- Editorial:
- Bosses' `Boom' Fizzling
Time for Workers to Bust Back
March on May Day, 2001! - TAKE A BROAD VIEW OF PARTY-BUILDING
- RULERS USE SLOWDOWN TO DISCIPLINE UPSTARTS WITHIN THEIR CLASS, GEAR ECONOMY FOR WAR
- U.S. Bio-Warfare Poisons U.S.-European Imperialist `Alliance'
- Russian Bosses Re-Enter the Imperialist `Big Game'
- PLP Schools Conference: Education for Class Struggle
- Strike Needed Against Postal Bosses/Union Scheme
- LA Transit Strike: Disagreement Can Be A Plus
- While California Energy Bosses Fight-- Turn the Lights Out On Profit System
- CHALLENGE Sparks Garment Workers' Debate
- Ecuador: Can't Escape Capitalism, Gotta Kill It,
- Why Is the NY TIMES Dancing with the Grey Wolves?
- PL'ers Bring Class Savvy to Women's Rights Group
- LETTERS
- Movie Review
TRAFFIC JAMS THE ROAD WITH FASCISM
Editorial:
Bosses' `Boom' Fizzling
Time for Workers to Bust Back
March on May Day, 2001!
The long U.S. economic boom has stopped--for now, at least. The bosses' economic gurus aren't debating whether or not the party's over, only what to call it: a "correction," a "slowdown" or a recession in the making.
While the "experts" haggle over words, the working class is paying the heaviest price for the profit system's downturn. Last month, employment in manufacturing went down by 62,000 jobs, for a total yearly loss of 178,000. These job cuts are just the beginning. In December alone U.S. companies announced future plans to chop another 134,000 workers, the largest monthly number since these figures have been compiled (1993). Big outfits are involved: General Motors, Whirlpool, Office Depot, not to mention LTV Steel, which has just gone bankrupt.
The slowdown has exploded the myth that the boom represented a so-called "new economy," based on the Internet and information technology. Since the NASDAQ (the technology-heavy sector of the stock market) tanked last spring, Internet company layoffs have mushroomed: 10,459 in December and 41,515 for the year 2000, with "more pain to come," says the head of a major job placement company.
Profits Come Fom Exploiting Workers, Not from Dot.Coms
There's no "new economy." The laws of capitalism still apply. The capitalists' profits come from their exploitation of workers' labor power. The capitalists have to seek maximum, not just average, profit. The scramble to beat out the other guy fuels a race to overproduce everything from pharmaceuticals and DVD players to cars. A speculative frenzy overtakes the stock markets until prices of shares insanely outpace the real value of companies. At a certain moment, the overproduction leads to factory closings and layoffs, and the speculative bubble bursts. All this is happening now.
Depending on their tactical point of view, the bosses offer various schemes for wriggling out of the slowdown. Federal Reserve head Greenspan just lowered interest rates. The Bush Republicans want a tax cut. Typically, the Democrats advocate government spending. None of these maneuvers alters the fundamental nature of capitalism: the anarchy of production for profit, or the instability of the boom-bust cycle.
Clinton-Gore Lowered Boom On Workers' Heads
But even the so-called booms are bad news for workers. During the Clinton years, the rulers loved to brag about the "longest economic expansion in history." It was--for them.
However, it was possible only because a succession of presidential administrations, beginning with Democratic President Carter, began wiping out or eroding every significant reform workers had won since the 1930s.
The Clinton Democrats delivered the crushing blow. Workers who voted for Gore as a "lesser evil" should review the Clinton-Gore White House's economic record: the racist mass imprisonment of unemployed workers and their use as slave labor, the elimination of welfare, and over 45 million people without health insurance. The U.S. ranks last among major western industrial countries in social services and basic labor protection. U.S. rulers' European rivals envy this "American model" and are trying to imitate it.
The rulers occasionally confess that capitalism requires these periodic downturns. Clinton's Labor Secretary calls this a "healthy slowdown." She's not about to file for unemployment insurance. George Friedman, head of Stratfor.com, a news-gathering service, praises the down market's opportunities to "wash out the amateurs and set the stage for wise guys [i.e., big money forces--Ed.] picking up bargains." However, the rulers may get more than they bargained for. They can find ways to take advantage of a slowdown, but they can't necessarily turn it off at will. In any event, the working class bears the brunt of these recurrent economic blood-lettings. The millions devastated during the bosses' "Clinton boom" will be ground down further as the full effect of recent and future layoffs materializes.
Under Capitalism Future Not Bright for World's Workers
Some of the rulers' pundits promise the present downturn will reverse itself soon. We can't predict that. Nor can we predict the opposite. The present crunch may become a full-fledged recession/depression. On the other hand, the rulers may find a gimmick to limit it. But sooner or later, the profit system always enters a period of crisis. War is eventually a universal aspect of that crisis. Even if this downturn ends before long, it will sharpen a number of important conflicts between the U.S. and its key competitors. The wounded U.S. market won't indefinitely absorb Asian products, and trade wars loom with China, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries. The U.S. has a huge trade deficit. Europe has an enormous surplus. The dollar probably can't survive indefinitely as the world's major currency under these conditions. Over the long haul, the new Euro could challenge it. The U.S. economic slowdown can only intensify the struggle for control of cheap energy and increase the likelihood of new oil war in the Persian Gulf. As we've said, both Democrats and Republicans are working together despite their differences to broaden and sharpen fascist terror against the working class here and reduce resistance to the rulers' plans.
Fight for Society Without Bosses: On to May Day 2001
The profit system can never bring workers anything other than its cycle of boom, bust and war. We shouldn't cling to illusions about capitalism's ability to reform itself or to create "new economy."
Capitalism will survive any crisis as long as it holds state power. The overthrow of the profit system is the only crisis bosses will not survive. The Progressive Labor Party's primary purpose is to organize the working class to destroy the profit system.
The first May Day of the new millennium, May Day 2001, represents an important challenge for workers and their allies, and for our Party, to take a big step forward for the long, hard fight ahead. We must bring the message to workers--in the unions, factories, churches, hospitals, neighborhoods-- to fight for communism, a society in which workers produce for the needs of our class, not for the profits of a few bloodsuckers.
(Information from NEW YORK TIMES, 1/6,7/01; Associate Press, 12/27/00; Stratfor.com, 1/5/01).
TAKE A BROAD VIEW OF PARTY-BUILDING
The new wave of economic attacks against workers should stimulate class struggle and provide fresh opportunity to build the PLP on the job. Recent CHALLENGE articles show that the process of sharpening fights against the boss is moving forward in key U.S. workplaces such as transit, aerospace, and health care, as well as in important industries throughout Latin America. This is all to the good and should continue!
But even when workers are not yet won to engage in militant confrontation with the boss, we can still build the Party and sow the seeds for future struggle. Under all conditions--whether the workers are anxious for a fight or temporarily passive--we can carry out aspects of our line. We should keep in the forefront the idea that communists stand for serving the working class. This approach enables us to function in all political environments.
Our comrades in the public schools have given good leadership by carrying out to some extent the slogan "Fight to Learn, Learn to Fight; Fight to Teach, Teach to Fight." We can do much more here, but our experiences so far should encourage other workers in PLP to follow suit.
We aren't missionaries. We aspire to become "tribunes of the people," in Lenin's phrase. When we teach a worker we know to read, when we help a friend of the Party obtain medical care for a sick child, when we find legal assistance for a worker with family problems, we are creating the basis for deepened personal-political relations that can lead to Party growth and sharper conflict with the enemy. We should absorb this lesson as the May Day effort kicks into high gear.
RULERS USE SLOWDOWN TO DISCIPLINE UPSTARTS WITHIN THEIR CLASS, GEAR ECONOMY FOR WAR
The current downturn started with the collapse of the NASDAQ technology stock market last spring. In part, the NASDAQ swoon was an inevitable result of wild speculation. In part, it represented a conscious attempt by the main rulers to cut small fry billionaires down to size. The most notable case is that of Bill Gates, the Microsoft mogul.
The Clinton Justice Department's monopoly suit against Microsoft is just one element of a three-prong attack. The NASDAQ collapse has slashed Gates's capital holdings by a third. So he no longer wields the financial clout he had a year ago. Even more importantly, the Eastern Establishment has begun twisting his arm to force important chunks of Microsoft money into key war-related heavy industries.
Last February, just as the dump-tech flood broke, Gates was "persuaded" to acquire a controlling 8% share in Newport News Shipbuilding, the U.S. Navy's only aircraft carrier builder and one of only two U.S. companies capable of building nuclear subs. In November, Gates bought a 5.15% share in Canadian National Railway Co., which owns the strategic Illinois Central and is trying to merge with Burlington North Santa Fe to become the U.S.'s largest railroad.
The war uses of Newport News Shipbuilding are obvious. Railroads continue to play a crucial role in the military-related domestic infrastructure. The bill for the boom in computer chips and software will sooner or later be paid in workers' blood.
(Information from "Canadian News Wire," 11/3/00; "Hoovers Online," Feb. 2000)
U.S. Bio-Warfare Poisons U.S.-European Imperialist `Alliance'
The 1999 NATO/U.S. air war against the former Yugoslavia has, 18 months later, widened the contradictions between the U.S. and its European "allies." The latest rift involves demands by several European countries that NATO investigate the effects of depleted-uranium bombs during the slaughter.
Fifty soldiers from Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Portugal and Switzerland developed leukemia. Eighteen have died of leukemia since the war, eight Italians and five Belgians. Beta, a Yugoslavian news agency, reported 400 Serbian soldiers dying from the "Balkan Syndrome" (as the disease is now being called) since the 1995 NATO bombing of Bosnia. Thousands have died in Iraq since the 1991 Desert Storm war from such bombs and missiles which contain depleted uranium..
This ammunition, first tested by the Pentagon in the 1980s over Vieques, the Navy training island in Puerto Rico, is used especially in weapons designed to destroy tanks. Some 31,000 of such uranium weapons were dropped during the 1999 NATO/U.S. air war. Interestingly enough, very few hit their targets. The Yugoslavian army left Kosovo basically intact.
Imperialist war is hell for soldiers and workers. Thousands of people in "liberated" Kosovo are now exposed to leukemia. But are the European countries accusing NATO (particularly the U.S., the main user of such weapons) of doing this because they care about the well-being of the masses? We don't think so. "With the background of a serious fight between Europe and the U.S., the European Union and NATO are meeting in Brussels today to study the known cases of the Balkan Syndrome." ("PAGINA12," Buenos Aires daily, Jan. 8)
What is this fight all about? The Balkan war was not about "freeing Kosovo from Satan Milosevic"; it was fought over control of oil pipelines and routes from the Caspian Sea to Western Europe. And the "unity" between the European and U.S. imperialists was very thin. As soon as the war ended, European bosses decided to form their own Rapid Deployment Force, to avoid relying on the U.S. to fight for their profits. They apparently learned from the 1999 air war, which revealed their weaknesses relative to the U.S. high-tech weapons monopoly, and are now taking counter-measures.
Russian Bosses Re-Enter the Imperialist `Big Game'
The Russians also saw the 1999 air war as a major wake-up call and ended the "good relationship" Yeltsin had developed with the U.S. after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Putin came to power to try to rebuild Russia's military might. On Jan. 3, Russian Chief of Staff General Anatoly Kyashin announced he will meet with the Yugoslav Defense Minister to renew old ties, prepare for future arms sales and discuss an expanded role for Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo. (Stratfor, Jan. 4) Stratfor also reports the U.S. is worried about burgeoning Europe-Russian relations and is taking measures to counter it.
War is the continuation of politics by other means. So the political games the big imperialists play against each other amount to preparations for future wars. We workers and soldiers should also organize our own preparations. Building a mass communist movement to smash all the warmakers must be our aim.
PLP Schools Conference: Education for Class Struggle
NEW YORK CITY, January 6 -- About 50 parents, teachers and students--members and friends of PLP-- gathered in a one-day conference called by the Party to review our situation in the schools and make plans to improve it. One immediate improvement emerged --six students and parents joined the Party. This significant advance will promptly increase the number of comrades committed to organizing class struggle in the schools, and--over the long haul--will add to the Party's influence in those areas where these new comrades can function: on their jobs (current and future) and in the military.
The day opened with words to inspire struggle: "The current period in which we live will bring more exploitation and oppression for the working class. We, as teachers and communists, must fight for our students to learn math, science, English and history based on class struggle. Capitalist education cannot and will not provide education for the working class. We must be involved in, and build class struggle in order to ensure that this happens. Only communism can guarantee this."
A veteran comrade sang and performed a rap about the class struggle which unites workers from many different parts of the world. A Wingate H.S. student described the triumph of removing a wretched principal and the need for an on-going fight for learning at that school.
Three workshops produced lively debates about the class nature of the schools, concluding that students, teachers and parents must unite against the rulers' Board of Education.
One group concentrated on the role of special education, learning disabilities and Attention Deficit Hyper-active Disorder (ADHD)--a so-called mental illness based on racist biological determinist "science" to discipline students with drugs. It's part of a ruling-class drive to gear the schools for their plans for fascism and war. This group concluded that special education was a capitalist creation bent on casting off groups of students. They agreed that everyone develops unevenly, learning in different ways and at different times.
A Bronx parent said her son was "classified" and discarded by the system. She's been told her child cannot learn and function in a "normal" setting. But what's "normal" about capitalism? She joined the Party and made a commitment to keep fighting. She, with other comrades in the Bronx, are building a campaign around special education, literacy and ADHD. They agreed to write a report of this discussion and planned to mount struggles in PTAs and community school boards to fight for services these students should be receiving.
Another group examined the work of parents and teachers together and planned social activities and political work in mass organizations. That workshop debated the role of discipline, its class nature, the role of class in determining the character of the schools, our students' anger and the role of the teachers union in destroying the students.
A third group considered the work of students and teachers in the classroom and made concrete plans for building upcoming events such as the protest against the Bush inauguration and a camping trip/cadre school. This workshop dealt with two main points: the importance of class consciousness among students and the role of schools under capitalism. They felt increased class consciousness would lead to fewer gangs, less superficial fashion pressure, more struggle and improved conditions in the schools.
One student participant who joined the Party said the function of the schools was to keep the working class distracted while the rich go about the business of ruling. The group then discussed how to spread class consciousness in the schools. One relatively new comrade agreed to build a debate team in order to become more involved in students' lives.
Two students described the fight in their school for repairs, against the lack of books and the sense that only because the students are black and working class is the school in such disrepair. On the other hand, many disagreed with the two students' apparent blaming of other students for their own failures.
Although we had worried about insufficient preparation, we learned an important lesson: the working class is starving for the ideas of communist revolution. The more effort we put into bringing these ideas to our class, the greater the response. What we do DOES count. What we have to offer is valuable to workers. When they hear it, they grasp our ideas, add to them and are willing to move forward around them.
(A future article will deal with vital questions confronting teachers, students and parents: the role of class relations in school and its effect on the ruling class ideologies taught there and how to deal with them, including especially racism and sexism as well as anti-communism, patriotism and individualism.)
Send Delegates to NEA Convention
This is a call to all PLP teachers and friends in elementary and secondary schools, higher education, educational support personnel (teacher's aides, bus drivers, clerks, etc.), and retired teachers.
Is your union local a National Education Association (NEA) affiliate? Are you an NEA member? If so, you should consider running for delegate to the NEA Representative Assembly (RA), to be held June 30 - July 7, 2001 in Los Angeles.
The RA is the NEA national convention. Up to 10,000 elected delegates attend from every state in the U.S. We should be at this mass convention of teachers raising our anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, internationalist, revolutionary ideas related to the many issues that will emerge: high-stakes testing, school reform, violence in the schools and possible merger with the AFT, among others. In fact, all kinds of issues arise in "new business" items and resolutions. We can participate in their state delegations as well as various caucuses: Hispanic Caucus, Women's Caucus, Men's Caucus, Black Caucus, Peace and Justice Caucus, etc.
Check with your local affiliate and read your state association magazine about the deadlines for submitting your application to run for RA delegate. Several Party teachers in California will run. Let's organize a PLP presence at the Convention. Contact CHALLENGE for more information.
Bay Area Comrade/Teacher
Strike Needed Against Postal Bosses/Union Scheme
New York City -- Last month, contract negotiations broke down between the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). The contract now goes to binding arbitration, the APWU leaderships' strategy all along. They did nothing to organize the potential strength of 300,000 clerks, maintenance and motor vehicle craft workers. Their "threat to go to arbitration" is obviously fine with the bosses.
In stark contrast, almost 600,000 postal workers struck in India, demanding pension benefits for 310,000 part-timers, wage increases for 60,000 lower-tier workers and promotions. The Army "replaced" striking workers. The workers then massed in front of parliament.
Here, the APWU asked for a meager 13.5% wage increase over three years. USPS offered no wage increase, elimination of the Cost Of Living Adjustment, reduction in health benefits and night differential and an end to job protection for all workers with under six years service.
The Board of Governors is crying "broke," but the USPS netted over $5-billion in profits during the past 5_ years. Postal workers' wage increases averaged less than 2% annually during the past decade. This past year managers got millions in bonuses (over $3.5 million in the NY Division alone).
A few years ago the bosses contracted out thousands of jobs to non-union Emery Air Freight. Now they're negotiating with FedEx and UPS to contract out more jobs. They aim to privatize USPS and increase use of prison labor. This will wipe out thousands of jobs. Hundreds of thousands of workers will be forced to do more for less. Furthermore, it appears many postal workers in the military reserves will again be sent to war in Iraq to protect Exxon-Mobil profits. That's what capitalism "offers."
We must organize militant struggles, from work-rule slowdowns to strikes. Such actions will build our unity and strength. As long as the bosses hold power, they will never surrender a penny without a struggle. Nor will they give up power voluntarily. We must use every struggle to learn how to fight the enemy, and to build a mass PLP. The fights we wage today can pave the road to communist revolution.
LA Transit Strike: Disagreement Can Be A Plus
LOS ANGELES -- During the recent transit strike here, our PLP club organized to bring people to the picket lines to support the strikers. In reviewing the results, one member said he had asked fellow workers to go with him, and that while they supported the strikers' goals, they saw no reason to make time for picketing. His co-workers make about $7 an hour. A few said the bus drivers made a lot more, "so why go to a lot of trouble to help them?"
Our comrade explained the need for unity against the bosses, but his fellow workers were not convinced enough to join the picket line. Our comrade was discouraged. We asked whether it was good or bad that his fellow workers disagreed? "Bad," he replied.
"Why?"
"Because they didn't go to the picket line."
"Do you think these workers understood the need to unite against the capitalist class before you asked them?"
"No, of course not."
"So it wasn't your asking them that caused them to disagree with our ideas? They already disagreed."
"Right."
"In fact, the transit strike became an opportunity to bring this disagreement to the surface so you could struggle with them over it."
"That's true."
"So if bringing out that disagreement is a step toward winning them closer to the Party, why are you feeling down about it?"
Our study of dialectical materialism taught us that contradictions are resolved only by intensification. This means attacking one pole of the contradiction, in this case the bosses' idea that we don't need to fight for the interests of the entire working class.
"I wasn't looking at it that way," he said. "I just wanted them to go to the picket line."
In fact, in an attempt to get quick results our comrade had relied mainly on liberal, trade unionist arguments for workers' unity--"If they don't win their strike, things will be harder for us." Possibly true, but not the main point. Unless workers seize every opportunity to unite as a class, we will be unable to make a revolution and overthrow capitalism. Seen this way, the transit strike was an opportunity for our comrade to talk to his fellow workers about the need to get rid of a system that pays people, most of whom are black and Hispanic, $7 an hour.
`Friends don't disagree....'
Another point emerged. Capitalist culture teaches that disagreeing with someone means attacking them; therefore disagreement should be avoided. Often people say, "Everyone's entitled to their opinion," regardless of whether the facts support that opinion. Or, "I never talk politics or religion because I don't want to lose friends."
If contradictions are resolved by intensification, anti-communist ideas must be attacked through ideological struggle. This doesn't mean attacking the person who believes those ideas. If "friends don't let friends drive drunk," why should friends allow their friends' anti-communist ideas go unchallenged? Workers who believe and act on pro-capitalist ideas hurt themselves and their class. They are basing their actions on false premises, and need communist ideas to understand and act on reality. Sure there are tactics--and tact--in carrying on that struggle, but the biggest and most common mistake is NOT carrying on the struggle at all.
Communist leadership is the opposite of papering over differences to create an impression of false unity. We have to build real unity, strong enough to take on the capitalist class. That can only be done by consistent ideological struggle, which means bringing disagreements to the surface rather than burying them.
Our comrade said next time he will welcome, rather than be discouraged by disagreement. It's up to our club to consistently encourage him and all of us in that direction.
While California Energy Bosses Fight-- Turn the Lights Out On Profit System
LOS ANGELES, January 9 -- Four years ago the California legislature voted unanimously to de-regulate electricity. The law lifted caps on wholesale energy prices and led to private utilities selling their power plants. Supposedly this would break up the monopolies of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and California Edison, making electricity delivery more competitive, better and cheaper. As one might expect under a capitalist profit system, the opposite happened.
Many workers' gas and electric bills have doubled or tripled. At a time when Silicon Valley and all other California industry are using more electricity, de-regulation has allowed utility companies to take their older, less profitable plants off line. One-third of the California plants are now unused. Enter power shortages and blackouts from Silicon Valley to Southern California. It has also enabled companies like Enron and others (many from Texas) to charge exhorbitant rates to the California market.
Now the NEW YORK TIMES and the LA TIMES are crying for re-instituting government regulation. The NY TIMES (1/5/01) says New York could face similar shortages this summer. Computers use lots of power and manufacturers now rely on electricity and natural gas, not coal, to power their factories, so electricity rates and availability are important to them. But without national regulation, they can't control utility profits. Government regulation would aim to get more reliable, manageable electricity and natural gas rates to manufacturers.
Utility profits would continue but not in such huge amounts, which cut into profits of outfits like Boeing, etc. Of course, Enron & Co. don't want regulation! However, California Governor Grey Davis is calling for State and Federal regulation of the power companies, government oversight in the construction of more power plants in California, and bailing out the near-bankrupt Edison and PG&E. He's also calling on consumers to cut electricity use by 10%. He says the state government would seize control of electricity producers during blackouts. A proposal for State of California bond issues to finance more power plants would make bondholders even richer and pass the cost on to consumers.
Groups such as the Greens and the Democrats push the idea that State (government) power is up for grabs, that with more government regulation "the people" will have a voice and protection from price-gouging corporations. While we don't know all the details of the California utility situation or Enron's exact role (Enron was a big Bush supporter), the fact remains that the biggest bosses control the State and use it to guarantee their class rule. The temporary "solution" to this crisis will mean from 7% to 15% higher rates for consumers over and above the recent increases, along with more state control of the production and distribution of electricity and gas.
Politicians will tell us the state is "on our side" against price-gouging, inefficient utility companies. Eastern Establishment think-tanks, as well as Clinton's Hart-Rudman Commission report, call for more government intervention and co-ordination of all aspects of the economy--from transportation to all security functions.
Government utility regulation will increase attacks on the working class, while guaranteeing more efficient delivery of power to industry. This is part of a national energy policy that includes war in the Middle East to control Iraq's cheap oil. Government control of industry strengthens state capitalism and helps it prepare for such wars.
There's a long history of government regulation and even take-over of key industries. During World War I the federal government actually seized the railroads to insure movement of goods for the war effort. A federal agency managed the railroad, kept the books and turned over the profits to the owners. When the war ended the railroads were returned to the owners. In the 1930's the federal government itself became a generator of electricity ( the Tennessee Valley Authority). During the Korean War, President Truman actually seized steel plants during a labor dispute. The dominant wing of the ruling class has always operated the State against individual capitalists in order to guarantee the overall interests of the capitalists' war efforts, one major element of fascism.
"Private" or "public," capitalism always secures profits for the biggest bosses at the expense of their competitors and of the workers. We can't cheer for any bosses. We must expose them all and fight to put State power in the hands of the working class which, under communism, will practice central planning to meet its needs.
CHALLENGE Sparks Garment Workers' Debate
LOS ANGELES, Ca.--I'm a PLP member working in the garment industry. Almost every day at lunchtime we talk politics among a group of workers. Generally the discussions occur after they've read a CHALLENGE or when someone raises a question or an idea. A recent one concerned the past presidential election.
Pedro said, "These are the most democratic elections I've seen since being in the U.S. I voted for Gore because he's the best choice for us Latinos."
Roberto, listening attentively, interrupted saying, "It's always the same b.s....even though I think we need someone to govern us. If not, there wouldn't be any control and everybody would do whatever they felt like."
I (Mario) commented, "Roberto's right in some respects. Both candidates represent the interests of the ruling class. At the same time each candidate also represents a sector of bosses fighting for control of the government, to be better able to exploit resources and labor of the working class, which means us."
Rodrigo, who always thinks Mario's too negative, said, "For you everything is bad. You only talk against whatever someone else says. If this doesn't work, how do YOU think we should elect our rulers?"
"Listen," Mario replied, "the thing that's wrong with all this is the capitalist system. It's based on the robbery of our labor, on racism, murders, wars, and so on. No matter who wins, the new president will continue to function under the capitalist laws of maximum exploitation of the workers. On the other hand, in a communist society, the leaders won't need elections because leaders will be determined by who is the most committed to serve the interests of our class. This society is divided into two classes--the workers and the bosses. Under communism, there will only be the working class."
Then Pedro said, "The problem will be the same because we'll always have somebody's boot over us."
I gave an example. "You know when there are natural catastrophes, some very dedicated people come forward to help do what's needed. The commitment of these people isn't based on looking for economic gain, but because they feel and see the need to help the other workers."
Replied Roberto, "Look, little brother, your ideas are good, but convincing so many people isn't easy and I don't think you'll achieve it. It's better to think about yourself and your children and stop going around talking about politics, because the bosses will mess with you and no one will thank you...."
"I admire your persistence," interrupted Pedro, "but you'd be better off using your intelligence for your own benefit, to progress."
When it was almost time to return to our machines. I said, "You all are tough. The way you are thinking now--that's how the bosses want us to think, divided, each one looking out for himself, not like one strong fist. When we think about resolving our problems together, in class terms, then the bosses will have serious problems. Because a working class with communist ideas means the end of this system of exploitation...Don't forget CHALLENGE. Don't leave it at your machines. Take it home to read and tomorrow we'll talk again."
Ecuador: Can't Escape Capitalism, Gotta Kill It,
QUITO, ECUADOR -- This country is an example of how nothing that capitalism does can help workers. A year ago the rulers "dollarized" the economy (the U.S. dollar became the national currency). This, along with the then rising price of oil (Ecuador is an OPEC member) was supposed to reverse the endless years of rampant inflation, mass unemployment, etc. Since then, 500,000 workers and their families have left the country (two million in the last few years). The unemployment rate is 75%. Inflation marches on. Racism against the Indigenous people continues unchecked.
On top of that, the Colombian civil war is now spilling across the border to Ecuador. The U.S. military has an air base in Manta,Ecuador, to carry out operations against the Colombian guerrillas.
Many jobless workers have emigrated to Europe, particularly Spain, seeking a better life. But it's hard to escape capitalism. In the first week of the new millenium, 12 Ecuadorian farmworkers (some of them children) were killed in Spain when a train hit a van transporting them to work for a contractor in the Murcia region. This area contains a year-round agribusiness based on greenhouses. This industry profits from the use of semi-slave workers, like the 12 dead immigrants, and child labor. They receive less than the minimum wage, with no benefits. Immigrant farm workers are also victims of racist cops and thugs in the region.
The contractor who hired the 12 dead workers had been accused of many labor law violations. But even if he's arrested, there are many more like him willing to make a buck at the expense of these immigrant workers.
The workers killed in Murcia come from the Oro province of Ecuador, one of the country's poorest. So many workers have left their families behind, that a poll among children about what they wanted for Christmas drew the response that "my dad and mom returns from Spain." One of five children in Ecuador are without their parents.
In Ecuador, Workers and youth are beginning to fight back in a mass way. Another round of protests and mass strikes have been called for the coming weeks. But as in the past, the usual gang of union hacks, sellout politicians and fake leftists are "demanding" some reforms. This rotten, murderous system can't be reformed. We in PLP are also involved in several of the struggles here, but our aim is to fight for a new society, one where workers produce to satisfy their needs, without wage slavery. That's communism.
Why Is the NY TIMES Dancing with the Grey Wolves?
On Dec. 19, Turkish cops attacked over 1,000 leftist prisoners on a hunger strike in 28 jails. They were protesting plans to move them to smaller cells and other jails where they could be easily tortured by the notorious Turkish prison guards. Scores were killed in the vicious attack. The cops claimed many prisoners burned themselves.
The Turkish rulers and their cops are among the most brutal in the world. Many cops belong to the fascist Grey Wolves, a paramilitary group linked to the ruling Nationalist Action Party. Thousands defied the fascist repression, protesting throughout Turkey against the murder of the prisoners.
But the NY TIMES, trying to clean up the image of the Turkish bosses (a key U.S. ally in the oil-rich Middle East), has gone all-out to justify the Dec. 19 massacre. The January 9th TIMES headlined an article, "Anxiety Is Rising in Turkey Over a Surge of Left-Wing Violence." It labeled as "terrorist" one leftist group whose members were murdered in the prison. But you can't blame these "terrorists" for the Turkish bosses having murdered tens of thousands of Turkish and Kurdish workers and youth in the last few years, all in the name of protecting U.S. Big Oil profits in the Middle East!
PL'ers Bring Class Savvy to Women's Rights Group
The recent Mid-west state conference of a major women's rights organization, focused on the theme of "The Many Faces of Violence and Racism," shows that communist theory and practice, joined with long-term base-building, can significantly impact upon the outlook of anti-sexist and anti-racist activists.
The organization is led by forces in the hip pocket of the Democratic Party. These misleaders channel much of the anger and frustration of working- and middle-class women into electoral politics, into calls for equal treatment of the sexes in the military and "glass ceiling" issues affecting wealthy and professional--mainly white--women. But several so-called "women's issues" are working-class issues--abortion rights and welfare "reform". And many working-class issues--police brutality, racist profiling, AIDS--vitally affect women, especially non-white women.
This conference showed that ten years of organizing by PLP members and friends, both in a state-wide anti-racist task force and in a local urban chapter, have had a strong anti-capitalist influence in our state's branch. A social worker and PLP member gave an eloquent and hard-hitting commentary on the brutality of welfare sanctions. His relating the welfare cuts to a larger analysis of the ruling-class assault upon the social wage was warmly received. Other PLP members and friends, speaking from the floor, raised a number of communist ideas, such as:
* Women's unpaid work in the home is a bonanza for the capitalists, providing them with free labor power to exploit now and in the future. Only in a society based upon meeting human need rather than generating profit can domestic labor be recognized and valued as the productive and socially necessary activity that it is;
* Racism has been used to stereotype welfare recipients, facilitating the removal of the welfare safety net, and is against the interest of the entire working class, employed and unemployed, white and non-white;
* Welfare "reform" and increased police racial profiling and brutality have occurred under the Clinton-Gore administrations, whose liberal facade has enabled them to pave the way for fascism more effectively than overt conservatives ever could have done.
The PLP forces and other activists in the organization have some sharp differences. Most of its members are fighting hard to reform capitalism, not abolish it. Many believe passionately in voting. But because the PLP'ers have shared many aspects of their communist politics with several of the long-time activists, and because we have a long history of principled opposition to racism, these debates are friendly, even humorous and teasing. It is widely acknowledged that it is the work of PLP'ers that has made our task force/chapter one of only two such multi-racial units nationally.
Without the Party's work, there would have been no multi-racial presence at the Conference, which drew together a loose coalition of some 50 additional protestors to an anti-fascist rally last summer at which several PLP members--not part of the organization's protest--were arrested. Seeing our comrades in action greatly increased some of the organization's members' respect for the Party.
The temptation to opportunism--that is, not raising communist perspectives, uniting with people on a merely reformist basis--continually faces the Party forces here. We often fall prey to this temptation. Only a few activists read CHALLENGE regularly. This must be changed. We also need to struggle harder to win certain fence-sitters to join the Party. Only one person has been recruited directly from these activities. But above all we need to be patient, recognizing that our ideas and actions are like seeds being dropped on the ground. The fertility of the soil and the amount of precipitation vary, but sooner or later there will be a large and rich harvest.
LETTERS
They Shall Not Pass!
Once again the collectivity of the Red Army defeats the "supermen" of the
Third Reich. The KKK rally in Skokie was an affront to the whole working class. Skokie is 40% Jewish with many holocaust survivors. While we couldn't directly attack the scum on the courthouse steps, the anti-racist crowd pummeled many supporters.
After the rally a small group of Party members and friends were walking back to our cars when we were confronted by a group of about eight young well-built and conditioned skinhead Nazis. Opposing them were about ten Reds, ranging from age 16-60. Our conditioning ranged from poor to not so poor.
At first glance it didn't look too good for the Red Army, but essence is primary over appearance. We had committed comrades with much experience in smashing Nazis. A 42-year old comrade took the lead and asked the lead Nazi, "Where do you think you're going?" He arrogantly replied, "To join our white brothers." His German accent suggested these were not the run-of-the-mill gutter scum who attend Klan gatherings.
They tried to pass our lines and for the next forty seconds, the Battle of Stalingrad was reenacted in microcosm. We were committed that these Nazis would not pass! Many hard blows were struck. Young and old comrades fought with ferocity. Individually we were no match for them. But collectively we gave them the whipping they deserved. The "master race" fled to their car like sheep from a pack of wolves, and were pummeled getting in. The windows of the car would need to be replaced when they returned to the cesspool from whence they came.
They had inflicted injuries on several comrades and they received injuries in kind. We can't expect to stop fascism without taking some losses, but with communist collectivity and commitment we can smash racism and all of its' vestiges. We must continue to build class-consciousness among our friends. All workers can understand the need to physically smash racism and build communist equality. We must teach the Party's history in smashing racism to our youth so they can take the lead.
Red Fighter
Zionists Rode British Coattails
I just eagerly read your analysis (CHALLENGE, Jan. 3)) of the current situation in Palestine/Israel and found it excellent and fully informed. I have always believed that the British used the divide-and-conquer strategy in order to destroy many civilizations around the world. As you stated, they instigated animosities between many different cultures and religious groups by playing to both sides' nationalism. They acted two-faced.
The Zionists rode the coat tails of the British in order to establish their state. These "communists" willingly disregarded the rights of the indigenous population, the Palestinian Arabs, in order to build a nation-state. I'm pretty sure Karl Marx disapproved of nation-state building. Sure, these Zionists built their farming collectives with a spirit of communist ideology, but they were inherently based in Jewish nationalism. Therefore, I wouldn't consider them "communists" or even "socialists."
Today, Israel remains a virtual theocracy. Much of its social policy is created and enforced by the Orthodox rabbinate. The very purpose of Israel's existence is to act as a "homeland" for the world's Jewish population. Their "right of return" states any Jew can immigrate to Israel and be granted immediate citizenship. If you're not Jewish, you must wait several years. That's like saying that only white émigrés to the U.S. can get immediate citizenship, but black émigrés must wait five years or more! It's purely and inherently racist! As a Jew, I am especially ashamed of this practice.
Secondly, obtaining a good job in Israel is largely based on service in the Israeli army. In fact, I was told that those who did not serve are stigmatized as being "emotionally insecure." And can't get a good job. Of course, Israeli Arabs are not allowed to serve in the army, thus automatically placing them in this second-class status along with dissenters or conscientious objectors. They won't get good jobs.
"Blame" should be placed on both the British AND the Zionists, since it was the Zionists who lobbied to obtain (via British imperialism) a nation-state of their own. Today, I would blame both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I don't condone or applaud violence and would hope that both sides stop their respective outbursts. Thanks again,
Reader from Philly
Don't Shop Capitalism--STOP It!
A radio news broadcast dramatized just how strange and sick capitalism is getting. It reported a psychiatric study among people who supposedly had a "shopping addiction." They can't control themselves when shopping! The study said 75% were better able to control their shopping urges after given a tranquilizer-type drug.
Communists would say there are real physical addictions--drugs, alcohol, etc. Then there are deeply-ingrained habits which the bosses call "psychological addictions." Capitalism creates intense feelings of alienation and powerlessness. Alienation can be defeated by destroying its root--class society. Fighting capitalist exploitation and especially building a communist movement is the best way to do this! The capitalists can't stomach that so they offer us various escapes so we'll think we have power over our lives. It can be a combination of physical and psychological addictions, such as drugs and alcohol. Or it can be compulsive gambling, eating, exercise, fighting, promiscuity or even compulsive shopping. One can feel they're not exploited and alienated by pretending to be masters of their own world.
So here it is. Capitalism exploits and alienates the working class (and even some capitalists!) Then it offers us escapism, encouraging compulsive shopping by telling us that our worth as human beings is measured by how many things we can buy. (We are taught to think of ourselves as consumers, not workers.) Then, if people get too extreme about shopping, the bosses will drug us if they're worried about not being paid because of the high rate of bankruptcies!
Communism is more than just economics or politics. It's a way of life. Understanding how capitalism affects all aspects of our lives, including psychological ones, will help us to become better communists and better able to explain communism to others.
Red Observer
Evicted by Profit System
A guy I used to work with recently moved to Brooklyn's Williamsburg section. He called me, sounding very upset. The city published a list of 100 buildings deemed "fire hazards," and his apartment house was on the list. All his friends were calling to ask what he was going to do. Naturally, I expressed sympathy for him, and suggested he call a friend of mine in Brooklyn and ask if he knew of any places to move, if this guy actually was evicted. He was very angry with fascist mayor Giuliani, and I agreed, but said if the buildings actually were dangerous, what else could be done?
But after I hung up, I thought more about it. When I was a kid in Brooklyn through my twenties over twenty years ago, Williamsburg was considered one of the most dangerous and dirty sections of New York. Probably some of that view was a racist one, but it did have some of the worst poverty in the country.
Then in the eighties, the Yuppie movement was in full swing, so working-class areas like the Upper West Side, the Lower East Side, and many parts of Harlem were viewed as potentially desirable neighborhoods. The landlords, through their government, started evicting people from these areas. (This situation was predicted in CHALLENGE as long ago as the late '60s.) People who had lived under terrible conditions in these neighborhoods now had to jam themselves into ever more crowded areas of the city. And the explosive growth continued, so places like Williamsburg also became "prime real estate."
I have another friend who shares an apartment on 123rd Street in Harlem costing $1,600 a month. That's when the roommate situation became pretty much manditory, and people even started renting their apartments out during the day for psychologists' offices, thereby kicking in toward the almost impossible-to-maintain rents, even with roommates.
After they squeezed long-time tenants out, landlords then fixed up the houses and charged ridiculous rents--controls by then were virtually non-existent. Or maybe they didn't quite "fix" the buildings up. Maybe the electric systems weren't really safe and people might die? But what does that matter, compared with making money? Now, it seems, capitalist chickens are coming home to roost--but as usual the rich don't pay a dime for their crimes.
As with so much of the profit system, people who think they're protected from the worst ravages of capitalist greed simply are a little further down the list. So now my friend, who has a good-paying job as a cook, may well find himself and his few belongings out on the street. He said, "What the hell's going on? How can this happen to me?"
The answer is, so long as capitalism rules the world, "it" can happen to anyone. An old Brooklynite
The Real Racist Fraud
The article "200 Years of Racist Elections Marches On" did a very good job exposing the racist nature of the capitalist system in the electoral arena. The article also correctly tied the 2000 presidential election to the racist history of the electoral college and the voting system. Prior to the bourgeois revolution in the American colonies, only adult white male property owners could vote. Historically, after extended struggles, the right to vote was only extended to others grudgingly by the rulers and the politicians representing their class.
However, the article could state more clearly the main frauds in capitalist elections. Massive vote theft and the "rising from the dead" of voters are a very small piece of the puzzle. They don't describe how the voting system covers up the bosses' class dictatorship. Before the election, a CNBC business show host said: "At least you'll get a capitalist whether you vote for Bush or Gore."
Beyond that, voting once every four years only gives workers the illusion they're "participating" in the government. In fact, con men, liars and big talkers dominate the political process for the billionaires they serve. Basically, workers are told to vote, shut up and go back to work. Beyond window dressing, there's no attempt to involve workers.
One reason PLP advocates democratic centralism as society's governing principle is to ensure the involvement of masses of workers in the process of building communism. Generally, the more workers and others involved in a meaningful and scientific way in this process, the better. The capitalists' vicious lies that "every vote counts" and that their democracy represents the "rule of the people" mask the reality of their absolute control of the political process.
Remember, the most far-sighted bosses are upset because fewer and fewer people vote each year. These bosses would love to have black workers rely on the voting system as their savior. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et. al., represent this aim for the liberal wing of the ruling class and are organizing a large anti-Bush demonstration in Washington on January 20 for this purpose. The revisionists (fake leftists) are tailing this rotten leadership. As we go to Washington with our mass organizations and friends, let's put forward the real solution while we expose the racism and bankruptcy of the capitalist electoral system.
NJ Comrade
Movie Review
TRAFFIC JAMS THE ROAD WITH FASCISM
"Traffic" was praised by critics and will probably be nominated for Oscars. The director, Steven Soderburgh, also did "Erin Brockovich" so I thought it might be interesting. Save your money. This is one rotten flick.
Supposedly it's an exposé of the War On Drugs. In reality it's a disgustingly racist melodrama, stupid and cynical even by Hollywood standards.
"Traffic" takes place on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, with lots of pretentious cinema verité tricks and subtitles. All the good guys are narcs or Republican politicians, mostly on the U.S. side. The Mexicans (mostly bad guys) include a crooked general, various crooked soldiers, coke smugglers and cops. Benicio del Toro plays a crooked Tijuana cop who reforms only after betraying his best friend and getting him killed. There are some rich crooks in San Diego but they are all Latino, work for Latinos or are mysteriously ethnic, like Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The story centers (of course) on an honest but troubled rich white family in the burbs. Dad (Michael Douglas) is the U.S. drug czar. In a major suspension of disbelief he actually wants to find out the facts. Mom is the stereotypical baby boomer ditz (How ditzy? She's aware her honor student daughter is freebasing for six months without worrying about it or taking any action). Daughter, meanwhile, is afflicted with the usual movie teenage angst, a terminal case because she doesn't produce a coherent word in the movie. She and her rich friends all freebase, in the only scenes that really could have benefited from subtitles. They get coke by cruising the inner city.
As Daughter gets hooked, she has sex with dealers to get her fix, and we get Gone With the Wind images that I thought were banned even from today's Hollywood--"pure white Southern womanhood" sullied by ultimate degradation: sex with black drug dealer in crack hotel, etc. Finally Dad rescues her in a scene too bizarrely Freudian to describe, family is reunited, goes to rehab together, Dad quits job because war on drugs is a war on our families, audience OD's on syrup, etc.
This. film attempts to absolve the U.S. of any wrong-doing in the drug trade. The Michael Douglas character is the embodiment of this lie.
Meanwhile the U.S. narcs learn that the Mexican general they've been working with is actually part of a rival drug gang, and massive cynicism invades this bunch, which has evidently just landed from Neptune.
The point of all this trash seems to be that the war on drugs is pointless because people will always want drugs and money, but these guys, especially cops, are American heroes anyway. War is hell. (Not incidentally, the movie makes drugs look so goddamn attractive that it might as well be sponsored by a cartel.) And Don Cheadle, my favorite movie actor, is wasted in another stinker!
a href="#Editorial: Bush Cabinet Mirrors Rulers’ Tug-of-War">"ditorial: Bush Cabinet Mirrors Rulers’ Tug-of-War
a href="#Straight From The Horse’s Mouth: Bush Cabinet Sings Oil War Chorus">"traight From The Horse’s Mouth: Bush Cabinet Sings Oil War Chorus
Anti-Racists Stomp Fascist Klan
a href="#‘Yelling’ Won’t Stop KKK, Only Direct Action Will">‘Yel"ing’ Won’t Stop KKK, Only Direct Action Will
Huge Strike In Colombia Becoming School For Communism
a href="#Seattle News Strikers Must Think ‘Class First’">Se"ttle News Strikers Must Think ‘Class First’
a href="#Bosses Favor Freedom Of The Press—Until You Need It!">"osses Favor Freedom Of The Press—Until You Need It!
Bus Mechanics Hammer Red-Baiter, Re-Elect Pro-Communist
a href="#NYC Technical Workers Shouldn’t Wait For Axe To Fall">"YC Technical Workers Shouldn’t Wait For Axe To Fall
Billy Elliot Dances Around Greatness
LETTERS
a href="#‘Race’ Card Makes Election A Stacked Deck">‘R"ce’ Card Makes Election A Stacked Deck
Rap Prison Labor In Bush Backyard
Really Learning Math Helps Us Learn About Life
Dollarization Sharpens Imperialist Dogfight, Attacks Against Workers
a name="Editorial: Bush Cabinet Mirrors Rulers’ Tug-of-War">">"ditorial: Bush Cabinet Mirrors Rulers’ Tug-of-War
As the Bush gang prepares to enjoy the spoils of power, workers can learn some important lessons from the profit system’s recent electoral free-for-all.
• First, although the rulers remain seriously divided on several fronts, they are seeking unity, both against workers and against their own major imperialist rivals.
• Second, these rivals are engaged in a long-term strategic process of challenging U.S. domination, particularly Exxon Mobil’s grip on world oil. This challenge is sharpening and will lead to a series of ever-bloodier wars.
• Third, the working class will pay a doubly heavy price for the current economic downturn. They will suffer in one way or another; black and Latin workers will, as usual, be hardest hit. An economic slowdown will further deepen the conflict between U.S. capitalism and its competitors and increase the danger of war. Communist revolution remains the only way out of the profit system’s murderous traps.
Bush’s cabinet nominees reflect both the partisan election brawl and the rulers’ urgent need to unite despite their differences. Unity is a growing aspect, at least on a number of important fronts.
In 1996, Republican Bob Dole’s biggest donors were the Koch Oil Patch billionaires, who called for U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East. But currently the Kochs spend less on politicians than on their private mansions and Dole is peddling Viagra. The key players on Bush’s foreign policy team—Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld—all agree that the U.S. ruling class must find a way to oust Saddam Hussein by military force (see box on page 2).
Control of Iraqi oil remains crucial to U.S. imperialism’s future as top dog. Iraq may have the world’s largest reserves, even larger than Saudi Arabia’s, and the cheapest; U.S. rulers can’t accept losing Iraq to Russian, Chinese or European interests. An Iraqi propaganda officer left little doubt about this in an interview with the NEW YORKER magazine: "If America can control Iraq, it will indeed be an American millennium. But if the other countries can prevent the U.S. from controlling Iraq, they will prevent the U.S. from becoming the sole power…the future of the world is being decided here" (12/11/00). The Bush White House knows it must try to finish the job Colin Powell botched in 1991, despite murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis while head of Poppa Bush’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
U.S. rulers’ relative unity on Iraq doesn’t yet extend to other major areas of foreign policy. They don’t quite agree about Russia and China. Some bosses think many bucks can safely be made from deals with these two countries. Others want to treat them as strategic enemies. Bush’s cabinet choices reflect the conflict.
Vice-President Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, the biggest oil services outfit in Russia. They would want to maintain stable relations with Russia. On the other hand, Cheyney favors war to control Iraq, a policy which conflicts with Russian interests there.
Rice sits on the board of Chevron, which trails only Exxon Mobil as a user of Saudi Arabian crude. Chevron usually follows the Exxon line. But its growing operations in the Caspian region have led it to strike deals with the Russians rather than treat them as a strategic enemy.
Events often overcome wishful thinking. A new German-Russian axis is emerging as a strategic challenge to U.S. imperialism. The Bush White House includes forces that understand the ruthlessness necessary to counter the growth of this alliance or of one with China. In late December, Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Henry Shelton lectured U.S. businessmen and politicians about China’s potential to emerge as the next superpower threat to the U.S. "Even those who argue for continued economic engagement with China, such as Rice, have also argued for a more balanced view of China as an emerging competitor." (Stratfor.com, 12/29/00) A Christmas Eve NEW YORK TIMES editorial warns about China’s rise as a rival for Persian Gulf oil.
Another difference between some Bushites and the main wing of U.S. rulers (represented by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Brookings Institution and the NEW YORK TIMES) involves a missile defense system. Rumsfeld is known as a big booster of "Star Wars" investment. The main wing worries that such a costly move would detract from more pressing military needs a ground invasion of Persian Gulf oilfields, among others. But the Rockefeller interests have little to fear from Rumsfeld. Despite his ties to the aerospace industry, he’s loyal to the main wing. He served the Ford-Rockefeller administration as defense secretary when the Pentagon was wriggling out of the Vietnam disaster and aiming to become top gun in the Middle East.
The two biggest partisan issues dividing the bosses are Bush cabinet choices for Interior and Attorney-General. By naming Gale Norton for Interior, he seems to be paying off a debt to the domestic Oil Patch crew that helped elect him. Their profit needs impel opening up Alaska National Wildlife Reserve oil for commercial exploration. The Exxon Mobil—NEW YORK TIMES faction want this oil kept in the ground as a strategic hedge against a disruption of Middle Eastern oil supplies during a war which they’re going to provoke.
Whether Bush can pay off the domestic energy barons remains to be seen. Even if Norton is approved by the Senate, she’ll have to butt heads every day with New Jersey Governor Christy Whitman, a classic Rockefeller Republican and Bush’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency. The choice of Spencer Abraham to head Energy shows that the Oil Patch still wields considerable influence in the Bush camp. Like Norton, Abraham wants to bring Alaskan crude onto the market.
Missouri Senator Ashcroft, Bush’s Attorney-General, is another IOU payoff to the open cultural fascists, who oppose abortion and other aspects of the liberal rulers’ agenda for their own base and brand of fascism. As CHALLENGE pointed out during the election squabble, the "culture wars" continue to reflect deeply felt tactical splits among the rulers.
Nonetheless, despite these ongoing rifts, a quest for some kind of unity marks Bush’s cabinet-building in general. With the exception of Norton, the NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST hail the nominees as "pragmatists" who will salute the Exxon Mobil flag when the chips are down.
Neither of these trends favors the working class. When bosses fight, they do so over workers’ dead bodies. When they unite, they do so in order to make war—with workers as cannon fodder. Either way, the working class loses. Voting for a Democrat is not the answer. The Clinton-Gore White House has brought an unbroken succession of racist, anti-worker, pro-police and warmaking policies. A Gore presidency would have been no different. Forget "lesser evil" dreams about capitalists and their politicians who control elections and the government. Our hope—our only hope as a class—lies in the patient, determined, life-long struggle to make communist revolution and win a communist world.
Appearances are deceiving. Our class will eventually win. Let’s resolve in 2001 and beyond to stay the course, build the PLP and fight for the workers’ side. Organizing a successful May Day is a good way to begin.
a name="Straight From The Horse’s Mouth: Bush Cabinet Sings Oil War Chorus">">"traight From The Horse’s Mouth: Bush Cabinet Sings Oil War Chorus
Condoleezza Rice: "If Saddam gives you a reason to use force against him, then use decisive force, not just a pinprick. And in the long run, you should succeed in creating a Saddam-free Iraq." (WASHINGTON POST, 8/9/00).
Dick Cheney: "If in fact Saddam Hussein were taking steps to try to rebuild nuclear capability or weapons of mass destruction you’d have to give very serious consideration to military action to stop that activity." (REUTERS, 10/5/00)
Donald Rumsfeld: "We should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the [Persian Gulf] and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf—and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power" (co-signed letter to U.S. Congressional leaders, May 29, 1998
Anti-Racists Stomp Fascist Klan
SKOKIE, IL, December 19 — Last Saturday more than 500 workers and students showed up to stomp the Ku Klux Klan. The militant anti-racists far outnumbered the liberal "socialists" and Jewish Defense League fascists who tried to sabotage the action. Anti-racist anger fueled mass violence. Many racists and their cop protectors were beaten down and defeated.
The Jewish mayor of Skokie and the black Cook County Commissioner did their best to help the Klan. They suggested the use of the Cook County
Courthouse for the rally and mobilized hundreds of cops to defend these racist terrorists. That’s how the bosses keep them alive. Without the bosses and cops, the working class would destroy them in five minutes!
The cops used the public works building as a pick-up point for the Klan, allowing them to change into their hoods in the locker rooms used by the mostly black sanitation workers. From there, the cops escorted them to the rally site. The following Monday, sanitation workers staged a four-hour work stoppage protesting the use of their locker rooms by the Klan. They refused to go back to work until city bosses apologized.
The politicians, press and religious leaders tried to keep people away, but hundreds filled the streets anyway. Klan supporters were prevented from getting to the main rally and those who tried to hide in the crowd were exposed and violently attacked. The cops didn’t fare much better. Several police cars were trashed and anti-racists were rescued from the cops time and time again.
Self-critically, we need to do a much better job of building anti-Klan (or anti-imperialist war or anti-cop terror) contingents in our mass organizations at work, at school or in the community. We brought 18 people, black and white, from one group. Our committee mobilized people, helped spread the word, worked on the leaflet and took part in discussions. We had this modest success because we have participated vigorously in the life of the group and use CHALLENGE to advance struggles over the ideas.
Significantly, there was no argument in favor of "free speech" for the Klan. The main disagreement was over the use of violence against the KKK and the KKKops. This type of political development does not come spontaneously. It requires hard work over a period of time. It must become more the rule and less the exception.
One of the biggest victories was that young comrades gave leadership to all aspects of the day’s events. Young workers gained new confidence in the Party as they took part in planning and executing our activities. Their leadership will strengthen the Party in quantity and quality! One youth joined the Party, and others are closer, inspired by the unity and militancy of the day. They more clearly see the need for mass violence against fascism. Training new leaders will better prepare us to confront the bosses on the job, at school or in the community.
We must win the masses to hate the capitalist system of wage slavery the way they hate the Klan. Clinton and Gore put two million workers in prison, killed 1,500 at the U.S.-Mexico border, killed 500,000 Iraqis with bombs and economic sanctions, and replaced welfare with a nation-wide network of slave wage jobs. Bush will try to outdo these "achievements." Winning many new CHALLENGE readers and distributors is the first way we can consolidate this victory and advance this outlook.µ
Several Party members were arrested, and several members of the anarchist ARA, a militant anti-racist group, face felony charges. Raising money for all these courageous fighters is a high priority! Donations should be sent to PLP, Box A3156, Chicago, IL 60690.
a name="‘Yelling’ Won’t Stop KKK, Only Direct Action Will"></a>"Yelling’ Won’t Stop KKK, Only Direct Action Will
I recently attended a Klan rally in Skokie, IL with PLP. The moment foremost in my mind is of NAACP members standing at the police "tape" line wearing yellow armbands. Their purpose? Keep the working class behind the police line, away from the KKK. This is a wake-up call for the Party. We can never be too serious or careful about how much fascism the working class lives with daily.
As in every other process, there is uneven development within the working class concerning its recognition of the current degree of fascism in the U.S. Some of us don’t live "in the trenches, on the front lines" while some of us live under the full effects of fascism and oppression 24-7. We should listen and learn from the day-to-day experiences of those who never get a "vacation" from fascism.
The cops were there to protect the Klan in the interests of the bosses. I had a confrontation with the cops that day. I was down on the ground with a comrade and a cop was telling me to "get up and go" because he was about to beat the shit out of my comrade and arrest her. She happens to be a member of one of the bosses’ target "races" and I am not. My point is not that this cop happened to be a racist, (though he was). The fact is he and another cop dragged me across the street, handcuffed me and took me to jail because I refused to move. This shows us that ALL the cops are on the bosses’ side and are outraged when workers refuse to follow their orders. It also shows us that one faces violence from the cops when she/he acts in the best interests of the working class.
The people who attended the rally to "yell" at the KKK, but not act to stop their rally don’t understand that their actions will never eliminate nor protect their communities from the Klan. As PLP members our job is to demonstrate that we attend a Klan rally to PREVENT that rally from occurring—by any means necessary. We did this effectively when we tried to break through the line of cops protecting the Klan. PLP’s long-run goal is to eliminate capitalism, which spawns organizations like the Klan out of its oppressive social institutions. The KKK is unacceptable in any community. This is the "lesson" that the working class needs to practice, or apply, in the objective world in order to realize our goal.
We could have been more effective and stopped the rally at the beginning if there were more PLP members in that spot and acting collectively to break the police line. Members of the other working class organizations tried to drag me back when I began to push through the police line with my comrades. PLP members must educate the working class about fascism and organizations such as the KKK because many workers do not recognize fascism for what it is or how it affects them and the people in their immediate social circles, not just "somebody else".
Midwest Anti-Racist Red Fighter
Huge Strike In Colombia Becoming School For Communism
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA—Over 6,500 workers have been striking the Bavaria Conglomerate since mid-December. The action has shut the company’s 18 breweries and all soda and juice production. Rank and filers, not relying on the union leadership, have attacked scabs and forced supervisors and government officials to run for their lives. A PLP banner calling for communism hangs in a strike headquarters tent erected by workers across from the main plant.
Last October, a mass meeting of workers voted to strike after receiving the company contract "offer" cutting our pensions and medical insurance. It is a significant strike, affecting five million people who make part of their living selling various Bavaria products. It occurs amid fascist war conditions in Colombia, where all contract fights end up in arbitration where workers always lose. Teachers, health workers and civil service workers are owed 10 months back wages.
Under "Plan Colombia"—Clinton’s billion-dollar package for the Colombian army to fight the guerrillas—repression of all workers has intensified. Last year more than 90 union activists were murdered by the death squads, armed and organized by the army.
Bavaria is owned by one of Colombia’s wealthiest capitalist groups, the Santodomingo family. They own 50 different enterprises and are one of the big funders of the death squads. The Minister of Labor has done everything to help Bavaria. The company openly uses engineers, supervisors and strike-breakers to try to continue production. Pickets are videotaped to intimidate us. The mass media has imposed a blackout of our struggle. Despite these attacks, workers remain firm.
We in PLP are participating in the strike, explaining that it’s not enough to break the 9% wage hike ceiling imposed by the company. We’re making the strike a "school for communism." And a school it has been. There are daily political discussions among the strikers and relatives. Strikers’ children join the chants, particularly those initiated by the Party. Workers and their families man the headquarters 24 hours a day.
CHALLENGE has helped us greatly during the strike. We’ve held discussions about articles in the paper, linking world events with our struggle here. We’ve distributed copies of different articles among workers. As one striker said, "We are part of the guarantee that the seeds we plant today won’t be wasted and will flourish."
a name="Seattle News Strikers Must Think ‘Class First’"></">Se"ttle News Strikers Must Think ‘Class First’
SEATTLE, WA., Jan. 1—Striking SEATTLE TIMES workers rejected the bosses’ contract offer Saturday sending the strike here into its sixth week. Led by lower-paid workers in the advertising and circulation departments, Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild members, including additional reporters, voted 387-87 against. Workers in the composing room, where advertisements are assembled, voted it down 51-6. Approximately 870 Guild members work for the TIMES.
One hundred and thirty SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER (P-I) reporters approved a similar economic package Dec. 28 and will have returned to work by January 2. The P-I and the TIMES work under a joint operating agreement where the two papers maintain separate newsrooms, but all business, production and circulation functions are run by the TIMES. The main difference between the two packages was the TIMES’ return-to-work conditions, allowing 68 permanent scabs to hold their positions while strikers in circulation and composing are forced to wait as long as a year to get their jobs back.
College students in the Progressive Labor Party brought CHALLENGE to the picket lines over the holiday recess. They were well-received. One worker contributed $5.00 so every picket could get a copy of our paper.
The strikers’ resolve—particularly of the lower-paid production workers who have been the backbone of this strike—is admirable. Nevertheless, the strikers’ position is being undermined by the treachery of the Teamsters leadership.
a name="‘Think Of Yourself,’ Says Hack"></">‘T"ink Of Yourself,’ Says Hack
The TIMES’ second largest bargaining unit contains mailers, key production workers who assemble and insert advertisements in the paper, members of Teamsters Local 763. They rejected their contract three days before the Guild contract vote. Local President Jon Rabine immediately set out to sabotage their decision.
Besides controlling the 4,500-member Local with contracts at the TIMES and elsewhere, Rabine is president of the 60,000-member Teamsters Joint Council 28. He is a staunch ally of Teamsters international president James Hoffa Jr. His additional post as international vice president and various pensions nets him more than $235,000 annually.
Having to face re-election soon and wanting to tout a settlement, Rabine was desperate for a deal. He called on his buddy, TIMES’ boss James Schafer to work out a sweetheart contract. After obtaining upgrades for 10 members, Rabine had the Local’s business agent and the mailers’ foreman circulate a "Petition to Settle the Contract." Securing 106 signatures on this petition, Rabine called off the strike, ignoring the requirement of the Teamsters constitution for a secret-ballot vote of the Local’s members.
"As far as I’m concerned, I don’t recognize it [the strike cancellation]," said mailer James Dahlbeck, a 22-year employee of the TIMES. Many mailers thought they were just asking for another meeting and a second vote.
This is not the first time our Party and friends have encountered Rabine. He refused to allow a comrade’s workplace to strike even though over 90% voted to hit the bricks and he undermined a strike by Laidlaw school bus drivers with much the same back-room deals.
Over the weekend of Nov. 17, confused workers began assembling the huge volume of ads aimed for the Thanksgiving holiday papers. Getting those ads into the paper Monday, just hours before the Guild’s strike deadline, was a direct hit at the strategy of striking the paper during the most revenue-rich holiday advertising season.
Rabine tried to use this deal to boost his crucial re-election campaign. He would lose his other positions if he lost the Local presidency. He immediately issued a re-election flyer entitled, "Those That Can, Do!" He bragged how he could get "good deals" because of those he knew in power and how he didn’t allow his mailers to "get swallowed up in somebody else’s fight." Think of yourself, not your class was the message of this snake-oil salesman. In the end, he lost the election anyway.
Deals Won’t Do It
Dave Reynolds, a member to the Teamsters for a Democratic union (TDU), defeated Rabine. Despite waxing poetic about the labor movement, Reynolds still focuses on "getting the most for my members." Rabine and Reynolds disagree over how to get the best deal. Rabine relies on connections in high places. The TDU follows its standard position, claiming honest trade union reformers as officers will "scare" the bosses into making good deals. But the bosses hold state power. They don’t "scare" easily, especially when profits are at stake. Neither strategy prepares workers for the bosses’ violent attacks. Of course, neither one poses the ideas advanced by Party members and friends in the Teamsters that our class comes first and that building the movement for workers’ power is primary.
Striking Guild members will be facing escalating pressure to settle over the next week. Sen. Patty Murray has called top company and union officials to Washington, D. C., for a January 3rd mediation session, effectively taking the struggle out of rank-and-file hands.
We must emphasize developing class consciousness, not a trade unionist philosophy of working out deals or electing "honest reformers." Then whatever deal is forced on the workers, a lasting victory can be built on a growing movement for workers’ power.
a name="Bosses Favor Freedom Of The Press—Until You Need It!">">"osses Favor Freedom Of The Press—Until You Need It!
Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen sent the following pointed e-mail to Eastside Journal publisher Peter Horvitz. It said, in full:
F*** you to Death.
Your ex-friend Frank.
Horvitz got on Blethen’s bad side by printing the first edition of the Newspaper Guild’s strike paper, SEATTLE UNION RECORD. Horvitz quickly had a change of heart as fellow publishers from around the state condemned his involvement. He promptly refused to print any more editions of the UNION RECORD and wrote Blethen an apology. After receiving this request for forgiveness, Blethen wrote back with "more of the same [coarse language], and that was the end of the communication." So much for the great defenders of freedom of the press!
Bus Mechanics Hammer Red-Baiter, Re-Elect Pro-Communist
LOS ANGELES, CA January 2—"Hey man," a worker warned our friend, a mechanic running for re-election as shop steward, "You better go down and see the flyer Gabby put out against you." He was talking about his opponent’s campaign leaflet for the run-off election.
The other candidate’s leaflet looked like something out of the bosses’ latest push to overcome the Vietnam Syndrome. In color, it featured a GI helmet with a green camouflage cover, listing his qualifications as four years in the Marines, a member of the American Legion and "still fighting communists." Rambo’s back!
Everyone in the shop knew this guy had help producing this leaflet, perhaps with the blessing of the union leadership.
After talking with several workers, including at other divisions, our friend attacked his opponent’s anti-communism. He listed his activities against prison slave labor, racist cop murders, organizing mechanics not to scab on the drivers’ strike, encouraging janitors and others to picket with the drivers, and other campaigns to unite, not divide, the working class. The leaflet concluded with, "if these actions are communist, then we need more communists in the union."
This response caused quite a stir. Answering this anti-communist attack brought communist ideas into the open on the shop floor. About 150 workers had the "we-need-more communists" flyer. They were posted in several places as well as reaching other divisions.
One worker asked the shop steward during the run off election, " I don’t really understand what this is between you two. I mean, what, exactly is communism?"
This presented the opportunity to explain that, as long as the bosses control the government, they will use their power to exploit and divide workers; to send our children to fight wars to defend their profits; and to terrorize and oppress workers. That’s why PLP’s long-term goal is workers’ power through revolution to get rid of the profit system. Then the working class will organize production and transportation for the needs of workers, not for the bosses’ profits. That’s communism.
The result of all this political debate? The pro-communist candidate won the run-off for shop steward 40 to 24, with 20 workers not voting. It also gave us a chance to distribute flyers summarizing the Party’s history, showing that, in the year 2001, PLP is still fighting for communism!
CHALLENGE is our Party’s main weapon against the capitalists’ ideas spread among workers. These bosses’ ideas, coming from the union leaders as well, tell us to think about ourselves instead of our class. They urge us to think only about getting something in our paycheck now instead of fighting for a future for our class, and to vote for "lesser evil" politicians instead of organizing the tremendous potential power of the working class.
While we fight every attack on our class today, as long as the bosses hold power, they’ll attack and wipe out whatever immediate gain we achieve, especially as they prepare for a war for control of oil profits. So thinking "me first" instead of our class first is actually self-defeating.
CHALLENGE is the workers’ tool to help free us from these chains. The workers produce everything of value and have the potential to unite as a class to get rid of the bosses and their dog-eat-dog profit system once and for all. PLP fights unconditionally for workers’ power.
STRUGGLE HEATS UP
While this struggle is occurring, the union leadership has been secretly negotiating a new contract for mechanics. Workers are demanding the details. A group of rank-and-filers have distributed a leaflet calling on workers to reject the contract, which:
• Forces us to pay for a wage "increase" by taking money from our pensions;
• Continues the use of prison labor;
• Probably includes wage progression, attacking the newer hires;
The workers must prepare to strike, knowing the drivers will support us because we honored their picket lines during their recent walkout, despite our union leaders’ refusal to back us if we did. As this struggle continues, the main victories will be the growing unity and class-consciousness of workers and their increasing use of CHALLENGE and its communist ideas.
a name="NYC Technical Workers Shouldn’t Wait For Axe To Fall">">"YC Technical Workers Shouldn’t Wait For Axe To Fall
NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 19— It’s a standing joke at the NYC Housing Authority that your union dues are for monthly lunch meetings where you get cold pizza and hot soda. District Council 37’s 7,000-member Local 375 Technical Workers Guild of AFSCME just held elections for leadership. The interests of the workers were represented about as well here as they were during the pathetic presidential race. Issues affecting the membership and the working class in general were conspicuously avoided and replaced with petty negative attacks on other candidates. The union leadership’s real job is to convince workers to accept what capitalism offers and keep things quiet. True to form, the endless name-calling just diverted workers away from fighting the City bosses. If workers are to defend themselves against cutbacks, especially as capitalism heads towards recession and war, we need real militance, not mud-slinging.
The Local represents some of the only organized technical service workers in the city. In private industry, despite a relative shortage of trained workers, many architects and engineers put in 60- or 70-hour weeks as a matter of course; job security is a contradiction in terms. The City Housing Authority (like all public agencies) is heading in the same direction. People are continually forced to do more than their job description requires (work "out-of-title"), services are privatized and growing numbers of employees are provisional.
It’s hard to see anyone looking to the union for defense. Even now, with a City budget surplus, they’re only asking for raises that amount to a cost-of-living allowance. The current leadership (the "Truth Team") is corrupt and ineffectual, spending dues on junkets, holding secret elections in violation of union by-laws and focusing on "victories" like subway discounts. People are informed about contract negotiations only after the fact. They’ve done nothing against on-going privatization and out-sourcing.
But the reform ticket (so-called "Unity Team") offered no alternatives except to harp on the obvious corruption of the Local and trumpet their own "honesty." They even indulged in some old-fashioned McCarthyite red-baiting, attacking the current head of the Local for publicly denouncing the U.S. and NATO’s role in Yugoslavia. Literature from both slates numbed people with constant attacks against the other side. One looked in vain for more than a passing mention of the fact that the contract ran out six months ago, or of fascist Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s anti-worker tactics; for any mention of fighting against Workfare or for any workplace issue like day care. Both sides just hope the next mayor will cut a better deal and will sit on negotiations till then.
Militant communist leadership recognizes that workers need to take the fight to the ruling class, instead of waiting for the axe to fall. That kind of leadership can never come from the current slate of local officers or any of the higher-ups in AFSCME or the AFL-CIA. As it turns out (shades of Florida) most of the slots contested in the Local election will require a run-off, but as with the Florida fiasco, no matter who wins, the workers lose and we still have a struggle against the bosses on our hands.
Billy Elliot Dances Around Greatness
O.K. Everyone agrees. "Billy Elliot" is a terrific movie, charming, even inspirational—and not cheesy and hokey as it would have been if made in Hollywood. There were no angel choruses, and every little point wasn’t driven into our heads with a mallet and weepy violins.
But it’s only a fine movie—where, with one tiny bit of editing, it would have been a great one. It’s easy to sense that a choice was made to not opt for greatness.
The title character is a young working-class boy who rejects pursuing the "manly" art of boxing, being attracted to dancing instead. Billy begins to study dance from an instructor (Julie Walters). The lessons are secret, because Billy knows his widower father and macho brother would be antagonistic to this "unmanly" choice. This might have led to the predictable money-version: playing on the lessons of feminism and gender, and pitting the "violent male gene" against the craving for art.
But what raises this film above the predictable is what’s happening in the background. The strong sub-plot being put aside is where the moviemakers sold out.
A major strike is raging against the brutal and dangerous conditions in the coalmines. Billy’s father and brother are strongly, heroically involved.
But it’s not just a strike. It’s the 1980’s, during the regime of fascist Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Ronald Reagan.
We watch a brutal, repressive regime, vividly symbolized in the rows of riot cops protecting scab labor and attacking the workers to their very homes. These scenes are realistic—but not depressingly terrifying because of inspiring details. There are shots of neighbors protecting and harboring strikers on the run from the cops, and the strikers fighting back valiantly throughout.
Billy, aware and a good working-class kid, is angry at what’s being done to his family—and more importantly, to his class.
The conflict? What will his father do when he learns his son is passionately involved in what the father would think is the sexually dubious pursuit of ballet? Well, we want the father to be understanding and supportive, but he wasn’t raised that way, and he is angry instead.
We don’t want to tell much more of the plot—you really should see it. Watch for the most important scene: the father chooses to become a scab to help Billy out, leading to a major lesson of the movie.
The movie ends with Billy’s success, giving us "hope and happiness," but not dealing with the real issue.
One of the movie’s last scenes is Billy’s father and brother riding the elevator back down to the mine. If that had been the final scene, the movie would have been able to tell essentially the same story, but we would have learned a great lesson. As it stands, the movie is just another triumph-of-the-individual story, and the significance of working class versus the rich and their government (the State) just fades away amid Tchaikovsky’s soaring music.
Back in the seventies, riding down to May Day in Washington, a young guy on the bus expressed some honest misgivings: he wasn’t completely sold on the idea that communism really held the answers to the many deadly problems we all face.
"If you really had a communist state," he argued, "how would someone like Albert Einstein ever come to be? Would someone like that have to sweep floors?"
One replied, "You picked the wrong example, because Einstein considered himself a socialist."
"The point," someone else said, "isn’t that Einstein would have to sweep floors—and what’s so terrible about intellectuals getting a little working-class dirt on their hands? They should want the revolution to succeed. But more important, there would be more Einsteins under communism than there can ever be under capitalism."
"How do you figure that?" he asked.
"Well, how many potential Einsteins, in every kind of field, are never even discovered because they’re living in the slums and never will get the opportunity to shine? There’ll be a hundred, a million geniuses discovered after the revolution!—Jonas Salks, Charlie Chaplins, Orson Welleses, etc."
But they’ll never see the light of day under the profit system, under the brutality and exclusiveness of capitalism. That’s the lesson that’s not told in "Billy Elliot," "Good Will Hunting," and many otherwise fine—possibly censored—movies.
Rarely will a Billy Elliot actually get his dream, but thousands more Billy Elliots and billions of others under capitalism have essentially no hope of even achieving a decent life, much less a good one. That’s the ultimate argument against this violent, brutal and cruel system.
LETTERS
a name="‘Race’ Card Makes Election A Stacked Deck"></">‘R"ce’ Card Makes Election A Stacked Deck
A CNN/USA Today/Gallop poll describes the immense gap in how whites and blacks view the election. While over half of blacks think Bush stole the election, and only 7% think he won "fair and square," 54% of whites think he won fair and square. While 76% of blacks think the U.S. voting system discriminates against them, only 39% of whites think the system discriminates against blacks.
This large gap demonstrates the central place of racism in the election and in U.S. society. Amidst all the political hypocrisy and legalistic doubletalk, the main argument the Republicans and their supporters proclaimed repeatedly was that blacks wanted their ballots to be counted in a "special" way, and that this would "discriminate" against white voters. This again is the myth of "reverse discrimination."
The Republicans used the mass racist opposition to "special treatment" or "special preference" that they’ve built up in their crusade against affirmative action during the past three decades to attack all Democratic efforts to get recounts.
While the Supreme Court majority flip-flopped on "states rights" and "judicial activism" in order to hand Bush the presidency, the five justices remained perfectly consistent in their racist strategy of declaring any remedy for racism to be "racist" and "unconstitutional."
Shamelessly, they even used the "equal protection" argument—historically used to combat racist disenfranchisement of blacks—to uphold the massive disenfranchisement of blacks in Florida in the 2000 election.
Meanwhile, the Democrats ran away from exposing this Republican racism as fast as they could. They let Jesse Jackson and the NAACP organize rallies and gather evidence, but no white leader of the Democratic Party made any visible statement to any significant audience condemning the pervasive and decisive racism of the entire election. The silence of white Democrats enabled the Republicans and the media to treat black protest as just the usual whining and complaining of minorities and sore losers. And the four outvoted justices of the Supreme Court certainly weren’t about to denounce the racism of their fellow justices.
The Republicans played "the racist card" for all it was worth, and the Democrats ensured that it would win the decisive trick. The two-party system worked in the classic way it has served the capitalist class. Most working-class white voters supported the Republicans, especially in the states that have the largest black population. Most working-class blacks supported the Democrats.
White and black workers were convinced that there were highly significant differences between the two parties, when, in fact, the differences were very minor. The Republican Party worked hard to build and mobilize racist sentiment among white workers. The Democratic Party worked hard to mislead black workers into thinking that Democrats would protect and represent their interests against the racist Republicans.
Of course, this is the same Democratic Party that joined with Republicans in criminalizing and disenfranchising millions of black workers, and that joined with Republicans in refusing to appropriate funds to upgrade election machinery.
The ruling class needs both parties to divide the working class and to build popular support for oppression of black workers upon which maximizing capitalist profits depend.
The main lessons of this election are:
First, fighting racism must be our political priority, now more than ever.
Second, in all our anti-racist struggles we must show people that racism is endemic and critical to the political power and wealth of the capitalist ruling class. That is why both major political parties contribute mightily to the perpetuation of racism.
Third, while participating in any mass campaign to reform the electoral system, we must show that it is impossible to uproot its racism, to get capitalist money out of politics, and to get the system to serve the working class. Therefore, we must build a revolutionary movement to smash the entire system.
This fraudulent, hypocritical, racist election demonstrates that the U.S. ruling class may be strong, but it is also vulnerable. It is not true that "the emperor has no clothes." But the emperor has a blatantly corrupt and racist wardrobe, which many people have begun to see through. It is currently the world’s dominant imperialist superpower, unchallenged by any effective imperialist rival, controlling a working class divided by racism. But its corruption, arrogance and racism are evident to millions of people here and abroad.
The U.S. imperialists who financed and engineered the defeat of Milosevic in Serbia, who staged "demonstration" elections in South Vietnam, who installed and removed governments worldwide, now reveals more clearly than ever that "bourgeois democracy" is a disgusting spectacle from the local precincts all the way up to the Supremely Racist Court.
A red professor
Play It Again, Uncle Sam
"Estrada Resign," the signs read. Thousands demonstrate as the impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada continues. He’s charged with taking millions in gambling kick-backs. Estrada brought back many of Marcos’ cronies and is challenged by past presidents Ramos and Aquino to resign. Meanwhile, there is an insurrection by Moslem nationalists in Jolo in the South.
In a recent WALL STREET JOURNAL article, "Estrada Resign" was the bottom line. Even though U.S. bosses vacated large naval port facilities in Subic Bay several years ago, they still own large corporate investments. To the South sits the chaotic Indonesian situation and to the northeast…China. Today the U.S. and China’s bosses trade and compete. Imperialist competition could eventually lead to war.
At the height of the Marcos regime, the New People’s Army (NPA)—military arm of the Communist Party (CP)—had 25,000 soldiers fighting government forces. By 1986, "Marcos Must Go!"; "Power to the NPA’s!" was written on walls throughout the country. So where was the revolution I was dreaming about? Even my wife’s family, who we visit yearly, were talking politics.
In the past, every time I raised a question someone would smile and politely ignore it by asking, "Some more food?" At the least, I thought, there would be civil war—like Nicaragua—hopefully with better results. Oh, how wrong I was!
Lesson #1 came home: if your politics are off the mark, it doesn’t matter how many forces you have. I met several NPA’s and they were very dedicated and great base-builders. But without the ingredients, you can’t bake the cake.
Anyway, after the illusion of "People’s Power," with millions in the streets, as Marcos fled, Aquino became president.
Many in the CP were won to the illusion of "democracy." Many thought they could now operate openly and freely in elections, unions, student and other groups. It was like all the lessons of the past were thrown to the winds.
According to a recent article in the "Manila Mail," hundreds of youth and students have sworn to join the armed revolution waged by the NPA in the countryside. Unfortunately, dedication to the wrong line won’t cut it.
Oakland Comrade
Dinner Inspires Sub Drive(r)
The December 9th cultural event emphasizing the importance of CHALLENGE was a great spur. Within nine days I’ve gotten nine new subscriptions. Before the event, I wasn’t focused on it. But getting there, seeing people I had known for years and new ones who were so enthusiastic about what we needed to do to rid the world of this rotten capitalism—it was like a flash of light. Seeking CHALLENGE subscriptions, no matter what else is happening, is always more than merely important.
There are countless ways to distribute CHALLENGE. The "Red Youth’s" letter about the dinner in the last issue was very clear that, without knowing the specifics of the Party’s future, we still know that future begins now. Hearing the raps, poems, songs and essays were quite impressive, especially since the event was created by our youth. In fact they led me to see I should not stop with these nine subs. They are, I hope, just a beginning. There are literally millions of workers and youth out there who would read CHALLENGE if it were presented to them. I know a good number of them. The thing I and all of us need is the will to go out and find them.
A New Yorker Who Remembers CHALLENGE for 33 Years
Rap Prison Labor In Bush Backyard
On November 30th, the anti prison labor group TTU Activists showed the video "Prison Labor, Prison Blues" to 80 students and faculty here at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Over 30 people signed our petition opposing the University buying Dell computers and other prison-made products.
Forty people stayed afterwards to discuss and analyze prison labor. Our aim was to raise the issues of racism and fascism in the U.S. prison system. Although many were shocked to learn about the prison labor industry, some felt there was nothing wrong with exploiting minorities while the bosses reap increasing profits from these workers.
TTU showed how the prison industry finds its fodder in the racist "war on drugs" and uses fascism and racist policing of students and minorities to fill the prisons. While decent jobs are eliminated, hundreds of thousands of prisoners are forced to work for nothing. The audience asked what actions could be taken to stop the endless imprisonment of minority youth and change the prison system. TTU Activists fielded questions to the best of its ability, though the PLP explanation that capitalism causes the problem was not fully integrated. This reflected an ongoing internal struggle with TTU Activists about acceptance of revolutionary communist ideology.
The important lesson learned here is that leadership is crucial, leadership to stand up for revolutionary ideas. Without anyone taking initiative to explain the importance of PLP, it allows the center to move to the right instead of the left, and may alienate those who are open to revolutionary ideas but do not hear them.
PLP Club
Nightsticks Vs. Snowballs
Three members of Students Together Against Racism (STAR) at Evanston Township High School went to the KKK rally in Skokie. We were among hundreds of protesters from a wide variety of groups united to tell the Klan they weren’t welcome in our state, much less our world.
On the drive there, we worked on signs we planned to wield as weapons alongside our voices. One sign displayed our group’s name. The other said, "You Lost, Deal With It," with a Confederate flag between the letters.
At the demonstration I realized this rally was different from any I had been to before. Many protestors were families that came together. To our surprise, there was an older man in front of us wielding a shiny new aluminum baseball bat. We reached the police checkpoint and I realized weapons were not uncommon. Near the police was a trashcan full of confiscated sticks, bats and two-by-fours. There were people here with more ferocious intent than us. We expected as much, but to see it made it real.
We made it to the courthouse and caught our first glimpse of Klansmen wearing their white sheets. I must say it was quite a scary sight, but that didn’t change anything.
A mother with her children walked toward the police line saying, " Do you want to see a monster up close?" The rally livened up when a group of Nazis showed up and a large group of protesters charged them. The police formed a line to stop them. One cop pushed our STAR member backwards and he instinctively pushed back. The cops arrested him and the crowd grew angry. "Let him go!" people chanted throwing snowballs at the police. He was swiftly taken off to jail.
A minute later a line of cops formed with riot shields. Our last two STAR members along with the other demonstrators lined up in front of the police chanting, "The cops and the Klan go hand in hand."
Meanwhile back at the courthouse our teacher, a PLP member, was arrested for charging through the police line that was protecting the KKK, leaving my friend and myself the only STAR members not in handcuffs. This was quite ironic, because we are the group’s chairs, and we had none of our members behind us.
I feel we won that Saturday. Many say that all the Klan wanted was our attention, but they wanted us to listen. We drowned them out and kicked them out. That’s not what they wanted. Therefore, we were victorious. We can learn a lot from this event. The Klan and other racist groups are not welcome around here, and they will be strongly opposed if they appear.
Students Together Against Racism
Really Learning Math Helps Us Learn About Life
Editor’s Note: The first article in this two-part series on teaching math from a communist perspective exposed the racist bias of liberal math reform schemes. It challenged PLP math teachers to fight for the slogan, "Algebra for the working class." The series concludes with some practical suggestions for carrying out this struggle in the classroom. The author is a college professor of mathematics. As he pointed out in the first article, fewer than ten percent of his calculus students enter with adequate preparation for the course.
In Kindergarten through Eighth Grade, children need to become arithmetic experts. They must:
Memorize the addition and multiplication tables as well as learn to explain things such as why 2 + 3 = 3 + 2 and 2X3 = 3X2.
Know how to carry in addition and borrow in subtraction. The "whys" of these operations should also be explained, but some children may not automatically understand "why." Nonetheless, the procedures must still be mastered.
Know how to do long division. Multiplication tables are important in long division because the students need to be able to try things out quickly, in their heads or on scratch paper, when doing division.
Gain facility with adding, multiplying, subtracting and dividing fractions. This is extremely important for algebra. A child who can’t add fractions will have no chance of dealing with a typical algebra problem such as: simplify the following expression: (x/y + y/x). A student who can manipulate fractions will immediately know that you need to get a common denominator. One way to get a common denominator is to just take the product. The simple arithmetic procedure is then applied and: (x/y + y/x) = (x^2 + y^2)/xy.
This kind of problem is beyond the grasp of students who don’t know the basics of arithmetic. Furthermore, most "real life" problems often reduce to solving simple algebra problems.
Gain facility with decimals and percents. Just a few weeks ago I asked my college math class—the one for prospective K-8 teachers—what is 20% of $155,000? It came from the "real life" problem of calculating the down payment on a house. Not one person in the class could solve it. Students should be able to do such a problem in their heads. It involves several important arithmetic notions.
Avoid calculators and computers. These are the worst "tools" for learning basic math and have no value. Algebra is arithmetic with letters in place of numbers and students who have "learned" arithmetic on a calculator will have not gained the necessary skill to learn algebra. As I said before, studying is not fun; it should be hard work. Also students should be able to see if an answer makes sense just by reasoning. There have been no studies demonstrating that machines have any values in math education. On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence of great harm done by machines.
Gain good study habits. This will serve them well in all future endeavors, including becoming hard-working communist organizers.
Success in the above points will give young people the necessary tools to succeed in high school algebra, geometry and trigonometry. Furthermore, when students are well-grounded in the fundamentals, they have more time to develop deeper conceptual understanding. There is no better application of quantity into quality than math education.
The large-scale failure of the U.S. educational system to teach millions of children reading and math needs to be exposed. But it should not be used as an excuse not to teach properly. Neither should low pay or poor working conditions or the students’ poverty. To be sure, these things don’t help and the Party does an excellent job fighting for improvements and organizing along these lines. But there is only one proper way to learn any skill—practice in the fundamentals. Furthermore, children are resilient and capable of extraordinary achievements if the adults can keep their own bias out of the learning equation.
I would urge all K-8 teachers to review or master (as the case may be) all basic arithmetic procedures as well as to become fluent in high school algebra. Even though I have a doctorate in Math, I have to review the basics before teaching them to future teachers. Weakness in a subject is no shame. The real shame is using our own weakness to find rationalizations for not teaching properly.
Students Getting (R)education
Students at our high school have been shredding the myth that teenagers are politically apathetic. The past month was a particularly active one.
In early December, three progressive student clubs conducted an assembly program about prisons. Running for three periods, it was seen by over 500 students. One period covered prison labor. It was led by four students who did extensive research on the topic, using the PLP Prison Labor pamphlet as one of their main sources. Another period had a speaker from the Prison Moratorium Project, who explained how the skyrocketing number of prisoners was being fueled by the racist war against drugs, which targets people in black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
The following week students showed the video, "Global Village or Global Pillage?" revealing how corporations are incessantly searching for cheaper and cheaper labor and are destroying the local environments by dumping toxic wastes. It also shows people fighting back against this hideous "race to the bottom." Unfortunately, the film’s politics, via producer Jeremy Brecher, insists that these local anti-corporate struggles can lead to a "decent world order." After the film, we briefly discussed whether anti-corporatism was a substitute for anti-capitalism and revolution. This discussion will no doubt continue.
The same week we had a standing-room-only audience to hear Professor Norman Finkelstein speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He provided a valuable history of the Zionist project, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland, and the current policy of encirclement and brutality toward Arab residents of the occupied territories. Professor Finkelstein showed how official Israeli policy toward the Palestinians was remarkably similar to U.S. government policy toward Native Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Many students are interested in opposing sweatshops. On December 6, a number of us participated in the rally and march against sweatshops that began at Niketown. Then on December 19, we heard a speaker describe conditions in the 3,500 Mexican border factories (maquiladores), which exploit over a million workers for low pay and few benefits.
Because some students are interested in developing a radical theory of why so many people in the world are hungry, exploited and abused, we started a radical reading group. Recently we discussed Rosa Luxemburg’s essay, "Reform and Revolution," which argues persuasively that capitalism cannot be reformed and will not evolve towards an egalitarian society. To have a "decent world order" we need to destroy capitalism. That’s the message of CHALLENGE, which more students are now reading.
Right before vacation, we began watching the German film, "Rosa Luxemburg," which begins with her in prison for opposing German participation in World War I. Her principled stand against imperialist war helps inspire our own opposition to U.S. oil wars, from the sanctions and bombings that have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens, to the coming war to topple Hussein and install an Exxon-Mobil puppet.
NYC teacher
Dollarization Sharpens Imperialist Dogfight, Attacks Against Workers
San Salvador—"There’s no doubt that U.S. and local capital made an agreement. The minute the FMLN [the former guerrilla group turned electoral party] wins the election, the—pro-U.S.,anti-FMLN—capital will flee. They’re going to dollarize the economy so they can close the door to the Euro," explained local CHALLENGE readers, a couple who studied in the former Soviet Union.
The dollarization of the economy is a reflection of the dogfight among different bosses and imperialists over control of Latin America. (Ecuador and Panama also use the dollar as their local currency.) It also will see all bosses, big and small, make workers’ lives still more miserable
But the FMLN is not the answer. Its leadership is trying to win people to see them as the best choice to expose the symptoms of capitalism, using its brand of nationalism. "Using the dollar, we’ll lose or national identity," say FMLN leaders like Ileana Rogel, a member of the political commission.
Workers here and worldwide must not fall into this trap of seeing nationalism as the last hope to salvage the corporate and electoral system.
In the discussion with the CHALLENGE readers,we all agreed about the effects of worldwide capitalism on the working class. "At no time has the world been at peace," insisted our friends. "Wars will continue as long as the capitalists are fighting for markets, resources and cheap labor."
All currencies are monetary instruments of exchange in a system of wage slavery for the working class. Neither the Euro, the Dollar or the Colon will change that.The only solution is fighting for communism, led by an international party which won’t defend and maintain a wage system only benefiting the capitalist parasites.
- Vote Recount Reveals:
RACIST RULERS STAY IN POWER - D.C. TRANSIT WORKERS CHOOSE RED LEADERSHIP
- Bosses A Real-Life Grinch
- Working-Class `Jewel' Rises to the CHALLENGE
- Grad Union Struggle Worker-Student Unity
- Shipbuilders Battle Boss, Union, Gov't Racism
- A LESSON IN REVOLUTION 101
- U.S. `Terror' Bankroll Is Real Public Health Hazard
- TEACH-IN ON SWEATSHOPS BUILDS WORKER-STUDENT ALLIANCE
- OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT MTA
- LETTERS
- Class Struggle in Academia
- Film Hides SDS' Worker-Student Alliance
- Palestine--Case Study of Imperialist Oil Greed
- SUPPLEMENT
CAPITALISM CAN'T SOLVE MATH PROBLEMS - Bosses' `Math Reform' Doesn't Add Up
- Who's `Madder'? Cows or Capitalists?
Vote Recount Reveals:
RACIST RULERS STAY IN POWER
The partisan brawl over the U.S. presidential election took on a life of its own. The greed for power on both sides brought out hatred and anger that neither gang of bosses seems able to control. This was mirrored in the Supreme Court decision which handed Bush the presidency. This decision was totally consistent with the partisanship permeating the whole disgusting spectacle. These events provide a valuable lesson for workers in the basic nature of the profit system and its political process.
The hypocrisy of the Bush and Gore organizations is sickening. Both camps want you to believe the lie that every vote counts. Sure--provided you voted for THEM. Ironically this second Supreme Court ruling was based on "one person, one vote," a concept that formed the basis of the 1965 Voting Rights Act which--allegedly--gave the vote to disenfranchised black people in the South. And these were the very voters who were kept away from the polls in Florida! That's how the Bush racists have stolen the election. They hired a private security firm to identify and exclude workers who had been convicted of felonies (who are barred from voting in Florida). Thousands who had never had a felony sentence were "accidentally" disqualified. The Gore forces made a big deal about counting many disputed votes, but wanted recounts only in areas where Gore looked strong.
The so-called "independent" judiciary split sharply along transparently partisan lines, first in Florida for Gore, then in the U.S. Supreme Court for Bush. Both Bush and Gore lust so much after the White House each flagrantly contradicts positions he's supported in the past: Bush now opposes "states' rights," and Gore favors them. Anything to win.
The presidency is a huge prize for the forces who control it. But something beyond economic gain is at play here. These guys really hate each other--so much so that they can't seem to cut a deal which would objectively benefit both. The sections of the ruling class that respectively back Bush or Gore have serious tactical differences, which we've written about and will continue to do so. However, conflicts within the ruling class have always arisen over economic and foreign policy. Usually, the big bosses manage to agree to disagree. If they can't eliminate or settle their disputes, they find ways to limit them in their overall class interest. This isn't happening now. This fight over the presidency shows that for the time being, at least, the ruling class is virtually out of control, blinded by putting its various subjective partisan desires ahead of its class interests.
This temporary chaos shows how the contradictions among the capitalists lead to increasing instability. The rulers' ability to act in their overall class interest is severely limited by their need to maximize profit at each other's expense. That's the material basis for the present dogfight. But the subjective element shouldn't be underestimated. It's an important aspect of all political developments. In the wake of the Clinton impeachment both sides are still pursuing each other with venom. The latest Supreme Court decision simply intensifies the anger, which is likely to persist for a long time.
While U.S. capitalism is still the most powerful force in the world, this electoral free-for-all isn't doing it much good. U.S. rivals are taking advantage on many fronts. Russian bosses are venturing political risks they might not have dared a few months ago (see CHALLENGE, Dec. 13). Saddam Hussein is making a mockery of U.S. Persian Gulf oil policy. The international challenges to U.S. domination can only grow in the coming period.
Of course, these challenges will all be within the profit system itself, as Russian, European, and Chinese rulers compete to replace the U.S. as top dog. In the coming months and years we will see if the U.S. ruling class manages to overcome its own internal differences to meet these challenges. As the process unfolds, particularly in the likely event that the U.S. economy heads into a downturn, we should expect to hear the beating of war drums.
The most significant question concerns the course to be taken by workers and by our Party. The brawl over the presidency is possible only because the rulers do not now have to face a mortal threat from their strategic class enemy, the workers. Because of our Party's present weakness and small size, they can enjoy the luxury of fighting each other. Once they see a communist movement gaining strength, they will put aside their differences, as they have in the past, to focus their hatred on the working class and its red leadership.
The rulers' present weakness won't by itself cause their system to collapse. But it presents us with the opportunity to buld our base and develop our own forces. U.S. imperialism's political troubles provide us with a chance to grow. We should vigorously organize to build the PLP on all possible fronts in order to sharpen the class struggle and earn the bosses' hatred. Bush and Gore represent the selfish, racist values of a sick system that can never get well. All the determined steps we take now will eventually help bury it--starting with the campaign for a successful mass May Day 2001.
D.C. TRANSIT WORKERS CHOOSE RED LEADERSHIP
WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 6 -- Thousands of Metro transit workers elected five new leaders of Local 689 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU). None of them have ever held positions higher than shop steward. The most striking rejection of the old, corrupt leadership was the election of PLP member Mike Golash as Financial Secretary-Treasurer, the union's number two position. A new door may have opened for mass revolutionary organizing! Mike has worked at Metro transit for over 24 years. As he campaigned at garage after garage, and shop and after shop throughout the 6,000-worker system, he met workers he hadn't seen in years. They urged other workers to vote for him because of his integrity and militancy, and in some cases, because he is a communist. Many workers want communist qualities in their leadership. Six rank-and-file Metro workers helped lead Mike's campaign, which centered on ending "wage progression."
This policy limits new workers' wages to just over $11 an hour for years (half of top pay), before moving to the top rate. This divides the union and super-exploits and alienates younger workers. There is a good foundation for a Metro-wide PLP-led organization, to move swiftly against any anti-communist attacks, and to prepare for the upcoming contract struggle. Mike's victory was overwhelming, but ripe with contradictions. He got 50% of the vote in a three-way race, and nearly doubled his nearest opponent (1970-1047). But not all of these workers are voting for communist revolution. Some feel that honest, militant leadership will lead to better wages and working conditions. The truth is that communists can lead by mobilizing thousands to fight effectively against the bosses, but there is nothing automatic about it. Many workers must become active leaders in their shops and garages. And even then, the bosses still hold many trump cards. They run the government, the police and other repressive forces. Communist leadership can't guarantee that things will improve under capitalism. We do guarantee a stronger and more intense struggle, and we will not sell out. More than that, we will treat every battle against the bosses and the "old guard," as an opportunity to win more workers to communist revolution and PLP. Our movement requires that workers understand the world in order to change it and run it. A long-time PLP bus driver in San Francisco won a similar victory in TWU Local 250A. This led directly to a fierce contract battle at MUNI this past summer, which strengthened the movement for communist revolution and won some victories for the workers. PLP gave active leadership within the LA transit strike, and is emerging as a force among Oakland AC Transit workers. New Directions, a reform caucus with a mass following in TWU Local 100, appears to be on the verge of victory in New York City. Perhaps these are some early signs of a new upsurge in the labor movement, which includes an important communist component. Especially the emergence of PLP is a crucial communist component in this development.
This election took the old union leaders and management by surprise. They misread the growing anger of the workers. They didn't launch a major anti-communist attack against PLP. However, they will counterattack before long. Maybe they will try to overturn the election. Maybe they will take a hard line in the coming contract negotiations. To ideologically strengthen Metro workers, we are circulating thousands of pamphlets about communists and the trade unions. The order of the day is to sharply increase the circulation of CHALLENGE. The 1,970 workers who voted for us can produce many new CHALLENGE distributors. This is an important opportunity for the growth of PLP, not only in the industrial unions, but also among students and professionals who can help strengthen and develop a communist base in the unions.
Bosses A Real-Life Grinch
This next issue of CHALLENGE goes to press on January 3, 2001. During this holiday period, when workers and youth are supposed to rejoice, the bosses are becoming a real-life Grinch. And we are not just talking about "Hang' em High" Bush, Jr. apparently getting away with stealing the election from Bore Gore. The recession all economists have been predicting began with a bang for GM workers who just received their Xmas "bonus," elimination of 10% of the company's workforce in North America and Europe.
And for 6,000 soon-to-be-laid-off Whirlpool workers.
The new millenium brings us a capitalist world as bad or worse than the old one. UNICEF just published its 2001 report on the state of children worldwide: 11 million children die each year because of preventable diseases. Of the 1.2 billion people in the world who subsist on less than a dollar a day, a half billion are children. Ten million under 15 have become orphans by losing their mothers to AIDS. Some 20 million children are war refugees. And the list goes on...
This living hell that is capitalism calls for revolutionary change. CHALLENGE and PLP fight for that change, for a communist society without bosses and their racism, wars and depressions. CHALLENGE is crucial to bringing workers and youth the communist politics needed to fight and destroy capitalism. It costs a lot of money (dollars, euros, yens, pesos, pesetas) to publish a paper without any advertising. We need to raise more money to continue bringing workers the only paper fighting for their class interests. Please help. Send contributions to: CHALLENGE, P. O. Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
Working-Class `Jewel' Rises to the CHALLENGE
PHILADELPHIA - "Just do it!" Margarita damn near yelled. "Anyone can sell those newspapers!"Margarita is well known and well loved for her explosive but profound declarations. The discussion topic was how PLP members distribute our Party's newspaper CHALLENGE. Margarita is probably our number one distributor. But the roots of her success go much deeper than "just do it." Margarita actually spends lots of time thinking about her CHALLENGE distribution. From the moment they arrive, Margarita's zeroes in on getting out those papers. Margarita is also friendly as hell with damn near everybody. Over the years she's become a recognized rank-and-file leader dealing with workers' problems. She always spends time with her co-workers and knows a lot about their daily pains and joys. She's constantly mentioning this or that person as a potential CHALLENGE reader.
Yet Margarita's success also involves problems. Several of her CHALLENGE readers actually want to discuss the paper with her! And Margarita feels she "doesn't know enough" to have a good discussion. So her Party club decided to help her. A less active veteran comrade volunteered to personally work with Margarita on this problem.
But not everyone has Margarita's style of doing things. Lenny is a long-time union delegate, involved with many on-the-job situations. Sometimes Lenny's been overwhelmed by all these activities and his newspaper distribution became the last thing on his "to-do" list. But Margarita's development has helped Lenny ensure that CHALLENGE distribution is job number one. If he doesn't, he's sure to hear about it from Margarita!Margarita helps Lenny constantly look for ways to bring CHALLENGE into his many different union activities. Grievances, social events on the job, contract struggles--Lenny has learned he needs to be like a shark, always on the look-out for the many opportunities to use the paper. Like Margarita, Lenny also learned that thinking and planning are crucial to distributing the paper.
Ned has a different style of distribution. He's often very quiet, but very observant and thoughtful. When he does talk, he's often very insightful. When a veteran comrade recently was on sick leave, Margarita took it upon herself to urge Ned, "Joe's out. You and me got to pick up for his paper sales!" Surprise! Ned's CHALLENGE distribution quadrupled! Twice during Joe's absence Ned distributed between 50 and 60 papers by himself when his family came to town. Beneath Ned's quiet surface there are obviously some deep currents that we need to develop.
This discussion of the paper's distribution also helped our club confront a big problem among the workers we know. Many don't read or write well, or not at all. We're developing a plan for a literacy campaign that will hopefully involve our union, many rank-and-file workers on the job and some other organizations.
We don't see CHALLENGE distribution as an isolated activity. It's closely linked to the level of our relationships with our co-workers, political struggle and leadership and participation in class struggle. The more immersed we are in workers' lives and their struggles, the better we can make CHALLENGE a mass paper.
In one of our clubs, the best paper distributors are two black workers. This recently prompted Margarita to question why the other members, all much more "educated" than she and Ned, couldn't do a better job. "And they can read!" she added a bit angrily. But capitalist education by itself doesn't bring communist political understanding. PLP member's continuing immersion in the lives and struggles of the workers on our job led us to working-class jewels like Ned and Margarita. They may not have much capitalist education, but their lives and their experience with PLP has taught them the meaning of CHALLENGE. Each worker they get the paper to helps CHALLENGE become a mass newspaper.
Grad Union Struggle Worker-Student Unity
SEATTLE, WA., Dec 5--University of Washington undergraduates--in support of the new graduate student union--organized a "victory" rally today to celebrate the 11th hour deal that averted a threatened strike by grads and teaching assistants. As part of the deal, the University Administration agreed to back legislation at the State level legalizing the grads' union, a local of the United Auto Workers (UAW). The University reversed its long-held position against "bringing industrial relations to the university community."
A Progressive Labor Party undergraduate, introduced as a representative from the Washington Students Against Sweatshops, addressed the crowd about the necessity of a united working class at the university. She said the interests of all the students and workers on campus--fighting racism, sexism, and fighting for better working and living conditions for everyone--merge with the interests of the working class and that "rising above" the working class should not be the students' goal. She also warned that the newly "recognized" graduate student union should not give up the power to discuss university curriculum changes and should fight the university's racist admissions policies. She maintained that all students should be able to contribute to the content of their classes.
These ideas were very well-received at the rally. She concluded by urging everyone at the university and in the community to "Fight to Learn! Learn to Fight!" With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies? Interestingly, everybody--from the National Labor Relations Board to the NEW YORK TIMES--has supported graduate student unions. A closer examination of the "deal" reveals why.
The proposed legislation will undoubtedly strictly limit the union to "economic" concerns. The Administration jealously guards its racist and anti-working class curriculum. "This legislation must acknowledge the University's unique culture and environment and recognize that academic matters are inappropriate subjects of collective bargaining," states the administration on its web site. Another key issue is the racist admissions policy. In 1998, before the passage of the racist I-200 initiative, 9.7% of the freshman class came from "underrepresented" groups. This year it is 6.4%. The union leadership has put all these "non-economic" issues on the back burner despite protests from the rank and file.
Meanwhile the Contract Staff Association, the largest union on campus and affiliated to SEIU, discouraged its members from supporting the strike by withdrawing union support for anyone who refused to cross the line. They were full of ideas for e-mails to the University President, letters to Congress, etc., but nothing which might really affect the University's power. Their tactic was to scare workers from supporting the students.
A powerful worker-student alliance that exposes the university as both an exploiter and center for ruling class ideological indoctrination--like our comrade called for in her speech--is the last thing the bosses want. This is particularly true, as the bosses prepare the population for another oil war. The UAW mis-leadership has a long history of sabotaging such political movements by limiting discussion to economic issues, while organizing for imperialism behind the scenes. We PLP members on campus have a different idea. We plan to build a campus movement among workers and students that spreads communist ideas on the campus through struggles around campus and world issues, in-class discussion and campus forums, and broader sales of CHALLENGE.
Shipbuilders Battle Boss, Union, Gov't Racism
NEW ORLEANS, LA, December 7 -- "Workers are starting to stand up, but we still have a long way to go," is how a black worker described the contract ratification vote at Avondale Shipyard here. The four-year "partial contract" excludes pension and health care benefits. "Not one worker was involved in the negotiations, and it took a big fight to get a black worker on the subcommittee," he said. The mainly rural workers, most with little or no union experience, voted approximately 800 to 200 for the contract. The union wants a contract so it can start collecting dues. But it's the workers who will have to live with it.
Avondale workers had voted to be represented by the Metal Trades Union in 1993. The Gulf Coast's second-biggest shipyard was an "employee-owned" company. CEO Al Bossier challenged the election, launching a six-year legal battle in court and in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He said keeping the shipyard non-union was the only way to "stay competitive."
Legal expenses were paid for with government contracts. Of the top five U.S. shipbuilders only Avondale was non-union. During this period, workers fired for being pro-union took their cases to the NLRB. In fact, of all the black workers who were observers in the 1993 union election, only one remains. The rest were fired, retired or quit under extreme pressure.
In 1998, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the company's favor. Thousands of workers rallied in Washington, D.C., demanding an end to government contracts during the dispute. Workers filed health and safety complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA), which ultimately led to Avondale being fined $750,000. Fired workers won their cases at the NLRB and the workers took their fight to "employee-owner shareholder" meetings.
Litton Industries bought Avondale and inherited all its debts, including the OSHA fine and back pay for fired workers. The government cut the OSHA fine in half, and the company appealed all the NLRB cases. The "Committee of 25" fired black workers have still not returned to work, even though they "won" their cases. Workers believe the union sold out these workers in exchange for a "neutrality agreement" from the company. In just two days, the majority of workers signed a petition and the union was recognized. Meanwhile, many pending cases are being thrown out because the union is not pursuing them. No wonder one worker said, "There's been a sellout here!"Racism Hurts All WorkersOf the 5,500 workers at Avondale, 70% are black. Racism means big bucks to the company, the union and the U.S. government--and every Avondale worker is a victim. Top pay at Avondale is $14.54/hour. Average pay is about $9.00/hour. Many young workers and single mothers make less than $7.00/hour. Many work two jobs to support a family. Avondale has used the profits from racism to expand in New Orleans and Tululah, Louisiana, and Biloxi, Mississippi.
National Metal Trades union president John Meese is a racist thug. He once came to a local meeting and told a packed hall, "You people this, you people that." One worker asked, "What do you mean, `You people?'" Angry workers surrounded Meese, who was so shaken he put the lit end of a cigarette in his mouth! Avondale workers would be the largest local and potentially the strongest force in the New Orleans Metal Trades Council. But local honcho Peter Babin fears the militant, anti-racist workers and is dispersing them into twelve separate unions. When Avondale workers threatened to boycott and picket last year's Christmas party, the union called out the cops. Meanwhile, the nearby McDermott Shipyard is mostly white. They have one local union, and higher wages and benefits. An Avondale worker declared, "They're trying to rob us of leadership." Building PLP Guarantees Workers' Leadership.
Avondale workers are up against the whole capitalist system. One worker said, "Over the last eight, nine years, I've grown, but it's also taken something out of me. But I'm relentless." Another worker, a veteran of Vietnam and the Persian Gulf said, "I fought for this country, only to be treated worse when I got back!" Capitalism "robs us of leadership" through wage slavery and production for profit. It steals from us all the wealth we produce, and we produce everything. The answer is to build the revolutionary communist movement out of every anti-racist struggle. To abolish wage slavery and meet the needs of the working class, millions of workers must actively participate and give leadership. One's leadership is not "requested," it's required.
Like the worker said, "We have a long way to go." But bringing CHALLENGE to the shipyards, and Avondale workers to PLP can be the start of something big!
A LESSON IN REVOLUTION 101
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 8 -- Last week some of us from Manual Arts H. S. took a field trip to an open meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). We wanted to see how the Board makes decisions and to give our views. When we arrived we couldn't believe how beautiful the building was--especially compared to our school, or to the Twin Towers Jail across the street. The Board members were mostly male and dressed in fancy clothes. They were obviously rich.
Many people wanted to speak about the proposed service cuts. Several workers described the hardships in having to rely on the buses. One said he spent three hours every day on a bus trip that would take 45 minutes by car. The Mayor praised three 4th graders for presenting changes they'd make if they ran the MTA, but left when high school students began speaking. He didn't want to hear what we had to say! Several students opposed the service cuts. Members of the Bus Riders Union said we need more buses. The Board members weren't really listening. One of them was even reading a newspaper. But when we applauded speakers who told the truth about dirty, overcrowded and late buses, MTA Board President Yvonne Burke scolded us, saying we were rude. She's a black lawyer and politician and a Manual Arts graduate. Afterwards we discussed the hearing. Several students, who didn't get a chance to speak, said we need more buses in the South Central area, and that routes should not be cut. The Bus Riders Union organizer said we did a great job, and that this might force the MTA to buy more buses. One of our teachers, a member of PLP, noted that we deserve buses, light rail, decent schools and everything because the working class produces all wealth. "The only way we'll get what we deserve is through a revolution," she declared. All year, we've been learning in U.S. history about the racist bosses who make money off our work, keep us poor, exploited and oppressed, and then send us off to die in their wars. We've learned about the history of class struggle, and how working people made the Paris Commune and Russian Revolution. This was a good experience for us. We took a stand and got involved in the struggle for a better life. This can spark more struggles. The teachers' union is discussing a strike. We can insist they fight for the students. Garment workers are fighting for a better life. Two of us went to a rally this week to support them. In these struggles we can unite with workers and students around the country and the world to fight for revolution. We can organize for May Day. Stay tuned for more news from Manual Arts! u
U.S. `Terror' Bankroll Is Real Public Health Hazard
BOSTON, MA., Nov. 22 -- At the American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting last week the liberal "loyal opposition" held a forum on "bio-terrorism." APHA Peace Caucus speakers warned that last year the U.S. government allocated $10 billion for "anti-terrorism" initiatives, including $2.8 billion to prepare for attacks against civilians and for computerized infrastructure. Large sums have been directed to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), public health departments and researchers for biomedical research and planning to prepare for so-called bioterrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The money has come through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a branch of the Department of Defense, together with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Since President Clinton's 1994 Executive Order 12938, funding for bioterrorist initiatives has increased. Emergency response teams are being assembled in 120 cities, and mock attacks have been staged to gauge U.S. readiness for attack. According to Donna Shalala, DHHS Secretary, these plans represent "the first time in American history in which the public health system has been integrated directly into the national security system." A Peace Caucus panelist explained the public health community did not seek the money for bioterrorist preparedness, nor was the scientific community consulted.
Of the panelists supporting this research, one was a slickster from the CDC. This "anti-terrorist" spokeman gave a smooth, almost matter-of-fact presentation of why this research is necessary. The other proponent was an honest scientist seduced by the money.
Peace Caucus speakers argued that funds for bioterrorist initiatives drained resources from the study of and preparedness against diseases passed through tainted food, global infectious disease epidemics and chemical and biological threats from pollution and industrial spills. They pointed out that no person in the U.S. has ever died from bioterrorism. While these arguments are academically correct, there's more to the story. During the Q&A segment, a PL'er warned this research was an attempt to suck public health workers into building fascism. U.S. rulers want to use this sizeable sum of $10 billion precisely to win public health scientists into research "proving" there is a serious "internal terrorist threat" to the U.S. government and "democracy." It follows Clinton's bipartisan Commission on National Security report (see CHALLENGE, Nov. 29) that an attack by unnamed "terrorists" on U.S. soil would be the only thing that would encourage the "American people to be ready to sacrifice blood and treasure" (for the profits and power of U.S. imperialists, that is). Militarizing public health agencies by putting them under the direction of the Department of Defense in pursuit of "bioterrorist preparedness" also follows the goal of the Commission to "integrate economic agencies fully with national security agencies." This is a hallmark of fascism, as we have seen in Nazi Germany.
The PL'er also contrasted this kind of funding with how teachers were being sucked into fascism by the threat of violence in the schools. Although there has never been a killing rampage by inner city youth like the one at Colorado's Columbine High School, most inner-city schools have metal detectors and random student searches. Many teachers have been won to the racist ideas that all black workers are "potential criminals" and should be treated as such. The PL'er also asked, "Who are the terrorists?" Currently thousands of Iraqi children are dying due to the sanctions maintained by Western imperialists (mainly U.S. and British). In part this is why these "terrorists" view the U.S. as an enemy, because U.S. rulers are killing and oppressing millions worldwide. This discussion prompted the honest researcher to reconsider his role in this research.
Participating in this "anti-terrorist" research gives credibility to the smearing of all Middle Eastern people as "terrorists," which can be used to bolster fascism domestically and as a racist rationale to win workers here to support an oil war in the Middle East. These meetings inspired us to find ways to influence the membership's thinking. We in the APHA have lots of work to do.
TEACH-IN ON SWEATSHOPS BUILDS WORKER-STUDENT ALLIANCE
LOS ANGELES, November 1 -- "Were not here for your pity, we're here for your support in struggle," declared a garment worker at a teach-in on sweatshops held at Santa Monica College (SMC). "How can students help?" asked a student. "Organize other students to oppose sweatshops," the worker replied, "with the understanding that workers and students belong to the same working class that is exploited by capitalism." About 40 students attended the event, organized by PLP and Progressive Alliance, an SMC student club, and supported by the Latino Student Union, the Pan African American Coalition and the UCLA chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). A few weeks earlier, USAS at UCLA sponsored a talk there by several garment workers from the same immigrant rights group. Students at both meetings were excited about uniting with workers.
The teach-in began with a PLP member describing the garment industry as a pyramid: manufacturers and retailers like Nike and Target at the top, providing textiles and material to the contractors in the middle, who hire the 150,000 garment workers, over 50% women, at the bottom. He said this pyramid reflects capitalism, the ruling class (bosses) oppressing the working class.
Two garment workers, each with over 20 years on the line, described factory conditions as not much better than the sweatshops in Saipan, Mexico or Latin America. They're organizing struggle committees to fight exploitation and unionize the garment industry. They invited all those present to join protests in the garment center. Many signed up.
The teach-in helped break the limitations of electoral politics, which have taken center stage at SMC and other colleges. Garment workers suffer unsanitary and oppressive conditions whether the president's Republican or Democrat. And conditions are deteriorating. A PLP student pointed out that we can't limit our fight against garment sweatshops to individual corporations like Gap and Guess Inc. It's the entire capitalist system which profits from the exploitation of workers.
The garment workers said it was important for workers and students to unite to fight capitalism. They pointed out that the leaders of the AFL-CIO, UNITE and USAS ignore the struggle to improve workers' conditions. Most workers and students want to fight exploitation, but the union leaders rally behind the politicians instead.
A week later, high school and college students, teachers and garment workers demonstrated in the garment center. Chanting, "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated," and "Workers' Struggles Have No Borders," we distributed over 1,500 leaflets and hundreds of CHALLENGES to the thousands of workers in the area. A garment workers immigrant rights group also distributed a leaflet exposing the fact that of every $100 produced, the workers get $6. The worker-student alliance is crucial to ending exploitation with communist revolution.
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT MTA
LOS ANGELES, December12 -- Two days ago we met to form a caucus of drivers and mechanics inside the unions at the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). This victory grew from advancing aspects of the Party's ideas during an election campaign in Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1277. Political opportunity often presents itself from unexpected directions, and we should always answer when opportunity knocks.
The election results were announced last week. In many respects this campaign mirrored the disgust generated by the U.S. national elections.
A friend of the Party was unexpectedly nominated for Executive Board-at-Large. Over the years, a number of workers had asked him to run for higher office. Until this was dropped on him, he had never seen this as another way to reach workers with revolutionary politics. At the last minute, he faxed in his acceptance of the nomination and organized his campaign. There were seven candidates for the position.
Out of a membership of 2,000, 940 voted, many of them retired members. Like the presidential elections, money made a difference. The three leading vote-getters spent $1,000 for a leaflet mailing to the entire membership. Our friend received 72 votes, the highest of the three candidates who did it the old fashioned way--by hand.
Self-critically, we could have run a better campaign. Our friend issued a good campaign leaflet, with some advice from the Party, but it was late coming out of the chute. A number of workers correctly criticized us for not getting it out sooner.
This campaign enabled us to promote PLP's ideas to the entire membership at every division. We should view these elections as an opportunity to expose capitalism and educate our fellow workers. In the San Fernando Valley, where MTA bosses are moving full steam ahead with plans for privatized Transit Zones, a woman took our friend to campaign at two divisions. "I want to introduce you to my friends. I'll let you talk to the ones who really want changes in this union. At Division 5 a service attendant said, "So you want the Executive Board position so you can make things better for us." "No," he said. "I'm running so I can recruit you and your friends to fight with me to rid the MTA of prison labor. Any candidate that says `I'll fight for you while you wait here,' is blowing smoke up your ass. We don't want passive workers.""Do you really think you can win?" asked a worker emptying fare boxes at Division 9. "Whether or not we win, I want you to read this leaflet about Workers' Power so when we come back we can talk about a plan to get rid of prison labor and wage progression," said a comrade.
We'll discuss CHALLENGE to understand MTA's role in the world at large. We'll make an effort to understand Dialectics, and introduce the scientific way of looking at society. We can do better in the future. It's good we answered this small knock at the door.
LETTERS
Criminal Cops Can't Solve Crime
Many workers and others have had enough experience with the cops in their personal lives to know that the police are dangerous and deadly enemies. But capitalism encourages a certain amount of crime and violence, through such things as the drug trade, ETC. It fills workers and their allies with the illusion that the only protection we have from this crime are the cops, bad as they may be. And this doesn't even address the major crimes committed against the working class by the capitalists and their government.
A series in the WASHINGTON POST may help to dispel that illusion. The series traced the D.C. Police Department's investigation and closing of homicide cases. It showed that in a growing number of murders the homicide department closes them without solving them--a so-called "administrative closure." This can be either because the cops have decided to pin the murder on someone who has already been killed or because the prosecutor's office has decided not to prosecute for their own reasons.
When this happens, the murder victim's family often is not even notified that the cops have stopped "investigating." They assume they're still looking for the killer. Many families discovered years later, that this was not true only after the POST interviewed them for this series.
Often even when the cops have eyewitnesses who identify murderers, they fail to arrest them, allowing them, not infrequently, to murder again. And this doesn't even include those cases in which the murders are committed directly by the cops themselves.
The bottom line is that the cops hold no one accountable in almost three-quarters of all murders, a figure the POST found had not changed over the last decade.
It doesn't matter at all whether the cops fail in all these cases because of sheer incompetence or because of their racist attitude that "it doesn't matter" if a killer of a black person is caught or stopped from killing another black person. The main point is that, despite the big lie that the "main function" of the police is to "protect" the citizens, in particular the working class, cops in fact do not do this, let alone catch the murderers of workers even after the fact.
Rather, as CHALLENGE always says, the cops' real role is strictly to protect the capitalist ruling class from the working class, generally by terrorizing and killing workers by the scores. Every claim to the contrary--by the cops, by the government, by the media and by the bosses--is designed only to disarm the workers. D.C. Reader
Raising Red Ideas In the Classroom
On Dec. 2, eleven students and workers attended a Boston PLP student club discussion on U.S. bosses' use of prison labor. We showed the film "Prison Labor, Prison Blues," a flawed but still useful look at the effects of prison labor growth on U.S. workers. Since the bosses can pay workers as little as 20cents/hr or 75cents/day, they have increasingly used prisoners as a source of cheap labor. The film noted that the bosses are replacing living-wage unionized jobs with prison slave labor. Afterwards, we discussed the reasons for the bosses' use of prison slave labor, and why it is a clear sign of developing fascism. We mentioned the Nazis use of prison labor during World War II. We noted capitalism's growing crisis and U.S. bosses' need to drive down workers' wages and living standards as far as possible. We then discussed the racist nature of prison labor and mass incarceration, (more than two-thirds of prisoners are black or Latin), a point the film didn't mention. We then pointed out how and why only communist revolution could eliminate the bosses and their fascist attacks against workers.
Among those who attended was one of our comrade's classmates. Not having attended any of our actions, she had come after hearing one of our comrades raising communist ideas in class. This demonstrates the importance of discussing these ideas in the classroom. If we continue to build our ties with her, and the others who attended, this study group will mark a small step on the road to communist revolution.
After the video we began planning a campaign against the use of prison labor--either directly or in the goods they buy--by schools we attend or companies we work for.
Red Student
`Us together' vs. `Me first'
As a communist teacher I've tried to win my students away from the individualism capitalism teaches, which makes them self-centered and anti-collective.
The new school standards require students to be able to work in groups. I simply use what the ruling class gives me and have them work in groups. In explaining this, I use the example of workers on the job, how workers who work together have a better chance of surviving on a job, how it helps them fight back against oppressive working conditions. I show them how bosses want workers to compete and fight one another so they can keep us weak and divided and easier to control and exploit. For the "capitalist die-hards" among the students, I add that the school board requires group work.
I assign each student to a group. Since I teach a shop class, the groups work on their projects together. Each student is given an individual grade and a group grade. I explain that the idea of assisting in your group is not to do the work of a lazy student but to help a student who may not understand the procedure or may need help to complete a project. Within the group, different students are assigned different tasks to help their classmates complete their project or assignment. Students are required to stay with the group until the task is done.
Sometimes I ask a student to help with a different group when that group may be short a student because of an absence or because the group is falling behind. This last strategy really excites some students who enjoy the class and it gets others interested as well. I also find that some students use it as an escape from doing written and reading assignments.
At first most students found the group activity difficult. They complained about one student being "too slow" or another "not helping" the group. I explained how seriously I took this part of their work and how they might be surprised with their grade if their attitude didn't change. After some students saw their first-marking-period grades, they knew I meant business. The class's group work has improved in the second marking period.
I'm trying to win my students to practice this strategy of working together in their other classes, studying together, doing reading assignments in groups, etc. So far I've had some modest success with most of the class. I'm still struggling with the fact that I teach a first period, beginning at 7:30 A.M., a difficult time for any teenager--not to mention the half-hour of metal-detector scanning search the students must endure before they enter my class. The struggle continues.
Red Teacher
`Drunk' on Spirits of Camaraderie
We organized a cultural event on December 9th to emphasize the importance of CHALLENGE and encourage sales. The 80 who attended applauded the youth groups performing skits on distributing CHALLENGE in schools. They each made a point and were also humorous (I should know; I wrote one).
Performers entertained us with raps, poems, songs and essays dealing with joining the Party, the ugliness of nationalism and need for internationalism, especially confronting imperialist war, and the need for communist revolution. Sounds of the PLP singers filled the room as fresh recruits learned and sang a song at the same time. Speakers also shared their thoughts and stories of CHALLENGE and the role of our Party. Especially poignant was the one about the critical role CHALLENGE played in organizing the PLP in another country. It didn't all flow smoothly but we felt drunk with a spirit of camaraderie. All this made me think of the movie, "The Cradle Will Rock." With all our endearing faults I was still tempted to ask, is this the rebirth of a communist cultural movement like the one displayed in the movie? Will the next Rivera, Brecht, or Steinbeck emerge from the influences of our struggles? (Will I direct the next Salt of the Earth?) Groups like Rage Against the Machine and Dead Prez have clasped the minds of millions, with their pseudo anti-capitalist, but actually counter-revolutionary ideas and, in the case of Dead Prez, ultra-nationalist politics. Can we reach the same people but go further in blending the engrossing and influential sounds of rap rock and other music with true ideas of revolutionary change?I think what we were trying to do is a glimpse of what's to come. But I know it won't simply "come." As with everything we do it will grow out of struggle--struggle within ourselves, amongst friends, comrades and with the world around us, to foster a new passion for that very goal of a dictatorship of the proletariat. As we sow our communist revolution, let us also sow our revolutionary art for they are one and the same.
Red Youth
Feasting on Anti-racism
For the past 15 years, we have held a Thanks-For-Fighting-Racism Feast in the Washington, D.C. area. Originally organized by the Committee Against Racism, now my husband--who loves food and loves to share food with friends--and I host the event. He wanted an alternative to the genocidal notion of Thanksgiving. After the "first" dinner, called the "first welfare line" by Native Americans, the latter were systematically killed off.
We have a feast each year the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We do a 50-50 raffle with the proceeds going to an anti-racist campaign and charge $5 a person for all of the food you can eat. This year over 60 people came and ate two turkeys, a roast, a ham and all the trimmings. We raised over $300 to help fight the fascist C.R.A.C.K. campaign (the forced sterilization of drug-addicted women).
People related struggles occurring in the public health field with folks recently returned from the American Public Health Association meetings in Boston. There resolutions had been raised against the C.R.A.C.K organization and against the violence initiative. (see recent issues of CHALLENGE). A neighbor sang a song, "Graffiti Limbo," by Michelle Shocked describing the murder of Michael Stewart, a graffiti artist who died "in the custody of" New York City transit cops. The coroner's office conveniently "lost" the autopsy evidence. No cops were convicted. A Howard University student reviewed the demonstrations and rallies against police brutality protesting the cop's murder of fellow student Prince Jones (see recent issues of CHALLENGE). A comrade running for Financial Secretary-Treasurer of his transit union linked these struggles with the necessity of fighting for communism to achieve any lasting change. [He was elected; see page 1]. Many friends in the public health field, neighbors and co-workers attended. Sharing food, political ideas and songs is a winning combination. Our next big social event is a New Year's Day brunch.
DC Red
Class Struggle in Academia
From December 27-30, thousands of college and university teachers of literature and language will meet in Washington, D.C. for the annual convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA). While actively fighting for various reforms, members and supporters of PLP who belong to the MLA will attempt to influence these struggles with a communist analysis of the role of higher education under capitalism--particularly courses in literature and composition.
In the fight for job security, the MLA Radical Caucus (RC)--building upon a campaign of several years and supported by the Graduate Student Caucus--is sponsoring a motion for the MLA to back unionization. The number of tenure-track positions in the humanities has shrunk drastically for ten years, with no end to this trend in sight. Therefore, many adjunct faculty and graduate student teaching assistants--who teach up to 65% of all classes at some four-year and community colleges--have been attempting to unionize. These teachers average around $2,000 per semester course, without benefits. This mild initiative has the MLA Executive Council (EC) in a tailspin. It has hired a new and slicker parliamentarian who is changing the rules so as to close political debate over motions and resolutions. The EC is also trying to scare the Delegate Assembly (DA) into rejecting the RC initiatives "because" they would make the MLA a "political" organization, imperil its 501 C-3 tax status and put it out of business.
Another struggle involves EC's continuing resistance to keep its promise to establish an MLA unit empowered to react to campus bigotry--racist, sexist and homophobic. First proposed four years ago, this committee has been passed around like a hot potato, now landing in the lap of the Professional Committee. The latter has done nothing to fulfill a DA instruction (from an RC initiative) to produce materials analyzing the systemic roots of racism. RC pressure will be more intense this year.
PLP applauds RC efforts to combat the shameful super-exploitation of academic labor and to support anti-bigotry organizing. Given recent attacks on affirmative action and on public higher education--for example, cuts at the City University of New York--the RC's anti-racist activity is crucial.
A narrow reformist approach to these issues will lead activists to a dead end, perhaps even strengthening the system to which they are opposed. Why?* Even where unionization has succeeded, salaries are still low (perhaps $3,000 per course) and benefits sparse. What's being negotiated are the terms of wage slavery.
* The struggle against oppressive and bigoted college employers hides the college/university system's fundamental function as gatekeepers for an inherently unequal social order, rationalized by the false notion of "meritocracy." Tracking different groups into community colleges, four-year state colleges, and elite colleges and universities perpetuate class and racial inequality. The dream that a college degree is a passport to that largely mythical middle class turns to ashes for most working-class students. The few individuals who achieve "higher" status does not abolish this hierarchy. Rather, a limited social mobility actually sustains inequality.
* The fight to "reform" higher education to presumably serve the working class fails to account for its role as an ideology factory. College graduates are usually more brainwashed than when they entered. The majestic "free" market, the selfish gene, the relativity of truth, the irreducibility of human "difference"--such are the ruling class doctrines that are staples of today's college education. They want these students to believe in a market in which profits are supreme; selfishness is "in the genes," an unchangeable characteristic; that one cannot arrive at any objective truth; and that differences are so ingrained as to make unity impossible.
This MLA meeting occurs within a general crisis in capitalism. The electoral situation is a circus, but no farce; it reflects serious tactical disagreements within the ruling class about how best to exploit and oppress the world's workers and how best to prepare for war in the Mideast against Iraq. Whether we win reforms or not, our main goal remains the same: to build a mass base for communism among MLA members, and to win all potential communists to support, join and help build PLP.
Film Hides SDS' Worker-Student Alliance
The documentary "Rebels with a Cause" claims to tell the story of the student movement of the 1960's, focusing on Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). While it relates some anti-racist and anti-war struggles of that era, it also promotes racism, nationalism and anti-communism.
The film opens with action clips from the '60s and quotes former SDS leaders. It presents some interesting and useful information about the history of SDS, but glosses over the key questions faced by the movement. Foremost among these was racism. Like the anti-globalization movement today, SDS was mostly white. The film supports the expulsion of whites from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1966, and the racist idea that each ethnic group should organize their "own communities." This nationalist crap not only accepts the capitalist idea of "race," but also says that workers and bosses in one "race" have more in common with each other than the workers of the world. Workers and students, no matter their skin color or nationality, have a common interest in destroying capitalism and bosses of all colors. If we buy the racist ideas pushed by this film, we will remain divided and unable to unite as a class to destroy the bosses. The film discusses SDS, but pays almost no attention to the climactic 1969 convention. For several years, PLP organized students in SDS to fight racism, imperialism and to unite with the working class, the only class capable of destroying capitalism. To the degree SDS was integrated, it was almost exclusively due to the efforts of the PLP-led Worker-Student Alliance (WSA) caucus. Fighting for our ideas in the heat of countless struggles against racism, the war and the police, the WSA became the leading force in SDS. Tens of thousands of students followed communist leadership. SDS' right-wing leadership made several unsuccessful attempts to expel PLP. At the 1969 Convention they organized to split the organization, backed by the most reactionary elements of the Black Panther Party (and every federal and local police agency). They argued that workers were either reactionary, irrelevant or both. As PLP and the WSA grew, the right-wing changed their tune and tried to appear as Marxist-Leninists. Some left SDS to become the pathetic Weatherman terrorists. Those who didn't blow themselves up have since made peace with imperialism. Others found new forums to organize for their reactionary ideas. They helped further the bosses' lie that the anti-war movement was "a bunch of spoiled rich kids." The overwhelming majority of the convention stayed with a PLP-led SDS. Though this is one of the defining moments in SDS' history, none of it is discussed in the film. PLP is never mentioned, only a reference to "infiltration by Marxist-Leninist sects." The lack of discussion reflects the filmmaker's sympathy with the right-wing leadership. As a final twist, California State Senator Tom Hayden says the students in SDS were "the truest patriots," because they stood up for what they believed. This patriotic theme runs throughout the movie. Ultimately this film builds multi-culturalism, nationalism and worst of all, racism. The liberal anti-communists will never get the story straight. Red Student
Palestine--Case Study of Imperialist Oil Greed
Several hundred have been killed in the last few months of the "New Intifada," mostly Palestinian workers and youth murdered by the Israeli army. The bosses' media tries to make us believe this is merely a "religious war." The following article explains how religion is not the main aspect of this struggle, that modern capitalism and imperialism are behind the violence in Israel/Palestine.
Both the Jewish and Arab people have a long and varied history (the subject of a future article). As Karl Marx wrote, capitalism in its search for profits revolutionized the means of production. Mainly born in Western Europe, this new system moved from there and many countries felt the imperial boot of one Western nation or another. Capitalism created constant booms and busts with its recurring problems of mass unemployment, starvation and working-class degradation. Workers fought back, formed unions and joined socialist and communist parties. This was also true in the Arab countries. With the breakdown of the old feudal systems the nature of the state altered and the old ways of business interaction were torn asunder, leaving neighbor fighting neighbor.
British, French and German imperialism fought over the dying Ottoman Empire, centered in Turkey. When World War I (WWI) ended in 1918, Britain controlled Egypt, the Sudan, Palestine, Iraq, most of Iran and many of the small island kingdoms around Saudi Arabia. France controlled Syria, Lebanon, part of Iraq and part of Iran. Germany had controlled parts of Turkey, but losing WWI, lost that too.
The battle among these capitalist/imperialist states was violent and protracted. But the rising powerful USA became a potent player in this inter-imperialist rivalry. The discovery of oil in Iraq in the 1880's and, later, in the rest of the Middle East led to massive jockeying for control by oil companies. Using the imperialist power of their national armies (Shell and BP in Britain, Elf in France, and Rockefeller's Standard Oil in the U.S.), they made this region a battleground, which has lasted until the present.
The British capitalists had learned the best way for an imperialist power to control huge nations was to divide one against another. They first did this in Ireland between Catholic and Protestant. They did the same in the Indian subcontinent. Now enters Palestine. When U.S. power forced the British to withdraw from Palestine in 1948, the British had ensured the country would be divided between Palestinians and Jews so that, much as they did in the rest of the world, British imperialists would control their market places. They created entire aristocracies within the various groupings and tribes with ties to them to ensure division rather than unity. Other European imperialists--learning from the British--did the same. Capitalism and modern nationalism were forged in the same foundry.
Capitalism used nationalism throughout the world. Rising middle classes all over Europe sought to create or re-create nation states along ethnic or religious lines among peoples who had lived under other government forms for centuries. The western Jews who lived in many of the European (Christian) capitalist countries also sought to bring together Jews from different lands, Jews who had lived in different nations for hundreds of years and spoken different languages.
Judaism's Gandhi was Theodore Herzl who formed the Jewish National Assembly and tried to bargain with a number of the Western empires for a piece of territory for Jews. In 1917 Lord Balfour, Britian's Foreign Secretary, joined with Herzl to declare Palestine as that Jewish state--The Balfour Declaration. Britain had seized Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, to be used as one of many coaling stations for the imperial British fleet in "safe" countries. After the Balfour Declaration, many European Jews entered Palestine and began to change the relationship between the Jews, who had always lived there, and their Arab neighbors as they brought in the new capitalist system.
A similar situation occurred after World War II and the holocaust. Zionists, communists--who felt there could be a progressive aspect to nationalism for oppressed peoples--and other Jews went to Israel to form a Jewish national state. Communists and socialists formed communes (kibbutzim) in which the Jewish people would work together without classes. The commune movement, however, was splintered by the practice of many kibbutzim hiring Arab laborers rather than uniting Arab and Jew as equals within the community. The demise of this commune movement proved "islands of communism" cannot be built within capitalist states.
The state of Israel was formalized by the United Nations in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled to other Arab countries. Those that remained in areas of the newly-created Israel were controlled and oppressed by Israel's rulers.
The British had played the major role in increasing the division between Jew and Arab. Today that role is played by the various contending imperialist powers of the European Union and the United States.
A child lying in his father's arms dying from a bullet, a teenager throwing a stone torn in half by a hail of bullets, a rabbi beaten to death out of anger--all these atrocities are due to the avaricious designs of capitalism to maintain control of marketplaces and of oil.
Nationalism has been, and will continue to be used to kill workers and their children to maintain wealth in a few pockets. Only the working class led by a serious revolutionary communist party, the Progressive Labor Party, can give imperialists their just rewards, a quick and vicious death. Then they can build a communist society dedicated to the needs of the world's working classes.
Bibliography:"Atlas of Jewish History," by Martin Gilbert; "Jews, God and History", by Max I. Dimont; "The Jewish War," by Josephus; "A Study of History Part 2- The Genesis of Civilizations, " by Arnold J. Toynbe; "Atlas of the Jewish World," Nicholas DeLange; "The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World," G.E.M. de Ste. Croix; "The Columbia History of the World," edited by John A. Garraty and Peter Gay; "The Arabs," by Anthony Nutting; "The Adventures of Ibn Battuta," Ross E. Dunn; "Oil and World Power," by Peter R. Odell; "Genesis of Capital," by Karl Marx.
SUPPLEMENT
CAPITALISM CAN'T SOLVE MATH PROBLEMS
When Paul Vallas, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, visited an Algebra classroom last year, a student was at the board explaining how she'd figured out a problem. Commented Vallas: "Oh, I probably wouldn't understand this, I'm not good at math."
As this example illustrates, in the U.S. "innumeracy" (mathematical illiteracy) is pervasive and easily shrugged off. Imagine how embarrassed Vallas would be if he had to admit he couldn't read. Yet math skills are just as important as reading skills. U.S. capitalists have begun to worry about widespread deficiencies in math education.
The National Science Foundation and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics are spearheading a drive to reform math education, with the full support of the main wing of the ruling class. Many parents and teachers angrily oppose the reforms, charging them with "dumbing down" the curriculum. Not only are the rulers stymied by contradictory demands within their system, capitalism is inherently unable to provide all students with the education they need.
U.S. innumeracy is worse than that in other industrialized countries, notably Japan. The reason? Greater social inequality within the U.S. For decades math has been used as a "gatekeeper" subject. An elite few students are encouraged to pursue math and science, while most are never taught properly and are made to think they can't learn. U.S. rulers promote the ideology that math competency requires unusual inborn ability because that idea helps them maintain the gross inequities of the capitalist system. In contrast, math education in Japan assumes that all children can learn, and that the determining factor is hard work. Calculus, an elite subject in U.S. high schools, is standard fare in Japanese high schools.
The "gatekeeper" ideology is based in racism and sexism. Traditionally, white males make up large percentages of college calculus classes. Black and Hispanic students are regularly deprived of serious math and science education. Less than 1% of math PhDs are awarded to African-Americans! Some racists promote bullshit genetic theories to cover up the serious disparities that exist in most inner-city schools, particularly in math and science education.
U.S. capitalists are now reaping what they've sown. The 1984 report "A Nation at Risk," and many subsequent reports, document the failure of U.S. math education. This is a problem for the bosses for several reasons. The "new economy" and global competition require a larger pool of technically trained workers. Long-term plans for war mean they cannot leave war research to students from other countries who often represent 50% of graduate school admissions in math and science. They want to broaden the pipeline of U.S. students who learn math and science. This crisis is similar to that faced by the rulers in 1959 when the Soviets launched Sputnik (the first rocket-propelled launching into outer space). At that time they directed much money and energy, including new math teaching programs, toward ensuring that the Russians didn't beat the U.S. again.
They are making a similar effort today, but with much less success. Why? The culture of fascism, alienation and anti-intellectualism pervades our society, interfering with math learning among working class and even affluent students. Educational reform will not solve this problem.
But even if curricular reform manages to broaden the pipeline, it will not improve math education for working-class students. Although the new curricula has been described by its detractors as "fuzzy" or "dumbed down" math, there are positive things to be said for it. Math reform usually emphasizes problem solving, working on complex problems in groups, oral presentations, written explanations and use of modern technology.
When implemented by well-trained and enthusiastic teachers, building on strong arithmetic skills, these methods work well. When enforced mechanically by demoralized, overworked and under-trained teachers, as often in inner-city and rural schools, these methods aren't even expected to work. Instead they deprive students of the basic computational skills they need to survive, substituting the use of calculators for learning arithmetic. Working-class parents rightly see their children as being shafted. While the ruling class wants to expand the pool of students educated in math and science, they regard most students as dispensable. The capitalist approach to education, in the U.S. or in Japan, has never been egalitarian, or based on teaching students to think for themselves.
Communists should get involved in debates about teaching methods. But curriculum, while not unimportant, is secondary. Before "the system" gets to them, young children are naturally creative and eager to learn. By adolescence, they require outside motivation. As communists we reject the motivation supplied by capitalism (get an MBA and make money/ graduate from high school or starve). Communists know that the working class can and will run the world. We want to motivate students to learn so they can lead the transformation of society. Math is an essential tool for understanding and changing the world, and all students can and need to learn mathematics. Spreading the word will go a long way to changing our relationships with other teachers, students and parents. As we say, "fight to learn, learn to fight!"
Bosses' `Math Reform' Doesn't Add Up
Editor's note: The following article (Part One; concluding article next issue), is a response to the article above entitled "Capitalism Can't Solve Math Problems." CHALLENGE is publishing this exchange of views because we believe a frank, comradely debate about education will help our Party in its pursuit of the knowledge the working class needs to make revolution and guide a new society. We hope to deepen the discussion about mathematics and extend it to other subjects as well. We invite our readers to participate.
The author of this article has been a mathematics professor for 17 years in the California State University system. For the last decade, he has taught a math course for prospective Kindergarten-to-8th grade teachers.
The condemnation of the capitalist system in the article above is valid but misses the point. The basic principle to focus on is the correct way of teaching mathematics to children. The articles states that some positive things can be said for current math reform--for example, its focus on problem solving, working on complex problems in groups, written explanations and use of technology.
This is false. There is absolutely no evidence that these things help. The article correctly begins by describing the abysmal state of math education in the U.S. But the math education in this country has been controlled for decades by the extremely reform-influenced National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), which has embraced every one of these notions.
The article asserts that these methods can work when implemented by well-trained, enthusiastic teachers but can't be expected to succeed when the teachers must confront the bad conditions prevalent in poor rural or inner-city schools.
This is a straw man. How are teachers going to get strong arithmetic skills if they haven't learned them as children? It's circular reasoning, since the colleges of education are teaching reform ideas, which downplay basic arithmetic competence and which advocate the very ideas the article applauds.
On the other hand, there are numerous examples of elementary schools in low-income areas, where black and Latin students have excelled with traditional instruction. The principals at two of these schools in the Inglewood area of Los Angeles spent years working with teachers to find good traditional math and phonics-based reading programs. They got rid of teachers who held the racist idea that the black and Latin students couldn't learn traditional math and reading. They use Open Court in reading and Saxon in math. They didn't make excuses and have made tremendous gains.
The entire math reform movement is based on the racist, anti-working-class ideology that says working class children are too dumb to learn properly. Jack Price, a former NCTM president and math reform spokesman, said during a radio debate with Mathematically Correct (the organization to which I belong): "It is well known that minorities and women don't learn like white males."The underpinning of reform is the anti-Marxist theory of constructivism, which states that students must build their own knowledge. The schools have followed this idea and as a result essential elements of arithmetic, such as memorization of addition and multiplication tables and the traditional method of long division have been ignored. Millions of students have been turned into mathematical cripples.
California has always embraced the latest wacky educational fads. A decade ago the California Mathematics Framework was written in conformity with NCTM standards. The Framework advocated giving all kindergartners calculators. It fell head over heels for the same aspects of math reform the article endorses.
After almost ten years of this, nearly 70 percent of students in the 20-campus California State University system require remedial math. A related problem is that reform-trained students never learn to study properly. These "fun" methods shy away from hard work. Consequently, the students enter college with two major problems. They don't know anything, and they haven't learned how to learn. Hence the well-intentioned remedial programs are doomed to failure. The teachers in them include students who have also had their education destroyed, so you have the blind leading the blind. At my college, the remedial programs heavily use the "group work" idea. It's a complete failure.
In my college, we run about 30 sections of calculus per semester for about 1,000 students, who major in a variety of fields. Fewer than 10% of these students are prepared for the course. Students in the "hard" calculus courses are just as poorly trained as students in the "softer" courses. This is a relatively new phenomenon.
The main tool of calculus is algebra. The reform-educated students are extremely weak in high school algebra. Trying to teach them calculus is demoralizing and frustrating. My colleagues deal with the problem by drastically lowering standards.
Another reaction has been the creation of reformed calculus, which eliminates all theory and minimizes reliance on algebraic skills. It replaces a beautiful structure, based on practice and theory, with a useless mishmash of deceptive nonsense. In the late '80s and early '90s, the National Science Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such reform projects. Of course, there was no scientific theory employed to examine the validity of reform and there has been no follow-up evaluation. Too many people are getting rich off reform--from textbook companies to computer and calculator companies to fat-cat administrators and sellout academics, who, because of large educational grants, do very little teaching.
The reform in math and reading that occurred in the '80s was a reaction to U.S. students' declining skills. The backlash against this reform hit in the early '90s, when people in the white middle and upper-middle class realized their kids couldn't read and do basic math.
I have been quite surprised that some people writing for PLP have avoided doing research and careful analysis of these issues. However, the CHALLENGE articles on math education were well written. They carefully analyzed the issues. I urge Party members to reread these articles. Communists should be able to analyze this problem objectively.
We all know that capitalism is a filthy, rotten system that will never provide excellent education. But this is no excuse for not learning how to teach. Furthermore, education is of dire importance to black, Latin and working-class white parents. They know their kids are not learning in school. They won't buy the racist horseshit that their kids can't learn, just like kids from affluent families. They want their kids drilled on the basics, just like the upper-income kids.
If the Party is to have a positive impact on such people through educational struggles, it must recognize that all children learn best through hard drilling of basics, in conjunction with understanding ideas. I've taught my own second-grade daughter addition and multiplication tables at home, because her teacher told the parents there's no time for this in class--the teachers are too busy teaching "concepts." In school, "concepts" often mean total nonsense. Most of the math educators have no idea what constitutes a math concept. The parents in my neighborhood are spending a fortune on tutoring. The little kid across the street has a math tutor three times a week.
The working-class kids aren't so lucky. Their parents aren't math professors and don't have the money to hire tutors. The working-class kids' only chance is to learn in class.
PLP should adopt the slogan "Algebra for the Working Class"--and fight for it.
Next Issue: How to help children from Kindergarten to 8th grade become arithmetic experts.
Who's `Madder'? Cows or Capitalists?
So is it just coincidence,Or are these deaths the first of many? Will BSE, slow death, advance,In humans and their progeny? One thing is sure; our precious State,Won't tell us till it's much too late! (from "Mad Cows and Englishmen" by C.J. Marsden)As we go to press, the European Union (EU) is in an uproar over the news that two French people have died of Variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD), the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. Over 80 people in England and 89 in the whole EU have died of vCJD. Years after the slaughter of millions of British cows, BSE-infected cows have turned up in France, Germany, Spain and Portugal.
The horrible symptoms of vCJD have played dramatically on French TV: dementia, loss of motor control, and death, all within six months of the first signs of illness. French beef sales have dropped 40%, beef is banned from school lunches and the government is promising $400 million in aid to cattle farmers. In emergency session, the European Commission (EC) has proposed a ban on animal by-products in livestock feed, the presumed source of BSE.
The mad cow crisis reveals the tensions underlying the fragile unity among Euro-capitalists. The bosses' BSE concern has always been more about dueling nationalisms than public health. During Britain's BSE crisis, France led the drive to ban imports of British beef. The consequent economic downturn, along with evidence of a cover-up of human risk, helped bring down John Major's government. While French capitalists are trying to blame Britain for the spread of BSE, the story is one of greed and lies on all sides.
Long after the import ban, France continued to import veal calves from "BSE-free" British herds. They were meant to be slaughtered within six months. In a major scam, at least 70,000 of these disappeared into French herds, where they matured and were sold Europe-wide as "safe" French beef. Ironically, the EC's ban on animal products in feed is likely to force the EU to buy alternative feed from a politically embarrassing source-- genetically-modified U.S. soybeans.
What causes BSE, and how scared should we be? BSE and vCJD are caused by an amazing agent which is neither virus nor bacterium, and which contains no genetic material. "Prions,"(pronounced pree-ons) are a form of protein, and can't replicate like viruses or cells can. All mammals, humans included, have a gene for prion protein, which is normally made in the brain and serves some unknown function. Prions can fold up in more than one three-dimensional shape, a harmless shape and a bad one. If something causes a prion protein to fold up in the wrong shape, it sticks to other prion proteins and makes them misfold, forming a large, insoluble sheet like a sort of crystal. Prion deposits in the brain drive neighboring nerve cells to suicide, turning the brain into sponge.
When a human eats infected beef, cow prions coax the eater's prions into misfolding, increasing the risk of disease. The prions which make holes in human brains are human prions, turned bad by cow prions. Cow prions don't lock into human prions perfectly, so there is a "species barrier," but given enough exposure, misfolding happens. vcJD has appeared in humans before, when human prions misfold for a variety of reasons. The new form of vcJD is different from these older forms and is unmistakably linked to mad cows. It's still very rare, but given a decades-long incubation period and the lack of a pre-diagnostic test, it may eventually kill tens of thousands. As scary as prion disease appears, it was made much worse by the British rulers, whose first priority was to shore up profits and retain economic power within the EU. They installed do-nothing officials whose job was to reassure the public. Their Ministry remained in denial while BSE spread to cats and zoo animals, and young people began to show signs of the disease. U.S. bosses would respond with the same denial, given a similar threat-- when Oprah aired a show about the dangers of feeding bone meal to cattle, she was sued (unsuccessfully) by Texas cattle barons.
On a scale of preventable health worries, beef consumption and vCJD are way down there, miles below tobacco, highway deaths and dietary fats. The media typically stir up fears of the novel and mysterious (like genetically-modified foods), while the system kills us in other ways.
A much bigger threat to the working class in Europe and throughout the world is increasing inter-imperialist rivalry. Beef trade wars, like oil, steel and auto wars, will eventually become shooting wars.
Note: Challenge is biweekly in December. We return to our regular weekly publication in January 2001
Gore-Bush Brawl: Punch Out All Bosses!
200 Years Of Racist Elections Marches On
a href="#Auto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars">"uto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars
a href="#U.S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic">".S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic
Racist Chilean Cops Attack Mapuches
Postal Bosses, Union Shafting Workers
Philly Hospital Struggle Is Right Medicine For PLP
a href="#Classroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands">"lassroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands
a href="#PLP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs">"LP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs
a href="#Blast Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting">Bl"st Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting
Bush-Gore Dogfight Opens Doors For Russian Rulers
Thousands Attack Visit By Barak And Sharon
a href="#Intern’l Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia">"nternational Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia
Protest Racist Murder of Howard University Student
LETTERS
Prison Labor Delivers the Campus Mail
a href="#‘If these ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’">‘If "hese ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’
Fight For Hearts and Minds at APHA
Build PLP in The Mass Movement
a href="#Pro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers">"ro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers
a href="#Crack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans">"rack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans
AFL-CIA Labor Buddies Exposed in Venezuela
Gore-Bush Brawl: Punch Out All Bosses!
As this issue of CHALLENGE goes to press, the rulers are still feuding over the presidential election. They’re violating their own rules in wholesale fashion. At the moment, the Republicans seem to have stolen the election. But the Democrats, who have long experience in voting swindles, are proving there’s no honor among thieves.
One of the biggest lies in this election is the one that says "every vote counts." The Bush-Gore dogfight shows just the opposite. Many Florida ballots were confusing or unreadable. Others, particularly in Miami-Dade County, where a lot of black people live, weren’t counted at all. Many other people were prevented from voting through intimidation or fraud. When Gore seemed to be overtaking Bush in the recount, the Florida Supreme Court gave an unrealistic deadline and tens of thousands of ballots spit out by the machines went uncounted.
A lot is at stake—for Bush, Gore and the bosses they represent. The presidency is crucial to the biggest U.S. rulers. Key areas of contention include the approach toward Russia, domestic oil production, how best to exploit and discipline the working class, as well as others we don’t yet fully understand (see CHALLENGE Nov.29). In any event, the biggest rulers consider the White House important enough to brawl over like two dogs viciously pursuing a bone.
They didn’t seem to want this fight at the beginning. During the electoral campaign, Bush and Gore pulled many punches. In the wake of Clinton’s impeachment, the rulers appeared ready to unite once again. But with the presidential results a virtual tie, the unity collapsed quicker than a politician’s promise. The bosses are making a spectacle of themselves. Each side’s hypocritical bullshit about "democracy" can’t cover the truth about capitalism’s basic nature. This is a contest for profit and political power—who gets the most and how—and ego. The working class has absolutely no stake in siding with either camp.
The Bush Republicans appeal to the most openly racist forces in the U.S. Bush himself comes from a long line of fascists. In the 1930s, Bush’s grandfather helped his own father-in-law finance Adolf Hitler through Wall Street’s Union Banking Corp. (Rogers and Mamatas, "The Albion Monitor"). Papa George used neo-Nazis Jerome Brentar, a Holocaust denier, and Akselis Mangulis who was involved in the SS-inspired Latvian Legion, in his 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns.
Baby Bush’s Texas is the death penalty capital of the world—especially for the poorest and mostly black workers—and the home of regular racist atrocities.
Many people, including a large number of black workers, voted for Gore because Bush & Co. are so blatantly anti-working class. But Gore and the Democrats are no better. Voting for them is a serious mistake. CHALLENGE has repeatedly exposed the Clinton/Gore record of racist mayhem. Slave labor "Workfare," the doubling of the prison population (70% black and Latino, mostly non-violent offenders or framed outright), the dramatic increase in cop terror and the rise in anti-immigrant attacks are just a few of the current administration’s "accomplishments."
The foreign policy disagreements between Bush and Gore are apparently tactical. The two camps differ about how, when and where to draw the line about trading with U.S. rivals. They disagree somewhat about how, when and where—but NOT whether—to go to war for U.S. imperialist super-profits. When push came to shove in 1991, President Bush, Sr., launched the Gulf War to safeguard the oil riches of Exxon, which is now basically in the Gore camp. The Senate support resolution for Gulf War I was written by none other than Gore’s god-fearing V-P sidekick Joseph Lieberman. The war became a genocidal attack on Iraqi workers. Despite the rulers’ many disagreements, they all unite on the basic issue of maintaining their class dictatorship over the working class.
Bush and the Republicans may succeed in stealing this election. On the other hand, perhaps Gore and the Democrats will find a way to defeat the Bush coup. Workers will lose regardless of the outcome, if we line up behind either side. But we can do something else. We can fight to build our own Party, the revolutionary communist PLP.
The present mud-slinging exposes many internal weaknesses among the bosses. Their key strength lies in our own momentary weakness and passivity. We can change that! We can increase our commitment to the historic struggle that will bring about the profit system’s downfall. Under capitalism, your vote only helps one or another rich boss. If you join the PLP and work to build it, everything you do will count in favor of the working class. We are the revolutionary communist Party and the class of the future.
200 Years Of Racist Elections Marches On
PLP has always said that voting under capitalism is just another fraud through which the bosses who own and run the society maintain their dictatorship over the vast majority who produce their profits. This was again proven true when thousands of Florida’s black voters were denied their "right" to cast a ballot in the latest election.
A century after the Civil War, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, supposedly "guaranteeing" everyone the right to vote. Here’s what happened in the "sunshine" state, all violations of Florida law and testified to at NAACP-conducted hearings:
• Polls in black districts closed as early as 4:30 P.M., although the state closing time was 7 P.M.
• Police set up roadblocks to frighten and/or bar black voters from the polls.
• Black voters who had been registered and voted for years were told they were "not on the voter lists."
• Voters were shunted from polling place to polling place until it was too late to vote.
• Voters without Florida ID’s were turned away, even though the law says they can cast an "affidavit ballot."
• Black voters were stopped even with voter cards.
• Only black voters on the rolls with an ID were questioned about whether they had been convicted of a felony since they last voted.
• One black minister said the boxes of votes cast at his church, an official polling place, had never been picked up to this day, despite repeated requests.
• Haitian voters were threatened with deportation when insisting on being allowed to vote.
• Haitian voters were denied the help of Creole translators, despite being legally entitled to such aid. Translators holding copies of the appropriate statute, and offering such help were told to "move on" or be arrested.
• One white newswoman, a former cop, testified she saw police cars stopping black voters, asking for ID’s and challenged with, "What are you doing here?" She saw one elderly man ordered to "assume the position." When she tried to intervene, she was told to move or be arrested.
It’s obvious that despite whatever "law" the bosses might be forced to pass, all bosses use their state power to violate their own laws when it suits their purposes. Interestingly enough, so far the Democrats, those "great champions" of civil rights, haven’t lifted a finger to bring even these cases to their own courts. It only exposes "the right to vote" as just one more ploy with which the ruling class maintains its rule, to exploit the working class and safeguard its profit system.
The vaunted Electoral College—highly touted as such a democratic feature of presidential elections devised by the wondrous "founding fathers"—was based on slavery. In the original U.S. Constitution slaves were counted as "three-fifths of a person." Since representation in the Electoral College was based on state populations, the slave-owning states were awarded disproportionate power in electing a president, to convince them to ratify the Constitution.
No wonder that in 32 of the first 36 years of this "great democracy," every single president was a slave-owner from the state of Virginia.
Workers can’t "vote out" capitalism. Gore and Bush represent two sides of the same ruling class oppressing workers since 1776. We can only organize communist revolution to overthrow it.
THE TWO BULLS AND A FROG
A pair of amorous bulls stood vying
Over a heifer both would woo and service
"Misery me!" a frog sat sighing,
Eyeing their combat-timorous, nervous;
Whereat one of her croaking kin
Queried: "Good gracious, why the fuss?"
"Why?" cried the frog. "For us, that's why!
For us!
One of those two is sure to win;
And when he drives his rival out,
Far from their green and flowering fields, what then?…
Then he'll come stomping over swamp and fen,
Trampling our reeds! And us as well, no doubt!
Tomorrow we'll be dead. And why? Because here, now,
Two bulls are fighting for some silly cow!"
Frog's dread predictions came to pass.
When the bull, defeated, seeks their dank morass,
Twenty compatriots an hour croak
Their final croak: a crushing fate!
Alas, 'twas ever thus. The little folk
Have always paid for follies of the great.
The fable (above) offers an interesting insight into the error of taking sides when two bosses fight. It was written over 300 years ago by a Frenchman named Jean de La Fontaine, who lived under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. The two bulls represent rival factions of the French nobility, and the frogs are the common people.
If we reread it with Bush and Gore in the bulls’ role and the working class as the frogs, we can see that the principle of refusing to support warring rulers applies to us today. The main difference is that we don’t have to get trampled by the winner; we can choose to fight back by building our Party.
a name="Auto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars">">"uto Workers Battle vs. Bosses’ Car Wars
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 23 — Last week one of the major U.S. automakers, supported by the union leadership, fired 700 temporary workers and threatened more firings and a possible plant closing. The issue is the company’s ability to implement lean, modular production methods.
In several departments workers denounced their terrible experiences with these programs. "I won’t participate because it only cheapens our labor," said one, confronting his supervisor. Another worker told a group of bosses, "Even YOU are going to lose your jobs." "They lay us off anyway, so why should we collaborate?" asked another worker. The company tried to interview workers on the line. Many protesting by refusing to answer.
In Mexico and Brazil, modular and lean production have significantly increased productivity and reduced costs, especially the cost of labor. In modular production, parts of the car are sub-assembled in other factories, where wages are even lower, and shipped to the main plant for final assembly. In one factory, seats, dashboards and tires are the first modules made this way. The Pontiac Aztec is assembled in Silao, with 32 modules and hundreds of other components that are added just-in-time. This GM plant pays the lowest wages in the whole auto industry.
Making the process lean means reducing and eliminating areas that don’t directly add value to the product: maintenance, storage and transport of materials. Part of this work is delegated to the production worker on the line, like cleaning, security and detection of errors by the team in your whole work area. The bosses’ "Team Concept" tries to get workers to spy on each other, while telling us that workers and bosses are "in the same boat." At Ford in Hermosillo, workers are now "technicians."
In Brazil the modular system is even more advanced. Racist U.S. and German auto bosses are experimenting in Latin America. Autoworkers in Mexico make $2.60 an hour. In the US, they make $21; in Germany, $19. They’re in a race to use modular and lean production in all their plants to maximize their profits and impoverish the workers of the world.
Ford calls these slave labor methods "Ford Productions Systems (FPS)." In one plant, workers’ resistance has stopped them from implementing FPS for three years. PLP has organized against this system of super-exploitation through CHALLENGE, leaflets and meetings. We’ve confronted them on the assembly line, and in company meetings where they push their programs, always linking this to the bosses’ deadly competition for markets. Several workers have joined the Party and many more look to us for leadership.
To resist is important, But to smash the imperialists, we need an international movement for communist revolution. We need to build international working-class unity, and build PLP into a party of millions. This will transform the current resistance into a revolutionary torrent, which will wipe the greedy capitalists, their markets and their wars off the face of the earth! Every worker who reads and distributes CHALLENGE, and who joins a PLP study group, is on the road to fighting for a bright red future.
a name="U.S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic">">".S. Bosses’ Rivals Adopt NAFTA Tactic
The NAFTA treaties with the U.S. now face similar treaties with the EU (European Union) and Central America and a possible agreement with Mercosur (South American trade group), transforming Mexico from a U.S. "province" into an imperialist battleground for markets and cheap labor. Workers in Mexico produce cars at low cost for the biggest markets in the world. The battle includes trying to dominate the Latin American auto market, with a population of 400 million, where one of every nine people buys a car.
In the last five years, the auto bosses have invested more than $40 billion in new plants here. Brazil produces 3,000,000 cars annually. Mexico will match that in the next two years. Including auto parts, Mexico exported $29 billion in cars last year, making it one of the biggest exporters in the world. Auto-related trade between the U.S. and Mexico grew from $14.6 billion in 1994 to $37.6 billion in 1999. The agreement with the EU greatly reduces the tariffs on autos and auto parts. VW has announced big investments in Mexico. Nissan-Fiat will increase its investment in its Cuernavaca plant.
Racist Chilean Cops Attack Mapuches
SANTIAGO, CHILE — From 9 AM to noon on Nov. 17, 400 cops attacked the Mapuche community of Temucuicui, Chile, injuring and arresting many. The cops assaulted anyone in their way, using racist slurs, shooting in the air and shouting threats "to rape all these Indian women"; "we’re going to beat you to a pulp," etc. They chased women who took refuge in a local school. There they shot their guns in the air and repeated their racist slurs in front of the schoolchildren.
The Mapuches are waging a legal battle against Forestal Mininco, a company trying to exploit land belonging to the community. The "InJustice" System has railroaded the Mapuche demands and sent cops to attack them.
Maybe the Mapuches expected something different from the "Socialist" government of President Lagos. The latter is playing games with the Mapuches. On Oct. 12, "Columbus Day," Guido Girardi, a high-ranking government official, joined the Mapuches as they marched on Congress demanding a "law of reparations for the Indigenous people." Meanwhile, President Lagos’ wife was in Spain invited by the Borbon monarchy to "celebrate" the genocidal colonization of the "New World" by Columbus.
Our Mapuche brothers and sisters must see the hypocrisy of this capitalist government. They need to unite with all workers in Chile to fight the brutal racism, segregation and murder that has been occurring for 500 years. The PLP group in Chile invites all workers to join with us to fight for the only society that can end so many centuries of genocide—communism. Just as capitalism gave birth to modern racism, communism will give birth to a society where racism will be a crime.
Postal Bosses, Union Shafting Workers
NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 29 — As of midnight last night, contract negotiations broke down between the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the 300,000-member American Postal Workers Union. The dispute now goes to binding arbitration.
Union leaders had asked for a paltry 13.5% wage increase over three years and continuation of the (inadequate) cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). USPS bosses offered NO WAGE INCREASE over four years and elimination of the COLA. Union leaders had planned on arbitration from the beginning and USPS bosses obliged.
Meanwhile, on Nov. 14 the USPS Board of Governors announced their unanimous decision to push for "regulatory reform"—full or partial privatization of the postal service affecting hundreds of thousands of jobs—classic capitalism treatment of highly productive workers. (More next issue.)
Philly Hospital Struggle Is Right Medicine For PLP
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 27 — "I’m interested in a change," said Jane. "But how do we do it?"
This question, asked by a hospital worker new to PLP meetings, opened a new Party gathering of healthcare workers. Jane is a regular CHALLENGE reader and a rank-and-file leader on her job.
"PLP studies the science of dialectics so we can understand how change happens," answered Juanita, a re-charged veteran Party member who helped organize and lead the meeting. We then discussed the recent contract struggle at Jefferson Hospital, using dialectics to understand how the workers were mobilized. "From the outside it looked like the workers wouldn’t organize to fight," added Lenny, another Jefferson worker. "That was the hope of the Jefferson bosses and the union leaders."
"Yeah, but I stayed on the workers’ ass," continued Jane.
"Yeah, you stayed on their ass," said Lenny, "but remember, we spoke with a lot of workers to see what they really thought they needed. We did some investigation. That’s how we came up with the Jobs campaign that you helped lead. Workers were more willing to fight for our Jobs campaign than the official union agenda. We got past the appearance of the workers being complacent and passive and were able to identify what they would fight for," going from "appearance" to "essence."
"Yeah, but I still had to stay on their ass," said Jane.
"You’re right," said Lenny, "We need masses of workers, but individuals can make a difference and we need leadership."
Indira, a veteran party member who normally is pretty cynical, continued the lively discussion. She described an important struggle she led among the nurses on her job. She hadn’t planned to lead these other workers, but when she showed another nurse a letter she had written about the job problem, Indira’s letter became the "spokesperson" for the other nurses. Other workers participated and, surprise, Indira and her co-workers got the boss to back down.
This meeting was significant because it involved new workers who were active in the recent Jefferson contract struggle as well as veteran Party members taking on more leadership. We have plans to invite several other new workers to these meetings. All this holds great promise for May Day.
a name="Classroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands">">"lassroom Struggles Spur Teachers’ Pro-Student Demands
BROOKLYN, NY, Nov. 27 — Over 20 teachers from our high school traveled together to the Nov. 16 UFT (United Federation of Teachers) rally at City Hall. It occurred during several struggles within the school. The prolonged one is the attempt by a group of teachers to work together with 9th graders who all read well below their grade level. The school has, in fact, discarded them as "unteachable" while creating the appearance of promoting learning by organizing them into special double period teaching blocks. All the teachers in this program must fight to teach, and struggle with the youth to fight to learn every day.
This has led to many struggles over the semester. Teachers get discouraged because we’re working with students who are discouraged. Throughout it, a PLP member within the program has fought for us to maintain confidence in ourselves and our students. We have organized trips, visited parents and shared our experiences on a daily basis. We cannot abandon our youth just because it is hard work to overcome years of bad teaching.
Meanwhile, the administration began observing the new teachers, many of them thrust into the 9th grade program, and began writing "unsatisfactory" ratings. The day before the rally, our UFT chapter committee confronted the principal about this harassment of hard-working new teachers who were receiving no support from the school. Such a unified front from senior teachers in defense of new teachers was a positive development for our chapter. (Two of the "U"s were subsequently reversed).
Nearly all the teachers involved in these struggles were the ones who attended the City Hall rally. The difference between the rank and file and the UFT leadership was obvious at the rally, and provoked interesting discussions. Rather than marching, or even having speakers from different schools relate the problems we and our students face daily, union head Randi Weingarten turned it into a political rally for the Democratic Party and its next candidate for mayor. We laughed about how much it felt like the meeting with the principal the day before—us against them.
The next day we held the semester’s second UFT chapter social. Over 30 teachers and staff met for drinks and chat at a local restaurant. There we had even more political discussion, including long ones about communism and capitalism. Many of these teachers have read CHALLENGE. With weeks like this, many more questions will be asked.
a name="PLP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs">">"LP’er Rallies Teachers Behind Student Needs
NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 28 — Fifty staff members from Boys and Girls High School signed up to attend the November 16 UFT (United Federation of Teachers) rally at City Hall. The Party member at the school initiated the organizing effort, signing up 16. Many of those asked are CHALLENGE readers; others are "new" to our organizer. The union’s chapter leadership did nothing to organize the staff until the PLP’er did so. Then the Chapter Leader signed up the remaining 30 or so people in the last day or two.
It important to bring people to this rally despite—and because—the UFT was failing to fight for our students, and against the attacks on them.
Actually, the union leads the attacks on the students, supposedly to provide better working conditions for teachers. We used the occasion of the rally to fight staff passivity and struggled to bring pro-student and anti-fascist signs and literature there.
The PLP’er did just that, and fought with the Chapter Leader to organize the staff to travel together, while also putting a note in staff mailboxes calling on them to meet and go together. The Chapter Leader refused to call the staff together, leaving everyone to go their own way. The PLP’er went to the rally with two members of her department.
Many who signed to go ended up not going. We don’t know how many people did attend. The PLP’er spent the following week discussing the rally with some who did go. They felt it was good to get out and fight, but questioned about whether the union leadership’s focus on money alone was right. They would have liked more signs demanding things like smaller class size.
The rally and its politics provided an opportunity for more discussion about the Party’s pro-student ideas on schools and their role, and the mistaken frustration and anger towards students expressed by many of our friends. The rally will be the starting point in organizing for PLP’s January Schools Conference and a CHALLENGE readers group.
a name="Blast Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting"></">Bl"st Nazi Gene ‘Theory’ At Public Health Meeting
BOSTON, MA., Nov. 20 — Significant headway in the fight against biodeterminsm was made here last week at the national convention of the American Public Health Association (APHA), a meeting of 13,000 health workers. Biodeterminism is the concept that our ideas and actions are determined by our genes or our brain chemistry.
For seven years, PLP members and members of the Coalition Against the Violence Initiative (CAVI) have been opposing research which claims that violence has a biological cause—abnormal brain chemistry in young minority boys. Many psychologists have also become convinced that more minor forms of children’s misbehavior—restlessness and inattention in school—are biologic.
The "disease" of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is now being diagnosed in about 10% of boys and 3% of girls, nearly all of whom are treated with the drug Ritalin. The drug companies are ecstatic about this vast new market of millions of children, and the politicians figure they can avoid improving schools and hiring more teachers by drugging millions of children into passivity.
Last year, after a long struggle, a resolution was passed by the APHA condemning all violence research which does not fully consider environmental factors. This year a session on the issue attracted an audience of over 500. A biological researcher tried to prove that genes play a role in violence, but a Harvard geneticist demonstrated that this is unscientific and unprovable. A CAVI speaker pointed out that violence in society comes not from teenagers but from the police and the military, and that Biodeterminism is a way of blaming the problems of society on workers, not on the system. She argued that the imminence of war and economic decline increases the need for social control and drew parallels between U.S. eugenics and Nazism.
CAVI is circulating a petition against biodeterminism in research and mental health. Many APHA people signed it and took more to distribute. Several promised to become active in NY CAVI. We also leafleted and spoke at a drug company-sponsored forum on Ritalin, attended a panel by psychologists skeptical about ADHD and held a reception for our new contacts.
Our task now is to reach more parents, teachers and health providers so that racist research and drugging of our children becomes a mass issue in the schools, teachers’ unions and in professional organizations. As Party members we will struggle to show people how biodeterminism is an idea necessary to fascism—to justify racism, inequality and war. Only a communist society will eliminate this idea forever.
Bush-Gore Dogfight Opens Doors For Russian Rulers
The Bush-Gore melee over the presidency has given U.S. imperialism’s main rivals an opportunity to move forward on important fronts. Russian rulers, in particular, are taking advantage of the disarray here. Their long-term goal is to unseat the U.S. ruling class as the world’s chief imperialist. Although the Russians aren’t yet ready for a military showdown with the U.S., the temporarily weakened U.S. presidency has given them major political and economic openings:
Russian oil companies are moving rapidly to close Iraqi oil deals. The latest news is about a Russian-Belarussian company, Slavneft, which plans to sign a contract this month to develop the Subba oil deposit in Iraq (REUTERS, Nov. 24). This is only one of several major contracts the Russians have negotiated to develop Iraqi oil fields.
Now the Russians have asserted themselves as Middle East "peace" brokers. On November 25, Russian president Putin announced a three-phase strategy to cut a new deal between Israeli and Palestinian bosses. This is a clear attempt to take advantage of the Clinton "peace" plan’s failure and the Gore-Bush deadlock. The Russian plan would also involve U.S. oil rivals in the European Union (EU).
On November 25, Iraqi deputy prime minister Aziz began a trip to Russia and China.
The Russians also announced their readiness to "cooperate with the new military force being drawn up by the European Union." (REUTERS, Nov. 26) CHALLENGE readers will remember that the plan for a EU military independant of NATO was one of the first decisions French, German, and other EU rulers made in the wake of the air war Clinton & Co. forced them to wage—alongside the U.S.—over the former Yugoslavia in 1999.
So the dogfight over the U.S. presidency is helping to accelerate a process of sharpened inter-imperialist rivalry that’s been under way for some time now. Increased Russian and French presence in Iraq ups the ante for U.S. bosses’ plans to drive Saddam Hussein from power and replace him with an Exxon-friendly regime. Whoever captures the U.S. presidency will have to deal with mounting challenges to U.S. world domination, particularly in the Middle East. These rivalries, in one way or another, will inevitably produce another imperialist bloodbath for oil.
Thousands Attack Visit By Barak And Sharon
CHICAGO, IL, November 13 - Tonight more than 4,000 people protested the visit of Israeli butchers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon to the University of Illinois. The enthusiasm and energy of the many young protesters was very positive. The politics of the revisionists (fake leftists) and nationalists was not. They shouted down chants against imperialism and for "Workers of the World, Unite!"
PLP members received a very warm response to our call for unity of Arab and Israeli workers to fight for communism in the Middle East. We sold about 200 CHALLENGES and distributed more than 1,000 Party flyers. We also made some new friends and have been invited speak at a forum on Palestine.
a name="Intern’l Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia">">"ntern’l Conglomerate Oppresses Brewery Workers In Colombia
"They are rats"; "That's terrorism"; "They're slave-drivers," were some of the comments angry workers made about the Bavarian Beer bosses here in Colombia. This year 80 workers have been fired, including a supervisor who refused to accept the bosses' fascist attacks.
There's an organized group of workers in the plant who daily fight the bosses' deception. For example, the bosses force us to attend meetings about "quality control, peace and labor harmony." Meanwhile, they threaten the most militant workers who rally with the union outside the plant to demand a new contract.
This offensive by the Bavaria bosses is part of a fascist assault on workers throughout Colombia. Besides the civil war and death squads murdering workers and others every day, the working class suffers from the "normal" oppression of capitalism (unemployment now affects three million workers in a work-force of 25 million).
Bavaria is part of a conglomerate which includes Avianca Airlines, insurance companies and even a brewery in Ecuador, where workers are paid less than here.
We in PLP are exposing capitalism to these workers as an international failure as far as our class is concerned. We're also trying to show workers we must not fear to struggle, that the bosses get away with all this because we're not fighting harder for our class interests. We're also using CHALLENGE to explain that the only answer to the attacks by Bavaria and Plan Colombia—Clinton's billion-dollar support for the Colombian army and the death squads—is to fight for workers' power, communism.
Red Worker, Colombia
Protest Racist Murder of Howard University Student
FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Demonstrators demanding indictment of racist cop who murdered Howard University student Prince Jones, picket office of Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Horan. Horan later exonerated the cop. (See CHALLENGE stories Oct. 11 and Nov. 8, November 29.)
LETTERS
Solidarity Communist Style
On Nov. 19, some Party members helped organize a solidarity rally at the AC Transit workers’ union hall in Oakland. An LA mechanic came to describe the recent transit strike there. A local president reported on the 1st-ever strike against See’s Candy. A carpenter told us about his 2,000-member-strong union wildcat. Two Teamsters filled us in on the current Safeway strike. My friend, who’s VP of the California Nurses’ Association, had just returned from leafleting Safeway with some other nurses.
Two hotel union organizers trying to unionize the Radisson Hotel thanked the nurses for helping publicize the lack of health coverage for the hotel’s workers. The hotel organizers also reported that French workers—in solidarity with the workers here—organized against the French company loaning money to Radisson. My friend thanked the transit workers for honoring the nurses’ picket lines. Longshore workers were acknowledged for refusing to ship a Safeway container.
Organizers spoke about the ’46 Oakland General Strike led by transit workers, the ’34 San Francisco General Strike led by the longshore union, the anniversary of singer Joe Hill’s execution on that very day, the need to break the bosses’ law, the importance of multi-racial unity for our group, and so on. All the seeds of left-wing trade union organizing bore fruit that day in impassioned speech after speech for workers’ power and solidarity. I’m not telling the half of it.
We began the rally with the LA speaker who spoke about the need for communist leaders, and we ended the rally by singing the Internationale. In between, all these dedicated organizers, who have obviously been influenced by communists and their ideas, didn’t raise revolution or communism. So we have a long row to hoe and re-seed, but what an inspiring bunch of fighters we get to work shoulder to shoulder with!
A reader
Prison Labor Delivers the Campus Mail
Recently, in talking with a friend who works at Western Michigan University, he commented that campus mail was very slow, sometimes taking several days to get across campus.
"Why so inefficient?" I asked. "Well," he said, "they’ve replaced all campus workers who were handling it with an outside company."
I was surprised. I knew there was lots of "outsourcing" going on to destroy unions and lower wages in steel mills, offices, and elsewhere. This is one reason unemployment statistics look relatively low, while workers’ standard of living is basically stagnant or declining. But mailroom employees on a college campus? They don’t get paid much. How much could be saved replacing them with "outsourced" labor hired through an agency?
My friend told me he had asked why the mail was so slow and an administrator replied, "You can’t expect too much from those workers. After all, they’re tethered."
"Tethered"? That’s work release. These workers are all in jail or under the authority of the jail. Are they forced to work, like slaves? "Officially" they have the right to refuse. But if they do, they’re considered "non-cooperative," leading to longer sentences.
This is growing everywhere. Sixty years ago, the Nazi concentration camps were actually forced labor camps as well as execution chambers. Private German companies "rented" workers from the Nazi government, and company bosses could decide whether prisoners lived or died, depending on how hard they worked.
How can people continue to call the U.S. a "democracy" as it adopts more and more of the characteristics of a Nazi dictatorship? Are we reading too much into this? This is a college campus. If they’re doing it here, they are doing it in lots of other places. Forced labor under penalty of jail. Forced labor with a lot of the slave laborers coming from the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Gore "War Against Drugs." And these policies oppress not only those workers but all workers, whose wages are lowered by having their jobs replaced by this forced labor.
We should all investigate how much of this is occurring where we work and organize campaigns against it. All the "anti-China" rhetoric of some nationalist elements, including some well-meaning members of the "anti-sweatshop" movement, should be confronted with the reality of forced prison labor in the U.S. Don’t let anyone attack the forced laborers as being the "enemy of law-abiding workers who lost their jobs." Demanding that forced laborers receive wages equal to other workers might be a decent reform campaign for a start.
But as long as there’s capitalism, there is wage slavery. And as capitalism’s crisis intensifies, there will be more forced labor and other characteristics of a fascist dictatorship. Building the revolutionary communist movement is the only way to end this terror once and for all.
Red Worker
a name="‘If these ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’"></a>"If these ideas are communist, I’m a communist...’
Recently I visited relatives in Victoria, in Tamaulipas, Mexico. A university student there has been a CHALLENGE reader for some time. During my visit, she told me of her interest in the paper and about other students with similar feelings.
We spoke with one of these students who confirmed their interest in the paper and in its revolutionary politics. I suggested meeting with some of her fellow students and friends. Maybe there would be four or five, she said.
A week later she called to say a meeting would take place at the University. When we arrived, to my surprise, there were 15 students present, members of the same class, and their teacher.
Although the meeting was somewhat improvised, the students expressed great interest in communist politics. After the presentation, some asked questions like, "What’s the negative side of communism?"; "Is Fidel Castro a communist?" and so on.
Afterwards a student exclaimed, "If all of these ideas are communist, I’m a communist too!"
So I’m sending my greetings to all these students and their teacher. I hope they’re receiving the ten CHALLENGES
I offered to get to them.
A California Grandfather
Fight For Hearts and Minds at APHA
Recently I attended American Public Health Association (APHA) meetings in Boston. I went with two other people from the Coalition Against the Violence Initiative to assist and support the session against biodeterminist violence research. While there I was impressed with the participation of PLP members. The Party work was well-planned and carried out.
One morning at a breakfast meeting of PLP’ers and friends we discussed why the APHA leadership has been silent about resolutions passed against racist police violence and the effects of welfare reform on workers. We also discussed our plans for raising the Party’s ideas in sessions on the effect of racism on medical care, reform and revolution and public health in the 20th century, bioterrorism, violence research, ADHD and Ritalin.
We spoke about countering the corporatization of the APHA as exemplified by its recent statement: "APHA must be an effective leader and/or reliable partner who strives to collaborate with corporate entities as well as (others). This includes the reconciliation of ideologies that impede progress toward creating a safer and healthier world for all." I might add also countering the militarization of the APHA as exemplified by the government sponsored and funded effort to have the APHA prepare for a bioterrorist and/or other attack on U.S. soil.
Ironically, at the very same time in an adjoining room, the top APHA leadership was holding its own breakfast meeting. The fight for the hearts and minds of thousands of public health workers went on right under the noses of these corporate, military, health collaborators.
A comrade
Wants More Internationalism
I would like to suggest using the word "internationalist" on the front page of CHALLENGE. We’ve discussed it in our PLP club and with non-Party friends who read the paper. The idea is for people to see visually what we stand for. It also works great when selling CHALLENGE as we explain to workers or students on the street that we are an internationalist communist party that exists in many countries. Pushing internationalism creates an open door for discussion with prospective readers. It helped bring me to the Party. It motivates me to see people from other countries in the Party. It’s a great feeling! Despite the nationalism my bosses push, workers are naturally internationalist in time of natural disasters. We should promote it more by visually printing it in our newspaper.
One Day Red World
Build PLP in The Mass Movement
The main discussion at a recent Party meeting with workers from auto, textile, health and transportation was about the importance of involving ourselves in the mass movements. We examined our participation in the city councils of different cities in the state. Three comrades are actively involved in these councils and distributing CHALLENGE in communities where many factory workers live.
At the beginning I opposed joining these councils because I was convinced reformism wouldn’t get us anywhere. "It’s true," said a comrade, "but if we don’t’ get involved in the reform movements, how are we going to build the Party? How are we going to win the masses away from the reformists?"
Another comrade asked me, "Why do you think workers in your community want you to represent them?" I thought, if people support me it’s because they have confidence in me, so by not participating I’d be failing to take advantage of a great opportunity to build the Party. By having confidence in the people, I can struggle to win them to understand our politics and expose the anti-working class nature of the system. I can turn a bad thing into a good thing.
Another comrade in a textile factory is leading a struggle against the union leaders and the slave labor conditions there. The work is hard, the pay is lousy and the bathroom and lunchroom are filthy. He said he wasn’t afraid of being attacked since he was thinking about quitting the job anyway. But the comrades struggled with him to stay and carry out the fight in order to build the Party. "We can’t win the confidence of the workers only by starting struggles. We have to finish them," said one comrade.
To build a mass Party, we must become seriously involved in the mass movements in the factories and the neighborhoods. This discussion motivated us and gave us more confidence in our communist analysis. We feel that building the Party isn’t a "heavy load." It’s a privilege to serve the working class.
A comrade
a name="Pro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers">">"ro-Student Flier A Hit With UFT’ers
Many PLP teachers organized for, and led teachers and other staff at a NYC United Federation of Teachers (UFT) contract rally on November 16. We distributed thousands of fliers, adapted from a CHALLENGE article, calling for pro-student demands in our contract. Many of us and our co-workers carried pro-student signs.
UFT’ers grabbed our flier. The response was terrific! While the union leadership organized teachers around their own self-interest, most educators are frustrated by our miserable working conditions and care terribly about our students. Many, especially the black and Latin workers, know first-hand how this system is destroying our young people. When push comes to shove, they want more than just money. The Party was the only group we saw with a pro-student, not just an "our-money" political line.
Now we must ensure that we don’t lose the opportunity this rally has afforded us as we immerse ourselves in the union struggles in our schools, and in our mass organizations.
A Brooklyn Teacher
a name="Crack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans">">"rack Down on Bosses’ Fascist Plans
A recent CHALLENGE article (11/29), "They Want To Control These Kids," reported how parents and teachers in our PLP study group are planning an offensive against the rampant drugging of our youth. Parents shared stories of their own children being "mis-labeled" with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and given harmful medication. We linked this to growing war and fascism.
At the next session, a new parent from our elementary school joined us. We also invited a guest speaker, a NYC social worker and active member of the Coalition Against the Violence Initiative (CAVI). She linked the rampant diagnosis of children as having so-called hyperactive and violent disorders to the long history of Biological Determinism. This fascist "theory" says human behavior and our social existence are primarily genetic or biological and have nothing to do with capitalism.
One parent said, "They've been trying to blame us for our problems for years." Another added, "It's easier to say it's genetic and give people drugs than to look at the whole system….It's the system that's the problem."
Everyone took more than one copy of CHALLENGE and agreed to show our article to a friend. They also took a copy of CAVI's petition against The Violence Initiative and agreed to circulate it among their friends and co-workers.
We agreed the petition would: (1) help spread this issue in a mass way and help build our group, and (2) spark conversations about the fascist nature of capitalism and why its rulers want to drug our children. We also agreed to find out how many children are, in fact, being given medication for any form of "behavioral/emotional disorder" at our school. Six parents and one teacher attended this PLP study group. We're trying to involve more teachers.
Everyone will also be asked to buy a subscription to CHALLENGE and consider joining PLP. Only a communist world, committed to the needs of the working class, will end the fascist terrorizing of our youth. We will report our progress in a future issue.
A Bronx Elementary School Teacher
New Voices, Old Songs
When John Sweeney’s "New Voices" slate captured the AFL-CIO leadership in 1995, it promised big changes. But the same people are paying the piper, and the "new voices" are singing the same old tunes.
Along with vowing to reinvigorate the national labor movement, Sweeney’s group promised a new, internationalist foreign policy. No longer would the AFL-CIO relations with unions in other countries be based on mindless anti-communism and slavish devotion to the interests of U.S. multi-nationals. They set up the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS or just the "International Center") under Barbara Shailor.
Shailor, the Machinists’ International Affairs director, can talk the talk. She said the Sweeney group was "beginning a new fight for workers’ rights across the globe" against a reborn "brutal 19th century capitalism" supported by "repressive states."
We all know what’s happened domestically. Sweeney & Co. made some changes, but class struggle trailed far behind getting out the vote for Al Gore.
However, internationally the AFL-CIO continues to work hand-in-glove with the State Department, the CIA, and other "non-governmental" ruling class organizations, except with attractive new gloves.
A Discredited History
Sweeney’s International Center replaces the four regional institutes through which the AFL-CIO used to conduct its overseas operations. But the institutes have not been forgotten by millions of workers who saw them destroy their unions, their livelihoods, and the lives of families, friends and leaders.
The American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), covering AFL-CIO activities in Latin America, was typical. The AIFLD was established in 1962 under the Kennedy administration in response to the Cuban revolution and the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Its board of directors joined then AFL-CIO president George Meany with United Fruit’s Peter Grace, Chase Manhattan’s David Rockefeller and a flock of other corporate and high-level henchmen.
The CIA/AIFLD masterpiece was the overthrow of the Allende govenment by the Pinochet fascists, who then murdered tens of thousands of leftists, union leaders and ordinary workers in Chile. The AIFLD was dedicated neither to democracy nor even to "acceptable" unionism, but simply to extending the rule of U.S. imperialism.
Many of the Institute’s projects seemed harmless: training labor leaders in leadership and academic research about the union movements in different countries. But many of the "trainees" were simply being bribed while others were recruited as agents. And the information gathered by harmless researchers wound up in CIA hands and were passed on as hit lists to fascist death squads.
Under New Management
How exactly is Sweeney’s new International Center fighting for "workers’ rights" against "brutal capitalism" and "oppressive states"? Not so easy to find out. The Center itself has no website and there’s practically nothing about it on the AFL-CIO site. Somewhat suspicious since this kind of political work is central to the AFL-CIO mission—both internationally and domestically.
The U.S. government, however, can tell us a lot about the Center’s activities because it’s paying for them. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is currently funding Center programs in dozens of countries—Cuba, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Caribbean, Bangladesh, Egypt, South Africa, the Philippines, Burma, Croatia, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, India, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Serbia and Russia. These are the same kinds of programs the same government agency once paid the supposedly discredited AFL-CIO regional institutes to carry out.
One of these grants alone was for $45 million. The goals include promoting "political and economic liberalization"—neo-liberalism—which the AFL-CIO is supposedly against!
The USAID website itself makes it clear that workers in other countries don’t believe there’s any difference between the old and the "new" AFL-CIO. The page reporting on the Cuba programs admits that.
Apparently, the source of funding for these Cuba programs has caused some union representatives to back off active participation in the Center’s Cuba initiatives.
The Center is even taking money (at least $4 million) from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), infamous for its support of the Nicaraguan contras and the El Salvador death squads. The NED now says the International Center is one of its four "core institutes" in the area of labor, open markets and political party development. One of the NED directors is Thomas R. Donahue—Lane Kirkland’s successor as President (for a few months) of the AFL-CIO. Donahue was the leading "old voice" defeated by Sweeney.
The AFL-CIO committee which established the International Center recommended it be funded "without government supervision," pointing out that the old regional institutes got a lot of their money from USAID and NED. This recommendation was quietly buried with no discussion. And not a peep of protest from any of the "New Voices"!
Clearly, any real "New Voices" will have to come from a communist-led rank and file that sets its sites on smashing imperialism and imperialism’s agents in the labor movement.
(Information from: "On Building An International Solidarity Movement," by Judy Ancel, Labor Studies Journal, Summer 2000, p. 26; Council on Foreign Relations website; Taking Care of Business, by Paul Buhle)
AFL-CIA Labor Buddies Exposed in Venezuela
Workers in Venezuela are suffering the fruits of many decades of union sellouts. For years, the main union federation (CTV) sold workers down the river. While the hacks, allied with the two main capitalist parties—COPEI and AD (Christian-Democrats and Social-Democrats)—lived la dolce vita, imitating the corrupt politicians, workers’ wages and working conditions declined.
The CTV union hacks also served the interests of U.S. imperialism and its junior partners in the AFL-CIO. The book "Workers of the World Undermined" by Beth Simms, reports that, "In Nicaragua, the Confederation of Trade Union Unity and its allies in the Permanent Workers Congress [CRT] received NED [National Endowment for Democracy] support through the AFL-CIA’s AIFLD [American Institute for Free Labor Development] for their anti-Sandinista activities prior to the Feb. 1990 election. As part of these efforts, a ‘special cadre training program’ was conducted for ‘selected’ CRT leaders. They attended classes in political action and voter participation at the George Meany Center in Maryland and the Labor University of the Venezuelan Labor Federation (CTV) in Caracas."
Now nationalist President Chavez is using the discredited reputation of the union hacks to "democratize" the union movement by "demolishing the CTV." His plan includes a December 3rd referendum to build a new union federation following the ideals of his "Bolivarian revolution" (Simon Bolívar led the war of independence against Spanish colonialism in several South American countries).
Chavez wants to build a base among workers for his brand of capitalism. In spite of his nationalist rhetoric—even selling oil to Fidel Castro, partially using a barter system—Chavez’s government hasn’t touched foreign investments in Venezuela. It keeps on paying the foreign debts to imperialist banks while capitalism still makes life miserable for workers.
The lesson workers? Don’t ally with any capitalist politicians or union hacks.
- CAPITALISM IS THE FRAUD
- `EVIL' YES, `LESSER' NO
- Did Clinton-Gore Racist Crime Law Cost Gore the White House?
- DOGFIGHT OVER RUSSIA POLICY AND CASPIAN OIL
- New Bi-Partisan Commission Shows All Rulers Are Gearing Towards War, Fascism
- Electoral circus: Dead Man Voting
- D.C. METRO DRIVERS TAKE ON WAGE PROGRESSION AND ANTI-COMMUNISM
- Parents, Teachers, Students Agree: Guards Out!
- Pro-Student Demands Needed In Teacher Contract Talks
- Things Are Heating Up at Wingate HS
- Howard Students Tell Off `Justice' Dept. Hack
- MEN OF HONOR Dishonors Anti-Racist Struggle
- LETTERS
- `THEY WANT TO CONTROL THESE KIDS'
- POSTAL WORKERS STRUGGLE OVER VOTING
- Red-baiting--The Last Refuge of Racist Scoundrels
- Teachers Want to Fight for Their Students
- Israeli Soldier's Refusal to Fight Sparks GI Debate
- Capitalism Causes Domestic Abuse
- SEIU Does the Bosses Work
- Electoral Cynicism vs. Revolutionary Optimism
- CHALLENGE COMMENT:
EDITORIAL
CAPITALISM IS THE FRAUD
The wrangling over the presidential election provides an important lesson in the Marxist philosophy dialectical materialism. The major bosses are strategically united in their commitment to the profit system and to maintaining U.S. imperialism's top-dog status. This unity is the main aspect of their relationship with each other. However, the rulers in the Bush and Gore camps also have serious tactical differences, based on particular competing interests. For the moment, these differences are in the forefront, proving that in politics, as in everything else, secondary aspects of a contradiction can for a time become primary, under certain conditions.
Workers need to understand all aspects of this situation. Ignoring these differences would be a mistake. Both sides in this bosses' dogfight are vying for mass support. Workers' class interests lie with neither one. Our Party's key interest remains and will remain building a revolutionary communist party--the PLP--that can overthrow the entire profit system and replace it with a society based not on the profit motive but rather on meeting workers' needs.
The current Bush-Gore stalemate reflects the profit system's inability to solve many of the contradictions it creates. The rulers are one class with certain identical interests. When they were threatened with a major enemy, a superpower like the former Soviet Union, the big bosses tried to submerge their differences or put them on hold and unite in an anti-communist crusade. Often when workers conduct militant--sometimes armed--struggle at home, even for reform demands, when the latter greatly threaten profits, the rulers put aside their disagreements and ruthlessly unleash the full force of their state power to smash strikes and rebellions. And then they sometimes disagree on how to smash the workers. But they recognize that the contradiction between capitalists and workers is sharper than any internal division within the capitalist class
In the absence of such revolutionary upsurge or class struggle, the same rulers can enjoy the luxury of competing among themselves. We shouldn't forget that their present ability to squabble internally is based on the working class's momentary weakness and passivity--and we should draw the correct conclusions.
THE WHITE HOUSE: A TREASURE TROVE
The presidency is a huge prize for the clique that controls it. Thousands of careers are at stake, from cabinet posts to Supreme Court and federal judgeships to appointments in the federal bureaucracy. Workers may not care who gets to reap this profit bonanza, but obviously the bosses do. Important partisan interests underlie the Bush-Gore camps' dueling press conferences over the Florida vote recount.
The presidency controls hundreds of billions of dollars in federal money and can award juicy contracts to competing firms in every area from military equipment to environmental protection. The forces behind Clinton didn't completely resolve many disputes with their opponents after defeating them tactically in the impeachment brawl.
One large unsettled matter concerns the future of domestic oil production. Like his father, Bush represents a shaky coalition that includes oil barons in the Eastern Establishment, the domestic oil companies and BP Amoco--Exxon Mobil's main energy rival within the oil "family"--as well as international oil equipment giant Halliburton. Permanently satisfying both sides is an impossible job. Whoever controls the U.S. presidency can use it to weaken their rivals.
For example, a big bone of contention is the potential energy windfall in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). Despite Clinton's recent release of some Alaskan crude as a tactical bone to domestic oil interests, the Rockefeller/Exxon Mobil forces, which generally backed Gore, want to maintain ANWR oil as a strategic reserve in case of war. The BP Amoco-Halliburton gang want to pump this oil for their own commercial gain. When Bush picked former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheyney as his running mate, he raised BP Amoco's hopes by promising to open the ANWR. However, by late September, the Bush camp had toned down this pledge and was calling for opening only 8% of ANWR to "environmentally responsible exploration." Evidently, this compromise satisfies neither BP Amoco-Halliburton nor the Exxon Mobil crew.
An even bigger bone of contention is U.S. imperialism's approach towards Russia's growing influence in the Caspian and Balkan regions (see article, "Dogfight over Russia Policy,"). And the partisan rivalry between the two camps also has an important cultural and ideological aspect which goes beyond even oil politics and the spoils system (see article, "Culture Wars,").
BUILDING PLP: BEST WAY TO NEGATE ALL THE RULERS
The fighting for partisan advantage between the Bush and Gore camps may continue for at least a while. Perhaps it will sharpen. Sooner or later, however, either the two factions will reach a settlement or else one side will force the other into submission. Our class must not be fooled into backing either camp. Both mean death and misery for us.
The universal laws of dialectics are at work in this process, as in every other. Opposites are locked in both unity and conflict. The secondary has temporarily become primary. The positions will once again reverse themselves. Quantity has led to quality: the tiny number of votes separating the two candidates led directly to the current fighting. The fighting will be negated--new unity, with some persistent conflict--as Clinton's Hart-Rudman Commission's hidden agenda becomes increasingly public and U.S. imperialism carries out the deadly policies it must implement to square off with its international rivals.
But dialectics isn't limited to internal struggle among bosses. It also governs the growth of our Party and the working class movement. In the class struggle, we are clearly the secondary aspect--for the time being. But we can keep our eye on the ball. We can keep exposing the class enemy and use the knowledge we gain as a weapon to sharpen the struggle against all bosses and build the PLP. We can make quantity turn into quality. As war spreads and fascism intensifies, we can win growing numbers to communism. This will remain our job, regardless of who wins the Bush-Gore wrestling match. And our Party will do its job.
`EVIL' YES, `LESSER' NO
Racism, even more than religion, is the front line of the "culture war" between the bosses backing Bush and Gore. Millions of people, including a large number of black workers, voted for Gore as an alternative to the Bush camp's open racism. This is a mistake. There is no "lesser evil" here--only evil.
Bush and the Republicans are flagrant racists, who appeal to--and try to expand--a base of bigotry. It's no accident that the racist lynching of James Byrd occurred in Bush's Texas. Bush & Co. put a fig leaf on their racism by giving the limelight to black advisors like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. This is a thin cover for the truth.
The liberal Democrats sing the same tune in a less easily recognizable key. Gore & Co. pose as the "protector" of black and Latin workers but have consciously enacted a succession of brutally racist policies. In the last eight years, the Clinton-Gore White House has led, and collaborated with, Republicans to:
- End welfare and drive millions of mainly women workers into slave-labor Workfare and low-wage jobs;
- Expand the criminal "justice" system and criminalize the unemployment of black and Latino working-class youth;
- Unleash 100,000 racist cops on the streets and give them a license to engage in racist profiling as well as the regular murder of unarmed black people;
- Double the prison population and developed an extensive slave labor program in prisons, under which tens of thousands of workers earn as little as 20cents an hour making profits for private corporations;
- Institute Operation Gatekeeper, turning the Mexico-California border into a virtual cemetery, causing the death of several hundred workers in just a few years.
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When the Hart-Rudman Commission's recommendations begin to take effect, the Clinton-Gore years may come to be known as the "good old days." But the groundwork for U.S.-style fascism has been laid by a liberal Democratic presidency. Between one boss and another, there is no "lesser evil." Workers should never rely on capitalist politicians. With "friends" like these, who needs enemies...
Did Clinton-Gore Racist Crime Law Cost Gore the White House?
If Gore loses Florida--and the Presidency--it may not be because of vote fraud or Nader but rather because the Clinton-Gore Administration jailed the very people who would probably have voted for Gore if they hadn't lost their voting rights after being imprisoned for non-violent "offenses." (In most countries, non-violent offenders are "sentenced" to community service/drug treatment/small fines.) In the U.S., one loses voting rights if convicted of a crime, and most lose it even after serving their time.
There are 4.2 million current prisoners or ex-offenders who can't vote. Of that total, 1.8 million are black. Thirteen percent of all black men over 18 have been disenfranchised.
In Florida, one of three black men can't vote because of "criminal records." They are part of the 800,000 increase in prisoners in the U.S. occurring during the past eight years of Clinton-Gore and their "tough-on-crime" law that has put hundreds of thousands of black men behind bars. They have been imprisoned in far greater proportions than whites because of racist sentencing, for possession of minute amounts of crack-cocaine or because of defective legal defense or because of outright frame-ups by racist big-city police forces. (The current LAPD scandal is just the latest example.)
Black people voted overwhelmingly Democratic. So the tens of thousands of black men in Florida that might have voted for Gore couldn't because Clinton-Gore crime policies jailed them.
It is the liberal Democrats who have enforced this fascist criminal INjustice system. It is ironic that the very black people who have been their principal victims vote for them as the "lesser evil." However, the rulers' use of racism and racist terror (including the prison system), may have boomeranged, to possibly cost Gore the White House.
DOGFIGHT OVER RUSSIA POLICY AND CASPIAN OIL
A big bone of contention between the Gore and Bush camps is U.S. imperialism's approach toward Russia's growing influence in the Caspian and Balkan regions. Remember how the presidential campaign was slumbering along in October, when Bush foreign policy advisor Condoleeza Rice dropped a bombshell by saying that the U.S. should withdraw troops from the Balkans and focus on the Persian Gulf? Well, Rice is a director of Chevron oil, which just gobbled up Texaco. And although Chevron's main interest is to hold on to Persian Gulf crude supplies, Chevron Texaco also has a growing position in the Caspian.
In partnership with Russian companies, Chevron is building a pipeline to export oil from Kazakhstan through Russian territory. The buyout of Texaco increases Chevron's Caspian stake. When Clinton's Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson, traveled to Kazakhstan to bless this deal, the trip reflected "a subtle change in American policy. The United States no longer cares how Kazakh and Russian oil gets to market. American interest in the region has shifted from thwarting Russian hegemony to ensuring the oil makes it to market soon and American firms don't get trampled in the process" (Stratfor, 8/26/00).
This shift, spearheaded by the Bush camp but somewhat supported as well by the Clinton White House, can't sit too well with Eastern Establishment forces who view Russia as a long-term enemy and who, like Cold War guru George Kennan, warn against "trading with the enemy."
Cheney and Bush advisor James Baker, who was Papa Bush's Secretary of State during the 1991 Gulf War, both represent interests that stand to profit from an accommodation with Russian bosses. Halliburton has been serving Russian oil companies since 1991. Last year it formed an alliance with Moscow-based Tyumen Oil. Although Baker is an heir to Exxon and Chase Manhattan millions, he's got a foot in two camps. Like the Bushes, he tries to promote the impossible feat of promoting all U.S. oil firms. Baker's Houston law firm, Baker & Botts, represents a partnership known as the Azerbaidzhan International Operating Company (AIOC). Dominated by BP Amoco, Unocal and Russian oil firms, with Exxon holding a minor stake, AIOC pumps hundreds of thousands of barrels a day in formerly Soviet Azerbaidzhan.
So although both a Gore and a Bush White House would want to keep the guns focused on protecting access to Middle Eastern oil and agree on getting rid of Saddam Hussein, they differ sharply on major related aspects of foreign policy. Ultimately, the rulers will have to resolve this difference one way or another. Russian bosses, also significantly involved, can't indefinitely collaborate with U.S. energy barons in the Caspian and at the same time compete with them over the control of Iraqi oil. Eventually that conflict will also have to be resolved.
Gore agent in Florida, Warren Christopher, a former Secretary of State, has his feet more firmly in the Exxon Mobil camp than Bush agent Baker. Christopher's Los Angeles law firm, O'Melveny & Meyers, is Exxon's chief West Coast mouthpiece. Christopher was also on the original Rockefeller-established Trilateral Commission and served as vice-chair of Rockefeller's Council on Foreign Relations.
So the conflict over policy towards Russia can lead to further fights until one side wins out or temporary compromises are worked out.
New Bi-Partisan Commission Shows All Rulers Are Gearing Towards War, Fascism
The more objective members of the ruling class recognize the need for strategic unity with each other. As the election fight proves, achieving it isn't so easy. But forces on both sides have a limited ability to see beyond their own noses, as shown when, in 1998, the Clinton White House formed a bi-partisan "U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century." This group's composition is striking. It's known as the Hart-Rudman Commission, after former Democratic Senator Gary Hart and former Rep. Senator Warren Rudman. Eastern Members include Establishment regulars like Rockefeller agents Andrew Young and Leslie Gelb (former NY TIMES editor and head of Rockefeller's Council on Foreign Relations). Significantly, so is Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House Speaker who had to leave electoral politics with his tail between his legs after losing the Clinton impeachment fight. This group clearly includes representatives of the top factions of the big bosses.
Most important are this commission's findings. It warns: "Americans are less secure than they believe themselves to be." It predicts that U.S. soil will become "increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack" and that "large numbers" of U.S. citizens may die at the hand of unnamed "terrorists." It says that such an attack--and only such an attack--is likely to encourage the "American people to be ready to sacrifice blood and treasure." It worries about the military's inability to recruit and retain adequate personnel and also about the "growing distance between America and its military." It estimates that the United States "will be called upon frequently to intervene militarily in a time of uncertain alliances." It makes clear that the defense of Persian Gulf oil is crucial to U.S. imperialist interests.
The commission's findings are wide ranging and complex. Future issues of CHALLENGE will try to analyze all of them. One thing is absolutely clear, however, from the points cited above. Leading U.S. ruling class forces on both sides of the present Bush-Gore spectacle understand they must come together to prepare U.S. society for a long series of wars. They go further, by implying that the only way to mobilize the population to make the necessary sacrifices is to endure--perhaps even to provoke--a major catastrophe on U.S. soil that can be blamed on U.S. enemies.
The plot thickens when the Hart-Rudman crowd reveal the first elements of their plan for preparing this scenario. It is nothing short of full-scale fascism. Here is the blueprint: "Traditional national security agencies (State, Defense, CIA, NSC staff) will need to work together in new ways, and economic agencies (Treasury, Commerce, U.S. Trade Representative) will need to work more closely with the national security community. In addition, Justice and Transportation will need to be integrated more fully into national security processes" (italics ours--Ed).
The quotations above come from the Hart-Rudman's "Phase II" document. "Phase III" is due for release in March 2001, when presumably the new president will have had time to digest it. But the outlines confirm what CHALLENGE has been saying: all the major bosses are deadly serious about militarizing society, disciplining their own ranks, subduing the working class by all available means and preparing for several kinds of war. Gingrich's presence on the commission shows that the BP Amoco-Halliburton gang basically endorses this agenda. The Eastern Establishment backs it to the hilt. Jon Corzine, the Democrat stockbroker billionaire who just paid $65 million to buy himself a New Jersey Senate seat, said early in the campaign: "I would hold off on any major new defense contracts until the Hart-Rudman Commission...finishes its report and makes its recommendations" (public policy address, Feb. 22, 2000).
Despite all differences, U.S. rulers are "bi-partisan" when it comes to preparing for fascism and war.
Electoral circus: Dead Man Voting
Among other things, this election reveals the total bankruptcy of the bosses' supposed "democracy." The whole thing comes down to a handful of votes in Florida, and Florida is notorious for the dishonesty of its elections, as the media have pointed out repeatedly. But Florida is hardly alone, and the 2000 election is hardly a precedent-setter for crooked dealings at the polls.
In 1960 Kennedy's Illinois electoral machine stole votes in Cook County by registering a large number of corpses. The head of that operation was the late Chicago Mayor Daley, who just happens to have been the father of Gore's present campaign manager.
Electoral fraud and intimidation at the polls are as old as the U.S. electoral process itself. We shouldn't be surprised. The fact is that when the bosses fight, they fight dirty, even kill each other (Lincoln, McKinley, Kennedy). The current Gore-Bush recount exposes the U.S. "human rights" act abroad as a stinking exercise in hypocrisy.
D.C. METRO DRIVERS TAKE ON WAGE PROGRESSION AND ANTI-COMMUNISM
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 14--The battle for the leadership of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 is in full swing. The usual cast of crooks and sellouts are prancing about promising many good things, but the membership is not optimistic. The bright spot in this muddy field is PLP member Mike Golash, running for Financial Secretary as a revolutionary communist.
Mike is a 25-year veteran of union battles and was a leader of the dramatic 1978 wildcat strike. He has presented a clear program of struggle for the union, not empty promises. The fight over wage progression tops the list. Recently in San Francisco, MUNI transit workers with PLP's communist leadership, cut wage progression from 36 to 18 months. What's more, workers rejected nationalism and anti-communism, and became more involved in the revolutionary movement.
The fight to reduce or abolish wage progression is part of reversing the attack on younger workers, who do the same job as veteran drivers, but for $11.59/hour instead of $22.66. It takes eight years to reach the top rate. Years ago, when the older workers were mainly white and the younger ones mainly black, the fight against wage progression was an anti-racist struggle. Now almost all of the senior workers are black so the bosses divide us by age. They continue to use racist divisions by hiring mostly white technicians in the rail divisions versus black drivers in the bus division.
Mike is bringing national and global issues to the union's agenda, like police brutality, racist sterilization, the battle against sexism and the threat of imperialist war. These issues are every bit as critical--and even more critical--to the lives of union members than the usual "bread and butter" issues on the job.
The anti-communist candidate running against Mike claims that the Landrum-Griffith Act makes it illegal for communists to hold union office. Workers are turning a deaf ear to this red-baiting. Hundreds of Local 689 members have read CHALLENGE many times over the years and support Mike as an incorruptible representative of their interests.
A campaign committee of regular CHALLENGE readers and distributors is holding meetings throughout the Metro transit system. The real challenge, however, is winning workers to embrace the goal of communist revolution. Any gains made in day-to-day struggle can be reversed in an instant as long as the bosses hold power, and organize society for their profits instead of the needs of the working class. As young drivers get active in the campaign, the future will be bright for PLP and the revolutionary movement.
Parents, Teachers, Students Agree: Guards Out!
NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 11 -- Efforts by Party members and friends at one alternative high school here are paying off. CHALLENGE sales have risen to 30 an issue. At least five people are distributing them. The Student Council (SC) has been revived and is addressing serious issues. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) chapter has begun meeting regularly about the upcoming contract negotiations. The Parent Association is grappling with the issues of space, staff and security. At least five people are meeting to discuss the Party's work and the coming struggle to strengthen it.
Recently at a club meeting we discussed mobilizing students to join with teachers at the UFT November 16 City Hall demonstration. One student friend of the Party led the SC meeting last week.
She proposed that students join with the teachers to argue for contract demands that are pro-student and parent as well as good for teachers. These include smaller class sizes, more teachers, more schools, better salaries for newer teachers, no increase in the length of the school day and a shorter time to reach top salaries. Several students pledged to come to City Hall.
In October a parent meeting agreed to a resolution supporting these demands and earlier last week the School Leadership Team agreed also. The UFT leadership has often rejected making the fight for smaller classes and more space, or better salaries for new teachers part of this contract fight. On top of this, an increase in School Security was met by a growing SC insistence that the new Principal keep Security out of school corridors.
The school occupies one floor of a junior high school building. Until recently, school security guards maintained a very low profile. Now they're in the hall all the time. Teachers already told the Principal at a School Leadership meeting that we want less, not more security in the school. The parents at the meeting readily agreed.
This school recently became a training center for guards but many students, parents and teachers want no part of this. One student reminded the Principal and an Assistant Principal that "young African-American men are constantly harassed by the racist NYPD." The School Security Agents have recently been using whistles in the halls to signify period change. The students at the meeting rejected the Principal's explanations. Students are also angry at Security's attempts to move them away from the street in front of the building.
As a result, the Principal has called a meeting with the students, staff and the security force to iron out the problem. But students and teachers are not likely to back down from their opposition to security forces on the school's floors. For the next few months, Party members and friends plan to focus on racism and the UFT leadership's collusion with the Board of Education bosses. While doing this we hope to clarify the need for people to join the Progressive Labor Party and make the struggle against capitalism the center of our work.
Pro-Student Demands Needed In Teacher Contract Talks
NEW YORK, Nov. 11--Schools under capitalism can never serve the working class. They will always be ruling class tools until we organize a revolution. However, we can do a lot right now to teach the working class and stimulate class struggle in the schools. We can put forward demands that will: (1) benefit students and their learning about the world; (2) expose the lies of capitalism; and (3) train working-class youth, their parents and teachers to build a movement to take power and build a communist society.
The teachers' union (UFT) leadership has made its anti-student outlook clear. Contract demands focus on more money for teachers and more school security, creating divisions between teachers and students. Their "Contract Goals" include creating streamlined procedures for removing students from class and suspending them.
PLP see things differently. By simply demanding money for themselves and attacking students, teachers can never win the support of parents and other workers that could win substantial improvements in wages and learning conditions. We have to fight for demands that large numbers of students and parents will rally around.
We want to use the teachers' contract to fight for student needs. We propose meeting with student, parent and teacher groups to put forward pro-student demands around the following issues:
1. CURRICULUM: Our goal is for students to understand and change their world. We can teach and argue for a scientific view of the world and teach dialectical materialism in a popular way. We can argue for science, for deeper study, for interrelationship among disciplines, for tackling controversial issues, for high-level skills. In this age of globalization, we need to teach about the nature of imperialism and the coming oil wars for profit. We can fight against racism and for internationalism. We can attack the one-sided, pro-imperialist nature of the curriculum, find specific examples and teach based on simple formulas.
2. MORE TEACHERS, REDUCE CLASS SIZE, IMPROVE CONDITIONS: Class sizes are too big for meaningful instruction. Black and Latin students often- fail because they are crammed into overcrowded classes. Instead of fighting for more teachers, the union is ready to accept a longer workday. We need more building space, well-maintained schools and access to books and technology.
3. RACISM: NYC students are the targets of racism, from their inferior education to the fascist rules in the schools. The ruling class is content if many students learn very little, since the bosses have no future for them except unemployment, prison or low-wage jobs. Some are needed to work in a factory, hospital or city agency. We should expose the racism inherent in the schools: fascist security, lack of access to technology, crumbling buildings, poorly trained teachers and especially the inadequate curriculum.
4. COPS OUT OF SCHOOLS: We demand schools, not jails. Racist police brutality is a feature of daily life for students, both in school and in the community. Black and Latin students are "racially profiled" and harassed. Students are arrested or "written up" by the police for mouthing off, or less! This racist terror is part of the climate of rising fascism, and military discipline in preparation for war. We say NO WAY!
5. DON'T BLAME STUDENTS FOR SOCIAL PROBLEMS: Literally millions of our students--and many adults, including teachers--are on anti-psychotic/behavioral drugs. Capitalist health care has an anti-working class outlook that says, "These students are damaged; there's nothing you can do." This has spawned mass drugging to physiologically "teach" students to be passive. The ruling class pushes drugs to blunt the class struggle. Instead of more drugs, we need more pro-student social workers and counselors to help students experiencing social problems.
6. BUILD STUDENT/TEACHER/PARENT UNITY: The best way for students, teachers and parents to get results and respect is to organize together and fight back. We should expose the dead-end, self-defeating narrow trade union outlook that ends up blaming students and parents for the problems caused by capitalism.
We are organizing groups of students and parents to advance these pro-student demands. This is how we can all "Fight to Learn-Learn to Fight!" We can recruit these working-class fighters to our Party and to see these demands as part of building the revolutionary movement. To change the world, we need to learn to read and write, compute and analyze. By teaching basic skills and the truth about capitalist oppression, we are fighting for the future of our class.
Things Are Heating Up at Wingate HS
BROOKLYN, NY, Nov. 13--Things are heating up again at Wingate H.S. as teachers, parents and students participate in the growing movement here about cutbacks and administration mismanagement. The battle lines are clearly being drawn as militant teachers, including PLP members, make our voices heard in the schools.
Our union chapter has just voted to remove the principal. Over 120 teachers signed a telegram stating our outrage at the miserable conditions our students must face. At the same time, parents are beginning to organize in the PTA. PLP is also organizing in the student government and other school clubs to fight back.
This parent-teacher-student unity is the key to fighting racist school conditions.
Howard Students Tell Off `Justice' Dept. Hack
WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 11 -- The militant Oct. 25 demonstration by Howard University students at the Justice Department forced Bill Lee, chief of the Department's Civil Rights Division, to appear at the school's campus to discuss the Prince Jones issue. Prince Carmen Jones, Jr. was the Howard student murdered by a Prince George's County cop who pumped six bullets into his back. The cop was not indicted locally so the family and supporters demanded the Justice Department investigate the case for civil rights violations (i.e., the cop may have violated Prince's "civil rights"--by killing him!).
In a carefully staged presentation (the audience had to pass written questions to a panel), Lee explained how "difficult" it would be for the Justice Department to make such a case against killer cop Carlton Jones. He said first that excessive force had to be proven, and then "intention" had to be shown. In other words, if the cop "panicked" and killed Prince unjustifiably, he still could not be prosecuted for civil rights violations.Finally, Lee noted that in all the successful prosecutions of cops by the Justice Department, only the fellow cops' testimony against the suspected cop led to convictions. Lee said this was rare. He also told the students not to expect a speedy federal investigation. Indeed, since Lee will probably be replaced shortly by a new administration, the case could easily end up on hold.
Students were impatient with Lee's legal mumbo-jumbo. They understood that he was telling them little, if anything, would be done through the system. One question put to Lee concerned an earlier case in the same County. Archie Elliot, a man stripped to his shorts, hands cuffed behind his back and in a police car, was gunned down by the cops with the excuse that he "had a gun secreted in his undershorts"!
Why had the Justice Department failed to prosecute that case? Lee said they had created a simulation/reenactment and discovered it was "possible" for Elliot to have had a gun as the cop had said. (No gun was found.) Lee also noted that no police officer had offered any testimony against the murdering cop, who, incidentally, has gone on to shoot other "suspects." One angry student declared that if the Justice Department didn't deliver an indictment and conviction of the murdering cop in the Prince Jones case in a timely way, there would be "big trouble." The student, referring to the rebellions following the Rodney King case, said, "I'm from LA, and we know how to riot." After this provocative comment, Lee scurried off to a press conference while students remained to discuss the next steps in the struggle.PL members at the event continued to circulate communist leaflets showing how this murder is an example of why capitalism inevitably creates racism and produces racist police attacks on the working class--in order to maximize profits for boss es. It urged students to continue to build a mass movement on campus and in Prince George's County. CHALLENGE readers are urged to assist the petition campaign. For more information and a copy of the petition, go to the Justice for Prince Jones website:http://members.nbci.com/eawilli/Prince.htm.
MEN OF HONOR Dishonors Anti-Racist Struggle
"Men of Honor" is based on the true story of Carl Brashear (played by Cuba Gooding), the first black man to become a diver in the U.S. Navy. The story traces Brashear's growing up in Kentucky, the son of a sharecropper. When Brashear enlists in the Navy, his father makes him promise he'll do everything possible to not return to the hard life he's left. The Navy recruiter promises a wonderful career.
Brashear finds the vicious racism of 1950s Jim Crow in the "desegregated" Navy. He's relegated to a cook's position and punished for diving into the water during a "white" swim. After numerous thwarted attempts, he's finally allowed to report to a Navy diving school in Bayonne, New Jersey. Billy Sunday (Robert DeNiro), the nasty racist who trains the divers, is also from a sharecropping family. He, and all the diver candidates except one, let Brashear know right away he's not welcome in the school and will not survive its rigors. In the face of all the obstacles Sunday throws at him, and the other sailors' cowardly and openly racist acts, Brashear gains the grudging respect of some white sailors when he saves the life of a drowning white diver who is deserted by a particularly racist teammate; and later beats Sunday in a breath-holding contest in an all-white bar.
The school commander orders Sunday to flunk Brashear on the final diving test. Sunday sabotages Brashear, but Brashear spends nine hours in freezing cold water and completes the test. Sunday, despite his own racism, passes him but is immediately demoted and transferred by the school commander. The rest of the movie relates how Sunday returns to help Brashear fight his forced retirement from the Navy. Brashear has become a hero and has lost one of his legs while in action.
"Men of Honor" pushes the idea that the best way for a person victimized by racism to fight back is to grit your teeth and show you're a "better" person. Brashear "sucks up" all the abuse he gets. The idea of uniting with others to fight for class interests is nowhere to be found. Thus, the movie promotes the false idea that racism has been overcome in the past through "hard work," not sharp struggle.
Starting with the 1980s movie "Glory," and continuing in the 1990s with movies like "The Siege," the image of the heroic black cop or soldier who is loyal to the U.S. government has been a recurring theme. "Men of Honor" takes this to the next logical level--if Brashear could stay loyal to the military (and U.S. imperialism) despite all the intense racism, why shouldn't today's soldiers do the same?
As CHALLENGE has pointed out many times, U.S. bosses worry about just how loyal black and Latin soldiers/sailors will be when the next oil war comes. The families of many of those in the military have experienced racist unemployment, the racist imprisoning of millions of youth and racist welfare and other cutbacks. The rulers remember the militant anti-racist role played by many black and Latin soldiers in Vietnam. A major effort is being made in media and other cultural forms to admit some past racism in the military, while portraying "Today's Military" as having overcome past discrimination and segregation. The exposé of the 1943 Port Chicago mutiny and the racist attacks made by the Navy on black sailors is part of this pattern.
Despite serious weaknesses, seeing the movie with friends can spark a sharp political discussion. When soldiers, sailors and others grasp PLP's communist ideas, they will not only unite black, Latin, and white, men and women against the racism and sexism of the brass. They can be moved to refuse to fight for Exxon-Mobil's Mideast oil interests and turn their guns around for a class war on the warmakers to create a communist world.
LETTERS
`THEY WANT TO CONTROL THESE KIDS'
We are a small group of parents and teachers from an elementary school in the Bronx, N.Y. who have formed a PLP study group. Some parents in the group participated in several meetings, activities and tutoring during PLP's 2000 Summer Project.
Recently we began discussing the school system's "mis-labeling" children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and psychiatrists prescribing harmful doses of medication for this diagnosis. Two couples shared what happened to their own children taking various kinds of hyperactive medication. One couple explained, "They said our daughter needed Ritalin and gave her a dose that was too severe. She was urinating on herself and had the shakes. We took her off the medicine and will never put her on it again."
Another couple said their son was given a dose of medication that caused him to sleep for an entire day. They took their son off the drug and he improved drastically over the next 18 months. When the psychiatrist discovered what the parents had done, he called ACS (Child Services) and filed a charge of "neglect." At a recent hearing the charges were dropped. The psychiatrist later apologized but the mother told him she wouldn't accept his apology.
We know there are many such cases. Our study group began to discuss why children are being "drugged up" during this period of growing war and fascism. "They want everyone to be passive. They want a `quick fix' and they want to control these kids," one parent commented.
At our next study group, we will make a plan to deal with this attack on our children and talk about how imperialist war, police brutality and the entire capitalist system--not our children--are the real threats to society, not our children.
Bronx Parents and Teachers
POSTAL WORKERS STRUGGLE OVER VOTING
Workers at the post office where I work were devastated on election night when they thought Bush had won the presidency. It was difficult to tell my mainly black co-workers that both candidates were full of shit. Even the line, "Some rich guy will be President tomorrow" was not too popular. These workers believed a Bush victory would mean "a return to racist attacks." One worker said, "I better pay off my credit cards. I might not have a job next year." Another said, "Don't bother thinking about going back to school. Bush isn't going to give you any money for school." This was a different reaction than in past elections, where apathy and cynicism with the whole electoral process predominated.
The ruling class has targeted the same groups of workers that we as communists are trying to win. Many black workers and industrial workers were somewhat brought back into the bosses' electoral process this year. Most workers I am involved with, on and off the job, voted. Many passionately felt their future was at stake.
We have to fight harder to win our neighbors and co-workers to see that no bosses are on our side. I believe this time around many workers saw the Republicans as the ruling class and the Democrats as our allies. We must deepen our ties with our co-workers and engage them in more consistent ideological struggle, while fighting to lead them in class struggle against the bosses. This is how we can overcome these deadly illusions.
The one line that went over well was, "No matter who wins, the postal bosses will try to screw us in our new contract." I'm trying to build more of a fight around the contract while increasing the number of CHALLENGE readers and distributors.
One more point. I voted this time, to experience first-hand the process by which the bosses keep power out of the hands of the working class. You go in a booth and stick a pin through the names of the politicians who will rule over you for the next four years. I explained to my workmates that this is the opposite of how communism will work. Building a communist world to meet the needs of the working class will require the active participation of millions of workers in decision-making, all the time.
Postal Red
Red-baiting--The Last Refuge of Racist Scoundrels
The Purdue Calumet campus continues to be absorbed in discussion and debate over campus racism. Two professors who were criticized are still embarrassing themselves. One snatched a CHALLENGE from a student and kept it, and then made a fool of himself at a faculty meeting by demanding the university administration somehow "stop" people from criticizing him. The other called the New York CHALLENGE office about ten times demanding to know who was saying bad things about her! She read the CHALLENGE article to one of her classes and very emotionally begged her students to support her. These students, in a different course than the one where the conflict took place, reacted largely out of pity (and some out of fear) to express "support" for this professor.
Many people think it's funny that these two professors, with a long history of berating, humiliating and attacking students publicly, became such crybabies as soon as they were criticized at all. After all, one of them urged students to circulate a petition last year asking that three other professors be fired! The other says that the only way (presumably black) students from Gary can get into good colleges is through sports and that the new driveway on campus will make it easier for "drug dealers from Gary" to drop off their girl friends.
In addition, the school newspaper ran a letter from an ex-student and wannabe cop defending one of the professors and blaming all the protests on communists! Well, communists ARE in the forefront of many struggles against racism, but the hundreds of black, Latin and white students fighting racism are not being "used" by anyone! They understand how racism works and how it must be fought.
This struggle is about a lot more than a couple of professors. The university has many other policies forcing out minority and other working-class students. The Presidential election fiasco is presenting more opportunities to expose how corrupt capitalism is. Our next step is to increase CHALLENGE circulation and build a network of students who will consistently distribute the paper every week!
Red Student
Teachers Want to Fight for Their Students
At our school there has never been much interest in our union. Some teachers say our principal is a "good" liberal so we don't need an active chapter. Others have criticisms of the administration but have mainly fought individually.
However, a combination of lots of problems and many enthusiastic new teachers enabled us to push our chapter leader into calling a meeting in October for teachers to talk and plan without the principal. Despite the chapter leader's belief that there was little interest in a meeting, 30 teachers attended.
The discussion boiled down to one main contradiction: fighting for our students to learn or fighting against them to keep them "in line." Many teachers have been won to bad ideas about students. Some argued that we need metal detectors, that we need to follow even bad Board of Education rules, and that the school's problems would be solved by recruiting "better" students. This last idea is particularly dangerous. It says some students just can't learn, and teachers should give up on them and find the students who will "let us teach them."
The pro-student teachers argued vigorously against this position. We must see all of our students as members of our class who CAN learn and are worth fighting for. We must fight against the fascist conditions our students experience every day and teach them that they can lead the way for a new and better society that serves us all.
This meeting only touched the tip of the iceberg. We have a long way to go and a lot of plans to make to build a strong pro-student teachers' group at our school, but we have taken our first steps.
A Brooklyn, N.Y. Teacher
Israeli Soldier's Refusal to Fight Sparks GI Debate
I've been a soldier in the National Guard for some time now. My Party club leader showed me an e-mail about an Israeli soldier who refused to fight against the Palestinians. He asked me to show it to the soldiers in my unit and try to get them to write a letter of support.Later, after firing range, we were sitting around in the bus. I began talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pointing out that Israel is a U.S. pawn used to control Mid-East oil. The whole bus--front, back and center--started talking. I couldn't believe it. They all listened as I gave my views. It was exciting to see so many soldiers discussing the world situation.I tried to hammer home the idea that nationalism and religion are a dead-end for the working class. The Israeli and Palestinian bosses have convinced workers to kill each other for the Gaza strip. I brought up how Britain "gave" this land to Israel so the British could have a foot in the oil-rich Mid-East, and that the U.S. doesn't care that the Palestinians became refugees. The Arabs are paid less to do the same work and are denied full citizenship, just like black and Latin workers here. The U.S. ruling class caused this fighting, not differences in religion and nationality.
It was great that about forty soldiers participated in an open debate on the Party's ideas. The Israeli soldier who refused to fight impressed them. It forced them to face the fact that every soldier can choose whether or not to follow orders. It dispelled some of the cynicism that people won't risk their own necks to stand up for what they believe.
Afterwards, various soldiers approached me and said, "You really broke it down." They said they enjoyed talking with me because "we can disagree and we're still cool." Even the next day a soldier asked me to explain exactly what's happening between Israel and Palestine. With four other soldiers standing there we had another discussion. It was great.
I learned that in order to put forward the Party's ideas on a complex international event, a combination of reading CHALLENGE and struggling over the ideas in a collective is absolutely necessary. The CHALLENGE editorial was excellent preparation for my discussion. If we take the lead, soldiers will discuss more than just sex.
From all this, I identified two more soldiers to show CHALLENGE. Three soldiers in my unit are regular readers. Four of us eat dinner at a different person's house each month. Everyone looks forward to it and helps organize it. I am learning to use my small collective to organize and lead struggles. I need to do more then just have political debates. I must see myself as an organizer for communism.
Part-Time Soldier, Full-Time Red
Capitalism Causes Domestic Abuse
A recent letter to CHALLENGE linked domestic abuse of women to the exploitative conditions on our jobs, and capitalist society in general. Some men become abusive due to financial stress associated with providing for one's family (i.e., low pay, layoffs, speed-up), while others abuse because of uncontrolled anger, feeling powerless and alienated from society. Often there is also drug and alcohol abuse.
The relationships between men and women largely reflect the political and economic relations in society. The ruling class owns and controls the means of production and extracts profits by exploiting our labor. This entails pushing racism and sexism to keep workers divided and weak. Women and minorities are paid less and generally treated as inferiors. Women are portrayed and treated as sex objects, domestic servants and the physically and emotionally weaker gender in popular capitalist culture.
Nurturing and loving relationships exist despite all the trash heaped on us by capitalism. As communists, we struggle to promote healthy relationships. The contradictions between women and men, as well as labor and capital, will be resolved when communism rules the earth. Therefore, nothing is more satisfying and fulfilling in life than to involve ourselves in this revolutionary process to change the world.
CHALLENGE Enthusiast
SEIU Does the Bosses Work
A good friend recently wrote a letter to CHALLENGE about the Grad students at the University of Washington trying to organize a union and the administration refusing to recognize their right to bargain collectively. This letter detailed the poor response of my union, SEIU/CSA 925. Something happened at the Organizing Council which angered me enough to write my own letter.
I've been part of the union's Strike committee, hoping I could influence a leftward movement to support the Grad students in their strike and also prepare our SEIU members for our next contract battle. The Organizing Council (stewards, other active leaders and anyone the Executive Council invites) met on November 8. One agenda item was the leaflet the Strike Committee proposed sending to its members.
Our contract says we can support other strikes by respecting picket lines only if we feel our personal safety is threatened. The union lawyer strongly cautioned against this, saying it would be hard to prove one's personal safety was threatened, especially since these Grad students are having a "porous" picket line (letting people through). The line of the leaflet in dispute was a paragraph quoting the contract language.
I suggested that, after that quote, we say that the union would fully support anyone who made the "independent" decision not to cross the line. The dispute was whether or not the union would support these people. The lawyer said, "What if 3,000 people refused to cross the picket line. We would go bankrupt defending them!"
I could contain myself no longer and yelled, "Here, here!" I said it would be a GREAT thing if 3000 of our members refused to cross the line. Well, the union staff and leadership smacked me down. They not only are unwilling to support members who refuse to cross the line, but don't even think we should use this form of support. There will be nothing in the leaflet about any union support for members who refuse to cross the line.
This clarified for me once and for all the purpose of our union. I was wondering why the University had agreed to let them organize more employees (a big drive is occurring right now). Obviously, they can keep the workers quite passive/fearful and still maintain a vague façade of militancy. They are doing the bosses' work for them! I know CHALLENGE has said this in the past, but now I have seen it for myself.
At first I just wanted to leave the union altogether but I did a little internal struggling and convinced myself this would only be a victory for them. I plan to take some CHALLENGES to sell and use them to start conversations about the union's role and the need for a communist party to make a revolution so the workers are no longer misled by these fake leaders.
Red with anger and getting Redder
Electoral Cynicism vs. Revolutionary Optimism
Days are beginning to turn into weeks without a new president. The legitimacy of the electoral process is deteriorating in people's consciousness with every passing hour. While the ruling class would like us to believe that each and every vote counts, the reality of the election crisis is proving otherwise. Rather than a direct majority vote, ruling class representatives in the Electoral College actually choose the president. The exclusion of Nader from the debates, and the dependence of third parties like the Greens on federal money to buy mass media exposure, proves that the two-party system makes sure that outside reform efforts are impossible. These are a few of the factors weakening faith in the system.
Yet despite the emerging disillusionment, nowhere is it guaranteed that working people will automatically condemn capitalism--much less move towards communism. The election deadlock, the bureaucratic delay and the absurdity of the entire election coming down to a few votes in Florida is adding fuel to the alienation working people experience daily. Many of those who voted are certainly angry and want results, but many more, whether they voted or not, are accepting cynicism as an "answer" to their frustrations.
Without PLP's leadership, the working class will only become more vulnerable and susceptible to fascism, the only "solution" capitalism in crisis can provide. Fascism lives off of cynicism and political desperation. It's the responsibility of every communist to fight against this trend. The controversy over the presidential election provides us with a tremendous opportunity to move the tarnished hopes of the masses toward a communist revolution and the realization of our class interests.
The ruling class knows mass disappointment and distrust can lead to protest and rebellion. We must cast away all our illusions and prepare for the struggle awaiting us. As CHALLENGE has said, both Gore and Bush are preparing for war in the Middle East. Remember when President George Bush, Sr. bombed Iraq in 1991, his popularity ratings went through the roof. Without a mandate for either Bush or Gore, we can assume that the ruling class might take advantage of the political void and rally people behind a drive for imperialist oil war.
LA Student
CHALLENGE COMMENT:
Even if there was (and it appears there soon might be) a direct election, we would still live under the class dictatorship of the bosses. Only one class can hold power, and the capitalist state (government, courts, cops) is how they exercise their dictatorship over the workers. Also, while another imperialist oil war is brewing, it's not clear that this botched election will help the rulers win the masses. If anything, there will be mass cynicism and skepticism about whoever wins, and the rulers will fill the "political void." Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson and the AFL-CIO's Sweeney will be called on to lead the cheering section and deliver the workers for war.
