NEW JERSEY, April 2—Our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) group had a recent social event to build for May Day and to support the Anaheim protesters arrested for fighting back against the Ku Klux Klan in California. Members and friends discussed many issues from raising revolution while fighting for a reform to the role of violence in the revolutionary struggle. One comrade was encouraged to invite everyone in her organization to come to May Day. Another comrade was motivated to contact several students, and one came with her boyfriend. She was inspired to reach out to even more students in the future.
Stop the Klan With Mass, Militant, Multi-racial Action!
The Anaheim struggle sparked an important discussion about the role of “violence” in building a multi-racial, international mass working-class movement against racism and capitalism, especially given Trump’s encouragement of racist violence. Debates over the use of “violence” are timely today as protests against Trump grow. Both the mainstream media and anti-Trump liberals praise “free speech” and “peaceful protest” and are vocally critical of “troublemaking” protestors for their use of “violence.” So violence in the class struggle becomes a hot button issue for our members and friends. Students are particularly torn between wanting to stop racists but unsure about the ethics of using force. While communists oppose individualistic, terroristic violence, revolution is not a tea party. The ruling class has shown that they will murder millions to stay in power and keep their profits flowing. Mass revolutionary violence will be necessary to get rid of this capitalist scum.
Describing the Anaheim action, one comrade explained that the party organizes carefully and thoughtfully to stop racist groups. We are not anarchists. In the recent Anaheim case, a group of anarchists attacked the Klan without first organizing in the community. PLP members and friends who were there fought back when attacked by the Klan. When the police entered the fray, they attacked only the anti-racists. The kkkops did not arrest any Klan members, only three anti-racists. The lesson of Anaheim is clear: anti-racists cannot rely on the kkkops or the government. We must organize a mass, multiracial, anti-racist movement first to support the Anaheim 3, and eventually to get rid of this racist, sexist capitalist system, once and for all.
No Free Speech For Racists
Another anti-racist action further illustrated the political necessity of “using force” to build a mass anti-racist movement: Middlebury College students – led by a small but determined group of students of color – prevented racist academic Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) from speaking. Murray’s writings reflect ruling class efforts to revive “academic scientific racism,” not by promoting theories of “biological inferiority” but by arguing that the culture of poverty, unemployment, and crime resulting from decades of racism make people of color a threat to society (generating fear among “whites”). The militant students who shouted down Murray gave a signal to everyone that there should be no “free speech” for racists.
ICE and KKKops Off Campus; No Deportation!
After these discussions, a fairly new PLer, an immigrant, reported on her efforts to organize a Rapid Response Network (RRN) to fight against increased ICE deportations. The RRN began as an initiative of a new community organization in Newark that wanted to build an electoral response to Trump’s immigration policy. But the RRN organizers wanted a more direct action approach. To build anti-racist consciousness, the RRN proposed starting with a hotline open to non-citizens facing detainment by local police or ICE. Education/legal/political training would follow to address how all racism (anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Muslim etc.) hurts the entire working class. The training would also expose the crucial role that the police, ICE, and even the military play in exploiting the working class. One Newark teacher suggested the RRN expand its base further by becoming part of the sanctuary movement being built by Newark teachers, who call for “police out of the schools” in Newark.
March on May Day
All these discussions lead us to May Day and the revolutionary communist struggle for a better world. One comrade said that EVERYTHING we demand in reform struggles is a compromise. We might win a few crumbs, but capitalist inequality, exploitation and imperialist wars continue. The working class needs an end to capitalism and a communist society in which workers make decisions and where all the resources go toward the needs of the people, not to profits. Let’s get the new RRN recruits to come to May Day and to share with them our larger goals: getting rid of capitalism and of establishing an anti-racist, anti-sexist communist society.
So comrades and friends, march on May Day. Get inspired for another year of struggle. Bring your friends so they can get inspired. From Haiti to Mexico, from Afghanistan to the United States, let’s give the working class a taste of communism!
Washington, DC, April 11—The management of the Metro transit system in the Washington, DC region, backed by the political leaders of the region, have launched a determined attack on transit workers and riders. It’s the biggest attack on the workers in over 30 years.
Workers are looking for leadership that is prepared to shut down the city until workers’ needs are met, but, unfortunately, the current union leadership is following a losing strategy to resist these attacks. Workers and riders who are serious about fighting back must develop an alternative, mass, communist, leadership that is willing to fight by any means necessary to defend our interests.
Many workers also understand that this attack is racist. The workforce is predominately African-American and many lines that Metro wants to cut affect primarily Black and Latin neighborhoods. The fight against racism is central to the fight for a good contract and against service cuts. In DC, there are protests almost every weekend against Trump’s policies, so workers at Metro feel the riding public will support us in a work action.
Union Misleaders
The bosses know that the weak union leadership has opened the way for them to attack the workers’ contract in the current negotiations. The bosses intend to prevail in their efforts to cut pension and health benefits, increase the firings and harassment of workers, and lay off hundreds of workers by eliminating routes and runs. If they don’t get these cuts through negotiations with the spineless leadership of the union, they will get them through the courts in arbitration.
The union has held several meetings about the contract to tell the membership what Metro is trying to do. Party members have spoken at these meetings to give the history of successful wildcat strike in 1978 that retained our cost-of-living escalator in the contract. They declared at these meetings that the rank-and-file must make the union strike ready, and were met with loud cheers and applause.
At one meeting, the union president tried to stop a Party member from speaking these militant words, but the workers in attendance chanted “Let him speak!” until the president had no choice but to let the party member finish his statement.
Workers support militant ideas. Consistent communist work at Metro has led to respect for those willing to fight.
The union’s strategy of half-baked plans for work actions have been met with a tepid response. The union president called on workers to stop working overtime to protest of Metro’s vicious attacks. She is just shadow boxing! Still, despite the lack of an organized plan for this work action, many workers at garages where party members worked did carry out the action.
The only thing standing between massive cuts in pension and health care benefits is the growth of Party membership at Metro. We need large numbers of workers—not just a handful—to understand the class nature of this struggle and the seriousness of the fight. Otherwise, Metro will succeed in manipulating and dividing us. As we fight these cuts, we must also prepare to eliminate the capitalist class altogether through revolution. The march on May Day points the way towards this communist revolution.
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LA: Campaign Demands Prosecution of KKKop Clifford Proctor for Murder
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- 22 April 2017 163 hits
Los Angeles—A group of Progressive Labor Party communists, friends from the congregation, and I went to the Culver City Meets Venice CicLAvia bike route to collect signatures. They were petitioning to the Black District Attorney Jackie Lacey, demanding Lacey prosecute Clifford Proctor, the cop who shot un-housed young Black man Brendon Glenn in the back May 5, 2015.
Ever since, a multiracial group has been organizing marches to demand prosecution of Proctor. We marched on Venice Beach and Koreatown. We had also seized control of a town hall put by Lacey last year.
Mixed Response from Passersby
I was initially nervous about asking for signatures, but I was able to summon the courage to try. I was amazed to find that people of all hues and backgrounds signed, from a large Black family to an interracial couple. One Latin guy said, “[epithet] the police, where do I sign.” A Black woman who was with her young daughter was open to the idea of communism. We talked about identity politics; I told we can’t base unity on skin color, especially when dealing with business owners and politicians.
There were also naysayers. One guy told me that he would do research and call his congressman. A lawyer said that there needs to be evidence since an indictment is too extreme. There’s so much evidence that the police chief has called for Proctor to be prosecuted, which is virtually unheard of, and the City of Los Angeles settled a civil suit filed by Brendon’s mother and his child for $4 million. I was also amazed that plenty of white people signed the petition. I had my doubts, but my experience in PL and its analysis that racism also hurts white workers guided me to overcome my doubts and engage with white members of the working class more boldly.
Engaging in Nationalism vs. Communism Debate
One of my weaknesses when at public sales with CHALLENGE is getting stuck in a quicksand of conversations with people staunchly commitment to anti-communism, Black nationalism, or religious fundamentalism. At the CicLAvia, I had a long talk with a Black British woman who is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
She said police brutality is just as rampant in the more “liberal” city of London as it is in New York City. We discussed “white supremacy.” I told her that Brandon Glenn was killed by a Black cop. She responded that the cop’s actions were framed by white supremacy. I countered with the fact that South African cops and Kenyan cops are predominately black and they still terrorize and kill Black workers in a predominately Black environment. She responded that white supremacy and colonialism had “twisted their minds.” I added that Asian cops in the Philippines, Korea, and Hong Kong (which were occupied by Japan during its colonial heyday) brutalize workers whenever they engage in class struggle. She concluded that they are exceptions, not the rule.
Though we disagreed on the terms “white supremacy” versus “racist capitalism,” we both were against racism. She signed the petition. She told me she had recently joined Black Lives Matter, and suggested that I contact them to get involved in the Justice for Brendon Glenn campaign, since they are very popular and attract a lot of attention. I replied that due to their segregationist and reformist politics, they would probably not be a good fit.
When I recounted this conversation at a PL club meeting, my comrades said that although just about everything I had said was true, I was doing too much arguing and not enough questioning. Therefore, I was not learning about this particular woman’s contradictions. Instead of rejecting her suggestion about involving BLM, I could’ve engaged her: I could’ve suggested attending a chapter meeting with her. Her response might have revealed more politics and a possible friendship. It is important to find points of unity with people, and through working together and putting forth communist ideas in the struggle, both sides will be changed. We aim for people to be won over to and deepen the communist side.
Expose the State, Organize the Party
Why isn’t DA Lacey prosecuting killer cop Proctor? She was recently re-elected with support from virtually every police union and group in LA County and from dozens of liberal, Democratic, civil liberties, and Black groups. If she prosecutes, the cop groups will mobilize against her. If she announces that she won’t prosecute, she’ll lose the support of the other half of her political base. That’s the particular.
Killer cops almost always get away with murder, because globally, the capitalist class and its puppet politicians own and rule the police forces. The police serve the moneymakers and their property, and protect them from the working class. That’s the general.
Lacey hopes that if she stalls long enough, the murder of Brendon Glenn will fade away. We have been keeping Brendon’s memory alive for two years through marches, articles, talks, and petitioning. Within the campaign, we are exposing the capitalist system and inviting our friends to our local May Day celebration April 29 and to march with us on May 1.
Today’s U.S.-Russia relations are “worse” than they were after World War I, at the “lowest possible point in history,” a Russian official says (ABC News, 4/2). But as this inter-imperialist rivalry continues to escalate, and global war looms ever closer, the U.S. ruling class is in disarray.
U.S. Bosses’ Dilemma
Donald Trump has mocked CIA and FBI reports of Russian cyber-attacks to manipulate last fall’s election in Trump’s favor. The new president has praised his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and several Trump appointees and advisers have met secretly with Russian officials and intelligence agents--including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in February after lying about meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Meanwhile, Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that is “investigating” the Trump-Russia connection, is sharing classified information with Trump (npr.org, 3/25).
Foreign Affairs, the publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. finance capital’s leading think tank, is pushing for a tougher line with Russia:
Trump inherited a ruptured U.S.-Russian relationship, the culmination of more than 25 years of alternating hopes and disappointments…[A]t the heart of the breakdown lie disagreements over issues that each country views as fundamental to its interests...Thus, the challenge for the new administration is to manage this relationship skillfully and to keep it from getting worse.
Should Trump instead attempt to cozy up to Moscow, the most likely outcome would be that Putin would pocket Washington’s unilateral concessions and pursue new adventures or make demands in other areas. The resulting damage to U.S. influence and credibility in Europe and beyond would prove considerable (March/April).
The U.S. rulers are facing a dilemma. On the one hand, they need to defend their Middle East oil interests—by any means necessary—against competing capitalist bosses in a resurgent Russia and an expansionist China. On the other, they’re a long way from winning the U.S. working class to accept a military draft and to fight and die in a ground war. After the April 4 chemical attack in northern Syria, the latest atrocity by the Russia-backed Bashar al-Assad regime, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman addressed the U.S. bosses’ limitations:
“The only obstacle to putting real U.S. military leverage into Syria is democracy in America,” explained the foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum, author of Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era. “The American public simply does not want to spend the blood and treasure to produce what would probably be a less awful but still not good outcome in Syria.” And that is a byproduct of the failed George W. Bush interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan (4/5).
On top of everything else, the bosses have to be worried about the ability of the volatile Trump to handle an increasingly charged situation. The arch-imperialists of Foreign Affairs warned that the U.S. should “proceed with caution” against Russia and “cooperate but push back,” depending on the circumstances, “without sleepwalking into a collision” (Euronews, March 8)..
But a collision appears to be coming, whether the bosses are ready or not. In March, in a Council on Foreign Relations special report, Kimberly Marten wrote that “aggression” by Putin “makes the possibility of a war in Europe between nuclear-armed adversaries frighteningly real.” (Marten is director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, the Cold War-era “academic center” funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.)
Rulers’ Infighting and Dysfunction
The growing scandal and infighting over Russian interference in the U.S. elections exposes deepening dysfunction inside the bosses’ political system. As Russian and Chinese rulers have imposed more intense fascist discipline on members of their class, U.S. bosses are fighting among themselves—a reflection of both strategic disagreements and short-term greed. As the head of Special Operations Command, Gen. Raymond Thomas, said, “Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war.”
Pre-Trump, the U.S. imperialists were busy sharpening their attacks against Russia. They tried to overthrow Russian allies in Syria, Iran and Libya. In 2014, after Russia reclaimed Crimea from Ukraine, the President Barack Obama imposed economic sanctions. And in a famous interview with CNN, Obama acknowledged that the U.S. had “brokered a deal to transition power” in the 2014 coup against pro-Russia Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. But these efforts were temporarily blunted by Trump’s more conciliatory stance, including a plan to cooperate with Putin in fighting “terrorism” and an instruction to the CIA to halt support for anti-Assad rebel forces in Syria (intelnews.org, 2/23).
Proxy War in Syria
The power of U.S. imperialism depends on control of production and distribution of cheaply extracted Middle East oil, mainly in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Russia is challenging U.S. control by backing Assad and his Iranian allies in the Syrian civil war. In conducting air strikes and landing ground troops in Syria, Russia is striking closer to the world’s energy heartland.
In response, the U.S. bosses are doing what they can—within political limits—to shore up their shaky hold on the region. Under the guise of fighting ISIS, the U.S. military “is sending up to an additional 2,500 ground troops to a staging base in Kuwait from which they could be called upon to back up coalition forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria….About 1,700 soldiers from the same unit are overseas now, spread between Iraq and Kuwait” (Army Times, 3/9).
If the main wing of the U.S. ruling class, finance capital, has its way, this escalation will be just the front line of a massive military intervention. As imperialist mouthpiece Thomas Friedman wrote (4/5):
The least bad solution is a partition of Syria and the creation of a primarily Sunni protected area — protected by an international force, including, if necessary, some U.S. troops. (Emphasis added.) That should at least stop the killing — and the refugee flows that are fueling a populist-nationalist backlash all across the European Union.
It won’t be pretty or easy. But in the Cold War we put 400,000 troops in Europe to keep the sectarian peace there and to keep Europe on a democracy track. Having NATO and the Arab League establish a safe zone in Syria for the same purpose is worth a try.
Weakening NATO, Military Face-Off in the Baltic
For the past 70 years, NATO was the most important instrument to project U.S. power in Europe. Now, the alliance may be weakening. Britain is leaving the European Union. Turkey, a NATO country bordering Syria and Iraq, is allying with Russia in the Syrian civil war. Nationalist, racist anti-immigrant parties are growing in influence in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. “Globalism”—the euphemism for U.S. imperialism—is in retreat.
But the U.S. rulers will not concede Europe without a fight. Earlier this year, they sent 4,000 troops and Abrams battle tanks to the Russia-bordering Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Russia has responded by moving army and air defense units to its borders.
Fight Back
The bosses have their plans to continue to rule and exploit us, but they are up against the most powerful force in the world, with a long and proud history of fighting imperialism: the international working class. Today we need an international communist movement more than ever. We must unite worldwide and organize for communist revolution to smash imperialist war. Smash all borders! Workers’ Power! Join Progressive Labor Party!
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From Flint to NYC Fight Racist Lead Crisis in Schools
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- 10 April 2017 143 hits
BROOKLYN, NY, April 5—Once again, racist education bosses at the Department of Education (DOE) are showing their disregard for and neglect of Black and Latin working class children. In February, it was found that the water at more than half of all New York City public schools had lead present—an element so toxic to humans that there is no “safe” amount of it (WNYC News, 3/30). In some NYC schools, the levels are higher than were in Flint, Michigan at the height of the lead crisis there.
This recent round of testing is not the first, but previous testing was done after water was flushed through the systems, effectively making the test results inaccurate. It’s hard to know how long youth and education workers have been exposed to this poison. The DOE’s response to this crisis has been unacceptable and racist.
How Do You Spell “Racist”? D-O-E
At one Brooklyn high school campus, elevated lead levels were found in several areas of the building and the sports fields. The DOE sent a dismissive letter home with students to convince parents not to be concerned.
In the wake of the outrageous Flint water crisis, and the discovery of lead throughout the Newark school system, the racist DOE bosses had the audacity to push that having lead in our water was not a big deal, and could be avoided by just drinking from particular areas of the school. The letter went on to inform parents that the problem would be dealt with by simply having the custodians flush the pipes for a period of time each Monday morning! The letter did not disclose the actual levels the water tested at, nor make parents aware of the devastating effects of lead poisoning on children’s brain development, or recommend lead testing for their children.
This is a racist attack on our students. In this school, students must pass through scanners every day to enter. Metal detectors are nearly exclusive to schools that are predominantly Black and Latin. Students are harassed and humiliated as they are subjected to repeated searches and removal of items from their bag and themselves before they can get to class. A ridiculous assortment of items are banned from the school building or are forcibly removed from students’ bodies, and this is enforceable because of the scanners: hot food, headbands, hairpins, combs,nail clippers, open beverages, and other liquids. When students try to enter with hot tea in a thermos it is taken away, when students buy a juice at the store and take a sip before getting to scanning it is taken away, when students bring in reusable water bottles they are forced to pour it out or it is taken away. So when students can’t drink the water in the school and can’t bring water in from home, what are they to do?
Fight for Clean Water: The Struggle Is On!
Teachers and students were outraged at the news of the lead levels and the dismissive letter from the DOE. A group of teachers called for an emergency meeting with the principal, where they pushed for several things: that there be an end to the ban on open bottles coming into the school, that the DOE provide water coolers in the school, and that the DOE provide free lead testing to our children. The principal responded that there was no need, because there was one water fountain that the DOE claimed was perfectly safe. We’ve heard that before! She was so callous as to complain about teachers and parents telling students not to drink the water, and that she had had to spend so much of her day convincing students that they should drink it.
Our next step was to reach out to as many parents as possible. Parents of students in our advisories were equally outraged and agreed that with all the history of lying about lead levels, this was too serious an issue to be complacent. Though we were referencing Flint, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey, nobody hesitated to see that the bosses there are the same as the bosses here. For now, the parents of the Parent-Teacher Association have stronger ties to the principal than with the teachers, and have bought her argument that because a few students may choose to bring alcohol in, the ban on open bottles should stay.
Though there was some discouragement amongst teachers and students when we heard that, the fight for clean and safe water will be taken on. Students and teachers are meeting this week to discuss what is happening in the school and to make plans. One important part of that will be recognizing that the disregard for the wellbeing of working class youth is part and parcel of this system, and that while we fight for the immediate needs of our students, the longer fight for a world built by and for the working class is the most important fight to win our students and school communities to.
