BALTIMORE CITY, January 14 — For the 76th time, ever since the brutal racist police murder of unarmed Black worker Tyrone West in July of 2013, a weekly West Wednesday rally was held today, demanding justice!
Mr. West, aged 44, was beaten to death by 12 to 15 cops, after a traffic stop during which they dragged him by his dreads out of his car. The cops called Mr. West the “N” word several times, maced him, tasered him and beat him.
A witness said — after Mr. West tried to escape from the unbearable beating, and ran a short distance to a nearby alley — that officers caught up with him and started beating him again, this time with batons on his head and back. Another witness said he was at a relative’s house and had gone outside when he heard women screaming.
He “vividly remembers” one of the officers “cocking his arm all the way back, and laying a haymaker [a punch using a person’s full strength, intended as a knockout] on the man. At this point, he was already definitely down, and I didn’t see any movement.”
Racist News Station
Attacks Anti-racist
This week, the West family, along with the Baltimore Bloc organization and other activists, rallied outside FOX45-TV at night, in the bitter cold, but as always with bold and inspiring determination! There has been a West Wednesday rally every week, regardless of rain, freezing temperatures, or snow!
We held this week’s rally at FOX45 because on December 21, the day immediately after the crazed shooting of two cops in New York City, FOX45 repeatedly aired a false and vicious accusation. Fox45 claimed that Mr. West’s sister, Ms. Tawanda Jones, along with others, had been chanting “We won’t stop! We can’t stop, so kill a cop!” at the large Justice for All protest in Washington DC one week earlier. In actuality, the chant was, “We can’t stop! We won’t stop, until killer cops are in cell blocks!”
The manipulated video seeming to show Ms. Jones saying “Kill a cop” was an attempt to discredit and weaken the massive, nationwide fight against police terror. In fact, that lie, first aired repeatedly by FOX45, was then aired nationally by many TV stations. In addition, the on-air distortion put a life-threatening target on the back of Ms. Jones, who is well-known to Baltimore police as a leader of the West Wednesday rallies and a strong participant in many additional actions opposing terror and murder by racist police. Those who killed Mr. West are still on the force. No charges have been pressed against them.
Just two weeks earlier, a couple of the cops who were involved in beating Tyrone West to death had also severely beaten another Black man, Mr. Abdul Salaam. However, if those two cops had quickly faced appropriate justice for the beating of Mr. Salaam, then Tyrone West might still be alive today!
Reacting quickly after the lies aired on FOX45, members of the West family and supporters repeatedly contacted the station, and strongly insisted the story be retracted. FOX45 nevertheless ran the lie yet again but, in the end, the station had no choice but to come clean (well, partly clean), because the original, unedited video clip, clearly showing the real chant — which demanded that killer cops be put in cell blocks — was available for everyone to see on the internet. Under pressure, FOX45 interviewed Ms. Jones, and did indeed show that interview on their station. They also apologized on air, but called the manipulated video a “mistake,” refusing to admit it was done on purpose.
In addition, FOX45 fired two people: the reporter, Melinda Roeder, and also the cameraperson, Greg McNair. However, those two seem to have been used as fall guys for higher-ups. As the Baltimore Sun newspaper reported, “Roeder said the idea for the story came from station management — it was not hers. FOX45 management has declined to discuss how the edit came to be.”
There’s an important lesson in all this. At first glance, it may seem that, yes, FOX is super-conservative, racist, and dishonest. No surprise.
TV, Radio, Movies All Part of the Bosses’ Propaganda Machine
It’s important, however, to dig deeper. As it turns out, FOX45 is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and their reach goes far beyond just FOX. In fact, Sinclair is one of the largest and most diversified television broadcasting companies in the U.S. today. They own and operate, do the programming, or provide sales services to 162 television stations in 79 markets. Sinclair’s television group reaches approximately 37.5 percent of all U.S. households, and includes FOX, ABC, MyTV, CW, CBS, NBC, Univision and Azteca affiliates.
In other words, the lie, about Ms. Tawanda Jones’ chanted wording, was not just a FOX lie. It was a lie by the whole spectrum of capitalist-owned media. When fired reporter Melinda Roeder let the cat out of the bag and — probably telling the truth in this instance — said the manipulated news coverage came from above, who knows from how high up the order the lie originated.
One thing for sure, the lie benefitted the entire capitalist class, which needs racism and police terror as part of its ruthless effort to keep the working class oppressed and under control. Maybe a brain-washed station manager, seeing life through the lens of sick capitalist culture, made the decision. Or maybe someone in the know, much higher in the media hierarchy, gave the order. Either way, it was not simply a conservative local FOX reporter, doing her own predictable distortions. It was the media, owned and controlled by the capitalist class, doing what their class needs.
On a personal level, as a result of the media’s cold-blooded decision to air a shameless lie about Ms. Tawanda Jones, they have put her in grave, ongoing danger. On a daily basis, Ms. Jones is receiving threats. Ever since the airing of the lie about her on nationwide TV on December 21, she has also been enduring nightmares, and is no longer able to sleep well.
Nevertheless, despite these personal difficulties created by the capitalist class, Ms. Jones together with similarly courageous family members remain steadfast in their commitment to the struggle. They are fighting to win justice for her brother, for all victims of police brutality, and for everyone else who may one day face that same fate.
Beyond the Sinclair Broadcast Group, it’s also important to recognize that the nationwide FOX network is not — as many people think — a fringe conservative voice, largely disconnected from the rest of capitalist media and business. The truth is that FOX News is owned by 21st Century Fox.
The number-two owner of 21st Century Fox — after Rupert Murdoch — is Prince Al-Waleed, the 16th-richest man in the world, and a nephew of the late king of Saudi Arabia, an important ally of powerful U.S. oil companies.
In addition to FOX, Al-Waleed has investments in Apple and Twitter. He also has big stakes in rival media giants Time Warner and Disney. Time Warner owns HBO, Cinemax, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Warner Brothers and DC Comics. Disney owns Pixar, Lucasfilm, ABC, ESPN and Marvel. Even more significantly, Al-Waleed helped rescue the U.S. banking giant Citigroup twice, and he is one of its largest investors. The members of the Board of Directors of Citigroup, who hire and fire the CEO, and make policy for that powerful bank, also sit on — and interlock with — the Boards of Directors for many other major corporations including Target, Ford, Estée Lauder, Pepsi, Comcast, AT&T, Halliburton, Johnson & Johnson, and American Airlines.
Simply put, FOX and Baltimore’s dirty-dozen cops are not the only ones guilty of criminal behavior. It’s the whole capitalist class of super-rich business owners who don’t care whom they hurt in order to preserve their wealth and keep the working class in its place. They use racism to justify a third of their blood-soaked annual profits, derived from paying Black and Latin workers less than white workers. And they also use racism to divide, weaken and conquer the whole working class — of all skin colors — who suffer with low wages and meager benefits, whether working for the country’s largest private employer, Walmart, or working just about anywhere else.
In the struggle against racism and police brutality, we need to defeat the entire capitalist class, not just FOX. What’s needed, after revolution, is a new world in which racism can finally be defeated, a world of sisterhood and brotherhood where we share the benefits of our hard work for the good of all, without rich and without poor.
Progressive Labor Party calls that way of life communism, and — let’s be clear — if we want to end police brutality, we need to dedicate our lives to the struggle for that new world, run by and for the working class. Dare to struggle! Dare to win!
LOS ANGELES, January 28 — PL’ers and friends here got a much-needed boost this weekend with our communist school. It was a short trip but we left energized. We held two workshops: on the fight against racism and on building a base in the working class.
There were several highlights. Two friends joined PLP. One, a masonry worker, who also has some culinary skill, cooked for us with some collective support. In the racism workshop, we deepened our understanding of the history of racism and capitalism. We continued the discussion on Black workers key to communist revolution.
Moreover, the discussion on building ties in the working class, in mass organizations in particular, led to the second recruit — a Black worker and community organizer.
In between workshops we socialized, ran, played soccer, cooked, cleaned and ate collectively.
There were weaknesses. One was not talking enough about how to improve the fight for communism on our jobs and schools in the upcoming year. Nonetheless, we will continue these discussions in our clubs. With renewed energy and two commitments to the Party, we hope to intensify the struggles in our places of work, campuses, high schools and mass organizations with the aim of building for a much larger May Day contingent and recruiting more workers and youth to the Party.
Bogota, Colombia — At the end of the year we held several sport matches and social activities where we collected toys for children and money for comrades in need. More than 60 youth from different areas participated, with some giving reports of their daily lives and activities. We pointed out that we all have the same problems with poverty: racism, low salaries, sexism, fascism and all the rottenness that makes up this criminal profit system.
We’re a youth sporting group of students and workers active in the Party, who get orientation from CHALLENGE and PL comrades. With their help, we’ve structured the group to have communist ideas lead every aspect of our lives. Every May Day we demonstrate our commitment to the revolutionary cause by mobilizing youth for a spirited march on International Workers Day.
We decided to organize and provide leadership to our working class sisters and brothers to fulfill our historical mission of burying capitalism. We reject this rotten system that murders our comrade sisters and brothers. The current bosses’ system does not serve our class interest. We don’t want to continue living in this system of corrupt politicians, unemployment, enslaved labor, drug addiction, prostitution, abortions, alcoholism, and bosses’ violence.
Nor do we want jails where thousands of humble people languish, or recruitments for imperialist wars, or hunger, evictions, police repression, and sickness. In short, the capitalist system is a failure for all workers and for our youth.
We highlighted the importance of PLP in our lives and the need to get organized to follow the path of class struggles guided by our international unified party. It is very important for us to realize the potential of these comrades because it gives us hope and strength to continue fighting to take collective communist power. We are committed to building new revolutionary study and action collectives, writing and expanding our CHALLENGE networks.
Recent violent events in France attracted worldwide attention: the murder of twelve journalists and artists at the offices of the racist magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the murder of 4 hostages at a Kosher supermarket in Paris. Since Muslims committed these acts, the French right-wingers and their colleagues in Israel are quick to blame all Muslims everywhere for these acts. 
But this is a racist lie: to say that all Muslims are terrorists because a few terrorists happen to be Muslim, is like saying that all Jews are greedy because Bernard Madoff is one. Both are racist ideas, and both serve fascism well, by strengthening nationalism and fear, and pushing workers into the hands of the ruling-class in its plans for war and repression, justified as “fighting terrorism.”
Openly slandering Muslims, and openly attacking its most basic beliefs, helps the Right, such as the neo-Nazi “Front Nationale” (“National Front”) in France. Racist caricatures published in the background of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism are used by the regime to strengthen its repressive apparatus. Terrorist attacks against civilians and journalists also strengthen this regime — as now there is a “security threat” and thus the rulers can justify all sorts of repressive acts. A point often forgotten in the bosses’ media discussion of the events in Paris was that of the heroism of Lassana Bathily, a black Muslim worker who saved the lives of multiple Jewish customers when he hid them in the store’s refrigerator when the terrorists attacked. Working-class people protect each other when faced with violence and fascism; but the fascists are quick to denounce all Muslims as “terrorists.”
The war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to jump on the bandwagon and fly to France — and call the French Jews to “do Aliyah” (emigrate to Israel) because “France is not safe” for them. But to what kind of place does he invite them to come? To a state where he and his colleagues fight an endless succession of wars in service of their U.S. imperialist patrons! To a country where, like in any other capitalist country, the working-class is a milking-cow of taxes to fill the bosses’ pockets in bailouts and fill the generals store-houses with means of destruction? To a state which will send them and their children to die and kill in wars serving only the big bosses and their politician friends? Will they really be safer in Israel than in France? This ruling-class mouthpiece was very quick to spend 700,000 ILS ($200,000) of taxpayer money on his trip to France for propaganda purposes, despite being a somewhat unwelcome guest there.
Capitalism is the real terrorist organization, murdering more people worldwide on a daily basis by starvation, lack of medical care and clean water and endless wars for profit than even ISIS could kill in a year. Don’t let Netanyahu and the neo-Nazi National Front use this kind of attack to win you to their plans of endless imperialist war and their bottomless pit of repression. Turn the tables on them. Jewish, Muslim and Christian workers in France and Israel-Palestine must unite to kick out the real terrorists — the big bosses!
Selma opens with Martin Luther King, Jr. accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The film, and the portrayal of MLK, is consistent in depicting his pacifism. The march from Selma to Montgomery concludes peacefully. Lyndon Johnson said, “This is why I have chosen you, and not Malcolm X, who advocates violence, to lead the movement.” The film footage from the beginning to the end, however, proves that peaceful movements unprepared-for-violence beget violence.
The film advocates nonviolence and using the legal system. King and other mainstream civil rights leaders argued that working inside the system — by allying with “lesser-evil” bosses and going through the courts and laws — would win the fight against racism. King and others take on collaborationist positions, in which they exploit workers’ anti-racist fights to spread reformist illusions about elections, pacifism, and a seat at the bosses’ table.
Nonviolence is the belief that workers should accept all violence committed against them by the capitalist state and not fight back. The belief is that the rulers’ conscience will prevail and they will stop the violence against workers. This is what the bosses love about nonviolence: it disarms the working class from fighting back. History has proven many times the rulers have no conscience, i.e., slavery, racist police murder, and imperialist wars.
Pacifism vs. Mass Class Violence
“Negotiation, demonstration, and passive resistance” is King’s mantra in pressing for the right to vote. The barriers to vote are clearly part of a much bigger legal system. The film bears out the truth of the statement, “The cops, the courts the ku klux klan, all a part of the bosses’ plan.” Five hours after King’s speech, Viola Liuzzo drives a few marchers back to Selma, the subtitle states that she is murdered by the KKK.
Following the brutal beating by the cops of restaurant patrons (some were marching as King was away at a meeting) and the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, King visits Jimmie’s grandfather. He says, “God was the first to cry.” This statement contrasts sharply with a Black worker’s reaction to the beating of hundreds on the first crossing, known as of the Edmund Pettus Bridge (named after a Southern KKK leader and U.S. senator) out of Selma and the subsequent murder of Malcolm X: “We need guns” (see page 7).
King responded that they couldn’t win if he kills two racists and the racist government kills ten. King’s limited vision couldn’t see the power of an armed, organized working class, let alone a strategy to defeat the whole capitalist system, and so he silenced other militant voices.
Failure to Defy the Bosses
The second march on the bridge showed clearly King’s inability to confront U.S. ruling class and state. The troops were ordered to pull back. But King’s “instinct,” as James Reed, a Unitarian minister put it, told him there might be an ambush leading to more bloodshed of this multiracial march. King turned about after a brief prayer and led the march — this time with one-third white protesters from across the country — to retreat. That night, James Reed was beaten to death by Selma racists.
Only when the 50-mile march was approved — after a hearing with those victims of previous assaults as witnesses — did King make serious plans to march all the way. There is an imagined conversation between outright racist Alabama governor George Wallace and liberal racist U.S. president Lyndon Johnson before the march. The two politicians deny to each other who has the greater watch over voting rights, the President, the Governor, or, indeed, the racist registrars. Johnson declares that he doesn’t want to go down in history with the same identity as Wallace and was forced to sign the Voting Rights Act, which removed the most overt barriers to Black workers voting.
The film’s climax conveys that Johnson’s signature on the Voting Rights Act, not militant struggle, will improve the lot of Black workers. Fifty years later, Black workers still suffer from the vicious racism by the kkkops, courts, and bosses. King’s statements “we don’t fight” and Johnson’s backing (“he’s non-violent”) remain the theme of Selma. Two men close to King, Andrew Young and John Lewis, both believers in nonviolence, were highlighted after the film’s conclusion as achieving prominent government positions. They went on to fool many workers into revamping the very system that oppresses them.
Yet, actions speak louder than words. King was killed five months later when he acted to support the demands of the Memphis sanitation strikers. Two of the men had been crushed to death by faulty trucks. Mayor Loeb refused to make repairs or to raise the poverty-level wages that kept many of the workers on welfare. For King’s leadership of striking workers, criticism of the Vietnam War, and demanding the rights of white and Black workers, he shall be remembered throughout history.
After King’s assassination the front page of Challenge said, “Nonviolence is Dead, Organize!” What is never reported now in the media is that mass rebellions in scores of cities against tanks and troops deployed in the streets forced the U.S. ruling class to enact reforms such as voting access and antipoverty programs.
Ultimately, the bosses evoke King as a hero because he represents tactics that do not pose a vital threat to the root of racism: capitalism. The rulers would rather have nonviolent marches and negotiation with politicians than rebellions like Ferguson. Workers need revolutionary violence organized by a mass communist Party. Workers need not one but millions of heroes who lead by serving our class for a communist world.
