From streets to jobs, spread the fight

On July 4 residents of Greenbelt celebrated the holiday by holding a rally with speakers in the Roosevelt pavilion to stand against the passage of Donald Trump’s Big, “Beautiful” Bill and to call for sharper fightback. A Progressive Labor Party speaker shared part of Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the 4th of July” and went on to call for workers to take control of society and support the struggle against genocide in Gaza and Sudan.  A young man running for Greenbelt City Council said that Greenbelt should oppose genocide. This is a step forward in Greenbelt which was one of the few cities in Prince George’s County that did not pass a ceasefire resolution – using the excuse that they are only concerned with local issues. After the speeches we distributed a dozen CHALLENGES and had good discussions with our friends and neighbors about communism and the need for a revolutionary party. 

We join in struggles against ICE including Monday rallies in Baltimore at the detention center. Local rapid response groups are becoming better organized to respond to events and show up to local mutual aid events where ICE might appear.  We are continuing to demand that  the courts  bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to Maryland and to stop Trump’s threat to immediately  deport him to another country. 

A PLP  member addressed the Metro Board demanding that they remove their ads recruiting for the Border Patrol and apologize to the community! Over 150 postcards protesting the ads have been sent to the board and it was clear they knew that this has become an issue.

Meanwhile we joined ATU 689 members (transit system workers) in their protest against cutbacks among station managers and train operators with the chants: “Who has the Power, We Have the Power.” We will expand our struggles against ICE, against Genocide and for workers’ power in an ongoing campaign with these workers. 
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You got to talk to people

I go to a lot of demonstrations, and I always have a good supply of CHALLENGEs and/or Progressive Labor Party (PLP) leaflets. Usually it is possible to have a conversation with at least a few people, which is the most important activity. Recently, I asked one young man who was handing out “socialist” literature what he liked about the group. He knew very little, just that they were large, friendly and active, and he was interested in our differences with their uncritical support for national liberation and China. A second young person had hooked up with a phony left group just because he met them first, and we then had an email discussion about their line vs. ours. Both of these contacts showed up the next week at a PLP study group. Many young people are out there looking for answers and how to get involved. It certainly doesn’t always work out this well, but I was just reminded how vital it is to talk with as many folks as we can.
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Say the F word: fascism

I recently heard my minister describe the Donald Trump administration as an example of “competitive authoritarianism.” Not long after, I saw the same term used in a Facebook post criticizing Trump’s military parade and drawing comparisons to Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey—leaders who also operate within what some call competitive authoritarian regimes. 

But let’s be clear: this term is increasingly being used by liberals as a softer stand-in for what is, in fact, creeping fascism. 

It reminds me of the old saying: it’s a recession when your neighbor is out of work; it’s a depression when you are. In the same way, liberal commentators seem comfortable labeling foreign regimes as authoritarian or fascistic but hesitate to apply the same label to the United States—even as it unleashes the military and federal agents against domestic populations. 

It is fascistic when Marines and National Guard troops are deployed to suppress protests. It is fascistic when ICE raids schools, car washes, and Home Depot parking lots to round up and deport workers—often without due process. These are not anomalies; they are symptoms of a capitalist system in deep crisis. 

When capitalism enters crisis, its mask slips. The claws come out: nationalism, racism, sexism, and anti-communism are pushed to the forefront to divide and discipline the working class. We saw this in the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. We saw it in Jim Crow segregation. And we see it today in the scapegoating of immigrants and the erosion of civil liberties. 

As the U.S. ruling class becomes more desperate in its global competition with rising powers like China, Russia, and Iran, it will rely more and more on fascist methods—not just abroad, but at home. This will mean not only repressing workers and the oppressed but disciplining even those members of the elite who fail to toe the fascist line. 

In such moments, quantity turns into quality. What begins as authoritarian drift becomes full-blown fascism. Liberal democracy is not “under threat”—it is being dismantled before our eyes. 

The only real alternative is not a return to some idealized version of U.S. democracy, but the abolition of the capitalist system itself. We need to build a revolutionary communist movement capable of eliminating the ruling class and its fascist machinery once and for all. 
Fight for communism. Join PLP.
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For a world without bosses, smash racism

No Bosses Day of International Action

The bosses are working overtime to ensure Black workers don’t join the current 50501 (50 protests, 50 states, one movement) “No Kings” protests. In contrast, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has raised the slogan: “No Bosses!” The contradictions within these protests—where over five million workers have taken to the streets—reveal liberal fascism in action. The liberal line frames the protests as opposition to Trump as a “king,” aiming to build the nationalism necessary for all-class unity.

Black workers have every reason to be skeptical. Organizers are demanding only U.S. flags for optics, pushing non-violence rhetoric, encouraging protesters to register online, and training marshals to make marchers sit when violence erupts—making it easier for police to identify and arrest them.

The fake left, saturated in the errors of the old communist movement, pushes workers to organize around nationalism, race, and identity—anything but class. PLP is clear: the working class must unite against the bosses, and Black workers are key to revolution.. Racism divides the working class. Capitalism needs both racism and sexism to divide and dispossess workers.

Borders are used to justify lower wages and devalue labor globally. U.S. imperialism depends on exploiting South American workers, with corporations like Dole funding death squads to ensure extreme violence and profit. But that’s not enough: prison labor drives production costs even lower. In Alabama, 40 percent of mostly Black prisoners’ meager wages are garnished—60 percent left is 3/5ths, a grotesque echo of slavery. Our imprisoned class siblings produce hundreds of millions in value while earning as little as 23 cents an hour.

Now, the same bosses building Cop Cities in NYC and Atlanta are opening super-prisons to detain deportees. Undocumented workers there earn $1 a day and pay $5 per phone call. It’s easy to imagine deals made where detainees “volunteer” to stay in exchange for avoiding deportation—creating racist concentration camps, suppressing wages, and enriching the ruling class.

Videos of ICE agents kidnapping children and students damage the U.S.’s carefully crafted image. U.S. imperialism is losing its ideological cover. The 50501 movement wants to abolish kings—but only to preserve the system that let Obama and Biden deport millions and cage children without media scrutiny. Kamala Harris, who made her name locking up Black youth, would’ve been a loyal servant of the empire.

U.S. liberalism is more dangerous than Trump’s vulgar racism. The Black working class, grounded in hard-won experience, is right to distrust liberal leadership. PLP’s role is to connect the dots: every struggle—wars against Iran, new Cop Cities, environmental destruction, racist deportations, fascist cops assassinating enemies—is part of a dying empire clinging to power. Fascism signals weakness. The only way to end this dying beast is with communist revolution.
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General announces France’s most immediate military enemy

France24, 7/11–The head of the French army, General Thierry Burkhard, said that France was Russia’s “main enemy in Europe” as he held a rare press conference in Paris on Friday in a context of what the Élysée Palace of described as "worsening international threats"... President Emmanuel Macron will make "major announcements" when he gives a planned speech to members of the armed forces in two days' time…Burkhard said Russia saw Paris as a primary adversary largely due to French support for Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion. “It was [Vladimir] Putin who said” this, the general added.

Israeli goals in conflict with Iran become clearer

Foreign Affairs, 7/11– The core objectives of Operation Rising Lion were to inflict significant and long-term damage on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, to create the conditions for a better nuclear agreement, and to further degrade Iran’s network of regional proxies. Israel also hoped that the attack would destabilize the Iranian regime, potentially facilitating its collapse…Israel began its operations with a precision decapitation strike that killed approximately 20 high-ranking military commanders…

Capitalist battle for DR Congo resources continues

BBC, 7/12–M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo recently allowed the BBC to visit a huge mining site under their control which is vital to the production of the world's mobile phones…"We usually have more than 10,000 or more people working here daily," Patrice Musafiri, who has supervised the Rubaya mining site since the rebels took control of it in April last year…lush Masisi Hills of North Kivu province…holds 15% of the world's coltan supply and half of the DR Congo's total deposits…a ceasefire deal was signed in Washington by DR Congo and Rwanda…The US's involvement in the process seems to hinge on getting access to DR Congo's mineral resources

Israelis continue to kill hungry and thirsty children 

Al Jazeera, 7/13–At least 10 Palestinians have been killed at a water collection point in central Gaza, six of them children, as famine spreads in the besieged enclave and food and water supplies remain at critically low levels. Israeli forces on Sunday killed at least 92 Palestinians…The attack on the water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, which also wounded 16 people, came as the Israeli military steps up attacks as it prepares to force the entire population of Gaza into a concentration zone in the south.“Even though water is not suitable for drinking as most of the time it’s contaminated, thirst is … nearly 800 Palestinians  have been killed since the GHF began distributing food parcels in Gaza at the end of May…

China and Russia meet to discuss next steps in Ukraine 

Nikkei Asia, 7/14–Russia's and China's foreign ministers on Sunday discussed their relations with the United States and the prospects for ending the war in Ukraine, Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement…"The parties also discussed relations with the United States and prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis"... China and Russia declared a "no limits" partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing, days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. Putin has sometimes described China as an "ally." The U.S. casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat.

Philadelphia municipal union ends strike with agreement, giving workers tiny pay raise

New York Times, 7/9– Philadelphia’s largest public sector union reached a tentative labor agreement early Wednesday morning with the city’s mayor, ending an eight-day strike that had halted trash collection and other service. Philadelphia’s largest public sector union reached a tentative labor agreement early Wednesday morning with the city’s mayor, ending an eight-day strike that had halted trash collection and other services… a three-year contract that would mean a 14 percent pay increase for union members over the four years…The deal still has to be ratified by the union’s members. Its leader was among those with reservations about the deal right away. “I’m not happy or satisfied with the outcome,” Greg Boulware, the union’s president, told reporters early Wednesday morning.

 The bombing of Iran by the imperialist United States and the vicious apartheid state of Israel is a desperate move that could ignite a broader regional or global conflict. Under claims of curbing the nuclear ambitions of Iran’s capitalist bosses, the U.S. ruling class is seeking to reassert its sway over the Middle East, a vital source of the oil and gas that fuel the imperialists’ war machines and generate trillions of dollars in profits each year (OilPrice.com, 2/14/23).

More than a thousand people were killed and thousands more wounded in June’s “12-Day War” (en-hrana.org, 6/28). The great majority were Iranian civilians, though Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome defense system also showed its vulnerability. Millions of workers were forced to flee Iran’s capital Tehran (Al Jazeera, 6/26). After the U.S. engineered what will likely be a temporary ceasefire, State-Terrorist-in-Chief Donald Trump declared “mission accomplished” and boasted that Iran’s nuclear sites were “decimated” and its nuclear program set back for years, a claim that may or may not be true.

But communists know there can never be real peace under capitalism. World war is an inevitable outcome of a system built on competition, nationalism, racism, and the drive for maximum profit. Today, with the U.S. losing more and more ground to imperialist China, war feels even closer. When Iran showered Israel with ballistic missiles and the U.S. targeted Iran with B-2 bombers, old redlines were crossed. As the U.S. dollar declines and China leverages its industrial supremacy, the global economic crisis of capitalism may lead some bosses to see mass destruction as a better option than the status quo of stagnation and decay. 

At the same time, the carnage of warfare lays bare the ruthless nature of capitalism and imperialism. By destroying workers’ illusions about the profit system, it can trigger revolution. World War I saw the Bolsheviks establish the first workers’ state, the Soviet Union. Shortly after fascism was defeated under communist leadership in World War II, workers and peasants in China seized state power. 

As the capitalist world becomes ever more unstable, we must urgently build the mass international Progressive Labor Party. Our task is to lead the working class to take power once more—from the genocidal U.S. rulers, from Israel’s nazi war criminals, from the corrupt and brutal Iranian mullahs who have impoverished tens of millions. Our aim is to build an egalitarian communist society where all workers can flourish. Join us!

Oil at the root of bloody imperialist conflict

Iran contains the third-largest oil reserves in the world, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 5/23). It controls the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic passageway for 20 percent of the world’s oil (The Street, 6/14). The June attacks on Iran are by extension an assault on imperialist arch-rival China, which buys the bulk of Iranian crude oil (USIP, 6/23). Beyond Iran, six of China’s top ten oil suppliers are in or around the Persian Gulf, an incentive for the U.S. to attempt to regain dominance in the region (Newsweek, 6/19). It’s also a powerful motive to instigate regime change in Iran—just as a CIA coup toppled Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, after he moved to nationalize the country’s oil industry.

The downside for the U.S. bosses is that their Middle East entanglements complicate their long-term strategy of a “pivot to Asia” to encircle and eventually confront China across the Pacific Ocean. Though the U.S. has used Israel as a regional proxy by arming the Zionist regime to the teeth, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proven an unreliable ally. The wanton slaughter across Gaza has made Israel a pariah and given the U.S. a black eye in its global competition with the Chinese bosses. While U.S. military dominance makes it tactically strong, its strategic weakness is more glaring by the day.

Trump does the bidding of U.S. liberal rulers

Iran’s oil wealth and its ties to China and Russia have painted the country with a bullseye since the Islamic “revolution” of 1979 overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a willing U.S. lapdog. For nearly half a century, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil, a form of deadly collective punishment against workers and children that has led to widespread shortages of essential medicines, food, and even water (thelancet.com, 8/10/19). 

In this context, Trump and his America First faction of U.S. bosses seem to be pursuing a long-term goal of finance capital, the liberal main wing of the U.S. ruling class. In response, the liberal bosses have voiced mild outrage—laced with their standard cynicism and hypocrisy—that Congress wasn’t consulted beforehand. California Senator Adam Schiff told Trump to “now focus on helping Israel defend itself” (6/13). Fake leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Trump’s impeachment (Wall Street Journal, 6/24), but only because he’d failed to follow proper protocol. The liberal bosses understand the need to mislead workers to support a longer and broader war, one that will demand a commitment of ground troops as well as missiles and bombs. 

Challenge nationalism with communist internationalism

The world’s bosses are expert at whipping up nationalism among workers to serve their own ends. In Israel, Jewish workers and youth are fed a constant diet of racist lies to see Arab workers as less than human. In the U.S., as seen in the recent No Kings rallies, liberal racist bosses are funneling mass resistance to Trump’s open gutter racism into calls for unity and patriotism. In Iran, despite the deep unpopularity of the reactionary, sexist Islamic regime, hundreds of thousands marched to oppose the June bombings (AP, 6/28).

But the poisonous sway of nationalism can be defeated if communists remain bold in asserting working-class internationalism in word and deed. As fascism rises and the drums of war beat louder, winning our fellow workers to class struggle, and ultimately to PLP, is  more crucial than ever. Let’s provide bold political leadership in our workplaces, classrooms, unions, and neighborhoods. Let’s draw inspiration from the ongoing mass fightback against genocide in Gaza, anti-immigrant racism, and mass deportations and displacement. Most of all, let’s connect these attacks to their capitalist roots and put forward the communist alternative. Let’s fight today for the communist world that we so urgently need! No war but class war with PLP!

Brooklyn, NY, June 13th–The struggle didn’t end on May Day – it intensified. In the early morning hours, the day before the nation-wide No Kings rallies, school workers, parents, students, and teachers on our campus gathered again, this time with even sharper chants, “Genocide means…we gotta fight back,” “How do you spell fascist? I! C! E!” and a clearer line: “From Palestine to Mexico to NYC, stop attacks on our youth!”

These weren’t just slogans. They were declarations of resistance, of solidarity, of the fight ahead.

While the bosses ramp up Immigration Customos Enforcement (ICE) raids and the state grows more fascist by the day, our response has been clear: we will not stand idly by as our students and their families are terrorized.

A day of defiance

The morning rally was just the beginning. That same afternoon, we held a second rally—this time timed so students could see their teachers standing up, speaking out, and fighting back. This was no symbolic gesture. We wanted our students to see that the fight isn’t theoretical. It’s in the hallways, in our classrooms, and on the front steps of our schools.

On the same day, a student group led by a member of the Progressive Labor Party distributed hundreds of fliers, connecting students with our school’s immigrant solidarity group. The flier offered real, material help and guidance on how to switch in-person immigration check-ins to virtual ones to avoid being kidnapped by ICE.

We will never forget Dylan Lopez Contreras

Between the two rallies, we called on students to write letters of solidarity to Dylan Lopez Contreras, the Bronx high school student violently taken by ICE at a routine hearing earlier this spring. Dylan's case is not isolated—it’s emblematic of the racist violence ICE inflicts daily, especially on Black, Latin, and immigrant youth. Our message is simple: We won’t forget Dylan, and we won’t be silent as  ICE disappears any more of our students.

In composing the letters and organizing support, our students showed leadership, clarity, and courage. Many asked how they could do more. Some confided their worries about their families’ situations that they had previously been afraid to reveal or ask for support. Various classrooms now sport “Free Dylan!” on their white boards. This is what working-class political education looks like: students learning to act together, as a class, in solidarity with each other.

A growing fightback

This historical moment is part of a larger, coordinated offensive by the ruling class. From Gaza to Rikers Island, the U.S. ruling class, under Democrats and Republicans alike, is waging war on the working class, and especially its most vulnerable members. ICE raids are only one piece of a growing fascist strategy: sow fear, divide workers, and crush resistance before it grows.

Spreading fear and division is not working.

We are building a new normal in our schools—one where teachers fight back, students lead, and parents organize. One where political struggle is part of the school day. One where the walls that divide us—between schools, between staff and students, between citizens and immigrants—start to fall. The bosses want us to be afraid. They want us to be quiet. They want us to believe we’re alone. We are not.

Toward a communist future

We are clear-eyed about the difficulties of the road ahead. The system will never protect us because it was never built for us. It was built to protect profit, property, and power. Our job is to tear it down and build something new in its place: a communist world where no one is “illegal,” where ICE doesn’t exist, and where the working class holds power.

The fight is far from over. But we are more organized, more determined, and more united than ever. Join us. The future is ours to fight for.