OAK LAWN, September 6- A multiracial and intergenerational group of antiracist fighters, including members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP), gathered this evening to denounce the racist Oak Lawn Police Department once again. Chants of "Justice for Hadi," and "Justice for Murod," resounded throughout the neighborhood. Murod Kurdi, a 28-year-old Arab worker was struck & killed by a white drunk driver last June. His killer was given a traffic ticket and released by one of the KKKops that had beaten and nearly killed Hadi Abuatelah last year (See CHALLENGE, 9/20). The Oak Lawn Police is an example of a growing fascist movement that marginalizes and attacks mainly Black and Brown working-class communities and immigrant workers while being used to oppress all workers.

Inside the police station, Murod Kurdi's mother spoke about how her son was killed and how the drunk driver caller her lawyer, instead of 911 to seek help for the man who had just hit with her speeding car.  Her testimony was abruptly stopped after three minutes, and the kkkop board would not allow her to finish her testimony.  In fact, they stopped any further public comment and ordered the kkkops to escort us out of the building. Murod's mother's bravery is even more poignant in front of these appointed cronies who acted with malice and prejudice. We will attend the next court hearing in October of Murod's killer in solidarity with his family and friends.

There is a crystal-clear connection to the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist terror unleashed against workers here and on an international level. The imperialist bosses in the United States and across Europe have for generations murdered and displaced workers across the oil-rich Middle East to consolidate their power over resources, markets and labor. To achieve this, they have needed to promote a vicious racism against workers in that part of the world, to keep us divided against our common exploiters. Now as Russian and Chinese imperialists are encroaching on what was US and European bosses’ sphere of influence, they need to ramp up racist terror against Arab and Muslim workers even harder to try and keep their grip.

For the imperialist bosses fighting over Latin America and Middle-East resources, land, oil and industrial might, workers' lives are cheap, here and there. Let us not fall for their racist tactics, whether they are from Trump MAGA racists or liberals who defend the racist Democratic Party which even more culpable in causing workers to be displaced all over the world.

Under capitalism, there is no justice for the working class. Justice will come when workers revolt and smash the bosses and establish a communist society free from racism and exploitation. Communism will mean the working class and its communist party will outlaw racism, sexism, and exploitation. Join us.

NEW YORK CITY, September 17—“Hey bosses, get off it: You pollute the world for profit! End climate change, end the bosses’ reign: We need communism to stop it!” This chants along with other chants resounded through the streets of New York City as upwards of 75,000 marched to protest the climate crisis. Worldwide, over a million people participated in more than 500 actions in 54 countries, the largest climate protest since before the pandemic. Progressive Labor Party’s (PLP) bold, decisive, and fearless message cut through the distracting reformist clutter: “The only solution is communist revolution!”

PLP was out in force. We mobilized a militant, multiracial contingent of anti-racist and communist fighters, and many of our members marched inside, and gave leadership to the contingents of other mass organizations. We came prepared with new chants highlighting the systemic/capitalist origins of the climate crisis. All told, we distributed between 700-800 CHALLENGE  newspapers and 500 flyers.

Climate reform is another bosses’ big lie
At a demonstration with hundreds of sponsors and many ruling-class-funded NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations)—and co-sponsored by the arch-imperialist United Nations—the machinery of the capitalist state, specifically the liberal, Democratic Party wing of the ruling class, was on full display. It is through these many organizations and their media that this Big Fascist (See glossary, page 6) section of the ruling class can shape public opinion and control working class anger. As CHALLENGEhas pointed out repeatedly (see editorial, 9/7), their deceitful and pathetic promises of climate reform are like all their promises: LIES.

As they wrap themselves in the environmental flag, U.S. bosses led by Biden and the Big Fascists continue to approve record numbers of fossil fuel leases, in large part to fund the largest military in the world (over 800 military bases in 85 countries) to defend their empire from rising rival imperialists led by China. Their latest military expenditures bill includes another $24 billion for their proxy war in Ukraine against Russian rivals, which has already cost the U.S. working class $135 billion (not to mention its untold destruction of human life and the environment).

Workers and youth attracted to open communist chants
As has become frequent in these large demonstrations, our PLP contingent attracted outsized attention. Our booming chants were rhythmic and relentless, with multiple comrades, led by women, taking turns at the mic. We took the initiative at various points in the march to lead large numbers of people in antiracist, anti-capitalist, and openly pro-communist chants. Many gave us thumbs up and nods of agreement, and quite a few followed us or joined our contingent. At one point, we led a marathon antiracist/anti-capitalist SHUT IT DOWN! chant for a full 15 minutes, involving many hundreds of people.

As capitalism sinks further into crisis, multiple indicators show a recent uptick in class consciousness in the U.S.
As CHALLENGE has highlighted (see 7/23), strikes are on the rise. Support for unions—even with their leader’s corrupt reformist politics—is growing. Confidence in big business is at an all-time low of 15 percent. In the march itself, it was more common to hear talk of workers and the working class than in the past. Young people seem much more comfortable staking out an anti-capitalist stance. (Even march organizers admitted they had only expected 15,000 people.) And climate marches are becoming decidedly more multiracial as the racist effects  of the climate crisis become more obvious by the day.

Let’s be clear though: 1) increased class consciousness is due to the unflagging efforts of communists and working class leaders over decades of class struggle (not phony liberal misleaders), and 2) it will go nowhere if we do not lead others to the next step: joining PLP and committing their lives to building communism.

Our task: Sharpen the struggle in mass organizations and build the Party!
We are active in many mass organizations. Now is the time to up our game. Virtually every mass organization now connects to the climate crisis: from schools to the factories, social services and the military, health care and immigration…. It is our job to make the connections and show that the climate crisis is yet another aspect of the capitalist crisis engulfing our world and threatening human life on this planet. The urgency of our communist movement has never been more clear. It is crucial that we keep our antiracist and openly communist line front and center in these struggles, and double down with our base and inside our organizations on both the dangers and opportunities to build our movement.

AOC’s smoke and mirrors: A front for Big Fascists
March organizers trotted out celebrity politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) to give the lead-off speech at the end of the march. For all her militant sounding talk, AOC fronts for the Big Fascists by disarming and pacifying the working class, channeling our righteous anger into tightly controlled demonstrations like this one, and electoral politics. As she attempts to reassure us that “we are not going from Oil Barons to Solar Barons,” that is exactly what is happening, with capitalists like phony environmentalist Al Gore becoming billionaires from their investments in renewable energy. She and her fellow “pro-Labor” Big Fascists are the same ones who voted to break the strike of railroad workers last December (see CHALLENGE 1/4). Her “incremental reformism” conceals and protects the Big Fascist bosses, who behind the scenes are carrying out their imperialist agendas, building up toward inevitable, imperialist war with rivals Russia and especially China. Falling for her fake revolutionary sloganeering leaves the working-class defenseless against this rising fascism. We cannot let this happen.

The downward spiral of U.S. imperialism was exposed yet again at the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in New Delhi, India. European bosses, along with capitalist bosses from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, refused to back a statement blaming Russian imperialists for the war in Ukraine (Politico 9/14). Meanwhile, the Chinese and Russian heads of state snubbed the summit by sending junior officials in their place. They were busy recruiting more oil-rich, climate-hostile capitalist regimes into their BRICS alliance, a growing threat to U.S. dominance.

The G20, founded in 1999 in the wake of economic crises in Asia, is a working group of the most powerful capitalist economies. It’s dedicated to making the global profit system more stable for the capitalist class. But it was doomed to fail from the start, since any system driven by short-term maximum profit is intrinsically unstable. In a period of rising inter-imperialist rivalry and coming world war, “multilateral” coalitions like the G20 are useless for solving international crises, whether it’s Covid or climate or a proxy war in Ukraine. Workers everywhere must reject all imperialists. The only side our class can afford to take is the communist side!
G20 backslide on Russia is a blow to U.S.

In addressing the U.S.-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, the world leaders wound up with a soft call for “territorial integrity” and “peace and stability”--a big step back from last year’s G20, which “deplored” Russian “aggression” against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s bosses rejected the resolution outright
The reality is that the U.S. bosses no longer have the leverage to use the G20 to attack Russia (Le Monde, 9/10). As Ukraine’s military counteroffensive stalls, Russian bosses are out-maneuvering sanctions by trafficking oil to the international market across the Northern Sea. Placing oil profits over workers’ interests, they’re using non-ice class tankers in icy waters, increasing the risk of a pollution disaster (FT, 9/15).
Imperialists jockey for influence

In an effort to shore up world leaders' confidence in the U.S., India Prime Minister Narendra Modi was ushered in to present the U.S.-backed rail-and-port deal to connect India to the Middle East and from there to Europe. This Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor is a direct challenge to the Chinese bosses’ Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (Economic Times, 9/12).

China’s ruling class, playing up its strength as the world’s second-largest economy, created the BRI to offer an alternative to Western debt traps for emerging capitalist economies. It provides direct investment in roads, ports, hospitals, industries, and other sectors. The debtor states’ bosses, driven by their own capitalist need for profit, are more interested in securing Chinese capital loans than completing infrastructure projects (The Print, 1/27). More than ten years in and after spending $240 billion in 22 countries, the BRI has saddled these economies with enormous debt and has yet to build a whole lot of “road” or “bridges.”

War and climate refugees
As the G20 trumpeted the inclusion of the African Union as a full member, thousands of workers were killed by massive flooding in Libya. In Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, there could be an additional 143 million climate migrants by 2050 (Brookings, 7/25/19). Capitalist corporations in cahoots with the G20 nations are responsible for 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But despite a summer filled with global climate disasters, the G20 killed a resolution for a more aggressive phaseout of fossil fuels (MSN, 9/11).

Kenya President William Ruto called out representatives of the world’s three largest emitters: China, the U.S., and the European Union. “Those who produce the garbage,” Ruto said, “refuse to pay their bills” (PBS, 9/5). But French President Emmanuel Macron punched back against “this rising state of mind” that “climate change is only the responsibility of the West” (TIME, 9/10). With the biggest emitters all addicted to short-term profits from fossil fuels, it’s clear that capitalism has no solution for global warming.

The devastation of climate change is felt most by Black, Latin, and Indigenous women, men, and children. Workers can’t wait for or survive on the bosses’ promises. The salvation of our class will never come from capitalist rulers, but from militant fightback and communist revolution.

Communist cooperation is the only alternative
To deal with climate change, imperialist forced displacement, and the host of issues bred by capitalist accumulation and competition, Progressive Labor Party must harness the one tool that can solve the centuries-old problems wrought by the profit system: the collective genius of the working class. Once the international working class has seized state power, first on our agenda will be abolishing money, the material basis for commodity production and racist and sexist inequality.

Communist global summits will make the “last first,” ensuring that regions of the world with abundant food stores and manufactured goods redistribute them to workers with less.  We will enlist countless doctors, nurses, engineers, and teachers from around the world into service–without pay–to help and empower workers in every corner of the globe, and to expand human potential for all ages, from infancy to the elderly. Our meetings, conferences, and discussions today are the seeds of these future summits for our class. Join us!

Fighting my cynicism: ‘I’m glad I went!’
When I first heard about the climate march I have to admit - I didn’t want to go. I often get very cynical when I participate in these marches. However, the Party made a push for us to participate - and I am glad they did. As school started I began to talk to students and teachers about the march. Some of the teachers were excited.

One of the teachers asked why I would want to go to this. They had the same mentality as I did. We talked about how we need to rebuild the organizing culture in our school and this might be a good first step. She agreed. More importantly, we talked about how the politics of “End fossil fuels” was not enough and that we need to be there to inject more radical politics. I showed her our flyer and she enthusiastically agreed that capitalism was the problem, but she wasn’t sure that communism was the solution. In the end the Party’s push  to attend forced me to think more deliberately about how I am going to organize with coworkers at my school. I have to remember that even though the bosses right now control most of these marches, they give us opportunities to build our Party. One day we will be leading thousands to not just call for an end to fossil fuels, but call for an end to capitalism with communist revolution.

‘Looking for a political home’
After experiencing the Climate Change March through the communist contingent of Progressive Labor Party, as partners we exchanged some encouraging moments. We saw thousands of workers and students. One of us witnessed a dear comrade and PLP member fight through their fears of social anxiety and have a dialogue with a new person regarding the Pparty’s ideas of fighting back against racism, sexism and climate change, exposing truths and lies bred by capitalism.  This moment made us remember that strength comes from our sharp politics and the courage starts with us the working class.

The other one of us spoke with an unemployed worker in their late twenties who mentioned that part of why they came to the march was to identify fighting organizations they could join. People were walking up to us to grab a CHALLENGE or leaflet after they heard the politics of our chants explicitly calling the bosses out. That made us think that we were doing the right thing. So many more workers and youth like that worker are looking for a political home.

By putting this need of our class over our own fears of reaching out to more workers we will open the door for masses more to find what they are looking for to smash the profit system that makes us suffer: PLP!

Workers respond to communist ideas
Our PLP contingent was organized with great chants and vitality. A group of workers from a housekeepers’ union took our flier. One pointed to the PLP logo and the word “communism” and said, “This is good.”

One Challenge seller spoke with three demonstrators who all gave their names and phone numbers to be contacted by the Party.  

A contingent of Columbia University graduate student workers in the UAW chanted, “Up with the planet, down with the bosses.”
Our Party showed up and the demonstration was better for it.