Sharpening competition for resources, markets, and labor are driving U.S. capitalists toward war with their Chinese, Russian and Iranian rivals. As each nation’s imperialists maneuver for the upper hand, they must impose more deadly fascist conditions on their working class while clamping down on any opposition. Workers throughout the world are being squeezed by austerity policies to pay for the inevitable wars to come.
U.S. bosses are at a huge disadvantage here. They rule a population of 315 million, while their foes have a combined 1.5 billion from which to raise armed forces. Seeking a racist remedy for their shortage of cannon fodder, defenders of the U.S. empire are seeking support from countries historically exploited by the imperialist powers.
In November, the pro-Obama Center for a New American Security (CNAS) published a report called “Global Swing States: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and the Future of International Order.” CNAS lists Chevron, GE, JP Morgan Chase, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Defense Department among its supporters. The think tank’s report proposes a U.S.-led world war alliance that could draw on more than two billion inhabitants.
The global Swing States report covers the immediate steps needed to begin building the mega-coalition. While skirting direct mention of a third world war, it unmistakably alludes to one. In “the worst case scenario,” according to the report, “a renewed international order will withstand Chinese pressure.” “If the global order fragments,” it ominously warns, members of this proposed grand alliance “will suffer the consequences.”
“International order” and “global order” are code for U.S. imperialism. Global Swing States begins by wistfully — and falsely — recalling that the predominance of U.S. imperialism after World War II (outside the Soviet bloc) derived from globally admired virtues. The U.S., CNAS says, selflessly created and fostered international institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The paper identifies five areas where U.S. imperialism supposedly served as a beacon — and where it could now bolster ties with its new mega-allies, assigning specific roles to each. They are finance, trade, maritime “freedom,” nuclear non-proliferation and human rights.
But reality contradicts the bosses’ rosy interpretation of U.S. “leadership” on every front. The IMF and World Bank ensure loan repayments to U.S. bankers by enforcing austerity programs that deepen the impoverishment of workers in some of the poorest lands in the world. The WTO gives U.S. bosses access to ultra-low-wage labor, from Haiti to Vietnam. “Freedom of the seas” means continued U.S. Navy control, which has included sanctions, of worldwide energy and the shipping of goods. Nuclear treaties guarantee that the lion’s share of these weapons remains in the hands of U.S. rulers, the only ones ever to use them.
As for human rights, U.S. bosses have long since surpassed Germany’s Nazis as world record holders in murder and abuse. The Pentagon’s civilian death count soars from the atomic bombing of Japan (250,000), through Korea (one million), Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia (five million) Serbia (tens of thousands), Iraq (one million from sanctions and direct invasions), Afghanistan (hundreds of thousands and counting, with Obama’s drone strikes).
Then there are the uncounted mass deaths from U.S. interventions in Guatemala, Chile, and the Dominican Republic; the installation of the fascist Shah in Iran; CIA directives that led Indonesia’s rulers to massacre one million; the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, leading to decades of fascist rule; support of apartheid in South Africa; supplying Saddam Hussein with weapons and intelligence in his war with Iran (another million dead), and on and on.
In the U.S. itself, the capitalists arrest and imprison or deport millions of workers, mainly black and Latino, every year. State-sanctioned racist executions by lethal injection or cop’s bullet are a routine occurrence. The looming fiscal cliff cuts (see page 8) point toward even more austerity and exploitation.
As the embattled U.S. ship of state takes on water, CNAS urges the rulers of Brazil, India, Indonesia and Turkey to board and to drag workers with them. Global Swing States envisions Brazil as a potential pro-U.S. force in a world war, operating on both sides of the South Atlantic: “Geographically, Brazil dominates South America; it shares a border with every country on the continent except Chile and Ecuador. In addition, with a coastline that extends far into the South Atlantic, Brazil economically and culturally bridges South America and West Africa.”
In India, CNAS recommends that the U.S. “back New Delhi’s aspirations for maritime leadership in the Indian Ocean.” In another “worst case scenario,” this strategy to gain India’s naval assistance for U.S. control of China’s oil supplies could entail the deployment of millions of Indian ground troops.
Indonesia straddles the Malacca Strait, the passage for all Chinese oil imports from the Middle East. It also faces the South China Sea, where China makes highly contested territorial claims. In one phony anti-war passage, CNAS suggests that Indonesia benefit ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Shell by joining the U.S. in setting redlines that China must not cross. The penalty would be war. Says CNAS, “Corporations that rely on this waterway for transit…have a vested interest in the peaceful management of current frictions. As non-claimant states, the United States and Indonesia are uniquely positioned to facilitate a South China Sea Corporate Caucus.”
Egypt lies torn between Islamic and military rule. Netanyahu’s Israel, though armed to the teeth, is small and unreliable. As a result, U.S. rulers are counting more and more on Turkey (pop. 75 million) as a long-term ally in holding onto Middle East energy assets in opposition to the similar-sized Iran. CNAS praises Turkey’s “increasingly hard-line position” against Iran stooge Syria in “imposing sanctions, severing diplomatic ties, giving material aid to the Syrian rebels and taking direct military action against the regime’s forces.”
Imperialist alliances shift and change, however, which complicates the U.S. rulers’ plans. Moreover, they are assuming that the international working class will roll over and play dead in the face of intensifying exploitation and increasingly likely carnage. But workers are already striking against austerity and taking to the streets in Bangladesh, Pakistan, France, China, Spain, Portugal, Haiti, Egypt and South Africa. We can see the same thing happening in the U.S. in Wisconsin, California and Chicago.
Communist class consciousness can thwart the U.S. rulers’ global militarization by sparking international rebellion. Progressive Labor Party is organizing working-class internationalism in more than twenty capitalist countries. PLP is confronting the bosses’ racist attacks on black and Latino workers and youth in cities across the U.S. Building the Party in all of these areas and in mass organizations is the key to the ultimate overthrow of capitalism and the smashing of the bosses’ state. Only communist revolution will emancipate the working class from the rulers’ exploitation, mass unemployment, racism, sexism and war. Only then will society be run for and by our class. Join us!
HAITI, December 7 — In three Haitian towns of St. Marc, Port-Au-Prince, and Gonaives, the spirit and the struggle of the November student demonstrations and national teachers’ strike continues. In all three, students went on strike and marched—the banner in the picture declares the demands: “Unite and fight injustice, high cost of living, insecurity, poor learning conditions, and MINUSTAH troops and their cholera.”
Calling it charity, an insulting hand-out that falls far short of what they need, students refused the 18,000 gourdes (427 USD) one-time grant the President, Martelly, offered. Instead, they burned the grant applications and demanded instead decent campuses, transport, and health insurance. “We don’t need any $427 from a kidnapper,” they chanted, referring to a recent kidnapping case involving Martelly’s administration.
Students call on everyone to unite to fight against injustice, the rich, insecurity, poor study conditions, cholera, and the UN troops.
On December 5, they also protested government sexism — it has protected an ex-minister of justice accused of raping his secretary. A PLP study group has been formed among some leaders of these actions.
The teachers’ union, UNNOH, has also continued meeting to plan further action after their two-day strike, including a national meeting of regional delegates. The promised negotiations with the Minister of Education have been delayed, showing the need for more direct action. The teachers received significant strike-fund help from a handful of North American and Caribbean teachers’ unions, and notice of their strike appeared in the French teacher/student union SUD.
International solidarity is still needed and PLP members continue to build it. As the Latin American slogan has it, “¡Esta lucha va llegár a la guerra populár!” These struggles, if communist leadership is built within them, will lead to an all-out workers’ war on the bosses’ system.
- Information
PL’ers Spread Red Ideas As Workers Block LA Airport
- Information
- 12 December 2012 69 hits
LOS ANGELES, CA, November 21 — Hundreds of LAX airport workers and community supporters marched through the streets, blocking the main entrance to the airport for two hours. A community-based organization helped organize the march. They have been organizing workers at two different contract companies within the airport. They are fighting for benefits, healthcare, vacation, and better pay. Some have made multiple attempts to establish a union but have failed. During the voting the first time, contract workers were not even allowed to vote.
Airport subcontractor workers here are subject to bad or no health care, no pay raises, no sick days, no vacation, no jury duty pay, no free flights, long work hours or too few hours in the case of Ready Reserve workers. They are moving older workers out of the bag room and onto the ramp, where they have to stoop over all day. This is an obvious attempt to force older and better-paid workers to quit. They are also forced to manage entire flights without getting the higher pay of a lead.
The TSA “Totally Standing Around” agents and the airport police attack workers on a daily basis in the form of random pat-downs, check points to check ID and fingerprinting to check for explosive residue or gunpowder. They pull workers’ badges and add points to their airport records. The bosses push the idea that they are somehow protecting the “good” people from the “bad” people, but the end result is repression of the working class for the benefit of the ruling class. That is a sign of fascism.
Workers must unite and fight back against attacks from the TSA, the airport bosses and the airport police. Fight-back has been difficult, but lately the airport workers have been slowly organizing. The march that took place was only a tiny step towards true class struggle. The union will eventually let the workers down because their philosophy is to make a deal with the bosses. The result will be workers being screwed, either a little less or a little more. That is why the workers all over the world need communism, a society run by the working class in our interests, and not those of profit-hungry bosses. Our fight against the bosses is a fight we want to win.
With this in mind, PLP will be distributing leaflets and selling CHALLENGE at the airport on a monthly basis. We will continue to be involved in the fight-back organized by the union, getting to know workers, so we can bring them our revolutionary outlook. The union’s fight is a start but it’s reformist. It won’t stop capitalism and its rotten system of exploitation. The fight needs to be for communism: a world without exploitation or a profit-driven wage system. We in PLP are determined to bring that idea to the workers here and everywhere.
- Information
End Capitalism to Bring True Justice for Shantel Davis
- Information
- 12 December 2012 83 hits
What does it mean to remember Shantel Davis, the 23-year-old unarmed black woman killed by black NYPD Detective Phillip Atikins in Brooklyn on June 14?
As the six-month mark of Shantel’s murder approaches, family, friends and supporters fighting to send Atkins to prison plan to gather for a vigil on the site where she was murdered.
For the Progressive Labor Party, remembering Shantel means much more than only fighting for Atkins to serve time. The lasting justice for Shantel means fighting for an anti-racist communist world that would be worthy of her life.
For the Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg, remembering Shantel means reminding the mainly black and immigrant workers of East Flatbush that cops can get away with racist murder.
After six months of protests, including disrupting Ray Kelly’s speech at a forum and militant unpermitted demonstrations in front of the 67th police precient, Hynes has still not charged Atkins with any crime. The DA is sitting on numerous witnesses and videos that show Atkins shot her in cold blood. But publicly Hynes needs to reassure other cops who kill that the courts will look the other way. Privately Hynes promised Shantel’s family an investigation.
The city’s rulers also want workers to forget the words of former NYPD narcotics detective Stephen Anderson who served under the same command as Atkins. Anderson recently testified in court that he and his superiors regularly planted evidence on innocent people to make arrests. In Shantel’s case the police and media want workers to believe the lies they created about Shantel’s supposedly lengthy (actually non-existent) criminal record to smear her name.
Shantel’s family and friends remember that during the first seventeen years of her life Shantel devoted free time to care for the elderly, sick and disabled. But while her big close-knit loving family nurtured her to be kindhearted and generous, capitalism failed Shantel.
Shantel was one of millions of U.S. black youth that racist education set up for low wages and underemployment. For all of Shantel’s short life, PLP fought against the racist conditions of capitalism in East Flatbush, from school budget cuts to police brutality. Throughout the city we organized students around local and global struggles to smash a racist system that can never provide jobs for all.
Capitalist education forced her to give up on school. The year Shantel was due to graduate high school the unemployment rate among black youth in New York City was over 40 percent and Shantel dropped out. For several years Shantel cared for her elderly grandmother, a demanding skill that demonstrated Shantel’s aptitude. But to capitalism she was barely worth considering for most jobs.
Six months after Atkins killed Shantel PLP remembers that true justice for Shantel Davis means putting an end to the racist capitalist system that set Atkins loose to begin with. Today, in a period when revolution is not an immediate reality that means putting forward communist ideas of anti-racism, militancy and class solidarity in the fight to put Atkins behind bars. Making the growth of a fighting communist movement our benchmark for victory means that our class can advance whether or not the bosses decide to indict Atkins.
Without building a long-term revolutionary movement, convicting Atkins could feed the deadly illusion that capitalism can be nice and can do without racist terror. If such false ideas are the heart of Shantel’s struggle we will have won the battle and lost the war. As long as capitalism exists police terror will continue to shatter working-class families. PLP fights to send Atkins away. But we also aim to win the class war against all of the racists bosses and their assassins whether or not we win the individual battle to put Atkins in jail.
DHAKA, BANGLADESH, November 26 — Ten thousand garment workers barricaded roads, shut 50 factories and hurled stones at cops firing rubber bullets and tear gas as workers protested the November 24 fire that killed 124 workers at Tazreen Fashions here. Hundreds of workers were trapped inside, symptomatic of Bangladeshi garment factories that have become infamous for their lack of fire exits and stairwells. Over 100,000 outraged workers attended the burial ceremony of 53 workers whose bodies could not be identified” (New York Times, 12/7).
It’s common practice for the garment bosses to chain doors shut to prevent workers from taking breaks. Combined with poor maintenance practices and flammable materials and chemicals, these factories become firetraps. “More than 600 garment workers have died in such fires since 2005.” (NYT, 12/7)
Tazreen bosses told workers the fire alarm was a false one, to keep them working. Then they fled, but by the time workers realized what was occurring, the fire had snaked to the upper floors, blocking any exit routes. Some tried to escape by jumping out of windows.
Tazreen manufactures clothing for Walmart, Sears and the Gap, among other U.S. companies, all of whom make enormous profits from the poverty wages and hazards in these death traps. They are all aware of these conditions, making them complicit in the murders of these workers.
This latest factory fire is the worst in Bangladeshi history. As the families and friends of the trapped workers crowded around the inferno to offer whatever assistance they could, they knew who was to blame. Sabine Yasmine, one victim’s mother and a factory worker herself, moaned, “Where’s my soul? Where’s my son? I want the factory owner to be hanged! For him, many have died, many have gone.” (Associated Press, 11/25)
Yet factory owners are rarely punished for the deadly conditions they enforce in their workplaces. The garment industry is a massively profitable one in Bangladesh, exporting $20 billion annually, mainly to the U.S. and Europe. The Tazreen Fashions factory alone makes $37 million annually.
These massive profits flow from sweatshop conditions inside the 4,500 factories. Safety is ignored as workers are locked inside, working 60-hour weeks for around $37 a month. Workers opposing this murderous system are marked for death. Earlier this year a union organizer was found tortured and murdered outside the city. (AP, 11/25; New York Times, 11/25)
Such mass murder is common under capitalism, particularly in developing industrial economies. Just two months ago factory fires at a garment shop in Karachi and a shoe factory in Lahore, Pakistan killed a combined 314 people. Workers were trapped in the factories with no emergency exits and all doors locked to hold the workers imprisoned inside. Again, these sweatshops netted profits primarily for U.S. and European bosses. (CNN, 9/16; BBC, 9/11)
In 1993, a fire in the Kader Toy Factory in Thailand killed 188 workers and injured more than 500. It was the worst industrial disaster ever until the Karachi fire in 2012. The Kader factory, which made toys for Disney and Mattel, paid their workers slave wages and locked them into the building during the work-day. When the fire started, managers fled the scene, leaving the largely female workforce trapped inside to burn. (International Labor Organization, Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety)
Capitalists care only for profits. The fiery death of hundreds of workers is only part of the super-exploitation of the working class. Only a communist revolution to smash the capitalist class can end this mass murder of workers. Until that day it’s just a matter of time until the next big fire.
