WEST ORANGE, NJ, December 11—The attempted genocide by the Israeli government has sparked international outrage among workers around the world. New Jersey has been one of the sites where sharp struggles between antiracists and Zionists have been on display. Antiracist actions led by high school students and teachers have been a catalyst for students and workers to fight back in the area. The courage and multiracial unity of workers have also been met with nationalism and fear. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has been involved in such a struggle at the urging of one of the parents in town. We stand alongside these workers and struggle to win workers to see that capitalism is the main enemy that needs to be smashed.
Students lead the way
Though there have been several protests at U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s office, it was the students in West Orange who exposed the Zionists and their political misleaders. West Orange is a suburb of Newark and a town that likes to praise itself for its “diversity.” During the George Floyd protests, West Orange saw multiracial rallies chanting Black Lives Matter.
But when a Palestinian and Jewish student organized a walkout to protest the genocidal bombing of Gaza, the Zionist leadership responded by getting the Mayor and Superintendent to shut it down. Then, on a Zionist Facebook group, they exposed the names of these high school students who were planning the walkout.
In response, dozens of students, parents, alumni, community activists, and teachers filled the board of education meeting to support the students. The unity of Jewish, Arab, Black, and white workers showed the bravery and potential of the larger working class to fight back. As a result, the students held their walkout a week later. This shows that when workers fight back they can win.
Liberalism and nationalism - a tool of the bosses
Like many movements that we are part of, liberal misleaders make sure they can control the mass line of the movement. In this case, many of the leaders are winning workers and students to focus on city and school officials. At one recent town meeting workers and students were protesting the appointment of a human relations commissioner. This person was also head of the Zionist Facebook group that exposed the names of the students who were planning the walkout. Many members of the group spoke specifically about the commissioner. Some residents, however, made the wider connection to imperialist war and genocide by the Israeli government. One teacher stated, “I believe it is crucial to recognize that support for international wars will always impact our local dynamics. The ongoing support of a bloody war funded by the United States, driven by profit, has repercussions at the micro, local level.” Another worker also spoke out about the role of U.S. and British imperialism in the war - attempting to win workers to develop a more international, class analysis of the situation. The Party was also there to pass out a leaflet arguing that both nationalism and Zionism are two sides of the same deadly coin for workers. A Palestinian state will only funnel workers to be exploited by Palestinian bosses like Israeli workers are exploited by Israeli bosses. If workers are going to sacrifice their lives - it should be for a system that is going to free our class from these wars once and for all. We were met with positive reactions, particularly from some of the students who attended the meeting.
Overcome fear with struggle
Despite the growing anti-racist movement in West Orange, many of the organizers refuse to come out in person and instead participate through Zoom. The big reason is that Zionists have been doxxing (sharing personal information) of critics of the Israeli genocide. The town government has been supportive of the Zionists in trying to silence any opposition. At one of the meetings, a Zionist threatened the anti-racists by claiming “they are armed” at public gatherings. As a result many of the organizers, especially Muslim workers, stopped going to public meetings and instead attended through Zoom.
This was a temporary setback for the movement. As a result, the group was planning to speak at a town council meeting. Seeing that there were only a few workers there to speak out against the genocide and racist support by the administration, the council was able to delay the public speaking part until 1 am! Even those in attendance sat quietly despite attempts by more militant activists and PLP members to speak out against the silencing.
Some steps have been made, however, to try and fight this fear. A community group in the neighboring town of Orange held a potluck dinner to talk about and make plans for further fightback. This included parents, students, and organizers from West Orange, Newark, Orange, and neighboring towns. The dinner was opened by a long-time anti-racist fighter who connected the Palestinians to the millions of displaced workers all over the world. She also brought out the oil motives in the Middle East and connected them to the resources in Sudan, Afghanistan, and Haiti that drive imperialist ambitions. We then heard from various workers and students who reported on student walkouts, the desire to build groups that include working with organizers and their children, and how to build a movement that is going to fight both anti-semitism and anti-Muslim racism. The dinner was a perfect example of how workers overcome fear: by bringing workers and students together to organize and fight back.
Long road ahead
We have already learned many lessons. Whether it is struggling against the narrow liberal (and often nationalist) politics of the group or organizing social gatherings, we have learned that this is going to be a long-term struggle and we need to build stronger bonds with many of these members to win many of these students and workers to our line. When having one-on-one conversations when distributing our leaflet we see that students and workers are open to it. Still, as usual, the leadership of these groups ensures that the liberal line of the misleadership prevails. The potential is there, and we plan on being there for the long term to build the Party and win many of these courageous workers to fight for a communist future.
- Information
Teachers teach the truth - Solidarity, not silence!
- Information
- 15 December 2023 1575 hits
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD, December 6 -The meeting of the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) was greeted tonight by a lively contingent of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends circulating a flier and petition calling for “Solidarity not Silence” in the case of teachers being attacked for alleged antisemitism because they have supported Palestinian workers in Gaza.
On November 30, a Takoma Park Middle School teacher was charged with antisemitism and put on administrative leave because of Facebook posts protesting the massive attacks on Palestinian civilians by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Two other teachers in the same district have been similarly punished. Having the email tagline“From the river to the sea” can be a crime these days. While MCEA’s staff is making sure they get due process, the elected Body should follow the lead of other unions, including Local Transit Union 689, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, Postal Workers, and the UAW, who have called for a ceasefire along with the American Public Health Association (APHA). Petitions and resolutions are great steps but a walkout would be even better!
Students, doctors, workers, and organizations have been censured, fired, lambasted, and banned for false charges of antisemitism. Events have been canceled, and public and private funding revoked. In Maryland, for example, CASA de Maryland, which serves the immigrant community, was forced to issue a mea culpa and grovel for funding after they remarked on the horrors of the Gaza genocide . Legislators and private funders publicly shamed CASA and threatened the funding it uses to serve the needs of our immigrant community members — including public funds contributed in part by immigrants themselves through the taxes they pay. It is wrong to punish CASA for expressing solidarity, and it is wrong to punish the people they help by cutting funds to those in need of their services. The capitalist class uses the First Amendment to protect the speech of fascist and racist demonstrators while using its media to distort reality, but apparently, it does not protect those speaking up to defend Palestinian lives. This smacks of the anticommunism of 1950s McCarthyism.
The Takoma Park teacher is a working class leader . Because this teacher works tirelessly with others to challenge a racist system that attacks workers by not investing in programs that the most vulnerable students, their families, and our colleagues need, this attack (and others) is intended to silence all of us. From culturally sensitive, age-appropriate reading materials to affordable housing, she strongly fights for improved conditions in the schools and communities where the most vulnerable students live and attend public school. She organizes with workers around housing and provides personal and organizational support to immigrants in the DC area. After thousands and thousands of Facebook posts on many topics challenging systems of oppression, why this moment? Because the U.S. government is desperate to support the Zionist Israelis who represent their imperialist interests in the Middle East, such as oil, pipelines, and sea routes.
The Facebook posts included a drawing of Israeli tanks aimed at babies in neonatal units and called the destruction of lives in Palestine by Israeli bombing “a massacre.” Condemning the Zionist Israeli government and its U.S. government support is not antisemitism. Nevertheless, an Assistant Superintendent came to her school and lied to teachers, claiming the Facebook posts contained inherent threats of violence and reducing one teacher to tears. Spreading lies and stoking fear is part of this orchestrated fascism. The fascists who write the Daily Wire piled on in this case and further attacked a 2020 post that called out the billionaires in Montgomery County for ripping off the working class. Posting the names of billionaires is NOT “anti-Semitic.” Lies and more lies will follow, and PLP and its friends who joined this action will continue to step up the struggle as it unfolds.
2023 was the year of rising capitalist crisis. Inter-imperialist rivalry continues to heat up between China and United states. The planet was the hottest year on record. Russia-Ukraine war continues. Wildfires and earthquakes ravage lives and environment. Bloody war tears up the working class in Sudan. The Apartheid regime of Israel commits genocide against the working class in Gaza.
But, 2023 was also the year of fightback. It was the year of strikes, 354 to be exact (Wall Street Journal, 12/4). From autoworkers to writers, healthcare workers to pilots, hundreds of thousands are seeing that the world as it is now is unsustainable. From the climate march to the protests against genocide in Gaza, workers and youth took to the streets. We must continue the fightback against racism, sexism, and capitalism. PLP, wherever we were, waged struggles against the bosses’ deadly system. We continue to carry the fight for communist revolution.
- Information
Letter: Chicago’s Black Friday- Shut this genocidal system down
- Information
- 30 November 2023 1045 hits
On November 24, I joined three other comrades at the "Save Gaza," Black Friday March on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, the "Magnificent Mile," of expensive shops and restaurants. Several progressive groups were present at the event such as the US Palestinian Community Network and Students for Social Justice at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC).
Shoppers unnecessarily crossed through the rally, and at one point a racist shouted, "Stop killing babies and raping women!" While I don't know what kind of statistics there are about rape in this conflict, the hard evidence about the Israeli Defense Force's current killing of 6,150 children in just under two months should be spiking the radar of any "pro-lifer." The dehumanizing tactics of Hamas are centered in the imagination of those all too unwilling to grapple with Israel's own dehumanizing, US-supported tactics on Palestinians, where prior to the current slaughter 40% of the male population in Palestine had been imprisoned.
Once the march of about 1,000 took off, there were several stopping points in front of businesses like Victoria's Secret and Starbucks shouting, "Shame on You!" while cops blocked the entrances. At one point we chanted, "CPD, KKK, IDF, they're all the same!" At another point an Arab American cop guarding a business was a particular focus for a small group of Arab protesters.
I carried a sign with the picture of Murod Kurdi, an Arab American worker from the nearby suburb of Oak Lawn who was murdered by a drunk driver. I got the opportunity to explain the PLP's support of the case to a worker handing out flyers. He referred to the area Murod was from as "Little Palestine,” on account of the large diaspora there. A family with a 5-year-old boy and his family holding signs of support for Palestine came closer to have him read my sign and ask about it. When the boy struggled to understand the importance of an Arab worker killed by a drunk driver, a member of their group explained that if the driver hadn't been white, they likely wouldn't have gotten away with it.
Though most shoppers hid away in stores or acted as unaffected as possible, I did get some CHALLENGEs to a few of them. A pair of young workers gazed from the sidelines in awe, and when handed a CHALLENGE and told it was a communist paper, one responded, "The people control the means of production!" I got handed one to a young Black worker who raised her fist and began to march along the sidewalk with us. Another worker outside of Starbucks recognized CHALLENGE and asked for one.
Ending at the historic Water Tower, an organizer called for high school students to organize walkouts, for college students to challenge their learning institutions that often have Zionist backing, and to continue coming out every week.
NOVEMBER 29, OAKLAND, CA—Class consciousness and anti-capitalism were on full display during the past weeks of actions to shut down business as usual in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tens of thousands marched in Oakland, San Francisco and outlying areas. Multi-generational, multi-racial\ethnic, international groups took action & power in the streets, in Schools and on the job. The actions focused on stopping the genocide in Gaza, shutting down APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation), and stopping IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity) & End Capitalist Destruction of the Environment. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members urged all working people and students to follow the examples of the internationalist-minded Palestinians and non-Zionist Jews, who are not united with their ruling elites and who emphasized the commonality of their struggles. We had the opportunity to tie these immediate struggles to the need & goal to destroy capitalism with a world-wide revolution and to build a communist world.
Imperialist rivalry on display
After Presidents Biden & Xi Jinping met, Biden laid out his “calming” assurance that the two imperialists had reached mutual agreement on three items: 1) limiting fentanyl production. 2) Open military communication channels and 3) The impact of AI. Then he made a “gaffe", calling Xi a dictator. As the PLP leaflet pointed out: U.S. and China bosses do play buddy-buddy, but the clash of their empires is inevitable. The Real Agenda: Biden & Xi Jinping seek to exploit & divide workers around the world while they compete for “allies” in their imperialist ventures. The Biden administration launched IPEF in 2021 as a U.S.-led alternative for countries in the Indo-Pacific Area who developed deeper economic ties to China; also, as an alternative to the Belt & Road Initiative. IPEF excludes China and includes some countries, not in APEC, like India. Some U.S. allies in the Americas accept capital investments from China. Some, now, criticize Israel as well as Hamas.
Protests overwhelm police repression and media propaganda
Demonstrators denouncing imperialism and genocide joined up at the SF Civic Center, Market St, Black Rock headquarters, (asset management), Democratic Party Convention in Sacrament. Many called for Free Palestine. At one demonstration, protestors physically surrounded CEOs as they sought to enter APEC Sessions: yelling & booing: “Shame, Shame” “Blood on your hands,” videoing CEOs for further shaming on the internet.
A day after Biden & Xi Jinping met, a coalition against genocide, racism and imperialism shut down the Bay Bridge; stopping traffic from Oakland to SF & disrupting those attending APEC(similar action happened on a bridge between Cambridge & Boston Ma.)
In sharp contrast to anti-imperialist, internationalism actions, groups of pro and anti-China demonstrators waved their national flags. They clashed, on the side-lines of APEC, over which capitalist bosses to support. (Asian Diaspora from Tibet, Hong Kong & Uyghurs vs groups that support Xi Jinping ruling class in China & hoped to meet with him.).
Education workers in OEA (Oakland Education Association), UESF (United educators of San Francisco) & UAW 2865 (adjuncts, grad students and others in the UC System) passed resolutions for ceasefire and no weapons for the Israeli war machine. SEIU 1021 (service workers) & United Service Workers West(many janitors)passed resolutions calling for ceasefire.
The Belgian Transport Union has refused to load arms for Israel.
No war but class war
PLP members’ experience at these actions brought home, in a real way, that thousands have turned fear and cynicism into anger and solidarity; particularity against imperialist genocide in Gaza. We got a great reception to our posters, CHALLENGE and flyers. (see pictures) Many eagerly responded to “No War but Class War”; “Stop the Genocide”, “Read a communist leaflet about what’s happening in Israel and Gaza.” We focused on the interconnected oppression of capitalist rule in the USA to the oppression\genocide that imperialism brings down on workers around the world; especially with their junior partner, the Israel ruling class.
Tax dollars needed for public services like education and transit exported to fund the Israeli military, (i.e. cash for profit in the U.S. armament industry
Export of Israeli military training\intelligence to police departments in the USA which carry out racist attacks on Black, brown and low-income communities. C)$44 million for a new “Cop Campus”, regional training center, in San Pablo Ca. (near SF & Oakland). D) Needing to maximize profit demands that the US capitalists carry out with fascist attacks on immigrant labor with prisons, murder & family separation, similar to Israeli capitalists’ fascist attacks on immigrant labor inside Israel and Gaza. E) the history of US capitalism’s displacement of indigenous peoples from “manifest destiny,” westward expansion to US imperialist actions throughout the “Americas” with wars and support of fascist coups. Some people were not aware of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s infamous statement about the death of 500,000 Iraqi children from US war\sanctions: "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” Such conversations helped us to get names and several young people invited us to come to the actions they were planning to Shut Down APEC.
Internationalism & nationalism both on display
We, in PLP, learned a lot from the contradictions expressed in these actions. While groups were formed around nationality or national borders, expressed ethnic identity, carried Palestinian flags or focused on particular issues like climate, police terror, or the unhoused, they also contained multi racial\ethnic approaches and called for international unity among working people. In common struggle, there is plenty of room to argue that nationalism is no way out for working people. The worldwide solution is for the international working class to run society, with no borders; that means communism.
During the protests, we explained our communist goals: PLP strives to build the world-wide movement for revolution and for a share and share alike, communism: no capitalist profits, no wage-system, no national borders, no racism, no sexism, working class unity with class siblings around the world. We expressed our confidence that a mighty working class won’t be stopped when armed with commitment to production/distribution for the need and ability for all to contribute to an emerging communist world.
What is APEC?
In APEC’s own words: “Cooperation” means to “ensure that goods, services, investment and people move easily across borders. by promoting balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative and secure growth and by accelerating regional economic integration.” APEC trade deals cover 60 percent of global energy systems and impact some of the most climate-vulnerable areas of the world ( https://www.apec.org/About-Us/About-APEC/)
*1,200 global, corporate CEOs (including: General Motors, Exxon, Chevron, Citibank, Tesla, SpaceX’s Musk, Boeing & big tech like Microsoft), 20+ heads of state (including Biden & Xi Jinping), 30,000 lobbyists, corporate execs, & international media. President Xi Jinping met with American business leaders at a $2,000-per-plate dinner.
Trying to make SF look good on the world stage, the SF city bosses spent thousands to “clean up the City.” Homeless workers were removed from downtown areas. Some businesses were shut down. Bridge and freeway exits/entrances were blocked. There was a huge police\security presence. The media blasted that a great opportunity was coming to San Francisco to capture investments from “domestic and international” Finance Capital and to change its tarnished image as a failing city.
