CHICAGO, November 20—Members and friends of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined hundreds of multiracial protestors downtown today to blast the racist “not guilty” verdict of the murderer Kyle Rittenhouse. The unsurprising results of the trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin are another clear reminder that a capitalist judicial system is designed to protect its racist and violent foundation. Only communism is capable of guaranteeing workers’ safety and rights. Once our class smashes racism, private property, and profit with revolution we will run a society that no longer fosters the likes of Rittenhouse and the institutions that have protected him.
For anyone familiar with the thoroughly racist and sexist nature of the legal system under capitalism, the result should come as no surprise. The capitalist bosses would love for antiracists to feel dejected and cynical. The presence of thousands of angry workers and youth marching across the country, however, proves that the fighting spirit of the working class is alive and well!
As communists in PLP we know we have to immerse ourselves in the mass movement in order to help guide spontaneous rage against the profit system’s abuses into a militant and disciplined Party fighting for mass international revolution. Attempting to reform capitalism is like trying to control a runaway train. PL’ers are on deck today and every day, with new and old friends, to win our class to the lifelong fight for communism!
Racist capitalism let Rittenhouse off the hook
The PLP arrived at the rally, armed with a bullhorn and hundreds of CHALLENGEs and leaflets, ready to call for revolution. We split up into small groups to cover different spots around the plaza, where we could hand out literature and chat with workers.
Many workers seemed especially eager to take copies of CHALLENGE and our flyer, with some asking how they could get more involved with the Party on the spot. In contrast to the dead-end strategies offered by the opportunist politicians and reform groups at the rally, our calls for workers’ power through communism clearly struck a chord.
In contrast to the bogus liberal claim that it was “white-skin privilege”that got Rittenhouse (and many others like him) off the hook, he in fact got off because of his service in upholding the racist capitalist status quo that views property as more valuable than workers’, especially Black workers’ lives. It was this racist, sexist system that filled Rittenhouse’s head with a rotten ideology and armed him with an assault rifle to travel across state lines to shoot and kill two antiracist white workers fighting for justice for Jacob Blake. While Black and Latin workers are super-exploited by racism, all workers suffer at the hands of capitalism and it is with mutliracial, international fightback that we will truly win.
It is practically certain that if any Black or Latin worker tried what Rittenhouse got away with they would never have made it out of Kenosha alive, much less faced a trial. But to push the “white privilege” line is to distort the truth of the source and beneficiary of racism and all other divisive anti-worker attacks: capitalism.
Racist ideas and violence attack Black, Latin, Asian and immigrant workers first and hardest, but they are used to lower the living standards of the entire working class, including white workers. When white workers unite with other workers in militant antiracist struggle, the bosses and their thugs don’t hesitate to unleash state terror on them too. Our multiracial working-class unity is truly our most powerful weapon against capitalism, and thus the bosses’ biggest fear.
PL’ers crank up the militancy
By the time the rally turned into a march, our collective was ready to turn up the militancy a notch. Using our bullhorn, we took turns in leading the crowds in chants like, “The kkkops, the kkkourts, the Ku Klux Klan! All are a part of the bosses’ plan!” and “What does Rittenhouse mean? We’ve got to fight back!” Other PL’ers and friends gave speeches in between chants, including a Black worker who blasted the bosses’ criminal injustice system to wide applause.
A little boldness can often go a long way. Many marchers who were at first hesitant to take a flyer or CHALLENGE were more inclined the second time around after seeing the Party’s communist politics in action. To this end, we ran out of the 500 flyers we printed up as well as close to 400 copies of CHALLENGE.
Most inspiringly, we were able to get contact information for nearly 10 young antiracists, including one who was familiar with the Party from CHALLENGE sales in a south side neighborhood! What we do really counts!
Join PLP to turn the guns around
As uplifting as the march turned out for us, we have to keep a sober assessment about the dangers surrounding the international working class. From fascists like Rittenhouse and the kkkops shooting us down in the streets, to the imperialist bosses whipping up nationalism to try to get us to fight and die in their wars of profit, we must prepare to confront capitalist state violence with revolutionary violence. Pacifism and trusting in the bosses’ courts are two deadly miscalculations for our class.
The international communist PLP represents the force that will one day turn the guns around and smash the bosses and their murderous, racist profit system for good. Join us in the struggle to ensure that the day of our collective liberation comes sooner.

NEWARK, NJ, November 21—As the housing crisis intensifies worldwide, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members met with neighbors of North Newark’s Stephen Crane Village, a 354-unit public housing complex. We organized to heighten the struggle for better living conditions under capitalism and build a revolutionary communist movement led by PLP. Each year, Black liberal misleader, Mayor Ras Baraka hosts a “State of the City” symposium to quell the rage of Black and Latin workers in this area. As a way to strengthen the morale of new comrades and all workers in Newark, PLP decided to host our own communist speak-out at the Crane.
We’ve been teaming-up with a comrade who lives in the area to sell CHALLENGE and connect with workers. It's been a slow build but we continue to meet people who are interested in communist ideas and fighting back. Two comrades, a healthcare worker and an educator, grabbed the bullhorn and spoke about fighting back for better housing and fighting for communist revolution.
As workers listened from their homes, PL’ers walked over to offer them CHALLENGE. A group of children playing on the basketball court stopped to listen and joined in when we chanted “Asian, Latin, Black and white, workers of the world unite!”
Workers knock the rotten foundation of capitalist housing
When PLP passed the mic, a neighbor voiced her anger about the property manager's mistreatment and failure to address the issues of the workers that live there. “I'm so tired and I know many of you all are annoyed having to go down to the leasing office to repeat complaints about the same situation they have documented on their computers and no one comes out to fix the problems. They tell us the same story every time: there’s not enough workers to fix the problems in the complex. Why do I have mold in the apartment? Why is the plumbing terrible? And why can't I stop coughing?” Capitalism's failures have increased the privatization of housing in areas like Newark, allowing slum lords to neglect and manipulate workers. A few months ago, the building managers sold the public housing facility to private developers and have left the residents with deathly conditions to deal with alone.
Big Fascist“Build Back Better capitalism” will fail workers
In line with President Joe Biden’s day-late-dollar-short Build Back Better bill, Newark’s Mayor Ras Baraka made public promises to create and preserve 6,600 affordable housing units in Newark by 2026. Workers can’t afford to wait that long for better housing. And even still, the city would need 16,000 units to meet the needs of all workers in this area (NJ.com, 6/21). While bosses in the White House argue over how many bones to toss down to workers, the health of our class suffers at the hands of managers and landlords who are lining their pockets in the midst of a pandemic.  An infrastructure bill will never be enough to resolve the mounting crisis of housing, education, health and police violence that work in tandem to ruin workers’ lives and communities.
Fight for better housing, fight for communism!
PLP affirms that only an internationalist communist future, where workers take state power, will vanquish the grueling cycle of capitalism. To put communism in action, PLP stands side by side with workers FIGHTING BACK and building a movement for communist revolution to win a world for workers in the long run!
One neighbor suggested we survey each family in the complex about the conditions of their unit and report it back to the city, especially after the disastrous Hurricane Ida. We agreed  and added the idea of including the senior building next door. We will also distribute CHALLENGE. One woman worker reported her roof was leaking during the storm and showed us the ceiling cracks and mold in the apartment. She has been complaining about this decay for weeks, while the landlords still left a rent notice in her mailbox. Under communism and PLP’s leadership, a profit system will  not exist and housing structures will  be designed to keep workers' needs and participation in decision-making primary. To get there, we need as many of our working class brothers and sisters as possible sharpening the struggle between the ruling class and the workers. Stand up and demand that enough is enough!! It’s time for the united international working class to fight back!! Join PLP in the fight!

Brooklyn, NY—Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder charges on a Friday and in the days leading up to that verdict I discussed the importance of this case with co-workers and my students.  State-sanctioned political assassination of antiracist leaders by right-wing vigilante elements was on trial, and is as old as U.S. racism and capitalism.  The decision to acquit came as a surprise to some, not to others, but groundwork for some sort of a response was laid.
In the coming days two more court cases that put racist killers on trial were decided.  It is widely acknowledged that the decision ruling against the killers of Ahmaud Aubrey only happened because damning video evidence surfaced.  The court ruling against the organizers of the 2017 Charlottesville fascist ‘Unite the Right’ rally where another protester, Heather Heyer, was killed is manifestation of a Big Fascist effort to drive its Small Fascist (see Glossary, see page 6) rivals out of political relevance.  Big Fascism is a push for the widest possible extension of social control in preparation for wider conflict with imperialist rivals China and Russia.
Liberal fascists turn their guns on antiracist fighters
Big Fascist Joe Biden’s response that our jury system works and that protest must not destroy property shows us that it is a dangerous illusion to see in liberalism any protection for dedicated antiracists. With his response to the Rittenhouse verdict, Biden has told us ‘if you want to fight racism and you get shot and killed you’re on your own.’  This was the same message liberal New York City  mayor Bill de Blasio voiced as he blamed protesters in the most cynical and craven terms possible when his mad dog cops rammed their trucks into crowds of protesters in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.  
Working class students leadwhere liberal politicians won’t
Monday, on the job, a multiracial group of young people went to visit our school’s Black Students Union to send the message that we embrace the spirit of multi-racial unity and solidarity against racism that Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber showed and paid for with their lives.  Spirited struggle between the strategy of multiracial unity and of ‘Black spaces’ in the fight against racism ensued among faculty and between students.  
A social gathering over Thanksgiving weekend expanded from a small dinner with neighbors to a larger event drawing together former students, current co-workers and family and was transformed into a part of our Progressive Labor Party response to the Rittenhouse verdict.  Our message and commitment to each other is simple—if you want to fight racism you are not, in fact, on your own.  The workers movement for an armed communist revolution is with you all the way.  This offensive strategy is our best defense.  Today’s racist killers and their liberal protectors will cower before the might of a new and antiracist state power.  
Kyle Rittenhouse is indeed a young man, little more than a boy who was led far astray by open racism and has now been protected by liberal fascism. He may well live to see communist state power.

For readers of CHALLENGE it is not uncommon to read reports of super exploitation and crisis in Haiti. Workers in Haiti have been faced with the daily violence of capitalism, mishandled natural disasters that keep them fighting for their lives, and mostly recently have been front page news as the latest target of racist border attacks. These reports, time and again, show a working class in Haiti and internationally amidst a continuous life-and-death struggle. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is on the ground in Haiti and taking leadership from Black workers as we build class consciousness and a revolutionary spirit!
The government in Haiti is unable and unwilling to do anything to stop this current reign of terror. First,it is facing its own crisis: after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, political parties are in dissaray, vying for power and control. Second, and perhaps most important, this is how they’ve designed the system - one in which workers are  suppressed by a limited job market and skyrocketing price of living. Gasoline prices are off the charts, the pumps go dry from time to time, and truck drivers stage intermittent strikes in protest, effectively shutting everything down.
The primary goal of the capitalist system is to extract as much value as possible from the workers and the natural resources. Today, one of Haiti’s primary resources is its workers. They are forced to flee untenable conditions and become low-wage workers in surrounding countries in the Caribbean, or further afield in  Latin America, the U.S., Canada, and Europe. They become part of the migrant journey, perhaps the greatest migration of workers from the global south to the global north, fleeing war between capitalist rivals. They are fleeing unsustainable economies from the ravages of climate change and political instability, as various capitalist leaders exploit the migrants for their own political benefit.
Our Party in Haiti is immersing itself in the daily struggles of workers and students to try to make ends meet in an increasingly fragile situation.  As revolutionary communists we understand more and more that liberation from the ravages of capitalist exploitation demands an international working class army, in which Black worker leadership is key! Through our daily interactions, study groups and struggles, our comrades discuss with fellow workers  why these conditions exist, why there is such widespread inequality not only in Haiti, but in the region and the world as a whole, and the role of racism and sexism in keeping our class divided and disarmed.
We know that this disgusting system can be smashed!   That workers and students, under the leadership of PLP can change the world. Not for the few, but for the many. Our comrades always talk about building the masses’ confidence in the Party, and the Party’s confidence in the working class. This is not idle thought, but the basis of struggle and advancement in our strength as a class.
Our comrades’ commitment to struggle and building the Party is exemplary. Not that we do everything correctly all the time, but we are willing to analyze our situation as a “noyau” (core) of revolutionary organizing, evaluate the successes and mistakes, and always try to move forward. Workers’  lives in Haiti are as difficult as their neighbors but we are determined to fight and win. As comrades always say, “Join us!”