Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

Inter-imperialist rivalry is growing. U.S rulers are still massacring thousands in Iraq as the war enters its fifth year, while many in the U.S. anti-war movement still appeal to their elected rulers to end it. In Iraq the workers "choices" are either the U.S. puppet regime or nationalist bosses (Shiite, Sunni or Kurdish) who each want a bigger share of the oil profits. For the world’s workers these are capitalism’s alternatives: bow to the imperialist or to "our" local capitalists. Either way we lose.

Nationalism, like racism, was born with capitalism, initially in France, Britain and the U.S., and is used as another tool to divide the working class internationally. Nationalism means pledging allegiance to the ruling capitalists, based on living in an area they stole and in which they created their state apparatus to legitimize their rule. They push the concept of patriotism, essentially loyalty to "our" particular ruling class within the borders of "our country."

Another form of nationalism stems from a reaction to racism: super-exploited victims of the bosses’ racism — black and Latin workers in the U.S. — are appealed to by black and Latin demagogues (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa) to push capitalism: more black and Latin bosses, more black and Latin cops, foremen, etc. as the "solution" to racism, rather than exposing the super-profits that capitalism reaps from racism. This divides the working class from seeing it has one exploiting class enemy, capitalists, no matter their skin color or language.

Nationalism creates false unity between bosses and workers, between the Rockefellers and Farrakhans on the one hand and the working class, black and white, on the other. There’s only one international working class with the same class interests, directly contradictory to the interests of all capitalists.

Smash ALL Borders

Capitalist-created borders have disastrous effects. For 60 years, Israeli and Palestinian workers have been marching behind their rulers to their deaths. "Undocumented workers" moving from North Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe and from Mexico, Central-South America, the Caribbean and Asia to the U.S. face massive repression because they’re from "different countries." These bosses’ borders divide workers and induce them to pledge allegiance to their local ruling class, maintaining the latter’s class rule.

Historically, all countries were born from the slaughter and coercion of workers by ruling classes fighting to gain new territory for exploitation and profit. The workers’ role was to fight and die and kill other workers for "their" bosses.

The bosses also created the concept of "race" (see CHALLENGE. 4/11)) to divide us. Scientifically there are no "different races," only the human race. Within that there’s only one division: those who own the means of production and those who don’t, bosses and workers, exploiters and exploited. While our oppression may differ in kind, we have the same enemy, and the same class interest to destroy that enemy.

Can’t Share Power with Bosses

The final outcome of all forms of nationalism, of the working class fighting under nationalist banners "for our liberation," is dead revolutionaries and a ticket back to capitalism. PLP concluded this from seeing communists uniting with nationalists and the failures of national liberation movements.

In Indonesia communists allied with nationalist forces to expel the Dutch. The Communist Party, with almost two million members, controlled the labor movement and elected representatives to the government. Their leader, Aidit, became its number two official. Abandoning the correct strategy of armed revolution for communist-led workers’ power, they took the parliamentary road to "share" power with the nation’s bosses. In fact, in a 1961 article, Aidit declared: "[Our] basic principle…is that the class struggle is placed below the national struggle."

But their "legal" status didn’t protect them. Controlling the military, Indonesia’s ruling class assassinated Aidit and, with CIA assistance, using Islamic fundamentalists, slaughtered well over a million communists and trade unionists in a few weeks. Indonesia’s workers still suffer mass poverty and the "joys" of capitalism.

Currently, Maoists in Nepal have repeated the same deadly mistake. On March 31, agreement was reached allowing five Maoist ministers to join the new national capitalist government. These are the same Maoists who led a massive armed rebellion that toppled the monarchy there.

Nationalism Only Preserves Capitalism

In the post-World War II years, communists in the Soviet Union and China abandoned internationalism for nationalist politics, which helped lay the basis for reverting back to full-scale capitalism. This period also witnessed nationalists and victims of racism in many oppressed countries gaining "independence" from the yoke of colonialism. While some paid lip-service to socialism, today all these countries maintain capitalist exploitation, including every country in Africa. The masses are still destitute and lack political power. Unity with the "lesser-evil" bosses dooms liberation from the start. Even the more militant fighters ended up negotiating for a bigger piece of the pie from the former rulers.

For instance, when Mandela’s forces took power in South Africa, and the workers, now assuming they were liberated, struck for their demands, Mandela told them they couldn’t strike because this would damage the rulers’ chances of getting foreign capital. So now South Africa is ruled by a combination of black and (much richer) white capitalists and poverty is even worse than before "liberation."

Nationalist leaders are profit-making bosses! They use the masses’ anti-imperialist and anti-racist sentiment to enlist them in a drive for bigger local capitalism. Given the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry world-wide, nationalist forces try to build themselves by playing one imperialist against another. Similarly, the imperialist powers make deals with nationalists to better exploit the latter’s country. Whoever wins a bigger piece of the economic pie, the nationalists still intensify the exploitation of their own workers.

All bosses represent their own class interests. They will kill and kill some more to maintain their profits. Cast off illusions about these bosses; instead organize against their dictatorship to wipe them out with workers’ power. Unity with the enemy has never led to victory. Only communism, not nationalism, can lead to workers’ revolution. Uniting around working-class internationalism is our road to communist revolution. One Class, One Flag, One Party.

Union Hacks Torpedo Shipyard Strike

PASCAGOULA, MS, April 4 — "It’s clear and obvious they don’t even care about us," said one striking ship-fitter in summing up the new three-year agreement with Northrop Grumman (NG). Almost 7,000 black and white workers had shut the racist war-maker and strike-breaker for 28 days, leaving a Navy destroyer and two freighters sitting like unfinished junk. While the workers were not striking against the bloodbath in Iraq, they gave all of us, and themselves, a lesson in the power of industrial workers to bring the imperialist war-makers to a halt.

Dow Jones News reported that the U.S. Navy is pushing shipbuilders to rein in soaring construction costs and adopt commercial practices without hurting military capability. Allison Stiller, the Navy’s deputy assistant secretary for shipbuilding said, "If the Navy, shipbuilding industry and ship-repair industry do not change our behaviors, the country will be unable to afford the needed re-capitalization of our fleet." They are trying to keep pace with China, the rising imperialist power which is the number two shipbuilder in the world, and aiming for number one in the next ten years.

The contract was rushed through by the Pascagoula Metal Trades Council, representing 11 of 14 unions, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). Less than half, about 3,300 of the 7,000 strikers, were able to vote — and 40% voted "NO!" Many workers were away job-hunting and others couldn’t afford the gas money on short notice after being on strike for a month. All these workers were nearly wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and despite NG getting over $3 billion from the Navy and FEMA for post-Katrina clean-up, many strikers still live in FEMA trailers.

Northrop Grumman had cut off the workers’ health insurance on April 1, and the union leaders spread the rumor that if the contract wasn’t ratified the Ingalls yard here would close and the work moved to Newport News, Virginia. The workers that did vote hardly knew what they were voting on since the union passed out contract "highlights" and quickly called the vote. All these factors, plus 500 strikers crossing the picket lines and scabbing on their co-workers, and a lack of anti-racist, anti-imperialist leadership among the workers to counter the union leadership, let NG off the hook.

The workers won a 15% wage hike over three years, $1.68 an hour now, and two 55¢-an-hour raises later. The first-year raise is the largest ever won in a NG contract. Meanwhile, the $144-a-month in health insurance premiums will increase to almost $200 and still will not cover dental or vision care. In Katrina’s aftermath, housing costs have soared and milk is above $4.00 a gallon.

Many workers voiced their anger at the union and the company. Some felt that with support for the strike being organized locally and internationally, they could have held out longer. Some of that support was organized by PLP, from union and non-union aerospace workers on the West Coast to transit workers in Washington, D.C. and more (see left) A friend in France won his local to send solidarity greetings of support as well.

This strike did not sit well with the racist war-makers. It also gave PLP the opportunity to build the revolutionary communist movement. It inspired us to organize strike support by explaining to our co-workers, on the campuses and high schools, and in the barracks, that this fight — like the Airbus and auto strikes across Europe, and the destructions) of 100,000 auto jobs in the U.S. — is the result of the sharpening battle among the world’s bosses. These racist attacks on the world’s workers are paving the way to bigger wars. And the only way to smash imperialism is with communist revolution. Now we can have these discussions with the Ingalls strikers as well. J

Imus Racism, Sexism Mirrors Bosses’ Rotten Culture

Don Imus’s racist and sexist remarks insulting the Rutgers University women’s basketball team have caused a big stir. He’s been suspended for two weeks from his radio program which simulcasts on TV by MSNBC). But Imus’s insults are no surprise. That’s been his trademark for years. Racism and sexism, after all, rot the entire capitalist society.

Imus is not just another shock jock like many who fill the media. His program has been used by top liberal and conservative politicians and media stars. GOP candidates McCain and Romney, and former Democrat candidates John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have been on his show. Liberal and conservative writers use him to promote their books and have "intelligent" discussions. Tim Russert, NBC-TV "Meet the Press" host is an Imus regular. The list goes on. They know his racism and sexism well.

He’s also a big money-maker for GE-owned MSNBC and CBS which owns his show. This is "freedom of speech" under capitalism: pro-war racist and sexist crap fills the air waves, and not only from right-wingers like Imus and Bill O’Reilly. Imus, after all, took the sexist insult from Hip Hop culture, much of which constantly degrades black women.

Yes, Imus should be fired, but this won’t change the nature of the bosses’ media. There’s no "free speech" under this profit system. No real pro-working-class ideas blaming capitalism for racism, war, sexism and so on will be aired because the corporations which own and run the media won’t go against their own class interests. Only CHALLENGE will give you those ideas.J

Growing Saudi Unrest Threatens Deadlier Oil Wars

At a recent Arab League meeting, Saudi Arabia’s king Abdullah labeled the U.S. occupation of Iraq "illegal." But he was hardly signaling a break with his U.S. masters, to whom his oil-soaked dynasty owes its very existence. Abdullah’s remarks reflect instead his family’s faltering grip on the economic cornerstone of U.S. imperialism. By pretending that Saudi Arabia was no longer accepting Washington’s dictates, the king tried to allay mounting opposition — from Saudi workers and capitalists alike — to his clan’s corrupt, oppressive rule.

The royal family controls Saudi Aramco, the state oil company. Its long-standing arrangement to provide Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Shell cut-rate crude has brought the House of Saud fabulous riches, while Saudi workers have become poor and hostile. And Aramco’s excluding non-royals antagonized capitalist "commoners" like Osama bin Laden, who demand their slice of the profit pie.

U.S. rulers (along with their British junior partners) can’t afford to lose the Saudi oil racket, either to local bosses like bin Laden or imperialist rivals like China and Russia which are making deals with the Saudi rulers. Saudi oil represents the most lucrative and strategically crucial business deal in the history of imperialism, helping the U.S. exert political and economic pressure throughout the world. Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson boasted, "We’re the largest purchaser of Saudi crude oil exports...making Saudi Arabia the largest single supplier of raw materials to Exxon Mobil’s worldwide refinery system." (Speech, 4/27/04) U.S. rulers have killed over a million Iraqis and 3,300 GIs for an oil treasure half the size of Saudi Arabia’s. Should the U.S. decide to prop up or replace a tottering Abdullah by force, even greater bloodshed could follow.

Saudi Arabia has one-fourth of the world’s oil reserves. But it also has a demographic time bomb. The Saudi population has quadrupled since 1974, from 7 million to nearly 28 million. It may hit 43 million by 2025. As oil production and other economic growth have failed to keep pace, gross domestic product per person has plummeted, from $16,006 in 1980 to $8,974 in 2004. Real wages have declined 24% over the last decade. While Saudi princes indulge in obscene luxury, unemployment hovers around 25%. Many angry young Saudis correctly identify the love match between the royal family and the U.S. as the source of their troubles. But, without a communist outlook, they fall into the trap of allying with capitalists who oppose the royals and the U.S. under the guise of religion. Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that committed the 9/11 attacks, attracts many disaffected Saudis. Its leader, Osama bin Laden, is a onetime billionaire Saudi contractor, who turned against the king and his U.S. backers when they excluded him from sharing in the spoils of the first Iraq war. [See box.] Saudis comprise a significant portion of foreign anti-U.S. fighters in Iraq.

Forced Out, Pentagon Surrounds Saudi Gold Mine for Possible Invasion

Back at home, the Saudi oil infrastructure stands vulnerable. A year ago, al Qaeda launched a suicide truck bomb assault on the world’s largest oil processing facility at Abqaiq. The Sunni-Shiite split further destabilizes Sunni Abdullah’s realm, which has a local Shiite majority in its main oil-producing eastern region. But, to counter Persian Gulf domination by Iranian Shiites, Saudi rulers have vowed to side with Sunni insurgents in Iraq, if the U.S. withdraws. Such a move would threaten uprisings in Saudi oilfields.

The military situation reveals Saudi weakness on many other fronts. The Saudis deliberately keep their army small, 73,000, compared to Iran’s 350,000. The reason, says London-based journalist Said K. Aburish, is that "the House of Saud wants to maintain itself, but it does not want a strong army capable of overthrowing it." ("The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall of the House of Saud"; St. Martin’s Press, 1996). A Saudi National Guard exists, but its mission is "to protect the royal family from internal rebellion and the other Saudi army." (Globalsecurity) The Saudi Air Force trusts only princes to pilot its jet fighters.

Despite record-setting arms purchases (mainly from the U.S.), undermanned Saudi forces are ill-equipped to repel an invader. The U.S. put thousands of troops on Saudi soil during the first Iraq war. But today, vehement anti-U.S. sentiment makes the stationing of large numbers of GI’s there politically impossible. Only 500 remain. So a major part of the Pentagon’s "wider wars" strategy in Gulf Slaughter II has been to create — or beef up — bases that encircle the Arabian Peninsula. U.S. naval facilities in Bahrain and the air base in Qatar have undergone a massive build-up. The U.S. installation in Djibouti will soon expand from 88 to 500 acres. The Pentagon’s permanent bases in Iraq, including the colossal Green Zone fortress, play a role in securing Saudi crude. And the U.S. Navy’s carrier battle groups menacing Iran are actually closer to Saudi oil fields than to Teheran.

Liberals to Next President: Prepare for Saudi ‘Catastrophe’

U.S. rulers understand that the House of Saud is as "solid as a house of cards" and that the strategic stakes are even higher than in Iraq. The liberal Brookings Institution advised "the next president" to prepare for an all-out oil war embroiling the entire Middle East,

"More strife in Iraq will further suppress oil production there and could spark conflicts in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, where a globally catastrophic loss of oil production could result. And, strife in Iraq could adversely affect Iranian oil production and transit." (Brookings, "Independent Ideas for Our Next President")

Capitalism is inherently unstable. Bosses must continually compete; self-interest and the need to pursue maximum profit make all their alliances temporary. As the Mid-East’s current plight shows, war after war results. But capitalism also suffers from another kind of instability. A handful of bosses must try to control millions of workers through killing and oppression. Ultimately, this situation is as untenable as the U.S.-Saudi operation.

As May Day 2007 approaches, the key task of revolutionary-minded workers and their allies in the Middle East and worldwide is organizing for communist revolution as the only way out of the inter-imperialist rivalry driving the inferno of endless profit wars.

MID-EAST MONSTERS CREATED BY U.S. IMPERIALISM

(Partial List)

HOUSE OF SAUD

Placed in power in 1920’s by British and U.S. agents. Has guaranteed super-profits to U.S. Big Oil for over 75 years. Treats women, and Indian and Filipino "guest workers" worse than dirt. Favorites: private jets, yachts, debauchery (latest scandal involves British arms dealer BAE, a Saudi prince, and two female "entertainers" from England), and beheadings.

ISRAEL

Created in 1947 by U.S. and Britain, with some Nazi-collaborators in top offices. Skilled war machine polices U.S. oil empire but threatens blow-ups by invading Lebanon and terrorizing Palestinian citizens. Has significant pro-Russian Netanyhu faction. Aims nukes at Iran.

SHAH OF IRAN

Installed in CIA coup in 1953. Opened door to Exxon Mobil and BP. His U.S.-trained SAVAK secret police pioneered the torture tactics used at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Led to Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 in response to hated pro-U.S. regime. Held U.S. hostages 444 days after David Rockefeller welcomed deposed Shah to New York. Now led by Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad. Forging alliances with China, Russia and Europe that threaten World War III.

SADDAM HUSSEIN

Guided by CIA, became president, took Pentagon funds and arms in war against Soviet-leaning Iran in 1980’s. Shook Rumsfeld’s hand. Became U.S. enemy by making oil deals with Russians and French. Suckered by U.S. into invading Kuwait in 1990. Hanged, but anti-U.S. force lives on in form of Sunni insurgents.

OSAMA BIN LADEN

Funded by CIA, led Islamic fanatics against Soviet and pro-Soviet troops in Afghanistan in 1980s. Seeking share of oil wealth, tried to lead own army into Iraqi-occupied Kuwait in 1990-01. Swatted down by U.S. and Saudi rulers, founded al Qaeda, launched 9/11 attacks. Still at large.J

Fight Racist LA Rulers’ Attempt to Break Multi-Racial Unity

LOS ANGELES, CA, April 9 -— Students, teachers and staff at a high school here have done much to build multi-racial unity. Teachers have organized clubs around this unity. A slide presentation to staff members provided historical background on how many Mexican and African people share ancestors, and gave critical support to the other, such as for Mexican Independence, the Mexican Revolution and the abolition of slavery among others.

Then a week before Spring break a tragedy occurred. A black student stabbed a Latino student on school grounds. He died on the way to the hospital. The stabbing occurred during a fight between different gangs. Immediately, the bosses’ media propagandized that violence between blacks and Latinos caused the death.

The next day school board and union officials descended on school grounds en masse (most hadn’t set foot there before). All spoke of "securing the campus." They feared escalating racial violence and retaliation. Cops flooded the campus. The following day a power outage darkened the entire school and all of those school officials scattered like quail!

After the death, Progressive Labor Party responded with a flyer at the school entitled, "Blacks and Latinos unite; Don’t fight each other, fight the system!" which was eagerly and enthusiastically received. Many students passed them out hand to hand inside the school. Black and Latino parents, teachers and students thanked those distributing it outside and asked for extras.

The flyer outlined how the cops and FBI created the gangs in order to provoke violence and disunity in the two communities. It also exposed how the same government fears the unity of the most oppressed sections of the working class because of the potential to organize, make revolution and overthrow the racist capitalist system. The flyer emphasized that the bosses use racism to divide the working class at the time we most need to unite against their wars abroad and racist attacks here.

Workers from Latin America have long experience waging armed struggle against U.S. imperialism. Black workers in the U.S. have led militant rebellions against racism in major cities and massive rebellions of black, white and Latino soldiers in the military during the Vietnam War. United with white, Asian workers and soldiers, black and Latino workers can be invincible!

We said, "Let’s make the bosses’ worst nightmare a reality fighting for multi-racial and international unity of the entire working class." This message was eagerly received by black and Latino students and parents.

The bosses are using this death to emphasize racial and gang violence, to promote increasing the LAPD to 10,000 cops. Racist incidents make big news; multi-racial unity does not. One writer pointed out that last year in LA’s "highest murder districts" of 236 homicides 22 crossed racial lines. (LA Times, 3/25) .

The same paper also reported (3/30), "Los Angeles — the nation’s second-largest city — has [an]… officer-to-resident ratios of …one officer for every 436 residents. New York has one for every 228 residents." . The bosses are callously taking advantage of this tragedy to push the ratio closer to New York’s.

More cops mean more racist terror, especially against both black and Latino workers. Mayor Villaraigosa and Police Chief Bratton are also aiming for more surveillance and control programs for the youth. But they also worry about winning these same youth to a patriotic and nationalist outlook, to get them to join the military and die and kill in defending U.S. imperialism.

U.S. rulers have a big dilemma: they need thousands upon thousands of new soldiers to defend their empire while they simultaneously build racist police terror to keep these potential soldiers in line. The bosses’ existence depends on their own gravediggers. Let’s accelerate the grave-digging by uniting against racism and building a massive Progressive Labor Party. We have nothing to lose but our chains!

From Washington to LA, PLP Backs Striking Shipbuilders

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 29 — A group of PLP’ers and friends rallied near Northrop Grumman’s corporate headquarters in Arlington, Virginia to gain support for striking shipyard workers in Mississippi. We distributed over 600 flyers about the strike and 40 CHALLENGES, while collecting donations for the strikers. Our speeches about racism, war and the power of the industrial workers to shut down the capitalist war machine reached thousands of workers.

Several workers we talked to worked for Northrop Grumman. Many more knew the company as part of the war machine. But almost no one had heard of the Mississippi strike until our rally, which made us more enthusiastic about spreading the word about the strike and the need for solidarity between workers at Northrop Grumman and other workers and GIs. One young soldier brought up the military-industrial complex and the need to fight it.

After this rally, we took the issue to our unions and the D.C. Central Labor Council to gain further support through fund-raising and letter-writing campaigns for the battle in Mississippi.

We are proud of our Party’s ability to quickly mobilize internationally to support for such critical struggles. It demonstrates even more why friends of PLP must join us to multiply our revolutionary impact on the class struggle worldwide.J

EL SEGUNDO, CA, April 4 — Today PLP organized a group of youth and others to support the strike of Northrop Grumman workers in Pascagoula, Mississippi and Europe’s Airbus strikers. We went to a large Northrop Grumman facility here with leaflets, CHALLENGES and signs to back the strikes. We carried posters with pictures of the multi-racial march of strikers and their families in Mississippi.

Despite security guards and cops trying to kick us out, and limit our access to the workers, we distributed many leaflets and CHALLENGES. Security guards directed traffic away from us, fearing workers would read about the strikers’ unity. Most workers knew nothing about the strike and were glad to hear about it, thanking us for the literature, which emphasized multi-racial, international workers’ solidarity against the war-makers. Leaflets about the strike also received a good reception on several campuses where students discussed the potential power of the working class to oppose imperialist wars.J

D.C. Bus Drivers Rally vs. Racist Bosses’ Attacks

WASHINGTON, D.C. March 30 — Over 40 bus drivers rallied today outside the Northern Garage to protest Metro transit management’s unsafe workplace practices. The bosses and their media have waged a vicious campaign against the drivers, blaming them for three recent fatal pedestrian accidents. But it is the bosses’ unrealistic scheduling of routes and inadequate recovery time between routes that creates the conditions for tragic accidents. This racist scapegoating of the predominantly black workforce is an attempt to deflect the public’s anger away from management.

Meanwhile, no manager has been held accountable for the deaths of three track workers, all killed in recent months because management refused to adopt the safety measures workers have long advocated. While the management is planning a memorial for them, Metro’s utter disregard for workers’ safety will kill more workers.

The newly-elected union leaders showed their true boss-loving colors by skipping the safety rally and, instead, calling for more cooperation with management. Drivers from Northern Garage are now working to rule (following the rules to slow things down) with management scrambling to enforce their insane schedule. Northern has been one of the strongest and longest supporters of PLP and has a core of CHALLENGE readers.

Management has promised many changes to create a safer and less stressful work environment, but with a $100 million budget deficit any changes will be limited to window dressing. This situation is the trickle-down effect of the war budget and the skyrocketing price of oil-based fuels. One day’s cost of the war budget for Iraq would probably cover the cost of solving most of the safety problems. But the bosses’ priority is imperialism, not safety for workers and riders.

The next step is to spread the work-to-rule campaign to other garages. Meanwhile, we’re trying to recruit more drivers to PLP, win more to read and distribute CHALLENGE, and participate in our upcoming May Day activities. Stay tuned for future developments! J

Los Angeles PLP Preparing for May Day

LOS ANGELES, April 8 — "This dinner is to prepare us for the upcoming May Day March," one speaker announced as everyone enjoyed a delicious dinner that they themselves had brought to share. Everyone emphasized that May Day represents an opportunity to be upfront with its real history, to show that this capitalist system based on racism, widening war and exploitation must be smashed. PLP offers a communist alternative for the international working class.

Last year liberals and phony leftists alike organized and led huge marches demanding a "comprehensive immigration reform" bill, a bosses’ plan to guarantee war production and more soldiers to defend their declining empire. Still without "reform," new marches are scheduled for this May 1. PLP will participate with a multi-racial contingent of youth and workers emphasizing multi-racial unity, internationalism and a communist movement to not only answer the bosses’ attacks but also end their racist, exploitative system once and for all.

After presenting the history of May Day we discussed the bosses’ great fear of the potentially explosive unity of the most exploited — African-American and immigrant workers— against the same bosses’ system which is now pushing more racist divisions here (see page 3, and letter page 6).

Women from the Ramona Gardens community denounced the racist police for murdering Mauricio París Cornejo. They committed themselves to helping organize for the May Day March. Latino and black students presented anti-racist, pro-working class and revolutionary poems in Spanish and English.

Committees were established — banners, flags, posters, CHALLENGE-DESAFIO sales, chants and security — to guarantee a successful march. We closed the dinner by enthusiastically singing the Internationale and Bella Ciao. We urge all those who attended to join PLP to fight for a communist world without racism, borders or imperialist war.

FBI the New Librarians?

NYC, NY, March 30—Be careful about borrowing The Communist Manifesto from your local public library. A recent forum at Pratt Institute School of Library and Information Science exposed the fascist nature of the Democrat/Republican-endorsed Patriot Act.

The forum explained how three Connecticut librarians ("the John Does") were issued a National Security Letter (NSL). It demanded the library hand over its records of subscriber and billing information, and access logs of any person that had used a library computer, all in the name of "national security and fighting terrorism." The FBI uses this information to collect all e-mails, browsed websites, books borrowed and users’ identification, storing it in databases for federal and state agencies’ harassment of people opposing the government.

The librarians refused to give the FBI the information because they believe users of libraries have "privacy rights and are protected under freedom of information laws." This refusal placed the librarians under investigation for "withholding information," proving that we only have those "rights" the capitalists decide to give us.

Such letters are even more fascist because people who receive them cannot tell anyone, including their spouses (!), that they even received a letter. Informing anyone could mean jail time. The FBI now issues about "30,000 national security letters a year." (Washington Post. 11/6/05). The letters don’t even require issuance by a judge (like that would matter) but can be submitted by an FBI field supervisor.

The librarians filed a suit in court against the FBI to fight the demand for information. The individual librarians could not even contact their union to defend themselves. The agency threatened arrest if they went public. Their lawyers found a way of notifying the union which alerted the public about this attack. They fought until the FBI backed down and withdrew the case because a judge decided many of the demands were vague.

During the forum many students questioned whether the librarians should have just revealed themselves and tested the government’s willingness to arrest them. One refused, saying they really feared being arrested. The librarians’ union, the Connecticut Library Association (CLA), backed down also because they didn’t think fighting would accomplish much.

"But haven’t people in the past fought for their beliefs and went to jail?" asked one student. The CLA representative who led the meeting said they didn’t want to push it that far. After the case was dismissed, the FBI fought for a mandatory 5-year prison sentence if one reveals receiving a letter. So much for not fighting.

With PLP’s communist leadership, workers need to fight hard against fascism. We cannot take pleas and dismissals just because it suits us not to face attacks, including jail. The bosses know that complacency and fear hold many workers back from fighting fascist outrages. We need to work with all workers to fight facism step by step, to expose the nature of the bosses’ dictatorship.

Military Families Need to Expose Democrats, Back Rebel GI’s

Amid the current U.S. troop "surge" in Baghdad, members of an anti-war military family’s organization are considering what action to organize. Although they’ve been involved in mass demonstrations and picket lines, before the November 2006 election more time was spent attacking the Republican candidates, and encouraging people to vote Democratic. Since then it’s been mostly lobbying Democratic Party politicians to bring all troops home immediately.

Congressional Democrats have refused to vote to de-fund the war to force a withdrawal. At least one attacked anti-war protestors as "idiots." They won’t even vote for a symbolic de-funding. MoveOn.org, a key pro-Democrat group funded by George Soros and others, is advocating a different kind of "moving on." They’re pushing "clean energy," national health care and "restoration of democracy" as their national agenda, excluding the war completely. The latest Democratic Party scheme attaches the minimum-wage bill onto Bush’s request for more war money. As one politician said recently, "If we’re going to vote to fund the war, he’s going to give us something in return." The Democrats use "pro-worker" rhetoric to hide their actual support for U.S. imperialism in the oil-rich Mid-East.

The Military Commissions Act was passed before the 2006 election. This fascist law gives the President the right to designate any non-citizen an "unlawful enemy combatant," and lock that person up until their trial by a panel of commissioned officers. It abolishes the right to challenge that detention. Many Democratic Senators, including two from our area, voted for it.

Leading up to the election, we took the offensive, linking these laws and the rulers’ need to mobilize the U.S. population to support wars for control of resources under the guise of the "war on terror." Several military family group members, and friends in anti-war groups, responded favorably to these politics. Now a statement advocating these points is being circulated. Our first step will be to call on military family chapters to endorse it.

Meanwhile, the collusion of the Democrats with Bush & Co. has upped the ante within anti-war groups. The national "Occupation Project" has undertaken sit-ins against key Congressional Democrats who have voted to fund the war. Thirteen sit-in’ers were arrested protesting the vote. Demonstrations in support of those arrested also demanded hands off Iran. The cops have invented the novel charge of "failing to disperse from a riot" against the protestors, many of whom are pacifists.

PLP is calling on friends in our military families group and others to expose the imperialist politicians, and back soldiers who resist and rebel. This call has drawn some favorable response. More in-depth discussion with our friends is needed about the key role of soldiers in the fight to overthrow the bosses and their profit wars.

An alliance of workers, students, soldiers and sailors who are revolutionary and class-conscious can defeat the bosses. Our small steps to develop this unity today can lay the basis for bigger advances as larger wars to control oil erupt. Day by day, in these small fights, we’re learning how to create those more significant changes.

National Teachers Strike in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, April 9 — Workers and students participated in strikes and marches nationwide protesting the murder of professor Carlos Fuentealba. A cop hit him in the face with a tear gas canister during a striking teachers’ road-blocking march demanding higher wages in Neuquén province.

In today’s action, bus and subway workers here are stopping work for several hours while teachers strike nationally for higher wages and against police brutality. They’re demanding the resignation of the province’s governor, Sobisch, political opponent of Peronist President Kichner.

Police brutality is not unique to Neuquén. Since "democracy" returned to Argentina, following the brutal military dictatorship of the mid-1970’s and early 1980’s, the number of victims of police murder has been sky-high. Under Kichner’s Presidency, from May 2003, the cops have killed 662 people.

Teachers are paid a miserable wage, particularly insulting in gas- and-oil rich areas like Neuquén, Salta and Santa Cruz, where teachers have struck. In Santa Cruz, Kichner ordered the militarization of the schools.

Capitalist politicians, be they Peronists like Kichner — a friend of Chávez and union hacks — or open right-wingers like Sosbich, are all enemies of the working class. J

Reds Must Win Workers Away from Chávez’s pro-Capitalist Socialism

While Bush toured Latin America, heavily protected and isolated from mass angry protests throughout, Hugo Chávez also toured the region, warmly welcomed by masses of workers and youth. In Buenos Aires, Chavez was cheered by 30,000 people at the Ferro soccer stadium, organized by Argentina’s President Kichner, union hacks and some fake-leftist groups. Millions saw him on TV there. Chávez has become the "anti-Bush," the most admired leader in Latin America since Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara.

But Chávez is not even as radical as Fidel and Ché were during the early stages of the Cuban revolution. While in the early 1960’s the Cuban workers pressured the government to seize imperialist companies like Esso, Shell and IT&T without any compensation, recently Chávez "nationalized" Verizon and a U.S.-owned electrical utility company, paying them the market price of $1.5 billion. These companies and Wall Street welcomed these "nationalizations." Chávez "21st Century Socialism" is not even close to the bourgeois nationalists of the last century like Mexico’s President Cárdenas, who in 1938 nationalized Standard Oil and Shell with minimum compensation.

Chávez’s plan for the oil industry is mixed ownership with such as Shell, Chevron-Texaco and Exxon. These imperialist oil companies now will own 49% of the oil and installations of the fields and wells they were already operating under deals with PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned company. Even though Exxon is not happy with the new deal, "Chevron is expected to accept Mr. Chávez’s terms, since it is also negotiating access to a large natural gas project …" (NY Times, 4/10). Sean Rooney, Shell’s Venezuelan manager, showed his approval of this deal, saying: "Being a partner is very different from just providing services."And of course, this deal will dole out a few crumbs to Venezuela’s working class.

While capitalists’ profits are booming from the rising price of oil, 40% of Venezuelans still live under the poverty line, as does the rest of Latin America. Unemployment is 10.5% (23% among youth). While in 2002, workers’ wages were 33% of the national income, by 2005 they had sunk to 25%. So in spite of some crumbs to workers, under Chávez the gap between workers and bosses has risen.

So why do workers and youth consider Chávez a hero? Partly because of his anti-imperialist rhetoric (mainly against Bush and U.S. bosses; U.S. imperialists also hate his deals with China and other U.S. rivals); and partly because of illusions many have in his "21st Century Socialism" plan, basically the fantasy of "capitalism with a human face."

So how can revolutionary communists show workers that following Chávez and others like him (Bolivia’s Morales and Ecuador’s Correa) won’t liberate them from all forms of capitalism? It’s not easy, but it can be done. In the 1940’s and ’50s, millions of workers in Argentina thought General Juan Perón was their savior. The leading wing of the Argentine bourgeoisie did not like the crumbs he gave to workers and U.S. imperialism also disliked him because he flirted with the Nazis during World War II. After a 1955 military coup overthrew Peron, ‘union leaders’ main demand was for his return to power. But rank-and-file workers fought for their own class interests. Mass uprising erupted nation-wide, particularly in industrial cities like Cordoba, center of Argentina’s auto industry. So in 1973, the bosses brought him back to try to cool down the class struggle.

Perón immediately attacked the workers who had fought for his return. When he died, his widow Isabel became President and formed the AAA (Argentinian Anti-Communist Alliance) which organized death squads against militant workers and youth. This opened the doors for the 1975 military coup, which led to the "dirty war," slaughtering 30,000 workers and youth.

Communists must be involved in the workers’ mass movement, even those supporting Chávez and others like him. But our involvement is not to cheer his fake anti-capitalism, but to expose him, while participating in the workers’ daily struggles against their bosses (as is happening in Venezuela and elsewhere). That’s how we can forge real red leadership to fight for a worker-led society with no bosses: communism.J

PLP Helped Blast Fascist Minutemen

NEW YORK, NY, April 9 — Over a hundred people protested the racist Chris Simcox, co-founder and leader of the anti-immigrant Minutemen, today in front of NYU’s Kimmel Center. While the demonstration was originally contained by police barricades off to the side of the building, things changed when the PLP contingent arrived. Chanting "Smash racist deportations, working people have no nation!" we began to picket in front of the main entrance. The police were unprepared for this level of militancy and we were able to partially block the entrance for over an hour. This meant that the Minutemen’s event started over half-an-hour late. Inside, students from NYU booed and heckled Simcox, inhibiting him from starting his speech for over 15 minutes. J

Black-Latino Unity Can Thwart Racist Immigration Reformers

LOS ANGELES, April 7 — A multi-racial group from PLP joined the immigrants’ rights march here today putting forward our communist ideas in this large coalition event. While March leaders said immigrants "should love the U.S.," marchers eagerly took 300 CHALLENGES and 2,000 leaflets calling for unity of black, Latino and all workers against the bosses’ racist attacks and widening imperialist war. Some people joined our contingent with its red flags and class-conscious chants like, "La clase obrera no tiene fronteras" ("The working class has no borders").

This event followed a March 25 pro-immigration reform activity at the Sports Arena by a coalition of various churches and the Democratic Party. A group of workers chanting "Workers’ Struggles have no borders!" while marching to the Arena were greeted at the entrance, along with hundreds of other workers and students, by PLP members distributing leaflets and CHALLENGES exposing the racist, patriotic and pro-war nature of the bosses’ immigration "reform." That same day PLP leaflets, CHALLENGES and chants for multi-racial unity flooded an immigrants’ rights demonstration at the Federal Building and a demonstration against the Minutemen who were trying to spread their racist filth on Broadway.

The Arena meeting was opened with prayers and religious songs led by rabbis, pastors, imams and Catholic priests. Then came the "heavy artillery" of politicians like U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, co-author of the Gutierrez-Flake proposition; LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Fabian Nuñez, majority leader of the California Assembly; and countless other state senators (black, white, Latin and Asian) who, after congratulating one another, put forward "patriotism and American values" as the "American dream" of millions of immigrant workers.

They ignored the war in Iraq and the U.S. bosses’ need to control Middle-Eastern oil and the stiff competition these bosses face from their imperialist rivals in China, Russia and the European Union. All this will require millions of workers slaving in the bosses’ war industries and millions of soldiers fighting and dying in ever-widening wars.

All their hypocritical embracing of immigrants aimed to make them feel grateful and patriotic, to be willing to fill the bosses’ imperialist needs. Grateful? The bosses’ capitalist system created the horrific conditions of hunger, oppression and death that forced them to leave their families in order to survive.

As desperate immigrants flooded the U.S., the bosses closed factories, cut union jobs for many black and white workers and then hired immigrant workers in low-paying jobs in the economy’s industrial and service sectors. They then pushed racist lies, telling black workers immigrants "stole their jobs," while telling immigrant workers that black workers are "too lazy" to work, pitting slave against slave.

The rulers also flooded black neighborhoods with drugs and the gangs and violence the drug traffic requires, giving the rulers the excuse to imprison masses of black workers and youth. The bosses push this poison because they fear the explosive unity of two of the most oppressed and exploited sections of the working class.

Although the forces leading the immigration "reform" movement serve U.S. imperialists’ needs, PLP’ers enter these organizations to advocate anti-racism, internationalism and communist ideas as the basis of unity of workers, students and soldiers of all ethnic groups. This will enable PLP to lead millions in a communist revolution that will forever smash capitalism, its wars, borders, racism and wage slavery.J

Church Forum Stresses United Immigrant-Citizen Struggle

BROOKLYN, NY — "The U.S. is a country of immigrants." How many times have we all heard that phrase? The bosses’ need for immigrants and why immigrants have always been under attack was the topic at a recent forum sponsored by a social action group of a local church here.

The chapel was full. Members and friends of PL in this church are spreading pro-working class, anti-racist and communist ideas.

The first speaker laid out some of the history of immigration in the U.S. and how immigrants have always been used as cheap labor and as soldiers to fight in their wars. He discussed the struggles of immigrants and "citizens" in the 1870’s and 1880’s, and how they built unions and fights against the attacks by the industrial barons. Although these labor struggles had a limited focus and did not call for revolution, there were always socialists and revolutionaries fighting for anti-racist ideas and a better world run by the working class.

Another speaker described how people are fighting back all over the U.S. against the attacks on undocumented immigrants and how even churches were beginning to understand the need for struggle. She also talked of a growing call within churches for a sanctuary movement for undocumented immigrants, and the idea that people from the U.S. and Mexico should have a demonstration across the border to embrace and shake hands because the working class of both sides are the same.

After the speakers, one teacher wanted to know if there are any actions or events he could invite his students to attend. A number of people talked about the campaigns to create even more racism against immigrants. One case in point: a talk radio station in New Jersey has a host who calls undocumented immigrants cockroaches and pushes the idea of people turning in their neighbors. Several people suggested holding a picket line outside this station and boycotting the sponsors of the programs.

To communists, organizing a mass fight-back against these racist attacks is vital. More importantly, we must fight to win workers to communism. Some people in the hall wore a button that read "workers have no borders". We need to smash the borders created by the bosses. It’s important that we point out how much the wealth and power of the rulers of the U.S. (or any industrialized nation) is based on constant sources of cheap labor and how they try to keep up the illusion that workers across borders should be divided. Only a working class armed with communist ideas can end the plight of immigrants and all workers around the world.J

LETTERS

PL’er Carries Red Politics Job to Job

I’m an industrial worker who has participated in many class struggles, including two very militant strikes at the Croydon plant here in Colombia. The reformist hacks betrayed our struggles, enabling the bosses to shut the plant without paying workers any severance.

Alter two years being unemployed, I started working at Empacor, a paper processing export company with 400 workers. The plant operates seven days a week, eight to twelve hours a day. Workers are totally alienated and oppressed by the bosses.

Making friends with whom I had ideological struggles, I made communist politics primary in explaining our exploitation. Workers listened and began reading DESAFIO. Some bosses’ stooges saw me as a bit different from other workers and squealed. I was fired.

Now I’m a watchman of machinery used to pave and open highways. We work outdoors without any protection from the weather and no place to take care of physical needs. It’s very dangerous since any thief can shoot or kill us. There are more and more people like me, working without any real social benefits. Thousands of workers earning miserable wages clean these highways of stuff drivers throw away. But now the government wants to take away even these miserable jobs and contract them out to multi-national cleaning companies.

These experiences have just strengthened my desire to fight for a world without bosses, to fight for PLP’s communist politics. It won’t be easy, but with patience and perseverance we are building our international party to fight for political power and defeat the bosses’ fascist dictatorship with the dictatorship of the working class.

A PLP’er, Colombia

Seek Multi-Racial Unity Over Stabbing

It’s a big challenge to teach at our school, but the students’ political potential is great. Little by little we’re winning some students to the left.

Almost one year ago to the day, our students had to face riot police at school after walking out against HR 4437 (an anti-immigrant bill). From that struggle, two ex-students are now taking a more active role in the Party. They haven’t joined yet, but they’ve attended every study group since and have stood up for communist ideas in their classes. Another student and some of his friends are now leading a school club that began last year. Some are interested in joining the study group.

Although there’s progress, winning these students to communism means engaging in struggles against the fascist nature of capitalism. For example, recently a student was stabbed to death on our school campus. Needless to say, this was a very tragic incident; students and teachers were horrified. But as usual, the bosses used the tragedy to bring even more fascism down on our heads. The media portrayed it as a "racially motivated" killing. The truth is the two students were from rival gangs (many different gangs exist around this school). Soon afterwards we realized why the bosses’ media pushed that idea: the mayor wants more cops on the streets, for a 10,000 total.

Within our school, they want metal detectors, uniforms, more security guards and school police. The administration pushed aside students who wished to create a memorial for the slain student. These bosses’ agents feared "violent repercussions." Unfortunately the students then went to some very nationalist teachers who viewed it as a "Latino struggle" as opposed to a multi-racial one against fascism. Others have stood up for multi-racial unity. The school club wants to confront these nationalist ideas in the continuing struggle to show we are all one working class.

Red Teacher

‘Fair Wage’ Impossible Under Profit System

A recent conversation with a fellow worker revolved around society and particularly our salary being very unfavorable to the workers, as well as the horrible conditions faced under capitalism. I explained the need for workers to be organized and to fight for communist revolution.

I told him up front that we must eliminate wages but I failed to note that in a capitalist economy workers’ labor is a commodity, like all other products. We workers sell our labor for far less than it’s worth. In a society based on profit, there’s a price on all commodities. Bosses profit off our labor while paying us a pittance. But we need to get past the idea of fighting for a "fair wage" (what the unions say they want) to get to the point of fighting for a system without money and wages.

It’s difficult for many workers to conceive of a society based on distribution according to need, and without money, and it’s tough to explain, especially because it’s never been put into practice and we can’t describe exactly how it would work.

However, it’s an important first step to explain Marx’s analysis of surplus value, that workers work only part of the day to produce enough to pay for their subsistence and the rest goes to the boss. That explains why workers can never make a fair wage under the profit system.

It’s essential to have such discussions, to win workers away from illusions about capitalism, on the road to winning them to the necessity of fighting for communist revolution and to abolish the wage system once and for all.

Red Ironworker

Mexico Vies With China For Lowest Wages

Mexico’s rulers have found an "answer" to competition from China in the cheap labor-cost field: still lower wages. A report by Huberto Juárez, of the School of Economics of the Autonomous Univ. of Puebla (reported in La Jornada, 4/7) shows auto parts, electronics and home appliances maquiladoras (assembly plants for exports) have returned to Mexico, but away from the traditional border states to even lower-wage areas in Southern Mexico. Huge international corporations like Delphi and Yazaki are profiting from this.

Boss-controlled union hacks, along with cooperative local governments have helped keep wages down. The companies have not only moved south from Ciudad Juárez (across from El Paso) — the center of the maquiladoras — but also from big cities to small towns and rural areas to get cheaper labor. Since 2002, wages have declined in these industries and are now below the already low national minimum wage.

This again emphasizes the importance of building an international red-led workers’ movement. With such a massive movement, workers could fight multi-national companies from Detroit to Cadiz, Spain (Delphi is closing operations in both areas) to anywhere in the world where they move searching for cheaper labor. In the heat of these struggles, we can win workers worldwide to the communist idea of smashing wage slavery, which means fighting for a communist society where production serves the needs of our class instead of a few bosses.

An Internationalist Worker

Boss ‘Abuse" Cry Over ‘Sick-out’ Spurs Repeat

Recently, at a public institution where I work, the cleaners have been overworked due to severe short-staffing. While the workers complained, this didn’t stop management from heaping on the work. Needing a concrete plan to fight the bosses, we decided to collectively call in sick one day. Naturally, the head boss didn’t take kindly to this job action and screamed about our "abuse" of sick leave, so we did it again.

The action was truly one of class struggle, but no amount of job actions will change the nature of capitalism! The bosses worldwide are in such fierce competition that they must cut budgets everywhere and stick the burden on the working class, either through increased unemployment or intense speed-up. Our long-term strategy should be to fight for communism, even as we wage daily war on the bosses. While we haven’t won yet, we know the future looks red!

A Red Worker

Mali Worker Pans ‘Bamako’

[Here are some quick comments on the Bamako movie from a friend from Mali.]

Yeah, I saw the movie in Bamako. My objection at the time was that the theme was too abstract. I was expecting to see evidence exposing the IMF/World Bank and other donor countries woven into daily live stories of the actors. For example, how does an ordinary person feel the effect of the structural adjustment policy? [privatization and drastic cuts in social projects] Did it result in family dislocation (immigration for example) or poorer nutrition for the kids?

A Washington, D.C. Comrade

Johnstown, PA Protests the War

JOHNSTOWN, PA., March 18 — This city is widely known for the 1889 flood, caused by a dam bursting on hunting and fishing club property owned by robber baron Andrew Carnegie, drowning over 2,000 people. But in the last several years it has been the site of a series of anti-war demonstrations by local residents.

On this 4th anniversary of the start of the U.S. imperialist war in Iraq, people held a spirited protest near a Wal-Mart store, carrying signs reading: "Out of Iraq!"; "Stop the War on All Workers!"; "This War Is Wrong!"; "Impeach Bush" and other anti-war sentiments.

The Citizens for Social Responsibility (CSR) organized the action. It has been holding weekly protests against the war since January 2003, two of them at the office of Rep. John Murtha, who "represents" the district.

The initial activities of the CSR, formed in 1987, protested U.S. aid to the terrorist Contras who were waging war against the nationalist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua; then against the first Gulf War in 1991, as well as demonstrating against Bush and Cheney campaign stops here in 2004 (at which CHALLENGE was distributed).

Professor Jim Scofield, a CSR founder, said the group will continue its weekly protests until U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq. Forty residents had demonstrated last year on the war’s third anniversary. He said the group had been receiving more support than occurred during Gulf War I. Although the CSR is a reform organization, some of its members are regular CHALLENGE readers and the paper was distributed at today’s event.

While the real solution to this imperialist war is to destroy its source, capitalism, through communist revolution, it’s a positive development that people in Johnstown — once a thriving steel town, but now an economically depressed area — are out on the streets publicly voicing their opposition to this imperialist war. This opens the door to spreading anti-imperialist and communist ideas by local PLP members.

French Bosses Answer to Youth Rebellion: ‘Draft ‘em!’

PARIS, FRANCE, March 16 — Just like some U.S. liberal politicians want to impose "national service" to sneak in a military draft, French bosses are planning to prepare for the wider wars growing from sharpening imperialist rivalry. Both U.S. and French bosses face a big problem — motivating people to make the sacrifices war requires. That’s what’s behind the "obligatory civic service" issue in the presidential election campaign here.

The Catholic weekly magazine "La Vie" launched this idea in late 2005 in an appeal signed by 500 parliament members, many "personalities" and 30 associations. This initiative’s leaders are Max Armanet, former "La Vie" editorial director, and Pierre Morel, former French ambassador to China, and later to the Vatican.

(It should be noted that during the 2005 uprising in the working-class housing projects, French president Jacques Chirac promised voluntary civic service with places for 50,000 young people. However, by December 2006 there were only 6,000 places, and only 2,500 youth had volunteered. The "defense second chance" program, supposedly to "straighten out" errant youth through military service, had only enrolled 1,000. Armanet and Morel have just revived a moribund idea.)

Armanet and Morel defended their idea in "Le Monde" (3/15). Political and social crises, they say, have marked the past five years, including the Nov. 2005, uprising and the mass protests against the worsening of working conditions for youth in the proposed "CPE" contract (voiding job protection).

They propose to "solve" this "lack of civic spirit" with obligatory civic service, responding to the widespread feeling that French society is split by a "social fracture" that needs to be healed, as Chirac promised to do during the 2002 presidential election campaign.

Yes, society is divided into two antagonistic classes, the bosses who own and control the means of production, and the workers who own only their labor power. To maintain itself in power, the ruling class nurtures racism and sexism to divide the working class.

But many don’t yet see this. They vaguely feel something’s rotten in French society, and bosses’ servants like Armanet and Morel have a miraculous snake oil to sell — a mixture of nationalism and mysticism, a call for a "moral revolution." These are exactly the ingredients of fascism in the first half of the 20th century.

In "Le Monde," Armanet and Morel say civic service "is the collective realization of solidarity in a society that is threatening to break up, it is a work of integration that draws not only upon youth but also upon the whole of society in a moral renewal,…taking up the transmission of values that is the duty of each generation."

They cite a March 2006 poll showing that 90% of France generally, and 86% of young people, favor some form of civic service. It’s not surprising that people generally, particularly young people, want to help capitalism’s outcasts — "the elderly, the isolated, the illiterate, the marginalized, and the handicapped." It’s also not surprising that, with a 22% youth unemployment rate (not counting two-thirds of those aged 15-24, who are students), young people want to do something constructive with their lives.

Communists certainly favor working-class solidarity — mutual aid among all workers, who form society’s overwhelming majority and produce all value. But Armanet and Morel want to channel this desire into a fascist system to keep the bosses in power.

In a March Internet forum, Armanet offered "carrots" to win youth to obligatory civic service: a driver’s license, job skills and state payments into a retirement scheme. Government jobs would require previous civic service. Youth would get 350 euros a month pocket money.

When one young person complained this was far below the poverty level, Armanet answered that young people shouldn’t demand any pay, that self-sacrifice is necessary to create a spirit of brotherhood and to provide a "rite of passage" to adulthood.

Armanet’s and Morel’s ideas are dangerous because all the major presidential candidates are committed to implementing civic service. (Next: the candidates’ fascist programs.)

REDEYE On The News

Army double-crosses Iraq vets

The individual stories are hard to bear. Soldiers denied disability pay because Army doctors say they’re not wounded, they’re retarded; soldiers denied benefits because their heart attacks are ruled "pre-existing conditions"; soldiers suffering post-traumatic stress disorder being assessed as merely neurotic.

"They started asking me questions about my mom and my dad getting divorced," one soldier told Salon. "That was the last thing on my mind when I’m thinking about people getting fragged and burned bodies being pulled out of vehicles. They asked me if I missed my wife. Well, (bleep) yeah, I miss my wife. That is not the (beeping) problem here. Did you ever put your foot through a 5-year-old’s skull?"

Every last one of these soldiers, remember, volunteered . . .(Arkansas Demorcrat-Gazette, 3/11)

Cops do big snoop on activists

Undercover New York police officers spent more than a year spying on would-be protesters ahead of the 2004 Republican national convention, monitoring church groups and street theatre troupes that had no intention of breaking the law, it was reported last week.

The scope of the inquiry, long suspected by activists, saw officers infiltrating groups opposed to George Bush, or monitoring their activities in web chatrooms, and filing daily reports on their activities, the New York Times reported.

….[T]he investigation quickly spiraled into surveillance of enviromentalists, anti-war groups and even three local elected officials.(GW, 4/5)

Afghan Taliban back, and worse

"Nowadays in Helmand Province the Taliban is winning," said Haji Mir Wali, a member of [the Afghan] Parliament from the southern province of Helmand. "Ninety percent of the area is under the control of the Taliban, and they are imposing their strict rule again."

Outside of the provincial capital, he said, shops in Helmand don’t dare sell music, men who trim their beards are threatened with death, and schools have closed for boys as well as girls. "It’s worse now than it was in the Taliban’s time." he said. (NYT, 4/1)

U.S. pullout? Over CEO dead bodies

What would happen in Iraq if American troops suddenly withdrew tomorrow . . .?

The real chaos would break out in America. Stocks in Haliburton, Lockheed, General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, and other defense firms would plummet, with layoffs in the millions.

Silicon Valley would panic . . . .

If an Iraqi pullout occurred tomorrow, you’d have to dodge CEOs leaping off tall buildings. . . .

And then there’s the oil, you know. (Pythian Press, 3/21)

Desertions up: Troops ‘worn out’

Army prosecutions of desertion and other unauthorized absences have risen sharply in the last four years, resulting in thousands more negative discharges and prison time . . . Using courts-martial for these violations, which before 2002 were treated mostly as unpunished nuisances, is a sign that active-duty forces are being stretched to their limits, military lawyers and mental health experts said.

"They are scraping to get people to go back, and people are worn out . . ." (NYT, 4/9)

Young Black and Latin men ‘pipeline to prison’

"[For] young men of color, American society has created a "pipeline" to prison.

"We expel them from school now at the droop of a hat through zero tolerance programs . . . When they have substance abuse problems or other types of challenges, from the standpoint of behavior and mental health, they go to jail instead of treatment. We’re warehousing our young people in jails where they learn to be criminals."

Minorities’ high school graduation and college-going levels are abysmally low. Imprisonment of blacks and Hispanics is a major factor in America’s shift from 204,000 prison inmates in 1973 to a world-leading 2.2 million in 2003. (Washington Post, 3/18)

Did US provoke Iran on Brits?

In January President George Bush sent a second carrier battle group to the Gulf region; over the past few weeks this has been [sic] conducting exercises close to Iranian territorial waters. US Patriot missiles are now also in place close to Iran. Also in January, US-Iraqi forces seized six Iranians, described by Iran as diplomats but by the US as member of the Revolutionary Guards Quds brigade. They still have not been freed….

The capture of the 15 British naval personnel has to be seen in this context. In Britain the capture is widely seen as a provocation. But when it is placed side by side with the US actions against Iran this year, the question is: who is provoking whom? (GW 4/12)

Is that a threat or a promise?

….The Iraqis are being warned that American patience may run out. They should be so lucky. (NYT, 3/22)

PL’ers Helped Defeat Nationalist Splitters in SDS

SDS — Part V

The PLP and WSA (Worker-Student Alliance) contingent had come to the Convention proposing a multi-pronged fight against racism. Entitled "Less Talk-More Action-Fight Racism!" it called for intensifying the fight against university complicity with the Vietnam War and broadening it to include campaigns against racist courses and racist university expansion into working class-communities. The proposal also called for allying with campus workers.

Key to its practical program was the political analysis that racism is a class question. PLP vigorously argued that workers of all backgrounds and nationalities have common interests and enemies, and that therefore the all-class unity promoted by nationalism undermines anti-racist struggle. These were the principles PLP and the Worker-Student Alliance hoped to debate during workshop time at the 1969 SDS Convention.

As noted previously, the SDS "national collective" had managed to block workshops. The debate about the fight against racism would now move to a plenary session. Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) speakers offered no program, defended no practice, proposed no self-criticism. Their main approach, represented by Mike Klonsky, was to bait PLP for "not believing in the self-determination of oppressed peoples." PLP countered with examples of PLP-WSA practice and struggle in anti-racist campaigns on many campuses and by offering points from the "Less Talk-More Action" proposal as suggestions for moving forward.

Many had come to the Convention with no particular ideological commitment, either to RYM or the WSA. They wanted leadership that would advance the fight against the war and racism. By the end of the racism panel, it had become clear that the "national collective" at best provided no leadership at all or, worse yet, acted against workers’ interests, as it had at Columbia, by blocking the anti-expansion fight in favor of reactionary "student power" demands.

By the Convention’s second day, the "national collective" was getting wobbly; its leaders began squabbling among themselves.

In an ultimate act of racist opportunism, they used the Black Panther Party (BPP) to bail them out. The BPP was a complex phenomenon. PLP supported its militancy and courage. PLP also unequivocally opposed the racist attacks, including murder, which the bosses, the cops and the FBI had launched against Panthers. But the BPP made two deadly errors, which had to be criticized. They supported nationalism, which had proved deadly to working-class movements. They also engaged in suicidal adventurism, rejecting a base-building approach to mass organizing. PLP made its position clear on these questions, adding that the best way to oppose racist attacks on the Panthers was to organize growing, militant struggles against racism, outlined in its "Less Talk-More Action" proposal.

RYM leaders wanted no frank, honest debate. Instead, they called on Panther officials, who then addressed the Convention again, with an "urgent message." It lasted nearly an hour and attacked PLP, including threats. It also included a disgusting pro-capitalist reference to women, that "their position in the movement is prone," which appalled the Convention. Essentially, Klonsky, Dohrn, & Co. were using the BPP as a shield for their own opportunism and political bankruptcy.

Backed by a well-prepared — and necessary — security squad, the PLP student organizer took the mike to explain PL’s position on issues, including "community control" of police, nationalism, imperialism and, most importantly, the way forward for struggle against the rulers. He attacked RYM leaders’ gross opportunism, asserting that their politics had been defeated.

Someone suggested resuming the discussion about how to fight racism. Bernadine Dohrn took the podium. Refusing to answer PLP’s arguments or discuss the fight against racism, she declared: "It’s clear we can’t work in the same group as an organization that hates the Black Panthers and opposes self-determination." Amidst a thunderous chant of "NO SPLIT, NO SPLIT" from most of the room, Dohrn, Klonsky, & Co. led about one-third of the plenary into an adjoining room.

While RYM met in closed session, whipping up support for the idea of ousting PLP, the Convention continued, finally holding workshops and discussing "Less Talk-More Action," as well as the war and the fight against male chauvinism.

Finally, RYM returned. Dohrn launched into a lengthy, incoherent diatribe culminating with the announcement that PLP and its supporters were "expelled" from SDS. The absurdity of this performance turned initial intimidation into its opposite. People began laughing at her. No more than one-third of the room walked out with her. RYM’s ploy had fallen flat.

The next day, the Convention continued in the Coliseum, passing resolutions about fighting racism and male chauvinism, as well as a statement on the walkout and a pledge to continue sharpening on-campus struggle. RYM, meeting in a church under tightly-controlled security, passed no on-campus programs at all. Its first major post-walkout achievement was a faction fight that quickly turned the SDS split into yet another split, this time between one group that allied with the Chinese "Communist" Party that was then hopping into bed with racist murderer Nixon, and another, that would soon become the petty terrorist "Weathermen."

Objectively, the splitting of SDS sabotaged the movement against imperialist war and racism. Consciously or otherwise, the RYM factionalists were helping the U.S. ruling class. But the struggle against the war and racism had to continue. The fall term of the 1969-70 school year would challenge PLP, the WSA and the remainder of SDS to advance under increasing political hardship.

(Next: The November 1969 anti-war demonstration in Washington and the Campus Worker-Student Alliance.)

The ABC’s of Wages, Poverty and Class Consciousness

The battle to keep an understanding of class society fresh in our minds is constant. Ideas that hide it continually bombard us, with name tags like sexism, racism, nationalism and so on. I teach Economics in an inner-city high school. My students are mainly black; a couple have parents who are Mexican immigrants. There is some shared experience among them, but the trend is to say, "Your Blues ain’t like mine." The danger lies in taking the next step: "My Blues are caused by you!"

Recently we looked at the wage system, showing how our idea of a "good" or "bad" wage centered on what it takes to feed, house and clothe a family of four. The Living Wage movement provides us with lots of stats. We also compared the connection between the average factory wage and the official poverty line.

Discovering that most wages (and salaries too) showed a real connection to the poverty line enabled us to show how the wage system actually creates a common interest among wage and salary workers. We are all connected to the official poverty line. We relate our "comfort" or "security" in economic terms to how far above that poverty line our wage or salary places us. In short the poverty line is the benchmark. The wage system unites us as dependent on our wages to survive and simultaneously divides us by making some kinds of work "more worthy" of higher pay. It makes us a class and dulls our awareness of "class."

Next we discussed the U.S. ruling class’s decisions in the 1980’s to lower the working class’s standard of living. If we were running a capitalist state, we asked, how best could we lower the wages of most workers?

Lowering the wage of the lowest-paid worker, it turns out, sets off a chain reaction throughout the whole wage system. We created a model. Imagine a group of workers so desperate for any type of work they would work for less than $7.50 per hour. Over time they would replace the $7.50-per-hour group who would now find themselves jobless and desperate. Over time they would replace the $10-an-hour group since (having worked for $7.50/hr) they would be willing to work for less than $10/hour,and so on. (Of course, there are counter-vailing forces, like skill level, but in general the chain reaction works.)

Having established how lowering the lowest wage becomes an extremely efficient way of lowering the whole working class’s standard of living, we began to catalogue the different policies introduced. "End Welfare as we know it" attacked all workers, white, black and Latino. "Retire retirement," the weakening of pensions and benefits forces more and more retirees to supplement their incomes by flipping burgers. "Mass incarceration" ousts mainly black and Latino young men/fathers from being wage-earners, forcing single mothers into a desperate search for family survival. Prison labor itself directly robs communities of jobs. Finally, mass immigration, workers fleeing imperialist-caused starvation and death squads, adds more desperate workers to the mix.

Then we stood back and again took the ruling class’s view. De-valuing the whole wage/salary system is a risky business. It can build class consciousness, an angry one at that. What would they do? Play the race card, we concluded, play the sexist card, play the nationalist card. Citizen against immigrant; black against white; anything to tear down the growth of class consciousness. "We will not be divided by class," George Bush, Sr. said when President and Clinton followed him by "Ending Welfare as we know it."

"They are playing us," one student summed it up when the class ended.

‘300’ Movie Uses Ancient Past to Promote Future Wars

The distinction between movie fiction and the ugly reality of the War in Iraq blurs in the box-office hit film 300. While the film may be set in the ancient past, Hollywood has released the film in the year 2007 on purpose. The action scenes have drawn millions to the theaters by employing the latest in computer-generated special effects. Yet the political effects of the film are the ones CHALLENGE readers must be on the lookout for. The ideas that the ruling class hopes the film will teach workers are:

Loyalty, bravery and honor are best fostered in a fully militarized society.
White soldiers fighting for the rule of law, order and democracy ought to be proud to slaughter thousands of Middle Eastern fighters.
War is impossible for a society to win when only a fraction of its citizens support the effort.
The role of women is to support men in times of war (both men and women are sexually objectified by the film).
When you are defeated with a smaller number of troops the solution is to send more the next time (this point is particularly useful for the Democrats’ war plans).

The main racist theme of the movie is that the evil "Persians"(now Iran) are the enemies of the Greek good guys. With U.S. rulers weighing plans for future wars, it is no wonder the release of 300 was met with protests in Iran. The main Iranian national newspaper ran the headline "300 versus 70 million" in a reference to the population of Iran today.

While the Iranian newspapers ultimately serve Iranian bosses, U.S. workers could learn from the awareness of Iranian workers in this particular case. We ought to express outrage whenever the bosses produce such racist pro-war culture. Even if the next invasion is five years off, box-office hits like 300 leave a lasting impression as they are recycled through cable TV and on DVD.

It is important to be aware of this film, but this reviewer is hard pressed to suggest that any reader of CHALLENGE actually pay money and sit through it in a theater. The sex is weird, the violence is overdone and that is on top of the horrible politics we can expect from any contemporary Hollywood film on the Middle East.

Readers interested in seeing a heroic battle from the Greco-Roman world would do much better to rent or buy a copy of the classic film Spartacus, which tells the story of a massive slave uprising that shook the Roman Empire to its foundations in 100 AD. Ultimately however, the only solution is to create our own movies and culture through workers’ powerJ

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, April 11, 2007

Information: 11 April 2007 127 hits

Fighting Racism, Imperialism . . . Industrial Workers are the key
1. Racism, the Imperialists' Tool
Black and White Shipbuilders:
SHUT DOWN RACIST WARMAKER,
OBAMA & CO.: MASTERS OF DECEIT
1. NEXT, STINT AS COMMUNITY
  MISLEADER
2. JFK'S IMPERIALIST LIAR-IN-CHIEF SEES PROMISE IN OBAMA
3. OBAMA'S REAL `WAR RECORD'
Class Struggle Rocking Europe
1. LABOR STRUGGLES SWEEPING FRANCE
Students, Teachers Beat Attack on New Orleans Volunteers
Students Meet CIA Recruiters HEAD ON
Black, Latino, White Workers,Youth March vs. Racist Police Terror
U.S. Exploiters Can Always Top Themselves
PL'ers to Anti-War Marchers: `It's Not Just Bush, It's Capitalism!'
D.C.:Vets-Workers Unity A Must
NYC: Youth Lead, Link
Racist Terror At Home, Abroad
L.A.: `Iraq, Oaxaca, New Orleans;
Smash Racist War Machine!'
Bosses' Crisis Leading to Cal Faculty Strike
30,000 Healthcare Workers Reject War Cuts
Immigrant Workers Back Northrop, Airbus Strikers
Russia, Romania: Strikers Challenge Ford, Renault
Renault Workers Win in Romania
Chiquita Banana Gets Slap on Wrist for Funding Death Squads
`I was a racketeer for capitalism...'
LETTERS
1. Paraguay's Lugo Shows His True Colors. . . .
  and They're Not Red
2. Colombia: Bush Visit Brings More Murders
  and Arrests
3. Murder of Politicians A Fight Among
  Drug Dealers
4. Hospital Workers Spread PL Flyer
5. Film Raps Mali Capitalism-- But Offers No Solution
6. How Will Communism Improve Workers' Lives?
7. Ex-Sailor Backs Shipyard Strikers
REDEYE
1. Democracy fails the Stalin test
2. Lula enslaves migrants
3. Latin America: Rage vs. US trade deals
4. 50% unemployment destroys black
  communities
5. Oil $$$ don't help Angola's workers
6. US military aims at Africa oil
7. Russia to defy West, not terror
PL Worker-Student Alliance Trumps SDS Right-wingers
SDS: PART V
MARK RUDD: FBI's Little Helper
Speculators Profit, Workers Pay the Bill
Mortgage Collapse Spreading. . .
CAL Teachers Oppose Imperialist Wars, Build Unity of Workers and Soldiers

Fighting Racism, Imperialism . . . Industrial Workers are the key

"There is no black and white here, just brothers and sisters." So said the Northup Grumman shipyard strikers (see adjoining article) who welcomed young students to Pascagoula, Miss. This multi-racial class outlook is essential to answering the escalating racist attacks on the working class.

From the 7,000 striking shipbuilders in Pascagoula to the 40,000 European Airbus workers that have struck to save 10,000 jobs, these attacks stem from the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry that is leading to wider wars. No workers will be spared. From Germany to the Gulf, from Paris to Pascagoula, the international working class faces the same enemy, same fight. The only answer to imperialism's endless attacks and wars is communist revolution.

Today, fast-charging emerging imperialist competitors are building their war industries. The Chinese government plans to build large commercial jets by 2020. They're testing a regional jet (70-105 passengers). Airbus is building an assembly plant in Yanliang and the Chinese are partners in the European global positioning satellite (GPS) project, Galileo. In January, they completed development of their Jian-10 advanced fighter jet, aircraft engines and air-to-air missiles "soaring to the top levels of aerospace defense technology." (Associated Press, 1/05)

Russia consolidated its aerospace industry under state control last year, and made its own fighter-jet alliance with Italy and France. Airbus gave them a 5% stake in the new A350 passenger jet. Everybody is beating a path to the Russian aerospace engineering centers -- considered among the world's best. "The most influential man in global commercial-aviation said that Boeing and Airbus should expect serious competition to emerge from China and Russia [in the next decade]." (Seattle Times, 3/14)

On another front, China wants to build a blue-water Navy to defend their worldwide oil sources. Their commercial shipbuilding advances make their plans credible. China is now the number two or three commercial shipbuilder, depending on who's doing the counting, and may soon become number one. The U.S. isn't even in the running.

As the rising imperialists flex their muscles, all bosses must wring every last cent out of the working class to compete. U.S. bosses have launched a full assault, especially on the industrial working class, in their bid to remain top dog. These attacks spell fascism, and will finance bigger wars on the horizon.

Racism, the Imperialists' Tool

Racism is the cutting edge of all these attacks. Boeing sent 10,000 jobs to low-cost subcontractors employing mostly Latino immigrant workers in Southern California and Texas. Maine's Bath Works, Pascagoula shipyards' main competitor, pays near $30/hour. In Pascagoula, ravaged by racism, workers receive about $18. In New Orleans, shipyards have replaced the super-exploited black workers -- and white workers -- with Latino "guest workers" at $8/hour. A similar pattern must be developing as Airbus and VW cut tens of thousands of jobs across Europe.

No union leader on either side of the Atlantic will fight for anti-racist, anti-imperialist internationalism. Ultimately they all fight for their bosses. Witness the spectacle of the U.S. auto industry as the UAW arranges for the destruction of over 70,000 union jobs to save Ford and GM. As Lenin noted during World War I, when war approaches these "International" union bosses run to the tents of their masters.

No serious resistance can be mounted until workers consciously fight racism and begin to embrace communist ideas as their own. No matter how militant the struggle for economic gains, workers worldwide will remain chained to their exploiters unless we unite super-exploited black, Latin, Asian and white workers in the U.S., Arab, Turkish, African and white workers across Europe, to lead the whole industrial working class. This fight against racism applies to Asia, Africa and Latin America as well.

We must organize support for the Northrop Grumman and Airbus strikers among all workers, students and soldiers (see page 1). Raising money for food, letters, petitions, resolutions and demonstrations of strike support around our anti-racist, communist politics are the order of the day. The current anti-war movement is aimed at one or another presidential candidate in 2008. But PLP relies on the industrial working class to lead the struggle against racism and imperialist war. Stepping forward in this moment of class struggle can help build our revolutionary forces in key places to end this imperialist nightmare with communist revolution.

Black and White Shipbuilders:
SHUT DOWN RACIST WARMAKER,

PASCAGOULA, MS March 25 -- "We're on strike for the younger workers and their families," was how a few strikers at the Ingalls shipyard explained their fight against Northrop Grumman, which owns the giant yard. Almost 7,000 workers, black and white, men and women, have been on strike since March 8 against the largest employer in Mississippi.

This strike has been billed as the first "post-Katrina strike," in that housing and other costs have doubled in this area, which was devastated by the hurricane. A gallon of milk costs over $4.00. The wages at the shipyards in the Deep South are about half of those at the Bath shipyard in Maine, largely due to the intense racism in the South. This shows how racism is used to attack ALL workers. Workers on the picket line reject this racism saying, "Ain't no black and white on this line, just brothers and sisters!"

To underline the point, many displaced shipbuilders in New Orleans, black workers who were scattered around the country, have been replaced by Latino immigrant "guest workers" for as little as $8.00 an hour! These workers live in small trailers, 8 -10 workers to a trailer, in fenced-off trailer parks in the middle of nowhere. New workers are rotated in every several months as "old" workers are sent home. There have been several protests, especially after one worker was killed, and attempts at unity between guest workers and black workers.

This strike, like Airbus strikers in Europe who are fighting the layoffs of 10,000 aerospace workers, striking auto workers in Belgium, France, Russia and Romania (see page 2, 5) and the loss of 100,000 GM, Ford, Chrysler and Delphi jobs in the U.S., all reflect the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry as bosses in every country are forced to attack workers more and more to stay afloat. This life-and-death struggle between bosses leads to more and bigger wars for control of markets, cheap labor and resources, especially oil. The Northrop Grumman and Airbus workers are vital to the bosses' ability to wage war, and the key to stopping these imperialist warmakers dead in their tracks. Industrial workers around the world, armed with communist ideas and leading an international PLP, can lead the struggle for communist revolution.

Northrop Grumman is one of the largest defense contractors in the U.S., raking in billions in profits from the war in Iraq. They received almost $3 billion from the Navy and FEMA to rebuild the shipyard after Hurricane Katrina, yet some strikers are still living in FEMA trailers. Northrop Grumman received $101 an hour per worker to clean up the shipyard, but the workers only received the $18 an hour they normally make. The company kept the other $83 an hour.

There are 12 unions on strike, the largest being the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 733. The Pascagoula Metal Trades Council represents the other 11 unions, including from carpenters and pipe fitters to the IAM. In February, 90 percent of the workers rejected a company proposal for a four-year contract with no pay raises and increased health insurance costs, after stealing almost $100 million from the workers' health fund. In March the company proposed basically the same deal, and again 90 percent of the workers voted "NO!" This time, they walked out. On March 12, more than 2,000 strikers marched more than six miles from the shipyard to Pascagoula.

Three students from Chicago were received with open arms when they drove down to Pascagoula, bringing food and support to the strikers. After spending time with the workers, in their homes and on the picket lines, they left with a better understanding of how the bosses use racism to grease their war machine, and that multi-racial unity is the key to smashing racism.

While mostly white students were marching to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, a student told the strikers that even though they weren't striking against the war, shutting down one of the biggest warmakers, leaving an unfinished Navy destroyer and two freighters sitting silently, was the most significant anti-war action in the country. The workers hadn't thought about it like that, but most liked the idea. One guy started yelling that he was for the war, and other strikers, black and white, told him to go home. The vast majority of strikers they spoke with, including vets and those with family in the military, opposed the Iraq war.

The Northrop Grumman workers are striking for us all. They are showing the unity of black and white workers in a period of growing racism. They have shut down a warmaker in the midst of war. They are walking the line at a time when hundreds of thousands of union jobs in auto, steel, aerospace, the airlines and more are being wiped out with barely a whimper. They need our support.

Take up collections of food and money. Sign and circulate statements of solidarity. Send them to: IBEW Local 733, 2518 Market Street, Pascagoula, MS 39563.

[For information about the food bank, call Tweety at (228) 249-1600]

OBAMA & CO.: MASTERS OF DECEIT

Barack Obama's lifelong service to the biggest U.S. capitalists belies his "man-of-the-people" image and provides an important lesson on the dialectical category of appearance and essence. Examining Obama's career through the lens of class analysis shatters his charismatic false front and exposes a sworn enemy of workers. Despite his popular appeal, Obama has always worked for the main wing of U.S. rulers, helping them implement the police state and widening wars they need.

Fresh out of Columbia University in 1984, Obama landed a job as writer-researcher at Business International Corporation (BIC) in New York. At the time, BIC was helping Big Oil and Wall Street battle the Reagan White House over imperialist policy. For the benefit of Chiquita Banana, Dole and other U.S. agri-businesses, the Reagan gang was arming Nicaragua's anti-government Contras (and the fascist Salvadoran regime) and threatening an invasion of the region. U.S. banks and oil companies, however, needed to shift the focus to the Middle East. The construction of a Mid-East invasion fleet, set in motion by Democrat President Carter, was well under way. So with Obama's assistance, BIC churned out report after report warning that "what Reagan is doing [in Central America] is not good for business." ("Power and Profit," by Ronald Cox, University Press of Kentucky, 1994) In a small but significant way, Obama's scribbling contributed to the exposure of the Iran-Contra scandal, which turned the Pentagon's gun-sights toward the Persian Gulf.

NEXT, STINT AS COMMUNITY
MISLEADER

Having proved his class loyalty at BIC, Obama moved the next year to Chicago, where he launched the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a smoke-and-mirrors operation designed to stifle working-class rebellion by masking capitalism's brutality with liberal illusions of "progress." Funded by the Gameliel Foundation, which gets millions from the rulers' Ford Foundation, Obama's DCP offered "job training" and "college prep" on Chicago's South Side. This was part of the rulers' "carrot and stick approach," the "carrot" being Obama's role, to help hide the "stick," the soaring unemployment and imprisonment among the area's mostly black workers, who also faced torture and murder from city cops.(See CHALLENGE, 1/17/07)

Three years of rubbing elbows with the poor were enough for Obama. In 1988, he was off to Harvard Law School. But unlike most of his classmates, who went on to represent corporations directly, Obama decided he could be of more use to the ruling class by deceiving workers in the greatest charade in history, the U.S. electoral system.

After Harvard, Obama started Illinois Project Vote, which registered 150,000 new voters for the 1992 election. Voting gives workers the illusion that they have a say in a system which actually is a dictatorship of the capitalists. Obama threw his own hat into the ring in 1996, running successfully for state senator. He proved very adept at leading black workers -- whom the system oppresses most severely -- down the dead-end road to the ballot box. Eight years later, Obama won the U.S. Senate seat he hopes to use as a springboard to the White House.

In 1993, Obama had joined the Chicago Law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where he remains "of counsel." Under the pretense of assisting workers, the firm specializes in voting rights. Its founder and chief partner, Judson H. Miner, was once corporation counsel for the City of Chicago, and, as such, defended rotten schools, hospitals and housing, as well as killer cops. Obama's own love affair with these murderers is blossoming. Obama's website boasts, "He supported the reauthorization of the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program in the 109th Congress and supports efforts to increase COPS funding." Begun by Clinton in 1994, "COPS" has put an additional 118,000 armed, anti-working-class thugs on the street. Many perform "intelligence duties" like spying on war protestors.

JFK'S IMPERIALIST LIAR-IN-CHIEF SEES PROMISE IN OBAMA

For his skill in hoodwinking workers, Obama has earned the praise of a grandmaster of deceit, JFK advisor and speechwriter Ted Sorensen. After introducing Obama at a recent New York fund-raiser as the only candidate he believed could restore the nation's credibility around the world, Sorensen gushed, "`Obama, like JFK, is such a natural." (New York Times, 3/10/07) For the past four decades Sorensen has, with the liberal media's help, spread the lie (still useful to the liberals) that JFK would have withdrawn from Vietnam early. This is the same Sorensen who wrote the imperialist manifesto JFK mouthed at his inauguration, "Let every nation know,...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." (For "liberty" read "U.S. imperialism.")

The modern descendant of the JFK-Vietnam falsehood says that Obama and fellow liberals oppose the Iraq war. Essence, in the form of voting records, once again trumps the mere appearance of campaign promises. [See box.] Obama is as phony as the House Democrats who vow to bring the troops home, while they vote the bloodthirsty Pentagon every penny it wants and more. Falling for what politicians say or how they look is a grave error. Getting past liberals' appearance and attacking their warmaking, capitalist essence, is an important step towards understanding the world in order to change it.

OBAMA'S REAL `WAR RECORD'

(Quoted directly from the Boston Globe, 3/20/07):

Campaigning for the Illinois Senate seat in 2003 and 2004, Obama scolded Bush for invading Iraq and vowed he would "unequivocally" vote against an additional $87 billion to pay for it. Yet since taking office in January 2005, he has voted for four separate war appropriations, totaling more than $300 billion. Last June, Obama voted no to Senator John F. Kerry's proposal to remove most combat troops from Iraq by July 2007, warning that an "arbitrary deadline" could "compound" the Bush administration's mistake. And now he's voted for a Republican-sponsored resolution that stated the Senate would not cut off funding for troops in Iraq.

Class Struggle Rocking Europe

TOULOUSE, FRANCE, March 22 -- On March 16, thousands of Airbus workers across Europe struck and demonstrated against layoffs of 10,000.

In Hamburg, 20,000 workers rallied. Seven thousand struck the Blagnac factory near Toulouse, and workers from Germany joined the protest. Others from various nationalities wore T-shirts proclaiming, "All for one, one for all -- solidarity against layoffs." In Méaulte, 4,000 struck the whole day, amid demonstrations in Paris, Saint Nazaire and Nantes. In Spain, 7,200 Airbus workers walked out for one hour. In Laupheim, Germany, 2,000 formed a human chain around the plant.

But one big demonstration planned for Brussels was abandoned amid rumors of rifts among the leaders of the European Metalworkers Federation. All the demonstrations were smaller than envisioned, exposing the union hacks' mis-leadership. In Hamburg, the IG Metall union invited right-wing Christian-Democrat politicians to spew nationalist poison. The prime minister of Baden-Württemberg (near the Laupheim plant) proclaimed that, "We're fighting for Airbus in Germany."

Similarly in France, a CFE-CGC union leaflet blamed German workers for production delays that spawned the Power 8 plan, and the FO union leader said more German workers should be axed. Only international solidarity can answer the Airbus bosses' mass layoffs in this age of sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry (see page 1).

LABOR STRUGGLES SWEEPING FRANCE

The French presidential elections have stirred up workers' worries and hopes. The Peugeot Aulnay plant strike for higher wages has sparked wage battles at Peugeot factories in Melun, Mulhouse and Sochaux. In Melun, two shop stewards who persuaded some workers to down tools are being threatened with firing.

On March 14, 300 Aulnay workers protested at Peugeot's swank Paris offices, in a chic neighborhood. "We've come to make some noise," explained Brahim, 25. "I make 1,200 euros a month and [after four years in the plant] my health is already deteriorating. I have stomach problems because of the odors on the assembly line. It's recognized as a work-related illness, but management refuses to switch me to a different work station." One demonstrator shouted at the executives behind the glass doors, "The company's got money, but we don't see the color of it! In the factory, it's slavery!"

On March 17, 500 workers occupied the Metzeler gasket factory near Rouen to prevent the bosses from shipping machines to Tunisia. Peugeot and Renault are pressuring Metzeler to cut costs, and for two years have been planning moving production abroad. On March 19, management signed an agreement promising it won't, reacting to pressure from government politicians, who want labor peace until after the presidential elections.

On March 20, 40% of the nation's schoolteachers struck against education minister Gilles de Robien's plan to axe 5,000 jobs, make teachers work longer hours with no pay increase and force them to teach subjects they haven't studied. In Paris, 5,000 teachers demonstrated. That same day, Paris Transport Authority workers struck. Postal workers have been staging slowdowns.

On March 22, Marseilles dockers voted to continue their week-long strike over work at the future extension to the gas and oil terminal. Tankers are tied up, costing the bosses $250,000 a day.

At the Cabaret sauvage in Paris, where 1,000 people were partying on March 18, Peugeot-Aulnay strikers of Arab and Chinese origin were invited to speak. "It's not just us!" one shouted, "All of France has caught this `disease,' wage plague [demanding higher wages]." That sums up rank-and-file feelings.

All the top union leaders have met with the three leading presidential candidates, and all three candidates have announced -- not too loudly -- that, if elected, they'll push through labor "reforms." Secure career paths, "rigid" work contracts and unemployment insurance are all on the chopping block.

Given last year's anti-CPE movement (halting imposition of "flexible" working conditions) and the current labor agitation, the bosses and their politicians need the union hacks to push through these cutback "reforms." And the hacks are collaborating. While encouraging worker militancy right now, and sounding out rank-and-filers to determine what they'll swallow, they're fine-tuning their negotiating positions. But their reformist outlook will sell out the workers.

The conservative newspaper Le Figaro (3/21) warned that in "supporting" worker fight-backs, the union hacks are playing with fire. Indeed -- workers need to build a red-led leadership to turn this struggle into a school for communism.

Students, Teachers Beat Attack on New Orleans Volunteers

BROOKLYN, NY, March 23--"To be attacked by the enemy is a good thing." We learned this lesson again last week as a sharp struggle developed in our school over a volunteer trip we organized to New Orleans. While many staff members raised money and supported our anti-racist efforts to continue doing work there, the principal began a "witch-hunt," trying to intimidate and scare people who participated in an "unauthorized" trip. He called in a few staff members and students to attempt to frighten them.

However, his strategy backfired miserably when it became clear that students, parents and staff would fight back. It began when a staff member was called in, advised to have a union rep and threatened with a wider "investigation." The staff member, a member of PLP, refused to "name names" of others involved and, with the help of friends, put out a leaflet exposing the attack on the trip. In a heated staff meeting a few days later, she spoke out against the investigation and confronted the principal and his allies publicly.

Since then, teachers have come to her every day, congratulating her and thanking her for telling it like it us. One teacher said, "I know you're a communist. I guess we need more communists to shake things up!" Many teachers have said that they would do whatever is needed to support her. The administration has had to back down, close their phony investigation and retreat for now. The outpouring of both support and anger is the only reason for this.

But, teachers can see the handwriting on the wall at many of our schools as the conditions become more fascist. A climate of fear is developing so that more and more people are afraid of stepping out of line, getting written up and getting into "trouble." Ultimately, it is only the growth of our Party that can meet this head on, As school bosses become less tolerant of our activities and ideas, we need a few victories to show people that you can stand up to these principals and administrators.. The only reason we withstood this attack is the years of daily organizing and political work that has been done here: study groups, meetings, small struggles, getting to know people, socializing and selling CHALLENGE.

Even though a teacher seems to be the focus, the attack on the trip is mainly a direct attack on our students. There is much discussion about new Dept. of Education regulations and whether students have the right to do things outside of school with staff members. The principal is trying to push some bogus regulations that will make it illegal for students to go to rallies, demonstrations or meetings unless he approves! Students are writing a petition and will continue challenging this. They are seeing the school become more like a prison and realize that some of the most important learning to take place is outside of the classroom. PLP will continue growing and organizing at this and other schools, and we will not back down. We plan to bring many students, parents and teachers to our May Day activities. We will continue organizing relief work in New Orleans with teachers, students and parents, and we will stand up to any and all attacks from the administration!

Students Meet CIA Recruiters HEAD ON

NEW YORK, NY, Mar. 22 -- "I felt so empowered!" "Yeah, today the working class is on the offensive," said students after a multi-racial group "welcomed" the CIA's National Clandestine Service recruiters to Hunter College with angry protest. The recruiters sought students for the "global war on terror," with a special interest in speakers of Asian and Middle Eastern languages and in black students. Hunter students and teachers, including military veterans and anti-racists, organized to disrupt the event and expose the true role of the CIA, using a leaflet and discussion with friends, classmates and coworkers.

Many Hunter students said they felt nervous going up against the CIA, but one said "not doing anything would have meant we let the CIA off the hook for the murder of millions of working-class people." Others said they felt comforted because of our solid plan to disrupt the event, avoid arrests, and still effectively reach other students. More than a dozen went in to disrupt, while more leafleted and gathered students outside the room.

Inside, a senior CIA officer described the CIA's "unchanging mission of compiling intelligence from around the world." A protester immediately asked what role imperialism had in its mission and was told he should try the State Department! The officer informed us that President Bush and the National Security Council want to dramatically expand the National Clandestine Service by accepting all who are qualified. As he tried to continue, the student was joined by others who noted the CIA's endless list of crimes, stressing that they were racist terrorists who murdered millions to protect profit and that they couldn't just come to recruit our peers to help torture and commit genocide.

For several minutes, the CIA recruiter stopped his presentation completely while the protesting students and pro-CIA students argued. At least ten students who genuinely wanted to hear the speaker vigorously defended the recruiter's right to speak. A protestor called out, "This is very serious; we're talking about people's lives and we can't just let them speak." We were surprised that the pro-CIA students were more hostile than the school police and CIA recruiters. This argument among students illustrates that the real struggle is the one within our own class, to rid ourselves and each other of capitalist ideas.

School administrators lost patience after about ten minutes and warned that the disrupters would be kicked out if they continued. They persisted. Applause greeted the students outside as they were removed, one by one. As the last young protester was escorted out, students chanted: "Free speech!" She responded: "Not for the CIA!" and led students to chant, "Who is a terrorist? The CIA's a terrorist!" We continued chanting and leafleting passing students as the event continued. Afterwards, the school's dean of students defended allowing the CIA on the campus and said he could have shut down the protest instead of allowing it. One student said, "That's because you have state power and we don't!"

Our party needs more actions like this. We attack racists like the Minutemen and the Klan whenever we can, which is good, but how often do we get to actually attack the designers of imperialism, which has killed many more than those gutter racists? Also, workers get attacked more viciously every day, and we shouldn't hesitate to take the offensive. Students were inspired and consolidated to the Party and are planning a forum to inform more students about what happened. Pro-CIA students will be invited to talk about what they thought. We've got work to do.

Black, Latino, White Workers,Youth March vs. Racist Police Terror

LOS ANGELES, CA. --"The workers united will never be defeated," 100 people chanted and marched to the Hollenbeck police station where the workers, with communist leadership, defied the racist cops for murdering Mauricio Paris Cornejo. This action resulted from working and struggling in mass organizations and with friends, along with distributing 500 leaflets in the neighborhood. Cornejo's friends spoke in several high school classes about the case and invited the students to participate. They stressed that both black and Latino workers face racist police terror and need to unite against it.

When a march and protest was proposed to an immigration reform coalition, some of the members resisted, saying police terror had nothing to do with immigration, that it would "distract" the coalition from its main goal. But others said police terror has the same roots as immigration raids and deportations. Still others noted that both black and Latino workers face brutal racist police terror. Residents of Ramona Gardens (where Cornejo lived) attended the meeting and proposed action. After a sharp debate, the group decided to support the march from the projects to the police station.

We marched that route, some 2_ miles, beginning with a multi-racial group of mostly neighborhood men, women and youth. The anger and determination were visible on the signs and in the voices of all. We chanted, "Police, racist pigs and murderers!" as well as slogans against the immigration cops and the war. As we marched, people left their homes to listen. Hundreds of CHALLENGES and leaflets were distributed.

When we arrived at the police station, about 30 cops formed a fence at the entrance. Speeches, signs and poems denounced the police as the real terrorists for having killed Cornejo in cold blood, for terrorizing the youth, especially blacks and Latinos, and for defending the interests of the capitalist rulers.

"The police are the biggest gang." "The only way to end their racist terror is to see that the root of the problem is the capitalist system and to organize a communist movement in the long run to finally destroy it." These were some of the many points resounding off the station's walls. All who participated were very glad they marched and promised to continue the fight.

Working in mass organizations can bring results. Although these exist to fight for reforms and build loyalty to capitalism, communists must introduce the problems affecting the working class, make the connections and to fight to win the organizations' members to question the very existence of the capitalist system. We must propose the kind of anti-racist actions that enable our Party, its ideas and our friends to sharpen the struggle; that is the way we can build a mass communist PLP.

U.S. Exploiters Can Always Top Themselves

Signal International recruited 300 "guest workers" from India to perform repairs in the Pascagoula shipyard (now on strike); charged them a $20,000 "fee" (!); paid them half the promised $18/hr; "housed" them in groups of 24 in 12X18-foot rooms at $35 a day! When the workers organized to protest these horrific conditions, Signal shipped some of them back to India and lowered the pay of the remainder.

One fired worker, having "sold his home [in India]" and with "no place to return to," slashed his wrists. "He was only able to earn a small part of the thousands paid to the recruiter and said "he couldn't go home like that." (New American Media)

PL'ers to Anti-War Marchers: `It's Not Just Bush, It's Capitalism!'
D.C.:Vets-Workers Unity A Must

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 19 -- Prior to the March 17th anti-war march here, 25 members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party gathered over breakfast to discuss the critical issues facing the anti-war movement, especially the need to bring an understanding to the marchers of imperialism, anti-racism and the need for a revolutionary party. Such an understanding will steel workers and students for the coming intensification of U.S. war actions in the Middle East.

Iraq is just a prelude! Democrat President Jimmy Carter's 1980 State of the Union address warned that an "attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." He created a Rapid Deployment Force to back that up. The likely Democratic Party candidates have already pledged allegiance to the Carter Doctrine by supporting policies that prepare for wider war in the region; they criticize the Bush administration's fiasco in Iraq because its tactics hamper U.S. rulers' ability to control the oil throughout the Middle East.

At the march itself, PLP'ers distributed 150 CHALLENGES and over 500 leaflets explaining the need for communist revolution to stop imperialist war and inviting them to march on May Day to build the PLP to lead this revolutionary struggle.

The best part of the march itself was the presence of several active-duty GIs and about 20 members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), some of whom spoke boldly about the need to move from symbolic demonstrations to active resistance. PLP believes this resistance should include mass GI refusals to fight the war (not just individual AWOLs and desertions), sharpening the fight against racism everywhere, closing down ROTC on campuses and in high schools, developing strikes against war producers, and winning people to revolution, not elections, as the only way to shut down imperialist war.

The next day IVAW conducted "Operative First Casualty" (dramatizing that "truth is the first casualty of war"). A dozen Iraq vets, dressed in their desert camouflage uniforms, simulated Baghdad-style raids at various sites around the city (including the Capitol!) by rounding up their civilian collaborators, restraining them with cuffs and black bags over their heads, and screaming at them, while others distributed flyers to passers-by explaining why they were "bringing Baghdad to D.C." This action was inspired by a 1970 Vietnam Veterans Against the War action called "Operation RAW" ("War" spelled backwards, and standing for "Rapid American Withdrawal") in which 200 Vietnam Vets conducted similar actions in New Jersey.

U.S. capitalists cannot withdraw from the Middle East. The bosses' need to keep control over oil pipelines, away from imperialist rivals, will force them to spill our blood to maintain their profits and dominant geo-political position. The U.S. bosses' continued vicious, racist rampage throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia may very well spark growth of the GI and veterans' movement in size and militancy. The danger is that the liberals will try to direct it into dead-end electoral politics ("elect a Democrat president in 2008"). Uniting the GI-veterans movement with the rest of the working-class movement under PLP leadership is the strategy for revolutionary advance.

NYC: Youth Lead, Link
Racist Terror At Home, Abroad

NEW YORK, NY, March 18 -- "Bush, Democrats, No Solution, We Need Communist Revolution" rang through the streets of Manhattan as a PLP-led youth contingent brought a revolutionary message to the tens of thousands of anti-war marchers.

The march, on the 4th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was organized by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). It was yet another liberal call for U.S. bosses to bring the troops home. These liberals build illusions that the Democrats will end the war. But these same Democrats in Congress, while passing a resolution for a supposed timetable to get the troops out of Iraq, also gave Bush $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The multi-racial youth-led PLP contingent at the march countered the pacifist, anti-Bush politics by distributing 1,000 CHALLENGES and 1,500 leaflets and leading spirited chants the whole time. Many marchers took leadership from high school students and joined in the many chants they led. At one point a young comrade was giving a speech about the racist police-murder of Sean Bell, when a marcher came over and asked "What does Sean Bell have to do with this anti-war march?" Our comrade responded immediately and repeated the question for the crowd on the bullhorn. He then made the connection by explaining that the bosses use racist terror both at home and abroad to maintain their capitalist system. He described how this country was built on the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of African workers and today continues its imperialist murder of Iraqis to protect its system. Our group then chanted "Sean Bell here, Iraqis there, fascist terror everywhere!" We will continue to spread our communist message to our friends, family and neighborhoods with study groups and CHALLENGE sales every Saturday leading up to May Day, the international workers' holiday. As another youth explained today, "Imperialist war and racist oppression will continue for as long as capitalism continues." Only when workers around the world understand that our common fight is the one against this brutal system and for communism, will we have won. Let's gear up and make this May Day the biggest one yet.

L.A.: `Iraq, Oaxaca, New Orleans;
Smash Racist War Machine!'

LOS ANGELES, CA, March 17 -- Chanting "Iraq, Oaxaca, New Orleans, Smash the Racist War Machine!" in military cadence, our enthusiastic multi-racial group marched here holding a PLP banner proclaiming, "It's not just Bush -- It's Capitalism!" sharply contrasting with the liberals' thrust of "Get Bush." The 10,000 participants showed widespread discontent with the war in Iraq, providing an immense opportunity to direct this discontent toward its rightful source, the capitalist system.

A sizeable group of students and workers explained that replacing Bush with Obama or simply bringing the troops home temporarily won't end the death and suffering caused by imperialist wars; the only real alternative to this atrocity is communist revolution.

We distributed hundreds of CHALLENGES, including to young vets, and about 2,500 leaflets, proving that the U.S. capitalists' drive for oil is nothing new. For 25 years, presidents from Carter to Clinton have goose-stepped to the needs of U.S. imperialism, killing millions of workers.

At a post-march rally, a military mother who, though heartfelt in recalling her son's death, offered anti-Bush sentiment and an echo of the march's dominant mantra: "Bring the Troops home now!" When Democrat politician Maxine Waters told the crowd to "write their representatives," a group in the audience had a different idea, with raised fists chanting, "Fight imperialism!"

The liberal rulers' attack on Bush reflects their preparations for wars against their imperialist rivals. They're building support for Barack Obama (see editorial, page 2) or Clinton, hoping to curb discontent, but also to win workers to a new imperialist politician as "a change for the better." U.S. bosses are counting on the 2008 election hype to win workers to support larger future wars.

The GI presence at this march highlights the necessity of bringing PLP's communist line to soldiers and vets at demonstrations, as well as those serving in the Mid-East and elsewhere.

This reinforces the need to spread communist ideas everywhere, both in a mass way and in smaller groups. PLP's uncompromising struggle against racism and for workers' revolution to take state power is a necessity for us, the working class.

Bosses' Crisis Leading to Cal Faculty Strike

LOS ANGELES, March 26 -- By a 94% vote, the unionized faculty of the California State University (CSU) voted to strike the 23-campus system, which serves 435,000 students, half of them black, Latino and Asian. The vote was over management's salary offer, but opposition to higher workloads and student fees are issues, too. Although management recently gave themselves big raises, faculty raises since 1997 are far behind inflation. Management's offer is less than 15% for four years, about 20% behind their list of "comparable institutions," Faculty workload has increased. The system has 29% more students than in 1995, but only a 21% increase in faculty, most of them part-timers. Class sizes are growing; at one large campus, it's up 13% and the number of classes dropped 11% in the last four years. With this growing workload, faculty are forced to cut corners, giving less time to each student. Meanwhile, in the last 10 years, student fees have increased 64%, with another 10% hike scheduled next fall.

The reduced funding that is gradually destroying the CSU system is a direct result of the growing crisis of U.S. capitalism, and particularly of its imperialist wars. Like most of the large industrial states, California bounces from one fiscal crisis to the next, mostly because the federal government sucks money out of the states so that they can pay for war plans.

For years, the feds have been transferring big-ticket programs like Medicaid, aid for low-income families, and medical care for poor children to the states. The feds give block grants for these programs which the states must match, but they cut the grants or fix them at too low a level, so the states must find the money somewhere to make up the difference or else eliminate the programs.

As war spending skyrockets, federal funds for the states are slashed further, including Medicaid last year, while an administration proposal would chop another $24.7 billion over the next five years. The feds are also taking away $12.7 billion for student financial aid over the next five years. Like the CSU tuition hikes, these cuts are racist, affecting black and Latino students most.

California's bosses have intensified the budget crunch for workers through a huge increase in legal repression, which they hope will contain anger against worsening conditions. The prison population has increased 73% since 1990, three times faster than the adult population. Prison funding has risen much faster than that for higher education. The "Three Strikes" law -- 25 years to life for any third conviction -- has meted out much longer sentences, costing at least a half billion dollars extra per year, equal to nearly one-fifth of state funding for the CSU.

The strike vote signifies that faculty intends to fight. However, the plan is only for two-day strikes at each campus. The union slogan -- "I don't want to strike, but I will" -- hardly expresses the determined struggle that will be needed to make any headway against the CSU cuts. Students should support these efforts and raise their own demands. PLP must show both faculty and students that capitalist imperialism and war lie behind the attack on CSU, and make the U.S. war budget a strike issue. These politics and PLP's participation in the struggle will enable the Party to grow and fight for the only long-range solution -- communism.

30,000 Healthcare Workers Reject War Cuts

NEW YORK CITY, March 15 -- Today, 30,000 angry healthcare workers demonstrated here in a freezing rain against Governor Spitzer's proposed $1.2 billion healthcare cuts in Medicaid funding to hospitals, nursing homes and home-care providers.

Workers of all nationalities -- black, Latino, Asian and white -- represented their hospitals and nursing homes, coming from NYC, Long Island, Buffalo, and other upstate areas.

Many CHALLENGES were sold and hundreds of leaflets distributed denouncing the bosses' for-profit healthcare system. Some PL'ers marched with contingents from their jobs. A group of home-care workers passed out a flyer about their struggle for overtime pay. Until now the 1199 leadership has ignored their demands, and has relied on a court case filed six years ago. According to government figures, the 60,000 mainly immigrant women workers lose $250 million per year in stolen overtime pay! Imagine the billions stolen over the past decades.

Since the invasion of Iraq, billions of dollars have been diverted from social programs to fund the war. Thus, millions of workers nationwide face huge budget cuts in the Medicaid and Medicare programs. These cuts will severely impact the lives of patients and healthcare workers.

NYC workers are predominantly black and Latino, making the cuts distinctly racist. Most are women. Already victims of a higher racist unemployment rate, still higher joblessness will spread more disease throughout their communities and the cuts will reduce health care there still further.

The Berger Commission recommendations are a direct attack on all aspects of healthcare workers' lives and patient care. They would close, merge and restructure 57 hospitals state-wide, eliminating 4,200 beds and thousands of jobs.

The 1199-SEIU union and the hospital bosses representing the Greater New York Association made an alliance to fight Spitzer's cuts. Full-page newspaper ads criticized the Governor. However, this alliance was short-lived, with the bosses soon pulling out of the campaign.

At a Brooklyn hospital, many workers felt betrayed by the union leadership that allied with the hospital bosses. Only a limited number of workers were allowed to attend the rally. One worker stated to a group at the hospital, "The 1199 SEIU union is always forming a coalition with hospitals bosses and politicians to stop healthcare cuts. The union is misleading many workers to rely on these capitalist forces that represent the system that creates conditions for layoffs and hospital closings" in the first place.

Another worker said, "Our union contributed funds towards Governor Spitzer's campaign for Attorney General. Now he turns his back on us."

At the rally many politicians and union leaders advocated reforming the healthcare industry. But in the past 15 years such reform programs did not prevent the closing of 34 hospitals in the State nor laying off thousands of workers. However, workers are constantly waging battles with the hospital bosses against short staffing, violations in patient care and to keep whatever benefits we have.

Under capitalism, the needs of workers and patients to improve health care through preventative measures and to assure health care for all in a non-racist healthcare system cannot be met. Only in a communist-run system, with no bosses, politicians and rich people, can the working class have a commitment to all our brothers and sisters.

Immigrant Workers Back Northrop, Airbus Strikers

"Those bastards do the same thing to all of us!" exclaimed a worker in our factory. We were discussing how all imperialist bosses trim costs on the backs of industrial workers because of their need to remain competitive against their rivals. We noted how the attacks on Airbus and Northrop workers stem from imperialist rivalry, just like the war in Iraq, immigration raids, racism and attacks on workers employed by these subcontractors.

These immigrant workers at several Southern California industrial shops showed a strong sense of class solidarity, anti-racism and internationalism. Despite the fascist conditions in these factories, they eagerly wrote, circulated and signed petitions supporting striking Airbus workers in Europe and Northrop workers in Mississippi (see pages 1, 2).

One worker, who gladly agreed to help write the petition, took it home for her neighbors to sign. One neighbor, also a factory worker, responded by taking it to work to share with some of his co-workers.

The petitions all clearly extended support and international solidarity and included links to the imperialist war in Iraq. One worker's petition read in part, "We support your struggle because we are exploited too. They suck every last bit of labor from us for a measly wage while cutting our health benefits every chance they get." Another petition called for "international solidarity, not the bosses' nationalism".

The extent of support and political struggle generated with these petitions was limited primarily by our size. This makes two things very clear to our PLP club: One is the need to recruit more comrades to working in these factories; the second is to put CHALLENGE into the hands of more and more industrial workers in order to expand our base and recruit these workers, inside and outside the factories, out of intensified class struggle.

These immigrant workers' response to the Airbus and Northrop strikes is a small example of exactly what the bosses fear most: workers' unity and communist leadership among the industrial working class. But the anti-racism and international solidarity demonstrated by industrial workers in Southern California would not have occurred without PLP'ers in these shops bringing these ideas to them.

There's great potential for building a mass base for PLP and international communism among these workers. The bosses are trying to win us to nationalism. Our job is to continue winning industrial workers to see that our interests lie with workers worldwide, in the fight for communist revolution, to destroy the world's bosses once and for all.

Russia, Romania: Strikers Challenge Ford, Renault

St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) is now "Russia's Detroit." The world's auto giants are erecting assembly plants there to get into the growing Russian market (1.8 million cars purchased in 2006). But workers are fighting for their own demands.

Contrary to Ford's U.S. situation, production is growing at its 5-year-old Vsevoloysk plant (66,000 Focus models built last year). Ford expects a 10% increase in 2007. But on Feb. 14, workers threw a monkey wrench into the bosses' plans: 80% of its 11,000 unionized workers (of a workforce of 19,000) struck, rejecting Ford's offer of a 14% to 20% wage hike. The workers not only won the wage hike but also permanent jobs for temporary workers and job protection in case of job-related illness.

Ford's cries of losing money worldwide cut no ice with these militant workers. This strike sets an example internationally, showing workers in the U.S., Mexico and elsewhere that autoworkers can fight back despite Ford's poverty cries. (On Jan. 25, Ford announced a historic loss of $12.7 billion in its U.S. operations).

Renault Workers Win in Romania

In 1979, Renault bought the Dacia auto plant in Romania, producing 100,000 cars a year with 28,000 workers. In 2006, 11,000 workers built 196,000 cars, an 80% increase in productivity.

The workers demanded a 25% wage hike to partially compensate for this super-exploitation; the company offered only 6%. On Feb. 15, a two-hour warning strike and the threat of a total strike the next day forced Renault to change its mind, fearing a long walkout by angry, determined workers. So the workers won a 20% wage hike for 2007 plus one hot meal daily and a 60% payment for the cost of workers' transportation to the plant.

French workers at the huge Renault Technocentre design plant outside Paris should emulate this fight-back against speed-up. In the last five months, the intense speed-up has caused five employees there to kill themselves. Renault is well-known for its racism and brutal treatment of workers.

Auto bosses are using the workers of the old Soviet bloc as a source of cheap labor, but these workers are beginning to stand up and fight. However, under capitalism, one way or another, the bosses will eventually take away gains made today. Thus, the main lesson drawn from these struggles should be workers' need to rebuild an internationalist communist movement, learning from the mistakes and achievements of the past. That's how the slogan, "Workers of the world, unite!" will become a reality.

Chiquita Banana Gets Slap on Wrist for Funding Death Squads

Chiquita Brands, one of the world's largest and most powerful food companies, has agreed to pay a $25-million fine to end a federal investigation accusing it of paying off Colombian death squads to protect their profits. Human rights groups have quickly called the settlement too lenient, charging that the Bush administration chose to file a "document of criminal information" against the company -- a less aggressive form of prosecution -- instead of forcing Justice Department indictments which could have quadrupled the fine. Some Democrats, fearing the growth of Chávez and other anti-U.S. capitalist and imperialist rivals in the region, are pushing for some cosmetic changes in the U.S. support for the fascist death squads. But this won't change the murderous essence of imperialism.

Chiquita has a long history of murdering workers in Latin America. On Dec. 6, 1928, over 3,000 strikers were massacred in the main square of Cienaga, Colombia, one of the largest such slaughters in Latin America. After 24 days of striking the United Fruit Company (today's Chiquita Brands), the army attacked a rally in that plaza. The army gave demonstrators five minutes to disperse, but before the time was up workers declared, "Save yourself a minute; we're not moving."

The army opened fire, killing some 3,000. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's famous novel "100 Years of Solitude" claims even more were murdered since many were thrown into the sea. In 1953, United Fruit organized the CIA-led coup against Guatemala nationalist President Jacobo Arbenz, who had threatened to nationalize the banana plantations. Several decades of death-squad governments followed, killing hundreds of thousands of Guatemalan workers and peasants, many of them Indigenous.

Chiquita is not alone in supporting death squads to terrorize its workers and kill union leaders. Coca Cola and Drummond, which operate coal mines in Colombia, are being accused of such crimes.

Bush's failed "anti-Chávez tour" follows a long history of U.S. presidential claims of "helping" the people of Latin America. Roosevelt had his "good neighbor policy" in the 1930's while the U.S. supported dictators like the Dominican Republica's Trujillo and Nicargua's Somoza. In the early '50s, Eisenhower sent his brother Milton to the region. He returned to report that it needed economic aid. Instead, more military hardware was sent.

Nixon, then Eisenhower's Vice-President, toured the region and was almost killed by angry crowds in Caracas and Lima. Again, more military aid and support for military dictatorships. Later Nelson Rockefeller went, producing a similar U.S. response. Kennedy established his "Alliance for Progress" to counter the influence of the 1959 Cuban revolution with the same results: military dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, among others. Under his administration, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba aimed at bringing the country back under U.S. imperialist control but failed miserably.

In 1965, after a right-wing junta in the Dominican Republic had deposed a liberal president, Lyndon Johnson invaded the country with 38,000 Marines to crush a mass uprising bent on bringing back the elected president. When Nixon was president, he and Kissinger engineered the 1973 fascist Pinochet coup in Chile, ousting the then-elected socialist president Allende. Carter and Reagan armed the death squads and Contras of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Clinton initiated "Plan Colombia," helping its drug-infested death-squad army. So Bush is just following his predecessors' footsteps.

(Next article: the need to build a red-led internationalist workers' movement to win the masses away from bourgeois nationalists like Chávez).

`I was a racketeer for capitalism...'

(From a 1933 speech by Marine Corps Major-General Smedley Butler)

War is just a racket....conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses....

I spent 33 years...as a member of the country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps....most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the Bankers....I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street....I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912....I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested....

I feel I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

LETTERS

Paraguay's Lugo Shows His True Colors. . . .
and They're Not Red

Ex-Bishop and reformist Fernando Lugo has announced that he will be leading a Citizens' March on March 29 to push him to the top of the polls for Paraguay's 2008 presidential elections (see CHALLENGE, 1/17/07). To placate the ruling class's liberal wing, he has officially become a member of the Concertación (a united front opposing the Colorado Movement). The Colorado Party has ruled for more than 60 years, and this opposition is going to great lengths to derail it.
The Concertación includes the supposedly left-wing Lugo, social movements, farmer, worker and student groups, several socialist parties, the Liberal Party, UNACE and the Fatherland Party (Patria Querida). But many don't realize that Lugo is extremely dangerous for workers. The lesser-evil strategy is neither a temporary solution nor a long-lasting one. This parallels the 2006 U.S. election and the "anybody-but-Bush" strategy. It is doomed to fail; it does not serve the interests of the Paraguayan working class. Lugo & Co. might loosen the shackles a little, but they will not and cannot free the slave.

Recently Lugo announced that as president he would initiate policies similar to Bachelet's in Chile or Lula's in Brazil. Workers only need look at Chile to see the inequality of their free market-"socialist" model, or look to a Brazil full of criminal gangs, drug traffickers, poverty and high disease rates to see that such models, mixing state- and free market-capitalism, do not benefit the working class.
President Nicanor Duarte Frutos compared Lugo to Venezuela's Chávez and then proposed putting all of Paraguay's reserve money into Venezuelan banks, not in the U.S. This strategy clearly placates the so-called leftists, yet meanwhile the U.S. military presence in Paraguay has increased under Frutos. Lugo also raised the possibility that imprisoned General Lino Oviedo -- trained at the CIA-run death-squad School of the Americas -- become his running mate.
When we march on the 29th, we must strive to sharpen these contradictions, sell DESAFIO and distribute pamphlets demonstrating that Lugo, the Liberal Party, Patria Querida and others won't change the situation in Paraguay. We must do much more to build the communist PLP, to fight for a society sharing what we workers produce based on need.

Red Guarani

Colombia: Bush Visit Brings More Murders
and Arrests

Bogotá was militarized when Bush visited his buddy, fascist President Alvaro Uribe. There were over 5,000 raids and searches and 325 arrests. Thousands protested despite heavy repression. Many were injured.

PLP participated, sold DESAFIO-CHALLENGE and brought our politics to workers and students to try to turn the spontaneous anger of many into a school for our communist ideas as a way to counter the imperialist-capitalist terror.

This battle energized us to fight harder for our line in the middle of the sharpening capitalist-imperialist contradictions, and to raise the level of the growing consciousness of many workers and youth about the phony nature of the bosses' democracy. Many are understanding the sellouts of the union hacks and even "progressive" Bogotá Mayor, Luis Eduardo Garzón, who did not hesitate to use the cops to viciously attack protestors.

Red Worker in Colombia

Murder of Politicians A Fight Among
Drug Dealers

The Feb. 19 murder in Guatemala of three Salvadoran Congressmen from the ARENA party (also members of the Central American Parliament) along with their chauffer once again revealed the terror of narco politics. Although we may never know the whole truth because "respectable and powerful politicians" from Guatemala and El Salvador are involved, we do know that those who control the enormous profits from the murderous drug trade and who make the decisions are in the top hierarchies of the government. The gangs are only "soldiers" who carry out orders from above.

According to the NGO Washington Office for Latin American Affairs and the UN Truth Commission in Guatemala, there are clandestine groups acting from inside the Guatemalan government, controlled by retired and active military leaders. These groups are linked to the bosses' political parties, the police, the judiciary, the army and the public accounting office. This allows them to act with complete impunity in laundering money, selling weapons and other crimes.

The Minister of Public Security and Justice in El Salvador, Rene Figueroa, says the murdered politicians "were not linked to narco trafficking." But in what seemed like double-talk, National Civil Police Chief Rodrigo Avila said, "There's no doubt that this was related to drug trafficking."

One of the murdered politicians was Eduardo D'Aubisson, son of Major Roberto "Blowtorch" D'Aubisson, leader of El Salvador's death squads. These squads, created in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador with CIA training, murdered hundreds of thousands of workers, students and farmworkers. Today these creatures of capitalism and imperialism enrich themselves by killing and poisoning the population with the dirty drug trade.

The phony left in El Salvador (the FMLN) calls on the U.S. FBI to "investigate" the "roots" of the problem to obtain "justice. That's like Tony Soprano investigating the godfather Don Corleone!

The drug trade is a capitalist business, based on profits and murder. Only by destroying the cause can we end this plague. This will be achieved by fighting for communism.

Salvador PLP

Hospital Workers Spread PL Flyer

While riding the train to the 1199 rally, I met a group of workers crowded into my subway car having an animated discussion on Spitzer's cuts and resulting layoffs. They were tremendously angry and frustrated that the union wasn't doing more. One woman said her army son was in Iraq and was very bitter about there being plenty of money for war but not for health care.

Distributing some Party leaflets, I gave one to the military mom. Immediately hands were reaching for copies. It was headlined "a system unable to provide decent health care shouldn't exist"; it linked these cutbacks to the oil war in Iraq; and sharply attacked the Rivera leadership for its alliance with the hospital bosses. It called for communist revolution to build a system that produces for the needs of the working class, not for profits.

The workers readily agreed that today's rally was too little, too late and reflected the fact that Rivera had already agreed to the cuts. They echoed many of the flyer's anti-capitalist statements.

At the rally I walked among the workers distributing flyers while shouting its headline and some of its main points. Scores of workers took small stacks for their friends and co-workers. Others asked for copies to take back to their job sites. After the 800 flyers were gone, I distributed 30 CHALLENGES, using the front-page article from the Chicago hospital struggle to illustrate the similarity of workers' struggles elsewhere. All in all, a good day!

Retired Comrade

Film Raps Mali Capitalism-- But Offers No Solution

I saw the African movie Bamako with two other teachers from my school. We were all very impressed. The film, whose setting is Mali's capital Bamako, is a powerful and artistically interesting indictment of the policies of capitalist financial and trade organizations: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Set in a residential courtyard the film follows the personal lives of several Malians, while institutions of global capital [imperialism] are being tried outside. The prosecution calls witnesses (workers and farmers) who give heart-wrenching testimony about the devastating effects of huge debt; structural adjustment programs that drastically cut government social projects; the privatization of water and other basic needs; the charging of tuition for primary education; the replacement of food farming that sustains life with farming that produces crops for export; and unfair trade practices such as U.S. and European subsidizing agribusiness to the disadvantage of African producers.

The witnesses are eloquent and cite fact after fact of the social catastrophe befalling Mali and other African countries. The defense argues that the architects of globalization policies never intended to hurt the people of Africa. Rather, they "wanted to help" but were stymied by corrupt government officials.

The prosecution responds that corruption exists worldwide, and that global capital actually encourages and enables corrupt politicians. It also shows that the onerous debt African countries are paying has been repaid many times over, and that the amount paid for debt service is many times the amount spent on human services like education and health, ravaging the uneducated and the sick who can't get medical care.

The prosecution explains to the court and the sympathetic audience that Africa's enormous wealth -- its gold, diamonds, oil, uranium, cocoa, cotton and other raw materials -- as well as millions of slave laborers, have enriched the capitalist world, particularly multi-national corporations. Banks and capitalist outfits like the World Bank now loan money to corrupt local leaders, repaid on the backs of Africa's working class.

In the courtroom finale, the film unabashedly indicts capitalism, on behalf of which the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO function. But then the film has a dilemma: if the problem is capitalism, then the solution must be anti-capitalism and revolution. But then the director pulls back and calls for reform and the adoption of "humane" policies from organizations that the film has spent nearly two hours indicting.

It notes, for instance, that the World Bank is currently led by Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars, money that could have been spent on schools and hospitals. The profit system is good at enriching a relatively few and instigating deadly wars for control of oil, and completely incapable of eradicating poverty, disease, and inequality. We can support reforms like canceling the debt, but we shouldn't spread illusions about capitalism becoming a "humane" system.

Nevertheless, Bamako is an amazing film, one that we should see with fellow workers, students, neighbors and people in organizations to which we belong.

Red Moviegoer

How Will Communism Improve Workers' Lives?

I think a letter in the March 14 issue correctly criticizes two CHALLENGE articles on the struggles at Cook County Hospital in Chicago for failing to describe how health care would be better for all workers in a world run by the international working class under a communist egalitarian system.

The letter points out that some possible health care improvements had been covered in the column entitled "Under Communism," later changed to "Forward to Communism." The column ran on the back page of every issue for over a year.

It would be better if such expected improvements were made part of articles about the struggles that PLP members are engaged in with fellow workers. Many articles about the Party's participation in struggles could benefit by referring to the way the particular focus of the struggle would be better for workers under communism.

That will take some thought on the part of the writers of each article, but this is one way we can keep communist politics as the most important focus of the article and of the struggle it describes.

Saguaro Rojo

Ex-Sailor Backs Shipyard Strikers

I was stationed at the Pascagoula shipyard in 1977. It was my first duty station where we met our ship, the USS Saipan, on which I spent the next three years. It was a very impressive yard then, 40,000 workers at shift change. Workers from four states worked there.

They build everything there -- aircraft carriers, submarines and destroyers. It's no exaggeration to say that these workers have shut one of the biggest warmakers. They, and CHALLENGE, have my complete support.

Former Red Sailor

REDEYE

Democracy fails the Stalin test

Riot police officers swarmed on a group of several dozen journalists and demonstrators on Saturday in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's third-largest city, cutting off a protest against the government of President Vladimir V. Putin....

A small group of elderly people yelling "Fascists! Fascists!" tried to hold back a second wave of police officers....But they fell to the ground under heavy police shields.

"Look, this is a democracy," said one woman there who refused to be identified. "Under Stalin we had free education and free health care. Now we are not free to say anything." (NYT, 3/15)

Lula enslaves migrants

...Drive to the outskirts of Palmares Paulista and a much bleaker picture emerges of what President Lula has dubbed Brazil's "energy revolution". On one side, thick green plantations of sugar cane stretch out as far as the eye can see....

...At the same time [,] inside prison-like construction are the cortadores de cana - sugar cane cutters - part of a destitute internal migrant workforce of about 200,000 men who help prop up the country's ethanol industry....

"They will do anything to get by."

That includes working 12-hour shifts in scorching heat and earning just over $1 per tonne of sugar cane. (GW, 3/29)

Latin America: Rage vs. US trade deals

...Protests have been fierce, with Mr. Bush being taunted by signs and grafitti calling him a "murderer" and a "fascist"....

Officials traveling with Mr. Bush acknowledged the sense among the region's poor that the benefits of trade deals with the United States have not trickled down to them....

"For close to 20 years of democratic processes and rhetoric about the benefits of democracy and free markets, the average person is waking up and saying, how's my life gotten better?" said a senior administration official speaking on condition of anonymity. "This is a fair question..." (NYT, 3/14)

50% unemployment destroys black
communities

...The official unemployment numbers...understate the problem of joblessness for all groups....

Over the past few years, the percentage of black male high school graduates in their 20s who were jobless (including those who abandoned all efforts to find a job) has ranged from well over a third to roughly 50 percent. Those are the kinds of statistics you get during a depression.

For dropouts, the rates of joblessness are staggering. For black males who left high school without a diploma, the real jobless rate at various times over the past few years has ranged from 59 percent to a breathtaking 72 percent....

Jobless rates at such sky-high levels don't just destroy lives, they destroy entire communities. (NYT, 3/15)

Oil $$$ don't help Angola's workers

...Angola is finding itself at the crossroads of today's energy geopolitics. It has become the latest stage in a global rivalry playing out among Western, Russian and Chinese oil companies....

...Angola earned more than $30 billion last year from its petroleum exports. But according to a recent World Bank report, 70 percent of the population lives on the equivalent of less than $2 a day, the majority lack access to basic health care, and about one in four children die before their fifth birthday. (NYT, 3/20)

US military aims at Africa oil

The decision to establish Africom, as the command will be known, reflects the Bush administration's primary reliance on the use of force to pursue its strategic interests. Among the key goals for the new command, for example, is the assurance of oil imports from Africa which have assumed much greater importance given the hostility to the US presence in the Middle East. (GW, 3/22)

Russia to defy West, not terror

Russia is to replace its military doctrine with a more hawkish version that identifies Nato and the West as its greatest danger. In a statement posted on its website Russia's powerful security council says it no longer considered global terrorism as its biggest danger and was developing a new national strategy....

The chairman of Russia's academy of military science, Mahmoud Garayev, said Russia could no longer afford to ignore that threat from Nato. Drugs and terrorism were an irrelevance, he said. (GW, 3/22)

PL Worker-Student Alliance Trumps SDS Right-wingers
SDS: PART V

The 1969 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Convention (June 18-22) in the Chicago Coliseum brought to a head the internal battle between left- and right-wings that had been seething within the organization for several years.

The left was represented by PLP and the Worker-Student Alliance (WSA) Caucus. Invigorated by the practical experience gained in leading sharp on-campus struggles against racism and the bosses' Vietnam genocide, the PLP-WSA contingent arrived at the Convention with a proposal entitled "Less Talk-More Action-Fight Racism!"

The right-wing (which shortly spawned the terrorist Weathermen) was led by outgoing SDS National Secretary Mike Klonsky and Inter-organizational Secretary Bernadine Dohrn. It included Mark Rudd, a former Columbia SDS chapter chair, whom the rulers had turned into a media star after the 1968 Columbia strike. Throughout the period leading up to the strike, Rudd had consistently opposed the campaign over its main issues: Columbia's ties to the Institute for Defense Analyses and the university's racist expansion into Harlem.

The national SDS right-wing had named itself the "Revolutionary Youth Movement" (RYM). During the pre-Convention period, RYM leaders had focused on two goals: in-fighting for political control within SDS and uniting to "get" PL by smashing the growing Worker-Student Alliance Caucus. Expelling PLP from SDS had replaced the struggle against racism and imperialist war as RYM's priority.

The bait was two-pronged: first, the time-worn anti-communist cliché about PLP as "external cadre" bent on manipulating the SDS rank and file, and second, pseudo-revolutionary nationalism, backed by RYM's unprincipled alliance with the Black Panther Party. (See next issue for an analysis of this alliance.)

Two thousand people attended the Convention, by far the largest turnout in SDS history. The first major fight concerned workshops. PLP and the WSA supported them as the best vehicle for discussing the tactics and politics of struggle and the important ideological differences within the organization. Klonsky & Co. opposed such discussion, offering the lame excuse that there was "no room in the vast Coliseum." When that was exposed as a hoax, Klonsky offered the absurd argument that workshops were PLP's "hunting ground for young people." Another RYM leader called supporting workshops "anti-communist" because it showed the SDS rank and file didn't trust a few leaders to settle matters on the floor.

The membership voted down this nonsense in favor of the workshops, but the RYM "national collective" offered speakers and panels to replace slots of workshop time. This tactic was cleverer, the "national collective" using it to block the workshops.

Most people had come to the Convention expecting to discuss different political approaches to the practical task of building an anti-imperialist, anti-racist movement. PLP's anti-nationalist position, which by now had been published in PL Magazine ("Revolutionaries Must Fight Nationalism"), could be understood only in this context. But the opportunist RYM crowd avoided all discussion of practice, smearing PL as "racist" and "opposed to struggle."

The RYM leadership never showed how the WSA's supposedly "reactionary" ideas undermined its practice during militant campus fights from San Francisco State to Harvard, in which the PLP and WSA had played key roles. When the RYM leaders' own practice was criticized, as at Columbia and Berkeley, they had no response except more red-baiting.

The racism panel exposed the total bankruptcy of the "national collective." (Next: The minority "expels" the majority.)

MARK RUDD: FBI's Little Helper

(Excerpts from a Feb. 17 speech to the "Movement for A Democratic Society" by Mark Rudd, former leader of the SDS's right-wing, on "The Death of SDS," exposing the anti-communist lie that "PLP wrecked SDS." Actually PL'ers fought for a mass Worker-Student Alliance-based SDS while facing physical and ideological attacks from the terrorist Weathermen and other right-wingers.)

I [was]...one of the principal authors, almost forty years ago, of a totally failed strategy.... My little faction seized control of the SDS national office and several of the regional offices. We then made the tragic decision -- in 1969, at the height of the [Vietnam] war -- to kill off SDS because it wasn't revolutionary enough for us....

I remember a certain meeting with no more than ten people present -- out of a national membership of 12,000 and perhaps ten times that many chapter members -- at which we in the Weatherman clique running the NO [National Office -- Ed.] decided to scuttle SDS. I remember driving a VW van with Teddy Gold from the NY Regional Office...[in NYC -- Ed.] to the Sanitation Dept. pier at the end of W. 14th Street...and dumping the addressograph mailing stencils and other records from the Regional Office onto a barge. These...decisions...I and my comrades made unilaterally....

We could have... fought to keep SDS in existence...to unite as many people as possible against the war (which is what the Vietnamese had asked us to do) while at the same time educating around imperialism. I often wonder, had we done so, where we would have been a few months later, in May, 1970, when the biggest student protests in American history jumped off?....

The Weatherman faction, by killing off SDS, did the work of the FBI for them. Assuming we weren't in the pay of the FBI, we should have been.

Speculators Profit, Workers Pay the Bill

The recent subprime mortgage scandal shows that greed for profits under capitalism knows no limits. When profiteering causes a crisis, the pain is always passed on to the working class.

The booming real estate market in the early 2000s attracted speculators who wanted to get in on the scam of lending money to people with imperfect credit. Regulated financial institutions like banks could only give mortgages to those with adequate credit. Speculators rushed in to fill this void and set up new outfits that borrowed from banks in order to finance mortgages to subprimes (mostly low-wage workers who couldn't qualify for credit elsewhere) giving out mortgages pretty much to anyone who applied.

The media exclaimed how the "American dream" of home ownership now had been extended to all. The subprime mortgages were a fraud right from the beginning. They had seductive low-interest rates for the first few years but then the rates ballooned. To keep up the mortgage payments, workers could refinance (going further into debt) because housing prices were still rising. But now that the boom is over, and rising interest rates have made monthly mortgage payments much higher, millions of workers have fallen behind and are in default.

As the foreclosure sales (when workers are thrown out and the banks sell their houses), these workers will be saddled with the difference as a mountain of debt in many cases won't cover the amount of the bloated mortgages, (with capitalism's racism causing a disproportionate number of them to be black and Latin).

Workers woes will be compounded by new laws that largely prevent them from declaring bankruptcy -- at the same time corporate bankruptcy rights to abrogate union contracts and void worker pension guarantees were preserved. So much for the "promises" of capitalism!

Faced with the threat that the failure of the subprimes could cause a financial crisis, liberals are calling for regulating the mortgage speculators. This call for capitalism to "change its stripes" flies in the face of the bosses' constant drive for maximum profits. The "regulated" banks, after all, who weren't allowed to make the subprime loans, had little reservation about buying "bundles" of these mortgages from the speculators so that they could get a cut of the profits from workers' future misery. The only solution for workers will be getting rid of the speculators AND the "respectable" bosses who, with their usual greed, financed and profited from the subprime mortgages.

Mortgage Collapse Spreading. . .

Lost profits from the collapse of the subprime mortgage speculations are worrisome to U.S. bosses. The real fear is that this collapse will spread throughout the whole economy. The NY Times estimates that over $800 billion of highly vulnerable mortgages have been written in the last five years of the housing boom. Banks that have profited from those mortgages may now have to write off losses, as foreclosures are rising to record levels. These losses will depress housing prices, making it impossible for other homeowners to continue the refinancing that have enabled them to pay the higher mortgage payments caused by recent increases in interest rates.

This collapse promises to slow down or end the boom in new housing construction that has been the biggest plus for the bosses' economy in recent years. If the economy slows down sharply, the rulers will be harder pressed to pay for their war plans. Foreign capitalists who have financed the growing U.S. debt will want higher interest payments to "stay the course" and those higher rates would only make the housing crisis worse. US rulers will use tax increases, wage cuts and terror tactics to try to pass their losses onto the working class. Liberals will call for "shared sacrifice" which just means that workers get to pay the bill!

CAL Teachers Oppose Imperialist Wars, Build Unity of Workers and Soldiers

LOS ANGELES, CA, March 18 -- Delegates to the annual convention of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) voted with their feet and their ballots this weekend. Almost 100 delegates joined the mass anti-war march in Hollywood. Some carried signs calling for "US Out of Iraq Now, No War on Iran." Other signs linked the Iraq war to racism and class struggle at home, supporting Katrina survivors striking war profiteer Northrop Grumman in Mississippi (see page 1). Others demanded the U.S. government stop destroying Baghdad and start rebuilding New Orleans.

Convention delegates supported a resolution of solidarity with the Northrop Grumman strikers, identifying the company as a major military contractor and highlighting the resources fattening company profits by 39% in the last quarter of 2006, resources desperately needed by workers who survived Katrina. Several delegates agreed with a leaflet saying this strike shows "the power of the working class to throw a monkey wrench into the heart of the war machine." Some also agreed that European strikers against Airbus face the same attacks.

Delegates also enthusiastically supported the Oaxaca teachers, raising over $2,000 to send home with a guest speaker from their union. They approved resolutions opposing war on Iran and declaring solidarity with the faculty of the California State University system (who are not CFT members) in their current contract struggle. Nearly 400 delegates also voted to support Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused deployment to Iraq, but said he would go to Afghanistan, and to encourage CFT locals and members to "report our anti-war position to active-duty soldiers wherever possible." This indicated a growing awareness of the need for an anti-war movement inside the U.S. military. However, its cautious wording and lack of a plan show that much more work is needed to win anti-war teachers away from legalistic, patriotic pacifism, to a revolutionary anti-imperialist outlook.

The liberal CFT leadership didn't openly oppose these resolutions, but pushed its own political agenda with speeches from Democratic Party politicians and a boring presentation on healthcare "reform." State Senator Gil Cedillo promoted his "California Dream Act" which would allow undocumented immigrant students to pay in-state tuition. The Act's name aims to confuse people into supporting the national "DREAM Act" which would draw immigrant youth into the military.

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa begged teachers to support his plan to take over the city school system, for "reform" and "accountability." Few were impressed, but many still wrongly believe that liberal boss-sponsored "reforms" would benefit black and Latin working-class children. Little time was allowed for discussion. Sharper struggle is needed to expose the roots of the racism in the education system. These "reforms" aim to win students and teachers to patriotism. Some mistakenly try to "work with" or "around" these liberal reformers in the CFT leadership rather than confront their pro-imperialist politics.

The American Federation of Teachers Peace and Justice Caucus members gave leadership in advancing many of these resolutions and in organizing the march contingent. Now they must raise the issues in their schools and organize teachers and students for action.

CHALLENGE readers should get the paper to friends and invite them to PLP's May Day activities. This will prepare them to even more sharply challenge the leadership's liberal politics next time. Such a struggle can help PLP grow and is necessary to organize a communist revolution that would truly destroy the profit system and its wars.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, March 28, 2007

Information: 28 March 2007 113 hits

Fight Racism: Bosses' Tool To Divide Workers

Racism Hurts All Workers

Anti-Racists Expose Obama Rally

Obama Wants Wider War

Dems Pledge More Billions for Iraq Slaughter

Obeying Imperialist Masters, Democrat Attacks GI Mom

Democrats' 'Anti-War' Move Aids Deadly 'Surge'

Like It Or Not, Rulers Will Restore Draft

Students See Racist Capitalism at Work in New Orleans

Strike Against Katrina Profiteers

Campus Rally Links War, Racist Lab, Budget Cuts

Aerospace Workers Need Multi-Racial Internationalism

Airbus Walkout Faces Labor Fakers', Pols' Sellout

Strikers Must Fight Peugeot Racism

Capitalism's Poverty Killed Mali Immigrants in Bronx Fire

Fascist Storm Troopers Round Up Immigrant Women Factory Workers

Mexico: Abolition of Wage System Only Answer to Slave Labor

LETTERS

Letter from Spain: The ETA, Nationalism and Communism

CHALLENGE Comment

It's the Bosses Who Dictate Censorship

CHALLENGE Comments

PL'ers Leaflet London Anti-War March

Mailer's Book Clueless on Fascism

CHALLENGE COMMENT

Back to New Orleans

Paul Sporn 1921 - 2007

REDEYE

Yes, US in Iraq for oil
US funds create the terrorists
China legalizes robbery by rich
Bosses' laws enslave 'guests'
Young workers can't find jobs
Misuse troops then rob them

PLP HISTORY. 1969 PL-Led Strike Paralyzed Harvard

U.S. Rulers Throw Wounded GI's on Scrap Heap

Bush Trip In Latin America Reflects Sharpening Inter-Imperialist Struggle

Fight Racism: Bosses' Tool To Divide Workers

Racism has been, and continues to be the main contradiction in the working class. It divides and weakens the international working class, greases the imperialist war machine and allows the bosses to stay in power. It is the main fiber that holds the capitalist system of wage slavery together. What else can be expected from a system built on the labor of African slaves and the genocide of indigenous Native Americans?

Capitalism created racist terror. As the black historian Lerone Bennet, Jr. wrote in "The Road Not Taken," black and indigenous slaves and white indentured servants "had to be divided by rivers of blood." Segregation and racism did not come easy or naturally. It was never "human nature." Instead, many slaves and wage slaves of all colors lived together, struggled together, raised families together and rebelled together against every attempt to divide them.

From Nat Turner and countless slave rebellions, to John Brown and Harriet Tubman's planned raid on the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry to form an army of freed slaves (which helped spark the Civil War), to the ghetto rebellions that rocked the U.S. a century later, most massive and violent struggles of the U.S. working class have been in the struggle for equality, to smash racism. That struggle will never end until capitalism and wage slavery are destroyed with communist revolution!

Racist terror, segregation and lies against black workers are meant to punish militancy and divide the working class. The bosses try to get native born-workers to blame immigrants for lower pay and worsening conditions. They want us to see Arab immigrants as "terrorists" to dehumanize them and win us to fight for ExxonMobil's oil. While the police use black and Latin gangs to violently divide us, they use Illinois Senator Barack Obama and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to lead us to the Democratic Party and wider wars.

Hitler's Germany, South Africa's apartheid system and Israel's brutal racist oppression of the Palestinians all took their lead from U.S. racism. And in every measurable sense, racism is on the rise, the cutting edge of fascism as U.S. rulers prepare for a future of endless wars and genocide. The lower family income of black and Latin workers compared to white family income adds up to an extra $250 billion in super-profits for the bosses. From life expectancy to infant mortality, from a widening wage gap to blacks suffering twice the unemployment of whites, from increased poverty to increased drop-out rates, black and Latino workers and youth are being hit first and hardest.

Every day over 30 million people go to bed hungry in the U.S., including 46% of all black children, 40% of Latino children and 16% of white children. To enforce these attacks, the bosses rely on racist police terror and mass incarceration. While blacks and Latinos comprise only 25% of the U.S. population, there are more than twice as many in prisons compared to white inmates.

It was Clinton, the liberal "first black president" who ended welfare, put 100,000 more racist killer cops on the streets, doubled the border patrol leading to hundreds of deaths of immigrants trying to cross the border, deported more people than any president in U.S. history, and doubled the prison population to over two million, the highest in the world! About 70% of the prison population is black and Latino. The brutal racist incarceration of black youth (the "War on Drugs") preceded and laid the basis for, Bush's "War on Terror," mass round-ups of Muslim and Arab immigrants, secret prisons and torture.

Racism Hurts All Workers

With the union leaders' help, the auto, steel, airlines and aerospace giants have sub-contracted tens of thousands of jobs to low-paid mainly black and Latino citizen and immigrant workers. While Boeing eliminated 50,000 jobs in Washington, subcontractors in southern California boomed, paying mainly immigrant labor less than half of Boeing wages. With the addition of over 15,000 auto-related factories - many Asian and European-owned - auto production has shifted to lower-paid workers across the South, leaving cities like Detroit, Flint, and Toledo in ruins. While black, Latino and immigrant workers are shouldering the main burden of U.S. imperialism in decline, all workers' jobs, wages, pensions and healthcare are being devastated. This shows how the bosses use racism to divide and weaken the whole working class.

U.S. imperialism has killed over 650,000 Iraqis in the last four years, well over 1.2 million since 1992. More than 850 million people live on less than one dollar a day - the World Bank's international poverty line - and half the world lives on less than $2-a-day! Over 250,000 children die every week of hunger and malnutrition. The vast majority are black, Latin and Asian.

Attacks on African and Arab immigrants sweep across Europe while over one-third of the African population is malnourished, AIDS is rampant and life expectancy is under 41 years. In Latin America there are 98 million homeless people.

From the Serb-Muslim "ethnic cleansings" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to the Tutsi-Hutu genocide in Rwanda, to the current U.S.-sponsored Sunni-Shia bloodbath in Iraq, to the slaughter of four million Congolese in a war for diamonds, coltan and gold, to mass murder in Darfur, racist genocide has become a growing trend, the cost of doing business in a world still suffering the loss of a once powerful world communist movement. Can the U.S. be far behind?

From the chilling sight of 100,000 black workers being left behind to die when Katrina struck New Orleans, to the closing of half the health clinics in Chicago with a patient population over 80% black and Latino, to AIDS being the #1 killer of black women between 20 and 40, the answer starts to become clearer.

Black and Latino nationalism helps the racist bosses by dividing the working class and simultaneously weakens the fight against racism, the rulers' main divisive tool. We are one international working class with the same enemy and the same fight. Only the working class, which creates all value, can unite to destroy capitalism and run society without wars, racism, bosses, or wages.

U.S. bosses are drowning in a quagmire in Iraq and are facing increasing challenges from rival imperialists worldwide. But they still have a lot of life left in them. The one contradiction they can't escape is that they must rely on those they oppress the most to save their racist empire. That's why the morale of their army is lousy, and why soldiers will eventually be won to rebel against the brass and fight for communist revolution. Black and Latino workers and youth can bring their vast experience in fighting racist terror to lead the revolutionary movement and PLP.

When the Party leads fights against racism while exposing nationalism and patriotism, and puts forward communist ideas, then the fight against racism becomes not just another reform but leads to building PLP and is a major step on the road to revolution. We need to bring the fight against racism into all mass organizations, expose the bosses' ideas and win angry workers and youth away from the leadership's racism, nationalism and patriotic loyalty to the bosses' system. We need to make communist politics primary. The fight against racism is the key to building the mass PLP that unites the working class for a communist revolution.

Anti-Racists Expose Obama Rally

CHICAGO, IL March 3 - Today, PLP members unfurled a banner calling presidential hopeful Barack Obama, "The next Iran WAR President!" at a rally hosted by the AFL-CIO and its pro-war president John Sweeney. We shouted at Obama to come clean about his plans for widening imperialist oil war in the Middle-East. As security roughly escorted us from the Hyatt hotel, Obama said, "Someone tell that sister that I'm against the war," even though the day before he had addressed a group of Israeli businessmen and talked about dealing with the "Iranian threat." One anti-war activist left with us.

Calling the event a rally for "workers rights," hundreds of nurses and laundry staff from the Resurrection Catholic Hospital system were brought by AFSCME, which is trying to organize them. Sweeney, Obama and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin were all in attendance, to support the organizing drive and new proposed federal legislation to support union organizing.

These are the same pack of union leaders and politicians who did nothing to oppose the racist budget cuts in the County health system that are being carried out by fellow racist Democrats Todd Stroger and the Daley machine. The County will close half of its 26 clinics that serve hundreds of thousands of uninsured workers and children, more than 80 percent black and Latin. The cuts were made to fill a $100- million cut in federal funding due to the $2-TRILLION war in Iraq. These cuts will kill thousands of mostly black and Latin patients.

Still, workers were ecstatic when Obama walked into the room. Minutes after he began speaking, an integrated group, including health care workers and students involved in the County struggle, unfurled the banner and began walking toward the center aisle. We want Obama to know that he can't speak in Chicago without being exposed as a war mongering agent of the racist ruling class. We distributed PLP leaflets titled, "Where Was Obama When the Clinics Closed," and sold CHALLENGE.

Taking on Obama, especially on his home turf, is not easy or popular right now. This is similar to when Harold Washington was elected the first black mayor of Chicago about 25 years ago, and no one on the "left" opposed him but PLP. But we are not in a popularity contest. We are out to challenge the misleaders and fight for the political leadership of the working class. In order to do this we will have to take this battle into the unions and churches, and the Obama and Hillary campaigns directly.

A woman who heard about the action later in the day told one of our comrades that she is active in Obama's campaign, and that the next time she has people over to her house, she will invite her along to discuss her ideas. That is the kind of ties and struggle it will take to turn the tide and expose the rulers' latest shooting star. There should be no place Obama can speak unchallenged! Join the PLP and march with us on May Day.

Obama Wants Wider War

In a public debate with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Obama called for Australia to increase its troop levels in Iraq. As a member of the liberal wing of the U.S. ruling class, Barack wants to guarantee a permanent U.S. presence in the Middle-East. He knows that traditional allies like Britain and Australia will be beneficiaries if the Middle-East is subjugated. He wants them to ante up.

Barack has said that he is against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Obama hopes to recycle the "WMD" slogan to justify a future imperialist war to salvage what U.S influence is left in the oil-rich region. As tens of thousands of workers die here and in Iraq, he offers us only more of the same racist cutbacks, fascism and war!

Dems Pledge More Billions for Iraq Slaughter

Phony "anti-war" Democrats in Congress want to give the Bush administration $20 billion more than the $100 billion it seeks in emergency funding for U.S. imperialism's increasingly deadly efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Disguised as demanding a 2008 Iraq withdrawal timetable, while "supporting our troops," liberals are, in fact, trying to make the U.S. war machine more lethal and more effective in stabilizing the Mid-East, and securing its oil.

The liberal NY Times (3/10) blessed the move: "House Democrats now want to add funds to speed the production and delivery of badly-needed protective armor, provide better medical care for wounded troops and veterans, and shore up the Army's eroding combat readiness....We hope they succeed." AP reports (3/8): "Democrats also intend to add $1.2 billion to Bush's request for military operations in Afghanistan." As they hand the bloodthirsty generals all the cash they want, and more, the liberal lawmakers reveal their unswerving loyalty to U.S. imperialism.

Obeying Imperialist Masters, Democrat Attacks GI Mom

Wisconsin Democratic congressman David Obey showed his true colors in a particularly disgusting incident. When Tina Richards, an Iraq war protester and mother of a Marine, demanding that Congress bring the troops home, asked Obey why he would vote for a war spending bill, Obey lost it. Labeling war opponents "idiots," he shouted in his constituent's face, "If that [the war bill] isn't good enough for you, you're smoking something illegal. You've got your facts screwed up." (Washington Post, 2/10)

The House Democrats' proposal (Obama and Clinton back similar Senate measures) gives a green light to at least one more year of carnage in Iraq and opens wide loopholes for future U.S. troop presence there. The liberals call for "withdrawal" in 2008, except for "targeted counterterrorism operations, embassy protection and efforts to train Iraqis." Counter-terrorism includes stifling sabotage against the Iraqi oil industry. The U.S.'s puppet government has offered Exxon Mobil and Chevron open access to Iraq's crude, but increasing violence keeps the firms out. "Since 2003, there have been more than 380 attacks on Iraq's oil assets: pipelines blown up, terminals set on fire and key personnel killed. Although some of the oil majors have privately identified areas in the country where they would like to explore, especially in the south, none have so far taken the plunge." (London Telegraph, 3/11) U.S. rulers' need to control Iraq's oil infrastructure is one of the more compelling "facts" Obey alluded to.

Democrats' 'Anti-War' Move Aids Deadly 'Surge'

Boosting the war effort now, while effectively delaying any de-escalation for a year or more, helps U.S. imperialists make the best of the remainder of the Bush presidency. The liberal imperialists, with the NY Times and the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations in the forefront, had called for a massive invasion of Iraq. But Bush, to please his donor and voter base, has refused to raise the taxes required, or to mobilize the nation. Lately, however, the liberal imperialists have asserted greater, but not full, control over Bush's war policy.

Rumsfeld is out and Chaney chastened. And the "surge," brainchild of imperialist James Baker, is growing by the day. Imperialist strategists decry it as "too little, too late," but it represents the best they could manage under Bush. Liberals in Congress are enabling the surge and thus stand as guilty as the Bush gang - amid a host of other war crimes - of the recent murder of a non-combatant and his two young daughters in Sadr City.

The Democrats' actions mesh with the recommendations of the liberal imperialist Brookings Institution: "Rather than force a showdown with Mr. Bush this winter and spring, Congress should give his surge strategy a chance ....There are good reasons to give the war effort...another six to nine months....[T]he new surge strategy being implemented by Gen. David Petraeus, while still insufficiently resourced, is much more consonant with classic counter-insurgency doctrine than anything the coalition has tried to date." (Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon, Wall Street Journal, 3/1)

The surge buys the liberals time until the 2008 elections, when they hope to replace Bush with one of their own. They need a president with the will and skill to militarize the U.S., for an imminent clash with Iran and a superpower conflict down the road. They need someone who can sell the draft, or as Democrats label it, "national service." [See box.]

Nobody should fall for Obama's or Clinton's or any other politician's empty promises to bring the troops home. Rep. Obey's open hostility is more honest. Backing liberal candidates advances the imperialists' war agenda. The only viable alternative lies beyond the voting booth, in relying on our own working class and recruiting masses into a revolutionary communist party, PLP.

Like It Or Not, Rulers Will Restore Draft

Many people believe the U.S. ruling class will never bring back the draft to expand the armed forces. They say the technically superior U.S. military is already lethal enough to defeat any foe, and that public aversion to war acquired during the Vietnam genocide makes mass militarization impossible. They say the draft would be "too costly" and would provide only ill-trained, unreliable manpower. Many generals and politicians have made these very points.

The rulers indeed would prefer not to have a draft. But events are often beyond their control. Michael O'Hanlon of the liberal Brookings Institution and Kurt Campbell, a former deputy assistant defense secretary, envision highly probable scenarios that would force the rulers to get over the Vietnam Syndrome pronto:

"It was only a decade ago when the nation was purported to have...an extreme over-sensitivity to casualties that prevented the country from considering decisive military actions that its national security required....This consideration does not categorically preclude the possibility of mandatory national service....That could be necessary if another major war [Iran perhaps, ed.] breaks out during the Iraq operation, or if the Iraq operation drags on for so long that military morale breaks." (Hard Power, Basic Books, 2006)

The Iraq quagmire proves that being able to kill people and occupying inhabited territories are different tasks. The U.S. military can do the former quite well. The latter requires many more boots than the Pentagon can currently put on the ground. As for money, in a crunch, U.S. rulers will dig as deeply as they have to. Between 1940 and 1944, they increased military spending from 1% to 40% of gross domestic product. And U.S. rulers had less at stake in World War II. Their economic empire at the time lay mainly in North and South America, away from the fighting. Today, the Mid-East and its oil form its core.

Imperialists O'Hanlon and Campbell also address the loyalty issue: under a draft, "the most demanding military professions should be reserved for the professionals." They mean volunteers.

("Obama's Ruling-Class Apprenticeship" will appear next issue.)

Students See Racist Capitalism at Work in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, LA., Feb. 28 -- Over winter break, a multi-racial group of twenty high school students helped New Orleans workers fight the bosses' attacks, originally thinking their purpose was to "help the people down there because there is a lot to be done." Many had not understood the use of the words racism and fascism or the residents' anger at the government. That quickly changed in New Orleans.

The first day, residents of the CJ Peete (aka Magnolia) housing projects moving back into the houses asked for the student volunteers to help clean them out. These apartments, constructed during the 1940s, were not affected by the flood and were ready to live in right after the hurricane. The Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), however, locked them up and wouldn't let the residents move back, even with "legal" leases. This is part of a plan to get rid of the public housing and replace it with mixed income housing, driving black workers away. According to Bill Quigley, law professor at New Orleans' Loyola University, "CJ Peete will go from 723 units to 410; of the 410 units, 154 will be public-housing eligible, with 133 mixed-income and 123 market-rate." In other words, the workers depending on these houses are being kicked out to make do with trailers if they can find nothing else.

As the students spoke to the residents, many of them began to learn about the daily lives of workers. These interactions motivated them to work harder to help, building a sense of working-class solidarity and willingness to serve the working class. But we sometimes allow the anger to fade or become cynical if we work on reformist projects without examining the bigger picture. We must understand the workings of capitalism to smash it and build a more egalitarian society.

While they cleaned houses, HANO police noticed more residents moving back in, so they acted to protect the bosses, telling students that they could be charged with trespassing and vandalism because the residents did not have "the right papers." The students left, some saying "I would have gotten arrested, we should have fought back." This proved the essence of state power: those willing to fight for the working class will be punished, jailed, tortured, or even killed. As the week went on, students began to make connections, saying that, "They can spend billions of dollars on a war for oil, but they can't give the people down here money to move back into their homes."

Deeply moved by what they saw of the racism intrinsic in the history of this tragedy, the students were politicized by their experience. Black students who were less surprised by evidence of racism felt a new obligation to organize more where they live. But this anger is not enough if directed at particular politicians rather than the system that produces racist inequalities. We must work closely with these students to develop a more revolutionary perspective. It is very easy to get caught up with reformist issues (getting people back into their homes is not something to be taken lightly), but if we make this primary, we lead the working class into the wrong direction.

We have distributed CHALLENGE to some of the students and teachers on the trip, one student and two teachers are attending a study group and many more will be asked to organize for May Day. This trip, along with communist leadership, creates the potential for a strong base in our school.

Strike Against Katrina Profiteers

PASCAGOULA, MISSISSIPPI, March 14 - The rulers' profit-driven reaction to Katrina's devastation has sparked a strike over wages and benefits by nearly 7,000 black and white workers here, shutting down Ingalls Shipyard (the state's largest employer), owned by Northrop-Grumman. The workers walked out on March 8 after a company wage "offer" would be wiped out merely by a $50 monthly increase in health premiums. This from a Navy contractor making huge profits from the $2 billion a week the ruling class spends on its oil war in Iraq.

"They left their houses to get this company up and running," declared fork-lift driver Willie Hammond, father of three, "and this is how they show their appreciation." (NY Times, 3/13)

After workers lost homes, cars and a way of life, they now see a doubling of rents and house prices, a gallon of milk now costs $4.19 (up from $2.59) and payday loans are needed to just buy gas to get to work.

Current projects on a giant Navy destroyer and several transport ships are at a standstill. The bosses' divisive weapon of racism was invisible as this united multi-racial group of strikers were determined to "hold out indefinitely." Their picket-line spirits are high; blues music echoes in the background while they set up barbeque grills to feed themselves.

They have received considerable support from townspeople after a solidarity march through the city. As electrician John Reed told the NY Times, "We're living…paycheck to paycheck, and we're tired of it. If we can survive Katrina, we can survive this."

All workers should raise support for these strikers.

Campus Rally Links War, Racist Lab, Budget Cuts

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - "One, two, three, four! We won't fight your oil war!" was the chant opening an anti-war rally on our campus. Some students wore orange suits and covered their heads with black hoods, depicting Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisoners. This caught passer-bys' attention, mirroring how U.S. imperialism has treated so-called "terrorists" and continues to build fascism and racism by portraying Middle-Eastern people as "terrorists" to justify torturing and terrorizing them.

We distributed over 50 CHALLENGES, while speakers shed light on the role of racism and the need to spread anti-racist struggles on our campuses. Speeches linked the war to growing fascism in the U.S.: Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama recently announced support for construction of the anti-immigrant wall on the Mexico-U.S. border. Like L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Obama also supports more cops in the neighborhoods to terrorize youth and workers.

Students made it clear that the Iraq war, possibly followed by war with Iran, comprises a U.S. ruling-class plan not only to ensure oil for Exxon-Mobil, but also to keep other imperialist powers like Russia and China away from this vital source of profit. Afterwards, many more students came outside for a fire drill, enabling us to continue distributing CHALLENGE and to put forward our politics.

One CHALLENGE seller talked with a soldier who was part of the group around Abu Ghraib when that scandal erupted. He agreed that the war profited the rich, but said that regardless of what the mission was, he only cared for his "brothers" fighting alongside him, showing soldiers' loyalty with each other. But this solidarity must be transformed and deepened into a class-conscious, internationalist solidarity rather than a nationalist one. Although he wouldn't take CHALLENGE, he stayed to listen to all the speeches. Hopefully, the conversation and the event itself exposed some of the lies soldiers like him are told.

Experiences like these show the greater need to reach out to soldiers, both inside the military and by distributing literature from the outside. We must also support rebellions in the military, as PLP did during the Vietnam War.

By themselves, counter-recruitment activities won't end the war. Eventually the rulers will need a draft, which Democrats like Charles Rangel have been pushing, as well as the current backdoor economic draft that has maintained troop numbers for this war. Ultimately, to stop this war and all wars for profit, soldiers and workers will need to rebel against the brass and the rulers to destroy the capitalist system that creates these wars.

Active students on this campus plan more action. They've been campaigning against the racist criminology building and in support of teachers fighting benefit cuts. The budget cuts, the war and the racist criminology lab (site of joint research with the LAPD) all have the same source: racist capitalism. We will mobilize students against these attacks and that root cause.

Aerospace Workers Need Multi-Racial Internationalism

SEATTLE, WA., March 8 - "Boeing says Airbus is the enemy, but the Airbus workers are in the same pickle we are," concluded a Machinist at the last Boeing union meeting (see article below). "We've heard tonight about [IAM International president] Buffenbarger's national industrial policy, but to answer the horrors of subcontracting we need international solidarity!" This call for the world's workers to unite stood in stark contrast to the phony interim IAM District 751 presidential election, where the candidates argue this month over experience (in collaborating with the bosses) and vague calls for change.

While a business agent and the current vice-president duke it out over nothing but their careers, 10,000 of our aerospace brothers and sisters at Airbus will lose their jobs. The candidates have studiously avoided mentioning the European strikes.

(Racist and Nationalist) Birds of a Feather

Unfortunately, the leadership of these Airbus strikes mirrors the lies of our own union misleaders during the "We Can Do It!" campaign held a few years ago. Airbus's Power8 downsizing is a carbon copy of the Boeing Dreamliner subcontracting plan. When Boeing initiated its plan, our leadership mobilized union members to screw mostly Latino farmworkers out of unemployment insurance, gut workers' compensation and give the company huge tax breaks to keep the Dreamliner assembly in Everett, WA. We ended up losing jobs anyway as the company sold whole fabrication and subassembly plants. The Airbus strikes may be more militant, but these pro-capitalist misleaders - on both sides of the Atlantic - are "united" in dividing workers along national and racial lines.

The Dreamliner manufacturing plan is racist. Indeed, the whole reorganization of U.S. industry is racist. Subcontractors pay slave wages to hundreds of thousands of mostly Latino workers churning out Boeing parts in Southern California and Texas. Mercedes-Benz's Alabama assembly plant is staffed by a largely white workforce. Down the street, 3,000 mostly black workers toil in a lower-paid, sped-up subcontracted shop. No doubt Euopean Union bosses will - if they haven't already - export this kind of highly profitable racist division of labor back to the European continent.

Bosses' or Workers' Values

At this same union meeting, the District legislative officer quoted Buffenbarger's warning that countries that don't share "our values" would control the nation's destiny if we didn't beef up our industrial [read: war manufacturing] capacity.

The implications are clear. As inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens, the EU's formidable war industry may not be an ally of the U.S. ruling class. Russia and China have each made huge production deals with EADS (a British-French-German-Spanish conglomerate). Buffenbarger places loyalty to the needs of U.S. imperialism over our need for international working-class solidarity against all bosses.

The union leadership wants us to "race to the bottom" against Airbus workers to help finance the bosses' war plans. Our answer is to rely on the super-exploited black and Latin workers in the subcontracting plants to embrace communist class-consciousness and lead the whole working class. Multi-racial internationalism is what PLP can bring to the class struggle.

We saw a taste of this when reporting on the union meeting back in the shop. Workers requested reprints of old CHALLENGE articles to learn how the bosses violently built nationalist and religious divisions between Jews and Palestinians. They wanted historical examples of how communists united workers in the Middle East. Next step: study-action meetings on this question to build rank-and-file leadership and morale.

Airbus Walkout Faces Labor Fakers', Pols' Sellout

TOULOUSE, FRANCE, March 8 - In their first mobilization since 1993, tens of thousands of France's Airbus workers struck on March 6 protesting the company's downsizing plan for 10,000 layoffs. At the Toulouse, Saint Nazaire and Méaulte plants, up to 90% of the workers downed tools. Nearly 15,000 marched in Toulouse, 3,000 in Saint Nazaire and 2,000 in Méaulte. The Power8 downsizing would sell the latter two plants and lay off 1,600 in Britain and 400 in Spain. Airbus employs 57,000 workers at 16 European sites.

Immediately after the plan was announced, Germany's Airbus workers in Varel, Nordenham and Laupheim also walked out for a short time, as did nearly 14,000 workers at four French sites. Eurocopter workers in Marignane and La Courneuve also struck in sympathy with the Airbus workers. Both Eurocopter and Airbus are EADS (EU conglomerate) subsidiaries.

The co-president of the Airbus workers' council, Jean-François Knepper of the FO trade union, declared that "if we are not heard today, we will have to strike harder. The struggle is only just beginning." But his radical-sounding rhetoric was accompanied by nationalist complaints that there are too many layoffs in France (4,300) and not enough in Germany (3,700).

The leaders of the five big union confederations, and three pseudo-leftist presidential candidates also marched, but all these fake leftist leaders accept the bosses' line - "there is no alternative" to capitalism. They're falling over each other suggesting ways for the capitalists to "solve" their crisis, mainly by pouring capital into Airbus.

On March 5, the five union confederations' leaders said they were "reassured" by their meeting with right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and centrist candidate François Bayrou. "Both…were concrete and…gave us their firm support," said CGT leader Xavier Pétrachi. "Although they think that restructuring is necessary to meet this crisis, both agreed that this…plan is not the right one….That's…what we believe, too."

This supposedly "left-wing" union leader supports axing workers' jobs so long as the axed jobs are "the right ones."

His rival in the FO trade union, Julien Talavant, gushed with gratitude because the politicos agreed to meet him. "We gave them our main demands, they listened to us, they noted them down, and they confirmed many of them…. They won't be able to let us down now." Talavant must believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, too!

"Socialist" party presidential candidate Ségolène Royal proposes "authorizing the [French] regions entering [Airbus's] capital ... and that the government commit itself to providing grants for research and development." Since the regions have no money to invest and the government is up to its neck in debt, Royal's proposal is an empty one.

"Communist" party candidate Marie-George-Buffet proposes "a low-interest European Bank loan to recapitalize Airbus and get it through this rough patch, so as to preserve the technological know-how." She's appealing to the capitalists' self-interest, telling them that tomorrow they'll need the skilled workers they're axing today. She "forgot" that the iron law of capitalism is dictated by the bottom line.

Trotskyist candidate Olivier Besancenot wants a "European consortium" to nationalize both EADS and its subsidiary, Airbus. As if a capitalist government could change the workings of the capitalist market or would hesitate to lay off workers any more than a private sector boss!

The European aircraft unions are calling for united demonstrations throughout Europe on March 16 to pressure the European Commission.

These fake leftists and their labor faker friends can't solve this crisis because there isn't a solution under capitalism! The only real solution to job cuts and all bosses' attacks is, in the long run, a communist revolution, when workers can run the economy in our class interest.

Meanwhile, one capitalist is laughing all the way to the bank. Arnaud Lagardère, holding 15% of the voting shares in EADS, sold half of his shares last April, before Airbus's problems became public. The sale fetched two billion euros - not bad, considering his late father paid only 120 million euros for his total investment in EADS in 1999. (Arnaud inherited his father's stake in March, 2003.)

Lagardère refuses to risk reinvesting in EADS or Airbus, but he's enchanted that all the politicians are making cheap promises about pouring in taxpayers' money to bail out the company. [Source: "Le Canard enchaîné," 3/7/07]J

(Next Issue: The European Military-Industrial Complex

Strikers Must Fight Peugeot Racism

AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, FRANCE, March 6-The strike launched on Feb. 28 by 460 Peugeot autoworkers continued in this Paris suburb today. One assembly line has been shut down and the other is running at a snail's pace. The workers are holding strike rallies twice a day. On March 2, 150 Aulnay strikers went to Survilliers to support striking drivers at Gefco, Peugeot's haulage company.

The Aulnay strikers are demanding a 300-euro-a-month pay hike, permanent jobs for the plant's 700 temporary workers (Peugeot usually denies permanent jobs to these mostly immigrant workers), and the right to retire at 55. Six hundred workers are over 55; their retirement could create jobs for younger workers, particularly Northern and Sub-Saharan Africans from the nearby housing projects, scene of the November 2005 anti-racist rebellions. In 1982 and since, immigrant workers have led nationally-historic struggles at the Aulnay plant.

The workers' average take-home pay is 1,100 euros a month. The plant employs 5,000 workers, 3,200 in production. Peugeot, which netted 176 million euros in profits last year, is sticking to the 25-euro-a-month wage increase stipulated in the 2007 contract signed Feb. 28 with five unions. The strike is backed by two other unions, and one that initially signed the contract.

The Peugeot workers are inspired by the successful strike of workers at Magnetto, a Peugeot division that was spun off and is now a subcontractor. The Magnetto workers won a pay hike and bonuses amounting to 100 euros a month, an extra five days vacation and permanent jobs for the temporary workers.

On March 1, 50,000 marched in Cádiz, Spain, opposing the closing of the Delphi plant in Puerto Real, where 2,800 workers were dumped, 1,600 at Delphi plus 1,200 at plants supplying Delphi. Airbus, Eastman Chemical and other area workers also affected by job losses joined the march. Delphi workers in Barcelona stopped work for an hour in solidarity with the march. The workers are doubly angry, knowing that Delphi had broken a promise to remain open till 2010 after receiving a 62-million euro subsidy from Cádiz's local government.

All across Europe, autoworkers are becoming more militant. But a revolutionary communist leadership is needed to internationalize their struggles and build a powerful red-led workers' movement to get off the reformist treadmills since the bosses take away any short-terms gains at the first opportunity.

Capitalism's Poverty Killed Mali Immigrants in Bronx Fire

BRONX, NY, March 12 - The city's ruling class and its media are using the horrific fire that took the lives of ten members of two immigrant families on March 8 to: (1) make their whole sorry lot look like the ultimate example of compassion - including School Chancellor Klein, Governor Spitzer, Senator Hillary Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg (who changed his tune after being forced to return from Florida after actually blaming the victims for having space heaters) and, of all people, Yankee boss George Steinbrenner; and, (2) burying the news about the probable grand jury cover-up of the cops who murdered Sean Bell.

Soon after one of my West African students at a Family Literacy program called to tell me that another student's best friend from Mali had died in the Bronx fire, (nine children died altogether), we visited our classmates and with them the stricken families. Our program is collecting donations for the families.

The working class has shown again its solidarity and generosity, accompanied by an outpouring of grief and love for the families. Neighbors have erected shrines, established donation centers and collected food. Teachers and children at the local public school which three of the dead children attended are mourning their loss.

The tragedy was no accident. It grew out of the poverty and desperation that imprisons millions of our working-class brothers and sisters, living lives so fragile that they become a tragedy waiting to happen. Capitalism, by its nature a system of exploitation, repression, racism, brutality and profit wars, creates the underpinnings for such calamities.

In the High Bridge neighborhood where the house burned, 41% of the population lives below poverty line; 35% are under 17. Meanwhile, here in NYC the rich have multiple dwellings worth billions. Condos sell for millions. Landlords divide family-sized apartments into small units and charge $2,000 rent each. Working-class families can't find affordable, safe housing. Workers' homes like this one that burned here are often dilapidated fire hazards needing thousands of dollars in repairs.

The banks and the City hold hands: the banks enrich themselves financing dangerously shabby houses for low-income, unsuspecting buyers in search of the "American dream of home ownership"; the City co-operates, having no regulations and zero responsibility for such structures. The cost of heating fuel has skyrocketed, leading low-income dwellers to use dangerous space heaters and ovens for warmth.

Oil giants like Exxon-Mobil made a record $39 billion net profit last year while the U.S. government spends trillions on imperialist military operations. Workers labor long hours on two and three jobs to support their families. Large numbers of undocumented immigrants are caught in this trap, fighting poverty while sending generous parts of their meager earnings to their families ravaged by imperialism back home.

Racist profiling and persecution run rampant. Their effects pervade our communities and jobs and have surfaced in our classroom. But the potential for unity among working-class immigrant students from Mali, Gambia and other West African countries, from Mexico and the Dominican Republic have surfaced as well. We talk, we learn and we struggle, and many stand up to injustice and fight for our needs.

Only under communism, where workers hold power, will the system serve our class's fundamental interests. Such a society, free of racism and capitalist borders, built on production for need, will eliminate the extreme vulnerability in which so many of our working-class brothers and sisters, especially children, currently live. Those of us now building the international communist movement and the Progressive Labor Party must re-dedicate our lives to this struggle.

Fascist Storm Troopers Round Up Immigrant Women Factory Workers

NEW BEDFORD, MA., March 6 - Early this morning over 300 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, backed up by local cops and two Coast Guard helicopters, descended on the small Michael Bianco Inc. (MBI) factory. The raid's target was 500 or more workers - mostly undocumented Latina women - sewing armored military vests.

This notorious sweatshop started as a small leather goods producer, but multiplied in size after 9/11 when it got military contracts to make backpacks and bulletproof vests. MBI makes its profits by paying workers $7 an hour, without benefits or overtime pay, and by enforcing a system of massive fines for tiny infractions like lateness or talking on the floor. They get away with this by threatening arrest and deportation.

ICE raid tactics came right out of a Gestapo handbook: exits guarded, and eight hours of interrogation about each worker's immigration status. (Some workers were questioned as many as three times.) By the end of this ordeal, 361 workers were detained with 45 released because of pregnancy and other medical issues, subject to later questioning. The remaining detainees were then handcuffed and bussed to a military base. After a night in unheated facilities, most were flown to remote cities in the South, the rest being sent to Massachusetts jails. No arrangements were made for the detainees' children, leaving as many as 200 missing a parent, and stranding many at day care or with babysitters.

The factory owner and two managers were arrested and immediately charged with conspiring to import and hire "illegal aliens" without government authorization and then released. MBI will apparently keep at least some of its military contracts. Significantly, the court gave the owner permission to travel to Puerto Rico, perhaps to hire more workers for his sweatshop.

While the media and the governor "deplored" the abandonment of the detainees' children, they will not address the impossible dilemma undocumented workers pose for U.S. bosses. On the one hand, these 12 million workers represent an invaluable source of cheap labor and higher profits for the bosses, and the military sees them as a partial solution to its manpower problems. On the other hand, the Homeland Security bosses pose these workers as a serious "security problem" that might interfere with the bosses' plans for a "secure" U.S. Congress is still working on legislation that will somehow harmonize these two sets of interests, but the end result is already clear: entering the U.S. without documents will no longer be a civil offense, handled administratively. It will be a criminal offense involving jail time and/or heavy fines. Hiring an undocumented worker will be a crime with heavy penalties. Non-citizens will be permitted to work only under strict controls. But the key force in imposing this new element of fascism will be the terror raids on immigrants (documented and undocumented) carried out by the ICE storm troopers.

The New Bedford round-up is not the first such raid, and it won't be the last, because capitalism depends on this kind of repression to maintain control of workers and maximize profits, especially in the current crisis. It won't be restricted to immigrant workers but will be used against all workers who fight back. We must join the battle against fascism to turn it into the revolutionary struggle that will build a communist future.

Mexico: Abolition of Wage System Only Answer to Slave Labor

MEXICO CITY, March 8 - On this International Women's Day, thousands of workers and their allies, organized by the Electrical Workers' Union, marched in the Zócolo (city center) demanding a pay raise in the face of rising inflation; to repudiate the Calderon government's economic policies; and to protest Bush's visit. The justified workers' anger against the rulers' attacks finds no real solution in the union leaders and other organizations. They only push "Obradorism" (support for Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador - the opposition presidential candidate). The workers don't need "reformed" capitalism; we need to fight for communism.

This year the hourly minimum wage was raised for millions of workers from 3.60 pesos (US 35¢) to 5.50 pesos (US 54¢). The "better-paid" industrial workers earn an average of US $2 an hour. Meanwhile, multi-billionaire Carlos Slim rakes in $2.2 million per hour, 24 hours a day! His fortune exceeds US $49 billion, making him the world's third richest man. Slim, Televisa, TV Azteca, the banks and the financial groups who own the mines all exploit and repress the workers, reap billions from exploiting workers, millions of whom go hungry.

Even worse, prices of tortillas, eggs, meat, milk and other basic products have all risen, while the current minimum wage doesn't cover basic nutritional needs - only enough to buy 8 of the 100 products needed to survive. At least five times the daily minimum wage (238 pesos) is needed to provide a family's basic nutrition, without even considering housing, health, education, clothing, shoes, etc. A family would need a 435.7% wage hike to cover the basic necessities of food, shelter and clothing.

The worldwide war over markets forces the bosses to drive workers into this misery. This super-exploitation is generating massive immigration. The International Organization on Migration reported that during ex-President Fox's 6-year term more than 4.3 million young workers, 40% of them women, emigrated to the U.S., joining more than 10 million already there.

In Michoacán alone, 40,000 children are forced to work under extreme conditions up to 13 hours a day in the fields. The same or worse occurs in more rural areas like Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas.

Those with jobs live under threat of joblessness or underemployment. Capitalism uses the reserve army of unemployed to force poverty wages and long hours on those who hold jobs. The National Institute of Statistics and Geography reports that 10,480,299 people are self-employed and 26,453,462 are wage-earners. This excludes labor performed in jails or reformatories, where people are forced to work to "repay society" while the profits from their slave labor fill the pockets of a few bosses.

The massive, brave struggles in Pasta de Conchos, Atenco and Oaxaca demonstrate that the working class is looking for an alternative to this capitalist inequality. It's up to revolutionary communists to show that supporting Obrador's brand of capitalism is no alternative. The solution is a society without capitalists, where the workers produce to meet their own needs, not to increase the megamillions of Slim or any other exploiter. This struggle is international, against a capitalist system that only offers wars, fascist terror, drug cartels and racism. CHALLENGE must increasingly become the beacon that guides these struggles towards building a mass PLP in the fight for communist revolution.

LETTERS LETTERS LETTERS

Letter from Spain: The ETA, Nationalism and Communism

After nine months of a "peace process," last December's ETA [Basque nationalist group] bombing of Madrid's Barajas airport surprised many. One should not underestimate its symbolism and psychological impact.

First, it's a clear message from the ETA that the "peace dialogue" does not mean surrender of Basque political aims it's been pursuing since long before the end of Franco's fascist dictatorship.

Second, in the last few decades Madrid has profited from investments coming from the European Union fund for regional development. The airport's brand-new terminal is a good example of the economic privileging of Madrid while Spain's other regions suffer economic constraints. The bombing is a symbolic response to these economic inequalities.

The Spanish media, political parties and government were unanimous: the peace process was broken and the ETA was responsible. This is politically motivated to feed public anger towards the ETA and the Basque nationalist movement, to show the power of bourgeois democracy against the "assassins." Spain's prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said optimism about peace prospects was a mistake. But this is all maneuvering in the political circus transpiring between the Spanish government and the ETA. Nobody knows what's really happening inside those negotiations; the bombing could only be understood in the context of that process.

In any case, these explanations of the airport bombing exclude a communist analysis of the situation in the Basque Country and in Spain. As Lenin once said, communists oppose any form of oppression, and therefore have always supported nationalist struggles, insofar as they are carried on by a specially oppressed regional or ethnic section of the working class against the dominant national capitalists. But the cultural, regional and linguistic differences which are part of human diversity, and should not be oppressed, should also not be used to divide the working class.

That's the problem of many nationalist workers' movements today, including the left Basque national movement. Originally the ETA had a somewhat clear communist perspective, and focused its struggle against Spanish and French capitalism as part of a more general workers' struggle. The ETA thought its fight could awaken the Spanish and French working class on the road to communist revolution.

In recent years, however, a less leftist tendency emerged in the ETA. A more nationalist language replaced a communist one. Spain as a whole, not Spanish and international capitalism, became the enemy. That is important ideologically. As clear statements against Spanish, French, and Basque capitalism lost ground, nationalist claims became central, and the joint struggle of the working class (Spanish, French and Basque) became marginal.

Today the Basque Country is one of Europe's richest regions. Unemployment is virtually non-existent. Therefore, many people in Spain see Basque nationalism as a kind of economic egoism, and Spain's rulers use these feelings to stress the unfairness of nationalist claims.

The left Basque nationalist movement, unlike many nationalisms, has always supported migrants and victims of sexual abuse and racist attacks. But such solidarity is meaningless without communist struggle. Revisionism and petty-bourgeois ideology have won the minds of many Basque leftists. That's why their struggle has degenerated into a competitive struggle between different groups of capitalists for the prize of the rich Basque Country.

The "peace process," therefore, is not an issue for the communist movement. The real problem is not whether one is for or against the ETA, or for or against the linguistic and cultural rights of the Basque people, but rather that in the Basque Country the working class has lost its battle against capitalism. It was defeated on the battlefield of ideology. Nationalist ideology is always keen to accept leftist tendencies, petty-bourgeois ideology, and egoistic claims. That's its great danger. Only a communist vision can clear the battlefield. Capitalism is the source of all inequalities and communism is its worst enemy. All kinds of oppression can only find their answers inside the communist movement.

Love and Struggle, a Reader

CHALLENGE Comment: Thanks for your letter. We would add that individual acts of terrorism in any form don't help the cause of workers' liberation. History has already proven that. And workers ultimately pay with their lives. The recent ETA bombing killed two immigrant Ecuadorian workers, just like the Jihadists' March 11, 2005 terrorist bombing of train commuters killed hundreds, mostly workers, including immigrants. Indeed, nowhere have nationalist movements led to the liberation of the workers they claim to represent. They have merely exchanged one form of capitalism for another. Only a united working class led by revolutionary communists can end the national and racial oppression which were born with capitalism.

It's the Bosses Who Dictate Censorship

A recent article about censorship appeared in the Hollywood Reporter as a response to "Grey's Anatomy" actor Isiah Washington's homophobic remark in the Golden Globes press-room. Shortly afterwards Washington apologized and entered rehab. The article said that censorship is no cure for the way people think; that words are simply words. The mainstream press has avoided using these words, and the writer feels this is a retreat and cop-out.

The debate over the media enforcing "political correctness" comes up on my job; one co-worker even labeled it fascist. My co-worker said black rappers use the "N-word" all the time, so why shouldn't white people be allowed to say it? The argument goes: words aren't the problem, only the "bad thoughts" behind them are. Meanwhile, the other side argues that censorship is necessary so people aren't exposed to offensive language that could insult a minority, ethnic, or religious group.

However, this debate lacks any class analysis or bearing on how workers are treated every day. At my job, for example, everyone is talked down to and yelled at to work faster so the company can reap maximum profits. While no one openly directs racist slurs at me, I'm certainly treated in an inferior manner. Women, black and Latino workers are paid less. Still many of us push the racist and sexist music that justifies super-exploitation to the rest of the working class.

Banning slurs from the media doesn't mean that the capitalists aren't sexist or racist in exploiting workers. The rappers and comedians who don't use slurs, often still advocate black nationalism or reformism. They're even more dangerous because they disguise pro-capitalist programs and music. Political media is heavily censored to keep working people ignorant and their senses dulled in favor of pro-capitalist ideas.

Censorship as handled under capitalism is a reformist issue that sweeps class consciousness and revolutionary politics under the rug. Saying offensive words to get a rise and reaction, then shrugging them off as just "expressions," is useless without a revolutionary solution for the audience that listens.

Ultimately, workers can never have free speech while there's a bosses' dictatorship. Bourgeois democracy can never fix the situation. The working class shouldn't fight for the freedom of the entertainment industry to keep us in the dark about revolutionary politics. Our voices can only be free under communism.

Red Student

CHALLENGE Comments: Justifying use of offensive words also ignores the historic roles that slurs play in dehumanizing and spreading racism/sexism

PL'ers Leaflet London Anti-War March

On Saturday, February 24th a large demonstration against the War in Iraq, and the Trident nuclear weapon system was held in London. Anti-war activists assembled for the march beneath Hyde Park's Speakers Corner. This area in London has historically been a place for free speech and political argument since the 1830's. The spot was originally Tyburn, the place of execution where for centuries the public watched while people were hung. Later, during the days of the Chartists who fought for the vote for the working class, it became a place for mass demonstrations and speeches.

When we heard about this demonstration, we printed 200 copies of a leaflet about the victory of students and teachers who got NYC's teachers' union to pass a resolution against military recruiters in the high schools. We spent a lot of time talking about this struggle. Many people told us that the army comes to the schools to recruit in the UK as well, and they were excited to hear what New Yorkers had done.

Here are some of the comments: " We're trying to do the same as you over here. Get the recruiters out of the schools." "We also oppose racism." "We do have some victories every now and again. One day we'll have the big victory, when the workers take over." "It's a start, it's a start." "It's great that you're here." People also eagerly questioned us about events in the U.S. We had been a bit unsure of ourselves at first, but each positive comment encouraged us.

It was an exciting afternoon -- amongst people opposed to the war. The police said there were 3,000 demonstrators. The march organizers said there were 60,000. Someone heard there were 100,000 who attended the march. The next day all of the Sunday newspapers were strangely silent.

Two New Yorkers

Mailer's Book Clueless on Fascism

I just read Norman Mailer's latest novel, "The Castle in the Forest," and if I didn't already know about fascism, I wouldn't have learned a thing about it from this book. Perhaps Mailer (who I think is Jewish) will make the case that the devil was behind the Nazis and Hitler. That seems to be his point.

The only time there is even a hint of what fascism was all about is when Mailer mentions briefly that Hitler was able to "con" wealthy tycoons into supporting him.

Red Coal

CHALLENGE COMMENT: Actually it was the "tycoons" that used the Nazis to invade, and exploit, all of Europe and North Africa, and eventually attack the communist-led Soviet Union.

Back to New Orleans

When I was invited to visit New Orleans during winter break, I had mixed feelings and was full of expectations. I expected to see more people, more built homes, and at least 70% of the garbage cleaned up. To my disappointment, things have remained the same. In fact, there are fewer people living there and helping out. I felt sad because of the destruction, but I was also angry and speechless because I couldn't comprehend the government's slow response in rebuilding the city. A year and six months and the same shit! I was even angrier to see how the government-built levees in the Lower Ninth Ward compared to those in the French Quarter. It amazed and angered me that the French Quarter levees look like docks while in the Lower Ninth Ward they looked like the wall in a handball court. This proved to me the inequality between the rich and the working class. It showed me that the government's main concern is not the people, but the war.

On my second day, I needed to gain strength from somewhere, and that's one of the things that made me happy about New Orleans. The people who live and work there are amazing. It's empowering to see that after devastation people come together and help out. On this trip I met wonderful and interesting people like our group tour guide, John. I was really touched by what he taught us about the history of New Orleans, especially St. Bernard's Parish. I felt sad when he told us how the tragedy affected him mentally and how he wanted to commit suicide because of the devastation. At that moment, I wished I had all the power in the world to help him and others who felt that way. After this, I was eager to start working, because I was desperate to clean up and let my frustrations out. When I began gutting a green house in the Lower Ninth Ward, all the emotions I had experienced from two days of seeing destruction came out. I felt good bringing things down.

I'm really looking forward to going back to New Orleans in the summer. I realized through this experience that it is our duty to understand that the system has no good intentions for the working class and to educate others about this reality. New Orleans is proof of the capitalist agenda. It is a struggle to help people learn that this was not some act of God, but that officials knew what was coming and still disregarded what was needed to reinforce the levees. If one sits down and starts contemplating what is going on now, one can see that the capitalist system is only about the rich.

We really need to help more in NO. I figured if the government won't do anything, it is our duty as caring people and workers to help the people of New Orleans. I advise everyone to experience what I experienced.

Bronx student

Paul Sporn 1921 - 2007

Paul Sporn, one of the founding members of the Progressive Labor Movement - forerunner of the Progressive Labor Party - died on February 27 in New York at 85.

Comrade Paul hated capitalism, which he saw as a system that bred poverty and racism. These views led him to join the Communist Party (CP) in the 1940's. During World War II he joined the Air Force to fight fascism, serving in North Africa and Europe.

When the war ended, he was one of a group of CP members who moved to Buffalo as part of that party's industrial concentration policy. There he worked in an auto plant for five years and later became an instructor at the University of Buffalo. This circle of party members in Buffalo became the core of a group that felt the CP had degenerated into an organization that had accommodated itself to capitalism. It was committed to reforming capitalism and gaining Socialism by a constitutional amendment abolishing private property, rather than seeing the necessity for the working class to have to violently overthrow the ruling capitalist class. In 1961, members of this group left the CP and formed the PLM the following year.

In 1964, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), as part of a nation-wide witch-hunt to root out communists, especially in the working class, descended on Buffalo (then a major industrial city). They subpoenaed workers and teachers, many of them, by then, members of the PLM. We organized a counter-offensive against these budding fascist anti-communists, massing nearly 1,000 pickets in front of the building where the hearings were being held. Comrade Paul was one of the first to be called.

Heretofore, the CP had told members subpoenaed by such committees "not to get the inquisitors mad," to "be nice" and, if necessary, "take the 5th" - refuse to answer questions on 5th Amendment grounds that it could "incriminate" them. But PL had a different line.

Our idea was to take the offensive and challenge the red-baiters. When Paul took the stand, the first question asked him was, "Where were you born." Rather than refuse to answer, he drove the Congressmen crazy for the next three hours, as they tried to get him to answer that one question. They finally gave up and didn't ask anything else.

The following day, the Buffalo Evening News (the city's main newspaper) ran a front-page banner headline: "Univ. of Buffalo Instructor Defies HUAC." This set the tone for the entire hearings, which ended in a flop for the Committee. They hadn't run into such opposition in all their previous hearings.

Soon afterwards Paul was fired under a NY State law banning teachers who were members of organizations the government labeled "subversive." He moved to Detroit where he taught at Wayne State University and helped lead the PLP group there for a number of years as well as helped organize the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR). In later years, Paul was no longer active in PLP but still held to the view of the necessity for working-class revolution. In 1995, he published a book entitled, "Against Itself: The Federal Theater and Writers' Project in the Midwest."

PLP sends its condolences to his family and will remember Paul for his contributions as one of the earliest founding members of our Party.

REDEYE

Yes, US in Iraq for oil

If you suspected that oil lay at the bottom of it all, you guessed correctly.

In February 2001, White House officials consulted with outsiders on possible replacements for Saddam and means to exploit his oil fields. In a memo titled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq," troop requirements, war crimes tribunals and "apportioning Iraq's oil wealth" are discussed.

A month later, the Pentagon circulated a document titled Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts, listing 30 countries with interests in Iraq's oil fields . . .

Since there was no legal reason for a preemptive invasion of Iraq, Wolfowitz's said, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction." (Pythian Press, 2/20)

US funds create the terrorists

In the 1980s, the Central intelligence Agency shipped about $3 billion worth of weapons to Afghan commanders fighting the Soviet occupation, a struggle that left perhaps one million Afghans dead and perhaps three million in exile in Pakistan.

A disproportionately large share of the CIA.'s weapons went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar…a Pashtun commander who was the murderous leader of the Islamic Party. Mr. Hekmatyar stockpiled many of the weapons. After a brief stint as prime minister in Kabul…He became a strong ally of the Taliban….

His forces have been killing American and NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan… (NYT, 3/11)

China legalizes robbery by rich

China was set to take another giant stride away from Maoism this week with the passage of a controversial bill to protect private property….

Critics of the new bill say it will legitimise what they see as a mass theft from the people. "The property law basically takes all the illegally gotten income and legalises it . . ."

…In a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences half of the respondents believed that the rich had acquired their wealth through illegal means. (GW, 3/15)

Bosses' laws enslave 'guests'

The report is titled "Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States."…

Workers recruited grom Mexico, South America, Asian and elsewhere to work in American hotels and in… labor-intensive industries….are routinely cheated out of their wages, which are low to begin with . . . .And they are virtual hostages of the American companies that employ them.

The law does not allow these "guests" to change jobs while they're here. If a particular employer is unscrupulous, as is very often the case, the worker has little or no recourse….

A favorite (and extremely cruel) tactic of employers is the seizure of guest workers' identity documents, such as passports and Social Security cards. That leaves the workers incredibly vulnerable….

Without their papers the workers live in abject fear of encountering the authorities, who will treat them as "illegals." They are completely at the mercy of the employers….

"This is not a situation where there are just a few bad-apple employers," (NYT,12/3/06)

Young workers can't find jobs

The strongest job market New York City has had in decades has not helped the city's youngest workers find jobs, leaving them at risk of becoming permanently unemployable…

The report…citied sharp decreases in employment among residents ages 16 to 24 from 2000 to 2006, a period in which employment rose for most other groups….

…The share of people actively looking for work and unable to find it - among those aged 16 to 19 was 28.4 percent….

Young men who get locked up for drugs offenses "are basically unemployable" after they leave prison . . . .

Even for those dropouts who stay out of legal trouble, there is an economic isolation… "You have no real connection to the world of work." (NYT, 2/27)

Misuse troops then rob them

…The administration uses carefully cooked numbers to pretend that it has been generous to veterans, but the historical data contained in its own budget for fiscal 2008 tell the true story. The quagmire in Iraq has vastly increased the demands on the Veterans Administration, yet since 2001 federal outlays for veterans' medical care have actually lagged behind overall national health spending.

To save money, the administration has been charging veterans for many formerly free services…

More important, the administration has broken longstanding promises of lifetime health care…Two months before the invasion of Iraq the V.H.A., which previously offered care to all veterans, introduced severe new restrictions on who is entitled to enroll in its health care system. As the agency's Web site helpfully explains, veterans whose income exceeds as little as $27,790 a year, and who lack "special eligibilities such as a compensable service connected condition or recent combat service," will be turned away. . . .

…The parallels between what happened at Walter Reed and what happened to New Orleans - not to mention parallels with the mother of all scandals, the failed reconstruction of Iraq - tell us that the roots of the scandal run far deeper than the actions of a few bad men. (NYT, 3/5)

PLP HISTORY

1969 PL-Led Strike Paralyzed Harvard

(Students for A Democratic Society, Part IV)

The ideological struggle within SDS over nationalism peaked during the San Francisco State strike. It sharpened further over the negotiations U.S. imperialism was conducting with North Vietnamese government representatives.

From the start PL had opposed U.S. imperialism's "right" to negotiate anything in Vietnam, upholding this position once the negotiations began in 1968. It was a difficult, unpopular principle to defend, because the mass heroism of the Vietnamese struggle had justly captured the admiration of hundreds of millions of anti-imperialist workers and students, and because SDS's right-wing leadership pandered to nationalism. But despite threats and intimidation, PLP continued to maintain that negotiating with U.S. bosses would inevitably lead to betraying everything Vietnamese workers and peasants were fighting and dying to win - most notably, a life free from imperialist oppression. Events were to prove the Party correct.

As at SF State, PLP and the Worker-Student Alliance (WSA) caucus of SDS organized militant action as well as principled debate. The action followed the logic of PLP's anti-nationalist, pro-working class line. The April 1969 Harvard strike soon provided a stunning affirmation of this marriage between theory and practice.

By 1969, liberal U.S. university presidents were falling over each other to mislead the anti-war movement. They sponsored pacifist teach-ins, day-long "moratoriums" and other diversions from militancy. Many had backed the 1968 presidential candidacy of Eugene McCarthy, a Wisconsin Democratic senator, who had entered the campaign with the explicit purpose of channeling student dissent into a pro-boss electoral dead-end.

PLP argued that capitalist universities were an inseparable part of U.S. imperialism's Vietnam butchery and that the student movement should take clear action against this relationship rather than promote illusions about it. Harvard provided a leading example. For several years, PLP'ers within the Harvard SDS chapter had led militant struggle against Harvard's collaboration with the war. In 1967, Harvard students confronted Defense Secretary McNamara. Later that year, a militant sit-in temporarily blocked recruiters for Dow Chemical - which produced the horrific weapon napalm - demonstrating inside the chemistry building when the Harvard professor who had invented napalm was in his office there. PLP and its base within SDS consistently exposed Harvard fascists like Samuel Huntington, who had helped develop the infamous "strategic hamlet" plan to turn Vietnamese villages into concentration camps.

Throughout 1968-69, PLP and the Worker-Student Alliance Caucus had campaigned against the presence of ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) on the Harvard campus. Other demands included ending Harvard's plans for expansion in a Cambridge working-class neighborhood. The pro-nationalist right-wing within SDS opposed ROTC with lip-service but always found ways to resist taking militant action against it.

After losing a close vote to seize University Hall, a key administration building in Harvard Yard, nonetheless PLP and the WSA estimated that enough students were prepared to take this bold action and that it should proceed regardless of the vote. This decision was crucial in exposing the limitation of "parliamentary democracy" as an obstacle to revolutionary anti-imperialist action.

On April 9, scores of PLP-led SDS'ers seized University Hall, ejecting the administrators in the building. Crowds gathered outside to support or debate the sit-in. By nightfall, 500 protesters were occupying University Hall. The next day at 3 AM, Harvard President Pusey called in 400 state and city cops, who maced and beat the protestors, arresting more than 100.

The cops' brutality boomeranged. Thousands protested by boycotting classes. More than 10,000 attended a four-hour meeting in Harvard Stadium to discuss the demands and tactics of an action that had become a strike. The country's most prestigious university, a crucial resource for imperialism and the war effort, was essentially paralyzed for the remainder of the academic year.

PLP had compellingly demonstrated that far from watering down class struggle against imperialist genocide, an anti-nationalist line sharpens it. On the other hand, the all-class unity of nationalism inevitably leads to collaboration with the enemy and turns even the most militant struggle into its opposite.

As the annual convention of SDS approached, the '69 Harvard Strike swelled the ranks of the Worker-Student Alliance caucus and brought many new recruits into PLP.

(Next: The 1969 Convention: the right-wing minority "expels" the majority.)

U.S. Rulers Throw Wounded GI's on Scrap Heap

The exposé of horrific conditions in Walter Reed Hospital shows how once again soldiers have been chewed up and spit out by the military. The hypocrisy of the slogan support the troops is again exposed as only a PR slogan to get people to support a war they don't believe in.

How is it that no one knew what was happening at Walter Reed? Is it really possible that all this is just being discovered now? Four years ago Mark Benjamin, writing for UPI at the time, revealed similarly fetid conditions for wounded soldiers in Fort Stewart Georgia. Not only was nothing done, but he received hundreds of death threats.

Now the Washington Post writes the same story and two generals, the Secretary of the Army and the Surgeon General of the Army are fired. The Democrats who have pushed the Walter Reed hearings cynically ignored the problems of wounded soldiers for all these years because they wanted to see how the war was going to play out. Now with the war going down the tubes, they are piling all the blame on, and further embarrassing "lame duck" Bush.

It is particularly sickening that we have been fed story after story about how great the wounded have been treated, and all the medical advances that have been made by the military. Amputees jogging and playing basketball has become standard fair on the news networks. Did none of those reporters or politicians touring the hospital notice the hundreds of severely wounded soldiers living in squalor?

Using young working-class soldiers as cannon fodder and then tossing them away is nothing new. In 1932, at the height of the depression, poor veterans of WWI camped out in Washington, D.C. to demand benefits. These former soldiers, known as the Bonus Marchers, were brutally attacked by infantry, cavalry and tanks on the orders of Herbert Hoover and under the direct command of Douglass Macarthur, assisted by George Patton, and Dwight Eisenhower.

While ten times as many Iraqi's have been killed and wounded, the number of wounded U.S. soldiers is still huge. The official military count is at about 25,000, many with extremely severe injuries, but there have been over 32,000 who have been air medavacked out of Iraq. Many wounded are never even counted because they are treated in their units and then go on to civilian care facilities.

In addition the military admits that the number of mental health cases is already at least 65,000. All these numbers will only go up. The first Gulf War is still counting the wounded, with over 200,000 U.S. soldiers, nearly half the total force, suffering from some form of Gulf War syndrome. There is no doubt that for many years to come poor young people will be paying the price for this war for oil, and the ruler's politicians will be crying crocodile tears to exploit their pain.

Bush Trip In Latin America Reflects Sharpening Inter-Imperialist Struggle

The U.S. ruling-class strategy for its continued domination of Latin America is in disarray. This is not only the result of inept and shortsighted leaders (even though the U.S. rulers have plenty of them), but as a declining world power, they just don't have many alternatives. Bush's recent tour of five Latin American countries exposes this clearly.

His goal was to shore up U.S. imperialism's image and influence in the region, while undermining that of its imperialist rivals and of Hugo Chavez who are taking advantage of the U.S.'s precarious situation in Iraq to encroach on its backyard. In trying to stem this trend, U.S. bosses have a big problem: they're bankrupt both politically and economically. On both counts, they have little or nothing with which to bribe the Latin America elites or the region's 570 million impoverished workers.

Brazil - Latin America's biggest, most populous country, with the ninth largest economy in the world - was the big prize. To split Mercosur (a four-country trade group) and counter Chavez' proposed integrationist Gaseoducto del Sur - a giant gas pipeline that will link Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, costing some $20 billion - Bush proposed "… a partnership with Brazil and other ethanol producers ….designed to wean countries from Venezuela's cheap oil." (LA Times editorial, 3/8) But U.S. ethanol producers are protected with a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff against the cheaper Brazilian ethanol. Therefore, the same Times' editorial continued, "The 'OPEC for ethanol' that the president is expected to create…won't actually open the U.S. market…and as a result will accomplish little."

"What Bush has offered instead," says the LA Times, "is a variety of small anti-poverty programs that are dwarfed by Chavez' initiatives in the region," referring to Bush's promise of $385 million to help workers buy houses; $75 million in three years for education; sending the hospital ship Comfort to visit Latin America's ports to attend patients; and $1.6 billion a year in aid to the region. A Brazilian newspaper mocked this, saying that's what the U.S. spends in less than five days in Iraq.

Mass anti-U.S. demonstrations also expressed the hatred that workers and others on the continent have for the U.S.-backed neo-liberal program and genocidal wars. Discredited politically and economically, eventually the U.S. rulers' only possible alternative to the challenges in the region of nationalist forces like Chavez and its Chinese, Russian and EU imperialist rivals will be to resort to war. That's why the U.S., under the guise of "fighting drug trafficking and terrorism," is expanding and upgrading its existing military bases in the region, while building new ones.

But as CHALLENGE has reported, the anti-U.S. forces in the region (backed by the other imperialists) are also arming themselves and building massive nationalist-patriotic movements to win workers to fight on their side. Chavez is spending billions more on arms than any other Latin American country. And both Brazil and Argentina have nuclear aspirations.

A NY Times Op-Ed article (3/11) poses the question: "Is the battle for Latin America already over?" We can answer this with a resounding "No!" - not without a bloodbath. Latin American workers and their allies need to reject false "revolutionaries" like Chavez, Morales, Lula, Ortega, Correa and Obrador and build the PLP and a truly revolutionary communist movement to bury all the capitalists/imperialists and their lackeys forever.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, March 14, 2007

Information: 14 March 2007 118 hits

SCRATCH A LIBERAL FIND AN IMPERIALIST
1. `MAN OF THE PEOPLE' HAS FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
2. CAPITALIST WARMAKERS, RACIST KILLER COPS LOVE OBAMA
Where is Obama While:
Workers, Patients Battle Racist Cut
HOLLYWOOD HOPS ON OBAMA'S WAR WAGON
U.S., Chinese Bosses on Collision Course Over Oil
1. Escalating Imperialist Rivalry in Africa
2. U.S.-China War?
3. The Ultimate Imperialist Prize
ANTI-RACISTS GREET PL'ERS AT MARCH VS. KILLER KKKOPS
1. LAPD Racist `Surge' Hits LA Workers
Bosses Push Racism and Nationalism but
WORKERS AND YOUTH WANT MULTI-RACIAL UNITY
High School Students Lead PLP Volunteers Aiding Katrina Victims
Global Rivalry Up, Auto Jobs, Wages Down
VW Bosses Reap Billions, Workers `Reap' Layoffs
Racist UFT Hacks Attack Militant PLP Youth
Anti-Racism, Internationalism Big Victors_ in Airport Struggle
Oppression and Struggle Still Mark International Women's Day
Inhuman Capitalism Fosters Myth of `Human Nature'
FBI Organized Nazi March
Kids, Parents Back Day-Laborers, _Oppose Anti-Immigrant Racists
LETTERS
1. Deserters Can Be _Organized
2. Bosses Re-use Stressed GIs to Fight Their Wars
3. Colombia Workers _March Against Fascism
4. GI `Appeal' Signing _Stirs Political Discussion
5. COUNTY STRUGGLE NEEDS VISION OF _THE FUTURE
6. Youth Angered By New Orleans Oppression
7. Active-Duty GIs Support Anti-War Soldiers
REDEYEONTHENEWS
1. 74 little wars now -- big ones due
2. US aims guns at Africa's oil
3. US plans a weak, obedient Iraq
4. War profiteers don't fear Dems
5. Plan for Iran is a wormy can...
6. Dems beat Bush to big-Army plan
7. Human rights: a lower-half view
8. Pacifism won't help the oppressed
Global Warning: Capitalism Destroying Our Planet
Denounce Blair's Troop Scam
PLP HISTORY
PLP Defied Bosses' Nationalism in `68 SF Student Strike

SCRATCH A LIBERAL FIND AN IMPERIALIST

Millions of people who justifiably hate warmaker George Bush mistakenly think Barack Obama (above) can right Bush's wrongs. Obama, in fact, elected or not, may help lead wars vaster and deadlier than anything the Bush gang could imagine. A look at Obama's backers and background reveals a loyal servant of the U.S.'s biggest capitalists, who are bent on using all violence necessary to maintain their worldwide empire in the face of mounting challenges.

The main wing of U.S. rulers immediately needs to reassert control, forcibly, over the Middle East and its oil, against Iran in particular. In the longer term, they must prepare to confront a rival superpower -- China, Russia, Europe or any combination thereof. They hope Obama's broad appeal, based mainly on his anti-Bush stance, will aid mobilization for the wider wars they require. As bad as Bush is, Obama and the other liberals pose the greater danger.

`MAN OF THE PEOPLE' HAS FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Early support for Obama came from billionaire liberal imperialist George Soros, a Rockefeller ally. His main goal in life (other than raking in billions by impoverishing workers through international currency scams) is to prevent Russia's re-emergence as a superpower threat to the U.S. Throughout the old Soviet bloc, Soros's Open Society Institute has bought anti-Russian candidates and pushed U.S.-led NATO's expansion. When Moscow tried to grab pipeline routes through the former Yugoslavia, Soros led the cheer for Clinton's murderous 1999 bombardment of Kosovo. "Kosovo required outside intervention," wrote Soros at the time.

Like that of most liberal leaders, Soros's criticism of Bush's Iraq policy centers on the U.S. shortage of boots on the ground. In 2004, he said, "We should have had more troops available for the occupation." Soros hopes Obama can boost troop availability by creating public enthusiasm for the rulers' agenda. "Senator Obama brings a new energy to the political system and has the potential to be a transformational leader," said Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Soros. (NY Times, 1/21/07)

The Times (2/24/07) identifies four Wall Street-based dyed-in-the wool imperialists as Obama's top fundraisers. Jeh Johnson, as general counsel for Clinton's Air Force secretary, approved orders that killed and maimed thousands of non-combatants in the former Yugoslavia and in Iraq. He has also worked for Soros's Human Rights Watch and the Rockefeller Foundation. James Rubin runs J.P. Morgan Chase's private equity fund. His father Robert, Treasury secretary under Clinton, led the racist dismantling of Welfare that freed up funds for the Pentagon. Chief of staff in Clinton's Treasury, Joshua L. Steiner, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), U.S. imperialism's leading think-tank, where he serves on the board of advisors of Foreign Affairs.

Another Clinton Treasury appointee, Michael Froman, now chief of a Citigroup unit, directed a CFR task force, "Promoting Sustainable Economies in the Balkans" in 2000 that studied ways the U.S. could profit from Clinton's butchery there. He belongs to both the CFR and the Rockefeller-organized Trilateral Commission. Froman's ties to Obama date back to their days as classmates at Harvard Law School.

CAPITALIST WARMAKERS, RACIST KILLER COPS LOVE OBAMA

With friends like these, it's no accident that Obama espouses mobilizing for broader U.S. military action. Last November, referring to Iraq, he told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, "it is time to refocus America's efforts on the wider struggle yet to be won." Obama used readily deciphered code words for maintaining permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, citing a need "to manage our exit in a responsible way -- with the hope of leaving a stable foundation for the future." He was pushing an open door at that gathering. The Council, an offshoot of the CFR, has representatives of JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Boeing and Goldman Sachs, as directors. Obama's wife Michelle also sits on the Council's board.

Having received the ruling class's blessing for it, Obama repeated the "wider struggle" line twice on the Senate floor in January. Obama may oppose Bush, but he in no way opposes imperialist war. He recently campaigned for the re-election of Joe Lieberman, an openly pro-war Senator.

Obama understands that a crackdown at home must accompany any military build-up. An advocate of "more cops on the street," Obama won the endorsement of the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police in his Senate race. These are the same thugs that systematically terrorize, torture, and murder Chicago's black workers. (See CHALLENGE, 1/17) Obama also seeks tighter immigration controls. In the Senate last May, he lamented that, "the number of workplace arrests of illegal immigrants fell from 17,552 in 1997 to 451 in 2002, even as illegal immigration grew." Obama wants a return to Clinton-era massive workplace raids that target immigrants at the point of profit, not just at the border. "The only way to effectively deter overstays is to reduce access to employment," he said.

Obama is not the answer to Bush. Every politician represents one faction or another of exploiters. Backing Obama lends support to the major U.S. capitalists' pursuit of wider wars. The real alternative, thus, lies outside the electoral system in building a party -- PLP -- that serves only the working class and has a revolutionary communist outlook.

(Next: Obama's Early Years: A Ruling-Class Apprenticeship) J

Where is Obama While:
Workers, Patients Battle Racist Cut

CHICAGO, Feb. 24 -- At a "Town Hall Meeting" to divert workers' anger at proposed cutbacks and mass layoffs, militant workers attacked every lie, and every liar, and chased the mis-leadership from the stage. It was symptomatic of workers' militancy over months of fight-back. But despite such actions, two days ago the Cook County Commissioners voted to endorse the racist war budget of County Board President Todd Stroger and his Health Bureau chief, Nazi "Dr." Robert Simon. Thirteen of the County's 26 health clinics will close, eliminating 2,000 county jobs, 1,200 through layoffs. About 800 will come from public health.

Thousands of uninsured and unemployed workers, children and the elderly will die. The vast majority will be black and Latino, who comprise 82% of the County patient population. Cook County has over one million uninsured, 70% percent of whom are employed.

Given these much larger numbers, tonight 40 workers crowded into a church basement to talk about the next battle. "The capitalist system requires this kind of attack," said a black woman from one union who had become friendly with PL'ers at Stroger Hospital. "What we need to figure out now is where and how to make our next attack." "This is class war," said another health worker.

Many lessons can be learned from this struggle. First, PLP must grow in numbers and influence in this mass movement. We were unable to win enough workers to take matters into their own hands and defy the union misleaders, despite having made some advances.

On February 14, SEIU Local 20 called a special union meeting at Stroger Hospital. The leadership had given $800,000 to boss Stroger's election campaign, and undermined every mass action against the cuts with "Town Hall Meetings" for the politicians. This meeting was to divert workers' anger over the cutbacks with promises of back pay and bonuses "won" in the new contract. That's when the workers' anger boiled over and drove the leadership from the building. Those workers who are CHALLENGE readers need to become distributors. Those who already distribute the paper need to join PLP!

We couldn't win enough doctors to play a leading role in demanding the firing of Dr. Simon, or in mobilizing their patients and families into the battle. But again, we made some progress. Some patients were mobilized for mass rallies from the clinics they attend, and we participated in an action at Simon's office, led by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, along with medical and nursing staff.

"Save The County's Bottom Line -- Robert Simon Must Resign," echoed up and down the wide stairways and corridors of the old administration building. The only one arrested was a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times, who kept yelling, "I'm not with them, I'm a reporter!" The action's main weakness was not including many homeless people, who Simon has viciously attacked for years. Our political organizing among public health workers and professionals must be geared much more towards the uninsured and unemployed workers we serve.

These cuts reveal how racism is the cutting edge of fascism. The attacks are being used to fill a $100-million budget deficit, caused by a $100-million cut in federal funding to finance the imperialist bloodbath in Iraq. Racist cutbacks and mass murder are greasing the U.S. war machine.

This struggle also exposed the bosses' class dictatorship. All the rallies and the thousands of nurses, doctors and patients who packed the public hearings, meant nothing to the bosses and their politicians. Every political hack, from Barack Obama to Mayor Daley to Jesse Jackson (Sr. and Jr.) stood silent as this attack was unleashed.

The bosses were so fearful of the mass opposition to the cuts that they did not even put it on the ballot. That's why we need a mass PLP to overthrow the war-makers and budget-cutters and establish a communist society, whose sole purpose is to meet the needs of the international working class. Then everyone will have health care based on need.

This fight helped build some confidence and skill in tactical planning, but showed us we have a long way to go. The importance of boldness, of surprising the enemy, and having confidence in the workers are the recurring themes of these weeks of action. But all this depends entirely on our political base. We must grow, and we can. We had many more and deeper conversations with friends, old and new. This modest increase in political friendships and respect for PLP, though not flashy, are the biggest gains out of the current fight. On to May Day!

HOLLYWOOD HOPS ON OBAMA'S WAR WAGON

The media play a key role in shaping the militaristic ideology U.S. rulers now require. That's why Hollywood mogul David Geffen's funding shift from Hillary Clinton to Obama made front pages. Geffen's Dreamworks specializes in pictures that glorify the "Greatest Generation's" sacrifice in World War II. Its flag wavers include "Saving Private Ryan" and "Flags of Our Fathers" and on TV, "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific War." Geffen's latest project is "Lincoln," a movie due out in mid-2008 and designed to influence the presidential election. It, of course, depicts one of U.S. capitalism's most effective wartime leaders.

U.S., Chinese Bosses on Collision Course Over Oil

U.S. and Chinese imperialists are engaged in a worldwide dogfight. In January, Chinese President Hu Jintao toured Africa to solidify deals for energy, trade and resources. Immediately the U.S. rulers' New York Times mouthpiece scolded China for heartlessly exploiting Africa's worst-off workers:

"If you run an African country and have some natural resources...you've got a friend in Beijing ready to write big checks with no embarrassing questions. That's nice for governments, but not so nice for their misgoverned people." The Times' editorial (2/19) admitted that "the West" had behaved badly in the past but concluded that China "should not be proud of following the West's sorry historical example."

Behind the Times' supposed "concern" for workers is the U.S. imperialist struggle to continue exploiting the largest possible share of the world's workers and resources while confronting Chinese imperialists' rising challenge. Workers can only win by uniting to build a worldwide communist movement and overthrowing all bosses. No matter which imperialist wins, workers lose.

Escalating Imperialist Rivalry in Africa

Some honest people in the U.S. are echoing U.S. imperialists by calling for sending troops to Darfur and increasing the existing U.S. sanctions on the Sudan. But U.S. bosses are concerned with being frozen out of recently-discovered oil fields, not stopping any genocide.

U.S. oil company Chevron left the Sudan in 1992 and Washington cut off ties to Sudan in 1997. Abda Yahia el-Mahdi, a former Sudanese finance minister, said, "The only people...being hurt by the [U.S.] sanctions are the Americans who are missing out on the [oil] boom." (NY Times 10/24/06)

China National Petroleum Corporation is the biggest player in Sudan's national oil consortium and a band of Chinese companies are building a 930-mile oil pipeline to the Red Sea. (AsiaTimes, 9/6/06) Four thousand Chinese troops are deployed in southern Sudan guarding an oil pipeline to protect China's investments and Chinese bosses "are supposed to be building an armaments factory" in the Sudan. (Financial Times, 12/16/06); Time Magazine, 1/11/07; The Economist, 10/28/06)

This January China invested $2 billion in oil-rich Nigeria -- the largest supplier of African oil to the U.S. -- and Chinese companies secured rights to another four oilfields. (The Economist, 10/28/06; Sacramento Bee, 9/18/06)

Nigeria has curbed oil production due to fighting over oil profits in the Niger Delta. China -- not the U.S. or France who have the largest outside military presence in Africa -- is supplying the government with patrol boats used to combat local rebels. U.S. commitment for securing Nigerian oil has been slow and low.

U.S. bosses may be slow but they're not out. Calls to "Save Darfur" by George Clooney, Mia Farrow and Barack Obama coincide with the creation of a U.S. African Command.

Defense & Foreign Affairs' Strategic Policy Magazine (9/06) reports that the White House is pushing this African Command for "strategic reasons... Nigeria alone provides almost as much oil to the U.S....as does Saudi Arabia, and by 2015 will provide more than 25% of U.S. energy supplies" -- adding that the U.S. sees African Energy and sea lanes as "vital" to the U.S.

China's Africa strategy is "aid-for-oil." Chinese bosses are pouring millions into constructing refineries, dams, roads, hospitals, railways, bridges, telecommunication networks and shopping malls -- not to benefit workers but for oil deals and commercial ties.

Presently the U.S.-China rivalry remains a war of commercial exploitation but imperialism's trade wars inevitably lead to shooting wars.

U.S.-China War?

On Feb. 9, U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. needs more troops with an infantry capable of fighting regular armies because, "We don't know what changes can take place in such countries" [China, Russia, North Korea, Iran] "and others." (Pravda, 2/9/07)

U.S. bosses count on naval control of the sea lanes on which China depends to export goods and import raw materials (including oil). But in January Chinese bosses successfully tested an anti-satellite missile, signaling their capability of targeting U.S. Navy communication and navigation satellites.

The Ultimate Imperialist Prize

Ultimately, the greatest potential for U.S.-Chinese armed rivalry lies in the Mid-East. U.S. bosses are bogged down in Iraq while Iran's oil supplies still remain a coveted imperialist treasure. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq control 65% of the world's cheap-to-pump oil reserves and the U.S. and China will soon be the world's two largest oil importers.

To secure its interests, China recently signed oil deals with Iran worth billions and China is the leading supplier of conventional arms to Iran. The U.S. Army War College's 2006 Strategic Challenges document moans that China's intervention in Iran "destabilizes the region and actually threatens the continued supply of cheap oil."

In the dogfight between the U.S. and China, stakes are high and neither country's rulers will hesitate to shed workers' blood to protect and expand their profits worldwide. PLP learned from the revolutionary communist workers and youth who fought the "Red bourgeoisie" in China during the mid-1960s' Cultural Revolution. Today PLP is building an international movement to turn the imperialist war into a mass revolutionary struggle for communism, for a world without any bosses.

ANTI-RACISTS GREET PL'ERS AT MARCH VS. KILLER KKKOPS

LOS ANGELES, CA, Feb 17 -- Two weeks ago the police savagely beat 31-year-old Mauricio Cornejo, while handcuffed, at the public housing community Ramona Gardens. He died 45 minutes later in his cell. The police's racist "explanation" for beating him to death was that he was a gang member. Our plan was to visit Ramona Gardens and distribute flyers and CHALLENGES while making contacts.

We went door to door and had great conversations. We noticed a posted flyer announcing a "March for Peace" -- "against violence and against police brutality" -- to the Hollenbeck Police Station. We walked eagerly to the march assembly point and were greeted with open arms. (We'd been there before for protests against police terror).

Leadership was needed. "I have some posters; what should I write on them?" asked a young man. "Cops are the real terrorists," one of us suggested and then added, "Stop racist police brutality." Youth there wrote both on the posters. A "community representative," seemingly on the payroll of City Councilman Jose Huizar, appeared and tried to convince everybody to go straight to the police station, not march through the community, because the "television cameras would be there."

We helped transport many of the angry residents to a nearby corner where the marchers congregated, discussing how the politician was only here to advance himself and Jose Huizar. Once there we helped organize the march to the police station. Residents made three paper banners: "LAPD ASESINOS A SUELDO"; "CORRUPT COPS"; and "QUEREMOS JUSTICIA Y PAZ." We pulled out a red flag from our car. A group of Aztec dancers led the march, but we led the chants, without a bullhorn, saying: "Policía, cochina, racista y asesina"; "Qué queremos..."; and "Policía, corrupta, estamos en la lucha." We failed to win the marchers to chant "Obreros, unidos, jamas seran vencidos." We led chants linking police terror to the war, and also "LAPD you can't hide -- we charge you with genocide."

The march was very energetic as it moved through the streets to the police station. Throughout the march our only red flag was waved proudly. We distributed all our flyers plus nearly 200 CHALLENGES. Those who marched as well as those watching from their cars and houses eagerly asked for the leaflets and the paper.

Upon arriving at the police station, we formed a picket line directly in front. The sellout politician who tried to call off the march asked a youth to fold up the "F@# the police" sign he was carrying. But when the same person asked us to put away our red flag, many defended it. He didn't get his way and the flag was carried throughout the protest.

The marchers, while not won to our ideas, saw that the politician was only out for himself while we were there to work with them over the long pull. On the way back we discussed the significance of the red flag with the community members and explained why the working class needed a long-term strategy relying on the workers to fight racism and destroy it with revolution and communism.

This march was a great experience, demonstrating that when we organize the work we need to do, opportunities arise; that we must always be prepared. The experience became even better when five of the marchers went to an immigrants' rights coalition meeting to discuss the struggle against police terror in Ramona Gardens and to ask for support to organize more action. When a phony "leftist" leader claimed the fight for better immigration bills was not related to police terror, his position was attacked and defeated.

These five women marchers were bold at the meeting and plan to continue coming to the coalition to fight for more action against police terror. All took CHALLENGES. One woman took five to distribute.

We're also trying to aid their plans for a future action. As part of the struggle to build multi-racial unity and ally students with workers, we'll bring more friends to upcoming protests against the racist murder of Mauricio Cornejo and police terror in Ramona Gardens.

LAPD Racist `Surge' Hits LA Workers

The ruling class is using its racist cops to terrorize working-class communities in the U.S. as they use their imperialist army to wage a racist war in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of GI's. A month ago, Connie Rice, liberal police reformer and director of the "Advancement Project" here, produced a plan designed to address gangs in LA, gangs the police have helped build. The plan identified 12 "hot zones" throughout the city, proposing gang intervention and job programs, as well as community oversight groups. But she also compared the situation in LA to the war in Iraq. "The LAPD knows how to surge and purge," Rice said. "But after the LAPD clears out a neighborhood, we don't know how to hold and build."(LA Times, 2/11) Rice sees our working-class communities as a war zone and our black and Latino youth as the enemy, having no problem with regular beatings, tortures and killings suffered at the hands of the racist cops, as long as they fall in line with the ruling class' racist war plans.

Bosses Push Racism and Nationalism but
WORKERS AND YOUTH WANT MULTI-RACIAL UNITY

INGLEWOOD, CA, Feb. 10 -- "Ethnic and racial tension comes to Los Angeles as regularly as the Santa Ana winds," proclaimed the New York Times (1/17/07). But racism is not a "force of nature." It is the bosses' deliberate policy, trying to use segregation, super-exploitation, and racist ideology to divide and exploit the working class.

Racist Police Chief Bratton seizes on every black-Latin incident as a "gang-related crime" and therefore as another excuse to escalate police terror against black AND Latin workers and youth. The rulers' media help him along by building fear in workers and youth of "other races" and promoting trust in the killer kkkops.

But workers are not so easily fooled. In a recent episode, three Latina high school students were attacked by black youths shouting racist insults. Rejecting the bosses' racism, they agreed to lead a "Unity Walk Against Racial Violence" together with a black woman whose son was killed by Latino gang-bangers. The Unity Walk was promoted by two DJs (one black, one Latin) and several black and Latino community groups.

About fifty people took part, a mix of black and Latino workers and youth, though only a few white people (not counting the media). Spirits were high as the marchers took their message to the streets of Inglewood, a working-class city near LA's airport with a median household income of only $34,000, fairly evenly divided between black and Latin residents. Many were disappointed that the march was so short. They stayed around talking long after the organizers declared the event over. We distributed 30 CHALLENGES and engaged in serious conversations with many, including the crime victims' relatives who led the march.

The "community leaders" involved in this Walk organize based on nationalism, so they can only build "unity" through short-term, top-down coalitions. They offered only vague prayers and calls for "peace." In contrast, PLP came to the Walk as a multi-racial organization with a sharp working-class line on fighting racism. At times we were able to change the leaders' chant, "The People United Will Never Be Divided" to "The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated." However, we should have brought more friends to the event and taken more leadership "on the spot."

If workers and youth are not won to understand that fighting racism means fighting capitalism, they'll believe the bosses' lie that fighting racism means fighting for capitalism under nationalist and/or patriotic banners. In situations like this one, we have both a tremendous responsibility and opportunity to advance the fight for communism.

High School Students Lead PLP Volunteers Aiding Katrina Victims

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 25 -- This past week twenty students and teachers from New York came here to help gut houses, build homes and witness first-hand the racist nature of capitalism in this city. Many students had never been here and were shocked by the miles of destruction. Volunteers who had come last summer were sickened by the minimal level of reconstruction that has happened since then and in the year and a half since the storm. The same rulers who spend hundreds of billions in their oil war in Iraq neglect the mostly black workers of New Orleans.

This was probably the first time CHALLENGE ever appeared at a Mardi Gras. The paper was very warmly received, as well as in the Lower 9th Ward and at several local shopping centers. All told several hundred papers were sold. One worker told us, "We need revolution now, not tomorrow!"

High school students led the evening meetings, analyzing events in New Orleans and sharing their feelings about their experiences. They worked collectively in both gutting homes and construction. Both young men and women learned new skills and were persistent in getting things right, even if they had to be done a few times. A tour with a local historian helped us learn more about the region's history.

One of the most moving parts of the trip was a tour of the devastated St. Bernard's parish outside the city. Here, hundreds of workers who fished for a living saw their lives wrecked by hurricane Katrina. Since capitalists had depleted the nearby wetlands and left workers on the lowest lying land in inadequate housing, there was no protection from the storm surge that swept this area like a tsunami. A tour guide told students that many of his friends who had survived the storm had committed suicide when they lost everything. One older volunteer responded to the destruction of the mostly white working-class community by noting how "important it was to see that the whole working class is suffering."

Still, the worst devastation was in the mostly black Lower 9th Ward where the industrial canal levee broke, releasing a tidal wave that leveled blocks. In this neighborhood, the city government has repeatedly announced plans to confiscate land from homeowners unable to return. One group of volunteers helped a resident gut a home that was still standing closest to the levee breech. Although the house was structurally sound and ready to be gutted and rebuilt, the resident explained how the Army Corps of Engineers claimed the house should be bulldozed. The militancy of residents and volunteers, however, has beaten back such racist attacks.

Residents of the various public housing projects took similarly militant stances by forcefully moving back into their homes regardless of government plans to close all the city's units. On February 22, politicians testifying at a Congressional housing committee were repeatedly booed and heckled by the crowd for continuing to oppose public housing.

It's not surprising that much of the rebuilding is mandated to fall within what the ruling class of New Orleans and the U.S. deems acceptable. Habitat For Humanity's requirements -- that residents pay $75,000 and contribute 300 hours of unpaid labor in order to buy homes in the Upper 9th Ward -- will be impossible for most residents who already lived there. The volunteers from this group (and others that are even far more geared towards removing obstacles inhibiting workers from moving back) have only scratched the surface of the reconstruction needed. Capitalism will never meet the needs of the entire working class, since it profits from driving down workers' living conditions wherever possible.

Volunteers received a positive response from workers who know from personal experience the desperate need to fight capitalism. Our group wants very much to return this summer and bring even more teachers and students. We agreed that New Orleans is an experiment in fascism and it's our duty to be on such front lines. Though we were unable to involve all the students and teachers in every activity, everyone has returned with a greater understanding of capitalism's failings, and our friends are more open to the idea of communism as an alternative.

Global Rivalry Up, Auto Jobs, Wages Down

DETROIT, MI, February 14 -- Three million factory jobs have been lost in the U.S. since the end of 2000, with a big chunk in the auto industry. DaimlerChrysler will now cut 13,000 more jobs in North America, 16% of its work force, and shut all or part of four plants by 2009. Daimler is also seeking potential buyers for the struggling Chrysler Group they bought nine years ago, though at the time it was called "a merger."

Ford is cutting 38,000 jobs, GM another 35,000 and Delphi 10,000 more. Delphi, which is under U.S. bankruptcy protection, may still go to court and void their union contract and gut workers' pensions. The UAW and Delphi are on a collision course for a September strike when the major auto contracts expire. The loss of almost 100,000 production jobs is staggering for the UAW.

Chrysler lost $1.48 billion last year and Ford lost $12.7 billion, the most in more than a century, while Toyota reported record profits and sales.

Contrary to UAW leaders' story, U.S. factories are not being gutted by foreign competition, just U.S-owned factories. Fierce global competition (inter-imperialist rivalry), has U.S. auto bosses retreating. But the U.S. manufacturing base remains relatively strong despite dozens of U.S. plant closings. According to the United Nations, the U.S. has maintained more than 21% of world manufacturing between 2000 and 2005, when U.S. factories produced a record $1.5 trillion in goods.

In large part, this is because foreign-owned companies have invested billions in building U.S. factories. According to the Democratic Party research organization, the Progressive Policy Institute, foreign manufacturers invest billions more in the U.S. than U.S. manufacturers invest abroad. There are currently over 29,000 Toyota production jobs in the U.S. By the end of the current GM and Ford buyouts and plant closings, there will be more Toyota workers in the U.S. than either Ford or GM workers.

According to the UAW, more than 15,000 auto-related factories have sprouted up across the south since 2000. These include major assembly plants for Mercedes SUV's and Toyota trucks in Alabama and Texas that pay over $20/hour, and mostly small-parts suppliers from Kentucky to South Carolina that pay far less. The new Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama pays about $25/hour, while a small supplier plant just down the road pays about $6/hour. While cities like Detroit, Flint and Toledo have been battered, eliminating jobs for many black workers, these southern-supplier plants also employ thousands of low-wage black workers. Every investment, "foreign" or "domestic," means more robots and computers that allow the bosses to get more production than ever out of far fewer workers.

These industrial workers' wages are becoming comparable with rates paid in Mexico, as the vast majority make between $6 and $12-an-hour with few benefits, if any. High productivity and plummeting wages spells industrial fascism. The auto and steel unions have become so much an arm of the domestic bosses that they must share their fate. The UAW has failed to organize one foreign-owned auto plant or parts supplier. How could they? What Toyota or Honda worker is going to join a union that is giving away 100,000 jobs and billions in wages and benefits to bail out their bosses?

The anarchy of capitalism (mergers in the 1990's and dismantling them a decade later), plus the massive displacement and attacks caused by global restructuring, create many opportunities to build a mass, international PLP among auto workers. They are learning the hard lesson that union-won "reforms" which leave the bosses in power are only temporary under this system. Through the coming contract battles we must bring PLP to more workers, and win them to fight for communism.

VW Bosses Reap Billions, Workers `Reap' Layoffs

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, Feb. 27 --Thousands of Volkswagen workers struck for one day yesterday to protest a management ultimatum threatening to dump all 5,300 workers at the Forest plant near here unless the union agreed to a layoff of 1,800 and the remaining 3,500 work three more hours with no pay addition. Today, 76% voted for the only choice: "Do you agree or disagree?" The ultimatum was to produce Audis with longer hours and less pay or lose their jobs.

The company has taken the classic capitalist road. It has cut some 20,000 jobs overall (AP, 2/21) and introduced longer shifts in its German plants, all of which has produced a doubling of its profits in 2006. VW raked in $3.6 billion last year, compared to $1.45 billion in 2005. No wonder its stock rose 8%, to $123 a share.

Amid fierce international competition in the auto industry, every company is fighting to maintain profits on the workers' backs. Worldwide worker unity is needed to meet these attacks.

Racist UFT Hacks Attack Militant PLP Youth

NEW YORK CITY, Feb. 22 -- At the February United Federation of Teachers' (UFT) Delegate Assembly, PLP youth led a group of students with signs and a communist leaflet to address and influence a thousand teachers to overwhelmingly vote in opposition to military recruiters in high schools. In the aftermath of this groundbreaking action, a bit of confusion reigns among anti-war teachers as to whether President Weingarten, who invited the youth to address the crowd, is on the side of anti-war teachers. Recent events should clear up any illusions.

We expect to be harassed by management when we engage in this kind of struggle alongside students, and at least one principal began investigating the "unauthorized trip" with the help of a snitch delegate. But years of struggle at that school set the stage for teachers to fight back. The chapter chair, influenced by the fighting spirit of teachers and students there, stood up to the principal, declaring that what happens at the Delegate Assembly is "union business."

If we buy the union leadership's line, we might expect them to be on the side of the teachers and students against such principals. However, Weingarten and her cronies are conducting an investigation into whether the students who attended the trip had parent permission. Union leaders are calling local chapter chairs asking who invited the students and what their contact with PL is. One union representative insisted that the black and Latin students couldn't have known "what imperialism is" without PL's influence, a disgustingly racist assumption, especially considering that imperialism is discussed in the history curriculum.

One comrade filling in for a delegate at his school was contacted by his district representative, who asked why he voted. At that school the chapter chair commented that the union leadership should be as attentive when the staff has a complaint against the administration. Instead of defending teachers and students against management attacks, the union leadership is acting to enforce management's regulations for them. The fact that these attacks against our forces are being made across district and borough lines indicates that this fascist "investigation" is being directed from the highest levels of the union bureaucracy.

For years PLP has observed that Weingarten is a leading character in a nationwide and long-standing trend where well-paid union bosses cooperate with management to set conditions for ever-intensifying exploitation of labor. We say the unions and the bosses are on the same side. This episode, where militant and educated youth were slurred in the most racist way possible, where the union hacks are more eager to crack down on students than even principals and deans are, reveals the truth of our analysis on union hacks perfectly. When we sharpen struggle, we force the liberals to reveal the fascist essence of their program. Now the task remains to spread news of Weingarten's treachery broadly and deeply across the union as we build for May Day 2007, the place to be for all UFT anti-war teachers.

Anti-Racism, Internationalism Big Victors_ in Airport Struggle

More than 2,000 metro area janitors, from downtown office buildings and a major Mid-West international airport, all members of SEIU, won some important gains in our new contract struggle, but our biggest victory was the anti-racist, internationalist nature of the struggle.

Ever since our contract expired December 31, workers have been preparing for a strike. Mass meetings and rallies culminated with more than 2,000 workers marching downtown on January 29.

The airport has the largest cleaning contract, making it a center of the struggle. The bosses pulled out all the stops to try to head off a strike there, including scare tactics against a largely immigrant workforce. They made sure we knew we could be fired and replaced if we struck. It is an international workforce, with workers from El Salvador, Ethiopia, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Somalia and the U.S.

CHALLENGE readers and distributors led the way, having many struggles with our co-workers, favoring striking and opposing all scabs. We struggled for the need to fight the racist bosses. At an emergency union meeting, workers discussed an intimidating letter from the bosses. One worker said that if we don't take on these racist bosses they will only oppress us even more. He said we are part of a long tradition of anti-racist fighters, from the civil rights movement in the U.S. to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. This struggle is not mainly about money, but mainly an anti-racist fight. CHALLENGE readers and distributors were able to link our struggle to similar fights of immigrant workers in France, and at DeGaulle Airport in Paris.

One of the biggest struggles occurred with a pocket of African workers who, fearful of losing their jobs, were threatening to cross the picket lines. African workers have been restricted to part-time status. The new contract will make them all full-time workers, the culmination of a three year multi-racial, international struggle for full-time status.

More than 300 full-time jobs will be created and family coverage health care payments by workers will drop from $500-$1,800 a month to $140 this July and to $75-a-month in January 2009. Only 14 workers had family coverage under the old contract.

As it became clear the janitors were ready to strike, the Teamsters voted to honor our picket lines. The Teamsters and SEIU are partners in the new Change to Win coalition that left the AFL-CIO. Both unions have targeted the lowest-paid, mostly immigrant workers for organizing drives, boosting their numbers and dues check-offs without raising the living standards of their new members. A similar struggle had been "won" among janitors in Houston a few months ago.

Once the big downtown landlords and the airport commissioners started having visions of picket lines and no cleaning supplies, they pressured the cleaning contractors to settle.

However, one thing we know for sure. As long as the bosses hold power, they will take back every advance we make and we will never get off the treadmill of reform. We see the nearby Ford plant being boarded up and all those workers losing everything it took more than 70 years to win. We need to turn every anti-racist struggle into a school for communism around the revolutionary ideas of PLP, to abolish wage slavery. This fight has made this more possible. If we don't solidify the internationalism and consolidate some of the political advances we made, by recruiting to PLP, they will be reduced to "thin economic gruel" and fade away.

Oppression and Struggle Still Mark International Women's Day

EL SALVADOR -- March 8 is International Women's Day (IWD), a day to mark the oppression, exploitation and struggles of women worldwide. But since the Triangle Shirt factory fire that killed 146 women garment workers in NYC on March 5, 1911 -- which gave birth to IWD -- capitalism and imperialism are still hellish for billions of women from Baghdad to Kabul to Central America. In El Salvador, women workers are not only victims of murder by criminal gangs and men won over by the bosses' anti-women culture, but they're also super-exploited at the maquilas (garment shops), the main source of jobs for women here.

According to an investigation ten years ago by Rosa Virginia Hernández of the Committee of Salvadoran Working Women, the Labor Ministry counted 57,000 women working in the maquilas, 65% of whom had no social insurance benefits, even though the companies deducted the payments from their wages. Things haven't changed much since.

The maquilas were first created in the 1970's in the free trade zone of San Bartolo, but only grew in the '90s after the end of the civil war here. Basically they offer no real chance for a decent life for their workers.

Despite many attempts by human rights and women's groups and some trade unions to improve conditions in the maquilas, not much has been accomplished. Now maquilas are actually hiring more male workers, raising unemployment among women even more. Today only 60-70% of all maquila workers are women compared to 80-90% a decade ago. Women working many years in a plant don't get skilled training; the bosses prefer men, alleging "they take less days off."

Some plants have closed, with workers denied severance pay. In 2006, there was a reduction of 11-12% among textile maquilas, reducing jobs for women.

The ARENA government (virulently pro-U.S., the only Latin American government with troops in Iraq and one of the few remaining members of the "Coalition of the Willing") is resisting any pressure to alleviate this problem, saying it's the employers' responsibility. Meanwhile, a discussion in the National Assembly to change the Labor and Social Security laws (dating from 1971) is going nowhere.

The end of the civil war has brought no social peace to workers here; violent criminal gangs are rampant (many formed in the U.S.). Conditions for workers in general are horrendous. Meanwhile the FMLN (the former guerrilla group now turned into the second largest electoral party) talks and talks, just offering a "reformed-capitalism" "solution" -- actually no solution at all.

We in PLP must redouble our efforts here to build a mass base among women and all workers, offering them the only way out of this capitalist inferno: communism. DESAFIO-CHALLENGE must become our ideological weapon in this battle.

Inhuman Capitalism Fosters Myth of `Human Nature'

New York Times' conservative columnist David Brooks (2/18) praises the false wing of biological science that claims humans are naturally and innately ready to "slit each other's throats." Only current "conventions and institutions," says Brooks, stop us. Of course, current "conventions and institutions" are capitalist, even though Brooks doesn't name them. He claims that attempts to rid the world of what is really capitalism will only worsen it, or, as he puts it, it's only to be "altered at great peril."

The pseudo-scientific writers whom Brooks praises include economist Thomas Sowell, linguist/psychologist Steven Pinker and insect biologist E. O. Wilson of Sociobiology infamy. They all contend -- contrary to the claim by 18th century Swiss philosopher Rousseau that humans are born naturally good - that humans have evolved biologically, through natural selection, into naturally bad animals who need social rules to keep us from killing each other.

Both ideas are idealist and wrong. A materialist approach holds that humans are not naturally good or bad, but rather are shaped by our societies and by our specific roles in society. In particular, class-divided societies like capitalism shape us mainly by our social class. The capitalist class needs wars, genocide, racism, sexism, patriotism and religion to maintain its power and profits. It's not that capitalists are born naturally bad. It's that their class position forces them to be vicious thieves and killers.

Nor is it that the working class is naturally good. It's that our class position as victims of capitalist exploitation forces us to struggle to survive and in general to cooperate with each other in order to achieve that end -- men and women, black, white, Latin, Native American, Arab and workers of all nations. Our subordinate class position also makes it both possible and necessary for us to struggle for a new social order -- communism -- to end all forms of capitalist oppression. But that end doesn't come naturally; it requires a revolutionary communist leadership to carry it out.

Brooks claims that science disproved Rousseau's assumption of innate human goodness. But he falsely raises to honorary scientific status researchers who never question the genetic basis of complex human behavior, even though scientifically provable alternative explanations are all around us. (See coming Summer 2007 issue of PLP's THE COMMUNIST MAGAZINE for related book reviews.)

When Brooks fears that attempts to change capitalist institutions would put us all "in great peril," he really fears that it would put the capitalist ruling class and its supporters, like Brooks and his phony scientists, at great peril. He calls instead for a "strong order-imposing state." So did Mussolini, Hitler, Franco and all fascists of the past and present, including the Democrats and Republicans of today.

Indeed, the very concept of an unchangeable human nature justifies the resort to fascism, the most open and violent form of capitalist oppression of the working class. For if workers' struggles to change the "conventions and institutions" of capitalism are certain to make everyone's life worse, then those who engage in struggles for liberation from these life-destroying "conventions and institutions" are the enemy of all humanity, justifying any and all methods used to prevent such struggles. The Bush administration uses a similar hideous excuse to justify the horrendous torture of Muslim captives, namely "to protect all of us from terrorism."

Brooks says that most people today agree with Sowell, Pinker and Wilson, but unfortunately for Brooks and his ilk, the international working class has the potential power to change the world, and to change our natures in the process.

FBI Organized Nazi March

ORLANDO, FLORIDA, Feb. 15 -- If there were any doubts that U.S. bosses are sponsoring blatant fascists, look no further than a march in February 2006 of 22 neo-Nazis through the black community here organized by an FBI informant, David Gletty. It triggered a major police mobilization to ward off 500 counter-protesters. The FBI has paid Gletty $20,000 the past two years as he helped guide the Nazi group.

The Orlando Sentinel reported (2/15) that Gletty obtained the police parade permit on which he was listed as the "on-scene manager" and addressed the marchers while wearing the hated Hitlerite swastika armband. He later hosted a "victory party."

On a Nazi website, Gletty boasted that, "I got the permits and started the ball rolling....My crew and I got it done." He said, "I...had over-all authority for the event."

Bill White, head of another Nazi group, said in an e-mail that Gletty "did a lot for the cause....If he was being sponsored by the FBI, then [we]...have a lot to thank the FBI for."

Gletty's FBI status was inadvertently exposed in a federal court hearing involving two white supremacists charged with conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine.

The episode raises the question of how many other KKK and Nazi rallies have been organized and led by FBI or other police agents. The fact that 300 cops were ordered out to protect the Nazis marching through a black community gives substances to the description of the police as the "Klan in blue."

While the main aspect of growing fascism exists in the bosses' assault on workers at the workplace, including the fascist Minutemen's anti-immigrant forays, the rulers use these tinhorn fascists to spread racism and disunity in the working class to act as a brake on workers' fight-back against the bosses' attacks. That's why PLP mobilizes multi-racial forces against these fascist scum wherever they rear their heads.

Kids, Parents Back Day-Laborers, _Oppose Anti-Immigrant Racists

Bergenfield, NJ, February 17 -- Unitarian/Universalist Church members and their children demonstrated in the bitter cold in support of 35 day-workers. These workers have been facing the United Patriots who, like the Minutemen, try to stop hiring of immigrants, harassing bosses not to give them jobs. The enthusiasm of the Church members followed a Sunday School lesson on the terror the U.S. government is raining on immigrants from, Cactus, Texas to Freehold, NJ.

The children learned that at the Texas Swift & Co. slaughterhouses, 250 workers from Guatemala were recently deported. Families and thousands of others fled the town out of fear. Swift packaging plant has a history of firings and deportations, first against local workers, then Vietnamese, next Mexican and finally those from Guatemala. The children also learned that 80% of the renting families in Freehold will be forced onto the street, based on a new law that says renting to undocumented workers is illegal.

The bosses and their racist goons use the term "illegal" at their convenience. First they super-exploit these workers, making super-profits while using their youth as cannon fodder in their imperialist wars -- just as they use racism against black workers. Second, they blame immigrant workers for the rotten conditions caused by the bosses themselves, in order to divide the entire working class and weaken our ability to fight for a better system. And thirdly, the bosses practice their fascist tactics (raids, terror) to be used eventually against any worker who dares to fight back.

To spread this communist analysis, we distributed CHALLENGE to the workers, one of whom asked, "How can I get more of these?"

We explained to them how the Minutemen in Long Island struck day-laborers in the face with bottles after pretending to offer work, while the assailants were protected by the police. We described how the cops attacked our protests which led to several PLP friends being arrested, beginning a year-long court battle. We won that fight, demonstrating our determination in our efforts to fight racism and fascism.

We plan more visits to Bergenfield and/or Freehold to show solidarity and support for these workers against the racist attacks by the United Patriots and the Minutemen.

LETTERS

Deserters Can Be _Organized

"Deserter's Book Exposes Brutal Racist U.S. War Makers But Misleads Anti-War Soldiers" (CHALLENGE, 1/17/07) was an excellent book review that presented PLP's analysis of some very important issues. However, I think the review misses another aspect of this deserter question in expecting the deserter, Joshua Key, to have spontaneously acquired PL's political understanding of the root cause of the war and to have stayed in the army to organize rebellions.

The review later paints Joshua as a conscious enemy of the working class for making the wrong decision and letting the ruling class use his story to mislead soldiers and the working class in general.

The review correctly indicates that desertion has never stopped imperialist wars. Yet, desertion can become a mass phenomenon when the political understanding of soldiers and the working-class movement is low. Russia's communists faced this situation during World War I. They sent organizers inside the Czar's army to get soldiers to rebel but couldn't stop all the soldiers who wanted to desert.

Thus, what started as a trickle in early 1915 soon became an enormous river as hundreds of thousands of soldiers abandoned the front and flooded the cities. The Bolsheviks organized them into the Soviet of Soldiers and inspired them to play an important role in the 1917 revolution. However, the crucial role was played by active-duty soldiers and sailors who turned their guns against the bosses, having been won over by the Bolsheviks' organizers.

We shouldn't gratuitously make enemies of all deserters. We should correctly explain that deserting is not the solution and that the bosses' media will always use their stories to support the position of one set of capitalists or another. We should also make it clear that the revolutionary movement is always open for deserters, who, once struggled with, can accept some aspects of the Party's more advanced political ideas and become willing to contribute, according to their understanding and commitment, to the working-class struggle for communism.

But, if we want to harvest what the Bolsheviks did, we need to send organizers into the bosses' military. Only if soldiers have received PLP's full political analysis and have been struggled with and still consciously decide to oppose us and side with the ruling class -- only then can they be considered enemies of the working class.

A Comrade

Bosses Re-use Stressed GIs to Fight Their Wars

The lack of workers' willingness to fight for the bosses forces the Army to send mentally ill GIs back into battle. The majority of soldiers returning from Iraq suffer from some type of illness, ranging from anger management issues to PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) to alcoholism. They're caused by what they did or saw while being in Iraq. Many fellow soldiers have told me stories about this.

One said what he remembers most is seeing Iraqi people tossing dead body parts into dump trucks. He recalls seeing dogs tearing at human flesh off dead bodies. He says that every night when he goes to sleep, he sees these scenes vividly, repeatedly. Only passing out after heavy drinking blots out these images. So now he drinks every night to fall asleep. And he just returned to Iraq for another tour!

Another soldier told me that once on a convoy his unit heard a popping sound and so began spraying the corner they were passing with gunfire until they saw a body fall dead. When they stopped they realized they'd killed a kid; their commander ordered them to leave immediately. He said on another convoy, they missed a turn so had to do a U-turn on a busy street. As they turned, a machine gunner sprayed rounds at civilian vehicles that were not moving fast enough to get out of their way.

Still another soldier told me that his commander was "sick and tired of arresting people" and taking them to the F.O.B. (Forward Operating Base) for processing, so he ordered the troops to just kill them instead.

Soldiers continue to return with such experiences, mentally messed up. Then a year later they're back in Iraq.

Most soldiers who enlist for four years have two or three rotations. When they re-enter civilian society, they usually end up homeless or in jail. Additionally, soldiers returning home are increasingly involved in marital and child abuse.

The majority of soldiers I know hate the Army life. When they're in garrison they start drinking as soon as they're off until P.T. (physical training) formation the next morning. Alcoholism is the way of life here. Then when they're called back on tour, they don't really want to go (except some of the new soldiers).

However so far, the second-timers see it as something they must do and that soon they'll finish serving their time. They either see no alternative to this, or are too patriotic, racist and anti-communist to see that the real solution is to rebel against the commanders and smash the bosses.

Right now they try to get chaptered out of the Army for being mentally ill but the therapists are in the Army's pockets and so deny their requests, give them pills and send them back to Iraq. It's a vicious cycle that will continue so long as the soldiers continue to fight the bosses' wars. The only true alternative is for rank-and-file PLP'ers to join and organize in the Army to show GIs that there is an alternative to the bosses' imperialist bloodbath -- communist revolution.

Red Soldier

Colombia Workers _March Against Fascism

Hundreds of thousands of workers marched in Bogotá, Colombia against the massive attacks by the narco-death squad capitalist government of President Alvaro Uribe (Bush's most loyal ally in South America). Pensioners, unemployed and social security (ISS) workers chanted "Down with Uribe, Up with the ISS," denouncing the plan to restructure social security and basically do away with its health plan and pensions, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers and their families essentially homeless and helpless. The privatization plan will make some bosses rich.

Meanwhile, the union leaders have not fought these attacks. In fact, they've helped the bosses by refusing to fight for new contracts for three years, accepting layoffs of 2,500 ISS workers. They've gone along with the rulers' plans under the guise of making the ISS "more viable," when exactly the opposite is taking place.

PLP'ers distributed a leaflet titled, "Capitalism is Harmful to Your Health," also exposing the opportunist union hacks. We sold DESAFIO-CHALLENGE while explaining to marchers that no matter if Uribe or some other goon is president, workers' interests will never be satisfied under the profit system. Capitalism means war, corruption, death squads and massive attacks against workers. Joining PLP leads to a way out of this hellhole.

Red Worker, Colombia

GI `Appeal' Signing _Stirs Political Discussion

Recently Anthony, an Army National Guard soldier in my anti-war organization, and six other soldiers signed the Appeal for Redress from the war in Iraq.

Anthony had been asking people in his unit to sign the Appeal online, but he never got to talk about it at length and had little success. Then I gave him paper copies of the Appeal and Anthony talked to Jason, a mutual friend of ours and a fellow soldier in his unit.

At first Jason protested that appealing to Congress won't work and that the statement was too patriotic. Anthony called me up during drill and asked what I thought. Later that night I told him I agreed with Jason but still thought they should sign it and get their friends to sign it also.

I explained that the Appeal can be used to raise the idea of class solidarity with the troops who already signed it and we'd see who would stick their necks out and do something about the war instead of just talking. I also said they could struggle over the Appeal's reformism and nationalism.

Anthony agreed, but thought relying on military law to protect the signers wouldn't work. He thought he and the other signers should form a defense committee to back each other if the command harassed them.

The next day Anthony and Jason talked it over and Jason agreed that making the issue class solidarity -- not pressuring Congress -- was a good idea. Jason also insisted they needed to form a defense committee before Anthony even brought it up.

One soldier glanced at the Appeal and said flatly, "This isn't gonna work." Anthony and Jason said everybody else pretty much felt the same but they added, "We need to show that troops did something about the war and were part of a bigger movement, not that we expect the government to listen to us." Two different groups signed the Appeal together, all soldiers Anthony or Jason had known for years.

In one group the Appeal sparked a conversation about class interests and the draft. Most, but not all, believed that the Democrats wouldn't change anything. But one soldier felt that if Bush and Congress had children serving or had been in combat themselves, they wouldn't have started the Iraq war. Most in the group like Charles Rangel's idea of a draft because everyone would have to serve, even the politicians and upper-class kids.

"I said that even though some upper-class people would be in harm's way, most would be drafted as officers, not enlisted," Anthony recalls. He noted that some in the Bush administration have served in combat and that it wouldn't make any difference if the upper class served or not -- workers would still be fighting for the bosses' benefit.

Jason said some agreed, some didn't, but all gave it serious thought. The conversation turned to whether hard work or exploitation actually brought success, but political debate was temporarily interrupted when they had to get back to work

Anthony says the Appeal helped bring the signers closer to each other. "Each of us knows we can look to each other if the command decides to harass us," he told me. Raising the issue of the Appeal also led us to put anti-imperialist and class politics up front. The next step is to show CHALLENGE to more soldiers, build stronger social ties in between drills, and bring the signers to PLP events.

Red National Guard Soldier

COUNTY STRUGGLE NEEDS VISION OF _THE FUTURE

The recent struggle against clinic cutbacks at Cook County Hospital in Chicago -- a testament to the many years of hard work and dedication on the part of communist and anti-racist fighters there -- is a tremendous opportunity for building the Party.

But the recent CHALLENGE articles (1/31 and 2/14) don't fully reflect this opportunity. They're very clear on how racism and imperialism are really responsible for these deadly attacks, and contain a call to build PLP and for communist revolution.

But there's virtually nothing in these articles about our communist politics on health care. For example, in a communist world:

* Health care will be free, not in any sense a part of wages. No nonsense about co-pays and deductibles. No workers turned away or discouraged from going to the doctor because they don't have insurance or can't pay.
* The Party will guarantee that the fruits of workers' labor are directed -- as one of the highest priorities -- to providing effective, safe health care for all workers and their children. No health care cutbacks to line the bosses' pockets or finance imperialist wars.
* Many millions of health workers will be trained to provide (at no cost!) information on, and care for, high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes, AIDS prevention and so on. The barefoot doctors in China are an early example of what can be done.
* Mass prevention campaigns, based in schools, workplaces and neighborhoods will be mounted against AIDS, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and substance abuse. Again, the Chinese communist successful mass campaign against schistosomaisis is something to learn from.
* Older workers and those with chronic illnesses, as well as alcohol and drug abuse problems, will receive the care they need and deserve. They won't be left to die by the likes of racist "Dr." Robert Simon.

These are just a few examples, a broad outline, of what health care will be like in a communist society. We should not lose sight of the many years of struggle that will be necessary to achieve communism. The exact form of communist health care, born out of the crucible of these many years of struggle, is yet to be determined.

Meanwhile, when we're locked in battle with the bosses over even the most basic health care, as at Cook County, these ideas could be directly linked with the struggle -- in leaflets, speeches, conversations and CHALLENGE articles (which could include website links to earlier articles about health care in China or from other articles in CHALLENGE or the COMMUNIST magazine).

Hopefully, this is of some value to our Cook County comrades engaged in the difficult but all-important task of resolving the contradiction between reform and revolution.

Red Doc

Youth Angered By New Orleans Oppression

Going to New Orleans was a bittersweet experience. It is full of grandeur and culture but this ended abruptly. Seeing the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard's Parish neighborhoods was heart-wrenching and bone-chilling. You realized that the government acts in a very inhumane manner. The levees in the Lower 9th are so frail and close to the houses that logically they cannot hold up against a hurricane. It was also amazing to see the oil refineries so close to the homes. The workers are constantly exposed to fumes and pollution. To see that after a year and a half, nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done was infuriating. The streets of New Orleans seem like a ghost town. To think that many families lost everything and to put oneself in the family's shoes is very emotional. No first-hand account can compare to actually experiencing the destruction.

Nevertheless, New Orleans rebuilds little by little. The Mardi Gras Zulu Parade was fun. The people have been through so much and yet still have hope. As you drive down certain streets you can see some re-building and feel the optimism.

Visiting New Orleans was an eye-opening experience. Not only did I learn about another state of the union, but also the reality of things and the certain discrimination in this "free" and "equal" country.

Student Volunteer 1

Eighteen months ago the people of New Orleans were victims of a hurricane that only the rich survived. Is that the way it's supposed to be?

I had the chance recently to go see what was going on in New Orleans. It was depressing and raised a lot of questions in my mind about the capitalist system we are living in. I realized that the government is not afraid to do whatever it takes to keep themselves rich and powerful while forgetting about those who are trying to live their lives with the little they have left.

It's even clearer to me that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It has to stop because we live under one sun. Therefore, there should be equality for all.

Student Volunteer 2

Active-Duty GIs Support Anti-War Soldiers

It's no secret that a great many U.S. military personnel -- especially enlisted people -- want the U.S. out of Iraq now. Increasingly, the anti-war movement here is organizing to support war resisters. This includes pacifists who, not long ago, shuddered at the thought of talking to active-duty GIs.

However, pacifist politics celebrate individual soldiers who declare themselves "conscientious objectors" (COs), and use those grounds to "opt out" of the war.

Instead of encouraging effective collective struggle against imperialism, pacifism fosters personal self-righteousness, which does not impede the warmakers. If workers follow pacifism, it leaves them defenseless in the face of capitalism's incessant attacks, and completely contradicts the working class's eventual need for armed insurrection through which it can take power to run society in their own class interest.

This contradiction is evident in the support campaign for Agustin Aguayo, who joined the Army as a medic shortly before the U.S. invaded Iraq. A year later, he changed; he is now a CO. He was sent to Iraq anyway. After talking with GIs in his company, Aguayo and his best buddy refused to load their weapons. Their whole unit knew they opposed the war. At the end of their tour, everyone in the unit got a medal, except Aguayo and his buddy.

But strikingly, the other guys gave their medals to these two anti-war soldiers! Clearly they respected the pair's stand. The main lesson of the Aguayo case is the potential for organizing active-duty military people to rebel collectively.

Last September, with the unit about to redeploy from Germany to Iraq, Aguayo's CO application was under federal appeal. He went AWOL, then turned himself in to face court-martial. Instead, he was told he'd be sent to Iraq in chains! Aguayo went AWOL again, held a press conference in Los Angeles, and then went with a caravan of supporters to turn himself in again. He is now in pre-trial confinement in Germany, where the German pacifist movement is planning demonstrations outside his court-martial in March.

Instead of focusing on the potential for collective anti-war resistance and rebellion inside the military, the pacifists are building up Aguayo as an individual hero because he wants out. They have seized hold of his legal defense to make a test case about official CO status. They're silent about what might have happened if Aguayo had returned to Iraq with his unit and tried to organize them into a collective protest (although we don't know exactly what Aguayo's relation was with his fellow GIs).

PLP's communist strategy stands in sharp contrast. Whether we're fighting ROTC or supporting resisters, we can't simply echo the liberal idea that "recruiters lie, you might die" or the pacifist view that people of faith must "say no to war and violence." We need to inform our friends that GI revolts played a large part in defeating U.S. imperialism in Vietnam, and that these revolts often involved violent acts of sabotage and "fragging." Further we need to talk about the important role of soldiers in the 1917 Russian revolution. (What might Aguayo have done had he been presented with these ideas?)

We need to encourage reliance on working-class youth, especially the many young black and Latin soldiers who've been victims of racism inside and outside the military, even while the bosses indoctrinate them with anti-Arab racism. Whether or not PLP's ideas are popular -- and our experiences both among soldiers and within pacifist organizations suggest that they may be more popular than we think -- we must explain that building an anti-imperialist, revolutionary movement inside the military is a crucial step, not only toward ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but toward ending the bloody capitalist system and its wars forever.

A Comrade

REDEYEONTHENEWS

74 little wars now -- big ones due

Some say that "little" brushfire wars -- there are 74 in progress around the world -- are the only wars there will be in future -- and that the age of great wars has passed. I am not one of those people. There is too much tinder lying around and there are far too many firebrands, Competition between states...is not deminishing, it is increasing.... (GW, 3/1)

US aims guns at Africa's oil

This week's US decision to create a new Pentagon command covering Africa, known as Africom has a certain unlovely military logic...

With Gulf of Guinea countries, including Nigeria and Angola, projected to provide a quarter of US oil imports within a decade, with Islamist terrorism worries in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, and with China prowling for resources and markets, the US plainly feels a second wind of change is blowing, necessitating increased leverage....

The U.S. is becoming, de facto, the self-appointed global policeman it said it never wanted to be . . . .

Africom marks the official arrival of America's "global war on terror" on the African continent. It is a wonder it took so long. (GW, 2/22)

US plans a weak, obedient Iraq

The Iraqi Air Force once boasted more that 500 combat aircraft. Now it has around 20 helicopters and planes and has barely figured in discussions on rebuilding the Iraqi security forces.

There are no fighter planes in the current fleet and none are expected in the next few years at least, indicating that the United States will be responsible for air defenses here for some time to come.

"In that part of the world, what you call a territory without a couple hundred fighter planes is a protectorate".... (NYT, 2/5)

War profiteers don't fear Dems

...The Iraq attack has been awfully good for one group: Pentagon contractors. For the makers of weapons, profits are up, stock prices are soaring, taxpayer dollars are gushing their way, and there is no end in sight for the "good times" that they are enjoying....

But what about those pesky Democrats...threatening to investigate war profiteering? No problem--corporate lobbyists note that Democrats, like Republicans, take campaign funds from these same contractors.... As one industry analyst smugly puts it: "I think Democrats will be on good behavior as long as the war continues." (Jim Hightower, 2/8)

Plan for Iran is a wormy can...

So here's the score: if we bomb Iran, the world will be a more dangerous place. If Iran gets the bomb, the world will be a more dangerous place. Conclusion: the world is likely to be a more dangerous place. (GW, 2/22)

Dems beat Bush to big-Army plan

President Bush...endorsed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' recommendation that 92,000 troops be added to the Army and the Marine Corps.

Some Democratic leaders have expressed support for the idea. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he was glad the president "has realized the need for increasing the size of the armed forces...but this is where the Democrats have been for two years." (LA Times, 1/27)

Human rights: a lower-half view

We tend to think of human rights in terms of a right to vote, a right to free speech, a right to assembly. But a child should also have a right not to suffer agony because of a worm that is easily preventable, as well as a right not to go blind because of lack of medication that costs a dollar or two, even a right not to die for a lack of a $5 mosquito net. (NYT, 2/28)

Pacifism won't help the oppressed

Violence is immoral, the argument goes, so by not defending themselves pacifists can claim a moral victory, shaming their opponents into submission. The flaw in this is that it assumes the opponent is capable of experiencing shame at his actions. Often the only dilemma pacifists pose to aggressors is how to dispose of so many corpses. (GW, 3/1)

Global Warning: Capitalism Destroying Our Planet

Many of us were concerned about this past December's abnormal weather--amazingly warm in the northeast and snow in Mexico. Many grumbled about global warming. Some began to worry the Earth was changing and life wouldn't be so good for their grandchildren. What is the truth?

First, let's get it straight that it's not our fault.. Capitalism and capitalist scientists are quick to argue that if we recycle, drive more energy-efficient cars, use mass transit, appeal to our governments to do the "right thing" then all of our environmental problems will be solved. What a lie! A system which is based on the profits of the few has the nerve to blame the billions of struggling workers! We don't decide what to produce, how to generate energy, whether to produce cars or build mass transit, nor do we create all the waste that capitalism produces.

The Earth is warming--an increase of 1deg.F during the twentieth century. One degree doesn't seem like much, but chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island have broken off ice fields in Antarctica and large chunks of ice are melting in the Arctic. Glaciers present on mountains longer than anyone can remember are starting to melt, and it is projected that they will disappear within the next century. Birds' migration patterns change, flowers bloom sooner than usual, causing problems in agriculture.

Some people claim that we don't know if there is actually a change. They argue that there have always been cycles of hotter climates and then ice ages; mild hurricane seasons and then really bad hurricane seasons. Exxon-Mobil is spending billions "proving" that climate change isn't happening. However, thousands of scientists, working together on the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) argue that no honest debate exists: global warming is a fact, the Earth's climate is in danger, and something has to be done. There have been many variations in the earth's temperature in the past, but the temperature range has been relatively narrow (~5c/10f) even when comparing ice ages with periods of warming. The problem is that capitalism's recklessness now threatens to produce a greater climatic disruption than ever before.

The Earth is the only planet in our solar system which can support life. There are two primary reasons: water is present in three forms, liquid, solid and gas all the time, and we have what we call "the greenhouse effect." The greenhouse effect is positive: as radiation (energy) from the sun strikes the Earth's surface, warming the Earth, some of the radiation bounces off the Earth's surface and heads back into space. If it continued into space the Earth would be a lot cooler (averaging about 0[[ring]]F) but because it is stopped by greenhouse gas molecules it is returned to Earth, warming it enough to support life (the average temperature on Earth is 59[[ring]]F).

The problem is the increased amount of the "greenhouse gases", carbon dioxide and methane, in the atmosphere. This unnatural increase in the greenhouse gases is causing more radiation to be held near the Earth, warming it even more. Since pre-industrial times, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 31 percent. The amount of methane in the atmosphere has increased 151% in the same period. The increased carbon dioxide comes from increased use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) due to industrialization. The methane comes from rice paddies and from cattle.

The increase in temperature causes a number of serious problems. The ice in the poles and glaciers melts into the oceans, causing the sea levels to rise and flood low lying areas. Most human populations live on the coasts or along rivers; therefore many, many millions of people are threatened. Increasing the temperature on the planet changes the weather. Already we're seeing more serious storms, with flooding, in southern Asia, droughts in many places, Australia is facing a water shortage now, and of course, the changes this winter already mentioned.

Many of the arguments about global warming represent different groups of capitalists. While some companies look to profit from alternative energy sources, most capitalists are unwilling to accept the costs of reducing emissions and production of greenhouse gases. Ever sharpening imperialist competition and capitalism's drive for maximum profits means that we can only end global warming and other environmental problems by replacing the anarchy of capitalism with social planning organized by the working class--communism--that puts people's needs first.

References:
Union of Concerned Scientists [http://ucsusa.org]
http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/land/global/climchng.hml

Denounce Blair's Troop Scam

_LONDON, February 24 -- Tens of thousands protested here and in Glasgow, Scotland demanding withdrawal of all British troops from Iraq and the scrapping of the planned [[sterling]]76 billion replacement program for Trident nuclear missiles. The marchers viewed Blair's announcement of a British pullout from Basra, Iraq as a ploy, since more UK troops will be sent to the other imperialist war in Afghanistan, where U.S.-UK-NATO forces are also being bogged down.

Two NYC PL'ers visiting relatives in London distributed a leaflet with the CHALLENGE story (2/28) describing the action of students at the NYC teachers Delegate Assembly where the youth won teachers to oppose military recruiters in high schools. Our comrades had great discussions with the marchers (more next issue).

PLP HISTORY
PLP Defied Bosses' Nationalism in `68 SF Student Strike

(Part III on PLP's activities within SDS)

The ideological struggle within SDS sharpened after PLP and the Worker-Student Alliance Caucus had defeated the right-wing's attempt to expel PL at the June 1968 national convention.

The debate over the identity and role of the working class became an argument over the issue of nationalism. The right-wing followed the old communist movement's line that nationalism could be progressive or reactionary, depending on the identity of the nationalist. This view says the nationalism of the oppressor (U.S. imperialism, French colonialism, etc.) was obviously reactionary; however, the nationalism of the oppressed (the Vietnamese people, or victims of racism in the U.S.) could serve the cause of revolution.

Until the mid-Sixties, PLP had endorsed this position. However, an analysis of international class struggle and a self-critical examination of our own practice (including the 1966 NYC transit strike and other union struggles) led us to conclude that even the most militant anti-imperialist nationalism was a thin disguise for all-class unity behind a boss, and that revolutionaries must therefore reject it.

The struggle was far from purely theoretical. In November 1968, students at San Francisco State University (SFSU) launched a strike that was to last five months, the longest in the history of the U.S. student movement. Thousands participated. In purely tactical terms, it involved some of the most violent struggle of the period, often pitting the strikers in pitched battles against the fascistic San Francisco Police Department. PLP members were among the courageous strikers and strike leaders during these confrontations.

However, the political content of the strike was fatally flawed. Rather than organize around a program of anti-racist, anti-imperialist demands, which could have clarified the class content of the university and moved the strike leftward, the SFSU Third World Liberation Front and Black Students Union called for an "Ethnic Studies Department."

In a different form, this was the same anti-working class content that the right-wing had pushed in demanding "liberation classes" at Columbia in the spring of 1968. SFSU was and remains a capitalist institution; with or without an ethnic studies department, it would continue to serve the bosses. In fact, such a department could only hurt the movement by promoting illusions about the system's ability to reform itself.

At first, the PLP club at SFSU endorsed the strike's bad demands. The Party's new line on nationalism hadn't yet been fully discussed and understood, and in the heat of battle, the comrades on the front lines thought that they were acting correctly in merely giving bold tactical leadership.

PLP's chairperson in New York, recovering from major surgery, heard about the SFSU struggle and talked to the PLP student organizer, telling him: "This Party's not going to capitulate to nationalism. Go to San Francisco and try to win the club and leadership to a better line." The student organizer did so, and, in the heat of the strike, carried out a successful political struggle within the club.

The SFSU PLP club demonstrated great determination and courage in the face of attempted intimidation, threats and physical violence, some of it from cops and some from ruling-class agents within the strike. The bosses recognized that even the most militant struggle could be tamed and brought under control if it was led by nationalist politics. The only real danger was PLP's line. When the Party began opposing both the ethnic studies demand and nationalism in general, the right-wingers and ruling class forces within the movement intensified the anti-PL red-baiting and intimidation.

Nonetheless, the Party stuck to its guns. We didn't win on the issue; the strike ended in March 1969, after the SFSU administration had agreed to create an Ethnic Studies Department, which exists to this day. Two of PLP's main leaders received prison sentences of several months for their strike activity.

But the Worker-Student Alliance and the Party grew both numerically and qualitatively in the wake of this struggle. Student strikers joined PLP. Most importantly, the Party had moved to the left on the crucial question of nationalism and learned to advance under attack. The ideological struggle within SDS was about to sharpen still further, and this political baptism of fire had toughened the Party and would serve it well in the year ahead.

(Future articles: PLP publicly criticizes revisionism in Vietnam; the 1969 Harvard strike; the Chicago "split" convention; the Campus Worker-Student Alliance; and key lessons of the SDS period.

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Feb. 28, 2007

Information: 28 February 2007 117 hits

Black, Latino, Immigrant Workers First To Face: Fascist Crackdown

Is Iran Next?

Worker-Student Alliance Opposes Military Recruiters

a href="#Don’t Dream of Being a Boss, Become a Communist">"on’t Dream of Being a Boss, Become a Communist

Hospital Workers Show Doctors How to Talk Back to Fascist Chief

a href="#Rivera Defends ‘1199’ Sellout: ‘We’re all capitalists’!">Rivera D"fends ‘1199’ Sellout: ‘We’re all capitalists’!

Workers, Students Unite to Confront Racist Minutemen

Anger Grows Over Another LAPD Racist Murder

a href="#VW Sellout —The Other Shoe Drops">"W Sellout —The Other Shoe Drops

a href="#Obrador, Hacks No Answer to Workers’ Anger">"brador, Hacks No Answer to Workers’ Anger

French Pols, Union Hacks Divert General Strike to Ballot Box

Heard On The Streets Of Paris

Thousands March While NATO Splits Over Afghanistan

LETTERS

Anti-War GIs Need Anti-Imperialist Strategy

a href="#Working Class — The Bosses’ Cannon Fodder">Wo"king Class — The Bosses’ Cannon Fodder

Could Obama Be Racist?

CHALLENGE Comment:

a href="#Distorting Obama’s Message?">"istorting Obama’s Message?

a href="#Editor’s reply:">"ditor’s reply

Was Marx Wrong?

CHALLENGE Comment 2

Growing Multi-Racial, Interfaith Unity

Multi-Racial Fight Key to Defeat Nationalism

a href="#Individual GI ResistanceWon’t Cut It">"ndividual GI ResistanceWon’t Cut It

a href="#Can’t Rely on Bosses’ Courts, In France or U.S.">Ca"’t Rely on Bosses’ Courts, In France or U.S.

Dutch General Strike Under Nazis Fought Persecution of Jews

PL History: PLP, SDS and the 1968 Columbia U. Strike

New Orleans: Tenants Take Back Their Homes

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

U.S. pull-back won’t be pull-out
One-third doubt official 9/11 story
Big Africa investment hurts villagers
Upper-class grab city after flood
Desperate Iraqis blame US oil greed
Capitalist $ won’t go to our needs

Black, Latino, Immigrant Workers First To Face Fascist Crackdown

As U.S. rulers’ butchery in Iraq threatens to spill over into Iran, and a clash with China, Russia or Europe looms, the rulers must impose wartime discipline on the home front. With the liberal, imperialist wing of U.S. capital leading the effort, results so far have proved mixed. For black, Latino and immigrant workers and those of Arab background, a full-blown police state exists. But, while the bosses terrorize large segments, they haven’t managed to militarize the general population, and thus will resort to more drastic measures to do so. As for the economy, the past decade has seen a vast increase in centralized government control and consolidation of capital. Capitalists, however, remain divided in purpose. Many still favor their individual profit margins over the strategic aims of U.S. imperialism. As their military needs mount, the rulers will employ more severe tactics to enforce sacrifice. Jailing Enron and Tyco execs was only the opening act. Fascism is indeed on the rise — unevenly but unquestionably — in the U.S.

When Clinton’s air strikes and embargo in the 1990’s were softening up Iraq for invasion, he vowed to put 100,000 more cops on U.S. streets. Today, police forces beefed up by liberals are on a racist rampage. Sean Bell’s cold-blooded, unpunished murder by the NYPD signals a rapidly intensifying ruling-class crackdown on black and Latin workers. New York cops stopped and frisked 508,540 people, 81% of them black or Hispanic, last year, compared with 97,296 in 2002. (NY Times, 2/3/07). Arrests and summonses nearly quadrupled. Liberals like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama back the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which funds the "hiring and training [of] law enforcement officers."

As a result, 2.2 million people are imprisoned nationwide, 70% of them black or Hispanic. Every twelfth black male between the ages of 25 and 29 languishes behind bars; the figure for whites is one in a hundred. (Bureau of Justice Statistics) Managing the flow of cheap immigrant labor is crucial to U.S. rulers’ worldwide competitiveness. When jobs dry up, their new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency ruthlessly tracks down and deports foreign-born workers, over 1.2 million annually. Massive raids like the recent Operation Return to Sender in California have created a "reign of terror" in Latino communities that deters workers from leaving their houses and sending their children to school. (KCBS, 2/7/02)

Such Gestapo-style round-ups are also a liberal initiative. The Democratic Leadership Council says "lawmakers should shift the focus of the debate away from the border and to the workplace." (Website, 5/25/06) ICE even has a prison camp for detaining immigrant families in Texas. Arab workers suffer particularly harsh treatment there. A pregnant Palestinian woman with four children was separated from her husband and held for three months simply for overstaying a visa.

But, apart from the cops and federal agents themselves, the rulers have not won large numbers of people to the storm-trooper militarism their widening wars require. Current recruitment can barely sustain their undermanned Iraq adventure. Mass revulsion at the imperialists’ Vietnam slaughter wiped out the culture of military service in all but a very few pockets. Texas A & M and the Citadel still churn out officers. Fifty years ago, however, virtually every major college had a thriving ROTC program. The sharpening global rivalry will force U.S. bosses to restore the draft, or as Democrats prefer to call it, "universal national service."

A similar lack of loyalty hampers U.S. imperialists on the business side. Despite recent merger mania, the U.S. economy appears more fragmented than united. The number of banks may have shrunk from 10,000 to 7,500 over the last ten years, but that’s still 7,000 separate money centers with distinct interests. The Bush administration reflects this disjointedness. On one hand it launched two invasions for the imperialists’ benefit; on the other, it panders to bottom-liners and refuses to impose war taxes.

New York’s new governor, Eliot Spitzer, who helped tighten the rulers’ grip by enforcing regulations on Wall Street, just suffered a setback in Albany. The lobbyist-ridden legislature rejected his choice for comptroller, the state’s chief financial post. This disarray has parallels with Italy in the build-up for World War II. British historian Mac-Gregor Knox noted "a crippling parochialism of outlook" and a regime "without the conviction or power to force upon Italian society the financial sacrifices demanded [by war]." ("Hitler’s Italian Allies," Cambridge, 2000)

But there are important differences. U.S. bosses have a far larger empire at stake and will fight all the more viciously to keep it. We should not expect "fascism lite." The sharpening attacks on black, Latino and immigrant workers show the true shape of things to come. The bosses may lack a broad military culture, but they have deep-seated, pervasive racism at their disposal.

Another, deadlier 9/11 followed by anti-Arab propaganda, military mobilization, and a crackdown on dissidents seems to be what the rulers now require and may be coming. Don’t put it past them. They had warnings of the original attack and did nothing. Clinton’s Hart-Rudman Commission rhapsodized about the possibility of such a "galvanizing" event two years before it happened. The main capitalists desperately need to put the nation on a wartime footing. Consequently, we must continue to improve our efforts for the survival of the revolutionary communist movement under a police state. This mainly means building a Progressive Labor Party with deeper and deeper roots in the working class.

Is Iran Next?

The war drums are beating louder, now against Iran. The White House is using the same tactics as those which led up to the invasion of Iraq. "Iranian bombs are killing our soldiers in Iraq" is the latest.

Ironically, the bombs that the U.S. government claims Iran is sending to Iraq would be used by Shiite militias, which are supported by the U.S. puppet government in Baghdad. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is not accusing its allies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan of supporting the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the force that is probably killing more U.S. troops than all others combined. The Bushites are using these governments in their current campaign against Iran.

Simultaneously, a huge U.S. naval fleet is in place in the Persian Gulf for any potential attack on Iran. This would lead to an even bloodier and wider war than the one in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Democrats, while expressing skepticism at the latest White House war plans, will surely fall into place as soon as any shock and awe bombing might begin against Iran, just as they did in Iraq.

Communists since World War I have said imperialism makes war inevitable no matter which set of politicians is running the government. The only way out is for workers and soldiers from Teheran to Baghdad to Washington unite and fight to destroy the system that causes war. That’s what PLP fights for!

Youth Rock NYC Teachers’ Union

Worker-Student Alliance Opposes Military Recruiters

NEW YORK CITY, Feb. 7 — A resolution opposing military recruiters in the high schools, fought for by teachers and students together, passed overwhelmingly tonight at the United Federation of Teachers Delegate Assembly (DA). The delegates were delighted at the presence of 15-20 militant, black and Latin sign-carrying high school students, members and friends of PLP. They helped their teacher comrades distribute 900 leaflets and 200 CHALLENGES (we ran out of papers).

The students came to the meeting with signs opposing recruiters in schools and demanding that delegates vote for the resolution. Many years of teachers working collectively set the stage for the success of the resolution, but the real victory for the Party is the new, growing worker-student alliance seen here tonight.

In fact, the presence of the students won the battle to ensure that the resolution got discussed. We struggled with the union hacks to admit the students into the meeting. Finally union president Randi Weingarten agreed they could come in while the resolution was being debated and voted on.

Then one student addressed the Assembly and called for opposition to imperialist war, saying the so-called educational benefits promised by recruiters mean nothing if you’re dead. She described the students’ concerns that the delegates often vote on issues affecting students, without their knowledge or input. She called on the assembly to pass the resolution, describing the issue of recruiters in the schools one of the most important for high school students.

As expected, the description of the war as imperialist was removed. But the final version didn’t limit the opposition to recruiters to the current war in Iraq, broadening its scope. Although most of the delegates are bound to vote with the leadership caucus, 90% voted for the resolution. This represents recognition on the part of the union leadership that they cannot afford to deny the growing opposition to the war, despite Weingarten’s need to try to control the anti-war anger among the members.

The passage of the resolution doesn’t mean Weingarten is a friend of the working class. Not only is she a buddy of the mayor who is attacking students and teachers, but she is diverting workers’ anger into the arms of the other imperialist war party, the Democrats. The "victories" that she describes are nothing more than legal battles helping to define our exploitation. The union does not fight harassment of teachers or for lower class size. But Weingarten wants to be seen as a "friend" of the working class, so she supported anti-war resolutions at the last two meetings. We have developed a marked influence at these assemblies.

While we’re always recognized as fighters for our students and our class, we used to struggle to distribute just 25 CHALLENGES. Now we routinely distribute 300 or more. In the end, we’re winning a struggle against anti-communism and broadening our base. The union leadership knows this and they work hard to maintain the delegates’ allegiance to the Democratic Party, rather than to the Progressive Labor Party.

The strengths of this struggle are our collectivity and patient work over the years, and our building of an anti-racist worker-student alliance at our schools in a continuous fight against racist attacks . Other delegates were excited to see the students, congratulating them and us.

The struggle will sharpen as we bring a demand for union support for May Day to the March meeting, alongside the students who are eager to continue this fight. The debate around May Day will show our friends which side Weingarten and her buddies are on, one small step in our winning them to understand that only a communist revolution can provide the future we want for our students and the working class.

a name="Don’t Dream of Being a Boss, Become a Communist">">"on’t Dream of Being a Boss, Become a Communist

Hey you! Put down this CHALLENGE because you too can be rich if you only try hard enough. That’s a big fat lie that fuels capitalism and the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness."

In the early 1980’s in San Francisco, Chris Gardner is a bone-density scanner salesman, and his girlfriend Linda works double shifts at a laundry.

Three months behind in rent, Gardner decides he wants to be happy like rich people and applies for free stockbroker training. Linda mocks Gardner’s new plan and soon leaves for a job in New York. Gardner now must raise his son alone, find a place to stay because they’re homeless, pay bills, and still sell the bone scanners while training for the stock brokerage. In the end Gardner succeeds and gets a high-paying job that puts him on the path to being a CEO.

The movie is based on Chris Gardner’s real-life rags-to-riches memoir.

The message is that in the U.S. the homeless can become multi-millionaires. But under capitalism, the happiness of a few millionaires and billionaires depends on the misery of billions of workers. The world’s richest 2% control 40% of global wealth, and the bottom half of the world’s population — about 3 billion people —own barely 1%. (United Nations University Report, 5 December 2006) All profits, whether inherited or "self-made," are stolen from workers labor. Only by fighting for communism can workers around the world wipe out capitalism’s mass misery.

Millionaires make up about one-tenth of one percent of people in the world while billionaires make up only .00001% (one millionth of one percent). Gardner and other rich people the capitalist media focus on, like Oprah, Bill Clinton, Condeleeza Rice or Dikembe Matombo, are rare exceptions. The bosses just want each of us to work hard, not complain, and focus on the exceptions like Gardner.

The filmmakers changed major parts of Gardner’s real-life story to mislead workers. In the movie Gardner and Linda are struggling to pay bills, Gardner’s stockbroker training has no stipend and Linda leaves Gardner alone to look after Chris, Jr. The film Gardner says he had to do in six hours what his competitors in class did in nine because he had to take care of Chris, Jr. No one in the whole movie ever helps him do anything.

In real life, Gardner doubled his income by becoming a salesman. He received a stipend for his training and Linda leaves with Chris, Jr. Gardner was actually the first one to come in the office and the last one to leave. Months later when Linda returns to leave Jr. with Gardner, a reverend allows Gardner and his son to stay in a shelter that’s only for woman with children. With the reverend’s help, Gardner saves money for a rental house. The reverend also introduced him to local bosses in San Francisco (sfgate.com 10 Oct 2005 and chrisgardnermedia.com).

The film adds impossible hardships to Gardner’s real-life experiences to distract viewers from their own personal struggle and to reinforce the false idea that if you didn’t make it it’s because you didn’t try. We’re encouraged to pursue happiness by becoming a boss after all Gardner had no help and he made it!

The very few workers who do become rich make it by exploiting other workers. Once Gardner started working he grew rich by investing money from workers’ pensions. U.S. bosses want to demonstrate that racism is over and anyone can make it, with no rebellions necessary. In one scene a racist instructor asks Gardner to move the instructor’s car instead of going to a meeting with a CEO. Gardner chooses to move the car before going to his meeting but ends up getting a ticket and missing the CEO. Later, Gardner finds his way to meet with the CEO on his own time and pays the parking ticket out of his own pocket.

The message is: don’t challenge racism, work harder. But the reality is that capitalism still super-exploits and under-employs black workers while a few are promoted to help exploit other workers. Capitalism, not laziness or weak will, keeps workers — especially black, Latino and women workers impoverished and in misery.

If all homeless or impoverished people suddenly decided to do everything they could to be stockbrokers and CEOs, would there be jobs for them? Who would actually work for them? The CEOs? In some ways Gardner is a sympathetic person who endures hardship in part to make a better life for his child. But the movie doesn’t praise workers for compassion it blames them for not exploiting each other to the top.

When communist led the USSR and China, workers did away with unemployment and drastically reduced homelessness by violently rising against the capitalist rulers and building a workers’ state. But the bosses want us to compete for jobs, housing, and resources and they release films like "The Pursuit of Happyness" to fool us into individually pursuing dreams of getting rich instead of uniting together to end poverty.

Really pursuing happiness for all workers means working hard with our class over many generations to build communism and end capitalism’s miserable conditions — not adopting a "mefirst" attitude with dreams of exploiting and creating miserable conditions.

Hospital Workers Show Doctors How to Talk Back to Fascist Chief

CHICAGO—"How many of our patients will die because they can’t get to the other Clinic after you close Woodlawn?" When that nurse’s angry question was raised, it was time for the Chief of the Cook County Health Bureau to end the meeting before things could start to get out of hand.

Even while being surrounded by 500 angry medical center staff in a standing-room only crowd in County’s Hektoen auditorium, Dr. Robert Simon had kept the lid on it all too well up to that point. A few minutes earlier an internal medicine doctor observed that some staff might refuse to fill out the billing sheets to protect their low income patients from getting threatening letters from collection agencies. "After all, we are the safety net for people who can’t afford medical care." "Then those doctors will be fired. And I haven’t lost a hearing in eighteen years."

The cold voice of fascism. And he was getting away with it – not challenged by the hundreds of doctors in the room – until a clerk and then the nurse from Woodlawn raised their voices to "make it real."

In the four weeks since Dr. Simon held his first meetings with staff in Hektoen auditorium, the murderous cuts have continued to grind forward through the budget process. The fight back has been inspiring and huge at times. Normally quiet and boring budget hearings have attracted thousands of angry patients and workers and the county commissioners have appeared to distance themselves from Simon and the County President Todd Stroger who together had demanded 17% across-the-board cuts.

But no serious plan has been advanced by any politician, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, that would prevent most of the planned destruction of the public health system of Cook County, the second largest in the country.

No politician has made the obvious charge of racism against Stroger’s plan, even though over 80% of the people who will die from the cuts are black or Latin. Is it because Stroger is black? And of course no politician or news outlet has drawn the obvious link between the loss of federal money for public hospitals and the war budget. The entire $500 million deficit in the County budget could be paid with the money spent in Iraq in 42 hours!

Resistance continues to grow. Comrades in PLP along with dozens of readers of the Challenge have been very active in the struggle through our unions and professional associations. Comrades fight shoulder to shoulder with other workers who teach us by their example of energy and courage. Every day sees new petitions, letters, demonstrations and meetings at the three hospitals and numerous clinics.

One comrade was collecting signatures on a petition calling for firing Dr. Simon and a worker asked angrily, "Why isn’t Todd Stroger’s name on there? We need to fire him first!" Comments like that one, coming from a black ward clerk, make it clear that the bosses’ cynical attempt to hide their racist attack behind a black face can be defeated. Workers learn and teach in the midst of class struggle, the best "schools for communism."

The struggle has had a good effect on the comrades involved, too, but we need to do much more. We have met dozens of new people who are open to a communist critique of the system, but our distribution of the paper has only increased modestly. This crisis is rich in lessons. Capitalism is killing people both by the war and the impact of the war budget. Thousands – potentially millions – of people can see the connection in situations like this one if we act boldly and tirelessly.

a name="Rivera Defends ‘1199’ Sellout: ‘We’re all capitalists’!"></a>Rive"a Defends ‘1199’ Sellout: ‘We’re all capitalists’!

NEW YORK CITY, NY Feb. 12 — The Dennis Rivera leadership of SEIU Local 1199 jammed through an early contract renewal for 100,000 hospital and nursing home workers that allows 25% of its members to be laid off at any institution without any protection and limits wage "increases" to 3% annually (a wage cut, given inflation).

Hailing this as a "great step forward for job security," Rivera used the recent closings of several hospitals, with more threatened, as a club over the heads of the delegates and membership to win contract approval. "We are all capitalists," he declared! Speak for yourself, Dennis. Local 1199 members, overwhelmingly black and Latino, as are many of their patients, are victims of the racist capitalist system defended by Rivera, (a big shot in the state Democratic Party machine).

Rivera insisted we had to reopen the contract a year early before disastrous Medicaid cuts are enacted. Many delegates pointed out that the cost of living was running significantly higher than the meager wage demands put on the table. New York’s health care industry is in dire straits due to federal and state funding cutbacks of both Medicaid and Medicare.

These cuts are dwarfed by the huge expenditures for the imperialist oil grab in Iraq, running at $2 billion a week. What looms ahead is the downsizing and merger of more institutions with mass layoffs and significantly reduced access to healthcare for working-class families. It’s imperative that members and friends of Progressive Labor Party step up the process of bringing communist ideas to Local 1199 members. We must build a strong nucleus of revolutionary leadership among the delegates and rank and file. A decent life and guaranteed healthcare won’t come out of electoral politics, but as a result of organizing for working-class communist politics.

Increased CHALLENGE circulation is a major step in this process.

Workers, Students Unite to Confront Racist Minutemen

HOLLYWOOD, CA, Feb. 10 — Chanting "La luchas obreras no tiene fronteras" ("The workers’ struggles has no borders"), a group of about 70 students, activists, workers, and PLP’ers confronted the gutter-racist Minutemen and Save Our State scum here today. The racists were out in full force (nearly 100) to support two Texas border patrol agents convicted for firing 14 rounds at an unarmed "suspect" that was running away, wounding him and then covering up the incident. Counter-protesters held up signs exposing the murderous racism of the MinuteKlan and calling for solidarity among all workers, citizen and immigrant. The majority of the anti-racist protesters eagerly grabbed CHALLENGES.

The cops openly encouraged the Minutemen to attack the anti-racists, as well as attacking us themselves. They stayed back as the Minutemen rushed and tried to provoke the anti-racists. But when we fought back, the cops rushed the crowd several times, picking off at least four protesters for arrest. At other demonstrations, when the anti-racists vastly outnumber the racists, the cops stand between the two groups.

Trying to put a multi-cultural face on their openly racist and murderous activities, the Minutemen paraded a number of Latino and black speakers calling for patriotism, "defense of the homeland" and the securing of "our" borders. Not completely unlike the liberals who wave the flag and call for a "comprehensive immigration reform" (that is, a neo-Bracero program for the factories, fields and military), these gutter racists try to use patriotism and nationalism to divide workers and students and win them to imperialism and fascism.

In fact, the Minuteklan and the liberals are only two ends of the same racist spectrum — both using patriotic rhetoric to disguise their racist attacks on the working class as a whole. We must expose this fascist patriotism and anti-immigrant, anti-Arab and anti-black racism that props up the bosses’ imperialist war machine.

At one point, Ted Hayes — an African-American Minuteman — rushed the crowd of counterprotesters and challenged an activist leading chants. Immediately, he was confronted physically by a group of protesters, but was saved by the cops. Over-riding chants of "down with the Minutemen" and "Minutemen go home," the demonstrators began chanting, "Death, death, death to the Minuteklan — Power, power, power to the workers!" and "Black, brown, Asian, white, workers of the world unite!"

With fists in the air, the crowd of workers and students showed the potential unity and power that will help build and spread PLP’s multi-racial communist fight to smash racism and the capitalist system that breeds it. Although we heard about this demonstration late in the week, we should have fought for more anti-racists to protest against what appears to be a growing fascist movement. Next time, we’ll be bigger and better prepared.

Anger Grows Over Another LAPD Racist Murder

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8 — Mauricio Cornejo, 31, was pronounced dead Saturday evening, Feb. 3, only 45 minutes after the cops stopped him for a broken taillight near Ramona Gardens, an East LA housing project. When he left the car, he tried to run away. The cops chased and beat him, then arrested him.

Witnesses saw the cops beating Cornejo in the head with batons even after he was handcuffed. "They hit him in the parking lot…and then they took him to a bridge where they all started hitting him when he was already on the floor. He was crying ‘Help!’" said Norma Picasso.

Another witness said she saw the cops kick Cornejo in the head and ribs and hit him with their batons. Still another witness saw the cops kick Cornejo in his jail cell. The cops had stopped him at 6:45 pm. (LA Times, 2/8) He died in his jail cell at 7:30 pm, murdered by the racist LAPD.

The following Tuesday evening, about 40 people gathered with Cornejo’s family at the housing project’s community center for a car wash to raise money for Cornejo’s funeral. As police helicopters circled overhead, 40 LA cops in riot gear came to try to intimidate Cornejo’s angry family and friends. Despite being ordered to disperse by the cops with shot guns, the crowd stood their ground, protesting Cornejo’s racist murder and the continuing racist police harassment of project residents.

In the face of growing community anger at the racist cops, Police Chief Bratton’s assistants have said "the officers acted appropriately" — meaning they were doing their job, terrorizing workers, especially Latino and black workers, trying to whip workers into line while the bosses lower wages and cut benefits for all.

They justified their racist murder by saying Cornejo was allegedly a gang member. This is part of their master plan to "take and hold" entire neighborhoods. Such police terror is needed to enforce racist superexploitation necessary for a profit system hellbent on wider wars.

PLP calls on workers and youth to protest and avenge this murder. It is part of a growing nationwide attack on the working class, including the racist police murders of black workers like Sean Bell in NYC, and the recent deportations of immigrant workers from LA, including LA jails. All this terror is aimed at intimidating and dividing our class. But it could be turned into its opposite — a united working class determined to destroy the racist system.

The best way to avenge these attacks is by joining and building the PLP to fight over the long term for communist revolution. A system based on racist terror, division and imperialist war must be destroyed by a united working class which knows that all workers have the same enemy, capitalism, and the same interests, to fight for a communist world where racism and exploitation will be buried in the garbage heap of history.

a name="VW Sellout —The Other Shoe Drops">">"W Sellout —The Other Shoe Drops

Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 10 — The other shoe has dropped at the VW factory here. After forcing the workers to accept restructuring, 3,100 layoffs and early retirements, management is demanding they work three more hours a week at the same pay.

"Thirty-eight hours or nothing!" Günter Koch, Audi-VW’s human resources boss told the works council, blatantly threatening to lay off the remaining 2,200 workers. VW wants to cut labor costs 20% and have a final restructuring agreement by mid-February. VW’s carrot? A "vast training program" to "upgrade workers’ skills."

The unions are ready to cave in to company demands. FGTB metalworkers leader Jan Vanderpoorten told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir they have little choice, although they will suggest "alternative ways" of cutting labor costs — doing the bosses’ work for them!

This attack follows union acceptance of 7,800 layoffs and longer hours in VW’s German factories — 34 hours a week instead of 28.8. Who’s next? VW has 44 production plants in Europe and beyond. The profit system inevitably means VW will continue the cycle of ratcheting down wages and working conditions, playing off workers in different countries against each other.

All this is part of fierce worldwide competition among automakers in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the U.S., each fighting for a bigger piece of the profit pie, with Ford and GM losing out to Japan and others. Now they’re shipping production to low-wage Eastern Europe and China.

VW also says it will close the Brussels factory if nearby subcontractors do not "optimize the whole supply chain and ensure competitive employment opportunities." The logic is for the remaining VW workers to save their own jobs by pressuring subcontractors’ workers to accept lower wages and worse conditions.

International solidarity is the only answer to this self-defeating strategy. Workers must organize this solidarity themselves, not rely on union misleaders. Auto workers need to reach out to workers in other countries to fight the attacks resulting from the bosses’ international auto wars or submit to continual sellouts and worsening conditions. Ultimately, PLP must re-build the international communist movement to turn these workers’ fight-backs into a school for revolution.

Relying on the union bureaucrats led to Brussels’ VW workers ending their seven-week strike against the restructuring on Jan. 5. The vote was a set-up: (1) workers who accepted voluntary separation were excluded from voting; (2) A two-thirds majority was required to maintain the strike, meaning a minority of workers could end it; and (3) management and the bosses’ media browbeat the workers, warning that VW would close the plant if the strike continued.

Despite all this, 45.4% of the workers voted to stay out. And Pascal Van Cauwenberge, leader of the CSC (Christian) trade union, dared to say he was "disappointed that there is not a bigger difference between the number of people who want to go back to work and those who don’t."

The "lesser-evil" union, the FTGB, organized a three-day strike beginning Jan. 24. After 15 hours of negotiations and Belgian government mediation, the FGTB’s magazine "Syndicats" crowed that the FGTB had obtained written guarantees on "a long-term industrial project for the 2,300 workers at VW and for all the workers employed by the subcontractors."

But the ink wasn’t even dry when VW bosses tore the "written guarantees" to shreds, threatening to scrap the "project" if they don’t get their 20% cut in labor costs. It’s obvious that only an internationalist working-class leadership has the power to fight the world’s auto bosses even in these immediate struggles — and strengthen our class in its battle for communism.

a name="Obrador, Hacks No Answer to Workers’ Anger">">"brador, Hacks No Answer to Workers’ Anger

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 1 — Some 75,000 people marched yesterday demanding the government grant a "new social pact," modify its economic policy, guarantee jobs and food, ban privatization of state-owned enterprises and end repression. The protest united 150 unions representing, among others, electrical, telephone, social security and transit workers and airline pilots, along with organizations of peasants and others, as well as the opposition PRD (Party of Democratic Revolution) and the Labor Party. The angry demonstrators vowed to no longer tolerate the government’s sacrificing generations of people, characterizing the rulers’ only response to their demands as "repression."

Amid this anger of the workers, peasants and youth, the march organizers have no real answer to the problems caused not only by the new President Felipe Calderón and his ruling party (PAN), but also by capitalism and imperialism.

López Obrador, the PRD candidate who claims he was a victim of a PAN’s fraud in the July presidential election, was present in force with his supporters. He represents a section of Mexico’s bourgeoisie which don’t want to sell all the publicly-owned enterprises (mainly the oil monopoly PEMEX) to imperialist companies, mainly from the U.S. He’s not opposed to privatizing parts of PEMEX and other state-owned enterprises, but mainly to local capitalists like zillionaire Carlos Slim.

The rulers have been increasingly claiming that PEMEX change to compete internationally. La Jornada (2/8) reported that Jesús Reyes Heroles, PEMEX director, said private participation will have to follow current laws. He complained that the $79 billion PEMEX sales contributed to the government — some 40% of the state budget income — is "too much," not allowing for investment in modernization. Various sections of the ruling class are fighting over PEMEX’s profits.

Meanwhile, workers here are very angry over the price increase for tortillas, a staple here, and for corn flour, jumping from 40% to 100%. This, plus the rising cost of milk and other basic food, has affected most of the population. The increasing use in the U.S. of ethanol fuel, drawn from corn, and speculation by international agribusiness like Archer Daniels Midland, Corn Products International, Cargill and local partners like Maseca and Minsa, are behind the hike in corn and flour prices.

Since NAFTA opened Mexico’s market to multi-national enterprises, corn prices have skyrocketed 738%. Two million farm jobs were wiped out, leading many to emigrate from the poorest states with big indigenous populations (Oaxaca, Chiapas and Puebla) to the U.S. In the late 1980’s, one kilo of tortilla cost 1% of most workers’ wages; now it’s 20%, in a country where 20 million people earn $2 a day and use $1 to eat plain tortillas.

Meanwhile, President Calderón is using the "war against the narco cartels" to militarize the country. But rather than ending the drug problem, this militarization will attack any mass fight-backs by workers.

Workers and their allies need more than a "social pact" or the "reformed capitalism" proposed by union hacks and López Obrador, who wants to use workers’ anger to revive his sagging movement. They must fight for a new society without any bosses: communism. We in PLP must do much more to bring that message to these angry workers and youth.

French Pols, Union Hacks Divert General Strike to Ballot Box

PARIS, Feb. 8 — "The tail is wagging the dog!" remarked one striker as the politicians and trade unions tried to make political hay out of the one-day strike for jobs and wages by almost 500,000 state workers. Some 80,000 state and railroad workers demonstrated here, and thousands more did so in large provincial cities like Marseilles, Bordeaux and Lyons.

Even before the strike, Eric Fritsch of the CFDT trade union admitted that its main purpose was to "give notice to the future government." And today the CGT trade union emphasized that "many of the demands that were put forward, both by the strikers and by the marchers, echo a certain number of themes in the electoral campaign."

Those statements reveal the strike’s real purpose as viewed by labor bureaucrats and fake leftist politicians. These hacks mobilized the workers to increase their own bargaining power. "Communist" Party leader Marie-George Buffet and Green Party leader Cécile Duflot backed the strike and joined the Paris march to persuade workers to vote for their respective parties in the first round of the presidential elections on April 22. They’re preparing for some horse-trading: they’ll throw their electorate behind the Socialist Party (SP) in the second round on May 6, in exchange for "safe" legislative seats in the June 10 National Assembly elections. The more votes they get on April 22, the more seats they can wangle for May 6.

SP Senator Jean-Luc Mélenchon and SP national secretary Christian Martin also marched "in solidarity," but only to get workers to vote Socialist. A Feb. 4 poll shows right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy enjoying a 6% lead over SP candidate Ségolène Royal, who has blurted out one stupid statement after another (praising the speed with which the bosses’ judicial system in China executes sentences, for example).

Royal stated she would give state workers "respect" to butter them up for reforms in public services, and she shed crocodile tears over the 20% fall in real wages since 1981. But she carefully avoided promising higher wages if she’s elected, or spelling out her reforms.

What’s her idea of reforms? A videotape that was later leaked shows her telling SP activists behind closed doors on Jan. 21, 2006 that "We’re going to have to be rather revolutionary in our proposals. I’m not going to shout it from the rooftops because I don’t want to take flak from the teachers’ unions…. One of the revolutions is to have them working 35 hours a week in junior high."

Most teachers teach 18 class hours a week, but many studies have shown that when class preparation and grading are included, they work over 40 hours a week. Royal wants to double their teaching hours and work them over 80 hours a week!

The tail truly is wagging the dog when workers allow their just demands for higher wages and more jobs to be high-jacked by these self-serving politicians and union bureaucrats. Our class produces all the wealth and could exercise all power. But for that to happen, workers need to realize that, as Lenin said, the bosses’ "promises are cheap. Promises cost nothing." We need to stop listening to "lesser-evil" politicians’ promises, and organize for communist revolution so that we run society in the interest of our class.

Heard On The Streets Of Paris

(from Le Monde, 2/9)

Sanitation worker Olivier Asdrubal, 39, doesn’t believe the promises any longer: "The ones who’ve got the bucks are the bosses, not the government. No candidate is worth anything."

Teaching assistant Laure Varrey, not yet 30, proclaims her choice: "Abstention!" In her Paris junior high school, "It’s hell: a temporary one-year contract at 560 euros a month for a job from 7:45 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., with a 20-minute break, mealtime included, and no right to leave the school [during the work day]."

(From Le Figaro, 2/8)

Michel Tauvry: "I’m a skilled worker…in charge of the maintenance of a high school. From…heating to…plumbing… [to] roofing — I’m always being asked to do more different jobs…. I’ve worked for the ministry of education for 27 years and I’m still making 1200 euros a month."

Marie Karaquillo: "We want to maintain quality teaching…. [But] axing nationally 27,000 jobs, they’re moving in the opposite direction. They keep saying…we have to help the children who have problems, but they won’t give us the means."

Francis Dukan (junior high school teacher): "I’m 28…[and] protesting against the fall in our purchasing power…. I was looking for an apartment, and on five different occasions I was asked if I had a second job, because my wages were felt to be insufficient [to cover the rent and security deposit]."

Thousands March While NATO Splits Over Afghanistan

SEVILLE, SPAIN — On Feb. 4, 10,000 people marched against the war policies of the NATO defense ministers meeting here, demanding the closing of NATO bases in Spain.

At the NATO meeting itself, the growing contradictions among the imperialist powers again emerged. The London Financial Times reported (2/8): "NATO ministers clashed over Afghanistan on Thursday when continental European governments refused to follow the US and the UK and send troops to battle the Taliban."

"I do not think it is right to talk about more and more military means," said Franz-Josef Jung, German defense minister. "When the Russians were in Afghanistan they had 100,000 and didn’t win. We are liberators, not occupiers." Since August, NATO has taken responsibility for the entire country, including the conflict zones with the Taliban, and has expanded its troop force from 8,500 to 35,000, but most of the additional soldiers are U.S. and British.

Robert Gates, U.S. defense secretary encouraged the meeting’s "allies to do as much as soon as [they] can." But Germany, France, Italy and Spain argue that Washington is still placing too much emphasis on combat with the Taliban rather than reconstruction.

The fact is the war in Afghanistan is becoming as much a failure as the war in Iraq, and European bosses refuse to sink along with the Bush-Blair duo.

At the anti-NATO march itself, the opportunism of union hacks and the phony "left" was revealed again. While the IU (Left Unity coalition) led by the "Communist" Party and its youth front marched, it had voted in parliament to send Spanish troops to Lebanon, basically supporting Israeli/U.S./Turkish interests and their access to new oil resources. And while the CCOO union federation also marched, its hacks refused to support a call for a general strike against the occupation of Iraq when Spanish troops were there.

The struggle against imperialist war needs a revolutionary leadership that breaks with all imperialists and the opportunists who build illusions about lesser-evil warmakers.

LETTERS

Anti-War GIs Need Anti-Imperialist Strategy

Dear Challenge,

I proudly marched with the active duty and Iraq veteran contingent at the anti-war march in Washington, D.C., January 27. The active duty GIs marched behind the anti-war banner "Appeal for Redress." After the march, I joined these GIs and some civilian supporters for a meal and made sure all of the GIs had a copy of CHALLENGE.

We discussed strategic issues including the case of Lt. Watada, how to deal with harassment and repression, how to relate to the soldiervoices.net website which is operated by a GI in Iraq, how to relate to the (bourgeois) press, what to do about the phony congressional debate on the war. GIs thinking through methods to organize grass-roots, enlisted, active-duty groups at bases where many GIs had signed the Appeal for Redress made a bold statement. Without a more substantial base of organized forces, they realized they might then end up relying on liberal politicians, the media, and lawyers, a losing strategy.

I was impressed with the seriousness and openness of the GIs.These GIs do not suffer greatly from the disease of patriotism! In fact, several were quite interested in the revolutionary communist ideas in our paper. One GI, on returning to her base, was locked out of her job site by her commander for her open opposition to the war (she was quoted in AP and the New York Times saying that the war had been based on lies and should be ended immediately).

Even though her JAG (military) lawyer has proved that her actions were legal according to military regulations, she is still barred from her job site two weeks after the demonstration. Her commander has apparently passed the case up to a general for his decision, which amounts to even more harassment. Many of her fellow GIs have rallied to her side, including two GIs who said they disagreed with her viewpoint but were furious with the brass for treating her badly. The PLP also supports her all the way!

We will surely see increasing numbers of cases like this as opposition to the war grows inside the military and an organized GI movement develops. Our job is to show this emerging GI movement that the logic of imperialism means that only a multi-racial workers’ revolution against the entire system of racism and capitalism will halt the bosses’ wars for profit, resources, and geopolitical power, an even bigger battle than ending today’s U.S. aggression in the Middle East.

Red vet

a name="Working Class — The Bosses’ Cannon Fodder"></">Wo"king Class — The Bosses’ Cannon Fodder

Recently there were three KIA (Killed In Action) and a few casualties in my unit, killed and maimed by an IED (improvised explosive device), along with scores of Iraqi workers.

This was not merely a case of a convoy rolling over an IED. These soldiers were ordered on a suicide mission by the commander! He told this particular group of soldiers to dismount their armored vehicle and proceeds on foot ahead of the convoy to find the IED and call it in.

They dismounted, traveled on foot wearing just the normal battle rattle consisting of their rifles, a first-aid kit, their Kevlar helmet and an ATVC vest with plates to stop some shrapnel,. There was nothing to protect them from the initial percussion of a blast. As they found the IED, it exploded, killing some soldiers instantly while also killing and maiming the Iraqi workers.

These soldiers and Iraqi workers were killed to protect the bosses’ profits and vehicles. As long as soldiers continue to obey the commanders (who never fight themselves) and fight for the bosses, countless soldiers and working-class people will die and be the cannon fodder in imperialist wars.

Red Soldier

Could Obama Be Racist?

I thought the picture of Barack Obama in a Klan suit a few issues ago was wrong. I understand that Obama is in line to lead people to support the capitalist system and willingly fight for it in current and future wars. I know that even before he got elected senator, he started softening his anti-war position and now is justifying (along with most other Democratic senators and representatives) authorization of $150,000,000 more for the war by claiming he doesn’t want to hurt the troops on the ground.

I know that there is a reason that the ruling-class press has done so much to promote Obama, and that the Democratic Party gave him a national presence as their keynote speaker in 2004. In a day when people are cynical about politicians and the political process, for good reason, Obama deceptively presents himself as different from the rest, as having more integrity, as having the interests of the people at heart.

Putting Obama in a Klan suit does not expose any of this. The accompanying article did nothing to explain why we had chosen that picture. Most people will look at that picture and, at best, think we are trying to be provocative for the sake of being provocative. At worst, they will think we are racist.

The Klan has a particularly brutal history of terrorizing blacks and anti-racists. While Obama may turn out to be someone who gets many black people and others killed in wars fighting for capitalism, so far he is just talk. I think it minimizes the horrors of the Klan to put their suit on a picture of Obama. Further, it does not help anyone understand the dangers posed by Obama, and it probably turns some people off to our Party unnecessarily.

I know that in the past CHALLENGE has used the swastika effectively in pictures to make the point that a particular leader is a fascist. This was appropriate and supported by evidence in accompanying articles in the case of Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister who led fascist attacks against Palestinians and Pope Benedict, who was a Nazi Party member as a youth. I know that those usages were controversial, but I do not believe the case of Obama is parallel. That picture was an error.

Sincerely,
Long-time Reader

CHALLENGE COMMENT:

Could Obama be a Racist? This is the question we wanted to provoke when we printed the picture of Barak Obama in a KKK robe. It is true that we should have explained the relevance of the picture in the article we printed, however the question is important to ask in light of the dangerous role of liberal politicians in this growing crisis for the rulers. We must not be guided by the idea that there are some good politicians and some bad (Bush for instance).

Obama has been trained since his Harvard Law School days to appear to be a "man of the people" while really maintaining all the horrors of the capitalism. That is what makes him so deadly. Just last year he united with Republican senators (and other Democrats) around a Senate Immigration Reform Bill that would build a 700-mile wall across the border to stop Mexican workers from crossing the border.

In a letter to justify his sponsorship of the bill, Obama says: "The legislation is not perfect, but it will secure our borders by providing border control agencies with more resources and improved technologies, reduce the incentive to enter the country illegally by increasing fines for employers who hire illegal aliens, and bring people out of the shadows by providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers who pass a background check, pay fines and back taxes, and agree to learn English."[!]

In their increasing state of crisis, the bosses are blaming immigrant workers for the problems caused by capitalism affecting the entire working class with the goal of pitting black and immigrant workers against one another. The bosses cannot afford for workers to unite against the system, so they use politicians like Obama to win workers to nationalism and patriotism – and to fight and die for the system in wars for profit. Obama, Bush, Hillary, Biden, McCain, and all politicians have sent more workers to die than the KKK murdered, using equally racist ideology, all the while trying to convince workers that they are the good guys.

Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, approves the Bush Doctrine of endless illegal preemptive wars and calls for boosting US military spending to support the big bosses geo-political interests against their rivals. He also support "humanitarian imperialism" in Africa, as the recent U.S.-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops. Communists cannot afford to be deceived by wolves in sheep’s clothing like Barak Obama, but must expose his lethal plans for our class.

a name="Distorting Obama’s Message?">">"istorting Obama’s Message?

In the front-page editorial (CHALLENGE, 1/31) Obama is quoted as saying, "You’re going to need one hundred thousand more, one hundred and fifty thousand more." In the context of the headline and the article it seems to imply that Obama is calling for more troops. But the full quote is, "I don’t know any military expert who says that a modest increase in troop levels is going to make a big difference.

Even if you pursue the logic of increased troop levels, you’re going to need one hundred thousand more, one hundred and fifty thousand more, orders of magnitude that we don’t possess." The last phrase seems to imply he’s not advocating increased troop levels. This quote seems to reverse what Obama intended. It’s clear that Obama is an enemy of the working class. But we shouldn’t distort his scummy duplicity to attack him. We just have to be more careful in our attacks on our enemies. This helps to win our friends and build confidence in our Party.

A Mid-West Comrade

a name="Editor’s reply:">">">"ditor’s reply: The comrade has a point. We should have used the entire quotation. It shows Obama lamenting "the orders of magnitude we don’t possess."

He indeed calls for more troops, perhaps not for Bush’s Iraq mess, but surely for wider imperialist wars.

Was Marx Wrong?

The recent CHALLENGE article (2/14) on Black History Month (BHM) reinforces many ideas I was sharing with my shipmates after the BHM program the Navy presented on-board. I told them I can't support "black history" because it’s not about racist oppression but supports fascism and imperialism. The USS Mason was given an all-black crew during World War II but served the racist interests of the U.S. rulers I joked with one shipmate about Dorie Miller, the black sailor who was a cook but manned a machine gun during the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. I commented he could have shot a few of the officers on the ship while he was at it!

The quote from Marx ("labor in the white skin can never be free while labor in the black skin is in chains") is unbalanced, giving preference to European workers in our struggle. Marx is clearly speaking to "white labor" in the U.S., not "all labor." If his message to white labor is they cannot be free as long as blacks are in chains, then what is his message to black labor? That they cannot be free as long as white workers are not fighting for their freedom?

Marx’s line runs counter to the history of resistance among enslaved blacks during that time. They were not simply in chains waiting on benevolent whites to emancipate them.

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery at an early age and risked her life numerous times to lead enslaved blacks to freedom via the Underground Railroad. The most notable among them was General Nat Turner who led the most vicious slave revolt recorded in U.S history, killing hundreds of slave-owners and their families in Southampton County, VA in 1831. This line also runs counter to the history of other back insurrectionists such as Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vessey. It certainly runs counter to the history of John Brown. Blacks in Brown’ posse, Harriet Tubman being one of the principal leaders, were not in chains waiting on Brown to arrive. They worked side by side, thus providing a model for our struggle today.

Ultimately, to smash capitalism and all forms of oppression, all workers must work together to achieve the goal without any hierarchical preference being given to any segment of the working class.

Red soldier

CHALLENGE Comment 2: Marx’s exact quote was, "Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded." This was a very profound concept for that period. It argued that racism was not the product of prejudice by white workers (a blow against the current White Skin Privilege theory).

Racism and the racial division of society were born with capitalism. Before that there was really no concept of "race," no oppression because of skin color nor of one group being superior to another because of it. Slavery in pre-capitalist societies (Rome, Greece, Egypt) was not based on skin color (see PL Magazine article, "The Roots of Racism"). Marx’s statement was basically saying that modern racism is an attack against all workers and oppressed people and that racism will only be ended when all workers are emancipated from capitalism.

Furthermore, Marx was not "talking to white labor" nor telling black workers they will have to "wait for ‘white labor’ to liberate them. On the contrary, Marx was saying that white workers can’t free themselves of capitalist exploitation except as part of a united working class, black and white together.

Marx’s understanding of the role of black workers was clearly revealed in his writings on the U.S. Civil War when he said — during the war — that the North could not defeat the slaveocracy unless black slaves were brought into the Union Army, and that is precisely what happened: 180,000 ex-slaves entered the war and, as the most ferocious fighters, spearheaded Sherman’s march through Georgia that split the South and basically won that war.

Thus, Marx saw black workers as the key to emancipation, not waiting for "benevolent" whites to free them.

Growing Multi-Racial, Interfaith Unity

Their voices filled the large church, echoing off the walls. The woman cantor led the interfaith, inter-racial children’s choir as the harmonies rose. School children from the ages of 6 to15 – black, brown, Asian and white, Christian, Jewish and Moslem honored the memory of what Martin Luther King fought for. They sang to the piano accompaniment of a young woman from the audience who answered the call for a volunteer. The song proclaimed the unity of all peoples. The audience was an ethnic, racial, and religious echo of the choir.

This moment set the tone for a program that spoke, not of Dr. King as an icon, but of the masses of people who fought against the Vietnam War, and for the rights of working people. The many speakers, mostly clergy, gave hard talks about today’s war in the Middle East and working-class oppression. This event was a gathering of forces against the war, a call for the federal monies that have been removed from our area to be returned, and for the unity of people in that struggle.

The program was organized by a new and growing multi-racial, interfaith group training working people to fight back. Fourteen different faith groups participated. The interfaith group is reaching out to bring in even more churches, synagogues, Islamic organizations into the movement. Their very active leadership is becoming steeled and trained in the organization.

Currently increasing amounts of our money are used to slaughter people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere. Less and less is used to alleviate poverty and suffering at home and to reverse the criminal neglect of New Orleans. The growing organization is a microcosm of how the world should look: helping one another, moving forward to defend labor, marching against the war, exposing racist murders by the police and how the rulers are removing services from poor and inner-city neighborhoods.

This growing fight-back allows Party members to raise ideas among people who want to fight back, and teaches others that fight-back is necessary and possible. Capitalism is antagonistic to human growth. It’s a burden upon the masses. It separates and isolates us, making us feel weak and powerless.

This unity movement is the opposite, and wishes to unchain itself from the bankers, businessmen and dominant political interests. Though reformist, it opens the door so that our political role turns many of its members into part of a wave towards a bright future for the working class, and helps teach us how strong we can be when we work together. We must always participate in such forums and struggle within them to define the future.

One of the "meek" who is getting ready….

Multi-Racial Fight Key to Defeat Nationalism

The weekend before Martin Luther King Day our Southwest city held several "multi-cultural" events that were open to the public. Our student/teacher PLP club decided to participate and contribute to the discussion on politics, "race," and eventually on class and revolution. Two of us went to an event at a local college dealing with how to break into and succeed in the rap industry. While a seemingly innocuous event with possibly little potential for serious politics, we figured it would still be worth some attention.

Our club could not have been more wrong. The Nation of Islam (NOI), having seen the event’s potential, arrived in force. They sent their National Youth Minister to speak, and were able to co-opt the event from the relatively inept staff holding it.

The event’s basic premise, as designed by the misleaders heading it, was to portray the rap industry as the "savior" for poor black youth everywhere. The imagery put forward by mainstream rap artists that promotes violence, drug use and sexism was exalted. There was no aim to discuss why the bosses love promoting such garbage rather than something that might empower people. Without a strong PL contingent to help steer the discussion, the NOI forces were able to effectively push their pro-capitalist, anti-Semitic line.

The crowd was responsive to such a political conversation once one was offered to them. It was just unfortunate that due to our lack of strength and preparedness (understanding the NOI’s line and how to counter it) we were unable to give leadership to this debate.

All this enabled us to understand another limitation in our group: a lack of black youth who would have been instrumental in helping to win people away from the NOI’s line. As the only two white youth there, we had a serious problem trying to compete with the NOI members in a discussion on racism against black people in the U.S. While our club had long acknowledged this weakness, this event really hammered it home and gives us reason to redouble our efforts to recruit more black youth.

Not to say that this encounter was all bad. Two of us now have new experience in dealing with the NOI to use in improving our recruiting efforts. We also gained important information about their recruiting tactics on our campus and made some good contacts to follow up.

While it’s impossible to know about, and be prepared for, all events, it’s essential to be self-critical so that one can draw lessons from a tactical defeat. While seemingly a failure, this experience has actually helped our club prepare for a stronger recruiting effort in the future. It’s important that all misleaders be exposed, especially those like the NOI who use a radical facade to sell people capitalist values, and a truly revolutionary viewpoint be advocated — communism.

Red Students

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In your February 14 issue, you wrote in reference to the GI protest that, "One Marine declared that he had opposed the war from the day it began, but nevertheless served in Iraq with his unit. This contradiction must be resolved by bolder GI actions against U.S. imperialism..."

This seems to imply that he should not have gone to Iraq with his unit. In fact, GIs should not individually refuse orders to go to Iraq but should go with their units and sharpen the fight against U.S. imperialism in Iraq by building ties with their fellow GIs, ties to Iraqi workers on the basis of workers’ internationalism, struggle within their unit against conducting aggression, and generally build a base for resistance and revolution.

Of course, a refusal by a military unit to deploy would also be a powerful part of the anti-war movement. But individual resistance, however brave, generally won’t build the movement we need to defeat U.S. imperialism.

Red GI

a name="Can’t Rely on Bosses’ Courts, In France or U.S."></">Ca"’t Rely on Bosses’ Courts, In France or U.S.

On New Year’s Eve, 2002, Yücel (30) was on his way from a party to his home in a working-class housing project in Goussainville, a Paris suburb. He saw young people "running in every direction" and started running himself. He was tackled, handcuffed and beaten black and blue by a half-dozen cops, bursting an ear-drum. An ordinary story of racist police brutality, something common not just in France, but in the U.S., Russia, China, or any other capitalist country.

Ah, but France is a "democratic" country governed by the rule of law! Thanks to a piece of investigative reporting by the "Canard enchaîné," a French weekly newspaper (1-17-07), we know the outcome of Yücel’s battle for justice. The Pontoisy criminal court sentenced each of the six cops to a four months’ suspended sentence and to paying Yücel 11,800 euros in damages.

Happy ending? Not quite. The Interior Ministry ordered the police administration to order the cops to pay. Nothing happened. Yücel can’t get a writ served on the cops, because they’ve all been transferred elsewhere and he can’t get their new addresses. Yücel tried to force the Interior Ministry to dock the cops’ wages by going through the Paris district court, but the court ruled that it does not have jurisdiction. End of story.

CHALLENGE hardly needs to point out to its readers that the bosses’ courts don’t deliver justice in France, or the U.S., Russia, China, or elsewhere. Our class will only obtain justice when we have replaced capitalism with communism.

A Friend in France

Dutch General Strike Under Nazis Fought Persecution of Jews

February 25 marks the 66^th anniversary of what was probably the only general strike specifically against racism in Nazi-occupied Europe. On May 9, 1940, German troops invaded the Netherlands. Following the barbaric bombing of Rotterdam, and fearing a similar fate for other Dutch cities, its army capitulated five days later, as did most European armies attacked by the Nazis, except for the Soviet Red army.

With the help of local fascists, the occupiers began instituting a series of restrictions on Jews, culminating in November 1940 in the removal of all Jews from public functions, including universities, leading directly to student protests in Leiden and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, unrest was spreading among workers in Amsterdam, especially those at the Amsterdam-Noord shipyards, who were threatened with forced labor in Germany. On February 19, the Nazi police stormed into a Jewish-owned small business. In the ensuing fight, several cops were wounded. The Nazis took their revenge. On the weekend of Feb. 22-23, 425 Jewish men, ages 20-35, were arrested and eventually sent to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within ten months.

Responding to these arrests, an open air meeting was held on the Noordermarkt on February 24 to organize a strike protesting the arrests as well as the forced labor threat. The underground Communist Party of the Netherlands mass distributed a leaflet calling for a mass strike.

"Strike, strike, strike!" became workers’ motto. The huge general strike began when the city's tram drivers struck. Despite Nazi attempts to suppress it, the walkout grew as workers in other city services and schools, along with steel and shipyard workers, followed the tram drivers, as did workers elsewhere, including Zaanstad, Kennemerland and Utrecht.

Nazi cops attacked the strikers, killing several and arresting many. Though the strike ended on Feb. 27, it was enormously significant: it was the first direct action against the Nazis’ persecution of Jews. It proved that general strikes can be organized under the most repressive conditions, even under fascist rule.

Over the next few years, the Nazis rounded up 110,000 of Holland’s 140,000 Jews. Only 5,000 survived the holocaust. Dutch Nazis aided this mass murder, along with the "efficient" bureaucratic officials left behind by the exiled Dutch government in London, as well as the local Judenrat (Jewish Councils), an organization of traitorous Jews, either created or manipulated by the Nazis.

Today, racism is rampant in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. Muslims and immigrants from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe suffer the brunt of racism, from Amsterdam to London to Paris to Madrid to Berlin. The yearly celebration of the 1941 anti-Nazi strike can become a rallying point to build a massive anti-racist movement, learning from the achievements and errors of the past. The main lesson is that Nazi anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, is a product of capitalism; the only way to end racism is to destroy its cause.

PL History:

PLP, SDS and the 1968 Columbia U. Strike

(Part I reviewed PLP’s early participation in SDS [Students for a Democratic Society], its advocacy of a Worker-Student Alliance; how this led it to refuse student deferments, to enter and organize against the Vietnam War inside the army and to support industrial strikes and inner-city rebellions; and organize militant action that reflected this pro-working-class position.)

A key example of this activity was the 1968 Columbia University strike. PLP had argued consistently throughout 1967 and the fall of 1968 for fighting Columbia’s racist plan to build a gymnasium in Harlem while ignoring the community’s needs, particularly since Columbia owned hundreds of apartments that it preferred to leave vacant rather than rent to Harlem residents. A second key element of PLP’s Columbia organizing was the campaign against the university’s collaboration with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a partnership that flagrantly exposed the university’s concrete contribution to U.S. imperialist genocide in Vietnam.

On both fronts, PLP faced an uphill battle. The right-wing leadership of the Columbia SDS chapter found repeated excuses to oppose this militant activity. PLP continued to fight, frequently organizing small, sharp demonstrations, believing the moment for mass upsurge would eventually arrive. This estimate proved correct. In April 1968, several hundred Columbia students launched a sit-in. The administration summoned New York cops, who cracked scores of heads and made hundreds of arrests. The bosses’ brutality engendered mass outrage. Thousands of Columbia students and faculty went on strike. The university ground to a halt.

A crucial political debate ensued. The advocates of the "New Working Class" took a strike-breaking "shut-it-down-to-open-it-up" position, arguing that the strike was an opportunity to hold "liberation classes" and reinvent Columbia as a progressive institution. PLP stuck to its class position, arguing that under capitalism, universities could serve only the rulers, who, after all, owned them and controlled state power.

Instead of the dead-end "liberation" illusion proposed by the SDS leadership and others, PLP called for maintaining picket lines at Columbia, stopping scabs and spreading the strike. We didn’t win tactically but our principled position and insistence on militant struggle won many students at Columbia and elsewhere to join the PLP-led Worker-Student Alliance Caucus of SDS and, eventually, the PLP.

The ideological battle between PLP’s communist view of the working class versus the reactionary politics of Marcuse’s groupies — that industrial workers were "obsolete" — came to a head in June 1968 at the SDS national convention in East Lansing, Michigan. Three international developments set the tone for the looming internal struggle.

First, the Vietnam War — and the rebelliousness of U.S. GIs and sailors — had reached fever pitch. Second, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was raging in China and forcing the question of "revisionism" (capitalist ideas and politics within the communist movement) to the forefront of every honest communist’s agenda. Third, in May 1968, the vicious suppression of a protest by university students outside Paris quickly led to uprisings and strikes throughout France. Within days, a general strike had shut down the country.

Students had set the spark, but the real fire bore the unmistakable signature of the working class. In one bold stroke, France’s working class had demonstrated the bankruptcy of Marcuse and his ilk. But his disciples within SDS were far from convinced, and at the 1968 convention, they mounted a challenge to PLP’s continued existence within the organization.

(Next: The struggle sharpens within SDS while the old international communist movement enters its death throes.)

Tenants Take Back Their Homes

NEW ORLEANS — The residents of the C. J. Pete housing development re-took their homes after the city’s Housing Authority had initially destroyed the contents and barred the residents from returning. These victims of the government’s attacks now need support and contributions to maintain their survival.

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Below are excerpts from mainstream newspapers that may be of use for our readers.

Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly, FT=Finacial Times

U.S. pull-back won’t be pull-out

The bottom line is that the president, the study group and most Washington policy-makers want to get as many American combat troops as they can out of Iraq by the US presidential elections in 2008. But that doesn’t mean pulling out….

Even the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group….wants some 10,000 to 20,000 US troops, mostly officers, to stay, embedded in the Iraqi units down to company level. US forces would also: assist Iraqi-deployed brigades with intelligence, transportation, air support, as well as providing some key equipment," in other words just about everything that makes up a modern army.

As if that weren’t enough, the US should leave behind "rapid-reaction and special operations teams." These, presumably, could include covert operations such as assassinations and bombings, thwarting or encouraging coups and squaring up to the Iranians on the border. So much for Iraqi sovereignty….

Iraq is much too important to American interests to be trusted entirely to Iraqis….(GW, 2/15)

One-third doubt official 9/11 story

The movement of 9/11 skeptics has had an astonishing success in sowing doubt across the US. Recent polls suggest more than a third of Americans believe that either the official version of events never happened, or that US officials knew the attacks were imminent, but did nothing to stop them. (GW, 2/15)

Big Africa investment hurts villagers

M. is tearful: "We used to have clean water, but since the oil pipeline was built all we have is pollution . "….Now we all have skin rashes, stomach pains and unknown ailments," says another villager.

The source of the villagers’ hardship is the Chad-Cameroon oil and pipeline project, the single largest investment in Africa. The multi-billion dollar project came about as a public-private partnership between the World Bank and a consortium led by ExxonMobil….

NGOs have documented what they say are hundreds of cases of poor, rural households becoming more impoverished as a result of the project….

Officials acknowledge that the project has so far taken twice the amount of land initially planned and that the number of families who no longer have sufficient land to ensure their survival has dropped. (GW, 2/8)

Upper-class grab city after flood

…"I’m told they don’t want us poor folk back, that they’re making it a city for the well-to-do. That’s what I’m hearing."

Sixteen months have passed since the apocalyptic flood that followed Hurricane Katrina. More than 13,000 residents who were displaced are still living in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Another 100,000 to 200,000 evacuees — most of whom want to return home — are scattered throughout the United States.

The undeniable neglect of this population fuels the suspicion among the poor and the black, who constitute a majority of the evacuees, that the city is being handed over to the well-to-do and the white. (NYT)

Desperate Iraqis blame US oil greed

The scene was thick with anger directed at the Iraqi government and American military for letting the people down and allowing such a devastating attack…. Mr. Abdul Jabbar said he rushed to collapsed buildings trying to help the wounded, but found mainly hands, skulls and other body parts….

"I wish they would attack us with a nuclear bomb and kill us all," he added, "so we will rest and anybody who wants the oil — which is the core of the problem — can come and get it. We cannot live this way anymore…." (NYT, 2/5)

Capitalist $ won’t go to our needs

…Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said the days when Mr. Bush could expect a blank check for the wars were over but she also insisted the Democrats would not deny troops the money they needed….

The Iraq war has so far cost $500 bn. [billion] The New York Times noted that the cost of the war would have paid for universal health care in the US, nursery education for all three- and four-year-olds in the US, immunization for children round the world against a host of diseases, and still leave about half of the money left over. (GW, 2/15)

Page 731 of 770

CHALLENGE, April 25, 2007

Nationalism Deadly for Workers

No Unity with ANY Boss: Workers of the World, Unite!

Smash ALL Borders

Can’t Share Power with Bosses

Nationalism Only Preserves Capitalism

Union Hacks Torpedo Shipyard Strike

Imus Racism, Sexism Mirrors Bosses’ Rotten Culture

Growing Saudi Unrest Threatens Deadlier Oil Wars

Forced Out, Pentagon Surrounds Saudi Gold Mine for Possible Invasion

Liberals to Next President: Prepare for Saudi ‘Catastrophe’

MID-EAST MONSTERS CREATED BY U.S. IMPERIALISM

Fight Racist LA Rulers’ Attempt to Break Multi-Racial Unity

From Washington to LA, PLP Backs Striking Shipbuilders

D.C. Bus Drivers Rally vs. Racist Bosses’ Attacks

Los Angeles PLP Preparing for May Day

FBI the New Librarians?

Military Families Need to Expose Democrats, Back Rebel GI’s

National Teachers Strike in Argentina

Reds Must Win Workers Away from Chávez’s pro-Capitalist Socialism

PLP Helped Blast Fascist Minutemen

Black-Latino Unity Can Thwart Racist Immigration Reformers

Church Forum Stresses United Immigrant-Citizen Struggle

LETTERS

PL’er Carries Red Politics Job to Job

Seek Multi-Racial Unity Over Stabbing

‘Fair Wage’ Impossible Under Profit System

Mexico Vies With China For Lowest Wages

Boss ‘Abuse" Cry Over ‘Sick-out’ Spurs Repeat

Mali Worker Pans ‘Bamako’

Johnstown, PA Protests the War

French Bosses Answer to Youth Rebellion: ‘Draft ‘em!’

REDEYE On The News

PL’ers Helped Defeat Nationalist Splitters in SDS

SDS — Part V

The ABC’s of Wages, Poverty and Class Consciousness

‘300’ Movie Uses Ancient Past to Promote Future Wars

CHALLENGE, April 11, 2007

Fighting Racism, Imperialism . . . Industrial Workers are the key

Racism, the Imperialists' Tool

Black and White Shipbuilders:SHUT DOWN RACIST WARMAKER,

OBAMA & CO.: MASTERS OF DECEIT

NEXT, STINT AS COMMUNITY MISLEADER

JFK'S IMPERIALIST LIAR-IN-CHIEF SEES PROMISE IN OBAMA

OBAMA'S REAL `WAR RECORD'

Class Struggle Rocking Europe

LABOR STRUGGLES SWEEPING FRANCE

Students, Teachers Beat Attack on New Orleans Volunteers

Students Meet CIA Recruiters HEAD ON

Black, Latino, White Workers,Youth March vs. Racist Police Terror

U.S. Exploiters Can Always Top Themselves

PL'ers to Anti-War Marchers: `It's Not Just Bush, It's Capitalism!'D.C.:Vets-Workers Unity A Must

NYC: Youth Lead, Link Racist Terror At Home, Abroad

L.A.: `Iraq, Oaxaca, New Orleans; Smash Racist War Machine!'

Bosses' Crisis Leading to Cal Faculty Strike

30,000 Healthcare Workers Reject War Cuts

Immigrant Workers Back Northrop, Airbus Strikers

Russia, Romania: Strikers Challenge Ford, Renault

Renault Workers Win in Romania

Chiquita Banana Gets Slap on Wrist for Funding Death Squads

`I was a racketeer for capitalism...'

LETTERS

Paraguay's Lugo Shows His True Colors. . . . and They're Not Red

Colombia: Bush Visit Brings More Murders and Arrests

Murder of Politicians A Fight Among Drug Dealers

Hospital Workers Spread PL Flyer

Film Raps Mali Capitalism-- But Offers No Solution

How Will Communism Improve Workers' Lives?

Ex-Sailor Backs Shipyard Strikers

REDEYE

Democracy fails the Stalin test

Lula enslaves migrants

Latin America: Rage vs. US trade deals

50% unemployment destroys black communities

Oil $$$ don't help Angola's workers

US military aims at Africa oil

Russia to defy West, not terror

PL Worker-Student Alliance Trumps SDS Right-wingersSDS: PART V

MARK RUDD: FBI's Little Helper

Speculators Profit, Workers Pay the Bill

Black and White Shipbuilders:
SHUT DOWN RACIST WARMAKER,

NEXT, STINT AS COMMUNITY
MISLEADER

PL'ers to Anti-War Marchers: `It's Not Just Bush, It's Capitalism!'
D.C.:Vets-Workers Unity A Must

NYC: Youth Lead, Link
Racist Terror At Home, Abroad

L.A.: `Iraq, Oaxaca, New Orleans;
Smash Racist War Machine!'

Paraguay's Lugo Shows His True Colors. . . .
and They're Not Red

Colombia: Bush Visit Brings More Murders
and Arrests

Murder of Politicians A Fight Among
Drug Dealers

50% unemployment destroys black
communities

PL Worker-Student Alliance Trumps SDS Right-wingers
SDS: PART V

Where is Obama While:
Workers, Patients Battle Racist Cut

Bosses Push Racism and Nationalism but
WORKERS AND YOUTH WANT MULTI-RACIAL UNITY