BOGOTA, COLOMBIA– Over 50 Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends marched today in the capital to celebrate International Workers’ Day, May Day, and the fight for the dictatorship of the working class. While raising our communist flags and banners, our young leaders led our contingent with valor . They took the lead  chanting various slogans, including "If you vote, prepare for disappointment,”  "The only solution is a communist revolution!”
In response to our militancy and revolutionary leadership, several workers observing the march stopped, raised their fists and joined in on the chants. Our commitment to an international communist revolution makes a difference particularly in contrast to the groups led by the revisionists, liberals and fascists who have nothing to offer the workers. These misleaders rely on ideological and political disarmament in order to continue exploiting us and preparing us to serve as cannon fodder in their future military conflicts.
From the start of the march we distributed copies of CHALLENGE and flyers to the mass organizations of students, trade unions and women workers. We exchanged ideas about inter-imperialist rivalry, capitalist decay, the electoral circus, antiracism, a worker-led international revolution and communism. We agreed to keep in touch with a number of workers through our literature.
Bosses electoral circus paralyzes the working class
May Day was commemorated this year under intensified state repression in preparation for the upcoming presidential elections. More militant action on behalf of the working class was effectively demobilized and funneled into cynical support for Gustavo Petro,  fake leftist   presidential candidate, whose tenure as Mayor of Bogota served as a prime example of why the working class can’t rely on liberal misleaders. He directed mass organizations to flock to the polls rather than to mobilize workers and he wants workers to rely on the  liberal fascists to “solve our problems.” The marches reflected the politicians’ propaganda.  Speeches lacked a spirit of struggle and turnout was low.
In Colombia as in countries all over the world, the main contradiction is the sharpening splits within the ruling class. This internal battle for control over power, profits, control of natural resources, cheap labor and drug trafficking routes manifests itself in the current electoral situation. The capitalists need us to validate their oppressive fascist system through voting. But many workers know that any politician who assumes the presidency, senate or chamber will only be a puppet of either the mafias or political families that govern this country according  to the ruthless logic and needs of world imperialism.
Keep the communist red flag high
We ended our protest in an orderly manner, collecting our flags and taking the necessary precautions to leave in small groups. We are committed to and recognize that only increased confidence in the working class and enthusiasm for the struggle will strengthen our political work. Only the Progressive Labor Party, political struggle and qualitative and quantitative advancement of the workers, under communist leadership, will be able to free us from this criminal system.
Racism, forced displacement and the murder of working-class leaders in general, show us that capitalist democracy is a farce that gives many workers false hopes for change. On this May Day, and every day, we know that only when  masses of worker reject racism, sexism, nationalism, wage slavery and the union sellouts can we hope to one day put an end to the capitalist nightmare. Join PLP and fight for international communist revolution!

NEW YORK CITY— “They got 250,000 vacant apartments in the city, man…Why am I homeless?” That’s what Johnny Grima yelled as NYC police pulled him out of his tent and dragged him toward a police van. “Why are my friends homeless?!” he demanded. The answer is, “because of capitalism.” Grima is a homeless worker who is part of a movement demanding permanent housing for every homeless person in New York City. Housing based on need is a commnist idea, and can only be realized under a society run by workers themselves.
The scene unfolded as dozens of cops, a sanitation truck and one outreach worker arrived at Tompkins Square Park on NYC's Lower East Side, to “sweep away” (read: destroy) the homeless encampment as if they were collecting trash, not dealing with people. The racist profit system that can spend billions on weapons for a proxy war with Russia can’t provide housing for millions of workers. A Democratic Party President, Governor, Mayor, City Council and State Legislature, “can’t afford '' free healthcare or a public college education but has untold billions for prisons and war.  
Eight people were arrested for blocking the police. They included organizers from anti-eviction organizations and groups fighting the violent expuslsion of homeless workers’ encampments that have become Mayor Eric Adams’ calling card to say that New York is “Open for Business.”
From March 18 to May 1, there were more than 700 racist expulsions , often returning to the same sites (New York Times, May 5). At the same time, only 39 people got placed in city shelters, which house more than 60,000 people, 90 percent of them Black and Latin families. City-run shelters are so overcrowded and dangerous, especially with Covid-19 again on the rise, that people who agree to go to shelters often leave within weeks and return to the streets.
When Adams was running for office last summer, he promised to turn vacant hotels into permanent housing with on-site services for displaced workers. He has hired more cops to police the subways, where there are 120 encampments in subway tunnels and platforms but has not converted a single hotel to permanent housing for displaced workers, especially those living on the streets of NYC.
What he did do was direct the Rent Guidelines Board to allow the biggest rent increases in nearly a decade for millions of workers and their families. The panel approved increases of 2 to 4 percent on one-year leases and 4 to 6 percent on two-year leases for rent-stabilized units (New York Times, May 5). This racist attack will severely impact Black and Latin families who have had the hardest time surviving the pandemic and will intensify the violence of displacement.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is building a base for communist revolution among all workers and youth, including homeless workers, who more than most,  grasp the call of the Communist Manifesto, “You have nothing to lose but your chains.

NEW YORK CITY, May 25—Almost three years into a pandemic where the city’s bosses left workers for dead, cutting services and jobs, their solutions to working class desperation are racist crackdowns targeting the homeless and lower income workers, largely Black and Latin.
The bosses know they are responsible for increases in workers attacking workers. It's the bosses who create the conditions leaving workers with mental illness, drug addictions, and homelessness by putting profit before their lives, the real crime. But rather than fix the underlying issues, they know blaming certain workers, sowing divisions among all, is best to protect their profits.
Under communism no worker would be abandoned. We build a society around workers’ needs: food, clothes, shelter and medical care without a profit motive. That is the only way out of this crisis.
Liberal mayor further displaces workers
Since taking office, Mayor Eric Adams has worked to please his cryptocurrency overlords (NY1, 12/3/21) and real estate developers who financed his election campaign (The City, 4/18/21), announcing plans to evict homeless encampments around the city. Adams enlisted his paid thugs in the New York Police Department and the Department of Sanitation to not only destroy these campsites, but arrest those who refused to comply with his racist displacement agenda. These attacks have even included the police department’s Strategic Response Group, a counterterrorism unit!
Racist shelter plans
Paying lip service to critics, the mayor has sent representatives from the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) with the cops, to try convincing the homeless workers to accept placement in dangerous shelters and supposedly safe haven spaces.
During one recent eviction in the East Village, homeless workers denounced both options. (Vice News, 4/6).
But though there are more than enough vacant apartments to house every worker, the ruling class’s bureaucratic incompetence means most sit unoccupied (New York Daily News, 4/11).
Bosses strike underground
Many displaced workers will find themselves riding the subways for shelter. Even there, they aren’t safe from the city’s fascist and racist removals. In February, Adams announced his plans to rout displaced people from the trains, calling them a “cancer” (Independent, 2/18).
These attacks on workers have already backfired dangerously. Frank James, the suspect in April’s mass shooting at a Brooklyn subway station, was in and out of shelters; he also had online videos attacking Adams for his homeless plan, saying it was “doomed to fail,” and describing his own bad experiences with city outreach workers in previous decades (ABC 7 News, 4/13).
Crackdown ensnares immigrants in racist hold
The crackdown’s fervor has predictably included others as well. Recent viral video showed the kkkops arresting an immigrant Latin woman worker for selling mangoes on a subway platform. This racist, sexist attack further shows that the crackdown isn't about “public safety,” but rather making things more palatable for the finance capital and real estate development bosses Adams answers to.
Adams’ response to the outrage over this incident? Claiming that if the pigs didn't arrest this woman, then “next day, it’s propane tanks being on the subway system. The next day, it’s barbecuing” (amNew York, 5/9).
‘Farebeaters’ included
In January, after an MTA board member claimed, without any evidence, that 99 percent of people commiting subway crimes evade paying the fare (Fox 5, 1/18,)  the ruling class mobilized to include “farebeaters” in their racist crosshairs. Adams has deployed even more useless cops to terrorize workers during this initative (Curbed, 4/11).
MTA bosses are now telling bus operators to keep their rear doors closed to prevent free rides (Curbed, 5/9). In April, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber announced a plan to save New York’s “spirit” by creating new ways to stop fare evasion, claiming it costs the agency $500 million annually (Gothamist, 4/26). Racist Lieber neglected to mention that figure is nothing compared to the billions the agency owes Wall Street.
Adams’ racist attacks on workers shows that no matter who is in office, be it a fascist Republican or wolf in sheep’s clothing liberal Democrat, we know they will never have our interests at heart. For a world where nobody will be homeless, or deal with the brutal conditions that cause it, we will continue our fight for a world run by workers.

Capitalism kills in more ways than one
JACC Heart Failure, 5/2022–The aim of this study was to assess trends in heart failure (HF) hospitalizations among young adults. The National Inpatient Sample database was analyzed to identify adults aged 18 to 45 years who were hospitalized for HF between 2004 and 2018.
Black adults (50.1 percent) had a significantly higher proportion of HF hospitalizations compared with White (31.9 percent) and Hispanic adults (12.2 percent) throughout the study period. Nearly half of patients (45.8 percent) lived in zip codes in the lowest quartile of national household income.
German Green Party joins the war train
Der Spiegel, 5/6–The Greens have long been regarded as peace-loving idealists. They are now among the loudest voices calling for heavy weapons to be delivered to Ukraine and have placed considerable pressure on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to do so. The pacifists of yore have gone quiet and now the talk is of tanks and howitzers.
With his long hair, most Germans had until now viewed…[Green Party Parliamentarian Anton] Hofreiter as the epitome of the incorrigible hippy. Such is the situation this spring: Hofreiter, the Ph.D. botanist who can name all the plants and flowers while walking through Berlin's Tiergarten park, is now Hofreiter the weapons expert, who lectures on munitions calibers and crews of infantry fighting vehicles.
Instead of playing the pacifists and slamming on the brakes when it comes to delivering heavy weaponry to Ukraine, the Greens are the ones who are calling for more, upping the pressure on their partners, particularly the SPD, in the process.
Squad votes for New Green War
Unherd.com, 5/13–The $40 billion foreign aid package to Ukraine — the second and largest aid package proposed by the Biden administration — nearly shuttled through Congress at a speed not seen since the New Deal era…members of The Squad, the Democrats’ most prominent progressive group in Congress, have been curiously silent on the issue. …no members of the Squad (or any Democrat) voted against [the bill]...only Cori Bush…chose to speak out about the bill. There has been a Ukraine-shaped blind spot for most of The Squad since war broke out…Indeed, it was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who first commented on the war in February 23 when she tweeted:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is indefensible...any military action must take place with Congressional approval.
Capitalists will starve millions this year
Economist, 5/19–Ukraine’s exports of grain and oilseeds have mostly stopped and Russia’s are threatened. Together, the two countries supply 12% of traded calories. Wheat prices, up 53% since the start of the year, jumped a further 6% on May 16th, after India said it would suspend exports because of an alarming heatwave.
The high cost of staple foods has already raised the number of people who cannot be sure of getting enough to eat by 440m, to 1.6bn. Nearly 250m are on the brink of famine. If, as is likely, the war drags on and supplies from Russia and Ukraine are limited, hundreds of millions more people could fall into poverty. Political unrest will spread, children will be stunted and people will starve.
Nuclear war coming our way
Foreign Affairs, 5/20–Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the specter of nuclear war…But if China attempted to forcibly invade Taiwan and the United States came to Taipei’s aid, the threat of escalation could outstrip even the current nerve-wracking situation in Europe.
A recent war game, conducted by the Center for a New American Security…demonstrated just how quickly such a conflict could escalate…The game demonstrated that China’s military modernization and expansion of its nuclear arsenal—not to mention the importance Beijing places on unification with Taiwan—mean that, in the real world, a fight between China and the United States could very well go nuclear.
China has historically possessed only a few hundred ground-based nuclear weapons. But last year, nuclear scholars…identified three missile silo fields under construction in the Xinjiang region…The U.S. Department of Defense projects that by 2030, China will have around 1,000 deliverable warheads…Based on these projections, Chinese leaders may believe that as early as five years from now the PLA will have made enough conventional and nuclear gains that it could fight and win a war to unify with Taiwan.