1. Conflict Among U.S. Bosses Reveal
   Liberal Rulers Want Stepped-Up Fascism
2. India-Pakistan: Imperialist War Is Fundamental (ist)
3. It's No Conspiracy--Capitalism Based on War and Terror
4. SSEU Militants Launch First Union May Day Event
5. These May Day Marchers Will Return
6. Teach-in Exposes UC-Berkeley Nuclear War `Factory'
7. Colombia's Fascist Cops Can't Stop
   May Day Marchers
8. Workers Won't Yield To Pepsi (Sweatshop) Generation
9. RACIST PROFITS GO BETTER WITH STALE COKE
10. Faculty-Student-Worker Solidarity Fights War, Cuts
11. Must Kick Out INS Recruiters
12. Real Cause of Violence Is Racist LAPD
13. U.S., European Bosses Fight Over Exploitation of Latin American Workers
14. THE FIGHT OVER CUBA
15. PUSHING NAFTA SOUTH AND THE EU OUT
16. Nationalists' Aim: Out Fox Mexico's President Over Cuba
17. Capitalism Gives a Heart Attack to Workers in China
18. U.S. Bosses Legalize Police State
19. Bosses' Courts Legitimize Witness for the Persecution
20. Workers of the World, Write!
    LETTERS
    1. `Peace Now' Politics A Dead End
    2. Protestors Dump Bosses' Flags
    3. A Clearer Definition of Racism Needed

Conflict Among U.S. Bosses Reveal
Liberal Rulers Want Stepped-Up Fascism

The liberal politicians and media, representing the Eastern Establishment, are taking Bush to the woodshed for ignoring warnings about the threat of a 9/11-type attack. He may well have been asleep at the switch. That incompetence has given the liberal wing of the ruling class the opening it needs to wrest leadership of the "war against terrorism" away from the Bush gang.

This is more than a factional dispute. Despite the partisan wrestling over the 2000 presidential election, the bosses are united on the goals of ruling the world for the foreseeable future, launching a war to seize the Iraqi oilfields and enforcing a racist police state. After 9/11, the Bush crowd got a renewed honeymoon with the liberal establishment to help launch the first phase of the imperialist oil war in Afghanistan, whip up a patriotic, pro-war frenzy and lay the foundations of the "Homeland Security" police state.

The Bush "revelations" reflect the rulers' impatience with his administration's incompetence on the home front. The Vietnam Syndrome -- the fear of workers and soldiers refusing to accept massive casualties-- still haunts the bosses. They can't afford the militant, mass, anti-imperialist protests that accompanied their Vietnam massacres. Such a movement might force them to take it over to control it and limit its goals. Otherwise they would try to crush it outright. Ruling the world requires a heavy price in workers' blood. Sure, the imperialists want to prevent al Qaeda from launching a repeat of 9/11 or worse, but more importantly they need to win, pacify, or terrorize the U.S. working class and population as a whole.

Basically, Bush has bungled the job so far. He got a terror bill passed and established a Homeland Security office. But the liberals don't think he's moved efficiently or ruthlessly enough to implement the measures they require. Specifically, they object to the following failures, outlined in a May 12 New York Times editorial:

* Bush and "domestic security" czar Ridge have no "coherent explanation" of their priorities and have failed to build class unity in Congress for changes the liberals want made.

* Ridge hasn't forced the FBI to share information with local police. The result is less than the well-oiled law enforcement machine the liberal rulers are demanding for more effective control.

* The liberals want a computerized tracking system for "suspects" and a tighter noose on international students. The main targets at the moment are undocumented immigrants, a first step providing an important opening wedge. The ultimate goal is anyone who opposes the rulers' policies. According to the Times, the tracking system has "barely gotten off the ground."

* Bible thumping, KKK-friendly Attorney General John Ashcroft is playing the same turf game as the FBI.

* Combating the threat of "bioterrorism" gives the rulers a good excuse to use health care delivery as an important means of social control. The Times criticizes Ridge for his lack of involvement and his indifference to partisan "squabbling" over control of federal healthcare grants.

When the Bush forces stole the presidency, many worried that fascism had arrived. They had a point. The U.S. ruling class has been headed toward fascism for years. But it is a serious mistake to view Bush as the "real enemy." The main danger is never the obvious bad guy, but rather the "wolf in sheep's clothing." It was the liberal Clinton, the "first black president," who carried out the most racist attack on U.S. social services in history. Similarly, it will be liberal Democrats like Daschle, Jay Rockefeller, Kennedy and Gore (along with some liberal Republicans) who implement intelligence databases, centralize all police agencies and impose fear and control through checkpoints in train stations, highways and airports. It will be the liberals who criminalize any political activity that opposes the system, from the mildest protest to more militant, revolutionary organizing.

The liberal rulers will adapt Hitler-like police state methods to U.S. conditions. They're just warming up. While the Bush crowd agrees with this goal, it hasn't much of a clue about how to implement a step-by-step program to achieve it. When the liberals go after Bush in earnest, their real target will be us, and the workers of the world. In the name of fighting terror, the biggest terrorists in history, grind down our living conditions, send our children off to kill and die in oil wars -- "for our own good" -- and jail those who oppose this.

Bush and the liberals have the same strategic purpose and the same definition of victory. Only the playbooks differ. We have different aims and tactics. Our aim is communist revolution. We measure our progress with the growth and increased influence of PLP.

India-Pakistan: Imperialist War Is Fundamental (ist)

India and Pakistan are on the verge of a major war. One million troops are massed along the border. The Indian rulers are demanding that Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, rein in the Islamic militants whose latest attack killed 32 at a Kashmir army camp. The Indian army retaliated, aiming artillery fire mainly at civilians. As usual, innocent workers and peasants are the victims when bosses go to war.

This area has been suffering a "low level" war for 50 years. The current flare-up threatens to become a major conflict involving not only these two nuclear powers, but also the U.S., China and Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists. The Muslims, helped by bin Laden's Al Qaeda, want to oust the Indian army from Kashmir, claiming it for themselves. The Hindus are itching to destroy Pakistan and wage ethnic cleansing against over 100 million Muslims living in India.

Meanwhile, Bush and Blair sent Christina Rocca and Chris Patten, representing the big warmakers in the U.S. and Britain, to try to halt a war between the warmakers in India and Pakistan. They realize such a war will advance al Qaeda's strategy, embroiling the U.S. and Britian in still more wars.

Israel is also involved: "There is a rumor that India has been advised by its ally Israel to take out Pakistan's nuclear installations so that the whole problem of Pakistan's recently acquired [nuclear] parity with India is solved once and for all." (Asia Times Online, 5/21)

The Pakistani regime, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda, is now facing what Professor Shamini Akhtar, of Karachi University's international affairs department, describes as a three-front war: "in its own tribal areas (along with U.S. troops looking for al Qaeda and Taliban forces), on its northeastern border with India, and on its domestic front, where militants are agitating against...Musharraf's alliance with the U.S." (Asia Times)

Meanwhile, China is unhappy with U.S. military expansion to bases in former Soviet republics on its border. It also resents U.S. use of its new post-9/11 alliance with Musharraf to drive a wedge between Pakistan and China. Beijing also sees India as a rival for its interests in that part of Asia. So the U.S. might have to offer China heavy concessions for its help in avoiding a major war between India and Pakistan which could upset "Phase 2" of Bush's "war on terrorism" -- invading Iraq to seize its vast oil fields.

On the eve of World War I, Lenin wrote that capitalism makes war inevitable. As wars spread worldwide, workers, soldiers and their allies internationally must understand we have to unite to smash the warmakers with communist revolution.

It's No Conspiracy--Capitalism Based on War and Terror

Conspiracy theories are running rampant worldwide about "What did Bush know and when did he know it?" Ever since 9/11, there have been bits and pieces emerging that point the finger at the CIA, the FBI and the Bush administration as either having foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks or actually plotting them or blinding themselves to the fact that they were coming.

However, what many of these exposés have in common is their attributing whatever happened or didn't happen to "the bad guys in Washington"-- to "rogue CIA operatives" or right-wing forces in and around the White House and the Pentagon. And these "bad guys" are "threatening American democracy" so "we" should never have allowed the Bushites to steal the Presidency from "the good guys"-- the Democrats.

But these "exposés" don't point the finger at the real culprit: capitalism. It's the profit system, especially its main driving force, U.S. imperialism, that creates wars, fascism, poverty, mass unemployment, racism and religious fundamentalists. This in turn produces the terrorism and the battle for control of oil that lead not only to 9/11s but to the murder of millions in fights between imperialist bosses.

The "democracy" that the "good guys" are allegedly defending is a sham. The "good guys" -- the liberals like Kennedy, Clinton, Daschle, Carter, the New York Times, CBS and their media cohorts -- are among the main perpetrators of the oppression afflicting billions of workers worldwide. In the name of "human rights" and "spreading democracy" and "fighting terrorism," they are the biggest terrorists of all--bombing Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia, destroying Afghanistan, invading Panama, establishing dictatorships in Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador and killing five million workers and peasants in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Their next target is Iraq and Saddam Hussein who they label as "worse than Hitler," the same Saddam who they armed for eight years in his war with Iran. All this so Rockefeller's Exxon Mobil can better control Mid-East oil supplies.

So their "committees" to "investigate" who knew what when serve to mask their actions driving towards their real goal: world domination. The "good guys" only concern about "who knew what when" is to figure out how to streamline their government to overcome its staggering ineptness (see page 1) so it can better oppress the workers of the world.

SSEU Militants Launch First Union May Day Event

NEW YORK CITY, May 7 -- "It was good for the first time. Next time we'll do even better," was how numerous members of AFSCME's Social Services Employees Union (SSEU) Local 371 evaluated the local's first-ever May Day celebration. Over 100 members -- including friends and family -- attended, observing the international workers' holiday.

For many years, this local has endorsed May Day marches. This year, a resolution of the delegates (shop stewards) initiated an annual union May Day celebration!

Bringing May Day into the mass organizations has both benefits and drawbacks. On the positive side, the local's May Day publicity reached all of our 15,000 members. A committee of some 20 union members met three times to plan the dinner and program. Workers who knew little about the history of this working-class holiday learned about it from a long-time rank-and-file union leader. Committee members told us how May Day was celebrated in their country of origin. Everyone attending the dinner received a flyer printed by the union containing an excerpt from the PLP May Day pamphlet. It described how the International Workingmen's Association, organized by Karl Marx, eventually created the first international May Day celebration based on the 1886 Chicago general strike and subsequent Haymarket Massacre.

The negative aspect was the keynote speaker's message. He urged channeling political activities into the Democratic Party. He told the mainly activist audience to do what they're already doing: get involved in the day-to-day issues on their jobs. He said nothing about the revolutionary history of May Day or how it reflects the international unity and needs of the working class. Of course, he and the rest of his cohorts will continue to use Labor Day as "the workers' day," sanctioned by the bosses as a patriotic "holiday" and bereft of any working-class content.

PLP has fought hard to rebuild the celebration of May Day in the U.S. We have guaranteed that our communist ideas are heard. We can and should build the massive potential for May Day organizing in the unions and other mass organizations.

These May Day Marchers Will Return

Red flags and communist chants were witnessed by thousands in Brooklyn, NY and Los Angeles as PLP marched to celebrate May Day, the international working class holiday. In 1971 PLP revived this revolutionary tradition. Since the late 19th century, the rulers and their agents inside the labor movement have used "Labor Day" in early September to try to bury May Day. PLP's marches this year took on special significance since they occurred in an atmosphere of a growing police state and pro-war patriotism. The following letters come from participants in the Brooklyn march.

Participating in the May Day march and selling CHALLENGE papers was a new and positive experience for me. I'm very glad I had the opportunity to be a part of this holiday with such special people in NYC. I want to thank my two professors and my friends for struggling with me to come. I will definitely march and bring more people next year.

Chicago State University Student

Coming to the march was where my experience began, personally and emotionally. From the discussions that occurred on the bus ride from Chicago to New York I felt the truth of my everyday life prevail, (I know it's not just me.) It was a positive emotion. I was awakening with the truth. That's the path to recognizing now, at the age of 26, what at 18 I usually ignored.

Overall, I finally have some idea of what communism is -- that's something I've wanted to know. This march made me bolder.

Chicago Marcher

The May Day march was great! I'm definitely not the same person who got on this bus. I can honestly say I enjoyed it! It was a learning experience. I didn't know when I was asked to come on the march what it was all about. My friend gave me CHALLENGE to read a few hours before boarding the bus. I've met great people with great ideas and thoughts. I felt that the march really served its purpose, because I felt that we touched the people in New York.

First, but not last

Teach-in Exposes UC-Berkeley Nuclear War `Factory'

BERKELEY, CA.--With PLP leadership, the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition sponsored an April 10 teach-in entitled, "University of Mass Destruction" to expose how the University of California (UC) functions as a military tool.

The first speaker, from Western States Legal Foundation, explained the change in U.S. nuclear policy from the Cold War doctrine of "deterrence" to one justifying the use of smaller tactical nuclear weapons. She said that even turning Berkeley into a "Nuclear Free Zone" is meaningless since the City Council has never acted on the related laws --like refusing city contracts to institutions involved in nuclear research -- for fear of angering the UC.

The second speaker, from Tri-Valley Cares, said Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory (only 30 miles from San Francisco) produced high plutonium levels within the city of Livermore. She also revealed that the UC manages all the nuclear labs for the Department of Energy and that every U.S. nuclear weapon was designed by a UC employee.

The last speaker, a PLP member, said $42 million was given annually to UC-Berkeley by the Office of Navy Research, Army Research Office and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. The Navy's "Autonomous Operations Project" develops computer software and communication technology used in unmanned robotic military weapons like the CIA's Predator aircraft used in Afghanistan. Berkeley researchers are modeling a remote control helicopter outfitted with video cameras, global positioning technology and an on-board computer. UC is also researching the Mobile Offshore Base (MOB) comprising five aircraft carrier-sized ships linked into a mile-long runway on the ocean. This would enable B-52's to land at sea, not needing nearby airbases to conduct future wars.

The PLP member explained how the above examples were discovered with only minimal investigation, that there are probably others. He said the universities are capitalist "factories" producing weapons technology, and workers for these technology-intensive industries, amid anti-working class ideologies. Only universities run by the working class can serve workers' interests. Even eliminating UC's management of the nuclear labs wouldn't end nuclear weapons development. Capitalism will always find ways to produce more powerful weapons. The Berkeley Stop the War Coalition is a start in trying to build working-class movements and to celebrate working class holidays. He called on people to march on May Day in Los Angeles against weapons development, war, racism, poverty and for working-class power.

We distributed literature to the group and strengthened ties with our friends involved in building the teach-in.

Colombia's Fascist Cops Can't Stop
May Day Marchers

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Over 50,000 marched here on May 1 to celebrate the international working class holiday. It was organized by the union federations and other reformist organizations who used it as a rally to tie workers to the bosses' electoral circus (later this month). The revolutionary meaning of May 1, honoring the Martyrs of Haymarket Square, was buried.

The hacks are supporting Luis Eduardo Garzón, a pseudo-leftist union leader, who simply praises the bosses' "democracy" as the mantra for change. Never mind the country's raging civil war, rampant unemployment, the death squads murdering workers with the help of the U.S.-armed and -trained Colombian Army. Garzón tells workers "voting for him" is the solution.

Many workers and youth took up chants like: "Down with the electoral farce, long live the world communist revolution"; "They keep us alienated with drugs, sex and religion, only communism will liberate us"; "Terrorism and Fascism sustain capitalism"; "Let's study the cause of this madness, give up ignorance and bury capitalism"; and "Smash imperialist war with communist revolution."

Like everywhere else in Colombia, capitalist violence appeared. The cops attacked some demonstrators, there was some shootings and broken windows, and some arrests were made, making it impossible for the march to end in its traditional rally at Bolivar Square. Many protestors avoided being photographed by police agents, pictures which usually end up on the death squad hit list.

Afterwards, PLP members and friends discussed the march and our role in it, to learn from our strengths and weaknesses so as to improve our work among workers and youth. We all agreed to continue our ideological battle for communism, against all forms of reformism and opportunism, using CHALLENGE and other literature as our tools.

The road ahead is not easy, but it's the only one leading to workers' power.

Workers Won't Yield To Pepsi (Sweatshop) Generation

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA -- Shakira, Britney Spears, Shaq O'Neill, David Beckham and Sammy Sosa are among the many show biz and sports superstars used by Pepsi Cola to advertise its products. Recently it was revealed that Delia's clothes for young women, promoted by Shakira, the very popular crossover Latin singer, are manufactured in a Brooklyn, NY, sweatshop employing Latino woman. Shakira immediately canceled ties to Delia's. But dropping Pepsi altogether (as much a sweatshop-type exploiter as Delia's) is another question since Shakira's boyfriend is the son of former Argentine President De la Rua, who she has praised. He fled the Presidential palace in a chopper on Dec. 20 when hundreds of thousands surrounded it and demanded he resign. He did.

Pepsico Snacks (producers of Fritolay, Doritos, Santitas, Wow, etc.) employs about 400 workers in its Argentine plant. Seventy percent are women, including many single moms or sole breadwinners in their families. This country suffers mass unemployment stemming from the deep capitalist crisis. Many workers must toil double shifts to make ends meet.

Worse still, since January, Pepsico fired 130 workers, most of them temps. Rank-and-file union delegates charged the union leadership of siding with Pepsico throughout these attacks.

Union leaders enforced the company's rotten conditions. Elsa works a packing machine, set to run much faster than it's supposed to. Three women bring boxes to where they're to be filled, continuously, all day, with only 30 minutes break to eat and go to the bathroom. Elsa has constant pain: "The machine makes you work at maximum speed. Sometimes, when I sit on the floor at home to play with my son, my wrists hurt so much I can't get up. We stand for eight hours on the job with nothing to lean against."

Varicose veins is the main illness suffered by workers. One won a suit against the company to get medical treatment for the illness, but the union helped Pespsico, agreeing that varicose veins is not covered by the health insurance program.

Another worker, Rosalba, says summer heat is unbearable. The fans run hot air which smells like fried food. Julia has blisters on her hand from frying potatoes in hot oil. And the few available seats are aluminum, which burn in the heat if you sit for a while.

When nearly all the workers chose a committee, without the union leadership, to fight for the fired temps' jobs -- and were supported by two union delegates -- Pepsico threatened the committee members and those delegates because it's agents in the union leadership had lost control.

The workers are being backed by many others, particularly from plants in similar struggles (Zanon workers and the mostly women workers of Brukman). They're also supported by pro-worker lawyers and others. But Pepsico refuses to re-hire the fired workers.

Unfortunately the working class is waging struggles against imperialist conglomerates like Pepsico without international solidarity. Communists in PLP believe the working class has no borders, that its interests are the same worldwide, and while the names of their oppressors may vary, they're all part of the same system: capitalism.

We call on CHALLENGE readers to support the Pepsico workers in Argentina, E-mail their rank-and-file delegates at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

RACIST PROFITS GO BETTER WITH STALE COKE

The racism of U.S. corporations knows no bounds. The following is taken from an article in the New York Times (5/19):

"Marching with bullhorns and spreading their message over talk radio, dozens of Coke drivers, plant workers and salespeople are accusing their bosses of inching up profits for almost a decade by pawning off expired soda cans and bottles on minority communities across North Texas.

"Rather than throw the old drinks away...factory managers...salvage[d] truckloads of old, unsold drinks from stores in predominantly white areas...to cart them to the poorest neighborhoods...."

"For years...[workers] stripped expired soda cans from their cardboard sheaths, stuffed them into fresh boxes with new dates stamped on the side, then piled them on store shelves as if they were new....What co-workers called the fire sale....

"They would use Windex cleaner to erase the expiration date on the bottles."

"I knew what we were doing was not right," said William Wright, a coke deliveryman for 14 years. "But every time I brought it up, I'd hear, `I'm the boss. You do what I say.'"

Faculty-Student-Worker Solidarity Fights War, Cuts

OHIO--Chanting, "Strike! Strike," over 400 students, teachers and campus workers marched in the greatest show of solidarity in a generation against a large, public college administration here. One teacher called it a "critical mass, a movement whose time has come." This was the culmination of a year-long struggle, which has laid the groundwork for a possible campus-wide strike in the future.

Several teachers accused this "non-profit" institution of hoarding money in slush funds and not making educating students a priority.

The newly-formed Student Union charged the college bookstore with price-gouging. Several campus workers called for solidarity of workers (including welfare recipients), students and faculty. Campus workers suffer a "pass system," requiring them to get a permission slip to leave their work area. Another speaker said we need money for schools, rather than jails and war.

Since 9/11, four teach-ins and campus union organizing have united the mainly working-class and immigrant students, faculty and campus workers. Just two weeks after 9/11, over 800 students attended a day-long Students for Justice (SFJ) "Teach-in on the Terrorist Attacks: What the Media Won't Tell Us." While the Administration held a "healing" vigil, SFJ provided critical information on oil politics, a history of U.S. government state terrorism, the CIA's clandestine operations and past support for fascists including Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, etc. Speakers placed oil and imperialism front and center.

The successful teach-in stemmed from previous organizing, including a labor conference featuring domestic and farm workers. Twenty-five teachers invited their students, which helped establish SFJ as a credible campus voice. The campus newspaper's right-wing attacks, which included some red baiting, gave SFJ even greater credibility, sparking letters and campus wide networking spreading the SFJ's ideas.

In late November a teach-in on the Patriot Bill and the assault on dissent drew 75 people. In March, 300 attended another, better-organized teach-in. While there were "expert" speakers, students comprised more than half the panel, discussing current and past U.S. government repression.

Faculty union activism has grown, in reaction to threatened cuts in health benefits and the use of part-timers. Collective bargaining is stalled for the second consecutive year and teachers are irate. New leadership emerged after a series of union meetings, with 50 to 80 teachers attending. They organized the first successful test of the faculty/student/worker alliance; a campus-wide demonstration with 175 students and campus workers.

SFJ is a mix of pacifists, liberals, reformers, environmentalists, anarchists and Marxists. Some people are interested in a study group on capitalism and the history, strengths and weaknesses of the communist movement. Out of this, a genuine anti-imperialist, anti-racist leadership can emerge.

Must Kick Out INS Recruiters

Recently my southern California college's Sociology department held a job fair. The usual bosses' agents were there -- LAPD, Army, Marines -- recruiting for the rulers' current imperialist war. Two Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents showed up also, in full uniform carrying semi-automatic handguns, handcuffs, baton, mace, etc. They distribute a flyer reading, "INS: A job with borders, but without boundaries." It was the first appearance of INS recruiters; except for cops, college rules prohibit anyone from carrying firearms on campus.

This school has a high percentage of blacks, Latinos, Chicano and Asian students. During the late '60s, thousands held multi-racial demonstrations, occupying the administration building, and fought incredibly hard to integrate our campus. We're very proud of this history of struggle, which is why many students and professors were angered by the INS's presence and felt an era of intimidation was returning.

I belong to a very large and well-respected Chicano empowerment group. At a recent meeting, a bold friend of mine expressed concern about the INS's presence. He encouraged the group to take immediate action, including confronting the INS agents. He spoke passionately about preventing xenophobia (patriotism and hatred of "foreigners"), protecting our learning environment and fighting intimidation. I then said the attack against Muslim students is an attack against us all.

There was a clear division over what to do. Only a handful of students advocated direct action. Others argued the INS has a "right to free speech." Some even said there was a need to protect the border. This sparked intense discussions about racism, nationalism, and the role of the INS.

We learned several things: (1) The ruling class is stepping up its attack on immigrants everywhere, and using fear and intimidation to discipline the entire working class while it slowly builds a police state; (2) the bosses' racist and nationalist propaganda is spreading fear and indecision among all communities, including oppressed communities; (3) It's more important than ever to be involved in mass organizations to help sharpen the contradictions and meet others opposed to racism and fascism.

Finally a small group of students went from the meeting and, on their own. confronted the INS agents. They asked sharp questions and made it clear the INS was unwelcome here. In addition, the large campus group wrote the school newspaper and the president of the university condemning the INS. The direct action advocates are now visiting other campus organizations, explaining what happened and organizing to confront the INS or any other racist agency that comes on campus in the future.

A Young Comrade

Real Cause of Violence Is Racist LAPD

The liberal Police Commission recently fired LA Police Chief Bernard Parks, mainly because he didn't implement "community policing." What's community policing? I found out when the LAPD held a rally at the corner of Florence and Normandie in South Central LA, one "flashpoint" of the 1992 rebellion. The rally included black and Latino youth, community leaders, city officials and lots of cops. The cops billed it as a "stop the violence now" crusade and promised jobs for youth in South Central. They urged the community to help them in "stopping violence and drug dealers."

These racist murderers are some of the most violent and vicious killers anywhere. These same cops beat Rodney King and shot thousands of black and Latin workers. They want workers to squeal on other workers to build more open fascism. This "stop the violence now" crusade mirrors the "war on terrorism." The bosses need workers' support for a new oil war and require our passivity in the face of health care and job cuts. They can offer workers only more prisons and racist killer cops.

The bosses can never serve workers' class interests. That's why all workers must unite and, with the leadership of PLP, fight to smash fascism and war and establish a society free from exploitation.

A comrade

U.S., European Bosses Fight Over Exploitation of Latin American Workers

Latin America has become a battleground between U.S. imperialists and their rivals in Europe (and to a lesser extent in Asia). The hatred of U.S. imperialism by the workers and youth in Latin America needs to be channeled through a revolutionary force. Unfortunately, reformists and nationalists allied with European imperialism -- Fidel Castro, Lula of Brazil, Chavez of Venezuela -- are co-opting that anger into a fight for capitalism without U.S. dominance.

In trying to repel U.S. imperialism's rivals for control of Latin America, the Bush administration has launched several counterattacks: from refusing to let the IMF bail out Argentina to supporting the coup (that failed) in Venezuela to increasing military aid to the Colombian Army and death squads. The Bush administration has also used U.S. lackeys in Latin America -- Presidents Fox of Mexico and Battle of Uruguay -- to attack Cuba's human rights record. But it has backfired. A recent survey in Uruguay showed only 7% supporting the government's breaking of diplomatic relations with Cuba. As the Uruguayan economy declines, tens of thousands of workers and others demonstrated on May 12 against President Battle's economic policies. Mexico's Congress has even barred Fox from traveling to the U.S., angered over recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings banning labor rights for immigrant workers in the U.S. (See CHALLENGE, 5/22, on the hypocrisy of U.S. and Mexican bosses preaching to anyone about racist terror against workers.)

THE FIGHT OVER CUBA

While some sections of the U.S. ruling class are trying to make a deal with Castro -- witness Jimmy Carter's visit to Havana -- the Bush administration is still influenced by the right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami and the Christian right in the Republican Party which are behind every U.S. attack against Castro internally and around the hemisphere. The Castro regime uses anti-U.S. nationalism to induce the productive Cuban working class to work harder to attract European and, lately, Chinese investment.

But Bush's attacks on Cuba are also linked to the struggle for total U.S. domination of Venezuela and against the Colombia guerrillas. This U.S. fight opposes the nationalist rulers and European bosses aiming for markets and influence there. Complete control of Venezuelan oil becomes increasingly important for U.S. war plans in Iraq.

But while Castro is seen by many workers and youth as a revolutionary alternative to imperialism and capitalism, the truth is that Fidel's revolutionary credentials have long gone sour. The achievements made by workers and youth at the beginning of the revolution when they forced the government to seize the imperialists' and local capitalists' businesses did not lead to workers' control of society but rather to deals with the Soviets (who, by the 1960s, were state capitalists). The social changes won by the workers are mostly gone now because of the increasing exploitation of Cuban workers by European, Canadian and other imperialists. (The right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami want to be the exploiters along with their U.S. imperialist masters, as they were before 1959 when Cuba was basically a U.S. colony).

Workers in Mexico still remember Castro's visit there in 1985 to legitimize the fraudulent Salinas government, betraying those forces who had always supported the Cuban regime. Castro is concerned with what he can get from capitalism, not with the liberation of the working class. His anti-U.S. rhetoric creates illusions in many who really want to fight capitalism.

PUSHING NAFTA SOUTH AND THE EU OUT

U.S. rulers want a Latin America-wide NAFTA. Fox and the bosses in Mexico's state of Nuevo Leon pushed for this in the Monterrey assembly of the Organization of American States. They tried -- but haven't succeeded so far in -- excluding Castro and getting rid of Venezuela's Chavez.

To stop European and Asian capital penetration in Latin America, U.S. bosses want to dissolve the merger of the Spanish bank VVB with Mexico's BANCOMER, accusing VVB of laundering money. (Citibank does the same thing.) The U.S. stopped an IMF rescue loan during the Argentine financial crisis to impede the advance of European imperialists. They also did it to break MERCOSUR (a trade group with strong European ties). Brazil's rulers want to defy U.S. imperialism and intend to rebuild MERCOSUR with more European investments. The European bosses continue to use anti-U.S. nationalist bosses to expand their influence.

We workers gain nothing from supporting any imperialist, nationalist or liberal bosses, all enemies of the working class. In coming battles, our Party can grow by fighting to bury them all with communist revolution, the only road to working-class liberation. PLP took this message to the massive demonstration this May Day in Mexico City.

Nationalists' Aim: Out Fox Mexico's President Over Cuba

Mexico's fascist president Fox and the bosses' group COPARMEX side with the Bush Administration over Cuba, saying "our trade with Cuba doesn't even represent 1% of our exports. With the U.S., we have 80%. Nothing ties us to the Cubans." They want more U.S. investment and therefore attack Cuba, serving the Bush administration. Fox met with Cuban dissidents in Havana, encouraged their occupation of the Mexican embassy there, and backed the U.S. resolution in the UN condemning Cuba for human rights violations. Fox participates in the Northern Command, as a U.S. security zone under U.S. military control.

Within Mexico, Fox's anti-Castro turn is opposed by Carlos Slim, head of the TELMEX telecommunications empire and Latin America's richest boss. Slim plans to expand his investments in Cuba's telecommunications.

Slim also wants Fox to demand that banks invest in the internal Mexican market, to depend less on exports. Mexico's Congress rejected Fox and COPARMEX's push to privatize the energy sector. COPARMEX labels Congress an obstacle while Congress defends nationalist bosses like Slim, who want a bigger share of the profit pie.

Capitalism Gives a Heart Attack to Workers in China

The rapid "economic development" of China has spawned one of the hallmarks of industrial capitalism: cardiovascular disease. The risk of heart attacks and strokes is rising sharply. According to the Wall St. Journal (4/25), nearly 30% of adult Chinese have high blood pressure and one-third have high cholesterol levels. Nearly 13% have diabetes or elevated blood-sugar levels.

Some years ago, China was known for having very low rates of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Cholesterol levels were remarkably low, far less than anything seen in the developed Western capitalist countries. What happened?

The likely culprit is what the WSJ calls, "Westernized living patterns." These include smoking, lack of exercise and fast food diets.

Last year there were 430 McDonalds restaurants in China. Kentucky Fried Chicken has 600. Workers in Beijing ride bicycles to work, while workers in the more prosperous city of Guangzhou ride motor scooters. The combination of high-calorie foods and reduced physical activity is leading to an epidemic of obesity in China and other developing countries like India, Egypt and Mexico.

Pfizer, Inc. and other big drug companies are drooling at the prospect of selling drugs for lowering cholesterol and high blood pressure to millions of Chinese. A Pfizer company spokesman says they want to " increase awareness" among doctors of the extent of the cardiovascular disease epidemic.

Capitalism has brought vast riches to a small class of old and new bosses. For the workers it has brought mass exploitation, unemployment, prostitution, drug addiction, an emerging AIDS epidemic and even some starvation. Now we can add coronary heart disease, stroke, obesity and diabetes, followed by profiteering drug companies poised to make billions off the diseases created by the profit system.

Heart and other chronic diseases may be inevitable under capitalist economic development. But there is another path: communist development and public health. Food production and consumption need not be geared toward big agricultural conglomerates and fast food empires. Governments don't have to be addicted to the taxes and profits from tobacco production. Smoking can be eliminated. Regular exercise can be built into every workplace and community.

These "living patterns" can prevent the chronic diseases of capitalist development. When Chinese and other workers around the world win the fight for communist revolution, these healthy patterns will become part of everyday life for young and old alike.

TABLE

Deaths from cardiovascular disease per 100,000 people ages 35-74),

Russia 854

China 339

U.S. 272

France 146

Japan 136

U.S. Bosses Legalize Police State

(In our last article (5/8), we raised the possibility of the U.S. government declaring a PLP chapter in another country a "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO), thereby subjecting anyone in the U.S. giving "material support" to that chapter up to 10 years in jail or more.)

Now, say PLP wanted to challenge in court being put on the FTO list. Grounds for appeal are very limited. Also, the law designates the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to hear all appeals. This court's judges have always been the most trustworthy defenders of the capitalist legal system. So PLP would have a snowball's chance in hell of winning this appeal.

Under the same "material support" law being used to charge Lynne Stewart [lawyer for a man convicted in a previous "terrorist" case], the government also has the right to sue a person or an institution "about to engage" in activity that violates the law. For example, the government claims that left-wingers in the U.S. want to send people and equipment over to a country where PLP comrades are fighting the fascist government. The U.S. rulers decide to sue them in court to stop them.

Then let's say the left-wingers requested information from the government about evidence it has indicating "support for terrorism." But there's another special provision in the law allowing the government to refuse to disclose any evidence based on "classified information." So the bosses' government can use "secret evidence" against both citizens and non-citizens in legal proceedings. No longer does anyone have the legal right to see the evidence being used against him/her.

Where did this law come from? In the early 1980s an Immigration Service internal task force studied how to make immigration law serve U.S. rulers more effectively. Their report proposed the "anti-terrorism" laws. Then Clinton's Democratic administration joined with a Republican-controlled Congress to put these laws on the books. The Republicans always championed vicious, ant-immigrant ideas. But more dangerous to the working class is the wolf in sheep's clothing, the Democratic Party and Clinton who pose as a friend of immigrant workers and the oppressed. The racist, fascist and anti-worker laws passed under Clinton are not limited to immigration. An "effective" death penalty law, slave labor Workfare, the gutting of habeas corpus rights, and other "anti-terrorism" laws are all part of the fascist Clinton/Democratic Party legacy. (Future articles will examine some of these laws.) The rulers' legal system can virtually never serve workers' interests. But the bosses can always manipulate it to favor themselves and legalize a U.S. police state.

Historically communists have been the strongest fighters against fascism. Since fascism is always the ultimate form of capitalist exploitation, a revolutionary solution is required. While we are fighting this police state, we in PLP must point out to workers the need to fight for communism as the only alternative to fascism, legal or otherwise.

Bosses' Courts Legitimize Witness for the Persecution

Passage of the terrorist Patriot Act appears to many as outright fascism. But what's already on the books? Government agents are immune from prosecution in every one of the following actions, as sanctioned by the Supreme Court (SC) or a federal Court of Appeals (CA). Prosecutors may:

* Violate civil rights in initiating prosecution (SC, 1976);

* Knowingly use false testimony and suppress evidence (SC, 1976);

* File charges without any investigation (CA, 8th Circuit, 1986);

* Knowingly offer perjured testimony (CA, 9th Circuit, 1987);

* Suppress exculpatory evidence --tending to acquit a defendant. (CA, 5th Circuit, 1979);

* Be immune from lawsuits for conspiring with judges to determine the outcome of judicial proceedings (CA, 10th Circuit, 1986); and,

* Knowingly file charges against innocent persons for a crime that never occurred (CA, 10th Circuit, 1986).

All the above cases were published and therefore can be cited as precedents in future decisions. According to Don Harkins, editor of the Idaho Observer, "The federal government [has] managed to stack the legal libraries of this country with published decisions which support the positions of government officials, while rulings contrary to government interests go unpublished and, therefore, become unavailable."

In December 1995, the Wall Street Journal reported that "many government agencies, whenever they win an unpublished case, routinely ask to have it published and the court usually complies, but if they lose, down the memory hole it goes." The latter cases, even if discovered by individuals later, cannot be used as precedents because they are "unpublished."

Imagine what the bosses' persecutors can do with the kinds of court-sanctioned decisions cited above, especially with the Patriot Act on the books now.

Workers of the World, Write!
LETTERS

`Peace Now' Politics A Dead End

I participated in the recent anti-war rally in Tel Aviv organized by the "Peace Now" movement, a coalition of anti-war liberals and pacifists. The speakers were mostly from what is called here the "Zionist left." Some of them support bringing in a U.S. peace-keeping force ("letting the cat watch the milk"). Most support the "Oslo accords" and negotiating with the corrupt anti-working class Arafat gang. All support the nationalist line of "Two states for two peoples"--West Jerusalem capital of the Jewish state and East Jerusalem capital of the Palestinian state.

Some slogans called for establishing peace in order to revive the sliding economy, i.e, using Palestinian cheap labor to increase profits. Some raised the racist slogan of "Bring OUR boys back home," notorious in the anti-war movement in the Vietnam days. The line was so liberal that no speaker from the revisionist "Communist" Party was allowed to speak although its line was no different than the rest of the rally. The organizers claim 100,000 attended; the police say 60,000 so the actual number was somewhere in between.

This is the largest anti-war rally since the second intifada began 20 months ago. It occurred after it seemed the whole population was behind the acts of aggression against the Palestinian people. This demonstration and similar ones against Israel abroad probably impelled the Sharon government to postpone the invasion of the Gaza strip.

A Friend in Israel

Protestors Dump Bosses' Flags

Recently some friends and I attended a West Coast rally of well over 100 people, sponsored by a liberal mainly Jewish group. They were calling for "no Mid-East war, no Israeli occupation of Palestine, no terror."

Some of us had reservations about going because the large demonstrations against Israeli fascism in our city heavily promoted Palestinian nationalism. Their leaders refused to criticize the suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, even when the bombers attacked neighborhoods (as in Haifa) where Jews and Arabs usually lived together as friends and neighbors.

However, at this rally there were no national flags. The banners and posters were almost all for "Peace" or "End the Occupation." Hand-made signs included "I'm a Rabbi for Peace," and "Religion Condemns Nationalism and Imperialism." (Most religions -- or at least their leaders -- bless whatever war their own government declares.)

Then some Palestinian youth appeared carrying a sign saying, "Suicide Bombers Are Resistance Heroes." Apparently this has happened before, but the Jewish organizers were too liberal to say anything about it. This time it was different. The adult accompanying the youth, seeing we didn't like their sign, said, "Why don't you want our flags here, you would want to have American flags wouldn't you?" I told him I wasn't in charge of the rally, but if I were, no, I wouldn't want any national flags because I am against all nationalisms. He couldn't answer that.

Meanwhile, a friend was distributing leaflets from her religious coalition opposing both the Occupation (state-sponsored terror) and also individual terrorist acts like the suicide bombings.

Then some us pointed out to the rally organizers that the "suicide bombers" sign contradicted the rally's message. They then spoke with the Palestinian youths, and won them to lower their sign.

Afterwards we were all glad we'd gone. We were able to stand up against the Israeli fascists and their U.S. imperialist backers, and simultaneously expose the politics of nationalism and anti-imperialism. We'd made a little difference that day, more than just being a few extra bodies.

Later a PLP friend noted that the U.S. is not the only imperialist power in the region, and that Palestinian nationalism is fronting for European imperialists just as Israeli Zionism fronts for U.S. bosses. So while it's good to oppose nationalism with calls for working-class unity, it's not enough. We should also oppose all imperialists, and not fall into the "lesser evil" trap -- "some are better than others." I've been sharing that idea with my friends. Over the long term, I'm trying to show them that to fight for lasting peace, we must eliminate the source of wars for profit: capitalism.

A comrade

A Clearer Definition of Racism Needed

In the "What We Fight For" section of our paper we state, "Communism means abolishing racism and the concept of race." I agree with this statement 100%. However, I don't think we're all in agreement with what racism is. I would like to see somewhere in the paper, "Racism is the idea that there are fundamental differences between the different human populations on the globe." Whether the alleged differences are genetic, cultural or regional is immaterial. As the racist logic goes: if there are real differences, then one population is better adapted, more fit, more desirable than others. This leads to the validation of exploitation and oppression.

One may argue that the genocide by the Israeli fascists is racist, but the Palestinian human bombers are not racist because they are not oppressing the Israeli population. It is a false assumption that in order for an act to be racist, the dominant group must perpetrate it against the oppressed group. For example, the racist assault by the Israeli army is justified by convincing the Israeli population that all Palestinians are potential human bombs. "It is part of their essence to blow themselves up to be martyred." Therefore, the total destruction of whole cities is justified.

On the other hand, Palestinian bosses must win martyrs to the idea that all Israelis are fascist, that fascism is part of their essence, and it doesn't matter who you kill because "they're all equally guilty." The racist crimes against the Palestinian people are of a much greater magnitude than the crimes of terror bombing by the Palestinians. Nevertheless, it is only a matter of degree.

Some argue that the Palestinian acts are not racist, but desperate acts against a superior military force, that in order to be racist, you must have the power to oppress. While suicide bombers are desperate, these are still racist acts. Killing children just because they're XXXX, cannot be justified or diminished as a racist act.

All humans are essentially the same. When the human genome project was completed, the racists were chomping at the bit to hear of any genetic differences between "races," classes, nationalities or regions. They were dismayed to find none! If it is not genetic, it is learned. If it is learned, it can be unlearned and corrected. Any superficial differences only add to the spice of life. The extent to which we believe in "race" is the extent to which we are won to racism. We must be clear on what racism is so we can stamp out all vestiges of it. Death to Racism!

Chicago Reader

Edit--The Chicago Reader makes some interesting points. What do our readers think? Send us your comments.

PLP Marches for Communism on May Day 2002

May Day: Red Flags Over Brooklyn

a href="#Can’t Jail May Day">"an’t Jail May Day

a href="#Editorial :U.S. Rulers’ Oil War Heads for Iraq">"ditorial :U.S. Rulers’ Oil War Heads for Iraq

Editorial: Mid-East Dog Fight Shows: Imperialism, Nationalism, Terrorism Means Death for Workers

Garment Workers Celebrate May Day Inside Factories

F-O-X and B-U-S-H Spell Racist Terror

May Day In Mexico City

Billions For War, Racist Cuts For City Colleges

a href="#The ‘Jobless Recovery’">Th" ‘Jobless Recovery’

a href="#Unions Stifle Workers’ Anger at NYC Bosses’ Budget Cuts">Un"ons Stifle Workers’ Anger at NYC Bosses’ Budget Cuts

U.S. Military Builds Bases for Oil Bosses

Oil, Venezuela And The AFL-CIA

AFL-CIO Fronts for U.S. Imperialism

a href="#May Day Politics Enter Teachers’ Contract Fight">"ay Day Politics Enter Teachers’ Contract Fight

LETTERS

Biggest Tragedy in Argentina: Capitalism

Nationalism A Dead End

Inspired by April 20th March

Matter Existed Before Big Bang

Teachers Must Fight For Students

PLP Marches for Communism on May Day 2002

"Fight for Communism! Power to the Workers!" "Asian, Latin, Black and White, Workers of the World, Unite!"

These and many other chants rang out at the spirited PLP May Day Marches in downtown Los Angeles and Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY, on May 4. The marches were organized by black, Latin, Asian and white youth who took responsibility and initiative in bringing their friends and leading the marches. They carried a powerful message of internationalism and communist revolution to counter the bosses’ terror, racism, nationalism, fascism and war and were well-received. Workers joined in the street. In L.A., over 700 bought CHALLENGE and thousands took PLP leaflets. A thousand CHALLENGES were also distributed in Flatbush.

The first May Day marches since 9/11 were organized under conditions of increasing fascist attacks: Migra raids, increasing police terror, the mass arrests of Arab immigrants, huge cuts in health care, nationalist propaganda and war. Although ten years ago in LA we marched here under marshal law (following the 1992 rebellion), the situation today is much more serious. The march organizers are learning to do so under the new conditions and to begin to rely on more of our fellow workers and students to help organize the communist movement.

Wonderful May Day dinners — with songs, a skit and inspiring talks — were also organized in LA, New York, Chicago and other cities. In one dinner, a speaker explained that even though we are still a small organization, politically our Party is stronger because we’re learning to guarantee leadership to the working class under any and all conditions. He stressed the need to organize in the classrooms, mass organizations and churches. "Our Party is on the right path. The rivalry among the imperialists and the building of fascism is pushing our Party to make the changes necessary to lead the working class on the road to revolution. This is our historic responsibility just as it was for the Red Army that crushed the Nazis and just as it was for the communist partisans in Italy who defeated fascism."

One comrade reported that workers on the street were eager to pay for CHALLENGE and were inspired by our march. Youth spoke about organizing for the Party in their schools. A marcher told of the need to organize against racist policies where she works, policies that would keep black students out of the school. A comrade who has been active on his campus and made many friends vowed to be bolder in the fight against all forms of nationalism. A young comrade invited her friends to join the Party to fight for the interests of the whole working class, for a society where our class produces to meet our own needs. A veteran comrade said that youth must organize to lead our class to revolution in the midst of the wars looming in our future.

A participant said our march represented our class’s interests, unlike some of the more mass demonstrations occurring recently. The million people marching in France against Le Pen on May Day embraced the right-wing Presidential candidate as the "lesser evil" to Le Pen. But there is no lesser evil capitalist. This dangerous illusion sets our class up to be victims of the bosses’ fascism and wars. Only communists in PLP in these movements point out that the only way to end fascism and wars for profit is with communist revolution.

Our place — now and always, under fascist conditions and even during the most deadly of imperialist wars — remains with the working class. We will not allow ourselves to be torn from them. This May Day we fight for our Party to preserve and promote revolutionary communist leadership for the working class. Workers of the World, Unite! Fight for Communism!

May Day: Red Flags Over Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, NY, May 4—PLP celebrated May Day with a militant march through the Flatbush neighborhood, under sunny skies with red flags swirling in the spring wind amid communist chants like, "The only solution is communist revolution." Thousands of residents in this mostly black immigrant neighborhood warmly greeted the march, some joining, and a thousand CHALLENGES were distributed.

Several dinners in various parts of the city followed the march. One involved students, soldiers and others. Participants heard talks about the history of May Day, the world situation and the development of PLP.

A presentation on the birth of May Day linked us with the struggles of past revolutionary movements to advance the fight for communism. The speaker reviewed the lessons from the successes and failures of the Russian and Chinese communist movements, especially the importance of a revolutionary party and the involvement of as many people as possible in the ideological struggle to advance communism.

A soldier reported on world events, the war in the Mid-East, and the fascist nature of pop culture. She stressed the need for young people to study politics to understand world events and combat ruling-class ideas.

A final speaker detailed the global growth of war and fascism and the failure of capitalism to provide a life for workers with a decent future, saying our efforts bit by bit can re-build the communist movement, leading to victory for the working class.

For many at the dinner it was their first May Day celebration. The entire day was very spirited, generating a positive attitude about the movement.

a name="Can’t Jail May Day">">"an’t Jail May Day

(The following letter was read at the various PLP May Day celebrations in the U.S.)

One of my most memorable May Days occurred in 1986 when I was a student activist imprisoned by the military dictatorship where I lived. We always celebrated May Day with public gatherings and readings about its history, starting with the Haymarket martyrs.

A few days before May 1st, my fellow political prisoners decided we must celebrate this year, even inside prison. But the jail administration refused permission for us to hold a rally in the central courtyard.

We kept on pressing him, saying he allowed religious ceremonies, so why not our holiday. He still refused and then the guards began terrorizing prisoners, trying to "convince" us to drop the idea. But many of us still wanted it.

Our supporters outside the jail were preparing for a rally. As May 1st neared and tension mounted, we sent a delegation of our allies and friends on the outside to the warden’s house and threatened that if he didn’t give in, he and his family would face the consequences. He then agreed to the rally but warned us to keep it small. (We had already announced to our fellow prisoners that we would gather no matter what the warden’s decision.)

May Day arrived and the jail was ringed for a two-mile radius by an army battalion and anti-aircraft guns stationed in the watchtowers surrounding the central courtyard. Despite all this intimidation and other threats, almost 500 inmates joined us. We made speeches celebrating the international working class. Because of so many workers killed in our police state, we had a slogan that Asia is red because of the blood of workers here and those in Chicago.

An International Worker

a name="Editorial :U.S. Rulers’ Oil War Heads for Iraq">">"ditorial :U.S. Rulers’ Oil War Heads for Iraq

U.S. bosses’ ruthless drive to rule the world for the next several decades is entering a new stage. Control of international oil supplies remains crucial to their grand strategy. Their "war against terror" must be viewed in this context. The next major move they’re contemplating is an invasion of Iraq, to replace the Saddam Hussein clique with a government ready to do the bidding of Rockefeller’s Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil company.

A new war for Iraqi oil has stood high on their agenda ever since they failed to oust Hussein & Co. during their murderous Desert Storm of 1991. The Rockefeller/Democratic forces made sure the Bush, Jr. gang took office with this intention. However, not even a super-power can totally control the force of events. Renewed fighting in the Middle East has temporarily thrown a monkey wrench into U.S. imperialism’s military plans for the Persian Gulf. But not for long. The rulers in Washington are working overtime to bribe and/or threaten into line all the participants in this conflict. Their latest gimmick is a Middle East "peace" conference next summer, which won’t solve any of the basic conflicts in the Middle East. Its only purpose is to allow the Iraq invasion to go forward.

The U.S. Liberal Establishment originated this scheme with that aim. Its leading mouthpiece, the New York Times, described the key requirements and timetable for launching the new oil war: "The Bush administration…is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 ground troops…But …any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right military, economic, and diplomatic conditions…These include…waiting until there is progress toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian military conflict." (4/28; our emphasis — Ed.)

The U.S. imperialists will probably get their way, but at the cost of sharpening the political gap that divides them from every other force in the world, big and small. They’re likely to bully Arafat & Co. into accepting a U.S.-enforced no-man’s land that may temporarily cool down the fighting in the Occupied Territories and West Bank. The tactics will involve even greater terror and atrocities against Palestinian workers. And the U.S. can certainly find ways to rein in its currently reluctant Israeli vassals, who, despite occasional appearances, are basically doing U.S. imperialism’s dirty work in the region, by acting as a police force against Arab workers and Arab bosses. Israel is the only nuclear power in the region.

Most importantly, although Arab rulers from Saudi Arabia to Oman will squawk at U.S. support for Israel and U.S. plans to invade Iraq, they can’t do too much about it. Monopolizing Iraqi oil and eliminating Saddam Hussein and his opposition to U.S. oil control is important enough for the U.S. ruling class to stop at nothing to get its way. If necessary, the big bosses are prepared to go it alone. That’s why their military options include launching attacks on the Persian Gulf from as far away as the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

Millions of workers have already died for U.S. imperialism’s ferocious need to rule the world by dominating international oil supplies and pipeline routes. Millions more will die in its next oil war. But unquestionably conditions will emerge that will allow our Party to grow amid this mayhem. Our goal is clear — communism! Nothing less will do.

Editorial: Mid-East Dog Fight Shows:

Imperialism, Nationalism, Terrorism Means Death for Workers

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide, especially outside the U.S. and Israel, condemn and oppose the atrocities committed by U.S. and Israeli rulers in the Middle East. Every worker should. The slaughter of Palestinian workers, particularly the massacre in the Jenin refugee camp, adds to a long list of brutalities by the racist Israeli rulers that would make Hitler proud.

However, in some ways far more dangerous, is the deadly temptation to support Arafat, Hamas, al Qaeda, and other forces leading the movements against U.S. and Israeli aggression. They are all bosses. None of them has anything to offer the Arab and Muslim masses except the same capitalist wage slavery under different leadership. They want to be players with the imperialists, not smash them.

Arafat represents capitalists who want a Palestinian state that gets money from both U.S. and European rulers. Hamas has the same ambition but tilts more toward the Europeans. Al Qaeda wants to channel the anger of Arab and Muslim masses into taking over the driver’s seat from U.S. oil firms in the Persian Gulf.

Millions of people internationally have been misled into actively or passively supporting these leeches. The motive is understandable. But solidarity with Palestinian and Arab workers and youth will never realize its revolutionary potential by supporting Arafat, Hamas, and al Qaeda. They are bosses with essentially the same outlook as the U.S. and Israeli ruling classes. This is a dogfight among gangsters. Backing the little ones against the big ones merely helps the little ones get bigger. Workers spill blood and sweat and remain under wage slavery no matter who wins.

The international working class, including in the Middle East, is paying a heavy price for the political failures of the old communist movement that led it to believe in "lesser evil" capitalists and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Our Party learned this lesson the hard way during its early years, when U.S. imperialism was committing genocide in Southeast Asia. Vietnamese workers put up a heroic fight, defeating the seemingly invincible U.S. military machine.

But if mass heroism were all that were required, racist oppression, imperialist war, and fascist terror would have been defeated a long time ago. The international working class has always shown an unending supply of courage.

The leaders of that great struggle took aid from anyone who would give it to them, especially the bosses of the former Soviet Union who by then had become full-blown imperialists. When you depend on your class enemy for help, you end up following his orders and become just like him. Millions of Vietnamese died thinking they had sacrificed their lives to build a decent society. What their descendants got was the same old rotten profit system with all its horrors. Ask the workers in Ford and Nike factories in Vietnam.

While it ended badly, the struggle in Vietnam had elements of communist aims, at least at the beginning. Millions were mobilized to wage "people’s war," which still inspires all workers who hope to rid the world of capitalism. Arafat, Hamas and al Qaeda have no such elements. In fact, they are all flagrant anti-communists and pro-capitalism. Al Qaeda was created by the U.S. and Saudi bosses to wage an anti-communist "holy war" against the Russians in Afghanistan. Fundamentalist Hamas was basically built up by the Israeli spy agencies to sabotage the first Intifada in the 1980s led by secular nationalist Palestinians. And after the Oslo "peace deal" of the early 1990s, Arafat and his Palestinian Authority were trained and financed by the CIA and the Saudis.

The job of communists is to tell the truth, no matter how unpopular it may seem at the time. We do not echo the slogans of nationalist misleaders. We are not in a popularity contest. We fight for communism and we are headed uphill against what most workers have been led to believe.

Millions of workers can grasp and fight for internationalism and communist revolution as they have in the past. We have entered the capitalist and nationalist-led mass movements, including the movement against U.S.-Israeli aggression, to challenge the misleaders for the political leadership of the workers. We’re committed to help workers recognize friends from enemies. That is a vital step toward liberation.

During the Vietnam period, we fought nationalists and opportunists of all stripes. Today the road is harder and the stakes are higher. We will not waver. We will learn to put forward our ideas with skill and thoughtfulness. The worst prison is the one you don’t know you’re in. Marching for Arafat, Sharon or Bush won’t free any workers from the living hell of capitalism and imperialism.

Garment Workers Celebrate May Day Inside Factories

May 1 is International Workers’ Day, when millions of workers around the world march against the bosses and the terrible conditions caused by capitalism. "Today we’re celebrating with this meal and with marches…" said a garment worker to more than 100 co-workers during lunch inside the factory.

For several days before May 1, a group of these workers launched a campaign to celebrate May Day. They talked to workers about it one by one and asked for donations for the food, encouraging them to participate. Although older and younger workers don’t know each other that well, this campaign helped overcome that obstacle. Unity grew. Many workers were surprised at the success of this activity. In a pre-dinner meeting, one worker very encouraged by the plans, described the events by saying, "If the mountain won’t come to me, I’ll go to the mountain."

In another garment factory, other workers did the same thing. Both Latin and Asian workers came to their May Day meal. The effort to move these workers with revolutionary ideas is encouraging us to be bolder and more political in our struggles.

Some of these workers participated in an "Immigrants Rights March" on May 1 and some came to PLP’s May Day.

Garment Workers in Struggle

F-O-X and B-U-S-H Spell Racist Terror

MEXICO CITY, May 1 — May Day here and in Cuba was enveloped by the fight between President Fox and Fidel Castro. Mexico’s Fox has become the latest U.S. government battering ram against Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Shortly after May Day, the Bush administration accused Cuba of supplying Libya and Syria with the know-how to build "weapons of mass destruction." (WMD) Meanwhile, some Latin American leaders, with U.S. support, charged Cuba with human rights violations.

This fight has nothing to do with human rights and there is virtually nothing to link Cuba to WMD. Rather it is a cynical ploy by U.S. bosses and their lackeys in Latin America to bolster the failing U.S. foreign policy in the region, particularly in Colombia and oil-rich Venezuela, "while simultaneously boosting support at home for the war against terrorism." (Stratfor.com, 5/7). As U.S. bosses expand their "war against terror" (mainly over oil supplies) in the Middle East and Central-South Asia, they need to guarantee that their "backyard" doesn’t fall to European and Asian imperialists. They understand that Castro, Venezuela’s Chavez and others represent forces favoring U.S. rivals. [The next CHALLENGE will analyze that dogfight.].

May Day In Mexico City

A defender of human rights was murdered here. The rulers say she "committed suicide," but there’s evidence linking her murder to military leaders. More than 400 women have been raped and murdered in Juarez. The authorities say "the size of their skirts" caused the murders. Misogyny isn’t the only ingredient in these horrendous crimes. These are workers from the maquillas (sweatshops) — many indigenous — who have emigrated from southern Mexico seeking work.

Racism is another ingredient in these murders. Ten million indigenous people live a marginal existence here. Fox and the Congress passed a law condemning the indigenous people to 4th class citizenship. The bosses also enacted a new fascist labor law which indiscriminately fires workers and restricts their right to strike.

Fox drips with the blood of his victims when he talks about "human rights." He completely ignores the deaths of undocumented workers at the U.S. border and fails to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court when it condemns immigrants to slavery, all because he doesn’t want to disrupt trade relations.

PLP forces marched on May Day in Mexico City to expose U.S. bosses as the world’s number one terrorists and violators of workers’ rights. Mexico’s ruling class is in no position to preach to anyone on that score. We also linked the sharpening imperialist rivalry to the oil wars and to the fascist terror and to massive job losses suffered by the international working class. The only solution is to destroy capitalism and fight for communism.

Billions For War, Racist Cuts For City Colleges

CHICAGO, IL April 30 —Hundreds of students walked out of their classes and demonstrated their anger and frustration after the City College Board of Trustees fired the coordinators (those responsible for registration and administrative problems). Two thousand students signed petitions against the cuts and a contingent delivered them to the Mayor’s office. Union reps and students pointed out the need for the coordinators, warning that firing them will force extra duties on the teachers. The Trustees "listened" and then fired them.

Last month, scores of students came to the Trustees meeting to defend the college district’s counselors (who handle students’ personal problems). Many told of counselors who had literally saved their lives, helping them through family crises, domestic abuse or drug problems. Chancellor Wayne Watson said some of the testimony nearly brought him to tears. Then without any hesitation, they fired all the counselors.

Before that, they fired the Information Technology workers, maintenance workers and accountants, in order to privatize and cut their costs. The plan to outsource and privatize the district’s services has been in the works for some time. Unfortunately this is just an appetizer. The main cuts have yet to be served.

The coordinators, like the counselors, are part of the faculty union. At a recent union meeting, teachers were keenly aware that all of these cuts are preparing the groundwork for our contract negotiations. Our contract expires June 30. They attack and threaten us because they have less money and less of a need to educate all of our students.

At one meeting Chancellor Watson claimed, "We serve too many students." This is ludicrous since thousands are turned away at each registration. Watson is following the capitalist logic of not educating immigrant and working-class students when their chances of reaching a four-year university are continually undercut by the higher cost and elitism of those institutions.

In one study, the median family income for students at one state university was $82,000. The figures are obviously higher at the private elite institutions. And why educate immigrant students when the bosses have just empowered the police to deport them as part of their "Homeland Defense"? As fascism intensifies, immigrant and working-class students are being tracked into the army or low-paying jobs for the global economy.

a name="The ‘Jobless Recovery’"></">Th" ‘Jobless Recovery’

Today millions of workers cannot add to the bosses’ war cry, "United We Stand." They’re on the unemployment lines. The latest Labor Department jobless report says the unemployment rate jumped to 6% in April, during "recovery," higher than it was in the depth of the recession! The "recovery" pundits are predicting it will continue to rise in coming months.

Only 38% of the total unemployed are eligible for unemployment insurance (UI). Nearly four million workers were receiving benefits in mid-April, a 19-year-high and a million more than April 2001. If that four million represents only the 38% of the unemployed, that means another six million are officially out of work. This may not even include 1.3 million who’ve given up looking (and therefore not counted as unemployed). It does not include millions still on welfare who can’t find jobs, the two million in prison (two-thirds of whom are jailed for non-violent, mostly minor drug possession offenses) nor all those who joined the military because they couldn’t find jobs. All told, the real figure is at least somewhere between 15 and 18 million.

"Recovery" is out of sight for these workers. The number of workers unemployed for more than six months — the maximum time for most workers to collect benefits— is almost double from a year ago. Nearly two million workers exhausted their UI since Sept. 11.

Capitalists are hailing the supposed 5.8% rate of growth in the economy in the first quarter of 2002. According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (4/30), that’s probably more than double the true growth rate. The jobless are spending whatever savings they might have, and many have none. Since Clinton’s "Welfare Reform," those either exhausting or ineligible for UI now find it harder than ever to collect welfare.

Capitalism offers workers a constantly expanding oil-war, a "recovery" that slashes jobs and a growing fascist police state for those who resist such death and destruction.

War and fascism are their tools for super-exploiting workers in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, while driving down wages and living conditions in the US. The bosses call it "democracy." We call it wage slavery. All the flag-waving patriotic mumbo-jumbo will never bury the fact that between bosses and workers, there is no "we."

a name="Unions Stifle Workers’ Anger at NYC Bosses’ Budget Cuts"></">Un"ons Stifle Workers’ Anger at NYC Bosses’ Budget Cuts

NEW YORK CITY, May2 — What role can unions play during economic downturns? Many were built during such crises, often led by communists, in order to survive and intensify struggle against their bosses. Today, the opposite is true: without communist leadership, union "leaders" can hold back workers’ anger.

With contracts of over 120,000 city workers expiring by next month and a $5 billion city budget deficit looming, you might think (or hope) that city worker unions were preparing to strike against layoffs, give-backs, budget cuts, pension reductions, etc.

Although PL’ers and others urge such preparations, the union leadership mainly pushes workers into the "lesser evil" arms of the Democratic Party hacks, calling for "progressively" raising taxes to fill the budget gap. They say "we won’t let the city balance the budget on your backs." But where "No contract, no work!" once defined unions’ bargaining strategy, now contract extensions of a year or longer are increasingly the rule. Given the fact that the bosses get away with not paying any increases during these lengthy contract extensions, they are actually getting interest-free loans to balance their budgets, precisely on the workers’ backs (even if the workers later receive retroactive pay).

Under the fascist State Taylor law, public employee strikes are illegal. Recently, NYC transit workers were threatened with jail and fines if they merely uttered the word "strike."

Since the 1970s, the State’s Financial Control Board (FCB) has required cities and counties to have "balanced budgets." In the mid-1970s, the FCB "imposed massive cuts, including the elimination of nearly 64,000 city jobs..." (The Chief, 4/26) The FCB could void any city union contract. The courts nullified sanitation workers’ "iron clad" no-layoff clause due to "fiscal necessity." (Not surprisingly, they didn’t void the billions in interest the bankers collect from the City treasury.)

Meanwhile, AFSCME’s District Council 37 leaders cut deals that invariably sold out workers "to save ‘our’ city." More recently, 35,000 workers in the slave labor Workfare program sought court protection under existing labor laws. They lost when a judge ruled that Workfare jobs are "training," not employment. Then and now workers can’t rely on the bosses’ institutions or pro-boss labor leaders.

As in the 1970s, current service cuts in Mayor Bloomberg’s contingency plan for saving $500 million would hit black and Latin working-class communities the hardest. They include the cleaning budget for the Department of Homeless Services shelters, Health Department reductions in tuberculosis control and services for pregnant women, a 10% slash in the Parks Department workforce and cutting sanitation pick-ups and highway and bridge cleaning. If firefighters thought that the patriotic frenzy after 9/11 would save them, think again. They face 200 job cuts and the closing of eight engine companies. When the bosses preach "United We Stand," it’s likely they’re standing on workers’ backs.

We don’t have to take these attacks passively. Workers in NYC unions are longing for leadership. Communists can offer class consciousness and solidarity to counter the bosses’ patriotism, nationalism, racism and sexism. We can champion the need to bust anti-worker laws with mass militant action. The trust, friendships and understanding forged in such class struggle can indeed turn unions into schools for communism.

U.S. Military Builds Bases for Oil Bosses

Back in 1999, when the Clinton administration claimed its "humanitarian" war on Yugoslavia would save the Kosovo-Albanians from genocidal "ethnic cleansing" by the Milosevic regime in Serbia, CHALLENGE was one of the few voices in the world to expose it as basically a war to control oil routes and pipelines from the Caspian Sea to the Balkans. Today, it is clear that U.S. rulers used its intervention specifically to establish Camp Bondsteel, an enormous, self-sufficient, high-tech base for 7,000 troops, 55 Black Hawk and Apache helicopters, with "downtown," "midtown" and "uptown" districts, and the best-equipped hospital in Europe.

Colonel Robert McClure wrote in the engineers professional Bulletin, "Engineer planning for operations in Kosovo began months before the first bomb was dropped…Planners wanted to…reach base-camp…as quickly as possible." Before the bombing started, the Washington Post confessed, "With the Middle East increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly-over rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil."

Bondsteel is smack in the middle of this energy corridor, close to the U.S.-sponsored $1.3 billion Trans-Balkan AMBO pipeline project (Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria Oil). Reuters reports that Exxon Mobil and Chevron are financing AMBO, which will pump oil from tankers docking in Bulgaria, through Macedonia to the Albanian port of Vlore. From there it will be pumped onto tankers bound for Europe and the U.S.

Bondsteel is the lynchpin in the control of this oil route. A senior British military officer told the Washington Post, "…the Americans are making a major commitment to the Balkan region and plan to stay." And this base will be large enough "to accommodate future military plans."

The base is so huge that joking troops ask, "What are the two things that can be seen from space? One is the Great Wall of China; the other is Camp Bondsteel!"

Bondsteel was built on contract to Brown & Root Services, a subsidiary of Haliburton Oil, as part of a long-range plan to privatize the building and servicing of military bases. Before becoming Bush’s vice-president, Dick Cheney was Haliburton’s CEO. More than 7,000 Albanian workers built Bondsteel, working around the clock, seven days a week, for $1-$3 an hour, in an area with 80% unemployment. A Brown & Root manager said they "can’t ‘inflate’ wages" because they didn’t "want to ‘over-inflate’ the local economy." They are now Kosovo’s largest employer.

Brown & Root’s profits surged with U.S. military expansion. They got their first contract to support U.S. Army global operations when Cheney was Bush, Sr.’s Secretary of War. In 1992, it grabbed $62 million in Somalia. In 1994, it doubled its earnings to $133 million in Haiti. In 1999, when Cheney was CEO of its parent company Haliburton, it received a 5-year contract worth nearly $1 billion to build bases in Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia. But Bondsteel became "the mother of all contracts." The nearly 10,000 soldiers in the area joke that, "They’re missing a patch on their camouflage fatigues…. ‘one that says Sponsored by Brown & Root.’" (Government Executive Magazine, Feb. 2002)

Other bases are being planned in Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia to control future oil pipelines and energy corridors linking the Caspian region with Europe and beyond. U.S. bosses are prepared to spill the last drop of workers’ blood to achieve their goal of world domination through this control of oil supplies while reaping billions in profits. The communist leadership of PLP is crucial to winning workers and soldiers of all countries to organize a revolution against U.S. bosses’ genocidal war plans.

Oil, Venezuela And The AFL-CIA

The AFL-CIO support of the pro-war patriotic hysteria and police state measures like the Patriot Act continues its decades-long support for fascism worldwide.

An agency directed by the AFL-CIO played a key role in the April 19 military coup attempt in Venezuela. While overseeing mass concessions and layoffs of unionized workers at home, these bosses’ labor lieutenants conspire against the international working class.

Through the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), an AFL-CIO-run agency largely funded by the U.S. government, the AFL-CIO provided aid and "technical advisors" to the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV). CTV President Carlos Ortega was one of the main participants in the attempted coup. He joined with Pedro Carmona, the head of the main big business association, the fascist Opus Dei Catholic group and others in organizing a "general strike," an anti-government march on the presidential palace and a cut in production at PDVSA, the state-owned oil company. (Carmona was Ortega’s boss in the Venoco petrochemical plant, which helped coordinate the local aspect of the coup. For an analysis of how the failed coup was part of the fight among local and international bosses over oil, see CHALLENGE, 5/8.)

The coup was prepared over months. On February 12, ACILS and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) sponsored a trip for CTV representatives. They met with AFL-CIO leaders to discuss coup possibilities.

The Reagan administration created the NED in 1983. Among the founding directors were Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker.

Over the past two years, the NED quadrupled its funding for Venezuelan operations to nearly $1 million. Out of this, $154,377 was given to ACILS for its activities with the CTV. While ACILS was expanding its operations, CIA director William Tenet told Congress that the volatile situation in Venezuela was one of the main concerns for U.S. foreign policy.

The ACILS executive director is former State Department operative Harry Kamberis. A veteran of the Asian American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI), his chief "labor" experience was propping up the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), to defend Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship. Between 1983 and 1989, the AAFLI gave the TUCP nearly $6 million to work with the dictatorship, the employers, police and fascist death squads.

AFL-CIO president John Sweeney gave the American Institute for Free Labor Development (see box) a face-lift by creating ACILS, while maintaining the network of international offices and personnel. It continues as an arm of U.S. imperialism, under the cover of "fighting sweatshops" and "international labor organizing." European and Asian imperialists are trying to make inroads into Latin America. ACILS plays a vital role in building pro-U.S. labor movements while taking on European and Asian factory owners.

ACILS receives roughly $15 million a year from the government. This includes a $45 million, five-year grant from the Agency for International Development, $4 million from the NED, $1 million over two years from the State Department and $300,000 from the Labor Department. The AFL-CIO kicks in another $1 million a year.

Since the end of World War II, the AFL-CIO has funded and trained fascist unions to support the demands of U.S. imperialism and steer workers away from communist revolution. They are responsible for the deaths of millions of workers. In the final analysis, they will share the same fate as the union leaders who marched for Hitler.

AFL-CIO Fronts for U.S. Imperialism

For decades, the AFL-CIO served U.S. imperialism in Latin America through the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), which became internationally known as the CIA’s "labor front."

In Guatemala, AIFLD organized a United Fruit Company-backed company union to enforce labor peace on the banana plantations. In Guyana in the early 1960s, AIFLD organized a series of strikes and racist attacks between East Indian and Afro-Caribbean workers to destabilize and overthrow the nationalist regime of Cheddi Jagan. In Brazil in 1964, AIFLD-trained union leaders backed the military seizure of power. In Chile, AIFLD distributed CIA funds to professional and managerial employees, as well as backed truck owners’ strikes, to cripple the economy and set the stage for the military’s seizure of power in September 1973. AIFLD advisors flooded El Salvador during the civil war, building a pro-military peasants’ association.

a name="May Day Politics Enter Teachers’ Contract Fight">">"ay Day Politics Enter Teachers’ Contract Fight

BROOKLYN, NY, May 1 — Up to 12,000 teachers and others demonstrated today at Board of Education offices to protest 17 months without a contract. The usual union signs read, "Enough is Enough," and "I don’t want to strike, don’t force me." The usual politicians said they were "100% for us," and union president Randi Weingarten gave her usual weak speech about how "we’ve had enough." As usual, the existence of racism, lousy education, our students’ problems and the destructive effect of war on their future and our contract were omitted (except in PLP’s literature).

Though chants were mild, occasionally there were calls for a strike. But the demonstration had another character to it, a May Day character. In addition to the distribution of PLP May Day literature and CHALLENGE, the political discussions raised by PLP members and friends were part of a culmination of an 8-year struggle calling for union endorsement of a May Day march.

In 1994 on the floor of the UFT delegate assembly(DA), PLP raised the call for a May Day march. That first vote won maybe 20 delegates out of nearly 700 to vote for a May Day demonstration. The number grew until last year when about 150 people voted to support PLP’s May Day. Many who were not involved with PL shouted from the floor, "Why don’t you let them have their march?" After each motion, many delegates (even many who wouldn’t vote for it) would say the union should have it. PL members were also involved in many other motions for working-class demands as well as in struggles in their schools.

Recently, the union’s inability to negotiate a contract, the growing dissatisfaction with the leadership’s Unity Caucus, the growth of the Progressive Action Caucus (the main opposition), and a new grouping of independent delegates angered by the union’s lack of militancy all have combined to open more teachers to PLP’s ideas. PLP’s activity at the DA and in their schools has played a role in galvanizing people around militant, working-class ideas. The leadership’s Unity caucus has recently swallowed New Action, an older more militant group and has tried to attract the independents.

At the March DA, a PLer’s May Day motion won quite a few delegates’ votes. During a discussion of how to save our pension fund from "Enronitis," he suggested that the May 1 demonstration could march to City Hall with flags and banners condemning Enron and capitalism, a "May Day" march. Though it didn’t pass, it drew widespread interest.

At the April DA the union suddenly announced today’s May 1 demonstration "to further negotiations." Then, in front of 1,400 delegates, union president Weingarten directly addressed one PL’er: "Well, PLP has finally got it’s May Day." Shortly afterwards the secretary of the union, second in command, said we’d have red shirts, but we "wouldn’t have any pictures of PLP members on them."

Though the union leadership was clearly trying to co-opt the communists and placate the militants, this represented some recognition of the support that our 8-year struggle has won among scores if not hundreds of delegates. When communists raise May Day, it enables us to advance the whole struggle against capitalism and for communism amongst masses of workers. It now behooves PL’ers and their friends in the union to build on this modest spreading of communist ideas to build the Party and move the fight for revolution forward.

LETTERS

Workers of the World, Write!

Biggest Tragedy in Argentina: Capitalism

[We recently received the following report about conditions in Argentina before and since the mass rebellion of Dec. 20.]

The streets are deserted since people basically have no money to do anything. Businesses are a shadow of their former selves. Movies, bingo parlors, shopping centers, bars and particularly photo studios are suffering. Nobody’s celebrating anything worth taking pictures of nor wants to keep images of the rapid fall in their lives. Public hospitals, the last resort in the past for patients without any resources, are now full because it’s the only medical service available to millions of newly jobless left without any social safety net. Businesses selling home appliances are like a museum of life in this 21st century: TV sets, refrigerators, VCRs, microwaves are all "on exhibition" — nobody is buying them. Auto traffic is also way down; gasoline is a luxury very few can afford. Those who can "gas up" buy just enough for their next immediate trip.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund squeezes workers even more. The crooked politicians sell their souls to the multi-national corporations. Workers’ poverty grows and grows, denying us our dignity as human beings since we cannot afford the basic necessities of life. Those who can try to leave the country to find a better life.

There are enough things wrong here to fill a very thick book. The latest reports say that a million people fell under the poverty line in the first three months of 2002; 30% of the workforce is unemployed. But things are bad worldwide, not just here. There is much wealth in each country, but workers remain impoverished by the bosses’ pillaging of oil and everything else, our land and even water.

A Comrade in Argentina

Nationalism A Dead End

All nationalism must be rejected. The argument that indigenous Palestinians can use any or all tactics against all European Israeli usurpers is factually incorrect and reactionary because it endorses terrorist tactics against civilians. Anyone who advocates the death of a people based on "race," ethnicity, religion or nationality is reactionary, even if they are non-combatants, play no decision-making role in their government and are mostly from the working class.

Following this to its logical conclusion, Native Americans should start suicide bomb attacks against European interlopers and their numerous descendants who currently occupy their land and whose ancestors murdered about 95% of North America’s pre-Colombian population.

In the Russian Far East there is now a movement to stop "illegal" Chinese immigrants moving into historically Russian areas. Should Russians initiate terrorist bomb attacks against Chinese immigrants? This is the same logic that justifies attacks on Israeli civilians.

The Israeli right-wing argues that the Jews who moved to Israel were the descendents of Jews who originated in pre-Islamic Palestine. They say that the Palestinians are there "at the expense of the area’s true indigenous people." They use this to justify the Israeli settlers violent actions. This is the absurd foolishness of trying to understand and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a nationalist prism.

Of course, some Palestinians argue that the Canaanites were there before the Hebrews came from Egypt in Biblical antiquity, and they are the ancestors of the modern Palestinians. And on and on and on…

Nationalist claims all lead to racist ideologies and fascist practices. They also lead to reliance on outside imperialists and to the creation of oppressive class societies.

Two-thirds of the Israeli Jewish population are from Islamic countries, not Europe. But even if they were all from Europe, terrorist attacks on working-class people are fascist tactics. This applies to the Sharon-Peres attacks on the West Bank as well as the Likud and Labor Parties’ settlement activity, home demolitions, collective punishment and deportations. It also applies to suicide bombers attacking Israeli civilians who play no role among that country’s political or military rulers.

We need a class approach that unites the Israeli and Palestinian working class. Israeli workers must fight racism against Palestinians to build this unity. In the long run, only communist revolution can rid the Middle East of capitalism, the source of racism, nationalism and imperialism.

A Comrade

Inspired by April 20th March

Two of us of Jewish background had a very inspiring experience in Washington, D.C., on April 19-20. We participated in a teach-in and workshops and marched with the Palestine Solidarity "feeder" march, the largest of the day, to the rally of 75,000 (Washington Post estimate) at the National Mall.

At the teach-in a young Jewish woman just back from the West Bank described Palestinian life under the reign of terror imposed by the invading Israeli Army. A young Palestinian woman, whose family survived the 1982 refugee camp massacre in Lebanon, also spoke. And a black minister gave a rousing speech linking anti-racism and anti-imperialism.

We participated in workshops on Palestinian history, eyewitness accounts from the West Bank, the SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Taxpayer Aid to Israel Now) campaign and U.S. war crimes against Iraq. The workshops were filled with energetic, open-minded young people. We made new friends and our comments were well received. Afterwards we shared experiences at dinner with some progressive Muslim friends.

We were inspired by the spirit and size of the Palestine Solidarity march. The Muslim participants spanned from Taliban to secular Marxism. We talked with a variety of Muslim, Jewish and other groups. Some of the better chants were, "Sharon, Bush, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!" "Not a nickel, not a dime! The occupation is a crime!" "No more murder in our name! The occupation is a shame!" Young women led many of the chants. Jews Against the Occupation, Not In My Name, Jewish Mobilization for a Just Peace and other Jewish and Jewish/Palestinian groups marched.

The only anti-Jewish racism we saw came from about two dozen members of the New Black Panther Party. They charged into the march with signs featuring swastikas, denouncing Jews and Judaism, and championing Saddam Hussein. These fascist provocateurs were not welcomed; the hundreds of African-American marchers shunned them. There may well have been more anti-Jewish racism we were not aware of.

A few days later we attended a Muslim Students Association forum with about 50 people. An anti-Zionist Jew spoke. Several local Jewish community leaders aggressively put forward a Zionist line. The mainly Arab audience united with the speaker to refute the Zionist lies.

Many people at the April 20 march really impressed us with their pro-communist political views, their commitment, enthusiasm and anger against imperialism. We should be fully involved in the Palestine solidarity movement, Muslim student organizations and the anti-Zionist Jewish organizations which contain people nothing like the rulers’ racist stereotypes. They’re as open to our ideas as black organizations and church groups. If we ignore these movements because we think Muslims are less open than Christians, or because Palestinians and Arabs are "more nationalist" than blacks and Latinos, we’re buying some of the rulers’ propaganda and making a profound mistake. Going to these mass mobilizations only as agitators, we will probably be turned off by the pacifist, reformist, nationalist speeches, which will prevent us from developing meaningful ties with thousands of honest people.

Standing outside this movement, merely denouncing Israeli and Palestinian nationalism in our literature, and just calling upon Jewish and Palestinian workers to unite, we will only make ourselves irrelevant. Palestinians are the Mid-East’s super-exploited workers. They’re currently at ground zero of the U.S. "war against terrorism." We must support their struggle and fight to win others to support them. There are tens of thousands of Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian students on U.S. campuses. We must join their struggle against Zionism and imperialism if we’re going to win them to our Party.

A Comrade

(CHALLENGE comment: Indeed, we must be among the masses to win them. But, we also must point out the real nature of what they are following. See editorial on page 2 for what communists should be doing in this and other nationalist-reformist capitalist-led mass movements.)

Matter Existed Before Big Bang

Dialectical materialism says that matter has always existed and will exist forever, constantly changing. Therefore, the Universe is infinite. It wasn’t created out of nothing as religion teaches, and as many Big Bang theorists like Stephen Hawkings tend to imply. The universe did not begin 14 or 15 billions years ago, the time the latest pictures from the Hubble space telescope says the Big Bang occurred.

Recent findings prove there was something before the Big Bang. Science magazine’s web page posted (on April 25) a report by Paul J. Steinhardt of Princeton Univ. and his colleague Turok of Cambridge Univ. (UK) A new model of the Universe, saying it had no beginning and will have no ending. They propose that the universe goes through an endless cycle of Big Bangs, expansion and stagnation driven by something they call "dark energy." They base their model on the recent proven findings that the universe is moving apart at an accelerating rate, something the old model of the Universe didn’t take into account. Therefore, the Big Bang was not the beginning, but a transition between two cycles in a continuous process of cosmological rebirth.

BBC World News (4/25) reported that the new model accounts for several important features we see in the Universe, such as why everything looks the same in all directions and the fact that the cosmos appears "flat" (parallel lines will never meet, however long).

The two proponents of the new model agree there are still many unanswered questions, like what happened before the Big Bang. The Big Bang idea implies something was suddenly created out of nothing, that the Big Bang was actually the beginning of time and space.

Cosmology is one of the most difficult sciences. "We sit in this tiny planet in the middle of this vast Universe…all we can do is pick up the light that happens to fall on us and deduce some things about the Universe," said a cosmologist to the BBC. But one thing is certain. If the universe is infinite, it has existed forever and will never cease to exist.

Red Star

Teachers Must Fight For Students

NYC teachers have been working without a contract for over 18 months. We make tens of thousands of dollars a year less than nearby suburban teachers. The union leaders, who’ve done little to fight this, have recently been talking strike. But since they haven’t called a strike in 27 years, almost nobody — including the Mayor and most teachers — takes this threat seriously.

The union leaders don’t believe in strikes and fear losing the automatic dues check-off, a Taylor Law penalty for a walkout. They want us to accept the modest salary increase and longer school day recommended by a state fact-finding committee.

The Progressive Action Caucus (PAC) is a pro-student, multi-racial teachers’ group willing to confront the leadership’s passivity over threatened large-scale school budget cuts. A recent PAC flyer, entitled "Don’t Vote for Half a Contract," urged teachers to oppose the fact-finding proposal because it doesn’t offer NYC teachers salary parity with the suburbs.

But the main reason teachers should oppose the proposed contract is that it will maintain an apartheid education system. Over a million mostly black and Latin working-class students receive a vastly inferior education compared to students in wealthy private schools and the affluent suburbs.

NYC students have the largest class size in the state, the most dilapidated school buildings and the least services. Many drop out and many more learn very little. Only 12% of black students in the 8th grade meet the State’s basic math standards.

NYC government is controlled by huge international banks, Wall Street investment firms, insurance and real estate businesses and other Fortune 500 corporations. They want the public schools to produce a future working class with proper skills and an acceptable work ethic, while keeping education costs down to maintain low corporate taxes. Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg says he’ll give teachers a raise while cutting hundreds of millions from the school budget, worsening an already terrible educational system.

Teachers must defend our working-class students. Not only should we refuse a deal with deep budget cuts, but we should also demand an education for our students equal to that of students from wealthy families. We need no more than 10 in a class, extra help for those who fall behind and new buildings to relieve overcrowding.

Bloomberg and his class maintain there’s no money for such things. Yet their government finds hundreds of billions to pay for its oil wars.

The top 5% of NYC taxpayers make over $200,000 a year. Their average income is 21 times greater than the bottom 20 percent, indicating the vast wealth expropriated from the international working class. A tiny stock transfer tax, and a very small increase in the city’s tax on this top 5%, would net an extra $1.8 billion a year for the schools. Of course, the rich will not tax themselves to help working-class students.

PAC can galvanize these students and their parents by exposing the apartheid school system, and demanding that the capitalists pay for educational equality out of the surplus value that workers have created. PAC could explain that our lower salaries stem from a racist school system that cares little about retaining experienced teachers since it has so little regard for their students. We should view the current battle as part of a class struggle where we don’t just win a few more dollars, but learn how to create a sharing, communist society that respects and educates its youth.

A NYC Teacher

1. Workers of the World, Unite!
   May Day: Stand Up to Bosses' Terror
2. May 1: One Flag, One Workers' Army United!
3. Israeli-Palestine War Threatens U.S. World Order
4. Arafat & Co. Help U.S. Companies Exploit Palestinian Workers
5. Global Domination Through Mass Terror
6. International Workers' Unity Answer To Bosses' Oil Wars
7. Black, Latin and Unionized Workers Must Be Won to Fight Bosses' War and Anti-Muslim Terror
8. Israeli Jenin Massacre: Scratch a Boss, Find a Nazi
9. Rulers' Law Make Fascism Legal
10. 300 Students Back PLP Teachers Facing Anti-Communist Attack
11. Hundreds Confront Racist Cops
12. Expose Bosses' Agents In Aerospace Contract Fight
    1. The Silence Is Deafening
    2. Union `Leaders' Choose Their Side
13. Spectre of Fascism Haunting France
    1. Phony `Leftists' Opened Door For Le Pen
14. Failed Coup Setback For U.S. Bosses In Own `Backyard'
    1. Chavez Is No Friend of Venezuelan Workers
    2. Venezuela: Surprise! It Is All About Oil!
15. LETTERS
    Workers of the World, Write!
    1. Building GI's Class Consciousness
    2. It's Not Jews versus Arabs
    3. Need Jewish-Arab Worker Unity
    4. Putting Racism to the Test

Workers of the World, Unite!
May Day: Stand Up to Bosses' Terror

PLP Communist May Day Marches, Sat. May 4, 1PM

Brooklyn, NY: Prospect Park Entrance at Parkside and Ocean
Q Circle Train to Parkside

Los Angeles: 8^th and Broadway

This is the first May Day since September 11, which ushered in a new stage in developing war and fascism. The racist "War on Terror" and fascist Homeland Security has made the world a more dangerous place. The future of the revolutionary movement and the international working class will depend on how we meet the challenges ahead.

PLP stands for armed struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communist revolution is our goal. Our strategy for the seizure of power rests on building a mass international PLP among workers, soldiers, and youth. The bosses' "democracy" is actually a class dictatorship, a terror enforced through control of state power -- their cops, courts, prisons, laws and armed forces. This will be especially true in the coming period of growing war and fascism. Building a mass PLP that can withstand the blows of the ruling class and eventually lead the working class to power is at the very core of our revolutionary strategy.

Bush & Co. are being drawn into an ever-widening war against Muslim fundamentalists who want to challenge U.S. imperialism for control of Persian Gulf oil profits. The Israeli-Palestinian bloodbath has exploded and threatens the stability of the entire region and beyond. It has postponed Bush's plans for a second invasion of Iraq, sharpened the contradictions between U.S. and European bosses, and could have global consequences. A top Middle East specialist at Rockefeller's Council of Foreign Relations said, "The situation is totally, completely out of control, in a way it has never quite been before." (New York Times, 4/14)

In the U.S., thousands of Arab and Muslim citizens and immigrants have been rounded up. Many are being held indefinitely, not charged with any crime. The use of these fascist methods now is just the appetizer. The main course will soon be served to all workers. The list of "terrorist organizations" is growing and local and federal police have unlimited use of all forms of surveillance. Last December, striking teachers were arrested in New Jersey. Today in New York City, teachers have been banned from using the "S" word -- strike.

The racist rulers used 9/11 to rapidly put in place all the necessary tools for a fascist police state that will surpass apartheid-South Africa or Nazi Germany. The police torturers of Abner Louima have been granted new trials in NYC. Racist police terror, the highest prison population in the world, and prison-like schools that don't teach prepare black and Latin youth for a future of war and low-wage jobs.

Workers are being told to sacrifice for the bosses' oil wars while the rulers fight to exploit our class worldwide. From Enron to LTV Steel, hundreds of thousands of workers are being tossed in the streets, over 35,000 from Ford alone. The bosses and union leaders sing, "United We Stand." But between bosses and workers, there is no "we."

Wars and civil wars, famines and disease, mass poverty and racist "ethnic cleansings" are the bitter fruits of the supremacy of U.S. imperialism and the "free market." More than two billion people "live" on less than $2.00 a day. Workers and our children are dying in unprecedented numbers, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The defeat of the old communist movement has led us to where we are today. The bosses appear to be all-powerful and the working class appears to be at their mercy. To be sure, we are in a difficult time. The road to revolution will be long and hard. Keeping the revolutionary communist movement alive and functioning under any and all conditions is the most vital job in the world today. This May Day we march for communist revolution and life itself, for the future of the international working class. "Workers of the World, Unite!"

May 1: One Flag, One Workers' Army United!

May Day, the international working-class holiday, was born out of the May 1, 1886 General Strike of Chicago workers for the 8-hour day. In 1890, May 1st was adopted by the International led by Karl Marx as the day when the world's working class "holds a review of its forces, mobilized for the first time as One army, [under] One flag....[to] make the capitalists and landowners of all lands realize that today the proletarians of all lands are, in very truth, united."

May Day has become the day when workers worldwide march for their demands, led by communists, advancing revolutionary goals.

Israeli-Palestine War Threatens U.S. World Order

No worker should support either murderous faction in the current bloodshed between Israeli and Palestinian rulers. Both sides are ruthless profiteers anxious to secure the best deal for their particular class interests.

Among the Israelis, Sharon and the "loyal opposition" Labor Party agree on making Israel the dominant local force for exploiting Arab workers in the Middle East. They differ only on tactics.

The Arafat and Hamas cliques are no better. They each have plans to gain power and maximum profit for themselves. The young Arab workers and students being used as foot soldiers in this terrible war are making a grave mistake. So are the millions of workers, Arab and others, supporting Palestinian nationalism.

Israeli rulers, with U.S. backing, are fascist murderers, responsible for the horrible oppression of the Palestinian people. But Arafat & Co. is no better. The CIA and other U.S. agencies trained the Palestinian Authority ruling the West Bank.

Bosses on all sides are using nationalism and religion to cover the capitalist cause of the ongoing bloodshed. The enemy of our enemy isn't necessarily our friend. What's really at stake here is the direction of Israel's economy and more importantly, the U.S. rulers' need to control the flow of Persian Gulf oil to the rest of the world. We don't know all the ins and outs of the Israeli-Palestinian death match, but a look at conflicting profit interests is revealing.

Rockefeller oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron Texaco and their British allies (as far as the Mideast is concerned) BP and Shell command 59% of petroleum-related exports to countries other than the U.S. Continuing that dominance means eliminating any threat from Iraq, which is working with French and Russian oil bosses to double or triple its production.

But to launch their sorely-needed second invasion of Iraq, U.S. rulers must have stability in Israel-Palestine. They cannot afford losing Israel as a pro-U.S. cop in the region any more than they can brook an international Arab or Muslim rebellion against the U.S. Such an uprising would strip Saudi Arabia's unmatched oil reserves from the ExxonMobil Empire. Colin Powell's recent Mideast "peace" mission aimed at repeating Desert Storm, which killed half a million people in 1991 and even more through subsequent U.S.-led embargoes and bombings. Noting Exxon & Co.'s world dominance, the Boston Globe editorialized (4/17), "If Powell can't stop the region's accelerating descent, the world order over which the United States presides may be threatened." Powell presented himself as a missionary for peace. Such liberalism has already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi workers and is preparing to slaughter many more. There are no "nice cops" here.

Arafat & Co. Help U.S. Companies Exploit Palestinian Workers

In 1991 Kuwait expelled 350,000 Palestinian workers from its oilfields, and the Saudis drove out still more, fearing they might go over to Saddam Hussein. Many were forced into the dire poverty of the West Bank and Gaza. The potential for anti-U.S. unrest turned explosive. So U.S. liberals, led by Clinton, cooked up the 1993 Oslo Accords to try to relieve growing tensions. Under the Oslo terms, the World Bank helped U.S. companies like Coca Cola and Procter & Gamble set up factories in ultra-low-wage "industrial zones" administered by Arafat's newly empowered Palestinian Authority. Developed by the liberals' Council on Foreign Relations and Rockefeller and Ford foundations, this follows the example of the U.S.-run maquiladora sweatshops in Mexico. It spawned a new class of Palestinian "peace process profiteers...exploiting cheap labor under exclusive contracts with international financial organizations." (Le Monde Diplomatique, April 2001) But Arafat and his labor pimps have fallen from the U.S. main wing's graces. They take too big a cut of the profits.

Sharon, on the other hand, opposes both Arafat and the U.S. liberals. He is replacing Arafat's maquiladoras with brutal apartheid. In April, his troops massacred Palestinians in Jenin, site of an "industrial estate." Sharon wants Palestinians shut out from Israel's $100 billion economy, except as menial laborers. His faction's grandest project is turning the Negev Desert into a Silicon Valley staffed by skilled Jewish immigrants. His Likud party encourages Jewish immigrants to fill the better high-tech jobs, which account for 25% of Israel's output. More than a million highly trained Russian Jews have moved to Israel. These tech professionals are part of an anti-Arab labor aristocracy that has become even more virulent since the Nasdaq/dot.com crash of 2001. More people are fighting for fewer jobs.

In contrast, terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad want to destroy Israel and replace it with a Moslem fundamentalist state, giving them the lion's share of the profits from economic development. It's no accident their suicide bombers often target Sharon's base, killing many Russian immigrants.

Under capitalism, workers are forced to choose between suicide bombings or an oil war; between maquiladora-style sweatshops or apartheid. This is the price we pay worldwide for the collapse of the old communist movement. This May Day, PLP re-dedicates itself to building the revolutionary movement to end capitalism and replace it with a communist society run by and for the working class. For the workers of the world, it is the only way out.

Global Domination Through Mass Terror

If Sharon differs somewhat with the U.S. main wing, why did Bush give him free rein for so long? Bush is a coalition president. Fundamentally, he represents the Eastern Establishment into which he was born. But he must also appease his most "right-wing" Republican backers, to keep them from rebelling as they did in the mid-1990s. Remember Gingrich and McVeigh? U.S. New Money's interest in Israel is exemplified by Intel, which benefits immensely from Sharon's Likud Party's pipeline of skilled Russian workers. California-based Intel is Israel's largest high-tech exporter, with 5,271 largely Russian workers. Intel houses many of these Jewish immigrants on land seized from Palestinians. Intel's founder Gordon Moore and CEO Craig Barrett were both major backers of Bush's 2000 campaign. Bush tolerated Enron's anti-Rockefeller activities until a crisis forced him to side with the big boys. He can go only so far with Intel.

We shouldn't make too much of Sharon's differences with U.S. bosses. He and his Labor Party rivals agree on maintaining Israel's dominance through terror. Both agree strategically on the need to unite with U.S. imperialism and to back its oil wars. Once again, tactical splits between competing capitalists should never fool us into marching for any of them. Our goal and fight are for communism.

International Workers' Unity Answer To Bosses' Oil Wars

SAN FRANCISCO, April 20 -- Over 20,000 demonstrators marched from Dolores Park to the Civic Center to protest the imperialist war in Afghanistan and Israel's fascist occupation of Palestine. Comrades from across California marched in PLP's multi-racial contingent and amid a sea of Palestinian flags boldly held red flags high to help spread the message of internationalism and communist revolution.

After weeks of horrific images on TV of death, suffering, and misery, it was inspiring to see tens of thousands of Arab, Jewish, white, black, Latino and Asian workers gathered together to oppose war and racism. A highlight was a bullhorn speech by a PLP comrade at Dolores Park, declaring that workers worldwide have more in common with each other than with any boss or "national leader." He explained that only by uniting workers everywhere and fighting for communism, for the end of capitalist exploitation, will we be able to live in a world without imperialist war and fascism. Many students and workers stopped to listen to this impassioned call for international workers' solidarity and communist revolution.

When a well-meaning but confused Israeli supporter argued that Israelis should not be asked to give up their state for internationalism, several comrades explained that a worker cannot give up something he or she does not own. Likewise, Palestinians should be urged not to fight for a state that they will never own. As long as the bosses hold state power, workers will always be exploited. The bosses will continually use state power to increase their profits through racism, sexism and imperialist war. Sharon is fighting to hold state power to keep exploiting workers, and Arafat is fighting to gain state power to exploit even more workers. Both have repeatedly demonstrated they're not concerned with defending workers' interests. Both shed workers' blood to protect capitalist profit.

Many of the chants, posters and banners enabled us to challenge nationalism and opportunism. It was encouraging to see many signs comparing Sharon to Hitler, but many of these signs wrongly argued that Sharon and Bush are the only problems. Many thought once they go, everything will be peaceful. But it's the system of capitalism -- not the evil intentions of certain individuals -- that produces fascism and imperialist war. History has shown that even if we eliminate Bush and Sharon, the bosses will only put other capitalist murderers into power. While the March leadership and many opportunist groups led marchers to chant the ambiguous, "Free . . . Free Palestine," we encouraged workers to militantly shout, "Arab, Jewish, black, and white; workers and soldiers of the world unite!" Soon other marchers were shouting along will us.

Our participation was successful because we became closer with our friends, made contacts and invited people to May Day. We distributed 2,000 May Day leaflets, at least 300 CHALLENGES and many pamphlets describing the connection between war and capitalism. We stood up to opportunism and nationalism and kept pushing for an internationalist communist solution. These lessons must be taken back to our shops, schools, classrooms and organizations in which we participate.

Black, Latin and Unionized Workers Must Be Won to Fight Bosses' War and Anti-Muslim Terror

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 20--Tens of thousands from groups protesting the Israeli rulers' assault on the Palestinians, the war in Afghanistan and globalization converged here today. It was one of the largest demonstrations since the protests against U.S. aggression in El Salvador in the 1980s.

On the one hand it showed that many workers and students are not swallowing the patriotic fervor being whipped up by the ruling class since 9/11 nor intimidated by the repressive Patriot Act. On the other hand, the potential strength of the tens of thousands of protesters was undermined by a bosses' nationalist ideology. Calls for a separate capitalist Palestinian state would lead Palestinian workers into the arms of Palestinian exploiters (see pages 1, 2), foreign bankers, landowners and capitalists. This would exchange the terror of Israeli occupation for sweatshops run by Middle Eastern Arab, U.S. and European bosses.

Our group participated in the anti-occupation demonstration, the majority of whom were Palestinians, including many women and families, who had come from all over the East Coast and Mid-West. We distributed a PLP leaflet that saluted the resistance of the Palestinian masses in the current struggle. It indicted Israeli rulers for its genocidal war to expand its territory via the Jewish settlements in the West Bank through the killing, expulsion and enslavement of Palestinians. But it also warned against relying on nationalist ideology, on protecting Arab rulers' exploitation of Palestinian workers. We also stressed the necessity for unity of Arab and Jewish workers against all bosses - Arab, Israeli and U.S. imperialists.

Many marchers carried CHALLENGE and other Party literature. One comrade, though separated from her group, continued to lead militant chants on her bullhorn. We, along with other marchers, joined in for some of the more politically advanced chants, such as "Bush, Sharon you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!" and "No war for oil, No imperialist war."

Although there were calls for Jewish and Arab unity, nationalist ideas predominated.

Some demonstrators, angry against the Israeli rulers, crossed the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism with signs equating the Star of David with the swastika. But Judaism is not Zionism and all Jews are not anti-Palestinian. In fact, anti-racist, anti-occupation sentiment and actions are growing inside Israel. Dozens of regular soldiers and 417 reservists have refused to serve in the occupied territories and many have been jailed. Since the latest Israeli attack began, tens of thousands of Jews have demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the occupation. Thousands of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs have gone together into the West Bank to provide aid and stand up to the brutalities of the Israeli army. Actions like these are a positive step towards the communist idea of Arab and Jewish workers uniting as a single entity and sharing the value they produce.

Although there was plenty of criticism of U.S. Mid-East policy, only PLP's leaflet exposed the motivating force behind U.S. policy in the region - maintaining control over Persian Gulf oil. U.S. rulers view Israel as a strategic asset in that policy, helping to guarantee U.S. world dominance.

One glaring absence among the protestors was black and Latin and unionized workers in general. Only one labor union endorsed the march, AFSCME Local 1707, and then in small numbers. Nationalism and pro-war patriotism hurts all workers; they isolate the Muslim workers in the U.S. from the rest of the working class and don't defeat the pro-war feelings spread by the bosses' agents inside the working class. A mass movement against imperialist war must reach out into working-class communities and to workers through their unions and workplaces and point out how war and fascism only benefit the bosses, and hurt the entire working class.

The discussions with our friends at this event helped raise the political consciousness of us all. It was a small step in our on-going work of building a mass base for communist revolution.

Israeli Jenin Massacre: Scratch a Boss, Find a Nazi

During World War II, Czechoslovak resistance fighters killed Gruppenführer Heydrich near the town of Lidice. He was second in command to Himmler and one of the masterminds behind the holocaust. The Nazis retaliated by murdering every man, woman and child and bulldozing Lidice, making it a world symbol of fascist brutality.

Recently the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz quoted an Israeli army officer talking of the need to "study how the German Army operated in the Warsaw Ghetto." That "operation" slaughtered 30,000 Jewish men, women and children after the left-led Ghetto insurrection.

Fascist murder is not unique to the Nazis. The U.S. ruling class has murdered millions, from Vietnam to Iraq to Serbia and now Afghanistan. The Iraqi and Iranian bosses waged war against each other in the 1980s, murdering over 1.5 million people on each side. In 1982, Sharon organized fascist Lebanese militias to massacre 15,000 Palestinian refugees in the Sabra/Chatila camps in Southern Lebanon. Now he has ordered the massacre in the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp by Israeli "Defense" Forces. Fascist brutality is part and parcel of every capitalist, no matter his or her religion or nationality.

The Arab bosses in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and throughout the Mid-East -- who hypocritically "defend" the Palestinians' plight at the hands of the Israeli bosses -- are the very ones who unmercifully exploited Palestinian workers and then expelled them into the Israeli-created refugee camps after Desert Storm I. All bosses are responsible for the mass murder of Palestinian workers, Arab and Israeli, as well as the U.S. rulers who supply the Israelis with their weapons of mass destruction.

This first report is excerpted from the British Independent (4/16):

A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed.... A residential area roughly 160,000 square yards about a third of a mile wide has been reduced to dust. Rubble has been shoveled by bulldozers into 30-foot piles. The sweet and ghastly reek of rotting human bodies is everywhere, evidence that it is a human tomb. The people, who spent days hiding in basements crowded into single rooms as the rockets pounded in, say there are hundreds of corpses, entombed beneath the dust, under a field of debris, criss-crossed with tank and bulldozer tread marks.

A quiet sad-looking young man called Kamal Anis led us across the wasteland.... Here, he said, he saw the Israeli soldiers pile 30 bodies beneath a half-wrecked house.... [and] bulldozed the building, bringing its ruins down on the corpses. Then they flattened the area with a tank. We could not see the bodies. But we could smell them....

Every wall is speckled and torn with bullet holes and shrapnel, testimony of the awesome, random firepower of [U.S.] Cobra and Apache helicopters that hovered over the camp.... Every other building bears the giant, charred, impact mark of a helicopter missile.... There were still many families and weeping children living amid the ruins, cut off from...aid....

[Others] have spent the bombardment in basements, enduring day after day of terror. Some were forced into rooms by the soldiers, who smashed their way into houses through the walls. The UN says half of the camp's 15,000 residents were under 18....

The following excerpts are from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz (4/17):

The hospital, located at the camp's entrance, is also difficult to reach because an IDF [Israeli Army] tank is stationed there, which...opens fire at anyone who approaches the hospital. It is also impossible to bring medication or blood units from the hospital to treat the injured....

The IDF refused a request from UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) to transfer water and food to the refugees Monday. UNWRA director Richard Cook told Ha'aretz that...the organization has been unable to deliver medical or food supplies to the camp's inhabitants due to the army's refusal.

An April 15 dispatch from the AFP news agency at the Jenin Refugee Camp reported that Red Cross delegates at the scene "likened [the]...camp after the Israeli assault to an earthquake zone...."

"Jamal Zubaidi, 16, said Israeli troops ordered all men...to come out on the street with their hands up.... The men were then driven to a nearby yard, ordered to strip naked, and made to lie face down in the dirt, Zubaidi said. `While my neighbor Jamal Sabar was taking off his pants, they shot him dead.'

"`I am no longer under arrest. I am free, but I fear going back,' said Abderaman Subeide, 27. `My family is broken. My mother and brother were killed in the fighting, my two brothers were arrested, and I don't know what happened to my wife. I have to find her first....'"

Rulers' Law Make Fascism Legal

(This is the first in a series of articles on the law and legal issues from a revolutionary communist perspective.)

The federal indictment of lawyer Lynne Stewart and three others for helping the Islamic fundamentalist Sheik Rahman may have surprised some, but something like it was bound to happen. Why? U.S. rulers see a chance to use the "anti-terror" laws which are behind the charges in order to terrorize workers and others. So it's important to look at the source of these and other related laws.

U.S. immigration law has a long history of racist, repressive and anti-communist provisions. The courts have specifically upheld many of these more overtly fascist laws when they're challenged. U.S. rulers also spread anti-immigrant ideas among workers. This enables the bosses to legally and politically get away with extra repression when attacking immigrant workers.

After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, new immigration laws allowed the government to establish lists of "foreign terrorist organizations" (FTOs). Once an FTO is put on the list, it's very difficult to legally get it off. Although many listed now are Islamic fundamentalist groups, others are also listed -- Shining Path, a Peruvian Maoist group; and the anti-U.S. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

If you're on the list, (1) any member of the group is unable to enter the U.S.; (2) any non-citizen who gives "material support" to, raises funds for, or tries to recruit people to a group on the list can be arrested, detained and brought before a special deportation court. These courts are allowed to receive secret evidence as long as the government claims -- and the judge agrees -- that releasing such information could harm "national security." (3) A person being tried in this court cannot ask the judge to throw out illegally-obtained evidence.

These laws also allow the government to charge any person, citizen or not, who gives "material support" to an FTO, including money, housing, use of communication equipment or transportation. This is the law that Lynn Stewart, et al., are being tried under. Stewart faces up to 50 years in jail. Supposedly, Stewart used her fax to send messages from the Sheik to some of his followers. The government claims that she violated her agreement not to speak to Rahman about legal matters while visiting him in prison. But the most important issue here was the fact that Stewart is being charged with passing along or concealing what are in essence anti-U.S. political instructions.

Think about this scenario: What if PLP had a chapter in some other country which grew significantly and began challenging the pro-U.S. government there? That government launches a fascist attack on the Party, and PLP organizes the workers to fight back. The U.S. government then designates the PLP chapter there a "foreign terrorist organization." Now sending money, food, cell phones or people (among other "material support") becomes a criminal act which allows U.S. bosses to attack PLP or other supporters of the international working class right here. (To be continued.)

300 Students Back PLP Teachers Facing Anti-Communist Attack

BROOKLYN, NY, April 15 -- Erasmus H.S. teachers are once again under attack for bringing communist politics to their students. After manipulating students and harassing parents at home, the administration decided that two teachers took students on an "unauthorized, overnight trip" and placed a letter in the teachers' files threatening them with firing and loss of license. Of course, when teachers and students attend Sunday school, museum outings or Little League together, no administrator asks if the Superintendent gave permission.

The administration has lied to students about why they were asking questions, about what could happen to the teachers and about the teachers' response to the letter. They have asked the questioned students not to tell the teachers about the investigation. They presented the teachers with only a very general accusation and then assumed guilt because we asked for written allegations.

But five years of PLP organizing in this school has given us teachers a stronger position. The student government immediately wrote a petition in an emergency meeting calling on the principal to drop his "investigations" of dedicated teachers and instead pay attention to the school's real problems: fascistic security, abusive teachers and the lack of decent elective classes. Within a week 300 of the 800 students and many teachers had signed the petition. Teachers have expressed additional support, including one who wrote a detailed letter to the principal condemning the investigation and supporting the accused teachers.

The union has filed a standard grievance against the letter in our file. But as communists we understand that true victory in this battle will be students and teachers understanding the ruling class more clearly, joining the class struggle with us and marching on May Day in working-class solidarity.

Hundreds Confront Racist Cops

CHICAGO, IL April 18 -- Last night about 500 people spilled out of their homes at a West Side housing project to confront the racist police. As two cops pursued Kearie Walker, 21, and Cortez Paramore, 22, as "suspects" in a "drug investigation," "several hundred unruly people...thought they were going to prevent two people from going to jail," said police spokesman Pat Camden.

When dozens of cops in full riot gear arrived at the ABLA Homes on West 13th Street, they were greeted with a salvo of rocks and bottles. Two cops were injured when a brick was thrown into a squad car, striking one of them in the face. The two young black men were charged with aggravated battery to a police officer. There were no drug charges.

This standoff took place just one week after police attacked 49-year old Alton George in the Robert Taylor Homes after they "suspected" he was selling drugs. He was beaten and pistol-whipped before being arrested. He died in police custody.

Those who knew him, described George as a "hard-working married man," who "never did drugs." "If a resident had problems with their refrigerator or stove or anything, he would fix it. That's they type of man he was." (Chicago Defender, 4/20)

You won't find a lot of American flags or "United We Stand" posters in Chicago's public housing projects, just racist unemployment and police terror. "We're afraid it's going to get worse," said one resident. "We want the [police] brutality to stop."

Expose Bosses' Agents In Aerospace Contract Fight

"Stand United" is the International Association of Machinists' (IAM) motto for the upcoming aerospace contract negotiations -- along with a big U.S. flag. Despite appeals to solidarity, at a recent union meeting none of the "leaders" mentioned a word about the current aerospace strikes and wildcats. "Who exactly do they want us to unite with?" asked a clever member.

Lest CHALLENGE readers think we're making a mountain out of a molehill, last meeting the chief negotiator made a rambling speech ending with the supposedly stinging condemnation that "the company has no loyalty to the flag." When members pressed him about supporting the IAM Lockheed workers striking for job security, he blew smoke in our face. "We'll do whatever they [the Lockheed union] ask us to do," he answered. As suspected, that meant doing nothing.

The Silence Is Deafening

You'd never know from union leadership reports that the fight-back against job and wage cuts has spread throughout the world's aerospace industry. Besides Lockheed, 8,000 Canadian IAM members at Bombardier wildcatted in early April after rejecting the company's demands around sick days, work schedules and paid holidays. (A sanctioned strike started April 15.) The workers also want retirement at 58 instead of 60, with no penalties. Workers chanted that these issues all translated into demands for more jobs as they blocked roads leading to three plants in St. Laurent, Dorval and Mirabel in Quebec province.

Meanwhile, Airbus bosses fired a worker accused of leading a March wildcat of 2,000 at the Broughton (North Wales, England) wing plant over pay bonuses for managers and cuts for workers. The BBC reported "many of the 5,000 at the plant were...unhappy with the flexibility agreement reached after [9/11]." In December, the workers were forced to accept "a package of cuts in hours and overtime...and voluntary redundancy [layoffs]" for 200 workers. (BBC News, 4/11)

Union `Leaders' Choose Their Side

"I guess they don't want us getting any ideas," joked a worker back at the shop. The worldwide bosses' "war on terrorism" has turned into a worldwide "war on aerospace workers." We could learn a lot from uniting with aerospace workers internationally to fight these bosses' attacks. Instead, the union leadership plays the nationalist card to thwart any such global unity.

When fascism grew in the 1930s and the world hurtled toward World War II, a pivotal debate raged within the communist movement over whether to emphasize "united front from above" (with bosses) or "united fronts from below" (with workers). As the present crisis intensifies, the question emerges again-- though with different particulars based on present circumstances. Do we unite with the bosses of "our" nation or with the workers of the world?

The union leaders have chosen their side. Their phony militancy hides a nationalist poison. That's why they don't willingly support wildcatting Canadian workers or fired Airbus workers, let alone forge international working-class solidarity.

In the 1930's many reformist union leaders became "social-fascists," advancing the bosses' agenda of war and fascism. That role is fast characterizing the present period.

During the current contract struggle, aerospace workers' organizational and political efforts must build the forces dedicated to advancing the interests of the world's workers. It will be a long, difficult struggle with many tactical twists and turns. Nevertheless, the times demand we take aim at the bosses' agents within the labor movement.

Spectre of Fascism Haunting France

The French capitalist political scene was thrown into turmoil when Jean-Marie Le Pen, the candidate of the openly fascist National Front, ran second in the first round of the presidential elections, eliminating third-place finisher Lionel Jospin, the Socialist Prime Minister. Le Pen, a virulent racist who is bitterly anti-immigrant, was given no chance to reach the final round in May. Now, he will be the one running against President Chirac, who led the voting in the first round with 20%. This open fascist, who considers the Holocaust a "minor detail" in history and wants France out of the European Union, has a slim chance of becoming the President of the French Republic.

Many workers are disenchanted because of the problems caused by the world crisis of capitalism. Workers and voters in general were looking for solutions outside the traditional capitalist parties. But now all the main parties opposing Chirac, including the discredited "Communist" Party (which supported Jospin and was also a big loser), are uniting to support Chirac in order to block Le Pen's rise. Jack Lang, the Socialist Education Minister, said: "We will make sure that fascism does not win."

That's the most dangerous part of this election. Workers and others, who want real change, will be told to choose between two forms of fascism. After all, the Chirac government is blatantly anti-working class and racist, particularly against North African immigrants. It's like choosing between Hitler and Mussolini.

Workers won't find any solutions to the crisis of world capitalism, its wars and recessions, by voting for any one of these politicians. As far as workers' class interests are concerned, they are all fascist.

Phony `Leftists' Opened Door For Le Pen

Jean Marie Le Pen, the open Nazi running against President Chirac in the May 5 elections in France, was a creation of socialist Francois Mitterrand. Before Mitterrand became President (1981-95), Le Pen was a minor figure, ridiculed by the press. But in 1984, everything changed. Even though Le Pen received only 0.3% of the vote in the first round of the 1981 elections, in Feb. 1984 Mitterrand made possible Le Pen's appearance on government-owned public TV on the popular program, "L'heure de verité" (The hour of truth). This was just before the elections to the European Parliament. It exposed the French public to this fascist demagogue's rhetoric. His vote zoomed to 11.2%.

Then, the 1986 legislative elections, when Mitterand's Socialist Party (SP) was a clear underdog to Chirac's right-wing Gaullist Party, Mitterrand "reformed" the electoral system, enabling Le Pen's Nazis to win 35 seats in the National Assembly. This divided the right-wing vote (previously solidly Gaullist), helping Mitterand's SP. That was the real birth of Le Pen.

The SP Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and his allies in the French "Communist" Party ("C"P), who've ruled France since 1997, also helped open the doors to the current Le Pen upsurge. Their government's privatization program slashed tens of thousands of workers' jobs from Danone, Air France, Moulinex, Bata, Péchiney and AOM-Air Liberté. When Michelin workers appealed to the SP-"C"P government for help against massive job losses, nothing was done. Even the 35-hour work-week, considered by the PS-"C"P as crucial to their 1997 electoral victory, today only benefits one in three workers. The shorter work-week legislation has so many loopholes, workers believe it has actually worsened wages and working conditions. In France, like in most capitalist countries, the gap between rich and poor has widened, and younger workers have gotten the worst of it. No wonder the "C"P recorded its lowest vote ever (just 3.4%) in the first round of the current elections.

The "C"P has a long history of betrayals which has demoralized workers (10% of those who voted for Le Pen used to vote for the "C"P). In 1968, it sabotaged the massive worker-student general strike that almost overthrew the French government of General DeGaulle. In the 1980s, the "C"P Mayor of a town near Paris used a bulldozer to demolish apartments of African immigrant workers. Like Mitterrand's SP, the "C"P has supported French imperialist military adventures, like the bloody attempt to keep Algeria a French colony in the late 1950s early '60s.

Phony "left" organizations' opportunist, right-wing, pro-capitalist policies open the doors to Nazis like Le Pen.

Meanwhile, some groups with a rhetoric to the left of the "C"P gained more votes than in the past, combining to come in fourth after Jospin. Though such organizations (Trotskyites) claim to be revolutionaries, they are basically electoral parties, helping to build illusions among millions of left-leaning workers angry with the status quo that capitalism can be reformed peacefully through elections.

Failed Coup Setback For U.S. Bosses In Own `Backyard'

Obstacles are mounting to the U.S. bosses' plans to dominate the world and eliminate or neutralize all opposition.

"What began so simply on Sept. 11 has become extraordinarily complex," reports Stratfor.com (4/22), "On Sept. 11, the U.S. announced a single...goal: the utter destruction of al Qaeda....Only seven months into the war...the effort is increasingly murky....The U.S. is being buffeted by events that have little to do with al Qaeda but certainly cut into Washington's ability to focus on the core issue. The recent coup in Venezuela is a case in point....Venezuela is a huge problem for the U.S. It produces about 4% of the world's crude oil and provides 16% of all oil consumed by the U.S." (Stratfor.com, April 22).

The failure of the coup in Venezuela -- organized by a combination of the Chamber of Commerce; the mass media; the head of Venoco petrochemical (one of South America's richest bosses); right-wing union hacks trained by the AFL-CIO; generals trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas; and the Opus Dei fascist sect of the Catholic Church -- was a big setback for the Bush administration. Apparently, in the 24 hours of holding power these different factions fought each other over who would take what, contributing to the coup's collapse. So as Stratfor says: "If Chavez, a relatively minor figure, can survive the wrath of Washington, how seriously should the rest of the world take the Bush administration's `with-us-or-against-us' rhetoric?"

Venezuela, after all, is in the U.S. "backyard," where the Monroe Doctrine is supposed to apply, and the failed coup has given ideas to others (especially the European imperialists) that Washington's bark is louder than its bite. For sure, there will be another coup attempt. For example, the first coup against Allende in Chile occurred in June 1973, led by the army's Tacna's tank brigade. It failed. In a compromise with fascist pro-U.S. forces, the socialist Allende named General Pinochet as Army chief. Three months later, on Sept. 11, a coup organized by Pinochet, Kissinger and AT&T succeeded. Thousands of workers and youth were killed by the fascist Pinochet regime.

Chavez Is No Friend of Venezuelan Workers

However, the tens of thousands of poor workers and honest soldiers who came out to oppose the coup against Chavez and who hate the old ruling elite that sees the workers with racist contempt, should understand that reliance on Chavez is a losing strategy. Chavez follows a long line of populist military leaders (Omar Torrijos in Panama, Juan Torres in Bolivia and even Perón in Argentina) who used the working class to fight for their own brand of capitalism. While Chavez has angered U.S. bosses by being too friendly with the Colombian guerrillas, flirting with Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro and the European imperialists and worst of all, opposing the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, he has done very little to improve the lot of the working class of Venezuela. In fact, his "Bolivarian Revolution," trying to use imperialist investments to help the "national development," has devalued the Bolivar (the local currency), increased the cost of living, and cut back public services 20%.

Today, 80% of all Venezuelans still live below the poverty line.

As most reformists and populists, Chavez is now trying to reconcile with the coup organizers (hated by most workers since they are the same racist corrupt gang which stole the oil wealth of Venezuela and sent the army to murder 1,000 people during the 1989 El Caracazo mass uprising). But Washington and their local agents plan to prove that what no one can challenge them in the U.S. "backyard."

Workers must organize for the coming battles. The fight to build a communist movement is now a matter of life and death for the working class of Venezuela.

Venezuela: Surprise! It Is All About Oil!

Isaac Pérez Rouca, the 32-year-old heir to the Venoco petrochemical fortune, is one of the richest men in Latin America. Basically he -- along with the U.S. embassy -- coordinated the recent failed coup in Venezuela. Carmona, head of the Chamber of Commerce, who was installed as President for 24 hours before Chavez returned to power, is an employee of the Venoco company.

The coup mirrors a fight over control of PVDSA (the state-owned oil company), one of the world's largest. Venezuela has an estimated 221 billion barrels of oil reserves of which 78 billion barrels are proven. This represents approximately half the reserves in the Western Hemisphere, placing Venezuela in fifth place worldwide in available proven reserves. If the Orinoco Strip reserves are added, it has the largest reserves on the planet, 300 billion barrels. Additionally, it has approximately 30% of the Hemisphere's reserves, sixth largest in the world. It also has four coal mines with reserves of 1 billion metric tons.

PVDSA is the biggest oil exporter to the U.S., providing 16% of U.S. daily needs. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based CITGO was bought by PDVSA in the 1990s, and its CEO is a Venezuelan military officer appointed by Chavez. CITGO owns 18.6% of U.S. refining capacity, distributing over 140 million barrels of gasoline a year through its own gas stations. It also produces over 30 million barrels of jet fuel per year and operates one of the largest asphalt refineries on the East Coast. Obviously PDVSA is a big prize. It was founded in 1976 when the Venezuelan oil industry was nationalized but in the last several years it has opened up to foreign investors, seeking the capital to increase daily oil production to 5.8 million barrels and to more than double its daily natural gas production by 2009. The biggest projects, requiring heavy foreign investments, have been awarded to Conoco, Exxon Mobil, Veba Oel, Total (the giant French oil company), Statoil, and Phillips and Texaco.

The fight to control PDVSA is central to the dogfight in Venezuela. Billions are at stake. Falling into the "wrong" hands -- Chavez's friends among European imperialists, Iraq and Cuba -- would be a big blow to U.S. imperialist oil war plans, particularly to attack Iraq.

LETTERS
Workers of the World, Write!

Building GI's Class Consciousness

I've always thought the military was one of the most diverse and socially accepting organizations in terms of ethnic backgrounds, especially among the enlisted ranks. Where else are people thrown together and forced to get along and work towards a common goal regardless of where they're from? Not until September 11 did I realize the truth behind it all.

I work with people mostly from lower working-class families. I had thought they saw the world as I did. With the rest of my work center I remember watching the events of September 11 unfold on CNN with thoughts of war in my head. Only after the destruction did I hear one of my black co-workers say, "We need to just get rid of all the Arabs in our country. Go over and kill them all!" [Ed.: This discussion occurred among a large group of black soldiers.] Then it hit me; my co-workers view the world the way our backward and corrupt country encourages us to. We've been taught to celebrate all the differences we encounter in life but never to realize we're all part of the whole.

As the government's war for oil profits continued, I struggled with my co-workers. "What would you say if a black person had done this [Ed.: crashed into the WTC]?" I asked. "Would you then agree to round up thousands of black men just because they were black?"

"That's different," someone said.

"No, it's not," I replied. "It's racism!"

I must win my fellow soldiers to see we're all part of the same working class. When the bosses attack one section of our class, they prepare the way to attack all workers. As long as we think only about "our" group, then they can turn one group of workers against another in the service of everlasting profits.

Not Fooled by Bosses' Racist War Lies

It's Not Jews versus Arabs

I've attended rallies protesting the actions of the Israeli government.

There's been a good response by many to the idea of Arab-Jewish unity against the occupation. But that's not the only response.

At one march, I carried a sign saying, "Arabs and Jews unite against all imperialist warmongers," and passed out a leaflet headlined, "Arabs and Jews -- Unite Against All Bosses." I gave one to a man carrying a Palestinian flag. He asked, "What is your political position?" I said, "I'm a communist." He said,"Oh. Then you're neutral in this struggle." I was taken aback. "Neutral?" I said, "I most certainly am NOT neutral! I'm on the side of the international working class. We're fighting to destroy all these imperialists who are murdering workers for their own oil profits."

The Israeli government slaughter of Palestinians is an attack on all workers, like the U.S. bosses' attack on Iraqi and Afghani workers. The random killing of Jews in pizza parlors is also such an attack.

This man's remark was telling. A nationalist perspective puts one either on the side of the Palestinians or on the side of the Jews. This is an anti-worker outlook. It plays right into the hands of the different bosses who manipulate each side for their own imperialist aims. The U.S. and Israeli bosses are justifiably hated by many worldwide. But we also must expose the cynical game being played by the bosses of the European Union (EU), Iran, and Arafat and Hamas who are fomenting Palestinian nationalism and suicide bombings which kill Palestinian and Jewish workers. The EU wants to become the "honest broker" in the Middle East. They and other imperialists want access to oil independent from the U.S. bosses. Arafat and Hamas want to be bosses over Palestinian workers, with the support of the EU and other imperialists.

We must unite with workers of the world, not with any boss. There is no lesser evil capitalist or imperialist. The working class has paid dearly for uniting with "lesser evil imperialists." We have an uphill fight, but only communism can end wars for oil profits and meet the needs of the world's workers. Communists need to be bold and principled in this fight.

A Comrade

Need Jewish-Arab Worker Unity

On April 20, tens of thousands marched in Washington against the "War on Terrorism" and U.S. aid to Israel. I attended the United We March rally with nineteen students from the Boston U. Students Unite for Peace. During the rally we passed out SPARKs, the paper of our support group. I also distributed May Day stickers, PLP flyers and CHALLENGES and had discussions with people from the group.

During the march most chants were initially pro-peace/anti-Bush. About 15 mostly black students joined my chanting of, "Cheney you liar, we'll set your ass on fire!" It startled many people in my group. Some felt it was too militant. My chant of "Arab, Latin, black and white, Workers of the World Unite!" was not taken up. The Coalition group "ANSWER," including many Arab families, chanted, "Free, Free Palestine! Die! Die! Israel!" Several hundred chanted, "1,2,3,4, We don't want your racist war! 5,6,7,8, Stop the violence, Stop the Hate!"

This contrast between the pro-peace, anti-violence chants and the militant, nationalist and occasionally racist chants permeated much of the March. Anti-Jewish chants and signs equating the Star of David with the Nazi Swastika disgusted many in my group and in the March. All the BU students in my group agreed with me that we needed Jewish-Arab unity against Israel's war and racism to end the war in Israel/Palestine. When we neared the Capitol building we pointed towards it and chanted, "This is what Democracy looks like! That is what Fascism looks like!"

I strengthened my ties with those in the group and struggled with them over advancing multi-racial unity to oppose war and racism; over the mistaken goal of self-determination and the need to destroy nationalism, imperialism and capitalism with communism and revolution; and over the difference between militant, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist chants versus pacifist chants that only called for "peace" and for the U.S. to "stop" oppressing and exploiting all workers.

A Comrade

Putting Racism to the Test

I teach physics in a large urban high school. Recently a big controversy erupted over the Science Department's final exams. All teachers of any particular course were supposed to give the same final. Students who failed would have to repeat the course (although the passing grade was set pretty low).

This is a long-standing policy, established (before I got there) because some teachers were not actually covering all the course material. In a few cases, their students were being cheated because their teachers were lazy and/or racist and didn't bother to teach. The purpose of the test was to maintain academic standards by pressuring these teachers to do their job.

But to many students, the tests were an obstacle preventing them from graduating. Actually, since I've been at this school, very few -- if any -- students have failed these exams after earning a "C" average or better all year. Still, some students considered the tests racist, like IQ tests and other exams that are really racist. Quite a few postponed taking science classes as long as possible, and took as few as they could get away with. Of course, this is not what most of the science teachers want.

So the students, encouraged by some counselors and other school staff, protested the "science exit exams." They circulated petitions and organized people to attend a school board meeting to complain. There was talk of a walkout.

Well, I generally encourage students to fight racism. But I wasn't convinced these final exams were racist. However, comments being made by some paternalistic adults seemed a lot more racist. They implied strongly that "these students" couldn't really learn science, that science was "too hard for them," and that "very few people really need to know science anyway." But all working-class youth, and workers of any age, can and must learn science -- and math, history, philosophy, language skills, the nature of capitalism and the history of revolution as well.

Fortunately, we were able to organize dialogue between anti-racist teachers and a few of the student organizers. After a few very tense weeks, most of the science teachers admitted a minimum "make-it-or-break-it" cut-off score on the test was unnecessary. Now the test grades will be averaged in with the rest of the course work, producing almost the exact same effect, but without making the students so anxious.

The student leaders, pleased with this victory, were open to the idea that fighting racism in science education means finding ways to help more students take, and succeed at, science classes. A new science club is forming to work on this.

The Party's politics of "fight to teach, fight to learn" really helped me to sort out -- and give leadership to -- a situation that initially seemed pretty awful. It created much discussion, in the lunchroom with other teachers and also in my classrooms, and has led to some new friendships based on anti-racist struggle.

A Teacher

a href="#U.S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now">"IL FEEDS FLAMES OF BOSSES’ WAR IN MID-EAST: U.S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now

• Pro-U.S. Mubarak, Saudi Royal Parasites Remember the Shah of Iran
• European Imperialists Want Independence from ExxonMobil
• Liberals Want U.S. Troops In Middle East
• Arabs and Jews unite against Israeli onslaught

3000 March in New York City

• Protest in Ramallah

NY Teachers, Parents Talk Up Strike vs. Racist School Mess

a href="#Muni Bosses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs">Muni B"sses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs

a href="#A Debate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?">A "ebate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?

• CHALLENGE RESPONDS

L.A. Airport March Hits Immigration Terror Tactics

Working-Class Unity Sparks May Day Celebration in SSEU Local 371

Recovery? Tell It to the Jobless

a href="#Bosses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia">"osses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia

a href="#Bosses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts">"osses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts

Iraq: a Strategic Partner of Russian Rulers

a href="#Anti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder">"nti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder

LETTERS

Why Compare Israeli Rulers to Nazis?

An Apple For The Principal

a href="#Globalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage">"lobalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage

Oscar Movies Cover for Racism

a name="U.S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now">">".S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now

The conflict raging in the Middle East has dealt U.S. rulers a major tactical setback. The bosses could care less about the number of Israeli civilians who die in suicide bombings or the wholesale murder of Palestinian workers by the Israeli military. Despite Bush’s fake humanitarian posturing about dead teenagers, the real issue for U.S. imperialism is the control of oil.

The domination of world energy supplies keeps the U.S. in the driver’s seat internationally. Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq remains an important threat to this domination. Hussein’s a thug, sure, but the real reason the U.S. hates him is his plan for oil deals with the European, Chinese, and Russian rivals of Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and other Establishment energy firms. The U.S. ruling class has set a priority on replacing him with a docile, pro-Exxon government in Baghdad. When Bush Jr. took office, the big bosses had all agreed on launching a new war against Iraq. They thought they had only the details to settle. They figured they could afford to ignore the growing armed struggle between the Israeli fascists and Palestinian nationalists.

Ironically, their blunder is playing into the hands of the bin Laden gang, who want to use mass outrage in the Arab-Muslim world as a wedge to drive the U.S. out of the key Persian Gulf oil producing countries. Every Palestinian killed by the Israeli military fans the flames and increases the risks the U.S. would incur by launching a war against Iraq at this time.

Pro-U.S. Mubarak, Saudi Royal Parasites Remember the Shah of Iran

Millions throughout the Arab-Muslim countries are taking to the streets to protest a U.S.-equipped Israeli army that is terrorizing thousands of Palestinians. This growing instability could threaten pro-U.S. governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, especially if the U.S. invades Iraq and slaughters thousands of Iraqi workers. This danger is far greater now than during Bush Sr.’s Desert Storm I in 1991.

Mass anti-U.S. nationalist uprisings could potentially topple the Egyptian and Saudi governments. They remember how in 1979 the Shah of Iran, the former U.S. goon in the Persian Gulf, was toppled. Egyptian President Mubarak faces mounting pressure to revoke the "peace" treaty with Israel. The Saudi rulers may have to appease the irate Saudi working class with some sort of anti-U.S. gesture. Oil prices are already rising because of the struggle in the Middle East, and a temporary anti-U.S. oil embargo would push them further upward, with unfavorable consequences for a U.S. economy that’s not out of the woods.

European Imperialists Want Independence from ExxonMobil

Further complicating the picture is mounting opposition from the major western European countries. They all have energy ambitions of their own. Most would like to conduct their oil business in Iraq and Iran independently of ExxonMobil. The only partial exception is Britain, but even they are wavering. More than 130 members of Parliament, including current and former cabinet ministers, oppose Blair’s Iraq policy.

Workers can learn an important lesson from U.S. imperialism’s predicament. On the one hand, the U.S. appears all-powerful. It’s richer and better armed than any country in the world. Yet the threat of mass uprisings in areas of vital strategic interest seriously undermines its tactical maneuverability. This is exactly what the bin Laden-al Qaeda bosses hoped to exploit. So far, they have made a good bet. Despite appearances, U.S. bosses face limits.

U.S imperialism can still bribe and threaten with more authority than anyone. This is what U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will do on his Middle East tour. However, every "solution" will lead to more problems. The profit rivalry that pits Israeli and Palestinian bosses against each other won’t go away even if Powell manages to make them sign a truce. Far more likely is a deal that would include some sort of U.S. "peacekeeping" force.

U.S. troops patrolling the Middle East will not bring peace. One way or another, U.S. imperialism must attempt to settle its Iraq problem by force. Perhaps a wider war isn’t immediately in the cards. But the dogfight for the world’s main oil supplies will go on, and it will always lead to war. The Arab and Muslim masses have shown their hatred of U.S. imperialism and their willingness to die to defeat it. But it does no good to replace one capitalist with another.

The task of workers, youth and soldiers, who are dying and will continue to die in the oil bloodbaths, is to break with all our oppressors and smash the profit system that causes war and racist-fascist terror. This requires fighting for communism, a society without any bosses. This will be our Party’s slogan on May Day 2002 and throughout the years ahead

Liberals Want U.S. Troops In Middle East

A growing number of voices within the U.S Establishment are demanding U.S. military intervention The liberal New York Times’ foreign affairs pundit Thomas Friedman has been plugging it for the last few weeks. His April 3 column quotes a Middle East expert calling for U.S. troops to "supervise the gradual emergence of a Palestinian state" as "the only solution." And Times columnist Bill Keller warns: "The tighter America clings to…Sharon, the more the Arab rank-and-file is aroused against America, the more the anti-terror alliance is strained, and the more Saddam becomes a folk hero" (April 6). Latest to weigh in is former Carter National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski: "The United States should…indicate its willingness to deploy, with the consent both of Israel and of Palestine, a peacekeeping force to enhance security for both parties" (New York Times, April 7 op-ed). Brzezinski speaks with the voice of authority. His 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, outlined the strategy U.S. imperialism is now pursuing in its bloody drive to rule the world for the next 50 years.

Arabs and Jews Unite against Israeli Onslaught

LOS ANGELES, CA, April 5 — Over the past two weeks there has been a series of rallies and demonstrations against the Israeli government’s invasion of the West Bank. One primarily Israeli-American Jewish group held a spirited rally at the Israeli consulate, involving Jews, Arabs, and other opponents of the Israeli fascists. Among the chants were "Sharon, Sharon you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide." Signs calling for Arab-Jewish unity against the occupation were well received.

At the Westwood Federal Building, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and other Arab-American organizations sponsored two spirited rallies and marches. The official theme was the nationalist slogan "Free Palestine." Most of the participants were Arab-Americans.

Most of the criticism was directed at President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Sharon. Missing was any mention of the Israeli Labor Party, which is part of Sharon’s government. Israel’s foreign minister and Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, is on the verge of having his Nobel Peace Prize rescinded due to his role in this invasion. On the American side, the Democrats escaped any criticism, even though they are solid supporters of the U.S. "war on terrorism" and the Israeli war on the West Bank. The former, which was the target of other rallies at this site, was not linked to the current Israeli invasion.

But there were also glimmers of internationalism and anti-imperialism. Many signs called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and to prosecute Israeli officials as war criminals. Others called for unity of Arabs and Jews. One group of American Jews and Israelis carried banners and picket signs that opposed the invasion, occupation, and illegal settlements. While the politics of these events was clearly nationalist, there was absolutely no animosity between Arabs and Jews. In fact, many people in the march were elated to see this group, offered to carry their signs, and engaged them in friendly conversation.

Many of those who marched were way ahead of the leadership on the question of nationalism. They rejected the concept of an exclusive Palestinian nationalism and were openly sympathetic to international unity and anti-imperialism. The idea of Jews and Palestinians overcoming their differences through personal contacts, and joining together in social, cultural and political events, was well received.

As the Israeli invasion continues, we can expect rallies and marches in city after city. And when the U.S. invades Iraq, these actions could swell even further and merge with opposition to the "war on terrorism." Our role is to steer people in an anti-imperialist and internationalist, revolutionary direction.

We need to come with signs and slogans that oppose all forms of nationalism and imperialism, not just a few hawkish politicians in Israel and the U.S. We also need to focus on the role of the U.S. and other imperialists in the Middle East, and oppose the oppressive regimes propped up by the U.S., like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

This political challenge is as hard as it is important. These protest actions are growing. But Palestinian nationalism, replacing one set of exploiters for another, will never lead to international unity of the working class, and the killing will never end. The Israeli-Palestinian war is a product of imperialism, linked to the "war on terrorism" and the need to control the oil and gas reserves of this region. The angry and militant workers and youth of the entire region need communist politics now more than ever, so that their struggle can grow into an international revolutionary storm to sweep away the cause of war and fascist terror: capitalism. That is what the communist PLP is fighting for. Join Us!

3000 March in New York City

NEW YORK CITY, April 6—As part of an international day of protest, 3,000 Arabs, Jews and others marched against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the imperialist oppression of Palestinians. Starting from Brooklyn’s Borough Hall they streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan’s City Hall.

The demonstration followed Zionist death threats against the family of Adam Shapiro. Adam and his Palestinian-American fiancé live in Ramallah where they have been doing humanitarian relief work among the Palestinian resisters. For that he was called a "traitor" (he is Jewish) by right-wingers like the New York Post and the fascist Jewish Defense Organization.

Many Arabs at the demonstration made a point of seeking out the Jews to thank them for coming to the march. This is significant since the media is trying to push the idea that all Jews support Sharon, particularly in the U.S. However, opposing Israeli fascism is in the interest of workers worldwide. Arabs and Jews in many different countries united against the Israeli bosses’ slaughter of Palestinians.

Other marches opposing the Israeli butchers occurred around the world — Buenos Aires, London, Beirut and In Morocco where 300,000 marched. In Israel itself, 15,000 demonstrated against Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, calling for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

Protest in Ramallah

RAMALLAH, PALESTINE, April 3 — Today 6,000 unified Arabs and Jews marched to the Calandia checkpoint here to try to break the Israeli cordon around the city and bring urgently needed food and medicine to Palestinians trapped by invading Israeli troops. They were also protesting the curfew and occupation as well as the U.S. open support for the Israeli assault on the West Bank. The aid got through but the soldiers and cops engaged in running battles with the protesters, beating them and throwing tear gas bombs each time they regrouped and re-started their chants. Thirty were injured.

NY Teachers, Parents Talk Up Strike vs. Racist School Mess

NEW YORK CITY, April 2 — A group of teachers and parents met today to map out plans to lead education workers in the event of a school strike. New York schools are a mess. Working-class students, mostly black and Latin, aren’t being taught the skills they need—reading, math, test-taking — while facing tightened security and racism and increasingly patriotic propaganda. The pledge of allegiance and the national anthem are being forced on students in many schools.

The rulers might try to use this patriotism to accuse teachers of being "unpatriotic," or "striking during wartime." The union leadership has already adopted a pro-war position, setting us up for such an attack. We must expose the nature of the war as anti-working class, conducted on behalf of U.S. bosses to control the world’s supply of oil. Striking during an imperialist war, and exposing its true nature, can raise the level of class struggle and give leadership to the whole working class.

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), representing 80,000 education workers, has been working without a contract for the last 17 months. The union leadership, relying on politician after politician, has begun floating rumors that we might be forced to strike. There have been repeated calls from the floor of the monthly Delegate Assembly for union members to take action. Passivity won’t work against the city’s unwillingness to negotiate with the union.

Does that mean the union will lead us to fight for better conditions for students and teachers? Does it mean they will demand that the Board of Education act on our belief that "all students can learn?" Never!

Therefore, we’ve made plans to organize strike committees at all schools. We want to win our colleagues to strike against the coming budget cuts and to organize parents and students to join a struggle for better conditions. In the middle of this struggle, it is imperative that we recruit teachers, students and parents to the Party.

We’ll bring co-workers, students and friends to the citywide UFT meeting that will call for a strike authorization vote. We’ll bring students to our April 15 citywide informational picket lines despite the UFT leadership’s ban on students from picketing.

Today’s meeting is the beginning in some schools, and the continuation in others, of the struggle for the rank and file, Party members and others, to become the actual leadership.

a name="Muni Bosses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs"></a>Mu"i Bosses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs

SAN FRANCISCO, CA April 7 — MUNI RR Management attempted to balance the budget by changing our work schedules to save $4 million and reduce our take-home pay. We beat back some of the changes and won a temporary victory. Everyone is waiting for the next attack when the summer schedules come out.

Workers are always in conflict with the profit drive. This conflict is getting sharper now as the bosses push their pro-war patriotism. Anyone who fights back exposes their Big Lie war cry, "United We Stand."

Drivers at all 7 Muni Divisions agreed that if one Division did not sign up for the schedules, no one would. This new level of class unity grew out of the last contract fight, which reduced wage progression from 31 months to 18 months. This put more money in new workers’ pockets for a moment, but was management’s first attempt to get it back. The real victory from the contract fight was a new level of class-consciousness and unity among older and newer drivers.

But this battle left us with the same old 12-hour day, OT built into our daily schedules, unsafe running times and the planning of our workday in the hands of management, whose main goal is increasing productivity. We asked our coworkers, "Why are we forced to work long hours so that the OT ends up killing us with high blood pressure and physical breakdown after 10 years of working at MUNI?"

Many workers hate the long hours and OT but don’t see any alternative to meeting the very high cost of living in the Bay Area. Many seek an "individual solution." Doing battle with management changes this outlook, but we have to be there to point out the contradictions of capitalism.

We want to build unity among riders and drivers, and a transit system that serves the working class. In the union, we raise the need to impose and collect a bigger transit fee on the Downtown Business corridor rather than raising fares, cutting service, or reducing labor costs. "Make the bosses pay" is a popular demand, while MUNI cuts service to community lines or off peak hours before rush hour service.

A transit assessment fee passed in 1981 as a compromise between Bechtel, Bank of America, Chevron and the then Mayor Feinstein. In return for doubling the fare from 25 to 50 cents, new developers would pay $5\sq foot of each new building into a Transit Impact Development Fund (TIDF), which they passed on as part of their costs. Old established businesses did not have to pay this.

Under Mayor Willie Brown, a loophole to "exempt" the developers from the TIDF created a budget deficit and Muni management is attacking transit workers to balance the budget. Our union leadership opposes collecting this fee because they don’t want to challenge the Democratic Party and Mayor Brown. Relying on the electoral process as their only strategy has contributed to the steady erosion of wages and benefits over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, this continues to have credibility with some drivers.

The union leaders don’t want to "make the bosses pay." They argue that if you challenge their profits, big business will leave San Francisco, leading to job cuts and unemployment. They believe the workers won’t fight, and the bosses are too strong.

We aim to show workers that without our labor, the bosses are nothing. We don’t need any bosses. We needed a communist society where everything that we produce serves the needs of workers.

a name="A Debate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?"></">A "ebate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?

The article "Bus Strikers’ Choice: Rely on Politicians or Rank & File Strength," concerning the recent struggle in Queens, attempts to address some hard questions about bringing up the need for a revolution while fighting for reforms on the job. Resolving this contradiction has plagued the communist movement and is a work in progress at MUNI.

The title asks the key question, but the article is confusing. It seems to make militant action the measure of a successful fight ("Stay out until we get what we want"). But that is a tactical question, which is hard to judge from outside the struggle.

The rest of the article correctly emphasizes that the development of workers’ political consciousness is most important. Challenge should expose why fighting for reforms without trying to develop revolutionary consciousness is a dead end while acknowledging that this is difficult in today’s work place.

We should investigate how struggle affects the working class. What political lessons do the workers draw? Do they gain a better understanding that we will always be on the defensive treadmill under capitalism? Does the struggle help chip away the cynicism and anger that many of our coworkers have towards other workers and passengers?

Communists see the potential of uniting workers and passengers to fight the big corporations. But we also recognize that many of our coworkers think this is impossible. Building this alliance requires changing a lot of workers’ understanding of the world and of the role of unions. Many drivers support a fare increase to help deal with budget shortfalls. Often drivers don’t take a class point of view.

To its credit, the reform leadership of Local 100 is trying to develop this unity with community outreach and opposing service cuts. This is the opposite of the collaboration with management and the Democrats that the old leadership of Local 100, and our International Leadership, did for 20 years.

As Bolshevik organizer Piatnitsky wrote in 1932, "Instead of taking every little fact of treachery [and]…relating just how and when the…reformist leaders…betrayed the interests of the working class…our comrades keep repeating: Social-Fascists and trade union bureaucrats, and that is all. And they think that having said [that]…all the workers must understand just what is meant by these terms…and believe that the…reformist leaders deserved them. This only has the effect of repelling the honest workers who belong to the…reformist trade unions, since they do not regard themselves either as Social Fascists or trade union bureaucrats."

Challenge should emphasize the hold that capitalism has on the minds of the workers, which makes revolution and a communist society seem to be a "pipe dream." There are reform leaders who are honest, want basic change in society, fight for the working class, but don’t see that building a revolutionary movement is possible among today’s working class. We hope to influence them with a friendly debate, not attack them.

Since we are more familiar with the ins and outs of the transit industry our input might have helped the balance in the article. However, the fact that the article did come out makes us confront our own problems with reform and revolution.

MUNI PLP Club

CHALLENGE RESPONDS

Thanks for sharpening the struggle around reform and revolution. While you may be "more familiar with the ins and outs of the transit industry," as the old Bob Dylan song goes, "You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing." The article you refer to was far from perfect, and written from the "outside." But we attempt to draw lessons from many struggles we are not directly involved in, like the war in Afghanistan or the Middle East.

The heart of your criticism is that we mistakenly criticized the leadership of Local 100, either in form or substance, or both. You point to their opposing service cuts and criticize the article for making "militant action the measure of a successful fight." You imply that we are calling names rather than explaining how the reformist leaders "betrayed the interests of the working class," and "repelling honest workers." You say that the struggle to defeat reformism will be won through "friendly debate, not attack[ing]" the reformist leaders.

Without going over the article line by line, the New Directions leadership was criticized for not organizing support among the MTA transit workers and said, "As long as the ‘public’ and ‘private’ transit workers fight separately, they will drag each other down…" Local 100 President Toussaint was quoted and criticized for "trying to ‘force local politicians to take a stand,’ and telling "1,400 workers that a ‘long strike’ would turn the ‘public" against them.’" (NY Daily News, 2/28) It was at this meeting that a militant driver challenged Toussaint saying, "Now that we’re out, we should stay out till we get what we want."

Should the driver not have challenged Toussaint? Should we not have reported it? How exactly should we carry out the "friendly debate?"

But even more to the point, the "reform leaders who are honest…but don’t see that building a revolutionary movement is possible," are the very ones who have a "hold…on the minds of the workers." In California, SEIU organized thousands of home healthcare workers by making a deal to support governor Grey Davis. In New York, over 200,000 SEIU hospital workers got raises in their contracts in return for the union’s backing of Governor Pataki. Toussaint and New Directions won the leadership of Local 100 promising to organize thousands of Workfare slave laborers, who clean subways for poverty wages, into the union. They have done very little to fulfill that promise. "What political lessons [did] the workers draw? [Did] they gain a better understanding that we will always be on the defensive treadmill under capitalism? [Did] the struggle help chip away the cynicism…?" Of course not.

Let’s not kid ourselves. The vast majority of union leaders, even the reformers, will never be won to the PLP and communist revolution. Those that are will come around as the Party develops a mass political base. This means fighting the reformers for the political leadership of the workers. This is a very difficult and complicated process, especially in these political "Dark Ages." We must take a hard line and use flexible tactics, and not be mechanical. But if we don’t fight tooth and nail to expose the reformist traps, we won’t be doing anyone any favors.

L.A. Airport March Hits Immigration Terror Tactics

LOS ANGELES, CA, April 8 — Over 500 workers, students and others marched around LA international airport to protest the recent terror raids by the hated INS (Immigration Department). Community organizations, unions (including SEIU) and churches organized the demonstration. In the last weeks, hundreds of people have been arrested at the airport while traveling to other U.S. cities. Airport workers with years at the airport have also been deported. Simultaneously, the INS has raided the garment industry and other industrial areas.

While the march’s leadership focused on writing Bush, telling him to stop the raids and deportations, many workers angrily chanted more advanced political slogans like, "Workers struggles have no borders"; "The workers, united, will never be defeated"; and "Migra, listen we’re fighting back!"

These raids coincide with the U.S. Supreme Court decision that a worker fired for union organizing has no right to back pay if he’s undocumented. This intensifies exploitation and open robbery by the bosses. An immigrant airport worker, and U.S. citizen, was fired when a 20-year-old arrest for marijuana showed up on his record! The bosses and their government use racism to terrorize all workers.

The attacks and racist raids against Arabs and Muslims after Sept. 11 showed what the bosses have in store for all workers — immigrant and citizen. At the time, the leadership of these organizations sat on their hands. Now, with sharpening attacks against Latino immigrants, these leaders call on Latinos to organize against them, ignoring Arab and Muslim immigrants, even boasting, "Latinos are patriotic Americans." They divide workers and build the big bosses’ pro-U.S. patriotism.

But these attacks are creating another contradiction for the bosses in their drive towards war. Many children and relatives of these deported workers are in the armed forces. The ruling class needs them to kill and die to protect the bosses’ control of oil in the Middle East. These youth can’t be too enthusiastic about that role while seeing their families deported, jailed and super-exploited.

Such contradictions expose the capitalist system and its lies about "democracy, justice and equality." We can turn these racist attacks and deportations around, fighting to build a communist society based on meeting the needs of the international working class, not the bosses’ profits.

By participating with many workers in the activities of these mass organizations, unions and churches, we can win workers to break our capitalist chains. With persistence and boldness, we can lead workers to the profound understanding that the "working class has no borders," and build international solidarity and the fight for communism. Bringing workers to May Day 2002 is an important step in this fight.

Working-Class Unity Sparks May Day Celebration in SSEU Local 371

NEW YORK CITY, April 8 — The bosses use divide-and-conquer as one of their main strategies. Throughout capitalist societies, so-called identity politics prevails. Workers, students and others are taught to identify themselves based on the color of their skin, their country of birth or their religion.

In AFSCME’s SSEU Local 371, we have celebrated Black history night as well as Caribbean, Latino, Jewish and Italian Heritage nights. This year, based on a resolution from the Local’s Delegate Assembly, our class unity will be celebrated on May 7 in our Local’s first ever May Day event.

In previous years, the Local voted to encourage members’ participation in PLP May Day events outside the union. This year May Day is being brought into the Local. At the first organizing committee meeting we discussed the nuts and bolts of the program as well as the history of May Day and of union organizing. It was a new way to learn and teach the lessons of the past and their applications to the future.

Meanwhile, workers can carry the May Day spirit even futher by marching with PLP in Brooklyn on May 4th.

Recovery? Tell It to the Jobless

"It’s all over!" claim the experts. "Recovery’s on the way." But don’t tell that to the millions who lost, and are still losing their jobs. The millions who were thrown on the street will never recover their losses, in wages and benefits. Even when and if rehired, the jobs usually pay lower and pay less benefits.

The new "recovery" is cutting jobs like crazy. According to the Wall Street Journal (4/1):

• After 43 consecutive years of profit growth, Emerson Electric’s streak ended in this recession. With profits down 27%, it’s closing 50 plants in the U.S. and moving much of its production to Mexico and China.

• By 2004, tool manufacturer Black & Decker will shut 25% of its productive capacity and shift operations to Mexico, China and the Czech Republic.

• Albertson’s, the country’s second largest supermarket chain, closed 165 stores. During the "recovery," another 116 will close.

• Fifty percent of employers polled by the Business Council said they will continue to cut jobs or, at best, maintain current employment.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this recession saw one of the worst profit declines since World War II. Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index reports after-tax income fell by 50%. Meanwhile, from 1995 to 2000 corporate debt rose $2.5 trillion!

Corporations are in a squeeze due to "excess capacity in factories" and "intense global competition." "Companies…address the problem by eliminating jobs." (WSJ, 4/1)

A capitalist "full recovery" requires increased corporate spending, which requires strong profits. So far that hasn’t happened. A "recovery" that cuts jobs certainly won’t help workers. With all the talk about "social safety nets," only 38% of the jobless are eligible for unemployment insurance. That represented 7 million workers last year, meaning over 18 million experienced some period of joblessness. How can workers ever recover those losses?

In five previous recessions, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted, then expanded, and then fell again. So it’s entirely possible this "recovery" may be short-lived. Either way, millions of jobs will have permanently disappeared.

On top of this, the rulers’ imperialist "war on terrorism" is being used to brand striking workers as "unpatriotic," further contributing to a decline in conditions for the working class.

"Excess capacity" — overproduction of the means of production — is built into capitalism’s "intense competition." The only solution is abolishing the wage slavery system with its money, profits and bosses. Communist revolution is achievable only by the working class seizing state power, and with it the control over production for the social good.

a name="Bosses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia">">"osses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia

Somalia is in the news again, not only because of the racist movie "Black Hawk Down," but also because the U.S. bosses have made it a key part of their oil wars under the guise of "fighting terrorism." In 1992, the U.S. sent troops to Somalia in a UN "humanitarian" mission to allegedly deal with famine there. The humanitarian cover disappeared when the troops’ real role emerged: protection of the region’s oil shipping routes and to make the country safe for Conoco’s oil exploration.

Opposition to the intervention grew. In 1993 the Black Hawk Down incident revealed that U.S Rangers had attacked civilians in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, massacring hundreds. Several Rangers were killed by the enraged populace and their helicopters shot down. The angry crowd dragged some Rangers through the streets to avenge the slaughter. This forced Clinton to pull the troops out.

Today they’re back as part of the "war against terrorism." On March 19, CIA chief George Tenet testified to the Senate Armed Forces Committee that Somalia is "an environment [where] groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda have offered terrorists an operational base and potential haven."

The U.S. media, as usual, danced to the warmakers’ tune, saying that a handheld Global Positioning Device found by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan had belonged to a U.S. soldier killed in Somalia in 1993. "Though the press first reported this discovery as a link between Somalia and al-Qaeda, subsequent investigation had reported that a different soldier lost the device in the heat of [Afghanistan’s] Operation Anaconda in early March." (Middle East Report, 3/22).

The importance of the Horn of Africa—Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti — was signified by the visit to the area of General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. U.S. ships now patrol the Red Sea while German planes patrol the skies over Somalia 10 hours a day.

The U.S. seeks to make Somalia one of its "anchor states" in Africa (along with Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia). The masses of all those countries suffer extreme poverty and political repression. Now Somalians suffer still more since the Bush administration’s "war against terror" closed the al-Barakat money transfer offices through which Somalis overseas send cash home to relatives.

That’s the nature of capitalism. While millions starve in Africa, the bosses’ oil war turns a calamity into a holocaust. Workers and their allies worldwide need to carry out their own war against the real terrorists, the imperialist bosses.

a name="Bosses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts">">"osses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts

Although seemingly almighty, U.S. rulers are actually fighting for survival in Afghanistan and Iraq. Without control of Middle Eastern oil, especially Saudi Arabia’s huge reserves, U.S. imperialism would lose its main economic weapon. Led by Exxon Mobil, U.S. oil companies exert tremendous leverage over the countries they sell to by regulating the flow of capitalism’s lifeblood. But billionaire Osama bin Laden’s forces are trying to foment an Islamic rebellion that will wrest Saudi oil from the hands of the royal family and its pals at Exxon Mobil. And Saddam Hussein is uniting with Russian and French oil bosses in his own bid to grab a bigger share of Persian Gulf crude. U.S. bosses have already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan workers, and scores of GIs, to protect their vast but shaky oil empire. They are sure to spill more blood as threats increase.

The operations of the U.S.’s flagship oil company, Exxon Mobil, and its allies show just how high the stakes are. Every day, Exxon Mobil pumps 2.6 million barrels of oil out of the earth and sells 8 million barrels of petroleum products, 5.6 million barrels of it to countries other than the U.S. The secret to this wizardry is Saudi Arabia, which sells the lion’s share of its 8-million-barrel a day production to Exxon Mobil at cut-rate prices. Fellow Rockefeller firm Chevron Texaco is also in on the Saudi deal. So is Shell, an Anglo-Dutch business competitor but strategic ally of Exxon Mobil. The Saudi connection enables Exxon, Chevron, and Shell to command 45% of the non-U.S. world market for refined oil exports. Add in BP, which has similar deals with both the Saudis and Kuwaitis, and the U.S.-British share jumps to 59%. As an oil power, France trails a distant third, with TotalFinaElf’s meager 11%. But that could change as French and Russian bosses join to exploit Russia’s and Iran’s production. And BP may yet slip from the fold. It has had sharp strategic differences lately with the main U.S. rulers over Russia, the Balkans and Alaska.

Persian Gulf crude, crucial to U.S. rulers now, will become even more so in the near future. The Middle East hold two thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves. Saudi Arabia alone has a quarter. The U.S. Government predicts that by 2020, Persian Gulf will account for 42% of world oil production, up from today’s 27%. At the same time, oil shipments from the Middle East to Asia will rise from four to 19 million barrels a day. China alone will see a 1700% increase to 6.9 million barrels.

U.S. rulers’ supremacy depends greatly on their ability to dominate petroleum sources and markets. That’s why they brutally counter every threat to their oily racket. Afghanistan is only the tip of the iceberg. U.S. bosses are dead set on deploying a massive ground force to invade Iraq and seize its oilfields. They only disagree about the timing and whether to go it alone or with allies. Potential conflicts with far more powerful foes lie down the road. Washington is taking advantage of Russia’s temporary disarray to set up military bases in the heart of the old Soviet Union, right along oil routes that a resurgent Moscow would seek to control. U.S. troops are back in the Philippines, facing shipping routes to China, while China builds a deep-water navy to safeguard its future oil imports. The profit system generates oil wars without end.

(Sources: The Oil Navigator; The Oil Daily; U.S. Energy Information Administration; company reports)

Iraq: a Strategic Partner of Russian Rulers

U.S. rulers’ plans to whack Saddam Hussein face many hurdles. Exxon Mobil needs to control the Iraqi oil reserve, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia. A war against Iraq will heighten even more the rivalry among the world’s capitalists and could lead to wider war. The following from Gasandoil.com and Itar-Tass news reveals Russian oil bosses have a lot to lose from a U.S. war against Iraq.

Russia’s energy minister said in his opening remarks to a session of the Russian-Iraqi Commission for Trade, Economic and Scientific Cooperation that Iraq was Russia’s main strategic partner in the region. Russia "makes political and diplomatic efforts in the UN Security Council with an aim to settle the Iraqi problem and seeks to find mutually acceptable solutions with other countries, first of all with the USA," Energy Minister Igor Yusufov said.

Yusufov said that if the economic embargo was lifted from Iraq, "that would create a basis for full-scale cooperation between Russia and Iraq." According to the minister, Russia will continue efforts in that direction. Yusufov believes that positive changes in the Russian economy were a stimulus for the development of economic ties between Moscow and Baghdad.

He said new technological developments by Russia, in particular to increase the production of oil wells, "could be of great interest for Iraq." The minister said Russian companies had received major contracts to build Iraqi facilities, citing among them the Eastern Al Jazira irrigation complex worth $70 billion.

a name="Anti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder">">"nti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder

The bosses’ media often refers to "innocent millions murdered by Stalin..." This is Cold War nonsense, plain and simple. The demographers Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, ("Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR," Slavic Review, 44, No. 3, 1985) estimate that "excess deaths" — defined as any "unusually large number of deaths" between 1926 and 1939 "among people who were alive" in 1926 — were probably between 3.2 and 5.5 million for the entire USSR. This is from all causes, including famine, disease, the entire collectivization process, executions and one significant war, against Japan in Mongolia.

We criticize Stalin and the Bolsheviks for the things they actually did, not for things they never did, but are falsely accused of, and which are widely believed by those who repeat the lies of Cold War historians, many originating with the Nazis. The Nazis had an "anti-Comintern" organization that specialized in this stuff, similar to the Harvard Soviet Studies program, or the Hoover Institution.

Yet none of Stalin-bashers report on "the innocent millions murdered by Winston Churchill." What about the Bengal Famine in India? In contrast to the Ukraine in 1932-33, the Bengal famine really was "man made." Capitalist historians say around four million died. Then there’s the Belgian imperialist, King Leopold, supported by British and U.S. bosses, slaughtering 15 million in the Congo, while cutting off the limbs of millions more. Not to mention the genocide perpetrated by U.S. rulers on hundreds of thousands of Native Americans in this country. And the 13 million black African slaves who died on their forced "trip" to the "New World."

What about the famine in the French colony of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) in 1931? Also "man-made." One recent scholar said: "...mortality in this famine, partly due to French taxation policies that were more rigid than Soviet procurement policies in 1932, was in proportional terms considerably greater than in the Soviet famine..."

These are but a few of the horrors of the "free world." We are all getting an overdose of this kind of "freedom" in the new and rapidly expanding American invasion of Afghanistan.

Unlike the communists around the world, with all their great weaknesses and failures in trying to build communism through socialism, Churchill, the myriad French governments, Roosevelt, Canada’s MacKenzie King and the other "leaders of the West" never were on the side of workers, farmers and others organizing against exploitation and murder. To say nothing of the fascists who ran the governments of pre-war Poland: Pilsudski, Bor-Komarowski, and the rest.

These "leaders of the Free World" did not fight colonialism and imperialism, as the communist movement did. Quite the contrary; these "Free Worlders" were the imperialist mass murderers.

Workers of the World, Write!

LETTERS

Why Compare Israeli Rulers to Nazis?

My liberal pro-Israel friend, a little mad and puzzled, asked me: "Why does the left always attack Israel, even calling it fascist? Aren’t the Arab governments more brutal and fascist than Israel? Israel is just defending itself from those who want to destroy it."

Indeed, the Arab rulers are brutal and fascist. Most care little about their own people or the Palestinians. After all, the more pro-U.S. Arab bosses, like the royal leeches ruling Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, used Palestinians as cheap labor in the oil fields until Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Then most Palestinians sympathized with Saddam because of their hatred towards those rulers — and their U.S. imperialist allies — exploiting them. Other pro-U.S. rulers like Egypt’s Mubarak have kept their people super-exploited and politically repressed.

The more anti-U.S. rulers like those in Syria and Saddam himself have combined heavy political repression with some benefits from the oil wealth to part of the population (at least before Desert Storm, and the subsequent embargo of Iraq).

But the Israeli ruling class is also fascist, even though it hides behind parliamentary bourgeois democracy. Israel was founded after World War II based on expelling millions of Palestinians from their homeland. It has brutally exploited Palestinian labor and turned the Occupied Territories (seized by Israel after the 1967 six day war) into an Apartheid-like Bantustan. The Israeli army and police treat Palestinians like "sub-humans" (the way the Nazis treated Jews, Russians, etc.). The recent Israeli army invasion of the West Bank has launched fascist attacks on thousands of civilians.

Many in the U.S. know little about this because the U.S. media is very pro-Israel. When one Israeli civilian or youth is murdered by a suicide bomber, it’s big news, but when Palestinian children or youth are murdered by the Israeli army, it’s hardly reported. Robert Fisk in London Independent (2/24) quoted an Israeli official saying, "We should study what the German army did in the Warsaw ghetto." This kind of attitude prevails among Israel’s rulers, not only Sharon but also many in the so-called Labor Party. After all, some of Israel’s founders were part of the Judenrat which helped the Nazis carry out the holocaust by trying to stop revolts by Jews in Europe.

There are Jewish soldiers, workers and youth who are refusing inside and outside Israel to be part of the Israeli rulers’ onslaught against Palestinians instead of the fascist Sharon and all the Zionist butchers. They should be applauded and supported, not the fascist gang of Sharon and all other Zionists.

A comrade

An Apple For The Principal

I’m a high school student in in California. The harassment and insults against the students by the administration is constant. The students are sick and tired of the situation. The following example shows how the students feel.

A few days ago as hundreds of students were eating in the over-packed lunchrooms a fight started between two students. The principal and her goon squad (security squad)ran over to separate the students and arrest them. All the students stood on the tables and started throwing apples at the principal. Some hit her on the head, others on the back. The security guards also got their deserved apples. The principal had to leave the area immediately amid whistles and shouts of joy by the students. Many students congratulated each other that they had rebelled, even though temporarily, against the bosses’ oppression, in this case the administration.

A Happy Student

a name="Globalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage">">"lobalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage

I’m a garment worker. I had to present a paper to other garment workers on "What is Globalization?" Even though I’ve read Challenge for years and participated in discussions, I didn’t know how or where to start. But I decided to look at my own life and use that experience.

I wrote the following:

I began my day at 6:45 am when my alarm clock went off. It was made in China. I got up and bathed with soap made in Mexico. I dried myself with a towel made in India. My underwear was made in Taiwan and my Levis pants were made in El Salvador. My shoes are of leather made in Brazil and my belt was made in Thailand. Now that I was dressed, I blended a drink with bananas from Honduras. My blender was made in Mexico. Then I drank Colombian coffee. I went to work in my old car made in Japan. My boss, who is from Taiwan, was waiting for me. Don’t you think that the international working class makes everything?

Fortunately or unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of work to do. That gave me time to think and I remembered that several years ago I heard talk of a "Free Trade Agreement" among three countries who were neighbors, supposedly "brothers." At that time, I thought that the Free Trade Treaty (NAFTA) would benefit our brothers and sisters, the Mexican farm workers and urban workers. But then I found out I was wrong. Before NAFTA, my boss paid me 20 cents for each piece I sewed. Afterwards, she lowered it to 12 cents. We stopped production. But we achieved little since the boss threatened that if we didn’t do the work, she’d send it to Mexico where they would do it for much less. Other workers in Mexico or China were not to blame. The blame was on the system of capitalism and imperialism, which force workers to work for poverty wages.

In conclusion what I understand by globalization is super-exploitation of the workers by the bosses in the richest countries all over the world. The name has changed, but the exploitation is the same. And the solution is the same: smash globalization or imperialism with communist revolution.

With this introduction, I started our discussion and our plans to mobilize workers for the May Day march.

Communist Internationalist Garment Worker

Oscar Movies Cover for Racism

The Front page article in the last CHALLENGE (4/10), "Oscars Mask Racism," was pretty accurate in describing how the sweep of the best actor and best actress by Denzel Washington and Halle Berry plus the lifetime award given to Sidney Poitier, don’t mean Hollywood has become a bastion of anti-racism or that racism is not rampant all over the U.S.

Of course, these black artists are very talented. But there is another side to the prizes they got this year: the movies they won them for. Denzel Washington in "Training Days," plays a disgusting cop in the LAPD. His character is a Ramparts division type of crooked, vicious and vile cop, even more than a regular policeman. Indeed, all cops no matter the color of their skin are enforcers of the bosses’ racist system. The movie shows that politicians are behind the vicious cop Denzel plays, but there is still the meaning that while there are bad cops of all colors, in general most cops aren’t like that.

That meaning is even more direct in the role played by Halle Berry in "Monster’s Ball." She played the role of Leticia, a woman facing the racism of a small Louisiana town and dealing with a husband on death row and a son dealing with an obesity problem. Berry ends up having a love affair with Hank (played by Billy Bob Thornton), a second-generation racist prison guard. Berry basically looks to a racist to save her from her rotten life, even though Hank changes his racist ways after his own son dies. This vicious racist "repents" and becomes "anti-racist." The fact that Leticia falls in love with this guy is like making a movie where a Jewish woman falls in love with a Nazi camp guard who after all his crimes, changes his mind.

Dr. Asa Hilliard III, professor of education at Georgia State Univ., said that when looking at the symbolism of these and other Oscars won by black artists: "More often than not, you will find some form of negative portrayal. None of these roles have really been powerful roles that touch on our most heroic people, not individually, but as a people." (Daily Challenge, NY, April 3).

Of course, if movies were really anti-racist, then Hollywood wouldn’t be the cesspool it is now.

Rex Red