New York City, August 9— On the weekend fascist Trump ordered massive roundup-deportation of immigrants, a multiracial congregation in Harlem and members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) met to develop a plan with the goal of building solidarity with our class sisters and brothers under attack by the bosses fascist criminalization of migrant workers. For the last two years PLP comrades and our friends in the church work have been organizing as part the New Sanctuary coalition in response to these racist attacks. Through our efforts we’ve been able to use the church as a conduit for class consciousness, as we welcome workers seeking refuge, to show that the working class is on their side and that they do not have to live in fear.
Only workers can protect and serve our class
The decision to turn this church into a sanctuary was positive step forward in our work because we were able to win Black,white, and Latin workers to the idea that we should unite, with fellow workers who are undocumented to fight racist deportations. In these turbulent times we hope to our advance the following goals; gain the confidence of the working class and transform the character of this struggle, in order to win workers to the understanding that there is only one sanctuary for workers: communism.
    After Trump  announced that he would deploy ICE, or the modern day Gestapo, the working class in New York City immediately rose to the occasion. Workers were reportedly forming networks that would send out alerts if anyone in ICE was spotted. In Harlem and Sunset Park workers botched ICE’s attempts. Recently our church has followed sui boldly marking our organization with an S for sanctuary. We were also able to organize workers involved in our food support and outreach services –largely to Latin to lead the struggle. Several of us have listed ourselves as “on call” whenever an immigrant seeks help in the church.  We developed a working  group and a rapid response protocol for when an emergency presents itself. We agreed that in such a circumstance one of us will immediately go to the church and meet with our sister/brother. Then we will call all the possible respondents to get them “on the case.” Once help is secured we will organize temporary shelter and sustenance for our new friends.
      In addition to our response plan, we’re becoming more pro-active in politiczing our work, by raising the level of discussion around immigration with our base. This stuggle gave us the opportunity to impress upon workers that these mass migrations are no coincidence, and that their root causes are the genocidal conditions around the world stem from imperialism. Some weeks ago the NYT published an op ed piece from a Guatemalan mother: “Food No Longer Grows Here; I Must Send My Sons North to Survive!”The depredations of capitalist-caused climate emergency have brought deadly drought to significant territories in Central America.One young member of our church recently spent a year in a Guatemalan village serving in maternal/child health.  She has agreed that our church board reach out to the church she was active in there to establish regular communication.  Last night eleven of us in out Party Study-Action group began to draft a letter to the parish our member had been active in.
Fight fascism, gain workers confidence
     Among our goals is to learn much more about conditions “on the ground” there and to begin to understand in more depth how U.S. imperialist domination is causing genocidal conditions in Central America and beyond. We hope not only to learn but to act: organizing  more generally stateside against U.S. support for local fascist murder and to fight for the socio-economic aid that can begin to save lives  and to reverse the stream of immigration-for-survival.
Most of all we want to show workers that we should not only fight Trump’s brash open fascism, but we should not depend on the leadership of the liberals or Ocasio Cortez types, who only advocate for nicer and safer concentration camps but are not against ending the miserable exploitation that workers face daily under this system. Our actions and the actions of workers to protect fellow workers against these attacks speak louder, and show that when the working class is under attack we’re the first to move to defend and serve each other.Finally, we must strive to grow our base through this work, in order to build the international workers’ revolution, that is the only strategic hope for seven billion of us to begin to live and thrive on the ruins of the genocidal capitalist world!
 

For over two months, mass protests have made Hong Kong a new flashpoint in the escalating fight between U.S. market capitalism and Chinese state capitalism. Workers in Hong Kong and everywhere must refuse to be taken in by either set of imperialist exploiters. All bosses settle their disputes by shedding rivers of our class’s blood. The intensifying U.S.-versus-China trade war will inevitably give rise to armed conflict and an eventual third world war.
Images of masses of people attacking the cops and shutting down a center of global finance may seem inspiring. But in assessing any resistance movement, we need to look beyond appearances to its political essence. At their core, the Hong Kong protests are a reactionary, anti-worker movement. They serve the interests of local billionaires in a battle to resist control by the mainland Chinese capitalists and their organized crime syndicate, the once-revolutionary Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Hong Kong, exploiters’ paradise
In 1842, after feudal China’s loss to British capitalist narco-traffickers in the First Opium War, the island of Hong Kong was absorbed into a rising British Empire. It soon became a headquarters for Western imperialists and their local henchmen bent on sucking worker-generated wealth out of Asia.
In 1949, after the once-revolutionary CCP defeated the U.S.-backed fascist Kuomintang in a bitter civil war, Hong Kong remained a British colony and a crucial outpost of finance capital. By the 1970s, the Chinese capitalist bosses—a new “red bourgeoisie”—smashed the Cultural Revolution, a mass movement to restore the fight for communism. In 1997, these fake-left rulers agreed to allow independent finance capitalism to persist in Hong Kong for at least another 50 years: the “one country, two systems” deal.  
On August 5, workers called for a general strike with chants of “Restore Hong Kong, Revolution of our times!” Elements of the Hong Kong ruling class are making a bid for permanent autonomy, which the mainland Chinese ruling class will never accept. For the “Wall Street of the East,” stakes are high. Hong Kong features “[r]elatively low taxes, a highly developed financial system, light regulation….Most of the world’s major banks and multinational firms maintain regional headquarters in the city….” (Council of Foreign Relations, 6/19). Hong Kong is the key hub for investment for Chinese companies, giving them “access to global capital markets for bond and loan financing” (Economist, 10/1/14).  
Even as Shanghai and Beijing emerge as new financial capitals, Hong Kong remains of huge importance for China’s rulers’ bid to dominate the global profit system. They plan to integrate Hong Kong and neighboring Guangdong Province into a Greater Bay Area project “that could rival the San Francisco Bay or Tokyo Bay areas, …Echoing the connectivity narrative of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Greater Bay would constitute a population of more than seventy million people and a $1.5 trillion economy” (CFR, 6/10). China’s absorption of Hong Kong would spell doom for independent capitalists who have flourished under “one country, two systems.” These are the forces behind this summer’s turmoil.
“Democracy,” exploiters’ tool
The average resident of Hong Kong has a living space the size of a parking spot; hundreds of thousands of poorer workers split such a space among three people (New York Times, 7/22). But instead of fighting the brutal inequalities of the capitalist system, protesters have been infected by anti-mainland racism. They target tourists with chants of “uncivilized” and “invaders,” and intimidate elderly mainland women at their morning outdoor exercises (NYT, 7/13).
From Xinjiang to Hong Kong to Taiwan, China’s ruling class faces growing internal challenges to its authority. The turmoil in Hong Kong today echoes the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, another “pro-democracy” movement that favored more liberal, entrepreneurial, Western-style capitalism. In a period of intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry and rising fascism, China’s ruling class can’t afford to allow “two systems” much longer. Hong Kong’s “leaderless” mass action, loudly hailed in the U.S. bosses’ media, is a mask for the direct involvement of U.S. imperialism.
 Among the 40-odd NGOs backing the Hong Kong protests is a thinly-veiled CIA operation, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). As its founders openly admitted early on: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly by the CIA 25 years ago” (NYT, 6/1/86).Since then, NED has penetrated every “opposition” movement that aligns with the interests of U.S. finance capital, from Russia (1996) to Venezuela (2002) to Haiti (2004). Today it is active in Nicaragua, Ukraine, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong (thegrayzone.com, 6/18). Its influence is apparent in the English-language signage and American flags held by Hong Kong’s protesters.
Nationalism and war
As the trade and currency war between the U.S. and Chinese ruling classes escalates, each side is preparing its population for open conflict. The CCP has given its stamp of approval to Chinese nationalist Hu Xijin and his Global Times newspaper, with its 30 million online readers. Hu’s treatment of the U.S.-China rivalry: “There is a sense of crisis; America cannot prevent China’s rise.”  On the trade war: “We are willing to bear some pain to give the U.S. a lesson.”  On a future shooting war: “The possibility cannot be ruled out; the danger is greater than before”  (NYT, 7/31).  
But when it comes to exploitation and slaughter, China can’t compete with Western liberal democracy. From its origins in Greece to its enshrinement in the U.S. Constitution, democracy has been a cover for the rule of a tiny, propertied ruling class.  Democracy is the tool of enslavers—chattel slavery then, wage slavery today. Workers will suffer wage slavery and imperialist slaughter until we learn to see democracy for what it is: a dictatorship of the capitalist class. Our task is to replace capitalist democracy with proletarian dictatorship and a system that meets workers’ needs. That system is called communism.
Fight for communism!
Progressive Labor Party is building a revolutionary communist movement to pick up where the Red Guards of China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution left off—and to finish the job of leading the working class forward to the victory of a classless society. The Red Guards were fighting not for democracy but for centralism, for the principle that the highest expression of “majority rule” is the uncompromising commitment to the interests of the international working class. Only a mass communist party can lead this fight. Communist centralism remains our most invaluable tool. Join us!

BROOKLYN, NY, August 3 —The seventh annual Hoops for Justice basketball tournament brought together over a hundred workers and youth to honor the memory of Shantel Davis (23) and Kimani Gray (16), two Black youth murdered by the kkkops. The event was organized by the Justice for Shantel and Beyond Committee, of which Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has been a part.
Hoops for Justice is a special event because each year a multiracial, multigenerational group youth, workers, and comrades come together to play basketball, eat, distribute CHALLENGE, prizes and commemorate  Shantel and Kimmani with ballons. It’s the perfect blend of fun and
working class fightback!
More importantly, Hoops for Justice sends the  
message that we refuse to forget our working-class sisters and brothers, whose lives were robbed by racist police violence. PLP will carry the torch of justice forward to the only solution that can put a stop to racist cop murders: communist revolution.
Building workers solidarity
one hoop at a time
During the fast-paced games players waiting to compete looked through CHALLENGE as the announcer mixed in play-calling with political consciousness—calling out the racist NYPD and the true nature of capitalism, and the need of young workers to organize for a revolution. As it happens every year, halfway through the tournament, participants gathered on the court to listen to a revolutionary anti-racist song performed by a fellow comrade. Workers sang along calling out the roster of names of workers cut down in high profile murders. We then released white balloons, as a symbol to never forget, all while delivering a message that we also keep fighting the racist violence that robbed their lives.
Confidence in the working class, an antidote to fear
Unfortunately at the tail end of the event, some youth said they spotted a man in a motorcycle who was purportedly flashing a gun tucked in his waist at some of the local youth. For a brief moment it seemed as though the event was soured, and with just two games left to play.Organizers and other workers rushed to make sure everyone was okay, with one seventeen year old positioning himself in front a group of children he didn’t know in order to protect them—giving them his phone to watch cartoons while the situation was assessed. Workers have, workers can, and workers will protect each other without the racist harassment of the murderous capitalist police state.
This fact was reflected in the collective decision making and determination of PLP and our friends organizing the event not to end the tournament on a note of fear. Then a party member and sports commentator told the remaining crowd that we should stay and play one more game. He explained that the youth in this Brooklyn neighborhood are exposed to the capitalist violence that comes with living in impoverished and marginalized neighborhoods, that they don’t have the choice to just up and leave whenever disturbances happen, and so we shouldn’t either. We quickly organized another match that was  multi-generational, co-ed, and multi-racial to end the event, building solidarity and showing we’re not intimidated by violence that stems from capitalism.
    A world without kkkops is possible
Events like this are small, but significant examples of how the working class doesn’t need  bosses to run the world and doesn’t need kkkops to keep us safe. The working class can organize ourselves and create a world run by and for workers. And one day, we will—when we build a mass party with youth leading the way! The necessity to build PLP is clear. If we don’t, the bosses and their badge wearing goons will continue to exploit workers’ feelings of hopelessness and to redirect any sense of spirit towards dead-ends such as electoral politics. Only workers armed with communist politics and values have the power to turn the dark nights we’re currently living in into brighter days. Long live communism!

BAY AREA, August 6—Capitalism is nuts, and it drives us nuts, too—if we don’t fight it. After months of strife, the City of San Francisco passed a racist and anti-working class law to curb its homeless population, a problem that was generated by capitalism. The Conservatorship Law will take “guardianship” over the mentally ill homeless people. This law reveals how capitalism is a system of dictatorship. Progressive Labor Party and other fighters are struggling for workers to one day be rulers of our own fortune. Only communism provides the conditions to make that dream possible.
City creates & exacerbates crisis
For a decade, San Francisco hosted billionaire tech firms tax-free, and let the resulting sky-high rents enrich developers while throwing thousands into the streets. The City took $40 million from mental health and substance abuse treatment budgets. They harassed homeless people sitting on sidewalks or pitching tents against the rain. They had used water trucks to spray on people sleeping in doorways on winter nights. Now, tent encampments are encroaching on rich areas, and the City has suddenly “discovered” there’s a crisis in homelessness, mental health, and substance abuse. This crisis was created by the business-as-usual capitalist neglect for working-class needs.
The City’s response? A Conservatorship Law. Mentally ill people in the streets will be placed in a locked ward to receive intensive psychiatric care for up to a year.  Court hearings could renew these one-year terms indefinitely. “Once you’re fully conserved, you lose the right to live alone, choose your doctor, access your bank accounts, own a pet, or communicate with the outside world. The ACLU calls conservatorship ‘the greatest deprivation of civil liberties aside from the death penalty’” (SF Weekly, 6/5).
Capitalism is the real crime
Homeless people, seniors, people with disabilities, and protesters—who were focused on ending police violence and mass incarceration—united to fight this Conservatorship Law. The police, not mental healthcare workers, oversee this “intervention.” The reform demands are full-service supportive housing and mental health/substance abuse care. Much like how they deal with migration, the bosses’ system has turned the workers into criminals. The real crime is capitalism, not the people who try to survive it.
Everyone involved could see that capitalism is the cause of every aspect of this crisis: gentrification, rent gouging, displacement and evictions, police terror and the criminalization of poverty, budget cuts, and a vicious media campaign denying the humanity of capitalism’s victims. It was also clear that capitalism is causing people’s alienation, and that substance abuse is a horrific coping mechanism.
Communism is the cure
We want communism, where the working class owns and runs society, but also so everyone’s potential is recognized and their contribution is encouraged. We will never solve the housing crisis through reform, because its primary goal is opposite of the solution. Capitalism is a system of profit and power that can only come from exploiting and dividing people. Communism is a system of collectivity and power that can only come from putting the needs of the entire working class as the main determinant of societal decisions.
Prevention, not punishment
The protesters’ demands include street-corner micro-clinics, and 24-hour neighborhood clinics staffed with both mental health workers and counselors with personal experience of living on the streets and mental illness, and no cops. These demands are in accord with public health research and recommendations, including the recently passed resolution of the American Public Health Association and the San Francisco Health Commission on treating incarceration as a public health issue.San Francisco has a history of fighting back: protesters and mental and public health practitioners have demanded prevention, not punishment. They defeated building a new jail, which would have been filled with people charged with low-level nuisance “crimes,” allowing the City to sweep the streets with several hundred newly hired cops. They also defeated building a “mental health jail,” a tactic now being used across the country to re-brand the prison-industrial complex to make it seem like people will get treatment.
The City’s own data shows that 70 percent of the city’s homeless are formerly San Francisco renters. Displaced workers’ current mental health stressors are usually the result of living on the street, rather than the cause.
Fight continues
Although the Conservatorship Law passed, we grew in class-consciousness. At first, hardly anyone dared question this law. Now, many do and others will follow us as this battle spreads through California. We are in the middle of a public health and mental health crisis. How do communists and workers meet the challenge of waging these battles with a long-term view? Our challenge is helping our group see communist revolution and working-class power as the answer to these questions.