Why joining PLP was like opening a third eye for me
This was my first summer project since joining Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and it was a life-changing experience, to say the least. I still remember how I felt when I came to my first summer project three years ago and left feeling inspired to get more involved. Still, I experienced what felt like a mental breakdown when I began to grasp how complex and immense capitalism is. I remember asking myself “How is it possible that everything I’ve known my entire life was a lie?” There was no American dream and growing up in poverty with immigrant parents, it was something I realized from a young age but wasn’t able to grasp fully.
I knew the way I was living wasn't fair but back then I felt as though it was just the way life is and I couldn't do anything about it.
I had not realized that my family and everyone around me were living this way because of capitalism. I had not made that connection and I was not able to find the words to describe what I was feeling until I was exposed to PLP and communism. This past summer project I developed an understanding of international working class consciousness and so much more. Every single encounter that I had with workers left me shocked when I realized how aware workers are of this exploitative government. From the nurses striking at the University of Illinois Hospital for fair contracts, students who came to march at the DNC in solidarity with Palestinian lives, to transit workers on the Chicago train. Almost every single worker in Chicago shared the same sentiment and understood that we could never survive under capitalism, and there won’t be justice in society unless it was ruled by the working class.
Over the past few years, it's been like a light bulb turning on in my head one by one by each comrade who has taught me more about communism and the fight for the international working class. Even though I still struggle with feeling as though I can’t fully grasp the ideas of communism, I get a sense of comfort from other comrades who share those feelings with me. I know what the comrades in the Party have been fighting for and continue to fight for.
My best advice to those who feel powerless and and aren’t sure about how to fight back against capitalism is to join Progressive Labor Party. You are not alone in your fight for a better future for the working class.
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Spark of hope in a love fest of union hacks & pols
Tens of thousands of workers marched in today’s Labor Day parade organized by the New York City Central Labor Council. If you thought that this was a massive display of union solidarity and strength fighting against the evils of the capitalist system, you would be sadly mistaken. In the midst of the annual love fest between the labor bureaucracy and New York’s Democratic Party hacks however, there were sparks of hope.
Progressive Labor Party members (PL’ers) participated with groups of workers who were demanding that their unions fight the genocide in Gaza and with retirees who were fighting the gang up by city bosses and the leaders of the Municipal Labor Committee against 250,000 retired city workers. They were trying to force retirees from their current traditional Medicare and city paid supplemental coverage into an inferior Medicare (dis)Advantage health plan.
PL’ers bought our message that the capitalist system is the cause of all of the problems workers face from Palestine to New York City. We say that the band-aid solutions to the cancer of capitalism is not the solution. We know that only communist revolution will end the misery faced by workers world-wide. To win workers like those who marched today we have to immerse ourselves in every struggle workers face and participate with them in organizations controlled by our ruling class enemies.
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Raise a glass for fighting the bosses
Last weekend I participated in a wine tasting fundraiser to cover expenses from this year’s Progressive Labor Party (PLP) summer project. It was organized at a comrades’ home where there was an abundance of yummy food and various spreads of desserts and dishes. The event was very well attended and we played a fun game where we were given a list of wines which were concealed in burlap sacks and we had to guess which bottle was which based on the description provided on the wine list. I gave a short report and speech urging folks to donate. I started off by summing up the successes of the summer projects and the impact the Party made at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. I contrasted their convention with what the PLP accomplished and what the working class can achieve— versus the total circus that was the convention and the ruler’s disastrous leadership— which we all witnessed in the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Here is what I said.
Neither the Democrats or the Republicans care about working-class people. They both had cops at their conventions to keep angry working-class people out. The only people who will fight for us are us— the working class. We are the ones who will save us!
Earlier this week was the presidential debate. If you watched the debate that night, you definitely heard all the racist, sexist things coming out of Trump’s mouth. Apparently, the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio are eating cats and dogs. Also did you hear that women will “abort” their children after they are born if Roe V. Wade is reinstated
During the debate, he also called Kamala a communist and a Marxist which is such a joke and has said that she hated Israel. Trump has made her look better than she actually is, and we know that she’s an even bigger threat to the working class. Yes, the MAGA Republicans are like racist nazis but they aren’t as dangerous as Harris and the liberal bosses which is why we also want to protest against the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Everything that is happening to the migrants and workers in this country and the genocide in Gaza was made worse under Biden and Harris.
For this reason, we shouldn’t vote in this election but organize for the revolution. A comrade also spoke about 9/11 never ending for workers around the world and how Harris received support from Dick Cheney, one of the main war criminals complicit in killing millions of workers in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many comrades also chimed in and talked about the liberals’ attacks on students and made a case for why the working class will win the revolution. In the end, our friends who came donated and one even joined the Party, another nail in the bosses’ coffin.
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Filthy-rich DNC full of lies
I spent hours watching the Democratic Convention and am convinced that liberal politicians are the greater evil. They lie constantly and convincingly, especially if we do not know the facts. Here are some examples:
Former CIA director Leon Panetta and other military officials praised the U.S. role in Afghanistan and Iraq, never saying how the wars destroyed the countries, killed millions, and left U.S. soldiers with PTSD and devastating injuries.
UAW President Shawn Fain praised Biden as a friend of labor because he spent two minutes on the UAW picket line. Furthermore, after the union passed a resolution for a ceasefire, Fain endorsed Biden. The administration is now threatening the union for their vote for Gaza.
• Kamala cried crocodile tears describing the conditions in Gaza while calling for support of Israel to defend itself and refusing to stop U.S. aid for Israel.
• Speakers praised Kamala’s work as a prosecutor without mentioning she wanted to fine parents whose kids had many school absences.
• Kamala portrayed immigration policy as humane when Biden and Obama deported more people, including Haitians, than Trump.
• Speakers repeatedly praised Kamala as “nice,” a great friend and mother, building a cult of personality.
• Speakers and delegates represented many demographics, including “racial” categories, disabilities, generations, genders, sexual orientations, and religions. Strong optics.
• Speakers promised to lift the middle class, no mention of the working class and poor people.
• There were some references to COVID and Biden’s programs that provided a stimulus program and free tests, vaccines, masks, and medications. There was no mention that these protections are not free now; two tests often cost $20 and the drug Paxlovid is $140!
The Convention mirrored the qualities of a musical Broadway show. Fashion, makeup, hair, speaking, gestures, energy, pacing – all professionally choreographed and scripted to the last detail. A positive? John Legend and Stevie Wonder selling out for the Democrats. And sadly, the crowd of 20,000 responded with chants of USA, USA and patriotic signs. The cameras never captured any signs of dissent from the non-committed delegates or the thousands who protested genocide in the streets of Chicago. It was a lovefest for U.S. capitalism and its corporate sponsors who are setting us up for more wars and economic austerity. Shades of Germany in the 1930s?
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