawal of U.S. troops. They said, "I was against the war, and I support what the reservists did, but we made a mess over there and now we must stay and clean it up." We replied that "we" hadn’t made the mess — the imperialist U.S. government did! — and that it’s only getting worse. These friends are holding the faint hope that Kerry will become president and somehow "fix" things. However, circulating the letter created a great opportunity for political struggle, which will surely continue for a long time. A West Coast Comrade

Traitor General

For those interested in World War II history, you should know that a Russian Military Tribunal heard the case for "rehabilitation" of Soviet General Andrei A. Vlasov. "Rehabilitation" means: declared to have been the victim of "political repression." Vlasov deserted to the Nazi side in 1942, and led an army of a few hundred thousand (mainly Russian former POWs) to fight with the Nazis against both the Soviets and the Allies. He and 11 of his officers were tried and hanged as traitors in 1947.

Sadly for all anti-communists, the Tribunal decided not to"rehabilitate" Vlasov — this time. But it left the door open by partially rehabilitating him. The charge of "anti-Soviet agitation" — one of the lesser charges against Vlasov — was removed. This will allow a renewed attempt to "rehabilitate" him in the future. (St. Petersburg Times, 10/6/01)

http://www.sptimesrussia.com/archive/times/719/top/t_5096.htm

Soviet History Buff

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations:

NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

Plan another war for oil

Aided by American helicopters, planning and surveillance, Colombian forces have the stated goal of penetrating the historic heart of Colombia’s largest rebel group to "strike a decisive blow to narco-terrorists"

But the Washington-backed offensive has another motive, oil, and military authorities say, one that Colombian and American officials only gingerly discuss: to make potentially oil-rich regions safe for exploration by private companies and the government-run oil company. (NYT, 10/22)

Capitalism hurts health

Angry about not getting a flu shot? Imagine being unable to find supplies of a medicine that limits damage from a spinal cord injury, a medicine that improves the health of a premature baby, or a medicine that fights systemic bacterial infectious.

Each of these drugs, and dozens of others, are in shortage in the United States right now. On any given day, 50 to 80 drugs, many of them life-saving, may be difficult or impossible to find. Some patients die waiting for them....

The larger story behind the flu vaccine shortage is that drug supply disruptions in the United States have become routine.

The immediate causes are myriad….But some economist say that they all stem from one central feature of the nation’s public health system: no one is in charge.

Ensuring adequate supplies of goods that yield such benefits is "a classic example of something that should not be left to the market alone." (NYT, 10/31)

Pakistanis see oil motive

Only 16 percent of Pakistanis support the campaign against terrorism. More than 50 percent said it was motivated by the United States’ desire to control Middle East oil, dominate the world and take aim at Muslim governments seen as hostile to America. (NYT, 11/1)

Say goodbye to promises

Lyndon Johnson famously declared during the 1964 presidential campaign that he was "not about to send American boys 9,000 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing themselves." Woodrow Wilson campaigned for re-election in 1916, the year before the United States entered World War I, on a promise of peace and prosperity. And George W. Bush pledged in 2000 that he would have a "humble" foreign policy without nation-building.

….Does it really matter what the candidates say during the long months of a campaign? (NYT, 10/31)

What’s ‘left’? Nothing much

After a 33-year struggle, the left has finally gained power here. But if the experience of a neighboring country like Brazil is any guide, Tabare Vazquez and his Broad Front, narrow winners in the election on Sunday are more likely to tinker around the edges of Uruguay’s problems than carry out the profound social transformation they have been promising. (NYT, 11/2)

1. A Vote for Bush or Kerry Is a Vote for War
2. Vietnam Syndrome Erupting Once Again Among GI's in Iraq?
3. The Few, The Proud, the Anti-war Marines
4. HEALTH ALERT!
   PROFIT SYSTEM KILLS
5. Media Serve Bosses' State Power
6. MONOPOLY CAPITALISM IS NO GAME
7. TOYS `R WAR
8. Boston Teachers
   Support Haitian Workers
9. PLP Exposes `Dream Act' Draft of Immigrant Youth At LA Marches
10. `Sit-at-home' Tactic No Way to Win Nigeria General Strike
11. `What's good for GM is lousy for auto workers'`
12. 50,000 March vs. Germany's Worst Social Welfare Cuts Since Nazis
13. Red-led Transit Local Conference Spreads Political Consciousness
14. PLP Brings Red Ideas To Workers' March in DC
15. PL'er Anti-Racist Political Base Answers Union Election Red-baiting
16. Worcester Bus Strikers Fought Boss/Union/Dems Gang-up; WELCOMED CHALLENGE
17. Film Review: The Motorcycle Diaries
    The Road to Political Consciousness via Motorcycle
18. LETTERS
    1. PLP Students Pump Up Teachers' Demo
    2. Bogota/New York: Dreams of a Common Freedom
    3. Putting Politics First Led To PLP
    4. Trials and Errors of A Progressive Intellectural
    5. Letter from Pakistan
    6. A Little Rebellion Goes A Long Way
    7. CHALLENGE NEEDS YOUR:
       SUGGESTIONS
19. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Kerry: smooth imperialist
    2. `Leftist' sells out Indians
    3. Colombia another Vietnam?
    4. Teens need jobs, not jail
    5. Global profits cause slums
    6. US fights to colonize Iraq

---

A Vote for Bush or Kerry Is a Vote for War

Despite the bosses' boast that new voters are registering in record numbers, far more people will stay home on Election Day rather than vote for either Bush or Kerry. Once again, a U.S. president will take office with about 26% of the eligible vote.

Voting increases with age and wealth. Young workers and unemployed youth in general vote in far fewer numbers than older, affluent people.

Politically, this cynicism used to work for the rulers, who figured that although they might prefer a larger turnout at the polls, passive cynicism was better than mass militancy against the system. However, with U.S. imperialism's long-range plans for a police state and ever-widening wars, this cynicism is beginning to turn into its opposite. The bosses view a large voter turnout as an endorsement of their system and an important step toward mobilizing the working class to fight, bleed and sacrifice for U.S. imperialism.

So far, they've fallen far short of this goal. Worse yet for their class is the sign of growing rebelliousness within the U.S. military. On October 13, 19 soldiers from the 343rd Quartermaster Company failed to report for a planned fuel convoy from Tallil Air Base across central Iraq to Taji, north of Baghdad. They were protesting the roadworthiness of their trucks and the lack of overhead helicopter protection.

The military brass has portrayed this as an "isolated incident," but facts belie this. Thomas Ricks, a leading military journalist, writes (Washington Post, 10/16) that it's instead "the latest indication of troubled morale in some National Guard Reserve Units called up for Iraq duty." He refers to a September lockdown of "several hundred" National Guard soldiers in the Fort Dix, N.J. barracks, after 13 members had gone AWOL and after several instances of "brawling."

The level of political consciousness here is still low (in the first case, demanding better protection to fight the bosses' oil war and in the second, leaving camp to visit families), but that's to be expected. Communist consciousness doesn't grow on trees and the presence of the Progressive Labor Party among workers and soldiers is necessary for them to learn the need for opposing the brass and fighting to smash the profit system.

However, these signs of disobedience in the military, along with some strikes (like the recent one by San Francisco hotel workers) show that the class struggle continues even in periods of relative passivity. Regardless of the election outcome, PLP will have opportunities to grow. The Iraq war will continue. More U.S. troops will be called up. Conflict between U.S. bosses and their rivals will sharpen, as the scramble to control Persian Gulf oil intensifies. The economic screws will tighten on the working class. Growing numbers of workers will be forced into the military, either by unemployment or by the draft.

If Bush wins, he will have to address the Liberal Establishment's criticism of his "incompetence." The liberals blame him for squandering the opportunity after 9/11 to mobilize the country for war and a police state by asking workers for "any shared sacrifice." The liberals also berate Bush for not "providing enough troops to secure Iraq." (New York Times 10/17 editorial endorsing Kerry) If Kerry wins, he will try to justify the liberal bosses' faith in him by moving ruthlessly to reverse the military fiasco in Iraq and to increase the efficiency of the "homeland" police state.

Either way, the working class has no stake in this outcome. Grasping at poisonous straws (Kerry over Bush) and cynicism (not voting) won't solve workers' problems. We need communism, nothing less. To make this long-range goal a reality, we must build PLP now. Recognizing and acting upon the opportunities that exist here and now can expand those of the future. The ball is in our court!

Vietnam Syndrome Erupting Once Again Among GI's in Iraq?

The military is showing the political strains from the The recent refusal by a unit to carry out a "suicide mission,"while not yet the kind of mass rebellion that undermined the military in Vietnam, U.S. rulers are finding that overcoming the "Vietnam Syndrome" is easier said than done.

The attacks on Iraqi civilians are undercutting soldiers' morale. Internally there's a trend towards more anti-war sentiment among GI's. There are signs they're being alienated from the war's political goals. Retention and recruitment are also becoming problems.

In interviews with a growing number of anti-war soldiers, the Christian Science Monitor (9/21) described how "Fahrenheit 9-11" is becoming a must-see movie among GIs. The article details the political fallout from committing Vietnam-like atrocities:

"We shouldn't be here," said one marine infantryman bluntly. "There was no reason for invading this country in the first place. We just came and angered people and killed a lot of innocent people," said the marine, who has seen regular combat in Ramadi. `I don't enjoy killing women and children, it's not my thing."

Michael Moore is also publishing a book of letters from soldiers in Iraq. One says:

"In the few short months my unit has been in Iraq, we have already lost one man and have had many injured (including me) in combat operations. And for what?... [On] May 10,..I and 12 other men were attacked in a well executed ambush in southeast Baghdad. We were attacked with small arms fire, a rocket propelled grenade, and two well placed roadside bombs....riddl[ing] my friends with shrapnel, almost killing them....

"The government is calling up more and more troops from the reserves. For what? Man, there is a huge f-----g scam going on here! There are civilian contractors crawling all over this country (making $15,000 a month).

"We are spending money out the a-- for this s---t, and very few of the projects are going to the Iraqi people. Someone's back is getting scratched here, and it ain't the Iraqis! I just hope I come home alive."

A poem on Army latrine walls in Iraq says much about GI sentiment:

"There once was a man named Saddam,
We thought had a nuclear bomb,
We started a war, few nations were for,
And now it's our own Vietnam."

Commanders are worried that their troops will lose confidence. In several units, soldiers upon arriving in Iraq are being told to forget whatever they heard about being "liberators." The commanders are telling them, "This war is about oil," and they shouldn't trust any Iraqis.

Morale is also being hurt by retention and recruitment problems. Soldiers' unwillingness to re-enlist has produced a "stop-loss" policy in which soldiers in specialty areas are barred from leaving when their enlistments are over. There are also reports of soldiers who do not re-enlist being sent on additional tours to Iraq.

All this is shrinking enlistments of black youth. The Wall Street Journal (10/7) reported that "blacks attracted to the force numbered 12,103, or 15.6% of the total enlistment pool, in the year ended Sept. 30, down from a peak of 16,995, or 21% of recruits, in fiscal 2002....The drop in the share of black recruits roughly corresponds with the mass movement of troops to the Middle East and the outbreak of the Iraq war."

For the first time in several years the National Guard did not meet its recruitment goal. The Army had to "early-enlist" 17% of next year's recruits in order to meet this year's goal.

Morale is unlikely to improve any time soon, and will probably worsen. The U.S. is losing control of large areas of the country and is responding by increased killing of Iraqi civilians. Whatever they tell people at home, the truth is less hidden from the troops.

Now the ruling class is using the Kerry campaign as the main outlet to control the morale problems. The Democrats and the military are organizing to get soldiers to vote.

Ultimately, the draft is staring at the military like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room. With morale dropping in the all-volunteer military in the face of set-backs in Iraq, with U.S., casualties approaching 1,100 dead and 28,000 wounded, one can see why the Army brass is terrified that a draft that forces youth into the military could be their only way of filling their thinning ranks.

From Wall Street Journal, 10/20
`Army's Recruiters Missed Target for Enlistees in Latest Month: Reserves Fall 45% Short of Goal, While Gap is 30% in Regular Force Sign-ups'

The Few, The Proud, the Anti-war Marines

The potential for rebellion in the U.S. military extends beyond the National Guard, proving that the "Vietnam Syndrome" and the rulers' fear of it are far from dead. During the Vietnam War, thousands of U.S. soldiers and sailors participated in a spontaneous movement called "fragging," which involved shooting or otherwise attacking their officers. Over half a million deserted or refused to fight. Coupled with mass domestic protest against the war, the "Vietnam Syndrome" led the bosses to abandon military conscription in favor of the present economic draft.

A Washington Post article (10/10), based on interviews with a dozen U.S. Marines in Iraq's southern province of Babil, exposes the low morale in the supposedly most élite and hardened branch of the military. One Marine said, "The most dangerous opinion in the world is the opinion of a U.S. serviceman." Another added, "We're basically proving out that the [Bush] government is wrong. We're catching them in a lie." A third, who had enlisted out of misguided patriotism after 9/11, said after two months in Iraq, "Sometimes I see no reason why we're here." All the Marines interviewed recognized that the Iraqi population hates the U.S. military. When asked if he feared punishment for speaking out in the press, one said sarcastically, "We don't give a crap. What are they going to do, send us to Iraq?"

Two weeks earlier, Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal reporter stationed in Baghdad, sent an e-mail to friends lambasting Bush's Iraq policy. The e-mail is now all over the Internet. Fassihi calls Iraq a "disaster," a "foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come" (www.poynter.org/forum?id=misc).

If the liberal press is now quoting Marines, who are supposed to be the system's "few, proud" trained killers, and a reporter from capitalism's most unabashed print apologist, to embarrass Bush, there's a reason, and it's linked to the November 2 election.

We must draw a different conclusion. Rebelliousness in the military and Bush's bungled Iraq policy should induce us to organize for communism, not to vote for Kerry. Bush is indeed a monster, but Kerry will prove no less so. They are merely products of a monstrous society. That's the monkey we need to get off our backs.

HEALTH ALERT!
PROFIT SYSTEM KILLS

The profit system trumps workers' health once again. Tens of millions of people will be without the influenza vaccine -- especially the most vulnerable, seniors and children -- entering the winter flu season. Complains the New York Times in a lead editorial (10/20): "It is almost unbelievable...that the world's most medically advanced nation should suddenly find nearly half of its expected supply of influenza vaccine wiped out by...problems at a single plant in England."

Unbelievable? Not quite. "The main problem," says the Times, "is that influenza vaccine needs to be reformulated every year, and companies suffer huge losses if they overestimate the amount that will be needed" since they must destroy millions of doses. The key words here are "companies" and "huge losses." Of course, the Times won't conclude that production of a health necessity shouldn't depend upon the need for corporate profit, the foundation stone of capitalism.

In a communist society, where workers' health comes first, uncontaminated by bosses and their profit system, any risk of "overestimation" would simply be part of the necessity to protect the population against disease. But under capitalism, corporations have to be "protected" against "huge losses." Inadvertently proving that the profit system is at the root of the problem is the Times' discovery of a "shocking reality": "panicky patients lining up for flu shots that are not available" find "price gougers trying to profit from their misery." Is there a more perfect description of capitalism in all its glory?

As far as "the world's most medically advanced nation" is concerned, the Times says the U.S. "FDA [Food & Drug Administration] was asleep at the switch." It made "no great effort to stay on top of what the British were doing." It seems "American health officials had no clue that almost half of the nation's flu vaccine supply was about to be impounded" because British regulators were suspending the license of the California-based Chiron company for "failure to comply with good manufacturing processes" at its Liverpool plant.

If this is an example of the "world's most advanced nation," all the more reason to destroy capitalism with communist revolution.

Media Serve Bosses' State Power

The New York Times' Oct. 17 endorsement of Kerry for president was an exercise of state power. The state includes all the means by which capitalists conduct their class dictatorship, not just the formal apparatus of government. In organizing opinion for fascism and war, the media are indispensable tools for the rulers. The biggest outlets have the closest ties to the nation's leading financiers and imperialist policy makers.

The Times, the most influential of the rulers' print media, is tightly linked to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), whose sponsors include J.P. Morgan Chase, Exxon Mobil, and the Rockefeller family. The CFR clamored loud and long for "regime change" in Iraq. Times' editorials mirrored the CFR both in demanding a massive U.S. invasion aided by UN allies and in chiding Bush for the bungled occupation. Arthur Sulzberger, Times publisher, belongs to the CFR. Its last president, Leslie Gelb, edited the Times' editorial page. Bernard Gwertzman, formerly the Times' top foreign affairs writer, now runs the CFR's website. And on the eve of the Iraq war (2/11/03), the Times boasted that it had "partnered with the Council on Foreign Relations to provide content from cfr.org, the Council's Web site, as well as articles from its `Foreign Affairs' publication."

As U.S. rulers need public support for widening imperialist ventures, media giants are coming increasingly under direct control of the foreign policy establishment. William Mitchell, a former senator and Clinton Middle East envoy, is chairman of Disney, which owns ABC. Viacom recently elected to its board Joseph Califano and William Cohen. The former advised President Lyndon Johnson on repressing anti-Vietnam War protests. The latter, as Clinton's Defense Secretary, directed the murderous bombardment of Serbia. So it's no accident that three best-selling books critical of Bush's mishandling of the war, including Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," have come from Viacom's Simon & Schuster. Viacom also owns CBS, where Dan Rather has been clumsily trying to discredit Bush's National Guard record.

NBC belongs to General Electric, a major weapons supplier to the U.S. war machine. Sam Nunn, once head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sits on GE's board. Exxon Mobil pumps vast amounts of cash into PBS. Its Anglophile programming helps foster the U.S. alliance with Britain. Time Warner's CEO is Richard Parsons, a Nelson Rockefeller protégé.

Movies, too, are an instrument of the capitalists' power. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), representing Hollywood studios, has a two-way dialogue with Washington. It lobbies for the industry and, at the same time, takes direction from the rulers. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, MPAA head Jack Valenti had a meeting with Bush administration officials. He agreed to tell his members not to make films that portray Arabs as bad guys. The rulers feared that an anti-U.S. backlash in the Arab world, especially in Saudi Arabia, might jeopardize their oil empire and planned invasion of Iraq. Dan Glickman, the current MPAA chief, is a former Clinton cabinet member who most recently worked for Akin Gump, Exxon Mobil's Washington law firm.

The mainstream media claim to be objective. But their "truth" is rooted in the imperialists' need to put the U.S. on a war footing ideologically. Capitalist state power takes many forms: the Oval Office, the halls of Congress, the urban police precincts, the foundations and universities, the pages of the New York Times, the silver screen or the boob tube. None of them is class-neutral. We must smash them all.

(Next: The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the State and the Party.)

MONOPOLY CAPITALISM IS NO GAME

I was assigned to teach high school Economics this semester. The official curriculum refers to market forces as if they're laws of nature, like wind or rain. It never discusses the term capitalism or how this economic system really operates. I wanted my students to experience the system's harsh reality.

My solution: play Monopoly. I set up four games for the 34 students in each classroom, and changed some rules to make the game closer to the real world. First, I assigned one student to be the banker. This person began the game with all the cash. The class concluded that the only way to begin life that way would be to inherit wealth. The banker then distributed an equal amount of money and three pieces of property to each player. Since some properties are much more valuable than others, a few players began with an advantage. After a few throws of the dice, this inequality increased.

All four games were played simultaneously. Nobody was allowed to leave the game when their funds got low. Instead, when they faced bankruptcy, they had to choose between borrowing from the banker or negotiating a merger with another player, forming a larger "corporation" in order to survive.

"Miss, when is this game going to end?" asked one exasperated student.

"When you die or change the system," I replied.

As the games progressed, the students became increasingly hostile and mistrustful of one another. They had started friendly. Now they trusted nobody. They were learning that capitalism and the greed driving it are not "human nature," but are capitalist laws that propel people into conflict. The students grew louder and louder, now yelling at each other. One girl said, "I have such a headache, please let me leave the game!"

A few students began to cheat. Today one student, a wealthy capitalist, was tricked by two small players who are close to bankruptcy. He was so furious he nearly stormed out of the room. Other students kept reminding him that it was just a game!

Between rounds, I conducted class lessons. One set detailed the actual distribution of wealth in the U.S., and its extreme concentration in the hands of a few capitalists. We learned that the country's wealthiest 400 families control more wealth than one billion people in India. This really upset them. Two girls reported telling their parents, who then became as upset as their children. "You're destroying our dreams, Miss," one accused me.

We also learned about the working class, that we're all workers, and that ideas about upper, middle and "lower" class are false. Divisions within the working class are emphasized to distract and divide us. This, too, provoked heated discussions. One girl refused to talk, explaining that "all we do is talk about communism." But so far I had talked about only one economic system: CAPITALISM.

I was amazed at the response to this game. The lessons about the capitalist and working classes upset the students because, instead of the usual dry definitions teachers chalk on the board, participation in the game made it all very real for them,.

For example, when some players avoided making loans, instead merging their "capital" with other companies, they became powerful multi-player corporations that quickly drove the small property owners into debt. Meanwhile, some corporations grew so rich that there was nothing left for them to buy. With their coffers stuffed with money, they asked me if they could buy property in another game! What a breakthrough. I explained that of course they could go global, because that made them INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISTS. The rich owners were delighted with their new markets, but the players being invaded became very upset.

As we enter the game's final stage, some companies have gone bankrupt due to heavy debt and fierce competition. As the small players lose all their assets, they are still not allowed to leave the game, any more than we can leave the economy in which we live. They are left with nothing to do but sell their labor power. They are becoming the working class. I can't wait to see how they behave when most are workers and only a few remain as capitalists.

The final lesson will be the role of the government in maintaining the ruling class in power. I can't wait to see how it ends. Maybe they'll propose a revolution.

TOYS `R WAR

The worldwide toy industry is basically controlled by two mega-corporations, which have either swallowed or eliminated the competition: Mattel (Barbie, Fisher-Price, Scrabble, etc.); and the smaller Hasbro, controlled by the Hassenfeld brothers.

Hasbro took off in the 60s with the militaristic GI Joe toy. Later it took control of Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Playschool, Pictionary, Cluedo, Atari, Teletubbies, Pokemon, Star Wars and many electronic games. It also owns many candy brands.

Both corporations increased their profits by closing many of their manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Europe, and moving them to low-wages areas like China. In 2002, Mattel closed its Kentucky plant and moved it to Asia where it super-exploits some 39,000 workers. Hasbro only employs 10,000 workers directly because it uses mainly subcontrators who pay even lower wages.

But beyond merely toys and super-exploitation of workers, these toy companies are linked directly to the war machine. Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's second in command and one of the "Neo-Con" brains behind the Iraqi fiasco, was a member of Hasbro's Board of Directors before joining the Bush administration.

Another top member of Hasbro's Board is Marie-Josee Kravis, also linked to the directors of Ford, Canadian Imperial Bank, Vivendi Universal, Seagram and Hollinger (which runs newspapers in Britain and Israel and whose owner was recently accused of corruption). Kravis is on the Council on Foreign Relations -- the top policy-maker think-tank of the Eastern Establishment, the leading gang within the U.S. ruling class -- where she's listed as an "expert" on the international economy, public policy and strategy. Bush, Sr., named her as a counselor to the Dept. of Energy. She's also a director of the conservative Hudson Institute. Her husband owns KKR (which runs Safeway, Duracell, Nabisco Union Texas Petroleum, etc.). He was number 35 on Forbes' list of top U.S. billionaires.

These and other bosses controlling the toy companies are also bound to make more bucks out of the Pentagon's plan to use video games to train soldiers and future soldiers in becoming cannon fodder for the war machine.

In essence, the U.S. economy is now more than ever a military-industrial complex serving imperialist war.

(Information from an article by Michel Collon in Rebelion.org)

Boston Teachers
Support Haitian Workers

BOSTON, Oct. 15 -- On October 13, the Boston Teachers' Union passed the following "Haitian Flood Relief Resolution":

Whereas, over 3,000 people have died in the floods in Haiti in the last several weeks;
Whereas, U.S. troops have this year entered Haiti to support a new government;
Whereas, a major health disaster is in the making in Haiti due to lack of basic sanitation and fresh water in the flooded areas;
Whereas, the current Haitian government has not proved itself trustworthy to accept funds;
And, whereas, the Haitian workers organization, Bataye Ouvriye ("workers' struggle") has shown itself to be dedicated to workers' rights and interests in Haiti, recently winning a hard-fought action against clothing maker Grupo-M which manufactures portions of Levi-Strauss clothing;
Therefore, we, the Boston Teachers Union, will as soon as possible contribute...to Haitian Flood Relief, $500...and send it to Bataye Ouvriye for distribution to reputable local flood relief organizations. (http://www.batayouvriye.org ; Batay Ouvriye, BP 13326, Delmas, Haiti, W.I.)

Opposition came from the union treasurer, who said "it might be a precedent," and from a teacher who wanted "to keep the money in the country."

PLP Exposes `Dream Act' Draft of Immigrant Youth At LA Marches

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16 -- Two marches took place today, one sponsored by the AFL-CIO and one by a coalition of immigrants' rights groups. Both were organized to demand driver's licenses and amnesty for immigrant workers. All told, about 2,000 people marched.

Because of infighting between the leaders, the marches failed to meet up. The first march included a few SEIU organizers, but mainly immigrant rights' groups. Leaders distributed American flags and pushed Kerry. At the second march, on Broadway downtown, there were mainly signs for driver's licenses and amnesty.

Thirty-five hundred workers eagerly took PLP leaflets and bought 700 CHALLENGES. Our leaflet exposed the "DREAM ACT" (sponsored by right-wing Senator Orin Hatch), which promises residency for undocumented youth, but requires two years military service or two years of college. Most undocumented immigrants, unable to get into college, will be forced into the army.

We cited the 19 soldiers in Iraq who refused suicide orders. They deserve our support. Kerry and the liberal press are using their refusal to demand more troops and equipment in Iraq. We demonstrated the opposite: the potential power of soldiers to oppose not merely unsafe missions but, more importantly, oppose attacking Iraqi civilians and imperialist war in general. We also showed that Kerry's health plan is supported by corporations like GM because it would save them billions.

We called on workers to organize in the shops to fight the bosses' attacks and for immigrants and citizens to unite with communist leadership, defy the bosses' fascist marching orders and turn their imperialist wars into a fight for revolution and workers' power -- communism.

On Broadway, many took up our contingent's lively chants, like "Arab, Asian, Black, Latin, White; Workers of the world, Unite!" and "U.S. imperialism out of Iraq!" A group of youth marched with PLP for the first time and boldly sold CHALLENGE and distributed leaflets. Marchers and onlookers responded well to our banners calling for ending racist terror from Iraq to LA with communist revolution.u

`Sit-at-home' Tactic No Way to Win Nigeria General Strike

After four days, Nigeria's trade union leadership called off the general strike begun on Oct. 11. But the unions warned they'll call an indefinite stoppage in two weeks if the government fails to lower gasoline prices. The strike shut banks, businesses, shops and public services. Nigeria's oil industry was unaffected but "analysts say further stoppages could disrupt production in Africa's biggest oil exporter." (BBC News)

Owei Lakemfa, spokesman for the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) told the BBC, "The strike is officially suspended and we will meet within the next two weeks to decide what action to take."

The working class of Nigeria, Africa's most populated country, is fed up with poverty and government corruption. Seventy percent of Nigeria's 130 million people live below the poverty level. Life expectancy is only 50 years. To top it off, fuel costs have been rising since President Olusegun Obasanjo deregulated the sector a year ago and removed government subsidies. A committee, including government officials and union representatives, has been formed to discuss ways of easing the impact of the 25% gasoline price increase.

The government reacted against the strikers with heavy hand. Union leaders were arrested. The police killed workers in the Kaduna region. In many other areas, the cops and armed gangs protected by the police brutally attacked strikers.

Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer. This strike was one of the reasons oil prices topped $50 a barrel in the world market, even though the oil industry itself was not struck. But other problems face Nigeria's oil producers. In the Delta region, where Shell and other international oil companies operate, is one of the country's poorest areas, and sabotage against oil pipelines is common. There are at least two armed groups fighting the army and the oil companies. Last June Shell admitted that for years it paid millions in bribes to local authorities. The London Independent said Halliburton grabbed a $12 billion contract to build a gas terminal in Bonny Island after paying $132 million in "unjustified commissions." Current President Obasanjo is reputed to have millions in secret bank accounts.

Totalfina (the French-Belgian oil giant) used to control Nigerian oil, but when former dictator Sani Abacha died in 1999, it lost its top dog influence there. Many now believe that Totalfina has used its traditional dirty tricks methods to support the armed groups sabotaging Shell.

The strike's main problem was the NLC leadership. It called for a "sit-at-home" strike instead of mobilizing marches, picket lines and mass rallies. Even though the NLC leadership opposes President Obasanjo -- who is also losing support among members of his own party and sections of the bourgeoisie -- the NLC's reformist and pro-capitalist outlook makes it fear the power of the working class mobilized in the streets and at factories. Masses of workers in action can see their own power and can discuss tactics and other methods of struggle.

All this calls for the most advanced and militant workers in Nigeria to realize that only through building a revolutionary communist movement can they turn these struggles into schools for revolution. As the struggles grow and sharpen here, this is the most important victory workers can achieve in Nigeria and throughout Africa.

`What's good for GM is lousy for auto workers'`

Workers at Opel (GM's affiliate in Germany) have been staging work stoppages protesting elimination of 10,000 jobs in Germany and 2,000 in the rest of Europe. Workers' banners attacked both the bosses and the IG Metall union hacks for "selling them out." On Oct. 18, walkouts occurred in Britain, Belgium and Poland. International solidarity emerged the next day as 50,000 workers protested the cuts at 13 GM facilities throughout Europe; 10,000 marched in Bochum supporting that plant's Opel workers.

GM's motto in the U.S. used to be, "What's good for GM is good for the country." Well, the problems of GM and the auto industry in general signal crises in the capitalist economies of the USA and Europe, for which workers are being forced to pay.

Brazil's auto workers are also fighting back. In the ABC region of Sao Paulo, center of the auto industry, 40,000 metal and auto workers struck demanding higher wages and an earlier contract negotiation. Bank and oil workers have also struck there recently.

Workers are breaking with the illusion that Lula, the former auto/metal workers' union leader and now President of Brazil, is "their man in power." Lula's Labor Party recently lost votes in the Sao Paulo industrial belt and in another one of his strongholds, Porto Alegre, where the reformist World Social Forums are held each year. The Lula government's privatizations and social service cutbacks have shown workers that he's just another boss.

The world capitalist system's endless wars and crises impel its increased attacks on all workers. The best lesson workers can learn from their strikes and struggles is to turn them into a school to forge communist leaders capable of fighting for a world without any bosses. That's PLP's goal.

50,000 March vs. Germany's Worst Social Welfare Cuts Since Nazis

BERLIN, Oct. 2 -- Fifty thousands workers and their allies protested today against the Hartz IV law, which will cut social welfare programs. Their march follows a series of Monday demonstrations in 250 cities and towns, involving hundreds of thousands, to oppose the most drastic cuts since the Nazi era. On Sept. 20, the police brutally attacked 15,000 protesters. Workers also faced a vicious campaign from the bosses' media, which has called people from the former GDR (East Germany) "ingrate" for turning against their "saviors," the rulers of West Germany.

Those workers have gotten a real taste of what being "saved" by capitalism means. Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, all the benefits they had under the socialist-state capitalist GDR have been ripped away. Industries were either swallowed by West German capitalists or dismantled. Unemployment -- very low in the former GDR -- is now rampant. In fact, many now view the GDR as the "good old days."

But the workers' anger lacks real communist leadership. The former East Germany CP (now called the Party of Democratic Socialism) made some gains in recent local elections, as did some neo-Nazi parties. So open fascists and fake leftists are trying to take advantage of the workers' anger.

The Oct. 2 march itself reflected this contradiction. While the organizers expected 100,000 marchers, only 50,000 took part because Germany's leading unions openly sabotaged it. The Schröder coalition government (the Social-Democratic and Green Parties) feels the lower number of marchers allows it to make the cuts. But the anger is growing. Recent mass strikes by DaimlerBenz workers against layoffs -- affecting the entire auto industry -- indicate that workers throughout Germany are fed up with paying for the German bosses' drive to increase their profits and compete with their imperialist rivals.

The situation here again exposes capitalism as a dead-end for all workers. These workers need a real communist society based on workers' power, not a socialist/state capitalist GDR. Building the leadership to make that possible is the main lesson workers can learn from these struggles.

Red-led Transit Local Conference Spreads Political Consciousness

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 16 -- Today, rank-and-file members of Local 689, Amalgamated Transit Union, attended a day-long educational conference on the theme, "What Causes Change? -- Without Struggle, There Can Be No Progress." Joining the transit union members were workers from a public sector union, the Baltimore teachers union, students from Howard University, activists in the struggle against police brutality in the local area, and public health workers from the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association.

The Local's president, a PLP'er, initiated this conference to strengthen the political consciousness of the union's younger workers and to prepare them to become more effective grassroots organizers for the struggle against management and the ruling class as a whole. A second objective was demonstrating in practice to many other activists on campuses and in the community the primary role of the working class in the broad struggle against capitalism. The conference clearly made progress in achieving these objectives, laying the basis for expanding the circle of informed, active workers who could provide increasingly revolutionary leadership in this critical industrial union.

Four presentations included: the economy and racism; health care and racial disparities; the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act at home; and women's rights both on the job and in the home. Speakers described the severe economic crunch awaiting workers' health care and pensions amid a permanent war economy as the U.S. ruling class struggles to maintain its domination of the world's oil supplies and economies. One Metro worker reviewed women's struggles to break into better-paying, non-traditional jobs like rail mechanic. She jokingly asked, "After all, how far could a secretary go? End up with a bigger typewriter?"

Round-table discussions followed the presentations. Leaders at each table ensured that every worker could participate fully with his/her ideas. Afterwards, many Metro workers were enthusiastic about continuing the political struggle begun at the conference.

The main immediate issue for Metro's current contract negotiation is reducing racist wage progression -- the number of years required to reach top rate -- in order to unify senior and junior workers. Those at the conference will be among the key leaders of this anti-racist struggle, which in turn will lay the foundation for recruitment to PLP as workers engage in sharpening class struggle.

PLP Brings Red Ideas To Workers' March in DC

Members of Progressive Labor Party were among the few thousand workers from East Coast unions who participated in today's Million Worker March. Our goal was to bring revolutionary communist ideas to this gathering of workers, students and anti-war activists who had come to protest the war in Iraq and attacks on the living standard of U.S. workers. The enthusiasm of our young members was evident when they joked, "Is that all you're giving us?" as we divided our literature at 5:30 A.M.

Some of those who took part in the March thought more workers would attend. One reason why there weren't was the attitude of one leader of AFSCME's NYC District Council 37. Although 40 seats in the four buses rented for this 120,000-member union remained empty, she carefully screened the 160 riders to make sure only AFSCME members would get on.

We distributed thousands of CHALLENGES; "Don't Vote: Revolt!"  pamphlets; "It's not just Bush, Its Capitalism" buttons; and leaflets. It was critical that we brought revolutionary communist ideas to the activists at the march, since the speakers from the platform, while strongly anti-Bush, rarely criticized Kerry and advocated only reforms of the system. But we know that the 22 reforms they proposed can never be won under capitalism, especially as it faces a permanent war economy. Elections only allow the working class to pick their poison; they never give us a cure.

Not far from the rally site, hotel workers were on the verge of striking. After about three hours, about 250 students marched through the streets in support of these workers. Our participation in that march brought militancy and class analysis via chants. Initially the chants were exclusively about the hotel workers' struggle, not linking it to layoffs, cutbacks and the war in Iraq. Our chant, "Power to the working class! Kick the bosses in the ass!" spread like wildfire throughout this march.

We received heartfelt thanks from many people who got our leaflet calling for support of the mutineers in Iraq who had refused to carry out orders for what they called a "suicide mission." We had many good discussions and debates about elections and support for the rebellious troops. Many people said they would take our leaflets home to be reprinted and would build activities in support of these rebellious troops.

A member of a NYC AFSCME local took a stack of leaflets to distribute because she had relatives in Iraq and opposes this war, as she had the war in Vietnam. She agreed to raise a resolution of support for the soldiers in her union local. We will be in touch with her and others who shared their names and phone numbers with us. Along with generous donations for our literature, these experiences reflected the positive responses to our ideas at today's event.

People in some PL'ers campus organization helped us distribute CHALLENGES and leaflets. On one bus we had fruitful discussions about the Party's ideas and why we differ with other "communist" organizations. Most on the bus agreed with much of what we said but were skeptical about whether communism will work or if the masses can be won to the ideas. A key discussion on the bus was about sexism and way to fight it on campus.

Upon leaving we heard the cops arrested one of our bus mates for protesting in a "restricted zone," standing at the Veterans Memorial while her daughter was video-taping the loss of life it symbolized. Her arrest exposed how the police attempt to intimidate protestors. Our supposed "rights" are as limited as the ruling class wants them to be.

PL'er Anti-Racist Political Base Answers Union Election Red-baiting

One comrade has found recently that organizing an election campaign in basic industry is hard work. To pull it off it's necessary to rely on our base among the workers. For needed help he reached out to CHALLENGE readers among friends and co-workers and they came through. When asking workers for testimonials regarding his fitness for union office, their responses revealed a deep political understanding they had learned from the paper.

In an "endorsement flyer" distributed to 4,500 workers, rank-and-filers talked of "the struggle against racism," the "struggle to keep capitalist corporations from destroying a worker's ability to live a decent life," how we need to "unite all aerospace workers [whether they work for subcontractors or the final assemblers] against [the bosses'] attacks, which put the burden for the expanding wars on our backs." Retired, laid-off and active workers, black, Latin and white, men and women all contributed.

When our comrade displayed leadership to the workers and exposed the union hacks' lies, the latter spoke publicly about "unelected leaders" not following the leaders. According to these misleaders, the "unelected leaders" were the cause of our poor contracts.

This type of anti-communist attack shows the nature of bourgeois leadership where workers are seen as "not smart enough" to be leaders themselves. The potential of workers to lead themselves is the biggest threat to capitalism. We strive at every turn to nurture and develop that potential into a revolutionary force.

The particularly strong response from workers was an anti-racist one. Our comrade has led the anti-racist fight on the job for years and workers, black and white, recognize and appreciate that. A retired comrade collected $78 from African-American workers in a local "black" church based on her description of the anti-racist, anti-imperialist campaign our Party and base were running. Another Latin worker's e-mail told us the workers in his shop appreciated our exposure of the union misleaders' betrayal of farm workers during the union's campaign to bribe the company to build a plant locally. He then came to his first union meeting to shake our candidate's hand.

"It's great my white brothers and sisters are realizing that these racist attacks affect them also," said an African-American friend of the Party, when he saw that white workers, who weren't [yet!] in the Party, were writing about the need to emphasize the fight against racism in our campaign literature.

The election campaign has provided opportunities for hundreds of individual and small group discussions. We talked with workers in many buildings about the election, but many discussions quickly turned to war and racism. Although we know workers in many places, most of these political discussions involved workers we hadn't yet met.

Despite the union's attempts to separate "union business" from the real politics of the world today, the workers understand the links and are eager to discuss them, to hear a communist analysis. Compared to workers' responses in past political discussions, the difference today is inspiring. Years of hard work by comrade has yielded results -- further evidence that our confidence in the working class is justified, that what you do counts.

Worcester Bus Strikers Fought Boss/Union/Dems Gang-up; WELCOMED CHALLENGE

WORCESTER, MA, Oct. 17 -- The workers in Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 22 struck the Worcester Regional Transportation Authority (WRTA) last summer, the only strike in central Massachusetts this year. It would set the political tone for actions by other workers.

PLP members supported the strike, bringing pizza and communist ideas to the picket lines. Initially, we were somewhat nervous but the workers welcomed us to walk their line and wanted our help in publicizing their demands. Many asked how to get a copy of CHALLENGE.

The picket line was multi-racial and international, with women and men, and young and old. One woman remembered some of our comrades from the Cristino Hernandez police-terror struggle and immediately wanted to set up a meeting.

The union wanted to maintain the existing health insurance co-pay and prevent eight jobs from being "restructured" from union to non-union status. There were no wage demands.

The local media and city bosses condemned the strike as "a selfish denial of transportation." But in reality public transportation is under-funded; the city and the WRTA bosses had their own agenda: union-busting. The bosses don't care about workers suffering under capitalism. They keep raising bus fares and cutting bus routes affecting working-class neighborhoods, especially communities of color and surrounding towns.

Many workers who use bus service were angry at the striking workers because they were stranded. However, we explained that it was in the interest of workers and students to support the strike, that the main contradiction was between the WRTA bosses and the striking workers. It was these bosses who created -- and should be blamed for -- this crisis. Capitalists care only about their profit margin. This is the true nature of class society.

We pointed out that these workers were standing up for themselves and the working class as a whole. Strikes are a struggle between classes. Compared to the "lesser-of-two-evils" election farce, striking is workers' power in action.

It was inspiring to see workers intently reading CHALLENGE. Our flyers were literally snatched up. As our relationship with some workers grew, we asked them to sell CHALLENGES to their friends and invited them to PLP events. We talked about a society with workers really holding state power, about a communist society run by workers where the value produced is distributed according to need, not profits. We discussed joining PLP to make a revolution to wipe out the capitalist class. We're just at the beginning with these workers.

The class betrayal of the striking workers by the union-WRTA-politician gang-up sold out the workers. The local Democratic Congressman got the WRTA and the union to return to the table at which the union accepted all the give-backs. The workers wound up with nothing. It was a serious defeat for the entire working class.

Ultimately, winning means an end to wage slavery and this capitalist system. Right now winning means winning the hearts and minds of workers and solidifying friendships in class struggle, instilling class consciousness and stopping scabs. Class anger is still alive.

PLP continues to meet with those strikers with whom communist ideas resonated as we position ourselves for the next struggle.

Film Review: The Motorcycle Diaries
The Road to Political Consciousness via Motorcycle

The inherent contradictions of capitalism became obvious to Ernesto "Che" Guevara when he toured South America for seven months on a motorcycle with his friend Alberto Granado. This adventure is chronicled in the movie, The Motorcycle Diaries, based on Guevara's journals as well as Granado's account of the events.

Diaries takes place seven years before Ché would be radicalized and help lead the 1959 uprising that ousted the Cuban dictator Batista. Only 24 and born into a well-to-do family, Che led a privileged life in Argentina and was about to become a doctor. Before settling into this profession and into the petit-bourgeoisie, he and his good friend take off on a motorcycle to explore the continent.

The scenery is beautifully filmed throughout Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and finally Venezuela. This movie could have been just a story of two young men's adventures of partying, meeting young women, scamming people for food and for repairs to their motorcycle and living independently. However, the injustices of class society become apparent in Peru when they see the racist treatment of the indigenous migrant workers along the roads of Cuzco, Machu Picchu and Lima. At one point, they meet two migrant coal miners who are on the run and looking for work clandestinely because they're communists. They ask Che and Alberto why they're traveling. Che answers, humbly, "We are traveling, just to travel," realizing that the two workers are traveling to survive. Later they witness the disgusting hiring practice at the coal factory, which so angers Che that he confronts the boss. The latter threatens to jail them since they're on the factory's property.

Che's political consciousness develops when they help a leper colony. Ché's refusal to wear gloves -- knowing fully that leprosy is not contagious when it is treated -- wins many of the patients and doctors to the idea that these people may have a disease but are still human and should be treated as such, not separated from "healthy" humans. They even confront strict church nuns who refuse to feed anyone in the main mess hall unless they go to church. At one point, a nun refuses to feed Che and Alberto because they haven't attended church. In solidarity, the patients later bring the two of them food.

Motorcycle Diaries illustrates several aspects of developing class-consciousness and the idea that we can change the world. On the question of violent revolution, the film takes us through the ruins of the Incas in Machu Piccu. Alberto, romanticizing the ancient city, tells Ché he would like to marry an Incan woman and then organize the indigenous people to elect an Incan President. Che tells him you cannot have a "revolution without guns" since that's how the Spaniards defeated the Incas.

Che's relationship with the people he met led them to respect him because of his honesty and humanity. He refused separation from the sick or the indigenous. By the end of the movie, Che is reconsidering his life because of all he has seen.

Che has become an iconic figure around the world for better and worse (the bosses use Che's image to sell T-shirts, hats and even beer!). Guevara's humanity and bravery were admirable but from a revolutionary perspective, he had many weaknesses. He didn't believe in the necessity of a communist party. His idea ("Foco") maintained that only a few trained and committed guerrillas were needed to make a revolution. However, to make a real revolution, communists must build a mass base in the working class for communist ideas as they engage in class struggle against the bosses.

LETTERS

PLP Students Pump Up Teachers' Demo

Recently I went to a local teachers' union demonstration that denounced the fascist murders of teachers in Colombia. It was good to attend an event openly dedicated to international workers solidarity, but the protest could have been more militant.

I was the first PLP member there, and joined the picket line, which was neatly penned outside the NYC Colombian consulate. Participants marched quietly in circles, with occasional speakers who said relatively little.

Partially from my experiences this summer at the Boston Summer Project and at other protests, I knew it was my responsibility to get things pumped up. I distributed chants sheets with the Party logo; protesters took them eagerly.

I proceeded to chant at the top of my lungs. People responded well. Especially to the bilingual ones like, "La lucha obrera/ no tienen fronteras" -- "The fight of the workers/ has no borders." Teachers were also impressed by the fact that I was one of the few students there.

When other comrades arrived, we were able to give more leadership. We had a powerful presence since even our small contingent was multi-racial, reflecting the breaking of bosses' borders. We sold CHALLENGE and "It's-not-just-Bush-it's-Capitalism" buttons. Our leadership with chants made people willing to listen to what we had to say. Some teachers on the picket line tried to have students speak on the bullhorn but the leadership denied their request. It would have boosted a worker-student alliance if one of the students had been allowed to speak.

This event revealed much about our ideas and how the rank and file teachers were glad to have us there.

College Comrade

Bogota/New York: Dreams of a Common Freedom

Up to a million people took to the streets of Colombia's major cities in a massive jornada, a one day-general strike and day of action. Called by the national unions, including the teachers in FECODE, it was a political strike against the Uribe government and the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., and for public health and education. It was a call to end death squad killings. It was scary and tough, but El País quotes Maria Rosario Nino, a 65-year-old on a three-day march into Bogotá: "Además, un docente nunca siente cansancio." ("Oh well, a teacher never feels tired.")

The jornada is common in Colombia, but this time, as they marched in Medellín, Cali and Bogotá, a few teachers marched in solidarity with them in New York City. FECODE had asked PSC-CUNY, the faculty-staff union at the City University of New York, to come out with them October 12. PSC picketed the Colombian consulate, with signs like "La lucha obrera no tiene fronteras!" ("Workers struggles have no borders.")

The consulate closed early, probably because they did not want visitors to see the pickets. Alongside PSC members marched other unionists, activists in the Killer Coke campaign, students and members of PLP. A FECODE teacher wrote to the New York union the next day: "We appreciate your connection to this jornada through your picket in New York, and we know the significance it has for our country."

In Colombia the repression of teachers is extreme, but also in New York, to teach is to struggle. And according to a Mexican teacher slogan, to struggle is to teach. "El maestro luchanbdo también está eneñando." Brother to brother, teacher to teacher, sister to sister - what will their common struggle have taught? Many have dreamed and died for it. Will teachers learn from a struggle that knows no borders, how to set no limits to their history, their dreams of a free commons, of being-free-in-common, of communist freedom?

NYC Teacher

Putting Politics First Led To PLP

Your article (CHALLENGE, 10/20) entitled "Memories From May Day 1946" was very informative. I would add one note. The article states that, "When the Cold War onslaught hit the unions, the communists were ousted rather easily.... Having...fought it with a `free speech' defense," rather than politically, but there was one (important) exception -- the CP in Buffalo. Here the communists DID make a political fight; the party there was led by a group which became the kernel of those who eventually quit the CP to form the Progressive Labor Movement, the forerunner of the PLP.

Another example of "turning a bad thing into a good thing."

Brooklyn old-timer

Trials and Errors of A Progressive Intellectural

On Oct. 10, Gerard Pierre Charles died of lung problems while seeking medical treatment in Cuba. He was 68, and one of Haiti's and Latin America's leading intellectuals. He also reflected the contradictions of many progressives and leftists.

Charles was a founder of the Unified Party of Haitian Communists (PUCH), while being a trade union leader. He fought the Papa Doc Duvalier dictatorship, but had to flee to Mexico to escape the TonTon Macoute (Duvalier's goons). He lived in Mexico until the fall of Baby Doc, who ruled after his father died. Charles became a college professor in Mexico and wrote extensively on Haiti and Latin America. He won many literary prizes and was nominated by local and Latin American intellectuals for the Nobel Peace Prize.

When Baby Doc was run out of Haiti in 1986, Charles returned to Haiti. The opportunism of PUCH caused its demise (it never actually called for a real revolution and became just another electoral party), so he joined the Lavalas movement which helped Jean Bertrand Aristide become president in the early 1990s. But the remnants of the Duvalier regime -- which controlled the Army -- quickly overthrew Aristide.

Several years later, Aristide returned to power with the support of U.S. troops sent by the Clinton administration. But the corruption of the government and the misery of the Haitian masses didn't end. Gerard Pierre Charles finally split with Aristide and helped form the Organization of People in Struggle. But instead of breaking with all bourgeois forces and calling for a real revolution against capitalism, the anti-Aristide movement helped bring back the old TonTon Macoute death squads, this time supported by troops sent by Bush and Chirac of France.

Today, the Haitian workers and masses face the living hell of being ruled by death squads plus being occupied by UN troops (now led by the Brazilian Army). On top of that, hurricane-caused floods killed 3,000 (CHALLENGE, 10/20). The Haitian masses (like those worldwide) are paying for the failure to organize a revolutionary communist movement to fight all forms of capitalism. The longer we wait in doing this, the more we will suffer.

Toussaint Rouge

Letter from Pakistan

Communism is the truth so it cannot be defeated. International struggle for the new communist world will abolish exploitation, wage slavery, poverty, illiteracy, terrorism, sexism, racism, nationalism and poverty everywhere. It will create a world without bosses and borders, where everyone receives according to need.

Capitalism is threatening wars worldwide to satisfy its need to exploit workers for their profit. It will launch a world war so it is our first and foremost duty to convert this war into a communist revolution by recruiting the working class into PLP. This is the only party striving for a classless world, eliminating the savagery of capitalism.

In Pakistan, communists must fight terrorism, fundamentalism, sexism, racism and nationalism. The ruling class uses militant fundamentalism for the sake of capitalist exploitation and oppression. They used these terrorists to fight the Soviet Union on behalf of the United States. Now they're saying they're eliminating these terrorists from Wana (South Waziristan) and other hideouts, but they're doing it so capitalism can survive.

Pakistan's ruling class can't eliminate terrorism because these well-organized terrorists have strongholds in many places. In fact, they were originally planted by the capitalists to exploit and terrorize the people. They've been trained by the U.S. and other capitalist countries.

Pakistani and Indian rulers claim they will resolve all conflicts, including Kashmir, but they're just deceiving the working class. The ruling classes of both countries practice nationalism, preventing them from resolving disputes. The rivalries among the world's rulers provide the basis for the development of imperialism. In its drive to survive, the profit system depends upon regional wars. In Southeast Asia, capitalism maintains the Kashmir issue, impelling an arms race and the building of huge armies in order to control their exploited and poor people. We in PLP believe that such issues will help us to strengthen our Party by recruiting poor workers, peasants, soldiers and students.

LONG LIVE COMMUNISM!

Pakistani comrades

A Little Rebellion Goes A Long Way

As a group of 30 "excessed" teachers waiting to be placed in jobs, we were sitting in rows of plastic chairs seven hours a day - some of us for four weeks - in a regional headquarters of the Dept. of Education here. Three secretaries with computers were also there, some doing work relative to us. Some of us were short-term, in and out in a few hours and sent to a job or receiving needed papers.

Conditions were awful. The carpet kept coming apart because of the movement of chairs tightly pushed against each other. For a few people, it was also a "rubber room," a holding place for people "under suspicion," but not yet convicted, of some misdeed.

Relationships had developed among those of us sitting there for almost four weeks. Anger and voices were rising. In a factory, these signs would have led to a strike. The situation just needed a trigger.

The young secretary in charge of the room was talking to a new entrant. She turned to the teachers sitting in the rows of chairs and, in a nasty tone, told them to "be quiet." She was obviously irritated because the background noise made it difficult to work.

The teachers were all shocked into silence. Nobody said anything. Emboldened, the secretary commanded somebody to leave the front row because long-termers should not have been in the front rows. The elderly teacher who had been sitting in the front row said, "I'm leaving," and walked out. Still nobody said anything. The secretary became bolder. She started to discard papers left around a computer which were supposedly to be used by job-seeking teachers. Still silence.

Unable to take this disrespect any longer, I started talking in a loud and comical manner saying, "I loved to be insulted." The secretary commanded me to be quiet. I replied, "I will not be quiet. I will talk whenever and wherever I want." We had a short but sharp argument while all the teachers watched. Another secretary persuaded her to sit down, but she soon ran for a supervisor.

The supervisor told us that she knew of our terrible plight, how difficult it was. Finally, after I had been raising my hand for about seven minutes, she allowed me to talk. I said the secretaries should not be expected to work in a room with so many people forced to do nothing, confined to rows of chairs week after week. She said this was a "professional office." I responded that it was a "professional prison." Then she got very loud and nasty with me.

But then 10 other people, all "long-termers," spoke up. The supervisor was taken aback and immediately created a frenzy of activity. One person who'd been waiting four weeks for a letter received it in 10 minutes and left for her job. The woman approached me and thanked me for getting her the job, saying she would tell her family about me.

The next day, all 10 people who had spoken out were placed in jobs. One after another they thanked me for getting them the jobs. It was quite a day.

When those I had known were mostly gone and I was trying to develop some new friends among new entrants, the supervisor approached me and said very loudly, "They're thinking of removing your license line, and you'll be here as long as it takes to get you a job."

The following work day an old friend who had been working in the same building and had heard of my plight - probably from talk around the building about the "rebellion" - placed me in a job.

Without that fight-back I'd probably still be sitting on the small, confined, plastic chair, two weeks later, and so would the 10 other people. It was a small working-class rebellion that people definitely learned from.

A communist teacher

CHALLENGE NEEDS YOUR:
SUGGESTIONS

Over the years Progressive Labor Party has produced three albums of revolutionary, labor and protest songs (two records and one cassette). They were sold out years ago and are no longer available. Many younger comrades and friends of PLP have never heard those recordings. Discussion has begun on the question of the Party re-issuing some, or all, of those songs in one or two CD's. One Thousand copies of one CD would probably cost $2,000 to $3,000 to produce.

There are a few general possible approaches. First, we can copy all of the songs onto two CD's. Second, we can copy most, but not all, of the songs onto one or two CD's. Third, we can make one "best of..." CD. Fourth, it's a bad idea so don't make any CD's.

Additionally, several of the old songs, including "The Internationale," have been partially re-written to strengthen the politics. Should some or all of the re-written songs be recorded to replace the original versions? There are also some songs floating around the Party that haven't been recorded. Perhaps we could put them out on a CD as well. Studio recording time is more involved and more expensive.

We would like to include your ideas in the discussion before any decisions are made, before anything is burned in plastic. All suggestions should be sent to CHALLENGE PERIODICALS, Box 808, GPO, Brooklyn, NY 11202, the sooner the better. Also, please send any good revolutionary songs you may have. Include the words, chords, and/or printed music, and a cassette if possible.

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

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

Kerry: smooth imperialist

John Kerry is committed to fundamentally the same goal as George Bush, which is a permanent U.S. strategic presence in Iraq....

The American policy community -- the people in the policy institutes, think-tanks, and university institutions accustomed to man the U.S. government...share an identical vision....

They believe...America is the world's most powerful nation; its duty (and privilege) is to order and police the world.

Sen. Kerry's own electoral Web site declares that if he is elected he will "strengthen weak states and secure and rebuild failed states around the world...."

John Kerry will rescue the failed states. The war in Iraq will go on. (International Tribune, 9/29)

`Leftist' sells out Indians

...This remote stretch of the Amazon is an Indian reservation,...Yet white settlers...have built an airstrip, a fancy technical school, a town hall and stores, all protected by a new military base....

Clandestine gold and diamond mines are flourishing.... Encroachment has been accelerating and becoming bolder....

Brazil's first elected left-wing president....Mr. da Silva visited here more than a decade ago, expressed support for their plight and promised that if he ever got into power, he would grant their demand.

"Since Lula came into office, things have only gotten worse for us," said Jacir Jose de Souza, a Macuxi Indian chief.... "He's worse than the last government because he says one thing and does another." (NYT, 10/15)

Colombia another Vietnam?

BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 10 -- The number of American military personnel here will double, to 800, in the coming months, based on a weekend vote in the United States Congress.

The action was welcomed by President Alvaro Uribe's government for its fight against Marxist rebels but condemned by human rights monitors, who warned a sharp escalation in Colombia's conflict....could lead to a Vietnam-like quagmire....

American involvement is being ratcheted up as the United States steadily increases training for police and military forces in Latin America.

In 2003, American soldiers trained 22,831 Latin American troops and police officers, 52 percent more than in 2002.... (NYT, 10/11)

Teens need jobs, not jail

Boot camps and other get-tough programs for adolescents do not prevent criminal behavior, as intended, and may make the problem even worse, a new study has found.

Further, laws transferring juveniles into the adult court system lead these teenagers to commit more violence, the study said...

" `Scare tactics' don't work," the panel concluded. "Programs that seek to prevent violence through fear and tough treatment do not work." (NYT, 10/17)

Global profits cause slums

...The UN commissioned a 300-page report on the growth of slums. The authors found that slum dwellers account for an average 43% of the population of developing countries. In sub-saharan Africa the proportion of urban residents in slums is highest at 71.9%....

They...suggested that the greatest underlying reason for the growth of slums was laissez-faire globalization -- the liberalisation and privatisation of national economies...imposed on indebted countries by the International Monetary Fund....

...Some developing countries, the authors suggested, would have done better to stay out of the globalisation process altogether if they had the interest of their own people in mind. (GW, 9/23)

US fights to colonize Iraq

...Rigged elections [are] designed to leave Iraq in the hands of Ayad Allawi and his CIA/Mukhabarat-trained thugs, dependent on Washington for both money and might.

This is why Sadr is being hunted -- not because he is a threat to women's rights but because his political demands represent the greatest threat to US control.... In the hands of the majority, US military bases will be in jeopardy, as will Bremer's privatisation-friendly laws. (GW, 10/01)

 

a href="#There’s No Debate: Either Bush Or Kerry Means More Wars">"here’s No Debate: Either Bush Or Kerry Means More Wars

Anti-Racists Disrupt Neo-Nazi Rally

a href="#Kerry Advisor’s ‘Grand Strategy’’ = Fourth Reich">Kerry "dvisor’s ‘Grand Strategy’’ = Fourth Reich

AFL-CIO Fights For Democrats, Not For Jobs

Teachers Back Resolution Opposing Permanent War Budget

Army Recruiters Take Aim At Grammar School Kids!

Blame Capitalism Not Mother Nature, for Devastation in Haiti

Worker-Student Unity Best Way to Honor Victims of Olympic Massacre

All Bosses Are Enemies of the Working Class

a href="#Politics Guiding Garment Workers’ Class Struggle">"olitics Guiding Garment Workers’ Class Struggle

Sharpening Shop Discussions Leading To PLP Recruits

a href="#‘All That Relying On Democrats Got Us Is More Budget Cuts . . ."">"All That Relying On Democrats Got Us Is More Budget Cuts . . ."

NY Unionists In Solidarity With Teachers In Colombia

Memories From May Day 1946

Imperialist Drive for Oil Behind Massacre in Sudan

LETTERS

Youth Experiences at Protest Against GOP Convention

• CHALLENGE comment

Excited Over Finding REAL Communist Party

a href="#Spread Red Ideas In Migrant ‘Concentration Camp’">Sp"ead Red Ideas In Migrant ‘Concentration Camp’

Fascist Attack On Poor Workers Collecting Cans

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

• Imperialism will need draft
• Afghans still in despair
• Productivity = long hours
• Dems are equal bombers
• Big Oil: More Africa plots
• Fox not the only liars
• Israel will raid Iran for US

---

a name="There’s No Debate: Either Bush Or Kerry Means More Wars">">"here’s No Debate: Either Bush Or Kerry Means More Wars

The first Bush-Kerry debate proved, as CHALLENGE has been reporting, that very little separates the two. Many well-intentioned people hate Bush. But the "ABB" (Anybody-But-Bush) movement is seriously mistaken choosing Kerry as the solution, even partially so, to all our class’s problems.

Kerry is just another huckster for the profit system that brought us these problems all along. The solution lies outside the system, in a communist revolution that can attack and destroy the causes of war, unemployment, racism, police state terror and all the other evils capitalism inflicts on us.

Even before the debate, the New York Times, which hates Bush and which speaks for the main, liberal wing of Eastern Establishment bosses, admitted (9/30): "…for all the talk about stark differences…[Bush and Kerry] differ only slightly, if at all…Even on Iraq…neither man is calling for the immediate departure of American troops…Both want to create similar conditions for an American withdrawal."

Bush and Kerry don’t differ significantly on Iraq because, as CHALLENGE has written ever since Bush, Sr.’s 1991 Desert Storm genocide, Iraqi oil remains central to U.S. rulers’ strategy for world domination, via a choke-hold on Persian Gulf supplies. Iraqi oil is more crucial than ever to that strategy.

The Times now openly admits this. A "Week In Review" article (10/3) lays out the stark facts about the rise in worldwide demand for oil, fueled in large part by the emergence of China and India as major industrial powers and rivals to the U.S.

Oil-producing countries fall into two groups: OPEC (Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-OPEC. The Persian Gulf oil producers (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait), as well as Venezuela and Libya, belong to OPEC. The U.S. and Russia don’t.

At present production levels, Russia — which has boosted its output significantly in recent years — has enough oil to last for about 20 years. U.S. supplies may last for 15. Respective estimates for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait are 80, 115 and 110 years. The estimate for Iraq is 160 years.

Four conclusions follow. First, the U.S.’s ability to rule the world by controlling key oil sources and supply routes will continue to depend indefinitely on establishing a hammerlock throughout the Persian Gulf.

Second, right now Iraqi oil is the issue that can tip the balance. Iraqi reserves are, at the very least, a close second to Saudi reserves and potentially the world’s greatest.

Third, the very nature of imperialism requires that U.S. rulers do anything and everything to secure Iraqi oil and also to ensure a grip on Saudi and Iranian oil. The present war shows those goals are a long way from successful completion.

Fourth, all of the above explain why very little separates Bush and Kerry. They differ only on HOW to win the U.S. population to fight a war that will surely widen until it enflames the entire Persian Gulf. Eventually it will involve armed struggle pitting other imperialists against the U.S. This is a very long-term scenario understood and endorsed by every major sector of U.S. bosses.

Bush and Kerry also differ on the tactics for fighting the present war. As Bush’s detractors in the ruling class complain, he and Rumsfeld have put in "just enough troops to lose." (Thomas Friedman, NYT, 10/3). The Democrats, on the other hand, favored a scenario that differed on timing — they wanted to invade later — and on the number of ground forces: the Democrats and some liberal Republicans wanted significantly more troops than Bush has committed.

But the U.S. military is already "stretched thin." Former soldiers are beginning to resist a special wartime call-up program. The Army National Guard missed its 2004 recruiting target by 10%. Congress is making noises about expanding the army by 20,000 soldiers. Kerry wants 40,000. (NYT, 10/3) U.S. troops are already on war duty in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Korea, in addition to Iraq and U.S. bases in Europe. With the Iraqi insurgency mounting and Iran coming "right to the top of the agenda, right under Iraq" (Geoffrey Kemp of the Nixon Center, NYT, 9/30) no matter who wins the 2004 election, it’s clear U.S. troops will be fighting more wars and will need more soldiers to fight them. Kerry’s proposed numbers are just a pre-election drop in the bucket to prepare us for what lies ahead — he doesn’t want to lose votes by revealing the magnitude of the need for cannon-fodder.

"More Troops Needed In Iraq, Officials Say," trumpets a September 24 headline in a Washington Post article by Thomas Ricks, the leading military journalist for the Liberal Establishment press. We can’t predict the date, but this "need" will at some time require the restoration of a military draft. The main obstacle is political. The rulers still dread the "Vietnam Syndrome" and fear that the working class will not enthusiastically fight and die for U.S. imperialism. They are right — at the moment. But they’re also working overtime to change this scenario, to inspire a mass movement for war and for the domestic police state needed to mobilize for it.

Bush has failed dismally in this role. This failure explains the liberal press’s disdain for him. Kerry has yet to prove that he can succeed. The rulers’ political disarray gives our side an opportunity. As the casualties mount among both U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians, the war will spread in Iraq and widen throughout the Persian Gulf. Many workers and soldiers will begin looking angrily for answers to deep questions about why such atrocities occur. The rulers will offer them racist and fascist lies. Without communist leadership, large numbers of workers may be vulnerable to the lies, but this negative outcome is far from certain.

PLP can play a decisive role in the process, to provide correct answers to the question and solutions to the problem. Imperialism makes war inevitable, as its solution" to each imperialist’s fight for markets, cheap labor and especially oil. Only a communist-led working class has the power and the ideological arsenal to turn such wars into their opposite.

In the present election and beyond, the many honest people in the "ABB" movement must be won to the goal of smashing U.S. imperialism’s abominable oil war in Iraq, while winning more workers to follow the red flag and the communist ideas in CHALLENGE.

Anti-Racists Disrupt Neo-Nazi Rally

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 25 — A group of PLP members from New York and Philadelphia linked up today with hundreds of local anti-racists to disrupt a Nazi rally in nearby Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. We prevented them from spreading their white supremacist ideas while building a communist base for revolution.

When our caravan arrived at Valley Forge National Park, a group of anti-racists were already attacking the Nazis, who were punched and run out of the entrance. Our spirited multi-racial group of workers and students quickly took the lead at the counter-demonstration and organized the opposition behind pro-worker, anti-fascist chants: "Hitler rose, Hitler fell, Nazi scum go to hell!" and "Death to the fascists! Power to the workers!"

Although hundreds of local cops, state troopers and U.S. marshals covered the park on foot, horseback, cars and helicopters, a few Nazis arriving unescorted by the Klan in blue were left unprotected. They were punched and kicked, and one was hospitalized.

The anti-racists then went through a fascistic security checkpoint to a metal barricaded police holding pen from where spectators were forced to watch the rally.

As the 100 or so Neo-Nazis, mobilized from several states, assumed a militant stance and lined up single file on the hill below us, hundreds of yards away, the voice of the neo-Nazi leader bombarded us through a megaphone. Immediately we erupted in a fury of anti-racist, pro-worker chants. The Nazi’s leader was so taken aback he stopped speaking as we interrupted the rally for several minutes.

We drowned out their message, shouting, "Racist scum, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!" and "Arab, Jewish, black and white, Workers of the world unite!" disrupting the rally several more times.

Some onlookers asked us to stop chanting so they could hear the Nazis. We explained that there must be no "free speech" for racists because it has always led to murder and terror and always will. We convinced most, but not all, of these anti-racist protesters that it’s necessary to destroy racism, not listen to it. When Hitler was able to spread his racism, it led to World War II, killing 100 million people.

In addition to confronting the fascist ideas at the rally, most importantly we spread communist ideas to help build a Party base. Several pacifist and anarchist protestors joined our group and picked up our chants to help drown out the Nazis. Eight contacts were made with local residents who were interested in the Party’s ideas. Over 150 copies of CHALLENGE and 600 leaflets were distributed, both of which linked the many brutal attacks against workers and our families here at home to genocide for oil and imperial power worldwide. We connected the cops’ protection of fascists in Pennsylvania to bombing families in Iraq.

When some of us arrived home in Philadelphia, a black worker, upon hearing about our actions, said, "Fighting terrorists ought to begin at home. They can go around the world searching for terrorists, but here at home it’s a different story. They protect terrorists here!" By saying "they," he plainly knew the U.S. government isn’t "ours" but "theirs" — very close to saying that "they" are terrorists themselves, which they certainly are.

The event itself showed clearly that even a few people can achieve positive results. But an insufficient organizing effort limited the number we brought to the protest. These racist groups are growing and that means opposing racism and building a mass communist movement is more important than ever. Next time we’ll work harder to be ready for these fascists.

a name="Kerry Advisor’s ‘Grand Strategy’’ = Fourth Reich"></a>Ke"ry Advisor’s ‘Grand Strategy’’ = Fourth Reich

(Earlier articles in this series discussed the nature of the state and ways in which capitalists use government and related tools to enforce their class dictatorship. But capitalists themselves often disagree over what the state should look like and how it should operate. The following examines conflicts between the Bush and Kerry camps concerning the role of the state.)

In the 1920s, Calvin Coolidge said, "The business of America is business," and ran a government that interfered very little in the affairs of capitalists. Ten years later, Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) undertook a vast restructuring of the government that would eventually militarize the entire nation and put virtually every business and industry under tight, wartime regulation. Today, growing challenges to U.S. imperialism have John Kerry and his backers pining for the FDR days.

Gary Hart, one of Kerry’s most influential advisers, has written a new policy-setting book called "The Fourth Power." It demands that government officials, from the president on down, adopt an imperialist "grand strategy" in which every action of the state aims at bolstering the U.S.’s worldwide "leadership." Like FDR, Hart wants to use the state to subordinate the greed of individual capitalists to the needs of the capitalist class as a whole. He makes a sharp distinction between the "profit motive" and "national interests." Referring specifically to the military, Hart calls for reversing Bush’s tax cuts, "Every revenue dollar returned to the nation’s most wealthy is a dollar not invested in our common wealth and nation." (p. 77)

Hart also hopes to use fears of terrorism to fashion a larger, more consolidated police apparatus. Bush has proved reluctant on this. Says Hart, "The Department of Homeland Security requires three critical integrations: the first is integration of this wide array of existing federal offices and bureaus; the second is the integration of the federal system — national, state, and local governments; the third is the integration of the public and private sectors." (p. 67) He then repeats the Hart-Rudman Commission’s insistence that the National Guard become a nationwide "homeland security" police force.

Hart envisions a militarized society with millions more in uniform than exists now. He finds "a surprising applicability of the principles of armed conflict to the multi-faceted human endeavor." (p. 35) To repair troop shortages stemming from Bush’s failure to mobilize for wartime, Hart urges everyone who can to become a "citizen soldier." In the short term, enlistment would be voluntary but, "World wars require conscription and massive standing armies." (p. 50) And developments in Russia and China may someday have "profound implications for the United States and the world." (p. 96)

In addition to troop strength, Hart-Kerry’s view of the state’s military arm differs from Bush & Co.’s on the need for allies. The Democrats seek a multi-national fig leaf for U.S. domination, by armed force, of the world’s trade in oil and other strategic commodities. "We should consider…creation of a NATO intervention force with several missions: keeping the sea-lanes of communication open; protecting the flow of oil supplies; and dealing with any force that might want to block international commerce or exact some tribute for the open usage of any of the world’s critical maritime straits." (p. 95)

Hart says that when it comes to the U.S. capitalist class’s most important source of profits, the U.S. military should be even more deadly than Bush’s war machine. According to the liberal ex-senator, the U.S. needs "light, swift, and lethal intervention forces to protect America’s legitimate interests." (p. 158)

"The Fourth Power" praises the "massive government action" of the FDR era. But it presents a fascistic vision of the state more closely resembling Nazi Germany. It should really be called "The Fourth Reich." The only viable alternative to rule by Bush or the equally Hitlerite Kerry is a working-class dictatorship in which the communist party is the state.

(Next: The State under Communism: The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Party.)

AFL-CIO Fights For Democrats, Not For Jobs

Bush and Kerry are battling to win the state of Ohio, but neither has a plan, nor can they have one, to put the state’s 237,000 workers who lost their jobs in the past four years back to work. Another 12,000 went by the wayside in August, the highest in the country. Canton, a city of 81,000, lost 3,700 since 2001. When Bush visited the Timkin bearing plant there last year, he promised a million new jobs. Now Timkin’s boss, a big Bush donor, is closing three plants and putting another 1,300 on the street.

So Kerry, the AFL-CIO’s man, would seem like a shoo-in, right? Yet, with all these mass layoffs, a Univ. of Cincinnati poll has Bush leading in Ohio by 54% to Kerry’s 43% — if you can believe their figures. How come?

Bushites say it’s the "moral" issues ("Jesus loves W"). But most of these jobless workers were laid off from unionized plants and have seen AFL-CIO honchos allow all these jobs to go down the drain without a fight. While these labor fakers can spend millions to elect Kerry, they never mobilize the strength of all these hundreds of thousands of workers to confront the bosses.

So many of them may be so fed up with the union leaders and their Democratic bosses that they may be thinking of voting for Bush as the "lesser evil"!

Of course, if Kerry wins, there’s not much he will, or can, do for the jobless. He’s as wedded to the capitalist system as Bush is, a system that intrinsically produces these layoffs. Capitalist competition, based on the drive for maximum profits in a planless society, inevitably leads to each boss trying to capture as much of the market as he thinks he can. This inevitably leads to overproduction and periodic booms and busts. This creates a reserve army of the unemployed which forces workers to accept lower wages. And while Kerry’s making a big deal over "outsourcing" jobs abroad, he’s mum about U.S. manufacturers subcontracting work out to racist low-paying outfits here that pay mainly black, Latin and immigrant workers and youth slave-labor wages. For the bosses, less money going to the working class means more money to finance imperialist wars.

Remember when Clinton took over in ’92 and came in with a Democratic-controlled Congress? The union chiefs blabbed that they now had a "friend in the White House." But in those two years prior to the Gingrich take-over, Clinton broke the American Airlines strike and his Democrats didn’t pass one piece of legislation to help workers, especially doing nothing about the legalization of scabs, supposedly the union bosses’ "top priority."

Whether Republican or Democrat, whether Bush or Kerry, workers will always get the shaft. That’s the nature of capitalism — profits first, workers last. The electoral circus sucks workers into a bottomless pit that says capitalism can be "reformed." Never happen. That’s why we say revolution, not reform.

Teachers Back Resolution Opposing Permanent War Budget

A resolution to study the effects of a permanent war budget on the schools passed overwhelmingly at our teachers’ area union meeting. Top U.S. policy-makers like Peter Peterson of the Council on Foreign Relations have called for a more serious war budget, a "war economy" for the foreseeable future. (Foreign Affairs, "Riding for a Fall") A "permanent war budget" means severe cutbacks in all social services as well as an increase in the development of a fascist police state.

The U.S. ruling class needs the Mid-East oil fields, the primary source of the world’s oil. As inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens over the control of this most precious resource, world supremacy is at stake.

In the schools, the unions and other mass organizations, it’s necessary to expose the war and war budget as the source of the racist, anti-worker attacks here. While the rulers work 24/7 to try convincing us that the war is in "our national interest," PLP must show imperialist war is only in the bosses’ interests.

When the resolution was proposed — "that the union establish an ad hoc committee to study the results of a ‘permanent war budget’ on our profession and our schools" — the leadership said there was already a committee to deal with similar issues But the answer came back, "the more the better. We need this now." The resolution passed 47 to 7.

Several teachers expressed their gratitude. "Thank you so much for bringing that up," said one. "My son just came back from Iraq, and they spend so much money on this unjust war."

The following day at our school’s lunch-hour union meeting, the resolution was reported to the membership. One of the teachers opposed it, asking, "What does that have to do with our union?" "It has everything to do with our union," responded the member who proposed it. When another teacher questioned the truth of the war economy, he was given the Foreign Affairs article and went off to read it. The discussion was cut short when the lunch period ended. But it will continue.

Now we can make this ad hoc committee a reality and show teachers and students alike exactly how the war budget and the war affect all of us.

This small but significant example points us in the right direction. Most teachers and most workers not only see but feel the contradictions of the bosses’ imperialist oil war. Proposing resolutions and job actions that reveal the effects of the bosses’ permanent war budget opens the door to struggle and resistance, exposing the racist and imperialist nature of the war and deepening the understanding that the source of these attacks lies in the nature of capitalism.

In this area, we’ll continue this struggle as well as join our co-workers and students at upcoming demonstrations. A revolution is organized through small steps that eventually lead to a qualitative transformation on the long road of building a revolutionary movement that will ultimately smash imperialism and establish the dictatorship of the working class.

Army Recruiters Take Aim At Grammar School Kids!

WORCESTER, MA, Sept. 24 — The U.S. Army, desperate to meet recruiting goals, has fraudulently recruited public school kids as young as grammar school age here and in surrounding areas. The recruiters have a traveling horror show called "Spirit of America" which supposedly shows the history of the Army, but instead it’s used to recruit high school students and propagandize all.

The local school officials rented buses and forced up to 5,000 kids to attend this event as a captive audience. The local officials would later say they thought the show had "historical value." This history showed the U.S. Army in action, killing Native Indians (racism), Vietnam (imperialism), and other apologies for capitalist crimes.

Local anti-war activists, including PLP members, helped organize a rally protesting the recruitment of children for imperialist wars. PLP members held signs condemning the imperialist oil war in Iraq. These signs were sharply different than the peace activists whose signs said only that war was "bad," with no class analysis. Many kids and teachers approached us with thanks for opposing the military and imperialist wars.

Local officials were somewhat embarrassed as the Army was clearly recruiting kids, setting up recruiting tables and getting names and addresses. In 2001 the same officials suspended scores of high school students when they left school to attend an anti-war rally opposing the war in Afghanistan.

In this struggle, PLP has advanced the view that the cycles of imperialist wars cannot be ended until capitalism, which causes war, is replaced by communism. We must spread the truth to counter the military propaganda targeting kids and organize young people to fight school systems that send them to war while denying them diplomas and a decent education.

Blame Capitalism Not Mother Nature, for Devastation in Haiti

The latest toll from Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti includes — just in the city of Gonaives (population 250,000) — over 3,000 confirmed dead, 200,000 homeless and no safe drinking water. Diarrhea and other water-borne sicknesses are killing the most vulnerable, children and the aged. In solidarity, workers have organized fund drives at their jobs and in their communities to send food and clothing to Haiti. But all this tells only one side of the story.

Almost every newspaper and TV story about Haiti paints a picture of an unfortunate people at the mercy of nature, with 98% of the country deforested. The stories evoke sympathy and pity. Some governments sent money to rebuild, though not nearly enough. (The U.S. first "offered" the grand sum of $50,000!) There’s also lots of blaming the victim. In June, the new U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said the problem was Haitian peasants cutting down the trees for charcoal.

But these stories don’t evoke anger at and hatred for what capitalism and imperialism — not Mother Nature — has rained down on the Haitian masses. And they don’t reveal that Haiti has been systematically stripped of its natural resources by the bourgeoisie, past and present, foreign and local.

When the French rulers colonized Haiti in the 17th century, the vegetation in this mountainous third of the island of Hispaniola was so thick and dense that it was as dark as night during the day. They imported African slaves to cut down the trees, which were shipped back to France, and to grow sugar in the plains and coffee in the mountains, both of which were also sent to Europe. Slavery and this deforestation of Haiti made France rich. Imperialism flourished.

When the Dio Rouj river overflowed in the rural community of Mapou in southeastern Haiti and the neighboring Dominican town of Jimaní at the end of May — even before hurricane season began — and more than 2,000 were killed and 70,000 made homeless, CHALLENGE reported that the local hardwood gaiac trees had been cut down and sent to the U.S., never to be replanted. The grinding poverty forces rural workers to cut down their own trees and burn them into charcoal, then sell them to urban workers for cooking fuel. So when the rains come, and rivers overflow, there are no trees to hold back the water. Mudslides wash away houses, crops and livestock, and thousands of people die in a single day. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless.

While hurricanes and floods devastate the Haitian working class, armed gangs freely control the streets of several Haitian cities. This includes Gonaives, the birthplace of Haiti’s historic fight against slavery and for independence 200 years ago, but also the hometown of the death squads which overran Haiti earlier this year, leading the U.S. Embassy to force former Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile. These gangs are victimizing women in particular. After waiting incredibly long hours in lines to get food and water from the international aid donors, these women are waylaid on their way home and their food and water are stolen.

All this occurs under the impotent if not approving eyes of the U.S.-installed government in Port-au-Prince, which warmly embraced death squad leader Guy Phillippe when he marched into Gonaives. In the capital, mass demonstrations calling for the return of Aristide are met by armed police, four of whom were killed last week. These workers are being misled in supporting Aristide, who capitulated to U.S. imperialism and got very rich in the bargain, while doing nothing to alleviate the conditions of daily life for workers. He was a good reformer — for himself, not for the masses.

A Haitian proverb says, "Dèyè mòn gen mòn" — Behind the mountains are more mountains. Well, behind the lackeys of imperialism are more lackeys — that is, until the working class in Haiti builds its revolutionary communist party to seize the reins and establish workers’ power. Under a workers’ state, science and technology will be used to tame nature, to make it work for us, not against us. What we can’t prevent we will protect, and what we can’t protect we will prepare for. We will nurture the environment for the benefit of all of humankind.

Worker-Student Unity Best Way to Honor Victims of Olympic Massacre

MEXICO CITY — On October 2, thousands marched — as they did over the past three decades — to honor the hundreds of students murdered by the army and cops during protests before the 1968 Olympics held here. But just as then, the main question facing workers and youth is: communist revolution or capitalist barbarism?

Liberal politicians are using these marches to push for more "democratic openings," claiming that 1968 did just that, but "more democracy" is needed. Well, capitalism today is as murderous as it was then. Thousands are being killed, from Chiapas, to the women of Ciudad Juarez’s maquiladoras, to those who crossed the border fleeing mass unemployment now victimized by racist super-exploitation as agricultural workers in the USA, or as slave-wage workers in Houston, LA, NYC, Chicago, etc.

Some politicians are just blaming former President Luis Echeverría. Indeed, he should pay for his crimes, but the main reason they’re attacking him is his current opposition to privatization of the energy industry.

The main lesson of 1968 was militant students uniting with the working class. Unfortunately, they lacked a revolutionary communist leadership to forge that unity. This is the road the student movement must take today, here and worldwide, to get out of the confusion and opportunism created by liberals and fake leftists. We in PLP must redouble our efforts to ensure this becomes a reality. Then we can avenge all the victims of capitalism.

All Bosses Are Enemies of the Working Class

General James Hill, of the U.S. Army’s Southern Command, testified recently before the Congressional Armed Forces Committee that "radical populism" is now becoming a threat in Latin America, along with terrorism and drugs. He accused some Latin American leaders — in Venezuela, Bolivia and Haiti and the anti-free market consensus created by Lula and Kichner, rulers of Brazil and Argentina — of exploiting deep popular frustrations over the even bigger social and economic inequalities stemming from the failure of free market reforms. "This radical populism feeds anti-U.S. feelings," Hill concluded.

However, these "radical populists" are defending the interests of the big bosses. But they appeal to people’s nationalism to strengthen the domestic market. Those in Mexico seek Asian and European imperialist investments in the local energy industry that are more favorable to their own local interests. They don’t want to be dragged down by an economic debacle involving the U.S. bosses’ quagmire in their war for oil in Iraq and Afghanistan. But U.S. bosses worry that investments by these rival imperialists will come at the expense of the U.S. in what the latter considers its "backyard."

While free market capitalism is discredited throughout Latin America, Mexico’s President Fox is still a fierce defender of this form of capitalist exploitation. Fox has basically led a putsch to stop Lopez Obrador, Mexico City mayor, one of the "radical populists" referred to by General Hill.

For workers, following these nationalist bosses is as much a death trap as following pro-U.S. imperialists rulers like Fox.

Carlos Slim, probably Latin America’s richest man, is one of Mexico’s nationalist bosses. He recently told El Pais, Spain’s leading newspaper, that the development model pushed by the International Monetary Fund has set Mexico back 20 years in per capita growth: "It is time to go from a model dedicated to stabilization to a model based on growth and creation of jobs." But Slim is really worried about the growth of his own fortune. He wants to keep his telephone industry monopoly growing (as it is now in Central and South America). Slim is united with Mexico City’s mayor to turn the historical center of the city into a world class tourist and financial center.

All these bosses — free marketers or nationalist populists, are causing the growing misery of the working class. Over half of the Latin America’s 400 million inhabitants live below the poverty level, including 102 million in extreme poverty, which cannot even feed their families each day. It’s the old story — the poor are getting poorer, the rich richer, while the middle class disappears.

All these bosses are getting away with murder because, as they keep on reminding us, "communism is dead, and capitalism is the only game in town." But we in PLP are making sure that the "death" of communism is premature. Worker-led societies in the former Soviet Union and China showed that communists can build a better world. We know now that socialism’s main error was retaining too many aspects of capitalism, not abolishing the wage system, among others. But these glimpses of what communism could bring to humanity will again inspire the international working class to fight to eliminate the cancer of capitalism once and for all.

a name="Politics Guiding Garment Workers’ Class Struggle">">"olitics Guiding Garment Workers’ Class Struggle

"We should have a work stoppage," said a garment worker when a foreman barred anyone eating lunch before 12 noon. When one woman worker supported the idea, another said, "This is too much; the harassment has increased and we shouldn’t allow it to continue."

Since the boss moved the factory to a new location to increase profits, attacks by his henchmen have increased. Although it’s these straw bosses giving the orders, the attacks are coming from the boss. We workers need to respond to them collectively, organizing a committee of struggle that represents the interests of all the workers. The boss’s weakness is his dependence on us, the workers, to produce his merchandise.

When the boss heard about the planned stoppage, he screamed to high heaven. He even phoned a worker at her house to ask about it and said she should collect the signatures of all the workers who were unhappy.

When we discussed the boss’s "request," the majority felt it wasn’t a good idea because it would be handing over to the boss the names of his enemies. We also posed the alternatives of a spontaneous work stoppage versus a better planned one.

This discussion revealed a struggle between individualism and collectivity. There are workers who are angry at or hate the bosses and their henchmen, but unfortunately only see the struggle from an individual point of view. They want to satisfy their anger by firing the foreman.

This position was criticized as individualistic. The position that won was: it’s better to wait, prepare and organize the workers into a committee of struggle and look for the best time, when the majority will participate and benefit from the work stoppage.

There are many political discussions in this garment factory — that our super-exploitation supplies part of the money to finance the imperialist war for oil in Iraq; about immigration, and how racist laws divide us undocumented workers from our class brothers and sisters, citizens and documented, to super-exploit all of us; about fascism, and so on.

We also discuss the strike as a useful weapon for workers, but one with limits. A strike can fight immediate problems, but it can’t end racism, fascism, imperialist wars or the miserable conditions in which hundreds of millions of workers live. But we pose the need to organize strikes and other struggles so workers can see our collective strength. We also point to the need for communist revolution as the only way to end our suffering, because it’s the only way to eliminate capitalism.

There are many debates. CHALLENGE is circulated hand to hand inside the factory, but not enough. Yet when it’s offered outside the factory, many workers buy it. Self critically, we in PLP must work harder to win more workers to accept our ideas inside the factory. This will lead to more collective action against the bosses and to the growth of PLP.

Sharpening Shop Discussions Leading To PLP Recruits

CALIFORNIA — "Listen well; I will never join your Party," said a worker after discussing CHALLENGE’S communist ideas showing the need for workers to join PLP.

"A big-mouth falls down easier than a one-legged person," explained a comrade, meaning the worker could be won to our Party.

"I don’t fall for that. I saw how the leaders of the revolutionary movement in El Salvador sold out after the end of the war and became bosses themselves," replied the worker.

Our comrade explained the Party’s view of what happened in El Salvador and how workers must educate themselves politically so they can see the difference between a working-class communist revolution and a "national liberation" struggle, which leads to one group of bosses replacing another.

This is not the first political struggle in this shop, but each time they get sharper. We have strong ties to fellow workers and friends there. Our families socialize. The reluctant worker comes from a poor peasant family in El Salvador, who were basically serfs on a big hacienda. All the value they produced was kept by the owners. Many such families were chained to the owners through debts in the local grocery store, also owned by the hacienda bosses. This worker got his family out of that horror, but still hates the bosses and such super-exploitation.

Shortly afterwards the worker approached the comrade and asked, "Do you think I can play a role in your Party?" "You’re a worker," said the PLP’er and therefore have many traits to be a leader of the working class." This led to many more questions and discussions, part of recruiting and consolidating new comrades.

A white worker in the same shop said, during a discussion about Iraq and the economic problems caused by the war, "I’m a Republican."

"Why?" asked the comrade.

"Well, Bush gave us back $500 in a tax rebate."

"But how much must we pay for the health plan? How much more are we paying for the war in Iraq?" asked the comrade.

This led to a good discussion of the real cause of the war — control of Middle Eastern oil wealth, and how "war against terror" was basically a war against workers.

"What you say makes sense," said the worker. As a matter of fact, after 9/11 I told my wife that I thought it was a plan by Bush to be accepted by the people. No matter who wins, Republicans or Democrats, things won’t get better for workers. I believe there’s going to be a revolution," the worker concluded.

Many times appearances can stop us from waging a healthy struggle. These two examples are part of our efforts to increase CHALLENGE distribution, develop class struggle and widen our political base in this shop. The political environment created by those who already read our paper and those who help distribute it makes us confident we can sharpen the struggle to build PLP.

a name="‘All That Relying On Democrats Got Us Is More Budget Cuts . . ."">">"All That Relying On Democrats Got Us Is More Budget Cuts . . ."

AUBURN, MASS, Sept. 20 — A call for job actions, for reliance on the membership’s collective strength and for a strike received growing support at the State Leadership meeting of the Massachusetts Community College Council. The Council represents over 6,000 faculty and professional staff in the State’s 15 community colleges. This annual Leadership meeting had been organized to launch a campaign to maintain Democratic Party control of the State Legislature by recruiting members for phone-banking, manning voting stations and conducting voter registration drives. However, the focus turned to job actions.

State union leaders were organizing chapter leaders against Governor Romney’s fascist union-busting tactics. Just days earlier, Romney had vetoed a bill that would fund the raises of thousands of higher education workers. He also wants right-to-work measures that would threaten the union’s existence. The union’s "answer" was to elect Democratic Party "pro-education" candidates next month.

One rank-and-file speaker declared that, "Relying on the Democrats has been our strategy, and that of the whole union movement, for years and all it’s gotten us is more budget cuts." The rank-and-filer exposed the Democratically-controlled Legislature’s 30 years of budget votes that undercut the State’s vital social services; linked Romney’s vicious cuts to ongoing wars in the Middle East; and concluded with a call for a strike. Two members rose to enthusiastically support that idea.

As discussion continued, chapter leaders became more committed to job actions and to depending on the membership’s collective strength rather than on wheeling and dealing at the State House. The next day, the Roxbury Community College union chapter voted overwhelmingly to pursue work-to-rule and to picket Governor Romney’s house.

The State government’s sharpening attacks are impelling faculty and professional staff to become more militant and to rely on ourselves. Job actions reveal who are our friends and who are our enemies.

As events progress, professionalism will impede us. It diverts our loyalty to the college and the profession, rather than to the students. This works against building unity with students or asking for their support as fellow workers with a stake in the faculty/staff struggle. The college administrators are not our allies. Their high-priced jobs depend on their being loyal servants to the Board of Higher Education and State government.

The political will to fight back on the job will increase as more faculty and staff understand the relationship between the attacks on us and the ongoing crisis of capitalism. We’re being attacked because our needs and demands are obstacles to the bosses’ plan to use community colleges as centers serving corporate and military needs. The deep skepticism among faculty and staff about the war in Iraq, the "war against terrorism" and the electoral system can be transformed into a higher level of class consciousness. Carrying out a vigorous rank-and-file-led work-to-rule campaign and winning more union members to be CHALLENGE readers will help this develop.

NY Unionists In Solidarity With Teachers In Colombia

Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe came to New York City late last month and opened a Juan Valdez coffee shop — the first of many his government and coffee growers hope to bring to the U.S. While Uribe smiled for the cameras, fascist paramilitary forces supported by Uribe and the Army were murdering workers on the coffee plantations and in all the country’s industries.

Workers were scheduling a massive strike for Oct. 12 to protest the death-squad murders of trade unionists, against privatization, etc. Three-quarters of all such killings worldwide occur in Colombia. This year alone, 23 teachers, mostly women, have been murdered.

Amnesty International says Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid. Contrary to what many think — that the atrocities committed in Iraq have "discredited" the U.S. worldwide and are solely caused by the Bush gang — the support of fascist killers has been the foreign policy of both U.S. bosses’parties for a long time.

Education International, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association are supporting the strike by teachers and Colombia’s labor movement. NYC’s Professional Staff Congress is scheduling a picket line at the Colombian consulate backing the strikers (Oct. 12, 10 E. 46 St. near Madison Ave., 4:00 to 6:00 PM).

It’s good to show international solidarity with fellow workers fighting fascist repression in other countries. But we must also understand that the enemy is not just Uribe or Bush. It was the Clinton administration that began Plan Colombia, which increased U.S. military aid to the Colombian army and the death squads. Indeed, there is no lesser evil politician or boss; they’re all enemies of the working class.

a name="Creating Capitalism’s Gravediggers Among Lesotho’s Slave Laborers"></">Cr"ating Capitalism’s Gravediggers Among Lesotho’s Slave Laborers

As Marx said, capitalism creates its own gravediggers, referring to the rise of the working class. Lesotho, the landlocked mountainous country encircled by South Africa, is a good example. Almost a year ago, 20,000 striking textile workers marching to the offices of the Employers’ Association were attacked by mounted cops in the capital city Maseru, killing two workers and injuring over 100. The workers were delivering a petition opposing the bosses’ 5% wage-hike offer and instead demanding 15%.

Today, these workers’ misery has not improved, but textile bosses’ profits are sky-high. They’re taking advantage of the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which gives 35 African countries zero tariff access to the U.S. market on a range of different products. AGOA, begun in 2001, will expire in 2015. AGOA led to a jump in investments from foreign bosses, mainly Taiwan capitalists, in the Lesotho textile industry. These textile maquiladoras now employ over 54,000 workers, Lesotho’s biggest industry. The country’s 2.2 million people are among the poorest of Africa.

Before the garment boom, the country relied heavily on money sent home by over 100,000 Lesotho men working in South African mines. But by the late 1990s, half of those miners lost their jobs when the worldwide crisis of overproduction forced mineral prices down, so the bosses mechanized to keep profits up by using fewer workers.

Unlike South African mines, the garment maquiladoras mainly employ women. Despite what the Toronto Globe and Mail (8/10/04) calls "unannounced monthly visits" by inspectors from U.S. clothing giants like GAP (which buy textiles from Lesotho), working conditions are deplorable. "Unions officials complain that the factories are boiling in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. The facilities are poorly ventilated, ill lit and lack proper sanitation facilities and fire extinguishers….Only 20% of the garment workers are unionized." (Globe and Mail)

BBC World News (3/15/02) quoted another unionist: "The record of exports looks good, but it’s through the sweat of people forced to work Monday to Sunday. Unemployment means people take all shifts that are available. As much as we are happy with Lesotho’s exports, it must be known it is [achieved] through a system of slavery."

Billy, a former union general secretary, said workers faced mass dismissals to avoid payment of benefits; restrictions on union activity; at least one case of beatings of workers by factory officials; and exceptionally low wages. A skilled textile worker earns just over $50 a month. When AGOA expires in 2015, these jobs will disappear. The textile bosses will move to wherever wages are still lower.

Since capitalism is a system based solely on profits, nothing is done for the major health problem facing Lesotho. One in three adults there is infected with the AIDS virus — the world’s third-highest rate. Factory owners spend "too much" money training new workers to replace those who become sick or leave to nurse dying family members, complains Ms. Chen, spokesperson for the textile companies. Her bosses’ association is asking the government for tax breaks, wage subsidies or help with utility bills, threatening otherwise to take the jobs elsewhere. (Globe and Mail)

No wonder workers struck en masse a year ago. The only "good" thing about these textile maquiladoras is that they’ve created 50,000 proletarians. These workers — mainly women — can indeed become the vanguard of capitalism’s gravediggers. But they’re missing a key ingredient: a revolutionary communist Party to help them realize their historic revolutionary task. The unity of Lesotho’s workers, along with those of South Africa — whose revolutionary anti-apartheid struggles were betrayed by the ANC’s new black bourgeoisie (with support from the treachery of the old South African Communist Party and Nelson Mandela) — can be the force to bury capitalism in a permanent grave.

Memories From May Day 1946

In 1946 I participated in arguably one of the largest communist-led marches ever in the U.S. On May 1st, over 200,000 workers and youth, men and women, black, Latin and white, marched down New York’s Eighth Avenue to 17th Street and east to Union Square. The May Day March began at 10:00 AM and ended 12 hours later. It was organized by the Communist Party (CP) through a broad "United May Day Committee" with a base in the trade union movement, as well as in other mass organizations.

At that time the CP was very influential in the CIO (the merger with the AFL was a decade away). Communists had organized and led many of the CIO unions. Some, like Ben Gold, president of the Furriers Union, were open communists. In fact, the communist-led union I was to become a member of four years later, Local 65, had won May Day as a paid holiday in its contracts.

The March was a big event in New York City. The Cold War was about to take off, but there was still a large reservoir of good will towards the Soviet Union which most workers had recognized as the main force defeating Hitler, a sentiment which the bosses’ media was trying to combat. The day before the March the NY Daily News (somewhat like the FOX NEWS/NY Post today) ran an editorial urging people "not to throw bottles and stones at the marchers, not to pelt them with rotten fruit," etc. — a virtual open invitation for fascists to attack the marchers. But the well-organized security and overwhelming number of marchers easily repelled any such attacks.

The CP had just been reconstituted the year before, after it was dissolved by its chairman Earl Browder who was then expelled. It still had tens of thousands of members, and possibly hundreds of thousands of sympathizers, in the New York area. Many thousands had fought in World War II against Hitler. These veterans would march in their army and navy uniforms, first in their union contingents, and then would circle back to march under the banners of the CP, the rear contingent. All the while they would be carrying American flags. Red flags were few and far between.

The CP had many "front" groups. One was the International Workers Order (IWO) — sort of an insurance benefit group — which had chapters representing perhaps 20 different nationalities. When the marchers were backed up on 17th Street, waiting for Union Square to be cleared, the IWO’s national groups would present their various national dances, decked out in their national dress. It was all very festive, but of course had a marked nationalistic character.

Slogans, signs and chants included stuff like, "Black and white, unite"; "Defend the Soviet Union"; "We want peace"; "Wages up, prices down, make New York a union town," and others calling for a "Socialist USA."

The March really represented two sides of the communist movement. One was a base among workers, especially in the leadership of many unions, in recognition that the working class was, as Marx said, the revolutionary class. But the other side, which had begun to overwhelm any revolutionary character, viewed the CP as the "vanguard of democracy," championing "America’s democratic principles" and the Bill of Rights (marching behind the stars and stripes, not the red flag). This was soon to lead into "the peaceful road to Socialism" nonsense which sent the CP into a real revisionist (fake leftist) tailspin, never to recover. The CP’s Marxist school, an 8-story building on the corner of 6th Avenue and 16th Street, didn’t call itself the Marx-Lenin Institute or some such name but rather the "Jefferson School," viewing this slave-owning president as a great democratic humanitarian. It reflected a real lack of class understanding.

On the one hand, those May Days — eventually abandoned by 1950 — showed what communists could do with a base in the working class. But as it turned out this was primarily a base for reform, not for revolution. When the Cold War onslaught hit the unions, the communists were ousted rather easily. Not having had a real political base, they fought it with a "free speech" defense — "all points of view should be represented in the union" — rather than on the basis that communists were the best fighters for the working class because they had the only solution for workers’ problems: the destruction of capitalism with a communist revolution.

Years later, when I joined PLP, I was to realize that huge numbers following a wrong line was no way to advance to communism. Twenty years later PLP resurrected May Day but under truly revolutionary banners.

Imperialist Drive for Oil Behind Massacre in Sudan

The U.S. government and several civil rights leaders have declared that the murders, rapes, and displacement of the population in Darfur — a region in the western part of Sudan — is genocide, requiring determined action to forestall another disaster like the one in Rwanda. In fact, Rev. Walter Fauntroy and Joe Madison, two leaders of struggles against police brutality, have even called for sending U.S. troops to stop the killing. Yet the European Union and the African Union, while agreeing there’s a crisis, have declined to label it genocide, criticizing the U.S. government for that declaration. The UN itself has refrained from that label. What’s going on? In fact, there are other bloody conflicts of a similar magnitude in Uganda and the Congo, with nary a word from the Bush crowd. Why is Darfur different? Oil!

Darfur is a traditional rural sector of Sudan. It’s organized largely on a tribal basis with little direct control from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. Rival tribes make their living differently, some through subsistence farming and some through cattle-raising, causing a clash: agriculture is settled while cattle-raising is more nomadic and needs much more space. Despite these conflicting economic needs, historically the tribes have resolved disputes through mediation by councils of elders. But recently, this traditional setting has been disrupted.

A rebel movement based in the farming villages opposes the movement of people off their land, which the central government is pursuing to make way for oil exploration. The central government has funded irregular militias, the Janjaweed, and indoctrinated them in militant Islamic fundamentalism, and had them conduct harsh military actions against the rebels and the agricultural villages. With a green light from Khartoum, they’re wreaking havoc, seeking to permanently displace the agricultural tribes. This would leave the area populated by the cattle-raising tribes, the government-backed paramilitaries, and oil companies drilling for black gold, expanding Sudan’s relatively new petroleum industry.

In 1999, Sudan opened its first export pipeline. Chinese and Indian firms dominate Sudan’s petroleum industry. Discovered reserves are substantial. Other reserves have only been explored but the Chinese and Sudanese governments plan to co-develop them.

As U.S. imperialism’s oil plans in the Middle East become increasingly bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, every alternative oil source increases in importance. U.S. bosses, concerned about threats in oil-producing Venezuela and Nigeria and likely behind the recent coup in Equatorial Guinea, worry about a Sudan oil industry dominated by China, the major emerging rival of U.S. imperialism. Thus, regime change in Khartoum is an increasingly important goal for U.S. imperialists. The Darfur oil fields remained completely outside U.S. influence, at least until the rebellion erupted last year. Now U.S. bosses want to use the current crisis to further weaken the Khartoum government.

The el-Bashir government in Sudan is fascist. It took power in a coup and formed a Muslim fundamentalist government similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan, with goals of implementing the Shari’a legal system (chopping off hands for theft and the like). The international working class must destroy this bourgeois government every bit as much as that of any other capitalist state. But it can’t do this by allying with U.S. imperialism, inviting in U.S. troops to be "peacekeepers."

The bosses’ press and politicians claim they’re "morally outraged" over Darfur and say they don’t want to repeat the "world community’s" "untimely response" to the Rwandan massacres. But it was precisely the imperialists that made Rwanda such a horror! The French, British and U.S. backed different sides in the Tutsi-Hutu conflict, causing it to escalate to genocide.

It’s imperative that we not become cheerleaders and activists for U.S. imperialism acting under the guise of humanitarianism. Instead, we must defeat the system that uses local nationalist and religious forces to whip up race/religion hatred, making settlement of differences virtually impossible. The U.S. has used Islamic fundamentalism (directly creating bin Laden) and local nationalists — supplying and supporting Saddam Hussein for many years during the Iran-Iraq war — to wage war for the profit interests of U.S. companies under an ideological cover. Therefore, so we must not endorse any U.S. intervention. Even involvement by the African Union and/or the UN is suspect, since they don’t represent the interests of the international working class either.

Can something be done to stop the rampage in Darfur? Yes, but the specifics may seem indirect. We must reach out to Sudan’s working class, which has shown in the past that it has a strong commitment to communist ideas. In fact, the old Communist Party came to power for a short time in 1968, but by then its opportunism led it into a coalition with the capitalists. Soon, this coalition fell to a military coup. Reaching out to any imperialists or to Sudanese government troops will make things worse. A political revolution and fundamental change is required. Our goal must be to deepen the base for communism within the international working class in the U.S., Sudan and elsewhere.

Building PLP, selling and distributing CHALLENGE, forming study groups and recruiting to PLP on an international basis is the best way to oppose mass murder in Sudan. This may seem indirect and even cold towards the plight of the dying, malnourished children of Darfur. But no other route is available. Allying with one imperialist or another is a strategy that will only prolong the struggle against capitalism and produce more casualties for the working class worldwide.

LETTERS

Youth Experiences at Protest Against GOP Convention

Here are some thoughts from young people from Seattle about their experiences while protesting the Republican National Convention in New York:

"New York was far from what I had imagined. The people in New York were nice in giving directions and so forth, and Brooklyn alone had such an interesting culture. When I ask someone for directions in Seattle they look at me funny, almost as if they were scared. At the march people asked me about my shirt, which said ‘Revolt, Don’t Vote.’ I told them that replacing the president wasn’t going to mean the war would be finished or that the troops would come home. The truth is that the system has to change and once that happens maybe we can be closer to a more peaceful world."

"The thing that stands out for me was the protest. I never saw so many people in one place at one time. I also enjoyed the BBQ because it was fun being around a big group of people all coming together to have a good time. The one thing I didn’t enjoy was selling CHALLENGE because it made me feel uncomfortable, handing out something I know nothing about. I learned a little bit about communism and I kind of agree with it, but I’m not ready for that kind of change yet."

"I had an exciting experience in New York, participating in several activities. I gave out leaflets and tried to sell some CHALLENGES. I was very surprised at how many people wanted to read the leaflets and the paper. I was kind of nervous because people would look at me funny, like ‘why are you doing this?’ I was afraid they’d ask me a question that I couldn’t answer. The hardest thing was trying to sell CHALLENGE, but it was also a fun experience. I enjoyed talking to people and also learned some things."

"My first visit to New York was hot, fun and tiring. The protest was definitely the highlight of the trip. The people I met were welcoming and nice. I really appreciated the hospitality we received from all the PLP members from New York and Boston."

The Seattle Crew

CHALLENGE comment: Thanks for your input. You all have a lot of good questions you should discuss with PLP members in your area: Everyone should be exchanging views on the best ways to sell the paper, what we do when someone asks a question we can’t answer, and so on. Keep at it!

Excited Over Finding REAL Communist Party

Thank you for the issue of CHALLENGE and "Road to Revolution 4." Finally I’ve found a Communist Party (PLP) which holds to a revolutionary communist line. I’ve been a Marxist-Leninist for a long time, and I’ve yet to find a "Communist" party (until now) which did not hold either a revisionist and/or opportunist line. Most, if not all, have retreated, especially from the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and revolution, as well as from the basic Marxist principle that class antagonisms cannot be reconciled. They submit (or openly support) the bosses’ sham "democracy" and love being able to vote for the member of the ruling class who they "choose" to exploit and oppress them, either in the White House, Congress or State Legislature.

These fakes are simply tools of the ruling class sent out to fool the masses. I want to join PLP and fight for revolution and communism. People here are quite receptive to communism and feel the capitalist system is outdated and undemocratic by any definition of "democracy" and needs to go, the sooner the better. I’m willing to work with the Party in any way the Party has use for me. I’m 29, currently unemployed; I was raised working class and have been shafted all too often by the ruling class and capitalism, and I’ll work and fight until (and after) it’s replaced by a communist revolution.

J.A. (Little Joe)

a name="Spread Red Ideas In Migrant ‘Concentration Camp’"></">Sp"ead Red Ideas In Migrant ‘Concentration Camp’

I work packing corn in what can best be described as a concentration camp. It’s a real camp in which migrant workers like me live together for several months. The positive aspect of this "jail" is we get to know each other very well, with all kinds of conversations, from politics to sports to religion.

There are two 12-hours shifts. We’re on call 24 hours a day, forced into this slavery because it’s the only kind of work many of us undocumented workers can get to feed our families on miserable paychecks every two weeks.

"This guy seems to be a communist," is how some workers refer to me. Some of my best friends are reading DESAFIO.

Year after year most of these workers travel with their families and friends from the Texas-Mexico border to work in a cold Mid-western state. I’m one of the few workers who come from another region of the world. Men and women live in collective dorms, separated by sex, married couples. We have a food hall, showers and other services like in a jail or a military barracks.

Literature in Spanish is very rare so DESAFIO and the new "Communist" magazine in Spanish are very helpful. I’ve been reading a book by the German writer Günter Wallraff about the rabid racism "guest workers" from Turkey suffer in Germany. The author passed as a Turk and experienced the racism personally. Although it’s limited in denouncing racism as an individual adventure, but when he risks his life in dangerous jobs like cleaning nuclear plants, it hits migrant workers like me as much too real.

I also read "Garabombo, the Invisible Man" by Manuel Scorza. It’s about indigenous people fighting seizure of their land, and their endless struggle for land reform which never comes to Peru, Colombia or any other Latin American country. The meager land these peasants are left with is being taken away by paramilitary death squads and international agribusiness monopolies, which control prices and distribution. In this book, people suffer and get killed but continue to organize and fight back.

One passage struck me: "We have to put an end to these abuses from town to town, and the medicine is a general rebellion….The main thing is to build a general staff….You know as former soldiers the key is having a general command, which will never die."

We know that reforms are just that; they don’t change much. Only communism will plant the seeds to feed us all, without providing huge profits for a few bosses.

Red Corn

Fascist Attack On Poor Workers Collecting Cans

Recently I was collecting cans at a place I’ve usually done so for many years when the head of security rounded up myself and other collectors and told us if we came back we’d be arrested. I openly said that this was a fascist attack on poor workers.

The next Saturday, I had an opportunity to resist and take some direct actions against these fascists. When it was time to collect cans again at the same place, I told my father I was a little scared. He said there’s no difference between resisting obvious fascists and those fascists who wear the cloak of the state. I realized that resisting fascism is not a part-time commitment.

Of course, the best way is to organize workers, soldiers and students to fight for communism, so that every job, even collecting cans, will be one with dignity!

I collected cans that day, at the same place, although I was careful.

Red worker

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Below are excerpts from mainstream newspapers that contain important information:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

Imperialism will need draft

…Some military officers and political figures have long questioned whether 135,000 troops is a large enough force to prevail in Iraq.

What if another big deployment is needed? Estimates vary widely on how many additional troops might be required, but some analysts say the current overall force could easily fall short by more than 70,000….

A Pentagon-appointed panel recently concluded that the military would lack the forces to handle its current combat and stabilization operations if new crises emerged. The report, which has not been made public, apparently did not address the issue of a draft. But some policy makers have said it points to the potential need for one….

There is little political appetite in Washington for a new draft. "The one sure way to lose public support for the war in Iraq is to say we will institute a draft." (NYT, 10/3)

Afghans still in despair

Two and a half years after the establishment of President Hamid Karzai’s first government, the Afghans’ dream of seeing law and order restored seems remote. The former warlords’ militias, which have been promoted to the status of regular army units…are still very much in business — and have lost none of their bad habits….People want a central government, but the militias call the tune….

The warlords’ main aim would seem to be to hang on to power and to the money….In one village a commander collected all the inhabitants’ voting cards and promised them he would vote on their behalf….

What the Afghans most want is a government capable of providing them with security and jobs. They are beginning to despair of getting help from the international community… . (GW, 10/7)

Productivity = long hours

Politicians and CEOs like to boast about the productivity of American workers. But here’s the dirty little secret: U.S. productivity is No.1 in the world when productivity is measured as gross domestic product per worker, but our lead vanishes when productivity is measured as GDP per hour worked….

The U.S. "productivity advantage" is just another way of saying that we work more hours….

Twice as many American as European workers put in more than 48 hours per week….

Americans just need the money, given that the U.S. has the most unequal income distribution in the developed world. (L.A. Times)

Dems are equal bombers

I don’t believe a Gore administration would have been much better, nor would a Kerry one be. Doubt it?....Clinton bombed Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and the ex-Yugoslavia. Bush is on schedule to bomb the same number of countries by 2008. (GW, 10/7)

Big Oil: More Africa plots

Links have been discovered between senior American military officials and the failed coup plot in Equatorial Guinea that has left Sir Mark Thatcher facing trial in South Africa….

Both the US and Britain have extensive oil interests in Equatorial Guinea.(GW, 10/7)

Fox not the only liars

How much would we trust the corporate TV news if we knew that many major corporate broadcast groups filed legal briefs defending Fox TV’s position…that it is not against the law to lie to the American public on TV? (MinutemanMedia.org, 9/15)

Israel will raid Iran for US

…Israel has repeatedly warned that it may take direct action to stop an Iranian nuclear bomb "going critical"….

Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was once part of a three-man inner circle that kept even the sympathetic administration of President Ronald Reagan completely in the dark as they planned and carried out the daring 1984 airstrike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant....

A repeat against Iran would be universally perceived as American in spirit, even if exclusively Israeli in execution…. (GW, 9/30)

1. IRAQ WORSE THAN VIETNAM?
   U.S. Rulers' `Answer': WIDER WAR, KILL THOUSANDS MORE
2. Insurance Co./Gov't Gang-up Soaks Hurricane Victims
3. RUSSIAN AND U.S. RULERS: RIVALS IN
   IMPERIALIST RUTHLESSNESS
4. War Economy, Racism Hits Hospital Workers, Patients
   1. THE `DEFICIT' SCAM
5. Protestors Slam Hillary Clinton on Iraq war, asthma and racist unemployment
6. PLP Union Campaign Exposes Pro-Boss Hacks
7. Imperialist War Budget Attacks LA Hotel Workers
8. `Uncovered' Film Covers Up Democrats' Role As War Party
9. Don't `Rock the Vote': ROCK CAPITALISM!
10. Chavez's `Anti-Imperialism' Hides Links to Exxon and Big Oil
11. Thailand's Youth Forced Into Sex Slavery in Trillion $ Industry
12. LETTERS
    1. Airport Workers' Unity Fires Racist
    2. Youth Thirsting For Red Ideas
    3. French CP Fair Hosted by War Merchants
    4. Salvador Sends Poor Soldiers to Iraq
    5. Mid-East Youth Head for Iraq
    6. FBI Cointelpro Had Wide Reach
    7. Can World War III Be Prevented?
    8. Cosby Always Served Bosses
    9. It's Not Bush or Kerry; It's Capitalism
13. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Abu Ghraib methods here
    2. Low pay is real stress
    3. Exec's only job is profit
    4. Big US co. poisons Asians
    5. US trains killers of workers
    6. Trying to spin Iraq
    7. Unsafe -- but profitable!
14. State Power -- Part III
    1. A CALL FOR ALL-OUT WAR
    2. THE CARTER DOCTRINE: WAR FOR OIL
    3. TRAVELING THE NAZI ROUTE
15. Auto workers strike
    American Axle this year.

---

IRAQ WORSE THAN VIETNAM?
U.S. Rulers' `Answer': WIDER WAR, KILL THOUSANDS MORE

"Most senior U.S. military officers how believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale." (Sidney Blumenthal -- former Clinton advisor and Washington bureau chief of Salon.com -- in The British Guardian, 9/16)

It's now quite clear the U.S. military was unprepared for urban guerrilla warfare in Iraq. Bush himself finally admitted it in an article in the N.Y. Times in August. The "transfer of power" to U.S. lackeys has not changed the military situation. The "new" Iraqi army and police either refuse to fight the insurgents or actually joined them as in the last uprising by Sadr in Najaf. The Marines had to destroy most of Najaf, alienating the Iraqi population even more. But many Pentagon officials and war supporters still gloat about the resounding success of U.S.-led forces last year in the major combat phase of the war -- Operation "Iraqi Freedom."

In 21 days the U.S. defeated the Iraqi military, overthrew Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime, and seemingly proved the wisdom of transforming the U.S. military into one that was lighter, swifter and laden with advanced technology. But now it appears this "transformation" has enabled a guerrilla insurgency to inflict over 1,000 deaths on U.S. soldiers and wound over 27,000. It recaptured the cities of Ramadi, Samarra, Baquba, among many others, and Sadr City in the heart of Baghdad.

Bush boasted to the National Guard convention that, "Our strategy is succeeding." And Kerry promises as President he'll have the U.S. out of Iraq in four years! "But," says Blumenthal, "according to the U.S. military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost."

* Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency told Blumenthal, "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al Qaeda, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too....Right now...we're achieving bin Laden's ends.... [as CHALLENGE predicted before the war began]. This is far graver than Vietnam.... We're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."

* Retired general Joseph Hoare, former Marine commandant and head of U.S. Central Command, told Blumenthal, "The idea this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world...." Hoare believes that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it -- after the elections.... You could flatten it. US military force would prevail, casualties would be high,...their leadership would escape and civilians would be caught in the middle....And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."

* Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said, "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true."

* Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute and the top expert on Iraq there, said, "I don't think you can kill the insurgency....[It] is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.... We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-generate....There are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The more we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."

General Odom told Blumenthal the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam....There's a significant majority [of the military] believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaeda." And these forces, as well as the leadership of the insurgency, are enemies of workers worldwide, including Muslim workers.

These former generals and military strategists don't represent the interests of Iraqi and U.S. workers and soldiers. They want a wider and more successful war which will kill many more tens of thousands. For U.S. rulers it's crucial to remain the top-dog imperialist, to control Iraqi oil and establish military bases in the heart of the Middle East. Whether Bush or Kerry is in the White House, the ruling class cannot afford to give up control of the region's oil. They might try to expand the war regionally, possibly attacking Iran, which they're already blaming for backing the Iraqi insurgency.

It is the task of communists to win workers and soldiers to oppose this murderous ruling class and the religious and nationalist leaders of the insurgency, expose their profit system as the killer it is, and fight to turn their imperialist wars into class war for communism.

Insurance Co./Gov't Gang-up Soaks Hurricane Victims

Natural disasters always expose capitalism in many ways. The island of Grenada -- the very same one Reagan invaded in 1983 to "save U.S. medical students from communism," (Cuban construction workers were helping to build an airport there) -- was devastated by hurricane Ivan "the Terrible." It destroyed over 90% of all houses there. All these hurricanes have killed hundreds in Grenada, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and throughout the Southern and Eastern U.S. Meanwhile, the people of Florida -- who suffered so much destruction from Charley, Frances and Ivan -- are now seeing even worse destroyers: the insurance companies and their government servants.

"As Floridians begin picking up the pieces...many are also discovering the full effects of a decade of maneuvering from the insurance companies and state officials that has dramatically reduced the obligations of private insurers to pay for the impact of catastrophic storms."(Wall Street Journal, 9/7)

In 1992, hurricane Andrew slammed southeastern Florida, inflicting $15.5 billion in insured damages, "wiping out every cent of profit insurance companies had ever generated on property policies in the state." (WSJ) The losses forced 11 insurers out of business.

So the insurance industry and the state authorities responded by revamping the entire insurance system.

"Big players like Allstate Corp. agreed not to abandon a combined 1.2 million policyholders in Florida only after state officials began cooperating in a legislative and regulatory effort to shift from insurance companies to consumers the burden for paying hundreds of millions of future storm-related losses." (WSJ) After all, under capitalism bosses are not really in the business of insurance; they're in the business of making profits.

Now hundreds of thousands of homeowners, many of whom thought they were paying for "full" property insurance, "now find themselves holding the bag for a much bigger portion of the estimated $10 billion to $15 billion in insured damage from Frances and Charley than they would have a decade ago." (WSJ)

Florida's government allowed insurers to raise premiums as much as 400% in some cases and to add hefty new deductibles.

While Florida is the most affected by these changes, a similar situation has occurred across the country. In California, residents who face the threat of storms or wildfires must choose between bare-bones coverage or high-priced policies offered by specialist insurers like Lloyd's of London.

Now with Ivan hitting, and with experts predicting many more years of hurricanes, capitalism will probably force policyholders to pay still more. While natural disasters occur, the profit system makes them worse. Capitalism is the biggest disaster.

RUSSIAN AND U.S. RULERS: RIVALS IN
IMPERIALIST RUTHLESSNESS

Russian President Putin recently sent the world a dire message written in the blood of children: Russia's rulers will stop at nothing to restore its imperial status. When Putin had his hit men storm the besieged Beslan school, he deliberately and needlessly wasted the lives of hundreds of students in order to wipe out a few dozen Chechen separatist murderers (see CHALLENGE, 9/22 on how the Chechen terrorists serve anti-Putin oil bosses). Putin had shown the same disregard for human life two years ago, when he ordered troops to retake a Moscow theater using poison gas, killing four times as many hostages as Chechen hostage-takers. Now, in response to the Beslan crisis, Putin has suspended the popular election of governors in Russia's 89 regions, lest any other separatists gain power. From now on the Kremlin will hand-pick governors.

Putin claims he's taking a hard line against terrorism. But he's really trying to rebuild an empire that can compete with the U.S. And oil and gas are keys to his strategy, just as they are for U.S. bosses. Russia's rulers plan to exert influence beyond its borders by becoming the dominant supplier of energy to Europe and China. But this requires constructing and controlling a network of pipelines across a vast territory. Putin will not brook interference from breakaway states like Chechnya, which sits astride an important export route for Caspian oil. The day after he ended elections, Putin announced the merger of gas giant Gazprom with oil producer Rosneft. The new firm will have nine times the reserves of Exxon Mobil. And, with the state owning a majority share, Gazprom-Rosneft will become a political weapon for the Kremlin. It will "spearhead whatever the government policy may be," said a London-based oil analyst (Bloomberg, 9/15). Putin had already forcibly wrested Yukos, which pumps as much crude as Iraq, from pro-U.S. ex-billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky. When Yukos's chief met with Exxon Mobil bosses last year to discuss selling them a big share of Yukos, Putin surrounded his house with armed soldiers. The deal fell through. Khodorkovsky now rots in a Moscow jail.

Putin's heavy-handed plan for Russian "greatness" goes beyond slaughtering schoolchildren, abolishing voting rights and seizing the energy industry. He wants to turn the clock back to the 1960s and 1970s, when the state capitalist Soviet Union supplied military equipment to virtually every nation or rebel group that claimed to oppose U.S. imperialism. Boasting in a September 17th speech that Russian arms sales had shot up 15% from 2002 to 2003, Putin said. "We must broaden the geographic scope of these sales and involve new partners in our sphere of cooperation." (Le Monde, 9/17) Currently the biggest buyers are India and China, which U.S. rulers view as potential military threats in the decades to come.

These aren't the actions of an "evil madman," as the U.S. media likes to portray Putin. They reflect the needs of the Russian capitalist class. U.S. rulers, with similar imperialist designs, are implementing their agenda of war and fascism with a ruthlessness equal to Putin's. When profits are at stake, workers' lives mean nothing to capitalists. Nationalist and religious uprisings in Iraq are preventing U.S. oil barons from realizing their six-million-barrel-a-day dream. So down comes the iron fist of indiscriminate butchery. In April, Bush sent the Marines into Fallujah, "pulverizing neighborhoods and killing at least 800 people, most of them women and children," according to an eyewitness. Journalist Nir Rosen wrote in the October issue of The Atlantic, "I saw hospitals riddled with bullets and shells; I met ambulance drivers who had been wounded by snipers; I saw children missing limbs from Marine bullets and shells." Air raids that kill noncombatants are standard operating procedure. "The U.S. Air Force has stepped up its policy of trying to assault insurgents from the air while the army avoids ground attacks that could lead to heavy U.S. casualties....The truth about who is being killed by the US air strikes is difficult to ascertain exactly....But, where the casualties can be checked, many of those who die or are injured have proved to be innocent civilians." (The Independent, 9/18) This is the course Kerry promises to "stay" if he's elected in November.

On the home front, U.S. rulers are trying to forge a unified intelligence service on the model of the notorious KGB (where Putin got his start). With the Enron, Adelphia, Martha Stewart and other trials, U.S. rulers' jailing of wayward business executives matches the Kremlin's. But for the incarceration of the working class, not even Russia comes close to U.S. prisons, which now include Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and stateside detention centers for "suspected terrorists" -- that is, people with Arabic names.

The profit system is merciless. It deserves to be terminated, mercilessly, by the working class in a communist revolution.

War Economy, Racism Hits Hospital Workers, Patients

MIAMI, Sept. 17 -- A hurricane-like blast is hitting hospital workers and patients here. Jackson Memorial Hospital, the city's main public healthcare institution, will be laying off or re-assigning at lower pay up to 500 workers in order to save $26 million. Jackson is among a growing number of U.S. public hospitals that are cutting workers and patient services. This is a direct result of a half-trillion dollar war budget paid for by shrinking federal and state reimbursements to Medicare and Medicaid and thereby increasing public hospital "deficit," all of which have a distinct racist character. (As we go to press, Miami-Dade County announced it's granting the hospital a $76 million "relief package" but the bosses are still proceeding with the job cuts, exposing their determination to lay off these workers no matter what.)

Instead of launching a fight against the cuts, the unions -- Local 1363 of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) -- is content to help the bosses: "Hospital and union leaders will meet in coming weeks to start choosing specific jobs to be cut." (Miami Herald, 9/16) The best Local 1363 president Vivienne Dixon-Shim can say is, "I'm very disappointed." [!] And the SEIU is the very same union that's threatening to leave the AFL-CIO because the latter is "not aggressive enough." Such is the state of class collaboration in the U.S. labor movement these days.

Public hospital systems in Los Angeles, Denver, Las Vegas, New York's Westchester County and Dallas are among those who have made similar cuts in recent years, on a list that's "expected to grow." (Herald) Alameda County, Calif., plans to cut 300 jobs at Oakland's Highland Hospital and had already cut two clinics.

All these public hospitals serve poor, working-class patients, including a large proportion of black, Latin and immigrant families. These groups are doubly victimized: because of racist wage and unemployment rates they cannot obtain services at the richer private hospitals, nor the health insurance plans that would pay for them. And now, their only source of what passes for "health care" -- public hospitals -- are cutting back on workers and services. In addition, a high proportion of the laid-off hospital workers themselves are black and Latin. Thus, racism is a central feature of these cuts.

THE `DEFICIT' SCAM

The hospital bosses claim that increasing drug costs and declining federal and state reimbursements are creating a deficit and forcing these layoffs and service cuts. (Jackson expects an even larger "shortfall" next year.) However, their premise for the "deficit" is that workers must pay for the need of capitalism to make profit -- especially the pharmaceutical companies -- and for the bosses' need to finance endless imperialist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere to protect that profit system (a system that had GI's wounded in Iraq paying for their meals in VA government hospitals!). "Deficits" are just another way for capitalism to exploit the working class. In this case, it shoves the cost of health care on the backs of the workers so that the bosses can pursue maximum profits.

If the working class, as healthcare workers and as patients, were the first priority, as they would be in a profit-free system -- communism -- there would be no "deficit." There would only be the collective desire of the working class as a whole to use the social value we produce to take care of the health of all those workers who need it. It's up to a communist-led working class to abolish all "deficits" by abolishing capitalism. That's the only way to guarantee the health of our class.

Protestors Slam Hillary Clinton on Iraq war, asthma and racist unemployment

Last month my church provided a major photo-op for one of the ruling class's most dangerous agents, Senator Hillary Clinton, a possible Democratic nominee for President in 2008. She still maintains lots of support from black working people despite pushing welfare "reform" and supporting every imperialist war since 1991. This church appearance was to focus on the asthma epidemic that's killed over 50,000 working people in the last ten years and was the sole anti-racist issue John Kerry raised in his "bigger and better imperialism" acceptance speech, a cynical effort to hang onto the Democratic inner-city base. Clinton promised to get lots of HUD money for public housing health renovation if we elect Kerry.

The event was stage-managed by the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a leading old money financial movement to mislead church and community groups into suicidal reformism. True to form the sweltering hundreds packing the church were anaesthetized by bureaucratic report after report and then awakened by the Senator's lively, "You're-right-and-I'm-going-to-fix-it" speech. No question and answer period permitted.

As she finished I yelled out a "prayer" to "remember the 50,000 killed in the U.S. by asthma and the hundreds of thousands killed by sanctions and bombs in Iraq." But the chair drowned me out by closing the meeting with applause for the Senator.

Our club, plus four allies from a neighboring church, raised the Party's line by distributing over 300 leaflets linking imperialism and racism, along with posters lining the Senator's exit path. One comrade's poster read, "My son-in-law enlisted to study engineering, not to kill Iraqi civilians." Another decried the 48% unemployment in our ghetto community. I shouted, "How many Iraqi children did your sanctions kill?" as the Senator ducked into a police van. At least this sharp action prepared us to go to the Republican Convention on the offensive. It will lead to sharper struggle about the church's involvement in IAF illusion-building in the future.

Sick on rancid, reformist roquefort, Red Churchmouse

PLP Union Campaign Exposes Pro-Boss Hacks

The unionized industrial workforce in the U.S. has been decimated in the past 10 years. From the steel and auto industries to aerospace, relatively good-paying jobs with benefits and a pension are fast becoming extinct. At one industrial local where a comrade is running for a position on the union's governing body, tens of thousands of jobs have been lost due to layoffs and there is a transformation of the industrial working class into a non-unionized workforce composed largely of immigrant workers employed by subcontractors.

The ruling class has decided it's just too expensive to pay workers decent wages and pensions when there are wars to fight to secure oil profits and global domination. Peter Peterson, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations -- a ruling-class policy-making group -- wrote recently that the U.S. must choose "between retirement security and national security." Essentially he was saying that "entitlement programs" (i.e., Social Security, pension plans, Medicare, etc.) must be eliminated, or at least reined in substantially, to be able to afford the "stunningly" expensive wars necessary to secure U.S. global domination. ("Riding for a Fall," Foreign Affairs, 9/1/04)

Although our comrade has little chance of winning the election itself, due to the current leadership's mafia-style hold on power, he has influenced the tone of the debates surrounding the elections. We have distributed thousands of leaflets throughout the plants linking the attacks on industrial workers to the war in Iraq, opening up hundreds of discussions. A long-term conflict like the one in Iraq essentially requires a "war economy." The incredible expenses involved with making war, upwards of $200 billion, requires a grinding down of the working class, squeezing as much value for as few dollars as possible and diverting the surplus towards the war effort.

Faced with incredible odds, what are industrial workers to do? From where can we draw strength? The unions offer coalitions with the companies and politicians, staking workers' futures with those of the company and of U.S. capitalism. We say stake our future on the strength of the working class and the fight for communism. Only a mass communist party engaged in struggle for revolution offers any hope for workers' survival. We either fall into line with the fascist grinding down of the working class and take what we can get (nothing at this rate), or we organize to build PLP, to build a communist party that fights for workers' power.

The local leadership refuses to link attacks on workers to the war in Iraq. After a speech to shop stewards outlining the problems with the Pension Guarantee Corporation -- a federal agency -- and its inability to actually cover pensions abandoned by corporations, and linking those problems to the costs of the war, a union business rep told our comrade those problems were "just economic," unrelated to the war.

Meanwhile, some shop stewards, risking their positions and even their jobs, took leaflets and volunteered to support our comrade's election bid. Not only are these workers pissed, but they're motivated enough by the politics to act despite risks to their own economic well-being.

Since the union has staked its future with the rulers, it cannot afford to attack the ruling class for its assaults on workers. The union leaders are agents of the ruling class. We are NOT. We represent workers' interests and offer the only real alternative, a long hard struggle for communist revolution, for workers' power.

Imperialist War Budget Attacks LA Hotel Workers

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 -- Union leaders say it's "illegal" for hotel workers to picket while union and management are in mediation, but it seems perfectly legal for the Wilshire Grand Hotel to replace 17 union laundry workers with scabs!

On September 13, thousands of hotel workers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. authorized a strike. Three days later, the laundry workers arrived at the downtown luxury hotel where some have worked for 38 years, only to discover that non-union "replacement workers" held their jobs. They were told they could return to work only by accepting the bosses' demands.

At a press conference in front of the hotel the next day, the laundry workers chanted, "The workers, united, will never be defeated." Meanwhile, HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees) president Maria Elena Durazo explained to reporters that the union was doing everything possible to avoid a strike or lockout.

The last thing Durazo wants is to unleash the power of a united working class. Instead, she's telling workers to rely on politicians, the clergy and the same federal mediator who presided over the stunning defeat of last winter's grocery workers' strike. The union is filing a lawsuit challenging the lockout of the laundry workers, but refuses to allow any picketing because "we agreed not to protest during mediation."

HERE leaders are organizing an electoral campaign among their members and supporters for a healthcare insurance initiative (Proposition 72) on the November ballot. They're building the illusion that "we can make the system work," using financial backing from the liberal capitalist Liberty Hill foundation. Corporations like GM complain that healthcare costs, especially for retirees, make them less competitive with their Japanese and German rivals. They want a minimal national health plan, with taxpayers covering the costs and saving GM's profits. Prop. 72 is a California version of that plan. In the current expanding war economy this means health rationing, an attack pushed as a "reform."

LA's liberal leaders and their ruling-class backers don't want workers to see this struggle as "a tale of two cities -- one rich, one poor." Instead, they want super-exploited latino/a workers to believe the fairy-tale that they're part of "One LA." This appeal for class collaboration never mentions racism or imperialism and has no relation to bettering workers' conditions. It aims at winning workers to fascism and war.

After the press conference, workers listened intently to two representatives of liberal church groups offering their support. "It's easy to feel isolated and discouraged when you're in a situation like this and the law seems to be stacked against you," said one who represented an inter-religious peace and justice coalition, "but workers in many churches around the city stand with you, and there is no power greater than the working class when it is organized and fighting for its class interests."

Laundry workers were nodding as she continued: "You're in this situation today because we're living in a system based on profits and war. We must struggle for a society based on justice and peace. We're fighting not only for ourselves but for our children and grandchildren. " This was the only speaker citing the growing war, the reason for the attacks on the hotel workers.

If workers strike the nine LA hotels, all workers and students should join their picket lines. We should encourage a strike against the attacks on the workers, the war budget and the war in Iraq, with the message that the latter is costly to workers' health and benefits everywhere (See Deficit Scam on Page 3). Building the alliance between all workers and students can become the basis of a fight to destroy this racist, imperialist capitalist system. We can't allow the union leaders to divorce the attack on workers here from the Iraq war.

Workers' power with communist revolution can end these deepening attacks. Capitalism means exploitation and wars for profits. Workers can run society in our own interests, based on production for the needs of our class, eliminating profits and warmongers. We will take this message to the hotel workers.

`Uncovered' Film Covers Up Democrats' Role As War Party

I'm a member of a campus anti-war group which organized a forum on the war in Iraq, screening Robert Greenwald's Moveon.org-backed film "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War." A critique of the film was distributed afterwards and a speaker exposed it as a campaign tool for the Democratic Party. He said we must abandon the lesser-evil politics of phony leftists, that real change can never be achieved through the ballot box; it will require a strong, revolutionary, anti-imperialist movement led by communists and communist ideology.

Greenwald's film has become a favorite of liberal-leftists and the "anybody-but-Bush" crowd for its penetrating criticisms of the Bush administration's lies about Iraq's WMD stockpiles and capabilities. While it does expose many lies and deceptions used by Bush & Co. to initially justify the war, it fails to offer a broader analysis of the real reasons why the U.S. ruling class was so eager to invade Iraq: oil profits and increasing inter-imperialist rivalry.

Even more damaging, "Uncovered" -- much like Michael Moore's recent "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- never mentions the Democratic Party's similar lies about, and decade-long history of, violence against Iraqi workers. The film hides the parallel imperialist agendas of Democrats and Republicans and the U.S. ruling class's imperialist and fascist plans.

Victimized by the spontaneity and lesser-evilism of the current anti-war movement, many in the audience initially attacked the criticisms of the film and of electoral politics by myself and the speaker, labeling our position "impractical" and "unrealistic." One woman paraphrased Arianna Huffington, saying, "When the house is burning, you don't talk about rebuilding -- you talk about putting out the fire."

We made clear the inevitability of capitalist crises and imperialist wars and explained that the Democrats can only represent the interests of the ruling class. To end wars for profit and fascist attacks at home, the working class must destroy the profit system that breeds and lives off these and many more brutal injustices and organize for communist revolution.

Soon a number of people began to defend PL's line on lesser-evilism and on the need to fight imperialism and capitalism directly. Some agreed that the struggle against imperialism should not focus on one administration or one political party, but on the capitalist system as a whole. Others cited the atrocities committed by the Clinton administration.

Ultimately many in the audience realized how "impractical" and "unrealistic" it was to pin their hopes on the Democratic Party, the electoral process and lesser-evil politics, and that both parties serve the interests of monopoly capital. Both are equally hawkish in their implementing the imperialist agenda. The endless lesser-evil game of playing pin the donkey's tale on the elephant's ass was exposed as opportunist lies used to draw workers away from communism, the only practical and realistic path toward emancipating the working class.

The forum brought some of my friends in the group closer to PL and to the idea that a communist revolution led by workers, students, and soldiers under the banner of a revolutionary communist party is the only solution to capitalism's evils. A number of contacts were made. This struggle revealed a great potential for sharpening the fight against imperialist war and building PLP.

Don't `Rock the Vote': ROCK CAPITALISM!

My college campus recently had a "Rock the Vote" rally. A good friend and regular CHALLENGE reader encouraged me to attend and struggle to get on stage. Through friendships I made in an anti-war coalition, I was able to get to speak, and did so about the need for revolution.

I began by saying, "Most people who will speak today will say that the most important thing you can do to change the world is to vote on November 2. I disagree." No one booed. I explained that voting will never bring the social change necessary to end the war and create peace. History proves that such change only happens through massive social movements of organized people who have no interest in maintaining a system that is killing them.

I said whoever's elected will not only continue the war, but also the massive racist cuts to education and healthcare, because they serve the capitalist system which needs inequality and war. They will cut these services to finance ever-widening war. I said I don't believe peace and capitalism can ever co-exist. Capitalism breeds terrorism.

I reminded people that the county government recently closed another hospital in our city, and is threatening to close a trauma center, built after a black rebellion, which treats predominantly black and Latin workers. "Every one of us will know someone who dies because of that closure. Closing hospitals is an act of racist terrorism." The audience, especially black and Latin students, loudly cheered and clapped in agreement.

My friends thanked me and I made sure they all received a copy of CHALLENGE. I told them that's where I learn how the working class fights back.

Later, a man I didn't know thanked me, saying, "You actually talked about something real. Everyone else was just saying the same empty things." I gave him the paper.

PLP's line contrasts sharply with some famous "anti-war" intellectuals, who are madly trying to convince many honest people that "anybody but Bush" will be better. The Democrats' record of vicious imperialist war mirrors the Republicans. Kerry promises to manage the war better than Bush, not to end it. In 1964 some urged voting for Democrat Johnson during the Vietnam War because Republican Goldwater "would bomb Vietnam into the Stone Age." Johnson was elected and proceeded to bomb Vietnam unmercifully.

The most recent example of this mis-leadership is Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn supporting Kerry with the petition "Vote to Stop Bush": "For people seeking progressive social change in the United States, removing George W. Bush from office should be the top priority." Marxist scholars like Michael Parenti ignore their own understanding of imperialism and openly back Kerry.

Communists' main job is to serve the workers. That means being the first to speak up when the working class is being misled. Fear of isolation should not stop us. My experience at the Rock the Vote rally showed this.

PLP will not compromise our principles. Especially when there is such a vacuum, we must keep raising our anti-imperialist line and actions. Even if our friends don't agree with us now, they'll respect us, and when our analysis proves correct, will move closer to PL. My main error, which I will correct, was not to fight for action against the war and the war budget. As U.S. rulers prepare for greater attacks on workers in Iraq and in the local hospital closing, we must fight for leadership by organizing against them, presenting the alternative to capitalism. Fight for Communism; we have a world to win!

Chavez's `Anti-Imperialism' Hides Links to Exxon and Big Oil

For years, CHALLENGE has warned many who support Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez as their "savior" from the old crooked ruling class are making a big political mistake. The "anti-imperialist" rhetoric of such nationalist leaders hides their drive for a bigger profit share from their senior partners. Only organizing a mass revolutionary communist party can free workers from these exploiters.

While Chavez "denounces" U.S. bosses, he allows major U.S. companies to operate freely in Venezuela. Some are linked to the Bush gang. The country's state-owned oil company (PDVSA) has strategic relations with over 200 foreign corporations, including Exxon, Enron, Amoco, Conoco and Chevron-Texaco, among the world's richest imperialists.

Venezuela is the world's fifth largest crude oil exporter; 15% of the oil consumed in the U.S. (150,000 barrels daily) comes from Venezuela. This cozy relationship remains under the Chavez government. ExxonMobil, Enron, Amoco and Conoco are exploring for natural gas throughout the country.

In 1993, PDVSA opened up to what became $2 billion worth of foreign investments, producing an additional 260,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Conoco, Exxon-Mobil, France's Totalfinaelf, Statoil, Chevron-Texaco and Phillips divided up the Orinoco strip. Three of the four blocs in the Delta platform are already assigned for the exploration and exploitation of natural gas -- with an estimated 38 billion cubic feet of gas -- and the 4th is probably slated for Texaco-Chevron and Statoil. They already share operations with PDVSA.

PDVSA is also well-established in the U.S., controlling Oklahoma-based CITGO. Its refineries handle one million barrels daily in eight cities in six states. CITGO is the 5th largest gasoline distributor in the U.S. (10% of the market), with 13,000 gasoline stations here and in Puerto Rico. It's also the 4th largest distributor of airplane fuel and is first in other distilled products.

Chavez maintains he won't halt exports to the U.S. PDVSA made that clear in ads in the Venezuelan press just before the August 15 referendum (won by Chavez), which also highlighted PDVSA's good relations with Exxon, Chevron and Conoco-Phillips. After all, 60% of all PDVSA exports of crude goes to the U.S. Chavez admitted the U.S. has 85% of all foreign investments in Venezuela.

"The presence of Chevron-Texaco in Venezuela," says Chavez, "indicates that our relationship with the U.S. is historical and deep. We aspire to have the same dynamism in our political, social and all other relations as we have in the commercial ones."

There's a legal dispute between INTESA, a mixed company set up by PDVSA, and SAIC (Science Applications International Corp) to give support and maintenance to PDVSA. Chavez threatened to seize total control of INTESA because SAIC participated in a general strike to topple Chavez, threatening oil production. SAIC claims total control of INTESA based on U.S. laws and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Alí Rodríguez Araque, PDVSA President, countered by saying: "The fact that there are a lot of companies investing in Venezuela's oil industry, totaling over $25 billion so far, is a clear demonstration that we are dedicated to the highest levels of legal and commercial standards."

Two journalists, Alexander Foster and Tulio Monsalve, exposed who's behind SAIC: J.R. Beyster, its President, is a member of the Security Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for the Bush administration. SAIC's Board of Directors includes Melvin Laird and William Perry, former Secretaries of Defense; John Deutch and Robert Gates, former CIA directors; retired General Max Thurman, who led the U.S. invasion of Panama; Donald Hicks, former Pentagon chief of investigation; Wayne Downing, former chief of Special Forces; Gen. Jaspers Welch, former coordinator of the National Security Agency; and Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, former CIA and NSA director.

SAIC has won important Pentagon contracts designing aerospace military security systems, as well as the Defense Department's information program. It also works with the world's key oil companies like BP-Amoco, PDVSA'S leading international competitor. (All information from Proceso magazine, Mexico City, 8/22/04.)

Not surprisingly, the world's biggest oil companies were happy Chavez won (see CHALLENGE, 9/8) because he guarantees stability for now. Losing to the old bosses would have sparked mass rebellions by the workers -- mostly dark-skinned -- who hate the old racist ruling class. Carlos Andres Perez, the Social-Democrat former Venezuelan President and current opposition leader now exiled in Miami and the Dominican Rep., sent troops in 1989 to crush a mass workers' rebellion (known as El Caracazo), murdering over 1,000 workers and youth. While U.S. bosses would prefer a more pliable pro-U.S. government in Venezuela, they must accept Chavez for now, despite his populist rhetoric and flirting with Fidel Castro. Meanwhile, the Bush gang still supports the anti-Chavez forces led by the racist old bosses to use when they need them.

Although Chavez has used the recent oil bonanza to give workers some crumbs, this won't alleviate the extreme poverty and super-exploitation suffered by most. PLP fights to win Venezuela's militant anti-racist workers to build a revolutionary communist movement and fight for control of the oil wealth, to share according to workers' needs.

Thailand's Youth Forced Into Sex Slavery in Trillion $ Industry

Chiang Mai, Thailand -- Cruel and unrelenting, the laws of supply and demand force thousands of men and women into the streets here each evening searching for work. Throughout Thailand, over 300,000 dispossessed working-class youth have been transformed into sex slaves for wealthy tourists from Europe, Australia and the U.S.

Thailand's infamous sex tourism is a trillion-dollar-a-year-industry. Although most "sex workers" say they began working to avoid a life of poverty, a host of fake intellectuals and profit-grubbing bosses routinely defend prostitution as "consensual sex." This treacherously denies the gross economic, legal and educational inequalities that exist between buyer and seller. It implies that the sale of one's body for sex is a "freely-made economic choice." The human reality is otherwise.

As one sex worker explained, "In my home I could catch fish with my hands, hunt birds in the forest, herd cows on horseback, plant rice and make my own clothes. I only needed money to buy sauce for cooking." At eleven, her mother died, and she was sent to Bangkok to clean hotel rooms. Denied citizenship, identity, education and legal employment, she found herself forced into prostitution, made to drink alcohol by her boss, displayed naked for the amusement of clients and pimped to the highest bidder. Many sex workers become addicted to alcohol after using it for years to overcome their aversion to this life.

A bizarre debate between liberal reformers and the Thai government seeks to redefine the rules for this dehumanizing sex trade. In the past, the government in the past played the role of pimp by registering prostitutes under the Venereal Disease Control Act of 1909 and the Sex Trade Control Act of 1928. Then in 1960 the former dictator, Sarit Thanarat, officially outlawed prostitution. Nevertheless the sex trade increased dramatically during the next decades, spurred by the presence of U.S. soldiers on leave from the Vietnam War and later by international tourism.

In 2003, liberal NGOs, advocating on behalf of sex workers, demanded decriminalization and the enforcement of occupational health and safety standards like those in other industries. Then the Thai government seized an opportunity to profit from the trafficking of women and children by proposing "legalization" instead, allowing authorities to tax and profit from sex work without insuring such basic securities as sick leave, maximum working hours or emergency fire exits in brothels. Neither side questions the economic and political system that drives young workers into this activity in the first place.

Illegal and unsafe abortions are common, performed by untrained personnel and sometimes by the women themselves. Many women die from complications. From a sample of 4,588 women admitted to Thailand hospitals for symptoms related to induced abortions, nearly half had serious complications such as severe bleeding or infection. In many cases there were perforations of the uterus. Five women in this group died. The World Health Organization estimates that unsafe abortions cause between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths per year worldwide.

Some sex workers buy the liberal line, resisting the idea that they're victims of a system that exploits women. Instead they view prostitution as "women setting limits, gaining in economic strength, and acquiring a detailed knowledge of male sexuality and emotional needs," comparing their work to other high-risk occupations such as psychiatric nurses, soldiers, taxi drivers or liquor store attendants.

Sex worker advocates insist that rather than view these women as passive and misguided, society should regard them as "rebelling inside a patriarchal structure, turning the situation to [their] own social and economic advantage." While this seems less oppressive than the religious ideas used to justify the super-exploitation of sex workers ("The sinners deserve their fate!"), in reality the liberals are defending a brutal, exploitative system. It's the legal and economic inequalities of capitalism that enable sex tourism to exist in the first place.

Rampant prostitution disappeared from both Russia and China in the years after communist-led revolutions when workers ran those countries. Once every young person was guaranteed education and employment in the Soviet Union of the 1920s, the sex trade disappeared. For decades after the 1949 Chinese socialist revolution, prostitution vanished. Thirty years after the revolution, venereal diseases had become so rare that routine prenatal screening for syphilis was abandoned -- the tests were never positive! Sadly, as capitalism was restored to those countries, prostitution -- along with many other ills of capitalist society, like racism -- returned to ruin lives of the new generation.

Tragically, in Thailand where Buddhism is practiced by over 95% of the population, many sex workers see their salvation in religion, spending quantities of emotional energy, time and money praying to exclusively male monks, dead ancestors and hundreds of statues encrusted with jewels and gold. Nearly as disheartening is the slavish devotion most residents show to their monarchy, even though the government is run by telecommunications multi-millionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party that control an absolute two-two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The recipe for sexual exploitation, Thai style, is the same recipe followed in other capitalist dictatorships. Start with stale economic opportunities that compel young people to abandon their culture and values. Add just enough laws so you can lock up anyone, at any time, for any reason. Mix with a religion that promises perfection "in the next world" and season with plenty of alcohol to enslave their minds and make their bodies compliant. Bake until the ambitions of working-class youth are nothing but ashes.

No deaf gods or aloof monarchy can save young people in Thailand. Only a communist revolution of the heart and mind that spills into the streets will do the job.

LETTERS

Airport Workers' Unity Fires Racist

There's been lots of class struggle at my airport job. Workers are angry over racist, sexist and anti-worker mistreatment. Many are immigrant workers from Mexico, El Salvador, Laos, Ethiopia and Somalia (and are also CHALLENGE readers). The company's two-tier system divides workers even more, using two part-time workers for every full-timer. The part-timers receive no health benefits and are overworked. However, a series of racist incidents united the workers to try to get a fascist boss fired.

When this boss first took over, he called an African-American worker "boy." Then when a Mexican worker's child was accidentally injured at home, this boss initially refused to let this worker go to her child in the hospital. Shortly afterwards she was threatened with suspension and termination for attending to her child. The union shop steward (a PLP member) intervened and urged the union to stop the racist boss.

The final straws saw the boss refusing to allow a worker having an allergic reaction to a chemical at work to go to the hospital, and then yelling at an Ethiopian worker to bring her to the verge of tears.

The workers then united and demanded the union -- the SEIU -- get this racist boss fired immediately. It worked!

This is a significant victory on the shop floor, but we live in a capitalist society that's racist against workers at home and imperialist abroad, as in Iraq. The system can replace one racist boss with another, but they need to maximize profits from exploiting both immigrants and non-immigrants. Only destroying this system altogether can eliminate racism.

Airport comrade

Youth Thirsting For Red Ideas

"Dad, when is there going to be another cadre school?" "What do you think philosophy is? Tell me. Explain it to me so I can see if we agree on it." "What is your main contradiction?" Questions like these abound in my house these days.

My children, one a university student and the other in high school, attended the youth cadre school and returned very emotional about it. My wife and I are Party members and feel very proud that our children are part of the struggle to learn the Party's ideas and are willing to join.

At first I thought it was risky to send my children to this school, given the repression surrounding us, but my class consciousness won out. My children are part of the working class and need to learn how to survive in this rotten system and to fight to destroy it and create a system that meets workers' needs -- communism.

"And what about me?" protested our youngest child. "When am I going to a school like this? They got to go and I didn't."

"Your time will come," my wife replied. "It's a process and you're part of it."

Let's go forward, comrades. Sometimes the march is slow, but the march continues.

A comrade father

French CP Fair Hosted by War Merchants

The French "Communist" Party newspaper L'Humanité held its annual fair in early September. One can get a lot of material at such fairs, and usually a big plastic bag to put them in. Of course, there was lots of political stuff. But, according to journalist Michael Collon (rebellion.org), the bag was "courtesy of Dassault, the French defense industry giant, an official sponsor of the fair." Monsieur Dassault, the company's CEO, is one of the richest men in France. His latest acquisitions include the mass media, imposing an iron-like censorship on whatever he controls.

That wasn't all. L'Humanité has an ad by EADS, a European multi-national arms manufacturer, on the first page of its official program brochure. It lists all the deadly weapons the world's bosses use to kill workers: its combat helicopter Eurocopter, the Eurofighter jet, the Gladio spy satellite system, its Meteor missile and its Airbus A400M, capable of transporting hundreds of soldiers to Central Africa to enable French bosses to continue to super-exploit workers and steal the region's resources.

But this is not surprising. The French "C"P long ago abandoned any revolutionary principles. It helped General Charles DeGaulle crush the 1968 worker-student rebellion that threatened French capitalism. It now sides with French and European imperialism in their rivalry with U.S. imperialism. L'Humanité has become just another voice of Europe's imperialist war-makers.

Monsieur Rouge

Salvador Sends Poor Soldiers to Iraq

"My grandfather told me things never go well for those who put their noses in other peoples' business," joked a worker. "They only send the children of the poor to be soldiers," a young worker pointed out. "Why don't they send the children of the rich to fight on the other side of the world?"

Recently, Islamic terrorist groups have threatened three times to launch attacks in El Salvador if more Salvadoran troops were sent to Iraq. El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops there. In August 2003, the first 360 soldiers left for Iraq. Last February, they were replaced by 380 others. Despite the current Salvadoran leadership agreeing initially to one year's duty, they bowed to their U.S. masters to continue the troop presence for at least another six months.

Salvadoran President Saca has been lying about this since he took office. Bush sabotaged his plans when he took the U.S. imperialist position about the immigration policy and the Free Trade Agreement "negotiated" between the U.S. and Central America. Bush never helped Saca with any of this in exchange for dispatching Salvadoran troops to Iraq.

The Islamic group warned that, "The sending of Salvadoran troops will be a declaration of war against the Muslims in Iraq, which will force us to launch a war against you and to take the conflict to El Salvador. No citizen," they continued, "will have security in El Salvador when the soldiers get to Iraq.... We are not responsible for spilling blood in El Salvador because we've warned you against this decision." Of course, since these are terrorists -- not class conscious anti-imperialists -- fighting for their "own" nationalist bosses, they threaten to randomly attack Salvadoran workers, not the bosses who force the troops to go to El Salvador.

The warnings started when one terrorist group (Mohammed Atta Brigade-Al Qaeda Jihad) published a threat on its web page to begin attacks inside El Salvador. Despite this, Saca is sending a third contingent. "We have a duty to fight international terrorism and to help the people of Iraq rebuild," said Saca. "Our troops will march in the middle of August."

The Salvadoran working class doesn't believe these stories about "reconstruction," since only troops for war, not engineers or construction workers, were sent. The military has trained the soldiers for patrols, capturing people and manning check-points, not for repairing houses. However, these U.S.-trained Special Forces were instructed in jungle combat, not in desert fighting.

The Salvadoran government serves the capitalist system, specifically U.S. imperialism, in its "negotiations" of the Free Trade Agreement, and its fascist plans like Puebla Panama (a free trade zone from southern Mexico to Panama). The Salvadoran capitalists don't care about right-wing al Qaeda terrorists massacring workers in El Salvador. On the contrary, they hope it will happen.

No imperialist or capitalist offers us an end to exploitation, racism or imperialism. We must fight to destroy capitalism and replace it with a communist system that smashes all borders and unites workers internationally, based on mutual respect, solidarity and class interest.

A Comrade

Mid-East Youth Head for Iraq

The ruling class is going full steam ahead to increase fascism worldwide. A recent trip to a Mid-East country showed me how the term fighting terrorism is being used to attack the working class and crack down on dissent.

Many of my friends in this country cautioned me to be careful while visiting Internet cafés there because the government's undercover agents spy on people who frequent them and check on what websites they visit. BBC News reported that a young man from that country was sentenced to 20 years for visiting an "illegal" website. When human rights groups questioned this action, the government simply claimed it was fighting terrorism and silenced all opposition.

My friends are fearful of being sent political material over the Internet. But I thought it was important to discuss how we had to organize and fight this increasing fascism worldwide. Although my friends were somewhat skeptical about opposing the rulers, they did agree with much of PLP's communist line.

They also told me some young people here have gone to Iraq and joined the fight against the U.S. It seems anyone who's willing to fight the U.S. is considered a hero in the eyes of those workers who are facing the sharpest blows of capitalism's fascism.

In fact, Osama bin Laden is achieving hero status in the Arab world. Many newborn children are named after him. One of my friend's cousins is nicknamed "bin Laden" as a show of respect. Bin Laden is perceived as a fighter against the U.S. and Israel. Similarly, the so-called insurgents in Iraq are also given this same respect. When I pointed out bin Laden's involvement with the CIA in Afghanistan and his oil interests, it was met with some reservation, but it opened the door for more dialogue. Fake "militants" like bin Laden and Muslim clerics are additional barriers to communist revolution.

Communists know that fascist attacks on workers anywhere on earth are fascist attacks on all workers. We must dispel the illusion that fascism is "in the future" and figure out how to overcome the obstacles the ruling class uses to prevent us from uniting locally and internationally. Although presently many in the U.S. think fascism doesn't exist, workers throughout the world have fewer illusions. They're living under increasing fascism and understand it's here now and spreading!

Red Teacher

FBI Cointelpro Had Wide Reach

I've periodically seen CHALLENGE make corrections and/or additions to various commentaries. In the article (9/22) listing Democratic administration attacks on the working class, there's a reference to "Cointelpro" as an operation against anti-Vietnam War activists.

It's true this program targeted those opposing that war but Cointelpro had a much wider reach, attacking any and all elements considered "a threat to the internal security of the United States." This included

the American Indian, Black Nationalist and radical women's movements.

A major goal was to prevent the rise of a so-called "Black Messiah" that could unite the Civil Rights/Black Power movement here with the struggle of independence movements in Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere.

J. Edgar Hoover named such threats, stating that Malcolm X could have been such a messiah but had become a martyr of the movement; that Elijah Muhammad of the Nation Of Islam was "too old"; that Martin Luther King could be a potential threat if he were to abandon his reliance on so-called white liberal doctrine; and that Stokley Carmichael was a real threat to be such a messiah.

The program eventually listed the Black Panther Party as the greatest threat to U.S. internal security. It had a five-point program to stop the Panthers, one being to stop the massive recruitment of youth. Another used counter-intelligence to build distrust among the Panthers.

The point is that Cointelpro was not limited to Vietnam protesters.

It included the entire "People's Movement" at that time. It was not a program born of an individual (Hoover) or a separate entity (FBI). It was created by the capitalist state that feared the rising tide of the working class and its possible unification against the ruling class.

Onward, A Reader

Can World War III Be Prevented?

I applaud the comrades in Pakistan for building the PLP and spreading our internationalist, revolutionary communist politics there. It's encouraging to see us proving wrong the world bourgeoisie's "death of communism" wish.

Adding to the CHALLENGE response (9/22) about the point in the Pakistani comrades' letter that World War III could be "averted" if we win enough people to our ideas: unfortunately, as long as there is capitalism and imperialism, there will be wars for profits. World War III can't be averted. For instance, even though communists led the Soviet Union -- 1/6 of the world's surface -- in the 1930s and '40s, the Nazis, at first backed by U.S., British and French bosses, began WWII in great part to roll back the Bolshevik Revolution. We've learned from such history that the only way to end imperialist war is to smash capitalism throughout the world with communist revolution. World War III would present workers, soldiers and youth the opportunity to turn that imperialist war into revolution, either during or after that war.

 A communist analysis of imperialism shows that another large-scale war between opposing imperialists is not only possible, probable, and certain, but is actually necessary because of the drive for maximum profits.

Our task as communists is to prepare and organize the masses to ensure that WWIII will be the bosses' last war.

Young Red Reader

Cosby Always Served Bosses

CHALLENGE'S comment (8/4) on Uncle Bill Cosby's racist attacks on young black people wasn't the whole history. He wasn't any "typical" sellout. He peddled his ass from the start.

Cosby started as a comic in the early sixties, but his career leapt when he played a CIA type on the TV show "I Spy." There weren't a whole lot of dark-skinned CIA agents in real life in those days, and that was a good thing for black people generally.

Cosby was shoveling out the phony "pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps" crap for decades. His comedy routines and TV shows weren't done just for laughs. They portrayed black youth in very negative stereotypes. And it's not much of a stretch to charge him with having lent a major propaganda hand in the attacks on black people in general. (A good comparison might be made with Richard Pryor's early material: very pro-working class, though certainly not revolutionary.)

A daughter from outside marriage sued him for support, and Cosby ridiculed her from the witness stand. No doubt this incident reinforced his hatred for working-class youth and mothers, and even prompted the reactionary New Yorker magazine to criticize Cosby. He didn't care.

Cosby made his pile of money and that's what counts most to these pro-fascists. People like Jesse Jackson, Sharpton, Mary J. Blige, Kweisi Mfume have become a cheering squad for this racist.

North Country Red

It's Not Bush or Kerry; It's Capitalism

The article in your last issue (9/22) showed that the Republicans' claim of "job creation" is just a mirage. As reported in a recent N.Y. Post John Crudele column, "the unemployment rate is...a numbing 9.5% when you count people who are out of work and too discouraged to keep looking." As CHALLENGE has consistently reported, it's even worse when counting millions working part-time who seek but can't find full-time jobs.

So the Republicans' claim about "growing employment" is an outright lie. But the Democrats are just as bankrupt. Kerry says in the month remaining before the election "there is no chance [the Bush administration] can make up for 1.6 million private-sector jobs lost since January 2001." But what would Kerry do? Turn capitalism upside-down? The fact is the profit system has mass unemployment built into it. There has never been a time every worker had a job, and there never will be as long as capitalism exists.

Both Bush and Kerry represent a system that thrives on what Karl Marx called "the reserve army of the unemployed." Voting for either one is voting to continue a system that breeds joblessness. Only organizing for revolution that eliminates profits can end unemployment (as happened in the Soviet Union of the 1930s and '40s.

Old-time Red

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Abu Ghraib methods here

"I do not view the sexual abuse, torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers as an isolated event," says Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist who has often testified about human rights abuses in U.S. prisons. "The plight of prisoners in the USA is strikingly similar to the plight of the Iraqis who were abused by American GIs. Prisoners are maced, raped, beaten, starved, left naked in freezing cold cells and otherwise abused in too many American prisons, as substantiated by findings in many courts that prisoners' constitutional rights to remain free of cruel and unusual punishment are being violated.

(Creators Syndicate, 8/8)

Low pay is real stress

It is noteworthy that in news media coverage of job stress, the emphasis is usually on educated middle-class professionals who, in fact have many choices -- including a lower-pressure job or simply working less. All this hand-wringing over the suffering of the relatively fortunate only distracts us from the plight of Americans whose work lives are really stressful: those who are paid $7 or $8 an hour don't have health insurance and lack the skills to education to better their lot.

Life for these workers is a tightrope act without a net.... (NYT, 9/19)

Exec's only job is profit

Peter F. Drucker, the preeminent student of American management: "If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsibility, fire him fast." (NYT, 9/19)

Big US co. poisons Asians

BUYAT BAY BEACH, Indonesia -- First the fish began to disappear. Then villagers began developing strange rashes and bumps. Finally in January, Masna Stirman, aided by a $1.50 wet nurse, gave birth to a tiny, shriveled girl with small lumps and wrinkled skin....

The infant's death came after years of complaints by local fishermen about waste dumped in the ocean by the owner of a nearby gold mine, the Newmont Mining Corporation, the world's biggest gold producer, based in Denver....

Environmental groups and, increasingly, government officials charge that it employs practices not tolerated at home....

About 120 villagers were waiting to be examined in June....Thirty of the villagers had tumor-like growths, said one of the doctors, Jane Pangemanan....

"I was shocked by what I saw," she said.... About 80 percent showed symptoms of poisoning by mercury and arsenic. (NYT, 9/8)

US trains killers of workers

Since 2002, American military trainers have been instructing Colombian soldiers there in counterguerrilla techniques....

The attorney general's office said late Monday that Colombian soldiers assassinated three union leaders last month, an account that contrasts sharply with the army's earlier contention that the three men were Marxist rebels killed in a firefight.

The attorney general's announcement vindicated union leaders in Colombia and Europe who said the army had killed three defenseless union activists and then tried to cover the matter up.

Colombia is by far the world's most dangerous country for union members, with 94 killed last year and 47 slain by Aug. 25 this year... (NYT, 9/8)

Trying to spin Iraq

"There are areas where difficulties remain," (the response by Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, to a question about Iraq). (NYT, 9/19)

Bring this lesson to class?

"If con is the opposite of pro,"... then isn't Congress the opposite of progress?" Be prepared to discuss this... (NYT, 9/16)

Unsafe -- but profitable!

... the Food and Drug Administration....and seven drug makers had failed for years to warn doctors and patients that most antidepressants have not proved effective in treating depression in children and that some studies suggest they may cause some children to become acutely suicidal. In 2002, nearly 11 million prescriptions for the drugs were given to children, 2.7 million of them to children under 12.

Seven top executives from drug giants like Pfizer, Wyeth and GlaxoSmithkline were sharply questioned about why the companies had collectively failed to publish or publicize results of studies showing that their drugs had not proved effective in Treating teenagers and children. (NYT, 9/10)

State Power -- Part III

(The first article in this series on state power dealt with the government as the key instrument of the bosses' dictatorship. The second described the complex relationship between official and unofficial arms of the state apparatus and the process that turns racist ideology into racist policy. This one traces the parallel trail that leads from imperialist ideology to imperialist foreign policy and the role the state plays in the process.)

The long, shameful career of Samuel P. Huntington illustrates the close link between the government, major universities and the think-tanks and foundations that define and justify U.S. bosses wars to maintain their world domination.

Huntington is the Weatherhead University Professor at Harvard, where he directs the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and chairs the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. The Olin Foundation reflects the views of the more openly right-wing section of U.S. bosses, but it still camps under the tent of the dominant liberal establishment. Every member of the Harvard Corporation belongs to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) or the Brookings Institution, both leading liberal think-tanks.

Huntington considers himself an "old-fashioned" Democrat. He plans to vote for Kerry and was "dead-set" against Bush, Jr.'s Iraq adventure. (New York Times Magazine, 5/2/04)

Although Huntington may disapprove of the current White House tactics for securing Persian Gulf oil, nonetheless he's a leader among academics who rationalize U.S rulers' goals and the racist lies that disguise them in order to validate the wars needed to carry them out. In 1993, he published an article in the CFR's magazine Foreign Affairs, entitled "The Clash of Civilizations." The phrase caught fire. Actually, Huntington didn't invent it; he stole it from a fascist British professor named Bernard Lewis, who had coined it in 1964.

A CALL FOR ALL-OUT WAR

In Huntington's version of this pseudo-theory, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the class struggle is now dead. Ideology is dying. In the future, "the great divisions among humankind will be cultural...the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures....With alien civilizations, the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary." (Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993)

Huntington adds the usual academic disclaimers and pleas for tolerance, but his message is clear: get ready for all-out war between the "civilized" West and the "barbarians" in the Muslim and Arab world.

After 9/11, the "Clash of Civilizations" took on a life of its own, launching a jingoistic anti-Arab witch-hunt and paving the way for the U.S. military's wanton slaughter of Iraqi civilians, including thousands of children. Huntington's racist notion of "alien civilizations" had already helped dehumanize Arab people in the minds of U.S. workers, helping the liberal Democrat Clinton to carry out regular bombing raids over Iraq and a deadly sanctions policy that led directly to more than a million Iraqi deaths between 1992 and 2000, most of them young children.

The Hitlerite ravings of this prominent professor are used to mask inter-imperialist oil rivalry as a "conflict among cultures," first to the limited audience of think-tank and university specialists and then to the mass media. After Huntington had published his Foreign Affairs article, the process almost duplicated the popularization in the late 1960s and early '70s of Arthur Jensen's racist claims about the "genetic inferiority" of black workers. (See CHALLENGE, 9/22)

The article became a book, entitled "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order." More importantly, the networks and print media launched a mass campaign to spread Huntington's thesis. The usual "loyal opposition" debates took place, during which various liberal opponents had their chance to take issue with Huntington over details. However, in the end the deck had been stacked, and the norm had become -- and remains today -- the overwhelmingly racist characterization of Arab and Muslim peoples that fills the airwaves and the press. All this started in the pages of the Liberal Establishment's leading foreign policy journal.

THE CARTER DOCTRINE: WAR FOR OIL

Huntington has also worked directly with the official state apparatus, always for Democratic administrations. Under Jimmy Carter, he was Coordinator of Security Planning at the National Security Council, serving under Zbigniew Brzezinski, another academic (Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins), whose recent "The Grand Chessboard" gave U.S. bosses their current blueprint for continuing world domination. Huntington and Brzezinski therefore played a key role in helping elaborate the "Carter Doctrine," announced in 1980, which commits the U.S. to wage war to prevent any "hostile power" from seizing Persian Gulf oil. This grand strategy continues today, as presidential policy from Bush, Sr. through Bush, Jr. demonstrates.

Huntington's contribution to U.S. imperialism's genocidal wars goes back to his 1957 book, "The Soldier and the State," complaining that U.S. society wasn't sufficiently militarized. He called for the U.S. to establish a global empire similar to the pre-Civil War Southern slavocracy. Within a few years, Huntington was tapped as a consultant to the U.S. State Department under President Lyndon Johnson. At the height of the Vietnam War, he reported that the only way to pacify Vietnam was a strong Vietnamese police force -- i.e., homegrown fascism. It didn't work, and Huntington complained later that his advice hadn't been followed. The U.S. military adventure ended in a fiasco, but Huntington hasn't stopped trying -- and the bosses haven't stopped listening. His 1968 "Political Order in Changing Societies," another rant about the need for social order, still appears on college reading lists as a "classic" theory of "nation-building." His 1975 opus, "The Crisis of Democracy," which laments the dangers of "excess" democracy, objectively paved the way for the Hart-Rudman commission's current strategy for turning the U.S. into a police state.

TRAVELING THE NAZI ROUTE

Huntington has recently broadened his "clash of civilizations" poison to include an attack on immigrants within the U.S., particularly Hispanic workers. His new book, "Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity," blames Hispanic immigrants for "undermining" the greatness of the United States.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Huntington has invented nothing new here. The notion of "outsiders" and "aliens," from hostile "foreign" cultures and civilizations who "pollute" the supposed purity of a society follows the well-worn road traveled by Hitler and his Nazi gangsters. Huntington is merely their successor wrapped in red, white and blue.

But, as we have shown, he's hardly a lone fascist working in isolation. He occupies a place of honor in the most prestigious U.S. university. He publishes in U.S. imperialism's most influential foreign policy journal. He shuttles back and forth between his Ivy League ivory tower and the halls of government. The insidious message of his racist poison is packaged for mass consumption. He could not exist in this capacity without the full support of the rulers' state apparatus, which promotes him because he serves its most essential needs.

Huntington is a valuable case in point for communists to study and explain, because he is typical of the relationship among intellectuals, ideology, policy and the state under the profit system. Many others, including his pal Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger (Brzezinski's Republican Tweedle-dum), could have served the purpose. Our task here is twofold. First, we must expose their lies and show how these lies serve the bosses' class agenda. Second, we must deepen our understanding of their relationship to the state and work to arm millions with this understanding. In the process, we will advance our ability to build a Party that can organize workers to smash this state and the ruling class that will wield it as a weapon against us until we do so.

(Next: How the rulers use the state apparatus as an instrument of internal struggle among themselves.)

Auto workers strike
American Axle this year.

DETROIT -- Black and white workers at the American Axle plant denounced what appeared to be two hangman's nooses hanging on a vehicle here, signing a mass grievance attacking the racist symbols. UAW Local president Wendy Thompson said the group protest showed the racists "did not have the support of the white workers," and partly blamed the company for "promoting a hostile work environment." She said further that the UAW, as an organization, was not doing enough to challenge racist attitudes in workplaces.

The fact is not only did the International union grant billions in give-backs to the auto companies, resulting in layoffs of hundreds of thousands of last-hired black workers, but the union itself mobilized 1,000 Klan members and sympathizers to break a sit-down strike led by PLP in 1973 at the Chrysler Mack Avenue plant. Fighting racism in the UAW will have to be organized by anti-racist rank-and-filers and led by communists, the latter having organized the UAW 70 years ago.