BROOKLYN, NY, January 2—The struggle continues two years after winning the fight to integrate two formerly separate sports programs on John Jay’s Campus–one with mostly white and Asian students and another of mostly Black and Brown students. Under capitalism, we are constantly reminded that a win under this system is just the beginning and even as communists we can never let our guard down or coast on reform victories.
For the second year in a row the fall start of sports programs on campus continued to be combined but not integrated–leading to teams filled with mostly white and Asian players. Self-critically, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members in the school incorrectly focused on in-house fixes instead of making the struggle more mass and visible to bring together antiracist fighters in the building to fight back against these racist practices.
Inspired by a sharp antiracist flier written by PLP parents and others in 2017 that rocked the racist status quo and forced the Department of Education (DoE) to combine the sports teams, one school’s student government created and distributed hundreds of their fliers demanding that the sports teams on campus be truly integrated and that teams that do not look like the racial makeup of our campus not be allowed to compete. That flier will continue to be passed out in front of the school even as it spreads through students’ social media.
Invigorated by the mostly positive response of their peers, the students plan to convene a forum to attract more students to the fight and to discuss and plan for when their demands are not met.
Capitalism forces our youth to compete against each other, fostering artificial and racist divisions that they will later use to divide white, Black, and Latin workers so that all can be oppressed and exploited for profit. PLP members on campus are committed to building anti-racist and integrated teams on and off the court. Fighting to expand an ever-growing group of multiracial students, parents, and staff to take on the racist attacks capitalism will continue to throw at us, is the only way forward. The struggle continues!
Israeli-U.S. bombs destroy majority of Gazan homes
Al Jazeera, 12/31/23–Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza for nearly three months has destroyed 70 percent of the homes in the besieged Palestinian enclave, according to the Government Media Office. About 300,000 out of 439,000 homes have been destroyed in Israeli attacks, a Wall Street Journal report said…“The word ‘Gaza’ is going to go down in history along with Dresden [Germany] and other famous cities that have been bombed,” Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago… In nearly two months, the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol, or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II… “Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” said Pape.
DR Congo demands UN remove troops
France24, 12/19/23–Despite a volatile domestic situation, the Congolese government has for months been calling for an "accelerated" withdrawal of UN peacekeepers, from the end of 2023 rather than the end of 2024. It considers the UN force to be ineffective in protecting civilians from the armed groups and militias that have plagued the eastern DRC for three decades. The accusation is similar to that made by other African countries, notably Mali, which has demanded the emergency departure of the UN Minusma mission. In recent months, several Council members, notably the United States, have expressed doubts as to whether Congolese forces are ready to replace Monusco to ensure the security of the population. However, as UN missions cannot operate without the authorization of host countries, the DRC wants to force the Security Council's hand -- though its messaging has been less forceful than Mali's. Even as it complies with the DR Congo's demands, the Council is expected to underline its "concern over the escalation of violence" in the east and "tensions between Rwanda and the DRC,"…The first phase includes the withdrawal of peacekeepers from South Kivu province by the end of April 2024, beginning "before the end of 2023."
U.S.-China imperialists planning for war
Foreign Affairs, 12/12/23–Over the past decade, the prospect of Chinese military aggression in the Indo-Pacific has moved from the realm of the hypothetical to the war rooms of U.S. defense planners…With Taiwan as the assumed flash point, U.S. strategists have offered several theories about how such an attack might play out…First is a…conquest of Taiwan by China…A second path envisions a U.S.-led coalition beating back China’s initial assault on the island…many strategists are concerned about a third, more catastrophic outcome…a direct war between the two great powers leading to uncontrolled escalation…nuclear weapons, thereby triggering Armageddon…Yet there is also a very different possibility, one that is not merely plausible but perhaps likely: a protracted conventional war between China and a U.S.-led coalition. Although such a conflict would be less devastating than nuclear war, it could exact enormous costs on both sides.
Oil war brewing in South America
Associated Press, 12/31/23–A British warship arrived in Guyana on Friday afternoon amid rising tensions from a border dispute between the former British colony and Venezuela…The HMS Trent’s visit led Venezuela to begin military exercises a day earlier in the eastern Caribbean near its border with Guyana as the Venezuelan government presses its claim to a huge swath of its smaller neighbor…The dispute is over Essequibo, a sparsely populated region that is the size of Florida and rich in oil and minerals. Venezuela has long claimed it was cheated out of the territory when Europeans and the U.S. set the border…Venezuela on Thursday began military exercises involving 5,000 troops in the eastern Caribbean, citing the visit by the British patrol ship…Guyana has controlled Essequibo for decades, but Venezuela revived its historical claim to the region earlier this month through a referendum in which voters were asked whether the territory should be turned into a Venezuelan state…Venezuela says it was the victim of a land theft conspiracy in 1899 when Guyana was a British colony and arbitrators from Britain, Russia, and the United States decided the boundary.
On the auto workers’ picket line
I traveled to Michigan during the auto strike and a couple of us headed out to the auto workers’ picket lines to talk to workers about class struggle, fighting racism, and the communist revolution. We had some great conversations. One worker from the Dominican Republic has been working there for ten years. He has had several surgeries in that period, including his knee and hip, due to job-related problems. He emphatically denounced the multiple-tier system and proceeded to explain several aspects of our communist line to us! He said, "When you've got people doing the same job for different pay, some are struggling while some are not. That's nothing but division and it just shouldn't happen!" I told him how coal bosses in Kentucky pulled the same racist tactics because they thought bringing immigrants into the coal camps would prevent miners from organizing. I pointed out how such anti-worker ideology seeks to divide workers and create a justification for paying some even less. He exclaimed, “Right, they even used it to justify slavery! The capitalists take as much as they can convince us to allow.” We talked about the media slander the union has been getting, using the same talking points from 100 years ago. "Yeah”, he said, “it's corporate media for a reason -- that's who they work for. They say prices will rise if we get a raise. Well, prices have already been rising!"
The workers I talked to believe that strikes are necessary or else living standards will continue to deteriorate."It's just unsustainable,” declared another worker. Another worker mentioned that he had family from Germany, and I said, "Don't ask the media what Ford and GM were doing during WWII to support the Nazis!" He responded by calling out Ford's anti-Semitism, noting how the Nazis awarded Henry Ford with the highest award a foreigner could receive for collaborating with them. Another worker declared, "You put your body on the line here for 30 years and the boss doesn’t even wanna give us healthcare? No way! Health care shouldn’t be a boss’s bargaining chip, we workers should own the whole economy, state, and society. It's only common sense!"
The workers we talked to are clear -- they will fight hard not to be sold out like in 2008 – and they’re optimistic!
*****
What a small world
In 1995 I was in a San Francisco hospital and was in conversation with another patient. We started talking about authors, and I said one of my favorites was Tillie Olsen, the beloved writer of working-class women’s lives. We talked a little about her and he finally said “It sounds like you really like her. She’s my aunt, and she’s visiting me this afternoon. I’ll introduce you.”
When we met, I mentioned my father had been in the Communist Party in San Francisco in the 1930s, and she said “You look just like him!” They’d worked on the CP newspaper together, and during the 1934 general strike, they’d moved the printing press for leaflets from house to house every night to prevent the cops from smashing it.
We visited her friend in the hospital, Bill Bailey, a longshore worker whose lungs were so bad he could hardly speak, from corrosive cement dust in the holds of ships he was unloading. During the 1930s, he led a big group of CP members who crashed a party on a nazi luxury liner anchored in New York City and tore down the nazi flag.
According to a 3/23/2019 New York Post story, I read much later, Bailey quit the CP in 1956 saying Stalin was a “paranoid, sick SOB.” This must explain why, after the visit, Tillie Olsen said seemingly out of the blue, “I never believed Khrushchev’s lies about Stalin!”
The fight for against genocide of Palestinian workers on a college campus
As a new college student, it was motivating to see activism on my campus coming from a high school in which many weren’t politically involved. On November 8 and 9, I joined many in the fight for Palestine: students led speeches and chants such as “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!”
Even after walking and chanting, these students only grew with fervor and the chants became louder. One of the rallies culminated with students beating pinatas of Netanyahu and Biden, with only more enthusiasm from the students. Another rally delivered a coffin to the administration building in protest of the school’s holdings in investment firm BlackRock, the world’s largest investor in military hardware.
This wasn’t taken lightly by the school chancellor and board, who sent out a letter one day later condemning “Anti Semitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Arab hate,” but it was very targeted toward the peaceful protests against racism and genocide in Gaza, mentioning an instance of “Anti Semitic language.” He however, did not mention many of the instances of harassment and intimidation that occurred against Muslim students.
While school leaders claim to be against all forms of bigotry, they turn a blind eye towards that affecting the already oppressed – their only aim is to further the capitalist, fascist agenda, by intimidating students and protesters. The true nature of their financial and political interests is being revealed, reflecting the interests of wealthy business tycoons and political pawns that run the board. The primary goal of their funding of the Zionist government of Israel is to gain control over Mideast oil, furthering their financial assets through such a valuable resource.
While chants such as “from the river to the sea” have been viewed as anti semitic by some, they advocate for nationalist ideals that further divide the working class. Even during many of the speeches at these rallies, Hamas was not criticized for its slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7 and nationalist ideals were further pushed to students by the leaders of the rally.
For the working class to be truly united, and for the true liberation of Palestine, it is important for us to acknowledge how we should unite and reject both anti-Palestinian racism and nationalism.
Columbia and NYU are landlords that happen to offer classes
NY Times, 12/10–State lawmakers will unveil legislation on Tuesday that would eliminate enormous property tax breaks for Columbia University and New York University, which have expanded to become among New York City’s top 10 largest private property owners. The bills would require the private universities to start paying their full annual property taxes and for that money to be redistributed to the City University of New York, the largest urban public university system in the country…The amount the schools save annually has soared in recent decades as the two have bought more properties, and the value of their properties has also increased…the city’s wealthiest universities were bigger and richer than ever before, amassing vast real estate portfolios that have drained the city budget…Columbia has grown its physical footprint to become the city’s largest private landowner.
KKKops murder one man and arrest protesters as anger builds in Decatur, AL
SPLC, 11/17–“Over the course of the times we’ve had rallies and demonstrations to protest there’s been nine arrests,” said Aneesah Saafiyah…Her father, Danny Saafiyah Sr… “Our protests haven’t been violent. None have been. No one has been attacking the police or anything like that. It’s just the intimidation tactics that the police use.”
Stephen Clay Perkins, 39, was shot to death in the early hours of Sept. 29 in front of his home…Perkins was hit seven times. He was declared dead at a local hospital…Despite early assurances that the bodycam footage would be released in mid-October, that did not happen. As of today, the family has still not seen it.
Oil in Guyana means profits for ExxonMobil
Der Spiegel, 11/24–"There's the new Guyana! Guyana with oil!,” Nicholas Deygooo calls out as the boat heads towards his artificial island. "It wouldn’t be possible without Exxon!”…Within just a few months, floating dredgers created some 44 acres of new land, roughly the size of 24 football fields. Such a thing has never been seen before in Guyana, the sparsely populated country on South America’s Atlantic coast, sandwiched between Venezuela and Suriname…Enormous oil reserves were discovered off the coast here in 2015, shortly before 200 countries agreed to the Paris Climate Agreement, which was to herald the end of the fossil fuel era. Huge quantities of first-class "light sweet crude” are buried below the ocean floor, highly valued for its low sulfur content and the relative ease with which it can be refined…According to the plans forged by ExxonMobil and Guyana’s government, the country will produce more crude oil per capita than any other country on the planet within five years. Despite the fact that the climate crisis poses a greater threat to Guyana than almost any other country in the world.
Capitalists weigh their anti immigrant racism with their need for workers to exploit
Washington Post, 11/9–National Population Projections estimate that the population will peak at almost 370 million in 2080 before receding to 366 million in 2100, an increase of only 9.7 percent between 2022 and 2100. That is far below the rate the country has grown each decade for most of the nation’s history…Immigrant adults tend to be younger and have higher fertility rates than their native-born counterparts. Demographers say they are key to providing enough people to fill the labor force and balance out the swelling population of older Americans, and avoid the fate of countries such as Japan and Germany, which have among the world’s highest share of people over 65. “These projections make clear that immigration is absolutely essential to the nation’s future population growth,” said William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the data. “It is also necessary to counter the extreme aging we will otherwise experience with the youthfulness of immigrants and their children.”
Thin the Palestinian population “to a minimum.
I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it.”
Which of these was said in 1938 by Israel’s first Prime Minister and which was said by the current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu recently? Well, Netanyahu’s is first, but you can see that the plan has not changed. In fact, as far back as 1895, the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, said: “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border…discreetly and circumspectly.” An Israeli intelligence document on 10/13 stated: “The evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai…will yield positive, long-term strategic outcomes for Israel, and is an executable option. It requires determination from the political echelon in the face of international pressure, with an emphasis on harnessing the support of the United States.” And the support of the U.S. they certainly have, to the tune of $14.3 billion extra dollars.
When the Israeli state was founded in 1948, with the support of Britain, it was to gain a pro-Western ally to control the newly important oil in the Middle East. The first Israeli government already had a plan to dispose of the nearly one million Arabs then living there – Plan D: expel them all. They succeeded in forcefully removing 5 out of 7 Palestinians and destroying 530 villages on 55 percent of the land Israel controlled. In 1967 Israel fought a war to conquer the rest of Palestine, which they have illegally militarily occupied since – the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. is now the main funder of Israel for the same reasons that Britain first supported it – a base to protect oil and to protect U.U. interests against Iran, Russia, and China.
It is abundantly clear that Israel is now carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza, forcefully homogenizing an ethnically mixed population. Genocide is the deliberate killing of people from an ethnic group to destroy them. Over 18,000 Gazans have been killed to date, plus countless others buried under rubble, and countless thousands wounded. 85 percent of the 2.2 million inhabitants have been forced from their homes, and much of the surviving population is on the brink of death from starvation and dehydration according to aid agencies. Attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank are also increasing, with many killings by Israeli settlers as soldiers look on and the seizure of land and homes continues.
The justification for the current slaughter is the Hamas incursion into Israel on October 7, in which 1200 Israelis were killed. And there is no justification for this murder of civilians. However, it has recently been revealed that Israeli intelligence knew about Hamas’ plan a year in advance but claims that the leading politicians were never told. This seems highly unlikely, less likely than that they welcomed an excuse to enact their genocidal plan. In truth, Israel helped found Hamas in 1987 to counter secular nationalism, and the NY Times documents (12/10) that Israel has been giving millions to Hamas for years to keep two Palestinian leadership groups afloat – the other being Fatah in the West Bank – to prevent Palestinian unity.
The majority of Israelis and many Zionist Jews around the world have been won to applauding this massacre because they are raised on a diet of lies: that all Arabs inherently hate Jews and wish to kill them, that the Arabs left in 1948 voluntarily purely because they hate Jews, that there is no way to prevent another mass slaughter of Jews such as the Holocaust without having a fortress state. Zionists even think that Israel is a democracy despite giving rights only to Jews. Most Israelis also have little conception of what life is like in the Occupied Territories – that it is an ordinary civil society beset with brutalization by soldiers, massive imprisonment without charge, and severe restrictions on work, housing, travel, and health care. Nonetheless, most Palestinians are anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic, and welcome Jewish allies.
This Zionist nationalist hatred serves the Israeli ruling class well, for Israel is a capitalist state with a very small ruling elite and a shortage of adequate services for much of the population. But workers in Israel vent their anger on Palestinians, not the ruling class. Nationalism in Palestine, which although occupied is also a capitalist society, has also prevented the growth of a working class movement even though most Palestinians do not like Fatah or Hamas. The only hope for Palestinian or Jewish workers is to band together, indeed with other workers of the world, in a fight for an anti-racist, anti-nationalist communist society. Thousands are now protesting around the world as this pitiless genocide unfolds on our TV screens, but all of us too must join together in the long-range fight against imperialism and racism and for communism.