From Eastern Europe to the Middle East to the Pacific, sharpening imperialist competition is escalating both regional warfare and the risk of global conflict. In the latest U.S. move to contain Russia, “the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry-fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries” (New York Times, 6/14/15). Barack Obama has announced plans for more U.S. troops and bases in Iraq. Meanwhile, as CHALLENGE recently reported, the U.S. and China are vying militarily over strategic Pacific and Indian Ocean shipping routes.
These conflicts represent potential imperialist flashpoints for a massive armed confrontation — and a heavy toll on the international working class. While the capitalist bosses create these wars, workers are pitted against each other on the frontlines. Workers suffer the brunt of the racism, sexism, and nationalism that are intensified by imperialist rivalries.
The Progressive Labor Party fights to rid the world of the capitalist system that generates these wars. We fight for a communist society that will end racism, sexism, nationalism, mass unemployment and poverty. We fight to put workers in control of running society.
U.S. Challenged by ISIS, Iran
After murdering more than three million workers and children in Iraq and displacing millions more in two decades of war and sanctions, U.S. bosses and allied imperialists won only shaky control over the country’s vast oil wealth. Their weakness created a power vacuum that U.S. enemies seek to fill. Obama’s latest move was prompted by ISIS’s (an armed capitalist organization also known as the Islamic State) territorial gains in Iraq and Syria, but also by Iran’s growing influence in the region. Despite U.S. backing of government and Kurdish forces, Tehran appears to be consolidating its leadership of the anti-ISIS effort (Long War Journal, 6/1/15).
Beyond the immediate challenge to U.S. control over Iraq’s oil reserves, Obama and the finance capitalists he serves fear the threat to U.S. control over the world’s foremost oil profit center, Saudi Arabia. Nowhere else is oil — the lifeblood of the profit system — more plentiful or cheaper to pump. Since the end of World War II, U.S. have allied with the Saudi royals to run the most lucrative business deal of the modern era. Protected by the U.S. Navy, ExxonMobil (with close to half a trillion dollars in annual sales) and a handful of other major oil companies dictate the terms of crucial energy supplies throughout the world.
But Iran is challenging Saudi/Exxon supremacy on two fronts: by arming anti-Saudi Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen, and by pursuing a nuclear arms program. At the same time, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the U.S. ruling-class think tank owned by the same finance capital interests as Exxon, worries about ISIS disrupting and then invading Riyadh, the Saudi capital. ISIS’s goal is to “ignite a sectarian civil war in Saudi Arabia by targeting the Shia community and provoking them to unleash their anger against the Saudi government” (CFR website, 6/11/15). Any serious fighting within Saudi Arabia will surely draw in U.S. troops.
Bombing Russia
In Europe, Vladimir Putin’s “Greater Russia” power plays present U.S. rulers with an equally dire predicament. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact alliance, U.S. bosses opportunistically welcomed ten ex-Soviet countries into NATO. Now they are planning to defend these additions to their empire from Putin’s imperialist counterattack — with massive, lethal force.
As the proposal stands now, a company’s worth of equipment — enough for about 150 soldiers — would be stored in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia…about 750 soldiers — would be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary, they said.…The amount of equipment included in the planning is small compared with what Russia could bring to bear against the NATO nations on or near its borders, but it would serve as a credible sign of American commitment, acting as a deterrent the way that the Berlin Brigade did after the Berlin Wall crisis [Cold War-era dividing the city into pro-Soviet and pro-Western capitalist camps] in 1961 (New York Times, 6/14/15).
The reference to Berlin reflects the significance of this seemingly modest deployment. As retired Army Colonel John M. Collins noted in Military Strategy (2001):
Tiny tripwires can…serve useful purposes….Soviet armed forces could have swamped the Berlin Brigade any time the Kremlin gave a green light, but doing so would have risked a nuclear war with NATO.
For now, nuclear war is U.S. imperialism’s sole trump card. This reflects the rulers’ strategic weakness and workers’ potential strength. It dates back to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, when mass anti-imperialist actions of the 1960s and 1970s — in which our Party played a crucial role — undermined the bosses’ genocidal campaign. Ever since, U.S. rulers have been unable to implement a draft to field the millions-strong military they need. Shrinking economic power and industrial capacity curtails the rulers’ ability to produce conventional weapons in quantities comparable to those of World War II.
(Class-blind militarism is in short supply among U.S. allies in Europe, as well. According to a June 2015 Pew Research poll, “at least half in Germany, France and Italy are unwilling to use military force to defend other NATO members against Russian aggression.”)
As a cheaper alternative to conventional warfare, U.S. imperialists have developed the ability to deliver city-obliterating nuclear weapons anywhere on earth.
Islands of War
On June 12, Australia’s Sydney Morning Post reported on the growing tensions in the South China Sea:
China has responded to an international outcry over its construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea by accelerating the building program….Australia, the United States and most recently the G7 group of rich nations have all warned China to stop its frenetic sand-dredging activities, fearing that it is creating airstrips, ports and battlements that will dramatically alter the balance of regional military power.
While China’s new outposts would pose no problem for a nuclear-armed U.S. in an all-out World War III, they could be significant in preliminary proxy battles. U.S. military strategists worry that the islands will enable China’s army to enforce its air and naval power against weak defenses of countries with competing territorial claims, like Vietnam and the Philippines (see CHALLENGE, 6/17).
The International Working Class Needs You
In their competition for financial dominance, the bosses in the U.S., Russia and China have killed millions of workers across the globe. As the capitalist gear up for the next stage of imperialist war, workers must resist these mass-murdering plans. We must reject the bosses’ nationalist, racist ideas. As U.S. capitalism tries to distract us with another round of presidential elections, we must recognize that voting will never stop inter-imperialist slaughter.
The only solution is to unite other workers in Progressive Labor Party and organize millions to thwart the bosses’ agenda for slaughter. Join us as we prepare to turn the next war for profit into a class war for communist revolution.
BROOKLYN — Students and education workers in a high school here cheered on as anti-racist poems, dances, video interviews and speeches were performed at the school’s first ever anti-racist assembly! This event was organized by teachers and friends of Progressive Labor Party.
The idea was to counter an upsurge of racist expression, by students, in particular anti-Haitian, comments. It emerged when one courageous student came forward and spoke about what so many students endure daily. It is no surprise that some students repeat the racist remarks they hear in society. This capitalist system we live under was built on racism. Beyond the billions of super-profits that the bosses make from paying Black, Latin and immigrant workers less, the main way racism hurts our class is by convincing us that we are more different than similar, based on how we look or where we were born.
Students Take the Lead
When workers don’t unite, the bosses win. We can’t fight for a better society if we are divided. So whenever racism rears its ugly head — whether it’s the police beating and killing us on the streets, or budget cuts in schools, or racist comments made in class — we need to speak up, organize and fight back! This was the message of the assembly.
After teachers in PLP made the call for the anti-racist assembly and more than 60 students and staff took it up. A group of young women, anti-racist para-professionals took the lead in involving students. They organized a dance that incorporated music from Haiti, Jamaica and Latin America. It was performed by a group of multi-racial students. They also created a five-minute video clip, interviewing students about what they felt when they heard racist comments made in school and what they thought was the best response. They created posters advertising the assembly and also emceed the event. Without their leadership, this assembly would not have happened.
Speak Up and Fight Back
During the assembly, students marched down the aisles of the auditorium with their mouths taped over, then ripped the tape off to begin their performances, as a metaphor for speaking up against racism. This led into anti-racist poems, raps and speeches, written and performed by students. A group of drummers from Haiti performed with students, along with a pair of alumni who did a beautiful anti-slavery dance.
Many students and teachers involved are CHALLENGE readers. Some also attended this year’s May Day march. They stepped forward and took leadership after the communists’ call to fight racism.
It is now our job to continue to win workers and students at this school to understand that the only real solution to ending racism is the fight for communism. Under communism, racism would be banned. Unlike capitalism which thrives on racism and disunity, communism require workers around the world to unite and collectively organize all aspects of society.
This inspiring event shows the potential for masses to be won to multiracial unity. But this is just the beginning. An international club is now being formed at the school. We will use it to continue to lead with anti-racist ideas and actions. The struggle continues!
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Shantel Davis: Three Years Later, the Struggle Continues
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- 18 June 2015 203 hits
BROOKLYN, June 14 — Three years ago, Shantel Davis was murdered by Philip Atkins, a plainclothes detective for the New York Police Department, at the intersection of East 38th Street and Church Avenue in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. In the ensuing weeks and months, Shantel’s relatives, neighbors, along with members of PLP, local clergy and elected officials organized a series of marches to the 67th Precinct to demand justice.
Ever since that tragic day, Shantel’s sister battled through phases of grief but remained steadfast in her determination to keep her Shantel’s memory alive. While misleaders from a phony left group and the New York City Council attempted to derail the struggle away from confrontation with the NYPD and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, the anger of Shantel’s family and friends and members of Progressive Labor Party burned even brighter.
A comrade was invited to help open today’s commemorative rally by recounting the stages of the struggle, from street closures to rallying at the DA office to motorcades, from confronting ex-NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to school-based speak-outs and much more.
Then family members of eleven other brothers and sisters killed by the NYPD over the course of the past twenty years recounted their struggles. Some described their meetings with mayors, governors, others of the need for a Baltimore-style uprising in New York. They have seen fascist disregard for the lives of Black and Latin youth, their sons and daughters, up close.
A comrade was invited by Shantel’s sister to close the rally. After attacking the racist policy of meeting youth at predominantly Black and Latino high schools with an NYPD scanning operation and calling for an end to racist policing in our schools, he went on to hail the working-class fighters who preceded him on the microphone as the greatest educators in the city. He recounted all the varieties of reforms these families have pursued in search of justice and called it a lesson in our collective education about the true nature of the racist system we live under. He reminded all present of capitalism’s origins in racist genocide and slavery and its current trend toward more war. There were many nods and approvals when he suggested that if justice is what matters most, then revolution might be the only way we will get it.
The evening closed with the blocking of traffic, a prayer and release of balloons in Shantel’s memory as a dozen of her friends from a local motorcycle club revved their engines in solidarity. It was a night to remember, with the unbeatable combination of communist politics and mass anger that will not die. It was not the last time we will gather and call for revolution in Shantel’s name.
Bologna, Italy June 7 — Bologna, a city of about one million in northern Italy, suffers from the same economic crisis affecting all of Italy and Europe. Unemployment, especially among young and immigrant workers, is huge (officially 12.6 percent overall, 40.9 percent for youth). At least 48,000 nationally and 7,500 in Bologna are awaiting housing. Unknown numbers of others are living on the streets; beggars can be seen on many corners. In response to these conditions, many of the homeless have occupied empty buildings, from a hotel in Florence and a farm in the countryside, to a deserted Telecom building in Bologna.
Since last September, 300 citizens and immigrants, including whole families, have lived in this empty tech building, with facilities paid for by a support group of workers and students called Social Log. Forceful eviction has been delayed because the building is private property, but the squatters know it is coming, and they are prepared to resist.
Two visiting U.S. comrades were invited to a demonstration in Bologna by a friend who is one of the leaders of the large housing movement. Hundreds of occupiers and their supporters marched down a main street for several miles, from the Telecom building to police headquarters in the center of the city. They sang and chanted all the way, waving red banners from various unions, and were accompanied by their own brass band. One chant connected their struggle to those of in Gaza and Mexico. We met one young man from Benin in West Africa who had arrived eight months ago and has slept on the street since. He gets food from church charities.
The evening after the march, there was a barbecue in the building courtyard. We talked with several organizers who agreed with us that capitalism is the underlying problem. They work to unite workers and students from across the country. Like several other fighters we have met throughout Italy, they were eager to read CHALLENGE, exchange contacts and continue to have a dialogue with us.
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De Blasio vs. NYPD: A Fight Between Workers’ Enemies
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- 18 June 2015 160 hits
NEW YORK CITY, June 15 — In the wake of the decision not to indict the cop who murdered Eric Garner on Staten Island, an obvious rift opened between the New York Police Department (NYPD) and Mayor Bill de Blasio. It might be encouraging for workers to see the boss of New York City having trouble with his foot soldiers, but a class analysis can help us to put this event in context.
It only appears that the NYPD and New York’s bosses (represented by de Blasio) are having a conflict that threatens to disrupt the city. In essence, both parties are on the same side — for the capitalist ruling class and against the workers. It is important to examine history to understand how integral the police are to maintaining ruling-class power.
The development of police forces in the U.S. was uneven and sporadic, from late 1700s and early 1800s. The models varied from torch-wielding “watchmen” to slave-chasing “posses,” which make it very clear that police were created to protect the ruling class’s power and property. The rulers also recognized that overt reliance on the military to enforce labor, property and other capitalist relations would not suffice. While police were forces developed control and put down workers’ rebellions, it was done in a way that appeared to be in workers’ best interests. (Hence the slogan: “To serve and protect.”)
Up until the early 1800s, there were few enough numbers of independent workers (outside slavery and indentured servitude) to limit the numbers of people allowed to gather at night. The protests and marches that took place during the U.S. war for independence had the blessing of the rulers — they saw them as a way to agitate against British control of the colonies. The rise of urban factories and mills in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, along with increasing population and a growing economy, led to large number of workers becoming concentrated in cities and towns. Racist riots against Black and Irish workers were permitted by the rulers from time to time. Even before the development of a regular police force, the watchmen routinely targeted the same workers being attacked.
The Pinkerton Model
Once formal police forces developed in the U.S., it was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency that gained traction. A private security force, the Pinkertons contracted out for President Abraham Lincoln’s security during the Civil War and served as the foot soldiers of capital against labor strikes and movements in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Steel workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and railroad workers in Illinois were viciously attacked by Pinkertons at the behest of capitalists. Municipal and regional police forces modeled their structure on the Pinkertons, adopting their focus on serving the interests of the ruling class. This was manifested in cops breaking strikes and assassinating or imprisoning communists and other workers.
Police forces have only existed in their current form for the last century, having developed and sharpened into a weapon against the workers. The bottom line — the police are not here to serve and protect workers, in New York City or elsewhere. They are the capitalist system’s muscle, serving and protecting the bosses while killing and arresting workers with impunity.
The NYPD is looked to by police departments around the world as a model for examples of successful working-class control. Commissioner William Bratton recently created the Strategic Response Group, made up of heavily armed and trained officers to deal with “disturbances” — as defined by the police. In justifying this new unit, Bratton raised examples of recent shootings in Paris, claiming that extreme quick-reaction cops are needed as an anti-terror unit. Bratton has lately called for the misdemeanor offense of resisting arrest to be a changed to a felony, seeking to further terrorize workers who are singled out by police.
The Racist PBA
The Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (PBA), the cops’ union in New York City, has a racist history, one mirrored by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) of Chicago. Both have organized legal defenses lasting years for cops charged with misconduct and murder and orchestrated police riots through Black and Latin neighborhoods to protest budget cuts that would shrink the police force. The FOP regularly opposes efforts to memorialize Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Party leader murdered by Chicago police in 1969.
In New York City, any suggestion by de Blasio or other government officials that police officers acted inappropriately regarding Eric Garner or Akai Gurley results in bombastic, combative vitriol by PBA president Patrick Lynch (fitting name). Expect the rhetoric to grow with the recent re-election of Lynch. His main challenger, Brian Fusco, accused Lynch of “rudderless leadership.” He criticized Lynch not because he disagreed with his racist rants, but because he sought to best him in intimidating workers. The public relationship between the NYPD and de Blasio will remain the same as long as NYPD continue to be without a contract, the status quo for the last five years.
Disagreement Among Thieves
Amid the militarization of the police and racist cop unions, it is important to read the supposed dispute between de Blasio and the PBA for what it is: a disagreement among thieves. Capitalist democracy encourages such misleading appearances. Cops may turn their backs on the mayor at police funerals or join a work slow-down. But, when we look at the essence of police forces and their role in society, we realize that the PBA-de Blasio feud is but another mirage to buttress one of the biggest capitalist lies: “Politicians are fighting for you — the system works.”
Liberal Pols Want More Cops
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito makes general calls for “good policing” and a more transparent justice system. Other City Council liberals propose increased funding for legal Aid access, a bail fund for people who cannot otherwise afford bail for minor offenses, and other small, steam-releasing measures.
City Councilman Jumaane Williams stated that the cop who killed Akai Gurley must have been "well-intentioned" to join the police force, looking to make a "positive impact on the community." He suggested that if rookie police officers were not patrolling high-crime areas (where police fill quotas with arrests), then such tragedies would not occur. Councilman Williams claims that a little tinkering will right the system.
Yet while decrying the “avoidable” killing of Akai Gurley, Williams and his buddies continue to press for 1,000 new cops, to expand policing, increasing the jail-like monitoring, harassment, assault and murder of endured by workers.
Whenever the kkkops murder a young Black or Latin worker, there are calls for police reform and the ideas are seemingly endless: civilian review boards, federal oversight, sensitivity training, equipping cops with Tasers, body cameras and so on. Some of these calls come from honest workers who hate the racist attacks by the cops and want to protect their friends and loved ones.
Given the long, racist history of police forces and their essential role as protectors of capitalist profit, these calls are doomed to fail. The police have always, and will always, be racist terrorizers of the working class. Only when we get rid of capitalism will we free from police. This is a goal of Progressive Labor Party, and we need your help.
