BARCELONA, SPAIN, March 31 — This week, thousands of workers and youth squared off against a mass of cops in the center of this city during a nation-wide general strike protesting austerity measures that is impoverishing millions. The general unemployment rate is 25%; for youth it’s 50%.

Demonstrators dragged dumpsters into the middle of main avenues and set them on fire to block police vehicles from passing. They threw cans, bottles and debris at the cops, the elite Mossos D’Esqudra, who were dressed like storm troopers with large black helmets and visors, all black clothes with no identification.

The Mossos, carrying batons, shot tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters. The streets were filled with gas and smoke from the tear gas and burning dumpsters. The cops used armored vans to attempt to push the dumpsters to the side to enable police cars to pass. When eight police vans fled the scene, the crowd cheered.

Workers in Spain are suffering from the same worldwide capitalist economic crisis afflicting their brothers and sisters across Europe — declining wages and pensions, mass unemployment and cuts in benefits. The bosses’ government is trying to shift the burden of the crisis onto workers’ backs in an attempt to maintain profits. Only destroying that capitalist system will bring any relief to the working class that creates these profits sucked out of their labors.

Imperialist nations — notably the U.S., Russia, China, and members of the European Union — need two things when they go to war: a public pretext and a real reason.  The one is never the same as the other.  When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, the pretext was to chase Al Qaeda out of the country and defeat the U.S.-created Taliban, who were shielding the formerly U.S.-backed Bin Laden and his followers.

The U.S. ruling class and its government tried to use this pretext to win over the working class, and particularly the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The rulers knew it would be much harder to sell the real reason for the war: to protect the projected TAPI gas pipeline originating in Turkmenistan and passing through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.  All wars in the Middle East — large and small, direct or by proxy — represent efforts by rival imperialists to secure control over energy sources, mainly oil and natural gas.

More than a decade later, energy remains a big part of the reason for the capitalists’ sustained war. Oil and gas will compel the U.S. to continue to occupy Afghanistan even after most combat personnel are removed to face more pressing wars for profit elsewhere. But since the 2001 invasion, the rulers have found another reason to stay, besides energy: Afghanistan is rich with all sorts of hard-to-find minerals. 

Shortly after the invasion, geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey, a science organization under the Department of the Interior, were sent to Afghanistan to survey the area and determine where mineral reserves were located and in what amounts.Under direct protection of armed Marines, these geologists have discovered fabulous stores of wealth scattered around the country, including of dozens of heavy metals and rare earth elements. 

While few people outside the scientific community have heard of these minerals, they are critical components of lasers, airplanes, batteries, and computers, among many other technological products.  Many of these minerals have no known substitutes.  (See “Afghanistan’s Buried Riches,” Scientific American, October 2011.)

The pretext given by the U.S. government for its systematic search for these minerals is to “generate wealth to raise the people of Afghanistan out of poverty and reduce their need to produce opium, the source of heroin.” (Afghanistan and Pakistan, together known as the Golden Crescent, produce more opium/heroin than all the countries of the so-called Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia.)

In reality, however, the people who live in regions rich in natural resources will be sacrificed by the millions as rival imperialists fight to control this wealth. To supplement their guns and bombs, the capitalists buy off and corrupt local rulers at the expense of these nations’ workers. 

Until workers of all nations unite to cast off our imperialist oppressors and the capitalist system that spawns this murderous rivalry, this cycle of death and misery will continue. The Progressive Labor Party alone has the potential to forge such unity among the world’s workers and put an end to capitalism’s deadly rule.

Second part of the Hunger Games book review

In Catching Fire, the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins expands her criticism of capitalism and hints at more collective solutions to the problems faced by workers. 

As our heroine, Katniss tours the Districts after the Hunger Games end, the government expects her to play the role of a star-crossed lover. However, Katniss discovers signs of both increasing fascism and increasing rebellion. While her District suffers extreme poverty, starvation and dangerous working conditions in the mines, others are policed by terrorizing Peacekeepers who shoot first and ask questions later. Katniss witnesses this first hand in the agricultural District 11, where workers are mainly black and have begun to defy the Capitol.

Frightened by what she has seen, Katniss wants to run away to the wilderness. She is surprised to discover that they are inspired and want to stay and fight. Katniss shares their rebellious spirit but is afraid to risk the lives of her friends, sister and mother.

Before Katniss can put a plan in place, Panem’s rulers organize a new special Hunger Games event, pitting former winners against each other to provide an excuse to kill off Katniss and other possible symbols of fight-back. Katniss plans to sacrifice her life in the “games” to protect her friend Peeta who she believes will be a more eloquent voice of the rebellion. Other tributes act more collectively, pulling Katniss into an alliance that is more successful than she and Peeta could be alone. By the end of the games, Katniss has begun to realize that the rebellion is more organized and well-developed than she had guessed and that she is expected to be a part of it. 

Catching Fire shows even more of the horrors of the fascist society of its world than Hunger Games did. It also hints at the power of the collective and the possibility of a workers’ revolution. Its parallels to the current capitalist crises are so clear that all the mainstream reviewers comment on them. But Suzanne Collins is certainly not a communist, and her books do not offer a communist interpretation of our world. 

The fantasy genre allows the books to distance themselves from the real problems of today. Although there are clear parallels, it is possible to read the books as imaginings about the future, not a real commentary on today. There is almost no analysis of why the government of Panem is so cruel; it is just taken as a given.

While there is some collective and rebellious activity in Catching Fire, the reader sees everything from Katniss’s perspective and Katniss has a very limited view. She herself is never really won to work collectively except when it benefits her and those she loves. Her instinct is always to escape or to defend her loved ones, not to organize or fight the system. Others try to change her mind, but mostly the rebellions go on around her, supposedly inspired by her actions in the first book, but never letting her in on plans. She is seen as somehow too emotional or independent to participate in a collective plan. 

If PLP were leading the rebellion against Panem, she would not be an unwitting symbol but would be learning to analyze the political situation and lead class struggle. 

It’s no accident that these books do not provide a communist solution. They would not be taught in hundreds of schools or be made into blockbuster movies if they did. Their criticism of fascism does resonate with many workers, which makes them important for us to read and discuss. As communists, we must teach young fans of the books the lessons the books do not touch: the laws of capitalism and the need for collective struggle and revolution.

The Hunger Games film not only has been wildly popular but has also caused a racial controversy, possibly related to the casting of a small number of black actors. The main character, Katniss, is described as having dark hair and grey eyes, but was played by blonde, blue-eyed Jennifer Lawrence with her hair dyed brown. However, the few black characters in the movie have been attacked in racist comments that surfaced on social networks such as Twitter and Tumblr.

 The fury felt by some fans of the books involves two of the tributes, who conquer readers’ hearts, represented in the film by a black 13-year-old actress from California, Amandla Stenberg and Nigerian born Dayo Okeniyi. Some of the hateful comments filling the internet were: “Kkcall me racist but when I found out Rue was black her death wasn’t as sad.” “Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you picture.”

It was shocking that most of these comments came from teenagers, who apparently deleted their accounts when other fans began exposing them. The author of the books, Suzanne Collins, clearly described the character: “a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes…” While she reminds Katniss of her blonde little sister, Prim, she clearly states it is her size and personality that resemble Prim, not her skin color.

All this shows how racism saturates this society, so much so that young adults feel compelled to write hateful comments about imaginary characters. This relates to an article posted on a website about gossip and culture aimed at women titled, “I see White People: Hunger Games and a Brief History of Cultural Whitewashing.” The writer says the system brainwashes us with racist thoughts, to the point of influencing our imagination so that many people assume if characters aren’t described explicitly they must be white.  

The media pushes racism so much so that most “black movies” are advertised in black neighborhoods and they tend to be produced by people like Tyler Perry who only casts black people in stereotypical situations. Popular sitcoms like Friends or Seinfeld only portrayed white characters; non-white people appeared very rarely, merely to convey the idea that, “hey, we’re not racists.” Black and Latino actors in films appear in far fewer numbers, and many times are cast as criminals. Asians are portrayed much of the time in stereotypical martial arts roles.

A New Yorker article (3/30 reports on a Canadian man who followed all these racist remarks on the internet and composed his own page displaying all of them, simply because he was so astonished and disappointed at the wrong attention the Hunger Games film was receiving and decided to shame the racists who posted these comments.

The New Yorker writer says that what’s “more important, and no doubt disturbing [is what the] ignorant tweets say about a certain generation’s failure of imagination.” The writer doesn’t seem to understand how racism goes hand-in-hand with this racist system.

She uses the analogy of “a few bad apples,”” when clearly these teens are displaying what this system teaches them. The writer commented on the second quotation above: “The phrases ‘some black girl’ and ‘little blonde innocent girl’ are ringing in my head, as are thoughts of heroes in our imaginations who are white until proven otherwise [Superman, Spiderman and other popular superheroes], a variation on the principle of innocent until proven guilty that, for so many minorities, is routinely upended.”

The creator of the page posted this quote saying, “Remember that word innocent? This is why Trayvon Martin is dead.” He sees how, in this society, white is tied to innocence and his example of Trayvon is perfect, as he was shot for being a young black male in a predominantly white neighborhood.

We must understand that one step isn’t so far from the other and must expose any kind of racism, whether in the form of jokes or ignorant comments. We have to educate people on how capitalism uses racism as a tool to divide us. We need to win people to see past skin color and understand that we are all the same; we are all part of the working class. Only united will we create a communist society that eliminates ethnicity and doesn’t judge us by our color.